Food

Zhondian aka Shangri-La

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Bob took a flight south from Kunming to Mangshi and then on by bus to Ruili near the Burma border.

Jana and I left Kunming on a Yunnan Airlines flight to the village of Zhongdian, a mainly Tibetan town near the Tibet border. The view of the sun glinting off the snow-capped 13 peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Range out of the plane window on the way to Zhongdian was breathtaking. The highest peak is 5596 meters and runs 35km from north to south and 12 km from east to west. Zhongdian, 198 km north of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, at 3200 meters high, marks the start of the Tibetan world.

Jana and I took a cold taxi ride to the unheated Tibet Hotel and booked a $2 double room on the second floor with squat toilets next door. We dumped our luggage and went to the freezing cold hotel coffee shop across the parking lot for breakfast. A young Western couple came in about 15 minutes after we had ordered. We waited about 45 minutes and finally asked the waitress where our food was. After much back and forthing it was finally determined that our breakfast had been served to and eaten by the young couple. He was very apologetic but she kept saying to the waitress “well, you brought it to our table!” So we had to reorder and wait again for our food.

Then we warmed up awhile in the sun on the hotel veranda before walking through Zhongdian-buying our regular supply of necessities- toilet paper and water.

We laughed when we came upon a sparsely stocked department store with Santa Claus singing jingle bells inside the front door. We looked for but could not find a towel to buy as the hotel charged 50 cents touse a towel for the hot water shower that is only available from 7pm to11pm.

Any place in the shade was freezing cold but we were warm as long as we were under the sun. We ate a late lunch at the Tibet Cafe where two young Tibetan waitresses were huddled around a charcoal stove. We talked to a youngish German woman with a small child-the only other customer in the cafe-who had been living in Zhongdian and studying tourism. She suggested that instead of going south to Lijiang on the main road, we take the road from Zhongdian to Baishuitai and then on to Lijiang. The road follows the Yangtzse River through Tiger Leaping Gorge. We looked at all the maps and pictures hanging on the walls; read the travelers tip books and laughed at some of the stories-some of them not so nice about the Tibet Hotel. We ate noodles and shared hot Chocolate cake.

Jana went back to the Tibet Hotel to crawl into bed and get warm with the electric hot pad under the bottom sheet while I walked several miles looking for the Gyalthang Dzong Hotel, a US joint-venture hotel, which was nowhere to be found. After a cold day, we spent a cozy evening reading in our warm beds heated by an electric pad under the sheets.

Thursday Dec 5
The next morning we stayed in our warm beds and worked on our journals and read guidebooks. We looked for a heated restaurant for breakfast but found none. Finally we we found the Camel Cafe on the main drag through town where Jana had Banana Oatmeal Porridge with condensed milk and I had the infamous backpacker Banana Pancake with sugar. Now I know why banana pancakes are so popular with young backpackers…with no syrup the bananas make the pancakes a little moist and sweet.

We found the bus station and bought tickets to the Baishuitai limestone plateau. Then we took the Number 3 bus to the Ganden Sumtseling Gompa-a 300 year old Tibetan monastery complex with around 600 monks. The monastery is considered the most important in southwest China.

Jana had been given a crystal by a friend and was asked to bury it as close to Tibet as we could get. So we spent some time out on the hill behind the monastary looking for an appropriate place when we came upon two old men fingering some beads. Jana chose to drop the crystal among some carved rocks under a tree behind the old men while I recorded the event with her camera. Satisfied with mission number two, we made our way through the maze of buildings, back down to the road, visiting with several young monks along the way…taking picture of one looking out a window with his little dog and another on a cell phone.

We ate dinner at a Tibetan style hotel next to the monastary….sliced sauteed (dry cooked) Yak meat, which was delicious, an eggplant and tomato dish and what turned out to be lamb neck bones on curried rice.

In the evening the Tibet Hotel coffee shop was full of smoking Chinese guys so we drank hot lemonade at the Snow Drift Cafe across the street from the Hotel, sat on a couch in front of their charcoal stove and visited with two girls, Phyllis (German but living in Switzerland) and Alex (English but living in the States and attending Ohio State in Columbus) who were on vacation from their MBA exchange program in Shanghai. We exchanged travel tips for awhile and then fell into a conversation about the Chinese economic system or lack therof. I gave them my book, �The Coming Collapse of China� in exchange for some chocolate and Jana heated up a sewing needle with a match so one of the girls could puncture a blister on her foot after her two day trek through Tiger
Leaping Gorge.

At the end of the evening, the cafe dog that had befriended us earlier fell asleep on the couch between Jana and me. We looked at the walls full of pictures of Chinese tourists that the cafe owner had previously led on tours through Tibet. We watched the Tibetan waitress playing with a Chinese puzzle. Then we reluctantly walked back across the street to our cold hotel room.

A stay in this town followed by a bus trip through Baishuitai, along the Tiger Leaping Gorge, to Lijiang would top my list of the ten best places to travel…in good weather.

Hanoi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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September 24 2002
Bob left Hanoi right away on the train for Sapa near the Chinese border to do some trekking among the colorful minority villages and then to spend three days in Halang Bay learning to kayak. We are traveling separately until we join a friend in Hong Kong on November 20 when the three of us will spend two months in China before going back to the US after the first of the year. Bob is presently somewhere between Hanoi and Saigon and I will meet him in Saigon on Monday for a flight to Phnom Penh Cambodia.

Flying into Hanoi felt very strange after watching years of television during the “Vietnam” War in the 6.s and 70.s. (The “Vietnam War” is called the “American War” here.) The first night in Hanoi I ate a dinner of pork with pepper sauce and french fries, a wonderful break from the Burmese and Thai food, on the deck of a popular cafe while watching the lights reflect off Hoan Kiem Lake near the Old Quarter.

I stayed at a small charming hotel called the “Classic Street Hotel” in the Old Quarter which is full of narrow winding streets with tunnel or tube houses so called because their small frontages hide very long rooms that were developed in feudal times to avoid taxes based on the width of the frontage onto the street. At the time they were only two stories high but over the years stories have been added so the buildings are now very narrow and very tall.

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My cozy little room had a little veranda where I could stand and watch the busy street scene below.
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I loved my little neighborhood for the five days I was there…early mornings the same ladies in the same clothes and cone hats came to sit on the street below me with their big shallow baskets to sell small silvery fish and vegetables…one morning a young woman at a street stall angrily chewed the heck out of one of the women for some reason and chased her away…every day in the early afternoon I ate a huge bowl of duck noodle soup for about 30 cents at a food stall down the street….sitting on a little plastic stool at a two foot high wooden table with my knees under my chin……the same old man and his wife with kind faces welcoming me like old friends each day.

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Across the street was the A to Z Queen Cafe which was a kick-back comfortable budget backpacker hotel with dorm beds for $2.50 a night and free internet if you bought something at the bar…otherwise you donated a few dong via honor code in the little plastic boxes sitting on top of each terminal. Every night the guest house showed a war movie to the mostly young males from around the world, many of whom are Israeli by the way. An Israeli guy told me that every young man has to spend three years in the military…and then they take off to travel to clear their heads.

Nearby was a street market where the women did all the selling and the men sat on the sidewalks drinking whisky and playing board games. As I walked by, the women laughed when I gestured and said to them…look…you work…they play…

Down the narrow street and around the corner the local street kids pestered you to buy postcards…just buy from me today…I am lucky you are my first sale today so I can buy some food…old ladies glided along in slippered feet carrying two fruit-filled baskets one on each side of them that was balanced like a pair of scales across their backs with a long flexible blade of bamboo who wanted to sell you exotic fruit…pumalos that have to be picked a few days before it is eaten so it has time to “forget the tree,” custard apples, durian so stinky it is forbidden in the hotels, green dragon fruit, guavas, jackfruit, longan, lychees, mango-steen, rambutan, starfruit and juicy persimmons.

Then you could escape all this by ducking into the Tamarind Cafe & Fruit Juice Bar where the Handspan Adventure Travel Company sold tickets to Halong Bay and Sapa in the back. Bob took a three day excursion to incredible Halong Bay and claims it is one of the very best experiences of all time. Here you were sure to find fellow foreign travelers to trade stories with…not just a few of whom…to my amazement…or maybe just never noticed before…were women traveling alone. In happy solidarity I invariably urged them on…

Shimla India

Posted on by Laughingnomad

July 31-August 4 2002
The last few days I have been fighting some sort of strange malady…raging sore throat, red spots on the tops of my feet and the underside pads of my fingers red, sore and sensitive. Want to risk a diagnosis? But symptoms seem to be residing after a few doses of antibiotic. So feeling a bit lethargic I am contented to sit for the five hour train ride that will take us up most of the 300km to Shimla on the Himalayan Express.

We change to a toy train (narrow gauge) in Kalka and jump out to buy a dahl and rice meal in a tin foil tray and some bananas before another five hours climbing switchbacks the last 60 km into the mountains. I look out the window and see a huge sign hanging above the train platform: “World’s Number one. The Times of India.” Reminds me of the presumptuous title of those annual baseball games played in the US only by US teams called the World Series.

From the train we watch India fly by…people in tattered clothing lying asleep by the side of the tracks…naked babies sprawled out flat on their backs…a sign says “Do Not Pluck Flowers.” Another sign: “The Allah of Islam is the same as the God of Christianity and the Iswar of the Hindu.” Children with white nylon sacks pick through the garbage selecting plastic-India’s system of recycling…ads for Bob Cards-the Indian credit card…men with hair dyed a bright henna color.

I smile to myself at the young Indian across the aisle reading “Autobiography of a Yogi” (many of us were inspired by it in the 60’s). The leak in the roof of the toy train above my head stops once the train gets up some speed…the German girl across from me and her male Indian companion share their feelings of culture shock…she has been volunteering in a school for blind children for six months in a small village in the south of India…quiet…clean…traditional customs…no touts…she and her companion have never been in the north…now I wish we had gone south instead. A few seats back a group of 20 something Indian guys finds hilariously funny a Lonely Planet given them by the Swedish couple in the seat across-but I notice they are taking notes. We have noticed people everywhere throwing garbage on the ground…Bob feels guilty throwing the banana peels out the train window.

As the train pulls into Shimla about 20 Muslim touts in long red shirts crowd against the windows yelling at us to let them carry our luggage the two kilometers up the hill to the hotel in the center of town. (Shimla is a lovely 8,000 feet above sea level.) Bob takes to one lively man, Bob guesses rightly 34 years old, and he takes my small daypack. (We left the large packs in Delhi.) Bob carries his own pack…”macho” I say…”yes, yes”, he laughs…and then a large monkey threatens to take off my leg as he grabs the banana in a plastic bag I am carrying in my hand.

The Town
Shimla is at an altitude of 7000 feet-a quiet pleasant town of 120,000 sprawled across the U-shaped valley of the steep Himalayan foothills with narrow winding terrace-like streets connected at intervals by stairs. The town feels authentic; virtually all of the tourists this time of year are Indians escaping the heat of Delhi and the lowlands. It is a luxury to stroll through the streets unhindered by hordes of touts and beggars.

Shimla was once part of the Nepalese kingdom called Shyamala. The British discovered the area in 1819; many of the buildings were erected by them and is reflected in some of the architecture. In 1864 it became the summer capital of India and after the railway line was constructed in 1903 Shimla became first the capital of Punjab and then of Himachal Pradesh in 1966.

Eating in Shimla
I take back our assessment of where we are in the culture shock process…we (or I should say I) are (am) desperate for an alternative to the spicy Indian food we have been eating for a month. It takes two hours walking the winding streets to find a restaurant that just might have something without curry spices…in the meantime to stave off my dizzying hunger I stop at a fast food stall and buy an order of tooth-breaking french fries that are sprinkled with masala powder…then to get the taste out of my mouth I buy six cookies…finally we find a rather upscale restaurant that claims continental food on a sign above the door. Chicken Hawaiian Salad was described by the waiter as chicken, capsicum (green peppers) and white sauce…turns out white sauce is mayonaise. Bob’s thin French onion soup sports a raw egg yolk floating in the middle which he carefully extracts from the bowl. If the waiters in India don’t understand you they pretend you haven’t ordered anything. The lifesaving Chinese eggroll is delicious but I leave unconsumed the vanilla milkshake made with what I don’t know.

The next day we find a Chinese restaurant, Chung Fa, with a real live chinese cook and we founder on chow mein, spring rolls and the best won ton noodle soup ever. The owner was born in Canton, lived in Athens Greece 20 years, in Arabia 8 years and now Shimla for the past 12-and speaks many languages. When we told him we were from the US he said “San Francisco-best Chinese food. But New York the Chinese food terrible!” Bob concurs-having eaten in wonderful restaurants in SF while in college in the SF area and also having had a horrible experience in a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan where he mortified son Josh by leaving without tipping.

Town Plaza
As evening approaches we walk around the town plaza and appear to be the curiosity of the Indians…we sit down on a concrete “bench” ringing the large plaza and Bob takes a picture of two Sikh men and a woman…they smile and move over to sit closer by us. The older one has just retired as a banker and is now a consultant for multi-national organizations-he says his daughter is a well-known pediatric heart surgeon in New Orleans. He is very proud of his shy nephew who is an accomplished traditional tabla player and the girl, who is a traditional devotional singer. The older one had noticed us walking the plaza and had been explaining to his companions, he said, that as Americans we had probably worked very hard and were now enjoying our lives. “People don’t realize that Americans work very hard for what they have, “he  said as he went on to describe his daughter�s lifestyle in Louisiana. Thinking of the people we had seen in the Sikh temple in Udaipur, I told him that I had noticed that many Sikhs seemed to be very successful people. “Oh, yes,” he said, “we are very industrious and make a very big effort…instead of like many people in India.”

You can tell which Indians are Sikhs because they never cut their hair and they wear turbans. They practise tolerance and love of others and their belief in hospitality extends to offering food and shelter to anyone who comes to their spiritual centers.

Then we had a brief exchange of words about the Eastern and Western approaches to religion. “As Sikhs we are very practical and take a very simple approach to spirituality,” he said. “Sikhs don’t believe in caste distinctions or idol worship,” he continued, “and we believe in one God that is the same in you as is in me.” As he talked I thought to myself that I have heard Catholic mystics like Thomas Merton use almost his same words to describe their contemplative experiences. We talk about meditation; we understand each other. I get goose bumps and feel blessed by this man as I float back to the hotel in the cool evening air.

Rickshaw Driving Lesson

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After dinner, Bob entertains the nearby date sellers by dickering with another rickshaw driver who makes the mistake of saying to Bob “You are rich man-why can’t you give me few extra rupees?” Bob shot back that “I have traveled all the way to India and now you guys have all my rupees!” He laughs. They think you are stupid if you don’t bargain hard.

They settle on a price and on the way home Bob is full of questions about the auto-rickshaw which is a three-wheeled device powered by a two-stroke motorcycle engine with a driver up front and seats for two or more behind. There are no doors and it has just a canvas top. They are generally about half the price of a taxi and because of their size they are often faster for short trips. And if you are a thrillseeker you will love it because their drivers are nutty–heading straight through the mass of cars and pedestrians wielding hair-raising near-misses! When stopped at traffic lights, the height you are sitting is the same as most bus and truck exhaust pipes so many riders wear kerchiefs over nose and mouth looking ridiculously like movie-western cowboys. Bob wheedles a chance to drive our rickshaw a short distance. Bob and the driver end up friends and the guy gets a tip for the driving lesson.

At 5am the next morning an auto-rickshaw driver offers to drive us 3 blocks to the train station for 20 rupees. After we are seated he says “20 rupees each!” Should have seen how fast Bob jumped out of the rickshaw! We don’t feel like cheapskates anymore as this style of bargaining is the norm in India and many other countries-the locals see you as ridiculous or naive if you do not bargain.

The internal struggle is over for me. The guilt is gone. I don’t even notice the beggar lady pulling on my arm. We are finally getting the hang of India and learning how to play their game. And I think we’re entering the last stages of culture shock. But haven’t had the courage to taste a “bhang lassi” yet! (A bhang lassi is a yogurt drink spiked with marijuana…)

Bargaining for a Rickshaw

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Our last night in Delhi before taking the train to a cooler Shimla in the mountains for a few days, we strike out in the worst part of the day for traffic to have dinner in Old Delhi. Bob is bargaining on the price-which is always about double or triple for the big westerners-when a policeman comes down the street whacking all the drivers across their backs with a big stick to get them to move on. I hate what I see but it works to our advantage-the driver is anxious to move on and takes Bob’s last offer.

The streets are full of people, animals and various mechanical transporters and the auto-rickshaw comes to a stop in traffic for half an hour. It has cooled off a few degrees and there is a slight breeze. No problem! We surprise ourselves by just watching the show go on around us despite being enveloped in exhaust fumes.

The restaurant was interesting-several venues surrounded a central open air “kitchen” where one area was devoted to tandoori, in another small area three men were sitting on a raised floor making chapatis and puris and baking them in an oven in a hole in the floor and another area displayed half a dozen huge round metal jars sitting at an angle with small openings into which the waiter dipped out servings of stewed vegetables, chicken, and mutton. The mutton stew was superb.

Mr. Singh’s Rickshaw In Udaipur

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We take the offer of Mr. Singh, the Sikh driver of an auto-rickshaw, a small, noisy, three-wheeled motorized contraption with no doors, to take us around the narrow streets that are filled with cows, people, dogs, pigs, men in dirty white dhotis (sarong which is pulled up between the legs) pushing handcarts, seller stands and motorcyles piled high with the entire family, other auto-rickshaws and cars that travel ridiculously fast, narrowly missing each other…trusting cows just lie down right in the middle of it all.

We go nuts taking pictures…Bob, over here, over here…in the local market with picture-perfect fruit and vegetables sold by tribal (adivasi) women sellers in colorful saris. The women laugh and put their hands to their mouths when they see themselves on the screen of the digital camera. Once in awhile, a woman will decline a picture and we respect her desire.

Mr. Singh tells us that the “higher cultured” women who have knowledge of the Indian religious texts (vedas) will want to follow the dictum of the sacred texts that say your image should not be reproduced. But the women loved having their pictures taken and I suspect the truth is that the tribal women have their own beliefs that may or may not include the texts of the vedas.

However, I was really touched by one middle class Indian tourist family from the state of Gujurat who handed me their year-old baby to hold-as if they they thought it would be a blessing for the child. Bob took a picture of the child and the father and as we walked away we heard a man calling us from behind. We looked around to see him running up the hill in his brown slacks and blue shirt. He wanted us to send him a copy of the picture so after a few more pictures of the whole family we copied down his address-we will have another pen pal.

Shilpgram Cooperative & Cultural Center
We were the only tourists in the center that has displays of traditional houses from the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa and Mahashtra. We pass by musicians and dancers that, bored to death, happily perform only for us and laugh when they see themselves on Bob’s video screen.

Monsoon Palace
For a breathtaking view of the entire valley, Mr. Singh’s rickshaw chugs up to the highest point in the foothills around the little valley to the Monsoon Palace built in the 1800’s by one of the Maharajas. The Palace is lit at night and from our hotel looks magical. But we don’t understand a word he says in his Indian accent as he describes the history of the palace!

Natraj Hotel Restaurant
For dinner Mr. Singh suggested we eat at the Natraj Hotel in the flat new part of the city. The word “new” is relative of course because it looks no different than the old city. The vegetarian restaurant full of men starved at the end of the work day serves a set-price thali (all you can eat) for 50 rupees or about $1.00.

Nine or ten barefoot waiters in dirty shirts and pants come around again and again with metal containers of potato masala, dahl (lentil soup), curd (yogurt), mattar paneer (peas and chunks of soft cheese in sauce), sabzi (curried vegetables), some other things I have forgotten or don�t know the name of, and chapatis and rice. The next day we are sick–the “GI’s” or locally known as the Delhi Delight.

Tea on the Hill at Sunset
As I am arranging to have some clothing repaired by old Mr. Basir Mohead at his tailor shop Mr. Singh happens along. We invite him to tea with us so we jump in his rickshaw and he takes us to the top of a quiet hill with a view of Lake Pachola where there are some picniking locals and a modest tea stall. While we drink our tea and are watch a soothing sunset, Mr. Singh remembers that the day before I had asked him where we could listen to some music and he offers to take us to his Sikh temple where a special pundit (chanter) that was booked a year in advance will be performing with tabla and drums.

Sikh Temple
At least 5 friendly greeters walk up and welcome us to the temple, give us little kerchiefs to cover our heads and take our shoes. Children stand around and stare and laugh-some attempting to walk up to us and talk but as soon as we make a move forward they pull back. The temple is jampacked, men on one side and women on the other, all sitting cross-legged knee to butt on the floor. I find a place in the back next to an older woman where I can lean up against the wall. I cannot get her to smile for the life of me. The music and voices were very soothing. I had hoped we could last until 11pm when about a thousand members of the temple would have a meal together that had been prepared earlier in the evening but between my loose stools and numb butt I decide at about 9:30 I have had enough and motion to Bob.

On the way out of the temple yard, Mr. Singh introduces us to his children, nieces and nephews who excitedly shake our hands and wish us goodbye. (The temple was full and many were listening to the music in the temple yard.) This close knit community has shared a very special evening with us.

Bombay Renamed Mumbai

Posted on by Laughingnomad

July 13-18, 2002
India forces you to look beneath the surface of things…there is more here than your eyes see…a midnight ride into the city from the airport in the non-A/C taxi with hot humid squalid air blowing the aroma of grey water and human waste across my face was not my idea of a good time. But we knew it. Expected it. Actually it was not as bad as I thought it would be and as I am writing this on the second day already I don’t notice it. Everyone remarks how cool it is for this time of year in India but after coming from a wintery South Africa it may as well be a tandoori oven.

Bombay was renamed Mumbai in 1996. Those that favored the change believe the name, derived from the goddess Mumba who was worshipped by the original Koli inhabitants, reclaims the city’s heritage and signifies it’s emergence from a colonial past. When I asked the taxi driver driving us from the airport which name he uses for the city he said that Mumbai was a new name and “people keep calling it Bombay so I guess we use both names,” he said shrugging-seeming not to care which name his city is called.

Eating In India
A thali dinner (there is no “th” sound in Hindi so it is pronounced t-holly) is a traditional meal on a large round platter that is served with small tin bowls (katoris) around a larger bowl of rice and costs 10-50 rupees ($l.00) or more if it contains meat. It usually consists of a variety of curry vegetable dishes,relishes, papadam, puris or chapatis and rice. Often there is a yogurt raita and rice pudding for dessert. We had thali twice at “The Majestic Hotel,” a plain large dining hall on the Colaba Causeway where we were staying. The restaurant was full of working locals, mostly men, some barefoot, some in pants and shirts and some Hindus and Muslims all in white, some in blue, yellow and white turbans-all who couldn’t keep their eyes off us Westerners. The non English-speaking waiter found the pictures in our Lonely Planet India a wondrous curiosity.

During lunch one day I struck up a conversation with two black African men at the next table. They were from Nigeria but one had gone to school in Madison Wisconsin. I asked if he thought he would ever go back to the States. No, he said, it is so much easier for us to be here…people are so nice…no hassling he said with a knowing look…I get that it is easier to be black in India than in the US.

A Sidewalk Miracle
A few steps down the street at a right angle from the hotel we are tempted by a large group of people eating at night from a pavement stall on the street. Huge thin handmade chapatis called rotis were twirled around in the air by the young chapati-maker and then cooked on a red-hot half-globe shaped grill. The chicken and lamb kabobs, dahl, (pureed split peas), bharta (pureed eggplant), curried lentils sweet and sour tamarind sauce and fresh hot chapatis exploding with flavor on your tongue.

But halfway through our meal a big truck drove up and several men got out and walked over and motioned to our table…table…have table…they said roughly and then stood and watched us intently waiting for their table. At first we refused to give up the table…they were not asking for the table of the Indian family behind us although they did take two of their chairs leaving the mother standing…how silly we Americans are-expecting fairness! What? I can’t believe they want our table…what are we supposed to do with our food…put it on a chair…the sidewalk…what? But the men just kept standing there staring at us…feeling very uncomfortable…so not wanting to be the ugly Americans we give up the table…finally figuring it must not be legal for the restaurant to have the 4 or 5 metal tables on the sidewalk. We gathered up all the little dishes, the chapatis and our water while they threw the table in the truck and took off!

Bob and I just sat there looking at each other for a few seconds…should we take the food to the hotel…no Bob says…so we set the food on a third chair and were proceeding with our meal as best we could when the truck came back with our table and the chairs belonging to the other family. A bureaucratic sidetrack? Now they can say they did their job? I don’t understand I said to the 7 year old boy with his family at the table behind us…what has happened? “A miracle!” he shouted with bright eyes as if he knew exactly what he was talking about!

Sleepover In Soweto

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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A Sleepover in Soweto-Africa’s largest township
On our way to India we stopped in Johannesburg for two days to stay with Lolo Mabitsela in her Bed and Breakfast in Soweto-a township about 30 minutes outside the city where most of the violence occurred in the years leading up to the end of apartheid. Lolo’s nephew who runs Jimi’s Face To Face Tours, picked us up at the Johannesburg airport in his van.

Soweto has always had a small and thriving middle class and after all the press about the violence before the end of apartheid they are anxious to get the message out.

About one million people live in the township that was designated for blacks and established in the early 1900’s. The community is still poor and more than half of its adults are unemployed. Roughly twenty percent live in one room tin and cardboard shacks. Lolo, a retired high school principal and school inspector, lives in middle class Diepkloof Extension, however, in a new two story brick faced multi bedroom/bathroom home that would sell for half a million dollars in California. A member of Parliament lives across the street.

Lolo raised several of her niece’s children and her one natural child is an attorney and works for the Justice Department. But she said that blacks didn’t have electricity and she never saw TV in a township until about 1982. She worked 35 years as a teacher and for that she only receives a $300 a month pension. This is because blacks didn’t pay into the pension fund because they were not going to be given pensions.

Lolo cooked us a feast of dumplings, oxtail stew, fried chicken, carrots, beets, salad and fruit. The cuisine includes other traditional treats such as mealie-pap, samp, spinach and ‘mabele’ porridge.

The next day she drove us to the largest hospital in the southern hemisphere where we walked through the pitiful emergency area with people inside and outside lying on gurneys. Most of the doctors are young white doctors from other countries eager for the experience they will gain here-especially with weekend knife and gunshot wounds.

The next morning she drove us to the beautiful Museum Africa housed in what used to be a fruit and vegetable market. One section dealt with the four and a half year trial of 156 people opposed to apartheid that were arrested in 1956. All, many of whom were white allies of the freedom fighters were eventually acquitted. Most of the defense were white and the trial was held in a Jewish Synagogue.

Another interesting section depicted the places and activities of Mahatma Gandhi who lived for a time in Johannesburg. His philosophy of “Satyagraha” or passive resistance was shaped by his 10 year resistance to black discrimination in South Africa.

Finally we drove out to Liliesleaf Farm where Mandela and about 10 other political activists were arrested during a resistance planning meeting. Apparently they had been given away by someone on the inside. The beautiful 29 acre farm and buildings now in an upscale Johannesburg suburb-far from Soweto-had been purchased with Communist Party funds for the use of the freedom fighters. It has been a guest house but recently was sold and will become a museum next year.

Back in Soweto we drove by Mandela and Winnie’s old house that has since been bombed, by Winnie’s new big beautiful home and Archbishop Tutu’s home (yes, he still lives in Soweto! Two Nobel Prize winners on the same street!

For dinner we stopped at a tavern owned by one of Lolo’s former students and had a wonderful supper of African delicacies-mielie pap (corn porridge picked up with the fingers and dipped into a gravy), lamb ribs in gravy, chicken, beet salad, lettuce salad, green mango chutney, cole slaw and I can’t remember what else.

I asked Lolo what happened between Mandela and Winnie. She said it was personal and had to do with the bedroom. But it is only speculation as to who was sabataging the relationship and for what reason. Mandela has since married the pretty widow of the President of Mozambique.

As a single divorced mom Lolo didn’t say how she was able to afford her home. The most curious thing though, was that there was not a single African-motif item in the entire house. A walk inside and you could have been in a quaint B&B in a western country…the new black rich…

Reflections on Africa
We loved Africa and feel sad to be leaving. But the one single strong impression is how little Africans everywhere we traveled, black and white, knew about the outside world and how few, even those who could afford to, had ever traveled out of their own countries. The news media is pathetic and our references to current people and events went clear over the heads of the people we talked to whether it was the sophisticated gay Afrikaner managers in the Waterkant office across the street or Lolo in Soweto.

Jimi, our driver who was born and raised in Soweto and who picked us up at the airport said that he didn’t know what poverty was until he made a trip to the Congo one year… “that was poverty,” he exclaimed! Ironic.

Jimmy’s Face to Face Tours arranges overnight stays with families in Soweto, including Lolo’s Guesthouse, for $52 a night per person, including breakfast and transportation to and from the township, at 8.15 rand to the dollar. Information: (27-11) 331-6109 or (27-11) 331-6132, http://www.face2face.co.za.

Lolo’s Guesthouse: Diepkloof Extension. lolosbb@mweb. co.za. Lolo Mabitsela charges about $50 a night for two, which includes dinner and breakfast. She can accommodate up to four and can be reached at 011 (27-11) 985-9183 or at 011 (27-82) 332-2460.

The Soweto page of Johannesburg’s Web site, http://www.joburg.org.za/soweto, has the most useful visitor information for the township. Gauteng Tourism Authority has regional info at http://www.guateng.net. You can also contact the Soweto Tourism Association’s Dumisani Ntshangase, 011-27-73-310-5886, or Zodwa Nyembe, 011-27-72-437-3944.

Orange River Bush Camp at Fiddler’s Creek

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The facilities are nice-big grassy campsite and there is a lapa (open air shelter) covered with green leaves of a plant with purple flowers within which to eat and wash dishes.

At camp we eat left-over Kudo steak sandwiches for lunch and kick back in the grass lean-to kitchen to watch it rain on the river…I am beginning to feel sad that the trip will be ending in four days…after seven weeks on the road sharing experiences I realize I care very much about the other travelers.

We all go to the bar where there is a nice fire in the braii (barbeque). I drag my computer and connectors to the bar with me and Sarah says “looking for a powerpoint?” That is a plug-in or socket. To us in the U.S. it means a microsoft application. I love learning all these different terms. Some of us order a Gluhwein (hot spiced wine). Then it’s Amaretto and coffee.

The next morning we packed up the tents in the rain, had breakfast of coffee and crepes with lemon juice and sugar and drove into the town of Springbok where we headed straight for the KFC…oh, grease heaven! While there-in walked one of the guys from the Kumuku Truck-barefoot in the rain and cold. Within 5 minutes Nikki had told him he looked like shit and where was his shoes! I asked where they were headed…he said he didn’t know-he just gets on the truck in the morning and gets off when it stops. We all laugh.

Two hours out of Springbok James “hoots” the horn as we pass the Kumuku parked at a toilet stop. Yeah, we’re going to beat them to the hot springs and get the best camping spot! It is getting colder when we go to the bar so we order hot mulled wine while the camp operators build a fire. Michelle introduces a mathematical puzzle which stumps everyone.

We shower in the thatched open air showers and crawl into our tents; during the night it starts to rain but we are snug. The next morning we are up and can’t wait to get to the last camp of the trip before we hit Capetown-Citrusdal and The Baths!

Hobas & Fish River Canyon

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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June 11, 2002
On the way from Serus the topography is incredible–perfectly formed mesas and buttes-almost Utah-like. We stop in the tiny wide spot in the road called Bethanie. Bob mails a card to his mom and I buy some pop and sausage in the little market. We notice some light skinned women sitting around-told Bob they looked exactly like Central Asians; James says they are probably mixed Bushman and White.

Later I read Laurens Van Der Post describe the Bushman in his “The Lost World of the Kalahari” as having the face of a central African black turning into “a lovely Provencal apricot yellow” and that “he moved in the glare and glitter of Africa with a flame-like flicker of gold like a fresh young Mongol of the Central Mongolian plain…his cheeks high-boned like a Mongol’s….” Some description!

It’s Bob’s turn to read “Bang Bang Club” about the experiences of four photographers during the last four years of the war in the townships of South Africa before Nelson Mandela’s release and the first election to include blacks. If you want to know what it was like on the ground in those days this book is graphic. Michael, who is from Johannesburg, says that his dad had the
photography shop that sold the photographers their equipment.

The Bohemian Rhapsody is lifting us high on the stereo-Freddy Mercury singing in that glorious and sadly gone away voice!

We arrive at the camp and Rod registers us with the camp operator in his native Afrikaner and then directs us to “toilets and ablutions” (showers).

We eat lunch while the wind blows sand in our faces and our food; to keep the tents from rolling away we have to put our baggage in them and detatch them at the top from the frames. Adrian asks if anyone has any clothes “pigs” (pegs) and I am mystified until I realize he wants some clothes “pins.”

The truck drives us to Fish River to watch the sun set over the canyon. When we arrive back at the camp a Catholic school has brought about 150 middle school children from Windhoek to hike the canyon and they are all ready to sleep out on the lawn next to our tent. Needless to say, Bob and I quickly move our tent to the other side of the park and then we have Kudo steak, mashed potatoes and carrots and peas for dinner.

In the middle of the night it starts to rain and we hear the kids…then in the morning we find them all sleeping in the camp bathrooms.