Lodging

Why I Host Strangers

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I’m all for volunteering but I spent half my life doing it so I’m kind of od’d on it. Hosting through Couchsurfing and other hospitality sites is a kind of volunteering with my time and money but I get more back from it. And I don’t have to negotiate anything with anyone except my guests! 😉

Being travelers and interested in new experiences and cross cultural understanding, we are usually on the same page even as different as they are from me. In fact the more different the better. And the older ones have a perspective the young ones don’t have.

I recently hosted Annarita, 60, an Italian who has been living in France for years and who shared her perspective on the Euro situation just before the election there. And being an observer here for 10 years they are usually interested to hear about an outside view of the political situation here. The rest is up to them.

I usually share my videos of the 2006 uprising. It gives them a bit of a different perspective as they walk around the city among the locals. And of course being an expat I try to introduce them to as many locals as I can even if it’s just someone they can go clubbing with. And I get to follow half of them on FB afterward. I’m still messaging with guests I hosted years ago.

 

 

Hanoi Visa Run

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Having flown into Thailand without getting a visa beforehand, I only had a 30 day tourist visa. So I flew to Hanoi using the convenient online Viet Nam visa application and stayed at the Paradise Boutique Hotel in the Old Quarter for a week. For $40 for a visa stamp they met me at the airport and scooted me through immigration. For an extra fee they even met me at baggage claim and took me to my hotel in a van. So different than the old days!

My old haunt, the Classic Street Guesthouse nearby had tripled in price since I stayed there last. And the Tamarind Cafe is no longer there…replaced by another. To my surprise I found a new Mexican Coffee Shop and Cafe…the name of the shop is Xupito! Pretty close to chupa pito!!…!!!!! (which means suck dick!) Jajaja…really…change the Xu to sh/chup pito. Or Xupito could just be referring to a drunkard who drinks a lot.

Paul, a former couchsurfer in Oaxaca, is in Hanoi where he started The Bamboo School to teach music to young kids in the countryside and is playing gigs with his sax and electronic boards around the city. This is the second time we’ve run into each other in SE Asia…the other time on the street in Bangkok. I love it!

The streets are much busier than before…especially in the Old Quarter where sidewalks are taken up by people selling and cooking and eating where there aren’t parked motorcycles so that you have to walk in the congested street.

Look What I found!

Busy Street

Paul..Former Couchsurfer in Oaxaca

The Germans in Hanoi

Coincidence In Bangkok!

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I love coincidences!

A couple days ago I was walking on the flyway across Ratchipidisek Rd in Bangkok when I happened to look down to the street far below. I was sure I saw one of my favorite Couchsurfers who I hosted several years ago in Oaxaca while he was bicycling from the U.S. to Venezuela…pulling his little wagon with his sax behind him. From Boston, he has been living in Hanoi where he developed a music program for country children. I have been following him on FB so I came back to my hotel and messaged him. Sure enough! I got the best hug! And company for lunch and the Star Wars movie! The best Christmas present ever!

I’m In My Glory

Posted on by Laughingnomad

This past week, Ivan, my temporary Italian roomie, who has been living in Oaxaca many years but split with his girlfriend and lost his apartment cooked Pasta Bolognaise for me, Angie and her mom. Angie is the sister of Lumina, my friend who stayed with me for two weeks, with her British boyfriend, a couple years ago on their way back to Ohio to get married. They live now in the UK.

Then the next night this party wasn’t planned. It was a serendipity coming together at the last minute…all at the same time.

Bala, a biochem research scientist, from India but living in the UK and cycling from Alaska to Patagonia, came to me through Warm Showers, a hospitality web site for bicyclers similar to Couchsurfing.

Anita is a couchsurfer from Italy looking for a course in midwifery. Together with Ivan, these two Italians were a riot. My god, if I only had half the energy of these young people!

Sharon is a retired expat friend here in Oaxaca and enjoyed schooling Bala on the history of resistance in Oaxaca and answering his many questions. Sharon and I met on the plane in June 2006 when both of us were coming here to live.

Ksenia is Russian, (playing chess with Ivan) also coming to me through couchsurfing, was born in polar Siberia but has lived and traveled all over the world. She is one bright, funny, aware powerful woman! Loves Pussy Riot and confirmed all my suspicious about Russia today. But Ksenia, who studied chess (chess is taught in Russian schools) from the time she was a young girl, lost 6 chess games in a row to my Italian roomie who has never read a book on chess! She took it with great good humor!

The conversations ranged from geopolitics and economics to mind expansion with the help of 6 bottles of wine and a little herb! All with the requisite laughing and good humor…even the debates.

Then if that weren’t enough to warm my heart, Bala, cooked basmati rice and two curry dishes…for 7 people again the next night! OMG, what a treat!

Took Bala yesterday to the Tlacalula Sunday Market and found some borego (lamb.) Bala will cook lamb curry and fish curry again for tonight.

I have hope for the world.

Who Do We Trust?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Trust is a double edged sword. It may slay us on the outside. But too much caution may slay us on the inside. Keeping our lens clear is how we know the difference between the two at any one moment. I think. For me, meditation is what clears my lens.

One of my favorite former Couchsurfers posted this reflective piece on Facebook this morning. It not only relates to reading between the lines of a Couchsurfng profile but the whole host/surfing experience…not only to pre and post hosting/surfing communication but in deciding who to vouch.

I think in the matter of trust it also illustrates that it is not only good for surfers to have hosted but that it is good for hosts to have traveled.

And I thought it worth sharing in the interest of knowing who to trust, especially when we are traveling solo, and in life generally.

Who Do You Trust?
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Facebook Is Not The Problem

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I love to follow former couchsurfers on Facebook. Paul is one of them.

Everyone is complaining about the same thing and it’s not Facebook. Facebook is not the problem he says. You are.

Paul stayed with me a week in Oaxaca when he was on his way from Utah to Venezuela on his bicycle…his sax in a little wagon behind it. Born in China but raised in Boston, this intelligent and talented guy with dreadlocks is now in a small rural town in Viet Nam where he is establishing a music school for youngsters…The Bamboo School.

My Couchsurfers have added great joy to my life and even more when I get to follow them on Facebook.

Sex And Couchsurfing

Posted on by Laughingnomad

A recent discussion in a group on Couchsurfing went like this:

A guy: What’s lost in all this talk of “open intentions” is: girls do not usually get into situations saying “I’m looking to bang!” There needs to be… plausible deniability. And many guys prefer girls who wouldn’t say a thing like that.

A woman: men who are looking for sex do not prefer these women who want the exact same things as them, they want to “work” on a woman

A guy: Are you hearing yourself? A man.. wants to “work”?!?
We need to investigate further.
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Hanging In Bangkok

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Doug’s 45th birthday is today but he is in Chiang Mai and I am wishing I were with him to celebrate his 45th. I sing Happy Birthday when he calls in the morning. “Oh quit it!” he says. 🙂

As for me, people seem to be looking curiously at my clothes I acquired in the islands. At least I think it’s my clothes they are looking at. lol Thais are usually curious about my wild curly hair…natural as it is.

This week in Bangkok, my VX50 Guesthouse only had a room on the 3rd floor so I moved to the Imm Fusion Hotel a bit up the road on Sukhumvit near the On Nut Skytrain exit. It’s fine and has an elevator. Doug will join me for a few days here before we take off for the States. So I’ll just cool out and meet up with a couple people who live here who I met through Facebook and one I met and hung out with in Chiang Mai. And Jiraporn…my friend who teaches fisheries at Kasetsart University. And of course my Yellow Shirt friend. Oh and I can’t forget Leila from Australia who I traveled with in Lao and Thailand and then met up with again in Las Vegas several years ago.

Anxious to get Jiraporn’s take on the weird current political machinations occurring in Thailand with anti-government (but mostly anti-corruption) protesters clogging up the intersections and trying to “ShutDown Bangkok” in a bid to force the Thaksin regime out of power. Good luck with that, I say. Bangkok is a big place. But people are losing patience with seven huge 8 lane intersections closed. It is a party atmosphere. A huge stage is set up at each one with music groups playing to keep the attention of protesters in between video speeches by the leaders. Vendors abound along the “walking” streets selling everything they usually sell including Shut Down Bangkok and The People Of The King T-shirts adorned with the Thai character for the 9th Dynasty King.

The boys’ dad is still living in Pattaya Thailand. Here he is with his Bingo Bango Bongo Golf Club buddies in Pattaya. 2nd from the end on the right. We meet in Bangkok one weekend to talk taxes and kids.

Bang Rak Beach Ko Samui

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The taxi at the airport wanted 400 baht to take me 5 minutes up the road to Bang Rak Beach. I just laughed and set out on my own down the road. Next two taxis wanted 300 baht but finally talked the third one down to 200 baht. Good grief, I could have gone clear from the airport 40 minutes to Lamai for 500 baht! They know when they have you!

The guesthouse in the Beach area Doug had found for me to stay in was full. Trudging down the road with my wheeled luggage, probably looking a little forlorn, I waved down a moto taxi driver who took me to the lonely modest but cozy Bang Rak Bungalows facing the water. Just a mattress on the floor but so what. It’s only 500 baht a night and I’m here only two nights before flying into Bangkok.

Good coffee and French Breakfast (hot croissant and French bread) at the French Bakery the next morning made my day.

Alarm went off 4am for the taxi to the airport for the flight to Bangkok. OMG! I thought I wouldn’t make it the couple of kilometers! The “boss” had left for another province so this old guy, who really didn’t know how to drive, took me in an old jeep…changing the automatic shift every 2 seconds at 10 miles an hour I think. And of course a new departures area had recently been constructed. And he had to stop and ask directions twice in spite of the fact that he had lived there for years! “It’s been 20 years since I’ve been to the airport” he said. Whew! Just made it!

Adana Turkey

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Map of Mediterranean Coast

After Antakya, I took the bus to Adana where I stayed with a lovely couchsurfing host, Gursel, and her daughter Nida in their beautiful high-rise flat.

The evening of my arrival we sampled traditional Turkish food in a popular restaurant. And later, Gursel took us to a specialty cafe that served a to-die-for dessert called Künefe, a shredded pastry with cheese, that is actually famous in Antakya…it’s origin. Lahmacun is a kind of Turkish pizza but my friend Dilek bristles at this comparison. And of course Kabob is skewered and grilled beef, chicken or lamb.

Kunefe


Lahmacun


Turkish Lamb Kabob

The highrises in the “new city” are chock-a-block together and there wasn’t much to see walking around from Gursel’s apartment. But no worries!  She spoiled me with home Turkish cooking and of course many good conversations over the three days I stayed with her. I also really enjoyed her bright vivacious daughter, Nida, who wants to study in the U.S. after high school.

Gursel had asked me to cook something for them but alas I was unprepared and couldn’t think of anything original on the spot except maybe Mexican food and of course there were no available ingredients. I’m sorry, Gursel! From now on I will be prepared for cooking for my hosts!

After having been in Thailand for several months I was not prepared for the cold spring in Turkey, so Gursel kindly gave me one of her sweat-shirts and a warm pull-over to sleep in. Thank goodness for Gursel! It was freezing cold all over Turkey!

One evening we visited a huge open but covered market where I bought some really sharp paring knives for $3US and a yummy soft leather bag $7US for my newly acquired iPad that was handed down from my son in Hong Kong. I was wishing I had room in my baggage for more!

The last day of my stay, Gursel drove us through bustling Old Town where we saw the tallest clock tower in Turkey and out to the Seyhan River and the Taskopru Bridge…a 4thC Roman bridge that has the Sabancı Central Mosque, the largest mosque in Turkey, at one end and the Hilton Hotel at the other. We wound up having a Turkish coffee at the lake behind the dam where locals spend time at the many coffee and tea houses on the banks.

Adana is Turkey’s 4th largest city, 2 million people, and is an agricultural and industrial boom town in the middle of the Cilician Plain…the commercial capital of the eastern mediterranean coast. Click on the photos to enlarge:


Manti


Manti is a smooth yogurt soup with Turkish dumplings…kind of like Ravioli. There I go again! BTW, there is no better yogurt I’ve had in all the world like yogurt made by the Turks!