Hotels

Poverty, Government Greed and Human Sweetness

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August 18, 2002 Rangoon (renamed Yangon)
We took Thai Air to Rangoon. Bob left his Lonely Planet Guidebook Burma (renamed Myanmar by the military junta) on the plane and of course someone had pocketed it by the time we debarked. But we remembered the Yoma Hotel downtown and headed there in a taxi…discovering how the locals get free rides when a guy jumped in our taxi with us for the ride into the city.

At the Yoma a French Canadian couple at dinner loaned us their LP so we couldlocate a bookstore somewhere in the city. Incidently the guidebook says that Lonely Planet is outlawed by thegovernment in that country…but lo and behold we found one…at a government gift shop/ bookstore no less…the Myanmar Book Centre…for the hefty price of $30 for a book that has a sticker price of $17….but hey, we have to admit we felt lost without it so we were stuck paying the money.

I was pretty much cut off from email and the internet; the government does not allow anyone the use of the internet-even tourists. They only allow businesses to have access and it was extremely disconcerting for the hotel to tell me I could not click on the browser to get my web-based email. The hotel had their own email address that I could use on Outlook Express, they told me! That was no help of course because all my email addresses were on the web.

Rangoon (Yangon) is the only city in Burma, I was to discover, that had access to the internet. All of this restriction, of course, is government control to limit access of the populace to international information.

Watching the street scene outside the hotel window that first evening I see bare-footed boys playing soccer on the sidewalk and a line of bare-shouldered monks in maroon colored robes banging a gong as they marched single file down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Bicycle rickshaws with side chairs weave in and out of traffic..there are no motorbikes or auto rickshaws here…it is heavenly…a third boy in thongs has joined the soccer game.

The next day walking down the sidewalk I am stopped by the sign of an old man nuzzling a tiny baby while carrying it. More barefooted monks carry louvered or round food bowls on their daily rounds. They usually carry a large fan the same color as their robes that they hold up to their faces.

Having called ahead we took a taxi later to the bookstore to bargain for our Lonely Planet guidebook. The taxi driver and I laughed when I pointed to the steering wheel; he had used his horn so much he had worn a hole through the vinyl in one spot! After checking out the outrageous prices for the ethnic artifacts in the museum/bookstore we walked next door to a very nice hotel. The Prime Minister of Malaysia happened to be in town and there was a trade exposition at the hotel. Found out the most common kind of oil the people use for cooking is Palm oil which isn’t even considered a food in the U.S!

One afternoon we decided to check out the American Embassy and register our presence in the country but when we found the building it was cordoned off with guards stationed around it and we were told we could visit an out-station about 20 minutes away by taxi. Needless to say we scrapped that idea.

Then walking past St. Mary’s Cathedral compound we decided to go in and pay a visit; we were greeted by Ms. Bernadette Ba Tin, a matronly woman who showed us the inside of the church (very unique interior-looked like Arafat’s headdress) and told us her life story. She had been in the military as a young woman but when they wanted her to spy and report on people she took the recommendation of her father and got out. “I was mean,” she said. “I would kick and pinch and hit people. But I’m not like that now.” She retired a couple years ago as the editor of a Catholic publication and they gave her the job of watching and cleaning the church in exchange for her room and board. We exchanged addresses; after all my middle name is Bernadette.

Jaipur India

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July 22-26 2002
The next day we discover we are the only guests in the Hotel Meghniwas and we have breakfast in the quiet restaurant downstairs. The night before Bob had a few minutes of the sweats but no fever…this morning he complains about not
feeling well…bones ache…no energy…tired…. I am silent and surly…but thanks be to the gods we hole up in our comfortable room all day watching movies on the HBO channel aware that this is our first bout of good old culture shock.

Culture Shock
I am having my first bout of culture shock on this journey. (My other culture shock experience in reverse was upon return to the States from a summer hitchhiking in Europe in 1965). Lonely Planet says there are several stages to this phenomenon. The first is the honeymoon stage-euporia and excitement-but the novelty quickly wears off and then comes the disintegration stage where instead of being thrilled you find yourself really disliking this new culture-right now in India it is because of the malodorous air, heat and noise.

Then you hit the reintegration stage when you grit your teeth and just get on with it because your return ticket isn�t for another six months! You blame every little problem on your host culture and become snarlingly hostile-for example, daring the next person to approach you for money.

By the autonomous stage you begin to focus on revising your travel style that is based on a more realistic assessment of local conditions…like never deliberately putting yourself at the mercy of a lunatic taxi driver. And we are realizing that underneath the layers of cacaphony there is an implicit order to the culture..very poor people finding the most efficient way to live that works for them…the many are not just individually lost on the sidewalks but are part of the community of their nearest neighbors…trading support and solace…ensuring survival.

Finally the interdependence stage is supposed to arrive when you develop an emotional bond with the new culture. Lonely Planet says this will take some time and effort but it will happen. We are not there yet we feel it coming…maybe…

Supposedly the more you know about the new culture before travelling the easier it will be…but god help me I don�t think there is anything that can prepare a westerner for India. What this experience WILL definitely do for you is cure you of any sense of feeling privileged or of being a more valuable person than the locals, just because you are American or have money or position, that you ever had or ever thought of having. Everyone endures the same conditions in the same way. In the movie “The Mexican” Brad Pitt cockily tells the cop “I am American!” The cop just looks at him and says “I am Mexican!”

Hotel Meghniwas
We luck out with a hotel that is well off the noisy street with grass and trees all around and a swimming pool in the back. The proprietors are professional and the staff is very friendly and helpful. After a nice quiet solitary Indian buffet dinner in the hotel restaurant we are invited by the proprietors, Mr. & Mrs. Singh, to have a drink with them in their office. Their two sons were educated in the states and live there still-one has a software business in Seattle and the other lives in New York. Mr. Singh is an articulate retired military person who has a good knowledge of Indian and US history and for an hour we appreciate his reasoned analysis of Indian, US and Arab domestic and foreign policies.

He says that the US and India got off on the wrong foot with each other years ago when Nehru, an aristocratic man that was highly educated in England, visited President Truman in the US. On the return to India Nehru remarked what a buffoon (or some such word) Truman was and US intelligence picked up the comment which injudiciously got back to Truman. Mr. Singh goes on to say that he thinks that in the next 5-10 years India and the US will become very very good friends because they will be the two biggest democracies facing the threat of China. Bob says that he has seen some very expensive looking homes in Jaipur and wants to know who would be living there. Mr. Singh answers that there are three upper class groups of people in India-first business owners, then politicians and then bureaucrats. I think that some of my friends and I who have worked for the state for years have been living in the wrong country!

Then Bob asks Mr. Singh what he thinks about the Pakistani/Indian conflict. He says the hostilities are old and the two countries have been threatening each other for years but there is a balance of power because both countries have nuclear capability. Furthermore, he flatly stated that this conflict is historical, it is not a situation defined by war and that India is not going to release a bomb just because a few villagers and politicians were killed in a couple terrorist raids!

He went on to say that people here are living life normally and the State department warning has ruined tourism that was already bad because of 9/11 and the off-season. The media carried the news today that the warning has been lifted but the damage has been done, he says.

Later I read an article in the India Times Magazine that reported that local corporate executives never did send their American expat employees home and furthermore they think the warning was timed to coincide with an orchestrated international move to pressure India and Pakistan to talk peace. The article, entitled “The Triggered Exodus” ends by saying that “the wait is now only for the nuclear silly season to end.”

Mr. Singh has some interesting but very big questions for Bob: are intra-uterine cures possible yet…are we close to human cloning…Bob tells him in all seriousness that he thinks man is headed for extinction and then the proprietor spends 20 minutes telling him how it is already slowly happening in India. Global warming and the resulting drought will leave Jaipur without water within two years.

We excuse ourselves when his brother and his wife come to the door and after Bob had been bitten by their dog. Should have opted for the rabies shots as suggested before we left home!

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

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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!

Table Mountain & District 6

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The geographical configuration of the city of Cape Town at the foot of Table Mountain is as beautiful as everyone has said it is. We took the cable car to the top of the mountain on a clear beautiful day. We rented a car and took a ride down to the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town isn’t actually on the tip of the Cape) about 20 miles down the peninsula where Bob hiked up to the lighthouse to get a good view of the Atlantic on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other.

Music
The epic documentary by American Lee Hirsch, “Amandla! A Revolution in four Part Harmony,” had its first South African outing on June 16 at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. The film that earned two awards from the Sundance Film Festival describes the arc of the ANC’s resistance to apartheid from 1948 to the moment when Nelson Mandela dropped the first black vote into the ballot box in 1994 via the music that gave shape and direction to the war on apartheid. It has been entered for the US Academy awards. It will be showing in the States.

District Six
We visited the museum where a former Indian occupant expained that 60 to 70 thousand people-freed slaves, immigrants, labourers, merchants and artisans-used to live in the one and a half square km district spread along the flank of Table Mountain south of the center of Cape Town. In 1975 District Six was officially declared an area for white people only and bulldozed flat. All that remains now is a grassy area…but “they” had gotten rid of the Blacks, Colored and other undesirables that lived on the edge of the city…

The museum was established in 1992 to commemorate the destruction of the area and the sense of loss has been sensitively captured by the many artifacts donated by the ex-residents.

The Cannon is on Signal Hill right behind our apartment and is fired off every day at noon and makes your heart jump out of your skin. Started in the 1800’s we are told, when the English withdrew after the English/Boer War. They fire off the cannon 21 times at important times or when important dignitaries visit the city.

Bo Kaap or Cape Malay Quarter

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The next day we take a minibus for 3 rand each (10 rand to a dollar) to look for an apartment. The buses are many and frequent with no schedule-you just wave one down when you need it-very efficient!

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As we walk into the neighborhood where we have found a beautiful modern apartment, de Waterkant Village, in a quiet residential area near downtown, I see a young guy in red plastic tennis shoes with a funky white patent plastic shoulder bag with Catch 22 written on it it cross the street and I know which Cape Town neighborhood we are in…do you? The neighorhood, used to be Malay, a (colored) neighborhood until all the Malays were run out by the apartheid system. Now it has become a gentrified little village with little cafes although some Malays are moving back in. This is the gay neighborhood.

The “Bo Kaap” or “Cape Malay Quarter” belongs to the culturally and historically most interesting parts of Cape Town. Many of the inhabitants are decendants of the people from Indonesia (Batavia), Sri Lanka, India and Malaysia, who were captured in the 17th and 18th century and enslaved by the Dutch-East Indian Trading Company. Many were Mulims and others were converted to Islam by the Cape Muslim community.

The Cape Malays and their religious leaders played an important role in the development of the language and culture of the Cape colony. The Afrikaans language evolved as a language of its own through a simplification of Dutch in order for the slaves to be able to communicate with the Dutch and amongst each others, since they all came from different countries and cultures. Educated Muslims were the first to write texts in Afrikaans.

The Cape Malays have preserved their cultural identity and Muslemic creed. The old Malay Quarter with its steep and narrow streets, the plain artisan houses, Mosques and Minaretts reaches from the Buitengracht street up to the Signal Hill. The houses were restored and colourfully painted. The architectural style is a synthesis of Cape Dutch and Edwardian.

One of the oldest buildings in Wale Street 71 houses the “Bo-Kaap Museum”. It is furnished as a Muslim house of the 19th century and documents the history of the Cape Malays.

Coon Carnival
Around the corner from our apartment was a little muslim owned market we would go to every morning for a pastry and the newspaper. One morning I asked the shopkeeper who all the people were who would come at night to sing those wonderful rhythmic songs in the big empty garage across the street. He tried to explain to me about the “coons.” When I looked at him with a quizzical look he said, oh, yes, in the United States coon is a bad word isn’t it?

But later, when we visited the District 6 museum we learned about the Coon Carnival that takes place every year at New Years. They practice all year long, three times a week, for the new years carnival where groups from all over compete in singing contests. They parade through the center of Cape Town wearing their coon uniforms and black and white cream on their faces. No one ever did explain why the participants are called “coons.”

It was originally introduced by the Muslim slaves who celebrated their only day off work in the whole year. Nowadays men, woman and children march from the Grand Parade to the Green Point stadium, singing and dancing. They are clad in colorful, shiny suits, white hats and carry a sun umbrella.

The next leg of our journey is supposed to be India but since the state department has asked all Americans to leave India because of the Kashmir/Pakistani conflict I don’t know what we are going to do. We have four weeks here to decide but we will probably go. Right now I don’t want to think of going ANYWHERE!

Cape Town!

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June 15, 16, 2002
James make an unbelievable maneuver with the truck into the Lion’s Head Lodge & Backpacker Compound around a corner and in between parked cars on both sides of the street. We are amazed! He has done this before. He parks beside several other trucks. And we can’t believe the trip is over! I will miss the crew.

Cape Town, about 40km from the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of the continent, is a beautiful city up against the 1000 meter high giant Table Mountain. Lonely Planet calls the city a “volatile mixture of the Third and First Worlds.” The cafes on Long St. and the bars at the Waterfront could be in any cosmopolitan capital but the townships on the bleak, windswept plains to the east of the city could only be in Africa.”

We all eat a last meal together at a wonderful seafood restaurant in the upscale Victoria and Albert Waterfront Mall that evening. Bob and I come back to the compound and fall into bed; the others find a hip hop club and dance and party until 4:00 in the morning. Boy do we feel past that stage!

Citrusdal and The Baths

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June 14, 2002 My birthday
The Baths is a health spa about 16 km from Citrusdal in a pretty wooded gorge. It is a long weekend in South Africa; Monday is Youth Day-(SA has 13 public holidays) so Rod’s wife Brenda drives up from Cape Town. Bob and I, Sarah and Adrian and Heather and Fi upgrade to a chalet-$6 each and it’s wonderful to sleep in a bed.

Around the camp fire that night James and George teach me how to say “cool banana” in Swahili: Poe Matoke!

There is a cold swimming pool and another swimming pool fed by the hot springs so we sit in the soothing warm water a while before going to bed.

The next morning at breakfast Bob shows me a note he has written: “Happy Birthday,” which takes me by surprise as I had forgotten what day it was.

Then the truck takes us into Citrusdal where we experience a wine tasting of South African wines, including one made of Rooibos Tea which tastes like medicine. There is a nice break in the weather and we have lunch out on the front porch; the food is wonderful and half of us order a second entre which startles the woman restaurant owner!

That evening back at camp Bob appears with a cake and one candle and Nikki gives me Apricot jam and a piece of handmade soap made of goat’s milk and Ylang Ylang that we can use in our apartment in Cape Town. Think she must have seen me eyeing these things in the little wine shop…I am very touched by everyone’s good wishes!

Then everyone walks up to the Baths again. Just as Bob and I were getting into our tent, though, Rod drives up and tells us there has just been a cancellation in one of the suites in the hotel…so off we go to yet another night in a real bed on my birthday! Turned out to be a really good thing though because Bob was up about 10 times that night with diarrhea.

Ombinda Country Lodge

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Sunday June 2, 2002 near Outjo
Yesterday the truck broke a spring so we stopped in the Afrikaner town of Outjo to find a mechanic and pick up some groceries. James drove us to a beautiful camp just outside the town of Outjo-Ombinda Country Lodge so we would have a place to wait while he took the truck to a mechanic-this is Sunday. We end up spending the night-each of us in these charming little huts made with tree branches one and half inches in diameter-we can see daylight in-between them…feels like Africa only with the best hot shower yet, sink and toilet and beds with electric sheets!

The camp owner, an Afrikaner, has owned the camp for six years. In the bar we watch CNN news and the others drink beer and wine, play pool, swim in the pool and lie in the sun all afternoon. We order dinner at the outdoor lodge restaurant that by 7pm has been closed in from the cold with a roaring wood fire going. Bob has a filet of beef and I have a steak from the beautiful Oryx-the national animal of Namibia! Sleeping that night in a real bed was heaven.

Pleasuring In Zanzibar

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We spent evenings on the deck of the Mercury Bar watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean full of fishing boats and beautiful lean bodies swimming in the water. The Mercury Bar is named after Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen before he died, was born just up the street. We read in a local English language newspaper that his Bohemian Rhapsody was recently voted the number one all-time most popular song in the UK. Incidentelly, the bar menu has a drink called the Monica Lewinsky-Blue Curacao, triple sec, gin and sprite. Subscript: “Find out what a bubbly body can do in a blue dressing!”

Next morning on the 14th it’s back on the ferry (hi-speed hydrofoil this time) to the truck waiting for us in Dar es Salaam where we camped at the Mikadi Beach Resort in Dar again. We fight off the Malaria “mosies” (mosquitos) in the tent with a towel before falling asleep in a heap.