For fall break I decided to get out of town, but still stay in Egypt.  I had asked all of my departing friends last year what their favorite experiences in the country had been.  Overwhelmingly people said a Nile Cruise.  Nile cruises typically embark from the southern city of Aswan or Luxor.  Aswan is one of the most southern cities in Egypt and is where the massive dam got its name. 
Egypt is a fairly large country.  A fact that I didn't realize before I got here and something most Americans probably can't appreciate.  The entire country is about 3 times the size of New Mexico.  Flying from Cairo to Aswan takes a little over an hour, I think.  While we were down there, we decided to take in Abu Simbel as well.  Abu Simbel is a temple site that was actually dismantled piece by piece and reassembled 40m above its original location in order to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasr due to the Aswan Dam.  It's really stunning seeing something of this size and knowing that it was totally taken apart, cataloged and reassembled nearly perfectly.  If you ever make it to Upper Egypt, it's definitely a can't miss.  A 30-45 minute flight from Aswan, it's really not a lot of effort to get there.   Unfortunately, in order to fit everything in, we had to fly out of Cairo at about 4am so we could squeeze in Abu Simbel before our boat departed for the day at noon.  Despite the lack of sleep (and Mark Tennant missing the flight altogether) it was an incredible experience seeing Abu sitting above the waters of Lake Nasr with nothing around. 
Before the cruise actually left the dock, we toured to see the broken obelisk which is basically a large obelisk that cracked while it was being carved, and is still in its original location, showing the quarrying marks and techniques.  After that we went to see the heavily militarized dam and a temple on a small island.  With the sun setting and the lack of pollution in Aswan, the light was amazing.  The shadows on the temple were incredible and the hieroglyphs really stood out. 
The rest of the cruise consisted of some delicious food, stops all the way up the Nile for the 4 days that we cruised and a ton of sites.  It was almost overwhelming doing all the tours that we did.  There were many 5:30am breakfasts so that we could get out before it got too hot.  I really feel like we didn't get a ton of relaxation time because we were always on our way to another site, but it was well worth it.  It was a vacation I would definitely do again, if only to stay on the boat and enjoy the scenery.  Upper Egypt is so much different than the dusty smog bowl that is Cairo.  There were green fields touching the bases of the mountains, unfurling right into the Nile with pack animals grazing at the waters edge.  We rarely heard car horns, there wasn't nearly as much trash, and the further south we were, the bluer the Nile was.  I never thought I'd be able to see down more than 3 feet in this river and go hours without seeing lights, cars, or people for that matter. 
The sites we saw were:  Abu Simbel, Philae Temple,  High Dam, Unfinished Obelisk, Kom-Ombo Temple, Edfu Temple, Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Colossi of Memnon, Temple of Queen Hatshepsute, Luxor Temple and Karnak.

So far, the cruise and the sites have been some of the most amazing memories I've made here in Egypt, and I'd definitely go again. 
(Please keep in mind that I forgot my camera, so these pictures come from my iPod camera.  I borrowed Steve's camera and took pictures that I'll try to post soon.)
 
 
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Well, I'm back!  As the two of you that read this probably know, I took a little hiatus from this little site over the summer.  My first year in Cairo ended pretty well.  My kids seem to have really enjoyed their time in my class and the parents seemed happy as well.  I'm still pretty surprised I made it, and I can't believe I did as I now deal with the stresses of new 4-5 year-olds that have had the summer to do nothing but become obnoxious and speak Arabic.
As far as the summer goes, I headed back to the States.  My trip to Belize didn't work out due to visa restrictions, but hopefully I'll go next summer, inshallah.   It was a pretty fun summer, getting to see some of the old friends and Billy's new baby.  Unfortunately I broke my wrist pretty early on, so that hampered things a little bit (I didn't get to surf at all...)  Nonetheless, I had a few highlights including; Colorado, the crab feast, and seeing Slightly Stoopid 2nd row.   I even had my first surprise party of my life, thanks to my mom shortly after I arrived home.  I'm also pretty sure I ate chicken wings twice a week all summer.  And I already miss them.
I'm really hoping this year goes as great as last year did.  This one should be great, but it sucks I'll be losing so many good friends at the end.  May as well enjoy it as much as possible until then. 
So here are pictures from the summer.  Colorado was awesome thanks to Steve and Ben.  Saw some pretty incredible stuff, shot my first gun, froze my ass off, had some good beer and a lot of laughs.
Enjoy.
 
 
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The pictures are from my phone, so they won't be the best quality.
As I write this I'm just meters from the Giza Pyramids and Sphinx. After the teacher talent show, a few of us headed to Barry's, a restaurant that couldn't be any closer to the pyramids themselves.  The food is way over priced and the decor definitely comes from the roaring 20's in Egypt but the view is amazing. The pyramids are sillouhetted against the setting sun before the 3 stars of a smoggy Cairo sky make their appearance. After dark, a light show begins with a dramatic narration from a man that could be from a B version of Creationist video.  I could only hear part of what he said and it seemed way more theatrical than historical. I definitely wouldn't go to Barry's for the food, or even the show but just to be sitting so close to the pyramids at night, seeing them all light up in a multitude of colors is simply amazing.  Plus there were only about 5 other people at the rooftop restaurant with us.  I do have to say, it would have been a lot cooler if it was lasers and Pink Floyd instead of mood lights and spoken word. 

I know I've only been here for 9 months but seeing the pyramids while eating, drinking, or even driving around town is still surreal. I just never thought I'd be in this position. Seeing something so casually that so many people save for the 'trip of a lifetime' spoils me for sure. Sometimes it feels like I'm at Epcot or something because there is no way this should really be happening so easily. I shouldn't be able to drive around town, turn a corner and suddenly have an ancient wonder rise from behind a building.
What a crazy life.
 
 
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A little cove complete with a jumping spot, a sea turtle and a blow hole. Somewhere near Tengalle.
Time has been flying.  Really this entire year has almost been a blur.  As comfortable as I am here, there are times when I feel like I've just arrived.  I've been extremely busy for the past couple months as I've been head coach of the AIS track and field team, playing touch rugby every Friday, softball 3 times a week, starting an archaeology club and trying to plan a trip to Belize and of course finding a little time to enjoy the finer things.  Like feluccas and beach trips. 

For our spring break, I decided I wanted to go some place that I could surf in warm water with no wetsuit.  I wanted to be surrounded by palm trees, water and sun.  When looking at cheap airfares out of Cairo, Colombo, Sri Lanka kept coming up for just over $500.  Some tickets to mainland Europe were more expensive than flying to the large island off India.  Sri Lanka, a country that was entwined in a civil war for years, had never really entered my mind as a vacation destination until I noticed the airfare and started checking the surf report.  Scotty and I ended up purchasing our tickets on the same day, with Greg and Steve following up a week or two later. 

After a connection in Bahrain, we landed in Colombo some time around 4am.  Lucky for us, Steve and Greg's flight was delayed, so Scotty and I got to sit in the Colombo airport for 4 or 5 hours with nothing to do.  When you think of the Colombo airport arrivals lounge, imagine the show 'Wings', but bigger, surround yourself with a lot of people speaking Sinhalese, forget any type of delicious food and add a TV with one scratchy Sri Lankan news station playing.  And watch as family after family cart refrigerators to their waiting vans. 
From Colombo we drove through morning rush-hour traffic all the way along the western edge of the country, through Galle and ended up at our hotel near Weligama.  We had a nice bungalow on the water, hammocks strewn throughout the grass lawn and a good restaurant that served what had to be at least 32oz beers.  From this station, I was lucky enough to go surfing down the road two morning in a row.  The waves were nothing spectacular, but they were clean and ridable, and better than anything I've got here in Cairo. 
After a couple nights in Weligama we proceeded to Tengalle where we split a large cabana in a wooded area near the beach.  The cabana-resort that we stayed in was really nice and clean with a cozy little beach cove with some tiny restaurant/bars.  Once again we spent most of our time on the beach, walking up and down the coastline discovering blow-holes, bathing water buffalo, cliff jumping and climbing palm trees.  On one random evening, we were appoached by a tour guide with 11 fingers offering to take us to see some sights in the area.  We distracted him for a minute, offered a little beer and received a nice insiders opinion on the civil war that had ended but a few years ago. 
After a night to think about it, we decided to take the guide up on his offer and planned out an extended trip back to the airport.  We were taken to a temple built into and on top of a mountain, a temple where I got to pet an elephant, went to the fort at Galle, had a nice meal on the beach, drank from coconuts and explored the countryside.  The decision to take this route to the airport was great, as it rounded out the Sri Lanka experience nicely. 

I found the people to be relatively friendly, but always looking to make a buck.  Prices were always higher for us than for locals, but that's the same pretty much anywhere you go.  The evidence of the tsunami from a few years before was still evident.  There were tons of abandoned and destroyed houses and some boats on top of cliffs and way inland.  I'd definitely love to go back to Sri Lanka, explore the center of the island, and especially the north east coast where the Tamil Tigers had their last stand.  But this trip was just for relaxation, and that's what we got. 
 
 
By A. Pawlowski, CNN May 23, 2011 -- Updated 1246 GMT (2046 HKT)

(CNN) -- Let's be blunt: If you like to take lots of vacation, the United States is not the place to work.

Besides a handful of national holidays, the typical American worker bee gets two or three precious weeks off out of a whole year to relax and see the world -- much less than what people in many other countries receive.

And even that amount of vacation often comes with strings attached.

Some U.S. companies don't like employees taking off more than one week at a time. Others expect them to be on call or check their e-mail even when they're lounging on the beach or taking a hike in the mountains.

"I really would like to take a real, decent vacation and travel somewhere, but it's almost impossible to take a long vacation and to be out of contact," said Don Brock, a software engineer who lives in suburban Washington.

"I dream of taking a cruise or a trip to Europe, but I can't imagine getting away for so long."

The running joke at Brock's company is that a vacation just means you work from somewhere else. So he takes one or two days off at a time and loses some vacation each year. Only 57% of U.S. workers use up all of the days they're entitled to, compared with 89% of workers in France, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Brock's last long holiday was more than 10 years ago, when he took a two-week drive across the country.

'Americans work like robots'

It's a totally different story in other parts of the world.

Nancy Schimkat, an American who lives in Weinheim, Germany, said her German husband, an engineer, gets six weeks of paid vacation a year, plus national holidays -- the norm. His company makes sure he takes all of it.

It's typical for Germans to take off three consecutive weeks in August when "most of the country kind of closes down," Schimkat said. That's the time for big trips, perhaps to other parts of Europe, or to Australia or North America. Germans might also book a ski holiday in the winter and take a week off during Easter.

Schimkat's family back in the United States teases her that she's spoiled. But when she tells Germans that workers in the U.S. usually get two weeks of vacation a year, they cringe.

"They kind of have this idea that Americans work like robots and if that's the way they want to be, that's up to them. But they don't want to be like that," Schimkat said.

"[Germans] work very hard, but then they take their holiday and really relax. ... It's more than just making money for Germans, it's about having time for your family and it's about having time to wind down."

No legal obligation to offer vacation

So what's going on here?

A big reason for the difference is that paid time off is mandated by law in many parts of the world.

Germany is among more than two dozen industrialized countries -- from Australia to Slovenia to Japan -- that require employers to offer four weeks or more of paid vacation to their workers, according to a 2009 study by the human resources consulting company Mercer.

Finland, Brazil and France are the champs, guaranteeing six weeks of time off.

But employers in the United States are not obligated under federal law to offer any paid vacation, so about a quarter of all American workers don't have access to it, government figures show.

That makes the U.S. the only advanced nation in the world that doesn't guarantee its workers annual leave, according to a report titled "No-Vacation Nation" by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal policy group.

Most U.S. companies, of course, do provide vacation as a way to attract and retain workers.

But the fear of layoffs and the ever-faster pace of work mean many Americans are reluctant to be absent from the office -- anxious that they might look like they're not committed to their job. Or they worry they won't be able to cope with the backlog of work waiting for them after a vacation.

Then, there's the way we work.

Working more makes Americans happier than Europeans, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Happiness Studies. That may be because Americans believe more than Europeans do that hard work is associated with success, wrote Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn, the study's author and an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.

"Americans maximize their... [happiness] by working, and Europeans maximize their [happiness] through leisure," he found.

So despite research documenting the health and productivity benefits of taking time off, a long vacation can be undesirable, scary, unrealistic or just plain impossible for many U.S. workers.

Little appetite for regulation

Critics say it's time for a change.

"There is simply no evidence that working people to death gives you a competitive advantage," said John de Graaf, the national coordinator for Take Back Your Time, a group that researches the effects of overwork.

He noted that the United States came in fourth in the World Economic Forum's 2010-2011 rankings of the most competitive economies, but Sweden -- a country that by law offers workers five weeks of paid vacation -- came in second.

De Graaf drafted the first version of the Paid Vacation Act of 2009, which would have required larger companies to provide at least one week of paid annual leave to employees. But the bill, introduced by then-Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, in May of 2009, got little traction.

Opponents said that it would have a negative impact on business and that the government shouldn't get involved in the workplace in this way.

"You would have had the idea that we were calling for the end of Western civilization. Comments like, 'Oh, they're going to make America a 21st-century France,' as if we were all going to have to eat snails," de Graaf said.

"I'm in no way anti-capitalist, I think the market does a lot of good things, but the Europeans understand that the market also has its failings and that when simply left completely to its own devices, it doesn't produce these perfect results."

But is more government regulation the answer? The debate rages on.

Back in suburban Washington, Brock -- the software engineer who hasn't had a long vacation for more than 10 years -- is finally planning a real getaway. His 60th birthday is coming up in December, and he'd like to do something special, maybe go on a cruise to the Bahamas.

Will he be able to pull it off and get away from work? He's still not entirely sure, he said.

 
 
Why We Travel
By PAUL THEROUX
Published: April 1, 2011
NY Times

IN the bungling and bellicosity that constitute the back and forth of history, worsened by natural disasters and unprovoked cruelty,  humble citizens pay the highest price. To be a traveler in such circumstances can be inconvenient at best, fatal at worst. But if the traveler manages to breeze past such unpleasantness on tiny feet, he or she is able to return home to report: “I was there. I saw it all.” The traveler’s boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience — shocking though it may seem at the time — is an enrichment, even a blessing, one of the life-altering trophies of the road.

“Don’t go there,” the know-it-all, stay-at-home finger wagger says of many a distant place. I have heard it my whole traveling life, and in almost every case it was bad advice. In my experience these maligned countries are often the most fulfilling. I am not saying they are fun. For undiluted jollification you bake in the sun at Waikiki with a mai tai in your fist, or eat lotuses on the Côte d’Azur. As for the recognition of hard travel as rewarding, the feeling is mainly retrospective, since it is only in looking back that we see how we have been enriched. At the time, of course, the experience of being a bystander to sudden political or social change can be alarming.

Throughout history the traveler has been forced to recognize the fact that leaving home means a loss of innocence, encountering uncertainty: the wider world has typically been regarded as haunted, a place of darkness: “There Be Dragons.” Or as Othello reported, “Cannibals that each other eat, /The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads/Do grow beneath their shoulders.”

But it is the well-known world that seems particularly dire at this moment. Egypt has been upended, and I smile at the phrase “peaceful mob” as an oxymoron; all mobs contain an element of spitefulness and personal score-settling. Tunisia before the mass demonstrations and the coup was a sunny shoreline popular with European vacationers, and the chief annoyance to the traveler was the overzealous rug dealer.

The recent disaster-in-installments in Japan of earthquake, tsunami, damaged nuclear reactors and near-meltdown is a particular shock; Japan has long been regarded as one of the safest countries in the world. And now it seems a perilous place of inundated cities and contaminated air and undrinkable water. The earthquake itself was enough to inspire a sense of deep insecurity. And the idea that Christchurch, New Zealand, could be flattened and feel dangerous — this polite, orderly, beautiful, underpopulated, provincial, hymn-singing place — is yet another surprise.

Many people think of global travel as though presented on a menu, one of those dense, slightly sticky volumes that resemble the Book of Kells. But it is a changing menu, as certain places are “discovered” and others deleted. Libya is now a war zone, but only the other day the Libyan tourist board was encouraging visitors with promises of Roman ruins and cusucs bil-hoot (the Berber version of couscous with fish). Baghdad may have been the Paris of the ninth century, as Richard Burton described it, but James C. Simmons points out in “Passionate Pilgrims: English Travelers to the World of the Desert Arabs” that it has disappointed most travelers since then as, in their words, “a city of wicked dust,” “odorous, unattractive, and hot,” with an “atmosphere of squalor and poverty” — and these descriptions are from travelers in the 1930s, long before the invasion, war and suicide bombers.

Afghanistan in the 1960s and ’70s for all its hassles (gunslingers, scolding mullahs, ancient buses, bowel-shattering cuisine) was astonishingly rich in tradition, ancient pieties and dramatic landscape, shimmering with the still-intact Buddha sculptures in Bamiyan, and penetrated with the sense of the medieval. There were robes, ragged turbans, daggers and even a certain dusty romance — dark eyes peeking from a Shmoo-like burqa. Kiss that goodbye. I well remember the jolting bus ride from the border city of Meshhad in Iran, the walk across the stony frontier to Islamic Qaleh, and finally the small-scale magnificence of the ancient city of Herat. It will be a long time before any farang with a backpack takes that bus ride again. And in Pakistan, the stupendous Greco-Buddhist ruins of Gandharan monasteries in and around Taxila, not far from Peshawar — only a dozen years ago a must-see spot — are now unvisited except by jihadis whose only mission is to deface them.

For the modern traveler there are recent and sharp reversals — the overthrow of longstanding governments, earthquakes, a volcano, the release of radioactivity into a blue sky and cows’ milk — all in the span of a few months. What then is the traveler to do except huddle and observe?

Tourists have always taken vacations in tyrannies — Tunisia and Egypt are pretty good examples. The absurd dictatorship gives such an illusion of stability that the place is often a holiday destination. Myanmar — yet another place recently traumatized by a deadly earthquake — is a classic example of a police state that is also a seemingly well-regulated country for sightseers, providing they don’t look too closely. (The Burmese guides are much too terrified to confide their fears to their clients.) Kenya’s 24 years under the kleptocracy of President Daniel arap Moi, which ended in 2002, never discouraged safari-goers, and in fact might have encouraged them to believe they were safe with so many conspicuous cops around. It is only relatively recently that tourists and hunters have begun to stay away from Zimbabwe. At a time when President Mugabe was starving and jailing his opponents in the ’90s, visitors to the country were applying for licenses to shoot elephants and having a swell time in the upscale game lodges.

By contrast, the free-market-inspired, somewhat democratic, unregulated country can make for a bumpy trip, and a preponderance of rapacious locals. The Soviet Union, with nannying guides, controlled and protected its tourists; the new Russia torments visitors with every scam available to rampant capitalism. But unless you are in delicate health and desire a serious rest, none of this is a reason to stay home.

“YOU’D be a fool to take that ferry,” people — both Scottish and English — said to me in the spring of 1982 when I set off at Stranraer in Scotland for Larne in Northern Ireland. I was making my clockwise journey around the British coast for the trip I later recounted in “The Kingdom by the Sea.” At the time and for more than 10 years later, a particularly vicious sort of sectarian terror was general all over Ulster.

How do I know this? I was there, keeping my head down, eating fish and chips, drinking beer and observing the effects of this confederacy of murderous dunces, the splinter groups, grudge bearers and criminal hell-raisers of the purest ignorance. “I’m a Muslim!” a man cries out in a Belfast street in a dark joke that was going around at the time. And his attackers demand to know, “Are you a Catholic Muslim or a Protestant Muslim?”

The narcissism of minor differences was never more starkly illustrated than after that rainy night when I boarded the ferry from Scotland and made the short voyage into the 17th century, setting off to look at the rest of Northern Ireland. What I found — what I have usually found after hearing all those warnings — was that it was much more complicated and factional than it had been described to me. And that there were unexpected pleasures. For one thing, the Irish of all sorts were grateful to have a listener. This is a trait of the aggrieved, and to be in the presence of talkers is a gift to a writer. Yes, there were checkpoints, roadblocks, bomb scares, metal detectors, pat downs. There was the occasional outrage. Ambushes by and against British soldiers were fairly common, as were other features of uprisings from Israel to Sri Lanka — the kicked-down door, the humiliated civilian, the stone-throwing children. But the prevailing quality of war is not noise or gunfire. It is suspense, something like boredom; nothing happens for long periods and then everything happens at once in indescribable confusion.   What I saw in Ulster on that trip was unforgettable. It was first of all the recognition of the utter uselessness of the conflict and its self-destructive element. But it was also the way in which, in the worst situations, life goes on. Market day was observed even though a bomb was now and then detonated in a market square. Rituals were observed, like the one in Enniskillen in 1987 during which 11 people were killed when the I.R.A. detonated a bomb at a Remembrance Day ceremony — murdered as they were mourning their dead. Still, life continued: a cake sale, a bike race, farmers mowing their fields, the sound of a choir from a church, “Have a cup of tea?,” birds singing on the country roads where I waited for a bus, the blackening rain coming down and the exasperated good humor of humane people who were sick of it all.

It was all a revelation that has become a rich and enlightening memory. It had not been the first time I was warned against a place. “Don’t — whatever you do — go to the Congo,” I was told when I was a teacher in Uganda in the mid- and late 1960s. But Congo was immense, and the parts I visited — Kivu in the east and Katanga in the south — were full of life in the way of beleaguered places. In the mid-1970s I was setting off from my West Berlin hotel toward the train into East Berlin, when the writer Jerzy Kosinski begged me not to go beyond the Brandenburg Gate. I might be arrested, tortured, held in solitary confinement.

“What did they do to you?” he asked when he saw me reappear that evening. I told him I had had a bad meal, taken a walk, seen a museum and generally gotten an unedited glimpse of the grim and threadbare life of East Germany.

Not all warnings are frivolous or self-serving. In 1973, I was warned not to go to Khmer Rouge-controlled Cambodia, and that was advice I heeded. It seemed to me foolhardy to go to a country in a state of anarchy. I wouldn’t go to present-day Somalia or Afghanistan either. Nor is Pakistan very tempting.

I traveled to Vietnam that same year, just after the majority of American troops withdrew and about 18 months before the fall of Saigon. The country — though a government was intact — was adrift in a fatalistic limbo of whispers and guerrilla attacks. It was less a war zone than a slowly imploding region on the verge of surrender. My clearest memory was of the shattered Citadel and the muddy streets and the stinking foreshore of the Pearl River in Hue, up the coast, the terminus of the railway line. Now and then tracer fire, terror-struck people, a collapsed economy, rundown hotels and low spirits.

Thirty-three years later I returned to Vietnam on my “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” journey, which was a revisiting of my “Great Railway Bazaar.” I went back to the royal city of Hue, and saw that there can be life, even happiness, after war and, almost unimaginably, there can be forgiveness. Had I not seen the hellhole of Hue in wartime I would never had understood its achievement in a time of peace. Seven million tons of bombs had not destroyed Vietnam; they had if anything unified it. And Hanoi, which had suffered severe aerial bombardment over the many years of the war, looked to me wondrous in its postwar prosperity, with boulevards and villas, ponds and pagodas — as glorious as it had been when it had been the capital of Indochina. It is certainly one of the most successful, and loveliest, architectural restorations of any city in the world.

Just a few years ago Sri Lanka emerged from a civil war, but even as the Tamil north was embattled and fighting a rear-guard action, there were tourists sunning themselves on the southern coast and touring the Buddhist stupas in Kandy. Now the war is over, and Sri Lanka can claim to be peaceful, except for the crowing of its government over the vanquishing of the Tamils. Tourists have returned in even greater numbers for the serenity and the small population. (Amazingly enough, almost the same number of people live in the Indian city of greater Mumbai than occupy the whole of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.)

At one point Sri Lanka was on the Could Be Your Last Trip list of the traveler Robert Young Pelton. He has made a career of clucking about hazards, descriptions of which fill his books, notably “The World’s Most Dangerous Places.” On the one occasion when we met in the late 1990s — on a TV show taped in New Jersey — he came across as a genial if torpid Canadian, except when he was talking about the horrors of Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Colombia. I had made pleasurable trips to all three, I said. And I was compelled to point out to him that we were on the outskirts of Newark, at the time advertised by its own newspaper, The Star-Ledger, as New Jersey’s homicide capital.  

The earth is often perceived as a foolproof Google map — not very large, easily accessible and knowable by any finger-drumming geek with a computer. In some respects this is true. Distance is no longer a problem. You can nip over to Hong Kong or spend a weekend in Dubai, or Rio. But as some countries open up, others shut down. And some countries have yet to earn their place on the traveler’s map, such as Turkmenistan and Sudan. But I’ve been to both not long ago — one of very few sightseers. And along with oppression and human rights violations, I found hospitality, marvels and a sense of discovery.

In my own “Tao of Travel,” the fact that a place is out of fashion, forgotten or not yet on the map doesn’t make it less interesting, just more itself, and any visit perhaps more of a challenge. But travel maps have always been provisional and penciled in, continually updated. The map of the possible world being redrawn right now — parts of it in tragic and unsettling ways — might soon mean new opportunities for the traveler who dares to try it. Travel, especially of the old laborious kind, has never seemed to me of greater importance, more essential, more enlightening.

 PAUL THEROUX is author, most recently, of “The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments From Lives on the Road," which will be published in May by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

See the full article here:  http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/travel/03Cover.html?pagewanted=1



 
 
Thailand has long been a place I’ve wanted to spend a few weeks.  I remember my senior year in college, the anxiety building over what I was going to do with myself after college and I began researching ESL programs abroad.  Thailand was the place I first examined.  With its rich Buddhist culture, its thick jungles, and amazing islands, it was an easy choice.  Unfortunately not a lot of money can be made in Thailand as an ESL teacher.  I eventually dropped the notion and went on with my life.  A few years later I stumbled upon ‘The Beach’ by Alex Garland.  I’d seen the fairly mediocre movie, and decided to give the book a chance since they are almost always much better than the movies they spawn.  I couldn’t have been more correct.  ‘The Beach’, which was based in a hidden island bay off Thailand, was engrossing.  It was one of those books I couldn’t put down, and wished would never end.  I was just enthralled by the rich descriptions of the island life and its dystopian society.  ‘The Beach’ made me realize I had to travel, and see SE Asia.  One of the main reasons I decided to go to Korea, so that I could work my way down south. 

With all this in mind, I had a decision to make during the revolution.  After we were bussed back from Sharm to Cairo, I was at home alone with nothing to do, in an area where I didn’t feel exactly safe.  90% of my friends and bailed to go travel, and I was just sitting on my hands.  So one evening while over at Steve’s house, having homemade enchiladas and watching the roller coaster that was Mubarak’s step-down/coup, we decided to book tickets to Bangkok.  The flight was relatively cheap and direct and to be honest, I needed to find a place to relax.  Even at the resort in Sharm, I could not feel peaceful.  The thoughts of the revolution and ‘what –ifs’ were always coursing through my head.  Plus it was just a back and forth of ‘Cairo is too dangerous’, ‘We’re leaving tomorrow’, ‘We’re leaving in 48 hours’, ‘We’re going to our home countries’.  So I went to Thailand. 

In Thailand, Steve and I spent an hour exploring a small section of Bangkok while we waited for our flight to Phuket.  Basically we took the train out, found a place for some green curry, had a beer and headed  back.  Upon arriving in Phuket, we got a ride to a pretty decent hotel and then went out.  It was after 10, so there weren’t a ton of places open.  Amid the calls of ‘You want boom-boom!?’, we stumbled upon a small outdoor restaurant filled with locals.  We assumed this place had to be pretty good  and settled in and ate whatever spicy dishes the waitress recommended.  The spiciness was palpable, and definitely made me sweat with my nose running and my eyes watering.  Nonetheless it was delicious.  Thai food has to be one of my favorites, if not my number 1. 

From Phuket we traveled by boat to Koh Phi Phi, a bow-tie shaped island with quite a bit of tourism.  Upon arriving in Ton-Sai beach, we had a beer, talked about it, and decided we needed to get the hell out.  Steve and I paid a guy to shuttle us around the island in his boat until we stumbled upon a small little grove of cabanas at Runtee Bay.  It was much quieter, no loud tourists and just people snorkeling in the beautiful blue water, eating or chilling on the beach.  The cabana with AC was about $30 per night, so we took it and set up camp for the next few nights.  It was incredibly relaxing.  Plenty of time to read, and just listen to the waves.  The food was great, and relatively cheap as I went one-by-one through the list of curries.  (Panang is pretty delicious)  We spent our time unwinding, hiking the island and taking a boat tour to different islands.  On one particular day we got to see one of the filming locations of “The Beach”, snorkel in a few different spots, feed monkeys, fish and go cliff jumping.  After Koh Phi Phi, we headed to Krabi where we spent one night and part of one day.  I got a couple hour-long massages (legitimate massages) for about $15 apiece and bought a bunch of really cheap clothing.  Boardshorts were less than $10 and t-shirts were about $5.  I even picked up a couple Polo shirts for less than $15.  From Krabi we headed back to Bangkok and eventually Cairo, where we went straight from the airport to school and work.  That was probably the toughest part about the trip.  All-in-all, it was a great time, and exactly what I needed.  Thailand is definitely a country I need to spend some more time in. 

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We will protect this house.
(The following is the account I kept around the time of the protests.  I tried to write as accurately as possible to what I was feeling/thinking.  Nothing has been change.)

Maadi, Cairo, Egypt

'The last thing I heard before I started writing this was that a tank is headed for the Grand Mall.  Things have spiraled out of control here in Egypt.  After the overthrow in Tunisia, the people here have been inspired.  Citizens have been pouring into the streets in higher and higher numbers since the first 'minor' protest in Cairo on the 25th.  Our bubble here in Maadi is on the verge of bursting.  This expat haven is alive with the angst of the less fortunate and those eager for change.  As I write, people on the streets below our balcony are walking the streets with machetes, pipes, chains and other improvised weapons.  The police force has been told to stand-down and the army is being deployed in full force.  Since I started writing this I've had to stop and move inside away from the occasional gunfire.  We've filled our bathtub with water, loaded up water bottles, blocked the door, planned an escape route, packed a go bag and called home.  Maybe we're over-thinking things but I'd rather be prepared for the worst.  The people upstairs are waiting everything out as well.  The reason I'm more nervous about tonight is because it appears looting has began in downtown Cairo.  We live in an area with a good amount of money, plenty of cars, and a lot of nice apartments to break into.  I don't think I ever thought I'd be in this situation, but here I am.  The internet has been out for 2 days, phones are intermittent at best, but we have 2 channels on the TV...only in Arabic.  I'm nervous, but I'm hoping things turn out for the best.  These people deserve better, I just don't know what will need to happen for them to get it.  Mubarak stepping down?  He seems to only have two choices:  step down or turn into Iran and start killing protesters.  If he chooses the latter, it will probably only turn into a bigger mess, but with no international support.  Well, I need to relax so it's time for a movie.  Hopefully I'll write more in the morning.  This will definitely not be told with a sigh. 

*9:27pm

Things are quiet now.  Phone calls went back and forth between teachers all night passing along updates.  We heard more gunfire, helicopters and a possible tank.  Apparently looting was bad 3 blocks away but we haven't seen anything yet.  Some other people were much more jovial earlier in the night, but I think the gravity of the situation hit as time wore on.  The special forces were deployed, and Mubarak is rumored to be stepping down tonight or tomorrow.  30+ years in power and this might be it.  Amazing.  The embassy supposedly is putting together an evacuation plan, but if Mubarak steps down, hopefully we won't need it.  I feel a lot calmer now, and I can't imagine things escalating this evening.  I'm fairly anxious for the morning to see what has happened.  Hopefully nothing else happens tonight that would cause me to write more.  Until tomorrow....

*10:27pm

Over a dozen shots fired on our block.  Armed men (pipes, chains...) running towards the street connecting the Grand Mall to Nasr Street. 

*12:50pm Sunday, January 30th, 2011

The night went alright.  Occasional gunfire, boabs (doormen) out front with weapons.  Occasional rifle fire heard now. 

We are evacuating at 9:00am tomorrow morning to Sharm el-Sheik by land.  If that is dangerous, a plane has been chartered to fly us to Cyprus.

*1:24pm

Just returned from a walk to the corner store.  Shleves are bare, roads have barriers and choke points made from trees, rock and trash.  At each intersection there are 5-6 men with weapons.  (Intersections w/ main roads.)  Cars are being scrutinized before the can enter.  Soldiers are now stationed next to my bus stop at the entrance to the communications station.

*3:00am Monday, January 31st

Nothing new to report.  Quiet night and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep in the chair.  Gunfire minimal and in the distance.  Seems like things are calming down.

*8:53am

Still quiet outside.  Military is evacuating citizens out of the country. Gunfire in the distance.  I'm finishing packing and will head to the bus in a couple minutes.

*5:59pm

We've been on the road for about 6 hours.  We were just stopped somewhere along the road bordering the Suez/Red Sea for about an hour.  Supposedly the government is collapsing and there are large fires in the town ahead of us.  Rumor is Bedouin/political protest.  I'm writing this on the bus by cell phone light.
 
 

Note:  This blog doesn't come from depression or disdain, and is not pointed at anybody in particular.  This is just so those thinking about giving this lifestyle a chance know that it's not all adventure and smooth sailing.  It definitely has a rough side or two.  I still love Cairo, and my life here.

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Christmas day at home.
The challenges that come along with the ex-pat lifestyle are numerous.  That's not to say it's not worth it, but some of the things that make living abroad difficult are only visible to the ex-pat, and not the person sitting comfortably in the States.  This hasn't really been as evident to me as it was this past trip home for Christmas.  It wasn't a cheap process for me, and it wasn't easy either.  4 hours to Frankfurt, 9 to DC; that's not a short trip, but it's luckily not as far as Korea.  Despite the cost and time, it was something I felt like I had to do.  It ended up being my last Christmas with my grandfather, and I can't say how thankful I was to be able to see him just before he passed away.  It wasn't easy seeing him go, but at least I have good and recent memories with him to look back upon. 

Losing loved ones is definitely a problem that all those living overseas are confronted with at one time or another.  Also you have to worry about friends losing family, and even friends giving birth or getting married.  I've already missed my 2 college roommates' weddings being in one country or another, and I'm none too pleased about that.  There are at least a half dozen weddings I wish I could have gone to, but with my income, dropping $2000 per wedding is a little rough.  I even lost the girl I thought I'd marry due to distance.  Definitely not occurrences or debts I can rebound from quickly.  So this life is a toss-up.  Do you go abroad to experience other cultures, to realize that America is not 'the world', to see that the tourist perspective is not terribly accurate, and to constantly have life-changing experiences while making great friends or do you stay in your comfort zone so that you can go to all the important weddings, be there for the birth of you best friend's child, and attend the unfortunate funerals that inevitably happen?  Obviously each person has to make that decision, and I can't say that one perspective is necessarily any better than the other.  Obviously I lean more towards seeing the world, but that is not always easy.  Sure living the ex-pat lifestyle is great when I'm flying to Cyprus for a weekend, sailing on the Nile at sunset or even glimpsing the Pyramids on the way home from work.  But reality hits when you get nailed by a side-view mirror while walking around town, when you have to shower with bottles of water because your water went out, when a jay-walking casualty on the highway becomes an ordinary occurrence or when somebody dies and you cannot make it home for their final goodbye. 

But people that have chosen the other path don't always realize that this route has its tribulations.  It's extremely rough on me when I go home and friends can no longer hang out without the significant other being around.  Whether I like my friend's girlfriends/boyfriends/wives/husbands, doesn't matter.  I'm more than happy to see them, but at the same time it's nice to have that time with the person you grew up with, that you were originally friends with.  It also goes straight to the core on your last day in town when a friend can't leave work during their normally scheduled lunch time to meet for a bite because they 'need to catch up on some stuff'.  Especially on the day of a relative's passing.  In the grand scheme of things, you know that 30 minutes can be made up some other time, but I won't be around for lunch for another year.  Is it selfish?  Probably.  I don't expect people to stop their lives for me, but it would be nice for some minor leniency.  If somebody were to come all the way from America to see me in Egypt, I would be expected to take some time to show them around town, make myself available for dinners, accommodations and anything else that came up.  Taking time off work would not be out of the question.  But why is that so acceptable?  This is my life.  This is not some fantasy world, this is not some passing phase.  I don't know if I want to live in the States again, I don't know if I can 'get this out of my system'.  So if I don't mind making myself available for visitors, is it out of the question for me to hope for people to do the same when I spend $1100 and travel 20 hours to go back to the place I was raised?  Just because I grew up there, that makes my return mundane?  Maryland now, is a foreign place.  Yes, I'll always remember my way around most roads, and know where to go to avoid ice in the winter, but I don't know which bars to go to, which restaurants are worth the trip or even who has the cheapest gas or beer.  Whether things stay the same for people at home, they do not stay the same for me.  Each house that pops up, each stop light that goes in, each new restaurant and every new school is a shock to my system.  When you see the planning notice, the ground breaking and the construction, it's easy to work yourself into acceptance.  But when all of these things are thrown back at you when you return to your 'home', it's unnerving to say the least.  And unfortunately, every trip home seems to come with loss.  Be it loss of comfort, loss of family, or loss of friendship, leaving never feels the same twice.
Perhaps this is why I looked forward to coming back to Cairo.  Because that old corn field is now a development, because my high school no longer exists the way I knew it, because I had the painful memories of my grandfather's death fresh on my mind or maybe it was because I could feel a rift between myself and some of my friends.  Whether they felt it or not, I could. 

So now I sit here and wonder; how important is it to go home?  Do I do it for other people or just for myself?  If I do it for my family, then how should I feel when the occasional friends are flaky?  I definitely can't lump them all in there, and I definitely have amazing ones that will swing by for 20 minutes just because they are in the area, but can one erase the hurt caused by the others?  The friends I make abroad I probably have more in common with than most of those I grew up with, but that doesn't necessarily make them 'better' friends.  With the vast majority of people met abroad, there is that notion in the back of your head that after a certain point not too far in the future, you will probably never see them again.  I've made great friends in Belize, Jeju, Charleston, and Cairo, but if I move to another place, do I have to leave my expectations of friendship behind too?  It all seems to boil down to quality; those people who were true friends, and value their time with you will always be available for that phone call, that Skype date or that lunch.  They will remember your birthday, or send an email just to say hi. The others will just be too busy with 'life'. 
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My first time on 'Greek' soil. My grandfather might be proud.
One of the reasons I've mentioned that drew me to Egypt was it's location.  Mainland Europe is about 2 hours away, Africa is at my doorstep and Asia is much closer than when I'm home in the US.  This could not have been made any clearer than it was a day or two before the American Thanksgiving. 
During the fourth week in November, there were rumblings that the Ministry of Education was going to shut all schools down on two successive Sundays, giving us two back-to-back 3-day weekends.  The announcement was not made, I think, until the Tuesday before.  There was a lot of back and forth about what to do with the lost days, how we'd make it up, etc.  And on top of all that we had to reschedule parent-teacher conferences.  It was a mess, with the director sending out a few hurried emails, not lacking grammatical mistakes and contradictions.  (Much like many of my posts...)  But it was generally sorted out, and we all knew we'd have our 3 day weekends, but we'd have to stay till 6:oopm and not arrive home till after 7:00.  That's basically a 12 hour work day for us, which is definitely not fun, especially when you have to talk to parents about why their child needs to show up to more than 25% of the classes, and why only being able to speak 7 words of English will not help him get into first grade. 
Despite all the confusion a plan was hatched by Steve and Kevin;  Amsterdam for the weekend.  Fly out Thursday night, back in Sunday night.  Sounds simple enough, but tickets were running over 400, and I'd prefer to see the city when it's not being threatened by snow.  The next possibility?  Cyprus.  Cyprus is a small island found just south of Turkey and SW of Greece.  It is actually split by both countries, Greece influencing the south, and Turkey occupying the north.  The south side is the more popular tourist destination, and is also part of the EU.  The Turkish side is under protest and considered to be unjustifiably seized by Turkish forces by the EU and most other countries.  The capital Nicosia is the only divided capital left in the world.  Located a short 80 minute flight from Cairo for only about $240 round-trip, it was hard to pass up.  We booked our tickets, and left straight from work that Thursday night.
We flew in to Larnaca on the South, rented a car, and then spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to start the thing.  (Despite the fact that it was an automatic, it had to be put into neutral, turned off and turned back on to get it running.  It had been a pretty long day at work...)  We drove less than an hour to the seaside town of Ayia Napa, checked into our sea view rooms and walked around the grounds.  Even at night it was easy to see just how blue and clear the water was.  The light from the beach seemed to make the white sand glow through the sea. 
The next morning, we gorged ourselves on bacon and any other pork products we could find at the buffet as we sat under the trellises, about 50m from the Mediterranean and then set out on a walk through town.  A lot of our time was spent watching The Greg Johnson trying on cheap sunglasses from touristy shops, and a never-ending quest for the ultimate cheesy Cyprus t-shirt.   We explored the whole town, stumbling upon a cool little Irish pub and an old Greek Orthodox monastery, finishing with some burgers at a trendy restaurant just outside of the town square.  Later that night we went out to some bar that kind of felt like we were on spring break in college, but without many people.  At the bar we did witness a Swedish guy get pepper sprayed in the face for not wanting to pay for the two beers we all saw him drink.  "I'd like a small beer at a fair price."
Saturday we headed towards the west side hoping to hit some historical sites throughout the day.  Despite the fact that we never made it to our intended target of Pafos on the west coast, we saw some pretty amazing things and I didn't get into an accident despite being in a country that drives British-style.  Our first stop was Choirokoitia, a neolithic site dating back to about 7000bc.  It is an interesting site on a hillside, composed of round purpose-built structures and evidence of  some of the earliest fresh-water wells and feline domestication.  After Choirokoitia, we found
Kourion, a Greek/Roman site dating back almost 2000 years ago that was destroyed by earthquakes around the 4th or 5th centuries.  Kourion was the first 'classical' site I'd ever been to, and it was amazing.  Sitting on top of a cliff overlooking the water, with steam baths, a basilica, amphitheater, and gladiator house, all housing intricate mosaics, Kourion impressed me greatly.  We probably spent a few hours walking around everything, taking pictures and eventually watching the sunset over the sea from the largest of the baths.  Not only did the construction impress me, but so did the amount of archaeology that must have gone into documenting this site.  The basilica had gone through phases of being a bath house, house of worship, and a housing a strange pyramid-shaped building (which is still not understood) until it was destroyed by an invasion and the earthquakes.  Uncovering all the occupations took a lot of work, and an impressive amount of knowledge. 
After our exhaustive day of sightseeing, we attempted to find a rumored Taco Bell in the nearby town, and ended up at Bennigans.  So much for eating locally, but after a long day, it was pretty much all we could find with easy access to parking. 
Our final day, we drove around the south and eastern sides of the island, stopping to check out the Cavo Gkreko, sea caves and doing some cliff diving in a beautiful spot.  We never could find our way to the Turkish side, but I'll save that for another day.  Our last meal in Cyprus was at a small local place near the airport that we stumbled upon (after getting kind of lost) and we all dined on some delicious gyros before calling it a day. 
The trip was extremely spur of the moment, but I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend Thanksgiving away from home, being fairly close to my maternal family's homeland.
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