Trips and Other Fun

Sicily with Lily & Judes, June 1-8, 2011

2011-06-09T16:10:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately, this is another retro-blog as Internet connections are not easy to come by.

June 1: As our flight was at an ungodly hour (5:30 am) we all slept at Judes' place and took a cab to the airport from there. So by the time we landed at Catanya airport we were already quite tired. It took a long time to get our rental but we ended up with an upgrade to a wonderful Citroen station wagon. It is brand new and very accessorized and it took us quite a while to figure things out (e.g. how to release the parking brake or adjust the mirrors). The way from Catanya to Scopello where we are staying starts on the A19 highway which goes halfway across the island west and then north towards the coast. It is a very impressive highway as large parts of it are built on aqueduct-like bridges. The view is beautiful – lots of cliffs and smallish mountains which rise very abruptly. Lots of wheat fields, vineyards, citrus groves, olive trees.... - even the steep mountain sides are cultivated. Once we arrived at the coast, the sea was added to the view which made everything even prettier.

The GPS (affectionately known as GP) was very helpful and we arrived at Scopello in good time. Giuseppe the care-taker showed us the house and we were delighted – it's just beautiful. Scopello is a tiny hamlet built around a small village square with a fountain. There is an archway opposite the fountain which opens into a large square with a couple of bars and pizza places and a building at the back with a few rental units. Our door is the green one. The place is large – 3 bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, a spacious kitchen & living room & bathroom downstairs. It is very well equipped but the best feature is the amazing back yard – lots of nooks and crannies to explore as it starts sloping down the cliff and the view from every part is different. Scopello is situated directly above an old tuna processing plant on a small cliff which has 2 ruined towers to guard it, and beyond it is the sea. This is all part of a bay which surrounds 'our' cliff and there are a few picturesque large rocks in the water there too. It's completely exquisite.

The afternoon and evening were spent in trying to rest a bit, some grocery shopping, a bit of exploration and a bad pizza dinner (very disappointing!). We saw 2 bridal parties which came to our square to celebrate – very cute! We went early to bed as it was a very long day.

June 2: In the morning we drove to Segesta. This is an archeological site which houses an amazing Doric Temple from around 500 BC as well as a well preserved Greek theater and some later ruins. The town changed hands a few times, was destroyed and rebuilt but was a flourishing community in different eras. The surroundings are also beautiful and we spent a few hours exploring and admiring the ruins.

We decided to go back via back-roads. GP took some convincing but eventually we managed to convince her and she paid us back by devising a route which was not only off the beaten track but also off the paved road – the 'road' we drove for about an hour had more potholes than asphalt and we were the only car around for miles. But the views were again amazing and we thoroughly enjoyed this. Eventually we got to San Vito lo Capo – on the north western tip of the bay (Scopello is at the southern part of that bay). It's a very cute summer resort which is apparently completely deserted in the winter (most of the tourists we see are Italian). Luckily we arrived on the first night of the Couscous Fest Preview! (the real couscous fest is in September). This meant that there were lots of people on the street, many food vendors and general jollity. We also saw the couscous judges but our Italian is not up to understanding the goings-on.

Except for some mild sunburns it was a great day. We finished it off with beers and a cheese and sausage platter at the bar in the courtyard – much better than the pizza!

June 3: We had conflicting advice about Palermo – on the one hand that it was dirty, impossible to drive and should be skipped and on the other hand that the Capella Palatina in the Norman Palace and the Norman Duomo in Monreale (which is 8km south of Palermo) are not to be missed. In fact I was told I should not come back home without seeing them! So the obvious compromise was to go just to these 2 sites. The next question was how to get there without having to drive & park in Palermo. Finally we hit on the solution: we drove to Monreale, parked there and took the bus to Palermo. The queues were not half as bad as we expected and was it ever worth it! The Capella is just marvelous. It has the most exquisite mosaics depicting Old and New Testament scenes. It is hard to believe these are mosaics – the details are amazing, the faces full of expression and the architectural styles (Norman, Byzantine and Muslim) blend together beautifully. We were utterly amazed by this treat.

After that we queued up to see the Royal Chambers – this part we could have safely skipped had we known...

The little we saw of Palermo convinced us we do not want to see more so we took the bus back to Monrale. This town is a charming medieval town and it was a pleasure to explore it and end up in a very nice bistro for lunch (excellent pasta). After that we went to the Duomo which was built by William II, the grandson of Roger who built the Capella Palatina and is just as beautiful (William II seems to have been jealous of his grandfather and a lucky thing too!) . Again beautiful mosaics depicting biblical scenes, and the church itself is a most beautiful structure. As we were getting ready to leave we realized there will be a wedding there soon so we ended up staying for the whole affair – was a lot of fun.

Then we walked around and found the cloisters behind the church – wonderful mosaic-inlaid columns all around a large square – very tranquil and pretty. It needs some refurbishing work as it is falling apart but very beautiful indeed. We were very happy to see the bride & groom again (Valentina & Valerio) – they had come there for photos!

The drive back was a bit nerve wracking until we left the Palermo area, and then beautiful all the way home. The first thing we saw in Scopello was another wedding party!

Supper in our backyard and then out for a beer.

June 4: Drove down to Trapani – a pretty coastal town. GP had some quirky ideas about the best way to enter the city but we managed to park not far from the old city. It's very quaint and pretty with crooked very narrow lanes and beautiful old buildings. Trapani is very narrow so you cross it a few times from coast to coast. We had the greatest trouble finding the fish market but the search was worthwhile as it is a completely non-touristic market and it was fun looking at the sellers, buyers and fish. Then we drove through the new and not very pretty town to the funicular stop (were 'helped' into a parking lot by a very eager young man – we figured we'd better tip him in advance if we want to see our car scratch-less when we return). The funicular ride to Erice is about 20 minutes long – Erice is 700m above Trapani. It is a very pretty medieval town and it was lovely wandering its narrow lanes. Had a good lunch and also ate the local specialty (originally made by nuns) – marzipan, which is rather too sweet. The skies were a bit overcast so the views were not as spectacular as promised but very pretty nonetheless. The way back was uneventful except for the guy who tried hard to back into us and missed us by a hair. We were sorry to have missed the wedding in the open air church in Scopello, but while admiring the church (which is usually locked but was still open as they were tidying up), we started talking to 2 Parisian couples. One of the women told us that seeing the pretty open air church she considered converting from Judaism to Catholicism!

June 5: Sunday, so we decided we deserve an easy day with no driving. Had leisurely coffee and spent the whole morning strolling around Scopello and people-gazing. There was some kind of large luncheon in the restaurant next to us. We tried to understand who were the people participating and did not arrive at firm conclusions but enjoyed looking at everybody, the children in particular.

The restful day included an afternoon nap and then we walked down to the old tuna processing plant on the beach and spent a couple of hours there. Tried another restaurant for dinner and were reasonably satisfied. Then met the French people for a drink in the bar next to us.

June 6: The plan was for a long drive south along the western cost but as it was overcast and somewhat drizzly we made it only as far as Marsala. Another pretty and quaint town. We strolled around, had a lengthy lunch, walked some more and managed to see a wedding in the cathedral (had wedding withdrawal after 2 dry days). Then we gave GP a destination which we were sure she could not navigate to via any highways and were successful – drove back through winding country lanes among vineyards and fields and very beautiful changing views.

June 7: Last coffee in the bar by the fontanella (our favorite place was closed), finished packing and then left the house for the last time. We drove all the way to the east coast – and spent the afternoon in Taormina. Easier said than done as GP became very confused a few times – took us through Catanya rather than around it and then kept sending us back to the highway when we tried to find the parking lot. Finally we managed to park and strolled around Taormina for a few hours. It is a very pretty town with a marvelous Greek-Roman theatre but it was completely over-run by tourists (and we realized how lucky we were to have spent the week in the less touristic western part of Sicily). So we ate, strolled around, had ice cream, walked some more, did some shopping.... Finally it was time to drive to the airport, say goodbye to the car and then wait for a few hours for our late flight. Another night with very little sleep but all we can do is conclude with the following conversation we overheard on the plane:

Woman 1: So – how do you summarize the tour?

Woman 2: On a scale of 1-10, it was a 9 – after all it can never be a 10.

But she was wrong – it can and was a 10!

Lapland - Days 5&6 (March 7-8)

2011-03-08T10:57:00.007-05:00

This was the second day where the poor doctors had to endure 3 hours of lectures. I went for a lovely walk with one of the women - across the bridge, along the river and then crossed back on the ice - frozen rivers are very useful! We also did some shopping, but there really isn't much to buy here.

At 11:30 we drove to the zoo - about an hour away. It's not a zoo in the normal sense of the word - it's a place where they collect the local animals and also some almost extinct species. It's mainly outside and I am not sure how they manage without hibernating, but most of the animals were wide awake and there were also quite a few birds. Was nice as far as zoos go.

We sat at dinner with some very nice and interesting people who were not from the doctors' group - made for a very nice change.

This morning we woke up at 4:15 for a quick breakfast and were on the road by 5:30 (non-trivial as getting dressed takes quite a while here). We drove for almost 2 hours to Kemi on the Baltic sea, enjoying a beautiful sunrise on the way (sidenote - the days are 45 minutes longer now than they were when we arrived 6 days ago!). We boarded the icebreaker at the harbor and started the best day of the trip.

The icebreaker was retired some years ago as it is too small to help the big boats on the water today, and was converted into a tourist attraction. Turns out icebreakers cannot operate without ice due to the egg-like shape of their hulls, so this one is used as a moored floating restaurant in the summer. But today it plowed bravely along, breaking the ice on the way. It was not terribly cold so I managed to spend close to an hour on deck and it was fascinating to see the thick sheet of ice just crumbling away.

Finally we docked in the middle of the frozen sea, and they lowered a gangplank for us to walk on the ice. This was exciting enough but the best part was the floating garments we could change into - they made us look like teletubbies but allowed us to step into the icy water and float on our backs - was amazing! Everybody seemed to enjoy looking ridiculous and paddling in icy water.

After a nice lunch in Kemi we continued to the ice palace. It's a huge structure which is rebuilt every winter. This year's theme was cartoons and it was fascinating to see what can be done with ice. The palace also has about 20 bedrooms and a honeymoon suite and it seems that quite a few people sleep there (they do provide furs and sleeping bags...), despite the cold and the steep prices...

So that's that. We'll probably hang out with some of our new friends tonight and tomorrow will check out and drive to the airport to catch our 1pm flight. It's definitely been a unique and lovely vacation!

Lapland - Day 4 (March 6)

2011-03-06T10:12:00.005-05:00

Another beautiful sunny day. We started at 8:30 towards the husky farm. After a short lesson we were on our way. One person sits in the sleigh, the other stands on the runners and tries to control the huskies. The only real control is a brake you step on when you feel they are running too fast. They decide if to obey or not... It's really quite exhilirating especially as the way was beautiful and the ice glittered in the sun. But it was quite cold - around -7 (Celsius) and both driver and passenger slowly felt their extremities freezing.

Midway (after about 40 minutes) we were told to switch places and I got into the sleigh and Keren onto the runners. After a sharp turn I saw one of the Finns running towards us and disentangling the dogs and then he told me I had to drive. I was a bit puzzled and even more puzzled and surprised when I saw Keren walking towards me. Turns out she fell off and I did not even notice. Seems her punishment was to be banished to being passenger again.

After hot berry juice and a most welcome fire in a kuta along with explanations about the huskies, we went out to pet and photograph them and then on to the reindeer farm. That was rather pathetic - a few ragged reindeer drawing sleighs around in a circle - similar to children's pony rides. We skipped that but got our reindeer driving licenses nonetheless.

Excellent mushroom soup for lunch and on to the arktikum which is a very beautiful local museum dealing with the local flora and fauna and indigenous people.

A gala dinner tonight - again with the ambassador...

P.S. The gala was terrible - the worst meal by far! The ambassador told a couple of good stories but we did not like him nonetheless. Then we tried to see the aurora borealis but no luck. Some people are still going to try and walk to a dark spot and wait for it there but we are too cold and sleepy.

P.P.S I forgot we also went to Santa's village today. As expected - a tourist trap but a good place to send postcards from.

Lapland - Day 3 (March 5)

2011-03-05T08:18:00.003-05:00

Had a lovely trip towards the town called Kuusemmo (!). We stopped before we got there and walked down the hill for about 20 minutes until we were just below the frozen falls. Some of us clambered about 30 meters up to their base and then slid down on our butts - was great fun and the arctic clothes proved their worth again.

Then back to town and went out for lunch and now a free afternoon while the doctors are sloggin away...

Lapland Day 2 (March 4)

2011-03-04T11:41:00.005-05:00

We woke up to another beautiful sunny day with very little wind - perfect for driving snow mobiles! (and it did get a bit chilly occasionally).

We started out driving for a while on the frozen river (which had quite a few signposts, separate traffic lanes etc - not your standard river!), and then through the woods. It's all very peaceful - not an animal or bird to be seen - I guess they are all hibernating or have migrated to warmer places. Driving is quite easy and you get the hang or it after 5 minutes. Nonetheless it is more strenuous than I expected and quite a workout for the arms and hands. We took turns driving and when it was very bumpy the passenger also got a workout by hanging on for dear life.

We stopped on a lake and tried our hands at ice fishing. Drilling the holes was fun, but the fish did not cooperate. Nonetheless we had an excellent salmon-potato soup in an "authentic" Kuta (log cabin) served by a girl in peasant clothes.

Then we drove back and arrived around 5 to the hotel. Fun as it was, 5 hours on a snowmobile are quite tiring and everybody seemd happy to get back.

Dinner in a few minutes - the Israeli ambassador is coming for a shabbat dinner with us. Yay!

Tomorrow we split up - Keren is going skiing and I am going on a hike to frozen falls. The poor pediatricians will have some talks in the afternoon...

Lapland - March 2011

2011-03-03T11:08:00.005-05:00

This trip is different - I am on a trip to Lapland with my friend Keren. Keren is a pediatrician and this trip is in the guise of a pediatric dermatology conference - about 5% medicine and 95% fun but who complains.

We left Israel very early and landed in Rovaniemi, Finland at noon. All the passengers on the plane were Israelis (except for 2 Finns who came to see soccer matches - apparently the Finns were playing against Israel and the Ukraines). There are 5 groups traveling in parallel - 2 groups of doctors, a photography school and a couple of other groups.

It's a very nice & sunny day here today - the temps. are just above freezing but the winds are gusty and that of course makes things colder.

The first order of business was being outfitted in the "Arctic Center" - boots and socks, an overall, scarves, hats... A bit bulky but very comfortable. The overalls have zippers all along the legs so that one can change in & out without removing the boots which is very handy. And of course one needs to shed as much of the overall as possible whenever one enters the bus or a building.

After lunch we went for a lovely walk in the woods, crossed a bridge over a partially frozen river and arrived at a small hut where we got some warm berry juice and heard a story by a small campfire.

It will be an early night tonight to catch up on sleep and get ready for a day of snowmobile driving tomorrow!

Finland has an extensive network of webcams. http://www.rovaniemi.fi/layouts/rovaniemi/includes/360/lordi-aukio.asp?sek=10 has a view of the Lordi square which is about 200m away from our hotel!

More photos on https://picasaweb.google.com/ednawig/LaplandMarch2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCOnD-7j0wdDttgE#

Egypt - February 2

2011-02-04T11:48:00.003-05:00

We left at Hurghada at 7:30am and arrived in Cairo airport around 4:30pm. The extra 2-3 hours in the middle were taken up by a minor crisis. The bus (different one from yesterday's) broke down and had to be taken to a garage, and then we had to switch to another bus - something which would have taken a lot longer if we didn't find an empty bus at the lot where we waited for the replacement. Danny filled up the waiting period by telling us about the Cairo Geniza (had to finish the story on the bus).

The whole drive is along the Red Sea, towards the Suez canal - beautiful sea and a continuous stream of new touristic developments - tens of thousands of living units - all of which seemed empty.

Only after arriving at the airport did we hear from Danny that the embassy had forbidden us to go on this road, something which seems like an exaggerated reaction to a warning by the Israeli Foreign Ministry about dangers on this road (perhaps they thought we'll go through the town of Suez, in which there apparently were riots). Their suggestion was that we fly individually to Europe on various flights out of Hurghada - Danny refused. This is just one of the many decisions Danny and Rami had to take - they were responsible for the lives and well being of 30 people - a huge responsibility!

The airport was busy but not insane. The funny thing is that flights to Israel do not depart out of the new terminal from which the flights to Europe and North America depart. So we were in a terminal full of people on their way to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan... But everybody was calm and peaceful and despite a 3-hour delay we all felt calm and rather sad that this adventure is coming to its end (ok - also greatly relieved...). We had a few last conversations with our new friends and then the normal airport routine: security checks (the El-Al checker told us that it seems her Cairo apartment was looted - she had not been back there since being evacuated a few days earlier), check-in, a bus to the plane, boarding... And then we were back in Israel, dodged a few cameras and reporters, met Moshik and went home, exhausted but happy. We definitely plan to go back and wish this new phase in Egypt's long history is successful!

Egypt - February 1

2011-02-04T11:39:00.003-05:00

The short summary of this day is a short drive of about 4 hours from Luxor to Hurghada - a beach town on the Red Sea, just across from Sharm-al-Sheikh. The bus broke down in the middle, but was finally fixed by our driver. It was great to see the water. The town looked a lot like Sharm - tons of hotels and developments, but actually several times larger. What was disappointing were the beaches - no sand at all.

A few of us found a cafe by the water, had calamari etc. The waiter had no idea which country has Lebanon and Syria to its north, Jordan to its East and Egypt to its south. When told it was Israel, he explained that he learned in school we want to rule from the Euphrates to the Nile. Danny gave him a long lecture about the lies they were fed, complete with a bonus about the need for birth control in Egypt. The guy was so happy he requested a night class from Danny and they continued in a cafe after dinner. This was the worst hotel we got, but given that it was last minute (almost) no one complained.

After desperately searching for t-shirts and finding them all too ugly to buy, some food shopping for the next day (rumor had it that Cairo airport had no food left in its restaurants), many in the group ended up dancing in the hotel's nightclub. One of the worst singers ever, but a lot of fun nonetheless!

Egypt - January 31

2011-02-04T11:28:00.003-05:00

This was the most suspenseful and intimidating day. The riots continued, and no one knew how bad it will get, and where. First, our leaders decided to continue as planned and go south to Aswan. On the way they checked the airport (was still closed) and the train station (train traffic still on hold), and as we turned south, the embassy decided we should stay in Luxor, and try to make our way to Cairo, together with the other Israeli group in Luxor. We passed the time waiting at the hotel, going to lunch and then the highlight of the day - sailing on the Nile, aboard a Faluka - sail boat - on which the mood finally improved with the sailors' Darbuka, singing and Riki and Yossi dancing. (We also tried going to the Luxor Museum and the Mummification Museum - all closed and guarded by many soldiers.)

As an example of the pressures Danny and Rami had to deal with - at 11pm they got a call from the embassy (or foreign ministry) that through some Egyptian travel agent there will be a flight to Cairo. They were given the following demands by the agent: $300 per person, all or nothing (this includes our 30 travelers and the other group's 30 travelers), and... decide in 15 min. They of course, had to reject. This turned out to be an attempt by the embassy to get us out - we'll never know if their leg was pulled by some opportunistic Egyptian who had no plane to offer, or we could have spent a night in Luxor airport, fly and then spend another 36 hours in Cairo airport with hordes of others. Our leaders decided to go to Cairo by bus. As the direct road to Cairo was blocked, they got army & police permission to go indirectly - first to Hurghada, and from there to Cairo.

As we had already checked out from the hotel, we were moved to a much nicer hotel in Luxor. There was no curfew that night in Luxor, so people took walks along the Nile, went to the market and hired carriages. Was very relaxed and enjoyable despite everything. The worst part was the knowledge that everybody is so worried about us while we are having a wonderful time...

Egypt - January 30

2011-02-04T11:18:00.003-05:00

Karnak (meaning "windows") is grand. Of all we saw in three hours I will only mention the, yes, amazing column gallery. 144 of them, beautiful and round, 20 meters high, each from about 10 stones weighing many tons each, all supporting a ceiling with similarly weighted blocks. I'll also mention the relevance to the history of Israel (which we saw in other places) from several carvings of conquests of it by Seti I, Ramses II and Shishaq, which is mentioned in the Bible. The names of the conquered towns (in particular those in Israel) all appear in hieroglyphics on the walls.

The group's bus dropped us off in the hotel, we said goodbye to everyone, and went to check out and go to the airport. Then we learned from Ahmed, Ayala's Egyptian representative, and various other sources, slowly over a couple of hours, that all of EgyptAir's flights were canceled, that the Luxor airport is closed and that we are stuck here.

After treating ourselves to lunch in the hotel, we set off along the Nile to the other large temple, Luxor temple, which is a 10 minute walk from the hotel. As our guide and group were visiting Tutankhamun's grave, we had to make do with Yuval's guidance. After three days of carefully listening (and remembering) Danny's lectures, he got quite good at reading hieroglyphics, recognizing gods, kings, and classical wall reliefs. So we know a lot about this temple too, and we'll see if we have to revise this knowledge when we meet Danny this evening.

We went to the mall to get some water at the small mini-market there. Adjacent to the hotel is the local government headquarters and the mall immediately after it. So the shopkeeper starts talking to us (he recognized us as Israelis) - all within earshot of the soldiers next door. It was amazing. He described how fed up people are with the corruption, both at the State level and locally. For example he complained about the sugar prices rising immensely while the government did not raise the price they give him for the sugar cane he grows. And about the fact that the price of gas rose by about a factor of 10 due to a short supply and asked why does Egypt continue selling gas to Israel if there is a shortage. Locally, he complained about Saudis and such buying up property in Luxor with the blessing of the government. People are forced to sell their properties at very low prices if they do not want to get into trouble with the officials who were bribed. And then he gave us the most amazing piece of gossip - he claimed that Gamal Mubarak is hiding in Israel! This whole experience was fascinating if bizarre and we sure hope he does not get into trouble talking like this next to the soldiers. We parted with the mutual hope that he will get to Jerusalem to pray there. A lovely man!

Egypt - January 29

2011-02-04T11:02:00.005-05:00

Arrived at 5am, on time, to Luxor. Looked quiet. Took the bus to the hotel, beautiful on the East bank of the Nile. Left before 6am to our daily work. Danny was as energetic as any day, as if he didn't sleep only 2 hours on the train, and people followed. I apologize, but it was amazing! We crossed the Nile to the west side and started with the temple of Memnon. The only two structures already dug-out are the two enormous statutes of Memnon, son of Aurora.

From there, we went to queen Hatchepsut's (a female Pharaoh!) tomb. In general, we found that architecture here predated lots of ideas that we saw all over the world, but this was so modern, so elegant, so nature-respecting that it takes your breath away. Of course, then you find out there is much more to it. There is a grand staircase leading up to three stories, with 2 galleries each, all in perfect alignment with the base of the mountain. Each gallery describes different parts of her life in beautiful art, again in wall reliefs. Danny was extra thorough as usual, touring each and every gallery, telling us about her remarkable life, being the only woman-king, and how Thutmose III, her step brother, cousin, nephew,...(through a remarkable complex of inter-marriages) tried to completely erase her memory, physically, from history.(e.g. most of her engravings are "erased" by chisel).

Then to a well deserved lunch and rest, where a TV was showing the riots in Cairo, such a contrast to our experience here. From there to Ramose's grave. He was the prime minister of Achnaton (Thutmose IV) who is unique for formally establishing the first monotheistic religion documented - worshiping only the sun-god Aton. Thus the life-story of Ramose (grave-temples are built throughout a man's life) depicts classical scenes from the time, with all gods involved, and suddenly it switches to sole depictions of Aton and his sun disk and sun-ray beam. We could not take pictures there...

Final adventure - the bridge back to the East bank was closed by the police, so we took a small boat across the Nile. It is so beautiful and picturesque and calm on the water.

Back to the hotel for another switch in this schizophrenic trip. From the balcony of our hotel room, besides the Nile, we observe the local police preparing for the evening riots, complete with shields, tear-gas guns and water hoses. Our hotel borders the mayor's office so they cordoned off the street from both sides, and declared curfew at 6pm. We didn't see much action, but other group mates claimed to have seen one dead and one wounded on the street. We definitely heard gun shots late at night.

All this, the news from home, and our travel agent's fast action got us a reservation on tomorrow's flights Luxor-Cairo-Tel Aviv. With a heavy heart, we decided to separate from the group and return home. As all flights were for the evening, we decided to still join the group in the morning to Karnak temple.

Egypt - January 28

2011-02-04T10:45:00.006-05:00

Breakfast news was that we are staying in the hotel. Riots continued in Cairo and elsewhere, people died, and the tourist police is worried. Given that our plan today was central Cairo, that made perfect sense. However at 11am Danny convinced them to let us go to Memphis, and see more pyramids.

While not as impressive as the Giza pyramids, the two we visited were really interesting. Both belong to the same Pharaoh - Seneferu - father of Hufu. He first built the "crooked pyramid", in which the angle up changed midway, didn't like it and built the "Red pyramid", which is called so for no obvious reason. We climbed inside to the burial chamber, which is hidden behind two false burial chambers - these kings were well aware of tomb-looting and devised childish ideas to prevent them, like false doors etc. Nothing worked, and all of them were robbed (well, except for King Tut's, where the robbers were caught red-handed). The soldiers guarding these pyramids were very bored and glad to kid around with us, being photographed and very happy for any baksheesh we gave them.

Then we went to Memphis itself, to a museum which collected tons of sculptures. The most impressive is an absolutely huge one of Ramses II (later we found out there is a much bigger one, which weighs 1100 tons!). Others include another sphinx, the goddess Chatchor (looks like a cow, and has several portfolios including protecting Egypt's borders, music, orgasms and more) and others. Then another hour in traffic to go to lunch at 5PM - this is a good place to say how amazing our group is. Most people are older, quite a few in their 70s and even 80s, and they accept hours on end of heat, no toilets, standing, and listening to the elaborate lectures of Danny without a complaint - quite a feat!

As we were finishing the meal, around 6pm, we got the news of the curfew at 7pm, rushed to the bus and headed to the train station, bypassing various blocked roads and seeing people obviously converging to a demonstration. But we made it, waited like refugees in the station, boarded the train, which left and arrived on time. It was a nice experience overall - clean, organized, 2-person cabins with bunk beds and clean sheets. Not that we slept much - talked late about the "situation", then the rattle kept us awake, and then they woke us up for breakfast at 4am.

Egypt - January 27

2011-02-04T10:01:00.007-05:00

On Thursday morning we woke up to the hotel phone ring which woke everyone up at 5:30, so we can be early enough (7:30am) in line for the Hufu Pyramid, 1Km from the hotel.
There is no individual responsibility on this trip, perhaps logical in a group of 32,
though people in our group seem well traveled and organized. Anyway, we did make it on time to that particular ticket line - they only sell 150 tickets each morning.

We had a funny incident in the ticket line: Einat & Yuval's student cards were "of the wrong kind" and ineligible for the 50 pound discount (a regular ticket costs 100 pounds). But the cashier gave them student tickets nonetheless, and 50 pounds change accompanied with a huge wink and smirk when Avi handed him 400 pounds - we cheated the government together and split the difference. So this is our first step down the slippery slope of the criminal's life in Egypt...

It is very hard to describe the effect of the pyramids. When you stand next to them, they don't look as big as they are supposed to. When you compare them to anything nearby (eg a person) you get a better sense, but it is still misleading. The two things which seem to give a better perspective are looking at them from a distance - they don't seem to get smaller, and dominate the view. The other thing was climbing into one, as we did in Hufu's, the largest pyramid, built some 4600 years ago. In some pyramids the burial place is underground, in some at ground level, and in some, Like Hufu's up in the middle of it. So you climb a long (about 100 meters), narrow, dark and rather airless path inside this huge structure, realize that it is not hollow, but full of "bricks", each about 2.5 tons, with over 2.3 millions of them. You further see much better than from the outside the extreme precision of how they are laid next and above each other. I'd say it was awesome, but as the day progressed I realized that I should use this word cautiously - I'll need it again and again.

After viewing the 3 great Giza pyramids (and the many small ones, there are about 100 in this area) from various directions we went to see the solar boat. No, it is not solar-powered, but rather the boat which is supposed to carry the dead Pharaoh when he resurrects in the underground river, similar to the way mythology explains how the sun, after setting in the West, moves at night in that underground river back to the East. This huge and really beautiful boat was reconstructed recently from a kit left there 4.5 millenia ago which contained the complete materials and complete instructions - IKEA style.

The sphinx... Another amazing view. There seems to be a plan to restore its nose (which was used as target practice by Ottoman artillery) - we debated the pros and cons of this plan - no resolution, but as nobody asked us that's ok.

We stopped for lunch at a very touristy place, so some of us opted out and lunched on fresh pitas we bought from the pita bakers - delicious!

Then to the Sakkara - burial Mastabas (the precursors of pyramids) of priests and noblemen.
You go into one and immediately feel amazement at the quality of art created so long ago, at the remarkable level of preservation, as well as sorrow knowing that it will all deteriorate
very soon as there are no efforts made at all to protect and preserve it. The art is wall reliefs with remarkable detail and beauty, depicting mainly the wealth of the dead person, decorated with all kinds of fish, birds and land animals, and scenes from daily life, like milking and sacrificing cows, force-feeding geese, etc. It was all in color too, with some paint remaining. And they cram hordes of tourists into these tiny rooms which, even if they control their natural tendency to touch these reliefs are forced to lean or brush them when pushed by other tourists. What a shame.

Finally, we went to see the tomb of Josser, from around 2800 BC. He had an architect who
invented so many things we are used to call by other names. The pyramids started with him (accidentally, building one mastaba on top of another, nicknamed the "steps pyramid"),
Greek columns (Ionic and Doric) have started here, where his columns represented a bunch of reeds tied together. And probably more things I forgot. Very impressive!

Back to the hotel buffet - nothing to write home about. (There was a tourist trap stop on the way in a gift store - we are afraid the cut the local guide and driver got from this stop was nil - everybody was tired and not interested in shopping at all.) Then a lecture by Danny on the history of Egypt, fascinating in detail and very long - some people (like us) started losing him and fading away.

Egypt Trip - Introduction

2011-02-04T09:38:00.005-05:00

We decided a few months ago that we really have to go to Egypt during this Sabbatical in Tel-Aviv. We were hoping to find an arrangement similar to those we had in India and China - hook up with a local company and hire a car, driver and guide. We asked around and found no good recommendations, but our friend Rami recommended Ayala Tours. In particular he thought that the tour guided by Dan Bahat (Jan.26 to Feb.2, 2011) is sure to be excellent, and we (Avi, Edna, Einat & Yuval) signed up. Rami surprised us a few days later by announcing he also signed up as an assistant guide.

A few words about Dan: he was the former City Archaeologist of Jerusalem and currently teaches in Toronto. He is extremely knowledgeable, reads hieroglyphics as if they were his mother's tongue and is fluent in Arabic. His huge repertoire of (dirty) jokes in Arabic is a sure way of diffusing any unpleasant situation. And his mustache is unforgettable! See it at http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%9F_%D7%91%D7%94%D7%98

And then the demonstrations started in Tunisia... and spread quickly to other Middle-Eastern countries and in particular to Egypt. Tuesday, Jan.25 was the Day of Wrath in Cairo with huge, mostly peaceful demonstrations, and we started wondering...

On the 26th we were notified by Ayala Tours that despite the riots in Cairo we are proceeding according to plan ("things are expected to calm down"). So we took a cab to the airport, met the group, flew to Cairo, were picked up at the airport and transferred to the hotel.

We (obviously) have many many more photos of the trip. They are all on Picasa

December 30-31

2009-12-31T09:58:00.005-05:00

We skipped the morning homework session on Wednesday and went to Irith's directly after breakfast. She lives in a very nice neighborhood - the people are clearly well-off but it's not as ritzy as the area by the hotel. Most of the buildings are smallish apartment houses, and we saw quite a few women in western clothes. We went to a nice Italian place for lunch and then did some shopping. We continued to the conference center and heard a very interesting talk about the role of tempreature and pressure gradients in the formation of the continents and in the formation of life.

After saying goodbye to Irith, we went with Jaikumar to a Chinese-Thai restaurant (his family had left already in the morning). The food was surprisingly good but the experience was quite bizarre - the restaurant was completely empty, decorated in a very garish fashion and there were about a dozen south-east Asian waiters with very poor English hovering over us.

We packed most of our stuff last night, and left the hotel after breakfast today. The flight to Mumbai left on time, so we arrived at the International terminal at Mumbai around 1pm, for a midnight flight to the US... We are used to sitting around by now, so we did. Now we are all checked in and sitting in the business lounge (those Continental Gold Elite cards are useful!). Seems the plane will be at least 20 minutes late - let's hope that not much more than that!

Photos

2009-12-29T21:43:00.002-05:00

I was hoping to add photos to the blog, but the connection is very slow. So - all the photos are in http://picasaweb.google.com/ednawig (5 albums, title "India 2009 - Album 1" through "India 2009 - Album 5".

December 28-29

2009-12-29T13:16:00.002-05:00

Both days were spent similarly: breakfast at 9, homework until around 12 and then we went shopping. On Monday we met Irith on Commercial Street and shopped there and on Tuesday we went to MG Street. We got quite a few things, enjoyed the tuk-tuk rides and managed to shoo away all the people who tried to sell us many different things on street corners.

On Monday we went to hear David Gross at the conference - he talked about the role of theory in research. Tuesday there was a concert of Indian music by a famous vocalist. This is not very easy to listen to for a long period of time so we bailed out after 1.5 hours.

Both nights there were banquets at the hotel - the food wasn't bad and it was nice to talk to different people.

Tomorrow we are going to Irith's place - will be interesting to see how they live. And then it is time for goodbyes - all good things have to come to an end...

December 27

2009-12-28T00:04:00.003-05:00

The rest of the day was very leisurely and we enjoyed the luxury and lack of dust. Irith arrived around 1pm and it was great to catch up - we have not met in many years, although we more or less kept up on major news via email and such. They have been living here for 1.5 years already and will probably stay for at least one more year.

After lunch we had a short stroll in the hotel's neighborhood which is very affluent - lots of beautiful villas, no cows or cow dung on the streets and no beggars either (but there were about 15 tuc-tuc drivers who were trying to offer us their services and were hard to shake off).

Avi had a whole team of fans for the talk - Sumana and the children, Irith and ourselves but the talk was very well received by others as well. I have heard Avi give many talks, but I have never seen such an engaged audience - the questions (some of them rather aggressive, but in a friendly way) kept coming until Jaikumar had to forcibly announce that no more questions will be taken (and then agreed to one more as the person was so insistent he has to ask it...).

It had started to pour during that time (rather late in the season and quite surprising). So we went to the hotel and ate there again - I cannot remember ever eating 3 consecutive meals in a hotel!

Was wonderful to sleep in nice soft and clean beds. Would have been perfect if we could figure out how to turn off the light over our bed. This room has about 20 light switches, none of which controls this light. I think we'll have to call for help tonight - how embarrassing...

December 26-27

2009-12-27T01:04:00.002-05:00

We got into our 2 cars (the children had become very close to Na'ama
by then and wanted to join her on the drive). We started off at Aihole
which is an architectural lab - a site with
temples of many different styles. We drove on to Badami (Ritvik
developed some kind of stomach flu as we were driving so we had a few
vomiting stops). It was around 3:30pm and we had not eaten lunch yet.
This turned out to be quite a task - the first hotel we tried refused to
take us for some reason, the second restaurant was very crowded so we
could not fit in and then Jaikumar found a very strange place - an empty
large hall which apparently is a banquet hall and they managed to serve
us some mediocre food in some very dirty dishes. So far we had no ill
effects.

We were very tired and felt we had seen enough temples but as we had
time before having to go to the train station we stopped at the Badami
temples (Sumana stayed with Ritvik in the car as Ritvik was feeling very
badly). We walked listlessly up, turned a corner - and were amazed -
caves dug out of an almost sheer brown-pink rock. These were very old
caves with the most exquisite carvings - amazing what they could do 1500
years ago. The place was very crowded and seeing all the colorful saris
on the background of the rock was amazing. As in any other site there
were dozens of school groups there - all the students in their school
uniforms and all very excited to see us (apparently many of them live in
villages and don't see too many foreigners).

We drove to the train station, released the drivers and boarded the
train (it was late but that is to be expected). The berths are quite
comfortable and we all slept reasonably well. Now we are almost in
Bangalore, and will be very happy to arrive at the hotel and take long
hot showers...

A few hours later... we feel much cleaner after those showers and a very nice breakfast with lots of Western food. Indian food is great, but after a week of hardly any Western food, the change is nice.

Turns out that the conference reserved 2 rooms for us in the hotel for the rest of our stay. So we decided to stay here rather than move again to Irith & Alan's. Irith will come over here soon and later we will all go to hear Avi's talk. One of the plenary speakers had to cancel due to illness and Avi is the emergency replacement. Jaikumar was tasked with getting Avi to Bangalore (dead or alive?) and it seems everybody is very relieved that he arrived safely...

December 25

2009-12-27T00:58:00.003-05:00

All 8 of us piled into our 6-passenger van and drove the 4 km from the
hotel to Hampi (this is nothing - we had seen close to 30 people pile
into a pickup or 10 people in a tuk-tuk). The first temple we saw was
nice but we had seen so many we were not too impressed (and the guide
was very mediocre). Then we went to admire the elephant who was washing
himself in the river and was very picturesque - big rocks in the water,
people bathing and washing their clothes and beautiful views. Next we
walked over to some ruined temples and started becoming amazed and it
only got better from then on. The valley opened up to reveal amazing
views and some wonderful boulders (we saw no climbers although Eyal says
this is a well known climbing site). We went down to a site which is
very reminiscent of King Loui's temple in the Jungle Book. There used to
be a bazaar there in olden times and it was easy to imagine the whole
area bustling and full of life. We walked back to the gat by the river
and hired a "boat" - a round basket made out of reeds with a tarred
bottom - basically a large saucer. We were rowed slowly down the river -
more ruined temples and beautiful boulders. Then some more archeology
and a walk back along the river to our starting point.

Jaikumar knew of a nice restaurant called the Mango Tree. It was a bit
of a walk and we were wondering if it's worth it as it was hot and there were so many
other restaurants closer by, but we were wrong. It's a most beautiful
setting - terraces on the side of a hill with built-in stone tables, all
facing the river, and shaded by large trees - mango and others. The food
was delicious (a special Christmas tali!). We called Einat from there
and she said she had also eaten there and has a photo of herself on a
huge swing. The swing must have shrunk since then - it is small
and very high up with a few dolls sitting on it - clearly not intended
for humans any more.

We got back to the hotel around 5 and decided to skip the other ruins
and have another leisurely evening.

December 24

2009-12-27T00:56:00.001-05:00

We found a very miserable Na'ama in the morning - she had thrown up at
night and was feeling very sick and weak. So we had to partake of the
lovely breakfast without her.

The first part of the drive was very slow - terrible traffic jams, and a
couple of stops for Na'ama to throw up. Once we left Bangalore the
highway became much better and we made good speed for 200 km. Then the
highway got bad again and Yuval got car sick so we had a couple more
throwing-up stops.

We met Jaikumar, Sumana, Samhita and Rikvik at Kamalpur and it was
great to see them again. The last time we saw the twins they did not
talk English but now their English is fluent and they are the nicest 9
year olds. They were a bit shy at first, but Rikvik overcame that
immediately and Samhita did too after a while. This was the first
evening we had to relax and we spent it talking, playing games, riding
bikes and shopping at Hampi Bazaar. The hotel was very simple and the
beds rather hard - felt a bit like the Beduin hut in the Sinai. We
decided we'd rather not spend 3 nights there, so Jaikumar spent hours on
a very slow Internet connection and managed to get us all train tickets
to Bangalore on the 26th.

December 23

2009-12-23T14:34:00.002-05:00

Dec 23: Madurai

We started at 8am. Our guide Mahesh was waiting for us - very different from previous guides, quiet and non-imposing. Besides guiding he runs the Aathma Foundation, a voluntary organization working to educate people in villages.

Our first stop was the Meenakshi Temple (excellent websites exists including some virtual tours) . As usual, it is a Siva temple, but while in all other Siva temple there would be a smaller temple for his wife Parvati, here Parvati is the main object of worship. If you are confused, Meenakshi is one of the many names of Parvati. We have seen by now many temples, many of them extremely impressive in size, beauty and detail, but this one tops them all. Beyond all the aspects mentioned, the activity in this temple is amazing - hordes of pilgrims queue up to go to the sanctum sanatorium to give offerings to the gods and get ashes to put on their foreheads. The halls are huge, with thousands of delicately sculptured columns supporting them. On the floors groups of visitors sit, eat, talk. A trained elephant (which we saw in other temples too) would perform the usual trick of picking a 10 Rupee note from anyone with his trunk, and then "bless" the giver by putting the trunk on their head (naturally the kids did it). Hundreds of elephants could easily fit between the columns and would not be noticed - it is that big. The pagodas at the gates are huge with numerous god and other sculptures, beautifully painted.

Next was the Nayak palace. It is really a recreation by the British of an older, destroyed palace. It has a huge dancing hall, and was a good starter for our next attraction, the Ghandi museum, dedicated mainly to the history of the occupation of India by the British, the resistance movement before and during Ghandi's time, and the eventual retreat and independence. We learned a lot there, and need to read more about it.

We finished the morning with the flower market, where you tread in mud between stalls of marigolds, jasmine and other flowers, sold in bulk to sellers. Flower sellers are numerous around temples as they serve as prime offerings to gods (with coconuts and bananas), as well as decorations for women's hair.

Still with our guide we went to a south indian restaurant and again had a Tali. This time we used utensils and not our hands. It was extremely tasty, some quite hot. BTW, Yuval is trying everything and eating quite a bit of stuff he wouldn't touch before - we are impressed! The highlight (which Avi liked and others hated) was a coconut leaf stuffed with coconut and sugar - a combination of sweet, sour and bitter tastes which is supposed to be good for digestion.

We then released the guide, and Ramu took us to the airport. He drove us for a week, and we were extremely impressed with his driving. He was not quite as reckless as some other drivers we had in the past, and probably better than all. The 7 hours of wait in the airport are coming to a close, and we'll soon board the flight to Bangalore.

P.S. we arrived safely in Bangalore, were picked up as planned and are staying in the lovely Le Meridien. Have to get up in less than 6 hours and drive to Hempi - that is expected to take 7 hours... Good night!

December 22

2009-12-22T12:21:00.002-05:00

Prahladh and the driver picked us up around 8 and we went to see the Rock Fort - had to climb a few hundred steps to visit a Shiva temple and a ganesh temple. The views from the top were beautiful, and we were very interested to hear how Prahladh's father fixed the broken bell without breaking the bell tower. He had to resort to building a furnace inside the tower.

Next we visited the Lourdes Church on the St. Joseph campus. The church looks a bit like a temple... We also stopped on the way and bought a few trinkets in a souvenir store.

The highlight of the day was lunch at Prahladh's house. His mother prepared an excellent feast and we all had a lovely time and were sorry to leave, but tourism duty calls and we went to see Trichy's most famous site - the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Ranganathaswamy_Temple_(Srirangam). It had started to drizzle by then so we all wore our rain ponchos and walked barefoot in the mud - was quite fun. This is the first temple where we as non-hindus were barred from quite a few rooms so we did not get our share of ashes and dots.

The rain was getting worse so we left at 4:30, dropped Prahladh off at his parents and continued to Madurai. We were quite sad to say goodbye to Prahladh - he was great to be with and a most gracious host.

The way to Madurai is surprisingly modern - an almost continuous 4-lane highway. Of course you still get all the different wheeled- and foot-traffic and the occasional car which insists on going against the traffic but we made good time despite the rain and arrived at the hotel before 9pm. This hotel is much nice than the one in Trichy (and cheaper too), but the dinner was awful and expensive - you cannot win them all.

A guide will meet us tomorrow and show us the Madurai sties,. In teh evening we will fly to Banglaore, spend the night there and then drive on Thursday to meet Jaikumar and family in Hampi. So it's time to go to bed!

December 21

2009-12-22T12:16:00.002-05:00

We started off at 9:30 and went to Prahladh's. His parents are also charming and we
sat there a bit before setting off to Thanjavur. A friend of Prahladh's father
joined us for the day. We started at the Brihadishwara temple which is almost
identical to the one we saw the previous day, but much more active and bustling with
tourists and pilgrims. We hired a guide who was extremely amusing. He told us of the
wonders of the digit 9, and tried to impress us (unsuccessfully) with some very silly
arithmetic magic - he was much impressed by the contra-trick Yuval showed him. We
did the rounds of the deities, admired the sculptures and talked to some pilgrims -
the guide almost undressed a very cute young man to show us all the pilgrim stuff he
was carrying - rosaries and bells on strings under his shirt. We broke for lunch and
decided we ate at enough hotels so Prahladh took us to a place where the lcoals eat
(and which of course costs less than a 1/0 of what we paid at the other places).
This was very nice - we ate off banana leaves using our hands and it was delicious.
No ill effects so far so we will try and repeat this. After lunch we went to see a
crafts bazarre which was pathetic and did not satisfy our consumerism and then to
the Royal Museum. It houses some amazing sculptures of Shiva, Vishna, Parvati etc.
which date back to the 11th century and later. It was a bit worrying to see all the
sculptures there completely unprotected and everybody able to touch them. We also
climbed the bell tower to enjoy the views and see the skeleton of a whale which
washed out to the shore 400 years ago. The sign said it belongs to the "particular
class of whale-bone whales!". Next we went to the Saraswati Mahal Libraries and
looked at the eclectic collection of books that the king had at the beginning of the
19th century.

We took a different way back and visited the ancient Kallanai dam and bridge over the Cauvery delta. Theway was much less busy than the highway and very beatiful - lots of trees and vegetation. We walked over the bridges and then continued to Prahladh's parent wherewe dropped Prahladh off and then to the hotel for dinner. It was nice that we got in a bit earlier today so we could have a nice relaxed evening.

December 20

2009-12-22T12:14:00.001-05:00

The day started with a visit to Gopoal, Jaikumar's cousin. He lives in a small
village and manages a large farm. We were not sure how to get to his house but that
turned out to be easy as there was a young man on a scooter who waited for us at a
crossroads and had us follow him - a live GPS (it seems that neither GPSs or Google
Maps work in India). Gopal took us for a tour of parts of his farms - rice paddies,
a nice summer house of his uncle's where we ate pomellas and drank cocnut water from
trees which grow around the property. Everything is very lush and beautiful and
Gopal was very nice and hospitable.

We stopped for lunch at a hotel which Gopal recommended (a nice buffet) and we
continued to the Airavatershwara Temple in Darasuram. We took a guide there but he
was not very good and did not amuse us much. This temple is inactive and is run by
the Indian Archeological Survey - they take amazing care of these sites which are
extremeley clean and well maintained.

Next we went to the Brihadishwara Temple in the village which has the short name of
Gangaikondacholapuram (literally - the town of the Chola king who took the Ganges).
This is an active temple, and there were quite a few Indian tourists there. The
structure is very impressive and it was fun walking around it and visiting the
different dogs. We had ashes smeared on our foreheads and a red dot applied to our
foreheads. The visit ended with a race along the nice lawn between Yuval and Na'ama
which Na'ama won and another race between Na'ama & Avi which Avi won.

The road to Trichi (or Tiruchirapalli) is most bizarre. Large parts of it are
supposed to be a 4 lane highway but the project seems to have been abandoned
mid-stream. So you drive for 5 km on a nice wide road - as usual there are many
lanes of traffic going in the same direction - bikes, tuk-tuks, cars, lorries, cows,
goats, people (the last 3 might be going in any direction or just standing in the
middle of the road), when suddenly everything ends and you jump over a very bumpy
unpaved stretch of 100m or so, after which all the traffic in the opposite direction
is suddenly added to the mix (with their share of cows etc.). So you crawl for 5
km, where the lanes separate again and so it continues. This is somehow even more
nerve wracking than the regular nervousness associated with driving in India, but
our driver Ramu is very skillful, so we skip a beat only every other minute.

The hotel is much more expensive than the previous one but hardly any better (the
water is slightly warmer but far from hot). We ate supper in the Hotel restaurant
and Prahladh went to his parents' house.

December 19

2009-12-20T12:30:00.004-05:00

The driver finally arrived, and we went to pick Prahladh up from his uncle's and continued south to Dakshina Chitra - a reconstructed village depicting the art and architecture of Tamil Nadhu. It was quite nice, and not too much of a tourist trap. Avi bought a scroll depicting the story of Ganesh and N'ama had henna applied to her left hand and arm.

The next stop was at Mahabalipuram which is a complex of temples of different styles. We took a local guide there who was very passionate but Praladh said he also made a lot of stuff up. The guy apparently finished 10 grades (in a Tamil school) and then taught himself Engish. It was not always easy to understand what he said but it was amusing nonetheless. The first temple was by the ocean - a bit worse for wear due to the proximity to the sea. Then we went to an area containing 5 pagodas and a few other structures - called 5 Brothers. And finally to another site whose main attraction was a huge wall intricately carved, which created the most amazing bas-relief.

We continued from there to a very nice hotel for a very late lunch. The setting was beautiful, the food mediocre but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

Our hotel was in Mayapuram which was quite a drive so we decided to skip the last temple on the itinerary. We drove and drove, bought some snacks so we don't have to stop for dinner and then around 9:30pm the drive stopped and said that we did arrive at that temple - Chidambaram. So we decided to look at it quickly and were very glad we did - it was just amazing and seeing it at night made it even better, especially when the gongs started tolling and people ran in for the last prayer.

We got to the hotel after 11 extremely tired. The hotel was not very nice but we were too exhausted to notice and even the cold showers did not matter at that point.

Avi's laptop seems to have a bad fan, so I will stop before describing today's events in fear it will melt down. Hopefully we can still turn it on tomorrow!

Getting there - dec. 16-18

2009-12-18T12:28:00.003-05:00

The trip over was long but uneventful. We left Newark around 8:30pm on the 16th, arrived in Mumbai on the 17th close to midnight, transferred to the domestic terminal and sat there waiting for the 6:25am flight on the 18th to Chennai. In truth, the whole thing took about 30 hours, rather than 72 but with the time changes it was quite impressive.

We were very impressed with:
- the Indian food on Continental
- the airports. 6 years ago the Mumbai airport was awful and now it was modern and clean and with friendly staff.

We all converged in the hotel around 10am, and Prahladh, our friend arrived as well.
Prahladh will travel with us in the next 5 days. His parents are from Madurai and Trichi, temple cities in the south that we'll eventually get to.
He made many plans already, so Edna and the kids had no time to rest, just quick showers.
Here are the highlights of this full day.

Kuchipudi dance school.
Kuchipudi is one of 6 Indian dance forms, which Prahladh is very seriously into. We went to his old school, where he studied during his undergrad days in IIT Chennai. We sat hypnotized (Yuval and Na'ama dozing at the same time) during a regular lesson. Hopefully the pictures and short video reveal some of this sense - here is a more professional clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEUFNSlxpKk

Then to lunch at K.V.'s. KV is a friend who is at CMI (Chnnai Math Institute) who helped organized our stay here.
On a short notice he cooked a delicious lunch for us at home. His wife, a poet, was at work, teaching poetry at IIT Chennai, but we got one of her books of poems as gift (this seems to be a trend - we are accumulating books as you'll see).

Then, to pick up the tix for the evening performances we were going to see. They were purchased by Prahlad's great aunt, a lady of about 85, and the visit to her house was an event on its own. She is a famous music scholar, as was her father- both taught and have written many books (we got one of each). She is also a famous veena player and teacher, and has a beautiful music room in the basement which is full of them. It was really interesting talking to her, and get a glimpse of Prahladh's illustrious family. One of her brothers, and another cousin, are both Nobel laurates in Physics!

Finally Edna and the kids got to rest a bit in the hotel, while Prahladh and I strolled the streets.

We left the hotel again at 6pm and went to a music concert - a woman singer, a drummer and a violonisit. It was a bi monotone so we kept dozing off. We spent the 1/2 hour until the dance performance in a sari shop - it was huge and full of customers (locals, not tourists) - Indian consumerism seems to be definitely on the rise!
It was funny to look at the 2 Santas the store had - they wore rather scary masks, but did the Santa thing of giving out candy, and the children did not seem scared. We were of course followed by a salesgirl who must have been disappointed with our meager purchases - a pair of leggings for Na'ama.

The dance performance was very interesting - and the most amazing part was the involvement of the dancer's face and in particular her eyes in the dance - they were most expressive. The dances had some mythological themes and there was a short explanation to each dance which was helpful.

We ended the evening at a nice buffet in a nearby hotel - lots of food and very tasty. Nobody had any trouble falling asleep after this long day.

We are now waiting for our driver who is late and stuck in traffic, then will pick Praladh up and start our trip south.

India trip - Getting ready...

2009-12-15T22:31:00.003-05:00

Avi left yesterday - he arrived in Delhi late in the evening, slept for a few hours and flew on to Lucknow from where he was driven to the conference in Kanpur.

Yuval and I picked Na'ama up at Newark and we all went to celebrate his birthday at the Fs - it was a surprise - he really did not expect any birthday festivities and was very happy.

Tomorrow Yuval will go to school, I will go to work and Na'ama will work on her essay here. We'll leave for the airport around 4:30. The flight is almost 15 hours and then we have quite a long time at the airport before we catch the 6:25am flight to Chenai. Avi will arrive there the previous evening.

The time difference is very confusing - 10.5 hours ahead of NY, 3.5 hours ahead of Israel, and 13.5 hours ahead of California. Oh well.

Beijing - last day

2009-10-14T22:48:00.008-04:00

This morning I went on a private tour of the Bird's Nest And the Water Cube. As usual I had a driver, a guide and a student to escort me and see I behave. The Olympic Village is not very interesting from inside - the Bird's Nest is just a stadium, the Water Cube just a bunch of swimming pools... So I asked if we could stop at a market to try and spend some money. They took me for a market frequented by students (close to a few universities) which was cute and I did manage to buy a couple of things.

From China2009

A few minutes after I came down to the Hotel Lobby to take a last look my student-escort ran up to me very upset as I had disappeared from my room and she wanted me to eat lunch. My excuse of not being hungry was no answer so we compromised on me going to the hotel restaurant with her. I did manage to leave there without eating - I think that when I told her Avi will be back just before we are to leave for the airport confused her enough she let me escape.

Avi arrived, we did grab a bite, said our farewells and wanted to get into the limo and go. That is when Amy realized that our oil portraits have not arrived yet and she would not let us go. The photographer was there too and kept talking on his phone to the courier and reassuring us that they will arrive "in 5 minutes". We finally put our foot down and the compromise was that the courier will chase us to the airport.

Our escort informed us a few minutes before arriving that the courier should arrive soon so we waited on the shoulder... the few minutes stretched to almost 10 at which point we insisted we cannot wait anymore. That was a good thing as they let us off at Terminal 2, told us to check in and they will join us soon, hopefully with the pictures. But it was the wrong terminal... Back into the limo, many excited cell conversations (all Chinese to us) and 10 minutes later we arrived at Terminal 3, ran in, checked-in our luggage, and........... the driver ran in with 3 huge bags - a portrait of Avi, a portrait of me, and a portrait of the two of us, all in heavy golden frames... Each was in its own bag but of course they could not be checked in so we hurried to the gate dangling the bags and wondering if they will fit in the security x-ray machine. Alas, they did. We got to the gate very late and thirsty, but had an uneventful flight, slept well, ate not very well, and finally got home with the pictures intact!

From China2009

Was great to see Yuval, and now it is time to plan the next trip (India in December).

From China2009

Beijing - Day 3

2009-10-14T22:27:00.007-04:00

From China2009

There were 5 of us on the tour - Ruth (accompanied by her wheelchair), MaryJo, Joan, Sylvia and myself. The ride to the Badaling section of the Great Wall took about an hour and a half, and when we arrived I realized this is the same section we climbed in 2001. And the same restrooms, with the same smell, the same store and I was afraid that it will be the same restaurant with a memorably bad lunch. We started climbing, and some of us stopped and turned around after a while. The weather and visibility were perfect, but it was terribly crowded as the opposite section (the harder one which we climbed last time) was closed due to a visit of some Leaders. (The procession of black-windowed black cars reminded Ruth & me of similar caravans in Jerusalem). Most of the tourists were Chinese, and in fact a few were so excited to see Westerners that they asked Sylvia & me to pose for photos.

From China2009

Finally we two also had to turn around so that Sylvia makes it down on time to transfer to the car which picked her up and drove her to the airport. The rest of us went back on the bus and went to a most amazing spa-hotel (http://www.commune.com.cn/en/) for lunch. The food was excellent and I was so relieved not to have to see the other place's food again.

From China2009

After that we continued to the Ming Tombs which were as I remembered them. By then our small group had formed tight connections and we spent the whole afternoon and evening giggling and joking - everybody was having a great time.

From China2009

From the Ming Tombs we went back to Beijing directly to The National Center for the Performing Arts, which is a most amazing building. The problem was that we arrived around 5:30 when it was still closed and we knew that the conference participants would not get there before 7 or so. They let us go in and sit in the private dining hall, and we understood that we will be served a fancy dinner before the performance (in fact they wanted us to eat immediately but we rebelled and said we will wait for the others). That was a bit puzzling as it was to start at 7:30 and the schedule seemed too tight. They did arrive around 7:10, we ate and were ushered into the performance hall a bit late. The performance was by the Stuttgart Ballet and very beautiful, as was the venue itself. But everybody was very tired and decided on another rebellion during the second break. This caused some confusion but finally the bus was summoned and we were all safely deposited back in the hotel.

From China2009

Beijing - Day 2

2009-10-12T18:31:00.005-04:00

First a follow-up to the photos - seems like the photographer is also an oil painter and everybody will be presented with an oil portrait based on the photos. Cannot wait!

The day started with pomp & circumstance at the opening ceremony - huge posters of all the speakers, they all got an orchid boutonniere for their jacket lapels (slight problem - Avi was wearing a polo shirt, no jacket so that looked even sillier on him), and were marched down to their seats to wild applause. Some dignitaries spoke in Chinese, some others in English and the poor translator had to keep it all straight.

From China2009

So Sylvia and I decided to go to the Pearl Market, and tiptoed out of the room. We were detained immediately by the students who were assigned to us and it took quite an effort to convince them that we are old enough to take a cab and that they should stop worrying. We agreed to a curfew of 1:15pm when we were to get on the bus for the tour of the Lama Temple, and were finally let go. Sylvia is certain we got them into trouble by not sticking to the plan.

The market was fun as always and we bought a few things. Got back to the hotel on time for a quick lunch and a summary of what we missed during the rest of the opening exercises and then went on the tour.

When we got there I realized I had visited the temple already, but it was nice nonetheless. Lots of Buddha statues in various sizes, poses and specialties (health, wisdom, finances etc.) living in pretty temples.

The evening festivities were a very long dinner with live entertainment - singing, dancing, taichi, sword dances etc. Did not make for good dinner conversation as we were very close to the stage... We went out with an Israeli postdoc after that to a nice part of town with bars and shops in a spruced up hutong. Was interesting to hear his perspective of living for 3 years in China.

Today the ladies are going to the wall and the Ming tombs. We'll meet the others at the Opera for dinner and a Chinese Opera performance - will probably be a better variation of last night's entertainment... oh well.

Beijing

2009-10-11T11:27:00.003-04:00

We had the funniest experience tonight. As expected, a student and a driver waited for us at the airport and delivered us to the hotel. The assistant manager deposited us in our room (very fancy & large), and then came back a few minutes later to take us to be photographed. We were slightly puzzled. Anyway - we were brought to a photography studio in the hotel and were told that our photos will be taken separately and also jointly. More puzzlement. The photographer, who spoke no English but was clearly a very artisitic type started out by throwing a fit at the fact that Avi was wearing a t-shirt and not a jacket. But after he understood that that is all Avi has, he started seeing the potential in his unusual face and in his clowning around. So he took something like a 100 shots (seriously) of Avi in all kinds of poses ranging from Rodin's The Thinker to Avi making silly faces. It was completely hilarious. Then I had a session too (only 30 photos or so, with my glasses at an angle and holding them in my hand in a pensive pose), and finally he positioned us in all kinds of loving embraces. He promised to give us copies tomorrow and we ended the evening with his assistant taking photos of all 3 of us together. We had to sign releases allowing him to use our photos and I bet Avi's will be centrally positioned in his advertising.

Hong Kong - Day 2

2009-10-11T03:52:00.005-04:00

Andrej suggested we go visit the Big Buddha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_Tan_Buddha) which lives on a mountaintop very close to the airport. This was a marvelous idea - we left the suitcases at the airport, took a bus to the base of the mountain and then took the cable car up to the mountain. It's a very long (5.7 km each direction) and beautiful ride (http://np360.com.hk/html/eng/front/index.asp) . Because we were in a bit of a hurry we bought the more expensive tickets for the glass-floored cars. That was marvelous - not only was the view beautiful but looking down at the top of the trees on the mountain was quite an unusual view. And the Buddha itself (very young - was completed in 1993) is one of the best we have seen, and we have seen quite a few!

From China2009

Had a very nice Italian meal at the airport before saying goodbye to Andrej and heading for the business lounge. Have to board in a few minutes.

Hong Kong

2009-10-10T16:30:00.006-04:00

The flight over was very uneventful - and flying business has its advantages - the food is decent and I slept for about 9 hours. Turns out I slept way too well and have very unusual jetlag since.

Andrej waited for us at the airport (very modern and beautiful) and we took a bus to the suburb where he lives. A 30 minute ride on the top of a double decker bus gave us a great preview of the HK sights.

Yesterday morning we started in Kowloon from which we took a ferry to HK Island. Everything is very clean and an interesting mixture of Chinatown with a very modern downtown. In fact, probably more of the latter. They build very tall buildings which allow them to keep lots of green spaces in between. It is very refreshing to see a lot of green so close to 60 story buildings.

We ate some very nice and authentic dim sum followed by coffee (different place obviously) and then walked to the funicular which took us up to the peak - a very steep mountain which towers above the City with breathtaking views. The haze had almost burnt off by then and everything was beautiful. We walked around the peak on a 2km long circular path and enjoyed every minute.

From China2009

Back in the city we took a subway and met up with Andrej's girl friend Maggie. Had some tea, browsed a few markets, and then went for dinner to a very authentic seafood restaurant.

We were quite surprised to learn how separate HK is from China - they totally run their own affairs and in fact mainlanders need visas to visit HK! It's also much more expensive than China - electronics in particular seem to have prices not far off from those in the US.

Finally a bus back to Andrej's place - we both kept falling asleep there and a shower and bed were most welcome.

A few more hours in HK today (will probably go up to visit the large Buddha by the airport and off to Beijing!

Off Tomorrow

2009-10-07T07:28:00.002-04:00

Another China trip - very quick this time - 2 days in Hong Kong, 2.5 days in Beijing. More to follow...

The rest of the trip

2007-03-15T07:54:00.001-04:00

that amazing internet place in Mandalay was the last real internet place we saw. There were a couple of times I managed to send a quick email to Avi from a dialup place but there was no hope of updating the blog.

I have put up some photos and here are some words to go with them:
March 1 afternoon: we went to Kuthodaw Paya - a site containing the 15 books of the Tripitaka on 729 marble slabs. Then we climbed up Mandalay Hill (lots of steps - took about 45 minutes) and had a lively discussion with a young monk. We had a few more days when monks attached themselves to us - they do not have much to do and like talking to tourists and improving their English. It's always fun but a bit odd.

The ET Motel where we stayed was the place with the only nasty hotel keepers we met in Myanmar. Not recommended....

March 2: we took the boat to Bagan on the Ayeyarwady river. That took all day and not always interesting but very relaxing. We stayed for 2 nights in Bagan in the Eden Motel which was nice (especially the breakfast on the rooftop). Ate pizza which was much nicer than the local food.

March 3: We explored Bagan's pagodas in by horse and carriage. The number of pagodas is just stunning - the landscape looks like a sparsely planted forest where every tree has been replaced by a pagoda. Some big, some small, some falling apart, some under construction, many have Buddha statues and quite a few are gold-gilded (but there is a big lack of food and a lot of poverty. sigh.). Decided to stick with the pizza for dinner. Very good!

March 4: Flew to Heho and took a cab to Nyaungshwe on the shore of Inle Lake. Stayed at the Aquarius Inn which was charming and extremely friendly - the nicest place we stayed in! We took a canoe trip in the canal in the afternoon and ate Shan food which was very salty but the woman running the restaurant was very nice.

March 5: Took a motor boat ride on the lake for most of the day. Visited the floating market and some craftmen - cigar makers, paper makers, weavers, blacksmiths.... Also visited some women from the Long-Neck tribe which we found quite disturbing. Found the best pizza place for dinner (by then we were so hungry we were quite obsessed with food and talked about food most of the time).

March 6-7: Treked to Kalaw (about 30-35 km). Slept in a monastery on the way. The guide Sein Chu was great and highly recommended (The Aquarius Inn people put us in touch with him). A french woman joined us for the trek and we all enjoyed it a lot even though I found it a bit difficult. We decided to cut it about 2 hours short and caught some pick-up trucks for the last few miles. Quite amazing we lived to tell the tale!

March 8: Flew back to Yangon. Was hard to find accomodations (we got in around 6pm). We ended up in a triple room very close to Sula Paya - was nice but no hot water.

March 9: Went to see a movie - World Trade Center in one of those old fashioned huge cinemas. We were very moved by the movie but everybody else was busy eating, laughing, coming and going and making a lot of noise. At least one rat was spotted - also seemed indifferent to the movie. Then we went to high tea in the Strand Hotel (supposedly $500 a night for a room there! amazing). Was not the best tea we ever had but we enjoyed it immensly.

March 10: Flew back to Bangkok and had a great lunch on the street. What a difference! Went to the night market which was great.

March 11-12: Wondered around Bangkok, shopped, ate and had a good time. Einat & Yogi went with me to the airport in the evening. When I asked for a window or aisle seat I was told that my seat is "next to the aisle seat", which I found very funny and after some arm twisting got changed. I took a bag for them home. Was nice to come back to civilization but I would not have minded staying a bit longer with them....

Mandalay

2007-03-01T03:00:00.000-05:00

See Photos!

Leaving the Internet place yesterday, we found Yogi in a beauty salon getting a combination shave and foot massage. He looked very happy even though he said the shaving lady clearly did not know how to shave but the foot lady compensated.

The plane ride to Mandalay was horrible. We sat for an hour in a non-AC terminal and then for another 30 minutes or so in the hottest stuffiest plane ever. I was really afraid we'll get heat stroke. But His Excellency the Police Chief was on the plane with us with a whole retinue of officials, so that was a compensation. We had a stopover in heho which meant we had 2 take-offs and 2 landings in this very rickety looking plane but we survived.... Only 2 more flights planned in Myanmar which is a blessing.

The guesthouse we went to was full but the next one had a vacancy so we got 2 rooms - reasonably nice, for a total of $20. My main complaint is with all the bathrooms here - for some reason the sink drains to the floor which then drains to the sewer - that makes a big mess and I am half inclined to add my own piping to all the bathrooms. Oh well. We got rooms with AC, but as there was no electricity they did not work. The hotel has a generator so the ceiling fans did work and that was pleasant enough.

We went for a Chinese dinner... ha. I will be way thinner by the end of this trip. After that we took a 'cab' - a tiny truck ("Blue Taxi"), where the passengers sit on benches in the back facing each other - something like the tiyuliot we had in Israel 30 years ago but tiny, to the Mustach Brothers show. This is a local version of a standup comedy act - they are famous for being jailed , and they voice some criticism of the country but the whole thing was more bizarre than funny. All the extended family performs traditional dances and 'cutting edge' comedy, in something which sounds like English but is very hard to understand. Was great because it was so weird.

This morning we took a cab to the world's longest teak bridge. Next to it is a huge monastery with thousands of young monks and like all good tourists we went there to see them at their daily meal. Was rather depressing as it's like watching the feeding of dolphins in the zoo or something, but interesting nonetheless. Before that we talked to one of the monks - he was around 16 years old. He and Yogi had a lively discussion about soccer and then he showed us a book he bought about Israel - he claimed he was very interested in Israel as its people were very smart.

We took a long walk on the bridge to the village on the other side of the lake, visited the required huge Buddha and walked back. The hawkers were not too bad but I did buy a funny folding hat and got a melon seed bracelet as a gift. It seems ridiculous to haggle over prices with the people here so I did not.

Our cab driver had waited for us and drove us back to town. He claimed that new cars cost $300,000 and motocycles $20,000-30,000. As the Lonely Planet has a section about how the people here confuse large numbers, he probably was wrong (we hope). He also told us his wife had died on Feb. 20 and that his son promised her to become a doctor before she died. Was very sad.

We asked to get off at a huge mall we saw in passing this morning and again fell through a rabbit hole into a completely different world - very new, modern and relatively fancy shops, with prices which are not very different from the street prices (Einat bought a cap which cost about the same as my hat, but no bracelet!) We found a 'Japanese' Cafe here and had a decent meal - not great but the best so far. And the Cyber cafe next to it is amazingly modern with about 40 top of the line computers, decent connectivity and our gmail/yahoo accounts are not not blocked here. Go figure.

Many plas for the afternoon and tomorrow we are taking the boat to Bagan.

Riddle: Why are there no more night trains from Yangon to Mandalay?
Answer (according to the cab dirver yesterday): Because Yangon is the capital. ??!???

Yangon

2007-02-27T22:56:00.000-05:00

After a very early taxi ride to the airport and a short flight we arrived in a completely different world. Very wide avenues, not much traffic and most of it in very old and battered cars with a few WWII vintage buses and some trikshaws thrown in. It is easy to see that this city was rebuilt by the British, and not much has been done since, but it's just fascinating and we are having a great time.

The biggest surprise was Udi, Yogi's friend, who surprised Yogi in the airport. We all went together to our guest house and then took a walk with him in the downtown and visited the Sula Paya - a very large buddhist stupa which also functions as the main traffic circle of the city!

By then it turned too hot to be outside so we returned to the hotel for a rest. We had 2 rooms in the hotel - each with drk wood floors and walls and an A/C and a fan so it was relatively comfortable. The main problem is the lack of any window so it's hard to tell what time it is. The people are very nice, served us breakfast as we arrived and arrnaged our plane tickets to Mandalay for today. We had originally planned to take the night train but it seems the night train has been cancelled a while back...

The highlight of the day was the visit to the Shedawgon - a huge complex of buddhist stupas and pagodas. It's just unbelievable - all gold gilded or plated, a gazilion Buddhas in any possible size and color and tons of nats (the Myanmar spirits which are part of their version of Buddhism) all over the place. Was just stupifying.

We had a nice conversation with a n 85 year old monk who told us parts of his life story - he used to be Christian (went to the Missionarie's school), then became a Buddhist and also was an office in the Army. He was really charming. When asked about current conditions he complained that he cannot get chocolate and that the butter and jam are not as good as they used to be!

Finally we met Udi at the Sakura Tower - the tallest buidling in Yangon and had dinner with him on the top (20th) floor. This was a fancy restaurant and the food was rather awful... Not clear what we'll eat from now on as Yango is supposedly the gourmet capital... But the view was worth it - and we had a lot of fun.

We tried to read email but are unable to access it. The cellphone does not work either, so I think our main mode of communciation is this blog. Anybody who reads this might drop Avi a line and remind him that this is the way to know that we are well and enjoying ourselves! I am not sure if we will be able to read comments but it might be worth a short as I don't think email will work at other places either.

Koh Samui and back to Bangkok

2007-02-26T07:47:00.000-05:00

After all the cooking and walking around on Saturday we did not feel like going back to the beach. Instead we ended up in a huge mall - it's one of the largest Cosco's I ever saw with lots of smaller shops around it. Einat had wanted to try Black Canyon Coffee since she was first in Thailand and this was the perfect opportunity, and it was indeed very good. We sat there quite a qhile people watching and sipping our drinks. My conclusion is that the Thais are really quiet - quite a lot of people in the mall but not much moise and not the horrible music/announcements you ehar other places - was very nice.

After that we also stopped in a night market on the way back to the hotel and Einat bought some sun glasses. I must say it was a relief to get back to the hotel intact after 2 days in the jeep - it clearly was not in the best of conditions and the driving on the LHS, with all the scooters zooming by was rather scary (but not half as bad as India).

Yesterday we spent the morning by the pool. We took the 1pm shuttle to Nathon - the capital of Samui - nothing to write home about, but they also had a small Cosco and a Black Canyon Coffee so that was ok. At 5pm we went to a 2 hour massage, body wrap and other assorted treatments - was nice but I am never a huge fan. And then we ran to catch the shuttle back to Chaweng Beach for a farewell dinner. We ended up in a wonderful Italian restaurant and enjoyed it a lot.

Today we spent some time by the pool and then checked out of the hotel, went to the airport and flew back to Bangkok. Yogi arrived before us at the hotel but he went out and Einat is waiting for him there. We will be off to an early start tomorrow - a 7:15am flight to Yangoon. Hope I can continue the blog in Myanmar - not clear at all.

Koh Samui

2007-02-24T03:48:00.000-05:00

We spent the rest of yesterday afternoon on the beach - Chenang is on another side of the island so the sea was a bit less shallow and there were a few waves. Our side of the island is completely calm and very shallow for a very long distance.

We had planned to drive out again for dinner but I was so tired we ate again in the hotel. The food is very good but as usual I get tired of eating outside very quickly.

This morning we drove back to Chenang to the cooking class we had registered to yesterday. This was a great class - we prepared a green curry paste from scratch, then made a seafood green curry dish with fish balls (like gefiltefish, but much better...) and a noodles-seafood dish and a tom-kah seafood soup. They were all excellent and the only problem was we could not finish a tenth of the food - hate to see such good stuff going to waste.

We are now exploring the main street - lots of shops and quite nice. Also lots of interesting looking restaurants, ice cream shops and cafes.... Now if we were not so stuffed...

We will probably go to the beach and then drive back to the hotel the long way - which will give us a chance to see a bit more of the island's interior.

Bangkok and Koh Samui

2007-02-23T01:29:00.000-05:00

After the Myanmar embassy trip we spent the rest of the day packing, storing equipment we do not need for now and wandering around the Khausan - tons of stores, eating spots (like in all of Asia people seem to be constantly eating) and lots of noise and bustling. We also took the ferry down the river and visited the flower market - we came towards the end of the day when people were packing up but even so there were lots of beautiful flowers. Lots of wome sit there stringing flowers and petals on strings and creating very beautiful arrangements which we think are mainly used in temples and such. I managed to sleep the whole night after not having slept at all the previous night so I got up very happy.

Einat got up complaining of a sore throat. Never a good sign...

We took a cab back to the embassy, collected our passports, went a bit on the Silum which is a fancy street with lots of high end shops and malls and airline offices, ate something and then said goodbye to Yogi. Einat & I took the monorail to Victory Monument, and were disappointed that the view was not better. We were supposed to catch the bus to the airport there but after circling about half of the permiter of the huge circle could not find it and the bag got heavier and the weather hotter... so we took a cab.

While waiting to get on the flight Einat started shivering and piling on all the long sleeved shirts (2) we had and her shawl. Even worse sign... The Advil did help and she got off the plane feeling reasonably ok. We took a shuttle to the hotel - a long ride made longer by the fact that the driver stopped at every resort on the way trying to find a room for some tourists who did not have a booking.

By the time we got to the resort Einat was again rather miserable and even the beauty of the place did not help much. Dinner was good, the night was misearble and in the morning I asked about a doctor. We were told the drive will take us to the Bangkok International Hospital - "it's a complimentary ride".

No wonder - this was the funniest hospital visit ever. It's beautiful - looks like a 5-star hotel, and the patients are treated as hotel visitors and charged accordingly.

The doctor was very concerned, explained that the previous antibiotics Eint got for her sinus infection in Vietnam were no good and prescribed 5 different medicines! Was no way to explain we really are only interested in antibiotics. The best was when he asked about her appetite and when she said it's not too good he suggest hospitalizing her! We declined politely... He also said she has to come back for a checkup on Sunday but we will forget that appointment (Einat is sure the ploice will come to our hotel to look for her).

Anyway - today (Friday) she woke up with very little fever, and we rented a jeep and drove to the next town. The jeep has very odd gears but Einat drives it bravely (on the left of course, which means that 2 out of 9 times she turns on the windscreen wipers when she wants to signal). We will go check out a cooking class soon and are debating a canopy-top adventure (the guy in this coffeeshop did not really think it's very good, but did recommend the cooking).

And of course the sun is shining the island is beautiful and life is good (but I did get a sunburn...)

Bangkok

2007-02-20T01:22:00.000-05:00

After all the excitement the flights were very easy and I slept about 10 hours on 4 seats. Einat & Yogi waited for me and it was great to see them.

This morning we went to the Burmese embassy and will get our visas tomorrow. After that Einat & I will fly to Koh Samui.

Money running out on this internet connection...later.

Thailand and Myanmar

2007-02-18T12:54:00.000-05:00

This trip started out on the wrong foot - my flight from Newark to London was canceled, and BA put me on a flight 24 hours later. That really would have messed things up.

To make a long story short - I arrived at JFK at 10am today as instructed and after dealing with many nice people and having a few more mix-ups I am booked on a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong and a connection to Bangkok tonight. If all goes well I will arrive about 8 hours later than expected - definitely better than a 24 hour dealy. And the flight to Hong Kong is almost empty so I should get some of the sleep I did not get the last few days!

Einat & Yogi promised to meet me at the airport - we will go to the Myanmar embassy on Tuesday and after that Einat & I will spend 4 days in a Koh Samui resort before meeting Yogi again in Bangkok and flying to Myanmar on the 27th.

Skiing

2006-04-15T20:15:00.000-04:00

Avi & all 3 kids spent a week in Les Menuires, together with Na'ama who came from LA and Amir, Rakefet, Ido, Tal and Tomer who came from Israel. They had a lot of fun even though Avi fractured his shoulder and pulled a ligament in his knee, so he skied only for 2 days and came back wearing a shoulder brace and a knee brace.

La Suizandina

2006-03-30T21:22:00.000-05:00

As expected, we had no internet, and we lived to tell the story despite the withdrawal symptoms. So here is what I wrote off-line:

Loquimay, 3-25

We woke up to a glorious day - deep blue sky and no cloud in sight.

After the promised hearty breakfast (interesting musli with poppy
seeds and lots of other stuff), we drove to where we planned to ascend the Loquimay. The minute I saw the gravel we would have to deal with I became very suspicious, and after 45 minutes of stumbling in something which resembles coarse sand (every footstep went a few centimeters down), I decided on a strike. Anne & Avi continued to walk for another 30 minutes or so - to the ski lift, and then we stumbled back to the car (I considered another strike but it would have been no fun to stay forever in that barren moon-scape).

We drove down with a Swiss guy, Nicholas, who needed a lift back to his car (he also decided not to climb, but his 3 companions pushed on). He is a geology & geography teacher who also digs for dinosaur bones occassionally so he gave us a very interesting explanation about the composition of the pumice and basalt rocks we saw, and also some dinosaur stories. They are staying at Suizandina too, so maybe we'll see them later.

We drove down to Tollahuco - a park about 60 km away. The last 35km or so were on an unpaved road but the car took this bravely. We first stopped by some thermal pools and then continued to search for a waterfall. After walking for more than an hour through a beautiful
rain forest we turned around without finding it as we wanted to go
back on the unpaved road before darkness fell.

We stopped in Curacautin - a fairly large town and sampled a few of
its stores searching for food for tomorrow.

Now we are back in the guest house - showered and ready for dinner ina couple of minutes.

Conguilio, 3-26

Another wonderful day - a few more clouds but pleasant tempreatures - ideal for hiking.

After the same hearty breakfast we drove to Curacautin, and on to the natioal park Conguilio, in which lies the lake of the same name and a few other smaller lakes and lagoonas. The trip took about 1.5 hours on unpaved roads, but most of the time the roads were in decent shape.

The park is extremely well organized and maintained. We first stopped in an information center with a lovely display of the local fauna and flora, and then on to the start of the trail. We walked for about 8km through the forest with occasional views of the lake. The ascent was not too steep and the views were just lovely. The local trees are very different from what we know - in particular a very old species of tree - aracaulia (supposedly has been around since the dinosaurs). They have spiky branches shooting out from a spiky main trunk. The spikes are arranged in spirals around the branch (sometimes also around the trunk). Some of the trees were covered with moss which seems to choak the trees.

After a quick and windy lunch with a beautiful view of the lake we
went down to the car and continued towards Laguna Verde. We aborted
before arriving as we were driving through a lava field with lots of
sharp stones which seemed too dangeros for the car. We did look at
another laguna which seemed haunted - lots of dead trees around it and forboding lava fields around.

Anne and I are weaned from the internet rather successfully but Avi
needed his fix after 2 days of abstinence, so we stopped in Curacautin at an Internet cafe - decent speed and about $0.55 for 30 minutes. Not bad. All non-Internet places were closed as it's Sunday so we will need to replenish our fruit supply tomorrow.

That's as far as I got in Chile. By Monday morning I had a terrible cold so we spent most of the day driving around - we went over the Andes pass up to the Argentinan border, visited beautiful lakes, and saw hardly a soul - but did see lots of cows, horses, sheep, goats and chicken. It is amazing how sparse the population is. At some point we were flagged down by 3 girls who needed a ride to the village next to our hotel! (we were about an hour away at that point). As their English was not quite as good as our Spanish (!) we are not quite sure what they told us but we think they are from Santiago - working as comntemporary dance teachers in the local schools. Anyway - they were charming and we parted with kisses at the end of the ride. Part of the drive was through an old converted railroad tunnel - which is a very odd experience.

Tuesday morning we packed up and made our way leisurely to Temuco to catch the 5pm flight to Santiago. We stopped in the local arts market but even Avi hardly found anything to buy there - Chile is really not a shopping country.

The flight back was long but uneventful and we slept quite a lot. Was great to see all 3 kids at home together, and by now (Thursday night) everything is completely back to normal. Was a great trip!

Rain

2006-03-24T10:26:00.000-05:00

Not much to report about yesterday except that it rained cats and dogs. We hung around the hotel all day. It did clear up pretty much by early evening so we took the boat from the hotel to downtown, walked around a bit and ended up in a nice pub/steakhouse for dinner. More pisco sour, a steak and fish. Was very nice.

The rental car is supposed to arrive here soon, and we will go to the next stop - Suizandina. Probably no connectivity until we are back.

Villarica and Pucon

2006-03-23T08:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we had a very nice 'conference outing'. The buses left at 12:30 and luckily we were on the good bus - the one where they remembered to load the lunch bags. So we ate our sandwiches on the way and arrived at the base of the Villarica volcano around 3pm. The volcano is active and we saw lots of puffs of smoke coming out of it. We explored a volcanic cave and took a short walk in the forest, crossing a canyon on a hanging bridge and passing directly above a volcanic hole with smoke coming out.

We took the bus back down to Pucon which is a very cute and very touristy town - reminded us of place like Aspen. We strolled around town for a while and then had a very nice dinner in a hotel before driving back to Valdivia.

Valdivia

2006-03-21T15:07:00.000-05:00

Dinner last night was very nice and lively. We started with a pisco sour, a cocktail which even Avi rather liked (not enough to get his own but we shared). Most of us had fish in various preparations - Chile is not known for its food but this was much better than expected.

This morning I explored Valdivia - and don't have much to report. I walked for about 5 hours and have probably visited most streets in town at least twice. I did go to the Historical Museum which I 'finished' in 10 minutes walking slowly and decided to forego the Moden Art Museum whose main claim to fame seems to be the nice views from its windows (the views were nice enough from the garden of the adjacent Historical Museum). But the people were friendly and my Spanish is improving by the minute. I even shopped for 1 marzipan bar. This area is famous for its marzipan - as it was settled by many German immigrants duing the first half of the 20th century. I like authentic German marzipan better but it was not bad - much better than the local arts and crafts in the market which were rather pathetic. I don't think we'll spend much time shopping here.

Today is overcast but I got a sunburn nonetheless (the hole in the ozone over the southern hemisphere...) - and the tempreature is just right!

Chile

2006-03-20T18:31:00.000-05:00

New travels:

Eyal arrived Sunday morning from Seattle to babysit Yuval, and we left a few hours later for Valdivia, Chile. It was just under 24 hours door-to-door: JFK-Lima-Santiago. After about 3 hours in Santiago we caught the domestic flight to Valdivia which turns out has a stopover in another small town (whose name I already managed to forget).

We took a cab from the airport to the hotel - the weather seems wonderful, a deep blue sky and everything looks very green and lush and lots of water.

We have a great view of the river from our room and we met a bunch of friends here already. In fact we are going out with some people for dinner in a few minutes - hope we don't collapse into our plates...

More tomorrow.

My (Edna) Last Day

2005-04-26T20:04:00.000-04:00

This will be short - have to go for my last Chinese breakfast. Judes and I went to the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven yesterday with Jason. I forgot to bring the camera.....

We had dinner with Andy, Frances and 3 other Chinese professors. Lots of food, some of it quite good. The host gave me a doll dressed in a minority costume at the end.

Off to Princeton! Judes will leave tomorrow and hopes to meet Yuval in the airport before he takes off and Avi will be back on Sunday.

E#mail from Eyal (April 26)

2005-04-26T20:01:00.000-04:00

today is the 4th and last of the rest days in bc, tommorow i will go up with dan, max and kuy (the german friend) to carry some food up to camp 2, and then continue up to camp 3 and start fixing ropes obove to camp 4. its a lot of work planned, but hopefully we feel good and manage to complete the task. the sherpas should be be up a couple days after us to help doing this job.

i think that we will stay on the mountain for about a week, and then
come down for the final rest before the summit attempt. i will probably go down to one of the lower villages alonge the trek to rest more properly, and the come back to try the summit.

Beijing - April 25

2005-04-25T17:20:00.000-04:00

First - all the latest posts from Summit Club mention the Seder Eyal celebrated at basecamp! http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestnepal2005uaa04252005.htm (look at Mike O'brien and Maximo Kausch dispatches. Eyal even seems to have added a sentence to Mike's report).

After brekafast in the hotel and a cappucino in our favorite cafe we were picked up by Mr. Song and taken to the CS department in Chingua University. It's a brand new building in a very new part of campus. Andy's office is huge and very stylized and impressive. But then he took us over to see "Avi's office" - it's the office which is reserved for Mr. Li, hte riches man in Hong Kong who donated the building and it is a spectecular suite - we will definitely take photos of Avi using it....

Judes and I took a cab to ashopping center (basically an indoor market), and to our great suprise we spent about 6 hours there and shopped until we dropped. Very uncharacteristic!

We met Avi in the cafe around 7 and had a nice leisurely (western) dinner, and then collapsed into bed.

Today Judes & I are going with Jason to the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven and Avi will continue toiling away in his magnificant office. He enjoyed talking to the students a lot yesterday.

2005-04-24T19:09:00.001-04:00

Hangzhou

2005-04-24T19:09:00.000-04:00

Hangzhou

Hangzhou - April 24

2005-04-24T18:50:00.000-04:00

After gorging ourselves at breakfast on the hotel's verandah looking at the beautiful garden, we postponed our meeting with Xu to 12 as we decided we'd much rather stroll in the park by the lake than have lunch. All of Hangzhu was hanging out at the park - lots of families and everybody was eating. Even so the park remained spotlessly clean.
We were struck again by how few children you see and how each child has a whole retinue of doting parents and grandparents with it. That was a bit sad but the whole morning was just lovely.

We did go with Xu to one more Budhist temple, also in beuatiful park-like surroudings. The whole area was mobbed and it was amazing to see how many people burned incest and prayed. This is a 1600 year old temple but most of the statues were destroyed during the cultural revolution and were renewed since. Very big and ornate but exactly my taste...

The airport is very new and impressive. The highway leading to it winds through miles of new developments - all the houses are very similar, in bright pink and green colors with odd structures sticking out - very Disnelandish.

Jason waited for us at the Beijing Airport and it felt like meeting an old friend and coming back home. We went out for a non-Chinese dinner which was not bad at all. Today Avi is going to the University and Judes & I will explore some markets. We decided we need a guide-free day...

Hangzhou - April 23

2005-04-23T18:26:00.000-04:00

We had a Pessach miracle - we got off the train in China - in fact the city looked very rundown and ugly around there, went to lunch in a downtown restaurant (nothing to write home about) and then went for a couple more kilometers and were transported - either to Swtizerland or to heaven (the saying here is that there is paradise in heaven and Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth).

Our hotel is extremely fancy and is located on the shore of the Western Lake, which has the most beautiful and meticulously groomed park around it. The place swarmed with people (mainly Chinese tourists) and not a scrap of paper on the ground! And the lay-out and gardening are really unbelievably beautiful - they city must emply thousands of people to keep this huge pak (probably larger than Central Park) so well groomed.

We took a boat ride on the lake which we would have enjoyed more if the woman who was blaring away into a megaphone on deck would have fallen into the lake - her group looked quite unhappy too.

Then we continued to a tea village and plantation (where they have the 'best green tea in China'). The view around there is amazing - steep mountains covered with tea bushes and dotted with people picking the leaves. It is of course highly commercialized and the only way to get rid of the young woman who gave us tea and demonstrated things was to buy 1 can... But the scenery was definitely worth the investment.

Close by we looked at the Pagoda of Six Harmonies, and then returned to the hotel. Our guide here is Leon (Xu, pronounced Shoe) - nice and has excellent English - he spent 6 months in Madison Wisconsin as an exchange student.

We took a walk along the lake to find a restuarant and ended up in a strange place - an exquisite tea house in a very Japanses looking setting. They had a buffet there with very unusual buffet things like nuts and candy, but also noodles and eggrolls and such and the whole meal was dirt cheap. We still do not understand what kind of place this really was but it was very nice and tasty and different from the regular Chinese meals.

And finally - there is a partial photo of Eyal on SummitClimb: http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestnepal2005uaa04232005.htm

Eyal called! (not us, though...)

2005-04-23T06:57:00.000-04:00

From an email from Miryam:

"Eyal called me just now to wish Chag Sameach. He is fine, has been up the mountain for three days to acclimatise, is now back at camp for a rest. The same procedure will be repeated once more, then the real climb will start."

This made our day! Chag Sameach to all! (a.k.a Happy Passover).

Suzhu - April 22

2005-04-23T06:52:00.001-04:00

Breakfast was less delicious than in Shanghai but we ate a lot nontheless (we are a bit fed up with Chinese food by now, and it's easy to find western food in the breakfast buffets). We started the Suzhu exploration at the Garden of the Humble Administrator. Turns out the Administrator was not humble at all, in fact he was a very powerful and rich man, but his humbleness manifested itself when he designed and worked the garden. In any case, it is a very large3 and beautifully laid out graden and residence, with lots of gems such as beautiful plants, pavillions and corridors with interesting
windows allowing tantalizing views into the garden.

We asked Alvin to add a side trip to the Silk Museum which got good reviews in the book and was really very nice. This caused a small blowup with the driver who tried to bill us exoiberantly for his time, which was ridiculous as he was engaged to drive us around
for the whole day anyway. But all is well that ends well....

We continued to the Silk Factory where Alvin passed the baton to his
girlfriend Anita - a 23 year old student who might become a guide too. (He had a medical examination.) This friendship is apparently unusual as he is 9 years older. Alvin has a constant sad expression on his face, even when he attempts jokes, but Anita was very lively and bubbly. We continued to a restaurant and ate some of the local specialities - most notable was the lotus root stuffed with rice and some beef with bitter green unidentified stalks.

Next we went on the canal in a motor powered glass enclosed boat. Suzhu waterways are very pretty, and we spent the time thinking of Hebrew songs to teach Anita (we did not get very far but she sang a Russian song iwth a very familiar tune).

We continued to the Garden of the Master of Nets - this is to commemorate the fisherman who saved the owner's son who fell into the canal. A much smaller residence and garden but also very beautiful with the bonus of a nice courtyard and a decent cappucino machine in the bar! The guards had to throw us out of the place forcefully at 5:30 when they closed.

We went to see the streetlife on the aptly named Street in Front of the Temple (the temple was a Tao temple but it was closed already), and then to the hotel to put down our stuff.

Anita had told us that it was the opening of the Silk Festival and there will be festivities on the river which we decided to attend. This was a slight misunderstanding as Alvin had invited us to meet his family and we misunderstood him, but were forgiven.

We took a cab to the Center and then stood on the bridge for an hour looking at the floats on the river and the fireworks. These were rather tame, but seeing the multitudes of people on bikes, motorcycles and on foot moving across the bridge, and the different soldiers and policemen guarding the place was extremely entertaining. It's really impressive to see thousands of people crowded together, all in a good and cooperative mood, joking with the soldiers and having a very good time....

We had a short night as we had to catch the 7:24 train to Hang-zhou. I am writing this on the train - another people-full place - everybody eating, or sleeping and/or talking - and a general sense of satisfaction. We'll arrive in about 2 hours.

2005-04-23T06:52:00.000-04:00

Coffee in Garden of Net Master

2005-04-23T06:51:00.000-04:00

Train to Hangzhou

2005-04-23T06:50:00.000-04:00

Suzhu Canal Ride

2005-04-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

Zhouzhang and us

2005-04-21T17:59:00.000-04:00

Zhouzhang and us

2005-04-21T17:58:00.000-04:00

Zhouzhang

Zhouzhuang - April 21

2005-04-21T17:10:00.000-04:00

After another huge and delcious breakfast at the Garden Hotel Shanghai we were met by 'Alvin' (Su something - I forget his first name) and immediately fell in love with him. A very gentle and sweet guy. His English is very idiomatic and he loves using euphemisms, figures of speech and expressions to a very startling effect. So we never heard any word about rich people but encountered many opulent people and were treated to lots of similar goodies.

Soon after leaving Shanghai the landscape became very green and lush and as we approached the Zhouzhuang area we saw more and more gardens full of flowers, canals and bridges.

The town itself has been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco and rightly so. It looks like a cross between Venice and Amsterdam - built on canals with hundreds of very picturesque bridges spanning them and many flat bottomed boats, often peddled by middle-aged women (the boats are peddled using a single oar). Some of the women also sang and as most of the tourists here were Chinese, many of the clients were clapping on wooden instruments to the tune of the songs - it really was a most romantic sight.

We strolled around the town for a couple of hours, heard some Chinese opera rehearsal, visited an opulent man's house and garden, and then had another medicore lunch. Seems that our request not to take us to those touristic resaurants did not get so far west. As we expressed our disappointment, Alvin got very concerned and we hope he can change our next lunch reservation. We did eat a couple of local specialities - hog hoofs which Avi enjoyed and wild rice stems which were very nice, and Judes and I enjoyed a lot. Avi also bought some street food - a red bean paste stuffed pita which was nice and some dried yam candy which he trashed rather quickly.

From Zhouzhuang we continued to Suzhou - a very pleasant town of only 6 million inhabitants. It is clearly in good economic shape but without the glitz of Shanghai which makes it seem like a very pleasant place to live. The people look well off, many cars on the street and comfortable looking hi-rises. The old city center is surrounded by a moat and also here there are many canals and waterways. Very nice!

Our first stop was a teapot factory where we got an explanation on the virtues of their teapots, signed by a master and containing some most excellent minerals which will give us lots of health (all the Chinese we met seem very concerned about their inner organs and we got enough medical and cosmetic advice here to last a lifetime). To Alvin's dismay we declined buying $100 teapots and continued to the hotel.

The hotel is much simpler than the previous one and we are back to the very hard Chinese mattrasses but it is clean and nice. Alvin waited for us in the lobby and we invited him to a cup of coffee (he had tea) in a close-by coffee shop. It was ok but we should have gone to Starbucks instead (we saw a couple later in the evening).

The next agenda item was a foot massage where we made complete fools of ourselves laughing hysterically all the time. Unfortunately, Daphna's life is now in great danger as Judes swore to kill her for recommending this ordeal. Turns out that by not talking Chinese we could not react to the particular pressure points and they could not diagnose our ailments correctly, although looking at the chart on the wall I am very worried about Judes' digestive tract. She denies any problems with it though. Was very amusing.

Alvin and the driver dropped us of at the City Center where we decided to forego the local specialities at KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds and bought some pita bread instead. We took a cab back to the hotel, and as usual I woke up at an indecent hour and am spending the wee hours of the day writing this...

Shanghai - April 20

2005-04-20T16:21:00.000-04:00

I have been meaning to write for a few days now that the only sign of Internet censorship we found here is that we cannot read our blog (although we can post to it - go figure). So we cannot see comments - better email them....

Back to our regular programming:

Shanghai is China's economical and business capital and that was evident immediately upon landing - a very modern skyscraper-rich skyline and some very beautiful modern buildings mixed in a peculiar fashion with old, run down buildings with laundry hanging out to "air" in the smog. The hotel is Japanese-run and very fancy. And the Shanghai population immediately proved true to what we heard about them - much less friendly and pleasant than the other Chinese we met (and supposedly much more stingy too), with many more educated and very affluent-looking people and a very high population of expats - foreigners who work here in the many international companies in the city.

Our guide this time was 'Victor', and he was extremely annoying. He kept changing the program on us, talked on the phone incessantly, tried keeping us on a very short leash by barking short commands at us, and doing very little guiding in between. We started in the Shanghai Museum which is one of the best museums we have ever seen with amazing bronzework and pottery dating back all the way to around 2000 b.c.e ! We could have stayed there the whole day....

The next stop was a typical tourist trap - a silk factory with an attached store. Notwithstanding, the silk manufacturing process is very interesting and we ended up bying a duvet...

We continued to the Jewish section where, to Victor's surprise, we insisted on leaving the van and seeing the synagogue. The synagogue keeper was half Jewish and gave us a nice explanation which was very hard to follow due to his most peculiar accent. But we loved the way he pronounced the Jewish holidays' names (mostly in an Ashkenazi accent, but he had a good grasp of the difference between Ashkenazim and Spharadim - at one point Shanghai boasted of 3 synagogues!) and we got an idea of the Shanghai Jews' history from the pamphlets and posters there.

Then we were herded to the Yu Gardens - an amazing oasis in the middle of the bustle of Shanghai surrounded by an Arts & Crafts Market. This part of town really reminded me of Kyoto but Avi denies the similarity.

Lunch won the 'worst meal so far' award - similar to the bad meal experiences we had 4 years ago in China, although truthfully the food was no worse than mediocre.

By then we were so fed up with Victor we decided to have them drop us off at the hotel so we can get rid of our bags and continue on our own (without tipping Victor - I am afraid we have created another antisemite...)

We took the subway (very modern and easy to navigate) to Najing St. - a bustling pedestrian street lined with stores and much less interesting than advertized in the book, and continued to the Bund - a promenade on the riverfront with a view to Punong - the very modern section with high-rises. We were disappointed by the lack of cafes on the Bund but had a very pleasant stroll and then walked back through a pretty park and a bamboo grove. We were hoping to get back to the Arts & Crafts section but ended up in a local food market and then a local general market - both places lacked tourists and tourist-geared merchandise completely and were lots of fun.

At this point we hailed a cab and started going to the hotel but stopped the driver when we he drove through a modern area full of malls which looked like having a high coffee-potential. We ended up in a Haagen-Dasz and just as we ordered, Karin - Judes's cousin called and came there to meet us. She is working here for Pepsi, and we spent a very nice evening with her - had the best Chinese meal in a very hip restaurant and then took a stroll in the local SoHo - there definitely is a lot of money in this town!

2005-04-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

Yu Gardens

2005-04-20T11:16:00.000-04:00

Mask in Shanghai Museum

2005-04-19T19:34:00.000-04:00

Reservior Statues

2005-04-19T19:33:00.000-04:00

Hanging in there

2005-04-19T19:32:00.000-04:00

Hanging Temple

The Blog

2005-04-19T19:21:00.000-04:00

The Blog

by Avi

to the tune of מה עושים העצים

After Judes complained of the blog being too dry

Where is Tieneman Square? Beijing
And in the Forbidden City? A King
And his dynasty, I think, was Ming
But he was kicked, by Chairman Mao

Where are the Budhas so tall? DaTong
And which tea reduces fat? Oolong
And our guide was Mrs. Wong
But time to move on. To Shnghai

So what am I to do? Click, click
Focus, aim and shoot again
And put the pictures in the blog.
Which all the info, will contain
Oh yes the blog, the blog, the blog
It all the info will contain!

Datong - April 19

2005-04-19T19:17:00.000-04:00

Another most excellent day, after a very long night's sleep. We started out by driving 65 km to the Hanging Temple. The way passes through a dessert, with occasional small villages on the roadside. Mrs. Wang continued telling us about life in China and her history. She really is remarkable - very frank and realistic, and with that very patriotic and appreciative of the regime and all it has done for the country.

The Hanging Temple is a wooden structure built in the middle of a sheer cliff. The monks who built it stuck wooden posts into the mountain and erected a whole structure on them and then filled them with Budhas. Avi also continued up more steps into a tunnel shaped like a dragon which leads to a water reservior built under Mao's rule in 1959.

From there we drove on to another city and visited the Wooden Pagoda there - a pagoda built originally as a guard post and then converted to a Budhist temple. Today it is a historical museum.

The next stop was for lunch in a convention center adjacent to a spirits distiller. This time Mrs. Wang and the driver ate with us. Mrs. Wang ordered the food, with an emphasis on vegeterian dishes and local specialities and did very well.

From there we had a 200 km drive to Taiyuan - the provincial capital, which has an airport. It has 5 million inhabitants (Datong has only 3 million), and 59 universities! This city has a lot of heavy industry and no toristic attractions at all.

Now we are in the plan flying to Shanghai. The only other westerner on the plane is an Israeli businessman sitting in the row in front of us...

2005-04-18T16:09:00.000-04:00

Budha and Friends

2005-04-18T16:08:00.000-04:00

Mrs Wong and us

2005-04-18T16:07:00.000-04:00

Wall of 9 Dragons

DaTong - April 18, 2005

2005-04-18T05:57:00.000-04:00

I am sure you were all in suspence....
Yes, we did get a room and could take a shower in the hotel upon arrival!
Then a quick breakfast, and on to Yungang Caves.
These are very similar to the Ajanta and Ellora caves we have seen in India - Budhist temples and monestaries with multiple HUGE Budha sculptures which are carved in the rock inside the caves. They too were created about the same time, about 500AD. It is extremely impressive to see these 20m tall Budhas, and all the thousands of smaller scupltures (many painted).

Talking to our guide, Mrs. Wong, about her life, was as interesting as her explanations about the caves. She is about our age. During the cultural revolution her father was arrested for 2 years as "capitalist", but then released and appointed mayor of Datong, as the government thought he would be powerful enough to contain bloody clashes (fighting mainly with tridents!) between two groups in the city (both loyal to Mao - we didn't quite get what they fought over). Indeed he was successful. However, she, at 16, like many others, was sent to Inner Mongolia for "re-education".
But unlike any story we ever heard or read, she enjoyed it, and even considers it the best time of her life (no school, life in the country, the Mongolians who taught them farming and horse sheparding treated them well) and she still goes there with her "tent-mates" (they lived in a half buried tent to be protected from the fierce weather) every year for reunion.
She wanted to stay there and drive tractors for a profession, but was then sent back, and since she was tall, was sent to study English and become a guide (yes, appearantly this was logical in someone's eyes).

She told us many other interesting things - appearnatly with the many changes and privatization of buisnesses there is no global health insurance for everyone anymore and many, like in the US, have nowhere to go for opeations and hospital care when they need to.

Then we went to lunch in the city's best restaurant. It was indeed excellent (almost as good as yesterday's dinner), but the highlight was the wedding which was taking place there at the same time. Judes asked to see the bride, and Mrs Wong, in characteristic extrovert and aggressive Chinese style, plowed through the guests and waiters, brought the bride and groom to meet us, pose for pictures, give us candies and have the wedding videoman tape us with them for posterity.

Exhasuted after the little sleep we got on the train we went to rest an hour, and then (luckily everything very near the hotel) to the "9 dragon wall", and two Budhist monestaries. It seems that while practicing any religion is allowed (only in the appropriate temples), noone with education wants to be a monk anymore, and on the other hand farmers and other uneducated people prefer it to their current lives. In short, these poeple are now responsible for the monestaries, which during communist care were well preserved, and are now deteriorating.

Just as we were done, the excellent weather of the day took a turn for the worse and we went to hide in the hotel.

Beijing April 17

2005-04-18T02:03:00.000-04:00

We met the guide 'Jason' (his real name is something like Ying Ki) and the driver Mr. Cheng at 12 and went off to Tiananenmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was a perfect day for such an excursion - very pleasant tempreatures and not too many people, in contrast to our previous tour of the same area which was hot and extremely crowded. The Forbidden City
again impressed us with its very elegant buildings and courtyards and very non-interesting interiors.

Lunch was not part of the plan (the whole day was very different from the planned itinerary, but the changes were excellent) so we bought some ice cream at the North Gate to the Forbidden City (the Stabucks is at the Eastern Gate which we did not go to so we missed this great cultual improvement), and continued to the Hutong tour. Hutong are the old alleyways and courtyards which were typical of Beijing. Most of them have been torn down and replaced with hi-rises, but a small section has been declared a preserved area. For some reason, tourists are transported around there on a tricycle, under the guidance of a local guide - a very nice young woman with very limited English knowledge called 'Wendy'.

The first stop was the Drum Tower to which we ascended on 69 very steep steps. The view was very smoggy and Wendy got very worried when Judes disappeared around a corner for a few minutes. Every 30 minutes they hit a bunch of large drums there - seems this old tradition was renewed and the tower refurbished very recently.

After that we started cycling through the narrow roads and Avi rebelled and insisted we are better off on foot, so we can get a better glimpse of the going-ons inside the courtyards. This caused Wendy a lot of anguish as she did not understand what he wanted, but after about 10 minutes it suddenly dawned on her and we all continued happily on foot with the tricycle drivers being sent on to a further point of the tour. This was a great walk -
narrow streets with all kinds of stores, street vendors and very cool looking cafes and bars. Part of the walk was along the Lake of 10 Temples - there were lots of peddle and row boats on the water and lots of people out having fun. At this point we were sorry we cannot just sit there rather than go to the Chinese family, which we were afraid will be a very silly and embarassing experience. We could not have been more wrong - it was a great experience too. The house had the most kitschy stuff we ever saw, but we immediately discovered its first good point - a clean bathroom. The food was great - about 15 different dishes and all of them excellent. Quite a few were vegeterian so we all ate a lot and still hardly made a dent in the mounds of food on the table. After that the host showed us his hobby - fighting crickets. He was very amusing and pantomimed lots of jokes, and Avi and he went into a long negotiation about the price of one of the crickets.

Finally we were cycled out and driven to the new theater where we bought tickets to a Shaolin Warriors show. Jason had insisted it will be wonderful, even though we had seen such a show in Princeton which was very silly. This was an amazing Broadway-like production - still with an incredibly stupid plot, but lots of jumps and kicks and quite enjoyable (I managed to sleep thorugh parts of it though).

The final event was catching the train. We were a bit worried about navigating the crowds in the station with our luggage, finding our berths etc., but Jason stayed with us and got us on the train. We got a 4-bunk compartment which we shared with a lawyer who went to Datong for a court appearance. His English is very limited but we he tries very hard. The night was pleasant although we did not get too much sleep and now we are close to Datong where we will get off. The big question is if we'll get rooms so early in the morning - a shower would be nice...

2005-04-18T02:02:00.000-04:00

Lake of Ten Temples

2005-04-17T20:26:00.002-04:00

Night Train

2005-04-17T20:26:00.001-04:00

Crickets

2005-04-17T20:26:00.000-04:00

Dinner 'in local family'

2005-04-17T20:25:00.000-04:00

Lake of Ten Temples

2005-04-17T20:24:00.000-04:00

Forbidden City

Beijing

2005-04-16T20:54:00.000-04:00

It was a long flight, and even longer for Judes with a 10 hour stopover in London. But all went according to plan, Andy's driver met us in the airport, gave us a cellphone and took us to the hotel where we found Judes well and in good spirits.

We took a walk to the strip mall across the street and found a very hip and up-to-date cafe with Illy coffee and a good espresso machine - Just as if we were back in Small World or Jerusalem...

Avi & I woke a bit too early, and went down to breakfast early, but now we will all go to hunt for better coffee in the same cafe. We are meeting the guide at noon. After a Beijing tour today we will take the night train to Datong, so no updates until tomorrow.

And we read a new dispatch from the Lhotse-Everst tour - they have arrived at basecamp! http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestnepal2005ua04152005.htm

Yuval

2005-04-14T11:45:00.000-04:00

Yuval's trip starts tonight when we deposit him at JFK. The poor guy is sick - has strep throat and stayed home from school yesterday and today. But seems like the antibiotics started doing its magic and he seems a bit better today, and in good spirits.

Another Lhotse dispatch at http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestnepal2005ua04142005.htm

Lhotse climb moving along

2005-04-09T09:54:00.000-04:00

There has been another Lhotse post:

http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestnepal2005u04092005.htm

Email from Eyal

2005-04-08T11:28:00.000-04:00

"everything here is good, we just had a nice rest day
in namche and tommoro we go to pangboche."

Seems to be acclimitizing well.

Eyal

2005-04-07T11:18:00.000-04:00

The SummitClub group left Kathamndu on Tuesday morning. We had long conversations with him on Monday, and are eagerly anticipating the next phonecall.

The expedition posts updates on http://www.everestnews.com/ . The first such bulletin appeared on Tuesday - http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestnepal2005u04052005.htm with Eyal's name slightly misspelled. Oh well.

Getting Ready

2005-04-06T22:10:00.000-04:00

With the China trip coming up, it seems easier to just set up a blog, and post and upload photos to it than sending lots of email to the interested parties. So here we are...