Floating along In Laos

Viang Vien is a little town on a river that has become quite a little tourist mecca. The mountains that rise up from the river plain are limestone and riddled with amazing caves.



There is kayaking and inner tubing on the river, although more drinking at the riverside bars seems to go then actual inner tube sitting. The bars are built of wood and bamboo and rise up off the river banks seeming to defy gravity. Employees of the bars fish you out of the river with long bamboo poles as you drift by so you can climb up, collapse on a bamboo pavilion and drink BeerLao. Yes, we did the tubing. And yes, large BeerLaos were consumed. Another very popular feature of the riverside bars are the swings and zip lines that swing or zip you out over the river, hopefully over a deep part, and then send you plunging down into the river, hopefully missing the other tubers and kayakers. Rich did a zip line but we both passed on the really high and long swing from which younger tubers then us were doing flips and massive belly flops. I didn't want to have to go up the bar and order "a BeerLao and two ibuprofen please."



As you travel you make discoveries about yourself, some surprising, some not so much. One of the not surprising discoveries about myself is that I will not become a professional spelunker. For one thing, real spelunkers don't wear skirts.



We went into four caves while in Viang Vien and at no point did I feel a burning desire to go further into the caves. And at every point, when we got back to the place where you see the light from the mouth of the cave my brain reacted as if I had been trapped in the cave for weeks - Oh thank goodness, there's the exit! Two of the caves we visited were with guides on a kayak/cave trek day trip. Both were in one spot and out another, and one of the outs involved a little crack through which you had to crawl. Oh boy! Crawling through a crack to get out of a cave! I was third in line to get out of the cave and had to stop to watch my six foot five husband try to wedge himself through the little crack. Our guide, Air, kept saying to Rich, put your right leg back all the way. This is all the way, Rich said. Air is about five foot five and could have done a tango in the crack. Rich got out with only a skinned knee. The caves are amazing inside. Huge caverns carved out by water running through the limestone. In the wet season a lot of them still have water pouring through them, and we had to wade through streams in one.

Luang Prabang has been more calm, no tubing or kayaking for us here, although both are offered. We rented bikes and did another Rich Coffin adventure tours bike ride, complete with lunch stop at a small roadside resturant.



It is a really beautiful town with a French Colonial feel to it.


It is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and has some damn fine poodles running around.



There was a big festival going on for New Years eve at a spot along our bike ride, I stopped and got a photo of Rich with two girls in local festive dress.

It burns, it burns!

Lessons learned.

In India, I can buy a skirt for less then a glass of wine. No, I'm not good at bargaining, they lower the price when you say you'll think about it and walk away, but usually I bargain very little to none. But the irony of paying 100 RS for a skirt, and then ten minutes later paying 250 RS for a glass of cold white wine makes me laugh. The skirt was too long so I cut the bottom off and used the fabric to make a hat band and a belt for my jeans. The jeans had been held up with a boot string, I think the flowered fabric is much nicer. The jeans themselves have now become shorts hacked off at the knee with my folding knife. Not evenly hacked off, but cooler.



When you throw sticks for dogs in India, they think you are trying to hit them and they run away. To them, it's not a game of fetch. Even if the dog seems like a nice friendly well adjusted 'sure I'll follow you up the mountain because I have nothing better to do' type of dog, it still thinks you are chasing it away. It makes you feel bad when the dog cringes and runs.

The great Snake Brand Powder sold to combat prickly heat in Thailand feels pretty funny if you accidentally get in on sensitive areas of your body. Rich and I can both attest to that.

The Spicy Beef in Laos is really spicy. Yam siin ngao it's called. And whichever word means spicy really should be in capital letters. I was sure that I had steam coming out of my ears and fire shooting from my mouth like a cartoon character. So I kept eating more, it really hurts when you stop.

Being a slow cyclist on a knee masher clunky bike is a great way to spot the best street food vendors, including our new addiction, Kanom Krok, otherwise known as those yummy little coconut cakes - oh my god stop, pull over, more coconut cakes! Rich with Kanom Krok.



And Kanom Krok being made at the Night Market in Chompong.



When riding bikes out in the countryside of Thailand, get ready to wave and shout hello at pretty much everyone. If the people of Thailand were any nicer and friendlier I'm not sure that we could have made any progress on our bike ride. When stopping at small roadside restaurants where there is no menu and no English spoken, it's easy if you just make sure to stop where other people are eating. You just point at something that looks good and point to yourself, nod and smile. That's how we ended up with the most amazing octopus dish. It was fresh, it was good, and the locals were eating it too.



Ah, Thailand.

In love with Thailand

We've been in Thailand for about 9 days, having what we call a vacation from our sabbatical. We flew from Mumbai to Bangkok to Sura Thani, and spent four nights on Koh Samui and four nights on Koh Tao. (see Rich's blog for a great description of leaving India http://blogs.bootsnall.com/TravelRich/ )

There was a very stormy ferry ride in between the two islands which I would like never to repeat, but the islands themselves are wonderful. Blue waters, white sand beaches, great food and sweet happy friendly people.



We are in an area known for it's scuba diving, but neither of us dive and neither of us wanted to sign up for a dive course - a four day commitment? Too much like work. There are loads of Northern European tourists here, mostly Finnish it seems. Some of the dive courses are offered in Finnish. Although it is December the weather is still very warm and during the hottest part of the day those of us not out on dive boats or submerged in resort swimming pools learning how to dive are in the shade.

The beach is lined with restaurants and bars, all open to the ocean and littered with tourists reclining in the shade on the triangular backed Thai pillows. The tourists look like jetsam washed up with the high tide, marooned on the decks of the pavilion style restaurants. They all seem as if they can barely raise their drinks to their mouths, many are simply prone and possibly asleep or done in by 3rd degree sunburn. The breeze coming through the resturant does nothing to stir them, it merely ruffles the pages of their abandonded books. Although Rich and I are not the oldest tourists on this stretch of beach, we are pushing the upper limits. I do feel like the nagging mother of the beach. As exposed flesh around us becomes pink and then red, I adjust my hat and make sure that not one inch of skin is exposed to the sun that is not liberally covered in sun block. I want to warn the pale blondes who make me look swarthy complexioned that that sun is stronger then it feels, sweetie, and don't even think about getting a tattoo...do you kids know where those needles have been? Does the word hepatitis mean anything to you? I'm channeling my father as they bake in the sun and plan their evenings.

About an hour before sunset all the beach bars start coming to life, laying out cushions and digging pits in the sand for beer bottles filled with kerosene and lit with a rag. All along the beach people stake out a spot to watch the sun go down. The happy hour beers are 50 bahts, about $1.50. The fire pits are lit, the strings of lights wrapped around the palm trees go on and the lanterns hung in the trees start to come alive with spots of color. It is a beautiful sight.

Last day in India

Well this is it, our last day in India. We are in Mumbai, our plane for Thailand is tonight at about midnight. I'm so glad we came to India, I know we never would have made it here on a usual 2 week vacation from work. I think I can best sum up my time in India by borrowing a quote from Ruth Prawar Jhabvala that was used in May You be the Mother of a Hundred Sons, a book about women in Inida. Jhabvala said that being a visitor in India was like being strapped to giant wheel, sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down.

Wow, is that an elephant? Up.



Child beggars. Down.

Beautiful views. Up.






And so it goes.

Farewell India.

Food and Trains

I always knew we were spoiled when it came to food. How could you not be living in San Francisco? It really hit home when we spent about two and a half weeks in Italy two summers ago and both Rich and I were tired of Italian food. My sister in law Claire thought it was pretty funny, and it was. We love Italian food. But we got tired of it, we just wanted some variety. So, I hear questions out there, how long did it take us to get tired of Indian food? About 10 days. But, and this is a big but, we both got sick, and when you get sick your mind associates it with the food, and your brain and stomach rebel. We had rented apartments a lot while traveling in Central Europe, so we got to cook for ourselves. Here in India we haven't been able to do that at all. That means four weeks of eating out at resturants. Four weeks of breakfast, lunch, and dinner out. Four weeks of menus, and ordering, and trying to get the bill, and getting change, etc etc etc. It is draining.



So what do we eat? Well, we were lucky that when we went to the mountains we got a lot of Tibetin and Chinese food. We both loved the Tibetian food, love those momos!, and I could eat veggie chow mein for a long time. In Manali there was great resturant attached to the hotel, Johnsons Cafe, and we ate every meal there for two days. Breakfast is never a problem, toast is universal I guess. But, tonight, both of us at our limit on Indian food, we are looking for pizza. And how sick of pizza were we in Croatia? Very. Travel is funny.

I think Rich covered the cockroach train from Varanasi to Jahnsi in his blog. The train that led me to declare "No more night trains!". How long did my ban last? About one and half weeks. After the car and driver we hired left us in McLeod Ganj we had to get to Delhi to get anywhere, so Rich booked a night train for us, 1AC, the highest class available. We got a two person compartment to ourselves and proceeded to settle in, strewing luggage everywhere, getting the rum and fruit juice on deck for cocktails. "A mouse!" Rich announces. Not really, you're joking I hope? No joke, one little mouse. We named him Irwin and decided that one mouse was much better then the hundreds of cockroaches we had endured on our last night train. Live and let live. Coexist. Pass the rum and fruit juice.

Monkeys, Red Pandas, and Monks! Oh My!

Cute critters do a lot to make a place great, in my book. So the sighting of Red Pandas that we had the other day on a hike out of McLeod Ganj kept me going for about two days. Rich and I were on a trail amazingly free of people or trash (India has a big litter problem, more on that later.) when he saw a dark shape dash away down a slope. I got the camera out and we stalked the elusive shape, well, ok, we continued to walk up the trail, but quietly. We discussed what we thought the creature was, it looked like a pine martin, a member of the weasel family, only larger and with a bushier tail. We were pretty sure it wasn't a cat type creature, the body shape was wrong, and it wasn't one of the many monkeys, wrong color and wrong behavior.

Around the corner on the trail and there it was again, dashing away up the slope, then another one dashed as well and we got a better look at it when it curiously peered back down at us. Red Pandas. Also known as Indian Raccoons. They are reddish golden on their backs with darker legs and belly, and a ringed tail. The faces have white mask markings, like our US raccoons but they are larger and longer. We walked a little farther and heard a horrible fighting noise coming from a tree, and two more ran down the tree and we watched them skirt around us. I got one photo where you can actually see the fast moving thing. Very exciting.

Monkeys and trash. As I mentioned, India has a litter problem. A big litter problem. It is everywhere, spilling down slopes in towns, covering the train tracks, in piles along the main streets of small and big towns. We see people just drop trash where they stand, and there aren't many options for them. Some of the hill towns are making a concentrated effort to clean up, like Simla, and have trash cans which say Use Me, but in most places the only option is to toss stuff down. I have been amazed at the length and breadth of the litter and here in McLeod Ganj, but part of the puzzle was solved. Monkeys and dumpsters.



We watched a gang of monkeys puling trash out of dumpster and dragging it all over the hill. Potato chip bags, plastic bags, bottles, you name it, the monkeys wanted a closer look. The dumpster lids are propped open so the monkeys have easy access. There would be a market for monkey proof dumpsters here in India, like the ones Yosemite uses to foil the bears. And today I saw a cow pick up the end of a trash bag in her mouth, lift, and shake. The trash that had been neatly contained, perhaps awaiting pickup, was now spread all over the street. Monkey and cow proof dumpsters would help a lot. A friend did point out that tradionally most of the trash would have been recycled by the cows into fuel; cow dung. But with so much plastic and other non-cow-munchable trash now in the packaging stream, the trash has no where to go.



Yesterday we did about a 14 mile hike up the ridge above town to get a better view of the Himalaya mountains. It was a great hike and the view was totally worth is. As a bonus we also had another question answered. (India generates a lot of questions.) McLeod Ganj is the residence of His Holiness the Dali Lama, and of the Tibetan government in exile so there are many Buddhist monks and disciples. Where there are Buddhists there are strings of prayer flags. Now, a string of prayer flags hung from a railing or balcony or small tree is pretty, but a string of prayer flags hung from forty feet up a pine tree, or thirty feet up a cliff is pretty amazing. How did they do that? Rich advocated for the rock tossing method, tying one end of the prayer flag string around a rock and tossing it into the tree, much like we did hanging our food bags from bears in the Sierras before the invention of bear proof canisters (there is theme of animal proofing going on here). On our hike yesterday we heard voices from around a bend in the trail, above the trail really. We stopped and looked up and saw the distinctive red robes of a Buddhist monk high in a tree, dragging a string of prayer flags after him. You didn't have to know the language to recognize that there was an argument going on. The Monk on the ground was yelling at the Monk in the tree. Probably to go higher. The Monk in the tree was yelling back. Probably to piss off. We kept hiking. Nothing we could do to help there.

Here, there, and everywhere.

There are so many things to tell you all about India. The bad times, the good times. The times Rich refrained from sending me home on the next plane and instead waited until my foul mood had passed. In most photos, one of us is either sick, cranky, or fed up. This photo from the Taj Mahal has one sick Rich, one cranky Me. We had gotten up for the 6 am visit to beat the crowds.



India is a tough place to travel, and just when you have decided to heck with it, I'm over this country, India sends out the secret weapon: the people. Especially the kids.

We are in the mountains, and we currently have a car and driver (ok, confession; we are being driven around India in an SUV - how the mighty have fallen.). Our first night out of Simla was wonderful. Tattapani is a little town on a river with natural hot springs. Rich got giggles from every school girl who walked by the table where we sat to read and drink tea. The scene goes like this. Us, sitting and drinking tea. The dirt road to the school is between us and the river, the dozens and dozens of school kids would drift by in clumps of five to ten kids. In each clump the staring eyes would fix on us as the kids walked by. One of us would smile and wave. One of the braver kids would call out "hullo", Hello, Rich would reply. The giggling would start and keep going through the brave "goodbye" one of the them would call out. More giggles. Repeat this scene about twenty times in one evening.

Tattapani was also where we met Kurt. Kurt is great. He is traveling around India on a rented motorbike, and back home in Salt Lake City he works as a bike mechanic and sign painter. He promised to come visit us in SF and experience the wonderfulness that is SF bike culture.

In Naggar, another mountain town where the temperature inside our concrete hotel was probably fifteen degrees colder then outside, we walked up the dirt roads that wound past what I called a living ethnographic museum. The area is mostly orchards and corn and livestock. The traditional houses are made from wood with slate roofs. The slate roofs are covered with drying laundry, corn, and chile peppers. Again, it's hard to stay mad at a country that has little kids popping up above the railings of the balconies and waving and calling "hello goodbye". As fascinated as we are by them, we get it back tenfold. Rich and I are in a few vacation photo albums now as we have teenage girls and honeymooning couples asking to take a photo with us.

Today our driver Rana drove us up toward the Rohtang pass. The pass is closed for the winter, it is at about 4,000 meters, he let us out when the road starting getting dodgy with snow and we walked a few kilometers up to admire the mountains and the eagles soaring overhead. The broad river valley is dotted with small villages that look as if they fight a never ending battle with the river.

The people in the mountains are so nice, and all seem so happy. The living here is more subsistence living, with easy access to clean (looking) water that flows off the mountains. Yesterday, a day when the sun declined to shine, we went into the restaurant attached to our hotel here in Manali where we ran into a British couple we had been chatting with that morning in Naggar. We all realized about the same time that a wood burning stove near the windows was actually hot and we huddled around it defrosting our hands and feet. An older Indian Gentleman seated near the stove turned and said "I can't believe what I am seeing, I thought you people were impervious to the cold!" We laughed. Impervious, yeah, right.

Backtrack to Vienna

VBonus post, Rich got some photos uploaded so I can't resist this photo of me bidding the wines of Europe goodbye.



For the record, it has been 10 days since my last glass of wine, and about 8 since the last bite of yummy chocolate. (Picture The Scream when you read that.) Oh, that is my new haircut. I'm not sure if the woman was just not a great stylist, or my German was really that bad. Rich got a haircut too. His is also not fantastic, he misses Leo, his barber.

And here is my honey, chilling with his Vienna CityBike. The best travel companion I could have, the one who puts up with me and does ALL the arrangements. My job? Try to complain as little as possible and make him laugh when it all gets to be too much.

Me, and my shadows...

Hanging at the river at Orchha.



The kids come running when the camera comes out, and they all want to see their photo on the screen of the digital camera. The kids who are not selling anything are happy to chat, ask where I'm from, my name, and hang for a little while until we walk along. Those who are selling things are impervious to rejection and will follow you along continuing their pitch, until, like a cat in the city who reaches the limit of known territory, they finally turn back, but await your return trip.


Our boat ride on the Ganges at Varanasi was somewhat overwhelming. I am currently reading Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby, written in 1966, and from his descriptions the only things that have really changed are the advent of mobile phones and the plastic waste.



It was disconcerting to be a witness to the multitudes who pray and wash in the river, and to see the cremation fires.

It has happened.

Every time Rich and I have been in a tough or uncomfortable situation so far, like biking over Loveland Pass in August, or on our day of three trains in Slovakia, one of us will turn to the other and say, hey, quit bitching, would you rather be at work right now? The answer has always been no. We both really liked our jobs and our co-workers, but the point of a year off is a year off from everything. And we always knew we would never get to these places on our 2 or 3 week trips during our working lives.

Well, last night, as I lay shivering in bed with a tummy thing in our hotel room in Orchha, Rich said to me, well, would you rather be at work right now? YES! I said. What are you nuts, I could be in my cozy little cubicle, with a grande awake tea from Starbucks and a lemon scone. There would be a nice bathroom down the hall, clean drinking water, and my lovely co-workers to go out to lunch with. Heck, I'd even rather be in a staff meeting!



So, let me backtrack a bit and give you a run down of our time in India so far. We landed in Dehli, from Vienna (Vienna is lovely, one of the nicest cities we've been to.), and spent one night in Delhi. We wandered around with our backpacks until our train left the next day at 4 pm or so. The Delhi train station was quite a scene. We were on a night train, Sleeper AC 1st class, pretty nice. We went to Varanasi, on the Ganges river. It is a holy place where people go to pray and wash in the river - 60,000 people a day go down to the river. Bodies are burned at two different locations, or Ghats, on the river. Our hotel was on the river, accessible only through the alleyways. The day we arrived a movie was being filmed right outside our hotel, it was fascinating to watch, but it made it very difficult to get into the hotel.



The alleys are amazing. From about seven feet wide to less then four they are lined with small shops, housing, silk factories, anything you can think of. Although the alleys are too narrow for bike rickshaws, scooters and motorbikes do use them, as do the cows and the goats. It is quite amazing to turn the corner and see the entire alley taken up by a large cow, laying sideways in the alley. We learned that when you get lost in the alleys, which you will, it is impossible not to, listen to the locals. They will point you in the correct direction. Or ask a little boy to guide you to your destination and give him 10 Rs. It will save you a lot of time and frustration.



From Varanasi we went to Orchha, on the Cockroach non-express night train. It was a night to forget, but we probably won't. We passed the time playing increasingly silly versions of Gin Rummy and killing cockroaches. I told Rich later that I would have gladly traded a kidney to be off that train about 8 hours before we were. Maybe even half of a liver. Orchha is amazing. They are in the process of restoring many of the temple and palaces here along the river, and the town is small and friendly, without much of the touting and begging we found in Varanasi.

But still, but still. What is it that makes me feel unsettled? Is it the poverty? Or that fact that since arriving in India we haven't had enough exercise? We'd been walking about 5 to 10 miles per day, but where we've been here in India that is just not possible. Is it the water bottles? Although we bought MicroPur, the silver ionized water purification tablets that allegedly don't taste at all, we haven't used them yet. We've probably gone through more plastic bottles of water in one week in India then the two of did in SF over five years. We both hate the waste and pollution factor of bottled water so at home we use the same bottles over and over, re-fillng them with pure sweet Hetch Hetchy water. OK, maybe the fresh pomegranate juice at the little restaurant in Orchha was not a good idea and that is why I'm now taking loperamide and an antibiotic for my tummy.



Well, cutting to the chase, we are considering a shorter stay in India then we had planned. Rich is looking into getting us to Thailand a week early or so. So, enjoy your coffee and tea and nice drinking water on demand. We'll keep you posted. Everyone in the travel forums says to give India a few weeks, you settle into it. Maybe we will. I'll keep you posted.

We're going where?

So it's good bye Vienna and hello India tomorrow. Goodbye yummy beer, hello Indian food (which we are really looking forward to).



Rich found a place for us to stay in Dehli, the plane gets in at midnight, and he arranged for airport pick up. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Czech borders and beer

Getting from Poland to the Czech Republic was an interesting event. We had left Wroclaw looking for a quiet place for Rich to recover from a nasty cold that gave him a bad cough. We would have liked to stay with our Servas hosts for another night, but Rich was feeling lousy, and coughing a lot, so we hopped a bus to Jelena Gora for two quiet days of rest, gentle walks, and picnic lunchs. And hugging odd carved statues in the woods.






We took a bus from Jelena Gora to the border. Note that I say to the border, not over the border. Why not? Well, for some reason the bus stopped about 100 meters shy of the border and we got to walk across. Rich was in sandals. It was cold. I like to imagine what people are thinking as they see us. Did the border guards call out to each other, check out the crazy american in sandals?

We knew we would like the Czech Republic when the first opportunity to buy Pivo, that’s beer to you and me, was about 40 meters past the border.



And we didn’t even have to walk on the road to the next town, there was a well marked trail to Harrachov.



And in Harrachov there was a brewery combo glass factory. What’s not to love about this town?



We ran into a Rick Steves Czech Beer tour group at this brewery. I bet they didn’t get to walk across any borders. Behind me in this photo is the glass blowing floor. You can’t see in this photo but most of the workers had a pint of beer somewhere in their work area. We assume it was Friday afternoon thing...but maybe not. Maybe they do it when they need to replenish the stock of seconds for sale.



Harrachov was a town of hiking and drinking beer. We took the ski lift up the mountain and hiked and drank beer.



After a cold hike there is nothing like relaxing with a cold beer.




Two days later we took a little chugger train from Harrochov to a slightly larger town, Tanvald, to catch the train to Prague. This was a Sunday.



The train to Prague was pretty empty when it left Tanvald, but at the next station a big group of boy scouts got on. They must have been camping and were heading back to Prague. It got very crowded, with kids standing in the corridors, and backpacks everywhere. Rich had the pleasure of sitting next to a little boy we call ADD Kid. The little guy could not sit still. To top it off, the heat in our compartment was stuck on full blast and it was raining outside so the window couldn’t be left open to combat the fierce heat. Well, we thought, maybe it will put little Mr. Ants in his Pants to sleep. No such luck. He went out in the corridor and stuck his head out that window, got soaking wet, and came and sat back down. But, the kids were actually quite well behaved. As the train continued on more and kids piled on at each station. Cars were added to the train, but still it was standing room in the corridors only. Then, the train stopped and we were all piled onto busses for a ten minute ride to another train station where we all piled back on a different train.

Rich on the Charles Bridge in Prague.

Poland, we love you.

Poland was a joy. The people are so friendly. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, everyone we interacted with was so nice. Yes, I am bit biased as my family on my Mothers side is Polish. Her father left Poland in 1910.

Krakow is a beautiful City, here is Rich at Castle Hill in front of the amazing Cathedral.



Warsaw is a huge city. We walked our feet off and still felt that we didn't really get a grasp of the City. It is simply too big, and has no center that you can point to. The Warsaw Rising museum was amazing though. It chronicles the almost 2 month long fight of the people of Warsaw against the Nazis near the end of WWII (not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which was earlier in the war, when the Jews decided to fight back.).



The Polish Home Army fought hard, hoping for Ally help, but ultimately lost control of the City again, and Warsaw was bombed into oblivion. The Rising memorial depicts the heroic fight. Here a solder descends into the sewer tunnels which were used to travel and communicate during the battle. Museum website: www.1944.pl



Then it was on to Wroclaw, where we stayed with a Servas family. Wroclaw was the most rewarding stop of our time in Poland. Not only were Wojliech, Malgorzata and Carolina fun to talk to and very hospitable, but we went to the school where Malgorsata teaches and spoke to two of her English classes. She teaches at XII Liceum in Wroclaw and the kids in both classes, III fgh and IE2, were lovely. Rich and I talked about San Francisco and our lives while Malgorzata quizzed the kids and encouraged them to speak up. I talk so fast that I'm amazed they kept up, but they did. English is becoming an even more important second language for a lot of people.

Kids, if you're reading this, keep up the English. You were all wonderful and made our stay in your beautiful city even more fun. Come visit us in SF, we will be signed up as Servas hosts when we return.

To top off our great stay, we discovered that Rich and Malgorzata share a birthday, Oct 24th.

Lessons in language and blending in.

When in Croatia we did fairly well at learning some useful words, but in Hungary, where we said on the train heading into the country, this time we are really making an effort - we sucked. That is one tough language. Slovakian had more in common with Croatian then it did Hungarian, so we did pretty well in Slovakia. We spent two days hiking in the Slovakian Paradise, a gorgeous mountain range where the fall colors are really coming out in force (uh, 'cause it's getting really COLD!). The hikers we encountered were nice, everyone greets everyone with a cheerful Dobry den (that's phonetic, means good day, the actual spelling is quite different). Teach me a phrase, send me up a mountain where I will pass umpteen hikers on a Sunday, and I will use it. Oh yes, I will use it. Dobry den, dobry den! The hills were alive with the sound of me greeting hikers.





We stayed at a nice hotel where there was a wedding going on Saturday evening. The mother of all weddings, I might add. We saw dressed up members of the wedding party at 11 am saturday, and heard drunk singing wedding guests at 4:30 am sunday. The reception started at about 5 pm Sat. We sat in the hotel bar and got to watch and hear the traditional band perform. The guests were in it for the long haul, we could tell by their faces that they knew they were in for at least another ten hours of fun. We walked over the hill to a restaurant at another hotel where, what a surprise, another wedding was going on. We got in some really good people watching that night, even if we didn't get huge amounts of sleep. The small children running up and down the stairs at 2:30 were annoying, but the drunk singing guys in the garden at 4:30 actually sounded really good, according to Rich. I slept through them.

The area of Slovakia we were in is one of the last where you still see people, mostly older women, in traditional dress. The headscarf tied under the chin, the petticoat and skirt, the apron. We got a few photos, without being really obnoxious (I hope), and will post them when we can.



The hiking was wonderful, and the trail building was creative. Where the river had cut a path through the limestone that some would call a cliff, the Slovakians merely attach a few metal platforms and a chain and call it a trail.



So how well do we blend in? What really seems to set up apart and out us as Americans now that we are off the main tourist routes? Well, Rich is taller then most people by about two feet, and taller then almost anyone we saw. Especially in Hungary. There are some teenage boys who look like they may top six foot two given a good diet and lots of sleep, but not yet. The big American with the sunglasses attracts loads of attention from the teen boys. They study his every item of clothing and watch every move. It's quite fun to watch.

Sunglasses. No one seems to wear them except us. It's not like we're kidding ourselves that we blend in, but it is interesting to note the obvious differences. Not many eyeglasses either. We're not sure if the people of Hungary and Slovakia are of superior genetic material and don't need glasses, or they wear contact lenses, or they simply don't get eye tests (which could explain some of the driving we saw), but the trendy Haight Street glasses on Rich are unusual.

My shoes. Now that it's cold I am wearing my Keens exclusively. With Smartwool socks. They are the Keens that are fairly strap intensive, but still partly open, not a total closed shoe, more of a sport utility sandal. I've only seen one other pair so far, in a train station in Poland, on a woman who must have been American. Well, as far as I can tell, the Croatian, Hungarian, and Slovakian women are not very impressed with my footwear. They are a fairly stylish bunch, these women, and these shoes are high in comfort, but perhaps not so high in style. Oh well, they did get me through a six hour hike with no blisters, so no complaining on my part. Well, a little complaining...I am getting sick of them. Again, with the cold weather, it's getting down to about 35 or 40 at night and in the evening, about 55 or 60 during the day, so I'm wearing my one pair of jeans and my one sweater every day. Yup, everyday. Thankfully we have a heated towel rack at this place so I can wash them tonight and hang then over the heated rack to dry, hopefully, by morning. Was that too much detail about my laundry habits? I hope not. I'll take a photo so you can all see what it's like as a light traveler in a cold climate. I've already ditched one skirt and haven't worn the other for two weeks. I'm hanging on to it for India. Bought two t-shirts in Budapest, at a Zara clothing store, which we have one of in SF (ah the virtual downtown...), here in Poland I will buy gloves and a scarf. Oh boy, some new clothing!