How great was Boracay? Let me tell you. It was alright. Kinda meh, actually. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not actually bitching here. But, if you came here thinking I was gonna rave, it’s not going to happen. It constantly threatened to storm on us. It never did, but it was windy and frequently we had mild showers. It was really too cool to go swimming. But I am certainly not blaming anybody for less than ideal weather. It happens. And I thank our lucky stars it didn’t pour the whole time, send us a hurricane or produce any flooding. So I sat on the beach most of our 4 days there, fully clothed and reading my books. It wasn’t cheap. Airfare was right up there, and the hotel was $100 a night and pretty crappy for that price. The beach was quite crowded. And travel time to get there was not as easy as I had hoped.
Now for the good things. Reading is a lovely way to spend some time. Also, getting away really keeps me from worrying about things. I can’t do anything about anything, so my brain really deactivates and completely clears. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way for Mark. So he spent most of his time reading work related stuff. Poor dude. The beach was lovely – white sands, waist high water for yards and yards out to play in for the two hours it wasn’t chilly, and the water was clean. Sitting at beach side, open air restaurants and bars always makes me happy. The highlights of the trip were probably the several times I found very small hermit crabs just wandering around the beach. So although it was expensive, a long trip, crappy weather and crowded it was great getting away and trying something new. And it certainly hasn’t dissuaded me from travel. In a couple of weeks I’m off to India. Yeah!

The other morning Gigi said something to me that I didn’t quite catch. Gigi is a smart little cookie, but more like a dictionary than a linguistic genius. She memorizes every word that correlates with a noun or a verb, but trying to get her to make sentences has been a real struggle. So I got her to repeat what she had said and it was “You go my home.” Well, I am just delighted on so many levels with this sentence. She used home instead of house, which is awesome. She used the pronoun I instead of Gigi. Any she used the possessive pronoun “my,” which is really something you can’t teach, it’s just something she picked up. Yeah! Happy as I was, I didn’t really understand what she was trying to convey. Had I walked by her apartment the day before? Was she telling me her mom was inviting me to her birthday party? That’s happened before. Did she really want to come to my house? Was she going to Macau next weekend? I just didn’t understand and said something placating and moved on.
Throughout the rest of the day though, she would repeat “You go my home.” I finally told the Mandarin teacher about Gigi and her new sentence. And we laughed. She said she’d tell Gigi’s mom about it because it is so cute.
The end of the day comes along and Gigi’s name is called over the loud speaker signalling that her mom is here to pick her up. Gigi walks straight over to me with a purpose, takes my hand, pulls me toward the gate and repeats “You go my home.” I am so bowled over and so bemused that I just get dragged along. I tell the Mandarin teacher to watch the kids because apparently I’m leaving now because Gigi is not going to take No for an answer. Gigi drags me out to her mother. Her mother is confused. Gigi doesn’t say anything. I’m just laughing. I try and tell her mom what’s going on, but she doesn’t understand and seems a bit put off. I tell Gigi I can’t go home with her. She looks hurt. I tell her I’ll see her tomorrow. I go back in the school yard.
Gigi hasn’t ordered “You go my home” since.

It’s Golden Week in China. It’s a week that everyone is supposed to have off. Well, not a whole week. They give you Monday through Friday off, but then you are supposed to work on Saturday and Sunday to make up for it. But I don’t do that because…well…I’m a bullheaded American who just refuses. Well, to celebrate China Day and the other days in Golden Week we went up to Yangshuo, which is in Guangxi province. Mark doesn’t actually get the whole week off because Macao has so many holidays to celebrate, it just can’t do everything China does, Portugal does, and Hong Kong and celebrate a few of it’s own days so he took off only 1 extra day. We left directly after work on Friday and took the overnight bus up to Guangxi. It’s kinda like a train sleeper car, only not. There are beds against the windows and another row down the center. Only calling them beds would be stretching it a little. I’d say they are 5 and a half feet long – I could technically fit, Mark can’t. You head is resting on the cubbyhole where the next person’s feet are tucked into. They are only as wide as my shoulders – not Mark’s. It is completely possible that you will fall out of your bunk on the windy roads. The temperature is constantly changing. The bus stops every 1.5 to 2 hours and they turn on all the lights, which is necessary as there are usually some people sleeping in the aisles on oversold buses. There is no bathroom. All that said, it’s still better than sitting up for the 8 to 10 hour journey. Oh, and it is cheap. $25 bucks a ticket, compared to the $200 airfare that doesn’t actually get you their any faster. Unfortunately we must have missed our stop, because we ended up in Guelin at 4 a.m. at a crummy bus station and had to wait 2 hours for the first bus back to Yangshuo.
Spent Saturday walking around the city, finding our hostel and trying to get our bearings. We never really did and constantly spent the next 3 days walking in the wrong direction. The old city is cute, touristy and was absolutely packed because every person in China has the week off. I like the American system of staggering our vacations, rather than closing the entire business down for a week. We had awesome Chinese and vegetarian food, decent veggie burgers and some really crappy pizza over our trip. Bought some souvenirs. Saw the night time river show in the rain. And chatted with other foreigners about their lives in China.
The highlight of the trip however was the smile on Mark’s face when we went bike riding. The second day we only went for a 3 hour bike ride, but it was fun. And we saw some incredible scenery. I took lots of pictures, but since the disc was still at the hotel you will never see them. The third day the plan was..does it matter? We had a plan. The gods laughed. We spent the entire day hiking or biking and getting lost. But we were okay with that. We saw more incredible scenery. I was able to stop and take lots of pictures…ones that actually exist. I had a very good time. Mark was in heaven.
The next day it rained all day and there is really nothing to do. So we stayed at the hostel and read and uploaded pictures and wished we had facebook. Then it was time to do another overnight bus ride back down to the Pearl River delta. It was even less fun than the ride up, took longer and my knees and calves were killing me from all the riding. Nonetheless, the whole trip was an adventure, and adventure we are glad we took.

You: Turn on water.
Me: It’s not that simple. My shower springs from the wall next to the toilet. So, I close the lid to the toilet before I turn on the water. I also take the bath mat off the wall, where I have stuck it to dry. Since the shower sprays the entire toilet area, I have to take the toilet paper roll off the washing machine (which is next to the toilet) and put it up on a high shelf where it won’t get soaked. I then take the shampoo and soap off the shelf and put it on the washing machine, so I won’t get the toilet paper all wet when I reach for them. I also have to remove the cover over the drain, because it drains too slow and has the potential of flooding out of the bathroom and into the rest of the apartment. And I also have to put the used toilet paper bin up on the washer, too. Most places in China do not have a sewer system that can handle toilet paper, therefore it goes into a trashcan next to the toilet (are you saying “Eww” yet?)

You: Take off clothes.
Me: I take off my clothes and throw them into the other room, because there is nowhere in my shower/toilet room where they won’t get wet.

You: Enter shower and adjust water temperature.
Me: Ha! My shower only has an on-off faucet handle. There is no hot water knob and cold water knob. It all comes from straight from the hot water heater. So, if the water is too hot or too cold I have to adjust the hot water heater….which has three knobs and the settings are all in Chinese. I don’t know what knob does what, I just have to use trial and error. Oh, and did I mention the hot water heater is in the kitchen. So if I need to turn it up, I have to run out of the shower nekkid and into the kitchen, dripping wet to adjust it. Having the hot water heater in the kitchen would make sense if my kitchen sink had hot water, but it doesn’t and I wash my dishes in cold water. Confused yet? Well, just stop trying to think logically. Logic rarely works in China, so just abandon it.

You: Lather, rinse, repeat.
Me: Lather, rinse. Chances are the water is the wrong temperature, so my showers are usually extremely short.

You: Get out of shower and towel dry.
Me: I open the bathroom door to grab a towel from the dry zone. I towel off and use the towel as a turban (all females are required by their genetic makeup to do this). Then undo all the things I did before: toilet open, toilet paper replaced, shampoo replaced, bin placed back next to toilet and bath mat stuck on the wall. Only there is still a huge puddle on the floor about an inch deep, which will never drain by itself. The lowest point in the room is in the absolute middle, but the drain is up against the wall. Whoever tiled the room did not take much pride in their job. So, I get the mop and push as much water as I can over to the drain. When that stops working I soak up the water with the mop and squeeze it out into the sink. But I can’t stop there, or a small puddle will very slowly form next to the toilet and I will step in it and get my slippers soaked. So I have a large window squeegie and get more of the water over to the drain. But since the tiles are really uneven and the squeegie doesn’t fit in next to the toilet or washing machine, I do a little towel skating around the room. That usually does the trick.

You: Continue with grooming.
Me: Lie down on couch and take a little nap.

Oh, well, I got it down to a science now. It only took me six months to figure it all out, but I have a system in place that works most of the time. But, if I forget to do any one of those steps there is usually some cursing involved.

The room in question.

It’s been a month since we returned from Greece, but it has really stayed with me. I know it’s the cradle of civilization, and the home of Zeus and his buddies and some cool old ruins. But I don’t think I had realized how much Ancient Greece was a part of everything I knew. But everywhere you look it has a million different connections to what we Westerners know. I also don’t think I had realized HOW advanced their society was, or how much of what they accomplished was lost. I kinda always thought it was just another stair step in human progression. But really it was quite the leap, most of that progress was lost almost immediately. Even the Romans didn’t have the skill or creativity that the Greeks did. Mainly they just copied the Greeks, and those copies tended to be inferior. Then the dark ages, and even that was lost.
Okay, philosophy lesson over. Now for the light travel fluff. Mark met me in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece. This is not a tourist only city, this is a real city, that just happens to have a lot of old stuff in it that is worth going to see. Like all of Greece you scuff your shoes without finding old stuff. The city was an important port during the Roman age, has tons of Byzantium churches and history from the Ottoman occupation. Not to mention classical Greek ruins. Oh, and name your own price internet sites didn’t get us a brilliant deal. Our 5 star hotel turned out to be a Holiday Inn on a street undergoing major construction, next to the red light district. Oh well, you get what you pay for. Oh, and going to a country on the brink of economic collapse is pretty expensive, not a great deal. And the taxi drivers were on strike. Yet, we still had a great time.
Next we went on to Delphi. Before this trip I thought that Delphi was actually a fictional place, associating it with Oedipus and the Greek mythology. But turns out it’s real. A nice little hill side town catering totally to tourists, but we really seemed to have most of it to ourselves. The ruins were nice and manageable…good thing, it was boiling hot. The museum excellent. As a matter of fact all the museums we visited in Greece were incredible. And the view from the town down onto the Corinthian Bay was lovely.
Then on to Athens, the one of the Parthenon and olive trees in Greece, not the one of football and townies in Georgia. We really saw a ton of stuff – the Archeology Museum and the Parthenon museum, the Agora, Temple of Zeus just to name a few. We walked every inch of the Plaka several times, got to know the subway system and Starbucks. We did the Acropolis on a very hot, crowded morning. If it wasn’t for the walking tour podcasts I downloaded I think I would have been miserable and unimpressed. But thanks to Rick Steves it turned out a lot better. But our favorite spot turned out to be the Keramicos. Old ruins of the city that almost nobody goes to, yet it is right there next to everything. It used to be the pottery section of town in ancient days, which then turned into a cemetery. I told Mark he didn’t have to go, since I’m the one who has a thing about cemeteries but he came along. I actually ended up having to drag him out of there.
We spent an entire week in Greece and stayed completely on the mainland. There is so much more to see on the Peloponnese and the islands. Guess we’ll just have to go back again.

Prilep is the third largest city in the country with a whopping population of 18,000 people. It’s clean and finally starting to show some recent renovations and development after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Ana and Boris had me on the run from the moment I got there. We walked all over the town and sat in every café. Wherever we went Boris ran into a friend and stopped to talk. I mean every five minutes. We could be in another town or hiking on a hill in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t matter. In my narrative after every sentence just include your own “and Boris stopped to talk.” He really should run for president.
On the second day we went off to Lake Ohrid with a friend of Ana’s (who has better English than she does) and Boris’ sister. Danae and Marija were a lot of fun and gave me all the dirt on Ana and Boris. Ana is very nutty in her own special, loud, hyper way. Matzo is more Ana than Ana at times it was a little scary. Danae is smart and much calmer, and a nice balance to the crazy of Ana and Marija. We visited a monastery, several churches, an amphitheater and a fortress. We also stopped to see Marija’s friends and swim in the lake…a mountain lake…a damn cold mountain lake (are there any other kind?)
One night I was feted at Boris’ family house out in the country. What a delightful dinner with Ana’s and Boris’ families and friends eating under the stars and partaking of all sorts of yummy local food.
Boris and Ana had never had anyone to show their country to before so they were kind of excited. We went to Bitola, a once gorgeous town with all the old foreign consulates in lovely, run down historic buildings. They took me to the ancient Roman ruins down the road at Heraclea with some great finds. Heraclea was a pretty big city on an important Roman trade route. And because nobody visits Macedonia, it is a hidden gem. Since I enjoyed Heraclea so much, they decided I needed to go see Stobi, another important archeological Roman site that was even bigger than Heraclea and more important. So the next day we did a day trip up to see more mosaics and Roman foundations. Of course I made them take me to a couple of cemeteries as well.
I think the coolest thing though was when they took me to the Macedonian Diaspora Festival. Macedonia has been parceled off for centuries into various countries depending on who had control of what. However, the Macedonian people are now divided into about 4 countries. Macedonia of course, but large chunks are now part of Bulgaria and Greece and a sliver of Albania. So since the Yugoslav nation broke up, they are trying to celebrate their ethnicity once a year in this very colorful festival. I really enjoyed the folk dancing. I spent most of my time either watching or photographing the festival. I was really just over the moon.
But when it was time to go, it was time to go. We had started getting on each others nerves a little, and I was excited to be meeting up with Mark in Greece. But first I had one more hurtle. Transportation down to Thessaloniki. I may have mentioned before that transportation in the Balkans is ridiculously unorganized, and this was no exception. I was told before I planned my trip that there was a train directly there. However you may have heard that Greece is having some financial difficulty, and all trains that cross borders have been discontinued. Why? I don’t know what one has to do with another? So we went to the Tourist Bureau to find another option, and they didn’t know. They didn’t seem to know much of anything. So, basically we walked around and let Boris run into people he knew and asked them. Somebody said they knew a taxi driver who was willing to drive to Greece. Well, I guess that’s gonna be expensive, but I gotta go. We go to the taxi driver’s house and his mom starts arranging for me to hire her son for the day. Only then the taxi driver shows up himself and tell his mom to shut up and lets us know that he also owns a van service that goes to Thessaloniki every morning. Which is a whole lot cheaper and makes more sense then hiring a personal driver for the day. So I got to Greece without any further hiccups. However, transportation in Greece will have it’s own problems. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.

Had to make a mad dash to catch the bus to Rila. The 10 minute taxi ride to the bus station cost me more than the 3 hour bus journey into the mountains to the most famous site in Bulgaria. Oh, you’ve never heard of Rila? Yah, well can you name any other site in Bulgaria? I didn’t think so. It is a monastery built high in the mountains known for being painted in intricate and beautiful designs on just about every square inch. Also important for it’s relics of St. Ivan of Rila that have healing properties. But more importantly it has been a safe haven for Bulgarian culture during the 500 year reign of the Turks and Greeks and the devastating Soviet block years. During these occupations the Monastery was allowed to continue it’s practices unfettered for various reasons.
It’s really beautiful. But it was a little frustrating. It was really hard to get any information on the history. No signs, no tours and as you may know I left my guidebooks back in China, so I couldn’t rely on those. I planned to stay at the Monastery but by 9 am they had already booked all their rooms, so I was forced to stay at the hotel adjacent to it. Well, I thought, at least there will be electricity and internet. Nope, no internet. Which was really only a problem when I attempted to get the hotel staff to get me information on taking the bus to my next destination on the following day. Basically they said NO. Um, without internet I certainly can’t find out for myself. There is no coffee shop down the street with a wi-fi connection…there is nothing down the street for 22 km. After a small panic attack the staff changed their tune and got very friendly. The manager told me to meet her at appointed time and she would walk me to the bus and tell the driver where I wanted to go.Once on the right bus everyone was very concerned that I get to the right place, and as this concerned a transfer they were doubly concerned. It turned out not to be a big deal. They dropped me off at a cross roads with a couple of dilapidated but busy cafes and I waited 20 minutes and the next bus arrived on time and I was bustled on and taken good c are of. The landscape was picturesque and ever changing. I especially liked seeing the carts being pulled by mules even in the middle of town and all the old people out tending their goats while reading their newspapers. In places the landscape reminded me of the valleys of Colorado, and at others the vineyards of Tuscany. And every one had grape vines growing up over their doorways, even if their doorway opened directly on to the sidewalk.
Once in Kyustendil I checked into their fancy spa. The area has been famous for their hots springs for millenia, and the Romans built quite a large complex to enjoy them. The ancient Romans, the Japanese and me, we all like a good hot bath. I indulged in their mineral baths, partook of four meals, rented a bicycle and got a few spa treatments (okay 4 spa treatments) over the next 30 hours. In between I walked around the cute old town, took photographs and ate really good ice cream. When I stopped by the local Archeological Museum I was warmly greeted in Bulgarian. When I asked if they spoke “Angliski” he morosely shook his head no and said “Espanol”. I smiled and let him know that I understand a bit of Spanish. It turns out I understand more Spanish than I realized because I had a 20 minute conversation with a Bulgarian in Spanish. I also spent a lot of my time bothering the hotel front desk staff. I asked them to find out details on the bus to my next destination and once I again I was told you can’t get there from here. But I persisted and as they work for a five star hotel they said “Yes, madame” and kept trying. Apparently you can’t just call the bus station; you have to call one of the five or six different agencies that deal with the dozens of bus companies that stop in the town and they all have erratic working hours. I’m starting to get the idea that traveling around the Balkans is not easy. I was also told the wrong price of the bus fare and was 4 Lev (2 Euros) short, and I spent an hour and a half trying to change money and ending up with a lot of foreign currency I was just going to have to change again into Macedonian Denars. I really needed the spa treatments all over again, but instead I had a 5 hour bus ride. Oh, well I’ll be taking it easy in Macedonia, just hanging out with friends. Or so I thought….

I have abandoned Asia for a 3 week trip to the Balkans (that’s in Europe for all you Americans.) The first leg of my trip is Bulgaria. Sofia was enchanting. The center is fairly small for a capitol city, and was a little confusing. But it really is nice. This is not a “tourist” city, most people in Sofia are living and working there. The architecture is a delightful mix of many types, including a few very old Ottoman buildings still standing, and every era since including some soviet concrete box buildings. I spent my days walking the streets, trying not to get run over by trams and ducking into old buildings to take a look. Staying at hostels when traveling alone is the way to go. People are friendlier than at hotels and everyone chats together at breakfast or the common rooms, and in Sofia it was no different.
I made one of my usual forays into looking for the local cemetery. I found it on the map and showed the taxi driver this was where I wanted to go. Unfortunately my map was in English, and my ancient old taxi driver couldn’t read English. But off we went. After about 15 minutes I knew there was no way we were going in the right direction…and Bulgarian taxi drivers are known for their dishonesty. So I told him “Ne, ne, ne” and he looked at the map again and smacked his forhead and took me in the right direction. When we got to the cemetery I gave him the whole fare on the meter and he refused to take it all …so not all taxi drivers in Sofia are thieves. However when I took a taxi to the bus station his meter started at more than I payed the last guy, so there is cause to beware.
So I walked into the cemetery and started poking around. I was pretty unimpressed. The headstones were uninteresting, and the only statuary was the Soviet Realism style, but I took a few pictures. Then a little catholic priest came towards me and started chatting with me in Bulgarian. I told him I didn’t understand. He mildly told me that photos were “forbidden”. Oh, okay and I started to put my camera in my bag and thought what a waste this little sojourn had turned out to be. But then he very gently but firmly took my arm and said “Documents” and steered me to the front of the cemetery. Now, I’m starting to worry. I really didn’t want to go to jail for taking pictures…especially in this uninteresting place. I’m starting to wonder if I should just run. He is a few inches shorter than me, a good decade older than me and encumbered by the whole black gown and accouterments…surely I can’t get away. But I refrain and follow him…to the administration office where they ask me why I want to take photographs and after a phone call I have permission. Nothing written down mind you in case I’m accosted by some other religious leader wandering the cemetery. Phew, I have avoided another international incident, yet again.
Had to make a mad dash to catch the bus to Rila. The 10 minute taxi ride to the bus station cost me more than the 3 hour bus journey into the mountains to the most famous site in Bulgaria. Oh, you’ve never heard of Rila? Yah, well can you name any other site in Bulgaria? I didn’t think so. It is a monastery built high in the mountains known for being painted in intricate and beautiful designs on just about every square inch. Also important for it’s relics of St. Ivan of Rila that have healing properties. But more importantly it has been a safe haven for Bulgarian culture during the 500 year reign of the Turks and Greeks and the devastating Soviet block years. During these occupations the Monastery was allowed to continue it’s practices unfettered for various reasons.
It’s really beautiful. But it was a little frustrating. It was really hard to get any information on the history. No signs, no tours and as you may know I left my guidebooks back in China, so I couldn’t rely on those. I planned to stay at the Monastery but by 9 am they had already booked all their rooms, so I was forced to stay at the hotel adjacent to it. Well, I thought, at least there will be electricity and internet. Nope, no internet. Which was really only a problem when I attempted to get the hotel staff to get me information on taking the bus to my next destination on the following day. Basically they said NO. Um, without internet I certainly can’t find out for myself. There is no coffee shop down the street with a wi-fi connection…there is nothing down the street for 22 km. After a small panic attack the staff changed their tune and got very friendly. The manager told me to meet her at appointed time and she would walk me to the bus and tell the driver where I wanted to go.