Copan to the Caribbean

The trouble with a 10-day trip is transportation. When you pack a lot of sightseeing into just a few days, early mornings and long days on buses are inevitable. Corey’s Central American bucket list included a waterfall, Mayan ruins, and the beach. We decided that the eventful trek in the Suchitoto valley counted for the waterfall. Check.

Next on the list: Mayan ruins. We bid farewell to the delightful Robert (El Gringo) and headed off on an early-morning shuttle. When you’re tight on time, tourist shuttles are the best way to get from one major attraction to the other without dealing with chicken buses and crowded bus stations. They’re rare in EL Sal because of the limited tourist traffic, but we got on the inaugural trip of a new route from San Salvador to Copan in Honduras.

Waiting for the our ride, surprisingly cheerful before 6 a.m.

Robert drove us into San Salvador and we met the shuttle on the side of the highway (travel is so glamorous). Robert, Corey, and Andrew (another traveler we met from Canada) are all over six feet tall–in this part of the world, the three of them together is practically a tourist attraction.

After five hours and two border crossings (into and out of Guatemala, the fastest route), we made it to Honduras. Copan Ruinas (not to be confused with the actual ruins, which are just called Copan) is a lovely, touristy little town surrounded by killer hills.

Its residents include skinny horses, who let Corey get close enough to…poke them?

The real draw is Copan, the Mayan ruins just outside of town. Naturally, we walked a mile in the wrong direction before realizing that we’d missed the turn.

Eventually, we gave in and packed into a tuk-tuk for the ride. Our detour turned out to be a good thing–several robberies happened along the real path to the ruins that day.

The ruins are enormous, and definitely worth the wait. This is one small section:

At one point, we found a hole in one of the buildings and clearly, I had to explore it. Turns out, I was climbing around in someone’s tomb.

A quick view from the top of the large royal complex:

Check out the rest of the photos (including, of course, jumping pictures):

Copan

Mayan Ruins: check.

Next up, the beach. In Honduras, the gringo trail leads directly to the Bay Islands. At 6:30 a.m., we caught a bus for the first leg of the long trip to Utila. On the twisty mountain ride to San Pedro Sula, the bus attendant started passing out plastic bags, which I assumed were meant for garbage.

They were barf bags.

For three and a half hours, I blasted NPR into my headphones and tried desperately not to hear or smell the wretchedness that was going on around me. (Close quarters are not kind to the sympathy puker.) One bus station, three more hours in a bus, an taxi ride, and an hour-long ferry ride later, we made it to the lovely island of Utila.

To recover, I’ve spent a lot of time like this:

Beach: check.

Corey, on the other hand, has been spending a lot of time trying not to throw up. But that’s another story for another day. Until then, I’ll be here, contemplating a dive course and trying not to fall into the black hole of island life…

Videos From El Salvador

Corey and I have been trying to take more videos–the ones from past trips always make us laugh. Now that we’re in Honduras and have access to reasonably fast wifi, I’ve uploaded some from El Salvador. I never remember to hold the camera the right way, so you’ll need to turn your head for a couple of them.

First, a few last photos from El Salvador:

Suchitoto2

We went to a food festival in Juayua, which was really over-hyped. We were bored in an hour.

Hiking down to the river outside of Suchitoto:

If you saw the pictures from the last post, you know that Corey lost his shoe in the river:

Success!

El Salvador, Te Amo

Three years ago, I stopped in El Salvador for one night. I was escaping from Nicaragua–where men regularly growled lewd things at me and ran their hands over my bare arms–to my beloved Guatemala, where they stick with a long stare and a quiet “hola, princesa.” During that one-night visit–which you can read about in this blog post–my impression of the country was anything but favorable.

This year, inspired by a $61 plane ticket, I decided to give El Salvador another go. After a couple of days in Florida with my sister, I caught a Spirit Air flight to San Salvador.

Pictures from FL – Playa San Diego – San Salvador:

Florida – Playa – San Sal

I don’t know what I was expecting from El Salvador, but it has been one wonderful surprise after another. My flight arrived after midnight and my taxi driver got lost in a maze of two-track roads through the jungle–but he just laughed and got on the phone with the hostel owners, who talked us through the dark, unmarked roads and stood on the road, waving flashlights to bring us in. In the little beach community around Playa San Diego, the locals didn’t stare at the pasty gringa strolling around with a camera–they just smiled and greeted me with a friendly “buenas.” In San Salvador, I wandered around without feeling unsafe–even at night. (At least in the university area. Other parts of the city are not safe after dark.) Today on a chicken bus to Suchitoto, the bus attendant took us on as his special project, making sure we knew where the bus was, ensuring that we had good seats and waving goodbye like we were the closest of friends.

The best part? No harassment. Not a single word about my hair/eyes/skin. No creepy, muttered comments as I pass. No brushing up close on buses. No “hola, princesa” or “mmmm, guapa.” No crowds of leering men. No groping on the street or through taxi windows. (In contrast, all of those things happened nearly every day in Nicaragua.)

Pictures from a food festival in Juayua, on the Ruta de las Flores:

Juayua

El Salvador is pretty far off the gringo trail, and the tourism infrastructure is still very limited. While that usually means less convenience for us (and more sweaty chicken bus rides), it also means that we have the chance to see the country before it turns into another Costa Rica or Guatemala. Now, we are mere curiosities–in five years, we’ll be walking dollar signs. I feel the need to hold on to these moments, because they are precious and fleeting.

No time to waste mourning the inevitable, though. I’m grateful to be here!

Pictures from this afternoon’s adventure through the jungles and rivers near Suchitoto (read the captions for the full adventure):

Suchitoto

Adventures with Corey

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in eight years of exploring, it’s the folly of announcing plans before I travel (it certainly isn’t how to pack…I seem to be getting worse at that). Because I go with no reservations and no itinerary, I can change my mind on a whim–and usually do. As past travel buddies can attest, plans change quickly and without warning.

This type of travel is not for everyone. While I love the unpredictability and excitement (and occasional danger), most people travel to relax. (I would, too, if I only had two weeks off a year.) So, I’m excited to be heading out into the world with my very favorite travel partner, someone who can roll with anything: Corey! We took our very first international trip together years and years ago (spring break in Italy) and since then, we’ve had all sorts of adventures all over the world.

So, I could list the things we want to do–like snorkeling off of remote islands or exploring Mayan ruins or surfing off of El Salvador or hiking to pools in the jungle–but those plans will inevitably change. Instead, I’ll simply say that we are flying into El Salvador and heading out in search of adventure.

So far, we’ve been biking on tropical islands in Panama…

Watched boats go through the locks in the Panama Canal…

Gotten left on the side of a remote Central American highway…

Took the worst bus ride I’ve ever experienced (which is saying something)…

Made s’mores on a beach in Costa Rica…

Stayed in the dirtiest hostel on the cutest street across from the most beautiful beach (note the absurdly high hammock and industrial toilet paper roll)…

Hiked through the jungle in flip-flops to get to remote beaches…

Narrowly avoided getting deported from Costa Rica (we spent three hours in a dimly-lit immigration room being scolded in Spanish)…

Had street beer in Berlin…

Taken inappropriate pictures in solemn monuments…

Went sledding where the Berlin wall once stood…

Taken LOTS of early morning trains…

Hung out with old friends in Dortmund…

Went to a German punk rock show…

Reunited with travel friends in Amsterdam (we met them during the aforementioned trip to Panama)…

Had Thanksgiving dinner under the Eiffel Tower…

Played on a playground behind Notre Dame (more interesting than the church itself)…

…and taken jumping pictures by the Eiffel Tower. What you don’t see in the pictures below are the people on either side of us, who loved our idea and started taking their own jumping shots.

Can’t wait for more adventure!

For more travel-with-Corey pictures, check out these albums:

Panama-Costa Rica
Chicago-Panama
David-Dominical
Bocas del Toro
Manuel Antonio
Costa Rica

Germany
Amsterdam
Paris 1
Paris 2

Arizona

I’ve been in Arizona for a few days, en route to Utah for the summer–lots of sun and lots of touristing. Some pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/Arizona

Arizona

Video Update

We’re safe and sound in Connecticut, preparing to leave for the UP, and still getting over jet lag. Two overnight flights in a row is a special kind of travel torture, and one I’m not eager to repeat. Now that I have a respectable internet connection, I was able to put up videos from the trip.

Lee and I stumbled across a performance by the Gustavus Adolphus Choir in Florence:

A cappella performance at the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur:

The sound in this video comes from thousands of birds in the trees:

We stumbled upon some afternoon karaoke while waiting for the train in Hat Yai, Thailand:

Every bus ride was accompanied by this type of movie on the bus TVs:

A guy talking about the VC tunnel coverage in Vietnam–the red area on the map is covered in tunnels:

Our guide at the tunnels, who called himself John Wayne, shows one of the VC’s more brutal traps. Note the bamboo spikes in the bottom.

John Wayne shows more traps.

“Singing” in Hoi An during the full moon festival. Yikes.

Cute Singaporean choir singing Lady Gaga.

Jumping for joy

Leaving for the airport in the morning–this is how I feel about it:

See you later, Southeast Asia.

Around the world in 90 days

As always, I am behind in posting–this time, because I have been struggling to find something, anything, positive to say about Southeast Asia. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. The scenery is lovely (the cities are not)
2. Hoi An, Vietnam is lovely (favorite stop of the trip, aside from Angkor Wat)
3. Pad see ew is delicious. (If you try one Thai dish in your life, try this one.)
4. Angkor Wat (speaks for itself)
5. Malaysia was friendly and wonderful

Obviously, I’m reaching.

The thing is, I do not like Southeast Asia. It’s too chaotic. It’s too crowded. It’s too filthy. There are too many people who will tell you too many outright lies to scam you into buying something. It’s often difficult to get to the lovely scenery and out of the cities. (Too much city time hurts my Yooper soul.) The pollution is unbelievable. There’s no breathing room. Vietnamese food is a big disappointment. The motorbike drivers will run you over without a second thought, and you’re no safer on the sidewalk than you would be in the middle of the road.

I could go on all day, but this guy expresses pretty well what it’s like to travel in Vietnam and many places in SE Asia. (Except for his assessment of the intelligence of Vietnamese people and their language, which I suspect was written in a moment of frustration.)

It’s difficult for me to accept this level of dislike for an entire region–it’s like admitting defeat, in a way. There’s a propensity among people writing about travel to idealize the local lifestyle and culture, to wax poetic about the simplicity of the people who live there–but I can’t do it. A passage in one traveler’s blog made me feel better about it:

“But while we’re on the subject, I want to address this silly prevailing notion that a foreign culture is immune to criticism by Westerners; the idea that we should accept flaws simply because “that’s just how things are here” and “we can’t expect to understand their ways.” That is romantic exoticism and it is bullshit. Criticism does not equal misunderstanding. … Unpleasant people, places, practices and beliefs do not get a free pass merely by virtue of being foreign.”

Granted, he was talking about things like blatant racism and basic human rights violations, but it made me feel better about having negative things to report. Between this trip and the last time I was here, I’ve spent more than three months in Southeast Asia–enough to make a fair assessment, I think. (For myself, obviously. Plenty of travelers adore this part of the world.) Just like you can’t like every person you meet, you can’t like every country you visit, and that’s okay.

And the good news–I’m coming home! We booked flights that leave Saturday and arrive at JFK a good 30+ hours later. Oy. Funny how something as simple as pushing the Purchase button can make me feel so much better.

For now, pictures from lovely Hoi An, where we spent a relaxing and entirely uneventful week. Lovely.

https://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/HoiAn1?feat=directlink

Hoi An 1

https://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/HoiAn2?feat=directlink

Hoi An 2

Good Morning, Vietnam

I once read somewhere that people who are descended from groups that live in cold climates are genetically predisposed to be heat intolerant. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to hang out with me in temperatures above 90 degrees, you know it’s true.

In Southeast Asia, the median temperature up until last week was about 95 degrees with high humidity. Misery. Absolute misery. The heat turns me into a surly, headachy monster who can barely function, much less enjoy the experience of wandering through a foreign country. No matter how much water I pour down my throat or how much I stay in the shade, my body feels like it is trapped inside a sauna.

The photo below is what most Southeast Asian towns look like. Through a heat haze of misery, I’m unable to see the bizarre things they’re selling on the street or appreciate the community that exists around these little carts or notice the little shrines that sprout up on corners. Instead, all I can focus on is the chaos and the heat waves and the noise and the beeping tuk-tuk drivers and the people screeching, “You buy somesing? You beautiful. Buy somesing!” When I reach my heat limit, it’s all I can do not to scream at pushy tuk-tuk drivers or take a swipe at a motorbike that passes too close.

Clearly, I belong in cooler climes.

With that in mind, we escaped up to the central coast of Vietnam, where it has been a blissful 60-70 degrees. But more on that later.

We spent two nights in Saigon before flying up to Danang, and during our full day we took a tour of the Viet Cong tunnels from the Vietnam War. They are near a village called Cu Chi, and the tunnel site itself is lovely, all jungle-y and shady (thank goodness). It was fascinating to hear about the war from another perspective–here in Vietnam, it’s the American War. There doesn’t seem to be any lasting animosity, but it was strange to hear Americans referred to as “the enemy” (in a past tense, of course). One video we watched said, “Like a crazy bunch of devils they [the American soliders] came and shot into women and children and Buddha statues.”

The villagers, having no other defense, retreated into the tunnels they had built during the French war. They lived in underground bunkers, because the jungle had been flattened by bombs and Agent Orange. Guerilla fighters came from all around Vietnam to help in the 250 km of tunnels.

It was surreal to walk around the place, particularly because the noise of gunshots and machine gun rounds at a tourist gun range echoed through the jungle, just like we were in a war movie. We saw some of the absolutely brutal traps that the VC set up with bamboo spikes, climbed around on an old American tank, and tried the tapioca sticks that were the main staple of VC life. The VC fighters had several types of entrances–tiny ones that allowed them to pop just their heads up and check directions, bigger ones called “war doors” that could fit a man and a gun, and entrances in the bunkers. The doors were pretty much invisible (see pictures).

The coolest part of the day was getting to go through the actual tunnels. They have been left as they were, and they are just tall enough for me to walk through bent over. Cal, on the other hand, had to do an awkward crouch and waddle. It’s hot and pitch black and the tunnels suddenly drop into holes for lower levels. A few minutes was fun, but I can’t imagine spending so much time in them. Both sides must have felt like they were in hell.

But it’s kind of wonderful how things come around. Even in a place where there was so much brutality and unhappiness, people from all over are able to come and learn in peace. At least one of my uncles was in the war (though I’m not sure where) and less than 40 years later, I was able to visit the same spot without worrying for my safety in the least.

Pictures from the tunnels, and an album I forgot to post weeks ago from Thailand into Cambodia:

https://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/Saigon

Saigon

https://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/BangkokToCambodia

Bangkok to Cambodia

Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge

Aside from mysterious Angkor Wat, one of Cambodia’s top tourist attractions is the killing field outside of Phnom Penh. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge army marched into the city and ordered it to be evacuated–all of the residents were moved into the country and forced to do hard labor in the fields. According to a video we watched, they got people to move by telling them the Americans were planning to bomb the city (we had been doing some serious bombing on the border with Vietnam, so it was a powerful threat).

Over the next four years, the Khmer Rouge killed over a million people. We heard several different numbers, but that was something like 1/5th of the population. What’s worse, they targeted intellectuals because Pol Pot, the leader, wanted to create an ignorant population. Anyone who knew how to read, was educated, held a high position–plus kids, babies, families. People were accused of being CIA or KGB and killed for the tiniest of offenses, like singing out loud.

We went to visit the killing fields, where the Khmer Rouge took prisoners from the Tuol Seng prison and other places around the country. It’s a peaceful field now, but between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge killed 20,000 people there. There’s a museum that tells about it, and it was the quietest, most somber museum you can imagine. The army didn’t want to waste bullets, so they forced people to stand on the edge of an open pit and then they clubbed them to death with all kinds of horrifying weapons.

We walked around the fields, which do not have a sinister sense at all–it’s peaceful, somehow. There are pits where bodies were exhumed, and signs that tell you about the buildings and places people were murdered. The most horrifying thing was the “killing tree.” Instead of using bullets and weapons on babies and small children, the soldiers would take them by their feet and bash them on the tree. I read about it in the museum and when we got to the tree, I could only glance at it before moving on–even though it’s just a tree, the idea of it was too much.

We also went to the Tuol Seng museum, which was once a high school and was turned into a torture prison during the Khmer Rouge years. Where the killing fields were calm and quiet, this place just oozed horror–partly because the bloodstains are still on the floor, partly because of the photos of tortured people with blood spilling from their bodies, partly because of the room after room of mug shots of people who all were sent to die. Women, men, babies. Horrible.

All in all, a sobering afternoon. What’s worse, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge got off scot free. Pol Pot died under house arrest and the other leaders just melted into the jungle. Only one has ever admitted responsibility; the others denied all knowledge of torture and mass murders. Lies, of course. And this was all less than 40 years ago.

Pictures below. The government of Cambodia asks that people see and tell about what happened to reduce the possibility that it can be allowed to happen again.

https://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/PhnomPenh?feat=directlink

Phnom Penh