I had a chance to travel to some remote villages the other day.
Long - We were out for 12 hours. It took 5.5 hours to find the village we were looking for.
Bumpy - BUMPY!!! I have never done so much bouncing up and down and being jostled. Just think about all of the jostling from the late Texas Cyclone wooden roller coaster at Astroworld. Now, just slow down the speed and add several hours to that ride. That's how our drive was - with a few smooth patches thrown in. And then there were some mud pits areas where the grooves were alomost shin-deep. I was all ready to get stuck and have to get out of the car into the mud. But amazingly, our car made it through!
Scenic - Once you get out of the city, the lushness of the vegetation overtakes the landscape. It is quite green and beautiful. I WISH WISH WISH I had a camera with me. (We did order one and it has arrived to my parent's house and we are working out how to get it to us.) There are bunches of banana trees and palm trees. It kinda reminds me of Hawaii, except no ocean, no flowers and no mountains or hills. Hmmm... maybe it is not really like Hawaii so much...
Jute and bananas seem to be the main crops. We saw LOTS of jute being dried on the sides of the road and even on the road itself. (We just drove right over it.) Jute is dried and then the fiber from the inside is used to make rope and bags. The outside is used for building materials. The way they transport these crops is on bicycle that has a large wooden platform secured on the back. And then they really load it up. It is neat to see these really skinny men with legs of steel peddle the cargo from place to place.
Animals everywhere (on the road) - Cows, of course! Sheep, chickens, goats, baby lambs, dogs And a baboon!! It was huge and rather skinny - kinda like all of the animals here. We saw it leap from the top of a store, down onto the road (right in front of our car!) and leap up onto the top of the store on the other side of the street. I have never seen wildlife so up close before without some sort of railing, cage, barrier, etc. Speaking of chickens, the girl in the front seat was freaking out about the chickens on the road because she was afraid that it we ran one over, the owner would come out and beat us up!
It was quite the adventure. I have to hand it to our driver - he did a really great job. As with most places here, especially the villages, there are no street names, hardly any signs. We probably stopped every few miles or so to ask someone if we were on the right track. On the way back, one of the girls started clapping when we made it back onto the main road back home. Although, she may have been so happy because she really needed to go to the bathroom and a main road meant a gas station (or petrol pump as they are called here) that would have a bathroom. However, the bathroom of the first one we came to was declared unfit and we kept going. I had more squatty potty training that day.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Another food update
KFC
The KFC here is so popular that a bouncer is needed for crowd control. The restaurant was packed and there was a line out the door with a line marker like you see at the airport. And there was an employee at the door, letting people in as people were leaving. Good thing we were not planning to eat.
DOMINOS
I never thought I would say this, “Domino’s pizza is great!” I am not a pizza person. If someone asks what I want to eat, I usually reply, “No pizza, no Mexican.” However, if other people want to eat it, I am fine with it. It’s just not my first choice. Anyhow, I had a medium thin-crust pepperoni pizza the other night and it was delicious. I wanted to eat the entire thing even though I was full after 3 slices. The pizza cost about $5, which is A LOT to pay for a meal here. Corn is a popular topping here.
KIMLING
We found a Chinese restaurant really close to our hotel. It is run by a really old Cantonese guy. The fried rice is good and they even have both steamed and pan fried dumplings, that they call momos here. The soups are pretty good as well.
Last night after we ate our dinner, I asked Jerry, "Can you believe that you will not eat salt-toasted ribs for a year? You will not eat watercress soup for a year?" I know, it's kinda mean...
The KFC here is so popular that a bouncer is needed for crowd control. The restaurant was packed and there was a line out the door with a line marker like you see at the airport. And there was an employee at the door, letting people in as people were leaving. Good thing we were not planning to eat.
DOMINOS
I never thought I would say this, “Domino’s pizza is great!” I am not a pizza person. If someone asks what I want to eat, I usually reply, “No pizza, no Mexican.” However, if other people want to eat it, I am fine with it. It’s just not my first choice. Anyhow, I had a medium thin-crust pepperoni pizza the other night and it was delicious. I wanted to eat the entire thing even though I was full after 3 slices. The pizza cost about $5, which is A LOT to pay for a meal here. Corn is a popular topping here.
KIMLING
We found a Chinese restaurant really close to our hotel. It is run by a really old Cantonese guy. The fried rice is good and they even have both steamed and pan fried dumplings, that they call momos here. The soups are pretty good as well.
Last night after we ate our dinner, I asked Jerry, "Can you believe that you will not eat salt-toasted ribs for a year? You will not eat watercress soup for a year?" I know, it's kinda mean...
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Guest Blogger
A special treat - a blog from Jerry!So here goes, my first blog entry:
I'd been overdue for a haircut, so instead of getting one from a "barber" who cuts hair from the side of the road (one of my colleagues did this for the equivalent of $.25, a buzz cut made with scissors and a straight-edge razor and no nicks), I went with the director of the office to his regular place.
The two of us walk in (after making sure we went thru the door marked for men) and my director goes to the first chair. There are stalls separated by 4 ft high brick walls, so I look around dumbly for a few seconds since I'm used to being told where to sit (as was the custom at my old $2.99 Vietnamese haircut shop in Houston) but the few others present were seated on chairs looking like chatty customers. Turns out they were the barbers. So my director tells me to sit down and a guy comes up, points at my head and I make a few gestures around my head. He takes out a pair of scissors, sprays my hair down, and snips away for the next 10 min. One weird bit was that he seemed to push my head with a little more force than was needed when he wanted me to tilt it to one side. I kept trying to look at him in the mirror to see if he looked angry (didn't work since I couldn't see clearly with my glasses off). He finishes off the edges with a straight-edge razor, just like the street guy.
But I opt for something I think the street guy doesn't offer: a head massage. He points at my head and said what sounds like "massage" and I think, "Why not? I've never had one before." I nod and he starts to massage my scalp, pulling my hair up, thumping my head as if playing a bongo with fists, and doing a weird pinching of my nose bridge along with stroking my forehead and rubbing my closed eyelids. What really surprises me is when he starts to massage the back of my neck and work down my spine. Next, he grabs my right arm and starts wringing it like a towel from my biceps to my wrist, then yanking on my fingers to pop the knuckles before finishing with a twisting of the arm behind my back and slapping my upper shoulder blade. During this time I'm wondering if he's going to do anything that's going to really hurt or if he's going to touch a part of me that I'll feel awkward about. He doesn't. He repeats this on my left arm. He finishs up back on my head with the massaging and bridge pinching stuff.
I was a little tired afterwards, but I felt pretty good: the crick in my neck that had been bothering me during the week was gone. So all in all, it was well worth the $2+. Without the head massage, it cost the equivalent of $1. I wonder how much something like that costs back in the States. Would the people at my old $2.99 place do it? Anyone ever had a barber do this to them?
A bunch of things
TAXIS & SHOPPING
The pastor at church today said that every day that we make it home safely is a time to thank God because of all the crazy traffic here. That has definitely been our experience.
We took a cab back to our hotel after church. The driver had to use only one hand to drive because the other hand was used to hold his door closed during the ride because it would not stay shut.
Yesterday we hired an A/C car and driver. We learned our lesson from when we just took non-A/C taxis from non-A/C flat to non-A/C flat. It was especially uncomfortable because the roads are so bumpy and the cars have no shock absorbers. And since there was no A/C, the windows were down to let in all the pollution and rank smells. Jerry commented last night that he wanted to clean his ears out and see all the nasty black stuff that must be collecting there. Gross.
Anyhow, when you hire a driver or a taxi here, you are basically hiring a mode of transportation because the drivers do not know where many things are in the city. You can tell them an area of town and then you better know how to get to your destination from there. For instance, what we usually have to do is ask the driver to take us to let’s say, a well-known police station. Once we get there, then we start a whole lot of charades and pointing. And then maybe we get to where we need. It can be quite exhausting! One night it took us 45 minutes of pointing and motioning and calling our local friends for us to get back to the hotel. It should have taken 20 minutes. And it does not even help a whole lot for a local to give directions over the phone because they themselves just know how to get to places by sight. There are hardly any street signs, but LOTS of billboards at street level. You could try to use the billboards as landmarks, but once they change…
Back to our A/C car and driver – it took an hour to find a store called Spencer’s. And the annoying thing is that Spencer’s has a lot of billboards around the city that ALL say, “You are minutes from a SUPER shopping experience.” I guess minutes can refer to 2 or 50.
Another stop was to a place that I will call the Wal*Mart of the city. First of all, the traffic getting there was HORRIBLE, even worse than I-10 during rush hour in Houston. There were periods of time when we were stopped for 10+ minutes and people would just get out of their cars and start socializing. You have not seen gridlock until you see the traffic in this city. We finally made it to the Mega Mart and it was packed, just like a doorbusters event at Wal*Mart. Everything was 25% off except clothes. Wall to wall people. At least I did not get groped.
As new residents of the city, we would love to explore, but Golly! It is NEVER easy to get anywhere. There have been a few evenings when I have told Jerry, “I do not want to get into a car for a week!”
SOMETHING POSITIVE
I feel like this blog entry has been a rant, but there are so many things to get used to. Before we left, lots of people would talk about the sacrifice we were making. Maybe we naively agreed to come here. If I knew exactly how it would be, I think I would have been very tempted to tell God, “No thanks.” Every time I get frustrated, Jerry says, “Later, this will be an anecdote that you can put in the blog.” So, ya’ll get to be entertained by our ‘adjustments’.
So let me tell you about a very pleasant experience here…. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. (hahaha) Seriously, we have had some good experiences here that are not Western. But first, about the Hyatt… It is literally an oasis for foreigners. We have been told that we NEED to get away on a regular basis and enjoy some comfort experiences so we do not burn out. It was the 3rd stop of our all-day excursion. We sat down to lunch and it was so lovely that Jerry said that we were not leaving; we would stay the rest of the day. It WAS our longest stop - we stayed for about 2 hours. The first thing that we noticed was how spacious it was. Space is a precious commodity here. Even the more expensive flats we saw were pretty cramped feeling. We joined Club Hyatt, which gives dining discounts on food for a year. Here is something interesting, for one person the discount is 10%, for 2 – 50%, 3 – 33%, 4 – 25% and 5 – 20% and 6+ - 15%. So, the best bargain is for 2. We had the buffet, which after our discount plus drinks, tax and tips only came out to $12.50 each. And the food was great. We ate as much beef as we could! Oh, for the days of our BBQ tour of Texas…
FOOD
Food here is pretty good and cheap, albeit a little spicy. We can eat well for 1-2 dollars for a local meal. We did venture out to Chinatown one night and ate at Big Boss. The steamed fish was just as good and better than many Chinese restaurants in Houston. Everything else was okay to pretty good. As we ate, 3 large tables of mainland Chinese people came in. I was so curious as to why they are here that I stopped to talk to them on my way out. They are working for a telecom company here in the suburbs. I asked one guy how he liked living here and all he did was hang his head. I said, “It’s really hard, isn’t it?” And he nodded yes. And they live in the nicer suburb area. This guy is from Harbin, a city in China where I spent a month teaching English 6 years ago. I asked the whole table where the best Chinese restaurant is and one guy replied, “Mainland China.” I was thinking, “Haha, now really tell me.” But there IS a restaurant called Mainland China! However, it is just that the restaurant has Peking Duck. The food is expensive and just okay. They said that Big Boss is really the best place. We are going to meet them sometime and go to a place they also like called Jimmy’s Kitchen.
CAMERA & PICTURES
Sorry that I do not have many pictures. The other ones were taken using our Macbook and it is not practical to lug that thing everywhere we go. On a sad note, our digital camera is on the fritz. Jerry is trying to resurrect it, but I think it is time to look for a new one. Suggestions for an easy-to-use smallish digital camera for around $250 are most welcome! We can buy it online and send it to my parents, who can give it to our friend’s mom who is coming to our city soon from Houston (to visit relatives) and she can bring it to us.
The pastor at church today said that every day that we make it home safely is a time to thank God because of all the crazy traffic here. That has definitely been our experience.
We took a cab back to our hotel after church. The driver had to use only one hand to drive because the other hand was used to hold his door closed during the ride because it would not stay shut.
Yesterday we hired an A/C car and driver. We learned our lesson from when we just took non-A/C taxis from non-A/C flat to non-A/C flat. It was especially uncomfortable because the roads are so bumpy and the cars have no shock absorbers. And since there was no A/C, the windows were down to let in all the pollution and rank smells. Jerry commented last night that he wanted to clean his ears out and see all the nasty black stuff that must be collecting there. Gross.
Anyhow, when you hire a driver or a taxi here, you are basically hiring a mode of transportation because the drivers do not know where many things are in the city. You can tell them an area of town and then you better know how to get to your destination from there. For instance, what we usually have to do is ask the driver to take us to let’s say, a well-known police station. Once we get there, then we start a whole lot of charades and pointing. And then maybe we get to where we need. It can be quite exhausting! One night it took us 45 minutes of pointing and motioning and calling our local friends for us to get back to the hotel. It should have taken 20 minutes. And it does not even help a whole lot for a local to give directions over the phone because they themselves just know how to get to places by sight. There are hardly any street signs, but LOTS of billboards at street level. You could try to use the billboards as landmarks, but once they change…
Back to our A/C car and driver – it took an hour to find a store called Spencer’s. And the annoying thing is that Spencer’s has a lot of billboards around the city that ALL say, “You are minutes from a SUPER shopping experience.” I guess minutes can refer to 2 or 50.
Another stop was to a place that I will call the Wal*Mart of the city. First of all, the traffic getting there was HORRIBLE, even worse than I-10 during rush hour in Houston. There were periods of time when we were stopped for 10+ minutes and people would just get out of their cars and start socializing. You have not seen gridlock until you see the traffic in this city. We finally made it to the Mega Mart and it was packed, just like a doorbusters event at Wal*Mart. Everything was 25% off except clothes. Wall to wall people. At least I did not get groped.
As new residents of the city, we would love to explore, but Golly! It is NEVER easy to get anywhere. There have been a few evenings when I have told Jerry, “I do not want to get into a car for a week!”
SOMETHING POSITIVE
I feel like this blog entry has been a rant, but there are so many things to get used to. Before we left, lots of people would talk about the sacrifice we were making. Maybe we naively agreed to come here. If I knew exactly how it would be, I think I would have been very tempted to tell God, “No thanks.” Every time I get frustrated, Jerry says, “Later, this will be an anecdote that you can put in the blog.” So, ya’ll get to be entertained by our ‘adjustments’.
So let me tell you about a very pleasant experience here…. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. (hahaha) Seriously, we have had some good experiences here that are not Western. But first, about the Hyatt… It is literally an oasis for foreigners. We have been told that we NEED to get away on a regular basis and enjoy some comfort experiences so we do not burn out. It was the 3rd stop of our all-day excursion. We sat down to lunch and it was so lovely that Jerry said that we were not leaving; we would stay the rest of the day. It WAS our longest stop - we stayed for about 2 hours. The first thing that we noticed was how spacious it was. Space is a precious commodity here. Even the more expensive flats we saw were pretty cramped feeling. We joined Club Hyatt, which gives dining discounts on food for a year. Here is something interesting, for one person the discount is 10%, for 2 – 50%, 3 – 33%, 4 – 25% and 5 – 20% and 6+ - 15%. So, the best bargain is for 2. We had the buffet, which after our discount plus drinks, tax and tips only came out to $12.50 each. And the food was great. We ate as much beef as we could! Oh, for the days of our BBQ tour of Texas…
FOOD
Food here is pretty good and cheap, albeit a little spicy. We can eat well for 1-2 dollars for a local meal. We did venture out to Chinatown one night and ate at Big Boss. The steamed fish was just as good and better than many Chinese restaurants in Houston. Everything else was okay to pretty good. As we ate, 3 large tables of mainland Chinese people came in. I was so curious as to why they are here that I stopped to talk to them on my way out. They are working for a telecom company here in the suburbs. I asked one guy how he liked living here and all he did was hang his head. I said, “It’s really hard, isn’t it?” And he nodded yes. And they live in the nicer suburb area. This guy is from Harbin, a city in China where I spent a month teaching English 6 years ago. I asked the whole table where the best Chinese restaurant is and one guy replied, “Mainland China.” I was thinking, “Haha, now really tell me.” But there IS a restaurant called Mainland China! However, it is just that the restaurant has Peking Duck. The food is expensive and just okay. They said that Big Boss is really the best place. We are going to meet them sometime and go to a place they also like called Jimmy’s Kitchen.
CAMERA & PICTURES
Sorry that I do not have many pictures. The other ones were taken using our Macbook and it is not practical to lug that thing everywhere we go. On a sad note, our digital camera is on the fritz. Jerry is trying to resurrect it, but I think it is time to look for a new one. Suggestions for an easy-to-use smallish digital camera for around $250 are most welcome! We can buy it online and send it to my parents, who can give it to our friend’s mom who is coming to our city soon from Houston (to visit relatives) and she can bring it to us.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Monsoon Pics
I am JUST learning how to post pictures to the blog. I used to take pictures all the time. Now, it is rare that I take photos. Plus, our digital camera is kinda bulky, not the card deck size that is easy to carry around. However, I realize that it would be a SHAME not to take lots of pictures here, so am working on getting a new camera. The photos I have here were taken by our great new Macbook. Here are a couple of pics from our second day here. One is of the metal planks I wrote about.
Kleenex and the Best Meal Ever!
KLEENEX - I love Puffs kleenex. When I was younger and had dreams of stardom, I thought about what products I would endorse. I wanted to endorse only products that I could personally recommend. I came up with Puffs and Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.
The kleenex here is hard and falls apart. Puffs is soft and strong! I had been using the kleenex here because it was easier to get to. Then I remembered that I had one box of Puffs packed in a ziploc (without the box). So Jerry got me one and it felt heavenly!!! Oh, my nose felt sooooo good! It's the simple pleasures....
THE BEST MEAL EVER - I went shopping with a friend who moved here from the US about 1.5 years ago. While we were shopping for clothes, she mentioned that she would loan us the hot plate she used when she first got here and had to live in a hotel for 3 weeks. I got so excited because we brought a bunch of packages of our favorite ramen with us. So then, I started looking for stuff to put in the ramen. We like egg, spinach and spam. Apparently, there is no
frozen spinach here. So, I looked for eggs and spam. No eggs or spam at the first two places, but I scored on both counts at the gas station convenience store!! They had lots of eggs and ONE can of spam (for $5). It was worth it. Jerry made our dinner in the hotel room and we used plastic Baskin Robins containers as our bowls.
The kleenex here is hard and falls apart. Puffs is soft and strong! I had been using the kleenex here because it was easier to get to. Then I remembered that I had one box of Puffs packed in a ziploc (without the box). So Jerry got me one and it felt heavenly!!! Oh, my nose felt sooooo good! It's the simple pleasures....
THE BEST MEAL EVER - I went shopping with a friend who moved here from the US about 1.5 years ago. While we were shopping for clothes, she mentioned that she would loan us the hot plate she used when she first got here and had to live in a hotel for 3 weeks. I got so excited because we brought a bunch of packages of our favorite ramen with us. So then, I started looking for stuff to put in the ramen. We like egg, spinach and spam. Apparently, there is no
frozen spinach here. So, I looked for eggs and spam. No eggs or spam at the first two places, but I scored on both counts at the gas station convenience store!! They had lots of eggs and ONE can of spam (for $5). It was worth it. Jerry made our dinner in the hotel room and we used plastic Baskin Robins containers as our bowls.
Monday, October 1, 2007
travel
We travelled to another city for several days and stayed at a beach resort for a regional meeting. Now before you get any Western ideas of what a beach resort is, let me say that it was kinda disappointing, but it did grow on me as the days progressed to where I was really enjoying my time there. One highlight was that our A/C stayed on even when we were not in the room. It never got freezing cold as it does in the States, but it was wonderful to come back to a cool room. At our hotel here, we walk in, hurry to put the key in the slot to turn on the electricity and then I stand in front of the A/C for about 15 minutes until the room gets semi-cool. We were in room 205 before we left and now we are in room 105. One of the best things about the new room is the toilet is more Western style. However, the shower has only a hand held thing that attaches to the wall at belly level. There are pros and cons to the room, but overall Jerry likes it better. It will be our home until Oct 17th or until we get our own place, which could take a month or more. I will have to dedicate an entire entry to the art of finding a flat.
There are so many things to write about every single day that the prospect of writing about everything is quite daunting.
THE AIRPORT
There are two airports here, one for international travel and one for domestic travel. They are side by side, but the domestic one is MUCH nicer; it has A/C! However, in both airports your only choice for toilets is squatty potty style, unless you go to the handicap restroom. But, they are pretty dirty. I am hoping for many visitors while I am here, and I wonder how they will take to the dirty conditions here, especially my mom. Anyhow, I am grateful for my times in China where I was able to perfect my squatty potty technique. Another thing about the airport, our luggage is fairly dirty now.
COWS
Cows are sacred here. We have been told that if a vehicle, whether a car, bicycle, etc hits a cow, the crowd will attack the driver. We see alot of cows along the side of the road. Sometimes, they block a lane of traffic, but no one tries to move them. Even during rush-hour! The city where we are is VERY poor. We noticed that the cows in the beach city were much fatter than the cows in our city. There is also a cow-trafficking problem here. They are trafficked for their beef. I am guessing that our city's skinny cows do not have much to fear.
More later...
There are so many things to write about every single day that the prospect of writing about everything is quite daunting.
THE AIRPORT
There are two airports here, one for international travel and one for domestic travel. They are side by side, but the domestic one is MUCH nicer; it has A/C! However, in both airports your only choice for toilets is squatty potty style, unless you go to the handicap restroom. But, they are pretty dirty. I am hoping for many visitors while I am here, and I wonder how they will take to the dirty conditions here, especially my mom. Anyhow, I am grateful for my times in China where I was able to perfect my squatty potty technique. Another thing about the airport, our luggage is fairly dirty now.
COWS
Cows are sacred here. We have been told that if a vehicle, whether a car, bicycle, etc hits a cow, the crowd will attack the driver. We see alot of cows along the side of the road. Sometimes, they block a lane of traffic, but no one tries to move them. Even during rush-hour! The city where we are is VERY poor. We noticed that the cows in the beach city were much fatter than the cows in our city. There is also a cow-trafficking problem here. They are trafficked for their beef. I am guessing that our city's skinny cows do not have much to fear.
More later...
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