The Forging Ear

Gallery: Home Sweet Home

smelt_and_gizzard — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 11:23:00 GMT

Back in Canada!

Gallery: London

smelt_and_gizzard — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:54:00 GMT

Delhi Departure: Sweeping up the dust

smelt_and_gizzard — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:23:00 GMT

This might be the last entry written on the road. The last few weeks of our trip have tumbled past in a haze of sight-seeing (Agra and the Taj, Delhi's Red Fort), relaxing in Rishikesh watching the Ganga turn emerald green (It finally looked healthy enough to dip our toes in!), and now we're a few days into our Delhi shopping extravaganza. Delhi this time around is a magical city, full of serendipity, good food, good people and most important of all: good records. We may make back some of the money we overspent...all thanks to the genious of Bollywood!

I'll leave some stories for our return and the coming reunion in London, where I hear we'll be eating some bacon and eggs ice cream at some experimental science gallery and listening to free gamelan music. Oh, and most importantly, eating japanese food! To all of you Tokyoites we won't be seeing for a little while, I promise to call as soon as we get settled in Toronto.

India began as Brandon's thing but somewhere along the way I got wooed into forgetting my homesickness and fell in love with the dirt, the chaos, the high-pitched wails of Lata Mangeshkar on Bollywood soundtracks, the Slice mango soda--yum!-- and even the ass-grabbing (well, learned to laugh it off after cursing the culprit anyway). India has balanced out the Japanese part of our psyches, has loosened our neckties and taught us that chaos is the brine in which all of the loose strands of our lives suspend--fluid, synchronized, and beautiful. India was a lesson well learned. On with the show!

Naomi

Jaialmer Safari: Camel Toes Across the Desert

smelt_and_gizzard — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:13:00 GMT

    Get to know your camel; Naomi rode Bapu, a beige 9 yr old with a propensity for walking through bushes to brush off the maelstrom of flies that lived in his fur. I rode Simon, a grey 10 yr old who liked to get down in the dunes and kick sand all over his sun-baked body. Both camels were owned by Raju, a peripatetic Rajput, whose weather-beaten face and grey hairs made him look much older than his 26 years. Raju was scouted by an enterprising brahman at the age of ten to become a camel driver. At the the time he was working as a dishwasher for 300 rupees a month. The brahman offered him 500. Since then he learned idiomatic english from thousands of tourists from over 40 countries around the world in what he calls 'camel college'. He even knows the 'Barbie Song'. Still he can't read or write.

   Our first stop, providing much needed relief to our burning thighs, was a tiny desert village, home to 40 or 50 Rajputs who make a living from farming. We were greeted by a languorous vision, a woman in a saffire-red sari carrying a brass pot of water on her head on her way back from a nearby well. She offered her image for 'one rupee', lasciviously covered her face with her sari and posed. I gave her a five rupee coin, I didn't have anything smaller. She wanted five more. This seemingly evanescent woman disappeared into the dust and we were soon surrounded by obstreperous children who wanted pens, money, chocolate and curiously to show us their school. We acquiesced to their last request and walked through the adobe-lined streets until we came upon a new sandstone building that seemed to have grown out of the desert like the rest of the town. Cartoonish paintings on the wall depicting school life indicated that this was indeed the school, just as earlier we had seen fading images of various maladies on the wall of the village clinic. The pride that these children had in their new school was immense and hopefully in the future the villagers won't need to rely pictures to distinguish the various buildings in town.

   Shortly afterwards we arrived in a much smaller village of harijans (untouchables) who subsisted on sheering sheep and tanning leather. The differences between these two penury villages was remarkable. In this village the children were mostly naked and seemed to be afflicted with red-eye. The saris were faded and frayed, the faces of the women weren't covered in purda and strife was visible everywhere. Nobody asked for money and one child proudly showed us a well-loved plastic Beckham idol that some itinerant traveller had given her. Amongst the very poor, for whom every day is struggle for existence, there seems to be no room for greed. Their humanity was so intense that I felt as if I flew in from another perfidious planet.

   After a three hour siesta and a camel-back pilgrimage across barren scrub and heat like something from Cormac McCarthy we arrived in the dunes. Golden sand filled all our senses and orifices for the next 12 hours. After we made camp, drank chai and ate biscuits the sun set in a resplendent slow-motion explosion of heliotropic hues. The spell that the sunset put us under was only broken when the vitreous star-bangled sky unveiled itself over the recumbent dunes. We sat around our campfire listening to the camel drivers sing Bob Marley and Bollywood songs, and tell stories about month-long safaris with a 78 yr old lecher and his 30 yr old wife (nicknamed Vulture by Raju), dipsomaniac Australians and nymphomaniac Italians. Sleep set in and we wrapped ourselves in sand and drifted while an enormous mottled moon asserted dominion over the night.

   Our bow-leggedness brought on intense riding pains the next day and I began to understand the difficulties involved in being a cowboy. We were left alone with Raju, Bapu and Simon when the other camel driver took the two food-poisoned french travellers who were with us back early. The day passed by in a myriad of impressions and sights. Wild peacocks, feral dogs and timorous antelope darted behind bushes as our camel bells approached. Curried lunch with a sheep herder under gigantic wind-driven power generators. The last hour of riding was leg and crotch pain mixed with sadness. Fortunately our jeep was late and we spent time recovering in a field with Raju, a young brahman boy on his way home from school and two harijan children who were tending sheep and goats.

Brandon

A journey for journey's sake

smelt_and_gizzard — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 17:51:00 GMT

We managed to wake up at 4:30 am to hike up to Savitri Devi with Gita and her family like we promised. It was a drizzly morning and we headed out through the town, mud and cow dung oozing beneath our sandals and getting between our toes. It was a caravan of six—Gita, her two grand daughters Veena and Sapna, Daramand (the helper boy) and us two sleepy zombies. Durga claimed to have a sore foot and stayed behind to sleep. We should have suspected there was another reason… It is only 1 km up to the temple, but the gentle slope with which the journey begins quickly becomes a rock-climbing trek made even more difficult that morning with rain-slick stones and herds of middle-aged crimson-saried women on pilgrimages clogging up the path. I was too tired to complain and was just thankful for the cool wind that hit us we ascended into the fog. Unfortunately, the spectacular view that would have greeted us any other day was completed obscured by mist. We arrived at the top drenched with chilled sweat and rain, spiritually fueled by the mantras echoing out of loudspeakers along the path. The temple itself was a bit of a let down. We shed our shoes at the entrance and tread tentatively over the muddy marble floor and into the chaos. Garbage was strewn everywhere and huge speakers blared electrified mantras while families bustled around getting their offering trays ready for the puja—coconut, flower petals, grains of rice, and coloured powders. Gita went to line up, and being a bit overwhelmed we decided to sit to the side and observe. When she had finished, we snuck out the back door and started the homeward journey. The decent was easier but my sandals kept slipping on the stone steps, so Veena held my hand and propelled me steadily down the mountain. We passed, not just one, but FOUR fake holy men all displaying 5-legged cows painted and wearing marigold necklaces (the small 5th leg always grew out of the cow’s shoulder and even had a hoof at the end!). Veena gave me some betel nut to chew on. Back in the town a boy started following Brandon, asking for chapati flour. B thought this was a good idea and since it was a holy day, he bought the boy a big bag at a nearby shop. Home at last, we fell back into bed and slept soundly with that satisfying feeling of accomplishment that can only be had when you wake up before dawn.

Naomi

Pushkar: A Visit from the god Saraswati

smelt_and_gizzard — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:52:00 GMT

We are still alive but have been completely consumed with music the past week--nothing new for Brandon, but for me it's like a strange new drug and the Indian scale (sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa...) is the only language my brain understands these days. We have 2 hours of lessons every morning from 9:00, take a break for lunch, then go back to practice for another 2 hours in the afternoon. Our teacher is a tabla-bellied, curly-haried 26 year old man named Birju who says that "without music man is no better than a buffalo." He's an eccentric fellow whose passion is contagious. His specialties are tabla and singing--a perfect match for us. Needless to say,our schedule has left us hardly any time to explore the town. We're now a part of 2 Indian families. After our day at Birju's, we come home to the "Milkman Guesthouse" and Durga (the daughter) teaches us how to cook Indian dishes. The dog Raj now lets us scratch his head without growling at us. We have also won over Birju's 3 year daughter who is tentative to commit what with all of the foreigners coming and going. It pays to stay in one place for a while.

Pushkar is a holy town (not even eggs are served in the restaurant), a maze of snaking alleys clogged with snoozing cows and raucaus children demanding pens and buscuits. The main market street is a circus of shops selling silk saris and Indo-western threads, mirror work pillow cases and gaudy stickers of Hindu gods. At night the temples blare holy music from loudspeakers and we've resorted to wearing earplugs. The Ganesh festival was a couple of days ago and all the little boys on our street were excited to show us their henna-dyed hands and khol-lined eyes. (Usually it's only the women who have this done--but that particular day men have it done as well.) We have been invited by Gita (our Indian mother) to go with her to the temple that sits on top of a nearby mountain in a few days. It is a special pilgrimage (everyone here seems to be on some pilgrimage or other) and it will be interesting to go with someone who can explain everything to us. We'll see if we can wake up at 5am...

Back to the harmonium!

Naomi

Choki Chani: Desert Hocus-pocus

smelt_and_gizzard — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:35:00 GMT

A bumpy 15km vikram ride from Jaipur under a lavender desert sunset brings you to Choki Dhani, an ersatz Rajastani village designed to entertain wealthy Indians with their own history. Or at least the watered-down trappings of history. Upon arrival a visitor is greated by a thin old man wearing a respendent homespun turban playing fantastic poly-rhythyms on rajastani leather drums. He picks up his sticks and beat when he sees visitors approaching and holds put his hand for a baksheesh (a tip) when he finishes. Decidedly, this sets the tone for the evening; entertaining and sometimes magical hokum, but not without a little guilt and a lot of greasy palms.

Inside the dusty and decaying amusement park guests are encouraged to ride aging indifferent camels, watch diminutive circus performers shimmy up bamboo poles, sit cross-legged with greasy fingers eating spicy curries from banana leaves and believe in the dove disappearing acts of soporific magicians. This is tribal simulacrum Indian style.

As the warm dark sari of night falls over the village hiding shoddy paint jobs and cheap costumes the candlelight provides shadowy authenticity to the pagan celebrations under oversized plaster cobras and thirsty palm trees. Deep inside an imitation forest, over plastic bridges and through stucco caves young we came across five young men savagely sporting leopord-print costumes dancing with sticks around a fire, a real fire. The dance ends and the dark boys crowd around demanding a tip. Soon a large dinosaur replica looms out of the darkness adn middle-class Indian families, frightened, hold on to one another and their rupees.

Our waiters that evening were all from Bikaner, a large city on the edge of the desert 250km north of Jaipur. We were told that 100 coolies working in Choki Dhani are from Bikaner. Most of the men have families there. They have migrated to this artificial village, populating and giving life and lie to this deceitful history, entertaining middle-class families on holiday, so that they can send money home and briefly live authentic penury lives with their families in veritable Indian cities. This certainly explained the sad weathered faces we'd noted during our visit, that smiled long enough to receive their baksheesh.

At one point, early in our dizzying evening, I was embeaced by a hookah man who insisted on taking my photo wearing his sweat-damp homespun. I took a hoot of his pungent tobacco, reluctantly accepted his sudden embrace and left him standing with a saddened expression that left me feeling cold. That was before we accustomed ourselves to the ritual of baksheesh. Before we knew the whole city was from Bikaner.

Amritsar: A Taste of Holy Water

smelt_and_gizzard — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 20:19:00 GMT

We left McLeod Ganj on a sunny Saturday morning—the first we’d seen the whole two weeks we’d been there. The night prior we took our beloved music teacher, Kumar, out for dinner at the Japanese restaurant—his first time—and taught him how to eat with chopsticks. He loved the tempura, Japanese pakora!, but decided the dipping sauce wasn’t enough and shook out the whole salt shaker onto his meal. He was enthusiastic, I’ll give him that much. We said our goodbyes, promising to send him MP3 discs of Beatles songs.

The ride to Amritsar was beautiful, that much more impressive since we hadn’t moved in 2 weeks. We made the decent to Kangra, the surrounding lush forests glistening from weeks of monsoon rain, and emerged into the plains as the afternoon sun filled our view in a panorama of saffron light. I, in my Gravol drugged state was in utter bliss, chatting with some Cambridge Lit students who were volunteering in the Tibetan community teaching English, but Brandon was strangely taciturn. He had a headache. Early on in the bus ride, the ticket collector blew his whistle right into Brandon’s ear, making him flinch, which made the 2 Indian guys behind us laugh. Without thinking, I turned around and asked them if they thought something was funny. It shut them up. I wasn’t angry. It’s something that happens here and frustrates me. Indians laugh at misfortune. The moment I turned back to my window-gazing, a change occurred in me. Though it makes no sense to me, I realized that they laugh at misfortune because they have to. They have to make light of things if they are to ward off that darkness that threatens to engulf them daily. Who was I to demand they change their social reflexes to suit my moral values? Since that moment on I was free from the frustrations that plagued me since I arrived. In reverse, Brandon has taken up the role of moral crusader—writing in service complaint books and demanding logical behaviour. Balance.

The new elated me arrived in Amritsar and was nearly brought back to earth when we found out that though we had reserved a room, there was no room for us. The one time we decide to book ahead and we’re stuck in a single bed with a bathroom down the hall…with bedbugs to boot. We moved the following morning to a room with HBO and were happy campers once again. We made friends with a German ex-lawyer motorcyclist, 15 months into his open-ended journey of the world. Brandon was reading “The Tin Drum” coincidentally, and Lars gave us a German history lesson as we explored the old city, drank Pista Milk (pistachio and almond milk), and sat watching the bathers at the Golden Temple.

The temple. The only other experience that can compare to the holiness of being there as night diffused the heat of the afternoon, was the first time I heard gagaku (traditional Japanese Buddhist music). Women bowed their heads to the marble floors. Carp swam by the legs of bathers dipping their babies into the holy water, laughing, turbaned, sleek-skinned. The chanting of the scriptures echoing off the surface of the water mingled with the breeze to wash away the traffic and dust of the street outside. It was even a respite from the heat, the only cool place in the city. I had been cleansed. I was ready to enjoy Rajasthan and the final six weeks of our trip, giddy and anxious to feel that desert sun on my face.

McLeod Ganj-Singing the Blues Away

smelt_and_gizzard — Thu, 3 Aug 2006 22:28:00 GMT

We've settled into our new routine here in McLeod Ganj, blissfully happy to be away from the heat and hassle of the road. Our room is simple, with a squat toilet and cozy comforters, and a perfect place for my laundry line, though it takes days for anything to dry in this moist mountain air. There is a big community of Tibetan refugees, and sometimes the language sounds nearly Japanese, tricking me into a reverie of nostalgia. There is a mother and child whose voices come up into our window from the alley below, and we can hear her singing children's songs on rainless afternoons. At about 10 at night, the drum and gongs begin at the gumpa down the street and is the background music to our nightly games of chess.

This town has it all; a japanese restaurant where we go to get our memory-laden bowl of miso soup, a plethora of good views, yoga, music lessons, cooking classes, nature walks, and museums. I almost feel busy! The daily music lessons are by far the highlight of my day. Kumar, our teacher, greets us on the patio of the restaurant above his room, gives us the latest news highlights and we chit-chat, learning more about him and the area, until it's time for Brandon's tabla lesson to start. I drink tea and read and then make my way down to listen to the progressively complicated new beats. I have been learning to sing Indian classical songs and the basics on the harmonium. The hindi we've been studying on our own has come in handy--we can now read simple words but our pronunciation isn't so hot. The singing helps with that. I've been devoured--the melodies consume my mind and a strange new passion for music has suddenly saved me, transforming my fatigue and pessimism into a barely containable excitement. I get giddy waiting for my lesson and the new song that Kumar will teach me with his laughing eyes and tremelo voice. Will it be about Krishna? Those songs are always "erotic" in mood and Kumar gets a kick out of Krishna's ploys to get kisses out of unassuming girls. Some are devotional and are to be sung from 4am to 7am. All Indian ragas have alloted times. Most concerts are in the evening so unfortunately those get the most play time. I've nearly learned enough songs to fill one day. Needless to say, Brandon is esctatic at this budding passion. How many years has he been trying to make me practice the bass!

A Design for Disaster

smelt_and_gizzard — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 18:41:00 GMT

Woke up the day we were to leave Mussoorie with the remains of a chest cold, and my best friend, Mr. Runs. With an hour long taxi ride and 6 hour bus ride to Chandigarh, I wasn't going to take any chances, so on top of the Mefloquine, I added some stoppers and crossed my fingers for the winding 2000 metre drop in altitude that would take us to Dehra Dun. Already feeling the effects of strange chemicals in my system I was wary of popping Gravol into the mix, but I was feeling queasy by the third switchback and swallowed them down. It was too late--at the bottom of the mountain we had to make the driver pull over. So, in this condition, coughing, heaving, sweating, and sore, we arrived crumpled at the bus stand and boarded the bus for the next leg of the journey. Luckily, the drowsiness set in and I was comatose for most of the ride, barely noticing that the bus was merely "semi-deluxe," and the one luxury this afforded us, our personal electric fan, was broken.

We arrived in Chandigarh, the town designed by Le Corbusier, the capital of two states built when the old capital of Punjab was lost to Pakistan in the Partition. Our troubles were just beginning. We tried hotel after hotel but all were booked (damn lonely planet!), and as the stoppers were threatening to wear off we were forced to fork out a ridiculous 1000 rupees for the night. The hotel, for those who need to be forwarned, was the Hotel Akash Deep. We settled into our room, after bartering them down to 900, to find rat dung in the bathroom and hair in the bed. They moved us upstairs. The maid-boy changed our sheets. It was a bigger room but next to the kitchen and every time the door opened, a swarm of flies flew in. I made a fly-swatter with an old Hindustani Times and whacked away. Meanwhile, Brandon discovered that the toilet seat was covered with old urine and poo stains. He got the maid-boy to clean it, thoroughly, after which I sanitized it with our hand gel. Then, returning to the room, I found a swarm of ants had discovered one of the dead flies and were trying to carry it away. I lost it, and stamped them all dead, completely exausting myself and insulting a few Jains who might have heard. Brandon decided to have a hot shower. The one thing that could make the day worth living. He turns on the tap and out comes a trickle of water. Nothing from the shower head. No hot water. He's livid. He goes down to the front desk, complains, says that this is the most we've paid for a room in the 5 months we've been travelling, AND it's the dirtiest. He gets 200 rupees back and a promise to be moved into a better room tomorrow. It was something anyway. At least we had HBO to soothe our wounds, and we would save money skipping dinner, since we lost our appetite looking at the kitchen.

The bed was soft and the sleep sound. We woke freshened by the new day and set off to organize a taxi to Dharamsala (we deserved to treat ourselves), and visit some museums. It all worked out. The City Museum, Art Gallery (particularly the surreal details of the mystical Indian miniature paintings--amazing!) and relaxing stroll through the Rose Garden made the stop worthwhile. In the midst of all the chaos, I'm ashamed to say that considered abandoning Brandon for home, but now that we're settled in McLeod Ganj and plan to stay for a good two weeks, I am determined to regain my health in order to stick out the remaining two months. We have a tentative plan to be in London by the beginning of the first week of October and Toronto by the 15th or so. We'll contact everyone soon to sort out details. If anyone has leads on an apartment for November do let us know! I promise the next entry will be more optomistic...

Mussoorie: Well Rounded Hills

smelt_and_gizzard — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 18:23:00 GMT

I turned 28 in Mussoorie, a decaying raj-era himalayan hillstation. The first thing I saw after awakening that day was a giant long-legged spider who had been living web-wise behind our hotel's heavy emerald curtains. It's auspicious, I'm told. Certainly I preferred it to the rat-shit from the previous room. Only bird doodoo is auspicious. Or so I'm told. We spent the rest of my arachnid-blessed day wandering through the old town, around the verdant peak on Camel's Back Road, past the rickshaws and chai-wallahs, stopping only to shoot pellets at some candycoloured ballons and eat. And eat we did; pomegranates, paneer parathas, curd, kebabs, fish tikka, mutton saag curry and 'death by chocolate' cake. With a little red wine and cuba libres to wash it all down. A great birthday of hedonism and leisure, two of my favoutite past-times. I went to bed that night with a smile and a stomach ache, content to be a little older, maybe even a little rounder.

As our days in Mussoorie mounted, so did our menagerie. After showing taht spider such great hospitality camelhaired monkeys began scaling up our hill side hotel and dropping in on our breakfasts. Whenever we opened our view-facing windows to enjoy the fresh mountain air with our meal little dark wrinkled grandfatherfaced simians would show up baring their teeth as way of greeting and covet our chapatis. Windows closed we would look out over the pointilist reptillian hills watching dozens of trees shiver with homuncual excitement.

I bought some raj-era photographs from a kind old Hindu, Vinod. The photos, stained, fading and sepia with age, are from an old geography text and show mandala-like foliage from various locations in India. On close inspection, hidden in each photo, a miniature turban-clad man is found looking directly at the camera. These weird 'Where's Waldo in India' were found under years of dust, between silverfish eaten family albums, surrounded by thousands of tarnished antiques in Vinod's ancient antique shop. Between excavating photographs, talking Alexander the Great history and drinking chai I spent the good part of several overcast himalayan days in Vinod's shop. We shared a great interest in strange old things and strange old history. Over those few musty afternoons we developed a real friendship. He introduced me to several serious collectors who frequently patronize his shop, one of which is related to the great Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The collector is from Kolkata (Calcutta) and extended an invitation to see his private collection of Ray's paintings. We hadn't planned on going that far east, but if time permits we'll make the pilgrimage.

Leaving Mussoorie was hard after the friendships, sunset views and pets. It was made a lot easier by a taxi ride down the treacherous mountain road with holy cow obstacles and the image of sunny modernist streets of Chandigarh designed by Swiss architect Le Corbusier. We had no idea how wrong we were.

Brandon

In Shiva's footprint

smelt_and_gizzard — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:57:00 GMT

The last leg of journy has begun--India and her olfactory adventures have welcomed us into her saried bollywood bossom. Things got off to a good start with us being upgraded to first class on our Air India flight from Bangkok due to an overbooked flight. The 3 hour delay couldn't dent our cool as we looked forward to free wine and slippers. We arrived in Delhi around midnight and kicked ourselves for refusing our hotel's airport pick-up service because it was 100 rupees more than a regular cab. We must watch the budget! Everything worked out fine once the taxi driver got his car started (aided by a couple of guys pushing from the back). He blared Indian pop music and we flew through the streets, our drowsy senses exhilarated by the wind in our hair. We made it! The heat of the next day evaporated the enthusiasm, but just barely, keeping our gleeful giggles from escaping our lips too often. The controversy which faces the tourist in India is complex. As I stepped out into the streets, the dung and decay, the disorder and dagger-like stares made me want to leave then and there. At the same time I felt pulled into it, feeling the desire to stay forever.

We decided to escape Delhi's heat as soon as possible and booked a train to Haridwar, one of the four holy cities (for the summer pilgrimage) on the Ganges and 4 hours north of the capital. We spent our little time in Delhi scoping out the record stores and getting lost in Connought Place trying to find a bookstore. That's when we found our little guide, Raaj, who navigated us through the underground passageways and to our destination. He explained to us that he was a shoeshiner but could not afford a box like the professionals and so he had to carry his tools in a little sachel. He also wanted to go to school but could not afford books. He asked us repeatedly, "Box problem solved?", hinting that he wanted us to fork out the few hundred rupees for his box. We helped him out and promised to find him again when we returned to Delhi. Brandon has promised we can adopt him for a week. He got to me that little Raaj.

We arrived in Haridwar after dark and as we bartered with a rickshaw-walla outside of the train station, a holy man wearing a human skull around his neck, face powdered white, brandishing a cow's femur bone, began dancing around us trying to scare us into giving him some coins. When he began nudging me with the femur bone in his hand, I looked at him wearily and shrugged that I got the message but we were in the middle of something. He stoped the charade and said "Chapati, chapati" meekly. Looking back I"m amazed that the situation failed to faze me. India has already superceded my expectations and I'm now prepared for the 4 months ahead of us.

We are now in Rishikesh, the "yoga capital of the universe", and have yet to get our head-cold ridden selves to a class, but Brandon had his first music lesson and we are content with our books. We will make our way to Manali, stoping along the way, and our only plan is to be in Amritsar by the end of August. We have our eye out for any political strife that may occur after the bombings in Mumbai and will leave if things look too dangerous. Perhaps an escape route via Egypt...

Gallery: India

smelt_and_gizzard — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:31:00 GMT

Our journy in the north

Pai in the sky

smelt_and_gizzard — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:50:00 GMT

The chaotic, yet blissfully exciting days of visiting with friends and family are over and we are finally catching up on our journal entries and reading. Some of you may have worried about our long silence--but we're back, alive and well-fed. After hanging around Chiang Mai a little too long, we finally ventured north to Pai, a small town in the hills, full of river-side bungalows and hippie cafes. This is where all of the japanese hippies get their ethnic-chic groove on. It's filled with ex-pats come to fulfill their dream of having an organic tea farm, write poetry and just live a good life. We first heard about Pai when it was featured as the setting in a Thai romantic comedy we saw at the airport plaza (yes jessica--we finally broke down and went!). Then, the manager at the guesthouse recommended it and the next morning we were on the bus to our little bungalow in the sky. We have been motoring around the country-side and playing chess by day, and when the sun goes down we head to the bar to get our fix of herbal whisky, health or energy depending on our moods. We planned to head back to Chiang Mai tomorrow, but we caught wind of an Isan (north-eastern thai province) food and music party going down tomorrow night... We can't say no folk-music. That leaves us just enough time to get back to Chiang Mai to pick up our India visas, some antique bells from Myanmar at the night market, and hop on the night train to Bangkok. We'll have a day in Bangkok, then we fly to Delhi on the 3rd. We'll miss the panang curry but we'll just have to find solace in the thought that their are plenty of Indian culinary adventures to come. Goodbye Thailand!

Naomi

Curly and the ex-pat moto gang

smelt_and_gizzard — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 20:31:00 GMT

Ko Chang. A dream island where international best friends meet to drink, eat, and swim. Oh, and we mustn't forget--drive. We had a gang of 7: Eric, Anna and Tamara, the ethno-botonists; Paul, the political philospher and his wife Jessica, the IR Queen of mosquito killing; and B and I. We stayed in bungalows on the beach and lived like hedonists with one week to live. Our days involved getting up before 10:30 to catch the breakfast buffet at the restaurant, swim, have hermit crab races on the beach, hop on the motos to the next beach, repeat, eat amazing seafood lunches and play frisbee with the local dogs. We would vary the afternoons with massages, hikes to the waterfalls, naps, and more swimming. Evenings were all about karaoke and late night beer Changs on the bungalow veranda playing dice games and feeding Big Mama and Curly (our favourite dogs) lobster flavoured potato chips.

It was all fun and games until Big Mama bit Paul. The owner and manager of our bungalows said that they got their rabies shots regularily but to be safe Paul took a trip to the hospital on the other side of the island to get his vaccine. A brief glitch in the otherwise perfect week of sun and surf.

Naomi

Canada Part II: Midgets have a place on your wall too

smelt_and_gizzard — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:18:00 GMT

After dropping off my Mom, John & Christina at the airport in Calgary, we were left with John's jeep and an open road. To Edmonton! The prairies stretched out from under us like a never-endng carpet and the clouds hung like opium smoke in the sky. I hadn't felt the freedom of the road in such a long time and we took advantage of it, stopping at every Tim Horton's on the way. We parked downtown and walked to the Artworks, Brandon's Aunt Wendy and Uncle Peter's store. We passed a Greyhound bus station and a greasy-haired young woman propositioning an equally sketched-out middle-aged man. "You can have me and her (motioning to her friend sitting on the curb) all night for 100 bucks." Welcome to Edmonton. I suppose we had idealistic visions and nostalgic memories of our homeland and the reverse culture shock hit. On the way back to the car they were being fined by 2 police officers on bikes.

Peter and Wendy live a life Brandon and I aspire to. A self-designed house in the woods 30 mins from the city, horses, good food, travel, and a great collection of books, paintings and antiques. The 2 dogs and 3 cats won me over despite the allergic side-effects. The first night, we cooked them some Vietnamese dishes that were featured in our cooking class and washed it all down with sake and their stories of back alley carpet deals in exotic countries. We woke up the next morning to Pete's rendition of "I called to say I love you" and Gussie, their energetic terrier, scratching at our door. It was egg-in-the-hole Thursday. Their breakfasts of fresh orange juice and fig bread worked to cure our jet-lag, luring us out of bed and into the day.

We spent our days exploring the city with Uncle Pete, checking out his latest interiors and perusing his collection of 19th century circus freak photographs. Our food check list got shorter and shorter as we whisked through the culinary treats Edmonton had to offer. Mmm, Alberta beef. We were able to see our friends Caroline and Yuji and met their new baby boy Kai-kun. They have just moved into a new place and are beaming with that new family glow. Edmonton left a good impression on us despite the prostitutes and the mall. Our generous hosts treated us very well. The trip back to Canada was a success!

Naomi

Gallery: Thailand & Invermere

smelt_and_gizzard — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:10:00 GMT

A Canadian sandwich

Canada Part I: Invermere and Learning how to speak "Canadian"

smelt_and_gizzard — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 12:35:00 GMT

Oh Canada, home of superlative mountains, relatively clean waterways, laid-back line-dancin' locals and admittedly intimidating over-sized everything. Our conspicuous re-assimilation into the Canadian-way-of-living, under the auspices of a great canadian wedding, was surprisingly smooth and reassuring. We ended up feeling good about moving back to Canada except for the hard part; learning to speak 'Canadian' again.

Immidately after arriving on Canadian soil we were met by Naomi's mother, Donna, and her step-father-to-be, John, who both sported 'lamp' tans much darker than our two month 'travel' tans. After hugs, kisses, introductions, jokes and the realization that what validates several months of gruelling tropical beach time can also, simply, be purchased with several hours of local tanning-bed-salon time, we drove to the first location of reverse-culture-shock; Earl's Restaurant. Having just come from the surprisingly conservative Thailand where shorts and t-shirts are forbidden in all wats, governmet buildings and upscale hotels, and having just lived in Japan for four years, where modesty is the height of sexy, we were shocked when our chicken wings were served with cleavage. Not a modest 'V' of asian mammaries, but a whopping Double 'D'! of great canadian hooters. The wings were tatsy, it was wonderful to be back in the ample bosom of our homeland.

After lunch we all, stuffed-to-the-brim (great canadian proportions), headed towards the mountains, more specifically Invermere, Naomi's old stompin' ground. As rows of huge cedars and numerous breathtaking peaks flew past our wide eyes we realized that Canada has a geography just as dramatic and magnificent as anything we had seen on our travels. It was in our back yard the whole time and we didn't even know it! I blame my asthmatic aversion to cutting the lawn.

Once settled into our hotel and our approval of John, who's humour and love of the sweetest ice-creams of life immediately won us over, it was time to explore this land of ours. Time to mingle with the locals. Our attempts of mingling, the foreign art of small-talk, was quickly sabotaged as conversations either ended too quickly because we sounded too eager or simply wouldn't end because we'd forgotten the neighborly art of how-to-end-a-conversation. Our ineptitude was quickly sussed out by the locals and we were, ultimately, betrayed by our own accents. "Where ya from?" usually invaded our check-out banter after a minute or two revealing our 'otherness', even in our own country. "We're fom Canada...Toronto." partly quelled their suspicions, but not entirely as they'd never heard a Canadian speak that way before, not even an east-coaster. In any case, we were treated cordially, if not entirely 'at-home', and experienced what Canada must be like to a visiting Australian or the mysteriously accented New Zealander.

Quickly making up for our linguistic shortcomings we were surounded with warm embraces by all of Naomi's friends and newly extended family. Days came and went with the intensity of wedding preparations and we, despite one false malarial scare, hardly noticed the jet-lag. The wedding went by in a blur of snapshots and line-dances (a hidden talent that N and her sister expertly unleashed in the wedding reception). The bride and groom, both 're-treads' by their own admissions, looked fantastic. The reception was a blast; N's energetic aunt Rita was the highlight of the party, eclisped only briefly during the afformentioned line-dancing. I nearly lost my eye when a gangly hormonal youth sliced past me to catch the blue garter. He obviously didn't realize the in-law in-appropriateness of me catching that sure babe-magnet.

After cleaning and sobering up we were left with one afternoon to explore the surrounding area. It as enough to fall for the narcotic paroxysms of mountain dwelling. In short, I'm hooked. Not only on the Great Canadian Rockies, but organic hippy stores, Alberta beef, prarie sunsets and roadside elk. Now, if only I could learn how to say that in 'Canadian'.

Bangkok-a-Go-Go!

smelt_and_gizzard — Fri, 26 May 2006 16:58:00 GMT

Last night we forged our way through the balmy night in search of our raison d'etre. Food. From the inexhaustible variety of cuisine availble in this international miasma we settled in Isaeli cuisine. A few minutes into our gastronomically inclined journey we crested a staircase and the spirit of Bangkok revealed herself to us in the form of a domesticated elephant with a blinking tail-light and brightly ornamented saddle being led across a bridge by two barefoot young entrepreneurs. We were delighted and watched the grand old grey beast as it lumbered down the busy boulevard winking at us through the thick dark air with it's cheeky light. It was love at first sight, not only with urban pachyderms, but with this proud gregarious city teeming with curiosities and surprises of all sorts. We've only been here one day and we've already chewed betel with a man from Myanmar, filled up on falafels and sushi, played Indian flutes, waxed philosophically over a teak chess board and talked about bio-diesel with canadian hippies. My pearly whites sparkle in a big thai grin as I write this, after just having them cleaned, thinking about the meals, massages and museums that populate our schedules from here to our flight back to Canada. We never quite know where this honourable elephantine city willl take us next and that's why it's such an exciting ride.

Loas from the window of a moving bus

smelt_and_gizzard — Wed, 24 May 2006 16:16:00 GMT

We blinked and Laos was in and out of our lives, hopefully not for good, but for this trip anyway. The bus from Hue left at 6 am and got us to the Laos border at 11:00, skipping the scheduled breakfast stop which left us a meal of "Super Peanuts" and "Fun Mix". The crossing was relatively smooth, until the time came to pay for our Loas visas. The price was average--$30 US each--but when we handed over three 20s, the official on the other side of the glass, hair frozen to his head in combed lines from the excessive A/C, looked them over scrupulously and detected a miniscule tear on the end of one of the bills. He refused to accept it. We tried to say that that as all we had--they had, afterall, already stamped in our visas. There is no stopping bureaucracy. We gave in and gave him our stash of fives and ones. We were in--but bitter.

The bus took us right into the parking lot of the only reasonable hotel in Savannakhet--how convenient! It was 3:30 and the ferries across the mekong to thailand had already stopped running. We were left to entertain ourselves with beers and dinner with 2 Canadians and a Swedish guy--all of the spry young age of 20. One of the Canadian guys had just lived in Tokyo for 7 months, so we reminsced the good old days and shared geeky Canadian references to "Voltron" and "Fat Albert". The night ended with a few rowdy rounds of dice back at the hotel and we were off to bed by 11:00.

So now, on the Thai side of the river, we're killing the few hours before our bus leaves for Bangkok. We have left Loas behind in the half-consciousness of restless sleep. We've left all behind but that damn $20 bill! The hotel staff eyed the slit suspiscously when we asked for small change to get breakfast and denied us yet again. It's destined for Canada, our little imperfect bill. And so are we! It's hard to imagine that we'll be clean and decked out in suits and gowns, toasting champange and eating mashed potatoes next week. I can't wait! Mmm, mashed potatoes.

Naomi