Category: Travel

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[en méxico]

So we’re in Mexico, my brother Effie and me. I flew into Phoenix on a delayed flight Saturday, slept a few hours, and got into the car for a long, hard drive down through Tuscon and Nogales and into Mexico. From there we pressed on to the town of Hermosillo, got lost crossing it, and finally cruised into the tiny coastal town of Bahía de Kino, driving dead on into the sunset and racing to get there before dark.

Kino is really two small villages. Kino Nuevo is a string of hotels and condos and houses for snowbird norteamericanos. It’s really nothing more than a strip against the water, behind which begins the Sonoran desert. Kino Viejo, the older fishing village, is more oriented towards Mexicans. There’s a small fleet of motorboats for fishing, a little pier, a few taquerías selling fish and shrimp tacos, the sole breaded and cooked over wood fires. It made a pleasant enough stopover for a day on our way further south. Amusingly, the best food in town was to be had at the Restaurant Trailer Park.

On Tuesday we took off before dawn, driving the entire day and finally arriving in Mazatlán as the sun was setting. It was exhausting, and it took a while to find our way to the beach, and then out of the Zona Dorada, a hideous enclave of package tourists, full of hulking mega-hotels and restaurant chains from America. We opted instead to stay at the Belmar, a 1950s-era behemoth on the beach in Old Mazatlán, where John Wayne supposedly used to stay, and where nobody has done any maintenance to speak of since. It’s musty and absurd, but it does the job.

I’m getting by on what Spanish I can remember, dreaming now in Spanish, and wishing I could remember how to conjugate verbs in more than the present tense. In Mazatlán most folks speak at least a little English, because this is a town where cruise ships unload — we saw a group being herded into a crafts boutique, all wearing stickers saying,¨I’m ready to experience!¨ and being told by the tour guide that this place was ¨just like the West Covina mall.¨

But Old Mazatlán is lovely, and as my friend Patricia pointed out, the beach is always real. Typing on a Spanish keyboard is a little confusing, and Mazatlán awaits, so I’m off!

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[¡viva méxico!]

So I’m not going to Thailand. Instead, through the magnanimous gesture of canceling my ticket, I brought peace to that country, and instead I’ll be heading to Mexico.

It was over Thanksgiving weekend that it became apparent Thailand wasn’t going to work out. The People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters — who probably don’t think PAD Thai is a funny joke — were digging in at the airports they’d shut down a week earlier. Reports were saying it would take as much as a month to clear the backlog of stranded travelers. Then someone threw a grenade at the PAD protesters who were occupying Government House in Bangkok, wounding 51, and the PAD response was to give up the Government House occupation and focus on the airports. (If you missed all this, it’s because it happened at the same time as the Mumbai attacks, and American news networks, like the human nervous system, can only focus on one painful sensation at a time.)

This all seemed like the ideal situation to not visit. And so, on Monday morning, I canceled my ticket and ate the change fee. That night — daytime in Thailand — the Thai high court told the government to dissolve, which it did, and the protesters announced that they would give up their blockade of the airports.

Dandy.

In the meantime, however, I hatched a different plan. Forget Thailand. Forget Asia. Instead, I would fly to Arizona, meet up with my brother, a student at ASU, and drive down to Mexico. I talked it over with him, and he seemed to think it was a great idea. Then I asked him what his financial situation was, and how much he could contribute to the trip.

“I have thirty dollars.”

Ah. Okay. Well, I decided to go ahead anyway. I’ll basically pay for everything. It’ll still be cheaper than flying to Thailand. The plan, subject to change as always, is to fly in on Saturday, December 20; leave early Sunday morning and head east, crossing the border at Columbus, New Mexico, a tiny town whose principal claim to fame is having been sacked by Pancho Villa, and whose principal advantage as a crossing point is not being El Paso/Ciudad Juárez; drive south through Chihuahua and Torreón; and spend most of our times in the central highlands, around Guanajuato and Zacatecas and San Miguel de Allende.

I’ve never really traveled in Mexico before. I’ve crossed the border twice, once into the tiny village of Boquillas, and once to spend a grotesque evening on foot in Juárez, trying to ignore the taxi drivers who kept offering to take me to Pusi — that’s the name of the local ruins, apparently — and to find someplace reasonably non-disgusting in which to sip Tecate. The sum total of my Mexican experience, then, is the equivalent to an evening in Newark and an afternoon in Antler.
I’m excited to experience Mexico as a nation, a destination, a place separate from the United States. Latin America has never been the part of the world that has most grabbed my attention, and I don’t know that this trip will change that. But it will hopefull broaden my perspective and stimulate a new curiosity. I don’t expect this will be my last trip to Mexico.
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[wheels and straps]

Years ago, when I went to Ireland, there was some kind of snafu at Kennedy Airport. I can’t remember the details, but I do recall that I literally ran from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, had some kind of a discussion at a ticketing counter, and then ran back to Terminal 1. I had my backpack with me, and it would’ve been hard enough to run had I been wearing it. But by the time the sprinting started, helpful airline staff had already wrapped the thing in cellophane so that the straps wouldn’t get caught in the baggage-handling equipment. And so I was stuck cradling this giant, slippery football in my arms as I trotted from terminal to terminal.

Since then, I’ve stuck mostly with a rolling suitcase for domestic travel, where the road surfaces and airport landscapes are predictable and well maintained, and where schleppage is largely from baggage claim to the trunk of a car in the parking lot.

On my international trips, though, my backpack served me well. It was necessary for trekking in Nepal, of course — hiking the Annapurnas with a wheelie bag makes less sense than heading up there in high heels. There were times, too, where a long walk from the train or bus station, over broken ground, was made infinitely easier by a bag I could heft onto my back. Still, there were times, as the bag grew heavier with our accumulated goods, when it was painful to carry, and wheels would’ve been a serious relief.

And so began my quest for a backpack with wheels. There are a few on the market, and they’re mostly pretty expensive, but I consider this purchase an investment in my future travels. I hope to go to a lot of different places, and I wanted one bag that could go with me on all but the most strenuous adventures. (For those, I’ll break out my beloved Gregory backpack.)

After looking at the Victorinoxes and the Eagle Creeks, I settled on the Osprey Meridian. As the salesman explained, Victorinox bills their bags as the lightest, Eagle Creek as the most durable, and Osprey as the most comfortable. The Meridian is easy to convert from a backpack to a rolling bag and vice versa. It has a spacious interior that will be big enough for most of my travel needs. And a big selling point for me was the detachable day pack, which is spacious and well enough designed to be genuinely useful. That means I can attach my carry-on directly to my luggage, then remove it when I’m ready to check in. Without that, I’d either have to carry two loaded bags around, which I’ve done and not enjoyed — wearing the day pack on the front is no picnic when you’ve got an overloaded pack on your back — or else stop and transfer items from one to the other whenever it came time to check the bigger bag.

We’ll see how it performs in actual transit.

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[dreaming of fluorescent pepsi in the night]

So where were you last Tuesday night?

Seven years after the definitive where-were-you-when moment for Americans under sixty, it is with great relief that there is now a new moment to talk about. For the past week, conversations have turned to the election, which has unleashed a giddy elation in myself and countless others.

As for me, I was at a house party in a high-rise on West 42nd Street, where I stayed to watch first McCain’s and then Obama’s speech. At around 12:30, I headed out, planning to walk back to Times Square and take the subway home, but soon it was clear that something extraordinary was happening. Packs of people streamed by, chanting and waving Obama signs. Strangers were smiling and talking to each other, even embracing. A black woman threw her arms out and howled, “I’m goin’ ta work naked tomorrow!”

Times Square was still packed when I got there. The big screens around the square were all showing the results still coming in, and Obama’s picture kept drifting by on the giant LEDs. I called my sister, then my parents, then some friends, to let them hear what was going on. “YES! WE CAN! YES! WE CAN!” “O! BA! MA! O! BA! MA!” “YES! WE! DID! YES! WE! DID!” Fire trucks drove by and honked in rhythm. I talked to a man from Guinea who was texting his friends back home. They were still celebrating, though it was nearly morning there.

I bought a T-shirt that said President Barack Obama. I cheered and I chanted with strangers. I stared at the monitors and talked shop with strangers about Senate races. At last I headed home, by cab, sharing my joy with my Senegalese driver. It was a beautiful night.

*

The next day, I bought my ticket for Thailand. I’ll be going on December 20, returning on January 4. At first I agonized over how I would book internal flights for when I arrived, but yesterday I decided to let that go. I’ll just show up in Bangkok and figure it out. There’s always a bus to somewhere.

Bus travel, of course, is unpredictable. I have been battered and bruised on buses, ridden on the roof over mountain roads, crossed the United States with Euro-hippies, been awakened by snapping fingers in my face and a man barking, “Tea, toilet!” But what comes to mind most viscerally for me are two experiences. In one, I am riding through Bridgeport, Connecticut, gazing out the window at a bombed-out husk of a city, and listening to “Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997,” by Beck:

I was born in this hotel, washing dishes in the sink
Magazines and free soda, trying hard not to think

The other memory is of India, staring out the window of a night bus — god knows where — listening to Dig Your Own Hole by the Chemical Brothers and watching these islands of fluorescent light drift by, illuminated roadside bhatis with walls of turquoise and pink, hand-painted Pepsi logos, and skinny, mustachioed men with bushy hair, bushy mustaches and dhotis.

In each case, the memory mixes music, bus travel and alienation. Buses, it seems to me, are an ideal environment for feeling alienated, with none of the romance of trains or the sense of occasion that still clings to air travel even in the age of the flying cattle car. Buses rattle and bump, stop unpredictably, go off course, get stuck in traffic. And music is ideal for creating a contrast, or an emotional frame, for absorbing images that are somehow surreal and out of context.

And so I’m sorting through my music, trying to figure out what goes on my iPod for my trip to Thailand, and contemplating a bus trip up the country, from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, with stops in Ayuthaya and Sukhothai and who knows where else. What will settle into my memory this time?

My first little taste of adventure travel was on a Green Tortoise bus down from Oregon, and it sold me on the notion. I soon spent ten days crossing the Northern US with the Green Tortoise, and then another fourteen days heading back across the South. After college, when I leaped blind into India, I experienced bus travel in whole new ways: riding the roof with a couple of cackling old men on the road that winds over the mountains back into Pokhara; wrapped in a shawl, trying to sleep as the cold desert wind whips through the empty window frame of a night bus to Jaisalmer; pressed up against a man smelling of sandalwood and sweat, trying to tune out the high-pitched warble of distorted Hindipop. I have been bounced and battered in a sleeping compartment with no seats. I have been awakened early in the morning by snapping fingers in my face and a man barking, “Tea, toilet!” I have

Bus travel is unpredictable. Some of the best and worst travel experiences of my life have involved buses. My first trip, down from Eugene, Oregon to San Francisco, was a revelation: my first time jumping into a travel experience with no clear idea what it would entail. I sat on the back, on the mattress platform, while an impromptu bluegrass band struck up, and then sat by a river at the Oregon campsite stopover and shared stories with probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.

Over the next couple of years, I twice crossed the United States in Green Tortoise buses. Then, after college, I made a grand, blind leap into India, where

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[idlewild books]

I have made it a goal to travel to at least two countries each year, at least one of which I haven’t been to before. I don’t expect to manage more than one country this year, but hopefully, beginning in 2009, that will begin to change.

The thing is, people tend to get the wrong idea about me. They think I’m well traveled because so many of my personal anecdotes begin with “When I was in India” or “When I was in Korea,” or some variant, and because I know about a lot of different cultures and countries and histories, and because I worked at the UN. But I’m not well traveled, just oddly traveled. I have spent a year in Korea, 6.5 months in India, 3.5 months in Nepal, two weeks in Ireland, a couple of afternoons over the border in Mexico, and a couple of hours wandering around the Canadian side of Niagara Falls (where, to my eternal regret, I failed to buy one of the snow globes for sale that said, “TEXAS”), and a brief layover in Hong Kong, where I watched thousands upon thousands of Filipino ladies eat lunch.

Six countries. Four if you only count the ones where I spent the night. None on continental Europe, none in Africa or South America or the Middle East. I’m a Jew who hasn’t been to Israel, a (recovering) stoner who hasn’t been to Amsterdam, a (recovering) metalhead who’s never seen Stonehenge, an art nerd who’s never been to Paris, an Asian studies nerd who has set foot in neither Japan nor China. I haven’t been to any of the hot spots, really: Thailand, Angkor, Bali, Venice, Florence, Prague, London. Not even friggin’ London! I have to get out more.

But now at least I know where to get my travel books: Idlewild Books, on West 19th Street near Fifth Avenue. I just discovered this place yesterday, and I couldn’t believe I’d never spotted it before. “A lot of people say that,” the proprietor told me, “but we’ve only been open about four weeks.” The genius of Idlewild is that the books are arranged geographically rather than by type: you can find guidebooks, language books, memoirs and novels about, say, Mongolia, all on one shelf, together. How cool is that?

There are limits, of course: no music, no poetry, no comics. As the proprietor said, the subject of the store is the whole world, and there’s only so much shelf space. But it’s a beautiful space full of fascinating books, and I encourage you to check it out.

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[yesterday’s news]

Today the first of my purchases from Thriftbooks arrived: the 1996 edition of the Lonely Planet India, complete with a business card for Ashoka Arts of Udaipur1 (which I have visited) and someone else’s notes on when to go see the Taj Mahal.

Now, why would anyone want an outdated travel guide? Simple: to reconstruct a journey taken in the past. The 1996 edition differs considerably from later versions, and it’s the one I hauled around with me during my baffling, overwhelming, life-changing slog across the subcontinent back in 1997-98.

Ever since that trip, I’ve wanted to write about India in one way or another. I have taken a number of disappointing stabs at an India novel, but I think that the processes I’m going through in my life right now — the hard struggle to face my fears and my shame squarely, to take a rigorously honest look at myself and my life — may open the door to better, truer writing.

India will almost certainly be a part of that. It has to be, I think, considering its importance in my life. And so will Judaism. I remember Björg, my Faroese traveling companion through Rajasthan, telling me she’d never heard anyone talk so much about being Jewish. Why was it that after four years of going to college three thousand miles from my parents and sleeping with exotically Scandinavian-named women, I still felt it necessary to go on a Grand Tour of a country that celebrates exactly the kind of idol worship Abraham found objectionable? And why, once I was there (and in the company of another Scandinavian), could I not stop talking about what it meant to me to be a Jew?

These are questions I wouldn’t even have been able to pose until quite recently. The whole Jewish thing, wrapped up as it is with all my parental angst and fundamental sense of dislocation and alienation, was simply too frightening even to look at. That may sound silly, but there it is.

And so I’ve decided to get myself copies of the Lonely Planets that guided me through that journey: not just the India guide, but also the one for Nepal, and for trekking in the Nepal Himalaya. If nothing else, this new-old Lonely Planet has confirmed for me the existence of the Peacock Hotel in Pushkar2, along with its location — issues that remained vague for me even though I stayed there, no doubt because of the bhang lassis I consumed each night during my visit to that pleasant little town.
—
1. And I quote, all sic:

Mfrs. & Exporters of : Painting on Silk, Wood, Paper and Marble
96, Patwa Street Near Jagdish Temple
UDAIPUR-313 001 (India)
We Accept All Credit Cards & Foregin Currency


Ashoka Arts A Mile Stone in the Field of Paintings.

  • See How Artist Make Paintings with Natural Colours.
  • A Co-operative Orgnised by the Artists.
  • A Reflection of Indian Culture & Historic Background.
  • Most Economical & Best Quality Painting on Marble, Silk, Paper on wood.
Ashoka Arts
Best Miniature Paintings,

2. “On the outskirts of town is the Peacock Hotel, a good choice despite being rather far from the lake. The rooms surround a large, shady courtyard, and the swimming pool and jacuzzi are a big drawcard. Singles/doubles cost Rs 50/80 with common bath, Rs 120 for a double with bath attached, and there are more upmarket rooms at Rs 300/450.” I remember neither pool nor jacuzzi, but then, it was seriously cold during my visit.

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[arizona pics]

I’m back at work today after a week and a half in Arizona to celebrate my sister’s graduation from ASU (BA in art history) and to spend some time with my family in Sedona and at the Grand Canyon. Here are some of the pics my sister sent me.

The Palaverist, Effie, Shana, Mom and Dad.
Effie and Shana give the Arizona State Sun Devil sign, and I, um, don’t.
Suddenly, it’s High-Pants Time! (I don’t understand it either.)
The Ross ladies do their part.
The Palaverist is a man of glamour and fashion.
We behave better in public.
Brothers and sister at Montezuma’s Castle.
Mom and Dad at Montezuma’s Castle.
We must be related: we squint alike.
A small Palaverist on a big rock in Sedona.
God makes a rude gesture. Who knew He was English?

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[from philly to phoenix]

Philly HousesTo celebrate our fourth anniversary, Jenny and I decided to spend the weekend in Philadelphia.

Now I know Philly doesn’t exactly have a reputation as a sexy destination. But Jenny got to know Center City pretty well during her project down there with Cigna, and she wanted to share it with me, and she had the points on her credit card to get us a free night at the DoubleTree, so down we went.

I have to admit that I was thoroughly charmed. Philly is a beautiful city that has preserved much of its colonial architecture and is full of ornate 19th-century confections such as City Hall, not to mention a thoroughly respectable skyline of elegant modern towers. On a beautiful spring day, Jenny and I were able to stroll through much of Center City, and I think we both most enjoyed the narrow, cobbled lanes full of colonial brick row-houses and cherry blossoms. Unlike New York’s Dutch-style homes, Philly’s have no semi-basements, which means there’s no call for the great big stoops so familiar in Brooklyn, which means the houses don’t have to be set back so far from the street. As opposed to Brooklyn’s stately quality, Philly’s old houses, largely free of ornamentation, create an atmosphere of friendly, practical intimacy. Indeed, part of the charm of the historic district is that most of even the oldest buildings are still living homes. Over in the downtown shopping district, we visited the Macy’s, which is home to the Wanamaker Organ, the world’s largest operational organ, which I can now attest puts up a hell of a racket when it’s going full-bore.

Philly has also grown into something of a foody town, and we ate exquisitely at a small Italian restaurant called Mercato. It was a Saturday night, Cinco de Mayo and the finest weather imaginable, so every decent restaurant was packed; we had to wait for a seat, but we sat on a small stoop in the lovely night and took in the passers-by. The Center City crowd seems to be well-healed yuppies, with a strong gay community and a fair number of families raising kids.

On Sunday we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an elegant neoclassical palace on a hill, with excellent holdings in European art from the Middle Ages forward, in Asian art and in American work as well. Distinctive to the Philly Museum is its emphasis on architecture, with room after room of full interiors — a Chinese Buddhist temple, a Medieval cloister, a Parisian interior from the 19th century, a Dutch merchant’s bedroom — giving the art a rich context. Nor are the works themselves anything to sneeze at. Their Medieval collection is excellent, and there’s a rich selection of works by many of the European masters, particularly of the Impressionist and modern periods. And I was pleased to discover that they have devoted some meaningful attention to Korean art in recent years, managing to acquire a number of works that are actually good, including some fine Joseon furniture, pottery and painting and a bit of good contemporary art.

So we had a lovely weekend in Philly, and I now know Center City. As for the sprawling rest of the city, I haven’t the foggiest what goes on there.

*

I came back home with a brand new cold, unfortunately. I suppose I’ll be a bit of a disease vector when I take this thing out to Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday. I’ll be going for a week and a half to celebrate my sister’s graduation from ASU and do some family vacationing around Sedona and the Grand Canyon. So posts will be sparse.

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[fung wah funk]

Chinatown Bus by Project Jenny, Project Jan (EP) [via Gothamist]

China Girl (YouTube) by David Bowie (Let’s Dance)

Feng Shui by Gnarls Barkley (St. Elsewhere) [via undomondo]

Fung Wah, the original Chinatown bus company, may have had some trouble lately, but it’s still the cheapest way to move around the Northeast Corridor — with tolls and gas costing what they do, even driving your own car is more expensive if you’re going solo — and it still carries the frisson of the exotic and forbidden. Plus you don’t have to go to Port Authority, a horrible place that abuts another horrible place. Here’s hoping that the era of cheap travel is merely down but not out.

So, the music. Project Jenny, Project Jan is a Brooklyn duo that offers helpful advice for Fung Wah travelers. David Bowie is some kind of space freak who offers an unhelpful narrative about his little China Girl. And Gnarls Barkley is an enormously hyped duo in goofy costumes who offer what appears to be a paean to the principles of feng shui, the Chinese art of arranging space. (I’m guessing the Lo and the Mouse would not approve of the spacial relations pictured above.)

Bonus by Request: Crazy by Gnarls Barkley (St. Elsewhere) [via clever titles are so last summer]