Touch Down in Africa
Fri, 23 Mar 2001 09:42:58 -0800 (PST)
tunisia is clean and green... not quite what one's north african fantasies would be. arrived yesterday (after a day and a half wandering the atmospheric back streets of palermo... mom and dad headed back to philly from there). met maryellen at the airport without any trouble, exclaimed how we couldn't believe we were actully in africa, got a taxi into tunis, and checked into our hotel... high, high ceilings and white walls... very 1920's french feel to the place... and baquette and cafe au lait for breakfast.
in the morning we took a little walk around tunis... very, very clean and sophisticated... palermo felt more exotic in many ways... palermo is definately more dirty and more chaotic; then we took a louage --- a shared minivan taxi --- west to the city of le kef, on the way to the algerian border. the drive was lovely.... green fields, olive tree orchards, jutting rocks... felt verdant and rough at the same time. our hotel in le kef is great... and has a magnificent view of the casbah up on the hill, perched over the town.
so we've just finished wandering around... lovely little winding streets made of cobblestone stairs... lots of little children to chat with... people (except for the occasional bothersome male) are all very, very nice. i just wish i spoke more french. some people speak a litle italian, and a lot of the younger kids speak a little english... but after two weeks of getting along pretty well i am now at the mercy of the phrasebook.
the loveliest part of today was wandering into a little street of cobblestones, lined with white buildings with green doors, with a perfect little mosque at the end. we went in... full of children and women lounging around... they only had smiles for us... it is friday, so i guess that's why they were all there. then we wandered through the medina, but (again, i guess becquse it is friday) many shops were closed.
now it might be time to search out some couscous. We haven't eaten very much today (well, aftr italy I think that is a good thing!). it is much hotter here than we thought it would be!!!! really hot, though it guidebook had told us to expect highs in the low 70s.
tommorrow i think we plan to go see the roman ruins of dougga... and go get a "turkish" bath at the hammam.
au revoir – maria
Golden Ruins
Sat, 24 Mar 2001 10:27:25 -0800 (PST)
tired... tired... sunburnt... hungry...
tortured by this french keyboqrd...
we went to dougga today, an incredible roman city of ruins up on a hill in the countryside about an hour from kef. it really is just gorgeous... golden bricks and columns and temples surrounded by fields of multicoloured wild flowers, groves of olive trees, sheep and shepherds, and the valley below. we had a little picnic, explored... and after a few hours took the long way home, walking through the valley to a nearby village to get the bus, rather than taking a taxi to the larger town that is nearby. and then sat on the pavement on the side of the highway for over an hour, waiting for the bus, sort of stupified with exhaustion. some boys tried to bother of us, but were relqtively easily dispersed... and it was worth the walk in the country, the offer of a lift from an old man on a donkey, and the kids' grins when we walked through their town.
what else? before going to dougga we visited the restored synagogue in kef... the jewish community here used to be very large, but left with most of tunisia's jews for israel and france after independence. but in 1984 the synagogue was restored (i think by former members of the community) and now there is a little museum inside. it was very simple and pretty... and proudly shown to us by the caretaker. i think it was a good example of tunisia's tolerance... the man even
showed us the cans used to collect donations for israel, without any comment except an enthusiasm for showing us something of interest from his town.
there was also an AIDS awareness poster in one of the local stores that house pay telephones... another surprising detail...
we haven't found any couscous yet... they are always out of it...
but saw some julebis (an indian sweet) in a sweet shop! asked the owner what they were called and he responded "jahleebees" or something like that... another gift from the moguls, i suppose?
the internet cafe is buzzing with boys on icq... instant messages everywhere...
tommorow we move on. maria
The Sunday Bus to Kairouan… and the Monday Market
Mon, 26 Mar 2001 10:54:26 -0800 (PST
we were expecting to leave kef on the noon bus yesterday, but then once we got to the bus station we were told that the noon bus leaves at 2 on sundays. So we were a bit stuck... with all our bags and the midday sun beating down... in the new town, away from anything of interest... we hiked up the street 2 blocks and found a bakery where we could sit out of sight and undisturbed and eat macaroons and petit fours and apple soda. but then the nice family man
behind the counter started playing dire straits (money for nothing and your chicks for free... dire staits, right?... had enough of that in the eighties) at a mindnumbing volume, so we didnt't stay too long.
back at the bus station, we sat and sat, as a fine layer of dust blew in and covered us. too bad we didn’t have those extra hours up in the old town... we went to kef's museum of nomad life earlier... it was fantastic, housed in an old sufi building... but we rushed through to get to the bus by noon.
eventually... we were herded onto the broken down bus for kairouan... plenty of leg room and soft seats, but it had seen better days. the first part of the journey was beautiful if hot and dusty... fields of cactus... hills and jutting rocks... stark mixed with green... passed through the roman site of maktar... but once we got down on the plain, it was just plain and extra dusty and a little more hot.
with the change in the landscape, came a change in the surroundings... not as clean, not as prosperous. we pulled into kairouan and it was a very different place than kef. bigger, more hard-bitten, definitely dirtier! after a few wanderings, we settled on a nice hotel... the "splendid". and had a good veggie couscous dinner, finished with some of the fried pastry and date and syrup and sesame seed sweets that kairouan is famous for. think fig newtons with less fig and more sugar.
this morning we went off to kairouan's weekly market. we were the only tourists there, since it is on the edge of town and sells nothing that tourists would want, only the household stuff that ordinary people buy. it stretched over miles, it seemed! lots of folk in from the country... some live chickens... and lots of plastic colanders, used clothes, toothpaste, and fresh mint leaves for tea. no one really paid us any mind... they were all intent on bargains.
it was probably more crowded than usual, since today was a holiday... the first day of the islamic year. of course, we didn't find this out until the end of the day, and it did mean that some museums that we wanted to see were closed. but, after the market, we set out to do the sights of kairouan...
after getting rid of two different guys who were trying to scam us while we tried to find the great
mosque --- and with the help of a nice old man coming back from the bakery, who realized we were trying to escape a "great mosque ticket" scam artist, we found it. it is huge; it is not hard to miss.
stark and beautiful and built of brick, with many roman columns that the arabs culled from older
buildings... not as impressive as the jami masjid in delhi, but beautiful in a different way. shortly after leaving it, we had a stoke of luck and met up with a very friendly and enthusiastic polish lady, who was on a tour with her two pre-pubescent daughters, and had hired a female, english speaking guide from the tourist office. they invited us to join us, and the guide was wonderful... pointed out quite a few things that we would have otherwise missed and told us a lot about the old houses of kairouan that are hidden behind the medina's closed doors and high walls. and
the polish woman was hysterical... dressed in a dramatic black outfit, with flaming red hair and a
lisp, she is a geographer and so was really excited about all of tunisia's different landscapes and was breathless with recommendations. her daughters, on the other hand, just wanted ice cream.
we left them and went to lunch... turkey kabobs!... and then went for a wander through the medina. beautiful... the walls all light blue... the doors all painted and carved in darker blue and aquamarine and rich browns... once you wind your way off the touristy main alley, it was really an evocative place. we went back for another stroll this evening, the weather all cool with a nice breeze. everyone was out buying freshly baked loaves of round tunisian bread... we had some for lunch and it was fantastic...
now... time for couscous...
Tunisian Star Maps
Mon, 2 Apr 2001 10:32:30 -0700 (PDT)
oooohhhhh... after all those emails, i've turned into a bad correspondent. though i did write a very long one last week, only to have it eaten by cyberspace before i sent it. maryellen left on friday, and i leave tunisia on wednesday. at the moment, i am trying to squeeze every last bit from the trip...
today i left the resort island of jerba at 6AM, and now i am in sfax, the prosperous business-oriented 2nd city of tunisia. they do, however, have an excellent medina, with not a tourist nor a stuffed camel to be seen, so i am on my way to check that out. then, in 2 hours, i hop the train to see el jem, the colosseum where they shot "gladiator"... oh, and they shot "the english patient" in the sfax medina so i guess i'm having a hollywood day. not that i really like either of those movies...
then i get an evening train back to tunis, so that I can go to the bardo museum, maybe carthage, maybe sidi bou said... and buy some dates... before leaving on wednesday morning.
so now i must go off to the medina, though i do want to fill you in on everything that's happened the past week: women's (and children's) night at the turkish bath... the long walk through the palm tree oasis... getting within spitting distqnce of the algerian border... the day the dust hit... spending shabbat in one of the last remaining jewish communities in tunisia (to maryellen: you guessed it... i ran into jonathan on jerba, on his way to synagogue with all the young men of the village!)...
but now, i'm off to look for ralph fiennes...
maria
Bella! Bella!
Sun, 8 Apr 2001 12:43:41 -0700 (PDT)
amici ---
here i am, back in beautiful bella vista, celebrating the opening of a fresh fields/whole foods market across the street... assuaging my sadness at returning to rome for one beautiful spring day, and then having to leave that beautiful city once again.
so, yes, i had one last lovely day in rome, preceded by a busy day in tunis going to the bardo museum and to the monoprix supermarket. the day before that was the sfax/el jem day... it turned out that all the shops in the sfax medina were closed up when i was there. just a lonely group of german tourists were wandering through, trying to figure out why they were there. i was, however, propositioned in front of the great mosque a total of three times by two crazy men.
i was standing there looking like the ultimate geek, with my glasses and my guidebook and my white socks and sneakers, trying to decipher a byzantine panel on the side of the mosque, when i heard a murmuring next to me. an old man was there, gesturing with his hand and repeating something under his breath. i assumed that he was begging (even though i thought it strange
that a beggar should be holding a full bag of groceries) and tried to give him a coin. but he
wouldn't take it, and just continued to wave his hand in the air and repeat his mantra and stare at me. soon i realized that he wasn't beseeching me for money or asking allah to bless me... he was saying "bella! bella! voulez vous faire l'amour avec moi?" over and over again.
i started to crack up, moved away from him and concentrated on my guidebook, and eventually he left. but two seconds later another old man with a crazed look in his eyes was at my side, presumably saying the same thing but in arabic. i moved away from him and he shuffled off. i continued to examine the byzantine panel... when the first one reappeared, beseeching me
again to "faire l'amour avec moi! vous est tres belle! faire l'amour avec moi! bella! bella!" [please excuse my bad french... i not sure if that is correct.] I waved him away, cracking up with laughter. he left again, dejected, and i finally figured out why there is a byzantine panel on the side of the great mosque of sfax. i never did, however, find out why horny old crazy men hang out there.
then i went off to el jem, which was really incredible to see... much more impressive than the colisseum in rome, since it rises out of the nothingness of a small tunisian town, and since the insides are well-preserved and you can go down underneath the stage and see where the gladiatiors and wild animals were kept before going on. no candy machines and comfy chairs in those green rooms... (actually, strongly resembled the national pastime theatre's basement
dressing rooms.)
and then i took the late train to tunis, and ended up spending the night in the dirtiest, noisiest,
creepiest, and most expensive hotel i encountered in tunisia. the next day i moved to a cheaper, cleaner and friendlier one...
but as i sit here and type in my little apartment, with no teenage boys around me downloading pictures of mariah carey in bathing suits, i find i still haven't caught up on all those things i briefly listed in my last email. and since (in case you haven't realized this yet) these emails have been serving as my travel diary, i feel the need to record for posterity. so i'm going to mail this email off, and follow it right up with another one...
then, i believe, the journey will finally end.
maria
Friday, March 23, 2001
Saturday, March 03, 2001
emails from italy: march 2001
Allora
Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:44:34
amici ---
here we are, my dear parents and me: bella roma... rain, but no snow. the day we arrived, we slept. Then i wandered over to st. peter"s to take some shots of it during dusk. so beautiful... since the jubilee it has been cleaned up and gorgeously illuminated (as has much of rome)... the sky was a intense dark blue... stars coming out... wishing i had brought a tripod.
then we had dinner with my father"s best friend, which ended up with a crazy drive around the city at midnight. crazy because alfredo is a bit crazy. we went everywhere except EUR (or so it seemed)... crawling our way into the skinniest little lanes (which we were then often unable to get out of)... stopping in the middle of the busiest roads so that alfredo could point something out... and so on... and so on...
yesterday we walked everywhere instead, and ended up at the domus aurea... nero"s golden house which has only been opened recently. golden house makes it seem quite grand... and i"m sure it was 2000 years ago. now, it is interesting, but undergound, very cold, and only fragments of frescos and mosaics and and architectural structure remain.
and today, a walk in the borghese gardens, lunch at alfredo"s house, then i went off on my own to see the newly restored and recently opened galleria di arte antica in the palazzo barberini. a great combination of the superb and the sublime: a raphael restored by estee lauder (it is "la fornarina", a beautiful portrait of a topless hottie who may have been raphael"s mistress)... 2 paintings of putti having orgies with rams... a venus and adonis in which he is wearing a snazzy fuschia outfit complete with furry fuschia hat and pink ribbon... a caravaggio... a holbein of henry the 8th (looking very out of place... how did he get here?).
then there was the tour through the "apartment"... a series of decorated, though not furnished rooms. They were great, and also a little crazy. one was covered with what looked like european battles with iriquois indians... another was a little chapel with a dutch-blue altar... sort of a foldaway altar... there were doors to hide it away if one wanted. but there was also a stern, silent lady leading the tour, and I (per usual) kept getting left behind cause i would take too long and then she would glare at me. Then when we were let out, we were in an entirely different part of the building, and i had to tramp all the way down one flight of stairs and then up the original flight of stairs to get back to the gallery... since I certainly wasn"t finished yet. i was the last person to leave. don"t mention my name if you decide to visit... i don"t think the guards like me.
ciao --
maria
PS: if you would like to unsubscribe from this "maria is travelling and talking about it again" list, let me know. but unless you have a good reason, i will be just a little hurt............... :)
for those of you who have no idea what is going on or why you have gotten this mail, i am in rome and sicily for 2 weeks with my folks, followed by 2 weeks in tunesia with my friend maryellen. why not? it"s not like i have a job or something...
As Romans Eat
Sat, 10 Mar 2001 03:33:47
mangiamo! mangiamo!
yesterday we had lunch at the convent of st. brigid in the piazza farnese. the convent is also quite a fancy little hotel, as well as being very historic... I think st. brigid lived there at some point. Smiling nuns (who all looked about 13 years old) served us (the us being my parents and our friends the pennasilicos', who had the in with the convent so that we could eat there). we were joined by a very important monsignor, who alternated between indulging the pennasilicos' seven year old granddaughter, and telling us (in italian, so we didn't catch a lot of it) about how he received the last blessing from pope john the ? (i forget the number) when he was on his
deathbed. since it was friday, we had omelettes. Not frittata... those italian omelettes you get in the states at brunch places. just a simple omelette, wrapped around mozzarella (i think) and served with cooked cherry tomatoes. and, also, ravioli with tomato sauce, steamed potatoes, string beans, salad, fruit, cookies...
eating in italy really is the best. italians treat food the way that really good parents treat their children. they indulge, but not too much. they only use the best quality ingrediants. they are always willing to talk about food, at length, and with great enthusiasm. they keep it simple so that they can appreciate the essence of the food. and they make it the centre of their lives!
a few days ago we went to a little trattoria near piazza navona. i had discovered it last summer. it is full of locals even though it is in the centre of all things tourist. the menu is handwritten and
indecipherable. but we could make out "amatriciana" so we had that typically roman pasta... tomatoes, panchetta, cheese. delicious. and we had some antipasti from the antipasti table. spicy eggplant and zucchini! the place is called da francesco, for your future reference.
then, the evening before yesterday, we went to a little place down the street from our hotel. called
"la grillietta" (sp?), it was very typical... hidden behind curtained doors, from the outside it looked
like a dive. but inside, it was bright and lively, filled with waiters who looked like they had worked
there forever... the smell of the specialty of the house: the grill... filled with a huge table of
middle-aged and older women out celebrating international women's day. they were DEFINATELY not celebrating by being taken out to dinner by their husbands... they were celebrating by leaving the husbands at home and going out to EAT! and so they did... i think my mother spent the whole evening observing them.
for my part, i had a grilled paillard of veal, and the veal in italy is always the very best.
apart from food... yesterday we had a really wonderful experience. we went to the "scavi" (excavations) underneath st. peter's. you have to reserve tickets, since only perhaps 30 people are let in each day. But we have friends in the vatican... or rather, my mother does!
it was incredibly interesting, showing the different layers of building underneath st. peter's...
particularly the family graves of both pagans and christians (some within the same families) during the roman era. st. peter is thought to be buried there... though they cannot prove it conclusively, the evidence is convincing. and the centre of both the original st. peter's (built during the time of constantine), as well as the centre of the present st. peter's --- i.e. bernini's altar --- are directly above the supposed grave. the spacial unity that was maintained over the centuries is incredible.
tommorow we leave for sicily!!! i'm excited, but i am also always sad to leave rome... especially when the sun is just about to begin to shine.
maria
No Signs Send Help
written wednesday, 14th march
sicily is beautiful. the people are friendly. the food is wonderful. the roads are completely unmarked.
after flying from rome to palermo on sunday, we left the city, headed for the centre of the island, and spent monday and tuesday driving through deserted, verdant countryside, scattered with abandoned farmhouses, jutting rocks, the occasional forest, the occasional cactus farm. we were doing all right at the beginning but then somehow managed to get off the highway and wander for quite awhile along twisting mountain roads that hadn't seen traffic since mussolini. but it was very, very beautiful, and eventually we made it to the town of enna.
climbing up through "bassa" (lower) enna, we reached the old city, perched on the top of a rocky hill. the town isn't beautiful... a little sooty and worn... but has a certain atmosphere, as well as a great castle dating back to norman times, and incredible views from the piazza. we met an old man who hangs out there, collecting foreign banknotes and coins from tourists. he had new zealand, korea, chile... i gave him a georgia quarter. he started asking about silver dollars... after i explained the new pocohantas dollar, he got so excited he had me take down his address so that i could send one to him.
in the late afternoon we left enna for a hotel near the town of piazza armerina. spent a quiet night in the countryside, in the company of two high school teachers from canada who specialize in byzantine studies and classics and rivaled my father for breadth of ancient knowledge. in the morning we all went to see the roman mosaics near the hotel... the reason why the tour buses go to piazza aremina. they were incredible... a huge villa that was covered in a mudslide in the 12th century was discovered in the 1950's, the floors covered in mosaics.
then we set off down the long and twisting road for caltagirone, where there is a large community of ceramic artists. we didn't get lost on this leg of the journey, even though at times it felt like we were. caltagirone was lovely, complete with a michelan guide restaurant (called la scala... i had tagliatelli with a tomato, fennal and ricotta sauce... my mom had salmon steak in a tomato beurre blanc-y sauce with red peppercorns)... and a flight of 142 steps, laid with ceramic tiles and lined with cermaic shops. needless to say, some shopping occurred.
by the time we set out for our final destination of the day, the city of siracusa, it was after 4. as the
fog started to roll in over the hills, we headed in the wrong direction twice. the cover was so thick that i mistook the sun for the rising moon. it was surreal and creepy and lovely, and continued all the way to siracusa.
at times it was so striking and beautiful, as it swept through forests and layered the valley. at other times, i couldn't see ten feet in front of me (i was doing all the driving that day)... who knows what was on either side of us. we did get on the right road eventually, though there was very little traffic and again felt like we were driving off the edge of the inhabited earth. passed through two other towns on the way there, grammichele and piazzolo archiede... both with beautiful baroque squares and churches.
we got to siracusa (only got lost once geting to the hotel). the hotel isn't the greatest... near the train station and the prostitutes, a distance from the old city. but it has parking, is on a wide street, and that's what i wanted at that point.
today... a wander through siracusa. the old city of ortigia is something else... full of crumbling baroque buildings, all with elaborate balconies... little alleys and hidden corners... and a majestic duomo and main square. and, of course, the mediterranean sea and passagiatas to be made while eating cones of lemon gelato.
i feel like all i am doing is writing about food. But if you've been to italy, you'll understand. today we went to a trattoria called la foglia (thanks for the suggestion, mary!) which was a blast. the place is run by an artist and his wife. the inside looks like your sicilian grandmother gone crazy... all artistically mismatching tablecloths, doilies and knickknacks. hand-decorated menus, the owner's sculptures and paintings littered about... and an old painted ceiling with religious scenes dating from ??? let's just say a long time ago.
the food was as inventive as the decor. i had a tagliolini con spada (swordfish). an olive oil base,
with pieces of swordfish, black raisins, wild fennel, hot pepper, scallions and pine nuts. then my mom and I shared a sicilian specialty: sarde a becafico, prepared catania style... two sardines breaded, with egg and breading and other stuff squashed between them. i was being adventurous when i ordered it, but I liked it more than i thought i would.
so... basta! and good night.
maria
Staight Streets, Soft Stone
Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:23:04 -0800 (PST)
in 16-something or other, there was a huge earthquake in this part of sicily, flattening many towns and destroying much of the major cities of siracusa and catania. today we went to noto, a town a half hour from siracusa (didn't get lost), which is an architectural wonder and a marvel of city planning.
just weeks after the town of noto was completely flattened, a spanish-sicilian architect was called in, and recreated the town as an orderly and graceful baroque creation. palazzos and churches and straight streets... felt a little like a stage set, missing the chaos of other italian towns. ornate carved balconies hang on every golden and pink stone building, (one pallazzo featured bare-breasted mermaids, cherubs and smiling horses) but unfortunately the stone used was on the soft side. that, combined with the wear and tear of pollution, has taken its toll and much of noto has been under scaffolding, undergoing reconstruction, for years. in particular, the entire facade of the
cathedral is covered... and its dome had collapsed several years ago after a severe thunderstorm. but even covered in tarps, the town is striking. (and we had a good lunch, with a "cappriciosa" sauce over pasta... a puree of 30 different vegetables, tasting very healthy.)
looking at noto did make me think of bhuj, and hope that it might be possible for that city to be rebuilt more beautiful than before. though without the help of the baroque period, i have my doubts.
i think i've reached the one week shut-down with my italian... this happened to me last summer, as well. after getting along well for a week, i feel a little overwhelmed, especially when dealing with sicilian accents.
my mom presses on with her italian, though she had a pretty funny experience yesterday. she went into a store looking for a new eyeglass case and asked the clerk:
che una borsa per gli occhi?
which translates as:
is there a bag for the eyes?
needless to say, the clerk looked a little disturbed.
maria
Last Resort
Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:52:03 -0800 (PST)
well, the sky is cold and grey in the resort town of taormina, and one can't make out mt. etna lurking in the background. listless lions club conventioneers wander the streets looking at gucci display windows and forcing down chilling gelatos. but our hotel is covered with flowers and perched on a cliff and and we have a sweeping view of the sea, even if it is
atlantic-like.
tommorrow we move on to cefalù, and hopefully better weather.
i shouldn't have knocked the hotel in siracusa. though 20 minutes walk from the old city, and on a noisy street, and convenient to the hookers near the railway station, the padrone tino was very kind and quite the character... always dressed in sunglasses and a black velvet suit. he is off this weekend for his annual trip to new york in order to take in as many broadway musicals as is possible in 12 days. he is joined atthe hotel by day clerk rosario --- a very proper mormon convert who is on his way to brigham young university in february --- and night clerk corrado --- he spoke no english, but that really didn't matter since he looked like an armani runway model, and
always smiled.
they all seemed sad to see us go. rosario asked for our phone number and tino gave my father two archeological books. their only other guests were three very young taiwanese girls with pigtails and hello kitty backpacks, who giggled continuously. you could tell they were walking on air just being where they were, and they liked to practice saying "grazie."
maria
PS: oops... there i was poking fun at my mother's italian, and i made a mistake myself. the disturbing question was "c'è una borsa per gli occhi?" not "che." that would have been "what is a bag for the eyes?" maybe that's what the store clerk answered back...
Happy Father’s Day
Mon, 19 Mar 2001 11:15:42 -0800 (PST)
the procession through the streets of cefalu in celebration of the feast of saint joseph just finished, and now everyone who isn't at mass is doing a passagiata down the pedestrians-only main drag... as if following the procession through the entire town wasn't passagiata-ing enough.
we arrived here yesterday, after leaving a cloudy taoramina without ever having really gotten to see etna (a big disappointment for me), but crossed back through the marvelous wilds of inland sicily (without getting lost this time), stopped briefly to poke around the solitary ruined greek temple of himera (dating back to sometime around 480 BC and marking a big defeat of the cartheginians), and then proceeded on to the hill town of caccamo for an excellent
lunch... a real rustic sicilan meal in a restaurant built into a castle. after a rustic antipasto, had
rustic mixed grill (veal, pork and sausage) and rustic giant grilled mushrooms... reaffirming to myself once again that i was NEVER meant to be a vegetarian. oh, and then a rustic ricotta cake...
but enough with the food. though caccamo was foggy, it was clear down by the coast, and both the sky and sea around cefalu were blue and bluer. a fishing village that has grown into holiday town, cefalu is closer to the water and less pretentious than taormina... two things i like. especially the closer to the water bit... i've been jonesing to dip my toes in the sea.
we settled into a lovely little hotel with great views, took a passagiata around town last night, and
spent today exploring... and then the procession...
it began at the magnificent cathedral... very stark and medieval. the cathedral looms over the little
square and "la rocca," cefalu's cliff, looms over the cathedral. as the sky went darker blue with sunset, the procession began... led by laypeople in uniforms with big purple and gold and green sashes and vests and gold medallions, carrying long taper candles and banners, followed by priests and monks and seminarians and a few nuns (most of them african) saying the
rosary. then came the life-sized statue of st. joseph with a toddler jesus by the hand, standing on a big bed of flowers and carried on a palanquin on the shoulders of six or seven men. bringing up the rear was a marching band, playing marching tunes in between the rosary, and then the mass of everyone else following.
after the processsion left the duomo square, my parents followed along while i darted up the side
streets, down little alleyways, etc., etc., so that I could head off the procession and get some good pictures. little old ladies waved me on, down to the main corso... i'd get a few shots of saint joseph and then run up the cobblestones again, and down the next street. finally, though, the light got too low, and I had to stop playing photojournalist and just walk along with everyone else.
it was lovely... through the little curving streets... a mass of people following the statue in the
distance... everyone out on their balconies, overhanging the streets... the band playing on and
on... the night coming in... people greeting each other.... crossing themselves as the statue passed by. i loved looking at the people on their balconies... a little glimpse into the lives behind the lace-hung windows in those narrow little houses in those narrow little streets.
after about an hour of processing, the statue returned to the cathedral (which is stark inside except for the magnificant gold mosaics above the altar)... and mass began...
and now it should be about ending. better go meet my parents... pizza awaits... (and some more
passagiata-ing...)
Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:44:34
amici ---
here we are, my dear parents and me: bella roma... rain, but no snow. the day we arrived, we slept. Then i wandered over to st. peter"s to take some shots of it during dusk. so beautiful... since the jubilee it has been cleaned up and gorgeously illuminated (as has much of rome)... the sky was a intense dark blue... stars coming out... wishing i had brought a tripod.
then we had dinner with my father"s best friend, which ended up with a crazy drive around the city at midnight. crazy because alfredo is a bit crazy. we went everywhere except EUR (or so it seemed)... crawling our way into the skinniest little lanes (which we were then often unable to get out of)... stopping in the middle of the busiest roads so that alfredo could point something out... and so on... and so on...
yesterday we walked everywhere instead, and ended up at the domus aurea... nero"s golden house which has only been opened recently. golden house makes it seem quite grand... and i"m sure it was 2000 years ago. now, it is interesting, but undergound, very cold, and only fragments of frescos and mosaics and and architectural structure remain.
and today, a walk in the borghese gardens, lunch at alfredo"s house, then i went off on my own to see the newly restored and recently opened galleria di arte antica in the palazzo barberini. a great combination of the superb and the sublime: a raphael restored by estee lauder (it is "la fornarina", a beautiful portrait of a topless hottie who may have been raphael"s mistress)... 2 paintings of putti having orgies with rams... a venus and adonis in which he is wearing a snazzy fuschia outfit complete with furry fuschia hat and pink ribbon... a caravaggio... a holbein of henry the 8th (looking very out of place... how did he get here?).
then there was the tour through the "apartment"... a series of decorated, though not furnished rooms. They were great, and also a little crazy. one was covered with what looked like european battles with iriquois indians... another was a little chapel with a dutch-blue altar... sort of a foldaway altar... there were doors to hide it away if one wanted. but there was also a stern, silent lady leading the tour, and I (per usual) kept getting left behind cause i would take too long and then she would glare at me. Then when we were let out, we were in an entirely different part of the building, and i had to tramp all the way down one flight of stairs and then up the original flight of stairs to get back to the gallery... since I certainly wasn"t finished yet. i was the last person to leave. don"t mention my name if you decide to visit... i don"t think the guards like me.
ciao --
maria
PS: if you would like to unsubscribe from this "maria is travelling and talking about it again" list, let me know. but unless you have a good reason, i will be just a little hurt............... :)
for those of you who have no idea what is going on or why you have gotten this mail, i am in rome and sicily for 2 weeks with my folks, followed by 2 weeks in tunesia with my friend maryellen. why not? it"s not like i have a job or something...
As Romans Eat
Sat, 10 Mar 2001 03:33:47
mangiamo! mangiamo!
yesterday we had lunch at the convent of st. brigid in the piazza farnese. the convent is also quite a fancy little hotel, as well as being very historic... I think st. brigid lived there at some point. Smiling nuns (who all looked about 13 years old) served us (the us being my parents and our friends the pennasilicos', who had the in with the convent so that we could eat there). we were joined by a very important monsignor, who alternated between indulging the pennasilicos' seven year old granddaughter, and telling us (in italian, so we didn't catch a lot of it) about how he received the last blessing from pope john the ? (i forget the number) when he was on his
deathbed. since it was friday, we had omelettes. Not frittata... those italian omelettes you get in the states at brunch places. just a simple omelette, wrapped around mozzarella (i think) and served with cooked cherry tomatoes. and, also, ravioli with tomato sauce, steamed potatoes, string beans, salad, fruit, cookies...
eating in italy really is the best. italians treat food the way that really good parents treat their children. they indulge, but not too much. they only use the best quality ingrediants. they are always willing to talk about food, at length, and with great enthusiasm. they keep it simple so that they can appreciate the essence of the food. and they make it the centre of their lives!
a few days ago we went to a little trattoria near piazza navona. i had discovered it last summer. it is full of locals even though it is in the centre of all things tourist. the menu is handwritten and
indecipherable. but we could make out "amatriciana" so we had that typically roman pasta... tomatoes, panchetta, cheese. delicious. and we had some antipasti from the antipasti table. spicy eggplant and zucchini! the place is called da francesco, for your future reference.
then, the evening before yesterday, we went to a little place down the street from our hotel. called
"la grillietta" (sp?), it was very typical... hidden behind curtained doors, from the outside it looked
like a dive. but inside, it was bright and lively, filled with waiters who looked like they had worked
there forever... the smell of the specialty of the house: the grill... filled with a huge table of
middle-aged and older women out celebrating international women's day. they were DEFINATELY not celebrating by being taken out to dinner by their husbands... they were celebrating by leaving the husbands at home and going out to EAT! and so they did... i think my mother spent the whole evening observing them.
for my part, i had a grilled paillard of veal, and the veal in italy is always the very best.
apart from food... yesterday we had a really wonderful experience. we went to the "scavi" (excavations) underneath st. peter's. you have to reserve tickets, since only perhaps 30 people are let in each day. But we have friends in the vatican... or rather, my mother does!
it was incredibly interesting, showing the different layers of building underneath st. peter's...
particularly the family graves of both pagans and christians (some within the same families) during the roman era. st. peter is thought to be buried there... though they cannot prove it conclusively, the evidence is convincing. and the centre of both the original st. peter's (built during the time of constantine), as well as the centre of the present st. peter's --- i.e. bernini's altar --- are directly above the supposed grave. the spacial unity that was maintained over the centuries is incredible.
tommorow we leave for sicily!!! i'm excited, but i am also always sad to leave rome... especially when the sun is just about to begin to shine.
maria
No Signs Send Help
written wednesday, 14th march
sicily is beautiful. the people are friendly. the food is wonderful. the roads are completely unmarked.
after flying from rome to palermo on sunday, we left the city, headed for the centre of the island, and spent monday and tuesday driving through deserted, verdant countryside, scattered with abandoned farmhouses, jutting rocks, the occasional forest, the occasional cactus farm. we were doing all right at the beginning but then somehow managed to get off the highway and wander for quite awhile along twisting mountain roads that hadn't seen traffic since mussolini. but it was very, very beautiful, and eventually we made it to the town of enna.
climbing up through "bassa" (lower) enna, we reached the old city, perched on the top of a rocky hill. the town isn't beautiful... a little sooty and worn... but has a certain atmosphere, as well as a great castle dating back to norman times, and incredible views from the piazza. we met an old man who hangs out there, collecting foreign banknotes and coins from tourists. he had new zealand, korea, chile... i gave him a georgia quarter. he started asking about silver dollars... after i explained the new pocohantas dollar, he got so excited he had me take down his address so that i could send one to him.
in the late afternoon we left enna for a hotel near the town of piazza armerina. spent a quiet night in the countryside, in the company of two high school teachers from canada who specialize in byzantine studies and classics and rivaled my father for breadth of ancient knowledge. in the morning we all went to see the roman mosaics near the hotel... the reason why the tour buses go to piazza aremina. they were incredible... a huge villa that was covered in a mudslide in the 12th century was discovered in the 1950's, the floors covered in mosaics.
then we set off down the long and twisting road for caltagirone, where there is a large community of ceramic artists. we didn't get lost on this leg of the journey, even though at times it felt like we were. caltagirone was lovely, complete with a michelan guide restaurant (called la scala... i had tagliatelli with a tomato, fennal and ricotta sauce... my mom had salmon steak in a tomato beurre blanc-y sauce with red peppercorns)... and a flight of 142 steps, laid with ceramic tiles and lined with cermaic shops. needless to say, some shopping occurred.
by the time we set out for our final destination of the day, the city of siracusa, it was after 4. as the
fog started to roll in over the hills, we headed in the wrong direction twice. the cover was so thick that i mistook the sun for the rising moon. it was surreal and creepy and lovely, and continued all the way to siracusa.
at times it was so striking and beautiful, as it swept through forests and layered the valley. at other times, i couldn't see ten feet in front of me (i was doing all the driving that day)... who knows what was on either side of us. we did get on the right road eventually, though there was very little traffic and again felt like we were driving off the edge of the inhabited earth. passed through two other towns on the way there, grammichele and piazzolo archiede... both with beautiful baroque squares and churches.
we got to siracusa (only got lost once geting to the hotel). the hotel isn't the greatest... near the train station and the prostitutes, a distance from the old city. but it has parking, is on a wide street, and that's what i wanted at that point.
today... a wander through siracusa. the old city of ortigia is something else... full of crumbling baroque buildings, all with elaborate balconies... little alleys and hidden corners... and a majestic duomo and main square. and, of course, the mediterranean sea and passagiatas to be made while eating cones of lemon gelato.
i feel like all i am doing is writing about food. But if you've been to italy, you'll understand. today we went to a trattoria called la foglia (thanks for the suggestion, mary!) which was a blast. the place is run by an artist and his wife. the inside looks like your sicilian grandmother gone crazy... all artistically mismatching tablecloths, doilies and knickknacks. hand-decorated menus, the owner's sculptures and paintings littered about... and an old painted ceiling with religious scenes dating from ??? let's just say a long time ago.
the food was as inventive as the decor. i had a tagliolini con spada (swordfish). an olive oil base,
with pieces of swordfish, black raisins, wild fennel, hot pepper, scallions and pine nuts. then my mom and I shared a sicilian specialty: sarde a becafico, prepared catania style... two sardines breaded, with egg and breading and other stuff squashed between them. i was being adventurous when i ordered it, but I liked it more than i thought i would.
so... basta! and good night.
maria
Staight Streets, Soft Stone
Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:23:04 -0800 (PST)
in 16-something or other, there was a huge earthquake in this part of sicily, flattening many towns and destroying much of the major cities of siracusa and catania. today we went to noto, a town a half hour from siracusa (didn't get lost), which is an architectural wonder and a marvel of city planning.
just weeks after the town of noto was completely flattened, a spanish-sicilian architect was called in, and recreated the town as an orderly and graceful baroque creation. palazzos and churches and straight streets... felt a little like a stage set, missing the chaos of other italian towns. ornate carved balconies hang on every golden and pink stone building, (one pallazzo featured bare-breasted mermaids, cherubs and smiling horses) but unfortunately the stone used was on the soft side. that, combined with the wear and tear of pollution, has taken its toll and much of noto has been under scaffolding, undergoing reconstruction, for years. in particular, the entire facade of the
cathedral is covered... and its dome had collapsed several years ago after a severe thunderstorm. but even covered in tarps, the town is striking. (and we had a good lunch, with a "cappriciosa" sauce over pasta... a puree of 30 different vegetables, tasting very healthy.)
looking at noto did make me think of bhuj, and hope that it might be possible for that city to be rebuilt more beautiful than before. though without the help of the baroque period, i have my doubts.
i think i've reached the one week shut-down with my italian... this happened to me last summer, as well. after getting along well for a week, i feel a little overwhelmed, especially when dealing with sicilian accents.
my mom presses on with her italian, though she had a pretty funny experience yesterday. she went into a store looking for a new eyeglass case and asked the clerk:
che una borsa per gli occhi?
which translates as:
is there a bag for the eyes?
needless to say, the clerk looked a little disturbed.
maria
Last Resort
Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:52:03 -0800 (PST)
well, the sky is cold and grey in the resort town of taormina, and one can't make out mt. etna lurking in the background. listless lions club conventioneers wander the streets looking at gucci display windows and forcing down chilling gelatos. but our hotel is covered with flowers and perched on a cliff and and we have a sweeping view of the sea, even if it is
atlantic-like.
tommorrow we move on to cefalù, and hopefully better weather.
i shouldn't have knocked the hotel in siracusa. though 20 minutes walk from the old city, and on a noisy street, and convenient to the hookers near the railway station, the padrone tino was very kind and quite the character... always dressed in sunglasses and a black velvet suit. he is off this weekend for his annual trip to new york in order to take in as many broadway musicals as is possible in 12 days. he is joined atthe hotel by day clerk rosario --- a very proper mormon convert who is on his way to brigham young university in february --- and night clerk corrado --- he spoke no english, but that really didn't matter since he looked like an armani runway model, and
always smiled.
they all seemed sad to see us go. rosario asked for our phone number and tino gave my father two archeological books. their only other guests were three very young taiwanese girls with pigtails and hello kitty backpacks, who giggled continuously. you could tell they were walking on air just being where they were, and they liked to practice saying "grazie."
maria
PS: oops... there i was poking fun at my mother's italian, and i made a mistake myself. the disturbing question was "c'è una borsa per gli occhi?" not "che." that would have been "what is a bag for the eyes?" maybe that's what the store clerk answered back...
Happy Father’s Day
Mon, 19 Mar 2001 11:15:42 -0800 (PST)
the procession through the streets of cefalu in celebration of the feast of saint joseph just finished, and now everyone who isn't at mass is doing a passagiata down the pedestrians-only main drag... as if following the procession through the entire town wasn't passagiata-ing enough.
we arrived here yesterday, after leaving a cloudy taoramina without ever having really gotten to see etna (a big disappointment for me), but crossed back through the marvelous wilds of inland sicily (without getting lost this time), stopped briefly to poke around the solitary ruined greek temple of himera (dating back to sometime around 480 BC and marking a big defeat of the cartheginians), and then proceeded on to the hill town of caccamo for an excellent
lunch... a real rustic sicilan meal in a restaurant built into a castle. after a rustic antipasto, had
rustic mixed grill (veal, pork and sausage) and rustic giant grilled mushrooms... reaffirming to myself once again that i was NEVER meant to be a vegetarian. oh, and then a rustic ricotta cake...
but enough with the food. though caccamo was foggy, it was clear down by the coast, and both the sky and sea around cefalu were blue and bluer. a fishing village that has grown into holiday town, cefalu is closer to the water and less pretentious than taormina... two things i like. especially the closer to the water bit... i've been jonesing to dip my toes in the sea.
we settled into a lovely little hotel with great views, took a passagiata around town last night, and
spent today exploring... and then the procession...
it began at the magnificent cathedral... very stark and medieval. the cathedral looms over the little
square and "la rocca," cefalu's cliff, looms over the cathedral. as the sky went darker blue with sunset, the procession began... led by laypeople in uniforms with big purple and gold and green sashes and vests and gold medallions, carrying long taper candles and banners, followed by priests and monks and seminarians and a few nuns (most of them african) saying the
rosary. then came the life-sized statue of st. joseph with a toddler jesus by the hand, standing on a big bed of flowers and carried on a palanquin on the shoulders of six or seven men. bringing up the rear was a marching band, playing marching tunes in between the rosary, and then the mass of everyone else following.
after the processsion left the duomo square, my parents followed along while i darted up the side
streets, down little alleyways, etc., etc., so that I could head off the procession and get some good pictures. little old ladies waved me on, down to the main corso... i'd get a few shots of saint joseph and then run up the cobblestones again, and down the next street. finally, though, the light got too low, and I had to stop playing photojournalist and just walk along with everyone else.
it was lovely... through the little curving streets... a mass of people following the statue in the
distance... everyone out on their balconies, overhanging the streets... the band playing on and
on... the night coming in... people greeting each other.... crossing themselves as the statue passed by. i loved looking at the people on their balconies... a little glimpse into the lives behind the lace-hung windows in those narrow little houses in those narrow little streets.
after about an hour of processing, the statue returned to the cathedral (which is stark inside except for the magnificant gold mosaics above the altar)... and mass began...
and now it should be about ending. better go meet my parents... pizza awaits... (and some more
passagiata-ing...)
Sunday, January 03, 1999
emails from hong kong, macao and thailand, january 1999
EMAILS FROM HONG KONG, MACAU AND THAILAND
Subject: i am drinking a tall skim latte in HK
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 18:44:18 -0800 (PST)
Got into HK last night after a LONG flight. My friend Ashraf lives in
a neighbourhood called Mid-Levels... called that because it is halfway
up the hill. So you take the escalator down. Literally... there is an
incredibly long escalator that commuters take down in the morning and
then up for the rest of the day. Goes through several
neighbourhoods... takes maybe 20 minutes. So that's what I did this
morning... and got off in a maze of malls, walkways and ferry terminals
and now I am trying to find my way out. But I stopped for a coffee at
a Starbucks clone and they have free Internet. So here you are.
I like what I've seen so far... lots of tall buildings, lots of smaller
mildewing ones, lots of rushing about business people, lots of old
Chinese men sitting around in odd placesreading the paper.
So now I'm off... see if I can find my way around.
Subject: my cow? no, macau
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 21:01:24 -0800 (PST)
Went to Macau yesterday on the Turbocat ferry. It was so incredible
that I'm thinking of starting a fan club. Though I don't know if the
atmosphere will change next New Year's, when the Chinese take over and
the Portugese go home. It is definately a singular place. Well, HK is
as well... but Macau is good Mediterranean singular, as opposed to HK
strange corporate-blends-with-British singular. All blended with
Chinese. Though I do like HK...this place has views like no
other... the top of Victoria's Peak at night... the crossing on the Star
Ferry at day.... the promenade along Kowloon's waterfront....the lobby
bar at the Regent Hotel. I liked that one best cause you could sit in
a comfy chair and have a glass of Cab :). Floor to ceiling windows
looking out at the bay and the whole skyline of HK Island glimmering
by night. Cause all the views glimmer... in the smoggy mist at day or
the many lights past dark. And they are all of skyscrapers.
But Macau is piazze newly paved with mosaics and colonial architecture
all painted gold and pink and mint green and pedestrian walkways and
Portugese out door cafes. And everything Chinese as well... temples (a
woman was watching TV in one) and strange food stalls and funeral
shops with piles of paper money to be ritually burnt. And (on the
Protugese side) lots and lots of Catholic churches. Including the
ruins of Sao Paolo, which is just a gorgeous facade at the top of a
magnificent flight of stairs. And everything is beautifullly lit at
night. And the people are much friendlier and laid-back than in
HK... again, I would suppose the result of being colonized by the
Portugese, rather than the British. And also (perhaps even more) the
result of having casino gambling rather than high finance being the
foundation of your economy. Lots of casinos, though I spent more time
in church.
I might even go back to Macau tommorrow or Monday. I want to go to at
least one of HK's outlying islands, but today I'm taking a little
break from the sightseeing. I have, finally, gotten over the jetlag.
So now I'm off to take a walk around Ash's neighbourhood and have some
lunch and pretend I live here and see what that's like. LOVE, MARIA
Subject: bangkok
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 04:52:51 -0800 (PST)
Dear Everyone ---
I'm in Bangkok...got here on Tuesday, It is HOT! Not too bad in the
evening and in the mornings, but my tolerence is very low. I think it
is my curse that I love hot weather places and hate hot weather.
Thailand is really lovely...and the people live up to their
reputation...so friendly and easygoing. Even the people who are trying
to scam you don't seem to be trying very hard (especially compared to
my experiences in India). I'm staying near Khao San Road, which is a
big travelers' scene, but also cheap and very convienent. The boat
down the river to all the major sights is just around the corner and
by walking they're not very far either. The first day I got here I
just rode the boat back and forth (the temple spires peeking up on all
sides among the low level crush of buildings and the haze of smog) and
had dinner at a riverside restaurant. And then went and bought a cheap
dress on Khao San Rd. Then on Wednesday I went sightseeing...went to a
great museum...Jim Thompson's House. A crazy guy from Delaware stayed
on after WWII and rebuilt several traditional Thai houses he gathered
from around the country...and decorated them really, really well.
Amazing collection of Thai antigues and art. And beautifuly landscaped
grounds...very peaceful, away from the urban cacophony. Jim himself
disappeared mysteriously in the forests of Malaysia in the '60's.
Then wandered down the walk along the canal that Jim's house is on and
met some people who live along there...very friendly. It was a Muslim
section of Bangkok and the man I spoke to was Muslim, though he was
not dressed in traditional Muslim clothes (and neither was his wife,
who was busy cooking on her little roadside stall grill..."muslim
food" the man said). Several men in traditional clothing did pass by,
on their way back from the mosque. I wonder if they were from the
southern part of the Thai paninsula, where there is a strong
Malay-influenced Muslim community, and the man I meant was more native
to Bangkok. Ah, but then I theorize.....When I said I was from
Chicago, he said (immediately and of course and with a big grin )
"CHICAGO BULLS!" His son hailed a passing boat-bus for me and off I
went along with the commuters, passing all the little houses and shops
hanging over the water's edge.
Then toured some wats (Thai temple compunds which encompass schools
and community centres as well as places of worship and monks'
quarters) and climbed to the top of the Golden Mount ( a temple built
on a hill which gives you a great view of otherwise flat BKK). Then
walked home, stopping in a wat for a while a chatting with a monk and
some students. The monk had been to the US (Alaska, NY, LA and South
Dakota!) and said every day he dreams of America! So even monks aren't
exempt from USAfascination. He's returning in June to Seattle for the
opening of a temple. I ate Mister Donuts with the students and the
monk had a popsicle.
Yesterday some heavy duty touristing... National Museum, the Grand
Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and Wat Po, which houses
a huge reclining gold Buddha as well as the School of Traditional
Massage. I got a one hour massage in a big open room filled with mats
on reaised platforms, the Thai massage students chatting, children
playing in the temple courtyard outside and traffic clunking by
outside the temple walls. Then I met 3 American guys there to take a
massage course...Sage, a professional skateboarder who was amusing the
crowd outside the school with his board, Aman, a Goth whose card
identified him as a Reverand Magus as well as a licensed massage
therapist, and Dicken, who didn't seem to have anything extraordinary
to identify him. They were all from the Northwest and so said "wow,
harsh" when I said I was from Philly. Sage ate fried locusts from a
street cart...deep-fried baby birds and bugs were also on hand. He
couldn't convince me to try it, though I have been loving the food
here. I think one of my favourite experiences has been wandering (both
yesterday and the day before) through the amulet market by Wat Maharat
and having lunch there. They have rows and rows of stalls selling
amulets of the Buddha, as well as the King and Queen, which the Thais
collect with a passion. And little resturants where I could point to
what I wanted (dished out like a cafeteria) and then eat with the
lunch hour crowd.
Tommorrow I leave in the morning for Ko Chang, where I will hopefully
find an island paradise (or hopefully, at least, a room... hordes of
travelers here).
BYE BYE! Love, MARIA
Subject: swim, dry, sleep , eat, swim, dry, sleep, eat....
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 07:47:51 -0800 (PST)
Dear Everyone ---
I woke up at 6 AM this morning so that I could see the sky go light my
last day on the island. It was splendid.
Ko Chang was really fantastic. It is getting built up, but still is
quite deserted. I stayed on the quieter, lass crowded, less raving
beach... a little palm hut two steps from the water. An amazing view
from my little front porch... the outlying islands, framed with trees
and facing west for the sunset. Great food, too, as has been the case
everywhere here. (I just came back from dinner on the street...tom yum
soup and a Singha beer at a roadside restaurant, followed by a chicken
satay from a satay cart that was so good I had to go back for one
more...and at 5 baht a stick, a bargain, given that it is 35 baht to
the dollar.)
But back to the castaway island... on my third day there I discovered
Lonely Beach. You have to hike 20 minutes through the jungle, up and
down hills to get there, but your reward is a pristine beach,
surrounded by a coconut palm farm and the mountains right behind.
Maybe 25 people scattered along the long beach, in various stages of
undress, the perfectly clear water stretching out in
front.......... and luckily for me, little palm shelters providing some
shade for very white skin. At the end of the beach was the Tree House
Lodge, run by a German couple...a total hippie place, but really
beautifully done, with gorgeous huts and a big open restaurant where
you could lie around on mats looking at the water and listening to
Hendrix for as long as you pleased. And, again, really great food.
Next time, that's the place to stay. (Greg --- it was like Kovalam
maybe twelve years, fifteen years ago, but with better water and
mountains. And no ladies with machetes.)
Later that night, I met two girls from the States who had just
finished two years in Russia with the Peace Corps, a Dutch couple, a
Yorkshire couple and crazy older French-Canadian-now-a-Californian
lady who were all hanging out together. I joined them and we had very
fun dinners, as well as a day snorkling on one of the outer islands. I
guess the snorkling wasn't too good---coral wasn't colouful and not
too many fish---but since this was my first successful snorkling
attempt (Martina, remember Mazatlan?) I was bowled over and had a
fantastic time.
Getting back to BKK is a shock, especially since I know that with
India coming up, any thing resembling the peace I experienced on Kai
Bae Beach won't be around for awhile. But I am completely relaxed now,
especially after the hour-long, lying-on-the-sand Thai massage I had
yesterday. I think the little massage lady rebuilt me muscle by muscle
and vertarae by vertabrae!
See you in that magical land known as...
LOVE, MARIA
Subject: one last bangkok word
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 06:11:45 -0800 (PST)
Frustrating and amazing day... after going to the post office to send
my dirty clothes back to my parents (isn't that sweet? They are
clothes I won't use in India, but unfortunately are quite
dirty... sorry, Mom.), I tried to get to the Weekend Market, a huge,
huge bazaar selling EVERYTHING you can imagine. But a combination of
bad directions and buses that you had to wait for for 1 hour meant it
took me three to get there. but when I did... WOW. Miles of tents with
booths upon booths. I kept ending up in the fish section... there were
a choice of them, however. Tropical fish, goldfish, bait fish and
flattened and dried fish. Needless to say, the flattened and dired
variety were the hardest to take. I also saw
*My first cockfight
*Very healithy live pigeons for sale (and not in the pet section)
*Lots of little gerbil/squirrel/chipmunk things on little leashes (in
the pet section)
*All of Bangkok punks. There seemed to be 5. One was a little boy
about age ten with an orange Mohawk. The neader of the group was
tattoed everywhere including his face and was shouting into a
microphone accompanied by the little boy on drums. They were selling
beads and things. There was lots of dried fish next to them.
*A lot of Hello Kitty stuff.
*A lot of fake fruit.
*A lot of real fruit.
*A lot of different satay stalls, including sausages on sticks, which,
I think, needs to be introduced into Chicago Thai restaurants.
*More fish.
It was very interesting. And, again, the Thai people are so great.
Ever so nice when you bother them... and they basically ignore you if
you don't. The only really disturbing thing, that I still really can't
stomach, are all the Western men with their bought-for-a-day Thai
girlfriends. There were quite a few of those on Ko Chang... take a
beach vacation and bring along an instant eighteen year old girlfriend
for the week. I find it especially disturbing when you see (and there
are quite a few) young, twentysomething guys, not bad-looking, doing
the tourist sights with one of the women. Really pathetic.
But otherwise......
Subject: i am drinking a tall skim latte in HK
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 18:44:18 -0800 (PST)
Got into HK last night after a LONG flight. My friend Ashraf lives in
a neighbourhood called Mid-Levels... called that because it is halfway
up the hill. So you take the escalator down. Literally... there is an
incredibly long escalator that commuters take down in the morning and
then up for the rest of the day. Goes through several
neighbourhoods... takes maybe 20 minutes. So that's what I did this
morning... and got off in a maze of malls, walkways and ferry terminals
and now I am trying to find my way out. But I stopped for a coffee at
a Starbucks clone and they have free Internet. So here you are.
I like what I've seen so far... lots of tall buildings, lots of smaller
mildewing ones, lots of rushing about business people, lots of old
Chinese men sitting around in odd placesreading the paper.
So now I'm off... see if I can find my way around.
Subject: my cow? no, macau
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 21:01:24 -0800 (PST)
Went to Macau yesterday on the Turbocat ferry. It was so incredible
that I'm thinking of starting a fan club. Though I don't know if the
atmosphere will change next New Year's, when the Chinese take over and
the Portugese go home. It is definately a singular place. Well, HK is
as well... but Macau is good Mediterranean singular, as opposed to HK
strange corporate-blends-with-British singular. All blended with
Chinese. Though I do like HK...this place has views like no
other... the top of Victoria's Peak at night... the crossing on the Star
Ferry at day.... the promenade along Kowloon's waterfront....the lobby
bar at the Regent Hotel. I liked that one best cause you could sit in
a comfy chair and have a glass of Cab :). Floor to ceiling windows
looking out at the bay and the whole skyline of HK Island glimmering
by night. Cause all the views glimmer... in the smoggy mist at day or
the many lights past dark. And they are all of skyscrapers.
But Macau is piazze newly paved with mosaics and colonial architecture
all painted gold and pink and mint green and pedestrian walkways and
Portugese out door cafes. And everything Chinese as well... temples (a
woman was watching TV in one) and strange food stalls and funeral
shops with piles of paper money to be ritually burnt. And (on the
Protugese side) lots and lots of Catholic churches. Including the
ruins of Sao Paolo, which is just a gorgeous facade at the top of a
magnificent flight of stairs. And everything is beautifullly lit at
night. And the people are much friendlier and laid-back than in
HK... again, I would suppose the result of being colonized by the
Portugese, rather than the British. And also (perhaps even more) the
result of having casino gambling rather than high finance being the
foundation of your economy. Lots of casinos, though I spent more time
in church.
I might even go back to Macau tommorrow or Monday. I want to go to at
least one of HK's outlying islands, but today I'm taking a little
break from the sightseeing. I have, finally, gotten over the jetlag.
So now I'm off to take a walk around Ash's neighbourhood and have some
lunch and pretend I live here and see what that's like. LOVE, MARIA
Subject: bangkok
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 04:52:51 -0800 (PST)
Dear Everyone ---
I'm in Bangkok...got here on Tuesday, It is HOT! Not too bad in the
evening and in the mornings, but my tolerence is very low. I think it
is my curse that I love hot weather places and hate hot weather.
Thailand is really lovely...and the people live up to their
reputation...so friendly and easygoing. Even the people who are trying
to scam you don't seem to be trying very hard (especially compared to
my experiences in India). I'm staying near Khao San Road, which is a
big travelers' scene, but also cheap and very convienent. The boat
down the river to all the major sights is just around the corner and
by walking they're not very far either. The first day I got here I
just rode the boat back and forth (the temple spires peeking up on all
sides among the low level crush of buildings and the haze of smog) and
had dinner at a riverside restaurant. And then went and bought a cheap
dress on Khao San Rd. Then on Wednesday I went sightseeing...went to a
great museum...Jim Thompson's House. A crazy guy from Delaware stayed
on after WWII and rebuilt several traditional Thai houses he gathered
from around the country...and decorated them really, really well.
Amazing collection of Thai antigues and art. And beautifuly landscaped
grounds...very peaceful, away from the urban cacophony. Jim himself
disappeared mysteriously in the forests of Malaysia in the '60's.
Then wandered down the walk along the canal that Jim's house is on and
met some people who live along there...very friendly. It was a Muslim
section of Bangkok and the man I spoke to was Muslim, though he was
not dressed in traditional Muslim clothes (and neither was his wife,
who was busy cooking on her little roadside stall grill..."muslim
food" the man said). Several men in traditional clothing did pass by,
on their way back from the mosque. I wonder if they were from the
southern part of the Thai paninsula, where there is a strong
Malay-influenced Muslim community, and the man I meant was more native
to Bangkok. Ah, but then I theorize.....When I said I was from
Chicago, he said (immediately and of course and with a big grin )
"CHICAGO BULLS!" His son hailed a passing boat-bus for me and off I
went along with the commuters, passing all the little houses and shops
hanging over the water's edge.
Then toured some wats (Thai temple compunds which encompass schools
and community centres as well as places of worship and monks'
quarters) and climbed to the top of the Golden Mount ( a temple built
on a hill which gives you a great view of otherwise flat BKK). Then
walked home, stopping in a wat for a while a chatting with a monk and
some students. The monk had been to the US (Alaska, NY, LA and South
Dakota!) and said every day he dreams of America! So even monks aren't
exempt from USAfascination. He's returning in June to Seattle for the
opening of a temple. I ate Mister Donuts with the students and the
monk had a popsicle.
Yesterday some heavy duty touristing... National Museum, the Grand
Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and Wat Po, which houses
a huge reclining gold Buddha as well as the School of Traditional
Massage. I got a one hour massage in a big open room filled with mats
on reaised platforms, the Thai massage students chatting, children
playing in the temple courtyard outside and traffic clunking by
outside the temple walls. Then I met 3 American guys there to take a
massage course...Sage, a professional skateboarder who was amusing the
crowd outside the school with his board, Aman, a Goth whose card
identified him as a Reverand Magus as well as a licensed massage
therapist, and Dicken, who didn't seem to have anything extraordinary
to identify him. They were all from the Northwest and so said "wow,
harsh" when I said I was from Philly. Sage ate fried locusts from a
street cart...deep-fried baby birds and bugs were also on hand. He
couldn't convince me to try it, though I have been loving the food
here. I think one of my favourite experiences has been wandering (both
yesterday and the day before) through the amulet market by Wat Maharat
and having lunch there. They have rows and rows of stalls selling
amulets of the Buddha, as well as the King and Queen, which the Thais
collect with a passion. And little resturants where I could point to
what I wanted (dished out like a cafeteria) and then eat with the
lunch hour crowd.
Tommorrow I leave in the morning for Ko Chang, where I will hopefully
find an island paradise (or hopefully, at least, a room... hordes of
travelers here).
BYE BYE! Love, MARIA
Subject: swim, dry, sleep , eat, swim, dry, sleep, eat....
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 07:47:51 -0800 (PST)
Dear Everyone ---
I woke up at 6 AM this morning so that I could see the sky go light my
last day on the island. It was splendid.
Ko Chang was really fantastic. It is getting built up, but still is
quite deserted. I stayed on the quieter, lass crowded, less raving
beach... a little palm hut two steps from the water. An amazing view
from my little front porch... the outlying islands, framed with trees
and facing west for the sunset. Great food, too, as has been the case
everywhere here. (I just came back from dinner on the street...tom yum
soup and a Singha beer at a roadside restaurant, followed by a chicken
satay from a satay cart that was so good I had to go back for one
more...and at 5 baht a stick, a bargain, given that it is 35 baht to
the dollar.)
But back to the castaway island... on my third day there I discovered
Lonely Beach. You have to hike 20 minutes through the jungle, up and
down hills to get there, but your reward is a pristine beach,
surrounded by a coconut palm farm and the mountains right behind.
Maybe 25 people scattered along the long beach, in various stages of
undress, the perfectly clear water stretching out in
front.......... and luckily for me, little palm shelters providing some
shade for very white skin. At the end of the beach was the Tree House
Lodge, run by a German couple...a total hippie place, but really
beautifully done, with gorgeous huts and a big open restaurant where
you could lie around on mats looking at the water and listening to
Hendrix for as long as you pleased. And, again, really great food.
Next time, that's the place to stay. (Greg --- it was like Kovalam
maybe twelve years, fifteen years ago, but with better water and
mountains. And no ladies with machetes.)
Later that night, I met two girls from the States who had just
finished two years in Russia with the Peace Corps, a Dutch couple, a
Yorkshire couple and crazy older French-Canadian-now-a-Californian
lady who were all hanging out together. I joined them and we had very
fun dinners, as well as a day snorkling on one of the outer islands. I
guess the snorkling wasn't too good---coral wasn't colouful and not
too many fish---but since this was my first successful snorkling
attempt (Martina, remember Mazatlan?) I was bowled over and had a
fantastic time.
Getting back to BKK is a shock, especially since I know that with
India coming up, any thing resembling the peace I experienced on Kai
Bae Beach won't be around for awhile. But I am completely relaxed now,
especially after the hour-long, lying-on-the-sand Thai massage I had
yesterday. I think the little massage lady rebuilt me muscle by muscle
and vertarae by vertabrae!
See you in that magical land known as...
LOVE, MARIA
Subject: one last bangkok word
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 06:11:45 -0800 (PST)
Frustrating and amazing day... after going to the post office to send
my dirty clothes back to my parents (isn't that sweet? They are
clothes I won't use in India, but unfortunately are quite
dirty... sorry, Mom.), I tried to get to the Weekend Market, a huge,
huge bazaar selling EVERYTHING you can imagine. But a combination of
bad directions and buses that you had to wait for for 1 hour meant it
took me three to get there. but when I did... WOW. Miles of tents with
booths upon booths. I kept ending up in the fish section... there were
a choice of them, however. Tropical fish, goldfish, bait fish and
flattened and dried fish. Needless to say, the flattened and dired
variety were the hardest to take. I also saw
*My first cockfight
*Very healithy live pigeons for sale (and not in the pet section)
*Lots of little gerbil/squirrel/chipmunk things on little leashes (in
the pet section)
*All of Bangkok punks. There seemed to be 5. One was a little boy
about age ten with an orange Mohawk. The neader of the group was
tattoed everywhere including his face and was shouting into a
microphone accompanied by the little boy on drums. They were selling
beads and things. There was lots of dried fish next to them.
*A lot of Hello Kitty stuff.
*A lot of fake fruit.
*A lot of real fruit.
*A lot of different satay stalls, including sausages on sticks, which,
I think, needs to be introduced into Chicago Thai restaurants.
*More fish.
It was very interesting. And, again, the Thai people are so great.
Ever so nice when you bother them... and they basically ignore you if
you don't. The only really disturbing thing, that I still really can't
stomach, are all the Western men with their bought-for-a-day Thai
girlfriends. There were quite a few of those on Ko Chang... take a
beach vacation and bring along an instant eighteen year old girlfriend
for the week. I find it especially disturbing when you see (and there
are quite a few) young, twentysomething guys, not bad-looking, doing
the tourist sights with one of the women. Really pathetic.
But otherwise......
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