This day at MyPoP (My Piece of Paradise)

Posted on September 12, 2008 by admin

By Louis the Scooterer

Dear Readers,

Maybe you already know that I live in Netanya, Israel, a coastal city on the Mediterranean, and that my transport is a scooter (usually 50cc).

Since I arrived on 1 Nov 1999, I have found and visited many coffeeshops at the square and in the city, and coffeeshops in all areas of Netanya, for my “daily” cup o coffee, and perhaps find a person to chat with.

Over the years, many places have changed as I have changed, and for whatever time I patronised a place, that was always rewarding, until it was time for me to move along to another.

I always spoke favourably about all the different venues I coffeed at, even those that eventually chased me away.. by allowing smokers to stink-the-place-out.. Even the outdoor venues smell continously of smoke and tobacco, and my intelligence also tells me thats why many flies are also around all those places!

Since I re-found my current PoP, I will share with you some of what I and my camera see, and experience at this magic place.

The neighborhood is called Tsuky Yam (Cliff Sea), on north end of Netanya and is a few minutes scoot, and I breath fresh air and smell the sea, and although smokers do come there, mostly that does not bother me as the fresh breeze always blows the smoke away, and flies are rare.

I will gladly answer any questions you would care to leave in “comments”, or feel free to email me louisdrinkingt@013.net

So for now, enjoy the pictures and I will continue with short stories. Almost every morning I scoot to MyPoP, and stay for a couple of hours, which always fly away. And never a dull moment at MyPoP!

So..watch this space!
Lou at MyPoP

Botswana Emerges as an Up Market Safari Destination

Posted on February 1, 2005 by admin

By Andrew Muigai

Botswana is a country of seemingly endless open spaces. Though it occupies an area the size of France, the human population is only 1.6 million. This is one country where wildlife does not face stiff competition for land resources from man. As a result the animals have multiplied with a flourish. Botswana can justifiably claim to host some of the finest game sanctuaries in Africa. The worlds largest exporter of diamonds by value, the country is not under pressure to get in more tourists. And the government has adopted a deliberate policy of keeping visitor numbers low. The hidden hand of the market has responded by adjusting the price to reflect this reality. Botswana has therefore emerged as an exclusive up market safari destination.

Bill Clinton, together with his wife went on safari in Botswana in 1998. The power couple was greatly fascinated by the wildlife, and the serious games of life and death they play. Affirming his position on top of the food chain, the president ate for dinner some of the animal species he had watched earlier. His evening buffet included zebra, crocodile, impala in monkey sauce, and giraffe. “I tried it all”, he declared with satisfaction. But the former American president is only one in a long line of heavy hitters to enjoy the wildlife havens of Botswana. Hollywood legends, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor chose to remarry here, for example.

Botswana is dominated by the Kalahari Desert. It occupies 84% of the land area, mostly in the west, central and north of the country. But the Kalahari is not a desert in the Sahara sense. You find the occasional sand dune, but also substantial vegetation in the form of short thorn and scrub bush, trees and grasslands. Very little water though, and hence the desert tag. To the northwest, you find Okavango, the world’s largest inland delta. The northeast is a land of gently rolling tablelands interrupted by granite hills and rock formations. The east and southeast, where 80% of the people live has more varied relief. And the rain clouds linger more and unburden themselves more freely, relative to the rest of the country.

Today Botswana is a peaceful, well-managed and relatively prosperous country. The country wealth per man indicator places among middle-income nations alongside Mexico and Russia and ahead of Brazil. But it has not always been so and the country has come along way. The San people (otherwise known bushmen) are believed to be the original inhabitants of Botswana. Their descendants survive to this day, some living as their forefathers did for most of the 30,000 years historians guess they have been around. Later much later, Bantu groups, prominent of which were the Tswana, became the masters of these realms.

The modern Botswana nation has been shaped by the alliances made in response to historical currents swirling in southern Africa in the eighteenth century. The rulers at the time aligned their interests with those of the British against the Boers who were approaching from the south and the Germans from the west. For the British, the value of the alliance was strategic and not much was expected in terms of economic advantage. And that is how the relationship resulted in the Bechuanaland Protectorate – the precursor of modern Botswana. The British remained in charge until independence in 1966.

The visitor to Botswana is drawn by the credible intelligence that abounds about the quality of its pristine wildlife sanctuaries. Chobe National Park, one of the finest game parks in Africa is located to the north east of the country. The park has the greatest variety of game anywhere in the country. That is why the busy Bill Clinton found himself at Chobe for his short safari. Wildlife thrives among the swamps and grasslands that stretch along the flood plains of the Chobe River. Occupying 10,560 square kilometers, it is particularly renowned for the great concentration and sheer abundance of its elephants, estimated to number 80,000.

The Chobe elephants are migratory and move along the Chobe River, their reliable redoubt in the dry season. African elephants are the largest among elephant species and those at Chobe are the largest of them all. The population has gradually built up since the 1930s when wildlife in the area began to enjoy some sort of protection. The infamous trade in ivory, particularly in the 1970s and 80s encouraged the decimation of elephant populations in other parts of Africa. But the elephants of Chobe – thank God – were spared contact with the dirty hands of poachers. Other animals to see here include some of the usual suspects on an African safari – lion, cheetah, hippo buffalo, giraffe, antelope, jackal, warthog, hyena, crocodile, zebra. The birdlife is also diverse. Cruising or driving along the Chobe River, you get the best view of the animals.

The Savuti Marshes of Chobe are reputed to have the largest predator population density in southern Africa. The marshes have the textbook features that draw predators. In a flat and hostile environment, they provide a place where wildebeest, buffalo, zebra and many species of antelope congregate for a drink. The predators cheetahs, leopards, lions, wild dogs, hyenas, wild dogs, and jackals – naturally follow. Some predators such as lion tend to be rather lazy and the setting here is a gift. The usual entry point for Chobe is Kasane, which is located about 800km north of Gaborone. You get here by flying from Gaborone, Maun or Victoria Falls in neighboring Zimbabwe. Camps and lodges can be found throughout the park.

The Okavango Delta, in the north west of Botswana is the largest inland delta in the world. Spreading over 15,000 square kilometers, it is formed as the flow of the Okavango River slows down and soaks into the sands. That is why it is referred to as ‘the river which never finds the sea’. The network of channels, ox bow lakes, lagoons, swamps and islands that arise is very pleasing to the eye. But that is not all of Okavangos bounty. The delta is filled with wildlife – wildebeest, giraffe, hippo, elephant, zebra and buffalo have all found a home here. The birds too are plenty, more than 550 types, some of which live on the trees and others on the water.

The best place to see wildlife in Okavango is within the spectacular Moremi Wildlife Reserve. The reserve lies in the center of the delta and occupies 3,000 square kilometers. In Moremi you view game aboard a vehicle or by gliding on a makoro (dugout canoe) or other type of canoe. Accommodation is available in camps and lodges within the delta area. In Moremi itself, you can stay in tented campsites but no permanent camps or lodges are allowed.

If you are interested culture, take a break at Chiefs Island, the largest in the delta, and see ancient rock paintings. The painting were presumably executed by the artistically inclined fore bearers on the San people. The Okavango Delta should be avoided in summer, especially December to March, when most of the camps are closed down. At that time, it is very hot and humid- temperatures rise above 38°C, and thunderstorms unleash daily. You enter Okavango through Maun – the deltas principal town, by flying or taking a bus from Gaborone, 600 km away.

Visitors to either Chobe or Okavango may wish to add on a visit to Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls is actually in Zimbabwe but is easily accessible from the northern part of Botswana. Victoria Falls is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world and one of Africas prime attractions. Situated on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, the falls occur where the steadily flowing Zambezi River, unwarned, casually approaches and then suddenly plunges down a series of basalt gorges in a breathtaking display of several waterfalls. Mist and thunder emanating from the falls can be witnessed from far off.

The spray from the falls sustains the rain forest on the opposite wall of basalt and creates an almost constant rainbow visible even by the light of the moon. The falls are best seen from the air, thus activities such as helicopter flights, balloon rides and micro-lighting over the falls are a must do. Other exciting activities available are bungee jumping off the bridge – which also gives a spectacular view down the gorge, canoeing, white water rafting, river safaris, elephant back safaris and many more.

Adventure seekers, who travel not merely to convenient places, may wish to check out the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. The shallow saltpans cover about 6,500 square kilometers and rank among the largest in the world. The atmosphere here is admittedly surreal, with shimmering mirages in a vast open terrain broken only by a few baobab trees. Bird watchers in particular will be intrigued at the unusual environment as they watch numerous flamingos and pelicans. The pans occupy the area between Francistown (410 km north east of Gaborone) and the Okavango Delta. There is plenty of wildlife, in the Makgadikgadi National Park, but not as much as Chobe- so this will not be your only reason for coming here.

Botswana is the site of a unique wildlife conservation initiative in Southern Africa- the concept of cross border parks. The initiative is anchored on the common sense observation that wildlife does not recognize international borders. Successful conservation efforts in an area bordering another country can be reduced to naught if the neighboring countries do not collaborate. The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is a combination of two parks -the former Gemsbok National Park in Botswana and Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa.

Covering over 36,000 sq. km, Kgalagadi is one of the biggest wildlife conservation areas anywhere in the world. Botswana contributes about 75% of the park in the southern Kalahari Desert. The park is a unique conservation area for it allows the large-scale wildlife migratory movements that were once common in the savanna grasslands of Africa, but are sadly not possible any more. The appeal of the harsh beauty of the Kalahari aside, scientists are extremely curious to find out the secret story of the flora and fauna that has adapted to what appears to be a very difficult environment.

For ordinary folks, the park is host to the famous black-maned Kalahari lions. You will also see gemsbok, springbok, eland, blue wildebeest, cheetahs, wild dogs, jackals, bat-eared foxes and leopards. Birding is also excellent and of 297 species recorded, 96 are resident. It is difficult to get to Kgalagadi. From Gaborone, you drive for 860 km, of which 550 km is tarred and the rest gravel. Being a cross border park, you can also access it through South Africa. The park has no permanent tented campsites and on safari you must bring in everything you need.

The dry season, especially between April and October, is the best time to visit Botswana on safari. It is then easy to spot wildlife gathered near water sources. The rains come over the southern summer months of November to March. The roads are then difficult to use and with the abundance of water and pasture, the animals tend to scatter. Early morning and night temperatures in winter (May to August) can drop below freezing, especially in the southwest. But the days are then cool to warm. The summer experiences high daytime temperatures of up to 38°C. The cloud cover, though, and the rains tend to cool things a little bit. Beware that August is very dry and dust and sand storms tends to rise from the west.

Remember to pack a pair of binoculars- they bring the animals closer without the usual risks. A pair of decent sunglasses is a good idea, especially if you travel to the Kalahari, where the glare can be somewhat unsettling. Also pack photographic and video equipment to record your safari for the sake of those of your unlucky friends who may not have been to Botswana. On safari, you are advised not to wear white or bright clothing to avoid exciting the animals. Light cottons and linens are adequate for summer. To survive winter mornings and evenings, you need warmer wraps and sweaters. Women should avoid wearing scanty beachwear in rural areas away from hotels and campsites to avoid offending locals.

About this author: Andrew Muigai is editor of AfricaPoint Insider online newsletter. It is part of AfricaPoint.com- the Africa travel website that has helped thousands of travelers discover Africa. You can view more info on Namibia safari and tours at the website.

Namibia A Bountiful Harvest Awaits the Adventure Traveler

Posted on December 1, 2004 by admin

By Andrew Muigai

Namibia is a largely arid country of stark rough-hewn beauty. The most vivid images are those of a haunting Technicolor landscape of swirling orange dunes, shimmering mirages and treacherous dust devils. The apparent desolation is deceptive and plant and animal life and even man has adapted to this environment. The country is designed almost specially with the active and adventure seeker in mind. Timeless deserts, thorn bush savanna, desolate wind ravaged coastlines, majestic canyons, and sun-baked saltpans are the bounty that awaits the traveler.

Namibias top draw is the Etosha National Park, rated as one of Africas finest game sanctuaries. The birding experience in the country is truly superior. On a Namibia safari, the range of activities you can indulge in the unsurpassable physical environment is truly impressive. Ballooning over the desert, skydiving over land and sea, paragliding, whitewater rafting and sand skiing along coastal dunes are good activities for starters. More fun games to pick from include abseiling that most spectacular of rock sports, coastal and fresh water angling, desert camel riding, scuba diving, 4×4 desert runs, hiking and mountaineering.

Namibia has four distinct geographical regions. In the north is Etosha Pan, a great area for wildlife and heart of Etosha National Park. The slender Caprivi Strip is nested between Zambia and Botswana and is a wet area of woodland blessed with a few rivers. Along the coast is the Namib Desert, which at the age of 80 million years old, is said to be the worlds oldest desert. At the coast, the icy cold Atlantic meets the blazing African desert, resulting in dense fogs. The well-watered central plateau runs north to south, and carries rugged mountains, magnificent canyons, rocky outcrops and expansive plains.

Namibia, one and half times the size of France, is very sparsely inhabited and carries only 1.8 million souls. The people are as unique as the land they live on. The most intriguing are the San, otherwise known as Bushmen. These most hardy of people have a highly advanced knowledge of their environment. It is a marvelous thing how well they are adapted to their difficult habitat. Just pause and think that these are the only people in the world who live with no permanent access to water. In the Kalahari Desert, one of their domiciles, surface water is not to be found. Tubers, melons, and other water bearing plants as well as underground sip wells supply their water requirements.

In Namibia today, Bushmen number about 50,000. Historians estimate that they have lived, mostly as hunters and gatherers, for at least 25,000 years in these parts of the world. Bushmen speak in a peculiar click language and are very gifted in the arts of storytelling, mimicry, and dance. Namibias other people, who are indigenous to the continent, are mostly of Bantu origin. They are thought to have arrived from western Africa from about 2,400 years ago. The African groups include the Owambo, Kavango, Caprivians, Herero, Himba, Damara, Nama and Tswana.

The Africans aside, other groups comprise about 15% of the population and have played an important role in the emergence of the modern nation. White Namibians amount to about 120,00 and are mainly of German and Afrikaner heritage. Germans arrived in significant numbers after 1884 when Bismarck declared the country a German Protectorate. Afrikaners, white farmers of Dutch origin, moved north from their Cape settlements, especially after the Dutch Cape Colony was ceded to the British in 1806. This strongly independent people, whose ancestors had lived in the Cape from 1652 resented British control.

Two other distinct groups complete the spectrum of Namibias people – Basters and Coloureds. Coloured in Namibia and southern Africa refers to people of mixed racial heritage, black- white for example. They have a separate identity and culture. This makes sense considering that Namibia was run by South Africa after the First World War. Even in pre-Apartheid South Africa, racial classification was a fine art. The Afrikaans-speaking Basters, descended from Hottentot women and Dutch settlers of the Cape. Alienated from both white and black communities, they trekked northwards, finally founding their own town Rehoboth, in 1871. Baster is actually derived from bastard, but it is not derogatory, and the Basters are indeed proud of it.

Namibias barren and unwelcoming coastlines served as a natural deterrent to the ambitions of European explorers. That was until 1884 when the German merchant Adolf Luderitz established a permanent settlement between the Namib Desert and the Atlantic seaboard that afterwards took his name. Bismarck subsequently declared the territory covered by Namibia a German colony and named it Südwestafrika or South West Africa. As German settlers moved into the interior, conflict was inevitable with the inheritors of the land.

The German occupation was a particularly unhappy experience for the Herero. The Herero resented the Germans harsh and racist rule and the effect of the encroachment on their lands on their livelihood and way of life. On the first day of the year 1904, the Herero led by Chief Samuel Maharero, rose suddenly and unexpectedly in arms against their colonial overlords. The Nama joined the insurrection and the authorities did not regain control even after six months of trying. Over 100 German settlers and soldiers died in the uprising. Historians now consider events that followed to constitute the first genocide of the twentieth century.

Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha was furnished with a contingent of 14,000 soldiers and tasked to put down the rebellion. The governor general of the territory was then Rudolph Goering -the father of Herman Goering, Hitler’s right hand man. Lothar von Trotha was a generation ahead of his time and his kind of thinking was to become government policy under the Third Reich. He argued that the Herero must be destroyed as a people and he did not wince at the murder of women or children. At the end of it all, 100,000 Nama and Herero were killed. The survivors were herded in concentration camps where unspeakable things happened. The Herero fared very badly and 80% of her people perished. The population of the Nama diminished by 35-50%.

Windhoek, the capital of 165,000 people is the only true city in the country. For those traveling to more remote regions, this is where you settle practical matters. The positive aspects of the German period can be seen in the charming style of older buildings in the city. Places of interest in the city include the State Museum, State Archives, and the Namibia Crafts Centre. The Dan Viljoen Game Park lies 24 Km west of Windhoek on the gentle hills of Khoma Hochland. In this resort you find ostriches, baboons, zebras and over 200 species of birds. The Waterburg Plateau Park, located 230 km from Windhoek is popular with weekenders. This extensive mountain wilderness is home to cheetah, leopard, kudu, giraffe, and white rhino.

Etosha National Park is what brings wildlife lovers to Namibia. The park is comparable in size and diversity of species with the best in Africa. The unusual terrain of Etosha holds savanna grassland, dense brush and woodland. But it is the Etosha Pan, a depression that sometimes holds water and covers 5,000 sq km, that is the heart of park. The perennial springs around the pan, attract many birds and land animals in the dry winter months. The effect of this background is magical and some of the best wildlife photographs have been taken here.

There are 144 mammal species in the park and elephants are particularly abundant. Some other interesting wildlife here includes giraffe, leopard, cheetah, jackal, blue wildebeest, gemsbok and black rhino. The birding is great at Etosha and over 300 bird species have been recorded. You will get best value by spending at least three days here. There are excellent accommodation facilities at the three rest camps of Namutoni, Halali and Okaukuejo. The best time to see animals is between May and September, when water draws them in huge numbers to the edge of the pan. Etosha is 400 km to the north of Windhoek by road.

The Fish River Canyon is unrivalled in Africa and only the Grand Canyon in the U.S in larger. The Canyon runs for 160 km and reaches a width of 27 km and depth of 550 m. But size alone does not explain the appeal of the canyon. You experience incredible views at various points along the rim. Adventure lovers do not merely come for the views. Hiking through the canyon is the ultimate endurance adventure for hikers. There is an established 90 km hiking trail that will take you 4-5 days to cover.

The trail ends at Ai-Ais hot spring resort where you can unwind. You are allowed to hike between early May and end of September. The hike is quite strenuous and needless to say, you must be physically fit. The authorities disbelieve the capacity of most people to undertake the hike and will actually insist on seeing a medical certificate of fitness before allowing you to start off. Fish River Canyon is 580 km to the south of Windhoek.

The Skeleton Coast has been the graveyard of seafarers and whales and deserves that morbid name. The problem is the dense fogs. And woe to the ship wreck survivor who expects respite onshore! Ahead is the Namib Desert, one of the driest and most unwelcoming places. Adventure travelers love trekking along the coastline as they enjoy the stark beauty of the area. To the south at Cape Cross, you find a seal colony carrying tens of thousands of seals. The Skeleton Coast Park covers 16,400 sq km and begins at 355 km northwest of Windhoek.

The Portuguese explorer Diego Cao reached this part of the world in the year 1486. He is probably one of the people whose experiences discouraged Europeans from venturing ashore until the arrival of the Germans 400 years later. Further south is the Namib-Naukluft National Park, a vast wilderness covering 50,000 sq km. The landscape is very diverse and covers mountain outcrops, majestic sand dunes, and deep cut gorges. For really spectacular dunes, the Sossusvlei area is unsurpassed. Here you have dunes rising to 300 m! The orange tint giants extend as far as the horizon and the area has an unreal, unforgettable atmosphere.

To the northeast of the country, the well-watered Kavango and Caprivi Strip region offers an unspoilt wilderness suitable for rugged game viewing and camping. The area also promises a feast for bird lovers. Game reserves in the area include: Kaudom, Caprivi, Mahango, Mudumu and Mamili. Poachers did great damage to wildlife during the years of the civil war in neighbouring Angola. Animal numbers are however building up rapidly. Some of the wildlife in the region includes leopard, elephant, buffalo, cheetah, lion and various antelope species. The Caprivi Reserve falls in an area of swamps and flood plains. Here you have an opportunity to partake fishing, hiking, game viewing safaris and river trips in traditional mokoro boats.

In Namibia you can enjoy up to 300 days of sunshine. The coast is temperate and thermometers run between 5C-25C. Inland, daytime temperatures range from 20C-34C, but can rise to 40C in the north and south of the country. Winter nights can be quite cold and frost occurs over large parts of the country. The rains inland fall in summer (November-April) and are heaviest in the Caprivi region. Rains do not much affect travel, but beware of flash floods in the vicinity of riverbeds. The best time to travel is over the dry months of March to October, when it is easier to see animals at waterholes. It is best to avoid the Namib Desert and Etosha between December and March when it can get unbearably hot.
You can get by wearing light cottons and linens in summer. Over winter nights and mornings, you need heavier cottons, warmer wraps and sweaters. Comfortable walking shoes are essential, as the ground gets very hot. Some useful stuff to pack includes: camera, binoculars, sunglasses, sun hats, sunscreen and mosquito repellant. Be ready for dusty conditions and carry your clothing, equipment and supplies in dust proof bags. Do not be tempted to buy items made of ivory. You may not be allowed to carry them through customs at home. And it also good that you do not encourage the trade in ivory products that keeps poachers busy.

Scooterer Stories – Part One – Introduction

Posted on December 1, 2004 by admin

Scooterer Stories
By Louis the Scooterer

Part One – Introduction

The travels of Louis the Scooterer, a retired former South African who has found an unusual way of getting to know Israel.

This whole “travel idea” began, because of “those people” who told me that I’m crazy to “drive in Israel”! That was when I first arrived on Aliya, on 31st October, 1999. So my mission, or my “mishugass”, is that I want to drive on every road and visit every place, where permitted, on my scooter. Every direction, NEWS, or North. East. West and South, plus, during the rainy-season continue in a cheap-rent-car.

Most of my trips are spontaneous, and a few have been planned, and its ongoing and going-on and must never end. I live in Netanya and ride all around Israel on a scooter, and have some interesting numbers to play with. I am One single male, riding a two-wheeled scooter for four years I have been to four seas, Kinneret, Med, Red and Dead. And now the numbers jump. I have traveled sixty five thousand kilometers, on a 50 cc scooter, now on my sixth scooter. I reckon I take two minutes to ride one kilometer so I’ve sat on the saddle for a hundred and thirty thousand minutes and each minute I’ve seen at least two nice things.

So that’s about two hundred and sixty thousand nice things. Has anybody out there seen two hundred and sixty thousand nice things lately? However a question of numerics arises; about a thousand birds flying, is that one thing or a thousand things? Or a herd of a hundred Camels, one or a hundred things? I have been to hundreds of places, spoken to thousands of people, and add to this the millions of experiences….

I have been on all-sorts of roads from excellent highways to back roads, sand roads and tracks. I have seen hundreds of good petrol-stations, many with coffee-shops, and little supermarkets attached. I have seen thousands of good drivers, yes and a few bad ones as well. By the way, more than twelve other scooter riders have said they want to ride with me, but none have as yet ! So, as one male on one two-wheeled scooter, I continue…..

You can drive the length of Israel in a few hours from Eilat down south to the Mt Hermon ski site, the furthest place North. But you wouldn’t see much that way, except for the scenery flashing by,and further to left or right you will see trees and mountains, and wonder what’s out there, and suddenly you have driven the full length. And some people would say “Wow, we saw all of Israel” !

For this Internet journey we will start in Eilat and we will pay a few interesting visits to places all the way up north to Mt Hermon. We will go together, northwards and then westwards, and then southwards once more, and in every direction. And I will take you for short visits to some incredible places.

Louis the Scooterer is 69 years old and it sounds like he’s just getting started.

Great Wall and Great Zoo

Posted on November 1, 2003 by admin

By Nick Dao

The frigid bite in the September morning air in Beijing, China made me glad I had brought along a jacket. With the help of the hotel clerk who had acted as my interpreter, I had hired a taxi to drive me to The Great Wall. I thought that my request was simple enough to avoid any confusion with the taxi driver, but I thought wrong.

Because of the demands of the 50th Anniversary celebration under the communist rule that Beijing was carrying out that day, a lot of the streets had been barricaded and the normal traffic flow had to take alternate routing. Instead of driving me right up to the entrance of The Great Wall, the taxi driver had to drop me off about half a mile down the road from the wall. In that universal sign language that taxi drivers use to talk to us tourists, he told me to walk to a nearby ticket office where I could buy my ticket to go see The Great Wall. I promptly followed his directions without even contemplating that I might have misunderstood his directions.

Off in the far distance, I could see some winding sections of The Great Wall that was miles from where I was. Now, all I had to do was buy a ticket and step through the official entrance to The Great Wall. Excited that I was finally going to see one of The Seven Wonders of the World, I crossed a parking lot, bought a ticket at the ticket booth, and got on a bus filled with the local Chinese tourists who were enjoying their government-endorsed day off.

The bus didn’t start up right away. We sat there for at least thirty minutes. While we were sitting there in the parking lot, a bunch of monkeys kept running up to the bus to be fed by the tourists inside the bus. Just about everyone in the bus was throwing peanuts, slices of bread, and pieces of bananas out the window to the monkeys who were jumping on each other and shrieking at one another as they competed for the bits of food. After about half an hour of this monkey business, the bus finally started up, and we started driving down the road.

Our bus stopped in front of a large, solid, iron gate that was twice as tall as the bus. I saw that there was a fence that stretched out on either side of the gate and couldn’t figure out the reason for that fence. Maybe, I thought, that was just their way of keeping out the people who didn’t want to pay the entrance fee to see The Great Wall.

The iron gate opened up, we drove through it, and came to a stop in front of a second set of solid, iron gates. This second gate also had a fence that stretched out on either side of it. I automatically surmised that the second fence was an additional measure to keep out the people who didn’t want to pay the entrance fee to see The Great Wall. The bus sat idling by while the first gate behind us closed up. After that gate had closed, the second gate in front of us then opened up. We drove through the second gate, stopped, waited for the second gate to close up behind us, then proceeded to drive along a winding road.

I thought it was odd that they had taken such extreme measures to keep out the people who didn’t want to pay for the tickets to see The Great Wall. Two solid iron gates and two sets of fences? Wasn’t that a bit extreme? I was stuck on those erroneous assumptions until I saw the sights right outside my bus window.

I saw lions and tigers running loose around the bus, and that was when I realized I had gotten on the bus for an outdoor zoo! I can’t believe this, I said to myself. How could this have happened? How did I end up on a bus to an outdoor zoo?

In a not-too-graceful scamper, I scooted out of my seat and walked up to the bus driver. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I got on the wrong bus. I was trying to go see The Great Wall.” The bus driver stopped the bus and turned to look at me. He gave me a quizzical smile and shook his head to tell me he didn’t understand what I was saying.

I’m Vietnamese, and since the moment I had arrived in Beijing, everyone I came across in China assumed I was Chinese. When I spoke to them in English, they looked at me as if I might have been an expatriate Chinese who had to resort to speaking English because he had forgotten how to speak his native Mandarin.

“The Great Wall,” I peeped out to the bus driver one more time. He maintained a quizzical smile that told me I wasn’t getting anywhere in my communication with him. I looked back at the crowd on the bus to see if anyone might have understood what I’d just said so they could give me a hand with what I was trying to say. The crowd on the full bus looked back at me with a collective, confused expression. I thought about peeping out, “The Great Wall,” one more time to anyone on the bus in a last ditch effort to get some help, but I saw my effort would have been futile. Nobody had any idea what I was saying, and I had no idea how to tell them I had boarded the wrong bus. Furthermore, it was all too obvious that I was holding up the zoo tour. The only option available to me was to sit down, shut up, and enjoy the zoo tour, so I sat down, shut up, and enjoyed the zoo tour.

Almost two hours after I had seen more lions and tigers than I had planned on seeing, I finally found the entrance to The Great Wall. It was about half a mile up the road from the zoo. After I had bought the correct ticket and had walked through the correct entrance, I walked for a mile on top of The Great Wall that I had only read about in books.

I returned to my hotel that afternoon thinking about how much my visit to The Great Wall had been well worth the effort. Not only had I seen and walked on the centuries-old slabs of stones that make up The Great Wall, but I had also seen and ridden through a zoo tour that will always remain in my memory as The Great Zoo.

I left China two days later thinking how fortunate I was to have a job that would allow me to fly to Beijing for the weekend to see The Great Wall. I also left China thinking about a side note of curiosity about my image in America and in China. In America, people keep mistaking me for Chinese, and in China, they also keep mistaking me for Chinese.

Writer Nick Dao is based in Southern California. An American originally from Vietnam, he is able to offer a unique perspective on travel to Asia and elsewhere.

Malacca, Malaysia’s Most Historic City

Posted on May 1, 2003 by admin

By Patrick Mascoe.

Malacca has often been dubbed Malaysia’s most historically intriguing city. It is a city that at one time possessed the richest and busiest port in Southeast Asia; a city that controlled the spice trade and was home to thousands of transplanted Malays, Sumatrans, Javanese, Chinese and Indians; a city that suffered a complete series of European invasions at the hands of the Portuguese, Dutch and English; and a city that today, offers a unique interracial and multi cultural history as seen through its people and architecture.

Only three and a half-hours by bus from Singapore, Malacca today no longer possesses a busy port and has now transformed into a mystical, peaceful, sleepy, little town. However, when walking through Malacca’s narrow streets, its history literally comes to life. Ancient ruins, Chinese temples, as well as the many architectural traces of its opulent colonial past, flood the city. Today, Malacca only faces the friendly invasion of tourist, the majority of which are school students from Singapore who come to see for themselves what Singapore was like a hundred years ago.

In 1405, the Ming Emperor sent Admiral Cheng Ho to Malacca with the promise that China would protect the city from its archenemies the Siamese. The Chinese then began to settle there in the mid 1400′s. The relations between the two countries was officially sealed when the Sultan of Malacca married the Ming Emperor’s daughter.

She brought with her to Malacca literally hundreds of servants, who established their residence on the side of a hill that was later named Bukit China (“China Hill”). The hill has remained a Chinese domain ever since, and now stands as the largest Chinese graveyard outside of China. Covering over 60 hectares, some of its elaborate graves date back as far as the Ming dynasty.

Another must see and piece of the Chinese historical puzzle in Malacca is the beautiful Cheng Hoon Teng Temple, also known as the “Temple of the Evergreen Clouds” built in 1645. It is exquisitely decorated with intricate woodcarvings, porcelain, and colored glass all imported from China.

European influence in Malacca arrived harshly in 1511 when the Portuguese attacked and took over the city. Although their reign of power lasted less than 150 years, the Portuguese left behind their piece of history. In the early 16th Century, A Formosa was built and became one of the greatest fortresses in the East. Unfortunately, thanks to the British who demolished the fortress in 1807, all that remains today is the Santiago Gate. However, the gate is in good condition and gives one an insight into what A Formosa must have been like under Portuguese rule

From the Santiago gate at the base of Residency Hill, a path leads up behind it to “Our Lady on the Hill” chapel built in 1571. The famous missionary Francis Xavier was a regular visitor of the chapel and after his death, he was buried there for nine months.

In 1641, the Dutch attacked Malacca and immediately changed the name of the chapel to St. Paul’s Church. The Dutch, like the Portuguese before them, only stayed in power for about 150 years. During that period, they added to the Portuguese chapel and today the massive, imposing walls of the church still stand firm overlooking the Straits of Malacca. Scattered around the church are a number of old Dutch tombstones, as well as a statue of St. Francis Xavier that was left surprisingly untouched by the Dutch
Of all the European presence in the city of Malacca, the Dutch must be credited most for their incredibly durable construction of public buildings. The buildings at the center of Dutch Square were definitely built to last forever. The Stadthuys (town hall) was built between 1641 and 1660, is still in use today as government offices. This massive pink building, constructed from bricks imported from Zecland, Holland is considered by many historians as the oldest remaining Dutch building in the East. It is a perfectly preserved example of classic Dutch colonial architecture.

Beside the Stadthuys, at one end of Dutch Square, sits the brilliant, red, Christ Church. The church, which was later converted by the British for Anglican use, is also still used today. Thanks to the insight of Singapore’s founder, Sir Stamford Raffles, the church was spared and left undamaged. The Dutch tombstones buried in the floor of the church are still visible and its enormous 15-metre-long ceiling beams remain as solid and strong as when it was first built.

In 1824, the Dutch handed over Malacca to the British in exchange for the Sumatran port of Bencoolen. For a short time, under British rule, Malacca once again continued to prosper as a trading center. However, although Stamford Raffles saved the city’s colonial past from the destruction of his own troops, he single handedly killed off its trade industry when he developed Singapore as a commercial interest.

With a city so deep in history, it is hard to imagine anyone not being fascinated by beautiful Malacca. It is a city where two days can easily stretch to four and still leave you wondering if you have seen enough.

FAST FACTS

Visas:

Visas are not required for citizens of Commonwealth countries (except India and Sri Lanka), most European countries, the United States, Japan and South Korea, provided your stay does not exceed three months. Citizens of Asian countries do not require visas for visits of less than a month. Make sure your passport has at least 6 months validity from the date of your arrival.

Language:

In Malaysia the official language is Bahasa Malaysia. However, both English and Chinese are widely-spoken and understood.

Where to Stay:

The Renaissance, Melaka Hotel (Tel. (60) 6 2848888) is located on Jalan Bendahara, 75100 Melaka. It has 300 spacious guestrooms and suites, luxuriously furnished with large beds, IDD telephones, remote control TV sets with in-house video programs. Superior rooms start at US$ 100, Deluxe rooms US$ 150, Jr. Suites US$ 200, and the Presidential Suite will cost you around US$ 1200.

The Emperor Hotel, (Tel. 06-2840777) is located at 123 Jalan Munshi Abdullah, 75100 Melaka. It has 233 guest rooms, a Chinese restaurant, coffee house, and swimming pool. Superior rooms start at US$ 60, Deluxe US$ 80, Jr. Suites US$ 150, Executive Suites US$ 175, and a Luxury Suite will cost you around US$200.
The Puri Hotel, (Tel. 65-368-8190) is located at 118 Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, 75100 Melaka. Originally a private home, the building, has been carefully restored to a 44-room and six suite hotel. The rooms are all air-conditioned and breakfast is included. Standard rooms start at US$35 to US$100 for a family suite.

Things to Buy:

Batik, although originally an Indonesian craft, is extremely popular in Malaysia.

Travel Writer Patrick Mascoe has published in the past a number of travel related articles such as,
“Mount Ophir” (Singapore-American Magazine – March 2001), “Missing Saigon”
(Brave Magazine – Sept/Oct. 1999), “Be Careful Singapore” (Singapore Strait
Times – Feb. 23, 1999), “Japanese Students Learn By Rote” (Ottawa Citizen -
Feb. 24, 1990).

San Francisco – The Birkenstock Tour!

Posted on March 1, 2003 by admin

By Mike (Roadie) Marino

San Francisco has been a magnet for the curious and restless since The Bay Area was first spotted by Spanish explorers. In their wake came pirates intent on plunder and The ’49er’s came to sift and pan financial nirvana from the regions riverbeds. In the semi-faboulous Fifites, “the beats” came to be “down”, and the youth culture of the ’60′s came to get “high”. The City by the Bay has attracted the cool and the uncool, the sinner and the saint, as well as the gentle and the downright scary!!

Today, the new adventurer’s come from around the planet, armed not with musket and gold pan, but video recorder and travellers checks. They speak a multitude of dialects from Mandarin to Minnesotan and from Bavarian to Bronxian, as they scour the city for palate pleasing restuarants…credit-card-to-the-max shop until you drop sprees in Union Square and of course, to hit the high tourist spots of Fishermans Wharf and the multitude of culturally rich neighborhoods. On this Roadhead Tour du Jour, we’ll leave the trolley car’s and souvenir shops far behind and discover the “green” riches of The Bay Area from The Golden Golden Gate Bridge to Golden Gate Park. Your Birkenstock’s will walk quietly on silent paths in Muir Woods, and you’ll stand in stoney silence as you gaze down through the fog at the City by the Bay from the awe inspiring heights of Mt. Tamalpais. Now, grab that cheap bottle of port and let’s hit the road!

The Gold and the Gray

The undisputed signature structure of San Francisco is the Golden Gate Bridge. It labors day in and day out, handling the chaotic volumn of commuter traffic that pours into the city on a daily basis, but on a more serene note, you can also walk the expanse and marvel at the sights and sounds that surround the senses. As structures go, The Golden Gate Bridge is stately, sophisticated and shrouded in a mysterious fog elegance..it is truly the Katherine Hepburn of bridges. That being the perception, The Bay Bridge, by contrast, is the undisputed heavy metal monster of machismo!! Grey and steely, it not only spans the gap between Oakland and San Francisco, but has an interesting side journey if you exit about midway to Treasure Island!!

Named for Robert Louis Stevenson’s famed novel, the island was part of the San Francisco Exposition in the 1930′s, and ultimately a port for Yankee Clipper’s plying the Pacific in the spirit of Bogartian mystery and suspense. Today there is a museum on the grounds, and is the site of the yearly Polynesian Festival, complete with flowered drinks and Hula dancers. It also offers one of the most spectacular dead-on, head-on sea otter views of San Francisco from sea level, and by driving around the back of the former naval base, you’ll find Nash Bridge’s floating office made famous by Don Johnson and Cheech Marin..sorry..couldn’t find the ‘Cuda!!!

Golden Gate Park

In “the City” itself you’ll want to take in the “green space” of all “green spaces” on the West Coast by making trackstracks to Golden Gate Park. As America’s pastoral past gave way to industrialization, a zombie like mechanization gained a strangle hold on urban society and a need for “green” was realized. San Francisco was in the forefront of this movement and a thrifty green thumbed Scotsman, named John McClaren, had by 1890 transformed enough of the area’s sand dunes into a West Coast Garden of Eden, minus the serpent and the apple, and it was the birth of Golden Gate Park.

Today Golden Gate Park is home to a plethora of activities and attractions from bocce, baseball and basketball to arboreteums, art and aquatic wonders.THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES is home to THE MORRISON PLANETARIUM with it’s one of a kind projector system that brings the heaven’s up close and personal, to it’s Ozzy Osbourne super sized, mindblowing 12 speaker sound system. THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY is pure Jurassic complete with dino displays, bones, and a giant bang-a-gong T-Rex! THE AFRICAN HALL will transport you to the savannah’s a continent away, and WILD CALIFORNIA is a flora and fauna romp through California’s natural history past. If your in your Capn’ Ahab mode, leave your harpoon at the door, because you won’t find the Great White Whale at the STEINHART AQUARIUM, but you can mix and mingle with 165 tanks containing an aquatically astounding array of 600 species of fish, reptiles and amphibians…alligators, pythons and sharks…oh my!

If your taste runs to the artsy versus the aquatic, then get in with the art crowd at the M. H. de YOUNG MUSEUM. Built in 1919, it’s a repository of Tiffany glass, El Greco and the famed Laurence Rockefeller Collection. If your aesthetic engine starts redlining on all this art and culture, and the need to touch base with your innner self is overwhelming, take a kharmic cappacino break at The Pool of Enchantment…it’s mocha, meditation and mantra, Starbucks style!

Gardens not only bloom, but abound throughout the park. Irony can be found in the Japanese Tea Garden, downright Asian, it was designed by a Down Under Aussie in 1894. Paths, ponds and a teahouse accent this foral palette of Asian plants. In 1895 a Japanese gardner, named Makato Hagiwara and family took over the gardens, and somewhere between bonsai’s and haiku’s invented the fortune cookie!! Thespians with a floral bent will marvel at the roar of the crowd and the smell of the greasepaint at the Lair of the Bard….THE GARDEN OF SHAKESPEARE. It is here that Bill’s fans try to “name the work” by identifying 150 plus species of plants and flowers mentioned in his works. If you have trouble identifying them, alas, Poor Yorick knows them well!

The Eco-Junkie will get their eco-ecstacy fix by visiting THE CONSERVATORY OF FLOWERS and STRYBING ARBORETEUM. The Conservatory is the architectural twin of London’s Kew Gardens and one of the primo examples of pure Victorian architecture in all of Ess Eff. It’s soaring dome is a hot house home to palm trees, orchids and an assortment of micro-climates from around the world. Strybing Arboreteum began in 1937 as a WPA project and today is 70 acres of 6,000 plant species including cacti and succulents. You can also treat your sense of smell at The Garden of Fragrance where great smelling plants just make good scents!

Wanna feel like Ernie Hemmingway? STOW LAKE in the park is a fly fisherman’s paradiso sharing it’s pristine water’s with the placid paddle boat and row boat enthusiasts, and you can enjoy an eco-friendly hike 428 feet up to the summit of STRAWBERRY HILL located on an island in the lake that affords a panoramic view of the park, lake and foliage surrounding the area. You’ll also treat the senses to the natural sounds of water cascading from a quite un-natural artificial waterfall on the Hill.
Flashback to the Sixties when you enter THE PANHANDLE. Located at the eastern end of Golden Gate Park and forming somewhat of a northern border to the Haight Ashbury district, this green ribbon was the tie-dyed hangout for free feeds of beans and rice during the Summer of Love. Flatbed trucks would act as portable stages and you could wolf down your styrofoam feast while listening to the music of such notables as the Quicksilver Messenger Service.

After you’ve been “peaced” and “loved” to a grateful death by the locals, head on over to THE POLO GROUNDS site of the 1967 spaced out Human Be-In. This cosmic gathering of the spaceship earth featured a high decibel vortex of music, supplied and amplified by The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane, all punctuated by readings by literate luminaries and other icon’s such as Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Captain Kirk of the altered states spaceship, Timothy Leary. Beam us up, Scottie!!!

Peaceful calm in San Francisco was shattered in 1906 when a high scale Richter rock and roller of an earthquake shattered buildings, lives and dreams. The terror, noise and screams of the living drowned out by the overwhelming silence of the dead. The city lay in ruins, but not her soul or her spirit. Today, the only official memorial to that historic day of “When Faultlines Attack” is in Golden Gate Park at Lloyd Lake between JFK Drive and Crossover Drive. It’s called THE PORTALS OF THE PAST, but don’t expect too much…it’s a front porch standing alone without a house attached to it!!

The park also has a Buffalo Paddock, that is the lone survivor of what was a turn of the century free ranging zoo and there’s also a Don Quioxte like windmill if you feel like doing “the Impossible”!!

The San Francisco Zoo

According to Simon and Garfunkle, “it’s all happening at the zoo”, and in San Francisco that’s certainly the case. Zoo’s began as an offshoot of the traveling circus that amazed and delighted Victorian and Edwardian audiences alike. The parasol and carriage crowd “ooohed” and “aahhed” at the sight of elephants and the roar of not so cowardly lions. Soon the big top would pack it up and move on to, say, Peoria and it would be a year until they returned once again. Eventually someone came up the idea of a permanent setting in the urban environs where these exotic creature’s could be on display year round and be viewed in a somewhat natural setting. San Francisco, opened it’s zoo’s gates with it’s star resident named “Monarch”, a rather imposing grizzly bear. Today, it is one of the most “animal friendly” examples of zoo’s in the world with over 250 species roaming in simulated wild environments and is also Northern California’s largest zoological park and conservation center
Along with the usual zoo “in crowd” of lions, giraffe’s, elephant’s and chimp’s, you can be dumbstruck with awe at the antics at the new Lipman Lemur Forest and the newly expanded childrens zoo. Scheduled to open in 2004 is the African Savannah Exhibit where animals indigineous to that region will mix, mingle and network like a group of stockbrokers at happy hour at the local pub. The zoo also has an elephantine sized souvenir shop to load up on zoological oriented goodies.

Eco-mania and animalia can be pretty heady stuff, so when you want a break, you can contemplate the chimpanzee’s with a cup of cappacino at The Leaping Lemur Cafe. San Francisco, being as culturally aware as few other places on earth, has found a way to combine monkey’s and Monet with a full fledged art display at the zoo as well as the beautifully restored Dentzel Carousel, a work of art in it’s own right. The zoo itself and it’s close proximity to the magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean make this one of the definite “must see” place in Ess Eff..and to think it all started with a grizzly bear named Monarch!!

Muir Woods

Muir Woods stands as the undisputed coniferous crown jewel of the Redwood Empire. Magnificent and majestic, these towering giants dwarf miniscule mankind in their mystical shadow. Their leafy crowns and canopies seem to penetrate the heavens as they stand erect and proud as rulers of their particular realm. The Miwok Indians who originally dwelled in these forests must have marveled much as we do today at the sheer size of these botanical creations.

Miwoks, Spanish explorers and 49′s….there goes the neighborhood!! Combine all that growth with the advent of the automobile and by 1908, an already crowded region would be visited by the first mortorized tourista!! The forest itself was not restricted in those days and the auto’s raced through the tree’s with abandon resembling a miniature go kart track. Much damage was being done and finally in 1924 the infernal internal combustion engine was banned from the forest free for all, along with picnicing, rock and plant collecting.

Today Muir Woods has ample parking for the throngs of tree-curious who visit from around the globe. The cacaphony of accents blending melodiously with the symphony of the stellar jays and warblers that inhabit this serene setting straight from “Lord of the Rings”. Asphalt pathways meander through the forest cathedral of giants, crossing streams, cool and clear, where at any moment you could stand face to face with one of the many black tail deer that inhabit the woodland. The redwood eco-system also gives nourishment and shelter to a variety of owls, bats and reptilia and amphibia.

Bootjack Trail is off the beaten path and is an opportunity to leave the tourist far behind as you ascend the pathway along crystaline waterfalls and make your way on foot towards Mt. Tamalpais. Muir Woods is more than a golden grove of giant growth…it’s a fitting monument and tribute to the father of modern conservation, John Muir.

In Marin County, eco-tourism is a true double feature. After looking up to the lofty crowns of giant redwoods, you can look down for a spectacular view of Ess Eff from the 2,571 foot summit of Mt. Tamalpais. On a clear day even the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada’s can be seen from this ring side seat to the heavens. San Francisco grew in size following the Gold Rush. As overcrowding became unbearable residents of the Bay Area sought escape by getting away from it all on Mt. Tam. Wagons breaking down on the way up was the norm and it was not a pleasant journey on the whole. Eventually, a small scale railway was built to carry the locals to the top of Tam, and in time became known as the “crookedest railroad in the world”. It earned the name from the twisting, serpentine route it took to reach the summit and not from any underhanded financial dealings of it’s Chief Operating Officer! The railway was abondoned after a devastating fire in 1930.

Today it’s a low gear cruise to the top and Mt. Tam is a fave of the multi-gear mountain bike crowd, as they ascend and descend the mountain with the fervor and excitement of sailors rounding Cape Horn for the first time. Hikers will find a 6,300 acre walkers paradise with over 50 miles of trails..each with a view!! Hang gliders soar silently enjoying their eagles view of the Bay Area .. urban architecture and Pacific fog covering the the canvas to create a one of a kind work of art. The park also has a picnic area for the less rustically minded and you’ll find the Visitor Center at the East Summit.

The Birkenstock Kingdom has it’s fair share of hiking and hangliding opportunities as well as mountain biking and rollerblading. Vista’s and views dot the landscape from Coit Tower to Twin Peaks and nothing can match the ambiance of sitting silently on the wind kissed cliffs and watching the sun set and the fog roll in like soft silk. Birkenstock warriors will find that the Golden Gate is pretty green after all.

Editor’s note: This article is not sponsored by Birkenstock. The author is merely suggesting that the famously unsexy but extremely comfortable footwear would be the perfect choice for such a tour.

This Dharmabum Roadhead writer’s work has been described as DELIGHTFULLY WIERD and WICKEDLY WONDERFUL!! Mike (Roadie) Marino is a publisher of an on line magazine called ROAD TRIPPIN’ USA. It’s an asphalt kickin’ journey of Roadside Nostalgia and American Pop/Car Culture for the Chrome-Magnon in all of us. The style is lock n load and deals with the realm of where Pop Culture and Chrome meet Asphalt and Art!!

Mike also writes a monthly feature column under the banner THE ROADHEAD for the award winning Offbeat Travel zine. His column deals with bizzare ashpalt and roadside oddities and locales from mechanical museums to Cadillac Ranch. Mike is also a freelance writer of travel and history pieces that have been published in magazines and ezines in the US and Europe.

Most current project includes toiling endlessly on his first book about Pop and Car Culture in America of the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s. Although born in the rustbelt of industrial Detroit, he’s also been the definitive son-of-a-beach and has lived in a treehouse in Honolulu, the tie dyed spare change neighborhood of Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, as well as the North Beach district..where the Beat Goes On!!

Today Mike (Roadie) Marino lives in Missouri near the banks of the Missouri River with his word processor. In addition, to writing and backpacking, Mike has a penchant for Hawaiian shirts, Jimmy Buffett albums and Corona Beer. If you would like to use any of Mike’s articles some of which are included here, contact him at the email address below or at dharmabumroadie@yahoo.com He also accepts contract work and what the hell, a good agent wouldn’t hurt either. So contact him for rates and information. Now…Have Fun Reading…Grab A Cold Corona..And Kick Asphalt!

La Salsa Cubana Experience

Posted on June 1, 2001 by admin

By Cherie Magnus

These days ladies alone do pretty well anywhere in the world they travel. The world has gotten used to women on their own in airports and hotels due to business traveling, and more recently, vacationing.

I’ve traveled alone in many countries and I wholeheartedly recommend it for those decisive independents who don’t get too lonesome at dinner. I’ve wandered by myself through Paris, Florence, Buenos Aires, as well as all over the United States.

But the one country where it doesn’t work out well is Cuba.

I had fallen in love with the country and its people in January on a cultural exchange in a group of about forty people. Not wanting to wait until it got too hot or until the end of the rainy season which would soon begin, I went back on my own in April. (To be sure I had my U.S. Treasury License to do research with me.) Wanting to avoid both the high cost and tourist ambiance of the big hotels, I rented a room in a crumbling 18th c. palacio on the Malecon, with a balcony overlooking the sea and the lighthouse across the bay.

The owner was friendly and accommodating, the location was fantastic, I had maps and a list of phone numbers of people I had met in January. Oh and the weather was perfect.

But I had a problem. I was an American woman. A tall, pale-skinned redhead, there was no way I could blend in as I always try to do wherever I go. It is impossible to walk down any street in Havana day or night without every man on it calling out to a female tourist. It isn’t dangerous, just not comfortable. Mostly of course it’s the younger men, and I suppose it’s equivalent to U.S. construction workers–just part of their macho roles as men. The older Cubanos’ machismo translates into courtliness.

I took a bicitaxi one afternoon from the Cathedral clear across town to calle San Miguel to deliver a letter from the States. The little old man cycled me over potholes and around pedistrians and trucks to the remains of an old hotel. Without comment, he chained up his bicycle and led me into the lobby, inquiring of several people the correct room. I could tell that there was no way he was going to let me fend for myself in that dark warren of habitacions, like a medina in Cairo. He was only satisfied when we found the correct room, which was divided into three tiny windowless areas altogether no bigger than a broom closet.

Two men were playing chess in the middle space in the front of the open door. When they didn’t understand my explanation of why I was there, the woman across the hall came over and instantly got a handle on the situation, and I delivered my letter.

The taxista was sitting in the shade by his bicycle when I came out into the sunshine, as I had asked him to wait for me. From there he pedaled me back across the square and plazas to El Floridita, where I had to change my $20 bill in order to pay him. Then I joined all the tourists drinking daiquiris and flashing their pocket cameras while posing in front of the Hemingway memoribilia on the walls. I joined a table of Belgian girls and we talked about Jacques Brel and sang some of his lyrics together. It felt good to be in a group of women.

A tourist woman alone feels vulnerable in Cuba wherever she goes, despite the policeman on nearly every corner day and night. She can’t lose herself shopping, because there isn’t any. People-watching on the Malecon or Prado is an open invitation to be hassled or hustled.

She’s more comfortable in the bars, lobbies and dining rooms of the tourist hotels because there is a security person for every few guests. But then she’s just meeting other tourists, and probably those from her own country. Cubans aren’t allowed in the tourist hotels, except in the public areas by special invitation.

This is the one country where I suggest going in a group. Especially if you are a dancer like me. In Buenos Aires I boldly go alone each night to the tango halls where I dance until dawn with no problems. There is a strict formal code of behavior there, and in my six trips to Argentina, I never once had any sort of difficulty.

Cuba doesn’t work like that. There are very few salsa clubs per se, and I wouldn’t recommend a woman entering them alone, hoping to dance, as she might in Buenos Aires.

The Cubans dance all the time, but informally at parties and casual gatherings. They can’t afford the clubs which are very expensive. And so it’s mostly other tourists who are at the clubs anyway.

So unless you meet local people who invite you to their fiestas, a Havana trip will not usually provide hours of salsa dance experiences.

Live musical groups perform in bars and cafes everywhere so you can listen to some great stuff, but in order to dance, you must bring your partner.

Women who want to dance salsa or to study folklore and religion or education or medical care in Cuba will learn more and have more fun in a group of like-minded individuals.

And as a matter of fact, I will be taking a small group of salsa dancers from Los Angeles in November 2001 to study Cuban music and dance, “The Salsa Cubana Experience.” Now that I know the ropes, I want to share what I learned about where and how to dance in Havana with other dancers, and to have fun in a mixed group of Americans and Cubans together. Also to help foster understand between our two cultures, where there is so much misunderstanding and misinformation. Let the music and dance bring us together.

With degrees in English, Dance, and Library Science from UCLA, Cherie has published many articles in professional journals and magazines. Her solo travels to Europe and Latin America have inspired several pieces published in Skirt!, PassionFruit, Moxie, JourneyWoman, Dancing USA, GoNomad, Open Spaces, Porthole, The Cusco Weekly, the-vu, and various online magazines. She was the dance critic for the Cerritos News in Orange County, California before moving to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She is currently at work on a novel situated in France, when she’s not out dancing. Follow her blog at http://tangocherie.blogspot.com/

Disenchanted September

Posted on December 1, 2000 by admin

By Cherie Magnus
August 8, 2000

Tired of going to Europe alone and inspired by romantic films of the Edwardian Grand Tour, I asked all my friends one April, “Want to rent a villa in Tuscany?” And several did.

Because it was spring, we had time for monthly planning get-togethers where we decided on which villa, what and how many cars, personal travel styles, airline tickets. We watched “Enchanted April” on video and had potlucks of Tuscan food.

We six women had all known each other for years, working in different departments of the same library system. All of us single, we frequently got together at gourmet restaurants and chowed down, bonding through food.

People turned envious when they heard our plans, “Wow, a villa near Florence for two weeks, how fabulous!” I too was exhilarated about having a home base in Italy, and a group of women to see Tuscany with. I enjoyed solo travel, but now I’d have a different perspective, plus the relief of not eating alone in restaurants all the time.

On the flight to Florence the six of us were high on excitement, sitting in one row in the middle of the 747, laughing over the idea of it really happening.

Things first started to go wrong at the Florence airport. Monica’s bags were lost, maybe due to her late check-in at the curb at LAX, and the dark cloud of missing luggage pursued us. We got our two rental cars, and 3 by 3, we found our way out of town and up into the hills to the northwest.

We picked up our keys at the big manor house surrounded by vineyards where the Contessa, our landlady, lived and directed her family’s winery business. Then our two little European Fords convoyed higher up the green hills, through more vineyards heavy with grapes, by a lake, over a bridge, past a chapel, to our villa, Frantoia.

It was just like the photo in the catalog: stone, two stories, old, with a swimming pool. There were five bedrooms, three baths, a living room, a big kitchen with a walk-in fireplace and an ancient stone sink. The largest room was the dining room with a huge trestle table and benches. No modern conveniences, but for very erratic and undependable water heaters that had to be switched on and off. There was no extra charge for the resident bat.

We pulled names for room assignments, two of us doubling up, the other four in their own bedrooms. The first morning I threw open the old wooden shutters to a flock of sheep grazing below the window, the weathered shepherd and his two dogs silhouetted against the morning sun. The mist-touched Tuscan hills behind them seemed to go on forever.

An excursion to the town of Arrezo was today’s agenda due to the annual medieval jousting fair like the Palio of Sienna, but less touristy. We stood at the edge of narrow cobbled streets watching the colorful pageantry that has stayed the same since the middle ages.

Lunch was outdoors on the square, and even though we had gone to the market and loaded up with provisions for the house, I hadn’t eaten much. Now I was starving and ordered a salad and a pasta course, plus desert and cappuccino. I rejoiced at the food. We were in Italy!

Our money plan was a kitty for household expenses, and splitting restaurant checks equally. Now at our first restaurant meal there was a problem. Instead of merely dividing the check, there was the “ladies at lunch” syndrome of, “Well, I only had the soup, so mine is…” Never mind what people ate at the villa from the communal provisions. This was the second clue that things were not going as we had planned in L.A.

Another big issue was the two cars. Even though we all paid equally for their rental, and we were all listed on the insurance, the two women who put them on their credit cards became selfishly possessive and wanted to determine who and where and how the cars went. Furthermore even though we were six, one had left her license at home, another just hurt her foot, a third couldn’t drive at night.

As the ranks of drivers shrank, power struggles emerged, with sides chosen: there were the red car people and the green car team, a bit like the jousting at Arezzo only less friendly. The whole idea of two small cars was that we would have more freedom to each do what we wanted with whom we chose. But somehow it didn’t work that way.

The culmination of the Car Wars was one early morning when the three who were going to Rome for the day to see the Pope, drove off the cliff in front of the house in the dark. Luckily no one was hurt, but the green car was marooned. The Rome-goers then took the red car, and the other three women waited around the villa all day until the farmer showed up at sunset on his tractor to yank the car back from the brink and onto the road.

The food issue deteriorated quickly into petty lists of who bought what, who owed how much, and going to the market or a restaurant became a nightmare.

By our final “gala” dinner at a hotel in the nearby village of Ruffina, instead of celebrating our two weeks together in Italy, plus the two birthdays that occurred, we celebrated the end, that the togetherness was finally finito. We all were tense, and rude, and over the birthday cake, even foul language erupted. In fact the six middle-aged American librarians made a scene in this little Italian hotel’s dining room.

The next morning we all went our separate ways, two to Venice, me to Slovenia, the other three back to L.A., where even now, a year later, the red team and the green team no longer socialize.

The bat? Well one night when Jennifer turned on the electric oven to dry some lingerie, the whole house fell into darkness. We had blown a fuse. We managed to light candles, but a call to the Contessa revealed the necessity of finding our way through the dark to the fuse box in an unused part of the house. “Don’t worry about the bat,” the Contessa said. “He is harmless.” A BAT! Sure enough, as the three women bravest among us took a candle and went to the unremodeled back of the ancient house, there was the bat on a rafter! He swooped, there were screams, and then the candle went out.

The fuse waited for Mario the next day.
Between the lost luggage, different food priorities, power struggles over the cars, and the bat, our romantic sojourn in the Tuscan hills didn’t turn out quite as planned or hoped. Not the fault of Italy, which regarded the American ladies’ folly with the wisdom of centuries. Not the fault of the beautiful and warm Italian people, who looked like they had stepped down from the Renaissance paintings in the Uffizi Museum. And not the fault of the Contessa’s old stone farmhouse.

This article has been previously published in Skirt! and Moxie.

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