Far Flung Forays

Thailand,Civil Unrest, and Airplanes

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Todd

It is pretty amazing where airplanes can get you. In about 24 hours I have gone from Boulder to Bangkok. My flight from Denver to Vancouver was about 1/4 full so I had my own row which was nice. I decided to ask the gate agent for my flight to Hong Kong if my seat was an aisle or window (I couldn’t pick my seat since it was an Air Canada ticket) and was told it was a middle. Sitting in a middle seat for 13 hours is not my idea of fun so I got switched to a window seat in row 20 which happened not to have anyone sitting next to me. The issue arouse when the flight was an hour late taking off and I had an eighty minute layover in Hong Kong and no boarding pass. I was met when I got off the plane by a Thai Air representative with my name on a piece of paper and was personally escorted (read: run through the Hong Kong airport to a pre printed boarding pass through the crew member security line) to the gate and made my flight by about 15 minutes. If I had checked bags they would still be sitting in Hong Kong.

I sat next to two Canadians, in their 50’s, from Hong Kong to Bangkok and they were really good at complaining. They were on the same plane as my from Vancouver and were in row 54 so by the time they got to the person with their name on a sign they had to run to the gate. They were not happy that they were met by a representative and then had to run to the gate carrying their luggage. They thought a cart should have met them…. First world problems. Also the airplane was too cold, they had reserved different seats on the plane, and the pockets in the seat backs are too small…

This is my first time traveling someplace where there is active political strife. Currently protesters are blocking 7 major intersections 24/7 and holding daily marches, with their goal being to protest the elections to be held on 2/2 and force the prime minister to step down. I think I would be a lot more worried about this if I didn’t travel as frequently as I do. One thing that makes this trip different than a lot of the ones I do is that there is an established tourist trail. What that means is that it should be relatively easy to get around, tourist industry people will speak English, and there will be a bunch of backpackers to socialize with. Downsides include an increased number or tourist scams, more tourists, and touts.

Traveling from the airport in a taxi (who attempted to rip me off but took no for an answer) I passed through a police check point (dome light turned on to show a tourist was inside) and an empty protest location. I am now in my hostel off of Khao San Road. I met Alan and wandered around and had dinner and a drink with him. Khao San road is so touristy it doesn’t even seem like I am really traveling.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

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Botiza, Romania, A Contrast Between Old and New

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Todd

Botiza is a very small town where everyone knows everyone because they live no more than 350 meters from them. It is also a very poor town. Most of the people over the age of 20 have left to go and make money in other countries. The person who runs the guesthouse also works at the local government office and she makes $18 a day and being a migrant worker in Europe they can make $60+ a day. They all want to build a big house in town so there is a giant contrast between the traditional houses and large modern homes (which often have no one living in them since their owners are still working abroad). A modern house costs roughly $25,000 to build in Maramures not including land and furnishings. Since land is “expensive” most of them build their modern home right next to their parent’s older house.

Coming back from the fields, you can see his scythe attached to his bike

Most of the people living in town are self sufficient partly due to necessity due to low wages. That means that almost everyone in town has a barn (the size of a large shed) in their backyard that has their single cow and pigs in it. They also have a pretty large garden where they grow all their veggies. The dinner that I talked about in my last post everything was grown/produced on sight including the cream and pork. The fridge is mainly composed of store bought butter, beer, and left overs. There are 7 people that live at the guest house. The youngest is a 15 month old and her parents. The wife runs the pension and also works in the local government office. The grandparents live here, with grandma also working at the post office and grandpa in charge of all the animals, garden, and the 15 month old.

Part of the guest house. They were drying beans, onions, and garlic for the winter. They were also fattening up 3 pigs.

There is a wide disparity between the old ways and the new ways. I passed a construction sight where a mini backhoe was loading dirt into a horse drawn cart. You cannot walk through town and not pass one horse drawn cart and one Audi. Most people have a garden at their house and also have a plot of land in the hills with a larger garden and where they grow hay for their cow. I did not see one tractor while I was in Botiza and most of the farm work is done by hand with scythes, rakes, and hoes. I saw two elderly women get a ride to their field and stick their rakes in the back of an Audi. Most of the elderly women of the town dress how you would stereotypically expect an Eastern European elderly person to dress, but for special occasions and church most of the town wears their traditional dress.

A backhoe being used to load a horse drawn cart

Everyone in Maramures distills their own palinka which is a fruit brandy. The house that I was staying at had blueberry (lower in alcohol and sweeter) and pear (40-50%) that they had made. Under Romanian law each house is allowed to distill 50 liters a year for personal consumption, but I am told that people don’t really follow the 50L a year limit. I also learned the hard way that you have to check every beverage in a clear bottle to make sure you won’t be surprised with palinka.

There were wells in a couple towns I visited still in use

This tree is either just used to dry pots or signifies that there is an available lady living in the house

There were a bunch of these watering stations run by a well around town.

Traditional dress around town

Posted in EUROPE, Romania | Tagged backpacking, Botiza, Maramures, palinka, Romania | Leave a comment

Romania, where people wonder why you are walking instead of hitch hiking

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Todd

Today was a day of meeting awesome people. I finished up seeing the sights in Sibiu and took a train to Brasov. There I grabbed a fast food fried pork sandwich with coleslaw and sat at the station near the only person with a backpack (somehow being around other backpackers takes away travel anxiety). I started with the very normal conversation starter, English? His response was “I am from NYC” which led to a nice long conversation before I go on my 9pm to 7am night train.

I had splurged on the train and spent $20 extra to sleep in a first class 2 person sleeper cabin. The train conductor tried to solicit a bribe to get a sleeper cabin to myself but I refused and still had a sleeper cabin to myself. After a nice quick 10 hour train ride when I was leaving the station I waited to see if there were any other backpackers and saw 2 and went up to them and led with my old stand by, English? I ended up grabbing hot chocolate with them at 7am and then went to a couple museums in Sighet. It then started to downpour and I hid under a tree for 30 minutes until I thought the rain had diminished enough that I would get less wet running to a church for shelter than staying under the tree. With my awesome packing skills my rain jacket was at the very bottom of my pack and I had planned on hitching and didn’t want to be soaked with a soaked pack. I probably read my book in the alcove of the church for 45 minutes until the rain stopped and I decided I wanted to go to a town about 30km north on my way to my final destination. I approached a cab who didn’t speak English and he said it would be 50 lei (15 usd) which is what I thought it should be. He then asked if I wanted to turn on the meter (all taxis have meters) and I said yes and from where we were to the church we were going the metered fare was 50.2 lei. He was not trying to rip me off when he sad 50L and when I tried to tip him he refused and smiled and kept on saying only 50 in Romanian. The thing is that the ride which he didn’t want a tip for put him in the middle of nowhere and he drove back without a fare. I always read about bad taxi experiences and mine have been way better than normal in Romania.

I was only halfway to my final destination after I visited the church so I wrote Seiu on a piece of paper and stood by the side of the road. I read that it is easy to hitch in Romania, especially Maramures where there is minimal public transportation and you give the driver about the same as the bus fair. The 10thish car stopped (maybe 8 minutes) and I said English and his response was that he lives in London. He and his wife are from Maramures and like most of the younger folks they leave once they finish school to work in other large cities outside Romania and save money to buy a car and build a large house back in Romania. He says that about 95% of them return to Maramures. He also said that living in Maramures was expensive but I think that was based only on the price of Red Bull which there must have been between 10-20 full and empty cans around his car. He then refused to except any money for the ride and let me off at my intersection.

My first hitching ride in Romania

I then had conflicting information if Botiza was 5 or 10km down the street. I decided to start to walk to Botiza and after 30 minutes was stop by an elderly women on a bike and she asked where I was going and why I wasn’t taking a car (at least this is what I assumed she was asking with my 19 word Romanian vocabulary and hand signs). I assured here that I would walk until I got tired and then hitch which she thought was a splendid idea and smiled and got back on her 1982 single speed cruiser bike and continued peddling her way.

The friendly women who wanted me to hitch a ride not walk

I walked about an hour then I decided I wanted a ride and the first car I did the Romanian hitching sign to screeched (literally) to a halt and I squeezed in the front seat. The driver spoke Italian, Romanian, and the same 19 words of Romanian that I know in English. We proceeded to have a conversation where I spoke in Spanish and English and he spoke in Romanian and Italian which was interesting to say the least. We got to Botiza and I thanked him and he wanted to know where I was staying and I gave him the address and he didn’t know where it was so he called them up and took me to their door. He refused any money and stayed at his car until I got in the gate and it closed.

When I got to my guest house/pension/bed and breakfast I was plied with copious amounts of home made pear brandy and then fed a 5 course meal with enough food for 4 people. First was fried dough that looks like half a pita with a sharp cheese, onion, and herbs inside. Then pickled peppers. Then a soup that had large wax beans and probably cheese and other items I it. Then a plate of BBQ pork, sausage, grilled BBQ pork fat, and potatoes. Then to finish it off was a very fluffy fried what they called polenta but it wasn’t but it is made from corn covered in cream with homemade jam on top.

Their English was better then “roms” would leave you to believe

Posted in EUROPE, Romania | Tagged backpacking, Botiza, hitching, Maramures, Romania, sighet | Leave a comment

The King has Died

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Todd

The “road” I was riding my bike on.

Seriously, the Roma king passed away last night in Turkey. He was from Sibiu which means his body along with 250,000 Roma ( read gypsies) are coming to Sibiu for his funeral in the next couple of days. I am leaving tomorrow so I will probably miss most of the craziness.

I am still having a blast. A lot of my plans seem to be falling in place except some of the “minor” details of Maramures (like how to get from Sighet to Botiza, 60km, where there really isn’t any public transportation). I wrote the last couple of sentences a couple hours ago and then had a minor freak out about my upcoming trip to Maramures.

There are a lot of unanswered questions that I have that are rather important like how I am going to get around, where exactly I am staying, and that people probably won’t speak a lot of English since the young move away because there aren’t jobs and most of the elderly speak minimal to no English (French and German are more common). I think that my traveling people skills have increased since I started traveling a couple years ago. When I started traveling a couple years ago, I don’t think I would come up to a table of people speaking English and ask if I could join them. I have done that a couple times this trip.

Today I rented an old rigid mountain bike with probably 35-38mm tires and went for a ride. Using cached google earth data I made a loop of 3 villages. The challenging portion of the loop was at times no more than a semi worn tractor path, but after a couple wrong turns I ended up in my intended town. Along the way I stopped at a 15th century church fortified with walls on top of a hill, a couple Saxon fortified churches (they used them as the defensive points in the towns), end this really odd church that I have included pictures of. I saw a man using a scythe and it was the classical image that you would imagine: a 40 year old, straw hat, 3 days of stubble over a sharp jaw line, a half often faded blue button up shirt, blue jeans, with a content non stressed look on his face. While on my ride, before I even left town I got turned around and a guy stopped his car and asked if I was lost. It is that type of hospitality that I really haven’t found to this extent in other places I have traveled.

I honestly don’t know when the next time I will be online after tomorrow. I don’t think I will have Internet in Maramures so there is a chance the next time will be when I am at the Heathrow airport.

Posted in EUROPE, Romania | Tagged backpacking, Maramures, Romania, sibiu | 1 Comment

Bran/Dracula’s Castle is a giant McDonalds play area

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Todd

My iPad is not liking WordPress so please excuse the formatting errors and typos. It takes way too long to try to fix them.

I visited Bran Castle this morning which is “Dracula’s”, but in reality had nothing to do with the book and very little to do with Vlad the Impaler. It just looks like it would be a good castle for the book. I had a frustrating time getting there (two buses), taking over 2 hours. Coming home it took me less than an hour which was nice. One minibus I took had 4 guys that were carrying scythes (which are really big) to go work in the fields. At the castle I was amazed by the number of young kids that I saw, more by far than at any sight in China, Jordan, Israel, or Ecuador. There were also an impressive number of infants who were visiting the castle.

I so far have found the food to be very meat based. I have also found a lack of street food that isn’t shawarma or pretzels. I was just in Jordan and had my fill of shawarma there and pretzels will only take you so far.

In the afternoon I took a train to Sibiu which in my mind was a town of 5,000 when I discovered I was mistaken and it is a town of 150,000. I think that I wanted to go to Sighausora which is a town of 20,000. The train station is the most decrepit one that I have seen with shells of long discarded trains, crumbling concrete, and an overgrowth of weeds (not the golden rod that covers the countryside). It took a walk of about 250 meters to discover the old town and why I came here.

Tonight I had a food win. It seems like all the restaurants in the town only sold pizza, but most people were forgoing food, opting for ice cream instead. It seemed that every eighth person was chowing down on a bizarrely colored ice cream cone. There were at least 30 soft serve ice cream machines pulled out on the cobblestone street selling ice cream for $0.66-$1, depending how much you wanted. I ended up in a place that didn’t list pizza until the last page of the menu and ordered bulz ciobanesc. It was a roasted corn meal mush (kind of like polenta but better then any polenta I have had) and cheese base with lean crispy bacon and sausage on top covered in sour cream and a sharp (non cheddar) cheese. It might have been the richest thing I have ever had to eat. I had to leave most of the sour cream and cheese and my dinner set me back $8.

I have only been in Romania for 48 hours, but it feels much longer. I think that it is partially due to how long I have spent on trains and buses. I think that I am going to modify my schedule and spent two nights in Sibui instead of the one that I planned and then go to Maramures. I kind of feel like I am rushing through Transylvania (which I am).

Bulz

Meat in the grocery store, I got yelled at for taking this picture

Bran Castle

I saw a for real cross bike yesterday and was jealous

Sibiu

Posted in EUROPE, Romania | Tagged backpacking, bran, Dracula, Romania, sibiu | Leave a comment

Customs? Immigration? Romania?

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Todd

Normally when I hear stories about people not remembering going through customs or immigration it is because they took too many sleeping pills and went through them, but just don’t remember doing it. I slept the first part of my flight to Romania and figured that is when they would handout customs forms so I asked for them and was told they don’t hand them out. When I get to immigration there are 4 windows with no lines so I go up hand my passport and they scan it and stamp it (about 14 seconds) and that is it. I have never been to a country where they needed less information, including Canada. They have a fancy cab ordering machine to counteract people getting ripped of by taxis and I had 2 people try to convince me their cab was the one I ordered. During the middle of my 3 minutes waiting for a taxi another taxi driver came up and translated through a women that they were not the right cab and double checked that I got in the right one. My $9, 30 minute cab ride was probably the best cab ride conversation that I have had with topics including Asian carp, mountaineering (he was a guide for 20 years), open space/parks, 9/11, and changes since communism. He also told me I was staying in a Roma area that wasn’t super safe and to get a cab if I go out at night.

I took the train to Sinaia which holds a modern castle called Peles Castle that was finished around 1908 and was built with electricity. I bought my train ticket and somehow didn’t get a seat number, I think I bought it too late. I asked a women what car to get on via hand signs and she replied in English the second one and choose any seat. I sat down and signed to a guy sitting next to me if I could sit there which led to a 30 minute conversation in English.

He did no go to F&M

I then took another train ride to Brasov, a town from around 1200. I was having a difficult time getting a cab that was willing to use their meter. One cabby then said 100lei (30usd) which I replied 300lei which led to a challenge to play backgammon for 100lei and he was stumped when I said I didn’t know how to play. Another cabby then came over and said I looked frustrated and told me where to get the cheap taxis 1.3 lei/km not 3.5 like some of them. I then talked with the cabbie for 15 minutes and he said that I didn’t want his cab because it was a premium car and expensive (maybe 6usd instead of 2usd). I then found a taxi following his advice and went to my hostel to take a nap and walk around town.

Brasov around sunset

Meat wrapped meat

Meat and beans

Posted in EUROPE, Romania | 1 Comment

Off to Romania

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Todd

I decided that I don’t really know what time, or what day it is, and Heathrow does a good job making that a reality. Every restaurant in the terminal seems to be selling breakfast all day long, along with beer 24/7. I am currently three quarters of my way to Romania. One question I have been getting a lot when people hear I am going to Romania is why. My typical response for past trips is that I want to go someplace that interests me, but I might not want to go to when I am 60. That is still the truth but I kind of wanted to do Europe this trip and I wanted to go someplace where I can read the language’s letters. Romania is a compromise trip with half of it being Transylvania (castles and medieval towns) and the other part Maramures (a region that has about 10 pages in the Lonely Planet and can best be described as rural Romania with very little public transportation). I will try to keep this blog updated as much as possible, but I am not sure how much Internet I will have in Maramures.

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Food and Thoughts of Beijing

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Todd

#1- There really is a ton of smog (my boogers are black, I checked, kind of like the climbing gyms that have the tire padding)

#2-The weather forecasters are just as bad here as in the US

#3-Out of Peru, Ecuador, and Jordan, the driving is most like the US in China. There is a law against honking and on Monday they just instituted a law against jaywalking (the fine is 10 yuan which is $1.60 and needs to be paid on the spot). There are a lot of small laws here and some are followed, others are not. I think it is directly proportional to the presence of police officers. I have been very surprised at the lack of police officers in general. I would say that there are a comparable number to the amount in DC with slightly more traffic officers.

#4-There has not been one time when I haven’t felt safe

#5-Bicycles are all the rage. I almost staked out the tri tandem in the previous post wanting to offer the owner $50 and taking it on the plane. No one knows how to properly adjust a seat. No one knows what grease is. The vast majority of the bikes are single speed, but I haven’t seen a fixie yet. A full service flat repair costs you about $0.40.

Overall we have been traveling at a leisurely pace and our style of traveling has been a little atypical for me. Our meals have ranged from $7.5 (for four people) to $80 (including a $40 bottles of wine). I am going to do a food picture dump now and probably another one at the end of the trip.

Best thing yet, crispy snap peas Szechuan style with peppers and peppercorns that will make your tongue tingle

Beef set meal

Onion greens and pork

Hot Pot

Mushrooms stuffed with stuff including garlic

Homemade noodles with spicy fermented soybeans ($1.35)

Spicy home fries (potato and onions)

On the airplane

Posted in ASIA, China | 1 Comment

The Great Wall of China is Big…

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Todd

We started the day by bounding up 1200 meters to the Great Wall of China. We officially started in the J-word section and walked to the M-word section. If you can speak Chinese there are more letters in the names. The visibility was what I would consider terrible, but according to out guide (Joe), it was average. You have to love the combination of clouds and smog. We started on a unrestored section and walked to a more touristed restored section where I found out we were at a AAAAA (penta-A?) historical site. I tried very hard to upload a picture of this sign, but the internet sensors must be reading my mind…

After the Great Wall I went to the pastry stand that had a long line and using very sophisticated hand gestures, got 4 custard tarts (4 fingers) and about 20 cream puffs (1 finger, gesturing like a scoop, and pointing to the cream puffs) it costs an astounding $1.18.

I discovered where Anderson Windows are made

I want the three person tandem. The last picture is of the local bike repair shop.

Our dinner have been very varied. The first night we went to Mr Shi’s Dumplings and had dumplings (crazy I know). This is a place that caters to English speaking tourists and expats and the dumplings were pretty good. The second night we were a little more adventurous and went to a hot pot place that did not have any English signs or pictures. We walked in and someone came up to us and told us that they spoke English and told us that we wanted to get a combo pot with a hot and a mild section of spice and one of each sauce (sesame, tahini, and hot). She then walked us to large fridges that had plates (we got squid and mushrooms) and skewers of assorted “things”. I think that I ended up with some tripe, mushrooms, processed stuff, veggies, and assorted meatish. We then cooked out skewers in the liquid and it was really good. The following night we went to a place that only served one dish which was an oddity because most of the restaurants here have a larger menu than US Chinese restaurants. Yesterday we had a really great late lunch that consisted of spicy Szechuan food (snap peas and peppers, spicy squid and peppers, home fries, green beans and pork, mushrooms and beef).

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Beijing=Boulder??

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Todd

A city that is mainly made up of people between the age of 20-35, relativity fit, that ride bike, and all look the same (at least to me). I think that is where the similarities end, with the biggest difference being the smog. I read about the smog, but I didn’t think that it would actually be as bad as it was. The smog limits visibility to less then a mile and if you look at something 20 yards away there is a slight haze to it. I have actually found that photos look clearer then it actually is.

It was nice being able to lounge on the airplane

A sunny day in Beijing

So far the trip is going great. We had a guide names YoYo (the unfortunately her name isn’t pronounced like it is spelled and she is a staggering 4’11ish).

There are a ton of bikes and single speeds seem to be all the rage. The thing is the models range between 1951 and current vintage and all of them are in need of a tune. Don’t worry if you get a flat though because a full service flat change costs a stagger $0.36

I am currently on the lookout for a 5th bike, one of these. I think the going market price for a used bike here is between $15-$25 (a lot compared to the $0.07 bus ride)

I tried to restrain myself from climbing the mountains…

Can you find the plain clothes policemen in Tienanmen Square? You actually have to be careful what you say or talk about here even as a western or you will be “escorted” out.

This is about a 30 foot long fishing pole. I think he is compensating for something.

My dad is breaking rules in China…

I know this post doesn’t describe what we have done or had to eat. This short version is we have seen a lot of temples and old buildings that have recently been redone. I will talk about the food later since I am off to bed (with some chemical induction)

Posted in ASIA, China | Tagged backpacking, Beijing, China, forbidden city, orchid hotel, Traveling | Leave a comment