*Full Indonesia Gallery Below*
Our last day in Yogyakarta, like the day before, started around 0330 to head out for the sunrise over the Borobudur complex. It had rained the day before, and the sky was clear, which made for a very different look to things. It was beautiful… a fire of orange and pink and purple, but in my opinion lacked some of the magic from the prior day when the jungle and distant volcanoes were draped in a gentle covering of mist and clouds. Some of the same stereotypes were there to experience the magic: a young white girl with her own genie pants and batik prints in addition to the issued sarong, swaying to some unheard rhythm as the sun rose, positioning herself right in front of the best photography area (her boyfriend, with matching genie pants and a headlamp…. had a conical braided pony tail that maintained a diameter of maybe 2-3 millimeters at the distal end). Nobody was posing provocatively on the stupas this morning though. It was very pretty, and we took a little more time exploring the carved reliefs on multiple levels before leaving the complex for the last time. It’s really incredible, and well maintained. Continue reading “The Long Journey Home” »
We were prepared for Korea to be cold….. like, freezing cold. As the the cabin pressure on the Korean Air flight from Tokyo to Seoul started to change at the start of our descent, I could see as much when the landscape started to come into view. Snow-capped hills, windswept rocky terrain, empty golf courses devoid of grass and colored with parched brown winter soil. We touched down at Incheon airport and passed through immigration and customs uneventfully, and got a brief whiff of the biting cold as we stepped out of the airport to catch an express bus to our hotel. Little did we know…. 
Temple fatigue…. can it become a chronic condition? Can a bad case of it be permanent? We’re not certain, but it sure seems possible. We’ve got a few temples left on this trip yet, so, who knows…. but hopefully the cure for temple fatigue is more temples and different temples.
It’s not really practical…. ok, maybe not really even possible, to be a “crazy cat lady” in a city as crowded as Tokyo. Even still, Japan has plenty of people obsessed with cats (do a Google search on “namennayo”), even while living in conditions crowded enough to make ownership of a cat or cats, at a minimum, difficult. No worries though, some enterprising (and maybe a little odd) souls have stepped in to fill the void of feline snuggle time for people in Tokyo who can’t or won’t own their own pet cats. So called “Cat Cafes” charge by the hour for cat overload. It’s kinda weird, kinda cute, and very Japanese. We saw a sign for one near Asakusa, and had to check it out today. 
Our winter break has officially begun… We arrived (3 pm Sunday, here) after a pretty uneventful flight. Korean Airlines was great!
We’ve got our visas. We’ve got the gifts for our guides. We’ve got over 17,000 RMB (~$2,600) and a couple hundred USD. We’re checked out of our hotel in Beijing….. Strolling outside towards the subway with our luggage and goodies, wouldn’t you know, it’s an absolutely gorgeous day in Beijing. The sky a clear azure, specked with a few perfect cottonball clouds. It rains and rains for days, choking you with smog… you walk around in a dank white heat with the visibility of Silent Hill. Then, after suffering for a few days of this, you’re granted a one day reprieve. No rain, no smog, and remarkably tolerable heat. Today is that reprieve, and this beautiful day just happens to be our day of departure to the DPRK. Maybe it’s a good sign.
China is the perfect place to end this incredible trip around the world. China makes you homesick. Ok…. Actually, China just makes us want to be anywhere but China. We even miss North Korea when we’re in China.
Just got back to Beijing after 8 days/7 nights in North Korea. It’s a pretty weird feeling to have freedom of movement and to feel comfortable speaking freely again here in the “kinder, gentler” Chinese communism. Let’s call it “Communism Lite.” Really though, all the jokes about the Chinese being such great capitalists…. the same jokes can’t be made about the DPRK. It’s the real deal there, and it’s sobering.
Tomorrow is the day. Our flight is booked and our visas are in hand for our trip to North Korea. We’ll be there for seven days total, and during that time, we’re going to be really ”off the grid.” In a place where the only people with internet access are high government officials, and the only way to make an international phone call is through a monitored government call center for 2 Euros a minute. However the trip goes, it’s going to be interesting.
Starting to finish up some of the main sites in Beijing, and today we visited one of the bigger ones: The Forbidden City. It’s big, huge even, popular amongst foreigners and locals alike, and really, really crowded. We’ve started to fine tune some of our “crowd thinning” tactics for pictures though, and we managed to get away with way better pictures than we could’ve hoped for ahead of time. For reference, it doesn’t pay to get to these sites early in Beijing. The hordes of tourists flow in non-stop all morning and all afternoon. The point when they stop is as it nears closing time. A few photo tips…. 1) Move in the opposite direction of everyone else and backtrack to the best views at the end of the day, the ones that everybody already took photos at amongst the crowds. 2) Be aggressive with locals and befriend other locals to be aggressive on your behalf. For example, we let a family in front of us to grab some good pics and then took the pics for them. On older male then started yelling “Oy! Oy!” at anyone that got in the way of our view. Awesome. 3) Take it to the edge of closing time. The crowds are dissipating, and the sun is soft in the sky, so the lighting is better anyway. 4) Use the language barrier to your advantage with the security guards. They’ll use a nightstick on a local before you can say “Tiananmen Square,” but they’re really pretty shy and polite with westerners. Beyond all of that, it also helps that a lot (a whole lot) of Chinese tourists take absolutely terrible pictures with no concern whatsoever for people in the background. Often, we’re one of only a few people who seem to be really after grabbing pics at the postcard spots without random strangers photo-bombing our shots, doddling in the background. 
After several days in China, we have learned the secret to finding satisfaction with our visit. Always set the bar low, and expect waaaayy less than you are told you will get, and then when “it” happens, either it meets your expectation or you will be pleasantly surprised. By “it” I mean everything you can possibly do, or place you can go, or thing you think you might want to buy. For example, if someone says, “Oh, this fabric is 100% cotton,” or “100% silk” in your mid you must think “In China, 100% cotton or silk = 100% polyester.” That way, when you actually feel the fabric, you aren’t disappointed, and you know what you’re looking at. If you still like it, then start bargaining. 
Crowds are virtually inescapable in Asia. Looking at professional pictures of isolated jungle temples or beautiful monuments without a soul in sight can awaken the inner explorer, dreaming of wandering alone through the sites in the pictures. When one actually makes it to the site, it’s usually a disappointment to find that other “explorers” have thought the same thing–and that actually, there isn’t anything new or unusual about your plans or visit. I say usually, because from what I understand, some cultures see the presence of crowds as a desirable thing, since it means they’re “in the right place” to see what they want to see. But unless it’s a concert or social event, us Westerners envision the pictures in “Lonely Planet” when we imagine what our vacation should look like. Sadly, the crowds in Asia don’t exactly match up with that ideal. So, you have two choices: 1) Deal with the crowds or 2) Find ways to “thin the herd,” so to speak. Mike and I have dealt with our fair share of crowds, but we’ve found a few key things that actually limit them. Generally, there are three factors that really minimize the numbers at an otherwise desirable location: Distance, Physical Exertion, and Money. If there’s a “near” option and a “far” option, the “near” option will almost always have more crowds. Also, of course, the cheaper and easier the activity is, the more uncomfortably crowded it will be. 
As it turns out, Chinese people love “Chinatowns” so much that they actually have them in their own country. I mean sure, we’ve seen Chinatown’s in American and Canadian cities, even in Mexico. On this trip, we’ve seen them everywhere but Russia. We didn’t really spend any time at any of them because we figured we’d be seeing the real thing in China, right? Well, it turns out…. the markets here mostly look like any other old Chinatown. It got me wondering though, the Chinese are so good at creating counterfeit knock-offs (they even created 
The rain finally caught up to us. We’ve travelled through India and Southeast Asia during rainy season with maybe one hour (cumulative) of rain in our way. It was great. But today, it finally caught up with us and we had a full day of rain. Miserable, heavy, angry sheets of rain. I suppose it will help clear the Beijing sky, since the smog made it look like we were in Silent Hill when we arrived yesterday.
Step into your local Wal-Mart or Dollar Tree and you will find many imported “goods” from China. In fact, I can almost guarantee that you have at least several items around you at this very moment with a label that says “Made in China.” And how is that? I mean, yeah, we all know the quick answer: Cheap labor and business outsourcing, right? But have you ever stopped to think that maybe there is a little more to this? We’ve all seen what a well oiled (pardon the pun) machine a family owned Chinese take-out place is…and usually they do some brisk (and delicious) business!
Today we headed out bright and early for a day trip to Huangluo Yao village. The village is pretty much part of the Guilin sightseeing trifecta, along with a cruise on the Li River and several of the city tour sights. The main attraction at this village is the rice terraces built all along the side of a mountain. They have some real postcard-perfect scenery in the place, and from the books and postcards we saw in shops, it looks like a pretty amazing village year round. In winter, the terraces are covered in snow, which looks very interesting. Early in the spring, they flood with water, and sunrise and sunset pics reflecting off the water look really incredible. In the fall, the drying rice crop colors the scene gold. We’re here well into the summer though, and were met with lush green terraces, which was also very pretty. 
A couple of years ago, while living in Miami for a time, we had the pleasure of making a pretty regular habit of Cuban cuisine. One of the Cuban offerings that really became a habit during that time was the coffee. Specifically, a beverage called a Cortadito. In the spectrum of Cuban coffee drinks, a cortadito falls right in the middle between the potent dark black colada served in little thimbles, and a cafe con leche, a light milky brew in a regular-sized cup. I’ve often referred to a properly prepared cortadito as the finest coffee beverage crafted by the hand of man. Needless to say, when I was in Miami, I drank a lot of them. One cortadito in the morning became one or two, and none at lunch became one…. ok maybe two…. and just maybe something after work. The point that I realized this was a problem was when Martha and I took a long weekend trip to Puerto Rico from Miami. I really had no sense of the drinkable-heroin habit that had evolved in a matter of months, but it was immediately apparent on that trip. The place we stayed at served us breakfast and “coffee.” Basically, it was steamed and sweetened milk with a dash of instant coffee for color. Hours later, driving through the bright green tropical countryside on our way out to the rainforest, the morning sun glaring through windows, an angry pounding headache began to emerge. A headache that nearly whited out my vision like some washed out photo from a point and shoot camera. This was a caffeine emergency. We pulled off the highway at the first little town, and sure enough, there was a little mom and pop “coffee shop” amongst the storefronts. Martha speaks Spanish, so I was basically like… “tell them I need a cortadito STAT!” Well, there was a lot of Spanish dialogue that ensued, and the guy still looked confused. I never heard the word cortadito used, so I threw that in there, assuming, it being Spanish, surely this guy with several thousand dollars of coffee-brewing apparatus behind him would understand. Instead, I got a confused and slightly humored look from him. Anyhow, Martha explained a little more and before too long I had, I guess, a Puerto Rican “cortadito.” Meh. I’m gonna make a rather broad generalization from our time there: Puerto Rico is not a place where coffee is appreciated. They may brew it, sure. It may be on offering, yes. But sweetened hot milk with brown coloring is not coffee, no matter what language you speak. There is no love in Puerto Rican coffee. 
I’ve read many times that it’s part of Asian culture to avoid displaying excessive emotions in public. Throughout our visit to Southeast Asia, this cultural norm seemed mostly correct. On our prior visits to Japan, I would say this generalization is definitely correct. I mean, if I were to (ok, ahem, when I did) lose it a few times in Japan, it did actually get things done. But even a disrespectful Gaijin like me knew that I was acting way outside the bell curve. I’ve since read that displaying anger or frustration is seen in these cultures as a sign of weakness, as a loss of control. Reading that, and thinking on things a bit, I decided that maybe the “hostile westerner” approach that always served as the backup plan in Japan wasn’t the best approach. So, for the most part, I’ve done what I can to avoid bringing shame upon my people by “displaying weakness” and getting too visibly pissed off…. well, at least not too often. All of that being said, let me just say that in our short time in China, this cultural and behavioral norm does not seem to apply in the same way whatsoever. If displaying anger and frustration publicly is a sign of weakness, then I’m gonna have to say that a whole lot of Chinese people are kinda weak. 
*Full Vietnam photo gallery below*
We started out today with a half-day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels, about a two hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City. The bus ride and tour was another one of those tourist bottlenecks where all the foreigners merge onto one space like a swarm of locusts. I was reminded again of my initial impression of HCMC being really quite full of tourists. We travelled on a pretty large bus with every seat taken, and every single traveler on the bus was a westerner. Martha said it made her feel like she was on a high school field trip…. except, a field trip at a high school where you can’t stand any of your classmates and they all stink. This like seven foot tall russian guy that we had also seen the day before was wearing the same muay thai boxing t-shirt as yesterday. Him and his whole group stunk soooo bad. I guess when you’re seven foot tall and built like you could tear a door off the hinges you feel entitled to stink as much as you like. Yeah, so Cu Chi is a tourist machine. A machine. They crank through absolute swarms of foreigners. The attraction is the tunnels that were originally built by Viet-Cong and used during the war. There’s 240 km of tunnels, but only certain sections have been protected and preserved. The section available to go through has been enlarged to, as our tour guide put it “international size” (as opposed to Vietnamese size). Read: we’re way too damn fat for their tunnels. I would’ve thought this meant that the “enlarged” tunnels would be easy to move through. They were pretty tight though, and if you have a tendency towards claustrophobia, it might just lead to freak out time going through the 100 meter stretch with turns and ups and downs and sections of pitch black. Add to that the fact that it was sweltering and damp and you had a line of smelly slow pokes in front and behind…. yikes. I kinda had to relax and find a happy place and get centered a little mentally going through a few spots. And damn, those were the “enlarged” tourist tunnels. Viet-Cong spent years in these tunnels. They also showed us a lot of the booby traps used against Americans in the war as well as some of the tricks in jungle combat. I can definitely see how we lost that war. The place also has a shooting range like the one in Cambodia, but they only have regular automatic rifles and it’s really crowded. At similar prices, I’d recommend blowing stuff up and shooting things in Cambodia over Vietnam. 
Vietnamese people, generally speaking, are kinda serious people. Right next door you have the nearly always cheery and jaunty Cambodians, and next door to that it’s “the land of smiles.” In Vietnam though, a lot of people initially present a very severe business-like facade. A little small talk usually breaks through the facade, but in general people do seem to carry themselves a little differently here. Even the shopkeepers aren’t as energetic. Many of them have figured out that their job can be a lot easier when they set up shop as a “fixed price” establishment. It’s pretty common here, and the fixed price places generally have way better prices than the retail warfare markets where you have to haggle incessantly. Whoever figured out that just putting price tags on the goods with the actual price you’re willing to sell it for would bring the westerners to your shop in droves was a real genius. Then the shopkeeper gets to just chill and not harass every passerby on the sidewalk that averts their eyes into the shop. People come, look around, then maybe they leave, they find out who has the best stuff for the best price, and then they come back, or not. 
“If this is the tourist bus, where are all the tourists?”
Six hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh left at 0730. The bus and bus station should be familiar to anyone who’s taken, say, the “Chinatown buses” in the U.S. like Fung Wah or Lucky Star. Same Same. The last bus ride we took on this trip was from Delhi to Jaipur, and despite the fact that we were riding through utter pandemonium, it too was Same Same. One thing we remember on the bus in India was an elementary school-aged girl a few rows back that was puking and retching for hours before we had a mid-trip break. When the bus stopped, she skipped across the parking lot to get some greasy street-cart food with her family and chowed down before getting back on the bus. A few minutes after the bus got going again, she was back to puking and dry heaving. I did think at the time that it was strangely fortuitous that, unmedicated, I didn’t seem to have any motion sickness issues on that bus ride. Anyhow, the India bus did come back to memory when today a cute little asian boy maybe four years old, dressed in a little button up SE asian outfit, started puking his brains out as soon as the bus got going. Like the Indian girl, he wasn’t crying or causing any trouble, just puking and puking and puking. His mom would rub this menthol stuff on him and lay him flat across the seat. 
We’re not the first to observe that Cambodia is kinda like a giant “Dollar Tree.” Seriously, everything here is $1 US. Ok, maybe not everything, but nearly everything. If it’s not $1, then it’s 2 for $1, or 3, or 4, or 10. And if it’s more than a dollar? It’s almost always some tidy sum like $2, or $5. In the very occasional instance that you might need change for some amount less than a dollar… well, you’ll be getting it in Cambodian Riel. The Cambodian currency exchanges at 4000 Riel to the dollar, and it’s all paper money, no coins. That is, no coins seem to be regularly used. It’s really kind of an interesting and surprising setup. I mean, the ATM’s actually dispense USD, and everything is priced in dollars. Not sure of the dynamics on a national level that have them using U.S. currency, but it sure makes for easy calculations of value.
Before arriving in Thailand, Martha and I received some suggestions from family members who had previously traveled there for things to do and stuff to buy. The thing is, the family members with suggestions had visited in the 1970′s. Well, obviously things have changed there since the 1970′s. The ways that they’ve changed are kind of interesting though. One suggestion from family was to visit a floating market. Those are amongst the classic Thailand postcard pictures. They do still exist. However, they only currently exist as a staged destination for tourists. It seems that tourists keep wanting to see them, and even though their practicality has mostly ceased in Thailand, they still stage them to draw tourists. Tuk-tuk’s are another classic tourist thing in Thailand. Tuk-tuk’s are aggressively touted to tourists, and there is a whole cottage industry of tuk-tuk related souvenirs. The issue is that for tourists at least, tuk-tuks are rarely going to be cheaper than an air-conditioned taxi in Bangkok. Tuk-tuks will drive up and quote a ridiculous amount of baht for a short drive, say a few hundred baht or $7-10. A taxi (if you insist on them using the meter) is well under 100 baht ($3-4) for a decent drive across town. Bottom line: tuk-tuk’s in Bangkok are mostly for tourists. 
So what brought us all the way out to Kanchanaburi was a place called “The Tiger Temple.” It’s a Buddhist monastery that has an animal sanctuary around it. There are lots of animals there, many of them running wild within the gates, but what we came for of course are the tigers. The best package you can get at the place has you coming in before all the main tour groups arrive in the afternoon. You have to be there by 0730 and first you have breakfast with the monks there. There was a whole spread of really good Thai food, which was a nice way to start the day. After breakfast, you go through small chores of caring for and interacting with different age groups of tigers. There were a total of eleven tourists there, including Martha and I. The other nine visitors came in two organized tour groups with their own tour guides. Martha and I were the only visitors flying solo. It was pretty badass rolling up to that place on a motor scooter without assistance. Not having a tour guide I think got us a little better experience as well, because we were just one-on-one with staff. So for example, Martha could say “can you make sure I get a really young baby tiger” and they made it happen. Stuff like that, really cool. 
Along with a few other sites, today we planned on checking off our last of the three UNESCO “World Heritage” sites in New Delhi: Red Fort. I gotta be honest with this one, it looks like a construction zone and is really in no way picturesque inside. This place was touched in many areas by Shah Jahan (the Taj Mahal guy) and you can see it in some of the white marble and the patterns used with it. However, a lot of the marble inlays, including jeweled flowers, have been gutted and are missing. Many of the buildings are being renovated or are in serious disrepair. Most of the landscaping is unkempt. Whatever bureaucrat at ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) is in charge of this place should be fired. Or maybe a UNESCO visit might prompt some cleaning. In any event, it’s one of the big sites on most itineraries, but we didn’t think it was worth it. Of course, even if we were told that ahead of time we still would have went. Just like the Trajineras in Mexico City (believe it or not they’re also a UNESCO site). It did take a few hours to explore though because it had a few museums included, so not a total ripoff or anything. 
Now that our time in India is coming to a close, I think we’re just beginning to really work effectively as a team when dealing with the large variety of predators that are encountered on the streets here. Shopkeepers are easy, just keep walking… or if inside and not going well… leave. Beggars…. ignore them, they do not exist. No eye contact whatsoever. I don’t care if they’re doing back flips, I don’t see them. Of course we know better than to take a picture of any random person on the street, but better not take one of them even if they ask. They’ll pull that trick too: “Take my picture, Take my picture!” Then hand’s out immediately for rupies. Fell for that once with a little girl that stalked us for a while in Agra Fort. She latched on to Martha and then (among the legit picture frenzy of college kids wanting pictures with us) she asked us to take a picture with her. That’s when the mom descended with a couple other haggard flea-bitten kids asking for money. That girl stalked us for maybe an hour for that little bit of change. Last time I fall for that though. Yesterday when we were at the Lotus Temple, we had a couple of the nicely dressed college-type kids that made small talk, practiced their English and maybe took a picture with us. I was surprised at how permissive the security was being with my camera, so I busted out the tripod completely and went down to the pool to take my time framing up a nice shot. I’m totally focused on that when a couple kids come up and make some curious small talk, no big deal. Then, as I’m putting my stuff up this kid (who looked just like the last group) starts asking about a picture. He had a cell phone and was well dressed, so I said sure, let me put my camera up and we can take one. “No, take a picture of me.” ….”ummm, no man.” He then snaps a few pics of me. A little irritating, but kinda the usual here. Then, the little bastard holds out his hand and says “some rupies please sir.” I think the most likely visible rage that instantly boiled over my face combined with “For taking a picture of ME?! Have you lost your mind?!” set him aback a little. Some of these guys really have some nerve. 
On the way to our “First Class Sleeper” train car, we walked past dozens and dozens and dozens of open-air hard seating general cars. They had bars on the windows with very sad faces peering out, with people packed in tightly on hard benches. Thousands of people. It looked like the train to some forced labor camp. I was getting a little worried after walking and walking as we started to near the front of the train and only passed more and more and more of these jail cell train cars. Eventually we found our car though, the only one on the entire massive train, and it only had four private cabins. Three of the cabins had four bunks, and one had two bunks, which is amazingly the one that Martha and I got! Out of this entire massive train that surely was carrying more than 1000 people, we were the only couple with secure, private quarters. When we got in there and were able to lock the door behind us I was like Thank God! Some comfortable sleep without having to keep one eye open. Martha was sure that everything was covered in cooties and leprosy though, and I started accusing her of acting like the blonde lady in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” I’m not gonna lie though, the cabin did kinda look like something out of “Silent Hill.” It definitely wasn’t decorated by Martha Stewart. They passed out some clean sheets though and the A.C. started kicking real good and we both slept pretty well for the four hour ride to New Delhi. 
After reading a lot of India travel blogs, one thing becomes clear: Agra is not a place many people are fond of after actually visiting there. It’s often the place where travelers end up getting really ill during a visit to India. It’s filthy, smelly, has packs of wild dogs roaming the streets, and aggressive touts are at every turn. The thing is, none of that matters. People will still come, and they know it. There are limits to how disgusting the town is permitted to be though, but all of that is mostly to keep up appearances on paper. Pollution levels are monitored and industry is more heavily regulated in the area. The Taj Mahal is nearly white, and has a lot of ornate engravings. Token efforts are made to keep it that way. In recent years there was a proposal to drain the (somewhat) picturesque river behind the Taj Mahal and build a dense complex of definitely not picturesque shopping malls for tourists. When UNESCO threatened to withdraw the “World Heritage Site” status of the Taj Mahal, that plan was scrapped. Interestingly, a large portion of investor money for the project “disappeared” without any explanation. What a lovely, exploitive little town. 
After a restful night in our fully air conditioned “oasis in the desert,” we started another day of sightseeing with our trusty tuk-tuk driver Vijay. We had asked him to be there at 8:45 a.m. to make sure we started as early as possible–and it turns out he was more punctual than we were! We still managed to make it to the Hawa Mahal by opening time though, and he instructed us on where to walk and how to avoid touts in the area. Well, at first we thought he was exaggerating since we didn’t see very many people inside or on the way to the complex. As we made our way outside and to the front for the real view, this was where we put our anti-tout tips to work. Ladies with babies, crippled people, small children and old men were persistently begging for rupees, selling junk, or just trying to get our attention. By acting oblivious and shooing people away after a polite “no” we managed to find a way to enjoy the beautiful facade of the Hawa Mahal. Interestingly, the Hawa Mahal was designed to allow royal ladies to look down and observe the happenings on the street without being seen. I can totally see why this was necessary in a country where it’s fairly normal for dirtbags to catcall and act out towards any woman out alone. 
As we planned out this trip, we received plenty of advice…. some solicited, some not so much. Some advice has proven priceless…. and some has proven worthless. And now, as the India segment of our trip has gotten underway, I recall the words of an Indian surgeon I worked with in Cambridge: “Nothing can prepare you for India,” she said. She was absolutely right…. Nothing can prepare you for India. Nothing.
*Check out our complete Moscow photo gallery below*
Walking through the Moscow Metro, you get the sense that you’re moving through hallowed ground. The place is busy, but not notably so, and everyone moves with a very quiet efficiency. Workers are constantly cleaning and polishing the floors. I saw one worker diligently moving a straight line of fine wood chips across the floor to pick up dust before another followed behind polishing the tile. Considering the age of many of the stations (it opened in 1935), the subway really is incredibly clean and well maintained. The architecture is really unique, with some of the oldest stations containing elements of a Soviet take on art deco called postconstructivism. Lots of classical shapes without the classical adornments. A lot of the older stations conform to Stalinist architecture, with all sorts of communist elements such as revolutionary statues and even, say, images of wheat in the ventilation grating. We made a point of stopping for a few minutes at several of the more notable stations, and it’s easy to see why the Moscow Metro makes it on any Moscow “must see” itinerary. 
After an uneventful flight to JFK, we checked in at Terminal 1 for our Aeroflot flight to Moscow. I don’t think we’ve ever been in Terminal 1 in JFK before, but I’ll say this: the place is a zoo. Flights are departing to every imaginable destination with every imaginable culture being jammed through the same customer-friendly TSA security protocols. The people-watching was entertaining to say the least during our wait there. Check-in at the Aeroflot (Russian airline) desk provided some cultural hints at our next destination. For one thing, it’s interesting how ethnically diverse Russian people are. I mean, it’s easy to imagine a stereotype like Ivan Drago (Rocky IV), and there are definitely some of those around. However, there are a lot of Russians who look far more “asian,” as well as all shades in between. We were some of the very few tourists on the flight, but I don’t think it was our physical appearance that made that obvious. The one thing that all the Russians on the flight seemed to have in common was TONS of baggage. Ridiculous amounts piled up on rolling carts. These guys went shopping, big time, and they were bringing home insane loads of stuff. So there were Martha and I with our little backpacks, and when we were finally able to check in the lady seemed a little incredulous that we hadn’t/weren’t checking any bags. 
You know, one can’t help but filter travel experiences through the lens of your own culture and experience. You step into another way of life, observe the differences, and usually start out thinking “WTF is wrong with these people?!!” At least, that’s what I usually think. Seriously though, when observing things that don’t seem to make sense at first, I find it really interesting to find out the reasoning behind those different approaches. Sometimes those reasons are a window into a better way of doing things, and sometimes those reasons are completely stupid. Either way, here goes a random collection of thoughts and observations as we wrap up our time here in Mexico:
Our hiking trip began catching a bus and bringing all our gear from Mexico City to Puebla. After overnighting in Puebla, we met our mountain guide “Oso” (Translation: The bear), who drove us to our first acclimatization stop in Tlachichuca. An interesting note on Oso, while he’s been professionally guiding on mountains for at least 15 years or so and climbing big peaks for much more, one of his prior careers was as a professional wrestler. Not sure if that’s where the nickname came from. The name works for him though. The man is a machine at altitude on the mountain, carrying far more, far faster than seems humanly possible. But alas, I’m getting ahead of myself…
We stayed overnight in Puebla to meet our mountain guide “Oso” (The Bear) the next day to start our hiking trip to Pico de Orizaba. We were only there a short time but we really enjoyed the atmosphere in Puebla. The town is bustling, clean, and had more foreign tourists than any other place we’ve been on this trip. The town square (Zocalo) is blocked from auto traffic on the weekends, and it becomes a very festive, family friendly kind of carnival in the center of the city. The town is known for it’s candy shops, and there’s actually an entire street lined with just candy shops. The shops primarily sell traditional Mexican treats like candied fruit and nuts. However, there are a few treats that are unique to Puebla. One of them, and one that seems to be loved by many, is called camotes. Camotes are like little natural fruit tootsie rolls (except bigger), and I gotta say, they have a really disgusting gritty texture that I didn’t care for. They also tasted entirely too “natural”, that is, not nearly enough sugar, chemicals, and coloring. When I say I want strawberry, or lime, or orange candy, what I really want is “strawberry”, or “lime”, or “orange” candy. Another sweet treat to be found only in Puebla is called “Tortitas de Santa Clara”, and these things were an entirely different story. 
Visited a big museum today and met some more of Martha’s family who are also in town visiting. We visited the Dolores Olmedo museum, which is basically a collection of art and artifacts from a VERY rich lady. A large part of the museum is collections of art from Diego Rivera and Freda Kahlo, actually bigger collections than in the museums that carry their namesakes!
Started out the day in Coyoacan and browsed around a market there. They have a lot of the local crafts and such, but generally of a higher quality and without the aggressive sales tactics at a lot of tourist areas. There was an artisan there selling the traditional carved and painted animals from the Oaxaca area. They had a display of these at the Mexico area in EPCOT years ago and we’ve never seen one’s of that high quality for sale other than from this guy, so we picked up a couple small ones.
Got a fairly early start to go visit the ruins in Teotihuacan (about 45 min from Mexico City). Scorching hot but otherwise good weather. We traveled on the non-tourist local bus (less than $3 each) Interesting events during the trip included being stopped at a Federal Police roadblock and having every passenger and their luggage searched (including of course, the only gringo on the bus, me). After arriving back in Mexico City we braved rush hour in the Metro to get to Zona Rosa. When I say braved, I’m not exaggerating. They pack those subway cars tighter than Shinjuku station in rush hour. Actually, I’m gonna go ahead and say it: Mexico City subways are more crowded and crazier than Tokyo.
Fairly relaxed third day in Mexico City. On the agenda: taking a Trajinera (elaborately decorated boat) down canals first used by the Aztecs. Our destination (sort of) was something called “Island of the Dolls”. It’s a bizarre area off a canal where a man started placing old and mutilated dolls everywhere to appease the spirit of a girl who drowned in the canal where he lived. Eventually locals joined the insanity and it added up to a really bizarre collection of dolls hanging everywhere from trees and such. Anyway, if you wanna see some good pics of that place, you can look it up in the Google because we didn’t get them. We managed to find a launching point for the canals, but our best guess is it didn’t access the island, and the last person willing to tell us that was the man selling us the boat ride. Only after we get going does the story change from taking us to Island of the Dolls to that place being too far away and we’re going to a “replica”. Hah! In any event, the boat ride still managed to be an interesting and slightly fun (albeit mega-touristy) little trip and made for a fairly relaxing day.
after a couple uneventful flights. I’m withholding my complete verdict on the “Cabin Comfort” pillow, but tentatively it seems ok and I managed a short nap on the way here with it. As usual, Martha snoozed most of the flight with her travel C-Collar on.