China: Being Miracled in Beijing

“So you must be Oracle then, right?” I asked, pointing my pen at the student in front of me. I had my pen poised and ready to mark a check mark next to his name on my clipboard attendance sheet.

“No teacher, I am Oracle,” a voice accompanying a raised hand said from across the room, nowhere near where I was.

“Oh, right. So is it Skipper then?” I scanned through my attendance sheet without any idea who this student was. 

“No teacher, that’s me,” another hand in another quadrant of the classroom.

I was five minutes into my first class. I had just spent the last 20 minutes before class looking over their ID card pictures to make a good impression with my class by putting faces to names. I was failing.

“Ok, we have a Jasmine, a Jamie, and a Jericho. Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, I got this,” I said almost pleading with them. I could sense them willing me to get it right, to ease the tension and end this torturous introduction.

I felt out of my element. I was off-kilter in a way I am not accustomed to in the classroom. I had no go-to shticks to break the ice like I did in Turkey and the culturally appropriate jokes and play-on-words I used in Turkey would be of no help to me here. I was floundering.

 I couldn’t really tell if I was thrown off by their ridiculous sounding names or the fact that I was staring at 25 bespectacled and attentive students. The students were poised and ready with open notebooks and sharpened pens watching me fumble through their names. I stood at the front of a classically arranged classroom with row after row of students and me at the pedestal in the front of the class. The classroom was pristine with nothing but notebook ands dictionaries on the desks.

 “Jasmine, Jamie, Jericho…hmmmm.”

 I had no idea. I thought I knew their names but they all look the…

 “I know!” I thought to myself, “A joke!”

“Has anyone every told you guys that Chinese people’s names all look and sound alike?”

So there we have it folks. The introduction to the first class I would have on the first day of my new job in China. A borderline racist joke told by a sweating, fumbling bald guy awkwardly wearing a tie he had just learned how to tie and belting out culturally insensitive jokes because he didn’t know who Skipper, Oracle, and Jericho were.

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Well guys, it has been about a month here so I wanted to give you all a recap on how it has been going. I meant to do this a lot sooner but to be honest, Becky and I have just recently come up for air. Getting used to our new jobs, new social life, and new schedules has been a bit of a chore but we are finding a rhythm, getting into a groove, and even have plans to have people over for “Necky Enchiladas.”

Our adventure, as some of you well know, started out front of our old apartment in Kadikoy, Istanbul with a somewhat teary and a tad bit emotional goodbye (seriously, who cries at goodbyes?) with some of our closest friends in Turkey. We made our way to the airport with less than adequate time to spare before we boarded our plane.

Becky, acting as if we were not uprooting ourselves and our entire lives, promptly fell asleep on my arm where I lay awake for the entire flight, experiencing all the stages of waking-drunkenness that are usually reserved for being sprawled out in a dreamless sleep.

We arrived and met our HR correspondent, Emma, whom we had been corresponding with on a daily basis before we left Turkey. Emma had us picked up and driven out to the campus where we would call home for the next couple of years.  We arrived bleary eyed and in dire need of a shower. We were taken to our room in the teacher’s building and given papers to read and sign. Up to this point, everything felt as unceremonious and drab as the account of the events I am writing now. Emma was going through the motions, obviously busy and probably needing to turn right around and go back to the city to get more new teachers.

Our apartment was surprisingly better than we had anticipated. We got two adjoining apartments but one would have been big enough for both of us (except the closet apparently-- Becky told me she would need the entire space for herself). The kitchen was nice, the bathroom was big, and the flat screen TV had HBO. Upon closer inspection, we would discover that the beds were without linen, the bathrooms  void of toilet paper, and the water cooler was bone dry. This was only discovered as Emma was closing the door behind her, silently taking her leave and scurrying down the hallway before we could volley anymore questions her way.   



Starfish Becky in our bedroom

Too tired to sleep and not awake enough to unpack, Becky and I wandered around the campus for a while. Neither one of us were talking much but I imagine Becky was thinking what I was thinking, which was what the hell had we gotten ourselves into?

The campus was nice enough; big buildings with grassy islands and clean walkways. The school was silent as the returning teachers had not yet returned  and all the new teachers (who had arrived a day before us) were off in the city running errands.  





Campus

 When I say city, I should explain. Although we technically live in Beijing, we are quite far away from the city center. Our campus is on the subway line but with the transfers it takes about an hour and  twenty minutes to get to the city center. We live in an area of Beijing called Chang Ping. Chang Ping is the nearest suburb so any shopping that needs to be done gets done in Chang Ping.

We walked around the empty campus until we saw someone coming our way. He stopped and introduced himself as Joe. It turned out that Joe was the teacher that I had been communicating with prior to our arrival and he had been incredibly helpful. It didn’t stop with emails.

“Are you guys hungry by any chance? I was just heading into the village,” Joe asked, pointing his thumb over his shoulder, approximating the direction of the village from our general location.

We both replied without needing to consult the other.

“This will be my eleventh year at Hui Jia,” Joe said in response to my question regarding his tenure at the international school.

We were walking through the neighboring village that sits between Hui Jia and Chang Ping. The village is a less-than-sanitary, semi-paved strip of underdeveloped land that inhabits around 500 people. Walking through the village reminded me a lot of Vietnam - eateries, food stalls, and shops lined both sides of the street and it was in constant and dusty motion. The people in the village were going this way and that, honking their horns, buying their produce, and riding their bikes. It was about a 10 minute walk from the campus and we had to walk through it to get to Chang Ping and the restaurant we were going to.

 “Wow, something must be keeping you around then,” Becky said, happy to know that this gig might not be as bad as she had thought.

 “Yeah, I have my reasons. I’m sure if you make it through your first month you will find yours as well,” he said with a shrug, implying that this place is not for everyone.

 Joe took us to his favorite restaurant in the village: a small place with cold beer and delicious food. We ate, got the run-down about the job, and got to know each other a bit more.





A rainy night out in the village

  

As I write this, I realize that I do not think Joe knows how important he was to Becky and I on our first day in this place. We were lost, had no toilet paper, and were sleeping bare-bed, using our clean t-shirts as blankets. He must have sensed that we needed a bit of reassuring because he took us out for dinner, paid for our bill, then woke up the next day to take us to Walmart for our essentials.



A Becky Mustache

 This was a theme that did not stop with Joe. Every day we met more and more people that welcomed us in so unbelievably warmly. People were there to answer any of our questions, invite us out for beers, tell us where the best markets were, and bring us into the fold of their community. Becky and I even coined a term for it: “being miracled”. And we weren’t only being miracle at Hui Jia. Everywhere we went, foreigners were going out of their way and above and beyond to help us, make us feel more comfortable, and make sure we got where we needed to go. We talked about this recently with some friends at the bar and someone summed it up like this:

“China is a fucked up shit show man. Without this (air motion of hand with palm down revolving in circular motion around table of people) we’d all be on the first plane back to wherever the fuck.”

She teaches elocution.

The school itself, on the other hand, has taken some getting used to. The Chinese system of doing things makes Turkey look like Scandinavia. Every little thing that happens around the school has us asking why they would think that is a good idea or how could they think we can teach like this.

In the high school, we are all putting money in squares of a pool to see when the school will fix the photocopier that has been broken since last spring. As it stands, we all have to go down to the middle school with several different signed pieces of paper acting as jumped-through hoops to get copies made for students. Only suckers are betting on squares for October.

The school is by no means poor by the way. They have an Olympic size swimming pool, a state-of-the-art gym, and an equestrian club with 50 horses on campus, and an inflatable dome to enclose all of these things to protect them in the winter. But I guess you do not have to be in China long to learn this valuable lesson: A picture of a photocopy machine on a brochure of a school does not help filling enrollment coffers.

Becky approached the shocking photocopy situation a bit differently. When she was first told about the photocopying protocol she went down to the middle school with her appropriate signatures and whatever document she needed to get copied. She arrived in the room to see stacks and stacks of paper on tables, a single photocopy machine being unused, and a Chinese attendant playing on her phone.

First day of school ceremony

“Hello, I’d like to get some copies, please,” Becky said, extending said copies in her general direction.

“Oh, very busy. Very busy. It will take one week,” she responded behind a stack of paper, not even moving from her chair to take the copies from Becky.

“What do you mean? No one is using the machine. I only need 20 copies.”

“Yes. One week. Very busy.”

Now I do not know exactly what happened next as Becky has been quite vague about it, but I do know this: Becky got her copies, the photocopy girl now gives Becky preferential treatment when she walks into the room, that same day a campus-wide change in policy occurred regarding teachers receiving codes to be able to use the photocopy machine themselves, and people whom Becky had yet to meet  were calling her “Becky the Bruiser”-- an aptly placed epithet I might say.

That was on day 1.

  

So as Becky and I kept reassuring ourselves in those first days, things are, in fact, getting better. Becky and I both got promotions. She is a PYP homeroom teacher in grade 1 and I am the head teacher of IB grade 11 in the Diploma Program of the high school. The students I am dealing with are so unbelievably talented that it has been a fun challenge to come up with tough lessons plans for them to complete to keep them engaged and attentive. I have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks getting accustomed to the IB curriculum and exam formats and I now have a pretty confident understanding of how the classes operate.

Lake district of Beijing

Every time Becky and I go into Chang Ping, we buy something for our kitchen and apartment, slowing transforming our place into a cozy home for us.  Becky even found a few western-style grocery stores that have pretty much anything you could get in America for comparable prices. I have joined a bunch of the teachers in a volleyball league, I am a part of a club that plays ultimate Frisbee with 12^th graders, and I even joined a hiking club in central Beijing that takes us out to different places along the unrestored sections of the wall.

Last weekend, I took the bus about 2 hours north of the city for a 6 hour hike along a section of the wall that hasn’t been restored and is well off of the tourist track. It was incredibly beautiful and unlike anything I have ever done. At times the wall less resembled a wall and more resembled a ladder, steeply climbing up the mountainside and extending into the distance out of eyesight. It is something that I have started to do regularly and hope to one day convince Becky to join me on J 

Beijing itself is a ridiculously cool city. Lots of awesome and old fashioned neighborhoods, beautifully ornate- styled Chinese houses, and delicious restaurants with any cuisine you could imagine. The city is speckled with lakes, temples, museums, cool cafes, and bars that sell things other than Efes and Tubourg and for half the price. Becky and I even found a micro-brewery that sells bacon cheeseburgers! Score!

Mexican for her and Vietnamese for me.

Since it is so far away (not that we have much energy after work anyways) we have been generally staying up in Chang Ping during the week and staying in hotels in Beijing on Friday and Saturday night. There is a  bar and a couple of restaurants in the village that we meet up with friends at during the week, but it’s generally on the weekend that we go out and do things in the city.

Johnathan's birthday

Just like Vietnam, the Chinese love their karaoke, so Becky and I have been belting out our ballads on a regular basis. Last week a bunch of us went to a puzzle palace where they lock you in a room which is connected to 3 other rooms but to pass through the first room to get to the next, you have to answer a series of questions. It was awesome, as long as you don’t have to use the facilities while you are in the room.

Another issue you might be wondering when I was going to get around to is the pollution. The pollution sucks. Let’s just get that out there. When we first went to Beijing and stepped out of the metro, Becky’s and my eyes and nose instantly started burning – apparently on a day that was not so bad as well. Sometimes it feels like we are enshrined in a cloudy mist but it’s really just the pollution enveloping the city center. Luckily, where we are in Chang Ping does not have the same problem (or as bad of a problem) as the city center. We get lots of blue skies and days that are good enough to bike around the city and the beautiful parks of Chang Ping. Regardless, it is something that we have had to get used to but getting out of the city and going hiking on the weekend has helped me immensely.



Our first day in Beijing's city center.

 

Although I have come a long way from my first day of class and Becky a long way from her threatening the Chinese staff, not a day goes by where we don’t somehow talk about Turkey or America in some capacity - the city, our apartment, our families, and all the friends that lie between. It has been hard going from what we had to Turkey to have to start over in a new place with new people, but having each other has made all the difference. We have been keeping busy with IB workshops, lesson planning, and Chinese lessons but we still have time to stop and think about the lives and friends we have left behind and hope that everyone is doing well and know that we miss the shit out of them.

And even though Becky and I are getting along fine in a new city, we are very happy to be seeing a couple of familiar faces next week!



Melis and Leedham in Beijing!

Look for more posts from our trip when we meet up with Melis and Leedham and head to ZhangJiajie National Park during the week long National holiday! 

 

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Sri Lanka

February 7th - February 22nd

My February winter break was fast approaching and I had still made no plans. Becky and I had different breaks, Europe was cold and I wanted to get out of the country. I did a Google search at work one day about the best places to go on holiday in February. The islands of Thailand came up first, Goa next, then Rio. I had already been to Thailand, if I were to go to Goa, I would want to go when I could see more of India, and the plane ride to Brazil would be too long and expensive.

“Ok,” I thought, “What about best places for January? If it's good then, it would have to still be pretty good in February, right?” Sri Lanka was on the top of the list.

I was able to talk a couple of other friends into joining me on this 2 week trip through Sri Lanka: Co-workers Kirk, Duwane and Sylvia. They all needed very little convincing, Kirk least of all who agreed to come pretty much before I got the entire sentence out inviting him along.

We flew in to Colombo on an overnight flight with Arabian Airlines. Despite what visions of luxury, grandeur, or customer pampering you may think Arabian Airlines elicits as you roll it off your tongue, let me just say that Arabian Airlines is a flying piece of shit. At every available avenue the airliner was trying very hard to convey that they were a budget airline that you will never want to travel on again. They were looking for some way to tack on some sort of tax here, a baggage or meal fee there, or even a “please-do-not-raise-your-voice-to-the-flight-attendant” fine somewhere – but we'll get to that.

There were two things that caught my immediate attention as we collected our bags and exited through the doors of the airport that ushered us into this new country:


1. The humidity. As soon we walked out of the door we were met with an inescapable wave of wet air washing over us, drenching us like a warm bucket of urine on a cold day. At first it is amazingly refreshing but feelings of relief quickly ebb as the discomfort and knowledge wash over you and you realize that this, is here to stay.

2. A sign that read: Anyone caught smuggling drugs in or out of the country will face a punishment of death. This is the type of sign that catches your eye I suppose.


After circumventing the usual melee of taxis trying to take us into town, (“All the buses are broken, I will give you a good rate!” “The bus station is four kilometers walking distance, uphill!” or “I will show you Colombo tour for free!”) we found the bus station (20 meters from airport entrance) and made our way into town.

Kirk and I desperately tried to enjoy our day in Colombo. We walked through the markets, the seaside and the downtown quarter but it just was not worth doing. I was very happy with my decision to book a train that night to take us to the beach as soon as possible.

We woke up the next morning, clear on the other side of the country in a place called Trincomalee. Trincomalee is a tiny little sea village known for its fishing and, apparently, not known for its tourism. Kirk and I stayed in a bungalow right on the beach which was nearly void of any other travelers or tourists. Itineraries tend to take people to the southern beaches and not the eastern ones, I would later find out. This worked for me. I spent two days laying on the beach, watching fishermen haul in massive catches of fish by hand and reading my book. Nights were spent at various watering holes and beach side bars.

At the base of Sigiriya Rock

After leaving Trincomalee, Kirk and I headed south to meet up with Duwane and Sylvia who had flown in a day later than us. We met up in Sigiriya at one of the most important archaeological sites in the country. In the center of beautiful Sigiriya is this enormous column of rock towering nearly 700 feet in the sky. The steep climbed is interspersed with ornate, well preserved frescoes and remnants of buildings, amphitheaters and various signs that this area was once heavily populated. The climbed was well worth it. At the top were beautiful gardens and a 360 degree birds eye view of the surrounding area.

The next few days were spent in the mountains of Kandy. Kirk and Duwane stayed back one day while Sylvia and I braved the public transportation and headed out to the neighboring villages to hike along a path we had heard about and to visit different temples and monasteries in the area. That was the highlight of my time in Kandy, an area of Sri Lanka that we did not see again.

The four of us were enjoying an evening beer at the only bar in town (we struggled at times to find a place to sit down and have a drink) when someone overheard us talking about our plans to grab the train through the hill country and head out to Adam's Peak for the sunrise hike.

Adam's Peak: One of the main attractions for travelers in Sri Lanka is climbing up Adam's Peak at 3 in the morning to witness one of the best sunrises Sri Lanka has to offer. Travelers make the trip out there just for this – sacrificing a night of sleep for this amazing experience of watching a sunrise high atop Adam's Peak. But Adam's Peak isn't just any 'ol peak, it is the very place that Adam touched down, leaving his footprint in the side of the earth for all to marvel at, or so the legend says. Except, depending on who you talk to, it might have had something to do with Buddha's left foot indenting the ground, or again, if you talked to a Hindu, it was the footprint of Shiva. For some reason, deities really liked this goddamn mountain.

Getting back to the woman in the bar...as you probably know, deities really like being worshiped by people: songs, gatherings, ESP, and on special occasions, pilgrimages. Poya days (Adam's Peak pilgrimage days) were every full moon during the dry months, and tomorrow, as it of course turned out, was a full moon. We thanked the girl for the heads up and thought about what to do. We didn't have time to stay another day in Kandy and none of us (except Duwane, he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about climbing up some big ass mountain in the dark just to see something that happens every day. Why don't we care about every sunrise of every day in every country we travel to?) wanted to miss out on this experience. We decided to go there early, climb the mountain during the day, be there for sunset, then climb back down. If the things people were saying were true, we did not want to be anywhere near that mountain in the middle of the night on a Poya day.

We took a beautiful bus ride through the rolling hills of the high hill country and finally made it to the base of Adam's Peak. We checked into our pension, dropped our bags and started charging up the hill. Duwane took a separate bus to the next destination muttering something derogatory about religion and wishing us luck on our hike.

Hiking outside of Kandy

We started walking up the hill at 3 in the afternoon. The mountain rose high and beautifully out of nowhere, thousands of feet from the base of the village. It was a daunting task from the bottom and it would only be made more difficult by the expected tens of thousands of pilgrams that night. The three of us made good time walking up the hill. The mountain was very lively and jovial. Every few steps, we could hear a different group of people chanting, cheering and singing as they climbed. This was obviously something that they relished doing. They would stop on the stairs for food, drink, conviviality and for the occasional dry heaves. The stairs got steeper and steeper as we climbed higher and higher into the clouds. One hour turned to two and two to three. Dads were carrying toddlers on their backs, pairs of women were heaving massive bags up the stairs, each of them holding on to one strap and all the while people were singing, laughing and carrying on. This was not a labor for anyone, this was something they were all happy to be doing, and no one was alone.

From the base of Adam's Peak

As we neared the top, I could tell that we were almost there with plenty of time to spare when all of a sudden, the wall of people trudging up the stairs came to a standstill. No one was moving up anymore. People were still singing and dancing, but they were doing it in their stationary location now. I looked back just to see more and more people lining up behind us.

After about an hour in a line that moved a few stairs every 5 minutes, it was apparent that we were not going to make it for sunset. The chants got fewer and farther between and what once was not a laborious task, became a laborious task. We contemplated turning back but didn't, having spent so much time already invested in this damn mountain, we persevered. Towards the top we realized what the hold up was, everyone was lining up through this tiny little door frame to ring a bell at the apex of the mountain. People were becoming antsy, pushy and in every way irritated. Every time we thought we were going to turn a corner and reach the top, another top would crop up. Finally, we made it with the last glimmers of sunlight showing over the furthest mountain tops in the distance.

“Well,” I said, “That's that.”

As the pinprick of remaining sunlight faded, there was nothing else to see besides our own tired faces, so with little pomp and even less ceremony, we began our decent of over 6,000 stairs. I found the entire experience incredibly fascinating (and at times, a little irritating). We estimated that there might well have been 100,000 people on the mountain that night. As we descended the mountain, we passed the ever-growing wall of people stretching miles and miles from the top, snaking down the side of the mountain; everyone at a standstill. They were all singing, dancing and happy to be on this pilgrimage on this clear night. Whether they were Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu they climbed the mountain together, letting people pass by or helping others up, indiscriminate of who that person might think is the owner of the footprint at the top. For all of my thoughts on religion, I found this to be a very touching sight to see.

Sylvia and I at the top

A long time ago, I read a book called 'Fury' by Salman Rushdie and as I stumbled down the mountain on my wobbly legs, I remembered something he had written that for whatever reason,came to me at the time. Rushdie wrote:

“If fraternal love held all men bound, how beautiful life would be.”

I feel like I almost caught a glimpse of what he was talking about on this mountain. In our lives, we all have agendas in one sense or another. Things we plan on doing, need to do, strive towards; promotions we are seeking, girls we are courting and money we need to save. In a lot of cases, and in a lot of ways, it would be easy to accomplish these things on the backs of others - pushing others down as we give ourselves a leg up, putting our needs over others' , regarding what we need as superior, more urgent and less trivial. On that mountain, whether it be Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or the occasional atheist in the crowd, hands were offered, songs were sung and eventually, the lined did move and people did get to ring that bell.

Our jello knees made it down the hill and the next day we made it down the mountain and over to Ella. Now, for the whole trip, I had been in charge of the accommodation - calling everywhere a few days in advance, asking about accommodation, negotiating prices, making sure that everyone in our group was happy and I was a little apprehensive about this place we were staying at in Ella. It was the most expensive place on our trip, but from everything that I had read, this was a place where we should shell out some extra cash. So, I took a risk and booked it, asking everyone to pay a little bit above their budget but telling them it was going to be worth it. It was.

The place we were staying at was breathtakingly gorgeous. We stepped out onto the terrace overlooking an endless canyon of lush green with towering mountains on either side. It was perfect and exactly what we all wanted for our sore legs and feet after our hike.

View from our balcony in Ella

The day progressed and we concluded it down in the town with a Sri Lankan curry and a few beers. The sun disappeared quickly and so did our energy. Duwane, Sylvia and I were headed home but Kirk, not ready to give up his drinking session, opted to stay at the bar and make up for lost time. We left him to his devices, paid our bill, and set off for our hotel. It wasn't two semi-strided steps before all three of us, in near unison, said that there was no chance in hell that Kirk was making it back to our place by himself. It would be a difficult task for him stone cold sober, in the middle of the day, with clear visibility, but as it was, he would be stumbling drunk, in pitch blackness, after a dense fog had rolled in.


We made it back to our place, but couldn't tear ourselves away from the balcony. We sat there, watching the fog roll in and roll out, ethereally, changing minute by minute as if controlled by some sort of massive flume, manipulating the night sky, obscuring one thing and showing another at its will. We sat there for hours talking about this and that until at one point, we glanced at our watch, realized the time and then realized that our jokes from hours before were now something we had to deal with. Kirk was still not back.

We figured that if he got into any trouble he would likely ring either myself or Sylvia on our Sri Lankan SIM cards that we had until we realized that:

A: Sylvia's phone lie at the bottom of her purse, battery fully dead and turned off, and B: Kirk never took down my number.

Just as I had started to put my shoes on to retrace my steps to the bar in hopes of finding a frightened Kirk walking aimlessly in the woods (we had to walk through the woods to get to the town), Kirk was stumbling up the trail to the hotel, following a nice Sri Lankan man whose help he had enlisted in this arduous task of getting back to where he would need to pass out.

Kirk was not holding this guys hand "per se", but you could tell that he needed to be hand-held, a babe in the (literal) woods who could not offer this motorcycle taxi driver enough information for him to help him adequately in this seemingly easy task.

We later learned the story of what transpired once Kirk left the bar, made an immediate mistake in orienteering himself back to the hotel and then approached someone for help:

Kirk: Hello, I can't seem to find my hotel. Do you know where I am staying?

Motorbike Driver: Huh? No. Well, what is the name of it? I will take you there.

Kirk: A name? Why, yes, it does in fact have a name. I suppose that would have been something very useful to have jotted down before setting out alone on a piss up this foggy, disorientingly dark evening. I would even like to say that the name, in fact, escapes me, but I do believe that I never bothered to learn it in the first place.

Motorbike Driver: Hmm, are you staying alone?

Kirk: No, I am not. Ah, yes of course! My friends! I'll call my friends! I'll call Sylvia! Shit! It's turned off...I know! Nick! I'll call Nick! Let me look here through my contacts in my phone...N...N is for....Nick...Nick...hmmm...I don't seem to have taken down these valuable details either. Oh man, I am really blowing this aren't I?

Motorbike Driver: Yes, you are. Well, can you say anything useful?

Kirk: Um...we have a view?

Motorbike Driver: A view of...?

Kirk: Oh of course, silly me...a green mountain.

Motorbike Driver: (audible sigh) Get on.

A half hour later, Kirk was being led all the way down the trail to the doorstop of his hotel room. We had heard Kirk's voice off in the distance about 30 paces ago saying:

"I can take it from here, seriously. You don't need to lead me any further. I got it now, thanks a lot. I remember where I am. I appreciate your help but I have now become self-reliant."

But apparently, Kirk’s behavior and demeanor up until that point had proven to the contrary and any slurry protestations he might have been sputtering were met with disbelief and discard. It was not until the man was standing in front of Kirk's hotel room that he was willing to leave him be.

As Kirk and his new friend approached the hotel, the three of us took in the situation, watching our hours ago prophecy be fulfilled. We vowed in our inebriated state that Kirk's antics, although embarrassing, would not go forgotten and we would make sure to bring them up at every subsequent avenue. And we did. And now I writing about it.

We left Ella and the hill country, ending the first phase of our trip and starting the second: beach and booze. We got a ride all the way from Ella down to the coast where we would be staying at Tangalle. Again, stressing over where we would be staying, we elected to err on the side of swanky and booked ourselves into a nice place right on the beach.

Restaurant on the beach in Tangalle

Now accustomed to the humidity, the southern beaches of Sri Lanka were a welcome reprieve to our ruin walking, hill-climbing bodies. We had grand aspirations of sitting on beaches, drinking beers, reading books and throwing the frisbee.

The beaches of Tangalle rivaled those of Thailand. Beautiful sands, crisp blue and green waters, and groves of trees providing shade from the hot afternoon sun. The beaches we went to were unlike any I had ever been to before. As you waded into the water, the sand quickly disappeared underfoot as the tide ripped your feet out from under you. When you wanted to exit the water, it was tricky business. You had to make sure you were wading with your feet under you as the wave catapulted you from the sea onto the beach, as if the wave was a giant throwing hand and you were in its palm. This skill was far from innate to me. The first time I tried to exit the water in a doggy paddle position, I was picked up by the wave and quickly and firmly deposited on my face in the sand. As I tried to stand up and pick the sand out of my ass crack, the strong tide swept me back out to sea and re-catapulted me once again onto my face, like a soggy rag doll in some sort of painful washing cycle. Instead of rinse, wash and spin it was rip, wave, and pummel Nick-on-his-face-in-front-of-everyone. Eventually I got the hang of it, planted my feet below me and let the wave throw me on to the beach where I landed on my feet to the sounds of Duwane, Sylvia and Kirk laughing hysterically at me and my pasty, sand-welted body.

I spent the days reading, swimming and working on my sunburn. Nights were spent exploring different restaurants in the area and drinking beers to the sound of crashing waves. My favorite meal of the trip was at a restaurant right on the water. The menu consisted of fresh, made-to-order seafood that changed day to day depending on what the fishermen were able to catch. The place had no electricity so as not to take away from the ambiance of the starry nights, the crackle of the sand rolling up the beach with the tide, and the reflection of the rising moon on the still water.

Before the week was over, I was even able to treat myself to my new found hobby: scuba diving. The water was beautiful, clear, and I was even saw an octopus! Scuba diving is almost like a drug. The rush you get from being down there is nothing I can even begin to describe. All I can say is that if you are thinking about getting your certification, do it!

I wish I could tell you the flight home was as uneventful as the flight to Sri Lanka. The planes were late at every terminal, I was uncomfortably sunburned while sitting in my seat, and everyone around us was speaking Russian and Arabic in elevated voices. The rink-a-dink, nickel and dime airline wouldn't take my Turkish Lira so I couldn't even buy a water and for some reason, the air-conditioning was not working.

As the night progressed, people started to drift off to sleep and Kirk took the opportunity to find a free row of seats to lie down on. I spread my legs out, trying to get as comfortable as possible right when someone from the back of the plane joined the girl sitting in front of me, presumably to chat her up. I laid there for some time, listening to the probably stupid conversation these people were having in front of me in Arabic until I had to get up and move myself. Irritated, tired, and parched, I went to the back of the plane in search of a free row. Nothing. I walked back up the rows again, past my original row, and headed to the front. Perfect, the first 5 rows were unoccupied. I began to lay down and tried to get comfortable when I received a tap on the shoulder.

"Excuse me sir, you are going to need to go back to your seat. These seats are reserved," the miserly, haggard-looking woman who had previously denied me a small, plastic cup of water because I didn't have 3 euros said.

"Reserved?!? Reserved for who?". I asked, as I sarcastically and over-dramatically craned my head left and right looking for the potential reservee, "We are an hour into the flight, will someone be joining us for the second half?" (I am sure kept the indignation out of my voice not even a little bit.)

"No sir, but anyone wanting to sit in the first 5 rows of the aircraft must pay an additional fee of 20 US dollars," she said, matter-of-factually.

"Oh really? And I suppose it's your charming demeanor that has so many people pushing others out of the way to sit up here which would be closer to you then right?", I opined. There was not a single person in the first 5 rows.

Miserly skelator started reiterating the exact same robotic script about paying an additional fee if I wanted to sit up here when I cut her off mid sentence.

"Oh, you know what? Just shut UP. Just SHUT up! I'll go back to my seat.”

I went back to my seat emboldened enough by my boiled-over ire to address the suitor in the seat in front of me who was still yapping away in Arabic.

"Excuse me, sir? Is this your seat?", I asked sternly.

"What?", he said, glancing from me to the woman then back to me.

"Your seat? Your seat? The number on your ticket. Is this it?", I asked, pointing to the seat he was currently occupying.

"Uh, no, no it's not," he said. Now I was noticing that the girl was looking at me in a very thankful way. She was as done talking to this guy as much as I wanted him to be done talking.

"Would you mind going back to your seat? Everyone around you is trying to sleep," I said, pointing to everyone around me who was now looking at this man, willing him with their eyes to listen to my request.

"Well, maybe it is time for me to go to sleep I suppose."

Glad there was no air marshal on this flight to take me down. I have lived to fly another day, just not on Arabic Airlines.

Books Read:

Divergent - Veronica Roth

The Accursed Kings: The Royal Succession (Book 4) - Maurice Druon 

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker

Trincomalee in the morning

Frescoes of Sigiriya Rock

Kirk, Sylvia, and Duwane atop Sigiriya Rock

Seafood restaurant by candle light

Sigiriya Rock

Beaches of Tangalle

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The Lycian Way

June 15th - June 23rd 2012

So with 2 weeks off that Becky had to work, I thought it would be a perfect time to take a trip that I knew she had absolutely zero interest in doing and was something I had wanted to do ever since I had heard about it in early 2009. I would walk a section of the Lycian Way. The Lycian Way is a through-hike stretching 510 kilometers between Fethiye and Antalya. I had it all planned out. I'd fly into Dalaman and then bus it to Kas. From Kas, I would spend the next 2 weeks hiking through ruins, passing beautiful coastlines and walking through Turkish villages. I had my sleeping bag, bought a tent and found my compass.

I had spent the previous 2 weeks studying a guide book of the hike and making notations of trail updates I found online. I learned the Turkish words I would need to know on the trail that I had absolutely no use for in the city like “way-makers”, “foot path” and “potable”. I bought a sun hat, found sunscreen and checked weather reports. Not only did I check weather reports for the next 2 weeks but I checked the previous 5 years of weather reports for the same 2 weeks in June I was planning to walk. June isn't the best time to walk the trail but it is in no way out of the question. I counted on it being about 32 degrees for most of the trip which was, with the amount of water I was going to be carrying and the times of day I was planning on walking, incredibly doable.

When I finished work, I flew down to Dalaman and jumped on a bus south to Kas. I bought 6 liters of water, grabbed some trail food and started walking outside of the city heading in the direction of the trail head and eventually, Olympos. My total trip had me walking about 175 kilometers and ending up on the beaches of Olympos where I would spend the last few days of the trip sitting on the beach, reading a book and allowing my feet to recover.

A view of the coastline from the trail

The onset of the hike was great. I had a bounce in my step and I marveled at everything I encountered. I was very happy to be hiking and out in the open. I spent the first day walking along beautiful coastlines with views of the sea that were bluer than any other water I had ever seen and speckled with dozens of jagged islands that looked both undiscovered and uninhabitable. These beautifully formidable islands added greatly to the beauty of the walk. With every break, I observed a beautiful, serene stillness that seemed to be all around me. At the end of the first day, I trudged into this village looking for a flat place to pitch a tent and refill my 6 liters of water that had been quickly disposed of and surprisingly insufficient. I found that along the way all the places I was told I could fill up with water were bone dry. But I, undeterred and exhibiting worrisome indifference to this dilemma, simply figured I was not rationing my water well enough and scaled back my intake.

I bought some food from the villagers and they allowed me to stay on their land and refill my bottles. I spent the first night talking with some villagers who told me that they hadn't seen anyone walking the trail in 10 days and that they figured the season to be over due to the onslaught of atypical heat. It hadn't registered to me until that moment that it might have been hotter than what I thought it was supposed to be. She told me that the last 3 weeks had been right around 42 degrees with little variation accounting for: 1. Little to no water in local wells or my water bottles 2. No people on the trail doing the same thing as me and 3. A pounding headache that I was now attributing to my serious dehydration.

Again, undeterred to such compromising trifles, I adapted my plan and forged ahead. I would wake up earlier, walk until midday, find a tree to sit under until the heat subsided at around 4pm-ish and then continue on to my next destination. Bam. Problem solved and headache sure to be vanquished.

Well, the heat reprieve I was banking on left something to be desired. I got up and hit the trail at 6am but it might as well have been 9am. It was balls hot as soon as the sun was up except today was different as I was conscious of it. I was walking about the same amount as I did yesterday. Yesterday was 18 kilometers and today would be 21. 12 miles. Piece of cake. Up and over 3 ridges and then a descent to the village. The way-markers were good, the trail was negotiable and although more tired than the day before, I still retained a bounce in my step and an unwavering determination to keep walking. I had every intention of making it to Olympos no matter how hot it was.

Well, it turned out I needed to stop and run for cover a lot earlier than expected. It was 10:30 am when I was crawling under a tree, escaping the scorching hot sun and trying to conserve energy expended during my cool morning walk. I read, wrote notes and observed donkey-carts being lead by villagers that seemed utterly perplexed by my presence on the side of the road in this heat. 4 pm-ish ended up being about 6 pm-ish when I rose from my marginal provider of coolness and soldiered on. I made my way the remainder of the 21 kilometers to this beautiful valley floor, unable to recall the last 4 hours of my walk and also unable to disregard the fact that I still had not see any other hikers.

I slept horribly; Constant cramping in my legs and oscillating between seeking refuge in my sauna-like tent and the mosquito-laden open air. Sleep did not come easily and 5:30 am came far too quickly but with the added addition of hundreds of mosquito bites (apparently the mosquito repellent I bought in Turkey was less repellent, more sugar water). The heat was not what I planned it would be and it was causing slight discomforts but I pushed on nonetheless.

I filled up my water at a local mosque and hit the trail early. To get to where I wanted to be this evening (a water source) I would not be afforded the opportunity to post up under a tree for an entire work day and wait for the heat to subside. Water, shade or not – I had 23 kilometers to walk to get to my next reliable water source and village. I could not be certain, but today definitely felt hotter than yesterday, and yesterday was surely hotter than the first day which was 42 degrees. The serene stillness I observed 2 days ago now left me acutely aware of the absence of any wind or cross-breeze.

I set off up and over the pass that would then saddle back to the coastline and carry on inundulatingly for hours winding in and out of views of the coastline and the islands that seemed to follow me everywhere I went. I actually remember very little of this part of the day. Whatever my body was forced to do to conserve energy, water and allow me to put one foot in front of the other left no allowance for day dreaming, note taking or, as I would later realize, photography. I guess even though I was consciously making bad decisions, walking into mind-boggling heat, subconsciously I was making necessary arrangements to get me to my village...up until about 4 pm.

Day 2 campsite

I stumbled to a stop to have a drink of water that seemed to be depleting with accelerated sieve-leeking speed when I felt a creeping suspicion of impending projectile vomit washing over me. I bent over, realized this was actually happening, assumed the position and watched as I regurgitated precious water and bits of lunch like a shotgun blast -  cascading all over the surrounding rocks and dirt. And just as I had finished voiding my body of the very substance that seemed to be preventing me from keeling over, my backpack, reaching an inertic tipping point as I stood bent over retching, propelled itself forward and forced me downwards on an unalterable trajectory into my newly formed puddle of excreta.

I lay there, ascertaining and quantifying my situation, wondering A) How much water I had left in my pack and B) If, just by chance, maybe I had turned the tide of my wayward leaning luck train and somehow didn't just plummet into my own vomit?

The answers were little and no, respectively.

Tapping into an unknown resource, I picked myself up off the vomit-muddied earth and assessed that I had about an hour more of walking to do, waning sunlight and a puny amount of water. None of which were being helped by my woozy stagnation in this spot. I got my bearings, found my path and plotted onward in a daze of dehydration and confusion. I finally reached the village that had a potable drinking source, filled up my water and proceeded to curl up in a ball on my mat, drinking thimble sized cups of water and waited for the nausea and blinding headache to dissipate.

Lycian sarcophagi along the trail

My brain was turned to mush, I wasn't thinking clearly, and I was quite confused as to where I was. Too much water would cause me to throw up but not enough would somehow cause me and my mat to spin around in circles in the most annoying way. I spent the rest of the evening curled up on my mat too deprived of energy to even swat the mosquitoes off of my face. Sunstroke is no joke.

I woke up late the next day after another sleepless night, nursing myself back to acceptable hydration standards and contemplating the future of this trip. I had read that the water sources were few and far between for about the next week and that its not advisable in hot temperatures. I walked into town to buy some food and inquire about the trail. My brain, not operating on all its cylinders, was definitely affected in the foreign language department which made communication slow at first, but I eventually conveyed what was going on and they were very surprised that I was walking and also very adamant that I stop immediately. They told me that there was no water on the trail and absolutely no shade to take refuge in. I would need at least 12 liters in this heat. It ended up being 45 degrees yesterday with expectations to rise in the next few days and the wind, which I never felt in the first place, was expected to die down completely.

So that was it, I left the trail. It was too stupid to continue no matter how much I wanted to and it was supposed to get worse in the next few days. Not happening. Super pissed off and disappointed, I took a boat taxi to the nearest bus station and boarded it heading south. I had no idea of what to do but decided to go to the place that I was supposed to end up at, Olympos. I talked to Becky who made me a reservation at a hostel (and who was also very pleased that I had tabled the hike) and I made a plan to go sit on a beach for a day or 2 and then sort things out from there. Since I still had 10 days before I flew back to Istanbul, I figured that would be as good of a place as any to waste some time at. Becky told me how to get there and I made my way in that direction.

Driving into Olympos was not what I expected. I expected sandy beaches, umbrellas and open air cabanas but we were driving through forested roads, winding our way through dry river beds and past tacky buildings dressed up as tree houses. Whatever the allure of this place was, it was still alluding me and I'm sure my sunny disposition wasn't helping. I still carried around with me an air of pissed-offness that I couldn't seem to shake and so far, Olympos wasn't helping.

Olympos Beach

I checked in, surveyed the place, marveled at the wonder of the air-conditioned room I was staying in and then did a double take when they told me that both breakfast and dinner would be included in the very cheap price that I had been quoted for the room. The hostel was laid out with several open-air, ottoman style sofas on stilts where people were hanging out, reading books and drinking beers. They told me that I could run a tab on the room and just pay when I left-eerily tantalizing words that sound so attractive and yet are never a good idea.

I made myself at home, hung out on the ottoman couches and read my book for awhile. I later made my way down to the beach that was unlike anything I had ever seen. As soon as you walk down, through the old ruins of the ancient Lycian town, the remnants of the city gave way to a beautiful beach, a cliff face and old defensive towers and fortifications perched up above the beach, overlooking the pristine water. The place instantly thrusted me back hundreds of years and gave me a strong appreciation of this place and its obvious significance in history.

I had planned to stay in Olympos for a day and I ended up staying for 9. I loved it there. I met interesting people, had great discussions, read books, drank beers, ate great food and got a sunburn. I walked the ruins, went cliff diving, took a night hike to the eternal flame and stayed up late talking about random things. It was hard for me to remember why I was so upset when I first got there. Although I didn't get to complete my 175 km hike this time, I will revisit the Lycian Way sometime in the future for sure. It will not be done anytime later than April or before September but I will somehow find a way to do it. I have to. In the end, this trip was anything but a disappointment. Well, everything except the check out I suppose...

I had begun thinking about this moment a few days earlier. The check out. The moment you realize that you must stand at the cashier on the day of your bar-tab reckoning and atone for your gluttonous sins and your hedonistic alcoholic purchases.  Almost as if there would not be an inevitable, monetary responsibility for services and libations rendered. I pushed the thought out of my head, willing it to never come. Hoping for some sort of clerical error that would wipe out everything, eliminating any evidence that I had ever sauntered over to the bar to obtain something, down to the very last unnecessary chocolate bar. This day, sadly, did not come.

On the day of my departure, I stood there at the desk, backpack donned and wallet out, searching the desk attendant's face for any clue as to the damage I was about to incur but found only indifference. Surely it could not be that bad could it? 9 days of lunches, waters, drinks and incidentals? How much could that have gotten to, honestly? He tallied it up, punched the calculator, scribbled some numbers and pushed the docket to my side of the window from where he sat. I picked it up, unfolded it and quietly quivered as I internally railed against this ridiculous number. “How could this be?!?” “There must be some mistake!” I formed the words to speak but first made hasty calculations in my head. Frantically carrying ones, doing long division and solving for X in a banal attempt to show an apparent mistake. I finished my calculations, sighed and handed over my credit card. When all was said and done I realized that if anything, they probably forgot to tally a beer here and a chicken sandwich there. I was deflated and downtrodden. That piece of paper stared at me with a big, disgusting number :(

So yes, I almost died of heat stroke. If a couple of things had gone differently on this trip, I could still be out there at the time of writing this, like a dried up piece of bacon, melting in the sun and being picked a part by vultures. Luckily, the only real bad thing that happened was I had to pay a rather large bar tab. Like I said, the Lycian Way will one day be revisited. At a time when I do not have to carry more weight in water than in everything else combined and when I won't be constantly plagued with headaches and bouts of neasuea. The trail will not take the best of me, that, I promise you.

So I made it to Antalya and hopped on a flight back to Istanbul to meet Becky. Although I was 2 weeks into my 5 week holiday I felt that it was about to start in some strange way. Becky was getting off work that night for her summer and the next day we were jumping on a plane to Africa.

To be continued.

Books Read:

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak 

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