The Long Way to the Golden Temple, Amritsar, India (Aug 2008)

It's the nicest and most expensive hotel I've stayed at on this trip, as evidenced by it's 24-hour hot water (I don't even have to turn on the electric heater and wait 20 minutes), toilet paper provided sans the little waste-basket next to the toilet, meaning I can actually flush it, and built-in air conditioning. With all this to luxuriate in, and breakfast on the lovely terrace, the motivation to strike out into the city is wilting.

While at breakfast I meet a middle-aged Indian woman, or rather woman of Indian descent, she's actually British. She's meeting her daughter here and showing her around, they will take a rickshaw to the Temple and then perhaps move on to a little Hindu temple outside of town where one prays for fertility. She is a chatterbox, I know all about her, her daughter, her family, her career, and her home in England after a couple cups of coffee; she seems about to invite me to join her in her tours today but I quickly explain that I plan to walk to the Golden Temple.

She is taken aback, why would I do that, the rickshaw is not expensive. But, I have all day to see the Temple, and if I take the rickshaw there I'll be done by noon and then what will I do? I have the time, instead I will wander through the city on foot and try to get a feel for it. It's my favorite way to experience new places, rather than zooming directly from one attraction to the next. Sometimes it works out, and I find little gems that no one has yet listed in a guidebook, and sometimes I just get shit on my shoes but I won't know what Amritsar has until I walk its alleys.

We part ways. I consult the map in my guidebook and set out, right on Queens Road to Court Road and then across the rail tracks to the Old City gate. Dusty and hot already and it's only 10am. There's a traffic circle outside the Hall Gate, a statue of Someone Important on a rearing horse and brandishing a sword. I walk around and into the gate, map check one more time--this should be easy, I will walk up the Hall Bazaar, past City Hall and the Bank, until it dead ends and then turn right, the Temple will be right in front of me.

I had high hopes for the Hall Bazaar. I wanted to see little stalls with vendors hawking their wares, spices and trinkets and household goods and the mishmash of essential and useless items. Instead, there are metal shutters drawn down over storefronts, and the signs indicate that these businesses serve the needs of those who need their sewing machines repaired, things like that. There will be nothing for me to touch and admire even when the grates open. There are no women in the streets, I'm the only one, and the men are staring openly. It's not so much that they're leering, although there's a healthy dose of leer going on, seems more like shock, like seeing a purple giraffe ambling down the street at 10am pretending that there are always purple giraffes in the street at 10am, nothing to see here move along.

I come to a little square, I was not supposed to come to a little square this is not on my map. In the name of adventure I choose the branch that seems to lead in the right direction, maybe there will be something lovely to see down there, something surprising and worthwhile, a secret between me and the city.

There's not. The alley is narrow and choked with rubbish, mangy dogs slink up and down the street flinching from anticipated blows. Men on scooters and motorcycles roar up and down the alley in the narrow center gutter. My alley peters out, I turn again, following instinct which may not be such a good idea, turn right again just trying to keep going in a straight line. I know the Temple is on a hill, and it's Golden, presumably at some point I will be able to sight the High Shiny Thing and just head towards it.

I see a flutter of color down another side alley and jog sideways, maybe there is something there? There is, but I don't really know what it is. A large gnarled tree, thick branches clawing out from almost ground level, with tattered orange garlands webbed through its limbs. There's a picture of something nested within the cloth, and some incense burning, a shrine of some kind but I have no idea what for. It's also the only living vegetation I've seen so far. I contemplate it for a while, trying to ignore the staring men zooming by on their scooters. At some point I shrug and turn away, contemplating is just making me stand in one place long enough to get a good long whiff of the raw sewage piled up a couple of feet away and the strays are circling me cautiously, trying to decide if I might have food or kicks for them.

I come out into another small square, there are rickshaw drivers all about, it's like a cab stand of sorts. Earlier, when I was more confident of location, the drivers would follow me, standing on the pedals, trying to coax me into their carriages. I demurred, I knew where I was, I was exploring! Now, though, I am standing there trying to look like a customer and am being ignored. Getting to the part of the city where rickshaw drivers ignore tourists is a sign, but I'm not sure if it's good or bad. I keep standing there, just can't believe that not one single rickshaw dude is going to try and make a customer out of me.

Finally, I approach one of them, ask how much to the Golden Temple. He grins, showing me blackened holes in his gums, and quotes 100 rupees. 100 rupees! That's what an auto-rickshaw would cost from the airport ten kilometers away, I may be lost but I am not that lost, I am not ready to pay the Lost Tax yet. It should be 20 rupees at most, but he is not even interested in bargaining. Again, a sign, but not sure how to interpret it.

I plunge back into another stinking alley, turning and turning. I find a street that looks promising, there is one stall of tourist crap open and that means I must not be too far from the concentration of tourists, which is the Golden Temple. Another turn and the trail is cold, back to shuttered metal storefronts and bug-eyed men. A man walking by sees me and stops, asks what I am looking for.

I know I shouldn't trust strange Indian men, but now I'm ready to pay the Lost Tax. Unfortunately, there are no rickshaws around. I ask this man where I can get a rickshaw, he asks again what I'm looking for and I admit that I am seeking the same thing every tourist in the old quarter of Amritsar seeks, the Big Shiny Thing on the Hill that I can't seem to locate.

"Oh, it is not far! I am going that way, follow me."

I do, even though I know I shouldn't, I was led astray by this same tactic in Morocco a few months ago. My options are limited, though. We wind deeper into the old quarter, I am following him and he asks questions over his shoulder, the same questions every stranger asks me: Where are you from, is this your first time in India, where are you staying, what is your name, what is your work... Thing is, while this is a standard introductory interrogation here, these are also very aggressive questions; it's the same information a predator would use to size up prey. I am defensive when he pushes for details on what hotel I'm at, "Near the train station" I say vaguely, he asks which hotel exactly, "I don't even remember," I am starting to get hostile but still following him. "Are we close?" I ask, "Oh yes, very close," but we have been very close for the last ten minutes and just seem to be burrowing deeper into unfriendly territory.

My warning bells are going off, I only realize this when I give him a fake name. I am getting angry, and feeling threatened in an unspecified way, and I start being outright rude, nearly haranguing him, does he know where we are, why does he keep saying we are close, where is he taking me, and then we turn a corner and at last I can see the Shiny Thing, he was leading me correctly the whole time.

I feel bad, now, for being so mean. He insists that he can take me around to the entrance, it is not so far from where he is going, but I hurriedly assure him that I can find my way now thank you, I will just circle the compound wall until I come to the gate. I duck away and wave, thanking him again, and with my eyes always on the golden spire start inching around to the main gate.

I loiter outside the gate, studying the scene and smoking. I need to get all my smoking in before I go through, the Sikh religion stipulates no cigarettes on the grounds and I will of course respect their holy site. I am equipped with a head covering as well. This is actually the only place where I don't slightly resent the interdiction against uncovered heads, as the same requirement is made of men and women equally. In fact, this is a central tenet of the Sikh faith, that they do no discriminate by gender, race, religion, or creed. All are equal, and all are welcome.

I stub out my cigarette to the disapproving looks of the Punjabi men around me, but again their disapproval is not that I am a woman immodestly smoking, but that I am a human polluting the temple of my body. Again, it is a more evenly applied judgment and thus one I find somehow less offensive. I pull my bandana over my hair and cross to the gate.

There are Sikh warriors flanking the gate, in their dramatic turbans and flowing garments, intimidating spears upright. This is three of the five pieces of Sikhism, the five Ks: if I recall correctly from my reading, it is unshorn hair, a wooden comb, an iron bracelet, a spear, and long pants. It's a religion of style and accessories, I smirk irreverently to myself, and pass through the gate.

In the courtyard I am directed off to the side, where there is a shoe check, no shoes are permitted in the temple. I leave my socks tucked into my shoes, there is a foot-washing requirement prior to entering the main compound. It goes against instinct, going barefoot in India, but it is also I suppose the cleanest floor in India as everyone who enters has just washed their feet. There's no charge at the cloakroom, not even a tip jar, this is another refreshing change, part of the "all are welcome" aspect of Sikhism. It is always a bit strange visiting holy sites of faiths I don't ascribe to, I always feel as if there is some level of understandable resentment from the devout towards the tourist with the camera. But not here, they want me here, and not for my tourist dollars, they want me to come here and share their faith.

I approach the steps, pausing in the shallow trough of water to rinse my feet with everyone else. The water is running, not still, and runs clean; I'm sure I could still probably manage to contract river blindness if I tried but I feel somehow safe. The peace of this place is already washing away the earlier panic and confusion, it is working. I enter through the main gate, and now I understand why I had such trouble seeing the High Shiny Thing before. The famous Golden Temple, the familiar image, is inside a walled compound taller than it's spires, invisible from the outside. Stepping in, it is breathtaking.

It glows in the middle of the sacred reservoir, a slim bridge connecting it to the pure marble walkways surrounding the small lake. Beautiful and sublime from every angle, and I want to savor it, I am not entering the temple yet. I amble slowly around the circumference. As I walk, barefoot and bandana'd, a small group of Indians approaches me, two women in beautifully hued saris and a man. I would usually respond to advancing strangers with wariness, but I don't feel wary here with my clean feet, so I smile as they grow nearer.

One of the women asks me where I am from. "New York," I say. What is my name. "Kate," I say, no fake names for her. "You are welcome here," she says, I think this is the end of her English but it was important to her to approach me, a clear stranger here, and welcome me. All faiths, all genders, all races, all creeds. We bow slightly to each other, I thank her for her welcome, and we amble off slowly in opposite vectors on the marble paths.

I'm ready now for the temple, and I queue up on the causeway with the throngs of people patiently awaiting access. I can't take pictures in here so I tuck my camera away, inching down the bridge to the temple and past another pair of fiercely attired warriors. It's packed but there is no pushing, and I ride the current of worshipers around the temple staring as hard as I can all around me, trying to absorb the glowing and ornate decorations, the beautiful flowers scattered everywhere, and then am slowly advanced towards the back of the temple, where it opens onto the reservoir.

This is the holy water of the Sikhs. I know enough not to drink it, although the faithful do, it may be holy but that is no way means it's purified and I walked past mostly naked men bathing in this same water on the other side of the courtyard. There's an older woman with a pitcher stationed just at the water's edge, and as I come past her she proffers it. I have watched others before me and I nod, extending cupped hands over the water so that she can pour a bit over my fingers, giving me a blessing.

We herd ourselves on, there is no one guiding us out but there is a sense of fairness, we must allow the next people their chance for a blessing, all in due turn. Back down the causeway and craning my neck to look behind me, still savoring the rich beauty of this place. Back on the marble, I stop to sit for awhile on the ledge of the pool. After a few moments, one of the costumed guards approaches me, and gently gestures that I am not permitted to sit there. It is very kind, though, no fierce warning to disrespectful tourists.

I wander through the compound a bit more, and turning find the canteen. Yes, I read about this, I meant to go here! This is the communal eating hall, and part of a pilgrimmage to the Temple must be a meal here. The Sikh religion says that they offer food and shelter to all who ask, that all are equal and may eat equally. I join the line, I am the only non-Indian here. There were other tourists like me in the main courtyard but they have not ventured this far. I am given a plate and follow the stairs up to an airy chamber open on three sides with fluted balustrades giving windows on the hazy hot sky. There are long mats rolled down the length of the hall, and I follow the people in front of me as they sit down in lines. Once we sit, with our plates and an cup that was also given to us, men come down the line with food, ladling a spicy black bean concoction onto our plates, some rice I think, and water into our cups. Another man follows him dispensing chapati, Indian flatbread. I am looking all around me, trying to follow what others are doing, and I reach up with one hand to accept the bread, the plate in my other hand. The man handing out bread corrects me with gestures, I must accept the bread with two hands to show respect.

I hurriedly correct my bread acceptance, and he nods smiling and moves on. We begin to eat, and the people on either side of me are stealing sideways looks and grinning with delight to have me in their midst. They ask me where I am from, what my name is in halting English, "You are welcome," "you are welcome." I don't think I've ever felt such unreserved acceptance in my life.

"Thank you, thank you," I smile back, and then the meal is over and it is someone else's turn to eat here, so I turn my plate back into the volunteers waiting to accept them and tuck 100 rupees into the donation box.

Queens of All That We Survey, Meknes, Morocco (Feb 2008)

It is Friday night and all we want is a few measly beers. Is that so much to ask? After all, we've taken cold-water showers this morning at our faux five star hotel in Fez, argued with at least four cab drivers, tramped around Roman ruins in ankle deep mud, gotten horrendously lost in the Imperial Palace, bargained for rugs, and unearthed a hidden hammam, all in the last twelve hours. We've earned a few beers. We deserve them. We are entitled to them.

We just have to find them.

Morocco is a Muslim country, of course, but not super strict; we have not, for example, been stoned in the streets for our uncovered heads and arms, or our decadent smoking. People just look at us funny and try to sell us stuff, we can deal with that. However, locating a drink is a more challenging endeavor; we could cab to the tourist district and visit one of the pricey hotel bars. Otherwise, drinking establishments are more like booze holes where the only women present are the prostitutes. Not being prostitutes, it seems unwise to kick back a couple of beers surrounded by lusty, sweaty, sexually repressed Arabic men who exoticize Western women and assume any woman in the bar is for sale. No, that is not where we will find our beers. We will have to buy them and then take them back to the hotel.

This is, obviously, not as easy as it sounds. The aforementioned booze holes won't sell us beers to go, and alcohol sales are strictly regulated in stores. Accustomed as we are to American convenient stores and New York bodegas, we had to learn the hard way that one cannot just "pick up a six-pack" at the corner store. In fact there are a few key items missing from corner stores, including feminine hygiene products.

This is another issue that is becoming more pressing by the day, as my emergency supply is just about tapped. We have asked in many places, using our guidebook translations, and merchants have feigned incomprehension of our outlandish, unspeakable, and embarrassing request. Another place in which we have been led astray by our guides, which airily promised that tampons were "widely available in any corner store in the major cities." Lies, lies, lies; all lies.

So we have a mission: beer, and tampons. Debi and I agree that if we are successful in acquiring both of these items in the Muslim country, with our bare arms and our cigarettes, we shall be Queens of All That We Survey and can consider Morocco sufficiently conquered.

We've heard that beer is available in supermarkets, so we set off to find one. Surely there must be some kind of supermarket within walking distance in Meknes, right? There's even one marked on my map, so we head out looking for it. We found the hidden hammam, we can find anything, we are very nearly Queens of All That We Survey. We circle, retracing our steps, turned around, it's supposed to be right here. Ask someone passing by, they point vaguely off down an alley, we follow that and end up circling back around, it's supposed to be right here. Someone else stops to help us, what are we looking for? The supermarket, yes, but what do we want to buy exactly?

We are comfortable with who we are, liberal American women, but after a week in Morocco we've absorbed some of the cultural imperatives and just can't quite bring ourselves to admit to this stranger that we are looking for beers, that we are flagrantly seeking to break every taboo we can think of. We repeat, supermarket, supermarket, he can't help us and moves on.

I have an idea! We'll hop in a cab and just tell him to take us to the supermarket. It's probably pretty close by so it shouldn't be that expensive, and surely a local cab driver will know where to find the closest supermarket. I am brilliant, and very nearly Queen of All That I Survey!

Our cab driver is youngish, friendly, and speaks some English, although my broken French is still useful. We tell him, supermarket.

"Supermarket??" he repeats in disbelief, confirming; we repeat it back to him with great authority, "Yes, we want to go to the Supermarket!"

"Supermarket, like...Jinane?" At least I think that's what he says, "Yes, Supermarket!" I am positive, I agree that is exactly what I want. He is still not entirely sure we know what we're doing but agrees to humor these crazy foreigners and off we go.

I assume that his confusion is because the supermarket is so close by that it is silly to take a cab, but as we begin driving I see that it was wise to hop in a cab. We wind out of the new city and take the ring road up and around the hill, the same way we came down from the Roman ruins at Volubilis earlier today. Then back down again into the old city, there's the Imperial Palace where we got horribly lost for hours, and then outside of the new city...

And by now we've been in this cab for twenty minutes and are headed irrefutably out of the city center. Debi and I are exchanging skeptical looks, where is this guy taking us? She mutters, "New York cab ride," we are watching the meter tick upwards and becoming glumly convinced that we are being ridden about at random to increase the fare, and that there is nothing we can do about it. If I were in New York I would yell at the cab driver and insist that he turn off the meter, but if I were in New York I'd know where I was and I don't here in Meknes.

Climbing further up and around the hills that cradle the city, we can see all the lights below us and we are moving away from them. Oddly, we're not frightened, although maybe we should be. The driver seems amiable enough, tries to chat with us in his halting English, asks us what we want at the supermarket exactly? "We just need to go to a supermarket," I say firmly in a voice that clearly will not brook further interrogation. The crazy foreigners want to go to the supermarket and that is that, thank you please.

Forty-five minutes after we clambered into this car, we drive into a huge parking lot--we have arrived at the SuperMarket. "This is what you wanted?" he asks, as our jaws drop and we start almost giddily giggling. We had wanted a supermarket, the kind with a meat counter and seafood and household supplies and aisles of food and maybe some toiletries, some vegetables and oh yes, a beer aisle. A modern grocery store, which is what we were led to believe "Supermarche" means in Morocco. Instead, we are faced with something more akin to a Wal-Mart or Sam's Club. And not just any Wal-Mart, a Super Wal-Mart. We could walk out of here with a set of patio furniture, a flat screen TV, and a lifetime supply of paper towels.

But will they have beer and tampons?

The meter is still running, and we ask the driver to wait for us; nay, we insist, we will be so screwed if he drives away and strands us at Moroccan Costco. We bolt out of the cab, this place is huge we have to have a plan, let's do this quickly--I will look for tampons and Debi will find the beer.

We are not quite running down the long concrete aisles, but definitely power-walking, heads swivelling to decipher labels on each aisle heading. I find feminine hygiene and break right, yes! So close to victory, almost Queen of All That I Survey! Run down the aisle, there they are, shelf after shelf of sanitary towels, pads with wings, pads without wings, slimline panty liners, some that are nearly diapers, getting closer, getting warmer, and then that's the end.

No tampons. I can't believe it so I slow down and survey the whole shelf again, wondering if I have overlooked them in my panicky state. Pads with wings. Pads without wings. Panty liners. Diapers. And still no tampons. I am out of time on this mission, I have failed, but maybe Debi has succeeded. I run back out to the main aisle to find her, she is pacing back and forth and cannot find the beer aisle. I see a clerk and run up to her, panting, "Qu'est-ce que vous cherchez?" she asks politely and a little fearfully of the clearly distressed Westerner before her.

"BEER!" I almost shout, screw the false modesty and cultural sensitivity we've come this far we can't fail now. She reels back a little, and then turns and points to the far wall, above which is the legend "La Cave." That is where they keep the beer.

Behind the rolled down steel door closing off that section of the store, that is.

Debi and I stare at the door, stare at each other, and then turn and run back out to our cab empty-handed, fearful that he has left us and not at all Queens of All That We Survey. He's still there, thankfully, more confused than ever when his crazy foreigners that were so insistent on the SuperMarket emerge with nothing. Why did we need to come all the way up here to buy nothing?

He asks again, gently, "What do you want to buy?"

"Beer! We just wanted to buy some beer, we're American and we just wanted a few beers..."

"Beer? You cannot buy beer at the Supermarket on Friday..."

"Now we know that!"

"Why didn't you tell me you wanted beer?"

"Just... just take us back to Meknes."

We are defeated and distinctly non-royalty as we slump in the backseat for the long ride back into town. Half an hour later and the meter still ticking upwards, and we are back near the city center where we began. But wait, we are passing the road that will take us to our hotel, where are we going?

"We go to find beer!" Our driver is on the game now, part of our mission and if only we'd enlisted him earlier...but too late to think of that now, now we are just feeling our spirits and hopes rise a little that perhaps we will end this evening Queens of All That We Survey after all.

He pulls up outside a corner store, and our spirits dip momentarily, but wait! Wait! WAIT JUST ONE STINKING MINUTE! There's a Heineken sign outside this corner store, there is beer in there! We tumble out of the cab and run into the store. It's orders of magnitude smaller than the megastore so much easier to cover all the ground, we are hunting like hounds, almost sniffing the air for the scent of the trail. There's no beer on the shelves anywhere, and none in the coolers either. But we know it must be here, our driver brought us here and there's the sign outside there is beer in here somewhere, we know it!

On the left hand wall I see a discreet staircase going down. Ha! I have the scent now, and we descend the stairs to find a small counter, one of those half-doors with the top open and a man behind it. Above the doorframe is a small, printed list of products available at this window, Bud Light and Heineken for about $1 each and some presumably bad wine.

We get eight beers, we probably just want one or two but we will pack these with us if we don't drink them tonight because lord knows we do not want to have to repeat this adventure in Casablanca tomorrow. We exit the store with our opaque plastic bag, clinking with clandestine merchandise, our black-market beer, Queens of Half That We Survey.

Prague Castle at Night, Czech Republic

I am being sociable in the hostel garden.

There's a long trestle table and lined along the benches are assorted pairs and groups of travellers who have landed here for whatever reason; a pair of young British dudes who are motorcycling across Europe, a Kiwi who's been backpacking for a year as part of the Tribe, and my new friend Alyssa who is travelling for the first time. These amongst some other faces that fade in and out, someone breaks out the inevitable playing cards and we agree on rummy. It's a game for which everyone at least vaguely knows the rules, and as long as you keep adding decks of cards an infinite number of players can join the game. You'll nearly always find a group of people who just met playing cards somewhere in a hostel.

We're taking turns telling our version of getting lost trying to find the hostel, which is up an unmarked street that looks like a highway on-ramp when you follow the directions from the train station. Each of us saw it, decided it couldn't possibly be the correct road and if we went that way we would end up in Bratislava, and wandered on and around the Zizkov district. Many of us arrived late at night, and so we are bonding already over the disorientation and exhaustion of tramping in circles in a foreign city past slightly menacing parks in the dark, trying desperately to find a place to shrug off the pack, take a shower, and fall down on a soft place.

The British guys are now trying to enlist as many cohorts as possible into their grand plan for the evening, the mega-club. They've heard it has four levels and is filled with drunk tourist chicks, which is exactly what they want; the Kiwi chick tries to dissuade them but they are having none of it. "You must go, you must come," they insist, and assure them that on the contrary, there is no burning need for me to attend a megaclub night at all, I'm a little too old for that I think and I'm perfectly comfortable with a quiet evening in the hostel garden, playing cards and drinking Czech beer.

"Wait, how old are you?" And now the awkardness ensues, a moment of silence as one eventually hazards a guess, "Twenty....two?" and then flinches back, there is a universal fear of guessing a woman's age too high. I laugh, and tell him he's going to have to go a little higher than that, and then he turns the tables and asks me to guess how old he is. I'm bad at this game, I guess too high and as it turns out he is a freshly minted 19 and I am on the edge of 30. This engenders great shock and disbelief on his part. When I mention something about Kurt Cobain's death when I was in high school, he could not believe that I can actually remember things that happened in 1994. Inconceivable! For me it's a revelation that I've been having a conversation with an adult who is unable to remember, say, Yugoslavia. The word means nothing to him, it's a country that ceased to exist before he was born, as did the Berlin Wall. Small wonder we see this place so differently.

Another traveller has joined the table, someone here met him earlier and there are introductions but his name immediately escapes me, never to return. I will be calling him "you" and "hey" for the rest of the night. We deal him into rummy and play a couple more hands, having The Conversation--where from, what do, why here, where else been, et cetera. These are the salient details, more so that something so trifling as a name. Turns out he has the advantage on all of us, his family is Czech and he has been here many times over the years, he knows this city beyond a guidebook and a map sketch. As our conversation unfolds, the game ends and he turns his hand over, he'd palmed a card earlier in case he needed it--who on earth cheats at rummy in a youth hostel??

The British kids at last cease their good-natured peer pressure assault, defeated by my determination to be square. They roar off on their motorcycle, headed for the megaclub. After they leave, the Czech guy whose name I don't know suggests that we take a walk, him, me and Alyssa. "Where to?" I ask warily, I don't want to venture too far I'm tired, it's been a long day. "Just in the neighborhood," sure, why not, I'll just grab my smokes and we'll wander a bit, it will be nice to get out in the night for a little while.

I don't take my water bottle, my guidebook, or my map, we are not going far and anyway our companion knows this city, I won't need them. No camera either, no phone, and I feel naked as a newborn, defenseless. We stroll down the hill to where the road starts to look like an on-ramp, not sure where we're going, and our Czech friend asks Alyssa and I if we have seen the castle at night. No, we haven't, we arrived late last night and just this morning respectively, we haven't seen the castle at all much less at night. He suggests a walk to the castle and I counter with a metro suggestion, I walked most of the way through the city already today and have no desire to retrace my steps all the way there.

We hop a bus for a couple of stops to the metro station, we don't have the right change to buy bus tickets so we have technically gone rogue already. Off at the metro station and our friend isn't entirely sure which way to go after all, so I take charge; for whatever reason despite being directionally challenged I am really good at deciphering mass transit. He doesn't have faith in me, keeps falling behind to do map checks and ask directions as I swerve through the station but we end up in the same place, I am more than a little smug about my success so far.

One stop and then a transfer, both of them are following me now I've proven myself, although when we reach the platform Czech guy still stops and asks someone to make sure we're headed the right way. We are, we are, and here is the train, a few moments later we disembark on the other side of the river. The castle is shining above us, glowing golden stone artfully washed in landscape lighting, crenellated towers tearing at the scattered clouds in the night sky. How do we get up there, exactly?

We begin by heading up the hill, it's a reasonable assumption as the castle is in fact at the top of said hill. Wandering through cobblestone alleyways headed always upwards, and our supposed guide doesn't actually know where we're going. He stops to ask directions and I don't protest this time, it's good to have someone along who speaks the local language. He's not fluent, but does well enough to get directions, we backtrack and then take a right then a left and this is the correct alley winding upwards to the stairs.

Yes, despite all this uphill we've been engaging in there are still stairs. Lots of them. I look accusingly at the Czech guy, I am dehydrated and sans water bottle, I always have my water bottle but we weren't going far, now stairs? But we've come this far, so I power up the stairs. All of them. 199 of them, as I aggrievedly inform my companions at the top, I remembered this little detail from my guidebook.

The stairs are behind us now, all 199 of them that we've heaved up, and now we're in an open courtyard before the castle gates. We wander over to the balustrade and lean over, the whole city is spread out beneath us and sparkling gently, church towers and bell towers across the city also uplit but so much smaller than the massy structure at our backs. I have thus far been rather unimpressed with Prague, or maybe underwhelmed is better; I'm burned out on picturesque European cities, with their bridges and castles and churches and market squares and clock towers and cobblestone streets, they all look the same and I was hoping for more from Prague, the problem of high expectations I suppose. But from here it's starting to work on me, maybe too because I'm going home from here so I can stop planning the next leg forward and just enjoy it, and maybe because here I am out in the city at midnight without my guidebook or map or camera or even a water bottle.

We chat, quietly, about history, and this place's history, this city and this part of the world, and the children who have been born and grown to adulthood not knowing Yugoslavia or Communism. We talk about World War II, an inevitable conversation here, and particularly as I think we've all passed through Krakow at some point on our travels and visited Auschwitz. Our Czech friend, however, wants to focus not on the Holocaust but on the ethnic Ukrainians and Czechs who were persecuted, that's his heritage, his family. He says, "The only reason people pay so much attention to the Holocaust, instead of all the other atrocities, is because there are so many powerful Jews..." It's an awkward moment, Alyssa and I both remain silent, and then he asks, "You're not Jewish, are you?" "...No, but why would that matter?" "Oh, it doesn't, I was just curious," and then he lapses into silence. No, I'm not Jewish, but my boyfriend is; did he think my Aryan looks would make me sympathetic?

In stutters, another conversation starts, on a neutral topic shying away from anything that could lead to more anti-Semitic feelers. A tall man with long hair and a beard approaches us, he is clutching a map, and asks in accented English if we know where the cemetery is around here. We don't, we don't know of any cemetery other than the one in the Jewish Quarter across the river, but we duly inspect his map with him querying him for other details. He knows its near here, or he thinks it is, he's not actually looking for the cemetery but something near it, if he finds the cemetery he can find what he's looking for. I ask him what he's looking for exactly, we probably can't help him but the more information we have the likelier it is, and he shrugs his head sideways and down, "Oh, it is a long story," he's embarrassed, hems and haws but realizes he's already been so mysterious about it he might as well tell us.

"I was in the city last night, near this cemetery, and found a bar. I drank too much and could not pay my bill, had not enough money, so I say I will come back today with money to pay my bill, but now I cannot find it."

He is genuinely distraught, ashamed of himself for drinking too much and also horrified that he is one of Those People now, the tourists who stiff the locals and think they can get away with it, or that it's ok, because they're only passing through. He may be a classic stereotype of hippie backpacker but he's an honorable man, and I almost want to hug him. I don't, we wish him luck, and he wanders away, seeking an unnamed bar by an unnamed cemetery somewhere within the city limits of Prague so that he can redeem himself with a fistful of crowns.

We turn our backs to the city and retrace our steps down the stairs, the metro isn't running anymore so we'll have to walk back. As we tack through the old city, our Czech friend inquires if we have any interest in going to TGIFriday's? He knows where one is in the city. My response is immediate: "I could eat the shit out a hamburger!" Alyssa is in full agreement, as 'inauthentic' as it may be to go to an American chain restaurant in Prague we have both been in Europe for several weeks and for whatever reason they suck at hamburgers and I am sick of meat stew.

Our newfound mission before us, we cross over the Charles Bridge. I walked over the bridge earlier today and I bemoan again the webbing and scaffolding which ensconces half of this iconic landmark; the scenery in each city I've been to has been under construction. Wonderful though to stroll this broad boulevard at night, just a few other people around rather than shoving through crowds of fannypacked tourists clustered around polyglot guides, and the pop-up vendors who flock to them like lions to the watering hole to stalk their prey.

We're back near the Old Market Square, our Czech friend says the TGIF is near here. I recognize the back of the Black Church, "The Square is this way!" No, it's not , he disagrees and we veer off to the right, winding through the alleys. We pass the MegaClub, on all four floors we can see about one person per floor through the windows and are validated in our choice. I wonder if the British guys are having any luck, if they're two of the four people we can see inside. For their sakes I hope the other two are French tourists.

I am insisting that we are headed away from the Big Square, and the Czech guy is equally insistent that we are going in the right direction. I can't ask him name now, we've been talking for hours and it would just be rude at this point so he remains and will probably always remain the Czech guy. We arrive at the New Square, "See, I told you we were going in the right direction!" he is triumphant, but wait, I thought you said we were going to the Big Square, this is the Big Square, but what about that other Big Square, oh that's the Old Square.

Well we're here now.

This is another street I wandered down earlier in the day, I didn't see TGIF but I think it's on the cross street. Czech guy stops a couple walking by to ask directions, the man stops but the woman doesn't. He listens for a moment, distracted by the high heels clacking away from him, points and then rushes to catch up with his companion. She won't slow down, refuses to hold his hand, we watch them walk away rather amazed at the level of anger she's exhibiting, how she's punishing him for stopping to help strangers.

We follow the pointed finger, I think I know where I am, there's the H&M I went into earlier to buy underwear rather than do laundry, I guess this is my day for chain stores. But maybe not, we turn and turn again, quartering the streets, turned back on ourselves and there's the H&M again, but on the wrong side of the street? Alyssa has been trying to dissuade me on my landmarking, and gently suggests that there is more than one H&M. Lesson: add H&M to the list with Starbucks and McDonald's of 'things never to use as a landmark.'

Dispirited, we are about to give up, we will never find our horrible American chain restaurant, we will have to wait until we get home to sink our teeth into a juicy pile of medium rare ground beef. And then, victory! Czech guy has spotted the telltale red and white striped awning, I can't help but despise myself a little bit for how excited I am to walk into a restaurant that I routinely disdain when I'm at home but I'm not at home and I want a burger.

We nearly run up the street, we are trotting at the very least, and as we trot we see something alarming--a busboy is apparently taking out the night's trash. It's late after all, after midnight, and Czech guy confirms the bad news after a brief conversation: they're closed. Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink; we may not technically be lost at sea but it feels like it.

We slump around, girding ourselves to take our tired feet homewards and hamburgerless to the hostel. Just a little lost, but Prague isn't that big and we're going in vaguely the right direction, we need to get to the train station, either one, and we'll be able to go from there. Down a little side street and there's a sign with a koala on it, a bar that seems to be open, and we agree to take a break and have a beer before pushing onwards.

We approach and see, wonder of wonders, a menu posted on the door, we may get some food after all even if not the burgers we lusted for so heartily. Yes, here in the middle of the night in the middle of Prague we have stumbled upon an Australian gastropub. I order the kangaroo steaks, how can I not order kangaroo steaks when they're on the menu? It is delicious, gamy and lean but still moist and rich with a cherry sauce. Alyssa pushes her pasta away untouched, and then abruptly ducks for the bathroom; something is not sitting right with her. She insists that she's fine, just not hungry, but no need for a cab really, just let's go home.

Yes, let's go home. We're not far, and we're not lost, but we are tired so we are slow. Trudging back, there's the train station, here is where we all got lost sometime in the last 24 hours trying to find the hostel, there is one of the many sketchy looks bars at which I asked for directions, but wait there are two guys out in front, what are they doing?

Heavily muscled, steroids nearly seeping out of their pores, two large dudes with shaved heads and wifebeater tank tops are beating the hell out of each other. It's stylized, almost sparring, except for when one kicks the other one in the face, but it still seems oddly friendly. Not anything we want to get near, mind, so we veer quietly out into the road to get past them. One goes down, the victor kicks the loser for good measure but as we peer discreetly behind us, fascinated by this late-night meaningless battle, the victor stops and squats over his opponent. He checks him to see if he's okay, and then gives him a rough hug, grabs his hand and pulls him up to his feet. The loser is still shaking his head a bit, disoriented, but then shakes it out and they shake hands, congenial. Then the loser throws the first punch on the next round.

Last few meters to the hostel entrance, up the stairs to the garden, and home at last in a place that's not home at all but is home for tonight.

A Jeton for the Funicular, Istanbul, Turkey (Aug 2009)

“I must use a jeton to ride the funicular!”

This has taken on the tone of a schoolgirl rhyme for skip rope, we are singsonging our talisman sentence back and forth to each other in a cascade of giggles and our Italian friend is mostly just tolerating us as we clutch each other's arms and laugh until our cheeks hurt, "I must use a jeton to ride the funicular!”

And we haven't even starting drinking for the night, either. Well, that's not exactly true; we did have a beer on the terrace after our Bosphorus cruise adventure, and our Italian friend, I wish I could remember his name but it fled my mind instantly in a slur of Mediterranean pronunciation, our Italian friend is chugging a pre-dinner beer as we walk from the hostel to the tram. He tries to insist that we share his beer, and between giggles we demur, we are drunk already on something, the jetons, the funicular, the Bosphorus, or just being here. I peal out into fresh giggles as I realize that we are walking past the Blue Mosque, us infidel women smoking with bare arms and our friend with an open beer, this would get us stoned to death in some places but here its just funny.

We arrive at the Sultanhamet tram stop, and with fake solemnity redeem our jetons to enter the platform. The Italian is still drinking his beer, and we are still smoking, none of which we are allowed to do on the tram platform but we are pretending tourist ignorance. An older man approaches us, points to the beer and shakes his finger, "No, no, is not good," and the Italian replies, "Yes, yes, is good!" "No, no, you must not," "I guess I have to finish it, then!" and he turns the bottle up, throat moving in smooth waves as he gulps down the last dregs of his liter of beer.

The old man looks at us sadly, reproachfully, and we giggle disrespectfully onto the tram. We will be on the train for several stops, we are going over to New Istanbul tonight, to Taksim Square across the Golden Horn. Across the Golden Horn, across the Golden Horn... the phrase has a musical, mystical sound almost, across the Golden Horn. As we sit on the tram, Ariella and I again turn our attention to the funicular. Istanbul is webbed with several different types of transit, trams and light rail and buses and trains and ferries and now, a funicular. What on earth is a funicular, other than a ridiculous sounding word? What will it look like, how does it travel that is so different from a tram or a light rail or a train or a ferry or a bus? I am hoping for something like a ski-lift, with gondolas suspended from a cable swinging gently through an underground tunnel. Ariella thinks that maybe it works with spring action, bouncing us from one end of the track to the other. Funicular, funicular, funicular! We must use jetons to ride the funicular!

The Italian leans over, what is so funny now? We explain our fascination with the funicular, and his eyes light up: "Funicular? But I know what this is!" Is it a gondola? Does it bounce back and forth? Sadly no, it is much more mundane and quotidian than that, it is merely a train that goes uphill. We refuse to believe this, that is far too boring a function for a word like funicular, but the Italian goes on, "No, it is very cool, you see the train goes up but you do not feel like you are going up, the floor is level and the train is built on the slant of the hill," Okay that is a little bit better but I am not sure this funicular deserves a new jeton from me.

We arrive at the transfer point and disembark the tram. I have told my new friends to follow me, I have an excellent nose for sniffing out urban mass transit and finding the right train and it holds me in good stead despite the lack of directional signage. A fresh wave of giggles as we deposit our jetons at the turnstile for the funicular, I am still hoping to see a gondola and Ariella is still hoping for a spring action tube, but alas the Italian was correct. A short, smooth ride uphill and then we are off at Taksim Square, the heart of new Istanbul.

The first thing we see in the heart of new Istanbul is a protest. There is about a two to one ratio of cops in riot gear to protester with picket. "Kate! This is your chance to get thrown in Turkish prison!" I agree, is it an excellent opportunity to get thrown in Turkish prison, which was one of my travel goals. It's been a running joke for a long time, for some reason, and now that I am here in Turkey I have been determined to somehow get inside a Turkish prison if only in name. However, my plan was more along the lines of 'go to the Hilton and have a cocktail in the bar, the building used to be an imperial prison' than 'get beaten up by cops in riot gear while protesting some unknown social evil.'

We skirt the protest and move on, down the wide pedestrian boulevard lined with shops, an antique tram huffing up and down the street through mobs of people. This is new Istanbul, young Istanbul, the modern dining and shopping district, where the Istanbuli come to see and be seen. I can't resist the obligatory snapshot down the street, this reminds me most of Japan, the arcades in Tokyo and Kyoto lit up in neon between the skyscrapers, there is certainly nothing like it in North America or Europe that I've seen, although technically we are still in Europe we are only there by a few hundred meters.

We wander up the boulevard, Ariella has a goal but not a map, we are seeking a particular restaurant in a particular alley. We ask if we've gone too far, no, it's just the next right up there, or maybe the one after that, so we turn at the next right. The alley is narrower than the boulevard and every storefront is a restaurant, with cafe tables spreading into the street to leave only a narrow footpath between the shouting touts for the masses of potential diners to find their way. Every table is full outside, and with good reason; it's a beautiful clear night, perfectly temperate, who would sit inside? Not us, but we can't find a table outside anywhere as we wend along to the end and are spat out at the end of the alley. A moment to breathe, did Ariella see her restaurant? No, so back in.

We find her place, but there are no tables outside. Next door, though, there's a roof terrace with seating. I'm tired of looking for food and ready to eat, so are we all, that press of people was stressful so up we go. Three narrow and steep flights of stairs, crabbed in past the kitchen in the back, and then the beautiful night sky of Istanbul spreads over us. A tuxedoed waiter fusses over our napkins and distributes menus, the first bottle of wine shows up and we're off.
We peruse the menu for the weirdest things we can find, we are in new lands and will try new things. Let's start off with some brains.

Lamb brains, to be precise, not spicy with a little lemon and olive oil. I will try anything once, as long as I have a napkin and a large glass of water handy, so I warily take a small piece on my fork. Chewing thoughtfully and trying to be clinical about it, I don't like it but is that because its brains and thus inherently gross or is it just unyummy? Un-yummy, I decide, a mushy spongey texture, and very little flavor, quite bland actually. We move on to the fava bean paste with dill, which is superb, and dolmas, can't go wrong with a dolmas. In the meantime we are spying on other diners, there are two couples that are practically dry-humping by the edge of the terrace, and what appears to be a business meeting at another table. It's starting to fill up, and then the band arrives. Oh no, there's a band, so much for conversation.

But we are lucky, or rather, they have sized us up and determined that the tipping will not be good at our table, perhaps the Italian's backpacker attire has clued them in, counteracted Ariella's LBD and Louis Vuitton accessories. Drinking our wine slowly and waiting on our main course, Ariella and I somehow begin discussing Breakfast at Tiffany's, and then the wonders of Tiffany's, and our Italian friend is very, very bored.

I belatedly exclaim, "Wait! We just ordered and ate brains, and not one of us made a zombie joke! We have failed, my friends," and Ariella giggles back, "Perhaps...that means... we are adults!" "No, no, no!" a chorus of nos, we'll have none of that but we will have more wine please and thank you.

More organ meats for the main course, fried liver for the Italian and I end up with some kind of fish, Ariella with kebabs. Again we share plates, I don't like the liver but the fish isn't bad. The musicians have made the rounds of all of the tables twice, and at last they shrug and give us a try. Ariella has a request after all, "Hava Nagila!"

Lo, we must all clasp hands and dance around the table. Yes, yes, more wine!

As the song ends, we are smiling and joyful and suddenly it must be said, "I must use a jeton to ride the funicular!" Indeed, we must return to the funicular, we've hit our wine limit for navigating back down those stairs and the funicular stops running at midnight, and so back down the stairs, and through the alley, and down the boulevard, and into the station and a jeton for the funicular! and the tram and back, back across the Golden Horn, across the Golden Horn, a magical, mystical phrase evoking Istanbul's indescribable appeal, Constantinople's beckoning, across the Golden Horn or up the Bosphorus or a jeton for the funicular!

Club Chaos, Tokyo, Japan (Feb 2006)

It is Saturday night in Tokyo and we are going out on the town. I planned this weeks before we got on the plane, laboriously poring over tourist attractions, maps, and train schedules, to route us here on a Saturday night while still being in Kyoto for the flea market and having time for our jaunts to Hiroshima and Mt. Fuji. I’m tired, we’ve been here a week and go go go, out like a light every night when my head hits the pillow, or the floor as the case may be here in Taito Ryokan, up before the sun and out the door to see what we can see, do what we can do. I may not have much gas left in the tank but I’m determined to hit the Tokyo club scene.

Carefully planned and timed, as always, we are headed out to the train station at 11:40pm. The trains will stop running at midnight and not begin again until 5am, and we are going to Roppongi which is all the way across the city so we are going to stay out until the trains go again. There’s a Canadian couple at our ryokan, they are going out too, we have both selected goth/industrial clubs to visit from fragmented internet information and word of mouth referrals. Different clubs, but in the same district, the nightlife is mostly in Roppongi and Shinjuku, so we are headed to the same station at the same time.

The five of us foreigners are the only people in the station, elaborately attired in crenellated shades of black. Two lines intersect at this station, the red and the mauve, a train pulls up and we get on. The Canadians question us briefly, are we sure this is the right train they don’t think so, Debi assures them that I am fantastic at this, Navigatrix Extraordinaire, I have not led us astray once in my untangling of the various transit systems.

They get on the train with us, we go one stop and it’s the end of the line, I have led us astray and it is nearing midnight, the witching hour or perhaps it should be called the taxi hour here in Tokyo. We got away with it, the last train of the night pulls up and off we go, a smooth ride across and around the sprawling, dense, alien city, picking up more passengers as we progress, everyone is headed to Roppongi on the last train of the night.

Disembarking, midnight. In our calibration of transit timing and disco napping, a few salient details got missed, like bathrooms and cigarettes, but we have time, lots of time, we will be out until 5am. The train station in Roppongi is surrounded by slick clubs and restaurants, seems to be mostly geared towards tourists but this is not for us, we are wending our way further out to the edges to a local club but first we need to find a bathroom. There’s a Starbucks here, there’s a Starbucks everywhere and I have thus far refused permission to Debi and Chris to stop in one despite their desire for familiar coffee, it’s bad coffee in Seattle and it’s still bad coffee in Tokyo, they are consistent that way. However, Starbucks does have a very lenient bathroom policy, so they are going to get their lattes this time as we visit what I have dubbed Bathrooms Around the World.

Caffeinated anew, we set forth again, we just need to find cigarettes on the way to the club. We walk, and walk, and the clubs and restaurants peter out, thinner on the ground, the stores are all closed and strangely not a cigarette vending machine in sight, surprising in this country of whiskey, beer, condoms, cigarettes, porn, and small plastic totems all available for a quantity of yen coins inserted in anonymous slots.

We are almost to the club when we see a convenience store, rush towards it only to determine after a great deal of pantomime that they do not sell cigarettes. It’s a nightlife district, and we are puzzled by the lack of readily available implements of sin, isn’t that kind of the point? There is more gesturing, there is a place further down, we will overshoot the club and go there and then retrace our steps.

A deserted block or two later and we see the sign for the club, discreet but present, and at least I was right about that, I have not led us astray twice in a row. We keep walking and there is nothing out here, past a small park, over a highway and I think we are no longer technically in Roppongi who knows where we are and this is taking a long, long time but we have time tonight. Victory, and we climb the steps and walk back through the rattling cage of the pedestrian overpass, this is not glamorous at all, there are no beautiful people here revelling but we will be there soon.

Now it’s after 1am, a perfectly appropriate time to arrive at a nightclub in Tokyo. Back to the Cube, and down the stairs below the discreet sign. We can hear the pounding music but it’s a wall of noise, not sure what’s playing but hoping it will be stompy and weird and crunchy industrial. We pay the admission fee and receive drink tickets in exchange, push through the curtain and then stop dead in our tracks, a clot in the flow of the club.

This is not goth/industrial.

It’s Japanese Pop.

But we are here, and we have drink tickets, and mostly we are here, dammit, we have committed to being out until 5am and so we shall, we can make this work but it is going to take a lot of booze so let’s get started on that as soon as possible and hopefully I can ignore the techno remix of Chumbawumba long enough to get so drunk I don’t care.

Fruity cocktails in hand, and we are hovering in a corner of the smoky, foggy dance floor, there’s a projection screen and a disco ball and some flashing lasers illuminating the giddy teenage girls in candy-colored clothes. Finish our drinks and even dance a little bit, or try to, not finding my groove here, float to the other side of the dance floor and look who’s here, our Canadian friends. It seems their club selection has also gone awry, not even open anymore, so they followed us here and I have led them astray again, the next song sounds so familiar and for a moment a brief bubble of hope rises through me, perhaps this is something I know, something I want to dance to, something to get my party started for real, this the night that we experience Tokyo nightlife dammit.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. I recognize it, allright; oh, it’s familiar. It’s a dance remix of “Under the Sea,” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”

Time to go.

I collect Debi and Chris, we leave our Canadian friends behind they are going to make the best of it and we are off to prospect for new frontiers, it’s a nightclub district after all there has to be something else, somewhere else to be, somewhere that we are not dancing to Disney in our stompy boots and short skirts and elaborate eyeliner. It is a little after 2am, three hours to go and I am sure we can find something.

We start walking.

Pass through a more populated area, but the patrons heaving in and out of these clubs are certainly not our target demographic so we keep going and eventually the crowds subside. We stop after a few deserted blocks, do we really want to keep going this way? Well, we know there’s nothing back the way we came, nothing we want closer to the train station, so we will walk along the train line underneath the tracks to the next stop and see if there’s anything there, it’s on the way to Shinjuku, the other club district, there’s got to be something between the two.

There’s not.

We have been walking long enough to sober up and are still far from Shinjuku. We could hop a cab, but we haven’t seen a cab in a while and who knows what we would find in Shinjuku anyway, Roppongi was supposed to be a foolproof night out and has failed us despite detailed research. It is right about then that we see a small neon sign: Chaos.

It’s not the dance club we’re seeking, but it’s somewhere and it probably has booze. We beeline for it.

Inside the unassuming door and it’s a lush lounge, red banquettes and velvet everywhere, a long, immaculately polished bar. There are a few Brits at the far end and a smiling Japanese bartender. He speaks English, thank god, and we settle onto barstools and order Manhattans. I am peering about after we order, fortunately Debi is keeping an eye on the bartender and nearly shouts, lunging across the bar to prevent whatever sin he is about to commit on our innocent drinks. There follows a brief multilingual lesson on how to make a Manhattan, as Debi mentors the eager to please bartender.

They don’t turn out so bad, and it’s nice to sit here, so tired after days of touristing, it’s comfortable and warm and welcoming. We chat with the Brits a little bit, have another round. It’s after 3am now, we’ll get going again soon, there’s still a chance for tonight although it’s narrowing quickly, we are approaching 5am and I am starting to lose the equilibrium between being tipsy enough to keep going and being too drunk and exhausted to stay awake, I need the adrenaline of the dance floor to moderate that delicate chemistry and let’s have another round. The bartender can’t hide his shock that the gaijin want yet more, bad bartender your job is to pour not to judge and we have to keep going until 5am the trains won’t run again until then so more Manhattans and make it snappy.

Sitting on the stool and slumping into it, I spill my drink on the bar. I am still chatting lazily with Chris and Debi but my eyes are closed, I am resting my eyes I am not sleeping, just leaning my head on my hand a little because its so heavy and I’ve been holding it up all day and its not 5am yet and I am so tired, go go go for a week and always alert, always navigating and taking charge and determining vectors and leading the charge and its nice to rest my eyes for a moment, still awake, game on, see I’m still sipping my drink just resting my head a little bit in between sips. The rests are lasting longer but its still to early for the trains so maybe I will just close my eyes for a few minutes more and lean my forehead down on my arm on the bar, just a few minutes.

I am vaguely aware of voices above my head, Debi saying “Kate do you want to go,” I mumble back something like “No trains yet, just gotta make it another 20 minutes” but I think it probably comes out as “shtrains….shoon…” More voices over my head, and then clearly I hear “I think it’s time we got her home,” they are in charge now I have ceded all tour leader responsibility, they don’t know what they’re doing, they are not Navigatrices but they are going to have to work it out.

Apparently they do, because a few minutes later I am being led out the door, Debi’s arm around my side, and poured into the back of a cab. I give up all pretense of being awake and sleep instantly, missing our late night ride across the entire city. They shake me awake when we reach the ryokan, I start up and plunge towards the door, towards the pillow or the floor as it may be here, must be horizontal, but I pull up sharply in the vestibule. After a week of culturally insensitive stomping into various temples and museums and forgetting to remove my shoes, it has finally sunk in here, now, at 5am, drunky drunk and wearing boots that lace up to my knees. I sway as I lean over, clawing the laces out and ripping the boots from my poor tired feet, toss them on the pile of shoes. Stagger forward, fingers trailing on the walls but can’t lean on them as I’d like to, they’re made mostly of rice paper, end of the hall and fumble with the tiny lock, Chris takes it from me and opens the door I nearly fall onto the thin mat that passes for a bed and I am probably asleep already while falling.

There Are Perfectly Good Trains in This Country, Frankfurt, Germany (Aug 2005)

I disembark from the slowly chugging commuter train and exit the station. It’s been a fun weekend visiting Kris in her hometown of Mainz, I haven’t seen Berlin or any of the tourism highlights of Germany but I think I enjoyed this more, seeing a small German city with someone who lives there. It’s time to go back to Amsterdam, though, I need to back by early morning, and much as I wish I were transferring smoothly from a slow train to a faster one I’m not, I’m headed to the parking lot to the bus stand.

It was a tough decision to choose bus over train, not really difficult because the price differential was enough to get me on a budget Eurolines bus but difficult to give up the romance of trains in Europe, the ease and civilization and speed of the thing. I know its possible to travel by train in America but it doesn’t feel the same, doesn’t feel like a romantic trip back in time fifty years to when people traveled with trunks or fleeing an encroaching army with an elaborate hat on. It’s not like this is the Orient Express or anything, it’s just a train and the romance is in my head, and apparently romance sells relatively cheaply at a price point of around $40, which is the difference between what a train ticket would have been and my bus ticket.

It’s late when I reach the bus stand, not middle of the night late but late for this country where nothing is open 24 hours and in fact after 8pm you are going to have to pay a premium for any services or products. The bus is supposed to leave in around thirty minutes and drive through the night, arriving in Amsterdam at 6am or so. There are a few others waiting there, I join them but don’t greet them, two days here has reinforced my monoglot humility and while they probably speak English I sometimes get a little tired of being the American with no languages. I speak French, a little, and I tend to protest this at some point or another in any conversation, but I don’t speak it that well anymore and everyone speaks English anyway so I end up letting everyone condescend to me.

It is a pleasant summer evening, a comfortable night to pull up a chunk of pavement and sit outside. I lean back and muse over the past couple of days, the statue of the river spirit on the winding banks of the Rhine, the jazz festival we went to and the house party later that night, the beautiful jewel of a church with stunning stained glass windows by Chagall. A fun time and I wish I could bump around Germany a bit more, maybe go see the Reichstag after all, but I am out of time and money for this little jaunt and I need to be back in Holland by the time the sun comes up and so here I wait for my budget bus to serve as an uncomfortable traveling bed tonight., leaving the romance of those trains coming and going on vectors flung across the continent inside the station.

And waiting. The bus is late by now, not terribly late but this is Germany after all, Western Europe and things are supposed to be on time here. I consider walking into the station for a snack before it shuts down completely for the night, but I know that Murphy’s Law applies here just as much as it does everywhere else and if I do that the bus will screech into the parking lot, everyone will leap aboard and I will be left here holding a candy bar in bewilderment.
And waiting still. We are Westerners, we wait politely but anxiously. I am still not really talking to anyone, and as a slight delay of fifteen minutes stretches to thirty and then forty-five, the loose collection of disparate strangers begins to coalesce. We have nothing in common but a shared point of departure, a destination, and a schedule, but that is all it takes to bridge social conventions sometimes. I watch a couple begin to chat with another couple, there is an examination of the sign and a brief huddled conference, a phone call is made in rapid German. Another two people join the clump of four and I am the only one sitting separate now, I’ve thought of doing something but I don’t really know what there is to be done, the bus should be here but its not, I can’t think of any action I could take in this country where I don’t speak the language and don’t have a context that would manifest a bus. I could have figured out a missing train, just get on a different one and spider through all those crossing vectors, take the scenic route, but the trains are all gone for the night now, it’s Sunday and its late and we are a group of strangers hanging out in a deserted parking lot with no bus to validate our presence. This is not supposed to happen in first world countries, and yet c’est la vie, here we are. I don’t know the German for that expression.

A lanky man breaks off from the clump, an ambassador sent to recruit me towards the shared goal of bus manifestation, or perhaps more accurately to humanely help the stranded foreigner, more stranded than they by the simple fact of my clear foreigness. He introduces himself in accented English, doesn’t even bother testing me with German or Dutch. They have called the bus company with the righteous anger of first world travellers, and he tells me that they were told that the bus is late. We figured that part out. They also said the bus was coming. Sometime. It has to come this way sometime, this is the route. Also immensely helpful.

I move over ten feet and become part of the group, solidarity, and listen while a young woman makes the next call. More rapid, agitated speech in a language I don’t understand, and a frustrated farewell at the end, punctuated by the abrupt snapping shut of a cell phone. More news, there will be no refunds, exchanges, discounts, or vouchers, we have been instructed to read the back of our tickets which clearly states that there will be no refunds, exchanges, discounts, or vouchers for our trouble. I can’t read it, it’s in Dutch, but I’ll take their word for it. The woman’s face twists as she says, “This is why it’s so cheap,” and we all concur that we are being abominably treated, yes it is an economy bus but we are in Western Europe. I guess the motto is that if we wanted first world service we would have ponied up the extra $40 and gotten on a romantic train.

We continue to wait. We haven’t been given an ETA on the bus, just “sometime,” and this isn’t even the Mediterranean with siestas and manana time, this is Germany, former home of lockstepping Nazis not to put too fine a point on it. I have been fairly sanguine about this whole thing, as it’s all entirely out of my control, but we are now all comparing notes about where we need to be and when, and how much this is inconveniencing us and may disrupt further travel connections or arrangements. I had some time to burn, but this tardy bus has already burned through most of it and I am beginning to fret as well.

We discuss options--perhaps we could just rent a car and pile in, drive through the night on our own? If we split the cost it wouldn’t put us out that much, although nobody wants to blow the budget that way, we are all waiting for the bus because that $40 meant more to us than comfort and it would just stink to blow our modest savings on a triage solution, but we do need to get from here to there. There are other problems with this plan, the first being that it’s late, where would we even find a car rental agency? We send an emissary to talk to the night guard in the station, he comes back and informs us that we can call a special service that will bring us a rental car for an additional charge. The bus still isn’t here and this is looking more and more like a necessity, but wait there are other issues to overcome with this plan--does anyone know how to get there? I don’t, clearly, but the young woman does, she can navigate but doesn’t have a valid driver’s license. Hmmm. New problem, does anyone have a valid license?

Well. I do.

And suddenly this is starting to seem like a grand adventure, a madcap midnight drive with a carload of strangers across Europe, I warn them that I’m not a very good driver and I don’t really know how to drive a stick shift, automatic only, but we are beginning to convince ourselves that this is feasible. We will wait another ten minutes for the bus and then we are taking matters into our own hands, we will be cowboys not cattle and hopefully the American girl won’t drive off the road and hopefully the German girl actually knows where she’s going and this is going to be a story for sure.

The bus pulls up five minutes later.

Let’s Pave the Rainforest, Misahualli, Ecuador (Jul 2006)

I fell asleep last night listening to the rain plinking steadily on the roof of my breezy cabana, smiling at the sound but also hoping that it would stop before morning. I am, after all, in the middle of a no-shit rainforest, so it is a happy surprise to wake up to clear skies dotted with fluffy clouds. The horizon over the flagging treetops is blue, but a different kind of blue than the sharp, clear air of the mountains; it is hazy and soft somehow.

My hygiene habits have adjusted on this trip, I no longer shower in the morning. There’s no point, as I will immediately set out to get as dirty as possible stomping around exploring, so despite the slight sense of being off-kilter from not following my morning routine, I pull my hair back in a ponytail and spray myself liberally with my precious 100% DEET. It is the most toxic insect repellent commercially available, and I can feel it tingling and stinging into my pores. I throw the bottle in my bag, anticipating relayering myself with poison at some juncture, I am paranoid in my assiduous application of DEET and it’s worked so far, no malaria so far, in fact I have watched lumbering giant mosquitos circle and fly away from my probably melting skin.

After breakfast, I go with my guide to get geared up. Unlike most others here, I am traveling alone, so I get a guide all to myself. He gives me wading boots, encasing my legs in sweaty rubber up to the knee. Already my hiking boot plan has failed. Off we go, and we are doing this a little differently because I’m not a tour group, instead of having a dedicated jeep for our adventures we will hitch a ride to our first trailhead, and it will be a combination of buses and walking afterwards.

The jeep drops us off after a short ride on fairly well-paved roads, and off we go to the Sacred Waterfall. We climb slowly up a rough set of steps set into the muddy hillside, stopping every few minutes so that my guide can show me a plant or flower and explain it’s medical uses. The day is starting to heat up, and the sweat beading all over my body is mingling with the DEET and creating a slick layer of poisonous, dirty sludge. We are just beginning our day.

We go on, stopping less now as we move into the taller trees. The path is not too steep, its not a vertiginous climb, but it is a river of mud still steaming off last night’s rain and it goes straight up, the rude steps of the first section have fallen by the wayside. I slip with every step, clutching at branches and roots as the rubber waders slide treadless in several inches of glop. Every yard of progress I’ve made has been tempered by a foot of sliding, and I am getting dirtier and sweatier and wondering how the hell my guide proceeds with such sure footing, I am stepping exactly where he is and yet here I go sideways and only catch myself from a complete face-plant by thrusting my hand down into the mud. I ask him to slow down, I am panting too because the air is so thick and humid, some rain would be nice right now this is a rainforest where’s the damned rain?

We reach a smoother section, there are some actual stones sunk into the mud on this stretch, some rough indication that this is something other than a wild pig track that humans have adapted to their own purposes, and not that well. My boots are caked with mud, making every step heavier and now I’m carrying my own treachery on my shoes, sliding on the stuff stuck to the bottom even where the ground has traction. We reach a stream and the path ends, will we go upstream or downstream along the bank until we reach a bridge?

How foolish of me to think that there would be a bridge.

My guide leads, the path, it would seem, is to wade upstream for several yards until we reach a break in the foliage on the other side. I am mud all the way up to my thighs, and smeared down my naked arms as well, I have much earlier ditched the long loose layers recommended for jungle weather and also keeping mosquitoes off, it is too fucking hot for that. Rivulets of sweat have traced lines of cleaner skin through the muck all over me, and there are smudges of mud on my face as well where I wiped my brow without thinking of the hand I’d thrust down to save my balance earlier. I am gamely following, teetering against the water’s current and gingerly picking my way step by step in the river, not stepping stone to stepping stone mind you. It occurs to me to wonder, what happens if I fall and, say, sprain an ankle or worse? Is that what it will take to get a helicopter in here to get me out of this jungle hell? Who am I kidding, the closest heli is hundreds of kilometers away, the only way I am getting out of this jungle is the way I came in, sprains, breaks, cuts, and venomous bites be damned.

I stagger and lurch from the water, clumps of mud still clinging to my waders. Oh look, it seems there’s a small hole in the left one, as evidenced by the sloshing wetness covering my foot. This is just getting better and better. There must be a different path out of here, we aren’t even at the waterfall yet but surely we won’t have to backtrack down this path, there’s probably a wide paved access road on the other side and he is just taking me up this way for an authentic experience.

I lean against a tree, panting a little bit, and am torn between wiping the crud off my skin as best I can or adding to it with another layer of DEET. My guide has a slight amused smile, I snarl up at him, “Ever heard of asphalt?! It’s great! You pour it, and then it hardens and it stays that way and you can walk on it ALL THE TIME.”

“Oh, but this is the easy path! Everyone takes this path, groups with senior citizens and small children come up this way, this is easy, very easy.”

I glare. “Easy? Easy? Easy for you, but how about I take you to New York and drop you in Times Square and leave you to navigate the subway to meet me in Tompkins Square thirty minutes later.”

I don’t think he realized how frustrated I am, he backpedals and agrees soothingly that yes, this is easy for him, this is where he’s from but it would be hard for him to be where I’m from. And we are almost there, really. He promises.
One last set of muddy steps, up and up and up, and finally a rickety gate, we have reached the waterfall. Oh no, we have reached the access path for the waterfall, my notion that we had been on the access path was foolish indeed. At least it’s downhill now, but treacherous, treacherous, steep stone steps slick with moisture and I am going very carefully, and we are wading downstream this time it is old hat by now I just want to get to the waterfall, I cannot imagine a greater pleasure right now than plunging into a cold pool of water in the midst of the moist forest and I think I understand why it’s sacred now.

There it is, beautiful manna from heaven, water from a rock, and I tug and yank and pull the rubber prisons from my feet and only then realize that I have forgotten my bathing suit.