Sydney: The Layover

It would be easy to assume that we travel because one or the both of us has some source of wealth that is unique and different from other people in our age bracket. Frankly, that would be lovely, but simply isn’t the case. The travel we do is funded primarily by shifting priorities and figuring out how to make the most out of what money we do have at our disposal. To put it simply, we are incredibly cheap.

Getting to Win’s sixth continent (it was on his bucket list to do before 30) posed a unique issue in that regard. Namely, while working fulltime jobs and doing fulltime grad classes, how does one justify the airfare to fly to New Zealand for two weeks between semesters? We tackled that one by taking advantage of some of the air mile hacks through various airlines and credit cards to bring the cost down to just $75 roundtrip for Win and $550 roundtrip for myself. (This was a 6-month endeavor that required planning, research, solid credit scores, and lots of dedicated effort.)

Once we had our air miles, we found that there was just one ticket option available for all of December and January from Albuquerque to Australia or New Zealand. We would arrive the morning of New Year’s Eve in Sydney, home to one of the world’s best New Year’s Eve celebrations, and have roughly 24 hours before our flight to New Zealand. 

Now, I know what I said about us being cheap and the great lengths we go to in order to afford our travel. The number of stories that include, well we did X absurdly uncomfortable and strange thing, but it only cost $Y is, well, probably roughly equivalent to the number of stories we have to tell. However, in all our travels I have come to appreciate that there’s the time and place for the right kind of splurge. (Note the “I” in that sentence; I am the one who pushes for splurge experiences. I embrace this.)

Given the fortuitous nature of the timing of our 24-hour layover, we obviously needed to find some NYE celebration in which to partake. Rather than getting off the plane and having to fight the masses for free seating, some of which start to fill up around 6 am, we opted to spend some money. And if you’re gonna spend it, why not do it right?

We booked a cheap(ish) hotel room out in the suburbs and near little Korea, but went all out for the fireworks. And I have to say it was worth spending 400 AUD (roughly $280 US) to be harbor-side at the Botanical Gardens with a three course meal and a fantastic view of the bridge, Opera House, and both fireworks shows.

Most things are worth bargaining, haggling, and bartering over, but some things are once-in-a-lifetime experiences that are worth working into the budget.

Barrier Reefed

So we all know that I am never going to be a professional scuba diver (is that a thing?). But I have come to really enjoy snorkeling, even though it took a couple of tries before I got comfortable with it. I might not be able to swim, but I sure can bob around in a life jacket and flipper my way along among fish and coral.

And what better place to snorkel than at the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the world’s second largest reef system?As our last unvisited Central American country, Belize made the perfect jumping off point for a nice day of snorkeling.

We bobbed along with the tropical fish as they darted in and out of coral structures of endless color, shapes, and variety. Some wore outlandish, flamboyant colors; others sparkled in massive shifting schools.

Sea turtles cruised along silently, grazing on sea grass here and there. Massive rays hovered along the sandy sea bottom. Nurse sharks cut through water, searching for food, chased by our sinewy, sun-darkened guide, who was seemingly half-fish himself.

Snorkeling, while common, still fills me with awe. It is a glimpse into a world wholly separate from our own, a universe unto itself. Thank goodness I overcame my fear, at least enough to allow me to observe this place from just below the surface.

Viñales: Caballos y Tabaco

Viñales is only hours from Havana, but a world apart. Its lush rolling green hills are dotted with fincas, lines with dirt roads, and sprinkled with massive limestone mogotes. The rich soil and unique microclimate make Viñales home to the world’s best tobacco.

As part of Cuba’s tourist trail, Viñales overflows with casas particulares, a guesthouse-homestay hybrid, restaurants, and tours to the surrounding farms and caves. This provided us with the ideal opportunity to go for a horseback riding tour, my first and last.

For years Win has been trying to get me to go horseback riding, and there have been no shortage of chances to do so. I have always been vehemently opposed, as I find horse to be unpredictable in a way that terrifies me. Now, I know there are plenty of people who absolutely love horses and horseback riding. We all have our things.

But, confronted with the beauty of Viñales and the chance to face a fear and try something new, I agreed (albeit begrudgingly).

As a novice horseback rider, wracked with fear, our Spanish-speaking guide gave us the following instructions once atop the horse: left, right, stop, walk. My small, young horse, not being a car, did not respond to commands as such and promptly freaked out. She panicked, I panicked, she tried to buck me off, lost balance, and fell over, taking me down for the ride.

That’s when I found out that the quickest way to win an argument is to have a horse fall on you. I also learned that Cubans are not wont to take that crybaby bullshit, so I ended up riding a horse (a calmer horse) for the next four hours.

It was four hours of blind fear, riding through gorgeous landscapes, limping around farms and caves, and thinking of ways to combine my scant Spanish skills to ask our guide nicely to slow the hell down. We gained some insight into the tobacco growing process, as well as how communism and farm life interact (hint: 90 percent of the crop goes to the government). 

We also met whatever this creature is.

In the end, I spent the rest of our vacation in various states of limping and healing (partially due to the fact that horses are heavy and partially to the fact of having ridden a horse for that long in general). But now I know that I can get back on the horse, in the most literal way imaginable.  

Rock Cut

Though often referred to as caves, the monuments of Ajanta and Ellora are manmade structures. Comprised of numerous monasteries, shrines, temples, and living quarters, each of these sites provides visitors with a unique glimpse into the extreme lengths to which man will go in the name of religion.

Ajanta’s structures, carved into a cliff wall encircling the U-bend in the Waghur River, are the oldest of India’s famous rock-cut caves. Dating from as early as 200 BCE, the site’s various enclaves are entirely Buddhist. Filled with stone carved scenes depicting the life and teachings of the Buddha, Ajanta served as a monastery for Buddhist monks for up to 800 years.

The staying power of Ajanta’s hand-carved statues and monasteries is not nearly as impressive as the fact that a handful of its numerous frescoes are fairly intact. It is absolutely amazing to see remnants of frescoes, which disintegrate in chunks of falling plaster, survive over 2,000 years of history.

Sometime during the 5th-7th centuries the style of rock cut cave monasteries began to be replicated some 100 kilometers away in Ellora, leading to the abandonment of the Ajanta Buddhist settlement.

The various structures at Ellora display primarily Hindu, but also Jain and Buddhist temples and monasteries. Historians believe that the coexistence of temples from all three religions in one single site demonstrates a unique time period of religious tolerance in Indian history.

Directly at the entrance to Ellora sits its main attraction. Marking  the height of the development of India’s rock cut temple architecture, the Kailasa Temple is the crown jewel of Ellora’s complex. Built over the course of multiple generations, carved from a single rock from the top down, Kailasa demonstrates an incredible ability to plan and execute a design.

Looking at the tool marks visible on the floors, walls, and ceilings of Ellora and Ajanta, it is nearly incomprehensible that human hands carved such buildings directly from the earth. Elaborate, beautiful, and impressive, the caves of Ellora and Ajanta are impeccable examples of the feats and determination of man. 

Luminous

The Thai holiday of Loy Kratong is easily one of the more beautiful festivals I have had the blessing to attend. It is simple, graceful, and surreal. While I haven’t had the opportunity to be present for the bigger, mass ascension-style celebrations that take place elsewhere in Thailand, I am overjoyed to have had the chance to be back in the country for a second go at Chiang Rai’s festivities.

As I have mentioned before, Loy Kratong is an amalgamation of exquisite traditions for cleansing oneself, spiritually and mentally, for the upcoming year. Beneath a heavy moon, banana leaf and bread kratongs are sent floating downriver, as kohm lanterns lift away from fingers into a sky thick with false constellations. If it weren’t for the fireworks going off left and right, it would be serene, as though time were suspended, slowed.

This year, through a series of small-world occurrences involving five hot air balloon pilots, a common interest in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and my willingness to give out my phone number to strangers, our Loy Kratong weekend festivities were taken up a notch on the beauty scale.

Neither Win nor I had been in a hot air balloon before, despite our hometown being annual host to the largest balloon festival on Earth. But, thanks to some glorious strangers and the Thai propensity for ridiculous fairs, all that changed. 

The heat of the burner glows hot against your skin, contrasting sharply with the comparatively crisp night air. Beneath the balloon, so much larger than and hotter than anticipated, with the world drifting away from the soles of your shoes, one feels an experience of ethereal lightness. It is lightness abrupt, overwhelming. It is almost as though, if not for the tethers anchoring the basket to the ground, one might float off entirely.  

It was an experience augmenting an already magical holiday weekend. Fitting perfectly in among the floating, drifting, lifting, it was as though life chose, for this one brief moment, to have a theme, to lace a common thread into various events. Perfect, ephemeral, light; I didn’t think I could enjoy Loy Kratong more than I had in past years.

Double Double

On the island of Sumatra lies the world’s largest volcanic crater lake, Danau Toba. Within Lake Toba sits the Singapore-sized island of Samosir. And, if you’re quite determined, high up in the alpine trees of this double island, there are several smaller lakes. If you have the kind of bucket list we have, there’s just no resisting seeing a double lake on a double island.

On rented scooters, we set out to circumnavigate the island, turn inland and head up an over the island in search of said lake. We headed past remnants of the island’s animist history, palm trees on one side of the road, pines on the other. Through rice fields and rocky hills dotted at random with the massive, colorful multistory graves unique to Samosir.

We lost ourselves in towns, through markets filled with staring Indonesians. After some false starts, kind strangers eventually directed us onto the road that would lead us on a quick jaunt across the island. Stop at a lake, click of a camera, back before dark. Or so we thought.

“Hati, hati” and “Palan, palan” are two oft-ignored warnings in Bahasa Indonesia. Slowly and Caution mean very little in a land where driving is reckless, passing is nonchalant, and speeding is a given. So when told to drive slowly and be careful, we assume it’s because we are white and suspected of ignorance about driving motorbikes.

As pavement became pockmarked, giving way for wide expanses to dirt and gravel, we figured it couldn’t last. Wouldn’t maps indicate a dirt road? The road did, indeed, wind its way past the lake, the x on our treasure map. But that's about as far as our luck lasted. 

Eventually, you go too far to turn back and must forge on ahead. Even as you are driving at a snail’s pace, the sun inching closer to dusk, trying a dip and dodge around innumerable rocks and potholes,  scooter rattling and scraping all the while. At some point we crested the top of the island, some 3,000 feet above sea level, to see the island ring road a thin snaking string along the coast, far below us.

Much in the way that all good things come to an end, so too must the harrowing. After a brief pavement fakeout (which had us so assured we were done with dirt that we stopped for a victory break), the dusk trickled into dark, pavement back into rock and dust, leaving us to crawl back by the light of a barely-functional headlight.

Aching and dusty, we finally pulled up to our hotel. Soothing pizza and beer were applied to our wounded spirits. Bed was crawled into early. But, sometimes it’s not easy to reach your destination.  Especially if you’re looking for a lake on an island in a lake on an island in the ocean. 

CVK Animal Kingdom: It's a Wild, Colorful World

 I have fallen in love with my students. For the most part, they are overwhelmingly sweet and loving. My days are made up of hugs, high fives, and games. (And sometimes cheek kisses, which occasionally turn into group cheek kisses, which end with students kissing teacher on the lips, at which point we have a weeklong cheek kiss. But that is neither here nor there.) We sing and dance, do arts and crafts, and read stories together. Even when they do misbehave, it’s mostly just because they’re kids being kids, and I don’t really have the wherewithal to stay mad at them.

This past weekend, all that love and affection, all that desire to have fun, really paid dividends. Well, that plus two months of seriously intense planning by myself and my Thai co-teacher, supplemented by heaps of help from Win. Thanks to all that preparation and hard work, we were able to give our students the most colorful English Day Camp you’ll ever see! 1, 2, 3, YAY!

Choosing to make the only goals those of a) having fun and b) playing games in English, we went all out. Basically, we gave 250 first, second, and third grade students an animal-themed English carnival day. They got different colored shirts and bags, nametags and pencil cases, ridiculous animal-shaped snacks, spaghetti for lunch, and a parade just for the school. Each foreign teacher planned one games, through which the students would cycle, while being bombarded with intense, joyful, loving energy.

They tossed balls, popped balloons, made masks, drew, spun roulette wheels, fished, acted, sang, spelled, and balloon animal-ed their way through the most absurdly exhausting day ever. And, damn, if all that planning, exhaustion, frustration, and difficulty wasn’t completely and totally worth it. The pure joy radiating out of their little faces made all the hard work seem like nothing.

This might be what people mean when they say ‘maternal instinct.’ That is, if that maternal instinct rolled around a color wheel and ended up with screaming, enthusiastic games, giant smiles, and lots of English. If ‘maternal instinct’ means never having to apologize for wearing yellow and orange leopard print leggings paired with a yellow t-shirt and yellow and orange feather earrings. Well, and if ‘maternal instinct’ includes the desire to avoid seeing any children for at least 48 hours after spending 8 hours straight entertaining them.

As an addendum of sorts, I have since learned that the day of our English Camp, September 21, is World Gratitude Day. Personally, this feels fitting in a way. It’s not always easy to teach such small children, especially when they don’t speak your language – sometimes it requires an immense amount of work, time, patience, and equanimity – but it is worth the effort to be able to help these children grow and flourish. The laughter and smiles are truly a gift that fills my life with immeasurable joy.

I am incredibly grateful for all the wonderful blessings that have allowed me to becoming a teacher of young learners. And I am grateful for the students themselves; they help me to see when I am taking myself too seriously, they help me to tap into the creative parts of my brain, they let me use my imagination and act like a complete fool, they are forgiving and loving and constantly remind me that the world is a big, beautiful, amazing place. And all this without even being able to speak the same language.