Que Pasa?

(OK so we have been home for a week now.  We fell just a little behind but don't want to leave you hanging.)

Guess whose back??  You could smell the jet fuel in our clothes by now.   Luckily upon arrival into Spain we were able to check into our hotel and quickly wander about the city the first night without any hitches.  We had dinner and checked in with the other teams and Bill.  Bill then gave us a series of mandatory tasks and bonus trips to attempt.  The only requirement was for everyone to meet in Lisbon, Portugal in three days. 

    The next day we visited several statues that were older than the U.S.  itself.   After viewing several palaces, statues and gardens we decided to grab some lunch.  The first place we had lunch served a very cold Especial beer on tap and wonderful grilled cheese and ham sandwiches.    We then tried another place and we had red wine and my personal favorite fresh sliced ham and cheese plate.  What made this meal so special was the legs (hooves and all) of the pig were hanging in the restaurant  and a guy was carving the meat from the leg as we placed our orders.  Natasha only ate bread and cheese.  I was a stuffed “pig” by the time we were done. 

     We then made our way to a local Segway shop and we toured the city on Segways.  This was fun cause one of the Segways ran out of juice and we were then supplied with an electric bike that was fun to say the least.  You just press a button and the bicycle drove itself.  Here are Zoe and Elizabeth on the Segways.

We then decided to go and see something I have always wanted to see in person.  So we caught the subway to the Plaza De Toro.  Upon arrival one could not help but notice the festive colors  and smiles that filled the area outside the stadium.  There were vendors everywhere.  Not only were the vendors selling beer and chips, but they had all kinds of gummi bears, sour candies and jaw breakers.  We finally made our way into the stadium with chicharonnes, candy and, of course, beers for the beginning of the event.   The event was a full on Spanish bull fight.  This was the first bullfight of the season and the crowd including myself was very excited.  After a  small ceremony , the carnage began.  Instantly, Natasha could not control her emotions and began to weep with a jacket over her face.  The poor bull tried to get the matadors, diving himself to exhaustion.  Evidently, the least experienced matadors go first.  This has to be because this guy could never give the suffering animal the kill stab.  After witnessing this go on for over a half hour and the poor animal finally dying, I was ready to leave.  The fans could see how bothered Natasha was and they did their best to try and make her feel better.   It didn’t help - we left, ate dinner and called it a night.

     Our one mandatory task was to get to a city in southeastern Spain named Granada to see Alhambra.  We took a train to the city.  Unlike the train ride in Indonesia, this train was pleasant and kind of air conditioned.   The train ride was a little over three hours to Granada and another 30 minute cab ride to the museum.  This is now the dilemma.    Once we arrived at Alhambra we found out that all the tickets  were sold out for the day and the tickets were only being sold for the next day.  Prior to leaving Madrid we found out that one of the bonuses was to go to Tangier, Morocco.  That’s right Africa.  Everyone who knows me, knows that one of the things on my bucket list is to get to Africa.  The dilemma was if we stayed in Granada an extra day we would not be able to get to Morocco.  So for the first time throughout the game, we decided to skip the mandatory and continue on the pilgrimage to Africa.  If we skipped the mandatory we got zero points and would come in last place.  After a quick bite to eat we were back at the train station on our way to Tangier.  Once we arrived at Algecira, Spain, we found out the ferry landing was about a mile away.  Keep in mind that by now it is close to midnight.  After walking through the small area through the prostitutes and aimlessly around the port we found a nice man from Senegal who spoke maybe seven languages to translate our needs to get to Morocco.  The last ferry was arriving within the hour and we were going to be on it….  After landing in Morocco we did not realize that Tangier was an hour away.  We then made it to the awaiting taxi and of course Natasha negotiated the proper rate for the hour long ride.    Recently, a bombing occurred in another city in Morocco.  This is significant, due to the random stops along the way to Tangier.  The cab driver told us to keep quite while he spoke to the police.  I was really nervous because I didn’t want the police to exercise a tourist tariff on us.  It was really easy for Natasha to stay quite because she was asleep.  We finally arrived at the El Minzah hotel.  According to legend, Leonardo Decaprio stayed at the same hotel while filming Inception.  After traveling for over 15 hours we were ready to call it a night.  

The following morning we had tasks to accomplish in Tangier before we left for Fez.  One of the tasks was to buy a fes ( a hat) at a souk and to have mint tea at a certain restaurant.  So that morning we were taken by our driver to a local market to buy the fes.  After shopping for a few minutes and fending off the locals, we then made our way to a local restaurant that was out of a magazine.  As you are walking to the restaurant, at first you look and you can’t find anything special about this place.  Then you simply turn around and you can see the Strait of Gibraltar.  The view was magnificent and the mint tea was very good.  It already had a sweetness to it that was enhanced mint leaves.  A local came and sat with us and offered his peace pipe with “home grown …….” 

After saying goodbye to the local, we were on our way to Fez.  On maps, Morocco looks like a desert country.  On the contrary we were pleased to see beautiful rolling hills of crops, cows and goats.  After driving for about four hours we pulled over to a local restaurant.  No big deal you say.  Well the side of beef was hanging outside and the BBQ was being cooked right next to it.  No menus, no forks, and only construction paper for tissue.   The locals at this roadside café never blinked an eye at us and continued on.  The driver placed the order for us.  He ordered “meatballs”, steaks and lamb chops.  All this food was garnished with grilled tomatoes and onions.  Accompanied by bread and washed down with Fanta orange sodas and of course more tea.   

After lunch we were back on the road to Fez.  Finally, we arrived in Fez at our Hotel the Jnan Palace.  A palace this place was not.  It had a cool lay out and a huge pool, but the place needed a lot of TLC.  After a brief check in we got a taxi to the Blue Gate.  The Blue Gate is one of the entrances to a huge market on steroids.  This place is over six square miles big.  It would take a week at least to see everything.  The tasks included for a member of the teams to get a Henna tattoo.  Natasha volunteered for that and to take a tour of a tannery.  After getting Natasha’s tattoo we began to look for the leather tannery.  Several  “I am not a guide” locals volunteered to take us to the tannery for small fees per person.  One kid would not give up and lead us deeper and deeper into this maze.  Finally, we asked another local of the location of the tannery and he let us know that it was closed for the day.  So for the last thirty minutes we were lead around looking for nothing.  Anyway we made our way out of that situation and back to our hotel for the evening.  The next morning we caught a flight to Lisbon, Portugal.

Tulips in Istanbul

  What's up everybody?  This is your friendly neighborhood world travelers trying to keep up with our blog game.  We have been going non-stop for the past however many days and it is taking a toll on both of us.  After India we hopped a jet to Istanbul, Turkey.  This place is very nice with a history that is competitive with any country we have been to or even heard of.  One could visit Istanbul for a week and not see all of the sites.  The tulips here are beautiful.

After checking into our hotel, we went out in the city to start our scavenges.  But no one spoke English.  We walked around for over two hours and took the subway for another thirty minutes.  So for three hours we simply wandered around this place and the only thing we accomplished was interview a nice lady from Florida and a nice gentleman from Germany, which was one of our scavenges.  Then we started chasing tourist information signs.  One sign would say tourist information pointing in a certain direction and another sign would say tourist information pointing in the opposite direction.  As we were walking we ran into David, from another team, and he was doing the same thing.   Only difference is he had just started and was only a few hundred yards from our hotel entrance.  So in conclusion we walked and took a subway for a long time in a big circle around our hotel.  With both of our teams frustrated we decided to partner up and go and attempt some food scavenges and try some Chi- Chi. 

     So we four grabbed a taxi and headed to a section of town named Kumkapi to eat at a meyhane ( a bar with live music that serves food).  The hosts at all the restaurants were very aggressive trying to get you to come in to their particular establishment.  We finally were persuaded to have dinner at a restaurant that was pretty good.   The only problem was the bill came out to over $180.00 U.S.  Yes, we received the “American discount.”  But who could argue?  After dinner we got a taxi that was a roller coaster ride in itself.  The driver may have been intoxicated and wanted to show us how Turkish people navigate heavy traffic.  We were a little buzzed ourselves so we really were laughing at the ride as we requested for the driver to take us to a particular place for “chi chi.”   “Chi chi” is the local term for smoking tobacco out of a “hooka.”   We asked the driver if we were at the location we requested and he just pointed and said “chi-chi” and drove off.  The place was very colorfully decorated and as all places in Turkey, very clean.    A fire was blazing near the front door and the place was packed with patrons laughing of course and playing board games.  The place did not serve alcohol, but they did serve soft drinks and Turkish tea.  We took our seats and ordered a round of drinks and some apple tobacco.    It was great we laughed and had a great ending to our night.

The next morning we took the train with our new travel partners to several mosques, the underground cistern and museums in the city.   Natasha had to put on a jacket in the mosques as women are required to cover up.    We were not allowed to take pictures in several of the places but we did manage to sneak a few.  We saw the staff of Moses, yep that Moses.  It was a amazing to see how small this staff really was.  Later Bill ( the organizer) reminded me that Moses was not Charleston Heston and that he was really a little Jewish man.   We also saw the cloak of Mohammed the prophet of the Muslim religion, the casket of Alexander the Great, the world’s first peace treaty and countless other great artifacts.  Once again we saw a lot of history and things that you did even know could even be available to view. 

This is also the home of Turkish delight and it is delicious.

After a long day we ate and called it a night.  Our next stop....Madrid.

Mumbai Day 2

Today was the least eventful day of the entire trip due to the heat and exhaustion.   After eating breakfast we decided to go back to bed and sleep for a couple hours.  We actually didn’t start our day until 10:00 A.M.  This is like starting @ 5:00 P.M. by Great Escapes standards.  The first task we attacked was to go and find the world’s most expensive home.  I had seen this house on tv before so I was excited to see it up close.  It looks like an office building that is a bazillion stories tall.  It wasn’t that exciting though because security would not let us in the house to see for ourselves.   

The next task was to visit the outdoor laundry mat Dhobi Ghat.   It was amazing and crowded.  We call it a laundry mat, but it was just a bunch of men cleaning laundry by hand outside.  We read that most of Mumbai’s laundry is cleaned here. 

The largest part of the crowd was vendors trying to sale us things such as beads, carpets, and such.  But, the laundry was larger than expected and those guys worked hard as would expect.  No women are allowed to work in the laundry mat due to the intense labor and the physical demand of the work.   While searching for a cab we ran into three people arguing over who knows what.  One lady started slapping the other and a guy on a motor cycle was trying to stop them from fighting.  Finally a cop ran up to them and stopped them from arguing.  As we were boarding the cab we saw the slapper girl offering the slapped girl money.  Obviously, that’s how things work in India.  

     Next we went to a rock pier that lead to the Haji Ali Mosque.  This place was very disturbing for the both of us.  First, everyone was staring at Natasha due to the fact the she had on a v-neck t-shirt and her arms were not covered.  For the first time on this trip she felt very uncomfortable.  We simply walked up to the mosque and turned around.  Everyone knows that I have a large spot in my heart for the kids and this little boy touched me.  He kept following us as we walked back down the pier and I did my best to ignore the begging.  I finally turned around and this little boy had the worst case of gang green on his foot that I have ever seen.  I did not want anyone to see me giving him money so acted like I was giving him five and I did, rupees that is, which is like giving him .12 cents.  The average income for the entire country is $2,000 per year.  Needless to say we booked it out of that spot.  

   The Mani Bhavan House was our next destination.  I always have the tendency to not look forward to the houses and the sunrises.  This house was different.  The house by state side standards was a small modest looking home.   The outside was clean and seemed to be in a nice neighborhood.  As we walked into the house I could tell something was different about this house.  The house was once the home of Gandhi.   Its hard to realize how the effort and the sacrifices of this little man by stature contributed to society.  Not just Indian people but, he provided a blue print to be followed by many.  The man even wrote Hitler begging him to change his ways though he knew his letter would fall on deaf ears.  Very cool place see his living quarters and read of his social accomplishments.

 

    After visiting a couple more temples and a local park we made our way back to the Taj Palace Hotel for some a/c and some drinks in order to take a break from the Indian heat and air.  After leaving the hotel we found our way to Café Leopold  for a view of the place.  The café was hit by the recent terrorist attack in 2008.  The place was remodeled with a piece of glass containing bullet holes.  But the place was packed with customers and it seemed to be business as usual. 

   Quickly, we walked a couple blocks to a local McDonalds for the Maharaja Burger.  The first thing you notice on the menu is the absence of beef.  The Maharaja Burger consists of a sort of chicken patti and a veggie pattie.   As my nephew would say... “disgusting.”   We made it out of that place as quickly as possible.  

         This concludes our Mumbai leg of the tour.  The people are wonderful.  The place is not.  With such a large population, a polluted beach and water system, political corruption, and an obvious need for animal control this place needs help.  I inquired about starting a foundation to send shoes to the kids in the slums, but learned that they would simply sell the shoes instead of using them.  I know kids in the states need help as well, but the kids here have nothing compared to the "poor" kids in the states.

“IF YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN POOR, THEN ITS HARD TO REALIZE YOU HAVE NOTHING.”- me

Next stop...ISTANBUL, TURKEY.

Mumbai - Day One

     We arrived in Mumbai, India on the 26th of April.   Most planes arrive at night or early morning.  Entering the city during the dark feigns fresh air and normalcy.  But light quickly reveals that this place is over crowded and ruled by poverty.  But the people are gracious and humble.  We will get to more of this later. 

     We did the usual trek from the airport to the hotel which was the Trident hotel.    The hotel, as usual, was gorgeous and the service was impecable.  One thing I have noticed as we travel west is the fancy attire.  Grant it, we are on vacation/holiday and most people that stay in these hotels are on business; the dress is fancy to say the least. 

     After breakfast the next morning, our first task was to check out the "ladies special" at the Chhatrapati Shivaj Terminous.  The train station @10:00 A.M was a jailbreak to say the least.  There were people everywhere going the same direction.  We looked like trout swimming up stream.  After asking some questions we found that the ladies special was @ 5:45  P.M and the special let only women ride the train during that time.  Next, we found a book store and purchased a guide book of Mumbai.  We then made our way to High Court to sit in on a session or 100.  After our passports were examined and cameras confiscated  we made our way to the courtrooms.  Unlike trials in the U.S., the Indian government only has trial by judge and he doesn't arrive until he is ready and all the lawyers in an orderly fashion present arguments and so forth.  We were required to spend an hour in the courtroom and did so, but we only witnessed 30 minutes of actul trial.  But during that 30 minutes Natasha chatted up an attorney in the courtroom.  He explained the process and his monthly wages which did not add up to much by U.S. standards.  After retrieving our cameras we found some local students to translate a phrase in the local dialect and moved on.  It was HOT.  So we caught a cab to the Taj Palace Hotel for "lunch."   As most of you know hair, or what's left of mine, is very important.  So I got a haricut in the hotel.  The guy cut my hair with scissors and it wasn't that bad, but I can't wait to see Rita next week.  After my haircut we made our way up to an English style restraunt for lunch.   We had pizzas and salad and beers of course trying to avoid going back outside for a while.  We ended up sitting the hotel so long that it was time for high tea, which was one of the scavenges in our book. As most of you remember the Taj Palace was one of the hotels attacked by a group of terroists in 2008.

     Moving on, we then found a guy who owned a tour company.  It was late in the afternoon and they had already stopped doing tours.   The guy offered to take us on a private tour himself.   IT WAS LIFE CHANGING.   To begin, we took a train to the slums and that was an adventure in itself.  According to our tour guide, about 17 people per day die as a result of these trains.  Keep in mind that we are in one of the most crowded places in the world and the trains play a key factor in tranportation.  I sat on a bench with three other guys but the bench was clearly made for three people.  Within 25 seconds at each stop an average of 100 people get on and off the train. 

Finally, we arrived at the Dharian slums for a fast reality check.  It is hard to put into words this sort of poverty. 

Earlier in this blog, I expressed the dire situations of the orphans in Manila and compared to these children those children are rich.  We witnessed the process of recycling plastics and the employment oppurtunity it provides.   We saw two workers who worked and lived in a small room without air conditioning.  In fact, no one has air conditioning and it is HOT.  Imagine living through the Houston summer without ever getting relief - there is no air conditioning in your home, work, school, etc.  They live in the "work place" due to the fact they do not have to pay rent, which in the scheme of things makes sense.   Next we saw the same similar processes of recycling cardboard boxes and baking bread.  The bread makers work around the clock so as to not let the fire go out.  And as you guessed it:  " IT WAS HOT"  We then walked through the little alleys and between homes to find kids playing cricket on top of a dump site.  I stopped of course and the one pitch I threw went "yard." 

The guide then showed us a bayou that makes Buffalo Bayou look like a natural spring.  It not only smelled of human waste but looked like something out of a horror show.  The guide explained to us that the children tied weights to themselves to go to the bottom to search for metal to bring to recycling facilities.  And to think I used to whine and cry about taking out the trash.  Finally, we went into a locals home for a spell.   The entire house was smaller than most of our master bedroom closets.  The downstairs consisted of a stove which was a hot plate, a spice shelf, a small shower which doubled as a sink.  I assume clothes were kept upstairs, which we did not see at all.  Toilets were comunal and the fact that the government recently installed a few hydrants has helped keep the place a little cleaner. 
     After this three hour experience, I could not take anymore.  We then went to our hotel and called it a night.  I can't stop thinking of this place.  Now that we are not in that local, I made some key observations. I compare these humans to dogs.  It sounds strange, but dogs just deal with it.  Pain, the dog still contiues with it's day, nothing to eat the dog looks for food.  In a way these humans are just the same the will to survive is evident in every aspect of their lives.   Never have I ever seen a will to simply survive than in this place.  The only thing the children asked for was a smile and reply.  Not one person ask for a hand-out nor did I think to offfer one to anyone.  You could see the pride in peoples' eyes and the fact that they know things are going to get better.  Once we got back to the hotel I broke down in the shower.  This was truly an amazing experience. 
   

Singapore Trip Report

On our way to Mumbai, India, we had a layover in Singapore and did a short day of scavenging.  Its very similar to KL.  It is a modern city and where things work efficiently.  Our favorite part of the day was the food scavenge.  We decided to eat the city's signature dish - chili crab.  We stopped at a restaurant near Chinatown and found out later that it is one of the best in the city for chili crab.  And boy was it.  We ordered a "small" which turned out to be a humongous blue crab covered in a very spicy chili sauce.  We ordered riced and at the sauce over rice.  It was delicious and messy.

   We did lots of other things in Singapore including the G-Max Slingshot that is like a reverse bungee jump that shoots you into the air and you bounce back and forth.  I was so scared and the guy at the ticket booth said "But its worth 50 points!"  Zoe, Rainey and the girls had been there earlier and told the guy that we were racing.  It was pretty funny.

India here we come...