easy in chiang mai

so many people have written about chiang mai, thailand like here, here and here, to name a few. so many, in fact, that we had it on our itinerary as a mid-point rest stop months before we left home, before knowing about the rest of thailand.

it's an incredibly easy place to "be" that seems to say "sit down, have a beer, take a nap, get a massage, meet new friends, visit a temple, commune with the buddha, go eat food and, oh, take your time doing all of that." suddenly weeks slide by. note how long it's been since we've updated this blog.

but it's a funny thing because chiang mai isn't a particularly beautiful city. it's not offensive, but you don't exit your plane or your bus, look up at the skyline and think "wow." it's pretty noisy too, as life in southeast asia is lived on the street (and thai people are LOUD. let's just get that out there right now.) and there are plenty of people packed into any given square mile. there are scooters and tuk-tuks and cars and barking dogs and barely a sidewalk to be found. sounds lovely, no?

angry birds: parrots shackled to a moped.
for the love of god, why?
chiang mai, thailand.

but before we knew it, this place started feeling like our home. there are no hassles from aggressive touts, no scams to be wary of, and people say hello and smile, regardless of whether you're a local or a foreigner. you can get any kind of food you'd like and, we're sorry to admit, we've had a couple of hamburgers in the midst of all these noodles and all this rice. stop your inner dialog, they were freaking great. we've made some great friends (hi, betsy and warren!) and socialized more here in four weeks than we had in the first six months of our travels. we've stumbled home after drinks with friends (sorry, mom!) a couple of times at 1:00am or 2:00am without the slightest worry. it seems like everyone speaks english, which has its upside and downside. in the islands, our thai was getting pretty good, as it was in bangkok, but here we're seduced into english without thinking about it. almost takes the exotic out of it, like we're not traveling at all. the point is, you forget you're thousands of miles from home.

a songthaew. public transport. not enough seats inside?
just hang off the back. chiang mai, thailand.

but then we'd look up and see three monks on a moped, or shopping for iPhones or buying snacks at a roadside stall. and about these roadside stalls, they serve some of the best food we've ever had the privilege to eat, for $1! then there'd be a big golden buddha in the back of a pickup being driven through the streets with a monk doling out blessings while rolling by. or mini-markets selling shots of whiskey or single cigarettes next to the chips. the big wake-up comes when you stop to realize you can't read a single sign in front of you with thai script. like this, which means "laundry service": บริการซักรีด

we went to the movies, and before the film started they played a short montage in tribute to the king and we all stood up for the duration. imagine american movie-goers standing up for a tribute to the president. right.

holy monks in a mall, batman! chiang mai, thailand.

let's talk prices for a moment. michelle got a haircut for $2.66. she used to pay $60 or something in san francisco. meals for the two of us cost about $2 without alcohol. with alcohol, $3. a splurge for a "good" restaurant will maybe bring you up to about $10 but, truth be told, those "good" restaurants have nothing on the food stalls that serve pad thai, fried rice, curry soup with noodles, fried chicken or chiang mai's own specialty, khao soi. one thing about thailand, you NEVER go hungry. they put food stalls in the entrance to a temple. god be praised, indeed.

one of our most favorite things about this city are the different ways to get around. the tuk-tuks, three-wheeled open-air taxis, are the coolest. care to enjoy a pleasant 30 second tuk-tuk ride around the southwest corner of the old city? it usually costs just under $2 to get all the way across the city. easy peasy.

or a songthaew, a particularly signature southeast asia convention. a covered pickup truck that passes for, well, a bus really. the dude stops, you tell him where you want to go, he makes a bitter face, you negotiate a price and you hop in. along with five or ten other people going different places, yet you always get to where you're going.

but our time is up in chiang mai, we're moving on. next journey: northern laos. we'll miss this place. at least, after sitting still for five weeks, it doesn't seem like we're always leaving.

our chiang mai street. doesn't look like much but it really felt like home. chiang mai, thailand.

and here it is, your moment of zen. the "blind boys of chiang mai," performing smack in the middle of the night walking market.

2011: so, that happened

2011 saw a plan of ours come to fruition without us fully understanding it was a plan at all. we knew we were due for a change and we were saving our money and planning itineraries "for some day." we were whispering to each other about all of the countries we would love to see and trying to imagine ourselves with the freedom to go where we wanted to go. that was as far back as 2009 when we thought we couldn't possibly be those people.

best nap spot ever, koh lanta, thailand

fun facts: over 180 days of travel we've slept in 40 different beds,  visited 10 countries, and taken 12 flights, 8 trains, and, mercifully, just 4 buses.

we're now sitting in chiang mai, thailand, having spent four months in europe and, so far, nearly two months in south east asia. we are those people. we constantly have conversations like "where next, honey?" "how about laos?" or wherever. one morning in istanbul turkey, having decided the cold didn't fit our choice of clothing, we bought tickets to thailand where the weather fits our clothes perfectly. that kind of conversation used to seem so far-fetched but now we find ourselves actually saying these things. then we shake our heads in disbelief that we actually could just get up and go to laos. or wherever. a privilege, indeed.

biggest surprise so far? our two and a half week dip into myanmar (burma). way back when, even when the whispering changed to talking out loud and sharing our ideas with others, myanmar wasn't even on the list! it turned out to be one of the most rewarding, sometimes baffling, and overwhelmingly charming span of days we've experienced so far. that link only covers the first week or so and you can tell we were still finding our footing.

every guidebook you read, about any country you're interested in visiting, starts with a line akin to "they're the friendliest people you'll ever meet...," but can it be true about EVERY country? doubtful. however, in myanmar, it really is true. true in a very big way.

so calm. top of mandalay hill, mandalay, myanmar

in fact, we were taken aback by the sheer kindness and curiosity of the burmese and now, admittedly,  somewhat embarrassed by even having thoughts such as "what is it that they want from us? what's the catch?" luckily, we didn't hold on to that thought for very long. we were relieved to find out that even pico iyer, upon his arrival in mandalay, had the very same inner dialog described in his essay in "kindness of strangers." pico iyer! this is the man of gentle appreciation of all other cultures.

we spent thanksgiving on koh lanta, thailand (big thanks to stu and mabs for reminding us that we can still drink with the young'ns), christmas in yangon, myanmar and new years eve in pai, thailand in a reggae bar where ten minutes before midnight a power outage hit, silencing the band. so, what does everyone do? they whip out their fireworks and start shooting them off... IN THE BAR! safety code? what safety code? apart from the high powered, injury-inducing whirlpool in budapest, easily the most giddy chaos we've ever experienced.

as for those first four months in europe, after germany and austria which we know fairly well already, the balkans were wonderful. slovenia, croatia, bosnia and back to croatia. we knew nothing about slovenia before this trip and now we love it. we met some great people, hiked through beautiful countryside, drank some fantastic wine, and saw world war II history from a very different viewpoint. we knew nothing about croatia either, and it gave us two blissful weeks on an island in the adriatic sea and a lesson in tough love language skills, as well as a few days in dubrovnik steeped in history. bosnia, my god bosnia, was a huge surprise. we tried our hardest to understand the balkan war story of the 1990s as told to us by several locals. that's one beautiful country and no one has a hand in your face trying to make a quick buck, either.

we made it to athens, greece! sure, lots of people do,
but it's athens, greece! you know what we mean?

greece and turkey and the mediterranean sea. as michelle is fond of saying, "holy cow, we swam in the libyan sea!" and the food, my god, the food. and the wine, my god, the wine. and the... well you get it. after athens we headed to istanbul. wow, talk about two ENORMOUS cities chock full of history. the weather was turning cold and we knew our time in europe was soon going to end but there was no way we were going to skip istanbul.

when we started our trip we constantly babbled on about how we want to stay put for two weeks at a time as a minimum. we wanted a contrast to those two week vacations over the years where we crammed in three european capitals in 10 days, or something, but truth be told... the world is WAY too interesting. we find ourselves landing somewhere, opening a map and pointing to all the other places "within striking distance." next thing we know, we're spending four days in each place and hardly "staying put" at all.

which brings us to chiang mai, thailand, "the rose of the north." it's like bangkok extra-light, with low rise buildings. we're staying put here for a few weeks. we're at the six month mark when, according to a ton of others who are doing what we're doing, the wall hits. or exhaustion sets in, or whatever it is you want to call it. for us, it's not a wall or exhaustion but it's time to sit down and recharge. we'll catch up on sleep, get finances in order, perhaps replace those t-shirts that are about to disintegrate and plan the next few months.

and for everyone who's kept in touch with us through this blog, facebook, twitter... thank you. thank you and come join us if you can!

we'll report back.

ancient capital of burma, amarapura, myanmar

it's gotta be a sign

helpful information from all over the world...

we love this sign so much. istanbul, turkey.

myanmar snapshots

a bunch of buddhas, bagan, myanmar

from bangkok to yangon, arrived at night. men in skirts (longhis), women wearing thanaka face paint and everyone spitting betel juice, and that was just the airport! before finding a taxi we exchanged money, dollars for kyat. exchange rate was 785 kyat to 1 u.s. dollar. two $100 bills = HUGE stack of kyat. they had to give us a plastic bag to carry our money. it felt illicit!

first morning, taxi to downtown yangon with very cool taxi driver cranking burmese covers of the black crows and singing along while pointing at things out the window. this so called "taxi" was a torn up old toyota wagon with half the floorboard missing and a couple of woofer speakers bungee-corded down in the back. our first thought was "this is easily the worst taxi we've ever ridden in." we would end up revising our opinion nearly every day.

disco buddha, silly papaya,
yangon, myanmar

sule paya (paya, a generic term for a buddhist site of worship), which we childishly took to calling silly papaya , in downtown yangon, one of the most heralded of buddhist sites in myanmar. a beautifully bizarre collection of buddha statues with neon disco light patterns radiating from their heads, all sitting at the base of a huge gold stupa. we left our flip-flops at the entrance, were bamboozled into buying a "mandatory offering" and then later escorted to a payment booth to pay a foreigner's entrance fee. hence, "offering" was a scam. on our way out our flip-flops were gone. "over here, i put your shoes in this box, you must give me donation." what?! welcome to the very small percentage of burma that is having a complicated, yet understandable, adjustment to tourism.

shwedagon pagoda, yangon, myanmar

after a couple of days in yangon and on our way next to bagan, the old capital of burma, an american hands us a card of a guide in bagan. "just ask for kyaw, it sounds like 'joe,' everyone knows him. by the way, everyone is called kyaw." oh, thanks. we then land in bagan, taxi guy asks what we're doing tomorrow, i hand him kyaw's card and say "i'm looking for this guy." he says "OH KYAW! he's my best friend! i will call him for you right now." and we learn quickly, this is how myanmar works.

temples of the central plain, bagan, myanmar

we met kyaw the next morning for one of the most fantastic guided tour days we've ever had. immediate friends. spent a day in a horse cart over dirt roads touring through magnificent thousand year old buddhist temples strewn across the middle plains of burma near the irrawaddy river. this was one of those powerful moments that drove home just how privileged we are to travel.

we drove an hour across those very same plains to climb mount popa, a volcanic crag that juts out of the landscape straight up for hundreds of feet. a series of 777 steps to the top that is the home of 37 "nats," animist spirits that have been "kinda-sorta" integrated into buddhism, particularly in the rural areas of myanmar.  monkeys everywhere, including one that steals our water bottle. he wins this battle. but then he tries to eat it. hard to say who wins now.

water stealing monkey, mt popa, myanmar

at the top of mount popa a stunning 360 degree view of the surrounding land. myanmar is a hazy country because of the dust and dirt and the constant fires from the burning of vegetation which makes the light seem unworldly. and out of that light are gold stupas and temples popping up out of the green country side all the way to the horizon. while sitting at the top, surrounded by buddha statues, a man emerges from a temple with two, long fluorescent light bulbs, walks to the side and launches them into the air and down the side of the mountain. well, huh.

4:30am wake up for a 5:15am taxi to the boat that will take us to mandalay, a trip we have long dreamed of. a boat up the irra-freaking-waddy river! unreal. the boat is scheduled to leave at 6:00am. 5:30am arrives. 5:45am arrives and even our hotel manager is looking worried on our behalf. screeching out of the dark comes a pair of headlights and a van we've never seen before. he skids to a stop. shouts "jump in!" and we jam through nyuang u with horn screaming and monks scattering in the dark to reach the boat. turns out, the guy's car ran out of gas on his way to pick us up and he had to jog around town at 5:15am to find someone's car to borrow so he could fulfill his promise to us.

temples of ancient burma, bagan, myanmar

arrived in mandalay, after a dream-like day floating up the irrawaddy river. sunrise from the top deck. villages floating by. women selling bananas from the banks. picking up new river pilots every couple of hours by pushing the nose of the boat into the bank and someone (the pilot) popping out of the vegetation and hopping on board. long tail boats floating by. people waving from the bank, or other boats. meeting new friends on board with a crew of fifteen for a passenger list of six. sunset from the deck with beers and palm toddy being passed around and great conversation as we touch land at mandalay.

ubein bridge, amarapura (old capital of burma), mandalay, myanmar

that dream came to a sudden, jolting end when we disembarked into a crowd of touts and trishaw drivers screaming at us "where you go! trishaw! carry bags for you!" man, hard to catch our breath after being so relaxed. this may qualify as the most challenging moment on our travels yet. they refer to mandalay as a "city" but upon arrival it was a dark, dirty, crowded collection of scooters and people that stare. all the other passengers, a total of 4, had disappeared into the night and we were left alone with trishaw drivers yelling at us "no taxi mandalay! no taxi mandalay!"

i crossed the road in the dark with a policeman who, after i put my hand to my head imitating a phone call, walked me to a makeshift counter with an old g&e phone sitting on it and a phone cord disappearing up the palm tree above and into the dark. showing the phone number of our guesthouse to the girl, and the little boy hugging my leg, she dialed the number and i was connected with our guesthouse who had promised to send a taxi. "oh! we were told the ferry was late. it's on time? that means it's early."

we walked back across the road to michelle, our baggage, and a gaggle of trishaw drivers. the policeman mumbled something in burmese essentially saying "they have a ride," and all the drivers suddenly disappeared. welcome to burma.

myanmar is a wonderfully baffling, and unbelievably generous, country making do with what they have. it's a challenge to travel here as one can't pull money after entering. there are no ATMs. the preparation for arriving was a guess in the dark as to how much cash we would need without knowing the day to day cost. u.s. dollars, oddly, are the preferred currency and to get the best rate of exchange, they need to be pristine. which means the banks of myanmar must have the largest supply of the cleanest, most beautiful $100 bills in all the world.

it's been a great nine days so far and we're looking forward to another week. next stop, inle lake in the shan hills, a legendary area. and with that, we leave you with this... you're welcome.

parts of this guy are strewn all over this country. mandalay, myanmar.

always leaving

it's a testament to our species' ability to adapt to our surroundings that we find ourselves a little sad each time we leave a new place. it's also a testament to just how many wonderful places there are to visit in this world.

serenity and calm. special price for you, $5.
bangkok, thailand.

without exception, we've felt a little sense of loss each time we've left a new town or city, regardless of country. well, maybe not dubrovnik, but that's complicated. still, one of the surprises on this trip is just how quickly we make ourselves at home. that initial rush of a few hours of disorientation upon arrival quickly washes away with a small walk around town, or down to the beach or wherever, just to get your bearings. over the next couple of days, places and people quickly become familiar.

as we were leaving the thai islands of the andaman sea last week (he shakes his head wistfully while typing) after nearly three weeks to visit friends in bangkok, we were struck with just how at home we felt. when we landed those three weeks earlier, it was an alien world. granted, an alien world full of palm trees, beaches, mango and papaya but still, after istanbul, definitely alien feeling!

we've been in bangkok just under a week and knowing we're leaving in a couple of days has us already a little melancholy. keep in mind, we're talking bangkok. not the smallest, most lovable place on the planet upon first impression but, like anywhere else, give it a little time, allow it to show you what it has to offer (and bangkok has a LOT to offer) and you feel at home.

roomorama review part 2: lessons learned

not istanbul. our bungalow on koh lanta, thailand.

back a few weeks ago while staying in istanbul we had the good fortune of being hosted by roomorama, an online short-term apartment rental service matching apartment owners in cities all over the world with travelers looking for a temporary home. (see our review part 1)

this added boost of spending money let us shop for an apartment a level up from what our budget typically would have allowed. however, what we found were that photos, and a VERY friendly host, can really sell a place. we've used short-term apartment rentals before and have loved all of them. even this one, in its quirky way.

take a look around at some of the apartments available on roomorama.com and you will start to drool. ours in istanbul looked unbelievable. the location could not be beat (galata tower neighborhood, if you're looking) and the views seemed unbeatable. all of it was true, kind of. we were down a ragged alley lined with garbage bags and chewed up pavement. istanbul is old, we get that, no problem. but that's one of the pitfalls. be prepared for a neighborhood that might challenge your ideals. such is travel, yes? the apartment was described as being in a romantic, turn of the century, french-inspired building. well, it certainly was turn of the century.

through a heavy iron, more of a gate than a door, up four flights of stairs to #5. we stepped inside to the living room hardwood floor and we tilted to the left. oh, i see, that must be the "romantic" part. there was a pretty damned good view, though. overall, the apartment worked, but that's because we were determined to make it work. dangnabbit, we were in istanbul and we we're going to enjoy the hell out of it. and we did.

we can deal with loud, squeaky, horizontally-challenged floors. and we can deal with chairs that were purchased at a turkish version of ikea, and a satellite dish staring us in the face out one window and, dang it, NO COFFEE MAKER! ok, got that last bit off my chest. luckily, we bought a press pot in athens. :)

now this is istanbul. mosques for days. istanbul, turkey.

the point being is that one's expectations when booking an apartment online, as wonderful as the experience has been for us, can also come with some challenges. sometimes that next level up may not provide exactly what you think you're getting and sometimes it will. just like anything purchased "sight unseen," do your research, be prepared for reality not matching up to dreams and, in the end, have fun anyway. i mean, for god's sake, you're in istanbul! or athens, or berlin, or madrid, or.... wherever, but use roomorama.com to get your juices flowing and you'll be buying a ticket somewhere sooner than you think.

thailand: don't you rock my boat

as we mentioned several weeks ago, we've learned a few things while on the road.

longtail boats, koh lanta, thailand

newest lesson? having a beach within 30 seconds of your thailand bungalow causes a severe drop in interest in a computer screen. and we mean severe. 

that's just one of the many reasons we'll probably never make it big as travel bloggers, not that it was ever our intent. the laziness and slow pace here starts to creep in, slowly at first, until you realize about a week later that even pressing the power button on your laptop would require too much thought and energy. 

another lesson? when the weather's gray and a little choppy in the morning, and you're stepping on to a boat for an hour's journey to a remote island, and the snorkeling guide says "oh, when it's like this in the morning, it always calms down in the afternoon," run... run far away until the sun shines again. 

hey, it rains a lot. who has time for a rain coat?
koh lanta, thailand

we'd like to think we're no pansies as travelers but, holy freaking cow, that ride back was NOT through calm waters! as we left the protected bay of our snorkeling spot later in the afternoon and headed around the island into the teeth of the wind and rain towards home, we hit a cross sea (too many jack aubrey novels were running through my head at this point) and all of us were being thrown around the cabin, our speedboat was SMACK-smack-SMACKing against the next wave, a little kid was puking into a bag, the french couple across from us stopped their playful banter and took on a wan, pale, stare-into-the-distance kind of a look, and everyone else just went quiet.

one could barely talk above the din yet the on-board british photographer that came along announced, no SCREAMED, above all of the noise "ok everyone, i have all of the photos imported on to my laptop, LET'S ALL HAVE A LOOK!" i laughed out loud, it was so comical, yet everyone gamely turned his way and gave it a shot. however, as we smacked into the next wave we could only focus for a few seconds, then it was back to the million-mile-stare. lesson learned. 

included in the price of the trip was a ride back to our resort from the pier. while shivering in the pouring rain up pulled a pickup truck with an open-air bed and benches in the back. someone from the dive shop stepped out and waved their hand toward it suggesting "here you go, your limo, as a thank you from us."

back in the safety of some free wifi now, where we found the energy to turn on our laptops, it all seems suddenly comical. we love it that over the course of a day we can now count as new friends some danes, some french, a few swedes and a brit. again confirming for us that the best thing so far about travel is the people.

see? this is what we're talking about! it's hard to step away. koh lanta, thailand.

moving on: we've already extended our intended stay here at relax bay, about half way down the island, but we'd like to stay even longer. sadly, staying here would kill the budget so we're moving to a simpler place with very simple bungalows set back from the beach. they quoted us $12.50 a night but suggested that we could also haggle a little "for a better price." a better price! i don't think either of us have ever stayed in something that cost $12.50. it seems our walk to the beach will now be a full minute.

we'll report back.

thailand love you long time

that 27 degrees detail on the boarding announcement? that's why we made the difficult decision to leave istanbul. so much more of turkey we planned to see! we made it from berlin to istanbul over the course of four months, through germany, austria, a little bit of hungary, slovenia, croatia, bosnia, greece, and turkey. we were following the sun. but we knew the day would come when the weather in europe would leave us cold. well, with istanbul gray and drizzly, 27 degrees said "go now."



going where the climate suits my clothes...

so hey, we're in thailand! koh lanta in the andaman sea, to be exact. roughly the same latitude as sri lanka, ethiopia and guatemala. which brings us back to why we came. all kinda warm places, yes? yes.

we'll make this post a quick one. when we arrived (after a red-eye flight to bangkok, a connecting flight to krabi, and a two hour drive including two ferries) we found this...

and in this morning's sunshine, we found this from our porch...

got a great beach, a great bungalow, an open air restaurant, a beach bar and nothing to do but recover from jet lag.

southeast asia, thailand in particular, is a well-worn traveler's destination. i doubt there's much we can contribute to what's already been written, blogged, filmed or whatever, that's original but we'll do our best.

we'll report back.

my turkish bath

kule hamam, galata, istanbul, turkey

kule hamam, our neighborhood turkish bath in istanbul. talk about a humble doorway. if we hadn't read someone's positive review of this place kindly left behind in our rental apartment, we would have avoided it like the plague.

by the way, it's good to be a man in turkey. hamams, if they take women at all, only provide a few hours per week for them to be abluted (it's kind of a word), scrubbed and massaged. i, however, was welcome any hour, any day of  the week.

i entered and all eyes fell on me. clearly not a local. the dude behind the counter asked in turkish "are the penguins full featured in autumn?" i think. to which i confusedly replied, "no, no, i'm here for a hamam and massage."

he pointed down the stairs to a sweltering changing room and into a stall with, for some reason, a nearly full window in the door. facing other full-windowed changing stalls. what was the point? i could clearly see some other men and they could clearly see me. i haven't been around such naked machismo since the marine corps.

the "new" mosque (built in 1597!), istanbul, turkey

i was handed a sarong-like thingie (a pestemel) and i dutifully stripped, wrapped myself in my sarong and stepped out. then, with several more grunts, was pointed in the direction of a door with the word "hamam" on the front. "sweet," i thought, months of traveling, not a hot tub to be found (we miss ours back home so bad), and we walk everywhere. the body will enjoy this, big time.

the magic door opened on to a square 20x20' gray marble room with five or so marble stalls along each wall with stone basins, tiny water taps and plastic bowls. in the middle of the room was a large flat, two foot high, maybe 10x10' marble platform. splayed out smack in the middle of that was, what appeared to be, a heavily sweating tony soprano flat on his back in a plaid sarong.

the door closed behind me.

i had no idea what to do. i laid on the marble thing, tony soprano looked at me. i got up, fiddled with the taps a bit, some tepid water leaked out. i thought it would be a sauna in here. nope. i stepped back outside and was grunted back into the room. next thing, the sarong-wrapped dude who pointed me in to the hamam followed behind, opened the tap of water, had me pour water over my head, pushed tony soprano to the side and gestured for me to lay down. "on the marble?" i thought. well, yes, yes. he left, i laid on my back, looked over at a couple of younger turks who laughed and made a gesture that conveyed "roll over, freak, you should be on your front." OH!

turkish delight, istanbul, turkey

in comes mister hairy guy who starts making a HUGE pile of suds in a basin, shoves a towel in it, turns to me and masterfully showers down an amazing array of warm, soapy suds. aaaaahhhhh... now we're talking. after being covered in suds this guy went to work. legs, back, shoulders, pinning my arms behind my back and working on the shoulder blades. he spoke two words of english "YOU OK!?" i spoke one word of turkish, at the moment, "evet!" (yes) through gritted teeth. i think it sounded more like eeehhhhvvvvveeeettt...

all the while, men are coming in, splashing themselves with water, sitting there sweating, inches from where i was being beaten. i kept trying to steal peeks from behind all the soap and towels but one thing you don't want to do is be caught eyeing other men in a turkish bath.

ok, two more words of english, finally. "sit up." and dutifully i sit up, swing my legs over the side... and *SPLASH!* "holy freaking cow, what the HELL was that?!" i was hit in the face with scalding hot water from a plastic bucket. i guess i was now being rinsed. then, just as suddenly, pushed to the corner, water tap turned on and it was clear, we were done. rinse yourself. i staggered out, somehow managed to put my clothes back on, paid some cash, uttered some rudimentary turkish that went something like "hhffruummf kishduhmmm, vroom, bye," and walked out in to the cool, november, istanbul air.

in the end, i'm not completely sure what happened but, wowza, i'm glad it did. i felt like i just stepped off of "the sidewinder" ride at the carnival when i was a kid. remember that thing?

travel is weird. weird in a very cool way.

our athens regret (in a good way)

"athens is noisy." athens is dirty." "athens is chaotic." "athens is a hole." that's what you always hear, right? well, it's all true.

road through the old agora leading to the acropolis, athens, greece

but what else is true is the fact that it packs a whole lot of awesome.

caveat: no attempt here has been made to enlighten, educate or even shine a new perspective on a city that's been written about a million times. here below is a quick impression of a bunch of "wow." wow that such a noisy, dirty, sprawling, chaotic city could be that seductive. ok, maybe not seductive, but more like grab you by the lapels and kiss you in a kind of rough, affectionate way.

our regret is that we didn't schedule more than the four days we spent there. running out of pages in our passports (that's a great feeling!) we decided to head to athens, from crete, to visit the u.s. embassy and have pages added. worked like a charm. what surprised us was just how sad we were to leave athens, and greece in general. two and a half weeks on crete lulled us into comfort and athens was a slap in the face. but in a really good way.

yeah, the parthenon is behind me but everyone knows
what that looks like. look at this sprawl!
athen, greece

this city goes on forever and there's no better place to get a sense of that than from the acropolis. everyone talks about the acropolis, and they should, it really is that fantastic of a place to visit and absorb, but no one really conveyed the sheer expanse of concrete madness that would splay out below us. wow. just wow.

after getting our bearings and checking into our hotel (hotel attalos) a couple blocks from monastariki square and dying to see the city, we... took a nap. that's right. a nap. THEN we headed out. now here's the thing about athens... "honey, let's go to that mini-market for supplies." "ok, wait, what's this? a three thousand year old ruin across from the stop-and-shop?"

i mean, that's the thing. we had dinner with friends our last night there and literally, ten feet to our right was a 12th century church. we're eating souvlaki, drinking wine, chatting about current events and at any moment we could get up and place our hand on a wall of history. AND, from that spot, we could look into hadrian's library. from 12th century to the 2nd century in 180 degrees. and in the middle? the stop-and-shop!

poor guy. athens, greece

favorite spots for us were, of course, the acropolis and the new acropolis museum. it's unrivaled. it's every postcard you've ever been pummeled with all your life. but the older national archaeological museum a mile or so walk up some of the most busy, some would say seedy, streets to an oasis of calm, and one of the most impressive displays of mycenaean finds you'll ever see, blew us away.

the athens open market was a rush! it straddles athinas avenue with a loud, boisterous atmosphere selling every kind of fish, meat, vegetable and fruit you can imagine. the unrelenting meat hanging from hooks for an entire block is something to behold. the fish slime through which you walk in the middle part of the market is not for the squeamish. ok, maybe not as bad as the pigs heads hanging from hooks in the meat market, but you are IN IT when you enter this section. and do these people love octopus, or what? it's clear they do. and it's not for show for the tourists (think pike's place market, seattle), this is a working, functioning market and the people who come to shop here know what they're doing. they have no problem bumping you out of the way either. we ended up with a sack full of olives, carrots, bread, cheese, sausage, figs... for about $10.

just another 13th century church laying about.
athens, greece.

this list could go on but if there is one thing you should take away from this rambling post it should be "go to athens." just be prepared to experience everything you love and everything you hate about travel to happen every single minute.

next stop: istanbul. we'll report back.