Most Traveled People

www.mosttraveledpeople.com

So I found a new way to procrastinate. I have a total of 117 of 757 places in the world according to this checklist, but I think the list is incredibly uneven. It includes provinces of some countries, but not of others, it includes states sometimes, but then forgets to put places like New Zealand's Stewart Island. India's provinces, but not Pakistan's. Only half of Spain's, and every single island in the middle of an ocean but not those close to the shore. I personally think that the creator allows places in by one's he's been to!

Interesting anyway. Was just telling a friend that I normally use the UN's list of countries to see where I've been, but that there are so many ways to list them and every list is different!

Teacher movies

http://jimmy13.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/why-i-hate-teacher-movies/

Surfed onto this blog entry while I was looking for materials on 'October Sky'. Interesting-- and I find that I agree with a lot of what he says.

A reading list

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

If you want to follow along in Facebook, copy this note and then go to 'write a new note' and paste into your notes then... Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read once. Enter a number for the number of times you read something. Make sure you delete my x'S!

OK fellow bookworms, let's fight dirty!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X2
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible -
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X5
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X5
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson X
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton X
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total: 23
Interesting collection here...

Languages

This week is Mother Tongue week, and we've decided to celebrate it at my work/school, TISA. In my homeroom alone, we have 1 Spanish speaker, 4 Russian/Azeri speakers, 1 Mandarin/Cantonese speaker, 1 Italian Speaker, 1 Russian/English speaker, 7 English speakers (one with a Persian/Iranian background, and another whose parents speak Italian and German), and 2 Scottish speakers. What a diverse group!!

That last group was contentious -- is Scottish a dialect or a language in its own right? Scots, of course, insist it is a language, yet it is based on an English grammatical structure where many English speakers can understand large parts of the language. Sure, there are unique words in the language, but even New Zealand English has its own words - jandals, crook, chook, wagging, etc, although to be fair Scottish has more words than most dialects!! Wikipedia said that there is no accepted definition for where to draw the line between a dialect and a language, so there is no final answer. Heated discussions, though!! :)

Lenin: the couch-surfing cat

Recently, when a friend was out of town on business, I had the joy of cat-sitting Lenin the cat. She'd recently been neutered, and had a delightful costume to prevent scratching, which Nina aptly said made them look like Christmas presents!

Calm and quiet for the first few days, after a strip-tease of the "corset", Lenin enjoyed her freedom by leaping over every item of furniture in my living room withing 5 minutes, continuing repeatedly for the next week. Lively and fun, but a bit of schizophrenic personality with flashes of calmness interspersed with attacks on limbs to karate-style leaps from couch to couch.

Baku news -- not much

So Baku in February seems like the longest month, despite the irony of it being the shortest. Not a single holiday, not a single break. January and holidays are a memory, but March and future holidays are still distant. Many of my students are off to Dubai this weekend to play or watch siblings/friends play rugby, so it'll be a different mood at school.

Hmm... I'm still trying to decide where to go for my two week holiday in March. Iceland, Tanzania, Turkmentistan, Yemen, Socotra, Ethiopia, Cairo, Tunisia, Balkans, Baltic, London, Myanmar, Iran, Azerbaijan and others have all been considered, but I'm waiting for the tug to pull me to where I should be going. Possibly a ski trip to Georgia and to Armenia?? All sorts of plans. I got a new passport, so it's feeling a bit empty at the moment, though I did get the "Arabic" stamp so I can go to Libya (it's such a joke, and will still require other action).

I'm going to go to New Zealand in July. I am excited and can't believe this will be my first time home in winter in 9 years. Wow, time flies. Visitors are welcome!! I would love to share my home with you. I'm planning on hiking and skiing and other fun things. I am still deciding where to go via and where to come back through--nothing can be simple, of course! Lauren, I think I'm coming to your wedding! Who else lives in New Jersey?

I have a couchsurfer staying with me at the moment -- his name's Eric and he's cycling from Aberdeen to Adelaide. Check out his blog: http://www.aberdeen2adelaide.blogspot.com/. I haven't done so many activities in such a short time in Baku for ages, but it's great as I'm meeting all sorts of different people. Sunday, for example, I went on my first Baku hash through the Industrial Zone near Ulduz metro station (which has no other reason to ever cause people to go there), and I went to a quiz night tonight and my team won. I do believe that's the first time ever.

Okay, M4 will demand a good reason why I haven't marked their papers, so I'd better go and do some to pacify them!

Oman

I'm putting my whole trip in one blog entry which makes it enormously long, but such an epic has to go all together! Just warning you… it’s 8 pages in MS Word.

Friday, December 26, 2008

On the first day we drove SE from Dubai towards the lovely oasis town of Al Ain. Several oases are spread throughout the little border town. Tragically, the oases are drying up because of the lowering of the water table (just imagine the consumption of water it takes to feed thirsty Dubai). On the UAE side, they are feeding the oases with desalinated water trucked up from the coast, but on the Omani side, they can't afford to do that, and are justifiably pissed off because they have to deal with a problem they didn't cause. What to do? The megalomaniacs of Dubai are unlikely to care about such a non-immediate environmental problem that doesn't directly affect them.

Once across the Mazyed border, we drove on towards Nizwa, stopping briefly at Ibri's charming little fortified village, which was only abandoned in1970 after hundreds of years. While we agreed on its picturesque nature, especially in the golden light of the setting sun, no doubt the draws of concrete (as opposed to mud brick) plumbing and air conditioning made it an easy choice to move.

Pics: Ibri's fortified village

Saturday, December 27

We left at about 9 to drive towards Nizwa fort where we spent an hour or two wandering around looking at the various holes and crevices of the restored castle. I spent $120 on 8 silver rings, having left all my own in Dubai. There were neat rooms with a special tri-cushion specially made for sitting on the floor. From there to Bahla where we wandered the empty souq at noon prayer-time looking for the indigo man and the pottery sellers. A beautiful mix of old mud brick and new quaint houses meandering past date palm plots, mosques, and empty scrubby desert.

After that, we drove to Jabrin fort -- a delightful castle reminiscent of the crusader castles in Jordan, full of sun lit lounging rooms with carpets and cushions perfect for lazing away a quiet afternoon, an underground tomb, Al-Humbra palace-like balconies and multiple misleading staircases. Lastly, we drove up the mountain: Jebel Shams. A fun drive up a windy road to a majestic vista of a beautiful dry Grand Canyon-like wadi at the top, where we settled into tent accommodation for the night and wandered off to see the sunset from various locales. It got quite cold as evening descended!

Pics: Nizwa fort, Bahla, Jabrin fort, views of Jebel Shams.

Sunday, December 28
Mum, Daniel and I all started with an early morning walk up Wadi Shams to the abandoned, hanging village of Sap Bani Khamis, which meant a three hour round trip walk up the inside of Oman's Grand Canyon. What an amazing walk! 300 meters of sheer cliffs hanging above you, a sharp drop off of over 1000 below you; surprisingly it didn't feel dangerous, but as a leisurely walk around a valley, including stunning views. The village was gorgeous, too! 15 families lived there till about 30 years ago, in tiny little stone houses built under the cliff overhang. They eked out a living with onions, pomegranates, olives, etc, planted on narrow terraces, the bottom of which falls directly off the cliff to the valley floor a sheer drop below. A little creek flowed through a cave, over a waterfall only to disappear into a little hole and drop under a natural stone bridge thousands of feet above the canyon. They herded sheep, goats, and no doubt chickens too. A small water collection tank, a flour grinder, and the bare trees of an orchard remain to flourish the imagination with a detailed picture of how it must have been to live here. The isolation would have had its blessings and curses no doubt (inter-marriage issues, water/electricity supply, distance from enemies, an ideal view to wakeup to, etc).

We drove back down Jebel Shams through Al Hamra, and back up a spectacular new road to a saddle summit where a ferocious wind was blowing. From there we passed breathless tourists in multiple jeeps ascending what must be the most spectacular mountain road I've ever been on, to get to the lovely villages at the bottom of the wadi near Hatt and Wadi Bani Awf. We were descending the steep, steep inclines in low ratio 4WD on the dusty narrow track in 1st gear, with the nervous passengers on the outer rim looking fearfully straight down the canyon over the edge. No such thing as guard rails! We wondered how they even got the heavy machinery up there to make the road in the first place.

Along the bottom of the wadi, we raced over the unsealed road toward the coastal highway and Muscat, passing other carloads of tourists sweatily getting into wetsuits to swim in the canyon of the wadi to our amusement, since we had already discovered that there was no water! In Muscat we stayed along the corniche near the fish market and just managed to catch the closing of the shops of the souq before bed.

Pics: canyon at sunrise, village and terraces and natural bridge, views from top of drive, Muscat

Monday, December 29
Mum, Dad and I headed out early to go to the bus station and to pay for future nights in the desert, narrowly avoiding the road closures of the GCC conference in town while everyone else toured the fish market and souq for some shopping. Off at around 11, and with a Shell service station's biryani for lunch, we took the new road to Sur via the Bammar sink hole swimming hole. What a neat place to swim! Andre, Daniel and Rory had a blast jumping off the rocks into the deep, brackish water while Jeff-o envisaged a slide rolling down the side. Seeing such a gaping hole made from an underground river's cave falling in makes me wonder just how many caves we were zooming over on the newly built road just in from the coast. Off again, and several badly-signposted wrong turns later, I drove us into Sur Beach Hotel for a sunset gaze over the red-tide infested low tide.

Pics: sink hole, mountains

Tuesday, December 30
After a delicious breakfast, we headed out to the beautiful green wadi near Tiwi that we had passed the day before. We hiked up the valley across stones where there used to be green gardens. Mum and Dad kept exclaiming about how different it was just two years ago. There was a major cyclone (very unusual for Oman) which blew across the whole region (see PowerPoint) and wiped everything out. At the top of the wadi we swam in a gorgeous refreshing pool. The boys enjoyed jumping off the high cliffs bombing into the water. Then we climbed over several pools and swam under a tunnel to get to a fantastic cave, where of course there was more jumping and tunnels to be had. Normally you have to swim underwater a ways to get to it, but right now the water level is low.

After walking down, we drove through Tiwi and down to the dhow yards of Sur and on to the desert camp near the turtles. After dinner we went out to see the mother turtles coming in to lay their many eggs. Everything's changed since the last time M&D were there—the government has taken over what was chaos and regulated it. We headed out at 8.30 and walked down to the beach in a big group. I must say the parents in our group disgusted me! Talk about leading by a bad example: leaving the torches on the beach when it confuses the turtles, speaking in full volume instead of whispering, and then there was this one woman who, when the guide asked if there were any questions, demanded to know when (impatiently) we would see turtles.... Of course it was the same woman that said, when we did eventually see a mother covering her eggs, 'That's it?' I decided that some people should never reproduce!

Pics: wadi, Sur dhow yards, camp

Wednesday, December 31

We got up at 3.30am to go and see the turtles again. Because of it being early, the people were keener and quieter, and it was much more enjoyable. Adding to that, we saw the babies! What gorgeous little things, and it's quite amazing to see the reproduction cycle at work, and the cycle of life with survival of the fittest clearly exhibited! Each mum waits till she's 37 before she returns to the same beach she was born on (hoping that some rich Dubai company hasn't developed it into a hotel or fake island) to lay 100 eggs, returning again for the same two weeks later. There were about 20 mothers laying on our beach that night, but of 1000 eggs, only 4 or 5 baby turtles survive! We sat around one nest of cuties emerging and half couldn't seem to get out of the hole, or got up to the top then rolled back down in their eagerness to live. Stumbling over sand dunes (our footstep holes) twice their size, they were disoriented by the torch lights, and some just headed inland out of idiocy or bad genes. Assuming they make it to the sea (and to do that, they must evade foxes, seagulls, crabs and other predators), the babies have enough energy to swim frantically for 3 days to reach the food and relative safety of deeper waters. Then they may travel the world to such exotic locales as Indonesia, Australia, Mauritius, South Africa or India.

It was heartbreaking to see one little one make it all the way to the sea, only to be repeatedly swept back by the waves, then scooped up by a passing gull! Aunty Helen rescued one from the dire fate of going inland, and watched it foolishly bob away on the surface instead off diving deep, and then it too was scooped up for a mid-flight snack. That is their fate though, and though we encouraged and assisted as many little ones as we could, acting as bodyguards from other beastly treasures, we could not save them all, and once they disappear into the big blue, we cannot help them at all.

After a morning snooze and a bracingly cold shower, we headed off down the coast through quaint, hardy, fishing villages that had a distinct feeling of the Wild West. Ornate, worn, carved doors hid behind crumbling concrete archways, derelict half-toppled mud-brick walls sat astride the road beside Toyota trucks with faded stripes that looked either faintly abused or well-loved but certainly as if they had a hard life. Men in dishdashas and Omani headscarves at one service station wanted to sweep me away to some stifling marriage or other such pedestal!

We arrived at our desert camp and amusedly watched everyone else struggle to drive up the sandy incline in front of the camp. One particularly stubborn woman in a Dodge? Lincoln? Mercury went up the hill 6 or 7 times, then was directed by one of the guides to the top, and proceeded to go straight back down again to prove that it was her car and not her driving (or something like that) and couldn't get up for another 6 or 7 tries! Cheering or laughing depending on the attempt, we hoped the people didn't take note of our clothes to harass us at dinnertime.

We went dune bashing into the sunset. A rather foolish endeavor from the car owner's perspective, it involved driving as speedily as possible up steep golden sand dunes, bouncing through twists and turns, getting stuck in a pit of sand and asking passengers to push the car out, rolling the car from side to side as you swerve through pitching turns, the car yawed shark-like back and forth, bouncing us all almost through the roof and certainly into the doors. It was rounded up by the Grand finale: driving straight down an almost 45 degree slope, which Jeff-o's apt description sums up. 'On that last one, I could see the horizon through the sun roof!' we sand-boarded leisurely down steeped slopes and captured the meeting sun in our hands.

2008 was rounded up with a delightful Arab drum concert and other festivities organized by the camp. The fantastic band were also a dance troupe: all African descendants, mostly of slaves from Oman's spoils of conquering the East African coast. The dancing was an amazing mix of Arab and African... Dancing in lines with no touching, circles and feet kicks (presumably to remove sand), sashaying randomly with all caliber of energy put into the dancing. White-makeup-faced women were dancing in bright costumes of many layers with blue patterned veils used coquettishly in the motions of movement. The men wiggled their hips and stamped their feet in their sarongs and ceremonial dagger belts. One kept leaping up and then rolling and falling on his knees at everyone's feet to weave a story into the chirpy rhythm. The women gave their mournful yodeling cry, and the men chatted to their brethren and continuously swapped places to ensure an even match to the 6 hardy women. Everyone clapped. Delighted Lebanese women guests in juxtaposing tight jeans with exposed bellies wove between them to donate money as a tip by putting notes on the women's heads. Everyone got up to dance: quite a workout in the deep sand!

Pic. Turtles, mum and babies, sunrise, desert camp, dune bashing, sun in hands, sitting on rise of sand

Thursday, January 1, 2009
After a leisurely breakfast at our delightful desert camp, we drove to nearby Ibra to have a wander in their souq and woman's market. After a quick browse through the vegetable and carpentry sections, we decided the old city might be more exciting, so drove off into the distance, eventually meandering our way through tiny alleys and gates that were not intended for SUVs, almost scraping the sides. We found the magical mud- brick township full of derelict old merchants’ homes, palatial and beautifully decorated, but abandoned to the sun and winds. They apparently made their money in the trade with and colonization of Zanzibar, which Oman controlled until the middle of the 20th century. Making homes of mud-brick is one thing, but making them three floors tall is a genuine glory, and they must be the mansions of the times!

A couple of ‘Oman Oil’ stops later (to return our sand-abused tires to normal p.s.i.) we arrived back to the civilization shock that is Muscat. Wow, what should we do when we see a Starbucks and a Dairy Queen?? It's too much to handle! Seafood buffet (which didn't quite meet the glory of the one at Christmas, but was still delicious) and several games of Hearts later (sadly despite my best efforts, I was the loser this time), it was time for bed.

Pics: Ibri's mud-brick homes

Friday, January 2
After yet another delicious buffet breakfast, we discovered someone had forced open the windows of the jeep overnight. Luckily, nothing appeared to be taken. While that was being fixed, I discovered that a dear friend from my childhood in Queenstown (Lauren Kelly Stoneley) was killed in a car accident over the xmas holidays. What a tragedy! So young, and her poor little boy!

We drove from our place which was almost on the beach, past Ruwi, and 'downtown' (Muttrah) to old Muscat and the Sultan's palace. It’s a 70's monstrosity of blue and gold pillars, but perfectly appropriate for a new age prince. Most of the old city had completely lost any quaintness however, but the next bay over was much more charming, and also clearly more poor. We attempted to drive into the major Shangri-La hotel and a neighboring Dive Center beach, but the colossal prices were off-putting, no doubt as they intended! USD30 just to drive the car in! We eventually found a little cove with a fishing village and had a wander along the coastline. Unfortunately, most of northern Oman has the Red Tide, which is an algae that turns the water a soupy red color. Because it sucks oxygen out of the water, it kills fish and coral, and this year it has lasted two more months than usual. It is bad to swim in, and everything is affected! Poor Oman.

After a leisurely wander around the beach and shops near our hotel during the afternoon (it was Friday after all, so nothing is open) we went back to the souq for dinner and a forage in the silver shops. Many beautiful rings and other jewelry is old-looking and hand-made, so we all sat down at the over-flowing baskets of dusty creations to blackened our hands with finding that perfect item. Mum and I are still debating if it truly is old, or just recreated. I found a replica of my Create pendant there, and it is impossible to doubt that much of it is made in India. The sad thing is that the south Asians dominate the selling and shopping instead of the traditional Arabs, and as two cruise ships were in town, the prices were vastly inflated and the shopkeepers impatient.

Pics: Sultan's palace, fishing village

Saturday, January 3

Rising at the crack of dawn, M&D drove me to the bus station and put me on the 12 hour slog to Salalah. It passes through the mountains then passes through a huge amount of flat, empty desert. It was fascinating to see the sheer number of camel crossing signs (yet no camels) and the random ambulance that passed us, sirens screaming, that we later passed and picked up the driver of! Where on earth is it coming from and even more puzzling, where is it going? There is absolutely nothing out there.

As a solo female traveler, I am a focus for curiosity and puzzlement. At Oman pit stops, females are required to enter through the 'family entrance'. Only men may enter the front door. This is not to exclude women but to protect them. If I had insisted on entering the front door, I would be allowed in, but honestly, the stares of the many men just wouldn't make it worth it. A young woman invited me to eat with her and was astounded that I was travelling alone, even more astounded that I was in Oman alone, and in a hotel alone. She was sure I would get bored with all the time by myself. I am such an enigma! After the typical biryani, I shuffled back onto the bus again.

Arriving into Salalah just before sunset was like arriving into a deserted Wild West ghost town. There are many empty lots and very few people, but as it is not the Khareef (monsoon) season, there are very few people here. I wandered across the street to my charming hotel where I settled in while watching ‘Enigma’, some cold war film from the70s with Martin Sheen as the star East German. I had a wander to the Indian shopping center nearby, and then around the little shops downtown.

Pics camel crossing and desert

Sunday, January 4

Sleeping in a bit (despite also sleeping on the bus all the previous day) I enjoyed my continental breakfast and had a wander of town, eventually succumbing to one of to the obnoxious beeping taxi drivers who drove me down to Al-Baleed, the old city ruins. A huge expanse right of the sea's edge, it has been designed so that the rich Arab visitors can ride around it on electric golf carts. Not much is there other than a giant pile of rocks, although they have uncovered the remains of many mosques, which would typically have been the most permanent of structures. As I wandered through the thick dust I wondered if it was the remains of ornate mud brick homes. A new museum has been setup, and it seemed that everything in there was a copy of something in a European museum. London, Paris, Germany... What disgusting hoarders the colonists were (are), or else far-sighted culturally interested people, supplying examples for their future generations.

After buying an Oman calendar (ironically, produced in Dubai), I snuck out through a hole in the fence to the glorious beach beyond. Miles and miles of empty white sand (albeit pockmarked by many sets of tire tracks) was all mine -- not another soul was within shouting distance. Cursing that I'd left my togs back at the hotel, I had a swim in my shirt and undies instead --- delicious water, but a fierce wind, which while cold, made for a quick dry off.

I strolled back to town past the derelict old houses and boarded up restaurants, and pondered how obnoxious the busy season would be. As it was, it felt truly like a ghost town, with almost no people around. Reaching the Sultan's beach-side palace with nary an inch of shade in sight, I gazed out at the birds and stalks feeding on fish and crabs. Wandering through a reawakening souq, I was disappointed to find nothing of interest. At the gold and silver souq closer to town, I had success however! A quaint little burger place provided dinner.

Pics: Al Baleed, town

Monday, January 5
I met a girl at breakfast. Her name was Claire and she was a solo female traveler like me, so I invited her to come along with me in my rent a car. To think, she was going to try the microbuses! Now, that's intrepid.

Off we went in the direction of Mirbat. What a town! If I ever thought Salalah was an outpost at the end of the world, Mirbat is worse. The site of a major battle between the Marxist rebels and Sultan Qaboos' government forces in the 1970s, it was supposed to have a fort. We found three sort-of-fort-like buildings, one of which was titled castle but had fallen in on one side and was boarded shut. Other than that there wasn't so much in the forgotten town... That was until I found my favorite abandoned mud-brick house in all of Oman. This delightful, derelict structure had intact stairs leading all the way to the third floor! It had turret style roof edges, beautiful wooden lattice windows, and the best part were the fantastic decorations still intact in each room, with the best being the third floor of course, which has spirals and coils lined all over the walls, carved doors, window frames and pillars, painted ceilings and beams. The view out the windows was of the sea, the courtyard or to an almost equally delightful similar house next door. Why oh why is concrete and air-conditioning seen as better? Why couldn't they preserve their old homes instead of abandoning them to the elements and raiders, squatters, animals and other vandals?

From there we drove to Khor Rhori. The northern turn off, it turns out, is the wrong one. After being in jeeps and 4WDs for the last 10 days, I am unused to a regular car's capabilities, but I took it off-road, certainly over places I shouldn't have. At one point I was unsure of the path, but it was too late to go back, although we eventually did made it. Khor Rhori was the amazing frankincense port of Samhan in history, with a beautiful harbor that is now blocked off by a sand bar. We stopped for a while on the sand bar for a paddle and a swim, the drove on up Jebel Samhan to a sinkhole and Wadi Dharbat, a dry waterfall near a green valley with many strolling camels near the town of Tawi Allei.

At around 4 o'clock we pulled into Taqah to visit its two forts/castles, which had unfortunately locked up for the day. As we were driving back we passed 20 or 30 fishermen pulling in their nets on the shore, near 5 or 6 trucks parked on the sand. Huge flocks of gulls circled greedily, swinging down to swoop away some of the catch as it came to the surface because of the nets. Other dumb birds just crowded around to watch and got nothing. They squawked all the way up the beach and their excitement was palpable.

Pics: abandoned house in Mirbat, Khori beach, fort, fishermen

Tuesday, January 6

Was up with the usual hotel construction (a 7:45am jack-hammering beside my ear), and another simple 'continental breakfast' (toast and tea). Met an interesting German guy who had cycled down to Salalah from Dubai. It certainly put my 12 hour bus ride into perspective!

We were out the door by 9, headed on a much more picturesque road toward the Yemen border. Inland for the first while, we eventually hit a gorgeous beach: Mughsail. From there, a majestic snaking road up to 1000m, right above the sea. We passed a military checkpoint and then went a bit further, where it was rolling plateau inland. We didn't reach the border as it was a further 70km, but turned around to head back to the beach. From the beach there's a walk up to some blowholes, which sadly were not blowing because the sea was calm. Lunch in a cute seaside restaurant (I was going to say bistro but that's probably going too far!), and then a swim, while the fisherman drove up and down the enormous line of sand looking for schools of fish to throw their nets at. A peaceful drive back and a drink at the Hilton brought us home at sunset. Dinner at Al-Fareed's--Indian food or the typical kebab fare is all that we seem to be able to find in Oman, although ironically, this place also had Chinese!

Pics: cliffs, beach, mountain road

Wednesday, January 7

My last full weekday in Oman began with some errands, the most important of which was the post office. I also discovered that because they've created the new museum at Al-Baleed, the old one is empty, save the (very interesting) photos by Wilfred Thesiger of the Dhofar area before his camel trek across the Empty Quarter. Unfortunately, a child's festival and exhibition was taking place so the photos were in storage.

From there I drove to the Prophet Job's tomb: a very unremarkable building in a remarkable place. It's incredibly important to Islam, perhaps even the holiest place in this part of Oman, but other than being very long, is not the most exciting tomb I've ever seen. However, I can quite admire its humbleness. It is perched high on the edge of the mountains directly behind Salalah, and after several wrong turns taking me to a random farmyard, I made it. The view from the parking would have been spectacular, gazing over the plains to the sea with a clear image of Salalah, but it was hazy and the hills are an ugly brown at this time of year.

I headed back to Taqa fort to see what I had missed before. It's been beautifully restored, albeit with concrete instead of the traditional mud-brick, and each room decorated how it would have looked with any traditional artifacts. Interestingly, it was more a castle than a fort, with the main military garrison being on top of the hill behind. It was a castle in the sense that it belonged to one important family, and the rooms they lived in, complete with master bed and baby's cradle. I forgot to look for Sultan Qaboos' mother's grave, but drove back in search of Prophet Salem's camel's footprints instead. I never did find them! They've hidden in a suburb of Salalah, and to be fair, I can't say I know who Salem is anyway, though I was curious to see how they'd preserved the footprints.

Instead, I drove on, down the main street of Salalah, As-Salam Street, passing little dinky little shops, a disproportionate number of hairdressers, but most things were closed for the siesta. My destination was a bird preserve at the western end of town, were there are many storks, flamingoes, and other protected avians. Unfortunately, I couldn't see many, but enjoyed the beach instead, in its vast, empty, wild expanse. The last order of the day was exploring Salalah's retail opportunities. The ‘Centrepoint’ chain provided me with some much needed new sandals, and then I watched the beginning of the Iraq-Oman soccer game from the luxury coffee shop downtown, Browniz, whose Lebanese owners were staying in our hotel in Muscat.

Pics: Taqa fort, view from Ayub's tomb

Thursday, January 8

After breakfast I tried the handicrafts market, but unfortunately it was closed for the day/month/whatever. After some email time and a trip to the ATM, my rental car company came to collect me to go to the airport. The charming Indian man who was the manager told me he’d been in Salalah 8 years and absolutely loved it there. He said it was a great place to live because he had his family with him and he had lots of time off. Compared with his hard-working, mistreated friends and relatives in Dubai, no doubt it must have enormous appeal, which is quite ironic considering that most westerners would prefer the excitement of Dubai to the boredom of Salalah. Different places in life generate different needs, I guess.

I had a long time in tiny Salalah airport, and then, once in Muscat, I caught the 6-hour bus back to Dubai. It’s an enormous border crossing (a very wide no-man’s-land through hills and canyons). The Dubai bus station is in Deira, where my parents were waiting in the smokiest Shisha café, where, to the vastly over-eager owner, my father said that I was married for the first time in my life.

If you've gotten this far, you certainly deserve to see the rest of the photos if you're interested: They're on facebook and anyone can access them: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=204140&l=466fb&id=668335330, here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=204172&l=2622a&id=668335330, and here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=204635&l=59482&id=668335330

R.I.P. Lauren Kelly Stoneley

On December 29th, a childhood friend of mine, Lauren Stoneley died in a car accident on her way to Queenstown, NZ. She was a lovely, kind, fun, caring person who will be greatly missed. Best wishes to all her family back home.

From Tehran

And wouldn't you know it.... Facebook is blocked in Iran. Why am I suprised? What I'm pissed off about is that because I've been out of the "controlled" zone for 6 months, I've forgotten all the web proxies to get around it! Oh well...

What a great place this is! As I always do, I've been debating back and forth about whether I'd like to live here, but of course there are too many reasons on both sides, it would have to be for fate to decide!

I would love: the welcoming, friendly Iranians, the gorgeous Iranian men, the majestic Taborz mountains on the skyline, the sheer size (many places to explore), the four ski fields within driving (or taxiing) distance (FOUR!! And two go from telecabinas within the city!), the four seasons, the chic modernity, the well-dressed locals, the eternal search for good shopping, the narrow windy streets, exotic places like Persepolis, Shiraz and Esfahan within travelling distance, the fascinating Persian history and language.

I wouldn't love: the aggressive men, having to be bundled up all the time (I thought I wouldn't mind, but after whole days wearing a headscarf, I just want to TAKE IT OFF), the lack of cafes and restaurants, religious prudishness, having to search for the shopping, the sheer size of the city, the traffic, the narrow windy streets, that I've already exhausted most of the interesting muesums, the tiny international school (only 100 or so kids!) and the lack of many nationalities, the one hour trek to the airport, streets and streets of bland rolling suburbia, the insults towards Arabic as a result of the overt nationalism.

Um... and probably lots more but I can't remember them now.

I'm going to sign out now because it's time in the internet cafe, and I'll write more later! (Lots to say!)

Myanmar: To go or not to go?

http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/dirty_list/dirty_list_details.html

'The Dirty List' was published this week with a list of companies that have relations with the Myanmar junta government. It's an interesting assortment of companies, large and small, predictably with many from China and Thailand, but other big companies as well. While I don't really want to comment on companies and corporations going to Myanmar, other than to say that they are certainly in many other disreputable places without receiving criticism. Practices of corporations may not necessarily be good in their home country, and may well be very good in their host country and it is not good to generalize them all.

One interesting criticism that Myanmar travellers often receive is that they should not travel there because travelling there is helping the Myanmar junta. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is one advocate of this argument.

First of all, I honestly believe that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for so long that she may not necessarily be the best expert on matters in her own country, and she is certainly restricted in seeing the full picture by her advisors and the government.

Secondly, I think the advice not to travel is very limited. I think that needs clarification. I wholeheartedly agree that the large tour agencies that offer package tours where the tourists see nothing but their tour bus and 5 star hotels (which are very government influenced) are not advisable. However, I truly think that cutting a country off from foreign witnesses allows the problems to prevail. Independent travelers are a necessity in a place like Myanmar. Getting to the out of the way places means that people are seeing and witnessing and contributing in ways that get directly to the people.

I lived in Myanmar for three years as a teacher, so all those axes that should fall, will. But education, regardless of whether it is the poorest villager or the richest businessman's son is about awareness, and if we are to ensure that future generations of Myanmar leaders are not the corrupt madmen of the present day, then we need to make them aware, not only of their own country, but of the world, and human nature, and people and compassion.

I would never want to sanction the Myanmar government in any way. However, the situation is far more complex than the black and white that foreign groups often portray it. Many of the so-called "government-owned" properties are in fact owned simply by rich Asian businessmen who may have made deals with the government for permission (and this is done everywhere). That doesn't make me any more willing to put money in their pockets, but it does affect the overall issues. Yes, the people of Myanmar are some of the poorest and most needy in the world, but politicians will be politicians wherever they are, and corruption exists in most places, so it will never be eradicated. What areas can we improve on and affect? Health, education. The UN chooses to have a presence in Myanmar to aid the people, and we can support the people through them. Yes, the Myanmar government charges ridiculous prices of foreigners for its sights, but so do many places in the world. Yes, there are fees and charges hidden into many costs in Myanmar, but for just as many fees you pay to the government, you are at the same time contributing to a real person's need to make a living and support his/her family.

I have felt sad when friends or associates of mine have chosen not to visit Myanmar for fear of aiding the government. Every one of them would have been independent traveller, and would have maintained their contributions to the junta's pockets at a minimum. Thankfully, very few people that I know would come on a package tour, and I recommend all those that are considering that to look elsewhere for such pursuits. It is a truly beautiful country with a long-suffering, gentle, welcoming, friendly Buddhist populace. I cannot recommend experiencing a trip there, and meeting and helping those people that you can, any higher.

Court Documents via Facebook??

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10548377&pnum=0

The world is constantly evolving!! Apparently it is now legal to find someone on facebook and issue them with a court order and it is binding if other methods of contacting them have failed. An Aussie couple that were avoiding their house payments and court dates, were told they'd lose there house.

When I first read the headline, and I was disgusted with Australia (but it was a bit sensationalist and written to shock), but now that I've read the article, I actually agree. If someone is being difficult by not leaving a forwarding address and ignoring other contacts, then they deserve to lose their rights. Of course if there is a legitimate reason for their being out of contact, then it should be able to be appealed, but that's quite unlikely if they're using Facebook constantly.

What next in this modern evolving world??

Iran, Dubai, Oman and beyond!

This Friday, I'm flying to Tehran to try and see what the skiing scene is like in Iran! I've heard it's good and cheap, and honestly, how many people do you know who say that's what they did for their weekend? It's quite exciting. I have to remember to get some ID photos taken that have a scarf, and let's hope getting a visa on entry is hassle free (and possible)! I'm not sure how well I'll deal with skiing in a skirt, but hopefully the dress code is more lax on a ski field! Lovely Iran - here I come!!

After that, I'm going to join my family in Dubai for yummy Christmas dinner! On Boxing Day, we'll pile into an SUV convoy and drive over into Oman. I'm excited to see the turtles, the beautiful canyons, the desert, the cities and of course the warmth (it snowed in Baku this morning!). I'm probably going to go down to Salalah if I can for the last week, then have a couple of shopping days in Dubai at the end. What fun!

Scotland

I spent our long weekend last week on a very quick trip to Scotland to visit Sam. I only had four days, and one of those was spent entirely in travel. Still, what fun!!

I arrived at noon and Sam patiently waited while I spent a small fortune in the super Glasgow shops! We spent an evening on the town going to places like her local pub The Islay, ABC Club, Buddha Bar, but missed out on Nicensleazy and other exciting places! What great live music! What delicious cider! :)

On Sunday, I made poor Sam get up early so that we could catch the train up to Loch Lomond (1 hour away). Thankfully, the entire time I was there I had spectacular (if crisp) clear weather. Loch Lomond reminded me so much of Central Otago! I can see why the Scots felt so at home there! The beautiful tree-less mountains of brown tussuck-like stuff, covered in a nice dusting of snow was just like the hills behind Cromwell, not to mention Cecil Peak across from Lake Wakatipu! Gorgeous! They even had their own 'Maid of the Loch' steamship just like the Earnslaw! We missed the train back by seconds, but enjoyed some country time. Sunday night saw us in the church that has been converted into a bar/nightclub. The founders must be turning over in their graves, but it was wonderfully modern and a sense of today! Great use of space!!

While Sam prepared for her presentation on Monday, I took the train 1 hour to Edinburgh to explore that majestic touristy city! I spent pounds on Princes St, wandered the Castle, had my ears split open by the 1pm cannon, admired the Scot crown jewels, and wandered the Royal Mile! A lovely last dinner in the Islay with Sam's mates that was supposed to be Christmas Dinner, but needed pre-ordering!

I love the bookshops, the clothing, and the amazing thing was the Scots themselves!! I never really thought about it, but they look similar. There really is a typical 'Scot' look, and now that I've seen it, I recognize it in my Scot students here in Baku. It's hard to describe, but seems to be wide high cheekbones and large eyes, but there is also a smaller narrow-face, pointy pixie look. An English colleague mentioned that she can often tell a regional English as well, such as Cornish. Because I come from such a poly-glot NZ/Aust/USA background, everyone is distinct, but it is just fascinating to see a place with a 'typical' look!!

Reading the news

I was reading The Economist on the plane home today and it had an article about Iraq ('Well, is it victory or humiliation?' Nov 29-Dec 5). It talked about Iraqis deciding for themselves when America would leave. They mentioned that America would not be getting the bases it wanted. I never even thought about them wanting that, but of course there have interests in the area and that would be a perfect way to protect them.

As for America invading Syria and Iran from Iraq, I don't doubt that they have done that but they will do that while they have control of the area. It's all about multiple agendas. I don't know if I agree with them when they say that the Iraqi Sunnis have rejected al-Qaeda but they seem to think so although they do say that Iraq 'remains violent and fractious'.

The most interesting part however, was when they mentioned the connection or non-connection with Iran. Although Shias are close to Iran, Iraq's Shias and Sunnis share an identity as Arabs that may encourage them to resist an Iranian takeover of their politics. When America departs, a lot of Iraqis will want Iran to butt out too. Very perceptive! It's so easy to focus on the bad that America is doing that we often forget about the other parties to the issue. Poor Iraq!!

I often think that if Myanmar didn't have such a lazily corrupt government/dictatorship then it might descend into similar sectarian violence. Purely hypothetical of course, but it does make you think.

Baku news

I can't believe that I haven't posted anything in over a month. I just don't know where my time goes, but I certainly don't have any of it spare. Tonight, of course, I need to be doing my grades and it's only when I have something important to be done that I get all the other little things done (like on Sunday, I finally hemmed my pants from my September trip to Dubai!!). I certainly need to finish blogging about my trip to Pakistan, not to mention the summer holiday! There are CDs to burn for Andrea and Dennis, and of course many books to read. Anyway, here's a little blurb about some of the things I've done in the last little while.

Here's me a Sue's housewarming party with Sue and Cath last weekend.

This is at the St. Andrew's Ball with Ashi and Chris (who was at ISM in Manila for years!), which I absolutely loved. Too many of these types of functions have half-hearted dancing, but this one was great--very active and enthusiastic! I do wish I'd taken highland dancing as a child... I think mum wouldn't let me because I already had too many things going on.






An official photo from the ball complete with pipe band. The pipe band missed their flight because they had such a long night...

This is at the Rugby ball with Sally and Jojo -- not the best ball I've been too, but a wonderful kiwi parent at school was lovely enough to think of me when she had some tickets. A life for future All-Blacks: speaking at balls in random places like Baku: Former Springbok Kobus Wiese was the speaker of the evening. Apparently last year it was Sean Fitzpatrick and a guy at my table gave him a really hard time!!

My taxi buddies: Jo, David, and Liz outside the front of the school one morning.

This is us wandering along the "Boulevard", the Caspian Sea-side Nefchilar Avenue. We've had fantasticly warm weather for this time of year, really!

At Neila's halloween party with David. I finally wore my mermaid outfit--to rave reviews!! :) And yes, this is just something I happened to have in the closet...
So I won something at a bazaar two weekends ago--this was my lovely prize. It's entitled "Azerbaijan Oil and Gas" and I think it's god-awful... one of my charming homeroom students decided it would make the perfect gift for her dad for Christmas!! :)



My soccer team winning the championships! Considering we actually had only 3 practices, I shouldn't really take any credit!! I don't know if I'll coach next year. I don't think I make a very good coach because I just wish I was playing all the time.

This is during spirit week, and these are my homeroom students with spirit!

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So that's it... for now anyway!! I'm going to see Sam in Glasgow next weekend--yay!! It's supposed to be cold, but I've been told by several people here that it's a fun party town with a great historical center, so we shall see. Then there's only a week and a half beyond that to our Christmas vacation! I'm going to go to Iran to see if I can ski for a couple of days (after all, how many people can say they did THAT?), then will join the family in Dubai for Christmas where Aunty Helen's family is also coming, and we'll go to Oman for New Year's together in a car convoy --I hope I get to drive!! I have a week extra just for me, where I have to decide if I'll stay in Oman and travel down to Salalah on the bus, or come back to Dubai for a week or go somewhere else exciting. I wanted to go to Socotra in Yemen, but there are no flights from Dubai of course. Someday, I'll go there.

I really must go and write some more of my million and one comments for the report cards and finish marking all the material for them. I can't wait for tomorrow to be over because I'll finally have a clean slate after being bogged down and behind for so long.

Taxila

Taxila is a site that's just out of Islamabad and it's got everything from all eras.

The site of taxila is an archaeologists dream! It must have been so amazing to 'discover' it in the the 1920s. There are amazing finds such as statues of Athena and Aphrodite... Proof of Alexander the Great's far conquests. There are tablets in Aramaic. Even the every day articles are amazing... From chairs to keys, to door pieces, to horse fittings, to surgical instruments, to scales, to the requisite arrowheads and chisel and axes. Whole wheels and oh, the most amazing beads! Even carved heads and statues.

Of course, the museum doesn't look like it's been modified since the 1920s right down to the painted list in the curator's office and the leather-metal-button seats. I exaggerate of course, but it was ridiculous to see the carpet being swept!

At Julian, the only way to see the relics was to go with the guy who had the key. He was the only 'guide' I tipped, and when I gave him 100 rupees which is half the ticket price, he called me cheap! I was indignant. Hell, I shouldn't have to tip anyone when I pay an exorbitant entry fee compared to locals. 200 for foreigners and 200 again for the museum. That's western price of $4 which I suppose isn't much, but still, the fact that that is the minimum and I'm expected to pay more in tips is unfair. The locals pay 10 rupees to get in by comparison. He also wanted to know if that was the only place I tipped, and it was, which I suppose means I'm stingy, despite all the other obliging but unwanted 'guides' (ticket checkers/caretakers). I wonder what other nationalities/travellers refuse to pay.

Then, to make me feel even more sad, a souvenir seller asked me as I was walking down the path if i'd like to buy real relics. I told him they belonged in a museum. How self righteous of me!

Lahore 2

There's nothing like a new country to throw your beliefs and life into turmoil. Being in Pakistan is like being in Myanmar all over again, but without the acquired apathy. The poor are so much poorer here, and the people are so much more aggressive. Mum called them 'bolshie' and it absolutely fits. They challenge me. They make me take a hard look at what I believe, what I do when I encounter challenges, and how I respond to people in general. I really am such an awkward defensive person when I first meet people. I'm abrupt and rude and want my space.

Tonight I left a friendly guy and a rickshaw driver on the street while I went up to dinner all alone. Upstairs there was a lovely Canadian girl who invited them to share her plentiful meal. I felt so ashamed of myself. I would have loved the company and I can certainly afford it so it's not that. Sure I don't want to be the sucker providing the free meal but they turned out to be very generous and helpful although of course grateful for the free meal. A contradiction. Why am I so defensive? I remember meeting an amazing lady in Morocco who said she cannot fear people... Why do I? Am I being cautious? Where does cautiousness end and snobbery begin?

Men talking to me constantly, hooting everywhere I go, rickshaws stopping and blocking my path, begging to take me, even for free. One man followed me, and everyone looks at me! Like the jolt of going over a bump on the wooden seat of a rickshaw. Bump! Think! React! What do you think! What do you believe? Which prophet do you believe in? What do you think of Pakistanis ? Are they aggressive., welcoming, nice, obnoxious? Etc etc. I love this... I love to be forced to look at myself.
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There are some amazingly interesting people in the dorm I'm staying in... Moroccan, Swede, Slovak, South African, German, French. Amazing people!! The Swede was excited to buy porn, which is just as sickening as Lonely Planet writer I met in Myanmar who was excited to get a photo of a monk giving the finger.

One was a cyclist living on $150 a month, and who lived on less than $1 a day in Africa. These people are doing things with their lives. Sure it doesn't help humanity but it does challenge themselves. What do I do? I live in Baku where the biggest challenge is which bar, which restaurant. I should learn Russian. Will I meet a nice man? I am so superficial... We all are. I want to do more. I want to be more. I know I inspire some people, but I want t to do more. I want to leave a legacy... Then again,, I am also quite satisfied with my life and if I died tomorrow and I will be okay with it... As Zeeshan says... He cannot live in fear. Fate is fate and you can live smart but life happens. I want to be an amazing person. I know I am an amazing person, but I know i'm not even close to my potential. I want to be more!
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Everyone is so religious here. The religiousness surprises me. Speaking of beards... is it a real sign of conservatives or not? Malike said it was a sign of avoiding hassle... of convenience for them. There was a movie on bus... a big shoot em up... but it was also followed by a documentary of young mullahs and conservatives. Two women had prayer books and chanted the whole bus ride. Women ride only at the front of course.

Lahore

Lahore's a fun city! It reminded me a lot of Yangon, which I suppose is evidence of their history and economic status! In Lahore, I wandered around like I've been warned not to in Islamabad, and that was so freeing! I was feeling a little bit stifled, but I suppose it's all wise if you live here. [This pic is the Pakistan Monument in Islamabad]

I went to Cookoo's restaurant high above the fort and the Badshahi Mosque for dinner, then wandered back amongst all the street stalls and squalor. Shady men followed me and I did my best to deter them by entering shops! Autorickshaws are aplenty, and several were happy to take me home, even for free because I'm such a novelty. Poor Pakistan to be so desperate for tourism. [View from Cookoo's]

After a fitful sleep in a very cheap hostel ($2 a night! Backpacker style!) I explored the Old Fort - an enormous rambling monstrosity of palaces and eras. It was tragically in very poor repair, and many of the more interesting areas were, of course, blocked off. Particarly memorable were the elephant's walk (where a special giant staircase was constructed so that they could waltz right into the palace with the numerous royal ladies on their backs), the hall of mirrors (just beautiful! it was what I imagined the hall of mirrors at Versailles was like, but wasn't).

After some brief rains, I walked through the thriving, modern old city, with it's confusing narrow streets and bazaars and mud everywhere! The crumbling Mosque of Wazir Khan was stunningly derelict, with beautiful mosaics and a lovely deserted courtyard. [This photo is from an ancient city near Islamabad]

I ended the afternoon by a wander around the tombs of Jehangir, Asif Khan and Nur Jahan. A huge, 180 room, single-level Caravanserai split two of the tombs in an enormous courtyard filled with lovely gardens and trees.
For dinner, I ventured into the newer part of town, MM Alam Road, where all the rich and no doubt expats, too, do their dining away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

What an alive place!

Buses in Pakistan

On Tuesday, I took a fancy Daewoo bus from Islamabad (Rawalpindi in actual fact) to Lahore. Wow! What service! Headphones, snacks, drinks, newspapers, movies. I suppose when you're paying almost $10 for a 4 hour ride, which is so above local prices, you have to get some bang for your buck. The security amused me incredibly--a man got on the bus just before departure, and filmed everyone's face with a video camera. I suppose this is so we know for sure who's on the bus if it gets blown up - for the sake of both perpetrators and victims!

Islamabad sights

On Monday, I did the royal tour of Islamabad. There isn't really a lot to see since the city was only created in the 1960s. It's a pretty beautiful city however--broad, green, empty avenues, but I must say that does make it pretty unexciting! It almost has a bit of a provincial feeling... it's certainly small and unlike other Pakistani cities! The shops remind me a bit of Kuwait in their small town-ness!

We started the day searching everywhere to find a money changer that would be open, and after that, Iqbal drove me around past the forbidden places (the ones I'm not supposed to go to because they're so dangerous!), the Red (now very white) Mosque (unremarkable building, really) and Melody Market. Sure, lots of people in the streets, but otherwise, nothing unusual. I didn't get out of the car, however...

I did some shopping as well, buying way too many bed spreads and other things I really don't need!

I went to the Heritage Museum pretty early on. What fun! We had a power cut while I was inside, and too bad about the rest, because it was pitch black in there, and it was all I could do to find my way to the exit. Too bad about the 200% foreigner price that I paid--it's gone, and you have to pay for the toilet too! It was pretty interesting though... enormous halls filled with rather scary looking papermache dummies, and the random odd squirrel thrown in to ensure the taxidermists had something to do! There was an interesting Azerbaijan section in the middle of central asia... obviously the Azeri embassy here felt it necessary to promote themselves with a donation of tourism books, although the carpets were a nice touch!

We then drove up to the new Pakistan Monument. Reminded me a lot of the Armenian Genocide Monument in Yerevan, although I'm sure they'd be horrified at the similarity! A large, rather ostentatious white and red marble monument to the creation of Pakistan and their provinces. It did have a lovely view over the city however!

I tried to find the Beni Imam shrine, but of course the entire area is around where the Marriot blast was, so it is completely blocked off with police checkpoints and blockages.

We drove past the huge Faisal Mosque (which I was amused to read had spurred several rumors of the CIA checking out the bomb-shaped minarets in case they were real bombs!). I didn't feel like going in, but I was astonished to discover that women were walking in with bare arms although they hadn't covered up their heads at that point either, but didn't have anything that could possibly cover their arms either!

We drove into the Mullah hills for a quick dinner of Chicken Tikka and lovely sunset views. What an amazing road!!

Load-shedding

In Pakistan, when the power goes out, it's called load-shedding. In the Philippines where it was always sticky and warm, it was, appropriately, a brown-out, while in New Zealand and I think other places, it's just a black-out. What a colloquialism!! What a stupid idiom!! At least there is something here that's organized about it--each district gets exactly 6 hours off, but not all at once. For example, Cathy's house has it off from 1 to 2, 6 to 7 and 10 to 11, both morning and night. Unfortunately, you only get to know your own district....


I was at the Islamabad heritage museum, which is really quite extensive, though bizzarely organized. Half way through, of course, what happened? Load-shedding time! It was pitch black inside except for the cracks under the doors to the outside.

In Lahore, they have load-shedding every hour, so one hour on, one hour off. Of course Islamabad is better as it's the capital! This season's not too bad, but it must be unbearable when it's hot. They're also saving on the electricity, so the beautiful night lights at the mosque weren't running!

Islamabad

Arrived in the dead of night to an expectedly packed airport - lines of tangled groups towards distant immigration lines. Saw one family of Afghans with Canadian passports, all born in Kabul, the son confused as to whether his nationality was Afghan or Canadian. Huge crowds around the bag carousel and outside--my friend the only pakeha face in the lot. Lots of people for such a late night, but it's like Baku in the sense that everything comes in at the dead of night, so is to be expected!

Went aroudn the city a little bit yesterday - some brief shopping then lunch in a local restaurant (this is a rare thing to do since the Marriot blast). The city is a rolling campus of trees and greenery and wide, divided roads with (so far) very few cars on them. Since it's a designer city, it's in large square quadrants, with a little local set of shops in each. Haven't seen any high rises yet, or even any crowds, but am venturing out today! I have been given a list of places that I'm forbidden to go. The hills in the distant are brown and mottled, but add a lovely touch to the city--oh, to be so close to such walking trails!

Darling Samila? Samira?

Here's the lovely Dubai cat that comes when called, cuddles all night, but is righteously still a cat and will tell you off if you pet her too much. I love the fact that she climbed into my suitcases, but at least there was no ham to be eaten there like friends who were stocking up to return to Kuwait! Kitty, I'm coming! I'll be there on Friday night!

Walking home from work

So these images are on the walk home, very close to the school grounds in the garbage heap that is the empty lot (in fact, you can see the school in the background behind the long wall!). Take a look closer and see how many animals you can find foraging for food. It was crystal clear when I took it, but somehow they blend in very well. Lets see, I can find: 2 goats, 2 cats, a chicken and a dog (somehow, I remember there being more).

Added photos below.

I've just added some photos to my Belarus posts below. Enjoy!

Thoughts

Over the weekend I had the interesting experience of eating both green cheese and green ice cream. The former was pesto-laced and absolutely delicious, and the latter I’m still trying to figure out, although I suspect it to be pistachio. Only in Baku...

My new cleaning lady began today. Wow! What a lot to get used to! I do believe she rearranged my entire home. I haven’t found a single cupboard that is in its original state. The control-freak Virgo in me is itching in aggravation—I am not a messy person by nature and there wasn’t a whole lot wrong with where I had it! My jeans shrunk in her 90 degree wash, and I’ve somehow managed to spend $25 on three bottles of used cleaning supplies. She threw out my one week old sponge and dish cloth, but the place is spotless. I will admit that many of her rearrangements were ingenious, but it does bug me when she begins to go through my fridge and throw out the floppy cucumbers, no matter how much it needs doing. Here goes my over-independence rearing its head. I hate to think that I can’t take care of myself, and she really isn’t helping!

Movement of people

I'm finding the ethnic diversity here in Baku absolutely amazing. There are people from all over the former Soviet Union who call this place home. Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Poles, Ukrainians, etc, etc. Most of them now have Azeri passports, and while I haven't really gotten into the culture enough to know how the true Azeris feel about this (I remember in Uzbekistan it was very contentious), surely because they have Azeri passports, they have become Azeri and accepted in most senses. Most speak only Russian, as opposed to Azeri, but they truly consider this fascinating place home.

This was an interesting cultural event, really. I know it happened in several waves. It must have been at the turn of the century when the oil was peaking, and then again in the 1960s, although I'm not a hundred percent certain. What is true is that when they were moving, they were moving within the same country, just as an American moves from the east coast to the west coast, yet their cultures are quite distinct, just as the American South is from the North or from the Midwest. Here they are probably more distinct, and it makes for such an amazing polyglot of people--blondes with curly curly hair to Arab-looking men with long conservative beards. They all call this place home!

Baku settling in

I've been in Baku for just over a week. Things have been super hectic as we've had meetings, groupings, partnership work and other classroom preparation. I'm not at all close to being ready to teach yet as MYP is really quite a complex system, but still have two days of orientation to go. I still want to add pictures and other blogs to this, but it will have to wait till I have time!

I'm really loving Baku--it's such an interesting city! For fear of sounding like a guide book or a tourist promotion agency, I'll try to tone it down!! The Old City is beautiful. There are typical medina type winding cities like across the arab world. The majestic walls with renovated turrets line the edges, and the buildings range from being decrepit (and picturesque) to new and fashionable. At the bottom side is the Maidens Tower and a maze of layers of old ruins. Expensive restaurants with interesting red lamps and rooftop views shine across the courtyards.

Outside the old city are the turn-of-the-century oil boom mansions, and other buildings no doubt built by Russia in it's wealthy hey days. They've had a century of neglect, but are being slowly spruced up to look very majestic in their cream stone and carved awnings. I live downtown in a shabby but quaint appartment on the pedestrian Nizami Street, quite near to Fountain Square, where in the evenings, dressed-to-the-nines couples, families and many young men strut around to see and be seen, in front of the McDonalds and other foreign imported shops.

I'm absolutely appalled by how expensive everything is here! Everything has to be flown in, no doubt, and the price reflects it. Can you imagine it being normal to pay $1 for a normal plastic coat-hanger or $100 for a simple metal rubbish bin? These are just two examples, but it does seem as if everything is overpriced. Even the little stall on my street selling Chinese handbag knockoffs are overpriced, and they're the cheapest thing in town. Thankfully, right now (before Ramadan), it's the middle of sale season, so everything is marked down to 30, 40, 50, 70 percent off, which thankfully, brings things back to more realistic (but not really cheap) prices. The internet is costing $300 just to connect and the satellite TV is at least $150. Is that overpriced or have I been living in dirt-cheap South East Asia for too long and I've lost the sense of reality?

If that's not bad enough, I think the local boys use my stairwell as their urinal, and it annoys me very much. The cleaner spent three days last week cleaning it up from the last incident, but I really would rather not have to get a combination lock because that would be such a hassle for all in the building as well as myself! At least I have a light there now and don't have to use my torch to go up the stairs! That probably sounds really horrifying, but you must understand that it's characteristic of all formerly-Soviet countries that a stairwell should be the most horrifyingly-ugly, phobia reaction-inducing places in existance.

The thing I have to say that I love the most about Baku, though, are the cats. Not just the fact that they are here, but the fact that everyone in Baku seems to be a cat lover and they really take care of them. I have to smile when I see a little old lady reach into her handbag to pull out a little fish for one! It was like it was a cartoon. There is always a little tub of water and cat nuts sitting in a pile around every corner, and none of the kitties look malnourished. They are friendly and cuddle up to me often (which I just love). I'm tired of skittish cats than run away from a pet and a hug, but these ones just climb into my lap and purr! I just don't know yet if I want one of my own...

From Baku

Am sitting here with a free evening after days and nights filled with events! Things are going very well here--I'm amazed at how fast timehas flown!

I had a crazy flight over through Belarus. At Gatwick, I was unfortunate enough that they weighed my two handcarry bags, so I had to pay 50 pounds in excess, but really that's not bad for all the flying I've done this summer, and they did want me to pay 170, so I was lucky. Minsk doesn't really know how to deal with transit passengers that are not Russia or Belarusian, so when I arrived and had asked several people where I should go (and they had passed the buck by telling me to wait in hopes that someone else would deal with me) I was escorted upstairs to wait by myself in the tiny departure lounge (where not another soul joined me, and not a single shop nor restaurant was open (though they weren't open when I departed a week earlier, either)! Nearing departure time I was herded through the airport because I had no visa but had to re-check-in. My handcarry was given back to me to avoid further excess baggage charges!! I then managed to somehow arrive into Azerbaijan without getting a visa, bizzarely. Wondering about it, I was told we'd worry about it the next day (as it was already 3am and we all wanted to just get to sleep). It was later sorted out, so I am not here illegally, anymore.

I like my new appartment alot, but when others complain, it's so easy to add your own woes to the pile, minor though they may be! The best thing is that I have a lovely balcony overlooking the main pedestrian street right in the middle of central downtown. It's going to cost $250 to connect to the internet, which is not so good, but that's just how it is here. I found a dialup card at the phone card shop today, but it's a bit slow!

All the new singles bar one live in town, but divided into two groups, E and W of the central fountain square. E typically have views, but W are closer to central downtown. I'm in the W. I'm interested to see what will happen as the year progresses. Everyone is quite concerned about the situation in Georgia, but I really don't think that it will have a big impact on Azerbaijan unless the pipeline is greatly affected.

Haven't even been in my classroom for more than a few seconds as we haven't had time to blink because things are happening all the time. Time is absolutely filled with workshops, meetings, and other things like getting an official BP ID card!! In the evenings we are wined and dined across town! It's a very long orientation (almost two weeks), but still haven't done heaps, so I suppose it'll be just enough. Hopefully we'll open a bank account tomorrow, and get some time to sit and get things in order. No sign of a car yet!

Am loving the city--it's grown and developped a lot from what I remember from being here in 2004, but am still recognizing the main landmarks. I keep thinking of more things the more time I spend here! There's lots to explore. I look forward to having visitors in my first ever spare room!

Anyway, must go and do some school work and catch up on all that I'm way behind on! Will send more news soon!

Huge Apologies

Just wanted to say sorry to those who get aggravated when I post many things at once... I just posted three weeks worth because I've been camping in the wilds and had no electricity nor internet. I tried to get it up earlier this week but of course blogger wouldn't work for me. Will post more soon and get the pics up to match!!

Right now, I'm off to the Belarus State Museum of History and Culture.

P.S. I'm sitting in a cool internet cafe under Lenin Square!

Natalya Posted July 31

You'd think that being in the land of Natalyas, people would finally
start getting my name right instead of calling me Natalie or Natasha.
It's ironic, though, how ingrained one name is to a language, and so
because the Belarusians have both a Russian and Belarusian form of
their name, the fact that my name really is Natalya escapes them. I am
consistently called Natalie, which to me is the most bizarre form of
cultural exchange. They think: she is a foreigner, therefore she must
have a foreign name.

Belarusian Weekend 2 – Berezinski Biosphere Reserve Posted July 31

For the second weekend, we hired a van to drive us to the nearby
Bjarezinski Biosphere Reserve to stay in a hotel there and enjoy some
civilization (mainly in the form of hot showers). A tiny little
village yielded all our entertainment – it was great to bike around
and see storks in chimneys, cats asleep on benches outside the
beautifully painted houses (which is quite a new phenomenon, but
certainly a lovely one). The small zoo had a beautiful European Bison,
a very sad looking bear, some wolves, deer and other small animals in
the expectedly small enclosures.

After an afternoon of simple "insideness" and electricity (i.e.
computer usage for me), although the hotel did offer to rent us
skipping ropes and hoola hoops, I went to explore the "magazin" shop.
Everything here is still bought across the counter (such a complicated
procedure with no knowledge of Russian!), and I was quite amused to
have my baked sweets priced by weight. I am missing the ability to buy
non coke drinks—everything, even water, is carbonated! We really are
in a relic of the past, but what is quaint is that people have not
demanded the changes you might have expected elsewhere, such as in the
Baltic. The hotels, even the new ones built in the last 15 years, all
look like the spartan boring Soviet Intourist ones, with long hallways
with artificial carpets and serviceable but certainly not fashionable
furnishing.

The museum across the street has to be one of the best museums I've
ever seen—for taxidermy. It was extensive, but I do find it incredibly
ironic that in a biosphere, the museum with the biological species are
all dead ones! It's certainly not politically correct to have such
places in the west, but here in Eastern Europe it is a perfectly
acceptable form of education. Personally I can't say that I have a big
problem with it because it's certainly quite handy to see examples of
all the wildlife without disturbing their habitat! The outside was
beautifully decorated with the traditional totem-pole like carvings
that are quite common in the villages around here.

--------
I washed my socks tonight. These are two pairs I've been wearing for
most of the past two weeks. The water was black for three washes. I
turned them inside out and scrubbed my hands as if with sock gloves, I
twisted and turned and scrubbed and squeezed, and even after four
thorough washes, they're still black. This was the point where I
decided that I'd had enough washing, and despite still having a faint
whiff of sweat and dirt, they would do for another week, at which
point I will have to ask dear mum to reinstruct me on how to use
bleach. God, I miss a washing machine!

Pics: Bison, Train, Museum statues

Week 2 of Dig Posted July 31

The second week of digging commenced relatively uneventfully, but we
certainly can't seem to get any decent weather as "Wednesday" (it was
actually Sunday) was a day we spent the whole day at camp instead of
at the site because we had so much rain. It was my cooking day, and so
I made burritos—yum. Several people asked what's needed, and here's a
brief description of why it was so special: Tortillas need flour,
water, oil, and a pinch of salt, but also it is required that they be
rolled with a beer bottle that has had the label rain cleaned. Flies
and dirt are optional but certainly make extra seasoning. For the rare
Vitebsk bought beans, they must be campfire cooked (so including ash,
yellow river water, whatever strange seasoning the shop had – reading
labels should not be attempted) slowly next to the rice (a whole,
packet, why not??), also on the fire. Sticks must be used as pot
holders and if the pot is not covered with burnt charcoal dust then
they will not have that delicious taste necessary for a true camping
feast. Don't forget the sour cream!

We did some more drawing this week, which is really quite prescribed.
I found a fantastic fish knife with a hole in it, which we are not
sure what the true purpose is for, but there have only been one or two
other similar items found anywhere in the region. We also found a
couple of really cool teeth pendants, which are easy to mistake for
just teeth (which I still find just as cool) because of the caked
dirt. Lots more flint scrapers (to the point where we don't even find
them interesting anymore), and I must say that I am quite sick of
pottery clusters (i.e. pots that have fallen in one place and broken
into many shards). They are tedious to brush off, and slow down the
process enormously, plus they are so completely delicate that getting
a complete piece out is a trial. But seriously, it's a joy to be
finding so much—I feel honored to have found the most field objects of
anyone, but that's simply because I picked the busiest square.

When a new volunteer arrived for the "weekend" (read, the real
weekend, but our mid week), he brought with him a volleyball which he
proceeded to blow up and invite all to play with him. Luckily, the
machines and men clearing the fields for hay had flattened the area
surrounding the campsite that very day. Honestly though, when we went
out at dusk for a casual pass around, I spent more time swatting
mozzies than hitting, and I swear I killed as many of the apparently
genetically inferior beasts (so easy to kill) as I passed the ball.
Miserable pests, they are! Whoever invented those was obviously in a
bad mood.

After all the crazy rain of the past few days, we discovered our
"bridge" has now become submerged. Still, crossing the precarious
structure saves us at least 20 minutes, so we are still game to cross.
On Thursday, it was my turn to make a sacrifice to the rain gods—I
fell in. I guess I was getting too cocky and crossing too quickly, but
the wooden logs rolled and I was in the water up to my waist before I
even realized I was falling in. Luckily, I had on my quick dry pants
so I had cleared every drop by lunchtime—just in time for the walk
home and a humble apology to the bridge and rain gods again!

The highlight of our week, though, has to be the shop on wheels, the
"auto magazin" which plies the villages with produce a couple of times
a week. We line up for our chocolate bars, bread, pickles and other
odd items, and of course, the archaeologist's staple item: beer.

Pics: Shop on wheels.

Belarusian Weekend 1 – Polatsk and Vitsebsk Posted July 31

Multiple Lenin Statues!!

The first major outing from the site was on the "weekend" (calendar
days Wednesday and Thursday, but it's easy to forget that when you
started the week on a Friday not a Monday). Five of the foreigners and
one lovely Belarusian lady, Sasha, piled onto several buses to reach
Polatsk, the most ancient city in Belarus (first mentioned in 862).
There, we were met by a local archaology professor and many of her
hospitable students, who took us on a walking tour of town. We passed
the center of the world monument, another monument to the letter "w"
(the only letter that Belarusian has different from Russian, and I
suppose when you lack a strong identity, it's important to grasp at
anything to be proud of!), the town's Lenin statue, the place where a
cathedral once stood, the ancient riverside street (which reminded me
of Arrowtown, a riverside town in New Zealand), and the ancient
cathedral. We saw the merging of the river Dvina River and the Polata
Creek, and admired the ancient Pagan stone upon which the lovely
ancestor Prince Boris decided he needed to mark with a cross (but
which is still sought after for fertility blessings). They took us to
see the university (which reminded me a lot of Akhawayn in Morocco
because of its newly renovated-ness) and their dig next to a
fascinatingly decrepit deserted house.

The next day (after getting an internet fix, and discovering all sorts
on financial pains in the arse), we headed in the rain to the next
town of Vitsebsk, another ancient city, which also happens to be Mark
Chagall's birthplace. We tried to find his art museum, but ended up at
his old house instead. It was barely two rooms, and certainly a
wake-up call to the living standards in this area. I find Belarus'
history quite fascinating. How can such a huge place (half the size of
Poland!) exist that so few people know about? It was the area where
almost all of the Russian Jewry came from (as they were restricted to
this area), and has passed hands from the ancient Rus of Kiev, to the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to Poland to Hitler to the Soviets and now
independence! It really is right in the middle of Europe. The two
towns we visited were actually part of Russia, yet with such large
Belarusian communities, so they were added to the new Belarusian
Soviet Socialist Republic when it was created in the 1920s and 30s.
Amazing!!

Pics: letter w monument, lenin statues-beshankovich, vitsebsk,
polatsk, learner sticker, decrepit house, Chagall statue

This is an interesting "learner driver" sticker.... required everywhere!

Quick news from Belarus

I've been out of touch in a campsite in rural Belarus for the last week, and I'm heading back there this afternoon, and I don't have much time to tell all about what I've been doing but wanted to send a quick update!!

I'm on a dig near Beshankovich (between Minsk and Vitsebsk) where we're looking at a stone age peat bog site. On the first day I found an amazing Amber pendant and another digger found a flint axe. Very exciting! We've had crazy thunderstorms (thankfully, my tent is just superb!). Also interesting are the microflints, arrowheads and other cool stuff we've found. I'll try and post more soon, but internet is nowhere near the site, so it may be three weeks or so!

Bombs Posted July 31

Did you know there were two bombings in Belarus a month or so ago? It
probably didn't make big news, although when my mum saw it she had to
ask me why something dangerous always had to happen in the places I
went to! Belarus has had nothing happen for so long, and then I decide
to go there. Anyway, it was on independence day just before I arrived
here. The government has blamed the opposition groups, but of course
they are certainly not inclined in that way, or even that well
organized, united or so well-equipt, but that did not prevent several
arrests from various (of course, random) factions. This led to several
protests against the arrests, where the protest leaders were beaten.
When the leader took it to court, the police argued that of course
they didn't do it, and he beat himself up. All this because elections
are scheduled for the autumn. What a complicated way to dictatorship!

Camping Posted July 31

When was the last time you went camping? There's something lovely
about going to sleep with the cicadas and seeing the sunset from a
tent. While cooking's a hassle, clean water's a nightmare and let's
not even talk about the showers, I must say the worst thing for me are
the Belarusian bugs. They jokingly said at the campfire that while the
1 ½ year military service does nothing but build homes for generals
now (or maintain their gardens), they don't really need a standing
army because the mosquitoes will do their job for them.

Snuggling in a sleeping bag, with 2 extra blankets and even a
mattress, in my warmest set of clothes got me through the second night
of misty cold. We have delightfully social communal meals and the
campfire is always lovely. The environment is disregarded as we bathe
in the river with soaps and chemical shampoos, and I've already
mentioned that the only thing that isn't burnable waste is a tin can.
It's amazing how I can have two so completely electricity-free
experiences in a year (after all, the beginning of this summer had no
electricity or running water in my home after the cyclone!).

Asaviec Posted July 31

On "Tuesday" I wandered into the local village where we get our fresh
milk and well water from. It's about 20 minutes down the road, and has
the most amazing quaint painted houses with decorated windows. I
managed to disturb every dog in town, and alienate every snobbish cat,
although one skittish new mum let me pet her and her kittens. One lady
extensively invited me in for tea, and one lovely old man wanted to
give me a ride to the next village on his hay cart pulled by his
recalcitrant horse (which I was happy to refuse as it would have meant
a longer walk home, and I watched how the horse stopped half way and
refused to continue). I saw a dead grass snake and a live one, a dead
mouse and several other live farm like animals in the idyllic summer
existence, but I was horrified at the thought of the isolation that
must occur in winter, despite the twice-daily local bus to take
passengers into "civilization" (i.e.Beshankovic, the one shop town on
the main road). With snow piled several feet high, limited clearing of
roads, poverty, winds from the arctic, simple wooden cottages and
nothing going on, it must not be a fun season. Still, it is pleasant
to live a simple life, giving and getting directly from the land.

I took several photos of the beautiful windows they have here, and
have shared a few.

Pic: painted house, windows, outhouse

Belarus and week 1 of the dig Posted July 31

After a very quick turn of Minsk, I have arrived at the dig site of
Asaviec 2 2008, near the town of Beshankovic (which translates to
'crazy town', while Asaviec is 'place of horror') on the highway
between Minsk and Vitebsk. So far the digging has yielded a fantastic
amber pendant and a small flint axe simply from the top soil. It looks
very promising! The dream is to find figurines. We are digging a 12
square meter trench and going down in 10cm increments. The site is
smack dab in the middle of a huge field of stinging nettle, so I have
reacquainted myself with the joys of nettle stings, which I'll have
you know, are strong enough to sting through pant legs!! The
mosquitoes and other vicious biting bugs are also good friends with
the site, so I lather myself with spray every time I go out. Oh, how I
wish I had my mosquito racket with me now! I do hope it survives the
journey to Azerbaijan, as it has been hell living without it. Several
campers also discovered ticks sucking on their juicy flesh, and after
removal were then sent to the doctor for testing, as we're in an area
of tick-borne encephalitis.

The foreign volunteers are a much more international bunch than those
in Romania, and the dynamics are quite different. We have one
Lithuanian, Mantas, one Dutch, Aulky, one Brit, Toby, myself, the
kiwi, and four Americans: Maureen, Lee Ann, Alec and Sam, not
forgetting Olya, the Belarusian-Canadian! Almost all are affiliated
with archaeology in some officially academic way, except me, of
course, and many are in the process of masters, so overall it's an
older group, and we all get along well. There are also two Belarusian
State University archaeologists on board: father and son, Michael and
Max, many Belarusian volunteer students, and the Belarusian
"first-years" many of whom are history students as everyone in the
entire department is required to complete a dig. Their English levels
vary and overall, they are a welcoming, friendly, social bunch. We had
a friendly campfire introduction early on this week, and sang songs
with the two guitars!

Camping has added another interesting element to the trip. The last
time I went camping was when I was still in NZ, so it's a been a long
time. I bought a camping shower because cleanliness was the thing I
was most worried about, but after one attempt, I have abandoned it, as
I got more bug bites than is seemingly possible, in all sorts of
unpleasant places, and finding a tree high enough to hang it from was
quite a trial! In terms of food, we have a rotating cooking schedule,
and without a fridge, this has led to interesting concoctions! Sour
cream plays a big part. Trash is interesting, and the idea of
environmentally conscious rubbish has flown out the window! We have a
burn pile and for a while I actually wondered about what I should and
shouldn't burn—aren't burning plastics a big no-no? Not here!
Everything goes on the pile! I have endeavored to keep the compost pit
free of plastic bags, which has been mostly successful, but I will
draw a personal line at attempting to keep the ladies from throwing
their pads in our dug toilet. Too much of a communication confusion,
not to mention cultural exchange!

The walk to the site from camp is around 20 minutes in the morning,
and we wander through a field of yellow flowers, which are apparently
used for some type of oil fuel. The Belarusian students built a bridge
across one of the small canals that was dug in the 1970s to drain the
peat bogs so that we can get to the site more easily. It's an
impressive structure of 4 logs! We also had a visitor this week—a mole
decided to dig a narrow trench through our trench.

I must say the rain here has been insane!! Why have I managed to take
this bad weather with me for so much of my trip? We had a huge series
of thunderstorms on Sunday evening, where at least 7 rounds of
whipping lightning-filled gargantuan storms passed over the camp
soaking us all and shaking every tent to breaking point. (I never
realized that you could repair a tent crossbar so many times, although
I have to say that the person who rigged an entire plastic tarp tent
on top of their other one has to have the best idea!). We also had a
quick hail storm and amazing fog drifting in on what proved to be a
freezing night!

Pics: Campsite kitchen, Hail, campsite in fog, bridge, dig site 2791,
yellow flower field

http://www.belarchaeo.com/

What to do in Belarus? Posted July 31

I asked Olya to recommend the best things to see in Belarus. Mushroom
picking was high on her list, as were the castles, forts and forests.
Everyone says it is a relic of the soviet past, yet it really is
prosperous in many ways. How would I describe it? There are beautiful
rolling hills and forests, with quaint small towns, and generally,
space. I can see very clearly now why Poles, Russians, Belarusians,
Latvians and other eastern Europeans all chose to settle in the
Midwest and Canada as it really is very similar in climate and
landscape.

Outside of Minsk it's like one continual farm, with no fences and
livestock in large herds still tended by a shepherd. Collectives are
still very common and village-centered farming is the norm. The
government still owns all the land and country villages are extremely
poor but picturesque.

Belarus has a bit of an identity crisis which means than many will
identify with Poland, Ukraine or Russia more than Belarusian, and the
passivity from so many historical poundings means that the will to
fight for their Belarusian language and identity is limited. Teaching
about wars against Russia is illegal, despite the fact that 2 in 1
Belarusians died, which is twice the number of WWII when 4 in 1 died.
The president hates Belarusian language and culture and is notorious
for not being able to even speak the national language—instead
speaking an uneducated creole of sorts called treshanka. Under the
Soviet Union, no military service would be undertaken in one's own
republic, which is why so many Belarusians fought in Afghanistan and
Chechnya, rather than protecting their own people. This was done so
that if shooting against the population needed to occur, the "foreign"
troops would be less hesitant at protecting the populace as they
didn't identify with them. An effective oppression system, really.

The dig is a fascinating site—a Neolithic peat bog just like the
amazing bog-men collection I saw in the Dublin museum, except that no
bog men have been found in Belarus. The site has been excavated
several times over the last 100 years, but unfortunately, one
archaeologist was executed for being an "enemy of the state", and many
of the items found not to mention journals and records from before
WWII were of course destroyed completely when Minsk was completely
flattened by bombing. Many things changed in the 1970s when the
government put in a huge melioration project of canals which drained
the bogs and marshes. The second dig, which unfortunately I can't go
to, is of a flint mine, which would also have been amazing. Because
Belarus is on the front lines for so many wars, there are so many
possible sites. In fact, Olya was saying that very near the dig site
was the area of the biggest tank battle of World War II and several
planes went down in the bogs which children use as playgrounds now!
Many sites have been gone over with people using metal detectors, but
when they find someone, they tend to just strip the treasure and leave
the body, instead of helping to create some kind of memorial. As it's
a crossroads from Sweden to Ancient Greece, there are many trade route
treasures to be found!

What are you afraid of?

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-07/pl_print

This was a really interesting quiz... I knew when I was doing it that it wasn't supposed to be as you'd expect, but what you expect is not always what you expect! :)

Latvia - people you meet

To be added soon... check back.

Stolen from Rama

The Challenge:
- Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
- See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to add another!(2.b., 2.c., etc...)
- Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.

Rama's

1. Spent more time out of their home country than in their home country and still been under 30.
2. Flown across an ocean and a continent to be somewhere 2 days just for a wedding.
3. Lived in at least 2 places that most people have never heard of--Myanmar, Azerbaijan.

I've decided that these are completely unimaginative, but that is my mood I guess. Interesting thinking about it though!

Ballet shoes

To be added soon... check back.

Switzerland and Basel conference

To be added soon... check back.

After reading Glamour 2: Are you a nomaphobic?

To be added soon... check back.

After reading Glamour: When am I stressed?

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Dublin 3

I meant to post this when I first got to Ireland--these were my initial impressions! July 8, '08

I thought it was very interesting the third degree grill I got when I arrived in Ireland. I don't know if the working New Zealanders have given us all a bad name, but the visa processor didn't look all that thrilled about me. I said I was leaving Sunday, and so he gave me permission to stay until Monday. Is that stingy or nasty or just realistic? I was being honest so it's really not a big deal, but I've got 30 days by right, so it's a good thing that I didn't actually need to change my flight and then have to deal with visa extension issues. [The other interesting thing is that since travelling I haven't gotten any subsequent stamps. Switzerland doesn't stamp NZ passports (it seems), and neither did Austria or Latvia or any other place in the EU. Very interesting!! I wonder if I'll get a stamp going out tomorrow?]

I was amazed in Ireland how prevalent the crime was--how dirty it was, I guess. The busses had drivers enclosed in a secure box, there were fences and guards for parking lots, there were dubious looking men loitering everywhere! A sign of their struggling poverty-ridden past?

It was a bit depressing as well. Cloudy grey colored homes, and of course the drizzling rain didn't help. No wonder so many people left for centuries since they couldn't find jobs either. Apparently the immigration rate is less than the emigration rate for the first time this year!

I love the gaelic everywhere--it was a fascinating sound to my ears--the tones and sounds seemed the same as English (there were no nasal/guttoral/foreign sounds), yet of course I couldn't understand a word. German and French--they sound foreign, but initially, Gaelic doesn't!!

Aer Lingus impressed me as an airline. It was efficient, cheap and good quality. They had one of the best entertainment on demand systems that I've seen. The food left a little to be desired, and was all on disposable stuff (so much for being green!). The one annoying thing, though, was that they kept trying to sell things!! The duty free, a special perfume, a special phone card, the drinks, or other extras! And they kept interrupting the movies I was watching to talk about it--first in English, then in Gaelic (and German for Switzerland). I suppose it only helps them to make money for the airline, but it was not a good thing for me!

The little airport in Dublin (which turned out to be not so little), looked like it was built in the 1960s (or at least the part I arrived in did--the rest, though modern, was still stiflingly crowded in spite of modernity!). It appeared quaint at first, but then I noticed all the dodgy men hanging around eyeing my bag.

The interesting question I had when I was there was whether I would like to live there. It was so dreary, and SO expensive (more so, on retrospection after comparison with the rest of Europe/the EU). But it was so alive and there was English everywhere (which I do miss). I do like pubs over bars (far more social).

The most interesting thing I found while I was there though, was listening to the accent. I was amazed to discover that it has many connections to the American accent. Now this is probably because the American English was sharply dominated by Irishmen. From far, it could have been either accent, though of course, once closer, it was easy to distinguish between them. Just an interesting thought!!

I am ashamed to admit that I ate Burger King while I was there. But, I did look to eat some fish and chips in a pub... they were 11.95 euro, while BK was only 6.85... does that justify it? I was so hungry!! The euro was such a shock though! Maybe it was just Ireland! Changing US$400 and only getting 250 euro, though... now that was painful!!

The jackets in Ireland were something to notice. Not the style, but the fact that people were wearing them. In Canada, the cold didn't seem to touch the locals, who wore t-shirts everywhere. Why were the Irish so wimpy that they needed them? Surely their winters are cold enough that the "warmth" of the summers should ensure they don't need them? :) If there are any Irish readers, no doubt they are insulted!!

Okay, this random assortment of observations is done now. Hope you can make sense of it!!

Driving

On Friday I decided to rent a car and get out of Dublin. It wasn't really the smart choice as going on a tour I'm sure I would have seen more and spent less money. All up, the rental cost me around 30 euro. Okay, not bad, but then I filled it up (it was a quarter full). I felt the price of fuel--it was 50 Euro to fill it and it's a tiny wee vehicle. Later I had to put more in for a further 15 euro. Total: 95 Euro. Average tour--no more than 50!

I haven't driven a car in quite a long time. The last time would have been in the states in October. Now, it's just like riding a bike, you don't forget, but I got very flustered and kept stalling, giving myself several heart attacks in the narrow lanes and one way streets of Dublin. I ended up on the road south, but wanted to be heading north, and then when I got there, it was a toll road that went underneath the harbor (+1.60euro) in a tunnel (+6 euro). It took me at least 45 minutes to get out of the city--it is not that big!!

It was a new car--I was the first renter. That was pretty exciting at first... there were only 8km on the speedometer, so I watched it track into its numbers. I should have known that I would be jinxed because of it. I also felt very very foolish after searching everywhere and asking someone else to help me find the gas pump switch (there wasn't one). At least he couldn't find it either. It turns out there wasn't one, but the door was sticking which was why it didn't open at first.

I headed north to Bru' Na Broinne, the most famous ancient site in Ireland. I didn't really plan anything, you see, and that seemed like a good plan. I stopped off at a few castles, but it was raining, and they looked like just big houses and I was feeling cheap and didn't want to pay the 7 euro entrance fees.

As interesting as Newgrange was, they've made it really complicated to get there. You have to visit the information center, where they give you a time sticker (or several), you buy a ticket, you wait in line for the bus, and then it takes you 10 minutes across the creek where it would have taken 5 to drive there myself. A tour around it--nice history, but the real value was seeing the simulated winter solstice sunrise from inside the tomb (the only thing worth it if you're asking me), the bus left as soon as people were on it (too bad if the tour ran over and you were walking down the hill--the next one was 30 mins later). Another 10 mins back to the bus, and I didn't even get to see Knowth and Dowth, the other tombs because there wasn't enough time! I hate tours they're too slow! I could have driven myself past, I suppose, but it seemed like a lot of trouble for a photograph, so I climbed to the top of the hill of Slane to look at the monastery instead!

After that, I drove to Galway--I don't know why I decided I needed to see it, but I heard it was bohemian, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a long drive, but yes, a neat city. However, outside the sailing club, I also must have somehow decided it would be a good idea to get a nice long scratch on the back of the lovely new VW Polo I was driving. And because I'm so cheap and stingy, I'd excused myself from the 0 excess and so will have a nice 900 euro charge on my credit card by Monday morning (I spent Friday evening making sure I even had that much money in my balance allowance!!) So it was an expensive Friday... and I learned a nice lesson in stingyness... I should have just taken that tour!! :)

Windows Vista Service Pack 1

So Windows Vist finally has a service pack. It's taken more than a year, which I suppose is normal. What's amazing is how I now have 30 more GB of space (what the hell was vista doing with all that?) and it only took several hours to load!