Feta! Olives! Yogurt! Wine! Greece!

I am currently on Naxos Island, in Greece. It’s the definition of idyllic here, and I have to admit that blogging feels a bit wrong in this environment. I have a little place at Despina’s Rooms, which is run by the aged and unbelievably kind Despina, who keeps the place charming, spotless, and cheap. I can see the Aegean Sea from my window, write on the roof, and walk to the beach. It’s steps from the old, crumbling castle perched over the island. My days here are simple: I get up early to run along the beach, eat creamy yogurt for breakfast, have a cup of the strongest coffee (until now, I thought “so thick you can stand a spoon in it” was just hyperbole), work through the hottest part of the day, have a Greek salad with fresh veggies and the best feta, read on the beach for a bit, have some sort of just-caught fish for dinner, work more, sleep. Rinse and repeat. This morning as I was walking back from my run along the turquoise water, sweaty and happy, a very large fish startled me by jumping up out of the water several times, as if it were just so ecstatic with its own bewildering existence it needed a way to express its joy. Regardless of its true reasons (even bigger fish in pursuit?), I thought, “That! Is exactly how I feel!” and I started running again at a clip, splashing through the water and yelling all by myself on the beach.

The last couple months I’ve felt sort of dazed (will get to that shortly in my monthly recaps), but I’ve had a great week and a half in Greece—with the one notable exception of putting up with all the honeymooners smooching freaking everywhere, when the BF is so far away in New York. My mom met me here, appropriately, on Mother’s Day, May 8^th. Her luggage was lost, as it is on every trip and, to her utter dismay, returned to her sans packs of Newports. I absolutely love traveling with my mom; we have terrific fun together! We’ve had the opportunity to do quite a few little mother-daughter getaways over the years, and she’s my ideal traveling companion in that she wants to see a few sights, but is content to mostly just wander around a new place, exploring tiny streets and unexpected corners, and most importantly, reserves plenty of time for relaxation. We always play a lot of Scrabble, read for hours side by side, eat very well, and drink gallons of red wine.

On this particular trip, we spent two days in Athens visiting the Acropolis with its impressive Parthenon, milling about the National Gardens, witnessing the changing of the guard, and just walking around, where we were constantly stumbling upon things that were thousands and thousands of years old. The mind boggles. There was also plenty of time spent rebuffing the advances of men—the Greek men LOVE them some Bobbie D, let me tell you. After Athens, we hopped on a ferry to Mykonos (okay, let’s be honest, here, in a classic Mom-and-Jill moment, we MISSED our ferry by two minutes—picture us running wildly with luggage…there were tears—and hopped on a different, longer ferry with a detour), accepted a very entertaining ride from a toothless man, who stuck us in the back of his pick-up with Victor, an excitable German Shepherd with an unfortunately poopy butt he was eager to wipe on me, and caught another boat to finally arrive at the justifiably gushed-over Santorini.

Santorini…wow. The jagged, imposing cliffs rising out of the sea (caused by a major volcanic explosion), the extraordinary sunsets, the elegant white and blue buildings perched along the Caldera…it all creates quite a dramatic impression. It was very windy and more than a little chilly when we were there, so we didn’t have the days of hanging out on black sand beaches that we were imagining, but we still had a fantastic time. We stayed in the incomparable Aroma Suites, which included cave-like rooms built right into the Caldera cliff front, a hot pink princess bed with a gauzy wraparound veil, and over-the-top welcoming service. It was a bit out of my normal budget, but worth the splurge for just a few days. We rented a car and zipped around the island one day, and, after a 20-year break, Mom rediscovered her talents for driving a stick shift, channeling Speed Racer as she handled the tight curves on roads with no shoulder and 500 foot drops to the sea. Highlights included a monastery and the small town of Oia at the northern tip. On the last day, we walked down the many steps from Fira to the Old Port, and then hiked back up the cliff side in mid-day heat past the procession of “the donks.” Luckily, wine awaited us at the top.
After Santorini, we headed for Naxos, where the sun finally made its glorious appearance. There we had two days of classic Greek Island beach lounging, complete with thatched umbrellas, lapping waves, and the occasional Pina Colada. And, a bit begrudgingly, some buckling down to work. It was a great week, but, too soon, my mom had to return home. Now I’m here for another two weeks, with three goals: get an insane amount of work done, consume as much feta as possible, and run every day. And then…Tanzania.

* Oh, also: I did not win the lottery for the NYC Marathon this year, but decided to run a different one anyway. Hopefully this fall, and hopefully with the very impressive Suzi. More on that later, I’m sure, but for now, let the training begin.

** And! My toenails have almost completely grown back already, getting progressively less Hobbit-like every day. I know you’ve been on the edge of your seats awaiting that news.

Home is wherever I'm with you.

With Skype and the hubbub of the holidays and work, we managed the first few months okay apart, but by the time Ad met me in India at the end of February, I knew there was no way I could last another five months without seeing him. So, in one of my more irresponsible spur-of-the-moment decisions, I bought a round trip ticket from Israel to spend five days in New York City in the end of April. But oh, it was worth it. What a fantastic weekend! Beyond the usual ache of missing Ad, I had been feeling increasingly travel weary and homesick over the last month, and a whiff of New York Spring was just the breath of fresh air I needed to revive my spirit.

I arrived Friday morning, and immediately got in a run around the Central Park loop, which was fragrant with new flowers and marked with amusing chalk drawings of athletic fish that made the miles go by faster (thank you, La Vega, whoever you are). Not an easy run—I was hobbling a bit the following day—but it was one I’d been craving for months, and I was pleasantly surprised I could still finish it without stopping after my months away from running. It definitely swayed me to take my sweet new trail running shoes back with me on the road.

Friday night Ad and I were totally spoiled by Bryn at Pure Food and Wine, the ultra-fancy and excellent raw vegan restaurant near Union Square, where she works. I wish I had a picture of the “<3 U Jill+Ad” she scrawled in apple cider reduction. Fantastic meal that included everything from enchiladas to mushroom/ramp croquettes to sushi. We were then lucky to catch Erik’s In Tall Buildings show in the East Village with Karl. So good! I’m more impressed every time I hear Erik play.

Saturday included the double treat of brunch with Emily at Olea in the old hood and milling around the Brooklyn Flea with her and Ad and Bryn. Notable scores: rhubarb popsicles and hot Brooklyn Salsa Company salsa (I’ll have to wait until June for McClure’s pickles). Ad also picked up a used Tom Rush record—who his parents weirdly know! We got a big kick out of listening to it at home that night.

I also got to (awesomely, briefly) see Manny and Tanya right before getting a tattoo at Brooklyn Tattoo. Willy is absolutely the best artist I’ve ever been to; he listened to exactly what I wanted and did a perfect job with the really thin lines. After having a not-so-awesome experience at New York Adorned last fall (so bad I left sans tattoo and hefty deposit), I was relieved, to say the least.

Sunday was reserved as paper-coffee-park day with Ad, which was everything it should be. Then we headed to Brooklyn for a Tex-Mex dinner with Ad, Karl, and Patrice at my ultimate favorite, Pequena (the absence of which had given me such traumatic withdrawal I couldn’t even discuss it on this blog), followed by a fun neighborly shindig at Sharon and John’s (my old apartment, notably, which I still miss).

Monday we saw Hanna, which was pretty good, as movies go, but which I probably disproportionately enjoyed both because I love a good kickass girl movie and because I really, really love going to the movies, and have missed that a lot a lot—I’m eager to resume my regular movie dates with Patrice. Then we had superior NYC pizza at Patsy’s with both Dorit and DANA, who just moved to New York to start Teaching Fellows! I’m so very excited to have my little sister in not only the same state, but the same city (and hopefully the same neighborhood) for the first time in about a decade. It’s going to be amazing.

I even made it to the Hachette office for a few minutes on Tuesday to squawk excited hellos at Connie, Kate, Pam, and Andrea as they headed off to a major meeting. Then Tuesday afternoon I had to go. It was such a brief whirlwind of a weekend, jam-packed with friends, family, and lots of BF time. I wish I could’ve taken it a little slower, but in the end I was so glad I got to see everyone and get to all the places I’d really been missing. It also, surprisingly and pleasingly, made me really excited to return to New York and sign a new lease. Last year I didn’t think I could ever live in the city again, but after some time away, I realize she’s still got quite a big chunk of my heart.

*Note: I was too intoxicated on love and friends and subway fumes to remember to take any pictures during my time in NYC, so I'll have to make do with some post-trip pics. Thanks, LuluBugJewelry, for sharing your design for the tattoo!

L'Chaim!

I feel a bit sad about the way I treated Israel, in retrospect. I neglected her many treasures, there’s no doubt about it. The problem was, I was deeply homesick when I first arrived, and while watching all the families strolling around together in the sunshine during Passover and hearing more New York accents than I’d encountered in my entire journey, all I could think about was my fast-approaching weekend trip home. I didn’t do any sightseeing whatsoever my first week there, and since much of the city was closed on and off for the holidays, I spent most of my time on the beach, reading and working. There were endless amounts of people batting balls back and forth with paddles—clearly the hip thing to do. Also in: quirkily mismatched bikinis for teen girls, and Speedos for old men.

I did get to see Jaffa one night with new friend Elad, who was extremely pleasant, informative, and fun, and thought it his duty as an Israeli to promote tourism. Having no phone during my stay in Israel (I continue to live in the 90s with my broken, prehistoric cell), and spotty internet, I didn’t get to meet up with everyone else I’d hoped to, but such is life…Also I will say that reality lives up to the legend; I had THE best hummus of my life in Tel Aviv. (I realize I may be misspelling hummus according to Israelis—there seem to be a zillion different spellings and I am ambivalent.) I made it a personal goal to try hummus at as many places as possible during my time in Israel. All were reliably garlicky, always included lemon, and often had a nice little pool of tahini in the center. My hostel (Gordon Inn) was also most notable for its ENORMOUS free breakfast every morning, which included not only shakshuka, but about five different kinds of freshly prepared hummus. I could eat hummus all day, and I often did. I also had my fair share of gelato, falafel, and sabich—a roadside delicacy (that I believe is originally Iraqi) of eggplant, egg, and salad, bursting out of a warm pita. Yum!

After five days in Tel Aviv, I embarked on my overseas jaunt to New York—on a redeye flight that was, straight from the captain’s mouth, “more than 50% children”…imagine how that went. After my weekend at home (more on that later), I returned to Israel much refreshed—albeit now much more suspicious to Israeli passport control (“Why did you come back to Israel? Why would you go home for such a short while? What is your budget for this trip? Do you have friends in Israel? What are their full names and where do they live?” and on and on). They searched my bag over and over, but eventually I got both back in and then out of the country. (“I just wanted to see my boyfriend!” I cried, quite honestly.)

Apart from more beach time, I took a trip to the desert and Masada to see the ruins of Herod the Great's fortress, where the Sicarii faced off against the Romans in the year 72, eventually committing mass suicide rather than be defeated. The system for getting and storing water was genius, and I loved seeing the foundations for the floor and wall heating of the steam room, but most impressive was just the fact that it’s all still there after all these years, laid out under the desert sun. Straining your ears, you could almost hear the ram thudding against the wall as the Romans laid siege. On the way back, we took a detour to Ein Gedi Spa for some skin-rejuvenating mud baths, sulfurous swims, and blissfully buoyant but dangerously sun-beckoning floating in the very salty Dead Sea. It was definitely cool (as Kelly told me “It’s like your butt and the sand are opposite magnets repelling one another”), but also made my contacts totally freak out and my eyes get all squinty and red. My skin was baby’s ass smooth, though, that’s for sure.

I spent the rest of the week getting in some great runs along the beach. Tel Aviv is seriously my kind of city—lots of young people, lots to do, plenty of good food. It almost reminded me of Brooklyn, but with a better, more convenient beach. Very hot, but it was a place I could live, for sure. I had planned to finally go to Jerusalem on Saturday, but because it was Shabbat and I am an idiot, the buses weren’t running, so apart from driving through on the bus on the way to Masada, I totally missed out. Kind of an epic fail, to have gone to Israel and not seen Jerusalem, but hopefully I’ll get another chance…providing customs lets me back in the country.

Everest Base Camp Trek

I don’t know where to begin in summing up my two week trek through the Himalayas. What can I say, except to write that it was always breathtaking, often NELPy, and just maybe life-changing? I journalled every day of the trek, but reading over those scrawled notes now, I don’t feel any closer to being able to accurately describe the journey…


We started by flying into Lukla, rated the most dangerous airport in the world, with a narrow runway that is sandwiched between two mountains and ends abruptly at a brick wall. Terrifying. Then, over the next fifteen days, we wound our way through lush valleys full of cabbages, rhododendrons, and hundreds of holy stupas, up above the tree line and across narrow ridges surrounded on all sides by unfathomably big mountains and nothing else, and then back down again. We climbed from 9,200 feet at Lukla to 18,200 feet at Kala Patar, but—and this is a big but—since the terrain is never just ascension or descension and is instead the hilariously dubbed “Nepalese flat” (up down up down up down), we gained/lost, according to a Midwest doctor I met at the airport, who had clocked it, 35,000 ft/24,000 feet just on the way to Base Camp, with the reverse on the way back. Brutal. But awesome!

We had some culture along the way, as well. We visited a 600-year-old monastery looked after by one very old, very drunk monk. In Namche Bazaar, one of the bigger villages where we stayed for two nights to acclimate at around 12,000 feet, we visited our trip leader, Thupten’s house. He showed us his elaborately decorated prayer room (typical of Sherpa homes), his own traditional, incredibly detailed paintings that depicted Tengboche monastery, where he had been a monk for ten years, with the mountains surrounding it and yetis peeking out from between them. (We got a chance to actually visit Tengboche on the return trip, too, on a particularly grueling day where we gained 1000 feet before lunch). Thupten also proudly displayed the photo of himself and Sir Edmund Hillary, who, after first summiting Everest, became close with the Sherpa people, as well as a photo of his father, a Sherpa guide, receiving an award from JFK for saving two Americans’ lives on Everest. The dogs were out of control at night in Namche, and when we stayed there on the way back down, they seemed especially insane. We later learned they had good cause: a hungry snow leopard had come down looking for a canine snack.

We were camping, but with REI, this was luxury camping rather than truly roughing it: Dokyo (yak/cow mix) lugged our gear; porters carried our kitchen supplies (some of these thin boys managed to lug up to 120 kilos in the baskets with their forehead straps!); we slept on plump mats in tents already set up for us when we reached camp; we had hot tea to greet us for our 6am wake ups; and we weren’t exactly eating camp food.

Oh, the food… As usual, I could go on for an entire blog entry about the food, but I’ll try to limit myself. First off, our cook, Madu, was a genius with a potato. We had every type of curried, mashed, and broiled potato you could imagine, each more delectable than the last. My sister Lisa would’ve been in heaven. Madu also somehow managed to pull off veggie burgers, pizza, and freaking APPLE. PIE. in a makeshift tent kitchen with not much more than a knife and an open flame. Not to mention my favorite, Sherpa stew. While our peers in the lodges had dahl day after day, we ate like kings, three times a day, plus tea.

All that said, even though our experience was leaps and bounds more cushy than it could’ve been, I don’t think I’ve ever been as uncomfortable for such an extended period of time in my whole life. On the second day, I was already sore, from the third day on I was absolutely freezing, and by day ten my nose was chapped raw, my cuticles were all bleeding, my hair was starting to dread, Delhi Belly was back with a vengeance, and the air was so thin I never stopped hyperventilating, even while sleeping. The treks up to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patar, on two days when I was at my sickest and weakest, were physically the most difficult moments in my life. Harder than the marathon, harder than Mt. Roy on Christmas hung over and with no water, harder than Ms. Suzette’s grueling dance practices throughout my adolescence. When I made it to Base Camp, I cried tears of sheer joy—I had done it! I was finally here! The top wasn’t so far away at all, just a few thousand more feet—maybe someday I could do it! But by the next day, when I collapsed with Brian at the prayer flag-clad pole atop Kala Patar and took in the awe-inspiring view of Everest and the Khumbu Icefall, I was sobbing for different reasons: I was absolutely miserable, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t dead, and I was so, so relieved that there would be no more uphill (that turned out to be a farce, too, but that’s what I thought at the time). I also decided right then and there that everyone who ever decided to summit Everest was a lunatic, and that there was no way in hell I was going to do Kili in two months, regardless of whether its famous snows were disappearing. Another year, maybe, but not now, no way.
But the mountains! LOOK at these incredible mountains! Every painful minute was worth it for those views. My companions were just about the best group of people I could’ve asked for. They were strong hikers who never complained, incredibly supportive of one another, and damn interesting individuals. Florin, who celebrated his 60^th birthday on the trail, plodded along impressively and was always reliable for entertaining, unfiltered anecdotes. His dancing at our farewell party was extremely…memorable. Catherine was a terrific roommate—by which I mean she came prepared with every single thing imaginable in her bag, Mary Poppins style, and was liberal with sharing all of it, from baby wipes to drugs to an extra sleeping pad. Having lived in LA for twenty years and climbed Mt. Whitney literally dozens of times (not to mention the various higher peaks around the world she’d conquered), she was the strongest hiker among us and kept us focused and excited. She also ran the London Marathon the day after she got back from the trip. Safe to say that I was totally in awe of her (so was one of the kitchen boys, much to our enjoyment). Catherine, I want to be you when I grow up. Peta, our graceful ballerina, was always sunny and energetic, even on the downhill days when her knees (which had recently received blasts of collagen to keep the bones from grinding together) were no doubt causing her intense pain. I loved our easy conversation and her very entertaining banter with her husband, Chris. Chris, who braved his biggest fear and inched across dozens of swaying suspension bridges, provided endless quantities of dry, British humor as well as gummy electrolyte blocs en masse, and snored loud enough to wake the dead. One of the funniest moments of the trip was when Chris took on one of the porter’s loads, huffing and puffing for fifty yards behind the yaks. He was shocked, shrugging the basket off, that it was not, in fact, 60 kilos, but 20. And Brian, our Bostonian sweetheart. Brian had had a difficult couple years by anyone’s standards, but he was still out there achieving his dreams and helping all of us up and dealing out words of encouragement as we struggled along. On my really dark days, it was Brian and Chris who hung back, telling stories and making me forget I felt like utter crap. The staff was also awesome, and they are the deciding factor in what would make me recommend REI to anyone, despite the fact that you could definitely find ways to do it cheaper. Thupten was a patient, knowledgeable leader and totally dominated at Egyptian Rat Screw, Manny and K.C. were great guides who adjusted their pace to our needs while still pushing us physically, and the porters and kitchen boys were always helpful and gracious. Even in such a harsh environment, I felt utterly spoiled.Thank you, everyone, for a truly incredible experience. Next up: group reunion at the Grand Canyon for “rim to rim!”

Note: That is not me doing the splits in front of Everest; it is the incredibly impressive and flexible Peta Barrett.

Rajasthan--Ahmedabad and Udaipur

After Ad left, I felt miserable and lonely. It seemed impossible that I had done this on my own for almost three months, and I felt like just heading home. Instead I caught the next train out of Mumbai.

Ahmedabad was a dazed day and a half watching Bollywood movies on TV and mourning Ad’s departure in a hotel called the Ritz Inn that, while not related to the actual Ritz, was hands down the fanciest place I’ve stayed during my travels. I got room service twice.

On day two I did manage to venture out into the rickshaw-packed streets to do some errands. Without a map and with all the street signs in Hindi, I felt quite overwhelmed at first, but many kind people pointed me in the right direction. I had been nervous that I’d find it a lot more difficult without Ad around (beyond just missing his presence, I was worried I’d be harassed a lot more, based on some of the warnings I’d received). I’m relieved to say that that hasn’t been the case. If anything, people seem more eager to help and genuinely concerned for my welfare as a woman traveling alone. As such, I was able to locate a printer and get my hard-to-procure contact solution and phone charger without too much hassle.

(Let me take this moment to strongly advise against the Lonely Planet ekit for an international phone; the rates are through the roof [I’m paying almost $4 a minute to call the US from India despite the advertised $0.39], there’s a delay on the line, the charger broke, and the phone itself is such an ancient model that, despite the overwhelming number of technology stores on the streets here, NO ONE carries that type of charger anymore. If you plan to travel and need a phone, it’s much smarter to buy the phone and SIM from the country you’re in. Also, it’s worth noting that my $50 universal charger from New Zealand refuses to work in any outlet here, though I’ve spotted my former $2 model in use in several cafes. Grumble, grumble.)

After my errands, I had one of the best meals of my life at the restaurant atop the MK Mansion. I also went to see the Sidi Saiyad Mosque (where, shoeless and head covered, I was invited by one man to step closer and encouraged to take a photo, and then yelled at by another who told me women weren’t allowed in and my picture-taking was incredibly disrespectful).

Another overnight train later, Udaipur was a little haven. Situated on a lake and in a valley, the white city—most buildings are white, as opposed to, say, the blue homes of Jodhpur—was distinctively less sweltering than my former stops, the people were friendly, and the whole place seemed infused with an easygoing outlook. The colors were also incredible—the brightest turquoises and richest saffrons I’d ever seen. I love Rajasthan.

I ventured to Sunset Point the first evening, but of course got lost in the tiny, winding streets and was in danger of missing the sunset. A store owner volunteered to drive me the short distance so I’d make it in time, so I had my first, thrilling ride on a motorbike, dodging and weaving through rickshaws, cars, and pedestrians, and arrived safely and breathlessly to the spot on the hill just as the sun started its descent into Lake Pichola, lighting up the Lake Palace in the center.

On my second day, Chiky, my rickshaw driver from the train station, took me on a half-day tour to see Udaipur’s key sights, including the palace, the Museum of Heroes, and the folk art museum (complete with free puppet show), but the highlights were the detour to the bustling fruit and veg market and the final stop at the Royal Memorials, where I sat alone and in silence among the sea of imposing cenotaphs, awestruck. The rest of my time during my almost week-long stay in “India’s most romantic city” was spent working in the extremely comfy rooftop restaurant of my hotel, looking at intricately detailed scarves or miniature paintings in the shops (where one very kind old master taught me how to improve my yogic breathing), or having guitar sing-alongs with Israelis. It was bliss. On Saturday morning I was, as usual, sitting on the floor of the hotel restaurant, drinking a banana lassi, and doing some work, thinking I might never leave Udaipur because it was so carefree and comfortable, when, out of the blue, in walked Wayne and Nicole. I had last seen my friends over a month before, on Tonsai Beach in Thailand, and had not expected to meet up with them in India at all. Yet, we ended up in the same city, at the same time, in the same restaurant. Very auspicious. With only five days left in India, they were on a whirlwind, marathon train adventure, determined to see a few more major sights before leaving. It was just the nudge I needed, so I checked out of my hotel on the spot, waved goodbye to fair Udaipur and my Israeli friends, and joined them on the train to Agra.

Week Two--Elephant Nature Park, Thailand

When we returned back to the Elephant Nature Park after a week in the Karen village in Mae Chem, it felt like utter luxury. We had beds! With mattresses! And mosquito nets! The showers were still ice cold, but we weren’t complaining, because there was a distinct absence of palm-sized spiders inhabiting them. And the food! I cannot do justice to the food at ENP—with about 20 delicious, mostly-veggie offerings at every meal (Curry, curry, curry! Coconut, coconut, coconut!), I was nearly always teetering on ecstasy with the serene smile of food coma on my face.

I spent the days at the park “working,” but the few hours of poop-scooping, washing fruit, making banana balls, feeding the elephants, bathing the elephants, and the hilariously futile cleaning of the mud pit (read: MUD FIGHT!) felt more like fun at camp than hard labor. Apart from one rough morning of cutting very tall, very thick grass by hand with agonizingly dull machetes (motivation for dullness revealed when I very predictably smashed my shin on an over-zealous swing), the only real work was digesting the three enormous meals every day and keeping our camera batteries charged for the postcard-perfect elephants roaming everywhere.

In the middle of the week we had the chance to venture up to “Elephant Haven”—an overnight trip where we walked three of the elephants to veg out in the jungle for awhile—and later to the “New Property” to make mud bricks and build a seed house with the impressive Antoinette, a Dutch woman who started a project called “Bring the Elephant Home,” which focuses on the positive aspects of elephant tourism and in Thailand. I can now dig a hole and mix cement like a pro.

One of the most notable experiences was when Rachel and I turned up at the baby corral one afternoon just in time to catch Lek singing one of the youngest to sleep for its afternoon nap. She beckoned us inside, and as she hummed “Que sera, sera” and Rachel stroked Pha Mai's trunk, the enormous baby shoved me underneath her belly, where I sat, neck bent below her swaying girth, for half an hour. “She trusts you,” Lek told me solemnly. “She wants to be your mama.”

My time at ENP was mostly light, fun, and an amazing chance to be up close and personal with these creatures, shoving basketfuls of watermelon at their waiting trunks and watching them play on the ele gym while I sipped Chang beer with friends on the patio. But there was another, more educational aspect to the whole experience as well, a lot of which was heart-wrenching. I don’t think it’d be fair if I didn’t share some of it here…

If I took away anything from the ENP, it’s the knowledge that the Asian elephant, though revered throughout Thailand and a prominent figure in Thai culture in everything from temples to the King’s palace, currently lives a life of intense suffering, and its days are numbered. In the past 100 years, elephants in Thailand have dwindled from almost 100,000 to barely 3,000, and those that remain live under torturous conditions:

Jokia, an elderly elephant at the park, was blinded in both eyes by her mahout when she was slacking on the logging job right after the death of her newborn. Mae Do could barely walk because her hip had been broken and deformed from a breeding camp in which up to forty males are forced on a single female. It was painful to watch her hobble around, but worse to see her become terrified and incontinent around Hope and Jungle Boy, the young males at the park. These are just a couple of the Park’s stories—others include survivors of land mines and drug addicts—but nearly all Asian elephants encounter misery early on in their lives. When they are three or four years old, all working elephants in Thailand (which is almost all of the population—very few are currently wild) undergo pujam, a breaking ceremony where they are placed in a cage, stabbed with hooks, beaten with clubs, and shouted at for four days to a week. Almost half die in this process. Elephants live to around the same age as humans and have similar developmental stages. They are also incredibly intelligent, emotional, social animals—if I’m remembering right, the only other animal besides man that cries tears. Imagine a toddler tortured for a week with nails. Imagine what impact that has developmentally. Or what it does to its mother.

Please, please, please, if you visit countries where elephants are part of the tourist industry, don’t give money or bananas to mahouts begging with their elephants in the streets. Resist the draw of elephant treks, elephant paintings, elephant dancing and elephant sports. No matter how legit some of these operations may seem on the surface, those elephants have almost universally been beaten into submission for our entertainment.

Before coming to the Park, I thought elephants were really cool. I thought logging was bad for the environment. I never would’ve condoned the mistreatment of animals, but didn’t see anything wrong with riding elephants, either, and even looked into a hill trek that ended in an elephant ride. But Jennifer and Bryn recommended the ENP, and I’m so grateful I took their advice. If you do still want an amazing, close-up elephant experience in Thailand that promotes sustainability and conservation through education, I can’t recommend The Elephant Nature Park strongly enough. Check them out at www.elephantnaturepark.org. I’m definitely going back.

唔好意思. M̀h'gōi.

So, I'm in Hong Kong! (I actually have been for about a week.)

I'm staying in a guest house in Kowloon, the peninsula north of Hong Kong Island, and though most people on the island speak English, up here I've gotten very good at explaining myself through sign language. I can't seem to get a grip on even a few short phrases in Cantonese with its daunting nine tones, but I have gotten "M̀h'gōi" down. It can be used to mean "please," "thank you," or "excuse me," which makes up for a lot of other things I can't get across. The strangest thing about being here after New Zealand has been going from being surrounded by backpackers in hostels to being alone and unable to communicate a large amount of the time. It's a bit isolating, but I've really been enjoying it.

Hong Kong is expensive, but there's loads to do on the cheap as well--like eat with friends. Or eat alone. You could eat dim sum. Or wanton soup. Or moon cake, fish balls, tea eggs, congee, pork buns, various noodle, rice, and curry dishes, sweet tofu soup with ginger (tong sui), giant shrimp, bird's nest soup, spicy crab, these tasty bubbly waffle things they sell on the street... You get the idea. A few people told me that two weeks was way too long to be in HK, and that there wasn't much to do. To those people I say: you gravely underestimate my dedication to eating. Hong Kong is ALL about food, and I have been reveling in it. There's even a terrific vegetarian restaurant right next to my guest house (though I am eating meat, too).

My old friend (as in we go way back), John, lives here, and we've been hanging out. John is a toy designer, so I got to see the showroom full of all the awesome stuff he's working on. Way to be 500% cooler than the rest of us, John. When I first got to town, we met up for very hot fish soup at Spicy Mama, and rode the ferry over to Hong Kong to watch the light show on the buildings (every night at 8pm). Later in the week we checked out Wing Wah, which Francis had recommended. Delicious shrimp and pork wonton soup with hovering-between-soft-and-crunchy-perfectly-done egg noodles. John also told me about this famous Australian dairy where they have the fluffiest scrambled eggs served with noodle soup. Yum.

Besides eating and thinking about eating, I've mostly been working quite a bit in various cafes (slurping down pearl tea and milk tea with condensed milk; I'm seriously going to gain 100 lbs). I have ventured out to a few of the night markets like a good little tourist, and am sharpening my bargaining skills.

On Saturday evening, I met Joe, who Bryn and Ad grew up with and who is also living in HK. We joined up with his friends for a very lively night of bar-hopping in Lan Kwai Fong, including everything from a dive bar with a great jukebox to a club with a Filipino band covering American pop songs to a swanky rooftop place with a view of the harbor to the place at the very end of the night when Joe said, "You might be the only woman in here who is not a prostitute. Are you okay with that?" Hey, I just go with it.

Sunday morning, I got up early and joined John and his friends Jeff, Nancy, and Winnie for an all day hike up to Lantau Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong at 934 meters. Lantau Island is also home to the Big Buddha and Lo Pin Monastery, both of which we passed on the way to the trail head. I thought it was the biggest Buddha in the world, but John said it's more like the world's tallest, outdoor, bronze Buddha seated on a lotus blossom with its right hand up... or something. Either way, the statue is gigantic and impressive, and from the scale of this picture, you can see how it towers over its surroundings.

The hike itself was awesome, challenging, and unlike anything I thought I could've found in Hong Kong. Over seven hours, we scrambled up a steep hillside dense with reedy grasses, crawled over boulders, and tip-toed across narrow exposed ridges on a trail that you wouldn't know was there were it not for the ribbons hanging from trees every so often. It was particularly surreal to be pushing our way through such wild surroundings and still be able to see the skyscrapers of the city below. Through the fog at Lantau Peak, the sun looked like it was setting right in the middle of the sky. It was there one second, and then just gone. With darkness encroaching, we started the hour and a half jaunt down rock stairs that went all the way back to the Buddha. If you are feeling like you are in decent shape and not so very old, attempt this activity and see how you feel afterward. We were all creaking and groaning, and my knees were already starting to swell by the time we reached the bottom.

The meal after our long hike was pretty much the culmination of all my food fantasies. Amazing crispy tofu (the inside was silky smooth), broccoli in black bean sauce, steamed veggies with canned fish (way better than description implies), and the wonderful, hot, garlicky goodness that was the spicy crab.

After dinner, we were all in a food coma and zombified from our physical exhaustion, but Nancy convinced us to go for a late-night massage so we could actually walk the next morning. For one tenth of the cost of a massage in New York, a sweet older lady poked, prodded, and kneaded my aching muscles to total bliss with her Hulk-strength hands. It was the best massage ever, but it's been two days and I'm still limping from the hike. Maybe one more is in order...

Give/Take

After almost two weeks on the road, I've already reassessed the items in my pack for function and weight. Jenn Yeomans, you were so right--you find that you really do need very little.

Thrown Away/Given Away/Sent Home:
2 cotton t-shirts (smelly fast, WAY too long to dry)
cotton tank (stretched beyond recognition)
synthetic tank with built-in bra (most uncomfortable item of clothing imaginable)
shoulder bag
glasses
mini moleskin
dry shampoo
peppermint bark (ate half, but it made my whole bag smell minty sweet)

Lost:
dashing red pashmina scarf (left on bus)
two more toenails (down to five now; six weeks later and the marathon is the gift that keeps on giving)
appetite
inhibitions

Bought:
day pack
merino t-shirt
merino tank
food storage containers

Wish I Had:
actual rain gear instead of a wind shell
waterproof hiking boots
sports bra

Love More Than Anything:
Zaphod, the Bro Haven (little mouse from Dana)
quick drying, light-weight hiking pants
awesome braided laundry line
red lipstick!

It's been amazingly difficult trying to figure out what to do about food while on the road. I want to eat healthy, and I don't want to constantly be eating out (NZ is REALLY expensive), but it's difficult when I'm constantly moving and can't keep leftovers refrigerated. I keep buying one thing at a time and eating it for days; I spent three days only eating boiled eggs, two eating broccoli, and four surviving on mostly bagels. I'm kind of sick of the whole thing and have actually started just replacing meals with protein shakes and trail mix because it's easy. Seriously depressing. Ideas?