Kusadasi, Turkey

The green hillsides of Turkey were a breath of fresh air after visiting the continuous desert cities that we have seen for the past few weeks.  The beautiful coastline, hit by turquoise blue waves from the Mediterranean Sea, was a scenic welcome to the country of Turkey, which I could not have guessed to be any more of a unique place.  Even before seeing anything, we were told some interesting facts about Turkey, by our tour guide.  One that of course caught my attention was that one of their main crops is olives.  Stacy and Ali, I think we were meant to live in Turkey, the Thanksgiving olive fingers would be endless here.  And did you know that black and green olives grow on the same tree? In addition to the enthralling facts that I learned, I also saw some amazing ancient ruins.  We visited the Virgin Mary Shrine, Saint John’s Basilica and the most impressive in my opinion, the remains of the city of Ephesus.  The remains of the city of Ephesus are broken and scattered, but to be able to see the small part of what was left was incredible.  The city has been excavated to leave the remains of some of the original streets, marble statues, and buildings that are all engraved with detailed Greek text.  The large theatre that is found in the city is where Paul preached the book of Ephesians to the people here.  Paul found himself preaching to a population of Greeks who believed only in Gods and Goddesses and wanted nothing to do with the idea of a new religion.  His repetitive and unwanted appearances eventually found himself being taken to the local prison and kept there for about a week before being released and sent off.  I have been reading a lot of the stories of the Bible lately, that take place in this region of the world, and to actually be in this city and be able to picture where it was taking place is something I know I will most likely never be able to do again.  To stand in the theatre and know it is where Paul once preached is an experience I will always remember.  I really enjoyed Turkey, and am excited for the one more day we have tomorrow to see one of the bigger cities of Turkey.   

Cairo, Egypt

We arrived in the Suez Canal early Monday morning to get off for a 2-day, one-night adventure in Egypt. We pulled the kids, and ourselves, out of bed at 3am and were waiting downstairs, along with about 100 other passengers who would be taking this trip with us, to be let off the ship and onto the tenders that would be taking us ashore.  With lethargic looks on all the faces around, and coffee cups in hand, everyone waited patiently for about two hours when they finally announced to us that for weather and wind related reasons, we could not go ashore and they had cancelled our trip. So here we are at 4:30 am, finally awake, wondering what to do with 3 kids who, the night before were drugged at 5pm with Benedryl to help them go to sleep early in preparation for this early morning wake up, and are in effect now ready for the day to begin.  It didn’t take us long to find our newest favorite morning activity of playing hide and go seek amongst the rows of seats and lofted boxes found in the large, dark and empty Royal Court Theatre on the ship.  Here we were, running, screaming and hiding through Cunard’s finest and most elegant theatre at the wee hours of the morning, and no one was around to tell us no.  It was one of our finest moments on the ship so far. 

Round 2 for getting off in Egypt, on Tuesday morning, was a success.  We skipped out on seeing our port city of Alexandria, and chose instead to go to Cairo and visit the Pyramids and Sphinx (what we would have seen had we gotten off the day before).  We were camped out in our usual spot, the long back row of chairs, on our tour bus for a fun filled 3-hour ride to Cairo. And by fun filled, I mean that at one point we had Isabelle filling up the only available plastic bag found on the bus, with her carsickness, Jeanie pinching off the corner of the bag that had a hole in it so that remnants of regurgitated breakfast weren’t leaking onto the bus floor.  During this time, Grisha is on the other side of the bench watching the movie Cars on the hand held DVD player as he’s licking a scoop of peanut butter off of a knife, while, let me remind you, on the very bumpy ride in a moving vehicle.  I’m not sure how we all survived, or how we got so many comments at the end of the day about how well the children were behaved…obviously people aren’t aware of the trick where you put a movie in the kids lap, and stick a knife in his mouth and they shut up.  Needless to say, we all took a deep breath of relief, as we stepped off the bus at the Pyramids of Giza.

You always hear about the famous Pyramids of Egypt, and I remember learning about them in school for years.  They’re one of those places that are found in the book about 1,000 places you have to see before you die.  I realized, that’s just what they are, something to say you’ve seen.  Maybe I’m being a travel snob by saying this, but I really wasn’t as impressed with them as I thought I would be.  Up close, they looked more like loose rock formations slowly falling apart, unlike the much more impressive look they gave from a distance. The coolest part of Cairo to me was when we were driving around the city and amongst the crazy traffic and dirty streets, you would look up and above the rooftops, you could see the tip of the Pyramid, standing out and above, unlike anything else around it.  When we made our way around to the Sphinx, low and behold there were both a Pizza Hut and KFC no more than 50 yards away that we of course had to make a lunch stop at. There’s nothing quite like the experience of looking out the window of a Pizza Hut to a view of the ancient Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza.  Traveling with kids takes on a whole new meaning to “seeing ancient history”.

The local sales people here are just as aggressive as in any other country, eagerly showing you the postcards and small pyramid models they are selling.  But here, they have this creative, and might I add annoying, sales tactic that I of course fell for and gave me a reality check and stupidity slap in the face that I guess was well deserved and needed.  I try to have a good attitude around these people, who swarm you like you’re some movie star the second you step off the bus.  They ask you where you’re from and tell you how grateful they are that you have come to their country, welcoming you with much thanks, as if you’re any different than those other thousands of American people who they see every day.  This one kid comes up to me and shows me some headdress he is selling and I tell him I don’t want it.  “No it’s a gift for you, no money, free,” he says. FYI, nothing is free in Egypt, nothing. Before I can walk away, he has the thing wrapped on my head and is telling me that I need my picture taken in front of the pyramids with the camel.  Gosh, he really knows the way to a tourist’s heart…  Trying to be nice I said fine and walked with him over to the guy selling camel rides and he tells me to get on the camel, “no ride, just sit for free”.  I’m thinking ya right, I know this game, the camel stands up, you run off with my camera and I’m too high off the ground to jump off the camel and chase after you.  I refuse and after his third attempt to get me to sit on the camel, he finally just agrees to take the picture of me standing by it, all the while I’m saying cheese, thinking “I’m not some stupid American who will fall for your trick”. Well, I did. Before I know it I have two guys telling me I owe them money, one for taking my picture and the other for standing in front of his camel.  After trying to tell them I had no money and walking off, the camel guy finally gave up on me, but the other kid (the one who “gave” me the headdress at the beginning) kept following.  Giving me more gifts and then pointing to my pockets, telling me I owed him money.  Somewhere along the line after handing his gifts back several times and then finding them back in my hands a few seconds later, I pulled out five dollars, and he said “I give you change”.  Under his discretion of course as he started adding up all my charges for the picture and the camel and the headdress and the dumb pyramid model.  I impatiently waited for my change, and finally threw his “gifts” at him and ran off annoyed before he could give me back any more than 2 of my 5 dollars.  So basically I paid 3 dollars to be reminded that I’m more of the naïve American tourist than I had believed myself to be.  All in all, this might have had some play on my somewhat negative view of the pyramids.

The dreaded three-hour bus ride back to the ship became closer to a four-hour drive as we moved slowly through the traffic of a wreck.  Driving in Egypt must have very little limitations and I noticed as we were driving around, that lanes don’t really exist here.  The worst wreck I have ever seen in my life was the effect of the wreck less driving that takes place here. At least 15 cars were piled up, scattered across the road, going the opposite direction we were on as we headed into port.  Cars under trucks, squished between cars, and at least 30 people out of their cars in the street trying to pull cars out from under other cars, was the last scene of an already chaotic day in Egypt.

Aqaba, Jordan (The Lost City of Petra)

Our five consecutive days at sea, were filled with April Fools jokes from the crew about there being a glass bottom to the ship for guests to come look through, and the not so joking pirate waters of the Gulf of Aden.  Luckily, no pirates came near our ship as we were escorted through the waters for two days by naval ships and the occasional helicopter.

We finally arrived in Jordan, a city that, unlike Dubai, holds much more true to its culture.  We got off the ship, stepping onto the desert that extends all the way up to the edges of the sea.  Through the city of cookie cutter square buildings of cement slab walls, and small cut out square holes for windows, we traveled the lone highway out of the city towards the lost city of Petra.  My hesitations for liking Petra came with the initial two-hour bus ride, but the irritation from cramped seats and feeling of Closter phobia was gone after seeing how beautiful this place is.

We began our walk down a long dusty, gravel road.  Walking was short lasted with the appeal of a horse ride, and before I knew it a local boy was running along side, pulling the rope of the horse that I was riding past the masses of tourists.  The young horse owners say that they work only for tips, but then of course once you pay them, ask for more tips. After paying, I tried to tell him my tip was “don’t run with scissors in your hand”, but I think the language barrier was too much for my cheesy “dad” joke.  After the short horse ride, we continued our walk down a long narrow way.  Looking up, there are hundred foot high walls of rock on either side, with a sliver of clear blue sky peeking through.  Passing by down below, horses pulling small carriages were running by, their tails grazing my arm as they pass. At the end of the long dusty cobblestone path, there was an opening and the sight of the face of what looked like a building (the view from the picture).  This incredible temple, carved perfectly in the side of a jagged rock face.  In the wide opening, surrounded by the massive rocks and carvings are tourists having their picture taken on a camel ride, buying local treasures, and staring in awe at this incredible sight that could in no way be imagined or pictured perfectly through words.  The walk continued, as did the carvings of buildings into the rocks that surrounded us.  People passing by on camels, donkeys, and horse carriage, in front of the street vendors selling hand made jewelry; there wasn’t a second where my interest wasn’t caught by the busy movement of life amongst this forgotten city.  We found some local teenagers who followed us, persistent on their offer of a donkey ride through the city.  One of them went as far as to offer and ask, how many camels for my hand in marriage. We all laughed, not sure if he was serious or not, and in the end took the offer solely for the donkey ride. I figured my parents wouldn’t be too happy missing my wedding but the even bigger problem was how to get the camels back on the ship. 

Of all the places I have seen so far, Petra was by far the most incredible.  I wish I could fully describe how amazing everything about it was.  Hopefully this will help a little, but by no means do it justice.  

Dubai

So I got my spring break snowboarding day after all.  Not exactly the way I had planned, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  The hot and dry desert that is supposed to be Dubai welcomed us with a cold and rainy day.  Not the most ideal weather for a one day stop in any city, but we of course didn’t let us stop us from having fun.  We drove through the city on our way out to the desert sand dunes.  A parade line of 12 Land Cruisers, we arrived in the wet sand of the desert for a day of 4-wheel driving through the dunes.  Having kids around always makes things more fun so our driver made it a point to make our drive more “extreme” than the other cars.  We fishtailed our way through the sand doing donuts, and driving up and over steep mounds of sand.  The description may sound lame, but the drive was not.  Between the sprays of sand that were hitting our windows, we looked out to see camels wandering the desert.  After about an hour of the bumpy roller coaster ride, we stopped for lunch at a desert camp sight that was set up for us.  They had food, camel rides, hookah, belly dancers, henna tattoos, and what made my “spring break” complete, snowboarding down the sand dunes.  Tennis shoes strapped right into a snowboard; you go straight down and can make no turns on your way because the sand is too thick.  The ten-second ride down was only worth the walk up once for me.  Ok so maybe it’s not as cool as skiing indoors, but it’s the next best experience I could take home from Dubai. We spent the rest of our afternoon participating in the more eclectic activities of tattoos and hookah. 

 

On our drive back towards downtown Dubai, we passed a herd of about ten camels who were taking a stroll down the highway.  Dubai is such an interesting city. The only way I can think to describe it would be that is has a traditional Middle Eastern culture, with an American attitude.  The best example of this would be the guy I saw walk into the gas station wearing his full length white robe, his traditional head dress on, with his iPod headphones in his ears.  The whole city looks of that small glimpse of a man I saw.  The buildings are all the tallest, newest, and biggest.  They have construction going up everywhere that is eager to be the best of the best.  And as you’re driving past all of these fancy buildings you look through the tinted windows of the Range Rover passing you on the highway and see the driver is wearing his white robe gown and turban on the head get-up.  These two ideas seem so conflicting to me but here in Dubai, it is completely normal. 

Mumbai, India

My expectations were set high for the city of Mumbai, both because of my love for the movie slumdog millionaire and the excitement of getting to visit the city it was filmed in.  It was naïve of me to think that enjoying the movie in the safe confines of a movie theatre would have the same feeling as wandering the streets of the city.  This is the first city where I have really felt a sense of danger.  I can’t really explain it, but there was something about the city that made me feel as though something could happen at any second to put my at risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We spent a lot of our time here riding the tour bus through the busy streets, not traveling far, but taking a long time fighting slow moving traffic. Our bus finally stopped along the busy street to let us out for our walk up to the temple. We wandered the back alley, too narrow for the bus, with open-aired shop vendors lining both sides of the street.  The shops were filled with flowers, candy and other small gifts.  Although you would assume they were for tourists, they are for the local Hindu people to buy as offerings to their gods on their walk up to the temple.  When we arrived at the temple, we were asked to remove our shoes, as usual.  Here in the middle of the busy alleyway we took our shoes off and placed them along the wall amongst the hundreds of other pairs of shoes.  I left my beloved rainbows with much hesitation and felt a slight anxiety as I imagined the rest of my trip without them. (Those of you who know me well, know this would have been a hard last month without my rainbows.) There was an irony in the metal detectors that we walked through to reach the insides of the temple. The outside courtyard had a small simple building in the middle where the lines divided men and women from walking up separately.  Hindu men and women carried their offerings up to what looked like a counter where you would order food.  Their offerings were handed off to the man behind the “counter” who would set them in front of the gold statue god to be blessed and then handed back.  A red powder dot was then placed on your foreheads to cleanse your spirit.  I opted out of every part of the previous explanation, but watched from afar in great interest.  I was both relieved and surprised to find my shoes where I left them when I got back.  I don’t know how the people here do it every day and come home with the same pair of shoes, especially because all of their shoes look exactly the same.  I have never seen so many people wearing sandals in all my life.  They wear sandals with everything here. Not that I am against this idea at all, I actually would fit in quite well with that aspect of their dress code here. India has a very unique cultural dress code. Most countries have adopted a westernized look to their clothing but everyone in India still wears very traditional clothing.  I only saw a handful of people wearing jeans.

The second temple we visited was even more crowded than the first.  The same gift shops lined the streets as the first, with people carrying their baskets of flowers and presents with them into the temple. Here, we waited almost fifteen minutes in line to get up to the “counter” where the golden statues stood awaiting their offerings.  The massive crowd here must have been a result of lunch hour or something.  After waiting our turn in line we got up to the counter which felt like a crowded bar; people surrounding you, pushing to be the next in line to be served.  I was made aware of my staring expression as one lady even tapped me on the shoulder and told me to hurry up.  She was probably wondering what in the world I was doing here, I very much looked like I didn’t belong.  I quickly pushed my way through the crowd to a more open room where people were lying on the floor with their arms out in front of them, worshiping to the golden statue that stood behind the crowd of people surrounding the bar.  Another statue of a mouse had a line of people waiting to whisper things into its large solid gold ears. It was a very surreal experience, watching people of another religion and culture so engaged in their daily rituals as I sat on the outside wishing I could ask the hundreds of questions that were racing through my mind.  My experience in Mumbai was one I will never forget as I left with knowledge, wonder, and my rainbows safely on my feet.   

Cochin, India

The heat of India was a warm welcome to the dirty streets of the city.  Unfortunately, it met up to it’s stereotypes and expectations I had for India so far.  The people of India have a sort of privacy to them yet were very intrigued by seeing tourists.  We first visited a local temple.  As we stood outside the side gate, cars quickly passing by only a few feet away, we were all asked to remove our shoes before entering.  This is something we are used to however most temples we go see are inside.  This side door opened up to a large courtyard of hot pavement, so most of us, including myself opted out of burning our feet.  I think I made a good choice, since only a few minutes later, everyone who had gone in was on their way back out after a Monk had come over and unexplainably yelled at them.  We still aren’t sure why, but we quickly got back on the bus to head our next stop, a local factory.  It was a small building, one room downstairs and one upstairs, with about 30 women manually operating loud machinery.  They make cotton sheets all day in an un-air-conditioned building, and get paid only two dollars a day.  I couldn’t believe how hard they work for so little pay.  The local village was our next stop.  We rode through the dirt roads on a three wheel open aired taxi called a tuk tuk and were welcomed by a family who placed hand made flower petal necklaces over our heads and a strange dot of orange cream on our foreheads.  It was to help cool our bodies down in the heat, and not the typical red dot that is used in the Hindu religion.  We walked around with them as they showed us their homes where laundry hung in the yard, and toothbrushes sat along a ledge on the outside of the house.  We walked slowly through their helpless homes, snapping pictures on our digital cameras of their reality to take home with us.  The snap shots we take with us of their lives will never help us understand how they live.

 

Back on the ship, we continue to stand apart from the other passengers on board.  There is a comedian who is performing on board who has been on the ship for the past few days with us.  I’m sure he expected to have a nice peaceful vacation time for a few days, but little did he know that there are children on this ship and he has 3 very big fans on board.  They are the only ones here who recognize him from his small role he plays as the dad on the Disney channel show “Cory in theHouse”.  The kids have made it a point to point him out and say his name every time we see him.  Luckily he’s been very gracious to give us a wave back every 15^th time or so.  Tonight we sat front row at the music show in the theatre.  Mostly we sit front row because the kids think it’s the best seat in the house.  The performer was playing a lot of classics, some Led Zepplin and Beatles. We didn’t realize that no one else in the theatre was into it until he handed the mic over to the crowd and we were the only 5 voices singing “goodness gracious great balls of fire.”  Like I said before, we continue to stand apart.  I’m just glad someone is here to make life on board a little more fun.  

Phuket, Thailand

We were welcomed to the beautiful beaches of Phuket by gray skies and rain.  Although it wasn’t the weather of choice, we couldn’t complain compared to the devastating tsunami weather that was here very recently.  During Christmas 2004, less than five years ago, the city was awakened by an unexpected tsunami that took a devastating number of lives from this small beach town.  People’s lives were turned upside down after the tsunami hit without any prior warning or time for evacuation. To help you see it better, the tsunami took only 30 minutes to travel from Thailand to Sri Lanka, destroying everything in its path.  Out ship has been traveling from Thailand for a day and a half and is just now reaching the waters surrounding Sri Lanka. I have never been able to put anything into perspective so well as the realization of truly how fast the tsunami moved into these people’s lives and homes.  It was pretty incredible to see the city and how it has recovered remarkably in the past 5 years. 

Phuket is a beautiful beach town where resorts and local restaurants are not easily missed.  But today’s adventure took us to a much more exotic location to enjoy the culture of Thailand. The venue included many Thai experiences including an elephant ride, a cooking class featuring a Thai food appetizer, a presentation on how rubber is made from rubber trees, and a baby elephant show.  I would have to say that the elephant ride was for sure my favorite part.  We sat on a two-person seat that was saddled on to the elephants back, while our guide sat right on the elephant’s head.  It was actually a very impressive balancing act on his part.  We just sat back and enjoyed the bumpy ride.  At one point we accidentally dropped an umbrella off, and the elephant reached down and picked it up with it’s trunk and gave it back.  Now that’s not something you see everyday.  The baby elephant show was really fun too and the elephants must have gotten more than their share of bananas for the day because we alone fed them each at least a basket full.  After the cultural Thai experience we visited one of the local temples.  It was, like the others I have seen, very beautiful.  But, now that I’m a temple snob and have seen my fair share of temples throughout Asia, I will say that unfortunately, Phuket gets no bragging rights on their temples. Our day would not be complete of course, without a stop at the Thailand Handicrafts Market, to help them fill the yearly quota for their number one income…surprise, surprise…tourism.  (Can you tell that I have been on a few too many “directed towards rich American” tours?)  Not to sound unappreciative of course, I am thoroughly enjoying the tours and countries I am visiting, but sometimes I wonder if they are just putting on a cultural act for all the American foreigners who ride in on the big fancy buses.

Back on the ship, we are on our way towards India and have had a few days to relax and enjoy the warm weather by the pool.  I am finding more and more that the other passengers on the ship are finding it very hard to place me amongst the family and wondering where and how I fall into place with the 3 children and parents I am with.  I have been asked “How old is your son?” when walking with Grisha, who is 5.  And I have also been asked “Is there an adult who can sign?” when trying to buy bingo cards for the two other kids. At home I only thought of myself as an average 22 year old, but apparently now I am old enough to have a 5 year old son, but not old enough to buy bingo cards. I will give my 85-year-old friends the benefit of the doubt and blame it on both their poor eyesight and poor use of common sense.