November 25

Christchurch: Bringing It All Back Home

Since I leave tomorrow for New York, its probably time (OK, way late) to start recapping the highlights of the last two weeks.

November 10

Two weeks ago today, our little group left Christchurch for NZ's West Coast, which is aptly abbreviated to Wet Coat given the rainfall, which is prodigious.  Happily, at our first stop, we enjoyed lunch amidst a hillside of large, Flintstone-like rocks smoothed by glaciers over the years and deposited on a large hillside.  The group on this tour is small: myself and two couples, one retired and living near San Jose, California and the other closer to my age, a Navy Chaplain and his wife who are being reassigned to Groton, CT next week.  Our guides are Lofty, a tall outsdoorsman who regaled us with impressive and frightening tales of his many adventures on cliffsides, mountain bikes, rafts, rugby pitches and race cars, and Mel, a laid-back young woman who can hike and cook with the best of them.

The lunch stop was at Arthur's Pass, which divides the East Coast of the South Island from the West.  We didn't know what to expect from the days to come but the unusual formations, cool breezes and uncertain weather were positive harbingers of the next few days.

So we continued on, reaching the West Coast in our bus ("Burt"), which easily accommodated our small group, providing plenty of room to stretch out.  We reached the West Coast - facing the Tasman Sea -- at Greymouth and turned north to our home for the next two days at Punakaiki, a small beach town with impressive beaches abutting a rainforest.  Here was the view from our small lodge.

Having spent some time on another beach about 1200 miles north, it was an adjustment to look upon a beautiful, seemingly tropical beach with inviting waves and then realize that the temperature is in the mid-50's with a stiff wind and water temperatures also in the 50's.

After a delicious dinner, one of many featuring lamb, we headed off to a nearby park with amazing rock formations created by continual pounding from the Tasman, creating the multilayered Pancake Rocks that the area is famous for.

We also took a nice hike through the rainforest leading down to the beach, the first real walk of many in the South Island; walking here is known as tramping, which seems appropriate for the smelly, disheveled state that a day of hiking leaves you in.  We met one local resident who was nonplussed by our stomping through.

The New Zealand ecology is quite unique, containing many species found no where else.  Birds were the predominant form of wildlife until the mid-19th Century.  Before the English came, there were no land mammals whatsoever and, as a result, birds had no real natural predators.  Many became essentially land bound, without functional wings.  Perhaps the most renown is the the now-extinct moa, which was a gigantic bird over six feet tall with a passing resemblance to a brown Big Bird.  The Maori hunted them for food and have now been extinct for hundreds of years but remain a celebrated aspect of the country's history and culture; statues of moas are everywhere.  Another more successful survivor is the kiwi, a nocturnal non-flying bird that is the national symbol, found everywhere from its coins to t-shirts.  And, of course, natives have adopted the bird's name as their own.

The next morning, we left Punakaiki and headed south, stopping in Ross, where an impressive, deserted beach of exceptional beauty waited with rocks worn by the tides and starfish nestled in small pools left by the low tide amid sprays of mussels.

Next came Hoktika, another coastal town where we enjoyed what is essentially the national dish, fish and chips.  To our surprise, the fish -- as is apparently often the case -- was shark but it tasted like any other firm, slightly oily white fish.  After lunch, off we went to spend a couple of hours wandering around the town, which was first settled during a gold rush in the 1860's but is now home to a large number of shops selling greenstone, a form of jade found only in New Zealand.  Most of the greenstone is carved in forms with special Maori meanings and sold as necklaces, bracelets and earrings.

We spent the night in Okarito, a tiny seaside village adjacent to a large beach covered with beautiful smooth stones.  Before dinner, I clambered down to the beach and there found two shivering small baby seals, seemingly abandoned by their parents and stranded when the tide went out.  Our guide assured us that they would be reunited when the tide came back in but we were all a bit heartbroken to just leave them there.  I'll add in photos when I get them from one of our group who came down to the beach with their camera.

Dawn brought clear skies and a view of Mt. Cook, at 12,500 feet the country's highest mountain.  We raced up a nearby hill to better take advantage of the unusually clear view of this oft-obscured mountain but were a few minutes late as clouds moved in and covered the tops of the higher elevations, a pattern that would repeat for the next few days.  We had plenty to look forward too, though, and you can see here our small band.

A bit of rain moved in thereafter as we moved on to Franz Joseph and its famed glacier, named by an Austrian explorer to honor his sovereign, the king of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Along the walk to the glacier's face, we encountered many waterfalls feed by the glacier and surrounding snowfields.  This shot captures only a fraction of this large waterfall.

Even in the overcast weather, the glacier's intense blue color, the product of compressed ice, made it seem otherworldly.

Our last stop of the day took us to another waterfall, which split the rainforest's quiet with a rushing roar.

More to come; stay tuned!

November 22: Happy Thanksgiving from Queenstown

So I know its been a long time since my last confession/blogpost; the cause is about 1/3 connectivity issues, 1/3 scheduling and 1/3 sloth.  The fact is that I've been having a great deal of fun simply enjoying things in places where wifi does not exist or is painfully slow.  I recommend it!

I just finished a short run in Queenstown, a beautiful little city on Lake Wakatipu in the heart of the South Island of Australia.  It is the South Island's center for all things sporting, from hiking to skiing to whitewater rafting to bungy-jumping.  In fact it is the birthplace of buggy-jumping and can be "enjoyed" in a variety of places and variations around town.  Queenstown is surrounded by mountains that still have snow even though it is late in the spring here; in fact it is the first place I have seen that has summer and Christmas sales going on simultaneously.  More about this surpassingly gorgeous place a bit later.

For now, I'll try to backtrack in the next couple of posts to bring you up to date, starting with my arrival in Auckland and then the 12 days or so of the trip up to now.

Auckland is a great city situated, like Sydney, on a stunning natural harbor.  Home to 1.5 million Kiwis, about a third of the entire country's population, it is very walkable town and my first night I simply strolled down to the waterfront and had a great bouillabaisse, which loyal readers know is a favorite.  Here is the view from my table.

The next day I took a day trip to Rangitoto Island via ferry.  Rangitoto is a volcanic island just 600 years old but features a nice little hill that locals flock to climb up to enjoy the views.  To get a little warmup for my hiking trip, I joined them and had a great time walking past lava fields to the top.  The reward is a fantastic view of Auckland and the many islands nearby, including headlands that lead to the Pacific.

On my return, I must have taken the blue pill (see, The Matrix).  Who knows but, late in the afternoon, I found myself in an ersatz Fantastic Four-type outfit standing on a tiny ledge perched on top of Auckland's tallest building, about to jump off.

You might ask yourself "why is this man smiling?"  Good question.  In fact the whole episode is too bizarre.  The jump technician to my left is not about to barf, contrary to all appearances, but has assumed a classic Maori pose, complete with an impressively downward extended tongue.  Or maybe she was just making fun of me.

Moments later, I turned around and really began to question my sanity (those of you who know me gave up on that long ago).  On the count of three, I jumped, attached only by a wire.  They dropped me first about 50 feet so that I could dangle and wave at the camera.  See the silly man suspended 600 feet in the air?

Yep, that's me.  Fortunately you can't see the pedestrians trying to dodge the yellow fluid coming at them.  Just after taking this photo, they dropped me at terminal velocity another 500+ feet and then slowed me so that I could land without doing a full face plant.  If you look at my left wrist, you'll see a video camera.  When I am back in NYC, I'll upload the video so that you can see me screaming like a little girl (forgive me if this was sexist).  I know the video will be a wonderful early Christmas present for my sons.  Its been at least two months since I last embarrassed them.

The next day, I flew to Christchurch, the principal city of the South Island and the starting point for my two-week New Zealand adventure.  I did not get to see much of the city, partly because of the timetable and partly because much of it is being completely reconstructed following devastating earthquakes that struck the city a couple of years ago.

More to come, hopefully soon!

November 9

Sydney: Sympathy For Sandy

So I've felt pretty good in Sydney having avoided all of the mess surrounding Hurricane Sandy when, lo and behold, on Wednesday night I was woken at 12:30 with an announcement that the hotel had suffered a power outage. I went back to sleep, figuring they'd sort it out overnight.  In the morning, though, there was still no electricity.  After a dark (but, happily, hot shower), I walked down 26 flights to enjoy the day.  Things were still not set right by late afternoon, so I was moved to another downtown hotel for my last night.

My days in Australia have been great, though.  Sydney is a huge city both in terms of population and size, full of neighborhoods brimming with cute shops, great pubs, outdoor restaurants and a very diverse population - with far more Asians than I expected, from Chinese to South Asian to Indonesian.  The weather is great and, with summer coming on (which is so weird as Christmas approaches), the streets are full of shoppers in very relaxed clothing, although some suits pop up now and again.

Tuesday was an exception, though, because it was the day of the Melbourne Cup, of course.  What?  You've never heard of the Melbourne Cup.  To Aussies, its like a combination of the Super Bowl and the Kentucky Derby.  The town was practically shut down as everyone got up in their finest, from bowlers to fancy women's hats and frocks, to celebrate at restaurants and taverns this most famous of all Australian horse races.  Even Prince Phillip and wife Camilla were on hand for the occasion.

I spent the day at Bondi Beach, perhaps the most famous of Sydney beaches, a lovely hook of sand with plenty of surfers and a few other intrepid souls braving the coolish but clear water.

I also had a chance to wander around Sydney, not far from Botany Bay where Captain Cook first landed and the first group of some 1000 prison inmates arrived in the late 18th Century.

Tuesday night I spent a fortune on a walk.  This one, though, involved a jump suit, 60 minutes of instruction and preparation (including a breathalyzer!) and a fancy set of clips as I joined a dozen others in climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge at sunset.  We slowly made our way through the granite pillars and steel support braces to the main suspension elements, then walked up the top section all the way to the very apex of the bridge, many hundreds of feet above Sydney Harbor.  The views, of course, were unbelievable, especially as they changed from day to night.  The wind was howling and I was glad for the tether that kept us connected to a wire strung alongside the braces and walkways up and down.  The whole experience is somewhat overblown from a safety and preparation point of view but it was a bracing eyeful, a lot of fun with a unique perspective on the city.  A couple of shots will follow when I get them off the expensive CD I purchase.  Come back in a couple of days and I should have them posted.

By the time we got down, half of Sydney was trashed due to the Melbourne Cup; fancy ladies in evening dresses and ridiculous hats were bent over curbs recycling their dinners while their dates flailed against any nearby support to remain upright.  Absolutely crazy!

The next day I took a ferry (one of many in Sydney) to Manly Beach, another surfer's paradise, where a lunch of fish and chips improved my mood from the overcast skies.  The views towards Sydney were spectacular.

Over the course of a few days, I wandered all over town, enjoying fabulous oysters, expensive beer and lovely parks.  Sydney is a great town and I am sorry that I did not have time to visit more of it or take in some of the many nearby parks and mountains with superb hiking, let alone see more of this nation that is almost as large as the 48 U.S. states with just 10% of its population.

But my New Zealand adventures await, so on Friday I got on a new A380 (the largest plane in the world) - with about 500 other people - for a pleasant flight down to Auckland, a mere 16 hours ahead of New York.  Much more to come!

November 7

Phnom Pehn/Sydney: Cousins to Koalas

Voting for the U.S. presidential and other elections is still going on but here in Sydney, it's already Wednesday.  I'd like to say I know the winner but the polls suggest that everyone will be up late in the States before finding out.  Hopefully we won't have another situation like in 2000.  Especially in terms of outcome!

Last Friday I flew from the world of temples and Buddha's to the more earthly delights of Phnom Pehn, the capital of Cambodia and home to not a few fine restaurants, many of which carry the lingering influence of the French.

Before leaving Siem Reap, though, I had a chance to visit a floating village, about 50 kilometers from Siem Reap on a massive lake.  The village is built on stilts and is both a real fishing village and an ecotourist destination.  Here you can see a little bit of the village, the mangrove swamp surrounding the village that I was escorted through and my guide through the swamp, a young and incredibly strong young woman who pulled my growing mass through the swamp with nothing more than a flat pole.

While the Vietnamese have gone far to eradicate evidence of its time as a French colony, Cambodia seems to embrace it.  Many signs and street names are in French and French tourists are much in evidence.  This is really no surprise when you think about it because the Vietnamese fought a war to rid themselves of the French while Cambodia, under the leadership of its recently-deceased former King Sihanouk, peacefully parted ways with DeGaulle and France by treaty back in the 70's.

Phnom Pehn is home to a large group of expat's, including (most importantly) my cousin Paul and the daughter, Lizzie, of another cousin (Margo).  While I was interested in seeing Phnom Pehn, it was the prospect of catching up with Paul, and meeting Lizzie, that drew me to the capital.  Paul is a Harvard-trained lawyer who has worked in places from Boston to Berlin to Little Rock but now spends most of his time in Cambodia working on a number of consulting projects (in places like Afghanistan) for NGO's and UN organizations.  He and I are the same age but haven't seen each other since the 80's, when we were both beginning lawyers in Boston.

After arriving by prop plane from Siem Reap, I headed for my hotel and then dinner with Paul, Lizzie (an intern at an environmental NGO) and Tim, a Stockholm-based journalist staying in town for a while.  After a great Khmer-Vietnamese dinner, we headed to Sparkies, a long-time expat watering hole with live music from a local expat band, The Fumes (named after the pollution that the city's busy streets churn up).

The next day I headed out into the amazingly hot and humid weather, walking down to the river in hopes of cooler breezes but the river was pretty much blanketed with the same hot sun as the rest of the city.  Fortifying myself with a couple of iced coffees, I moved past the National Palace to Phnom Pehn's Central Market, a gigantic covered (but not air-conditioned) maze of small shops and stalls selling everything from silver to stuffed animals to clothing to detergent.  If you want it, you can find it here, although knock-offs are rampant of course.

Cousin Paul rescued me from the clutches of various vendors and we hived off to lunch, where Lizzie met us, having biked halfway across town.  We checked out another big market, where we were the only non-Asian customers and then repaired home to cool off.  Dinner was with two other expat friends of Paul's, a couple from Washington State who were working on a project to help protect fresh water dolphins, a very rare and quite threatened species in a remote part of Cambodia.

Paul and I lunched again on Sunday before my departure.  It was great to talk about our crazy family, where someone like myself who has pursued a conventional career is considered a rare and suspect white sheep of the family.  The good works that Paul, Lizzie and others are engaged in, though, definitely have their appeal; more food for thought.

Here we are, standing in front of a Buddha statue before my flight.

Sunday evening I headed off for Sydney via Kuala Lumpur.  En route I saw some amazing clouds that I had to show you.

Overnight from Kuala Lumpur, the flight took 8 hours, a surprisingly long time but Australia is definitely "down under" and a fair distance from Southeast Asia.  I managed a decent rest on the flight and, by late morning, was in my hotel in downtown Sydney.

Of course I had to do the tourist thing, wandering around the famed Sydney Harbor with its iconic Opera House and the Harbor Bridge, which towers over everything.  The weather was superb and a welcome respite from the heat and humidity I'd had for the last month.  Sydney is a lovely place with many restaurants and pubs along with astonishingly high prices, at least the equal of London and Zurich in terms of cost.

Here are a couple of iPhone shots taken on my wanderings; more at the end of the week before I head out.

November 1

Siem Reap: Wat Me Worry?

I arrived at Siem Reap after a long day of travel from Phuket, having changed planes in Bangkok.  My cousin Paul had recommended a tuk-tuk driver, Naga, to help ferry me around Siem Reap; Naga was busy and deputized a friend, Mr. Ngen, to be my transportation.  A tuk-tuk is a bastardized motor scooter with a small carriage attached to its rear with seating for 4.  We set off for my hotel in the rain that had arrived.  Naga met me later in his own tuk-tuk and took me off to a buffet dinner at a restaurant that largely serves Asian tourists, about 500 of whom came to enjoy the Cambodian dance show that accompanied dinner.  The dances were quite impressive versions of classic Buddhist stories with elaborate costumes and choreography.  The Chinese tourists left in the middle, though, having gotten enough on their cameras, I guess.  A few hardy souls, myself included, stayed through the end.

The next day, I woke at 4 a.m.  Mr. Ngen met me before 5 and we putt-putted our way out to Ankor Wat in hopes of catching it at dawn.  Several hundred others had the same thought, all hoping that the previous days' rain would not return.  Our early rise was rewarded with a stunning view of the sunrise behind the ancient ruins of the temple at Ankor Wat.

Ankor Wat is the center of a constellation of temples, palaces and buildings.  About 1000 years old, built during the first blush of the great Khmer civilization established in Cambodia during what in Europe was considered the Dark Ages.  It is an immense architectural wonder with vast moats, walls and temples; at its zenith a couple of hundred years later, it was the Khmer capital and home to one million people.  In the 15th century, the capital was moved to Phnom Pehn, shortly before Ankor Wat was overrun by the invading Thai's, who would control much of Cambodia until the French arrived several hundred years later.  Ankor fell into ruins, although it remained an important shrine.

The wat is a complex set of buildings that, for the most part, visitors have great latitude to explore and clamber over.  The exterior walls of the main wat are covered with bas-relief telling both religious stories and recounting the lives and successes of various Khmer kings.

The images are often reproduced with rubbings transferred onto parchment and for sale everywhere in the area.  Everywhere were images of both Hindu gods and the Buddha, along with vast structures and lush surroundings.

I caught this visitor as he was enjoying breakfast at sunrise.

 From the wat at Ankor, we headed to the north gate over a bridge lined with statutes that overlook the moat and then under an enormous gate, its front surmounted by a round-faced Buddha.

Next came Ankor Thom, surrounded by a wall that is 13 kilometers in length and containing a number of impressive temples.  The buildings reflected astonishing industry and yet even in the smallest detail there was artistry; nothing was left unadorned.

The end of the path through Ankor Thom leads to the Terrace of Elephants, a giant viewing platform about 1000 feet long, where royalty would view passing parades and receive visitors.  It is adorned with elephants while its entryway is protected by mazes with images of gods.  I also saw this young visitor passing time while his mother worked on rebuilding some of the Terrace.

After Ankor Thom, Mr. Ngen and I had breakfast before heading to a few more temples, including the famed Ta Prohm.  Ta Prohm is a gorgeous smaller temple that nature has slowly invaded with trees and moss causing significant damage but leaving an otherworldly cast.  It is also known as the temple where Angelina Jolie filmed Lara Croft, Tomb Raider.  I will have to see it again, solely as an educational exercise, of course.

We continued on our way, visiting several other temples (one about 40 minutes away), including Ta Keo, Banteay Srei and Beng Mealea; all were stunning.

[I found it interesting that the happy goddess remained unblemished while the one with the unhappy face holding her sword was darkened by time -- a message?]

After some 10 hours of exploring temples in the 90 degree plus heat (with very high humidity), I was bushed.  We headed back to Siem Reap, where I enjoyed a dip in the salt water pool of my hotel.  Naga picked me up in his tuk-tuk and we headed off to a road at the outskirts of town, a wide thoroughfare built on land that had been a minefield during the time of the Khmer Rouge.  Every evening, people set up shop to sell fruits and vegetables and cook food for locals seeking to dine out.  We sat on a bamboo blanket and ate grilled frog, grilled chicken, pickled vegetables and assorted fruits, washing it down with the local brew - the inevitably-named Ankor.  The meal (which happily sat well on my stomach) was delicious, a perfect end to a very Cambodian day.