Christof’s Blog

Day 30 Turkish Delight

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:47:55 -0400

Well, it’s been about 36 hours since I’ve been in Istanbul and all I can say is Wow!

Everything is surprising me. Something inexplicable shifted in my perception of the world around me when I got off the plane. It was SO weird to be back in a city after spending 3 + weeks on tropical islands. And not just a city, but a sprawling, chaotic, traffic filled, crowded ancient city that assaults your senses in every way. Just the initial sight of Istanbul is so different than Manhattan in its perceived endlessness. This may sound weird but in Asia, I had become somewhat accustomed to most service & hospitality jobs being occupied by women. Unfailingly polite, perfectly manicured, and always smiling. In Istanbul, it seemed like most of those same jobs were conducted by men. Perfectly good at their jobs as well but a bit more….gruff. This should not be mistaken for unfriendliness or rudeness. Just different. The airport was with so many ethnicities. African. Hebrew. Arab. Asian. Europeans. It was just noticeable after the uniformity of Asia.

The food has been a really interesting journey. I should probably post a separate blog entry about my epic battles with the hottest chilis in Southeast Asia and my ongoing campaign to explain to our waiters that I want my dish “Thai spicy” not engineered for the dull palates of a “phalang”, meaning American or Round-Eye. The best part of that entry would be when the cook finally said, I’ll show that cocky little phalang what Thai Spicy really is. Let’s just say the Thai plumbing systems was never stress tested to that capacity.

But this is about Turkey, and Turkish cuisine is about meat. Lots of kebabs, braised lamb shanks cooked in cinnamon and cardamom, lovely breads and spreads. Again, such a change from the herby lightness and searing spices of Thai cuisine. This is hearty food, and it was amazing how much I missed it. It was like my body could sense what was on the menu and became instantly ravenous.

A quick geography note: Istanbul lies on the Bosphorus River which links the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. This city is equally built up on both sides of the river. What makes this interesting, is that one side you have the “Old City” where many of the historic mosques, baths, and universities are situated. Technically, this is Asia. On the other side, you have more skyscrapers, modern buildings, and the younger, hipper neighborhoods. Technically, this is Europe. It amazing to meet people who say I live Asia but I work in Europe. It certainly lends some perspective to the geographic importance of Istanbul as a port city and how its location allowed a conflux of Eastern and Western religions and cultures to prosper and take hold.

Now I know that most of the more well-traveled audience members reading this blog often enjoy going to France for their French Toast and England for their English Muffins. I am firmly a member of this elite club and take pride in my relentless consumption of Turkish Delight candies while in Turkey. Normally, I have never nurtured any affinity for these foul little cubes of goo. But, man oh man, have I see the light. Suffice to say, two boxes may sound like a lot. But you have to bear in mind that there are 24 hours in a day and I was in Istanbul for almost double that.

But the other Turkish specialty is the Turkish Bath. Now I’m no stranger to a schvitz, but this was going from little league to pro ball in one afternoon. Ali and I made our way over to the old city, where one particular bath was located. We entered the Cagalogu Bath (http://www.cagalogluhamami.com.tr/) which was located in the historic center of Sultanahmet, the district in which countless buildings and museums such as the Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, Tokapi Palace and the Yerebatan Cisterns are located. The bath was built in 1741 by the sultan Mahmut I as a means for providing the maintenance funds for the Hagia Sofia mosque. The cobblestone streets are winding and crowded and people walk on the streets as easily as the sidewalk. Finding the bath was difficult but ultimately made possible by a benevolent bystander who walked 5 blocks with us to show us the bath’s location. He wanted to hear all about New York, and couldn’t have been a nicer guy. Chalk one up for Turkish hospitality.

So we enter the bath. It starts off with entering the gift shop where one is required to purchase their own “washing mitt”. This is what your tellak or bath attendant uses to scrub you down and exfoliate you with. Everybody gets their own in a well intentioned nod to hygiene. This mitt looks like something that one uses to pull a casserole out of the oven, but they have various degrees of friction, like sandpaper. I was feeling all Clint Eastwood so I went with the grittiest one, determined to remove all the sea salt I had left on me from Thailand. I was then led to my own personal wood paneled dressing room at which point am presented with a large dish checkered dish towel to wrap around my waist and met my bath attendant, Ushmiel.

Ushmiel led me into the central steam room for men. The entire bath is divided up into two duplicate facilities for men and women. To read Ali’s perspective on the bath, go to http://web.mac.com/aliprigg/Site/Aroundtheworld/Entries/2007/9/14_Merhaba_Turkey!.html. You sit or lie down on this enormous circular table made of marble that resides in the center of the room. Off to the side are large washing basins from which men are either pouring water over themselves or sitting beside while their bath attendant scrubs them down with soap and shampoo. The temperature was certainly warm enough to start sweating, but not as hot as the New York Athletic Club or some of the other steam rooms in the States. I believe this was to encourage a lengthier stay that contributes to the social nature of the baths. The ceiling was decorated with beautiful mosaic tiles and the marble slabs that constitute the walls and floor felt positively ancient. Obviously, the moisture and heat create a dreamlike fog throughout the room and it’s easy to slip into daydream of being a Roman senator and Ottoman sultan deciding which Bacchanalian feast to attend that evening. Who am I kidding? I do this every morning in the shower in New York.

So Ushmiel comes in and I instantly recognize that he is a man of few words. Actually, he is a man of few English words. “Sit”, “flip”, “up” and “down” seems to constitute the vast majority of his vocabulary. He sits besides me on the center slab and starts to give me a massage. But unlike the gentle Swedish “rub-my-belly” massage style to which I have become accustomed, Turks enjoy a firm pulling on your extremities and palm slaps to tender areas (like my delicate love handles). After working me over, he directed me to the wash basin where I lie on the floor and he pours warm water all over me and scrubs my body down with my washing mitt and washed my hair. I leave the details at the fact that I found it to be a surprisingly thorough washing and was mildly offended nobody offered me a cigarette afterwards. But the weird thing (well, one of the weird things) is that this is part of a custom and has been done for far longer than I’ve been alive. Usmiel’s job is a legitimate profession and one that I learned has a reasonable apprenticeship period. I don’t know exactly how it explain it, but you just feel…cared for. For more on this, please see my earlier entry on Singapore Airlines.

After all of the washing and scrubbing, you would think that I would be reasonably clean by Turkish standards. Apparently not so. As I wearily returned to by changing room, a gentleman off to the side said, “Ah, young man! You want shave?!”. Funnily enough, I hadn’t shaved since Phuket so I had grown a little fuzzy. And then I thought, “why not let a burly Turkish man put a knife to my throat?”. In fact, it turns out that Turks have been putting knives to each other’s throats for hundreds of years, so I knew I was in good hands. I sat in the chair, and he lathered my face with peppermint soap with a badger hair brush. No biggie, this is how they do it at Art of Shaving near Bear Stearns. Then, the barber takes out a straight edge razor and sharpens it on a lather strap. OK, I’ve seen this in movies. He then proceeds to measure and move the blade across my face like a master baker icing a cake. Nicely done, old chap! He takes a step back and scrutinized his work like Di Vinci trying to figure out if he got the Mona Lisa’s smile right. He scrunched up his face. Uh oh, maybe he missed a spot. He reaches beneath the barber’s chair (out of my line of sight) and pulls out a candle and lights it. But my birthday’s not until April?! He takes the candle to my right ear AND SETS MY EAR HAIR ON FIRE.

Before I could scream for the American consulate, he had his hands over the flame and had it extinguished before I could feel anything. My heart rate was well over 200 bpm and he just sort of patted my shoulder and said, “its OK, its OK” as if he were waving off a ticket scalper at the Garden. No! No, I’m not OK! You just turned my ear into a smore, and you still haven’t put down the knife blade. Look, you win. I’ll talk. I’ll sign whatever you want but get me out of this chair! And I’d like a cocktail please….

But before for my terrorized thoughts could coalesce into words, he promptly torches my left ear, and proceeds to pat it out. He finishes by splashing what seems to be straight ouzo directly on my freshly shaven face and fans me with a towel. And with that, I got a big smile from him and he said, “Finished!”. Ungghhhh….

As I limped back to my changing room, I looked around the baths and was pretty astonished by the institution. Many of the hundreds of baths around Istanbul are centuries old. These places obviously served an important hygienic function for the city’s populace, but it’s easy to see for the baths grew to fulfill a social one as well. Lying in the steam room makes you appreciate the age and history of place because you are actively using it thus becoming part of the history.

And that’s really the essence of what Istanbul has meant to me. The unbelievable history that pervades the architecture, the food and the people are inescapable. Some of the streets were impossibly crowded with people selling the same goods their ancestors had sold a hundreds of years ago. Spices. Carpets. Tobacco. Dates. I’ve never walked through a city and felt the presence of the past infused so fully.

It’s an eye opening experience because Turkey is one of the more moderate Islamic countries. We’re here during Ramadan and listening to the daily calls to prayer echo through streets 5 times daily. But just as many Turks are eating and drinking in cafes during the day while they talk on their cell phones. Tolerance is something that I’ve heard a lot of people discuss here and it’s clear to see how Turkey is unbelievably well positioned for the 21st Century and has established itself as a bridge between East and West.

This city sort of snuck up on me because I wasn’t entirely comfortable when I first arrived. All the people I’ve spoken to lit up when I’ve mentioned that this is my first time in Turkey. I’m looking forward to returning to Istanbul after my week in the resort town of Oludeniz on Turkey’s southern coast.

Next stop: Oludeniz and Paragliding

Day 25 Let’s get ready to rumble...

Sun, 9 Sep 2007 23:58:09 -0400

With a sad heart and bathing suits fill of sand, we took our leave of Nang Yuan and began the next part of the our trip.

We took the ferry back to the more developed island of Ko Samui where we were looking forward to some small luxuries like flushing toilets and consistent air-conditioning. We checked into the Samudra Retreat, which was recently reflagged from the Samudra Peninsula. I was sort of cracking up because I tend to look at these things from a real estate finance perspective. The robes and hotel stationary all still had the Peninsula logo on it. Researching room rates on the internet was tough because it had two different sets of rates as if the hotel was hadn’t quite made up its mind which flag it wanted to be. Checking was a bit of panic because we couldn’t find my passport, but I turned out just to be stuck in some books that I had. Whew! Other than that and a awkward Mexican stand off with a rat in our first room (he started it, but I blinked), the place was fine.

Probably the most fine thing about it was its proximity to Cheng Mon beach which located in the northeast of Ko Samui. The island is generally known for having nice beaches, but some of them, like Chenweng Beach in the East, can resemble Phuket in its congestion and commercialism. Cheng Mon was much different, much quieter but it did have its share of beach massages, ice cream salesmen (“Buy my ice cream! No money, no honey!” and bars but no one got in your face or made you feel uncomfortable. In fact, I probably got too comfortable by wasting away the better part of one day just sitting at one of the nicer beachside restaurants (Honey’s Seafood), ordering small spicy dishes and going through about 10 bottles of beer. It wasn’t stumbling Weekend at Bernie’s drunk, but I was definitely “hey, let’s build a pretty sand castle” drunk. Probably was good training for Oktoberfest in a few weeks.

Now, I don’t need to tell you guys this, but I’m really a culture vulture. So much so, that I find museums and temples too obvious in their ardor to impart knowledge to me. I look for the deeper meaning in cultural rituals and institutions. Do I visit the Big Buddha? A Thai cooking class? No, you uncouth vulgarian. I chose human cockfighting. Yesssssss!

Actually it’s not that bad. One of Ko Samui’s cultural specialties is Muay Thai boxing, which is very similar to kick boxing. There is a central stadium that was built almost directly in the center of Chenweng Beach (its busiest one) so it gets a bit crowded. The fighting was terrific. Not huge punches but GOD can these guys kick fast. The fighters’ legs, and especially shins, are made out of iron. In fact, part of the training for Muay Thai boxing is to kick a bamboo tree with your shins for hours on end until you develop some sort of bone callus develops that protects your leg. Listen, I bang my toe on a dive tank and new shoes have to be sent FedEx from New York. So, yeah, these guys are tough.

Also, this isn’t your father’s Muay Thai boxing. For a little extra scratch, Ali and I got to sit on black leather couches situated at ringside and get a waiter to bring me even more Cheng beers. I switched to Cheng Beer from Singha for two reasons: 1) it became available, 2) after a careful inebriated examination, I discovered the Cheng Beer is 6.7% alcohol to Tiger and Singha’s measly 5%. You can imagine Ali’s thrill as I tried to drunken explain this to her (spitting on her apparently) over the raucous of sweaty Thai men shouting “Kill him! He fights like a gay piglet!”. Whatta great night!!

On a sadder note, this represents the end of our time in Thailand. We finished our time here by spending one last night in Phuket (Banyan Tree, of course) before catching our early flight to Turkey. I’m pretty sure I want to come back to Phuket in late October when I swing back through this region with my brother. The people were so unfailingly kind (except when they were Muay Thai boxing each other) and landscape was simply stunning. I felt it was certainly more Westernized than I had originally thought (pretty much everybody speaks some English). But I think that’s largely a function of the locations within Thailand that I chose. It was a remarkably easy country to navigate and explore and in some ways, I think it was good preparation for more remote areas I might visit later like Indonesia and perhaps Vanuatu.

La-gon, Thailand!

Next stop: Istanbul!!!

Day 22 Off The Map!

Thu, 6 Sep 2007 10:39:07 -0400

At least it sure feels that way. A few days ago, we arrived at Ko Nang Yuan which is a truly remote little island just off the coast of Ko Tao. We started our journey in the morning, leaving the lovely Banyan Tree in Phuket for a flight to Ko Samui. We flew Bangkok Airways which “Asia’s #1 boutique airline” or so I’m told. They don’t have the gorgeous outfits like I’ve come to expect from Singapore Airlines, but in fairness, this is from a guy that hasn’t done much laundry in the past month. The best part of the flight was seeing my plane for the first time on the tarmac which as you can see in the photo looks an early Jackson Pollack work. Arriving in Ko Samui, I received one reasonably pleasant surprise – the airport. It was the first fully open air airport I’ve ever seen or heard of. Think about that for a sec. Beautiful walnut wood gazebo structures contained the baggage claim and gate areas, as well as outdoor cafes and shops. Even the travelers who were stuck on delayed outgoing flights we pretty chilled and had a looks on their faces that said, “hey, at least I’m outside”. Complimentary fruit drinks and wireless internet were offered by the gate. So damn civilized. I can’t tell you how impressed I am with the Asian transportation industry.

Once we got to Ko Samui, we hopped on a bus that was run by the high speed ferry company to take us to the pier from which we would be embarking. The sun was out pretty strong which boded well for our 2-3 hour journey by water to get to our little tropical paradise. The ferry terminal was strangely primitive and highly organized at the same time. It was pretty crowded and the population seemed to be primarily backpackers headed to Pha-Ngan. As soon as you get in line, someone approaches you and demands to know where you are going. Before I can launch into a whole story about how I am on this around-the-world journey to find the meaning of life, a small Thai woman slaps a green sticker on my chest that Ko Nang Yuan, essentially reducing my travel status to the 5-year old who gets shipped off by his parents to visit Grandma in Florida and has to wear a big name tag and blue blazer while the stewardess puts you in your seat and tells you that that Captain is too tired to say hello. Once I get to the ticket window, they have my name. They know where I’m going. They have a connection boat set up for me in Ko Tao. They know when I coming back to Ko Samui and have already lined up a taxi to take me from the pier to my hotel. All of this highly detailed information is coming from someone who encased in a antiquated cinder block shack that the Flintstones wouldn’t step foot in. Its like the shoe shine guy telling you were your stock is trading on his iPhone.

The ferry seated about 100 people in the inside cabin which was air-conditioned, had multiple TV screens playing DVDs, and respectable looking bar. Ali and I opted to sit upstairs on the open bridge to get a little sea spray and fresh air. The ferry did about 30 miles per hour and it felt nice to catch some rays (although we both got a bit fried which we’ve been able to avoid thus far in the trip). I went downstairs picked up a couple of Singhas and a can of Pringles and just watched these gorgeous emerald islands rise out of the ocean. By the end, I was pretty soaked in seawater but felt too good to care. The boat starting thinned out by the time we got to Ko Tao where we exited and boarded a local wooden fishing trawler that was heading over to our island. As you approach Nang Yuan from the water, the island looks quite small and completely undeveloped. But as we got closer, a dock with several dive boats revealed itself as well as the rest of the resort which was hidden away from view.

This place reeks of Dr. Evil’s secret lair.

Ko Nang Yuan

The place is majestically rustic. Nang Yuan is actually a tiny cluster of three small islands that are connected by pearl white sandbar, like a giant ‘Y’. It’s so nice that people take water taxis over from Ko Tao just to hang out here for the day and chill out on the beaches. It’s quite small so there’s only one “resort” on the island, the appropriately named Nang Yuan Resort. But the nice part about staying here is that all the Ko Tao daytrippers get kicked off the island at 5 p.m. so you’re left with these gorgeous strips of sand all to yourself. In the middle of the two beaches is a beach bar and a damn competent staff of bartenders. The sunsets are amazing (not as good as Maui though) and I’ve tried to make a pretty consistent effort to have a beer and a cigar to commemorate each one. So far, so good.

The accommodations are a bit on the rustic side. I’m staying in a nice beach bungalow with air-conditioning between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. so you can sleep pretty cool. Although it’s very hot during the day, I’m mostly underwater from the morning until noon. My day starts at about 7 a.m. when I get up, grab something light for breakfast, and make my way over to the dive boat where after two tanks of diving, we make it back to the dock by noon. I usually go right from the dive boat to the only restaurant on the island for lunch which gets me to about 1:30 - 2 p.m. By then, I only have to wait a few hours for A/C. Besides I wouldn’t want to be inside the bungalow anyway. The view from the bungalow porch is priceless and there seems to be a pretty consistent breeze that blows through most of the day.

As you can see in the photo above, the bungalows are pretty basic. A hard foam mattress and a single table (no chair) is all you get. The bathroom doubles as a shower (hand shower that is) and to flush the toilet you have to use a spray hose into the bowl. Really fun stuff after coming from the Banyan Tree.

I really feel like I’m off the map and deeply remote. I’m liking it.

But it’s the diving that I’m here for, and so far I haven’t been disappointed. I’ve been doing two dives every morning and will probably do a night dive tomorrow evening. So far, it’s been pretty great.

Our dive boat is captained by a Thai skipper known only as Tong and is as salty as a pretzel. Tong doesn’t speak a word of English but seems to particularly delight in berating the British and Canadian divemasters in indecipherable Thai whenever we tie up to anchor. Needless to say, he and I got on famously. Visibility has been mixed depending the dive sites and current.

This morning we dove Shark Island and Japanese Garden I was really excited about the first dive because it would be a deeper dive (130 feet) and was usually frequented by grey reef sharks, schools of barracuda and a very occasional whale shark. However, my hopes were a bit diminished when we hit the water and were faced with 7 mph current at the surface. Upon entering the water, all of us had to starting kicking hard downcurrent so as not to get swept away from the dive boat. We had swim about ¼ mile in order to get to one of the buoys that gave us our descent line down to the reef. It took about 15 minutes of hard swimming and we had to disconnect our regulators so that we would use up all our air for the dive. Descending down the line was wild, like being in a an aquatic wind tunnel. Once we got down to depth, the current lightened up somewhat and we could start looking around. True to its namesake, within 5 minutes of getting down we saw two large 6-foot reef sharks cruising along. I then got utterly molested by the 6-inch remora fish.

Remora fish are these somewhat triangular looking fish (think a Toblerone bar with fins and gills) that suck onto the bottom of other fish and go for a ride. You’ve seen pictures of the hanging onto whales, large shark and manta rays. But these little puppy would NOT leave me alone and was trailing me for 15 minutes. Its not the stalking I mind. Let’s face it, I’m no stranger to obsessive behavior. But he tries to wiggle between your back and your scuba tank or...wait for it....swim up your trouser legs. Now, I was wearing a wet suit and the worst I faced was the guy took a couple nimbles on my leg (didn’t hurt too much but scares the living shit out of you when you’re not expecting it). I immediately swim forward and the remora decides to latch onto the next nearest diver, a guy named Alex diving in just a pair of surf shorts. I pull off to the side and am watching the damn little remora trying to figure out where he’s gonna pick his shot. He goes in for kill and starts swimming up Alex’s pant leg. I shit you not.

I immediately start swimming over to Alex and try to get my hands all over this guy’s pants to get the squirming fish out. No bear in mind, there’s no way to really talk once you’re underwater so the possibility for miscommunication is vast. VAST. Despite my fervor, Alex did finally get the picture and see this stubborn little fish following him and I for the rest of the dive. Funny thing though, Alex and I didn’t dive together anymore/

Hey, that’s OK because I like making new friends! One of my new best friends is a divemaster named Annie from Montreal. She was a great diver and a very cool girl to hang out with. We became close partners-in-crime in one particular dive off Red Rock (not the bar, but one of the northern most tips of Nang Yuan). We descended down about 60 feet in gin clear water and found an abandoned fishing trap that was filled with the most beautiful tropical fish and a gorgeous blue spotted stingray. Half the fish were dead and the remaining half didn’t seem too far behind. The stingray was going totally nuts trying to figure a way out. The trap was wooden frame about the size of a coffin (not ironically) covered in thick netting with a small opening in that fish get trapped within when they smell bait inside. Seeing these radiant fish swimming themselves to death in tight circle was really heartbreaking. Annie and I decided we had to do something.

Now before my proletariat friends get all up in arms about my literally taking food out of the mouth of a poor local fisherman, bear in mind two facts. One, none of these fish were edible. Two, the trap was clearly abandoned and had no retrieval lines attached. It was just sitting there as a menace to the marine life. So we both got on each side of it and lifted it up so that it sat tall on one end. We took turns keeping it steady while the other looked for a way to disengage the trap. I finally found a slip knot that I could work loose that opened a tear in the largest compartment from which the fish streamed out. It wasn’t Free Willy but I’ll take my karma where I can get it.

We finished by making it a shore dive which meant swimming around the perimeter of the island and exiting the water on the beach instead of coming back to the boat. What makes this really interesting on Nang Yuan is that the beach stays a constant depth of 15 feet for about a ¼ mile out. The result is that its daylight bright underwater and you can see every detail of the coral and is especially vibrant (normally you lose a lot of the reds and yellows as you go deeper). We passed underneath a school of squid that were just trolling on the surface. And its always fun to see the looks of people on the beach when you come out of nowhere and just walk out of the water straight to the bar. Over a couple of Singhas, Annie and I toasted our covert operation and beautiful day above and below the sea.

I also met a really interesting guy named Elijah from Egypt. He was getting his advanced open water certification and accompanied us on the dive boat most days. Elijah does human rights work in Egypt and was telling me some fascinating stories about what life is like for western journalist in the Middle East. He was telling me about life in Cairo and while I’m not sure I’d want to live there, he got my interest piqued about visiting. Maybe some diving in the Red Sea?

Diving aside, there’s not much else to do here. That’s obviously good and bad. It does help you unwind and relax. Its been really nice to sit on the porch (photos of our porch view to the left) of the bungalow and check out the view of the beach and just write and read. On the other hand, its pretty easy to get sick of the food menu when there’s only one restaurant on the island which doesn’t try real hard because they know that they’re the only game in town. So Ali and I decided to venture into the Ko Tao for a little bit of nightlife. We took the resort boat over and took a good walk around to explore the town. Dive shops are everywhere and lot of pubs trying to appeal to the British and Australian contingent. I found a bar on the beach where we able to kick back and watch the sun go down (left my damn cigars on Nang Yuan) and headed over for some fantastic local food. We found a place up the hill from downtown Ko Tao called Yang’s. This a real local place, like “take off your shoes and eat barefoot and don’t mind if a stray dog comes in to say” local. But I can’t say enough about the food. I had a fresh shredded pork in a spicy rice noodle salad. Ali had a chicken in green curry with coconut milk dish that I must have eaten half of. It was so satisfying to find a place on our own that we were happy we rallied to get over to Ko Tao, Of course, this left the issue of having to return to Ko Nang Yuan at 10:30 at night and town that shuts down at 9:30. So we made our way down the pier to see if we could talk one of the local fishing boats into being our personal water taxi, which it was rumored they would, for a price. We found one fisherman playing dominos (mai jong) with a few buddies. My sense is that he was a pretty bad player or was losing because he seemed almost to eager to get out of there before he lost all of his money. Most of the local fishing boats are long narrow skiffs with shallow props that extended far beyond the back of the boat. Needless to say, trying to maneuver myself into one of these boats is like tying to get a drunk walrus to ride a tricycle in the dark. But once we started moving, the boat regained its stability. So there we were, racing back to our secret island getaway, the dark water of the bay whizzed by inches below us. The night air was cool but not cold. Looking up we could see brilliant star above us and lightening flashing out yonder. It was a beautiful evening and the steady drone of the outboard engine allowed us to get lost in our thoughts of diving the next day or maybe doing nothing at all.

Day 18 Come on in! The Water's Fine!

Sun, 2 Sep 2007 22:52:40 -0400

Howdy all!! Life has been very good at Club Laputka for the past few days. The best way to start is by describing the gorgeous Banyan Tree Resort that we are staying at in Phuket. The place is seriously luxe. And when I say that, I mean this is the nicest resort that I have ever stayed in my entire life. It’s “honest to God” that good. I can’t even begin to describe the service, but I’ll try.

The place is incredible. We check in, and are completely disengaged from our sense of touch. In other words, I can’t touch a door handle, luggage, or pull a chair for myself. I am however allowed to touch a pen which the hotel would like me to use to initial by the exorbitant room rate (truthfully, while it was a lot for Thailand, it was quite reasonable by U.S. standards) as I check in. We were immediately presented with iced jasmine-infused towels and glasses of chilled chrysanthemum tea. Hawaii was hot, but Phuket was in the low 90s with total humidity. I put one ice towel on my head the whole time like that kid on Fat Albert and stuffed second one down my pants for good measure.

A golf cart took us across the exquisitely manicured grounds to reach our villa. When we arrived, all I could think was that somebody seriously screwed up. Either the hotel took us to the wrong villa or I majorly messed up the Thai baht conversion rate. The place was beautiful. We walked in through our own private courtyard that contained a Jacuzzi, a couple chaise lounges and a lunch table. The interior of the villa was impeccable. A bed (a king size, no less) was situated on raised platform and had more pillows than one could possibly use. Other amenities included the greatest breakfast I’ve ever had.

I know I’ve used a lot of superlatives in this entry but you’ve gotta stay with me on the breakfast. As those of you who know me can attest, I have a lot of trouble with breakfast. Let me clarify, I have trouble with American breakfasts, owing to the fact that I really don’t care for eggs, potatoes and sausage are usually greasy and heavy, and I only drink coffee to get some sort of a kick in the ass in the morning. This generally doesn’t leave me with a lot of options other than just stuffing something down for the sake of sustenance.

But THIS breakfast…..oh, sweet baby Jesus. Incredible. I started off with some clear noodle soup that I spiced up to insane and delicious levels. I know it may sound odd, but a light soup in the morning is the greatest meal. Wonderful breads with a fresh strip of honeycomb hung vertically to collect the honey dripping from it. Fresh mangos and papaya spritzed with lime. Sticky coconut rice. Banana and Kafir Lime smoothies. And coffee so strong and so smooth, you could wax your 1961 Jaguar XKE Series I Coupe with it (if you were cool enough to have one).

But the greatest amenity comes in the form of our favorite Guest Relations Manager, Ms. Mareeya Phromrod. This girl was all aces. The trick is when you’re staying in a nice resort, and you ask for a recommendation for somewhere to eat or someplace else to stay, they assume that you only want to stay in other totally over-the-top places. You have to imagine the difficulty of straddling the nuance of language as you try to convey to a smiling utterly uncomprehending Thai woman that you want to live like a bohemian dive bum for a few days and want to eat where the locals eat. When she didn’t understand, I produced a copy of On The Road by Jack Kerouac and climbed on a soapbox to help her understand the inherent freedom from material possessions that the Beatnik lifestyle could offer. Big smile back. Nothing going on upstairs. Not even a twinkle. Does nobody read anymore?

But then in walks Mareeya who used to work at one of the major resorts in Ko Samui which was where I originally thought I wanted to go. Seriously, this is why you pay for concierge service. I mentioned diving and she said I should really go to Ko Tao. I said that’s where I really wanted to go, but I heard that the accommodations and beaches were pretty crappy. She agreed but knew of another tiny island just to the northwest of Ko Tao (which is already reasonably remote) called Ko Nang Yuan and there was a single hotel on the whole island with simple little bungalows overlooking the water. Sold. Sign me up. After four days of diving on Gilligan’s Island, we’re going to spend three days in Ko Samui to check out the beach culture in one of Thailand’s coolest islands.

A quick geography lesson for those unfamiliar with Thailand geography: Thailand is thin strip of land that is bordered by two bodies of water. The Andaman Sea on its West (better diving, but in the midst of monsoon season) and the Gulf of Thailand on its East. Within the Gulf of Thailand, you have many islands but there are three main ones.

Ko Samui: This is the largest and southernmost of the three islands. It is known for beautiful beaches, but has recently become rather built up and westernized. It has the only major airport in the archipelago so one typically flies to Samui from the mainland. The big beach is called Cheweng and lies on the island’s East coast. This is where you have the $5 beach massages, grilled corn on the beach (yeah, I don’t quite get it either) and beer boys that can run the 40 in under 4 seconds. Water buffalo fights, mud wrestling and Muay Thai boxing are some of the other cultural specialties. Very commercial, but good fun to be had.

Ko Pha Ngan: This island lies directly to the north of Samui and can be seen from its Northern beaches. It is about 2/3 of the size of Samui, but a little built up. There’s no airport so the only access is by ferry. What it is really famous for is The Full Moon Party once a month. I am told that it one of the largest regular parties in the world. Every month 10,000 fly in from around the world to attend this raving dance party for one night on the beach. It supposed to be amazing and I’m totally pissed that I can’t rearrange my schedule to coincide with it. Maybe when I head back this way in a month I’ll be able to hit it.  Ko Tao: The smallest of the three, it lies directly north of Pha Ngan and takes about 2 hours by high-speed ferry from Samui. It doesn’t really have any of the nice beaches of the other two which has kept prices low and made the island somewhat of a haven for backpackers (and people looking to chill out from a night of partying at Full Moon). What Ko Tao is really known for is its diving. It is considered to be the best diving in the Gulf of Thailand and is evidenced by walking down the street and seeing more dive shops than bars. Supposedly, this is one of the cheapest places in the world to get your scuba certification as well as instructor license. Hmmm, I could use some career options….

The island we’re heading to, Ko Nang Yuan is a spit of land to the northwest of Ko Tao. It looks very remote and pretty rustic and access is dictated by a myriad of flights and ferries. The focus of the resort seems to be on diving and they have their own scuba school located on the island. It sounds exactly what I’m looking for.

So the grand experiment has worked! Arrive in a new country, stay in a really nice place while you gather your bearings, and then carefully start downgrading your luxuries while increasing your adventure quotient. I love it. So happy with the way things turned out. The bad news is I have no idea what Internet access will be like for the next few days. Tomorrow morning Ali and I have a flight from Phuket to Ko Samui from which we take a bus to a pier where we pick up (we hope) a high speed catamaran to take us our remote little dive resort.

Next stop: Ko Nang Yuan!

Day 16 Sawatdee Khrap Thailand!!

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:04:39 -0400

In case you are wondering, ‘Sawatdee Khrap’ is not a remote place or something I did after eating street meat, but rather how men say hello in Thailand (women say ‘Sawatdee Kaa’). We touched down in Phuket, Thailand at 9:50 a.m. this morning (Friday) having left Maui at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday night. Now to be fair, because of my travel agent’s undiagnosed learning disability, we had to connect through L.A. to get here, but it doesn’t take way from the fact that I can now perform all 28 Bikram yoga poses in an airplane seat in an attempt to get some sleep.

It’s wild to be here. There is something about Southeast Asia where you travel on a modern highway and see farmer with yak walking along side a Citbank. Old and new are just rubbing up with each other and seems to exist well enough beside each other, even if it’s visually comical. It reminds me very much of my honeymoon in Vietnam where I have terrific memories.

I’m staying at the Banyan Tree in Phuket, which is seriously nice. Like honeymoon nice. We’ve got a deluxe villa with outdoor bathtub and separate Jacuzzi (which makes no discernible sense to me considering it feels about 5-10 degrees hotter here than in did in Hawaii). I just took a quick look at the beach and it looks amazing. Thatched huts, sandy bars, beach-side massages, fish shacks. Everything needed to write the great ex-pat novel of trouble in paradise.

But you think it’s all caprihinias and jasmine flowers (for the record, I actually did have a caprihinia at lunch and it was excellent. And jasmine flowers were presented to me on a bracelet at check-in. Hey, this is me!), it’s not what I came to Thailand for. I don’t want to travel to a country this beautiful and exotic and stay trapped in luxury behind the walls of the resort. Don’t get me wrong, this is exactly what we needed after a series of crazy long flights, and it’s good place with lots of resources I can utilize to make the next step to some place more authentic. But it’s not the end goal in and of itself. I just haven’t figured out what that is yet, and this isn’t a bad place to gather your thoughts.

As Ali and I checked into the villa, a small gecko was chilling in her bathroom sink. Those guys are OK if you learn how to hang with them, but in my bathroom….I got the barrio contingent of creepy crawlies in the form of a cockroach that size a small stapler. If you think that’s bad, I had an outdoor massage later in the day to work out the kinks of 40 hours of flying. There was a small stream that ran through the outdoor gazebo I was in. As I got up, I watched a small frog and another cockroach enter into a (literally) vicious deathmatch. The sad part? Cockroach won. Man, those guys are tough.

But that’s Thailand! You get critters no matter where you are and you roll with it. But the resort is obviously amazing. I’m only here for two nights while we figure out where we want to go in Thailand. I wanted reliable internet access and the benefit of a good concierge desk as I figure out our next destination. The leading contender is Ko Samui which is one of the largest Thai island in the Gulf. The diving is reported to be slightly better in the Andaman Sea off Thailand’s west coast. I was originally trying to find a live aboard dive boat on which Ali and I could spend a few days at sea. But many of the marine parks are closed due to the high waves and low visibility produced during monsoon season (which we are conveniently in the middle of). So far, I haven’t seen any evidence of bad weather. The sky reminds me of Hawaii with its utterly massive cumulus clouds that gather offshore, and bright blue sky overhead. But I’m told it rained all day yesterday so all the staff is claiming that I brought the sunshine with me. I had explained them that I am admittedly Christof the Sun God, but most of you guys already knew that. Ko Samui is supposed to have great beaches and the second best diving in the Gulf (the best in nearby Ko Tao, another island to the north of Ko Samui….checking there too). So that’s where I’ll focusing my efforts tomorrow.

I’m pretty wiped so I’m calling it in early. Next update, hopefully I’ll have a game plan for the next 11 days.

Day 13 And so it goes...

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:07:02 -0400

Aloha Maui. There’s a very bittersweet feeling in leaving Hawaii. In some ways, I’m excited because I feel like the big trip is really beginning today because I’m officially leaving the U.S. It’s kind of weird because obviously Carmel was the beginning of my trip and Hawaii has been incredibly rewarding and wonderful. I loved exploring the off the beaten path Maui, like Hana and Makewao. But now I’m leaving and taking my first (real) step into the unknown. I’m heading off to Thailand where I have virtually no reservations and no idea what I’m doing. But before I talk about that, let’s finish up with Maui because I think it deserves it.

Maui was really unexpected. Nothing happened the way I thought it would. My main purpose in coming to Maui was to learn to kite surf. But, like a lot of things in life, you can’t control the weather. I’ve been washed out from kite surfing until today my very last day. I changed my flight so that I would take a red eye back to L.A. so I could kite surf until 5:00 p.m before catching a flight at 8:30 p.m.

It was a vaguely sad day today. Not because I only got my ass up on a kite board for about 3.2 seconds before getting dragged across the beach on my kite. But I was leaving place that I had made an unexpected friendship with. Paia is different than Wahilia or Lahania. It was subtle, laid back, quirky, and mellow and waited for me to come to it. The Nalu Kai Lodge really grew on me. But my best memories were of hanging out at the local beach enjoying a Tecate tall boy while the sun set over the Pacific. I did that every night I could.

Frankly, it was disappointing to only get three kite surfing days in, especially when the last was butting against my check in time. I had to book an extra night at my hotel just so I could have place to shower after my last lesson. Think about this for a sec…the shower had particular importance considering it would technically be my last for the week which led me to pick my clothes carefully. If you’ve never been on a seriously long flight, every detail from underwear to shoes matter.

Why am I going back to L.A. when I’m trying to get to Thailand? Well, kind reader, that would be the source of the snail mail protest I’d like to launch against American Express Centurion for royally screwing up my itinerary (i.e. Save Ferris).

On The Damn Plane

So here’s my deal: I’m flying Maui to Honolulu to L.A. to Tokyo to Singapore to Phuket. I’m leaving today (August 28th) and arrive in Phuket sometime on Friday, August 31st.

Here’s where life gets truly interesting. Traveling is hard. Don’t get me wrong. It’s exotic. Its cool, enlightening, relaxing….but the actually mechanics of moving from Point A to B is deplorable (unless you fly private like my friend Dubrinsky). LAX has a truly special terminal called Tom Bradley in which they cram all the funky scary airlines (Air India, El Al, ANA, SAS, Singapore Air etc…). And as you make your way through security, though the lines at the magazine store, and try to buy a bottle of water, you make judgments about all the different people for all the different backgrounds around you. People look different. People smell different. And I caught myself being dismissive and getting frustrated with the incongruity of the travel experience. Everybody was walking slow, dragging their bags, congregating in impassable groups in narrow passages, and I was frustrated and tired from my Hawaiian red eye.

So there I am in the super secret, brand new Singapore Air lounge waiting for my flight. My MacBook is out and I’m typing and simultaneously jamming on my iPhone about something. All of a sudden, this really polite, well mannered Middle Eastern boy (no more than 8 or 9), approaches me. This is verbatim.

Him [smiling politely]: Excuse me sir. I am very sorry. I do not mean to disturb….I’m sorry…I…I…This is my (Apple iPod) Nano, and I do not know how….I don’t know how to work it. It doesn’t move….it….
Me: Oh, no big deal. It’s just frozen. This happens every so often. Just hold down the center button and menu together for about five seconds and it will reboot. See….there you go. It’s restarting.
Him [huge smile]: Thank you….thank you very much.

And it hit me. Children are children. People are people. And I got the most gentle reminder of that, that commonality that binds us all, regardless of our religious or racial differences. And matter how different our cultures are….Apple products can bring us together. It was really moving.

Moving on…This may come as a surprise but I’ve watched a lot of Star Trek growing up. As such, I feel like I have a good handle on when the Enterprise goes through a Klingon wormhole and enters the temporal rift and ends up in 20th century Earth, blah, blah blah. For all the beer at the Open, I cannot figure out when my plane lands or takes off or connects through some places I’ve only seen in a Jackie Chan movie. These flights take FOREVER. A certain legal counselor upon whose advice I rely on all things debaucherous told me to shut up and take Xanax. His wisdom notwithstanding, here’s what I know:

Christof’s Rules For Exotic Travel

1. Business class to Asia rocks. It’s like Prozac. If they took all the manic depressive wives on the Upper East Side and sent them Raffles Class on Singapore Air to Bangkok and back, here’s what would happen: 1) Divorce rate lowers, 2) Handbag companies would flourish, 3) Well dressed psychiatrists would have to supplement their income squeegee-ing car windows on 96th street.
2. Asian airline stewardesses love me. Maybe it’s the rebellious way I leave the seat up in the lav or the fact that I hit the ‘Stewardess Call’ button like I’m a final contestant on the Price is Right, but I can tell the like they spark in my eye and the way I put my hands together, as if in prayer, and say “one more Tiger beer pleeeeease”.
3. It’s OK to read Playboy on a flight if you’re crossing an ocean. Seriously.
4. When presented with the engraved hardcover copy of the menu you’ll be enjoying on your flight, wave your hands frantically and raise your voice screeching, “is this all?” (psst…I have a friend at the Soho House who taught me that). It make everyone more nervous and attentive.
5. If Singapore Air only provides 3 meals during a 10 hour leg (L.A. – Tokyo), push hard for a fourth meal. I recommend a Cognac and Udon noodle tasting around 6.5 hours into it. Its keeps the staff on their toes and washes out the disgusting Mai Tai and sushi taste you talked your sorry ass into 2 hours ago.
6. Moonwalk to the lavatory. It never gets old.
7. You don’t need music to start singing karoke. Trust me.

So anyway, here I am on the way to Phuket. Obviously, life doesn’t suck. But here’s what does get interesting. Maui was wonderful because I had the security of being “in America” so that no matter how gnarly things got, the safety net was there. But the whole point of this trip is to travel without a safety net, right? Go off the beaten path and see where it takes you. It’s one thing to fly into Tampa and not have a rezzie at Bern’s Steakhouse. It’s another to go to Phuket and try to cut your own deal to find your own place.

And that’s part of the rub isn’t it. Everyone wants that quaint “off the beaten path” place with all the local charm to make you feel like a Ian Fleming insider. But when the ground is unfamiliar and the low end isn’t “we don’t offer lemon verbena French toast” but rather “we don’t offer toilet paper for our communal hole in the ground”, the question of ‘quaintness’ becomes a bit nuanced. I really don’t want a lot. Honestly. Paia taught me that. I don’t even need AC or a restaurant. But I need a good location, some place that will help me scuba dive, and preferably the turn down service doesn’t include a millipede giving me the reach around. Yes, yes, I’ve got Lonely Planet guidebooks and I’ve spoken to friends who’ve been abroad but at the end of the day either you book three months ahead or you call an audible on game day (yes Jack, I said it).

Local flavor is so important but so is rudimentary hygiene. Tomato, to-mah-to. Don’t know. I still have two Business Class lounges ahead of me in Tokyo and Singapore before I have to deal with it all. Getting drunk…stewardess blurry. Why do Thai women wear such colorful uniforms? It’s disorienting. Must finish drink. Must finish flight. Must get to Japan. Good sake is in Japan. I think my last name translates to “monster who destroys small chairs with ass”.

Besides. I’m so big in Japan.

Day 11 Paragliding in Maui

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 08:39:50 -0400

Paragliding!! Today we hooked up with Pro Flight Paragliding here in Maui. We drove about 16 miles into the Upcountry to where Dexter, the school owner, owns the Landing Zone and Launch.

When I read the brochure, they stated that they had two launches, one with 1000 feet of vertical and another with 3000 feet. Well, kind reader, you know too well upon which launch my tender heart lay. However, it turns out that the godamn good launch (3000 foot vertical) isn’t open until September 1st (conveniently 2 days after I leave for Thailand). Now, I know my life is tough these days, but you’ll see a pattern emerging of missing some really epic stuff by a couple days throughout the trip.

Notwithstanding the fact that it cost over $500 just to have our paragliding gear shipped to Maui (Fed Ex ground), I was gonna get some airtime no matter what. Dexter could not have been a more gracious host for letting us fly our site. As point of reference for the two or three of you who don’t actually paraglide, it’s sort of a big deal to fly other people’s site. Every time you go somewhere new to fly, you have to go through this little dance with the people that run the site in terms of how experienced you are. In the United States, paragliding sites are ridiculously hard to come by due to the litigious nature of our society. Nobody wants anything to do with it on their property because of fear of a lawsuit, so someone needs to purchase both a launch and landing zone of several acres each. And in case you haven’t figured it out, running a paragliding school isn’t the fastest route to owning your own G5. So the point is, after someone has gone through the pain in ass process of securing the site, assuring all the locals that nobody is going to sue or damage the property, and walked the authorities through all the legality, they don’t want some new pilot from out of town mucking up all their work.

That being said, Dexter has a great site where you can see the ocean from launch. Just magnificent. The vertical, however, I found to be a bit exaggerated. All in all, a short flight is better than no flight. I did two quick runs and Ali did one. The landing zone was a bit more thermic than I expected (which means that right before you think you going to land, a burst of rising air pushes you up another 100 feet), and I landed a bit further out than I wanted. I nailed the second landing which Ali got on video. I’ll try to get that on the blog soon.

After packing up our gear, we spent a good portion of the day trying to figure out how to ship our paragliding gear to Turkey, where we’ll be taking a one-week SIV course in a few weeks. First of all, walking into any shipping place with two 70 lb backpacks produces the kind of reaction that walking into a bank with a suitcase of cash and white residue underneath your nose might. Nobody wants anything to do with you, especially given the complexity of shipping big crap overseas. We started with Fed Ex/Kinko’s who employed the most useless piece of crap I’ve ever seen floating in the service industry bowl. He refused to even see where he could ship within Turkey until I filled out an itemized form of every item in the bag (there’s like 40 items). It went something like this:

Me: Hi, I’d like to ship these two bags to Turkey please.
Fed Ex Moron (confused like the prehistoric apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey): Ummm… Those are big. I guess I’ll need to fill out a commercial voucher. I need you to itemize everything you’re shipping.
Me: Are you sure?
Fed Ex Idiot: Yes, I’m sure (sounding astoundingly unsure)
Me: Ok, it’s mainly just a paraglider but I’ve got some clothes in here. Can I just say clothes?
Fed Ex Imbecile: No. You must break out each item of clothing.
Me [big sigh]: OK, here you. you
Fed Ex Retard: Oh, now I need to fill out what each material is made of (gortex, cotton, etc).
Me [long protracted stare]: Well, that seems a little extreme but here you go.
Fed Ex Embryo Reject [frustrated that I continue to comply with his requests]: Ummm….now I need to know where each item in your pack was manufactured.
Me: You’re joking.
Fed Ex Numbnut: Sir, I need to know where each item in your pack was manufactured. And please put it on this one line here.
Me: There’s 40 items here. How am I going to fit that onto one line?
Fed Ex Schmucko Supremo: <deafening silence>
Me: You really don’t want to do this for me, do you?

We finally went to another Fed Ex that said they could definitely do it, but it would cost $900 per bag. No dice. We ended up at Mail Boxes Etc and shipped our gliders back to the States for $400 (less than it took to get here _ go figure). One of our paragliding friends, Hannah, was unbelievably kind enough to offer to take them to Turkey with her when she meets us there in mid September. My last overseas trip with Hannah was in the French Alps where she helped me run up a $650 bar bill at the Mandarin Oriental in Zurich in one evening so I know she’ll find a way for me to pay her back.

Day 10 Return to the Sea

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:38:59 -0400

What a terrific day! I’m writing this at about 8:45 p.m. in the grass courtyard in the Nalu Kai Lodge. I’m sitting on lounge chair typing by tiki torchlight. I’ve got the whole area to myself and a cool breeze is taking the heat off my skin.

As was feared, the wind didn’t show up today so Ali and I decided it was time to diversify into some of our other sports. This morning, Ali and I went on three scuba dives off the Molokini Crater which is about 45 minutes off the Maui Coast and lies to west between Maui and Kahoolawe. It resembles a perfect ‘C’ and rises about 100 feet out of the water.

As I filled out my waiver form (a disturbingly common occurrence in my life), I realized that I haven’t really been diving in over a year. My last dive was in May 2006 in Vietnam. It felt amazing to be back in the water. Of course most of this is driven by the spectacular water conditions. We enjoyed about 70 feet of visibility. Our first dive was a deep wall dive that took us to about 105 feet where we saw three 5-foot Grey Reef Sharks just cruising the wall for some breakfast. It just stunning to be diving along this sponge and coral laded wall and just see it drop off into the abyss. It really gives you the sensation of flying.

The second and third dives were on the interior of the crater and shallower (around 65 feet) but no less spellbinding. We saw a Yellow Margin Eel, a Frogfish, a tiny black spotted crab the size of thumbnail and a Spotted Moray Eel. And just tons and tons of tropical reef fish. The amazing thing about the fish was that the were pretty close replicas of the fish I’m very familiar with in Florida and the Caribbean. But they seems entirely new because of their different color patterns. Its like seeing your house repainted making it seem like a brand new house. It was really wild and made diving feel…newer than it had been for a while.

I’ve been pushing diving for a while trying to find new thrills. Lately I’ve been turning to technical diving, which involves the use of mixed gases like Nitrox to achieve deeper depths. I’ve been wreck hunting off Pompano Beach, Florida for a good stretch now just because I’d been getting a little bored with basic flatbottom reefs. But today was different and the thrill felt evident that moment I splashed into the sea. I felt really in tune with the water and it seemed like it was welcoming me back.

There’s a night dive I might do on Monday (back in Molokini Crater) where you do your first dive at like 6 p.m. right at twilight. This is when its most common to see manta rays (something I’m dying to see ever since a Peruvian shaman mentioned it was my spirit animal). You sit on the boat and watch the sun set. Then the second dive takes place in the exact same spot which will now seems totally different in darkness because an entirely new food chain is being established (many fish are nocturnal). It’s like the changing of the guard at an investment bank.

After the dive, we went to the Paia Fish Market for fish tacos and an oil can of Fosters. So damn good. There’s something very macabre about always craving seafood after diving. The fish tacos were superb but I was actually craving coconut shrimp. Now I know coconut shrimp are the Appletini of the seafood world but most places here on the island seem to have amazing versions of this most bourgeois of dishes. Maybe it’s the fresh coconut or the truly spicy thai dipping sauce but its been one of the many surprises I’ve encountered in Paia.

After our post dive snack, Ali went off to get a massage and I went off to contemplate life over an ice slushie (today was Blue Raspberry, Pina Colada, and Cherry). I’m getting SO addicted to these things and its getting harder and harder to just stop at one.

Dinner was at a local French / Indian place called Des Amis. I had a kickass shrimp curry bowl , and as I’m writing in this beautiful sitting with my belly full, I’m feeling pretty content about life.

Tomorrow: Paragliding at Dawn!!

Day 9 Adrenaline of a Different Sort

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:32:24 -0400

If you haven’t figured it out, a lot of my blog deals with the euphoria that comes with interacting with risk. Primarily physical risk. I’ve never understood people who declined certain activities because “they might get hurt”. For me, it always seemed like the most irrelevant question. These people stop themselves before they ever get to the really interesting questions like, “what will the activity show me” or “what will I learn about myself”. For some people, the risk of getting hurt is non-starter and prohibits any further exploration.

Of course, what underlies this supposition is the idea that the risk is voluntary. I love getting preachy about the dangers I choose, but when danger is thrust upon me I find that my mental calculus collapses like a hedge fund in May. I’ll talk about this in a bit, but for now let’s take a step back and talk foreign policy.

As we all know, there’s been a significant deterioration of the U.S. reputation abroad. I, like most responsible Americans, take that personally. I always try to upgrade foreigners’ ideas of Americans and put my best foot forward when overseas. So when I went to Hertz, did I chose the sensible Ford Taurus station wagon? Non, mon ami. I choose a white STS Cadilliac to make my statement on the island of Maui. It says says, I got class. No wait, I take that back. It says, I got class up the ass. Nothing says class or ass better than a white Cadillac.

But class or ass notwithstanding, driving this whale on the narrowest road on which I have ever driven did result in an unexpected confrontation with fear and danger themselves. And here’s the stupid part. I was totally warned. I mean, I wasn’t exactly warned. Our kite surfing instructor had mentioned we might want to visit the town of Lahaina on Maui’s western coast to get a little bit of nightlife and get a break from our otherwise bohemian kite surfing lifestyle. He told us how to get there taking the highway, but when I asked why we couldn’t follow the coastline, he said the road really wasn’t suitable for anything other than a 4X4 vehicle and that it would probably void my rental agreement. Normally, this would have sounded like a “throw-the-gauntlet-down” challenge, but I decided to take the civilized route there.

Lahaina was OK. Ali and I found it a bit Key West after the “keeping it real” vibe of Paia. A lot of T-shirt shops, surfboard stores that sell mainly clothes, and of course a Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory (what is it with these places?). Cheesy or not, we did find an oceanside table at the least offensive restaurant that we could find. The view of Lan’ai in the background was stunning and to be fair, the food and cold beer were just fine. With my cultural sensitivities having been assuaged, we decided to head back to Paia. We really didn’t have any adventure in our hearts, but we were just sort of wandering as we made our way home. All of a sudden we realized that the beautiful coastal road that we were following to take advantage of the sunset views was rapidly becoming narrower and more treacherous. Unwittingly we had stumbled on the aforementioned ‘forbidden road” via the back way. I’m talking, completely blind 180 degree turns. Low gear required hills. “Open-your-car-door-and-fall-down-a cliff” narrow roads. But Christof, you ask, why didn’t you just turn around? Guys, the road was so damn narrow, I literally, truly, swear on my life, wasn’t sure if we could. There was a vertical mountain on one side (of which we were warned by several signs that rocks enjoy falling from frequently) and a 200 foot drop into the ocean on the other side. And apparently, Hawaiian road architects subscribe to the school of thought that guardrails are for pussies.

That being said, the views were stunning and if one ever has the need to court death and enjoy a nice sunset simultaneously, I highly recommend this drive. It took us into the equivalent of Hawaiian deliverance country where we could view coastal farms (about 150 feet below us, of course) and some spectacular homes that were clearly inhabited by folks of a rugged disposition who wanted a closer connection to the real Hawaii away from intrusion of stoplights and shopping malls. Honestly, pretty cool stuff.

Which brings me back to my earlier point, It really was a pretty scary drive, but there was something special about it that graced us with a side of Maui that very few have seen. By going off the path and facing something risky, we also got something wonderful and unexpected in return. The dangers we don’t want often give rewards we don’t expect. And sometimes life does exhibit signs of balance if you allow it.

That being said, let’s hope the wind kick up tomorrow. I’m ready for some nice safe kiteboarding!

Day 7-8 Kitesurfing in Hawaii

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:28:16 -0400

Kitesurfing!!! Oh man, oh man, oh man. God, is this ever fun!! Of course, I totally suck but just going through the introductory drills is an absolute blast. Let me start by saying my instructor’s name is Foster. Anybody who’s named after a pretty decent beer is already speaking my language. Being out ¼ mile off shore and having this kite yank you clean out of the water and splash back down may be the most fun thing I’ve done since paragliding. The kites are beautiful and it really evokes a closer comparison to the physical dynamics of snowboarding and the mental acuity of sailing than anything having to do with conventional surfing. I look out on the water and see these guys getting 10-15 feet of air off their kite surfing boards and honking at 20 knots along the shore line. I totally want to be one of those guys. This sport is seriously cool.

The lessons start by learning the basics of kite maneuvering. Luckily, I’ve been paragliding for 3 years now, and Ali bought me a traction kite 2 years ago so what supposed to take a day, I got done in an hour. Next step is body dragging. Now you take a 9 meter kite (or, the case of my prolific German ass, a 12 meter kite) into the ocean with you, as you try to keep the kite in a constant position while ocean water shoots up your noise at high velocity. Clearly, this is great fun.

But seriously, what IS fun is that when you switch direction (taking the kite from your right to your left side) the lift is so great that it pulls you completely out of the water and you splash down in the other direction. Wind is strong, man.

The most common question is, what do you do if your kite falls in the water? Let me assure you that my kite spent most of its time in the water and they totally have this worked out. The leading edge of the kite as well as its “ribs” are all inflatable tubes that you pump up back on the beach. So the kite floats and usually stays in a launchable position as you float in the water.

The lessons end around 2 p.m. which may sound a bit early but your body starts begging you for a tequila break around 1 p.m. By the end of the second day, Ali and I both enjoyed getting fully out of the water on boards from something slightly less than nanosecond before falling back into the water. But we did get up and couldn’t be more proud of ourselves. Three more lessons to go. I can’t wait to get good.

What We Do All Day

Ali and I have started falling into a little routine that is really enjoyable. We’ve been getting up on the early side, having not yet been able to completely rid ourselves of East Coast jetlag. We go Anthony’s Coffee Shop across the street and spend about two to three hours on our computers working on our blogs, answering emails, and trying to research the rest of our trip. By 10 a.m., we head over to Kite Beach to begin our lessons. By 2:30 p.m. we head over to Flatbread’s, this FANTASTIC thin crust organic pizza joint that I’m told is a chain back on the mainland, for lunch. By 3:30 – 4 p.m., I’ve been jonesing for a ice slushie all day.

OK, we need to talk about this ice slushie thing. I know it sounds like something Apu would serve at the Kwikie Mart, but these things are ridiculously amazing. I’m so hooked its scary. Some of my friends who are reading this blog can confirm that I’m susceptible to certain food addictions. This is where I need to have a certain food once-a-day for about a month because it’s all I think about. Some of you might remember some of my greatest hits which include: Krispy Kreme, Red Bull / Jolt / Cocaine Cola, Beef Jerky (which obviously led to Venison, Buffalo and even Antelope Jerky), Beef Pho (Vietnamese nodle soup), Smores, Ribeye steak, and chocolate milkshakes. I even went through a (thankfully) brief caviar stage that required a small increase in my home equity line.

A little place called Aloha Island Shaved Ice has been making shaved ice slushies for over 35 years. The owner is a fucking artist. For $3.50 you get a pint sized glass with a giant head of shaved ice with your choice your three flavored syrups. My first day I did Lime, Cherry and Mango, But today, I walked wild and went with Cherry, Green Paradise and Lychee. I’ve literally tried to hold detailed conversations with Ali about what flavors I should get tomorrow, but it’s like a talking to godamn wall. to receive such an intense infusion of raw sugar one might have to drink pure maple syrup or visit a street cart north of 125th street, but I’m telling you they’re that good. I shudder to think of day in Hawaii without them.

So, I start to get a sugar crash around 4:30 p.m. which dovetails nicely with nappy-nap time which really puts us right into dinner mode by six p.m. This all sounds fine & good, but my point is that by having somewhat of a routine, it’s helped us feel more connected to the island during our brief stay. We have a purpose walking around Paia and the store owners and waitress are beginning to know us and want to hear more about our trip. It’s helped us make a tiny bit of inroads in the vast gap between tourist and local.