2007 England

I started this blog as a cathartic tool since I haven’t been doing a lot of traveling lately, and I thought that the next best thing to going places was to reminisce about places that I had been. However, we had the good fortune of being able to travel to England last week, so here is my story about that trip.


We went to London to visit my oldest friend and her husband. There we did a lot of toodling around and sight seeing. Although the transportation system is expensive, it is such a great tool… we found the subway, rail, and bus system to work superbly together to get us where we wanted to go with a minimum of effort.

We went to the National Gallery, the British Museum, and the Tate Modern Gallery, all which are amazing (and free admission!). The city lends itself to walking around, and we enjoyed quite a bit of walking around Central London, as well as the Greenwich and Blackheath areas of town. The weather was very pleasant compared to February Canadian weather, so although it was a bit drizzly sometimes, we found it enjoyable.

We were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed the food! Everything we ate, from prepackaged sandwiches, to pub food, to restaurant meals, and of course home cooked meals, were of good quality and tasty ingredients. It was great. One meal that sticks out particularly in my mind was at a 400 year old pub in the little town of Avebury… amazing!

For the weekend we rented a car, and my brave and talented friend drove us to the countryside of Wiltshire. The countryside is gorgeous! Rolling hills and quaint little towns all strung together to present the perfect picture of the British countryside. So much history! And many ancient ruins mixed in with modern buildings. We saw Stonehenge, the ancient stone circles at Avebury, a big white horse on the hillside, Silbury Hill, and the town of Bath (where we bathed in the same naturally warm thermal waters that the Romans did!). We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast near Avebury, perched above a little country pub.

A great week, and just the trip to revitalize this travel hungry blogger.

1994 China – Part 2 Yang Shou

We took a 10 hour boat trip from Hong Kong to Wuzhou in China along the Pearl River. Tree covered mountains rose up on both banks of river. Near Wuzhou the river was more congested with boat traffic than the roads were with cars! In the town of Wuzhou we stayed at the simple but comfortable government hotel of Yuan Jiang. No one seemed to speak English except for a government representative met us and led us around.


From Wuzhou we took an all day bus ride to the small town of Yang Shou. The roads were red dirt and we passed thousands of rice patties with oxen and farmers trudging through them. The landscape in the Yang Shou region is breathtaking – the famous tall limestone hills dot the countryside. This town was quite traveler-oriented as many foreigners come for the amazing scenery. There were many restaurants and merchants to visit, and lots of hiking and exploring to do.



There are many caves in the nearby hills, and we went in a few of them with local people. They are literally mazes - some lead through steep and narrow passage ways, others lead you along underwater rivers. Very neat. We also hiked to the top of Moon Hill, which is a hill with a round hole near the top. From the top there is a beautiful panoramic view of the visas. We met many very nice people here. I felt extremely comfortable and safe. I really fell in love with this humble and beautiful place.

1994 China – Part 1 Hong Kong

Ok, this post harkens from a long way back in my memory, so chances are it will be brief, and the recollections based almost entirely on photos from that trip. My parents and brother and I traveled to Hong Kong to visit my other brother who was attending school there.

Hong Kong was full of skyscrapers and neon and sounds and people. Out the windows of rows upon rows of high rises people hang laundry and caged finches which sing all day. Old men sat in parks and played games. Traders brought their wares to sell at large outdoor markets. Public transportation seemed very efficient – subways and taxis, and ferries through the harbor.


At my brother’s school it was quiet and lush and in the distance you could see pollution shrouded misty mountains all around. The ocean was beautiful to behold for this prairie girl. The constellations were different from those in our sky in Canada, but the moon was a comforting constant.


At some point we went traveled to Lantau Island on the ManKong ferry to visit the little fishing village of Tau O. There were tiny homes on stilts, and colourful wooden boats. The pace seemed slow. Dried fish and fresh seafood dominated the small market.

2004 Cuba – Part 2, Pinar del Rio

We headed out to the province of Pinar del Rio for a day trip with a tour bus. It was structured and rushed, but we did get to see a lot that day. Perhaps the most beautiful sights were the limestone hills in Vinales. These are reminiscent of the limestone hills in Guilin, China.

Another fun activity of the day was riding around in a boat through caves down an underground river in Vinales. It felt really touristy, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it.


We also visited a tobacco farmer and a cigar making factory. Tobacco is one of the country’s main exports. It was really interesting to see the process of cigar making from the field, to the leaves drying in the tobacco barns, to the factories. The factory is set up like a sweat shop where people sit at their stations and roll their cigars all day. Some tourists handed over things like soap and pens to the workers, who accepted these tokens eagerly.

It was interesting to see people lined up on the highway waiting for rides into Havana. Hitchhiking for Cubans is sanctioned by the government, and so drivers are expected to stop and pick up hitchhikers. At designated hitchhiking spots there were police directing the vehicles and organizing the hitchhikers.


Final thoughts: I enjoyed Cuba very much. We ate lots of icecream and listened to lots of music. However, we agreed that we would have gotten a lot more out of the trip if we had a better handle on Spanish. There are not a lot of people speaking English, and I think it is much easier to gain people’s trust and interest if you are attempting to communicate in their language. I was impressed with the way this country and its people have pulled together and succeeded to have such strong education and health care systems, agricultural forethought, creative energy, and political strength through some very difficult challenges. People in general seemed happy and vibrant.

There are a lot of questions about where this country will go in the next little while, whether the politics will change drastically when Castro is no longer around, or whether the people will hold onto his dream. I think that in many ways this country, under the leadership of Fidel Castro, has been able to accomplish many successes that have proved nearly impossible in most of the rest of the world. I am saddened to think that this country may melt back into the capitalist mould that the majority of the world holds in such high regard after he is gone. However, hopefully they will be able to strike a balance.

2004 Cuba – Part 1, Havana


My husband and I chose to travel to the capital of Cuba instead of doing the resort thing. We were interested in learning as much as we could about Cuban history and the Revolution, and weren’t interested in indulging some lazy fantasy of sitting on a beach all day. So, we thought that Havana was a good place to start. My parents also joined us on this trip, and we all had a good time. We spent a lot of time walking around and going to museums and markets. It was a beautiful experience, and even though we were only there for a short period of time we did learn a lot.

The old Spanish architecture is beautiful – there are marble floors everywhere, and beautiful balconies and windows. The Cubans are trying hard to restore these old buildings, but unfortunately it is a constant battle with the sea salt and coastal weather which is not conducive to preservation of buildings.

The Universidad de la Habana is a gorgeous old building. This university was established in 1728, making it one of the oldest universities in the Americas. Cubans are extremely well educated people, with 97% literacy rates. Education, including post secondary education, is free.


Fidel Castro was very much involved with public affairs still at that time, and was speaking at (mandatory attendance) rallies both the day before we arrived and the day after we left. There are political slogans on murals and billboards all throughout Havana. It is really interesting. There are also monuments of the revolution and revolutionaries prominently displayed throughout the city.



The Museo de la Revolution did a great job of accounting the history of Cuba from the time of colonization to the present day, including a significant section on the Revolution. The Museo is appropriately located in Batista’s Presidential Palace (an amazingly opulent structure).

Another historical point of interest that we visited was the Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana. This is one of the many forts that was built by the Spanish in 1700s. It was huge, and amazing from an architectural and functional standpoint. More recently it was where Che Guevara set up headquarters in the first months following the Revoluntion in 1959.

There are soldiers on literally every street corner. They stand around, and joke with the public, and generally seem to keep the peace. We didn’t see any altercations. But from what I understand, there is a definite Big Brother thing going on, where any suspicious activities are noted and passed on to the government. Although this seems to make things flow smoothly, I am sure that there are strong undercurrents of discontent at the same time.

1999 – Cote d’Ivoire – Part 3 Abidjan



Abidjan, even at the time when I was there, wasn’t considered safe for tourists. But we went there hoping to buy a plane ticket for me to leave the country. I had decided to leave Africa and return to Canada. However, when we arrived in Abidjan everything was closing down for a four day period over New Years. We were stuck in a dangerous town where all stores, banks, markets, travel agents, etc. were closed, with almost no money. Fortunately, the hotel people believed us when we assured them we would pay as soon as the banks opened (in 4 days time). By this point I was quite sick with pneumonia, so we spent some of our last cash on antibiotics, and the rest on food. It was so quiet in this time period; even though we were in the middle of a huge city there were hardly even any cars on the road.



Eventually Monday came, stores reopened, we got money, shopped at the lovely market, met nice people, ate good street food, and bought a ticket to Paris for me. I loved Ivory Coast, and met many genuinely wonderful people. We had one scary experience in Abidjan, but other than that we were left with only positive memories.


Travel tips/reflections: Be open while being cautious. Be honest and consistent about what you need, and people will generally be willing to help. Eat local food – it is a wonderful way to get to know local flavour, and will definitely help you become accepted more easily. Respect local customs – be modest, eat with your hand, be friendly.

1998-1999 Cote d’Ivoire – Part 2

I loved Ivory Coast. We weren’t there for long, but from what I saw and ate, and the people that I met, and most of what I experienced, I just loved it. Which is why it makes me so sad to think of the political turmoil that has been going on there since then, and the hardships that the people and the country have endured. It also makes me sad to think that their beautiful infrastructure and all the hard work that brought them to where they were when I was there is now probably significantly deteriorated. These backward steps are especially heart wrenching in a continent where every success is fought for so hard.

When we arrived in Man everything was lush and wonderful. This was so appreciated after dry and dust covered Mali. The food was tropical, which meant tons of fresh fruit and veggies! The breeze felt great. People were very friendly and open. And food and accommodation was much cheaper and nicer than Mali. We spent Christmas in this lovely mountain town, where Christian Christmas carols mixed with Muslim chanting. It was warm and perfect.

From Man we travelled to Sassandra, which is located on the ocean. Throughout Ivory Coast we ate street food from food sellers, and it was wonderful! We also ate at a number of really great restaurants. There was one young man named Bobsea in Sassandra who really inspired me. He built himself a tiny restaurant named l’Embouchure out of bamboo, and was a fabulous cook. He was from Nigeria, and he believed in Rastafari and wrote reggae songs in English. His spirit was so strong, and he had big dreams of getting electricity and a phone. I wonder where he is today.

The beaches here were unbelievably gorgeous. The non-stop crashing waves prompt solitary moments, and heighten the senses while mesmerizing them. They pull feelings of sadness and aloneness, and happiness and peace all at the same time.

1998 Cote D’Ivore – Part 1 Bus Ride from Mali to Ivory Coast

Ok, this bus ride left me seriously thinking I might die. It was hard, long, dusty, but fabulous in a unique traveller’s experience kind of way. The truth is, the bus that we ended up taking is not one that foreigners normally take… it is the bus for the poorest people who have no papers and therefore take the broken down, long-way-around, pay bribes at every stop to gun toting checkpoint men, people standing up for days because there aren’t enough metal slats for seats, sick children and chicken bus. The trip from Bamako, Mali to Man, in Ivory Coast should probably take about 10 hours on other forms of public transportation (700km trip), but on the bus that we unwittingly chose it took over 60 hours.



Taking the poorer (read: people travelling without identity cards) bus means squeezing 44 adults plus their children into a bus with 6 rows of “seats”, it means avoiding checkpoints by driving this very rickety bus through dried up creek beds and really back road back roads, it means fixing the broken axle numerous times (like every half hour) on the side of the road with just a hammer, it means lighting fires on the side of the road in the middle of the night for everyone to huddle around while the flat tire gets fixed. And then we got to the Cote D’Ivore border.

When you get to the Mali-Ivory Coast border with a busload of people who don’t have their identity cards, it means lots of waiting, and lots of paying bribes. So, because people are poor, they pay what they can, and then they wait until the price of the bribe goes down. So we waited. All day. It was evening on the second day of travel when we finally pulled away from customs. For the record, we didn’t pay any bribes. I have never paid a bribe. I did pay a lot of money to legally get my visa for Ivory Coast, so I didn’t figure I should pay any more. I don’t know how I should feel about that… maybe it would have helped the people if we had contributed or maybe it would have made things worse. In any case, no one pressured us and eventually we were on our way.

Most of the night was spent banging on the bus again, so we didn’t travel that far. And most of the next day was spent waiting in a village, for what I didn’t know. Everyone seemed sick on this bus, which made my anemic, paracitic, pneumonia inflicted self seem not very unique. However, the colour of my skin was pretty unique, which unfortunately left me not being able to pee on the side of the road like everyone else on the bus; oh no, for me there was always a kind soul ready to escort me half way across the world to find a two sided open air hole in the ground toilet for me to use. Generous, but didn’t really lend itself to helping me fit in. But I guess I didn’t fit in in the least… I am pretty sure that very few whitey’s ever pass through most of these tiny villages set out in the middle of what seemed like far far away.

The bus ride took us 3 days and would have taken much longer (and did take much longer for all of our fellow bus-riding companions), except that at one of the check stops the very nice guards (with very big guns) took a liking to us and insisted that the bus driver take a detour from their back road route to drop us off in the town of Daloa, Cote D’Ivore so that we could take a network of minivan buses more directly to Man. This was very fortuitous for us, since we were quite sick and weak by this point. So, after a trip that brought us many miles and through a whole range of emotions, we arrived in the beautiful, friendly, lush town of Man in the beautiful country of Cote d’Ivore.

A final comment about the bus ride, I want to acknowledge the amazing patience and self control that our fellow travellers, as well as almost everyone else I met in Mali, possessed. Life is hard there. The bus ride was only one illustration of the way daily life is for many people. And they endure it with dignity. They are patient, their children are good, they don’t complain – I never heard a Malian complain – they are denied comfort and often live in a perpetual state of not knowing what is around the next corner. They go without things that we would think are impossible to live without. And they save up the energy that North Americans would use getting mad and frustrated and use it to survive another day.

1998 Mali – Part 3

After Dogon country we returned to Bamako. Bamako doesn’t really feel like a capital city. Most of the roads are dirt. There aren’t a lot of tall buildings. There is tons of garbage in the street, which is miraculously cleaned up each night by the goats, chickens, etc., who roam the streets. We met some really cool people in Bamako, like Mohamed who ran Café Mohamed Ala Casa and cooked wonderful vegetarian food.

In Bamako we stayed in a Catholic convent for a few days. There is a Christian minority here. Then we moved to stay with the family of Parfum, our guide. They welcomed us into their home as guests, presumably because we had paid Parfum quite a bit to be our guide throughout Dogon country, although I don’t imagine they make a habit of having foreigners stay with them as guests. The family lives in a suburb of Bamako called, Niamakoro. The family has a nice courtyard with their own well and bathroom (bathrooms here consist of a hole in the ground that you squat over, but this one actually had four walls around it). There are two co-wives in this family. There is no electricity or running water.

It was Ramadan so the older members of the family weren’t eating during the day. They made us wonderful traditional food though, and the teenagers ate with us despite Ramadan. You eat with your right hand here, moulding the food into a walnut sized ball and roll/toss it lightly into your mouth. It takes a few days to get the hang of it, but you get a lot of street cred once you can do it right! :) Being a Canadian I said ‘Thank you’ constantly, and was constantly reminded that you don’t need to say thankyou, and you don’t need to wait to be invited to eat, you just sit down. The way things work is that if you need something you take it from your friend, knowing that when they need something they will take it from you. No exchange of pleasantries is necessary.

Final thoughts on Mali: pretty hard core country to travel in. For one thing, it is extremely expensive, maybe because usually the only tourists Mali gets are rich adventurer types. There is not a lot of infrastructure set up for travellers. People and outfits are colourful, but everything is covered with a fine layer of dust. Literally and metaphorically. Something about Mali (maybe sickness, or heat, or something else) made me tired all the time and want to lie around and stare at the wall. All in all, I was not sad to leave the country, which brought us to our 60 hour bus ride out of Mali to the Cote d’Ivore…

1998 Mali – Part 2

We walked in to Dogon Country, since there are no roads. To get there you hike over this escarpment, with landscape like the moon. Then all of a sudden you see the desert, and climb down into it. Pretty unbelievable. There were trees peppering the edge of the desert, and a toylike town clustered near them.
The first town we visited was Kanikomble. This is a little place with mudbrick graineries and little mudbrick homes. There are no windows or doors or electricity or running water. There is noise though, grinding millet, pounding peanuts, children running, cocks crowing, goats, everybody making noise. But then at night… at night this is the most peaceful and quiet place on earth (at least for this city dweller). Nowhere have I ever heard silence like this, or seen stars like this, so clear, so beautiful, peace.
From Kanikomble we moved along the desert to the village of Teli. High in the cliffs reside the ancient sites where the Dogon used to live in their cliff homes. The Dogon came about 600 years ago and drove away the Pigmy who lived here before them. We climbed up to see some of these ancient homes. The old Dogon cities tended to be lower, with the Pigmy villages higher up. The Pigmy homes were so tiny. Hard to believe anyone could be so small. Maybe they curled up to sleep. Apparently there used to be tall trees or maybe vines so these people could climb up to the highest of their homes. Other than that I could not envision how they got up there. Really something trippy to see.
From Teli we went to Ende. There we visited the old Hogon man, who is like a shaman. I got very sick after this meeting, and believed for many years that it was in part because of this meeting.

In Dogon country we watched women spinning yarn, then men weaving it into thin strips, then women sewing in together and dying it a deep indigo. This indigo rubs off onto your skin when you wear it. I still have the indigo that I got in Dogon country, and it reminds me of those times.