A current "day in the life" of Dewi and Josh:
Wake up to the sound of waves, bird song and the occasional gecko. Open up the mosquito net, step outside and brush our teeth overlooking the ocean only a few dozen feet from the door of our beautiful little bungalow. Make our way to our favorite cheap breakfast spot where we lay in little open huts overlooking the ocean - this morning we each ate banana pancakes, fresh fruit salad and omelettes for under 1.80 CDN each. Swim in the salty water, lay in the sun, drink litre upon litre and make friends with the locals. The water is crystal clear and snorkeling is unreal. Once the sun sets, maybe take a nap and then head out for dinner as the night gets darker. The stars here - on an island with hardly any lights at all - are unbelieveable. Some of the island residents light a bonfire on the beach, some kids spin fire and everyone joins in for a sweet rastafarian-tinged sing-a-long complete with a jammin' version of "Leaving on a Jet Plane." Try to find our way home after dinner in the darkness, encountering the occasional horse and cart combo on this haven free of cars and mopeds. Fall asleep grateful for everything (except the crab climbing loudly up and down our walls) and wake up happy to see another day.
Dear friends and family, do yourselves a favor and come to Gili Meno.
Love,
Dewi and Josh
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Greece - Cairo - Kuala Lumpur - Singapore...
Long time, no entry. So long in fact that I've chosen not to look at the last date we posted anything, knowing only that it was in Greece and - looking over the title of this entry - a continent back. We are in Changi Airport, Singapore. The time is currently 6:00 and in thirty minutes we will be Indonesia-bound. We've been in a few airports by now, this is by far the best of the lot. Sleeping over here would be unreal (the airport in Cairo, for the record, is an entirely different story) but our next 'port of slumber will be Denpasar. Come morning, we're off to search for a deserted island beach and slowly make our way to Ubud; this is where we will meet with a prospective organization in hopes of finding a group of like-minded people who keep their profits aligned with their intentions. Wait and see, wait and see. It sounds good on the surface, though - so good in fact that my heart is a little attached to the idea of living with a Balinese family; teaching rural villages of women and children English; exploring Indonesia on by backroad on a rickety motorbike; worshipping goddesses named Dewi in some of the 20,000 temples. Yeah, I like the way it unfolds in my mind. But as time has served to teach, things are never really what you expect - veering left and right, up and down, turning themselves inside out like grand contortionists, changing our minds by re-arranging their contents. It feels right to be traveling again.
Love,
Dewi and Josh
Love,
Dewi and Josh
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Freako (or, "There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.")
Fifteen days with no blog posts - enough to make some mothers think their children are dead! Fear not and have faith, we are alive and well. Sunshine House has been a beautiful, calm center of the storm that is our adventure, providing us with amenities we didn't even know we needed. Among these we include: a never-ending supply of pomegranates and oranges, stolen fresh off of the trees of our Grecian neighbors; a library full of books on topics as varied as Buddhism, 'Grandpa Ganja,' and "The Golden Fountain" (which - wouldn't you know it - includes advice on psyching yourself up to drink your own urine!); more mung beans than any human being could consume in one, two, or three lifetimes; sage wisdom from children ("I have a jar of judgement and inside there is... massive toasts!"); and the list goes on and on...
Yet while the list goes on, time has chosen to stand still. These fifteen days could have been two or two-hundred. It is easy to lose oneself in the simple rhythm of daily life that governs Sunshine House in all of it's dear, infectious madness - to steal a British term, for all the accents we've been hearing around here. There is something timeless about a man named Laurino, the author of a novel entitled "Latrino's Tantric Constripation Dance" as he describes his month spent meditating in a cave and defends the integrity of Italian spaghetti. Or about Kostas, the local shop-keeper who champions the beauty of Woodstock and the genius of Bob Dylan, while giving us bananas as gifts and musing on how unusual it is for a German and an Israeli to be together (long story)! We have learned from Jean-Pierre that Jesus is the fire and Buddha is the water; that in the Polynesian Islands it is considered a holy act to save a sea turtle; and that "it is no good to feel shit." And with every passing day, the tapestry of our time at Sunshine House inevitably gains the presence of yet another unforgettable character...
Yes, our time here is good. We eat well and sleep... Well, that depends on too many factors to list, though the latest disturbance is one we invited in whole-heartedly: a little starving kitten named Gandhi who bears a striking resemblance to the famed man, as well as to a rogue Gremlin. Savage mosquitos provide another hurdle, as does thetendency of my hair to choke Joshua in his sleep. The work, if it can even be called that, is easy for the most part. Dishes to wash, meals to cook, gardens to weed, fitted sheets to fold, children to amuse - simple stuff that makes the days go by. Josh gets the truly manly tasks: fixing roofs, unclogging drains, and mending dressers. I cook for shamanistic workshop participants and giggle at the shaman's nose ring (raising the question; am I too young to be saying that "things just ain't what they used to be"?)
Today is our first of two days off - today we are lazing about in the sunshine and taking advantage of a few hours of empty-house, tomorrow we will bike to Chalkida and see if there are any cheap tents or wristwatches to be found. Then we will enjoy our last week of Sunshine, make our way to Athens and board another flight... Asia has come a-calling and we would soon feel too stagnant to be calling ourselves "travelers" if we stayed in Greece much longer. So Kuala Lumpur it is (or will be, come November 2nd) and as usual, I'm sure it won't feel real until the moment we realize we have arrived... And this, I hope to do on a deserted beach with the sun beating down on us; as we eat mangoes of trees and crouch over bowls of curry, shoveling it into our mouths with our hands; conceiving friendships born of language-barriers and laughter; and falling asleep under the stars after yet another day together.
Sappy? Yes, but... You only live once. And so we are living.
Love,
Dewi and Josh
Yet while the list goes on, time has chosen to stand still. These fifteen days could have been two or two-hundred. It is easy to lose oneself in the simple rhythm of daily life that governs Sunshine House in all of it's dear, infectious madness - to steal a British term, for all the accents we've been hearing around here. There is something timeless about a man named Laurino, the author of a novel entitled "Latrino's Tantric Constripation Dance" as he describes his month spent meditating in a cave and defends the integrity of Italian spaghetti. Or about Kostas, the local shop-keeper who champions the beauty of Woodstock and the genius of Bob Dylan, while giving us bananas as gifts and musing on how unusual it is for a German and an Israeli to be together (long story)! We have learned from Jean-Pierre that Jesus is the fire and Buddha is the water; that in the Polynesian Islands it is considered a holy act to save a sea turtle; and that "it is no good to feel shit." And with every passing day, the tapestry of our time at Sunshine House inevitably gains the presence of yet another unforgettable character...
Yes, our time here is good. We eat well and sleep... Well, that depends on too many factors to list, though the latest disturbance is one we invited in whole-heartedly: a little starving kitten named Gandhi who bears a striking resemblance to the famed man, as well as to a rogue Gremlin. Savage mosquitos provide another hurdle, as does thetendency of my hair to choke Joshua in his sleep. The work, if it can even be called that, is easy for the most part. Dishes to wash, meals to cook, gardens to weed, fitted sheets to fold, children to amuse - simple stuff that makes the days go by. Josh gets the truly manly tasks: fixing roofs, unclogging drains, and mending dressers. I cook for shamanistic workshop participants and giggle at the shaman's nose ring (raising the question; am I too young to be saying that "things just ain't what they used to be"?)
Today is our first of two days off - today we are lazing about in the sunshine and taking advantage of a few hours of empty-house, tomorrow we will bike to Chalkida and see if there are any cheap tents or wristwatches to be found. Then we will enjoy our last week of Sunshine, make our way to Athens and board another flight... Asia has come a-calling and we would soon feel too stagnant to be calling ourselves "travelers" if we stayed in Greece much longer. So Kuala Lumpur it is (or will be, come November 2nd) and as usual, I'm sure it won't feel real until the moment we realize we have arrived... And this, I hope to do on a deserted beach with the sun beating down on us; as we eat mangoes of trees and crouch over bowls of curry, shoveling it into our mouths with our hands; conceiving friendships born of language-barriers and laughter; and falling asleep under the stars after yet another day together.
Sappy? Yes, but... You only live once. And so we are living.
Love,
Dewi and Josh
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Hitching Istanbul to Chalkida - Seventy-two hours.
This is where point-form commences because this is where hours start to blend into one another and sleeping four - let alone eight - consecutively becomes virtually impossible.
Lose my wallet somehow when departing Gate 13 of Gatwick Airport, Istanbul-bound. Meet a 22 year old man on the plane who is going home to see his mother and sisters for the first time in 15 years. Arrive in Sabiha Gokcen airport with absolutely no idea where we are going. An officious, loud man demands Josh pay for a visa. To this day, we have no idea how much it actually cost us in Canadian dollars. Men at the phone-card booth feed us bread sticks and joke about making me fat. A friendly man with an adorable daughter helps us make a call to Canada. Follow the legible street signs and get on the highway. The first driver to "pass" us thumbing slows down and teaches us about Turkish hospitality. Drives us around for two hours, calls his friend on the phone who speaks English to help us communicate, takes us to meet another friend who speaks English and then to his steel factory where he gets food delivered for us and tries to talk us into taking a bus to Greece. Giggle at the sight of his seven half-clad Russian workers which causes them to duck out of view. Finally, our new friend drops us off at a truck stop where we can catch a ride with a trucker.
Stop in at a gas station across the street looking for a map and make more friends. The man and girl working at the gas station have no map, but feed us cookies and drinks instead. They joke with us and we talk using freetranslation.com for at least an hour. The man offers to let us sleep in his office overnight as there are no trucks going to Greece before nightfall. Calls his friend on the phone who speaks English and Josh tries to get our points across. Drink cup after cup of "chai" with men at the stop and eat the most tender, delicious buns ever tasted. Thick haze of smoke as everyone in Turkey has a cigarette lit at all times. Night falls and we catch a ride with a man headed to Edirne, the closest town to the Greek/Turkish border on his route.
Spend all night awake in a Turkish diner making friends with the employees. Language barriers prove to be no problem, eternally grateful for the Turkish-English phrases we copied at Gatwick. Sun rises and one of their friends drives us closer to Edirne, which we then walk into. Classic Turkey, all old men sitting around smoking, drinking chai and dressed too well to explain. Horse and cart combinations on the street, visit a beautiful mosque where an ancient lady jokes with us. Meet an eighty-year-old German man who invites us to lunch only to tell me he hasn't gotten laid since his wife died five months earlier and talk ceaselessly about his "schwanz" once he has sent Josh to check the menu. Get a ride out of Edirne to the border with two old German men who take us out for tea, where one of them hops into a truck and disappears. Leave Turkey astounded by the incredible hospitality, certain to return.
Cross into Greece - the border patrol officer is the spitting image (both physically and in temperament) of the young war hero in "Inglorious Basterds." Quaint Greek border town where an old man feeds Josh and I grapes from his garden, then his friend (another German!) drives us to the next town. Eat some bread - staple of our journey thus far as it is so cheap - and hitch a few more rides - the last with a Turkish trucker - 'til we make it to just outside of Thessaloniki. Spend the night wandering the highway in search of the right direction, only to fall asleep in a dirt field looking up at Greece's eight stars. Wake up bright and early only to find hitchhiking in Greece far less easy than in Turkey. Eat some spanakopita in the sketchy dirty junkie district of Thessaloniki, meet a woman at the bank who speaks perfect English and gives us 10 euro from her own pocket to get to another bank where we can change money since she "doesn't want us walking." Realize that in urban Greece, the women love their fake blonde hair, sunglasses and pancake make-up. See some of the biggest behinds we have ever witnessed. Already, Greece = unforgettable.
Catch a ride from Thessaloniki with Terry, a very outspoken typical New Yorker, "Brooklyn-Style baby." Gives us an unofficial tour from the car. We see Mount Olympus, and many other ancient landmarks, all through the haze of his constant cigarette (and etc.) smoke. He gives me a David Sedaris book, ao appreciated. Drops us off in Volos after relaying many terrifying tales, where we eat lunch and finally cave, giving into the lure of cheap train tickets to Chalkida. Train all night with the most ludicrous snoring man, bus onto Evia early this morning. Two minutes of internet left, so that is all as we make our way to Sunshine House and the promise of a good night's sleep.
Love to everyone,
Dewi and Josh
Lose my wallet somehow when departing Gate 13 of Gatwick Airport, Istanbul-bound. Meet a 22 year old man on the plane who is going home to see his mother and sisters for the first time in 15 years. Arrive in Sabiha Gokcen airport with absolutely no idea where we are going. An officious, loud man demands Josh pay for a visa. To this day, we have no idea how much it actually cost us in Canadian dollars. Men at the phone-card booth feed us bread sticks and joke about making me fat. A friendly man with an adorable daughter helps us make a call to Canada. Follow the legible street signs and get on the highway. The first driver to "pass" us thumbing slows down and teaches us about Turkish hospitality. Drives us around for two hours, calls his friend on the phone who speaks English to help us communicate, takes us to meet another friend who speaks English and then to his steel factory where he gets food delivered for us and tries to talk us into taking a bus to Greece. Giggle at the sight of his seven half-clad Russian workers which causes them to duck out of view. Finally, our new friend drops us off at a truck stop where we can catch a ride with a trucker.
Stop in at a gas station across the street looking for a map and make more friends. The man and girl working at the gas station have no map, but feed us cookies and drinks instead. They joke with us and we talk using freetranslation.com for at least an hour. The man offers to let us sleep in his office overnight as there are no trucks going to Greece before nightfall. Calls his friend on the phone who speaks English and Josh tries to get our points across. Drink cup after cup of "chai" with men at the stop and eat the most tender, delicious buns ever tasted. Thick haze of smoke as everyone in Turkey has a cigarette lit at all times. Night falls and we catch a ride with a man headed to Edirne, the closest town to the Greek/Turkish border on his route.
Spend all night awake in a Turkish diner making friends with the employees. Language barriers prove to be no problem, eternally grateful for the Turkish-English phrases we copied at Gatwick. Sun rises and one of their friends drives us closer to Edirne, which we then walk into. Classic Turkey, all old men sitting around smoking, drinking chai and dressed too well to explain. Horse and cart combinations on the street, visit a beautiful mosque where an ancient lady jokes with us. Meet an eighty-year-old German man who invites us to lunch only to tell me he hasn't gotten laid since his wife died five months earlier and talk ceaselessly about his "schwanz" once he has sent Josh to check the menu. Get a ride out of Edirne to the border with two old German men who take us out for tea, where one of them hops into a truck and disappears. Leave Turkey astounded by the incredible hospitality, certain to return.
Cross into Greece - the border patrol officer is the spitting image (both physically and in temperament) of the young war hero in "Inglorious Basterds." Quaint Greek border town where an old man feeds Josh and I grapes from his garden, then his friend (another German!) drives us to the next town. Eat some bread - staple of our journey thus far as it is so cheap - and hitch a few more rides - the last with a Turkish trucker - 'til we make it to just outside of Thessaloniki. Spend the night wandering the highway in search of the right direction, only to fall asleep in a dirt field looking up at Greece's eight stars. Wake up bright and early only to find hitchhiking in Greece far less easy than in Turkey. Eat some spanakopita in the sketchy dirty junkie district of Thessaloniki, meet a woman at the bank who speaks perfect English and gives us 10 euro from her own pocket to get to another bank where we can change money since she "doesn't want us walking." Realize that in urban Greece, the women love their fake blonde hair, sunglasses and pancake make-up. See some of the biggest behinds we have ever witnessed. Already, Greece = unforgettable.
Catch a ride from Thessaloniki with Terry, a very outspoken typical New Yorker, "Brooklyn-Style baby." Gives us an unofficial tour from the car. We see Mount Olympus, and many other ancient landmarks, all through the haze of his constant cigarette (and etc.) smoke. He gives me a David Sedaris book, ao appreciated. Drops us off in Volos after relaying many terrifying tales, where we eat lunch and finally cave, giving into the lure of cheap train tickets to Chalkida. Train all night with the most ludicrous snoring man, bus onto Evia early this morning. Two minutes of internet left, so that is all as we make our way to Sunshine House and the promise of a good night's sleep.
Love to everyone,
Dewi and Josh
Friday, October 2, 2009
Vancouver - London - Istanbul?!
Five minutes of internet time at Gatwick and the truth is we have never been more ready to leave a city in our lives. London has essentially ripped us both new assholes by charging us in every way possible for everything possible. Our initial plans to travel to Greece have been foiled by crazy prices... We just purchased tickets to Istanbul instead. We are flying out tomorrow morning at 6:30 A.M. and looking very much forward to the Middle East! Until then, some more beautiful hours will be spent trying not to annihilate our funds in this country and giving Josh a new haircut.
Love,
Josh and Dewi
P.S. from Josh:
(Mother, don't worry. Opium is not as prevelent in Turkey as it is in Laos. Love you!)
Love,
Josh and Dewi
P.S. from Josh:
(Mother, don't worry. Opium is not as prevelent in Turkey as it is in Laos. Love you!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
