You shall know, by inhabiting

Taking this back for a second, this entry from my notes of the first night.

October 31 (first night in the house)
On the screened porch. Chilly, but with wine, cigarettes and candle. Feel like a lucky interloper in a space not yet mine.

The traffic on 9G's quieted.
Carrie Haddad (former owner) just called - distressed to reach me at her number.
I told her they'd switch the landline soon.
She said, “I hope so.” And hung up.
Hard to like a woman/former owner who leaves an oven so grease-coated I can't begin to see through the window. Hard to warm.

Enjoying first night. Now. Now that I've unravelled a can opener out of the “Cutlery” box in the no-order barn and eaten soup from the can.

Rusticating. Wish I'd pioneer-ed properly and opened the soup with one of those “G” shaped blades rather than the OXO thing.
Vannessa D'aou on, no call from R yet.
Can hear the train but see no lights from here.
No headlights either, a relief. Hate to find they cross the front rooms like search lights.
From this evening, amidst my skeleton set-up of 2 tables, 3 chairs, 4 rugs – I'm enjoying the space.
Or, maybe, I'm enjoying putting things away.
Alba's “Congratulations Courtney” is on the slate board. Miscellaneous candles lit throughout to dispel the sad staleness of Nick's (former owner) smoke.
He smoked with abandon the last few days of clean-up – he'd been relegated to the porch for the 20 years of inhabiting the house. I imagine I'd have too. Like a final pee for ownership.

With my few things on ledges and counters - soaps in the bathrooms, my saint and some books - it feels like we're (me + house) growing together. A little.
A dog would help. Even a fish might I imagine.

I feel like I've come through every ringer this last weekend. House + Circa Trade shop + car.

Probably the most dramatic for its actual danger angle was driving back tonight from the shop this afternoon.

Just past 4 I realized I was doomed. Witching hour, daylight savings – darkness sure to fall before I reached home. Nothing to do but, with good-byes, head to the car and steel for the drive south, home.

As I'd feared (hunched forward in tense anticipation of this new inevitable), I passed my driveway. Surprise, it comes upon you, surprise you're already past it.
I pulled off onto the narrow slope of land tween 9G and my fence, tilted askew and blinker still going, and sat.
And thought – what would the seasoned driver do?
Cars passed. I sat. Hazards? Get out? Continue to next place to turn? Not sure if my reversing would freak out everyone and was the ONE thing you do not do as a driver.

(Note to self: Put big, bright, flashing lights on the barn. So I can see my target well in advance of over-shooting it.)

Can't sleep – continuing notes from the library floor atop high pile carpet, below comforter.
Feel fine now. Solved the bump in the night of the dryer buzzer. Callas only audible on the high notes.

Have realized why I'm drawn to buying properties then inhabiting them (vs. flipping).
It mimics travel.
Same rush, the leap, and the first terror as you come in low over an entirely new terrain that has no shred, yet, of you marking it. From the initial fear (it looks so gray, it could be any city, New York's finer), there's the why bother, how terrifying. And, for the most part, the terrains are indistinguishable (from the air) anyway. Hardly worth the effort, stay home.
But.

You will know it by inhabiting it.

Save for sleep-away camp (though with hearsay and a brochure), I can't recall anything akin to the new home's leap into a life unknown.
(Even prep school had trial overnights with friend's older siblings, and college was an overflow of opinions, information, reputations and, again, the siblings). Even a car you may rent, read about, test, lease and borrow so as to know.

But, the largest of all commitments financially and impact-fully (discounting marriage, which does allow for test-drives, pre-nups and other back alleys), can only be known by inhabiting.

I can hear the train. It's tracing the Hudson's course a mile to my house's west.
(Will I live hear so long I know its direction by its whistle?)
And there's a plane – to Albany? North from the city on an arctic route?
And now a dog (whose?)
Traffic's thinned (thank god). Now just every few minutes.

I had to unplug the stove. A 1970's model baffling in its electronics. With a buzzer eternally set to a clock that circled back (eternally) to 4:11.

There are, indeed, NO lights out back. Which means (now I realize), I have no neighbors (just the road + frequent passers-by). If only I could shift my house from the road too and confirm our isolation by picking up our skirts and, showing some leg, and moving just west and inwards.

There's no guarantee of a clean oven even. For $411,000 you aren't guaranteed a clean oven.
Further: the light switches will be distributed irrationally (front door lights behind/within door of study), or askew, or link to nothing you can see.
Windowsills (between glass + frame) are strictly as is: peeling paint, abandoned pupa, residue of mowings.
The shower may/may not retain the worst sort of vestiges of owners past (and beneath the seat too).

For $411,000 you still get:
someone's last noodle, kidney bean, in the kitchen drain strainer.
The shower head dribbles and the brown (caulk, tub, faucets) will not just scrub.
No one looked behind the fridge, beneath the stove, at the far corners of the cabinets. There are still traces. No getting around, the house retains.

And here on the library floor (literally), I can now attest that no one painted the rough undersides of the pine shelves. You can see the coverage thin as they descend below eye-level.
The dog's hair won't come out from between floor and molding.
There's a Goosebumps sticker on one of the boy's room light switches. With finger nails and polish remover, I can just get it off but there will be residue.
The ceiling fixtures (did I not see them??), are ghastly. They represent an economy-sized generic that I'm now seeing throughout the house. Everything left behind is enormous, nameless, big box (to the 10 gallon bran + raisin box used for a BB target on the lower lawn). This “arty” couple I bought from was (pull back the curtain), cheap and updates were done on weekends, by hand and, possibly, decades ago. The rust was allowed to take, the contagion of brown across the dryer's top allowed to spread, the contact paper to shrivel back from its original points of contact.

It's all tired, old houses do get tired. Why would someone pass on a house without some decay, rot at its edges.

But, really, new home buyer addressed:
Would all this knowledge have changed anything?

No, no I'm sure not.

For, like travel after all. Can only know by inhabiting and so, by the process, know just a little more of the self.

C - now on the cusp of second month of ownership.

Carhart vs Babour

At the Far Hills Steeplechase Saturday - a muddy-medley of cultures colliding at the porta-potties; there only incidentally for the love of horses, most for betting, all for the drinking.

The majority gathered under one-room tents, a pick-up flanking the enclosure's back-side and ramparts of beer cases. This was a drinking event first-and-foremost - tail-gating vs race-attending. Clothing was utilitarian, layered, Carhart.

Atop the hill, the event's sponsor, Mercedes, had a series of wedding tents with garlanded chairs. Inappropriately-dressed corporate invitees listed into the sodden ground with drinks clenched. In a location farthest from the races, the horses – the sponsors indicated only a passing interest in the event. Within the Mercedes compound, the gathered turned away from the action, inwards around the bar in uncomfortable clutches.

Middle-tier were the country-folk: feigning squiredom in wellingtons and barbour jackets, patina-ed, range rover-driving, and implying authentic with every single malt, wishing they could just loose the hounds and be done with everyone else. These were the people of the tent R had been invited to - a corporate sponsorship of long enough standing (it appeared) that we were, in fact, there for the racing and actually track-side). The tent split itself nicely between the busy work of warming by drinks and watching the races themselves.

Steeplechase means the horses jump (over streams, hedges and gates). We saw some of this. Thrilling seeing the horses, the jockeys in their colors and skinny bow legs, the bugle call to start. I dressed silly/faux-equestrian part for the day and, for a few hours, was that Greenwich-girl who'd segued from horses to tennis to field hockey to just plain being insufferable, but with a wardrobe for every sport.

Fun, muddy, involving horses, red blazers and not at all like other Saturdays.


Now to learn to ride.


C

Juxtapositions, and other cultural contrasts

From The Parachute Artist: Have Tony Wheeler's guidebooks traveled too far?, Tad Friend, The New Yorker, April 18, 2005

“Even Lonely Planet, however, hasn't figured out a way to market its epiphanies other than by using the impoverished language of travel writing.

And so 'palm-fringed beaches' and lush rain forests and other 'sleepy backwaters' are invariably counterpoised against 'teeming cities' with their 'bustling souks'. Every region has a 'colorful history' and a 'rich cultural tapestry'.

And every place on earth is a 'land of contrasts'. As the Arabian Peninsula guide observes, 'Bedouin tribesmen park 4WDs alongside goat hair tents; veiled women chat on mobile phones while awaiting laser hair removal,' and so on.”

And from the latest LP Bulgaria:

"Bulgaria has changed swiftly over the last decade, though in the villages you can still find folk who ride the donkey to work, eat homegrown potatoes and make their own cheese. The difference now is that they wash it all down in front of a satellite TV."

C - in Starbucks on the upper west and observing altogether too little contrast

Rabidity is hokum

Little recently update-worthy on my upstate house purchase (in Germantown - can't claim Clermont). Inactivity on my end, and frantic packing on the owner's as they extract 20+ years of themselves.

I imagine they've been turned inwards for the past few months but, with our closing (minus key turnover) this Friday, a finality's seized the packing household and my spectre: owner/outsider, has entered the picture.

Suddenly, like parents assessing a child before the first day of pre-school, they've stepped outside their beloved home. To follow is an email I received from the husband-owner: a catalogue of the house's quirks so that the one-soon-in-the-world will find the transition smooth.

It reads like a love letter.

Dear Courtney,
Rather than burden everyone, especially you at the closing, and at the risk of me appearing overly emotional, there are a few things I think you should know about the house, barn and yard.

The barn, which I understand you are considering renovating, has a healthy returning colony of migratory bats. This is a very good thing, but not so if you have intentions of using the barn to display merchandise. Bats are more responsible for the pollination of fruit trees and flowers than bees, believe it or not as well as eating mosquitoes and other biting insects, as such we have very few of them. Rabidity is hokum, more chance of that with raccoons. I would suggest that once renovation starts you can coax the bats out of the barn with the simple addition of a bat box outside. I'd be happy to tell you how, as odd as this may seem, I belong to a conservation group specifically devoted to bats.

The large black locust in the front yard has a thriving honey bee hive in the lower trunk. It has been there almost 10 years and if not disturbed will be there for 10 more. Plus the smell is pure heaven when you get close. They don't sting either, just busy at what they do.

I'd also suggest putting up bird feeders front and back. During the winter the pine trees, lilac and forsythia are home to hundreds of cardinals, doves, chickadees, sparrows, titmouses etc. They come back every year and without us to feed them the winter can be very hard. Also they are delightful to watch, as you probably know already.

Second to last, there are 2 laid up stone wells, one off to the right of the burning/ compost area. Good to use if you plan a garden. The other is right off the front doors of the barn at the base of the apple tree. Should you plan on bringing water into the barn, that well would provide all that you would need. A shallow well pump is all that would be necessary.

Should you want to dig a small pond the area to the west of the barn below the brush line has water at about 2' so a pond would be an easy project. The clay below assists in the lining.

Short of that, we'll see you at the closing, and thanks for being patient with this note.
Regards,
N

C - overwhelmed + pro-bat

Palette cleansed, by art

Don't want to leave the blog (weekend off line) with the bitter taste of sartre and smoking.

So, a palette-cleansing Bulgarian Icon painter.

My favorite (because he looks like an Edward Gorey figure), and the most famous (R said). The esteemed Zahari Zograf (I believe, my translation from Cyrillic on museum ticket).

He was on the 100 leva note until, unceremoniously, in 1999 being replaced by Aleko Konstantinov. Writer (of modern life) trumps artist (of religious scenes and saints). Progress marches on.

We went to a gallery full of his works (icons all) in Old Plovdiv. A few funny moments of him modeling some better known saints on his own face + figure but otherwise entirely un-hubristic and rich stuff.

Here's to weekend.

C

Thursday's Bulgaria post

Meeting of modes, Koprivshtitsa Bulgaria.

The day's Bulgaria post (working through a little notebook).

Sofia, Aug. 24
Emerging from his parent's apartment block, first day, I comment to R that the air smelled like wood smoke.
R replies,“Everyone's roasting peppers.”
When I look at him, incredulous, he adds, “or possibly making compote.”

C, impressed

Of Plovdiv

Entry to Hindliyan House, Old Plovdiv

Notes to get through, Bulgarian moments to share.

Realize I have near nothing up yet on Plovdiv - Bulgaria's second capital of classical ruins (an amphitheatre even), Byzantine churches, mosques and very handsome houses of Bulgaria's mid-18thc "National Revival Movement." (the photo depicts one).

The highlight of the city (for tourists - wouldn't make a claim for locals), is the Old Town. As one'd expect (or as I expected having read a lot and tried pitching Plovdiv to a few magazines), it's all very charming and cobbled and well preserved, cafes tucked in, history come alive, galleries and jazz festivals and all good things.

We spent half a day but, with R's extreme diligence, managed most of the highlights, a coffee and an apricot nectar, a look around the rooms of a hotel I'd recommend, and a lot of pictures.

What we didn't get to see, but which draws me back - is the Plovdiv of old, the "colorfully Ottoman" Plovdiv of which Jasper More noted critically, but I'd argue, winningly:

"Narrow streets at night pervaded by a Stygian darkness and dingy looking billiard rooms where they smoke the narghile."

Now that's the town you'd want to visit (having brushed up on vocab beforehand.)

C (in this Stygian night)

How to stay: at a monastery

One of my guides mentioned you could spend the night at the Rila Monastery: for cheap, in a (monk-less) monk's room, linens included and with an early wake up call.

(The monastery is deep in the Rila Mountains (away from the Turks) and attracts hikers as well as sightseers. Its rooms-for-rent therefore cater to an entirely different crowd than the yoga-and-a-view monastic retreats of upstate New York.)

Intrigued, R and I plunge in to investigate. Like so many things in this country of enigmatic proverbs (In the summer bring clothes to the mountains, in winter bring food), the seeking was a journey, the answer simple but hidden, and the process utterly mystifying via English alone.

Aug. 26, Rila Monastery
Tried to track down information about staying at the monastery. No one on-hand to answer questions, no posted signs, so bothered the ticket taker behind the desk at the museum.

She directed us to Priest T___.

We seek him, eventually ending up back in the church where the candle/holy water lady starts to point him out (engaged in some matter at the altar) then, discerning that our need for a room is not immediate, answers the question herself: $15 a night.

You will find what you seek in Bulgaria but the answer may involve the lady behind the candle stand.

C

To the traveler

Today, via emails, reading and the mail, has themed itself "travel." (Even as I sit at my kitchen table and contemplate packing up apartment.) Travel in the BIG/romantic, seeking, calling on the ghosts-of-great-wanderers past, sense.

A friend sent the following quote - treasure-able for many reasons, not the least as one more passage about Marco Polo (must be an archive, somewhere).

"Further on comes the desert of Lob: a stony plain, tiers of clay precipices, glassy salt ponds...In this desert are preserved traces of an ancient road along which Marco Polo passed six centuries before I did: its markers are piles of stones. Just as I had heard in a Tibetan gorge that interesting drum-like roar which had frightened our first pilgrims, so in the desert during the sandstorms I also saw and heard the same as Marco Polo:

"the whisper of spirits calling you aside"

and the queer flicker of the air, an endless progression of whirlwinds, caravans and armies of phantoms coming to meet you, thousands of spectral faces in their incorporeal way pressing upon you, through you, and suddenly dispersing.

In the twenties of the fourteenth century when the great explorer was dying, his friends gathered by his bedside and implored him to reject what in his book had seemed incredible to them - to water down its miracles by means of judicious deletions; but he responded that he had not recounted even a half of what he had in fact seen."

V. Nabokov, Dar/The Gift pp. 124, 5.

(Photo's mine, of Gandaki Valley, Nepal)

C - thinking big thoughts, living local

Sorting through

Bulgaria house-cleaning to do.

On the physical end of things: bought books, took notes, bothered locals and amassed a stack of unsorted stuff (should be a word for ____ that returns with you from a trip and is neither trash nor knickknack nor incorporate-able into life-before-trip).:

A small bottle of Rila Monastery holy water (1 lev.)
A severely bound book called The Bulgarians that introduces, among other gems, the theory that: Europe would be speaking Turkish had the Bulgarians not "barred their entry with their blood, faith and freedom."
Menus stolen from restaurants (research).
A box I found in the sweets section of the supermarket which R says is Turkish delight (Bulgarian delight that would be).
Postcards of icons and murals I couldn't photograph but will never send.
Tickets from museums in Cyrillic which I can't read but find pretty.
Business cards.

Can't do much about all of that but put in a box and label.

The other stuff - the notes and thoughts and quotes - will have to be interspersed throughout later posts.

Stay tuned Bulgaria-watchers, she has not yet sung.

C

You say progress, I say...

This from my nostalgic Blue Guide to Bulgaria.

On the Grand Hotel (now reinvented c/o Radisson as a non-descript business hotel with a sheer face of dark glass.)

“The Grand Hotel Sofia is a fine gloomy old place that offers cavernous, dusty and slightly sinister rooms with vast armchairs and velvet plush curtains...
There is a nightclub downstairs that is much used by visiting Greek businessmen.
The bar is popular with ex-communist functionaries and is a place for connoisseurs of old party chic.”

Later, Pettifer gamely notes:

"Although the gangster's often lethal quarrels should not deter the holiday visitor, it is a good idea to have some awareness of the power of these forces on Bulgarian society."

C

Photos of the trip

R: Captured, capturing me. Rila Monastery

Started into Susan Sontag's On Photography this weekend (heavy on the camera-as-gun thing but, still, thought-prodding), and am now self-conscious of this whole: must travel and capture with camera thing.

(Briefly.)

Which is precisely what I did in Bulgaria and am introducing here.

Without further ado, Bulgaria through a highly subjective lens, edited for content and heavy on photos of people only some of my readers will know.

Bulgaria Photos Here.
More substantive posts soon, promise.

C w. camera (capturing)

One of them

Bought this t-shirt in Sofia airport as we were leaving early Tuesday. Have worn pretty solid since (like the insrutablity of Bulgarian cyrillic, like blue).

Discovered wearing shirt doing Union Square errands today:
Hipster/inscrutable t-shirt types give you a second look, and some version of slacker-respect, for a t-shirt they don't get get but get.

C (inscrutable)

Of its people

Like many less-traveled lands, guides to Bulgaria are sparse and/or out-of-date. In his introduction to the excellent 1998 Blue Guide, Pettifer sites as precursors only the French 1993 Guide Bleu and “Frank Fox's pioneering, Bulgaria of 1909.”

As the sole author of the Blue Guide, John Pettifer is a historically thorough, extraordinarily opinionated, and chatty guide – in person perhaps an older gentlemen whose tastes run more towards academic and late nigts at casinos than tramping about Bulgaria's countryside. Pettifer, offers the following wisdoms (so that you might know the country, its people):

On Public Toilets
"Conditions vary from the adequate to the truly Ottoman."

On Nightlife and Relationships (oddly grouped)
"In family and heterosexual relationships, Bulgarians are generally broad minded, moderately hedonistic and tolerant." (Though Pettifer offers useful hints here on where to find prostitutes, conduct homosexual relations and, a little further on, find excellent pot: “Cannabis is becoming widely smoked by young people, and is easy to buy in most towns.”)

An indicator of just how sceptically the average Bulgarian holds the Roma (gypsies), this from a recent article in the paper:
Roma accused of inserting watermelons with horse pee in order to redden flesh.
(Of all things to accuse a group of.)

C - in Koprishtitsa, who had v. red watermellon for breakfast

On menu

For the most part (and depending on quantity of items ordered) Bulgarian food is intensely fresh and wholesome. I'd hazard that Bulgarians consume more fresh vegetables per capita than any other nation.

Lots of beefy red tomatos, cucumbers, feta cheese in enormous blocks, (famous) Bulgarian yogurt atop everything, enormous peaches that break into perfect halves...

As in America, the cheaper the reastaurant, the more pages in the menu. Here, the menus of more traditional places run to book-size - bound folios of 20 salad varieties, pork in many guises and the latter half of listings devoted to alcohol.

These items from a recent meal's menu:
Chicken leg in Monastery way in a pot (6 lev.)
Lamb in Gergyovski's Way (9 lev)
Cutlet in Viennese way
Hodge-Podge (mistranslated from “Mish-Mash”)
Monastery sheep yogurt (in a pot for souvenir) (3 lev)
Cheese in shop's way

Even R could not define all the "ways" but admired the specifications.

Emerging Bulgaria

Returning from charming village #x, drink/dine for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee, museums so piled high with gold and treasures they almost dull the senses, and speculate on buying farmhouses for less than $20,000, R and I circle back, in conversations, to speculate on why this land's so little known.

Discussing with R's friend's over beers, they offer the following theories:

Hurt by the British association with Great Uncle Bulgaria, star of the popular children's series, the Wombles.

Princess Diana's apparently infamous quote that, when depressed she felt, “lower than a cockroach in Bulgaria."


Ambiguous gender status of Bulgaria's most famous exports – wrestlers. Not helped by Bulgaria's representative team that marched the circle at the most recent Olympics – dour, beefy and genderless to a one.

And, of course, it has a funny name.


I foresee big things. The little land that roared...


C

Koprivshtitsa: all the pretty houses

A breathing town of horse carts and old fellows gathered to breakfast on beers. Also happens to be a well-preserved oasis of cobbled streets and historic houses (of poets, revolutionaries, painters).

In Oleskov's House, a tax collector and (therefore) one of the town's wealthiest, the interiors were intact, down to the dancing lady of the house.

The women's room - alotted to gossip and spinning, the men's kitted with tea trays and caraffes. Communal rooms (mostly gender neutral) fitted with long couches, carpets layered over broad plank pine floors and linen curtains. Walls are painted in deep shades of red, ochre and royal blue and trimmed in chalky white frames. The ceilings are carved wood.

Alpine-Balkan, if I had to name.

Would I live in Koprivshtitsa?

A town the size of a matchbox where winter lasts 9 months?

In a bulgarian second.



C

Monks and monasteries

Seems there's more than a casual link between the countries I've chosen for visits this year.

Won't question the why, but monasteries are emerging as a strong motif. Bulgaria's run through with fantastic ones, well preserved and still active atop mountain perches (the better to hide from the Turks). And, Sikkim's are remote bastions of an earlier time.

Sikkim's monasteries slightly edging out Bulgaria's monk-wise. Bulgaria's monks = severe older gentlemen with long, whispy beards, souffle-hat to frock-covered toe in black.

Sikkims monks = largely smiling gentlemen in bright crimsons and yellows. And, NOVICE monks. (Haven't yet seen any cute black-robed lads here).

This one's the spectacular Rila Monastery, 2 hours via sporadically good roads from Sofia - past shepherds (have the Chilov family on high-alert spotting them), clusters of gypsies (now called Roma - PC), red roof-ed villages.

Pretty as a Bulgarian picture postcard.

Too easy to fall back on tattered-touristic metaphor of the old co-existing beside the new but, really, that's what we've got going on here.

I'm on WiFi, drinking tiny espresso, Barry White soothing brunch crowd puffing away around me. On the steps of the Alexander Nevsky Church a block away, the stooped and kerchiefed Roma ladies arrive by horse cart to sell flowers.

Bulgaria's going for it. Don't be the last on your block to visit.

C

Cardboard cars

Just another of our favorite things about Bulgaria.

Efficiently built, still running (albeit in the far right lane), cardboard cars (from East Germany). R reminded me there's a sequence that runs through Black Cat, White Cat: cows, roadside, steadily disemembering and consuming a Trebant as the film unfolds.

Hope to report much more soon - have seen (and photographed) so much that updates have fallen behind the Bulgaria-experience. (Plus, there will always be time to write.)

C in Bulgaria.

(Photo is of R in Plovdiv's Historic Old Town)

The little-known country that, according to my brusquely authoratative Blue Guide, would be on everyone's lips if only Lord Byron had choosen to write about it.

Of bears, Balkans and decorated twigs

A contact in Sofia sent me the website of Sofia's "TimeOut" equivalent. It's absolutely excellent, thorough, snappy.

But my favorite page lists the city's Exhibitions.

From which comes these two jewels, now topping our to-do's when R and I visit at month's end.

At the National Gallery of Fine Arts:
Art objects caught at the bulgarian customs
from 6 December (fri) until 31 May (wed)

And over at the National Museum of Natural History, just below the usual suspects of the permanent collection (minerals, rare crystals, insects, birds, amphibians, mammals, corals, herbs), this highlight:

Stuffed Brown Carpathian Bear
from 1 January (sat) until 31 January (tue)

The Bulgarian word for today requires two definitions:

Survakar: Boy who goes from house to house
wishing people a happy new year
by hitting them on the back with a survaknitsa.

Suvaknitsa: Decorated twig borne by a survakar.

Of course.

Bulgaria's won my heart.

C

Bulgaria or bust

"Creative Nation"

Blog woes continue - Blogger's not interested in my formatting issues so for archive/profile infrormation, to scroll way down.

In meantime, soldiering on with posts.

Photo above c/o R who's been diligently bugging Bulgarin-based contacts to help me with my travel article pitches.

Scenario:
I spend the day trolling about Bulgarian travel sites, deciphering Cyrillic to the extent I can determine a site's usefullness, mining my few Bulgarian travel guides.

Throughout day, with a concentrated flutter at the very end, I skype/email R with my latest finds.

R pesters friends (ostensibly on vacation, like the rest of Europe):
"Courtney's found X-hotel in X, is there anything similiar/newer/more newsworthy in Y?

And so it goes...
Got one live pitch out tonight. Will regroup tomorrow and work on more.

Bulgarian Word of the day:
Bashibazouks: Murderous bands of pomaks and Turks, employed to punish rebellions against th Ottoman Empire. Essentially, Turkish mercenaries...



Balkan-on-the-brain, c

Thracian Gold

Speedy becoming the Bulgaria blog.

But this is beautiful.

A Bulgarian archeologist shows a golden wreath of laurels, discovered late Saturday by his team while working working on excavations near the village of Zlatinitsa, some 290 kilometers (180 miles) east of the capital, Sofia Sunday, July 24, 2005. Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,400-year old golden treasure in an ancient Thracian tomb in eastern Bulgaria. The Thracians lived in what is now Bulgaria and parts of modern Greece, Romania, Macedonia and Turkey from 4,000 B.C. to the 8th century A.D., when they were assimilated by the invading Slavs.

It will be on display at the National Museum (Sofia) when we're there.

C

To soon, too soon

Sea in my ears, foxes cross my toes (he really did), blueberries 'neath my nails...GONE.

Gone to ineptitude and not-our-problem attitude of delta airlines. Gone in the face of a stale-smoke room in what was once - not so very long ago - a Howard Johnson's in Revere. Gone (dissipated) in the flux and flow of 6 am business travelers grasping at free Wall Street Journals and small cups of coffee.

So, by the time I'd made it to 60 Centre Street - Court House (City of New York) very big with scenic flight of steps, Maine was gone from my system. Tomorrow will tuck a balsam sachet behind my "juror's crossword puzzle" and sneak sniffs.

Am being considered for a civil trial of lady vs. dentist. Fine except that jury interviews (30 for 6) are being conducted by lawyer bent of dredging our dental horror stories. And since people do like to share , have heard tales of impacted molars and hideous family sagas of root canals gone wrong.

Girl to my left on the bench reading Orwell's Burmese Days. Damn. Every only-in-New York jury story comes rushing back.

Best part is this "cross section" thing - the people watching and the awkward lunch hour when we perch, lonely, on unfamiliar benches in unfamiliar parks.

Tomorrow: 9:15. In Maine they're distinguishing cormorants (seen above)from loons.

C

Fog

From DownEast Magazine: A section on fog entitled "In a Fog" - expert opinion:
July is the foggiest month, "Fog forms where warmer air hits cold water - the colder the water the more the fog."
Asked for predictions for the summer ahead:
"It's a good bet that the picture includes fog."

Fit for neither man nor

Each morning, 8 so far, Dad launches my day by slamming the screen door on his way in the kitchen.
Do I need milk from the market, have news since we last spoke (just before bed the night before) and have I heard about the weather.

Where a stretch of road or entire island can disappear in seconds, there's always time for talk of fog and fronts.

"Fit for neither man nor beast", dad hailed.

(When dad peppers his speech with archaic declarations, his day-to-day sweetness is tempered by a gruff timelessness.)

Truism born out. We got the tattered ends of the southern fronts which, in Maine-speak means shrouded neighbor 50 meters of beach away and a fire all day.

It also means fog-aligning one's senses and turning over the day's agenda to smaller things. Squatting on the beach for sea glass, starting in reading the sprawling library of the big house and then napping amidst it, running (under cover of fog, which makes me want to run low), minutes passed at the windows looking at the fog, discussing the fog, discussing tomorrow's fog.

And it will be foggy, all signs and almanacs say so. But we're dug in for it and I have a library to get through.

C

Rock, here, has no plan ever to be sand

Said Charles E. Wadsworth in The Coast of Maine

Essentially answers a question I'd been pondering - why the stone beaches and, really, will there come a time when they too turn to sand? Is sand then the "default" of the beach to which the majority have simply fallen to?

No - it will never turn - via will and glacial cicrcumstances, these beaches shall stay just as they are (thank you).

C

Seal, popovers and fireworks over Cadillac

I've packed my woolens and water-tights, a month's-worth of heavy hardcovers, party favors for 4th July (including stick-on bindi that spell out U S A in red white and blue sparkle dots), Lady Gray tea, printer, battery chargers, diary and glue stick.

Nice thing about Maine packing - nothing remotely strapless needed. No peasant skirts, no faux-indian tunics, no massive sunglasses. Same relief I felt packing for India/Nepal - if you can wear it every day, or every item at once, all the better.

Was thinking about those aspirational packing features in the glossy magazines and lifestyle catalogs like VIVRE. Following their lead, I would have turned to the classic preppy section of my closet (as distinguished from the boho st. barths or the glam ibiza sections) and piled my canvas duffels high with white linen pants, french sailor tops, espadrills, Fred Perrys.

There's a reason LL Bean is in Maine.

God I can't wait to be there.

C

Resenting return, reality

True-to-form, I'm back and grumpy. I'm annoying myself.

I'm sullen about re-immersion in modern culture, resentful that people call this city life living.

My beach, my silence and tide pools? Where's my mossed path and library of botany, geology, Lewis Carol and Chesterton's verse? Where's my damn view??

R has to deal with my trucculence - me flopping about, sniffing my balsam sachet like a smelling salt that will spirit me from this world back to that Maine one.

I emerge to civility, but not without wishing my apartment had view of rocky shores, that my move upstate was in a few days not months, and that Starbucks on 76th and Columbus would get socked in with fog.


C - feet on pavement, mind on the rocks

The hinderind gender

Crash the dreams and I reposition my sites on Sikkim, Bulgaria.

Mauritania and sub-sahara swathe not in my future. Dreams of burqua-ed travel with Mecca-bound crew that Trent dreamed up - POOF.

I volunteered; Trent's response:

"I mentioned bringing a still photographer to your father but we both agreed it would be irresponsible to bring a woman, burkha or none. Apparently the Tuareg are pretty accomplished rapists. Nice job, VW! Way to research!"

Maddening that in this day, age, it's still a hurdle.
The Mauritania/Tuareg hurdle may be among the worst "where you wouldn't like to be a woman" scenarios but it's never entirely smooth, no matter how enlightened the region (including the one out my window). For every charm-able policeman and jump-able line, there's the assumptions and the hassling and apalling propositions - propositions that, if made to the propositioner's own sister, would be a gauntlet thrown. In India, near-empty hotels turned me away - I would host gentlemen in my room, why on god's earth else would a woman travel solo and check in as one?

Because a lady likes to travel.


C - not stopping

Rio, reached

(Snazzy) business center, Copacabana Palace, 5th floor

A different universe than last trip. The plane flew down, down - looking like it would fall off its vertical path and spin out into the Atlantic. The (expensive) taxi ride in from the airport ran alongside a confident city - Rio's prettier, greener and more colonial than I'd imagined. The mountains are more magnificent, the shoreline more prominent and it feels like an urban center perfectly tailored to nicely fil-out its setting.

As is the Copa Palace, though perhaps not quite as justified to be - wedding cake pretty and lovingly illuminated at night. Check in lady giddy - not polished but brimming with the good news of our upgrade and the Easter weekend. Executive fifth floor feels haphazardly put together and the staff surprised with the duties they might be called onto perform - all except for the busiss-like caparina-making man who comes on in at 6pm. The remaining staff appear unmoored and/or harried and, likely as not, can be found chatting out of easy reach in the kitchen.
But when you do get one, the coffee is spectacular and Diet Cokes free. It's like an airline club lounge with the staff brought in from the check-in desk.

Our room is wonderful, disconcertingly double-height, massive bathroom and tv-in-the-chest.

Worked on Sikkim article by the pool yesterday - a setting surprisingly conducive to focused writing. R and I did the gym, the bar across from Cipriani's post dinner and actually left the pretty harbor of the hotel in the late evening for a dinner round the corner at an Italian place.

It's socked in and drizzly again today - torrentially pouring all afternoon and into the night yesterday. Good for my writing, lousy for tan.

Most significant impression - Brazilians can look like almost anything. For the first time in a long stretch of travels, I could pass as a native, till I open my mouth. But it makes for such a novel experience.

Must write. Must have a caparina.
C

In the upper right

Home Again

Starbucks on Greenwich,
with a tea. From the Tazo estates of Darjeeling - really?

The fellow beside me locked his laptop to the his chair and looped the cord around the pedestal of the table. And now the lock is stuck - he's going at it with wire cutters. His backpack is also locked - to the chair. "Lucky this time I didn't lock the jacket too" he said as he went out for the wire cutters. Remarkable. On an overnight train in India and he'd lash himself to the bunk.

Back in New York, almost a week now. Lots of pictures going up - so many more to come - but no writing. My road chattiness fades out on home turf. Which is a shame, still stories to tell so will cast back in the next few entries and cover ground too quickly gone over before.

News on the home front not huge - everything spun along without me. Catalogs massed, the plant on the kitchen table survived a month without water, R didn't go to the gym all that much but did photograph the Gates, and bring flowers to the airport, Cin and Ian got another month closer to the Argentinian departure, John and Nadine went to Arizona, Pam downstairs missed me, more tax crap came in the mail, new waitstaff faces at Schillers, bunnies and eggs in the Duane Reade windows. I can now wear different clothes every day, go to the gym, get enormous coffees on every corner, burn through $100 in a matter of days and I can't smoke anywhere, no matter how much I pay.

And March hasn't flipped us forward into Spring yet, still winter coats. But there's central heating throughout the city and infinite hot water.

Shrugging back into the clothes of a month ago and all of a sudden I was never away. You can fill the last month with anything. Today, from just now, circles back and can be seamlessly soldered to the today of my departure. And everything that's come in between exists in a time-out time that solo travel and time changes and foreign cultures allow.

From my plane notes:
This morning, thirteen hours away, doesn't seem possibly connected to the now of this flight. The thread back seems arbitrary, might stretch to any morning, and still it's too thin. Travel disrupts and propels us into a new, linear, open-ended space.

Realized why I like travel, why I specifically begin to feel my peace right at the start with the preparations that attend departure. They're ordained.

Passage through the airport is a relegated series of steps (when did they do away with departure customs?), choices for shopping, souvenirs limited but appropriate – over-priced but saved you a trip to Grand Central, in-flight reading is varied but in the scope of what a trip might warrant, and there's aspirational stuff as well. In the aerie blandness of Terminal 1 I can test the same perfumes and creams I try in Bangkok's duty free, re-familiarize myself with department store brands and heady claims. I can feel the separation from my New York self beginning, and the ties to this other mode of mine taking hold.

There's less possibility in the airport, still less to do and see on the plane itself. But the strictures of the space, the limited scope of what you can listen to and even eat, somehow free me to focus on the creative. I'm freed in a way the infinite of New York, my own apartment, friends and access to all manner of communication doesn't allow, seems to in fact insight the opposite – a closing down of my creative cells.

That's my big reflections for this Friday.

Hugs

C

Newari ladies

Chatting

Pots

Outside the temple

Mule Caravan to Musthang

"...just as there are plants
that primitive peoples claim confer
the power of clairvoyance,
so there are places endowed with such power."

- Walter Benjamin, Reflections

Mad mad world of duty free

Bangkok, airport timeless realm

Feel like there should be a seat with my name on it in this transitory realm of boxed orchids, Sang Thip flask bottles, Krong Thips by the carton (why ever?), silk elephants, tan Germans in flip flops and Thai business men with their pants rolled to their knees having foot massages.

I make my usual stops:
Buy a carton of Marlboro's with some guilt
Sample creams in front of a sales women who'd prefer to pretend you're not there than intervene in your plundering of tester bottles
Purchase thickest/cheapest paperback I can find (The Glass Palace)
Try to time a beer so I'll get sleepy as I settle into my window seat to Tokyo, not before the gate's called
Hatch idea: issue beepers to passengers checking in for late night flights.
Wonder about the pills sold in rubber-banded bundles and wonder if any are truly under-the-counter variety, and worth getting.
Wonder when I'll require an Hermes beach towel.
Check if my delayed flight is further delayed.

My Royal Air Nepal flight this morning was not, as I mentioned, actually this morning. Wise to check on RAN flights. They have but one plane and when it's gone for maintenance there you are, wishing you'd gone with the big brand not the romantic one.


C - of King Power Duty Free

Narita’s got free internet

Narita Aiport

Something so special you don't want to share. Except that there are terminals to spare. Yahoo-sponsored free internet, no time limits, no flashing ads and nice Toshiba laptops. The mouses are sponsored by VW.

But it's japan and so things are scaled tiny and, of course, the keyboard's not in english. Hit a key (not sure which) and keyboard launches anticipatory kanji. Shut down that window, opえｎ (see) another and back in business. Small pri背ce to pay.

No matter how delayed my flights have been - mornings, 3 hour stretches - still finding myself contented. I stroll the perfumes and study fellow passengers. The enjoyment is the entrapment, the zen is the severity of the limits - spatial, temporal - imposed.

Inspection of Asian packaging takes time, and to consider the candies. I have time to weigh Japan's packaging vis a vis Thailand's: the box of 12 things shaped like birds, the exclamation points.

Should just read my book but afraid to fall asleep at this point.


C - awake in Narita

Trekked, safe

Kathamandu, Thamel (backpacker ghetto but better stuff and no hair braiders)

I've trekked amazing scenery north of here - in the lower Mustang region that stretches up into Tibet. Have a farmer's tan by wind/sun and high altidude. Feet sore but pleased to be out of crappy boots, a little fitter and 700 photos documenting what I'd recommend with enthusiasm. I'd flatten anyone with enthusiasm.

It's a wonder of the world, scenery of dreams, medieval cobbled towns times, mule caravans with Tibetan saddles and bells round each, the world's widest river valley and not a soul in it. The less good but particular to my solo status: dal and rice beneath a single bulb - having admitted I had "no friends", the sun's sinking behind the peak at 6:30 and not a blessed thing to do for the rest of the cold evenings, damp chilled blanket and fear that flight out of the mountains from Jomson would be delayed by winds.

But no - safe, on schedule, back in Kathmandu, shopping completed, dinner with Nina tonight at Dwarika, then flight to Bangkok tomorrow am.

Pictures will be integrated once home.

C

Timeless crossing

"They are homeless
and therefore
they can make their homes anywhere."
Tagore, "Letter for Java"

Bouddha Nath

Kathmandu, Thamel

Nina and I up early to join devout walkers, Chinese garment vendors, and the yak butter sellers at the Boudhanath. Did a few rounds (tried not to bother the faithful with my camera but may have bothered a few), then a pot of masala chai high above in Heaven's View (gate? cafe?) - almost eyes to single eye. Flocks of pigeons laying claim to the stupa in the morning, big/small/old/teenage monks in throngs, in pairs, in deep thought or gossiping (monastery gossip?), very wonderful Tibetan ladies (love how they dress - try also not to bother them too much with the camera), and a man circling in a thick apron, prostrating every few steps. Kathmandu's enthralling at any hour. When we visited the stupha last night it felt like a of sacred Times Square, this morning? - maybe Grand Central with everyone revolving - both mind and body - around the central form.

Maybe.

Late yesterday afternoon fit in the Pashupatinath Temple, a scared Hindu shrine that houses a very very sacred lingam. Shrine itself, with cremation ghats along the river (dirty trickle) at its base, fascinating. But even better, coming up on an enormous sadhu festival in three days so the more enterprising of the ash-smeared, off-their-heads holy men had already set up camps. Hunkered around camp fires passing smokes, challenging stares and the adored focus of not a few westerners who squatted in their midst.

Will miss Asia very much. Hope it won't be long till I'm back. Perhaps with company even...

Love, travels, sadhus, sitars and oms.

C

Pokhara: West of Kathmandu

Pokhara

Me and not that many others here in the launch neighborhood of Annapurna treks. Lakeside Pokhara a strip so purely tuned into the every need, forgotten clothing item, yearning to reach back to home, to refill post trek, and chill of each backpacker, that I can't imagine having an independent whim, or course of action, here. In that way it's wonderful, but in that way I think (just yet) I prefer Sikkim's un-evolved trek status.

Pokhara - second city of Nepal, nested amongst mountains 10 times its height (it's at 2,700, all around peaks above 26,000' - none of which I could see today), has a pretty lake alongside of which most of the things touristic are perched, a few other dusty roads that head to "Damside", to the market, an airport (my arrival point) and not a lot else. Backpackers are granted a guilt free stop without cultural obligations. Town's modern, building's dull - and all that fake North Face gear is cool, the knit socks colorful, and the jewelry's not so very heavy to fit in the pack. If all of Bangkok were Kho San Road, or all of Kathmandu Thamel.

Flight tomorrow early, again on Cosmic Air, for Jomsom. Jomsom ends the flying portion of this short trip, and I start to move on the ground. I'll actually have just two nights in tea house/lodges and 3 days trekking but already feel glad for this brief intro to Nepal trekking. Just being here, seeing the development, set up of Pokhara, gives me a good balance vs. what I saw in Sikkim.

So, quiet this end till Thursday - but love and good karma sent out everywhere from the trail.

C

Without Boots

Up there with forgetting a passport or plane ticket, forgetting one's hiking boots as one prepares to fly to an Annapurna circuit start point ranks up there. My Dansko clogs - house shoes - had lulled my feet right out the door, right past my boots in the hallway. Look at all the other good trekkers on my flight - collapsible-aluminum walking sticks, North Face tip-to-toe and sturdy hiking boots. Me in clogs.

And trekkers abroad are a critical lot. Lots of eying - fleece (check), yellow pack (a bit small but North Face so check), stretchy, resilient-looking pants that appear sporty (check), yellow thread round wrist (some head-nod to Buddhism which is a big, though vague, check). Then they look down...I tuck my feet in shame.

UPDATE: Bought over-priced, under-padded hiking boots in Pokhara - sort of no-name, no-technology boots. You can buy everything in Pokhara, you can even rent a lot of things but not hiking boots if you have size 6 feet.

Oasis in the valley: coming into Kagbeni

"Kublai: I do not know how you have time to visit all the countries you describe to me. It seems to me you have never moved from this garden."

Calvino, Invisible Cities.

School-bound, Thini, Nepal

Nepal's Okay

Khatamandu, Nina's Apartment (not a cafe at all)

Was one of just two foreigners on my Indian Air flight here. Tail end of low season but still, can't be good or normal for Nepal's tourism. Nina and boyfriend Lobsang met at quiet airport and transition from solo travel to well-looked-after house guest made with ease. Have my own bedroom, an 8 minute shower's worth of hot water, internet on Nina's laptop, filtered water on tap in the kitchen and access to Nina's thorough library of travel books. Also, advice and perfectly tailored travel plans via her travel agents around the corner from the palace. Highly recommend Nina's - plus, no other backpackers and not yet listed in LP.

Calm all around - only signs of tension are the blue camouflaged (invisible in where??) armed police with enormous guns all around the city. And the lack of tourists where I assume there were once many. Because it's a calmer, cleaner and emptier city than Calcutta, and this my first visit, Kathmandu appears in deceptively excellent shape to me. I'd have declared Calcutta the emergency region...

But then you hear the stories. Went to a friend of Nina's birthday last night, lots of development people previously stationed in the outlying regions now in the city, waiting. Not sure how long they'd be stuck in Kathmandu, when they could return safely to abandoned rural posts. I couldn't book a flight to Pokhara today because, with the Maoists blocking all the roads, airlines are swamped with all who would previously have traveled by road.

The Annapurna trek-segment starts tomorrow with night in Pokhara. Monday AM flight to Jomsom and then a three day tea-house trek from there. Nina says it's one of the very few truly safe pockets in the country right now. There and close in to Everest. Apparently, Nepalis in those regions well enough off economically via tourism, and I guess attentions from high up, that they've spurned the Maoists for the time being - not let them in to meddle, and so remain pockets (beautiful ones) of calm.

So- I'm safe, Nina and friends are safe, but the mood is anxious. Even the very old timers - dug in from Peace Corp postings in the '60's, or harvesting pot since the '70's -- are getting nervous, wondering how far the collapse will go. Such a shame - this really does seem like a remarkable place. Mad I've left it till now to get here. Those very familiar with the country report how much it's changed and none say for the better. Kathmandu continues to get crowded, the narrow roads fill, as the rest of the country flees from desperate and economically impossible regions and lives.

Much love from Kathmandu to all still checking in. Bars are still open (amazing jazz bar - serves momos and music fantastic: http://www.kathmandujazzfestival.com/), prices for prayer flags and Tibetan tea bowls in Thamel are negotiable and the best hotels have all halved and quartered their rates. And it's warm during the days in the Kali Gandaki valley, and nights are fleece weight.

C

Backwards Looking

"'And why are ruins beautiful?' he asked.
'And what is beauty? Is it the cloak of God.'"

Ackerly, Hindoo Holiday

Bumiraz (porter) reads his journal, Jharkot

Northern prayer flags, Yumthang Valley Sikkim

"Be ahead of all departure, as if it were
behind you like the winter that's just passed.
for among winters there's one so endlessly winter
that, wintering out, your heart will really last.

Be dead forever in Euydice - rise gain, singing
more, praising more, rise into pure harmony.
be here among us the vanishing in the realm of entropy,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be - and at the same time know the implication
of non-being, the endless round of your inner vibration,
so you can fulfill it fully just this once.

To nature's whole supply of speechless, dumb,
and used up things, the unspeakable sums,
rejoicing, add yourself and nullify the count."

Rilke, "Sonnet 13"

Sealdah Station, Calcutta

The Descent

Left Darjeeling yesterday afternoon, miserably fortified by a horrendous pot of coffee on the deck of the Windamere. Did have a good gawk at hotel's prominently arrayed colonial-era invites, Agha Khan bar chits, elaborate seating plans and b&w photos of ladies smoking cigars.

Road down to the plains a journey through the clouds. Cows appear and fade away. A monk emerges from a gray puff. As we descend into Ghoom, the Toy Train's steam mixes with the mist and for a few seconds we're entirely engulfed.

The outer edge of visibility is the distance markers appearing at the road's edge: Kurseong 27, Siliguri 62 (pause).


Darjeeling, I understant, is appealing for what it doesn't encourage. It's chilly so you want to be inside. There's no central heating so you'll want a fire. And if the insides are chilled...It's a napping, fireside, sipping tea evolving into hot toddies sort of town. With an excellent bookstore and the occasional great view.

Down through the inane signs

HURRY BURRY SPOILES THE CURRY
LOOKING FOR SURVIVAL, DO NOT BELIEVE IN FAST ARRIVAL
GENTLEMEN PLAY, NOT FLY

And then the welcomes from the tea estates: Margaret's Hope down through TAZO.

The NJP Station is less intimidating than those of larger Indian cities. The beggars are smaller, less aggressive and familiar from arrival, the waiting room is open to the air, the army's present (there's a big base nearby) so there's a sense of security with the tall, natty MPs striding about. The passengers - waiting, arriving, departing - seem more families than sketchy individuals. More bedrolls than baskets of live chickens and jute sacks.

One sobering note, left of snack counter, a big sign:
DO NOT CONSUME ANY EATABLES OFFERED BY STRANGERS
THE TEA/COFFEE BOUGHT FROM VENDORS MAY EVEN BE DRUGGED

It's almost a relief to be back on the plains, or is it the return to heat? Or maybe just too long at high altitudes. Everything seems more relaxed and, in an India manner, straightforward. Which is odd, as there's nothing remotely A to B in India. Maybe it was the Princess Hope pressures (how to behave with royalty is new), bafflement at the allegiances and tensions within the Sikkimese population, confusion with which of the monasteries was supporting which reincarnation, making sure to circle clockwise, and trying hard to make the monks smile.

And I was cold most of the time. Almost never entirely naked until the warmth of my Windamere room.

Back up shortly, Nepal next.

Love to all,

C

Silence Broken, Darjeeling

DARJEELING- Glennary's Cafe

Internet + Sikkim = maybe yes/perhaps not sort of thing. Yesterday was a no - not anywhere in town, not in the offices - reason? No idea - no one else did either.

Got a brief call into R in the eve from Princess Hope's cell on her driveway. R with coffee, briefcase and in elevator, and my end of the connection vague but still, nice to make contact.

But, returned to the mostly on-line world of Darjeeling a few hours back. For a treat, checked into the Windamere. Which will be nicely balanced by a second class, non AC seat (not sleeper) to Calcutta tomorrow night. One night of Brit Raj hangover - fire lit in the room at 5:30, high tea.

madame, your goodname?
You are bachelor?
What country you are coming from?

Will revel in the Victorian room, air the socks by the fire, recharge laptop and cameras, take a BATH in a clawfoot tub and prepare for a night on the Uttar Banga. From Calcutta station to airport - then Nepal! Nina's planning a trek Jomson-Kagbeni-Muktinath-Jomson (new to me). Have been so focused on Sikkim will need to read up on Nepal pronto.

Pooped from arrival but energy returning via emails from R (fantastic ones), coffee and thrill of reaching out to the world again, newspapers...

Last night, three Bengali couples also at the Potala Hotel, invited me - via management - to a party they were throwing in a windowless room on the ground floor. Tore myself from bed and Nat Geo Mummies show thinking I might be in for some fun, food, good times.

Three sober couples, jiggle dancing to Bollywood toons dj-ed by a hotel staff member. And me. 20 mins in - neither food, beer, nor talk of a larger group - I bowed and thank you'd my way back to my bed.

Little Hope came round the hotel at 5:30 this morning to walk me around the hill top Palace and royal Temple.
Little Hope is a bit of a rockstar for Gangtok's old-timers taking their own constitionals. They remember her father the king, she's named for her mother the queen. She carries her lineage with real grace, greets her well-wishers even as she remembers her childhood to me.

We encountered Mr. Dong en route, advisor to Sikkim's Tourism Minister. LH did a gracious intro but I was bleary and not at all sure what one asks a sub-tourism minister. Whether to take the attack - why so many permits!? why such crappy roads! why do you let horrendous pink cement buildings be built on top of century-old cottages!!? Or take the gentle route and praise this little land, his precarious dominion, this India-ruled slip of a state where his power could only be dwindling. Did neither well and I think Mr Dong left a little baffled, but promising to personally look into permits for the northwest when I return though cautioning, "Indian bureaucracy nothing like the British version".

Little H and I parted ways at the head of the toe path down to Tibet Road. Inauspiciously (it seemed to me), we stopped at the gaping back of open meat truck, a fellow making a delivery of 5 cow carcases.

My Jeep companions to Darjeeling an annoying foursome of Bengali tourists. Nattering on cell phones in tattling voices, they took half an hour for our ten min breakfast stop. Soon enough swept up in the views so faded them out. My very first front seat perspective on the route have entirely different impressions of the journey. Must report front vs. way-back-seat versions of the trip.

Love to all reading this, special big hug to R.

C

The Uttar Banga

DARJEELING

The Uttar Banga out of NJP at 8:15 this eve. No matter how hot the shower this morning, how cozy the room with coal fire in the grate, how decadent having the hotel fellow place a hot water bottle under the bed covers and (not sure why) flush my toilet, all that was the Windamere will seem very far away on the Uttar Banga this eve. Will perch atop my pack and suitcase, parcel out pee breaks and hope for morning to come, with arrival at Calcutta's Sealdah station.

Fell asleep reading up on Nepal's Maoist rebels last night. Dry but feel obliged to have the gist of things - an understanding of the group that's brought a land to its knees and, indirectly, tourism to a near stand-still.

Will have, I hope, slightly better observed and informed observations in a matter of days...

Next from Nepal.

Love to all from Darjeeling. last call for tea requests.

C

The tea plantations

Slopes of tea, en route to Gangtok

2nd AC

Calcutta Int'l Airport - the Sify Cafe (now a card-carrying member)

Clearly too pampered till now. Windamere with its hot water bottle tradition lulled me, muffled my road smarts. No call for my whinging about a second class train seat, and no need for upgrade. The Uttar Banga, while the least romantic of the three trains that leave NJP for Calcutta every eve (the romancers: The Darjeeling Mail and the Kanchenjunga Express), it may be the least intimidating.

Once it revealed the secret of which of the nameless, numberless identical sleeper cars was my S1, all fell into place and there was no call whatsoever for me to lash myself and bag to the seat. In the berth opposite mine: a grandmother whose son came prepared her bed, switched off her reading light. Below a chubby lady happy more than happy to stow my case beneath her seat. Across the train aisle, a form that slept the entire journey finish beneath an embroidered Kashmiri shawl. The conductor made a pointof checking in one me. Head propped on my daypack, reading Indian Travelers Tales, I fell right back in love with India.

For all the good vibes, sleep did not just tip toe in. My berth was in the compartment's social neighborhood of smoke breaks, morning throat clearings, ladies with their with toothpasted-toothbrushes, chattering bathroom queues and, intermittently, the chai/coffee wallahs. The stations themselves - save for the vendors who boarded at them - were quiet in the morning, only birdsong.

And so we came into Sealdah.

C

Sadhus

Tomorrow, Lachung

And today, again, it's gangtok

But the cafe is new and since there's no electricity (I'm on generator? - not clear) there's no music either, nor are there people and i just discovered there's also no coffee. Electricity in Gangtok seems a touch and go thing, best not to be depended on.

Plans are coming together - pow wow with little Hope and husband Yepla (sp?) on the roof terrace of their Maruti jeep dealership yesterday sorted it out - it's north I go, tomorrow. Hope's office has a view out over the valley and the day, like day before and today, utterly clear. In fact, since I started carrying the white silk scarf (khada) that the Rimpoche in Yuksom blessed, the weather's gotten better by the day. Karmic coincidence or global weather pattern?

Today was a local monastery tour with a little van to myself and the sky ever clear. Once you descend from Gangtok (driver in save-petrol mode so we actually coasted down) you pass briefly across the valley floor and then climb again. And looking back towards the (not pretty) city you see...the range itself. Almost becoming common place to have the crazy Himalayan snow tops as backdrop to the day.

So can check off Rumtek and another monastery one I can't pronounce or find mention of in my guidebook. Me and the Bengali tourists were out today. I photographed the monks and a giddy posse of Indian teen girls took turns photographing me in their midst.

Rumtek - which has been the scene of controversy and gunfire for the past few years - a dispute between the Tibetans and the Bhutanese, each claiming there's is the true Karmapa. Passport required to enter, barbed wire ringing the complex and Indian military posted everywhere - and a metal detector as you pass into the main area. Creepy - saps the peace & ruffles the zen. That and the first monk I sighted was clipping his toenails. You just want a little decorum - recommend not visiting during their mid-day break. They were - to the shuttebag westerner - most un-monastic.

Neither monastery has the magic of the ones in the west. Both can be approached by road and I now realize that I had those other, more remote ghumpas, to myself. Lucky.

Plan is HATCHED for next stretch. Tomorrow go by hired jeep to Lachung in the north - the "Switzerland of the East" as it's billed. Next day some trekking around Yumthang, dip in a hot spring, Lachung again for the night then back here and onto Darjeeling the next day, and Kathmandu the one after that (Feb. 25). The trip north's costing more than i've spend in country to date but photos of the area look amazing so pretty sure the Rs.6,600 is worth it.

Assume there'll be no internet up there so silence and blog-peace for a few days.
Also - photos up so far all from past trips (sorry, sorta cheating) as haven't gotten my latest online yet. To be worked on.


Please send comments or queries if you're reading - dig out those Sikkim question.

Love to all,

c

A valley view

On the road north, Sikkim

When it's clear, what you see