Age is Just a Number

Speaking of colors, textures and the Old Country

Guess I've been home long enough to start yearning for a vacation again ... so I am reminiscing.

Still in Assisi -  A friend told me that they were good with a Haagen-Daas back here at home after they returned from Italy - gasp!  When I queried further, she said that she had not tasted the Pistachio gelato.  Gasp again!  The rich, creamy, chock-full-o-nuts, flavorful green dollop landing on the tonque ... haagen-daas, naagen-schmaas.   

This shop is rather a "designer" gelato shop.    And, the other photo is - sigh - just another arch, on just another side street, in just another Italian village ... (for newbies, you can click on the photo for a larger view)

 

Flashbacks to Italy

While it is taking forever to go through ... oh why sugar coat it ... to get to the pictures from Italy - I had a little flashback when I opened a few to look at.  I find the memories grow more, shall we say:   yearning.   A trip this big, I'll admit, was a bit overwhelming, but I've got 2000 pictures to look back on and smile about.

This is where every wannabe Pope shops in Assisi ...


   

Bread and Florence

This is the final travelogue of our trip to Italy ....

So, now Florence.....our last leg.

John finished his bread school and it was a strenuous week if you can believe it.  Here is an excerpt of what he started to write a couple days ago before someone planted themselves right behind us at the computer with a rather quiet yet loud declaration that they wanted to use it imminently.  Actually, we found that just about every time we sat down, someone would come and "wait" behind us - guess that's how they do that here.  He didn"t have the energy to finish writing...and will write more later:

howdy,

Donna has graciously allowed me to write an update so pardon the momentary change in style.  school is out, i graduated, wow what a week.  we each baked about a dozen loaves of bread.  the party room has piles of bread that were amazing.  sourdoughs, ciabattas\focaccias (pardon the spelling).  my final exam was a Polenta Sultana sour dough and it was perfect.... 

He will write more later as he went to nap upstairs...that's four flights up in this pensione in Florence.  As for my week before we came to Florence, in Mercatale while John was baking, I had the freedom of the Go Ka, and Lorna, my South African roommate was happy to come along.  It rained the whole week which made it more difficult to just roam about the countryside, even with the faint thoughts of taking out the sketchpad.  I was not interested in driving around to every ancient hilltop fortress in order to check them off the list.  However, I managed scheduling a cooking class with an American Italian woman which was immense fun.  I took along a fresh goose egg from Chiara's geese as she told me it makes great pasta.  So pasta we made in our four course meal in the class, the usual, and then if that wasn't enough, drove back "home" to have our other usual four course meal.  It's ludicrous, our eating habits here in Italy.  Changes must be made when we return!  Like, I'll make Crostatta now!

The company we kept in the 1000 year farmhouse in Mercatale was a very interesting blend as I mentioned before.  Being the party house such that it was the meeting place and final prep area for our cook, Christina, we (Lorna and I ) found that we tended to be the primary domestic clean up the morning after each four course meal and gathering (not All the dishes, mind you, but party clean up...).  We also found it very satisfying to start a fire to welcome all in the 1000 year old fireplace as well...after searching for dry firewood!  Her husband, Clive, is very very entertaining and endearing...I"ll miss the ole chap.  It would be nice to someday visit them in "JoBurg" as they fondly call their home.  He is very serious about opening his own bakery, so if you hear of a place called Bentley's Buns when you visit in the near future, I'll bet that's our Clive!

We were getting the piles of bread daily from the school and every few days we'd pack them up and deliver to the estate owner Chiara to feed to her horses.  There was just no way to eat it all ourselves!  Our last day there, we had a sunshine break and I jumped into the car and drove to Assisi - another hilltop fortress in Umbria.  The landscape is different there in my brief assessment; a bit more rugged with pale browns, as contrast to Tuscany, rolling hills of the famous reddish dirt that makes up the hues in the buildings.  Not knowing in advance that I would be going there I had no background information other than I know that a noteworthy saint is from this place and it holds special meaning for pilgrims here.  Yet, however sadly, another "shopping" tour is what it tends to be for the average tourist.  I heard more Americans in this place than in all our adventures so far.  And, we drove home to our last four course meal. 

Saturday, as we wound up our time in that area, John and I were able to go back to Cortona; he didn't have a chance to get out all week as he was either baking or eating or drinking wine.  It was our second day in a row of no hot water and Chiara stopped by to apologize and to show us early pictures of the dog-horse, as well as to deliver our olive oil from last year's crop.  I have some understanding that Chiara, being the noble lady she is, doesn't just mingle with any old visitor, so for some reason Lorna and I got a tour of portions of her estate in her old 4x4 Suzuki, as well as our whole group invited to her home for "happy hour", where I spied (and paged through) a bible from 1599 in Latin on one of her tables (I am thinking NOT KJV!), and I received a warm hug and kisses on the cheek (they bus 3 times there) from her, and her email address!  A fine experience all in all.

We only messed up a bit when returning our rental car; working days in Italy are a bit different there, and trained on to Florence.  I was not entirely looking forward to ending our trip in Florence.  We'd been enjoying the pace of being in the country, knowing our way around and seeing familiar and friendly faces in small villages, and now we hit the city.

So, now in the pensione, which is a typical lodging;  a door off a back street entering into yet another ancient building to find rooms and apartments in and up.  Four stories feels more like about six since the ceilings are so dang high.  No lift.  And we had accumulated a bit more than when we started!  We tried not to, but it just happens!  We are usual tourists staying in usual places and that's just how it works.

Florence is a shopping mecca.  For some reason I simply let John handle the map in this place and by the end of the day he knew his way around and I couldn't get my bearings for the life of me, so as a friend coined:  Let go, Let John!  We missed our lovely meals and were back to the expensive brand of some sort of protein on some sort of bread to make our lunches that typically adds up to twenty bucks quickly, unless we sat down somewhere for more of the same that might include pasta that quickly adds up to thirty bucks!  We gave ourselves a grand tour of the town seeing all the good stuff, planning to visit the Ufizzi the next day as well as David.  Strangely though we both felt as if we were suffereing from jet lag; an odd feeling after being in country for 3 weeks.  And, it suddenly warmed up.  We were dragging!  So what do you do when you are dragging?  Sit down to a nice cup of Florentine cappucino! 

We also found the Cinema Teatro Odeon and slipped in to watch Indiana Jones in Italian.  In case you haven't seen it;  he gets a good whoopin', gets back to teaching, is off on another adventure, gets a few more whoopins and administers some while juggling the treasure, all with a great soundtrack and loads of fun. Hope I didn't spoil it for you.  We knew like 5 words.  Monday, off to the museums where we quickly realized our huge mistake:  museums are closed on Monday.  We knew that, from a distance, say in the Stati Uniti, but here and now, after 3 weeks of being in the country?  We completely forgot.  Also, it hit us that day like a lightswitch: going home tomorrow.  We were suddenly and immediately tired of travelling.  We succumbed to our loads and bought, for a whole 12 euro, a very large, no-name brand of suitcase that is simply made to transport goods across the ocean for silly tourists who can't help themselves.  We chuckled all the way back to the hotel at our bargain (not a bargain if it busts open and then we're the laughing stock when we pick it up and it's stained with wine and olive oil though!), happily packed it up and called it good.  We found a nice restaurant and drank ourselves to sillyness (amazing feat considering our bottle a day average) and walked around the beautiful duomo at night, and passed by again, a lovely Ukraine woman classically trained in voice, singing in an alcove with great acoustics with her accordian playing partner.

As we made our way to the plane I found myself looking forward to our 2 hour layover in Frankfurt.  I wanted to eat a hamburger or frankfurter or something, since we left too early for breakfast.  I figured those crazy Germans would have this whole airport thing down to a smooth running German machine.  Nyet.  Our little puddle jumper taxied to a spot just off the runway where we loaded onto a bus that gave us a tour of the backstreets of the airport to deposit us at a door where we climbed many flights of stairs to get me totally disoriented as to where the heck we were.  We eventually dumped out into the main concourse, but we needed a different one.  We walked all the way to this concourse where they claimed we needed to be inside the gate area to board an hour before the flight leaves.  However there are no planes at gates here, they are somewhere else apparently.  We mooed ourway down several flights of stairs again (not sure what happens to the elderly or others who just don't do stairs), around corners, down hallways onto another bus that looked suspiciously in the same neighborhood where we got off an hour ago.  We got another tour of the backstreets to find our plane just two doors down from the original puddle jumper.  You'd think they'd handwalk our luggage over to it.  The smooth running Germain machine?  I guess they like their moving parts!

Thanks for bearing with us on our silly journals, typing on Italian keyboards where not all common symbols are readily available.  We have so many more details of days of touring around and who knows maybe we'll send something every now again as we remember.  We have bucket loads of pictures that will take some time to cull out for the viewing pleasure of others.  And we're home. 

Siena and Bread

This is the third of the four travelogues I sent while away....

We got our first ticket in Italy!  We hopped on our train from Bologna to Florence with a reserved seat, but our ticket from Florence from to Cortona was similar to a regular old bus ticket. Since we found a train leaving in about a minute from when we arrived we ran and jumped on...failing to validate the ticket. The conductor was very happy to actually write us a ticket and point out that we failed to validate it.  5 euro fine.

After negotiating the process of logistics, language and rental car process we made our way to the "highway" or cassia, and first drove to the bread school area just to check it out since we were close.  On the way is a very large lake, just beautiful - Trasimieno.  John was pretending he was in his personal Ferrari rather than the "Go Ka" as we have aptly named our new wheels.  By the way, this car has answers for parking and gas mileage; we can fit just about anywhere.  Other than the fact that if feels as though the wheels may fall off any any moment, we are zipping about the country side just fine.  And, other than the fact that John backed into someone's house and scratched the bumper, we are still fine.  Backing into someone"s house is really more like driving up a narrow street with no turn around, therefore backing back down and brushing a "wall" - is someone's house.

We stayed in a farmhouse that is about 400 years old, and as John proclaimed when we arrived "Isn"t this just the most kicka$$ place you've seen?!!"  It is located about 12 km south of Siena.  And as predicted in Toscana (Tuscany), there are either villas, palaces or castles on nearly every hilltop.  We were able to cook our own meals each night, so that was not only a break, but a very pleasant rest in our travels.  I must say, I made some pretty good stuff with few ingredients.  This farmhouse is part of an old mill built around 1200a.d. It is run by two families (two sisters and their husbands) and I had the fun of playing volleyball with their girls Agatha and Matilda, both around 10ish!

We visited Volterra, a few other hilltop towns/castles over the few days, including St. Antimo, an abby where we arrived in time to listen to Gregorian chants.  We went into Siena on Saturday in time to catch the finish of a "5K" race....that's approximately 5K as you can imagine running around a town like Siena and finishing at a church that's 1000 years old.  We thought this was pretty cool to watch locals doing what we do in the States.  If that wasn't entertaining enough, suddenly we starting seeing old cars coming through the streets and we realized it was the Mila Miglia 1000, an old car race that is now more of a tour, but with cars 50 or so years old...you know, like old Ferraris for example.  Francesco, of our tour in Bologna, told us about this race happening in Italy that weekend and while thinking it was pretty fascinating, thought nothing after that including how or where we might see it, and there it was in our laps, in Siena on a beautiful sunny day.  We watched for nearly 2 hours as they were going through their checkpoint, revving their engines and having a good time....I think John took a lot of photos during this time....

We reluctantly moved on from our farmhouse, and made our way to la Mercatale where John's bread school is located.  Montepulciano and Pienza were a few of the stops along the way - lovely towns.  Have I mentioned that we are still upholding our average of one bottle a wine a day?

Since we'd already checked out where we were going, we arrived easily to our new/old farmhouse - approximately 1000 years old.  Most of the rest of everyone were already there as the dinner was about to arrive.  How this works is a German woman, relocated to Italy, who trains horses, also is a fabulous cook.  Okay, fabulous really is not the word I want and maybe a better one will come to me.   I've had some complaints that I've not given enough food descriptions up to this point.  I am glad I held off as nothing compares to what we"ve been eating for the last three nights.  Christina cooks for the groups coming in for the bread school in the month of May, and she arrives with hot pots, baskets and other paraphanelia to serve us up with a four course meal....each night for 6 nights total (for our group anyway).

The first night?   Tagliatelli, pork with potatoes, etc, salad, and chocolate mousse.

night 2:  quiche, beef with risotto and mushrooms, greens, and a berry tart.

night 3:  a bread salad (Pancinella), greens, lentils with sausages and tirimisu.

Sound rather average?  This is all made from scratch, daily, from her garden or the local market and typically organic...even the tart crust.  We're dying here.  Please make the food stop.  Can someone takes us home now?   NOT!  If it weren't for the hot water coming and going giving us the chance for a cold bath to wake us up, this would really be a horrible situation we're in.

We are grouped with an American couple living in Switzerland and is in some (um, "high") function with the UN and Refugees...yes he's worked with Angelina Jolie (and yes, the caribineiri/polizia questioned his diplomatic insignia on his license plates right next to the wood fired oven where the bread baking is going on).  A chef from Australia; we"re still working on understanding his accent.  Another couple from South Africa; what a hoot!  The couple from England who own their own bakery and he is teaching.  And Carl, the dude who happens to run this thing and by the way, yes, Burt of Burt's Bees is his brother.   It's a party every night for dinner, we figured out how to get the fire going nicely for atmosphere, and because it is raining kittens and pups for 3 days, and the only downside (besides the hot water issue), is that the party is right outside our bedroom door....need a bit more sleep.

Chiara owns the farmhouse and all the land we are on.  She is a classic farm Italian lady and very classy and speaks fabulous English with a beautiful accent.  She and her daughter, Francesca, took Lorna, my new South African friend, and I around yesterday for several hours showing us her property, but mostly her dog-horse.  This beautiful animal was raised with dogs and thinks it is one and would like to put it"s hooves on your shoulders.

John is LOVING this school and I must say I underestimated it - they have notebooks and everything.  They even have a "final" on Friday and they must bake 3 kinds of bread successfully.  Have I mentioned the giant stack of bread in our kitchen?  All of us are NOT eating it fast enough!  Wine helps though.....

So, for now, I must tour Cortona with Lorna, Lisa and her son Noah (wife and son of the instructor) who threw up strawberries behind me as I drove the winding roads to get here....

Bologna and Motorstars

This is the second of the four travelogues ....

We arrived in Bologna last evening and found our charming and nice hotel.  Too bad a terrace is just outside our window and down a floor where at 10:30p. young Italians decided to party and sing.  Bad sleep night!

But today, ohhhh, for you car lovers, today was a tour with MotorStars, an enterprising Italian man who worked for Ferrari Racing, Pagani and Lamborghini, and created his own company giving tours to the likes of us.  He drove us Everywhere and knew the folks at these companies, got us into the places and tours - but most of all just knew how to get around....all over the place.  We toured Pagani and the workshop where they build 17 cars per year by hand. Top speed 340km/hr, 0-120 in 4.8 seconds, at the bargain price of 1,000,000 Euros.  But good news: the new model will be street legal in the US, bad news they are all sold.  Then on to Maserati where we met up with an Argentinian Journalist and we were able to go "behind the gates" for a quick look..."but don't take a picture of the prototype driving out in plastic wrap" ....I want one.  Then on to a private collection of Maseratis, plus others, on an organic farm with the BEST parmesan cheese on the planet.  The owner's name is Panini, the farm "Hombre" is his hobby and he invented the way to cut and sort baseball cards, patented and all. 

On to Ferrari where we had lunch with wine, of course, and a tour of the show room.  They have wayyyy too many secrets to allow a tour of the factory.  And, not to brag, but we slipped in a ride for John in a Testarossa!  Bellisima.  What a ride.  This car had no questions, only answers.  "Go" ok, hold on.  "Stop"  OH my neck.  The driver is definitely the weak link in this machine.  Next, we moved on to Lamborghini where we did get a tour of the factory, plus a our own personal piece of leather with the logo freshly heated/pressed into it.  We walked through a door between museum and factory and immediately see a line of brand new Lams several hundred yards long.  Gallardos, Reventos (only 20 built ever, all sold 1.4M euro, and we saw 2) and Bats (the real name is in italian but I can't remember "bat" in Italian).  A stroll through the factory floor to see real Italians working on real Lamborghini's at every step of the construction process.  Fabulous colors.  The Museum had every model made and several concept cars that looked more space age. There were more hp than hairs on my head, 832 cylinders, and enough carbon fiber to send to outer space.  Holy cow.  For any (the one) of you who wants a Bugati, I say poo poo to you!  (You'll see a picture of us in front of one).  Francesco, our guide, was fabulous!

We ended our day with a 3 euro pizza - Margharita style: just cheese.  Tomorrow, train to Cortona, pick up a rental car:  Ford KA.  The car with only questions.  I say poo poo to us!  Then 4 days in Siena.

Note:  Italian for Bat is Mercialago;  the name of recent models of Lams.

Rome and Venice

This is the first, of four, emails that I sent to a large covey of email addresses while on our travels in May.  So, for those of you who received, enjoy again, and for those of you who didn't, I hope you enjoy the first time!

First stop, Roma.  We blasted through the first day all over the coliseum, forum, etc etc walking about 15 mi.  No sitting!  We sat down the first time for dinner at 9 p.m. and the first wave hit me, then the second, then the second or third glass of wine, then....we were very happy to only have to cross the street to bed!

Day two, San Pietro....bella bella.  We missed the timing for the Sistine, so off to the best Pistachio gelato in the city, chunks and chunks of nuts and sitting for 2-3 hours on the sidewalk people watching.  Men in red pants, what?.  Day 3, Sistine, Vatican museums,   And, we walked the Appian Antica.  The old roman road for those unawares.  Bella bella.  Everything seems so old here.  And the weather, fabulous.

Govanna was our B&B hostess, she was a hoot and a hollar!  She gives many hugs to me and kisses to John. 

Train to Venice.  What can you say about Venice that is not written, painted or expressed any other way?  Lovely experience.  Music on the square, the smell of ocean, the smell ever so slightly of sewer, and the smell of food.  It has been amazingly not overwhelming with tourists.  We found San Marco first at night with very few people and took great pictures.  The first night we were a bit lost, Then we decided to use a map.   

We are averaging one bottle of wine a day.  Is that bad?  Yes, I bought Italian sandals today, is that bad?  But...on sale!!  The nice old lady came by to tell us that we could not sit in San Marco square anywhere!  And right in the middle of my drawing too.

So, Train to Bologna this afternoon, for our tour of the Maserati, Ferrari and Lamborghini factories and show rooms tomorrow.  John is wearing out the camera...dare I say we've taken nearly 900 pictures so far?????  Okay, so that includes video too...

That is about as much as I can think of in my 30 min. time limit on this computer surrounded by American teens with bad language and trying to recall our first week of travelling.  We each packed all we needed in our own backpacks and I already have too many clothes with me.  You don't need much.  And the cool thing about doing laundry?  You get to repack your bags with clean clothes instead of dragging around dirty stuff for 3 weeks.

Can't find the spelling for "later", so Caio!

Red Pants Club

There just isn’t much more fun or a satisfying time than to people watch. I did it all over the place in Italy. One of my favorite spots was in the village of la Mercatale, where spouse-man’s bread school was taking place. The "school" itself was located in an out building beside a thousand year old farmhouse, which was one of many, on an olive estate owned by a noble family with the last name of Montescarpicino…2 km outside la Mercatale, or rather at the road on the left at the "blue shrine". So, at some point while in the village waiting for my friend from South Africa – who’s own spouse was also baking bread - to make a bank run, I sat on some steps at the intersection of 3 roads and commenced to observe. It’s amazing the activity. A woman steps out on her 1st floor balcony (it’s the second floor to us) and stirs a hot pot of something on a chair while the cat attempts to get a good sniff. An old man road by on a bike. Two people stopped in the middle of the road to chat. A motorcyclist came through and somehow found an alley and came out at another part of the intersection. And, mostly drivers looked around as if wondering why in the world I was sitting in the rain on a step at this intersection.

In Rome people watching is real juicy. In front of St. Peter’s Square a production company of sorts was filming a model in various poses next to a herd of white pigeons with wind machines and water hoses. The pigeons came equipped with pigeon herders carefully staying out of the view of the camera’s eye.

While guzzling wine and eating some sort of "fast" food morsel consisting of bread, cheese, tomato and arugula at a 2 person table I tuned into the fact that a lot of men wore red pants. What’s up with the red pants? Denim-like, dungaree-like and Capri-like. Seriously, Italian men in red capris. And other nationalities too. And other shades of red like orange, or pink or mustard yellow. I started taking pictures. It became a theme…an obsession. Me yanking the camera from spouse-man to zoom in on red pants. You guessed it; I got a lot of hineys, because of course they were either walking past or away.

After 5 days and carrying my red-themed obsession on into Venice, spouse-man was getting tired and I was getting tired because there were just so many red pants. He offered me a challenge: get two red pants in one picture. Would you believe in about one hour I got one? It was my last red pant picture. Here is a sampling:

When in Rome...

Of the coupla thousand pictures we took while in Italy, I picked out a few of my favorites taken during the first 3 days while in Rome.  Hope you enjoy! (Click to view larger version)

My favorite?  Not because I am in it, but because the one thing I wanted to do was to walk the Appian Way;  The Old Roman Road.  It is called Appia Antica.  Google Earth it and see how far you can track it, it's cool....

   

   

      

Travelog - Indonesia Part 1

so. after returning from komodo, we set out to explore the rest of the island of flores. like all the islands of indonesia, it's volcanic; a long, narrow strip of rugged mountains blanketed by fertile volcanic soil, which makes for very lush plant life: thick green banana trees and palms, forestier trees like cinnamon and teak, tangly rainforest undergrowth, and lots of crops as well. all the rice paddies are terraced sharply into the hillsides as there is very little flat land, and due to this they grow more of other crops such as potatoes, peanuts, and taro, which are less demanding of a level playing field.

this also means that travel across the island is arduous, at best: what looks like a short hop across the map is in reality an interminablly winding journey marked by endless, endless hairpin turns up and down and around the contours of each and every hump of land. first you brace yourself with your left hand/leg, then your right....for hours. people get sick. a lot. geography is the biggest determining factor in indonesia. it keeps cultures distinct and preserved over relatively short distances. it keeps the economy--and the resources-- centered on the main island, java, while everybody else is left to founder in increasing degrees of primitivity and poverty. and it keeps a lot of tourists from venturing too far off the beaten track.

the most accessible long-haul transportation option is the public bus. these are battered old behemoths, with treadbare tires, cushionless, busted seats, semi-functional windows, and clown-car capacity. each one has a 'boy' hanging out the door, whose job it is to endlessly shout out the destination to the pedestrains of indonesia (each of them); to collect fares, to oversee the continual repacking of luggage on top of the bus, and to blow an endless stream of cigarette smoke into the faces of those trapped within. the aisle is lined with crates or little plastic stools for that keystone row of passengers. bags of rice are commonly chucked in and serve as additional seating. the children are generally more well-behaved, if less conscious, than the poultry. people are mashed in to the bursting point--the bus can be stopped at the wave of a hand by anyone along the way who wants a ride. the younger men sit on the roof, until it rains or they need a cigarette lit (because who can go an hour without one? no one on this island!), at which point they too cram inside to fill the air with clove-cigarette smoke. stops are made for meals, for chatting with the driver's friends, for picking up untoward pieces of luggage like 16 truck tires or an entire restaurant display cabinet, and roping them dubiously to the back/top/sides--and then more stops are made to tie them back on when they fall off. it's an experience! a twelve hour one, in this case.

we arrived to the town of bajawa in the pouring, pelting rain of midafternoon. it's a rather nondescript, gloomy mountain town, with a perfect-coned volcano towering over it, and sometimes visible through the blanket of clouds. we decided to spend a day here to let our spines recover from the bus ride and to allow a good twenty four hours for blood to return to our pounded butts. bajawa is known as a base from which to explore the traditional villages of the local tribes, and so the next day we hired a guide and a couple of motorbikes to do just that. he took us, most notably, to a small village that was a walk away from even the nearest road. this probably sounds awfully condescending, but i was really impressed by the extent to which people here have managed to retain their traditions against the temptations of western culture. satellite dishes they may have, but they live in a village which looks virtually unchanged from time untold. it was set in a square around a large open space, tiered up the hill, all the houses facing inward. they were built with native timber and high thatched roofs in designs strictly dictated by tradition, and our guide explained to us many of their beliefs and practices, including the carvings on each house, the ancestor worship and the totems they maintain to represent those ancestors, and little fetishes on their roof-peaks. also they practice animal sacrfice for all occaisons of note, and keep the dried jawbones of sacrificed pigs and buffalo hanging on their porches as a symbol of each family's prosperity and devoutness.

as it just so happens, we were right on time for a pre-marital pig sacrifice. i was impressed with the non-chalance with which is was carried out: a few words were said as the pig rooted contentedly in the weeds, and then he was tied up to shrieks of protest. rather unceremoniously, i thought, the chosen guy hacked him across the skull with a big machete, and that was that: snap some photos, on to the next village. one surprising thing about the people of flores is, in a mulim country, they are christian. it's an odd mix of christian tradition and their own pre-existing animistic beliefs, most obviously evidenced by the graves in the center of the villages and in front yards with their almost-western style headstones. and the churches right across the island. in many places where religions have spread from abroad, the diety is transfigured to reflect local physical characteristics--for example, a chinese and a thai buddha look entirely different--but not so with jesus. he's still white, put-upon-looking, and blue-eyed to boot. that was the most disturbing aspect of it all for me, not so much that religion has been successfully proselytized here (which is bad enough) but that the people of flores are worshipping a white guy.

to be continued...

Travelog - Malaysia to Indonesia...part Ib

"...back on the boat we motored on, and in the afternoon got to go snorkeling within the bounds of komodo national park.  this was the most amazing, pristine oceanscape i can imagine--the world underwater was a psychedelic garden of unabashedly brilliant color, texture and shape, absolutely teeming with life.  we even spotted dolphins leaping about 30 feet away, and heard their playful beeps and squeaks though they didn't venture close enough to see underwater.  daylight was fading and we were both shivering by the time we reluctantly got out, our unhurried crew placidly fishing (!) off the top deck of the boat.
we docked offshore for the night to watch enormous bats, flying foxes as they're not inappropriately called, screaming like demons from hell in the mangroves and then flying at sunset on wide, silent wings across to the bigger island for a night of hunting...fruit.  after dinner our crew fished for squid, as did many small craft from the nearest village.  this is accomplished by dangling a naked fluorescent bulb over the water to attract them, and then trolling slowly for the shadowy shapes.  the crew let us have a go, and i managed to catch one that was proudly served up for lunch the next day. 
  we slept on the deck, the stars were as brilliant as only away from civilization they can be, and the black water was alive with bioluminescence.
  we woke with the sun to the cacophonous sound of the bats returning to roost, and were off to komodo island for another hike.  komodo is pretty big and sprawling, inhabited around its shores, but still very beautiful to hike.  it has the reputation of having less wildlife than rinca, which we found to be true though it was nonetheless impressive, and we were lucky enough to get a guide AND a ranger doing research to accompany us, which was really a treat--he was experimenting with baiting the dragons with goatmeat suspended in stinky bags from the trees, at which they could only gaze longingly as we snapped their photos, but beyond that our guides' knowledge of flora and fauna was impressive:  who can tell the difference between a vanda and a dendrobium orchid by the roots??
  another snorkeling session and we motored several hours back to the port, just as the daily afternoon rains were closing in. 
  i think i'll leave off here for now, and describe the rest of flores in the next one.  if my eyes are glazing over from the computer screen, yours probably are too...
more later...."

picture from Google Earth