The process that leads to this moment is long. Fly to Kigali. Drive 3 hours on windy roads through the hills to Volcanoes National Park. Early the next morning, meet at Headquarters and be assigned to a guide and a family of gorillas. Twelve families of gorillas are habituated for tourism; groups of eight can spend one hour with their group per day. Drive another 45 minutes on bumpy roads. Start hiking somewhere between 1 and 4 hours straight up a volcano forest. Hope that at some point, the trackers have found your gorilla family based on where they were the afternoon before.

The support team makes us feel like we are climbing Everest. Our guide Augustine is the boss. We hire porters to support the local economy, as many of these men might otherwise be tempted to poach these valuable animals for zoos or private collections. Starting at 2400 Meters above sea level (7875 feet or 50% higher than Denver), we start hiking. We are walking at a pretty good clip up through the farmlands, approaching the wall of lava rocks that delineates the National Park. We stop along the way, which is good because my heart is pounding from altitude. We learn about gorillas – their habitat, diet, behaviors, etc. Excitement is building! Finally we receive word that the trackers know the exact location of the Isabukuru family and relay that info via walkie-talkie to Augustine. He plots a direct path there. Around 3000M (almost 10,000 feet above sea level), we meet up with a National Park ranger with a rifle and 2 trackers with machetes. It’s time to leave all of our loose gear behind, ready our cameras and meet them.

Kubaha

We hear some rustling and catch glimpses of black hair. It’s happening! We come around a bend, and there is Kubaha, the dominant male silverback of the family. I cry. We are standing 6 feet from a 24-year old, 450-pound gentle giant in the wild. We stand in awe. He just munches away on wild celery. Take some photos. Stop and admire. Look at his hands, his feet, his hair, his teeth, his face. We’re not supposed to look him in the eye for too long! He keeps eating. The experts make intermittent conciliatory grunts, making sure he knows that we mean him no harm.

A few other family members are eating nearby, so the machetes bushwhack us over to a young adult male and a juvenile also eating. It is not at all what I expected in terms of location. I had an image of sitting in a semi circle in a clearing, observing them from the specified 20 feet away. Instead, we are wedged into a small gash in the forest, just a few meters from each gorilla, trying to take photos, observe them and stay out of each other’s way, all while trying to avoid backing into stinging nettles, which really do sting through clothes! At one point, I am crouched down just soaking it all in when the young male decides he is done eating and walks right past me on 2 legs, brushing me on his way past. Amazing!!

We are called back to Kubaha, who is just finishing mowing down one area. He leaves that clearing, walks over, sits down beneath an old tree, eats some more and falls asleep. One of his other children climbs into the stump above him and falls asleep as well. Suddenly, into the clearing left by Kubaha enters a 10-month old baby!! I cry again. He ninja-rolls into the clearing, does a mock chest beat and sits down to eat as well. The baby’s mom sits down next to him, although she wants nothing to do with us and puts her back to the group. We spend the rest of our hour with this tableau. Taking photos. Taking selfies. Enjoying these incredible animals and hoping that they are safe. Kubaha is so relaxed that he actually lays down in child’s pose, which is how we leave him eventually in the clearing. We say our goodbyes and back out respectfully.

What a tremendous experience! 

I am overwhelmed with gratitude that we had the chance to experience this in nature. We found them. It exceeded expectations. And it was absolutely worth it. Thank you Isabukuru family. Stay safe.

25 yards away from this bull

(Dana) Walking for hours through the African bush with the hopes of coming across an elephant, giraffe or buffalo is something man has been doing for thousands of years. In Ruaha National Park in central Tanzania, we are privileged to walk in those same footsteps.

Ruaha is approximately the size of New Jersey and receives about 22,000 visitors per year, or ~5% of those who visit Tanzania’s better-known Serengeti. And our camp Kichaka sits about 40 miles away from 90% of the visitors to Ruaha. Absolutely no other vehicles. No other tourists. Just the pristine eco system, the animals and the seven of us.

Upwind so they freeze

We are not getting closer so they proceed

Each morning, we explore 8-12 kilometers (5-7 miles) behind two men with large rifles… just in case we startle a sleeping lone buffalo or a pride of lion. The uncertainty keeps the adrenaline flowing as we work our way through the forest by the Ruaha River. It is a thrill to sneak up on a group of male elephant, constantly checking the wind direction so that we can stay downwind in order to get within 25 yards of them. Or to watch a group of 10 elephants freeze in the riverbed once they catch our scent. Somehow they figure out that we come in peace as they eventually turn around and follow their original path.

We know that we are experiencing something special on one walk when we suddenly hear the vervet monkeys’ alarm call. Our first instinct is that there must be a predator in the area. Wrong. Our guide Fausto informs us that we are the predators. These monkeys are so unused to even benign humans that they revert to their natural instincts – honed over thousands of years – to fear everything on two legs. Even when driving, we experience the same behaviors. The animals aren’t bored of humans; they are scared of us. They run away, watching us warily.

Often traveling to remote locations is like looking back in time, especially in parts of the world where people still live traditionally, relatively unaffected by Western culture. Our safari in Ruaha National Park went far beyond that, back to the original time of hunter/gatherers.

Massai giraffe checking us out

Impala don’t want to get trapped between the car and the river, so they flee across the road

Queen of the beasts… not phased at all by the jeep and plops down.

Spending four days in the hills of Northern Laos, I met many people afraid of cameras. One older woman said in her native dialect, “don’t take my picture; I don’t want to get sick.” Children ran away, and babies were shielded, as apparently, the young and the old are most susceptible to having their souls taken. Fortunately, two bolder Ghephia ladies allow me to photograph them at another village.

In each of our ten village stops, our first task was the find the village chief, greeting him with a water bottle full of home made rice whiskey purchased from the market out on the main road. Escorted around the village by the chief, we were often able to talk with and take photos of the people in the village. The chief would translate the local dialect into Lao, which my guide Thongkhoon would then translate into English. The women wore most of the traditional costumes, with men and children in well-worn, well-loved, cheap Chinese clothing. Often, our stops ended in the chief’s house, preparing a meal of rice, vegetables and some smoked meat while toasting our new friendship with small shots of rice whiskey… again and again and again. Their hospitality was touching.

Our stop at the Akha Loma village went exactly like that. Along with the chief, we wandered from wood-house to wood-house, meeting people like a beautiful 16-year old, attired head-to-toe in her native embroidery. The work was stunningly intricate and colorful. I was in awe of her jacket, her apron, her collar, her leg gaiters and her headpieces. She shyly posed for our photos, although she started laughing when I put my phone in selfie-mode so that she could see herself. Given her handiwork, it was likely that she was recently married or soon to be married.

After our time with this lovely girl, we ended up in the chief’s house for an impromptu lunch. Four or five whiskey shots later, somehow the group determined that it would be hilarious to dress me up in the Loma traditional attire. My hair was wrapped and covered in fine embroidery. The apron was affixed. But as expected, the jacket was a few sizes small for my large, Western frame. With the jacket draped over my shoulders and the wood basket slung over my back and held by a strap to my forehead, we posed for fun photos.

At the end of my time with the Loma, I was hoping to leave with a memento of some kind and asked about purchasing or trading for an item of their handiwork. They looked at me quizzically, as no one had ever asked that before. There was no market for their work. I quickly backed-off, wanting in no way to be the reason that these gentle, traditional people started selling their prized family possessions. As my guide shared, there are already merchants moving through the hills, buying up antique works for sales to collectors. I definitely did not want to be part of that; my photos would be enough.

Finally, we visited several Akha Oma tribal villages, replicating the meet, greet, eat, whiskey, repeat, repeat, repeat. The Oma women embroider and decorate yet another kind of headdress, adorned with old coins, beads, pom poms and cowrie shells, which represent ancient trade in this land-locked country. While the men sit around the fire, smoking home-grown tobacco through a bamboo water pipe on a cold, damp day, the women are cooking rice, feeding the pigs, managing the children and sweeping the dirt floor of the house shared with chickens, dogs and cats. Although I am truly out of place, they welcome me warmly, even allowing us to stay the night in their modest house.

Exploring the Northern hills of Laos is about as far off the standard tourist track as I can get. Why do I yearn to do that?

* It is like looking back in time. These villagers are living the same way their families have lived for centuries. Subsistence farming, burning wood for warmth and cooking, making their own clothes, relieving themselves outside without even an outhouse. It is the way that my own ancestors lived as well.

* In our world of perpetual globalization, traditional customs, clothes and cultures are disappearing rapidly. As cell phones and Chinese satellite dishes proliferate this area, villagers will be increasingly exposed to other cultures, and their own will begin to fade away. This is an opportunity to see these tribes “while I still can.”

* Spending time with these lovely people is connecting at a basic human level. We do not speak the same language, but communicate through hand gestures and smiles. At one point, the great-grandmother grabbed my hands to warm them up. It reminds me that at our core, all humans care about survival and our families – a great reminder in my comfortable, material, fast-paced life.

* Women are the engines of these villages. I find it empowering to be reminded of women’s value in bearing children, making clothes, gathering wood, farming, cooking and managing the family. Their strength is inspiring.

* Unstructured touring allows the experience to unfold around me. I never knew what was going to happen. For example, it rained the entire first day as we were meeting villagers in their houses. It was dreary, muddy and wet. It was only the next day, after the rain stopped and adults returned to the fields and forests, when we realized how lucky we had been to find the villagers in their houses out of the rain. And I certainly was lucky to come across a group of ladies making a traditional headdress for their friend.

My four days in the remote hills of Laos were magical and memorable. Huge thanks to my indefatigable guide Thongkhoon as well as my travel partner Remote Lands for such a gift. Now that I’m back, maybe I should convince my teenagers that photography steals their souls…maybe that will make a dent in their social media.

First, we headed deep into the hills, toward a Kayaw village that had only been opened to tourists for about six months. After picking up our local guide who would translate from the local dialect into Myanmar language, our 4WD climbed through the hills for hours along a one-track road. Suddenly, we were stopped in our (single) track with a broken down truck. With a several hundred foot drop to the left and a hillside to our right, we were stuck. Fortunately, a motor bike soon appeared. Thurein negotiated for him to ride to the next town, bring back two friends and give the three of us rides on the back of their bikes to our destination… all while our car turned around to navigate a much longer route. Speeding along the bumpy road on the back of a motorbike, I couldn’t help but think about my mistake in neglecting med-evac insurance! Fortunately, we made it safely to our destination, the Htekho village.

To break the ice, we shared our lunch with several village women. Surprisingly, these ladies in full traditional attire made the sign of the cross and prayed before they began eating. Apparently, even though few tourists have been here, Italian missionaries have worked this area for centuries. After our meal, we wandered the village, meeting some of the hard-working women as they separated rice from husks, pounded rice, dried grain for alcohol, carried firewood and cared for babies. We offered gifts of cooking oil, salt and noodles in exchange for our intrusion and our photos. I definitely scared some of the youngest children, who clearly hadn’t seen many large white tourists before. At one point, a truckload of militia holding AK-47s roared through the town, apparently on their way to guard poppy fields only 3-5 miles away… a clear reminder of why this area had been closed to tourists for so long.

Returning to civilization, we stopped to marvel at the road crew paving the single track into these hills. A swarm of workers, comprised mostly of women, lay large rocks along a laid out string. Medium rocks were dumped on, filling the large gaps. Baskets full of small rocks filled in the smaller gaps. Tar — heated over fires on the side of the road — was layered on, binding the rocks. A steamroller crushed down the top with a final layer of tar. Like make a huge lasagna. Incredibly labor intensive process, with almost no machines. Their progress was relentless, although I couldn’t help but wonder what impact it would have on the blissful isolation of the villages I had just seen.

The next day, we visited two villages of the Geykho or Kayan, also known pejoratively as Padaung, “long-necks” or “giraffe women.” Starting at about 7-years old, girls are fitted with brass rings around their necks. Twice more in their life – 25 and 50 years old – the rings are taken off, lengthened and returned, reaching a total weight of about 8kg (18 pounds!). Once on, these rings do not come off, although there is a creative locking mechanism that allows the stem and the base to unlock for sleeping. Hmm… that’s more comfortable? No one knows the origin of the brass rings (which supposedly used to be gold), and the legends vary: the original wearers wanted to 1) resemble the dragon who was their father, 2) avoid tiger bites on the neck, 3) repel men from other tribes to protect themselves from slavery, 4) attract only purebred Kayan men who would recognize their beauty and 5) carry their wealth.

Those who know anatomy would already have figured out that the neck itself does not stretch. Instead, the weight of the rings pushes down on the collarbones, compressing the rib cage and giving the illusion of a longer neck. Although I met several Kayan women in Bagan and Inle in 2014, spending time with them in their own village introduced me to their real way of life. The women gather wood, farm, make alcohol and provide for their families. They are also master weavers, making their own fabrics and scarves. Interestingly, not all of the women had started to put rings on their daughters. In fact, one teen I met in 2014 in Inle wears an adapted version of the rings that she puts on for the tourists every day. In today’s world, as the reasons for wearing rings become more distant, this tradition likely will begin to fade.

Our final stop in this area was a Kayah village that sees even fewer visitors. Although only a handful of women still wore their native, hand-made attire, the older ladies who did were happy to pose in exchange for some soap and butane lighters.

One lovely lady saw me as a traveling oddity. We were taking some photos with our arms around each other. She stopped, patted my backside and laughingly made a comment about my healthy size! We dissolved into giggles as I learned the Kayah word for “fat!” As I was admiring the waxed cotton bands that she wears around her calves/knees, she decided she wanted to put some on me. Unfortunately, we found that she had to take off her largest ones to have them fit over my American calves. It doesn’t sound as hilarious as I write this, but we were all very entertained!

After connecting with my friend Julie, we flew to Bagan and drove six hours west to Mindat. Again, way off the standard tourist track. Our goal here was to spend time with the ladies of the Chin state who tattoo their faces. Although the genesis of the custom is unknown, it is believed to have made the women less attractive to the marauding Burmese king seeking concubines. This striking tradition is fading quickly. Of all the women we saw, only the older (>60 years) were all tattooed. A few women in their 30s/40s. But the majority of the younger girls were not. When we asked the older women if they planned to tattoo their granddaughters, the answer was a resoundingly “no.” This is not something that people will be able to see other than in photos in the next 20 years.

This was the first time since our 2010-11 trip that I spent time connecting with native people who were not posing for tourist photos. I was reminded of how much I love seeing things “while I still can.” I am blessed.

Glaciers everywhere you look

Exactly why our family of 6explorers headed to the Arctic for a summer vacation. Our epic 2010 adventure was organized around the mantra of “while we still can.” We strove to find places that would not be the same in twenty years…to see places, people and animals that were changing way too fast. After being dazzled by the Antarctic four years ago, I added the Arctic to our target list. As a result, 21 hours after leaving Dover, we arrived in Longyearbyen (population 1,800), on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago. 78’13” North. Looking at the maps, we realized that there is very little land north of this latitude on the planet – just the top of Greenland, a small piece of Siberia and Canada, and Franz Josef Land. Perfect.

Mountains next to fjords

Huge ice, tiny zodiacs

In 10 days, we saw 6 dwellings

Boom! An iceberg is born (Hung Tsui)

Smelly tons of walrus blubber

Flying potato

1-degree water

Overall, it was a fabulous summer adventure. The opportunity to experience a vast, pristine, beautiful part of the globe. The fortune to see iconic animals in their natural habitat. The chance to spend two weeks as a family, completely disconnected from all electronic communication. Fantastic.

Santa’s reindeer

Tens of thousands of Brunnichs Guillemots
3AM light on the ice

Arctic term (Hung Tsui)

Bear #3

(Alex) For as long as I can remember I have been in love with polar bears. My best guess for a reason why: since I was a baby my favorite stuffed animal has been a white bear. When we were younger, we visited zoos around the Boston area and my favorite exhibit was always the polar bear. Watching these giant creamy-white creatures seamlessly walk from land into their water pools made me want to actually see them in their natural habitats and not in some enclosure thousands of miles south of where they are meant to be.

I used to beg my mom to bring me up to Churchill, Canada – a place that’s known for having a decent polar bear population—before it was too late to see them in the wild. Through overhunting and a lack of food when the ice melts, the polar bear populations around the world have severely suffered. So, when my mom told me that we would be headed to Svalbard, Norway for a few weeks of the summer, I was so excited.

Polar bears are pretty tough animals to find in the arctic regions for a few reasons. Bears travel solo (except the mother and her cubs) and only really overlap during mating season or if there is a plethora of food in a particular area. Second, their movements are unpredictable – some follow the retreating pack ice up towards the North Pole during the summer to be closer to seals (their main food source), while some decide to conserve energy and stick around the arctic islands with little food for many months. And of course, a huge reason why polar bears are so elusive is that they blend into the scenary. Their cream colored fur is just barely differentiable from snow, so a white dot in the distance could be 1) a patch of un-melted snow, 2) a white polar bear-shaped rock, or 3) a real polar bear. Luckily, we were pretty fortunate with our bear spotting abilities.

Bear #9

Our first and second polar bears were a mother and cub, so far in the distance that we could barely make them out with binoculars. The third bear was pretty close to the shore, so the call came over the intercom to hop into the zodiacs to get a closer look. Fortunately, he was conserving his energy, so we watched from the zodiacs as he tossed and turned in his sleep. The next bear had about the same activity level. Bear #5 and bear #6 were pretty close to one-another as there was a dead minke whale on shore (definitely enough food to feed two hungry bears), and we watched as one healthy female dug into a huge meal of rotting remnants. Our next two bears were definitely important ones as we received a 3AM wake-up call over the intercom that there were bears on the ice near our boat. They never came very close, but there was plenty of light to watch them through binoculars as the sun never sets this far north in the summer. The next bear was also on the ice (closer than the other two) and kept sticking his head up in the direction of our boat and the people snapping pictures, but seemed pretty unconcerned by our presence. We kept hoping that he could get curious and come check out this big floating metal thing; no luck.

Dana and Bear #10

Our most special bear was definitely Bear #10 (which Greta and I affectionately named Bradley) because she was up close and personal. We set out on our zodiac in anticipation for a relaxing kayak paddle when we got the call that there was a polar bear sighting on the opposite side of a large hill. We figured it was not a big deal and we unloaded into our kayaks when over the ridge came a little white dot. Then the dot came closer, and closer, and closer, until a young female polar bear was right on the water’s edge just 20 meters from our flimsy kayaks. She walked out to the water and while everyone else was excited about how close she was, Greta (who was in the kayak with me) and I begged her not to come in for a swim… but sure enough she did. She slowly swam across the fjord and even though she was not coming after us, there was a massive sigh of relief from the kayak team that everyone was alive and well. It was an incredibly surreal experience being so close to such an amazing creature.

Overall, 10 bears is definitely an accomplishment. Right now, the polar bear population is expected to be stable, and even increasing, until around 2040 when ice cap coverage is projected to drop dramatically. Polar bears are extremely curious and creative animals, so it is imperative that we make serious efforts to protect our polar regions so that future generations can be lucky enough to see bears in the wild.

Thanks to fellow traveler and professional Hong Kong photographer, Hung Tsui, for these amazing photos!

Ready to run!

(Reis) We pulled up to the outpost in the limos of Longyearbyen (which is not saying much, given that they were 15 year old Ford vans repurposed as shuttles to our destination), and the smell hit us immediately. It was hard to describe but it was something that smelled awfully like 60 unwashed dogs in a yard, sitting in their own… filth. Oh wait, it was. To give you some context, this aroma was on par with the giant haul-up of walruses we had seen just 3 days before- except the walruses had about 2 metric tons on these dogs, and the lifestyle of a walrus is much more sedentary than that of a dog. Long story short, it smelled bad, but that did not deter us from our desired objective. We were going to go dogsledding (the “we” to which I am referring is the 6explorers plus 3 of our good family friends who were along for the ride). This event was to be Emma’s 17th birthday celebration, partly because we were eager to try out this storied method of transportation, and partly because we had 5 hours in Longyearbyen, a bustling metropolis of 1,800, and we had exhausted the limited attractions boasted by this city the day before. And so, here we were, a couple miles outside the city center in a foul-smelling reconstruction of a trapper’s outpost from the 1600’s, ready to go.

Reis and Alex in control

We made quick introductions with our two guides, Adelheid and Niklas, who would instruct us in the many intricacies of the process. The first step of said process was to don the spacesuit-looking jumpsuits, partially for the brisk air and partially to protect us from any stray dog scat that may or may not have been ever-present during this entire two-hour span. Next, the fun part, we had to harness the dogs to each “sled.” I use quotation marks here to denote that they were in fact not sleds, but rather four-wheel carts with a long wire lashed onto it on which the dogs would pull, thus moving the cart. There was a whole procedure for actually putting the harnesses on the dogs, but in the end, each cart ended up with six dogs harnessed at the front. I should note another key member of the “five senses” which was quite present in this scenario, that being sound. The dogs that we would be using were Alaskan huskies, a kind of dog that is bred with running in their blood. And boy do they run. So all of the dogs in this yard were itching to be chosen and have the opportunity to go out and do what they do best. Therefore, most every dog there, save the few shy ones, were howling and whining and barking and yapping and stomping and jumping to be chosen. When each of the five sleds were prepped and ready to go, we were off by way of a sharp, foreign word in Norwegian understood by the lead dogs to mean “get moving.”

Great fun!

In each cart there was one driver and one passenger. The driver, who stood chariot-style at the back of the cart, was in control of the whole vehicle—the speed and the direction. The direction was fairly simple; there was a set of bicycle handlebars that moved the tires and pushed the dogs to turn, but speed wasn’t as easy. See, normally these kinds of dogs have only two speeds, full-throttle and chained down. And so, one had to apply the bike-style brakes quite heavily in order for there to be any lowering of speed (which was required by the guides, because we didn’t want to exhaust the dogs). We trotted along at our guide-approved speed for two or three miles before we reached our turn-around point. However, this turn-around was quite the ordeal in itself. Given that the full length of the sled-with-dogs was about 15 feet, you can imagine that turning 180° would be pretty difficult. So, one person had to hop out of the cart and help guide the dogs around in a circle (it also probably didn’t help that our turn around zone was the small loading area for an old coal mine). Here, we swapped drivers and headed back to the basecamp.

Birthday kisses

After returning, we were keen for a shower, having travelled through a sizeable amount of dust, sweated buckets in the spacesuits, and gone through five miles of dog farts and flying poop which the dogs expelled en route. But, arguably the best was still to come, the puppies. Back at the yard, there was a separate section cordoned off just for the husky puppies. Based on the picture above, you can tell that they were definitely cute puppies, and I will let the picture speak for itself.

So there you have it, our Svalbardian (Svalbardese, Svalbardish…?) dogsledding adventure. It was a great way to spend (fill) four hours of empty space, and also a very enjoyable birthday for Emma, or at least I hope.

Like many Americans, I had the impression that Myanmar was still romantically undiscovered. After all, travel to the country by Americans was discouraged before 2011 due to the repressive and often reprehensible military government. Although I feel fortunate to have explored Myanmar at this point, it is far more discovered than I expected. It turns out that before 2011 – when the country’s transition towards civilian-led government and parliamentary elections restored diplomatic relations with the US, President Obama and Secretary-of-State Clinton visited and world icon Aung Sang Suu Kyi gained more freedom – there had been hundreds of thousands of French, German and British travelers for over a decade. So the atmosphere is optimistic and highly capitalistic. The people are kind and peaceful, although the handicraft makers and souvenir hawkers have learned their trade well from their Indian and Asian neighbors. Fortunately, the vendors aren’t yet jaded, so most accept a “no thank you” gracefully.

I was on the standard tourist loop – fly into Yangon (formerly Rangoon), then fly onto Bagan, Mandalay and Inle Lake, spending only one or two whirlwind nights in each location.

The days were exhausting, packed with tourist destinations of pagodas, handicraft makers and historical sites. The circuit is highly scripted, in part because they haven’t expanded beyond the obvious in each location. My fear is that within 5 years, Bagan will be overrun and the airport with whiteboards listing the flights and the dirt roads to hotels will be replaced with infrastructure able to handle tour buses.

Myanmar was endearing in so many ways. A few of the things I learned/idiosyncrasies that I appreciated during my time:

• There are seven states representing the seven primary tribes of the Myanmar with each tribe having multiple sub-tribes. In 1989, the ruling military government officially changed the English translation of the country from Burma to Mynamar. The US did not recognize the name change until 2012 because it did not recognize the legitimacy of the ruling military r its authority to rename the country. Actually, both names are derived from the name of the majority tribe. Myanmar is the literary form of the tribe’s name, while Burma comes from “Bamar”, the colloquial form.
• In general, credit cards are not accepted and ATMs are just beginning to appear (although I found 2 ATMs in the famous Yangon Shwedagon Pagoda). So to get kyat, the local currency pronounced “chet,” I needed to change crisp, new US dollars at the government regulated money-changers. Interestingly, $100 bills gave me a 1% better rate that $5-$50 bills and 3% better rate than $1. Fortunately, I suspect that the days of travelers arriving with stacks of clean $100 bills is waning.
• The written language is beautiful but completely indecipherable to me.
• Traditionally, both men and women wear a long arong called a Longyi (lon-jee). The urban, working men pair their elegant navy or dark green checked longyi with a crisp, ironed white shirt. On special occasions, women will wear colorful, intricately woven longyi with color-coordinated tops. The more manual the labor, the more stained and dirty the longyi. However, this may be a dying tradition as increasingly, young people are opting for jeans, much to the chagrin of their elders.
• Cars have their steering wheel on the right, yet drive on the right side of the road. Apparently, around 1970, the military leadersdecided to part with any residuals to British Colonialism and decreed an overnight change to the side of the road on which to drive. The cars didn’t change, just the rules. Today, those old cars are joined by cheap imports from Japan. This seems oddly fine until you need to pull out to pass a slower vehicle and the driver is the last person to see if the coast is clear.
• Myanmar food is all about curries. For lunch or dinner, you are served a plate of rice and several small dishes of curries and salads. After spooning the variety onto/around your rice, you then eat with the spoon in your right hand, using the fork in your left to push the food onto the spoon. It’s endearing, especially when you realize that the spoon has recently replaced eating with your right hand. And it’s still a country where a 600ml Myanmar or Mandalay beer is cheaper ($1.50) than a Coke and your entire dinner costs about $8-10.
• As one guide said, “our people are poor, but they are rich in their donations.” Predominantly Buddhist, the people visit pagodas frequently and pray for help and luck frequently during the day. I was repeatedly struck by the overflowing cash donation boxes populating the pagodas. Daily, the monks go out into the neighborhoods with their bowls to collect food donations for their two daily meals at 5:15 and 10:15am. The only exception to this ritual was the Mahagandayon Monestary in Mandalay. With 1502 monks, the community actually brings the donations to them. A full procession of the monks from 6-7 year old white-robed postulates to the older red-robed men was an incredible sight. Buddhism is fascinating to me. One very wise monk explained it to me as a belief system that asks you to “look inside yourself, then open yourself up.”
• I would put Bagan in the category of world-class sites. Thousands of red brick pagodas/stupas dating from 1000-1200 AD dot the plain, punctuated by a few gilded, renovated ones. They rise from the farmed fields and are tucked among the trees with beautiful contrast between the red brick and green vegetation. From elevation, they appear to march off to the horizon. Each holds 1-4 Buddha images as well as painted frescoes and other statues. Like Angkor Wat, it’s hard to imagine that these were living places of worship in neighborhoods of hundreds of thousands of people in wood and corn-husk houses.

• Diverse tribes dot the area around Inle Lake. Members of the P’aoh tribe wear brightly colored turbans, now often made out of towels! Ladiesfrom the Kayan tribe used to be called Padaung or literally, “women with long necks with rings.” Rings of brass are put around the neck andonly taken off when exchanged for a longer coil at age 9, 25 and 50. Interestingly, the neck itself is not made longer; the weight of the brass – up to 8kg or 15 pounds! — pushes down the collar bone and compresses the rib cage. It is merely an illusion of a stretched neck. A lock in the back keeps the coil in place during the day but allows movement for sleeping. Three legendary reasons for this tradition: 1) The original patriarch was a dragon and this imitation pays respect; 2) it is an indication of being pure-bred Kayan which would attract a Kayan husband and repel a man from another tribe and 3) they are a migrating people who are afraid of tigers who bite the necks of their prey. Or maybe a combination of all 3!
• I had the privilege of a 1+hour conversation with a monk while standing on the U Bein bridge (the longest teak bridge in the world). Having learned English in grade school, he now hones his language skills by listening to the BBC and Voice of America on the radio. He has used the Internet and has email to keep up with old friends, after all, “it’s important to understand technology and how to use it.” As curious as I was about his life as a monk and Buddhism, he wanted to know about the US. From geography to population to average wage and work-week, he was full of questions. My favorite was “what do you think about Obamacare?” Seriously, a 24-year old monk in Mandalay, Myanmar is asking me for my opinion on Obamacare and what democracy means to me. He believes that Myanmar is 20% better than it was 5 years ago because they have freed the political prisoners, people can vote and they can protest with permission. But there is still much corruption and bad leaders, and the monks are not allowed to vote. He thinks that there are lots of people with knowledge, but no wisdom.
• English is now part of the pre-K and up curriculum, which will certainly change the country over the next decade. As one guide put it, the education is slowly changing from “parrot education.” Until recently, the High School curriculum did not include Myanmar History because, “the government wants the people to be idiots.” All of these changes add to the spirit of optimism among the young people.
• Because real people still live in the touristy locations, it is possible to stumble onto real Myanmar experiences. For example, we happened upon a Novitiation ceremony where boys as young as 6 (or even younger as it looked) on robes and commit themselves to 7 days studying Buddhism and living a monk’s life. The parents were so proud, dressed in their best including several tribal outfits from the hills. Technically, monks do not eat after noon, but the rules are stretched for these young guys. After 7 days, many will revert to being little boys, only to spend another 7 days off-and-on through their adolescence until they determine if being a monk is really for them (or necessary due to the poverty of their family). I was so fortunate to feel the excitement at this pagoda.

Wow. What a week. Being in Myanmar continues to fuel my desire to get off the beaten path and experience these places “while we still can.” How lucky am I?

Year old crocs getting bigger

(Andrew) With over 44,000 crocodiles, Padenga Crocodile Farm on Lake Kariba is one of the largest of its kind. At the age of 3, its reptilian inhabitants are slaughtered for their precious skin, which is sold in today’s markets. We arrived off of our houseboat and were greeted by a pool of disinfectant to dip our shoes in so as not to transmit outside filth that might sicken the multitude of crocs. Our guide from the company met us on the inside of the large white gate that separated rural area from multi-hundred-worker company and we started out tour. This huge farm is probably the most successful one in Africa and the numbers and statistics involved are downright amazing. Every year the farm gathers 20,000 eggs from its breeding crocodiles (the ones who have outlived the 3-4 year-old culling age). Interestingly, one female crocodile lays anywhere from 40-80 eggs in one clutch! These eggs are then shipped to another branch of the company on Lake Kariba where they are incubated for 82 days, hatch, and are cared for. A year later the “batch” is returned and consists of only 17,000 due to premature deaths. These babies are then placed into one of over 100 rectangular enclosures with pools in the middle. We only saw a fraction of the 100, but still what we could see was amazing. These enclosures are cleaned every other day by one man who walks in with thick galoshes and sweeps all of the putrid-smelling croc poop out. The water in the pool is drained at that time and replaced with fresher water to get dirty. This dung-contaminated water, unfortunately, is then dumped into the lake. Also on the same schedule, the crocs get fed. 6 men drop croc-sausages in each pen. These sausages consist of capentha fish, soya, oils, vitamins, supplements, and a large percentage of crocodile meat. Ew. Crocs are designed to be killing machines so any type of meat will be sufficient for them, even if it makes them cannibalistic.

One of the REALLY big boys

After the baby pens, we passed a handful of enclosures filled with at least 45-year-old ones who were all at least 10 feet long and weighed 800-1,000 pounds! Those guys are truly the last living dinosaurs. The older ones’ teeth can reach 5 inches long and 3 inches thick. One of these guys could most likely bite a grown man in half – with ease. After the old monsters, we passed a pen full of albino crocs of the same gigantic size. Their lighter skin makes them much more valuable to buyers, and therefore to the company, even though they receive the same treatment as the others.

Bathing in the pink potassium permanganate

Later in the tour we passed 5 more enclosures of 100-150 crocodiles whose skin had an odd pink hue. The pink water they were in that contained potassium permanganate, a chemical, justified that color. We learned that these were the almost 3-year-old crocs about to be culled. The chemical’s job is to get rid of any fungi and imperfections on the skin that could decrease the value of the precious leather they produce. Also to prevent the value decrease, these crocs’ teeth are filed down and blunted so they cannot bite and puncture each other’s hide.

Making yummy croc sausage for the crocs

To end our tour we passed the small factory where they made the sausages. They grind and mash all the ingredients up and put the sludge into a machine. The machine then squeezes the sludge out into long tubes of the stuff, which looks like one of those Play-Dough toys. The tubes are then cut to make the sausages.

We also witnessed a man cutting out the stomach of a dead croc. When we asked our guide why he was doing this, he answered that the older crocs, some of which were kidnapped from the wild, did not eat the sausages because it didn’t look like game, which their instincts told them they wanted to eat. So, the feeders stuff the nutrient-filled sausages into the croc stomach so the crocs think it is an animal and accept it. We ended our tour and took our tender back to the boat. What really struck me about the farm is that we, as Americans, think of crocodile skin objects as disgusting because it is cruel to animals but our treatment of cows to get leather is the same, or worse, as how this farm treated their crocs. Sadly though, we adore leather and it is very popular while crocodile leather is abhorred even though the cruelty is probably more in the cow-leather industry.

More yummy croc food for the bigger crocs

Looking tasty at the back

(Greg) We hadn’t yet been told that, just a few weeks earlier, a Zimbabwean fellow had been killed by a lion exactly where we were walking, but I didn’t need that happy yarn to keep me on my toes. This was our first walking safari and I felt a certain responsibility to my own four cubs as we cautiously, alertly, made our way through the bush in search of the cape buffalo carcass and the lions likely enjoying it.

We were camping at Chitake Springs along the Great Rift Valley escarpment in Northern Zimbabwe. It was dry, but a magical spring sprang from the sands here and animals of all shapes and sizes came for refreshment. Because of this, we were likely to encounter all sorts of intriguing beasties as we walked: elephant, buffalo, baboon, hyena, leopard and lions. The big fear, according to our trusty (and armed) guide and friend Fausto, were lone male buffalo or elephant Moms with calves. There seemed to be lots of these around, too. As it was afternoon, the predator cats were not really a major concern unless we stumbled upon them. Nonetheless, I kept my ears tuned and eyes skinned, particularly as we were walking in single file and I, gallantly, volunteered to hold the rear flank. As I walked and thought about my position, I really couldn’t imagine a massive eating-machine attacking the middle of the line. Just doesn’t happen like that. Maybe he would pounce at the front of the line, but that guy had a big rifle. In nature, the last impala is the slowest impala; the fittest rarely take up the rear. It didn’t take long for me to see the big picture and the disadvantaged position I was in.

Rhinos are MUCH bigger when seen from the ground

I became bobble head Greg. Every stick snapping, every bird calling, every insect buzzing was a warning signal of impending luncheon and I was determined to spot it, anticipate the strike and, like a flash, dodge the beast and let it have Dana. At which point I would poke it with a thorny stick, the beast would retreat muttering something about “c-ourage” and I would, once again, be the brave beloved impala that maybe should not have been at the back of the line after all.

Sadly, nothing attacked and my bravery went unnoticed. I did get a big thorn in my shoe though.