dfast

Bali Five-O

dfast on December 16, 2012

We rent a motorbike when we are in Bali – the ubiquitous 110cc Honda automatics cost about $3/day. We really couldn’t do without it. Renting a bike is the first thing we do after we get our hotel room in Legian, and it’s the last thing we return when we come back down from Ubud before we leave. It’s such a relief not to have to walk blocks and blocks of sweltering streets to get anything, or endure the price-gouging of those inter-town tin cans, the bemos, who stand stuck in traffic most of the time anyway. Riding a bike here is not without its downsides: often I’m stuck behind the diesel exhaust of an ancient delivery truck, or one of the hand-me-down tour buses which gets shipped over here from Korea, no longer good enough for the rising aspirations of that country. Then there is the rain. There are no showers, there are only downpours. A ritual happens whenever the first drops start falling: all the bikes pull over to the nearest tree or awning, and open up the seat and pull the poncho out from the little “trunk” underneath. But then visibility dissolves, and it is impossible to know what is a puddle and what is a spine-jarring pothole. Then as quickly as it has come the rain has passed, and you are in a plastic sauna-suit, unsure whether the clouds still have more to dump out on you.

It may look like traffic in Bali is a chaotic free-for-all and it is true that the freedom to do what it takes to get where you need is taken advantage of, whether that means going the wrong way down a street, or up on the sidewalk if there is no other way to get around an obstacle, or loading up a bike to absurd proportions with flats of eggs to deliver, or with all five (helmet-less) family members. But there are rules, and there are chartreuse-vested constabulary with their black-peaked hats on their (relatively) big white Suzukis to enforce them: the Polisi. Over the years, we’ve learned enough not to draw the attention of the Polisi-man stationed on nearly every major intersection: wear a helmet with the strap done up; don’t put the front wheel an inch over the white stop line on the pavement. Tourists on bikes in Bali are a notoriously easy extortion cow to milk, and we have been lucky. Up to this year.

Our first morning riding up the by-pass road around Denpassar we ran into a road block. There was no way the cordon of officers across the road could be avoided and no way they were letting us pass. Registration? Yes, it’s in here… Drivers License? Um, my other bag in the hotel? It used to be a 50,000 rupiah ($5) on-the-spot “fine” and I had the blue note ready when we were led to a desk in the shade where an urbane cop presented very good English and a ticket book. The infringement, it was clearly stated, was worth 250,000. We bantered for a while until it was agreed that for 100,000 ($10) the kind officer would “help” us sort it out. That was, it turned out, not to be the end of our road block problems. Coming back down to Denpassar a week later to get our Thai visas, I spotted the cordon of chartreuse vests and white bikes, and even though we were going quite fast I managed to turn into the compound of a stone carver on the opposite side of the road. Too late, Katheryn came back to say there was a footpath we could escape on to another road: the black leather boots of the Polisi were already crunching up the drive. Another 100,000. Then, five minutes later, just outside Sanur, another road block! We pulled the bike up on the sidewalk, and on the broken pavement drove back to the last street. A taxi driver alerted us to the Polisi on the corner, but we were almost there, and we took off towards the beach. Still, there was no getting away, and he pulled us over with his big white bike. This time he wanted to add “running” onto the offenses but we kept smiling (while swearing inwardly) and forked over another 100,000. Now , it’s easy to rationalize anything, and for those who might say “just get an International Drivers License” I might reply,”we’re still $30 ahead and had more fun”.

While we weren’t making contributions to the Bali Policemen’s Ball, we were renewing our connections with our merchants in Ubud, and making new ones. Our first stop, as always, is Wayan, who makes our umbul-umbul, (Bali banners) and umbrellas. Every year we buy more banners, and every year we sell out, so anyone interested in pre-ordering, please go to our web site, click “products”, and email us what colours and quantities you want (in particularly the rainbows of which we have limited amounts). Wayan has also come up with a new umbrella design this year, which we love. It’s the 2M (huge!) diameter waterproof canvas like we had before but instead of a curving lip it’s edge is flat, like a parasol.

We also returned to the workshop of Gus who does our cement sculpture casting. It is, admittedly, a bit of a pain carrying stone around to our shops, but it was so successful last year we have more, (and bigger!) pieces this year. Please be aware that shipping the sculptures would be extremely expensive, so if you pre-order it would be best to either arrange to pick it up, or wait until we come to your community and deliver it.

This year we are trying out two new products, on a relatively small scale. One it the “mosquito net” bed canopy made with a cotton/poly mix, suspended from a 80 cm bamboo ring. They will fit around a queen sized mattress, but would also provide a beautiful ( and mossie-free) sanctuary outside on a deck or as a temporary picnic gazebo. The other new product is one we have enjoyed at our place for many years but have never brought in for sale: folding teak patio chairs. They are bulky (we will only be bringing 4 to each sale) so, as with the sculptures, it would be better to arrange pick up/delivery with us rather than ship them.

teak patio chairs $100

Apologies for the lateness of this blog: we lost the internet connection when we were posting it a few weeks ago, and haven’t had one since. The good news is the Sulawesi blog will be arriving shortly.

Selamat Tinggal ,

Your Foreign Devil Correspondents

goddess 40cm $50

Buddha 50cm $70

60cm dancer torso $100

40cm Japanese style $50

2m canopy $100

Bali banner colours

2m diameter pation umbrella $180

Taipei 101

dfast on November 27, 2012

Taipei 101

The architects and designers of Taipei 101, once the world’s tallest building (from 2004 – 2010, when the Dubai Burj was finished) took not only the physics of construction seriously, but also the metaphysics. They made sure that the 508 m (1667′) tower wouldn’t be brought down by a typhoon wind, or a 2,500 year earthquake event, or by the forces of bad fung shui. The “101” in it’s title, for instance, is significant for more than just the number of floors: it goes one up on perfection (100 + 1), and is the same forwards and backwards – an eternal number. To ensure stability, the structure is anchored on pylons sunk 50m into the bedrock – and there is no 44th floor. Four is an unlucky number, so two fours must be worse. Eight, however, (as in 500m + 8 tall) is especially good because it is the luckiest number (7) plus 1. Lots of math to absorb, and we haven’t even touched on the calculations of the bad-feng-shui deflecting fountain by the main entrance.

Bamboo or...

Whether the massive green glass structure looks like bamboo – the ultimate symbol of China and tensile strength – or a stack on take-away Chinese food boxes is yours to decide. What can’t be doubted is that it dominates the city skyline.

Our friend Helen grew up in Taipei and very generously suggested we stay at her mother’s apartment, which wasn’t currently in use. She also arranged for a car to meet us at the airport (most appreciated after 13 hrs. of flying and a 5:40 am arrival time) and take us there. We stayed in Taipei for 6 days, but many of the things we found to be typical of the city we experienced in the first 6 hours. 1) Things work. Whether it was Helen’s plan to get us to the apartment or the brilliant metro system, we were always whisked around efficiently. 2) The people are really friendly. Although she spoke little English, the aunt warmed our hearts

At the BBQ

showing us the apartment, and had a welcome pile of fruit on the table for us, as well as a (how did she know?) can of tonic. 3) There is food everywhere. We had dinner

street market

with Stewart, an old friend of Katheryn’s, and his wonderful partner Anna twice. Once at their place, and once at what Stewart described as a not-to-be-missed local experience – an all-you-can-eat meat BBQ. Fabulous, it must be said, and K got to pile up the Haagen-dazs for dessert. Most of our eating, however, was done in the night markets which spring up all over town, or in one of the multitude of local restaurants where a plate of rice and 5 toppings cost about $1.50.

Stewart, who has been working as a teacher and actor in Taiwan for 11 years, was also a great source of information about the city. Much of Taipei, he told us, was the result of the 50 year occupation of the island by the Japanese, which ended in

Japanese-era buildings

1944. The vast acres of low-rise buildings with the characteristic small square “bathroom tile” facades are from this era. Most of us know Taipei as the capital of a country called Taiwan. It’s more complicated than that. Officially, Taipei is still the provisional capital of China. The Republic of China (ROC) that is. The ROC was governed by Chiang Kai Shek and his Kuomintang (KMT) party from the fall of the last Qing Emperor in 1911 until 1949, when they were defeated by Mao’s Communists. Then the KMT fled to the island of Taiwan, forming a government-in-exile until their eventual return as the legitimate rulers of China. China (the People’s Republic, that is) has different views on the subject. Each one considers the other to be occupied territory, a source of endless tension for themselves and the world. A policy of deliberate ambiguity has become the

Sun yat-sen and friend

status quo, and a finely tuned ear for nuance has been developed on both sides. For instance, Taiwan is happy enough that it’s biggest backer, the US, officially “does not support” independence, rather than “oppose” it, as the Chinese wish. In the Olympics, Taiwanese athletes received medals for the fictitious country of “Chinese Taipei”, under a made-up flag while some song about the glorious Olympic committee played. Stewart, playing a role recently, had to say “Formosa”, rather than “Taiwan”, in case it upset China.

We knew we had to see the “National Museum” where much of the cultural heritage of China ended up, transported with the fleeing KMT, but we didn’t know there are at least 4 variations on the name. The one we wanted was the “National Palace

National Theatre

Museum” – and it was the 4th one we tried. It speaks to me about the depth of the refinement of a culture where for 4000 years some of their greatest art has been put into the production of “wine vessels” – decantors (albeit big bronze ones) by any other name.

Thanks in no small way to Helen and Keith in Vancouver who encouraged us to stop in a place we had only transited through, and who made the arrangements to make our stay easy and fun, and to Anna and Stewart for showing us around and being such interesting hosts, we loved Taipei. It’s not a tourist destination, which is one of the great things about it, and apart from the museums the only “site-seeing” we did was a large sprawling

Chinese cemetery

cemetery on a hill behind Helen’s place. It doesn’t have the flash and glitz of Hong Kong, or the polished languorousness of Singapore, or the bustle and charm of Bangkok, but I can see why it would be a tempting place to live, and we even talked about retail opportunities with Stewart. It was a great way to start our trip.

For more photos of Taipei go to the Flickr link via our web site: https://www.kebeandfast.com
or click on the link directly here: http://www.flickr.com

Bra salesman

/photos/croquet/sets/72157632020763267/

For the video experience, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYed31lghw&feature=share&list=UUzPNkH_3cH9Oz3q-g71UkUA

Signing off from the ROC, Your Foreign Devil Correspondents

The Bali Shipment

dfast on January 16, 2012

The last time we blogged, we were in the S.E. corner of Sabah, Borneo, waiting for an Indonesian visa and a boat to take us to Tarakan in Kalimantan. The purpose of this was to make a more direct – although less-travelled – route between the Philippines and Jogjakarta in Java.

If “Tarakan, an island city in Kalimantan, Borneo” sounds intriguing and exotic in a Joseph Conrad way, the reality is a bit more mundane. Notable moments came when our boat docked and the cabin door was opened – and we were stormed by an invading force of motorcycle-taxi drivers. They barged through the first row of passengers, including us, in their haste to secure fares for the long ride down the pier to customs and immigration. Welcome to Indonesia. We, of course, walked, and once there had to smile and mime our way through an inspection of Katheryn’s bag which turned up two suspicious items: tampons and a bag of black peppercorns. Both, apparantly, unknown in the world of the (male) inspectors. Our verdict on Tarakan? Nothing exciting. Although all we did there was spend an evening wandering around finding food, accomodation, and a ticket out.

The ticket was for a flight, ostensibly in the morning, to Surabaya, Java. Surabaya, known as the “necessary evil” of Java, is a massive city on the central north coast through which everything passes. Our plan was to go straight to the station and take the 4 p.m. train out, but our Lion Air flight being 5 hours late put paid to that. We were forced to arrive after dark and spend an overnight. Nothing unpleasant happened; still I can’t say I hold the place high in my affections, and we were thrilled to be rolling out in the morning into the lush countryside of central Java.

We gave Jogja a chance. We spent days wandering the markets and shops by foot and becak, and went by motorbike into the surrounding villages. We found painters and potters and sculptors and sewers – but apart from discovering a great big stone monument called Borobudur, it wasn’t what we were looking for. We had better luck in Solo, a more conservative, less touristy city nearby, known for its massive textile market. There we bought a few samples, and one superb piece: a copper batik chop. If we go back, it will definitely be for Solo rather than Jogja.

Back in Bali, and for the first time since leaving Vancouver we are on familiar ground. We have a little Honda motorbike, a room booked in Ubud, and it’s time to get down to work. OK, this is the fun part of the job: scooting around a stunning tropical island, meeting friendly craftspeople and giving them lots of money for beautiful things. Then again, there are the torrential deluges which periodically catch us out far from home…

The first stop is our Timorese friend Victoria, and her great collection of tribal art. We were sold out of her coconut tree masks before the end of last season, so this year we are getting more. I will put a price list below, so anyone interested in reserving a specific piece can email us, and we will give more details and set it aside. Victoria also had some new masks which caught our eye. These come with the metal stand.

Next we dropped by Wayan. Of all of our contacts, he is one of our favorites. Like most Balinese, he seems to take life as if it was a ripe mango dropping, pealed, into his open mouth. Yet for all of that, it hasn’t been as easy year for him, and the stress shows. He is our umbrella and Balinese banner (umbal-umbal) man, and apart from running the shop he and his uncle do most of the sewing. With a young family he is struggling to make ends meet, so our order, the biggest ever with him, came at a welcome time. Apart from the whimsical banners (if you want rainbows, order now!) we are buying his hand-made 2m diameter patio umbrellas, as well as smaller decorative table top ones.

Southern Bali – from Ubud to Denpassar to Kuta – is an unbelievable road side shopping experience of small and medium-sized producers. Apart from the sheer quantity of inventory, what is almost as stunning is how much dross there is. After awhile you get repetitive craft disorder, and just can’t look at another identical coconut Buddha, and you wonder who can possibly be buying all those tacky maiden-in-a-rice-field paintings. The same is true with the cast stone sculpture. There is so much of it – and a lot of it isn’t bad – but the trick is to find a small business you like, and who does quality work on site. After MUCH looking, we met Gus, who had beautiful pieces, and was able to walk us through the process in the workshop behind his tiny store front.

It’s similar with the metalwork. We are buying lamps this year for the first time, and we sourced out Jero, who we like for her enthusiasm, and who makes everything in a small family business out back.

The last items we are shipping out of Bali are not easy to find; they aren’t in every second shop on the road side. Maybe that’s why we love our New Guinea pieces – they were a lot of work! One memorable day, trying to re-find a small shop with these amazing necklaces on the edge of Denpassar, we spent 4 hours fighting unbelievable traffic through the city. I am crazy enough to consider city driving in Asia fun – you aren’t constrained by rules like “stay off the sidewalk” – but this was exhausting (literally). We finally bailed out of the humidity and pollution to a small restaurant, who gave us some directions. Back on another 6 lane horror show, after negotiating another chaotic intersection, my prized progressive lens glasses made a suicide leap out of my shirt pocket into the middle of traffic. Miraculously, after we pulled over and ran back, they were still alive – until the last truck taking the corner scored a direct hit. And we never did find the shop.

But now I know where it is, and we spent a lot of time with Kadek, and her near-neighbour Andi. The necklaces are all wearable, but also come with the stand, and are displayable works of art. Andi’s shields come from Jayapura, Irian Jaya, and could also conceivably be used in a skirmish/raid/war with your enemies. Perhaps better just put them on the wall. Kadek’s necklaces, she is honest enough to tell us, are made by her in Bali, in the Irian Jaya tradition – except for one style. These elegant sculpures, called Kalabubu, come from Nias, off the coast of Sumatra. Kadek is an expert, but she says people here lack the skill to reproduce them. They are as smooth as bone or horn, which is what they look like, but they are actually polished discs of coconut shell, with a brass clasp. She only had two, and we are keeping one for ourselves…

I am currently putting the new stock up on our website. Please check it out by going to https://www.kebeandfast.com, go to “our store”, and look for these goods in “jewelry” and “arts and crafts”. Below is a sample of what we have. If you find something you love, please contact us by email about details, delivery and payment. You can reach us at: sales@kebeandfast.com.

Terima Kasi,

Your Foreign Devil Correspondents

Coconut tree mask from West Timor. @ 1m tall. $200

Wooden mask with stand. @1m tall. $180

Bali banner (umbal umbal) colours. 5m tall. $15 each, 6 for $50, 10 for $100.

2m diameter waterproof patio umbrella. Available in yellow, teal, white and purple. $180.

Table top umbrella. Available in orange, white, yellow and purple. $35

Cast stone bust. 53cm on stand. $90.

Buddha bust. 36cm on stand. $35.

Cast stone Boddhisattva bust. 32 cm. on stand. $35.

Metal and polyester standing lamp. 30cm tall. $35.

Metal and polyester hanging globe lamp. 23cm tall. $35.

Wooden shield from New Guinea. @1.3m tall. $120.

Irian Jaya style shell neck lace. Including stand. $150

Irian Jaya style shell neck lace. Including stand. $85

Irian Jaya style shell neck lace. Including stand. $120

Irian Jaya style shell neck lace. Including stand. $75

Irian Jaya style shell neck lace. Including stand. $85

Irian Jaya style shell neck lace. Including stand. $75

Kalabubu necklace from Nias. One only. $250.

BORNEO: I Heard the Pygmy Elephant Sing

dfast on December 4, 2011

From Manilla we are heading to Java via Borneo. A cheap Air Asia flight gets us from Clarks airfield (the old American military base outside Manilla, now being reincarnated as a terminal for low cost airlines), to Kota Kinabalu the capital of the East Malaysian state of Sabah. To say KK is different from Manilla is an understatement. It’s not that I felt threatened in Manilla, but walking around after dark I definitely had my defensive shields up; KK feels as dangerous as a shopping mall. And, like everywhere in Malaysia, there is great food everywhere. After the unexciting fare in the Philippines, we cruise through the open air harbour-front night market in KK, our eyes devouring all the options, and eat nasi campur – rice with a selection of curries, tempe and fish – by the bare light of strung up bulbs with the smoke of charcaol braziers in the background.

We would love to get to some Borneo rainforest – Katheryn has a swing-with-Orang-Utang thing- but the depressing fact is that in Sabah there is little left, and what is, like the Maliau Valley, costs in the range of $1000/person to access. Instead we decide on the Kinabatangan River. The tourist office offers limited assistance to the independent traveler – they are programed to book you into the $100/day (each, and that’s the budget end) package system. On line we find one name that comes highly recommended – a guide named Osman – but the contact number that has been reported, and then regurgetated for him doesn’t work. He isn’t in the guide books, the tourist office, of course, knows nothing, and the home stay association for the two tiny villages on the river where he lives say he isn’t registered, and must be “illegal”. It takes hours to track him down – at 019 841-5259, if you want to know – and then to set up a meeting point where the bus will drop us. Osman, the reputation goes, finds elephants.

Apart from passing under the flanks of Mount Kinabalu, the most impressive thing about traveling across Sabah is the extent of the oil palm plantations. “Endless” as in “endless wheat fields” is the opperative. What I hadn’t expected was how encroached-upon the Kinabatangan itself is. Osman meets us with a pick up – he had been in town to drop off another group, and get groceries – and instead of turning on to a rough jungle track, we speed over a smooth highway – surrounded by oil palm plantations. His house is by boat access only, and at least it surrounded by forest. There is just enough time that afternoon to drop our bags, grab our ponchos, and head down river with Osman. He says the elephants are a long way off now – he will need extra gas money to get us there. Well, okay: it is wild Borneo Pygmy elephants we’re talking about. Happily, we skirt the worst of the rain cloud, and Osman sashays his skiff around the branches and debris on the big milk-chocolatey river. After a while he pulls up. “I can smell them”. Well, I can hear them: an alien-creature-about-to-eat-us crashing somewhere behind the required screen of thick vegetation. “They’re coming that way!” And we gun off a short distance, and plant the bow on a muddy bank and scramble out. A slurry of mud and elephant dung overwhelms my flip flops and oozes between my toes. I briefly worry about leeches, but Osman’s vigourously signals “squat down”, and the cracking branches and grunts and growls and screams materialize into a trunk and flapping ears. A mother and two young emerge 5 metres away, catch sight of us and stomp and turn uncertainly, and then settle on a detour around us. There is still a discussion of just what, taxonomically, these elephants are, but Osman seems confident they won’t kill us, and that is all, right now, I need to know.

A Javanese king made a gift to the Sultan of Sulu in the 18th century of some of his royal elephants, and one school recognizes these as the decendants. If this is so, they are the last of the species, since Javanese elephants are extinct everywhere else. Other researches have taken DNA samples, and classify them as a unique indigenous breed. Commonly called “Pygmy elephants”, they are hardly minature: somewhat smaller in stature, they are also distinguished by longer tails, straighter tusks, and – I read this later – very unaggressive (one account used “apologetic”) dispositions. This last in contrast with the attitude of the neighbouring plantations, who shoot at them when they “encroach”. As a elephant legs lands very close to us on the bank, Osman points to the knobbly, overgrown scar tissue around an embedded bullet.

We are given a leisurely, luxurious, up-close immersion in the presence of these wonderful creatures, and film and talk with them at will. When fianlly we hear the hum of another tour boat honing in, we know it’s time to go. The way back to Osman’s house, the price of admission paid, we take more casually. Lots of monkeys patrol the branches of their shrunken realm, and we get close to macaques, red and silver leaf monkeys, proboscises, and, in a league of his own, a solitary male orang utang. He is high in a tree, squatting in his nest, and although I can only get a good view of him through binoculars, to me it is much more satisfying than the staged feeding demostrations at the “rehabilitation centres” that tours are so fond of.

The other creatures of note that we see in profusion along the Kinabatangan are hornbills. Hornbills would have loved America in the fifties, when cars had fins and Elvis was king. There is a lot of doo-wop in this bird, and a greaser gallantry, like when he brings his lady a big red fruit in his beak, just to say “I love you”.

Back at Osman’s, it is school holidays, so as well as his own 6 kids a load of their cousins are over for the break. It doesn’t take them long to do some birding of their own; that is “Angry Birding”. When they discover Katheryn and her iPod addiction, their stint in the country just got a whole lot better. Night falls and the jungle world comes alive. Cicadas trill and frogs chime, leopards hunt and monkeys howl, and on the lamp-lit porch beside the old rhythms of the soft flowing river, kids have a hoot shooting exploding birds at stone-swathed smirking pigs on a video screen.

These videos have sound effect – un-enhanced, I may add!

EL NIDO: Sky Blue Sea

dfast on November 29, 2011

El Nido: the name means “The Nest” in Spanish, and comes from the previously-dominant economy of this little town – the collecting of swallow’s nests. It is actually the swallow saliva that is so highly prized for the main ingredient in that species-destroying delicacy, bird’s nest soup, but “bird spit soup” sounds like a harder sell.

Tourism has long since overtaken bird spit in this town, but both industries rely on the same resource: towering limestone cliffs. The cliffs hem the town on one side (and are full of the caves from where the swallow nests are taken), and crumble away into Bacuit Bay to form a spectacular archipelago of karst islands. It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world – and that’s without even diving into the gin-clear, coral-filled water – but, in truth, we had serious reservations about coming here. Several good friends had been to El Nido before us: Martin and Blair almost 20 years ago; and Michel and Christine 2 years ago. For Martin it was such a peak experience that he said he would actually kill us if we were on Palawan and didn’t go; Michel qualified his enthusiasm because of the tourist-saturation of Nido, and much prefered Port Barton for its authenticity. Having followed Michel and Christine’s advice and found a perfect little world in Port Barton, (see the last blog) the question was whether to leave it for the big bad unknown of El Nido.

While we were staying on Albaguen Is. outside Port Barton at Michael Damaso’s fabulous little resort, an interesting route to El Nido presented itself. Instead of backtracking to Port Barton and the hideous road we had come in on, we could (in theory) cut 3 hours off the trip by taking a barca to the small town of San Vicente, and continue by bus from there. We decided we owed it to Martin, and packed up, with many deep sighs. The first 2 stages went according to plan: Michael’s boat took us as close as the low tide would allow to the Vicente jetty, and we waded in the final 20 meters, and a mini-bus dropped us at “junction”, where a Nido bus was supposed to pass at 9 a.m. 2.5 hours later, in the middle of a downpour, the bus finally showed up – packed. Along with the 6 others waiting there we gamely piled in: in rural Asia there is no such thing as too full. Katheryn took our hand luggage and was able to get some ways down the aisle. I was the last one on, and carrying our 2 packs I was stuck in the door with the conductor. With one arm I had to hold the packs, and with the other myself, from falling out the open door. As the bus charged and banked into the mountain curves, it was like doing one-arm push-ups, and I resorted to (literally) using my head to brace on the door frame. Katheryn had her knees up around her ears crouched on a rice sack when I had a chance to glance back. She gave me an encouraging thumbs up. Just before the “unbearable” point I had the conductor climb onto the side of the careening bus, in the pouring rain, and I leaned out with one hand and passed the packs to him, and he with one hand grabbed them and threw them on the roof.

Half of whether you like a place depends on the the place you stay, and El Nido didn’t start off brightly. But we put in the effort and ended up, in my opinion, with the best deal in town: the Hotel View Deck. The owner, Rudi, is building his guest house on a property overlooking the the town and the bay, right across from the huge cliff where the swallow spit is harvested. I say “is building” because although our cute suite was complete, he was still pouring concrete in a lower one which – his laugh is a little anxious – he has pre-booked for the high season starting in just 3 weeks.

The thing to do – and we almost never do “the thing to do” – in El Nido is take a boat tour. The choices, A, B or C, go to different spots around the bay and the islands. After our rainy travel day, the morning dawns clear and sunny, and because we like Rudi we let him sign us up for tour A. It is the cheapest tour – about $25 each including lunch – and the only one to go to Martin’s must-see place: the small lagoon on Miniloc Is. I am a self-righteous, pretentious snob when it comes to taking tours, and my mood isn’t improved when our promised boat load of “6 or 8” becomes 10, and then 12. Then a large middle-aged German with his delicate teenage rent-a-girl gets on. And then another Old Fart/young Filipina couple. 16 in all.

Our first stop is the small lagoon, and since it is the first stop for all “tour A’s”, there must be 8 boats like ours at anchor. Over the side we go, masks and snorkels donned. Like spawning salmon we head for the narrow cleft into the lagoon, the snorkelers, the swimmers, the waders, and the ones who should just be naturally-selected out of the gene pool, paddling with inflated plastic rings under their armpits. Given that only one swimmer can go through the cleft at a time there is a line up, made worse by the natural-selectees holding up the process, so pleased with themselves that they have made it that they stop in the opening, completely oblivious. Once inside, however…

Once inside, however, is a place so sublime it evaporates my resistance, it transcends all our meager human clamour. Vertical limestone walls, jungle-draped, eroded into fluted stems, enclose a pool of liquid opal. We swim across the space into a scallopped recess, climb over a low natural barrier and slip into an emerald bath, floating on our backs beneath a hole of aquamarine sky. For the first time we are alone, and get a glimpse of the proprietory magic you, Martin and Blair, must have felt 20 years ago.

I don’t know how long the rest of our boat had been waiting. We are, probably by a long way, the last ones back. Next our outrigger glides, over a slide-rule sea, to our lunch spot on a small beach. Small but perfect. The water changes from Tanqueray to Bombay Sapphire as we approach, with a morel-shaped rock formation set there just for implausibility. Our debonair boatman, Aleo, builds a fire against a cliff wall, and throws on chicken and fish. By now our boat has bonded, although the neck-less one with his butterfly-on-a-pin makes everybody a bit queasy.

After lunch our boat cruises to a bay off Miniloc Is., which Aleo describes as a snorkeling spot. The fun comes, however, when he jumps overboard with a scrap of lunch leftovers, and literally feeds the fish. In the swimming pool water he is engulfed my scores of chevron-striped Sgt. Majors. I soon join him, and for the first time ever I laugh underwater, through my snorkel, as the gregarious fish nibble at the scrap in my hand, then my hand, and then the glass in from of my face.

In the end, we just can’t argue with a landscape this spectacular. We had a great time, and give El Nido a thumbs up. We just should have come 20 years ago…

For the full impact, feel as though you are there experience, watch this:http://youtu.be/ZXLVHI-_yAk or go to our flickr page (http://www. kebeandfast.com link at the top) and view the set as a slide show.

MANILA: PALAWAN: BLUE COVE

dfast on November 20, 2011

Travelling by air is a disorienting, magical phenomenon, like the experience of a baby: earthbound and drooling along the floor one second, she is suddenly heaved up into wieghtless flight in an unfocused world of rapidly approaching and retreating parental googly eyes the next. One minute we are in Keith’s Volvo, at night, crossing the Arthur Lang bridge to YVR; the next is amid a stampede of luggage trolleys to a taxi stand in a Manila morning , and guttural Tagalog as our driver shout-asks directions in the crunched, run-down side streets of Ermita. Like the tumbling baby our squealing pleasure is enhanced, concentrated, by a soupcon of mistrust and unfamiliarity, the fear that accompanies abdication of control.

We have never been to the Philippines before, so unlike our usual first port of call, Bangkok, there aren’t the deep patterns of recognition to fall back on. We are in the Philippines now partly because our neighbourhood in Bangkok is underwater, and partly because of the above: in 30-odd years of travelling around Asia, neither of us has ever been here. There is a faint voice of justification that prompts us, unconvincingly, to search for new goods for the business. But really (admit it) we just want to go to a beach on Palawan.

Manila certainly isn’t Bangkok. Our cabbie from the airport, between watching a video on his dash, instructs us, as all cabbies will in the next couple of days, to lock our doors. First impressions: concrete squalor unable to hide behind the drag-queen tones of paint; street business where survival is the only bottom line, like the pervasive tin and wire Xmas ornaments lined unfestively in front of crate-like slums; jeepneys; basketball.

Why basketball, in a nation of short people? And what lurid imagination came up with the jeepney? Both, I expect are the unforeseen products of American military-industrial imperialism.

The Spanish were the first Western Imperialists here, going way back to Magellan’s round-the-world voyage. He claimed the islands for God and Spain, and took a spear to the head and died for his troubles near Cebu in 1521. For 478 years Padres pounded Catholicism into the natives, and did whatever it took to confine the spread of Islam (a home-grown specialty), keeping it sequestered in the distant backwaters of Mindanao. The heavy tread of the Americans arrived with a fleet of warships in 1898. Having ill-advisedly declared war on the Yankee upstarts, Spain took a spanking, and ended up at the bargaining table in Paris selling Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico to the Americans for $20 mil. About one waterfront mansion in West Van.

As soon as the Americans had wrapped up concessions for agriculture, mining and military bases, they let the Filipinos have a spin at democracy – keeping one hand firmly on the steering wheel. The benefits were mutual: in return for exploiting the country’s resources and using the massive Subic Bay and Clark’s bases for bombing the shit out of the Vietnamese, the Americans provided employment for more than 100,000 local prostitutes.

Hence basketball: give the colony a sport that they will never beat you at, and they will just play on the street with lower hoops. And jeepneys: leave behind a huge mess of expendible equipment, and the Filipinos will expend the length, put in benches, tart them up to make them absolutely unrecognizably American, and bus people around the country.

Manila has the reputation in the travelling community of being one of the armpits of Asia. No one would say that it is pretty, but there is also no denying the energy and utter uniqueness of it. Manila is a cocktail of Jersey City, Caracas, and Jakarta. Shaken, and stirred.

Two days in Manila, especially through the prism of sleep-deprived jet-lag, is enough, and a one hour flight takes us to Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan. From 15 mil. to 150,000. From “jeepney” to “tricycle”. If three-wheeled passenger conveyences in Asia are as distinct as dialects, the tricycle is a language of its own. Someone took a 155 cc Honda, and fastened a boat prow on it. Then they put a bench beside the driver, added a flat roof and a cereal-box of a windshield for an amoured-car look, and pronounced it Good. The airport is pretty much in downtown Puerto, with a few blocks of streets levelled off for the runway. A crab-like line of tricycles out the main door will take you anywhere you want to go for a buck.

Our first choice of lodging in Puerto is Lonely Planet’s designated favourite: Casa Linda. Casa Linda isn’t bad, but with a plain room with rattan walls fetching nearly $30, my instinct tells me we can do better. But at 2 in the afternoon it’s stinking hot, the air is sticky, and a cloud the colour of eggplant is coming at the city like a rolling pin. I leave Katheryn with the bags, and go out to troll a few options. It’s not looking good, and I am about to give up, but decide to give one last place a try: Color Mansion. I dismissed it the first time by because the sign procliamed it could do birthday parties and weddings, and I had visions of stuffing in earplug after earplug while screeching children played “tie-up-little-brother” on our balcony, or rum-filled maudlin uncles discovered the Celine Dion DVD for the videoke machine. But with no parties booked the room was great, and we were the only guests of a delighful family.

We woke up in the morning and decided to go to Port Barton. Actually we woke up, made a coffee, watched Al-Jezira, and then suddenly decided to madly pack and leave. A tricycle to the depot got us to a beefed-up jeepney, and soon we were lumbering through central Palawan. For having spent only 3 nights in Asia, by the time we left the paved road, it felt like we were getting way out there. The lingering rainy season made the last 1.5 hours into Port Barton a challenge for the driver and the bus, fish-tailing through slick ruts and yawing suddenly at perilous angles, leaving us leaning over jungle-covered ravines, planning routes of escape.

From 150,000 to 1,500. With a journey like that, it’s easy to see why people don’t want to leave Port Barton. Although it might also have something to do with the sweet town, palms fringing a beach the colour of Brit Ekland’s hair, and turquoise waters in a bay full of islands and coral reefs. Oh, did I mention the volcano in the distance?

I know I mentioned the rainy season. Every day we have to disappoint Alan, who has got a lock on our (eventual) outrigger trip to the island reefs. The boat guys greet the jeepney when it arrives, and their little collective decides who is who’s. We are Alan’s. But every morning the clouds are gathering, and sooner or later they bind together in sheafs of rain, and we don’t want to pay the (fairly steep) price for an overcast snorkel. Finally enough is enough, and we sputter off in his barca, returning before the afternoon rain. If our trip was any indication, the coral in the Philippines is severely stressed. Beautiful in patches, it still lacked critical mass, and we saw none of the larger species of marine life that indicate health and abundance.

The only other foreigners on our jeepney from Puerto Princesa were a French couple, Ivan and Patricia. On a boat trip they took, they stopped at a small resort on an outer island – Albaguen – and liked it so much they decided to go out for a couple of days. We tag along. If you dream of escape, dream of Albaguen. I don’t need to tell you; you’ve already got it in your mind. The rotund and gracious owner, Micheal, started it up 4 years ago, having returned to the Philippines from America. His parents in New York thought he was crazy. Now he and his wife preside over four thatched cottages on their perfect bay. With their staff, and a Korean family who arrive later, the population soars to 15.

We have just come back form Albaguen to Port Barton now. On the barca, our prow pointed to Port, we decided to scrap our plans and go back to Albaguen tomorrow. Because we can.

A note to our new blog followers: the regulars know: for lots more photos go to https://www.kebeandfast.com and click the flickr link at the top of the home page. For amazing videos of the places we have been, check out Katheryn’s videos: http://youtu.be/9M_R-vv8YGs http://youtu.be/O6iECo3dU-w http://youtu.be/dm8VecrLxsY http://youtu.be/xXLWbYyoxng . These and many more can be found on our youtube channel: just go to youtube, and search for kebeandfast.

The Asia Affair

dfast on May 19, 2011

We really, frankly, went a little overboard with the inventory this last trip. Normally we send an air shipment from Nepal, a large surface shipment from India, and then fill up our baggage allowance (70 kg) with goods we find in Thailand, Bali, and points beyond. This year, apart from these regular purchases, which have arrived, we have:

couriered duvet samples from India (just arrived)
2 large surface orders of new duvet covers (yet to come)
2 posted boxes from Thailand (here!)
a surface shipment from Bali (grrr.)

As anyone who has spent any time talking to us knows, going to Asia and doing the sourcing and the purchasing is the fun part. Shipping is like a stick in the eye. The production is always late and different suppliers need to be coordinated with the shippers who then have to pack and deliver the goods in such a way that they arrive intact, on time, and as ordered. This, of course, never goes according to plan. And that’s before Canada Customs gets a hold of it. Why then, with more shipments, have we made things even more difficult for ourselves?

Simply, we fell in love. Often. As readers of our blog Wonders of India: The Warehouse of Mr. Negi may recall, we are push-overs when it comes to interesting, unusual, quality things of beauty. And having re-filled the coffers last year – thank you, gentle customers! – we set off with a budget to blow.

It all began in Sikkim. (For more on this marvelous place, see the blog Under Kanchendzonga). We were unwilling to tolerate the restrictions that the Chinese put on travel in Tibet, but in going to this neighbouring, culturally related state in India we discovered where even the Tibetans go to do their shopping. We did all of our purchasing only to realize that while the post office was open until 4 pm. that day, the counter for sending parcels closed at 2, a deadline we missed. Subsequently, the massive bag full of multi-coloured valences called sambu, banner-like prayer flags, ceremonial scarves, door curtains, very cool hats and all the rest of it was hauled by jeep, train, rickshaw, taxi, plane and in and out of hotel rooms all the way to Bangkok via Calcutta. The things we do for love…

Meanwhile, in the course of chasing down a lead in Jaipur (that we never did find) we came across the block printing of Mr. Vikram. Oh, yes, love at first sight! Those were heady days, full of promise and promises! But as you know, after the romance of buying comes the heart-break of shipping. Why can’t men listen? Yes, it was a large order, and yes, you might say the delivery instructions were complicated. I can change my mind, can’t I? But then, but then… The couriered box of the first 3 styles of duvet covers arrived today, and it’s love all over again. A shipment of the other 3 should be here (cross your fingers) in time for our first sale with the balance arriving, oh, sometime. Vikram, we want you, why must you be so cruel?

With our massive bag of Tibetan goods in tow we came to Thailand. We stored it in Bangkok, and went north to Chiang Mai. There, on the streets of the fabulous Sunday market, our eyes fell on… aprons! Handmade by the adorable Pilue, we couldn’t resist. And over there we saw Sirimar’s etchings, and over there beautiful hill-tribe purses! Out came the wallet; we were smitten. And the morning after, at the post office, will our heady romance once again turn into the crotch-scratching ogre of shipping? No, not this time! Oh, Thaipost, we love you! If only all shippers could be like you… And the next time as well, when we started to get serious with those wonderful rosewood massage tools, and some gilded lotus wands, Thaipost said they would deliver, and they did!

But in between was, sigh, Bali. Yes, I would prefer to just forget the promises, the lies and move on, but sometimes it’s better to talk about it, isn’t it? We have always loved the sarongs from the Denpassar cloth market, and last year the ceremonial flags (umbul-umbul) we brought in were a big hit. Our agent sent them by air, and while very pricey, there seemed to be a good relationship developing. This year we were ready to take things to the next level, to get more serious. Then we met Virginia, and when our eyes met her Timor masks across the room, we felt lost, our hearts raced, and our palms were sweaty. Well, it was 35 C. However, before jumping into a new commitment we discussed it with Teguh, our shipper. I should have seen the warning signs when, according to Teguh, we should delay the departure date because he could move things so fast that the shipment would arrive in Vancouver before we did! Let’s just say that it’s still not here and we have now broken up. At least we now know where the shipment is, which for a long time we were mis-informed about, and the masks should be in by the start of our sales.

We are very excited about the goods that we found this year. For those familiar with our sales, the new things from Kalimpong and Timor will give our set-up a different look. Inflation throughout Asia was a significant factor this year, but for the most part we have kept our prices the same as last year (they are, in fact, virtually unchanged over 9 years!). Other cultural and economic shifts that we have seen developing over the years are now becoming much more apparent, a good example being the finely-woven silk scarves from Varanasi. The number of weavers making these masterpieces has been steadily diminishing. This year there were less than 10, and with a 30% increase in the price of silk, this is the last year that we will carry them. We remain committed to supporting the amazing hand-crafted traditions of India and the rest of Asia, but conditions are changing. With inflation rising and supply shrinking, this may be your best year to find the range of goods we have at the price that they are!

Some technical meltdowns have conspired against us this year, but lots of our new stuff is up on our web site, and more is coming all the time. Drag your cursor on the above images for product information, and check out https://www.kebeandfast.com. Then spread the word and come and see us when we are in town!

Hand Block print duvet $175

Singing bowls $65 - $150

Bali: Cremation Slide Show

dfast on February 25, 2011

This is a visual blog. We have just been in Ubud, in Bali, and while we were there saw the cremation of three members of the royal family. Below is a brief description of the event, but please, after you have read it, go to the link to our flickr site, open the “Bali Cremation” set, and play it as a slide show.

In Balinese culture a cremation is a very public and elaborate send off, and is so costly that even families as wealthy as this will hold bodies for over a year until the funds and the astrology are all aligned. Multiple cremations are common, but must be of the same caste.

Public preparations started a week before the event, with the construction of enormous papier mache floats on a side street beside the royal palace. First two pagoda-shaped towers were made (one of which was to hold two bodies), and then three massive black bulls. Each was constructed on a platform of thick green bamboo. These would be carried by crews of 50 strong men on a procession of about a kilometer to the cremation ground.

On the day of the procession crowds started to gather in the morning, and the mood was festive. Members of the family posed for pictures as a gamelan orchestra played in the audience hall beside the floats. By early afternoon all the preparations were complete, and the floats – bulls first – set off down Ubud’s main street. People lined the streets, including one young girl anxiously waiting with her iphone in her hand. Each bull was followed by a gamelan orchestra and a crowd of onlookers. But it was no sedate and stately procession. The crew carrying the floats ran with their figure from side to side, sometimes even going backwards to fool any evil spirits that may be following. Spectators had to be nimble to avoid getting crushed. It required huge effort on the part of the bearers, and when the time came to turn the corner into the cremation ground the fire department was there to give them a welcome dousing with water.

When all three bulls had arrived, they were taken off off their bamboo rafts and hoisted with a great struggle onto the raised cremation platform. Meanwhile the women of the families had been assembling at the site. They had brought elaborate offerings, exquisitely arranged and carried on their heads, to accompany their relatives into the fire. There was a moment of excitement when the towers arrived, partly because only a super-human effort from one side of the first crew prevented it from toppling over as it turned into the area. They were so tall – 20 m – that the power lines along the route had to be disconnected, and much of the town was blacked out. The towers were pulled up to a tall platform with a ramp on one side, down which the coffins were carried. The coffins were then paraded around the bulls, and as with the rest of the ceremony it was a celebration, and not a somber event.

As this was happening, the backs were hacked of the bulls, and set aside. Then the bodies were taken out of the coffins, wrapped in white cloth, and one was placed in each of the bulls. The offerings from the women were then accepted by immediate members of the families, and piled on the bodies. Then the black backs of the bulls were re-attached, and the platform was cleared of people.

In the old days, piles of wood would be heaped on the pyre. Now it’s done with natural gas. With the burners in place, the priest lit sticks of incense, handed it to family members, and the ignition was begun. This is where, visually, it got stunningly beautiful. I kept as close to the fire as I could – there was no crowd control, and it was up to you to keep away from flying bits of burning embers. The fire roared ferociously through the bulls. When much of the idols had been consumed, bundles of straw offerings were thrown under the bellies, and the fire around the corpses kept hot. Near the end, when the bellies had been burnt out, gas flames were directed on whatever remained.

While the bulls were still dramatically smoldering, it was the turn of the tower. The fire started at the base raced through it until it was, well, a towering inferno. In the end, the fires were finished surprisingly quickly, and the crowds, with little ado, started to depart and make their way home. When all is cooled, the ashes will be gathered and sprinkled into the sea.

I thought the ceremony was a breath-taking insight into the Balinese attitude to life and death. True, not everybody here can afford such a send-off, but as an expression of the ideal it was magnificent.

This is where you should go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/croquet/sets/72157626087203220/ The bigger the srceen you have the better.

Wonders of India: The Warehouse of Mr. Negi

dfast on January 7, 2011

New block-print duvet design

We come to India to work. No, seriously, we do. It’s just that one happy part of our business is going to great places and buying beautiful things. One of our favorite places is the warehouse of Mr. Negi.

Mr.Negi, a native of Siliguri (the jumping-off point in East India for Sikkim- see the last two blogs) used to have a tribal art and antique business in Nepal, but was forced to leave three years ago when the Maoists made life too difficult for non-Nepalese. He moved his entire collection to a warehouse near Delhi, which is three delightful levels of dusty treasure of all descriptions. What drew us to him originally was his Tibetan doors, and he has a substantial assortment of architectural oddities including totemic water buffalo gates and Tantric prayer shrines. We can’t possibly haul such big pieces around in a moving shop, but we couldn’t resist two amazing masks. One is recent, and from Sikkim: red-faced Mahakala, who turns the wheel of life and death. It was used in temple dance festivals there. The other is an antique from Maharastra. That is all Mr. Negi knew about it and we couldn’t find out anything more from the internet, but it’s an obvious masterpiece. These are the only two we have. If you would like to put in an offer on either, the starting price is listed below.

If you came to our sales last year, you might have noticed a large hand-carved bowl on the scarf table that we used for display. We only had one, and we could’ve sold it many times over. This year we have lots, in three sizes (which being individual hand-made pieces, vary. The one pictured here is medium. Large are roughly 30″ to 36″ in diameter , and small are 12″ to 18″). Prices for these and other things are also listed below.

On the topic of containers, we are also stocking far more of these old metal water jugs. We sold out before most people had a chance to see them last year.

New in the store are two things (among many others) that caught our fancy: a very elegant display bowl carved from a single piece of wood, (approx. 20 inches high) from Nepal, and a curious figure that could be used as a “grump” receptacle. Had a bad day? Is your kid having a bad day? Well, transfer that negative energy to “Mr. Grumps”, and everyone will feel so much better! They are from Nepal, and approx. 12 inches tall.

It would be far too exhaustive to post all of our new goods here. I’ll try to get more up on the web site. Wood and metal objects, however interesting, aren’t our main business, and we have increased our selection of scarves (if you can believe it) and started a new line of duvet covers. These we are very excited about, since they take hand block-printing to a new level. We found Vikram in an exhaustive search of Sanganeer (the block printing capital of the world). We were actually trying to find a legendary screen-printer, whose name we had and lost, who made designs like no one has seen before. We never did find him, and decided to give up when we came across Vikram. Vikram has a small production unit and only displays outside of India at the Maison d’Object juried show in Paris. Katheryn nearly bit her arm off keeping our selection down to six designs. The beauty of Vikram’s pieces is that they are all reversable, having a complimentary pattern on each side (as are the pillows). All the sets are queen size, done on high-quality cambric cotton.

This year’s trip to Delhi was made all the more pleasant by the presence of our friend Boris. We met Boris in Burma in 2005, and always get together with him in Bangkok where he has a business designing and producing décor goods for Europe. With the drop in the value of the Euro, and the general economic down-turn on the continent Boris decided to come to India to see what could be sourced here. He came with us to Mr. Negi’s, and loved the stuff, but since he requires uniform production on a much bigger scale, it wasn’t for him. Then we accompanied him to Moradabad which is a city about four hours east of Delhi where much of the country’s metal work takes place. Most of the goods weren’t what we were looking for, but we found where two of the things we love in India are made. One is a stainless steel serving bowl with an electric-plated copper coating, which is given a hand-hammered finish. We have admired them in good-quality restaurants all over India. The other is the “tiffin container”. It is the “Indian lunch box”, a masterpiece of simplicity consisting of stacking stainless steel bowls which hold the curries, rice and rotis separate, and are all held together by a clamp which acts as a handle. Now, what we could do is start producing our own line, and even have the stacking bowls done in different colours. The question is are the Gulf Islands ready for it?

Price list:

Antique Maharashtra mask $460.

Bhutan Mahakala mask $250.

Wood bowls Large $75; Medium $50; Small $35.

Metal water pots $50.

Mr. Grumps Statues $40.

Stand carved from single piece of wood $180

Our shipment from India is just being finalized. If you want first dibs on any of the above items, drop us an email, and we will hold them when they arrive in Vancouver in April. Then we will arrange to have them shipped, picked up or delivered. Shipping from Vancouver is extra.

We wish everybody all the best in the New Year,

Your Foreign Devil Correspondents,

David and Katheryn

Yuksom and Gorkhaland

dfast on November 29, 2010

Sikkim has terrain as difficult to traverse as almost anywhere in the populated world: snowy passes and wild jungle-covered slopes plunging down to fast -flowing rivers. Imagine it in the 17th C. Then imagine the scene played out in a remote valley when one influential Buddhist Lama and his small retinue completely by coincidence run into another respected teacher from the same school in Tibet! They probably went off in different directions, in different years, and here they are in Yuksom. Then who should appear from the only place that neither of them has been in the last few months, but another bearded lama from Tibet! This, they all agree, is a very special sign indeed. The local chieftain is happy to host and flatter his unlikely guests as they confer and chant and beat drums into the night. Finally all is clear: there will be a Buddhist Kingdom, the chieftain will be the Chogyal, the first ruler, and it’s capital will be Yuksom.

Yuksom today probably looks as unlikely a capital for a kingdom as it did in 1642. It’s a beautiful town, just not very imperial. The little traffic that there is on it’s one street has to make way for the dzo (yak/cattle hyrbids). Each of the three wise lamas established a monastery there, and over the course of several days in Yuksom we visit all of them. There isn’t all that much to do, which is one of the pleasures of the place. The town is the starting point for Sikkim’s best-known trek – hence the pack-dzos – but we are far less ambitious than that. The closest we get to mountaineering is the hike up to Dubdi Gompa, one of the three monasteries. It’s a delightful climb up through orchid-draped forest, and once again, as in Pemayangtse (last blog), a friendly local dog – Buddy II – volunteers as our guide. The main hall is locked when we arrive, but a monk calls the attendant on his cell phone and he lets us in. Afterward we chat on a bench in the sun with the monk, who points out a hill where the original monastary was. It moved down here, the story goes, because of harassment by Yetis.

Gompa #2 is on a hill at the top of Yuksom’s main street, and #3 is a little further out of town at the spot where the first Chogyal’s coronation took place. As per usual a new dog – Buddy III – shows us the way there. We pass the small lake – draped with prayer flags – where the water for the ceremony was drawn from. The “throne” itself – a stone bench – is outdoors under a massive cryptomeria pine. With forests of prayer flags, moss-covered “mani” stones, some deserted temple buildings and Buddy III giving us “walkies”, it’s a wonderful afternoon.

It has turned rainy in Yuksom, which makes it easier to leave. The only jeep out of here departs at 6:00 a.m. and follows a tortuous route through Tashiding and Legship to Jorethang. Jorethang is on Sikkim’s southern border at only 600m and after the highlands it feels almost sultry. It’s a brief blast, however, as we climb into the next jeep going to Darjeeling. The distance is only 21 km, but it’s the back-door route to India’s best-known hill station, and the journey takes 2 1/2 hours and climbs 1700m.

The first impression of Darjeeling is disappointing: a clogged, cachophonic street where we are dropped, grotty, smelly butcher shops and a grey, soupy cloud enveloping everything. There is no way to make sense of Darjeeling from a map, since “up” and “down” are the important directions, but with a vague lead we have of a recommended hotel near the “T.V. Tower”, we head off “up” into the fog, and eventually stumble across the Tranquility. For the first time this trip we need to wear everything we own, and Katheryn even puts socks on her hands. Sometimes the cloud parts and reveals glimpses of the valley and Jorethang far below, but mostly it is like being on a set of Jack the Ripper.

Virtually every business in Darjeeling pronounces itself as part of Gorkhaland. We are officially in W. Bengal, the capital being Calcutta, but that it as foreign to here to Ethiopia, and everybody knows it. There is a lot of antagonism to a perceived Bengali imperiousness, and for thirty years there has been a simmering conflict to form a separate state. Things were more violent in the ’80’s and ’90’s, but even now there are two protest marches that we come across, and the ransacking of a separatist’s house that could possibly ignite strikes and stone throwing.

Over the course of a few days in Darjeeling we make the acquaintance of A.K. Lama, the head monk at Bhutia Busty Monastery, and he directs us to the Tibet Relief Center, where crafts and rugs are hand-made. But apart from that and fading snatches of the once-glorious British Raj there isn’t much to keep us here and we head down the mountain to Kalimpong. It is there we come across the best British anachronism yet: the Himalayan Hotel.

Kalimpong sits on the easiest access route between Tibet and India. In 1904 the British wanted to consolidate their control over this strategic territory, loosely controlled by Tibet, so they sent Col. Francis Younghusband and a small band of soldiers to the border to instigate an “incident” which would give them the excuse to retaliate and annex it. The problem that after flopping around in vain for some time and finding no opposition, Younghusband set off up the road to Lhasa. His firepower routed Tibetan horse troops at Xigatse, and he created an international incident by matching into Lhasa unopposed. The translator on that adventure was David McDonald, who built himself a bungalow in Kalimpong which became The Himalayan. Over the year this fusty sitting room of stone and Himalayan oak has hosted the great mountaineering expeditions of Mallory and Irwin, Hillary and Tenzin, and an almanac of personalities and explorers. Add to that Kebe and Fast, who speak in studied snooty tones and drink G&Ts below the signed photo of Alexandra David-Neel.

You know where to find more great photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/croquet

And be sure nor to miss Katheryn’s latest video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5fM9aeQoq8

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