We’ve just posted pictures from the rest of our trip. Check them out in the photo section, at this link. 

If you have ever wondered what is going on in Myanmar (Burma), Isaiah has a great new background post on the recent history of the country and the current political situation, including the Rohingya refugee crisis and the upcoming national elections.   It’s very clear and thorough. You’ll appreciate reading it here at this link.

Athens is packed with ancient history. The Parthenon in the Acropolis, the ancient theatres, history museums, artifacts, sculptures, you name it.  But the city is also filled with incredible photography exhibits, modern art museums, art galleries – temporary and permanent. While my dad and Isaiah dove into the ancient history of Athens, my mom and I explored the different neighborhoods of Athens, its amazing cafes, and beautiful art.

We took a tram to Art Athina, an International Contemporary Art Fair that is held every year in Athens, with artists from 16 different countries. It is held in a small stadium, with exhibits on the ground floor, and more around the sides of the upper level. Each artist is granted a cube – three white walls – and they are able to display their artwork in any way they want. There was so much energy in the stadium, such a love for art – and so many creative ways of producing and displaying it in each space. There was this one painting, (below) that I absolutely loved. I was fascinated by the way the people in the photo were portrayed, how there was so much movement, even though it was a frozen moment of a day.   

The next night, my dad and I went to a neighborhood of Athens known for its nightlife, art and music. As we rode the escalator up from the metro, we could hear live music being played, and a slow stream of people going into an area full of stalls and food vendors. In the center was a stage with musicians setting up for a jazz concert. We bought wraps and lemonade from a vendor, and wandered around before ducking into a dimly lit room. A line of small, square, framed photos lined all four walls. There was no connection between the different photographs, but each one seemed to tell its own story. I walked around the room twice, trying to take in every photo, every story.

As the sun began to set and the clouds turned pink, we walked to the Athens Benaki Museum, which held the 2015 International Festival of Contemporary Photography and Related Media. The Exhibit includes work from 76 different artists from 37 different countries. I was blown away by the photographs in every room I went into, and I’m sure I could have stayed in that museum for days. They have a book you can buy, that showcases some of the best photographs from the festival (140 photos). I bought it (and am obsessed with it). Here is the link if you would like to purchase it. (http://www.photofestival.gr/product/aphf15-catalogue)

We had the most perfectly located hotel. It was on a residential street, which made it quiet and interesting, to see how people in Athens live. From the balcony I could see rooftop gardens, and plants lining the balconies across the street. At the end of our block was a cute little market with fruit and veggies, and in the evenings before it closed we would get berries for breakfast the next morning. We were a few blocks from a lot of delicious restaurants, and the metro. Another street down, the tram ran all over the city. Walking in the opposite direction about 10 minutes up hill brings you right to the Acropolis, which is packed with people, but the ruins are so amazing it really doesn’t matter. The lines are usually super small, making it easy to go whenever you want. My dad and I went the last day before we left. We also visited the outdoor Theatre of Dionysus (built in the 5th Century BCE), just down a path from the Acropolis, and I got to sit in one of the original stone chairs built into the theatre.

[For more information about the Greek financial crisis and ancient Greek history, look forward to Isaiah’s upcoming post]

-Natalia

While we have been traveling, we have seen and heard about many current events relating to the countries we are visiting. Most significantly, the Rohingya crisis, where Muslim migrants from the Rankine state of Myanmar were abandoned at sea. During our time in Asia, the catastrophic earthquake in Nepal and the “Bali Nine” case, relating to executions of foreigners in Indonesia, also made headlines. And during our travels in Europe, the Greek debt crisis, the Turkish elections, and the Pope’s encyclical on the environment have all been major stories in the news.

Since you have been reading about our adventures on this blog, we’ve created a new page to give you some background information about these current events, in the context of the history of the countries we have visited.  We’ll be updating this page regularly with new posts.

You can read the first post on the history of Indonesia and Papua here.

-Isaiah Paley Whitman

We arrived in Heraklion, on Crete’s northern coast, and then drove down a winding road to our hotel. We had, quite smartly, chosen to rent a car. The Island of Crete is extremely rocky, so much so that at first glance it would seem uninhabitable. But this has been Crete’s great advantage throughout the ages, making it hard to invade. For this reason it was home to one of great early civilizations: Minos. Plus, the rocky areas are one of the things that make the island so beautiful. 

Our hotel was on the top of a hill, so the ground was inclined and there were small sets of stairs to get from one part of the hotel to another. A steep path led down to a beach, where we went the next morning. It was cluttered with tourists, including many young children. We relaxed on the beach for a couple of hours, and then went to one of the restaurants that faced the water. After we finished our lunch the waiter gave us four cups of Raki, the Crete alcoholic drink that is stronger than vodka. 

We decided to spend the rest of our day in the Palace of Knossos. In 1900, Sir Arthur John Evans excavated a grand Minoan palace. He was so excited that he proceeded to partially reconstruct the place, expending 32 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money. This greatly annoyed professional archeologists, but made the palace extremely popular among tourists and other common folks. 

The reconstruction was very cool, but it was difficult to differentiate between the actual palace and the imagination of Mr. Evans. There were some amazing frescos, also mostly reconstructed, dating back to the time when the palace was open and active. 

After we were done with the palace, we rushed off to the archeology museum. We had limited time left in the day, so we had to hurry before it closed, and when we got there we only had an hour. The museum had a breathtaking collection of artifacts from all sides of ancient Minoan life, from trade to frescos, from some of the first writing in the world to jewelry. Many items came from the Palace of Knossos. Some of the stuff was nigh perfectly preserved, like a set of caskets with drawings on them. We had to leave before we could see the entire museum, but we still loved it. We had planned to spend 2 days in southern Crete, and so, the next morning, we packed up and prepared to switch to a hotel named Monucus Monucus (which happens to be the scientific name of the mediterranean monk seal). But before that, we went on a hike in Imbros Gorge, one of many deep canyons that fall into the ocean on the south coast of Crete. We saw wild goats, which is to be expected because Crete is full of goats. However, these goats seemed somehow happier than the domesticated goats we saw later. As we neared the end of the gorge the sun was setting and we were surprised to see a really fit runner going in the other direction. 

After the hike was over, we took a taxi to our car. We were driving down to our apartment when we noticed the runner we had seen earlier going up the hill.  We gave him a lift back to his hotel. He was from Vienna, Austria, but he had been to many places in Europe and some in the U.S, which he told us about. We dropped him off, but before we went to our new apartment we went to the very bottom of the hill to eat dinner. There were tons of restaurants, many with fresh caught fish and seafood. We couldn’t decide what to eat, so we went out to the rocks and thought about what it would be like to kayak in and have dinner there. Then we ate a delicious dinner and went to our apartment for the night. 

Our apartment was near the town of Sfakia, which had a marked history of resistance to the Venetian and Ottoman empires that occupied Crete for most of the Second Millennium. We saw signs of this several times on our journey. On one occasion, Daddy and I stopped to see an ancient fort, while Mommy and Natalia went to an art museum.  The fort, already well defined by Crete’s rocky coast, was still intact, and might still be a good hiding place in case of an alien invasion. It had been taken over by the Ottomans, who had constructed a mosque in its center. The Ottomans tried, and failed, to convert the Greeks to Islam, often violently. 

An exhibit from the art museum had been put in the mosque for no apparent reason. Wondering why, we went to ask the women who oversaw the building and the exhibit. We struck up an extremely interesting conversation with her about Greek politics. She had been a teacher, but because of the economic crisis she was out of work even though she was very well educated. We talked about the cruelty of the creditors, how the Greeks “cooked the books” to get into the European Union (something that everyone knew at the time), and the ongoing negotiations over the Greek debt. In particular, she lauded Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister. (I will state my opinions on all of these things in the background on Europe section of the blog).

We also visited another fort. Most of it was ruins, but there was a tower that was remarkably intact.  According to historical fact and local legend, the fort had been built by the Venetians to fortify their control of Sfakia. Every day workers would be sent in, and every night the locals tore down what they had built. To stop this, the Venetians hung the Pastos brothers for being responsible. Later,in 1828, a great battle occurred at the castle, with the Ottomans crushing a Greek revolt. Based on another myth, the shadows of those who lost their lives in the battle can be seen marching at dawn.

After looking at the remains of what were once walls, we went into the wooden castle in the back. It had a square hole in the middle  and on the walls were paintings of Sfakian life. We went to the top, which had an amazing view of the nearby beach and the required flag. Back at the bottom, there was a table exhibiting a type of weaving unique to Sfakia.  

One afternoon, we decided to see what it was like to live in Crete. One of the problems we encountered on the trip was that we didn’t get to meet that many local people and see their way of life as much as we would have liked. So we decided to visit one of the local Cretan villages. We drove the incredibly windy and high road up hill to the village. Along the sides there were beautiful flowers. The road was quite narrow, and we could turn around only with great difficulty. The roads in Crete are some of the best roads I’ve ever ridden on, even though we heard that they were built fairly recently, in the past decade or so. For that reason, driving through the towns can be weird, as they weren’t made to have roads in them. On the left side of the road, many houses were built on the side of the cliff. We walked up the right side to explore the village. This side went up the hill, and we saw a pair of goats in a cage, several churches (for one small village), and a school. There were several people, but they only spoke Greek, so we couldn’t communicate with them. Still, it was very nice to see a small Cretan village. We got back in our car and drove up an incredibly steep and winding road to the top of a mountain. We came upon a quaint little cafe in the middle of nowhere. It was decorated with lamb skulls and sold many things like herbs, honey, and raki. We got a lemonade, and talked to some of the people there. At the very top of the hill there was another village, with a shop and some homes. The next day we headed back north over the mountains to Heraklion and on to Athens.

-Isaiah

Cappadocia, in central Turkey, was a quiet heaven compared to Istanbul. Until of course, you hear the mosques at 4:30AM. Prayers flow through the speakers five times a day, every day. At some point you get so used to them, you stop and go “okay, any minute now…”

Turks in Cappadocia don’t mess around with breakfast: Three kinds of cheese, bread, butter, nutella, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggs, olives, halva, and tea all on separate plates. From our breakfast balcony we could see crops being grown on the hills and strange rock formations in the distance. The land seemed to go on forever, dirt roads that could take you to the end of the earth.

We walked out of town and onto a dirt path that led us into the hills and valleys, towards the hidden caves and crevices. In Rose Valley, we explored rooms and houses built into the side of mountains – some were filled with wall paintings and scratches from hundreds of years ago. There were windows cut into the walls, surrounded by colorful paintings. Cappadocia was a center of early Christianity and is famous for its ancient churches carved into the rocks. We found a peaceful two-story church carved into a stone outcropping and were able to explore its small rooms and large sanctuary.

Later we climbed down a ladder to a little restaurant hidden in the hills. It had small stools surrounding long picnic tables, and blankets and pillows were spread out on rocky alcoves shaded by wide pieces of fabric. We were served salad, lentil soup, manti (Turkish ravioli), and watermelon. Isaiah found a path that lead down to a creek, covered by a massive rock formation. It acted like a low ceiling, and made everything pitch black.

Hiking up to the top of the trails, you could see the weird, vertical rock formations making patterns in the distance. Some of these rocks are called “fairy chimneys” and are made when wind erodes the rocks into tall pillars, with wider more rounded tops. Wildflowers covered the fields around us and bordered the trail, bringing color to the tan background. Grape trees dotted the hillsides. It was the crazy dust storms that made us shield our eyes and finally hurry back towards the hotel.

We spent our second day in Pigeon Valley, named after the thousands of pigeon houses carved into the rock walls. It was much greener and denser than our other hike, but we still found caves to crawl into, and wildflowers covered the grassy meadows around us. About halfway through the walk, we went down the wrong path, and were guided back to the right trail by a local who was showing the way to another couple out hiking .We walked the rest of the trail back to the town of Goreme with them, talking about where we had traveled and giving them advice about Istanbul.The man who owned the hotel we stayed at insisted that we go to a certain restaurant for dinner. You have to make a reservation the day before you come, so they can start cooking your food—Testi Kebap, a stew-type dish cooked in a clay pot—for three to four hours. They break open the pot at your table and pour it onto your plate. It’s delicious, and definitely one of the best meals we had in Cappadocia. The restaurant we went to had about eight different spices on the table, and our waiter showed us which spices to put on each of the dishes.

By far the best part of our trip was the hot air balloon ride! There are 25 different balloon companies, and about 100 hot air balloons fly every day. The first day we woke up at 4am and waited an hour and a half only to be told it was too windy to fly. Day two was completely booked – all 25 companies. We FINALLY made it into the air on day three!! A van picked us up at 4:30am and took us to a massive open area where people were standing around in the half dark drinking coffee and eating pastries. Balloons lay on the ground, about to be airborne. We were given tags with numbers on them, and when our number was called, we rushed with 15 other people to our bright red balloon. We huddled together for a photo, and then climbed into the sturdy basket. The baskets are divided into five parts – two on each side for the passengers, and one in the middle for the pilot. Our balloon slowly started to fill with air, and fire shot up into its center. As we started to lift off the ground, we could see other balloons gaining height all around us.

The view from the balloon is incredible! You can see fields and rock formations for miles, and the houses look like Lego pieces from so high up in the sky. Far below you can see white vans driving down the roads, following their company’s balloons by radio. But seeing all the other balloons in the sky is even more amazing then the landscape. They are all different colors, and because they are steered entirely by the wind, some are way above you, and some are so low they look like they are touching the trees. The sun rose as we flew, and the balloons flying in the morning rays of sun was an incredible sight to see. We landed right next to a grove of trees, and I was so sure that the bottom of the basket would hit the trees. Our pilot somehow managed to land us perfectly onto the back of a truck, and the basket was latched to the bed of the truck. We climbed out and they set up a round folding table, popping champagne bottles in celebration (a long-practiced tradition in balloon riding).

-Natalia

We arrived in Istanbul a mere week before the Turkish elections. In the city, we saw tons of party flags hanging in long rows. We even saw a truck with a picture of the prime minister, and anther truck filled with people waving party flags.

In the morning we got up and decided to look around. The main street was filled with people. It wasn’t really a street, because it was no different from the sidewalk (other than the fact it was darker and wider), and because only a complete idiot would drive a car on it. Walking was faster. Down the middle of the street ran a trolley. There were stands with Turkish bread and water that somehow stayed cool, and people blowing bubbles on the street and playing instruments, but other than that there were fewer people selling stuff on the street than we had seen in other countries. Off the main road, Istanbul was like a maze. There were alleys that you could walk down. These had actual streets with tons of interesting stores.

At one point we came to a stand which was run by the Kurdish party, or HDP (Peoples Democratic Party). There was some difficulty communicating, but, based on what we were able to make out and what we discovered later, we learned that the party was trying to appeal to progressives in order to get more than 10% of the vote. You see, in Turkey, a party has to get 10% or more of the vote to get any seats at all in the parliament. Also, a party can be banned if it is accused of being separatist. This fate befell the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). That party has been in conflict with the Government of Turkey for decades.   The Kurds are a group of people who want autonomy. However, unlike other separatist groups, they are split between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

We also saw a protest in the street.  We had seen people gathering in one corner, so we watched what was happening. About a hundred people were gathered together in a square formation. All of them held signs of relatives who had been “disappeared” by the Turkish Government, along with their names and the dates when they vanished, which were in the 80s and 90s. The ones in the front were kneeling, while the ones in the back were standing, so you could see all the signs at once. A woman in the front gave a speech, but it was in Turkish so we couldn’t understand it. We had seen Turkish police a little ways off, but they didn’t disturb the demonstration.

Later we came across a large group of women dancing in the street. They took up the whole street and for a while they had to wait to begin dancing until a garbage truck passed. They danced Flamenco, from Spain, and many people gathered around to watch and take photos.

The Turks we met seemed really proud about their food. For example, we found a good Turkish restaurant. When we ordered our food, the owner came over and explained that he had lived in New York for many years, but had decided to come back to Turkey to open a Turkish restaurant. He said that there were no good Turkish restaurants in New York, but he told us what the best non-Turkish ones were. Similarly, we later met a man working at a food stand in front of a national park in central Turkey. He was a skilled chef who had worked at restaurants all over Europe, but had moved back to Turkey to open up a restaurant of his own. But that didn’t work out. He had a hard time getting the money and ingredients necessary to start the restaurant. Nevertheless, he still had plans to do it.

On the top of our list of sights to see in Istanbul was the Hagia Sophia (Ayasofyia in Turkish). The Sophia was a church, constructed in 537 C.E., that had been turned into a mosque in 1453. It contained signs of both Christianity and Islam, from the giant Arabic seals to the Christian mosaics on the upper levels. Parts were under repair, but it was still amazing. There were signs with information like in a museum, and it contained many interesting parts like a royal library and a wishing column that is said to cure illnesses.

Then we headed to the Blue Mosque. When we arrived it was closed for prayer. Outside, there was a Egyptian Obelisk. We could go into the courtyard, where many people were waiting. According to the rules, all people had to cover their legs and women had to cover their heads. The mosque itself was spacious and beautiful. It had a red carpet floor and lights above our heads. It didn’t have much else, as is common with mosques, but it did have an Islamic information center on the side, where people could talk to an Imam and have their questions answered.

We also went to see a bazaar. A bazaar is similar to a mall, except all the shops are small and open-air. It has existed in the Mediterranean for centuries. The one we saw had shops that sold jewelry, clothing, and trinkets, but it still had the same design as ancient bazaars. There was also a bazaar that sold spices, dried fruit, and candy. Like most places in Istanbul, it was filled with people. It is amazing that bazaars can still thrive in the modern world.

We went to two great art museums, Istanbul Modern, which was a large building along the water and had a really interesting exhibit on famous photographs from the 20^th Century; and a smaller contemporary art museum in the Pera neighborhood.We liked Istanbul better than we had expected. The city was packed with people; this was actually one of the reasons we liked the city so much. Even though it was the first Muslim place we visited, with the exception of a stopover in Jakarta, it was fairly secular. It had managed to keep many of its traditions, like bazaars, while developing its economy. Turks seemed proud of their culture, as we saw with food. One of the things we have seen on our trip, especially in Europe, is a deep sense that the place we are in has been inhabited for centuries. Finally, we realized that the location of hotel made a big difference. Getting hotel in a residential area of Istanbul, rather than the tourist area near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, made a big difference in our experience of the city.

-Isaiah

Bangkok’s airport was fancy, excessively so—although this made more sense after we saw the rest of the city. In Bangkok, there were many upscale malls, which were so fancy that one had a Rolls Royce sitting in the middle of the mall. It is a testament to Siam’s economic inequality. Practically none of the stores in the mall were Thai. While there were watch, car, and fashion companies based in Paris, New York, and Rome, none was based in Bangkok. Similarly, the food in the malls was American and from other places, but not Thai.

The economy seemed perfectly designed to suck as much money as possible out of tourists, and one of the ways it did this was scams. When we rode in a taxi, the driver would refuse to turn on the meter and would charge about three times a reasonable meter rate, and some would only take you three quarters of the way there, leaving you stranded with no idea where you were. Of course, not all taxi drivers did this, but it was pretty common (it exists in other countries as well). There are other scams too. We almost fell for one, but we escaped unscathed. We had planned to go to the Grand Palace—however we had to cross a busy road, which in Bangkok is a nearly impossible feat. It took us thirty minutes (no exaggeration) to get across. When we got to the palace, a man standing on the side told us it was closed (which was true). He then invited us to go on a boat tour. But he said we had to go on his boat, which was cheaper than the other ones (which was false). We didn’t fall for it, and came back the next day when the palace was open.

When we arrived at the palace, it was jam packed with tourists. We decided to go see the Emerald Buddha, which is a famous in Thailand and the main reason we were there. We looked at the incredible palace, and then moved on to an amazing mural that stretched the length of a really long wall. It showed the mystical story of the Ramakian, a sacred Thai Buddhist text. It was filled with outlandish beings and many small details.

We then went to see the building with the Emerald Buddha. Because of all the hype, we expected a giant sculpture. However, it turned out to be an elaborate structure with a small Buddha on top (the Buddha wasn’t really emerald, but actually jade. When it was first uncovered, it had been caked with mud. However, a green spot showed and so it was assumed to be emerald). The room was filled with more murals depicting daily life in ancient Thailand. We liked it, but preferred the mural outside. After that we returned home.

We did have some good experiences at the malls. One of them had each floor themed after a different city. For example, the Istanbul floor had English that was written to look like Arabic and was shaped like a bazaar. In the mall we found a store that sold Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. It had virtually every Yu-Gi-Oh! set ever released, as well as a few other trading card games. It was a tournament day (stores that sell Yu-Gi-Oh! cards have a tournament once a week). People were playing matches on the tables in the store, which didn’t leave much extra space. The cards were mainly in Japanese (Yu-Gi-Oh! is Japanese; the versions sold in other countries are translated), but there were some Korean and English cards too. The decks weren’t all in the same language. For example, even the Japanese decks had English cards. Since Thailand is in Asia, they played with cards not yet released in the rest of the world, including the USA.

While we were in Thailand, the news was awash with stories about the devastating earthquake in Nepal and we were wondering what we could do to help. We heard about a Nepal benefit concert, so we decided to go. It was part of the Nepal RISE: Earthquake Relief Campaign, and was held at a private school called the NIST International School. The concert took place in front of the school and people gave speeches. The one that we listened to was about helping Nepal after the crisis had passed. Then musicians came out and sang songs, and overall it was entertaining.

On the grass people had set up various stands. One had art that was being auctioned off. Another had Nepalese food, so we went over to it. Two women were at the stand, one from Nepal and the other from Boston. The Nepalese woman had family members in Nepal who had been impacted by the earthquake. The other woman ran a school that served poor and migrant children with her husband. She invited us to come and see the school, and learn about their work.Some time later, we went to visit the school. On the way, we stopped at an art studio and the owners invited us in and showed us around. On the walls there were many paintings, for example of people with extremely weird brains. There were also small scale replicas of famous pieces of art. It had a small cafe in the front, where we relaxed while in the company of a delightful cat and enjoyed cold delicious drinks.

When we got to the school, the Nepalese woman we had met at the benefit concert was sitting outside at a table, picking stems off basil leaves to make into pesto, which she sold for money. We sat down to help her, and soon the rest of the teachers and students in the school—including the people we had met at the concert—came outside to eat. For lunch, we ate pad thai (this was the only time we had it in Thailand) made by the kids themselves. Then we went to see the inside of the school.After that, we had a long conversation with the people who ran the school as we helped pick more basil leaves. They explained that the school was to help educate kids who worked on the street selling flowers all night. Their school had vastly improved the lives of these children. They gave support to the parents to help compensate for the money the children would have made if they had continued working instead of going to school. We also discussed their experience running the school, life in Thailand, and different books we had read, including one about Pope Francis.

On the way home we stopped at a cafe that had board games you could borrow. We played Settlers of Catan for an hour and then went back to the hotel. We were excited to head to Turkey the next day.

-Isaiah

It was a six-hour van ride to Kalaw, going through small villages and past rice fields and open plains. We saw an elephant by the side of the road (!!!) and rode by hundreds of water buffalo with big humps on their backs. Our guide met us at our B&B early the next morning and we walked out of the town. Nu Nu (our guide) took us to her family’s house first and we were served tea and candy. The first floor of the house, where we were greeted, had a small table with chairs around it and a small cooking area, but otherwise it was empty. Some of the walls were covered in calendars and posters of musicians and models. The second floor had space for sleeping. It didn’t take long to leave the stores and small houses behind, and we spent day one of our trek walking through forests and along dirt roads overlooking the valleys. Far below you could see clusters of houses and men and women working in the fields.   As we walked we shared stories with Nu Nu about her life in Myanmar and ours in the United States. She was fascinated by the idea that we spent nine days backcountry camping in the Grand Canyon.

Around noon we came to a tiny restaurant with covered, round picnic tables outdoors. There were a few other tourists eating and we sat down to a delicious lunch of Indian food. The restaurant overlooked the deep valley, and sat all alone on the side of the dusty road. Chickens wandered over the grass and ran under our feet. It was a 13.5 mile hike, so we continued on and spent most of the afternoon walking, occasionally passing through villages where we were introduced to the local people from various different groups with distinct languages. We spent the night at a homestay, where we slept on mats on a raised platform. There was no door between our room and the family’s — just a curtain hanging in the doorframe. The town we stayed in only had two families, but both families were big, so there were still many houses. We walked from one end to the other in less than five minutes. In the evening, we could hear music coming through speakers at a monastery in a nearby village.

We woke up early the next morning, and left the small town at 7am, before it started to get hot. Day two was even longer – 16 miles – and we left the forests behind for elevated rice fields and rolling hills. Dirt and grass paths had been made in between the squares plots of rice and many other crops (tea leaves, cauliflower, tomatoes, etc.), weaving their way through the fields. We walked up and down the vast landscape, looking back at the checker-board plains.

We ate noodles and vegetables with a fried egg on top for lunch, and napped for an hour-and-a-half in the empty second floor of a square building in a tiny town. The afternoon hike was long and hot, but it finally ended in a small town with cows in pens outside the houses, and people talking on the streets. We passed a Monastery on our way to the homestay (later my mother went back with Nu Nu to talk with the monk there). Dinner was fish and five or six different kinds of vegetables. For dessert the cook made banana flambé in honor of Mommy and Daddy’s 25^th wedding anniversary, and we watched the fruit go up in blue flames at the dinner table. We again slept on mats on the floor of a mostly empty room, and from the balcony in the morning we could see a man sitting in a loft full of hay, sorting it and cutting it down to the right size. He had been working since at least five in the morning.

Our third day of hiking brought us to a bigger dirt road, and then down to Inle Lake. We could still see fields all around us, but little houses and small villages started popping up on the plains. Lunch was served at a restaurant a few minutes from the lake, and we walked along a thin strip of water to a narrow boat, which we boarded. We waved goodbye to Nu Nu, who would take a motorbike back to Kalaw. She has been doing these treks about twice a week for four years, but soon she will stop guiding treks and become a school teacher in her village. She just finished university studying Myanmar history. She was fortunate enough to be one of the few girls in her village to get beyond an elementary school education. After primary school, the nearest school was an hour and a half walk. As a result most girls and some boys stayed home to work in the fields.

The boat we had boarded had four white, wooden seats nailed to the bottom of its floor, one behind the other. The couple that owned the boat took us to a Pagoda with paintings telling a story on the walls, a Monastery with more paintings and cats wandering around (they were supposed to be jumping cats, but we didn’t see that), and a shop where women from a native tribe south of Inle Lake were weaving cloth. The women had heavy metal rings around their necks, arms, and legs, which overtime extend their limbs. As you get older, the number of rings you wear increases.

All of these buildings were on the water, and it was hard to imagine that we were on a lake. It looked and felt like a river with lots of twists and turns. We passed restaurants, more stores, and motored through floating villages. Green plants floated at the waters surface and we passed “floating gardens” with rows and rows of tomatoes and flowers. As it started to drizzle, and the mountains in the distance disappeared behind the thick clouds of fog, we emerged into the open area of Inle Lake, and we finally felt like we were on a lake. Men and women stood at the ends of boats casting fishing lines into the water. They moved their boats by pushing long wooden rods into the water with their legs and feet.

We passed houses on the shore, beautiful pagodas and other buildings with traditional architecture on our way to the small town where we were going to stay for the night. Once we got to land it was only a short ride in a tuk tuk (a motorcycle pulling a small covered cart) to our hotel, where we were welcomed with cold lemonade. The next morning we took a taxi to the airport, passing by fields of sunflowers in bloom.

-Natalia

(Look at the photo section of the blog for more photos!!)