Sunday, July 8, 2018

Iceland, now including 24 hour daylight and snow in June


We expected Iceland’s summer to be colder than our Dubai winter, we did not expect it to be as cold as a proper winter elsewhere. We packed warmer than we thought we needed but was really glad the residency had warm clothes that were left by previous residents. On our third day, the high was 3C (37F), with gale force winds, rain, and SNOW. It snowed in the middle of June at sea level. We were not prepared for this. 
Our signature pose, in front of icebergs
 (note how warmly we are dressed, this was usual)

We were expecting 24 hours of sunshine, which we got, but didn’t know how it would affect us. We basically slept whenever, woke whenever, ate whenever, worked whenever, no real regard to the time on the clock. It was interesting.

So many rainbows as well
We had a friend from Dubai visit and we took a photo with her and my pet drone


I was there to do an artist residency. There were several other artists in residence as well but most of the spaces were filled with an American film crew shooting a feature set in our little town, Olafsfjordur. I helped on the first whole read through as well as was an extra in a pub scene (hard to get into character for that one, ha).

Collecting kelp for experimental art

Part of my performance "Trying to find the best water to wash my hands of this"
also right before I dropped my phone in the ocean.

Making chlorophyll prints


Aside from the residency, I knew I wanted to see glaciers, whales, puffins, and sit in lots of geothermal water. I did all the above including seeing a whale breaching from a geothermal hot tub on a fjord! I also swam in the Arctic Ocean (right before a hot tub) and crossed the Arctic Circle for the first time. 
swimming in some geothermal lagoons

running into the Arctic Ocean for the first and only time


Getting to the Circle (and first puffin encounter) required a 6 hour round trip ferry ride; the ride back was super rough and basically everyone on board was throwing up (still worth it!).





This is not in reverse, this is how this puffin landed, the winds just pushed it into place backwards.
You can see another puffin take off at the end

We knew Iceland was going to be expensive, but we really weren’t prepared for just how expensive. Our 2nd day quickly taught us that when a burger and fries in a fast food place in a gas station was more than 20 USD! Luckily, we had a kitchen for most of the time, so we cooked a lot.

Arctic Circle monument. It moves 15 meters north every year.
I hope they push this into the sea in a couple of decades when it moves off of the land.

deceptively calm water on the way to the Arctic Circle

Birds cover the runway so much that the planes sometimes make a pass over to run them off before landing.

We hiked around a bay filled with icebergs, hiked up to the very edge (and barely onto) a glacier, saw so many waterfalls we stopped even pulling over for ones that in most places would have been a major attraction.

the glacier is "thisssss big"

One of the first really impressive waterfalls

icebergs, it was hard to limit the number of iceberg photos to post



Monday, July 3, 2017

MotoLao (Flounder's stat version)

We decided to rent a motorbike to ride around Northern Laos. Sarah had been around the region on a motorbike that she bought a few years ago, but I’d never been to Laos. We had to choose between a 150cc road bike (with somewhat knobby tires) or a 250cc dual purpose (but much more expensive). On the map, the roads looked paved so we went for the cheaper one.

I'm glad Sarah made me turn around to get a photo in this spot


We left a bag at the guest house and loaded up. I had to buy more bungee cords to feel the luggage was more secure (I’ve had several break while riding). The trip out of town was fine, the first roads were well maintained and fairly straight. We stopped for lunch where Sarah ordered me soup (like Laotian pho), by just saying one food (no menu here!)


Good soup


Nong Khaiw, which is hard to capture
Two-thirds of the way to our first destination, Nong Khaiw, the roads got a bit worse—smaller, with potholes, and lots of curves. This was the still better than the roads for most of the next few days. There were so many ups and downs (285m to 1600m) and hairpin turns. Overall, we travelled over 800 kilometers, our best average speed over a longer stretch was probably like 50kph (30mph). Sometimes we were averaging more like 20-25kph. I had to yell “BUMP!” often so Sarah could prepare for a giant pothole. Our last day on the best roads, we went 260ish KM to make it back to Luang Prabang.

The roads were too curvy for bikes, much less tanker trucks!

The first day's bike ride.






Kids at one of our stops
Along the way we saw so many rivers, every river was surrounded by a village. It is also how people commute, bathe, and wash clothes. So many mountain tops, many of them also had villages. It seemed like every sort of animal we saw had babies: pigs, ducks, cows, chickens, water buffalo, dogs…humans 😊 Kids waving and yelling hello (or bye) is a common occurrence. Lots of adults did as well, which makes me feel more welcome than the kids because kids do it everywhere.


some of the many animals we encountered



Rice fields and villagers working them
There was a lot of slash and burn agriculture—corn, bananas, rice. The valley bottom rice paddies seem more sustainable to me, but people are trying to make a living. You can feel the presence of NGOs in many towns, they are newer houses (although the mix of houses probably has as much to do with ethnicity as money), schools, water sources besides the river.


One of our more memorable stops was on the Plain of Jars. Thousands upon thousands of Neolithic stone pots over many sites. No one is totally sure of the origins, but they are probably more than 2000 years old.

the biggest jar


plain of jars
The sad thing is that this area was the most bombed area in the most heavily bombed country (per capita). The US had 9 years of bombing runs, nearly 580,000 missions, every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day. This had to be terrifying and many fled the country or lived in caves. Almost one ton of bombs were dropped for every person in Laos at the time. Many of these bombs were cluster bombs that broke up into hundreds of bombies that are still found all over the country. Many people are injured and killed every day by these, including children who mistake the small bombs for toys. Farming and construction are especially dangerous enterprises.






Luckily, organizations like MAG (link) have been working on uxo (unexploded ordinance) removal for decades, clearing many areas. Please consider a donation to them if you can.
bombs and bomblets


The trip, minus side roads we also took 
Sarah's selfie with the bike

the roads will be straighter when this tunnel is complete (I assume it is a road tunnel)

Rain in the distance

Slash and burned landscape with bonus ant on the lens

Sunset over the rice paddies from one of our hotels

Friday, June 9, 2017

Should we get off the bike? The struggle to appreciate overwhelming beauty in Bagan.

By Sarah

My mission in Bagan was simple: find a good sunset spot. In an area with nearly 3,000 temples, surely I could find one that was high enough to see over the tree line, neighbored by interesting and varied temples, and remote enough that we wouldn’t have to fight to find a perch from which to watch the sun sink and the rusty orange of the surrounding structures glow.


Through force of habit, I did a quick google search. The same three temples were recommended over and over. Even some new friends we met by the pool of our hotel told us they found a great sunset spot, then proceeded to recommend the one listed prominently in Lonely Planet.

But I wanted a 360 view from a quiet temple. I imagine sitting on top, just Flounder and I, meditating in peace as the light faded and the air lost its sticky heat.



So we set out from our hotel at a reasonable time in the morning, for we are not sunrise people. “The only time I want to see the sunrise is if I’ve been up all night,” Flounder says.

Within a minute, we began to see temples of burnt orange on both sides of the road. Some were rounded at the base and pointy at the top like stupas (or, for Fairfielders, like the kalashes atop the domes), others were rectangular, or pentagonal. Some were carved and embellished, others were plain. Some were overgrown, with tree trunks and vines, and some were pristine.




I began pestering Flounder. “Pull over! I want to see if I can climb up that temple!”

He went with me the first few times. We were full of enthusiasm and awe. “Look at those ones over there!” we’d point, stop, and explore.

When I found a temple that might fit my criteria, I’d mark it on the map. ‘Possible sunset view?’ Then move on.

But soon even I tired as we passed hundreds of perfect, unique temples. Thus is sightseeing, the tragedy of being surrounded by the most fascinating places and noticing how quickly that fascination fades.

“Another example of fine craftmanship? A bridge to ancient cultures? The finest specimen of its kind? No, let’s not get off the bike, I can take a quick picture from here.”



And as the heat mounted, the energy to leave our little electronic bike, to poke my head into dark spaces and search for narrow staircases up to a sunset view, that energy faded. So we got lost a little. We navigated sandy paths, we startled scrawny, lithe squirrels and upset dozing birds trying to hide in the bushes from the midday heat.

Soon we came across horses pulling tourists in wooden carts and knew we must be near the “highlight” temples. We ducked into the large, cool structures and I noticed about as many pilgrims as tourists. The area of Bagan, a stop on every tourist itinerary in Myanmar, is also a profoundly important site for the many devout Buddhists in the country. So I covered my legs and shoulders, removed my shoes, and tried not to get in the way of the worshippers praying, circling the inner shrine, or paying to apply another square or two of gold leaf to the statues of Buddha.



In the afternoon, in the full heat of the hottest part of the day, I found The One. It had a 360 view, was relatively isolated, and had stairs big enough that Flounder wouldn’t need to crawl to get up them. It was perfect and I knew immediately.

So we went back to the hotel pool (side note: get a hotel with a pool. During the 36 degree afternoons, there was nothing better than to dip in and out of our pool, reading a book, and chatting with other travelers.) then rode back out in the cool of the late afternoon to The One.





We had the temple almost to ourselves; it was just us and a man selling paintings. But after we sat down to meditate, he started to pack up and soon it was just us and a panorama view of the temples big and small surrounding us, glowing softly in the setting sun. Their golden warmth was offset by the green of trees and fields and the white of stubborn cows being pushed by small laughing boys, heading to a home between temples built nearly a thousand years ago.




That’s the thing about sightseeing. It’s easy to become blasé about the most amazing things, to not even muster the energy to get off the bike. But then, sometimes, you find yourself with a person you love watching the sun setting over breathing history, and the beauty of it catches in your throat.




Sunday, June 4, 2017

At loose ends in Mandalay

By Sarah

“So how do we get from the airport to the city?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I think there’s a taxi or a share taxi?” Flounder answered, nonchalantly.

We were standing in the check in line at the Bangkok airport, about 90 minutes before our flight to Mandalay, Myanmar.

Beautiful teak monastery in Mandalay


How could he not know? And then because I have no filter, I asked him, “How could you not know? It’s your job to research these things!” I smiled cheekily.

“Yeah, I think I just don’t care as much. I know now that things will just work out.”

This was a shift. A shift from our early days of traveling together, when Flounder liked to plan every aspect of a trip—book every hotel, know where we were going and how to get there. But also a shift in the unassigned but assumed roles we’d fallen into in our relationship. He was the planner, the researcher. And I was the on-the-ground communicator. He did the work before the trip, I the work during.

Airports can be hectic, full of scams, and we were going to a new country.

But Mandalay’s airport was a surprise—calm, organized, plenty of agents. Our evisa was processed quickly, our customs form accepted immediately, and there was no one waiting for departing passengers, trying to usher us into their overpriced taxis. Instead, we took out money from the ATM, bought two sim cards (for a total of $3), and booked a seating in a waiting van that, for less than $4 apiece, would take us directly to our hotel.

Beehive boxes on the side of the road

The drive from the airport was lovely—about an hour through mango groves and green fields dotted with palm trees and pagodas.

It's mango season! Mangoes are everywhere


When we arrived at our hotel, the streets dark and unlit around us, I asked Flounder, “What do you want to do tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Neither of us had done the research.

I loved seeing spotting these symbols around town


So we did what we love to do. We rented bikes and rode around the city. We rode to the jetty on the shore of the Ayeyarwady river and asked about boats (none in the wet season). So we ignored the early hour and sat at a riverside beer station, Flounder drinking a breakfast draught while we both watched the kids splash in the water below and the women wash laundry and hang it from the ropes tying wooden boats to the shore.

Action on the Ayeyarwady River

Flounder enjoys a fresh beer and pets a friendly kitty. A perfect combo!

Taking a break from cycling in the heat

We rode on a teak bridge, struggled making left turns into relentless traffic of all speeds and sizes, saw monasteries and temples, searched for a buffet serving food from the Shan region of Myanmar, ignored the Thai imported durian and bought local instead, ducked inside when the afternoon rain started, rode along the moat and walls surrounding the royal palace, and chuckled at the antics of roly babies (so many children!), their faces covered in the soft thanaka paste so emblematic of the country.

Teak bridge

An overloaded cyclist (is there any other kind in Southeast Asia?)


There were many things that we didn’t do, and some things that perhaps we could have done with advance research. But we ended the day full, happy, and with a taste of Myanmar that left us excited for more.