Batumi Beach Blanket Bingo!

I am now at the point in the journey where writing anything remotely profound is becoming a struggle.  It has been 12 weeks since I have had organic crunchy peanut butter and far too long since I have had a real bath.  I feel protein deprived and slightly malodorous.  I stopped shaving my legs and arm pits once we left China because shorts aren’t exactly “kosher wear” on the silk road and, quite frankly, I feel it adds to my “holier than thou feminist” presence on the truck.  I would have burned a bra or two at a campfire but I think that would have been the definite tipping point for reinstating witch burning as a legitimate overland pastime.

So back to the shaving…

I did end up having to break out the razor and patchouli soap because our next stop was Batumi, the premiere Georgian Black Sea resort town that is just a hop, skip and a jump from Sochi and right on the border of Turkey.  I need to get back to this place in the summer when it is hopping like Penticton during Peach Festival.  October is great if you want the entire boardwalk to yourself and you want to be the only one at a coffee shop.  Well to be fair, we weren’t the only ones in town.  The USS Mt. Whitney was in port so I had to share the promenade with sailors and Filipino cruise ship personnel.  Yep – living the dream!  We missed the annual “Batumipalooza” (its in August).  The line up was retro impressive – Boney M, Ace of Base, 2 Live Crew and, wait for it…  KENNY G!!   Interspersed with these headliners were a bunch of EuroVision one hit wonders and some Georgian/Russian techno hybids that promised to “dance you into hereafter and back again.”  I bet the jello shots were flowing on the beach that weekend.  Highlight for us was the dancing fountains that make the Bellagio look like something a small child created with nails  and a garden hose.  From 9 pm until midnight this wonderland of lights and hydro-choreography performs to such musical numbers as The Theme from Mission Impossible, The Soundtrack to Lord of the Rings, an assortment of Broadway show tunes and then – the piece de resistance – DONNER SUMMER’S HOT STUFF!!  So there we were– me, Ken, a security guard and two gay sailors dancing ourselves to the hereafter and back on the boulevard in Batumi.  You have to wonder what this would have been like during peak season when Putin stops by…

Batumi - BTW - boasts the most space age awesome McDonalds on the planet.  Check it out here:

http://www.geek.com/news/the-mcdonalds-of-the-future-is-here-well-in-georgia-today-1554825/#gallery=0/mcdonalds-batumi-georgia5  

Make sure you scroll through the photos.  This is your new one stop shop for burgers, petrol and sailors!

A few days later we crossed the border into Turkey.  A border crossing so uneventful and simple that it is only worth mentioning because it now means we have reached our final country on the silk road.  It also means we have actual toilets when we do a toilet stop and the cost of everything just went up by 400%.  Gone are the days of $5 meals (and those were splurges!).  Major upshot though is getting tea for free at every gas station - much appreciated since the temperature has dropped rapidly these last few weeks.  Our first stop in Turkey was the Sumela Monastery which “overlooks forests and streams, making it extremely popular for its aesthetic attraction as well as for its cultural and religious significance.”  Nice hike up with great views at the top.  Also ran into my “Drago Peeps” while there which is always good for a laugh.  They have an older Belgian lady on their trip who always cracks me up with her blunt honesty.  We ran into her as we were walking back down and she asked, “Is this another one of those dam monasteries carved into rock?  There is only so much destroyed religious heritage a person can take on a trip!”

And finally, you have probably gathered that my/our mood has changed somewhat over the last few entries.  That’s because we have been doing the no more camping happy dance!!  This means I will no longer be bitched out for not lighting a camp stove properly or boiling water fast enough.  It still means I have to endure the back handed comments about how I should be the one who has to clean out the cooler that now smells like  a dead corpse.  Because when you overland, it’s not about who is actually assigned a task, its about who someone else assigns that task to and, of course, their rules on how it should be done.

<cue in Donna Summer…. I’M DANCING!!!!!>

(Oh I almost forgot!  Before we got to Batumi we made a stop at the Prometheus Caves.  Impressive! Almost as impressive as ATM in Belize - almost.  I still have to give ATM top billing because you have to swim in and actually "cave" to do it but Prometheus does not disappoint.  Especially when the tour guide forgets you are still in there and turns all the lights off.  You ever tried to find your way out of a cave using your Android as a light source?  Trust me - you don't want to.  There is not enough Donna Summer or Ativan in the world to recover from that experience.)

*I just realized that i wrote "Donner Summer" instead of Donna Summer.  But you know what?  I am leaving it as it.  Because it wouldn't surprise me at all if this trip ended with us trapped in the mountains having to eat each other while listening to 70's disco music.  I need almond butter STAT!

One of the rare moments when beach chairs are free of Germans

Butane Black Sea Love

Clock Tower in Batumi

Ferris Wheel resting after a long summer of spinning

Down town Batumi

It isn't an overland until there is another wedding!

Tennis Cat says score is LOVE

Prometheus's Jaws

Prometheus's Wings

When graffiti goes bad... (Sumela Monastery)

Sumela Monastary - worth the hike (and the rain!)

Sumela Selfie!  Not our happiest pose but it was raining, we were cold and off in the distance we were distracted by a Starbucks...

Finding Your Heart in Armenia

There is something undecidedly wonderful when you find yourself falling in love in an unexpected way.  A situation, a place, a person (or two!) all converge to make what was suppose to be a quick side trip from the destination into a moment of discovery.  This is how I feel about Armenia – a country so riven with psychological baggage it is a wonder it survives at all.  In a place where difference and justified rage could very well take hold in insidious ways here is a country that is stunningly beautiful with a people whose fierceness is tempered by a love for life and an overwhelming desire to move forward from the past. 

We spent three days in the capital of Yerevan.  It is a city that is pushing its way into “Euro-ness” but in a way that remains distinctly Armenia.  As one of the oldest cities on the Silk Road (its beginnings traced to around 8 BC), Yerevan is committed to embracing both the old and the new.  Public parks, street cafes, live theatre and modern art galleries envelope the city in creativity and zest.  This city wants to remain and become beautiful but is trying to do so without gimmicky ostentatious fakery.  There are a few places where “North Americanization” has crept in but I get the sense that its tentacles are not going to get far.  Armenia is filled with the young and the young are hopeful.  That hope excludes the desire for consumerism and a strong need to hold hands with their neighbours.  The city was setting up the annual Silk Road Music Festival that would run for 7 days.  During this time, the millenials of Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran gather for a week of singing, dancing, loving and connection.  “During this week,” explains our Armenia guide, “We come together and love, dance, and sing.  We know that soon it will be us who make the decisions and our decision is that we want to move forward and make our world a better place together.”  It was fascinating to listen to how young people here view Armenia’s tragic past.  “We know there was a genocide.  We know there is war with Azerbaijan and us.  But WE (the 25 and under crowd) did not do any of those things to each other and we know that.  When we get together with others our age from other countries we all think the same – that we are the same! – and we want a better life than one where our countries fight all the time for stupid reasons.  What’s done is done.  Let’s move on!”  <gush! >  I listen to this and I realize that being a grown up is often highly over rated.  We clearly complicate things more than we should and the older we get the more set in our ways we become including an often burning desire to never let go of old ideals or perceived wrongs.

Armenia also posses some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen.  Driving through it I was struck by how wonderfully medival it all looked.  Tiny villages built on the sides of mountains, green forests peppered with the colors of autumn.  Mountain mists and ancient monasteries.  Much of Armenia’s ancient past has been destroyed but you cannot take away her untamed spirit or her wild nature.  If the driver’s here weren’t so crazy I’d say this is a premier country to road cycle or ride a motor cycle through.  Well, maybe the driver’s aren’t the issue.  Maybe it is really the fact that you will have a hard time staying focused on the road when so much beauty abounds J

And speaking of driving…

While were were in Yerevan it was common for us to walk all day and evening and by night, we would catch a taxi back to our hotel.  This proved to be an interesting experience in that our hotel (and its address) were both unheard of by anyone driving a taxi.  The process usually involved us having to ask 4 or 5 taxis if they could take us to the Olympia Hotel.  We show them the card and Ken shows them on his phone GPS where it is.  They look.  The ask a few other drives parked near by and then they come back and say no.  Finally we get someone who will agree to take us but has no idea where they are going.  This means Ken has to navigate in the back with his GPS trying to direct a guy who does not speak English (and we are not even sure if he can read to be honest) to our hotel.  Armenia taxi drivers are CRAZY.  It was not out of the ordinary to see 4 or 5 taxi/motor vehicle accidents on the road each night as we made our way back.  And we are not talking minor fender benders – they are full on head on collisions! 

Our final night in Armenia had us camp on a mountain side near an old monastery.  We began this trip in unbearable heat and by that night, we could see our breath and woke up to frost.  The hilly pasture was now slick with icy dew and our truck was just not “agile” enough to manage it.  Two hours later, with the help of an old Russian military vehicle we began to inch our way down the mountain through pristine grasslands being ripped to shreds from our intrusion.  It was a decidedly awkward moment of awareness.  The realisation that wherever you go you leave foot prints and an impression – no matter how well intentioned you are.

Monastic Mountain Beauty - Armenia

Where the Spirit is Strong - Armenia

My Armenia Dylan whose pants I covet!

Love in Yerevan

Bovine Wonderland - Armenia

The Cross of Crosses for all those we remember...

Fabulous Fountain at the Modern Art Museum in Yerevan

FROG SOUP!

Getting my healthy dose of Holy Water (and dysentery!)

Ken's Little Foal Friend at Camp - Armenia

Doing what he loves...

Calgarians - LOOK FAMILIAR?

Post Sob Latte Moment, Yerevan

Memorial of Letters of a Language almost lost

Perfect camp site

Literary Street Art in Yerevan

The Shepard who bid me good morning from my tent

Laughing at the Insanity in Yerevan

Ken with his Armenia Park Posse

Windmills of my Blown-Glass Mind, Yerevan

Words are like stone...

Robin Williams comes to Xiahe

Robin Williams died and we are in Xiahe.  Somehow these two inexplicable events are intertwined and now begins the process of untangling them.  Where do I begin?  This place – this place that is second only to Lhasa in its holiness.  This man – this man who made laughing and joy holy.  This loss – this loss of cultural identity paved and disrupted by forces it cannot stop.  This death – this death because  identity is hard to live up to when it never really is yours to own.

Labrang Monastery looms large in this town.  3000 meters in the mountainous grasslands it drapes the valley  like a well-worn camel blanket.   We pay 40 Yuan for a tour from the only monk who speaks English.  He lives up to his Trip Advisor reputation which, is to say, he is not the most welcoming of souls.  He would prefer this place remain holy and his.  We come to take that from him.  Robin – did we take too much from you?  God knows, we expected a lot.  We expected the monk to regale us with monastic tales of days gone by and share secrets of divine inspiration.  He yells at us instead.  “WHY ARE YOU HERE?!?!   A young French man in our group replies, “We paid you to take us on a tour.  You should answer our questions.”  “GO ASK THE DALAI LAMA!!” bellows the monk.  We paid you Robin to entertain us with your humor and humility.  Should you have stayed because you owed us?  Ken snaps a photo of the monk while he rests.  Furious, he lunges at him and begins to tear the camera from his hand.  “STOP TAKING PHOTOS!! STOP TAKING PHOTOS!!”  Ken deletes the image but the damage is done.  “It’s gone.” Ken replies, “See – it’s gone.”  The altercation becomes more aggressive and physical.  Did the paparazzi get to you too Robin?  Your image never your own anymore?  I try to get between the monk and Ken.  His rage frightens me.  A Belgian family tries to calm him down while shielding their children.  Ken apologizes.  “THERE IS NO SORRY!” screams the monk, “YOU KILL SOMEONE AND THEN YOU ARE SORRY?!?!  ALL YOU WESTERNERS CARE ABOUT IS MONEY!!”  Here is where it is easy.  Easy to say the monk is crazy.  He is irrational.  He is inappropriate.  Here is where it is hard –  where it becomes something more than just yourself.  Here is where you realize we all have demons and we all fight them.  Here is where it is easy to love someone when they make you laugh.  Here is where it is hard to love them when they speak their truth because truth cuts like a knife.  And a knife makes you bleed.

Later that day I walk the three-kilometer Kora spinning prayer wheels until my arm ached.  So many to spin.  Some the size of  mason jars others as big as cars.  Size not correlating to ease of movement.  The smallest things are often the hardest to change.  Momentum is funny that way.  I grab hold of a wheel that dwarfs me and begin to spin.  Each rotation counted off by a chime.  I spin faster.  Ding.  Ding.  Ding.  I hang on and careen into oblivion.  In that moment, nothing weighs me down.  I am the wing to the prayer.  All too soon the spinning stops – the momentum lost.  Were you tired of spinning Robin?  Tired of keeping up the momentum of humor and kindness we needed you to keep?  The prayer wheel stops.  There are no more chimes.  I walk away and someone else comes to begin the revolution anew.  But your wheel stopped spinning Robin.  You got tired.  We failed to help you keep the revolutions going.  We were too distracted by your chimes.

Robin Williams died and we are in Xiahe.  I am untangling the threads.  It’s time to weave a new tapestry.

Goat Crossing Guard

Monastic Comtemplation

Prayer pads waiting for knees

Momos - The REAL deal Shelly!

Doing this before we were even born

Ken plays Wheel of Fortunate

Big Wheel Keep on Turnin'

If the wheels stop, does the world stop turning?

Monk Debate on the Steppes

Emotion in motion

Walk this Way...

Holy Smoke!

The Michael Jordan of the Monastery

The path to enlightenment begins with a good sweep

The joys of monk racing

Sisters Strolling

Labrang at Sunset

Street Life

Puppy Love

Gated Community - Monk Style

Guardians of the Temple