blogs
I have become one of those people
Penn Yan, New York
Finger Lakes Region
USA
Thursday, July 5, 2007
3.12pm
I have become one of those people who lets his travel blog wither away when he returns to his home country.
Before I left I had time at work to look at people's travel blogs. I was always annoyed when someone just stopped making entries. What the heck happened to them? Now I have become one of those people.
Making blog entries is like exercising or eating healthily. No one really wants to hear excuses about why you didn't to it; you should just do it every day. So I won't go into a long introspective analysis about why they haven't been there.
Andy (hobotraveler.com) is great: he says just write whatever comes into your head. He is right, of course, and that is why he has thousands of web pages and thousands of readers.
To fill you in: I am working at a winery helping with production and retail sales. I am in a beautiful area of the world, the Finger Lakes of New York State. It is not a very well-known travel destination. However, it is becoming better known.
I have that contradictory feeling I had in other places I have visited. The place is beautiful and I feel lucky to see it. However, as the area inevitably changes to accommodate more visitors, some negative effects are occurring. This is the contradiction that is cloaked in the words "development" and "globalization".
I grew up here, but I have been away for a long time. So I am both a foreigner and a local. My ties here are more permanent than the tourist, especially if I decide to live and work here. But I see the place through a foreigner's eyes at times.
Every day I have memories of specific moments of my travels. I might remember having breakfast at the hotel near Khao San Road in Bangkok or the hotel in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India or the guesthouse in Kaza, Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India.
If you wonder if I am aware of how much more I can do with my website: I am. I imagine I am as aware as anyone. I have hundreds of digital photos to put online; different ways of organizing the information that I learned about places I visited; personal reflections on my travels; stories to tell; and maps to make.
I have gotten kind emails from readers. One suggested I put my finances up. He is absolutely right. This would help a lot of people. It is the kind of information I was looking for before I left. Another reader encouraged me to write a book. Receiving these emails is very gratifying.
My idea with this website has been that this website is about "places" rather than "travel". Wherever I happen to be should be subject matter for the site. So I have wanted to write about places in the U.S. as well as abroad. Like a geographer, I should write about the unique things about a place that a person who has never been there would find interesting, and that a person who has lived there all of his or her life never noticed.
While traveling, even though I wasn't "working", I still had internal conflicts over whether I should be "seeing things" or "working on the website". If I had let it, the website could have taken all of my time and I wouldn't have actually done anything.
Now, I am letting my life become even more complicated by working, and working without a set schedule. I also let myself become conflicted about what I should write about, since I am living in a place that is very familiar to me.
These are actually perennial problems with writing, and, just as exercising or eating right, I should "just do it".
I have become one of those people
Sunday June 3, 2007
10.39pm
Finger Lakes region
New York State, USA
I am working at a vineyard and winery in the Finger Lakes
I started working at a vineyard and winery several weeks ago. Today I collected soil samples from the vineyard. They will be sent to a commercial laboratory for analysis to determine if there are enough nutrients in the soil for the vines. In this area the following grape varieties are grown: Vignoles, Seyval Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet Franc, and Lemberger.
Soil coring tool and sample bags in the vineyard
Coring tool filled with soil sample after coring
Primarily I have been helping with bottling. Tomorrow we will bottle Vignoles. Bottling wine is a matter of keeping a multi-step process running smoothly. The wine, which has fermented over the winter and is now ready to drink, is stored in a very large tank. The wine is pumped from the tank through a series of filters to a bottling machine. The machine is automated. At one end a person loads the empty bottles onto a bottle-width conveyor. The conveyor takes the bottles to be filled with wine and corked. Next the machine places foil capsules over the mouth of the bottle and heat-shrinks them in place. Then the bottles are automatically labeled. Lastly, another person takes the bottles as they leave the conveyor, places them in cases, and stacks the cases on a wooden palette to be stored.
View from the vineyard on the rainy afternoon I took the soil samples
I am working at a vineyard and winery in the Finger Lakes
6 May 2007
3.42pm
Keuka Lake, Finger Lakes region, New York State, USA
I'm dreaming of tropical beaches
I will be doing something and my mind will flip back to some moment that occurred in the past fifteen months.
Most often I have a vision of the beach on Malapascua Island in the Philippines: white sand, aqua water, ocean breeze, perfect temperature, low humidity, palm trees, and a dive shop a sixty second walk away.
The beach at Malapascua Island, Philippines, February 25, 2007.
Sometimes it has been to Krabi, to some weird happening going on after dark in town involving foreigners and locals and eating and drinking.
When I have gotten my hair cut I flash back to barber in the "American barbershop" in Mysore cutting my hair or the place in Makati, Manila, Philippines, or the one in Leh, Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir when each time I stopped there was never any power to run the clippers. There was that place in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India with the hand-powered clippers with the dull blades which gave me the most excruciating haircut.
I have visions of the steep valleys and high mountain peaks of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh.
All of the vendors near Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand on the street brightly lit by the tropical sun come back to me.
I get a thousand little flashes of the schools of shimmering fish under which I snorkeled near Ao Ton Sai near Krabi, Thailand.
New Smyrna Beach in Florida reminded me of the beach in Calangute, Goa, India, although the beach at New Smyrna is nicer. But the beach at Malapascua beats out the beach at New Smyrna.
The beach hut at Malapascua Island, Philippines, February 24, 2007.
I'm dreaming of tropical beaches
Saturday, May 5, 2007
6.28pm
Keuka Lake, Finger Lakes Region, New York State, USA
I've been bopping around the east coast of the USA the past two months
I've been bopping around the east coast of the USA the past two months. I've been to two weddings, seen relatives on both sides of my family, caught up with college and grad school friends.
I landed in New York City, and stayed with friends in Jersey City, New Jersey. I flew to Florida for a Disney World wedding. I flew to Rochester, New York, to stay with family in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. I drove for my niece's first birthday party in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Then I went to visit friends in Washington, DC. After that I went back to Jersey City again for a wedding in Connecticut. And just a week ago I flew back to Florida to visit family in New Smyrna Beach.
The weather is finally turning warm here. I watched the lake go from frozen to melted. Still, though, people talk about how warm it is and it still seems cold to me. It's about 65F or 70F during the day.
The Finger Lakes region is devastatingly beautiful and I keep finding myself looking around all the time. I really don't like to talk about it because we'll get more people coming here than there already are.
I've been bopping around the east coast of the USA the past two months
20 April 2007
Penn Yan Public Library
Penn Yan, Finger Lakes, New York State, USA
6.15pm
Advice from the grave for a young traveler
On the road from Canandaigua to Gorham in the Finger Lakes in New York State, there is a graveyard at a crossroads. The crossroads intersect in the middle of rolling farmland. The graveyard is little more than a hillock with old oak trees surrounding it. The graves date from the the early nineteenth century, and the trees probably do too.
The gravestones are crumbling and some broken pieces are piled next to the trunk of a tree. One in particular stood out for me. Apparently people would sometimes choose a standard verse for the carver to put on the stone.
A gravestone of a certain Luther, son of David (and ?) Elizabeth, died Jan. 30, 1810 aged 2 years (10 months?) & 20 days, has this inscribed:
Behold young traveler as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I.
As I am now so you must be.
Prepare in youth to follow me.
Advice from the grave for a young traveler
Penn Yan Public Library
Penn Yan, Finger Lakes, New York State, USA
20 April 2007
5.01pm
SkypeIn is useful for the homeless traveller
Yesterday I set up a SkypeIn account for myself. SkypeIn is a Skype service in which I choose a U.S. phone number. The phone number is not associated with a mobile phone or landline. Callers dialing the number can speak to me if I am on a computer connected to the internet and I am logged onto the Skype application.
SkypeIn is a separate product from two other products offered by Skype. SkypeOut allows someone on a computer to call people in certain countries as if they were calling from a telephone exchange in that country. As a result the cost is low -- for many countries it costs US$0.021 (2.1 cents) per minute. The Skype product refers to two people at computers using the Skype application to talk, the use of which is free.
What is even better is that SkypeIn comes with a voicemail account. So when I am not logged into Skype (which is most of the time), the caller can leave a message for me in voicemail. I can check the voicemail whenever I am on a computer that has Skype running and has a broad-enough band on the internet.
As I am still a homeless traveller in the U.S., this service may still be useful to me. At the moment the prepaid T-Mobile SIM card on my mobile phone is out of the T-Mobile network range. So people could call me on the Skype number.
The real clincher is that calls may be forwarded from Skype to another number. So I can forward calls to the number of the house I am staying at or to my mobile phone if I know it will be in range. If the call is not answered Skype voicemail will pick up the call. Since I get a new SIM card and, consequently, a new mobile phone number each time I change countries, forwarding phone calls from a single U.S. phone number could be very useful for keeping in touch with people in the U.S.
This service is really useful as a U.S. number to leave for banks, credit card companies, and online retail companies. All of these entities want a U.S. phone number at which someone can be reached. Leaving an international number generally is not acceptable. If I had a SkypeIn number registered with all of my financial institutions when I was in India, I perhaps would have found out about outstanding credit card fraud more quickly when my wallet was stolen in New Delhi.
In short, the service lets someone have a permanent U.S. phone number that they can use, maintain, and check while they are in another country for long periods of time. It is usually not possible -- and it is almost always not economically sensible -- to maintain a U.S. landline or mobile phone if someone is going to be out of the country for more than three months. Maintaining an identity for financial and tax purposes in the U.S. is partly dependent upon maintaining a phone number. (The other major component of maintaining an identity in the U.S. is maintaining a physical address. This is a huge topic, and for the American traveller is confusing and even Kafka-esque.)
The price for this convenience is US$12 for three months or US$38 for twelve months. It can be set up, maintained, and paid for online from anywhere in the world. As of this writing, other countries for which SkypeIn numbers may be obtained are Australia, Brazil, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China), Japan, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
SkypeIn is useful for the homeless traveller
Finger Lakes, New York State, USA
12.58pm
Fixing my car: feeling the economic pain
In three days I spent more money fixing my car than I spent on a month of travel in India.
This fact is difficult for my brain to reconcile.
In general I am still going through sticker shock in the U.S. When I converted Filipino pesos in Manila and realized I was spending over six dollars for a Wendy's combo meal, I thought perhaps there was a markup since it was overseas. But now I walk into a Wendy's here and see that it is the same price. I have been caught in a time warp for fourteen months and when I see the prices of ordinary consumer goods here I notice the inflation over that time because it jars with my idea of what prices ought to be. (Prices ought to be what they were fourteen months ago when I left!)
Maintaining an automobile is a big money drain in the U.S. (and in the rest of North America and Europe, I conject). In India, Thailand, and the Philippines most people don't maintain a car. This is not by choice - most cannot afford to own and maintain an automobile. However, because most cannot have automobiles, there are alternate modes of transportation. With a combination of bus and taxi you can get just about anywhere.
Most Americans probably do not want to admit the economic drain of the automobile or, more likely, do not even think about it. A car is considered a necessity. In many ways it is. We have built an infrastructure here where you really cannot go anywhere without an automobile; not only that, you need to own your own personal automobile. Granted, it is a big country with a lot of open space. But I am sure there is a silent minority (or perhaps majority) who are breaking their budget every month with the automobile loan and maintenance as one of the principal culprits.
The other zinger about maintaining an automobile is that repairs can be a crapshoot. You may go for months without a repair and then suddenly get zapped with several. Using busses and taxis are a more constant and plan-able expense. And if you don't have the money, you just don't make the trip -- and you don't have a fifteen thousand dollar white elephant sitting in your parking space.
In words of Ivan Illich and other critics of the development project, the technological transportation conundrum I just described is known as the "social construction of scarcity". Because of societal and economic decisions about transportation infrastructure, transportation becomes scarce and thus expensive.
I found that describing the cost of living in the U.S. to people I met in Asia usually went nowhere; there were few points of reference. The best I could do was say that even though some people in the U.S. made more money, houses, cars, food, and other costs were more expensive. This usually did not mean a lot to the person with whom I was speaking. And in the end, I was the one who could afford to visit their country and not vice versa, right?
Fixing my car: feeling the economic pain
Thursday April 5 2007
12.10pm
Finger Lakes, New York State, USA
Cold weather, hot weather on the US East Coast in March and April
It's 27F (-3C) outside and there were actually snowflakes - little snowdots, really - blowing onto the porch from the lake. The wind is whistling through the trees and a few minutes outside feels very cold.
I was in Washington, DC last weekend and it was 75F (24C) and sunny. The cherry blossoms were out in the metro area in time for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Last week just before I left the ice had finally melted off the lake here. The previous weekend I was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the temperature reached almost 90F (32C). The previous week here the lake was frozen and eight inches of snow fell and the temperature was about 20F (-7C).
When it was snowing two weeks ago I checked and it was below freezing here and above freezing in Leh, Ladakh on the Tibetan plateau. Now I just checked and its 27F (-3C) and overcast with light snow here and 39F (4C) and clear and sunny in Leh.
It's really blowing out there and the water looks cold. It is cold - if I measured it it would be just above freezing.
Cold weather, hot weather on the US East Coast in March and April
24 March 2007
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
12.27 am
Thoughts after two weeks in the U.S. and a year of travel
I have been to Jersey City, Florida, Upstate New York, and North Carolina in the two weeks and three days in the United States.
It has been crazy cold here. The lake in New York was frozen when I left two days ago. The weather was warming up but a couple of days before it was in the twenties and snowing and blowing.
My thoughts keep going back to Bangkok and Manila and the beaches of Thailand and the Philippines.
Two days ago I made the six hundred mile drive to North Carolina. I was struck by how spread out things are here. We covered six hundred miles in eleven hours, which is pretty amazing: how much ground can be covered on an expressway by car. But you have to spend some of the time driving, which requires alertness, unlike a bus or train. And we made a couple of wrong turns.
The past week in Upstate New York I have been getting my car running. In a space of a few days I have spent as much money on my car as I would travelling for a month in India. In my graduate school days I put myself through the debate about whether it was better not to have a car. But it really is difficult to get to places without a car in the U.S., and it can end up costing a bit of money.
For example, in the small town where I was staying there are no buses passing through to the neighboring towns. There is not one bus an hour, there is not one bus a day, there are no buses. Purportedly there would not be anyone to take the bus; people believe that they must have a car even if they are unemployed or don't earn much money.
I am also struck by the rows of stores selling me stuff. There are plazas full of huge stores: Target, Toys R Us, Lowe's, supermarkets.
On the one hand these things are great. You can find tons of different things. It feels like Christmas. On the other hand, can everyone here afford all this stuff?
There are many large houses, on large plots of land. They are furnished with new-looking furniture. Understand, the houses are bought with hefty mortgages. Perhaps the furniture is bought outright or on credit. No matter, they are impressive.
No wonder people I met in the countries I visited thought I was rich. But when I was there I didn't have any income, I didn't have any assets except a car in storage, a few years in a 401(k) retirement account, and the savings I was spending on the road. Was I rich? Did I have more freedom than they? Of course the answer in some way was yes to both questions.
In a drugstore in Cebu, Philippines I bought two bars of manufactured soap. Among a selection of tropical scents I chose green papaya. I really liked them. The second one was used up a few days ago. I have been keeping my eye out for something like it but I haven't seen anything. All this change in my surroundings and I am thinking of a bar of soap.
Thoughts after two weeks in the U.S. and a year of travel
Friday March 9 2007
Continental Flight 692
Newark to Orlando
2.25pm to 5.14pm
4.02pm
Why are you so cold, U.S.?
When I was landing in New York on Tuesday evening, I looked out the window and saw snow in the fields. I looked closer and saw what could have been a crust of ice on the Hudson. The Kuwaiti attendant announced that the temperature outside was minus seven degrees Centigrade. That's about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
No, no, no, I thought, I've made a mistake, take me back, take me back to the lands of Tagore, Kipling, Jim Thompson, and Imelda Marcos. Take me back to where I can walk around in short-sleeves and sandals day and night and putting on a sweater doesn't cross my mind.
I was supposed to miss this winter; I was supposed to travel from February 2006 and not see cold weather until November of 1007. I was supposed to catch some early Spring weather of 50 or even 60 degrees Fahrenheit or more. That was my plan. Instead it is record-breaking low temperatures expected in January, but not March.
I took the Airtrain, the rail system for the John F Kennedy Airport terminals, to Howard Beach station. On the train I am wearing sandals, khakis, and a short-sleeve blue shirt; everyone else is wearing dark wool coats and hats.
There outside the turnstile I untie the stuffsack tied to the bottom of my travelpack. I pull out my running shoes and socks and put my sandals back in their place. I pull out the fleece jacket and imitation Hard Wear shell jacket that I have been hauling around from South Indian city to Thailand tropical beach to Philippine tropical beach. I bought the jacket in Leh, Ladakh, in August 2006 for fifteen dollars.
You have to pay to exit the Airtrain outside of the terminal. Clever scheme, eh? I pay seven dollars for a combination Airtrain and subway fare card. I go down the steps to the A train platform. I have just missed a train to Manhattan. It is bitter cold. It is dark now and the wind is blowing; I read on the web the next day that it was ten degrees Fahrenheit, zero degree with the wind chill. What a shock it would be for someone from one of these countries I've been in to land here in this weather for the first time!
I really need a hat and gloves but I don't feel like digging them out of the stuff sack. The A Train arrives and I go aboard. New Yorkers are not afraid of strangers and like to talk. I see one or two people talk to each other. We pass through Brooklyn stations with the name of the stop tiled on the wall. I get off at the Chambers Street exit and walk several blocks underground to the World Trade Center.
The World Trade Center is still a big hole in the ground. There are big signs for the PATH train to New Jersey. I take the PATH under the Hudson River for US$1.50. I get off at the first stop on the other side, Exchange Place. It is below freezing outside. Behind me is the South Manhattan skyline, minus the twin towers. Ahead I walk down familiar-looking, American streets. Without hat and gloves the five blocks to my friends seems too far.
Why are you so cold, U.S.?
