Luang Prabang, Laos (Sights): February 12-15, 2007

I am way behind on this, but I am trying! Anyway, on to the sights of Luang Prabang, which, as you can see from the picture above, include lots of Buddha statutes. As you can see from the picture below, nagas (the snakey dragony things at the edges of the rooftops) also hold a prominent place in the local architecture:

I took way too many pictures in Luang Prabang. I filled up my memory stick and had to get it burned to CD. When I was in the photo place in town checking over the CD with the guy who burned it for me, the photo guy turned to me and said, "Many temples." I asked if he was just bored to death looking at temple pictures from tourists all day long and if he wouldn't prefer if someone would come in sometime with pictures of something else. He just laughed at me.

The sight I saw the most had to be Wat Sene, because it was right across the street from my guesthouse:

Wat Sene, and many other sights in Luang Prabang, are located in the old city, centered on a thin peninsula bordered by the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers.

It is not a bad walk, though it can be brutal in the afternoon heat. Wat Sene is about midway down the peninsula. A block further toward the end of the peninsula brings you to Wat Sop.

There are a variety of shops, restaurants, and guesthoses on the main drag, Xiang Thong Road. Tourists appear to have overrun this area, which isn't surprising given the concentration of cool things to see. Also present among the shops? Kitties:

Cats hang out at the wats, too -- or, at least, one cat hangs out at Wat Xiang Thong, toward the end of the peninsula. The main temple of Wat Xiang Thong (aka, the Golden City Monastery) was, according to my Rough Guide, built in 1560 and, unlike a number of other temples in town, never got smashed up by the Chinese. As you can see in the doorway that the cat is peeking through, the walls of the temple may be responsible for the "Golden City" moniker.

This cat, in addition to taking in the sights within the temple, also spent some time sniffing around tourists' sandals (Tevas were legion outside most temples). He also, once he checked me out from a distance with his nifty orange eyes, got friendly with my feet:

Yes, it is another cat with a clubbed tail. No, I have no idea why my feet look so puffy in that picture. Here, cleanse your palate with a Buddha statue from within one of Wat Xiang Thong's temples:

Outside of the old town, across from the place where I had breakfast most days I spent in Luang Prabang, sits Wat That, at the top of a hill. You reach the grounds by climbing a long staircase. The "rails" of the staircase are huge stone multi-headed nagas!

The monks at Wat That, in addition to doing their laundry on-site, seem to have obtained some sort of satellite technology:

In addition to not destroying Wat Xiang Thong, the Chinese stand guard at Wat Choum Khong, which adjouns a gorgeous garden area filled with various Buddha statues:

A short distance toward the center of town from Wat Choum Khong is the Royal Palace Museum. It is well worth a visit! It sort of reminded me of Iolani Palace in Hawaii, in that it wasn't some huge Buckingham Palace-type structure, but more of a very grand house where the royal family once lived (the French built it in 1904). You have to check your shoes on the porch before going inside; I am pleased to report that the floors are smooth and pleasant to walk upon. Probably the most impressive room is the Throne Hall, which has walls covered in a multicolored mirror mosaic, but the entire museum is a really cool repository of memorabilia relating to Laos' monarchy (which, what with the Communists and all, is no longer extant).

Across Xiang Thong Road from the Royal Palace Museum looms Phou Si ("Sacred Hill"). It's quite a hike to the top after you pay the 8,000 kip fee, and if you get the conversion from dollars to Lao kip screwed up in your head, the lady who takes your entry fee will talk smack about you and your cheap bastard ways to the woman sitting on the other side of the path. Despite this setback, I did pay my fee and make it to the top, where I was rewarded with a crowd of Buddha statutes, a lovely view of the Mekong, and a less-than-impressive oversized, gold-painted footprint of Buddha.

There are nauseating amounts of additional pictures where these ones came from, but I will spare you and move on to Angkor Wat in the next post.

Luang Prabang, Laos (Life): February 12-15, 2007

As monstrously long as some of my posts are, I think the length would be excessive, even for me, if I tried to cram Luang Prabang into just one. So, I've decided to chop it in half. This post will deal with stuff like where I stayed, what I ate, and the various animals and religious figures I encountered around town.

To begin with, Luang Prabang's airport is tiny! I guess that should not surprise me, since I think the town only has about 20,000 people living there, and the airport seems to mainly serve tourists. When I was waiting to fly on to Cambodia, they had flights departing from the airport every hour or two. From the international departures room, I didn't see more than one or two planes on the ground at a time. For all of that, the place was well-run, and even when a planeload of tourists (including me) arrived needing to purchase visas on arrival, everything proceeded in an orderly fashion. I got to ride into town (and back to the airport when it was time to go) in a tuk-tuk, which is essentially a little open-sided truck that ferries passengers around.

I changed a few hundred dollars into Lao kip, which instantly transformed me into a multi-millionaire. I figured that, at the least, I would probably pay for my lodging in kip, and I needed cash for food and the like. Alas, I paid for my guesthouse in dollars, and now, stashed away in my computer desk are over a million kip which nobody will exchange.

Laos, you see, is dirt cheap. I had to try really hard, and order dessert and a couple of drinks at one of the nicer restaurants in town one night, to crack the ten dollar mark for a meal. You can get an hour massage for under five dollars. Potato chips, interestingly, were not all that far off of U.S. prices. It cost 8,000 kip for one bag, which works out to a little over 80 cents.

I stayed at the Senesouk Guest-house, which was, conven-iently, right across the street from Wat Sene. The guesthouse was clean and quiet, perhaps in part because everyone has to take their shoes off before walking inside. They store everyone's shoes in a big cabinet by the front door. I was on the second floor, and had a balcony! It was as glorious as it looks. I was able to sit there in the mornings and watch the monks go by. In the late afternoons/early evenings, I could sit there and listen while the monks did some chanting at their nearby wats.

Every morning, around sunrise, the monks of Luang Prabang walk in procession down the street with wicker baskets and collect alms from the faithful in the form of sticky rice, which they have for breakfast. The pictures aren't the greatest, because I didn't want to get down in the monks' faces and hassle them during a holy time, though some tourists apparently did not share my qualms.

And there are a lot of monks because Luang Prabang has a lot of wats (temple/school complexes where a number of monks make their homes). So, after the morning procession, when I was out and about, I saw lots of monks, and many of them were very young. A fair number of them seemed to gravitate toward Internet cafes, and the ones that I passed by when I checked my e-mail often had English dictionaries with them.

Luang Prabang also has a number of chickens wandering the side streets. This one in particular was not a fan of me; he kept giving me the evil eye while I observed his antics. The roosters of Luang Prabang, by the way, are noisy as all get-out. They start crowing around 3 a.m. and just keep going until nightfall. I'm not sure why they crow so long before sunup, but maybe they've adapted or something, because the monks often start chanting around 4 a.m.

Also present were dogs and kitties. The cats were especially noticeable (I think there were more, but maybe I just notice them because I am a cat person). Since most restaurants aren't entirely indoor, sometimes a cat will just saunter in, sit by a table, stare at the diners, and meow for a while. Then, if it doesn't get fed, it will move on to another table and repeat the process. Nearly every cat I saw in Luang Prabang (and, actually, nearly every cat I saw in southeast Asia) had a clubbed tail. I thought maybe it was a genetic thing, at first -- Luang Prabang isn't that large, and maybe the cats I saw were mostly related -- but further research indicates that it's a common practice. I felt a little sad when I found that out, though I have to say, this cat seemed to be pretty content in his sunbeam:

The food in Laos was wonderful, far better than I expected. I had some great chicken and basil dish along with some fried morning glories as my first meal there. I also tried some papaya salad (not my favorite, but a local specialty), drank about a million fruit shakes, and, for breakfast one day, had sticky rice in coconut milk (which I have tried, with varying level of success, to replicate at home) coupled with coffee sweetened with condensed milk. I'm not a breakfast person, but I totally enjoyed that. I also tried Beer Lao, the national beer which gets a lot of raves. It was...OK. It was lighter than I usually enjoy, but I can see why, if a person goes to Laos knowing nothing about the place, they would be very pleasantly surprised.

Next up: lots of pictures of wats.

New York City to Luang Prabang, Laos: February 10-12, 2007

As I have been going on about ad infinitum on this blog, I took a trip to Southeast Asia last month. In case you are not as geographically nerdy as some, Southeast Asia is essentially located on the other side of the planet from New York -- there is, in fact, a 12-hour time difference, and it takes virtually the same amount of time to fly there whether you go west or east.

Naturally, it takes a long time to get there. When I was shopping around for tickets, the shortest itinerary was also the cheapest -- Thai Airways flys non-stop between New York and Bangkok in about 17 hours. So the flight to and from New York was pretty much a no-brainer. My first real "stop" on the trip was Luang Prabang, Laos, but in the absence of any direct flights there from the United States, Bangkok seemed the logical connecting point. At noon on February 11, I took off from New York.

The good things I heard about Thai Airways turned out to be true. There was plenty of leg room in economy class (for me, at least -- I make no promises to Shaquille O'Neal), and they served three meals. In the interests of excruciating detail, my first meal was cucumber salad with marinated baby shrimp, followed by grilled marinated chicken with teriyaki sauce, and chocolate cake. My second meal was a mixed green salad, pork in pa-naeng curry sauce, and a strawberry chocolate confection. The final meal was Pad Thai with prawns. They also went around offering wine (and after each meal, cognac) to everyone, and cup-of-noodles were available at the rear of the plane if you got hungry between meals.

The in-flight entertainment was pretty voluminous. I watched a movie and an episode of America's Next Top Model, but, as is my tendency, I read for most of the flight.

I can't prove it, but I suspect the guy next to me may have been going to Thailand for shady purposes. My proof? (1) He was middle-aged; (2) he appeared to be travelling alone; (3) he watched "Titanic"; (4) he said all of two words the entire flight (one of which was a grunted "sorry" when, in his sleep, he slammed his elbow into my ribs); (5) he had a little white canvas duffle bag as his carryon; and (6) he chose the fish for one of the meals, proving he never saw the movie "Airplane" and thus has lived in some sort of bubble his whole life. Creepy.

Among the flight's other delights was the Skymap, where you could track the plane's progress as the flight went on. I was taken a little by surprise, as the map on Thai Aiways' website suggested the flight would go eastward. When the pilot got on the intercom at the beginning of the flight, however, he mentioned that we would be flying over countries such as Sweden, Afghanistan, and India, none of which are located between New York and Thailand if you're flying westward. Anyway, the flight, though long, was without incident.

When I landed and got through customs, around 5:30 p.m. or so on February 11 (the magic of timezones!), someone from my guesthouse (the owner's son) was there with a sign to meet me and drive me to where I was staying. I know the new Bangkok airport has gotten reviews that are almost universally bad, but at least at this point, it looked fine to me.

I stayed overnight at the Sanawan Palace Guesthouse, which had a nifty-looking pool, though the rooms were a little shabby for the price. As they are a little closer to the new airport than most of the guesthouses in town, I suspect they can charge a bit more. However, other than a big roach in the hallway on the way to my room, my stay was relatively creepy-crawly free (and I killed a mosquito with my bare hands!). As would be the case with most places I stayed, I had hot water and a shower which was really just a shower head and a drain in the bathroom. It did its job. I slept like the dead, and early the next morning, headed for the airport for my flight to Luang Prabang.

Once again, I saw few problems with the new airport (though, the woman at check-in, a trainee, got pretty confused about my e-ticket, necessitating some trips back and forth between counters while we all politely tried to fix the issue). Once I got through the first security check, I really should have gotten coffee, but foolishly, I went right to my gate. Since this requires another security check, and there are no restaurants after the second check, I was pretty much out of luck, and at the mercy of caffeine withdrawal, until I got on the plane.

As near as I can tell, the Bangkok to Luang Prabang route is essentially held by two airlines: Lao Airways and Bangkok Airways, so you can't really get a cheap flight there. I flew Bangkok, which was perfectly nice, and once I got my coffee, I even started to enjoy the experience. They had us on a little prop plane with vibrant fishies painted on the fuselage. The flight itself took about two hours.

I Swear, The Next Post Will Be About Thailand

I fully intend to start updating about my Southeast Asia trip this weekend. Because I am nothing if not impatient, though, I am already thinking about the next trip, even though it will certainly not happen for over a year.

I know I want to go somewhere in Africa. I have, for a while, been working under the assumption that I will be going to Namibia. Of course, now that it's the next big trip to be planned, I'm having all sorts of second thoughts about other places I could go. The most appealing options, as I see them at this point, would include:

• Namibia -- Actually, I have long had my eye on a camping safari that would take me around to most of what I'd like to see in Namibia (Swakopmund, the dunes, Etosha National Park), plus a bit of Botswana (Chobe National Park, the Okavango Delta), winding up at Victoria Falls.

• Tanzania -- I'd spend the first week on safari up north (Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Crater, hopefully Lake Manyara), then head down to Zanzibar and end up on the beach there. Alternatively, I could take a week and trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro, but I don't know if that trumps the beach and other cool things on Zanzibar for me. It might be nice to take a long trip that doesn't involve vast amounts of climbing. Maybe I could just, you know, drive by and look at Mt. Kilimanjaro.

• Ethiopia -- The historical circuit, some wildlife. Except, while Ethiopia has wildlife, I don't think it has WILDLIFE quite like Tanzania and Namibia/Botswana.

Or somewhere else entirely. I hear Malawi is nice, though it's hard to adopt as a foreigner unless you are Madonna.

Maybe I should take a poll or something. If I could arrange to win several million dollars, enabling me to take a year away from work and travel around the whole continent, that would also be an acceptable solution.

Hello from Phnom Penh!

I am kicking around town for a bit, since I had to check out of my guesthouse by noon, and my flight to Bangkok doesn't leave til around 8 pm. I note, sadly, that in updating my account, Blogger had forced it together with my Batman Must Die account, forcing me to choose between the Lady Shiva and A-Bomb screen names. Boo!

Anyway, to give a short account of the trip so far (I assume I will put up some mind-numbingly long posts with pictures sometime after I get home):

Luang Prabang was absolutely great. I enjoyed it so much, I didn't even mind getting woken up at 3 am by the roosters and the chanting monks. I enjoyed the food, too.

Angkor Wat/Siem Reap: I think Siem Reap is sort of like the Orlando of Cambodia. It isn't much on its own, except that it has the country's largest tourist attraction a short distance away, and also a large lake. Ankgor Wat and the other temples (especially the Bayon, with the creeeeeeeepy faces) were amazing. You know how people say you have to see something to appreciate it, that photographs don't really do it justice? That's what Ankgor Wat is like, and in this case, the cliche is actually true. The pictures don't convey the half of it.

Phnom Penh: It was Chinese New Year last night, which I realized about 30 seconds after wondering, "Does everyone in this city always come out and party on Sunday nights?"

Anyway, I'm ready for some food. And in the not-too-distant future, the beach. It's hard to believe my vacation is almost over!

Boring Administrativa

This post has no pictures. Rather, it recounts my overplanning for my SE Asia trip in February.

First, though, a New Jersey update:

Since my last post, I have made, I believe, three more trips to South Jersey. Each time, I somehow wound up with a different PT Cruiser: blue, grey, and white. We'll see what goes down during this week's trip. Incidentally, I only have one deposition in NJ this week, but it will likely be a long day, so I am driving down Tuesday and staying overnight, to conserve some energy. Days Inn, here I come!

On to the next Big Trip:

I have successfully booked a roundtrip ticket to Bangkok, leaving New York on February 11 (arriving on February 12), and departing on February 24 (at 1 am). I'm getting not quite two weeks on the ground, which is obviously less time than I'd like, but as I am burning up all nine vacation days I will have stored up at that point (the trip occurs over the Presidents' Day holiday), and the flight was a good deal, there you have it.

The flight is nonstop both ways! It is a 17-hour flight on Thai Air, which I've heard very good things about. I have been advised to bring books, and obviously, I will. If I did not worry about dragging my badass new laptop all over the place, I'd bring it and watch movies or something. Anyway, we'll see how that goes.

Rather than do the cool thing and just figure out my hotels and flights once I arrive in Bangkok, I'm trying to do advance booking. It's high tourist season, and let's face it, otherwise there is the chance I'll just hang out in Thailand the whole time. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So, I have reserved a hotel room for the night of the 12th in Bangkok, which I'll be leaving early the next morning, because I've also reserved a flight, on Bangkok Airways, to Luang Prabang, Laos.

I was toying with the idea of reserving a room at the 3 Nagas, which some folks have intimated is the swankiest hotel in Luang Prabang. A regular room would have been a little over $100, and let's face it, it'll be a long, long time before I can spring for a room in the swankiest hotel in Vegas (though, now that I think of it, the swankiest hotel in Egg Harbor Township, NJ is probably within reach -- the Days Inn might be the ONLY hotel there). However, the regular rooms were all booked. What was left? The Executive Suite!

That's right, the swankiest room in the swankiest hotel in Luang Prabang. It was only about $180 a night, but considering that I could probably get something decent for well under $40 a night, I declined. I reserved a room elsewhere, and we'll see if it's there when I show up. I've heard a couple of reports of this hotel (the Senesouk Guesthouse) losing reservations, but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it. Since I didn't have to put down a deposit, I can't say I'm worried all that much.

The past few weeks have been devoted to figuring out how to get where I'm going next. I believe that Siem Reap Airways flies from Luang Prabang to Siem Reap, Cambodia (near Angkor Wat) on Thursdays, so I have been trying to get a ticket on a flight on February 15. However, I haven't been able to book on the website, and a travel agent I visited today was also unable to help. I e-mailed the airline, which suggested that I contact their Luang Prabang office. So, that's my next task. Alternatively, I think Lao Airlines also flies that route on Thursdays.

Also, I need to get my vaccinations. The travel agent gave me the number of a clinic in town (since, when I called my doctor about it, the receptionist seemed confused and said they didn't do travel medicine).

Egg Harbor Township, NJ -- Various Days, September - November, 2006

I have been trying to figure out the parameters of this blog. For example, I have taken a couple of day trips that I have not written about, and when I visit my family in Pittsburgh, or my friends in Philadelphia, I don't generally think that calls for an entry (though, I do think the Easter Egg extravaganza in Philly earlier this year does deserve to be seen). My New Jersey trips have been overnight, but I've not been doing a lot of sightseeing or anything. Nevertheless, I might as well put some of it down for posterity.

By way of explanation, I have a case that is taking me down to southern NJ for depositions. I went a few times in September and October, and have had to go down every week in November (this will continue through the end of the month). The depositions are taking place in a small, suburban-type town one exit south of Atlantic City on the Garden State Parkaway. Since it takes over two hours to make the drive on a good day, I have been staying overnight when I have to be down there more than one day in a row.

My hotel of choice? The fabulous Days Inn in Egg Harbor Township:

I'm actually not being sarcastic. I really like this hotel. Maybe it is my extreme exhaustion from getting up at the crack of dawn to make the drive down in time for the depositions, but the beds at the Days Inn are freaking comfortable! As in, there are very few beds I've ever slept on that could compare. Also, the rooms are somehow always warm and cozy without being sweltering, the cable channels are numerous, the desk staff is nice, and there is free wireless internet in the rooms (which I put to good use once I got my new laptop at the end of October).

As you can see, I do a really good job of keeping my hotel room tidy.

Do you know what else the Days Inn had? Free breakfast. With a freaking waffle bar!

In the mornings, they measure out cups of batter that you can pour right on the waffle irons. This takes me back to my freewheeling college dining hall days, though at that waffle bar, you just had to use the ladle yourself and take your chances with the measurement.

The vending machines are similarly awesome. Did you know that there is such a thing as Churros-flavored Bugles? Or Hershey's Sweet & Salty Granola Bar with Pretzels? Well, they both exist, and they're both in the vending machines in the Days Inn. I also encountered Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch flavored Doritoes (though, I have since seen these in regular stores). My only complaint is that the third-floor food vending machine never seems to accept my dollar bills.

In terms of meals, I tend to have lunch near the law firm where the depositions are taking place. There is a surprisingly good Thai Restaurant across the parking lot, as well as a cheese shop where you can get sandwiches or a cheese and fruit plate (as well as, obviously, a variety of cheeses to take home with you). More from sheer exhaustion than a love for the place, I have been eating dinner at the Shore Diner most nights, which is essentially on the same plot of land as the Days Inn. It's OK, but not spectacular. I did indulge in Pizza Hut one night, but the thin crust pepperoni just wasn't how I remembered it (though the salad was just as addictively good as the ones I got at Pizza Hut in my youth).

Finally, some of you reading this may know about my checkered history with cars. Before the New Jersey trips started, I hadn't been behind the wheel of a car since my fateful trip to Oklahoma in August 2003 for a wedding. I had to drive across the state, from the Oklahoma City airport to the wedding venue in Enid. I got a speeding ticket driving to Enid. The next morning, I got a speeding ticket driving back to the airport. I resolved to avoid driving after that. However, since the closest train station to where I need to be in New Jersey is in Atlantic City (a 10-20 minute drive from my hotel, incidentally -- I lost $60 at Caesar's one night), I have been renting cars to get to where I need to go.

Thus far, I have received the following rental cars from Avis:

Gold Ford Focus (drove to the outskirts of Philly one day for a deposition, parked overnight in a garage near my apartment, and drove to NJ the next day).

Blue PT Cruiser (still hideous).

Silver Chevy Cobalt.

Silver Chevy Monte Carlo (one of the other lawyers saw it and commented, "Nice car!").

Gold Ford Focus (the same one I had the first week!).

Black Dodge Stratus.

I may update this, as I have a few more trips, and therefore a few more cars to rent. Anyway, I will say that the staff at the Avis on East 43rd is generally pleasant, if sometimes confused, and the cars haven't broken down on me or anything. So in general, a thumbs up to Avis and the Days Inn.

Otherwise, this may be it until February, when I intend to blow a bunch of vacation days in Southeast Asia.

Maine Coast: September 22-26, 2006

For a couple of years, now, my friend Sheryl has expressed an interest in taking a trip on one of those schooners that sails around the Maine coast. I cannot say this has ever been a particular goal of mine, but let it never be said that I am anything other than highly suggestible when it comes to travel plans. This year, we finally got around to going, largely thanks to Sheryl's efforts to make reservations and the like.

We sailed on the Victory Chimes, which is the three-masted ship on the Maine state quarter. A few people onboard asked why we chose the Victory Chimes. Sheryl invariably explained that she had looked at a number of boats on the internet, and this one was the coolest.

The Victory Chimes sails out of Rockland, Maine. To get there from New York, we had to fly into Portland then take a bus for a little over two hours. On the way up to Rockland, the bus ran a movie. The Love Bug. The original Love Bug. I don't recall seeing this movie as a child, though I suspect I just blocked it out. I did not plug in the bus-provided headphones. The visuals were enough to horrify me.

Anyway, once we got to Rockport, it was time to load up on dinner and find booze for the trip. We settled on a couple of little bottles of cheap champagne and Bellini mix, which we wound up storing on the coolers up on deck.

That evening, we boarded the ship and checked out our cabin. Anyone who has ever complained about the size of my apartment would not have been pleased. There were two single beds, bunked one on top of the other. They took up nearly half the room. It was quite cozy. After checking out the mattresses, Sheryl took the top bunk. My lower bunk was situated such that I could not actually sit up in bed, giving me a pleasant, coffin-like sense of security while I rested.

I should note that, when you are laying on one bunk, you can't see the person on the other bunk. That's why, when Barnacle Bill the Mariner knocked on our door and asked if he could come in to check our porthole (our actual porthole, you deviants -- you're supposed to close them when sailing), I shouted, "Yes!" I didn't realize Sheryl was severely adjusting her jeans! Oops.

Up on deck, we noticed a seal swimming around the harbor. Although Sheryl looked for it every day, it never reappeared. A little later, a line of about three ducks swam by. The one in the lead kept quacking at intervals. Unfortunately, it was too dim by then to get a decent picture of them.

Also up on deck, we noticed our fellow passengers, the youngest of whom was probably a decade or so older than us. People kept asking us if we were part of Meg's Group. Meg (who later showed up on the trip) apparently runs some kind of social group and often organizes trips on the Victory Chimes. She also was big on offering massages to people. The world is full of people who are a lot friendlier than me.

Once again, I admit that there are not many adventures to report on this trip. For one thing, I was feeling sort of ill (not from the seasickness, though I did chuck the patch after half a day because it was knocking me out). For another, it was freaking cold, and as my ten minutes of rushed packing the morning we left did not include all of my Antarctica gear, the deck sometimes got pretty shivery if I stayed up there too long.

Although the weather was pretty sloppy (there was some concern about getting clipped by the remnants of a tropical storm), we did sail a lot, and checked out two places on the coast: the little town of Castine, and the Holbrook Island Sanctury in Brooksville.

As you can probably see, it was pretty overcast when we hit Castine. We got into a smaller launching boat and skittered over to Castine's little dock. The whole 'get into a smaller launching craft' thing reminded of Antarctica, as we usually made one or two such landings daily in Zodiacs (motorized rafts). Of course, there weren't any penguins in Maine. We didn't see any puffins, either, even though we were surprised to see puffin gear all over the souvenir shops in Rockland. Our sudden puffin hopes were dashed when we learned that you can only see puffins in a fairly far-off area of Maine. I guess I'll have to go to Iceland to see them, after all.

Once in Castine, we stopped into a little coffee shop type place, and the woman at the counter mentioned the need to batten down for the storm that was coming. Castine itself seemed pretty upscale. It wasn't filled with Louis Vutton stores or anything like that, but the houses were well-kept and the cars tended to be big and shiny. (Incidentally, the horrible storm never seemed to reach us.)

Later that day, we made a quick stop at the sanctuary. It was full of growing stuff, and also a couple of children. Although the brochure that I snagged on the little walking trail mentioned there were ducks in the area, I am sad to report that I did not see or photograph any. We did, however, spot one bald eagle flying around. He was too far off for me to get a picture of anything other than an airbourne blob. I apologize. Please accept this fern picture as penance:

Beyond that, there is little to say beyond what went on in the galley. Specifically, we chowed down on lobster! The Captain hates Broadway and isn't afraid to say so. Also, Sheryl volunteered to help the cooks a lot, so she became a favorite and was able to snag extra dessert spoons when we needed them. It is usually a good idea to pack a friendly person when you travel, because they are handy like that.

Next up? My fabulous trip to the Days Inn located one stop past Atlantic City on the Garden State Parkway.

Nags Head, North Carolina: July 15-23, 2006

Since the younger grandkids started rolling in, my dad has been all about the family vacation. Specifically, he rents a house in Nags Head (in the Outer Banks), North Carolina. My parents, sister, brother-in-law, step-nephew, nieces, and I all cram into the house and hang out for a week doing pretty much nothing.

It's a nice vacation for me because it's the rare week when I do nothing, and because it's the longest stretch of time I get with my family now that I am permanently elsewhere. Also, while I enjoy my nieces quite a lot, Ol' Screamy (the baby) was teething, and it was pretty great that that was someone else's problem.

Anyway, it's kind of a pain to get to Nags Head. There are no airports on the Outer Banks, and I don't have a car, so I have to fly into Norfolk, then hire a van to drive me the rest of the way (the drive takes about two hours). This year, it was awesome, because the van had to wait for an hour after I got there to pick up another passenger. To kill time, the driver and I decided to have a look at the nearby botanical gardens...except that you now have to pay, even to just go in and drive around. So we abandoned that plan.

However, lining the road to the botanical gardens gate, I had seen a lot of ducks, and a sign that said "Duck Feeding Area." So I said to the driver, hey...can we feed the ducks?

Not only did he agree, he also stopped at a gas station to pick up some bread for the ducks. When the gas station had no bread, he went across the street to the 7-11! He is a prince among men.

At the first sign of food, the ducks came running. The mob included a solitary baby duck, which I found odd, since I'm used to ducklings traveling in packs, like hipsters and cheerleaders. The driver explained that snapper turtles and big mouthed bass tend to eat them, and that is probably why there was only one baby left. Nature is so cruel!

Naturally, geese showed up. The driver was all excited about feeding them by hand:

Why geese feel the need to come along and throw down any time ducks are eating is beyond me, but this is par for the course, really. Geese are mean bastards. Here they are, in all of their sinister glory:

I have to admit, had I just fed ducks and done nothing else, that would have made the vacation for me. Nevertheless, eventually it was time to pick up the other passenger, and we made our way down to the Outer Banks.

As nice as the vacation was, this post is going to be lacking in adventure, because I didn't really do much besides hang out by the pool, check out the beach, read, and eat. I did pay a visit to my old nemesis, however:

This horrible thing spit me out last year within 24 hours of my arrival, giving me a huge bruise that lasted for days. This year, I am pleased to report that I had the upper hand, and did not fall out once. My older niece, who does not really understand the dangers of the world yet, refers to it as a 'boat', presumably because it rocks. Here it is, as if it were blessed by Jesus Christ himself for doing the good work of injuring me:

I am a big heat wuss, so I did not do a lot of beach visiting during the day. Although it was noticeably cooler this summer than last summer, it was still freaking hot (and nobody thought to try to use the beach umbrellas some woman gave me at the airport for no particular reason until after I had returned to New York). However, I did head across the street to the water a few times toward evening. On one visit, there was this collection of four dudes throwing jellyfish at each other. I sort of understand now why jellyfish sting. The throwing dudes. Although I was pretty unimpressed with the Jellyfish Dodgeball Team, I did not sneak any incriminating photos of them. I did get this gull, though. It cracks me up when they run away from the waves coming in because...can't they float? I swear I've seen seagulls float.

In addition to checking out the beach, we occasionally got ice cream after dinner. We found a place with 24 flavors of soft serve ice cream. This seemed unlikely to me when I heard about it, but sure enough, there it was. They mix flavors into the plain ice cream; contrary to my secret hopes, they did not have 24 separate soft serve dispensers, each containing a different flavor. The ice cream, while decent, was not as awesome as you would hope. I think the attraction is more the variety of flavors than the tasty, tasty nature of the ice cream.

The one actual event I recall happening during the week was the strange case of the crab who showed up dead at the bottom of the pool one morning. Since the house is across the street from the beach, I'm pretty impressed that the crab made it there to die. Did he plan it, like an American plotting a suicide from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge? Did he get lured there like the crab version of William Holden? Was he abducted and killed on the beach, then dumped in our pool to deflect suspicion? All I have are questions...

Later on in the week, I ate my weight in crab legs (which did not come from the crab above). Seriously, we got a big vat of them, and I kept asking people, when I'd finish another bunch, 'Well, don't you want some of these crab legs?' And the answer I kept getting was, 'No, no...you have them.' So, I kept eating more. By my calculations, I ate at least 115 pounds of crab legs that night. Check them out:

For most of the week, my step-nephew had been talking about wanting to see high tide, so toward the end of the week, I agreed to go down and have a look. In all honesty, it wasn't that impressive. I seem to recall seeing some high tides as a kid that really got all up in everyone's business, but this high tide was just up a little higher than the normal water level:

I think these are pelicans. They didn't seem to mind what the tide was up to at all:

That's pretty much it. We piled into my brother-in-law's family truckster on my last full day (a Saturday) to try and check out the wild horses that roam around Corolla, but the traffic was pretty heavy, so we turned back.

So that's it, kids. I'm caught up til next month, when I have to go to glorious southern New Jersey for work. Also next month? I'm going to sea!