During Christmas vacation, Mike, Mary and I met up to spend a week together in Sri Lanka. It’s the first time the three of us have traveled together on our own, and it was an enjoyable and educational experience. As always, there were many valuable items of information gathered and lessons learned, which I will record here (in no particular order of importance) for future reference:

1. All you really need for a week in Sri Lanka is a pair of shorts, your contact lenses, and a rainjacket. The rest can be procured upon arrival for a reasonable fee ($4 swimming trunks, toothbrush) or borrowed from a sibling (reading material, towels). This fact comes in handy when Air Arabia fails to procure or deliver your luggage.

2. Planning ahead a bit (greatly facilitated by the acquisition of a lonely planet or other such guidebook, which seem to be unavailable in situ) saves one from getting trapped in a network of creepy guesthouses run by characters from HP Lovecraft stories (wasn’t the Mountains of Madness set somewhere on the subcontinent)? En route to the tea country we were tricked into booking at the RISING LION aka ‘Shining Jewel in the Peak of the Mountain’. Among the methods of torture we were subjected to at this chilling place were: tacky and heartless Christmas “cheer”, damp sheets in unheated rooms (the tea country is COLD in December!), a high-pitched wailing (vampire bats?) that accompanied our internet usage (for which our wallets were subsequently drained), and weak, insipid tea (in the heart of the TEA COUNTRY).

3. If you travel by train in Sri Lanka, make sure to alert some friendly fellow travelers of your destination, so that they can prevent you from going an hour past your stop. On the other hand, staying on the train longer means more opportunities to snack on tasty fried shrimp cookies and cups of hot sweet caffeinated “COPY-WOPY-LOPY”.

4. If you travel by bus, don’t wait for the bus to stop to get on, or you’ll be very lucky to get a seat. If you are CLERGY this does not apply.

5. The blind oracle at the foot of Adam’s peak, despite his wealth of information, is not all-knowing! Some information he does not consider essential: most of the lights on the way up are not working, making a torch necessary; the route is infested with tiny leeches that suck your blood and then burst inside your shoes.

Live and learn! Check out all the great pictures Mike and Mary took!

Categories: Mike, Alex, Mary
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Hello, it’s me again!

I imagine it’s the same for most people: vacations always seem much shorter than they should given 1) the laws of physics and 2) the stack of work on the desk when it’s all over. Days blur (did I have the lamb shank Monday or Tuesday?), mornings disappear and nights are filled with sounds of the ocean, ‘doksan-dokuz’ and… snoring.

I’m sure you’ve guessed from the way this post started, however, that our recent Bayram (’festival’ in Turkish, I’m told) getaway definitely bucked the trend (what does that mean, anyway?)! Well, at least for me…

Without boring you with details (although any of us, and some of us more than others, would be happy to provide them over an Efes or three), we six-to-ten assorted vacation-goers, depending on if you count Jeremy, Ruzgar, James and/or Sayed, enjoyed ourselves on the Mediterranean coast between Kaş and Antalya, dancing to Aretha Franklin and visiting Cengiz the carpet dealer, and back in Istanbul, searching Kadiköy for the perfect olive (which was never found, by the way).

Despite the contagious vomiting, a broken camera, the flight-ticket-eating-wastebasket, the ghost ferry ship, a decided lack of ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ about the sunken ruins of Atlantis and my failure to procure any of the ‘essential’ things on my shopping list, I think we all had a great time!

As always, check out the photos!

Categories: Mike, Tom, Alex, Mary
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As some of you know, I returned in the past few days from three weeks in Sri Lanka, where I was joined by the always-available Clint and the heretofore little-known ‘Sylvestre’ (not the cat, the French astrophysicist).

While the destination changed from Australia (where Sylvestre currently lives) to Sri Lanka a few weeks before our departure (due to Australia being cold and Sri Lanka being not cold), the goal of the trip remained the same: to surf (err.. try to surf).

We are happy to report that we succeeded! Not only did we spend two weeks ’surfing’ in Arugam Bay (due east of Colombo), but we also visited all/most of the Culturally Important Places (Kandy, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruva, Yala, Sigiriya) AND didn’t kill anyone driving around (besides knocking a motorcyclist over and backing into a few things..).

As you can see from the photos, we surfed, ate, toured, safaried, and… that’s about it. All the surfing photos were taken over two days towards the end of our trip when the swell was disappearing (and they were taken at one of the smaller points). Believe me or not, up to you!

Oh and then we ate again.

Categories: Mike
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Okay, so I don’t actually know if it’s called ‘The Taimani Fort’, but it’s in the Taimani neighborhood of Kabul and it’s not the Kolola Pushta fort, which is the only one I know the name of.

Anyway, the hike up involved a pack of wild dogs, some baksheesh-seeking soldiers ‘guarding’ the ammunition depot in the fort, the usual set of staring young Afghan men (boys is probably a better term, even if they were in their 20s), and craters that looked suspiciously like exploded land mines (if you were a Fort Manager, wouldn’t you heavily mine the hill on top of which your fort full of weapons is located?).

I took some photos of the town below. The day was rather hazy/smoggy, but none of the kids playing football seemed to mind!

Categories: Mike
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When I was last in Istanbul, Alex gave me a partial hunk of parmigiano straight from Italy, which I took home with me and deposited straight in the fridge - I was afraid that if I started nibbling at it, it would soon be gone. In fact, I have even had pasta with bolognese sauce - twice! - and refrained from using it as the pasta was decidedly substandard and not worth ‘wasting’ the cheese on.

Given such a sad state of cheese in Kabul that would drive me to such madness, you can imagine the look on my face when, while stopping in the JAM SUPERSTORE with Roberta and Lisa, I spied a huge wheel of some kind of extremely tasty looking cheese deep in the corner of the refrigerator. As I’m sure the others can attest to, the look turned from incredulity to happiness to bewilderment to anxiety to - it’s true! - despair. How could this be possible? It couldn’t be! There’s no way such a magical wheel of cheese could appear in the JAM SUPERSTORE (which, sorry to say, is quite a misnomer) and still be edible.

I took the single magic cheese out an inspected it. It claimed it was a pecorino straight from Marrubiu, Sardinia, Italy (population 4,962 and elevation 7m above sea level). It also told me it was good until May 28, 2007 and that it should be ‘conservare al fresco’ed, which I am quite sure it was not. I took it to the shopkeeper and proceeded to ask him how much he wanted for it. A very confused look crossed his face, but he quickly recovered and came up with a price of 700 Afghanis - USD$14. With Roberta egging me on, I decided the remote possibility that the cheese was still good was definitely worth fourteen dollars.

We rushed to the guest house (immediately across the street) and proceeded to hack through the two centimeters of rind, find some mustard and crackers, and give it a try. IT WAS GREAT. And, there’s so much of it that it should continue to be great for weeks, if not months (at least until May 28, when the magic runs out). So, the moral of the story: don’t give up hope!

Categories: Mike
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Literally ‘taking out the goat’ (buzkashī: buz “goat” + kashi “taking out”), Buzkashi is a popular game in Central Asia involving powerful horses; a goat (or calf) carcass; whips/knives; a circular chalked goal where the carcass is to be dropped; considerable prize money; politics and bribery; and crowds scrambling from the charging horde of crazed riders.

This was my first time watching a game, and it was quite fun. I managed to take a few interesting photos (a few over my shoulder as I was trying to escape). Luckily I didn’t get hurt, but one of our party got clotheslined by the goat carcass, stepped on by one of the horses and dragged a few meters. Yikes. Luckily other than bruising she is fine; I have new respect for northern Europeans!

Categories: Mike
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Unfortunately I haven’t had any time to really take photos (yet!), but I did take these from my guesthouse’s balcony. Click on the photo to access a bigger version and to see others. The one on the top was taken using a 300mm (450mm in 35mm equivalency) telephoto lens and the one below is a stitched panoramic shot from three photos. More to come!

Categories: Mike
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The day before yesterday I joined a gym. This might not seem like a big deal, but trust me, it is! With such limited movement (read: no walking), getting exercise is tough. Sure, I could run around in circles on the roof (I know people who do this, but that’s another story) or become a jump-roping fiend or even ship a treadmill to myself (and hope the generator actually moves the belt — to give you an idea of our available amperage, the microwave (a prized possession on loan from a housemate’s friend’s friend) sometimes takes about 15 minutes to warm a cup of water), BUT when you throw in a sauna, a steam room, a heated pool (well, Ronny it will be done “in a few months”) and HOT SHOWERS, the deal (at over $150 a month, I guess it’s not actually a deal) seems much sweeter.

Also, when I was in Istanbul recently, Alex forced me to go running and I almost died. Can’t have that, especially when taking into account the so-called ‘Tauras Curse’ (ask one of us). So from now on I’m going to the Serena Hotel at least 5 times a week! Here are some photos of the hotel where the gym is (from their website). Hard to believe it’s in Kabul..

And here’s a photo of the competition (which I am told would cost me 150 Afghanis — USD $3 — a month). Click and look closely..

Categories: Mike
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I have returned from spending a week in Bangkok (as well as a night in Islamabad and countless hours in various airports and UNHAS terminals). I was sent there for a workshop, which was very useful, but also managed to spend about a day and a half wandering around the city. As the title suggests, I escaped just before the latest coup, which would have been interesting.One of my main goals was to each as much seafood as possible, which I accomplished. Unfortunately I dragged someone down with me as his system was apparently not up to the task and he got quite ill… Oh well, even he agreed that it was worth it! Another highlight was a (legitimate) Thai massage; for about USD4 I got an hour of professional foot, head, and shoulder massage - something I could really get used to..

On the tourist front I took a river and canal speedboat ride for about an hour with a coworker; a highlight was definitely this traveling (paddling?) butcher - he was traveling through the canals on his small boat with a scale and a few hunks of meat. We also spent time at the main temple / palace complex and tried to visit the Teak Mansion, which was unfortunately closed the day we were trying to visit.Am back in Kabul and hope to get more involved in work (as there’s not much else to do!).

As usual, visit the gallery by clicking on the right for photos!

Categories: Mike
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Given that the last post was almost four months ago, and Big Changes have most certainly taken place during that time, we have obviously not been very good about updating the website! We will try to do better…

Let’s see, since May I have: moved from Long Beach, MS to New Orleans; been to Istanbul for a workshop and was able to take a short vacation with Tom, Clint, and Myriam; been to the Florabama Gulf Coast several times (the beaches in some parts of Florida are spectacular!); been to DC; been to Connecticut and Worcester to visit family; and been transfered to Kabul to work on communication and program support for our Afghanistan programs (stopping again in Istanbul on the way through to hang out with Alex, Mary, and Tom for a few days)! It has been quite the few months..

There will invariably be more posts about life in Afghanistan once I have been able to get a better idea of what I’m in for. I am leaving in a few days for Bangkok where I will be for a week - I hope once I get back I’ll have a chance to settle in a bit! Alex, who has also had a busy and exciting summer, has promised to increase his posting rate, and we shall ask Anna, Mary, and all other Taurases to do the same!

Categories: Mike
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