It's Bucharest, not Budapest

Greetings from Bucharest Romania!

After a quick hop-skip flight from Athens, we landed in Bucharest with our crew of eight renegade scavengers last night. Eager to prove we still had our adventure traveler chops, we opted for the city bus ride to our hotel. Bad idea. I think we got on the rugby team route and ended up several kilometers from our hotel in a semi-deserted area at night without a cab in sight. Finally, after quite a hike lugging our heavy bags, we were able to get a ride to our hotel. Important Lesson #1: Don't make things difficult when you don't have to!

Today was relaxing and fun. We enjoyed the beautiful architecture and history of Bucharest. What an interesting city. A highlight was our tour of the Parliament Palace (aka: the People's Palace). This enormous structure, the second largest administrative building in the world (only the Pentagon is larger) was designed by over 700 architects and built between 1984 and 1989. The Palace was commissioned by Romanian dictator Ceausescu and includes over 600 rooms (we kept speculating on how rich we'd be if we had the Stanley Steamer carpet cleaning contract for the building.)

Opulent doesn’t do justice to the Palace. Each room has towering ceilings, marble columns, silk tapestry curtains with matching wallpapers, crystal chandeliers (some of which weigh over two tons) and custom carpets, woven to match the inlaid wooden floors or fabrics used in each room. In one room, the carpet was so large, it was actually woven as one piece in the room and weighs two tons.

Ceausescu was a strange bird (as dictators have been known to be.) He feared being poisoned and, as such, would not allow air conditioning in the Palace. He was vertically challenged and made the builders re-do the grand staircases five times until the stair heights were to his liking. As an aside, Ceausescu and his wife were executed by firing squad in 1989 and their bodies displayed on TV. Hmmm, do you think there was a link?

A number of famous people have tread this path before the Blakelys… Nadia Comaneci was married in the Palace (that must have been quite impressive to Bart Connor’s folks from the US! No pigs-in-a-blanket at that shindig!) We were so tired after our tour, we awarded our entire team 500 scavenge points for completing the tour and debriefed at the oldest pub in Romania. Tomorrow we are off to Transylvania. So far, no luck on finding bloody mary mix. No one said this would be easy.

It's All Greek to Me!

Greetings from Greece!

We landed in Athens on April 26, smack-dab in the middle of the Greek Orthodox Easter Holy Week. The Greeks take their holidays quite seriously (right, Zack?) and the entire country basically shuts down from Friday until Tuesday- except for family and church activities. Unfortunately, the holiday has made scavenging & travel coordination a bit challenging.

Our group gathered on Sat. evening for a festive and fun group dinner in the Athens plaka. Over souklaka and ouzo, we all bonded and ended up shattering several plates to shouts of “houpa!” After dinner, we got our challenges- the “mother” of them all.

We were charged with getting ourselves to a hotel in Bucharest, Romania by Wed. evening for our group meeting. Along the way, teams could pick up scavenge points by stopping at various towns along the train route or doing site routes to Macedonia, Bulgaria or the Balkan Sea.

Sounds easy? I think not. Remember, since it is a holiday here, no travel agents are open. No information booths at the local train station are manned. The train web site is in Greek. We are not allowed to use the concierge for these tasks. Very few cabs are working. We did as much online research as possible and visited the train station where we learned that through a series of local and overnight domestic and inter-country trains, we could ride for 22 hours by rail to get to Bucharest over the next two days. At this point, Jeff & I had a “come to Jesus” talk at the train station and decided that having a memorable and pleasant experience for the remainder of the trip was more important than maintaining our #2 position in the competition (I will admit, this was a more difficult concept for me to accept than Jeff.) But, we’ve decided to make lemondrops out of lemons and took our train fare money and applied it toward a cheap commuter flight (1 hour, 40 minutes). By doing so, we will not be eligible for points for this leg of the competition but will gain lots of time to enjoy Athens and Bucharest. In our typical ex-salesperson fashion, we shared our plan and now have a group of 8 taking the flight together today. We are connecting with others and are planning a trip to Transylvania- complete with Bloody Marys and plastic vampire teeth.

BTW- Holiday or not, we can’t say enough good about Athens. We’ve enjoyed strolling through the pedestrian-only plakas lined with sidewalk cafes as we enjoyed the strolling musicians. We walked to the top of Lycabettus Hill for sweeping views of Athens. We enjoyed the Acropolis- free of the tourist crowds and enjoyed sharing Easter with the Greek people. On to Romania!

Getting Old With Prayer and Grace

While in Kathmandu at the Tibetan Refugee Camp, we also had the opportunity to volunteer and support the camp’s Old Age Center. As you can imagine, like many other Asian cultures, the Tibetans revere their elders and multigenerational families live together. But, because of migration, many families may be separated or some of the Tibetans never married and had families. The Old Age Center serves this population and is home to some 20 seniors ranging from Ani, at age 64, to Dhedon, who, at age 90, is both blind and deaf.

The Handicraft Center GM Chime Dorjee and senior center manager, Peter, introduced us to the residents. I connected with Ani, who has an infectious smile and from our first visit, held my hand and showed me around. Ani is an avid gardener and keeps up the roses in the small courtyard. Also, as the youngest, she takes on many tasks for the others- breaking twigs to tend to the fire for the center. When we asked the group what they needed, they unanimously asked for blankets and pillows to help on the cold winter evenings.

This led to our big adventure in Kathmandu China Market (where we surprisingly, encountered not one Chinese person!). This four-story building is loaded with shop stalls where you must fine-tune your bargaining skills. When we left, a parade of shopkeepers, helped us hail a taxi and stuffed us and our many blankets and pillows into a miniscule Subaru. We may have been in a head-on crash- I would have never felt it as I was surrounded by a foam and fleece cocoon the entire ride home.

Today we visited the center to deliver the items. The residents gathered in the courtyard where we distributed the comfort items and enjoyed a cold Fanta orange drink. I was also pleased to bring a vase (Bill, it was from Thimi!) for my new friend, Ani, to use for her flowers. As we prepared to leave, they presented us each with a special blessing scarf and a good luck blessing. After this trip, I do feel very blessed. Namaste. Now we are heading out to Bahrain (a quick overnight) on our way to Cairo.

Keeping the Tibetan Culture Alive in Nepal

After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India followed by 80,000 Tibetan people who sought asylum in India, Bhutan & Nepal. For those who were able to reach Kathmandu, the Nepalese government allotted areas of land to allow for the settlement & rehabilitation of the Tibetan refugees. As part of our GSH, we had the opportunity to spend time with a number of these refugees, learn about their beliefs and way of life and offer support and encouragement (albeit limited by our short stay and language barrier.)

The Tibetans operate as a cultural microcosm situated in the middle of Nepal. As skilled weavers, many of the adults work diligently to produce fine carpets and woven items (visit http://www.jhcnepal.com/ for more information.) Sales of these beautiful works of art help support social services for their local community- from a nursery for the newborn children of the workers; a small dispensary to treat minor illnesses; a neighborhood primary school; and an old folks home for the aged community members without family members to provide their care.

Let me tell you a bit about the Atisha Primary School.

We met with the school’s principal Tsering Dhondup on Sunday when we had the chance to tour the school and learn more about their needs. He indicated they needed numerous basic school supplies for each child- tuition is free for the children and is supported through profits from the Handicraft center. But money is tight and the center is also in need of sporting equipment and items such as puzzles.

Tsering himself is a refugee having left Tibet as a child when he and his father migrated to India. A chance visit to his uncle living in this Nepal settlement when he completed his education degree, led to his role at the primary school where he oversees 80 students from Kindergarten through Grade Five. Education is important in the Tibetan culture. Days are long for his tiny charges- beginning with prayers at 8:00am and ending at 4:00pm. Students learn English, Nepalese and Tibetan. Parents come by at lunchtime from their jobs at the weaving center to pick up the children to take them home to enjoy lunch together as a family.

We spent time on Monday at a local book store shopping for the needed school items. Besides the requisite school supplies, Tsering had requested items to allow the children to enjoy games of badminton and football (soccer). The real fun came on Tuesday when we came back to the school to deliver the items to the school.

We had the chance to enjoy tea and a long chat with the school administrators who answered our many questions ranging from politics, history, to the Dalai Lama and their current plight.
When asked why they all left to settle in Nepal, said Chimey, a lovely lady working in the school office, “It is important to us to preserve our culture and to pass it on to our children. Here, we can do that.”

The highlight of the day was when Tsering took us from class to class to personally deliver the materials to each child. These tiny, beautiful and extremely polite children each thanked us in English for their gifts and rewarded us with countless waves and smiles.

Interested in providing support? A gift of $1USD per day can send a child to school for a year. You can contact the school directly at atisha@wlink.com.np or I can provide additional information.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (April 19-22) Kathmandu, Nepal

Namaste! We are now settled into Kathmandu, Nepal. What a culture shock after glitzy Singapore. The conditions here are brutal- 40% unemployment, deforestation, contaminated water & air, and poor roads. Their greatest beauty, the Himalayan Mountains, is also Nepal’s Achilles heel. We’ve pondered that even if Nepal were able to produce valuable goods and services, without infrastructure- the roads are poor, there are no trains or rivers, and with the world’s highest mountain range- how could they ever get goods to market?

We were loaded up with some tough challenges for our three-day stay in Nepal. We opened our visit with a plane ride over the Himalayas and the grand daddy of them all, Mt. Everest. What a thrill to see those majestic snow-capped peaks. We even got to go up into the cockpit to take photos.

From there, we spent the day running among the many historic squares dotting the Kathmandu and area countryside. We even visited a local supermarket where we met the pint-sized grocery store greeter in the photo (Did I hear him say, “Welcome to WalMart?”) We took a journey of winding hillside roads to the village of Nagarkot for sweeping views of the countryside. Due to its 7200 foot altitude, the town is often used by climbers to acclimate themselves prior to attempting Mt. Everest. We closed out the evening at a full moon festival at nearby Pashupatinath temple where local Hindis hold cremation ceremonies for their loved ones.

Keeping the Tibetan Culture Alive in Nepal

After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India followed by 80,000 Tibetan people who sought asylum in India, Bhutan & Nepal. For those who were able to reach Kathmandu, the Nepalese government allotted areas of land to allow for the settlement & rehabilitation of the Tibetan refugees. As part of our GSH, we had the opportunity to spend time with a number of these refugees, learn about their beliefs and way of life and offer support and encouragement (albeit limited by our short stay and language barrier.)

The Tibetans operate as a cultural microcosm situated in the middle of Nepal. As skilled weavers, many of the adults work diligently to produce fine carpets and woven items (visit http://www.jhcnepal.com/ for more information.) Sales of these beautiful works of art help support social services for their local community- from a nursery for the newborn children of the workers; a small dispensary to treat minor illnesses; a neighborhood primary school; and an old folks home for the aged community members without family members to provide their care.

Let me tell you a bit about the Atisha Primary School.

We met with the school’s principal Tsering Dhondup on Sunday when we had the chance to tour the school and learn more about their needs. He indicated they needed numerous basic school supplies for each child- tuition is free for the children and is supported through profits from the Handicraft center. But money is tight and the center is also in need of sporting equipment and items such as puzzles.

Tsering himself is a refugee having left Tibet as a child when he and his father migrated to India. A chance visit to his uncle living in this Nepal settlement when he completed his education degree, led to his role at the primary school where he oversees 80 students from Kindergarten through Grade Five. Education is important in the Tibetan culture. Days are long for his tiny charges- beginning with prayers at 8:00am and ending at 4:00pm. Students learn English, Nepalese and Tibetan. Parents come by at lunchtime from their jobs at the weaving center to pick up the children to take them home to enjoy lunch together as a family.

We spent time on Monday at a local book store shopping for the needed school items. Besides the requisite school supplies, Tsering had requested items to allow the children to enjoy games of badminton and football (soccer). The real fun came on Tuesday when we came back to the school to deliver the items to the school.

We had the chance to enjoy tea and a long chat with the school administrators who answered our many questions ranging from politics, history, to the Dalai Lama and their current plight.
When asked why they all left to settle in Nepal, said Chimey, a lovely lady working in the school office, “It is important to us to preserve our culture and to pass it on to our children. Here, we can do that.”

The highlight of the day was when Tsering took us from class to class to personally deliver the materials to each child. These tiny, beautiful and extremely polite children each thanked us in English for their gifts and rewarded us with countless waves and smiles.

Interested in providing support? A gift of $1USD per day can send a child to school for a year. You can contact the school directly at atisha@wlink.com.np or I can provide additional information.

It's A Small World After All (April 15-18) KL & Singapore

It may be a big world but it can get small really fast. We got word in Beijing that the next leg of our adventure would take us to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Imagine my surprise to find we would be staying at the Le Meridien Hotel- the property I just stayed at & used in November for our Asia Women’s event. The manager at the front desk recognized me at check-in as he remembered the glowing blue martinis we served at our cocktail party at the event (hey, we all need a claim to fame!) Zack, a co-worker of mine (sits two offices away) was in town for another meeting and we were able to get together for a planning meeting with our local event planner who is working on our upcoming Vietnam meeting (this brief commercial message will allow me to write off my trip, won’t it, Leslie?)

Our mission in KL, should we choose to accept it, was to complete over 20 local scavenger ranging from gathering items at local markets to taking a bath with elephants at an area elephant sanctuary. BTW- elephants love baths ALMOST as much as they love drenching tourists.

To keep it interesting, the masochists, I mean, GSH planners, required us to find our own way to a small seaside town, Melaka, for a series of challenges before finding our way to Singapore for another series of scavenges. Sounds easy? Just one hitch… no air travel allowed. We gathered a crew of six for our pilgrimage by van to Melaka. Since time was as short as our sleep, we were all getting extremely creative in accomplishing tasks and have learned the art of c"reative interpretation."

One task we faced in Melaka was to “catch a fish”. We hunted and hunted for a fishing boat with no luck. Creative problem-solving kicked in when we went to a local fish market, purchased a fresh fish and threw it back & forth to each other so we all “caught a fish”. Never in my wildest dreams would I have envisioned Jeff & I tossing catfish to each other in a Malaysian parking lot. You start to get crazy when scavenge points are at stake.

The friendship, humor and generosity of the Malaysian people was heartwarming. One driver, Peter, was so engaged in our competition, that he made it his mission to help us find certain foods- taking us to no less than four Indian roadside stalls in search of a particular kind of roti. When it appeared we could garner a lot of points by playing a bit of cricket at a local cricket club, he went to his house to get his commemorative cricket bat so we could play.

Since both Jeff and I were somewhat familiar with Singapore, we were able to grab some high point-value challenges during our five hour time window in the city. Highlights of our very brief stay included Jeff’s chance to swim with sharks and feed rays at the aquarium at nearby Sentosa Island. What a kick to see all the schoolchildren on fieldtrips waving at him through the glass as he cavorted in the aquarium tank.

We also enjoyed our time with Jeffrey, the singing cab driver. A Singapore legend, Jeffrey has pimped out his cab with a karaoke machine and he has a repertoire of songs in nine languages. We particularly enjoyed belting out “New York, New York” and “These Boots Are Made for Walking” as we raced from challenge to challenge (I think Jeffrey has a thing for Nancy Sinatra although he says she is a “one hit woman.”

Our Singapore whirlwind wrapped up with a late evening drink at the famous (or infamous) Long Bar at the Raffles hotel where we learned we would be heading out tomorrow morning for Kathmandu, Nepal. So long for now.

We're Literally in a Fog! April 13 - 15 Beijing, China

The airport in Beijing is a wonder- designed to look like a dragon and expanded to handle the hoards of expected Olympic visitors. In fact, all of Beijing appears to be in a state of renovation. Like the aging film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, China is packing on its makeup and getting ready for its close-up when all eyes are upon it. You can’t imagine the sheer volume of construction- construction cranes dot the skyline. Roads are constantly being added to accommodate the new drivers- over 1000 per day- now clogging Beijing roads.

After a few hours to clean up, we all met in the Regents Hotel lobby for our first official set of scavenges (visit the GSH organizer blog on www.globalscavengerhunt.com for details on local scavenges.) Bill warns the group, “don’t try to do them all,” as he hands out the booklet with over 80 cryptic riddles, hunts and tasks that would keep us frantic and bleary eyed over the next two days. He also warned us to pace ourselves (easier said than done!), to keep healthy (code words for “stick to bottled water) and to listen to our instincts on safety issues.

We were sure to experience the more common tourist activities- the Forbidden City, the Olympic venues, and the grand daddy of them all- the great wall of China (this is very odd- the more “touristy wall site has a Starbucks at the base so we opted for the less-visited location. It had a ski chair lift to get up to the wall and an alpine slide option to come down.) Other activities ranged from 5 point tasks that might require asking for translation assistance from a local or getting a bit of information on Chinese history. The more common 20 – 35 point items sent us scurrying to and fro around Beijing, its historic landmarks and landmarks-to-be. We pored over badly-marked maps to find small neighborhoods or unique items or worked to be on-hand exactly where & when certain activities took place. We scoured traditional Chinese pharmacies (yes, they still carried a multitude of fine Pfizer products!) and visited lively local snack streets where locals enjoyed sates, fruits and epicurean delights such as eel, urchin & octopus.

Thoughts on China:
The issue I probably found most troubling in Beijing was the drain on natural resources and lack of stewardship for the environment. I can’t describe the poor air quality in Beijing. Photos of buildings just a few hundred yards away, come out as just a hazy gray image. The warmest of days still appear fall-like due to the dark haze that lingers over the city. Your eyes constantly burn and you can’t help but wonder what this is doing to a generation of Chinese children and what the repercussions will be on public health on years to come. Supposedly, 2 weeks before the Olympics, China will ban construction and card in the city so the haze will lift in time for the TV audiences.

Another somewhat naïve surprise for me was the government censorship. Yes, I know… I do read the papers. But until you attempt to log into your laptop and find that half of the internet content is unavailable to you, you really don’t have a sense of how it affects people on a personal level. We found all blogs were blocked as well. We saw in the paper today that during the Olympics, the internet at hotels and internet cafes will be opened to give foreigners the illusion of open media access.

Another interesting surprise to me was also that I have probably never felt safer anywhere than I did in Beijing. We wandered in some dodgy hatongs in the evenings and not once did I feel threatened. People were very kind to us and I never felt any anti-Westerner sentiments.

Two days later we gathered and got the word… pack up… we are off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the morning. Get a few hours sleep.

Let the Games Begin! April 11 (San Francisco)

Today our GSH crew all met in the SF Hyatt for orientation and Q&A with event organizers. Our group- half Americans and half Canadians, all nervously introduced ourselves and made poor attempts at putting together the 20+ names and faces together of the folks we’d be traveling with for the next 23 days.

Within an hour of meeting, we’d been alerted to our group welcome dinner at a nearby restaurant, E&O Trading Company. We also received our first set of challenges to let us cut our teeth in San Francisco before we met for dinner. Jeff and I realized immediately we were in trouble. We had just spent two fun days in SF but couldn’t answer any of the questions without darting around town. So instead, we decided to pace ourselves and catch a bit of The Masters before dinner.

Dinner was fun & festive- a great chance to improve my lackluster chopstick skills. As we wrapped up entrees, Bill, the event mastermind, informed us that we would be checking out of our hotel that evening and we needed to get ourselves to the airport before 11:30 for the first leg of our adventure, which turned out to be the 1:20am flight to Hong Kong. It was probably best that we didn’t have more time to contemplate or dread the first 14-hour flight. Little did we know that a second flight to Beijing awaited us upon arrival in Hong Kong. This 3-hour flight seemed to pass in a blink after the trans-Pacific journey we just endured.

Tony Bennett was right

You can see why one could leave their heart in San Francisco. The city is absolutely enchanting, dotted with a patchwork of small and varied neighborhoods- each with their own unique character. We can't decide which we prefer most- the Nob Hill victorians, painstakingly restored with care, to North Beach and the old Italian haunts that remind us so of Little Italy. We've lucked into a patch of sunny warm weather and are enjoying each of our long walks through the hilly city.
It was lucky that we came out a bit early as our American flight was full with flyers who had been bumped from other cancelled American flights. Jeff is still adjusting to "JoAnne's world" of flying- domestic coach where you pay for a turkey sandwich. We are definitely enjoying the fruits of Jeff's labor and have a great room at the Hilton (thank you, Hilton points!) with sweeping views of the city.
On our first night, we went to one of our favorite area restaurants, Farallon. Farallon is like an underwater adventure- lighting shaped like huge sea urchins and jelly fish; bar stools shaped like oysters. For divers like us, it is nirvana.
The next day, we hit the ferry for an adventure out to Sausalito, a lovely coastal boating town just across the bay from SF. Tomorrow we are heading to an area museum for an Annie Liebowitz photography exhibit and to Cliff House to visit their legion of sea lions sunning on the shoreline. Tomorrow night we meet with our other global travelers. Something tells me we will start our scavenging here in San Francisco... Wish us luck!