Malta - the exotic battle

5:30 am, the alarm goes off. I didn’t sleep well, was too excited about going to Malta. My back kinda hurts trying to stretch it out. It is supposed to be 86 degrees here in the greater Seattle area today September 7, 2012, WTF?? I hope Bud takes care of my plants and yard. We haven’t had any measurable rain for 46 days. No, that isn’t all THAT unusual in the Emerald City, we haven’t broken the record yet and the record isn’t that old. It really doesn’t rain here all that much it is just often gray more than needed.

All packed, all ready to go, looking at the clock it is 7:30 am and my ride to the airport (shuttle express here is Seattle), has said they will be here at 8 to 8:20. I figure that means 8:30 in English. I am OK with that because I discovered last night my flight has been delayed an hour. I am supposed to leave now about 1pm. So much slack time is built in now with the TSA and the fear mongers. THANK YOU GEORGE W, you idiot!!

Just called the bank for my debit card, I Almost forgot….. that might have been bad. Almost no one now uses traveler checks any more. I needed to tell them I would be out of the country. I had already talked to the Visa people but I might need some cash out of the cash machine and that is one of the bestest, easiest ways to convert money now in a foreign country.

I am packing light, only one fairly small carry on suitcase, my laptop bag and my camera. This is basically all the airline legally allows you to carry on. I learned this from Cary, (thanks Cary), travelling VERY light truly rulz the world. I remember those people we ran into in Lima, Peru and later we ran into them in a hillside street market and the airline had “lost” all their luggage, they were so screwed. I take all cotton clothes and plan on some laundry.

AH, the Shuttle Express is here exactly on time. The woman is older with blonde spiked hair, she has the leather coated smoker’s voice, and she so much reminds me of a friend, Sally. She is happy to be driving in the Duvall countryside on such a beautiful day. I feel like she is flirting and wonder how long it will be till she asks my marital status, it doesn’t take long. She needs to have her am news/talk radio on; she is addicted to the racket. I finally turn it way down. She has to turn it back up. We arrive at the wrong gate, United that is my fault, should be Lufthansa through United. We unload and she shuts the back door.

I say “I need my camera too”.  I start to walk away. She exclaims “WHAT, no gratuity?? We only make minimum wage ya know”!!

I give her a $20. She says “Can I come with you”? I say “No”.

So I have the long walk. I did print out my boarding pass at home that worked slick as hell. Long security line ahead, go figure. I get to do a new thingy, there is always a new deal at security right? Today it is the x-ray where they say “put your thumbs to your head and spread your fingers like antlers”! I think maybe the guy is shitting me so I look at his face, I can’t tell, so I do antlers. Now here I am at gate A13 and I am three hours early. I do some writing long hand, and then I think Christ I might as well drag the laptop out and plug her in!

Large loud talking man waiting here too, is getting his business wrapped up for the week and thankfully he has a blue tooth so he just bellers. I keep turning around and pointedly looking at him and so he walks about 20 feet away. I can still easily hear every single word.

Then this sneaking black dude starts walking around and weighing people’s luggage, another new wrinkle. I compare the stuff he is taking and making people check in to mine own. Yike, so I move where I am sitting to the other side, he considers this. I hear him say no carry on can weigh more than 8 kilos, 17.6 pound ain’t much homey. When we line up I stay over to the left the person who looks at my boarding pass has a badge that says “trainee”

We load up and the flight isn’t terrible. I got an outside seat so I can stand up and move around a bit. The woman sitting next to me is an Indian woman wearing a large shawl and traditional dress. When I watch a movie she watches my movie with no sound, she doesn’t use her own. She shuts her window shade and then leans way forward to look out the window on the person sitting in front of her. The service is pretty good on Lufthansa they bring nice hot wet towels to wash up (twice), two meals, many drinks and snacks, I like Lufthansa.

We get off in Frankfurt out on the field, we have to get on buses and I miss the first one. I have 30 minutes till the next flight loads; I am starting to worry time. They drive us all over way around I see my gate and they keep going why? They finally stop at a security check in, WHAT!! I just got off your plane and went through all that security crap already. Finally get through and have a really long walk, first down many stairs then a long straight stretch and then back up. Did I tell you I was sweating the time. I hate Lufthansa!

I get there and of course they are running behind there was no hurry. There is also no place to sit so 100 of us hardy travelers stand there milling around. I am OK with that I was just sitting for 10 hours wasn’t I? Their loading is chaotic. We finally take off. I am sitting in a row of three on the outside. They two women next to me are older, one has to be at least 75 or 80 and they are the loudest women I have ever sat next to. But at east they never shut up. I could tell how bad it was by the dirty looks the people in front of them were giving them.

Finally I land in Malta. It smells warm and humid, kinda deserty, North Africa like. Yellow limestone buildings and palm trees. I am looking for my ride, I walk through a row of people holding signs which say “Mark Jones” and “HOP” and various things but no Ed Peters to be had. I consult my paperwork and ask someone if he knows these people. He says to go to information, on the way over here is Mr Ed Peters sign. Yay! I go to get in the car in front and am confronted with a steering wheel. I say ‘so you guys drive on the wrong side’? He drives very fast on the wrong side.

We get to the Hotel and I am about to drop. I am so sweaty and tired and so on. I need a shower and a clothes change and a nap! The woman at the desk says “you know we do not check people in till 3pm”…it is 1. So I dropped off luggage and walked around the little harbor. I saw a moray eel dead floating on the water, the water was clear lots of baitfish. I was too hot, went back to the hotel. I asked the guy at the bar if he had anything non-alcoholic to drink, he said no. 

No iced tea I ask? He says yes, peach or lemon?

Travel "Gollums"

I was reading this amusing article on a blog; http://eatingmyworld.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/the-sham/ by Eatingmyworld, about travel in the Holy Land, Israel, Bethlehem and so on and his disappointment in the sites, the commercialism thereabouts, the tackiness of it all. It brought a thought to me that almost never do things that one really looks forward to live up to expectations!
The human imagination is a monstrous grandiose thing that has limitless ability to construct a world without limits. I am reminded about stories of people, blind since birth, they had an operation to restore their sight. When asked their very first impression, on seeing the world for the first time, their invariable response is that they were disappointed. Instead of living in a dark velvety castle they discover they live in a single-wide mobile home, instead of colors beyond comprehension, the colors are muted and dull. Imagine their whole lives thinking about how a loved one would look and then seeing them for the first time, how could they measure up?
This is why a movie never exceeds a good book in expressing the author’s vivid imagination and storytelling. When I was in 7th grade we all read “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” http://www.lordoftherings.net/ it was our Harry Potter, we loved Tolkien! We would go into the library and discuss excitedly various aspects of the books. I am sure we all had our view of what the Gollum looked like, it might have even changed with our moods. Is there any way the movie could capture the wonder we felt as young adults? Once the movie is made and Gollum is pictured, once there is a definitive image, imagining something else is difficult, at least for me.

I think this is why many love affairs don’t work out, the initial lust and excitement doesn’t hold up to the day-to-day grind of reality and early morning sobriety. Also the saying of “be careful what you wish for” has seeds of this sown in. Not only do few people really know what is even good for them, but their wishes have become unrealistic fantasies that can never be hard reality. I suppose that begs the question is reality hard?
So many people fantasize about trips and locations, they think about their dream vacations for years and years. They work and save all their working life till they retire (which is a bad idea IMHO, travel when young enough to enjoy it!), then, when they finally get there they are disappointed, I hear this often.

Remember those tacky folks selling tacky junk on the way to Machu Piichu, the Taj Mahal and the River Jordan have to make a living too. They aren’t there to fulfill your fantasy or vision they are there to feed their kids. So have fun and realize that the world is small and fragile and whereever you go to escape reality and live a dream, the one constant is that you will be there too! Your own face will follow along and keep an eye on you and remind you where you came from.

Thinking of Koh Phi Phi

This is written with five years of retrospect which might be a good thing.
We caught a cab in Patong and it was a small minivan thing which they packed to the gills with people from Israel and us two. At first we couldn’t quite catch the language which sounded like someone clearing their throat to spit, but eventually we talked a bit. I found the Jewish magazines odd, upside down and backwards, hmm.
On the boat trip over to Koh Phi Phi it was overcast and rainy, with lots of islands all about. Someone asked me what I thought of it? I remarked that it looked exactly like Puget Sound, overcast rainy, and lots of islands. They looked at me like I was crazy, no really, I’m not kidding!!
On landing we got advice from our Jewish friends about how to get the best and cheapest room. I told my buddy I was tired of cheap-ass rooms and wanted to get the best room on the Island. We had been running really budget sleeping it tiny beds too small for a nine year old boy, I wanted a real bed, sized for a fat American! The island itself is a narrow flat strip of land between two hills, this area where all the tourism and hotels are is only maybe ten feet above the ocean. We ended up at the Phi Phi Island Cabana Hotel. My traveling companion remarked it was the best room, with the best view, he had experienced to that point.
We had a view of the pool and a short distance from there, maybe 75, feet the ocean beach. The http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agCG-rPqM6A video below shows the view we had as the tsunami hits, (two months later) it was literally shot from our room’s balcony on the third floor. There was no elevator just stairs but it was nice for the view, in the future I will know there is also safety in height at this location. The giant Greek urn you see was in the center of the pool with a fountain on top. We could swim in the pool and stand under the fountain spray, it must have been 15 feet up from the surface of the pool so you can imagine the wall of water from the tsunami was a churning muddy mess full of “floating TVs fifteen feet high!
Also when we arrived people were doing the parasail thing on the beach. I figured I would do it the next day but they were gone. At one point on low tide I walked out on the tide flats and the water level was so flat and shallow a person could walk 5 or 600 yards out there looking at tide pools and tropical fish etc in knee deep water. This is the side the tsunami wave came from and it goes to show the water from the ocean’s depths had nowhere to go but straight up!

Looking at videos from 2009 at the Koh Phi Phi location, it appears five years later the area has still not fully recovered. There does not appear to be as many boats and tourism businesses working the area. I suppose many locals had such bad memories they moved away and of course some were never found. Needless to say it seemed very strange that this catastrophe could have occurred at such a beautiful place we had just left.