Laura in Mdina, Malta
We have been trying to pare down what we've got, make things stretch, or simply throw things out (like the disposible towel we were given in Taipei -- seemed that if we had not used it by now we were not going to use it). We are down to a handful of shampoo, one bar of soap, just enough floss and the final few pages in our diaries. And after a year of hard travel, what is left is in tatters. My pack has a broken back support, meaning it wobbles. My camera, now on its 11,000th image, is scratched and dented. My shirts have permanent and rather disgusting sweat stains.
Mdina
We spent two weeks in Tunisia and were totally ready to leave by the end of week one. The sights were OK, the hotels soso and the food pretty bad. But as is with many places it's the people who really make the difference and the people of Tunisia made things pretty unbearable. Tunisians have these intense personalities. They are quick tempered and seem to spend most of their time yelling at each other. These intense personalities mean that about 5 percent of the people we came in contact with are unbelievably friendly and kind; the remaining 95 percent of the people seemed to mostly be assholes. Never before have I traveled to a ruder, meaner place than Tunisia. It affected every part of our day, whether it was people cutting in front of us to get on the subway or a taxi driver ripping us off.
Sousse, Tunisia
Last week we decided to get even. I had given Laura a lot of slack when she bought her fake college ID for $6 back in Bangkok, but in Tunisia she put it to good use. Laura is, shall we say, a few years past college age, but no one at the historic sites and parks where she used her ID gave it second thought. We saved about $25 dollars. Take that, you swindling swine! (The pious would point out that all we are doing is robbing the government which is charged with protecting these ancient sites; not so: most park ticket sellers and takers run a variety of scams meant to enrich them and not the site, including bogus tickets and collection of unvalidated tickets which are then resold.)
Sousse, Tunisia, from the medina
The nicest spot we went to was El Jem, a small town out in the desert home to a staggering Roman coliseum. It's quite the sight, and we spent the afternoon there. The train back from El Jem was packed and I ended up standing next to a Brit -- one of the few independent tourists we've come across here -- who is retired and living in Phnomh Phen. He was back from Cambodia to go to a wedding but wound up booking the flight a month too early and so he had some time to kill. We commiserated about the state of manners in Tunisia and he mentioned that in two days he was heading from Tunis off to Lebanon. I was immediately struck dumb with jealousy. Lebanon! I want to go to Lebabon! I never get to go anywhere fun!
fort in Sousse, Tunisia
That's the sort of madness that travel induces. Only in the meanest rudest place I've ever been could I get jealous about going somewhere else. I want to keep traveling, but the fact is we have really run out of time, out of continent and nearly out of money. While we don't have cars or jobs or payments to make I am beginning to feel the burning desire to get on with something else. Laura is excited to find a town, find a home, find a job, make friends and be somewhere cool (as in, 'not sweaty'). I'm not really excited to do any of that (except the being somewhere cool part) but don't really know what else to do.
El Jem, Tunisia
On this trip we visited some two dozen countries on five continents, plus toured around the United States a bit, making it a full round the world trip. We've left plenty of the world still to see, though. Neither of us, for example, has been to Russia, central Asia or west Africa, and there are still innumerable island nations in the Caribbean and Pacific to visit, and even some European countries we managed to skip. One thing about the way we travel is we get relatively short takes on a large number of places. That means we know, for example, that we never want to go back to Tunisia, and also that we'd love to take our bikes to Taiwan and cycle around the island. We know we've probably seen well enough of Sri Lanka but that we could laze endlessly on Mauritius. And so on.
We spent five days in Malta, a tiny island nation in the middle of the Mediterranean. After the difficult months of travel in much of the world this is a real treat. Tap water you can drink! Friendly locals who speak English! Food that does not make us sick! Wow!
Two days from now we board a British Airways flight for London, where we spend the night, and then fly back to Atlanta the next afternoon. And so we have become part of this worldwide movement, a migration if you will, around the world. We are one of many on the move for a variety of reasons. "Na so dis world be," wrote Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.
We were watching Al Jazeera the other morning and the broadcast was coming from Doha. Laura could not remember where Doha was so I brought out our Lonely Planet which has a small world map in the back and we picked out Qatar, Bahrain and UAE. Laura started to pack up our bag to head our for the day but I kept looking at the map. You know, the world is something like three-quarters ocean, and what a ripoff! I don't care for the ocean -- actually, I'm afraid of it -- but I do like the coast. All that ocean to me is a waste. Look at the Indian Ocean -- you could fit a goodsized continent in there, part in the Northern Hemisphere, part in the Southern, with mountains and African-like plains and tons of animals and strange cultures. It could be huge, and still you'd have millions of square miles of ocean left. And the Atlantic -- what if there was a continent in between Europe and North America? Part European, part American, damp and cold and windy. And a whole archipelago between South America and Africa, millions of tiny islands linked by sandy reefs and odd languages? And what about the Pacific? All that ocean and a few tiny islands. Just think -- why not massive glaciated islands off the Russian shore, flatter islands between Hawaii and Midway, something huge and magnificent with weird animals between Tahiti and Easter. I'd go to those places! I'd ride the buses, I'd fight the taxi drivers (for even on these new continents they will still be crooks), I'll hunt for hotels and decent restaurants and visit the parks and learn the languages and read books and stare at the sunset. Bring it on! I'll do it! I'll do it! I'll do it!
El Jem, Tunisia
No comments:
Post a Comment