Sometimes the best sightseeing happens at the lowest level. Of course we want to “see the sights”, but the eating, wandering and people watching often yields the most memorable visual souvenirs. I’d love to know what American-isms make foreign visitors do double takes, and I’m sure that what catches my eye isn’t what would stop someone else, but after being away from home for two months, we’ve added up a treasure trove of odd moments. Some are question marks for us, some just struck us as funny, and some seem to really define the otherness of a particular place - but together they’ll be the bits, later, that we recount when trying to explain what it was really like to be in Egypt, or China – the human detail that changes a place from a postcard to a real city.
If anyone knows the answers to any of these questions (some hypothetical, some just puzzles), please, leave us a comment and let us know. And add your own! What are your favorite moments, the ones that really make you realize that you are far from home?
In no particular order, then (except for the first one, which we really want the answer to), here are some of our favorite “souvenirs” thus far:
In Turkey (not Istanbul) we noticed that roadside restaurants had water pipes, at least roof high, standing guard at the edge of the road – spraying water in giant round sprinkler showers to the ground. Is this a sign that the restaurant is open? Clean? Offers free car washes while you eat? What???
In Tanzania, most of the park picnic areas sold sodas – Coke was in bottles, but Diet Coke (called Coke Light) was in cans only and was usually 2-3 times the price.
I bought a glace coated fruit stick from a stand in Chengdu. Hidden between the grapes and tangerine slices were cherry tomatoes. Better than you’d think!
While in Selcuk, the town closest to Ephesus, we followed signs to the beach – and found a road that dead-ended onto a wide swath of sand. Looked like a fair number of people had driven their sedans out to the water’s edge to watch the sunset.
In Italy, stores close during the middle of the day, reopening around 4pm. I saw the owner of the bath products store walking back to her shop at 4 with a friend, and heard the friend ask if she shouldn’t open. She checked her watch and the street, shrugged and said no, let’s have a coffee first.
The Chinese are very into their pandas. At the Giant Panda Research Station in Chengdu we were forced to watch a video on panda breeding that involved lots of nature scenes with butterflies, soft music and bad English translation of how the pandas were going to get “married” and “love very much.” What we did learn is that the male panda has a very small willy.
Egyptian touts are persistent and hard to ignore; they put on a false friendliness that makes me nuts (oh, my friend, how are you my friend, where are you from my friend). I understand needing a sale, but why, after we say we do not need a cab, will they follow us down the road for a full block, telling us how nice the cab is and what a good deal we will get? It isn’t like we’re going to change our minds about needing a cab. I can see this working with a trinket, but not a service.
Why were Snow White and a giant fuzzy turtle following the Ramadan drummer around the street fair in Istanbul?
Xi’an is pretty well on the tourist route, but the day we were at the airport, the only other white people we saw was a small group of Russian tourists. Why, then, do all the airport food outlets sell only western-style food?
Egyptian Music Videos. This is really all there is to say. Handsome’s best dream come true – they look like a cross between a drug trip and a soft porn flick.
In China, we’ve seen stands selling nothing but bits of offal, cooked various ways. In Chengdu, one was set up under a giant poster advertising sexy Disney lingerie.
McDonald’s in China has taro and green pea pies instead of apple and cherry. In Egypt they serve the McKofta. In Turkey, you get the Sultan Meal, including dates.
The streets of Florence are lined with Nigerians selling toys, junk and fake handbags (also classified as junk). When the police cruise down the street they hastily roll it all up in a blanket and then stand around trying to look inconspicuous until the car passes. Right. Like a skinny black guy in robes or gangsta gear with a bag over his back like Santa is going to blend in…
The airstrips in Africa were pretty remote, but our favorite was in Selous, where they had a set of rolling stairs and a little striped saw horse – those two items amounted to the entire airport infrastructure. Also, keep in mind, please, that the lodge in the Selous does not wash “ladies smalls.”
China is fanatic about hygiene – in certain cases. Pomegranates sold by the side of the road are all wrapped in individual baggies. At fruit stands, the vendors pick for you – you’re clearly discouraged from touching the merchandise. At the tea gardens, men with long metal skewers roam through the tables – wanting to clean your ears. Yes, with those long metal things, and some other funky but surgical looking devices and a tuning fork. Yet… most children wear split pants, so as often as not you see bare baby butt. In front of our hotel in Xi’an I saw a mother stop with a little kid, about 2, who just squatted where he was and peed. Hmmm. Peeing on the street, ok. Pomegranates (which have a hard peel that isn’t eaten) unwrapped, not ok.
And don’t get me started on the spitting. If I never experience another person coughing up a wad of spit and then spitting it ANYWHERE it will be too soon. Tip for future visitors to China: check all benches before sitting down.
At our hotel in Cairo we saw a young woman in full robes, only her face bare. Modesty, right? I’m not so sure, considering that she had on makeup that would have made Dolly Parton look bare faced. I’ve never seen lipstick that bubble-gum pink on anyone.
In Soweto there were numerous “stands” set up wherever people gathered, selling usually one thing only (lots of bright plastic) - artfully arranged on a filthy blanket.
Every empty lot in Istanbul seemed to have a pile of trash, and every pile of trash seemed to have at least 20 resident cats. If they all banded together, an unaware tourist with a kebab could be in deep trouble.
Camel drivers on cell phones.
The drive from Genoa to Nice follows the coast, but you see very little of the ocean because the road is mainly a series of tunnels. I’d never realized that the spectacular scenery in that area is the result of the Alps literally dropping into the ocean without transition.
Walking through the park in Chegdu we came upon a huge crowd of people dancing: ballroom dance. Around the next corner was a group of thirty or so older women line dancing. Both dance groups were grooving to some jazzed up variant of Chinese pop. Further on was a lone man watching music videos and projecting the music with huge speakers to an empty plaza.
Cape Town: The burger joint below our hotel became a seriously happening club at about 10pm. Imagine a Johnny Rocket’s turning into the Viper Room and you’ll get the idea.
I had to have extra pages added to my passport, so I went to the consulate in Florence. I had some romantic idea that it would be elegant and old world and I’d wait in a sitting room. Hah! They’ve managed to transfer the worst of US government bureaucracy to a palazzo on the Arno and I sat in a disgusting waiting room with acoustic tiles and a bunch of Americans who had lost their passports or had them stolen. With all the warnings about keeping them safe, who leaves their passport in a bag two tables over in a café? These people, apparently. While I was inside Mike watched the antics of two very obvious “undercover” security guys with ankle bulges.
At the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi’an, military guys were playing badminton in full uniform.
Turkish airports are lenient! We got lost trying to find the airport in Izmir and checked in about 12 minutes before our flight left. Not only did they let us, our bags made it on the plane.
Italian radio is downright terrible. Terrible. They played about 4 songs in constant rotation, the most memorable being something about not feeling like dancing. I was so excited the night I heard Shakira (just for a CHANGES, you understand) you would have thought I'd resurrected the Beatles.
In Luxor: kid riding a donkey down the road with a lamb over the donkey’s withers sideways in front of him, bouncing and bleating.
Beijing has some serious amateur photographers – carrying tripods and carefully setting up shots – with little point and shoot digital cameras. I was tempted to borrow a tripod from one girl we kept seeing, though, to get a shot of five or six large lit kites flying over the temple at dusk.
On the plane to Tibet, one of the flight attendants was dressed in what I assume to be national costume, complete with a headdress. Towards the end of the flight they showed a Tibet video and played loud traditional music as she danced in the aisle of the plane. We’ve yet to see a United flight attendant dancing.
At the Burger King in Stuttgart, you could pay in Euros or US dollars. Have it your way!
Driving to Pamukkale we passed hundreds of fruit stands on a short stretch of road (near a town that promoted itself as both “little Paris” and a strawberry mecca). They sold the same thing, and I have no idea how they could all stay in business. Driving the other direction on the same road, we only passed a handful of the same kind of stands – maybe ten at most.
During our Soweto tour we stopped at a shebeen for a beer, where we were visited by a local guy who really wanted us to take his photo. If he wanted money or a beer or something else, we’ll never know, because he didn’t do more than jump around and shake our hands over and over.
Our guesthouse in Chengdu had a pet pig. Our hotel in Lhasa had cats: one climbed on Mike’s lap during dinner, the other snuck into our room later the same evening.
The square in Xi’an in the center of town was filled with people at night – flying kites, hanging out. Most interesting were the ones renting a few minutes use of giant, high tech telescopes to look at the moon.
Lhasa airport had one café. It advertised, proudly, that it served Freshly Boiled Yak meat – and there it was, in giant, head-sized hunks on a folding table right in the boarding area.
Every place we have been, bar none, has had multiple KFC outlets. No kidding. And I thought McDonald’s was bad…
