Taking a cheap water ride in Rio...

Experienced travelers can always find inexpensive ways to catch magnificent views of a place from the water. In New York City, for instance, riding with the daily commuters on The Staten Island Ferry is one of the best deals around--absolutely free! And the Statue of Liberty is on full view.

In my home town of Vancouver, the Sea Bus crossing over the Burrard Inlet from downtown to the North Shore, while not entirely free, is also worth the few bucks it costs for the spectacular view of the Coast Mountains.

In Rio del Janeiro, we discovered the joys and convenience of riding the ferry which runs every 20 minutes between Rio and the suburb of Nitoeri (where there happens to be a thriving Maple Bear school, which was our ultimate destination.)

For much less than the cost of crossing over by car or by bus on the world´s second largest bridge--the Rio-Niteroi Bridge--the ferry ride begins with these lovely gents before boarding the sleek looking ferry for a ride that lasts about 15 minutes:

 

 

The view as you step off the ferry! Not bad, eh?

And then step into the sleek terminal designed by the famous Brazilian architecht Oscar Niemeyer, most noted for his design of the Brazilian capital of Brasilia.

As a short excursion, for visitors this mode of transport can't be beat!

Keeping your feet on the ground...

During our first diplomatic assignment to Bangkok, over thirty years ago now (gasp!) and pregnant with our daughter Lilly, we vacationed with Rodney's parents in the Thai beach paradise of Phuket.

Undeveloped then, with only one resort (where now there are hundreds and hundreds) we simply couldn't stop pinching ourselves over the good fortune that had brought us there.

Riding in an exotic long tail boat, through scenery worthy of a James Bond film (it had actually been the backdrop for an 007 adventure) and picnicking on the sweetest pineapple I had ever tasted, I remember taking a moment to admonish our younger selves to never become blasé about the extraordinary places we found ourselves visiting. If we could hang onto our perspective, I said at the time, maybe we would turn out all right.

With that, cue another crazy beautiful setting, the view from the window of our hotel room in Rio de Janeiro this morning:

Extraordinary, especially in our year of excessive, desperate travel which has taken us to so many scenic and fascinating destinations.

Yes, I rationalize, we´re technically working. We came to Brazil for a convention of owners of schools in the Maple Bear family this past weekend in Sao Paulo. And yes, we´re on a frantic tour of as many Maple Bear schools as we can schedule within the three weeks of our visit. And finally, yes, yours truly also is wearing my hat as corporate communications specialist for the company.

But honestly, how to stay grounded? With a lot of soul-searching and yes, often conducted over the local cocktail, in this case the delicious Brazilian cocktail, the caipirinha...

Traveling to countries where the gap between rich and poor only grows wider (and this disparity is very clear in Brazil), it´s hard not to wonder why fate has dealt us this privileged hand.

I´m hoping that by being mindful and grateful, and stopping to literally say to ourselves, at full blast if that´s what it takes it (YES WE ARE EXTRAORDINARILY LUCKY!) we will never lose sight of our numerous blessings.

How does anyone else born to entitlement (and I don´t just mean about travel) manage to appreciate winning the life lottery?

The more I travel....

It never ceases to amaze me. Just when I pat myself on the back for being such a world traveler desperate or otherwise, I pop out of an airport into a country that is brand new to me.

That certainly happened to me earlier this week at the start of our 2.5 week working vacation in Brazil. South America is not entirely a new continent for me. I have been lucky enough to visit Chile not once, but twice (the pisco sours drew me back!)

But after a marathon of flying (Vancouver-Toronto-Sao Paulo-Curitiba) I sat back and watched an affluent Brazilian city of almost 2 million people which is far off any tourist's map (but has a Maple Bear School!) float by me while riding in a taxi to our hotel.

 'Where are we again?' I asked Rodney.

Silently, I castigated myself for smugly thinking how much of the world I have seen, only to realize my engagement with the gazillions of culture on this planet is actually quite limited!

I am not being disingenuous. Rather, I'm confessing to being humbled.

Coming from North America, the only time we hear or read about Brazil is when the World Cup Soccer tournament is being battled. That's as limiting as a world view of Canada that only includes hockey.

Anyone who has caught the travel bug will understand my sentiments. The more we see, the more we realize there is to see.

And to learn.

Travel is in the details...

At the risk of pissing off even more of my Facebook friends (who have been patient with my excessive travel of late and incessant status updates from God-knows-where-in-the-world), I have a confession to make that won’t endear me to anyone:

Rodney handles all of the details of our travel arrangements. Yes, he does. I do zip actually.

In a twisted defense, allow me to offer up this story: Years ago, when our kids were still living under our roof and Rodney unilaterally declared himself to be our chief cook (yes, I know, another great hardship of my life), we threw a lot of dinner parties. He loves to cook. He’s also exceedingly good at it and would even freeze meals for when he would be on the road, which was a good chunk of the time. Bringing people together to eat delicious food in our home made it easy to be sociable in a new town.

Easy for me, that is.

It didn’t take long for our guests to figure out that the entire meal was thanks to Rodney’s hard work, slaving over a hot wok or oven. Sure, I might have set the table (he would throw me that crumb of preparation at least, along with clean-up duties of course) but basically, it was his show all the way. I loved the arrangement—and still do.

Invariably, though, someone would ask: “So Robin, if Rodney cooks all the time, what is it that you do?”

“I raise the children. Pass the salt, please.”

The itineraries of our recent travels have been Rodney’s handiwork all the way. He has unintentionally transformed himself into my very own bespoke travel agent. He tailors our journeys to his specifications and, of course, Loyalty programs.  He’s exceedingly good at this, too.

With my very empty nest (even the dog was put to sleep two years ago) my moral high ground disappeared, along with kids requiring my attention. I must be honest and admit that after years of organizing my own lecture tours and traveling solo, I have embraced by inner slacker. I’m happy just to follow the guy holding my boarding pass, acting like an airport zombie, completely sober.

Sometimes, I am challenged to keep up with him. Business travelers only have one speed on their inner travel clocks: faster than the next guy. I have learned to burst out of a plane with him and arrive breathless at passport control.

And while carry-on has been my preferred style for years, the choice to travel that way has now become an imperative. Waiting for luggage is for sissies (or for those who want to pack more than one pair of shoes and the clothes to go with them.)

There’s nothing devilish in the details of multiple arrival and departure times, hotel or car confirmation codes, visa applications or other matters of a successful journey. It’s hard work, finding the right deals, being put on hold a lot, and answering questions from your lazy traveling partner.

“Which cities are we going to?” I recently queried him when I overheard a conversation about flights for our next working vacation in (Facebook friends reading this, serious place-dropping alert) Brazil.

“*&H^%#XC$(G^D$SV#@$%” was what his answer sounded like.

Stay tuned for the details.

Mr. and Ms. Road Warrior

I’ve been circling the globe these past months with my husband. Indeed, it was our multiple journeys which led to my idea to begin this blog.

Let’s face it, I sound desperate: following him from one place to the next, living large in his Business Class style, and acting like there might not be a tomorrow. (I thought seriously that this could become a reality when we recently rode the local bus from the mountains down to the coast in Vietnam, vehicle perched precariously on the edge of the narrow road, and driver chatting away on his cell phone.)  

My Facebook friends are absolutely justified in wanting to wipe the smile off my face as I peer out from a tub full of hot mud, from over a cool beer, or just grinning from ear to ear as I do in this picture of the happy couple:

I mean, who wouldn’t be smiling? And if I wasn’t happy each and every day about Rodney inviting me along—even if the ground rules have shifted and I find myself working alongside him in my role as corporate communications consultant for his company—then I should be shot, literally, for ingratitude.

I was a road warrior in my own right, though, long before I hitched myself to my husband’s star. Facebook had not been invented when I started schlepping myself and my books hither and yonder, on my own, with no first class hotels and definitely no business class seats.

Of course, those were the days when no one, not even my neighbours and especially my close family, really understood what I did. I appeared from time to time in the coffee shop in my neighbourhood on my way to my local library where I had to specifically mention, “I wrote books.” It just happened that not any of those books were read in Canada or at least by anyone related to me.

Before my business trips, like a two-week, five-city, thirty-five lecture tour of India as the ExpatExpert, one of my siblings would typically tell me cheerily to have a “nice holiday.” Another wouldn’t even bother asking coming or going (and still doesn’t for that matter). And yet another, while thankfully more interested then and now, seems to think my real travel only began once I started to accompany my husband.

For his part, Mr. Road Warrior claims to be happy to have me along after almost thirty years of business travel without me. And that’s despite my ups and downs (that would be my moods over my writing); insomnia (he has trouble sleeping now thanks to me) and of course my constant expressions of guilt over the ridiculous richness of my experiences with him.

Having me along, he told me the other night, beats returning to an empty hotel room after a long day of meetings, grabbing a shower and a quick bite to eat, and then playing iPad Scrabble until nodding off.

It’s nice to know I am appreciated. I already know I'm loved. Why else would he travel with me?

Traveling (and living) for two

When I was still traveling the world on business as the Expat Expert, I would be so exhausted at the end of long working days of lecturing, answering questions and handing out reassurance like the Candy Lady, that I would often soak in my hotel bath tub and sob like there was no tomorrow.

I probably just wished there would not be another tomorrow, listening and absorbing the heart-breaking stories of dysfunctional expatriate families that women shared with me.

There were (and still are!) many happy experiences of living abroad, but for some reason, it just took one look at my face and expat women generally felt like they were talking to their therapist, a best friend, or maybe their mother. They would unload too much information about their unhappy lives into my bottomless basket of empathy. By the time my day ended, that basket would be full of their tears with just enough room for me to add my own.

It might have just been jet lag, menopause, or a combination of both. Hormone supplements do not travel well.

So, how do I explain the weepiness I just experienced on a working vacation in Asia with my husband? The pills still came with me (thyroid meds, check, estrogen, check, progesterone, check) but I had the time of my life as the previous blog postings will confirm.

More importantly, I was not sleep deprived at all, especially after the hot mud tub experience. Lack of sleep usually leads to my tears. If anything, I was getting too much sleep, my body momentarily forgetting it belonged to an insomniac (which sadly, it remembered last night!)

This time my crying was, as t-shirts scream at tourists all over Asia, same same but different.

My sadness overcame me as it always does because of the gaping hole in my life, the one that would have been filled by the presence, comfort, friendship and love of my mother if she hadn't died suddenly in her early forties, before I even reached puberty.

The unfairness of her unlived life usually hits me in the summer, when Rodney and I explore the golf courses of the interior of British Columbia. I always get weepy thinking how much my parents would have enjoyed the same experience and how much I would have enjoyed golfing with her (even though family folklore had her shooting in the low 90s when I refuse to even keep score. I'm not sure she would have pleased with that.) 

I stopped traveling on business for many reasons (believing I could chain smoke in Asia without consequence being high on the list) but there was another more compelling reason: I was exhausted by the pace I was keeping, never stopping as if my life depended on it or rather, two lives.

I believed retirement would bring me to a new stage where my loss would lose its power. But I'm learning that it only changes and heads off in a different direction.
 

It would seem that I'm now desperately traveling for two.  And still having a good cry in the bath tub.

An ancient hot tub experience

Laugh if you will, but this chronic insomniac slept a solid eight hours last night. Was it the mineral mud bath...or the ativan? I'm going with the mud.

For cynics who laughed (or were utterly revolted) by this picture of Rodney and I floating in a bucket of what appears to look like hot chocolate milk, you should know that the mineral mud bath is an ancient form of healing for everything from arthritis to rheumatism.

Even Cleopatra apparently used mud to help her maintain her eternal beauty. Clearly not applicable to yours truly...

Ancients were also known to use it to keep obesity at bay. The mud, so they say, can fight excess flab. The Russian tourists who swarmed the place and indeed are ubiquitous in Nha Trang, may require multiple treatments to achieve any results. (I'm trying to be kind. I'm no stranger to large-sized people coming from North America. I just don't normally see them wearing string bikinis).

The mud itself, not thick as I expected but watery, contains a veritable smorgasbord of healthy organic ingredients: sulfur, iron, magnesium, potassium, bromide, selenium, calcium and zinc. It was like soaking in one of my vitamin B stress tablets.

There are several mud tub spas to choose from, but we chose the newest one. Designed in a traditional Vietnamese style, it was relaxing once I acclimatized to the loud muzak and stopped wondering who last used the borrowed bathing suit I was wearing for the occasion.

Did we emerge cleaner, de-stressed,and balanced?

Certainly my good night's sleep could confirm the restorative powers of our hot mud tub. Or it might have just been the sweet dreams of a quirky cultural experience which concluded with the most delicious pineapple smoothie ever consumed.

I was so relaxed I didn't even wonder about the origin of the ice floating in my glass.

Ghosts of a colonial past

My fellow guests at the Dalat Palace Hotel in Vietnam (besides my photographer husband) are ghosts.

Given the sad history of the American War, as it's naturally referred to here, you would think we're feeling the presence of the casualties of that long and brutal conflict. But no, the ghosts are French.

We both so easily imagine the French colonials who opened this luxury hotel in 1922--originally known as the Langbian Palace Hotel--wandering the grounds, climbing the steps to the opulent entrance, or just relaxing in their reclining chairs on the front lawn. We can feel them around us in the dining room or on the verandah as we enjoy our leisurely breakfast, our lunch, even a spectacular afternoon high tea.

 

 
They wander down the hotel corridors, the high ceilings allowing them room to float above our imaginations. They are in our guest room too, opening and closing the shutters on the windows or adjusting the fan.

We can even imagine the very first meeting between officials of the French government and the Vietminh which was held here in 1946. Or, when the guests of Emporer Bao Dai, who was himself a resident of Dalat with three palaces built near the hotel, came to stay.

And we are here too. Happily, for two more nights.

Shopping on steroids

"You're not in Kansas anymore," I told the young man who stepped off the courtesy hotel shuttle and immediately globbed onto me (his first mistake) as if I would serve as his guide through the monster mall we stood facing.

As it happened, he actually was from Kansas. 

We were headed into the Mall of Asia, a tourist attraction of Manila that defies, truly, an simple description other than that it's HUGE. Posters on Trip Advisor compare it to Tivoli Gardens or The Smithsonian of consumerism. Mall from Hell works better for me. It claims to be the fourth biggest mall in the world. 

From IMAX to ice-skating, ferris wheel to fireworks, just don't go there looking for anything you really need and be prepared to walk for hours unless, like I did, you contemplate renting one of these:

I quickly lost my young friend in the crowd and started dropping bread crumbs to make sure I would find my way home again. It didn't take long for my hyperventilating to begin. Luckily, I found a safe harbour:

Manila is paradise...if you are a shopper and certainly one with serious stamina (and cash!) 

But never mind Gap et al, you can even buy a new body here too. Manila is a mecca for plastic surgery. A convention of plastic surgeons just happen to be meeting in my hotel if I was so inclined.

No surprise to those who know me, I didn't even last an hour at the Super Mall. 

Same aging body (never spotted any nip/tuck kiosks but I'm sure they are there, somewhere) but at least I bought a book. I would have hated to leave empty-handed.

What not to eat when you're jet-lagged....

Vegetarians may want to close their eyes.

Even though we lived here in Seoul many years ago, I had completely forgotten how utterly sublime and delicious an experience it can be to eat Korean barb-b-q known as kalbi or galbi. Truly. And that's despite it being served with side dishes that can look like grass clippings and kind of taste like them too. 

It can be an especially discombobulating culinary experience (and digestive nightmare), though, for the jet-lagged traveler just out of the clouds after being cooped up for more than eleven hours and with a travel companion who barely lets her take a breath before saying,"we're off to dinner!"

Dinner? Didn't we have, like, three meals today already? And why the heck am I so starved? And why, oh why, can't I stop myself from stuffing my face with this delicious meat which I know I'm going to regret later?

Bottom line, I don't recommend consuming this meal until your stomach knows what time it is and you've been on the ground long enough that the smell of the ubiquitous kimchi on the table doesn't make you feel faint. 

Learn how to make it in your own kitchen.

Enjoy!