Blog Posts About: twinf

On Christmas Eve of 2004, Sachi and I made a decision.  We decided that, in one year, we would depart on a year long trip.  We reserved a web site address that night: www.theworldisnotflat.com (TwinF).  In January of 2006 we departed, dedicated to blogging the whole trip.

After a glowing recommendation from another traveler along the way, we added Sri Lanka to our itinerary, with some apprehension.  Sri Lanka experiences some domestic terrorism, but it mostly stays in the northern part of the country.  Further, the southern part of the country was devastated by the tsunami a year before. We knew it would be an adventure.

Thanks to connections via Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forums we were introduced to Mervyn, our driver for 10 days in Sri Lanka. Like others in the tourism industry in Sri Lanka, Mervyn depends on tourists coming to their country. Tourists who start their plans by searching the Web.

This is Mervyn showing us how to drink a King Coconut:

We became friends with Mervyn and had a wonderful time in Sri Lanka.  We always felt safe and Mervyn was a perfect driver and guide - he gave us a local's perspective and became our friend. He introduced us to Arrack, a favorite alcohol of locals.  We told him that we would write about him on the Internet and hoped it would help his business. It was the least we could do.

Last night, on Christmas Eve, 4 years after deciding we would go on the trip, we received this email message from Mervyn:

DEAR SIR,

HOW ARE YOU? I AM FINE AND ALL OK WITH ME. I HAD GOOD BUSINESS FOR THIS YEAR. THAT IS BECAUSE OF YOU. THIS YEAR 90% FROM THE BUSINESS I GOT FROM YOUR WEB SITE THAT YOU RECOMAND ME. I SAY AGAIN AND AGAIN THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I WISH MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOUR WIFE.

MERVYN

This message made our Christmas extra special this year. Mervyn is honest, has a good heart, is very hard-working, and deserves to have a successful business.  It's inspiring to me, as a blogger, to think that a couple of blog posts can make such a big difference to someone like him on the other side of the world. Our post is the #3 result for  "Driver Sri Lanka" on Google. I hope we can continue to help Mervyn's business in 2009. 

 

Our photos from Sri Lanka
Blog posts from Sri Lanka

 

To finish up China week, I'd like to share some of our favorite photos from China. Enjoy the Olympics!

Shanghai from the Pearl City Tower

 

A squished pig from a Nanjing market.

 

Summer Palace

 

Locks on Yellow Mountain.  You might remember these from The Amazing Race.

 

Li River, near Yangshou, China

 

Li River Karsts, via Guilin, China.

 

It was a sunny day in Shanghai.  The umbrellas (parasoles?) were to block the sun. 

 

Yangtze River - Three Gorges

 

Grand Hyatt Atrium, JinMao Tower, Shanghai.

No, she was not chopping off my head with a giant knife. I was getting a haircut and, much to my surprise, I got a massage too.  They even cleaned my ears with a Q-tip. I think I'll be the only person sticking anything in my ears in the future.

Sachi at the Great Wall. But you probably figured that out yourself.  You might enjoy reading about our Mutiny on the way to the Great Wall. 

OK, now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Below is a short story that was posted to our travel blog from Shanghai.  Almost any visitor to China is likely to experience a higher-than-expected level of competiion while standing in line for something like a subway ticket. In the case below, I had made up my mind to be a competitor.  Unfortunately things didn't work out as planned.

From the post: Lessons in Line Breaking

 

I had made a decision and I was going to act on it.  Gone were the days of standing passively in line while Chinese people wedge themselves in front of me and place an order before I could react.  I was going stand up for myself and try to be a little more Chinese.

This is not the kind of thing you can plan – it just has to happen and just last night, I had my chance.  We were in the Shanghai subway terminal in line for our first subway card at a vending machine, as we’ve done so many times before in other cities.  Just as the couple in front of me at the machine received their card and turned away, a young Chinese guy stepped directly in front of me.  So, with great determination, I stepped in front of him enough to place my right shoulder at about his eye level and in a single motion stepped directly in front of the vending machine.   It was mine!  HAHA!  I’ll show you line breaker!  I’m no push-over tourist softy!

So there I was, with this foreign and unfamiliar machine staring me in the face.  It was mine, yes, but I realized all too quickly that I had no idea how to use it.  The instructions were in English and the #1 read “Select Fare???.  Scratching my head with waves of embarrassment pending, I searched the machine for anything that said “Fare???.  Nothing.  I inquisitively pressed a couple of random buttons in the hopes that something would happen. Nothing.  My pride was on the line here and I was blowing it!  Thoughts of fleeing in shame entered my mind when I heard a voice over my shoulder, “Where do you need to go????  It was the line breaker politely asking a simple question that I couldn’t answer completely.  All we knew was that we needed to go two stops on Line 2.  He ended up doing the whole transaction for me and after many “thank yous??? I left with our subway cards in hand and my pride more than a little crushed.

The moral here is that if you’re going to try to act like a local, be prepared for the entire event.  Going off half-cocked is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot. 

 

If making signs in Chinese characters was my job, I would be very, very bad at it.  However, I might hire someone who knows the language well before erecting a permanent sign at a major tourist destination.  For a long time, this didn't happen in China and we snapped the photos below before they invested in changing the signs for the Olympics. 

 

 The guy in this photo is one of the most interesting people I've ever met.  He's the blind adventurer Miles Hilton-Barber.(notice the broken cane, his favorite schtick) Photo is from the Three Gorges Dam. He did not turn over.

 

 

I never could figure out why they wanted to protect the railings. This was at the Summer Palace, where I felt compelled to write a rant about tourism and tour groups. 

 

 

An earnest request at Yellow Mountain. Most tourist travel in China (outside the cities) is controlled.  Most people are herded onto busses and kept in a group, led by a flag-bearing guide who speaks English and may use a megaphone. We are very independent travelers and grew quite tired of these guides. 

 

 At the Three Gorges Dam.

 

 

I didn't take it as a compliment.

 

 

I think they meant "crab"

 

 

4 Stars!

 

And finally, not a sign, but an illustration of a difference in culture.  I present to you, on the busy streets of Beijing - a car-to-car turtle salesman.

 

Reading back through this, it may appear that we didn't like China.  I would say that the tourist experience in China, compared to other places, was not as enjoyable.  We were only there a month, which is far too short of a time to know if we really like it or not.  We left the country wondering what would change before the Olympics and what Westerners would say upon returning. 

First, we want to wish you and yours good cheer and positive vibes for the Holidays.  It's been an exciting year for us at Common Craft and it couldn't have happened without you.  Your links, your blog entries, your emails to friends all put a spotlight on our work that wouldn't have happened otherwise.  Maybe there is something to this social media thing after all. J

Between now and the New Year, we'll be with families on separate coasts and generally unavailable. 

If you're looking for an off-topic diversion, we were interviewed for a podcast by Vann Black recently about our trip last year.  It focuses on travel planning and making lifestyle changes to support extended travel.  

Ta Phrom, Angkor, Cambodia

Exactly one year ago, we published the video below - one of our first. We had just finished a six day river trip from Chong Qing to Shanghai, China on the Yangtze River, which goes through the Three Gorges.

China is damming the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges Dam Project, the worlds largest dam. It has displaced over a million people and caused a huge and well-deserved global controversy.

At this time last year, we had just purchased the camera we use today. I decided I'd try to do a short doucmentary about the things we learned about the project and it's impact.

I admit it's a bit cheesy, but I thought you might enjoy seeing something besides a whiteboard

This second video was from the same trip and shows the beauty of the gorges leading up to the dam.

After this blast from the past...now back to our regularly scheduled programming.