It Takes Two To Tango And Iguazu Too

Late January, 2004

Dear family and friends,

Who knows who Carlos Gardel is?  Okay, Daph, Bev and Jim, and you John, you can all put your hands down.  I thought you might know.  For the rest of you, Carlos Gardel is only slightly less revered in Argentina than San Martin, Evita, or Maradonna.  Gardel is the one who popularized and then introduced tango music and dance to Broadway and Hollywood in the 1930's.  His pictures and CD's are available everywhere even yet today. Tango may well be the best known export of Argentina, an art form encompassing music, poetry, and dance. 

Apparently the dance was originated by men at the end of the 19th Century and was danced in the brothels of La Boca and San Telmo.  With all the European immigration, the tango inevitably made its way to the dance hall of Paris where it was gentrified and internationalized.  With the imprimatur of that stamp of approval, the dance was adopted by Argentinean society and has been the rage ever since. 

Wanderings in the winter of 2004

January 2004

Dear family and friends,

It's going to be another beautiful day, I thought, as I teed up my ball. The cobalt blue sky was cloudless, and at 18 degrees (my tee time was 7:00AM again), it promised to be ideal for another great round of golf. The quiet of the day was only disturbed by the morning chorus of the kea, saddleback, tieki, kakapo and other local birds flitting about in the pohutukawa trees around the clubhouse.

Tour 2003 - Shangri-La

Dear Family and Friends,

In his 1933 classic, Lost Horizon, John Hilton described a utopian, idyllic valley he called Shangri-La.  Inspired by the real life exploits of George Leigh-Mallory who lost his life in 1924 attempting to climb Mt. Everest, Shangri-La was somewhere in the Tibetan Himalayan mountains.  Shangri-La was a place of peace and security; living was not a struggle but a lasting delight.  People did not age; there were no wars.  The society was based around a 'Lamasery' (a Tibetan Monastery) in a beautiful, snowless, sunny, fertile land called the Valley of the Blue Moon. 

Ever since the publication of Hilton's novel, people have speculated as to the actual whereabouts of this wondrous place.  Wonder no more.  The Chinese government, always eager to adopt anything that will bolster tourism, has now proclaimed Shangri-La is, in fact, the old city of Zhongdian (in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Northwest Yunnan Province).  So, Zhongdian no longer exists, and thus I found myself in Shangri-La.  (The local Tibetans don’t give a shit what the Chinese call their city.  They call their home Gyelthang.  It never was Zhongdian, and it won’t be Shangri-La.)

Tour 2003 - Yunnan and Kunming - almost home: safe, sound and SARS-free

Dear Family and Friends,

I have now arrived home, safe, sound, and SARS free.  Internet access was not so readily available as one would like in western China, so I wasn't able to send off an e-mail report of my China wanderings.  I have decided to send a couple more e-mails to you all to finish my 2003 journey.   So, delete it if you don't want to read it, otherwise, here is the first of two China journey notes. 

Tour 2003 - musings on Hanoi

March 21, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

With the possible exception of Yangon, Hanoi is the least westernized of all the Asian cities I have been in.  I have not seen any McDonalds, Pizza Hut, or Burger Kings.  The closest to Starbucks is Starbeans.  Apparently KFC does have a presence in Vietnam, although I have not encountered them.  I read that when KFC first came to Vietnam, in a leap of marketing brilliance that transcended common sense, they proposed an "Uncle Ho" burger, noting that Ho Chi Minh looked like the Colonel.  Officials coldly pointed out Ho was a General.  KFC sticks to chicken. 

Further introduction of western culture is not apt to happen soon either.  The Vietnamese have borrowed a page from the Parti Quebeqois.  Daily now, squads of police are wandering around the Old Quarter demanding the removal of any sign where English (or French) is more prominent than Vietnamese.  The locals display the usual derision reserved for such silly bureaucracy, and a crowd always gathers, people snigger, the police mostly try to look very serious and important.  Some shop owners are resigned, some angry, and yet others try to schmooze the police.  All the while a rant blasts out of loudspeakers.  It is all quite festive. 

Tour 2003 - Koh Chang Go Bang

Dear Friends,

I had a most interesting visit to Koh Chang (Elephant Island) that I thought I should tell you about.  Koh Chang is the second largest island in Thailand after Phuket and is located in the Gulf of Thailand very near the Cambodian border.  I left Bangkok at 9:00AM last Friday in a minibus headed to the ferry dock at Laem Gnop.  I caught the 5:00PM boat to the island.  I was actually heading for a place called Lonely Beach on Koh Chang but as it was getting dark when I arrived, I thought I would take a place close to the pier and then seek out an alternate place at Lonely Beach the next day.  Many Thais go to Koh Chang for the weekend so, knowing accommodation might be tight, I booked into Mac Bungalows, the first place I checked, and got the last bungalow they had.   I had a nice dinner in their restaurant, it was very newly decorated, and the food was quite good.  I was in bed by 11:00PM. 

At 2:45AM I was wakened by a goddamn mosquito biting me and was lying there semi-asleep when BOOM!  An immense explosion.  There was a scream almost simultaneously, and over the roar of the blast I could hear glass breaking, debris hitting my roof, and I was nearly tossed out of my bed.  It was a thunderous noise.