Semi-Staycation, Part Three

Dinosaurs in Kentucky

 People don't usually think of Kentucky when they think of dinosaurs or other kinds of fossils, but actually there are lots of fossils to be found in this area. Hence the Dinosaur Museum near Mammoth Cave.

The museum is interesting, but the gift shop is amazing. You can actually buy real dinosaur eggs, dinosaur teeth, and dinosaur bones! Jurassic Park, anyone?

If you are traveling with kids, be sure to let them see at least one of the dinosaur attractions that dot the area. Kids love dinosaurs, and will amaze you with their ability to identify all the different species, their eras, and their habitats and habits.

 

Next week: Ferry cross the Mississippi
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Travel Diary Software click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

My essays on travel with pets begin here.

My posts on Travel and Cancer Survival begin here.

The series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog about a fabulous carousel is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Japan, Post Five

Japanese Technology

Japan is known the world over for its cutting edge technology, yet the rice paddies of the country's premier crop are tended by hand. They have trains that travel 200 mph, and robots that handed out the Hugos at the World Science Fiction Convention. But then there are the toilets....

Every culture in the world is a study in contradictions. This week I'm going to tell you about some contradictions I experienced in Japan--I'm sure if I had been able to stay longer I would have encountered many more.


No visit to Japan would be complete without a trip on the Shinkansen, the Bullet Train. If I remember correctly, our trip was from Osaka to Hiroshima (more about Hiroshima next week). The trains are super-sleek and very comfortable, but as they have little luggage room our suitcases were sent ahead by coach and we took only our carry-ons.

Our tour guide purchased our tickets and herded us to the area on the platform where the doors of the car we had reservations for would open. Another contradiction: the driver, not a computer, runs the Shinkansen, and is responsible for stopping the train at the right place on the platform within centimeters. We took a mid-morning train heading away from Tokyo, so there was no mob of commuters to deal with, but there were still plenty of people taking the train along with us.




The ride is exceptionally smooth. At times we were going close to 200mph, yet there was no sense of excessive speed. We traveled through beautiful mountains--not surprising, as Japan's islands are actually mountaintops poking up through the ocean. 90% of the population lives on 10% of the land, as much of the land is practically vertical. Every valley, though, has villages, towns, or cities, and rice paddies are squeezed into every available spot, including what look like the yards of the houses.


If you are traveling on the Shinkansen, you are moving between major cities--the local trains to smaller towns are not Bullet Trains. On the Shinkansen, a LED sign indicates each stop in both Japanese and English, making it easy for tourists to know where to get off.


I love trains. I truly wish that the United States had not let our passenger railroads deteriorate--I would just love to go down to the station here in Murray, hop on a train, nap my way to Nashville instead of doing a hard 2-hour drive, do my business, and hop on another train home. That's what you do in most of the rest of the world, but not in the middle of the U.S. Here the old station house is used only for storage, and the trains that regularly rumble through are freight trains.

Anyway, I enjoyed the trip on the Shinkansen, which provides a transition to the second contradiction in this post: Japanese toilets. Each car of the Bullet Train has two toilets. No, not men and women, but Western and Japanese. The Western toilet is just what Americans and Europeans are accustomed to, as obviously are most Japanese today. So-called Japanese toilets, though, are the norm in public places--my guess is that they continue to build them even on new, modern trains and in the most modern buildings because they are easy to clean.


A "Japanese" toilet is for all practical purposes a hole in the floor. The Japanese ones are plumbed, and they flush, something not true everywhere in the world, for I have encountered this type of toilet in France, Greece, India, and Nepal as well. Most in Japan are sparkling clean, and I never encountered a public toilet of either type in the disgusting condition sometimes encountered in other parts of the world (including places in the U.S.) I assume men have little trouble with Japanese toilets, as they all brag that their accuracy is such that they can write their names in the snow. There are also plenty of ordinary urinals available for them, often pretty much right out in public, which is how I know. But for a woman it's a balancing act. Fortunately, I learned to do that balancing act years ago on a trip to Greece, a western country with very few western toilets available for public use.

Why do I say "fortunately"? Because when you are on tour you inevitably must use public toilets, and in a Japanese women's facility in a tourist area there are typically several Japanese toilets and one western one. Being older and, on the trip to Japan, still recovering from major surgery, I was slower than the other women at most things. Knowing how to use a hole in the floor, though, meant that I was in and out of one of the Japanese toilets while most of the other women on our tour were still lined up to use the only western one.

Tip to any woman traveling to a country where she expects to have to use "squat" toilets with any frequency: if the culture permits, wear skirts instead of trousers. In hot weather, skirts are cooler than trousers, and more modest than shorts. I'm not talking about miniskirts, of course.

Also, in Japan and anywhere else including the U.S., women should carry a day's supply of toilet paper. Any time you visit places with lots of tourists, they are likely to run out. In a handful of places in Japan, you have to purchase toilet paper from a vending machine, as it is not provided free of charge.


Now, the final contradiction for this post: Japan also has the highest tech toilets in the world--so high tech that it's difficult to figure out how to use them. I'm told that about three-quarters of Japanese homes are now equipped with toilets that spray massaging warm water, or act as bidets, spray perfume--or even play music! We had only one such toilet in a hotel on our trip--but as all the instructions were in Japanese we had all sorts of weird things happening before we figured out which button flushed it!

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How to import a car from Japan. Click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

This series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Japan, Post Two

Aug. 19-21, 2007--Part One


Japan blog posts begin here.

In early June of 2007 I had major surgery, but I was determined to go to Japan in August, and I did. I bought a walking stick, expecting that medieval monuments in Japan would be like medieval monuments in Europe: not handicap friendly. I was right. But with my stick I was able to go anywhere I wanted.


I didn't buy an orthopedic cane for the trip, because I needed something lightweight, collapsible, and versatile. My solution was a monopod intended as a camera support:

Davis & Sanford TRAILBLAZRV Trailblazer Monopod

I recommend this monopod for any traveler who needs support climbing stairs, walking over uneven ground, or hiking outdoors. It collapses to go through the airport security scanner (I called the airline for instructions and was told to carry it on the plane, not put it in checked baggage), is lightweight but sturdy, and is cheap. It expands to staff length, which is great for climbing hills and long shallow steps, or to regular cane length for city streets and buildings. Add a loop handle (I found that a leather shoelace made a perfect one), and you can hang it from your wrist when you need to use both hands for something. And, of course, if you need to steady your camera, unscrew the top of the handle and there is the screw that fits into the bottom of your camera.


My flight to Japan was the longest trip I had made up to that point. By the time we changed planes in Tokyo, I was exhausted. I met Linda, my roommate for the trip, at the Tokyo airport, and we were on the same flight to Osaka. The travel gods blessed us, for on the plane from Tokyo to Osaka we were put in business class. Each seat was a separate pod that reclined. There was the usual little TV screen, a desktop for food tray or computer, etc., but I didn't have time to play with them. The seat fully reclined, like a recliner, and hardly had I stretched out on it than I was sound asleep.


We were met at the Osaka airport and taken to our hotel, where we met out tour guide, a lovely older Japanese woman. She took us to dinner at a yakatori restaurant (grilled food), which was very good. The only problem for me was one I had not anticipated: it was a strictly sit-on-the-floor place, something I just cannot do--it plain hurts. After trying every possible position, and having my hips still screaming in agony, I was forced to stand for the last third of the meal. But the food was excellent--I really had very little trouble finding excellent food in Japan.


But the experience worried me--was I going to have this problem of not being able to sit on the floor every time we went to a Japanese restaurant? As it turned out, it never happened again. Most Japanese restaurants have a choice between eastern and western style seating, while western restaurants--which are everywhere--have only western style seating. Also, I am now amazed that that first restaurant did not have a low chair available for people who can't kneel or sit cross-legged. After that I was offered such chairs several times, including in a private home.

Back at the hotel we met up for the first time with Japanese customs even in western-style hotels. We always had two single beds and a bedstand with clock-radio just as in American hotels. Of course there was a TV. But there were no dressers, nothing with drawers. Instead there was a closet with built-in shelves. AND, every hotel provided either pajamas or sleeping robe, as well as slippers! It was summer, so they were lightweight cotton, but they were all very nice, and it meant that I at least didn't have to worry about clean nightwear for the trip.

I'll tell you more next week.
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How to import a car from Japan. Click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

This series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Impressions of Nepal

Once again, let me remind you that what I can give you are only the impressions of a tourist who has made a brief visit to each country. I am not a sociologist or a historian, nor have I lived for any length of time in these countries.

Click on the photos to see them in larger size.

The day we drove from India into Nepal, we saw the roads of India improve steadily as we approached the border. Then darkness fell with a rainy drizzle, so by the time we reached the actual border crossing we couldn't see much of anything. As I reported in an earlier blog post, the entry into Nepal was uneventful, but only because we were late, as the border had been closed for much of the day.

Nepal is a poor country, but unlike in India the people seem determined not to stay that way. It's not nearly as crowded. We saw only a very few beggars, and those only in tourist areas.


The roads, while certainly not up to European or American standards, are far better than those in India. There is less traffic, and the driving is not as reckless. Cities are much cleaner. India is famous for its bright colors, but in that country they are lost under dust and grime. Nepal's homes and businesses are brightly painted, as are their cars and trucks, sporting the psychedelic look that the western world copied in the 1970s. While Nepal doesn't have the air pollution of India, it certainly has the same dry-season dust. In Nepal the dust is swept away daily--we even saw people sweeping dust off dirt floors! Overall, there is a sense of pride and hope that we missed in India.

The odd thing is, life is not particularly good in Nepal, certainly not by western standards. There is a chronic power shortage, and travel and tourism are frequently disrupted by strikes. See my earlier posts about our tour for examples, then imagine what such disruptions do to the work and lives of people not vacationing.

Everybody in Nepal not only seems to have a job, but they are proud of their work and seek to be paid its full value--hence the strikes. The power shortage is a result of global warming, resulting in less snowfall in the Himalayas and therefore less water in the rivers and streams. As their power is hydroelectric, only during monsoon season do they have power 24/7. While we were there, the ration was eight hours per day, split between morning and evening.

Electricity--Make it, Don't Buy It

Obviously the power problem has been going on for a long time, for everyone has alternatives ranging from candles and flashlights to generators. Many of the shops are completely open in front, and operate during daylight hours only. Entrepreneurship is everywhere, from people like the owner of the resort we stayed at in Chitwan to old women selling a few fruits and vegetables from a bright clean blanket spread by the roadside.


Here's an excellent example, a square in Kathmandu. Note the well-paved street, the clean white buildings, the tourist map, the trash bin and the neatly bagged trash waiting to be picked up--and no litter in the street. Note the peddlers with their wares--everybody in Nepal seems to be selling something. Not begging--selling. Tourists stroll through a prime tourist area with no beggars trying to intercept them--an impossibility in India. And note the absence of children in the square at mid-morning. Where are they? In school.

In India we occasionally saw children in school uniforms. In Nepal we saw them every morning and evening in much larger numbers. In India, where English is one of the official languages, tuk-tuk and taxi drivers usually did not speak English. In Nepal, where English is not an official language, everyone interacting with tourists spoke passable English, even rickshaw drivers and mahouts.

Not long before we visited Nepal they voted in a communist government. It didn't stop the strikes, or interfere with capitalism in any way that we observed. Nepal is a very old country, but it feels young, eager, and hopeful. There, too, other countries are helping local people run businesses--but they are businesses like the Chitwan resort, which can grow, employ more people, and bring in more tourist trade. A Dutch company is investing there, and the owner is planning to install solar panels to eliminate the power problems.

The contrast between the two countries, India and Nepal, was completely unexpected. India is supposed to be more advanced, part of the industrial and technological world. Perhaps for some. But Nepal is clearly in the process of advancing, and as far as we could tell, the opportunities there are open to everyone.
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Next week we leave India and Nepal for Italy, which may be the most photogenic country in the world.

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