Transitions: Dongguan to Lahore

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote anything here...

For anyone I haven't gotten around to telling yet, we are MOVING TO LAHORE, PAKISTAN!!

After 5 years of working in Dongguan, we decided it was time for a new adventure. We spent a few frustrating months on the job search, and finally spoke with the director of the Lahore American School. We were immediately charmed with her, learned more pleasing things about the school as we did more research, and eventually ended up signing our next two-year contract with them.

The end of the school year was more emotional than I expected.

A good friend left me with a proper Chinese name. These characters mean "big river/ accept/ kindness". Made me cry... a lot.

A few of my 8th grade girls (a frustrating bunch of not-always-the-best students) put these together (because I look like an ice cream cone???) along with a video saying goodbye. Also made me cry... a lot.

Saying goodbye to friends and students and co-workers, taking my last run through the park, last visit to the local pub, last sunset off the balcony of our apartment... I'll miss the school and living in China, but I'm ready to move on.

So long Dongguan!

 Since we decided to move everything from our apartment as luggage, the travel was predictably annoying (12 suitcases!!!).

Emptied my Chinese bank account to pay for the luggage.

 Spent a few days in Bradenton with Rani's always-welcoming family, and I finally got to meet her brother.

Rani and Bailey together again at last

Then it was off to DC to visit with some fellow teachers from China (they're moving on to Indonesia this year) and attend a workshop sponsored by the Office of Overseas Schools. Meanwhile, Rani (with her mom and aunt) attended a different conference in NYC.

Kim, Me, and Jay at the Beer, Bourbon, BBQ festival!

Stayed in a straight-up dorm room for the conference. Accommodations weren't so hot but...

We did our work at the beautiful Madeira School nearby.

Then it was back to Florida, where we shortly moved into an amazing little beach house for the month of July. Lots of family around (my sister just moved here, and my parents were along to help out). I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Carrs, Linds, West-Singhs relax after a HOT day of moving for the first meal in Maria's new place. 

And relax by the pool for an early 4th of July party.

Oooh, that next picture looks good...

America is really doing beer right these days, which is probably another good reason for me not to live here. Here's a flight from a quiet night we spent at Motorworks Brewery in Bradenton. 

The moms relaxing on the beach.

Spent a few days at Universal Studios. Everything's fake except the rainbow!

And now we're wrapping everything up, trying not to get too nervous, hoping we didn't forget anything, and doing our final packing and saying of goodbyes.

Peace and love to everyone, especially those I neglected to contact directly. Best of luck on all of your adventures.

Myanmar-velous Epilogue: You call that a beach? Ngapali-ze!

OH MY GOD! This beach is so beautiful.

Sunset so nice I had to taste it.

And I did.

Myanmar-velous 3: Shan-tastic!

For some reason, all domestic flights in Myanmar seem to leave before 8AM, so we packed up and got out of Bagan before sunrise. Short, two-hop flight to Heho airport, where we met our new driver and headed out for a morning drive through the Shan state.
Very different landscape here, not so dry, with lots of different plots of farmland. We are also a little weirded out after getting so much constant information for the last three days, because our driver doesn't speak English and we have to guess at much of what we're seeing.

Ladies harvesting wheat; not a lot of dudes doing the farm-work out here...

The main stop this morning is the town of Pindaya and the Shwe Oo Min Natural Cave Pagoda, a complex of caves filled with a truly astounding number of Buddhas.

Look at this crazy-ass spider! There must have been some story behind this, because we saw it a few different places.

Seriously, like SO many Buddhas

Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha BU-DDAH! (can you guess that tune?)

The sign does not lie.

We also visited a three-generation old paper/umbrella-making workshop to see the family making paper out of plant fibers and fashioning the various parts of umbrellas using hand tools.

Making an umbrella handle with a super-sweet foot-powered lathe. 

We skipped lunch and booked it for Nyaungshwe on the northern shores of Inle Lake for an afternoon/evening off, had drinks and dinner in a small cafe, and called it a night.

After breakfast, we set out for a day of touring Inle Lake, a large lake in a mountain valley. Highlights included floating island farming, many stops to see local crafts, and seeing all these fully functioning villages on the lake that are just like villages on the land, with shops and schools and houses, but the streets are replaced with water. I'll let the pictures tell the rest.

Our journey begins

Out of the way, fools!

These fishermen were totally bad-ass. They're casting nets with both hands and rowing with one leg (the oar is kind of hooked in his armpit), all while balancing ON A BOAT on one leg. This skill is apparently unique to these people, and they even have races with 60+ people on one boat rowing with their legs.

Little shrine to the protector spirit, out in the middle of the lake.

Floating gardens: they grow tomatoes, squash, everything on these floating islands made from composted plant material that gets washed down into the lake from the mountains. The bamboo poles are actually anchoring them to the lake bed.

Here are some men busting up the material for the floating islands.

This is more of the material that goes into the islands. He's dredging it up with a pole.

One water house, coming up.

Making thread out of LOTUS FIBERS!? I didn't even know this existed.

I've never really seen a loom in action, but it's scary complicated: lots of hand-foot-eye coordination, and lots of patience. Also some really interesting engineering.

Local blacksmith re-purposing old springs and struts from cars.

Young boy on his way to becoming a novice at a monastery. 

Two dudes hand-sawing planks of teak to make boats

Ladies rolling sweet, sweet cheroots, complete with corn-husk filters

And with that, we're pretty much done with sight-seeing. We're headed to the beach for a few days tomorrow, which should be a nice end to this trip, and may not be worth writing about. I've been really impressed by this country, its people, and its traditions; I think we did a pretty good job of using our time here wisely, but there's still more to see, and I hope to be back someday.

Myanmar-velous 2: Bilbo Bagan

Next morning, up really early to make what we thought was a 7am flight BUT ACTUALLY LEFT AT 6AM!!! Luckily, Rani checked the tickets in the morning, and we were able to rush out of there and made our flight to Nyang U (Bagan). 

Met up with our new guide Aung, drove through this amazing expanse of dusty plains sprinkled with temples everywhere you look (more than 3000 in 42 square km or something) 

Seriously, all those little bumps you see are temples. This place is the product of rampant temple one-upmanship.

straight to a big old red and gold temple with lots of Buddhas, learning about hand gestures and how to tell which century the statue is from based on its features. 

If you look at this little pool of water, you can see the reflection of the top of the stupa. It was for the king, because if he raised his head to look, his crown would fall off.

Some really intricate wood carving.

Then to a shabbier temple with a viewpoint to see it from above, 

I came down with a little case of temple-head; I'm ok now.

then to ANANDA Pagoda, with some really impressive paintings and plaster work (can you tell I’’m already getting temple’d out?). According to Aung, this is the most beautiful temple in Bagan.

Outside of this temple there was a traveling market that was still around after last week’s festival, and we convinced our guide to take us to a local restaurant instead of the tourist stop for lunch. 

Back to our hotel to check in and take a little nap, then out to another temple with some impressive paintings and twin buddhas, 

Was that you?                                                  No idea what you're talking about, man.

then to another temple that we could climb to watch the sun set (while kids popped out of the brickwork and tried to get us to buy things). 

Sun's down, let's go, people!

Exhausted, we were able to stay up long enough to have a nice indian meal in town before crashing.

Up at 5 to catch a bus to BALLOON LAUNCH SITE where we had coffee and pastries and got the low-down on safety from the pilot, then up-up-and-away for a 1-hr flight over the plains, probably the best way to see all of these crazy temples. 

Fire it up!

We're the first off the ground.

Sunrise

Really cool experience, very relaxing, cruised over the village and waved to everyone we saw, saw the sun rise over the plains. Back to hotel for breakfast, then out to Mt. Popa, where we climbed the 777 steps to a temple on top of an extinct volcano, learned about some local spirits, saw a palm-sugar operation along the way where we sampled palm wine, beer, spirits, candy, and other snacks. 

Palm beer fermenting

Making candy out of palm sugar

Grinding peanuts for oil.

Lunch, car ride back to Bagan (where we negotiated down to ONLY TWO MORE TEMPLES for the day), saw an underground monastery, a tiny temple with really detailed painting, and a triple temple that got interrupted by the Mongols half way through so its only half painted. Back to the hotel to chill, shower, out for a blah dinner, and tried to stay up until 9 so I don’t wake up too early.

In the morning, visited the village of Salay with a local monastery and school where we awkwardly watched some classes in session and tried to pretend we didn't know they were looking for a donation.  Went to a wooden monastery built by a man with four wives. The monks disapproved, so there are many morality stories from Buddhist tradition illustrated in the wood carvings around the building. 

This is a really interesting story that I don't quite remember...

Saw a big-old hollow Buddha (I checked by looking up his skirts-He's hollow). 

Second-largest hollow Buddha in Myanmar

Had a nice lunch with our guide and driver on the way back, and begged off any further sight seeing. That evening, we took a sunset cruise down the Aye Yarwaddy River. A nice end to this chapter of our trip.

Sunset with Aung.