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In most of the other countries that we’ve been to, it was either relatively easy to tour a city on foot or taxis were suitably cheap.  Unfortunately, South Africa is both sprawling and comparatively expensive and now that we’ve been living here, our transportation standards have changed.  I’m no longer willing to walk the 35 minutes each way to the beach with a 7″ surf board in hand.  Within our first two weeks in this country, we quickly realized that a car would a necessity.

Renting proved to be far too expensive for the 3 months that we wanted the vehicle for, and leasing vehicles is simply unheard of in South Africa.  There were a few dealers that would sell a new vehicle with buyback guarantees, but it required a tremendous up front investment.  The only realistic option, I decided, was to find  a beater of a car that had some resale value so I could recoup most of my costs.

That’s when I met the Beast - 1.7 glorious metric tons of gold and vinyl shrouded German steel.

At the time, purchasing this 1988 Mercedes Benz 200 seemed like a great idea.  There aren’t a lot of cars you can find in the US or South Africa for R12,000 (equal to $1,600 at the time), and it showed less than 200,000 km on the odometer.  Plus, Mercedes is known for making cars that last.  What could possibly go wrong?

The Mechanic
The guy who sold me the vehicle was a mechanic, and claimed he had been maintaining the vehicle for its only owner for the past 20 years.  He was a friend of a friend, so I was inclined to believe him.  He also said he would ensure the vehicle passed inspection or cover any costs associated with getting the vehicle past inspection.

It took him 2 months and plenty of harassing on my end to finally get the Beast in road worthy condition.  When we were finally sitting down to sign the ownership transfer papers, I discover the cars records indicated the car was actually a 1981 vehicle.  Oops.

The Bureaucracy
All foreigners that purchase automobiles in South Africa are required to acquire a Traffic Registration Number with the Motor Licensing Board.  This effectively provides the government with an ID which can link the vehicle to your passport.  Time wasted: 4 hrs

In my first attempt to transfer ownership, the MLB official declared that the Beast’s logbook and papers were outdated.  Therefore I had to go to the police station, have an officer examine the serial number etched in the chassis and verify that the car hadn’t been stolen.  After that, I had to send the verification off to the provincial capital to get a new logbook authorized.  Time wasted: 6 hrs

Two weeks later, I finally got confirmation that a new logbook had been issued and I would be permitted to wait in yet another queue and have the Beast formally be placed under my ownership. Time wasted: 3 hrs

The Economy
By the time the Beast was officially mine, we would only have 2 weeks remaining in South Africa, which meant I had to pretty much sell it immediately.  With the time crunch, I was forced to accept the first offer I got - an unfortunate R8,000.  The kicker is that while the US economy had been sliding, the South African economy had been in a free fall, and the exchange rate had gone from 7.6 (when I first purchased the Beast) to 10.2 Rand to the Dollar.  After the ordeal, I had recovered a meager $784.

I suppose it could have been worse, but I’m having difficulty imagining exactly how.

Wedged between gently rolling hills, a calm meandering river and a stunning slice of rugged Eastern Cape coastline, Bulungula is easily one of the three most heart-wrenchingly beautiful places I’ve been to on this trip. Yet its the extraordinary degree of consideration given to its development that places this charming backpacker’s lodge head and shoulders beyond anything else in South Africa.

Environmental
The kitchen and common rooms of Bulungula are lit in the evening by an array of candles and a few solar-powered lights. The drinking water provided is simply cached rain water and other facilities consist of composting toilets and innovative kerosene heated showers. The staff has committed to planting enough trees each year to ensure that the entire operation is carbon neutral.

I must admit I rather enjoyed toasting my lunch in the solar cooker out front.

Cultural
It’s clear that Bulungula was built with the intention of being an integral part of the local village, rather than separate or adjacent. The rondavels are all constructed using traditional techniques with thatched straw roofs, mud brick walls and beaten mud floors. The village remains only accessible by an hour’s hike from the nearest dirt road, effectively filtering out the typical tourist dross and ensuring that the number of travelers passing through is low enough to have a minimal impact on day-to-day local life.

Ethical
Best of all, any profit generated from the lodge goes directly into the hands of contributing villagers. The backpackers is 40% owned by the Bulungula village, and the proceeds for the excellent tours are kept by the guides themselves. Locals with an entrepreneurial spirit are welcome to participate, offering travelers a variety of goods such as solar-baked Xhosa bread and cookies.

The result of all this is unique opportunity to experience South Africa at its finest. Every traveler who passes through this region inevitably develops an emotional barrier to fend off the constant barrage of touts, beggars and destitute children screaming for sweets.

Bulungula is a refreshing change of pace where travelers interact with the Xhosas on even terms and can move freely through the village knowing that they’re truly welcome.  Its impossible to spend a few days in this small slice of paradise, and not have those barriers rapidly melt away.

Inshallah bukra mumkin. If God is willing, [it will happen] tomorrow, maybe.

This is a fairly common phrase within the Arabic business community. Its American counterpart sounds something like “Well, my plate’s pretty full…” or “I’m pretty sure <insert co-worker name> has some spare cycles.” Hearing it pretty much guarantees the expected deliverable will be harangued by endless procrastination. After all, if it was Allah’s will, then it would’ve gotten done, right?

I can’t think of a more appropriate phrase to describe the cynical hope for a lasting peace that pervades the Middle East.

To be Palestinian
You are gripped by an intense longing for the ancestral homelands you’ve never known. Though the West seems to have forgotten, your people had been living in modern day Israel for generations upon generations - and had put down deep roots. You’ve grown up as a refugee in the West Bank, and spent countless hours covering the walls adjacent to your home depicting the Arabic villages of your father.

You carry the burden of despair and hopelessness, arising from the sure knowledge that you are unable to change your situation. Like many others, you have resigned yourself to praying that the world’s superpowers will awaken one day to your plight, and that your children will lead better lives.

To be Israeli
Whether you’re conscious of it or not, within you simmers nervous fear that itches at your fight/flight instincts. Its a feeling not dissimilar to that experienced by a white guy walking alone in a predominantly black and violent neighborhood. Or conversely, the broiling emotional cauldron experienced by Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas. Regardless of whether there is ill intent, it feels like everyone is out to get you.

Now, it seems like the sun is setting. You’re certain that an Iranian moon is rapidly rising in the East, ushering in a nuclear night. This particular hood is about to get a whole lot more dangerous and you’re expecting Tel Aviv to be the next Hiroshima. Worse, these fears have been confirmed by friends actively involved in the military, all of whom expect to be engaged in Iran within two years. While Gaza is a constant thorn, its merely a piece of the survival puzzle.

This must be tempered with the fact that the people I’ve encountered, both Israelis (particularly in Tel Aviv) and Palestinians, were incredibly friendly. Yet bring up the opposing nation, and the conversation quickly sours. Israelis become withdrawn and aloof, while the Palestinians (both in the West Bank and Jordan) get worked up and angry. It’s tragic how such wonderful people could develop this deep hatred for each other. With bad blood between these groups now spanning generations, its clear there will be no easy resolution. A two state solution would only give Israel a hostile neighbor in an already volatile region, and your opponents another potential weapon. Yet to refrain from such a solution would be to continue oppressing a people that absolutely have the right to self rule.

I hope that Palestine will gain its freedom, and Israel will gain an ally in its Arab neighbor. If God is willing, peace will come tomorrow or in the near future. But from what I’ve seen thus far, that’s a big maybe.

We’ve been in Laos for a week now, and spent most of that time up in the northern end of the country, where diversity is high but incomes are low.  When you walk into ethnic minority villages where no one speaks Laos, let alone English, communication can be an issue.  Curious adults want to know where we’ve come from, how long we’ll be here - essentially conversations that require a degree of vocabulary that we sorely lacked.  With children, its much easier.  They just want to play!

With all the time we spent playing in the villages, I began to appreciate just how innovative their games were.  I wouldn’t necessarily categorize the people we met as impoverished; everyone we met were subsistence farmers and hunters, and always had plenty to eat.  But they certainly lived a life free of many of the worldly possessions that Westerners wouldn’t dream of living without.  Absolutely none of the children had anything that could be considered a toy.

You might not realize this, but thong sandals are incredibly aerodynamic.  From what I could make out, the game is played by tossing your sandal some 10 meters away.  Your friends then take turns trying to make theirs land as close to yours as possible.  The more skilled kids got some serious frisbee-esque lift out of their footwear.

Apparently dirt can be just as fun.  In a different village, kids eagerly helped us dig up small rocks to use as crude marbles.  Once you’ve got enough, you cup one hand against the ground and take turns trying to flick the rocks into the “pocket.”  I grew bored of this pretty quickly, but I’m not exagerating when I say the kids played this for hours on end.

The best game that I found also happened to (not surprisingly) be the dirtiest.  The place that we spent the night in had a village center, with a ring of benches set up for special ceremonies.  The children there had developed a unique form of tug-of-war that I haven’t seen before.  One kid would sit down on the ground, and wrap his arms and legs around the legs of one of the benches (which was firmly embedded in the ground).  The next would then sit behind the first with his arms and legs wrapped around his torso.  The third would then link up behind the second so that eventually there formed a chain of miniature humans.  The child that was “it” had to then pull his buddies off the bench, one by one, with the end result being a giant cloud of dust within which writhed a giggling mass of little limbs.

Let the record state that it took all dozen kids working in concert (and then some) to pull me off that bench.

Special Note: Its a shame that we haven’t been able to capture some of the remarkable scenes we’ve come across - in a cruel twist of fate, we dropped our camera in 6 inches of muddied water just as we started trekking into the remote hills for a closer look at the “real” Laos village life.  If you’re wondering why there haven’t been new pictures posted, we finally acquired a replacement just yesterday.

I have some fond childhood memories of good times spent in Disney World. The whole family would pile into the minivan, and we would cruise down I-95 along the Eastern seaboard. Along the side of the road were multitudes of billboards, all building up an attraction called South of the Border. You’re inundated with commercials for this place as you drive south, but when you actually pass it, there’s surprisingly little to see.

Yunnan is one of the more remote province in China, and accounts for fully half of China’s 56 minority ethnic groups. Coupled with this diversity are some of the most incredible landscapes I’ve ever seen - its no surprise that this region has become something of a backpacker’s mecca. Its name translates literally into South of the Clouds, and unlike Carolina’s highway amusement park, this place definitely lives up to the hype.

The vast majority of our time was spent in a Naxi town named Lijiang. Here, its easy to rent bicycles and cruise from village to village, getting a taste for the local life. Even though Lijiang is relatively close to the equator, its nestled in an alpine valley so the air has a cool crispness to it year round.

Here, I encountered vistas that were so achingly beautiful, I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. It’s not unlike those times when I brushed up against a high school crush - there’s a rush where I would clench up inside, and find it difficult to breathe.

Every available surface has been lovingly cultivated so that no matter where you look, there’s lush agriculture and vibrant green to greet your eyes. In the distance, the imposing Jade Dragon Snow Mountain looms overhead, breaking up the deep blue sky with the soft white of fresh snow. At dusk, rays of sunlight splinter through the clouds to reflect golden fire off of scattered rice paddies.

In the Tiger Leaping Gorge, massive granite cliffs hold a silent vigil above the churning turqouise waters of the Jinsha river. Across the chasm, an aging, gap-toothed Naxi man rests on his haunches on the side of the trail, gathering sour grass for his evening meal. Herds of goats graze peacefully while perched precariously on steep precipices. Village life here seems to have remained simple, isolated and untouched for an untold number of centuries.

I must confess that we’ve become a bit addicted to this bucolic lifestyle and have spent far more time here than we originally intended. Still, the road beckons, and its time to move on.