Death by Hiking

Like I said a few days back, half of the blogs out here in the interwebs about Cappadocia are about hiking.  Now, I like to think I enjoy hiking, but when it actually comes down to it, what I really enjoy is walking along nice, flat trails, through beautiful scenery, while snapping lots of pictures.  I actually know my limits, and have a tendency to lose interest when there's not a shady bench to rest on relatively quickly, at regular intervals.

Engrish, on the other hand, lives for this shit.  Hell, she probably would have run through all the valleys if I hadn't been slowing her down.  I was happy for her to get some hikes in while we were on vacation, really I was!  And when she read about Baglidere - the so-called Love Valley - she knew she'd be able to drag me out on at least one hike.

Our final day in Cappadocia dawned crisp and clear.  That morning I took a break from my webnovel long enough to go to the bathroom, and when I realized it was light out, wondered if the balloons would have already passed.  I opened the door to our cave, and there they were, floating in the bright morning sunlight (which I was not actually happy to see...I had forgotten to bring sunscreen AND a hat, and none of the umbrellas I saw during the snowstorm were opaque - more on that later).  We went up to the rooftop to watch them for a bit - wondering if there wasn't much wind, since it looked like they were coming down in town, whereas we made it much further south - and then got ready for breakfast, while I tried to figure out if there was a shortcut to get from Goreme into Love Valley.  If there was, I couldn't find it.  However, I did stumble across an app that had incredibly detailed hiking trails - AllTrails - and this got us out of town and down to the trail head, with some pretty spectacular views along the way.

Sadly, the GPS tracking on it wasn't the best.  It got fixated on one street corner in Goreme, so I was guessing how far we'd gotten by how many "trails" we'd passed for most of the walk to the trail head.  It caught up to us for a short time before finally deciding we were irredeemably lost.  Fortunately, once you're in the valley, it's pretty obvious which way you're supposed to go.

As we moved into the valley, we both noticed a distinct lack of benches.  There also wasn't much shade.  It wasn't too hot, though, and while the trail wasn't flat, it wasn't too strenuous either.  At least at first.  And it didn't take long before we got to the main attraction...the...err......heavenly pillars.

If, a few moments ago, you thought to yourself, "Huh, she didn't explain why Engrish was so sure she'd be willing to go on this hike," well, I believe it should be obvious now.  Why is Baglidere known as Love Valley?  Because the fairy chimneys in this valley have been weathered into rather phallic shapes - like, shall we say, love plungers???  

Wondering what time it is?  Time for me to make as many penis jokes as I can come up with - in other words, it's dicks o'cock!

Have you heard about the phallic formations in Love Valley before now?  They're as expected...rock hard.  That said, it just seems like a waste to me that they didn't carve these in the valley with the red stone.*  

I do have a bone(r) to pick with Engrish though.  This hike was like a giant stone dick - hard and way too long!  (If your hike lasts more than four hours, please call a doctor.)  However, I would have felt bad if I'd cock blocked Engrish.  She made it up to me by loaning me protection.**

(About seven jokes...not bad.)

Seriously, though, I struggled with this hike.  A huge part of it is because I've been a sloth for two years, but on a good day it really shouldn't have posed a problem.  Considering three days before I exhausted myself on the LAST hike and then completed underground maneuvers in Kaymakli, I really should have known better.  My legs were really stiff and sore the day before, but I was convinced that hiking would loosen them up...more the idiot, I.

Thankfully, Engrish has the patience of a saint, reinforced by the fact that I didn't mind if she went off on her own into the hills.  No matter how much I whined, she never lost her cool, no matter how slow I went or how many times I stopped, she was chill, which is amazing because I'm pretty sure I was a huge pain in the ass (much like a huge stone...nevermind, I think I'm done).  Meanwhile, when I found this cool and shady spot, I very nearly gave up and carved out my own cave home - that little trickle of water had already done most of the work for me.  The fact that there was actually nothing to eat anywhere nearby, though, provided enough motivation for me to keep moving my feet.

That said, I just want to state that this hike is a lot longer than people make it out to be.  If you hike from Goreme to Uchisar it's 3.8 kilometers, and supposedly the hike from Love Valley to Uchisar is 4.4 kilometers.  The catch, though, is that you have to hike a ways north of Goreme to get to the trail head - a whole 4.7 kilometers.  And in case you're wondering why we were trying to get to Uchisar, it's a natural fortification that was used to watch over the surrounding valleys.  Unfortunately I can't tell you anything else about it because by the time we finally got there I had given up, choosing to sit on the big leather couch in the cafe we went to get Engrish coffee from.  Maybe if some enterprising soul had set up a restaurant right where we came out of the valley - or hell, was just selling water - I could have rallied, but no.  We had to keep going from there, and even after another 20 minutes of walking we hadn't hit a restaurant.  Eventually a man at the roadside souvenir stall offered to drive us into Uchisar, but by then my spirit was crushed.  After Engrish had a look around the town we cabbed it back to Goreme, killing time drinking coke and beer before dinner at a place called Soffy's Kitchen.  What was for dinner?  Eggplant, of course***

*In case you are gullible - the shape of the fairy chimneys is due to erosion NOT carving.  There IS a valley made out of red stone, though the red stone is apparently harder and doesn't erode OR carve as easily.

**I stole her hat about halfway through.  I'm a redhead, 'nuff said.  

***PSYCH - I definitely wasn't done, I mean, it would have been a crime if I hadn't fit an eggplant joke in somewhere.

Dirty Monday

If you've been reading for a while, you may know that I love checking out places of phallic/sex worship.  I find it fascinating, but realize there are a lot of people who probably find it distasteful (there are plenty of people like that in Greece, but that hasn't stopped the event I'm writing about today).  If you're one of those people, this is probably where you should stop reading.

When we learned when Tsagaan Sar would fall this year, Bronte was the first person on my list of people to talk to.  I'd been hoping and praying that our holiday would coincide approximately with the end of Carnival, and - miracle of miracles - it did!  I told her that I wanted to come to Greece for Dirty Monday in Tyrnavos, and would she be interested in joining me?  OF COURSE she would, but she corrected me that it was Clean Monday.  Then she found out how they celebrate in Tyrnavos and conceded the point.

There aren't many traces left of the old gods in Greece.  Sorry, that sounds idiotic.  There are TONS of traces of the Greek gods - you can't dig a subway line in Athens without unearthing somebody's temple - but they sit empty, museums paying homage to a distant past.  Most of the Greeks have moved on, and maybe their gods have, too.  However, in the little town of Tyrnavos on Clean Monday you can still participate in a Dionysion celebration - the making of the Bourani.

Clean Monday is supposed to be the first day of Lent - Carnival ends the night before with a big parade that Bronte and I slept through.  We were in Larisa, but the big party actually takes place in Tyrnavos, and was probably what their friend had in mind when he told Bronte and her husband V that we needed to be careful.  We weren't exactly sure what to expect.  I'd read about this celebration in my ongoing quest to visit sites of phallic worship, but it didn't give me a really clear idea of what was going to take place, other than the fact that it was centered around the town coming together to cook a spinach soup, and that there would be lots of penises decorating the town (I particularly appreciated the ingenuity of the balloons).  This happened in the center of the town, and the good old boys in charge of the soup would grab unsuspecting passersby (such as Bronte) to help stir the soup (and tease them with big phalli, but I'm not sure she wants that picture on the interwebs).  At the same time music was playing, and after the excitement of helping make the soup, Bronte and I sat down in one of the cafes next to the square and she translated some of the lyrics for me.

All of them were sexual in nature.  This one, for example, talks about vaginas - it's one of the few words I know in Greek, thanks to the fact that Azhaar's idiot of an ex once pointed out that my belly dance name - Muneera - included this word (no, I'm not telling you exactly what it is...you'll only get yourself into trouble).  Another song, which was pretty upbeat, centered on a delightful Greek phrase which essentially means, "F--- off," but is translated literally as, "You may f--- me up the ass, but I'll fart on your balls."  Which, come to think of it, could be a very useful phrase in Tyrnavos on Dirty Monday.  Besides that song, there was a certain heaviness to the music that felt ceremonial to me, and made me feel as if I was somewhere in the past.

As far as activities go, there weren't a lot.  There was dancing around the bourani, a Greek line dance that reminded me of dabke, and of course a lot of eating and drinking and posing with the various phallic objects around the square.  Most of the food was still in line with Clean Monday - seafood, halva (which we were served free samples of, and it was warm and wonderful), and vegetarian fare.  For first lunch we ate Greek salad and tzatziki (I ate SO much of them all three days - every meal!) and I had vegetarian dolmades while Bronte ate some octopus.  Neither of those were very satisfying, and we tried second lunch before leaving for Larissa (although it was only in Larissa at a place called Grandma's Cookhouse that we had the meal we were craving).  There were also these amazing fried balls of dough made with "carbonized" water.  They were fluffy and hot without burning my mouth, and covered in chocolate and - heheh - nuts.  We may have broken into a rendition of Chef's "Chocolate Salty Balls."

There was lots of phallic paraphernalia for sale, too.  I decided that most of the penises were for pouring tsiporos - the local beverage of choice - although people were predictably doing naughty things with them, more so the later it got in the day.  The lollicocks didn't come in quite as wide a variety of shapes and colors that they did in Japan, but they were there, and they even had big chocolate ones, the Dirty Monday version of an Easter Bunny, which I definitely picked up for Blondie, since she's the only one who hasn't yet run into Mongolia's big, black American basketball players.  When we first arrived most of the festival goers were old Greek papous and yiayias - grandmas and grandpas - and there were a lot of young children running around too. 

Also for sale were a variety of sizes of bread penises (I suppose there's a joke there to be made about yeast, but I'll leave it).  Bronte observed that they only had sesame seeds on their balls...I asked if she really needed the innocent Mormon girl to explain that one for her?  We sat down at a pub across the street from this bakery for cokes and beers and to watch the changing crowd - the older set was on its way out and the younger on their way in, as one partygoer went "fishing" with a lollicock that Bronte did not particularly enjoy having dangled in her face.  She bumped into two separate people during this time that she actually knew from Santorini, which seemed funny to me because Greece is not that small a country.

Well, people were getting drunker and younger and rowdier so we decided to head back to Larissa around 5.  I'm sure it was a great party that night, but we're a little too old for that shit, and V was already freaked out about sending his wife to a penis festival, so we left with the last of the sunset.  The skies were a cool grey - it had been raining off and on all day - and it took us about a half hour to get back to our hotel.  It was a good day - all three days with her were great, although the trip to get there, eah, not so much.  I'll tell you about them tomorrow.  Sadly, this was the end of the year of the cock.  Yes, I realize that it has actually been the year of the horse, but since last spring I was in Kawasaki for the Kanamara Matsuri and at Christmas I was at the Chao Mae Tuptim shrine, in my world it kind of was the year of the cock.  Sadly when I got back I had a notice on my Blogger overview that said that blogs with nudity/adult content would be made private, so I'm not sure if my blog will be able to stay up in its current state.  Since there's no actual nudity and it has educational value for travelers, this may or may not apply to me, so I guess we'll see.

Bang-COCK!

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you've probably already got a good idea of the fact that I am not a luxury traveler.  I have a hierarchy of traveling needs when booking hotels:
1. Safety
2. Cost
3. Cleanliness
4. Convenience
Here's the thing - why would I spend a hundred dollars on a posh hotel when I could stay five nights in a basic guesthouse for the same price?  It doesn't add up.  And people who talk about "pampering" themselves make me cringe.  I hate that word - I'm not a big baby.  I prefer the term indulge.

Well, my hierarchy of traveling needs led me to choose to indulge on this, my day in Bangkok en route to Chiang Mai.  I've done Khao San Road - in a former, non-blogging life with my friend Curly Sue - and while it's a fun place, I chose to go all out with a night in the Swissotel.  It's possible that it was because the idea of staying here appealed to the blood of Swiss ancestors flowing through my veins...but it's more likely due to the fact that the Chao Mae Tuptim shrine is in their parking lot.

Either way, I was delighted with my choice to indulge when I got in from the airport last night at 11:30 (thank you, delayed flight).  The room was impeccable, the bed was softer than my own, the towels were fluffy, and the internet was fast.  After a shower and a nightcap of coke (which I did NOT drink out of the can like a barbarian for the first time in forever, and it actually tasted fine), I got to sleep.  This morning I decided to splash out on their breakfast buffet.  It was not included in the price of my room, but what the hell did I care?  I am on va.  Ca.  Tion.  I am choosing to indulge.

After breakfast I wandered through the lush green grounds on the way back to the shrine.  It's a little hard to find but here's a good video on YouTube that shows you how to get there from the lobby of the hotel.  It's quite small compared to some of the other shrines I've been to - I'd make a joke about how this is Asia, but then, the other two were in Korea and Japan...

The little house is meant to hold the spirit of Chao Mae Tuptim, which may or may not have something to do with a large ficus tree in the shrine.  The details on the sign were vague, and had only the barest allusion to the huge wooden penises strewn about.

I was particularly intrigued by the lingams sitting between the tiny, doll-like shrine attendants.  I know enough about Hindu symbolism to recognize Shiva's schlong.  I've always connected Thailand with Buddhism, which has its roots in Hinduism, admittedly, but apparently there are still a fair number of believers in Thailand, mostly in the cities.  I thought about bringing an offering, but couldn't convince myself to hit InsaDONG (where I've seen phalli for sale before) yesterday, and only thought of the candle I brought back from the Kanamara Matsuri when I was on the flight here from Korea.

The Chao Mae Tuptim shrine may not be the biggest penis shrine I've been to, but we all know it's not the size that matters, but how you use it, right?  In this case, I used it for a good excuse to stay at a posh hotel.  I'm going to need to go check out in a minute, but I have the rest of the day to laze by their pool, which is beautiful and with all the trees has plenty of shade for us vampiric ginger types.  Indulge?  Indeed.

Dick-Swinging Contest

Yes, I was devastated that I wasn't getting to visit the Ghibli Museum - BUT (I later reasoned with myself) that was not the reason I came to Tokyo this spring break.  (Hey - this is where I take a moment and warn you - it's about to get a little NSFW.  You've read enough of my blogs to know where this is going...)

Nope.  As (almost) always, my raison d'etre in traveling was the almighty cock (wow, that makes me sound a lot more interesting than I am).  It's been three years since I heard about the Kanamara Matsuri - a penis festival held in Kawasaki - but it took until now for me to make it here.  I wish I could have managed it a few years back - it gets bigger every year (heheheh) and more packed with douchebag foreigners (of which, admittedly, I am one).  In fact, on the last train to Kawasaki from Haneda airport Saturday night, there were several such foreigners sitting across from me.  They were talking about how early they'd had to get up that morning.  4 a.m. in Bangkok, you say?  Bitch, please.  I woke up at 4:30 the morning BEFORE in UlaanbaFREAKINGtar, taught a full day of classes, judged a talent show, chaperoned movie night, cleaned my apartment, took a red-eye to Seoul AND showed friends around my old digs all day.  Talk to me when you've reached expert level 99.

(I kind of hate travel bloggers.  This is possibly jealousy talking, but I do.  Oh, your life's so hard, traveling all the time.  Boo hoo.  I like my way better - and they would too if they had my awesome job.  Birdwalk rant complete.)

Would I trust these two to grill my sausage?  Yes, yes I would.

Speaking of travel bloggers, they've all written more than enough about the legend of the big steel wong and how the proceeds from the festival support AIDS research.  That's great and all, but it's been done.  So let me answer a few questions for you...

"Is this festival appropriate for children?"

Absolutely.  I saw kids of all ages enjoying the Kanamara Matsuri, from children to teenagers.  The lollipops (lollicocks?) were an especially big hit with them.  Leaving the festival I saw a group of teenagers all sucking them together, but I've got to say, I think this young chap embodies the spirit of the festival best.  There's even a parade...it just happens to involve huge phalli on the "floats," swinging and swaying through the crowds.

Seriously, though - it's Japan.  On the one hand, they wear their crazy out for all the world to see; this is the country that brought us hentai (if you don't know what that is, PLEASE don't google it!), anime pillows, and used panty dispensers, after all.  On the other, nudity's not really as big a deal here as it is in the represssed West.  In some ways, I think it's a lot healthier, mentally, to be open about sexuality.  Just food - or candy - for thought.

"How should I dress for the Kanamara Matsuri?"

In your bathhouse finest, of course!  For years this shrine was kept alive by prostitutes who would come and pray for protection against STDs (dammit, I said I wasn't going to go into the history!  Oh, well.)  Although public bathing is not sketchy here, there IS a tie between sex workers and bathhouses, and I would conjecture that this is where the short cotton kimono comes into the festival.  If you don't own one, you can, of course, come wearing (or not wearing!) whatever you like.  I had a great picture of cosplay princesses that I accidentally deleted, and I saw people wearing all sorts of stuff - the young lady pictured below was wearing a pleather catsuit with the butt cut out to show off the cute little thong she had on.  Personally I wore a low-cut top with a little sweater - I was going for pin-uppy cute.

"Will there be any food besides the...er...lollicocks?"

Of course!  What's a festival without food?  This lady, for example, has a couple of daikon radishes - which just happen to have been part of a carving contest (I didn't make it over to the contest - it was REALLY crowded and there came a point, between this and the impending parade, that I literally couldn't move).  One vendor had sausages for sale (could there BE a better food for a penis festival???) and another had shawarma.  So you can eat and the kiddos don't have to be hopped up on sugar all day.

"What other activities will take place during the festival?"

If a parade where giant penises are carried through the streets by tranvestites and a contest to see who can carve the best radish phallus aren't enough for you, there's shopping, a mask contest (I didn't stay for that one), and even traditional dancing...which you will have to check out later, because apparently I can't access my phone through this computer.

I'm at the end of this post, and I haven't made nearly enough penis jokes.  If you want someone to blame, blame my students.  One of them did some ace detective work (ie, looked me up on facebook) and found my blog.  If the fact that I wouldn't mind Robert Downey Jr. tackling me (there was context, I promise!) makes me a pervert (haha, kids, the joke's on you - wanting to be tackled by RDJ makes me completely normal as a grown woman!), I can only imagine what they'd think if they read this.  If it goes away for the next few days until it's buried under a few other posts, don't be surprised.

Living Like A Nymph (April 2007)

No, not that kind of nymph.  Don't you know me at all?  Okay, actually, never mind.  In fact, it's really hard to keep your mind out of the gutter here.  I was fully aware of how lewd the ancient Greeks could be, but after living in the Middle East for the last seven months, I forgot that some people could be proud of their horny past.  When I first saw 'Ancient Greek Lovers' Playing cards (with illustrations taken from authentic red and black figure pottery) in the hotel gift shop, I was shocked.  I'm not anymore, but I can't say that my twisted little mind doesn't get a kick out of seeing a jewelry stand shaped like a satyr with a huge phallus.

Anyways, I was going to say that that isn't the kind of nymph I was talking about, and you had to go and get me off track.  No, today, after the conference, when Mariette said she needed to take a bath before we went to the music taverna (which was great - good food, good music, good atmosphere, good company), I decided to go ahead of her and meet up a little later, and explored the National Gardens, which are conveniently located across the street from Syntagma Square, where we've been taking the trolley for our Plaka excursions.

It was so lush.  Green trees, green grass, and, oh yes, an abundance of flowers.  There were hills, and paths, pools with goldfish or turtles.  It was right before dusk, and there weren't too many people around.  I wanted to kick off my shoes and frolic in the grass, dancing among the trees like a Greek nymph would have.  As I wandered through the forest, I could believe I'd somehow stepped back in time, and that any minute a satyr might step around the side of a hill, and knowing satyrs, ravish me, but hell, with the state of mind I'm in, that might not be all that bad.  I mean, I've seen how those guys are hung.

Getting the Shaft

Just by way of warning, this is going to be one of those sorta inappropriate blogs.  All in good fun, of course, but if you're easily offended, get out now.

They say you never forget your first.  Mine was on the way out to see the ruined fortress of Drukyel Dzong.  Bhutan is well-known for its policy of Gross National Happiness.  And it's best-known, most iconic architecture is the Tiger's Nest perched high above Paro Valley.  It is a beautiful country with a rich cultural heritage.  But what did I really come to see?  Penises.  Glorious phalli adorning houses all across the country!

An auspicious start...

I had a feeling that Friday was going to be the best day of my vacation when after breakfast I went to pay for my drink, and they'd written "cock" on my bill instead of coke.  Soon enough, we were on the road toward Punakha.  There's stuff to see along the way - for example, the Dochula Pass is topped with 108 Bhutanese-style stupas (yes, there are different styles of stupas), commemorating lives lost in one conflict or another.  But it was foggy up there, and I wasn't paying the greatest attention to Sree, because I was worrying over whether or not the other tourists would beat us to Chimi Lhakhang.  I really didn't want a bunch of homeslice whities to overrun the highlight of my tour.

Okay, so back up, Great One - you haven't actually explained what the hell any of this has to do with the Almighty Penis.  Right.  So.  About 500 years ago, Bhutan was visited by a Tibetan lama called Drukpa Kunley who had some unconventional...teaching methods.  They were so unconventional that he became known as the Divine Madman.  He was all about wine, women, and song, and he used his personality to shake up the stodgy, self-righteous Buddhists.  He was so ridiculously successful that to this day his magic "thunderbolt" is still painted on houses as a protection against evil and as a way of keeping the male ego in check.

The majestic takin

Protection against evil?  Why, yes!  Among other things he did with his penis, the Divine Madman used it to subdue demons.  There are tons of stories about his exploits.  Sree first mentioned him as we were headed up the hill in Thimpu to see the Takins preserve - Bhutan's national animal, which Drukpa Kunley is credited with creating.  Apparently a group of lamas was gathered together, and someone asked for a demonstration of his power.  They'd just eaten a goat's head and a cow's body, so the Divine Madman put the skull on the bones of the cow, said, "What are you doing here?  You've got no flesh on your body?! Get up and go eat some grass!" and with a snap of his fingers the creature came to life and walked away.  And that is about as tame as his tales come.  Sree told me that most women won't tell or listen to Divine Madman stories in front of their male family members, that they are too shy.  I had to laugh at that, because my family has ceased to be shy over the years, as typified by a story involving a Mexican restaurant, Shaggy, and the squirrels in Babysis' backyard that I've already retold WAY too many times.

As for keeping the male ego in check...well, yes, there are penises all over, but they are hardly the kind adolescent boys scrawl on their papers and occasionally desks (although some of these artists could take a lesson or two from my students!)  For starters, they are huge.  They also symbolize a master penis, which could not only subdue demons but could bring women to enlightenment (and I'm not just using that as an innuendo)...if that won't make a guy feel inadequate, I don't know what will!

Anyways, Chimi Lhakhang is the temple that is dedicated to Drukpa Kunley.  The story as Sree told it to me is that a demoness was eating people going over Dochula Pass.  The Divine Madman hid in a tree and was waiting to subdue her, but she got wind of his coming and ran off in the form of a dog.  He chased her to the current location of Chimi Lhakhang - a hilltop overlooking small villages and rice paddies - where she reverted to her true form.  After subduing her, the lama buried her under a stone.  Later his cousin came and build the monastery, placing a stupa over the spot where the demoness was buried.

This temple has more going for it than just a cool story, though.  It has the Divine Madman's personal phallus - a wooden symbol, that is, not some preserved-in-a-jar-full-of-alcohol nasty relic like Rasputin's at the sex museum in St. Petersburg, sicko - which the monks use to give blessings.  Childless women in particular come here to get knocked on the head by his divine thunderbolt in hopes of conceiving.  I decided to give it a try myself - I'm not sure I want to have kids, but I know for sure it ain't happening without a husband, which would be my super-sneaky ulterior motive in seeking the Divine Madman's blessing.  He might be down with that, anyways - I get the feeling he was that kind of guy.

Aside from the penis paintings, which are delightful, my visit to Chimi Lhakhang was the highlight of my tour because it was so beautiful.  When I looked it up online, I was not impressed, but people have failed to do it justice.  To get to the temple, you must first walk downhill between rice paddies, the irrigation for the fields trickling through a ditch on one side.  The hills rise up all around you, and the temple crowns a small hill in the midst of it all.  You then take a small path up the hill between some trees before you get there, where the whole scene spreads out before you in a panorama.  I was so taken with the beauty of the place that I stopped paying attention to where I was going and ended up with one foot in a wet rice paddy (good thing my boots are waterproof!)

While there were lots of phalli to go around in the vicinity of Chimi Lhakhang, I had to watch carefully to spot any in the bigger towns.  When I was doing my research prior to coming to Bhutan, there was some suggestion that the modern Bhutanese were embarrassed by the...thunderbolts...painted everywhere, and that unofficial policy in the cities was to get rid of them.  When I asked Sree, she said she'd never heard of that, and suggested that it had more to do with the difference between a city and the countryside (I'm sure my fellow Americans can sympathize, and tell you all about things you can do on the farm that just aren't cool in the city...the "snot rocket," for example).  If they were trying to quietly get rid of them, it would be a shame, because this is something that really is unique.  If the Divine Madman were American, all those stories they tell would be tall tales, and part of our cultural heritage (this is probably unlikely, America having been built on Puritan ideals, but still).  However, as much as I love the phallic decoration, I do have one suggestion for Bhutan: you might want to stop using the Latin conjunctive "cum."  I know what it means, and you're using it correctly.  However, in a country where buildings are decorated with ejaculating penises, another meaning springs to mind.  Just saying.

Capital Idea

After another long morning of driving, we got to Kharkhorin.  I knew we were getting close, because I was tracking our progress on my Note's google maps, but the first landmark we saw was actually the Great Imperial Map Monument, sitting on the last hill we buzzed up before coming to Kharkhorin. 

The monument documents the growth of Chinggis' empire, and it's a fitting location for it, since this small town of 8000 or so used to be his capital city.  It's not much to look at anymore, but the museum in town had a really cool model of what ancient Karakorum would have looked like, and it was impressive: a large palace, several different sections of town, with different nationalities and religions represented.

I didn't take any pictures at the museum - sorry.  Enkhe said that there were plans to move the capital here from Ulaanbaatar.  From a city planning point of view, I guess that makes sense, since there seems to be more open space to build here than there is in UB, which is becoming overcrowded.  But on the other hand, I can't help thinking about Kazakhstan, whose capital was moved - in the not-too-distant past - to Astana from Almaty.  This has created a cultural capital (where expats like to live) and a political capital (where they don't). 

 The main draw into Kharkhorin is Erdene Zuu Monastery.  Most of the pictures I've seen of it show the walls, which are composed of 108 stupas (in case you don't know much about Buddhist architecture, a stupa is a monument, sometimes a relinquary, and often looks like the above).  They are pretty impressive in the late afternoon sunlight.

Inside, unfortunately, the monastery is just a ghost of its former self.  Although considered by some to be the most important monastery in Mongolia (and by others to be in the top three), very few of Erdene Zuu Khiid's temples were left when the communists got bored of their purges.  However, it was really peaceful.

 

Nearby was one of the stone turtles that marked the boundaries of the capital.  We came across one earlier that day on our drive up from the waterfall; that one had a stele on its back.  This one had been defrocked.  The building in the distance is thought to mark where the old palace once stood.  And this was all interesting, but what was I really interested in???

The Phallic Rock, up on the slope of the hill.  According to Lonely Planet, the hill it faces looks like something a good monk ought not to be thinking about, and the two-foot stone penis was meant to prevent them from acting on impulse.  It doesn't seem like it would be very effective to me, but what do I know?

 There is supposed to be a newer, much bigger monument nearby, but we failed to spot it.  In the end I decided that it must be underneath all the khadags, and while I wasn't able to prove this conclusively, I went ahead and tied my blue khadag with all the others.  After getting home and searching the internet again, I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but we didn't see it anywhere and I think we made our fearless driver a little embarrassed, insisting to see it.  It made me a little sad, knowing our trip was almost over, but as I ate khuushuur and yet another meal of bread, cheese, and sausage in our ger at Munkhsuuri camp that night, I had to admit that I would be glad to get back to the city.

True or Phallus?

Okay, the truth is, this post has only a tangential connection to the above title. It's really about what I did in Puno. But when I came up with the title I thought it was so witty that I had to use it.

There is, supposedly, a Templo de Fertilidad 18 kilometers south of Puno in the small town of Chucuito. I wouldn't have known this from my standard Lonely Planet, because I didn't read up on all the south shore towns, but in the Evil One's "Discover Peru" Lonely Planet (ie, the edition of Lonely Planet that tries to be like all those other travel guides with lots more pictures and lots less content) mentioned it at the beginning of the chapter on Lake Titicaca, and these kinds of places have sort of become my thing. So I went. However, after reading up on it some, I did take the place with a grain of salt. The statues are undeniably phallic in shape, but after reading online that they were of not-exactly-known origin, and had, in fact, been lying around the town until one of the townies decided they ought to set them up as a tourist attraction...well, like I said, grain of salt. Not nearly as funny as Haesindang Gongwon in Korea, but an amusing way to spend a morning near Puno nonetheless.

The real reason, though, that people go to Puno is to see Lake Titicaca (now, tell me honestly that the name doesn't make you giggle...or blush...inside every time you read it...) It's the world's highest navigable (meaning by large boats that need enough depth to move in) lake at an altitude of 12,507 feet high. It's also South America's largest lake (in case that question ever comes up on a pub quiz, I expect you all to be able to answer it). And it's also home to the floating islands.

These really blew me away, and I swear I'm not becoming an avid-enviro, but I couldn't help admiring how "green" they were. I wasn't sure what to expect in the way of electricity on the island I stayed on, but it was hooked up with solar electricity. The islands are completely created from layers and layers of those reeds, called totori, and they also use them to build houses and boats, although the boats, at least, also contain plastic bottles, which other than great recycling help give the boats buoyancy.

There's not a whole lot to do on the islands, actually - it was very relaxing, but trekkers (of which I sort-of qualify) are not exactly used to a lot of down time. So when the family I was staying with decided it was time to play dress-up the gringos, the Russian couple staying there and I got to experience traditional dress. That's all I'm saying about that one.

I also learned about local costumes at - where else??? - the Coca Museum. You might not be surprised that coca is still a big part of Peruvian culture...and I'm not just talking about drug trafficking. They chew the leaves and drink it in tea. What did surprise me, however, was just how quickly my fellow gringos jumped on the coca train. The tea is widely prescribed as an antidote for altitude sickness. Altitude sickness sucks, by the way. Feeling like a big fat slob because you're out of breath after one flight up steps is not fun, but the headaches that went along with it were the worst. And so I can understand how a miracle elixir like coca tea would be tempting for your average lowlander - after all, not only does it cure your headache but is supposed to make you smarter, funnier, and sexier. However, religion aside, I am almost definitely going to be taking a drug test when I get to Mongolia, and everyone I met who raved about how much they loved coca tea seemed to be forgetting something - that where we come from, it is, in fact, a drug. So I found myself a good farmacia and mimed a headache (not hard at that point), and she set me up with some nice migraine pills that fixed me right up.

Phall- Play

You'd think, living in a fairly small country for three years and being fairly active that I would have seen all the places I meant to before my grand departure two years back. Not so. There are actually quite a few things I never got around to, and this trip presented an opportunity to rectify at least one of them. But first...a little story...

(Be warned - this tale is not for the faint of heart or prudish of mind.)

So, long ago, in the days when people wore folk dress because it was what they wore and not because it was a special occasion, a young woman drowned in the East Sea in a little fishing village south of modern-day Samcheok...

Soon after this tragedy, the fishermen of the village began to lose their livelihoods to inexplicable, dwindling catches...

One day some of the local fishermen had to relieve themselves, and in the process, aired their gochu's (peppers) to the world...

The next day they caught more fish! The problem was solved!! This unfortunate young lady had died a virgin, and it was her sexually frustrated spirit that was causing the bad catch!!! Thus Haesindang Gongwon, or Penis Park to us whities, was born. What virginal young spirit wouldn't be appeased by a memorial full of phallic imagery???

I mean, it would work for me! (No, that is NOT my customary "one-size-fits-all" sarcasm, as you can plainly see....)

Yes, those are boots I am wearing with 3.5" heels. I didn't actually INTEND to go hiking in them. I wasn't sure exactly what I was getting myself into when I got dressed this morning, but I knew it involved a long bus ride. Oops. As it turns out, hiking in heels is a rite of passage to Korean womanhood, so I can now TRULY say that I'm Korean. (You may think I'm joking, but I'm not - Korean girls wear heels EVERYWHERE...to the beach, to go hiking, and of course for more mundane things such as riding the subway or clubbing).

Why did it take me three years to make it there? Good question, but I'm glad it did, because Belynda got to come with me, and I wouldn't have such fabulous pictures without her!

I could sit here all night and upload penises of all shapes and sizes, but I'm sure I'm about to hit a quota for inappropriate content so I'd better cut this off (that COULD have gone on the list of things heard in Samcheok...but it wasn't..."Would you like some nuts?" and "Onward and upward," however, both were). It was a great day spent with a great friend in great weather, and if you ever get bored of Seoul on a weekend, I highly recommend it!