CROSS-COUNTRY TRAVELS IN GLOWING LIGHT

Just back in the city after a wonderfully renewing thirty-six hours up north in Grey County. Friends were having a post-Christmas drop-in party yesterday, the weather looked clear (an unusual bonus at this time of year in Grey County), and I had people I wanted to see, so I headed out yesterday morning in the little red Honda Fit. I had cross country skis with me, a jacket and vest, wind pants, a fur coat, ski gloves and a hat, and other oddments of clothing, and well as presents for various people, and a bottle of wine.

There were some patches of wind-swept snow white-out as I drove up, but the roads were dry and I got to my first stop in Markdale easily by noon. My wonderful aunt, youngest of my father's four sisters, is now 82, a young, light on her feet 82. One of her older sisters died two weeks ago, the first of the four to go, and it's a hard thing to loose a sister, whatever your age, whatever hers. Still, there's a resilience that comes with age, and my aunt is plenty strong, good-humoured, and resilent. She's sharp as a tack and a treat to talk to. We gossiped and sipped soup, and then it was time for me to move on.

Next stop was friends north of Markdale who have a second home in a log house on a farm with beautiful woods, pine plantations and hardwood forests, and several ponds and swamps. It's especially spectacular in winter. We went out for a cross country ski, the snow perfect and fluffy with firm snow underneath. Part of the time we were following an already-broken trail, part of the time cutting across an open swamp or breaking trail through the woods. it was as if we were moving through a succession of marvelous rooms in a spectacular outdoor castle or mansion. Each vista was more lovely than the last. There was a plantation of straight-trunked pines, each patched with blobs of white snow, white on reddish brown trunks, lined up in hallucinatorily regular rows. One row was more widely spaced, and down it went a single line of ski tracks, an invitation to disappear into a linear fantasy, is how it felt.

The sun was sinking early, low on the southern horizon, as speckled clouds made sky patterns and the snow became gilded with a soft pink-yellow. It was only 4.30, but at this time of year, that's late in the day. Three of us slid stride by stride abreast across an untracked pond, into the fading warm light. What a magic time. Today my thighs remind me that it wasn't magic but muscle power that carried me through that snowy landscape!

And finally from there I headed west toward the party. The sky was a conflagration of pink-orange threaded with horizontal bands of deep blue-grey. Mesmerizing. But in less than fifteen minutes it had faded to pearl-grey, like a dowsed bonfire, not a spark left. I parked out on the road, then walked up a snowy lane to the party, where friends and a hot wood stove and food and drink and music blended into a sense of welcome and ease.

Later I drove back towards the city through the dark night. I stopped in at friends' whose house is always open and always generous. Lucky traveller, to be sheltered for the night with friendship.

Now I'm back home in Toronto, people from out of town have come by unexpectedly, and tomorrow I'll meet them at Ideal coffee and walk with them through Kensington Market, probably ending with a north Chinese meal at Asian Legend. After that it will be time to clear the rugs and make some food so that we can dance our way through the evening on the 30th with friends of all ages.

Next question: What food shall we make for the party? inari sushi perhaps, and sticky rice too (carbs give good energy for dancing), some cheese to go with Evelyn's Crackers made by Dawn and Ed, and nam prik num, and maybe a chicken salad Viet- or Thai-style...

AND A NOTE ABOUT A NEW BOOK: A few weeks ago I finished reading the latest book by Ma Thanegi, a remarkable woman, a witty and engaged writer who lives in Rangoon/Yangon. It's now available on amazon.com and it's called: Defiled on the Ayeyarwaddy: One Woman's Mid-Life Travel Adventures on Myanmar's Great River by Ma Thanegi, published by Things Asian Press.

SOLO TRAVEL AND THE SENSE OF WIDE-OPEN POSSIBILITY

Because blogspot has been unavailable to me, I’ve had a couple of extra days to reflect on my time in Burma these last weeks. My days there felt so full at the time, and in hindsight the whole trip now appears even richer to me. The richness was of the best kind, a generosity of good luck and wonderful encounters.

A few months ago an old friend who lives on the other side of the country sent me an email asking if she could join me for some of my travels in Burma. I enjoy her company and know that she’s wonderfully open and resilient too: I don’t have to take care of her or worry about her. But still, I ended up writing her a letter that said, I’m very sorry, but I think I need to travel by myself. I’m sure she felt hurt and rebuffed; I would have in her shoes.

But it was and is true, that travel is very different when I am travelling with another rather than on my own. With another there is company and conversation, a chance to talk over the day’s events and have ambitions and fresh ideas about plans for the following days. On my own there is loneliness and there are times of self doubt, or self-criticism, and of anxiety. But still the plusses outweight those minuses.

And the plusses of solo travel? The biggest one is my opennness to new people and chance encounters. There’s more room for the unexpected connection with a stranger when I travel alone. And it’s those encounters that enrich travel. The casual conversation with my Burmese seatmate on the overnight bus (a woman from northern Shan State), the monk and his cousin-brother who took me temple-hopping in Rangoon on an earlier trip, none of this would have happened if I’d been travelling with a friend, enclosed in the cocoon of familiar company.

Another, related plus of solo travel is that it leaves open more possibilities for serendipity, for unexpected events. Yes, they are often connected to the chance encounters, but not always. And I love the unplanned and unexpected. I don’t want to know what tomorrow will bring; I want to discover it as I go. For if I did only what I planned to do, or what I could imagine before the trip began, then my trip would be defined and shaped by my limited knowledge and imagination. But if I am open to the unexpected, then the sky’s the limit.

I was sitting in a large teashop in Rangoon the other day, drinking black coffee (in Burma it is served like black tea, sweetened with sugar and with a wedge of lime alongside) and eating “nan-piar” a tandoor-baked unleavened flatbread, when an older man came over and said hello. Japanese from Osaka, a retired busniessman, he has been teaching Japanese in Mandalay, at the YMCA, for three years. He wants to help broaden the minds and imagination of young Burmese, and he’s doing it, student by student. He’s an interesting guy whom I hope to meet up with again, open and optimistic, and also generous-minded.

A woman I stayed with in Pakokku ten days ago, a small town up the Irrawaddy River from Pagan, taught me some delish Kachin dishes, a real piece of luck. I also learned a lot of central Burmese food technique from her daughter and from her daughter-in-law, a brilliant natural cook. They made fish curry, frying the fish first, then putting it into the long-simmered sauce just before serving. The chicken curry was a new version to me, and so was the way they fried chicken (simmering it first in a little water, until the water evaporated, before frying it in oil). The salads they made, one of green mango and another of peanut paste, were spectacular.

But best of all was the chance, as a solo traveller, to become, if only for a few days, a part of an extended family. I watched in the morning as the daughter put thanaka powder on her ten-year old son’s face, and on another morning as he did his own before school, carefully smoothing it into his skin, then using a toothbrush to make sure his eyebrows were smooth and perfect. A granddaughter, a beautiful tall twenty-year old engineering student, was going to a wedding next day. What to wear? We sat around one evening as she tried on a couple of outfits (both were traditional: short-sleeved fitted top over a longyi, a full-length straight-wrapped sarong). We all agreed which one was best, though she didn’t seem convinced. Next day she got dressed in the less cheerful combo(greys and blacks, elegance but no warmth), but then suddenly at the last minute changed her mind and opted for the pink top etc that we had all preferred. I took a photo of her in the pink, looking shyly beautiful as she headed off to the wedding on a motorcycle.

Pakokku sees only a trickle of foreigners, so I was a curiosity. Several times I was taken by the arm, by an older woman, and led to a monastery or temple and shown around. Each time we’d be followed by a circus of kids, mostly boys, who gambolled and laughed and cartwheeled and showed off in the freshest and noisiest and happiest way. The monks we’d meet smiled at the kids or tuned them out. There was no scolding, no false reverance, instead a wonderful exuberance.

There are urgencies in Burma and pain and suffering, especially along the borders, but elsewhere too. And at the same time there is this potential in the young, an energy and imagination. Totalitarian states clamp down on that energy, but from the things I heard from NGO workers and from others living in Burma, there is action, movement forward, even so. The internet is a huge boon, a help in networking of all kinds. And now there are growing self-help networks, some focussing on education (English language, civil society, conflict resolution) or health care (improving both access and quality), others on environmental change and sustainable agriculture.

And with the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi there’s a perceptible feeling of relief in people, almost a lightness in the air as you walk along the street, especially in Rangoon...

PS I discovered that my problem with making a new posting lies with Safari. I tried opening "new post" with Firefox, and here I am. Apologies for the delay and my techno ignorance!

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

In this hot humid weather, late on the last Monday in August, I can hear the voices of people outside, voices in the night. They're unaware of being overheard, all those people, I imagine. It makes an odd soundtrack, their interactions. The night is still and heavy, so even though the doors of the house are open front and back, to catch any breeze or hint of freshening air, there's not much coolness happening.

It's not easy to think in this heat, or indeed to do anything very ambitious or elaborate. Ambition just drops away. It reminds me of Ryczard Kapuscinki's book on Africa, in which he talks about how lucky northern peoples are to have cloud and cold weather as part of their year. He's writing about the enervating effects of heat and and of deprivation (inadequate food and/or shelter, etc).

I'm not complaining about this heat. In fact I'm enjoying it. But I also can be grateful that my deadlines are a little elastic and are fairly far off, so slippage, buffer days taken in heat-induced laziness and torpor, feels fine, not scary or highly risky. And when the weather gets cold and harsh this winter, we will be able to look back on this soft weighty hot night with pleasure and longing, and perhaps also a small question: was it really that hot and soft? or did I dream it?

I've been playing around with Burma recipes. A sticky rice treat, a kind of sticky rice bun filled with palm sugar and coconut and fried until golden and crispy on the outside, is my latest pride and joy.

But today I took a break from the doing and went tasting instead. I went with three friends to a small new Burmese restaurant on Bloor Street west of Dufferin. The Mohinga (classic Burmese noodle soup, that comes in various styles) was a bit of a compromise (no banana stem, the broth light on fish, etc) but still recognisable, and it was served with great care and with sparklingly fresh condiments and toppings including coriander leaves and shredded green onion. The outstanding dishes we tasted though were the thokes, or salads, a ginger salad and another, a real emblem of food in Burma, called laphet thoke. It's made of fermented tea leaves that have an enticing tart edge. They are combined with sesame seeds, peanuts, chopped shallots etc, in a distinctive and refreshing salad. Yum.

I need to find a source for fermented tea leaves, a source in North America, so readers of my Burma book, once it's out, can make this delish combo for themselves. I will ask the guy at the restaurant where he gets his, but also, all ideas or suggestions welcome...

On Sunday evening a few friends were over for casual supper. As well as two steask, eye of round (later sliced to make a simple beef salad, Thai-style), I grilled some shallots, tomatoes, and those small round pale green Thai eggplants (the size of limes, with a stem, each of them), about a dozen of them. Then I processed all the grilled veg to a coarse salsa texture in the food processor. A little salt and fish sauce was all it needed, though you could also add chiles. (I left the heat separate, in the form of the hot tart sweet chile sauce I've come to depend on, a classic from Burma. Its base is dried red chiles, and it's my staple condiment these days.) I've never seen those small green eggplants grilled, perhaps because they are mostly seeds rather than very fleshy, but they did make a great salsa, dark red and earthy. Leftovers were a pleasure on fresh rice the next day.

This post is kind of rambling and is spending more time on food than I have been doing lately here. Perhaps it's the heat, addling my brain into short thoughts without much connection?

One thing I do want to mention: I have come to realise that although I can read without reading glasses (as long as the light is good!!!), my reading is now slower because I am not seeing the print as clearly as before. It's time to admit this, to make reading glasses (cheapo's from the drugstore) part of my life, rather than ignored hangers-on in my purse. I don't like being dependent on glasses for this most basic and pleasurable thing we call reading. But I am lucky I can see, and that there are so many books I am eager to read.

Time to head for bed, for a little reading before I pass out in sleep (that lovely deep hot-weather sleep, almost drugged, it feels). Now to find my reading glasses...!...

Happy late summer everyone. And for those of you heading into a school year of packing lunches, my sympathy. It does eventually end, but not soon enough!!