Jeff Inglis - Writer, Editor, Photographer

Hey! Call me!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:12:00 +0000

Unified look and feel!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:15:00 +0000

Hooray! I've managed to figure out how to get three blogs to appear a lot like they're different parts of the same one. Same color palette was easy, subdomains were a little more complicated, and getting all the widgets organized properly was rather a pain - but I managed.

I also have created a new blog, for my portfolio - those stories and photos that are of particular interest, or of which I'm particularly proud. The full clip archive will still be intact, and I'm still working away at getting that stuff all posted. (It'll be a while yet.)

But I realized while doing that work that I need an organized way to store the special pieces, and the solution was obvious: another free blog!

I'll get that going here shortly too.

Cooking along

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:43:00 +0000

Well, I'm still cooking along. I've managed to locate most of the stuff I need to put in the online clip file, and am now in the process of entering it - copying-and-pasting in the case of digital files, or typing it in, for those many files I don't have electronically.

I've also been exploring the joys of live Twittering newsworthy events. More on all this as I keep at it!

Still plugging away

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 03:43:00 +0000

Hello!

I'm still plugging away at uploading my old site's content to this new site, as well as compiling an electronic clip file of as many of my articles as I can track down and get in the system. That, in particular, is a time-consuming process, but I have more than 400 articles up, including everything I've written for the Phoenix (both as a freelancer and since joining the staff full-time) and a bunch of other stuff. I'm tagging them with the publication names, and posting them on their publication dates, so you can have a little retrospective of what I've been up to. There's still a lot to do, and I really want to get the old stuff posted and the clip file completed before I spend more time doing other things. But please keep checking back!

UPDATE 2/24: With the inspiration of WritingRoads, and the amazing help of ThreeColumnBlogger, I've updated the look a little bit, with the left column for entries, the middle one for professional and blog-navigation stuff, and the right column for social-networking information.

A brand-new day!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 03:08:00 +0000

Welcome to the all-new JeffInglis.com!

My last Web site hadn't been updated since some time in 2001, I think (I'd made the odd change here or there, but nothing truly substantive). So really it was long past time. I've posted most of the stuff that was hiding around my old site - but it's much easier to find. There are still a few things needing posting from back then - mostly stuff from my time in New Zealand in 1999.

After that, I'll start posting new stuff. In the meantime, I've put a bunch of links to other social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious) over on the sidebar, so check out those links too!

And you can subscribe for updates as I post them, too - just click the "Subscribe for updates" link on the right.

Jeff Inglis's resume

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:25:00 +0000

Jeff Inglis

+1.207.749.4502 | jeff @ jeffinglis.com | www.jeffinglis.com
South Portland, Maine, USA

AWARDS AND HONORS

New England Press Association

Government reporting, Alternative Weekly category, Second Place, 2007 ("State: One Santa Okay; Another No Way")
George A. Speers Newspaper of the Year, 2006
General news, Alternative Weekly category, First Place, 2006 ("Armory Arts Center")

Maine Press Association
- Spot news, Weekly 1 category, First Place (award shared with two-person staff), 2005
- Freedom of information, Statewide category, Third Place, 2003
- Investigative report, Weekly 1 category, Second Place, 2003
- Best continuing story, Weekly 1 category, First Place, 2002
- Best sports feature, Weekly 1 category, Third Place, 2002
EPN World Reporter Photojournalist of the Month, August-September 2002
Pulitzer New Media Scholar, School of Journalism, University of Missouri - Columbia; August 1997 - May 1998

JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE

Editorial

Full-time

Managing Editor, Portland Phoenix, Portland, Maine; December 2005 - present

Under my leadership, the newspaper won the New England Press Association's George A. Speers Newspaper of the Year Award (2006). It writers won numerous awards, as well. From the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies AltWeekly Award competition, they won one first-place award (2006: long-form news story), one third-place award (2007: format buster), and two honorable mentions (2008: investigative reportingl 2006: political column). The newspaper's writers also won, from the New England Press Association, eight first-place awards (2008: general news; 2007: local election coverage, health coverage; 2006: government reporting, local election coverage, general news, sports reporting, history reporting); and six second-place awards (2008: reporting on religious issues; 2007: racial/ethnic coverage, general news, government reporting; 2006: investigative reporting, general news).

Editor, The Current, Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth and South Portland, Maine; February 2004 - November 2005
Assistant Editor, The Current, Scarborough & Cape Elizabeth, Maine; September 2002 - February 2004
Staff Reporter, The Current, Scarborough & Cape Elizabeth, Maine; September 2001 - September 2002
Editor, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; October 2000 - November 2000
Reporter, The Addison County Independent, Middlebury, Vermont; April 2000 - August 2000
Editor, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; October 1999 - February 2000
Reporter, The Addison County Independent, Middlebury, Vermont; June 1998 - August 1998
Staff writer, Columbia Missourian, Columbia, Missouri; August 1997 - December 1997

Freelance

Contributing Writer, Portland Phoenix, Portland, Maine; November 2002 - June 2004
Contributing Editor, Interface Business News, Portland, Maine; May 2002 - October 2003
Contributing Writer, Interface Business News, Portland, Maine; January 2002 - May 2002
Staff Writer, PortCity Life, Portland, Maine; July 2001 - July 2003
Contributing Writer, Interface Tech News, Portland, Maine; July 2001 - July 2002
Contributor, Mainebiz, Portland, Maine; July 2001 - December 2001
Contributor, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; December 2000 - February 2001
Contributing writer, VOX magazine, Columbia, Missouri; August 1998 - December 1998
Reporter/columnist, The Mountainview, Middlebury, Vermont; December 1996 - May 1997
Other freelance material published in: IRE Journal, 1997; Otago Daily Times, Dunedin, New Zealand, 1999; North & South, Auckland, New Zealand, 1999; IPI Global Journalist, 2002; National Geographic Adventure, 2005.

Photography

Staff Photographer, The Current, Scarborough & Cape Elizabeth, Maine; September 2001 - November 2005
Contributor, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; December 2000 - February 2001
Editor, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; October 2000 - November 2000
Photographer, The Addison County Independent, Middlebury, Vermont; April 2000 - August 2000
Editor, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; October 1999 - February 2000
Contributing photographer, The Antarctic Photo Library, U.S. Antarctic Program, October 1999 - February 2001
Contributing photographer, VOX magazine, Columbia, Missouri; August 1998 - December 1998
Photographer, The Addison County Independent, Middlebury, Vermont; June 1998 - August 1998
Photographer, Columbia Missourian, Columbia, Missouri; January 1998 - May 1998
Photo Editor, MiniMO, children's weekly, Columbia, Missouri; February 1998 - May 1998
Photographer, The Mountainview, Middlebury, Vermont; December 1996 - May 1997

Online

News department point of contact, KeepMEcurrent.com, March 2005 - November 2005
Webmaster, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; October 2000 - November 2000
Webmaster, The Antarctic Sun, McMurdo Station, Antarctica; October 1999 - February 2000
Editorial and Production Assistant, Digital Missourian, Columbia, Missouri; August 1997 - May 1998
Webmaster, The Addison County Independent, Middlebury, Vermont; November 1996 - February 2001

UNIVERSITY LEVEL EDUCATION

Journalism	University of Missouri - Columbia: Master of Arts in Journalism, December 2000
History	Middlebury College, Vermont: Bachelor of Arts in History, May 1995 University College, Cork, Ireland: course work in History, 1993-1994

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

Society of Professional Journalists, August 2005 - present; vice-president, Maine Pro chapter, 2007; president, Maine Pro chapter, 2008 - present
Investigative Reporters and Editors, August 2005 - present
National Press Photographers Association, August 2005 - present
Maine Freedom of Information Coalition, June 2006 - present
National Association for the Self-Employed, August 2001 - present

Photo - prints for sale

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:17:00 +0000

All photos on this page © Jeff Inglis

Several people own 11"x14" prints of these photographs in 16"x20" Exeter Gallery White matting. Print, matting, and mounting materials are all archival quality. If you are interested in finding out who some of these people are, or how you might become one, please drop me a line.

Montserrat (April 2003)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Fri, 25 Apr 2003 20:50:00 +0000

My wife and I got married in March 2003, but we waited until her April school vacation to take our honeymoon. We went to Montserrat, a Caribbean island with an active volcano.

Zenith: a small note with big news

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Tue, 10 Dec 2002 00:15:00 +0000

Hello all!

Just a quick note to let you all know that Crystal and I got engaged yesterday morning, Dec. 8. I asked, and she said yes. The diamond is not yet in a ring (it's a solitaire pendant on a necklace for the time being), and belonged to my great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother and my mom before she generously passed it along to me.

We have set no date or specific plans for a wedding or anything like that, but I'll be sure to keep you all posted as developments occur...

We're very happy, and invite you to share in our joy this holiday season. Have a great holiday! I'll write more later.

Love, Jeff

Midd-Sized Model

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Wed, 04 Dec 2002 19:36:00 +0000

An interesting insight into Middlebury College's building plan _JI

Vermont's most design-conscious campus hits the wall
BY DONALD KREIS - Seven Days - Dec. 4-11, 2002

Middlebury College professor Glenn Andres still recalls the day he picked up Robert Venturi at the airport and drove him to campus for a visit. As Andres remembers it, the famous Philadelphia architect-author got out of the car, took one look at the place, and declared: “You have what everyone thinks an American campus looks like but almost never does. It would be very easy to mess this up.”

Nearly $140 million in controversial new construction later, Andres knows better than anyone how right Venturi was. As a professor of architectural history, he is ideally positioned to evaluate how wealthy institutions use their building resources. And, as a part-time member of Middlebury’s facilities planning department, he has been party to the school’s recent architectural decision making.

So, when Andres invited Vermont architects and architecture students to campus last month, more than 100 of them showed up — presumably hoping that Andres and his colleagues would explain some of the recent choices that have transformed Middlebury from the bucolic campus Venturi saw to what it is today. The place is ringed by a series of fortress-like new buildings that seem to suggest Middlebury College is a kind of medieval estate in Addison County. But Andres’ talk was not about feudalism; it was about Middlebury College in a struggle — with its neighbors, with the limitations and challenges of its picture-perfect setting, with its architects and with itself.

Andres is loyal; he said nothing critical about his employer. He simply told his visitors the story that began back in the mid-1980s, when Venturi arrived to interview for the job of designing the College’s new Center for the Performing Arts. Despite Venturi’s memorable assessment of Middlebury’s physical virtues, the commission went to Hugh Hardy of Hardy, Holtzman Pfeiffer Associates of New York.

Hardy looked at the site of the project and instantly fell in love with the building nearby, Le Chateau. So he designed the performing arts center as a tribute to Middlebury’s maison française, mimicking its steep roofline and pinnacled turrets.

But then the college trustees decided that the spot next to Le Chateau was too small; they insisted on moving the whole complex across campus, to a site on South Main Street beside the field house. Since this neighbor is an ugly recycled airplane hangar, contextualism was out of the question. Hardy’s homage to the French renaissance remained, but his design, while rich with architectural meaning and full of luxurious performance spaces, has never functioned as intended. According to Andres, the building has been underused because only the showplaces — theaters, galleries, etc. — were moved across campus, while the classrooms and other traditional facilities were left behind in existing buildings adjacent to the original site.

This debacle got college officials thinking there ought to be more logic governing building choices than the momentary and potentially whimsical preferences of trustees or designers. So they hired an alumnus, David Wallace of Wallace Floyd Associates in Boston, to put together a comprehensive master plan that would guide Middlebury’s future expansion. His first draft was finished in 1995.

Wallace’s plan proposed minimizing impacts, maintaining the campus’s unique qualities, nurturing a close working relationship with the town and preserving views — the latter a particular imperative for a campus with rapture-inducing vistas of the famous mountain ranges to both the east and west. The plan identified an academic and social nucleus around the school’s McCullough Student Center and the adjacent Starr Library, which the College had singled out for a major expansion. All in all, it is a sensible and responsible blueprint.

Unfortunately, Middlebury College has ignored much of what the plan holds dear, validating Venturi’s comment about the ease of messing up a great place.

Down went the College’s ugly and unpopular Science Center, a big hunk of 1960s concrete brutalism that functioned as a giant barrier between Old Stone Row — the three iconic buildings that are the oldest on campus — and downtown. But now, inexplicably, the College is rebuilding the wall, in the form of a $40 million new library designed by New York’s Gwathmey Siegel & Associates.

Middlebury “agonized over this one,” Andres said at his talk last month. The college required Robert Siegel and his colleagues to work through eight different design proposals before settling on the winner, which will present a face to campus that vaguely resembles a round Shaker Barn. To the town, the new library will present two big walls — more varied than the blunt façade of the old Science Center, but walls nevertheless.

Gwathmey Siegel got the job on the strength of a proposal to transform the existing Starr Library by tearing down all but the century-old Beaux Arts core and surrounding it with a curved addition. The Shaker Barn idea made some sense in this context, which would have kept the library right where the master planners thought it should be. But the college’s trustees had other ideas. This led to pitched battles with townsfolk before the Middlebury Planning Board, with neighbors concerned about noise, light pollution and the big box of a building.

The college hosted, and videotaped, a town meeting before Gwathmey Siegel started the design. “The architects took it home and memorized every line of it,” Andres recalled. This speaks well of the architects and the process. But it’s useless if the real decision makers ignore the public input.

A similar scenario unfolded with the Ross Commons complex, designed by Tai Soo Kim Associates of Hartford. The new residential and dining complex, which recently opened on the western edge of campus, ran squarely up against the master plan’s imperative to preserve Adirondack views. Kim thought a transparent glass bridge would work nicely to preserve the views and connect his complex to the existing Ross Commons dorms to the north. But as built, the design brought the bridge down to earth and includes triple-glazed glass that leaves the walkway opaque and wall-like.

Seen from the east, the campus once offered a breathtaking mountain vista punctuated by small buildings. Now, there are just a few feet of open space between the Ross Commons complex and Bicen-tennial Hall — the science building completed for the school’s 200th anniversary in 2000.

The monstrous “Bi Hall” itself has been controversial. With a 215,000 square feet, the building now houses 40 percent of the school’s classrooms. Centralizing so much of a small, traditional liberal arts college in one huge building is the very opposite of the classic, American campus feeling Venturi experienced when he visited. How did this happen?

Andres admitted in his lecture that many — including townsfolk who live within sight of the college’s now-looming western skyline — find the scale of Bi Hall disturbing. Yet the commissioning of such a building was “not because of megalomania,” Andres insisted. The size is purely a function of efficiency, he suggested; separating the functions into a series of smaller structures would have required 25 percent more building.

This echoes the line taken in the Middlebury Magazine, the school’s official organ. The cover story of the Fall 2002 issue concedes that some have blasted Bi Hall for its vastness, but claims that “if critics of the building could hear faculty members talk about how it was designed around their input… their opinions might moderate.” The architects, James Collins and Bob Schaeffer of Payette Associates in Boston, “stood out precisely because of a willingness to meet real needs rather than displaying an egoistic insistence on an aesthetic concept,” the magazine noted.

But sometimes, architectural egotism is precisely what is needed. A good architect will listen carefully when meeting with the prospective users of a new building — like Bi Hall’s faculty denizens. But this same architect ought to be outspoken and persistent when dealing with out-of-town trustees who are inclined to wield their checkbooks in favor of choices that are harmful or arbitrary — such as placing a big building right at the crest of a hill.

Finally, egotism in architects is well worth suffering by clients like Middlebury College. Hugh Hardy may or may not be more egotistical than his counterparts at Payette, but his Center for the Performing Arts is intriguing and beautiful. Payette’s Bi Hall is an unsightly parody of the signature Greek Revival façade of Old Chapel, flanked by wings of repetitive windows and granite that are more evocative of a prison than a college.

Design divisiveness in Middlebury is not restricted to campus. This spring, Middlebury’s voters said no to a plan to move their cramped Town Hall out of downtown and into the strip-mall district south of the village on Route 7. The College had offered to donate the new site and to buy the old one for $3 million. It had hoped to tear down the old Town Hall, which occupies a wedge of land between College and South Main streets just at the edge of the school’s property and replace it with a lawn and a “Middlebury College” sign. In a protracted stand-off fraught with symbolism, locals turned the trustees down.

This is not just a town-gown problem; the conflict over how the campus should grow and change also rages within. The Ross Commons project, for example, is an ambitious program to transform the school into five residential communities and thereby move Middlebury away from its historic fraternity-based social life. So far, the effort at social engineering has inspired skepticism.

“Student reaction,” the Middlebury Campus student newspaper editorialized this fall, “remains complicated and, in some cases, very negative.” According to the paper, there is an “artificial air” to these communities, with students migrating from commons to commons in search of the best accommodations.

If the students are behaving like real-estate shoppers, perhaps it is because they must part with $39,500 for a year of college. That price tag may also explain why the new dining hall at Ross Commons resembles a restaurant, with curved ceilings of locally harvested wood, next to an indoor dorm-to-dining walkway. Where once the College could simply assume it was attracting students who enjoyed the outdoors, even in cold weather, now it apparently feels obliged to offer resort-type amenities.

Middlebury’s architectural ambivalence rears itself in another, less obvious, sense. In organizing an effort to engage Vermont architects in dialogue about the College, Andres clearly understands that such discourse is more than just good public relations; it can ground the College’s architectural choices in more indigenous sensibilities. But he could not coax the real decision makers — people like Executive Vice President for Facilities Planning David Ginevan, College President John McCardell or any of the trustees whose veto power is paramount — into participating.

There’s one positive sign. The next big residential-dining project, Atwater Commons, is rising behind Le Chateau. The site is actually designated in the master plan as appropriate for such expansion. Designed by Kieran Timberlake Associates of Philadelphia, this might be the best example of architectural art at Middlebury College since the Greek Revival of the 1820s.

The two dorm buildings frame the back of the Chateau, but in a gently non-symmetrical manner that responds to the topography. In form, these buildings pay tribute to the oldest building on campus, the beautifully austere Painter Hall, adding a syncopated window pattern that is distinctly contemporary. Adjacent, but not connected by an indoor walkway, is a delightfully radical exclamation point of a building — an oval dining hall, surrounded by what Andres calls “corrugated windows” and capped with a sod roof. This design strives to blur the distinction between the building and its earthly setting.

If Middlebury College keeps building such structures, critics might be silenced. Good architecture speaks for itself.

Donald Kreis, an attorney who writes frequently about architecture, graduated from Middlebury College in 1980.

Zenith: it's a boy!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sun, 13 Oct 2002 23:15:00 +0000

I'm an uncle!

Aidan was born at 12:29 p.m. Oct. 12, 2002, weighing 8 pounds 9 ounces (3.9 kilograms), and 20-1/2 inches (52.07 cm) long.

The pictures are on-line already, so go have a look and welcome my nephew into the world!

There are three pages of thumbnails - click on any thumbnail to see a larger version. More will be up as they occur!

Photos are by Aidan's dad Kevin and mom Kat, by new grandpa Jim and by new uncle Jeff.

Grins and much love,
Jeff

Here's a slideshow of him in those first few days:

Zenith: the move is on

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Thu, 26 Sep 2002 23:14:00 +0000

Hello all!

A quick note here to let you all know of the big development going on right now for me...

I'm moving. Crystal and I have found a place together just off the Western Prom in Portland, and will be moving in over the next couple of days. My cell phone number and e-mail address will stay the same, and we'll have a new home phone number and mailing address. Here's the 411, effective Oct. 1.

I'll keep this short because I'm sure I'll bend your ear (or rather, eyes) in the next few days or weeks, whenever my ultra-preggers sister decides to let her new boy out into the world...

Take good care, and be well!

Love, Jeff

Zenith: a few moments of fame...

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Thu, 29 Aug 2002 23:13:00 +0000

Hello!

It's been a short while since my last note, but if you check this web site, you'll see a few of my photos of the Ice... All of them can also be found on my web site, but it's a nice promo to see elsewhere...

http://www.epnworld-reporter.com/

Enjoy, and be well!

Love,
Jeff

Zenith: some thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Wed, 31 Jul 2002 23:13:00 +0000

Hello all! It's been a couple of months, and therefore I decided to write again. It's my irregular newsletter, and if you're sick of getting it, there are unsubscribe directions at the bottom of this message.

Anyway, this installment will be a bit different from others. In the past, I have usually recounted some of my misadventures and so on, though on one notable occasion I did a short series of blurbs about books I have been reading.

In this one, I'll combine those two, but I'll start with something a bit less conventional: a web site recommendation.

You all know I spend too much time on my computer, and some of that time is just poking around the web. I also subscribe to a couple of e-mail lists on which others poke around the web and tell readers what they've found. I don't do this often, or really ever (except to tell you there are updates to my own web site, which in a way there is this time as well).

But I want to start by telling you about a really fabulous idea and a way you can help people just like you and me. While I must admit this is a bit American-focused, I'm sure the idea could spread to other countries too. It's called Modest Needs, and can be found at . I have nothing to do with this site's organization or management, but I am a participant and a supporter.

The basic principle of Modest Needs is that there are people out there who are hard-working, upstanding citizens who run into a little bit of a cash flow crunch. They can't quite make the rent because their car needed emergency repairs, or the electrical bill is high because it has been a hot summer - that sort of thing. These are individuals and families for whom money is tight. But they work and contribute to society. They just need a little bit of help, just this month.

Now some of us know people like that - I was in this situation last month, for example, and had to chase down a few overdue checks to make the ends meet. But there are tons of people out there, and there's not been a way to help. Now, though, there is.

This man, Keith, started Modest Needs to help these folks. He solicits contributions from folks like you and me - not rich, not poor - and also accepts applications for help from folks who need some extra cash this month. He does everything himself, with a couple of friends who volunteer to help out.

He takes in all the cash - several thousand dollars a month so far - and also verifies the real need of people who apply for help, and then sends out the grants. But he doesn't just send these people a check - who knows what they might use it for? Instead, he contacts landlords, utility companies, grocery stores, etc., and sends *them* the money, on behalf of the grantee. That way the money is used for what it is intended to be.

Of course there are requests for all kinds of outlandish things, but Keith works hard to spread the money around, helping as many people as possible and not funding things like requests for a new home or a new car.

Keith doesn't take a salary from this work, and makes every effort to minimize his expenses every month - the big one is actually transaction fees, and he's trying to get PayPal to waive them.

If you do the math, you can see it will work - people give small amounts and they add up quickly. I donated $5 in a one-time donation a month or so ago, and I am now set up to donate $2 each month on an on-going basis. It's not much, but I can afford it and help others, too.

I encourage each of you to look at the web site and donate. You can do it over the Internet, using PayPal's secure transaction service, or by sending a check through the mail - all the info is on the Modest Needs web site, at .

You can also find a link to donate on my own web site's front page - www.jeffinglis.com. I think this is important enough that I want to tell everyone who visits my web site about it.

So there's my pitch. You will soon see Modest Needs in People magazine, and it has been on TV and in newspapers nationwide since its founding earlier this year. The whole story is on the web site, so if you want to know more, go look there.

In other news, things are still going well for me professionally and personally. I'm working more at The Current, the weekly community newspaper, and and very much enjoying that - I've taken on some editing responsibilities as the paper expands. We just bought another local weekly and are very excited about the opportunities for regional issue reporting, as well as the advertising base it will offer our financial side.

And things with Crystal are still going well - great, even - and those of you who haven't met her are likely to, the next time you pass through Maine... My sister is also still healthy, as is her still-in-utero baby, and we're all grateful for that. She's due in early October, so things are ramping up in their house as they get ready for a new member of the family...

The summer has been hot and busy, but I was able to take some time off and explore the outdoors some. I'm looking forward to more of that as things cool down in the fall...

And I've been reading a lot lately, which has been very nice. I have two recommendations this time.

For the Ice-heads out there who haven't yet read Shackleton's Forgotten Men by Lennard Bickel, go pick it up. Especially the folks in McMurdo, as it tells a great story about life on Ross Island without things like a bowling alley, indoor plumbing, or even many clothes.

For the rest, pick up a copy of Kiwi Tracks by Andrew Stevenson. It's a great account of a guy who spent four months tramping (hiking) in New Zealand, and covers a lot of the ground I didn't because I was seeking out people, not wilderness. A really great read, and he expresses eloquently the trials and tribulations of the backpacking traveler existence...

That's all for this time. I hope you are all well, wherever on the globe you may be, and please feel free to come visit me any old time - just drop an e-mail or give a call!

Be well and send me your updates soon, if you haven't lately!

Love, Jeff

Zenith: In the U.S. for a year

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Wed, 01 May 2002 23:12:00 +0000

Greetings and welcome back to Zenith, my irregular newsletter!

It has been almost five months since I last wrote, but more importantly, I've actually been in one country - and only one - for a year! One year ago today, my plane landed in Burlington, Vermont, ending a trip that included Antarctica, New Zealand, Thailand, Nepal and India.

It has been quite a year, one which has included my sister's wedding and - well, here's the big announcement - pregnancy! (I'll be an uncle in October!) Yesterday, she had an ultrasound that showed a healthy baby who was modest and didn't let anybody peek to find out what sex it is...

I've also been in one apartment for 10 months! Yoiks! I'm enjoying it, though I still have my eye on my frequent flier mile balance and am thinking about future journeys...

I have been working in Portland as a freelance writer for several publications, and I am a part-time staffer for a weekly newspaper covering two suburbs of Portland.

My freelance work involves covering business and technology, as well as general life in Greater Portland. I find myself on the non-profit beat of the business world in Maine, and it's a lot of fun, though I have to convince our publishers that we should cover non-profits. I have a strong case, though, and a number of local businesspeople are backing me up.

For the local weekly, I cover Cape Elizabeth schools and public safety in Cape and Scarborough, and anything else that needs covering. It's a great team of people, who are all strong newspaper-folk with a lot of offer and a lot to teach me. I'm able to help them all out in various ways as well, so it's a good interplay of our strengths.

All of that is a lot of fun, if not super-lucrative, but the ends are meeting most months... Of course, if anybody out there needs a writer, be sure to let me know!

In other news, I have a new person in my life - her name is Crystal, and she's a very cool woman. We're enjoying getting to know each other and spending time together, and it's a lot of fun to be building a relationship for the first time in a long while...

I'm also learning to fly a stunt kite, which is a lot of fun, and which I've now managed to do without crashing too often... Dancing on the wind is a great way to spend an afternoon...

I hope you all are well and enjoying what you're up to! Drop a note when you get a chance and let me know what's going on in your part of the world... And for those of you not in Maine, when you're heading this way, let me know - I'd love to see you!

Be well.

Love, Jeff

Zenith: a new home (and new address and work and everything!)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Mon, 09 Jul 2001 23:11:00 +0000

Hello!

I'm writing from my new apartment, in Portland, Maine!

All is well with me. I'm excited to have a place of my own for the first time in three years and a bit nervous about the challenge of paying for it... But things are going well. I have begun what I hope will be long-term relationships with two Portland-area publications and have a number of queries out to various other publications around the country, and am still working the networks.

Anybody who needs a writer or editor should get in touch with me - or if your friends or colleagues need one!

Lots of stuff is still in boxes, but I have furniture and nearly all the boxes are in the one place. I just went to Vermont to get most of the stuff out of the storage area, and I've put the rest back in my parents' basement, for later transport over this way.

So I'm accepting visitors if anybody wants to head here!

Since I last wrote, my sister has gotten married and I've gained a whole new family with all of my brother-in-law's relations in the Portland area. It's incredible, really, and quite cool! And Kevin's a great guy, and the wedding was wonderful and joyous and friendly and filled with love. (Yep, I cried. It was nice.)

Work is going well - I hope it will pick up. I'll definitely be able to spend a lot more time on it now that I'm more settled. I've been living with my sister and her husband in their home in Portland for the past few weeks, waiting for this place to become available at the beginning of July.

Other family news: Kevin's brother Todd is in Portland for the summer, working at a local restaurant (I hope he gets the call today telling him when he can start!).

But the big thing which has been occupying the immediate family's attention (and so many of our friends, who are very supportive) is an accident my mom had shortly after the wedding.

She decided that enough attention had been spent on her daughter and new son-in-law, so she took a dive down a flight of 15 stairs. Fortunately, Kat, Kevin and I were all very close by and at least Kevin was thinking clearly enough to call 911 while Kat and I tended to Mom. After a few days in the hospital she went home with a back brace to support her two compression-fractured vertebrae (L1 and L3, in an already-troublesome lower back). She also has some damage to her left shoulder's rotator cuff.

But she's in good spirits and recovering well. Physical therapy begins today, so we'll see how that goes!

It was a bit of a shock to us all, but I think it will end out very well in time. Mom's young enough so she will heal fully, though she's old enough she's not going to heal right now.

But she and Dad get to practice "being old" - how they'll behave when they're hurt and have limited mobility and are partly dependent on others (Mom can't drive herself anywhere yet, for example). And Kat and I get to practice dealing with them in this situation. I do think it will pay off in the next twenty or thirty years as this sort of situation becomes more common in their lives, and in ours. Kevin's been really supportive, of course - as has his family, sending flowers and cookies and such.

But it's difficult - we all go through periods of worry or relief at the relative simplicity of her injuries - I for one thought she would be much more badly injured than she is. And we have our ups and downs and there's stress involved in keeping track of progress and Mom has her challenges of improving mobility while not being so adventurous that it's dangerous. Dad's been wonderful - what would you expect? - and has been taking time for himself as well, which is good.

I'm very glad to be able to be nearby during this whole time - one of the first things Mom said in the emergency room was that she was glad I wasn't on the Ice. Me too. It was before I'd really moved to Portland, so I stayed in Vermont an extra week and a half to take turns with Dad at mom's sister at the hospital, and then to help them adjust to life at home.

I must say that one scene does stand out, though. When she was first admitted to the hospital and was in her bed, Larry Yarbrough (Midd prof who had married Kat and Kev) came to visit. Dad, Larry, Marty and I all stood around Mom's bed, holding hands, praying for healing. I didn't think that would happen when I was 27. I mean, I guess I'd figured it would happen at some stage, but not so soon. So I'm glad she's doing so well.

And settling down for me is something I've been thinking about doing for a while. Thanks so much to Sheri for our thoughtful exchanges on the matter. I've been traveling a lot, and it's time to slow it down, to bring things back into balance. I may have to stay put for a while, but the goal is to travel two to three months a year, though that may not come for some time. We'll see.

I got to really enjoy the Fourth of July this year - two friends and I sat on the Eastern Promenade in Portland, on a blanket on the grass, watching the fireworks burst over the ocean. There were lots of people there, but it wasn't jammed - just about right. And we had a good time watching the "bombs bursting in air" and being free.

That's it for now, I think. Wish me luck, and come visit! I'll keep you posted on my misadventures, though they may be less frequent now, with fewer plot twists...

Keep me posted on your adventures! Be well.

Love, Jeff

Zenith: the return home (where everything costs a LOT!)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Wed, 09 May 2001 23:10:00 +0000

Hello again, and here's your official notice that I've made it home... Some of you have already deduced this, either by telephone contact or e-mail. But here I am, in sunny Vermont, where spring is really making a go of it, after winter gave way directly to summer just before I arrived...

I had friends here complaining about the heat (80 degrees F - 27 C) and the humidity (somewhere less than 70 percent), but I knew better... 100+ degrees (low 30s C) and 99% humidity are far worse.

To experience south Indian weather, find a beautiful sunny summer day. Park your car in a place with no shade. Roll up the windows, pour water on yourself (and the dashboard, for good measure), and wait. Then imagine living this way all the time.

Since I last wrote, I was able to catch a glimpse of the Dalai Lama as he moved from his residence to the nearby temple and back again - a mere chance happening, as far as I knew, but I took the hint from the security cordon that went up around a normally tourist-accessible venue, and waited. He's in his 60s but still spry, though a little bent over with the weight of so many hopes and troubles.

That was pretty great, since I wasn't expecting to see him at all!

Then, a couple of days later, after finishing up my volunteering and taking a list of "shopping" that the refugees and education center wanted sent from the West, I hopped a bus at 4 a.m. to get to the train station on time. I had to make one eight-hour train ride and then connect to the 34-hour train to Chennai to see Elizabeth and Tim.

And I made it. There was a little frustration along the way, but nothing big - I'd been issued a ticket on the wrong train and just had to exchange sleeper class for eight hours in "unreserved," jammed in with a bunch of other folks on a hard wooden bench. I was lucky to get a seat, so I stayed put the whole time. Everyone was cheery and bemused to see me sitting there on the train, which made the ride quite jolly, even if I didn't understand a word!

Stopped in Delhi for a short while between trains and inhaled as much food as I could in anticipation of two nights and a day of bananas, nuts, crackers, and whatever food I could score from the vendors on the various platforms we'd pass... A red Thai curry was just the ticket!

Got on the train and found two-tier air-conditioned class to be quite to my liking - a bit raucous during the day but quiet at night (earplugs helped!) and I slept well.

Made it safely to Chennai and to the school where E and Tim work - albeit four hours late (due to train delays) and at a stage when E was starting to worry if I was going to make it at all...

It was great to see E and meet Tim. I enjoyed spending time with them, and relaxing in their apartment and exploring Chennai. I spent a great morning driving around in an auto-rickshaw checking out the various sights of Chennai, and in the end the driver and I were having so much fun he let me drive it. Suffice it to say, I'd need more practice to do that as a job, but I managed not to stall it, though I've never driven a motorcycle before...

I found southern Indians to be much more pleasant than northern ones. E said she'd heard somebody explain this in the context of colonization - nobody has ever really conquered southern India (I think it's too damn hot for that!). So the people aren't as aggressive, since their culture and customs haven't been destroyed or subjugated. (They have, of course, been pushed further south, but that's very different indeed.) I never had a problem with touts - I think they were all too tired and hot to bother. If I wanted to spend money, I could approach them. It was great!

At the school, I helped out however I could (the main task was passing out pizza for lunch one day) and I gave a short presentation to their classes (kindergarten and first grade) about the Antarctic, which was fun and involved excellent questions, including some very pointed questioning about crevasses and penguins! I fear E and Tim will now have to contend with small children walking around and squawking loudly, just like penguins... (Sorry, E and T! )

We took a weekend break to a town just south of Chennai, where there is a long tradition of stone work. We checked out some temples and did some shopping for various things. I learned that a six-foot-tall intricate hand-carved statue of Krishna would only cost 85,000 rupees - about $1850! Of course, I didn't buy it (imagine trying to get it on the plane!) but I did buy some smaller medallions in cool designs.

We went swimming in the first pool I've ever been in that felt hot when I dove in - much like a hot bath. But it was still more comfortable than being in the sun!

After a very good visit, with lots of relaxing and reading in their air-conditioned apartment, I bid E and Tim farewell and hopped the train back north to Delhi. That train arrived on time at 6 a.m., and I got a room for the day before catching the plane out just after midnight.

Delhi's airport is singularly awful. Prices the manufacturer marks on things (the only way to avoid overpricing in India) are marked up 100-200 percent at the airport, for no apparent reason - everyone claims there is no markup and no tax, but they'll look at a KitKat, for example, which is marked "maximum retail price inclusive of all taxes Rs 12" and say "30 rupees."

In the airport, there is nowhere to get decent food - even the restaurant's food is terrible and prices are equivalent to U.S. airport restaurants (perhaps the only place in India where that's true). However, the non-Indian airlines have legions of customer service staff just wandering around the airport looking for travelers in distress. Whether this indicates eagerness to serve, or a large portion of their customers are in distress, is unclear.

The best part about the airport is hidden in the massive crush at the curb outside. There are several policemen and security guards who ensure that only travelers with a ticket for an upcoming flight are allowed into the airport at all. No touts, drivers, family members, nobody except people with airport ID cards or passenger tickets are in the airport, which makes it a surprisingly peaceful place.

Oh - I forgot to mention, there's nowhere to change money after you go through passport control (where most airports have thousands of duty-free shops, banks, phones, etc.). India is a strange place, and this airport just reinforced that.

I did enjoy India, though, in the end, with all its quandaries and difficulties. I want to go back and spend more time in Dharamsala and explore Rajasthan and Ladakh, two areas I didn't get to during this trip, but which I've heard are wonderful (and not so overheated! )

I flew out of India and landed in Bangkok at about 5 a.m. My connecting flight didn't leave until 6 p.m., so I had a while. The first thing I did made the whole day just wonderful - I splurged and got a day room at the airport for four hours. After 6 hours on a crammed airplane with a very agitated Indian sitting next to me throwing elbows (he literally thrust his whole arm into my face twice!), I hadn't slept much at all. So I sacked out in a dark room, in a soft bed with pillows and blankets (the room was air-conditioned, so I needed them!) and woke up feeling much much better!

Then I headed out into Bangkok, exploring. I went to Jim Thompson's House, a teakwood-built museum of Thai and other Asian arts, which was very cool, though the required tour was a bit too speedy for my taste.

I wandered around Bangkok some more, just looking at stuff and lost in my reverie...

I also went to an oxygen bar, which I happened across. I'd never been to one, and now that I have I can't really recommend it. In fact, my lasting impression is two-fold: I had a runny nose the whole time because it was blowing cold, dry air up my nose; afterward, I had trouble breathing for a short time as my lungs adjusted to breathing Bangkok murk (only slightly better than Delhi's muck) rather than pure oh-two.

Did a little bit of shopping (and a lot of window-shopping) in various bookstores and other shops, and then headed back to the airport to catch my flight to New Zealand. (In the process of traveling from Delhi to Vermont via Bangkok and NZ, I racked up 20,000 frequent flier miles inside of a week. Tired of planes? You bet.)

It was great to arrive in NZ, even if I did have a ticket on Qantas NZ, which had just gone into receivership (bankruptcy) and had canceled most of its flights. I was able to make it onto a flight which was supposed to have departed before I arrived but was so late (gee, why did the airline fail?) that I cleared customs and baggage claim and still had time to make a phone call before boarding!

Christchurch was, well, Christchurch - a wonderful, clean, quiet city where people use their car horns in emergencies only, and not just to notify the public that "HEY! I have a horn!" I ate yummy food and relaxed in the lush gardens, happily free from touts and excessive hot weather. It was very nice. But it wasn't to last - after two nights, I got back on another plane and went to San Francisco to visit Amy.

We had a great time, making chili and taking the wagon to the supermarket. Her existence there seems much more in keeping with her spirit than it did in Los Angeles... It was great to see her, and during the day while she was at work, I explored San Francisco on foot, which was great, though sometimes I thought it might be nice to catch an auto-rickshaw for a quarter, rather than face a possible taxi fare of $15. I walked and used the tram on Market Street.

I also paid something like $10 for lunch, a sum I had most recently spent on an extended international telephone call. Sticker shock is real, and happens even on items which cost $1! (I could get that for 10 rupees (25 cents) in India, I thought to myself as I bought a bottle of fruit juice.)

And then, at long last, I dragged my bags to the airport for a final time and boarded the plane to Chicago and Vermont. Made it on time, and was welcomed by Mom and Dad who were so enthused to see me we celebrated with a late-night trip to Ben and Jerry's, where I had trouble deciding on what flavor I wanted, and was very glad I didn't have to face the prices!

It's very good to be home, though it's busy here as well. My sister's getting married in less than two weeks and I'm simultaneously reorganizing after the trip (you try opening seven months of mail in one evening!) and preparing for the next stage, which is moving to Portland, Maine.

I'll be taking this year off from the Ice to have a less-hectic schedule and spend some time with friends and family in New England, who have steadfastly suffered without (much) complaint my extended absences over the past few years... But I'll be thinking of all the wonderful Ice-heads and Ice adventures planning a return on a writer's grant in the next couple of years!

So that means I have to find an apartment and a job. Yipe! We'll see how it goes, but back I go into what most people call "normal life" and those on the Ice call "the world"...

I hope you're well - let me know if you'll be in Portland! I may be planning an around-the-country friend tour later on in the summer and early fall (before leaf season), so I'll keep you posted on that as well...

Take care and drop a note when you get the chance!

Love, Jeff

Zenith: AllahuAkhbarHareKrishnaOmManiPadmeHum

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Fri, 13 Apr 2001 23:10:00 +0000

Hello again from India!

I'm now in McLeod Ganj, above Dharamsala, home to the Dalai Lama and lots of Tibetan exiles and refugees.

Since I last wrote from Agra, I've had several adventures moving through several different religious traditions, which has been fun if mentally tiring...

Evenings in Agra were punctuated by the calls of the muezzins from minarets around town, summoning Muslims to the mosques for worship. There were several mosques near where I was staying, and from the rooftop restaurant it was like a stereo concert of all the muezzins singing "Allahu Akhbar (God is great)."

I'd never been to a mosque before, but at the Taj Mahal I entered one and found out exactly how anti-iconography traditional Islam is - there were decorations on the walls, but no pictures of Muhammad or Allah or any other people prominent in the Quran. Very different from Judeo-Christian places of worship, which are covered in images of people.

Upon leaving Agra, I headed to Goverdhan, near Vrindavan, about 40 km from Agra, to visit a friend of a friend. The person I was visiting, Kesava Bharati das, has been involved with the Hare Krishna movement (officially, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON) for about 30 years, and is running an ashram (retreat center) in the holy town of Goverdhan.

It was a very frustrating trip, getting there, and was compounded by my general feeling of illness.

After boarding two buses and getting off before they left, to go in search of a doctor (I found one hospital occupied by people who asked me what I wanted but insisted they were not doctors. I told them I wanted to speak to a doctor, and they asked again, "What you want?" I left. The second place I went to had a 20-year-old who wanted to put IV lines in each arm. I managed to get out of him what he thought was wrong - dehydration caused by gastro-intestinal distress - and left there too.)

I made it most of the way from Agra to Goverdhan without event, but upon reaching Goverdhan, I was given bad directions by some people on the street, and was told to board a jeep for the trip. I listened and climbed atop a jeep, where I sat for a long time, waiting for the rest of the jeep to fill up. Then it filled and we started off, but stopped immediately, and the jeep emptied.

This was just the beginning. After it filled again (another 20 minutes or so later), we set off in what I suspected was the wrong direction. I trusted the guy who told me where I was going, and stayed on top, which was incredibly uncomfortable, given the fact that I was sitting on a metal bar as the jeep bounced over roads which make farm tracks look smooth.

Thirty-five kilometers later, when I was sure I was in the wrong place, the guy who had been helping me find the way jumped off the jeep, leaving me with no directions. I gave him the dirtiest look I've given anybody in a long time, as we drove away...

I managed to get off the jeep shortly thereafter and approached what other people were telling me was the place I needed to be. The man at the gate wanted $5 for admission (payable in U.S. cash or Indian rupees) but I insisted on talking to Kesava Bharati before paying. This was when it became clear that I was not in the right place.

Nobody knew his name, and finally a friendly person spoke up out of the crowd that had come to stare, telling me I needed to go back to the town I'd just come from. The day had already been long and hot and I hadn't been feeling well for two days, and I was very frustrated. I sat down on the steps and cried.

Then I composed myself, and found a phone where I called Kesava Bharati and got directions from him. I did indeed have to go back to where I'd come from. That became another trial of rural Indian transport, as in the bus park (once I found it in the 500-meter long stretch of bumper-to-bumper buses undergoing fueling, repair or decay) several people told me where the bus was to Goverdhan. All of them pointed at an empty patch of dirt. The implication was that it would soon be occupied by a bus going where I needed to. I wasn't in much of a mood to accept this as truth, but did so all the same - what else was I to do?

I waited, and just before I was about to hire a jeep to carry just me, a bus did appear whose driver said he was headed to Goverdhan. I boarded and we drove all the way back the way I'd come atop the jeep. This time I had a more comfortable seat, though!

I arrived safely in Goverdhan and found the ashram with the help of a cycle-rickshaw driver. I entered and immediately was surrounded by peace and quiet - high walls do a lot to keep noise down in India! I found Kesava Bharati - actually I heard his voice first, saying "And here is our friend arriving!" from inside an office in the interior courtyard of the ashram.

After doing introductions and a little background of each other, we figured out what had happened in the transport arena - he'd assumed the bus would drop me in a place other than where it did, and I'd believed the jeep driver and his compadre that they knew where I needed to go. But all was well and we had met up after all!

I was shown to a sizeable room on the roof of the ashram, from which I could see people walking by in the road, on a pilgramage route around Goverdhan Hill. The 22-kilometer walk takes most people 12 hours, and they walk the whole way barefoot, no matter their age.

The interior of the ashram was all in marble, which was beautiful and cool in the heat... I stayed there for several days, talking and reading and learning about Krishna Consciousness. In short, it's based on the Bhagavad Gita, a part of the ancient Vedic scriptures (written in Sanskrit), in which a person named Krishna declares himself to be not just a prince and well-loved personality, but also the source and purpose of the universes. Hed explains a system of worship and living which is called in English "Krishna Consciousness," largely involving the chanting of the now-familiar "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare" mantra.

There are other practices, but the principle is that just the chanting of that mantra can improve one's own spiritual life and the world. The philosophy (they don't like to call it a religion, as it does involve or encompass the principles of most other world religions) teaches compassion and understanding and trust in Krishna, the provider of all things.

It was an interesting type of thought to learn about, though it did not ring true with me the way Buddhism did at the monastery in New Zealand.

The story of the man who left India at age 69 to bring the movement to the West, and how he began with literally nothing and after a few false-starts began attracting a following by chanting in New York City's Tompkins Square Park was an incredible story of determination, hope, faith and courage, which should not be ignored just because what he was teaching is sometimes a bit strange in the eyes of the West.

After several days there, and an interesting series of discussions in which it became clear to me that I was feeling uncomfortable there, I left. I was uncomfortable, I learned, not because of any threatening behavior or conduct by the people in the ashram - precisely the opposite was true, as they were all very friendly and helpful and excellent cooks and smiled a lot. All of the people living there did seem truly to be happy, which was great.

Rather, I was uncomfortable because I am accustomed to arriving in strange places and meeting new people and learning to see the world a little bit through their eyes. Even if I don't agree with people I can usually see their point of view and understand how they have come to it. Not so with the Krishna-conscious people. I did not see, and do not see, their world in their terms, and that's unusual and unsettling for me. I'm still not sure why I had such a hard time with it.

The people did seem happy, and Kesava Bharati was very passionnate about helping me learn some important aspects of the philosophy. And the mantra is catchy enough that I found myself mumbling it now and again, though not as a devotee but as sort of something to do with my mind when it was wandering. I have also found myself chanting Buddhist chants or "Allahu Akhbar" on various occasions in the appropriate environs, and this was a similar manifestation of that habit.

I left, though, and went to Vrindavan, where there is a major Krishna-consciousness temple (which is jammed with people all the time) and saw the images of Krishna and other important figures. They were beautiful, but I was still unable to relate to them personally, though Kesava Bharati assured me it would be a moving personal experience.

After a night there (for which the ISKCON guest house took a "contribution" of 500 rupees ($10) for the room - I've been paying more like 100-200 rupees per night) I left and headed to Delhi, en route to Dharamsala.

I traveled in second class unreserved, and experienced trains as Indians do. In the area described by seats labeled 1 through 10, we had 22 adults, 3 children, and all of our luggage. That was in an area the size of a European railway compartment. It was something, especially when people had to move through our area to get to the toilet or to sell goods further down the carriage.

But I arrived in Delhi and went directly to a hotel which had been recommended by a fellow traveler. It was nice enough, clean enough, and cheap enough (120 rupees per night) and had a good restaurant on the rooftop. So I stayed there and worked on getting to Dharamsala.

I met up with two travelers, Sam and Alex (both women), and we discovered we were all on the following evening's bus to Dharamsala. We ate a few meals together and chatted and laughed - it was nice to have some English-speaking company who were not especially interested in my spiritual life...

The next night we got on the bus, and after a 13-hour bone-shaking ride (three of us were bloodied when the bus hit a HUGE pothole and those of us in the back hit the ceiling!), we arrived in McLeod Ganj, the village above Dharamsala proper which is home to the Dalai Lama and near the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

McLeod Ganj is a very nice village with tons of Westerners and Tibetans. There are, of course, plenty of Indians (this being India and all) but it's nice to have their duplicitousness diluted by Tibetan honesty and goodwill.

As an illustration of the contrasts between the two people (and I do mean to address just the northern Indians I've encountered so far - I'm sure the people of other regions are different), I offer a brief summary of their respective modern political histories, in the last 50 years or so.

In 1947, India "threw off the burden" of the British Raj, in a series of mostly peaceful, non-violent protests and demonstrations. They immediately formed a democratic government based on a combination of the written U.S. Constitution and the unwritten British constitutional tradition. Based in equality, openness and honesty, this government appeared for a time to be successful. Since the 1960s, however, the government has become increasingly corrupt and run by nepotism and bribery, to the extent that officials in government accept corruption without question. These days, there are several cases pending in the courts around the country against politicians who have been especially flagrantly corrupt, but they remain in office and even get re-elected now and again!

In 1959, China invaded Tibet, a simple country of agrarian subsistence-dwellers, traders and clerics. It was governed by a god-king who was considered infallible and kept apart from the people except on a very few special holidays. The people were peaceful and largely refused to use violence even to oppose the Chinese juggernaut. Instead of fighting, they just left and became refugees. Starting again with nothing after long walks across high mountain passes (during which trips nearly every group had a member die), the Tibetans have managed to form a democratic government with elections held in Tibetan communities around the world, and with power leaving the hands of the Dalai Lama and going into the hands of elected representatives. Most recently, the Dalai Lama has stepped away from the daily operation of the government, acting as a ceremonial head of state and spokesman rather than a head of government.

In McLeod Ganj I've gone on several walks (and another couple I'll do before I go) and have been reading a lot and volunteering, helping Tibetan refugees learn English and computer skills. I appeared at one of the community centers and offered my services and skills, and immediately I had four hours of teaching a day! The students - it's one-on-one or one-on-two classes - are very eager and interesting to talk to, which is fun. We have good laughs as well as good conversations and lessons. It's nice to be helping out, as well.

I expect at some stage I'll come back and volunteer longer-term. I plan to investigate working with the Tibetan government's department of information and international relations - perhaps I can come back in some professional capacity and help them out for a few months. I'll explore that today.

It's a very quiet place and peaceful - one of the walks I did (yesterday) went through a nearby village, which has become a series of houses renting rooms to Western travelers and visitors. It's like a high Himalayan village populated by Westerners - very strange and amusing!

Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns are everywhere here, a sign of the survival of the tradition despite Chinese efforts to destroy it in Tibet.

The more I learn about what China is doing and has been doing in Tibet, the angrier I get. I know that, even worse, most Chinese don't know what their government is doing. It does not make me especially sympathetic to the Chinese government, though. They are destroying monasteries, houses, palaces, and objects of culture and reverence which have survived for centuries, and are claiming that Tibetans are "really" Chinese and should "come home" to China. They are also colonzing Tibet with many Han Chinese, who now outnumber Tibetans in Tibet. Schools are teaching Chinese, and the best Tibetan studens are sent to China to "improve their education," leaving behind any vestiges of native Tibetan culture.

The Dalai Lama is in town, but he is very busy, in between two major overseas trips (next up: the western U.S. in late April and May) and so there are no public audiences for a while, and no shot at a private one, either. I may catch a glimpse of him in a motorcade as he leaves again soon, though - we'll see. But it's nice to be here whether or not I get to see him in person.

There are several monasteries and tons of guesthouses and restaurants and things to do in town - there's a volunteer clean-up effort underway today to pick up trash, which is everywhere, just like the rest of India. Of course, the Tibetans are helping out and the Indians gather in clusters to watch as Westerners and refugees clean up India's environment. Argh.

I'm here for a few more days and eating well, sleeping well, and feeling well, which is very good. Then I head back through Delhi to Chennai (Madras) to visit Elizabeth and Tim for several days before the train back to Delhi and the plane home. I leave India just after midnight on April 26, and will be in Vermont on May 1. (I'm stopping in New Zealand and San Francisco for two nights each on the way.)

I hope you're well - take good care and write when you get a chance!

Love, Jeff

Zenith: India - the beginning!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 23:09:00 +0000

Hello all, and greetings from about 100 meters from the wall of the Taj Mahal, in Agra, India...

I made it here from Nepal a couple of days ago and have been in touch with a few of you so far - found what may be the fastest Internet connection in all of India, if the stories I hear from fellow travelers are true...

So I figured I'd send this out before it took a dog's age to do so!

I took the bus from Kathmandu to Sunauli, on the Indian border and met up with an English guy on the bus - we ended up splitting the cost of a room in a little hotel there near the border, though as is often the case with such situations, we didn't have a whole lot to talk about.

But I headed a bit back into Nepal the following morning, to nearby Lumbini, where the Buddha was born. There's a big set of buildings and monasteries and such nearby, from all of the major Buddhist nations, so that was pretty neat. They've undertaken quite a bit of work to clean it up, and a number of monasteries are under construction there as well, so in a few years it'll be a decent "tourist destination," with all the benefits and problems that term implies. For now, it's much as the Buddha left it (with perhaps a few more prayer flags) - a small rural border town on the southern plains of Nepal, with a somewhat swampy and fetid river flowing through pastures which appear used well below their carrying capacity for sheep and cattle.

The highlight of the trip, really, was for me the 20-kilometer ride on the back of a speeding jeep between the towns. Share-jeeps are a pretty common way to get around that region, apparently, and people pile into them until they're over-full and then the driver takes off, flying down country roads until passengers hit him on the shoulder or bang on some part of the vehicle's body, at which point he screeches to a halt and lets people off.

This is, as you may expect, a very erratic if speedy and electrifying way to travel, involving a great deal of slalom and stunt-driving which we in the west tend to associate with "professional drivers on closed courses" in automobile commercials. Of course, there are no cones or pylons but cows, motorbikes, cyclists, pedestrians, horses, and other jeeps involved in the act.

When I arrived at the jeep stand, there were several jeeps with drivers lounging about, but one jeep was nearly full. (I say "nearly" because later we fit a small boy and a 10-gallon jug of water into the back, as well as all the original passengers.) There wasn't so much room inside, and I saw my chance and said, "I stand on back?" That seemed to satisfy everybody, and two other people joined me in standing on the rear bumper of a vehicle smaller than a Hummer jeep, but larger than your "Jeep-Eagle dealer's" basic model. It was carrying something just shy of 20 people - I couldn't see everyone inside, but there were three next to the driver, five behind him on the bench seat, and maybe 6 in the back, as well as the three of us on the back.

I dare say the ride is best from either the front seat or the back bumper. And in back you get the added excitement of panoramic views (okay, so the plains are flat!) and the wind in your face at speeds approaching 40 km/hour (only about 25 mph). I hung on, and waved to various people we went by - several schoolkids stared in wonder at the white guy on the back of a jeep, and a number of more grown-up passers-by waved or smiled.

It was great, and for the first time in ages and ages I really did wish I had someone there to take my picture!

The bus back was anticlimactic, involving cramming as many humans and baskets of straw as possible into the shell of a broken-down bus and poking along at a considerably more sedate speed.

In the afternoon, I walked across the border into India, leaving behind Nepal and its incredibly sullen border officials, who were so bored and depressed and disheartened that I wanted to cry. But they were even beyond that, and did not even insist on payment of the $1 fee for "exit verification." I've never heard of bureaucrats waiving fees out of boredom, but that's what it seemed like to me...

And then I walked across the first formal international border I've ever crossed as a pedestrian. (I did pee across the US-Canadian border at the top of Vermont's Long Trail, but there were no officials around to reprimand me, and as I recall Denise thought it was funny! )

India was not immediately different, though the police presence was very strong from the first moment. Not surprising for a border town, to be sure, but so far I've seen so many police here in the state of Uttar Pradesh that I think it's a government employment scheme! Give 'em a uniform and a long bamboo stick, and put 'em to work, boys! Sounds good to me, and I've not been harassed to speak of (besides the verbal kind, from touts of various businesses).

As an aside about touts, here in India so far they seem much less desperate, and much less mean. They don't park themselves in your way like they did in Nepal, though they do all begin their sentences with "Yes," as if you've asked them something: "Yes, friend, we have film batteries camera books mineral water rickshaw anything you want anything?" That guy got an answer: "Do you have a million rupees?" He laughed. That's the other thing - touts here have a better command of English and actually a decent sense of humor about the whole process. So it's much more enjoyable to walk down the street, though I still do have to steel myself a bit before leaving the hotel. It will be nice to head back to a place where I can walk down a street and only actual friends greet me!

But back to the border - the immigration office in India was surprisingly hard to find, tucked away between a coffee shop and a telephone shop. But I was summoned to it by what I originally thought was another tout, though he was in a police uniform. "Hello, friend! Come and sit with me and have some tea! Passport? Visa?"

So I sat and had tea and did border-crossing paperwork, and then walked on to the bus park and hopped a bus to the nearest railway junction, at Gorakhpur, two and a half hours away.

I found a hotel, booked the train for the next day, and had originally intended to visit Kushinagar (to see the birthplace and the death-place of the Buddha in 24 hours), but it was too late and I was tired of buses.

Got on the train as the only westerner on the train, as far as I could tell, and headed here to Agra, south of Delhi. That was fun - sleeper class was full of people and all kinds of vendors would come through at every stop and at all hours, but I managed a few winks of sleep here and there between reading and stretching...

There's not a lot to recommend Agra besides the Taj Mahal and the fort, though there are plenty of marble shops. (The marble comes from Rajasthan, though, and must be cheaper there!) The Taj costs US$20 to get in, though I went in twice in one day with the one ticket - sunrise and sunset. The fort is US$10 for tourists, 50 times the price locals pay. So I skipped it, in protest against government greed. (And there are the ubiquitous rumors that most of the money just lines bureaucrats' pockets and never gets to preserving the monuments...) I wouldn't mind paying 10 times as much as locals, but 50 times is a bit much...

The Taj Mahal is, however, amazing and beautiful in terms of both simplicity and complexity. The overall appearance is very simple, but the craftsmanship and detail are amazing - carved and inlaid marble, and intricate designs from floor to ceiling, including the "inside" of the tomb - the part facing the two sarcophagi in the center of it all. Very impressive and peaceful even when crowded. I went to both sunrise and sunset there, and they're very much mirror-images of each other. On the west side of the Taj itself is a mosque, while on the other is a symmetrical building which is not a mosque because it faces the wrong way, away from Mecca.

One of the things I continue to find very interesting is the re-use of ancient symbols for political reasons. Here, of course, they're used with their original auspicious intentions. Many of the rickshaws around here have swastikas on them (there's even a swastika garden at the Buddha's birthplace!) and the open area leading to the mosque at the Taj is tiled in six-pointed stars.

The calling of the muezzins from the minarets around town is as haunting as I've read, and is really neat to hear several times a day, calling the Muslims to prayer. I do wonder, though, what it's like to hear real people doing it, rather than the piped-in tape recording most of the mosques seem to have. From the roof of my hotel, you can hear about six different calls in a semi-circle around the building, which is a really neat effect...

Last night, perhaps in karmic revenge at my annoyance with Indian greed, I ate in a local restaurant (listed in Lonely Planet and everything!) and became violently and unpleasantly ill. Thank heavens my room has its own bathroom, because I used it extensively all night. I will, happily, spare you the details (and spare myself the remembering!) but by about 1 a.m. I was begging all the deities I could think of for it to end, and it went on another six hours, until there was nothing left anywhere in my alimentary canal.

I can't recommend getting sick here - or anywhere, but yipe and yuck. It didn't help that there were two other people in a neighboring room who were also up all night being sick. I would finish a "session" in the loo and hear them through the wall and it would all begin again.

Fortunately dawn came. It saw me exhausted and weak and hungry and very dehydrated, but well enough to qualify as "walking wounded" and stable enough to keep water down in significant quantity. When I ventured out of the hotel in search of food, everybody on the street seemed to sense something was wrong, and only one person even tried to get me to buy anything. I felt like grim death warmed over, but I had survived.

Needless to say, I'll be even more careful about where I eat from now on - and I thought I was being quite careful indeed!

In other (and far more pleasant news) I've arranged to meet up with Elizabeth Bell later in the month, and at long last meet her husband Tim, whom I've spoken to on the phone several times. I booked the train ticket to Chennai (formerly Madras) and will see them for a few days just before I leave India at the end of April.

I will also head to a nearby village tomorrow to meet up with a friend of a colleague from the Ice and learn more about the Hare Krishnas, with which this person is well-involved. More marble buildings in the near future, I expect!

Then from there I'll head to Dharamsala for a little over a week of walking, hiking, relaxing, meditating and learning in the Tibetan community-in-exile there, and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Dalai Lama...

That's the scoop from me so far!

In other news, my sister has had her first bridal shower, and has now been welcomed or initiated or whatever into the Joyce family, which we hope wasn't as harrowing as Kevin's welcoming into the Inglis family will be!

My parents and the extended family check in well - the grandparents aren't any younger, but then who among us is? They're well-cared for, though, with the expert team of six children (a medical clerk, a doctor, a financial administrator, a psychiatrist, a massage therapist and a teacher - what a crew!) looking after them...

I hope you and yours are well - take good care! More soon, probably from Dharamsala!

Love, Jeff

Thailand, Nepal, and India (March-April 2001)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 20:27:00 +0000

In March 2001, I arrived in Thailand for my first visit to Asia. I stayed only a few days in and around Bangkok, and took a day trip to Ayutthaya, a nearby city which is a former capital of Thailand and the site of many ruined temples.

I then flew up to Kathmandu and went for a trek in Sagarmatha National Park, around Mount Everest. After my trek and meeting up with some friends in Kathmandu, I traveled to India overland, crossing the border at Sonauli, and headed on to Agra.

I visited the Taj Mahal, a Krishna consciousness (Hare Krishna movement) ashram near Agra, Delhi, Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, and Chennai (Madras), where some friends were living and working.

It was a challenging trip, probably the hardest since my very first, in Ireland. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun, and didn't escape the truly south Asian experiences of violent illness, deception and frustration. Here are some of the pictures I made during this two-month adventure into the unknown.

Thailand:

Nepal:

India:

Zenith: after the trek...

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sun, 25 Mar 2001 00:08:00 +0000

Hello from Kathmandu again!

I'm back safely after my trek, which went well, except for the guide, who was not much more than a bump on the proverbial log (except when he was in the way!).

But the weather was great, the scenery was amazing and seeing Mt. Everest from Gokyo Ri at dawn was beautiful... I have tons of pictures from the top, as well as throughout the 12-day trip, as you might expect.

That said, though, there were some tough times on the trek, and not just because my right knee decided to be difficult for the entire way down from 5483 meters (17,989 feet) above sea level! Ibuprofen is good...

The guide was a disappointment from the beginning; though I did see some good guides who knew a lot and shared their knowledge of culture and the natural environment, Dawa wasn't that sort. He knew the names of nearby mountains and a few of the local birds (but mostly wrong - have you ever confused an eagle with a pheasant?!?!).

Being in the Solukhumbu was pretty cool - there is evidence of tourism and westerners everywhere, which is somewhat too bad. The food was unspeakably monotonous, though often tasty (veggie curry with rice, fried potatoes with veg and cheese, noodles with veg).

Sir Edmund Hillary and his foundations from various countries have had a sizeable impact on the people and the infrastructure - they have bridges, clean drinking water piped in from far away, even hydro- electricity in some places. Sometimes they even cook and heat with kerosene, but mostly it's wood or yak dung.

But while it was great to have pizza in Namche Bazaar, and go to a bakery after several days out, I was disappointed to need my earplugs to block out the constant thudding from the nearby disco...

I did see several mountain eagles, and it was nice to be traveling again with the kin of the kahu - frequent traveling with hawks and raptors is wonderful and reassuring.

I met some interesting people - all westerners, no thanks to my erstwhile guide - including two other people who had been to the Antarctic. Our combined stories occupied much of one evening and entertained a roomful of travelers, which was fun!

Most of the "locals" I met, of either Tibetan or Sherpa descent, weren't overly friendly, but instead preferred to be the invisible servants in early 18th-century English tradition. Weird, and very much too bad, since they didn't seem interested in learning about Westerners or teaching us about them. But perhaps that's burnout, which is very understandable, given the level of tourism (25,000 people per year visit the region!).

The trek itself wound through various villages, and I stayed and ate at teahouses, which are called lodges and hotels... The English language as used in the Everest region must be called its own dialect. Major instructions included "Please order food before one hour." and "For hot water please advise in the kitchen."

And of course there were the misspellings which even I learned to ignore after a time - though labelling and door "tioelt" is a pretty poor way to identify a place to void one's bladder or bowels in an urgent situation!

As a highlight, I do now have the honor to be the world's highest Macintosh technician. At Tengboche monastery, at 3867 meters (12,687 feet), I was looking at an exhibit about the natural history of the surrounding area when an Australian woman at the display asked if anybody knew anything about computers, specifically how to hook up a Macintosh printer.

So I volunteered and spent part of the afternoon trying to locate a series of cables which would deliver power to both the computer (a brand-new iMac!) and the printer (a brand-new Epson color model!). We did succeed, and so now the monastery's projects will be able to issue reports and letters and such. I was rewarded not only by the large amount of merit which may accrue through my help with their project, but also with a T-shirt...

I still shake my head at the varied circumstances in which I find myself! Jenny, the Australian woman, and I had a few good laughs at the luck and not-quite-coincidence by which she located exactly the skills she needed at the perfect time! As she said, "Once you're on the path, the right things happen at the right time."

Of course the very idea of a computer in those parts was surprising, and they had just managed to get electricity to the office in the preceding week, by hard-wiring an extension cord to wherever the power came from for lighting. A bit dodgy to be sure, but it seemed to work!

I had some standard-type adventures in getting to and from the trek's starting and ending point in Lukla, including being told I needed to spend the night at an airstrip near nothing, and being told there would be another flight just for me, which ended up being jammed with people and beer!

But even calm and compassion have, I'm afraid, evaporated now that I'm back in Kathmandu.

The street vendors are now subject to an unadvertised collision- method of crowd control: when they step out in front of me, wares outstretched, I walk right into them. I wish I could report that this pained me, but aside from a couple of bruises, I seem to be taking a bit of pleasure in the activity, which at least returns a bit of their karmic reward in this life, with no delayed next-life retribution...

I have also begun to treat cars and rickshaws the same way everyone treats yaks and other pack animals on the trek - as obstacles to be whistled at, yelled at, and even hit to achieve movement. One traffic- blocking taxi driver was so startled after I slapped the back of his car and yelled "Move along!" that he floored it and nearly ran down a rickshaw 100 meters in front of him!

Impatience is not a virtue, I realize, and I am watching this new development with interest. Jane indicated that one of the things which she realized about herself in India was that she can be very intolerant of certain things; I am finding the same about myself - in areas in which I didn't know I was intolerant.

It is not surprising that this part of the world developed a religion in which the life of the mind is the only reality, and in which internal (mental) peace is the only real kind. Sounds more like a survival strategy than a religion...

I sincerely doubt that I will return to this country, and I'm more than a bit nervous about India, though perhaps I will do better since I expect it to be bedlam. Now that I've seen the big mountains, I don't have any real desire to return and go up them. (I'll leave that to Jane and Craig, among others!) And the social and logistical headaches involved are more than I'm prepared to deal with at the moment.

Indeed, at several points during the trek, I thought I could have been in Vermont, having similar views (admittedly without the towering peaks above) and wondered why I had come this far to see such similar scenery.

I also find myself identifying more with Theravadin Buddhism than with the Tantric variety of the Tibetans, though I'm looking forward to learning more in Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama is... (And Sheri, he doesn't make sandwiches as well as you! )

And I don't know enough about Hinduism yet to have an opinion of it, but it seems to involve a significant bedlam-filled pantheon of deities including the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad and Zoroaster, so we'll see what I can sort out!

Thailand still draws me as a place which I found more amiable, congenial and interesting, as well as in which I found people and philosophy/religion to be more my style. But not Nepal, I'm afraid.

So, in that vein, after meeting up again with my friend Dunner here in Kathmandu, I'll be heading to India overland.

Word is that e-mail in India is tremendously slow and unreliable, so I'll do my best but expect delays...

The basic itinerary is to head to Agra and Mathura/Vrindavan to look at the Taj Mahal and a newly-restored Hare Krishna temple, then to Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj to visit the Tibetan exile community, and then to Chennai (Madras) to visit Elizabeth and Tim before heading home (via one day in NZ, for ticketing reasons...). It should be about a month-long expedition, with roughly a week in each of the three places and a week of travel time in between...

I am looking forward to it, and I've sorted out how to minimize my time in Delhi, which I am informed I will detest for its crowds and touts...

That's the news from here at the moment - all the best to all of you on your travels and adventures wherever you may be...

(And yes, there will be many pictures on my web site in May!)

Love, Jeff

Zenith: in Kathmandu...

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sat, 10 Mar 2001 00:08:00 +0000

Greetings from Nepal! (I should say "namaste," which means "I salute the soul in you" and is the standard greeting and farewell here...)

I'm about to head off for 15 days of trekking up near Mt. Everest, from Lukla to Gokyo Ri and back, which should be wonderful! I'll let you know how it goes when I return...

I very much enjoyed Bangkok and came up here a few days ago, and have been organizing my trek and seeing friends - there are three others (at least) from the Ice up here, and my friend Jane and her traveling buddy Craig showed up two days ago - we've been playing a lot, which is great!

Yesterday was Holi, the Hindu holiday for washing away animosities. It's a very colorful festival, with dye-powder liberally sprinkled and wiped all over people's faces and clothes. Others - mostly kids - were ambushing pedestrians throughout the city with water balloons from doorways and buckets of water from rooftops and windows...

I went out early yesterday morning wearing a white shirt (bought for the occasion) and walked all over the place for a few hours, getting totally covered in red and purple and some yellow and blue and also green - but mostly red. The shirt is going to be a great souvenir, I think, with streaks of color looking a bit like some unfortunate fate befell its wearer, but I assure you it was all in fun (well, mostly - Jane had some encounters with young Nepali men smearing dye on parts she'd rather they didn't...).

After lunch (during which we mostly escaped from the bombardment) Jane and Craig and I headed back to where I'm staying to watch from the 6th-floor rooftop and get another perspective on the festival. The occasion lasted until mid-afternoon, when it got a bit cooler and some thunderclaps rolled across the valley...

I showered and most of the dye came out, though my pillowcase this morning had more than a tinge of red, so not all of it has come out of my hair yet. Jane has a streak of what she calls "Cyndi Lauper pink" in her hair, but her totally-scarlet face came clean, so she doesn't look too much of a freak!

Kathmandu is quite another place from Bangkok. First, of course, is the weather, which has been chilly in the mornings (just above freezing) and warming through the day. I think I'm moving in the right direction for getting used to street life and general pedestrianism - Nepalis are more assertive than the Thais, but apparently worlds less so than the Indians. Jane and Craig have just come from India and are basking in the mellowness of Kathmandu, which had me ducking into quiet bookshops every hour or so for two days when I first arrived...

I'm very much looking forward to exploring Nepal outside of this metropolis and seeing big mountains - and climbing a couple of the smaller sub-peaks or foothills or whatever 5000-meter peaks are called here...

I hope you're well where you are - drop a note (though I won't be able to reply for a couple of weeks...)

Love, Jeff

Zenith: hello from Bangkok!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sat, 03 Mar 2001 00:07:00 +0000

Hello!

I arrived in Bangkok last night and cleared customs, etc., very quickly and arrived at my hotel within an hour after getting off the plane!

Strangely enough, though, as I was sitting in the back of the shuttle to the hotel (which was an unmarked, private car whose driver was only identifiable to me because he was holding a sign with my name on it), the first music the driver put into the car stereo was John Denver's Greatest Hits! So amid the early trepidation and wondering where I was going and what I was doing was this calm voice singing to me about sunshine on his shoulders...

I read for a bit, watched some Thai TV and went to sleep - it was about 5 a.m. NZ time when I arrived, so my sleep schedule's a bit weird.

Got up this morning, had a yummy breakfast (I didn't even know it was included in the US$25 per night, for which I also get a double bed, a single bed, my own bathroom, a fridge and air conditioning!) and headed out into the streets, where it's very hot indeed - in the 90s Fahrenheit (about 30 C) and humid, humid, humid.

I promptly got lost, not least because I didn't bother getting a map for the first hour. But I knew I was close to the older parts of the city center and walked past some beautiful buildings and small sidewalk shopping areas.

It's wild here... There is a lot that's familiar, of course, like pedestrians and vehicles and so on, but there's so much that's unfamiliar - language, new smells, Buddhist monks walking the streets, and the fact that I've never been to Bangkok before...

But I've managed to survive (and even enjoy) one day so far - it's about 4 p.m. now - and I'm thinking about heading up to Ayuthaya tomorrow - it's a city of ruined temples about 80 km north of here - to have a look-see...

I wandered around old temples (wats) and the Grand Palace - all covered in incredibly intricate designs using wood, paint, colored glass, gold, and some really beautiful marble which looks a lot like the kind we have in Vermont!

The people I've run into have been helpful and friendly - I met a student training to work for the tourist authority, and he was very helpful indeed.

Of course, I had a couple of people try to sell me jewelry with various paperwork guaranteeing its value, resale value, etc. And of course, I sat and listened politely and then walked out...

I'm not sure what's on for tonight, though it will involve eating yummy food (I can just hear you saying it, Jane!) and getting some sleep...

But all is well and I'm enjoying just walking the streets and looking and just being here.

It's definitely an eye-opener to be back in a place where I don't speak the language and they don't speak very good English, if any. It's been a long time - since 1994 in Russia.

I hope you're well and enjoying where you are and what you're up to... More soon!

Love, Jeff

Zenith: the world is, well, unchanged

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Thu, 15 Feb 2001 00:03:00 +0000

Hello!

I've just arrived in Wanaka, my favorite South Island town, and have already run into a friend from nearby Albert Town... I accosted Maxene at an ATM downtown here and had a very nice chat about her recent trip to India, as well as news about my friend Ida, who is dying of cancer. (She's 89, and her body is giving up though her mind is strong.)

But it's been a while since my last update, and there has been quite a bit of news, actually, so it might be a bit of a long message here, but I'll keep it entertaining as usual!

Anyhow, I've made it off the Ice and spent a few days in Christchurch, seeing friends, getting organized for my travels and eating fresh foods!

I also bought a large pile of Antarctic books, which are now on their way back to the U.S. for inclusion in the Dad-and-Jeff Antarctic library, housed in Bridport, Vermont... A couple of early edition issues of Scott's journals, as well as a bunch of pictures by Herbert Ponting, and a couple of out-of-print books I've been hunting down for a while now...

If you're still in Chch, or will be passing through there at any stage, check out Arnold's Books on New Regent Street. I did leave plenty there for folks to peruse and purchase, and there are some classics of Antarctic literature as well as rare finds!

As I wrote to one friend already, most of the world is still here. Teenagers still make out on park benches in broad daylight, dogs and cats don't like each other all that much, and economics, nationality and race relations still color personal interactions way too much.

And back in the U.S., Dubya's president and it's shaking things up everywhere. The election of such a loon really adds strength to my argument that each country should have a couple of electoral votes as well, in recognition of the role the U.S. plays on the world stage. We'd have had Gore and be all set. But as a cab driver in Christchurch pointed out, Dubya's never even really been outside the U.S. to know about how the world sees America and Americans. Makes me shiver.

I was very glad to meet up with many folks off the Ice in Christchurch, when we all resumed our disguises. (Nobody had a red jacket anywhere to be seen!) Sushi, freshies, crazily-topped pizza, and amazingly rich chocolate were all part of the banquets. And of course there was the requisite consumption of beer at Bailie's and Dux de Lux...

Travel plans are in place for many of us now, and various of us will meet up, either intentionally or not, through the course of the next few months...

As for me, I'm heading to the North Island in a couple of days. I'll stop in Wellington, head to Turangi and maybe Napier (where are you, John?), and we'll see about Auckland (I may have to catch you on the return trip in April, Tracy!).

After that, I'll head to Bangkok for a few days in early March, then to Kathmandu and around Nepal and India, heading from Delhi back to Bangkok in late April and then on to a long traverse from Bangkok to Christchurch and thence back to the U.S....

Most of New Zealand is still throbbing with dance music, even in this Internet cafe, and on the bus all the way from Chch today. Will someone still on the Ice bring me some more ear plugs? (And Kathmandu's shop in Chch sells those things for NZ$1.50 a piece! Air services gives them out by the pallet-load!)

Many folks asked me as the season drew to a close if my summer went well, as a janitor rather than a journalist. In fact, it was great. I mean, it wasn't a career move (and anyone considering such a career move should think carefully first!) but it was an excellent break from what had been non-stop journalistic thinking (if not journalism proper) for nearly five years.

I was able to do many things I would never have done, including spend a couple of nights camping out - one even "under the stars" as it were, without a tent at the base of Castle Rock - and volunteering for the library in a small way, helping strengthen the Antarctic history collection available in McMurdo.

I was able to spend a lot of good time with a great many folks, all of whom know who they are, and was much more relaxed than I would have been in the high-profile, high- politics world of the Antarctic Sun.

I have now seen the light of not working for the Sun, and am hoping to return to the Ice next season, if I get a job I want. I'm looking primarily at science support jobs, helping folks get set to go out into the field and actually "do science." We'll see what happens - even the people who do the hiring for those jobs are traveling for the next few weeks.

The true highlight of the season, though, was seeing my Dad arrive at McMurdo. I was able to take the day off from work and met him as he got off the helicopter in from the tourist ship/converted icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov.

We gave each other a giant hug and wandered around town - I gave him my personal tour, including my room, the Sun office, the buildings I cleaned, and various other places. He was able to meet a few of my friends, and all but one of the people I wanted him to meet. (Sheri was at the runway galley.)

We were standing in the lounge in dorm 209 talking about the work he and Mom have been coordinating on the basement, and I pointed to my left and said, "Look, Dad! The Discovery Hut!" It was a pretty surreal moment...

And we walked down to the hut, where we stood inside as some of the very few father- son pairs who have been inside the hut together (or even at all). That was great for me, and Dad was thrilled to get to see the inside of the hut as well.

He'd been having a wonderful cruise so far, visiting Borchgrevink's hut at Cape Adare (in which ten men spent the first winter on the continent, slowly going mad), the Dry Valleys, and the historic huts at capes Royds and Evans. Later in the trip, he was able to get to Mawson's hut at Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay, which is incredible and wonderful! (I can't wait to see the pics, Dad!)

He ate lunch in the galley at McMurdo, and we hiked up Observation Hill, looking at Mt. Erebus, as well as Mts. Terra Nova and Terror. We then walked towards Scott Base, and got picked up by my friend Michelle, driving yet another strange Antarctic vehicle - a four-wheel-drive Airporter shuttle.

We toured Scott Base (including large sections of the station that I'd never seen before) and then he got on a helicopter at about 4 p.m. to head back to the ship.

It was truly wonderful and amazing to see him and be hanging out with my dad in McMurdo. I kept thinking "I'm on top of Ob Hill...WITH MY DAD!" and similar thoughts even more mundane, like "I'm in the galley...WITH MY DAD!"

We had a great time, and a visit of a lifetime. (Now, Dad, to meet up on the rest of the continents - we've got North America, Europe, Australia and Antarctica... )

I'll close there, on the total high point of my season and indeed one of the best days of my life. (How amazing that I've had two such days in so few months - that day in Co. Donegal and now the one in McMurdo...)

(But I'll add that a person just walked in and is literally videotaping the scene here in the Internet cafe - a pan across the whole set of ranks of computers. Odd.)

Anyhow, please write and let me know how you're doing and what you're up to! And send good vibes to all my buddies spending the winter on the Ice... My thoughts will be with you all as station closes in about two weeks...

Take good care and be well!

Love, Jeff

Antarctica (Oct 2000-Feb 2001)

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Inglis) — Sun, 04 Feb 2001 21:47:00 +0000