Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

Category: Travel

  • Tulip Takes a Holiday

    Ever since reading a mystery novel in which the victim lives on a narrow boat, I’ve wanted to tour the English countryside in one.  This year, I convinced an old college friend to join me and off we went.

    The canals of England date mostly to the 18th century.  They were originally used to transport goods like coal and salt.  Today they are part of Britain’s inland waterways and used mostly for pleasure. Narrow boats are designed for the canals.  They are typically just seven feet wide and range from 48 to 70 feet long.

    We rented a boat from Anderton Marina in Cheshire through my time share.

    When we checked in at Anderton, they gave us a booklet with routes and points of interest along the way, as well as some brief instructions on how to run the boat.  An octogenarian with dry wit named Archie showed us the most important valve on the boat (the propane valve), the most important rope (the center rope) and the daily maintenance we would need to do.  Every day, we needed to grease the propeller shaft and make sure the propeller wasn’t fouled (and clean it if it was) and top off the water tanks.

    He took us out on the canal to make sure we could steer.  He was very nonchalant about two clueless middle aged American women taking a boat for a week and that was actually reassuring.  When handing us the life jackets, he said, “We have to give you these, but if you fall in, stand up and walk to the side.”  The canals are only about three or four feet deep.  I wouldn’t want to fall in though, because ick.  When we asked about what knots we should use to tie up at night, he said, “Whatever you can untie in the morning.” After about 15-20 minutes of steering instruction, he pointed us north, gave us a pub recommendation, and sent us on our way.

    Our rental was one of the small ones, just 48′ long, and sleeps four – two in the bedroom and two on the pullout couch.  It was quite cozy.


    The kitchen had a little refrigerator, stove and even a microwave.  It did not have a coffee pot or toaster.

    It did have egg cups.

    When you drive the boat, you stand at the rear and steer using a rudder.  This means if you want the front to go left, you push right and vice versa, much like a sailboat.  But, the sailboats I’ve been on are small and respond quickly.  This…doesn’t.  The boat is long and slow.  Here’s what it looks like while you are driving.

     

     

    Narrow boats go slowly.  The speed limit on the canals is 4 mph, but you are not supposed to create a wake as it could damage the canals.  In addition, you are supposed to drop to idle speed when passing moored boats.  As a result, people walking their dogs, or pushing strollers along the tow path, routinely passed us.  This lets you look around and enjoy the scenery.

     

    We saw lots of ducks, swans and herons.

    There were daffodils everywhere.

     

    The point of a canal vacation is to cruise along, then tie up near a point of interest and walk in to see what there is to see, or visit a pub.  Along the route we took, there really wasn’t that much to see.  In a way, that was the point for me.  I wanted to see the English countryside and this was it.  Little towns with a pub or two.

    We did stop near Massey Hall which is a country house with tours, a gorgeous garden, and a deer park.

     

    We stopped at the Keckwick Science and Innovation Center in order to walk up to Daresbury – the home of Lewis Carroll. The Science and Innovation Center was nerd central.  It had a building named “Electron Hall” and a Van De Graaf accelerator.  The accelerator looked like an air traffic control tower.  When we first saw it, we thought we were approaching an airport.

    The booklet claimed there was a Lewis Carroll Center in Daresbury.

     

    That turned out to be a corner of a church shop.  But, the village was cute with a Tudor style pub,  a Mad Hatter Cottage and a Dormouse Tea Shop.

     

    We were definitely in horse country.  Walking to Daresbury, there were horse crossings.  One button at walking height and one well above my head.

     

    In the town of Sale, we came across the worst named restaurant ever.


    We later found out it’s a chain.  Tells you all you need to know about British cuisine.

    Along our route, we needed to go through tunnels. Because the tunnels are too narrow for boats to pass, the longer ones restrict entry to specific times.  For example, the third tunnel we did restricts northbound entry to 10 minutes starting at the top of the hour.  The tunnels are not straight and we were not good at steering.

    Good thing I got that damage waiver.

    Locks are another feature of the canals.  Our route had only one, right before the third tunnel that only allowed entry for ten minutes.  We ran into a traffic jam.  After we cleared the lock, we had to wait to enter the tunnel.  Someone else was coming through the lock behind us.

    While we waited, five boats came out of the tunnel.

     

    Since the boat behind us was still in the lock, there was nowhere for them to go.  It was a little hairy for a while, but we managed without running into any other boats.

    I had wanted to go during the summer, but now I’m really glad that we went in March, despite the cold.

    On Saturday and Sunday there was a lot more traffic on the canal, which was a little stressful, especially when there were boats moored on both sides.

    I suspect the canals stink in the summer and it would be much harder to find a mooring.  As you can see in the photo, even on a weeknight in March, there a lot of boats tied up in the desirable places.  Out of the week we had the boat, we were only able to tie up at mooring rings twice.  The rest of the time we used the mooring pins.  I also think routes with more locks would see long waits or traffic jams like the one we encountered. That wouldn’t be much fun.

    This was a truly relaxing vacation.  I got to see parts of England I wouldn’t have otherwise and from a different perspective. There was no Internet, no TV, and I ignored my phone.  Instead, I got to read and draw in the evenings, as well as catch up with my friend.  If I lived in England, I’d do it again.

     

  • What is Burning Man? Pt. 1

    A decade ago, most people had never heard of Burning Man. Telling someone you were going or had been, would mostly get you blank stares. If you got any other reaction it was probably a very positive one as most people who did know about it found it enthralling and either had been themselves or really wanted to go but hadn’t had the chance for whatever reason.

    Fast forward to 2019, and nearly everyone has heard of the now infamous ‘biggest party in the world’ held 90 miles north of Reno, NV in the Black Rock Desert each year during the week before Labor Day. Nowadays, media reports and social media influencers are where most people get their knowledge of the event. Because of this, misconceptions abound as to what Burning Man actually is, and how its culture is spreading throughout society.

    In order to counter a lot of this lack of knowledge, misconceptions, and preconceived notions about Burning Man, I’m writing up a three-part series. This first part mostly talks about background information, basic infrastructure, how the event works, and its ethos/culture. Part two will be focused on theme camps and events. Part three will cover art works/emplacements and mutant vehicles.

    I’ve been to six burns, most recently in 2016, and have watched it go from a niche counterculture to having mainstream mass appeal. Several friends of mine have been more times than I, stretching many years further back in time, which was how I was introduced to this pseudo-alternate reality world which resembles an odd hybrid of communist central planning and techno-libertarian societies.

    It used to be that you only went to this event if you knew someone who had already been and could effectively serve as your mentor. As the Burning Man Organization is fond of saying: this is not a festival. If you are ill prepared, you very well may die. It’s happened. You used to have to sign a waiver back in the days before they had on-site ambulance service, medical tents, and a helicopter at the ready to take you to Reno. It’s an extremely harsh environment with many hazards, be they natural or man-made.

    That said, this was always part of the appeal, and many people bring their kids as young as three regardless of these risks. It always felt like a sort of frontier. There wasn’t even cell service until 2014 and no ubiquitous WiFi. Everyone wore a watch, an actual watch, just to tell them the time, and people kept their phones locked up. This is still the case for the early half of the burn, until the dreaded tourists show up around Thursday to stare at their phones and do glamor shoots for their Instagram accounts.

    The tourists and narcissists are a relatively new phenomenon though. There were always some ‘weekend warriors’, but ‘sparkle ponies’ were the bigger nuisance for many years. The event first started in 1986 and only sold out for the first time in 2011. You used to be able to get a ticket whenever you wanted, or even at the gate, for as low as $100. Now it’s a mad rush to get one, so it ends up on many people’s bucket list who attend with no prior interest in or knowledge of the event’s culture and history.

    The event is held on public land under Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction. They impose strict population limits, which have generally increased each year, and a slew of other restrictions regarding maintaining the natural environment, such as requiring the event’s perimeter be surrounded with a trash fence. It was the first “Leave No Trace” event, and they’ve done a rather good job of making sure you wouldn’t be able to tell it happened if you go beforehand or afterwards. However, ever increasing BLM fees and ever more demands from the 6 police departments with a presence there have driven the cost up to $425 minimum, unless you get a subsidized “low-income” ticket. On the high end, you can spend around $1,400 for one ticket plus another $100 for a vehicle pass.

    All this gets you is access to the city, and it is indeed a city. The Burning Man Organization provides “roads”, which are just packed down dust sprayed regularly with water to keep them under control, road signs, a single Center Camp, about a dozen banks of porta potties, and The Man, which is lit on fire with an amazing firework display on Saturday night. Everything else in the city is brought and built by the attendees, although they’ve started placing “Black Rock Ranger” stations and medical tents around as well.

    The attendees ARE the event. All the party locations are brought, built, and paid for by attendees, who often pay DJs big bucks to spin there, though the no-names are often better. There’s multiple competing post offices run entirely by burners. (Dis)information centers, “human car washes”, vehicle lockout services, playgrounds and trampoline parks, pretty much everything you’ll find was brought there by someone who thought it would be cool to have X, Y, or Z on ‘the playa’ and just did it out of their own pockets.

    The BMOrg (often called ‘the borg’) also provides a theme for each year. This year is “metamorphosis”. Previous examples include “fertility”, “metropolis”, “good and evil”, “Da Vinci’s workshop” and many others throughout the years. There’s also “10 principles” the BMOrg tries to enforce on the event but have gotten somewhat lazy about recently. Leave No Trace is one of those, and they keep to it under threat of ruinous fines. Another big one is Decommodification, which basically means nothing can be bought, sold, or traded.

    Burning Man runs on a ‘gifting economy’. The only concession they make on this is ice and coffee, which the BMOrg sells around the city. Other than that, everything is free. If you see a restaurant offering pancakes, they’ll be given to you at no charge. If you stop by a clothing store, feel free to grab a shirt and pants, which will likely have been ‘gifted’ to the store itself at some point. My wife and I often gift necklaces.

    In the past, anyone could set up a restaurant. Starting in 2013 though, the Nevada Health Department started requiring any restaurants gifting food to the general public to get permits and be inspected. This also applies to large private kitchens serving camps of 125 or more. Never accept gifts of food that aren’t factory sealed though unless you (a) are getting it from a restaurant, (b) know and trust the source, (c) don’t mind the chance of getting drugged, or (d) ask if the food contains drugs. People are usually honest on (d) if you ask, but a camp next door to mine one year took a bunch of Altoids from a stranger without thinking to ask and they turned out to be laced with LSD. Whoops. Welcome to Burning Man.

    A lot of this stuff and more is what veteran burners usually tell people right off the bat to weed people out. We also like to toss in factoids like “there’s no showers so be prepared to be sweaty and smelly for a week”, “there’s no dumpsters so you have to pack out all your own trash”, “you need to prepared to bring, store, and cook a week’s worth food”, “you’re likely to run out of gas”, “there’s dubstep playing LITERALLY ALL THE TIME”, “dust storms = whiteout conditions on a moments notice”, “police will arrest you for driving 1mph over the speed limit”, and a few other tropes that boil down to “burning man sucks, don’t go.” Yes, there’s a lot of sex, drugs, and nudity, but we don’t usually talk about or emphasize those parts. They’re just one small part of the greater whole.

    That’s all just part of the culture. It’s definitely a harsh climate that most Americans or really anyone ‘civilized’ could go crazy in, and veterans try to keep out too many clueless virgins (the term used for first-time burners) who just want to go to a big exclusive weeklong party. For those virgins who do go, there’s a lot of other rubs and insider false knowledge (paging Not Adahn) spread to mess with them and identify fakers. “Daft Punk is playing at the trash fence” is the biggest of these. Anyone who says they saw Daft Punk at the trash fence is BSing you.

    First-timers who don’t have any sort of mentor can generally make do by joining up with a larger camp. Many people in these camps have multiple burns under their belt and will make sure newbies have a pleasant experience. These camps usually cost money to join though, from a few hundred to a few thousand bucks, to pay for all the amenities they bring for their campmates and the general public. Considering most attendees are already looking at several thousand in expenses ($425 ticket +$100 vehicle pass + $200-$500 gas + $500-$1500 airfare/vehicle rental) just to get there and back home, many may not be willing or able to fork over more money to join a camp where they’ll probably also be required to work shifts and help with setup/breakdown before and after the burn. You’ll also need to take more time off work.

    If you’re flush with cash, you can usually buy your way out of every issue. This fact really pisses off most veteran burners, because “buying your burn” runs completely counter to the event’s culture in many ways. Radical self-reliance (one of the 10 principles) means “building your burn” and adapting to the harsh climate in your own way, such that you survive the event, thrive, and have a great time doing it. Having to rely on yourself (and/or a small contingent of friends) for the week while having a blast amidst a city that didn’t exist a month before your arrival is what sparks the life changing experiences many people, myself included report after attending.

    Next time, we’ll dive into the backbone of Black Rock City: theme camps and the events they offer.

  • Evan Goes to Sri Lanka: Part I

    I’ve wanted to go to Sri Lanka since I was a child. Something about it enticed me. I had an opportunity to make the journey, and it ended up being a profound mix of geographic and emotional exploration.

    This trip represents the downfall of a relationship that was once precious to me. It tarnishes my recollections of cultural and romantic adventures alike. We fell into our doomed love in Korea. During our honeymoon phase, I chose to go to America to get my first hip replacement and was gone for several months longer than I had planned. She cheated on me while I was gone. We had been together for such a short period of time and I was away for so long. I let it slide.

    When we reunited, our spark had dimmed but it was not yet snuffed. When we floated, we floated high. Way up there where you’re afraid to look down for fear of getting Wile E. Coyoted. But we had so many fights. In front of strangers, our friends. There are encounters that neither of us are proud of. Knives were thrown. I ducked.

    It was difficult to navigate our spiraling descent. It was such an unhealthy relationship, but we were still desperately in love. We’d been together for a few years when we decided to switch things up. I knew the idea to move to Singapore together wasn’t a good one. So did she. But we wouldn’t dare talk about it. Polite fictions. We simply couldn’t escape our orbit. We didn’t want to. We were terrified that any push would send us hurtling apart. Hoping without promise, we lied to ourselves and each other, secretly knowing and ignoring the truth. We were such stubborn magnets.

    ****

    I had ten days off and I finally got the chance to go to the Teardrop of India. As often is the case, I didn’t know to expect and I was going to do it alone. Mostly. Before I left Singapore, I had casually mentioned my vacation plans to a coworker. We were friendly but not friends, if you know what I mean. A few weeks later she also decided to go to Sri Lanka. We were on the same plane. As soon as we landed we both went on our separate paths.

    This is one of the rare adventures where my plan worked out perfectly. I had a rough idea of what places I wanted to visit, what routes I needed to take, the food I wanted to eat, and what things I wanted to do. Went off without a hitch. This is how I like to travel. Do research, but always leave plans loose and untimed. You never know what you’ll find. You’re here to explore, not to punch in-and-out.

    I arrived in Colombo very late at night. Having read that it’s a very boring city, I immediately bailed. I took a four-hour cab up north to Sigiriya. I slept in the car and awoke to hot air balloons drifting in the dawn light. Cows were being herded through the half-paved streets.

    Sigiriya is an ancient ruin of a city. It’s a towering butte and is best described as the Machu Picchu of the Sri Lankan jungle. Lion paws carved into the rock flank the main entrance. Monkeys roamed freely.

    Through the bustling crowd, I climbed up the steps. Erotic paintings decorated the walls during the ascent. They had my undivided attention.

    It was heavenly, but a bitch of a climb with dreams of an elevator. At the summit, you can see the foundations of the ancient capital. My imagination built upwards from those stone rectangles, recreating the lost city.

    The Lonely Mountain in the distance fed the idyllic lake napping below. It took a lot of effort to convince myself to head back down. It felt like leaving a lover behind. I suppose I was.

    Monkeys were darting along the staircases and cliff sides on the descent. You get used to them.

    I moved onwards towards Kandy, a city surrounded by tea fields. It was an interesting town but mostly served as a waypoint in my journey. I randomly met with my coworker for dinner and a drink.

    On my tuk tuk ride back to my hostel, I asked if I could drive. He shouldn’t have let me in my drunken state, but he did. I exuberantly sped up the mountainside in that foreign vehicle, somehow safely making it to my domicile. The gate was locked. I had to scale the iron palisade to get in. The more bizarre your adventures are, the deeper the images burn into the silver iodide of your memory.

    I needed to catch a train from Kandy to Ella, supposedly one of the most scenic routes in the world. The train departed at 6:00, which was going to be a difficult task. With my lifestyle, 6am can be the end of the night, but never the beginning of a day.

    Nevertheless, I (somehow) dutifully awoke and rushed to the station. I even had time to jockey myself in position for a seat. BUT. I didn’t want a seat. I wanted to go with my legs dangling off the train car.

    I got want I wanted. This was an experience that reminded me of why I live the way that I do. The geography made the trip longer than it should have been. It was only 82 miles and yet took over six hours to traverse. I knew if I got up then I would be overthrown from my hobo throne, so I held my ground for the duration of the trip sans bathroom break. When the game is on the line my body can pull off some shocking upsets.

    At a random train station, I took my favorite photo of the trip. I love how his skin and garb mirror the backdrop. Being intensely amused by minutia is a very good way to keep life interesting.

    Well, there was one exception to my exuberance. I wanted to take my shoes off and let the air sweep through my toes. That was the type of Huck Finn fun I wanted. Luckily, I nodded off without removing them. The train had come to a station and my feet smashed against the concrete platform. Thankfully it was only at about 30 miles an hour, and my rubber soles took the brunt. Barefoot I would have broken many bones. The torsion from the impact bashed my rib cage against the carriage wall. The bruises became abstract art that changed color and shape over time.

    The station had a sign warped with age and flecked with chipped white paint. The top row of the sign was written in Sinhalese, the second in Tamil, and the third was Romanized.

    It read “Ella–52km.”

    ******

    Thus concludes Part I. In the final installment, we will continue our journey to Ella. Then we will go on safari before finishing the trip at a 16th-century fort.

    Stay tuned and I hope you enjoyed.