Matador Network's Blog, page 2199

You know you’re in Thailand when…

Photo: Scott Sporleder

…you suddenly understand why nobody’s wearing sleeves.

Thailand is humid. Bangkok is one of the most humid cities in the world, averaging roughly 80% relative humidity year round, so no matter what you’re used to, you’re gonna be drenched shortly after taking that first gulp of hot air outside the airport.

But it’s part of the culture. When you always feel like you kind of need to take a shower, it doesn’t make sense to wear your Sunday best. Once you get into the city, you’ll pick up one of those light and breezy tanks you’re seeing everywhere, and throw it on before heading out.

And you may hate every stereotype of the Thailand backpacker on Khao San Road, but there’s something completely relaxing about finally being comfortable in the wet heat. Something that makes you want to grab a cheap beer from a sidewalk table, sit down for a bit, and just enjoy being there.

…you find yourself haggling over the equivalent of 30 cents.

Photo: Georgie Pauwels

When you first get to Thailand, you won’t know exactly how much a baht is worth. You got 32 of the little guys for your big American dollar, and they’re burning a hole in your pocket. But it’s not until you decide to say no to that 500-baht pair of sunglasses, not until the first time they snap their fingers at your back and say, “Okay okay 400 for you!” that the world opens up.

Haggling is a big deal in Thailand. You can halve the price of just about everything you see if you play your cards right. After spending a few weeks getting used to this important social interaction, it becomes a fact of life you’ll actively embrace, even push its limits. On my last day in the country, I found a bracelet I really liked — one of those with some lewd text written in broken English. I successfully haggled the price down to 90 baht, but I was adamant about not paying a baht above 75. I left empty handed.

For a second, I felt proud that I’d stuck to my guns. Then I realized, with no small amount of puzzled shame, that I’d turned away something I wanted over the principle of less than a dollar. Oops.

…you get swept up in a citywide water war.

Photo: Takeaway@Wikimedia.org

Every April 13-15, Thailand comes alive for Songkran — the celebration of the new year. And while Americans may treat December 31 with a giant ball dropping down a skyscraper, Thais do it with a little more pizzazz. Normally quiet cities like Chiang Mai erupt into three-day water wars, where everybody’s a participant, willing or not, and nothing is off limits.

Songkran is easy to underestimate. It’s Chiang Mai, where there are more temples than restaurants, and you may think the festivities are sequestered in a specific part of the city. You may think, since you’re just a visitor, you’ll be ignored. You may think it’s safe to wear white clothing, or use your phone in public, or appear in public at all.

Read more: 19 things you probably didn't know about Thailand

And then you’ll sit down to breakfast at a cute little café you found in the Old City, and you’ll bring the fork up to your mouth, and right in that moment a truck will drive by and a smiling Thai boy, no more than 10, will be sitting in the back, and you’ll make quick eye contact right before his squirt gun blasts that fork straight out of your hand, and his friend dumps a bucket of water all over you for good measure.

Then you’ll get it. C’est la Songkran.

…you find it hard to focus on the road while flying through the mountains on a motorbike.

Photo: Vir Nakai

I drove a motorcycle for the first time in Thailand. And maybe I was being cocky, flying around the turns of the northern mountain roads like I was Evel Knievel himself. Maybe I was just distracted by the cliff views in front of me. But then I felt myself begin to fishtail, and before I knew it I’d wiped out, just barely avoiding going over said cliff. As I pulled myself to my feet, thanking every deity I could name that I was still alive, I watched as my best friend riding behind me threw himself to the asphalt too.

Read more: 5 adventures in Thailand you've probably never heard of

It’s not just visitors, though you’ll see plenty of farangs with bandages all over their bodies. Thailand has roughly 20 million registered motorbikes (nearly 1 for every 3 people). It’s more than the cheap price tag that makes them attractive. When you’re in a car, you’re separated from the outside world, stuck in a box with your field of view reduced to the immediate road. With all the beautiful scenery to be found, and all the winding roads to enjoy, why would you want to do that to yourself?

So if you’re on a motorbike, wear a helmet. It’s all too easy to get sucked into the moment when you’re having that much fun.

…you befriend an elephant.

Photo: Evo Flash

Elephants are big. It may seem like an obvious statement, but pictures don’t really prepare you for the giant roiling bodies standing in front of you, exuding strength, with eyes that show a deep intelligence. The first time one plucks a banana from your hand, wrapping your fingers with its trunk and squeezing them with the bare minimum of its power, you’ll have a sudden understanding of Lenny’s situation from Of Mice and Men. I knew these creatures were strong, but wow.

Elephant camps are one of the most popular attractions in Thailand. But until you actually arrive and see them for yourself, it’s easy to think of them as just part of the scenery. Getting up close and personal with a family of elephants, however, changes things. You see the way they affectionately pat each with their trunks. You see the way the babies excitedly run up to you, only to shy away at the last second and hide behind their mothers’ tails. These aren’t scenery. These are real, powerful creatures that could crush you without a thought.

Read more: How to see elephants responsibly on your trip to Thailand

But they don’t. Because there’s personality behind those eyes. Once you’re in Thailand and you encounter them for yourself, you’re also filled with a desire to see these elephants treated well. You want to volunteer at a sanctuary. You want to protect them, help them enjoy a long and natural life. Elephants could kill you if they wanted, but since they’ve instead decided (and with that intelligence, it must be a conscious decision) to live in harmony with us, it’s only right that you return the favor.

…a monkey snags your lunch while you’re taking a dip in a waterfall.

Photo: Mikhail Koninin

But monkeys. Oh the monkeys. Never has there been a more adorable thief.

Erawan Falls in western Thailand is one of the most beautiful places in the country — a multi-leveled waterfall in the middle of the jungle, with perfectly clear, warm water for swimming. The first time you go, you’ll probably get lost in the moment (it’s difficult not to). But watch where you put your stuff — those little simians will be rooting through it the instant your back is turned, making off with keys, food, money, and anything they can fit in their grubby little mitts.

Sate them in a more appropriate setting instead. Check out the Lopburi Monkey Banquet, where a gigantic feast is laid out every year just for the monkeys to enjoy. And if you’re feeling sneakily vengeful, steal some of the monkeys’ food. For once, there’s nothing they can do about it.

…you watch lightning give you a fireworks show in the distance while you enjoy the sunset above you.

Photo: Ilse Reijs and Jan-Noud Hutten

Somehow, even the bad weather in Thailand is enjoyable. During the wet season, the southern islands are often hit with quick little storms — never long enough to ruin plans, just enough to cool you off. These storms appear in little pockets, and once they’ve passed, you can sit down and watch them go.

I was on Koh Phangan when a storm rolled through one evening. It was just after sunset, and the sky was turning shades of indigo as the light retreated. It was still too warm for shirts, so some friends and I bought a bottle of rum and went down to the beach to relax in the sand. Just above the horizon, the storm was rumbling north, and forks of lightning shot into the sky and into the water. We sat on the beach for an hour just listening to the distant thunder.

If that moment’s not the reason I went to Thailand in the first place, I’m not sure what reason there was.

…you actually enjoyed eating that cricket.

Photo: Karl Baron

Thailand is all about the street food. It’s also all about trying new things. Sure, you could survive off the pad thai and boiled oysters and soup in a bag. I could eat that every day for the rest of my life and be happy (and much richer!). But when you’ve got so many different choices, why not branch out?

On many of the more trafficked streets, you’ll find people selling foods you’d never see in America. Fried crickets and cockroaches, boiled maggots. By some accounts, it’s a tourist trap. Nobody really eats those. But hey, you’re in Thailand…who’s gonna know? And turns out, it’s not actually that bad. Salty. Crunchy. Like biting into a fried, crispy chicken skin, with bits of leg that get caught between your teeth. Worldly people like to claim they’ll try anything once — time to pony up.

…you pay a random fisherman to drop you off at a secluded beach.

Photo: Dider Baertschiger

There are over 1,400 islands in Thailand, and a lot of them can make you feel like you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere you’d rather be. But at the most popular beaches, the ones featured in every tropically set movie, the crowds break the illusion. Hard to pretend you’re cast away when you can get 30-baht pad thai and a massage without moving a muscle.

Read more: Travel guide to Thailand's most captivating islands

Luckily, you can get the best of both worlds here. You want those massages on the beach? Go for it. But if you want the real ‘deserted island’ experience? You’re still good to go.

The islands are big, and sometimes the best beaches are closed off from the world by impassable karst cliffs. But there are boats everywhere. And since Thailand is such a cheap and friendly place, you can always approach a boatman and offer to pay them to take you somewhere a little more secluded. They’ll pick you up later in the day, and you get to spend your time tanning in the sand with only the sun and the echoes of the lapping waves as your company.

…you stuff yourself silly with a single dollar.

Photo: Eddy Milfort

And when that fisherman does take you back to town, there’s a chance you’re gonna be hungry. You didn’t bring food to the beach, did you? No matter where you go, though, there’s food. Thai cuisine is varied and delicious in pretty much every form it comes in.

The best is the street food, the 30-baht plate you pick up off the street corner and eat as you walk away. But even the sit-down joints are amazing, and they rarely cost much more unless you’re really treating yourself. You can get a three-course meal for the equivalent of three bucks, and you’re not going to be able to finish it. Stuff yourself with seafood caught that day, then slip into a food coma as you recline on the beach at sunset. It’s the start of a good evening.

…a massage actually makes you believe in blocked energy flows.

Photo: Roberto Faccenda

Before I got to Thailand, I was never a big believer in massage. Sure, they feel nice, but come on, there isn’t really a spiritual aspect to it, is there? That’s just mumbo jumbo. But then I saw a sign for a $9 Thai massage. Over the course of 60 minutes, a small woman pressed and kneaded my skin and muscles in ways I never thought possible. It hurt at times, and at others it was relaxing. But a strange thing happened — I started to feel better. Not just in my body, but in my mind.

My masseuse explained that Thai massage affects the flow of energy through the body. By massaging certain pressure points and “chakras,” she was able to release all the pent-up tension blocks and permit my energy to flow again. Try finding a cleanse in America for under $10 that can do all that.

…you take a three-hour trip to Laos just so you can stay another two weeks.

Photo: Scott Sporleder

Alas, all trips must come to an end. Without a visa, most foreigners can only stay for 30 days at a time when arriving by airport, and 15 days when arriving by land. But Thailand is addictive. Those days fly by too fast. You’re never really ready to leave, even when you have to.

But you don’t have to leave for long.

Southeast Asia is a relatively tiny region, and Thailand is the central hub through which just about everybody passes. So they make onward travel as easy as possible — buses, trains, and flights anywhere you want to go next. But here’s the thing: Once you leave the country, those 30/15 days reset. Immigration runs are easier in Thailand than just about anywhere in the world. You can catch a quick morning bus ride to Laos / Cambodia / Malaysia, turn right back around, and do it all again.

This post is proudly produced in partnership with the Tourism Authority of Thailand and STA Travel, working together to tell stories of the peoples, places, and cultures that make Thailand special.

7 things to do in Roswell, NM

Photos clockwise from bottom left: Joanne, Mark Stephenson, Joshua Bousel, Angel Schatz

It’s impossible to avoid aliens when you visit Roswell, New Mexico. Bakeries, music stores, even financial services have little green men painted on their storefronts. Alien heads appear everywhere, even on street lamps. And the phrase “out of this world” is used in just about every advertisement.

But this town of 50,000 in southern New Mexico is more than just spaceships and quaintly stylized Martians. If you can see past the UFO-shaped playground at McDonald’s, you’ll find an unexpectedly diverse range of activities.

1. Go to the beach.

Yes, Roswell lies at the edge of the Chihuahua Desert, but just east of town you can find Bottomless Lakes State Park, the oldest state park in New Mexico. This chain of eight lakes is actually a group of subterranean caverns that caved in and filled up with water. You can camp, hike, and mountain bike. There is a beach at Lea Lake, the largest, where you can go swimming, scuba diving, and paddle boating. Despite their names, the lakes range from 17 to 90 feet deep. Bring a hat and your SPF 700.

2. Answer the State Question.

New Mexico is the first state to adopt a “State Question,” and not since the Team Edward / Team Jacob debate has there been a more burning decision: red or green? The question, of course, refers to whether the green or red chili pepper is best. Fortunately, coming up with an answer can be the best part of your New Mexico visit. Chances are good that everything you order will have green chilies on it. (Seriously, you have to convince the carhop at Sonic that you don’t want chilies on your cheeseburger. She’ll have to talk to the manager first.)

A good place to taste test New Mexican cuisine is Martin’s Capitol Grille downtown on 4th street. I’m a sucker for the chile rellenos, but if you’re going to do a red-or-green taste test, try the enchiladas.

3. Hunt dragons.

With its harsh desert environment, you might not think of New Mexico as a place to find dragonflies. But one of North America’s most diverse populations of dragonflies and damselflies can be found just 10 miles north of Roswell at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge. This 24,000-acre refuge lies where the Chihuahua Desert meets the southern plains. The Pecos River runs through the eastern side of the preserve, attracting a wealth of biodiversity, including over 100 species of dragonflies.

Try to go in the morning (it opens at 8am) to avoid the oppressive heat. You can wander on your own or take an organized tour.

4. Stargaze.

If you’re brave enough to risk alien abduction, stay up late and plan to be amazed. New Mexico is one of the best places in the world to be amazed by the night sky. A low population density means little light pollution, which in turn makes stargazing (and UFO sightings) pretty epic. Try to plan your visit during a new moon — like everything else in the sky, the moon can be bright and will detract from the billions of stars otherwise visible.

If the weather or your schedule doesn’t allow you to watch the stars the old-fashioned way, stop by the Roswell Goddard Planetarium next to the Roswell Museum and Art Center.

5. Get cultured.

The Roswell Museum and Art Center is a free (donations accepted) museum that features artists from across the southwest. Don’t miss the watercolor sketches of 1880s Pueblo Indian life by Peter Moran or regional artists Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd, who focus on the landscape and people of Hondo Valley. And bring some money — the museum is free, but the gift shop is the bomb.

6. Taste the local vintage.

The Pecos Flavors Winery is a tasting room and gift shop featuring drinks and food from southern New Mexico. They feature over a dozen New Mexico winemakers and five different local breweries. The décor is decidedly southern New Mexico ranch-style, with a 100-year-old bar from Hondo Valley.

Like almost everywhere else in Roswell, aliens play a big role in selling products. I can’t vouch for the taste, but Alien Ale and Galactic Vino make great souvenir gifts. There’s live music here on the weekends, too.

7. Submit to the little green men.

If all the alien-themed signage wears you down and you give in to visiting the International UFO Museum and Research Center, there are some things you should know:

This was put together with the blood, sweat, time, and dedication of volunteers who are true believers.
This is not the Smithsonian.
It will be hard to spend much time in here if you don’t read English well, don’t like to read at all, or have impatient children tugging at you. Ninety-nine percent of the exhibits are documents.
Those documents are framed and hung on pegboard, making it look a little like the inside of your grandfather’s garage. Again, not the Smithsonian.
The two exhibits that aren’t hung on pegboard are a group of animatronic aliens and a life-size alien autopsy diorama. The former is entertaining for about 45 seconds. The latter will freak out small children.
The gift shop is decidedly the most visually interesting part, but it’s the only place where you can’t take pictures.

Divers help free manta ray

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I’D BE PRETTY NERVOUS if a giant manta ray came towards me while scuba diving. Then again, this fear is what leads many to hunt and kill large marine animals that are actually quite peaceful. I’m happy to say that this was a great instance of humans and animals working together, and I hope it encourages people to learn more about ocean conservation efforts.

Read more about how the manta ray was freed from the discarded fishing net here.

4 ways to combat your writer’s block

Photo: Drew Coffman

1. Look for prompts everywhere.

The hardest insecurity to overcome as a writer is the belief that you don’t have anything to write about. Sometimes it can be extremely intimidating to read the works of others before sitting down to write something of your own. We’re plagued with thoughts of our lives being uneventful, too routine, or impossible to relate to. This is when it’s important to remind ourselves it’s impossible to write in a vacuum. Inspiration for a new work often comes from the least expected source. We need to look outside of ourselves to get new ideas.

A few months ago, I felt particularly hung up and dry of ideas. I was listening to the radio in my car when a segment came on called “Music That Moves Me.” It was a short radio package done each day, in which a different community member described a song or album that was particularly special to them. On this day a woman described how Melanie’s “Candles in the Rain” defined her first teenage summer spent with her sisters.

“Listening to that album represents the first time I felt independence,” she said. Boom. That was a prompt. Behind the wheel in my car, I was able to begin tracing the lineage of my own independence. That’s how I began this article, which turned out to be something I’m actually pretty proud of.

Prompts are everywhere. They’re in interviews, movie scripts, conversations with friends, and apparently radio segments. (They’re also online on websites like this.)

As writers, it’s important for us to always ask questions in order to get the real feeling of things. But we can’t forget to step back and appreciate our own answers. As breathing human beings, we’re automatically interesting. Some of the best writing is about friendships, family relationships, falling in and out of love — experiences we all share, but the individual details of which depend on the writer.

2. Read.

A journalist who used to come sit at my bar gave me some really simple advice one night.

“If you want to write, you have to read,” he said.

Then he gave me a free subscription to The New Yorker. His simple statement reminded me I wasn’t making enough time for my craft. I was stuck behind a bar every day, barely reading more than a specials chalkboard. Of course I felt blocked. I wanted to write but I didn’t even have time to read.

Receiving The New Yorker was honestly intense. It’s filled with talented emerging writers, telling stories both true and fictitious, and it comes every single week with unnerving regularity. If you don’t make time for it, you’ll have stacks and stacks of issues serving as glaring reminders that you’re neglecting your craft.

For me, The New Yorker served as a weekly reminder to sit down and read. See what the hot shots are getting into. Maybe one day I can be one of them.

Reading a novel, a blog, a newspaper, or a magazine gives you time to take in what’s actually getting published and draw from the styles of other writers. Read some Kurt Vonnegut or John Irving, and practice writing like you speak. Find the comedy in everyday, simple experiences. See if you can’t copy the conversational yet gripping and emotional prose of Tracy Ross, or the absolute hilarity of awkward experience as described by Susan Jane Gilman.

3. Free-write.

A free-write is when you give yourself a topic. That topic could be as small as describing a jar of pickles or as broad as describing the first time you felt snow. Set your timer for five minutes or so and write whatever comes into your brain for every second that goes by. Typing doesn’t count.

I did my first free-write in a high school creative writing class. Mrs. Finland had us begin with the topic of 4th of July. By the end of the class, I had a first draft of a crazy long poem about patriotism and what it meant to me as a teenager. It was probably filled with angst and contained five too many misguided references to the 1960s, but at least I had something. And it started from a simple phrase I found in my free-write.

What’s important about this exercise is that you don’t allow yourself the time to go back and erase. Every thought is a useable thought. When you’re done, you’ll have much more than just a page filled with scribbles and fragments. You’ll have an actual thought log of descriptions, feelings, phrases that can help you get started on your next piece of writing.

4. Change your perception of writer’s “block.”

Maybe writer’s block is so difficult for us to overcome because we envision it as a wall, an obstacle we can’t overpower until we experience some kind of epiphany.

When you feel uninspired, ask yourself why. How can you look at your world differently in order to find something new? Maybe we’re all searching for the next new idea when we really need to be looking for a fresh perception. Every ridiculous women’s magazine will tell you that when you’re in a rut, change something about yourself.

No matter what obstacle comes her way, a writer needs to write. Sometimes it takes internalizing that obstacle and learning to reshape it into something you can actually use.

It’s crucial to remember that writing takes work, new ideas are often hidden behind obstacles.

That same journalist told me, “Writing is a craft before it becomes an art, and becoming a competent craftsman is a worthy goal. Good luck.”

The nomads of Gujarat [pics]

With about 4 million members in more than 300 different communities, the nomadic population of the state of Gujarat in India is quite substantial and diverse. In the past, each nomadic community used to provide a specific service to the society at large. Some groups specialized in performance — they were musicians, fire eaters, snake charmers, acrobats — whereas other tribes would carry out manual work (e.g., iron smiths, knife sharpeners, bamboo artisans). Technology and industrialization have contributed to the collapse of the demand for such services, leaving these people out of work, threatening the survival of their culture and traditions, and — what’s worse — eroding their livelihood.

The level of literacy among these communities is insignificant, and therefore it’s been hard for nomads to move on to other jobs and pursue alternative sources of income. With poverty come prejudice and discrimination, which make their lives even harder. As if that weren’t enough, there’s no record of their existence as individuals in the civil registry, which ultimately means they have no IDs, they can’t vote, and they’re also unable to apply for government benefits.

A number of NGOs, including the Ahmedabad-based VSSM (Vicharta Samuday Samarthan Manch), managed by former journalist Mittal Patel, are fighting for the uplift of the nomadic communities of Gujarat. Interventions that’ve been carried out include establishing informal schools in settlements; helping children access public schools; assisting adults in getting IDs, voter cards, and welfare access; providing professional skills training; and putting pressure on the state government to include the empowerment of nomadic tribes in the political agenda.

In April, 2013, I traveled to Gujarat, and thanks to VSSM and its regional coordinators I was able to access some settlements, meet and photograph members of the nomadic tribes, and witness some of the work volunteers are doing within these communities.




1

My first stop in Gujarat was the VSSM office in Ahmedabad, where I met Mittal (left), founder and managing trustee, and Vimla (right), chief administration officer. A few years ago, after visiting a settlement and witnessing the poor conditions in which these people lived, Mittal decided to make the empowerment of the nomad communities her mission. “I couldn’t imagine anyone living in such condition," said Mittal in a video I saw before meeting her. "A young girl’s baby was crying but the girl herself was starving so she couldn’t feed the baby. After that incident I decided to work for the community.”

2

At the time of my trip, Harshad, the man in the picture, was working as a regional coordinator for VSSM, and he and his wife were guardians at the Doliya girls’ hostel, where I took this picture. Located in the Surendranagar district, and established by VSSM and a number of funders, the Doliya girls' hostel is a residential facility that hosts young nomad girls attending a nearby school. After the success of this initiative, VSSM was able to establish a boys’ hostel too.

3

As I walked around in the various settlements I visited, the view of my camera created excitement among children. Many of them would come to me with a big smile asking for a photo. One, instead, was so shy he went to wrap himself into his mom's gown.

Intermission




3
16 images of life on the streets in LA
by Joshua Thaisen



4
11 portraits that reveal the real faces of the homeless
by Joshua Thaisen




15-year-old Kasha Slavner looking to make world of difference with Global Sunrise Project
by Kasha Slavner
















4

I took this picture after taking a larger frame that included a group of women sitting in front of me in a tent. The group photo wasn’t coming out as I wished, so I decided to zoom in to make an image of this baby girl sitting comfortably on her mother’s lap.

5

While I was taking these portraits of young nomad women I kept thinking of how the colours of their outfits and their beauty contrasted with the harsh environment they live in.

6

Daily life at a nomad camp.

7

A group portrait of members of a Salat community. Salat people’s main occupation is petty trade. They purchase cosmetics and accessories from merchants then resell them in cities and villages, either door-to-door or on the streets. This business model doesn’t allow them to make a decent profit, so VSSM is encouraging them to make their own accessories. Some Salat people have recently been trained in the craft of jewelry design and creation.

8

Knife sharpeners are called Saranyias, after the saran, their knife-sharpening tool (pictured). Once upon a time Saranyias were welcomed into villages because of the useful services they provided. But nowadays settled villagers can find this service everywhere, so there’s little living to be made from knife sharpening only. As part of their employment-generation strategy, VSSM provides professional training to some of these struggling communities and offers financial support in the form of loans to start up and carry forward alternative or complementary trades.


9

This elder from a snake charmers’ (Vadee) tribe showed me pictures of his glorious past when he used to perform in front of prominent Indian people. When the Wildlife Protection Act was implemented, snake charming became illegal, and he couldn’t perform anymore. In this photo I portrayed him playing his pungi (snake-charming musical instrument).

Intermission




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A year in photos: The extreme light changes of Antarctica
by Ben Adkison



3
20 portraits from the enduring Caribbean
by Daniel Chafer



37
15 ways Michigan’s Upper Peninsula may surprise you
by Andrea Cauthen
















10

Elders from a bamboo artisans' settlement. The person who was guiding us through the camp asked me to take a portrait of these elders, who've lived all their lives as nomads. I can only imagine the amount of change those eyes have seen during their time.


11

The type of dwellings I saw in the camps varied from simple tents to small houses made of mud and bricks, like the ones in the background of these portraits. In the modern world these tribes don’t need to live like nomads anymore. There’s no reason for them to keep moving like they used to, and many of them now want to settle and change their lifestyle, but settling and change come with a number of social, financial, and bureaucratic challenges. This year VSSM set out to help nomads build 468 houses where the government has already allotted plots. At the time of writing, 56 of the 468 houses had been completed.

12

A portrait of a tribal elder with his grandchild. People in this settlement had carts inside their tents. They don’t move as much as they used to, and the cart was being used as a storage space.

13

A volunteer spreads a mixture of cow dung and mud to floor a tent that will be used as a makeshift school for the settlement's children. VSSM refers to these schools as “bridge” schools.

14

Harshad and a local baldost (volunteer teacher) at a VSSM bridge school in a nomad settlement. As part of their long-term empowerment strategy, VSSM has established these informal schools in many camps. The immediate goal is to spark an interest in learning among nomad children so they're willing to continue their education. Some of the children will make it to public schools, which saves them from child labour and opens new possibilities for their future and the future of their communities. The main challenge, I was told by the NGO staff, is to educate these children’s parents first to help them see the value and benefits of formal education. Normally nomad children start working very early in life because they need to help their families generate an income. The situation is slowly changing, and now, thanks to the NGO's work, many nomad parents are aware that education can break the cycle of poverty and social stigma in the long run. The other challenge that applies to those nomad children who make it to school is to foster their integration and their acceptance.

15

A photo I took on my last night shooting this story. As I was preparing to wrap up this intense experience and leave Gujarat with lots of memories and images, some people gathered around the fire where a lady was preparing chapati, giving me the chance to make an image that expressed some of the sense of community I'd witnessed during my time with the tribes.

The pilgrimage of the solo traveler

Photo: Jacques Holst

“Shouganai,” Iriyama shakes his head. It can’t be helped.

Thunderheads tumble above the teahouse where we’re sitting. Around us the woods cower in pockets of shadows, a heavy calm that seems to invert silence. He wipes his bald head with a green towel around his neck. The straps on his black backpack are rubbed thin and frayed.

“I’m never satisfied staying in one place,” he says.

He’s the only other pilgrim I’ve come across on the 70km stretch of the Kohechi Trail, one of several sacred paths that comprise the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage on Japan’s rugged Kii Peninsula. Along with St. James’ Way in Spain, the Kumano Kodo is one of only two pilgrimages designated as World Heritage by UNESCO. Iriyama’s walked both.

As the summer typhoon rain starts to run off the teahouse roof, he talks at length about his travels. Living in Cairo before the Arab Spring, acting in a short film for the UN, being mistaken for Jackie Chan after attending the premiere of Rush Hour in a Zimbabwe theater.

He takes a deep quaff from his water bottle. Then, “Anata wa…. Naze?” And you? Why do you travel alone?

There’s a lot of ways to answer that, I think.

* * *

A day-and-a-half ago I’d collapsed in a small shelter at the summit of Miuratoge, one of three mountain passes on the Kohechi. Twenty five-plus kilometers a day over 1,000-meter elevations with a 50-pound pack had taken its toll, and it took several minutes of hard massage to ease the spasm in my left leg. Low-cloud nuzzled steep green clear-cuts to my right, and in the distance sheer mountain ranges stretched out in successive degrees of silhouette, finally blending into a storm on the horizon.

The sound of a waterfall below began to sink into my ears as it followed the sharp groove of the earth. A singular pulsing note that struck the air. In it there was a constancy I had been searching for when I’d first set out from the small Buddhist town of Koya, a rhythm in the motion of walking that seemed to mirror some universal metaphor. The way things struggle against themselves, but gracefully.

As feeling came back to my knee, I was reminded of a haiku I’d read by the poet Mukai Kyorai, a pupil of Matsuo Basho: “Tsudzukuri-mo / Hatenashi-zuka-ya / Satsuki-ame.”

However maintained / Endless slope and / Summer rain.

I pulled a water-damaged map from my pocket, carefully unfolding it and checking my progress. It was still 5km to Yagura Kannon-do, a small shrine where I’d set up camp for the night. A gust of wind burned over the ridge from the east, shaking the grove of sugi cedar trees and pelting the roof of the shelter with heavy drops. Deep smells of moss and fern invaded the air like a green frequency.

Wrap the knee with a scarf. Five more kilometers.

* * *

Many have written meditations on hiking, which seems to suggest that meditation comes as hindsight. For the Shinto and Buddhist monks who walked these trails hundreds of years ago, there was no division. Each tree or stream they passed, each pause they took at stone jizo statues (Bodhisattva incarnations) along the way, each animal they encountered, somehow contributed to the activity of contemplation.

It seems more appropriate to talk about the meditation of hiking. To push oneself to the physical extent, to reach a critical point which on a mental level allows for a receptiveness, an openness to the surroundings you’re hiking through.

That’s what every meditation is — a pushing into the “liminal” in order to (re)gain receptivity, whether it be to God or gods, nature, or your own inner turmoil that isn’t permitted a voice in day-to-day domestic life.

* * *

That night the hum of cicadas echoing in the small alcove of my tent was eventually swallowed by thunder. The flicking of rain as it struck the fly, as if trying to drive home some belief in gravity. Lightning far off broke intermittent shadows of the forest across my eyelids. A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I stiffened in the dark.

How easy it would be to die alone, to disappear into the forest.

Thoughts like these are not uncommon to me. I’ve suffered depression for a long time, and although I think a healthy contemplation of death from time to time is what prevents me from seriously considering anything, I know there are those who would disagree.

I turned on my side, rearranging my rain jacket as a pillow. The only human on the whole mountain.

I’d always traveled alone. Part of it had to do with my difficulty with people. Relationships never seemed to fit me quite right, like a glove that couldn’t find all the right fingers. Being alone always came easier and often left me ungrounded, which is why I could drift from place to place so easily. But it was also what isolated me, terribly.

Solitude was the ultimate liminal expression — humbling myself to the elements, accepting risk and hunger and exhaustion alone.

I’d once remarked to an old friend: “Maybe on some subconscious level I have a misguided belief that if I can survive myself, I can survive anything?”

* * *

Back in the teahouse the rain begins to lighten. Fog lifts between trunks of trees like a protracted sigh. Iriyama bends and tightens the laces on his boots, getting ready to head out again. The end of our pilgrimage at Hongu Taisha is less than 2km, all downhill over ancient cobblestone. I haven’t answered his question, but he seems fine with that.

“My ancestors were Shugendo. How do you say, professional priests?” he says. “They believed by walking they cleansed themselves. Therefore, they prayed. To get to a better world.”

I wonder if that’s what Iriyama is doing now, carrying on some age-old legacy in his own way as he ambles up mountainsides. For me it has functioned as reaffirmation. That I am alive, and that movement is life, regardless of what you’re moving toward or looking for.

“What did you pray for, along the trail?” I ask before he leaves.

He grins and laughs. “A beer and some yakisoba!”

His footsteps fade into the fog and I lean back against the wall of the teahouse. At my feet, a small black ant pulls the corpse of a caterpillar across the wooden floor. The world’s cycles seem to inhabit every microcosm around me. My own cycles of solitude and depression, as well. The uphill struggle, one foot after the other. The downhill ecstasy.

However maintained / Endless slope and / Summer rain.

Shannon Galpin publishes 1st book

Image via Shannon Galpin/St. Martin’s Press

We are proud to announce the official launch of Matador Ambassador Shannon Galpin’s first book, Mountain to Mountain: A Journey of Adventure and Activism for the Women of Afghanistan. Shannon continues to be an inspiration to everyone here at Matador, and her work in one of the most volatile areas of the world is nowhere near complete. We look forward to reading about her deeply personal connection to the women of Afghanistan, and to what future publications will come with it. Shannon writes:

“I am not a writer…I am an activist first, humanitarian second. National Geographic has called me an adventurer due to my work as both activist and humanitarian in conflict zones, and the fact that I was the first person to mountain bike in Afghanistan. I call myself curious. I’m curious about the world, about the people in it. About why things are the way they are, and what can we do to fix it. In the course of doing my work, many people wrote about me. Then I realized, this is my story, and I should be the one to tell it. And I became a writer, despite myself.

This book is the story about how I became an activist, the founder of a non profit, adventurer, mountain biker. How I decided to dedicate my life to working with women and girls, starting in Afghanistan, because its repeatedly ranked the worst country in the world to be a woman. How I became the first person to mountain bike in a country that doesn’t allow women to ride bikes. How an experience with violence shaped me, and led me down a path I never saw, but that now when I look back at the past two decades, I see the path as though someone had sprinkled it with breadcrumbs for me to follow. How becoming a mother, and visiting a women’s prison created the cracks that opened me up to the strength of vulnerability, and the power of voice.

That’s the beauty of letting life unfold and take you places; you don’t always know where you are going, but you realize it was an integral part of the journey. Step by step, I grew into myself, and this story tells the tale of how and why it began. I am no longer the woman in that book. But the book allowed me to find my voice, to own my story, and to embrace all that has made me who I know am.”

Mountain to Mountain is available for purchase online. You can read more about her current book tour here.

16 signs you're from Venezuela

Photo: Drea tuka

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1. You don’t have friends. You have panas.

You also use the term mi costilla (“my rib”) because your friends are a part of you and you love them from the bottom of your heart. This is the kind of friend who comes to your rescue after you’ve had a traffic accident, checks up on you when you’re sick, and paid for lunch that month you were completely broke.

It’s also the kind of friend who walks into your house as if it were her own, chats with your parents while opening the fridge, and then lies in your bed with her shoes on. I.e., your dearest pana del alma.

2. You’ve never used street names or numbers.

Getting an exact address is quite a feat in Venezuela. The random paisano you encounter on the street will give you directions in the following fashion: “You go down that way, and then you keep going straight, derechito, until you reach the gas station; then you turn right and keep on going for about 15 minutes. After that, you make a left at the roundabout right after the Puppy Tree.”

3. Your everyday speech is full of idioms, sarcasm, and exaggerations.

It’d be easier to just ask “Can you please move so I can see the TV,” but you prefer to yell “Carne de burro no es transparente!” (Donkey’s meat isn’t transparent, you know?) If you think someone is being a smart ass, you say “Careful, you’re gonna get hit by an ice-cream truck,” or “You’re gonna get bitten by a Teddy bear.”

When you’re explaining how you fell walking down the stairs, you’ll exaggerate by saying “Me heché tremenda matada.” And you don’t just cry…what happens is called “se te aguó el guarapo.”

4. You start sweating when you hear a motorbike.

At least if you’re driving in the city. You know not all of them are bad guys, but the minute you see a motorbike in your rearview mirror, you throw your cellphone, wallet, and watch under your seat to avoid getting robbed.

5. You’ve gotten shitfaced at the beach on multiple occasions.

First, you probably had a fight with the guy next to you because of how loud the music was, but everything got peachy when you started drinking rum. The last thing you remember is your friends taking pictures of your body covered in sand.

More like this: How to piss off a Brazilian


6. Gas isn’t an item in your monthly budget.

Gas is so cheap that when you have to fill up the tank, you just collect the coins lying around your backseat. With that, you not only pay, you also tip the guy at the gas station so he can buy himself a coffee. According to Global Petrol Prices, a liter of petrol in Venezuela costs $0.01, so basically nobody takes that into consideration when planning expenses.

7. You know reusing foil can be a lot of fun.

You used to take a lunch box to school with two things: an arepa wrapped in foil and your favorite malta. When everybody was done with lunch, you’d all shape the foil into a soccer ball and play.

8. You use the words chévere and arrecho to define all things God created.

If you’re having a great time at a party, or if you find a person to be attractive, you describe them as chévere. If something bothers you, you feel arrecho — but also, the newest 4×4 with all the accessories está arrechísima.

9. Marico-huevón is an essential term in the male vocabulary.

If you’re a guy from Venezuela, you use marico-huevón at least five times when chatting with your panas. It’s not offensive. No, not at all, it’s super normal.

10. The party always starts three hours later.

Venezuelans are unpunctual from the time they’re born. Everybody knows that if the invitation says 8pm, you’ll arrive at 10 but the party will only really get going after midnight.

More like this: 10 signs you were born and raised in Argentina


11. After the first shared drink, everyone is like your brother.

A pana is the one who saved your ass (te salvo la patria, really) that time you had no more ice for rum. After that, that person became your bro. A true Venezuelan starts a brotherhood with whoever he or she shares drinks, dinner, meaningful conversation, or a trip to the beach with.

12. Your life philosophy is “Como vaya viniendo, vamos viendo.”

Venezuelans don’t plan too much — they like it when things just flow. You can’t be surprised if your trip to the Andes ended up on a beach in Sucre.

13. Everyday driving is an off-road rally.

You’ve had the best training on the streets and highways of Venezuela, full of potholes and unexpected cliffs. You’ve developed a survival instinct that makes you perfectly capable of driving under high-risk conditions.

14. You’re certain that the arepa is the best breakfast in the world.

A Venezuelan has an arepa once a week — to give a conservative estimate. There’s nothing like a homemade arepita with meat and yellow cheese. Or the New Year’s Day breakfast with a huge pork arepa and gravy spilling all over it. For some, the “Reina Pepiada” is a classic after a night of rumba. There’s a favorite for each of us.

15. You can stand the chalequeo.

Chalequeo might sound like other Spanish words, such as chaleco or chaqueta, but it has nothing to do with either. It means teasing / annoying someone. And you…you can stand it.

16. You know “getting off the mule” is related to your finances.

Another classic of storytelling: Me tuve que bajar de la mula con 10 palos. A long time ago, having a mule was a sign of status. If you owed money to someone, that person would say something like “If you can’t pay, at least get off the mule.”

7 sweet smartphone photography hacks

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Technology has brought us to the point where you don’t really need a great camera to take a great picture: if you’re talented or lucky, you can take a pretty sweet picture from a smartphone. In this video, photographer Lorenz Holder shows off seven tips for taking really sick pictures using his iPhone 5S. In no time at all, you’ll be taking arm-free selfies, underwater snapshots, and impossible panoramas.

5 beautiful, endangered alphabets

Since the birth of the alphabet in the Near East around 2000 BC, endless writing systems from different languages and cultures have thrived and perished. The classic example is Egyptian, a highly developed civilization whose legacy remains the form of a famous hieroglyphic writing system…which we’ve never been able to fully decipher.

Over the last 2,500 years, the Latin alphabet has become so popular it’s swept away writing systems of peoples once dominated by the Romans. However, more than two billion people still write in other formats, and a few of them display an impressive handmade beauty.

Below are five of the most aesthetically attractive alphabets in the world, and the reasons why you’re probably never going to read them.

1. Burmese (Myanmar)

Photo: Yoann Gruson-Daniel

The Burmese alphabet (from old Burma, now called Myanmar) is composed of circular shapes that must always be drawn clockwise. The mesmerizing script has a raison d’être more practical than aesthetic: The palm leaves in which the letters were traditionally carved were easily torn by straight cuts.

Even if it’s less threatened than other alphabets on this list, the Burmese script is more and more often being relegated to liturgies while, in daily usage, it’s being replaced by Hindi and even Latin writing systems. Myanmar, which until recently restricted foreign tourism, has just opened its borders to visitors, and left the exclusive group of nations where you couldn’t spot a Coca-Cola billboard (leaving only North Korea and, arguably, Cuba).

2. Sinhalese (Sri Lanka)

Photo: sharyn morrow

Considered one of the most expansive alphabets in the world, Sinhalese has more than 50 phonemes, though only 38 are frequently used in contemporary writing. Still taught in Buddhist monasteries and schools, the language is the mother tongue for more than half of Sri Lanka’s 21 million inhabitants.

Its low geographical relevance (confined to the island of Sri Lanka) is its greatest threat. Restricted to a piece of land surrounded by water, Sinhalese writing has will likely endure for a good while yet, even if its usage decreases over time.

3. Georgian (Georgia)

Photo: G Travels

Squeezed between Turkey and Russia, Georgia has its own language and alphabet, both of which are threatened by Russian domination. In the last century, Russian imperialist policy resulted in the annexation of more than half of Georgia’s original area. Furthermore, continuing pressure for the small country to cede additional portions of its territory suggests that fewer and fewer Caucasians will be speaking and writing Georgian as time goes on, as Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet supplant the native systems. The Russian desire to control oil pipelines that run under Georgia also represents a menace to the sovereignty of the local culture.

It’s a pity: The Georgian alphabet shows an elegance that brings to mind Arabic, combined with a child-like simplicity expressed in rounded curves.

4. Tagalog (Philippines)

Photo: Gubernatoria

Originating from Indo-European scripts, Tagalog was the dominant writing system in Philippines until the arrival of the Spanish. Colonization first only modified certain aspects of the alphabet. Whereas it once was written from the bottom up, it began to flow from left to right and the characters were rotated 90 degrees. Later, Spanish was designated the official language of the Philippines in what probably will prove a deathblow for the old alphabet, if it hasn’t already.

Despite naming Filipino (a mixture of indigenous languages and Spanish) as the national language in 1973, its written component shifted to the Latin alphabet. Tagalog writing still survives, at least according to authorities. In practice, though, its fate will likely be similar to that of more than 120 local dialects that have gradually vanished from the country.

5. Hanacaraka (Indonesia)

Photo: Dragono 李 Halim

Originally developed on the Indonesian island of Java to communicate the Javanese language, Hanacaraka writing then began spreading to neighboring islands and incorporating regional variations. With the popularization of printing presses, authorities repeatedly tried to standardize the alphabet in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, these efforts were interrupted by the Japanese occupation during the Second World War, when the usage of Hanacaraka was forbidden.

Since then, the alphabet has been supplanted by the Latin system, even though the local government has preserved the script in traffic signs and proclaimed public schools must teach it. To meet Hanacaraka personally, the most prudent recommendation is that you fly as soon as possible to Jakarta — before it’s too late.