May 11, 2012
Off the Road in the South of France
The Dordogne River flows through some of the finest country of southern France. Truffles, cep mushrooms and wild pigs occur in the woods, while huge catfish and pike lurk in the slow eddies of the river. Photo courtesy of Flickr user davidmartinpro.
Ernest Hemingway popularized the cosmopolitan lifestyle of idleness, coffee shops and people-watching on the noisy boulevards of Paris. The author wrote some decent books in the process, but I still think Hemingway missed out every day that he wasn’t walking or cycling through the forested hills of the Périgord, the large agrarian region just east of Bordeaux and north of Spain and famed for its wild truffles, cottage fois gras industry and pre-modern cave art. There is a cafe here in the village of Saint Julien de Lampon, where we have a house for a week, and we can sit there if we like, watching the church tower and the villagers coming and going from the butcher shop, but I’ve got better ideas for the next six weeks that I’ll be traveling here, like these:
Search the shallows for pike. They’re as big as logs, mean as crocs and hungry as bears: northern pike. These spectacular predators eat ducks and rodents and will attack other fish their own size or greater, and they live in the Dordogne River. In his college days, my dad spent some time canoeing in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, where he and the boys went skinny dipping in pike-populated waters and jokingly called it trolling. Here, I’m keeping my shorts on when I go swimming. Probably the best way to see a pike is to peer off bridges into the slow current or stalk along the bank while watching the sloughs and backwaters for what seem to be submerged logs drifting upstream. I’ve already seen several near the village. Climbing out on horizontally leaning tree trucks and looking straight down on a slow pool for 30 minutes is a good method—and when you see one of these monsters drift past in the Dordogne, you can be sure that you’ve met the king. Or maybe you haven’t—because we just read in the papers that a local angler caught a 100-pound wels catfish recently, and the wels isn’t just a duck-eater; supposedly, it has swallowed children.
Ride a bicycle. They’ll hit you with extra luggage fees at the airport for daring to bring a bike overseas (and if you’re especially lucky, like me, they’ll leave it in London overnight), but once you’re rolling on the solid ground of France, a bicycle will set you free. A vast network of small, smaller and smallest roadways crisscrosses the nation. Many are paved paths hardly wide enough for a Fiat that lead through the woods and past forgotten farm houses and crumbling chateaus, along rivers and up mountainsides. Forget your map and just keep rolling–and if the road turns to dirt, don’t stop. It may even disintegrate into a rutted wagon trail or footpath, but almost without fail, just when you thought maybe you were in fact lost, the trail will dump you out again onto the highway. In this scheme of exploration, there is rarely backtracking or getting truly lost. Instead, one becomes familiar with a rare but thrilling déjà vu sensation—after a hungry day of pedaling in circles on unmapped roads—of winding up by accident right back again where you started.
Walk into a Cave. People have been doing it for millennia here, and in many nearby grottoes the paintings of pre-modern people remain on the walls. My nephew, who is seven, can paint better than they did, but to see bison, mammoths and bears scrawled by human hands 150 centuries ago is an awesome reminder of the reality of a history most of us only know from textbooks. The Lascaux, Pech Merle and Cougnac caves are three of the most famous. Lascaux, closed to the public, is only viewable via a reproduction of the original art, while at Pech Merle, you can see the real thing—plus animal bones and human footprints.
Tour the farmers markets. French chefs have taken crocks of credit over the years for wowing diners with their classic sauces, bricks of pate, rustic soups, wild game and pastries—but let’s face it: It’s the open air farmers markets where French food really comes from. Even the tiniest villages here host weekly assemblies of gritty-fingered peasants selling their cherries, beets, potatoes, walnuts, berries and greens. In Saint Julien there is a regular paella vendor, and makers of cheese, sausage, fois gras and wine do business here, too. Yeah, you could eat yourself ill at any local restaurant, where roughage from the garden and stewed potatoes soak in butter and duck fat. I say forget dining out, because no meal here is more gratifying than one cooked at home from a canvas sack of market goodies and eaten on the lawn until the sun sets at 10. The Saint Julien market arrives each Thursday. Souillac’s market is Friday. Sarlat, the nearest big town, has its market on Saturdays and Wednesdays. In, Gourdon, a medieval town on a hilltop, market days are Saturday and Tuesday.
American tourists negotiate for fois gras---or fatty duck liver---at the Saint Julien farmers market. Photo by Alastair Bland.
Buy bulk wine in a plastic jug. Fine restaurants in America are now serving wine on tap for $4 a taste, but in reasonable France, they’ve been selling table wine in bulk for ages. In the rear shadows of many wine shops (behind all the labeled commercial bottles), you’ll find a spigot coming off a barrel of some local plonk, offering perfectly decent if cheap wine by the pint, liter or gallon. Fill your jug, screw on the cap and go find a bench along the bike path or a grassy knoll above the river.
Hunt the cep. Europe’s favorite wild mushroom floats in three sing-song syllables off the tongues of Italians, but in France, the porcini is just the cep. No matter. This renowned mushroom is the same across all Old World borders—fat pig-like stumps with white stems and tawny brown caps that bulge from the leaf litter beneath chestnut trees. That blue and beaten-up Renault parked at the edge of the forest? That’s probably a cep hunter’s. Follow quietly, track him down and discover his secret patches. Better not collect your own unless you really know your shrooms, but there’s no harm in taking a walk in the woods—though you’re wasting your time if you look up. Other fungi hunting opportunities: Its season is the winter, and if you come here in December, remember that the Périgord black truffle grows among hazelnuts and oaks. You’ll need a good dog to sniff them out, although some walkers watch for vertical columns of tiny flies just above the ground—often a clue that a cluster of the world’s most pungent mushroom is hiding below. Warning: Truffle patches are often on private property, and truffle hunter landlords may shoot trespassers.
Go to Spain. The cheese is just as smelly. The rustic country cuisine is by and large the same. The people, like their French neighbors, live by espresso and wine. But the crowds are less and cost of living about half. The mountainous border along the Pyrenees is just 200 miles south of here, and three days ago as my plane landed in Toulouse, I caught sight of these peaks, still buried in snow in this exceptionally late-blooming spring. Even Hemingway ditched his beloved France for Spain. Soon, so will I.
However much one loves France, it may be impossible to resist visiting the Pyrenees---and Spain beyond. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Laurent Jegou.
May 3, 2012
Grueling Travel through Beautiful Places: the Madness of Extreme Races
These cyclists are enjoying another day on the trail in the Crocodile Trophy, in northeastern Australia, considered one of the most punishing bicycle races in the world. Photo by Regina Stanger/Crocodile Trophy.
As the famed grand tours of summer begin rolling through Europe on carbon frames and ultra-light wheels, a number of lesser known but perhaps much more rigorous races are also gearing to go. They include cycling and foot races that take athletes through some of the world’s most spectacular and rugged country, as well as to the boundaries of what humans can endure, physically and psychologically. The more demanding of them allow no rest or sleep—unlike the more publicized stage races—and amount to nonstop endurance tests lasting as long as a week or more. Some of them also allow almost anyone to enter, in case you’re interested in trying your muscles in what might be the most unenjoyable tour you’ll ever take of the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains, the American desert or the Australian outback. Here are a few options for your next vacation:
Race Across America. Called RAAM and widely considered the hardest road cycling race in the world, the event starts in mid-June in Oceanside, California and leads several hundred dogged competitors more than 3,000 miles across the entire country to Annapolis, Maryland—without stopping. Last year, Christoph Strasser, now 29, pedaled the distance in eight days, eight hours and six minutes. RAAM soloists (racers in the team divisions take turns riding) may take cat naps totaling an hour of shuteye per day, but the general idea is, you snooze, you lose. The race is so demanding that many cyclists don’t finish at all. Some have died trying. Others begin losing their wits. Some solo riders may even lose their teeth as they eat sugary foods nonstop to replace the 10,000 calories that they burn a day, and for those that don’t brush at each pit stop, teeth may decay rapidly. To get a good taste of what this race offers before you consider attempting it, read Hell on Two Wheels, in which author Amy Snyder elaborates on the many forms of misery that one can expect while pedaling without rest across the continent.
Badwater Ultramarathon. For many foot racers, running one marathon isn’t enough. Nor are two, or three, or even four, and the Badwater Ultramarathon amounts to five—135 miles of trotting through some of the hottest, grittiest country in the world. It begins as low as one can go in the western hemisphere while still keeping your feet dry—at 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley. From there, it only goes up, with runners eventually finishing—or trying to, anyway—at Whitney Portal, 8,360 feet above sea level. As though such mileage and elevation gain weren’t strenuous enough, the race takes place in July, when temperatures may easily exceed 110 degrees. No one has ever died in the Badwater Ultramarathon, but between two and four out of every 10 runners fail to finish each year. The record time of completion is 22 hours, 51 minutes.
Western States Endurance Run. What began in 1955 in the Sierra Nevada as a 100-mile horseback competition shifted to a super-marathon foot race in the mid 1970s as men and women began to wonder if they, too, could trot for some 20 hours and 100 miles nonstop. Today, the “Western States 100” takes place every Saturday of the last full weekend in June as hundreds of the hardest-core runners in the world start on the notorious 2,500-foot climb over the first four miles and proceed on old mining trails that ascend a total of just over 18,000 vertical feet. The route goes from Squaw Valley to Auburn, over country so rough that only horses, hikers and helicopters can come to help, in case runners should fall ill or injured. The race begins at 5 a.m. sharp, and runners must cross the finish line by 11 a.m. The next day.
For many of us, a 30-minute jog will do. But this runner, just finished with the Western States 100, has been trail trotting for over 27 hours. Photo courtesy of Flickr user runnr_az.
Paris-Brest-Paris. Considered the great granddad of ultracycling endurance events, the hallowed Paris-Brest-Paris was first held in 1891, an 800-mile sprint from Paris, out to the coast at Brest and back again. Like the Race Across America, the PBP is a catnapping affair, with cyclists going nonstop and striving to complete the ride in less than the 90-hour time limit. But unlike RAAM, PBP is a ride, not a race—though it once was. The contest took place once a decade, until 1951. Now, the PBP occurs once every four or five years as a recreational ride, or randonnée. The most recent PBP took place in 2011. While the stakes in the PBP are far less than in pro racing events, cyclists must still abide by some rules. Notably, there is generally no vehicle support allowed, and riders are expected to make their own repairs, fix their own flats and, if they need an emergency recharge, stop for croissants and espresso on their own dime, and clock.
Crocodile Trophy. At more than 500 miles and self-touted as “the hardest, longest and most adventurous mountain bike race in the world,” this one just sounds awful. But the Crocodile Trophy, set in the low-latitude tropics in northeast Australia, is a stage race, offering food, rest and plenty of sleep every single day. RAAM cyclists may seem to have it rougher, but if Croc Trophy contenders had to do it all at once, the effort just might kill them. The late-October race is off-road, meaning gravel, rocks, ruts, puddles (potentially containing crocodiles lying in ambush), dust and lots of crashing. If this sounds like a pleasant way to see Australia, then sign up; the race welcomes men and women over 18 years of age and registration for the 2012 event is open until August 20.
And for a race that’s already underway, World Cycle Racing Grand Tour. Jason Woodhouse is burning about 11,000 calories a day—but unlike most pro racers, Woodhouse does not have a van shadowing him with food, gear and mechanical support. The 24-year-old from England is currently racing around the world in an unsupported journey that will cross every line of longitude on Earth, include 18,000 miles of pedaling and finish right where it began, in London. The fastest recorded time for the same ride is currently 164 days, and Woodhouse—who is carrying camping gear and racing against nine others—is planning to demolish that record with a completion time of 130 days. As he goes, Woodhouse is raising funds for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He also aims to demonstrate that the bicycle can be adequately used in virtually any trip shorter than five miles. On an itinerary that includes about 130 miles of cycling most days—plus a few airplane trips—his point is well made.
Want to train for an extreme race? Consider the Extreme World Races Adventure Academy, which offers five-day courses in long-distance adventuring in cold, icy, miserable landscapes. The academy is in Norway, and the session includes a three-day mini expedition on the ice and tundra. Bundle up, and enjoy the scenery if you can.
March 20, 2012
The World’s Best Uphill Bike Rides
The author and his bike stand about 850 feet above San Francisco on Conzelman Road. Repeated 10 times, this little hill amounts to a world classic of climbing.
On St. Patrick’s Day, my brother and I rode our bicycles to the top of Conzelman Road in Marin County, and from the overlook above San Francisco, with a view of the Golden Gate Bride, we drank a strong ale from our local Lagunitas Brewing Company. A man, just out of his car and camera in hand, said, “You guys earned your beer, eh? Makes me feel lazy.” We nodded but didn’t have the heart to tell him that we’d actually pedaled to the top, gone back to the bottom, and repeated the mountain ride nine more times. The four-hour stunt was our birthday gift to ourselves (we’re twins)—a 35-mile ride in which we gained more than 7,000 vertical feet. Not bad, but at the end, we were dizzy with the numbing repetition of the feat, and we knew one thing for certain:
“We need a bigger hill, Andrew,” I said to my brother.
Because for hill climbers like us, long, steady, unyielding climbs are the holy grail of athletic conquests. Climbing such roads on a bicycle delivers endorphins to the brain, strengthens muscles and calms the mind. It works like yoga, asking concentration while allowing meditation. Big climbs mean health, nourishment and prolonged youth. We thrive on them, and hill climbers like us can’t help but measure the worth of a landscape by its rise over run. And so we scorn Holland and its tidy flat bike paths, and we dream of mountains and those rare roads that go upward for thousands upon thousands of feet without pause. But where are these monsters—and how high do they climb? The following list includes just a few of the best uphill bike rides in the world. You needn’t be a hill climber to love them, because they’re equally thrilling to ride down. Just check your brakes and wear your helmet.
Haleakala, Hawaii. Rise Over Run: 10,023 feet of climbing in 35.5 miles. The road up the Haleakala volcano delivers one of the longest highway ascents, with the most vertical gain in one push, in the world. It is also one of the most downright difficult rides, as there is virtually no flat or downhill ground once the climbing starts. Moreover, the air grows thin with the altitude, heightening the difficulty as cyclists struggle to catch their breath. Not surprisingly, some tourists come to this mountain for only the thrill of going down it. Maui Easy Riders, for one, offers what is billed as one of the longest guided downhill bike rides in the world.
Khardung La, India. Rise Over Run. 5,566 feet in 24 miles. Elevation measurements seem to vary in the Himalaya depending on the source, the country, the website and the altimeter, but still, cyclists agree: Khardung La out-passes nearly every other highway pass in the world. It offers only half the vertical gain of Haleakala, but it leads cyclists to unsurpassed heights of more than 18,000 feet above the sea. Supposedly, no “motorable” road goes higher than the one to Khardung La. Before going down, bundle up against the chill.
Mont Ventoux, France. Rise Over Run: 5,303 feet in 13.6 miles. Three roads lead up this famed climb on the western edge of the Alps. Each is tough, but the steepest is considered one of the most challenging bike rides anywhere. The climb has gained notoriety as a recurring feature in the Tour de France, often as a dramatic mountaintop stage finish, with all cyclists sprinting for the summit on the steep home stretch. But during the 1967 Tour, Mont Ventoux reminded cyclists that hill climbing is not all fun and games. Legendary British cyclist Tom Simpson died on the way up due to heat exhaustion, dehydration and, possibly, a combination of drug and alcohol use. Romantics may prefer to believe it was simply the mountain that took his life.
A cyclist fights gravity and grade on the final miles to the top of Mont Ventoux, one of the most legendary cycling climbs in the French Alps. Photo courtesy of Flickr user The Pingus.
Sualmaz Pass, Turkey. Rise Over Run: 5,540 feet in approximately 25 miles. This climb from the Mediterranean Sea into the Toros Mountains does not make the lists of the world’s great rides, nor is its statistical info posted on any online cycling forums, nor do teams of Lycra-clad road bikers blitz up and down it on warm weekends. I know of the Sualmaz Pass only because I know the pass personally, and it’s got all the charisma of a world classic. It begins in the town of Anamur, roughly at sea level, among groves of banana trees and subtropical sun. Then, inland several miles, the ascent begins. The lush valley floor drops as the mountains soar overhead. Bring food and water (I ran out of both when I climbed it in 2010) and start early (I got a late start and arrived in the town of Ormancik after dark. I slept in a vacant lot and finished the climb in the morning). The magic of this road is the near absence of traffic, the dramatic climatic change one observes between bottom and top and the novelty of being the only cyclist for miles. People will stare at you and cheer and honk their horns in encouragement. Soak up the glory.
Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Rise Over Run: 13,597 feet in 43.1 miles. This biggest of big climbs should top the list, but it comes with a disclaimer: The final three miles are unpaved dirt, ash and gravel and are reportedly almost impossible to ride on a road bike. On the asphalt, which terminates at 9,200 feet above the sea, the highway slants to as steep as a 17-percent grade in places. If you reach the top, savor the strangeness of being in a frigid, treeless Mars-like moonscape—in Hawaii.
Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Rise Over Run: 4,586 feet in 7.6 miles. If bang is elevation and buck is overall mileage, then this route may offer more of the former for the latter than any other paved road. Unfortunately, this legendary climb, considered by many to be the world’s most difficult feat in uphill cycling, is not open to just anyone. The road, which averages 12 percent in grade, is private and is closed to bicycles except during two organized races each year, in July and August. Currently, the July event is open for sign-ups. Note: Registration requires a fee. Cyclists must also arrange for a ride down afterward, as the road is considered so perilously steep that cycling downhill from the summit is prohibited.
Organized bike rides and races that will bust your butt:
The Everest Challenge, Nevada and California. 29,035 feet of climbing in 208 miles, 2 days.
The Death Ride, California. 15,000 feet in 129 miles, 1 day.
The Leadville 100, Colorado. 16,165 feet in 99.3 miles, 1 day.
The Cape Epic, South Africa. 53,460 feet in 488 miles, 9 days.
The Steepest Streets:
Steep city streets are a much different sort of challenge than long highway climbs. They are short, usually a standard city block, but they can be really, really steep, allowing those who go up them some no-joke bragging rights. Consider these nasty, slanty city slopes:
1. Broderick Street, San Francisco. 37 percent.
2. Canton Avenue, Pittsburgh. 37 percent.
3. Baldwin Street, Dunedin, New Zealand. 35 percent.
4. Eldred Street, Los Angeles. 33 percent.
March 6, 2012
Great Walks of the World
Meadows, lakes, snow and granite are the enduring elements of California's John Muir Trail, which leads through 211 miles of some of the world's most beautiful alpine wilderness. Photo courtesy of Flickr user peretzp
After cycling for weeks, now I’m thinking about walking. Foot travel has been the way of the wayfarer since men and women were still dragging their knuckles. The fact that people still opt to walk today, in the age of the wheel and the combustion engine, tells us there is something virtuous and irresistible in the plodding of one foot forward after the other. And without question, walking works. Using their legs and feet, many people have moved thousands of miles overland, and in many places the trails they wore in the earth are used by modern recreational trekkers who follow in the footsteps of their forebears. Following are five of the world’s great walks—with more to come next week.
Appalachian Trail. Leading 2,181 miles through 14 states and the historic forests and backwoods shanties of Appalachia, the Appalachian Trail was conceived in 1921, and by 1937 it was ready for walking. Today, 4 million people walk parts of the trail every year. Those attempting a through-hike number in the thousands, and only one in four finish. From Maine’s Mount Katahdin to Georgia’s Springer Mountain, the whole package takes as long as six months as hikers accumulate a total elevation gain equal to climbing Mount Everest 16 times.
John Muir Trail. This path through the high Sierra Nevada of California immortalizes the landscape that naturalist John Muir worshiped. And at just 211 miles long through beautiful alpine country, it’s both epic and doable. From the south, the JMT begins at the lower 48 states’ highest peak, Mount Whitney; crosses mountain passes more than 13,000 feet in elevation; traverses some of the world’s most beautiful high altitude wilderness; never touches a road and finally lands hikers in one of the world’s most esteemed natural places, Yosemite Valley. The trail generally requires three weeks from start to finish. If you happen to have a little extra time on either side, you could walk from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail, of which the JMT is just a small part.
Coast to Coast Walk. A walk that doesn’t demand superb physical condition or half a year to complete, this 220-mile path crosses Northern England and leads through the evergreen verdure of the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors National Parks, from the Irish Sea to the east coast of England. Writer and walking enthusiast Alfred Wainswright devised the trail and suggested that hikers touch their toes in the Irish Sea at St. Bees before starting and step right into Robin Hood’s Bay after 10 or 20 days of trudging. Or else it doesn’t count.
Great Wall of China. No, you can’t really see it from space. That was a myth more or less debunked in the past decade or so by astronauts. However, while the Great Wall of China no longer plays a role in international affairs, it makes one heck of a walking platform. Unlike the heavily trammeled Camino (see below) or Appalachian Trails, the Great Wall demands ingenuity, craftiness and durability in anyone who attempts to plod the length of it, which is broken, crumbled or gone in many sections. Australian Mark Scholinz walked the wall in 2007. He encountered frozen steppe country, wolf tracks, endless hospitality and a whole lot of rice and tea.
Camino de Santiago. Once a path of the pious, this European network of trails converges toward its terminus as it leads many thousands of walkers each year to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Though founded by deeply religious pilgrims more than a thousand years ago, “the Camino” today is simply a recreational venture for most making the pilgrimage. It is also hardly an adventure anymore, as every step of the way has been walked a million times before, with many miles of pathway paralleling freeways and cutting through suburbs and farmland. One highlight of the trail is certainly the Cruz de Ferra, a 25-foot-tall cross which pilgrims have built by depositing knickknacks and trinkets and stones. Today, the rockpile is is almost 20 feet high, a sacred midden built over centuries. It’s truly a wonder just to touch it.
The Cruz de Ferra, surrounded by an ancient mound of stones left by pilgrims, is one of the marvels to be found along the Camino de Santiago. Photo by Alastair Bland
Reading About Walking:
Don’t feel like walking the walk? The armchair is one of the comfiest vehicles of travel we have. You’ll need a good book, and here are several classics of adventure travel.
The Snow Leopard. In this sober account, we find author Peter Matthiessen to be a man of Buddhism, western science, literature and a love of big cats. In 1972, when biologist George Schaller invited him on a 200-mile trek into the Himalaya to track the rare blue sheep, Matthiessen, now in his mid-80s, accepted, unable to resist the opportunity to see a snow leopard. It was the fall, and their trip led into one of the most mysterious, dangerous yet peaceful regions of the world under blue skies and a warm sun. By November, frostbite and blizzards were ever-present dangers. The two Americans, accompanied by Sherpas and porters, do eventually see the blue sheep, while all along the high and rocky trails lurk the haunting signs of the snow leopard.
Danziger’s Travels. English author Nick Danziger points out early in this book that he was not interested in walking a record distance or cycling across a continent when he took up the old trade route of the Asia-to-Europe silk traders. Rather, he utilized whatever local means of travel were available in China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey—and often he was walking. Danziger’s travels lasted 18 months, for part of which time he went disguised as a Muslim. The book is an adventure account almost as simple as the travel genre gets, but few are better.
The Places in Between. Journalist Rory Stewart walked for 16 months through Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal in 2000 and 2001. Then, in the virulent months following the September 11 attacks, he found himself facing Afghanistan. The month he spent walking across it would produce, eventually, one of the best modern travel books I’ve found. Stewart survived on the food and shelter of kind strangers, but many Afghans, hardened by war and the desert, were downright vicious. Stewart was determined to walk, and he firmly refused rides across known danger zones. For part of the way, a trio of Afghan soldiers escorted him. But it’s the many miles he walked alone (and with a great shaggy dog adopted along the way) that make readers marvel, at times, that Stewart lived to write about the trip.
A Walk in the Woods. He’s pudgy. He’s brainy. He has a strange penchant for stupid knickknacks and trivia from his Americana Midwest childhood. And for some reason, late in the 1990s, he decided to walk partway across America. In the end, comic Bill Bryson only completed, in bits and pieces, 800-some miles of the Appalachian Trail, but it was enough to provide him with the fodder he needed to write one of the funniest travel books of our time.
December 20, 2011
Faux Pas: Mortifying Missteps of the Innocent Abroad
Don't be caught drinking until this Georgian man is done toasting. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Shioshvili.
The Turks were so patient for putting up with me this fall as I cycled around the western half of the country. I cringe now when I recall the many times, while in conversation with strangers, that I lifted my feet and showed them the mucky gobs of fig seeds mashed into the underside of my shoes, accumulated through day after day of standing under fig trees and foraging off the branches. And, when shop keepers asked if I would like anything else with my groceries before paying, I often shook my head and touched my middle finger to my thumb – that gesture which to many Westerners means, “Everything’s just fine.”
Turns out, showing a person the sole of your shoe and making the “it’s-all-good” sign (which was originally coined as sign language by SCUBA divers) are both grave insults in Turkey. It’s a miracle I wasn’t thrown to the bears. It was only weeks later that I learned what a klutz I’d been. I was gleaning a website on faux pas commonly made by travelers, and idle amusement quickly turned to mortification as I recognized descriptions of my own misdeeds. There is nothing to do now but laugh at how many blunders I’ve unknowingly committed through years of visiting strange lands. Anyway, as global travel increasingly links cultures around the world, people everywhere may be growing more accepting of know-nothing travelers like me—and perhaps today the idea of the clueless foreigner is more charmingly comic than it is gravely offensive.
Nonetheless, there are a few things best not to do when traveling—and this list is a start:
1) In Japan, accepting a business card from a Japanese person without using two hands or acting like you are sublimely honored. Because a Japanese person isn’t fooling when he or she hands you a business card. In addition to receiving it with two hands, one is supposed to bow deferentially. Forbes.com addressed precisely this matter, with no intention of parody, in a 2005 article on etiquette pointers for the traveling businessperson. It makes that scene from American Psycho seem not so ludicrous after all.
In Japanese culture, deference and humility must be shown when exchanging business cards, as seen here. In this image, former mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba has also apparently paid respects to the Hawaiian culture by receiving a lei; to refuse one is like slapping a Hawaiian in the face. Photo courtesy of East-West Center.
2) In Georgia, drinking at the table while another is making a toast. Toasts in this former Soviet nation come many times per meal and may last as long as five or 10 minutes. They are sometimes almost hilariously theatrical until one realizes that Georgians are totally serious when they raise their wine glasses and begin speaking. If a guest is present, especially, the melodrama gets thick as the speaker praises the two represented nations, the honor of playing host to a foreigner, the guest’s good fortune as he or she continues their journey, ancestors, God and so on and so forth—though not always in a single toast. I spent some time in Georgia in 2010. Even at such informal sites as the side of the road, men drinking wine sometimes called me over, filled me a glass and embarked on lengthy verbal voyages. It’s a wonder, looking back, that we ever managed to squeeze in a drink.
3) In most of the Middle and Far East, walking into a home with one’s shoes on. Been there, done that—and with gunky fig jam caked to the soles of my cycling shoes, to boot. Yes, I was a walking disaster in Turkey, day after day committing insults so dreadful it’s fortunate I didn’t make the old ladies faint—or the young men call for their weapons.
4) In the Hindu and Muslim world, greeting a person or eating with your left hand. I cannot begin to imagine how many times I have absentmindedly done this in Turkey. Locals, it turns out, traditionally wipe themselves with the left hand. A tad bit presumptuous, isn’t it, for them to assume that I do, too?
5) Also in the Muslim world, eating during daylight hours during the holy month of Ramadan. Being the old hand at social blunders that I am, I’ve committed this crime many times. I was in Turkey during Ramadan in August 2010, and when I caught myself and sheepishly apologized, the folks around me said I had done nothing wrong. I have never known if they were simply being polite. Because in Dubai, anyway, foreigners seen eating during the Ramadan fasting hours can face jail time.
6) In Hawaii, refusing a lei. Don’t feel like wearing a rosary of tropical blossoms round your neck? Tough luck. Put the lei over your head, offer a generous hug in return and consider yourself formally welcomed to the islands. If you really can’t stand the thing, Hawaiian culture considers it acceptable for one to re-gift the lei to one’s spouse—but not, heaven forbid, if she’s a pregnant woman! Tread carefully. Stay vigilant.
7) In Russia, refusing vodka when offered, and sipping it once your glass is filled. Instead, you must gregariously chug your shot glass of Eurasia’s favorite booze. What’s more, having three drinks is sometimes obligatory at an event for one to demonstrate a baseline level of friendliness and social prowess. Meanwhile, women in Russia might do wisely, as custom sometimes demands, to leave the vodka to the men and drink wine instead.
8) And this one may come as a surprise: In Germany, discussing sports. So I read in this Vagabondish post from Amy Baker, who says German people may think someone “uneducated” if he or she is heard discussing a sporting match.
9) In the United Kingdom, holding up your index and middle finger with the back of your hand facing outward. Britons: Please don’t laugh. Because in America, most people are unaware that this is the equivalent of giving someone the middle finger—and please understand that it’s a mistake if someone makes this sign while ordering two beers across a noisy pub.
10) Finally, in the United States, relieving oneself in public. That’s right, all you gentlemen from France, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic: Turning your back on a person or a crowd and emptying your bladder may be business as usual where you come from, but in my culture, many people consider it dirty and disrespectful. Why, I have friends and relatives who would keel over dead if they saw such an act in public.
Me? I’ll forgive you.
Anyone want to offer travel faux pas number 11? Or do you have any embarrassing or comical miscommunications worth sharing? Tell us about them below.
