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Posts Tagged 'Female Travel'

How Hip-Hop Saved Me In Cairo

Published April 24, 2012 Blunders , Culture Shock , Dirty Tricks , Egypt , Female Travel , Independent , Lonely Girl Loves , Music , North Africa , Places , Sola , Sola , Subculture , Travel Writing Closed
Tags: africa, arab spring, Blunders, cairo, culture shock, egypt, Female Travel, hip hop, independent, music, sola, tahrir sqaure, travel writing

So. On my way to Cambodia I went to Cairo. (No, it’s not actually “on the way.”) I went with a lot of expectations and very little planning—pretty much a sure-fire way to ensure disappointment. It was really hard and kinda sucked. Until the last night.

You can read about it here. And then repost it, tweet it, tumble it, whatev. Cause that’s how we do.



Vaguely Familiar Dude Reports on Phnom Penh Nightlife

Published January 30, 2012 Cambodia , Culture Shock , Dirty Tricks , Expatify , Female Travel , Learning the Ropes , Phnom Penh , Places , Sola , Southeast Asia 6 Comments
Tags: blogsherpa, cambodia, Female Travel, nightlife, phnom penh, sexpat, sola shitty flickr photo, not going all undercover yet...

The pub is dark and grimy and does not smell like meat.

I look up the bar and down the bar. I turn to a red-faced old dude clutching a glass of beer. “Hey, there’s not a roast here, is there?”

He shakes his head long and slow.

It’s Sunday and we’re feeling indulgent—indulgent enough to have just spent two hours at the FCC rooftop, drinking happy hour drinks and staring into the maze of foot traffic on the riverside below, and indulgent enough to top it off with a massive $9 plate of meat and potatoes and veggies and Yorkshire pudding, all drenched in gravy and butter.

There’s Sunday Roasts all over this city, and I’ve been waiting for the week when I was in both the company and the mood for one. Which is tonight—a friend in from Vietnam, with money to burn and time to kill. But I have to remember where the supposed best one is. The Something Pub on Street 17something. Which is not this place.

The old dude takes a deep breath, then unleashes the knowledge: a string of roasts and reviews, both popular and personal, as well as directions to the nearest ones. It’s as though he’s been waiting for someone to ask.

They say that the sexpats are some of the most knowledgeable folks around—for whatever you think of them, they’ve been here the longest and know the city, the culture, the language the best. Whether or not it’s true, this dude is obviously the Roast Master.

He speaks for a few consecutive minutes. He doesn’t make eye contact once.

Which leaves me to survey the scene. I don’t go out much here—there’s not much other than bars and the vibe gets mega-seedy. So I feel like a bit of a voyeur, peeking into the other side: pool tables and bad rock music and men slouched in the corners, along the bar, and thin women—impossibly thin women, with sharp faces and short skirts—moving around them like hungry insects.

I see a dude at the end of the bar. He looks vaguely familiar—some kind of ambiguous Latino, in a Neurosis shirt, pulled-up white socks and black Vans, long metal dreads bound together by another dread, tied on a knot. Not a style the expats rock here—an Oakland breed. I eye him.

When Roast Master finishes his litany, I nod and thank him.

He still doesn’t look up from his beer.

We walk past Vaguely Familiar Dude. “Hey,” I call out, over heads and between shoulders, “you from the Bay?”

Glassy pupils pin at me. “Yeah.”

I nod. “I’ve seen you around. You’re friends with Georgina and Adam.”

A slow, sloppy recognition spills over his face. “Hey! I’ve seen you!”

The truth is, I’ve been seeing him for years—at shows and parties, across crowded rooms, one of those people permanently on the periphery of your life, fixtures of vague features and forgotten names, “the extras in the movie of me,” a friend once called them.

“What brings you here?” I ask. “Just traveling around?”

He nods. “Yeah, man, shit, just traveling. I been in Thailand and Laos, I met this dude—” slaps another guy on the shoulder, who grins bashfully—“at the airport, and we’ve just been cruisin.” He launches into a haphazard travelogue, rattling off an orderless list of places; there’s a slurry undercurrent moving beneath his words, an intonation of long nights and jig-saw days.

It’s like he’s been waiting for someone to ask.

“So, where’s the party at?” he asks me when he’s done.

“Ha!” I let a wry laugh burst out of me. “I’m the last person to ask. I’m grandma in this town.” Really, I’m grandma in every town, but I let it seem like it’s just Phnom Penh.

“You been here a long time or something?”

I shrug. “Well, I live here.”

He gives me a funny look. “You don’t go out none?”

“Not really, it’s…” I trail off. “Well, we gotta grab this roast before it runs out,” I motioned to my friend.

“What’s a roast?”

“It’s a British thing.” I shrug again. “Meat and potatoes.”

“Oh, right on. Well, fuckin cool seeing you.”

“For sure,” I smile. We turn to leave.

I glance back down the bar. Roast Master is a little redder, but still hasn’t moved.


We’re walking down the riverside again the next day, plastic bags of produce peeking out of my tote bag and tickling the back of my arm. At one of the restaurants, I see Vaguely Familiar Dude and his friend sitting in a pair of big wicker chairs.

We laugh. “What’s up, what’s up!” I say.

They look dim and yellow and worse for the wear—two pm but my guess is that this is breakfast. “How was your night?”

Vaguely Familiar Dude shakes his head. “Man, what’s up with this city?”

I smile. “What do you mean?”

“It’s like,” he looks back and forth, doesn’t bother to lower his voice, “it’s kinda trippy. Everywhere we went was just gross, man. Like, we’d sit down and bam!—hella girls would be all over us.”

I let another wry laugh come out of me. I’m not sure where it comes from, or what it’s supposed to mean. “Yeah, that’s kinda the jam here.” I don’t bother to lower my voice either.

We’d missed the roast the night before; by the time we arrived at the other pub, they’d sold out and most of the seats were empty. We ordered shepherd’s pies and talked lowly to each other, a wiry guy with blurred tattoos rolling a joint at the bar. We declined when he offered a toke, our friendly smiles mirroring his.

“So, like, everywhere?” Vaguely Familiar Dude asks.

“Kinda.” I tell him about the one spot I like, where a grumpy old Taiwanese dude with arguably the best vinyl collection in the country sits in a corner, plays weird records and scowls at people. “But sometimes there’s girls there too,” I add.

Vaguely Familiar Dude shakes his head. “It’s kinda trippy, man,” he repeats.

I don’t know him. Not really. But I’ve seen him for years, in shitty warehouses in shitty neighborhoods in our shitty hometown, and he doesn’t seem like the type to get skeezed out by nothing.

It was weird to me at first too, I want to say; I wanted to puke whenever I’d see those crispy old sexpats with their arms around skinny waists. But I’ve gotten used to it. It’s not that I don’t see it, but that it’s sunk into the background, become part of the visual noise of the city. I avoid it, but you can’t avoid it, and it doesn’t creep me out anymore. I take their roast recommendations.

But I don’t tell Vaguely Familiar Dude any of this. I’m not sure why. I’m embarrassed, in a funny way—that I’ve let it become normal.

He takes a handful of fries, smears them in ketchup and mashes them in his mouth. “You want one?” he asks from between the mush.

I smile. “Nah, I’m cool.”

A Not Entirely Atypical Tuk-Tuk Ride Home

Published November 20, 2011 Cambodia , Culture Shock , Dirty Tricks , Female Travel , Independent , Phnom Penh , Places , Sola , Sola , Southeast Asia , Transit 3 Comments
Tags: blogsherpa, cambodia, Female Travel, phnom penh, sola, Transit, tuk-tuk 9pm so I give him a good stare down, check the eyes for red and glaze and drunkenness. I watch the way he walks to the tuk-tuk, parked a few feet away from where we’ve haggled the fare. He walks straight enough to drive straight, so I sigh and start to climb in.

“Ok,” he says, sitting down on the bike, “7000.”

I pause, my foot on step. “No, 6000,” repeating the fare we agreed to.

A grin. “Ok, ok, 6000.”

I sit and he sits. He throws a look back at me.

“You want to smoke weed?”



“I don’t want to.”

“You no smoke weed?”

I smile and play it coy, “No, I’m a good girl.”

“Oh. I thought you were mafia.”


“I see your tattoo, I thought you mafia.”

“No,” shake my head, “not mafia.”

He throws his helmet on. He doesn’t clip the chin strap.

We take off and turn the corner and it’s the usual questions: where did I make my tattoos? (USA) Is that where I’m from? (Yes) How many? (I don’t know) How much it cost? (A lot. But it should, it lasts forever.) Do I like them? (which is not a usual question and I smile: Yes.)

“But you no smoke weed?”


“You no want to be happy?”

“I’m already happy.”

“But you be more happy.”

“Not if I smoke weed.”

“Oh, you smoke weed before?”

“Long time ago. When I was young. But I’m old now.” (Coy again, and I think how, broken language aside, it’s not so different from conversations I have with backpackers or college kids or, fuck it, my own peers, in bars or at shows—not entirely atypical.)

He speaks pretty good English and he’s driving straight enough and even knows where we’re going, so all things said, he’s a damn good tuk-tuk driver. We move through the pitted streets, slowly settling from their daily buzz—meat smoke thinning, piles of trash waiting for pick-up.

More questions, his eyes in the side mirrors more than on the road: How long will I be in Cambodia? (One year) What do I do for work? (smile: I’m a writer) I live in a guesthouse or apartment? (bigger smile: Guesthouse tonight, but tomorrow I move to an apartment) You live with roommate or alone? (another smile: Alone) Why alone? (I want to) I come live with you? (No) Why? (I want to live alone)

We approach the Orussey Market: lights and umbrellas and neon plastic stools and buses parked and smoke, still plenty of smoke billowing and twisting and rising into the night. I tell him the name of my guesthouse.

“Oh, you stay there alone?”


“I come stay with you?”



“I don’t want you to.”

“You no like boys?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You like girls?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

We pull up in front, parked motorbikes in the glow of the reception desk, long shadows of security guards sitting listless in plastic chairs. I pull out the bills and step out of the tuk-tuk, hand them to him.

He takes off his helmet. “Goodnight, madam.”

“Goodnight sir.”

“Sleep good.”


An Anti-Social Trip to the Pyramids (In 5 Senses)

Published November 10, 2011 Culture Shock , Dirty Tricks , Egypt , Female Travel , Places , Sola , Sola 5 Comments
Tags: blogsherpa, cairo, egypt, Female Travel, giza pyramids, sola Feel: Dusty wind on my cheeks, rustling through my hair—a bad place for contact lenses. A watery ouch, blinking madly.

Arms poking at me, fingers tapping—shove a postcard book in my face and flap it around.

Smell: Camel shit, horse shit—a stink, yes, but it’s a healthy, robust stink, blooming in the heat. Think of my dad, leaving the bathroom in the morning: “Ah, that smelled fertile—like it would make shit grow.”

Taste: Dry, thirsty crackle in my throat but too stubborn to buy overpriced bottled water. Linger of packaged jam from breakfast. The mint of my chapstick.

Sound: “Camel ride,” “Postcard, madam,” “Welcome to Egypt!” “Where you from?” “Camel ride, hello!”—haggle-hassle town, a chorus of cries, hungry touts with cracked feet and chipped teeth, sharp limbs and sharper eyes.

I understand the dynamic—I know my place in the global socioeconomic ladder, that I’m a Have, the 1%—or 10%, or whatever—but basically, not a Have Not. I understand that this is the price you pay, along with the admission, and that neither are very much. But it’s aggravating as hell, which is kinda the point, the technique, if you will—and the best I can do right now is to ignore it, not engage or react, not look or respond. I bust a move from my old teenager bus riding days: wear headphones without the sound on, so I can still hear everything (in case it goes beyond annoying to threatening), but can pretend I don’t.

So I walk like that, then decide—Well, shit, may as well drown this shit out. So I turn to what was playing last—new Ty Segall, which is bad-ass but doesn’t fit the mood, the scene, the monumental, crumbling, cracked-lip ambiance. Stop and do a scroll through. Wait, wait…

Theeeeeere we go.

So I’ve got the drone-moan doom metal in my dome, and I’m mad-dogging it through the place. Touts and hustlers like flies to a light bulb—knock, knock, knock and you can’t get in.

Sight: Well, it’s the Pyramids, the effing Pyramids, and you know what that looks like. And you’ve probably heard that it’s plop in the middle of suburban sprawl, that there’s a shitshow of tour buses and taxis, that there’s a KFC across from the Sphinx, that there’s people everywhere, everywhere—climbing on the stones the signs tell you not to, posing for photos and I see, in a flash, 1000 framed photos on mantles and walls; I see a cacophony of Facebook profile shots and a clutter of newsfeeds; I see cards sent out at various holidays, see digital scrapbooks suffered through by captive relatives. More Egyptian families than anything else, but the groups of teenage boys are second. They climb up the stone and flash smiles and hand gestures and gather around the viewfinder and nod in approval. They shout shit at me as I pass, but I’m like, “I can’t hear yyyyyyou”—even though secretly I can and (less secretly) they know I can.

But it’s the charade of the day, the game we play. I turn my headphones up louder.

Sight: Figure approaching, black clothes against the yellow dust. Alone, wearing headphones.

Feel: That I’m looking at some parallel version of myself, the Egyptian dude version. I can tell by his new clothes that he isn’t gonna try to sell me anything; can tell by his straight walk and forward gaze that he isn’t gonna hassle me, that he can’t be bothered to hassle a random Western girl.

Sound: “Funeralopooooooolis / Planet of the dead”

Smell: Dust in my nose.

Taste: Dust in my teeth.

Feel us approach each other like tangential lines, tangential lives, intersecting for one moment, then diverging into the big blank desert.

I give him the “yoyo, what’s up” nod.

He returns it without a smile.

Feel him walk away, disappear behind me and out of my sight.

He was cute, I realize. Goddammit—the one cute dude I’d want to talk to in this place.

I blink the dust from my contacts and keep walking 






Published November 4, 2011 Abandoned Places , Albania , Eastern Europe , Female Travel , Places , Sola , Sola , Subculture 6 Comments
Tags: abandoned places, albania, blogsherpa, eastern europe, Female Travel, gjirokastra, sola 1. Stone/dirt path scramble, muddy Converse and I’m chasing rubble: mad crumbled buildings in this town, falling like trash down the mountainside, and the urban explorer/trespasser in me can’t get enough.

Guy sitting on his stoop—track suit and cheap sunglasses, smoking what smells like weed. Give him a nod, which I can’t tell if he returns.

He watches me as I tromp past, up the hill and he whistles—makes a time-out signal with his hands, which I take to mean, “Don’t go traipsing on my fucking property, girl.” But he does it with a smile, so I smile back, and when I walk past again he says, “You speak Deutsch, American?”


He nods. “Nice castle,” and juts his chin towards the stone mass in the distance.


He gestures whatever he’s smoking towards me. I shake my head no. “Have a good day.”


2. Cobbled road in the old town, forty-five degree angle and I’m taking it slow. Pass an old dude I saw down in the new town—has one of the most intense shoe-polish toupees I’ve ever seen, hanging over his forehead like a black awning. I recognize him and he recognizes me—our eyes meet and I smile, nod.




“Ah, ah,” I answer, understanding. “American.”



He nods and throws a barrage of Albanian at me. I shake my head again.



A woman appears at the window of the meat market we’re standing in front of, her face obscured by the glare on the glass. Our eyes meet and I smile.


I’m scrounging the last sunlight of the day, before it slips behind that mountain and casts everything in a funny pink glow. I look up from my book and nod.

His name is George, he served me my espresso in the sinking light—he asks me where I’m from and if I have friends in Gjirokastra.


He asks me if I have a mother and father back in the States, brothers and sisters—he asks me if I have a job, and I say no, and he asks why, and I say I quit. I tell him I’m a writer. I don’t think he understands.


I give him the usual answer: that my friends either don’t have time or don’t have money, so I travel alone. I give this answer regardless of language barriers, because the real answer is harder to explain. Most of time, I don’t think I know the real answer.

We try to chat, but it’s awkward and fails, and then the light is gone. So I smile and nod at my empty espresso cup and ask how much. He shakes his head. “Nothing. Now,” big broken smile, “you have a friend in Gjirokastra,” and points his thumb to his chest.