THE MEKONG RIVER defines Cambodia as much as the temples at Angkor. With ferries every few miles, it’s possible to hop from bank-to-bank, crossing the river with local fishermen and cycling paths through villages that rarely see visitors. The old French colonial city and fishing hub of Kratie (pronounced kra-cheh) is a good place to begin a bike journey of a few (or a few hundred) miles along the Mekong Discovery Trail.

My boyfriend Eben and I recently cycled a 50-mile stretch of the Mekong. Here’s what we learned.

Finding gear and a guide

For 2-3 day journeys, you can rent bikes from CRDTours. The company was established by the Cambodian Rural Development Team to foster alternative livelihoods so that villagers may supplement their fishing income with tourism capital and avoid harvesting methods that kill the endangered Irrawaddy river dolphin. CRDTours offers detailed maps of the route, and may arrange private guides and homestays in several island communities.

For serious cyclists interested in traveling the couple hundred kilometers north to the Laotian border, consider bringing your own bike or purchasing one in Phnom Penh. This far off the beaten path, gear can be an issue, as we couldn’t even find helmets in Mekong hub towns like Kratie. Bike panniers and trailers are also unheard of, so be sure to at least bring a daypack.

When to go

January to February is the best time to visit Cambodia — the monsoons have subsided, but the land isn’t yet fully parched. September and October have fewer crowds, but you may get caught in the rain.

The Irrawaddy river dolphins

Dolphins draw visitors to the Mekong, with Kampi most popular place to arrange tours, marked by a concrete dolphin statue 15km north of Kratie (a 40-minute ride). For $9 a person, you can charter a motorboat out onto the river, but be aware that engines alarm the animals and drivers hungry for tourists’ approval often nose too close.

A better option is to save your dolphin watching for sunset or sunrise and have CRDTours arrange a more intimate boat ride with a native fishing family further upstream. Talk to Mr. Tula before you leave Kratie, or call enroute (+855099834353) if you decide later.

Though Cambodia was once home to over 1,000 dolphins, snipers slaughtered most during the Pol Pot regime, practicing their aim and harvesting the animals’ fat for generator fuel. Today, the Irrawaddy’s numbers continue to diminish in the shadow of industrial pollution and illegal fishing methods that employ battery shock and chemicals. Only 70 dolphins survive on the Mekong, 25 of which live in the currents off Koh Phdao Island.

On our CRDTours-arranged visit, Ecocommunity President Manvichika took us to see the dolphins in his fishing boat off Koh Phdao. The boat wasn’t much wider than a kayak — we sat cross-legged on woven mats. Charting downriver, you’ll be surrounded by dolphins. Watch the surface for the slice of a dorsal fin. More importantly, listen as the sound of the dolphins’ breath breaks the silence before their bodies.

At the Rapids

Continuing up the road a few kilometers from Kampi, you’ll find the Rapids, a picnic area with palm-thatched gazebos constructed over the river. Here, the Mekong forks into a web of capillaries flowing myriad silted islands. Leave your bike with the motorcycles of local picnickers (of which there will be many), and spend an hour or two out of the sun in a hammock.

Order a coconut and sticky rice and beans steamed in bamboo tubes while dangling your feet in the Mekong, or wade among the golden sandbars that streak downstream beyond the boardwalk until the channels between islands become too deep.

Return to your bike and continue upriver, passing mats of cassava roots and rice toasting along the road under the intense Mekong sun.

The turtle-sitting monks of Sambour

The town of Sambour, a thriving metropolis in pre-Angkorian times, remains on the map because of its temple. The largest wat in Cambodia, Sarsar Mouy Rouy has 108 fluted pillars and a brightly muraled ceiling. The temple is abandoned except for a few old men sprawled on the cool tile floor. You’ll find the monks not in the temple but manning the Mekong Turtle Conservation Center in a building behind the wat.

This project was recently initiated by Conservation International and is managed by the monks at Sarsar Mouy Rouy. Here, the endangered Cantor’s Giant Softshell turtles — thought to be extinct until they were rediscovered in 2007 — are raised through their most vulnerable 10 months of life in a few humble tanks. The turtle-sitting monks are eager to show guests around and hitch up their saffron robes to dig up turtles burrowed in the sand.

Island hopping on Koh Phdao

Before catching a ferry to Koh Phdao, have a drink of fresh coconut milk over the river and watch cows wander down Sambour’s main street. As the sun plunges behind the floodplain, roll your bike aboard the ferry with passengers traveling home after a day of labor on the mainland. Don’t be overcharged; it should only cost 2,000 riel (approximately 50 cents). Make arrangements with CRDTours in advance to sleep overnight on Koh Phdao with one of the island’s 14 families who host visitors in rotation.

Once ashore, bike the island’s slender geography, riding a wave of singsong greetings as children chase you through the stilted homes of Koh Phdao. “Hello, hello, hello! Where you go?” The path weaves between rice paddies, dry by winter and grazed by mud-caked buffalo. When searching for your homestay, look for the house with a sign marked “My Turn.”

During our stay, our ‘room’ was a curtained mattress tucked in the corner of a large open space. Expect intimacy over privacy. A “food group” organized by the village’s ecotourism committee cooks dinner for all guests in the village and delivers it by motorbike on a huge covered tray balanced on a woman’s head riding sidesaddle. Our hosts ushered us upstairs to eat, rolled out a square of linoleum flooring, and positioned two fans to blow on us as they laid out a feast of Mekong grilled fish, fresh greens, and eggs fried with chives. Don’t feel guilty for the fuss, this is Cambodian hospitality at its finest.

Villages of the western bank

Our most memorable encounter on this less developed side of the river occurred when Eben’s rear tire went flat. We shouted into the shade of a stilted home for someone with a bike pump, and a team of four men swiftly emerged. The lead ‘mechanic’ was a shirtless man with a pump that didn’t fit the nozzle. He wore a red-and-white-checkered krama (a Khmer scarf) and vigorously shook each of our hands with both of his before he squatted at the bike.

A group of women and children swelled around us. Even though we couldn’t communicate, we waited anxiously together until he managed to inflate the tire with a misfit pump and a rubber band. He tested the leak with a wad of spit and hopped onto the bike to ride it in a triumphant circle. The crowd broke into applause as the tire held, and we were quickly on our way back to Kratie.

A longer stay

It’s possible to sign up for a week of volunteer tourism with the Cambodian Rural Development Team in Koh Phdao’s string of villages. Guests learn about rural agriculture while contributing to projects from building community toilets to transplanting rice with families in the wet season.

Additionally, you can cycle one of CRDTour’s other routes, like the 40km Dolphin Trail that originates in the town of Stung Treng (145km north of Kratie). Visit the CRDTours office for maps of this path and many shorter loops highlighting local cuisine and sites in smaller Mekong towns.

For more adventurous travelers, talk to Mr. Tula at CRDTours about biking all the way to the Laotian border (410km round trip from Kratie). While the route is not very developed, CRDTours can assist you with developing an itinerary and arranging homestays.

This article was originally published on April 18, 2013.

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SO you’ve lived in Buenos Aires for three years. You’ve roasted beef over hot coals, you’ve overpaid for tango shoes and even used them occasionally, and your accent is so convincing you could make a viral YouTube video out of it. Argentine friends tell you “sos más porteño que el Obelisco” and “estás más acriollado que el dulce de leche”, just because you drink Fernet and end your every sentence with “boludo.”

But as you watch them link arms and jump up and down to some dreadful Argentine ska-punk band from the early 1990s, you begin to doubt that you will ever really be one of them. Cultivate that doubt. You will never truly be an Argentine. Here’s why…

1. You’re puzzled by the excitement such ordinary foods inspire in the locals.

You think alfajores are all right, but you’d rather have a Twix. You don’t have an irrational emotional urge to eat pasta every Sunday. Cremón cheese adverts anger you. “That’s not cheese!” you mutter at the TV. “That’s NOT cheese!”

2. You feel a twinge of anxiety when your taxi doesn’t have seatbelts.

3. Your poverty / crisis / quilombo threshold is too low.

Don’t get me wrong, you enjoy a good old cacerolazo as much as the next Recoleta housewife, and a severe devaluation of the peso would bring you and your foreign bank account nothing but joy. But your patience will prove short if the government keeps depriving you of iPhones and Sriracha sauce, and at the first sign of things really kicking off 2001-style you’ll be on the first plane to Barcelona (feeling no patriotic duty to fly Aerolíneas). Also, don’t all these poor people get awfully depressing after a while?

4. Your clothes are all wrong.

You think “elegante sport” is the Spanish for “show jumping.” You don’t know when to wear a tie or not (answer: never wear a tie). The only time you ever wore alpargatas was for a fancy dress party, to which you went as the world’s least-convincing gaucho. It’s even worse if you’re a foreign woman in Buenos Aires, enduring the third year of a gruelling buffing-waxing-shopping-dieting regime in constant fear that the slightest slip will result in being cast out from polite society.

5. You’re scared of the plug sockets.

6. You think people catch colds from coming into contact with what we doctors call the “rhinovirus.”

In fact, colds are caused by going out with wet hair and an exposed neck when the season changes. Also, it’s not a cold, it’s flu. Probably swine flu.

7. You don’t know the first thing about piropos.

You think it’s quite rude to shout out compliments and / or oral sex requests / offers at passing women. The most daring thing you ever said to a strange woman in public was when you asked a pretty girl at the bus stop the time. You’ve never had sex with a prostitute either. Maricón.

8. You’re too polite. You say “hola” when you walk into a supermarket.

You say “por favor” to the bus driver. You think the Spanish for “thank you” is “gracias,” when it is in fact “listo,” and you think the Spanish for “goodbye” is “chau,” when it is in fact a stony silence.

9. Paradoxically, you’re too rude.

You take your shoes off indoors. You eat lunch without using a napkin. Sometimes, you just can’t be bothered to kiss people goodbye. Ortiba.

10. That’s STILL not cheese!

11. You can’t make a drink in a bar last longer than 30 minutes without ordering another.

And you never cease to be amazed at how these people can jabber on until 6am with just a 7-Up for sustenance.

12. Your Spanish will never be good enough.

You could immerse yourself in a small village in Entre Ríos for thirty years, cut yourself off from all contact with the English language, and the locals will still think of you as a foreigner and comment that you’ve still got a bit of a “tonito inglés.” The bastards.

13. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t get that enthusiastic about Erasure.

Because they’re terrible.

This article was originally posted on DanielTunnard.com, and has been re-published here with permission.

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Gearing up for travel filmmaking is quite the endeavor and can lead to ridiculously heavy and cumbersome luggage. Luckily, the Vaga brothers are here to share their secrets on what camera gear to bring along when making travel videos.

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THE GRAND CANYON doesn’t need any help being amazing. But every several years, a rare phenomenon fills the massive canyon up with fog, turning the wonder of the world into an otherworldly wonder.

A photo posted by U.S. Department of the Interior (@usinterior) on Jan 28, 2015 at 3:48pm PST

The phenomenon is called a “total cloud inversion,” and it happens when cold air in the canyon is trapped in by warm layer of air above it, forming a sea of clouds. A total cloud inversion typically only happens every several years, but coincidentally, it has happened twice in the past six weeks.

Featured photo by Grand Canyon NPS.

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I DON’T REMEMBER the first time I was catcalled.

Maybe it’s because I’m jaded from living and working in NYC, the catcalling capital of the world. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that catcalling becomes a part of a woman’s life so early on that it fades into the part of the memory where those types of meaningless milestones get buried and ultimately forgotten.

When you’re a woman in living in a big city, catcalling very rarely shocks you. Inevitably, it becomes an ever-present part of the background noise of the streets we walk down. We know it’s there, we hear what’s being said, but we keep moving in the hopes that the words somehow won’t touch us if we get far away fast enough.

This past fall, one woman walked the streets of NYC for 10 hours recording the catcalls she received from passersby, and compiled them into a video. She never stops to respond to these men or acknowledges what’s been said. She just keeps her pace as they shout “compliments” at her. As I watched the men in the video, I began to wonder if they’d also have trouble recalling the first time they ever catcalled a woman. How early does it start? Why do they do it? Does it ever work? And what are they getting out of it, anyway?

So during the coldest week of the year thus far, I decided to respond to every catcall that was said to me for a week in order to get to the bottom of these questions.

Catcaller #1: The married bouncer

It actually took me a few missed catcalls to remember that I had made this promise.

Retraining myself to stop, listen and hardest of all, be brave enough to strike up a conversation with the men I’d been working so hard to ignore for so long proved to be no easy feat.

As I was walking to meet a friend in midtown one night, I passed an older man who told me, “God bless.”

“Thank you,” I managed. “How are you tonight?”

“Oh you know, just trying to keep warm out here. Are you staying warm under that scarf?”

I almost walked away at this point but I had gotten this far and thought that maybe I could change the creepy course of this conversation by asking him to tell me about himself.

I learned that Tim* works as a bouncer at a bar in midtown, where he spends 8-hour shifts braving the weather and checking IDs of incoming patrons. He’s also married.

“Why do you catcall women if you have a wife?” I asked him.

“What else am I going to do while I’m standing out here for 8 hours?” he said.

“So, this is just a form of entertainment for you then?” I asked.

“For me it is,” he said, “It’s kind of like a game. Most women keep walking but I’ve seen a few smile. Mostly tourists.”

“Do you remember when you first started catcalling?”

Tim tells me stories of growing up in Chicago, where he and his friends used to shout things at the ladies passing by the store that his parents owned while he was in middle school. When I ask why his mom let him get away with that, he tells me that his mother wasn’t around very much.

I know that it probably won’t to change anything, but I want to explain to Tim why his “pastime” makes the majority of women extremely uneasy and that he’s contributing to a much larger problem here. That maybe he should try to think up another way to pass his 8 hour shifts aside from objectifying women and then keeping count of how many get visibly uncomfortable.

But I can’t summon the nerve. (I’m sorry for failing us, women.) Instead, I thank him for talking to me and continue on.

Catcaller #2: The teenage dirtbags

A few nights later, I was walking home after an early happy hour, when I passed by two teenagers standing on a corner. They couldn’t have been older than 17. One of them said something to the effect of, “Damn, she can get it.”

“Hey,” I turned and said to them, “Thanks.”

The taller one looked me up and down, and finally said, “Wow, you must be desperate.”

“…you catcalled me.” I said back to him.

“Yeah, but, what kind of dumb b*tch actually responds to that? Did your dad beat you or something?”

They both laughed.

“So the two of you walk around pointing out who can ‘get it’ but don’t actually want to get it from anyone you point out because that person must be desperate?” I spit out quickly. I felt like I was back in high school, fighting off bullies.

“Wait, are you offering to put out?”

I wish I could tell you that I took the high road here but at this point I was too damn angry to keep talking to these little asshats. So I told them where to go and how to get there, cut my losses and headed home.

I thought that my encounter with the teenagers would be as uncomfortable as things would get during this experiment.

I was wrong.

Catcaller #3: The Three Stooges

I was taking a long walk down Steinway Street in Astoria, past the section known as “Little Egypt,” where there are probably more hookah bars per capita than anywhere else in this city. I started to pass by three older men standing in a circle smoking cigarettes when I heard one of them say “sexy” under his breath.

“Are you talking to me?” I asked him.

His friend answered, “He likes you!”

“Thanks,” I said. “What are you all up to this afternoon?”

“Pointing out pretty ladies like yourself,” said the friend who blew his friend’s spot up about liking me.

Gus* the matchmaker was short, with graying hair sticking out everywhere underneath his baseball cap. Steve* who “liked me” was a little bit younger, maybe early 40s. Kevin*, the oldest man, didn’t introduce himself. He let Gus make the introduction.

Kevin made me uneasy almost immediately. It was clear he wasn’t happy that I was talking to the two of his friends. He remained silent the entire time I spoke to Gus and Steve about their plans for the day (which involved a lot of scotch and some hookah).

“So, how many women usually stop when you catcall them?” I asked Steve.

Gus answered for him, saying that I was the only lucky woman to respond to Steve’s mating call that day.

Then Kevin told his group sternly, “Time to go,” and motioned for them to follow him back into the hookah lounge. I asked Gus and Steve if they would be willing to take a picture with me before they went, which I wanted to include in this piece.

As they both nodded in agreement, Kevin stepped into my space, got an inch away from my face and screamed, “LEAVE!”

I was once told there’s such thing as a “fight or flight” reflex. I now believe that to be true, because when Kevin did this, I turned and ran.
—

After a week of responding to catcalls, I wish I could say that I had more concrete answers to the questions I set out to ask these strangers. I know now that some men catcall women strictly for entertainment purposes. I learned that for the most part, these men are not looking for a response or expecting you to actually stop and talk to them. But I don’t regret the fact that I didn’t try to make them understand why they shouldn’t catcall.

How can you explain to a stranger that a compliment makes us feel afraid? That words like “gorgeous” and “beautiful” sound like threats when we hear them whispered to us on an empty street late at night? That we feel uneasy, objectified and uncomfortable when you say this to us while we’re going about our normal routine, not asking to be judged on our appearance out loud? That this thing they do for fun is at the expense of our peace of mind?

That’s not a quick chat you can have with a stranger on a street corner. It needs to be part of a bigger conversation, earlier on, by the people who are in charge of shaping you into a respectable human. When we’re being taught as young women not respond to this kind of attention, we need to also be teaching our young men not to engage in this behavior in the first place.

If not, the Kevin’s and Tim’s and teenagers of the world will continue intimidating women for kicks, while women keep finding ways to tolerate it.

And we shouldn’t have to.

*Names have been changed.

This post originally appeared at YourTango and is republished here with permission. Read more: I Asked My Date The “36 Questions” That Lead To Love And BIG FAIL | I Was Sexually Harassed, Then Accused Of Humble-Bragging About It | 5 REAL (And Absolutely Shocking) Reasons Men Hire Prostitutes.

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I LOVE HONEYBEES. They really know how to dance.

While on production in British Columbia with photographer Garth Lenz, I met Guy Armitage and Mary Bereton of Hudson’s Hope Honey. Guy also loves bees and he has searched for the best nooks and crannies in Hudson’s Hope for his hives to live. They are picky, and he is dedicated to their happiness. Happy bees make the best honey. Unfortunately much of this prime bee real estate will be underwater if the proposed Site C dam is built. Guy, Mary, and their bees are among the many who will be affected by the proposed dam.

Site C would flood 83 km of the beautiful Peace River Valley, displacing all who call it home.

There are often differing opinions around energy development. What is unique about Peace Valley is that you’d be hard pressed to find someone in the valley who supports the proposed Site C dam. I couldn’t tell an unbiased story on this issue if I wanted to. The business community is against it, because the economics are not sound. The $8.8 billion project would be funded through taxing BC citizens. No one is talking about the need for more hydro power; BC has hydro power already. Site C would flood 78 First Nations heritage sites, in violation of the First Nations treaty rights. Some of the best class agricultural soil in BC is found in the Peace River Valley and is of course worthless underwater. This valley is also used by wildlife as key portion of their migration routes.

Everyone living in the valley has something at stake. I asked Xavier Beam about the proposed Site C dam. He was standing in his backyard on the banks of the Peace River, holding a fishing pole and shading his eyes to watch his younger brothers paddling in a tiny canoe. He responded, “Well, they are going to build a highway right through our house and then flood it…I just have this huge problem with that.”

I caught a screening of DamNation right before I set off on this project, and was astonished by the extent to which dams are no longer considered an effective way of creating energy. Dams are obsolete. With thousands of unsafe and deteriorating dams to address, building new ones is a step in the wrong direction.

There is a lot of buzz surrounding dams right now, and decision makers are listening. There is simply not a good argument for the Site C dam and the BC government knows it. The solution is simple — don’t build the Site C dam. Everyone wins, and Guys’ bees will be happy.

More information in the links below:

• “Building the dam is the equivalent of turning gold into lead.” — Dan Potts, the former executive director of the Associate of Major Power Customers of BC
• “I think the cost of hydro-electric dam construction is so astronomical that no one will ever do it again and we’re going to have this huge white elephant. Potentially it’s going to drive our industry out of business.” — Craig Thomson, Energy and Environment Supervisor at Canfor Taylor Pulp Mill
• “The alluvial soils to be flooded to produce overpriced power for the Site C dam are capable of producing sufficient fresh vegetables to provide the nutritional needs of a million people. Forever.” — Wendy Holm, Professional Agrologist
• “Obsolete dams impose a high cost on river communities and ecosystems, our economy and tribal cultures. We have found better ways to do the work of dams.” — DamNation

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When did you use a corded phone for the last time?

In Green Banks, West Virginia, not only do the inhabitants use corded phones every day, but they also have no access to wifi, cell phones, and are banned from using microwaves.

The explanation for this ban is simple: the town is a “national radio quiet zone” because it is home to a number of sophisticated telescopes that could be dammaged by wireless transmitters’ interference. The cutting-edge Green Banks observatory plays a very important role in studying remnants of the big bang, stars being formed, new planets, etc.

If this looks like your idea of hell, well, think again. The people of Green Banks have learnt to appreciate their unplugged lifestyle and the benefits that come with it: human connections.
While the telescopes are helping scientists to explain the origins of life, the good people of Green Banks are just enjoying it fully. It’s a win-win situation.

Feature image: goog-god-guy

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1. Your drinking game of choice was Kings.

Casual drinking usually meant cramming into the 5’x7’ shoebox of a bedroom in whoever had the biggest apartment, or whoever’s parents weren’t around. Space for beer pong or flip cup was basically non-existent, so smaller, easier games — like Kings, Spin the Bottle, or Never Have I Ever, usually sufficed.

2. Drinking anywhere outside of New York is a huge pain in the ass.

We groan and gripe in places like South Carolina, where the liquor stores are completely closed on Sundays, or London, when the pubs do a last call at 10:50pm. These little eccentricities make zero sense to us, especially because anywhere outside of New York alcohol is considerably cheaper. We’re spoiled with bars that close at 4am (or don’t close at all), which stock unique liquors and craft beers, so our expectations are just super high once we leave the metro area.

3. You collected body stamps.

Everyone always knew where you had been the night before based on the red ink stamp or black permanent marker X on the top of your hand. A blue smiley face signified you were at a dive bar somewhere on Avenue A. A neon yellow wristband showed you were dancing at a gay bar around Chelsea. Eventually you found places like Pacha where stamps were doled out to anyone who looked hot, young, and stupid enough to spend money to be surrounded by other hot, young, stupid people who didn’t mind the amateur DJ of the week.

4. Your bodega salesman had your back.

Amir jokingly wagged his finger at you when you put a case of Natty Light on the counter, but as one of his best customers, he always let it slide. Selling alcohol to underage minors is nothing new in New York City. Is it completely illegal? Hells yeah. Dangerous? Probably. Something to be proud of? I’m not sure. But it’s hard to raise a fuss when almost 75% of the borough bodegas participate in this practice. We considered it a contribution to the astronomically-priced rent encroaching upon anything north of 80th Street.

5. You RSVP’d to every Bar Mitzvah, Quinceañera, and Sweet 16.

These parties were full-blown catered affairs at places like Villa Russo, or Giando on the Water, resulting in pitchers of soda for the kiddies and an open bar for the adults. If you couldn’t get an obliging drunk auntie to pass around some Jack and Cokes, you had an emergency flask on hand to make your own. It made the dry chicken fricassee taste better, and loosened you up for doing the Electric Slide.

6. You had a fake ID at age 14.

Kids from around the area come to NYC specifically to purchase false identification. You knew which sketchy “10-cent Copies” centers made the best scannable cards, and as long as you were with a few other teenagers, being led to a secret door at the back of the store was a rite of passage. Four IDs or more, and you got a discount.

7. You made it a mission to score free drinks.

$12 cab fares, $15 cover charges, and $8 cocktails adds up. You worked your whiles as much as you could to get free drinks from friends or strangers. Sure it was slutty, but it saved you precious cash that went towards buying MAC cosmetics, new heels from a no-name shop on 7th avenue, and clubwear from Strawberry.

8. House parties were like, next-level.

Unless you happened to make friends with a trust-fund Dalton kid, movie-style drinking parties were almost exclusively held away from home. But every so often someone would rent a beach house for a week and invite all of the neighborhood families to come along. Then shit would get real. Those few times when you made it out to a party in Flushing, Marine Park, or a cousin’s place on Long Island, where someone had an actual backyard bigger than five-people’s worth, seemed like a dream.

9. You tried drugs before everyone else.

When the thrill of underage drinking ran out at approximately age 16, you experimented with drugs. Most of it was innocent — a few joints on the fire escape at 2am, or uppers prescribed to you by the family shrink — but scoring angel dust, ecstasy, crack, and other ridiculous chemical substances was never difficult. Someone’s mom always had cocaine “to make it through the day,” and if anyone ever asked, you could tell them exactly where they could buy heroin, and for how much. Some of your friends became drug addicts, but most of the time it was an, “I’ll try anything once” situation that was overrated anyway.

10. The night always ended with drunk food.

A $1 slice of pizza, disco fries, or pancakes at the diner, falafel from a guy who shaved meat for a living, a ginormous pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Deli, a hot dog that snapped when you bit it from Gray’s Papaya, or — if you were really drunk — something off of the Dollar Menu at McDonalds, was a must when the booze got to be too much for you to handle. Sitting in Washington Square Park at 2am, you didn’t care about how terrible the styrofoam container holding your chicken and rice with white sauce was for the environment; you were just fucking hungry.

11. Pre-gaming was the game.

Because alcohol is so expensive in the city, the easiest thing was to hunker down at someone’s apartment and make uneven mixes of your favorite cocktails, or fill water bottles with straight-up vodka and wander the streets looking for celebrity parties to crash. Even if you did end up at a bar after midnight or something, you usually split drinks with your friends before complaining about being “tired” aka too poor to buy another drink.

12. There was always someone around to buy booze for you.

Finding someone older to purchase your liquor was never really an issue. There was always Enrico, the pothead down the hall, or Dejah, your best friend’s older sister who just graduated from City College. Rich kids had their nannies, maids, or the doorman. You always had a “go-to” booze buyer in your corner of the city.

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Featured photo by Alan

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AN AMERICAN FRIEND I had taught with in Taiwan beckoned me to Istanbul with tales of local men serenading Western women, luring them into love spells with baklava. Her descriptions of lunch by the seaside and bustling spice markets charmed me all the way to the travel agency.

“It’s my New York, but better,” she had said.

I got my suitcase and tea glass ready.

Upon arriving, a crowd of fake blondes congregated at the airport entry gates with the sort of urgency that says: “This is a great place.” Counting bright headscarf after bright headscarf, my first impression of Istanbul was part-Europe, part-Asia, and part hyperactive kid on the beach.

Now that I have been living and teaching in Istanbul for a few months, there’s still enough radiation to keep me feeling like a holiday girl, even teaching forty plus hours a week.

Considerations for teaching

Money

When contemplating a job here, it is important to remember that you are still the same old barking English teacher that you are anywhere else in Asia, but you will probably get paid decent money and have enough eager students to make it worthwhile.

Local Vibe

Be prepared to entertain your students as much as you teach them, and anticipate to be showered with home-cooked food from friendly students who appreciate the effort you put into your classes. Most will be willing to share their language and culture.

Culture

Should you tire of the workaholic schedule that English schools will likely impose, there is always the hammam (Turkish bath) to indulge in, where a burly masseuse or masseur, will scrub you like Hercules.

Cuisine

Culinary delights abound, including fish still squirming fresh on the market table, sold by boisterous men in rubber boots. Rice is most often replaced with a range of other, more inspiring carbohydrates, like flower-shaped herb bread, and cherry-filled baklava.

The mighty lamb is prevalent, sliced with grilled peppers and tomatoes, and served together with yogurt, cilantro, and pita bread.

Job Placement

For those seeking ESL teaching work in Istanbul, numerous jobs abound, and can be found simply by walking into the language schools themselves, or by applying with a resume, cover letter, photo, and scanned copy of qualifications and passport over the Internet.

While I have never heard of an English school here that doesn’t need teachers (which means you will probably be working some serious overtime) private language schools mostly hire people with a Canadian, British, Australian, or American passport, a TESOL certificate (or similar qualification) and/or a degree in any subject, from a recognized university.

First-time teachers are usually welcome, as are people of various ages. My current work staff includes everyone from ages twenty to fifty-five, and they are generally sane people, from various professional backgrounds.

Accomodation

Some schools provide accommodation, but most don’t. However, there are throngs of English teachers actively searching for roommates, and most language schools will offer some help in finding an affordable and comfortable place to live.

Prices

Costs for accommodation, food, and other necessities of life are comparable to Canada, the US, and some parts of Europe. As Turkey is in close proximity to several Middle-Eastern and European countries, you may also want to travel.

Depending on whether or not you choose to go by train, plane, bus, or car, prices can vary from the extraordinarily cheap to the staggeringly expensive.

Activities

Istanbul has no shortage of things to do. In the Greek Quarter, old women haggle over striped socks at the market and fruit vendors greet shoppers with heaping triangles of olives and figs. Speeding taxis with bashed-in fronts steer and skid amongst the crowds of pedestrians spilling over the curbs in the downtown districts.

Ladies selling flowers by the boat docks push stems of daffodils under your nose, commanding, in their hats and headscarves, a mere dollar a bundle.

One of my best moments so far in Istanbul has been taking pictures of stray cats in a historic graveyard at 7am, while men and women beat carpets, men prayed, and children chased pigeons. People were doing their everyday activities, but it was nonetheless impressive.

Nightlife

Numerous nightclubs in almost every area of the city provide a comfortable places for expats and locals alike to get their groove on. While going out is expensive, one will feel at the end of the evening, as if their money has been well spent.

In Istanbul, atmosphere is everything- clubs and pubs are usually “dressed to the nines” with plush velour, seaside seating, water pipes, hip music, and cheerful chatter in a multitude of languages.

For me, Istanbul is a spot to rest my rucksack while I’m turning the tricks of the English-teaching trade, but my respect for the place and its people now goes beyond my initial pinwheel of tourist images. It is now my temporary home, and one that I see myself returning to.

For aspiring and seasoned travelers, there is no other city that quite captures the glamor of a martini glass, the pizzazz of a belly dancer, and the wild imagination of two continents.

As for whether it’s “better than New York,” I’m hardly to judge, but surely, anyone who comes here to teach will not be disappointed.

This article was originally published on April 17th, 2008.

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