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Monday, December 10th, 2007
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2:19 pm
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| Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
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9:31 am - I'm in the NYT Summer Reading Guide!
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The Handsomest Man in Cuba has just appeared in the New York Times Summer Book Review, June 2, 2007. Bike Friday even gets a mention! Thanks to all the folks at Globe-Pequot, Bike Friday, Peter McGuigan, all who made it happen along the way.
Read the full review on the NYT website or see below.
Read the blurbs from the first two pages of the book.
Travel books can generally be divided into two categories. First there are the ones in which all the traveling is done in the journey to an intended destination, at which point the writer stays put. And then there are the books in which the writer never stops — jetting, cycling, cruising or otherwise gamboling about — often at breakneck, TGV speed.
Miss Manners, a k a Judith Martin, is one of those who know where they like to go and don’t deviate in their devotion. Her latest book, NO VULGAR HOTEL: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice (Norton, $24.95), takes its title from Henry James’s novel “The Wings of the Dove,” whose heroine, Milly Theale, declares that in Venice she will stay in “no vulgar hotel,” but in “some fine old rooms, wholly independent, for a series of months.” As Martin puts it, “Renting — not necessarily a palace, but no vulgar hotel — is also a requirement for savoring the living Venice” and truly understanding the city. It’s the only way, she explains, to reciprocate invitations and entertain the locals, essential aspects of pursuing friendships. (Even on vacation, she remains Miss Manners.)
In some ways, “No Vulgar Hotel” is less an ode to Venice than it is to Venetophiles, those who, with “swaggering unpretentiousness,” consider themselves something other than tourists, buying their fish from “street” vendors and avoiding the day-trippers’ piazzas. Having spent many years renting or borrowing apartments for long vacations, and lately visiting the city up to four times a year, Martin has even gone so far as to study the Venetian dialect. She seems to have read all the other books on Venice and seen every play or film that contains a passing reference to her beloved town.
Reading her book, with its captivating mini-histories of Venetian literary salons, families of note and artists in residence, is like attending a gossipy Continental dinner party, in which Martin not only plays the hostess but moonlights as various guests (the garrulous raconteur, the imperious know-it-all, the great-aunt who doesn’t realize her listener hasn’t a clue whom she’s talking about). Though her artfully coiffed prose can run a bit precious and long, for the most part she enlightens and entertains. The best books on Venice, as Martin says, “deftly mix the past with the personal present in a spirit of light scholarship.” Not only does Martin know what she likes, she knows how to serve it.
Rebecca S. Ramsey’s FRENCH BY HEART: An American Family’s Adventures in La Belle France (Broadway, paper, $12.95) offers no such pretensions. Unlike the flotilla of expatriates who publish memoirs of their sojourns in France, Ramsey is neither a professional writer nor an epicurean, neither an aspiring artist nor a trust-fund loafer. She’s a teacher who shops at J. C. Penney and lives with her husband, a tire designer, in Kensington Farm, “a good subdivision, full of perfectly fine vinyl-sided two-story houses, with a swim team, close to the soccer fields and good schools” in Greer, S.C.
But when Michelin offers her husband a job in Clermont-Ferrand, an unremarkable industrial hub, she’s game to relocate her three children for a four-year stint. “I wanted to understand it all, the Frenchness of this place,” she writes. “Could we be French too, just for a little while?” Could a family of Baptists, whose children attend Vacation Bible School, survive in a land of lapsed Catholics where none of the neighbors “put wreathes on their doors or fake snow on their windows or light-up Santas or manger scenes in their yards the way people did back home”? The answer, conveyed through a series of vignette-like chapters, each wrapped up neatly like a display in the Container Store, is “Not really.” A momentous tumble in a bookstore whose tall shelves are “arranged like a maze for skinny people,” where Ramsey, dressed in a “big red field jacket and clunky black clogs,” falls spectacularly over her rampaging toddler, comically encapsulates the reasons why.
In Ramsey’s eyes, her provincial counterparts are neither categorically adorable nor absurd, despite their indecipherable mutterings and behavior. Her accounts of their prosaic routines are unexpectedly engrossing. Although she can occasionally be sentimental, the mostly genial Ramsey can also be satisfyingly snippy and droll.
Another departure from the French-travel-book formula comes courtesy of the cookbook author Georgeanne Brennan, whose latest offering, A PIG IN PROVENCE: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France (Chronicle, $24.95), recounts more than 30 years of living, working and vacationing in Provence. Brennan and her first husband, former grad students from the University of California (he studied animal husbandry and philosophy; history was her specialty), buy a farmhouse in Provence in 1970, intending to make their own goat cheese. Like members of a less-hyped counterculture subset (instead of popping magic mushrooms in the Haight, they forage for chanterelles in Haute-Provence), they embrace the art of cheese-making well before the word “artisanal” has graced its first American menu.
Unlike more leisurely chroniclers of Provençal life, Brennan has little time to dissect her neighbors’ quaint mannerisms. She’s too busy trying to wrench a stuck kid from a laboring goat and participating in the jour du cochon slaughter of a pig: “It all happened so quickly and with such swift, sure movements that I barely had time to register the emotion I felt at the passage from life to death. At one moment the pig was a living, breathing, heaving animal, one I had known for the last year ... and in the next moment he was an inanimate object, ready to become food.”
For an epicurean read (punctuated with recipes that echo the culinary themes of each chapter), Brennan’s book is startlingly gory. Even intrepid carnivores may flinch at her vivid descriptions of pieds-et-paquets, a dish composed of sheep stomach and lamb feet cooked with pork belly, a specialty of Marseille (where no offal is, apparently, too offensive to waste). With her historian’s appreciation for fading and bygone traditions, Brennan offers fascinating accounts of the mass sheepherding known as transhumance and the habits of the itinerant food purveyors of the Provençal hinterlands. She revels equally in the preparation and consumption of the regional cuisine, whether it’s chocolate cake moistened with pig’s blood or le grand aïoli, a local festival in which snails and vegetables are doused in garlic and olive oil and gobbled up at communal tables. “In listening to people recount their food memories around a table, I’ve seen their eyes glow and their body language soften with the telling of the taste, smell and texture of a beloved dish.” You can almost hear her lips smacking.
Far less appetizing is Pete Jordan’s DISHWASHER: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States (Harper Perennial, paper, $13.95), an example of the dashing-around travel book. Or in this case, dishing around. Jordan, a college dropout and willful idler, decides that for lack of a better calling he will attempt to wash dishes professionally in all 50 states. “I could envision it so clearly,” he writes. “Traveling the country, seeking out intriguing workplaces in exotic locales, enjoying the freedom of living a life consciously devoted to a lack of responsibility.” Probably in spite of, and not courtesy of, its irresponsible narrator, “Dishwasher” is almost compulsively readable. Even those of us who have spent time as waiters, waitresses and busboys may have little knowledge of what takes place in the dishpit — or of what goes on among dish dogs (otherwise known as pearl divers, plongeurs, dishwashing bums, sudsbusters, dish studs, dish pigs and, more rarely, dish mistresses and dishgals).
Though one would like to imagine a hidden world of George Orwell geniuses splashing around in a sea of detergent, most of Jordan’s fellow dishwashers are workaday folks, usually with a decidedly loose commitment to their vocation. Among other bits of dishwasher lore, we learn that their ranks have included Burt Reynolds, Robert Duvall, Richard Gere, Jay Leno and Sidney Poitier.
Jordan tells us what it’s like to wash dishes on an oil rig off the Gulf Coast and to “share” dishwashing duties on a communal farm in Missouri. He learns to follow kosher rules in a kitchen in Portland, Ore. (where a Trekkie co-worker tries to thwart his adherence to the rules), discovers the racial politics of dishwashing in New Orleans and researches the radicalism of early culinary-worker unions. In one survey, dishwashing ranked No. 735 among 740 occupations in terms of status (only envelope stuffer, prostitute, street-corner drug dealer, fortuneteller and panhandler ranked lower). “Dishwasher” may not raise your opinion of the average dish dog, but it will help you understand why not.
With even less dedication than the average dishwasher, Evan McHugh, the Australian author of PINT-SIZED IRELAND: In Search of the Perfect Guinness (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s, $23.95), assigns himself the task of tracking down the best pint of Guinness in Ireland. McHugh undertakes this quest in the company of his girlfriend, Michelle, to whom he refers as Twidkiwodm for “the-woman-I-didn’t-know-I-would-one-day-marry.” That he calls her this name not once but throughout the book’s 280 pages will either amuse you or vex you to the point of distraction.
Giving away which camp I fall into, I can only surmise that McHugh, a Sydney-based newspaper columnist and the author of two Australian travel guides, realized that in order to turn his pub crawl into a book, he needed a stunt, and that rather than uncover branches of his family tree or travel exclusively by unicycle, he chose to write about “moother’s milk,” the ultimate Irish tipple. Except that he doesn’t really do that. Had McHugh made more than a desultory effort to find out what makes one pub’s newly poured glass of black stout different from that of the next, this might have been a worthwhile project. Instead, his approach is mostly cursory. Arriving at the Guinness brewery moments before closing time, he skims through the exhibits and never bothers to return.
Elsewhere, one can learn that five years ago Guinness made what many consider a blasphemous decision: after years of insisting on a slow pour, in which three-quarters of a glass is allowed two minutes to settle before being topped off, the company created a new version that could be poured in 15 seconds. Apparently, a new generation of drinkers was unwilling to wait; even sales in Ireland had dropped 4 percent. If McHugh had explored the reasons behind this declining market or delved into the history of Irish beer, “Pint-Sized Ireland” might have proved more interesting than a post-collegiate journal. Instead, he backpacks and hitchhikes through youth hostels, issuing stale observations that manage to be both mundane and inane: “As someone who likes to zig when everyone else is zagging, I know you can always find ‘the road less traveled.’ Or at least a quiet corner, a snug in a pub perhaps, where you can settle back and talk about life’s adventures.”
For real adventure, readers would do well to turn to THE HANDSOMEST MAN IN CUBA: An Escapade (Globe Pequot, paper, $14.95). Four years before her arrival in Cuba, Lynette Chiang chucked her computer programming job, three-bedroom house and boyfriend in Sydney and set out to travel the world, inviting readers to join her midway through. By the time she hits Cuba, she has already mastered the art of the Bike Friday, a fold-up bicycle, and learned to travel on the cheap and skinny, entering the country with a small stove, a tent, a sleeping bag and $2,000 in cash. Chiang isn’t a purist — she’ll get off her bike when necessary or convenient— but she’s about as gutsy a bargain traveler as they come.
In some ways, Chiang’s book parallels McHugh’s: Both writers hail from Australia (land of the 13-week paid sabbatical and culturally sanctioned wanderlust) and both barrel around nonstop. Like McHugh’s, Chiang’s writing has an informal, bloggy feel. We learn when she wakes up in the morning, what kind of vermin inhabit her quarters and what she eats for breakfast. Fortunately, we also learn about Cuba, which she visits at the height of the Elian Gonzales frenzy.
The notion that you understand a place only after you’ve traveled the gritty road, getting to know the postal worker and the Laundromat operator, has become more than a little trite, but Chiang really does make an effort to connect with the locals. Traveling as a 34-year-old single woman, she cycles through backwater villages and stays in deserted campsites and unlicensed private homes. On a whim, she joins a boorish South African sailing a dinghy to the tourist town of Trinidad, only to endure severe storms, a broken engine and high winds. After 17 hours of violent sea sickness, she finally sights land: “I stare at this chimera of terra firma, drained of all energy save for a few flickering calories to focus my retinas on my bikini top flapping in the railing, then on the island in the background, then back to my bikini in the foreground, as I have been doing in a trance for the past six hours.”
Though she’s nearly arrested for attempting an illegal house stay, flashed twice, punched in the face, involved in a truck collision and robbed, Chiang’s rosy vision of Cuba remains undimmed. "No matter how poor or disillusioned, wretched or enlightened, almost every Cuban has someone to go home to, whether it's a family of their own making or someone else's," she writes. “Cuba, not Australia, may well be the lucky country.”
Pamela Paul is a frequent contributor to the Book Review and the author, most recently, of “Pornified.” Her next book will be about the business behind child rearing.
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| Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
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12:29 pm - The Gal's Good and Questionable Career Moves for 2007
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Picture: Presenting my shtick at the Soho Apple Store Theater, October 4, 2006, clearly unable to decide whether to wear pants or a skirt that morning. Thanks to Theater Coordinator Frank Bonomo for organizing such an impressive backdrop. Read about it. 
Click here to see the Galfromdownunder's shtick in a nutshell (or should that be clamshell, after the Bike Friday style of suitcase? End of pun run).
I'm still on my transcontinental telecommute. Not a bad life being a surrogate daughter - one 'father' even 'admonished' me for coming in late and talking on my cellphone too much! A strangely comforting feeling for a wilful traveling wheelberry.
The Handsomest Man in Cuba has just been published March 15, 2007 by Globe-Pequot, publishers of 'From Baghdad with Love', 'Too Much Tuscan Sun' and other best sellers. Click on the link and search for 'Handsomest Man'. It's similar to my self-published edition, complete with photos, but boasts a flattering intro of two page blurbs by several notable Bike Friday customers ... like voice of the Tour de France Phil Liggett! Someone even equated me to Steinbeck - now that's going a bit far ...
GAL ITINERARY for 2007
Where I'll Be When (check also the Bike Friday Event Calendar)
Dec 2006-Feb 2007: AUSTRALIA - COMPLETE Read review
March 10-17: ARISONA Desert Camp: Tour of Historic Towns and Hotels - COMPLETE Read review
April 18: INDIANAPOLIS Presentation to the Central Indiana Bike Club
April 25-30: CHICAGO, riding with the Folding Bike Society folks
May 4: NYC Interview with Fastcompany.com about my shtick
May 9-22: ITALY, reviewing Bike Across Italy for Ciclismo Classico. This year, Outside Mag voted Giro del Gelato one of the 30 best trips of the year. Watch this space for a full montymedia review as usual.
June 8-10: PHILADELPHIA Round*Up
June 11: NYC Presentation to the 5BBC Bike Club
July 3-5: SEATTLE Little People of America Convention to show them a Bantam Friday
July 22-28: IOWA for RAGBRAI
September 8-15: OREGON Cycle Oregon 2007 for the Bike Friday Homecoming
Sometime in here: Colorado, visiting our Bike Friday Clubs of Boulder and Denver.
And basically wherever else I find myself invited to loiter with intent.
If you know of an opportunity where I can come and speak to your bike club please let me know.
My shtick: www.galfromdownunder.com/talks
Contact me: 541-513-7711 or lynettec@bikefriday.com
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| Thursday, December 21st, 2006
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12:27 pm - That's 'National Treasure' to you, cobber!
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I just received this in my email box from the National Library of Australia. Holy helmet! So my cyber soapbox is to be considered 'national heritage'! I can just see myself up there, immortalized with www.bobsyouruncle.com, flatoutlikealizarddrinking.com, www.bangslikeadunnydoor.com ...
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Ms Lynette Chiang
20 December 2006
Dear Ms Chiang
Request for permission to archive
GalFromDownUnder website at: http://www.galfromdownunder.com/ and related blogs
The National Library of Australia aims to build a comprehensive collection of Australian publications to ensure that Australians have access to their documentary heritage now and in the future. The Library has traditionally collected items in print, but it is also committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural and research value.
PANDORA, Australia’s Web Archive, was set up by the Library in 1996 to enable the archiving and provision of long-term access to online Australian publications. Since then we have been identifying online publications and archiving those that we consider have national significance. Additional information about PANDORA can be found on the Library's server at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html
We would like to include the GalFromDownUnder website in the PANDORA Archive and I would be grateful if you would let me know whether you are willing to permit us to do so, that is, grant us a licence under the Copyright Act 1968, to copy your publication into the Archive and to provide public online access to it via the Internet. This means that you would grant the Library permission to retain your publication in the Archive and to provide public access to it in perpetuity. If you are not the person with authority to give permission, please advise us who is.
If you are willing to grant us such a licence, please complete the short form at the end of this message and return it to me.
There are some benefits to you as a publisher in having your publication archived by the Library. If you grant us a copyright licence, the Library will take the necessary preservation action to keep your publication accessible as hardware and software changes over time. The Library will catalogue your publication and add the record to the National Bibliographic Database (a database of catalogue records shared by over 1,100 Australian libraries), as well as to our own online catalogue. This will increase awareness of your publication among researchers using libraries.
If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me, Edgar Crook, by telephone on 02 6262 1618 or by email ecrook@nla.gov.au.
*******************************************************************
I/We grant the National Library of Australia a licence under the Copyright Act 1968 to copy the GalFromDownUnder website into the PANDORA Archive. I understand that this licence permits the Library to retain and provide public online access to it in perpetuity and that the Library may make reproductions or communications of my publication as are reasonably necessary to preserve it and make it available to the public.
NAME:
ORGANISATION:
PHONE:
EMAIL:
*******************************************************************
Yours sincerely
Edgar Crook
Librarian
Digital Archiving Section
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
PH. +61 2 6262 1618
Fax +61 2 6273 4322
Email ecrook@nla.gov.au
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| Friday, September 8th, 2006
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10:18 pm - Galfromdownunder Movie Showings and movements ...
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GAL ON THE GO:
From Dec 7, 2006 - March 3, 2007, I'll be in Australia. My 541-513-7711 cellphone number will be temporarily suspended as it's too expensive to use when overseas. I'll instead be contactable by email (via Blackberry and the Web), Skype/Gizmoproject (username failedhippie) and on a landline in Australia at +61 2 93278630. Road Warrior tip: A never-expire, no-weekly-fee calling card from www.enjoyprepaid.com, lets you call Australia from the USA for 4 cents a minute, and within the USA for 1 cent a minute. A good deal!
Upcoming talk:
"ROUTE 66 BY BICYCLE: PEDALING THE MOTHER ROAD"
1) HAWAII BICYCLING LEAGUE ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DINNER
DATE: December 1, 2006
TIME: 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
LOCATION: Wai'oli Tea Room, 2950 Manoa Road, Honolulu 96822
ABOUT:
Come and learn about the state's advocacy and education
organization dedicated to bicycling - and consider joining!
The HBL is celebrating an amendment to the City's Charter to make
Honolulu a pedestrian and bicycle friendly city.
The evenings events will include a State of the Organization Report
from President Bob Mon (will include the results of HBLs Strategic
Planning Process), Board of Directors election, volunteer awards,
raffles, and at 8pm ... ROUTE 66 BY BICYCLE, a 44-minute
documentary and talk by Bike Friday Adventurette, Lynette Chiang.
See http://www.galfromdownunder.com/route66
Lynette will talk about the trip, demonstrate a Bike Friday, and discuss
her technique of making her award-winning movies using a simple
digital camera.
COST:
$25 for HBL Members, $30 for non-members.
A great dinner with vegetarian options.
RSVP:
by Monday, Nov. 27, 2006 and send your check to:
HBL 3442 Waialae Ave. #1, Honolulu, HI 96816
WEBSITE:
http://www.hbl.org/events_general.html
2) ROUTE 66 BY BICYCLE in KANEOHE / SOCIAL POTLUCK:
Artist and teacher WayneTakazono invites his students, friends,
and anyone interested to a special potluck showing of this movie.
Guest artists including Wayne and Lynette will showcase their
their work with a loose theme of using photography and digital
technology in conjunction with traditional art media.
DATE: Sunday Dec 3rd
TIME: 6:00 - 9:00 pm
LOCATION: Kaneohe Atrium, at 45-006 Kawa St, corner of
Kawa and Kahuhipa St. Enter from either street- there's
plenty of free parking on both sides of the building.
BRING: Your own beverages, utensils and something yummy to share.
COST: Free, donation to the Peru Orphanage appreciated. At last year's
showing of Lynette's award-winning movie "16,000 Feet on a Friday:
Biking the World's Highest Paved Road" at BF Club of HI, which won the
Boston Bike Film Festival Audience Choice award in 2005,
Honolulu folks donated over $500 to the Peruvian Orphanage that PACTOUR
visit each year. Visit:
http://www.galfromdownunder.com/peru
This year, Lon Haldeman personally took your donations and bought
books for three libraries in the jungle. Read about that on his blog:
http://pactour.blogspot.com
Your donation to the Peru Orphanage will again help these kids
- who are rarely visited - greatly.
RSVP: Wayne Takazono, wtakazono@hawaii.rr.com, (808) 554-4600
or Lynette lynchiang@yahoo.com, 514-513-7711 (cell)
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The Route66 DVD is here! I have about 20 inital copies to sell. Email me at lynchiang at yahoo dot com if you want to buy one. $20 plus $5 shlepping and handling. See http://www.galfromdownunder.com/route66
Keep an eye on the Bike Friday events calendar for details of events as they come to hand...
LATEST ... Some shots of my current loiterings (Oct 2006) over east can be found at http://www.galfromdownunder.com/eastcoast
ITINERARY
2006
Currently ------- Homestaying in Sharon, WI
Jul 12-Aug 7 ---- Working at Bike Friday in Eugene, OR
Aug 3 --------- ROUTE66 showing at Hanna's place.
Jul 29 ---------- ROUTE66 Showing and potluck in Eugene
Aug 12-19 ----- PACTOUR Wisconsin Cycling camp
Aug 19 --------- Come to Rounda Manure ice cream/pig roast ride in Sharon, WI - see http://www.bikefriday.com/events
Aug 22 --------- ROUTE66 showing at http://www.indiecoffee.net in Madison, WI
Aug 23, 24: ----- ROUTE66 showing: Made on a Mac, Chicago: presenting the Route66 and Peru DVD movies at the Chicago Mac Store Theater. See below for spiel.
Sep-Oct---------Telecommuting in Connecticut and New York. .. and wherever Bike Friday customers welcome me. There will be a possible Route66 showing in NY.
Sep 23 (Sat 3pm) - ROUTE66 showing: Made on a Mac, NYC: Soho Apple Store Theater
Oct 3 ----------- ROUTE66 showing at the Appalachian Mtn Club Bethel, CT
Oct 4 ----------- 16,000 Feet on a Friday showing for Made on a Mac, NYC: Soho Apple Store Theater, 8-9pm all welcome
Oct 5-9 --------- Ithaca, upstate NY, guest of Bike Friday owners Andrejs and Diana Ozolins
Oct 10-13 ------ NYC guest of BF Club of NY member, David Holowka
Oct 14-16 ------ NJ Guest of BF club of NJ leader Ben Blum
Oct 16 --------- ROUTE66 SHOWING at the Central Jersey Bike Club
Oct 18 --------- Moving Together 2006, Boston - I'll be attending this conference
Oct 20,21 ------ Boston Bike Film Festival 2006 - I'll be attending and Route66 will be screening on Friday Oct 20.
Oct 23 --------- Route66 in Natick, Boston - thanks to John Allen and hosts Dick and Jill Miller for setting this up!
Oct 25-Nov 6 --- Eugene, Oregon
Nov 5-Dec 5-----Hawaii, presenting movies and checking on my land in the Big Island.
Dec 1: ---------- HAWAII: Route 66 at the Hawaii Bicycling League Annual Membership dinner
Dec 3: ---------- HAWAII: Route 66 in Kaneohe, TIME: 6:00 - 9:00 pm, LOCATION: Kaneohe Atrium, at 45-006 Kawa St, corner of Kawa and Kahuhipa St. People can enter from either street and there's plenty of free parking on both sides of the building. It's a Potluck so bring friends and food to share.
2007
Dec 5-Mar 3, '07 - Australia, visiting my mother, renewing my USA re-entry visa
March 8 -------- ROUTE66 showing at University of Oregon Outdoor program (tentative)
Mar 3-10 ------- Bike Friday Desert Camp - all new 'More Fun than Fast' format. Join us!
March 10-? ----- Possibly Homestaying with BF Club of Boulder, CO, leaders
April 16 -------- Presentation to the Central Indiana Bike Club
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1) ROUTE66 BY BICYCLE: BIKING THE MOTHER ROAD (50 minute DVD movie)
The "Mother Road" of all highways, Route66, was once a 2,400-mile journey over national trails and farm roads linking Chicago to California.
By the mid 1930s, now completely paved, it became famous as the classic American road trip ... until the I-40 freeway bypassed many colorful towns and businesses, leaving them to languish and die. Thanks to efforts by some 'never say die' fans of the Old Road, Route66 was re-born.
Author, world bicycle traveler and handlebar videographer Lynette Chiang (The Galfromdownunder) shot a 45-minute DVD video of this journey one-handedly, using a simple 6 megapixel Panasonic Lumix digital camera tucked into her jersey pocket. The movie was made using iMovie, iDVD and Quicktime Pro and Garageband on a 12", 1 Gb Powerbook G4.
This video is an upbeat journey along the 'forgotten highway', led by Race Across America bicycling legend and fan of Route66, Lon Haldeman. You'll ride in the slipstream of 25 cyclists over 29 days and 8 states, experiencing the people, places and chocolate malt milkshakes that made this highway great. Join us as we pedal along the original Route 66 and rediscover many beloved icons of roadside America.
More info: http://www.galfromdownunder.com/route66
Galfromdownunder website: http://www.galfromdownunder.com
2) 16,000 FEET ON A FRIDAY : Biking the World's Highest Paved Road on a Folding Bicycle
In October 2004 author and bicycle traveler Lynette Chiang (The Galfromdownunder) biked the World's Highest Paved Road with 6x Race Across America legend Lon Haldeman on a Bike Friday travel bicycle. This 500-mile, 12-day expedition followed the barren hills of Lima over the 16,000 foot Ticlo mountain pass, descending into spectacular terraced valleys to reach Satipo, a remote, inland jungle town. Local police proclaimed the group as the first 'gringos' to reach there by bicycle.
Lynette shot a 45-minute DVD video of this journey one-handedly, using a simple 3.2 megapixel Canon ELPH digital camera tucked into her jersey pocket. The movie was made using iMovie, iDVD and Quicktime Pro on a 12", 1 Gb Powerbook G4.
You'll 'ride' through peaks and chasms, visiting a remote Peruvian orphanage of 85 children whose parents were killed by guerillas 8 years ago, and who survive on the salary of the sole nun who cares for them. Lynette will be taking donations for these children and forwarding them to Lon Haldeman, who buys and personally delivers food and clothing to the Orphanage each year in October. The movie is set to music by acclaimed Eugene classical guitarist Craig Einhorn, electronic music composer Jon7 and, Lynette Chiang. The movie was recently voted two-to-one Audience Favorite at the inaugural Boston Bicycle Film Festival in October 2005.
For movie trailers, story, and details of how join this expedition and/or donate to the Orphanage: http://www.galfromdownunder.com/peru
Galfromdownunder website: http://www.galfromdownunder.com
Bike Friday website: http://www.bikefriday.com
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| Thursday, September 7th, 2006
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3:55 pm - The Handsomest Man in Cuba - meets the Handsomest Man in Cuba!
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The Handsomest Man has met his match - again! Since its initial Random House Australia release downunder in 2003 several folks have gone to Cuba armed with my book and waved it in front of the Cuban Photographer at the Capitolio in Havana. Now, Globe-Pequot in the USA is about to release it, so more people can go down and beat him over the head with it - he'll be busting mi culo about it soon I'm sure!
Here's the latest, sent in by Cheryl Lead and her beau Sep 2006. Looks like he's still making a relatively handsome living ... he still has pole position on the steps of the 'Whitehouse' of Cuba ... muchas gracias Cheryl.
Hey Lynette,
I just got back from a couple of amazing weeks in Cuba and wanted to let you know that the guy from the cover of your book is still there, still working in the Capitolio with his crazy photobox - he's upgraded to a plastic bucket though.
We had your book with us as my boyfriend was reading it, so we went back a couple of days later to show him. He'd seen it before but he was totally stoked, he kept asking me if I was friends with la china. It made him a big celebrity with all the tourists who gathered around him, especially 'cos they thought that HE was the handsomest man in Cuba.
Anyway thought I'd send you the photo of him holding your book.
Cheers
Cheryl
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| Saturday, May 20th, 2006
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11:18 pm - Route66 done and dusted: Now Chicago talk
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Route66 on a Friday is over. See http://www.bikefriday.com/route66 for the full montymedia in the style of the Gal.
Nexst talk is the Chicago Cycling Club, June 13. Here's a nice blurb posted by Kathy Schubert. Contact me if you want a showing for your Route66 aficionados!
-----Original Message-----
From: chi-folding@yahoogroups.com [mailto:chi-folding@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Kathy Schubert
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 3:29 PM
To: chi-folding@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CFBS] Galfromdownunder to speak at CCC meeting
I want to extend an invitation to the Chicago Folding Bike
Society to attend the next meeting of the Chicago Cycling Club
because our speaker is none other than Lynette Chiang, the Gal
from Down Under, a representive of Green Gear Cycling, maker of
the Bike Friday!
Our June meeting will be held at Chief O'Neill's Pub, 3471 N.
Elston. Optional dinner is at 6:30 PM. The meeting starts at
7:00 PM. We will have a serious discussion of other venues
since several of us were really unhappy with the way Chief
O'Neill's has been serving us. If we can't have a private
room, it's time to move on.
The featured speaker will be Lynette Chiang, a very curious
creature who is living among us this month. I'm not sure which
trip she will show 'n tell us - Mexico, Cuba or Peru. But
after reading her book "The Handsomest Man in Cuba" myself, I'm
sure you'll enjoy whatever she shares with us.
At 34, Lynette Chiang fled a decent job, three-bedroom house,
fastish car and a nice bloke in Sydney and, armed with a
congenitally poor sense of direction, set off to see the world
on a folding bicycle. Her distinguished careers include that of
computer programmer, failed waitress, third chef, manager of a
mountain-top hotel, creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi
Advertising (Costa Rica) and swanning about outside Windsor
Castle in the freezing cold dressed as an English Lady. She has
lived in enough countries to learn that to not fit in, is part
of the experience. She claims she developed a personality only
in the past six years. She currently works as Customer
Evangelist, advertising copywriter, and online content writer
for Bike Friday http://www.bikefriday.com, maker of the world's
leading performance travel bicycle.
Read more about Lynette's travels at
http://www.galfromdownunder.com
__________________________________
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| Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
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10:02 am - Hawaii, Arizona, Texas, Route 66
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Here's where and when I 'plan' to be in 2006:
In general: The Gal Across America transcontinental telecommute.
 Dec 5, 2005 - Feb 20, 2006: HAWAII. *UPDATE" Read the chronicles, view the movies and photos here: www.galfromdownunder.com/hawaii. Yes I am actually working. If I could stay here forever I would, but duty calls ...
Feb 22, 2006: 16,000 Feet on a Friday on the big screen at the U of O Outdoor program, Eugene, Oregon. See the Bike Friday Events Calendar.
Feb 25-Mar 4, 2005: Bike Friday Arizona Desert Camp. *UPDATE* read the full report.
Mar 5-Apr 27, 2006: Homestaying with customers in Austin, and San Antonio, Texas. Planned talks:
* Thursday, March 23, 6:30 pm REI (16,000 Feet video)
* Thursday, March 30, 8:00 pm Monkeywrench Books, 110 North Loop (Sustainability evening, showing video of 99% self-sustainable Bike Friday owner Ann Kobsa on the Big Island of Hawaii
* Monday, April 3, 7:00 p.m. ACA meeting
*UPDATE* Mission accomplished, read about it: www.galfromdownunder.com/texas
April 16-May 16, 2006: Fly to Santa Monica to wrote and shoot a DVD of the PACTOUR Route 66 bike tour. Starting at Santa Monica, CA, finishing in Chicago, IL. Maybe we'll be stopping near you?
And then? ...
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| Wednesday, February 1st, 2006
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10:00 am - 16,000 Feet on a Friday at the U of O Outdoor Program
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 Eugenians can see my 45-minute Peru pebblebuster on the biiiiiiig, U of O screen!. Here's the spiel once again:
Date: Wed Feb 22, 2006
Time: 7:00pm
Location: 100 Willamette Hall on the University of Oregon Campus, Eugene, OR.
Cost: $5 donation for the Orphanage appreciated
In October 2004, author and adventurer Lynette Chiang ("The Galfromdownunder") biked the World's Highest Paved Road with 6x Race Across America legend Lon Haldeman, on a Eugene, OR-made Bike Friday. This 500-mile, 12-day expedition followed the barren hills of Lima over the 16,000 foot Ticlo mountain pass, descending into spectacular terraced valleys to reach Satipo, a remote, inland jungle town. Local police proclaimed the group as the first 'gringos' to reach there by bicycle.
Lynette shot a 45-minute DVD video of this journey one-handedly, using a simple Canon ELPH digital camera tucked into her jersey pocket.
You'll 'ride' through peaks and chasms, visiting a remote Peruvian orphanage of 85 children whose parents were killed by guerillas 8 years ago, and who survive on the salary of the sole nun who cares for them. Lynette will be taking donations for these children and forwarding them to Lon Haldeman, who buys and personally delivers food and clothing to the Orphanage each year in October. The movie is set to music by acclaimed Eugene classical guitarist Craig Einhorn, electronic music composer Jon7 and Lynette, who will all be present at the showing. The movie was recently voted two-to-one Audience Favorite at the inaugural Boston Bicycle Film Festival in October 2005.
Copies of the DVD, music and Lynette's acclaimed travel memoir The Handsomest Man in Cuba will be available at the screening. A generous portion of the proceeds will benefit the Orphanage.
For movie trailers, story, and details of how join this expedition and/or donate to the Orphanage:
http://www.bikefriday.com/peru2004
Galfromdownunder website: http://www.galfromdownunder.com
Bike Friday website: http://www.bikefriday.com
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| Friday, December 9th, 2005
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4:25 pm - Aloha from downunder ...
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4:21 pm - The Handsomest Man has been adopted!
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The Handsomest Man in Cuba has been adopted! Globe Pequot, who publish the Falcon Walking Guides (and that book about the grizzly and the two hikers) would like to release it next fall. The deal is being handled by my new agent Peter McGuigan of Sanford Greenburger Lit agency. So now, I can concentate on writing rather than book warehousing...
The Globe edition might not include the 8 pages of color photos I put in my self-published award-winning USA edition, so if you want a copy of that one, buy it now, signed by me, from Bike Friday, Amazon, etc. (note - I make about 1/12 of the proceeds money if you buy it from Amazon - but it's your choice and I thank you!).
Meanwhile, I am in Hawaii From Dec '05-Feb '06 working on my next book ... as per my Gal Across America transcontinental telecommute. Drop me a line!
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| Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005
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10:25 am - Future Music Oregon 2005 - a review
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This review was submitted to the Eugene Weekly, Register Guard, and posted on the EGAS website.
What the bleep is FMO all about?
Future Music Oregon at the UofO School of Music, Director Jeffrey Stolet
November 19, 2005
 What does the phrase 'future music' conjure up? Scantily-paneled pitdroids bleeping it out on Battle of the Bots? A personal Madonna hologram dancing in your living room? A Bing Crosby direct feed into your ipod brain implant?
How about this: a set of four, ordinary speakers connected to a laptop, a chair to sit in front them, and a pair of ears, open. Close eyes, and let unfamiliar sounds wade into your ear canals, probing dank corridors where no Q-tip has gone before. Start swimming harder as the tide rises, throwing you onto the hard roof of a screaming freight train. Now you’re in thin air, now you're plunging feet first, flailing, into depths of your own imagination.
That's where Jeff Stolet, Director of Intermedia Music Technology at the UofO, can transport you, if you let him. His annual Future Music Oregon concert is a collage of bizarre soundscapes, ambitious student electronica, recitals by visiting electronic music professors and yes, the odd interesting tech-toy.
2 years ago I witnessed a keyboard played by a manic phantom. Stolet, several feet away from the instrument, gesticulated over an electronic pad which sent infra-red signals to a controlling laptop which 'played' the piano. The result was like Phantom of the Opera runs up the back of Salvador Dali in peak hour and engages in a knock-down-drag-out fight in the passing lane. Another student mapped the movement of the eyeball to specific tones as the subject looked at various works of art, and presented the resultant soundscape as a composition. Short clips of these intriguing experiments may be viewed on the EGAS (Electronic Grooves Appreciation Society) Yahoo group.
This year, works by students Jason Fick, Mei-Ling Lee and Stolet himself brought this listener eye-level with a team of caffeinated, tap dancing centipedes, to the underside of a rocket launching pad at take-off, to dodging grand pianos plummeting from the tip of a pagoda backed by whispering Chinese teens. I am sure the patron beside me was navigating a completely different course in his brain. 'Future music' is best experienced with eyes wide shut, judgment hushed, and ears wide open.
Guest artist Scott Wyatt, professor of composition at the University of Illinois, presented what could be described as more 'accessible' pieces. His work 'On a Roll' seemed hell-bent on duplicating the sound of a large, heavy metal ball bearing rolling with glee over various hard and sloped surfaces, causing cacophonous calamities along the way. I ducked for cover a few times, only to hear Rollerball morph into harmless puck-pucketing ping pong ball now and then.
What's the difference between all this and listening to movie THX sound effects, you may ask? Very little, on first earful. But the lack of the usual visuals that bombard us daily from every TV, billboard and movie screen seems to free the mind to write, direct and produce its own original, compelling scenes.
This was exemplified in Wyatt's two other works. '...and nature is alone' was a Russian girl's narrative of her visit to the 'dead zone' of Chernobyl, interspersed with sound. You could hear your own boots crunching through the desolation, quickly running back to the dubious safety of your car with rolled up windows. 'All at Risk' was an email from war correspondent Brian Rooney in Iraq, presented in advancing and retreating white sentences on a black screen, set to a harrowing soundscape. I noticed that my conditioning expected to see the very worst graphic details spelled out, but Wyatt had judiciously omitted the more gory sentences, allowing us to witness the tragedy using the instruments of darkness, our own ears, and our own mind. When did you last go there?
For more information on FMO visit http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~fmo
Lynette Chiang www.galfromdownunder.com, is an award-winning travel author, adventurer, instigator of EGAS and appreciator of all things atypical.
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| Friday, November 11th, 2005
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11:19 am - Gal Across America Master Plan for 2006, 2007 ... ?
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11:12 am - 16,000 Feet DVD is Audience Favorite at Boston Bike Film Fest
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| Thursday, September 1st, 2005
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6:01 pm - Gal Tech tip: Stringing up a Hammock without getting yourself in a knot
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Here's a useful article I wrote about how to hang a basic hammock and be able to adjust/untie it later! No forgettable bowline knots or anything required here. Feel free to comment and ask questions below.
I used this with fat trees on a recent tour.
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| Thursday, August 11th, 2005
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6:06 pm - Galfromdownunder at the 40th Willamette Writer's Conference
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From Padlocked Diary to Powell’s Pick (and other shameless alliterations)
The Willamette Writer’s Conference 40th Anniversary
By Lynette Chiang
http://www.galfromdownunder.com
Silver Award winner for Travel Essays, Foreword Magazine Book of the Year 2004
With proponent of avant-garde non-fiction Dorothy Mack of Writers On The Edge. "You can even use Tarot cards to head up each chapter .. and what about recipe cards?" How about M&M's with a word on each that people can rearrange and eat as the mystery is solved? Go wild!
“A WRITER says things well. A genius, well, says things.”
This single statement, issued by the venerable Steve Martin ten years ago from a dark theater stage got me thinking about the first part at least – the genius part might have to wait 'til my next life.
Fast-forward past many anxious moments sweating over a memo as a civil servant in Australia, rearranging 5 lines of copy as a Saatchi & Saatchi adwriter in Ireland, self-editing my first book in Costa Rica leaving 5 typos intact just for kicks (and if you believe that you’ll buy my book), and I find myself standing at the registration desk of the 40th annual Willamette Writers Conference in Portland.
Tapping my details into a glowing screen is Bill Johnson, award-winning Portland playwright, whose book ‘A Story is a Promise’ generously shares what he knows about wowing ‘em in front of the velvet curtain. And here he is, ushering newbies like me into the fold.
Forty years! I was dribbling fried rice and scribbling on skirting boards for the meet’s opening chapter. Little did I know that my diaper doodlings could later be classified as ‘avante-guard non-fiction’, according to guest speaker Dorothy Mack of www.writersontheedge.com).
Despite initially baulking at the hefty $400 for the 3-day event, I was inspired by a fellow Eugene writer, Teri, whose fantasy fiction novel hasn’t even coalesced beyond a synopsis. Her drive and enthusiasm, however, could fill volumes; she even has a pen-name picked out.
“Share the hotel room with Liz (aspiring screenwriter) and I, let’s jump in and immerse ourselves!”
$700 later I’m signed up for the Full Monty – three days, 4 nights, banquets and 6 opportunities to pitch to the platoon of literary agents who come from all over the country hoping to discover a new King, Grisham, Rowling … and if the “star-lit” can hold a tune or captivate a stadium of skeptics, so much the better.
THE PRACTICE PITCH: We arrived early to jump into the free practice pitching session, where a panel of agents listened with intense patience as we nervously cooed and clucked over our literary hatchlings. One panel was ‘kinder’ than the other, to its peril – a little gong would have been kinder on all of us, including the quivering, quavering aspirant. Despite some dicey deliveries, our ears picked up on some potential page-turners, all they needed was a little Tender Literary Care …
THE CONSULTS: Having practiced our shtick in the safety of the practice pitch session, we were ready for the ring of fire. For $15 participants could book a 10-minute one-on-one with an agent, and in that time hope to snag interest in the project, be it literary or film. Little tables for two were set up in the lobby with the name of the agent on a stalk, over which two bobbing heads bumped in earnest, resembling 99% of restaurants on Valentine’s Day. In a separate area group consults, for the same price, allowed up to 8 people to huddle around the agent and vie for pole position. The groups were polite yet competitive in the nicest possible way – everyone got to do “My name is x, my book/screenplay is y, it’s a story about z”. Everyone seemed to want everyone to succeed – perhaps because we’re on the mellow West Coast, we’re all writing different things, and despite the reports of a crowded literary marketplace, there seems to be room for every kind of book. After all, there’s a reader born every minute, right?
THE WORKSHOPS: This is the meat’n’potatoes of the conference, or the tofu’n’kale if you’re from Eugene. There were so many interesting-sounding sessions that it took a session to decide what to choose and what to lose.
How to Write a Sex Scene by Jenny Shortridge was a must. As someone who’s written nothing more titillating than ‘[The shepherd] turned out to be not-so-sheepish after a not-so-wee Dram”, I was ready to hear how one dances around the C and F words, or indeed, arranges those well-used designations to maximum and non-cliche effect.
As it turned out, we learned of the merits of the ‘no-sex’ scene, which can create a more compelling sense of desire. Since no-one volunteered to get up and read their scene aloud, I offered to read the sauciest segment from my book, about a sexy handshake, no prophylactic necessary. I had one woman come to me panting for more, resulting in a book sale - writing ‘nein danke’ is sexy!
In one room listeners got guidance on proper story construction and flow, in another room, Dorothy Mack was talking deconstruction and even using odd interesting devices like recipe cards and crossword puzzles to tell a story.
“You can make the footnote the story!” she said.
Technique or gimmick? You decide, the publishers ultimately decide.
Seasoned pros Anne Hawkins and Doris Booth told us the hot trends in publishing for now – chic-lit, hen-lit, lad-lit, latino-lit, Christian-lit and yes, erotica (which they might have thought but did not call clit-lit). “Out” was romance (candle-lit?), horror, historical fiction, business books, statements of personal philosophy (unless your name is Deepak Chopra) and memoirs (unless your name is Hilary Clinton).
“Regardless of what you write, you need a flawless writing style, and a sense of what makes your story relevant in today’s market and media,” said Anne.
But, they acknowledged that this could all change in the next second.
Eugene journalist and writer Bob Welch warned that it was up to authors to promote their books – these days, the publishers just print them and leave them to cat-fight on the shelf at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and yes ... Powell's Portland.
“If I am on public transport, or getting off at an airport, I might just happen to have a copy of American Nightingale under my arm, cover facing out,” he said.
Portland TV pro Frank Mungeam bounced about like a game show host, telling us how to get our faces on TV by making sure our story has a hook as compelling as the second coming of Christ, except that Christ might have to be a woman with large breasts and ADD and a solution to the peak oil problem to get past the gatekeeper … we even had appearances by experts on Self Help writing (resiliency guru Al Siebert) and how to deduct our collection of 6 Feet Under DVD’s without guilt (Scott Rubenstein).
Whew!
THE SPEAKERS: Over lunches in a cavernous tent and dinners in the Hilton Embassy Suites Banquet Hall we were pep-talked by Marc Acito, Craig English, Wendy French and Adam Brooks, all Google-able success stories, the kind that qualifies them to tell us to stop worrying and keep on writing – a bit like Lance telling cyclists to keep pedaling. But pedal they do, and write we must, no matter what our internal and external critics say.
A conference like this makes it seem like our 14-year old heroine with the power to tap into the psyche of garden vegetables, inciting them to rebel against chemical and pesticide companies by causing presidents who ingest them to have unavoidable thoughts of global cooperation and world peace - might just have a chance to flicker to life on the big screen.
To quote Bill Johnson,” I am very well respected in my personal fantasy world.”
The Willamette Writers Conference is held in the first week of August each year in Portland. Visit http://www.willamettewriters.com/
Join the Mid-Valley Willamette Writers group (YAHOO group mvww), based in Eugene, Oregon, where you can see photos of the event
The Handsomest Man in Cuba, despite being a self-published tale with zero mainstream distribution in the USA, seems to have found its way to the staff picks shelf at Powell's Portland. What a compliment to any aspiring writer! Thanks Powell's, especially Brian Doerter.
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| Tuesday, June 14th, 2005
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11:25 am - Handsomest Man wins Silver in Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year
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June 2005: The Handsomest Man in Cuba wins a Silver Award, 'Travel Essays', ForewordMagazine.com Book of the Year Awards, 2004. Not to be confused with the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes for literature, Foreword magazine caters to USA libraries and booksellers who are interested in independently published books. Thank you to the 1000 folks who bought the USA edition by Small Wheel Press (designed entirely on Lynette's 12" Powerbook G4 laptop), the 4770 folks who bought the Random House Australia edition downunder (unfortunately no photos in that edition), and more than 150 folks who have written reviews, especially the thirty five-star reviews on Amazon. There are 500 copies left, with Silver Medal sticker attached, signed if you ask, buy from Lynette, Bike Friday, Amazon, Powell's Portland, Dymocks Australia.
Lynette has just ridden and critiqued the Cycle Oregon Weekend, June 25-26, 2005.
Note: This is a shot of me at Bike Friday with my ForewordMagazine Book of the Year certificate, pointing to the poster of me in Cuba. And to the left above my head, with his Bike Friday, is Phil Liggett, Voice of the Tour de France!
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| Tuesday, June 7th, 2005
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1:52 pm - The Gal wins a prize for a NY bike ride photo!
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| Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
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1:29 am - Galfromdownunder in Forbes.com
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| Tuesday, May 24th, 2005
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11:55 am - The Handsomest Man's ears are burning!
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LATEST UPDATES: Scroll to the bottom of this posting!
I'm getting emails from more and more people heading off to Cuba after reading my book, The Handsomest Man in Cuba - and quite a few who are happy to never to land their loafers anywhere near its enigmatic shores after reading my warm and fuzzy recollections.
First was Alicia, a local gal who GAVE her copy of my book to the Cuban Photographer on the cover. Apparently he was gobsmacked. I still get asked, 'Is he the handsomest man in Cuba?' I say, what do YOU think? He could be taking a picture of the handsomest man in Cuba, or he could be handsome inside ... do let's think outside the box shall we ('box' is slang for television downunder).
Someone sent me a photo of him, still plying his trade on the steps of the Capitolio in Havana:
Next came Chinese Aussie Henry Kwong, who took photocopies of the pages of my book to some of the folks I wrote about *blush* including Ivan and Mirella in Trinidad.
Here's Henry with a new-found Cuban buddy:
Here's Ivan and Mirella with my book as taken by Bike Friday traveler Craig S:
I'd publish a fabulous shot of Craig, but then he might get lynched for traveling as a US citizen. Ivan and Mirella sent back a letter stating that things had improved a little, but they bicycle chains and brakes for a couple of old clunkers Ivan procured. Since I've never had any luck getting stuff to Cuba without it going AWOL, I sent them via another globetrotting Aussie, David Lewis, who found some old spares in Toronto before flying south. David, you're one cool spirit!
Several people are writing to Arismilda in Manzanillo who told me she wrote to Americans who had requested penfriends on radio, but they never wrote back. Maybe they did, but their letters were intercepted. It seems the only thing you can send for sure is a postcard.
They could not track down Jose in Santiago at all ... Jose, where for art thou mi amor?
More addresses are available rather obscurely at the bottom of this page - as we know, I am not a webmeister, but rather a webmouth with Taco html editor as my only tool. (Anyone want to donate a copy of Dreamweaver?).
Finally, on my recent New York trip I sat in a taxi with a couple of guys from Bahia Honda on the north west coast of Cuba. I tried to remember the last name of Paula and Manolo - I was pretty sure everyone knew everyone in that town!
Keep 'em coming!
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UPDATE: June 14: David Lewis from Perth Australia has just returned from Cuba on his Dahon folding bicycle.
He says:
Well I finally made it to Mirella and Ivans place,
took the coastal route via Varadaro through central
Australia and then along the coast to Trinidad, a lot
of it was off road so a bit hard on my bike. I stayed
with them for 2 nights and they were very friendly,
got a few pics which I will email to you once I get
back home. Unfortunately Mirella's mood was a bit
down, they have a one year old daughter that has
medical problems, Mirella had to go to Santa Clara the
following day to the hospital there, apparently the
baby has a problem with her head, hard to figure out
what exactly because my Spanish is almost non-existant
but anyway she was very friendly but I could tell
something was deeply troubling her about her child.
She asked me if I had any Vitamin E tablets, the baby
is in need of them. Would it be possible to post her a
packet from where you are? I paid $15 a night for the
room and $8 for one evening meal plus $3 each morning
for breakfast, also I got a spoke repaired though her
and paid about $5 for that, all up I paid $50.
Do you know about the currency situation here now? To change
1 US dollar in to a CUC (convertable peso) you lose
18% US dollars are not allowed to be held by citizens
any more. Any other currency you only lose 8% Pity I
didn't bring Euros with me.
I also left as a present for them a brand new Shimano Bicycle chain and two new
sets of mountain bike brake blocks. I told Mirella
that they were a present from you and gave them to her
after I had settled everything else that I owed them.
She looked a bit stunned, I don't think she knew what
exactly I was giving her but anyway she said thanks
very much (muchas gracias). Am now in Havana for
another 5 days then I am flying to Vancouver for a
week. Please do all you can to send the vitamin E
tablets to them for her baby ...
My friend Annika, who's since married a Cuban, gave me this advice:
I'm afraid the only way you're going to get vitamin tablets to your friends is by way of human carrier...ie. you know of someone who is actually going there and can send them things to take and hand over personally.
The post is impossible. Even sending it within Cuba. I sent photos recently, and even they were pinched. What someone would want to do with them, is anyones guess!!! I suppose they thought there would be money inside...whatever!! So I would advise not sending anything via that route ...
So if anyone is heading to Cuba, please stay with this wonderful couple and take a raft of vitamin tablets for them. You'll find their address at the bottom of this page.
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