Author Archives: Jeff Layman

Our Guide: Sri Lanka

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[Note: Sorry this is so late!]

Where we stayed:

Our visit to Sri Lanka was divided into three distinct parts; Kandy, Ambalongoda and Haputale. In Kandy we stayed at a hotel called Amaya Hills and it was fantastic. It’s a bit more than we would normally pay, but we only stayed there a few nights. Their food was delicious and their location was perfect. From there we ventured down to the small coastal town of Ambalangoda. We used AirBnB to book a villa owned by a man named Wolley. We weren’t sure what to expect, but we were beyond impressed (more on this later). I’d recommend Wolley’s villa to anyone headed to Sri Lanka. After Ambalangoda we headed back up into the mountains to Haputale. Again, we stayed at a nicer-than-usual hotel but weren’t concerned because of the money we saved at Wolley’s.

What we ate:

We stuffed ourselves silly with rice and curry as often as possible. Check out our food pics here, but if you really want to understand the deliciousness of this food, go find a Sri Lankan restaurant near you. I promise you won’t regret it. Lissa particularly enjoys putting pol sambol on everything while I favor the late-night dish of chicken kottu roti. Bonus: you’re expected to eat with your hands – no utensils!

What We Did:

Visited Buddhist temples & monasteries, lounged on the beach, drank with locals while they taught us the rules of Cricket (we still don’t get it), ate even more rice and curry, took a train to Galle, drove dizzying roads into tea plantations and took in as much of the lush landscape as possible. I’m positive I’ve missed a few events, but there’s something for just about everyone in Sri Lanka.

Pro Tips:

* Hire a driver. They’re fairly cheap and will save you an incalculable amount of stress. Plus, they can take you to local restaurants where you eat in the dining room of someone’s actual house. Let us know if you want a recommendation and we can put you into touch with our driver. He was awesome.

* Be careful drinking local liqour. “Arrack” is a sneaky rum, and will knock your socks off if you’re not diligent.

 

Our Guide: Kruger National Park, South Africa

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Where we stayed:

This was a week-long trip broken into 4 parts. Our first stay was at Lisbon Hideaway in Graskop. It’s a trio of stilted cabins overlooking a stream with a field in the distance. As we arrived during the dark of night, I can’t imagine a more perfect place to wake up to South Africa. During Part II we stayed at Africa On Foot (seen above). It’s an unfenced camp located in the middle of a private game reserve. It is also incredible. It’s eco-friendly, offers home cooked meals and completely worth the money. I can’t speak enough about this place. I’d go back in a second. Part III was in Kruger itself, split between three of their wonderful restcamps; Olifants, Orpen and Skukuza. Each camp offers a simple room with ensuite bathroom, porch and full outdoor kitchen. They were perfect for what we needed. Olifants offered a fantastic view, Orpen offered a feeling of seclusion and Skukuza offered the most amenities. You’re not going to go wrong picking a restcamp. We finished our trip by staying at Del Roza Guesthouse in Middleburg; an absolute diamond in the rough. This walled off oasis is smack-dab in the middle of an atrocious industrial town, and I’d spend every weekend there if I could.

What we ate:

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Like its most famous natural inhabitants, South Africa is carnivorous. Pork, beef, chicken and game are abundant and cheap. Every accommodation we stayed at had a braai (read; grill) as this is the main method for cooking anything in SA. We were more than happy to oblige. We mainly grilled proteins and vegetables with few exceptions. We were also introduced to Pannekoek at Harry’s and grilled chicken at Nandos. Wow. We ate like kings and drank like sailors. We tried a few local treats like biltong and amarula (though not together).

What We Did:

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I’m struggling to think of everything, so I’m going to list it out;

– Saw some National Geographic-level scenery on the Panorama Route.
– Went on multiple safari’s in an open-air truck.
– Drove a manual transmission automobile on the wrong side of the road.
– Watched (and photographed) two lions getting it on in a dried out riverbed.
– Witnessed an absurd amount of wildlife that we’ve only ever seen in zoos.
– Almost got into a fight with a water buffalo.
– Sat with our mouths open as a herd of elephants passed by our tiny car.
– Visited Ellis Park, arguably the most famous rugby stadium in the world.
– Many other things I probably forgot but were equally awesome.

Pro Tips:

* Vodacom offers cheap data plans for your smartphone. 3g is iffy in the park, unless you’re near a restcamp. Wifi is virtually nonexistent.

* Pack a flashlight and go on a “night-shine” in the restcamp. Walk along the fence and flash your light into the trees and outside the fence. Decide how badly you want to know what belongs to the eyes reflecting back at you.

* You can fly into Johannesburg and rent a car or fly into several closer airports and rent a car. Weigh carefully your options. You miss NOTHING on the drive from Jo-burg to Kruger that you can’t get from flying into a closer airport. It all depends on if the increased ticket price is worth it for you. I can tell you this; it’s worth thinking about.

Picture Dump; Africa on Foot
Picture Dump; Kruger
Picture Dump; Panorama Route
Picture Dump; Lissa’s iPhone
Picture Dump; Videos
Picture Dump; Everything Else

Our Guide: Heidelberg, Germany

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Where We Stayed:
Because we had such an amazing first experience with airbnb in Athens, we tried it out again in heidelberg – we were not disappointed! Our flat was perfectly suited for our needs and only cost us ~$70 a night. You can read the review on airbnb’s website, but if you don’t want to click through just take my word for it. Or thing worth mentioning is that it was NOT near the city center, which was fine with us. We definitely felt more local where we were.

What We Ate:


Oh man, where do I start? German food is heavy and delicious. We tried two local breweries or “braueri” , Lowenbrau and Kulture. Both were excellent. We sampled the schnitzel and liver dumpling soup at Lowenbrau and split a mountainous plate of pork in mushroom sauce, asparagus and spaetzle at Kulture.

We kept things light with salads at a little cafe off of Bismarkplatz called MEDOC. They were HUGE, fresh and delicious. Anyone looking to change things up a bit away from the heavy food, I recommend it.

Our other restaurant experience that’s worth mentioned was “Schnitzelbank.” It’s a hole in the wall place off of a side street and if you’re in Heidelberg, you need to go there. It’s family style seating, which means there are a bunch of long tables and you share them with whoever is around. It amazed us how many people didn’t know this when they walked in and it was fun to watch them squirm with the discomforting idea of sitting next to someone they don’t know. Lissa and I started with snails in garlic and butter sauce then split Gorgonzola schnitzel and a plate of bratwurst, fried potatos and sauerkraut. It was all fantastic. Do yourself a favor and find this place, try the garlic schnitzel and let us know how it is. We were dying to try it but couldn’t tear away from the other two.

What We Did:

Frankfurt is a wonderful walking city, and walk we did. It was vacation and I had a cell phone, so we grabbed a few geocaches throughout town. Have I mentioned that this is the single-best vacation game ever invented? We walked up and down the Bismarkplatz, visited the Shloss, hiked all over the Philosophenweg, and stopped at cafes and bakeries in between. Honestly, you only need a day or two for Heidelberg. We stayed 3 and were lazy, relaxed and laid back about it. We loved it.

Pro Tips:
* If you fly into Frankfurt, take the Lufthansa shuttle from the airport. They’ll bring you right to the crowne plaza downtown and they’ll do it for €42 per person, round trip (€40 if you flew Lufthansa to get there). Just be sure to make a reservation!

* As soon as you get into Heidelberg, buy a Heidelberg card. It gives you entrance to a bunch of places and, most importantly, gives you free and unlimited access to public transportation. It’s totally worth it.

* if you’re looking for a prepaid SIM card, go with TMobile. I’ll save you the hassle of checking out the other places, whose prices are absurd. We paid €10 for 100MB of data, which is more than enough for 3 days, even with geocaching 😉

Want to see all our photos?

Our Guide: Phuket

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Where We Stayed:

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PapaCrab Boutique Guesthouse. It’s a tiny (1o room) hotel run by a German guy and his Thai wife and it’s perfect. It’s a 2 minute walk from the beach, right around the corner from some quality restaurants and about 5 minutes away from a bakery.  It’s clean, simple and comfortable – exactly what you need for spending maximum time at the beach. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a little general store in between the hotel and the beach which makes beverage runs quite nice 🙂

What We Ate:

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We ate at Kokosnuss German Bakery for breakfast, had some street food from the beach for lunch, and Skyla’s and Carbonara’s for dinner. I’d recommend them all to anyone. Breakfast was ham, cheese and homemade bread, costing us somewhere around $5 per day (total) for 3 people. Lunch was usually 3 servings of typical Thai food; Pad Thai, Noodle Soup with Prawns, etc. Each dish cost about 80 thb and whoever went and ordered got to have a beer while they waited. Total for lunch was usually ~300 thb or $10 total for 3 people. Dinner was slightly more expensive but the atmosphere at both places was worth it. At Skyla’s we had Pad Thai, Lettuce Wraps and Spicy Papaya Salad. At Carbonara’s we had pizza. I don’t remember the totals for each place, but they were slightly more expensive (120 thb – 150 thb) per dish.

What We Did:

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Mostly stayed at the beach on Kamala. One day we rented a car (~900 thb) and drove up to Banana Beach, which is quiet, secluded and difficult to access. We snorkled, swam, ate food at a tiny “restaurant” on the beach and had a good time. We also went to the Farmer’s Market that happens on Wednesday. It’s a fantastic place to get food of all sorts 🙂

Pro-Tips:

* We didn’t find a single place that accepted credit/debit cards, so carry cash. Not a single bank in Kamala accepted our Kuwait cards, so we had to go to SCB on the main strip to have them charge our American Credit cards. Again – take out LOTS of cash, because plastic won’t work!

* Once you’re in Kamala, plan to stay there. Taxis, Tuk-tuk’s, busses and rental cars are pricey. Scooters are cheap and we thought about renting them but decided against it (and were thankful we did, as it poured that day!) and ended up grabbing a car for the day.

* Buy towels there, and make sure you bargain. I’m a big fan of traveling light, so packing a towel wasn’t going to be something I did. The towels are cheap quality, so don’t pay full price.

* Rent a chair and umbrella every day. They cost about 100 thb per person per day, but they are absolute MUSTS. You have to have a place to escape the sun or you’ll fry. Chairs and umbrellas are plentiful, so don’t pay more than 100 thb per.

* Beer is cheap in Thailand and they’ll open it for you at the store so you can drink it walking out the door. Take advantage of this, as drinks on the beach get pricey fast.

Our Guide: Bangkok

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Trying out a new type of post here, outlining the specifics of our trip for those interested in repeating parts or all of it. I spent a bunch of time taking pieces from other guides like these to formulate our vacation, so I know how useful they can be to anyone that happens to run across them on Google. On to the guiding…

Where we stayed:

Lub D, Silom. It’s a hostel, but we rented a private room on the top floor. It was perfection. It’s clean, has it’s own bathroom (toilet + shower) and is in a great location. We needed a place to stash our stuff, clean up and crash at the end of the day. This was that place. It’s got a safe inside the room for your valuables and a small bar in the lobby. There are several 7-11’s nearby and street food vendors all over the place. What else do you need? If you’re looking for luxury this probably isn’t for you.

What we ate:

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Street food. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to buy a single dish from a legitimate restaurant or grocery store. The street vendors in Bangkok (and Thailand in general) are phenomenal. Walk around in just about any direction for 5 minutes and you’ll run across some. They won’t speak English and they’ll only take cash, but when you’re paying 30 thb for a pile of pad thai, who cares? Be prepared to use some nonverbal communicative skills and lower your expectations on cleanliness. We never got sick from food, but they definitely aren’t held to the same level of cleanliness you’re used to. You’ve been warned.

What we did:

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Lots.

We visited Lumphini Park, which is akin to Central Park in NYC. It’s a massive green space in the middle of the city, complete with monitor lizards of up to 4 ft. Walking it is a great afternoon (or morning?) activity if you pair it with eating from all the vendors surrounding it. It’s free but the tricky part is finding a gate that’s open. This doesn’t always seem to follow logical rules, so you may end up walking a fair amount around it before being able to enter. If you’re staying at Lub D, it’s a 10 minute walk down the road.

We got several massages from Suanploo Thai Massage. We have nothing to compare Suanploo with because we were so happy with them we never went anywhere else. From our viewpoint, they have fantastic value as their hour long thai massages are around 280 thb. The people that work there are professional, the space is clean and the atmosphere is relaxing. We didn’t even try to beat it for our money. Again, if you’re staying at Lub D it’s about a 10 minute walk down the street in the other direction 🙂

We took a river taxi and visited Wat Arun. You can do these two independently or together, just make sure you do them.

We went to the weekend market, which is basically a gigantic mess of people selling anything and everything. It’s hot, sticky and densely packed with buyers and sellers. It’s a great place to people watch and fantastic place to go if you want to buy knockoff stuff. We ended up walking around a bit, eating some food and taking a stroll in a nearby park. To get there, just hop on the BTS and take it to Mo Chit. Get off and follow the throngs of people.

Pro-Tips:

* In general, you’ll need to carry cash with you at all times. Very few places accept cards and all of the places we ate ONLY accepted cash. With that in mind, try and have small bills/change available for purchasing food. Nobody wants to break a 1000 thb for a 60thb meal.

* It’s insanely hot and humid, so dress appropriately and always carry a bottle of water with you. We were told to avoid the tap water.

* Bargain any time you buy something other than food and massages. This includes taxi, tuk-tuk and goods.

Our cab driver has a degree.

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Have we mentioned our favorite cab driver before? His name is Mohamed and he’s awesome. Here are a few other fun facts about Mohamed;

* He has a college education in Religious Studies (rough translation) from a university in Egypt.
* He’s from Egypt.
* He primarily drives teachers from our school and makes so much money during the school year that he takes the summers off.
* During the school year he’s available 24/7, with the exception of Mosque.
* He taught himself English, and speaks it somewhat fluently.

And a short story;

Yesterday we were coming home from the vet and Mohamed stops outside of our apartment. Before we can pay him and get out, a police car with two officers stops next to us and they get out and start speaking with Mohamed. (It should be worth pointing out that all Arabic sounds angry, even if the topic being chatted about is fluffy bunnies or how much you love your mother). They ask for Mohamed’s civil ID and then they ask for ours. At this point, we’re getting a little freaked out because we have no idea what’s going on and they look like they’re taking our names down. They eventually give us our civil ID’s back and Mohamed, who has been speaking with the first officer, asks us “how much you want to give me?” in a way that makes us feel like our answer could very well determine whether or not he gets deported. We tell him “5KD” and he starts laughing along with the police officer. The officer gets back into the car, drives off and Mohamed comes back into the taxi and smiles. He tells us that the police officers wanted to make sure he wasn’t ripping us off and that everything was OK. What ended up actually happening was us being scared out of our wits.

Getting sick abroad

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(Not to be confused with “getting sick of abroad.” Sorry mom.)

Private school certainly has its perks.

For one, money gets spent on little stuff that makes life as a teacher that much easier; there’s always coffee brewing in multiple places around the campus, we have no limit on copying (color or black/white) and when you visit the nurse’s office she can shove all sorts of medication your way without any sort of payment.

As to who passed this particularly annoying ailment my way, I do not know. Several family members have apologized, but it’s more than likely the inordinate amount of time I spent outside geocaching when the temperature was single digits than some sort of airborne transmission by a loved one. Who knows.

Anyway, I’m on the way to feeling better thanks to a healthy dose of antihistamines,  cold & flu relief, cough syrup, and nasal spray – all provided by the school nurse. For free.

Perks, man. Perks.

Daily Routine

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Surprisingly, we’ve had a lot of questions regarding what it is we do all day/every day.

The secret is…. about the same thing we did in the States. But slightly different.

Similarities:

– We get up at the same time and go to work at about the same time
– After work we go to the gym, cook & eat dinner, maybe have something special to do (Arabic classes), and go to bed. The order in which we do these things differs on a nightly basis.
– On weekends we get things done around our apartment, work out, go shopping, etc.
– We wear fairly similar clothes as we would in the states, though I don’t wear shorts very often and Lissa dresses more modestly. The only times Lissa has worn an Abaya or Hijab has been during a cultural event where increased sensitivity has been asked of us.

Differences:

– We grocery shop more often. Produce goes bad quicker here and fresher is better in regards to unprocessed foods.
– We walk almost everywhere.
– The scenery is pretty drab 😦
– Compared to where I’ve lived before, the streets are dirtier and less kept than I’m used to. Holland does, after all, keep their streets pretty clean.

Like I said, it’s basically the same. In fact, we live in a more developed area here than we did in South Carolina.  I’d post a map with where we go, but that sort of thing isn’t a good idea even in the US 😉 We walk 5 minutes to work, 15 minutes to the gym and 10 minutes to the grocery store. It’s pretty normal stuff.

Sports at an international school

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**Warning: I don’t have the luxury of coherent thought today. The following is what I call a braindump; when I just turn over the bin in my head all of these thoughts are in and they come tumbling out in whatever order they please.**

I had never really thought about what school sports might be like for international schools. Having been in public school for grades K-12 and then again as a teacher/coach afterwards, it just never really crossed my mind.

It’s super cool.

Our school is hosting an ISAC (International Schools Activities Conference) volleyball tournament this weekend. Teams from all over the region have flown(!) here to compete. We have schools from Jordan, UAE, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The halls are full of students that don’t go here and it’s great.

Once they get here (more on that later), students from our school host athletes from other schools and teachers host coaches. Just think about that. Would it ever happen that way in the states? I have a hard time imagining it would, but that’s part of what makes our time here so amazing – we’re experiencing things we never would have in the US.

We’re hosting a coach from AIS Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). He’s Canadian, has keys to our apartment, and will sleep in the room next to us the next few nights. We met him last night around 9pm. We are required to provide breakfast for him every morning, a clean bed to sleep in and a bathroom/shower for him to use. When it comes time for his school to host a tournament, he’ll do the same thing for someone else. Did I mention that he brought us chocolate from Bahrain?

At the risk of sounding sappy and melodramatic, it’s fun to continue experiencing humanity here. The trust and kinship you acquire abroad seems more potent than back home. I’ve got several theories for this, the simplest of which is “we’re all in the same boat.” In the same way that hostages and shipwrecked sailors bond due to their circumstance, it seems so do international teachers.

Now that we’ve got the philosophical meanderings out of the way, I can get back to fascinating details.

When you try out for a school sport, you assume the responsibility of covering travel costs to various tournaments. The girls volleyball team for example, is expected to pay 135KD per person for their trip to Amman, Jordan later this month. The girls know ahead of time that if they can’t travel, they likely won’t be put on the team. This may strike Americans as “unfair,” but it’s the truth of being somewhat isolated when it comes to competition. We are spoiled in the states to have so many schools geographically close by. It makes scheduling incredibly cheap and easy. This cost makes the expectation of hosting somewhat understandable. When our students travel for tournaments, they will be hosted by families at those schools. If they’re forking over close to $500 USD to travel, it’s nice to know you’ve got free accommodations when you get there.

Other teams travel to various places and locales including Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Lebanon, Holland, and Qatar. They’ll play teams from all over the world at these tournaments and they’ll make connections with other kids and families half a world away. They have activities planned for them while they are here and are kept busy with the hospitality of the host school. On our side, students are largely responsible for organizing most of the logistics as part of an IB programme project. What a great learning experience.

/endbraindump

 

Update: We attended a couple volleyball games during the last day of competition. We were completely blown away at how much school spirit the students had! We are used to large public schools with varying levels of school spirit. We expected the atmosphere here to be much calmer (students don’t live as close to school here as they do in the US and many don’t drive themselves). Quite the contrary! TONS of AIS students showed up to support the AIS girls in the finals (we had to leave before the boys’ final game). The students organized cheers and even brought a drum set! It was a great atmosphere and we were completely impressed with how many students showed up to support!

Fast food, meatless Monday & Jeff has ham.

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It was as delicious as I remember. I was also told that, when provided ham, you do not question as to how it was acquired. Ham has secrets too, I guess.

Anyway, tonight was one of those nights where we didn’t have time to cook and our schedules (or was it poor planning?) relegated us to picking something up on the way home from the gym. “Fast food,” you may call it. Here in Kuwait, we call it deliciousness.

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We bought the falafel, bread and cucumber-yogurt sauce. We had the rest laying around from salads and curries. Mix together and you’ve got our meatless Monday dinner. Yum!