Dog Grief

Reflecting on the past three and a half months, I have learned some things about grieving the loss of a beloved dog:

1. Three months is not enough time to prepare for the loss.
2. Three months is not enough time to "get over" the loss, either.
3. I have zero regrets about a single dollar I spent to get those three months after his diagnosis. I would have done the same thing even if I had known in advance that I would only be able to buy three months. I never think about the money I spent as if I could have spent it on something else. No regrets there. (On the other hand, I think I would regret not trying everything that I tried, but that is only me in my circumstances. If Cash had been older or in more pain or if I did not have the resources I had at the time to try everything, I would have made different decisions. No judgment here.)
4. Besides the passage of time, I have not found anything that helps alleviate the horrible grief associated with losing an animal that you spent more time with than any other thing or person in your entire life. 
5. You can avoid hearing other people's ridiculously inappropriate opinions on euthanasia if you simply say that your dog "died of [cancer]" rather than referring to "putting him down" or anything like that. Euthanasia is not something that people can understand until they have been put in that horrible position with their own pet. My dog died of cancer. 
6. I struggle a lot with the fact that I had to make the decision to put Cash to sleep. I wanted nothing more than the cancer to stop his heart so that I would not have to make that decision.
7. You do not need anyone else to tell you when is the "right time" to let your dog die. You know your dog, so you will know when he has reached the limit of what he can handle. There may be other factors that influence your decision. That is okay. You don't owe anyone an explanation.
8. Your grief is compounded by watching your other pet(s) grieve and being unable to offer them any explanation or comfort for their loss.
9. For me, memorializing Cash's life by burying his body and marking the grave was a cathartic experience. I think it helped me begin to start healing.
10. I have not found anything else that helps.
11. Looking at pictures and videos does not help.
12. Getting another dog (even a puppy) does not help. In some ways, it makes it harder.
13. Getting another dog may help your other pet(s) who are grieving.
14. Do not get a young puppy if your other dog is older or just less energetic than a young puppy. The annoyance to your other dog probably negates however much the puppy helped.
15. Every now and then, when I'm alone with Tub, I pet her and tell her that I still miss him too. I think it helps her to hear it. I know it helps me to say it out loud.

Iceland

Click here to see the slideshow of my recent trip to Iceland!

Rick Steves: Ten Ways Iceland Can Kill You

An Exhilarating Ride

A friend who co-owns a tour company on Tinian offered to take me back to Saipan by boat, something that I have always wanted to do. I have this photo of Grandpa riding a boat around Tinian on a reconnaissance mission during World War II:

The expression on his face doesn't reveal how incredible the ride is across the open sea (by the way, my friend was able to identify exactly where Grandpa was - the spot visible in the background is called "Drop Coke" because the soldiers apparently dumped a bunch of coca cola bottles there after the war and now scuba divers can go there to see them). My videos provide a little more insight... This was truly one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. It was frightening, but in an exciting and adventurous way. 

After we passed the point of Tinian, the waves got much bigger - too big for me to hold the camera (and my beer). Sometimes the boat landed in such a way that the salt water drenched my face. 

I felt so alive.

Link to Original Post

Obyan Beach with the Doggos

Playing around with the GoPro a couple weeks ago:

• Video 1
• Video 2 (starts getting exciting right around the 3:00 mark; excitement stops shortly thereafter)

Sex(ual Harassment)-On-The-Beach

At the beach today, just sitting in the water with the dogs, beach "security guard" walks over. He's maybe in his late twenties and seems friendly enough, so we make small talk for a second, then this:

Him: Be careful out there. Are you here with someone?

Me: Yes [looking at my dogs]. We come here all the time. I don't swim by the reef anyway.

Him: I mean besides your dogs?

[I ignore the question, hoping he'll get the hint.]

Him: Where did you park?

Me: [Thinking maybe he has the authority to ask as part of his job] Over there - Why? Is that a problem?

Him: [Shrugs.] It's fine... You aren't here with anyone? Your husband or your fiancé?

Me: I'm here with my dogs. [In fact, there are only 3 other people on the beach, and they clearly are not with me.]

Him: Why isn't your husband or fiancé with you?

Me: I came here to be alone [hint hint] with my dogs.

Him: Do you have a husband or fiancé?

[I pause, just to let him sit in the awkwardness for a second.]

Me: That's a very personal question. 

Him: I was just wondering because... usually I see people here with their husbands and their dogs.

Me: Uh huh. 

Him: But you're just here alone, so I was just checking.

Me: Right. Well, clearly I'm fine.

Him: I guess you're just independent [smirking]. 

Me: Yeah... gotta go give them some water so... [walking away].

If you're a man reading this, you may not understand why it's worth a blog post. If you're a woman, on the other hand, you know. We deal with this shit all of our lives, on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. It's more than an annoyance too. It destroys the atmosphere because your guard has to go up. Why did he want to know where my car was parked? Is he going to try to follow me? Or will he be out there when I get to my car? 

Of course, I push those thoughts aside and try to enjoy the day, but I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, checking to see if he's watching me. Yeah, he's probably just an awkward guy. He's not local; maybe he grew up in a culture where men and women don't interact much until marriage, so he just doesn't know how to talk to women. I don't know. 

But one thing is certain: my marital status was none of his damned business. 

Link to Original Post: http://betsygoespacific.blogspot.com/2017/09/sexual-harassment-on-beach.html

Next Stop: South Pole

(No, I’m not going to the South Pole, Mom! I promise!)

Laying out on the beach at my resort in Tangalle, Sri Lanka, I met an adorable Swiss couple in their mid-twenties, Lee and Priscilla. Lee and Priscilla come from Interlaken (coincidentally, I visited Interlaken en route to Grindelwald in 2001) and speak German, but Lee had studied in San Diego for a year and communicated well in English. Priscilla also understood a lot of English (a lot more than she realized when we first met!), but did not feel comfortable speaking more than a couple words at first. They are such a great couple! They’ve only been together three years, but they have spent as much of that time traveling as possible – they are both passionate about seeing the world and, spending time with them, one can easily see how that mutual passion strengthens their relationship. After talking for a bit, I told them I was going to walk to another beach that I had visited the previous day with a woman named Monika (more about awesome Monika later), because I wanted to collect sea shells. Lee asked if they could join me and I was happy to have them come along!

We spent the morning on “the seashell beach,” which had a really cool Buddhist altar on a patch of green that jutted out into the water. We drank fresh juice from a beachside restaurant called Turtle Landing, and I ate some delicious fresh shrimp there as well. Around 1:00, we decided to head back and they invited me to join them to do some sightseeing that afternoon. I gladly accepted the invitation because I had not made any sightseeing plans in Sri Lanka and they already had a driver arranged to take them to a lighthouse and a couple Buddhist temples. I wasn’t super excited about seeing a lighthouse, but I thought, what the heck, I’ll check it out.

I am so glad I did. Dondra Head Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Sri Lanka and one of the tallest in Asia, is located almost at the southernmost tip of Sri Lanka. In fact, standing at the lighthouse, you are literally at the end of the world: the next landmass to the south is the South Pole!

We were the only tourists at the lighthouse when we arrived, and we entered to find a couple of guys who worked there (it is still an active lighthouse). For a small fee, they allowed us to climb to the top of the lighthouse. There were a lot of stairs. When we reached the top, we opened a small door and climbed out onto the ledge.

To say that the view was breathtaking is inadequate. I have never, in my life, seen a more spectacular view anywhere in the world. We were all speechless for at least a full minute after we stepped outside. There we were, standing alone on top of the world, basically at the end of the world, looking out at the vast Ocean and the landscape of this magnificent country. I will post some videos, but there is just no way to capture that feeling. The clean, brisk air, the birds flying below, perfect spots of bright white clouds, blue water crashing ferociously into the rocks below, and the endless Ocean. That experience with nature was far more spiritual for me than any church or temple I have visited before or since. Just beautiful.

I have no idea how long we were up there. It could have been 15 minutes or an hour. I was just lost in the moment. Eventually, we started back down the stairs and ran into at least 30 tourists on their way up. We had come at the perfect time.

• Click this link for a video from the top of the lighthouse. 
• Click this link for another video from the top of the lighthouse.

After leaving the lighthouse, we went to a nearby Buddhist temple that was hundreds of years old and fed bananas to the temple elephants in the yard. 

 

Then we drove to another temple, on top of which sat a magnificent giant Buddha, maybe eight stories high and covered in mosaic tile. The inside of the temple had amazing sculptures and paintings, some over 600 years old. 

 

It started sprinkling a bit as we were leaving the temple, but the rain passed by the time we reached the resort. After freshening up in our cabanas, we met for dinner at the restaurant and later shared a bottle of South African wine on my verandah. It was a wonderful day spent with wonderful people – Priscilla was using English quite a bit by the end of the day – and I was sad that they would be leaving the next day for Mirissa Beach.

The next day, Wednesday, I spent most of the day at the beach and at my villa planning the last few days of my trip. I needed to do some souvenir shopping, so I decided to head to Galle, a city built in and around an old Dutch fort about two hours away. Thursday morning, I went down to meet my driver and the hotel manager, Rohan, informed me that Lee and Priscilla had left a small item behind and they had called asking if I could send it to them. Rohan told them that I was heading to Galle, so they messaged me asking if I could pick them up on the way! I was more than happy to see my friends again, so my driver stopped in Mirissa, where we picked up the Swiss kids, and then we went together to Galle.

We had a lovely day eating and shopping in the cute colonial town. Galle reminded me a little of Valetta, Malta, which was a fusion of British architecture and customs with African cultural influences. Galle had a definite European flair, but the Asian influences were a constant reminder of how far away they had come from colonial times. The shops were great and the company was such a pleasure! Late afternoon, we returned to the car and headed one town over to drop Lee and Priscilla at their new hotel in Unawatuna. Again, I was sad to part with them, but it was so nice to get to spend another day together.

On the drive from Unawatuna to Tangalle, my driver told me a little about the impact of the 2004 Tsunami on Southern Sri Lanka. He was actually one of two men from the district who attended a post-Tsunami training camp in Thailand. He returned as a manager of the rebuilding process, a job he held for two years when the project was complete. I was surprised to learn that Tangalle and Galle were two of the hardest hit cities in the Tsunami. Over 40,000 people in Sri Lanka lost their lives in the Tsunami, many from this area. If you are interested in learning more about the Tsunami, which killed 250,000 people in 18 countries, there is a documentary available on YouTube that I’ve watched twice. Also, the film The Impossible with Ewan Macgregor and Naomi Watts is excellent.

Today is November 20. On the morning of November 23, I will head to Colombo to spend the day before flying to Mumbai that evening. From Mumbai, I will be coming back to America. Time has flown.

Sri Lanka

On the evening of Thursday, November 13, I flew from Jaipur to Mumbai. After a layover in Mumbai, my plane departed for Sri Lanka around 2 am on November 14. I arrived in Colombo (the largest city, but no longer the capitol) around 5:30 in the morning, completely exhausted. Fortunately, Shanti from Amber Tours arranged for a driver to pick me up from the airport so I did not have to think about anything. I had been sick the last few days in Jaipur and was still feeling weak (although the doctor had cleared me to travel), so I fell asleep for awhile in the car. The driver was friendly and pointed out some nice sights along the three-hour drive (when I was awake) to my destination: Tangelle.

The first thing I noticed about Sri Lanka is how completely different it is from India. I don't know what I expected having very little prior knowledge of this tiny country, but I guess I thought it would be like India shrunken into an island. I could not have been more wrong! Everyone who follows this blog knows that I am completely in love with India, the people, the culture, the sights, etc., and I rarely write about problems in the country because I am so overwhelmed by its beauty. But, for the record, there is one HUGE problem with India: it is dirty. By dirty, I mean heavy pollution in the air and water, trash piled on streets and sidewalks, and sickly animals running the streets and leaving feces behind. This is just a fact of life in India, and the Indian people want the government to clean up the country (and there is hope that PM Modi will make some improvements, particularly with water sanitation and sewage systems). Just to be clear, while the cities are shockingly dirty to Westerners, the Indian people are not dirty. In fact, the people are so clean that they eat with their hands. (I know I personally don't wash my hands as frequently as they do). I've heard Westerners make offensive comments about Indians smelling bad, which is just plain ignorant. Indians fill their homes with fresh flowers and jasmine incense. They use the sweetest smelling natural perfumes and oils on their skin. One of the things I missed most last time I came home from India was the smell. Yes, the trash stinks, but that's universal - who's s&*t smells like roses? (Cue Outkast...)

So, major difference in Sri Lanka: It is clean! The streets are cleared of litter and people can actually go running on the sidewalks without falling over a heap of trash. This was a refreshing sight, for sure. There is less traffic, since the population of the entire country is only 19 million (equal to the population of Delhi, India's third largest city), and less obvious pollution. The skies are clear.

My driver said that the urban landscape has improved significantly since the Tsunami in 2004. Over 40,000 Sri Lankans lost their lives in the Tsunami (50,000 by some estimates); they had to rebuild basically half the country.

After a nice drive from Colombo to the Southern Province, we arrived at my resort: Palm Paradise Cabanas  in Tangalle (aka "Tangalla"). I had originally booked an open air cabana on stilts with mosquito netting around the bed but no A/C (about $25 USD per night) because I'm broke and a seasoned traveler - who needs A/C anyway?

Me, as it turns out. After sweating it out for about 20 minutes, I walked to reception and asked about the Villas on the hill. For $60 USD more per night, you get A/C, glass windows and free wi-fi in your villa. Suddenly, I didn't feel so broke...

The cabanas are actually really neat, but not for someone recovering from being sick and exhausted from weeks of traveling.

So I moved from here...

   Cabana Video

to here...

Villa Video

...and then I was happy.

Here's a video of the walkway to the beach.

Tangelle is not on the above map of Sri Lanka, but it is located near Hambantota is on the southeast tip. It is definitely the most naturally beautiful place I have ever seen. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Goyambokka Beach, Tangelle, Sri Lanka

Happiness

Another photo of the beautiful beach at my resort

Drinking coconut water from an orange coconut - naturally filtered!

Lone fisherman - I watch him every morning.

Buddhist altar on a narrow green spot jutting out into the Ocean. A vast majority (over 80%) of Sri Lankans are Buddhist; about 18% are Hindu.

Exploring another beach in Tangelle

Thanks for reading! More to follow...