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Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Viking's Myanmar Explorer - Day 7

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Embarking Viking Mandalay

Hello, Viking Mandalay! Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

ooday is an exciting day. For the first time since our Myanmar Explorerriver cruise tour with Viking River Cruises began in Bangkok, Thailand almost one week ago, we’re embarking our river cruise ship. In fact, we’ll join Viking Mandalayin its namesake port of Mandalay, Myanmar.

But first, we have to get there.

Our first stop after arrival in Mandalay: the gorgeous Mahamuni Paya. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

The one thing I’ve realized after spending nearly a week in Myanmar is that traffic here works on its own set of rules. I’m sure they have traffic laws, but enforcement must be sparse at best. Cars and trucks drive remarkably slowly due to the uneven pavement and the proliferation of cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians that clog major thoroughfares. This means that getting from Point A to Point Be can be a time-consuming activity.

Such was the case today. We checked out of the Areum Inle Lake Resortand boarded our coach at 9:45 a.m. in order to be back at Heho Airport for our flight to Mandalay at 12:55 p.m. Impressively, we’d need every bit of that time in order to make our flight.

The drive back to Heho took about two hours, with a 15 minute stop to collect our boxed lunches that we’d enjoy at the airport. At 30 minutes in duration, our flight isn’t long enough to have meal service, and there’s no time to stop along the way.

Heho Airport is a real experience. I wouldn’t call the airport filthy, but I wouldn’t call it clean, either. The toilet facilities are pretty grim by Western standards, and men can expect “the hole in the ground,” while women are treated to proper toilets.

Men are allowed to directly pay respects to Buddha...Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

...while women must do so outside. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Once again, we boarded an ATR-72 600 operated by Mann Yadanarpon Airlines. This time, seating wasn’t assigned, so you just took an empty seat as you boarded. Fortunately, this isn’t North America, so it’s not the free-for-all you might expect. Instead, boarding – which took place from the tarmac – was an orderly experience.

If Rudyard Kiplingromanticised Mandalay with his famous poem, the reality today is somewhat different. In fact, Mandalay is not at all what I expected; I expected a Yangon-style metropolis. My Rough Guide to Myanmarstates that Mandalay is “a faceless grid of congested streets,” and I’d say that’s accurate. It’s a city, to be sure, but a city that’s not quite ancient and not quite modern. Most buildings are a single story tall, or perhaps two, and have a ramshackle quality to them.

At the Paya, celebrations for the <a href=

Still, the appeal of Mandalay can be found in the numerous historic sites that are interspersed within the city. There are dozens of Pagodas and ceremonial stupas, plenty of Buddhist temples, and other relevant historic sites.

On our drive out to Amarapura, near where Viking Mandalayis berthed, we stopped at the fascinating Mahamuni Paya.

As if to illustrate how many pagodas and places of worship there are in Myanmar, Mahamuni doesn’t even appear in my guidebook. According to local legend, only five likenesses of Buddha were ever made during his lifetime. Two were in India, two were in “paradise,” and the fifth and final image is in Mahamuni here in Mandalay.

The entire complex was built in 1785, but a fire in 1884 nearly destroyed the entire complex, save for the image of Buddha. In 1996, the military government of Myanmar undertook extensive repairs and renovations to the complex, and today it is a major site of worship for locals and a source of curiosity for tourists.

Once again, it’s shoes-off-socks-off for our visit. I’m surprised at how much I am railing against this. I hate having dirty feet, and a few minutes of walking around barefoot here in Myanmar is enough to turn the soles of your feet jet black. We’re given moistened towelettes to clean our feet, but I suppose it’s something that, as a Westerner, I’m just not used to. I think some people embrace it, but I haven’t enjoyed it yet. Still – it is important to respect the local customs, and I always walk barefoot through the temple complexes, even if I despise it.

What’s also interesting is the segregation between men and women. Men are allowed to go right up to Buddha to pay respects, but women must sit outside the room Buddha is contained within and pray there. They can watch the men via closed-circuit televisions that are placed above their heads, but cannot directly see Buddha.

There’s also a bizarrely tacky quality to some of this, as bright LED lights and coloured Christmas lights adorn aspects of the temples. I saw this in Indonesia as well, and it baffles me – the fascination with blinking red, blue and green lights that strobe madly, as if to proclaim Buddha as the God of Shabby Lighting.

Viking Mandalay is actually the Indochina Pandaw, owned by <a href=

Of course, part of this is due to the upcoming Full Moon Festival tomorrow. Tazaungdaingis held on the Full Moon in November to celebrate the end of the rainy season, and offerings are made to Buddha in many forms. At this pagoda, women are working furiously to weave silk robes for Buddha; these must be finished by sunrise this morning, and the women will work through the night to ensure it gets done.

By the sides of the road to Amarapura, women and children gather in long lines, waiting to stop vehicles to extract payment from drivers as offerings to Buddha. Drivers stop and hand over money. Incredibly, this money will actually make it to the Paya complex!. In Burma, great emphasis is placed on doing good deeds in this life, and offerings to Buddha are pretty high up there. In our “me-me-me” societies in the West, I think we could learn from that.

The Key To Room 307. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Tonight, we arrived at the beautiful Viking Mandalay just before sunset. It’s a gorgeous ship, fashioned after the classic steamers that used to ply the Irrawaddy River at the turn of the last century.

Unlike its European-based Viking Longships, Viking does not own Viking Mandalay. In fact, it’s real name isn’t Viking Mandalay at all; it’s Indochina Pandaw, a vessel built in 2009 in Vietnam and owned and operated by Pandaw River Explorations, a longtime player in the Southeast Asian river cruise market.

Welcome Home! Stateroom 307, in its standard configuration. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Legally, Viking can’t own and operate a vessel here without establishing a permanent presence in Myanmar – something that is complicated, if not impossible, under the current government regime. So like every other river cruise operator, Viking relies on long-term lease agreements from established river cruise lines to offer river journeys in Myanmar.

So if you’re expecting the Viking Longships here, don’t – you won’t see a single Longship. What you will get, however, is the same wonderful Viking standard of service you’ve come to expect, along with all the normal Viking amenities.

It may not be a Viking-owned ship, but Viking Mandalay has all the expected Viking swag...Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

...like the Viking Daily...Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

...and L'Occitane toiletries! Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Viking Mandalay – or Indochina Pandaw– is 170 feet long, with a beam (width) of 33 feet across the deck. The draft – the amount of the hull underneath the waterline – is just three feet; something that is needed to clear the often shallow sand banks that shift and change along the Irrawaddy.

She has a total of 38 staterooms, all of which are the same basic size and shape – with a few notable exceptions. 10 staterooms are located all the way forward on Main Deck, while 18 staterooms run from bow to stern on Upper Deck.

Staterooms are all essentially the same size, and are constructed from beautifully-polished wood. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

My stateroom – 307 – is a cozy affair on the forward, port-side portion of Upper Deck. Done completely in wood (real wood, no less!), it measures approximately 168 square feet. But don’t let its compact size distract you from how inviting it is. The entire ship oozes Gemütlichkeit – my favorite German word for which there is no direct English translation other than to say, “a feeling of coziness.”

Beds are typically positioned in the twin configuration, with one on either side of the room. These can be pushed together to make a queen-sized bed, though you will lose a little room space in the process. Travelling solo, I don’t feel any compulsion to push them together; in fact, I rather like the old berth-style aspect of the stateroom; a classic throwback to travel on the Irrawaddy in the days of Kipling and George Orwell.

A small desk is big enough for a laptop computer and several books, and the foot of the bed has some storage space for luggage. Note that there is no under-bed storage on Viking Mandalay. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Inside the stateroom, more wonderful surprises: two North American-style electrical outlets positioned near the beds, and one multi-voltage electrical outlet positioned above the desk that can accept North American, European and UK-type connections without the need for an adapter (though you’ll need a converter if you don’t have one on your device). This outlet has a switch that can be turned on or off.

Light switches and two of three power outlets in the room. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

There are three sets of lighting in each stateroom, all of which can be turned on with a series of brass, toggle-style switches that make a pleasant thunk!-sound when clicked into position. These lights turn on brass, nautical-style lamps mounted on the ceiling and wall, while brighter halogen-style lamps are situated over each bed. Two brass reading lights are also mounted on the bulkhead walls of the room, and are perfect for reading in bed.

The bathroom is compact but functional. An exhaust fan is available in the bathroom, but keep it turned off: It’s so powerful that it will suck the cold air out of your bedroom that is produced by the air conditioning unit.

The bathroom: compact but functional. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Tap water in the bathroom isn’t potable, so Viking has provided bottled water for drinking and brushing your teeth. Should you run out, there’s an entire cabinet full of replacement bottled water under your sink.

The toilet is an older-style flush toilet and not a modern, shipboard vacu-flow toilet you might be used to. It works, and it is functional.

The shower is a floodlit-affair that has clearly been refitted to Viking specifications, as the gleaming white tilework and American Standard showerhead look brand-new. But the colour temperature of the lights above the shower is significantly different from the off-orange lighting in the rest of the bathroom, which gives the shower an oddly illuminated look.

The only thing I'm not a fan of in my stateroom is the oddly-illuminated shower. Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Still, you’ll be pleased to find the same French-milled L’Occitanetoiletries that are found on the Viking Longships, along with the same stationery and pen, the same design and paper stock for the Viking Dailyprogram, and the same thoughtful Viking touches throughout. Have a paperback with you? Leave it on the desk and a Viking River Cruises bookmark will magically appear inside.

Out on deck, Viking Mandalay's gorgeous, <a href=

Hotel Manager Dominik...Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

...and our Captain and crew welcome us onboard! Photo © 2015 Aaron Saunders

Also, as a point of reference, the air conditioning unit is more than powerful enough to keep your stateroom at a soothing temperature, even during the heat of the day. This wasn’t the case for me when I sailed the Mekong on a competitor of Viking’s a few years ago; I continually found that room to be far hotter and more humid than I had wanted.

Of course, we’ll write more about the ship in the coming days. After all – we’ve got a week onboard to continue to enjoy everything that Viking and Myanmar have to offer!

Viking Mandalay - Myanmar Explorer

DAY	PORT
Day 1	Bangkok, Thailand
Day 2	Bangkok, Thailand
Day 3	Yangon, Myanmar
Day 4	Yangon, Myanmar and Shwedagon Pagoda
Day 5	Inle Lake, Myanmar
Day 6	Inle Lake, Myanmar
Day 7	Mandalay, Myanmar; Embark Viking Mandalay
Day 8	Mandalay, Myanmar & the U Bein Bridge
Day 9	Ohn Ne Choung, Myanmar
Day 10	Bagan, Myanmar
Day 11	Salay, Myanmar
Day 12	Yandabo, Myanmar
Day 13	Myint Mu, Myanmar

Our Live Voyage Reportfrom Viking River Cruises’ Myanmar Explorer continues tomorrow as we travel to Mandalay, Myanmarto board the Viking Mandalay!Be sure to follow along with our adventures on Twitter@deckchairblog.

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Monday, October 9, 2017

Driving in the U.S.'s Only All-Female Endurance Road Race

Read article : Driving in the U.S.'s Only All-Female Endurance Road Race

It was 4 p.m. and 90 degrees when we finally decided to give up. For hours, Jaclyn and I had been inching our Jeep Rubicon along a dusty unmarked road in the Mojave National Preserve, eventually finding ourselves trapped in a high-walled canyon. We had no idea how far off course we were: Two miles? Twenty? We hadn't seen another human all afternoon. Soon it would be dusk, then nightfall.

We were lost. Not Can you pull up Google Maps?lost, or Do we still have a road atlas somewhere?lost. No, we were Are we in California or Nevada?lost; Thank god we have emergency supplieslost; This landscape would be gorgeous if it weren't so apocalyptic lost. The Jeep's GPS system had been disabled, and our phones and laptops were turned off and sealed in envelopes. We had a collection of specialized large-scale topographical maps, but to figure out where you are on a topo map (a relief map that shows a region's geographical features), you have to know how to read it. I was supposed to be the better topo reader in our pair, and I could barely pick out the most prominent landmarks. If coyotes or unfriendly strangers appeared, we'd be completely, royally screwed.

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Is that the road?

Nicole Dreon

We sat in the Jeep with the air conditioning on high, eating sugary energy chews and gulping down coconut water.

We'd signed up for this. Willingly. For fun.

That was day four of the inaugural Rebelle Rally, a female-only navigational road rally—the first of its kind. For seven days last fall, 72 women—36 teams of two—off-roaded over 1250 miles, through two national parks and five Bureau of Land Management areas (government-managed public lands). We started in Nevada's Lake Tahoe and ended in Glamis, California; in between, we rambled down dirt roads, clambered over dry riverbeds and mountain passes, and coasted over terrifyingly high sand dunes.

This all called for a set of navigation skills no one uses anymore—unless you're a sailor or a fifth grader prepping for a social studies test.

Throughout the course, 140 checkpoints were hidden behind broken-down mine shacks, just beyond hairpin turns, deep inside mountain crevices, and sometimes, blessedly, directly on the route. Large green flags marked the easiest-to-find checkpoints; smaller blue flags identified intermediate ones. Black checkpoints, the most difficult to find, weren't marked at all. Each was worth a certain number of points. The goal: Rack up as many as possible.

Every morning we were given a list of checkpoints to find that day (one day there'd be 12; another day, 22), defined solely by their latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. We had to plot them on our topo maps, then use geometry to strategize how to get from one to the next. This all called for a set of navigation skills no one uses anymore—unless you're a sailor or a fifth grader prepping for a social studies test. We weren't allowed phones, GPS, or outside help. Kind of like an adult female Eagle Scouts on steroids, or Survivor meets The Amazing Race in the American West.

One of our topo maps; early morning plotting at camp.

Whitney Joiner; Nicole Dreon

The automotive world is notoriously male-dominated, making a women-only motorsports event revolutionary. (There are a few all-women rallies and races scattered across the globe, out of hundreds of annual motorsports events overall; the Rebelle is the only one in the U.S.) "I've been in races where I was the only woman driving," the Rebelle's founder, 50-year-old Emily Miller, told me. "I've had people recommend I wear a tight pink race suit."

Miller grew up between Arkansas and Colorado, skiing, biking, and reading her father's car magazines. In her 30s, she launched a sports marketing firm and started to race cars and teach at racing and off-roading schools. When creating the Rebelle—which took three years of planning, 40 Bureau of Land Management permits, and 60 staffers to pull off—Miller combined her favorite aspects of the rallies and races she'd participated in over the years.

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She was determined to create an event where women could test their mettle. "Most automotive events are designed from a man's perspective," Miller said, meaning that they're usually speed races, where the goal is to get from Point A to B as fast as possible. But the Rebelle isn't a race, she reminded us daily. It demanded endurance, accurate navigation, and communication. "Women excel in endurance events," she explained. "Women think about the rules and the challenge. They want to win, but they're not there to prove how fast they can go."

My team's combined experience was…limited. "Winning" never crossed our minds; we just hoped to finish without killing the Jeep—or one another. My teammate, Jaclyn Trop, is an auto reporter who reviews luxury cars, but we both quickly realized that her professional expertise didn't translate into real-world driving and car maintenance knowledge. While she knows her way around a racetrack, she didn't know how to read a map.

Naïve enthusiasm seemed like a perfectly legitimate qualification to enter a highly-detailed endurance event requiring a complex Venn diagram of skills I didn't possess.

Not that I know anything about cars. I can sort of drive a stick shift, and sort of change a tire. I'd signed up for the Rebelle Rally because tooling around isolated Southwestern back roads is one of my all-time favorite activities, something I discovered during the six years I lived in Far West Texas. (Aimless desert driving is terrible for the environment, but good for the soul.)

At first, my lack of experience didn't faze me. Naïve enthusiasm seemed like a perfectly legitimate qualification to enter a highly-detailed endurance event requiring a complex Venn diagram of skills I didn't possess. This blind optimism buoyed me for months: the Rebelle was just a crazy-sounding adventure, far off in the distance, something to think about later.

But six weeks before the rally, during a training weekend with a handful of other competitors in California's Borrego Springs, my optimism cratered into a black hole of fear and self-loathing. Surrounded by women far more experienced than me, all of whom could probably MacGuyver a tire blowout with a piece of gum, my lack of preparation smacked me in the face. Latitude and longitude felt like a maddening mathematical language I'd never master, and I didn't believe that Jaclyn or I would have the stamina and resilience to handle potential crises. (I live in Brooklyn! I don't even have a car!) Instead of bonding with the other participants, I disappeared into my tent, clutching my iPhone for comfort. Miller stopped by: "You okay?" she called from outside my tent. "Yeah," I squeaked. "Just tired." This is going to be a disaster, I told myself. You didn't think this through.

Mood for most of the week.

Rebelle Rally

I was certain the rally would bring out my worst self. I'd be a dehydrated raw bundle of neuroses, throwing my helmet in the dust and indulging in nonstop Carrie Mathison-like angry-crying. I spent the month before the rally nursing a never-ending migraine, holing up at home ruminating on my certain failure, and having bouts of ill-advised anxiety sex with a highly inappropriate partner I thought I'd successfully sworn off months before.

"It's only overwhelming because you've never done it before," my mother, always a voice of reason, said. "Once you're there, you'll get in the swing of it. You'll be fine. You always are."

The rally began on a Saturday morning in early October, but Jaclyn and I arrived in Lake Tahoe—bright and sunny and permeated with the smell of pine—on Tuesday night to prepare. Buying our required provisions took an entire day: We'd need a five-gallon jug of water, emergency blankets, a fire extinguisher, first aid kits, food to last at least five days (in case something went terribly awry), a laundry list of auto supplies, and helmets—required for safety's sake whenever we were on the Rebelle course—that squished our faces into chipmunk-cheek blobs. Thursday was "technical inspection," during which rally staffers ensured each vehicle was properly equipped. On Friday afternoon, all 36 teams caravanned out to our first base camp, a sprawling settlement a few hours east of Lake Tahoe, with a vehicle impound, a maintenance tent and gas refill area, a food truck manned by a Michelin-starred chef, and the main gathering space—a shelter filled with tables and butterfly chairs, decorated with gauzy curtains and wildflowers.

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Miller briefs competitors; a green checkpoint on the course; Rebelle cars on a dry lake bed in California.

Paolo Baraldi; Whitney Joiner; Nicole Dreon

I woke on Saturday at 4:30 a.m. and launched into what would become my daily routine: wiggling into my Rebelle uniform (sports bra, tank top, long-sleeved shirt, hiking pants, lace-up canvas boots), rushing to the portable bathrooms to brush my teeth and splash water on my face; running back to pack up camp. While I dragged our gear down to the Jeep, Jaclyn picked up the day's list of coordinates and started plotting. I joined her under the main tent, staring helplessly down at the table where she'd spread the coordinate list, colored pencils, and distance-measuring rulers.

We experienced the singular thrill of spotting a green checkpoint: a mix of relief, pride, and elation that never got old.

Jaclyn understood latitude and longitude in a way I didn't, so it was obvious that she'd be the navigator, while I'd drive. We crept up to the starting line, my heart beating wildly from nerves, and waited to be let loose into the desert. (To discourage blindly following other competitors, teams were given different sets of checkpoints, and cars set off at two-minute intervals.)

"Turn left," Jaclyn said once we set off. "Our first checkpoint should be in 13 miles." A few minutes later, we experienced the singular thrill of spotting a green checkpoint for the first time: a mix of relief, pride, and elation that never got old.

Jaclyn in a Nevada ghost town, planning our next move.

Nicole Dreon

Later that afternoon, after meandering through a maze of dirt roads, we turned into a wide canyon, shot through with dry washes (empty creek beds that can easily be mistaken for trails or roads). "Should we be in four-wheel drive?" Jaclyn asked. Four-wheel drive gives you extra traction; it's used for rougher, rockier terrain. I felt silly for still being in 2WD—the everyday, highway-driving gear—and jerked the gear shaft up. We slowly rambled through the canyon down to a lake, where we found our final green checkpoint of the day.

We hit our tracker—sending our coordinates to staff at base camp, who monitored each vehicle, just blinking blips, on a GPS system—then realized that we'd fallen behind the other competitors. We could only see one team, off in the distance in a huge pickup. We watched as they scaled an incline effortlessly, as if filming a car commercial.

"If they can do it, so can we," I said, hitting the accelerator and heading up the incline. Within 30 seconds, our tires started to spin. Day one, and we were already stuck. We grabbed shovels from the back of the Jeep and started clearing dirt from underneath the tires. Nearby, a rally staffer pulled up in a pickup.

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"Are you in four-wheel drive?" he asked.

"Of course," I answered.

"You sure?" he said. "I'm not supposed to help you, but…you might want to check."

We climbed back inside the Jeep: the gear shift looked likeit was in the right place. Jaclyn pulled the manual out of the glove compartment. "It says we should see a 4WD light on the dashboard. Do you see it?"

"Oh," I said. "No." Hours spent crawling over boulders and sharp rocks, and we'd been in the wrong gear the whole time, an embarrassingly amateur mistake. We pledged not to tell anyone back at base camp.

Day One: stuck. (I promise this was steep IRL.)

Paolo Baraldi

By day four, we'd improved dramatically. We knew when we were and weren't in four-wheel drive. We knew that our odometer was off, making precise calculations nearly impossible—a significant drawback. And we knew that spotting a particular road on our topo map didn't mean we could match it to one on the ground. What looked like a road on the map could be a dry wash; what looked like a dry wash on the ground could be a road. We constantly scouted the horizon for dust clouds, knowing they'd be from Rebelle cars, a sign that we were on the right track.

Then came our accidental vision quest in the Mojave, when we'd drifted so far off-course that we hadn't seen a friendly dust cloud for hours.

After mainlining the energy chews, we got out of the Jeep to scout. Jaclyn jumped on the hood to survey our surroundings; I took off by foot. A railroad crossed in front of us, with a steep drop-off underneath. We were definitely stuck.

Then I saw it: a campsite, off in the distance, across a weedy wash. Trucks! People! A dog! Life!

I found Mojave River Campgroundin miniscule print in the lower left-hand corner of the map. So that's where we were. "If we can get to that campground, we could find our way to the highway," I said. It wasn't our designated route back to base camp, but the sun was dropping by the minute.

The weedy wash was actually the Mojave River, according to the map. It wasn't a river so much as a morass of swampy vegetation with a lone, murky crossing. Back home in Brooklyn, in my haste to somewhat prepare, I'd watched a YouTube video of a Jeep wading through water. I knew it was possible; I just didn't know if I could do it. "No way," Jaclyn said. "We're not going to drown here."

"What if it's easier than it looks?" I argued.

Jaclyn thought for a minute. "What would Emily do?" she asked. Miller is a 5'1" blond powerhouse who gave decidedly non-cheesy pep talks every night that sometimes brought me to tears. I'd never met anyone who inspired such devotion and admiration, who made you want to succeed just to tell her you had. "If this was easy, everyone would do it," she told us repeatedly, and we felt like intrepid, ground-breaking explorers.

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Miller encouraged calculated risks. "Emily would try it," I said. "But I think she'd check the depth first."

I stripped off my boots, socks, and pants. In just a tank top and underwear, I splashed into the crossing, mud squishing beneath my toes. The water quickly came up past my knees. I pictured the Jeep filling up with contaminated river sludge while Jaclyn and I popped Klonopin and prayed that the satellite phone actually worked.

"If this was easy, everyone would do it," the Rebelle's founder told us repeatedly, and we felt like intrepid, ground-breaking explorers.

Okay, so we weren't going to ford the mighty Mojave. But at least now we knew where we were. (Another favorite Emily saying: "You're never as lost as you think you are.") From the map, the highway back to base camp was vaguely northeast; if we headed that direction, we'd surely find a way onto the road.

Two interminable hours later, we saw what we'd been looking for all afternoon: the day's final green flag, and behind it, the entrance to the highway. Our euphoric shouts were especially hard-earned this time. As we approached the highway, a car pulled up alongside us. "Thank God!" Shelley, a rally staffer, yelled out from the passenger seat of a broken-down '80s Jeep. "We found you!" Apparently, the staff back at base camp monitoring our blinking blip had become concerned: Where are they going?

"We thought we'd have to rescue you," her husband, Big Rich, called from the driver's seat. "But look: You rescued yourselves."

On the face of it, the day was a complete throwaway. Zero points. But we'd found our way out of the canyon, completely on our own.

My month-long pre-rally panic, while overblown and unsubstantiated in retrospect, served a purpose: It burned out all my anxiety, leaving none for the actual rally. The meltdowns never came. I never threw my helmet in frustration. I didn't angry-cry nonstop. Jaclyn and I each had one brief tearful moment after making a dumb mistake—hers on day five; mine on day six—but we immediately pulled it together.

Rebelle Rally

As usual, my mother was right. Once I was forced to practice my fledgling skills, my fear melted away, replaced by an unabashed excitement that at times bordered on euphoria. Every moment brought something new: a stunning vista, a mountain pass, an abandoned ghost town, an expansive mesa. The entire course was on government property; these same roads were open to anyone. But they're rarely used, and it felt like we were seeing an America many never do, one hidden in plain sight.

I started to trust the Jeep more, and Jaclyn, and myself. One day we were caravanning along a high ridge outside of Joshua Tree, with steep drop-offs and hairpin turns. Wait! I thought, halfway through. I should be scared. If I turn the steering wheel just slightly, we'll sail off.I felt my stomach drop and panic rise up in my chest. But just as quickly, I reeled it back in. Don't let fear take over, I coached myself. You can stop it."You're already way more confident," Jaclyn noted as we dipped and swerved. "If we'd been on this road the first day, you would've freaked out the whole time. Now you're just trucking along."

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We were too clueless to be embarrassed about how little we knew.

I'd been so intimidated by the other competitors' credentials before the rally began, but now our lack of experience felt almost freeing. The rally was so out of our league that I was constantly astonished we were doing it at all. How we looked to anyone else didn't matter. We'd ask other Rebelles basic car-maintenance questions, knowing our queries probably sounded elementary. (Only one woman looked at us in disdain after we'd asked for her help installing high neon flags required for dune driving: "You actually don't know how to do this?" she spat. "Why are you even here?") We were too clueless to be embarrassed about how little we knew.

Every night, when the scores for the day were posted, we'd land in the bottom four. But we thought we were champions.

All week, the experienced competitors were itching for the final day, when we'd be competing in sand dunes—notoriously difficult to navigate. We woke up that last morning in California's Imperial Sand Dunes (where Return of the Jedi was partially filmed) to a blazing sun, a high in the 90s, and a range of shimmering white sand mountains towering over base camp.

I didn't feel particularly ambitious about the dunes, but Jaclyn wanted to attempt some final point-collecting. We caravanned with a few competitors, helping each other find the safest routes, then ate lunch around a green checkpoint, sitting in the shade cast by our vehicles. It was our last green of the rally.

But when I stood up, I saw the top of a blue flag in the recess of a group of dunes to the south. I nudged Jaclyn: "Let's try it."

Dunes: gorgeous and terrifying.

Paolo Baraldi

We carefully coasted down into the dune's recess by circling the perimeter, as we'd been taught, and clicked our tracker for the last time. The incline we'd just descended looked much higher than I expected, but it was still the easiest way out. I backed up a few feet to give us a running start, then slammed down the accelerator. Halfway up the incline, we felt our wheels spin, digging us into the sand below. We frantically tried to dig out, but as soon as we cleared a space, new sand spilled in.

Two of the Rebelles we'd teamed up with, Sedona and Maria, flew down into the recess, clicked their tracker at the blue flag, and zipped up the incline past us with no trouble. They parked on the dune's crest, then ran down to help dig us out. Finally we had enough room behind our back tires to position our MaxTrax, a pair of ridged, snowshoe-shaped rescue tools, behind our back tires. Slowly, carefully, we eased off the sand and onto the MaxTrax.

Many of my pre-rally fears came true. But I found an intoxicating freedom in taking on a challenge just to take it on, without expecting conventional success.

Sedona pointed out the angle she'd taken: "Back up even more, then punch the accelerator harder," she suggested.

I'd driven for 90 percent of the rally, but I didn't want to attempt the incline again. "I'm scared," I told Jaclyn.

We switched places and she revved the accelerator. Miraculously, she caught enough power to follow Sedona's route. We landed on top of the dune, tumbled out of the Jeep, and grabbed Sedona and Maria for a hug, jumping up and down, triumphant.

In the end, we tied for 29th place, fourth-to-last. And many of my pre-rally fears came true: We made careless mistakes and incorrect calculations; we were lost more often than not; we didn't know what we were doing most of the time. I just didn't react the way I'd assumed I would. Instead, I found an intoxicating freedom in being a complete novice, taking on a challenge just to take it on, without expecting conventional success. I'd never been more exhilarated to fail.

Finish-line euphoria.

Nicole Dreon

The second annual Rebelle Rally will be held from October 12-21, 2017. If you're interested in competing, find more information here.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Word Wenches: Keeping it Clean

Read article : Word Wenches: Keeping it Clean

Joanna here, talking about Georgian and Regency bathtubs and the joys of getting clean. The_bath-stevens C19

There is a general view that historical people were rather dirty, there being a dearth of historical folks getting up at six and grabbing a bar of soap and popping in to warble un bel dì vedremo in the shower. I'm afraid we all feel rather smug about our acres of colored tile with the running hot and cold.

How clean were they? The townsfolks as they merrily hung aristos from the lamposts, Ninon de l'Enclos, Voltaire, (Did you know Ninon left money in her will for the 9-year-old Voltaire to buy books?) Napoleon, Jane Austen, the kitchenmaid grinding coffee in the morning? How clean were they?

Degas woman washing her left leg 1883 to 6 the met This is a case where the written historical record tends to desert us, somewhat, as folks do not record in their diary, "I got up and Mary-the-perky-maid brought me six liters of water and I washed my face, hands, underarms and, last off, various parts south of the waistband." any more than we text to our BFFs to say we've had a morning shower.

So we end up making some 'best guesses' about this whole business.

You had your everyday getting clean. You had your g Degas-edgar-the-tub-bathing-woman-1886 etting wet for recreational purposes. And you had your washing the body to treat diseases.

This last one gets written about a lot in a 'I went to the baths to see if I could get rid of this nasty skin condition' or 'the physician prescribed a course of cold baths with sulfur powder in them and I feel much better now that I have stopped' sorta way. Marat, you will recall, was in exactly such a medicinal bath when Charlotte Corday brought it, and him, to an abrupt end with a knife.

Medicinal Baths and Thermal Spas. The mineral baths at Bath and other spa towns provided an immersion intended to improve the health, not so much wash the body, though it did that too. Some places there were separate baths for men and women. Some places, everybody bathed together.
They went into the water dressed. Wearing their periwigs and bonnets. I should think the fumes did neither periwigs nor bonnets much good, frankly.

Up at four o’clock, being by appointment called up to the Cross Bath . . . very fine ladies; and the manner pretty enough, only methinks it cannot be clean to go so many bodies together in the same water. Good conversation among them that are acquainted here, and stay together. Strange to see how hot the water is; and in some places, though this is the most temperate bath, the springs so hot as the feet not able to endure. . . . Carried away, wrapped in a sheet, and in a chair, home; and there one after another thus carried, I staying above two hours in the water, home to bed, sweating for an hour.
Pepys' Diary

Let us leave the whole subject of medicinal baths very quickly, as it is generally unpleasant, even if you're not getting stabbed.

Though I should point out that folks still do this medicinal bath bit, in the way of putting baking soda in a bath for some poor sufferer from poison ivy, and modern herb baths hold anything from lavender to chamomile and thyme. The 'it's good for you' bath is not going to disappear anytime soon.

Out in the Fresh Air. The opposite of taking a bath because it was good for you was getting wet just for the fun of it. Any warm day would probably see the local youths sporting in the local river. There are a good many references to folks doing exactly this -- including a Paris ordinance forbidding nude bathing in the Seine, but only near the bridges -- to avoid the scandalizing the public.

Pepys, in his diary, notes the sad death of a young boy bathing in the Thames.
and at Somerset-stairs do understand that a boy is newly drowned, washing himself there, and they cannot find his body.

Or this Englishman travelling in America.
Early the next morning, my kind, attentive host entered into my bedroom and inquired if I should like to take a bath. I replied in the affirmative, and immediately rising, was conducted to one in an adjoining field which is filled by a small brook and is therefore always fresh.
A summary view of America, Isaac Candler 1824

Period pictures are not an entirely reliable guide to actual practice. Showing folks bathing in pools and rivers is a great excuse to paint nekkid people, after all. But from an extensive personal survey,it looks like bathing -- where folks actually got wet all over as opposed to wading in the water -- tended to be young people and they were segregated into women and men.

Bathing in the sea, for fun and medical benefit, became fashionable in the Eighteenth Century, with 'bathing machines' on offer from mid century.

The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes-
A sentiment open to doubt.
Lewis Carroll

Bathing machines were high-wheeled wagons, with a canvas or wood structure on top, towed from the shore into the sea.

Image to yourself a small, snug, wooden chamber, fixed upon a wheel-carriage, having a door at each end, and on each side a little window above, a bench below – The bather, ascending into this apartment by wooden steps, shuts himself in, and begins to undress, while the attendant yokes a horse to the end next the sea, and draws thecarriage forwards, till the surface of the water is on a level with the floor of the dressing-room, then he moves and fixes the horse to the other end – The person within being stripped, opens the door to the sea-ward, where he finds the guide ready, and plunges headlong into the water – After having bathed, he re-ascends into the apartment, by the steps which had been shifted for that purpose, and puts on his clothes at his leisure, while the carriage is drawn back again upon the dry land; so that he has nothing further to do, but to open the door, and come down as he went up.
Tobias Smollett 1771

Men plunged into the waves starkers. Small children, of course, went into the water naked, as they do in European countries today. Women wore a long flannel shift, sometimes with lead weights sewn into the hem to keep the skirts from floating up.

In all this bathing, women took to one end of the beach and men the other, so modesty was maintained, in any case. Hefty and agile attendants supervised so folks didn't drown, a real possibility when wrapped in several yards of soaking flannel, I should imagine.

But how did people wash? I hear you asking. How did they keep clean?

Public Baths. In France, the custom of public bath houses, cheap, respectable and widely available, Le bain economic des incroyables de la rue dela tannerie a quinze centimes never died out. This was an amazement and joy to travelling Englishmen and women who have left us detailed records of the process since this was something they did not have at home.

Paris baths had private rooms with hot and cold running water, big tubs, fireplaces, nicely heated robes and towels, waitresses offering coffee and drinks, and a selection of bath oils and bath herbs. There were also bathin g pools for both men and women and, in one bath on the Seine, swimming lessons for both.
I'm surprised English folks every went home again.

Meanwhile . . . at home. In England, in this period, folks did their actual getting clean by sponging off with a pitcher of water and a little basin on their dresser, or by immersing themselves in a tub not too different from a modern bath tub, or by standing in a smallish tub on the floor and washing with a pitcher of water.

The habit of washing the body and the introduction of wash basins and portable bath tubs began to spread among wealthy households in the late 18th century.
The Family, Sex & Marriage in England 1500-1800 Laurence Stone

You had yer bath tubs.

I think and feel that, after a day's bard riding, there is no luxury comparable with a 'warm bath—it is so grateful and refreshing, and disputes the title of "tired nature's sweet restorer" with sleep
The Inspector, literary magazine and review, Volume 2

These were not necessarily in a 'bathroom'.

The idea of having a room devoted to washing in a tub goes right back to the Seventeenth Century. Pepys mentions such a bath in a private home.

Thence with Mr. Povy home to dinner; where extraordinary cheer. And after dinner up and down to see his house. . . . his grotto and vault, with his bottles of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of all sorts; his bath at the top of his house, good pictures, and his manner of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I did see of one man in all my life.

But this would have been rare. Rooms devoted to bathing were for palaces and the grandest mansions.

Jonghe late c19 apres_le_bain Moveable tub baths were more common.
What folks of middling means did when they wanted to take a bath was fire up the hearth in their bedroom, pull a screen round to close off the drafts, and send for a tub.

And water. They had 'running water' of a sort. They sent a footman to run and get it. It came up in biggish cans, generally one hot and one cold. A housemaid might linger nearby and keep a kettle on the fire and add more hot water from time to time as the bath cooled.
This process was what you might call, labor intensive. Water and bath hauling was done by footmen.

Warning: Author anecdote time. My father grew up in a house with exactly this kind of 'running water'. His job was to go to the well and carry in all the water used for cooking, cleaning, bathing and washing for a household of ten people. It will come as no surprise that he ran away to sea.

How common were these tub baths? Adam 1842 crop

Every house of every nobleman or gentleman, in every nation under the sun, excepting Britain, possesses one of these genial friends to cleanliness and comfort (bath tubs).
The Mirror of Graces (1811)

So the British may have been well behind their continental counterparts in the matter of home bath tubs, just as they were in matter of public baths.

And when there was a tub in the house, it's worth noting that its use involved a whole production. Boiling water, carting it upstairs, and then carting it down again after use. I wonder how many of the ordinary gentry folk would have seen this as a daily necessity when you could get just as clean with . . .

Basin and Pitcher. This was the standard wash equipment all through the period.

Basin and pit 1795 sevres met Washing with a pitcher of water would be part of the morning routine, or undertaken again after a long day of work or play. This was what you'd expect to find waiting for you in a decent inn. This was the normal way folks got clean.

Pitchers held about the largest amount of water one person could easily manage to pour. Call it one to two gallons. (Four to eight liters.) You wet a towel or flannel and washed yourself, using the basin to catch the used water. Or you might pour the water in and splash it on yourself. Basin stand mid c18 VandA

The towels, by the way, weren't the fluffy terry cloth we think of today when we say towel. That's mid-nineteenth century fabric. Our Georgian and Regency folks used woven linen to dry off. Cassat woman bathing

The soap would most likely have been spherical, about the size to fit in the palm of the hand, because that's how it would have been form -- piece by piece between the palms of the hand. Your character might have called this a 'wash Silver soap ball attrib British museum ball'.

It would be kept in a soap ball holder on the washstand. After the 1790's the soap might have been 'Pear's Soap', which was transparent and flower scented. And . . . There might be sponges.

Your basin and pitcher might sit on a sideboard or Toulouse lautrec 1896 washing a dresser, or you might have a fancy, purpose-built washstand in the corner. It was typically a maid who brought the pitcher of hot water up to you. The amount of water was limited by the amount you could lift and pour yourself. That meant a maid could easily carry it.

How clean did you get, washing this way?

I don't see any reason to believe you couldn't keep yourself just as clean as bathing in a tub. Even today, this is 'how it's done' for most of the world's population.

Whether our Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century folks felt the need to wash as often as we do today or righteously refrained from washing on the grounds that it 'opened the pores' and let sickness in . . . I don't think anybody will really know.

It's not a British reference, but:

Having completed it, [my work] I went to the stream to wash myself thoroughly, and then to the sailor's chest to change my coat, that I might make a decent appearance at breakfast, and give my sons an example of that cleanliness which their mother was at all times eager to inculcate.
Swiss Family Robinson 1812

And Beau Brummel advocated frequent washing.
On the other hand, he felt he had to advocate frequent washing.

Rub a dub dub. A couple final questions remain in my mind.

Bad-mit-schokolade c17 Why the devil did women sometimes wear their shifts in the bathtub? And what is with putting a sheet along the bottom of the tub?

I have cogitated upon this from time to time when I am not concerned with other great issues of the day like, 'Why does the car always break down when I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes?' and 'Why are taxes so complicated?' and 'Why would anyone name his kid Cedric? Isn't it obvious he's going to be a supporting character and come to a sticky end in a graveyard?'

I won't call this the final word on sheets in bathtubs . . . But this is what I think:
There is cloth on the bottom of the tub because these tubs were either (a) wood and full of splinters or (b) metal and cold.

So why are women wearing a shift in the water?

I think bathing in a tub was seen not so much as washing to get clean, as it was an enjoyable interlude.

Think of modern habit of spending an hour reading in the bathtub. If it took a couple man-hours to prepare and clear out that tub, it seems to me you wouldn't put your household to that much trouble and then not take full advantage of it.

Washing with a basin and pitcher was solitary, but tub bathing, by its Romanet2 1774 le bain nature, was a group effort. It seems to have been something of a social occasion for some folks.

Marie Antoinette wrote: I dictate from my bath, into which I have just thrown myself, to support, at least, my physical strength. I can say nothing of the state of my mind;"

If Marat had not been of the opinion that receiving visitors in the bathtub was an unexceptional practice he might have lived a while longer.

So maybe -- a shift was worn for modesty when the bedroom was apt to be crisscrossed by servants running errands and you planned to be in the tub a while?

washstand from the Victoria and Albert. Ewer and basin, soap ball, and the Degas statue of Woman Washing Her Leg are from the Metropolitan Museum.

What do you think? Were they clean and sweet in Regency times, or deplorably . . . uncleanly.
(Not Mr. Darcy. Say it ain't so.)