Alligator Man: Another Weird Detour in Washington State

On our last family road trip to Washington we stumbled on the remote town of Forks, the vampire and werewolf capitol of the world (or at least according to Hollywood). So when we packed up for a weekend of clamming near Long Beach I wasn't expecting our trip to rival the freakiness of our previous sojourn. Enter Alligator Man.

After harvesting a bounty of four razor clams near Cape Disappointment and freezing our a***es off all night in a tent, we decided to warm our spirits with a visit to a little museum a friend told us about that held Alligator Man - a disturbing mummified half-man half-alligator that may or may not be real. After driving through a few abandoned looking towns with "For Sale" signs up everywhere we arrived in Long Beach and to Marsh's Free Museum which was bustling compared with the rest of town, with a full parking lot and people milling around outside. Marsh's itself is more of a store than anything else selling tacky tourist magnets, stickers, seashells and knickknacks. The actual museum is crammed at the back and at first glance looks like a bunch of garage sale fodder.



But we'd heard about Alligator Man and by golly we were going to find him. Past the automated 50s style fortune telling machine and a few taxidermy stuffed animals we found him. He's in a big glass display case, is about four and a half feet long from head to tail and is all black and shriveled like an un-bandaged mummy. The head and upper body probably is from a real human - it's too realistic and well done to be a fake - and the bottom half is obviously from a real alligator. There's no obvious area where you can see that the two have been stuck together - it's a brilliant work of taxidermy if anything else and honestly, it's one of those things that you can't really gauge your emotions on. Did the top human half come from a mummy bought in Egypt way back when? Was someone killed or dug up to make this thing? None of these questions are answered, and Alligator Man just sits there baring his spiky teeth with a half-petrified half-aggressive gape.

The funniest part was that even though the museum was packed and Alligator Man was the star attraction, no one seemed to take any notice of him. People casually walked by, stopped to look then moved on. What was going through these people's heads I can hardly imagine: "oh there's a dead human body sewn together with an alligator," or "oh a real-life mutant alien horror movie creature, how nice." And yet, no one gave him a second glance or seemed to register that they were looking at anything odd.




Elsewhere in the museum is an even less fawned upon but very real shrunken human head and an utterly ignored taxidermy stuffed six-legged calf. Most visitors seemed to be there to shop, stocking up on "Beer, it's what's for breakfast" bumper stickers and candy. The freakish stuff was just a sideshow at the back of a room.

Photos by Jasmine Humbert

Video: Amazing Wildlife of Bako National Park, Borneo

I studied primatology at University so it had been a long-time dream of mine to see proboscis monkeys in the wild. Bako National Park in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia, did not disappoint. A proboscis family was out foraging in the mangroves near park headquarters every morning and there was a plethora of other fascinating critters to be seen as well.

Enjoy!




Note: I have a larger article on Bako in the works and I'll post a link once it's been published.

Five Reasons I Love Being a Petite Traveler

When you're little - OK short - people tend to think it's somehow scarier for you to travel, particularly alone. Well I've found that the benefits of being small far out-weigh looking easy to throw aside. Here's what I remember as I stand tall:

I fit in small spaces

Indonesian buses, third class rail cars and United Airlines seats are far from comfortable but I can contort my legs into several different positions as I try to sleep. My recent favorite is stuffing my feet in the magazine pouch on airline seats so I can have a semi-horizontal position even when there are people sitting on either side of me.

I blend in

It helps having dark hair too, but I can go anywhere and people don't notice me (note: I've never been to Scandinavia), I'm just another dark little head in the crowd. Bag snatchers on the prowl don't see me because I'm behind that well-fed couple in the University T-shirts, border guards are nice because I look so un-offensive, local people want to help me because I'm wide-eyed and little like a forest creature.

I can buy clothes and shoes anywhere

Only pair of pants get lost at the laundry? Flip flop blow out? Fell in love with the local dress? Any store anywhere carries my size.


I don't cost much to feed

When my husband joins me on trips my food expenses don't double, they triple. It's like a Honda Civic versus an SUV, I just don't take much fuel to keep chugging. I can drink two beers and it's party time - just think of the savings.


I rarely bump my head on things

The only time I ever almost got knocked out by a blow to the head was in Nepal when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and hit my head on a door jam. Now that was a short door. I realized then that tall people must have to worry about doors all the time, as well as hanging lights, disco balls, the list goes on.

So I'll take being short, it might not be eye-catching but for my lifestyle that's a good thing. The kind of thrill I felt the first time I sat at the back of an Indonesian bus and could see all the way out the front window, might not happen much in my life but at least I'll get some sleep.

Tuna Wrestling & Shark Frenzies in the Tuamotus

Here's a snippet of daily life I wrote over Christmas in the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia:

"Mama, Mama look what Papa caught!" my son pulls me out of my chair and outside.

Josh and Heiarii are just pulling up to the dock in the aluminum skiff. Looking into the boat I can see a three-foot glimmering dogtooth tuna laying atop a good sized black trevally and two lagoon fish. Josh is smiling huge and Heiarii who's driving the boat looks happily entranced.

It's a grey 5:45 in the afternoon and the trade winds are blowing hard creating long rolls of swell that jostle the little boat before crashing as waves onto the coral gravel shore. We're in a house perched on a coral head about 100m out from the beach and the drone of the boat's motor is nearly drowned out by the loud surf and the wind rushing over the tin roof. It's chilly in a tropical sort of way, a way that makes you think about putting a T-shirt on over your swimsuit.

As they haul the fish and spear guns up onto the dock, Josh tells me the story of the hunt:

"It was a team effort. I shot the tuna in the jaw then Heiarri saw it was going to get loose so shot it in the side then grabbed it with both arms while it was thrashing and swam it to the surface. There were raira [grey reef sharks] everywhere!" I can see the adrenalin still pumping through Josh's eyes. Heiarii, always humble has a hard time hiding his stoke as well.

"So I bet you really feel like men now eh?" I say with a smile.

"Oh yeah!" Josh and Heiarii laugh and pound their chests.

The dogtooth tuna is so fresh it's still changing colors, it's iridescent silver and light blue skin sullied only by a black trickle of a line I assume is its own blood. It's beautiful with its eyes shining under the grey clouds, a truly majestic animal.

The guys get busy cleaning it and making fillets that we'll make sashimi and poisson cru from for the next several days. Heiarii saves some of the bones to make jewelry. They throw the guts into the water then my son calls me over quickly to the dock.




There are 20 or more sharks in a frenzy just next to the dock - about three feet down from the edge where we're standing. Never in the 20 years I've been hanging out in Ahe have I seen so many sharks in one place. Not only that they're huge, some over six feet, grey reef and black tips hammering into each other and making the water boil with their thrashing tails as they try to nab bits of tuna. We throw the bones in, more sharks come over from out of nowhere and the frenzy intensifies. We're safe up where we are but it's still instinctually petrifying watching them. Not only that but this is where we swim every day. After about half an hour the tuna carcass is licked clean and the lagoon looks peaceful again.

We make sashimi and, with the same fervor as sharks devour our dinner procured by our own hunters of the sea. I'm glad in a way we got to share the bounty. This is a tuna who's life definitely didn't go to waste.

Navigating Ex-pat No-man's Land

To quickly bring you all up to date, I lived in French Polynesia for over 15 years before moving to Portland, OR in the US this last July. It's been our family tradition to spend Christmas and New Years on our Tahitian pearl farm in the remote Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia pretty much for forever, and this year marked both my husband's 40th birthday (January 4th) and our 20 years of togetherness - so despite being broke, we maxed out the credit card and flew to French Polynesia. I guess that's the American way.

If you read my post Masquerading As Americans, you'll see that we didn't exactly feel like we fit in to the US yet. Yeah the cold was a little offsetting but it was the little things, like all our friends being really busy all the time, having too many choices at the grocery store, people writing thank you and Christmas cards and me feeling disorganized and dumb for not having done the same - these details made and still make me feel like an alien in what's supposed to be my country. I don't understand Americans yet - they are really nice and yet totally unavailable. It's a weird mix of 1950s politeness and 1980s it's-all-about-me.

Being back in Tahiti and the Tuamotus over Christmas made me realize that I'm much more at ease in those cultures than in America. This is a little ironic since one of the reason I wanted to move back to the States was because I was tired of always being the "American" and having an accent in French that instantly gives me away. Well now I see that in Tahiti I'm much more the bomb than in the US where I feel sort of kooky. I make an epic poisson cru (see my recipe), can husk a coconut, know all the plants and how to grow them, am not afraid of swimming with sharks and know how to pick out a good French wine from the dodgy selection at the store. I know everyone everywhere, can live in a bikini and I'm immune to mosquito bites. But I'm still the American, not really a part of either culture, but sort of both floating somewhere out in ex-pat no-man's land.

Does this mean I'm moving back to Tahiti? No, not at all. I've never lived in the US in my adult life so I have to give it a shot. If I'm going to be known as "The American" I at least have to know what that means. Plus it's only been six months. I think it will take a few years to adjust and then, we'll see what we want to do from there. The sun will be beckoning us, I think.

Twilight in Forks For a Non-Fan

It was a weekend adventure on the lush Olympic Peninsula and my first trip to Washington State. Our plan, in American family road-trip-style, was to wander aimlessly and see what we discovered. We spent the first day sledding and in awe of the high mountains, evergreens, deer everywhere and the glistening of icicles. Then I saw it on the map, Forks - yes the town of vampire fame - and even though I only got through book one and thought it was the worst load of crap I'd ever read, I desperately wanted to go.



Upfront I'd like to say that I hold nothing against people who love the Twilight series - I know lots of intelligent people who can't get enough of them, but I am not part of their club. What made me want to go to Forks was the dramatic old-growth forest scenery in the movies and an obsession with all things trendy in the tourist world that surely comes from my job. So we went, with an OK from my husband and son and full support from my teenage daughter who knew the visit would give her lots of street cred with her friends back in Tahiti.

Highway 101 winds through never-ending pine forests covered in moss, clear blue lakes and, unfortunately, clear-cuts. I was hoping the forests would get taller and thicker as we approached Forks, but no, it was all pretty much the same and beautiful in a new-growth sort of way. Right as the "Welcome to Forks" sign came into view a bald eagle swooped across the road and landed in a nearby tree. This seemed to bode well for the town.



My pre-Twilight Lonely Planet guidebook describes Forks as a "one-horse logging town," and that's a really nice way to put it. Flat, treeless highway 101 is the main drag that's bordered by basic 50s-era necessity shops, a couple Americana diners and now three Twilight shops: one for the vampires, another Native American-run one for the werewolves and another that is the office for three-hour Twilight tours of town and beyond.




We didn't have time to go on a tour but we did stop in a diner for a meal. The food was good as anything is when slathered in cheese and mayonnaise, and the place was full of locals who all smiled at us. On the door was a long list of Fork's men currently away fighting America's wars and when I asked the waitress about it she said there were pages worth that weren't even on the list. Since Forks has a population just above 3,000, that's a huge percentage of the town's men who are off risking their lives in the army. And it's that kind of town: not pretty at all, but down-home, very American and you can feel that it's filled with the kind of people who drink beer, go to church and play lots of board games in winter. I like Forks, it's a real working town and vampires probably wouldn't want to live there.




Next we decided to check out La Push on the coast and by doing so accidentally wandered into werewolf territory. We passed through lots of very shabby trailer communities, tract homes and clear-cuts, then into new growth forest that led to the coast. Where Forks has got sort of into the whole Twilight thing, the Quileute Tribe has embraced it completely. I had no idea, but this tribe really does exist, they are probably the most ancient inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest and legend says they were fashioned from wolves. So on every building is a red and black native stylized painting of a wolf - they are the wolf tribe and always have been, long before Twilight came around.



Just before the coast someone has put up a sight saying "No Vampires Beyond This Point," and in La Push is "Jacob's Java" coffee shack. My daughter and I were hoping for buffed shirtless men running around but again, no, La Push is a near ghost town on a Sunday. The beach is loaded with driftwood and looks out over basalt islands along the coast. It's a beautiful, quiet tribal town, a little rubbish-clogged around the edges, and it made we wish we could stay there a night or two to really feel the place out. There are a bunch of other nearby beaches and hiking trails leading along the coast.

And then we had to move on because of course, we were on a road trip. The highlight of the return to Portland was a drive through Aberdeen, hometown of Kurt Cobain - it's a depressing, industrial concrete mass that makes Forks look like a resort town. I feel I understand Kurt's angst much more now. We blasted "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and bombed home to our new home city where vampires are much more likely to exist than anywhere we'd been that day.

A Pearl For Passports With Purpose Round 2

I can't believe it's been a year already but here it is, November again and for the second year Passports With Purpose is organizing their creative and inspired drive to raise money for a cause; last year they built a school in Cambodia and this year the goal is to build an entire village in India, brick by brick. Here's how it works: bloggers like me procure a prize, blog about it and spread the word. We hope our readers will go to the Passports With Purpose prize page and make a donation. Each $10 you donate will put you in the running for a prize of your choice and there are some great ones from plane tickets to travel gear and stays in resorts. Each $10 you donate also goes directly to building the village in India so it's a winning formula all around.

Once again my contribution is a Tahitian pearl, generously donated by Kamoka Pearls, where I worked for years and it's still run by my family. Last year I entered a silver toned round so this year I'm upping the ante as far as my own tastes are concerned and am offering this gorgeous A-grade teardrop peacock green 10.5mm gem in the photo. This pearl comes from my private collection of some of the most beautiful pearls the farm has ever produced. Retail value is probably around $250 but really it's worth more than that - it's rare to find a pearl this pretty on the market anywhere. It would make a stunning pendant.

Note: the black in the middle of the pearl is just a reflection of the photographer, not a blemish.

The Last Fortune Teller of Jonker's Walk, Melaka

I stop at the fortune teller's curtained off street stall to ask how much a fortune costs, not because I want to learn anything about my future. I'm intrigued that there's still a booth here at all amongst the fridge magnet and watch sellers of Melaka's increasingly commercial Jonker's Walk Night Market. But before I can even open my mouth, a middle aged Malaysian man whisks me over to sit at a table; unless I rudely get up and walk away, I'm suddenly committed to paying for whatever it is he's offering.

“It's 15 ringgit,” he tells me in a friendly voice as he shuffles a worn, damp looking deck of cards.

Fifteen ringgit (about US$4.50) is kind of steep for Melaka – that's two meals, or a tourist T-shirt and a half back out in the market - but, I'm already sitting here so I'd better make the most of it. Bring it on.

“Pick a card”

I pick one, it's the nine of spades.



He spreads the other cards out in a circle and grabs a photocopied form with some charts on it. At the top I read his name: Ah Chan Koon (Master). He scribbles five numbers down a column then writes down months to which they correspond. He works fast, time is money and he's on automatic pilot.

“November is very good,” he says. “January and February are very good too. Don't go diving in October and December is OK. When's your birthday?”

I tell him and he takes out a book to find my Chinese sign.

“Ah yes you're a mountain pig, very good. You're good at IT or you could be a nurse.”

I'm technology-challenged and I get queasy at the sight of blood.

He writes down more stuff on my chart including lucky numbers and colors then reads my palm. I'm happy to learn I'll live to 100 but not so happy that I'll have six children.

Lastly, he asks if I have any questions. This is surely where I could get my money's worth but my mind is blank, probably because I never wanted to know anything about my future in the first place. So ask him what I really wanted to know: is he the last fortune teller at this night market, where just a few years ago geomancers such as him were such a hot item?

“Yes, it's just me now,” he says.

This makes me a little sad and I thank him, pay him and ask if I can take his picture. He's happy to oblige and we smile and shake hands as I leave.





I weave my way back through the throngs of Singaporean and Malaysian tourists, the occasional Western head popping up through the crowd, past the trinkets and knock-off Crocks vendors that extend almost twice as far as they did the last time I was here a year and a half ago. The night is lit by bright lights coming from the stalls and the neon of shop fronts, it's hot and muggy and the air smells like fried food.

I don't feel like I know much more about my future but looking at how this place has grown, I can't help but forebode that Melaka's quirky seers, artists and antique dealers will increasingly be pushed out by all these plastic sandal and potato chips-on-a-stick sellers. Ah Chan Koon (Master) might not have told me a fortune that I find useful, but if my 15 ringgit helps to keep his booth on the night market strip and preserve the soul of this town, my money is well spent. Hopefully though my predictions are as flimsy as his – there's no way I'm having six kids so let's hope that it's equally unlikely that Melaka will loose its last signature fortune teller to cheap gadgets and quick commerce.

Cool People Met While WWOOFing: Lee The Dish Fairy

Yesterday I took part in Travelers' Night In (#TNI) on Twitter where travel folks around the world chat about a topic for about an hour and a half. This week's topic was volunteer tourism and that subject is the inspiration for this week's post.

Way back when I traveled as a WWOOFer (World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) through New Zealand working three days a week on organic farms in exchange for food and lodging for the week. Traveling this way is one of the best ways to meet locals - fellow workers tend to take you to parties or bars after work or maybe hiking and picnics over the weekend.

Fellow WWOOFers however can also be a highlight. While a friend and I were working at the Welleda medicinal herb farm in Havelock North our one other fellow WWOOFer was a guy named Lee from South Korea. Lee was one of the happiest and most pleasant human beings I have, to this day, ever met. He spoke about 20 words of English and was WWOOFing in New Zealand as a means to learn more. He carried around a little notebook and wrote down every new word he learned; he listened to Neil Young non-stop and could sing all the lyrics even though he didn't know what they meant.

When we were out weeding in the fields he would look up blissfully and exclaim: "I love weeding!"

At night we'd get back and I'd cook us dinner then Lee would do all the dishes. Some other WWOOFer before me had taught him to say "I am the dish fairy!" Which actually when Lee said it (and he said it often) came out as "I em dee deesh failley!" Every time he said this it was with pride, perhaps of his amazing English phrase or just the huge stoke he got from doing dishes.

But my favorite memory of Lee is when we went on a walk one day and he eyed a big healthy looking black lab. His eyes popped and he grabbed my arm and exclaimed something in Korean very excitedly. Then he explained to me "Dog like this velly expensive in Korea. I just say 'Bring out your dogs!' because that what dog man do. Then we cook, very spicy in summer. Dog like this velly delicious."

From then on we would both yell "Bring out your dogs!" - Lee in Korean and I in English- every time we saw a fat meaty dog. Then we'd both laugh. It's amazing how funny someone can be even when you barely share a common language.

Lee gave us his address when we left but it was all in Korean and so we never wrote. I would love to know what happened to him and I hope he now speaks fluent English. I also hope he got to eat a dog as tasty as the ones we saw around Havelock North - in summer with lots of chili - as long as it was not someone's beloved pet [or raised in an evil cage see my Sulawesi market post].

Masquerading as Americans: Post-Ex-pat Beginnings

I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this, but two weeks ago my family and I moved to Portland Oregon from Tahiti, French Polynesia. I've been living away from the US for 17 years, my husband Josh has been away for 18 years and my kids have never lived in the US.

The trouble is that while we look and sound American, we have all these weird ticks: my 14 year old daughter is afraid of escalators, my 12 year old son has to ask lots of language question like "what's a hippy?" Josh pretty much goes everywhere shirtless and shoeless (all of us feel confined and uncomfortable in shoes) and I stumble on credit card slide machines, keep trying to bag my own groceries and just generally feel lost.

The pleasant thing about Portland though is that it's OK to be weird. In most cases I just explain to people: "Hey, I'm sorry, I have no idea what I'm doing. I know I seem like an American but I've been living abroad for a long time and a lot has changed."

In most cases people just ask where I've been and then explain whatever it is that I'm lost about whether it's how public libraries work in the Internet age or what Netflicks is - then they ask why I look so cold when it's 75 degrees outside.