Triathlon training generally involves six days of exercise—two days a week for each sport.  Over several months, even with the variation, the routine can become a bore.  This particular day was a cycling day, and it would turn out to be one of the most memorable of any, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual ride.

The purpose of the ride was speed, so there weren’t to be any tough climbs in the scenic mountains; only a dull flat out burn through small towns and rice fields.  The sun was baking.  For an hour or so, my partner and I sped along until at last I heard the words I was itching to hear.  “Let’s take a break.”

We were in Nantou County—central Taiwan.  It’s a fairly mountainous county, tea farms abound.  An offshoot of that industry, Pottery, is also popular in the area.

My partner said, “Let’s take a good long one.  I know a guy here you ought to meet.”

I agreed, and we rode a short distance of the main rode to a large house with a terracotta roof. A small workshop was off to the side.  My partner shouted out a greeting, and soon after a thin Taiwanese man with long curly hair popped his head out of the shop.  Right off, he looked like an artist.

He grinned and walked out to greet us.  Then he walked us into his studio.  It was filled to the brim with stylistic clay pots, tea kettles and cups, sculptures, and awards.  He started brewing tea.

“This is Liao Hsi-Li.  He is quite popular here in Taiwan.”

Hsi-Li spoke some English, but most of the conversation was translated.  We sat there, Hsi-Li smoked cigarettes, we drank tea and listened to him describe his craft.

For most of his adult life he’d made his living making and selling pottery.  He had gone to school for it, and established a reputation for his skill.  For a long time he worked his craft in the traditional Taiwanese style.  But seven or eight years ago he got bored.

“Traditionally, Pottery was a craft with practical purposes.  Here in Taiwan there were craftsmen doing the work, but it wasn’t art” he said.

He, and some others, began to experiment; mixing traditional methods with his own influences from life and modern art.  He started making art that you could use—“Practical art.”  The traditionalist thought he was wasting his time.

At first they belittled the effort, but over time they realized that Hsi-Li was not only skillful, but innovative too.  A “New Modern Pottery Art” trend began to spread.

His particular style involves using the old style keen and pure raw materials.  His most famous works are made from a mixture that he invented—he calls it “Paper Clay.”  And I am telling straight, from the look of it, you would think it was paper that had been crumbled up until it was cloth like, but to the touch it was as hard and sturdy as any I’ve come across.

“They thought this was a silly idea too,” he said, grinning as he pointed to his 2010 Taiwan Craft Competition award.  He came in first with his new style.  Some of his work is even on permanent display at the New Taipei City Ceramics Museum.

“Those same people are now teaching this technique in the art schools here,” he said.

Two hours later, as the impromptu studio tour was coming to an end, Hsi-Li handed me a small clay pot.  It was dark and round. The top handle was made from a bit of tree limp.  The sides of the pot had irregular indentions on either side.

“This is for you.  It’s made out of clay from Sun Moon Lake.”

And then he said something that has served as food –for-thought ever since.

He said,” You see these indentions.  Some people might see them as mistakes or flaws, but I put them there on purpose.  And you see this top.  It’s made from wood far up in the mountains.  It is the only one in the world with this shape.  Machines and factories can put out millions of perfect tea cups, but this piece is like us, you see, it’s unique.  It’s imperfect…but beautiful.”

Yeah, I like that.

We readied for the ride back, said thank you and goodbye, and Hsi-Li welcomed us to come back anytime.  His words and gift made for a quick and easy ride back and still serves as a reminder of the unexpected joys that lay and wait for you when you deviate from the set routine every now and again.

Good Journeys!

The host seated two men at the table beside us, and a flurry of glasses, plates, and wine bottles followed. They were definitely getting better service than we were. The waiters brought course after course, some brimming with squid ink, others lightly fried like tempura. As far as we could tell, the two men hadn’t said one word to the wait staff.

Our tables were close together, and I overheard bits and pieces of their conversation. It involved buying properties across the globe and shipments between Sicily and Brooklyn, but I couldn’t catch the details. They kept switching from Italian to English as though they were trying to hide something. My ears perked up when I heard something about tax evasion in Buenos Aires. “Big Tony’s been doin’ it for years,” one of the men said. When they mentioned Big Tony again, Kristin kicked me under the table. A shiver ran down my spine: Could we be sitting beside two members of Cosa Nostra, the local version of the Mafia? I was horrified and enthralled. Don’t tick these boys off, I thought, or you’ll be sleepin’ with the next night’s dinner.

A street band began playing Italian classics. They played very loud and very fast. After a particularly intense version of “Mambo Italiano,” the little band asked for tips. I only had a five, and I wasn’t going to give it to them. A sharp glance from one of the Mafiosi got the musicians to leave us in peace. I looked over at the guy, and my eyes accidently made contact. After tipping the musician, he turned toward me.

“Hello,” he said in his Brooklyn accent. “We’re chiropractuhs.”

I pictured bones breaking; it had to be a cover. Their names were Freddie and Alfonso. The conversation rattled on, but they didn’t seem too interested. Then, to my surprise, they invited us for an after-dinner drink. At first, it seemed like a bad idea. But curiosity got the better of me.

Freddie and Alfonso went out to smoke, and I tried to get the waiter’s attention. The waiter took forever, and by the time we paid, Freddie and Alfonso had finished their cigarettes and were standing a ways down the street. As we headed toward them, a car squealed into view. It headed straight for us going at a ridiculous speed. The guys grew tense. The car screeched to a stop, and a massive man with a shaved head emerged from the driver’s seat.

He spoke heatedly with Freddie, who spoke just as heatedly back. I couldn’t understand a word of it, but I saw Freddie and Alfonso reach for the car’s door handles.

“We’ve got to go take care of something real quick,” said Freddie over his shoulder, and just before he ducked into the passenger seat, “Meet us at the Woxy. It’s straight up the street.”

The car departed as it quickly as it had arrived, wheels squealing.

The Woxy? The Italians don’t even use the letter w, and they hardly use the x. “I think they have some business to attend to, if you know what I mean,” I said. We laughed, partly out of nervousness, partly out of relief.

“They were clearly trying to get rid of us,” said Kristin. “The Roxy’s famous. Maybe that’s the first club that came to mind.”

We made a perfunctory search for “the Woxy” without success, then bought a couple beers and wandered the cobblestone streets of the old town. We tried to guess where they had rushed off to, coming up with a handful of unreasonable explanations. Then, on our way back to the hotel, we saw Freddie leaning out of a parked car.

“Yo guys, you find the bar?”

“No,” I said, stunned. “Are you heading that way?”

“Yeah, it’s straight up the street,” said Freddie. “Alfonso had to go home, but my cousin and I were just on our way there.”

The Woxy really does exist. It’s an Irish Pub in Piazza Spirito Santo. When Freddie arrived, something about his demeanor had changed. He was way more relaxed. His cousin was not the big guy from the getaway car. His name was Marco, and he was a laid-back guy with long hair and torn jeans. He was friendly but didn’t speak English. Freddie started to talk about the woman he was going to marry, who lived in Ft. Lauderdale. That’s when I realized that we’d been totally wrong: Freddie actually was a chiropractor.

“Have you ever heard of Ideal Spine? It’s this genius new way of mapping out the geometric structure of each individual vertebra. You should check it out. W-W-W dot ideal spine dot com. He’s the new way of chiropractory. Nothing this big has happened in the field since the seventies.”

As I listened to Freddie go on about being a chiropractor and about the girl he loves and how nervous he was about asking her to be his wife, I realized that this—what I’d been viewing as my Adventure with the Mafia—was all in my head. I’d taken my preconceived notions of Sicily and slapped them straight onto Freddie and Alfonso. How could I have thought that this chiropractor from Brooklyn could be a Mafioso? I have no idea. But I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t.

After the drinks, we left the bar and Freddie and his cousin took us to a long set of steps packed with people drinking and smoking. There, we learned why Freddie’s demeanor had seemed to relax.

“You want to smoke some weed?” he asked.

On the steps, surrounded by the nightlife of Catania, we told Freddie that our next stop would be Taormina. He called the city “paralyzingly beautiful,” and his cousin nodded in agreement. Freddie recommended a restaurant.

“If you go,” he said, “tell Nino Freddie sends his respect.”

For more writing and photos by Mattie Bamman, the Ravenous Traveler, check out www.europeupclose.com

It was my first time inside the “developing” world and I remember how different everything seemed.  Men smoked from hookahs. Women walked barefoot caring baskets on their heads. I remember feeling the weight of the gaze of a little girl who watched me-  a woman traveling alone, as I sat by the ruins eating a sandwich. There was a constant onslaught of heat, dust and cries for baksheesh. Every intercity bus or train that I took broke down. Traffic careened through the streets (20 years and nearly20 countries later, Cairo still holds the record for the worst driving I’ve ever seen.  What do they have against using headlights?). The Great Pyramid was so overwhelmingly large I almost didn’t notice that I was walking by the Sphinx.  All of the earth seemed to be made of fine brown dust except for the well-defined, luscious, green stripe that was the Nile valley.  And Abu Simbel blew me away. What was more amazing – that people could build something that enormous, or that they could move it?

But more than anything, I remember that time and time again complete strangers invited me to sit with them and have tea.  The Koran says that one should give to the weary traveler, and the people seemed to take this literally.  I recalled reading a book by Freya Stark in which she said that people in the Middle East, “practice hospitality as if it’s a religion- which it is.”  I have been welcomed in many places that I have traveled- but nowhere else have I have I repeatedly had people invite me to join them (sometimes in their homes) the way I did in Egypt.

So I was very surprised last fall when a friend, who I know to be highly intelligent and a brilliant traveler, came home from a trip to Egypt and described it as hostile and unfriendly.  Was she talking about the same country where I had been treated so well? How could our experiences have been so different?  Then a few months later, we watched in amazement as the Egyptian people took to the streets.  My friend was absolutely correct in sensing that the people were angry and frustrated.  Yet I think I am correct to in believing that warmth and hospitality are at the core of their culture.

A new generation is now working to build a new Egypt.  I don’t know what it will be, but I hope it will be more egalitarian than before.  However, I also hope that they do hang on to some traditions of the past- particularly “practicing hospitality as if it’s a religion”. This seems to me to show Islam at it’s best.

When I moved to Mexico, I sold off many of my possessions and stored those I kept, including two closets full of clothes, at my brother’s house.  I came to Guanajuato with a suitcase.  That was plenty.  When I have visited my brother’s house since then, I have stared into those closets and wondered why I ever acquired so many clothes.  Two years ago, I shoved some things into a day-pack and left Mexico for a trip to Central America.  When I got back to Guanajuato, I wondered why I had so many clothes there. I had lived for two months with only a few garments.  Why do I think I need more when I’m not on the move?

I posed this question once in a van full of travelers who were attending language school.  A woman who was far too young to be so wise answered, “It’s because here we know its temporary.  At home we think we’re going to live forever.”

She was right.  It’s not just a matter of material things.  It’s also about time.  One fall, a few years back I taught English in northeastern China. The city I lived in was big, cold, ugly.  But I loved every minute of it.  I would go for walks among careening traffic and piles of litter and I would think, “Cool! Drink it all in.  This is your year in China!”

It’s true.  I knew that my time in China was limited.  But my time on earth is limited too.  Why can’t I learn to treasure it the same way? Is there a way to bring this ‘travel mentality’ home?

Living as an expat has allowed me to move a little bit in that direction.  The last couple years or so I have enjoyed a remarkable sense of well-being.  I suspect there maybe a relationship between the fact that life seems so perfect right now and the fact that nothing in my life is really mine.

It has been four years now since I quit my job, ditched my house, sold off the bulk of my possessions and moved to Mexico to become a house-sitter.  When people come to visit me here, I paraphrase the Mexican saying and tell them, “Welcome.  Not my house, is not your house either.” Giving up my own home was not easy, and there are a few disadvantages to living in house which is not yours.  I cannot have pets, and the owner and I have a few differences of opinion regarding décor. (She likes rugs and mirrors.  I don’t.)  But the bottom line is, I get to live rent-free in a place I love.

I have a guy friend.  What we enjoy is both wonderful and exclusive, though I would not presume to call him my boyfriend.  There are no expectations about how long our relationship will last and no ambitions that it will evolve into anything other than what it is now.  Knowing this allows me to take pleasure in what I have without trying to change the little things which might bother me if I thought of him in a more permanent, partner role.

Two of the last four summers, my best friend from childhood has hired me as a nanny.

Her daughters are beautiful, fun, challenging and interesting.  I am not having the experience of being a parent, but I am an honorary aunt.  I have laughed and cried with those girls, been there as they learned to walk, talk, swim, read, and do cartwheels.  Even though we are not related, I know I am part of the family.

Home, partner, family. I don’t have any of them and yet I enjoy all of them.  Knowing that none of it belongs to me keeps things cast in a temporary light so that I remember to appreciate them.

In Wales, I stopped smoking, once and for all. Back in the States, I had tried more than once. Even before the dangers were well-known, something told me I did not want to be smoking in my 40s, like my mother. But it took flying 5000 miles to Wales before I was able to summon up the strength.

In some ways, the environment didn’t make it easy. I spent evenings in the smoky salon bar of the Belleview Pub, drinking British bitter and discussing Bertold Brecht and Noam Chomsky with my new university friends. My boyfriend smoked a pack and a half of Player’s a day. His breath reeked of stale tobacco. I was in love and didn’t care.

Within a few weeks of arriving, I joined the university mountaineers’ club. On Sundays we’d explore the rocky rain-soaked fells and hills of Wales, and I began to revel in being outdoors for the first time in my life. Smoking had always been an indoor activity for me, yet here I was, wanting to be out in the wild. It took several months, but eventually my outside self won, and during the Christmas break, I smoked my last cigarette.

After exams the following spring, I panted my way up my first peak (3560′ Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales). I’ve backpacked every summer since.

Wales was the first but not the last place where I changed a habit. I used to live on Doritos and Tab (remember Tab? the precursor to Diet Coke). In the 80s, my diet consisted largely of Doritos, Tab, and toast. I knew I had a problem nutritionally, but I couldn’t get myself to change. Then, one summer, my husband and I went on a 10-day sailing trip to the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. At that time Doritos weren’t available in Canada, so I decided I’d use the opportunity to kick my habit. I remember one afternoon, holding the tiller of the sailboat and staring into the gray horizon, visualizing myself back home in the States without my Doritos fix. The moment I was dreading was over a week away, but that did not stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks, my grief was so powerful.

But by the time we returned home to Bellingham, the worst was over, and Doritos have not touched my lips since 1985. In the gap that Doritos left, I dove into cooking, now one of my favorite activities. Once again, being away from familiar surroundings was the tipping point.

Fifteen years later, halfway around the world, I peered into the cracked hotel bathroom mirror. By the dim light bulb, I saw the fleshy rolls of my skin. I turned sideways to inspect my profile and there it was, my stomach in all its unmistakable fullness. I had been overeating like crazy and I had to do something! But what? My husband and I were on a year-long sabbatical in Turkey. I loved our adventure, but at that moment, alone with my body, I felt desperate. I had no one to turn to. No sister to call, no friends, no support group, no program.

Yes, I had my husband, my closest friend and ally, but when it comes to talking about body, he is one of those perennially fit guys with no history of overeating and who just doesn’t get it.

I retraced my day’s eating. Yogurt, banana, bread for breakfast; hummus, salad, bread for lunch; rice, beans, bread for dinner. The common denominator was obvious. I lived for the thick hunks of bread that arrived in a heaping basket in Turkish restaurants. I remembered how at dinner that night I had, as usual, wolfed down half the basket of bread before the entrée arrived.

“OK,” I said to the face in the mirror. “OK. OK. I’ll stop eating bread. If nothing else, I can do that.”

And just like that, I stopped. That decision, made in a hotel bathroom in Antalya, Turkey, had a long-lasting impact. I still don’t eat bread. And my stomach and I made friends long ago.

Could these changes have happened at home? Maybe. But they didn’t. Counter-intuitive though it may seem, being away from my anchors has brought huge changes in my life. Travel has given me not only all the well-documented benefits, but it has brought me intimate changes in the place I know best: my body. Far from home, without the support of friends, I find my longing to change is stark and unavoidable, and I’m forced to find the courage I didn’t know I had.

According to the Beverage Marketing Corp, the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976. In 2006, that number jumped to 28.3 gallons. On average, one person uses 166 disposable plastic water bottles each year.

With all this consuming, not many people know that bottled water is not as well regulated and studies have shown that it is not even particularly pure. In most first-world countries, the tap water is provided by a government utility and is tested regularly, according to Planet Green. Taste tests have shown that in many municipalities, tap water actually tastes better.

A four-year study of bottled water in the U.S. conducted by The Natural Resources Defense Council found that one-fifth of the 103 water products tested contained synthetic organic chemicals such as the neurotoxin xylene and the possible carcinogen and neurotoxin styrene, according to Planet Green.

In addition to the toxins, bottled water is more expensive per gallon than gasoline, it incurs a huge carbon footprint from its transportation, and the discarded bottles are a blight.

The disposable bottle

It starts with the disposable bottle themselves. The Earth Policy Institute reports that 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, which is enough to fuel 100,000 cars for that same year, are required to satisfy Americans’ demand for bottled water. That’s because PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, the plastic used in water bottles, is derived from crude oil. And, according to the Earth Policy Institute article “Bottled Water: Pouring Resources Down the Drain” by Emily Arnold and Janet Larsen, this oil is being used to make some 2.7 million tons of plastic each year for bottling water around the globe.

Many of these disposable plastic bottles sit forever in a landfill, because they are, in essence, indestructible. In the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California, there is a large pile of plastic floating, unable to decompose and threatens the life and survival of many plant and animal species on Earth. Recycling one ton of plastic saves 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space. More than 2.3 billion pounds of plastic bottles were recycled in 2007, and although the amount of plastic bottles recycled in the U.S. has grown every year since 1990, the actual recycling rate remains steady at around 24 percent.

The H2O effect

In the study by NRDC, it reviewed available information on bottled water and its sources, Food and Drug Administration regulations of bottled water, and government and academic bottled water testing results. The NRDC also commissioned independent lab testing of more than 1,000 bottles of 103 types of bottled water from many parts of the country.

In its report, the NRDC reveals that the FDA’s rules exempt 60 to 70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States from the agency’s bottled water standards “because FDA says its rules do not apply to water packaged and sold within the same state.” Because almost 40 states say they do regulate such waters even though they have few resources or policies to do so, this is a significant omission. And “even when bottled waters are covered by FDA’s specific bottled water standards, those rules are weaker in many ways than EPA rules that apply to big city tap water.”

The NRDC study generated alarming results: “Approximately one-third of the tested waters (34 of 103 waters, or 33 percent) violated an enforceable state standard or exceeded microbiological-purity guidelines, or both, in at least one sample.”

Also, it is being tested by many different labs if plastic bottles leak bisphenol A, or BPA.

BPA is a fundamental part, a building block of plastic’s and plastic additives’ composition.It’s most common form is polycarbonated plastic. Polycarbonate plastic, which is clear and nearly shatter-proof, is used to make a variety of common products including baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical and dental devices, dental fillings and sealants, eyeglass lenses, CDs and DVDs, and household electronics.Epoxy resins containing BPA are used as coatings on the inside of almost all food and beverage cans.

What is scary to note is BPA also is a precursor to the flame retardant, tetrabromobisphenol A, and was formerly used as a fungicide.

Studies have been done throughout the years, and it has been found that BPA is an endocrine disruptor, which can mimic the body’s own hormones and may lead to negative health effects if the dosage is high. At the moment, national and world regulatory bodies have determined safety levels for humans, but those safety levels are currently being questioned as a result of new scientific studies.

Be proactive

To help reduce the amount of waste disposable water bottles contribute to landfills each year, consumers are taking the Filter For Good pledge and are committing to stop drinking bottled water for a week, a month, a year or forever.

Refillnotlandfill.org, where consumers can pledge to give up toxic disposable plastic bottles, compares what the pledge can do that if everyone in New York City were to use a reusable water bottle for one week, for one month, or for one year it would make a significant difference in reducing waste: One week – 24 million bottles saved One month – 112 million bottles saved One year – 1.328 billion bottles saved.

Also, by drinking out of a BPA-free bottle that is yours alone, you can prevent the toxin from leaching more into your system, as scientists are continuing to research the harmful effects.

If you want to carry your water with you, get a bottle and fill it. There are many places and brands consumers can rely on, including Kleen Kanteen, Nalgene and Sigg. Many Websites sell these brands, and grocery stores and others may also carry them. After the recent BPA scare, many off-brands have labeled if their bottles are safe, usually stating it’s “BPA free,” so now there is less worry about some bottles if you do not want to spend a lot of money.

If your water at home tastes funny, try an activated charcoal or ceramic filter. Whether you want something to attach to your faucet or in the refrigerator, only to cost you $20 or more than $100, you have many options. A simple Google can provide many brands and links, but the most popular ones seem to be Pur and Brita.