We Visit A Unique Place In The World…

The motorhome is now parked at the Paradise Casino in Winterhaven, California. Less than 1/2 mile away is the Colorado River and on the other side…the sunniest place on Earth…Yuma, Arizona. I’m here hanging out and enjoying the nice weather. I have several friends in the area. Mary is now expecting to rejoin me here in later January.

I’ve been coming to this Yuma, Arizona area coming on to 20 years and have thoroughly explored the area. Rather than go back to these various places and re-create the wheel, (unless I do something different and unusual) I’m electing to republish some of my earlier blog entries while I await Mary’s arrival.

Here’s a reprint of the blog entry from January 31, 2014…

We Visit A Unique Place In The World…

Yesterday we drove the Bronco seven miles to the border and walked into Los Algodones, Mexico. What makes this a unique place?…you ask. it’s because within a four block radius there are more pharmacies, doctors, dentists and opticians than a similar four block area anywhere else in the world!

To read about today’s location, click this link… http://gosw.about.com/od/southwestmiscellaneous/a/Algodones.htm

The primary reason for our visit was that I could get two pair of prescription eyeglasses…one for reading and one for driving at about 1/3 of the price in the United States.

Here’s a view of the border crossing as seen from the walkway of our parking lot. The tall building is our destination…

A sign inside Mexico…

I have been here a number of times…Mary’s second.  One of the many fun things about Algodones is the “pitchmen”. Immediately passing through the gate into Mexico, several…all about the same time start shouting…“Looking for dentist, optical, Pharmacy? Over here for the best price. Cheaper than K-Mart!”

We proceeded to the street level of a newly…currently being built…plaza at the recommendation of a couple of friends of mine…

To Algodones Optical. Not some small dusty little store you might expect to find in Mexico…

The doctor told me I have a large cataract in my right eye which I should attend to within the next year. We picked up my new glasses three hours later. I got the two pair with ultra-light ply carbon lens and a 30 minute eye exam for $199.00 U.S. Dollars. Would have been about triple that figure in the United States.

While the glasses were being made, Mary visited her dentist office…

We wandered through some of the many tourist shops and finally ended up at our favorite eating place in Algodones. You won’t see a sign like this in any United States restaurant!…

At 10:00 o’clock in the morning we both had a Tecate Beer with our meals. Mary had the shrimp and fish tacos while I had the 1/2 chicken. As usual…wonderfully delicious!…

After picking up my glasses we crossed back into the United States.

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

End of blog reprint…

Yesterday was a sunny day at 60 degrees.  Forecast for today is sunny and 65 degrees.

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of California. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 500 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273?authkey=Gv1sRgCKrvzqm8-IKGdA

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2015

We Visit A Unique Place Of The World…

The motorhome is now parked at the Paradise Casino in Winterhaven, California right across the Colorado River from Yuma, Arizona. We’re here with others…hanging out and enjoying the nice weather.

Mary rejoined me two days ago. We’ll leave this area in 2-3 days.

Yesterday we drove the Bronco seven miles to the border and walked into Los Algodones, Mexico. What makes this a unique place?…you ask. it’s because within a four block radius there are more pharmacies, doctors, dentists and opticians than a similar four block area anywhere else in the world!

To read about today’s location, click this link… http://gosw.about.com/od/southwestmiscellaneous/a/Algodones.htm

The primary reason for our visit was that I could get two pair of prescription eyeglasses…one for reading and one for driving at about 1/3 of the price in the United States.

Here’s a view of the border crossing as seen from the walkway of our parking lot. The tall building is our destination…

A sign inside Mexico…

I have been here a number of times…Mary’s second.  One of the many fun things about Algodones is the “pitchmen”. Immediately passing through the gate into Mexico, several…all about the same time start shouting…“Looking for dentist, optical, Pharmacy? Over here for the best price. Cheaper than K-Mart!”

We proceeded to the street level of a newly…currently being built…plaza at the recommendation of a couple of friends of mine…

To Algodones Optical. Not some small dusty little store you might expect to find in Mexico…

The doctor told me I have a large cataract in my right eye which I should attend to within the next year. We picked up my new glasses three hours later. I got the two pair with ultra-light ply carbon lens and a 30 minute eye exam for $199.00 U.S. Dollars. Would have been about triple that figure in the United States.

While the glasses were being made, Mary visited her dentist office…

We wandered through some of the many tourist shops and finally ended up at our favorite eating place in Algodones. You won’t see a sign like this in any United States restaurant!…

At 10:00 o’clock in the morning we both had a Tecate Beer with our meals. Mary had the shrimp and fish tacos while I had the 1/2 chicken. As usual…wonderfully delicious!…

After picking up my glasses we crossed back into the United States.

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of California. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 500 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://picasaweb.google.com/jimjrver

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2014

SUN AND MOON PAGODAS

We’ve left the Urumichi area, which means oasis. It is part of the Gobi desert and we saw oil refineries that the government controls.  We are headed for Guilin, pronounced guay-leen and the roadsides are lush with terraced gardens. In 1998, this area flooded and 1500 people died. The government let the area return to farmland and forest. Makes me think of New Orleans, where the best solution is to let the river have its way, but we don’t have an autocratic government, we have property rights and developers rights and political sensitivity.  The horrifically expensive taxpayer fix will result in  more flooding, reduced wetlands necessary to buffer severe storms, more loss of property and life, and eventually the City of New Orleans will  sink anyway. The Army Corps of Engineers keeps building levees and moving sand from one beach to another ignoring science and heeding the popular political fix.

Clustered housing here is practical and uses less land than individual farms. A collective. It is a method that can stifle innovation and experimentation. But, Vicki says, it is tried and true. After all, people have occupied the area along the Li River since 214 B.C.  Why not high rises? Because no one can build higher than 20 floors so not to obscure the view of the beautiful mountains. Oh, my. A sentiment to admire.

Guilin was destroyed by Japanese bombs, but has been rebuilt. We are aghast when Vicki calls Guilin a small city of only 640,000 people covering 67 kilometers. We stop at a tea factory for a formal tea tasting.  As in days of old, tea is packed into bales, bricks, wheels and multiple sized rounds. We find the same shapes we saw in Jiliang that we didn’t recognize as tea. Not a tea bag in sight.

Everything here is loose leaf and smells divine. The city is famous for its osthumansis (acacia) trees that are in bloom. Intensely fragrant, like orange blossoms, they are used to make wine, tea and perfume. Guilin has 13 nationalities. The Yau and Dow are predominant. There are 3,000 caves in the mountains here, many of them open to tourists.

This magnificently carved wooden Buddha tray is outfitted with a gas burner and we are about to taste ten different kinds of tea. The rules are thus:  First, you smell the cup. Then you sniff the tea and chew the leaves a bit to make sure it is good and strong. Then hot water is poured in the cup to warm it while the tea is brewing in hot (not boiling) water. You surround the cup with your hands to warm them. You can drink the water or pour it out before the tea is poured. Then you slurp noisily. That is considered the best way. It was fun. Then there was theatrics of tea. A dragon tea pot that turns from green to red when the hot water is poured into it. And a baby boy tea pot that pisses into your cup when the water heats it.  There was a lot of slurping and laughing and talking and comparing. They sell aged, 28 year old  Puer tea, said to reduce blood pressure, cure diabetes and clean your liver. You can use the leaves nine times before the flavor and benefits disappear. Hmmm!  I bought some. It stayed flavorful for about four cups made with the same leaves. Their cups are smaller than mine, though.

We get to our beautiful hotel and Michal is taken by a carved jade dragon boat. Priceless. It is a free day for us and we can wander the town and eat anywhere we want though Vicki warns us to beware of pick pockets and even some merchants are rip-off artists. Our stop here is to boat up the Li River and see a part of old China and some famous, mystical rock formations.

Guilin is quite modern and university students go to coffee shops like Western students do. The whole city smells like orange blossoms though we don’t see the trees. The Dau people hold a folk song festival in Guilin in the spring. The Dau people have a beautiful courtship ritual. A woman throws her bouquet at the man she wants. If he catches it, that is his acceptance and they are one.

As we gaze around we run into Vicki and she points out a modern Chinese pharmacy.

Kind of reminds us of a fish and herb market. But, there are lizards and insects and worms and animal parts, very clean and dried.

The Chinese have centuries of medicinal experimentation with herbs and such and it seems prudent to respect it, even while we know many remedies don’t work, such as rhinoceros horn and other animal parts. Our own drug companies have learned much from the Chinese. They are healthy people.

After dinner we load into a boat near these Twin Pagodas for a ride on the Li and Peach Blossum Rivers as they merge together and form four city lakes. These pagodas are joined underwater and one can swim into and out of them. At night they are lit up beautifully.

Pictures are impossible, but you get the idea, anyway. The lake shores on all sides are lit up like Christmas trees. Entertainers sing from various famous boat replicas, like the Marble boat from the Summer Palace, and a dragon boat. Bands play modern and traditional music every section of the way.  You see people dining on shore or in pretty boats as  you continually pass under bridges, all replicas of famous bridges. Twelve of them. Each has frescoes of great beauty and interest. We point and guess, the Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate, Glass Bridge, Cambridge Math Class Bridge. We didn’t recognize them all.  It was another dreamland journey as we stayed mesmerized by the passing scenes. Near the turning point we saw  fishermen night fishing with their cormorants. The boatman smacks them with his cane if they try to steal a fish out of the basket and pretend they caught it.  He calls to them, “Ai, ai, ai!”  The birds continually fly out and back. We see live fish, flopping in the baskets that will soon be delivered to a local restaurant. Another magical experience that clings forever in memory.