654a Best of Bulgaria; Traveling with Disabilities; Chasing the Sun

20:38I mean, mine is quite lightweight, so my husband can lift it up on a curb, and I can do that as well when that's necessary. But for some scooters, they're much too heavy to be able to lift them, and ramps are essential.

20:51Rick Steves:You mentioned how it was a real advantage to be able to take the taxi rather than using public subway or something like that. I've got friends in Europe who are tour guides, and they have license to take their vehicles into the traffic-free center of town because they take travelers with physical disabilities around. And to have that mobility and a driver and a city that lets the guide with a vehicle providing this service really is a great equalizer, I think, for people trying to get around efficiently in the city. Yes. In Edinburgh, I love Edinburgh. and they have very high curbs there and they've installed ramps that are quite steep, but you can make it up them.

21:35And for the military tattoo, which is not all military, it's just called the military tattoo, but it's a big show up at the castle and they allow disabled people to go up there in a cab or with a driver to be left off. There are a lot of places in Europe that make really good accommodations. The trains are really great.

21:52Rick Steves:Now you've traveled, you've traveled internationally. And of course, you know, Yosemite and Edinburgh might have these kind of support and programs that help people with disabilities get around. But you talk also about countries like India and Egypt. How realistic is it for somebody with a disability like yours to enjoy India? When I was there, I didn't have a scooter and I did a great deal of walking. India is only recently getting on board with accommodating disabilities. And there are millions of polio survivors there who are much younger than I am because polio was only eradicated there in the last 10 years or so.

22:35So it's unusual when you go there to see disabled people out and about, or at least it was when I traveled there. It's been a while since I was there. but generally having a disability is thought to be something where you just stay home for the rest of your life and you need to have some kind of stay-at-home profession to support yourself because no one's going to marry you and that sort of thing. So I got stared at a lot.

23:03Rick Steves:Because you were a person with a disability out and about. Exactly, and I think they assumed that I must be quite wealthy in order to be able to travel. You know, I never thought about that, but there's probably a dark reality that on half the planet, the same disability that somebody else may be able to live a reasonably open life with, their world is just stay at home. You don't go out. If you have some kind of a livelihood, you can eke out an existence. But thankfully in the developed world and with countries that have initiatives, you know, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, the world becomes much more open.

23:39That's true. That's absolutely true.

23:41Rick Steves:You know, when you think about traveling, we focus on Europe, I know Europe varies from country to country in so many ways. You can't paint Europe with a broad brush. You've traveled throughout Europe. How would you just, in a nutshell, compare the sensibilities from country to country in Europe for people traveling with disabilities? Some of them are easier than others. I did find that in the UK, even Ireland, Ireland, Scotland, and England, they're very helpful at the train stations. They will set up a ramp for you to be able to get on the train. And if you let them know in advance, then they set that up.

24:21They expect it. And even if you don't call in advance, they are ready to do that. All you have to do is ask. That's not necessarily true in France. Although the fast train in France is really easy to take. But you might need to have a little help getting on and off. Right. So it depends. I haven't been to every country in Europe, obviously.

24:46Rick Steves:What would you find just in general, if you're traveling domestically or in Europe or Pacific Rim or whatever, what is good news for you when you're releasing together a day of activities? We love to go hear music. So that's something that's almost always accessible. There are some places, there's one particular theater we went to in San Francisco that had no elevator and we had upstairs seats. So that was a big surprise. But that's another case where you check in advance, as you were mentioning, it's good to do your research in advance if you have a disability. You can still do a lot of things, but not everything is going to be available.

25:20So going to museums is often a good choice because they usually have wheelchairs available for people all over the world, I have found. And, you know, someone can push you unless you have your own scooter. And a lot of musical venues are great. And we love good food. So also just going to a park or a botanical garden or something like that is something that. Oh, enjoying.

25:45Rick Steves:Yeah. Enjoying the waves, enjoying bird watching and enjoying people watching. there's a lot of activities that are kind of the great equalizer when it comes to people with different degrees of physical ability. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're speaking with Francine Falk Allen. She's the author of No Spring Chicken, and she's sharing tips for planning your travels whether you live with a long-time disability or contending with the physical issue we all face as we get older. We have a link to her blog with this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. By the way, the Americans with Disabilities Act is such a blessing for people with physical disabilities, specifically for a traveler.

26:22Rick Steves:What are the practical values of this act when you're on the road in the United States? And of course, all countries don't have that. But here in the United States, what are examples of practically why you're thankful for that act? Well, the parking is certainly much better. It's really horrible to have to walk a quarter of a mile if you're on a walker or using canes or crutches. and for people in wheelchairs, it can actually be dangerous to have to cross traffic and that sort of thing. So disabled person parking is especially important. And then of course, again, ramps are critical. There are places that we just can't go if there are too many stairs.

27:03So that's really important as well. And also a lot of times a hidden aspect is that people with disabilities may have a lot more medical expense than other people do. So it's helpful when there's a little bit of a financial break on tickets and that sort of thing.

27:22Rick Steves:Right. You know, for me, whether you're traveling with a physical disability or not, information is critical. And what drives information is a market. What kind of a market is there to support practical information for people traveling with physical disabilities? It's much smaller than the general market, but it's a sizable market. You mentioned you use TripAdvisor, Rough Guides, and Lonely Planet for information on accessible travels. There's also groups that you mentioned that can give support and share information. Just briefly, what sources of information should people be aware of and be sure to take advantage of if they're planning a trip, for example, to Europe?

28:02I always like to go to a bookstore because I'm old fashioned and look through guides and see what all is available, because a lot of travel guides do list in the back whether there are elevators in a particular place. I find that it's unrealistic for us to plan to go to bed and breakfast because they have so many stairs. And it's important also to look to see what travel arrangements are near a hotel. We have stayed in places that were so far away that we had to take a taxi for 20 minutes just to get into a place where we could get to a restaurant. So those are the kinds of things that I look for in a guide.

28:42Rick Steves:And you can learn more about sources of information in your book, No Spring Chicken. One very fundamental tip that you stress in your book is don't be proud. If someone offers to take you on a trip, say yes. If somebody offers to help, say yes. Talk a little bit about that. A lot of times older people in particular don't want to be too much trouble to people. But I think it's really important to say yes. If someone says, I don't care if you're on a scooter or on a wheelchair, we'll pile it all in the car and we'll go away for the weekend. It's just important to say yes and have that experience and get out of the house.

29:16I've told someone recently, my first sentence when I was eight months old was baby go bye bye. And I think that everybody should. There's the title of your next book, Baby Go Bye-Bye. Really. I love that. Everyone should give themselves the chance to get out, even if it's just to a park or for a day trip.

29:35Rick Steves:Oh, yes. And you can enjoy that spirit of travel and the wind in your face and so on, whether you're getting on an airplane or not. Francine, this has been a fascinating discussion. Your book is No Spring Chicken. And I'd like to wrap it up just if you could share a moment that might be of inspiration to people who need a little inspiration, where being on the road made you feel free and, if not able-bodied, at least totally able-spirited. A couple of things come to mind. One is being just a little ways off the road in Yosemite, where I sat by myself when my husband went for a hike, and I was near a stream, and I painted a watercolor, and I felt like I was out in the wilderness because I hardly saw anyone.

30:19People would pass by maybe every half hour. But it was wonderful to be able to sit by a stream and see that.

30:26Rick Steves:But you didn't have to hike. You used that turnout for the cars, the parking lot. You just got to take that little extra effort. Exactly. There's a place in Scotland that I just love, and it's rather remote. It's just a turnout, and there's not usually anyone there. And it's called Rest and Be Thankful. And it's the most beautiful view of this glen. And the good thing about that is Rest and Be Thankful goes back to when everybody had to get out of the carriage and push it up the hill. And they got to the top, and they said, okay, we'll rest and be thankful. And it's easier to travel today, even if you have a physical disability, maybe, than back in those days when people were pushing that carriage up those mountain summits.

31:10Rick Steves:Francine Falk-Hallen, the book is No Spring Chicken, and I'm inspired by your indomitable spirit. Thank you very much for joining us, and happy continued travels. Thank you so much, Rick. Happy trails.

31:26Rick Steves:Even if the days are getting noticeably shorter where you live, we'll find fun under the sun as we look at the solar pilgrimage author Richard Cohen took next on Travel with Rick Steves.

31:42Rick Steves:There's a lot more than meets the eye when you investigate how the sun illuminates our lives. In the tradition of the Grand Scholar Adventurers, Richard Cohen spent more than seven years researching our relationship with the sun. It took him to the banks of the Ganges, atop Mount Fuji, and into the long nights of the Arctic winter to assemble a fascinating collection of facts and stories about the many roles the sun plays in human history. He's written a rather brilliant book about it called Chasing the Sun, the epic story of the star that gives us life. Richard, thanks for joining us. My pleasure to be with you.

32:18Rick Steves:So why did you write this book? Ignorance, really. Despite my surname, I had a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother. I was sent to my high school, which was run by Benedictine monks, and they really favoured the art subjects, and I think I had one year of physics and no other science subject at all. So I really had this sense of guilt that I didn't know about the sciences, and I didn't know about this star that gives us life. And I set out to look for a book that would tell me not just the solar physics, but really about everything that the sun gets into. And didn't find, although the New York Public Library had just under 6 ,000 books under the heading The Sun, I didn't find the book that really did that for me.

33:01So I decided to write it myself.

33:03Rick Steves:And you visited 20 countries to put this work together, and it seems like seeking the sun, you realize that it's not just science, but it's contributing to the arts and to the culture. You wrote about how, for instance, I think 20 flags have the sun as part of the design of their flag. I think it's actually over 30 that have it, if you count the colors which flag makers associate with the sun. And I found that through history, rulers wanted to associate themselves with the sun. I mean, not surprisingly when you think, you know, we can't look at the sun because it's too powerful for our eyes. That was a wonderful symbol or metaphor for those rulers who wanted their subjects to feel the same way.

33:43And from Babylonian times on, the run of people who have associated themselves with the sun, from Hitler and the leading Nazis through to Chairman Mao, the iconography of Mao's times, Cultural Revolution and beyond, was using the sun as its main image the whole time.

33:59Rick Steves:Think of the beautiful relief from the third millennium BC of Akhenaten, I think history's first monotheist, with the sun shining down on the royal family in Egypt, worshipping, you know, the sun, Atan. Well, that was homage to the sun, but of course it was associating the royal family with the sun. And of course Louis XIV. The sun king, yeah. The whole psychology of the banners that Louis would have during his long reign, which had the sun, sort of the source of all life, shining down on him and bouncing off of him to warm up and bring life to the people. That's not a unique use of the sun apparently.

34:34Well, he became the sun king really by accident. He was very keen on ballet. and when he was 14, he was performing on stage in a ballet written for him and dressed himself up as the sun and got such an ovation from the courtiers around him. He thought, this is rather a good costume to have. So he made sure he wore versions of it thereafter.

34:56Rick Steves:That was my favorite photograph in your book, Chasing the Sun, was this painting of Louis XIV dressed up. 14-year-old, almost like he's at some sort of a fancy high school play and he's just Mr. Sun. Everything about him is the sun. Well, it certainly, as you say, is a painting, not a photograph. Though when photography came in, it was called initially by various names, meaning the sun art. And, you know, photography exists because of the sun. And even early cinema, you're talking about the arts. When photography for films began, it had to be done in daylight. And the reason why, really, the film industry moved so impressively to California and to Hollywood in particular is because there's more daylight there, better sunshine, better films.

35:42Rick Steves:And taking it before photography, artists would travel to places where they liked the light. And of course, the light is just the sun. It took a long time for people actually to paint the sun. If you look right up to the 15th century, you don't find the sun in paintings except as just a yellow daub in the sky if it's there at all. And in some cultures, Chinese culture, for instance, you rarely see the sun in paintings at all. And then you get forever an interest in light, but then it was an interest in candlelight, French artists like Latour. And it wasn't until really kind of breakthroughs you get, particularly with the Impressionists, when the sun was seen as not only they wanted to paint en plein air, out in the open, but catching the quality of light.

36:30I suppose the first great painter who did that was the English painter Turner. but then you get obviously Van Gogh and Monet and that whole gang. Now before we went on air someone was saying well the sun reaches everywhere but maybe not in Seattle. So what I'd like to feel is you may be able to sponsor the first Seattle artist to paint greatly about the sun. We don't know what it looks like here.

36:54Rick Steves:We'll have to look at paintings or other people's art for that. I'm speaking with Richard Cohen and Richard's book is a unique book. It's a beautiful collection of stories based on his experience in 20 different countries It's called Chasing the Sun, the Epic Story of the Star that Gives Us Life. Richard, you did a lot of traveling to do this book, to put this book together. I love the way you talk about Mount Fuji and the sunrise. Take us there a little bit. I was very lucky. I'm not a scientist, as I was saying earlier in the program, but I was given a grant by the Frederick Sloan Foundation here in New York, which exists for the greater propagation of science in its various forms.

37:32And so suddenly I had this grant that would enable me to travel. And I thought, well, how am I going to frame the book? I thought, well, I'll begin with a sunrise and then I'll end with a sunset. And I decided to go to Japan, which after all is the country of the rising sun. And again, thinking of rulers who associate themselves with the sun, it's been a long, long tradition that the emperor of Japan is a direct descendant of the sun god, Amaratsu. and a friend of mine said, well, why didn't you climb Mount Fuji? It's the great mountain in Japan. And I realized I was going to be there over the 20th, 21st of June.

38:12So, Midsummer Day, the most important day in the calendar, on the most important mountain in Japan. But I did climb out of season on my own and I climbed at night because I wanted to be there for the dawn, which was 4.47 in the morning of the 21st. and, you know, I'm not an experienced climber. Of course, I got altitude sickness. I had various adventures as I made it to the top, which I retell in the book, but some of it was scary, some of it was funny. But when I finally got to the top of the mountain for the sunrise at 447, I found that I was there absolutely on my own and it was a wonderful moment.

38:49Rick Steves:You were on top of Mount Fuji alone for the sunrise on Midsummer Day, June 21st or what day is that? That's right. Whoa, what an experience. What a great way to kick off a book. How did the sun, from what you learned in Japan, it's a religious thing, isn't it, with their deified emperor and so on? It is a religious thing. It's the basis of Shintoism and belief structures which took quite a battering after the Second World War. And in fact, General MacArthur told Emperor Hirohito that he had to go on the air and say formally to his people that he was not divine, that he was not a direct descendant of the sun goddess.

39:29And Hirohito did that. I think he was worried he might be otherwise tried for war crimes, which was a great issue at that time. I think the first week of January 1946, he made this declaration. But he made it in such archaic Japanese that MacArthur and the other allies said, oh, yeah, that sounds fine to us. But hardly anybody really heard it or understood what he was saying. In fact, the Japanese cabinet had to have certain words in the declaration, parse for them, so they understood it. And there's certainly a recent movement in Japan to say, well, the emperor never really said he wasn't divine.

40:05So the present emperor, why not just go back to saying that you're a divine being after all?

40:10Rick Steves:So the sun still plays a role in Japanese politics. Very much so. You're on top of Mount Fuji on Midsummer's Day. I know from my studies of Europe, it's a big deal in Europe. I mean, Druids boogie at Stonehenge on June 21st, and all of Scandinavia goes crazy for their midsummer festivities. Is that a Western thing, or if you studied cultures all over the world, would the summer solstice be an occasion to party? It's certainly more than a Western thing. For instance, over 3 ,000 stone buildings around the world, which mark the sun, either as places of worship or natural observatories, sometimes with Stonehenge or the pyramids, so Hector's both.

40:49But there are cultures where the sun doesn't have the importance that, say, you'd find in the middle of a Druid settlement or amongst the Incas or in a lot of Western Europe. For instance, in Africa, where the sun is so powerful, it's seen largely as a destructive force. It brings droughts and sufferings. And they do grant the sun its power, but they're more inclined to worship earth or water rather than the sun.

41:16Rick Steves:I never thought about that. Richard Cohen is helping us look at the sun in an interview from the Travel with Rick Steves archives, which we recorded shortly after he wrote his book Chasing the Sun. Richard's other titles include How to Write Like Tolstoy, By the Sword, a History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions, and Making History, the Storytellers Who Shaped the Past. How is the sun embraced in Hindu culture with a billion people living in South Asia? Well, in Hindu culture, the sun is probably more important to their religion than anywhere else on Earth.

41:55There may be fierce Zoroastrianists or Freemasons who say it's important to them too. But in Hindu culture, they have over 3 million gods. And if you question that, they just look at you pityingly and say, you in the West just don't understand. For instance, in Hindu culture, it's a mark of virility for a man to have a moustache. And you'll see representations of the sun, and those representations will have the sun with a large moustache. If you're powerful, then you're going to have a fantastic moustache. And if you're fantastically powerful, which the sun is, why? Better make him have a moustache as well.

42:35Incredible. I mean, it all ties in the way they see manhood, fatherhood.

42:40Rick Steves:You wrote pretty powerfully about being at the ghats of the Ganges in Varanasi as the sun was setting. Well, I decided to finish the book with a sunset. And rather than do some of the spectacular sunsets, do an awful place, rather than visit the places where these sunsets were famous, I thought I'd go to that culture, the Indian culture, where the sun was so important. And Varanasi is probably the most holy of many holy places in India. And it's a town city set on the Ganges. And both in the morning at dawn and sunset, there are rituals in praise of the sun. And I went to those and I saw these hundreds and hundreds of people flocking at both ends of the day to give praise to this great power in their lives.

43:32Rick Steves:You know, it's one of the most exotic and powerful and mystical experiences for a traveler to be on a boat on the Ganges close to the steps that go down into the river with all of these pilgrims and holy people and worshippers converging on this spot. Wealthy people, poor people, colorful outfits when the sun is just setting. These steps are called Gats, G-H-A-T-S. And you go to Gat after Gat and each has its own character. And sometimes you'll see women have put their saris on these steps, these stone steps to dry. And of course, they're in all the colors you can imagine. So the quality of color as you go, I went in a small skiff along the Ganges, and you go from saris laid out in the sun to people with great yellow markings on their forehead as part of their religious ritual and praying from 5.30 or so in the morning on to the great burial grounds that are dotted along the river banks.

44:32And people from far and wide have come to Varanasi to be buried, be cremated. Mrs. Gandhi's body was, for instance, taken to Varanasi for that purpose.

44:43Rick Steves:There's bluffs where they've got big stacks of lumber, and on top of that is a body wrapped up, and it's just going back into the environment. If you put your hand in the water in the right place, It'll come up with small bits of human bone in your palm. But it all seems natural and healthy and it's awe-inspiring. And that time in the evening, whether you call it twilight or dusk and a variety of names in a variety of languages, the French call it Hour of the Wolf, I think it is. Incidentally, this quality of light has got its place in literature. Many poets and novelists write about it. is also known as a very good time for making films.

45:24I mean, Woody Allen, for instance, loves taking his cameras out and filming scenes during this twilight because he says it's a soft quality of light, which lends a special allure to the people he's got on camera.

45:37Rick Steves:I'm speaking with Richard Cohen, and Richard writes a book called Chasing the Sun, the epic story of the star that gives us life. We're talking about how the sun gives us life, but actually in dark corners of the planet, it's actually a physical problem if you don't get enough light. Isn't there a disorder up in Scandinavia, Richard, that people have to deal with? Well, there are two disorders. One is we need vitamin D to stop us getting rickets and weak bones. In fact, ironically, there's a problem in Saudi Arabia now where women so cover their bodies with only their eyes perhaps and visible to the outside world that they're not getting enough vitamin D from the sun and it's causing illness.

46:17But the other great topic which has been written about a good deal in the last few years is seasonal affective disorder, which is the kind of depression people have during the winter months, varying from where you are on the globe. But obviously in those parts of the world, like towards the Arctic, where sunlight in the winter months is minimal and that people fall into deep depressions. Although, I mean, I didn't have any particular agenda on this. I thought, well, I'd better go to somewhere in the Arctic. And I went to Tromsø, which is the large city in the Arctic Circle. And I went there during what they call the dark period, those six weeks or so, I mean December and beginning of January, when they say there's no sunlight at all.

47:04Not quite true, because they do get a weeny bit of sunlight, and it bounces off the snow so that there's a gloom but not a total darkness. and I spoke to a whole range of people there, doctors, astronomers, psychiatrists, and I got a very different picture to what I've been reading about in the papers and other literature and that is that nobody, at least very few people, like getting up in the dark or the gloominess of winter and that does have an effect on one's mood. But actually to suffer from depression, seasonal affective disorder is properly understood by the doctors. You've got to have a clinical depression first.

47:44You've got to really be a depressive, and then it makes it much worse. So the sun is such an odd thing because it gives you health and life. At the same time, of course, too much sun causes problems at the other end with skin cancers and a whole range of other diseases. So you've got to get the balance right.

48:02Rick Steves:Richard, you spent eight years putting this book together, lots of travel. What was the major lesson? I don't know whether it's a major lesson, but I think it was the fact that people take the sun a bit for granted and it's constantly able to surprise us. So following on from what the sun does to our bodies, I discovered that 25 % of people sneeze in bright sunlight. And I also discovered that when the sun and the moon, who together are responsible for the tides, when they're pulling in the same direction and you get high tide, we all get infinitesimally taller. We've been speaking with Richard Cohen, author of Chasing the Sun, the epic story of the star that gives us life.

48:43Rick Steves:Richard, what's a ritual you encountered that perhaps we can all be inspired by? The sun rituals around the world, I think one of the ones which was most moving is I went to Peru and I went up into the Andes on their summer solstice and attended the rituals that they have because of their background or history of Incas worshipping the sun. We went to this extraordinarily large field, and there must have been 3 ,000 people there. And it was a bit of a commercial enterprise, but it was also genuinely moving. And you had this person dressed up as a high priest, not killing a goat as they would have done, or killing a virgin as they would have done in years long gone by, but at least having a goat at the altar.

49:30Although we knew that it was put on for some of the tourists who were there, you still felt a tremendous pride in the local people that they knew the sun's power and were able to worship it. And just as the ceremony was ending, simultaneously we had the sun come out and the showers, the heavens opened with rain, and there was this glorious rainbow bringing things to a natural close.

49:55Rick Steves:Richard Cohen, author of Chasing the Sun, the epic story of the star that gives us life. Thank you very much and lots of sunshine for all of us. Thank you.

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