Yes, even in the remote mountain villages of the Himalayas, it's not to hard to find an internet cafe. Sure you gotta pay a little more, and parts of the keyboard or your chair might be missing, but it's here and it works.

And so, having said that, it should now be quite obvious I'm - hold your breath - in the Himalayan mountains, taking a day and a half to acclimatize to the new altitude. Shannon and I just reached 3400 meters today, and already we're feeling some of the effects of altitude sickness. Not much, but there's a slight headache happening now, and a little bit of exhaustion not normally felt lower down. It seems to affect the locals a little as well, as no one is hawking their goods with the same tenacity and obnoxiousness as they did in Kathmandu, but I'm sure that's more the small-mountain-town attitude as opposed to the elevation oppressing them.

Anyway, Shannon just wrapped up her time online, so I guess I should too. Sorry for now pictures, but I'm sure I'll have some fun ones in November. Later!

Oh, and the beard is so far not really taking hold. A few patchy hairs, but nothing worth mentioning yet. Which makes it odd that I just did.

Nepal

It took some doing, but I've finally made it to Kathmandu, Nepal. Shannon and I arrived midday yesterday, and are not moderately settled in, though we'll be off to the mountains in no time at all. The trip here was moderately eventful, took much longer than I wanted it too, and while obviously worth it, was incredibly exhausting. In the end, we went through:

32 hours
5 airports
5 airplane meals
17 cups of tea
20 minutes in the airplane washroom doing squats and calf raises to get my blood flowing again
3 flights
4 airplanes
1 aborted flight due to pressurization issues
7 hours delayed in Qatar waiting for a new plane

I'm sure there's other fun ways to break it down, but that's all that really stands out for me.

Anyway, now that Shan and I are here in Kathmandu, we've spent the last day or so sleeping (ah-ha - 12 hours sleeping to recover) and going on a tour of the temples around the city. I didn't know much about being Hindu before now (even now I still don't know much), and I keep finding it so funny seeing people walking around with
giant blobs of red wax-stuff placed on their foreheads. I'm not sure if it's for a festival happening at the moment, though it was explained to us, but it's definitely one of those little things that I never expected.

I've thrown up some pictures here that are NOT ones I or Shannon have taken, but they are of views we've seen. Anyay, I'm outta time here, and tomorrow morning we're off at 6 am to catch a plane to Lukla to start our Himalayan hike. It's Shannon, myself, our guide and a porter trekking together for 18 or so days. I'm not sure why we need both a guide and a porter - we stay at lodgings the entire time (no tenting) and most if not all of our food is also done at these lodges. I have a feeling this porter guy could be just coming along for the walk.


All right, time to go. Shannon just got hit with the usual "new-country-new-illness" disease, so it's time for her to hit the hay. I'll be gone for 20 days or so, so no new blogs till about the 1st or 2nd of November.

Oh Yeah...

And for those of you who noticed the title - "Richard Goes Pogonic" - pogonic means "bearded", as in I've decided to give the facial hair thing a go and see where it takes me. My expectations are low, as every attempt thus far in my life has failed badly, but with 8 months to work at it, I'm sure I'll be able to get something going.

I'll put up pictures as I go and you can judge my progress.

The Final Countdown

There's only a few days now - two more sleeps actually - before Shan and I head off on our world trip. And so, it's time to start blogging again. Our bags are mostly packed, our passports are full of blank pages and visa's, Shannon's just within earshot ripping her leg hairs out with hot wax (lot's of "ouch"s and "&$%#"s coming from her), I think we're just about ready to go.

So, for all those interested, here's the itinerary:

Oct 11-Oct 13 - a whole lot o' planes and airport lounges
Oct 13-Nov 6 - Nepal
Nov 6-Nov 26 - India
Nov 26-Dec 6 - Cambodia
Dec 6-Dec 22 - Laos
Dec 22-Jan 13 - Vietnam
Jan 13-Feb 3 - Indonesia
Feb 3-Mar 8 - Various African countries
Mar 8-Mar 20 - Egypt
Mar 20-June 13 - Europe/UK
June 13-June 26 - Iceland

The first stop is Nepal, where I'll be going on a 17 day hike into the Himalayas. We'll get as high and far as the Mt. Everest base camp, and summit a (relatively) small peak called Kala Patthar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_Patar




Anyway, the time home in Canada's been fun, though I'm pumped to be leaving for the trip. I've run into numerous Koreans since returning and even spouted out some of my terrible Korean skills to them. I've through some photos up here so you can see some of the good times I've had while home too, I certainly forgot home amazing and comforting the scenery and landscapes in Canada are.




I'm not sure how often I'll be writing, but I'm fairly certain I'll be jotting something down here every two weeks at least. Thanks for reading everyone, hopefully you'll enjoy checkin' up on my trip as it unfolds!