"Get Me The Hell Outta Here"

I find traveling to be addicting - the more I travel, the more I want to travel. I think much of the attraction is from the constant stimulation, where even the simplest day can become exciting, challenging, arduous, and usually quite memorable.

Memorable would be an understated way to describe the past 4 days. Shannon and I have been making our way from northern India to Cambodia, a journey which started in Rishikesh on Nov 23rd and will end in a few hours when we reach Pheom Pen, early in the day on Nov 28th.

It started with a train ride - 27 hours from Rishikesh to Kolkatta, which was supposed to be the most difficult and uncomfortable portion of the trip. I think it's time though that I conceded how much I enjoy these lengthy trips, whether by train or other vehicle, so long as I have a bed or full seat all to myself. Shannon and I have been going to great lengths to ensure we book the proper space to ride comfortably on our long hauls, and I was suitably stretched out on my bed, feet dangling clear across the aisle, until about 11pm, 10 hours into the trip. I'm not sure the name of city we stopped at, but I decided to grab some water and a snack from the train platform, and I told Shannon I would be right back. As I neared the door, a horde of young men crushed me back into the car, quickly swarming every spare inch of space there was to take on the train. I raced back to my seat, climbing over people now to get back, only to find already my bed had been overrun with new passengers. Shannon was pleading with them not to take my space, and I had to crawl to the edge of my bed and start dishing out a number of shoves with my feet to one man who had perched at the foot of my bed.

I had claimed my bed space for myself again, but it wouldn't last. I've never, never seen so many bodies piled and crammed together like the way this, with people doubling up in every bed, sleeping two-by-two on the aisle floors, and crowding themselves in between the train car walkways. Eventually, talking to one of the young guys (he was telling me why there were so many people on the train without assigned seats), I realized that perhaps standing in the crowd for 12 hours might not really be possible, so I gave him the end of my bed.





For the next few hours we talked, during which time things became quite - comfortable - between us. Indian trains are bereft of all but the most necessary amenities, and space is a noticeable and generally lacking luxury. My new friend had to double over and sort of fold himself in half to fit on the bed, and he soon began to roll onto his side and take over more of my bed. When the photo was taken, he was resting on his arms, quite ready to lay down right next to me. Selfishly, I fanned out my upper body, giving him no room to intrude any further along the bed, and after 20-30 minutes of holding himself up on his elbows, he retreated back to the other end of the bed.

Despite the ongoing unspoken battle for control of the bed, we had a good conversation, covering all the usual topics of our respective jobs (he refused to believe Shannon and I were unemployed), places we had traveled, Indian politics, and a few very unusual discussions as well. Our talk about the composition of hot dogs was not only hilarious, but had most of the train car involved. The guy on my bed was surprised that Shannon and I weren't extremely wealthy and that we didn't have a job, but he was more surprised that we were vegetarian, and rather happy about it. He was serving as the translator for everyone else in our car who wanted to know more about us, and finally it got a little odd - they were talking about something, but he wasn't translating it, till finally he laughed to himself and said:

"My friends and I, it's a little silly, but, what exactly is a "hot dog"?"

We laughed a bit, then explained to him.

"Like a sausage?" he asked.

"No, it's made from cow."

Everyone thought this was pretty gross, and so we explained what parts of the cow you could find in a hot dog, he told us "Stop! Stop! I'm going to vomit!" He translated what we said to everyone else, and dozens of Indian men suddenly laughed and groaned all at once.



We learned from him that the train was so crowded due to a railway exam, with about 2 million Indians applying for a job with the railway. There were only approximately 200 job openings, but that didn't seem to deter any of them, nor did the 12 hour train ride they had to take (each way) with no hope for a seat. It was depressing to hear from all these men the same stories of hoping to find a job that payed well and had any kind of job security, and I don't think I've been to a country yet with more potential that has let itself turn into such a disaster. While there may be elements of what a democracy should be like, it's laughable to consider India as anything but a corrupt and ravaged country that refuses virtually all rights for its poor and underprivileged people.






Back to the story.

In the morning all the extra passengers got off the train, and by 4pm we were in Kolkatta (the British would spell it Calcutta, but it's pronounced much more like Kolkatta, which is the new proper spelling). Kolkatta, like all the Indian cities we'd seen, is a mess of pollution, tangled roadways that resemble no map drawn of them, and is filled with homeless and beggar people littering the streets (both along and in them). We tried to find a nicer accommodation for the one night in town, but instead we ended up paying 5 times our normal budget for an equally dumpy room. It did have air conditioning and a TV.

The next night we had a few drinks before heading to the airport at 11pm. I only mention the drinks so that you can better understand our state of mind when we learned Bangkok airport, our destination en route to Cambodia, had been taken over by protesters. And so, we spent the next 8 hours in the airport waiting for news of our flight. By 6am we gave up and found a nearby, incredibly overpriced hotel to sleep through the morning and wait for word on what would happen. We arrived at the hotel at 7am, slept for 4 hours, then went to find an internet cafe to learn more about the situation. Bangkok did not appear to be re-opening anytime soon, so we decided to check out of our hotel and return to the airport, during which time Shannon somehow lost her bank card, which we didn't notice until hours later. No money stolen, but it made a difficult situation worse.

The final solution for leaving India turned out to be flying to Singapore and hoping to find a flight from there to Cambodia. Our flight departed late that night, which meant another sleepless, bedless night. By the time we arrived in Singapore, it had been about 36 hours since the ordeal started, and over 50 hours since we had last slept (not including the 4 hours at the airport hotel in Kolkatta). We wandered the airport from airline to airline looking for an available flight, finally finding one that left the next morning at 6:30am. We went to a really nice hostel, slept for 8 hours, got up for some food before everything was closed, then went back to bed for another 6 hours of sleep, and we're now at the airport, waiting to board our flight to Phenom Pehn.

Anyway, I'm still watching this Bangkok airport thing since I need to fly through there at least twice more in the next month of two. It better clear up, or this trip is either gonna get a lot longer in time, or a lot more costly.

So Life Goes in India

This is one mighty intense country. I can't think of any place I've ever been that could so easily elicit such a wide range of strong emotions. Sometimes it seems as if life is just scraping by here, other moments things seem absolutely spectacular. Actually, quite often life doesn't even "scrape by" here, as I've seen just about every thing around here also lying dead. While Shannon and I never did make it to Varanasi, human's are the main corpses to be found, as it's the place Indians most prefer to die. If you're lucky (and rich) you get a nice cremation job with fancy robes and high quality wood. If you're poor, homeless or a criminal, it's straight into the river for you. In Kathmandu we saw a much more calm and civilized version of things, but in Varanasi, it's nearly out of control.

Yep, the good ol' river Ganges, the holiest and most revered chunk of water in India (as is my understanding). People bathe in it for religious purposes, die in it for spiritual cleansing, and basically thing it's the cat's pyjammas. So why the $&@# do they treat it so badly? I mean cripes, they put every nasty kind of waste they have in this country straight into the river, sweeping muck and rubbish and feces into it, then telling you what a sacred and spiritual place it is. Does no one in the country see the problem here?

Right now Shannon and I are in Rishikesh, a rather northern city where the Ganges is still clean-ish, the air only slightly opaque, and the people not quite as poor, pushy or crippled as other towns. The Beatles came here in the 60's to get spiritual with an Ashram (spiritual leader of sorts), and that's still the thing to do around here. We're sticking to yoga, since like with the case of the Beatles, most Ashram's are more for the moolah and prestige than the actual spiritualness. I dig the yoga, I'm really feeling my body parts, from my buttocks to my toes, though I again find it funny that one of the more common themes here is to bend into a difficult and strenuous position, pulling your muscles awkwardly, and then to "relax... relax..."

Despite the spiritual pushiness at times, Rishikesh is a pretty cool place. The poverty here though is quite in your face. In fact, it's really quite a challenge to describe just how over-the-top the poor and impoverished situation is here in India. There's a samosa shop I dig eating at in town about a 20 minute walk from our hotel, but going to and from it each day has become a huge drag and an emotionally draining ordeal. To get there I'll pass at least 2 dozen beggars, many facing savagely debilitating problems. Missing limbs, leprosy, blindness, wounded extremities, one guy even had his jaw rotted off. More mobile people will follow you for a step or two asking for money; quite often it's small children after you. The streets are filled with dogs and cows, and there's at least a few now that we're familiar with by the broken limbs they have to deal with. Everyone and everything is rooting through garbage, and one guy actually started whimpering on the verge of tears as everyone walking by refused to give him even a single rupee. Some of the Sadhu (hindu holy men) seem a little better off. but not much: These guys are wrapped in orange robes, have the big bushy beards and are supposed to be on some kind of spiritual journey that requires them to have nothing. So it seems they then beg for money to get food, which leads me to believe it's a choice they've made to be here, but while they do have a few trinkets like glasses and some beads, their scrawny bodies suggest they haven't eaten much in the last few decades at all.

Anyway, once I've finally made the walk to the samosa shop, had my tasty somosas, I then have to walk back again past everyone to get home. It makes for one tiring afternoon.

(As a brief aside, while cows are revered here in India, no one seems to treat them too well. They have however made a decent living around town, being the only animal seemingly willing and able to survive on a diet of cardboard and plastic wrapping paper.)

Our last day in Rishikesh was a pretty good one - I slept in, due to the extreme discomfort of the bed we have (missing yoga, oops!), but then Shan and I went and got a Indian cooking lesson. My expectations for what it would be like weren't that high, but the class itself was good, though I hope to never enter a kitchen so filthy again. I've yet to see such a dense layer of flies in the country, there was heaps of old stale food everywhere, and the toilet was only separated from the kitchen by a thin blanket. I was happy though that my count of cockroaches was much lower in this kitchen that it had been on the last train we caught.

We got a fairly in-depth lesson on how to cook Masala Chai Tea (soooo yummy), Malai Kofta, Muttar Panner, Chipati and Aloo Paratha. Basically that's tea, two types of soup/gravy dishes and two types of bread. Everything was pretty amazing, the breads especially. I'm also now a masala chai tea addict, and anyone who comes and visits me will be more than welcome to some homemade Indian recipe stuff.

Whew, long blog today. Tomorrow we're off to Calcutta/Kalkota. It's a 26 hour train ride, our longest yet, taking us to the place where Mamma Theresa did her charity work. Honestly though, I'm a little India-ed out right now, and don't think I'm ready to see much more in the way of slums and poverty. This country really gets me agitated, as there's no way it needs to be the way it is, yet people are either too stupid, ignorant or unwilling to do anything about it. Riding on the train itself is eye-opening enough for most people - thousands of people squatting by the tracks in horrible shanty towns, families huddled around burning piles of garbage to keep warm in the cold northern nights, trash and muck and pollution and disease piled onto each other and pushed aside to make room for more of itself - there's so much goodness wasted here, it's hard not to get angry/depressed/ill/etc. In 4 days I'll be in Cambodia, which I don't expect to be much better, though I've heard it's a different, unique kind of poverty and adversity to see. Till then, thanks for reading!

A Romp In The Desert

India has finally begun to show its redeeming qualities. I know it has many, but it took a few days to really find something admirable and enjoyable. There's still the general hoo-rah-rah of people harrassing you and selling you crap at over-inflated prices, but I'm accustomed to it now, and I'm finding more humour in it too. The barber however, who seemed adamant I'm in need of a haircut, was perhaps a little too much for me.


Shannon and I are in a place called Jaisalmer, close to the Pakistani border and right smack dab in the desert. After the nasty slums of Agra and the hassle of Delhi, it's amazing to be in a place that has history, culture and a touch less poverty everywhere you look.

The trip here from Agra was a pain and a half, but hey, whatever doesn't kill you must be character building, right? Well, 18 hours of travel, 6 of it spent on the floor of the train next to the bathroom surrounded by cockroaches was very character building indeed. Our initial sleeper train ticket was a "waiting list" ticket, but we were told it was OK when we arrived. Not true, it turned out, and we spent the first half of the trip from Agra to Jodhpur crammed in a corner between the train cars. The second half was spacious enough to have us on a bed, but that didn't stop the cockroaches from following us too.


After another 6 hours on a bus, plus 20 minutes broken down on the side of the road next to a rotting camel carcass, we arrived in Jaisalmer. Jaisalmer is an awesome city, with the whole town looking like a sandcastle, with stone block buildings surrounding an old sand-stone fortress on a hill overlooking the city. The fort itself is a mad maze of tiny streets and towers and temples, and coming to see the fort itself would have almost made the trip worth it. We though, had camel safaris in mind.

Riding a camel in the desert is an absolute treat, and spending a few nights under the stars makes it even better. I rode a gruff looking camel by the name of Julien - nice and Indian name for a camel indeed. At nights we slept on the dunes, gritting our teeth in the sandy tea and rice, and during the day we trotted from village to dune, taking in the sights, seeing smatterings of wildlife and avoiding the stink eminating from the camels backsides. One camel developed a nasty mouth infection and quickly turned into the smelliest, malcontented-nest camel I've ever laid eyes on. The poor thing was so displeased by the second day we had to put the heaviest rider on it simply because he was familiar with horses and could keep him well in line.


After 3 days in the desert, I'm happy to say I've found a new respect and love for camels. Prior to this I thought them to be nasty, bone-headed stubborn things, but reallyit turns out there quite lovely bone-headed stubborn things. They really do have a cool personality, sort of like a snooty cat that takes orders from you but still thinks you're an idiot.


Anyway, time to run here. As a quick update, my internal problems have come to a halt, but 3 days in the desert have sent me on a 180 degree turn the other way - something about a diet of mostly bread seems to have not done me well. Oh well, Im sure some juice 'll sort that out right quick.

At the Mercy of India

Crap almighty, am I in rough shape right now. Actually, I should say I "was" in rough shape, as I'm exponentially better than I was 4 hours ago. I'm just coming through my first case of "Delhi Belly", food poisoning that as much as 70% of visitors to India will get.

It started this morning around 6am, a sudden need to go to the toilet. By 10 I was going twice an hour, with nothing solid coming out of me. I nearly vomited a few times, not too sure how I managed to keep that down. Then it peaked at about noon - I thought I was doing better, I was drinking lots of water to keep hydrated, and I had to pee. Standing over the toilet though was too hard, and I had to find a way to sit down, which was a challenging process, exhausting me further. Suddenly I was pooing again, and, fortunately sitting now, I grew super dizzy. Then I got hot, so incredibly hot I had to take off all the clothes I was wearing. Sweat was now quite literally dropping off my body onto the floor, and the dizziness got worse. My vision became blurred, the room went eerily white, my ears started ringing, and if it weren't for the wall I probably would have fallen clear off the toilet. Half blind, I sorted out cleaning myself up, and I managed to slide along the wall back into bed. Within minutes however, I started to perk up. In fact, by 2 o'clock I was able to move around the hotel, now sometime after 4 I'm sitting here using the computer, feeling completely drained of all energy but moderately healthy otherwise.

Yes, India I think is going to be just that kind of country. Right now Shannon and I are in Agra, a city never recommended by other travelers for more than a quick stop at the Taj Mahal. The trip here was epic - I never imagined, despite what I'd heard and read, of a country so dedicated to giving you a hard time. Things started off OK, with a pre-paid taxi taking us from the Delhi airport to the bus station. It took an hour, but was mostly painless. Upon arrival, 5 men sprung on us to "help" us out. As I handed our driver the payment slip, he immediately said "This is the wrong bus station." Pardon? You drove us for an hour, and only now mention this is the wrong station?

We searched the station for an hour and learned it was indeed the wrong one. After organizing another rickshaw ride to the correct one (not an easy process), we saw a large "... Bus Terminal" surrounded by garbage. If this was the right station, which the sign said, things were in a total state of malfunction. There were buses but not ticket office, and things looked nasty for us. Shannon and I walked a few hundred meters though, and miracle of miracles, stumbled on the train station. This turned out fairly well, we got our tickets for 1/4 of the price we expected to pay, and hopped on a "sleeper" car to Agra.

The train wasn't too bad, though packed with people undressing Shannon with their eyes most of the time. The one moment it did get out of hand was when a transvestite Indian person came begging for money. The effort this transvestite had gone to was not too impressive, and everyone around us was nearly as uncomfortable as we were. I say nearly, since this person spent most of the time hounding us. We said "no" at first, then ignored them, but this person got between us and started touching us. Again, we said "no" and put our bags in the way. The trans-v got a little more aggressive now, reaching at my face, so I stated rather angrily, "I have no money". He/she then said something along the lines of "sure you do, you tuck it down here" and reached for my money belt, grabbing my crotch. Wow, did I get angry. I stopped short of jumping up, but I gave the person an infuriated "F%$K OFF" look and told them to leave. He/she tried some more for money, but did eventually wonder off, bringing a sigh of relief from everyone sitting around us.

Anyway, I'm losing energy here, and I think it's time to head to the hotel. First though, gotta book some bus tickets - 12 hours tomorrow night from Agra to Jodhpur. We're gonna splurge on a nicer car though, and hopefully no transients will come bothering us. Till the next blogging opportunity, take care.

The Himalayas Pt. 2 - Pain, Suffering and Worse

After talking about all that stink hanging on me from traveling, it was a rather big pain in the behind to come back to Kathmandu and find that the hot water was off in our hotel. Ugh! It's a strange city like that, with things not always working the way they should, or being "scheduled" to be off at the worst possible times. In fact, the power is usually turned off from sun down till about 7 or 8 each night, right when people need it the most. The city has about 3 or 4 seconds of complete darkness, before every generator in town is fired up and putting out electricity again. Some places only use candles, though the mix makes for quite an unusual sight.

The city shuts down around 10pm as well, though by 8 or 9 you already get the feeling maybe it's time to get home. The streets go from bustling busy shopping centres to being extremely deserted and locked down. The first night in town I was shocked when I woke up at 1am to use the washroom and could hardly hear a sound outside the hotel window. Other than the stray dogs, there was absolutely nothing moving outside.

Anyway, back to the mountains. Most people are pretty aware of altitude sickness, but it's quite another thing to actually go through it. I'm not fully aware of all the physical happenings that occur in your body when you get it (pulmonary ademeia or something like that is the term I think), but it's a strange thing to feel and see.

It starts with a headache, gentle but never ending. That got quite bad at times. You have trouble sleeping, though you can't really figure why or how. Every activity becomes a challenge to complete, and most people get the "Khoumbu Cough", a deep phlegmy chest cough that won't go away till you're down. I missed out on the cough fortunately, but otherwise I felt the rest. When it gets worse, you're in trouble - people start losing their appetite, they have trouble focusing on things and their vision gets blurred. At night, as your breathing slows down, you wake up frantic, gasping for air due to the lack of oxygen. Your circulation can get worse and frostbite happens sooner than normal. And then, you start passing out and dying.

We met heaps of people suffering worse than us, and a few that got it real bad. Every day rescue helicopters flew back and forth taking people down the mountain, and we saw one guy being put in a gupa (?) bag, a pressurized bag that increases the oxygen you breathe. One night, a porter was taken out of our lodge at 3am due to excessive elevation sickness, and he died en route to the lower village. In October alone, at least 6 people died (5 local porters and an Indian tourist) due to elevation sickness, all most likely avoidable though if they had just taken care of things when they started going bad.

We're down though, safe and sound and off to the next adventure. My bag is overflowing with Nepalese goodies and souvenirs now, so I think I'll have to stop buying crap in the next stop. And that next stop turns out to be India - which my god, is one nutty, nutty country. I'll write more later, but wow, I don't know how to explain the things that have happened so far, and it's been less than 12 hours in the country. Anyway, might be too hard to add photos, so they'll be a bit sporadic over the next few weeks. So long!

The Himalayas Pt. 1 - If Stink Could Kill

For those who know me, a few days in the same shirt makes me one stinky man. So, you could probably imagine how 17 days, 2 changes of clothes and no showers must have been like for me, especially when you add on that I was going through all kinds of strenuous hiking during that time. Yes, if odour could kill, those around me would \
be in trouble. Fortunately, it seemed to have little permanent effect on anyone, though perhaps I haven't made many new friends over the past few weeks.

I'm down from the mountains now though, and ecstatic to be clean and relaxing again, but sad to have left the hills behind. It's a wild place, up in the Himalayas, and I would be stoked to make it back once more for some hiking.

Shannon and I took 17 days to trek from a small town called Lukla up to the Everest Base Camp, then west to a town called Gokyo, and back south to Lukla where we flew back to Kathmandu. It's hard to describe accurately most of the sights we saw, but I'll try and cover a few highlights:

Lukla

This is, without a doubt, the wildest airport I have ever been to. Imagine a low-flying flight, gently weaving through mountains, when after 40 minutes you are now only a few meters off the ground. As several people struggle to control their screams, the plane suddenly lands on an UPHILL runway, tucked beside a mountain so that you never actually get to see the spot you're about to land on (unless you're the pilot). On the flight home, one girl actually cried, and everyone cheered once we finally landed safely in Kathmandu.


On the Everest trek, every town is there for the tourists. In fact, even the towns that have farms and other non-tourist activities generally shut down in the
off-tourist seasons, as there's no reason to be there. When you finally reach Lobuche and Gorakshep, there really is nothing but "tea-houses" (guest lodges) to make up the town. Everest Base Camp is really not much more than a few tents and shit holes (sorry, latrines. But really, when you see them, you generally don't use such nice, gentle words as "latrines" when looking at them) making up the camp.

We did a slightly less common detour going west over the Cho La Pass, taking in both Everest and Gokyo. I thought the Gokyo part was by far more picturesque than Everest, though taste in scenery, like all things, is subjective. What I really liked about it was the pass itself, a nasty 7 hour day that took us from an amazing valley, over a glacier, and down one of the more awkward loose-rock slopes I've ever had the displeasure of climbing down. I'm not sure why I liked it so much after writing how difficult it was, but it felt somehow rewarding. Oh, and as we were
struggling our way over parts of it, a freaking MARATHON came bounding over the pass towards us. I mean, wow, take one of the most physically taxing things you'll ever have to do, then try and go as fast as you possibly can for 5 hours, and holy crap, were those people nuts.


Anyway, I'll write more about the perils of the trek tomorrow. The trek itself was plenty interesting, but when you read of all the troubles people had, you'll be rather shocked. So long for now, thanks for reading.