Richard Goes Pogonic

Frog's Legs 'n Spuds

2009-06-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

I hate spoiling the ilusion of me being off in these wonderful and exotic locations around the world, but for those who aren't aware, Shannon and I are back in Canada. We flew in on Friday, and by now are moderately rested and un-jet-lagged, yet there's still heaps that hasn't been written, plus I've got the time and ability to put up photos en masse now, so as long as you aren't too let down at the thought of all this coming from boring ol' Calgary, then stick around for a few more blogs.

After Amsterdam, the two of us took an unexpected trip to Paris. We were left with a few days of what I can only think to call "dead space" where we weren't sure what to do. The options were:

1. Work/volunteer on a farm or two in England
2. Go to Belgium to drink some chocolate, eat some beer, do some Belgian things
3. Go to Paris and see what Mona was smiling about

We took the Paris route, I can't remember exactly why but I think it had to do with cheaper buses and seeing the Louvre. I suppose there's no way to know if it was the right choice, but it made sure we got to experience:

1. Incredible amounts of artwork, sculptures and "culture" things everywhere
2. The incredible French sport of being rude to people
3. The savage inefficiency of French renovation and construction workers (or perhaps just the entire French workforce)

The first is obvious, but probably won't be what sticks in my mind longest. Sure the artwork and famous cathedrals are nice, but when you show up for dinner and told only drinks are available, then ask for coffee and told you must order food, well that's just mind-blowing.

Oh, and we stayed at a friend's parents' house for a night. Why mention this? They bought the house 3 years ago to open a B&B. After nearly three straight years of renovations, they are now, hopefully, only 3 years away from being "close" to completion. They take their time it seems in France.

We took the chunnel (the channel tunnel) to England and spent the next 5 nights in London. I apologize to all my English friends who read this only to learn that Shannon and I never got out of London, but we got caught up there and never made it out. London is a pretty cool city, though even a few days there is enough to tell that it's about as close to being "English" as an English pub in Canada. OK, maybe a stretch, but you get the idea.

We met up with some of my parents while there, which was a great way to see some of the touristy stuff Shannon and I wouldn't normally check out (like the ones that cost lots of money), plus some friends of theirs cooked us an amazing meal, a nice break from eating out.

And so, after that, it was bye-bye Europe and off to the last stop on our trip - Iceland. I think that was my favourite stop on the trip (though surfing in Indonesia was a close second), which I'll have a great time writing all about in the next few days. Later!

Dutch Lovin', Traveling Prejudices and Missed Opportunities

2009-05-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

So Shannon and I just finished up our brief tour of Amsterdam, and I think it's probably best we did keep it brief. It's a shame that so many travelers only see the one small part of the Netherlands, especially when a good part of feel seeing Amsterdam is the equivalent of seeing the whole country. We would have loved to do more around the country, but travel times, budgets, etc. just didn't allow it. So, my apologies to all the Dutch out there and those who sympathize with their plight of being seen only as a bunch of pot-smoking-prostitute-pedaling-party-happy folk. I know that's not the case, but it's all I had time to take in.

And what did we do and see? I'd like to think we did it all, but there's far too much to ever do, and much of it I would like to avoid from ever being written down on any kind of permanent record of mine, be it a travel blog, government file, or even a cocktail napkin that might fall into the wrong hands. I will say though that we spent far too much money one fun evening out, and took in one of the live sex shows you so often hear of and think to yourself how you'd never lower yourself to watch something like that. Well, it's probably best you don't, cause while it was fun to do, I don't think the "shock" or "comedy" of the event was enough to cover it's nastily high ticket cost (and yes, I do feel the ticket price was indeed the "nastiest" part of the evening).

So what else about Amsterdam was there? Well, we saw lots of the canals, Anne Franks's house, a comedy show put on by a bunch of American improv comedians, and we went to a jazz club. I'm not sure if it was the area we were in, or if this is just how Amsterdam works, but there is a bucket-load of American tourists around town. Of the 8 other people in our dorm room, 7 of them were from the US, and I think all of them were on their first trip outside the US (or at least North America). Even the comedy show we watched was all about Americans visiting Amsterdam and figuring out the "Dutch" ways of things. Now, I know I don't want to sound prejudiced here, because every nationality could in some way be catagorized negatively on the way they travel (loud party girl? Aussie. Talking about football and being drunk? British. Naked and middle aged on a beach? German. I'm sure I've put myself in countless Canadian stereotyped situations), but when you're surrounded by a mojority of one nationality (that isn't native to that country), and there's plenty of jovial mockery already taking place of this nationality, it's hard not to jump on board and start mocking as well. Two obese people talking about how hard it is to walk around town? Silly Americans. Can't stop talking about the legality of pot and the obscenity of sex for sale? Silly (probably christian) Americans. Can't stop saying things like "yeah it's good, but in America we do it like this." Silly Americans. I dunno, maybe I'm just a jerk.

(To be fair Shannon and I met plenty of great Americans, so it's not just rude but incorrect of me to speak like this of the whole traveling population. I suppose it just makes for interesting blogging).

On our way out of town, as we headed to catch our bus to Paris, Shannon and I met a Belgian guy, who was filming a promo or application video for a reality TV show he was trying to start. Basically, the guy wanted to meet up with random travelers and travel along with them, filming them as they went and trying to get some interesting drama or humour out of their experiences. The guy unfortunately had already found a person or two heading east to Germany, and not our direction. We were pretty sure if we didn't already have $400 invested in buses and hotels we would have turned tail and hopped on board with the gang he was assembling, and I'll be heart broken to see his show on air one day and think "that could have been me!"

Traveling Tangent - Tipping

Over Christmas, I got into a slight argument with my brother over the notion of tipping. He felt it was a positive thing, and I felt otherwise (though he may just have been trying to goad me into a ridiculous argument for fun). Traveling though has further asserted my position that tipping is a terrible way to reward behaviour. Take this example:

You're at a crowded bar, you push and jostle your way to buy a beer, and after being overlooked a dozen times by the bartender, you finally get your drink.

The next day, you realize you don't want to leave the town your visiting, but it's too late to change your bus ticket. You head to the station and the nice guy behind the counter bends all the rules in place to get you a new ticket.

Who should be tipped?

I'm personally pretty tired of throwing money at folks who get tipped because their "supposed" to be, yet have no way to thank and subsequently encourage great service and work from others. And so, I've basically stopped tipping on this trip, saving us $100-$200 so far. No change in the service we get, though I'm sure a few servers have been a little peeved at us. But I mean really, do I need to start throwing money around so strangers I'll never see again feel a little better about themselves? Not on this trip.

Breaking Down The Wall

2009-05-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

So here we are, hanging out in Berlin. Most times I've written on the blog have detailed several spots Shannon and I have reached, but I think (other than from back in Korea) this is the first time we've stayed put for some time while on the road. In fact, we've been in Berlin for nearly 2 weeks, and I can't think of many other places I'd have liked to stay at for this long. Maybe some small town surf location in Indonesia, but I think Shannon would lose her mind in boredom there, so Berlin is probably still the best bet.

Our good friend Kris put us up for the first three nights here, which helped get a better feel for the city, though I think if you shadowed a local for weeks on end you'd still miss out on so much here. From "pay what you like" wine bars to abondoned shopping malls turned art slum turned night club, we've done our best to see it all.

Un-Yon! Un-Yon! Un-Yon! Un-Yon!

One of the strangest yet coolest things we saw was a local soccer game. It's a tier III team, which Kris described to me as the equivalent of a small town WHL hockey team, so not very prestigious. The fans however refuse to see it that way, and their stadium holds something like 10 or 15 thousand people. They cheer like madmen, not a single person doesn't wear the right colours for each game, and they have their own hooligans - the guys who enlist themselves into the position of beating the tar out of hooligan fans from the opposing teams. Oh, and when their stadium needed renovations, the fans took it upon themselves to donate time and fix it up on their own.

We caught the game where they were poised to move up to league II, which is much closer to being the equivalent of the NHL at home. They won, and so Shannon and I rushed the field at the end of the game, chanting "Union!" (pronounced un-yon in German).

The Art House (not sure if that's the actual name of it) was another pretty snazzy spot we saw. The srory I'm told is that it used to be a shopping centre, then was abandoned sometime in the communist era. Artist and other squatters settled in, turning it into a 4 level concrete graffiti-filled flop house. As the neighbourhood became more trendy, it got harder and harder for the vagabonds to stay put there, but they managed to get their stuff together well enough to turn it into a mixture of night clubs, bars and music lounges, along with a few art studios set up to keep the art guys in business. It's a little freaky moving floor to floor in what could be a rapist's favourite hangout in any other town, but once you get over the concrete graffiti interiors and toilets that have only occasional smatterings of useable light, it's quite the kitschy place.

We also made sure to hit pleny of the more traditional tourists sites, from museums and historical sites (like Nazi bookburning locations and plenty of Soviet east-west sights), plus we watched a Brahms concert performance at the Konzerthaus by the Konzerthaus symphony members. We stuck out a little bit in our backpacker-formal attire, but no one seemed to mind too much.

So yeah, Berlin's a pretty cool place. Walking along the remaining parts of the old Berlin wall, seeing some of the eerie artifacts from the Nazi era, walking through the train station at night seeing the strange mix of anarchists and punks - it's hard not to get into this place. Our next stop is Amsterdam which I'm sure I'll have plenty of fun things to say about as well, though I have a feeling it will be a little less culture-oriented, and a little more night-life related. Hmmm, should be fun.

Czech This Out

2009-05-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

There's so many ways to spin the Czech Republic's name into a witty title, but I think I took the best, least embarrassing way and didn't try to make anything too goofy. The country (or at least Prague) is filled with cheesy shirts saying things like "Czech Me Out", so it seemed a little fitting that I do my best to fit in.

So, after our stint in Romania spent chasing stories and ghosts of Dracula and Vlad Tepes, Shannon and I caught the train to Krakow, in Poland. We made a rather sudden and drastic change to our original plan - originally we had planned on traveling west from Romania through Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, then traveling north into the Czech Republic. This plan, nice as it was, meant lots of short little stops, with 2-3 nights per city in what both of us felt was more of a "check that one off the list" kind of travel, rather than making the most of our time on the road and visiting places we really wanted to see. And so, we went north to Krakow so that we could see Auschuwitz.

Krakow itself is a pretty fantastic city, with plenty of that eastern-European medieval feel to it. Of course, I'm sure there's a proper way to describe this kind of big-brick pre-war architecture, but I'm completely clueless on how best to do it. I suppose it's best to think of large open squares with plenty of church towers, horse and carriages, and lots of cobble-stone roadways.

An hour outside of town is Auschuwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camps. It was a trip well worth the time and effort, though it's impact was extremely diminished by the hordes of high school students on field trips that same day. Most of the most imporant sights were within the basements of buildings or in crowded bunk-bed rooms, meaning you had to fight for each inch of space amongst gangs of pimply-faced boys and overly-perfumed girls, all of whom took as little notice as possible of the savage history that surrounded them and gave most of their attention towards each other or to making fun of the historical situations. I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on these goofy young kids - after all, I hardly would have been any better at their age, but it certainly took a lot away from such an emotional and significant site. Anyway, by the end of the day we managed to get a little "alone time" from the damn wiener kids and give some real appreciation for the magnatude of how many people died there. Since visiting Auschuwitz and talking about the concentration camps, I'm amazed at how many people have family so directly affected by what happened in Poland (and other places) so long ago.

After Poland, we caught a train to Prague, which prior to visiting, and even now I suppose, I knew/know so little of. I think Prague is part of Bavaria, that beer-drinking culture part of the world in both Germany and other countries, where the folks seem to be a little larger and the leider-hosen a little more out there. And based on the touts trying to sell you things, classical music sure has some strong roots in Prague.

You know, you can always get a pretty good idea of what a place is about based on what people are trying to sell you. In every town, on any busy street, there always seems to be someone out handing flyers to people or wearing a sandwich board, telling you what's for sale and what you should be visiting. I think I learned more about the Czech Republic in this way than any other, and from this, I think I would size the country up as being very into classical music, big on it's beer, proud of its communist heritage, and full of people who love making glass souvenirs. If there is anyone who disagrees with this, take it up with the tourist folks trolling the streets of Prague.

We're in Berlin now, which is one kick-ass town, and I'm pretty happy to be here. I'll take a bit more time to write about Berlin later, which I should be able to do this week, as we're staying a few more days and soaking it up as much as possible. After that, it's Amsterdam, then London, Iceland, and back to Canada. It's getting close to the end, and while I'm certainly not ready to leave, it has been getting a little tiring at times being on the road. Earlier I mentioned how most of my clothes have been somewhat destroyed from backpacking, well now I'm noticing my whole body falling apart on me. Well, not falling apart, but melting away. I've lost a few pounds on the road, but I certainly haven't lost any fat. So instead, I've developed arms that look more like fingers, and a chest that most 12 year olds would scoff at. By no means was I a monster coming out of Korea, but 6 months in the gym followed by 6 months lifiting beer mugs makes for one bad before-and-after photo spread. Fortunately the tabloid types and there "who let themselves go this month" magazine spreads won't be doing a special on me, but its something I've certainly noticed myself, and I'm looking forward to remedying back in Canada.

Vlad Tepes - Dracula!

2009-04-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I rushed through the last post on here, and this one might be a little hurried too, but we'll see. Shannon and I are at a hostel in Krakow, Poland right now, and while the internet is free, it seems today (or tomorrow maybe) is a Polish holiday, and it's starting to get a little packed and panicky as people wait for the computer. Meh, let 'em wait.

So after Turkey, we hauled off to Bulgaria for a 4 night stay to pretty much sit still for a few days in a quiet Bulgarian town and spend some time doing laundry and short hikes around the town. Quite a neat place, Bulgaria, with heaps of antique shops selling old WWII artifacts, and super cheap food and beer. We found a moderately old church too, which wasn't really much to look at, but the basement was open, and going inside we found what I'm pretty sure is some kind of human remains storage area. It was pretty old and damaged, but there were shelves of human skulls all with dates and what we thought were names on them, along with a few dozen boxes filled with human bones. Yes, I did indeed open as many as I could to check them all out, though I stopped short of actually handling the bones, since I didn't really want to be responsible for breaking anyone's skull open, whether they were still using it or not.

We caught the train from Bulgaria to Romania, which right away had a different feel to it. For starters, the 3 hours to the border cost us about $4 a person, but the 3 hours past the border into Romania cost us $20. Kinda strange. Romania also seems to have a much stronger presence of uni-brows - people (men and women) whose eyebrows fail to make any form of discernible gap between them across their forehead. Lots of facial warts too.

We went straight to Brasov, into the heart of Transylvania. We hadn't initially planned on it, but our Romanian trip quickly turned into a sort of Dracula-hunting expedition, as vehicle rentals were quite cheap, and we picked up a car for a few days. The story about Dracula, as far as I can understand it, begins with a Romanian ruler called Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler. This guy was pretty bad-ass, and had a nasty habit of a) impaling those he thought were conspiring against him onto stakes and b) assuming everyone around him was conspiring against him. He was quite a ruler too, conquering lots of land and doing well for Romania. Anyway, sometime later, Bram Stoker writes a book about vampires, calling the vampire Count Dracula, already another nick-name taken by the now deceased (I think) Vlad Tepes. (Dracula I think comes from Dracul, which means either dragon or devil, not sure which. I really should research this as I write it).

Well, all that history basically meant we spent 4 days cruising around to old castles and citadels either used by Vlad Tepes or used as a setting in the original Dracula book. Pretty cool.

After all that, we made our way to Poland, which we're staying at now. We're hanging around in Krakow, a wonderfully gorgeous city that I know very little about. Oh, except for the nutty legend about the dragon that used to live here, and the shoe-maker who killed it by stuffing a fake sheep full of sulphur, causing the dragon to explode. Lots of cobble-stone roads, old churches, fancy town squares, real nice place to be. Auschuwitz is also right nearby, which we went to see. That was quite an experience, though it was rather lessened in its intensity by the 5000 or so high school students that were also on a trip there that day. Still, despite the crowds and the youngin's acting like fools all around us, it was definitely worth the trip.

Probably time to bugger off the computer now. Next stop on the agenda is Prague, followed by Berlin, hopefully I'll have some fun things to type about then.

Fairy Chimneys and Eternal Flames

2009-04-25T06:01:00.000-07:00

Ahhh Turkey - either the stupidest bird alive, or one of the more exciting countries you could hope to visit. Shannon and I just finished up 9 days in Turkey, and I don't think we'll find much in Europe that will be as unusual as it was. It might not even be that it was all that amazing, but just that I didn't really expect much to come out of it, thinking it was going to be just another European stop with a lot of churches, historical sites and people trying to sell you stuff at drastically inflated tourist prices, often with a gut-wrenching sob story thrown in for free. Well, I suppose it was all that, but the places we stopped at along the way certainly had a lot more.

Istanbul was the first stop, and it was OK, but nothing super special. If you're into mosques, kebabs, or moustaches, then this is the place for you. We only stayed one night though, and spent more time organizing our way out of town than doing anything in it. Well, we did check out one mosque, but that took all of 15 minutes. Rather short compared to the 2 hours watching a Julia Roberts/Clive Owen movie while waiting for our bus out of town.

We took off to Cappadocia (or Kappadokya, however you want to spell it). We weren't sure where we wanted to go to at first, so we based it largely on the posters placed all over the tour agency walls we walked by. The options seemed to be between mosques, beaches, some kind of pancake waterfall bathing town, and the mushroom rocks chalk-full of caves. We chose the caves, and didn't regret it. Cappadicia was apparently home to some pretty intense volcanic activity several million years ago, and as things settled down, it left these bizarre mushroom pillars of rock throughout the region. Plus, it's all this really soft limestone rock, so the troglodytes back in the day used to make all sorts of cave dwellings and even underground cities in the soft crumbly rock. We walked for hours through valleys where the walls would be lined for kilometers with holes, windows and caves people used to live in (and sometimes still do).

We sadly chose the wrong hostel when getting to Cappadocia, and I cannot say I spent the night in a cave, but most places there have built their hotels and guesthouses right into the cliff walls, so getting a "cave room" is generally an easy thing to do, and something I hope anyone who makes it there will do themselves. We did manage to see a Whirling Dervish dance though, which is a strange Turkish religious dance, involving spinning on your left foot, one hand up to heaven, one hand down to earth. It sounds a little silly, but the show they put on was, cliche as it sounds, hypnotic. They don't even serve alcohol during it, as it's taken quite seriously by the Turks.

Following Cappadocia, we went to Olympos. Don't confuse this with Olympus in Greece, because then you'd be in Greece, and not Turkey. Olympos is one of the more unusual ruin sites I've ever seen, since there's very little done to any of them - they've been literally left right in the bush just as they were found. A few dirt paths have been cleared, and some moderately informative signage has been put up, but otherwise it feels like you're the first person to stumble onto these old Roman ruins ever. There's small water systems they build, an amphitheatre, some housing, ir's all quite impressively intact, yet still mostly overgrown and left just sitting there on the side of the path. Anyway, if you get sick and tired of ruins, you can just keep on walking down the path till you hit the beach.

Oh, running out of time here, so I gotta run. One other cool thing about Olympos - the fire. There's a small mountain that spurts out fire from its cracks. Strange. Anyway, in Transylvania now, but whao, no time. Bye!

Unforeseen Events

2009-04-06T05:39:00.000-07:00

Things are rolling along nicely on the world trip. Shannon and I are back in Greece for a moment now, just waiting for our train to Istanbul. And so, with not much exciting on the traveling with which to update, I'll take a few lines here to talk about other strange happenings.

Packing for an 8 1/2 month trip was a tough thing to get through, but I think I did pretty well back in October. I even was careful enough to consider my slightly excessive sweating problem (hooray for hyperhydrosis!) and pack 8 or 9 t-shirts instead of a more idealistic 4 or 5. Still, seems 8 or 9 just wasn't close to enough, and now, despite picking up and extra 4 shirts along our travels, I've pretty much ruined, to the point of not being wearable, all the shirts in my bag. Yep, between 24 hour train rides, hostels with no usable shower, long hikes in the hills and my own nasty sweaty-ness, it's reached the point where I'm just going to have to bit the bullet and purge my bag from every shirt in it and start from scratch.

So, why's this worth mentioning? Well, purchasing a new upper-body wardrobe wasn't really on the budget agenda at the start of this trip, so if in my photos (that I will one day upload) you notice a sudden switch to rather tacky-touristy shirts that no self-respecting person would wear, well that's just me pinching pennies in an effort to smell a little better.

There was a big earthquake in Italy last night, happening just hours after Shannon and I left the country. Like the Mumbai attacks in India and the airport closure in Thailand, we were close to this incident and had somewhat planned to be traveling through the area, but I don't think realistically there was much of a chance of us being there when it all went down. Still, it's neat being so much closer to all these freaky big events as they're actually happening.

On our big trip here, Shannon's applied to do her Masters in Environmental Resource Management, which she just got accepted to the other day. Pretty good on her too, since she basically put the application package together while tinkering at internet cafes in various countries.

Hmmm, seems I've got time to kill now, rather than my usual rush-rush get-it-done kinda blogging. We're catching the night train to Istanbul, in a sleeping car too. A little more costly than the 2nd class one, but we've spent a few crappy nights on trains and boats, so it's time for a treat. Oh, but speaking of train tickets, I've got a little beef to rant on about here. We were traveling from Patras to Thessaloniki in Greece (check it out on a map http://www.greece-map.net/images/greece-map.gif) and the bus was rather expensive, 40 euro a ticket. So, I figure the train, while longer, will be a better deal. Turns out it is, only 20 euro a ticket, and so I try to book it, but I have to speak to a different lady to book, and she tells me there's no cheap seats available. This doesn't seem right though, as it was one of those times you just know you're being lied to. So I leave the train station and tell Shannon to go try, cause the lady's being horrible to me. Shannon heads to the train station, finds a nice lady to deal with, is about to have the tickets booked, when bitchy lady shows up again, and the nice lady and bitchy lady start bickering about things in Greek. Who knows what exactly was said, but now the nice lady has to apologize for the fact that there are no cheap tickets available for us. And so we bought the expensive bus tickets. I hate, hate, HATE losing money when people are being jerks to you. I don't mind getting ripped off sometimes, or splurging on a meal or dessert I want, but when someone just refuses to help you when you need to get something done (generally transportation), I lose my mind.

All right, I think I've had enough computeral diarrhea for a while now. Hope everyone out there's doing well!

Playing Catch-Up

2009-03-29T01:38:00.000-07:00

Phew! I've fallen a little behind on things here. I spent all my time in Egypt writing about Africa I'm 3 countries behind. So, here's what's happening in mine and Shannon's traveling adventures:

We're in Italy now, but we've had plenty of stops before this. The first was Egypt, which was the first Arabic country either of us had ever been to. That place, wow was that different than I expected. For some reason I'd been led to believe Egypt was going to be this slum-like over-crowded India-esque country, where women were treated like 3rd class citezens, and religious dedication took on an eerie cult-like mentality inescapably pervasive in all parts of life. Well, it certainly had a little of all those parts, but at no time was it ever overwhelming or painful to deal with. In fact, most of the time people were quite charming with their unexpected idiosyncracities. Hmm, might have just made up that word. Anyway, thereàs something odd, not disconcerting yet not pleasing, about the religiousness of the place. Men often have anything from slight discolourations to massive bruises and welts on their foreheads from praying to often. Women generally cover their heads, yet other times you can't see an inch of skin anywhere on their bodies including their eyes. While there are heaps of people hounding you in the streets for money, they're usually more than balanced out by people trying to give you tea, help you find directions and show off what's happening in Egypt without asking for a single piasty.

And the sights, and the history, and the prodigious monuments, the place just went on and on with things to do and see. Which of course means that we saw so little and did such a small part of what there is to do, that whatever I have to say about it will only cover a smidgen of what there actually is there. We spent 5 days in Cairo, 2 days in Luxor, and 5 days in Siwa. Siwa was by far the best - a person can only take in so many temples and pyramids and museums for so long, and Siwa was quite the opposite. Situated 10 hours out of Cairo in the middle of the desert, Siwa is an oasis town, where water quite literally bubbles up from the ground in a smattering of cold and hot springs throught the sand dunes, with one giant patch of palm trees and smaller swaths of plant life surrounded on all sides by the empty desert. Just sitting around the town eating Siwan food and biking around the mountains and old forts was a great way to spend the days. We took a 4x4 trip out to the desert dunes as well, which was fan-flipping-tastic. Our guide took us sand-dune boarding on a board with no bindings (like riding a crazy carpet while standing up, very painful), then to an old fossil sea-bed. We were litterally walking on billion (or many million) year old ocean life, strew so thick along the ground, every step felt like another crushing blow to some poor museum curator's depressed heart.

It was tough leaving Egypt, especially knowing there was so much more to see, including traveling to Jordan, the Dead Sea, and even into Israel, but time waits for no traveler. We flew into Athens on the 20th of March, and started the European segment of the trip. After so long in Asian and African cities, Athens was like some kind of amusment park, with everything having such a pristine unused feel to it, it was as though the streets, buildings and even people were that faux-disneyland-molded kind of objects. Financial reality also came thundering down, as we went from paying $5-8 a night to as much as $20 a person. Yeuch!

Money aside though, Athens was pretty cool. The Acropolis is something might awesome to behold, though actually walking around it isn't nearly as cool as seeing it from below. plus most of it seems to have been replaced so as to better preseve it, meaning your not actually looking at it.

From there we went to Delphi, which is a sweet little town in the mountains that holds the old temple for Apollo and had a fairly important Oracle in the mountains around it. We spent most of the time hiking around, saving money and enjoying the cool ocean views.

From Delphi, we caught a bus to catch a boat to Italy. And so, 22 hours later, we arrived in Naples (pronounced Napoli if you're from there), home of pizza, mafia, and mafia related garbage issues. Oh, and Pompei is right next door, which we went and saw, after almost missing it due to not knowing it was so close by. Napoli was great, but our next stop, Nettuno, was far better. Right along the Amalfi coast, this little spot is tucked into these wild and steep sea cliffs, making for some great ocean and mountain walks, as well as some treacherous and exciting bus rides. It's low season there right now, so for less than what we're paying for a crappy dorm room in Rome, we got a tiny apartment all to ourselves. I really dug this place, and it's certainly going down on the list of places to try and get back to again (pretty low down on it, but it's there). Oh, and Pompei - totally forgot to write a bit about that. For those who don't know, Pompei is/was the city in ancient Rome that was destroyed by the Mt Vesuvius volcano explosion in 79 CE. What's cool is that the town was't actually destroyed, just everyone in it died, and the town was actually left to do it's own slow erosion-ing thing, until it was re-discovered and unburied. Now you can basically walk through a 2000 year old city, with all sorts of aspects of it and buildings well labelled so you can see what it is you're looking at.

We're in Rome now, where things are far too expensive for anyone's good, and while I like the place, I think it's very much time to leave for the cheaper eastern nations of Europe. I was here when I was 18, and it's neat seeing all the old sights I saw then again, and comparing my memories with what I'm seeing now, plus catching a few things I missed before. Anyway, next its the Vatican, then back through Greece and into Turkey for some, ummm, well whatever you do and eat in Turkey, that's what I'll be doing. And eating. Areviderchi!

Swahili, Massai, Muzungu

2009-03-16T04:17:00.000-07:00

So where did I leave this African story off? I think we were just leaving Zanzibar, which was right about when the first and only case of malaria on our trip came about. From what I've heard from other people's stories, it seems most trips end up with a case of malaria on them (one of the guy's on our trip was recommended on the tour by a friend who went to Africa twice, and ended up with malaria both times). On our trip, it was our bus driver, Sean, who got ill. We all assumed it was just a bad hangover, or maybe alcohol withdrawl (aren't those the same thing?), cause he was acting squirrely as a rabid bat the day we left Zanzibar. He was sweating, trying to collect garbage from people for the rubbish bin, talking about fishing with strangers, basically being a lunatic for no good reason. Two days later he finally went to a clinic and found he did indeed have malaria. 2nd time for the guy too.

But what about Shannon's woes? I mentioned already she had something wrong, but it took a while to figure out what it was. After leaving lake Malawi, she had what she thought were mosquito bites on her feet. But the bites didn't go away, and soon they spread to take the shape of worms. She even marked where they were with pen, and found they were getting longer each day. We diagnosed her as having "geography worms" from a little "Diseases of Africa" book we found - worms that live in your skin for a few days to a week, traveling a bit, then die. But they were in no hurry to die, and by the time we got to Tanzania, they were driving her nuts. And so, outside of Arusha, we found a little medical clinic in a small village that checked them out. The doctor there was not really a doctor, more of a medical enthusiast with a doctor friend. And the nurse, well, she was really nice and had a sharp looking nurses outfit on, but she was lacking - confidence? training? expertise? I dunno what it was, but she started taking medical advice from an engineer in our group with zero doctoring skills. And so, they mis-diagnosed Shannon twice - at first they thought it was "jiggers" then they decided it was a "guinea worm" and took to cutting the worms out of her foot. This was unfortunately unsuccessful.

They then decided to dip her feet in potassium permanganate, thinking that would kill the worms and any bacteria that got in her now open wounds. This also didn't do the trick, though it's brightened Shannon's toe nails to a rich brown colour. And so, her feet kept getting itchier, until finally we made it to Nairobi and went to the rich Muzungu (foreigner) hospital. Even then, it took two nurses, a doctor, and finally the tropical disease specialist to properly diagnose her with hookworm - cutaneous larval migrans - and get her the proper medication. And now, a week later, she's almost 100%, though she likes talking about the "dead worms" still residing in her feet a little too much I think.

Other than the medical troubles, the last while in Africa was awesome. We went to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater for our last big adventure, which was absolutely mind-blowing. It was quite a drive to get in there, through miles of Massai land (the local nomad people who herd animals and live on a diet mostly of meat and animal blood), before coming to the widest flattest plain I've ever seen. From the hill driving down, it looked like the earth extended out almost infinitely, before suddenly cascading out of sight in a perfect line across the horizon. Driving down, we spent the next day and a half seeing every large animal you could hope to see, though wow, do most animals spend far too much time being lazy for my liking.

At night, we camped in the Serengeti, surrounded by the animals in their natural habitat. During the day they might have been to lazy for my liking, but at night they seemed a little too active - once dusk came, we could hear buffalo rummaging through the bushes only 100 metres away. Hyenas were wondering all around our camp through the night as well, and we found large footprints from some kind of predator animal all along the campground.

The second night we camped on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater, a massive caldera from a volcano that collapsed in on itself several thousand years ago. There wasn't such a wide array of animals up here, and though I slept soundly though the night there were plenty of stories of more buffalo and wild pigs tearing through the campsite at night.

The crater itself is probably the most awe-inspiring place I could imagine seeing. The animals are so dense inside it, it's hard not to feeled swamped and surrounded by them. After only an hour or two, I was rather tired of it all - There's a herd of zebra. There's some more wildebeast. Buffalo. Zebra. Warthog. Ostrich. Hippo. Buffalo. Wildebeast. And more, and more, and on and on. By the end I was so tired, I shut my eyes and refused to move for anything that wasn't killing, being killed or making babies.

Oh, and we learned a song in Swahili, the local language in Kenya and Tanzania. In case anyone from the truck comes on here, here's the lyrics:

Jambo, Jambo Bwana
Habari Ghani
Mizouri Sana
Muzungu Karibu Tanzania
Hakuna Mattata

Basically it says, Hi there, how are you? I'm good. Welcome to Tanzania foreigner, no worries.

And so, Africa came to an end. I'm hoping to make it back someday though. I'd like to see Nairobi (Cheetah park, sand dunes, "click" tribes), Uganda (gorillas) and climb Kilimanjaro. Next time right? I'm thinking another round the world trip might be in order in a few years.

People You Meet

2009-03-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

You meet a lot of characters on the road while in Africa. Here's some stories from a few of the folks I've encountered:

Ben

Ben is a 38 year old Kenyan with at least three kids. He's been driving or guiding tours in Africa for at least 10 years, and has shared some of his stories from driving across Kenya during the civil unrest from last year's elections. He was in Uganda when trouble started, and decided immediately that traveling through Kenya was probably not a good idea. He was a little unclear on what finally spurred him on to enter Kenya, but I think the people on his tour were unable or unwilling to wait, so off they left Uganda and crossed into Kenya.

Once over the border, they quickly decided it was necessary to hire a police escort. And so, for a few hundred US dollars, the tour truck had two police vehicles escort them from town to town, usually demanding more money at each town, telling them this was as far as they'd be willing to go. During the election unrest, Ben said there was rioting outside the major cities, and so even with a police escort their tour bus still had people throwing things at the truck, climbing up on the doors and windows and causing as much havoc as they could. Ben described his driving as a mixture of dodging rioters in the streets, tossing coins out the window to distract people climbing on the bus, and swatting others from the door as he drove.

Ben, not known for his patience or understanding at even the best of times, described his state of mind as being a extremely stressed and perhaps a little neurotic. One of the passengers even had the nerve (or perhaps stupidity) to even poke their head into the driver's cab at one point asking Ben when they would be stopping for lunch. Ben said it was the last tour he worked for that company, mentioned a few tourist profiles that he would no longer work as a guide for.

Blessed

Blessed is one outlandish character. He was probably the handsomest looking dude I met in Africa, was rather indifferent to meeting new people and had a strong stubborn streak. He was certainly friendly, but he never took even the slightest bit of bull-shit from anyone, including - or perhaps especially - police officers. I asked him about driving in Africa and if police or robbers ever gave him grief, and he said cops were the only ones who ever gave him trouble.

"Police always want to give you shit for anything," he said. "No seatbelt, no shoes on, not enough emergency flares. Who the fuck in Africa ever even uses emergency flares?" I asked him what he does whenever the cops give him a hard time for something or if he ever got into trouble.

"Are you kidding? I tell the cops they can just fuck off. And if they don't, then I just drive the fuck away."

Blessed comes from Zimbabwe, which meant things were always a little more interesting and challenging for him. In South Africa he picked up a month's worth of food to smuggle into Zimbabwe for his family. I asked him if he ever faced violence while at home, and he told me more than once he had to go houseboating for a week or two.

"Some guys just wanted to beat us up (Blessed and some friends), so we went out on the lake for a while. It was cool, we drank beers, went fishing. That kind of stuff just happens."

Right now, our tour is camped on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. It's an incredibly safe campground, where wildly aggressive monkeys are the only cause for concern, but outside the campgrounds, it's a different story, with tourists told not to walk into town after a traveler on a recent trip was mugged not far from the front gate. The Zambezi river divides Zambia from Zimbabwe, and is a great spot for white water rafting, which some of the people on our tour did. The rapids were a highlight I'm sure, but it was the Zimbabweans smuggling food across the river that got the most attention. Apparently it's not uncommon at all for people to do this, nor is it uncommon for them to be killed in the process. The rafters stopped their trip and transported the two food smugglers across the river before continuing on their trip.

Dion

Where to begin with Dion. Two nights was enough to know this guy had more loose screws than a Home Hardware store. At 18 he was bitten by a puff adder snake, losing three fingers from his left hand. At 19, as a white South African, he had to make the choice between joining the army or the police, and so he became a police sniper, shooting members of the ANC (now the current ruling party in SA). After Apartheid ended, he spent a year on drugs, dealing with insomnia and an array of emotional issues (at least, that's what I interpreted his stories and musing to mean), followed by at least a year or two in therapy. When I met him, he was running a campground next to Kruger National Park. Obviously the snake bite did little to scare him off of animals, as he regularly made his way into the park to "interact" with the animals. His stomach had a large puncture wound from a recent lion attack, which came about while Dion was picking tics off the lion's face. While picking tics (perhaps the same time or perhaps on a different tic-picking episode; Dion was rather unclear), Dion also decided to take some photos. He showed me some fantastic close-up photos of a lion, a sequence which follows his hand reaching onto the lion's face, picking a tic, and the lion reacting by rolling forward, biting at Dion. Dion then produced the now-mangled camera lens, and displayed some of the strangest "inside a lion's mouth" photos I've ever seen.

Oh, and then there was the time he let a lion out of the park. Dion, leaving the park after another personal adventure, left the gate open too long and a lion trotted out. So, Dion used himself as bait, teasing the lion until it chased him back into the park.

Dion's plan was to run and leap onto a nearby tree branch, not remembering that lion's are much better at leaping onto trees than humans are. And so, Dion jumped into the tree, followed by the lion, but rather than being pounced on by the lion, Dion hits the branch and falls awkwardly and the lion went clear over top of him. Still not out of the woods, Dion's dog finally saves him, barking from the truck and distracting the big cat long enough for Dion to scurry around to the far side of his vehicle.

There were more stories about Dion, some rather sadistic and all very bizarre. All of them seem too outlandish to be true, but they were all verified by others who knew Dion and were around to see the outcome and evidence from these stories themselves.

The Anti-Poacher

Most big parks in Africa employ anti-poaching agents, guys with big guns who scare off (or shoot) poachers in the park. This one poor fellow I guess was getting a little bored with his job. He'd been in the park for a while, and never got around to moving his camp - a big no-no since the predators get used to you if you stay to long in one spot. One night he gets drunk and passes out - with his head outside the tent. And so, that night turned out to be his last, since it was also the night when a lion felt comfortable enough to come up and take a swat at his head, killing him. It then dragged him out of the tent and ate him. Poor lion too - the policy is to kill any animal that eats humans to prevent them from getting comfortable with the idea that humans are a good way to get dinner.

Dion's Landlord

Birds of a feather right? So Dion is a little nuts (to be fair, his wife does keep him grounded when she's around), so it seems natural that he'd end up in business with other crazies. He was having some troubles with his landlord and negotiating a new lease on his campground property while we were at his place, and he told us about it. It seems his landlord was getting out of jail soon and thought maybe he could do something more with the land. And what was the landlord in jail for? Seems there was a murder some years back, and while the landlord didn't have anything to do with the actual killing, owning land next to Kruger Park put him in a nice position to help dispose of the body, which he fed it to the lions.

So yeah, that's some of the folks I've met while in Africa. I think it's pretty hard to spend much time there and not have a good (or scary) story or two, and even just being a tourist here means ending up with a few horrific stories of your own. Just wait till I write about Shannon's worm story next entry.

More Tales From the Dark Continent

2009-03-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Not sure where Africa picked up that name, but I have a feeling it's very race related. Let's see what wikipedia has to say on the matter... Well, it seems skin colour may not have been the reason but instead - "As little was known about the continent's interior geography, map-makers would often leave this region dark." Fascinating.

I'm out of Africa now, though not literally. While still part of Africa, Egypt seems to be considered much more middle eastern, as the population is Arabic and the Saharan divide seems enough to render this place much more closely akin to the mid east. But enough of that, let's type about the last few weeks.

I left off in Vic Falls, where Shannon, myself and a few others from our tour spent a day at the "Gorge Swing." It's been a few weeks, so I may be wrong on my numbers here, but I believe it was a 140 metre swing over an 80 metre gorge, with 3.2 seconds of free fall time and a whole lotta me yelling and gasping for air. For $75 we rappelled down the cliff, did a few flying foxes and then two of these swings across the gorge. They even threw in a beer at the end to help ease the frazzled nerves we all had, which was much appreciated. The swing itself (it's too bad I can't put up pictures right now) was pretty freakin' intense, and if you went off backwards, you had enough time to rotate around so that you were completely upsidedown and facing the other side of the gorge before the rope finally pulled tight and swung you back upright. Quite fun for sure.

The next few days were spent with a lot of driving. A cruise along a river whose name slips my mind, African drumming, dancing and singing by a bonfire, a village walk, then to Lake Malawi, which wikipedia informs me is "the third largest lake in Africa and the 9th larges in the world... The lake's tropical waters teem with more fish species than any other lake on Earth." Well, I didn't know all that until just now.

The lake was a pretty good time to relax, toss a frisbee, swim and spend way too much money buying bizzarro arts and crafts from the locals. Besides a Bao board (you'll have to look that up on your own), Shannon and I also picked up a kick-ass chess set. We found this one set that was probably the coolest chess set I've ever seen, but the dude started bartering at $120 US. Ugh. In hindsight I wish we'd bought it (probably for about $50) but we got one that was nearly as nice for $34. Plus some salt and pepper shakers.

Oh, and we picked up some worms too. Hookworms. The parasitic kind. Only in Shannon's feet though, but having them in your feet is certainly bad enough. We (she) didn't really notice them right away though, so more on that in a bit.

After Lake Malawi we drove. A lot. And after the drive, we drove some more. For three days, we would wake up early, drive all day, take lunch in heat so terribly bad that people were literally clinging to the truck to find any kind of shade from the midday sun, get to camp right at sundown, unpack, eat, sleep, then do it all over again. We did have a fun bin-bag (Aussie slang for garbage bag) party, but even that was kept mildly early for the sake of another long day's drive.

At the end of the mega-haul, we reached Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, the jumping off point for Zanzibar. Zanzibar is certainly one kick-ass place, and well worth the incredibly long drive to get there. Stone Town, the capital, is one of those historic towns where even if you know nothing of history and cultural significance, you can still sort of feel the importance of things oozing out of the walls. Indian and Arabic architechure are visible everywhere, there's a strange "colonial" feel to things even now, and learning a bit about the slave trade and seeing the former slave markets really helps you appreciate just what kind of place Stone Town used to be.

After Stone Town we stayed at Nungwi, a little beach town on the northern tip. And wow, I've never seen water so spotlessly clear, with nothing but white sand and coral reefs to compliment the crystal waters and blingingly bright sky. Okay, so I'm not sure if I'm doing so well on my paradise-esque metaphors here, but it was a pretty amazing spot. I went scuba diving, and while the sea-life was just so-so, it was well worth it to spend a day swimming in the waters.

There was also a booze-crooze we went on in Nungwi, which was pretty low on the cultural significance, but pretty high on the good-times and acting-silly charts. I think it was saying something when we had to return to shore after 10 minutes on the water to get more alcohol.

All right, I'm pretty spent for the moment. Internet here in Cairo is pretty plentiful and not too expensive, so I should be able to continue the African stories shortly. Maybe even some photos too. Till then...

Africa

2009-02-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

Well, it's a wild continent, this African place. It took Shannon and I a bit to get into things here, as we spent the first 24 hours ensuring I had enough room in my passport (no problems most likely) and changing all our US dollars into post-2000 bills. That was quite a headache, as no one in this country wants to accept old bills, but it we got it done, met our tour buddies, and we're now on our way through Africa.

The very day we started, we did a game drive that night. I don't think much is going to top that first night, as we got within centimetres of a small pryde of lions in the park. We parked our truck only a few metres from a few females lying in the grass, with another female and a male lying another few metres away. They stretched, yawned and splayed out lazily for a while, before getting the scent of a pack of impalas a few hundred metres away. One by one, the females got up and started moving along the edge of the bushes, looking to start hunting the impalas. Impalas by the way are a deer-like animal, like a small gazelle.

The lions started by using the truck as cover, which meant that one by one, they would walk alongside our vehicle, before creeping into the underbrush. The impalas, which we could only slightly see through the trees as they moved, got extremely nervous, and started letting out a call which sounded like something between a dog barking and a whale exhaling. Our guide pointed out that two lions were hiding on our left, one was deep to the right, and the last was in the middle of the path, acting as a visual decoy to the impala. It was quite a clever plan the lions had, using the wind direction, the vehicle, the bushes and the decoy lion all as cover for the hunt. Unfortunately, lions compensate for their ingenious hunting techniques by being extremely lazy. While three of the lions still were intent on the hunt, one of the females seemily decided things weren't worth the effort, broke cover, and flopped down in the middle of the road. The male soon followed, brushing alongside our truck, and stretching out as well. And so, only a few minutes after it started, the hunt was over, with the lions having nothing to show for it but some very excited tourists.

The next day we spent in Kruger National Park, which is one of the big 3 famous game parks in Africa. It was a good (long) day of seeing animals, but hard to compete with the intensity from the night before. Still, we got up close to plenty of impala, elephants, rhinos, buffalo, wildebeast, giraffe, and even some smaller creatures like a chameleon and a vine snake.

This was all in South Africa, the first stop on our tour. Since then, we've traveled through Botswana, and are now in Zambia. It's getting to be pretty intense, as western goods are either expensive or hard to find (grocery stores are often lacking groceries here), and since we're right on the Zimbabwaean border, there's an eery feeling sometimes when you hear stories from people about the neighbouring country. Things are nearly impossible to get there, and our tour driver, who is from Zimbabwae, spends his days off shuttling food he bought in South Africa to his family in Zimbabwae. Some of the people on our tour took a white water rafting trip down the Zambezi river, which divides Zambia and Zimbabwae, and they came across some people trying to cross the river and smuggle food into Zimbabwae. They stopped the boat and helped everyone across, but apparently it's quite common for people to smuggle like this - something that would blow your mind if you saw how big and scary this river is and how massive the gorge surrounding it is.

Before I go, I'll also mention Victoria Falls (or Mosi-Oa-Tunya as the Zambians call it). I think they're some of the biggest falls in the world - the longest I'm pretty sure, and taller than Niagra though with less volume. Right now the "smoke" or spray coming off them is quite small, though when we got there we coudn't get more than a kilometre close to them without getting absolutely drenched. In the high flow season the water sprays for up to 10 km. I've never felt anything quite as powerful, and when you get close to them, you really do feel them with all the noise, water spraying you, and the ground shaking all around you.

Anyway, gotta run, it's expensive and slow here, which sadly means no pictures (I've been trying for an hour, which means $4 wasted). I'll try again later, but it looks like Africa will have to be photoless. Oh well, use your imaginations.

The Long Arm of the Law

2009-02-10T02:46:00.000-08:00

Time's up now for Shannon and I in Indonesia, but I'm going to backtrack a bit and write about the final days from the island nation. And where better to begin than with our brief encounter with the Indonesian police!

Our final day in Indonesia was spent in Sanur, a quiet little beach town on the southeast side of Bali. We had 12 hours to spend before our flight to Johannesburg, and I needed a jacket, so we rented a scooter to drive to Kuta, about 30-40 minutes away. Of course, renting a scooter and driving from town to town in Bali is a pretty silly idea, but we had enough time somehow it seemed like a good plan.

Within moments, we were lost. Not too badly fortunately, and we managed to turn around and get back on the right track. The bad part of it though, was that we stopped at a light right next to a freakin' traffic police box, with two disgruntled officers working there. And so, as I mistakenly stopped on the wrong side of the stop line in front of the light, we were waved over to the side of the road by the two grumpy gentlemen.

I want to give a dialogue of the encounter, but besides being quite lengthy, it involved a lot of grunts, pointing, glaring and untranslatable blabbering by everyone involved. My position was one of confusion and apology, as well as coyness (I think that's the right word) in that I could not understand the traffic laws no matter how many times he offered them to me to read. Shannon played the angry tourist, giving the cops a hard time as they tried to bully us into paying them a bribe. The cops gave us every English law and diagram available to them, which basically said "you broke the law, so pay the officers money" without stating how much or why. And so once we "agreed" to pay the fine there (the two cops threatened to arrest our scooter once we said we wouldn't pay them), we haggled on the price, settling for 100,000 rupiah - about $12 CDN, and half what they originally wanted.

After 10 minutes with the cops, we were eventually let go, and made our way to Kuta. The drive there was straight along the highway with no turns. The drive back, sadly, was not straight, and no matter how hard we tried to go to Sanur, we contiually found ourselves drifing north, until we were 45 minutes out of the way, and had covered an extra 50km at least. We caught our plane without much worry, but it was one bloody hectic day.

Arak Attack

One of our stops on Bali involved an amazing island 90 minutes away from Sanur. We ended up forking over nearly 3 times what we normally pay for our accommodation, but it was well worth the money. We went snorkeling, surfing, ate some amazing food and met another couple from Canada at our place. We also hung out with some of the staff at our accommodation, and the other Canadian couple felt that it would be quite fun if the lot of us got together and had some drinks. And so, over 30 hours in advance, we made plans for a game of Uno and a few bottles of Arak to be had between us.

Arak, a sort of fruity Indonesian equivalent to vodka I suppose, was the penalty for screwing up or finishing last during the Uno game. 7 of us ended up playing, and it gave quite a full showing of the cultural differences between our two countries - The Canadians sipped beer and wine while playing, taking the Arak in stride but not really getting too drunk off it, while the Indonesians did there best to avoid it at first, but once they hit that line of "too much", it was hard to stop them from going for more. Well, mostly it was just the one guy, Urope, who kept going back for the Arak, but I think we drank 4 or 5 times more than the Indonesians, and we were all in about the same shape the next morning.

Idiocy

Shannon and I are now in Africa, which I'll write about shortly. We're having an awesome time so far, but there's been a little stress that came along with the trip here which I could have easily avoided - in my excitement to get on the trip and my stupidity in properly preparing, I never got a new passport before coming, thinking my old one had plenty of room, and now I'm nearly full up with stamps and visas. It turns out I'm not as bad as I had first feared, but now, every time we cross a border, I have to crawl half way over the counter and point exactly where I need them to stamp to make sure I have enough room to get out of Kenya and into Egypt. Today was the last big worry stamp, getting into Zambia, so unless the officer in Tanzania is a real jerk, there's no reason things won't work out. Still, the lesson here is to be extra prepared when it comes to traveling, and get a big fat passport cause you never know how big the stickers will be and who's gonna try and be funny and take up a whole page for no good reason.

Okay, gotta run, don't want to get caught in the dark away from home. Not in this continent anyway.

Fonetiks

2009-01-26T18:20:00.000-08:00

It feels like ages since I've written a regular travel blog, with the last few all about the contrast to traveling while in Hawaii or the freaky creeps we met on the road. I think I'll get a bit more back to basics here.

Shannon and I are on Bali in Indonesia. For those unaware, Bali is an island province of Indonesia, and generally known as the big tourist hot-spot for beaches, night clubs, surf spots and artwork. We've been all over Indonesia so far, starting on Sumatra, where we hiked into the jungle to meet orangutans and floated down the river on inner tubes; Gili Air, a small island off the larger island of Lombok, where we did little else but sit on the beach and indulge in too much wine; we then went to Kuta on Lombok, where the big (well, big for me) surf was absolutely mind-blowing; and now we're in Ubud, a artsy-cultural tourist town which runs almost entirely on fancy clothes, paintings and culinary diversity.

So what have I learned about Indonesia? Well, for starters, they drive like lunatics. Reading about Indonesia, the "driving" section of our book describes Indonesia as a country that "drives on the left side of the road. And the right side. And the sidewalk." On the small two-lane pot-holed country roads that hardly can handle two vehicles traveling at once, it's not uncommon to have cars traveling 3 wide. An oncoming bus actually thrust us completely off the road and into the ditch at one point as it did a 4-car pass down the road.

The language here is perhaps one of the most basic in the world, having no tenses to the verbs, genders for nouns, and can be quite simple to pick up. It's also amazingly phonetic, so much so that often times English gets translated phonetically here in ways that don't look anything like the original world. "Dynamic Engines" becomes "Dainamik Enjins" for example. It's usually only outside of the tourist spots you see this, but it makes for lots of double-takes and re-evaluations of the logistics of many English spellings.

So far, the orangutan stop in Bukkitlawang and the big surf in Kuta have been my personal highlights. In Bukkitlawang, Shannon and I were spending a total of $25 a day, and having a great time doing it. In the morning we could hike into the jungle and get only metres away from massive orangutans as the wardens fed them. Then, for $1, we could rent a tube, hike up the river and float down the type of rapids that would require a 5 page legal document and 2 lawyers on hand to sign any and all legal rights away before any Canadian company would let you go floating down this. Getting to the top of the river to put in required crossing it at one point, one of the more comical events of our trip. Shannon and I were traveling with Jason and Abby, two friends from Korea, so the four of us found a spot nestled between two rapid sets. I climbed a rock jutting into the water and dove into the stream, scrambling to the other side 15 metres downstream from where I started (the river was only waist deep, but you had to get shallower before being able to stand). Jason the hurled the tubes to me, and once they were across, he Abby (who was 2 months pregnant) and Shannon leapt across as well. I would have to wade out as deep as possible and grab them one at a time and then help them to the opposite shore. All in all, it took about 40 minutes to figure out this thing, but was well worth it for the trip down.

Kuta was a whole different kind of freaky. I'm a pretty poor surfer, based largely on my inexperience I suppose. I'm at least aware of my limitations though, so when we got out to the break, I was a little nervous. To get to the surf breaks in Kuta, you need a boat, since they're all reef breaks off shore. And so, Shannon and I met a couple who were heading out to one of the bigger breaks, and we decided to join them. On the way out, Shannon suggested at least a dozen times that maybe I should stay in the boat, but I figured I could find a smaller section of waves to ride. Getting to the break, we saw waves that were breaking regularly with an 8-10 foot face, and the occasional set coming in around 12 feet high. I stayed way out on the end, trying to catch the smaller sets that came in, but even these had such a massive amount of water volume to them, it felt like being steamrolled by an elephant every time I got tossed by one of these monsters. In fact, the very first wave that came in broke early on me (since I was so far in) and hurled me so far along under water, I was convinced I wasn't coming up again. My thoughts were kinda funny though - "Not on the first wave. I can't freaking die on the very first gave. Gimme at least one more..."

Things got better in Kuta over the next few days. I found the smaller breaks, got a better sized board, and managed to catch my first "real" rides. I say real since, despite catching plenty of waves before, this was the first time I got a long, 10+ second ride, turning up and down the face and riding out without getting pummeled. I by no means looked good doing it, but it felt *%^#ing amazing!

Anyway, it's almost time to leave Indo. On the 2nd of Feb, Shannon and I fly into Johannesburg, South Africa (arriving on the 3rd). I'm getting pretty pumped for it - it's been a long stay in Asia, and I'm ready for a new and radical change. I will miss Indonesia though. It's been days but I'm still buzzing from the surfing in Kuta, and I'm not sure how I'll get by not doing that again. However, Africa is certainly going to have its own good times to show us, and I'm sure I'll have lots more to blog about then.

Creepy? Or Absolutely Wrong and Illegal?

2009-01-10T04:52:00.000-08:00

There are a number of certain "inevitabilities" that a person will encounter over enough time on the road. Travel delays, health issues, scams, rip-offs and other undesired events. Last night provided one of the more unexpected "inevitabilities" that I certainly had hoped not to encounter, and that I was very much unprepared for, as I'm fairly certain that last night we encountered a group of men involved in child prostitution.

Right now Shannon and I are in Indonesia. Despite despising the big cities, we're staying in some pretty small-town laid-back places, usually with very few tourists and a whole lotta leisure to enjoy. Indonesia has been the first place I've ever been to where it really is as cheap as people say, generally because there doesn't seem to be a big tourist push anywhere. So, when we were out for pizza with two other friends last night, we were rather unsettled to see three elderly European men sitting with a young woman and a small female child at their table. We mumbled to ourselves for sometime before deciding these guys were almost certainly pedophiles, and one of them was going home with this kid - probably the old guy whose lap she was sitting on.

Abby and Jason, the two friends we're traveling with at the moment, had to go back early since Abby wasn't feeling so well. So Shannon and I were left alone in the restaurant, waiting for a pizza to come out. We grew more and more uncomfortable as time went on - our pizza was taking forever, and the three men (all at least mid-50's, overweight and really shady looking) were doing nothing to calm our fears that they were looking for trouble with the poor girl sitting with them. Finally Shannon and I decided to try and do something. So, I went to the restaurant staff. It was certainly an awkward conversation, and one that ended with them telling me the young Indonesian woman was the man's wife and the girl was his daughter (a blind person could tell however that there was no blood relationship there). It was a little strange though since I swear I had heard the man referred to say he had left his wife in Thailand.

Anyway, the staff were no help, so once we finished our food and paid our bill, we approached the woman who was sitting at the table, though we waited till she stepped outside for a moment.

I asked her - "Is that your husband?" She looked at me oddly, then slowly slunk away. I asked her more, "who is that guy?" and "is that your daughter?" but she eventually retreated back into the restaurant. Shannon and I then grabbed a tout (kinda like a tourism worker, making money on over-priced referrals) we met and asked him what was going on.

"Oh, that's his wife and daughter," he said. When we pressed him further, he said "don't worry about it, everyone's OK. I'm sure they're OK." I jumped ahead in the conversation and just asked him "So, who does he pay to be with her?" It may have been a little inappropriate, but the tout just said he wasn't sure, but not to worry.

Things weren't getting any better, or any clearer. We were still sure he was a pervert paying for the girl, but there was no way to know for sure. So, we left, and wandered half a block away to get some water. Looking back, we saw the Austrian guy walk out of the restaurant, hand-in-hand with the little girl and no one else.

We quickly followed him up the street, heart racing, whispering to each other about what to do. Finally I decided to approach the guy, though I think we had whispered far too loudly, as the Austrian turned into a large party of locals in one of the taverns.

"I don't really feel good about this now," I said, far too loudly and nearly in arm's reach of him. But Shannon kept on, and walked right up in front of the guy.

"Excuse me," she said (or something like that), "do you mind telling us what's going on with you and this girl? Is she your daughter?" I jumped up beside her, and realized how much I towered over this creepy guy. It probably didn't hurt that I was nearly bumping my chest into him, but it felt good that my chest was almost as high as his chin.

"This is my daughter," he said, smiling. And that's how the conversation began and went. We pressed him on what was going on, he got all goofy-eyed, smiled at us, and laughed about how he was a "local" and these people were his family. It was such a messed up situation. The guy spoke Indonesian, he casually brushed off our accusations, yet he seemed to take little offense to us calling him a pedophile. He sent the girl after her mother, though now it seemed her mother was at the party, and was not the woman back at the restaurant.

I'm not sure how long we stood there with him, I thought maybe 3 minutes, Shannon thought more like 10, but it certainly felt like an eternity. By the time it was wrapping up, we were convinced he really was a pedophile, and for better or worse, we told him we would pay him to leave the girl alone that night. He thought that was funny, though his response didn't make much sense. Anyway, I made a final somewhat nasty remark towards him, one of those "Well if you are a pedophile..." kinda things, and left.

Looking back there was heaps more I wish I'd done, but I really don't think I was ready or equipped to do much more than I did. We managed to take a photo of the guy, though I wish I'd taken one more while he stood there in front of us with the girl. Still, I've contacted a few child protection groups to see if there's anything more that can be done. But oh wait, the story's not quite over yet.

The next morning Shannon and I join Abby and Jason for breakfast, and retell our adventures from the previous night. We sat there for a good hour mulling over what we did, what we could have done and what we'll do now, before finally looking for something more enjoyable to talk about. Of course, that turns out to be precisely the moment the old Austrian man shows up in our hotel, now with two young children, a boy on his right hand and the girl on his left.

"Ahh, there's the man I'm looking for," he shouts and comes up to us. "I think you owe me an apology."

"An apology?" I say to him. "Maybe you could tell me a little more about what's going on." "These are my children," he says, and I ask them where their mother is then, since they look nothing like him.

"Well then, would you like to try and buy them from me now?" he says, with that same creepy stupid look on his face. Abby and Jason both turn to him and tell him he should never be speaking about children like that, and he abruptly turns away and leaves, still holding both kids hand-in-hand.

And that's that for now. I haven't heard anything back from the online child prostitution groups, and I haven't seen the old man again since. Oh, that's what I said to him, I told him "I'm sure I'll be seeing you around the island" as we left that night. Of course I didn't expect him to track me down the next morning in my hotel. Bloody creepy!

I'll leave it at that for now, since I've written enough for tonight, but there's plenty of great things to write about Indonesia still, and I'd hate to let anyone think this was just a country of sex-tourist, because it certainly isn't.

Lies!!!

2009-01-02T01:30:00.000-08:00

The only constant is change my friends, and the beard-growing exploration has suddenly come to and end! It's probably temporary (we'll see how the bald-face goes), but the brief stop in Hawaii included a family photo session, and I felt that besides the need to look a little cleaner for the pictures, having a photo that better resembled how I gererally appear and not as the scruffy traveler I looked like would be nice.

And so, for the time being, "pogonic" does not accurately exemplify my outward appearance. But hey, things change.

In only a few hours, Shannon and I will be leaving Hawaii, which is rather sad. I think this is about my favourite place on the planet. It's a bit too expensive, and I would certainly miss snow (and even the cold a bit maybe) of winter over time, but otherwise it's such a mind-blowing place with an overwhelming amount of things to see and do (especially for such a tiny spot). The next stop (eventually) is Medan, Indonesia. It'll take nearly 3 days to get there, and will include 6 different planes. Yeuch. We also spend another night in Bangkok, which is becoming a nasty habit. Anyway, it's time for bed, so that's all for now. I've thrown up a few of Steve's pictures (he's my brother for those who don't know), though I couldn't quite make out which photo is which on the tiny little thumbnails. Hence, there's no real "story" to them, so you'll just have to imagine what kind of crazy adventure I had along the way taking them. Enjoy, and g'night!

Introspections, Observations and other Events

2008-12-24T00:30:00.000-08:00

I'm a little off the blog at the moment, as the round the world trip has taken a sudden turn away from the usual traveling adventures. Rather than bumming around SE Asia, sleeping in dorms, eating at cheap greasy street shops and haggling over a few cents with merchants, Shannon and I are now spoiling ourselves rotten in Hawaii. We touched down on Kauai island on the 17th, and are now spending our days relaxing on beaches, hiking in the mountains and biking through the very muddy paths. It's actually not all that relaxing, since we've spent most every day doing some moderately to extremely strenuous activities, but it is quite enjoyable, especially having nice things around like flush toilets, laundry machines and the ability to cook for ourselves.

One of the trips we undertook was an 8 hour hike through one of the muddiest, boggiest trails I've ever imagined much less hiked on. Our ultimate goal was through two different water-diversion tunnels, blown through some mountain ridges in the 1900's. We hiked (and often crawled) for 4 hours through the sludge before arriving at the first tunnel, which was over 1.5 km long. The 2nd tunnel eluded us just long enough that we weren't able to crawl through it, as we were losing sunlight much too quickly, but now I'm half-way torn between crawling through the sludge again to find the mysterious 2nd tunnel, and just avoiding the whole disgusting ordeal and just enjoying other things Hawaii has to offer. There's still plenty more tunnels, hikes, caves and waterfalls to see, but it's hard to give up on something when you've come so close to making it. The tunnels themselves (or the one we saw) were pretty impressive, nearly 6 feet high the whole way through with nearly a foot of water running along it. A flash flood probably would have wiped us all out, but I think fearing that only made it more fun.

Anyway, Hawaii is great, but it's hard taking the time to write about what's happening. Traveling overseas in non-western countries has something much more mystic and unexpected to it, where even the smallest details of your day make for an interesting story. Getting lunch can turn into a 3 hour challenge, bedrooms come with uninvited houseguests (people or bugs usually), and every day includes not just thoughts of what to do but also where to go and how to get there. You find that you have to be "tuned in" or "turned on" every waking moment just to really appreciate or even understand what is happening around you, where as now, even so far away from home, I can almost shut down and just coast through life, munching on comfy food, sleeping in a comfy bed, driving from point A to B in my comfy rental car, hardly worrying about a thing. And if anything goes wrong, the world speaks my language and hardly a soul is worried about hassling me for a dollar every time I ask them so much as the time.

Not that Hawaii is all monotony and cakewalks. I'm with my brother Steve and his wife Laura (and there two litle kids Max and Nash, the cutest little bundles of joy and occassional poop you've ever seen), and Steve is pretty gung-ho for doing something advernturous whenever he can. Our last Hawaiian adventure took us to a barely touched remote lava tube (so deep and long that had our lights burned out, we would never have emerged), and a 4 hour hike on along a hunting trail to the caldera of a still active volcano. The volcano trip was pretty freaky, and I'm fairly certain of all the dicey things I've done that had the highest likelyhood of killing me (and the whole family). There's nothing quite as "out there" that we have planned for this trip so far, but there's still 8 more days to find something nutty.

We're leaving here on the 1st of January (though we'll be spending New Years away from the family in Honolulu since our flight leaves super early). From there, we've decided to forego Vietnam and spend some extra time in Indonesia. Running around Laos and Cambodia had Shannon and I feeling rather cramped for time, sort of as if we would arrive in a country, spend a few days finding all the great stuff to do and see, then leave before we actually had a chance to do it. And so, we're putting all our traveling eggs in one basket, and doing Indonesia as best we can. I figure the surfing, beaches, islands, etc. should be what we're looking for, and everyone we met on the road had very little pleasant things to say about the Vietnamese travel industry. As someone (or some book) put it, the "Tuk Tuk" drivers there are so anxious to have your business, they'll drive over you just to get to you first. They'll then charge you whatever price they feel you should pay and never budge from it no matter how ridiculous it is. And so, nice as the country itself sounds, there's enough junk to go with it that I don't mind saying "no" to it this time. Maybe next trip. Anyway, till the next blog, thanks for reading!

Rich

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words (or at least a glance over on the blog)

2008-12-05T03:24:00.000-08:00

Putting up pictures online sometimes is a giant, giant pain in the backside, so I decided to try and throw up a whole crap-load at once. I think I'll have to keep them smaller though from now on (if you click on them, you get the full-sized image) since it takes about 5-8 minutes to load each picture.

Shannon and I have arrived and now left Cambodia. The pics here are all from our time there, which was quite short, only 6 days.

We went to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, the two major tourist destination is town. Phnom Penh is the place to go to learn heaps and heaps about the Cambodian genocide, Siem Reap is where you'll find Angkor Wat. Both are absolutely mind-blowing, though in very different ways. I got a little overwhelmed by Phnom Penh, and at the prison/torture camp, I spent the last hour just sitting in the courtyard, rather exhausted from a day of skulls, graves, pictures of victims and stories of people who both died and survived the genocide horrors.

The sights at Siem Reap were amazing, and I'm sad I didn't get more of the great pictures we took online. Hope you enjoy them, I'm gonna leave it at this here, since we're now in Vang Vieng in Laos, and internet costs about 4 times what it should. There seems to be an internet cartel in town, with all the internet spots either savagely overpriced, or painfully slow. It's a nutty town this Vang Vieng, and I often think I've been transported back to some beach town in North America. Oooh, gotta run, enjoy the pictures!!

"Get Me The Hell Outta Here"

2008-11-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-22T05:29:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-13T03:19:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-07T02:29:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-06T08:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-01T03:11:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-10-17T01:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-14T02:41:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-10-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-09T21:01:00.001-07:00

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!