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.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Creepy? Or Absolutely Wrong and Illegal?
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.
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.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Lies!!!
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!
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!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Introspections, Observations and other Events
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
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
Friday, December 5, 2008
Pictures Worth a Thousand Words (or at least a glance over on the blog)
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!!
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!!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
"Get Me The Hell Outta Here"
I find traveling to be addicting - the more I travel, the more I want to travel. I think much of the attraction is from the constant stimulation, where even the simplest day can become exciting, challenging, arduous, and usually quite memorable.
Memorable would be an understated way to describe the past 4 days. Shannon and I have been making our way from northern India to Cambodia, a journey which started in Rishikesh on Nov 23rd and will end in a few hours when we reach Pheom Pen, early in the day on Nov 28th.
It started with a train ride - 27 hours from Rishikesh to Kolkatta, which was supposed to be the most difficult and uncomfortable portion of the trip. I think it's time though that I conceded how much I enjoy these lengthy trips, whether by train or other vehicle, so long as I have a bed or full seat all to myself. Shannon and I have been going to great lengths to ensure we book the proper space to ride comfortably on our long hauls, and I was suitably stretched out on my bed, feet dangling clear across the aisle, until about 11pm, 10 hours into the trip. I'm not sure the name of city we stopped at, but I decided to grab some water and a snack from the train platform, and I told Shannon I would be right back. As I neared the door, a horde of young men crushed me back into the car, quickly swarming every spare inch of space there was to take on the train. I raced back to my seat, climbing over people now to get back, only to find already my bed had been overrun with new passengers. Shannon was pleading with them not to take my space, and I had to crawl to the edge of my bed and start dishing out a number of shoves with my feet to one man who had perched at the foot of my bed.
I had claimed my bed space for myself again, but it wouldn't last. I've never, never seen so many bodies piled and crammed together like the way this, with people doubling up in every bed, sleeping two-by-two on the aisle floors, and crowding themselves in between the train car walkways. Eventually, talking to one of the young guys (he was telling me why there were so many people on the train without assigned seats), I realized that perhaps standing in the crowd for 12 hours might not really be possible, so I gave him the end of my bed.
For the next few hours we talked, during which time things became quite - comfortable - between us. Indian trains are bereft of all but the most necessary amenities, and space is a noticeable and generally lacking luxury. My new friend had to double over and sort of fold himself in half to fit on the bed, and he soon began to roll onto his side and take over more of my bed. When the photo was taken, he was resting on his arms, quite ready to lay down right next to me. Selfishly, I fanned out my upper body, giving him no room to intrude any further along the bed, and after 20-30 minutes of holding himself up on his elbows, he retreated back to the other end of the bed.
Despite the ongoing unspoken battle for control of the bed, we had a good conversation, covering all the usual topics of our respective jobs (he refused to believe Shannon and I were unemployed), places we had traveled, Indian politics, and a few very unusual discussions as well. Our talk about the composition of hot dogs was not only hilarious, but had most of the train car involved. The guy on my bed was surprised that Shannon and I weren't extremely wealthy and that we didn't have a job, but he was more surprised that we were vegetarian, and rather happy about it. He was serving as the translator for everyone else in our car who wanted to know more about us, and finally it got a little odd - they were talking about something, but he wasn't translating it, till finally he laughed to himself and said:
"My friends and I, it's a little silly, but, what exactly is a "hot dog"?"
We laughed a bit, then explained to him.
"Like a sausage?" he asked.
"No, it's made from cow."
Everyone thought this was pretty gross, and so we explained what parts of the cow you could find in a hot dog, he told us "Stop! Stop! I'm going to vomit!" He translated what we said to everyone else, and dozens of Indian men suddenly laughed and groaned all at once.
We learned from him that the train was so crowded due to a railway exam, with about 2 million Indians applying for a job with the railway. There were only approximately 200 job openings, but that didn't seem to deter any of them, nor did the 12 hour train ride they had to take (each way) with no hope for a seat. It was depressing to hear from all these men the same stories of hoping to find a job that payed well and had any kind of job security, and I don't think I've been to a country yet with more potential that has let itself turn into such a disaster. While there may be elements of what a democracy should be like, it's laughable to consider India as anything but a corrupt and ravaged country that refuses virtually all rights for its poor and underprivileged people.
Back to the story.
In the morning all the extra passengers got off the train, and by 4pm we were in Kolkatta (the British would spell it Calcutta, but it's pronounced much more like Kolkatta, which is the new proper spelling). Kolkatta, like all the Indian cities we'd seen, is a mess of pollution, tangled roadways that resemble no map drawn of them, and is filled with homeless and beggar people littering the streets (both along and in them). We tried to find a nicer accommodation for the one night in town, but instead we ended up paying 5 times our normal budget for an equally dumpy room. It did have air conditioning and a TV.
The next night we had a few drinks before heading to the airport at 11pm. I only mention the drinks so that you can better understand our state of mind when we learned Bangkok airport, our destination en route to Cambodia, had been taken over by protesters. And so, we spent the next 8 hours in the airport waiting for news of our flight. By 6am we gave up and found a nearby, incredibly overpriced hotel to sleep through the morning and wait for word on what would happen. We arrived at the hotel at 7am, slept for 4 hours, then went to find an internet cafe to learn more about the situation. Bangkok did not appear to be re-opening anytime soon, so we decided to check out of our hotel and return to the airport, during which time Shannon somehow lost her bank card, which we didn't notice until hours later. No money stolen, but it made a difficult situation worse.
The final solution for leaving India turned out to be flying to Singapore and hoping to find a flight from there to Cambodia. Our flight departed late that night, which meant another sleepless, bedless night. By the time we arrived in Singapore, it had been about 36 hours since the ordeal started, and over 50 hours since we had last slept (not including the 4 hours at the airport hotel in Kolkatta). We wandered the airport from airline to airline looking for an available flight, finally finding one that left the next morning at 6:30am. We went to a really nice hostel, slept for 8 hours, got up for some food before everything was closed, then went back to bed for another 6 hours of sleep, and we're now at the airport, waiting to board our flight to Phenom Pehn.
Anyway, I'm still watching this Bangkok airport thing since I need to fly through there at least twice more in the next month of two. It better clear up, or this trip is either gonna get a lot longer in time, or a lot more costly.
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.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
So Life Goes in India
This is one mighty intense country. I can't think of any place I've ever been that could so easily elicit such a wide range of strong emotions. Sometimes it seems as if life is just scraping by here, other moments things seem absolutely spectacular. Actually, quite often life doesn't even "scrape by" here, as I've seen just about every thing around here also lying dead. While Shannon and I never did make it to Varanasi, human's are the main corpses to be found, as it's the place Indians most prefer to die. If you're lucky (and rich) you get a nice cremation job with fancy robes and high quality wood. If you're poor, homeless or a criminal, it's straight into the river for you. In Kathmandu we saw a much more calm and civilized version of things, but in Varanasi, it's nearly out of control.
Yep, the good ol' river Ganges, the holiest and most revered chunk of water in India (as is my understanding). People bathe in it for religious purposes, die in it for spiritual cleansing, and basically thing it's the cat's pyjammas. So why the $&@# do they treat it so badly? I mean cripes, they put every nasty kind of waste they have in this country straight into the river, sweeping muck and rubbish and feces into it, then telling you what a sacred and spiritual place it is. Does no one in the country see the problem here?
Right now Shannon and I are in Rishikesh, a rather northern city where the Ganges is still clean-ish, the air only slightly opaque, and the people not quite as poor, pushy or crippled as other towns. The Beatles came here in the 60's to get spiritual with an Ashram (spiritual leader of sorts), and that's still the thing to do around here. We're sticking to yoga, since like with the case of the Beatles, most Ashram's are more for the moolah and prestige than the actual spiritualness. I dig the yoga, I'm really feeling my body parts, from my buttocks to my toes, though I again find it funny that one of the more common themes here is to bend into a difficult and strenuous position, pulling your muscles awkwardly, and then to "relax... relax..."
Despite the spiritual pushiness at times, Rishikesh is a pretty cool place. The poverty here though is quite in your face. In fact, it's really quite a challenge to describe just how over-the-top the poor and impoverished situation is here in India. There's a samosa shop I dig eating at in town about a 20 minute walk from our hotel, but going to and from it each day has become a huge drag and an emotionally draining ordeal. To get there I'll pass at least 2 dozen beggars, many facing savagely debilitating problems. Missing limbs, leprosy, blindness, wounded extremities, one guy even had his jaw rotted off. More mobile people will follow you for a step or two asking for money; quite often it's small children after you. The streets are filled with dogs and cows, and there's at least a few now that we're familiar with by the broken limbs they have to deal with. Everyone and everything is rooting through garbage, and one guy actually started whimpering on the verge of tears as everyone walking by refused to give him even a single rupee. Some of the Sadhu (hindu holy men) seem a little better off. but not much: These guys are wrapped in orange robes, have the big bushy beards and are supposed to be on some kind of spiritual journey that requires them to have nothing. So it seems they then beg for money to get food, which leads me to believe it's a choice they've made to be here, but while they do have a few trinkets like glasses and some beads, their scrawny bodies suggest they haven't eaten much in the last few decades at all.
Anyway, once I've finally made the walk to the samosa shop, had my tasty somosas, I then have to walk back again past everyone to get home. It makes for one tiring afternoon.
(As a brief aside, while cows are revered here in India, no one seems to treat them too well. They have however made a decent living around town, being the only animal seemingly willing and able to survive on a diet of cardboard and plastic wrapping paper.)
Our last day in Rishikesh was a pretty good one - I slept in, due to the extreme discomfort of the bed we have (missing yoga, oops!), but then Shan and I went and got a Indian cooking lesson. My expectations for what it would be like weren't that high, but the class itself was good, though I hope to never enter a kitchen so filthy again. I've yet to see such a dense layer of flies in the country, there was heaps of old stale food everywhere, and the toilet was only separated from the kitchen by a thin blanket. I was happy though that my count of cockroaches was much lower in this kitchen that it had been on the last train we caught.
We got a fairly in-depth lesson on how to cook Masala Chai Tea (soooo yummy), Malai Kofta, Muttar Panner, Chipati and Aloo Paratha. Basically that's tea, two types of soup/gravy dishes and two types of bread. Everything was pretty amazing, the breads especially. I'm also now a masala chai tea addict, and anyone who comes and visits me will be more than welcome to some homemade Indian recipe stuff.
Whew, long blog today. Tomorrow we're off to Calcutta/Kalkota. It's a 26 hour train ride, our longest yet, taking us to the place where Mamma Theresa did her charity work. Honestly though, I'm a little India-ed out right now, and don't think I'm ready to see much more in the way of slums and poverty. This country really gets me agitated, as there's no way it needs to be the way it is, yet people are either too stupid, ignorant or unwilling to do anything about it. Riding on the train itself is eye-opening enough for most people - thousands of people squatting by the tracks in horrible shanty towns, families huddled around burning piles of garbage to keep warm in the cold northern nights, trash and muck and pollution and disease piled onto each other and pushed aside to make room for more of itself - there's so much goodness wasted here, it's hard not to get angry/depressed/ill/etc. In 4 days I'll be in Cambodia, which I don't expect to be much better, though I've heard it's a different, unique kind of poverty and adversity to see. Till then, thanks for reading!
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!
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