Eddie's Globetrotting Adventures

EdTrotting 2009-2010 Best Of Pictures

2010-02-18T21:34:00.000-08:00

I've spent the past two days combing through my 4,280 pictures and have narrowed things down to what I consider the best 300. Click on the picture of the Viking ship sculpture from the Reykjavik harbor to check out the rest.

Enjoy!

Back in Seattle!!! Now What???

2010-02-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

Day two back in Seattle and my life has attained enough of a sense of normalcy for one last post. After something like 35,000 miles in the air, 3,000 miles by rail, 3,000 miles by bus, 1,000 miles by car, 200 miles on foot, 100 miles by boat, and many, many smaller distances by bicycle, motorcycle, taxi, rickshaw, auto-rickshaw, tuk-tuk, mini-bus, dala dala, jeep, raft, camel, and elephant I'm finally stationary for a bit.

I have to say it's weird. I still have a long list of things to do (find a new job, find a new place to live, catch up with everyone I've missed, re-enter *normal* life, etc.), but there's suddenly less of the living in the moment that solo travel necessitated. Looking back, and having already answered the "how was your trip?" question a number of times, that was probably the biggest impression this trip had on me. I'm a big planner and very future oriented, but being on my own in a new environment every few days really forced me to focus at all times on what was going on right now. It remains to be seen if this will leave a lasting impression, but it definitely was a stretch for me.

To catch everyone up on the 10 day gap from my last post from London Heathrow Airport, my next flight was a short 3 hour hop back to Iceland. Shockingly, early February in Reykjavik looked exactly the same as late September. No snow, clear-ish skies, and the temperature was hovering around 40 degrees. Apparently a bad winter in mainland Europe means a mild winter for Iceland. The bad news in this is that I was thwarted again on seeing the Northern Lights. Just another excuse to come back!

I stayed with my friends Bjorn and Gudrun and was entertained by their 8 year old son, Baldur, as he showed off his new moves from his break dancing lessons. I had just enough time in Reykjavik to enjoy the Northern European charm, walk the (what felt like) completely empty streets, eat my first seafood in months, and take advantage of Iceland's geothermal water supply to wash off 3 months of grime.

From Reykjavik I flew the suprisingly short 7 hour flight direct to Seattle, and then less than 24 hours later went right back to Seatac to fly to Phoenix for my Grandma's 90th birthday celebration. Let me tell you, seeing Mumbai, London, Reykjavik, Seattle, and Phoenix (Scottsdale no less) in a 4 day period was about as big a culture shock as I think I could get. Between the jet lag, lack of sleep, and severely changing scenery, I was actively aware of being disoriented for the first time I can think of.

My first night in Scottsdale, I had to think really hard to just keep everything straight as I reconnected with a dozen relatives I hadn't seen in years, driving past posh golf resorts on wide open, spotlessly clean streets, in the middle of the Arizona desert. This felt worlds away from being alone in the over-crowded throngs of Mumbai, to put it mildly.

The birthday party was great, and I made it back to my house in Seattle on February 17, 2010, almost exactly 5 months after I left on September 17, 2009. It was great to see my dog and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with all of my friends and family in the USA who've been following along on the adventure.

So now the "now what" part. I'm re-starting the job hunt and am still mostly looking for product management jobs in Seattle with Starbucks, REI and the like. I'm also toying with the idea of applying for the MBA Enterprise Corps (like the Peace Corps, but for MBAs). Another shift is that I'm going to be moving from my place in Greenlake at the end of the month (sold out from under me again). Finally, I just started a mountaineering course with the Boeing Alpine Society and am ramping up with Abi and Jwalant for the 2010 3 Summits for Nepal climbs.

It's great to be back, but my travel bug has only gotten worse. I don't know when, but I'm sure I'll be off on other international adventures in the future. And when I do, I'll keep you all posted on the Ed Trotting blog. Until then, thanks for reading, commenting, and staying in touch along the way!

35 Celcius to 35 Farenheit

2010-02-08T00:16:00.000-08:00

Just landed at London Heathrow and I have a 6 hour layover before continuing on to Reykjavik. It was 35 degrees Celcius in Mumbai yesterday which is 95 degrees F with lots of humidity. I mostly hopped from air conditioned coffee shop, to air conditioned restaurant, to air conditioned movie theater (saw a pretty good Bollywood flick), to air conditioned airport, but I also took a trip out to Elephanta Island and saw some pretty cool 1,000 year old caves with lots of ancient wall carvings for the Hindu God Shiva.

When the plane touched down in London at 6:30am, the temperature here was 2 degrees Celcius or 35 degrees Farenheit. It looks like Iceland will be about the same, hovering at just above freezing, day and night. Sunrise and sunset actually seem to be at pretty normal times, so really I don't think the weather in Reykjavik will seem much different from winter in Seattle.

But the big news is that I'm back in the developed world. It actually looked a little bit hairy as I was stopped in Mumbai Customs again over my first in-transit incident. If you've been reading along from the beginning, you probably remember my story about the sketchy airport guy who ran off with my passport (along with the passport from a Bangladeshi counterfeiter heading to Libya) and eventually came back with my boarding passes on to Africa and an expectation of a big tip.

Well it turns out it WAS incredibly sketchy and as I've been bouncing around the world, Mumbai Airport has been wringing their hands over what to do with me when they caught me. The first immigration official back in November was quite nice and laughed it off when I explained what happened, so I thought everything was resolved. Instead, I got pulled back into a back office again (luckily I had plenty of time to catch my 2am flight) and 5 different guys stood around talking in Hindi, coming and going, and really mostly just ignoring me for awhile. I didn't want to rock the boat, but finally asked what was going on and they gave the typical "it will be a few minutes" Indian response.

In the end everything was fine, but the incident gave even more insight for me into how I really am just on a different wavelength than the Indian thought process. All day, as I bounced around killing time, and leaving the country, I had quizical Indians question why I wanted to stay in the central area rather than by the airport, why I wanted to arrive earlier than 11pm at the airport for a 2am flight, and I really don't think the airport guys could wrap their minds around my trip (granted it is pretty random and convoluted).

More to say, but my internet time is winding down. I'll check in again next from Iceland or maybe even from America! Crazy!!!

Seriously India... why do you have to have so many assholes?

2010-02-04T02:18:00.000-08:00

After two months of (mentally if not physically) easy traveling in Nepal, it took less than 15 minutes across the border for me to be disenchanted by India all over again.

The good news is I got into India with no problems. I was worried with a new, poorly communicated rule by the Indian government that my visa would require me to wait a full 60 days before returning to India again. This would have been a problem, since my flight from Mumbai is only 50 days from when I first entered Nepal. Turns out this was a non-issue as the elderly Indian border agent sitting in a plastic chair on the side of the road barely even looked at my passport before stamping me through. It was possibly the least official border crossing I've ever seen.

The bad news is that over the course of ~20 minutes starting just before I walked across the border, I was taken for roughly $15 in three separate instances of "let's try to take advantage of the tired, nervous traveler who just wants to get home".

The first one was an honest enough mixup or maybe I'm just giving Nepali's more slack at this point. After taking the local bus from Lumbini for 25KM for 0.50 cents, I still needed to go another 5 km to get to the border. I had a quick lunch and then decided I would take one of the literally hundreds of cycle-rickshaws cruising around, rather than backtrack to find the second public bus that would cost me about 0.10 cents. The rickshaw driver spoke no english, but we pantomimed and he offered me what I thought was a fare for 30 rupees or ~0.50 cents again. This seemed about right so I agreed. At the end, I was planning on giving him a nice big tip, but when I offered him the 100 rupee note he shook his head and eventually I figured out that he was asking for 300 rupees or almost $5. This was ridiculously high, but I had bigger fish to fry at this point as I was focused on getting across the border, and again had had 99% great experiences with Nepalis so I ended up giving him 200 rupees in the end and walked away.

As I already mentioned the border crossing process was really TOO easy and I was pretty happy with myself once I got that stamp and was in India, even though the increased level of people and filth was immediately apparent. I still had one 1000 Nepali rupee note (~$14) and ended up going to a money changer who told me there was no demand for Nepali rupees and gave me a 0.5/1 exchange rate rather than the 0.625/1 rate I thought I should get. Again though, I wasn't in full India mindset and was thinking in terms of "it's only a dollar difference", rather than "hey, this guy's screwing me and this will happen over and over again, so you need to push back even for a dollar".

But neither of these two incidents phased me at all. I'm now heading home and I really don't care about a few more of these dollar here and there moments as long as I'm getting closer. The next step at this point was to take another bus (this time about $1) which would take me 3 hours to Gorakpur where I had a train reservation to Varanasi.

Now the rub here is that I tried venturing for the first time into the world of online reservations for my train tickets to Varanasi and from Varanasi to Mumbai. I wasn't really sure 100% how they worked and therefore was vulnerable when I hopped on the bus and an Indian man told me I needed to reconfirm the ticket and get a hard copy ticket since I had booked from outside of India. Having been in India for a month, this seemed entirely plausible, but my bullshit sensor was starting to tingle and I politely told him that I would do that at the train station after the bus ride. He kept hounding me and gave me just enough reason to believe that my tickets would be canceled if I didn't do this at the border that I ended up getting off the bus to investigate. Bad idea...

Worse idea was to pay for the bus ticket before hopping off the bus, with the only Indian currency I had, a 500 rupee note (~$11) that I had received from the money changer. They said they didn't have change until we were on the road (again plausible and which I have witnessed many times over my 5 months). But now I was on the hook with this bus for one ticket and 440 rupees in change.

So I get in the office and very quickly realize when the man behind the desk asks what seat I want that they're trying to provide a "service" that I will need to pay for. I brace myself for the damage hoping it's just $1-2 so I can just go, but no... they want 949 rupees ($21 or roughly 50% of what I paid for both tickets that would take me 1800KM in the highest class of service).

I balked and cried bullshit, but the bus guy was now blocking the door and very threateningly pulled the "you're in INDIA, not America" so you need to play by our rules, while the other guy also threatened to cancel my tickets and deport me to Nepal. When I asked for my money back from the bus so I could sort things out without any time pressure, the guy said my bus ticket was non-refundable and when I asked for the 440 rupees change he said they didn't have it yet and that I would need to get it once the bus got going. Both of these answers were crap, but I knew at that point that I would never see my 500 rupees again. I then asked for my e-ticket printouts from the guy at the counter who told me this was also non-refundable as he had already filled out the form and that there was a 50% cancellation charge if I wanted to completely cancel my tickets with him as my only other option.

At this point I lied and told them the 500 rupees was literally all the currency I had on me and they finally agreed saying they would call ahead and that I could pay the balance when I made it to Gorakpur. I was 99% sure this was a lie, confirmed when they didn't give me a receipt and just doodled a few notes on my printout, but again that 1% chance of causing problems with my dominoes of one more bus, two trains, and 3 flights and 55 hours in said modes of transport hardly seemed worth causing a stink over $11. When I arrived in Gorakpur and had no problem hopping on the train with my printout and no more reconfirmation, I had that 99% suspicion confirmed that I was scammed. Boo.

I did meet a very nice Slovakian couple and 3 Korean students on the bus that kept me from stewing too long in my irritation. I'm glad I met up with them (especially the very upbeat Slovakian guy Marek), because Varanasi has been more of the same. Constant battles over rickshaws, getting hotel rooms, taking a boat ride, etc. with everyone being "your friend" "you can trust" to sell you "super-duper hashhish".

And for me the bottom line is this, after having experienced the local/foreigner interactions in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Nepal over a very short period of time. One of my great joys of travel is getting to meet many different PEOPLE from all over the world. The historical, urban, natural, and religious sites are all nice enough, but ultimately I like getting insights into the way different people live. I had this in spades in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Nepal and to a lesser extent in Iceland and South Africa.

In India on the other hand, when I have opened myself up at all to interacting with any Indian in any situation, I would say that without exaggerating, 95% of the time the person is looking for an angle to (use Amy's expression) milk the cow. The other 5% of the time has been worth it I think to not fully shut myself off from any interaction with any Indian ever (although I did just that this afternoon fairly effectively). But it's trying and exhausting and forces me to play a psychological game that I hate, that I'm not good at, and that I don't want to become good at.

So I don't know where that leaves me with India. I might make it back, but frankly there are so many more countries I want to visit and so many others that I've already visited and enjoyed much more, that it's probably going to be awhile. I can't say I wasn't warned and wasn't prepared for India to be difficult, but I was hopeful that there was some magic I just didn't end up seeing and that my actual experience would captivate me in a way that just hasn't been there.

Oh well. Just 3 more days and then back one more time to a country I did love earlier on this trip (Iceland), and another one that I love despite it's own warts (USA). Only 13 more days until back in Seattle! (But who's counting?)

Winding Down

2010-01-31T19:57:00.000-08:00

I'm in southern Nepal now at Chitwan National Park where I'm going to do a walking safari this afternoon. There's a chance of getting chased by a one horned rhino, which makes me think of the movie The Fugitive. I also just had my first bad shaving/haircut experience on the trip where the barber wasn't very good, was really rough and tried to overcharge me. Boo. But I appreciate having less hair as I'm now done with the mountains and am heading towards Mumbai where it's over 90 degrees and humid right now. Between here and there I have two more stops at Lumbini (birthplace of Buddha) and Varanasi (biggest cremation site for Hindus on the Ganges river).

But really what's on my mind now is that my trip is almost over. I've spent the past three weeks doing a second trek in the mountains north of Kathmandu. It's a much less popular destination for trekking than Annapurna or Everest areas, so in 17 days I saw maybe 30 other trekkers. Lots of time to think (and walk over 200km, and gain and lose 10,000m of elevation).

I definitely could keep going with the travel, but I'm ready to come back to Seattle and start the next chapter of my life. It's been a very open-ended year, probably the most since I finished undergrad, and it will be nice to be back in a familiar place with so many people I care about.
Especially since everything else will be so up in the air with no job, no money, and shortly no house (my place is getting sold out from under me again).

I'll be back in Seattle on February 16, so see you all soon! Probably a few more posts between now and then, assuming there are no rhino related mishaps.

3 Summits of Tea

2010-01-08T00:58:00.000-08:00

I just returned from an overnight trip to Karttike Deurali, a small village 90km and a 5 hours drive east of Kathmandu, where I attended the groundbreaking for the reconstruction of the Shree Pathivara Primary School, a public K-5 school with about 100 students. As most of you know, I am a board member for a fund-raising group called 3 Summits for Nepal, and our mission is to summit prominent peaks in the Cascade Mountain range to raise funds for childrens education in Nepal. In 2009, 20 participants raised over $20,000, through successful summits of Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier in June and July. The groundbreaking ceremony, attended by 3 Summits Board Members Jwalant Gurung and myself, marks the end of our incredible 2009 year and now the local architect and builders will spend the next few months rebuilding the school!

So many of you helped out this past year, either through participating in the climbs, donating money, donating time, and through just being supportive of doing something a little bit dangerous for a good cause (thanks mom!). While it's fresh in my mind I'm going to go ahead and writeup everything I can from the two days, as a way to connect your efforts to the end result and hopefully to get past and future participants excited for our climbs in 2010.

The drive out

My friend Jeri and I were staying at the Tibet Guest House, a very friendly hotel in the south end of Thamel, Kathmandu's main tourist district. When we were awoken by our 5:15am wakeup call, it's still dark out and very quiet. Kathmandu is a crazy city, but it seems to get going late and shut down early with very little activity between 10pm and 10am.

After a quick breakfast, we hopped in our 4x4 and were taken to Jwalant's house which doubles as the office for his family trekking company, Crystal Mountain Treks. Everyone was a little bit slow to get going in the morning, so we enjoy a cup of hot tea before heading out to pick up Santa Lama (left in the black hat), our contact from the village, and Guna Lama (right in the blue down jacket), the architect for the project. After heading east past the airport, we picked up our final passenger, Lekharaj Gautam (center with the moustache), the lawyer, along the side of a road incredibly dusty from the construction of a new 6 lane Japanese designed and funded highway.

With a full jeep, we headed east for 2.5 hours, rising out of the heavy fog of the Kathmandu valley and into the foothills, with spectacular views of the Himalayas on our left as we wound through the hills, dodging motorcycles, trucks, and buses overflowing with passengers on the roof.

We arrived in Dolalghat around 10am for tea and breakfast. This is the last town of any size that we saw and the last one you'll find on google maps. It's right along a river with many restaurants named variations of "Fish House". Lots of somewhat sad looking goats, dogs, and chickens wander around by the bus station as we picked up fresh fruits and vegetables that we won't be able to get up in the village.

Once we left Dolalghat, we were on our way to Tibet if we stayed on the road, only 60km away. Instead, we immediately took a right turn and ended up on a dirt road where our 4x4 Landcruiser was definitely a necessity. On the 2.5 windy, dusty drive up, over, under, around, and through the hills, we dodged more motorcycles, trucks, and buses overflowing with passengers on the roof. Additionally, we dodged a mother and baby pig, cows, a boy with a herd of goats, loose logs, school children, and fallen power lines.

When we finally turned the 100th bend, Karttike Deurali came into view. Deurali means "Hill Pass" in Nepali and the village center is tucked away in the saddle between two hills, so the name checks out! We all hopped out of the jeep and settled in for a lunch of the Nepali staple, Dal Bhat (Lentil Rice). I don't know if it was the long drive, the excitement of being in the village, or the home cooked preparation, but I can confidently say it was my favorite Dal Bhat so far.

Karttike Deurali

According to the 2001 Nepal census, Karttike Deurali has a population of 3,214 across 533 households. 54% can read and write, another 4% can read, and 42% are illiterate. Of the 1,670 school age children in the village 65% of the girls and 82% of the boys are attending school.

I was told that a new bridge and (minor) road improvements only gave car and bus access to the village around 10 years ago. I talked to quite a few people, young and old, who seemed to have fairly good access to Kathmandu and the outside world, but pretty much everyone remembers how isolated they were not long ago. The village center has a handful of shops, a medical clinic, and a school, but that's about it.

The village does appear to be somewhat of an education center for the entire region though. Along with the Shree Pathivara Primary School, there is a secondary school being built on an outcropping above the town. A K-12 school plus 3 year University that supports over 1,000 students is also in the process of having a new building constructed.

Santa Lama

This education boom appears to be largely thanks to Santa Lama. Santa has a very interesting life story, and after growing up in the village, now owns two businesses and has a small fortune. He left Karttike Deurali when he was 17 and went to Kathmandu. He began his career as a guide and worked for Jwalant's father at Crystal Mountain Treks. After awhile, he left to start his own trekking company and once that was successful, he started a coffee company. He also has multiple properties in Kathmandu.

While Santa accomplished all of this with little education, he clearly sees the value in education and has put a lot of effort into his childhood community. He still makes the 5 hour drive each way 30 times a year to see is family and is heavily involved in all three of the school building projects in Karttike Deurali.

The Groundbreaking Ceremony

The Shree Pathivara school is about a 15 minute's walk from Karttike Deurali proper and is set on the side of a terraced hill. When we arrived, we found all the kids and teachers from the school waiting patiently under a giant bamboo constructed structure, with a table setup in our honor. We were all then given flowers and fresh yogurt, and everyone gave short (and a few long) speeches for the event. A small hole was then dug and we placed ceremonial stones on top of incense and henna to mark the start of construction.

Most of the pomp and circumstance was done for the benefit for the westerners and as the one white person in probably 50km, that mostly meant me. Santa and Guna and some random local politician who talked a loooong time seemed to enjoy the chance to pontificate, but Jwalant appeared a bit put off. I can't blame him as it WAS over the top, but I was pretty humbled by the whole experience and how it took what we're doing in Seattle and the Cascades out of the abstract and into the concrete realm.

The Kids!

After the ceremony wound down, we got to interact with the kids and the teachers a little bit. There were a lot of them, and they were understandably a bit shy and tired of sitting around in the sun for this ceremony, but I managed to talk a little bit with a few of the braver ones.

I practiced my Nepali on Bikul (left), Mila (right), and Ashmita (top), asking them Timiro Namke Ho? (what is your name). I especially liked Bikul who was clearly very smart and was a bit of a goof. He's 10 and was the only one ho was answering our questions about colors, names, and ages.

I also met the principal, Min Prashad Gautam (right), who has been teaching at the school for 17 years. There are also 4 other teachers for the school.

Meeting the Khadkas

When things broke up we returned to the "restaurant" for dinner. Rather than a restaurant, it was really the storefront of the home of Deebaki Khadka, the woman who cooked the wonderful Dal Bhat for lunch. As we all settled in to boiled potato appetizers along with some surprisingly delicious Nepali rice wine, I also picked up that she was being helped out by her 17 year old daughter Sangita, and two sons Santosh (15) and Rabin (11).

Deebaki didn't speak any English, so all of my conversation was with her three kids. Sangita (favorite sport is badminton) is studying business and is learning economics right now. She might continue on at university in the village or head to Kathmandu. Santosh (favorite sport is football) is at the same school. Rabin (favorite sport is table tennis) is already at boarding school in Kathmandu and was on holiday while we were there. They also have two older sisters, one studying in Kathmandu and the other studying in Australia. Their father was at his security job in Kathmandu, so we didn't get to meet him.

It was great watching Deebaki make dinner, as everything was done by hand, from crushing the spices, to boiling the wine, to mixing the curry. Again we had another delicious, cozy meal, with good company, a crystal clear sky outside, the stars in the sky blending with the lights from the villages dotting the far hills, and an only slightly cold temperature.

As dinner wound down, at around 9pm we were taken across the way to a large shared building up some incredibly steep stairs (really a ladder) to the third floor attic and rolled out our sleeping bags on beds surrounded by non-functional electronic scales (very random).

Meeting the Village

Over our short time in Karttike Deurali, my friend Jeri and I were definitely an attraction.Most of the youngest children and older adults avoided us, probably out of a mix of shyness and lack of english language skills, but we had lots of 15-20 year-olds who wanted to talk. As I mentioned before, this area was school central, so on multiple occasions we would be talking with one student or taking the picture of one or two friends and slowly, but surely a crowd would gather and we'd be surrounded by 25-50 kids!

The highlight was when we went to say goodbye to Sangita while she was on break during her 12th grade class. She showed us her classroom, and then when I asked her for a posed picture of her at her desk, the entire class filed in and we started talking. They were studying fixed and variable costs which Jeri and I found quite amusing as business students, but they mostly wanted to hear about how we liked Nepal and what we did while we were here.

One of the more confident, outspoken boys was named Akash (brown hat). He was home on winter break from University in Kathmandu and very much wants to come to the United States. His older cousins (I think) are already in California and he has made a few American friends in Washington D.C. and Southern California. He suprised Jeri by knowing more about Hawaii than anyone we've met so far in Nepal. His friend with the pot leaf on his hat is leaving soon for university in Kathmandu to study to be a math teacher.

The last really interesting guy I met was Madan. Madan is 19 and has a school supply shop that has now been open exactly one week. He went to school in Kathmandu, but returned to the village to start the business that he runs with his wife Sharmila, who he married 6 months ago. It's pretty amazing how much he has his life together at 19!

We ended up buying a bunch of notebooks, pens, and pencils from him for the school, helping to support his new business and the students who had to endure sitting through a 3 hour ceremony.

Heading back

The drive back to Kathmandu was uneventful if a bit dusty. I'm amazed at how quickly I connected with the community, considering we were only there less than 24 hours. While many of the people I met have no way of staying in contact, I do have a handful of e-mail addresses and phone numbers. I'm planning on staying in contact and I'm sure quite a few people in the village would love to hear from anyone who wants to send along a message. Let me know and I can pass them along.

As I mentioned before, this is the end for our 2009 climbs, but Jwalant, Abi, and I are in the process of ramping up for 2010 right now. I'll let you know once I have more details about our plans for the year, but we're doubling the climbs this year to summits of Mt. Adams, Mt. Baker, and two trips to Mt. Rainier. We haven't set a firm figure yet, but we have a few different projects we're looking at and it would be great to top $30,000 this year.

Look for more e-mails in the near future or e-mail me at eminkoff@gmail.com if you're reading this, but haven't received 3 summits correspondence in the past. Thanks for reading!

Christmas at Annapurna

2010-01-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a 17 day trek in the Annapurna Sanctuary in Nepal, which took me to the foot of one of the world's 14 8,000+ meter peaks (Annapurna I is 8,091m). I spent the trek with my dad, my Nepali/Seattle friend Jwalant, another Seattle friend Jeri, and one of Jwalant's friends, Lindsey, who's a fulbright student in Nepal from Portland.

I had a great time on the trek, and thought I'd give a brief day by day account from memory (which I've assured Jeri and Lindsey is quite excellent!) before I forget, and to give you a taste of what trekking's about.

Day 1 Kathmandu to Dhampus

We left Kathmandu early in the morning and took a domestic flight to Pokhara. It's a 25 minute flight with a spectacular view of the Himalayas or a 9 hour bus ride. I'm happy with the choice to fly. The domestic airports are tiny with lot's of unwanted helpers for your bags. Kathmandu didn't seem as chaotic as Delhi, but it's still a hectic city. Pokhara on the other hand is quite laid-back with almost no non-cow traffic at 10 in the morning. This might have had to do with the pending bandh (strike) by the Maoist group that has thrown a wrench in nepali politics for the past few years.

The first day of hiking itself was pretty easy, only hiking an hour or so. The downside is it was straight uphill which seemed to be a jolt to a few of the group. For me the bigger jolt was the whole concept of having a guide and two porters. It felt very weird having two guys smaller than me (which is hard to do) carrying 60+ lbs each and then running ahead to make sure we had tea at every stop. Our guide, Ram, was great though. He's about my dad's age and has been trekking for 30+ years. Lots of great stories from the early days before the infrastructure caught up to the interest (groups of 60+ Nepalis supporting 24 brits was the norm).

Day 2 Dhampus to Landruk

More uphill! I think I expected the trek to be entirely ice, snow, and rock, so it was nice suprise to start the walk through terraced rice and wheat fields on the sides of rolling hills along a river valley. Cows, water buffalo, and farms were dotted along the trail, with locals walking alongside the trekkers.

We had a baby goat steal the show at lunch looking for his maaaaaaa. The major peaks of the trip also broke through the clouds and made their first appearance today. The big ones that are most visible are Annapurna south at 7,200+m, Hirichuli at 6,000+ and Macchapuchre (Fishtail), the sacred peak that has never been climbed at just under 7,000 m. The big one Annapurna I is hidden behind Annapurna South.

Day 3 Landruk to Jhinu

Today paradoxically we actually headed downhill to cross the river before heading back up, before heading downhill to cross another river before heading back up again. The trails we're using are very old (hundreds of years at least), and Nepali's really seem to enjoy going in straight lines, with no switchbacks or following contours. This means lots of steep ascents and descents... on giant staircases... made of uneven stone... with lots of cow and water buffalo shit to dodge. So you really have to concentrate on where you step.

Today was another short day, so we had the afternoon to check out a nearby hot spring right on the river which was nice and relaxing and a gorgeous setting. It also started to dawn on me at this point that we were taking the super-relaxed scenic trek, only hiking 2-4 hours per day. It's good on the one hand, since we acclimatized well to the altitude and I' never got at all sore. On the other hand, I felt like I lost a few manly points by having a porter carry my gear, and by sitting around eating, drinking, and playing cards while I saw many other groups going faster while carrying heavier loads. My self-reliant streak was definitely tested by this style of travel, but it was nice and relaxing.

Day 4 Jhinu to Sinuwa

Another day of straight up, straight down, straight up. We really started to get some altitude though, spending the night around 2,000m (6,600 ft). This was about halfway to our highest elevation at Annapurna Basecamp. It started to get colder too. During the day, it was sunny and I was still hot and sweaty in shorts and a t-shirt (this is in late December). Once the sun went down though, I quickly added more and more layers, including a borrowed XL down jacket that came almost down to my knees. I had plenty of layers though, so I didn't have too many problems feeling cold. It was more of an issue of just figuring out the right combo of clothes. Cards definitely got trickier though since I've discovered they're hard to play while wearing gloves.

Day 5 Sinuwa to Dovan

The trail actually gets more level as we're hugging the contour of the river valley heading up to the basecamp. We're still gaining elevation, but it's a lot less steep and more of a slow gradual rise. We're leaving the farm country at this point and the forest feels a lot like being in the Pacific Northwest, only with fewer slugs and more bamboo. Started to see some monkeys, Himalayan Thar, and frozen waterfalls.

The food and drinks were getting more expensive too as we're past permanent settlements and everything at this point needs to carried in at regular intervals (although that's really true about everything, except power, for the entire trail). The menus are actually quite extensive, and are virtually identical at every guesthouse. The categories are basically Tea/Coffee, Soda, Rum/Whiskey, Soup, Rice, Noodles, Pizza, Spaghetti, Macaroni, Momos (Tibetan Dumplings), Spring Rolls (more like pot pies), and Porridge, Muesli, Eggs, and Bread, for breakfast. Pretty much everything had some combination of the same vegetables and eggs to go with the varied carb base.

Everyone had a different ordering style. Jwalant and Lindsey tended towards the "traditional" foods, like Dal Bhat (lentils, curry, and rice) and Tibetan Bread. My dad pretty much ordered Vegetable Soup, Vegatable momos, and lemon tea for every lunch and dinner, and banana porridge and lemon tea for every breakfast. I tried to have something from every different category to get the full Annapurna culinary experience. I think my favorite ended up being the egg, vegetable, noodle soup. I also had a few good pizzas. There were also a few places that broke the mold where I tried a veg burger (good), and I made two attempts at mexican food (bad).

Day 6 Dovan to Deurali

Christmas eve day was a very short hiking day. I think we hiked less than 2 hours and ended up at Deurali just before noon. Deurali is about the same elevation as the top of Mt. Baker and when we stopped I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. I also had my best meal of the trip, the "special mix pizza" (highly recommended!), which despite the cryptic name had a great mix of tomatoes, egg, garlic, and onions.

After lunch, I took a quick nap and woke up to MUCH colder weather and falling snow, the first on the trip. Some dutch women had speakers for their iPod and christmas music to play, so we celebrated our white christmas eve with pizza, wine, cards, and Mariah Carey and Bruce Springsteen singing X-Mas classics in the background.

Day 7 Deurali to Annapurna Base Camp to Macchapuchare Base Camp

Christmas day! The plan today was only to head another 2 hours up to Macchapuchare Base Camp (height of Mt. Adams), but Jwalant, Jeri and I decided we wanted some extra exercise and to see the top on Christmas, so we hiked all the way to the top of the trail today. This was the same elevation gain as when I've climbed Mt. Rainier, but was much easier since we spent so much time acclimatizing and weren't carrying any technical climbing gear.

The view at the top is spectacular. Annapurna Base Camp is surrounded by 6,000m+ peaks and the view is actually dominated not by Annapurna I, but by Annapurna South and Macchapuchare which are closer and stand more alone. We actually mistook Annapurna South as the tallest one so I have a ton of pictures from this day of the same mountain we saw the entire time and almost none of the 10th highest peak in the world.

Annapurna I actually doesn't even look that impressive from the base camp and is just a giant gradual hump. Maccapuchare is probably the most impressive as it comes to a knife edge and looks like an arrowhead that would be almost impossible to climb.

On the way back down, we passed a woman wearing a santa hat which I borrowed for the picture, which definitively proves I was there on christmas. :-)

Back at M.B.C. we met a couple from Seattle who were both lawyers, and who knew one of my best friends from childhood, and who had lived less than a block from me while I was on Capitol Hill. Small world.

Day 8 M.B.C to A.B.C (Part II)

Time to make the second ascent of A.B.C with the full crew. We left early on a slippery trail and worked our way up to the base camp again by 10am. The snow was perfect for writing messages, so there were messages in many languages on the sides of the trail. LOTS of Korean as apparently this is a popular trek for large Korean groups. Jeri stopped in Korea on the way to Nepal and confirmed that the whole country is in the middle of a hiking/trekking craze right now. I think my favorite trekker on the trip was a young Korean man in skinny jeans, descending from A.B.C. while looking very stylish. He might have been smoking too.

A.B.C. itself was cold, but not too bad during the day. The sun was out and we made a snowman, played volleyball with a snowball on the base camp volleyball court, and just lounged around in the sun. Once the sun set though, it got very cold and I wore every layer I had. I woke up for sunrise on the mountains and poked out through the little slit in my bundle for my eyes to take a ton of pictures, none of which will probably turn out well because of the low light.

Day 9 A.B.C. to Dovan

Heading back down. It was very cold in the morning so I started moving right away and ended up ahead of the group for most of the day. It was nice and peaceful walking completely alone for a bit, especially in the sections where the clouds were rolling out of the valley, the frost on the bamboo was starting to melt, and I could hear the frozen waterfalls beginning to break up as the sunlight hit them.

One of the highlights today was seeing a very blond, very mulletted man (think David St. Hubbins from This is Spinal Tap) round the corner, followed by his two very blond, very mulletted children.

Day 10 Dovan to Chomrong

More fun with hair at lunch today. We met a family from Holland who all had big, curly, blond dufros (dutch afros).

After the return down and up to match the one on the way over, we ended the day in Chomrong, the end of our backtracking before taking a new route the rest of the way. Chomrong is one of the larger villages in the area and we stumbled across a local festival which had something to do with Gurung New Year which is a few days before the end of December.

It was a great festival with all the ancient Gurung traditions, including volleyball (men's and women's), breakdancing, and musical chairs. The men's volleyball was actually quite impressive, especially since none of the men could have been taller than 5'6", but they were running all sorts of crazy set plays with spikes, etc.

Day 11 Chomrong to Gandruk

This was the hardest day of the trek for me since it involved a 3,000 ft drop straight down to a river (hard on the knees), followed by the reverse straight back up to another ridge (getting nice and sweaty).

At the river bed in the middle, we stopped at a really nice little village with tons of flowers (and tons of goats, but that didn't really add to the ambiance). We met a solo woman who was travelling with the first female guide I had seen. Apparently there's a trekking company called "Three Sisters" that is women owned and most of the guides are women. Seems like a great idea and I'm glad to hear they're doing well.

Day 12 Gandruk to Sayuli Bazaar

Frankly things are starting to drag today. It's Gurung New Years day in Gandruk, the largest village in the region, so we went to go see a ceremony at the buddist temple. There also was a parade with the sacred texts with about 100 people doing a loop around the village. We visited the Gurung "museum", which is a single room with some old traditional tools (no ancient volleyballs in sight though).

At this point we are only 4 hours from the trailhead, but this is getting broken up into two days. This means more sitting around and eating and drinking the same things, rehashing the same conversations with the same people, and seeing pretty much the same scenery. I'm not physically tired at all, but mentally I'm ready for a change.

Day 13 Sayuli Bazaar to Pokhara

It's pretty jarring getting back to an area with cars. The spell of walking in the mountains is broken and for the last 30 minutes of the trek we're dodging big trucks and tractors.

It turns out, yet another strike is being called for the next day, so our guide and porters are in a hurry to get back to Kathmandu. This is unfortunate, because we aren't able to have any sort of goodbye meal and the thank yous ended up rushed and awkward.

It's December 31 and they definitely celebrate New Year's eve in Nepal. All the streets are closed to traffic for a giant street fair (estimates of 500,000 visitors) with restaurants setting up roadside tables and families and balloons and toys everywhere.

We ended up going to a pretty fancy hotel to see Lindsey's friend who performs in a Nepali jazz group. There was an all you can eat spread which was pretty exciting after trekking food, but it was a pretty stayed upper-crust affair so we decided to bow out before midnight. We also were quite tired since we were consistently going to bed by 8pm.

Back at our hotel, we all shared beers and barely made it to 12:01am January 1, 2010 before heading upstairs and going to sleep.

Day 14-15 Pokhara

Pokhara is the second biggest city in Nepal (anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 people depending on who I ask), and is suprisingly warm and gets up to 70 degrees and sunny during the day. It's right on a lake with a view of the himalayas and I can see how people stay here awhile. They're famous for paragliding too.

There was a bit of a dance these two days as the 5 of us started to adjust from spending every moment together to just most moments. The past three weeks (including the one before the trek with my dad) have been an adjustment for me from the complete independence of solo travel. My dad and I took the chance to break off and spend some time together before he flew back to Seattle which was a welcome change.

Day 16-17 Pokhara to Kathmandu

We broke up the 8 hour drive back to Kathmandu by stopping in Bandipur, a small Newari village up on a hill with a spectacular view of the Himalaya. It also was the first night that had a combination of warmer weather and a clear sky so Jeri and I stayed up late and stargazed from the roof to the sounds of barking dogs, crying babies, and spitting men. That was the nice part.

The bad part was the trip was probably 3-4 days too long and I ended up snapping at Jwalant so there's some tension there now. Oops.

My takeaways from the trip are that Nepal is amazingly beautiful, not just in the mountains, but at the lower elevations as well. The people are generally very warm and a nice change from the intensity of northern India. The political situation here is pretty ridiculous with strikes called roughly every 3-5 days that shut down the whole country.

I think for my style, a fully organized trek is a bad fit. I can see the appeal for some people to have everything planned out and carried for them, but it really clashed with my sense of adventure and independence. Having said that, it was an incredible, memorable experience and was done pretty well for the style of trek that it was.

I'm in Kathmandu now and will be visiting the school from my 3 Summits fundraising work in the next two days. After that I'm going to do one more shorter trek in a less developed region north of Kathmandu, and for that one it will be just me and a guide, with no porters and no set itinerary. I'll let you know how that goes when I get back!

NEPAL

2009-12-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

Nice welcome change being in Kathmandu after leaving Delhi. Even though it's still chaotic, it's on a smaller scale and everyone has been so much more genuinely friendly. And we're surrounded by green hills and snow-capped peaks, which is pretty nice. Had a great dinner last night (legit pizza) with my friend Jwalant and then my dad I took a tour around Kathmandu today. Tomorrow, it's off to Pokhara in the morning and we should be hiking towards the Annapurna Sanctuary by the afternoon.

There will be minimal if any internet access once I head out on the trek, so the next post will probably be in 2010.

Happy new years! (and happy hannukah, merry christmas, etc...)

Travels with Marty

2009-12-14T07:19:00.000-08:00

Traveling with my dad has certainly been a change. There's been a big shift to a shortage of time (we only have 5 days in India before heading to Nepal) and less of a shortage of money. We initially tried to tackle rail tickets to see Agra and Jaipur (the other two points along with Delhi that make up the golden triangle), but despite our best efforts were tricked and worn down into signing up for a car tour through the "official government tourism office". I had read about these private tour companies masquerading as official ones, and we even escaped the first one, but I got thrown by a rail employee (or someone with a fake ID), who diverted us into the second office which looked much more official than the first.

The good news is we have a good driver, Mr. Singh, who does seem to be genuinely trying to give us a good tour (although we're still having quite a few lost in translation moments with him). We've also been able to see many, many more sites than if we had traveled in my typical self-guided style.

The bad news is paying for an expensive (by India standards) tour doesn't shield you from the same issues I highlighted two posts back. Over three days, we've still had multiple experiences of lack of hospitality, double talk, and manipulation you experience as a tourist in the major areas the vast majority of the time (your points noted, Amy :-)), and it still gets to me and slightly diminishes seeing some of these amazing places.

We're both learning what pushes our buttons (beyond each other) and one thing I've really enjoyed is experiencing the good and the bad with someone who knows me and who I know really well. We're having some great discussions.

Tomorrow, we're off to Jaipur for one last taste of Rajasthan before it's up to Nepal. Apparently there's a planned Maoist transit strike planned for our original start date of our Annapurna trek so we're pushing things up a day. It was very nice of the Maoists to let everyone know about their strike ahead of time so we can work around it. :-)

4 more weeks! 4 more weeks!

2009-12-10T02:56:00.000-08:00

So it's official. I changed my flight back to Seattle from January 8 to February 10. This will give me one more month after finishing my trek in Nepal before i return from Mumbai. Still pretty open-ended about what to do with the extra time, but I'm thinking i'll head to Darjeeling and maybe sneak into Bhutan for a day (which doesn't involve the $200 per day tourist fee).

Doesn't sound like I'm missing too much in Seattle with the current cold weather and continued crappy job market, so one more month out here was pretty much a no-brainer.

In other news, it's the 20th anniversary of the Dali Lama's nobel peace prize today so there was a big festival lots of dancing from different parts of the Himalayas. Pretty cool.

I'm leaving in 3 hours for a 12 hour overnight bus ride back to Delhi. Should be pretty brutal, but I get to see my dad on the other end (and the upgrade in accommodation that comes with it!).

Finally, it looks like my bollywood show aired last night. Here's the link:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/smallscreen/The-raaz-revealed/Article1-484683.aspx

No clue if i actually made it into the Shekhar Suman episode, but they seem to be posting tons of clips on youtube, so I might end up with some evidence before it's all through.

And I'm back...

2009-12-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

Traveling definitely has highs and lows. The last post had me at a bit of a low, feeling a bit sick, exhausted from traveling, and somewhat disillusioned by the previous three places I had visited.

From Pushkar, it took me 30 hours, one bus, two trains, one farmers' protest, bit of sniffling and coughing, and lots of crowded sitting to make it to Amristar. When I arrived at the train station there, I was pretty grouchy and the idea of wrapping up with my trip in a month was sounding pretty good.

Then, I hopped on the free shuttle to the Golden Temple with a busload of Sihk pilgrims and that all changed. I was immediately surrounded by turbaned and bearded men, singing and chanting along with the women. I arrived at the temple in the dark, and seeing a bustle of activity surrounding a lit up golden palace in the middle of a pool at 10pm felt magical.

Like eery Sikh temple, the Golden Temple provides free food and lodge for anyone who visits. What's different about the Golden Temple is the scale. 30,000 visitors come every day so the shear magnitude of the number of people sleeping in blankets on the ground, eating amazingly tasty food in the kitchen, and using the incredibly clean bathroom facilities was impressive.

I stayed in the free dorm for foriegners and spent a day and a half just wandering around, taking in the sounds of chanting, talking, praying, eating, and cleaning. The second day around 11am, I was taking a picture of myself when a young Indian man offered to take my picture. Afterwords we started talking, and slowly 17 other young men joined him. It turns out they were the graduating class in Civil Engineering from the IIT campus outside of Delhi and were on holiday after finishing exams.

I ended up spending the rest of the day with them and the two Spanish girls I was sharing my dorm room with. We went to the Pakistan border and saw the nightly ceremony where the border guards on both sides dance and march around, before closing the border. Then we went to the craziest Hindu Temple I have ever seen that felt like a funhouse at an amusement park.

From Amristar I headed to McLeod Ganj (where I am now), which is the home of the Dali Lama and the Tibetan Govt in exile for the past 50 years. It's at the base of a 15,000ft mountain at the edge of the himalayas, so I'm getting to enjoy some hiking and amazing views to go with my chai and chapati. Yesterday, I hiked up to 10,000 ft with a few other travelers and a street dog who apparently hikes the trail every day. We fed her well, so she's onto something.

I'm heading to Delhi in two days to meet my dad and then after a week of showing him around, it's up to Nepal! Definitely feeling much better about health, travel, the people, and India in general right now, and I'm 99% sure I'm going to change my flights tomorrow to extend the trip into February. I'll keep you posted (if anyone is even still reading this. not getting as much feedback anymore, so not really sure).

Good intentions gone wrong (or Kaiser Soze the Camel Driver)

2009-12-02T01:17:00.000-08:00

After reluctantly leaving Udaipur to explore other parts of India, I arrived in Jaisalmer, in the far west of the country near the Pakistan border. The town is in the Great Thar desert, with all the buildings made of sandstone and a giant sandstone fort in the middle. It looks like a sand castle.

When I hopped off the bus, I was greeted by a man who said he was the brother of the owner from the place we had stayed in Udaipur. Baba (the guy in Udaipur) had recommended his guesthouse before we left and had arranged for the free jeep ride to his hotel. I'd had a great experience in Udaipur, so I took the offered ride and was taken to a crappy guesthouse inside the fort. This is a big no-no since the fort is crumbling from water use in the fort. The room was cheap though, and I still had built up goodwill from the past experience so decided to stay for the night. I ended up booking a camel safari through them too, which ended up being a big mistake because they overcharged me despite being referred by his brother and switched us to a pretty crappy camel guide. So if you're ever in Jaisalmer, don't stay at the Himalaya!

India is fairly taxing that way. I feel much more than my experience in Africa that the vast majority of interactions end up in someone trying to play you for being a tourist. It's throwing me off since I had so many great connections in Africa, but I really have to be on guard with everyone, whether it's men, women, kids, well dressed or not, good english or not. I have met a handful of people who just wanted to talk, so it's not universal, but I've had many more interactions where I feel like my giving people the benefit of the doubt ends in someone pulling something on me in the end and I'm stuck having paid too much or paying for something I don't want.

To that end, I'm trying out a new tactic to help me be more of a ruthless bargainer (which really doesn't come naturally to me, especially over $0.50 or $5.00). Instead of taking the mindset of accepting a price or half-heartedly bargaining, thinking that it's still cheap and I'm helping someone out who's in worse shape than me, I'm going to start keeping a tally of how much I can bargain people down over the rest of the trip and take that amount at the end and donate it to a school or some other non-profit in the country. I'm really just getting tired of being screwed over, even if it is for small amounts and want my buying power to benefit groups who truely need it and use the money appropriatly, rather than a random shopkeeper, guesthouse owner, rickshaw driver, or beggar who is trying to manipulate me. I'm already up to 340 rupees (~$7) and I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Which brings me to Kaiser Soze. My camel guide, Ishmael told my group a story about an American couple who had given him 60,000 rupees to help buy 3 of his his own camels (for 120,000 RP total) to get out of the corrupt system where the guesthouses and camel bosses make all the money. He ended up taking out a loan, thinking he'd have plenty of business and could pay off the 70,000 he owed in 5 months. But once the guest houses and camel bosses caught wind of his new purchases, they shut him out, only giving him business when every other guide was taken. Now he's only 3 months away from his loan coming due, and hasn't been able to put any money towards paying down his debt.

This all sounds plausible, and was clearly meant to get the rich American, Australian, Frenchman, and Dutch woman to open up our bank accounts to help him out. The problem is that he didn't come across as particularily charismatic, competent or a good investment. By the time the two day trip was over, we had all decided that either he was a genius for coming up with the story and/or getting ~$1500 out of one couple, or was a horrible naive, idiot.

Still not sure, but if the story is true he's in trouble. There is no way he can pay off his debt without some serious help and if he defaults he has lost his camels and probably will never be fully rehired in the system. On the other hand, if he made it up and tells the story to everyone he takes on these trips (who aren't MBAs or working in microfinance) he'll probably get a few "tips" much larger than the $4 we each gave him.

The safari itself was so-so. I had the bad taste in my mouth from my guide and the guesthouse on the one hand. And the desert was dotted with power lines and wind farms. And I got a cold from the dust and dry weather. On the other hand, I got to dress up like Lawerence of Arabia, ride a camel, and sleep under the stars.

Now I'm on to Pushkar, nursing my cold and continuing to enjoy taking in India, the good and the bad, as we enter December!

Starting to get it

2009-11-27T03:23:00.000-08:00

I'll readily admit that India was never at the top of the list of places I had to visit in the world. I really don't like hot weather, am not particularly spiritual or into yoga, and I don't even love Indian food all that much. Coming to India was mostly because I was already going to Nepal, and it's on the way. I did come in with an open mind and didn't know what to expect.

My first few stops in Mumbai and Ahmnebad confirmed that India would be ok, but maybe not a favorite. Mumbai was hot, humid, and really just a massive city. Interesting, but not a place I was drawn to stay for an extended period. Ahmnebad was a smaller city, but was very overcrowded and polluted. Interesting for a day, but that's about it.

And then I made it to Udaipur. Udaipur is a small city of ~100,000 on a lake up north in Rajisthan. It's quieter than I thought was possible in India, is in a beautiful valley surrounded by hills, is dry and warm, and is very cheap. Of all the places I've been so far... in India, Africa, Iceland... this is the first where I could easily see spending months rather than days.

Having said that, I want to see more than just a few places, so I'm moving on, heading up to the desert near Jaisalmer. This is the "golden city" with a giant sandstone fort and camel safari's into the desert. I'm sad to leave Udaipur, but am looking forward to finding more amazing Indian settings.

INDIA

2009-11-22T23:21:00.000-08:00

So far India is both manageable and overwhelming at the same time. Mumbai isn't that hot, but it's still hot; it isn't as crowded and crazy as I expected, but it's still crowded and crazy; and it isn't as cheap as I expected, but it's still cheap.

I spent yesterday as an extra in a bollywood production, which was a period piece set in 1850s England. It mostly involved a lot of walking in heavy clothing sweating in the background. But it was a fun experience to see how they filmed. And I met some interesting people.

I've also just wandered around the city, taking in the sights. I think I had such a vivid picture of what I expected, that seeing people, cats, dogs, goats, cows, taxis, scooters, filth, food, garbage, everywhere isn't really fazing me.

I am finding it more difficult to navigate, but I think a lot of that is arriving in the biggest city and it will just take a few days to get in a rhythm like I had in Africa by the end.

One of the stranger things that has happened so far is wandering into a "bar" for happy hour in an area of town where every shop sells auto parts and finding about 10 men or so sitting on couches along the wall with an equal number of women standing in the middle. Every once in awhile the men would make a big gesture of giving a woman a 20 rupee note (about $0.50). At first I thought the whole setup was something like an Indian strip club, but the women were all dressed very normally and didn't seem to do anything other than just stand in the middle. I tried to get someone to explain the setup, but no one spoke more than a few words of English. Later, another traveler who had been to a similar club in a higher rent part of town explained that it's just a way for Indians to feel rich by throwing around a bunch of small money. I just happened to see it when the place was completely dead so it seemed extra strange.

I also passed through Dubai on the way to India which was interesting in it's own way, but it really does feel like the whole city is still one big construction site dotted with malls and skyscrapers. One day was enough for me.

Tonight, I'm heading up north and will spend some time in Rajasthan (change of plans from the inital idea to head south) and then I'll figure it out from there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since last time...

2009-11-18T01:50:00.000-08:00

Walk in the park. Aggressive beggar. Walk to the water. Another aggressive beggar. Out for drinks. Heading East. Penguins! Whales! Mojitos! Bike ride. Microbrewery. Surfing. Wind. South Africa vs. Japan Football. Drinks with a local. Fly back to Cape Town. Rent a car. Diving with Sharks! Southern Tip of Africa. Wine Country. Hang out with some college students. Wine tasting. Cape of Good Hope. Back in Cape Town. Internet...

Off to India (by way of Dubai)! I'll check in from the new continent.

7,000 KM Later...

2009-11-10T03:32:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the wait. It's been a busy week. My last post was just as I was about to enter Zimbabwe. I'm now 3,000 KM and two countries away in Cape Town, South Africa. Overall, I covered more than 4,000 miles (7,000 KM) in the past month and a half, from Western Kenya to the southwestern tip of South Africa and I'm now at just about half time on my trip. I'm spending about 9 days in Cape Town and the surrounding area before it's off to a new continent with India and Nepal (and a stopover in Dubai).

So starting with Zimbabwe... Before entering Zimbabwe, I'd heard everything from great place to visit to avoid it like the plague (or malaria). I decided to give it a try, mostly because the route through Zimbabwe and eastern South Africa sounded more palatable in my timeframe than Botswana or Namibia which would have involved much more long distance bus rides. This way had one bad stretch on the bus, but otherwise I got to ride (fairly) comfortable trains.

Victoria Falls and the Zambezi river creates the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, so going from one country to the other was actually as easy as walking across a bridge. I took a mini-bus from Livingstone in Zambia 10KM to the border, then walked into Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. The difference between the two sides of the falls is pretty staggering and immediate. The Zimbabwe side was built entirely as a tourist town, and wasn't an actual functioning city before tourism grew. Because of that, it's a virtual ghost town since so few people visit Zimbabwe right now. Most shops are closed, those that are open are ridiculously expensive, and the hawkers and touts on the street hound the few tourists quite a bit since there are so few to go after, with more desperation than I saw in the other places I visited. It was a strange place to be, with very few solo travellers. The other tourists I saw were all in big groups specifically to see the falls and leave since the main falls are only viewable from Zimbabwe.

I visited the falls and saw my first rhino up close on a night safari and then was ready to head south. I took the train down to Bulawayo which is the second largest city in Zimbabwe. This train wasn't nearly as well maintained as the one from Tanzania to Zambia, but it was a cool old british train with wood panelling. I enjoyed it even if the light didn't work and I spent the first 10 hours of the ride in the dark (I was sleeping mostly so it wasn't a big deal).

I also met Winn on the train, a fellow American who has visited over 100 countries at the old age of 23. We hung out together in Bulawayo before taking the bus down to Johannesburg after a day and a half. And let me tell you, there isn't much to do in Bulawayo. At first I thought Bulawayo was the victim of Zimbabwe's economy which now has the lowest GDP in the world with the average citizen making ~$300 in an entire year. But the more I talked to people, it sounds like Bulawayo has just always been a lazy town even with a metro area of a bout 1 million. We ended up mostly just wandering around and watched a double feature at the only movie theater in town for $1.50. The movies were "10,000BC" and "Never Give Up", both amazing American exports. I don't know why, but it seems like only the crappiest American movies make it to Africa.

The only bus from Bulawayo to Jo-burg was a 15 hour "Quantum" which was a supposedly luxury 13 seater bus for $40. As far as I can tell, the only luxury was the complimentary can of coke we were given before boarding. The driver was very enthusiastic, but did the typical African thing of waiting to leave until he could fill the bus, meaning we left an hour and a half late. He then played Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes" on repeat and on full volume for hours at a time before doing the same with 3-4 other African songs. When we hit the Zimbabwe-South Africa border, we stood in line for 4 hours from 9pm to 1am as the South African immigration weeded through the various Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, etc. nationals trying to enter the country. I was given a hard time for having over the counter medication because apparently you aren't supposed to enter South Africa with Immodium and Claritin.

I arrived in Jo-burg, exhausted and sleepless at about 7am with Paul Simon ringing in my ears. Winn decided to power through and hopped on the next bus down to Lesotho. I had initially thought of joining him, but decided I would rather recharge and check out Johannesburg. I accomplished the first part, staying at a backpackers in the suburbs near a tiny chinatown.

I was thoroughly defeated by the second part though, since Jo-burg is built for cars even more than Los Angeles and I was car-less. I wanted to check out the Apartheid Museum, but was told that a taxi was $20 each way and taking any other form of transit meant an instant mugging. So I just relaxed and waited for my train to Cape Town leaving the next morning.

The South African train felt downright luxurious compared to every other form of travel I'd been on, but the other South Africans on the train all felt it was rundown. South Africa is very strange in that it feels very American in some ways, but the social issues are really much worse. Maybe it's like America in the 1960s? Unemployment is 25%+, HIV infection is about the same, and there is still lots of fallout from people being lumped as "whities", "darkies", and "coloured". Everywhere nice has electric fences and there are still townships and shanty towns behind the western, developed front in both Johannesburg and Cape Town. I had a few good conversations on the train with my coach-mates one an older white history professor from the east and the other a younger "coloured" Malay from Cape Town.

Now that I'm in Cape Town I'm reminded a lot of home, both Seattle and California. It's green, cool, and the part of town I'm in is really trendy with coffee shops, sushi, and internet cafes everywhere. I even finally found an internet connection fast enough to upload my pictures, so you'll see a bunch of those here and on facebook!

Also like Seattle, the weather is a bit cloudy and rainy, so I'm keeping my itinerary flexible and weather dependent. I'm hoping to see some penguins, dive with sharks, climb table mountain, and taste some wine in the next few days. Yay!

$1,000,000,000,000,000 Zim = $5 US

2009-11-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

I'm just about to leave the Zambian side of Victoria Falls for the Zimbabwe side. You literally walk over a bridge across the Zambezi to cross the border. Pretty cool.

Victoria Falls is pretty impressive. It's the end of the dry season so the water is very low, but it's massive. It also means the rafting is at it's best so I went on a 25 km trip from the foot of the falls through multiple class 5 rapids. It was my first time rafting and was awesome! And I'm fried again.

I also ended up celebrating halloween with some people from the hostel. I was a ninja wearing my black long underwear, a borrowed black women's blouse, and my black buff that I used to cover my face. It was actually lot of fun seeing everyone's jury-rigged costumes.

And about the Zimbabwe exchange rate. I bought twenty $50 trillion bills for $5 US. The currency is basically worthless and they are tied to the dollar now. But I'll have some presents for anyone who wants to be a trillionaire when I get home!

Lusaka is Cool

2009-10-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

It's still hot in the capital of Zambia, but I really like the city. Even though it's the dry season, lots of green trees and it's very laid back for an African Capital city. It's also hard to pinpoint, but Zambia seems like it's in much better shape than Tanzania and Kenya. On the 3 hour bus ride from the end of the train line to Lusaka, we saw plenty of "modern" farms with tractors, irrigation, big sprinklers, etc. In the city, there are trash cans and it's much cleaner, there are more nice cars, and the infrastructure is in pretty good shape.

And probably the biggest thing I've noticed is the people themselves. Zambians across the board just look healthier, wealthier, (and really much more attractive), than in Tanzania and Kenya. There are still some beggars and poverty, but overall I could see enjoying living in Lusaka other than how hot it is. At least we have a pool at the hostel.

Back-tracking a few days I also have very good things to say about the train ride from Tanzania to Zambia. It was about 2,000km and took about 45 hours (only 5 hours late!), but was a very relaxing way to travel such a big distance. It was nice being able to slowly see the transition from coastal palms, to the savanah of central tanzania, to the green forests of Zambia. We also had constant visitors of excited children and men and women selling goods to the train as the twice a week passing was THE event for every village we passed. The children all really wanted empty water bottles for some reason.

I also had good company, sharing my 4 bed berth with a Norwegian 20 year old, an Irish 27 year old, and briefly a Swiss couple who were dropped off in the middle of nowhere in the middle ofthe night and who were hoepfully picked up for a safari. There also was a Zambian man who came in with some random packages from 3:30-5:30am on the second night before getting off the train which was a bit sketchy. The Tanzanian immigration officer also quized me on business terms (venture capital, cartels, monopolies) to prove I really was a business student like I said (I passed).

The highlight of the trip though might have been talking for about an hour with a Tanzanian man who had been working on the railroad since 1972 (the train route we were on was finished in 1975). He's now instructing train drivers and was a driver himself before that. He had some great stories, including one about a train we saw that had crashed off the end of a track. Apparently a driver in training made a horrible mistake and drove the train off an emergency stopping track at the end of a hill. I have a great picture of it for when I get back.

I spent today wandering around Lusaka with the Norwegian (Ole), and we were stopped by the police (probably). They demanded to see our passports saying there was a problem of people staying in the country without visas. But when we asked for their IDs they told us they didn't have any. The only ID they had was the police outfits they were wearing! Fortunately they didn't ask for any money or cause any problems, even though Ole had left his passport at the hostel. So I'm thinking they were legit.

We also stopped by an education/soccer academy for youth where Ole is planning on volunteering. A team from this group had come to Norway in 2003 when Ole was 14 and both the 14 year old Zambian team and 14 year old Norwegian team he was on played in a big tournament. It was pretty cool seeing them exchange stories from 6 years ago and there's even a picture with Ole up on the wall.

Zambians definitely seem to be doing something right and my first impression is pretty positive. Lots of good energy so far. We'll see if I get the same feeling in Livingstone and Victoria Falls or if things descend back into everyone trying to take advantage of the western tourists. Either way I really enjoy getting these stops at cities that aren't big tourist stops since I think I'm getting a much better view here of everyday life, even if the sites aren't as impressive.

Off to Zambia

2009-10-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up my adventure in Tanzania and will be taking the TAZARA (Tanzania and Zambia Railway Authority) train into Zambia tomorrow. I got fried on the beaches in northern and eastern Zanzibar (Kendwa and Matemwe), went snorkeling today and took open air Dala Dalas (mini-buses) inbetween. I keep hitting up against how expensive it is to travel here. I was shocked that a simple meal of fresh fish and rice cost $7 even though all the ingredients were right there. It tasted really good at least.

I also have to tell about a brief fling I had with a girl from Stone Town. I normally keep my love life pretty close to the chest, but this is a good travel story and I'll keep it PG.

The first day I arrived in Stone Town and I let myself get lost in the narrow streets and stumbled across one of the many small restaurants tucked away in back alleys and corners. I gave the characteristic welcome "Jambo!" as I walked by to the man and woman sitting in the shade, and kept on walking. Then, I decided that I was hot and could use a coke so I backtracked and stepped in.

The man, Mohammed (one of the hundreds I met in Zanzibar. Another side note is that Eddie is the nickname for Mohammed here so I met lots of Eddies too) spoke some broken English and the woman, Meriam, spoke almost none. I talked with Mohammed a bit and gathered that he actually worked at a different restaurant, but that Meriam was a great cook and that I should come back for dinner the next day. I agreed to come back after my spice tour at 6pm for Biryani which is one of the most popular dishes in Zanzibar (this is revisionist because I had no idea what I was getting when I agreed to come back because of the communication problems).

So the next day, I went on my spice tour which was pretty interesting, if hot and muggy and rainy. It was cool seeing the plants for ginger, vanilla, cinnamon, etc. I got back to town around 4pm and promptly ran into a Belgium couple who I had met earlier in Kenya. I suggested they join me, along with a pair of french students they had met and we all decided to find the restaurant again. Unfortunately, they had all just arrived and were trying to find a hotel as well, so by the time we had had a beer and they had found a hotel, we didn't make it to the restaurant until 7pm. Meriam and Mohammed were nowhere to be found. I felt pretty bad about this, but the 5 of us found another place to eat and then found a cool place to listen to some local Taarab music.

The next day, I had a whole day to kill because I had arranged to get a ride up north with Kathryn, a friend of a friend doing Marine Biology conservation on a coral reef (it's a tough life. She and her husband just moved from doing the same thing in the Caribbean). The rub was that the ride was at 5pm. I had already wandered around Stone Town quite a bit, so I was at a bit of a loss of things to do, especially since it was so hot. After sitting in one of the parks at the beach and chatting with multiple guys who were half nice, half looking for me to give them money or at least use them to book a tour, I decided to wander back by the restaurant and try to find Meriam.

I eventually made it back after getting lost in the streets again (it's REALLY easy to do), and sat down for another coke. I asked for Maria (which is what I thought her name was), and the four or so people sitting in the back watching movies eventually figured out what I was asking about. Meriam came down and told me "Hakuna Matata" (yes they actually say that) and then went into the back. I wasn't sure if she was just saying it's ok, but it turns out she was heating up the meal that she still had.

And it was really good! Probably the best meal I've had so far as far as having flavor and well cooked chicken. So I finished my giant meal, which was strange to eat at lunch since generally I've followed the trend here of really light lunches and big dinners.

As I was eating, what seemed like 20 different people, including 3 babies, were coming and going from the back, none of them speaking more than a few words of english. Then a younger woman came and sat down who actually did speak english. Her name was Tuma (short for Fatma) and she was pretty, if way too thin, and really looked about 18. She told me she was actually 23 and that two of the children were hers.

She invited me to come watch movies in the back with what turned out to be her brothers and sisters and I watched Mission Impossible with them. I told her I was heading up to Kendwa and she promptly invited herself. :-) I would have shut this down (I even told her I wasn't looking for a Zanzibar girlfriend), but the alternative was 3 days alone on the beach and I was paying for the room either way so I decided to say screw it and have her come along.

At this point, I was warming up to her. She seemed really kind, intelligent, and much more well spoken than a lot of the people I have met so far in Africa. It turns out she went to University in Dar Es Salaam which is a big deal, even though she didn't finish. It also turns out her two children are from an Italian ex who dumped her when she was pregnant. It also turns out that she's muslim and has to wear a bhurka out in public which was a little weird for me being Jewish, but again I was just rolling with it.

So we get up to Kendwa and have a good time at first, but then things start coming apart. It turns out she's a bit of a princess. Complaining about the food, being catty about how ugly all the white women are, and then not wanting to be on the beach and hanging out in the reception area the whole time back up on the hill with the staff. It also turns out she never told her italian boyfriend she was pregnant so he doesn't even know he has children.

I also could never get past thinking about STDs (especially HIV), how I was leaving in a few days, and honestly about making sure she didn't take advantage of me (too much) on money. So the romance never really blossomed. On the one hand she said she really liked me, taught me some swahili, we had some good talks, and we did mess around a little, but on the other hand she talked about how much everyone threw themselves at her and I think she was used to getting what she wanted through her looks, so some of her comments rang hollow. I'm also pretty sure she stole 20,000 TSH (~$15) from me, but she spent most of it on food that we shared so I'm not too crushed.

After two days she said she missed her children and needed to go back to town to see them. She got a ride from a young staffmember at the hotel she had been talking with a lot (yet another Mohammed) and said she'd be back later in the evening. She never came back that night but still had some clothes left behind, so I'm not sure what the story was. I didn't feel like waiting around in the morning so I figured it was as good a time as any to make an exit and a clean break. Hopefully she and Mohammed hit it off, although I'm guessing she's going to keep fishing for European/American boyfriends.

So I left Kendwa and went to Matemwe on my own and am now back as a solo traveller. No real moral to the story other than how easy it is for a random decision to stop into a hole-in-the-wall restaurant can turn into a whole chain of events. Hakuna Matata!

More pictures!

2009-10-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

It isn't pretty, but here are a few more pictures I managed to upload (very slowly).

The first is the 15 minutes that Mt. Kilimanjaro emerged from the clouds in Moshi. I didn't climb it, but made it to the Machame and Marangu villages at two different starting points for routes up the mountain.

The second is Kendwa beach at the northern end of Zanzibar. It was a gorgeous beach, but as you can see the weather was a bit cloudy. Still a nice day and a half of relaxing.

The third picture is of a pride of lions eating a Buffalo in Serengeti National Park. We saw them the first morning after they had just killed the buffalo the night before. We came to the same spot about 24 hours later and it was almost completely gone, eaten by about 8 lions.

The last picture is at our campsite at Ngorogoro Crater. Apparently elephants come all the time to drink the water (maybe the same one?). This was actually in the morning. The night before an elephant came to another water source with a spigot and actually turned on the water with his trunk. It was completely ridiculous and I'm still half convinced the whole thing was animatronic.

I wish I could post more, but getting these four up took ~45 minutes. There will be plenty when I get back.

Dar Es Salaam is hot + more "African" music

2009-10-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

When I was leaving Moshi I tried to figure out how to take a flight down to Zanizbar and Dar Es Salaam since it was only ~$80 more than taking a bus and two ferries, but 12 hours less travel time. I was thwarted though when the Air Tanzania office system was down and they couldn't figure out for the life of them how to figure out my fare by handbook and phone (again, welcome to Africa). 30 minutes later with no progress and I changed plans to the 8 hour Dar Express bus heading from Moshi to Dar.

The bus down was interesting seeing the transition from the dry dry dry north to the lush tropical coast. Once you leave the cities, you quickly see the true poverty with lots of tin and earth shacks, chickens, gross water, and tattered clothes. Overall though, the people were smiling and just hanging out, children playing, etc. It's poor, but Tanzanians do seem universally upbeat.

I arrived in Dar late at night and thought I was getting dropped off close to my hotel, but was instead 8km outside of town. I sprung for my first taxi and arrived at the Safari Inn which seemed really shady in the dark. Turned out it was great and in a very central location, but still suffered from long power outages (As does all of Dar Es Salaam).

The next day I wandered around town and sweated bullets. Those who know me know that I "run hot", and basically sweat if I'm at all active even in cold weather, so I thought it was just me, but around early afternoon I saw a thermometer that said it was 35 degrees C (95 F) and it was definitely humid. So yes it was very hot.

Other than that, I really liked Dar. Very laid back for a city of 3 million. Also many more muslims than up north.

The next day, I was able to get in touch with Christen, a friend of my friend Maryann from B-school. She's working with the CDC on HIV-AIDS in Tanzania after having spent much time in Mozambique and Zambia with Peace corps. Very cool girl (even if she's a CAL grad!).

So Christen and I wandered around and went to the national museum (both interesting and pathetically underdeveloped), then the fish market. After that, I went to Mzungu ex-pat land to see the nice part of town (again a first since arriving in Africa). It's very nice where all the foreigners live and actually reminded me of Sea Port Village in San Diego. Having said that, the infrarstructure still is horrible with dirt roads and power losses just as much.

Christen also told me the housing is just as expensive as in a big city in the US, but with no apartment options. She's spending over $2000 on a 3 bedroom (covered by her CDC stipend). The economics here are still weird, and sad.

The next day I took the ferry to Zanzibar. It's two hours and they showed 3 movies. The tail end of GI Joe, Dennis the Menace, and Home Alone 2: Lost in NEw York. I opted to stay up top and watch the Dhows (sail boats) pass by.

When we arrived in Stone Town, I quickly realized that Zanzibar is everything I've missed in other "tropical paradises". Where Hawaii, Costa Rica, and Bali have been underwhelming for me in terms of my expectations, Zanzibar has everything with white sands, clear waters, tropical fruits, seafood, laid back culture, etc. etc.

I went on a spice tour today and saw where lots of spices come from. Then went swimming. Finally arrived back in town and ran into the belgium couple I had met at Lake Naivasha. I'm going to dinner with them and some french guys they had met, then will be heading up north.

It looks like I'm going to be able to get in touch with Karlyn, another friend of a friend who will give me a ride up to Ningwa and Kendwa beach (look it up :-)). That's about all for now, and I probably won't post again until I'm back in Stone town in 3 days or so.

Also, Stone Town is the hometown of Freddie Mercury, so I'm listening to a lot of Queen now.

Short Stories from Moshi

2009-10-20T00:33:00.000-07:00

I've had a few interesting experiences the past 4 days or so, and wanted to capture them briefly, mostly so I remember, but also to give anyone reading a sense of where I am.

The Haircut

I brought some hair clippers with me, but they don't work on 220v power, so right now they're useless with a dead battery. I was getting pretty shaggy, so I looked for a barber in Moshi. Lots of salons everywhere, but I couldn't find a place to get a men's haircut. I eventually noticed "Monte Negro Barber Shop" and went into a back alley to check it out.

I waited my turn after a muslim man who was getting a haircut and beard trim. He and his brother were talking to the barber about selling their car. The price they were going for was $19,000 dollars for a used volvo! Yikes, cars are expensive here. To contrast that, when it was my turn, the haircut and beard trim cost ~$0.75 each.

The barber had been cutting hair for 19 years and said he was 39, but looked about 29. We talked about football. Everyone loves either Arsenal, Manchester United, or Chelsea. I need to brush up on my English Premier League to be able to talk sports here.

So this very basic haircut, all with clippers, turned out well, but took about an hour. The barber was very exacting. Much better for the heat of Tanzania!

The Indian Tanzanian

My friend David was looking all over Moshi for Kangas (big decorated cloths that are used by Tanzanian women for everything from dresses, to hats, to baby slings, etc.). One shop was run by an Islamic Indian man who spoke British English and I assumed had emmigrated to Tanzania. Turns out he was born and raised in Moshi, and had only spent his University years in India in a college town called Pune (outside of Mumbai).

One of my fellow interns at T-Mobile had family in Pune, and had told me about it, so I knew a bit and he was very excited by that. We talked quite a bit about how he identified more as a Tanzanian than Indian, but his children still only married other Muslim Indian Tanzanians. We also talked about red light districts in Bangalore and Pune when he was in University in the '70s. :-)

Edward the Loan Officer

When visiting the small village of Machame, I met another Edward, who organized loans for the village.

I asked him about terms and they were esentially 33% down for collatoral, and 10% rate on a loan to be repaid in 4 months (~30% APR). These loans were for roughly $100-$1000. I can see why microfinance is needed in these communities!

The Park Rangers

I met two Kilimanjaro park rangers on the Dala Dala back from Marangu. We had a beer in their village and they told me they only make $250 a month. I wonder where all the high park fees actually go?

It's the Circle of Life!!!

2009-10-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

The safari was pretty damn cool. I joined a group of four with an Austrian couple and a Spanish guy also travelling solo, and we went to Tarangine, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater for 5 days. As many of you know, The Lion King is one of my favorite movies, so to see Simba, Mufasa, Pumba, Timon, Rafiki, etc in the wild is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Some top highlights off the top of my head:

-A giant male elephant coming into camp, turning on the water faucet and drinking for a good 30 minutes
-A pride of lions eating a buffalo they killed in less than 24 hours
-A herd of elephants scaring off a pride of lions with an amazing sunset in the background
-Lions hunting warthogs
-A giraffe eating 10 feet away from our car
-Hippo fight!

I tried and failed to upload some pictures, so that will have to wait.

After the safari, I continued on to Moshi which is the town at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro with David (the Spanish guy from the Safari). It is clouded in 99% of the time, but I finally saw the summit for about 15 minutes this morning. Honestly, I'm not that drawn to climb it, mostly because it's pricey and I think a lot of what I enjoy about mountain climbing is the shared accomplishment. Doing it alone just doesn't have that much appeal.

I'm spending one more day hiking around at the base of Kili today, then it's off to the coast for Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar.

Also, one last comment on "African" songs stuck in my head. As I expected, Circle of Life and Toto's Africa were stuck in my head the entire safari. An unexpected addition though was "All Night Long" by Lionel Ritchie. "Jambo" is Swahili for hello, so I have that one section of the song with "Jambo Jambo" stuck in my head all the time. Also, Becca will appreciate that Kenyans and Tanzanians love Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.

DEFINITELY in Africa (Part II)

2009-10-10T05:44:00.000-07:00

Continuing the story from getting sick in Kisumu...

So now I'm sick to my stomach, in a part of town I don't know because I was brought there in the dark and all I want is a nice clean room and a hot shower. I took a few immodium and actually felt much better, but decided a 7 hour bus ride to Kampala was a horrible idea.

So I looked up places to stay in Kisumu and chose one that had glowing reviews in Lonely Planet. Didn't see a trace of the "warm, inviting atmosphere" when I got there, but maybe that's because the whole place was under construction. I didn't care though. The "hot showers" also weren't there, but I'd gotten pretty used to that too. The bed was comfy enough and I managed to sleep, eat, and drink enough to recharge.

The next day I felt better, but wasn't too keen on continuing to venture north when I'm ultimately trying to head south. So I decided to take the bus back to Nairobi. This was also a 7 hour bus ride, but at least it was heading back into familar territory.

I made it back to Nairobi fairly uneventfully, and when I showed up unannounced at Phil and Felix's house at dusk, I was pleasantly suprised to see Phil leaving the house. The unpleasant suprise was that the hadn't had power for 3 days (which also meant no water).

So frustrated at being thwarted yet again for a hot shower, I dropped off my smaller travel bag in the back room I was staying in, to find the stuff I had left semi-scattered around and a puppy under the bed.

The bag rummaging wasn't the dog, and wasn't one of the family members trying to steal anything, but was actually the handy work of Kepi and Tekla, the two little girls! It's my own fault for not leaving everything in Phil's room, but I had assumed that room wasn't being used by anyone but me. Lesson learned. It looks like the big victim was my iphone which I wasn't able to track down, but hopefully is hiding somewhere in the house. I'm also now missing my chapstick, nail clippers, and labels on all my perscription meds that I know of. Nothing show stopping, but still a pain.

After cleaning up that mess (in the dark), Phil and I headed to the corner "bar" which was really just a cement room with booze a half block away. Phil finally convinced me to try Senator beer (named after Obama), which is roughly 50 cents for a 500ml and tastes as much. We drank in the dark by candlelight and met a Kenyan named Duncan who had just moved to the neighborhood from working in Chennai, India for 6 years. He also has an uncle who works at Seattle University. The world felt very small.

The next day, I left in the dark again at 5am to head downtown to catch a bus to Arusha, Tanzania that left at 6:30. At this point, I was honestly ready to get to a new country, frustrated by the lack of power and water, getting sick and the loss of the iphone.

The rude awakening occured when I got on the bus headed to Tanzania and had one of the bumpiest, dustiest bus rides of my life for 6 hours on the main "highway" from Nairobi to Tanzania. Some of it was construction, but a lot was just bad road.

Arusha was equally shocking, since it's the gateway where all the safaris and kilimanjaro trips are booked. You very quickly learn to ignore everyone and not even look at them to avoid being swarmed by touts trying to sell you something. It's depressing and frustrating that it pretty much makes it impossible to see Arusha as a real city if you're a tourist.

So now I get to the hostel... and guess what... No electricity of hot water! Ugh. Fortunately, this one was short lived (which is why I've been able to send these last two posts), but so far Tanzania makes me miss Kenya already. The people there really were incredibly friendly and the weather was just turning to the wet season, which I have now learned is probably better for me than the dry season which I'm witnessing now in Tanzania (dry and dusty).

But I did decide on a safari that starts tomorrow, and the timing should be great for lots of animal viewing. After discussing Kilimanjaro with multiple people, I think it's not going to happen, but I'll save that explanation for another post, since this is becoming a novel. I'll be off in the savannah after this, so no more posts for 5-6 days. Later.

DEFINITELY in Africa

2009-10-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

After the brief honeymoon period, being in Africa has hit me like a ton of bricks (don't worry, I'm doing ok).

Right after dashing off the last blog post, I also reached out last second to a couch surfing guy in Kisumu named Joash. I didn't expect to hear from him, but when my bus arrived 4 hours later, I had an e-mail waiting saying he'd be happy to meet/host me.

He met me at the bus station and we chatted briefly before he went to an evening class in personnel management. He has an amazing story of both parents dying when he was 9, and basically living on his own since 16. It's especially amazing because in Kenya, it seems like family is all many people have.

So while I was waiting, I had a pizza! This was my first non-African meal since I arrived and was great because honestly the food here is pretty bad. Joash met me after his class and I was able to buy him a beer, but he insisted on making dinner at home. He asked if I ate beef. I said yes. Big mistake.

We got back to his house just outside of the main part of town just after it got dark and started to rain heavily. He lives in a roughly 10x10 room which is basically all bed and couches. He had a single burner and proceeded to make dinner of beef, tomatoes, and ugali (the Kenyan staple for eating with your hands).

We chatted and watched tv and I learned quite a bit from him which is a different story. The moral of this story though was even though I only had a tiny amount of dinner to be polite, I became violently ill the next morning, which was even more fun having to deal with an open air pit toilet and little kids next door chanting mizungu (white person) as I kept running out.

There's actually more to this story, but my internet time i just about over, so I better hit post.

The good news is it was a quick purge and I feel 100% again. I'm in Tanzania now trying to figure out which safari to do and when to climb Kili!!!

Pink Flamingo

2009-10-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the pink flamingo is me. Got a little bit sunburnt yesterday as I forgot to put on or bring along my sunscreen for a 5 hour boat ride and walk to a place called Crater Lake, off of Lake Naivasha north of Nairobi. The damage wasn't too bad though, and I used the sunburn as an excuse to splurge on my first nice hotel room and even got my first hot shower in a week (thanks mom).

Since I've left Nairobi, I've seen Zebras, Giraffes, Water Buffalo, Warthogs, and Hippos, ridden all over on Matatus (mini-buses), gotten a ride from some nice Kenyans back to camp to avoid the short rains in the afternoon, met a group of overlanders who are literally seeing just about all of Africa over 10 months, and discovered that it doesn't really work to try to catch a train in Kenya at a station other than at the start of the line.

Even after just a few days out on my own, this trip is already as amazing, challenging, and eye opening as I could have expected. Off to Kisumu in an hour with much more to come.

Added a few photos

2009-10-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

Just added a few photos to a few posts, so go back and check again if you've already looked at them. The connection is fairly slow, but here's one more of me (slightly cold) at the edge of a big glacier in the national park in the south. Both the glacier and the national park have names, but as Emily will attest I was horrible at remembering them.

Kenyans can't dance

2009-10-03T01:46:00.000-07:00

Went out to a dance bar with Phil, Felix, Winnie, and Novie last night. Fun, unique, ridiculous experience. I'm not one to judge since I can't dance either, but all Kenyan men apparently dance like Barack Obama on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

In the land of Obama

2009-10-02T02:24:00.000-07:00

First post from a real keyboard! The iphone was nice, but expect far fewer typos now. Also, I'm very close to being able to post pictures. I didn't think to bring in my USB cable though, so not quite there yet.

Initial thoughts on Nairobi are that it is absolutely nothing like Iceland. It actually reminds me a lot of Jakarta and Guatemala though. Lots of colorful buses, markets in the street, and people everywhere. And Obama references are all over. Pictures, beer, jeans, etc.

I'm staying with my friend Drew's friend Phil from Austin, and he's made the transition to a new continent much nicer. He met me at the airport and we took the bus back to where he's staying with one of his Kenyan friends, Felix, and his wife Winnie, and two young children Kepi and Tekla (although I probably just completely messed up their names). They live in a middle class part of the city that isn't touched by lonely planet, so it's been great seeing the areas of the city beyond the tourist path.

I promptly fell asleep for 15 hours after my marathon travel session and then we came into town and just wandered around for the day. We went to the library, had lunch, had some drinks, wandered around a market, saw the afternoon rush hour from a second floor balcony and really just observed.

It really struck me how for being in the middle of a bustling downtown in a city of 5 million I saw very little evidence of non-Kenyans, either tourists or businesspeople. Today, we're going to the Westends which is apparently where the ex-pats mostly hang out.

After today, I'm going to go check out Hells Gate National Park where you can rent a bike and ride around with the wild animals! That sounds incredibly cool, as long as I don't get eaten. From there I'mn going to take the train up to Kampala, Uganda, for about a week, and might get to meet President Obama's grandmother in western Kenya. Then it's off to Tanzania and Kilimanjaro!

Too tired for a witty headline

2009-09-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

Yup. So getting from Reykjavik to Nairobi is about as brutal as I expected. On my fourth timezone in 24 hours (Dubai) with one more to go. It's actually Been pretty wild experiencing the brand new Iceland airport, heathrow which is enormous, Mumbai airport, which was bustling at 3am, and now Dubai with free wifi and women in burkas.

I'm horrible at sleeping anywhere other than a bed so I've watched a ton of inflight movies including both nights at themuseum (the first one wasn't bad). Lots of people watching too, slowly transitioning from western europe, to central Asia, to Dubai which is a bit of everything. From where I'm sitting, I can see directions to a spa, a burger king, and a prayer room. Weird.

and although it didn't affect me too much, air India pilots went on strike today so my flight from London to Mumbai was cancelled. I was switched to British airways which apparently saved me from some horrible air India service (I've been told by multiple people), but also subjected me to lots of waiting in lines with angry Indians and an agent at the Mumbai airport who wanted a bribe to transfer me through between flights. Fortunately I was sitting with a Bangladeshi counterfeiter on his way to Libya (not joking) who was in the same boat so we had some strength in numbers and sorted it out.

Hmm. I think I'm out of coherent thoughts. One last thing is emirates airways was a bit disappointing. Not that it was bad, but the service wasn't amazing and I guess I had higher expectations. The stewardesses did have silly hats though which was a plus. Emily and I also enjoyed the Iceland air silly hats so I guess I'm easy to please (we also found the sheep in Iceland endlessly amusing as another example). And that was definitely rambling, so I'm goig to stop now. :-)

Cockfosters... Really?!?

2009-09-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

So I'm now in London for a bizarre stopover. In the bar at the hostel where they're playing Tiffany and getting ready forkaraoke on a Monday. It's throwing me off hearing English everywhere. Tomorrow morning is basically a 24 hour travel day to get to Nairobi.

Wrapping up in Iceland was great. No northern lights but we did get some snow. The 11 days was a perfect length to leave me wanting to go back in the summer! Lots of great stories I'll elaborate on later includig our car breaking down, arguing politics with a drunk Finn, camping in the rain, hunting for a gingerbread house, and many pool experiences.

So off to Nairobi and what I assume will be a much different experience in Africa then I had in Iceland. Who knows though... Maybe they're exactly the same?

And the end of the line for my underground line is called cockfosters which might be more ridiculous than any word I saw in Iceland.

No puffin

2009-09-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

I've been informed that the puffins left a month ago. Also no luck hunting for reindeer either.

On the plus side the weathers been pretty good and the scenery is stunning. We spent hours yesterday surrounded by ice chunks on the beach the size of cars. Lots of falls and fjords too.

Tonight we're staying in egilstather with a guy we met through couchsurfing.com named thrainn (pronounced thrau-in). He's been a wonderful host and has me excited to do more couch surfing on the trip. He also showed us the northern lights forecast and it looks promising for the 26th. Crossing my fingers!

Icelandic language lesson

2009-09-21T02:10:00.000-07:00

It's Monday morning in vik, on the southern coast of Iceland. Vik means bay and were on a gorgeous one. Unfortunately I can't upload pictures when i do this by iPhone, so expect those to be added when I have some time at an actual computer.

I slept 11 hours last night and think I turned the corner on jet lag. Had a crazy, fun, busy weekend with very little sleep. On Friday night Bjorn and Gudrun had us over for dinner. The dinner and company was great. We also tried the traditional "rotten shark" which was not. We also met their very blond sons, Gunnar and Baldor.

We went hiking to the top of esja outside of Reykjavik on Saturday morning which is a 700m mountain just outside the city across the bay. Came back for an early afternoon soak in the pool, then I met my friend liz' Icelandic friends Maria and Gunnar (there's quite a few Gunnars in Iceland). They were lovely hosts and had some great suggestions on things to do. Gunnar even drew an impressively accurate map of Iceland for me.

That night we met another mutual friend, cristen, who is just wrapping up a year of travel before returnig to Austin tx. Had coffee, beers, and whale (which tastes like steak with more guilt). Cristen really talked up couchsurfing.com which I had already been thinking about so I'm going to give it a try.

On Sunday we picked up our rental car, hit the big attractions outside of Reykjavik (pingvellir, geysir, gullfoss) and headed towards vik. We stopped at a pool in reykholt and had to help the owner of the land in geysir start his 1920 ford. And then we slept.

And the quick language lesson. Vik means bay. Reykja means smoky. Reyk means smoke. Holt means hill. Foss means waterfall. Laug means hot spring. Jokull means glacier. More to come. Icelandic is a hard language.

Blogging by iPhone

2009-09-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

There's free wifi everywhere in Reykjavik, so I can use my phone all over the place like a mini computer. Already made a few skype calls which is pretty cool.

Emily and I got off the plane at 7 am and were immediately met by bjorn, a friend of a friend who has been an amazing host! Within hours of landing he had taken us for coffee and bagels with his wife Gudrun, to the local gerothermal pool, and to a local hot dog stand. After that, emily and I checked into the hostel and took a nap. I feel much better now and will be meeting bjorn and Gudrun for dinner. Tomorrow well explore the city and hike up to the mountain outside of town.

Initial impressions of reyjavik remind me a lot of Seattle. It feels very familiar other than the crazy language. And everyone wears black! I stand out like a sore thumb in my bright green jacket.

Holy crap, I'm leaving tomorrow!

2009-09-16T21:04:00.000-07:00

Wow. All the tickets are booked, bags are packed, and goodbyes said. All that's left now is to actually do this thing.

The final itinerary has me in Iceland from September 17-28, arriving in Nairobi, Kenya on September 30, traveling overland through Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, to Cape Town, South Africa by November 18 (7 weeks), then onto India and Nepal from November 20-January 8. And a day in Dubai for good measure.

Looking forward to keeping in touch with everyone so look for me on gchat when I have an internet connection. I'm also going to try and use skype on my iphone, but have no idea how well that will work. The best bet is my e-mail at eminkoff@gmail.com and if you send me your address I'll try and send you a postcard from somewhere interesting. And of course I'll be keeping this blog while I'm gone as well.

See everyone next year!

-eddie

My trip hits prime time (sort of)

2009-09-05T09:45:00.001-07:00

A few months ago, a reporter from BusinessWeek asked the career center at my MBA program for stories of recent graduates who were pursuing "Plan B". This was right around the time that this trip was coming together and I figured I had a pretty good "Plan B" story. To make a long story short, I interviewed with the reporter and the article just went up on BusinessWeek online this Thursday.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/09/0903_grad_backup_plans/22.htm

I think it turned out really well and makes my trip sound much more thought out than it actually is. The other profiles in the slideshow are pretty interesting too. Crazy times to be graduating.

The Final Countdown

2009-08-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving on a 3.5 month trip in less than a month, and starting this blog is on my very long list of things to do before I fly out for Iceland.

The map shows basically what I'm planning on doing. I'm leaving Seattle on September 17th with my friend Emily for a little under two weeks crusing around in Iceland.

From there, Emily will head home and I'll continue on my own to Tanzania (via London, Mumbai, and Dubai. Totally direct, right?). I'm going to spend the month of October in Tanzania with possible ventures into Kenya, Uganda, and/or Zambia. A friend of a friend lives in Dar Es Salaam, but beyond that I'm doing this month pretty solo. I may or may not climb Kilimanjaro when I'm there, but I'm definitely going to try and find Simba, Timone, and Pumba.

November will be spent visiting my friend Jwalant in Kathmandu and trekking in Nepal. I know Jwalant through business school and a group we run together called 3 Summits for Nepal. He also runs his family trekking company, Crystal Mountain Treks, out of Kathmandu.

I'll spend December in India with the only real hard stop of a flight back to the US on January 6. My friend Abi will be meeting me for parts of this after he goes to multiple cousins' weddings in Bangalore.

So yeah, pretty random trip. I'll try and write something up soon about the rationale for the whole thing, but the short answer is why not?