Country Boy Travels

Day 259

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:02:00 +0000

Houston, Texas; 21 October 2008

The Party is Over
I start a new job in the morning. My days of wandering the globe with no worries of tomorrow are officially ended. Re-enter the world of projects, problems, and deadlines.

Reality Check
I am considering leasing a house that costs roughly the same per month as full living expenses in Thailand. Houston Rent Cost = Thailand hotel + 3 hot meals + kung fu lessons + beers + massage. .....maybe I should have stayed. ...... 3 months from now I may be kicking myself.....

maybe I can rent the extra bedrooms as a 'hostel' to offset my costs.

Full Circle
The oddest thing is that after traveling the globe, I find myself crashing at a friend's apartment that is in the same building as first apartment I had upon moving to Texas in 2000. I walk by my old apartment on the way to the grocery store. I wonder if Louise is still in #25.... she melted her microwave once with a grease fire on her stove. I wonder if Fidel Castro still works at the supermarket?... he's been working there almost 19 years.

Egypt: Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:36:00 +0000

Arrival

30 August 2008, day 207 of my travels. Arrive in Cairo via Egypt Air from Athens. I had the privilege to sit next to a Katrina of Australia on the airplane. We had a nice chat. Unfortunately we were with different tours, but it was amazing how many times we crossed paths in the next few days. Turns out different tour companies travel the same paths. Pickup at airport provided by "On The Go", my tour company. Kate and Ali got in around the same time so we were off on a van ride through the most insane automobile traffic yet. 3 lanes and a shoulder easily fit 6 rows of cars. It is no problem for a van or bus to stop on what we would consider a 'freeway' to pick up people standing on the side of the road. Saigon takes the prize for insane motorcycle traffic; Cairo for automobiles.

Caught a glimpse of the pyramids on the way to the resort. Pyramids - mission accomplished.

After a short rest at the hotel, around 12 people in our group headed off for a dinner cruise on the Nile River. Because of the aforementioned traffic, we were late. Luckily our tour guide had some pull and they held the boat for us. The food was good, the view from the top deck splenid, and the belly dancer was entertaining. However, the dervish dancer was mind boggling. Dervish dancing (wiki) ranks near the top of "human skills". This dude could spin around in a circle for about 15 minutes without falling over from dizziness. All while twirling this large decorative dress around and doing other balance tricks that most people would find difficult while standing still. Oh, and he had a midget dervish dancer as his warmup act. Unfortunately I did not bring the camera for this one. Need the pint size backup camera asap. The D80 does not make a good dinner date.

The three musketeers from down under drove the cruise boat for a few minutes. We survived.

A few of us had beverages at the resort afterwards. I ran into 3 dudes that shared a hostel room with me in Athens. Turns out they were on the Intrepid Tour with Katrina from the airplane. I ran into her the next morning as she was burning one while waiting for her bus.

Here is the tour I did. On The Go- Road to Jordan. Photos and further blog to follow as time allows.

I have realized that this website has a bigger purpose than just showing off some photos and trying to tell a decent story. If it inspires only one of my friends, or even a complete stranger to set off on a journey of their own, be it 1 week or 1 year, the hours behind this laptop will have been worth it.

Happy travels.

Day 200

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:58:00 +0000

23 August 2008

I celebrated 200 days on the road with 3 hours of massage this evening. $30 US. Walking the 100 yards from massage place to hostel, it was the usual crowd trying to get my dollars- taxis, beggars, and hookers. Best hooker line of the night:

Hook: Where you go?
Me: Home. Bed.
Hook: My friend and I come and both give you massage.

At this point, you just keep walking. You never stop- its easier to keep moving. If you stop, then they're holding your arm and trying more chinglish on you. And that is life in Bangkok. If Vegas is America's playground- Bangkok is the world's playground- minus the gambling. Regardless, I love this place.

Looking back on the trip, it kinda went in Phases. Today ends Phase III of the trip and Phase IV starts tomorrow. Phase I was the initial push from New Zealand to Hong Kong. Phase II was the random wanderings from Hong Kong back to Bangkok. Phase III was nearly 2 months in Chiang Mai learning Kung Fu, getting in shape, making friends, and catching tropical diseases. Phase IV takes me westward...........

Back at the Suk in Bangkok. Still one of the coolest hostels around. Hit town this afternoon and went shopping for new reading material- one of the Thai boxers was on the TV Olympic coverage- he must have been going for gold, because every TV in a store window or in a public area was tuned to that channel with a massive crowd of people around it. National pride is alive and well here. No camera with me however, which is a bummer because 4 stories of people leaning over railing in a central mall plaza to watch a TV is quite a site. Waiting to find the Panasonic Lumix LX-3 to procure as a new backup camera. Shoots RAW format, has a 'fast' lens (f 2.0 - 2.8), full user control on shooting modes, and ISO 6400. There is a massive camera store in a city I will be visiting- hopefully they'll have it.

Random thoughts

No feedback yet on favorite photos. I take that as "too many good ones to choose from."

I like Facebook. It is handy for reconnecting with people you lost track of, or forgot that you knew at all.

I really like 'street meat'. This is chicken/beef/pork/etc on a stick- bought from street vendors- it rocks. Grab a green tea shake from another vendor and you have a quality, nutritious meal. I may grill some street meat when I get home......

I have deleted over 3000 photos in the last week. Got another thousand or so to go. Thats what happens when you shoot 350 and keep 60 of them.

Guinness pints are $6 in Bangkok.

Can you tell the difference between an Aussi flag and the Kiwi flag?

Men's diving is on the TV at the Pickled Liver English Pub. They have free internet.

Rock on.

Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:04:00 +0000

Lunch in Laos

I had to make another visa run last weekend. Being as I had already done a run to Burma (Myanmar as the commies call it), it seemed prudent to hit a new country. A Laos run can be done via tour van for around $25 US, in a single day. That would be too easy. However, I've seen those poor bastards climbing out of that 14 person van when it drops them off at the hostel after 8 hours of riding. They look like death warmed over other than that smile on their face that they are out of that van for good. No thanks.

I picked up the Honda Phantom on Friday night along with an extra helmet- just in case I could find a young lady crazy enough to ride shotgun to Laos. Didn't happen, probably a good thing, for reasons to be mentioned later. Anyway, I hit the road around 07:45 on Saturday morning. It was a great ride, nice sunny day, not too hot. On the ride, I determined 'Lunch in Laos' would be a better blog title than 'Visa Stamp in Laos', so the goal was set to have lunch there. A few hours later, I was in Chiang Rai, turning off the main road on to the back roads for the "shortcut" to Chiang Khong and the ferry to Luang Probang, Laos. The fact that my map did not have road numbers on the back roads 'complicated' the journey. This hadn't been a problem thus far, but throw in the fact that the map is plain wrong, and you have a difficult navigation situation. Bottom line, I missed the shortcut, took the long way through the back roads. Not a problem, other than the back roads were the most pot holed stretch of asphalt I have seen, ever. Large potholes are a 'limiting factor' for attainable travel speed, especially on a motorcycle. This added an hour or so to the ride. Made for a late lunch.

After double checking with Thailand Immigration that they would let me back in the country, I boarded the ferry and for $1.10 and I was in Laos. I forgot to factor in the cost of a visa to enter Laos, this turned out to be around $50. Sign said $35, but I'm not one to argue with communists with guns. Maybe they needed extra grocery money...... Cleared immigration, walked about 200' to the first restaurant I saw, and had great fried noodles with chicken and a coke and water for less than $2. Factor in the visa, and it was about a buck a bite. Lunch completed, it was back across the Mekong to Thailand. And no, I did not buy any souvenirs.

By now, the clouds were brewing between me and my desired route to the scenic area of the Golden triangle, so In the words of Gunnery Sgt. Tom Highway- Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome- I took the main highway around the rain back to Chiang Rai. Approaching Chiang Rai, just like my last visa run, there was a large wall of rain between me and home in Chiang Mai. I high tailed it to town, got a hotel, and went straight to a European style restaurant. I sat down, and 3 minutes later it was raining. I love it when a plan comes together. Had 3 fillet medallions, each with a different sauce. Best steak I'd had in 6 months or so. Got a brilliant 2 hour Thai massage for $10. Ran a pool table for an hour or so against a drunk dude from Cardiff (the capital of Wales) and called it a night.

Got up in the am, had a crappy breakfast, chatted with a fellow from Israel, and hit the road. The scenic route home was spectacular. It also further displayed Thai incompetence at making an accurate map. I wanted to hit a national park, that on my map, had three scenic overlooks. Where the "Mae Nam Fang National Park" was supposed to be (according to my map), I instead found the "Doi Pha Hom Pok National Park". I payed my $6 to get in, thinking they would have a better map and I would see something cool. For something cool, see the photos. On paper their map, looked splendid. Ground truthed, it was as bad as my original map.

I gave up on the three scenic overlooks and decided to concentrate on the one that both maps kinda agreed on. Hit that and then hit the road south to Chiang Mai for what should have been a 2 hour cruise. The road started out flat and straight, but then hit some hills and curves. That equals fun on a motorcycle with dry pavement. On the curves, I was able to keep pace with everyone but this crazy dude in a Mercedes. On the straights though, I was passed frequently. A 500 cc bike just doesn't have the balls to achieve and maintain adequate speed. Lesson learned- stateside, buy a bigger bike. Again the monsoon season raised its ugly head and I had to start dodging rainstorms. I hunkered down under a tree for an hour or so in lieu of driving through a massive downpour. It was relaxing, I watched spiders, worms, ants, and centipedes doing their thing. Got back on the road, and this begins the discussion on.......

Limiting Factors

After a day on the road, when I lay down to sleep, the visions going through my head are of my bike and myself sliding across a highway curve towards a guardrail or oncoming bus. It takes a while to clear these visions so I can sleep in peace. That said, wet pavement is a limiting factor for attainable travel velocity on curvy mountain roads. Not being an expert rider, I error on the side of caution in the velocity department. ~Limiting Factor #1: Wet Pavement.

Back on the road, it became obvious there was another storm passing in front of me. It was a typical summer storm, not raining where I stopped, but 300 yards away it was pouring. Therefore I retreated to an unused tarp set up by the road construction crew, and waited for it to pass. ~Limiting Factor #2: Walls of water dumping from the heavens.

Hit the road for a little longer after this one passed and ran into another massive wall of water. This one required stopping for dinner. I don't remember what I had, but it was cheap. (Lunch was cheaper- Pad Thai and a Coke for $1.20.) By this time it was also dark, which becomes another limiting factor. The headlight on the Honda sucked. Any speed over about 25 mph was severely overdriving the visibility provided by said headlight. Doing the math, this becomes 'not good' when you've got 65 miles between you and home. ~Limiting Factor #3: Lack of sun / dim headlight.

Got back on the road since the downpour had changed to more of a light shower, and I was out of smokes. (Not drinking turns you back to other vices) I stopped at the first road side shop that was big enough to have said smokes, and the nice man there gave me some newspaper to put under my rain jacket for extra insulation. It gets cold when every part of your body not under the rain jacket is wet, even in the tropics. The newspaper helped eliminate what could have been another limiting factor, cold.

Still in the curvy roads, I determined the best way to overcome the visibility factor was to follow a car, allowing their headlights to illuminate the path far forward and giving you a set of tail lights to follow. While cornering on a motorcycle, you should look to the 'exit point' of the curve- where you look is where your bike naturally tends to go. Tail lights make a great exit point. Sounds great in theory, until you re-introduce limiting factor #1: wet pavement. Problem is that most of the cars on this stretch of road were going way faster than I cared to go on wet pavement. I finally found a small Isuzu pickup carrying what appeared to be 180 cubic feet of onions. On the curves, hills, and short straight stretches, his max speed of 30-40 mph suited my travel plans nicely.

This worked great until we dropped out of the hills to the plains. His max speed increased, thereby introducing the next limiting factor, pain induced by inadequate equipment. I rent bikes from Mr. Beer. For this trip, Mr. Beer had no helmets with visors. Visors are great for protecting your eyeballs from things like bugs, rocks, and raindrops. At speeds above 40 mph, rain drops start to hurt when they impact your eyeball. I would compare it to having your eyeball tatooed. Limiting Factor #4: Pain.

Sunglasses work extremely well for eyeball protection during the day, so it seemed like a good solution. Don the shades and haul ass. Cuts down on your overall visibility, but it was manageable on the straight flat roads on this stretch of highway. Fingers make decent windshield wipers for shades. My onion truck pulled off the road, so I had to get a new buddy. Lacking slow moving onion trucks, I tried for a few cars. Over 55 mph, rain drops start to really sting when they hit your face. This makes it difficult to keep up with fast moving traffic, so I was relegated to around 50 mph in the slow lane. By this time it was a 4 lane highway, with frequent overhead illumination. Eventually the sunglasses got wet on the inside of the lens, which is basically impossible to clean while driving. Throw this in with the mist kicked up by passing cars, and the fact that every drop of water makes cool halos around all the light sources, and I'll just call it Limiting Factor #5: Lots of Water.

Eventually I made it home to the hostel. What should have been 2 hours, took over 6. This incurred an extra day of rental charges, since I was about 3.5 hours past Mr. Beer's closing time. I still wouldn't trade it for that van ride.

Tropical Illness

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:21:00 +0000

Dengue [DEN-ghee] fever usually starts suddenly with a high fever, rash, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, and muscle and joint pain. The severity of the joint pain has given dengue the name "breakbone fever." Nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite are common. A rash usually appears 3 to 4 days after the start of the fever. The illness can last up to 10 days, but complete recovery can take as long as a month. Older children and adults are usually sicker than young children.

CDC Dengue Page

List above is incomplete; it also makes you fatigued and leaves an unpleasant metallic taste in your mouth. In fact it makes Tabasco Sauce smell like something on the floor of the flotation section of a heavy metal milling facility and taste only slightly better. Cyanide compunds come to mind. And that effect lingers for days...... How do I know? I had the damn dengue fever. Down for 9 days. No jogging, no kung fu, no... well you get the idea. Some people go straight to the hospital and stay on an IV for 10 days, so I consider myself fortunate that my hospital visits were limited to four times for bloodwork to make sure I didn't need to stay there on an IV. Other people don't even realize they have it. Only 304 cases in Chiang Mai from Jan 1 through June 7, 2008. I believe they are calling it an 'epidemic'.

The major complication is that apparently it messed with my liver. Pending a second opinion from my crack medical team back in the states, Doc Thailand says I can't have any alcohol for 30 days. Therefore I am drinking a Sprite at the Chiang Mai Saloon. Sobriety is depressing, yet intriguing. 28 days left........

My friend Azli is back in Chiang Mai. His photographic abilities never cease to amaze me. Check here for the best portrait shots I have ever seen.

Did I mention that Tabasco sauce tastes bad. Eggs without Tabasco... I don't know how I am still able to eat breakfast every morning..............

UPDATE:
Crack medical team has confirmed. No booze for 28 more days.

Muay Thai

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:43:00 +0000

Went to a Thai Boxing match a few nights ago with a bunch of folks from Singapore. Thai boxing, Muay Thai, is like regular boxing in that the fighters wear gloves. But they also use knees, elbows, and kicks. It can be pretty brutal. Went to one in Bangkok a while back, it was boring compared to this one. We saw a few knockouts, and a dude get his leg jacked up by his opponents kicks. Hard to fight when you can't stand up.

One round of entertainment between rounds was this. Four fighters in the ring, blindfolded, with one referee. So the blindfolded dudes walk around and try to pummel on each other. Occasionally the ref couldn't get out of the way fast enough, so some dude would beat on the ref until he could move. And then the ref would kick the dude in the chest... it was great to see him fight back. Good clean family fun.

The after fight entertainment was a vegas style cabaret show. Weird thing though, the dancers were all "lady boys". They look good, but they are dudes. Entertaining, but disturbing. I should be able to get some pics of the fight and the dancers from a dude that took his camera.

Constant

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:00:00 +0000

As in constant location. Haven't moved for 15 days. Not gonna move for a while longer. Living on the cheap. Learning Kung Fu. Was gonna learn to meditate, but they wouldn't return an email or answer the phone...... they must've been too busy meditating.

Kung Fu
Been to about 9 classes, finally got punched in the head earlier today... but I got to hit a dude also, so it's cool. My teacher says I need to work on balance, maybe for a week or so. Lots of kicking. Pretty sure I've kicked more in the last week than since I was a baby with my feet kicking in the air while I was helpless on my back. Haven't had to paint any fences yet, but it may yet come. Started learning the single stick today. Pool sticks and broom handles are gonna have all new uses. It is humbling to watch the dudes that have been at this for a while- they are fast. The teacher, Master Jade, doesn't strike fear into your heart at first glance, but he is quicker than lightning, with the balance and agility of a cheetah. I'm pretty sure he could kill anyone I've ever met, if needed.

Honda
Speaking of death, I did the most insane thing of my trip over the weekend. Rented a motorcycle. Honda Phantom 500cc Cruiser. Put over a hundred miles on it. This was not a random whim, there was a purpose for this insanity. Even though I took a motorcycle training course back in Houston a few years ago, this was the first time I had a bike on a public road. I figure it is actually safer to cut my teeth on a bike here, rather than back in the states. (a) They are common here, so everyone on the road is on the lookout for bikes. Not so much back home. (b) They often have special bike lanes. (c) Traffic generally moves slower. At 65 mph, I was often the fastest thing on the 4 lane divided highway. Back home at that speed, I would be an 'obstacle'. Anyway, gotta make a 'visa run' this coming weekend. That means leave the country and come back in to get the visa renewed. Standard options are fly or spend 6 hours in a minibus. Flying is expensive and 6 hours in a minibus sounds about as much fun as having teeth pulled. So I'm gonna take the bike to the border.. about 250 miles round trip. Should be a good day... other than when it rains. It rains almost everyday here.....

Losses
Should not have published that last blog about total trip losses. The waterproof Olympus got nikked at the Sunday night market last week. I was stone cold sober. I think the strap was hanging out of my pocket. Boom gone. Could have been worse. Current conundrum is whether to go waterproof again, or get something with a viewfinder. I like viewfinders. I hate taking pictures on an LCD. And that is about the biggest dilemma on my mind... life is rough.

Bit Torrent
Downloaded some pirated software the other day. Put myself on a self-education plan to learn the most powerful photo editing software around. I figure a few hours a day, and I be up to speed pretty quick. I got a lot of photos that could use a little cleanup. Also, to pull off a photography career, this will be an essential skill. Time will tell.

Barack Obama
Spent some time reading his website. That further convinced me this guy is just another typical tax and spend Democrat. Basically an idiot. Why we would even consider a politician from Illinois as the leader of the free world is beyond me. Illinois is a messed up place. This guy's proposals range from a few sensible ideas to the completely ludicrous. God help us if he gets elected with a sitting Democratic majority in Congress. His promise of pulling out troops in 16 months and leaving a small "reaction force" is political double talk. He is promising the impossible and giving hope to the bad guys. The Taliban are sitting around praying to Allah that he'll get elected. Bottom line is, should he win, I'll be home in time to lock and load.

Outlook
The remainder of the trip plan is slowly coming together.

Hunker Down

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:42:00 +0000

Hiding out in a German restaurant to access free & fast wi-fi. Just completed (I think) a 4 hour marathon session of uploading crap to the new web server. The server upgrade fiasco was an unfortunate consequence of the need to change web hosting plans to save money and get more bandwidth, along with a few other service upgrades. There were two major problems: (a) the need to upload everything to the new server and (b) the new server was "case sensitive". Web pages are driven by text files that link them all together. The old server was not case sensitive. So any link where the capitalization within the html file and the actual file it pointed to did not match, had to be fixed. Turns out one of the basic rules of html is always use lowercase.

Major pain in the butt.

Anyway, I'm to a new destination tomorrow. The "where's Larry?" contest is a few locations behind..........

Yokohama Days

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:05:00 +0000

Saturday. 14 June 2008

Felt my first earthquake this morning. It was a 6.8 or so, however being about 150 miles away, it did nothing more than gently sway the building around for 10 seconds or so. If I had not been sitting motionless on the 5th floor of a high rise, I could not have felt it at all. Makes you really hope these Japanese engineers figured out this earthquake stuff long ago.

Spent an evening on the town with the US Army. They have a curfew so I ended up playing darts with a Japanese bartender at a little hole in the wall called “Party Animals”. It was founded 20 years ago, and has stayed true to the 80’s. It still has Spudz McKenzie proudly displayed and had some great late 80 / early 90 music on the dvd. When is the last time you saw the videos for “U Can’t Touch This” and “Ice, Ice Baby”- back to back? Anyway, I kicked butt at darts. Seems 4.5 months of no practice has actually helped my game. Wish that was true for my pool game………..

Sunday. 15 June 2008 Happy Fathers Day

Had my first major oversleep of the trip today. Got to the rally point about 31 minutes late. The Army boys gave me 28 minutes. We just missed each other. Probably blew by each other on trains headed in opposite directions. Spent a few hours searching their likely locations but trying to find 3 white guys in Japan is not as easy as it would seem. Especially outside a major naval base………..

Anyhow, as I had some free time today, better learning Apples’s iMovie seemed to be a good use of time. After several hours of adding music, titles, and editing out all the bs, I have determined that video has been a highly underutilized medium thus far on my little trip. Maybe I’m just sentimental, but putting some good ole’ rock music to a few short movies really adds some emotional kick.

I am sitting on the roof of the hostel. 6 stories up, 11pm. I have a borrowed stool from the front office, a Coleman folding table (‘found’ in the stairwell), and a little sample of Japanese Whiskey…. instant rooftop office. Only thing missing is electricity, wi-fi, and a hot secretary. The view and cool breeze make up for all that is lacking.

There has to be some sort of old folks or veterans home in the neighborhood of the hostel. There are countless old men wandering around- all day and night. It must be a Veterans home because it is all old men. Lots in wheelchairs. Occasional eye patches and walking sticks. A lot needed to see a good Psychiatrist a long, long time ago. There are some crazy old dudes hobbling around here. I hope one of them doesn’t have a WWII flashback and put a cap in my #ss……….

OK. Just had two more tremors. Quick 2 second bursts, but still earthquakes. There are no subways or other shake inducing features near my location.

Wednesday 18 June 2008

Failed to rendezvous with the army boys once again. This no cell phone stuff blows- makes one wonder how we got along with out them. Caught part of a Japanese baseball game this evening . Finding a bunch of white guys in a stadium is not as easy as it would seem. Oh well. Anyway, I procured a standing room ticket in the visiting team’s bleacher section. The game itself is identical, but the fan customs are quite different. They have cheerleaders, and yell leaders in the bleachers, complete with drums and some horn players. The yell leader dude calls out a cheer, and the whole bleacher section goes with it. And the entire bleacher section on the left field side was cheering for the visiting team. The redeeming item of note is that beer in the stadium is cheaper than in some bars near the stadium.

Went to the Tokyo Photography Museum today. Good inspiration. A famous Japanese photographer, MORIYAMA Daido, had a 2 floor exhibit. All black & white. His mantra for a few decades was “coarse, shaky, and blurred.” Taken not with a fancy SLR or large format camera, just a simple viewfinder type camera, more like a point and shoot. Spent the first 25 years of his career trying to define photography…. He finally came up with “a fossil of light and time”. Anyhow, I was inspired, so the Yokohama photos are in black and white, with an occasional artistic coloration…..

http://www.moriyamadaido.com/

First theft of the trip has occurred. My cooked meal of the day (for this week) is eggs, sausage, and potatoes. As they don’t sell Tabasco at the local grocery, I settled for a ground chili pepper. Someone pinched it from the hostel kitchen. This violates one of the most basic rules of life- “Never mess with a man’s lunch” - That meal may be all he has to look forward to for the day. I bet it was the crazy old lady who walks around the hostel in a t-shirt and panties and doesn’t lock the bathroom door. I have been visually scarred for life. There is a reason they don’t keep knives in the hostel kitchen………

At least it was a pepper shaker and not the MacBook……..

Which bring me to total trip casualties:
- 4 pairs Sunglasses
- 1 Trekking Pole
- Approx 6 Blue Ink Pens
- 1 Leatherman Micra- with no blade (New Zealand TSA)
- 1 Utility Knife- with no blade (Australian TSA)
- $20 overcharge for beers, lost despite best efforts of interpreters……

Yokohama Random Thoughs:

Question of the day:
Is it a good thing when a Japanese lady says in broken English, “You are like Robin Williams” and a minute later compares you to a kung fu master?? Too bad she was married with a kid.

Thought of the day:
To sum up Nepal, my friend Shelli, from the Everest hike, said “when I’m having a bad day at work, all I have to do is stop and think of that trip, and it makes everything better.”
Amen. Makes me want to go be a Sherpa Guide.

To quote Aaron Tippin:
“You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything. You’ve got to be your own man, not a puppet on a string.”

“If I didn’t earn it, I don’t want it.”

Kyoto

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:37:00 +0000

W-R-F, 11-13 June 2008

Back at MSM, we abbreviated Thursday as “R”. T, you see, was already used.

Kinda like back at St Joe Minerals Corporation, the Engineering Department eliminated certain letters from their part identification protocol. Letters such as I, L, O, and U just weren’t used. Too easily confused with things such as “1” “0” or “v”.

Anyhow, word from the ladies in Hiroshima was that Kyoto was the coolest spot in Japan. Since it was on the high speed rail line between Hiroshima and my final destination, it made sense to hit it. Rolled in W afternoon, toured the town on R, and rolled out on F afternoon. With only one day to cover a city of 1.6 million people and 20% of Japan’s National Treasures, I decided on bicycle wheels. I owned said mountain bike for about 10 hours. Best guess is 25 miles and 400 pictures. Needless to say, my ass hurt. I haven’t covered that kind of bicycle miles for probably 17 years. (It is Sunday as I write this, and my ass still hurts)

I looked for it, but I could not find that damn Protocol.

The reason Kyoto has so many temples and historic stuff intact is that it was on the short list to get a nuke. We didn’t bomb cities on the shortlist, better to analyze damage if you haven’t already bombed the snot out of a place.

Hiroshima

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:58:00 +0000

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Today is one of the possible bad days for China. Digits add up to 8. Hopefully it isn’t a massive earthquake in central Japan since I’m sitting on a bullet train going somewhere north of 150 mph. It is fast. Japan’s rail network is incredible. The train station was a walk in the park compared to Beijing. It was clean, not crowded, and extremely efficient. The train is mostly empty.. maybe at 20% capacity. Did I mention fast?

Bullet Train

Friday, 13 June 2008

Just left the site of the world’s most hard core payback ever, Hiroshima. I didn’t know what to expect; turns out there is a thriving city on top of ground zero. I think it took until 1966 for Hiroshima to rebuild to its pre-war industrial level.

There is a great museum and park located between two rivers in the center of town, near to the hypo-center, as they call ground zero here. The museum has a good discussion on why Hiroshima was selected as the first target. The decision was made months before the attack. The US started analyzing targets in 1944. Primary reasons: (a) We had not yet bombed it- better to observe damage results, (b) favorable topography- nice and flat, (c) no American POW camps, (d) it was a center of military industrial output, and (e) it was headquarters of Japans 5th Army and the country’s secondary command and control center in case of invasion of Tokyo by the Americans.

Invasion adversity would be the best reason for why we dropped the bomb at all. Japan’s Imperial Headquarters was publicizing plans for “100 million deaths with honor” as part of a ‘decisive battle for the mainland’. Two words- screw that. As harsh as dropping Little Boy was, it saved millions of lives that would have been lost in invading Japan. We killed more people carpet bombing other cities than we did in the two nuclear attacks. It would have been a slow, painful march across Japan. Every peasant, child, and factory worker would have taken up arms for the Emperor and they would have died, taking hundreds of thousands of Allied troops with them. Think ‘kamikaze’…….

I’ve been to Truman’s Presidential Library- to learn about the man that ultimately made the decision to drop the bomb. After seeing both sides of the world, I maintain it was the right decision. The Japanese have no hatred of America for what we did. They seem to have accepted their militaristic past and put it behind them, having been on the receiving end of a major ass kicking.

Other related thoughts:

The MAD policy (Mutual Assured Destruction) followed during the cold war and to an extent today works. Russia and the US could not attack each other because we each had enough bombs to really screw each other up.

Lets hope Pakistan and India subscribe to MAD. If not the fallout should be pretty benign by the time it drifts through the stratosphere to the US.

Which brings me to Iran. MAD does not apply to radical Islamic thinking. These guys believe it is honorable to die while attacking infidels- read women and children- you and I- anyone who does not subscribe to their beliefs. Iran’s radical leadership may be willing to sacrifice a few million followers in a return for wiping Israel off the map. In their mind, that would be a good, honorable trade.

Anyway, enough of the soapbox.

They kept the ruins of the famous domed building that was located about 170 meters NW of the hypocenter. Since the bomb was airburst at 600 meters (1800’), the force basically came straight down on this building, completely destroying the interior while leaving the concrete walls and some steel standing. Needless to say, everyone in this building died instantly. Probably the closed person to survive the initial blast was a guy in the basement of a concrete building about 400 meters from the hypocenter. The concrete walls of that building survived and are actually still standing –it is a tourist information center now. They reused as many of the concrete structures as they could.

Radiation you ask? Two words- half life. Within a week, radiation levels were down to 1/ 1 millionth of the levels immediately after the attack.

Heat. The fireball itself was around 230 meters (700’) in diameter. But it was hot- something like 1 million degrees at its center. This put ground temperatures near 4,000 degrees Celsius. Enough to melt stone.

Pressure: The shock wave was the equivalent of something like a 400 mph wind, if I recall correctly it delivered a few thousand pounds per square foot near ground zero. It basically leveled anything that was not concrete within about 1.25 miles.

Relatively speaking: The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was named Little Boy. By today’s standards, it was just that. The Soviets once tested a bomb over 3,300 times more powerful than Little Boy. That puts it as more powerful than the sum of every single bullet, bomb, and ordinance used in all of WWII. My memory is a little rusty, but I’d say a medium sized modern device would throw out a fireball around a mile in diameter in lieu of 700’. Its hard telling what that Soviet monster would have done…….

Nuclear Survival:
Below are some links on surviving the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. Old US army field manuals give good instructions also. Basically you need to know that fallout and radiation are bad and how to avoid exposure to these things. And I would recommend being armed, you may need to keep contaminated people out of your hizzle. Remember the 80’s TV movie “The Day After”…….

Next stop, destination unnamed…….

http://www.areyouprepared.com/nuclear-survival/s43.htm

www.nukepills.com/docs/FEMA_Nuclear_War_Survival.pdf

http://www.webpal.org/webpal/index.htm

Hong Kong

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:51:00 +0000

Sunday June 1, 2008

The Fab 5 flew to Hong Kong from Shanghai. Hong Kong spend over 100 years as a British Colony, the Brits gave it back to China in '97. They should have kept it. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on the Golden Mile. Basically a perfect location from which to base our exploration of HK. The subway was practically in the hotel basement. The ferry was a 10 minute walk. The harbor light show was about 6 minutes away. 7-11, ATM, and McDonalds within 2 blocks. All systems go....

After dinner at a seafood type place with some life size pirate replicas, we headed to the harbor to take in the sights. We snapped a few pics and found a pub with a patio on the water to watch the city lights. Unfortunately we missed most of the light show, since we did not know it existed and the majority of it was blocked by a large building from our vantage point.

Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:

Monday, 2 June 2008

After McDonalds breakfast we boarded the ferry to travel to Hong Kong Island. The hotel is in the Kowloon District, which is a peninsula jutting off of mainland China. Our primary objective was to ride the trolley car to the city viewpoint on Victoria Peak. Unfortunately, like every other day in China, it was cloudy and hazy. So needless to say, the views were limited. Still impressive, but not near as cool as they could have been.

We wandered down the mountain on the footpath. The only other people we saw were jogging up the mountain with dogs. Eerie. The path down ended near a zoological / botanical garden. We were looking at some monkeys when it started to rain. We hightailed out of the park and headed for the ‘social district’. Here we found a bar that had American microbrews. A Pyramid Hefeweizen never, ever tasted so good. Words can not describe the euphoria of that first sip of quality hefe’ after 4 months with none. I don’t smoke crank, but I imagine it would be a similar sensation. The hefe was followed by a Full Sail Amber. Again, heaven in a bottle.

Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:

Tuesday 5 June 2008

Today we hit a “Walking Tour” as recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. Dr. Muchard did a great job of navigating us around the city. From my viewpoint, it was refreshing to be able to follow a group around and not have to worry too much about where we were at. We hit markets, lots of markets: Flowers, gold fish, jade, electronics, sport goods, womens goods, and the local market. The local market was probably the most interesting. It provided a basic look at how people live and shop. Turns out that on this same day, in a different market, the government sampled some chickens and on Friday announced that they had found the bird flu, H5N1, the deadly one. We had looked at chickens in the market that day……..

After walking all day, we took the subway back to the hotel. If one word could provide advice to the USA, that word would be “Trains.”

Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:

Wednesday 4 June 2008

The Texas Four rolled out of the Holiday Inn around 5:30 am to catch a plane back to the US of A. Apparently there was speculation back home that I would be joining them on the flight home. Said speculation was errant.

I caught a little more sleep, and then rolled to the coffee shop for breakfast and caffeine. Major activities for the day centered around figuring out where to go next. It is not quite as easy as throwing darts at a map, unfortunately. One has to figure costs, visas, and monsoons. Bottom line comes down to this- when presented with the opportunity to drink beer with a lifelong friend in a foreign country, you arrange to make it happen.

Managed to find a great internet cafe. Great online security- it basically uninstalls everything when you log off. Fast connection. Comfortable seats. Security is the biggest concern in internet cafes, you never know when one may have worms or a key tracker installed. I felt secure doing online banking at this joint. The good news is I found some money that I had forgot about so that bodes well for the travels.

Moved across the street from the Holiday Inn to the Cosmic Guesthouse. Smallest room yet. At least it was clean.

Julia:
Jessica:
Jennifer:
Dr:

Thursday 5 June 2008

Today was a shopping day. Picked up some new trail / running shoes. A requirement for jogging and exercise. Got some new socks also.

Got a Bluetooth headset for the computer to improve my Skype experience. If you have not used it, Skype kicks *ss. It is phone over the internet. I can call any number in the states from anywhere in the world for about $0.02 / min. And Skype to Skype calls are free. And they can include live video if both ends have webcams and good bandwidth. Nothing like a video call to brighten your day. And my Skype number will automatically forward to any cell phone number I am using. So basically, someone can call 713.895.1695 as a local number from the states, and Skype will forward it as a local call to whatever local SIM card I happen to be using. Pretty cool stuff.

Got some vitamins also. One of my books said vitamins are good for the brain. I’ll let you know if I feel smarter after a few weeks of supplements…….

Friday 6 June 2008-06-07

It rained. All day. All night. Booked a ticket out of Hong Kong through a local agent. They were about $100US cheaper than I could find a ticket online. And believe me; I spent some time online looking. (It was raining- not much else to do). Called a foreign travel agent in my next country of travel to book my onward journey. This ticket was $500 cheaper than I could get it online. That is a good thing. Note that most places require you to have proof of onward travel before they will let you in the country. Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, and several others are like this. Hong Kong was not that picky.

Found a slice of Hong Kong heaven. DelaneyÕs Irish Pub. Good food and FREE wireless access. Fast wireless to boot. Spent a good 5 or 6 hours there. Updated the web page, completed slideshows, etc. A glowing Apple logo is a chick magnet, entirely underutilized.

Saturday, 7 June 2008

Woke up and it was still raining. It rained all day- again. Probably for about 40 hours straight it rained. Finished work on the webpage, printed stuff for travel purposes, and did a little shopping for office supplies. The morning saw record rainfall over Hong Kong. 400 flights were delayed. 14 were cancelled. The only road to the airport flooded. There were around 89 landslides. 3,657 lightning strikes between 7am and 8 am, along with 6Ó of rain between 8 am and 9am. The city average rainfall was around 12 inches over around 12 hours. In Houston, this would be more intense than a 100 year storm. Needless to say, my $2 umbrella paid for itself.

Made the walk (in the rain) to the harbor to watch the Symphony of Lights one last time. Truly one of the most impressive things I've seen. A taming of the concrete jungle, so to speak. It could never happen in the US. People would sue because of light pollution and noise. The FAA would complain because the lasers might confuse pilots. And to boot, nobody would pay to install it since you can not directly make money from it.

Sunday. 8 June 2008

On plane. Newspaper says that Bird Flu H5N1 was just found in chickens at a Hong Kong market. It was not the market we went to a few days prior. Good time to be leaving. If you’re superstitious, look for something bad to happen to China on either 6-11 or 6-20. The May earthquake hit on 5-12. The Tibetans protested on 3-15. Significance? The digits of these days add up to '8'. Eight is traditionally a very lucky number for Chinese people. For that reason, the Olympics start at 8pm on 8-8-2008. And by the way, that earthquake was precisely 88 days before the Olympic start date.....

Lead Time Calculator

Day 121

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:34:00 +0000

Day 121, June 5, 2008

4 months on the road. No planned end in sight. Waiting on a painfully slow wireless connection. Trying to figure out where to go next. Life is rough when these are the biggest concerns on one’s mind. Especially when they aren’t concerns at all. Basically just a series of small challenges to overcome and decisions to make. I learned from an unnamed source that this is a basic definition of life: Living Things Decide. A tree grows towards light, a bacteria ‘decides’ to eat and multiply, worms decide to eat poop, etc. Our decisions are a bit more complicated, but to stay alive, we have make decisions and act on them.

Sent the hiking boots home with the Houston crew, so I bought some new Nike trail runners today. The idea is to start running to get in shape. I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

Also added some pages to my passport at the US Embassy. Compared to the Indian Consulate or even the Chinese Consulate, this was a smooth, silky operation. There is a reason why we are a superpower.

McDonalds does not give free Coke refills in Hong Kong.

I finally broke down and went to KFC. Tastes of home, tastes of home. Fried chicken never, ever tasted so good.

Just got email from Eckroth. The Texas four made it home safely.

Damn Arabs. Somebody needs to put out more gas so the price of airfare will drop. I have to visit a local travel agent in the AM. I can’t bear to book tickets online at the prices I am looking at…………….

Slept in this morning, and yesterday morning.

China

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:49:00 +0000

Saturday, May 24

Met up with the Houston Four in Beijing. Jessica, Jennifer, Julia, and Dr. Muchard joined me for a 6 day tour of China. They got in around midnight so we downed a bottle of wine and got some sleep.

Jessica: Oh, yeah the wine, not quite vinegar but not exactly what I’d call an excellent bouquet. I doubt I’ll take a return trip to explore the Chinese wine country.

Jennifer: I don't remember the wine. Oh wait, yeah I do. It was bad.

Dr: Direct quote describing said wine from the label on the bottle: "Tasting best and delicious production elaborate brewing and classical making the wine was made of best grapes in the world and with internal advanced technics it is clarity and hasfull-bodied fruity-smell. Vinosity and long aftertaste."

Sunday, May 25

We decided on a train/foot tour of Beijing. Rumor was that there were tours of the Olympic Stadium so we headed that way via the subway. The other determining factor was that the stadium was not on our tour itinerary. We made it there and were greeted by armed guards, chain link fence, and a lot of confusing signs and instructions for tour tickets that did not exist. Se la vi... at least we saw the darn thing.

Next, we were off to the Temple of Heaven. It is huge, probably covers a good hundred acres. Another one of these deals where you tromp accross town and are greeted by a huge brick wall with no way in. I struck up a conversation with a Swiss flight attendant, but she had no idea where said temple was at. Eventually we found our way in and saw the sights. It is amazing what can be build with unlimited time, money, and man power. The air in the gardens here seemed cleaner than outside the temple gates. The air in Beijing resembles a fog. It hurts to breathe after a while. It makes Houston look and smell like a garden spot.

We returned to the hotel just in time for our first group meeting. 15 total: 3 Brits, 4 Minneapolis, 5 Texans, 1 Louisiana, 1 East coaster, and 1 Canadian. After the meeting we ventured out for our first of many group meals. Leah orders a variety of dishes and they all come out to a huge lazy susan in the middle of the table... round and round it goes as we sample the various dishes. By the end of the trip, everyone's chopstick skills had greatly improved.

Jessica: Should have packed a hard hat because Beijing equals one big construction site. The Olympic Stadium excursion was a bust but I suspect they hid the ticket booth when they saw 5 Americans approaching as other folks were clearly touring the Olympic Village. The signage was funny though like the “Tickets 300 m à” only to walk 300 meters à to find a sign that says “ß Tickets 200 m”. I also liked the English translation at the ATM that said “Question Authority” when what I think they meant was go inside to speak to teller. Our guide book called this type of translation “Chinglish”!J

Jennifer: I suspect that some of those stadium guards spoke english, but just didn't want to deal with us. I like how Larry fails to mention that the Swiss girl's body building look-a-like boyfriend did know where the temple was.

Dr: Sincere thanks to the five people working at information desk at the mall near the Olympic stadium who made their best efforts to attempt to figure out what we were looking for. Needless to say there was a big language barrier. They ended up giving us directions back to the gated stadium entrance.

Monday, May 26

We headed out of town in our small tour bus to the Great Wall. We went to a less visited section of the wall and enjoyed the lack of crowds. Persistent vendors, but not a lot of tourists. Unfortunately it was a hazy day, so the views were 'limited.' Still, it was cool to see it.

The parking lot is at the bottom of a large hill so we took a cable car to the top. The wall is on top of a large ridge line. We took the slide back down, a stainless steel slide with a luge like sled you sit on. Without slow moving sledders blocking traffic and Chinese dudes with bullhorns telling me to slow down, it could have been a kick ass ride. Instead is was merely 'cool.'

Jessica: So many steps, so little time. You often have to climb up to go down. Why anyone would want to attack by climbing this wall is beyond me…so I guess it served the intended purpose. Although limited, the views were worth the climb. The toboggan ride down almost made me want to climb back up and do it all over again.

Jennifer: The great wall has more stairs than anyone tells you ahead of time.

Dr: The tobaggon slide at the Great Wall represents true capitalistic spirit: attempt to extract as much money as possible from visitors at major tourist attractions. But it was still fun.

Tuesday, May 27

We took a tour of Mao's Mausoleum, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We then had lunch at a local house and had beverages on a small lake surrounded by bars and restuarants.

Mao's Mausoleum

No cameras allowed. This dude killed over 30 million of his countrymen, but they line up to see his well-preserved body like it was the new ride at 6 flags. He died in '76. Our tour concensous is that the 'well-preserved body' is actually a wax replica. We could be wrong though.......

Tiananmen Square

Epicenter of the June 4, 1989 Pro-Democracy reforms that were smashed by the governement. Death estimates range from 300 (China Government) to 3,000+ (Chinese Red Cross). The NSA puts the number between 180-500 . It was a pretty peaceful place at the time of our visit. It is a very large area, centrally located in Beijing. Adjacent to it are Parliment, Mao's thing, and the ancient Forbidden City.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

Forbidden City

Old temples, gardens, and royal palaces. Can't describe this part without saying that the Houston Four got separated from the group for a while. Tour guide Leah was briefly worried, but eventually we found them.

Misc

After this we boarded a bus for lunch at a local house. Lunch was good. Most houses have no toilet facilities. There are public restrooms on every block. I don't recall if these folks had a toilet or not. After lunch we boarded a rickshaw caravan and rolled to a few locations along the backstreets of Beijing. Good times. Severa of us hit the lakeside resturaunt with Leah and then headed back to the hotel to prepare for our overnight train ride to Xian.

Train

We rolled taxis to the train station. There are a lot of people in China and this is demonstrated while you sit around a train station for an hour. We boarded around 10:30pm and arrived in Xian around 8:30am. The train is a narrow hallway down one side, with sleeper cabins down the other side. 6 bunks to a cabin- that top bunk is high. Luckily they have sides so it would be real hard to fall out. No doors on the cabins either. There is a bar/resturant car, but we didn't make it there as we brought our own sleep medication.

Jessica: An interesting day. A “well-preserved” chairman, the first of many baby butt sightings, a rickshaw ride, local fare, a cool beer, and a midnight train...could almost be a country song. Oh, yeah, as for the separation from the group, we were never lost, we knew where we were the entire time…about 4 blocks west and 6 blocks south of our hotel.

Jennifer: The square was peaceful, but I did see a guy hold his kid over a trash can while the kid took a dump. True story. I am not going to address the overnight train, since I am trying to forget it. Lesson: if someone ever suggests that you take an overnight train, decline. And for the record, we weren't lost, just not where Leah thought we should be.

Dr: When separated from your tour group in China, simply locate another tour guide leading around a bunch of English speaking people and ask him to use his Chinese cell phone to call your tour guide. Don't spend 30 minutes attempting to locate and use a local pay phone (they only take Chinese phone cards) or trying to dial your guide's Chinese cell phone number on your cell phone. Our apologies to the rest of the group who had to wait around while we figured this out. Also - our sincere apologies to the two people in our bunk compartment on the train who were not associated with our tour group and had to listen to us enjoy Larry's "sleep medication" while they actually tried to sleep.

Wednesday, 28 May

Xian Orientation Walk. Xian is pronounced 'She-an'. That is the easiest thing I found in Chinese. The air here was slightly cleaner than Beijing, but only slightly. We checked out the city wall, which is about 10 miles along and surrounds the original city boundaries. There's a bell tower in the center of the city. Saw some cool stuff at a museum. Overall a very relaxing day. A few of us finished out the afternoon with Chinese massage at Leah's club. It had elements of Thai massage, with touches of pain and pleasure. My favorite move was when the masseuse massages your back with her knees while kneeling on top of you. Freaking awesome.

Jennifer: Instead of massages, some of us went to the market. I saw a purse at the market that I already own. The exact same purse. Turns out Harwin Street in Houston is our very own China right here.

Dr: The massage place was very upscale and at 120 Yuan (around $17 US) the 90 minute massage was a bargain.

Thursday, 29 May

Terra Cotta Warriors. Located about an hour bus ride from the hotel. Pretty cool to see. I say again, it is amazing what unlimited manpower can do. The warriors are buried to protect the emperors in the after life. One of the emperors wanted to bury his actual army with him, but one of his wise men convinced him that the army needed to stay alive to protect his children and family.... good call.

Luckily I brought the tripod along for the dimly lit viewing areas. It was one of those 'intuition' moments, halfway out the hotel door, turn around and get tripod, even though I hadn't used it for weeks. Ignored the 'no tripod' sign at the viewing areas and never got any slack from the numerous guards. Guess they didn't care that much........

Jessica: Very cool if not a little freaky to see life-like, life-size terra cotta army men positioned in precise military formation for eternity. Especially when you consider that in the 3 pits that have been uncovered there is estimated to be approximately 8000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses and the experts estimated that it took approximately 1 to 2 weeks to create just 1 figure and all this was done around 210 BC…oh, the joys of limitless manpower! Freakin’ amazing!

Jennifer: creepy.

Dr: It took 700,000 people 38 years to build this thing. Amazing.

Friday 30 May

We rolled out fairly early to catch the flight to Shanghai. It was an uneventful flight- just the way I like them. It is amazing the contrast in some people; they can be extremely gifted in certain skills but as irritating as fingernails on a blackboard otherwise.

We did an orientation walk around this bustling city. Apparently it was the gateway to China back in the roaring 20's. I think one of the Indiana Jones movies started here, maybe Temple of Doom.... We walked our rears off. Hit a museum and a historical part of town.

I believe this is the night we hit Pizza Hut for some comforts of home. After dinner we went down to the Shanghai Bund, which is a long pedestrian area that allows viewing of the city lights across the harbor. Good views.

Jessica: Yes, Temple of Doom starts in Shanghai…(LR – I’m not sure I like your lack of respect for Dr. Jones.) Personally, I was hoping to see a wild “Anything Goes” number on The Bund that evening, but the communist tried to rid the area of debauchery back in the ‘40s when they kicked out the Americans, Europeans, and Japanese so now there is only a handful of bars on The Bund and it kind of resembles the Vegas light show downtown at night. (I learned on this trip that the Chinese really like the neon lights…everywhere you go there are neon lights.)

Jennifer: The best part of the Bund was when all the people trying to peddle their wares, literally packed up and scrammed in about 3 seconds flat. We're talking kites out of the sky, stuff thrown in bags, packed up and ran. Turns out the cops weren't coming, but the tax man was.

Dr: It is interesting to see how American chain restaurants are implemented in foreign countries. Starbucks is exactly the same. Pizza Hut is upscale compared to the American version. They serve wine and the waitstaff wear fancy uniforms. Too bad the pizza was lousy.

Saturday 31 May

Day trip to Zhu Jia Jao, a traditional village situated on a canals system. Kinda like the Venice of China, but not quite. We took a ride through the canals in the water taxis. Wandered the alley ways and shops, checked out a temple, ate lunch, and headed back to the big city.

Our afternoon was free, so the big group split up. Several of the group went up in the Shanghai space needle looking tower. The Fab Five went to see the Jade Buddha and and area of town loaded with art galleries. This was the only one open:

http://www.outstandingartshanghai.com/en-shou.asp

We had one last group dinner that evening and everyone left town the following day.

Jessica: Water taxi was cool, alley ways and shops were full of interesting foods(?) and things. I was a little disappointed in the Jade Buddha as I like my religious artifacts a little less commercialized (we had to pay for admittance into the temple and then pay again to see the Jade Buddha and in order to see one of the Buddhas they route you through a gift shop. Unbelievable, but definitely capitalism at it’s best!)

Jennifer: Have you been Jade Buddaed lately?

Dr: The above-mentioned canal also serves as combination disposal system for untreated sanitary waste and direct (i.e., no treatment) source of water for domestic chores.

Bangkok

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:03:00 +0000

Thailand #2....... May 12 to May 24, 2008

Introduction

You may ask, “Why Thailand again with so much of the world yet to see?” The short answer is “Damn communists.”

The long answer is that the original plan for this time frame involved going to Tibet. However, our friends in China closed it off to all foreigners because of some protests or something. I talked to a dude who’s buddy was in Tibet when the crap hit the fan. He took some photos with his point and shoot and emailed them to a few newspapers. He got a check for $4k and his picture was on the front page of the Times or something like that. Not bad for a few hours work. Good thing he didn’t get caught by the commies, they would have smashed that camera, if he was lucky. They may have smashed his head.

So anyway, the cheapest path out of Nepal goes through Bangkok. It is truly the gateway to SE Asia. Best airport I have been in, maybe ever.

Lodging

Went back to my favorite hostel, maybe ever, Suk 11. It has character, to say the least. 12 nights was something like $240. After Nepal and India, it was 5-star. It had hot water on demand- every time I wanted it. The AC voltage never wavered. The air conditioning worked. No car horns or barking dogs at 3am. The door locked. The wi-fi worked. To quote some graffiti on the walls:

There is a place called Suk Eleven,
It is a slice of Bangkok heaven.
So take the Tuk
To the Suk
Its right behind the Seven Eleven.

If you ever travel to the Suk and can find my addition to the graffiti, I’ll buy you a frosty beverage. Here’s a hint- a Rolla Theta Xi would know what to look for and where the stairway to heaven ends. There are pictures of the Suk on the slideshow. Everything needed is within walking distance of the Suk and fairly cheap. For example, a Thai Massage: 1 hour for 250 Baht - or about $8.33. Or you could go nuts and get a 2 hour massage for 400 Baht. The English pub was under part of the hotel. They had a decent cheeseburger. With fries, it was around $5, or 150 Baht. Expensive meal by Thai standards, but I was feeling very burger deficient. A great Thai meal, say fried noodles or Pad Thai, with a Coke, would run around 60-80 Baht. You had to ‘eat local’ to get these prices. The same meal in a tourist restaurant would run you 4x as much. I could get bacon, eggs, and a latte for around $5. A Guinness was around $5, a local Chang was around $2. So bottom line, if you don’t do things like upgrade hard drives, have cameras cleaned, do tour trips, and take massage class; you can live large for around $45 per day.

Hardware Woes

Found an Apple store and had them swap hard drives in the laptop. Ran out of disk space- couldn’t delete pictures fast enough. Got 120 gigabytes free now- should come in handy for the sights of China. Speaking of pictures, every time I cranked up the aperture, I got these nasty dust spots in my pictures. John from Nepal said it was dust on the sensor. He was right. Had dust inside my lens also. Found a Nikon store and 4500 Baht later I have a clean lens, clean sensor, and overall very clean camera. I am disappointed with Nikon for not covering the lens cleaning under warranty. In my mind, dust INSIDE a very expensive lens is just not acceptable. Maybe an email to them will lead to some resolution. Maybe I’ll link this on-line complaint and they’ll see my photos and offer me a job.

Busted out the camera on the scooter ride from the Nikon store to massage class. Scooter rides here are kick butt. Nothing like zipping between cars with inches to spare on each side. At least they give you a helmet.

Massage Training

As I found myself in Bangkok with no plans and over a week to kill, I signed up for a one week Thai Massage class. 30 hours of professional instruction. Classroom and hands on practice under the supervision of Master Yoshinori. The classroom even had a skeleton, just like your high school biology classroom. Overall, $400 well spent. I highly recommend this school. If you can’t come to Bangkok, do a massage class elsewhere. You simply can not beat real time feedback and guidance when it comes to improving your touch. When you put a receiver/instructor to sleep, you know you’re doing something right.

I always knew I had good hands, but now I have a certificate to prove it.

Miscellaneous

Sidewalks paved with bricks are cool until they become loose. In certain instances, specifically during and after rainfall events, a loose brick can act like a pump and force water upward, thereby drenching your feet and lower legs. Not pleasant.

The Thai language, for lack of a better word, is the most soothing I have ever heard. To listen to it is like a song. The sounds are soft and pleasant. Maybe it helps that Thai ladies, overall, are very attractive and super friendly. Contrast this to listening to Indian or French. French gives me a headache. So does Bulgarian. French is not the language of love. If it’s not American, it may be Thai.

Apparently to type Japanese, you type the words out on a QWERTY keyboard and the computer pops up the correct symbol. I bet Chinese is the same way.

You have two bones in each thumb and big toe, while the other toes and fingers have 3 bones each.

The Clavicle is connected to the Scapula, which are both connected to the Humerus, which is connected to the Radius and Ulna, which connect to the Carpals (8), Meta-carpals (5), and Phalanges (14). The Radius is on the thumb side of your arm. I remember Scapula because it rhymes with spatula. If you had a spare skeleton laying around the campsite and you needed a spatula, you would use the scapula. Or a flattened Coke can on a stick. But that doesn’t rhyme………….

You have 12 ribs on each side: 7 true, 3 false, and 2 floating.

Nepal

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:42:00 +0000

20 April 2008 Day 75

Approximately 15 hours in the airport in Calcutta, India. Good times. Caught a decent nights sleep in a nig chair. Airline gave me breakfast. Regardless, worst layover ever. Finally caught the flight to Kathmandu and the REI guide was waiting at the airport to drive me to Hotel Marshyangdi. Sweet- I had never showed up to an airport with pre-arranged personal transport waiting, other than friends and relatives, and they did not bring a fresh made flower lei. Marshyangdi is in the Thamel District, which apparently is the tourist area of Kathmandu. That means it is cleaned up a little over rest of the town. It is still probably the dirtiest place I have been, but I like it much better than Manilla, even better than Bangkok. Kathmandu is much smaller, so you don’t get the super crowded metro feel. Had some sort of Nepal spiced bbq chicken for dinner, and then hit the Fire & Ice Tavern for a few beverages. It was band night, so they were covering American classics such as Sweet Child o’ Mine. Talked to a chick, Ms. M (for our purposes), that had just spent 5 months in India. Ms. M liked hash. Apparently hash is very easy to buy here, as I have turned it down several times on the street. In theory, I think it would be easier to obtain from hot chicks at bars.

21 April 2008 Day 76

Mission: Procure trekking equipment.

Side notes; There are over 1 million tiles on the exterior of the Sydney Opera House. Triple Glazed and self-cleaning.

22 April 2008 Day 77

Mission: Finalize procurement of trekking equipment. Mission Completed.

Rental:
Gortex Parka: $0.70/day
-10 Sleeping Bag: $0.65/day
Purchase:
Day Pack: $22 / each
Duffel Bag: $16
Fleece tops: $10
Fleece Jacket: $30
Goretex Pants: $25
Poly-prop underwear: $ 8

Bottom line is, triple or quadruple the prices above to get to equipment costs back home. It actually makes financial sense to buy a bunch of stuff and pay the $75 per 10 lbs to ship stuff home. It is all great ‘quality’ knockoff, mostly North Face. They love to copy that stuff here. My day pack is North Face knock off, if it makes it to the top and back I will be amazed. In case you are wondering, my regular travel backpack is not suitable for 2 weeks in the Himilayas. There are 11 people in our group. We will apparently have a staff of 17 to carry our crap, cook for us, set up tents, etc. All we have to carry is rain gear, water, and camera…. Basically anything you might need between breaking camp and setting up camp for the evening.

Met up with some of my fellow trekkers this morning also. Kurt from British Columbia, Hans Peter from Seattle, and Rick from Vancouver. They were enjoying a late breakfast around 8:30 when I wondered down to the patio to check email. Internet was down, so I ended up hanging with these guys for most of the day. Good people. They are all retired or pushing retirement. It is going to be a good trip.

23 April 2008 Day 78

Tour around Kathmandu as a group. A couple of temples, a couple of shopping opportunities. Most tours in SE Asia seem to include stops at shops where the owner is probably related to the tour guide. Got two of my favorite pictures on this day. There was some sort of dance going on at a temple area. One picture is two little girls, smiling, with the dancers in the back. As my brother pointed out, there is also a dude in the background, laying down, holding his head, as if saying “Damn these drums, can’t they see I’m sleeping here?” Also there is a girl with a huge Mountain Dew bottle- east meets west.

Trail Day 1….24 April 2008 Day 79

4:30am wakeup call came at 5am to a hotel room without power. With a eminent 5:30 departure, breakfast became more important than the planned shower. So begins day 1 without a shower…. there will be many more. Flight to Lukla (pop approx 700) to start hike was delayed slightly due to clouds at the landing strip. Said strip is about ¼ mile long and you use all of it upon landing. The flight is visual guidance through the mountains. Could not see anything through the clouds on this flight… just the occasional hillside that looked way too close for comfort.

After tea, we hit the trail for Phakding for our first campsite. First impressions were that the trail was more like a highway. Lodges, restaurants all along this stretch. Nothing is gasoline powered up here. All goods move by Sherpa, yak, or the occasional helicopter. For normal loads, a porter will make about 20 rupee/kg for transport from Lukla to Namche Bazar, the primary trading area. 20 rupee is about $0.50. A typical load will push 150 pounds. The heavy haulers will load over 200 pounds and get a slightly higher wage. They will typically make our 2 day one way trip a round trip in 2 days or less…. and they do it in sandals.

At this elevation, the pack animals are ‘Zopkyos.’ –rhymes with Tokyo- A zopkyo is the offspring from a male yak and a female cow. The cows make better mothers. Zopkyos can mate, but their offspring are worthless and usually die in 2 or 3 years. The female zopkyos are for milking, the males for hauling.

Today was ‘training day’. What to expect along the trail. How camp works. Etc. We were introduced to the concept of “Sherpa Flat”. Sherpa Flat describes a trail that consists of minor changes in elevation… no major ascents or descents. Anyhow, this trail was sherpa flat.

Facts of the day:
(a) Amazingly, Zopkyos will cross suspension bridges that most people would hesitate to cross.
(b) Canadians hate France also.
(c) We actually have a support staff of 24 Sherpa.
(d) “Ramro” means good.
(e) “Dan Ne Baht” means Thank you

Trail Day 2….25 April 2008 Day 80

Initiation Day. A taste of things to come. Heartbreak hill is a 2,000’ climb up the side of a mountain to Namche Bazar (pop 900) at 11,400’. For lack of a better description, it was a bitch. Definitely felt the lack of oxygen; relative rate is about 64% of sea level.

Our food is surprisingly good. Lunch was bok choy, french fries, sliced hot dogs, and French toast of sorts. Dinner last night was curry potatoes, bok choy, green beans, lentil with rice, and starters of popcorn and soup. The food would be great throughout the trip. Meals have been at lodges, no dining tent yet.

We met a local celebrity. Apa Sherpa. He has scaled Mt. Everest 17 times. Some people consider him a ‘sell out’ because he moved to Utah.

Dude means milk
Chia means tea.
Nah Meh Stae means hello, goodbye, have a nice day, etc. The universal greeting.

Weather has been cloudy and foggy thus far. Only the occasional glimpse of a mountain top. Kongde peaked at us during dinner, but no more than just seeing snow through the clouds, a mere glimpse at something really big. We were quietly worried about the weather.

Trail Day 3….26 April 2008 Day 81

After rolling out of the tents, we were greeted by views of our first mountain- Kongde was cloud free at sunrise! After two days of clouds, this was a VERY welcome sight.

Technically today is a ‘rest day.’ The accepted practice is to camp two nights at a constant elevation for every 3,000’ in elevation gain. We also apply the concept of ‘hike high, sleep low.’ We took a day hike to the Everest View Hotel (12,400’) for probably the best panoramic I had ever seen. Along the way, the view got better around every turn and over every ridge. Eventually we rounded a bend and the hike leader pointed and said “That is Mt. Everest.” We all stopped and the cameras clicked away. It made yesterday’s assault on heartbreak hill worth every step. It was ‘Mission Accomplished,’ a sort of milestone for many of us.

We had beverages and some light snacks at the hotel while sitting on the balcony to enjoy the sunshine and the views. Maybe the weather would cooperate after all.

Back in Namche we visited Thupten’s house. Typical of a Sherpa house, it consisted of kitchen, main room, and prayer room. The main room is all purpose- dining, sleeping, relaxing, etc. Thupten’s father was an Everest Guide. He saved a famous American dude on the glacier up there and in return, visited both the King of Nepal and JFK.

Wood is scarce, so the primary source of fuel for heat and cooking is dried yak crap. It doesn’t smell bad when burned. Anyway, it is scooped up (by hand) when fresh and applied to a stone wall in a thick pancake shape for drying….which leads to the day’s classic moment. Kurt, Amy, and I were discussing the parameters for determining when a dried yak patty was ‘done.’ At that moment a dried patty fell off the wall…… Question answered.

Trail Day 4….27 April 2008 Day 82

After a few hours on the Himalayan Freeway, we veered off to take the scenic route to Phortse Tenga for our next camp. The scenic route definitely had less traffic and provided great views…. a teaser for the days to come. We had lunch at Mong La, elevation 12,900’. Then camped around 12,400.’ That 500’ downhill was all at once, felt good, but you know you have to go back up that distance the next day….. so you curse every step downhill.

The lead group- Amy, Shelly, and Tom- got charged by some Zopkyos. They had just let a group of Z’s pass when the lead one fell on some steps and rolled down a few steps. This ‘concerned’ the trailing Z’s, which pulled 180’s and charged back down the stairs. The lead guide’s excited advice was “RUN !” Which was repeated loudly by the folks mentioned above. The guide stood his ground and shouted some Sherpa stuff at the charging Z’s, did some yak whisperer stuff, and stopped the charge. From the back of the line, it was comedy. For those up front, it took a few days to be funny.

It was nice easy hike – Sherpa Flat- we were in camp for 2:30. We had some tea and played around on the river bank for a while. The river comes off the Choyo Glacier, so it is kinda cold. They had a combination cantilever / single span bridge. I was checking it out when my predictability was demonstrated. Off in the distance, Amy told Shelli, “watch this, he’s gonna jump on it”… and I did. I like to cause deflections in bridges. Good way to estimate capacities. Pasang did not like me jumping on this particular bridge. I’d give it a “One Yak Limit”

So, we were chatting with this Canadian girl, a solo hiker before tea time…..
Her: So ya’ll are on one of those luxury hikes.
Us: Not really, we have those tents, eat in a dining tent, etc.
Guide shows up: “tea time” Girl smiles and raises an eyebrow.
Us: Ok, maybe it is luxury…….

It was Jeans birthday. She got a birthday cake after dinner. Cooked over hot rocks. And decorated with icing. Amazing & tasty.

Trail Day 5….28 April 2008 Day 83

Four mile hike. We were told it was Sherpa Flat. 2,500’ cumulative vertical to net 1,100’ gain to Pangboche. The words “Sherpa Flat, my ass” were repeated by several people. However, the views along the trail and at the camp again made every step worth it. Balkumar led today. From camp we identified several mountain features that did not show up on our maps. Specifically “Buttoche” and “Booboche” were visible from camp.

Families choose children’s names by lottery. The relatives all put in names and the draw one from a hat. Avoids conlflict this way. Sherpa means “East People.” There are not many Sherpa. People can never marry into their father’s family and only into your mothers after 3 generations. The Sherpa people have no written language… only verbal. Writing is in Nepalese or Tibetan; these both are missing letters needed for the Sherpa dialect. If I remember correctly, a monk is working on creating written Sherpa language. Most kids now learn American in schools. {Side note: Per a wise dive instructor in Koa Tao, our language is no longer called English. It is now “American”}

Pan seared spam never tasted so good.

Quote of the day, from Tom: “I’m pissed, I look around and all I see is mountains.”

Trail Day 6….29 April 2008 Day 84

31 degrees at wakeup call. Kongde and Lhotse provided great views at sunrise. Day consisted of 3.5 hour hike, 5 miles, to Dingboche. Dingboche is at 14,550’. This is higher than any peak in Colorado. I like this fact. I also like that even at this elevation, mountains tower above you in every direction. From camp, we could see Chopura, which is a peak in China. Another milestone. Even if I can’t get a visa, I have seen it.

Campsite at a lodge, nice dining room, if you can stand the kerosene smell from the cooking below. At 1pm, it was 60 degrees, but the wind chill feels more like 40.

Trail Day 7….30 April 2008 Day 85

Another rest day for acclimatization. Day hike of 2.1 miles to elevation of 15,500’ Views of the 4th and 5th tallest peaks in the world, Lhotse and Makalu. We hung out on this ridge for a while to enjoy the view. It was dry and dusty.

The afternoon was filled with various activities. The internet café had a gravel floor, and the first generator we had seen. Satellite uplink. Unofficially dubbed as the world’s highest, most expensive, and slowest internet café. Sent a single email, it took 12 minutes and cost $6……

The pool hall had a sod floor. The pool table invoked a game crossed between billiards and golf. Mostly billiards, but if you did not ‘play the slope’ of the green, you were screwed. A masse shot became easy…. just use the slope.

The poker chips were rocks from the river bank. Small whites were worth 5 and bigger grays worth 10. Hours of poker and blackjack ensued. I played the dealer for blackjack. Using the best casino rules we could collectively piece together, the house won, but not by much.

A bottle of Tabasco sauce appeared at dinner time. It was a welcome upgrade from the green chilli sauce we had been working on up ‘till this point. We had some chicken kabobs that qualified as the best chicken I ever tasted.

Every turn and every ridge has yielded a new view. The views keep getting better and better. Truly this is the most amazing place I have visited. Close seconds are (a) a shipwreck 100’ down, (b) the Grand Canyon, and (c) the Fox to Wanaka drive in NZ. I think two days from now, the view from Kala Patar may win the grand prize.

Trail Day 8….1 May 2008 Day 86 “Where’s my Johnny Freakin Ho?”

After a mere 6 miles and 2,100’ of vertical, we reached Lobuche. Lobuche is a desolate collection of 5 lodges. Everyone leaves in the summer when there are no trekkers and only grazing yaks. There is no vegetation now, but the rainy summer will produce grass around 8” tall for the critter to graze. At this elevation, this was the hardest hike yet. I had to take a cat nap after this one. It is also getting colder. It was 38 degrees at 5pm.

Tomorrow is D-Day. 5 am wakeup call instead of the usually 6:30am. The summit of Kala Patar is the first prize for this trek. For mere mortals, Kala Patar provides the best views of Mt. Everest. Due to the weather patterns this time of year, we need to be there in the am, before it clouds over. 18,300’ does you no good if it is cloudy. If it’s cloudy, we will push through to Everest Base Camp and hope for KP the next day. From Lobuche, Kala Patar is about a 5 mile push, through the camp at Gorak Shep and then 1500’ up the mountain.

Needless to say, you could feel the emotions around the dinner table.

Trail Day 9….2 May 2008 Day 87 D-Day

Weather at sunrise is clear. It’s go time.

20 degrees at wakeup call. Quick breakfast and we’re off. I manage to stay with the lead group to Gorak Shep. The 4.25 miles from Lobuche are not exactly easy, but they pass quickly. At this elevation, the group spreads out significantly due to different walking abilities. Upon arrival in Gorak Shep, we could see the clouds gathering down below- the clouds will be up here in a few hours. The guides said we had to wait until Thupten made it here with the trailing guys. After Hans Peter made them an “offer they couldn’t refuse”, we skipped the soup the cooks were making and headed up the hill.

Trying to speed 1500’ up a mountain over about ¾ of a mile at 18,000 feet can only be described as “difficult” At this elevation, it is hard to breathe, stand, or do anything other than lay motionless on a rock. I would qualify sitting as a challenge. Anyway we made it up and were rewarded with only slightly hazy views of Mt. Everest. At this point we were 6 horizontal miles and 2 vertical miles from the top of the world. Apply a little Pythagorean theory and we’re about 6.5 miles from the summit. Mission Accomplished.

Unfortunately, we had to share the summit with a large group of Bulgarians. They were loud and rude. It was not our first encounter with these bastards. I will now rank Bulgaria as only slightly above France. I found a spot out of the wind, and reclined for about 45 minutes. The Bulgarians eventually left and all was good. I went down with the last of our group. I would have took more pictures, but it was hazy and movement hurt too much. I actually carried some Chivas Regal up here, but due to lack of oxygen, forgot all about it.

It snowed at tea time (3:30). By the time dinner was over, I found myself in the dining tent, wearing sandals, with an inch of snow on the ground and a sleeping tent 20 yards away. ((By now, at least one of my engineer friends has checked my math and/or a map concerning the 6.5 mile statement above, and is contemplating whether to email me a better number)) My money is on the electrical guys, specifically Adam or Beaquel. For 3 beers, you can learn the origin of the name Beaquel.

Trail Day 10….3 May 2008 Day 88

Other than having water, the area between Gorak Shep and Everest Base Camp (EBC) is the most desolate place I’ve seen, maybe ever. It snowed…. Thus, hell froze over today. The last 3 miles back down were just short of a death march. Between Gorak Shep and Lobuche, it started to really snow and the wind was blowing like a mad. We were 7 hours on the trail.

John, Amy, Tom, Shelly, and I were determined to go to base camp. For the others, Kala Patar was the prize. And EBC was visible from Kala Patar, so they can say they saw it. They headed back to Lobuche for an easy day. We five set out for a 7 hour hike. The snow started about 1/3 of the way from Gorak to EBC. By the time we rolled into EBC, the only people outside were the Sherpa- Delivering supplies, building toilet tents ,etc. The climbers were all hunkered down in their tents. So no interviews with famous climbers. At first glance, EBC is best described as a seemingly chaotic array of tents. Various colors and sizes abound. On closer inspection, a slight order arises. Living tents are clustered around central dining tents. There are signs scribbled pointing the way to various locations. Story is that there is a hierarchy of what teams get what camping spots. We ate our bag lunches and began the descent. We knew it was bad when asked about getting any good pictures, John responded with a strained voice, “I’m over it.”

The first high point on the downhill was that one of the kitchen boys went about halfway to EBC to bring us hot Tang. Tang never tasted so good, especially warm. The second high point was soup at Gorak Shep, accompanied by a slight slowing of snowfall. Other than that, it was as described- a downhill, wind in your face, death march at 17,000’

I broke down and got a hot water bottle at bedtime. After about 6 hours of being cold, it felt real good to be warm. It was the only way I could get warm, even with dry clothes and a sleeping bag.

Trail Day 11….4 May 2008 Day 89 Downhill Dash

It was a beautiful day around breakfast time. So nice that they took down the dining tent and we ate breakfast open air. It was quite a sight; other trekkers were stopping to snap our picture. Good start to the day.

We dropped 3,700’ in elevation today. It was a downhill dash. Had lunch in a lodge in Pheriche. Pheriche is home to the Himalaya Rescue Association and a stainless steel monument to deceased climbers. It was nice to be in a lodge again. Up until this point the weather was good. Windy, but good.

About 30 minutes after lunch, it was time to bust out the gore-tex. It rained for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily, our camp at Deboche was at a lodge. We shared the common area with 5 ladies from New Zealand. That lodge saved our butts, it would have been cold, wet, and miserable climbing into a tent after the rain we endured. We had to wonder what was going thru the minds of the trekkers headed up the mountain. We had great weather all the way up. Consensus was that uphill in the rain would be mentally challenging.

Trail Day 12….5 May 2008 Day 90

3 months on the road. 

First stop along the trail is the monastery at Tengboche. Thupten spent 10 years here. He was pardoned from his life as a monk when his father passed away. As the youngest child, it was his duty to care for his mother. That was something like 20 years ago, many of his friends are still here. Thupten is a name given by the Lama, and it means “follow the religion”

We pulled a 1,200’ uphill climb today like a stroll in the park. It is great to have oxygen, and we’re still at 12,000’.

Camped in Namche Bazar again. Determined that 13 days without a shower was enough. I could smell myself and did not like it. The shower was a tin building with corrugated fiberglass roof. When you can see your breath and steam comes off your body, no amount of hot water will keep your naked body warm. Before the shower, I got a haircut and clean shave with a straight razor. Not a knick, the dude did excellent. No more Grizzly Adams look, at least for a while.

We had a discussion about porters. Indentured servants or just happy to have a job?

We each tipped a minimum of $300. This was divided up by our accounting committee between the different classes of staff: Porters and Yak drivers, kitchen staff, assistant guides, Sidar, and Group Leader. Sidar is the boss of the Sherpa staff. Group Leader is the overall boss, he takes care of us.

Trail Day 13….6 May 2008 Day 91

Namche to Phakding. Another downhill sprint. Estimated the ultimate load capacity of a suspension bridge to be 25,000 lbs. Based on the following assumptions:
- Two- 1.5” galvanized wire rope along bridge deck carry the entire load.
- Ignore upper 1” cables
- 300’ bridge length
- 20’ sag from ends to middle
- 100 kip tensile strength per rope.
- Assume point load at center
- Assume anchor points are sufficient for calculated load.
If anyone has time to run a model of this, I’d love to know the correct answer. Maybe its on google somewhere. Rumor has it that the Swiss built many of these bridges.

We had songs and dance in Phakding with the Sherpa. They sang. The white folk could not come up with a song we all knew. We should have went with Jingle Bells or Rudolph. We gave our group tip money to the staff. Every one was happy. We had Chang, local beverage fermented from Buckwheat or barley or something. It was white, like milk, and actually quite good.

Trail Day 14 … 7 May 2008 Day 92

Easy morning hike to Lukla. After lunch, we hit the Irish Pub. It was Irish because it had a neon shamrock on the wall. It was cool because the pool table was level. It rocked because the bartender had a decent ipod. It was unique in that Sting was there 6 weeks before us. Apparently he is a Buddhist and he helicoptered in and took his family to the Tengboche monastery. He autographed a t-shirt for the bar wall. Anyway, of the group, 8 of 11 ended up here. We skipped the 3:30 tea, but decided it would be best to make the 6:30 dinner. We ended up partying till around 10pm, with the Swiss contingent singing songs well into the evening. Apparently there was not enough Chang in Phakding for the musketeers to bust out with song…… but 4 hours at the pub did the trick. The other lodge guests thanked us for singing them to sleep, comparing the Swiss songs to a religious experience.

Day 15 ….. 8 May 2008 Day 93

5 am wakeup call for the flight to KTM. Once again, Thupten’s mystical powers were displayed. There were literally hundreds of people in Lukla, waiting for their flights. Each plane carries about 14 people. Ours was first.

The weather cleared and we were treated to great views on the flight. It was nothing to look out the left window and see trees above the plane; simultaneously, out the right window, the ground would be 2,000’ feet below. At one point we buzzed a ridge by about 150’, seconds later we were 3,000’ above a river. To put the flight in perspective, you take off at 9,000’ and land around 1,500’. So the plane never really climbs, we just go down.

At this point, Hotel Marshyangdi was five star. Other than the power outage and lack of hot water. As it was Amy’s birthday, we celebrated with Italian food, but were too beat down from the previous day to continue the festivities into the evening.

We made up for it the next day, decorating our own ‘foot’ at the Rumdoodle.

For adventure and scenery, Nepal is the best destination thus far.

---o0o---

Delhi

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:17:00 +0000

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Arrive in New Delhi, India, hereafter noted only as Delhi or the ‘Dirty D’. Cab from the airport dropped me on the wrong street, about a quarter mile from my actual hotel. There are no street names posted, and the street he thought the hotel was on was impassable by car since it was also a local market way. Things were starting off well. After wandering down the street and turning down help from a few drug dealers, I found the neighborhood ‘tourist cop’ and he lined me up with a rickshaw to the correct location. Lodging, check.

Now for dinner. First place I saw a sign for was Café Karen, advertised as a ‘fine rooftop venue’ or something along those lines. After ascending a dark, concrete stairwell that would force the unseasoned traveler to pull a 180, I made it to the rooftop. 4 tables under a makeshift canopy of sorts. It had a toilet room also. They had beer and some sort of spicy chicken over rice. It was decent, and no Ghandi’s revenge to report.

Next: SIM card for cheap long distance to US. The cell phone people had some issues with my lack of a home address. I finally gave them someone else’s address. I had an issue with the cell phone guy trying to take my passport down the street to find a photocopy shop. The words, “Wait here while my son goes and copies this.” Do not resonate well when applied to a passport. Had to wait and finalize the deal in the morning, since they had to call Vodaphone during business hours to activate the SIM. Up and running to the tune of about $0.20/min to the US.

Next: Bar and internet. I gave up on finding an internet café and concentrated on finding a place to get a simple beer. The one place I found did not have an empty seat in the very small room they called a bar… so I gave up, and retreated to the comfort of my air conditioned room for duty free scotch and Pepsi, and tore into the Nepal pictures, trying to get them web- ready.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Hoping for a breakfast of eggs and bacon was ‘shortsighted’ on my part. I settled for a croissant type bread stuffed with spicy chicken. Turned down the personal taxi driver tour option of all the sights in greater Delhi and instead opted for walk-about. Hotel is a good 2 miles from the local attractions. The interesting part of walk-about begins in the fact that a map typically does not indicate what type of neighborhood you will walk through to get to your destination. Best description of my first mile might be, “light-industrial / slum.” The street once again demonstrated a common theme all across southeast Asia. Everyone on this street sold bearings, pumps, and motors. A street by the hotel sells plywood and aluminum siding. Shop after shop, selling the same damn thing. Plenty of competition to keep prices low. My best guess is that it is supply driven, the plywood truck pulls into one place and everyone gets their plywood for their store from the same truck. Just a guess though……. but every country has been the same on this- Vietnam, Phillipines, Thailand….

Anyhow, the keys for successful walk about in said slums are:
(a) Hiking boots- sandals won’t cut it here. Sewage, cow shit, etc. Also useful as defensive weapon since 90% of the people you encounter are barefoot or in sandals.

(b) Indifference. You will see conditions that are really bad. Realize there is nothing you can do and move on. Mothers with skinny babies, dudes without feet, etc… keep moving, show no emotion.

(c) As stated in Casino Royale, the most important lesson is “Trust Nobody”

(d) Look, act, and talk with confidence. Kinda like a Marine….walk tall, chest out, gut sucked in. You will get bombarded from multiple angles. Cabbies, dealers, and the occasional nice guy wanting to have tea and chat about America. After the obligatory ‘nice’ rejection, raise your voice slightly and increase your body language, gestures, etc. Be ready to physically push people away when it becomes necessary. The ‘nice’ ones always want to start a conversation, however, see item (c) above and operate on the theory that you are not in the market for new friends. Tell them you are busy and have no time for tea.

(e) Incorporate (d), while remaining friendly and cordial. Turns out people ask to have their picture taken. High school age and adults even. Just focus on your pockets while you have 10 people trying to crowd around a 2” LCD on the back of your camera.

(f) Proper clothing. Pockets that can’t be picked, sun protection, etc.

(g) Proper map. ALWAYS know generally where you’re at and how to exit said location to your home base.

(h) Small bills and change.

(i) Mental preparation. Anticipate you are about to walk into the biggest crap hole you have ever seen and be happy about it.

With these things in place, you’re set for a good time. I caught a cricket match in the alley, a kid dancing between trains, and some razor wire telling me that I was probably not supposed to be where I was. And a lot of people wanting their picture taken. Only two actually asked for money in return. I laughed at the first guy, but gave about $0.10 to a little girl.

Dinner at the vegetarian restaurant near the hotel. (Restaurant selection I extremely limited) Decent food, but as at Café Karen, you have to look past the occasional dark hair in the food.

This is where the fun begins. Immediately after dinner, at approximately 9:27pm, I logged on to determine when my flight left on the 12th. (ie tomorrow). Turns out it left at 00:50. As in 3 hours and 20 minutes. Can you say go time?

1 hour to get to hotel, pack and shower….. 22:30
45 minute taxi to airport……….. … 23:15
Clear immigration and check in.. …. 00:05

Time left to grab an Indian spiced hot dog and a Coke before boarding. Rock on........

Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:43:00 +0000

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

You have not lived until you have sped through the streets of Vietnam on the back of a motorbike.

The flow of traffic is almost organic. As the bikes roll down the streets, they seem to push and pull each other without actually touching. A bike or pedestrian in the wrong place simply acts as a boulder in a stream; the bikes simply flow around and keep moving. A larger obstacle such as a bus or car is sometimes like the protector of the pack, other times like a slow moving elder on the streets of New York. Traffic is not regulated or stifled as in America. Cars in America are constrained by lanes, signs, and lights. Traffic in America is sterile, boring, a latte and a phone call in the air-con. The whine of tires on the highway, horsepower, and blaring stereos is replaced by the purr of Honda motors and the necessary and almost constant sound of the horn. The horn is a gentle warning that I am coming and you should not deviate from your path as I pass by. Crossing the street is much easier here, if you do not fear injury or death, if you trust in the organic traffic to behave as the stream. To cross the street you simply wade right in, trusting that the bikes will flow around you as you work your way across, step by step, as if carefully stepping from stone to stone in a deep stream. This also works to cross traffic on a bike, or make a left turn….. impressive to say the least.

Staying with the family of a young man named Son . Son is a classmate and friend of Nhien. Nhien is cousin to my friend Jane. So here I am. Son and his sister have studied English, so I am good practice for them.

Thursday, 3 April 2008

Went on drive-about today, went to the main Catholic Church, two Buddhist Pagodas, the Independence Palace, and the War Artifacts Museum. It is strange to read about the Vietnam War from the enemy’s perspective. We (the ‘American aggressors’) were apparently interfering with the ‘simple reunification’ of the Vietnamese people. Tour guide for the day was Son’s friend Nam’s other friend Nam. Nam is a very common name in Vietnam. It literally translates to ‘man.’

Friday, 4 April 2008

Got up early to meet Son’s friend Nguyen at the bus station for Nha Trang, which is one of Vietnam’s top resort destinations. (Side note: I am in Vietnam watching boxing that was filmed in St. Louis, Missouri- with Devon Alexander, a STL native, he wears red shorts with an arch on them, and a cardinals hat.) Back to task, Nha Trang is a mere 10 hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh. At least the bus had air-con. Son had a busy schedule so Nguyen would be my tour guide for the weekend. Luckily her uncle lives in Nha Trang, so we had local knowledge awaiting us when we arrived.

About the bus ride. The differences between city traffic and country traffic are serious. First of all, in the city, you really never go fast enough to die. Sure, you could have a bus or dump truck drive over your head, but speed won’t kill you in the city. In the country, I am afraid there are many ways to die. Speed, oncoming traffic, etc. In the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh, the road resembles mayhem. Two lanes and a shoulder each way, luckily with a concrete divider. The scooters generally stay on the shoulder, but often they are in the middle of a traffic lane. This is where I saw my first dead person. Sure, I’ve seen dead folks at funerals. I’m talking, soul floating over its body, seeing the white light kind of crap, fresh dead. It’s not that someone said, “that person is dead”, but when a fourth of your grey matter is chunked out on the pavement, you don’t have to be a doctor to know the prognosis. Any fool on a passing bus can figure that one out. Maybe the other girl survived the scooter accident, she was being carried away. (Hopefully she did not have spinal injuries, because if she did, they got worse from being carried.) Somber start to the bus trip.

If the divided road was mayhem, the two lane country road would be AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. Why they bothered with a center line, I will never know. I did not see any wrecks or dead people on this stretch, but lets just say the bus driver probably violated every traffic law that exists in the US. Not only would he be in jail, but the bus company would be sued out of existence for reckless endangerment. Oncoming car when you want to pass- no problem- we’re a bus: bigger, we win, car gets out the way. It becomes a toss up with other buses, and semi trucks rule the hierarchy. But we made it alive…..and took the airplane back to Ho Chi Minh on Sunday. ( I think it was $75 US per person instead of $10 for the bus.)

After the steering wheel, the horn is apparently the most important feature of the bus. They play Vietemese TV really loud on the bus to drown out the sound of the horn. The road rules seem to be this: (a) the bigger you are, the more right of way you have. (b) see rule (a). The lines painted on the roads were really just a waste of paint. I could see no use for them at all.

Anyway, we arrived around 7:30 at night, caught two motorcycle taxis to Nguyen’s Uncle’s place, and were set. After a wonderful dinner, we loaded up with her cousins Kein and Nam, and went on a scooter tour of Nha Trang and had some coffee on the bay front. I stayed at the hotel next to Uncle Y’s house. Nguyen stayed with her family. The hotel was $10 per night. It had AC. It kicked ass.

Saturday, 5 April 2008

Woke up at 5am for a swim with the cousins. Apparently they all overslept, since I did yoga on the sidewalk for 30 minutes while I waited for them. I gave up and went back to bed for a while. I did get some strange looks from the locals as they passed by at 5:15 in the morning to see this white guy stretching on the sidewalk. Anyhow, the plans for the day were (a) boat tour and (b) amusement island tour. Nam, Nguyen, and I took a tour boat to 3 different islands. The first island was a quick tour to feed the ostrich and deer, and look at the beach. The second island warranted a longer stay. They had the elephant show and the bear show. Also a flower garden, some sculptures, and canopy things where you could rest along the beach and relax. We had lunch on the island, talked to a dude from Calgary. You could also jet ski or para-sail on this island, but $10 per 10 minutes for the jet ski was too much for me, and I did not have a swim suit.

Also on the second Island, I rode an Ostrich. $1.25 US. Awesome.

Third island had monkeys. Lots of monkeys. A dude chases them away from the concession stand with a sling shot. Otherwise they steal food. It also had go-karts. As the locals do not drive many things with 4 wheels, I’ll just say my lap times impressed the crowd.

After the boat tour, we caught the a cab to the cable car, sky lift to Vinpearl Island. It is an island with a small amusement park and arcade. The ride over is very cool. Got a few good photos, played some arcade games. Kicked ass at air hockey, Korean dudes were in line to play a few shots against the American guy. With her air hockey skills, Redmond-Neal would be a superstar at this place. Unbeatable.

Sunday, 6 April 2008

Had breakfast and some coffee on the sidewalk. Went to the main Pagoda in town. Very impressive structure. Many people there. Hit the market for some gift buying. Took the plane back to Ho Chi Minh. It was Nguyen’s first flight.

Monday, 7 April 2008

Son’s Father was my tour guide for the day. We communicate with basically no language. Eye contact, expressions, and body language. We took the scooter out of town on a highway that was divided to separate scooters from trucks, cars, and buses. That was a good thing. We stopped at his Uncle’s crocodile and snake farm for a quick look and a quick glass of water. Final destination was the Chu Chi Tunnel Complex. It was created during the war. Basically entire villages moved underground. They had something like 250 km of tunnels, dug by hand. Trap doors, booby traps, fighting trenches, underground kitchens, this place had it all. Shell of an M-41 US tank, bomb craters, etc. A lot of people died on the ground we walked. Vietnamese and American. It is very hard to see displays of booby traps that were set against our troops.

Then back to Ho Chi Minh for Son’s volleyball match. His University team played for the city championship against the other universities, and they won. It was some good volleyball.

Tuesday, 8 April 2008

Everyone was busy today, so I did walk-about in the city centre of Ho Chi Minh. Hit the Saigon River, the city museum- it had some more war stuff. It is really difficult to read about North Vietnams triumph in attacking Americans. What is amazing is the friendliness and openness of the Vietnamese people. The people I met harbored no adversity or hard feelings toward Americans. It demonstrates a challenge for all of us… to be tolerant and to forgive. On the same note though, it is interesting to spot “irregularities” in war facts presented by the Communist Government. They report our casualties to be almost twice what they actually were. The Government controls all media outlets. No Freedom of Speech here….

Said farewell to my new friends and caught the 8:05 plane to Bangkok. Airbus A340… big plane, but I was unimpressed with the build. It was noisy.

Philippines

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:16:00 +0000

Manila, March 21-24

Due to my failure to really think about travel times and blind faith in my travel agent, I arrived in Manila at 04:30. That’s 4:30 am. For a small charge, I got to check into my hotel early. This was after a three hour flight that had the most uncomfortable seats ever… so I didn’t sleep a wink. A wise man once told me that a stripper is designed for one purpose- “to extract money from your wallet”. The same applies to the Manila Diamond Hotel. I thought it would be a good idea to stay 5-star in Manila, problem became that all the taxes, service charges, and other crap that is not included, you basically double your cost. I guess the idea is that if you can afford to stay five-star you should be able to afford paying luxury American prices for food and beverage…. Painful on the budget….. Painful. The Lonely Planet said this was the best of the best along the bay; if this was the best Manila has to offer, I won’t plan to go back. The staff was very friendly, it just seemed they were drowned in procedures and rules. The pool bar was under construction…the top story lounge and restaurant were closed for the holiday weekend.

I only did a one day walk-about in Manila, which was enough. Once you step across the street from that hotel, all bets are off. I walked about 6 kilometers, passing folks fishing and swimming in the bay, the American Embassy, a park, and some pretty run down looking buildings. Most of the buildings in Manila look run down… probably because they are. I wonder what was different after World War II- Japan was leveled but they bounced back to an economic powerhouse…… on the other hand, Manila was also leveled, but at least everyone is happy. I’m sure there are other parts of Manila that are very nice, I just didn’t see them.

Went to an area called Intramuros, which is the remains of an old Spanish fort and city within a wall. It was where all the wealthy folks lived back in the colonial days. The whole area was basically leveled when the Americans kicked the Japanese out at the end of WWII. Basically the only thing left of Manila was a church and some of the walls around Intramuros.

Fort Santiago was on the north end of Intramuros. It was first build in 1571. It was also basically destroyed in WWII. They rebuilt it in the 50’s. Some of the walls that survived still have potmarks from bullets and shrapnel. My first WWII battleground visit. Also included was a mass grave for about 600 people the Japanese starved and suffocated at the end of the war. Very somber experience. For those that ask why the US spends so much on its military- this is the answer- to prevent crap like that from happening….. Except our hands are always tied by the United Nations….but enough politics. Over 150,000 civilians were killed in the crossfire when we defeated the Japanese in 1945.

Boracay Island, March 24-April 2

I escaped Manila and headed south to a small island that Lonely Planet says is the “grand dame” of Philippine beach resorts. It is as close to paradise as I have found. Beautiful beach, palm trees, delicious food, and plentiful scuba diving. I took two PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors) certification courses while on the island- Open Water and Advanced Open Water.

SCUBA Diving
This was the highlight, so it’s first. I have now spent something like 6.5 hours of this trip underwater. On two separate dives we went to 30 meters (100 feet) deep. I completed 10 dives, varying in length from about 25 minutes to 45 minutes. Most of the dives were in the 12-18 meter (36-54’) range. (Dive Photos) Open Water consisted of 4 dives + training sessions in the shallow water off of the beach. This class is where you learn to do things to be relaxed and not die underwater. Underwater examples:
(a) take off mask, put it back on, and get the water out of it,
(b) breath from a free flowing regulator (you ‘sip’ the air),
(c) take out your regulator underwater, switch to a spare,
(d) try to imitate your instructor and move without ever using your arms,
(e) How to ascend properly without making your lungs explode. (lung over-expansion injury)
(f) How to descend properly without having your eardrums implode from water pressure.
(g) Negative entry is the coolest… roll off the boat backwards ,with no air in your vest, exhale as you enter, and you sink. (Negative Buoyancy)
(h) Floating, zen like, at a constant depth by controlling how you breath.
You also get to see mass quantities of fish and coral

Advanced Open Water is where the really cool stuff starts:
Dive:
#1 Underwater photography at Crocodile Island. Borrow the dive shops camera and take pictures under water. This dive site was primarily an underwater bluff, top around 12 meters and bottom around 20 meters. It was near vertical on one end and the slope got flatter towards the other end. The whole area was covered in coral.

#2 Navigation at Coral Garden. Limited amounts of coral to see, but that’s not why we were there. You use the compass to navigate a few courses underwater, determine your swimming ‘pace’ for navigation purposes… much like using your step pace above water, and amazingly accurate. Oh, and find your way back to the dive boat.

#3 Underwater Naturalist at Friday’s Reef. You take the underwater fish book and try to identify fish. Amazing variety of life underwater.

#4 Wreck Dive. They sunk an old freighter about 4 years ago just for diving purposes. It is about 100’ long and in about 95’ of water. To dive down and see this mass of steel appear as you swim closer, was possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever done… top 20 anyway….. You can swim through the bridge, look into the engine room, and swim in one cargo hold and out another. Very, very cool.

#5 Deep Dive. Dive to 100’ and learn how not to die. Oh and you look at fish and stuff also. But mainly you “enhance your calm” so you don’t die. I didn’t die- class passed.

#6 Dive for fun. Back to coral garden. New classmate, John from Dublin, was doing navigation, so I swam around and looked at things.

Basics

You fly to the town of Caticlan on a prop plane; about 14 rows of seats, two seats on each side of the aisle. The runway seems barely long enough for a turboprop, I don’t think a jet would have a chance here. Then you take a tricycle- mototorbike with a covered, very comfortable sidecar- to the dock. ($1). Then pump boat to the island ($1.75) Then a tricycle to the beach area ($2.50). Then you can walk the beach looking for “vacant room” signs, and you’re set. You could do this on your own, however, friendly “tourist assistants” are waiting at the small airport arrival area. You fill out a visitor registration card, and if you don’t have a place to stay (I didn’t) they go into action. Tessa whisked me through the above process bypassing lines everywhere, delivered me to the beach and helping me find a hotel in half the time it would have taken me otherwise. Which was cool, because it was freaking hot. Turns out Tessa and her fellow assistants are “commissionaires”- that is they get a commission off your hotel price. So, in effect, you pay extra for the convenience. The commissionaires also prowl the beach to sell you anything; scuba, jet ski, glass bottom boat, etc. Also, the vendors will try to sell you sunglasses even while you are wearing a pair already…. And watches- many times I passed on the deal of a lifetime on a new Rolex.

Other Irritations:
Trash:
The first sign of trouble in paradise, came the first evening, when my eyes dried out and I got a sore throat from someone burning trash. It was quite a contrast; beautiful sunset, palm trees, and burning trash haze. I am from the country- I know what trash burning smells like. Luckily it was not a daily occurrence, the 24th must have been burn day.

Sewer:
Occasionally you find yourself downwind of the sewage treatment plant. They smell worse here than back home. Also, the bathroom in the hotel room had no trap in the floor drains, so the bathroom always reeked of sewer gas. Hmmmm.. methane, maybe I should have tried to blow it up. Anyhow, it took me a few days to figure this out and keep the bathroom door closed so the whole room did not smell of sewer. (and no, due to the configuration I could not cap or cover them both.)

Water:
Apparently the island is ‘overbuilt’ and the water supply can’t keep up. Typically I could only shower late at night, at other times in the day, there was either no water or not enough flow to let the wall mounted heater operate. Brian the dive instructor hasn’t had water to his house in months. Not enough pressure in the system to get water to my 2nd floor room or to his house on the hill.

Social Values:
Only irritating if it upsets you and you look for it or can’t ignore it. However, it is hard not to notice a 50 year old white dude walking down the beach with a 22 year old Filipino girl. Technically, prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, but it is basically overlooked. I guess the world’s oldest profession will always be around. If you’re curious, apparently the going rate is around 2000 pesos ($50USD) per night. You can also get ‘special massage’ for 300 – 400 per hour. To put it in perspective, minimum wage is about 196 pesos per 8 hours. (about $.63/hr). If ,as a single white guy, you sit at a bar, late at night, by yourself and don’t enter into conversation with other folks at the bar, it is almost guaranteed a working girl will approach you and start a conversation. They are always polite and easy to send away when you explain that you ‘don’t buy girl friends’. And apparently Eckroth is right- some of the girls are boys. Detection methods, per a local: (a) From distance- body shape, especially hip area; (b) interaction: voice, facial features, and (c) if all else fails, grab their balls. Fun to try and spot them on the beach. Applying the identification methods (a) and (b) above, we determined that a chick that had talked to me one night was actually a dude… weird stuff. Cute on first glance, but in reality, a dude. Dive instructor Brian has employed method (c) on occasion also.

Enough about the bad though, the good stuff

Layout:
The primary beach area consists of about 40’ of white sand beach, 20’ to 30’ of palm trees, a sand walkway, and then storefronts, resorts, restaurants, etc. The walkway is about 8’ to 12’ wide and usually packed with people. Most of the restaurants set up tables under the palm trees so you can have a nice breeze and view of the beach. About 400’ away from the beach is the main paved road. It has no centerline; it is probably 12 or 14’ wide total. Between said road and the beach is a varying array of stuff. One area, called D*Mall, has various shops, restaurants, and even a small ferris wheel. Other areas are large resorts, bamboo shacks, brick houses with bamboo roofs, just an assortment of buildings. This part of the beach is probably a mile long. My hotel, which was really just a 3 story building with maybe 8 rooms, was on an alley perpendicular to the beach, about 50’ from the walkway. There was a convenience store where the alley interested the walkway- water, coke, beer, sunscreen, etc. Turn left out of the alley and the dive shop was about 45’ down the beach. Super convenient.

Food and drink:
Known as one of the priciest spots in the Philippines. Most meals were about what you would pay back home, unless you really shopped around. Filipino food tended to be slightly cheaper. An “American Breakfast” –eggs, toast, bacon, maybe potatoes, was around $5-$6. Throw in a mango shake for $2 and you’re set for most of the day until you have to eat again. Local beers ranged from about $.60 at the “convenience shop” next to the dive shop to $3 at some of the fancy bars. Imported beers and liquors were pricier than back home. The best spot to drink was in front of the dive shop. After diving, we’d pull out the plastic chairs from the shop, buy beers from next door, and watch the people walk by.

....or watch dudes cut down a palm tree with a machete. They used a machete to chop down about a 10” diameter tree. And then they cut it into pieces so they could carry it off. I saw a lot of manual labor. About the only power tool I saw or heard was a welder. A lot of chieseling and hand sawing going on.

Had some great Filipino food, I won’t even try to name it all.

Met people from New York, Minnesota, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Philippines. A lot of dudes from NZ and AUS came on holiday and stayed. Unfortunately, not a lot of single American girls traveling alone on Boracay. Even fewer cute ones. Then, on my last night, with a flight in 5 hours and packing still to do, I noticed her noticing me- the ever elusive, highly attractive blonde girl. Nothing to do but share a smile and that brief moment of prolonged eye contact, and keep walking. Had to pack for Vietnam…..

When I was packing, I briefly thought about staying. I thought about staying when the alarm was going off at 4:51am. ….maybe I’ll go back and be a dive instructor.

Day 43-45

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:58:00 +0000

Day 43: Wednesday, 19 March 2008

Sitting in the Backpackers Travelers Inn in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Being my first trip to Asia and all, I have splurged for the air conditioned private bedroom and toilet. It is just what you might expect- bed, fan, stool, and small desk. The bathroom is toilet, sink, and the shower stall is the bathroom itself…. Seems the floor never quite dries all the way…. Tried to put the fan on it all day, but you have to insert the room key into a wall switch to get the electricity to work. So either you could lock the door or dry the floor, I went with lock the door. (Just figured out a work-around for next time this situation arises.) Oh, and by “splurged”, I spend $25 per night instead of $4 per night for a bunk bed in a dorm with no AC. Call me a crazy, lazy American if you wish…………..

Plane was delayed for about 3 hours yesterday from Sydney, so it was after 10 pm when I arrived at the hostel. Fortunately they have a bar on the roof. Went up there and chatted with some fellow travelers, a couple from England and a fellow from Mexico. Woke up, and sprayed myself down (can’t really call it a shower) and found some eggs and sausage. Turns out the sausage was really a hot dog, but oh well. Anyhow, I hit the streets with the camera and a map. Did a Chinatown “walk” as recommended by the Lonely Planet Travel Book. Then I walked towards the big KL Tower. Easy navigation method- look for tall thing, and walk towards it. Got there, took the trip to the top and looked around the city to plan tomorrow’s activities. Then looked for next tall thing, the Petronas Towers, and walked towards them. It started to rain, so I had lunch and beverages for a few hours. Eventually wandered into the tour office at the towers…

Me: Need tickets for next trip.
Them: Next available tickets 5 hours from now.
Me: I’ll just go to the museum then. I take 7 steps into museum.
Tour guide: What time is your ticket for?
Me: Don’t have one.
Tour guide: You do now, I have room in the group leaving now.
Me: Perfect

Seems the rain kept everyone away… so I got to go to the bridge tour between the two towers without a wait.

I was outside taking some shots of the towers and ran into a fellow doing the same. A dude named Azli, getting ready to head off on his own world travels this summer. He likes to photograph people and he is good at it. He wants to become a magazine photographer. ( www.flickr.com/photos/azlijamil01/ ) I think he is qualified, he has amazing photographs. We ended up chatting and looking at photos over tea.

There is a mall at the base of the Petronas Towers. It was pretty much packed, even though it was a Wednesday night. It is basically the same as an American mall, except with undersized restrooms and a few different stores. It is open 365 days per year. Apparently one of the lease conditions to open a store is that you must be open every day.

They had a free art gallery in the mall. Most of it was real good art, however tilted heavily anti-war, and a few anti- George Bush. One painting was named “Dreaming of Rome”. It had Bush’s portrait next to the ruins of the Roman Coliseum and some other dead looking stuff. I signed the guest book something along the lines of “Great art. And P.S. Bush Rules!” That should get some folks worked up a little.

Twice today, I was talking to people and they wanted me to come off the sidewalk and sit with them because their (sister/cousin) was headed to Texas for an exchange program, and they wanted to know about Texas. Seemed odd, so I told them I was in a hurry and moved along. I think the first dude was a pimp. The second one was this sweet old lady, maybe she was legit, but then again, maybe she wasn’t sweet at all.

Day 45: 21 March 2008, 11:05pm local time ((10:05am CST))

In Manila, Philippines. Holed up in hotel. Got in at 5:30 am…. Didn’t sleep on the plane. Haven’t left the hotel grounds all day….. and proud of it.

Anyhow, did a walk about yesterday in KL before heading to the airport. I went to the National Islamic Arts Museum…. I was hoping to gain a cultural perspective on modern issues facing Islam….. (such as integrating fundamentalists into modern society). In this regard I was disappointed. The museum was all old stuff. I left after I saw the time line on the progression of Islamic weapons. (think clubs swordsmuskets). The time line stopped around 1950. If there weren’t so many video cameras in the museum, I would have inked in the following onto the timeline…….
1972: Hijacking and murder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre)
1983-Present: Suicide Bombing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing) …… This kinda irritated me for an hour or so.

This just reinforced my ideal that the problem in the world lies not with Islam, but with extremists. Not only Islamic Fundamentalists, but with environmental zealots, right-wing nuts, and brain-washed liberals. Get rid of the 10% of extremists on each end of the many spectrums, and the rest of us would get along pretty well.

Got over that, continued the walkabout. Overall, very impressed with Kuala Lumpur. I never felt unsafe and met some great people while walking around. Apparently there is some cool stuff to see when you get out of the city. Malaysia could warrant a return visit someday.

Tasmania

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:21:00 +0000

Wednesday, 5 March 2008, Day 29

I’m sitting at Hobart Airport. Oddest car return system ever. You go to the return lot, settle the bill, then a dude drives you in your rental car to the terminal, and then takes the car back to the return lot. Very Odd.

Saturday, 1 March 2008, Day 25

Met the good Dr. at Melbourne International and we flew to Hobart, Tasmania. Tasmania is a large Australian island, south of the mainland, only a 1 hour flight. Primary mission of this 5 day excursion is to locate the elusive Tasmanian Devil.

We gather the rental car, a Hyundai Getz, and hit the nearest winery for a tasting… and then the next winery. And then off to Richmond for some food. Found the Richmond Arms, but ate at a cool little café. The proprietor was a cool old dude. His hobby was calligraphy. He made each of us a bookmark with our names on it. Mine reads “Larry”.
Anyway we stopped at the Tall Trees Walk at Mt. Field National Park. Tall trees indeed.

Drove through some pretty country on our way to Derwent Bridge, located between Cradle Mountain National Park and Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. New travel rule: “Do not drive after dark in a Tasmanian forest.” To envision the road carnage here, think back to that one spring day, early in your childhood when there were dozens and dozens of turtles trying to cross the road. It is like that in a Tasmanian forest, except with Wombats, Tasmanian Devils, anteater things, koalas, and Wallabees (the little kangaroos). Road kill often comes in pairs since something will die and then a Tasmanian Devil will get creamed while dining on the carcass. Those damn wombats can push 50 lbs in weight, that would not work well with the Hyundai “Sucrets Box” on wheels.

Sunday, 2 March 2008, Day 26

After reviewing the Lonely Planet tour book, purchased 2 days prior, we decided it would be best to skip the north and west coasts entirely –despite the fact that we were almost there already- and headed to the east coast. Made stops at a few lakes along the way for photographs. Mission was 4pm feeding time at the wildlife park on the east coast. Mission was accomplished. Took more photos. Obtained lodging in Bicheno…..Cheap lodging, with ocean view.

Monday, 3 March 2008, Day 27

Hiked to Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park. Wineglass is regarded at one of the top ten beaches in the world. One down, 9 to go…… Anyway you have to hike up a mountain and back down to get to it. This adds to its exclusivity. We took a swim… you get over the cold water real quick due to your fear of the huge waves. These bad boys were 10’+ at times. If you were lucky, you could dive right through with minimum turbulence. If not, you went for a ride. Luckily they were on a very regular frequency so you had a predictable amount of time to recover and catch your breath between each. I learned a few yoga moves afterward. On the “Downward Dog”, salt water drained out of my nose for a long time. I think it had entered through my ears. Weird stuff.

Got back to the Hyundai and drove to Orford, again on the coast, and procured lodging. Quiet evening of catching up on photo downloading.

Tuesday, 4 March 2008, Day 28

We drove to Hobart to spend the day exploring there. Walked around town. We found a great vegetarian restaurant; I had some chicken- actually quite tasty. Found a whisky bar and then drank some wine on the waterfront pier. Wandered around town. Formulated another new travel rule: “Always have a readable map.” Other travel rules were also formulated, but those aren’t free.

Wednesday, 5 March, 200, Day 29

Returned car, flew to Melbourne. I picked up another Hyundai Getz for the one way rental to Sydney. I took Dr. T to downtown Melbourne during her layover. We ate some food, drank some coffee. Got her back to the airport, dumped her at the curb, and I headed south.

Down Under

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:14:00 +0000

Day 23 Thursday, 28 Feb, 2008-02-29

Sitting at Pino’s Restaurant on Phillip Island. It is basically the only place open late. It is cold here, and windy.

Day 16 Thursday

Flight from Christchurch to Melbourne. Uneventful, as I like them to be. Caught the bus to the city, hiked a kilometer or so to a convenient bar, and left a message for Sara. Cell phone didn’t like the Aussie network, so I had to use a payphone. Message along the lines of, "I found a bar, on the river, next to the casino, with blue fabric on the handrails… come find me." It worked out. Had some beverages and a pizza if I remember correctly. Some background here for the non-Houston URS folks. Sara is a friend from Houston that transferred to Melbourne with URS. The Melbourne office is in a slightly more scenic location than the Houston office. She was kind enough to offer up the spare sleeper bed in the flat she shares with two other folks and spend the weekend with me touring the state of Victoria.

Day 17 Friday

Sara had to work so I did a walkabout in Melbourne. Saw a bit of the city. Sara finished work and we headed North to wine country. After a 3 hour road trip, we got to the hotel late, the sign in the office window read: "Larry Ragsdale, Room 17, key is in the door." Small town Australia, it appears, is not much different from small town USA.

Day 18 Saturday

Woke up at the Wangarratta Family Motor Lodge. Kinda like a farm house, but better. Got woke up by a rooster. We spent about an hour talking to the folks that ran the place as we were checking out. Turns out that one of the proprietors, a fellow named Eureka Smith, was a singer song writer. He knew Johnny Cash. Met him shortly after June Carter saved him from drugs and whiskey. Apparently they hooked up whenever Johnny came down under.
Went to a brewery in Beechworth, whose name escapes me. It shouldn’t because they are really, really good at making beer. Damn good. Sara bought some blackberry jam in Yackandandah, apparently it is really good. We ate some cheese and drank some wine at the cheese factory. Went to Thooma and caught their big event for the year. Finished off the evening at the Buffalo Brewery, which was more like a small town pub. Played some pool; it was kinda like the good ‘ole days, but in Australia, and Sara kept beating me at pool.

Day 19 Sunday

We ate some breakfast.
Shortly thereafter, we drank some wine.
We ate some smoked meats and other good stuff with some wine, maybe the Shiraz.
Road tripped far.
Stayed at a hotel on top of a bar. Kinda like in a Western movie, but in Australia.

Day 20

Cruised down Australia’s Great Ocean Road. Beautiful limestone coastal scenery. Blue water, massive surf. Be sure to check the pictures for this day. (Great Ocean Road)

Day 21

After making it back to the flat in Melbourne the night before, I took a day of leisure, while Sara was off to work. Slept in a little, surfed the internet, took care of some unfinished business, etc. Sara and I met up later in the evening for dinner at a Tapas place and a few beers. I had a very disappointing experience in walking into an Irish Pub at 10:15 pm, on a Tuesday, and being told they were closing for the evening. WTF ? Anyway, I stayed this night at a hostel. Two of my roommates were British lasses, doing a quick lap around the world. Since they were headed to Los Angeles, I gave them a list of highlights to hit, since that was all I really had time to do out there. Hermosa Beach was on that list for the nightlife…. I almost asked them to go to Sharky’s bar on Thursday evening, find the flip cup game, ask around for a chick named Elizabeth, and then give her a message……….

Day 22

Rented a car and headed south to the local tourist spot of Phillip Island. This one had an automatic, which is good, since shifting with my left hand would seem strange. Checked into the hostel, met my roommate Mr. D, who was a project manager for large steel fabrications, ie welded pressure vessels, mining equipment, etc. Good guy. Anyway, the tourist attraction is the Penguin Parade. For a mere $18, you get to join about 800 other folks on a beach, on concrete bleachers, to watch the Little Penguins come out of the sea, cross the beach, and make it to their nests to feed their little ones. It was just like National Geographic. They would form up in groups of 12-50, waddle across the beach, up into the dunes, and then regurgitate food into their chicks mouths. Their chicks were getting quite old, 6-10 weeks, and many were almost as big as their parents. Apparently around 12 weeks, the chicks take to sea and start catching their own food, with no instruction from mom and pop. Cool stuff. They bring in people by the busload for this, literally. Then off to Pinos to work on photos.

Day 23

Stuck to my routine of a big breakfast and then headed to the village of San Remo for the daily 11:30am Pelican feeding. Took some pictures.
Then hiked Cape Woolamai to some granite outcroppings called the Pinnacles. It was crazy windy. The path was along the beach, and then through the dunes. Took some pictures.
Then stopped at the Phillip Island Wildlife Park and took pictures of all kinds of animals. Drove to Smith Beach to try surfing, but the only people out in that wind were the two dudes windsurfing. And it was cold.

Then ate some dinner- microwave soup and a few apples. After that I headed west to The Nobbies to take pictures at sunset. Forgot the Graduated Neutral Density Filter in the car, so I feel the pictures are somewhat lacking. Haven’t sorted them yet, so I may be surprised. The wind here made the hike earlier feel like a stroll in Houston. That damn wind was blowing straight off Antarctica. Went back to Pinos with Mr. D and Mr. K ,the other roommate. They were both in town for the Superbike races at the racetrack. World Championships or something like that. There were a ton of bikers in town. Kinda like the Lone Star Rally, but smaller. Those guys headed out, and I stuck around to upload photos over the wireless network. I really hate paying for internet access- big strike against the Aussies and Kiwis. My new method to pick up chicks is this: look cool and type random stuff on a Macbook. When you are asked, "Are you a writer?" – you always answer yes. I really think it will work, chicks like that artsy crap, not math. On a math side note, this marks the longest period of time since at least August of 1995 that I have not seen or utilized my HP 48…..possibly since August of 1993. I hope I don’t forget how RPN works.

Day 24, Friday, February 29, 2008

Leap year, in Australia. Kick ass. Anyhow, I started the day with the usual "big brekky" as they call it here. It was raining so my morning hike activities were traded for what I thought was the elusive "free internet." But then it was added to my breakfast tab. Darn. Drove back to Melbourne, did a hike around the city to the bookstore. The scenery is good here. Now back to the hostel, sitting in the room, cleaning up and adding to the text started yesterday evening. I got two roommates so far, a chap from Ireland, Mr. T, and a fellow from Australia, Mr. G. We are all waiting for the Scandinavian blonde roommate to show up… though it will probably be another dude. Side note: a 200 ml bottle of Jim Beam is "Approx 5.8 Standard Drinks." Gonna hit the pubs this evening, and off to Tasmania with a familiar face on Saturday.

Morning of Day 25, Saturday, March 1, 2008-03-01

Other roommate showed up, it was another dude. Paid $9 for a beer at the Irish Pub. Then I paid $9 for a Guinness at the Crown Casino. Irritated at these beer prices, I found the dumpiest place I could- still paid $5 for the Australian equivalent of Bud Light. Time to move one.

New Zealand Wrap Up

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:09:00 +0000

Friday, 22 February 2008

So I’m in a condo on the 16th floor, overlooking some prime Melbourne real estate with the bay in the distance. Eight lanes of traffic are roaring by far below. Big change from New Zealand, as there were no freeways there. In summary, New Zealand was awesome, 2 weeks is not enough time to visit there, and I need to go back to see the rest of it. In Australia now to start anew…….

Day 10

Woke up, rolled Spaceship Neil down to Matheson Café, which was supposed to be the best breakfast in town. Good, but nothing special. Nothing in NZ can touch Mama’s Café back home. That is a real breakfast. Anyway, the highlight for today was (a) that it didn’t rain, and (b) I took a guided 7 hour glacier hike. We had a group of 11 people- our group got two guides that day, Sophie and Matthew. They did a great job of showing us around the ice. This trip was definitely worth the price (don’t remember how much it was exactly, maybe around $160NZ) Fox Glacier is melting on its surface, but it is actually getting thicker and getting longer at this point in time. Met some really cool folks on this trip; including Ms. A. She was headed the same places as I was, except by bus. Sticking to my mantra of no more stinky dude hitch hikers, I offered her a ride the next day. Since I am slightly cooler than a bus of old people, she accepted.
After cooking some dinner, took a hike around Lake Matheson to capture the photo of sunset and the lake. Well worth an hour of hiking. Then off to the shower and to the bar. They have excellent beer in New Zealand- great local ales.

Day 11

If ever there was a day of visual overload, it was today. Ms. A and myself met at the café and loaded up Neil and went south. In a sure sign of small town glacier village, I had met the young lady working the café counter at the bar the previous evening; and Ms. A was on a first name basis with her.
Within 20 km of leaving the glacier, we were driving along the beach…. and then lakes… and then to Knight’s Point. When we saw Knight’s Point, I believe our reactions were along the lines of ‘holy sh*t’. The water was blue beyond description, waves crashing far below, just freaking amazing. So then we drive a little further to Ship Creek- so named because pieces of a ship wreck near Melbourne washed up on the beach in this location in the late 1800’s. Anyway, there were 2 hikes here- the rainforest / swamp hike and the beach hike. We did both. The rainforest was amazing when you actually slowed down to take it all in. From tiny plants that look like miniature trees to huge trees, just freaking amazing to see. We were the only people on the swamp hike, so we thought the beach hike must be pretty good. It was.
Driving onward, we head off the main road to the fishing village of Jackson Bay. At the recommendation of the gas station lady, we stopped along the way at Neil’s Beach, which is where the locals go to the beach. Freaking amazing- blue water, hills along the coast, warm sun, it was hard to leave. On down the road in the village was Craypots- a seafood restaurant in a house trailer, next to the fishing pier, overlooking the bay…. They cooked a good piece of fish. Ran into a fellow Glacier Hiker at Craypots, he was headed south also and had heard of this hidden gem.
Going further off the main drag, we took a 20km detour down a gravel road to see the Cascade River overlook, this gravel road is the most southern road along the west coast of NZ. After that there are no roads, just National Park. Anyway, saw some cool mountains and some cool rivers. The mountains here were unique in that they have so much iron and manganese that vegetation will not grow on them. (Sounds like good candidates for a little strip mining!)
Then it was back on the main drag, headed away from the coast to the Southern Alps. That’s what they call the mountain range here. Drove along beautiful, pristine mountain streams, saw some great scenery- mountains etc. Stopped at a couple of waterfalls to click a few pics. Then we crossed the mountain pass and found ourselves driving next to these awesome mountain lakes. Just freaking amazing. I delivered Ms. A to her hostel, I found a camping spot and headed to the pub to sort through some photos. I actually got scolded by some lady for plugging in my laptop to their electricity, so I took my business elsewhere.

Day 12

I slept in, got some breakfast, and then hiked up Mt. Roy. 11km round trip, 1240 meters change in elevation- steep trail. I got some pretty mean blisters going up this one, but the pictures and the view were worth it.

Day 13

Rob Roy Glacier. Drove to Mt. Aspiring National Park to see this glacier. Saw some cool stuff, took some good pictures. Drove to Queenstown.

Day 14

Drove, took pictures, chilled.

Day 15 Wed

Chilled out- returned camper van Neil to his people.

Day 16

Breakfast with the good Dr., paid bills on-line, caught a plane to Australia. Cell phone doesn’t yet work in AUS, but managed to rendezvous with Sara anyway. I managed to stumble into what she considered to be the best bar / restaurant in the area as a meeting place.

New Zealand: Days 8-9

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:22:00 +0000

Thursday, 14 Feb 2008

Day 9
In town of Fox Glacier. Campground –they’re called ‘Holiday Parks’ here- has a nice kitchen area and internet access, so I’m hunkering down for the evening to download photos and recharge the laptop.

Back to Day 8 (NZ Day 6)
Picked up a French backpacker right outside the café where I left off the previous post- Mr. L, a mechanical engineer. He was hard to understand , nice guy though. He had been in Australia for 10 months and was midway through 2 months in NZ. We took the scenic drive to the town of Greysmouth, on the west coast. Strangely enough, Greysmouth is at the mouth of the Grey River. He was headed north from there, I was headed south. I hit a local pub for a few beers and to figure out exactly where I was headed. Ended up chatting with a lady from Switzerland, she was on a 3 month sabbatical from her job as a social worker. She was well spoken in English. I headed south to the village of Hokitika for a Holiday Park. Checked the black sand beach for while and hit the sack early.

Day 9
Woke up to rain; hours and hours of rain. Eventually I made the dash to the shower house and back to the camper. Headed into town for some breakfast , check the map and guide book, and hit some email. About the time I finished my email, the restaurant flooded. Apparently it rained so much the sidewalk/gutter system overflowed and the water detoured through the restaurant. This was about noon thirty, so I had already managed to piss away half the day. Great thing about sabbatical- you have no schedule if you don’t want one. I can’t remember the last time I have gotten this much sleep in a weeks time. I’ve actually been pushing 8-10 hours per night instead of 5 or 6.

Picked up another hitchhiker, a backpacker from the Chzeck Republic. Another decent fellow, however he smelled worse than the French dude. Better English skills than the French dude. He said only half of the Chzeck people hate America… the rest are still grateful for us lowering the Iron Curtain. I did not inquire which half he was in. Interestingly enough, he was a zookeeper. I felt guilty since it was raining so much, and thought it would be cool to have some company. We headed south to Franz Josef Glacier. It rained more. I was not overly impressed by said glacier. I am hiking on Fox Glacier on Day 10, hopefully glaciers are more impressive as you hike on top of them. Good scenery from there to here. My camper van smells like wet, stinky European. From now on I think I will only pick up female hitchhikers……

Happy Valentines Day.
or not...

New Zealand: Days 3-8

noreply@blogger.com (CountryBoy) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:18:00 +0000

Wed, 13 Feb 2008

Day 6 in New Zealand. Currently sitting in a café about 800 meters above sea level in the village of Arthur’s Pass, conveniently located in Arthur’s Pass National Park- which I just learned is the 3rd oldest national park in NZ. Just tramped up to a few waterfalls and sipping on a local brew. You don’t hike in NZ, you ‘tramp’. Got a few miles of tramping in. Day 6 in New Zealand = Day 8 total.

NZ Day 1: Friday 8 Feb 2008
Pick up ‘Spaceship’ campervan. Each has a name, mine is Neil, for Neil Armstrong. Headed north out of Christchurch, taking the scenic route to Blenheim near the NE corner of the south island. A wine festival happens to be in Blenhiem on Saturday, so it makes a perfect destination. The country side reminds me of Wyoming, except with more sheep. Had some food along the way, took a few photos, and made it to the campground with no problems. I’ll clarify now, since some of the dirty-minded folks (Vic) out there are wondering- it is possible for two people to sleep in a campervan and not touch during the night.

Day 2
First thing in the morning, I learned there were no tickets locally available for the previously mentioned wine festival. However, with a short 20 km drive to Picton, tickets could be obtained. We loaded up Neil and went off to Picton. In addition to obtaining tickets, turns out Picton is quite a scenic villa- Well worth the drive. Had a great breakfast to boot. Will take time to mention that food is quite pricey here, breakfast for 2 can easily run you $30NZ ($24US). Shuttle bus to the festival was a 5 minute walk from the campground. Spent the day sprawled on the grass, listening to music and sipping on the wines of NZ’s Marlborough Region.

Day 3
Head south along the coast to the town of Kaikoura- famous for dolphin and whale watching. It did not disappoint. Made several stops along the way, good breakfast and coffee again. Some places, not all have Tabasco Sauce. Spotted a seal , sea lion, whatever it is called and got a few good photos. Original plan was to take a whale watch trip and then a swim with the dolphins trip. Made it to Kaikoura, found the whale watch folks- they said if you’re ready now, you can leave in 10 minutes. So off we went. For those that know me, I get seasick bad. Popped a few pills and survived this trip, but barely- it took several hours and glasses of wine to get rid of the queasiness. Anyway, we saw two whales. Apparently they have been seeing these same sperm whales since 1994…. We saw enough dolphins to cancel the need to swim with the dolphins the next day. Even got some decent dolphin photos.

Day 4
Head south to Christchurch to complete the journey. Spotted a few more seals along the way. Dr. T got a little close to one of them and we both though she might get eaten by an angry seal, but it worked out ok. Turns out seals are much more photogenic after they’ve been woken up. Spent the afternoon downloading photos, relaxing, and checking emails. Went out on the town that evening, had some wonderful Bangers and Mash- that’s mashed potatoes and sausages- if you’re wondering. Met up with Mr. S and we all played some pool. Pool in NZ is odd to say the least. The tables at this Irish Pub had American sized target balls with a baby sized ‘Q’ ball. In Kaikoura, all the balls, and the table also, were pint sized. Really screws with your game.

Day 5
We caught some breakfast, I dropped off the good Dr at work, procured a tripod, an iPod, and some groceries. Luckily, for some reason, the tripod was cheaper here than in the states, I assume its due to exchange rate and proximity to China. That said, the damn thing still cost more than most folks spend on a camera. Hopefully the photos it allows will justify the cost. iPod because the radio stations here have a severe lacking of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Groceries because I can’t afford to keep eating out every meal. It’s time for soup in can and room temperature meat on crackers. Eventually got out of town and headed west into the ‘Southern Alps’. Made several scenic stops along the way before rolling into Arthur’s Pass.

Which brings me back to present. 5 malt ale is finished- time to hit the road, find a scenic spot for lunch and travel to the next camping spot, wherever that turns out to be…….