Cycling Moron

Trek Day 12 - Phortse to Namche Bazaar - 11/12/10

2011-02-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

We woke up this morning to find that it had rained over night and we were surrounded by pea soup fog. My cough had calmed down a bit and was back to the normal dry Khumbu hacking thing. Three cheers for antibiotics and teacher-nurses! After breakfast, we tip toed our around puddles through the village and then went down a steep slope to cross a river. After that it was steep up for an hour. It was a completely different atmosphere from any of the other days. The fog was thick, water was dripping from the trees, and we had a few minor snow flurries. At the top, we stopped at a little restaurant for tea and chocolate and then headed back to Namche.

When we got to Namche, the fog was so thick that you couldn't see from one side of the village to the other. We got to our lodge and I had a piping hot indoor shower. After lunch, I walked over the the Lord Buddha pharmacy and once again got my temperature, blood pressure, etc. checked. They made sure I had enough amoxicillin to complete the cycle and also gave me some cough syrup to help me sleep. After that it was internet and apple pie at the Everest Bakery (the place is great, by the way, so I highly recommend it next time you're in the neighborhood). Both of my caps had gotten stinky from all the trekking, so I bought a new one to sleep in. It's a really nice, yak wool, knitted, lined cap skull cap with "Kalapathar" (misspelled) embroidered on it. I couldn't resist. And besides, I earned it.

The beginnings of the bazzar

Every Saturday in Namche there's a huge bazaar with traders coming from all over Khumbu and some from over the pass in Tibet. It's basically a giant flea market where you can buy anything from clothing, to trekking gear to solar panels to produce. Traders had been arriving all day and had been setting up for tomorrow, so I took a quick walk through. It was cold and my hair was still wet, so I headed back to the lodge.

Since there's no way that planes are flying, we briefly considered staying in Namche for another day -- we'd rather be stranded here. But after a discussion with Kopil, we decided it would be better to get back to Lukla so that we can get out when planes start flying again.

Trek Day 11 - Dingboche to Phortse - 11/11/10

2011-02-18T17:54:00.000-08:00

I woke up pretty sick today. My common, dry Khumbu cough is no longer dry and my phlegm is a yellowish-green. We managed to get ahold of the other group and found that Irene was sick, too. That's why they kept heading down and didn't wait. Krista had two cipro pills that the travel doc gave her and I was told to take that. I felt like death warmed over, but we headed to Phortse (12,508 ft) where there's a health post. The day was sunny and warm, but really hard for me. I kept stopping and coughing up my lungs. I did try to keep the coughs shallow because I didn't want to become one of those trekkers that crack ribs from coughing -- pretty common up here.

Phortse

After we arrived, we had a quick lunch and then Kopil and Kumar took me to see the "nurse". So we walked to the school and pulled her out of the classroom. She took us into a room that had an old desk, a couple of chairs, and a cot. There was a bookshelf with a couple of boxes of drugs and a white nurses uniform hanging on the wall. She took my temperature (normal), blood pressure (100/70 - not bad considering the altitude) and listened to my lungs. She told me that I most likely had a respiratory infection. She gave me enough amoxicillin to get me to the pharmacy in Namche tomorrow and made me promise to check in with the Red Cross post there.

Back at the lodge, we found that we were the only guests. We were given the room right next to the dining room (nice) and we given all the blankets and pillows that we wanted. We lounged around reading and writing while the family running the place listened to the news on the radio and kept bringing me herbal tea. After the news, there was some Nepali music playing which was really nice. But then I heard "Kung Fu Fighting" in Nepali. Seriously. Someone did a cover of that old 70's tune in Nepali. I hope I can get that tune out of my head sometime soon.

While dinner was cooking, we had a nice chat with the family. They are Sherpa and the man of the family climbed Everest in the mid '90s. He had been invited to the US by some of the climbers that he had met that year and so came for a visit. He went first to Seattle and stayed with Scott Fischer, then down to Berkeley to go to the North Face outlet. He then went down to LA to visit another climber and on to Las Vegas. I can't imagine living your entire life here where your feet and yaks are your only form of transportation and then going to Vegas. I get culture shock enough going there! From Vegas, he went to the Grand Canyon and then on to Colorado where his wife joined him and they did some trekking in the Rockies. I loved talking with them both and trading stories. And I also loved it when he was sitting there with his prayer beads meditating right in front of us. I don't know why, but it was very calming.

After dinner, I took another amoxicillin and went to sleep. I seriously need to feel better tomorrow.

Trek Day 10 - Gorak Shep to Dingboche - 11/10/10

2011-02-18T17:35:00.000-08:00

Today we started heading down. We were pretty tired as we set out, as sleep was a bit hard to come by last night. The lodge we've been staying in has paper thin walls and no ceiling between the rooms. Last night, there was a snorer on the other side of the wall from Krista. This guy doesn't just snore -- he rattles the building. Seriously, he could knock a brick house off of its foundation. We had our heads sandwiched between pillows with earplugs in and we could still hear him loud and clear. Krista kept knocking on the wall hoping to get him to stop and, after about 40 minutes, he finally rolled over and stopped. But then the guy across the hall got a phone call. Not only was the ring loud and he waited about 8 rings to answer, but he had no concept of an "inside voice". Honestly, there's a 3G tower in this village and yelling just wasn't necessary. Eventually it got quiet enough to sleep.

This morning we set out for Dingboche (13,976 ft) to catch up with the rest of our group. We walked down past Lobuche, past all the chortas, down the nasty ridge (which was a little hard on the knee) and back past Dughla. After crossing the icy river, we headed up a gentle slope to the top of the ridge above the Pheriche valley. It was a nice flat ridge with scattered homes and grazing yaks. The mountain views were stunning and it was a peaceful walk. Long, but peaceful. At the end of the ridge there was a stupa and then switchbacks down to Dingboche. I have to say that little ups in the trail that had my heart racing and my lungs gasping just a few short days ago are so much easier now. There's really something to be said for acclimation.

Heading down to Dinboche

When we arrived at the lodge, we could not find the doctors nor either of their porters. Kumar went through the village thinking that they had probably changed lodges, but the owners of our lodge said that they had gone to the next village. We were getting ready to head out, but then Kopil managed to get the on the phone. They had gone on to Phortse, which is 5 hours away. We resigned ourselves to the fact that the group was probably split for the rest of the trip.

Clouds and fog rolled in this afternoon and things got cold. But this place had a shower stall outside and I decided to go for it. The water was propane heated and very hot, but I could only get it to come out in a trickle. This was by far the coldest shower of my life. When I got out, dried off and got in my clothes, I couldn't get to the dining room fast enough. Unfortunately, they wouldn't start the fire until 5:00 sharp. We ordered hot tea, wrote in our journals, and read our books. Then it happened: the snorer walked in as did panic. But luckily, he was in a different part of the lodge and we were able to sleep just fine. We were worried for a while though.

Trek Day 9 - Everest Base Camp - 11/9/10

2011-02-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

Gorak Shep

Irene, Bogdan and Dana got up at 5am to go up Kala Pattar. Bogdan got another headache, so he and Irene turned around and went back to sleep. Just before Krista and I were ready to head to base camp, they had decided to descend to Dingboche (very near Pheriche, but a slightly lower elevation). We'll have to catch up with them tomorrow. This is so sad -- I hate the idea of the group splitting up, even for a day.

At EBC (it says so on the rock)

After breakfast, Krista and I started toward EBC. This is what I came on this trek for and today was by far the hardest day. I know I say that every day, but today I really mean it. The trail was very rough -- up and down with very large rocks/boulders. This was so hard on the knee, I thought a few times that I may not make it. I had it wrapped in an ace bandage and had eaten a lot of ibuprofin for breakfast, but this was hard. I was using my poles so heavily that my arms were aching. At one point, the trail did briefly flatten out for a bit of "single track", but there was a rocky slope looming next to us and I ran to duck behind a big boulder when there was a minor rock slide. That didn't do my knee any favors either. Of course, after the slide was over and I stood back up, Kopil yelled at me that this was "the most dangerous part of the trail". Nice. Luckily, I'm pretty stubborn (not the best of traits, I know, but today it got me to my goal) and I made it all the way.

Khumbu Ice Fall

The scenery today was amazing -- glacial lakes, beautiful mountains, a few more avalanches and the Khumbu Glacier, which we followed all the way from Gorak Shep. Once at "base camp" (the wooden sign was stolen), we were overlooking the famous Khumbu ice fall and could see up the Western Cwm. The Nuptse face looms over and has heavy snow fall this time of year. I had been told that EBC would be a let down -- nothing but rocks and garbage. The Nepalese government paid Sherpas to haul out all garbage both from the mountain and base camp this year. I saw absolutely no debris whatsoever. They even cleaned out the helicopter wreck that I was hoping to see. Everything was beautiful and if my knee was better, I would loved to have explored a bit. It was the most beautiful place I've ever been. We stayed about 30 minutes and then headed back. It was a hard trek back for me and I was limping pretty hard when I arrived back at the lodge. I had made Kopil go on ahead, but he had Kumar waiting outside keeping an eye on me.

Tomorrow, we head down to Dingbouche to catch up with the Romanians. It will be nice to be in warner weather. Did you know that it steams up the bathroom when you pee up here?

Trek Day 8 - Lobuche to Gorak Shep - 11/8/10

2011-02-15T20:27:00.000-08:00

Kala Pattar with Pumori in the background

Today was really hard. The 2 hours to Gorak Shep (16,863ft) was a piece of cake. We had an early lunch and had a differing of opinions of what to do next. The trek to base camp is 3 hours each way. The trek up Kala Pattar is 3 hours up and 45 minutes down. I didn't think that my knee could do a total of 8 hours in a single day, so Krista and I opted to go up Kala Pattar while the others went to base camp. The norm is to do base camp on the first day and then get up and 4 or 5 am the next day and go up Kala Pattar for the sunrise and then head down to either Pheriche or Lobuche after -- the temperatures that early in the morning are -20F, so I think we were making the right decision. Plus, it was a cloudless day, so we were guaranteed a great view of Everest from the top.

Summit!

Kala Pattar is basically a bump on the way up to Pumori. It was definitely a long, hard, but steady slope up. When you arrive at the "top" where most people are gathered, you have a stunning view. But then it was pointed out to me that there's another summit, but you need to really scramble to get up. I set aside my pack and poles and started scrambling up the last bit. It was a lot like my climbing gym days. A couple of guys gave me a nice boost up a good chunk of it -- I was so grateful, I didn't care that they pushed me up by my ass. Anyway, I made it up to the true summit (18,513ft), and had the most amazing view. I tossed my camera to the guys below and the took a few pictures of me up there. I also took a panoramic video with my iPhone (actually two, but the first was really bad). After skidding down on my butt, I helped the guys up (and yes, I grabbed their asses in return) and took some pictures of them. I also sent a text message with photo to a few friends, making good use of that 3G tower that was installed this year in Gorak Shep. Then, it was all about the trip down. I took a little spill on the way down, but it wasn't too bad. Just a bruised ego.

Everest from Kala Pattar

Back at the lodge, I found out that Bogdan and Irene had some bad headaches and didn't make it to base camp. They're sleeping now. Also, one of our porters appears to have some mild pneumonia. I'm so grateful that we have 3 doctors with us who brought along a pretty well stocked pharmacy. Hopefully, everyone will feel better tomorrow.

And an FYI -- I saw 10 avalanches on Nuptse today and heard another that I couldn't spot. I also heard one on Pumori. While no one climbs Everest this time of year (where Nuptse is a problem), I spotted tents at Pumori base camp from Kala Pattar. Let's hope everyone's OK.

Trek Day 7 - Pheriche to Lobuche - 11/7/10

2011-02-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

Can you spot the bridge over the river?

Today was a rough one, but more for Krista than for me. Yesterday while we were at the hospital, someone mentioned a couple of trekkers getting sick up in Gorak Shep from tuna. This was about an hour after Krista had a tuna sandwich. She woke up this morning with stomach cramps and within minutes of setting out, she needed imodium. Anyway, we started out walking through the valley along the river (which was really a trickle of glacier melt as opposed to the white water rapids we saw in previous days). After about an hour, we veered right and went up a gentle slope. Soon we crossed a metal bridge over a mostly frozen river and arrived in a "village" called Dughla. Basically, there were some picnic tables, two restaurants and a few rooms to stay in. We sat down for some tea and I looked up a nearby ridge. After looking at it for a bit, I realized that the small white line leading across and up had little ants moving along it. Those ants were people and that's where we needed to go next. Crap. Since things were relatively flat so far, I had no problems with my knee and could keep up with the group. That was about to change.

Chortas

After our tea, we started up that ridge. It was an hour or so of a very steep up. The view at the top was spectacular though. First of all, there were chortas everywhere you looked. Each was a memorial to a fallen climber in the region. Some where westerners, but many were Sherpas. It's so sad, considering the Sherpas are climbing to earn a living and provide for their families. They do the bulk of the work for the westerners paying big bucks and thus take the most risk. OK, off my soapbox.

We arrived not long after in Lobuche (16, 158 ft). Our lodge is by far the worst we've been in. It's not very clean and there's very few bathrooms for the number of rooms. By the way, in the bathrooms along the trail (except Namche which had actual flush toilets), there is a large container of water and scoop. When you are done doing whatever you need to do in the toilet, you scoop up some water and pour it in, thus flushing. Here it seems that a lot of folks have missed with the water scoops and the floors are a sheet of ice. This is going to be fun once the sun goes down.

Italian Research Station

Anyway, after lunch (and Dana helping out another trekker who was very sick from tuna), the Romanians and I set out on a short 20 minute walk to see a solar paneled, pyramid-shaped research station built by Italians. The walk was short and very flat. The research station was quite a site. It's not nearly as pretty as the glass pyramid at the Louvre, but I do have to give the Italians style points for building this at 5,000 meters. We weren't allowed inside, but I did talk to one of the guys who came out to microwave something (after turning on a gas generator). They are doing a lot of work on seismology, plate tectonics, measuring of the mountains, and effects of altitude. Did you know that Everest is growing at the rate of 6 cm/year?

I was surprised that Bogdan lagged a bit on this short walk. He had a headache by the time we got back to the lodge, so he went and took a nap. I hope this isn't altitude sickness. Tomorrow's the 2 hour walk to Gorak Shep. It's a village on a dry lake bed that was base camp for the first successful Everest climb in 1953. We're nearly there.

Trek Day 6 - Acclimation Day in Pheriche - 11/6/10

2011-01-20T22:43:00.000-08:00

This was a much needed, and last day of rest. Our last was at Namche, which is full of steps and not very restful. Pheriche is in the bottom of a valley and totally flat. Of course, there's not nearly as much to do, but I can handle that. I slept 12 hours last night (thank you travel doc for the ambien) and feel so much better today. While Bogdan and Irene went on a hike up a ridge, the rest of us have been reading, laying cards and meandering. Oh, and Dana surprised us all and gave our hostess a manicure. Seriously. She brought nail polish and top coat with her.

I also visited the internet cafe a couple of times, but it was slow and expensive. In the courtyard between the cafe and the hospital, there's a beautiful monument to fallen Everest climbers. It's 2 steel cones with flat surfaces facing each other. On the flat surfaces is the name of every dead climber. It's truly amazing to see the number of names. The altitude sickness talk at the hospital was pretty informative. Afterwards, we got to check out the facilities and the doctor showed us how to use a Gamow Bag, since many of the lodges higher up have them. Also, I was told that the dry cough I've been having is known as the Khumbu Cough and is very common -- 60% of trekkers in the region get it. I bought some cough drops and a buff nearby to shield my face from the cold.

Time for dinner and a good night's sleep. Fingers crossed for the next few days.

Trek Day 5 - Tengboche to Pheriche - 11/5/10

2011-01-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

Today was a bitch. I know I've said it before, but this time I really mean it. I didn't sleep at all last night. Not. One. Minute. I was all congested and breathing the cold air through my mouth made my lungs hurt. I really wanted to stay another day and told Krista. I felt that I could stay a day and then meet them in Pheriche, since we'd have 2 nights there for acclimation. She talked me out of it. So after breakfast I hit the trail with the gang.

Walking toward Pheriche

We dropped down to the river just below Tengboche, crossed it and gently climbed. No big ups and downs today. If I hadn't have been sick, this probably wouldn't have been so bad. We eventually got out of the trees and walked on a ridge. There were a couple of villages along the way, but for the most part, it was wide open with mountains all around. Needless to say, I was the lantern rouge by a long shot today. Eventually, we wondered down into a large valley where the village of Pheriche (altitude 14,340 ft.) is. Bogdan mentioned that this area looks a lot like Tibet. It's certainly populated with a lot of Tibetans and we're only a few miles from the border, so it doesn't surprise me.

Our Lodge

Our lodge is fantastic. Unlike yesterday's flimsy plywood building, the "Pheriche Village Resort" is made of stone, has a hot shower, a beautiful dining/lounge room with plenty of sun, double pane windows, and is very clean. The food here is fantastic and the couple that own the place are so incredibly nice.

We're all passing binoculars and my SLR with the big lens checking out some climbers on Makalu. It looks like they're at camp 3 and possibly planning their summit attempt tonight. I hope we see their headlights later.

There's a Himalayan Rescue Association hospital here (the other is in Pokhara near the Annapurnas). They give a daily program on acute mountain sickness which we'll probably check out tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm going to shower, rest my knee, and try to sleep. Not necessarily in that order.

Pheriche valley

Trek Day 4 - Namche to Tengboche - 11/4/10

2011-01-20T21:02:00.000-08:00

Today was a bitch. I know I said it a couple of days ago, but today really was one. The knee felt pretty good when I woke up -- whatever Dana did to it really did the trick. So this morning, we packed up our gear, ate breakfast and headed back up above Namche where we had been the day before. This time we followed the ridge on the trail that you can see in my video. It was stunning. There were beautiful mountain views, passed a couple of stupas, many prayer flags, and countless yaks. After an hour or so, we dropped back down the ridge to the river. After a lunch stop, we crossed the river and headed up the ridge -- another 2 hours up. This time it wasn't straight up. That would be too easy. This time it was so steep that there were switchbacks all the way to the top. At one point, Irene was about 1 minute ahead of me (yes, I timed it), yet she was a switchback up and thus about 30 feet above me. And, of course, the knee swelled up again. It just sucked. When you get to the top, there's a row of prayer wheels (and I spun everyone of them in thanks) and a beautiful arch welcoming you to Tengboche (12,690 ft.).

Tengboche Monestary Entrace

Tengboche is an extremely small village with a beautiful monestary and amazing views of the mountains, especially Lhotse and Everest. As I walked to the right of the arch to our lodge, a train of real yaks and several monk walking by. After a "shower" (bucket of hot water), I went to the monestary, which was about 40 yards away. They had blown their conch shells and opened the doors for tourists and allowed us to watch a prayer session. Both the monestary and the prayers were stunning. The way in which they changed their mantras sounded like music. No flash or video allowed, so I couldn't take pictures of it.

View from Monestary toward our lodge

The internet cafe was locked up, but I found Dana and Krista next door at the bakery. Who knew that chocolate rum cake could be so good? Seriously, it was some of the best stuff that I've ever had. But it gets better, while waiting for our dinner, Bogdan bundled up and walked over to get some bread for the morning. Krista asked for some sourdough, which she had seen on the menu earlier. Bogdan was gone for quite a while, but when he came back, he had 2 loaves of hot sourdough fresh out of the oven. Krista was really cold and the bread was in a plastic bag, so she put a loaf down the front of her coat to warm up. We all took turns with it, and eventually ate both loaves. With the yak butter that Kopil grabbed from the kitchen, we all feasted, including our porters. Sometimes the simplest things are the absolute best.

After dinner, Bogdan mentioned how beautiful the stars were that night. Even though I was cold inside with a fire, I decided to brave it and go outside for a look. He was right -- absolutely stunning. I've seen stars at sea, in the Sierras, and in the dessert, but I have never seen the Milky Way so vividly nor seen so many stars. And the mountains were outlined so nicely in the starlight. So wishing I had a tripod so that I could get a good picture. It was truly cold though. I didn't last long.

Trek Day 3 - Acclimation Day in Namche Bazaar - 11/3/10

2011-01-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

View from the front of our lodge

Today is our first acclimation day and that means we get to spend the whole day and night in Namche Bazaar. Irene had a rough night, got very little sleep, and has a bad headache. We're all hoping that it's not signs of altitude sickness, but she, Dana and Bogdan are all on it -- they're all doctors.

Krista wanted some time to herself, Bogdan stayed with Irene (husband's duty), so Dana and I set out with Kapil to go to the Everest View Hotel. To get there, you have to go up, up, up over a ridge. On the way, Kopil suggested we stop at the national park museum on a lower ridge above Namche. So we climbed stairs for about 20 minutes, walked down a flat path (didn't know those existed!) and arrived at a big open space with a stunning view of Everest. There was a sign advertising yak rides while wearing traditional Sherpa clothing for 700 rupee (about $10). We wanted to do this so badly, but there were no yaks up there and the woman in charge didn't know the number to call to get us some. Total bummer. I really wanted to add a yak to the list of animals I've ridden. Certainly a shorter fall than a camel or elephant, right?

Anyway, we sent Kopil down to enjoy the day and we hung out for a bit. I took a panoramic video with my iPhone and then we went in to the museum. One of the army guards in camo asked if he could take our picture and then followed us around and practically tried to ask Dana out. It was hilarious. The museum had a lot of info on the the animals and plants in the area as well as the history of the park. Who knew that Sir Edmund Hillary was instrumental in getting this area designated as a national park? On our way back down to the village, we stopped at the Sherpa museum for a visit. The museum was extensive and divided in to 3 parts: a Sherpa house, completely furnished and a stunning prayer room; an adjacent building with a photograhic encyclopedia of sherpa weddings, funerals, farming, trade etc; and a room completely devoted to every Sherpa who has ever summited Everest.

Prayer room in Sherpa home as seen at Sherpa Museum

So many of their photos showed frostbite on their faces and so many had summited multiple times. There were several who had summited several times who died on a subsequent attempt. There was a larger than normal photo of the first female Sherpa to summit. Her death date was the day after her summit date, so she must have died on her way back down. Did you know that more climbers die on the way down than on the way up?

Dana and I then decided to head back down to the village. This is where I got into trouble. How? Well remember when I was hit by the truck in '06 and screwed up my knee? Since we were just acclimating today and not doing any serious trekking, I left my poles back in the room at the lodge. Heading down from the top was very hard on the knees and without those poles, my bad knee started hurting. By the time we were down, it had swollen and I was limping.

Once back in Namche, we ran into Bogdan and Irene. We had our pulsox checked at the clinic and it was a bit of a shocker. Heart rates rise about 30-50 beats per minute at high altitude -- mine was already at 100. No wonder it felt like my heart was racing when I tried to sleep at night! Oh, and my oxygen level was pathetic. But we were all in the same boat. We celebrated with pizza at the Everest Bakery (real electric pizza ovens and real pizza with no catsup) and went to the Liquid Bar late in the afternoon to catch the daily free movie (today was "Touching the Void"). After we went back to the lodge, rescued laundry, ate dinner and chilled. Dana massaged some great cream into my knee and wrapped me up in an ace bandage. Hope it helps, because tomorrow we head to Tengboche.

Trek Day 2 - Monjo to Namche Bazzar - 11/2/10

2011-01-20T19:25:00.000-08:00

Today was a bitch. I woke today feeling fairly normal -- no muscle soreness at all. The ibuprofin I took must have done the trick. We got up, packed up, ate breakfast, and had to regroup a little. One of our porters had twisted his ankle and had to head back to Lukla. We redistributed the loads (both Kopil and Bogdan took a little extra) and we headed out. Since we were spending 2 nights in Namche, Kopil called another porter who would catch up with us there.

We had been told that it would take 5 hours to get to Namche and the last 2 would be basically straight up. Somehow we managed to get there in 3.5, but I'm not sure how. It started out benign enough. The entrance to Sagamartha National Park is just outside of Monjo. There's a beautiful gateway to walk through lined with prayer wheels. Kopil went inside with our park permits while we hung around outside, but soon we had to start doing some serious walking. The trails here are not flat by any means. Nor are they up. You have to go up and down along a ridge, drop down to the river, cross a suspension bridge and head up the ridge on the other side. Repeatedly. I kind of groan every time we head down because I know I have to walk up it again at some point.

First view of Everest (with some serious lens zoom)

That last 2 hours was as advertised -- steep and up the entire way. There was one place about 2/3 of the way up that had a flat area to take a rest. There were Sherpa women from Namche who had come down and were selling oranges. We shared a couple of oranges and got our first view of Everest in between the trees. It was popping out behind a ridge and looked very far away. As we finally approached Namche, we turned a corner and there was a little snack stand on the right side of the trail and a long bench on the left and the trail was finally flat. A very nice man said "You did it! Welcome to Namche". We turned left around a corner and finally saw the village.

First view of Namche Bazaar

Namche Bazaar (elevation 12,467 ft.) is shaped very much like an ampitheater, with buildings along each tier on the way up. It is absolutely stunning, with mountains looming all around. At the bottom center there is a stupa with prayer wheels in front. Also, there's a stream that flows down through the village near the stupa. We were at the very bottom level and I was worried that our lodge would be up higher in the village. No worries though -- we were at the bottom just past the stupa. After getting settled in our rooms and having lunch, Krista and I did our laundry in the stream, much to the amusement of the local women also doing theirs. Then we took showers, and meandered through town. I'm so excited that we have all day here tomorrow to explore!

Trek Day 1 - Kathandu to Lukla to Monjo - 11/1/10

2011-01-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

View from the plane

So we got up early, packed our stuff for the trek, put the rest in Sarita's storage room and headed to the airport. The trekking agency had changed guides on us after buying the plane tickets, so our guide had a ticket that wasn't in his name. Oops. Our flight was delayed a bit due to low visibility in Lukla, so Kopil (the guide) got a new ticket issued in his name in plenty of time to make our flight. The flight itself was stunning -- great view of Boudhanath when we took off, amazing views of the foothills and little villages, and some mountain peaks as we dropped down into a valley to land at Tenzig-Hillary Airport in Lukla (elevation 9,196 ft.) -- supposedly the scariest airport in the world. It wasn't so scary to me. The plane that crashed into the wall at the end of the runway two weeks ago (break troubles) was still sitting there with a bit of a smashed nose. It didn't look so bad.

We left the plane, walked toward the luggage, and then the chaos started -- we we swarmed by guys wanting to be our porters. It was Kopil's job to hire the porters, but we had to veto a couple of his choices. He was picking very young people, practically children and we thought our stuff was too heavy for them. The funny thing was, once on trail we could see that our loads were very small in comparison to others. You always here how incredibly strong the Sherpas are, but I'm beginning to realize that they're far stronger than I ever imagined.

Mani stones with Tibetan prayers

So we had lunch (I had my first yak steak -- yummy!) and hit the trail. It was all so absolutely stunning everywhere you looked -- white water rapids, waterfalls, snow capped peaks. We all got excited when we saw our first yak (which was actually a yak/cow hybrid called a dzo) and took a bunch of photos. Funny thing is, I've seen more of them now than I can count. And it's the same with prayer wheels, prayer flags, stupas, mani stones, suspension bridges, etc. All of these items that you hope to see once are all in abudnace. Just like cows in the streets of India.

Most trekkers to go Phakding on their first day, but the group decided to go 2 hours further to Monjo so that we'll have a shorter day tomorrow. To be honest, I was struggling a bit with my heartbeat and breathing and really didn't want the extra distance, but I made it. We got to Monjo (a very, very tiny village, elevation 9,235 ft.) not too long before dark, got cleaned up and had dinner. Tonight we learned a few very important things: 1) order dinner early -- they make each order fresh and they can take quite some time to make it to the table; 2) do not order western food in the tiny villages -- my pizza with everything ended up being topped with shredded cabbage, shredded carrots, tuna and a swirl of ketsup; and 3) it gets really cold at night. Can't quite figure out why Bogdan and Irene decided to sleep outside in a tent since it was plenty cold inside.

Anyway, my legs are stiff and burning and I ache everywhere. I don't think I chose the best day pack and I'm hoping to buy a better one in Namche Bazaar when we arrive tomorrow. Off to bed.

Kathmandu 10/30-10/31

2011-01-09T18:50:00.000-08:00

After nearly 40 hours of travel (and an hour on the ground in Dhaka) we arrived in Kathmandu utterly exhausted. I was so tired that I didn't even bat an eye when they charged me $25 instead of $40 for my visa. We made it through immigration and customs to find Sarita waving with a big smile on her face. The big hug and kiss she gave me made the weariness go away for a bit. She told me that Prem and his family had moved to Pokhara, so I wouldn't be seeing him this trip. Bummer. But we made it across the city to Happy Home Guest House and crashed big time.

The next morning I was looking at my passport and realized that I was only issued a 14 day visa. Shit. But Sarita told me to go ahead and show Krista around and eat some breakfast while she made some calls and figured out what I need to do to get my visa extended. The last thing I wanted was to have my visa expire while I was out on the trek and then be unable to fly back to Kathmandu.

Darbur Square, Kathmandu

Since we weren't meeting Bogdan and Irene until 10, so Krista and I walked over to Darbur Square. It was really early and thus fairly empty. Except for the birds and cows, there were just a few people milling around and absolutely no westerners except for ourselves. Don't know why, but a calf decided to try to eat my hair. I guess that dry straw look I've got is a hit with the bovines.

On the way back to Themal, I missed a turn on one of the alleys and got us a tiny bit lost. So I hired us a bicycle rickshaw to take us back. But, as I explained to Krista, you can't do Kathmandu without at least one rickshaw ride. Almost as soon as we got back, we saw Bogdan and Irene walking down the street towards us. Yay! So good to finally see them and get the full breakfast special at the Yak.

By the time we got back to Happy Home, Sarita had found out that I could go to a visa office in the city instead of all the way back to the airport. So I got on the back of a motorcycle and one of her employees took me past the royal palace, through some neighborhood, up some steep cobbled road and to the office. The line was long, but Deepak talked to a guy in back who sat me at a table, basically filled out the form for me, took my additional $15, and got me all taken care of in about 20 minutes. We then took off down the cobbled hill and back across town.

I started noticing some not to subtle changes in Kathmandu -- surprising since it had only been 2 years since I was last there. We passed some car dealerships, including one for Land Rover. I saw a few of those air conditioned tour buses on the streets. The scariest change of all for me was that we passed newly opened KFC right next to a newly opened Pizza Hut -- and they weren't those 3rd world fake ones. This was the real thing. The lack of chain restaurants in this city was one of the things I loved most about it in '08! But since these two restaurants were not very near the tourist district, I'm hopeful that they won't make it. We'll see.

Anyway, I arrived back in one piece, took a nap and then met the entire group for the trek (all 5 of us plus our guide) at the trekking office, went over all of our logistics, and had dinner. It was off to bed because we have an 8:30 flight to Lukla tomorrow to start out trek.

Hong Kong Layover - 10/30/2010

2011-01-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong has never been on my list of places I'd like to visit, but since Krista and I had a 12 hour layover starting at 6am, we figured "why not?". So after getting some local money, we took the subway to the heart of downtown, walked a few blocks, and found the bus up to "the peak". It was my first ride atop a double decker bus and we went up some very steep, curvy roads to an area that was mostly closed. We managed to get some noodle soup for breakfast and walked a trail that took us all around the mountain.

At one point, we found some stairs heading off the trail which took us to this amazing viewpoint. There were two roadies up there who do that ride fairly often. They do it early in the morning to avoid the horrendous local traffic. The view was pretty nice, if you could look through all the haze, which I assume is smog. The harbor is huge and the skyscrapers are equally big. There's scaffolding just about everywhere you look -- it seems like being a builder in the city is very lucrative!

When we finished the loop trail, we arrived back to where we started to an entirely different scene than when we had left. All of the restaurants were open and the place was packed with people. The tram had also opened, so we took that back down into the city.

A short cab ride took us back almost to where we had caught the bus. A friend of Krista's knows a woman in Hong Kong who offered to meet us and show us around. After a few minutes of waiting at our rendezvous spot watching the hectic city go buy, two women in their fifties came trotting over waving their arms yelling "yoo hoo!" They were a total riot and after some brief introductions, they ushered us in to an elevator and up a building to THE dim sum restaurant. It's 2 stories in a very big building. Our floor had at least 100 round tables in it. Carts were everywhere delivering goodies to the tables and every table was full. We, of course, were the only Caucasians in the room. At one point, they got impatient with the carts, and one of them took me with her up to the counter around the cooks so that I could help her carry all of the plates that came around. Honestly, they were so talkative and such characters, that I felt like I was stuck in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. The meal, by the way, was amazing -- best dim sum ever!

After, they gave us a little walking tour of the north side of the harbor and then put us on the ferry across to the south side. There we sat and watched the world go by as well as a dance performance outside in a plaza. Soon it was time to walk to the metro (past all the fancy stores like Rolex and Louis Vuitton) and get back to the airport. Kathmandu awaits and honestly, I can't wait to get there.

A New Journey

2011-01-01T19:35:00.000-08:00

As most of my friends know, I recently went to Nepal to trek through the Khumbu region to base camp on Mt. Everest. I was unable to blog while on this journey, but did keep a hand written journal and took many pictures. At the request of many, I am putting my journal entries up here in the blog and hope this will curtail the questions and constant requests to "tell me about your trip". I never know how to respond to that, since there was so much, that I could talk for days. So as I have time, I'll put up my journal entries (I know -- two months too late). Don't expect them all at once, but I'll do this as fast as I can.

Last Day Chillin'

2009-03-30T19:26:00.001-07:00

Last day chillin'
Originally uploaded by Susie Barber

Well, the day has finally come: after 9 months of unemployment (3 months of which were spent traveling and 2.5 months of which were spent healing from my stupid bike crash), I start working tomorrow. Yep, you heard it right -- I'm going to be working.

I was lucky enough to get a year-long contract with Cisco working as a Business Analyst in their Business Collaboration Technology unit. This group is bringing social networking technologies to Cisco's 100,000+ employees world-wide. It is over the hill in San Jose, but I can telecommute some. Who would have thought that I'd end up with such a cool job in this economy? I really feel like I hit the lottery.

I do have to admit, that while I'm relieved to land a job and excited about the work I'll be doing, I'm sad that my semi-retirement is at an end. It's been pretty liberating to wake up each day and decide what I'd like to do for the day (without spending much money, of course). I've had the opportunity to travel to parts of the world that I never thought I'd get to, catch up on all my reading, get a lot of bike riding in (until the crash) and just generally decompress and reassess my life. My priorities are definitely different than they were a year ago and I feel much more "chill". I know what you're thinking, but I stopped taking my pain killers and muscle relaxants more than a month ago!

I'm extremely lucky to have traveled and spent so much time out of work without incurring any credit card debt, selling my boat, or touching my retirement accounts. Hell, I still have money left in my checking account. Though I do wish I had the money to remain retired forever, that's just not the case yet.

But in the meantime, I can honestly say that getting laid off last summer was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The Long Awaited Update

2009-01-31T22:34:00.001-08:00

On the morphine drip
Originally uploaded by Susie Barber

OK, so sorry for not updating in so long, but I have my reasons. Firstly, I did manage to send in two entries to the Wonderlust and Lipstick travel writing contest. I wanted to do more, but I'll get to that in a minute. At Erika's suggestion, I sent in the 'incompetent guide' entry from my time in Chitwan. And while I could have picked from so many great memories (the elephants and camping on "the beach" in Thailand, spending some of Ramadan in the Middle East, the African safari), I sent in another Nepal story. What can I say? Nepal was just my favorite place and my time with Prem staying in that small village warms my heart every time I think about it. It's probably the most "authentic" experience that I had (meaning least touristy). We'll see how it goes.

Now, you might wonder, why only 2 entries. Well for those of you who don't follow along on Facebook or Twitter, I had a bit of a cycling accident. I won't bore you with the details -- Sarah wrote it up very nicely here. The damage: 4 broken ribs (numbers 3-6 in back and they're not very clean fractures) and a cracked collar bone. We'll ignore the bruised shoulder blade for now. After some hours in a San Luis Obispo ER, they let me go back to Santa Cruz (with a friend driving). After a day at home, I had some muscle spasms that made it nearly impossible to breathe and I thought that I had punctured a lung. So after a quick call, Patti took me to the ER and I was admitted into the hospital for a few days. And, since we found out that morphine makes me itch really bad, I was strung out on both morphine and benedryl for some time. Who knew benedryl could be injected into IVs? Patti took me home for a couple of days after and since, I've been back home getting by with some help from my friends. And pain killers. I saw my doctor yesterday and get to start PT in a week or so. I get to pedal the bike on the trainer as soon as I can get someone to help me set that up. So things are looking up. The job search is just a bit on hold for now.

Anyway, I was remiss in getting more contest entries in. Hope you understand.

I Need Your Help!

2008-12-26T15:25:00.001-08:00

Lost City of the Incas
Originally uploaded by flower_bee

Probably the biggest regret that I have about my travels this year is that I didn't have the time or money to go to South America. At the time I bought my plane tickets, I decided to skip that continent because I have plenty of frequent flier miles on American Airlines and can go any time I want.

Today the Wonderlust and Lipstick blog was brought to my attention. It's a site written by a woman who has traveled extensively and now writes travel books and is the definitive authority on how to travel solo for women. I wish I knew about this site before leaving for my trip and I really wish I read her book on India before going. But that's beside the point.

Currently, there's a contest on her site and the winner gets a trip to South America visiting the Amazon and traveling down the Inca Trail. How cool would it be to win that? All I have to do is write a travel story and submit it by 1/31/09. Even better is that the judges are all travel writers and editors and I'd so love to get their feedback on some of my writing!

So, what's your favorite entry that I posted on my trip? What place would you like me to write more about? And what posts should I just plain avoid for this contest? Please, I really need to know what stories you liked the most because I can't be objective. HELP ME!

And for those of you who didn't follow the trip, just check the blog archives starting back in July.

The Trainer

2008-12-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Today I just couldn't get myself out the door to go for a ride. It wasn't raining or anything, but it was cold when I rode yesterday and it was even colder today and I just didn't want to do it. And, of course, I kept procrastinating getting on the trainer because riding the trainer is just so much fun.

But then the postman came and brought me a couple of NetFlix rentals. There it was: Mamma Mia!. So I thought, "what the hell"? It has tunes to pedal by, after all. Before you know it, I was riding the trainer with the TV volume cranked singing at the top of my lungs. Proudly, I only knew a few of the songs and didn't know all of the lyrics to any of them. But I'm good at making them up. Yes, I was kinda boogying on the saddle through every song and nearly crashed during Dancing Queen. If I hadn't have set up next to the dining room table, I would have hit the carpet. "Dancing on the pedals" has a whole new meaning to me now. I made it through the entire movie and then did my crunches during the closing credits (which were better than the movie).

A few quick observations:

1. Pierce Brosnan, though fantastic eye candy, CANNOT SING. He should never do a musical again.
2. Meryl Streep needs to do Dancing with the Stars.
3. My sit bones are much happier when I'm sitting upright swinging my arms to the music.
4. Riding rollers would have put me in the hospital today.
5. I really need a job so that I stop doing stupid things like this.

My Favorite Time Trialist

2008-12-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

I'm Pooped

2008-12-09T19:05:00.001-08:00

For whatever reason, I've been on a roll since I woke up yesterday. Here's what I've gotten done in the last two days:

Wrote the annual Christmas letter and sent out all cards
Wrapped all Christmas presents and got the shipping done
4 loads of laundry
Cleaned the entire house, including the oven and windows
Reorganized the bike stuff in the garage
Cleaned out the inside of the car, including vacuuming
Mowed the back yard and weeded all the flower beds
Raked all leaves from the damned willow tree
Cut back morning glory, ginger and freesia in the yard
Washed and lubed the road bike
Completely reorganized my closets
Cleaned out the fridge
Balanced all bank accounts

So I rewarded myself by going to see a matinee showing of Milk this afternoon. Good movie. And I should finish the book I'm reading tonight. I really need to find a job soon, just to keep me from going crazy.

Gotta Love Saturday Night Live!

2008-12-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

I Just Had to Post This

2008-12-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

Just Passing the Days

2008-12-02T08:14:00.001-08:00

Dog Park 074
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

OK, so I've been a little quiet. It's really because I haven't found much to say. My project list at the house is now very short and I look for things to do each morning when I get up. So what am I doing? Well, I'm riding my bike as much as my sit bones will allow. I'm cooking a lot. I'm cooking so much that I've even make frijoles from scratch for my post-ride burritos. And homemade desserts. Can you believe it? Me -- homemade desserts?

Oh, and I'm going around snapping photos. And this week, I'll be taking my friend's dog (Shasta -- she's a Great Pyrenees) to either the the dog park or beach each afternoon while Patti is in San Diego helping her mother move.

The big bright light on the horizon is that there's a possible job just down the street from where I live. That's right -- a web development shop on the beach in the building next to the Crow's Nest. I sent in a resume, got an email from the owner, but have to wait until he's back in the country (Dec 10th) to set up an interview. It'll probably be a fairly hefty pay cut from what I'm used to, but it's right down the street and at the beach. How sweet would that be? Assuming that he likes me and that the job sounds like a good opportunity for me, that is.

So, what's a girl to do with her time? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (and possibly rewarded with some limoncello).

Crossroads

2008-11-10T19:44:00.001-08:00

Sign on Caye Caulker, Belize
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

One of the reasons that I took my epic tripwas to take some time to assess my life and figure out what I want to do from here. I hadn't been happy for a while and my manager had been making my life a living hell. I've been schlepping through the hell that is Silicon Valley for 10 years and was tired of the constant flux and companies getting bought and sold. I've personally worked at 3 companies that have been bought since 2004.

So what did I figure out? Absolutely nothing. I'm not sure if I was just too busy trying to get around, having fun and staying safe, or if I was just avoiding dealing with all of this. All I know is that I'm running out of projects around the house and am starting to get a bit bored. I am signed up for an orientation with Cabrillo's Fast Track program, where the assess your skills and interests and hopefully train you for a new profession. But that's not for another week or so. And there's no guarantee that they'll be able to help me out. Since I've returned, I've had calls from recruiters, but they're for more of what was making me miserable.

So what's a girl to do? Ride her bike? Been doing that. One friend suggested getting off my ass and trying the online dating thing, but I just couldn't figure out what to say on a profile. Volunteer her time toward a good cause? I need to find another cause (I did shuttle old folks to the polls on election day). Or just something that I like doing.

Any suggestions?

A Fantastic Night

2008-11-04T22:20:00.001-08:00

population world map
Originally uploaded by upyernoz

I'm sitting here absolutely ecstatic about the election results for President, the Senate, and House of Representatives, but I'm anxious and worried about Proposition 8.

Having recently finished a 3 month mid-life crisis, bucket list, "learn how the other half lives" trip around the world, I couldn't help but want to find out what they're all saying in far away lands. So this gal with a BA in Politics with an emphasis in International Relations went searching on the internet for the past hour or so. Interestingly, Al Jazeera's English web server was down for most of that time, but it's now up and they have a great play by play of tonight's events interspersed with reactions from around the world here.

My favorite quote from the article:

Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege in Kenya, reports that "the level of excitement is absolutely unbelievable. Many of these villagers have been sitting here for 15 hours watching international television news in a language they barely understand. That excitement is felt across the region.

"There's also a huge sense of pride, because Obama’s father was born in this village.

"If Obama does win, the local community is planning to slaughter cows and have a barbecue."

Given what I saw on my trip and the conversations that I had with people in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, I know that the world is excited. Personally, I am confident that the world's perception of the US has changed for the better, but it will be interesting to see just how in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Vote

2008-11-04T09:00:00.001-08:00

Election Day ~ go VOTE
Originally uploaded by paulhitz

I've done it and I hope you do, too. For those of you familiar with the Santa Cruz area, I vote at the Simpkins swim center. There are 4 precincts there and when I first drove up, it was pretty intimidating. The entire parking lot was full and the long driveway was lined on both sides with parked cars. The 4 lines ( 1 for each of the precincts) went out the doors. They only had 1 electronic voting booth for each of the precincts and those had some long lines, so I opted for the paper ballot. Despite it looking like I could be there all morning, I parked and was back out in my car within 10 minutes.

So get out there and vote today! And be thankful we have nice sunny weather. And vote no on Proposition 8.

The Election

2008-10-29T09:30:00.001-07:00

Stone Town
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

The election is something that I've wanted to write about since my first week in Thailand. Upon landing in Krabi, one of the first things I saw was a Thai man with an Obama '08 t-shirt. I held off on the post, though, as I saw more and more shirts and buttons, not only in Thailand, but just about everywhere I traveled during my 3 months abroad. I had many, many locals come up and talk to me about the election.

In short, it shocked me how much the rest of the world cares about who we elect and how each country covers our election every night on the evening news. The BBC broadcast both of our conventions live around the world. I saw coverage of daily campaign stops on local news coverage in Thai, Hindi, Nepali, Arabic and Swahili, often leading as the top story. I saw an Obama button on my waiter's shirt when I had my first meal in Kathmandu. The taxi stand in Stone Town, Zanzibar hung a homemade Obama poster on a tree and painted Obama all over the curbs. Throughout Tanzania, I saw Obama painted on the rear windows of vehicles (Bob Marley was also a very popular paint job on vehicles, by the way).

The democratic convention started on my last night in India. Until that time, in both Thailand and India, I had people all excited because they thought that Obama had already won the presidency when he beat Hillary Clinton. I explained the difference between the primaries and general elections at least 30 times during my first month of travel. They all countered with, "But Obama's going to win, right?". When I explained that I didn't know because the polls at the time were close, they look stricken. It was such an odd feeling explaining our political process and seeing how much others care at the same time.

Why did everyone I meet feel so strongly about Obama? I think that in Asia, they feel like he has an understanding of their lives and hardships that no candidate has ever had before. After all, he did live in Indonesia for two years after his mother remarried. Not only did he live there, but for much of their first year, they didn't have a refrigerator or running water. To them he gets it, at least a little.

The support in the Middle East is very obvious. The Iraqi war has cost the region a lot. The number one industry in both Jordan and Egypt is tourism. Both suffered greatly when the war broke out, especially Jordan, who basically lost the entire industry. It's been so bad that about half of the restaurants and hotels have had to close. The tourists are slowly coming back, but not nearly in the numbers they saw before the war. Couple that with the fact that they've taken in over 1.2 million Iraqi refugees, and it's no surprise that they need this war over. McCain believes that we need to stay in Iraq and Obama wants to start phasing us out of there.

Tanzania was also a bit obvious. Obama's father was Kenyan and Kenya shares a border with Tanzania. While Obama never lived there, he has visited a couple of times and stayed in a village with his father's family. Like in Asia, they feel like he's got an understanding of how they live and what their challenges are. Plus he's a "native son" (I actually heard that phrase a couple of times). They can't help but love that.

BBC World News asked their viewers if they were following the US elections and why. There was one email response that they put up on the screen regularly during my time in Egypt and Tanzania. A man in India responded, "America is electing the most powerful man in the world and I live in this world. How can I not care?" Can't put it any simpler than that.

So this time next week, we'll know who our next president will be. Whatever you do, vote on Tuesday and remember that our decision is not just about us.

And just a quick side note: The Nepali were very confused about our party conventions. Most of what they see are people dressed in stupid hats with flashing buttons who are dancing to music and being silly. They consider electing a president to be very serious business. They wanted to know what a party had to do with the election process. I had no idea what to tell them.

Surf City '08

2008-10-26T21:06:00.001-07:00

Starting the Kiddie Cross Race
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Surf City has now come and gone. The weather was wonderful, the racing was good, and the costumes were, well, interesting. From the man in the bikini to the wiener dogs, I couldn't stop smiling. So many kids took part in kiddie cross and the costume cross race was over 100 people and quite a bit of mayhem -- as it should be. Thanks to the keg who rode over and poured for the judges!

Now I'm going to put some aloe on my sunburn and get some sleep. Maybe this weekend got me back on Pacific time ...

Building the Course

2008-10-25T19:41:00.001-07:00

Surf City 08 012
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

So today the Bellas and friends built the course for tomorrow's Surf City Cyclocross race as well as ran a skills clinic for all interested (and there were 50 participants). Tomorrow's the big day and it's going to be a great one.

Anyone in the area should stop by Soquel High. Racing will start around 8:30am and go until mid afternoon. Kiddie Cross and Costume Cross is always a kick. Come see if I can ride a bike in a sari!

Hope to see you there!

p.s. Absolutely wonderful to go out to dinner with the gang after. At one point, I looked around the table with a big grin and got all teary eyed -- it's so great to be around familiar faces!

The Bucket List

2008-10-22T03:47:00.000-07:00

After being awake since 4am yesterday, I fell asleep way too early tonight while I was getting ready to watch a movie. So from 7:30 until about 1am I slept and then woke and watched "The Bucket List". You would have thought that I'd watched that movie before I left on my trip, wouldn't you? Well, I didn't. NetFlix didn't deliver it until yesterday. But I did go to 4 of the places that Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman did: the Serengeti, the pyramids in Giza, the Taj Majal and the Himalayas. But I got to see Everest and they didn't, so there! A few notes though: 1) they must have filmed at the Taj on a Friday because it's closed then and I can't imagine getting into the mausoleum without anyone else in there; 2) there is no way you can sit up on one of the pyramids in Giza -- especially being higher up than Khafre's pyramid which is now the same height as the Great Pyramid; and 3) they would never be able to get to where they got in the Himalayas in that kind of weather and the places that they would stay would never be that nice. But now I really wish I'd sang the weemaway song while we were on safari -- especially when there were lions lying next to the road. I really blew it on that one.

Yesterday I went on my first bike ride in more than 3 months. I did ride 2km to the elephant breeding center in Chitwan, Nepal, but that didn't count. I was unable to go fast because of the combination of really bad roads and piles of elephant dung anywhere (yes, dung is the technical term that everyone uses). Today, I rode up highway 1. My cardio fitness was fine and I was a little surprised at that -- I guess all that walking did some good after all. My legs are much skinnier than then were when I left, but even they did just fine. My sit bones, however, are killing me! They hurt so bad that I had to turn around up by the Italian flag. I would have stayed out of the saddle, but my feet were completely numb from the balls forward through my toes. But the shoes I used were new when I left on my trip, so I think I'll use the old ones for a bit and see if that helps. My only fear is that I won't be able to sit on the saddle tomorrow and will have to skip a ride. Hell, it hurts to sit on the couch right now.

If I could only get myself on Pacific time, I'd be a really happy camper. Oh, and for lack of photos to add, I'm putting up a photo of cheetah cubs taken from the hot air balloon ride.

It's Weird Being Back

2008-10-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

On the one hand, it's really nice to walk down the street without everyone staring at me (I kinda stuck out like a sore thumb in many places where I traveled). On the other hand, there's some big adjustments. I still keep walking to the wrong side of the car to get in (I keep expecting the steering wheel to be on the right side), pre-packaged and frozen food kinda upsets my stomach, and my iPhone keeps pinging me all day long -- kinda the opposite of the trip where I wouldn't get contacted at all. I went to Costco yesterday to see about replacing my broken TV that they sold me 20 months ago and I just wanted to run and hide from the moment I walked in. It's a little funny, because the bazaar in Cairo was much more crowded, but whatever. However, they were nice and refunded me the total cost of the TV and I was able to get a bigger, nicer one for $200 less than the old one.

The sleep thing is starting to get better. On Sunday night I woke up at 10pm and just couldn't get back to sleep. So last night, I stayed awake until 8 and slept until 4 this morning. If I can just stay awake until 9 or 10 tonight, I could be back on schedule. Wish me luck!

Anyone up for a bike ride?

Jet Lag

2008-10-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing. I don't quite understand how it works, but I know I have jet lag worse than I ever have before. When I got home on Saturday, I ate dinner and went to sleep by 7:30pm. I woke up at 10:30 and was up until 3am. It wasn't a total waste, though -- I got through 3 months of mail. Then I slept until about 7am and couldn't sleep any more even though I was exhausted. So what's a girl to do? Get up and get on with things. I went the errand route (deposit checks, get gas, buy groceries). I even stopped by Soquel High to "help" with the course for Surf City next weekend. I was absolutely useless, but it was so good to see familiar faces. Of course, I briefly dozed off on the lawn there.

So after a couple of hours of being too tired to do anything, I finally fell asleep about 3pm and slept until 10pm. I've since unpacked, fixed the power problem in my garage, caught up on my Sailing Worlds, and am having trouble finding things to do in the dark.

Something tells me that I'm in for a fun few days.

p.s. I did finally manage to get the champagne bottle open at 1am last night.

Home

2008-10-18T18:58:00.001-07:00

The End
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I showered, got a burrito at El Palomar, dropped by Deke's to get something to drink and ended up with a chilled mini bottle of champagne. It seemed appropriate. But I'm so tired that I cannot get the bottle open. Go figure.

I'm COLD!!

2008-10-17T23:40:00.000-07:00

I just had a pretty good flight. BA sat me just behind the business class folks who have reclining beds and I had all the leg room in the world. Plus they have these wing things that come up by your head in the seat, eliminating the need for the travel pillow that I lost the plug for a while back. I slept about 5 hours of the flight and hope I can do the same on the next. I have to tell you though -- when I walked off the plane toward the gate, I just about froze my ass off. And now that I'm sitting in the terminal killing time, I'm still cold. I don't know how these Brits do it.

So am I ready for this mid-life crisis trip to end? Yes and no. I am really tired of living out of a suitcase and can't wait to wear something different. And sleep in my own bed. And see all of the people that I've been missing. And be able to read the signs and know how to get around. And be able to ask questions when I have them. On the other hand, it'll be back to the same 'ole, same 'ole and I won't be experiencing new cultures and meeting new people the way I have been.

I pretty much am pinching myself when I think back on this trip. It's seems pretty unreal at this point, but here's just a quick, off-the-top-of-my-head kind of list of some of the things I did:

rode elephants
camped on "the beach"
visited the Taj Majal
saw Everest
bathed an elephant
went treking in the Himalayan foothills
visited Petra
bobbed like a cork in the Dead Sea
visited the Great Pyramid of Giza and went inside to the center of the one next to it.
visited both the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens and hiked partway between the two.
spent two days and nights sailing and sleeping on the Nile.
Went on safari in Africa
Rode a hot air balloon over the Serengeti

Now it really seems unreal. Would I do it all over again? Hell yeah. Would I do any of it differently? Absolutely (less time in India and Egypt, more time in Nepal and Africa and add on Laos). Am I ready to go home? I think so and will probably know so by the time my next plane lands.

By the way: 17 flights, 17 different airports in 13 different countries (not counting the Everest flight), 6 countries really visited, and just about 30,000 miles flown. No wonder I'm tired.

The Beginning of the End

2008-10-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm really on my way home. This morning, we left the lodge at 8:30 for the drive back to Arusha. On the way out of the park, we saw 4 lions along with the usual assortment of zebras, wildebeast, buffalo, gazelles, elephants and giraffes. After lunch in Arusha, I was driven to Kilimanjaro airport and flew to Nairobi. The nice ladies at the British Airways check in desk pointed me to a "first class" lounge where I could pay $20 to hang out for the next 6 hours. It comes with free snacks, free drinks (including alcohol) and the most excruciatingly slow wifi access I have ever had. But at least I can sit in air conditioning and sleep on the couches.

I had the most fun at dinner last night. Part way through the meal, the lights went completely out. Then we heard drums and one of the staff came dancing in with a big flaming torch. Behind him was a conga line with the rest of the staff singing and dancing along with a drummer. They were all smiling and having such a good time that it was a blast to watch. Some people even got pulled up to join the line. Everyone was clapping along and somewhere in all the fun, I had to fight back the tears. It hit me that my journey was coming to an end. It's strange -- in some ways it feels like this has all been a dream and that I was home yesterday. In other ways, that first flight from SFO to Hong Kong feels like 5 years ago. Thailand certainly feels as distant as my trip to Belize in '04.

There just so many mixed emotions right now, but I'm tired and I'll probably feel different when I get to London. More when I'm not so exhausted.

My last day in Africa

2008-10-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Today we drove to Tanguire National Park, stopping along the way at a Massai women's development center. There was no hard sell there. They showed us how they make their handicrafts and let us meander around the goods at our leisure. We got to play with the children and there was absolutely no hassle. The prices were the best we've seen, so we didn't even try to haggle with them. After, they sang us a song, posed for pictures with us and did a traditional dance. During the dance, they threw a collar around my neck and pulled me in to dance with them. After, they put their arms around me and all gave me a giant hug. LOVED IT!

We then drove through the park to the lodge, and saw all kinds of animals, but mostly things we have seen before. Tomorrow we head back to Arusha and I get put on my plane to Nairobi. Then it's 7 hours of hanging out at that airport before the long flight to London, another 5 hours sitting at Heathrow, and then the flight to SFO.

As ready as I've been to come home for a while now, I have to say that I am really sad to leave Africa. If I had it all to do over again, I would spend much more time here and I definitely plan on coming back.

Internet access here is $20/hr, so I only bought 15 minutes. I'll post pictures and longer thoughts (there's a lot going through my head right now) at one of the airports. See you soon.

So Funny

2008-10-15T08:22:00.001-07:00

Lake Manyara 024
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Today was a game drive at Lake Manyara National Park, followed by lunch and a visit to a local village. The drive was kinda the usual -- we saw lots of baboons, giraffes, hippos, etc. We did see some new species to us -- mountain goats, some new monkeys, and some birds.

At one point, it was all so boring that our driver/guide Selemani started to tell us how it is that palm trees were growing around a small river. Apparently, the seed needs to "pass through an animal" before it can actually sprout. If it hasn't ended up in poop, it doesn't stand a chance. He then did something we're not supposed to do under any circumstances -- he got out of the jeep. Right outside his door was a seed (about the size of an avocado pit) that had done the passing. He handed it in through the window for us to take and pass around. No thank you. But Geoffrey (our 75 year old Welshman traveling with his two sons) grabbed it. Before we knew it, Selemani was walking across a small field and then disappeared behind a bush. Then we hear "EL - E - PHANT!" (with Tanzanian accent) really loud. I grabbed my camera to take a picture and here came Selemani running his ass off looking over his shoulder. He jumped into the jeep just as the elephant emergerged. He was laughing so hard (you know, that deep belly laugh I've menitoned) that we couldn't help ourselves. Of course, that was before the elephant came right up to the jeep and stared us down. He started to charge just as Selemani hit the gas, so we both moved in unison. The elephant stopped abruptly and so did we. We kinda played cat and mouse for a bit, but all the time we were laughing so hard. Later at lunch, I showed him the photo in my camera and told him that the only thing funnier would have been if he had come running out with his pants down. That got him laughing so hard that he couldn't speak. Since day 1, we've been talking about how man is the most dangerous animal of all, hence the caption. I can't help giggling just remembering this incident, but it may be one of those things where you had to be there.

After lunch we were taken for a walk through a local village. We saw a banana plantation, saw where they make African carvings, some folks visited a school, we went to a local "brewery" and tried the banana beer (better than the rice beer in Nepal, but still not that great), and hit a market. Then it was back to the lodge and pool time.

Tomorrow we head to Tarangire for one night and one last game drive. Friday I start a very long journey home.

Just a Quickie ...

2008-10-14T11:52:00.003-07:00

but not that kind! We drove out of the Serengeti today to Lake Manyara. The big highlight leaving the park was a cheetah. She was standing on a termite mound quite a bit away, but we heard her meow. Our guide said that she was calling her cubs. When she couldn't spot them, she started walking -- right toward us! Well, she meandered to us as she looked both left and right calling her kids. She walked right in front of the jeep and was so close that I couldn't get her all in frame and had to use the point and click. After crossing, the herd of wildebeast, zebra and gazelle just stared at her and got the hell out of her way. She couldn't care though -- she kept looking for her cubs. When we left, she still hadn't found them.

After, we headed to Olduvai Gorge. This is the site where they discovered some of the oldest human fossils and the oldest set of human footprints. There was a nice visitor center and we had a semi edible boxed lunch.

Then came the big fun -- a Massai village. Yup, we paid $60 for the car for the privilege of visiting a real Massai village. We were greeted with some dancing and were then taken into a home and shown around. We did get to visit the school and see how the children (this is the school for kindergarden and under) are learning English as well as Swahili. We were then mobbed to buy various jewelry and other handmade goods. Nothing new here because whenever our jeep stops anywhere (stop sign, park HQ, gas), we get mobbed by Massai trying to sell us things. We have to lock the doors and windows because they will pry them open and climb right inside. Needless to say, we've become quite adept at getting rid of the Massai. Truly, it reminds me of India. Anyway, we made it out of there after leaving some donations at the school and tipping our Massai host (on top of the $60) and drove on to Lake Manyara. Tomorrow we do another game drive at the lake and head to a local village for some more cultural experiences.

I'm very tired.

Up, Up and Away

2008-10-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

I'm entering two posts, so please look at the next one to see some photos I've managed to capture. I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the new camera.

Today was my hot air balloon ride. My wake up call was 4:00am (ICK!) and I kind of sleepwalked through the drive to the launch site. I only woke up when we stopped – once for a hyena lounging in the road and once for a hippo who was crossing. We arrived at sunrise and could hear lions roaring in the distance. Sunrise is hunting time for them, you know. We had our briefing as they inflated the balloons. We were not going to be climbing in the baskets after inflation – they do it all different here. We got into the basket while it was lying on the ground. We got onto seats, but lying on our backs with our legs bent at the knee up in the air. As the balloon filled, the basket gently tipped rightside up and then we were off. It was absolutely gorgeous. We first went up high enough to get an idea of just how vast the Serengeti is. We lowered a bit and looked down at birds in their nests on the top of trees. We buzzed a hippo pond as the hippos were heading to the water for the day (they hunt in the dark) and we saw some things that are very rare to see. The other balloon had taken off ahead of us and radioed to say that they were watching lions feeding on a still kicking wildebeast. It was dead by the time we got there, but we saw the lions feeding. We saw another kill about 20 minutes later that the other balloon missed. We saw giraffes in the distance and many lion and hyena walking through the grass. Like everywhere else you look, there’s lots of wildebeast, zebra and gazelle (they hang out together quite often). But the highlight was a cheetah and her 4 cubs. The other balloon radioed us to tell us about it and as we approached, the mother was walking away from her cubs to the top of a mound in order to scout for food. I have an amazing picture of her and another of her babies all checking us out. It was nothing short of spectacular since cheetahs are very hard to spot and we dropped so low that they were right there.

We watched as the other balloon went down for a landing, but they aborted and went up again. We couldn’t figure out why until it was our time to land. The pilot started to lower us and we brushed some high grass and a termite mound and then I saw it – a fairly large hyena sitting in the grass watching us. I said something and we aborted and went up again as well. When we did finally land, it was quite something. We got back into our sitting positions, we gently touched the ground, but we had so much speed that we slid for about a minute. When we came to a stop, we gently tipped over and were back exactly as we had started. We had to wait a couple of minutes until the jeeps arrived – no one’s allowed out until guards are there to protect us – and then were let out. We were taken to an area with the folks from the other balloon and given champagne. Our pilots told a story of the first balloon ride and we had a toast. They did say that anyone that caught a popping cork would get to pilot the balloon the next day, so you bet I tried really hard. I couldn’t quite pull it off though.

We then drove about 5 minutes to the site for our breakfast. They had this long table set up with fine china and crystal, another table with bowls of hot water and soap for us to wash up, and the “loos with a view”. Yes, we had portapotties with 3 walls around them. You go in and sit facing a view of the Serengeti. Not bad. They plied us with more champagne, tons of fresh fruit, and a hot breakfast of eggs, smoked ham, sausage, beans and veggies. It was all very nice and a ton of fun. I wish I could do it again and again.

My jeep pulled as everyone was getting their stuff together to leave. My driver and the boys waved me over. When I got in, they asked how it was. All I could say was “2 kills, cheetah with 4 cubs, a kickass ride, a fantastic breakfast, and I’m drunk – I’m great! You?”. They passed around my camera looking at the photos I took and got pretty jealous that they didn’t spend the money.

Tomorrow we head to Lake Manyara for two nights.

Game Drives

2008-10-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

Without going into too much boring detail, let’s just say that we’ve finished 2 days of game drives. We spent half of yesterday in Ngorongoro Crater and then drove to the Serengeti. The drive to the Serengeti, especially from the park entrance to the lodge, is a game drive in and of itself. Today was all Serengeti. There have been several times where the big lens on the camera is way too much and I either have to change lenses, find the point and shoot (preferable), or wait until the animal moves away before I can take a picture. Off the top of my head I’ve seen: lions, cheetahs, a leopard, elephants, giraffes, wildebeast, zebra, gazelle (both grand and thompson), monkeys of various kinds, hyenas, a jackal, hippos, tortoise, deer, waterbeast, the endangered black rhino (from a distance), flamingos, ostriches, and many other birds. I know there’s lots more, but I just can’t think right now. Below are a sampling of my favorite photos.

The Quick Catch Up

2008-10-12T10:59:00.001-07:00

Local Market Outside of Arusha
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry to be out of touch, but internet access is pretty sketchy around here. After my last post, I found that I had to sit around the lodge in Arusha for another 4 hours because some other folks from my safari hadn't yet touched down at the airport. I was a little pissed, because I had to check out of my room and there was absolutely nothing to do. As I mentioned, the walk to the lake cost $23 dollars and the guards wouldn't let me out the front gate to go walking down to the local market, which was less than 1km down the road. I was trapped.

When my tour director arrived, we had a little chat. He offered to get me a guide for free to take me to the market. After I explained that I had been traveling for nearly 3 months and had survived markets in India, Nepal and Cairo and really wanted to go alone so that I could interact with the locals, he talked the guards into letting me go. Yes, I got my freedom. Anyway, I took a very nice walk and got to see how the locals shop, live chickens hanging by their feet off of bicycle handlebars and all! I had forgotten my Swahili phrasebook, so I was at a bit of a loss. No one there spoke any English, but many people approached me with a big smile and shook my hand. Since it's extremely rude and practically criminal to take someone's picture here without their permission and I had no way of asking, I didn't get a lot of pictures. But it was all good fun and I was certainly the only non-African there. And I killed a bit of time.

After the last of the group arrived, we got divided up into our jeep groups and headed off. I was put with a Welsh father and his two grown sons for the duration. Interestingly, all of the couples were put together in a jeep, and all of the other women traveling were put in another jeep. I'm the only woman put in a jeep with no other woman. Oh well.

The drive to Ngorongoro Crater was pretty uneventful. We passed many Massai villages as well as Massai. They're pretty particular about you paying a lot of money if you take their picture, so you have to do it on the sly. I did get an interesting shot of a Massai riding a bicycle on the side of the highway.

When we arrived at the park entrance for Ngorongoro Crater, our driver had to go inside for quite a while to do paperwork. Baboons were abundant and trying to steal things out of the jeeps. While walking around, I noticed Africans going up to the baboons and pushing them away when they were trying to break into things. A bit later, a baboon jumped from a tree onto our jeep and then onto the roof of another jeep. They had a box tied on top and the baboon started ripping it open. I ran up and beat on the side of the jeep right next to it and scared it away. A few minutes later, another baboon jumped into the driver's seat of a jeep that had the door open and engine running -- apparently it was supposed to be a short stop. I ran up and pushed the critter out. All of the tourists were shocked that I would touch one of the animals, but the African's were shaking my hand thanking me. I guess those tourists never had monkeys climb all over them for bananas before. And yes, I'm still over monkeys.

Soon after we proceeded to the lodge (the sun was going down pretty quickly). On the way, we saw some zebra.

Today, we did a game drive down in the crater and saw lots of stuff. After lunch, we drove to the Serengeti. No time to download photos -- I have to get up at 4am for my balloon ride. I'll pull it all together tomorrow night and write a post.

Home in less than a week.

Arusha

2008-10-10T23:13:00.001-07:00

Arusha 015
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Last night, after a wonderful seafood pasta, I got myself into a little trouble at the hotel. You see, I had gone back to my room, got into my equivalent of jammies (remember, I’m traveling light), and pulled apart the bed so that I could get in and watch me some CNN. I say pull apart the bed because they had everything tucked in so tight that I couldn’t so much as lift the sheet an inch. I have no idea why hotels do that, but it’s a pain in the ass when you want to get into bed. After a bit, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, there was a guy there saying that he was the bed turn down service guy. I told him that there was no need, but he insisted on coming in and making everything just so. He was a bit disgusted by the way that I had pulled down the bedspread and untucked the sheet, so he remade the entire bed. Yes, you heard me right – remade it. I kept telling him that it was not necessary because I was just getting back into bed again when he left. But no, he remade it and then took the bedspread and decorative pillows back off, folding and stacking them neatly, and then turned down the sheet on one side ever just so. And then he retucked the sides in really tight. Of course, then the mosquito netting was pulled down around the bed and he used mosquito spray over the whole thing. Then I was ordered out of the room for 5 minutes. He wouldn’t even give me a chance to grab better clothes or shoes, so I stood in the hall (within plain view of the lobby) in the robe that was hanging on the bathroom door. Lovely.

This morning, I flew from Zanzibar to Arusha. I realized a couple of things: 1) the Indian Ocean is so clear that you can see the bottom all the way to the mainland – pretty impresive; 2) there are so many dried up rivers and lakes across Tanzania that it must be pretty impressive during the rainy season. You could also see many little villages with a circular fence around them and several round huts with thatched huts within the fence. I was later told that these were Masai villages. I didn’t realize that there were so many!

I’m now at the Mountain Village Lodge outside of Arusha. There is a beautiful lake below, but I’m not allowed down unless I take a guard ($23). I’m not sure why because they swear that there are no dangerous animals anywhere near here, but that’s the way it is. There is no way I am paying $23 to go take a few pictures. Also, I found out part of the reason why my safari is so expensive: the safari company (Savannah Tours) that the travel agent booked through subcontracted out various parts of my safari to other companies. Apparently, Savannah specializes in trips through the southern part of the country and my trip is through the north. Zanzibar was subbed out to Fisherman Tours and the rest is subbed out to Ranger Tours. The only thing that Savannah did was pick me up outside the international terminal in Dar Es Salaam and drive me about 3 minutes to the domestic terminal. As a result, I’m paying a lot of extra money to Savannah that I wouldn’t if this had been booked through Ranger.

Fisherman and Ranger didn’t communicate too well. I arrived around 12:30 at the airport in Arusha and no one was there to meet me. After getting the taxi drivers to leave me alone and finding a phone, my driver showed up. At the lodge, they had been told that I wouldn’t be arriving until 9pm, so I wasn’t on the list to get lunch or dinner (everything’s buffet and you have to be on the list or pay $25-30). This place is no where near any source of food – way outside of town. My driver (who will be with me for the entire safari) was livid and is now in town trying to fix everything with his company. In the meantime, he talked to one of the waiters who asked me if I’d like a sandwich from the snack menu at the bar and brought me a sandwich, fries, a huge salad, and pineapple juice and wouldn’t take my money. I love the guy!

Tomorrow 3 other people arrive for the safari and we drive to Ngorongoro Crater. Our first drive will be the next day, but we should see some critters of some sort along the way. Stay tuned.

Stone Town

2008-10-09T08:44:00.001-07:00

Zanzibar 013
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

This morning I was driven to the Zanzibar Serena Inn in Stone Town. I’m beginning to realize why this safari is costing an arm and a leg – the accomodations are first class all the way and truly a bit over the top. I’m just not used to a butler in each hallway to answer your every question and to check on you constantly. I kinda wish I had booked a safari myself that put me in tents or something – I’d feel a little more at home. I wonder what these people would say if they knew about the village I stayed in in Nepal …

I just spent a couple of hours walking around town and visiting the Zanzibar National Museum. It seems that everyone has been here at one time or another: the Indians, the Portugese, the Germans, the Turks and just about the rest of the world as well. The shortest war ever happened here when the British bombed for 45 minutes and kicked out the Germans. You can see different influences in the architecture around town and in the different types of restaurants available. I walked around quite a bit and got lost -- the town is just a maze. It was great, though. Getting lost let's you see places you'd never see otherwise and it was fun to watch children playing and people going about their daily business. Eventually I found the site where slaves were processed. Now there's a church built on the site and for a fee, you can go inside and see the high alter which is where the whipping post used to be. No thank you.

I just had the best shish kabobs ever – they don’t call this the spice island for nothing. Also, I’ve come to love fresh squeezed bungo juice. I have no idea what a bungo is, but the juice is really good. Oh, and there’s Barak Obama paintings, posters, bumper stickers, buttons, etc. everywhere here.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Arusha, which is near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I should have a good view, both from the plane and from the lodge where I’m staying (that’s what the brochure says anyway). The next morning we set off on safari. Since some of the descriptions of the lodges we’ll be staying in say things like “24 hour electricity”, so I have large doubts that I’ll have internet access. I will write up something each day as well as prepare photos and will post as soon as I can. Most likely, you’ll see multiple posts showing up at once sometime down the line. Just in case you’re wondering where I am at any given time, here’s my itinerary for the rest of the trip:

10/10 – Fly from Zanzibar to Arusha. Stay at Mountain Village Lodge
10/11 – Drive to Ngorongoro Crater. Stay at Ngorongoro Serena Lodge
10/12 – Game viewing in the crater and then drive to the Serengeti. Stay at Serengeti Serena Lodge
10/13 – Hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti at dawn (still can’t believe this one!). Game drive the rest of the day until sunset. Stay at Serengeti Serena Lodge again.
10/14 – Drive to Lake Manyara National Park, stopping at Olduvai Gorge where they found the oldest known human remains. Stay at Lake Manyara Serena Lodge.
10/15 – Early morning game drive and then visit a Masai village and local school. Stay at Lake Manyara Serena Lodge.
10/16 – Drive to Tarangire National Park and do afternoon game drive. Stay at Tarangire Sopa Lodge.
10/17 – Drive to Arusha, have lunch, and get dumped at the airport to start the long journey home (Arusha -> Nairobi -> London -> San Francisco).

I’ll be home in 9.5 days!

A Lazy Day

2008-10-08T07:48:00.001-07:00

Tanzania 036
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I had originally planned on a little excursion today, but it fell through. For a few measly dollars, they will take you on a boat to this area in the Ocean that’s loaded with very friendly dolphins. You get to feed them and then swim with them! I thought, “well, I’ve ridden elephants, camels, mules and a felucca on this trip, why not swim with dolphins?” And I knew that Beth (Guislin, not Welliver) would be so proud! But last night at 9:30 I was told that they found no one else interested in the trip today, so they had to cancel on me. There’s folks going tomorrow, but I’m scheduled to leave in the morning for Stone Town. Bummer. Instead I went on the consolation trip – snorkeling.

So after breakfast, I hopped on a boat with about 10 Italians, none of whom spoke English. Fun. Anyway, we were taken to an area to do an hour or so of snorkeling. There were lots and lots of different kinds of coral, but everything was pretty much khaki colored. It’s a bit disappointing, but I guess after the Blue Hole in Belize, everything seems bland. There were some very pretty colored fish. Lots of midnight blue angel fish, these black and white striped zebra fish, gold fish, barracuda, and every color of snapper you can imagine. And I found Nemo.

When we arrived back at the beach, I laid down on a cot for a bit and slept through lunch. Oh well. When I woke up I realized one of the biggest problems with traveling alone, especially to beaches: no one to put sunscreen on your back or tell you when you are starting to burn. And then it was time for my scheduled massage. Oops! Actually, she used some really good oil/lotion that soothed the burn and the message didn’t really hurt much.

Tomorrow I’m driven back to Stone Town to spend a night in a place that Stanley Livingston used to live in. I’ll meander around a bit and hopefully visit the place where they used to process slaves leaving Tanzania. A bit depressing, I know, but I think it’s good to see these things and remind yourself of the things we should never allow to happen again. I hope it’s not as bad as Dachau – I cried my eyes out that day.

I have one question for all of you and I hope that someone can explain. I first asked this question in Thailand and then again at the Red Sea and the Dead Sea: Why do overweight, old, European men have to wear Speedos? I just don’t get it. It’s not attractive and really should be against the law. Can anyone explain? Ornella? Thank you in advance for a good explanation.

I’m in Africa!

2008-10-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

So my trip out of Cairo was definitely a typical Egyptian experience. I was sitting on the balcony attached to my hotel lobby looking out over the streets of Cairo. I kept waiting for my car, which was supposed to arrive at 11pm, but never saw it. At 11:20, I went to the front desk (about 30 feet from me) and asked if they could make a call and check on my car. My driver was sitting right there and had been for 20 minutes – they were just having a good time talking and didn’t think to let me know that I could leave now. Kinda typical. Then at the airport, I saw a security line as you enter the building. When I got to the front of the line, I was yelled at by the security guard and told to go back outside. No one out there spoke English and I couldn’t figure out what to do. Eventually, I saw other people heading in another door so I followed and saw about a dozen different security checkpoints. Great. I eventually found out that there’s a security checkpoint for every checkin desk, but there’s no signage to tell you which flights are which checkin desk or which checkpoint. I eventually got through the right one and without any signage, found my way through immigration and to my gate. My gate wasn’t open, but I found free wifi at – you should be able to guess it by now – McDonalds! Interestingly enough, the Starbucks next door (the first I saw since Thailand) did not have wifi.

Things (attitude, punctuality, friendliness) changed when I got on my flight. There were Africans all around me in colorful dress, amazing hats and headwraps, and big, big smiles. I’m not talking the polite, sedate Thai smiles (and I love those), but big Cheshire cat ear-to-ear grins where the teeth nearly blind you. And big belly laughs – no little chuckles here. I immediately got very excited – I was going to Africa! About time it hit me.

We made a stop in Khartoum to unload some folks and pick some more up. I have to say that flying over Sudan was a bit depressing. The ground was dry and just plain dirt (at least what I saw) and very very flat. There was a big river running through the city which I suspect was the Nile, but no vegetation on its shores. While I’ve seen UN planes and vehicles just about everywhere I’ve been, I’ve never seen them to the extent that I saw them at the airport there. There were more UN planes than all of the commercial planes added up. And lots and lots of UN helicopters which looked like old Soviet versions of Blackhawks. I guess that when you have mass genocide happening in your country, you get a big UN presence.

I changed planes in Addis Ababa and loved everything I saw in the store windows – lots of colorful clothes, handwoven baskets, really interesting jewelry and amazing sandals with all kinds of stones on them. I even saw a bright pink man’s tribal gown all decorated with embroidery. I thought that it would be the perfect Hernando costume for Surf City and would especially compliment his giant fro wig. But it was made for a very big boy and I didn’t have much time to catch my next plane. Sorry Michael.

After yet another flight, I arrived in Dar Es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania. It sits right on the Indian Ocean and used to be the capital. The visa process was a bit messier than in other places I’ve been, but a very nice Tanzanian security guard helped me through. After all the warnings about how they’ll turn you around if you don’t have your yellow fever immunization certificate, no one asked me for it. I even offered it and was told that they didn’t need to see it. WHAT?!!? I did find out later that others were asked for it, so I must have just looked disease free or something. I then got driven over to another airport very nearby that they use for domestic flights. Here is where I had to wait. It was about 1:00pm when I arrived, but the safari company had me on a 4:45 Zanair flight to Zanzibar. But I’m glad I had that time – everyone’s so friendly that I met many, many people and had a lot of good conversations. Word got around that I had been traveling for some time, so I was approached by many of the airport workers to talk for a bit. Everyone wanted to hear my stories – it was kinda fun. Oh, and they were prepping for some big ceremony out on the tarmac. There was a military band, a stage, bleachers, etc. We weren’t sure who was coming, but when the Tanzanian president arrived, it was obvious that some foreign head of state was on the way. The funniest bit happened when they brought out the red carpet roll. The placed the carpet down upside down so that they couldn’t unroll the carpet. There were 5 military types standing there looking at it trying to figure it out. I laughed out loud a bit and the other man in the waiting room (a very nice Tanzanian) came over and took a look and smiled. And then he said something that I absolutely love and will never forget: “Common sense is not often common.” True dat. Anyway, they figured it out, flipped the carpet over, and unrolled. Then the plane arrived – the pomp and circumstance was for the president of Madagascar. I was told that they did the same ceremony earlier this year for President Bush. He came and stayed 4 days in Tanzania. Who knew?

I made it to the island in a very little prop plane (they had to weigh our luggage to make sure were weren’t overloaded) and picked up at the airport. It took over an hour to drive to the Kichanga Lodge. We drove through small colorful villages, past many spice plantations and through a wildlife preserve. In a way, it looks like Thailand – lots of banana, pineapple, mango and coconut trees with the beautiful Indian Ocean right there. But the dress is so colorful and the people so lively. We stopped a couple of times so that the driver could shout hello to friends that we passed. Without exception, everyone came up to the car, poked their head in at me, gave me HUGE smiles and welcomed me to Zanzibar. In one place, a group of boys were playing drums while folks danced around in a big circle. Did I mention I’m in Africa?

Anyway, the lodge is beautiful. I have this wonderful bungalow with steps leading to the beach and the most beautiful view (the photo was taken from my porch). My bungalow was decked out in flowers (the bed, the desk, the bathroom and the porch) and they even wrote Bienvenuto in leaves across the sheets. There’s a beautiful beach, a nice pool, kayaks and snorkeling gear, the nicest people and wonderful food (buffet for every meal all included in the price of the room, which is included in my safari package). Last night I even had homemade pasta (the owner is Italian) with a fantastic crab sauce along with some traditional Swahili dishes. The staff was so happy that I’m willing to try local dishes – apparently most guests do not. As a reward, they made me a local cocktail – ginger beer, freshly grated ginger and rum. I’ve gotta make those at home! I’ve got 3 nights here and a night in Stone Town (the city on Zanzibar) before flying to Arusha (Kilimanjaro) to start my safari. The thought makes me smile like the Cheshire cat.

I’m in Africa and I’m in paradise. What could be better?

Off Yet Again

2008-10-05T09:25:00.001-07:00

Downtown Cairo
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Well here I am back in Cairo waiting for my flight later tonight. Yesterday, I went to the Egyptian Museum and wore my poor little feet out. That place is absolutely packed with stuff they've found in temples and tombs throughout Egypt. There were even crates lying around and forklifts with statues on them just sitting there. I know that they're building an additional museum that will house some of this stuff over near Giza, but in the meantime, just just keep packing it in. And I hear that only a small portion of what the have is on display -- most is in storage. But I did come face to face with the tanned, withered remains of King Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut. And about 10 or so other mummies. And mummified animals, including a 20 foot crocodile.

After, I walked on over to the main Cairo post office to send stuff home. I was really dreading this and thought that it might be as bad as Delhi. It was surprisingly quick and easy. Very nice people directed me to the correct door and window, the man there explained everything and nicely packed up a box for me, I paid and he gave me a receipt. Total time spent: about 5 minutes. How cool is that? I really expected an hour or so of pure hell. Of course, we'll have to wait and see if the package ever arrives.

Today I spent just walking around, mostly along the river and exchanging money for Tanzania. It was so hot, that I came back by 2:00 and spent the afternoon actually organizing the photos that I've taken over the past 2.5 months. Tedious? Yes, but it needed to be done. I just got back from getting dinner and thus took my last walk in Egypt. I'm very excited about that because the men here are relentless. They really think that being pushy and rudely demanding to know your name and where you're from is going to get the a western girlfriend. The funny thing is, when I talked with one of the tour operators about this, he didn't understand. He (and I think all Egyptian men) believe that when they honor you with their presence and questions, you should be flattered and fall at their feet. So sad. It's a wonder that any of them ever get a girlfriend or get married.

Egypt has been an interesting experience. But here you just cannot go "off the beaten track" and meet locals very easily. About 10 years ago there was a shooting at Hatshepsut's temple (the one I hiked to from the Valley of the Kings) in which over 70 people were killed. And a few years ago there was a bombing at an Egyptian resort on the Dead Sea. Since them Egypt has put some systems in place to help safeguard its tourists -- tourism is the #1 industry in this country and they can't afford for it to go away. Now, a tourist can only ride in certain cars on certain trains. When traveling between cities by car or bus, you must be in one of the scheduled caravans which are closely monitored by police checkpoints. There are special tourist buses and minivans that take groups of tourists to the various sites, although if traveling within the same city, you can use a private taxi -- but the police do check these as well. Basically, the Egyptian government keeps you within certain confines to better make sure nothing bad gets to you. (For those wandering about the tourists who were kidnapped and taken to Sudan, everyone here says that they were pitching their tents actually within the Sudanese border.) So if you want to rent your own car and travel on your own, forget it. You'll be turned away at the first checkpoint you find. So there's no real getting away and seeing the real Egypt. For that reason, you might as well book a tour. Mine was very low key. It wasn't like Jordan where I was in an air conditioned bus with the same folks every day -- here I had the various train rides, minibus tours, etc. pre-booked. But every day, I was with different people who had signed up to see the same thing or take the same train that I did. Alexandria, I did on my own. Live and learn!

Tonight starts flight hell. You see, from now until I land at SFO on the 18th, I have 7 flights. That's right -- 7 flights. Here's the schedule for tonight/tomorrow:

Leave Cairo at 2:20am and fly to Addis Ababa via Khartoum. Since it's the same flight number, I'm hoping that I get to stay on the plane in Sudan.

2 hour layover in Addis Ababa and fly to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

After a 5 hour layover in Dar Es Salaam (courtesy the safari company), fly to Zanzibar. 1.5 hour drive to the resort.

ICK!

Giza Again

2008-10-03T07:01:00.001-07:00

Entry into Queen Henutsen's Pyramid
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Since my guide on day one was such a jackass and I really didn't get to walk around, I went back to Giza today and spent some time. The crowds were much thinner, the tour buses were a bit more scarce, and there was a nice wind blowing so it was all a bit less of a sweat bath.

There were remains of 6 other pyramids there that I really didn't get to look at -- they're all much smaller and mostly for the queens of the pharaohs that were entombed in the big 3. There are tombs for other noteworthy folks, including a nice one for Cheops' doctor. There's also a couple of old cemeteries that I saw from a distance.

I bought an extra ticket today and went inside the Pyramid of Khafre. This is the middle pyramid, and since the top of the Great Pyramid has fallen off, the same size. As you enter, there's a very narrow passageway that goes down steeply. You have to bend over quite a bit at the waist to fit, as the ceiling is very low and there's barely room for one person, yet you've got folks coming both ways. After the descent (about 4 minutes with traffic), you even out in a chamber that is tall enough to stand in. At the end of the chamber is a very steep ascent, again narrow and requiring some serious squatting. At the end of that, you come to the burial chamber in the center of the pyramid. While his sarcophagus is still there, the rest of the room is very empty. There are some very faint etchings on the walls and an inscription by the Italian who discovered the tomb in the early 1800s, but not much else. On the way out, I noticed some other passages that went to other chambers, but they were all behind closed gates.

What's interesting to note is the air -- there is next to none. Fresh air can only enter through the passageway that everyone comes through. In the meantime, you have a ton of people exhaling constantly. These pyramids get full of carbon dioxide and make it very hard to breathe. And it's hot -- really hot. And some people said they were feeling faint because of the air. When I got out (and I had to wait a while because of a big crowd heading in), the desert air seemed like an icebox in comparison. I even got goose bumps for a bit. A visit into a pyramid is not for anyone even remotely claustrophobic, I tell you.

I also went in to one of the smaller queen's pyramids later. There were much fewer people and since it's such a small pyramid, you get to the center much faster. Again, pretty underwhelming once inside. The same for the tomb of Cheops' doctor. The pyramids and surrounding tombs were created very early in Egyptian history. But building such great monuments only showed the looters where to look. All were stripped bare very early on in history. Later Pharaohs realized this and started building their tombs in the ground with no big markers in the Valley of the Kings. They figured that the looters would have a much harder time finding them. Of course, they failed to consider the workers selling out the locations for a bit of extra change. Nonetheless, several made it through in tact, including Tutankhamen's.

All in all, Giza is a pretty amazing place. Though they're only 9 of the more than 100 pyramids in the Nile Valley, the big 3 are huge and very impressive. I'm so glad I came and saw them. And Luxor -- the Valleys of the Kings and Queens are so impressive!

Next up tomorrow is an entire day at the Egyptian Museum (about 3 blocks from my hotel)!

Sorry I Got Distracted

2008-10-02T08:14:00.001-07:00

My New Friends
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I had more to say in yesterday's post, but I got distracted by my new friends. They were at the table next to me at McDonalds and struck up a conversation. I thought that they had left when I hurriedly finished, but they had just gone off to buy me a gift of potato chips. Not my favorite food, but how sweet! So we walked to the water front and I bought ice cream for all and we sat until sunset. They then walked me to my hotel so that they could wave goodbye to me as I looked out my window. It's encounters like this that I love about traveling!

I forgot to mention yesterday that all of the design work you see on the photos of the outside of the Bibliotheca are written characters. The library boasts having characters from every written language known on it's outside. It was kinda cool looking around and recognizing Russian, Nepali, Thai, Hindi and some of the other languages I've become acquainted with.

Also worth noting is the Alexandria National Museum. It boasts collections from each of the cities periods (Roman, Coptic, Napoleonic, etc.). But most impressive is what they've been adding recently. You see, they've discovered part of the ancient city just off the coast to the east. It appears that this part of the city fell into the sea either during a tsunami that hit in the 300s AD or a major earthquake known to have struck in the 600s AD. Archeological dives have found statues, coins, columns, vases, etc. of the ancient city. There are a couple of rooms with relics brought up from the sea floor and along side each is a photo of the relic on the sea floor as it was found. It was fascinating. If you are certified, you can go out on a dive boat from the harbor outside my hotel and visit the city. I'm not certified, though. Bummer.

I made it through a taxi ride, the train, another taxi ride and am back in Cairo. Tomorrow morning I get a redo at Giza. The next day, I'll go back to the Egyptian Museum to see the rest. Sunday, I go to the post office to send things home and leave that night for Tanzania. I know I'll have internet access on Zanzibar, but while on safari, I probably won't. But that's OK -- there's been a drastic reduction in the number of comments in the past couple of weeks and I'm not getting any emails any more, so I'm the updates won't be missed too much. Yes, that's a not too subtle hint -- I'm homesick!

The Med

2008-10-01T08:15:00.001-07:00

Alexandria 002
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

So here I am in Alexandria. I was told that it would be relaxing and very European. It is European, but in a 1920's seedy Parisian kind of way. Seriously. This place was built by Alexander the Great, has been ruled by the Coptics, the Byzantines, the French (Napoleon invaded), the Ottomans, and the British, so it makes sense that it seems very old European.

Unless you want to spend $200/night, your hotel is in a very Parisian looking building up a very scary elevator. Mine is on the waterfront, but the interior needs some help. While very clean, the decor is really from the 1920's. The furniture is art deco, the wallpaper is old cloth stuff that is starting to peel and the chandelier in the room is missing some pieces. I have to share a bathroom with another room (that's kind of the way it is here), but I haven't seen or heard anyone else in it. Some of the tile is cracked and the mirrors are very old, but again, it's all very clean.

I went for a walk along the waterfront last night after arriving. They were just getting ready to break the fast and everyone was hoping that the moon looked appropriate when rising so that they can end Ramadan. For the first time since Nepal, I saw a cloud (actually several) and the weather was pretty cool. Everything was still boarded up though, so I ended up getting dinner at my hotel and then going to sleep early.

This morning I woke up and it was apparent that everything was different. Everyone was out walking around (while fasting, they tend to stay at home during the day napping and stay up all night eating) and everything was cheerful. Ramadan must have ended. You see, the astronomers can predict when the moon will be in the proper phase, but until it is seen and declared appropriate, Ramadan still goes on. The end can be different from one region to another, so you never really know.

After breakfast, I took off on foot to see the sights. I walked to the Roman Amphitheater, the Bibliotheca Alexandria, the Alexandria National Museum and wondered the streets. I have to say though, the men here are awful. In Egypt, men are not shy about approaching western women and talking to them, but here they're rather rude. They walk right up to you, stick their faces about 6 inches from yours, and yell "What is your name?" very loudly. No smile. No niceties. No nothing. I had a group of boys, probably about 8 or 9 years old, run up to me flipping me the bird right in front of my face, and screaming "whore!". Who teaches children these things? This kind of behavior happened every few minutes and I got really tired of it. I actually almost started crying. I had so many problems, that I decided to skip the catacombs and go back to my room. I've been to catacombs in Rome and in Paris, so I really didn't have to see these. I needed a nap anyway -- I'm still on Ramadan time.

When I woke up, all I wanted to do was go back to the train station and leave. But then I opened the window to my room, sat on the sill, and watched the day go by. The waterfront was packed with people celebrating. Ice cream and tea vendors were actually doing business, people were singing and beating on drums, and everyone was happy and smiling. I got mesmerized by it and watched for a couple of hours and wasn't bored for a single second. People watching rules, especially from the safety of your hotel room.

One thing I did notice during my excursion this morning, wifi exists in Alexandria and McDonalds is the Starbucks of the Middle East. Yes, I'm back in McDonalds because it's the only wifi I can find except for the $10 for a cup of tea cafe at the Sofetil Hotel. Some young girls hung out with me until just a few minutes ago. They were very sweet. And so far, no men have asked me my name or whether or not I'm married. Very refreshing. Yup, I'm eating another McArabia. Anyway, tomorrow I go back to Cairo and hang until my flight to Tanzania. Believe it or not, Cairo is the only place where Egyptian men have left me alone.

Briefly Back in Cairo

2008-09-30T01:00:00.001-07:00

Cairo 013
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry for the lack of update, but internet access at this hotel is sketchy at best and I can't seem to upload any photos. Yesterday morning I arrived in Cairo (and not too far behind schedule -- pretty good for Egyptian trains) and was taken to the hotel. On the way to the hotel, I was told that I had a tour guide waiting for me to take me around Cairo. Damn. I really wanted to take a nap. Anyway, I took a quick shower and then we were off.

Our first stop was a whirlwind tour of the Egyptian Museum. I had already told him that I planned to spend an entire day there, so he gave me the overview and walked me around so that I was well oriented for when I came back. Then we were off to Old Cairo. This area is also called Babylon and has many, many old Christian churches and one that is now converted to a synagogue. We went inside the "Hanging Church", which is built over some old pilings of Babylon (which you can see through some glass in the floor), a church under which Jesus, Mary and Joseph are said to have hid when in exile in Egypt, and a synagogue which is converted from a medieval church and was also once a mosque. Unfortunately, no photos allowed inside the buildings. No big surprise there.

We then went off to the citadel, passing the area where a rock slide recently destroyed some homes and killed some people. Besides beautiful views of all of Cairo (and pyramids in the distance), there are two significant mosques. One is from about 1500 years ago and is a very good representation of early mosque design. The other is the mosque of Mohammad Ali, also known as the alabaster mosque. Amazingly, they allow visitors and even allow photos on the inside. How nice is that? They have very large capes available for women that they do not consider appropriately dressed, but I was allowed in as I was dressed. Everyone was very welcoming and even spent time explaining their religion to me and the significance of Ramadan. I had already read all of this, but it was nice to hear it from the folks running the mosques. The interiors are extremely beautiful, but very open with little furniture. I took the best pictures I could in the light, so be sure to have a look.

Back at my hotel, I spoke with my tour operator. He can see how tired I am, so he's sending me off to Alexandria this morning for a little R&R. I'm spending two nights and then will come back to Cairo for my final 3. I'll have an entire day at the Egyptian Museum (YES!), a day with a car to take me back to Giza and Saqarra, and a day to do the usual -- laundry, send what I don't need home, and buy shampoo, etc. that I will need for Tanzania. I'm at the 2.5 week mark until I get back!

Off to Cairo

2008-09-28T08:29:00.001-07:00

Well, I got on the little minibus to go to both Karnak and Luxor Temples, the main attractions of the East Bank. Karnak Temple is huge and has been built up by many different people over the years. There's even a mosque in the complex. It's also been hit by floods and earthquakes over the years, so there's a lot of reconstruction going on. The obliesks were particularly impressive as well as the row of sphyxs as you enter. One even looked a lot like a particular Star Wars character.

Karnak Temple 058
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

After we were off to Luxor Temple, which is much smaller and supposedly not very impressive. There were three guys from Toronto on the bus who saw the Temple yesterday. Suddenly I was outvoted and didn't get to go inside. Instead I got to shoot a few photos outside next to the McDonalds. When I tried to walk around a bit, the bus driver honked and yelled until I came back. I was then ushered into Micky Ds and told that it would be my only chance to eat before the train. I haven't had McDs in about 10 years and all I could think of was a t-shirt I saw in Pokhara -- it had the golden arches across it with "McShit" written under. I did succumb and ordered a McArabia which came with fries and a drink. Now I don't feel so good.

Anyway, we get back to the hotel with our take out and I'm expecting to leave immediately for the train station with my food in hand. No such luck -- I have a few hours. I could have eaten good food. Back to Cairo tonight!

Change of Plans

2008-09-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

It turns out I read my itinerary wrong and I'm to go back to Cairo on the overnight train tonight. It's OK -- the only thing I really wanted to do tomorrow is go back to the Valley of the Kings and go inside some more tombs. They are very hot and sweaty, so this is probably better. And besides, now that I've seen so many temples and tombs, I'm very anxious to see the Egyptian museum and go back to Giza. I'll also probably go to Alexandria for a bit. Also, the men are easier to deal with in Cairo than in Aswan or Luxor. Very few bothered me up in the capital, while here it's pretty constant. I could have had 150 Egyptian boyfriends in the last few days!

Anyway, I leave for the temples of the east bank just after lunch and go to the train station just after dinner. I'll post photos once I'm back in Cairo (so says the chick sitting on the one corner of her hotel balcony from where she can snag free wifi from the apartment building across the street).

The West Bank of Luxor

2008-09-27T08:59:00.001-07:00

Luxor West Bank 031
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I had the most phenomenal day! I was given a private car and guide to make up for all of the crap that has happened since I got to Egypt and I had a blast! My guide has a BS in Archeology, but couldn't make a living at it, so took courses in Cairo to get her license to be an English speaking guide. She was the best -- she knows everything, but knew how much to tell me and could answer all of my questions. I learned so much and was absolutely amazed by everything I saw.

We started with a drive by of Mr. Carter's house (the man who discovered Tutankhamen's tomb) on the way to the Valley of the Kings. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I was very surprised. After walking through a visitor's center which had a 3-D model of the valley and tombs, we stepped outside. It's really very plain. Just walkways through the valley with an opening in the rock or ground here and there. The openings, of course, are to pharoh tombs and there are more than 60 of them now and they discover more and more each year. Your ticket into the Valley includes entry into 3 tombs. There are several open and you pick and choose which of the open ones you'd like to enter. Tut's costs extra. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos inside any of the tombs. I did buy a packet of photos from the inside of some tombs, but cannot scan and post them until I'm back home. Sorry.

What I did see is this: beautifully carved sarcophagi, wonderful etchings and heiroglyphics just like at the temples, but fully painted, and lots of chambers. The painting quite a surprise and so very colorful, even after all of these years. I paid extra to see Tut's tomb, which is the smallest of all in the Valley. He died suddenly and the tomb was made in haste. But his sarcophagus is in there, as is the boy king himself. He is the only mummy left in the Valley (the rest are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) and he is there in a glass case for you to look down upon. He really wasn't very big at all. On the wall by his sarcophagus, there were very large monkeys painted. This was the first time I've seen monkeys in any of the antiquities I've been in (and I haven't seen any live ones either). Apparently, they were a symbol of power in ancient Egypt.

Outside his tomb are photos taken of the discovery. Most have Carter in them. He's either standing over the mummy or doing something else that makes him seem important. There are no photos of the tomb with all of the treasures in it. They really don't know where everything was placed at all. Even more interesting is, Carter kinda didn't discover it himself. He had an Egyptian boy working for him and he ordered the kid to dig him a well. The kid picked a spot, started digging, found two steps and went and told the boss. The rest is history. Oh, and according to my guide (and I'm sorry, but I didn't get her name), Carter was in such a hurry that he cut the clothing off the mummy rather than preserving it and even damaged the mummy because he didn't take his time removing the gold mask. I lost a bit of respect for the guy today.

After viewing the four tombs, I took a bit of a hike. I walked up a trail from the Valley, over the ridge, and down to the Temple of Hatshepsut. It was damned hot, but I was determined to see the view from the top. My guide was much smarter -- she met me on the other side. Anyway, the temple is the funerary temple of the Pharoh Hatshepsut, the only female pharoh to have ruled Egypt. She was an oldest child and when her father died argued that her mother had an affair with the Sun God and so she was the rightful new Pharoh. She ruled, but wearing a fake beard and dressing like a man. Eventually she was killed by a male family member and after her death, her temple was defaced.

Then it was time to go to the Valley of the Queens. This valley has more tombs than the Valley of the Kings, but note that many of the tombs are for men (Pharoh's sons, etc.). It's called Valley of the Queens because of Nefartiti's tomb -- the best preserved of any in either valley. I went into 3 tombs there, but only one was for a Queen. They were all 3 very colorful and one even had a skeleton of a 6 month old fetus (the Queen had a miscarriage when falling after hearing of the death of one of her sons who was buried in this tomb). Nefartiti's tomb is accessible only about 2 days a week to groups willing to pay 20,000 Egyptian Pounds, or about $4,500 US. We saw a group going in, but I just couldn't afford to go in. I should have tried to sneak in.

Next, I was taken to a village that is built alongside these hills. The government has gotten many to move away and have demolish many homes to allow for further excavations. There are some holdouts, though and the guide took me to one of these homes. I was taken down some stairs to a tomb under the house. Not much there, but interesting none the less.

Our last major stop was at Deir Al Medina, which is the village where the workers who built the tombs lived. Those folks knew how to build and besides their homes, there are tombs, a temple and a few small pyramids. I went inside 2 tombs and over to the temple. I was allowed photos in these tombs and though they were small, they were nice.

We did some drive bys of other places that were largely destroyed by Nile flooding and earthquakes over the centuries, but nothing too spectacular. But what a day! I I loved every minute of it. I may go back over the the Valley of the Kings to see more tombs. Each entry ticket I buy gets me into three tombs of my choosing, so why not? In the meantime, I go to the temples on the east bank of Luxor tomorrow.

Made it to Luxor

2008-09-26T07:50:00.001-07:00

Aswan, Abu Simbel, Felucca 084
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry, but I need to keep this brief. My hotel does not have internet access and this internet cafe does not have AC and it's hot out.

Yesterday was a bit disappointing. We only sailed about 3 hours total all day. Our captain thought it was better to sit on shore and hang out with his buddies, so myself and my French friends were a bit disappointed. We were on the Nile though and had a very relaxing day with a lot of napping and reading. We didn't swim in the Nile though -- both of our guide books warned against it.

After going ashore, we were picked up and driven to Kom Ombo and Edfu to see their temples. Edfu was definitely the best -- it's so well preserved and pretty large. Like others that I've seen, the Christians tried scratching out the faces and bodies of many of the gods and pharohs on the walls. And in some rooms, the ceilings were completely black. This was from cooking. Apparently, Christians used to hide out here from the Romans and they did quite a bit of cooking in the temple. There's even some escape routes for them.

Kom Ombo was interesting in that there was a room with 3 crocodile mummies. Unfortunately, we couldn't take photos inside.

Afterwards, we rode in a minibus up to Luxor. Our driver told us that the AC was out, so we were sweltering. And he drove like a lunatic. I was in the second row and saw the odometer hit 110 kpm on more than one occasion. The speed limit was only 90 kpm. Do the math on that one. By some small miracle, we did safely arrive at our respective hotels. Tomorrow, I leave at 7:30 for the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. I have the whole day there with a private guide. I'll do my best to post photos tomorrow night, but I may be wiped out. It could be the next morning. By the way, I'm 9 hours head of you west coasters.

From the Felucca

2008-09-26T07:39:00.001-07:00

Aswan, Abu Simbel, Felucca 033
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I’m writing from the felucca while thoughts are still fresh and will post when I get to Luxor.

Yesterday began with a 3:30am pickup at the hotel in Aswan. We traveled by caravan to Abu Simbel, a temple down near the Sudani border. Security was tight, but really didn’t hold us up too much. This was another temple that was moved because of the building of the High Dam. This one was much more difficult to move, though because it was carved into a mountainside. They actually broke it up into blocks (mountainside and all) and moved it to this area with a big man-made hill behind it. Ramses II had this temple built (and I’m beginning to realize what a narcisist he is) and dedicated it to the gods Ra-Harukhty, Amon, Ptah and himself. Next to it is the Temple of Nathor dedicated to his wife Nefertari. This temple was the first time that a pharoh depicted his wife as large as himself – they were usually depicted much smaller. The interior of both had some wonderful carvings and heiroglyphics, but photos were not allowed on the inside.

After returning to the hotel to collect my laundry and baggage, I was taken to my felucca. Soon after I started lounging around on deck, I was joined by two others. Andrew is a Kiwi who lives in London and his friend “Roof Top” (AKA Roof, Mr. Top, Bruce, and many other names but his real name I found out late last night is Darren) who lives in Oxford. They met 10 years ago while trying to cross the border from India into some very small country that no longer exists that I have never heard of. There had just been a political assasination, so the border was closed. They decided to travel to Nepal together and the rest is history. We sailed down the Nile together about 90 minutes or so and then went ashore to pick up 3 others: a young French couple and Uta, a German archeology student at the University of Munich.

We had a ton of fun yesterday and last night. We talked, told lots of stories, and Andrew played music from his iPhone on a portable speaker system that he brought with. After lots of silly dancing on board, loud sing alongs to Don McClean’s American Pie and some Neil Diamond (yeah, I know) we finally got to sleep about midnight. During all those hours, though, it all happened again. Turbo bonding. At least that’s what Roof calls it. Let me explain. When you travel, you are away from all of your friends and family, especially if you’re on your own like me. You meet people and with some you just instantly click. You become friends so quickly and often develop deep bonds. Andrew said that it was like turbo dating, only with friendships. The problem is, you make these big connections and then it’s time to say goodbye. If you’re luckly you get a couple of days together. In our case it was less than 24 hours because the boys and Uta both left the boat this morning to head off on other journeys. You pose for photos, hug goodbye, exchange email addresses and info for Facebook and then you’re all on your own again. It’s both wonderful and extremely sad all at the same time. I’ve had a few of these along my journey (some of the guys from The Beach, Anand, Sarita, Prem, my Romanian friends in Nepal, the Longhorns from Laredo, and now the Brit, Kiwi and German). It’s weird how you feel so lonely after you part with the turbo friends. But I only have 3.5 weeks left!

Uta and I had a talk last night about Egyptian men and I thought I’d share. When I got to Cairo, my tour operator spoke with me about the men here and how they were going to try be a little hard to take. He suggested that I wear a wedding ring and not give out my phone number. Here’s why: The men here are desperate to meet a western woman and get married. They all try to be your best friend and want to keep in touch. Not just one or two, but all. The cheap fake ring that I was wearing started putting a rash on my finger, so I took it off. Before I was pretty much left alone. Now it’s constant. When I tell them that my phone does not work here, they want an email address. I’ve been giving out one that I rarely use and after 1 day I had 8 emails from one guy alone who kept talking about how he was dreaming of me. I’d give out a fake email, but they all seem to talk amongst each other and know exactly which hotel I’m staying at and where I am going from day to day. Poor Ute has even worse problems. The tour operator who signed her up for the felucca called her and sent 3 text messages last night talking about sunsets and dreams of her. Wherever she has gone, all the men already know her name, where she’s staying, and what her plans are. While I don’t think we’re at danger for any physical harm, it’s annoying at best and just makes you want to run and hide. After reading the text messages last night, the boys were nice and stuck a bit close to Uta and myself. Our captain has been asking a lot of personal questions and had started getting overly friendly with the two of us. I explained the situation to the French couple this morning and they’re going to help me out if things get too uncomfortable.

Sailing along the Nile is very peaceful and a good change of pace. We all get off the boat tomorrow morning, so we’ll spend the day lounging around in the shade provided by the canopy, reading, sleeping and just plain relaxing. Tomorrow morning I get picked up on the side of the river, taken to a few temples and then to my hotel in Luxor. I’ll be there 3 nights – plenty of time to explore the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and lounge at the hotel pool. After that, it’s back to Cairo. I’ve got some things to do and see there and probably an extra day or two for Alexandria.

I’ll write more later today or when I get to Luxor and put up photos and post everything. Later.

Around Aswan

2008-09-23T11:27:00.001-07:00

Aswan 034
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Today was a bit of a lazy day I'm afraid. I slept in pretty late, updated my iPhone software in hopes that I could sync the thing (haven't been able to do that for over a month) and then went on a brief tour of Aswan. We skipped the botanical gardens (you could see them all from the roads and they were small and weren't all that spectacular) and drove by the Christian church. Then we went to the dams.

There are two dams in Aswan. The low dam was built in 1902 by the British and got revamped and some height added over the years. But it really wasn't sufficient, so in 1971, Egypt finished work on the High Dam. This dam has 17 times more stone than the Great Pyramid of Giza and provides power for pretty much the whole country. The dam created Lake Nasser, which is the largest man-made lake in the world. It's more than 300 miles long and 10 miles wide. It stretches way down into Sudan.

After the dams, we went to a point between where we caught a boat to the Temple of Philae. This temple was built in honor of Isis. It was built mostly in the Ptolemaic dynasty, but the Romans had a hand in part of it when they came in to take over. Inside, you see Roman inscriptions as well as Italian names. Later, the Crusaders took over and turned the main hall into a church and etched crucifixes into the rock. The Crusaders also scratched off many of the detail on the original etchings. Bastards.

The temple originally stood on an island about 500 meters from where it is today. The building of the original dam caused the temple to be partially underwater part of the year. After the building of the high dam, the temple was completely submerged. The government authorized a 10-year project which moved the temple piece by piece to Aglikia Island where it stands today. There's a nightly sound and light show, but I think I'll wait and possibly do the one in Giza. All in all, an impressive temple that's immaculately preserved.

I have to go to bed now so that I can leave with the 3:45am convoy to Abu Simbel, which is 3 hours south near the Sudanese border. When I return to Aswan, I'll be put on my felucca and cruise to Luxor for 3 days and 2 nights. I'll certainly blog if I can, but I really don't think it will happen. Fear not -- I'll catch you all up when I arrive in Luxor. I have 3 nights there, so there will be plenty of time.

My Egyptian Adventure So Far

2008-09-22T23:56:00.001-07:00

Well, I’ve gotten some sleep, have turned in laundry to get washed, and have until 1:30pm today on my own, so here’s the big catch up on the last 2.5 days. It’s a long one – so sorry.

On Saturday night, went with my new Longhorn friends (or Aggies, depending upon which t-shirt is being worn) to the Khan al-Khalili bazaar. It’s an enormous market that winds through the streets of old Islamic Cairo. Lights were strung everywhere, people were elbow to elbow milling around and it was just so full of life. During Ramadan, everything’s very quiet and often closed during the day. Nighttime is another story. As soon as the sun goes down and everyone breaks that day’s fast, the entire city comes to life. There were tons of sidewalk cafés open, the mosques were very busy, and probably hundreds of shops. It was so much fun, but also tiring at the same time. Those girls from Texas can shop – especially once I showed them how to bargain with the locals. I have to say, I’ve learned some skills on this trip and they as well as the shopkeepers were pretty surprised. I bought nothing. There was nothing about King Tut masks, belly dancing costumes, Great Pyramid snow domes or little sphynx statues that appealed to me. Oh well, I’ll find something eventually.

The next morning, I set out with an English speaking guide and a driver to Giza, Saqarra and Memphis. The day was a bit diappointing – here’s why. The girls went separately with a Spanish speaking guide and I was on my own. This is the first time that my tour company had used this guide (a friend of a friend I heard) and he was terrible. First of all, he kept wanting me to look at his clipboard while he pointed at charts and drawings and he talked. Whenever I’d look up to see the pyramids, he’d get upset and tell me to pay attention. He actually started quizzing me like I was in school. Then he would offer to take a picture of me in front of whatever and then want to go. Totally not my style. I like to walk around, observe the scene, take photos and just soak in the atmosphere. This guy didn’t even want me to talk in between pyramids at Giza. Apparently, the car was a gift and I needed to use it. I argued that it was 100 yards or so between pyramids and that I like to walk. I even told him to take the car and I’d meet him there, but no. He got upset so I complied. Here I was at one of the 7 wonders of the world and I was there less than an hour. That includes all 3 big pyramids (there’s actually 9 there, but the other 6 are kind of in ruins), the sphynx and the “panoramic viewpoint”. He kept saying that Giza was not interesting. I disagree. Then it was off to Saqarra.

On the way, I wanted a bottle of water. The car stopped and I went to get out. But the guide insisted that I give him the money so that he could buy it for me – he’d get a better deal. When I pulled out 5 Egyptian pounds, he told me to give him my 100 pound note. He took off and came back with two bottles, one for me and one for him. This is the first time this has happened to me and I have to say that I was a little take aback. More on that later.

Saqarra is the place of the famous step pyramid, the oldest pyramid that they know of. It’s in a complex with a few other decaying pyramids, some fabulous tombs, and views of the bent and red pyramids and a series of 3 pyramids that are the newest of them all. A little aside: the bent pyramid was the first attempt at a non-step pyramid. It didn’t come out so well and the pharoh demanded a redo – that is the red pyramid. The bent pyramid was never used for anything. Anyhoo, I had to stand inside an entryway while he pulled out the clipboard and started in again. When he started the testing portion of the program, I tried to nicely joke that I didn’t come half way around the world to take quizzes and he finally backed off. I walked around a bit and asked a couple of questions, but he didn’t really answer (or couldn’t). There was an area below toward the bent pyramid that looked really interesting, but he told me that it was forbidden to go down there. There was another decaying pyramid with a large entrance and handrails that looked open for visitors, but he told me that it was forbidden to go in there as well. I then said that I wanted to walk around a bit and take photos. He reluctantly agreed and then went to sit in the shade and talk on his phone.
Well, sure enough, I saw other groups going down toward the tombs with their guides. I followed and went into the tombs along with another small group. So much for not being allowed. In one I lingered and an old man came up to me and told me to take a picture. There were signs as we entered saying that photos were not allowed in the tombs, so I said no. He grabbed my camera from me, smapped some pictures and then demanded money. I had nothing with me (my bag was in the car), so he was SOL. I have to say though, I kept the pictures. I’m not sure I have a clear conscience about that.

Afterwards, I walked over to the step pyramid and saw the workers that are restoring it. They had just got a big stone on a cart and were set to get the stone up a ramp to the pyramid, old Egyptian style. I just had to watch that and snap some photos. Soon after, we left.

Next up was Memphis, once the capital of ancient Egypt. There’s not much there but some relics that have been unearthed from various places. There is the alabaster sphynx – something my guide told me was far more important that the sphynx in Giza because it’s much more in tact. There’s also a building with a very large statue of Ramses II. There’s no legs left, so they have the statue lying down, but I have to say it’s pretty impressive.

After that, the guide wanted to take me to some shops to do some shopping. I didn’t want to. He then wanted to take me to an expensive restaurant so that we could eat and I said no. I really didn’t feel like paying for his lunch, too. I then asked if they could take me back to Giza and explained that I wanted to spend more time. The answer was no. I then asked them to drop me at Giza and explained that I would take a taxi back to the hotel when I was done. I was told that it was closing at 2pm because of Ramadan and since it was already 1:00, there would be no time. Instead, I was back at the hotel by 2. Oh, and since Micheal (the guide) handled the money all day, I had only 20 pound notes left for tips. That’s a bit outrageous of a tip, but that’s all I had and I really wanted to get away from the guy.

Later, I found out the following: the ticket office closes at 2, but I could have been there until 5 since I already had a ticket. Also, when the girls arrived back at the hotel (at 5:30), they not only were taken in multiple tombs at Saqarra, they were taken in the pyramid that I was told was off limits. That pyramid was completely full of hieroglyphics and stunning inside. They went inside a museum at Giza that I didn’t even know existed. Instead, I hung out in the hotel lobby waiting for the internet router to get fixed and for the tour operator to arrive – for 6 hours until it was time to leave for the train station to take the overnight train to Aswan. The tour operator was a little upset when I told him about the day. He handed me 100 pounds to make up for the tip and the lost time. When I come back to Cairo (and I have some extra days at the end), he’s giving me a car with no guide for a day to take me where ever I want to go so that I can do whatever I want to do. This gives me some extra time in the Egyptian Museum (I have a day scheduled as part of the tour, but hear that it is not enough) and I can go back to Giza and experience it properly.

I’m going to keep the train ride portion of this short, though the ride was not. We were supposed to catch a 10pm train (the girls and I) and be in Aswan the next morning. The train was 1.5 hours late to arrive and to make a very long story short, did not arrive in Aswan until sunset the next day. Apparently there was a train ahead of us on the tracks that kept breaking down and was backing up all trains behind it. We spent a lot of time sitting on tracks either in stations or in the middle of nowhere. We did have AC, but the trains are relics from the British era and could use a little help. And bathrooms that work a little better. And a little communication with the passengers would be nice, too. We did meet this wonderful Egyptian girl named Zaha. She was fascinated with us and we sat for a couple of hours with my Arabic phrasebook having a conversation. Like many that I met in India and Nepal, she loves the WWF. It is way more popular in other parts of the world than in the USI -- don’t get it. Anyway, she lives in Aswan and came by our hotel last night to make sure we were OK. We were.

After showers, we went out and walked along the Nile for a bit and found Aswan’s answer to the bazaar. It was more low key, but nice all the same. We stopped for dinner and I went back to the hotel while they went out shopping. The girls got up early today to go in the escourted convoy to Abu Simel to visit the great temple. It’s down near the Sudani border, but apparently spectacular and well worth the trip. I slept in and will go tomorrow. We all go on a dam, city and island tour this afternoon and then they take the evening train to Luxor. I have another night here and then start my felucca sail. I’ll have two nights on the boat as we sail downriver to Luxor. I’m then going to have 3 nights there before heading back to Cairo and then possibly a night or two in Alexandria.

By the way, my brother sent me a link to a story on CNN about some German and Italian tourists getting kidnapped in Egypt. They were at a camp in the western desert much like the Bedoin camp that I stayed at in Jordan. It was just inside the Sudani border in an area that has no border patrol. The kidnappers are demanding $6 million dollars for their release. I am going to an area just south of Aswan where there are armed guards and everything. The border in this area is highly patrolled. The escorted convoy goes several times a day every day and has had no problems, so don’t worry. I’m not.

Despite the stupid guide and my train ride, I have to say that I really like it here. Egyptians are very nice people and the atmosphere is great. I had been told by some on the tour in Jordan that Egypt is filthy and poor and very difficult. I just don’t see it. There is a little bit of garbage here and there, but for the most part, it’s fine. And while people don’t have as much as we have in the US, they certainly have way more than the Nepali. Difficult? I don’t think so. Those Aussies apparently have never been to India.

No internet access for 48 hours

2008-09-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone, but I've been unable to get on the internet for 2 days. The router for the hotel in Cairo went belly up two nights ago while I was out at the bazaar with my new Longhorn friends. Then last night began an 18 hour train odyssey to get to Aswan. I'm going to recharge the laptop, get some sleep, and then post all photos and catch you all up. But since my brother emailed me a link to a story about tourists getting kidnapped and taken to Sudan from an area 250 miles from where I am, I thought I'd let you know I'm A-OK.

Sleep is completely under rated.

Safely in Cairo

2008-09-20T05:23:00.000-07:00

I have made it to my hotel in downtown Cairo. Before I talk about today's flight, I'm going to talk about my overall impressions of Jordan.

First of all, it's a wonderful place. I was so worried about being an American woman in Jordan, but I really didn't need to be. Everyone was very smiley and welcoming -- so much so that you actually get sick of hearing "Welcome to Jordan!". I was going to tell people that I was Canadian just to keep myself out of trouble, but those Aussies kept blowing it for me. Everytime the group was asked where we were from, someone would say "Australia, except for her (pointing). She's American." I needn't have worried though. Everyone, including men dressed in full on Arab headress and garb coming out of mosques to Muslim women dressed head to toe in black with their faces partially hidden would all smile, shake my hand, and welcome me. Don't get me wrong, many wear western clothes, but there are still many who don't. Some even told me how nice it was to see an American in Jordan after so long. The current king and queen are US educated and the prior queen was US born, so the country considers itself a friend of the US. They may hate that our government started the war in Iraq (their tourist industry has tanked as a result and they are now housing 1.2 million Iraqi refugees), but they don't hold it against Americans there.

The country is very modern and there were times that I felt like I was in the US. Besides being the first country I've been in that drives on "our" side of the road, the hotels, stores, cars, and restaurants are much more like the US than I would have thought or preferred.

The food is wonderful. From fresh cucumber and tomato salads, falafel, pita, gyro, hummus, olives, kabobs and western food, it was all fantastic.

And to top it off, there's so much history there, with over 9000 archeological sites. Not to mention desert, seas, mountains and very fertile farm land up north. But can you imagine being ploppped down in the middle of Syria, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq? I don't envy their location! But it's a great place and I feel perfectly safe to visit. I could easily have done it on my own and not have done the tour.

So this morning, I woke up, had breakfast with "the girls" (two single retired women from Australia who I spent a lot of time with on this tour) and then headed to the airport. A strange thing happened -- I went to a money exchange as I entered the airport to change my Jordanian Dinar to US Dollars. After finishing that, going through massive security and arriving at my gate, I realized that the man gave me way more money than he was supposed to. Currently there's about .7 USD to 1 JD. He gave me the opposite: 1 USD to .7 JD. This means that I ended up with almost $200 extra dollars. I'm not sure it's completely his fault -- the computerized receipt showed this as well. I felt guilty and wanted to go back, but security wouldn't let me. Maybe this is karma for all of the scams and rip offs I endured in India?

My flight was relatively short, but took an interesting route. From Amman, we headed south toward the Red Sea. As we were just getting something to drink, I looked out my window and saw the 7 Pillars of Wisdom and all of Wadi Rum. I could even make out the area where we camped just a few short days ago. Fortunately, we were too high up for me to see any horny Bedoin. We then flew south past Aqaba (it was directly beneath us, so I didn't really see the town) to Saudi territory and then turned right and crossed the Sinai. I figure that we were avoiding Israeli air space. As we came down into Cairo, we passed the airport and the eastern part of the city. Then we did a bit right turn to head back to the airport to land. As we were finishing the turn, I looked out of my window again and there they were: The three pyramids of Giza and what I believe was the back of the sphynx. Awesome! I hadn't landed yet, but I have already seen them. I get the close up tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about that.

I was met at the airport, ushered through immigration and taken to my hotel. My tour operator met me here and is just the nicest guy. I have almost 6 extra days at the end of my tour, so for very little money he's added on another night for me in Aswan and a 3rd night in Luxor (there's so much to see there that it'd be nice to have another day). I also have another night in Cairo when we get back. He's going to make arrangements for me to spend a night or two in Alexandria (just north on the Med coast) as soon as I decide how long I want to stay. I'm also happy to say that I have met my 5th and 6th Americans on this long journey. Only 6 you may ask? Yes, only 6: 1 in little Cancun in Thailand; 1 on the rooftop restaurant of the hotel in Udaipur, India; 2 in an internet cafe in Kathmandu and now 2 from Laredo, Texas (only one speaks English, but so far I'm holding my own in Spanish). We're going to some outdoor market tonight at sundown when everything opens. Yes, it's still Ramadan until the end of the month.

I think that not having to stress over anything (except for how long some of those Aussies were going to hold up the bus so that they could shop) has gotten me over my funk. I'm feeling healthy again, though still rather tired, and really excited about the rest of my journey. I haven't felt that since I arrived in Kathmandu sick. Stay tuned!

Jerash

2008-09-19T06:22:00.003-07:00

Jerash 052
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Today was our final day in Jordan, so we took the 45 minute drive north of the city to Jerash. Jerash is a city built by the Romans around the time that they took over Petra. It's large as it is, but only an estimated 6% is excavated. Emperor Hadrian was responsible for a lot of the construction and there are about 6 churches, 3 theaters, a hippodrome, a cathedral, a mosque and several temples unearthed today. Excavation is ongoing and may take many decades to finish -- occupied homes are covering many of the ruins. It's big downfall appears to be a series of big earthquakes that have occurred over the centuries. Earthquakes are thought to be the downfall of Petra as well. While they're excavating and even rebuilding many of the structures in Jerash, I can't help but wonder what happens when they get another earthquake?

It was a little strange walking through this city. It looks so much like many of the Roman ruins that I've visited (Rome, Pompei, Villa Hadriana, etc.), but so different at the same time. What do I mean by that? Well the architecture is very much the same from other Roman ruins, but it's all made of sandstone and limestone. What I've seen in Italy is marble and granite. Kind of like looking at Merlin before and after her mega paint job (sorry everyone -- that's a reference that only the sailors will get). Also note that the Jordanians say that this is the "best preserved" Roman city in the world. I disagree. Pompei has this beat any day. But if they keep rebuilding it, who knows?

I'm going out with the "original 5" tonight. We're the group that met in Jordan and traveled to Aqaba together before the folks from Egypt joined us. Screw Ramadan, I think we'll be drinking tonight! I'm really going to miss these folks -- they've been incredibly nice to me despite the age difference and the fact that I'm a crass American. I'm going to miss them all.

Tomorrow I fly to Cairo. I signed up for a low budget tour which includes a felucca ride from Aswan to Luxor, so that ought to be fun. And most likely have some younger folks on it. The tour people will be meeting me at the airport, taking me through immigration, and transporting me to the hotel. On Sunday, I should see the pyramids!

Until I find wifi again ...

Nearly Done with Jordan

2008-09-18T10:50:00.001-07:00

The Dead Sea
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Today we left Petra and came back to Jordan via a few stops along the way. The first stop was Shobak Castle, a crusader castle high upon a hill north of Petra. A lot of excavation is underway, but we were able to see a church, some of the rooms with slits for shooting arrows and the escape tunnels out of the castle.

After a bit of shopping at a Dana Nature Reserve, where we watched women making jewelry and other crafts, we drove up to Mt. Nebo. This is the spot where Moses is to have seen the "Promised Land". It was a bit of a hazy day, but we could kind of see the Dead Sea, Jericho, and the Jordan Valley. If the day had been clearer, we could have seen Jerusalem. Unfortunately the churches on top are all being excavated, so we didn't go in and get to the very top.

After some more shopping (did I mention that I was on a tour bus?), we went to the Dead Sea. This is the lowest point on earth and has very high salinity. When I got in, I sat there bobbing like a cork. I kid you not. I put both hands and feet in the air and just sat. I couldn't sink if I tried. But that was salty water. We all paid 1JD to use a bucket of Dead Sea mud. We rubbed it all over our bodies and sat in the sun to let it dry for 10 minutes. After, we washed it off in the sea. It truly leaves your skin incredibly soft -- I was a little surprised. Oh, and I was the idiot that put it on above eye level, so when rinsing, I got that damned salty water in my eyes. I can't tell you how much it burned. I made it back to my stuff and managed to pour fresh water over the for a few minutes so that I could see again. Definitely not recommended.

We are now back in Amman at the same Days Inn that we started at. This is the same Days Inn that was bombed in 2005, by the way. We have to have our things searched and walk through a metal detector each time we enter. It's kind of a pain, but probably worth it. Tomorrow we go to see Jerash, the best preserved Roman city in the world. On Saturday, I fly to Cairo.

While I'm talking about flying, I have a favor to ask. Exactly one month from today, I arrive back at SFO. Is there any one out there willing to pick me up at the airport? Here's the details: British Airways flight 285, arriving at SFO at 2:15 pm on Saturday, October 18. I'll need to go through baggage claim and customs, so that'll probably take an hour or so. Anyone willing to come get me and take me to my house gets a special gift from one of 6 countries! Any takers?

Petra!

2008-09-17T09:05:00.001-07:00

My first view of the Treasury
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

This is a place I've always dreamed of coming to and today was absolutely unreal. One of the 7 wonders of the world, Petra is so much bigger than I ever imagined. My feet hurt and I only saw a very small portion of the ancient city. Rather than bore you with all the details on its history, please take a look at the wikipedia page I linked to in last night's blog.

We arrived around 8am and started the walk down from the entrance toward the Siq. The Siq is a large gorge in the sandstone that forms a bit of a walled walkway to the city. This was the main entrance for people coming to the trading center it's over 1km long, but the stone, dams, aquaduct system and colors in the rock is amazing. Eventually, you see the opening at the end and the Treasury Building peeping through.. It gave me chills! The building is beautiful and I'm amazed that it's in such great shape after all these years. I then walked, and walked and climbed and walked some more. I ditched the tour group and set out on my own (I actually "accidentally" did that in the Siq).

I climbed up to the Royal Tombs, climbed way up to the Monestary (most folks hire the air conditioned taxis for that trip, otherwise known as donkeys), climbed up to the High Alter of Sacrifice where the obliesks are and saw as much as I possibly could today. I was amazed that whenever I looked down at valleys that are not open to tourists, I still saw more homes and caves carved into the rocks. Though most Bedoin moved out of Petra in the 1970's (King Hussein offered them free, nice permanent housing near the entrance), I found out that there are still 60 families or so living there in caves, just not near the areas that tourists go. Most of them take tourists around on camels and donkeys or sell souveniers around the sites.

The rocks change colors as the day goes on the sunlight hits the area differently. The Treasury turned very red by the end of the day, as did many of the other buildings. In some areas, the colors and layers of the rock came out more, while in others if faded. It was simply amazing.

It wasn't until I walked into the hotel that I realized that I completely missed the church -- dammit! I knew I had to have missed something. As mad as I am, I don't think that my feet could have taken any more. They are swollen and I'm having trouble just walking around the hotel. And I went through 3.5 liters of water there. That's a lot.

Petra is absolutely amazing and I urge all of you to make the trip sometime. I can't put it into words, but I am so glad that I came. Just like the Taj Majal, Petra took my breath away.

Wadi Rum

2008-09-16T08:12:00.001-07:00

Wadi Rum 068
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry for a lack of update yesterday, but I spent the night in a Bedoin camp in Wadi Rum, the desert where Lawrence of Arabia did his thing and where they filmed the movie. But first things first ...

Yesterday morning I went with a couple of women from my tour group to the water front in Aqaba for a glass bottom boat on the Red Sea. We did it mostly to get on the water and see the landscape. You can see both Israel (very close) and Egypt from the water and if we had gone a few more kilometers down the shore front, we'd be in Saudi Arabia. It's truly a crossroads there. We also saw the king's compound and the Royal Jordanian Yacht Club. Under the boat, we did see a lot of coral, though it wasn't very colorful. There were also a few ship wrecks and a tank. Yes, a tank. Like the army uses. It was all pretty cool to see. Oh, and goldfish. Seriously. There were goldfish swimming around some of the coral formations. I guess they had to come from somewhere before they made it to the stores.

After, we met 15 more folks who had come over on the ferry from Egypt to join our group. Luckily, there's 2 buses, so it's not too crowded. It was then that we all set off to Wadi Rum. It's a pretty spectacular desert that just blew me away. We started at the visitor's center where we saw artist renditions of what the place will look like a million years or so down the road when the rock formations erode a bit more. It looks exactly like Monument Valley in Arizona! I guess I know what that place probably used to look like.

We set off across the desert in jeeps, stopping at a spring. You see, water doesn't accumulate in pools on the desert floor there -- it seeps out of the rocks into little springs. Some have water all year long which is why the Bedoin like it so much. We then were taken to a "Bedoin" camp. Actually, it was a camp for tourists that had tents made by Bedoin and all, but we had flush toilets. We walked around, rode camels in the desert (yup, I rode me a camel -- I prefer elephants) and watched the sunset. After, the Bedoin hosts served us dinner. The chicken and potatoes were cooked in the ground and were absolutely delicious. We also had olives, hummus, tomato and cucumber salad and pita (there's always pita). It was delicious!

After dinner, I snuck away for a walk by myself. We had a full moon, so that desert was all aglow and I just wanted to check it out. I was gone about 15 minutes before Khalib, our head guide, came running to find me. Long story short, the guy made a major pass at me and wanted me to sleep out there on the desert floor with him looking at the stars. I turned him down and returned to camp. His buddies were a bit in shock and he was too humiliated to return to camp. Needless to say, he didn't speak to me this morning.

But the night was wonderful. Breakfast was delicious. We had a 2 hour jeep tour of the desert stopping at a big arch, what's left of the building that they used to film Lawrence of Arabia, some Bedoin art etched into the rocks, and a huge sand dune before we returned to meet our buses. One of our jeeps got a flat out there, but they managed to roll the thing up on some rocks and skip the whole jack thing. The tire was changed very quickly.

We then drove to Petra to our hotel for two nights. Some of us have walked through town and then got Turkish baths a the hotel. We're now waiting for dinner. I'm so excited to spend the day at Petra tomorrow -- I've always wanted to see it. I promise to take a lot of pictures.

Cheers!

I've become one of those people

2008-09-14T07:31:00.001-07:00

The Red Sea
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Yup. Just what I feared. I'm now on a tour and it's a bit of a drag. First of all, there are 4 Aussies and myself. And the driver and guide. I'm the only one under the age of 55 except for the guide, but he spends most of his time texting his friends. We are on a giant air conditioned Mercedes bus and are staying in big hotels with all the amenities. Every time I look at the tour bus, I feel like I've aged like 25 years and am retired. And once we're in the hotel, you could be anywhere. The decoration is very generic and I feel like I'm in the States. But at least the rooms are clean (that was a definite problem in India). This arrangement makes it very hard to meet the locals. That was something that I've been good at since embarking on this journey and I feel like I may leave the Middle East without seeing how the people live. Or making any friends.

The two single Aussie ladies (and there's a married couple as well) found a guy who's willing to take us out on a glass bottom boat in the morning to see some reefs. We're going to do that after breakfast and before swimming in the sea. We don't leave the hotel for our night in the Bedoin camp in the desert until noon, so we'll have plenty of time.

I'd be outside now, but it's really hot. I mean really, really hot. Like 110 degrees hot. So I'm waiting for the sun to go down to take a swim. And eat dinner.

Welcome to Jordan!

2008-09-13T20:42:00.001-07:00

Jordan Sunset
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

That's a phrase I've heard repeatedly since arriving. Although I was in western clothes, Arab men opened doors for me, smiled, and welcomed me to Jordan. Women smiled and welcomed me, the hotel staff, the teenagers skateboarding on the sidewalk when I walked to an ATM -- even the men going into a mosque that I passed on my way to the bank. Very nice. I feel completely safe here -- truly.

I haven't seen much yet, but should later today. My tour group meets in the lobby at 11:00, and after introductions, we head down to the Red Sea. I can't wait! It's been a while since I've seen a good beach.

Now for an explanation of what happened in Kathmandu with the protests and my blog:

After posting the photos and stories about what I saw and heard that day, I collected my things to leave the internet cafe. A man asked me about my photos, asked if I was a reporter and then asked what I did for a living. He introduced himself as a reporter and wanted me to come to his hotel the next morning for breakfast and then to a cafe that journalists hang out at. As I left, he moved over to the machine that I had been using.

The next day, his hotel front door was locked, so I was unable to meet him and I found that I was denied access to my blog. When I returned to my guest house, I mentioned this to my South African friend (who is a journalist currently living in India) and Sarita, the owner of the guest house. Well, they read me the riot act in a big bad way. Apparently, Asia is not like the States and I can get myself into big trouble by writing such things. They were worried that this man was able to look up the websites that I had visited on the computer that he switched to and read my blog. They were very worried that he wasn't a journalist at all. They said that there are people (including Tibetans) on the payroll of the Chinese government keeping an eye on things in Nepal. They told me that people get abducted for writing these things all the time. Between the two of them, they hatched a plan to get me out of Kathmandu with Sarita's friend Prem to go trekking. Afterwards, I was to leave almost immediately for Chitwan and then Pokhara. I was also not allowed to get into cabs without staff from the guest house checking them out first. I was to tell them where I was going at all times and not deviate from the reported locations.

If you ask me, it was all much ado about nothing. I don't believe that I was ever in danger, nor do I believe that Google blocked my access because of this. They have given me no explanation except that someone had complained about "objectionable content". But to keep my new friends happy, I played along.

And now that I'm safely out of the region, here's what I learned about Nepali politics and government:

The Nepalis are stuck between a rock and a hard place -- literally. To the north, they have China who is the most populated country on the planet and has probably the largest and certainly one of the most powerful armies. To the west, south and east, there's India. India is the second most populated country on Earth and also has a very big army. Nepal has only 25 million people (as opposed to over a billion in each of its neighbors) and is a very poor country. While I saw police and army around a lot, I'd say that 90% or so don't carry guns. They can't afford them. Instead they carry sticks. That's right. They carry 4 foot bamboo canes that are nicely shellacked in order to make them stiffer and more painful. This is what they have to fight the bad guys and any invading countries.

Past governments have basically bent over backwards for China and India rather than start any animosities or conflicts. They have made deals that have hurt the Nepali people (unlimited free visas for citizens of China and India -- allowing India to process the sugar cane grown in southern Nepal and then sell it back to the Nepali at 2.5 times the price that they sell it for in India, etc.). They have turned over small portions of what used to be Nepal to India (one such area is where Sarita grew up). At the same time, these government officials (the recently ousted King included) have padded their own pockets with kickbacks from their neighbors. This at the same time that most Nepali cannot afford sugar and many other goods. This is why they recently ousted them all and elected Maoist party candidates. It's not out of some sort of sympathy or attachment to China, but rather the belief that Maoists will do what's best for the people and not simply make themselves rich. The new government is just now getting their act together and starting to govern, so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, Nepal just tries to not make it's neighbors angry because they just don't have the means to stand up to them. That's why all of the protests that have been happening at the Chinese embassy (and there have been many over the last 4 months or so) go unmentioned in the press.

OK. I'm going to breakfast now.

Greetings from the Arabian Peninsula

2008-09-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

I'm currently on a short layover in Doha, Qatar. We're really not in Asia any more. As far as you can see, it's just flat with a lot of sand. I'm one of the few women in the airport not covering my face and the men in full-on Arab gear are everywhere. It's currently Ramadan, which means no eating or drinking during daylight, so no food or drink for me for a bit. Oh yeah, and the flight pattern thing on the screen during the flight always showed the direction and distance to Mecca. Definitely different for me.

Leaving Kathmandu was pretty sad. As we took off, I could actually see the mountains and I even saw Everest again briefly. We followed the range for a bit before crossing India and then Pakistan. Can you believe that I never saw a plant when flying over Pakistan? Not a single piece of vegetation. Just dry, arid, rocky land. And as we crossed the Persian Gulf and neared Doha, you could see some of those funky man-made islands and a lot of sky scrapers. Interesting place. But their calling us to the shuttle bus to take us to the next plane. Later.

Final Thoughts

2008-09-12T06:39:00.000-07:00

So I'm all packed and ready to leave first thing in the morning. I spent the day getting ready and meandering around Kathmandu. I'm really going to miss it here. Just a couple of reasons why:

1. You hear music everywhere. Not just coming from the shops and restaurants, but from the people. The guy sitting at the reception desk at the guest house is often humming or singing to himself. So is the rickshaw driver hanging out on the corner waiting for his next fare. And the shopkeeper sitting on his/her step waiting for another customer. Mothers walking down the street with their kids sing, too. Quite plainly -- everyone. Music is a major part of their lives and if they can't be listening to some professional stuff, they create the music themselves.

2. Tourists are considered honored guests and for the most part, that's how I feel here. Just saying "namaste" to someone here gets you a huge smile and a friend for the rest of your stay.

3. The food is really pretty good. They use a lot of nice spices and cook things just so. I've even come to love rice and lentils, but there's lots of western food here, too.

4. It's so incredible inexpensive that I rarely spend even $2 on a meal.

5. The landscape is like non other. Simply stunning.

6. The people here are very giving. Even though they make next to nothing I see them preparing food and handing out coins to those less fortunate. This isn't just an occasional thing either. There's some pedestrian overpasses to cross the busiest street in Kathmandu. There are some very poor, often disabled people who sit on the stairs on either side with their hand out asking for help. About 50-60% of the Nepali I see who use the overpasses pull a stack of coins out of their pockets as they approach. They then hand a coin to each person in need. Every time I've seen this.

I'll write more about the politics and the demonstration situation once I'm out of here to fill you all in on what did and didn't happen. In the meantime, I'm leaving Asia proper for the Middle East (I know, geographically, it's still part of Asia). I have two flights tomorrow to get to Amman, Jordan. The first is a 5 hour flight to Doha, Qatar. After a 1.5 hour layover, I have another couple of hours in the air to reach my destination. I'll be met by someone from the tour group and won't have to navigate the city on my own. If interested, you can read up on my itinerary here. As always, I'll blog and post pictures as I can, but my last remaining CD got fried, so if I can't find wifi or plug my laptop in anywhere, I'll be unable to post photos. Unless I can find a place to buy more CDs or a flash drive. Cheers!

p.s. There's a Spanish station in Kathmandu that shows the Vuelta live every night! I think I keep forgeting to mention it.

Taking care of business

2008-09-11T01:09:00.001-07:00

Kathmandu 002
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

My Romanian friends arrived at the guest house last night -- it's always so good to see familiar faces. We first met on the bus to Chitwan, sat together on the bus to Pokhara, and saw each other in Pokhara when I wasn't sick. We had a good talk last night, had breakfast together this morning, and then they were off to the airport. They're heading to Bhutan for a bit before returning to Nepal. I'll be gone before they return. I'll miss them! It's funny how you get close to people in very short time periods when you're half way around the world on your own.

I went to the store and stocked up on the basics today (shampoo, conditioner, kleenex, etc.). This was the first time I've actually had to buy those types of things. It's much cheaper here, but I couldn't find my brands. I'm sure my hair will survive, but I'll probably have some pretty bad hair days between now and when I return.

Also, I was a little panicked that I had used all of the cipro the US doc had given me to take on my trip. What happens if I get sick again? Well, they sell it in the grocery store. 10 pills of the same dosage that I was prescribed (and I was only given 2) came in a package that cost 120 rupee. That's not even $2. Ironically, I couldn't buy any more immonium there. I have to go to a pharmacy for that. Go figure.

The rest of the day will be spent shopping for a few items. I need to replace my sunglasses that got stepped on a week ago, so Sarita is taking me to a store that has good glasses at cheap prices. I'm also gonna do the souvenier thing. Tomorrow is all about collecting my laundry, shipping things home, exchanging money and packing because Saturday morning (Friday night your time) it's off to Jordan. I'm hoping to be healthy and have some energy by then. I'm going to need it because I'll be on the move a lot there. Right now, all I want to do is take a nap.

Back in Kathmandu

2008-09-10T03:28:00.000-07:00

Well, after a 7.5 hour bus ride through very windy, steep mountain roads, I'm back in Kathmandu. While sorting out my ticket this morning, I looked up and had my breath taken away. Far more of the mountains were visible than ever before. Snow capped Himalayan peaks towered overhead and it was nothing short of spectacular. They sort of looked like they had been painted above us. I've seen the Sierra Nevadas, the Cascades, the Rockies, the mountains in Alaska, the Alps and the Dolomites, but none come close to this spectacular. I don't think I'm exaggerating. I wish that I had pictures, but I had to board the bus and we took off before I had time to get the camera out of the bag. And then I was on the wrong side of the bus on very bumpy roads for over 30 minutes before the clouds came in. No photos came out. Shit. But at least I finally saw what I came here for. I'm just so disappointed that I arrived with that nasty cold and then got sick in Pokhara. I really want to come back and do some treking sometime -- I just haven't done this place justice.

By the way, before I left on this journey, I read that Nepal has the highest percentage of return visitors than any other country in the world. It's obvious to me why. Between the stunning scenery, the very kind and smiley people, and the amazing culture, there's little not to love. And where else can you travel to and go treking, white water rafting, mountain biking, paragliding, hang with monks at a monestary and just plain relax all in the same week?

I still have 2 days to get my ducks in a row (laundry, stock up on shampoo, conditioner, replace my broken sunglasses, and mail purchases home) before I leave Asia and head to the Middle East. I must be crazy to be leaving this place for the hot desert.

I Finally Left the Hotel!

2008-09-08T23:07:00.001-07:00

Pokhara 004
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Well, after 2 days of laying low, I broke free today. I woke up early and decided it was time for a walk. I grabbed a bottle of water and bought a pastry from a Nepali woman and walked to Devi's Fall (yes, fall singular). It was about 1.5 miles from the hotel through some very nice suburban areas. The water kinda gushes through some tunnels and down some crevaces, so you can't see the whole thing, but it was nice anyways. After, I crossed the street and went into a cave. Unfortunately, only the first part was open, so you couldn't see the underground falls -- just a tacky temple they put in there.

But now I'm back and ready for a nap. I'm getting tired very easily these days and I do have to rest up for the next part of my journey.

By the way, I've kinda done a cop out. I've heard too many stories from other tourists about how hard it is to travel solo in Egypt, especially for a woman. In fact, Lonely Planet starts their chapter on Egypt by telling you several different ways to say "Get your hands off me" in Arabic. Also, I've been told that it's really hard to find the right line for the right ticket at the various attractions, but the tour groups go right in. So I booked me a tour. Don't worry -- it's not deluxe at all. It's about $300 for 9nights. I'm still sailing on a felucca down the Nile and spending a couple of nights on board (on deck -- there's no below). But they'll be picking me up at the airport and taking me back. Since I'm on a tour in Jordan as well, and Tanzania is all taken care of by the safari company, I'm nearing the end of my being on my own. On the one hand, I'm sad about it. On the other hand, I'm really glad that I don't have to drag my luggage by myself, haggle with taxi drivers, and search desperately for a decent room to stay in.

Quick Update

2008-09-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

The cipro seems to have worked and the stomach, intestines, etc. feel pretty normal. I'm just extremely tired. I literally went 100 yards for breakfast and didn't have the energy to finish a single banana pancake (I thought that was my safest bet). I'm going to take a nap and see how I feel this afternoon. I'm also going to extend my stay in Pokhara by a day -- if I don't, I leave tomorrow and don't really get to do much of anything but look at the beautiful mountains from the hotel. This will give me 3 nights back in Kathmandu before leaving for Jordan ...

Sunrise at the hotel

2008-09-06T20:37:00.001-07:00

Pokhara 012
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

So I did it, I'm finally sick in a way that's going to lay me up for the day. I think I had bad food for dinner yesterday, 'cause I had it coming out both ends starting at about 11pm. It as pretty much a sleepless night. I did look out my window at dawn to see if the promised view of the Annapurna part of the Himalayas was there and sure enough, it was. The mountains are clouded in again, but they should be clear around sunset.

I'm going to lay low today and get better for tomorrow. The hotel wants me to see a doctor, but I took one of the cipro that the travel doc gave me and I should be fine.

I'm going to hang some prayer flags for Linda. I'm so sorry about your crash -- I hope you feel better soon.

The last of my stay in Chitwan

2008-09-06T06:42:00.001-07:00

Well, yesterday I went on the elephant jungle trek. I was so happy after doing the elephant bath thing in the river -- the elephant had no injuries, no chains, and seemed genuinely happy. When I went for the elephant safari, it was an entirely different story.

First of all, they piled 4 of us up top along with the handler. That's a hell of a lot of weight. The elephant was bleeding. Yep, bleeding from cuts behind his ears brought on by a big metal hook. He also had another bleeding gouge between his right ear and the center of his head. The driver hit him very hard to make him turn, much harder than is necessary. I was so upset I nearly started crying.

The other 3 along for the ride were loud. Their cell phones kept ringing and they just kept talking, laughing, basically making too much noise for us to see much wildlife. Everything we saw was in the first 5 minutes. I saw a rhino ahead on the road and shushed them all and pointed. They were nice enough to stay quiet for a few minutes while we saw rhino, deer and a bird carrying a snake. Other than that, the safari was a dud because they couldn't keep their big mouths shut. If I only knew how to speak their language, they would have heard an earful. I watched him ride the elephant home after. He chained the poor thing up outside his house and didn't even bring water or food near it. I came pretty close to buying some cucumbers and hopping the fence, but I thought I might get into some serious trouble.

I have to say -- I opened my big mouth and said some things about the way that the elephants are treated to a few locals (the driver didn't speak any English). They claim that elephants are mean and have been known to break away and run through the village as well as throw their handlers to the ground. They apparently need to be treated roughly or they don't behave. I know better from my experience in Thailand. I responded by telling them that if you're nice to a dog, it's your friend for life. If you kick it, it bites you. They agreed, but still don't think that the logic applies to elephants.

This kinda ruined the rest of my time there, but luckily it was my last day. I went to a cultural program in the village to see some dancing last night and then went off to bed. Today, I took a nearly 6 hour bus ride to Pokhara. It wouldn't have taken so long, but the bus stopped pretty much everywhere. The good news is, I'm here. I saw some of the Himalayas looming over just before sunset and am promised a beautiful view at sunrise. Stay tuned for some photos tomorrow.

Oh, and the elephant safari was the first time using the big lens on the new camera -- good practice for Africa.

The Jungle

2008-09-05T00:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I was woken this morning at dawn so that I could eat breakfast and start a trek through the jungle. I met my guide and we (along with another guide to bring up the rear) were off in a canoe down the river and across to the park. We managed to see 2 rhinos in the grass across a watering hole, a wild boar, a couple of monkeys and lots of bugs. Oh yeah, and I got 3 leeches picked off of me. The head guide got 2. After a couple of hours, we headed back to the resort.

I was asked if I wanted to help bathe an elephant. Absolutely! So I put on a swimsuit with a pair of shorts and a tank top and headed to the river bank. There was a beautiful Asian elephant waiting for me. This one was a 40 year old male and I just can't pronounce his name. I was told to stand in front of him, look him in the eyes and grab both of his ears. When I did that, he put his trunk up for me to step on. I did and he hoisted me over his head and onto his neck. Nevermind that I was facing backwards and had to turn around. Anyway, we went down into the river and he started spraying me over his shoulder. Then he would duck down into the water and roll from side to side. Eventually, I fell off with a big splash. He sprayed me again and it was on. I was splashing him in the face and he was spraying. It was a total water fight. The handler was smart enough to get out of the way and let us play. I was actually with the elephant in the river for about an hour. He was pretty damned clean by the time that we were done, but I was sticky (the water was muddy) and needed a real shower. But a ton of fun. And this elephant had no chains and the handler didn't use his stick at all -- just voice commands. As it should be.

I've finished lunch and am meandering for a bit. In about an hour I have a jungle safari on an elephant. Supposedly the animals are not afraid of the elephants despite their size and I stand a much better chance of seeing many more than this morning.

Internet access here is slow, expensive and unreliable. I'll upload photos tomorrow after I arrive in Pokara. I can't wait to get out of the heat!

Don't expect much for a few days

2008-09-04T04:50:00.000-07:00

Hi all. After a really fun evening with Prem and his family, I got up early and headed to Chitwan National Park. The day was looking promising when I saw some of the mountains peaking out above the clouds and they were gorgeous. Things started going downhill when my bus window wouldn't open and I nearly drowned in my own sweat. Then I arrive at Chitwan Tiger Camp to find that I'm the only guest there. Oh, and it's damned hot. Hot like the Thar desert only a little more humid.

Anyway, I set off with my "guide" on bicycle. Yes, that's a bicycle folks. First ride since early July. On a singlespeed with no suspension. And fenders. And bad breaks. But it was Bella blue, so it must be OK. The roads here are really just a bunch of bigger rocks piled together, so I really could have used some suspension. And though the road is wide, the elephant and buffalo droppings mean that you're basically riding single track. My guide rode right through the stuff, but I was afraid of spray. If the fenders didn't catch it all ...

So we rode to the river, crossed via canoe and set out through the jungle to see animals. I really don't think the guide knew what he was doing. He talked so much and so loudly, I'm sure he scared off every animal within 5 miles. He also kept holding branches out of my way but would let go to early and I'd get smacked right in the face. He did point out a lot of diggings in the ground and would tell me that they were made from bears or boars or something else. At one point he got all excited and pointed to some fresh hoof prints in the mud. He declared them to be rhino tracks. I asked him if he was sure, because they kind of looked like buffalo tracks to me. He was certain and said that he's the expert. "OK", I said. "But look -- the tracks go straight to the herd of buffalo around the corner." I don't think he was happy to have me point that out. Anyway, we saw nothing except domestic buffalo and cows.

We then headed over to an elephant breeding camp. Lots and lots of babies. But unlike Thailand, this place didn't treat their elephants very well. They were all chained up very tight with no slack at all. Some even had both front feet chained together so that they couldn't move. And many had food just out of reach. I got pretty upset and almost said something, but again -- I'm learning to keep my big mouth shut. I insisted we leave.

I'm now going to take a shower and put on my bug spray for the night. After dinner, I'll work on the photos, but I don't think I'll be able to post any until I get to Pokara. Internet access is so slow here it took me 20 minutes to get signed in to write this.

By the way, no Lukla. If there's no view from there, then it's not worth it. I won't have the time to do the necessary treks. I'm still working on plan z.

The Trek

2008-09-03T00:39:00.001-07:00

Trek 021
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Well, I came back to Kathmandu this morning and have managed to upload photos and get all caught up. So let me tell you about the "trek".

Sarita (the owner of Happy Home Guest House) set me up with a local trekking guide who costs $5/day. On Monday morning, he picked me up at the guest house and we walked over to the bus park to catch our bus out of town. It was way too easy.

You see, the bus park is loaded with buses pointed every which direction. There is no rhyme or reason to where they are going and where they are parked. There is no information desk and no place to buy tickets. Instead, you pay a guy cash on the bus. You only know where a bus is going because of the guy standing in the doorway, hanging out yelling all of the stops in auctioneer style. These guys really know how to talk fast and they don't really speak English. Hence my previous problems with getting the right bus.

So we set off on a very crowded city bus (and the correct bus!). After about 2 hours, we arrived in some town where we had to change buses. We found the right bus and sat and waited until they deemed it full enough to get started (about an hour). Once we left, we headed up into the foothills on some very narrow, dicey roads. The scenery was incredible even if there were times it seemed like we were going off a cliff. About 2 hours later, we arrived at Nagarkot. This is a very sleepy town on a ridge with views of both the eastern and central Himalayas, depending upon which side of the ridge you are on. The town itself has a few homes, a few small cafes and restaurants, a school and, of course, lots of hotels. The hotels on the Everest side are pricey (and some cater to very wealthy tourists) and the hotels on the other side are pretty reasonable. We stayed at Hotel Himalaya Heart which was on the reasonable side.

After checking in, we walked around the town a bit and over to a viewpoint just over the ridge. This is where we were going to see Everest at sunrise. You see, it's still pretty cloudy even though the monsoon season is about over. I have yet to see the mountains except for my day 1 flight. This area gets fogged in at night, but in the morning, it clears around sunrise and the mountains can be seen for about an hour or so before the clouds roll back in. This was a promise that I heard from everyone, including the people at Nagarkot.

So at dinner, I was given some "local wine" to try. It was very clear and didn't smell like much. I got brave and took a sip. Funny, it tasted like room temperature sake. So I asked if it was made of rice and sure enough, it was. I was drinking sake moonshine in Nepal!

The next morning I awoke to fog, but this was expected. We set off to the viewpoint and waited. Every time it started to clear, it clouded or fogged right up again. We stood there for nearly an hour at which time we decided to check out, get our bags, and come back on our way down the trail. So we did. And we waited. And finally a local came by and said that it wasn't going to clear today. First time in 3 weeks. No view of the mountains and no Everest. Damn.

So we set off on our downward trek. We mostly followed what was a road before the monsoon season. It now needs to be rebuilt (something that happens annually) before it can be used again. We trekked alongside streams, past small waterfalls, by farm land, and through tiny villages. Whenever we walked through a village, the children would come out to wave. We stopped at one for some tea and watched the children play jump rope. One was wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt and this is when I heard at length how popular Harry is, even in Nepal. This was the first place where we saw marijuana growing next to the road. But not the last.

Eventually, we ended up at our destination -- Shankarapur. This is a small town near the bottom of the foothills. I had mentioned that I'd love to see some local life, so Sarita made sure that we stayed in a town that sees next to no tourists. It's a very poor town, but very classic Nepali. There are lots of temples, buildings that need help, a lot of farming and livestock raising, and a very colorful group of people. There are no hotels here, so we had to stay in a "guest house". Basically, we were in a building with 3 generations of a family. They have a small store and restaurant on the ground floor along with the kitchen and a common bathroom (squat toilet -- no shower or tub) and bedrooms going up about 4 stories. The accommodations were rustic at best. After seeing the place, I reminded myself that I've been out backpacking in Yosemite for much longer than this and didn't have a cot, roof, or squat toilet. This really wasn't that bad. It's all part of the adventure. Sadly, I saw two western tourists (I think they were German) get dropped off by a car a few hours later. They walked all over town trying to find a place to stay -- my place wasn't good enough. I actually saw the woman sitting on the side of the road crying. I just wanted to go out there, shake her and tell her to suck it up. It's only for a night and I think it's a good thing for us privileged folks to find out first hand how others live. But I didn't. Lately, I've been learning how to keep my big mouth shut.

Anyway, we had some lunch and set out to explore the town. This was done in less than 10 minutes. So we got ambitious and headed up the hillside past some monastaries to a temple. That was a bitch of a hike. We were both hating life and had to take some breaks. Some local children joined us and at the top we bought some apples and shared with them. There was a religious festival that day, so I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the temple up close. But the views from there were amazing. It was hard to believe that we went up that high in so short a time.

Then we went back to town and walked some more. By then most of the children had heard I was there and came to talk and get their picture taken. And there was the town drunk. He came right up to me and rambled on for about 5 minutes in Nepali. The guide told him that I didn't speak Nepali, but that didn't deter him. He kept slurring his words going on about something. Later, I was told that he was saying that his 3 sons won't look at him and his wife has locked him out of the house. I guess the man has issues. But listening to him was quite fun. I'm not sure why, but it was. We spent about an hour with the kids, watched as the festival approached town, but left when nothing much was really happening.

Then I was taken to a tea place where I was asked to sample the local beer. Beer! How nice! Not really. It was room temperature, home made, rice beer. Incredibly nasty. THE WORST THING EVER!!! There were laughs all around when I nearly choked and was trying so hard to be gracious and say that it was delicious.

We ate dinner with the family and then headed to bed as quick as we could. The sun goes down around 5:30 and the power goes out at 7:00. You would think that it would get nice and peaceful after that, but no. That's when the male dogs start chasing the female dogs trying to get some action. The female dogs want no part of it and there's massive dog fights ALL NIGHT LONG. So much for peaceful village life. I did manage to see two cats fighting. They were both gray tabbies. These are the first cats I've seen since Thailand unless you count the part of a cat head I think I may have seen in Jaisalmer, India.

We caught another bus back to Kathmandu very early this morning and I'm getting all my ducks in a row today (and sleeping). Tonight I go to the guide's house for dinner to meet his wife and 6 kids. That should be fun. Tomorrow morning, I'm off to Chitwan National Park for 2 nights followed by 3 nights at Pokara. The park is a package deal that Sangrita set me up with. It's $35/night and includes all transportation, all meals, room at a nice lodge and all of the park excursions that I care to fit in (elephant riding, rhino safari, white water rafting, etc.) Pokara is a town with several lakes and a Tibetan refugee camp at the start of the Annapurna Trek. I should have amazing views of the Himalayas from there, but not of Everest -- wrong part of the country. I'll have 4 more nights after that.

It's been suggested that I take an overnight flight to Lukla before I go. That's the town at the border of Everest National Park and is where the treks to base camp start. There's plenty of places to see the mountains there. Is it worth a $160 round trip flight? Remember, I have no job. Opinions?

Access is Restored!

2008-09-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

Hello and I am happy to say that I have regular access to the blog again. With any luck, Google won't be messing with me any more. I am currently in a tiny village called Shankakapuri and will be staying the night at a place best described as very rustic. My guide and I arrived here after trekking down from Nagakarot this morning. Internet access here is dial-up via a modem that looks older than my high school report card, so I'm going to wait until I'm back in Kathmandu to fill you all in and upload photos. Let's just say, village life is interesting. The children are a riot (I think every child in town has sought me out to take their picture so that they can see it in the camera).

More tomorrow. I hope you had a good birthday, Mike.

Still no real blog access

2008-08-31T01:59:00.001-07:00

Monkey Temple 025
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Hi. Google still hasn't restored my blogger access, so I'm going through the backdoor. There's not much to say -- I haven't been feeling well, so I laid low yesterday and took a very long walk to today to Patan. I'll post pictures as soon as my access is really back up. It looks like I'll be leaving Kathmandu tomorrow for a few days Let's keep our fingers crossed that there's decent internet access outside of the capitol.

And a big happy birthday to Mike! Barber, not Evans. I know it's not until the 1st, but this is just in case I can't access the internet for a few days.

I found a way into my blog!

2008-08-29T23:09:00.001-07:00

Kathmandu 007
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Hello everyone. Somehow after last night's post, I got locked out of this blog. I cannot log in to edit, nor can I log into my Google email that's associated with the account. I keep getting a locked out error. So, I selected a photo that I had uploaded to Flickr, selected the blog this button, and lo and behold, I can access this way. I have some messages into Google support, but my posts may be sketchy for a while. I'll write about this photo below, but first a quick update on the situation that I wrote about last night.

After logging off at the internet cafe last night, the man next to me asked about my photos of the protesters that he had seen and introduced himself as a journalist. He said that clashes between the Tibetans and the Chinese are pretty frequent, but never make the press here -- the Nepali are just too afraid of pissing off the Chinese government. He invited me to meet him and some other journalists today so that they can explain the situation to me and I think I'll go. In the meantime, my friend Beth (not Welliver) posted a good explanation in a comment on yesterday's post.

On to the photo. After doubling around to get by the demonstrators yesterday, I got a little lost and after some bad directions, ended up at the city bus station. There is no information desk there and all signs and writing on buses is in Nepali. There's not even a ticket window -- you pay cash on the bus. Usually tourists take "micro buses" (vans) out of another area. When I tried to ask a man to point me in the direction to walk to a certain temple, he took my arm, pulled me on a bus, said something to the driver and then hopped off as the bus started moving. There I was on a bus with no English speakers and no idea where I was going. Luckily, a college student boarded later and sat next to me. After circling the city, she got me off at the right stop and pointed me in the right direction. Experiences like these are all just part of the adventure, I guess.

I'm sorry that I don't have the name of this temple with me. It's Hindu in origin (but I'm finding that the Buddhist and Hindu religions here are greatly intertwined and somewhat meshed together here). What struck me most is that there's a house where people in their final days come to die. I guess it's sort of like a nursing home for folks at the bitter end. They also do cremations here for most Nepali in Kathmandu (unless you're a VIP or royalty, then you go somewhere else). I decided to take a seat and watch for a bit but ended up there for over an hour. I watched the workers build a stack of logs into a platform to place a body. I watched a body being carried in on a metal stretcher and placed on the platform. I watched a family say final prayers over their loved one and start the fire. And I saw the bodies burning. Each cremation takes several hours -- I just saw them each in different parts of the process and put the whole scenario together in my mind. I don't know why I was so fascinated, but I felt the need to sit there for quite some time.

Afterwards, I headed over to Bouddha. It's a very large Buddhist temple surrounded by many monastaries and businesses, mostly Tibetan. Because I had pissed off a guide at the previous temple by turning down his services, I got very bad directions. I ended up way off course and had to walk through some pretty big fields to get there. I had been told that Bouddha would be absolutely crowded with praying Tibetans, but it was nearly empty. Very few monks around and very few non tourists. I guess they were all at the Chinese embassy. Anyway, it was a beautiful place.

I'm laying a little low today and am meeting my guest house owner this afternoon to make my travel plans for the rest of my stay in Nepal. She's an incredibly helpful lady and has been very upfront in telling me about the political and economic problems here. I'll miss her while I travel around the country, but I'll be back for a couple of nights before I fly to Jordan.

This is a test

2008-08-29T22:47:00.001-07:00

Kathmandu 007
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Does this get posted?

Violence in Kathmandu

2008-08-29T09:18:00.001-07:00

This was written about 5 hours ago, just before a power outage. The power just came back on, but we have no new updates.

Today I set out across the city to visit a couple of temples, one Hindu and one Tibetan Buddhist. I'll write about them later, especially the cremations that I witnessed, but right now there's more important stuff.

I set off on foot to cross the city from west to east this morning after visiting an internet cafe. I wasn't hungry yet, so no need for food. Kathmandu is a little bit of a maze. Many streets are not marked and many are not on the maps that exist. But the first place I was visiting was exactly due east, so I figured I'd head in one direction and get there. It should take about 45 minutes, according to the folks at my guest house. As I got to one of the busy main roads through the city, traffic was stopped dead and there was no way to cross the street. There was a procession of people parading through the city. At the front was a band followed by some flag bearers. Then there was a truck with elderly men in the back who had a loud speaker and were talking in a language that I just can't understand. Then there were the women. Hundreds of women dressed in red saris walking with flowered pots on their heads chanting and singing. This procession was probably a kilometer long, so I got impatient and doubled back and crossed a pedestrian overcrossing to get over it. Once over, I came across the procession again, tried to find an alternate route and got lost. I eventually made it to my destination, but 2 hours later.

From there I had to go to the Buddhist temple, but a pissed off guide (mad because I didn't want him to accompany me through the temple) gave me very bad directions and I ended up adding 5 or 6 unecessary kilometers to my walk. By that time, I had a blister on one of my big toes and had no intention of walking back. After the second temple, I hired a taxi. I want to say that I was told that there'd be hundreds of Tibetan monks in that area, but I saw very few -- I soon found out why. What should have been a 20 minute cab ride took 1 hour and 40 minutes. Traffic was stopped dead everywhere. When the driver asked other taxis what was going on, no one knew -- we just knew it was everywhere in the city. At one point, a truck carrying soldiers came up with a siren screaming, a light flashing, and lots of guys in camo with very large guns. They were having trouble getting through as well, so the driver asked them what the deal was. We were told that there was serious fighting and some bloodshed at the Chinese embassy. The demonstrators I had seen that morning were Tibetans and they were heading to the embassy.

We weren't sure how bad things were until we got near Darbar Square. There was a makeshift blood donation center on the sidewalk just two blocks from the square. The cab driver told me that they only do that in emergencies. I still had not eaten, so I got out of the taxi and walked the rest of the way home. Even that was painstakingly slow -- pedestrian traffic was deadlocked. Nepali TV still has no coverage and so we have no idea how bad things are (the news is too busy with live coverage of the flooding down south -- what you see in India has now backed up into southern Nepal). My South African friend was heading to the Indian embassy to pick up his new visa, but he wanted me to eat and wait for him to return. I think we're going to donate blood and then walk and see what we can see. But I can honestly say that if those demonstrators were involved in the altercation, they were completely unarmed. They had nothing but flower pots, flags, signs and a megaphone.

If any of you hear anything, please email me or post a comment and let me know the score.

While I'm kind of on the subject of the Chinese, I'll fill you in on some things that I've learned here. Fact: the recently ousted king was ousted in part because he gave Chinese and Indian citizens the right to free unlimited visas in Nepal. In the last 6 months, Chinese have bought 5 hotels within a 5 minute walk of where I'm staying and have opened up 4 Chinese restaurants. The Chinese also walk the streets trying to give and sell flowers to Nepali people saying that they've come in friendship. The Nepali people have disbanded their monarchy and recently elected a parliament, president and prime minister. The problem? A majority of the newly elected officials are Maoist. The people are still hoping that the Chinese and Indian visa situation gets severely restricted. When I was told this I can't help but wonder if the Chinese are trying to annex Nepal the way it annexed Tibet, just in a much more peaceful way. I seriously hope not.

Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple)

2008-08-28T21:59:00.001-07:00

So today I decided to climb some more stairs, not nearly as many as the Tiger Cave Temple in Thailand, but stairs nonetheless.

After waking up, watching Biden’s speech live (the vote was already over), and getting a visit from the local pharmacist who’s checking up on my cold, I headed out. I walked east, through Kathmandu neighborhoods hoping for the best. I found my way across the river and up toward the temple. At the bottom, there’s a large gateway flanked by prayer wheels and gold buddhas. There’s only 365 stairs and little gold shrines line the way. One the way up, you get your usual vendors hocking local goods, very few monkeys (I think I only saw 5) and a small calf.

At the top, I was a little surprised. There were very few tourists and many many people with offerings for the temples. Despite a slight wind, my eyes were burning from all of the incense and candles that had been lit. There were groups of people singing what sounded like hymns and many leaving trays of food. I was very surprised – I went up expecting a tourist trap and I saw almost nothing but very faithful people.

There are several temples at the top and a Buddhist “museum”. I went into several buildings, but didn’t take pictures because too many people were praying and I didn’t want the flash going off. The museum was nothing but an array of Buddhas and I was surprised that people were in there praying as well. It was really nice to see. There were spectacular views of Kathmandu and many prayer flags flying. I need to buy some of those before I leave.

I spent about an hour up there just watching everything that was going on. When I finally went down, I met a young Nepali boy who spoke English exceptionally well. We talked for a while and he asked if I’d give him money to buy a box of bisquits. I asked him why and he said that he wanted to hand it out to the poor people who were lining the stairs. Having come from India, I thought it was probably a scam of some sort, but he was so charming, I thought what the hell. I asked him if I could buy the box for him and he went for it. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, a man came up very quickly, put a bindi on my forehead and wanted money. I didn’t have small enough change so the boy told him that I’d be back. We crossed the street to a small café. I bought a little something for me, a juice for him, and the box of bisquits (basically crackers loaded with calcium). We talked for a while, he gave me his phone number at home and took my email address. I gave him 10 rupee to give the bindi man and he took off. I watched and sure enough, he paid the man the money and the man waved at me. Then I watched him go back up the stairs and hand out small stacks of the bisquits to the poor people until it was gone. What a good kid! And a good $1 spent. I’m sorry I kinda doubted him.

Afterwards, I wandered around town and got a little lost. I wandered for many Nepali neighborhoods and saw absolutely no westerners for about 45 minutes. No one even batted an eye – they would just smile at me and say “Namaste”. I love this place. Anyway, I ended up at a small man made lake with a temple in the middle. Saw a bazaar and kept walking in what I thought was the right general direction. I eventually found a street of stores for goods like Nikon, Citizen watches, etc. It was far more modern than what I had seen. Eventually, I made a right turn on a cobbled road hoping for the best. Then a man in a booth asked me for money. I asked for what and he said Durbar Square! I knew where I was. Luckily, I had paid yesterday and taken my ticket into a tourist office to get it extended for my entire stay. I got in for free and found my way back to the Happy Home Guest House (yes, that’s the name in case I hadn’t mentioned it before). It was all good fun.

The rest of the day has been lunch, exchanging money, and showing one of the boys who works here my photos from Thailand. He’s a Buddhist and was interested in seeing the temples there. Tomorrow, I’m going to explore some more areas of the city and start planning my trips out of Kathmandu after watching the convention. I’m 12 hours and 45 minutes ahead of you, so the convention is a very convenient thing to watch as I’m getting ready in the morning.

And to all of you cyclists out there, check out www.bikehimalayas.com. If I had only known, I would have brought some of my cycling gear. Perhaps we should do a Bella camp through this company …

Why do I love Nepal so Much?

2008-08-28T00:57:00.001-07:00

Kathmandu 003
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

There are so many reasons, but here are some:

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. The average annual income per capital is under $300 US. Yet as poor as they are, these people are so kind and welcoming. They all smile and greet you. Without exception. Everyone.

The place is clean with no visible garbage anywhere. The one time I saw a pile of garbage, I walked back by 30 minutes later and the pile was gone. It was only there for pickup. Sure, some streets aren't paved and therefore get muddy when it rains, but everything including bathrooms are clean. It wasn't that way in India.

I've had 3 different Nepali tell me that as poor as this country is, they take care of their own. They proudly explain how even the poorest person has shelter and is fed every day.

When a shop keeper asks you inside his/her store and you decline, they smile, say "namaste" (that means both hello and goodbye) and wish you a good day. They don't push and shove and get in your face. The one time a vendor got aggressive, an elderly Nepali man complete with cute little hat, ran up and yelled and waved his arms until the vendor went away. He then apologized to me and said that the man was Indian and that Nepali don't behave that way.

I have a head cold, so yesterday one of the workers at the guest house that I'm staying at walked me to a pharmacy. There was a chalkboard with the name of the doctor on duty. I'm not sure if I talked with a full-fleged doctor or a pharmacist, but he asked me all kinds of detailed questions, including where I had been the last couple of weeks and all about my symptoms. He rolled his eyes when I said that I had been in India and told me that it's very easy to get sick there. He pulled out one of those disposable thermometer strips and took my temperature. He then took a box of decongestants out and cut 12 pills away with scissors. Total cost? 35 Nepali rupee. It's currently 69.5 Nepali rupee to the dollar, so about 50 cents. On his way to the shop this morning, he stopped by the guest house to check on me and see how I was doing. My head is now clear and it's a bit in my chest and I have a cough. He had me come by to get some medication for the cough. How sweet is that?

Yesterday, I tipped a waiter 50 rupee for a 120 rupee lunch (and that's a splurge here). He chased me down on the street and told me that it was too much. We talked at length and he told me that I should never tip more than 10 rupee for a meal. That's like nothing. I didn't have a 10 rupee bill, but I talked him into 20 rupee, but he only agreed if he could share it with the cook and bus boy.

I met this very interesting South African at my guest house yesterday afternoon. He's been living in India for 6 months and came here to renew his visa. We started talking then went out for tea. After we went for a drink and then dinner. We talked for about 5 hours. Since I was sick, I decided to return to my room and go to sleep, but he wanted to stay and listed to a Nepali Bob Marley cover band. He offered to walk me back (the streets are very confusing here), but I said no. I walked down streets with everything closed up and a few Nepali men sitting on steps. Anywhere else I would have been a little afraid if not a lot afraid. Each man that I passed smiled, said Namaste and asked where I was heading. When I told them, they nodded and smiled and told me that I was going the right direction. Then they'd ask how long I was going to be in Nepal. When I said 18 days they'd smile and say "Good, we'll meet again then" and gave me a wave and another Namaste. It's just so completely safe here, even at 10:00 at night and deserted streets.

There's so much more, but those are some of my first day stories. I did visit the Monkey Temple this morning after watching Biden's speech (I'm 12 hours and 45 minutes ahead of all of you on the Pacific Coast). I've been walking around the city, but now I'm going to go back to my room, download the photos and burn them to CD and write something up. Oh yeah, and eat something. Until later ...

Top of the World

2008-08-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

So today was my day to do the Everest flight. Apparently the weather has been so bad that they haven't had any mountain flights get off the ground in several days and the weather forecast wasn't good for later in the week. I decided to take my chances.

The taxi picked me up at 5:30am and took me back to Tribhuvan International Airport. The domestic flight part of the airport was still locked up, so we had to wait 20 minutes for some guy to come and remove the padlock to the front door. Once inside, I paid my airport tax (about $2) and got my boarding pass. Eventually, we boarded a shuttle which took us out on the tarmac to our plane. We sat and waited until the pilot came out and gave the thumbs up -- apparently the cloud cover had left the mountain tops and we'd have a view. We quickly boarded, took off and hoped for the best. We'd missed sunrise, but at least we got a clearing in the weather.

The plane itself has 12 rows, with 1 seat on each side so that everyone gets a window. They go up and fly alongside the Himalayas heading east toward Everest, turn and come back. The folks on the left side of the plane got the view going, and my side got it coming back. As we approached the mountains, the flight attendant told me that I was welcome to go up to the cockpit and look out the front of the plane. Jackpot!!! I love that stuff. While up there, the co-pilot pointed out all the mountains, told me their names, and then pointed at Everest. We were just about at eye level with the summit, but still pretty far away. I went back to my seat to let someone else get a chance up front. Eventually, we made the turn and there it was -- the tallest mountain in the world. Right outside my window. We were only allowed to go about 10 miles from the summit, but it's such a big mountain that it was pretty spectacular anyway. They all were. The Himalayas are pretty fantastic. I wish I could describe them and do them justice. I can't wait for the weather to clear so that I can see them from Kathmandu.

As we got off the plane, we were each handed a certificate from Buddha Airlines for us to put our name and the date on. It has a wonderful picture of the mountain and reads "I did not climb Mt. Everest, but touched it with my heart!". All together now: aaawww!

By the way, the Nepali name for Everest is Chumolungma. How did it get named Everest? I'm glad you asked. Some British dude back in the 1800's came and surveyed these mountains. He worked for some official British surveying office. When he realized that he'd surveyed the highest mountain in the world, he named it after the guy who was head of the British surveying agency. Talk about some serious ass kissing.

I got back just in time to watch Hillary's speech live. We don't get CNN or BBC here, but we get PBS. Jim Lehrer! Nice.

It's a drizzly day and pretty gray. I think the travel has caught up with me 'cause I got me a head cold. I'm going to lay low, maybe meander around, but basically take it easy. And find a way to upload photos in this town. And start using the new camera. Cheers!

Kathmandu is the Best!

2008-08-26T04:24:00.000-07:00

So I arrived in Kathmandu and after a confusing time getting my visa (it wasn't clear which of 3 counters you go to in what order), I went over to the accommodations desk. They took me to this guest house in the heart of the city. The room is large, very plain, but exceptionally clean. It's all brand new. I have TV, but no AC. That doesn't matter because it's actually pretty nice here and it cools way down at night. Cost? $10/night. Seriously. The place is run by this wonderful Napali woman who is the nicest person ever. She walked me around the hood and introduced me around and dropped me off here at an internet cafe so that I could write to you all. Don't be expecting much for pictures, though. I haven't found a place to plug my laptop in and so far, all the computers (running Windows 2000 mind you) have floppy drives and no CDROM drives, so I can't burn a CD and upload photos. I'll keep working on that.

Everyone here smiles and is friendly. A rickshaw driver asked if I wanted a ride and when I said no, that I'd like to walk, he smiled and said that walking is good. What a contrast from India! I feel completely safe here and completely love the atmosphere. I can't wait to explore tomorrow after I get back from the airport.

Oh yeah -- why am I going to the airport? I'm splurging. The owner of my guest house helped me get signed up for a short sunrise flight over the Himalayas tomorrow morning. I have to get up early, but I should be able to see the sunrise over Everest and 30 other mountains. How cool is that?

I'll do my best find a way to upload photos for you all. Just know that for the first time since leaving Thailand, I'm feeling calm and at peace. And completely safe. And no one has asked me why I'm not married and a mother (I was asked that by EVERYONE I spoke to in India). I can't stop smiling.

I'm at the Airport!

2008-08-25T22:31:00.001-07:00

Today is a good day. After yesterday's fiasco with the camera (it did arrive and works great) I was ready to leave. I was truly worried about a cab ride to the airport. Delhi traffic is insane and if the driver was late, all bets were off. After not sleeping much last night (the same thing happened my last night in Thailand), I got up, took a shower and packed everything up. Lucky for me, BBC International is covering the entire Democratic National Convention, so I got to watch Michelle Obama's speech in full. She was good. Damned good.

Anyway, I went to the lobby to check out and sat waiting for my taxi and was pretty nervous. But who should walk up? Anand!!!! I breathed a deep sigh of relief and then jumped up and down clapping and smiling like a little girl. I knew everything would be OK and now I'd get one last ride with my friend.

He, as always, was amazing. Everytime we ran into traffic that was stopped dead, he turned the car around and drove us through neighborhoods, over sidewalks -- whatever it took. We arrived majorly early. It was so sad saying goodbye again. We've already been through this twice, not realizing that we'd see each other again. This time we knew it was it. As I was walking along the walkway toward the entrance, he drove along side me very slowly, waving as much as he could. I have to say, I was fighting back the tears. I'm so glad he asked to drive me this morning, eventhough it was his day off.

So I'm off to Kathmandu. I've been told by many travelers that it's so much easier than India -- much more like Thailand. I'm there until 9/13, so I can relax and recover. India was very difficult.

A few things to note: except for Delhi and Agra, I spent all of my time in Rajasthan. It is the poorest state in India. It has the lowest literacy rate and the lowest average income throughout this country of more than a billion people. Because of that, I saw some heartbreaking poverty. I've been in Central America, through some poor areas of Mexico and Belize. I've been in Eastern Europe just after the fall of communism. I thought I'd seen some pretty poor conditions, but this was worse. But don't get me wrong, Rajisthan is beautiful. Probably because the people are less educated, little changes. I only saw 4 Indian women in western clothes the entire time -- and they were tourists from other parts of India. (I'm not counting the security guard at the Taj Majal -- she was in uniform and was there to frisk the women who set off the metal detector.) The images we imagine of women walking in beautiful saris with pots on their heads is real. I saw it so many times a day that I couldn't even begin to count. Same with horse, donkey, buffalo, cow, camel and elephant pulled carts. And bad traffic. And men in turbans. I also saw thousands of people so devoted to their religion that they'd walk for days, some barefoot and some through the desert, to worship. I was offered food and tea so many times by people who I didn't even know and I spent the afternoon with Ranjee's family. There's many wonderful things about this country.

And speaking of Ranjee, there's something that I didn't write about before. I didn't want Mike to worry. Not Evans, Barber. While I spent two nights in towns less than 100km from the Pakistani border, Jaipur was really the dangerous spot. There was a bombing in the City Palace complex in May. This is the place with the stone observatory that Ranjee took me through. Ranjee was injured in the blast. He had some major injuries to his right leg and spent some time in the hospital. The blast was detonated by a cell phone, so in some places I was not allowed to take any electronics in with me. That included cameras, so there's some cool places I saw that I can't share with you. That's also why it took nearly an hour to get through the security line at the Taj Majal -- they had to thoroughly check each camera.

Knowing what I know now, I would have done India completely different. I'd not go alone, I would stay the hell out of Delhi, and I would call Anand and book him before ever getting to the country. I do have his cell number and he said that if any of my friends want to visit, I'm to call him directly and he will take care of you from beginning to end. The Taj, Jaipur and Jodhpur were my favorite places and I wish I had spent more time there.

So much for sentimentality, I'm off for new adventures. The Himalayas await.

Last Day in India

2008-08-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

Well, like most, today has been a struggle. My whole intent for today was to buy a camera for Africa, mail some stuff home, and repack my bags for the plane tomorrow. Well, Anand's boss had told me to be ready at 10:30. At 9:00, he was knocking on my hotel room door ready for me to leave. Crap. I dressed quickly (no shower) and grabbed my stuff. We walk out front and there's his motorcycle and I'm expected to ride on the back. No helmets for either of us and did I tell you that the traffic here is INSANE? Normally, I love to ride on a motorcycle, but in Delhi? Well, I got on and away we went. Luckily, he was just taking me to his office to catch my taxi for the day. It was a very short ride mostly on alleys, though potholes and rickshaws were a problem.

The driver (a new guy -- Anand finally got a day off) took me to the place where all the camera stores were, but none were open. So off to the post office we went. It took me 1.5 hours to get the package paid for and off to the US. Why? Because the old man that was putting everything in boxes and wrapping them took his sweet time. He kept leaving to get tea, chatting with people, and running in back telling folks that I was out there. A crowd of men gathered to stand and stare at me while I waited in the chair. I finally got upset, ran up to a window, explained that I was in a hurry and the guy did his job. Nice.

We then went through several camera shops, but since I'm American, no one would show me anything that cost less than $2K US. I finally gave up and had the driver take me back to the office to see Sateesh (Anand's boss). He wasn't there. The driver left at my insistance and I asked for directions back to the hotel (it's only about a 5 minute walk). But they wouldn't give them to me. Instead, one of Sateesh's coworkers "had a friend" who he called about the camera. I had a Sony catalog by that time and knew what I wanted. They quoted me a price and the coworker and I took a bicycle rickshaw to the store. We talked, I paid, and go back to the store at 4:30 to test and pick up the camera. Don't worry -- I have a big receipt and can cancel the credit card transaction if something goes wrong. In the meantime, I needed to go back to Connaught Place to buy an adaptor so that I can plug the battery charger in in the US. I called Sateesh about a driver, he sent the morning's guy, but apparently chewed him out for leaving. So now I'm in the dog house with him. I've tried calling Sateesh twice to tell him that it wasn't the driver's fault, but he's not answering his cell phone.

In the meantime, I've had no shower nor food all day. It's after 3:00. I'd be at my hotel, but the power's out, so I'm down the street on the internet. Soon I go back, shower, pack, go get the camera and collapse until tomorrow. At 9:00am, a driver is coming to take me to the airport. I've been told that Nepal is easy to travel in -- just like Thailand. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

And Sabine and Beth W. -- I got a Sony alpha 200 package with 2 lenses. One is the 18-70mm that comes standard with the model and the other a 75-300mm. The whole thing's just under $800.

Delhi

2008-08-24T05:03:00.001-07:00

All that Ghandi owned at the time of his death
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry for the lack of update yesterday, but it was a bit of a horrible day. It did start out on a good note though – when we were loading the car in Bikaner, I looked across the street and saw the sign at the entry to the velodrome. It read “Ganga Golden Jubilee Club”. Seriously. Gotta love that. Oh, and I've managed to catch up with the photo uploads.

Anyway, we hit the road to Delhi. We were cruising along pretty well across the desert when the road went to one lane. That’s OK – traffic was light, so we’d just have to share it with oncoming cars. After about 3 hours, we hit a giant snag. There was a major traffic jam. Nothing was moving and we were told by folks going the other way that it went on for about 4 km. What was causing the jam? A temple. There were about 400 buses of folks going to and leaving the temple. Buses were either breaking down or being parked on the only lane and no one could get around. It was so bad that police were called in from some place or other. Of course, they just stood around laughing while we all tried to sort it out. It was so hot that many people abandoned their cars and buses, which made things worse. And in the middle of the mess, our car’s engine fan died. Yup, we had to turn off the AC. And, since the car was sitting in the hot sun, we were in an oven. I tried to get out, since it was much cooler outside, but I got accosted by kids jumping all over me trying to steal things out of my pockets. In fact, Anand heard a father tell his son to say hello and then take my bag. How nice. Did I mention this was at a temple? It took 2 hours to go 4 km, but we eventually made it out.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, but hot since we had no AC. We did manage to keep the engine temperature down though and make it back to Delhi. When we got to Delhi, we came across a closed road, so Anand took a short cut. I said, “Oh look – it’s a mosque” and before Anand could respond, the car got attacked. There was a Muslim guy at Anand’s window pounding away, yelling, and pointing at me. On my side, there was a Muslim woman dressed head to toe in black screaming and pointing at me. She kept pointing to her shirt sleeve. I was wearing khaki pants and a short sleeved t-shirt and was about as covered as most Indian women, but apparently not enough for these people’s taste. And others joined them, lucky us. Finally, the vehicle in front of us moved and Anand got us out of there leaving those people in our wake.

Next we stopped to call Anand’s boss. Anand’s cell phone had died on the way to Jaisalmer, so we couldn’t call ahead. While Anand was making the call, some guy tried to open the car door and grab me. I got the door closed and locked pretty quickly and Anand ran out and scared them away. The boss said to take me Hotel Doda which was just a few blocks away. I was so not happy to be staying in this neighborhood and really didn’t want to be left there. But it was late and Anand had been looking forward to seeing his family after 10 days with me. I couldn’t make too much of a fuss. We said our goodbyes in the lobby – Anand would be taking the next few days off – and I almost cried. But I only had 3 nights left in India and then I’d be in peaceful Nepal.

It got worse. The room was a nightmare. It was OK, except for the fact that there was water damage on the ceiling outside the bathroom and down the wall. It not only hadn’t been repaired, but it had mold all over it. I’m highly allergic to mold. I went downstairs to ask for a different room, but no one really spoke English. I was so tired that I decided to take some benedryl and ride it out for one night. I went to my room, ordered food, and then it all started: many, many knocks on my door. The guys wouldn’t leave me alone. First there was someone who put new wet sheets on my bed. Then someone who brought the towel. Then 3 guys to bring me dinner (it was one plate and a bottle of water). Then someone else to bring other sheets (and put them on over the wet ones). He brought 4 friends to help. Then there were the 2 guys who came by to make sure that I didn’t need anything. Oh, and after I was asleep with the lights out, another guy to see if I needed anything. If I wasn’t so tired, I probably would have cried.

So this morning, I called the boss man (the man who signed me up on this hotel/driver combo pack). I said that I needed a different room and a driver. He came over to the hotel and asked me to come with him (and the hotel manager promised to move my things to a different room). Next thing you know, I’m at the house that he shares with his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. They fed me and talked with me at length. Then he walked me to meet my driver. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see Anand! But I felt bad, this was going to be his first day off in two weeks and he really was looking forward to spending time with his family.

Since it was Sunday, the camera stores and post office branches were closed. I’m saving all of that for tomorrow. So today, he took me to the Indira Ghandi museum (which is in the house where she lived and was assassinated). There’s also a bit dedicated to her son Rajiv Nehru who was killed by a bomb in ’92. Lots of photos, personal belongings, etc. The creepy thing was that the clothes she was wearing when she was shot and the clothes Rajiv was wearing when he was blown up are on display. But I’m really glad I went .

We moved on to the house where Mahatma Ghandi lived in during his final days and where he was shot. Again, lots of stuff to see and read. After, we went to Raj Ghat, the place where he was cremated. There’s a beautiful black marble slab and an eternal flame there. There’s only two words on it: “Oh God”, which is what he said when he was hit by the bullets.

On the way, though, we had to stop at the Lotus Temple, because the boss man was insistent. I saw the enormous line to get in, took a picture to keep Anand out of trouble, and got the hell out.

I have a new, freshly painted room. Much better and I’m going to the internet café around the corner to post this. Tomorrow I buy a camera for Africa, send some stuff I no longer need home (saris and Rajasthani dress, etc.) and repack and just rest. 48 hours from now, I should be at my hotel in Kathmandu and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it!

I couldn't believe my eyes!

2008-08-22T07:51:00.001-07:00

The Bikaner Velodrome
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

So today we arrived in Bikaner. It's a city on the edge of the Thar Desert and is a stopping place for us on the way back to Delhi. Both Anand and I were exhausted, so he went to take a nap in his room while I decided to go down the street to the internet cafe to post my belated entry. When I was done, I crashed in my room for a few hours.

So just before sunset I woke up and decided to go to the rooftop restaurant at the hotel (since everything in India has flat roofs, every hotel has a rooftop restaurant) to eat and watch the sunset. So I get up there, order, and take a look around. There's the Fort (you know there has to be one) to the left, houses in front of me and to the right is a field with kids playing cricket. Then I look behind and see more houses and suddenly did a "Oh no they didn't!".

I turned back toward the kids and couldn't believe my eyes. There were two cricket games going on on some grass that was surrounded by an oval track. And the track was banked. And there was an apron and the sprinters line and the stayers line and two people on bicycles riding around. Holy shit, it's a velodrome! I got all excited and told the waiter that I ride on a velodrome in the US. He said, "this is a local velodrome only". Whatever.

But how cool is that? Besides the cyclists (on big clunky cruiser type bikes, not track bikes), there was a guy on a scooter cruising around and two women in saris doing laps around the apron. Oh, and two different cricket games in the infield.

By the time my food came and I ate, it was completely dark. I walked over to have a look, but felt the need to turn back rather quickly. The entrance was across the street from a mosque and the call to prayer was happening. Needless to say, the guys were looking at me kind of strangely.

So, now I'm back at the internet cafe for a few and will go and get some sleep. I'm so sorry I can't be there with you tonight, but at least I saw a track today. Hello to everyone!

Jodhpur to Jaisalmer and on to Bikamer

2008-08-22T03:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, but internet access is not good out here in the desert. This area is just starting to get hotels, etc. for tourists and internet cafes are pretty poor. I did find one in Jaisalmer, but they didn’t know how to connect their own computer up! Unfortunately, the network's too slow to upload photos, so I'll do it when I get to Delhi. So onto two days of updates.

Besides Jaipur, Jodhpur is my favorite place in India. The Majaraja and his family have done an amazing job of bringing industry and income into the area. It’s probably that I was just in the better areas, but I saw little poverty and a lot of parks, atheletic facilities, nicer cars and generally happier people. I was very sad to leave – I would love to have spent more time there.

So this morning we checked out of the hotel and I visited the a memorial to one of the Maharajas and the Fort in Jodhpur. It was absolutely beautiful and the view was stunning. From up there you could see why they call Jodhpur the blue city. The museums inside were stunning and the people were very interesting. I’ve posted many pictures of the fort on flicr, so have a look. There is a temple at the back of the fort that was the destination for many pilgrims. There was a rest stop set up for them just outside the gates and they came walking in waving their flags happy that they were almost at their destination.

Afterwards, Anand and I took off for Jaisalmer. We had to drive nearly 4 hours out into the Thar Desert to get there. Now when I think of desert, I think of sand dunes and not much else. This desert is very different. Much of is flat and there is some vegetation and a few trees around. But the only reason that there’s any green (and this is true of all of Rajisthan) is that we’re near the end of monsoon season. Within a month, everything will be dead and brown. Ranjee had told me that this is also true of Jaipur and that I am lucky to have come at this time when everything is in bloom.

We again passed many pilgrims – not nearly as many as yesterday, but definitely a few hundred. There was a point in the journey when the road and gutters were filled with sandals and shoes. Apparently, many shed their shoes as they march across the desert to show even greater sacrifice and devotion. I can’t imagine walking barefoot in this heat! I deleted many of yesterday’s pilgrim photos because they were “dri ve bys” and thus blurry. After, I realized that I hardly had any photos left. Today I took a lot and will post anything that looks remotely usable.
As we approached Jaisalmer, we saw many windmills and eventually the buildings. The fort looms over the town (of course you knew there had to be a fort), but it all looks so different here. Everything is made of sandstone and I’ve seen very little marble. Such a difference! We checked into the hotel, went for lunch (I finally persuaded Anand to have lunch with me) and went into the old city. We quickly found a havalli, which is an open air mansion with amazing detail in the architecture. They have a few open to the public and I went inside the biggest. The inside was immaculately preserved and I have photos of each of the main rooms of the home as well as a turban room and some others. We walked through the market (another instance of having to say no 30 times to each person) and then visited the lake in town.

I spent the evening talking with the hotel manager. He had many questions about life in the US. Everytime I mentioned that I needed to go to sleep, he’d say “just one more question”. I was up late and was yawning this morning when Anand came down to the lobby. They kept him up until after 1, so we were both pretty tired today.
I took a quick look at the Fort before we left. Unfortunately, it’s a little ghetto city up there with nothing much else, so I got accosted by nearly everyone trying to sell me something. I found one place with a view of the city, took a couple of pictures and then ran for the car. We then drove 5.5 hours through the desert to Bikamer. We’ve just arrived and I’ve eaten.

After posting this, I’m going to sleep for a while. I really just want to relax before tomorrow. We have a 9 hour drive back to Delhi – UGH! I’m not sure if the UGH is referring to the drive or to Delhi itself. Probably Delhi itself. Anand gets to see his family and I have a day or so to buy a camera for Africa and see the place where Ghandi was cremated. Let’s hope I make it out of that city in one piece!

The Road to Jodhpur

2008-08-20T05:51:00.001-07:00

Wide Load
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

This morning at 9:00am we left Udaipur for Jodhpur. I thought “250 km, not bad”. Little did I know that the first half of the journey wound through the mountains, often on single laned road with no pavement. It was slow at best. And then there were the pilgrms. They were marching either to the Zen Temple, which we stopped at briefly, or from the temple toward Jodhpur. Even once we hit flat paved road, we couldn’t go very fast. There were so many pilgrims that cars, trucks, etc. were slowing down to pass them. Thousands. I couldn’t get over it. They were all walking (although a few were on bicycles or motorcycles) with their flags flying and carrying their luggage. I saw parents with babies strung between them hammock style in a sari, both men and women walking with luggage on their heads, people washing their laundry at stops on the side of the road, and some even taking a rest or napping. Truly unbelievable. Anand went on this type of pilgrimage with his family when he was a child. His trek was only 100km round trip and took 5 days. I know that some of these people are walking for much further.

We arrived at the hotel around 2pm. This is by far the nicest room I’ve had in India – not only is it beautifully decorated, but it’s clean! I’m posting some pictures. After a quick lunch we headed to the Umaid Bhawan Palace overlooking the city. It’s the residence for the Mahraja, so I only got to go into a small part and no photos were allowed. The bit that I was allowed into was a museum, with info on the building of the palace (in the 1940’s and 50’s), the history of the Maharaja’s family, a clock collection, and a glass vase collection.

Anand has a bit of a cold, so I decided that we’d come back to the hotel. He’s napping and tomorrow morning we’ll check out and go to the Mererangarh Fort on our way to Jaisalmer. We’ll have some time there before a long 2-day journey back to Delhi. I’m so not looking forward to going back there, but that’s the way to Nepal for me. And I’ll have a chance to send some stuff home, buy a camera for Africa, and go see the spot where Ghandi was cremated -- I hear it’s very special.

The City of Lakes

2008-08-19T04:20:00.001-07:00

Lake Palace Hotel
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

So yesterday, I arrived in Udaipur, which is home to two major lakes and several smaller ones. It's a beautiful city down the in the south of Rajasthan. Unfortunately, they've had a couple of years of below average rain fall and lake levels are very low. It's a bit sad, because the photos I had seen show a much different city.

After arriving and a bit of a nap (I had a bad headache), Annan and I set out to watch the sunset over one of the lakes and strolled through a couple of parks. He was very amused to find that Indian kids come up to talk to me and several Indians ask to have their photos taken with me. He didn't believe me! He says it's because they are from areas of India that do not get western visitors, so it's very unusual for them to see blondes anywhere but on TV and movie screens.

Today, he dropped me off near the City Palace. I first visited a temple and then spent a couple of hours in the palace. There's plenty of photos on Flickr if you're interested. From the Palace, I got my first glimpse of the Lake Palace Hotel. This used to be the summer residence of the Majaresh, but has been converted to a swank hotel. I read in a couple of places that this was the inspiration for the Taj Majal. Personally, I don't see it. Whatever.

I did walk down to the lake and take a boat ride out to Jag Mandir island (another island in the lake). This was the Majarana's son's fortress when he was trying to overthrow his father many years ago. Not much was open to the public, but there was a very nice rose garden that all of you Portlanders should appreciate.

Back in town, I wandered around for a while before heading back to the hotel. Only one person tried to scam me and for the most part, I was left alone. It was refreshingly nice. I spent about 2 hours just meandering and looking!

I need to go back to my room now. The Olympic Madison race was happening when I came upstairs to get on the internet. They had cut away to soccer for a bit, but the race should be winding down now and I want to see the finish. I hate to rub it in, but I love watching the Olympics live.

In a bit, we're driving to the "Monsoon Palace" across the lakes. It's the tallest point around and has a wonderful sunset and light show. Tomorrow we leave for Jodhpur.

Out of Pushkar

2008-08-18T03:47:00.001-07:00

Pushkar 016
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

So after writing yesterday's entry, I meandered around town some more and finally wound up back at my hotel. There was a young Italian couple there with a driver and the four of us drank beer, ate food, and joked around and laughed until very late. How did we get beer in a dry town? Not sure -- the driver brought it.

Today Anand and I left around 9am and drove for 6.5 hours. We're now in Udaipur, but I have a major headache (I think from dehydration), so I'm supposed to be napping until dinner time. He's going to take me to see the sunset over the lake and we'll check out the palace and everything tomorrow.

About the only interesting thing from today were pilgrims marching along the highway. Apparently, there's a major religious festival from Aug 15 - 30 and you are supposed to walk there. There are groups of people walking up to 300 kilometers to this thing. Each group has a flag bearer and there are many mass tents along the way for them to rest and get fed. It was quite a site. I have a couple of pictures on flickr. In the meantime, check out the pink cow.

More tomorrow.

In Pushkar

2008-08-17T03:42:00.001-07:00

Jaipur 134
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I've added a photo of part of my dress that I was given yesterday because I am unable to connect my computer to the internet here and thus cannot upload photos. I'll put some up as soon as I can.

This morning, Anand and I travelled to Puskar. It's a small town of about 22,000 people. That's really tiny for a country of more than a billion. The interesting thing about this town is that there are more than 500 temples. Most are Hindu, but there are some Buddhist temples and there is at least one mosque and one Christian church. So this is a town that hosts pilgrims more than anything else. They host religious festivals throughout the year and thus have a lot of hotels.

We drove down a major highway for part of the way to get here. It was the main highway to Mumbai, so was very modern with good pavement and fast. There were no bicycles, rickshaws, and very few animals, so we flew. Once we left the highway, it was a completely different story. We even got stopped by a major herd of sheep. Now that's a photo that I'll post tomorrow.

We arrived at the nicest hotel I've been in since arriving in India and then I walked around with a guide that Anand had hired. There really wasn't much to do but see some temples (and was unable to take pictures inside) and then go to the lake in the center of town. It's apparently a holy lake and attracts pilgrims and is the focal point of the many religious festivals here in town. I sat down on some steps for a few minutes at the insistance of my guide and a Hindu priest came over and gave me a blessing, another bindi on my forehead, and another string on my wrist. Before I knew it he demanded a donation of $100 for each member of my family. And he was pretty pushy. I got a little upset and put 200 rupee in the donation box (about $5). I then got surrounded by other "priests" who demanded that I look at every photo in a very large photo album of the festivals that the money sponsors and donate more money. I held my ground (Anand had warned me).

When I finally got out of there, gave my guide a tip, and got back to the hotel, I was told by the guy at the reception desk that the donations are actually distributed amongst the town people as income. Why they aren't honest, I don't know. I have to admit to feeling pretty harassed and ready to leave India by the time I got to the hotel. But then I looked at the dress that Ranjee's family gave me and remembered yesterday. It made me feel peaceful and happy again.

Anyway, we are on the edge of a big desert where they offer camel safaris and the like. Since I'll be doing that in Jordan, I'm going to pass. So now I'm simply meandering around town and taking in the atmosphere (and staying away from the lake). I'll have dinner in a bit and then tomorrow we head out. I have to look at the itinerary to find out where next ...

Today I Fell in Love with India

2008-08-16T07:09:00.001-07:00

Jaipur 073
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I have seen so much poverty since arriving on Tuesday and have had so many scam artists and pushy rickshaw drivers incessantly bugging me, that I really thought I would end up hating this country. But no -- today I fell in love.

Anand met me this morning to take me around the sites of Jaipur. He brought his friend Ranjee. Ranjee has a Ph.D. in history and knows everything there is to know about Rajasthan (which is the state we are in). We started out by driving into the walled part of the city and visiting the city palace and museum. Our first stop within the palace was the Jantar antar, which is the largest stone observatory in the world. In there, I saw two sundials. The smaller was accurate within 20 seconds and the larger within 2 seconds (it’s the largest sundial in the world). There was a GPS available and sure enough, they were accurate. There were also structures which showed which astrological sign we are in as well as the azimuth to the sun. It was pretty amazing considering that it was built in the 1700s.

Afterwards we walked around the city palace and went through the textile and weapons museums. I was not allowed to take pictures inside at all – sorry. But it was all very interesting. Afterwards, we went to the Amber Fort. This fort was the ancient capital of the Jaipur state and has some wonderful views and gardens. It is nestled at the beginning of the Aravalli Mountains and has some serious wall surrounding the area. It’s equal is height and width to the Great Wall of China, but is not nearly as long. There were lakes and reservoirs below and was pretty stunning. We then went on to the Jaigarn Fort, which after the Amber Fort wasn’t all that, but it had amazing views of all of Jaipur.

The three of us had lunch and then the guys indulged me. Yes, I went sari shopping! Totally fun. You go into a shop and they set you down in this beautifully apholstered chair. Every wall has saris on shelves from top to bottom. They are folded nicely and crammed in there. Literally hundreds of them in all color combinations and fabrics. They guys start pulling them out and showing them each to you in the colors that you ask. Many are embroidered or have sequined embellishments, but all are very beautiful. So, of course, I did a little bit of shopping.

Then the big surprise happened. Ranjee asked if I would like to drive out into the country and meet his family. Today was a Hindu holiday and all of his family was gathered at his house. So away we went. About 40 km outside of Jaipur. His family has a lot of land, so I got a tour of the farm. They grow corn and ground nuts (kinda like peanuts). He lives in the house with his wife and 9 month old daughter, his parents and grandparents. His brothers and sisters were there for the holiday as well. They were all so wonderful! No one spoke any English except Ranjee and Anand, but the women were so smiley and kept bringing me lemonade and foods they had made for the holiday. They had me particpate in a ceremony where they tie a string bracelet around your wrist and put a red dot on your forehead (as if the stupid mole between my eyes wasn’t enough!) and gave me a traditional Hindu welcome gift of a coconut. I’m trying to figure out how to get that one through customs.

I went with Ranjee’s mother while she milked a cow to make some chai and saw a 4 hour old new calf. I played with the two baby’s (6 and 9 months each), and I smiled and waved at every neighbor from the village who came to see the strange blonde woman. The girls played with my hair and the boys kept going to tell more neighbors that I was there. I sat on a porch and had a long conversation with the 82 year old grandfather. He only speaks Hindi and I really only speak English, but it was funny how one of us would speak and the other would respond. I think our conversation was something like this:

Grandpa – “So where are you from?”
Me – “It’s so beautiful here.”
Grandpa – “Are you married?”
Me – “Have you lived here all your life?”

You get the idea. But it was a fun conversation anyway. It was just so wonderful hanging out with the family and seeing how they live. There were all kinds of Hindu shrines in their house and they were al so much fun. After 2 hours, it was time to leave. Ranjee’s sister and mother make beautiful Rajasthan dresses that are sold in the stores in town. They gave me one as a gift. I never really liked orange, but now I love it. And India. I’m now in love with India.

From Agra to Jaipur

2008-08-15T04:37:00.001-07:00

Entering the Agra Fort
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Today was a little tiresome. Anand picked me up at 8:00am this morning and we decided to go ahead and leave Agra for Jaipur. Both Agra and Delhi are known for being the worst places for tourists -- lots of folks trying to scam you. So I packed up my stuff and we headed out. But first we stopped by the Agra Fort. Agra was the capitol of India until it was moved to Delhi some time ago, I believe by the son of the Shah who built the Taj Majal. In fact, the son deposed his father as ruler and kept him locked up at the Fort until his death. So he was only able to look at the Taj Majal from across the river. But don't fret -- the son also put 5,000 women in the Fort at his father's disposal and he did entomb his father in the Taj with his dead favorite wife. Good story, huh? There's plenty of pictures of the place on Flickr, so have at it.

Then we were off on our 5+ hour drive to Jaipur. Now I have to tell you about driving in India. It's total chaos. Believe it or not, a Bangkok tuk tuk driver doesn't stand a chance here. Everyone and everything shares the roads, including the highways. Trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws (both motor and bicycle), carts (some being pushed by hand and some being pulled by various animals), they all share all of the lanes. Since all of these types of vehicles go at different speeds, it's quite a mess. Everyone tries to pass everything else, but that means speeding headfirst into oncoming traffic. Oh, and then there's the rest -- pedestrians, horses, camels, goats, cows, pigs and dogs take their share of the roads and highways, too. Sometimes they even walk down the highway in the wrong direction. But it's OK, the people don't obey the signs either. As we arrived in Jaipur, we were stuck in the worst traffic yet. What was causing it? An elephant meandering down the street. I didn't get to my camera fast enough for that one unfortunately.

It's really scary at times. Buses are all overcrowded, so you see them speeding down the highway at 100km/hour with people hanging out the windows and guys up on the roof. I talked to a couple of Canadian women yesterday that have been traveling through India for 3 weeks now. They say that all the buses and even the trains are like that. Now I'm really glad I have a driver.

Believe it or not, I haven't seen one accident or even bump. With all the honking (there's honking in my dreams now), speeding, and swerving into oncoming traffic, it's a wonder that anything survives.

I'm at my hotel in one piece (thankfully) and tomorrow Anand takes me around to see the sights of the "pink city". Cheers!

The Taj Majal

2008-08-14T00:26:00.001-07:00

Agra - Taj Majal 082
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Probably the biggest reason I came to India (I hate to admit it) was to see the Taj Majal. My original plan was to visit on August 15th. Not only is it my birthday, but it’s India’s independence day.
Unfortunately, the Taj is closed on Fridays. Yes, my birthday plans are foiled. Instead, I went today and will visit the Agra Fort tomorrow.

While in Thailand, I was 14 hours head of you west coasters, but here I am 12.5 hours behind. Now I can understand the hour from Thailand, since some countries don’t observe daylight savings. What what’s with the half hour? No other country does this, so if any of you can offer an explanation, please let me know. My point? The sun comes up at about 5:15 here and sets just before 7pm. The Taj opens at 6, so I thougth I’d beat the crowds and the heat and go early. I left my hotel at 6 and took the 5 minute walk to the east gate. It took 15 minutes to get my ticket and nearly 45 to get through security to go inside. I quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be like the Tiger Cave Temple where I’d have the place to myself.

Much has been said about the Taj. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and has been called by many the most beautiful building in the world. I’ve seen the pictures all my life and thought “nice”, but is it really worth the hype? I have to say that words and pictures cannot do this place justice. It’s so absolutely spectacular that I actually had a tear come out of one of my eyes. It looks white in photos, but in person it’s so much more. There is so much intricate carving in the marble and so many gems inlaid into flower patterns, that it sparkles when the sun hits it just right. Everything is in perfect symmetry including the wall surrounding the complex and all of its gates. One of the two buildings directly to the side is a mosque and each of those buildings frame the Taj through it’s main openings just perfectly. Fantastic picture taking. If only I had a better camera.

No one is allowed to take photos inside the crypt, but how spectacular. Inside there is a marble lattice fencing carved with such detail and inlaid with gems from all over. The two coffins (one is the shah who built the place and the other is his favorite wife). Again, all in white marble with carvings and inlaid gemstones. There’s only natural light, so I came back in 3 times to see it as the sun got higher and higher. I feel like I saw 3 different places. The largest onion dome is above, many stories up. The acoustics are phenominal. At one point, the muslim call to prayer started and the sound just rumbled and echoed inside. It was spectacular, to say the least. I sat outside and hung out for over 3 hours. It’s just so beautiful. If I wasn’t getting hungry, I probably would have stayed another 3 hours.

The most interesting thing to me were the visitors. More than half were Indians. I was surprised and happy to see that us tourists were a minority. So refreshing! But something else surprised me – so many Indians asked if they could take a picture with me. Weird huh? From a family with a little boy to a dozen or so Sikh’s that all fought over who would get to stand next to me. I don’t understand the fascination, but I must have posed for pictures with Indians at least 8 times or so. I hope their cameras didn’t break.

This was the best birthday present I could have given myself.

Toto - We’re Not in Thailand Anymore

2008-08-14T00:16:00.001-07:00

India 002
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry about the lack of updates, but internet access isn’t all that great. I kinda thought that with as much of our high tech that we outsource to this country, it would be better, but no. In fact, I tried using an internet café late yesterday, but the browser was so old, it wouldn’t let me check email or log into my blog. Live and learn.

The trip here was a real pain. After flying from Krabi to Bangkok, I had a 5.5 hour wait until my flight to Delhi. The Bangkok airport is beautiful and huge. Lots of shopping and lots of people watching. When they finally opened our gate, I went to have a sit. I very quickly realized that there were going to be very few women on this flight. At boarding, I counted about a dozen or so. What struck me most was how pushy the guys were. They kept hoarding around me, bothering me, and even touching me. When I couldn’t get them to leave me alone, I decided to move my butt over near an elderly Indian woman and rummaged through my bag for this plain silver band that I stuck on my wedding ring finger. Smart move. She wouldn’t let any of them near me. Between the ring and my sari-clad guardian, I got some peace. I love her! Luckily, I was seated next to a woman on the plane. I think that was by design.

Once I arrived at the Delhi airport, I kinda knew I was going to be challenged. The guys were pushing and shoving at baggage claim, the immigration guy was very unfriendly, and signs were nearly non-existent. I did find the “tourist” counter to ask about getting my train ticket to Agra and a room for the night but all they would do was write down the name of a section of the city and tell me to get a cab. Terrific. I found a pre-paid taxi counter and asked for one to take me to the neighborhood and the guy rolled his eyes. Once in the cab, I explained my predicament to the driver and he understood. It was too late to buy a train ticket (the ticket counter was closed), but he’d find me a hotel near the station.

Once at a hotel, they quoted me a price of 1000 rupee (about $20) and took me to see the room. The even offered to get me the train ticket. After my approval, they locked my bags in the room and asked me to come downstairs to pay. I told the cab driver that everything was fine and he left. Then as I went to pay, they told me that the price was 4000 rupee. I said no, but my bags were locked upstairs and the driver was gone. I was stuck. I decided to chalk it up to experience and not fight too much, cause I was damned tired.

They woke me up in the morning to take me to the station. It was supposed to be a 6:30am train to Agra. They gave me my ticket, I paid them cash for it and was dropped off at the train station by the hotel manager. Once I got my luggage on the curb, I turned to ask which way to go but he was already gone. I found my way to the big sign with train numbers and platforms. My train number was not there. One guy came up to “help” and I found out that my train had left at 5:30. Yes, they sold me a ticket for a train that had already left the station (40 minutes after it had left). Then as it became understood what had happened, I was surrounded by men that kept grabbing me and trying to pull me apart like a wishbone. Another elderly Indian woman came up, yelled and swatted them all and they left. She asked me what had happened and I explained. She then told me to let her son (probably around 25-30 years old or so) take my big bag and they marched me across the street to a tourist office run by the government. She went off on a tirade telling them what had happened and then said goodbye to me. I love her, too! And her son.

Well inside the office, the guy asked me to tell him my story and took down the name of the hotel. He also checked and all trains were fully booked for the next 8 hours. I was kinda stuck in Delhi. That sucks. But then he offered me an alternative. For $800 USD I could have my own private tourist taxi to take me whereever I want to go for my entire stay in India. This included all air-conditioned hotel rooms, road tolls, etc. I just needed to buy my food. He looked at my itinerary and suggested some additional places to visit that I could now do with my own private car. The driver speaks English and would arrange everything for me. He even deducted the cost of my train ticket and the overcharge on the hotel room (apparently, he was certain that he was going to get a refund from the hotel). This even includes all driving around Delhi when I need to get the shopping done and a ride to the airport at the end. 2 weeks with an escort and all my rooms and travel taken care of? I went for it. I kinda feel like a sell-out travelling this way. I wanted to prove that I could do it on my own, but coming from stress-free Thailand to this was a big culture shock and I just wanted some peace.

My driver (Anand) is fantastic. He speaks excellent English and is the nicest guy. He took care of everything yesterday. At one point he needed to get out of the car to deal with a toll guy. I got out of the car to stretch my legs and immediately was hounded by guys wanting to sell me stuff or have my picture taken with a cobra (no thank you). I had already managed to get a couple of hours sleep in the back seat and was in a much better mind set. I got rid of them all very quickly on my own without being overly rude.

When we got back on the road, Anand said, “You did very well back there. You would be okay traveling solo here, but you would leave hating India. This is better.” I think he’s right.

My Last Thai Sunset

2008-08-11T06:46:00.001-07:00

Sunset from the bar/restaurant
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I took this tonight at sunset -- the last I'll see in Thailand. I'm pretty sad about it because I really love it here. At the same time, I'm excited about what's ahead.

Today was spent with "errands". I started the day by walking across town to the post office. I wanted to lighten my load for the rest of my trip and sent some books and purchases to my house. On the way back, I stopped for a light breakfast and then headed to the water for a swim. The afternoon was really a combo of paying the hotel (their credit card machine was on the fritz, so it took quite a bit of time), picking up my clean laundry, and packing. When I finished, it was nearly dinner time. I went for one last dip in the sea, showered, had my last Thai massage and then ate dinner on the deck at sunset.

Now I'm in my room looking for the Olympics on the tube. Thailand's queen is making a speech, so all channels are glued to that (except for BBC business news, ESPN, and the Discovery Channel -- none of which show the Olympics). Oh well, I should really get to bed early. The taxi is picking me up at 8:00am.

If you don't hear from me for a day or two, don't worry. I've had trouble making a train reservation online for India (their servers keep crashing) and I'm not sure where I'm lying my head tomorrow night. I should be in Agra sometime on Wednesday and have a hotel reservation confirmed there. I will have internet access then.

Maybe one more night time dip in the Adaman Sea ...