Around the world with Chris and Emma

Dolomiti, Part II

2010-07-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, this post is admittedly a little late. Things have been so crazy over that last few weeks but I promised Chris I would get this one up. I will try to make this one a little bit shorter, but its had to get everything into one post so it might end up as two. Sorry Eth, but its not like you read it anyway.

When I last wrote we had just started our hiking the the Dolomites. Our first segment lasted three days in huts before we reached another little village. From Rifugio Genova, we set out early in the morning towards another distant pass. Though I love being able to see the final destination on hikes like these, it is an bit disheartening when it looks so far away. Today the distant Forcella della Roa looked like a tiny opening in the menacing roll of rock before us. In fact, I was doubting a little our ability to get over it. There is so much rock in this area that it inevitable results in scree fields, which of course we have to cross. Steep, movable scree -- that was what was in store for us. The beginning of the hike was beautiful along the ridge.

As we approached the notch we could tell that there were going to be a few sketchy paths trying to get to the top. Not only did the trail cut across the steep slopes, by which I mean such a steep drop off that there is not way you are stopping if you go down, but they we had to scramble on zig-zags up the scree field. It was so steep! I was trying to catch my breath, but stopping in the middle of the slope was too dangerous in many places, which made the climb less than enjoyable. However, we made it to the top just as a huge tour group of people decided to descend. And thank god for our timing. As the people started to slip and slide down the trail -- we witnessed two falls within the first 100 feet -- we there so happy that we didn't have them trying to go down as we were climbing. The chances of us getting a rock in the head were probably 50-50.

The top was spectacular, views down both valleys and around the whole area are pretty crazy because of the sheer rock faces in all directions. It was also a gorgeous day, blue sky and warm. But we weren't out of the water just yet. From the forcella there were two ways to get to our next hut. Our planned route took us down from the top, along the rocky valley for a bit then up and over another pass. The alternate route was comprised of a series of ladders straight up and over the cliff. As we looked in the direction of the via ferrata, i.e. iron way, as the system of ladder and cables is called, we thought to ourselves there is no way that anyone but the most experiences climbers go that way. Boy were we wrong.

Sitting of the top, enjoying the view and our snack of cheese and elven bread we were joined by two different tour groups. The first was a bunch of English speakers most in the 50s and 60s and the second was a group of pre-teens. To our amazement both groups set off towards the via ferrata. We also ran into a group of four German guys, who we had (perhaps unfortunately because one of them snored incredibly loud all night and Chris got zero sleep) encountered at the previous rifugio. They spoke enough English to encourage us to come along, saying it was very easy and the children go on it every year.

In the end we decided against it, but our way turned out to also contain a section of iron cables along a steep cliff, so in hindsight I am not sure if we chose correctly. As we got to the top of the second pass we discovered that the trail did not go down the other side, as any sane person might have expected, but instead continued up along the spine of the ridge. Granted there was a purpose to the madness, since it brought us to the top of the cliff which turned out to be relatively flat -- and had amazing views. Still, as we climb on hand and knees at some points up the rock we were both contemplating the decisions to build the trail this way. The iron stretch was definitely the more dangerous we had encountered, and both Chris and I were a bit nervous. When we made it to Rifugio Puez, a relatively short walk along the tabletop, still both thinking about the cliff just out of view down to our right, we decided to take a closer look at the planned itinerary.

That night at the hut, after some delicious spaghetti, beer and a little World Cup action, we decided to hike around the next mountain, rather than over the top as the route originally directed us. Instead to descended into the town of Covara, a small little town at the foot of a few different peaks. In the winter the whole area is home to a ski area called the Alta Badia. We found a great little B&B before Chris read about a bike ride that went over four different passes and around the highest mountain in the area. He was able to get in a three hour ride in the afternoon while I took a little nap.

Dolomiti, Part I

2010-07-16T13:31:00.001-07:00

The starting point for our hike in the Dolomites was the town of Bressanone. We arrived just before dinner to check into our bed and breakfast and get a few things before the stores closed. Bressanone was a tiny little town and it reminded me a lot of Austria. Even though we are in Italy much of this region is German speaking and you can clearly see the influence in the architecture. After dumping our backpacks we went walking around the town. The main square consisted our a few churches around a central plaza. The streets in this area were closed to cars, though on some I'm not sure a car would even fit. The cobble streets get so narrow in places its easy to feel lost in a maze. We had a delicious dinner here, opting for a somewhat upscale little restaurant on the street rather than the Bufalo Cantina, which looked okay from the outside. One of the main errands of the night was to hit up the grocery store to get food for the hike!

It was a bit of deja vu going into the Coop market! Chels and Ethan will remember the excitement of seeing the red lettering of this grocery store. (In Norway, we never passed up the chance to buy food!) The selection is somewhat limited but we were able to get a bunch of cheap granola bars, chocolate bars, and made some delicious GORP with M&Ms. We decided to go with standard bread, cheese, and salami for most of our lunches. We found some amazing little pepperoni sticks and some cheese that didn't need to be refrigerated (kinda like laughing cow -- somewhat sketchy but tastes good). As for the salami......we bought a big squishy thing - more on that decision later! For bread we decided to go with one of those dense loaves that resembles a brick. We have taken to referring to it as elven bread and Chris says that the only way he can force himself to eat it. Its actually not bad with cheese spread on it and given how heavy and dense it is I'm guessing we could survive on it for a few days at least in a pinch! We also found a couple pouches of tuna which has yet to be eaten and Chris is betting that we never do.

One of the pleasant surprises thus far has been the extensive system of gondolas and chair lifts in this area. In many places the valley is simply one giant ski area in the winter, so there are many different lifts. In the summer, however, they allow hikers and bikers to use the chairs and it has been a great for us right from the beginning! The first day of the Alta Via 2 is a 6000 foot climb up to Rifigio Plose, where the actual hike begins. By jumping on a gondola we were able to cut out the first 4500 feet - awesome! The day started out somewhat cloudy with what looked to be a few showers headed our way. We didn't mind too much because it helped to cool us off on the relentless climb the rest of the way to Plose, where we had a quick lunch of of bread, cheese and GORP. The rest of the day was a slow meandering across alpine meadows, occasionally dropping into valleys and crossing windy roads that lead up to tiny little clusters of homes. Some of the day was spent walking through pine forests before we started a climb to the Forcella di Puntia.

I had read in the book that the ascent to the saddle was "relentless" which is never a good sign when hiking. We were able to see the small saddle way in advance, practically from the start of the hike. It matched the picture in our book perfectly, and when I told Chris that was most likely where we were headed I could tell he was a little skeptical - it looked really far away. The mountains here are extremely wild looked because of their sheer rock faces and jagged tops. They look like something straight out of Mordor, which is why Chris has made so many LOTR references thus far. The cliffs and peaks are really spectacular, however, they lead to some pretty rocky and rough trails. There has been a lot of scree and boulders to negotiate in climbing up to many of the passes we need to cross. The first day was a introduction to it all as we climbed up and up. I was a bit tired when we reached the saddle, but the view was definitely worth it. I love being able to see into two different valleys and the feeling of crossing from one to another.

The rest of the hike was an easy slight descent along the ridge line to the Rifugio Genova. The hut system in the Dolomites, and many parts of Europe for that matter, is awesome! The huts provide hikers with a bunk and blankets, so that we only need to carry small silk sleeping sacks. They also serve up an array of hearty food throughout the day. It is great to relax after a day of hiking by sitting at a picnic table on the deck overlooking an serene panorama enjoying a tall glass of cold beer. And that is exactly what we have done each day!

One of the staple foods at the rifugios is of course spaghetti and meat sauce, but they also have some damn good salads and vegetable soup. One of the local special are a kind of bread dumpling made with bacon and herbs served in a simple broth. Though we were not quite sure what it was the first night after the waiter tried to describe it to us and thus decided to go with spaghetti, he told us "next time you try the balls."

Hats with Feathers

2010-07-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the plaza after dinner, with Emma double-fisting cones of (chocolate and lemon) gelatto, we noticed people arranging their chairs towards the church as if anticipating a parade. Sure enough, a few dozen of the local men's mountain choir meander in, wearing green polos with some official-looking logo and a green felt hat with a feather; the only three guys under 50 look a bit embarrassed and make a pit stop at the bar. They sing for an hour. Before each song one man reads a quick prelude and backstory. Solid barotone resonated off the church's outside walls, and out of respect I tried not to shudder and wince at the falsoetto of vocal cords past their expiration date.

The generation gap was palpable. Older ladies mouthing the words and clapping politely at all the right places, visibly nostalgic for what was likely their grandparents' music. I thought I saw a few tears dabbed, though this might have been due to somebody's overuse of insect repellant (which Emma says was somebody's perfume). A minority of the audience was under 60. At the other end of the plaza, some 30-somethings chatted irreverently. Rowdy childern were rounded up and whisked away by parents.

As outsiders, it is a privilege to see local customs: one gets the feeling that these local communities are a dying breed.

- Chris

On the road and trail

2010-07-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

Few parts of the world build roads without caring about future use. (I place Spain and Italy in this category.) These are precisely the best places for road cycling. One lane roads with white painted borders meander through the countryside and curl up the sides of valleys and over passes to connect towns. These roads are converted farming lanes not planned highways, with no grade restrictions whatsoever.

I had the privilege to hit up two epic rides on rented road bikes, one out of Riva del Garda and one around the Sella Ronde group of the Dolomites. (I've been prompted to explain what "epic" means to me. For the latter ride, it included four passes for 6000 total feet of climbing with plenty of switchbacks (33 for one of the climbs). The tops of the passes had big fields where paragliders regularly launch. Huge spires of rock provide the backdrop for smooth pavement and the whir of bicycle wheels.... no wonder this is a mecca. I got back in 3 hrs on the dot so that Emma wouldn't worry too much.)

As for the hiking, the area has a network of refugios (cabins of varying size - enough beds for 10-80 people) that also serve dinner and breakfast. It's hard to hike more than 2-3 hours without seeing one. Breakfast includes bread and jam packets and tea or coffee. For dinner we mostly order a small mixed salad, spaghetti bolognese, minestrone soup, and once in a while we splurge on an apfelstrudel. The salads vary in quality since some of these huts are serviced via helicopter. All are positioned with epic views.

In several cases I have been nervous about the trail. The route we are on is famous for sections of "via ferrate" that include metal cables and ladders bolted to the mountain. Rather than being placed generously throughout the route, it turns out these have been reserved for what I see as extreme situations (ie. without them, falling to your death is 50/50 unless you have serious rockclimbing skills/gear/guts).

These sections aside, the trails trace up and over and around ridges and mountains and whatnot. A significant amount of scree and snow crossing requires confidence; the going is easier when one is (purposefully) ignorant of the cliff below. Any bad luck (perhaps tripping on a rock in the trail and botching a recovery) could send one rolling down the hillside. Though my hyperawareness/imagination doesn't help in this case, not realizing the danger you're in seems equally stupid. As far as I'm concerned, the older folks on the trail might be out for their last hoorah.

Some of the trails look worse from afar. In some of the pics, you will note it looks doubtful that a trail zigzags up the mountain side.

We've interspersed a few nights in cities along the way, unable to resist pizza diavola and house wine. They also let Emma rest her legs, especially good since (by my diagnosis) she has some achilles tendinitis flaring up.

From Verona to Riva to Dolomiti

2010-07-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I am writing from Corvara, Italy in a region of the Dolomites known at Alta Badia. Chris and I finished our third day of hiking this morning and reached this little ski/bike town just around lunch. The past week has been full of adventures so I will try to start at the beginning and hopefully I don't leave too much out!

Verona: After flying to Italy Chris and I met up in Verona for a few days of site seeing and jet-lag recovery. Verona is best known as being the setting for Romeo and Juliette, but is also has a lot of Roman ruins and is a gateway into the Lake Garda region - where we were eventually headed for our conference. Verona was a perfect little intro to our trip. We stayed in a great little bed and breakfast, we were the only ones there so pretty much had the place to ourselves. One key feature of the place was its air conditioning! There has been somewhat of a heat wave and it was great to be able to come back to a cool room after walking around sweating all day. One of the highlights of Verona was an awesome Roman Colosseum. They currently have operas in the arena but we were able to go inside and check it out during the day. Chris has had a great time pulling out quotes from Gladiator. It was pretty amazing to see out over the whole of the city from the top row of seating. We also spent a while walking around the city and along the river that runs around the main portion of town. We walked to an old amphitheater on a hill overlooking the city which is where we took the pictures of us eating a giant sandwich. Some other adventures - amazing gelato, pizza, and wine! We have had a hard time thus far resisting the amazing food. At one point before we were ready to head to the bus station to catch our we caught a wif of some delicious roast chicken. Chris of course had to go in and get a whole chicken, which we promptly ate standing by the river. It was delicious!

From Verona we jumped on a bus to Riva del Garda, at the very head of Lake Garda and the location of the Sunbelt Conference. We arrived at our little apartment just in time for a much needed nap! Up until this point we were still feeling a bit of jet lag.....on a schedule of two 4 hour naps a day rather than a full night's sleep. Lake Garda is a very big lake and the bus ride along the edge was very scenic - this was great for me because it took my mind off the windy road! The lake was a bluish green color and the 500 foot peaks that line the lake gave us our first taste of the sheer rocky peaks that make up the Dolomiti. It is so rocky that there isn't much beach per se but little rocky outcroppings which were packed with people suntanning. At one point the bus stopped to let on two old couples - totally sunburned, the men with tiny rolled up shorts and their shirts completely opened.

Riva del Garda: Riva is somewhat of a local tourist destination, reminding us somewhat of the Lake Chelan scene. Everyone was out tanning in the grass and the few beaches we saw were packed full of people in all kinds of bathing attire. The conference itself was four days of talks and schmoozing. Sunbelt is different from many academic conferences in that it has a reputation for welcoming newcomers to the field. While this is great for us lowly grad students it also results in huge variation in presentation quality. Overall, Chris and I were able to make some good connections, see some interesting work, and get feedback on some of our own research. Internet access was lacking and the only place with free wifi was at the conference center, we had to walk over there and sit on the grass outside every time we wanted to get online. After the conference we shipped all of our nice clothes to Paris and set out to start the hike! It was a quick bus ride to Trento and from there some navigating of the train system to Bressenone where we started our backpacking trip!

Need to take a break for now.....more update to come soon!

Emma

Mountain Biking

2010-06-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

My research includes reading and thinking about statistical models for social networks. But it's good to hear about some of the ideas from the authors themselves; straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. It's nice to hear their line of thinking, which often doesn't come across properly in conference articles. Blame it on last minute nature of these submsissions. Regardless, it's interesting to see where lines of thinking overlap and diverge, with the goal of finding questions that are both important and unanswered.

The highlight was meeting other grad students who have similar interests. Some of them are like me - just getting done with classes - and others already have a handful of papers under their belt. Nerdy conversations can't be helped since that's the common denominator. When discussing people's university experience, I was reminded to be thankful for an advisor that is supportive and attentive and knowledgeable in my area of interest; some others are not so fortunate. Second, it is rare to have such a great research group with a ton of expertise on models and algorithms that are closely related to the stuff applied to social networks; other students are often on their own.

I joined three others to rent mountain bikes. The trails were world class. (I didn't take any pics, but I found some helmet-cam footage.) A few main gravel roads criss-cross the no-cars-allowed park. From these, one can access "green" trails: a mix of dirt crushed gravel that were wide enough for a wheelchair. You could really get moving on these because the turns were easy and predictable. From these one can access dozens of "blue"-rated single track. Obstacles included huge granite slabs and boulders and rocks (no problem for the double suspension bikes we rented). We sometimes crossed one-foot-wide wooden bridges that passed over swampy areas and banked around trees, both sounding and feeling like an old rollercoaster. I never sought out the "black" trails, but I know they were above my abilities.

The other guys with me were equally cautious at first since none of us had spent a ton of time on mountain bikes. By the end we were rocking and rolling enough to wake up the next morning at 7am and do it again for a couple hours. Now I see why this is one of the Meccas of Mountain Biking.

On the way to Whistler

2010-06-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

It has been a few years since I have placed words on this small piece of the interweb. I am still not 30 and I still (by most standards) have yet to obtain a "real job". But a new adventure deserves new updates.

The general gameplan: a week in Whistler, 3 weeks in Italy/Paris, and a few days in Washington DC on the way back to Orange County. I have nerdy events at each location: talks, conferences, etc. Emma and I also plan to hike through the Dolomites for a week or so before checking out Venice for a few days.

I am on a bus from Vancouver to Whistler. The highway sits right where a set of dark green mountains meet the water. A few small islands, rising steeply and entirely covered with trees, seem like a perfect getaway for a lifetime of solitude. At one small bridge we passed a stream with water so white that I chuckled in surprise. Some of the mountains have granite faces that rise several hundred feet into the air, and others reveal snow-capped peaks only when the clouds shift just right.

Seeing such natural beauty is a bit of a shock when coming from the well manicured suburban sprawl of Orange County. I am almost unable to enjoy it, out of fear that it may not last, that people will find it and ruin it.

The conference is about the statistical modeling of social networks. Over the next few days I plan to hear some things I (should) already know, learn some things I didn't, meet people who have thought about my interests for many years, meet other excited grad students, and think about how I can contribute.

I also would like to rent a bike and check out the scenery.

Paris

2008-06-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Once we had arrived in Paris and had taken the train from the airport to Gard du Nord (train station featured in Bourne Ultimatum), we were supposed to call our hostel so they could arrange for someone to meet us at one of metro stops. We had a few minutes left on an old phone card but after 30 minutes of trying different combinations, we still weren't able to get anything but a strange-sounding busy signal. So we went on my hunch of which station we were aiming for.

Navigating the metro was easy, and there was no question we were the local hippies. People were well dressed; we were not. People smelled good; we did not. Once we got there, nobody seemed to be looking for a Chris DuBois. I tried asking the older lady at the metro help desk if she knew of our hostel; she proudly, while keeping eye contact, 'No comprandt' - or something like that - and quickly went back to her work. I think it's French for, 'I'm a snooty bitch' but I'm not sure because I never have studied French. I swear I saw a smirk.

I finally just went for a short walk around the metro station while Emma watched the bags. Our landing site was sweet. Total Europe. Little restaurants on the cobblestone corner, with people sipping coffee from tiny cups. Four story apartment buildings with well styled facades, their ground floor often times having a flower shop or a bakery. And within minutes of looking for a sign saying 'Lucky Youth', I swanky French business dude came up and said, 'Are you looking for something? You look very lost.' He let me use his phone to call the place, translated a little bit for me, and we chatted about Tanzania (he had worked there for 3 years a while back). Booya.
So I figured this would be a good story to relate a few main items:

There are quite a few beautiful people in Paris, and far more beautifully dressed people.
There are snooty people in Paris, and there are people hoping to be so nice that they overcompensate for this notoriety.
The architecture in Paris is awesome, and the apartments are a big part of it, giving the impression that the city only allows this cool, 19th century look.

Once we got settled, we immediately began exploring. Our hostel was really a flat with 6 bunk beds, and we were the only ones there. It was located in Montmartre, so we quickly checked out the local tourist attraction, Sacre Couer. It's huge. And it's got a great view of the city. (That wiki link has a great panorama.) We strolled by the front steps on the way to dinner (which were featured in Amelie), and a few hundred people were chilling on the steps enjoying the view - with a bottle of wine each - and listening to a dude with a guitar and an amp. Not a bad scene.

We also checked out the nearby plaza and got some awesome . A dozen artists were sketching portraits of tourists. We hit up the Salvidor Dali museum; we were sufficiently weirded out.

Both in Montmartre and our next spot, Hotel de Champ du Mars, we really enjoyed the gradually exploration of our surroundings. And the thing that was key in this, the thing that I could talk about for a while, was Paris' newly installed public bike system. For 1 euro a day, you get a card that lets you take out a bike from any of 300-400 stations scattered across the city. The first 30 minutes for each bike is free and it's 1 euro/hour after that. This made incredibly easy to first check out the nearby bakery, fruit store, Japanese restaurant (we had hankering for miso soup... it happens). Then we were able to check out the nearby destinations, which we only really knew about because their buildings were drawn bigger on our free tourist map. Les Invalides? No idea what it is, but let's bike there and check it out.

What was amazing, and I'll never forget this about Paris, is that we would be biking along and around each corner there would be another huge, monumental building. Each would easily be the historical highlight of an United States city, and there were dozens of them!

We did plenty of museums. In general it took me about 3 hours to become weak-kneed and blurry-eyed from hunger and too many pre-impressionist, impressionist, and post-impressionist paintings. The Lourve was especially ridiculous and intimidating with all the amazing crap it has. Paintings that are 15 feet tall and 30 feet wide. We also went on the first Sunday (free admission) so it was pretty stressful not getting trampled by the thousands of people going towards the Mona Lisa. I got a cold sweat at one point. The highlight was the Winged Victory, an Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the crown jewels - which such big gems they looked fake. We went to the military history museum; as you might expect from the French, there was a big emphasis on the style of garments in each period and a glossing over of how easily they were pummeled in World War II. We were much more relaxed when we moseyed over to the Rodin museum, a garden with some awesome bronze casts like the famous Thinker and Gates of Hell. And I would definitely recommend the Museum d'Orsay, too. It's got a bunch of Monets and stuff, and the museum itself looks way cooler.

Paris was impressive and totally overshot all my expectations. It was a great clincher to an amazing trip. But there's no place like home.

Kicking it in Zambia

2008-05-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

We apologize for the radio silence, but it's nice to be able to sit down and have plenty to write about.

We've been in Lusaka staying with a family: Bruce and Linda Wilkinson, their 6 yr old (brilliant) son Isaac, and their college-grad intern Kelley. The faith-based family has been here for 3 years and have been generous hosts.

In comparison, our story sounds selfish. We've been traveling the world, checking out the sites, racking up the tourist points. No regrets.

Bruce came to Lusaka after being very high on the NGO ladder at World Vision, a global organization that oversees impossibly large amounts of aid. Now he's running RAPIDS, a new Zambian group which empowers a network of 15,000 volunteer caregivers with the materials they need to help those suffering from the effects of HIV/AIDs. With their $30 million, 5 year grant, they pull together dozens of different organizations (ranging from government to faith-based) in order to distribute both stuff and knowhow; it’s a huge operation for Zambia, but small peanuts compared to his previous stuff. What’s more impressive is the private money he’s helped bring in – an additional $37 million, some of it as gift-in-kind, e.g. bandaids and bikes.

Not surprisingly, the bikes story is one of my favorites here. The owner of SRAM heard the volunteers had trouble getting around to all the people who needed help, and they designed a cheap bike that was a bunch stronger than the bikes they have here. Partnered with the Indian car company Tata, they produced $2 million worth of these bikes, and RAPIDS distributed them. They look the same as the local bikes, but they are far better at handling the weight of a second person on the rack, like when they need to go to the local clinic. (When lent to family members, the bikes are also better at transporting 100kgs of coal, also a common use for bikes around here.) They have served the volunteers well, providing both an incentive and a valuable asset.

What’s the rationale behind all this effort? About 20% of Zambians within Lusaka have HIV/AIDS, and 16% in rural areas. An entire generation seems to be missing in some areas, and there are many grandmothers who are simultaneously caring for 5 grandchildren and 5 non-biological orphans. Poverty, drunkenness, prostitution are all problems; healthcare, livelihood, and education are the focus for most of the hundreds of aid groups here. We were able to tour two of RAPIDS’s caregiver centers with the Accenture consultant who was here helping check things out. She was here to provide 3rd party advice/affirmation that the program model is ready to be expanded to other countries and settings.

Linda started working with a group of widows. After hearing their heart-wrenching stories, she worked with them on several microenterprise ideas, finding success with a project where they knit (awesome-looking) purses using recycled plastic bags. Now about 50 women are making a living through this program. They work together, share ideas, and Linda and others sell the bags in the states. This laid the groundwork for several other initiatives that take place on the same property, including a school for 300 orphans, a group of single moms who make and sell salted peanuts and soy milk, and a young women’s club. We’ve spent several days there. More information is at chikumbuso.com, and more is coming every day as we help them put stuff up.

Kelley just graduated from UC Boulder and is the hardworking intern who has the neverending todo-list. She’s been super kind to lead us around and point us in directions where we can help, and we’ve had a great time hanging out. We just went to a concert last night, which was a blast. It was a woman with attitude from Ivory Coast who blasted lyrics to funky rhythms and danced with some acrobatic, African-influenced moves.

Kate, their eldest daughter, just arrived last week. She’s in a graduate program at Columbia studying foreign development. She hopes to take Chikumbuso and make it huge. I’d agree it’s close to being ready.

There is a lot to say about the last few weeks, but the last two days should provide a good representative snapshot. We woke up, ate some pancakes, and drove to Chikumbuso. They have a pedal-powered soy bean grinder that makes the mush needed to make soy milk; I pedaled for a while. Emma helped two clinic volunteers administer HIV testing to 30 of the kids; two were positive. We helped tag the bracelets the widows had made, so that they could track who had made what. We taught division to the 5th graders who just begun learning it that morning; I tried using some of the dirty soybeans to help with the lesson, and tried to show the relationship between multiplication problems and division problems. Some kids really caught on with using the multiplication table on their shabby binders, some even were somewhat familiar with long division, and some kept grouping tally marks – even when they had to draw 169 of them.

In the afternoon, we taught basketball. Yes, I know: I have touched a basketball only a handful of times since 3rd grade. Emma “jumped” right into it, though, and we got the kids psyched up about passing, shooting, and defense. The fitness part included jumping jacks, squatting, and pushups. The kids couldn’t stop laughing. We’ve done 3 sessions already, and today we bought two brand new basketballs. The other one had exploded from the abuse of bouncing of the rocky schoolyard.

Last weekend we took a 7 hour bus ride down to Livingston to see Victoria Falls. They were huge. There’s a little walking trail directly across from the top of the falls. When the wind was just right, the ‘mist’ from the falls was heavy enough to feel like somebody was standing over you and dumping buckets on your head. The bridge over the Zambezi just below the falls connects Zambia and Zimbabwe, and there’s a bungie jump operation on it. I signed up for the ‘Big Air’ package, which included the bungie jump and the swing. Free falling causes heart attack-like symptoms. Free falling was a good once-in-a-lifetime experience, if only for the reason I now know what a heart attack must feel like.

Being here and talking with Bruce has given me a chance to think about values, aid in Africa, behavior change, and ways that Africa could become better. I’m not sure I’ve changed any, but things are a bit clearer; all that is for a different post or a long conversation. The kids are also dang cute – which I’m sure Emma will cover in her post.

Summary: The Wilkinson family has certainly changed many people’s lives for the better. We have been lucky they agreed to put up with us for these few weeks.

Journey from Dar es Salaam to Lusaka, Hour 49 of Train Ride.

2008-05-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

As you might have guessed from Emma’s posts, the safari was badass. As she mentioned, I couldn’t tell a stump from a lion, or a piece of machinery from giraffe, so I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut and defer to our guide’s uncanny ability to spot wildlife. If it was worth seeing, he’d let us know.

In Ngorogoro Crater, I kept feeling like we were in Jurassic Park, and when we’d get into thicker parts of the forest, I’d half-wonder if a team of raptors had gotten loose. Once in the Serengeti I couldn’t get Circle of Life stuck out of my head (the main theme song from Disney’s The Lion King).

A short explanation about dik diks. Earlier in our trip when we had been looking into safaris, I had been browsing some of the Africa books and flipped to a page about animals. The picture of a dik dik looked so hilarious I decided that I had to see one in real life. Imagine a deer, then shrink it until it’s about 1 foot tall, then put little stubby horns on it, kind of like Hollywood puts on actors that play the part of devils. Seemed like a little mythical creature. So on the third day, I finally got some Where’s Waldo skillz and spotted a dik dik standing just off the road. They were as ridiculous looking as I imagined. Success!

After seeing all the wildebeest, I couldn’t resist the temptation to look for signs of chase. I wanted to see a cheetah or a lion aim straight for the thickest part of the pack, or a team of hyenas corner a youngling. But with the food source so plentiful, these hunters had no need to work that hard for their food.

The crater was incredible, but the Serengeti’s landscape was stunning in its own right. Small outcroppings of granite speckle the plains. (For Disney generation, think of the big rock that overlooks everything at the beginning of the movie. For nerds, apparently these are big bubbles of granite. The outer layers expand and contract with daily temperature fluctuations and, with time, erosion causes some cool boulders to appear. The large flat areas are from volcanic ash from later eruptions nearby, and the resulting top soil is too thin to support anything but the grass.) These outcroppings form cool oases (sp? Plural of oasis) of vegetation and wildlife.

We stayed at posh lodges. Four course meals and a big buffet for breakfast. Combined with good weather? It was a great week.

Right now I’m living in the gentle-rinse-cycle known as the Tazara train, which connects Tanzania with Zambia. Our first class cabin has most the African pleasantries we’ve come to expect. The fan’s broken, as is the lock on the door, and the lights work occasionally. Maybe 1/3 of people play with our door’s handle as they walk by, checking to see if it’s unlocked. They could easily open it if we hadn’t jerry-rigged a $4 bike lock around the inside. We are very grateful to not be in second class seating, since they’re sitting four-to-a-seat, babies on mothers’ backs, with no place to lie down for 2 days straight.

The train stops often, sometimes for 20 minutes and sometimes for 4 hours. It keeps you guessing, and we often wonder if the train will ever start again. On some of the hills, the train was brought to a creaky crawl slower than walking pace, and I put it at 50/50 whether or not we would start rolling backwards. On the downhills, you’re thrown against the wall when there’s a heart-wrenching jerk of the entire train car, causing a few bruises and choked food.

We forgot to bring Subway for our first meal and were pretty bummed about our mistake. We brought some snacks like cheese and crackers, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, but we wouldn’t have been able to make it without the $3 fried chicken and rice they serve onboard, along with the Tusker beer. Dozens of others take advantage of the beer in the dining car, and they often open our door enough to poke their face in to say hello as they stumble back to their room. We hung out it in the dining car for a while, until our chairs broke from the sudden jerking.

We never really know what time it is (I lost the watch in Thailand), so we’ve been whittling the days away between card games and naps. Sometimes we ask how much longer, and usually double that is closer to the truth.

Emma’s been the victim of some brutal allergies; the first day I woke up and could barely see her over the pile of toilet paper she had used throughout the night. She also looked like she’d been punched, with left eye almost swollen shut with a beautiful purple tint. Teasing her about it was quickly discouraged.

The bathrooms are sketchy enough that I’m holding out for something better. We’ll see if I can last.

For all the hilarities, the view has been unforgettable. Blue sky, expansive grasslands spotted with shrubs, small fields of dead corn, the occasional dirt path and grass-roofed hut, sometimes a village or even a dirt road. The young kids wave and run alongside the train every chance they get.

Lake Manyara

2008-05-10T00:08:00.000-07:00

As we were headed down to the lake, we couldn’t help but think they were couldn’t possible see anything new. Somehow we were both exhausted after three days of driving and safari, but when we arrived we saw that this park was again totally different from anything we had seen in the past few days. Most of the park is occupied by the huge lake and the remainder is dense forest; a jungle of undergrowth, acacia trees and baobab trees.

Right from the start we saw a totally different group of wildlife. Lots of baboons, black-faced and blue monkeys. (Who we were delighted to find out have permanent blue-colored balls.) Although the density of wildlife in this park is lower than our two previous destinations we were excited about the specialties – hippos, elephants and the elusive dik dik, which was Chris’s only goal of the trip.

First we visited the hippo pool. The shallow pool of thick mud and water is home to more than twenty hippos. They make some pretty funny noises. Watching the huge heads immerge form the mud, I couldn’t help but think of the game hungry hippos. The road through the park weaves in an out of the forest. It was a great change from the scorching heat of the plains. We saw lots of impala in the woods and came across lots of birds. The lake is covered with pink dots like in Ngorongoro, lots and lots of flamingos.

Without question the highlight of the day was the family of elephants. There must have been around thirty of them and we got to see them walking down to the river. They had babies! The tiny little guys were some of the cutest things I have ever seen. All floppy ears and trunk, which they can never seem to keep upright, they ran around and played in the water. We sat and watched for a good 30 minutes.

We were eventually making our way back to the entrance as dark was approaching when we heard about a lion sighting from another driver. Like we were on a mission we went speeding through the forest in search of the spot. Lion sightings seem to be the big money maker on these safaris. They are not to be taken lightly, in fact we passed a few other vehicles that had also heard about the lion and followed us down the road. Granted this was a special sighting – a large male in a tree! Who knew? Tree climbing lions. It was pretty awesome to see. He was just hanging out on one of the branches, lazily opening an eye once in a while to check out all the cars lining the road.

Definitely a great sight to end our adventure on.

Love,
Em

Serengeti National Park

2008-05-09T02:51:00.000-07:00

Although the two areas share a border, the landscape of the Serengeti is totally different from the lush green hill in Ngorongoro. Entering the Serengeti was like driving into a barren wasteland. Dry grasslands that extend for miles and miles; there isn’t an elevated piece of land to be seen. It was hard to believe there could be any wildlife on the flat empty plains. In fact, our first impressions, or rather my first impression since Chris was taken a short nap, turned out to be totally inaccurate. Almost immediately we started to see wildlife. The grasslands are home to thousands of gazelle. We saw Grant’s and Thompson’s gazelle everywhere for the first hour of our drive.

The gazelle are specially adapted to the dry plains; they do not drink, instead they get all their water from dew and grass. We also saw lots of different bird species, some chameleons, and a few jackals and hyenas. As we drove on we could see small hills in the distance, which our driver informed us was our destination for the night. As we got closer he stopped to look at the distant landscape through his binoculars. “See those dark patches in the distance?” We were thinking cloud shadows or maybe patches of trees. “Those are herd of wildebeest.” Shit. There are literally a million wildebeest roaming the plains. They migrate down from Kenya in possible the biggest migration in the world. One million wildebeest. It’s almost impossible to comprehend what it would look like.

One the way to our lodge we stopped at one of the spot known for lion sightings - small collection of grassy knolls surrounding a small water hole. Prime lion territory. They just chill in the tall grasses waiting for unsuspecting prey to come to drink. Sure enough as we entered the small circles of hills we saw two huge male lions and half a dozen females and cubs, not to mention four other safari groups. It was a sight to behold. Male lions are way bigger than I thought they were. Their golden manes and huge jaws weren’t more than twenty feet from our vehicle. I sure wasn’t making any sudden movements or sounds.

We sat watching the pride in silence for a while. Another Land Cruiser pulled up to take the place of one just leaving and promptly got a flat tire. Yikes! There is no way you could have gotten me out of the car to change that flat in the middle of a pride of lions. They ended up driving around behind one of the hills and making a speedy job of it.

We arrived at out lodge exhausted only to find out we were scheduled for a pre breakfast game drive. The early morning hours are better for seeing some of the nocturnal animals. We figured this was a once in a lifetime experience so we might as well drag our asses out of bed a 5:30 a.m.

We barely made it up, and kept thinking, ‘How are we supposed to spot wildlife in this light?’ We could barely pick out movement in the full sunlight. Both Chris and I were forever thinking termite hill and logs were hyenas or leopards. Sure enough the first thing Chris spotted….”Hey, are those cranes?” Huh, machinery in the middle of the Serengeti? Actually they were giraffes.

It finally got a little lighter as we made our way out of the forested hills and onto the open plains. Smack dab in the middle of a giant herd of wildebeest. They stretched as far as we could see in all directions. Driving through them was like parting a sea. In some cases they walk or run along the plains in single file on some endless journey in search of new food and water. We just stared. I have never seen so many animals in one place.

At one point we came upon a group of hyenas tearing into the carcass of a young wildebeest. Yummy breakfast. Many of the herds are intermixed with zebras. Then we drove into an odd empty, perfect circle in the middle of the herd. We soon found out the cause – a couple lions sunning themselves on the rocks. They were just hanging out in the middle of their 24 hour self-service buffet.

Like Ngorongoro, the Serengeti was filled with wildlife. We saw: wildebeest, zebras, topi, gazelle, impala, waterbucks, giraffes, elephants, hyenas, jackals, ostrich, buffalo, warthogs, lots of vultures, buzzards, storks and birds of prey, lions, and a crazy looking Secretary bird.

On our last day we had to get up bright and early to make the drive from the Serengeti to Lake Manyara. We arrived at another beautiful lodge on the hills overlooking the huge lake in time for a great lunch buffet and a quick nap before heading out again “fishing for wildlife” as our driver called it.

Love,
Emma

Ngorongoro Crater

2008-05-05T04:55:00.000-07:00

After spending a few nights in Dar es Salaam holed up in our hotel suite, complete with kitchenette and wifi, Chris and I finally got our act together and booked a four night safari to Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti and Lake Manyara. Safaris in Tanzania are a huge business, with most departing from the towns of Arusha and Moshi. The concentration of wildlife in the numerous parks accessible from these two cities is some of the highest in the world. We hopped on a plane from Dar to Arusha to start our adventure.

We booked our trip with a company recommended by Chris’s friends from Portland – Bushbuck Ltd. Their motto: it’s rough…it’s dusty…but it’s an adventure. Sounds good to us! We left Arusha after lunch to drive to our first destination, the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area. Ngorongoro Crater is a collapsed volcano, a caldera similar to Yellowstone National Park, but there are no crazy hot springs or geysers here, only animals galore and Maasai. The Maasai live in the conservation area raising cattle and goats.

In this part of Tanzania, the rainy season is just about at its end. The result is a lush countryside that is completely green with patches of bright yellow wildflowers and fields of corn and coffee. The two hour drive was beautiful. We arrived at our lodge on the crater rim just about at sunset. The clouds were settling in along the walls of the crater, but our first view was amazing. Check out the panorama in our Picassa album. I’m not sure what either of us was expecting; definitely not the expanse of open plains surrounded by the steep crater walls of dense vegetation we saw before us. Even from the top of the crater rim we could see tiny specs of wildebeest, buffalo and zebras.

Eager to start we were both awake for breakfast long before our scheduled 8 am departure. Climbing into our trusty Land Cruiser, specially outfitted with a pop-up roof and elevated floor to allow for optimal wildlife viewing, we descended into the crater through forests of acacia trees. Once on the crater floor we found ourselves driving among the wildflowers searching the horizon for movement and signs of life. There were animals everywhere! Throughout the whole afternoon it was difficult to drive for five minutes without seeing something. Groups of water buffalo mixed with herds of wildebeest and dotted with zebras.

We spent the entire day driving around the crater. We saw: elephants, black rhinos, wildebeest, zebras, spotted hyenas, flamingos, ostriches, warthogs, crown cranes, a cheetah, a lion, jackals, monkeys, hippos, gazelle, storks, doves, Egyptian geese, and lots more birds. As we soon found out, the season also means lots of babies!

The elephants are huge beasts. Zebras look totally out of place with their wacky stripes and short stubby legs. We both loved watching the warthogs running with their tails held vertical – like little flags, you might not be able to see the body in the tall grass but you could still see its tail. We saw one baby wildebeest with a chunk of skin ripped off its side; it will most likely end up somebody’s dinner soon. The hyenas look almost like small bears and they are butt ugly. We saw two black rhinos, which are extremely rare due to poaching of their huge horn. We saw a female lion just walking along the road through a herd of wildebeest like she owned the place, which she does, totally unconcerned about the animals around her. They, on the other hand, were extremely wary and gave her a wide berth.

But the highlight was definitely the cheetah. She was beautiful. We watched her explore the tall grass and hang out near one of the small streams. We were watching as she jumped across the water and made her way towards us, eventually coming within 50 ft. Awesome. It’s hard to describe the beauty of watching these animals so close, knowing they could destroy you in a matter of minutes, and marveling at their power, speed, and grace. You have to stop and remind yourself that these animals of wild and living in the wild. The crater provides such a unique viewing experience, it’s a natural zoo.

Exhausted after a full day of adventures, we left Ngorongoro extremely satisfied to drive to the Serengeti. The steep road out of the crater had some hair-raising twists and drop-offs, not to mention slick mud and no guardrail. But we were not even ten minutes outside of the crater when we saw more herds of zebra and a bunch of giraffes! The scenery is spectacular. We could see the flat endless plains of the Serengeti in the distance as we passed through the arid foothills below the crater rim. The countryside is dotted with Maasai villages, consisting of half a dozen to twenty mud huts. It’s somewhat startling is round a corner and see people walking through the grass literally in the middle of nowhere. Their red and purple clothing provides vibrant dots of color to the landscape.

Uganda

2008-04-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

Getting off the plane, Uganda was immediately a pleasant change from Dar es Salaam. The land was green, Lake Victoria was huge, and the air was refreshing. We came to hang out with Megan, a friend who I grew up with and is now halfway through her Peace Corps stint.

Taxi drivers seemed super friendly and we later found out why. Coming from airports, all the taxi drivers have a small monopoly going, so they are pleased to take you for 2-3 times what it should cost. Once we started hanging around Megan things changed a bit because she had a better idea of non-Muzungu prices. "I take you for 4000." "We go for one five. That is fair price." (1500 shillings = $.80) "Ok 3000 and we go." "No, you know that is not fair price and we find someone else." After Megan's take-it-or-leave-it bargaining, taxi drivers would often seem on the verge of tears, mumbling about high gas prices and hungry families. Same went with the drivers of the 14-person vans (aka matatus); Megan has reportedly had screaming matches over 500 shillings ($.30). It’s the principle of it – the injustice of two sets of prices. But many Africans feel entitled to charge white people more nonetheless, and they feel cheated when they can't.

Megan's village was a 15 minute drive from the nearest town, Lugazi. The village is set between sugar cane fields and a dense forest. We would arrive there either in a taxi or on the back of a motorcycle (boda), and the vehicles would slip and slide in the thick, sticky mud that was inevitable after big rains. On sunny days, the red, empty dirt roads were idyllic enough to make any runner or cyclist salivate.

Most of the houses in the village were mud huts, but Megan's and a few others’ were brick and concrete. Arriving, we knew we were in Africa: a dozen women were outside her house singing with some boys drumming, and little piglets were running around the yard. Kids ran up to us: “Muzungu! (white person) How are you?” The kids who didn’t know that much English were satisfied with just pointing and yelling “Muzungu!” until you couldn’t help but laugh.

Megan's main activities on rainy days: cook, clean, read, and sleep. We welcomed this relaxing routine and tried our best to follow Megan's protocols. Shampoo here, silverware here, these tubs for washing dishes, these tubs for bucket baths. She had a newly made couch that was perfect for reading, and the interior decoration was definitely Megan-esque with kitchen items placed neatly, photos of friends arranged perfectly, and small stars painted on the bookshelves. It’s always a nice surprise to step out of the African village and into her little two room apartment; the stark contrast with its surroundings is immediately apparent and you almost feel guilty for living in America again.

The corrugated metal roof was so loud during rain storms that it would wake us up, and we would have to yell to communicate. A few times we couldn't help but think it was about to fall down on us. But Megan's stocked up on some great goodies, some sent from America, some brought by visitors and some left by people heading home. We ate Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, we ate by candlelight, we had sweet chili sauce and parmesan cheese, made bean dip, guacamole with $.10 avocados, homemade chapattis, movie nights with the laptop, and warm bucket baths whenever. Not a rough life by any stretch of the imagination.

I took bodas to the village to get internet and get some work done. One time I bought a 135 liter plastic water tank and a few metal gutters and brought them back to Megan’s place. We had the local carpenter help us install the gutter for 3000 shillings (he had a ladder and a hammer). The new rain collection system got a good workout during a few storms while we were there and should get plenty of use by Megan and her neighbor in the months to come.

Megan's front yard has a small garden surrounded by two buildings for the local preschool. The kids usually assemble around 7:30am to start banging on the car hub that hangs from a stick placed in the middle of the yard. Megan usually gets out of bed by 8am to tell them to be quiet, occasionally putting a few in timeout, which sometimes works. By 9am about 150 kids are receiving lackluster education from 2 teachers (mostly rote memorization). This usually resembled chanting repetitively or copying from a single blackboard. On their way to the bathroom, they would pause and stare at us until one of us waved. They shyly wave back, then scream and laugh as they run away. At 11am, Megan hosts an hour of “art,” where 5 kids shyly enter her room, sit on the concrete floor, and draw on printer paper with crayons. Emma and I helped them build stuff with Megan’s Jenga blocks.

Their creativity, Megan says, has been beaten out of them. We tried providing positive reinforcement to those who finally drew things that hadn’t been featured on the blackboard every day.

Three other Peace Corps volunteers came for a weekend to help out with a soccer camp for the ladies in the village. Megan bought the ladies soccer shorts, and they were clearly embarrassed to put them on, but loved the chance to learn soccer skills and play an hour long game. A few dozen men sat watching from the shade and got drunk from plastic bags of the local moonshine.

After a week in the village we went to Jinja, a town next to the source of the Nile. From there we visited the Hairy Lemon, a small kayaker hangout on an island. Very laidback and picturesque. We also went to another hostel/hotel/campsite/restaurant/rafting-outfitter/British ex-pat hangout called Nile River Explorers. The place has been battered by its fair share of parties, many of them led by rafting guides and kayak bums. The single TV was only allowed to play big rugby games. There was a well stocked bar and a wooden deck looking West over the Nile.

Rafting was a highlight of the trip. With a handful of Category 5 rapids, it was a heart pounding day and we fell out of the raft a few times. Emma was on the lookout for crocodiles but only saw a water snake. I was preoccupied with the fact the river seemed to simply end where the next huge set of rapids began. The waves were huge and the current was fast, and we caught air when the raft got tossed by a monster rapid.

I took a kayaking lesson; it’s way harder than it looks. With the massive amount of water flowing, there are countless different current happening simultaneously, with boils coming from nowhere and threatening to tip your kayak, and the instability on the edges of huge eddies caught me off guard a ton. Even in the Category 1’s and 2’s it was a challenge to stay upright, but it was super exciting and I could see how people get addicted to this sport. They taught me how to roll the kayak and I almost did it, but unfortunately I’ll have to try another day.

As for food, it was great to be able to cook for ourselves again. The best local food I found was called Chicamandos: warm, greasy chapattis with beans dumped on top. It’s a street vendor thing, and it was AWESOME. With some fresh avocados and tomatoes, all served up in a small clear plastic bag. Pure greatness.

It was fun to be here. I won’t miss all the stares we get. I also won’t miss the ever present annoyances: inefficiency, inconsistency, and incompetency. Those things are to be expected while traveling, but it’s one of the things that makes America great.

Goodbye Zanzibar.

2008-04-15T03:20:00.000-07:00

On our last day in Zanzibar we finally organized a snorkeling trip. We listened to rain all night hoping we would wake up in the morning to a clear blue sky. We didn't quite get our wish, but the sky did clear enough for us to be able to begin our trip in the sunshine. The snorkeling tour took us to four different islands off the western coast in a narrow wooden boat with a small motor. Luckily it had a covered area which provided some protection from first the sun and then the rain. The first island, which turned out to be the best snorkeling, was actually a small sand bar. Clear white sand covered with tiny sand piles about a foot tall. Upon investigation we found these sand piles were made by crabs and spent a few minutes trying to coax one from its layer. They dig spiraling tunnels under the sand.

The water was filled with tiny colorful fish, my favorite being the mini bright purple and the all yellow ones. There were tiny lumps of coral and lots of black sea urchins, some had spikes over 6 inches long. On our way to the second island the dark clouds rolled through giving us a downpour of cold rain – lovely. The sea turned a darker green and there were even a few white caps, very pretty if a bit uncomfortable. We tried to snorkel in the deeper water off this island were the coral was more dense, but the water was filled with tiny octopus particles. Boy do they hurt. It felt like lots of tiny pinprick all over your body. Ouch. So we decided to Here we had our lunch of tomato sandwiches, oranges and coconuts.

A couple of the local fishermen were hauling in their catches of the day while we were eating. Not only did they bring in a variety of fish, but also octopuses and eels that were almost three feet long! I was sure glad I was seeing all of this after I got out of the water. After lunch we went to the last two islands, where the main attraction was the land animals - tortoises and birds. Some of the tortoises were over 100 years old and did they chomp down on the greens we were allowed to feed them. It was rainy again on the boat ride back to Stone Town, but overall is was a great day.

That night we purchased three bottles of wine, brought travel Scrabble and cards to a restaurant and had a awesome three hour meal. It might have been our best meal so far...swordfish, red snapper, chicken burger with guacamole, prawns, and some delicious sticky date pudding for dessert. It was the prefect way to top off our week before heading to Dar es Salaam, that is before our walk home. The rainy season is approaching rapidly and of course it immediately started to rain as we left the restaurant to walk back to our hotel. The walk couldn't have been more then 10 minutes long but within two we were soaked to the bone. Laughing, we ducked into the alley that led to our hotel when all of a sudden we heard Claire screaming. It took us a second to realize it wasn't the result of the waterfall we had just run under, before we turned and ran to find out what was going on. Back on the main street Claire and Corey were yelling thief at some guy and standing up from being on the ground. Not a good situation. What had happened? How did we go from laughing to stunned and scared in the matter of minutes? We found out later that some guy had tried to grab Claire's purse, ended up dragging her backwards down the alley. Corey turned around to see what was going on and jumped the guy until he finally let go. Fuck. But why was he still standing there? Why did we drag her into the most public stop on the street? How could two incidents happen to us two days in a row? Back as the hotel the mood was somber....what a way to end what had been an extremely fun week. Sometimes traveling sucks.

Needless to say Chris and I were a bit depressed when we arrived in Dar. We holed up in our room and a day and just listened to the rain and traffic. We ventured out only to visit the Subway the girls has told us was only a block away. Delicious! Just like in the U.S., we ate Spicy Italian subs for the next two days straight and loved it. We eventually walked around, found a nice bakery with hummus and spent some time at the five star hotel using the wireless internet. We bought tickets to Uganda to visit Chris's friend, Megan, who is in the Peace Corp just outside of Kampala. But we never ventured out after dark.

We are posting this from Uganda - it's awesome - more to come soon. Sorry for the delay in posts, internet is a little hard to come by out here. Miss you all!

Love,

Emma

Dude, where's my swimsuit?

2008-04-05T02:58:00.000-07:00

I could not find my bathing suit bottoms anywhere. The top was hanging next to the window where I’d left it after my shower but the bottom was nowhere in sight. I searched all over our tiny thatched banda – in the bed, hanging in the bathroom, in my clothes bag – nothing. How could I have lost my bathing suit? We even looked outside in the sand around the bungalow in case it had fallen out or someone had reached in to grab it, creepy but maybe. Remembering the sounds that startled us from our sleep last night, maybe some animal took it. There is was, wedged into the tiny crack between in the two halves of the thatched roof, a tiny bit of light blue fabric hanging from the ceiling. We both stared then broke out laughing. Seriously, my bathing suit was stolen by some animal during the night. Needless to say we had to get the management, who also started laughing when I told them about it, to retrieve it.

We thoroughly enjoyed our last few days at the beach and met up with three of Chris’s friends from high school, Claire, Corey and Laura, who just happened to be in Zanzibar – great coincidence. It was great to have new people to hang out with! We exchanged stories, played cards, read on the beach, and even snuck in a few games of Scrabble.

One of our goals for being in Zanzibar was to go snorkeling, which we had yet to accomplish. We decided to take a trip to four of the islands south of Stone Town back on the west side of the island since it was cheaper and we were all leaving for Dar in a few days. Of course, after a week of total relaxation and zero stress, we had to run into problems at the last possible moment, with the shared taxi ride back to town. None of us where really sure what happened, but what was supposed to be a simple 60 min ride back to town turned into a trip to them local police station.

After talking to a travel agent in town we had arranged to be picked up by a shared taxi for the trip back. Claire, Corey and Laura were picked up first and arrived at our hotel promptly at 11:00 am as planned. Then we realized there were two taxis. A private one for us and a different shared one. Realizing our mistake, the girls started to switch taxis but were prevented by the angry driver of their previous van. Out of nowhere he snatched Claire’s sunglasses off her face. Next thing we knew, one of the other passengers, a testosterone filled guy from the UK was yelling at the guy to give back the glasses. Then punches are flying, everyone is trying to restrain the crazy driver. The guy picks up a rock about the size of a football and starts threatening the dude from the UK. By this time people are coming to watch, hotel workers, locals, there must have been 20 people just standing around watching the commotion. One of the security guards at our hotel called the police and locked the entry gate. Luckily, the fighting calmed down – no one was going anywhere, we all had to wait until the police arrived.

Dealing with police in countries where corruption is commonplace and many times expected is not advisable. Well, we all took a trip over to the local police station hoping that what was a simple misunderstanding wouldn’t become anything more. As the various parties crammed into the small one room station, Laura and I decided to wait outside. The taxi driver immediately started telling his version of the story, at which point it was very fortunate that both Claire and Corey speak Swahili.

Since most of the argument was about the money the taxi driver was losing with less passengers (mind you it was money it didn’t have to begin with because we hadn’t scheduled our ride with him), they explained that we never intended to pay any drivers – we would only pay the travel agent in Stone Town, which both drivers worked for. Luckily they accepted this explanation and we were able to get back into our rightful taxi for the trip back to town. The guy from the UK and his girlfriend joined us, everyone feeling bad for the rando girl by herself who was still riding with the crazy driver.

It was quite the morning. We were all feeling fortunate and a bit emotional exhausted by the time we reached town. But we found a great lunch place, one of three we actually liked in Stone Town, and had lunch before wandering around the streets and browsing shops until dinner. Good food makes up for everything.

Love,
Emma

Paradise Found

2008-03-29T00:26:00.000-07:00

We came to the East Coast and Emma proclaimed, “This is my kind of vacation.” The green shallow waters extended for kilometers into the ocean. I tried walking out to the end of it, but 30-40 minutes later, I didn’t feel any closer and was getting monster-radiation from the sun, so turned back. It was very cool standing knee deep with green water almost reaching to the horizon. We’re on a super-long (maybe 2 miles?) white beach. Some of the sand is so fine it is almost the texture of baking soda.

I apologize for the whining in the last post, but to my defense we had been trying to order local cuisine with no luck. Most often, the kitchen simply didn’t have the seafood mentioned on the menu, and when they did, it was pretty abysmal. But we found out why. It’s the beginning of the rainy season, so for restaurants, it’s the start of the low season; they don’t keep their refrigerators stocked with beer, sprite, shrimp, fish, etc. So that explains it.

Last night I tried the Swahili platter. It had beef, octopus, prawns, mystery fish, and some Swahili side dishes: plantains with coconut, potato-like things with coconut, spinach with coconut, etc. The coconut in all these dishes is like a paste that they sauté it with. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it just reminds me of a pina colada or a cake, since those are pretty much the only times I eat coconut. The octopus was intimidating with all its tentacles visible, and your tongue notices them too; in the end it’s just chewy and not a big deal.

I have been barefoot running the beach in the mornings. It feels great to the legs and the lungs back into at least a little action, but going so slow is hard on the soul. I couldn’t help but pick up the pace until I found myself sprinting towards some finishing line. I swim a bit afterwards, but even after 50 yards, with the salt stinging my eyes, I decide I am meant for land.

It’s hot here, but a few times a day we have been getting rain storms. It makes cool textures in the sand, but it also made a small puddle on my side of the bed last night. The thatched hut roof had been doing great until it started dripping on my forehead.

But ah! The beach! Sitting on the beach, looking at the water… nothing beats it. All of sudden you don’t feel like doing anything else. Em’s been rolling through books, and we’ve been playing chess here and there. Not bad at all.

Food

2008-03-26T22:40:00.001-07:00

We just returned from another crappy meal. It’s not that we’re spoiled; it’s that our emotional state is dependent on the quality of caloric input. The calamari was rubbery to the max, the cheese on Emma’s pizza made me gag so much that I couldn’t get it down, and the chocolate milk shake was warm, so it was probably just milk mixed with Ovaltine.

We’ve had terrible luck so far with food in Zanzibar. I’m not a picky eater: I was raised with the clean-plate-club-mentality, and for the last 10 years food’s served more as a fuel than a source of enjoyment. And because of that, I have a finely tuned sense of nourishment and non-nourishment: and this food is not up to par.

Dad’s been asking for pictures of food, but I haven’t had the heart to pull out the camera for fish tacos that have two meager chunks of fish each accompanied by French fries that are still cold in the center. We even gave this place in question a second chance (which failed) because it was the top rated restaurant on the island.

As we commiserate over our failed attempts at finding good food, we usually start talking about the burrito places we’ll hit up when we get back to the states, or the first thing we’ll cook up, like a bomb breakfast sandwich with great sausage the Spiros always get, or a breakfast burrito with Jose’s salsa and homemade guacamole. Mmmmm…..

We also take turns at deciding where to go, both of us hoping not to be the one that chose the terrible restaurant. And we’d love to make food ourselves, but the markets are mostly seafood hidden by a swarm of flies (and the octopus doesn’t look especially appealing, anyway).

We’re currently staying in a small town that has a gorgeous beach and half dozen places to stay, all with their own restaurants overlooking the water. The people seem tired and a bit frosty, but the beach is only 100 feet away and is perfect for swimming and has a great green color to it. Just after sunset, the water was so inviting I couldn’t resist jumping in. It was peaceful to watch the silhouettes of dhows coming back to the beach. Dhows are old-school wooden fishing sailboats with a triangle sail. They look really cool. I’d like to try and get onto one.

Two momentous occasions: we trimmed my beard an imperceptible amount, and Emma shaved her legs.

We're heading to the east coast now to hopefully get some snorkeling in and stuff.

That’s all for now. Hope all is well back home.

ABC

2008-03-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Sinuwa, a town situated in the edge of one of the steep foothills, after a two hour stint down and up 4000 stone stairs – Chris counted. Our room that night felt like it was about to fall off the side of the mountain. We were both thoroughly surprised to find out the guesthouse had hot water! And true to their word the shower was amazing, definitely needed after the long day of ups and downs. After a week on the trail our stench was reaching intolerable heights. (Maybe it should remain unmentioned but let’s just say Chris has to cut out the built-in underwear in his pants and my shirt got sealed in a ziplock bag.)

From Sinuwa it was a two day climb up to ABC. The first was relatively uneventful – meandering through forests until it eventually broke out into rocky landscape as we reached higher elevations. Around mid-afternoon we were watching dark clouds roll up the valley. Within a matter of minutes the sky turned dark and we could hear the distant roar of thunder. Luckily we were within sight of our destination, Durali, when it began to sprinkle. We arrived 5 minutes before the storm broke into a violent downpour of hail and rain.

Listening to the rain pelting the tin roof of our room, I was glad to be warm in my sleeping bag. In the morning we awoke to crystal clear blue sky and a beautiful day to continue our ascent. We did hear the distant rumble of a few landslides/avalanches but didn’t see any of them. The trail brought us closer to the river as the valley narrowed. To our right we could see the towering ridges of Machupuchare, the Fishtail. Everything was covered in a few inches of snow, making it look all the more imposing. A few times we did see small patches of falling snow after hearing a rumbling echo through the valley.

To our left was a sheer rock cliff extending for a couple hundred feet – so high we couldn’t see anything beyond. A few waterfalls cascading over the top of the wall provided for some excellent photo opportunities. After passing a small sign warning of avalanche danger, we crossed some old avalanche fields. At first they look like dull rocks and mud but on closer inspection they are really dirty snow. Some of the ice chunks and boulders caught in the mess were up to 4 feet in diameter, crazy. We continued along the bottom of the rock wall, pausing occasionally to take photos and strip off our layers of warm clothing in the sun. Suddenly, we head the deep rumble of falling snow. All three of us paused to scan the opposite bank. Nothing.

Holy shit! We turned to find snow pouring over the cliff above us, landing just a few hundred feet behind us. It was shooting over the top like a gigantic waterfall of white. Following our guide’s yell, we ran down the trail a few hundred feet before turning to stare at the huge avalanche stunned. Somehow I fumbled around and was able to get out the camera to take a short video. It went on for upwards of 5 minutes, a cascade of snow that covered the very trail we had stopped on to take pictures not 3 minutes earlier. We had almost died. In a nervous voice Pemba asked, “No one on the trail right?” Visible shaken we couldn’t do anything for a few minutes but stare at the huge pile of snow and ice. Literally, we had almost died. There was no way we could have escaped the snow had we been caught.

For the next hour we walked in almost silence, with a few intermittent comments about how lucky we were. We questioned if we should continue along the trail, but were reassured that it got better. I was definitely scared as we continued to climb and eventually reached Machupuchare Base Camp, the final village before ABC. In hindsight we should have been more careful and our guide should have taken us on the alternate route on the other side of the river – designed specifically to bypass this high risk area. But we lived and eventually the stunning scenery warmed us again. Our close encounter was a story at every lodge we reached, Pemba chatting away with all the locals.

As a testament to instant weather changes in the mountains, the last hour of our climb to ABC was a whiteout of clouds and snow. We couldn’t see fifty feet in front of us, making the journey seem never ending to me. The altitude makes each step feel like a chore, but surprising enough I wasn’t dying as I had expected. After what seemed like ages we eventually reached base camp – a small cluster of buildings in the middle of a cloud of snow, or so we thought at the time.

Best thing about reaching our goal – hot chocolate and some bomb French fries. Yum. It was freezing, of course, so we piled on the long underwear and down jackets and pretty much jumped into our sleeping bags ASAP. We did get to see some amazing stars once the weather cleared. It was eerie to find yourself in a bowl of towering mountains that you didn’t know where there.

The next morning was another sunrise not to miss. Chris again had to drag me out of bed after snapping a few pictured in the pre-dawn glow. The morning was crystal clear. Annapurna South towering on one side, Machupuchare on the other. As the sun rises it touches the very tops of the peaks first before slowing descending and throwing a golden light throughout the bowl. The sun reflecting off the snow was blinding and everywhere was covered in snow. The morning was so perfect for our descent, but it was sad to have to leave in such beautiful conditions. A total transformation from our arrival. But slip and slide down the snow we did. Of course we stopped to take lots of pictures along the way.

And eight hours later, tired and worn out, we finally reached our guesthouse. How we made it down and up the 4000 steps again at the end of the day I’ll never know. To be honest the downhill was ten times worse than the uphill. Boy, our legs were aching. The following day was another long one all the way back to Nayapul and Pokhara. By hour two Chris was getting quite tanky and I had to appease him but talking about dorky mathematical models for a few hours. And done. Definitely one of the best hikes I have ever done.

Love,

Emma

Hiking n Stuff

2008-03-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

Once we were in the hills and walking through the little towns, it really hit me how ridiculous it was that these people were living in this area at all. We were on the sides of steep hills that would not be arable without the endless terracing that could only have come from many generations’ worth of hard work. And they don’t have many other options other than sell things to tourists or subsist off the land.

Waking up and going out on the deck of our lodge I saw that these foothills were simply monstrous. It felt like I was standing on top of a 100 story building. This path is the only way to get to these places, so if you want something, either a person or a donkey must carry it. Women seem to be in charge of hauling wood and grass. Here distances are measured in hours/days it takes to walk.

We had fun learning a few things in Nepali. Our guide was ADD for sure, so after he taught us a word, he’d sing a song feature that word (and only that word) for a few minutes. He wore an MP3 player with a few hundred Hindi songs loaded on; he liked to mention that “music is friend.” It broke our hearts to see him the morning one of his earphones went dead. He was pretty sullen. On the uphills, Emma goes quiet pretty quick, and I kinda stop talking too, and then he would get a little antsy and swing on a low-lying branch or start jumping off stumps and stuff. On the way down from ABC it was slick and his antics caused him to fall on his ass 7 times. (Em and I both bit it once.) He also tripped once and fell off the steep side of the trail, but did a graceful run-out recovery onto a terrace 15 feet below. A few of his most common sayings stuck with us and cause a chuckle for Em and I.

In many of the towns, the kids are a highlight. My favorite are the two year olds who are wandering around barefoot and dirty, chasing chickens and babbling incoherently.

These trails, as Emma mentioned, do not feature many zigzags, instead taking advantage of the unlimited rock nearby. Aside from the visually awesome stone steps, the slate roofs and bridge supports are also notable. And much of the stone has a glittery effect from the minerals in it, and it looks cool as you walk along the trail. But then you’re rudely awakened to the fact that this cool-looking trail goes straight up for 2 hours. It became the running joke that when Pemba said 1 more hour of hiking, it meant we had to go 1000 ft higher.

We saw tons of waterfalls. For a few towns, somebody has built a small stone building on the edge of town that has a PVC pipe running from a water source up the mountain and a waterwheel and generator inside. I thought it was pretty cool that there’s small scale hydropower in the middle of the Himalayas. If they’re going to have power, this is the way they should do it, rather than rely on coal power from the valleys. These installations appeared to be a foreign contribution.

Sleeping at altitude wasn’t much of a problem. A bigger problem was when I would have to go pee, and I would try and hold it to avoid getting out of my warm sleeping bag and walking the cold journey to the shared bathroom. A few times I would end up being awake for a few hours in the middle of the night because of this procrastination and false hope that it would go away. After a while, my farts usually made it a necessity to escape the sleeping bag.

The lodges always had a simple dining room where most of the trekkers would convene to hang out and eat. The lodges closer to ABC had an interesting heating system that cost 50 rupees per person: the table had a dark, flame-resistant(?) blanket stapled along the edge of the table, and an employee would bring a kerosene stove on high flame and stick it under the table. There it would just burn and burn. There was a wire strung around the inside of the table to hang socks right where all the hot air collects. We were skeptical about the safety of the whole thing, but it made our legs marginally warmer, so whatever.

Some of my favorite memories will probably be in these villages, where we would huddle in the dining room with a plate of French fries and a small pot of tea, and switch off between chess games and Rummy 500. Emma’s definitely getting better at chess. Although I’ve only lost twice, often times I am behind by quite a bit and emotionally exhausted from having to beat off all of her attacks. As for Anapai, Emma’s the ruling champion after our last best-of-nine game.

Poon Hill

2008-03-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

After waking up to our first views of Annapurna South we set out along the ridge and down into another small river valley. Winding our way along we reached the beginning of our next climb. The town of Ghorepani sits at almost 9,000 ft. We kept climbing and climbing until we came out on a saddle between the two mountain ranges and valleys. The town is situated right at the top of this pass, overlooking both valleys and the stunning mountains beyond. Ghorepani is a major destination for a lot of the trekkers in this area. On one side of the town the trail climb to the top of Poon Hill. The view from the top draws travelers from all over.

For many people, Poon Hill is the highlight and goal of their trek. Of course to get the best views you have to reach the top of the 500m climb right at sunrise. This means waking up at 4:00 am to start the hike. Chris successfully dragged me out of my cozy sleeping bag at 4:30 and we bundled up. It was completely dark except for the tiny lights leading up the hill – people slowly climbing to the top. As you might have guessed climbing 500m at 4:30 am is not my cup of tea so I was struggling to say the least. Chris was of course grumbling as people kept passing us, but I give him credit for waiting. With the altitude on top of that it was not an easy hike for me and I was feeling a bit sick when we finally reached the top. Definitely not enough sleep for me.

Standing at the top, cold despite my long underwear and puffy down jacket, I was mesmerized by the surrounding mountains. It’s pretty much a 360 degree view of peaks over 15,000 ft. Not a view you can get in very many other places in the world. The clouds were still low in the valley and the sun was just beginning to touch the tops of the peaks. We watched the landscape transform from a cold, misty darkness into a sparkling world of snow. Awesome.

It was a quick trip back to the village where we had a much needed breakfast of toast and eggs before setting out for the day. The day before our guide had played volleyball with the locals on the town’s dirt court, and he visibly worn out as we started on the trail. From Ghorepani the trail follows a ridge line before climb over another pass and heading down into the neighboring valley. In one of the towns just below the ridge we stopped for a small break and bought a few knit woolen hats from the local women. We had been eying the cozy hats for since we arrived in Kathmandu.

Descending we reached another river, but this one cut through sheer cliffs. Down and up we went through the forest of rhododendron trees. Their red blossoms where in full bloom throughout the valley. Looking across we could see patches of red dotting the landscape. Passing through the village at the top of the saddle we dropped again and ended up on a flat terrace that turned out to be a quiet guesthouse. From the lawn we had an expansive view of the valley and mountains, giving us a great sunset and sunrise. That night we geared up for what we knew would be three hard days to come – the ascent to ABC.

Love,

Emma

Nepal

2008-03-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! We are back from the playground of the gods and our trek up to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) in the Himalayas of Nepal. The trek was stunning and the mountains enormous. It will probably take a series of blog entries to get up to date with our adventures so here is the start.

After my quick trip back to SoCal to visit graduate schools and play a little beach volleyball with Will, Seaners, and EP, I flew back to Bangkok to meet Chris and off we flew to Nepal. Another whirlwind of buses, planes, and taxis, but we made it to Kathmandu without too much trouble. We have been here for only two weeks and wish it could have been more. Because of our time constraints we arranged for a guided trek to ABC before our arrival. We were a little nervous about whether the company we had arranged our trek with after we received the following in an email:

''Good news. Money has arrived. I just picked up this afternoon. Now we are very much looking forward to serve you soon in Nepal.''

As it turned out they were there to pick us up from the airport and have been extremely organized and helpful with everything. (The company is called Nepali Experienced Adventure Treks – NEAT.) We drove directly from the airport to their tiny, hole-in-the-wall office to meet the director and our guide for the next few weeks, Pemba. The next day we had a 7:00 am bus ride to Pokhara - the jumping off point for most of the trekking in the Annapurna area. Luckily both Chris and I were so exhausted we slept for most of the seven hour ride. The "highway" that runs from Kathmandu to Pokhara winds along the steep cliffs alongside a huge river gorge. Swerving around blind corners on the edge of a cliff isn't exactly the safest endeavor but we made it in one piece and arrived at our hotel just in time for dinner.

Pokhara definitely has the hippy, outdoorsy vibe going on. The main tourist area is lined with stores selling woolen hats, scarves, and North Face knockoffs. We didn't get to spend too much time walking around because of the scheduled power outage and our early departure the next morning. From Pokhara we took a two hour taxi ride to the beginning of the trek. The ride brought us up and over some of the foothills, which of course seemed like mountains to us. The countryside is so steep it’s incredible. Then on top of it all there are villages dotting the hills and more terraces then I have ever seen in my life. The whole mountainside is terraced to grow rice, wheat, and vegetables. It's crazy!

We started walking in the village of Nayapul. The majority of the buildings in this village are little shops selling Coke and various trinkets to foreign trekkers. They also sell buckets, baskets and containers used for hauling materials up the trail to reach the higher villages. From Nayapul we entered the Annapurna Conservations Area Project – the first and largest conservation area in Nepal which was designed to promote sustainable community development and environmental protection. The trail brought us along a river valley, slowly climbing into the foothills of the giants above. Because of the overcast weather we couldn’t see any of the towering peaks – at first we didn’t even know they were there. In hindsight this might have been a good thing because we would have had second thoughts about just how we were going to arrive at our destination thousands of feet above.

Lower in the valley the weather was fairly hot. As we climbed higher we reached out first destination of Tirkhedunga. Following the advice of our guide, we decided to continue for another two hours to the town of Ulleri. Pemba pointed to some of the buildings way above us on the hill. Here was our first introduction to the preferred method of trail building – stone steps. We climbed and descended thousands (literally we counted for a few hours) of stone steps on this hike. How the people have managed to build these staircases I’ll never know, but they are everywhere. There is none of the winding gradual switchbacks you have in the U.S. – it’s stairs straight up or straight down.

Halfway up the hill we reached the first houses. Overlooking the entire river valley and terraces, these small stone buildings all have incredible views. Here we found out what we thought was our stopping point was only about halfway. I was not too happy about more stone stair climbing, but it was time to sack up and keep trucking. We finally arrived at the top of the hill some 500m later, tired but very happy to be there. The decision turned out to be a life saver, not only because of the big climb the following day, but because the next morning we got our first view of Annapurna South out our bedroom window. Wow, who knew such a huge mountain was right beyond the hills? Of course the question going through our minds was – how are we going to get way up there?

Love,

Emma

Namaste

2008-03-10T03:19:00.000-07:00

well, as a testament to the ubiquity of the internet, there is now a small wooden shack in Ghorepani, Nepal, with 5 computers and a satellite connection. the only way this could have gotten here is a 2 day trip by donkey. the trail's been great, and we've been climbing up and up and up (now at 2700m) and we have a long way to go until base camp. we'll be doing poon hill tomorrow morning. the climb is a constant rock staircase, and last night before arriving at our teahouse/lodge we climbed about 1000 ft straight up. waking up and looking out it seemed like we on top of a 100 story building to the towns down in the valley; the moms would def not have liked it, as even I had to step back after first seeing how far down it looked. we also had a bomb view of Annapurna south right out our window this morning.

so we might wander over and check out the view some more (hopefully the good weather continues!) and then go check out the local volleyball game (locals vs. guides, I think). Emma's getting stronger by the minute, but still is wary of the next few days, checking the topographic map often (ps. we still have 8000 ft to climb).

talk to you soon and love you all.
chris and em

Goodbye Bangkok, Hello Nepal

2008-03-05T06:37:00.000-08:00

Well, we're off to Nepal. I haven't been eating very much; I have no appetite (very unusual - bad sign) and some abdominal discomfort, but no symptoms other than that. Weird. I've been getting massages every night the last few days ($6/hr). I found out there's a certification you can get at one of the local temples, but it takes a week and I only just found out about it. Both Thai massage and foot massage, too. I went to see the floating market north of Bangkok today and it was a total tourist trap but whatever, it was cool. But the other accompanying tourist trap was crazy and worth it: the snake dudes.

It's a snake farm where they have a bunch of snakes and milk their venom to produce the serum for snake bites. They also host groups of 100 or so tourists for a freak show every hour. They have these four dudes that are absolutely lunatic and go into this ring and agitate the snake enough for it to try to attack them, and they doge it. They're really good at it, but it still looks dangerous as hell. I posted two pics, but I have some incredible video once I have a good connection.

So I thought you guys might be interested in what we brought on this trip, so Em and I arranged everything and took a few pics. Here's the list, of what's in the picture, starting in the upper left and going counterclockwise.

rain jackets
hiking boots (2 pair)
running shoes (em)
closed toe sandals (me)
flip flops (me)
clogs (em)
lightweight daypack
socks, underwear, long johns
pants, long sleeve shirt, running shorts
chess set
plastic screw container (spices n stuff)
Aloe Vera
razor
toothbrushes and toothpaste
sunscreen
cards
laundry detergent for washing clothes in sink
knife
pain killers
hand sanitizer
dish rag
strong bug repellent
watch (lost soon after photo was taken. also almost immediately after chris starts wearing it.)
more bug repellent.
water tablets
floss
hand soap
women's deodorant
2 headlamps
more sunscreen
umbrella
books: The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Bird of Thailand, John Irving's World According to Garp, Memoirs of a Geisha, and a few romance novels
maps: around vang vient, around Koh Tao, around Laos
traveler bible: lonely planet
2 silk sleep sacks
small leather notebook
sunglasses
purse with most official paperwork
regular wallet and travel wallet
frisbee
water pump
petroleum jelly
emergency shelter
sleeping bags
stove with windscreen
first aid kit
pots
2 spoons (usually, one's missing)
compass
emergency fire starters
2 sarongs
1 hat
tent
poles
2 sleeping pads
medications, as noted previously
camp towel that smells like ass
wall plug converter
more meds
camping cup for tea and shit
tampons
big camera (canon SE15)
small camera (canon)
laptop

Meditation Class

2008-03-02T08:37:00.001-08:00

So I took this meditation class. It was the Buddhist style of meditation where the underlying method is to note everything. When you see something, you note this; when you observe anything with the senses, you try to note that as its own. When you make a particular movement, you note it. When you intend to do something, you note it. For a less butchered explanation of the exercises and their reasoning behind them, check out
an introduction to Insight Meditation as taught within the tradition of Theravada Buddhism.

I interpret this exercise as one that helps the practitioner to try and discretize the input of senses. Instead of looking around with that glossy look and having all your senses meld together, you really focus on that instant that you realize you sense one thing. Similarly, you really focus on the exact moments you have a new thought, becoming aware of the existence of that thought.

One of the first exercises you practice is becoming aware of your breathing. You note the movement of your stomach, and focus on the moments that you are breathing in, the moment your breathing in stops, your breathing out, and the moment your breathing out stops. This wasn’t that helpful or new for me, and I doubt it would be for any athlete, although I think it’s valuable for those who aren’t used to listening to their body. However, I think that this exercise revealed their hopes in getting the practitioner to discretize their experience of time.

Because of these two, I think the result of this discretization of time and space is that the person gets a better handle on the interface between their consciousness and “reality.” They are better able to grasp this smaller number of inputs on their consciousness and deal with it in the moment. (Whether this reality is embedded within consciousness or whether consciousness is embedded within reality is still a point of contention between Sam and I, but outside of the scope of this discussion.) I think this is helpful in some ways, but more than anything, it feels kinda cool. Lots of nothing, but a better grasp of the thing you’re concentrating on. The problem I see is that these exercises, as well as the teacher, seem to support that good-ol’ Cartesian mind/body dualism. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I need to do some more reading on that stuff.

On the other hand, I do like how this doesn’t interfere with any science whatsoever. Of course, when she was explaining the act of hearing and listening, to explain how one might note this event, she said something to the effect, “You speak and the energy of your words travel through the air and hit my hear and I have energy burst at my ear and I can hear those at that time.” And I thought to myself, “Well, in my day-to-day life it seems a more accurate explanation has been provided by science, where my vocal cords create a vibration that creates a compression wave of molecules in the space between you and I, and your eardrum … but then again, I guess your explanation works just fine for our purposes right now.”

So two of their stated goals of all this: to live in the moment and become removed from the pain of life, and this reportedly coincides with discovering truth and reaching nirvana. I agree that improving your ability to conceptualize the reality around you would help you gain more footing in the present, and yeah I agree people who do this might be happier than those who dwell in the future (which I often do) and in the past (which I do too little of). And I agree that these exercises help separate you from reality (and pain I guess – maybe that could have helped with bike racing!) because all of sudden reality is just this little items entering your experience for a moment, then vanishing and being replaced by other infinitesimal snippets of reality.

Now is this getting any closer to discovering any truth? I’d say no at first, nothing more than some personal realizations. But then again, what if spacetime is at least partially discrete? This is definitely not impossible; time’s a weird thing/illusion. What if these exercises do help you conceptualize your experience in a way more in tune with the-way-things-are? That’d be kind of cool.

But there’s something about being firmly embedded in the whirlwind of life that’s kind of fun, so why give it up? It’s kind of like that wisdom thing. It just doesn’t sound as fun as being young and thinking that everything matters and having no responsibility.

So that’s my current take on Buddhism thought. The religion part of these kinds of systems I usually don’t like, and I haven’t often seen a more streamlined religious process than in Bangkok. You can get your prayer incense and flowers at the door; there are security cameras and ceiling fans and a voice on a speaker system once you enter the big building with the monstrous statue of Buddha; entire neighborhoods survive by producing the little buddha icons people carry around. Taxi drivers bow slightly as they drive by some of the wats (temples) at 100km/hr, taking their hands off the wheel to execute that palms-together-at-the-chest move, whatever it’s called. Even the calm meditation exercises look like mindwashing to the outsider with all the cult-like chanting and glossy looks.

Yeah, the buildings don’t impress me a huge amount after a while. The big artifacts are cool, but they all fit in the category of “What humans have done in the name of religion” which encompasses plenty of other great things, and plenty of other stupid/bad things. So seeing things in that category gets tiring after a while.

What doesn’t get tiring? Seeing 100 Asian girls dancing up and down screaming along with a live Asian punk band at one of the bars down the street. Wow. Needed another beer after that one – after walking a good kilometer as quickly as possible to get away from the sound.

Lost in Bangkok

2008-03-02T02:44:00.001-08:00

My main purpose for being in this 3rd-world version of LA was to deal with the Indian consulate, ensuring that I can get to Nepal without delay. After Skyping the office, both in Bangkok and Phuket, it seemed that to get it done in time I would have to get to Bangkok immediately to complete my application in person.

I took the overnight bus. I sat in the back, unknowingly next to the airconditioning unit that was jacked up to restaurant-freezer-status. Everyone was cold, but my seat was colder, and only having a t-shirt on I had to steal some extra blankets from another part of the bus. After not sleeping much, arrived in Bangkok and took a Tuktuk and the guy dropped me off at some random guesthouse. They had a windowless room for $12/night and I was glad to put down the stuff and relax.

After remembering they were only open 9am-12am, I hurriedly looked up the address and jumped in a taxi. I organized my papers and other stuff and then looked up to realize I didn’t really get a good look at where I had started. But I saw some big temples and got the name of one.

Dealt with the visa stuff all morning. [You can easily skip this paragraph.] Turns out to get a transit visa, they need exactly 5 business days, and there was an Indian holiday next week that I hadn’t accounted for, so my transit visa would be ready at 4:30pm on the day we fly out at 2:30am. So, they pronounced smugly, it was absolutely impossible and I would have to change my ticket. But I said I wouldn’t even be leaving the airport, and they finally let on that I didn’t even need a transit visa unless I were flying to another Indian city before going into Nepal. Whew. But since I go from Dehli to Mumbai on the way out of Nepal, I’ll have to get one there, but they couldn’t help me find out if this is even possible (no phone number or internet address). I realized that these were outsourced visa services provided by a corporation for the state of India, so they didn’t know/weren’t responsible for anything but Indian stuff. Sorry for all the boring details, but there you have it.

I was proud of myself for taking the subway back, which cost 20baht instead of the 200baht I paid for the 1hr long taxi to rush to the consulate. I hopped off the subway at the stop closest to my destination and knew I should roughly head north to get where I was staying, so figured I’d just walk. I guess I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t too good to walk in Bangkok.

Apparently everybody else is. All traffic. All pollution. All the time, and everywhere. I had to limit myself to little sips of breath.

There are cool little pockets in Bangkok, found via the sidestreets off every road, with more secluded little shops and markets a little more shielded from the noisy hustle and bustle. In the right pockets, no one cares where you’re coming from or where you’re going or if you’ll buy anything. I found hints of them, but don’t know how to begin the search for the best ones. There’s too many of them.

And I should have checked the map’s scale a little more closely, because 2 hours of walking and I was just getting to where I wanted to go, and I couldn’t orient myself enough to figure where I wanted to go at the 6 street intersection, cursing myself for being so zoned-out in the taxi ride. Those big temples I saw? Well, there were about 10 just like it in my area. And nothing else looked right, either, and then I realized that everything within a 20 block radius had indeed transformed during the day to a market, with sidewalk stalls ubiquitous enough to block view of the businesses, especially a hole-in-the-wall kind of place I was staying in. I got a little claustrophobic with all the backpackers milling around and all the shit for sale; piles of tshirts and CDs and lighters and all that. I was just super disoriented in general.

After another hour of walking like this, I remembered I my room key had the name of the place, Googled it, walked to it, and instead discovered a restaurant by the same name (Popiang House). Another hour and I found the right spot. Promptly locked the door to my room, took a cold shower, and fell asleep. Not too hard to get lost here when you’re half awake.

On my own

2008-02-29T22:20:00.001-08:00

Yeah, that beach at Haad Yao was awesome. My soul enjoys beach living. The ocean looked so inviting, and the green water just off the beach extended far enough and was calm and shallow enough to treat like a swimming pool; yes, we bought a floatee and used it.

And the party, I knew it was something special as we walked through the streets to the beach: I first saw a girl getting a tattoo at one of the many parlors and she looked passed out drunk; next door you could see a doctor’s office/makeshift operating room. In the middle of the room you could see four nurses/doctors standing around a 20-something male with a bloody towel in his hand, and you could see them stitching up a cut on his head. We overheard a few feet away that a fight had caused it. Both of these businesses looked like one of dozens of similar operations within a few kilometer radius. Those two sights side-by-side really clued me in to the level of party we were getting into.

After Emma went off to Bangkok, I went down to Krabi in the southwest. I found a cheap place to stay, checked out some of the scenery, and got some work done at the internet cafes. The ocean down here is similarly awesome, but this time you have islands sticking out of the water like small skyscrapers, with limestone cliffs and vegetation on top. Apparently one of these formations was special enough to be filmed in Bond’s Man with a Golden Gun. There was even a tour called “James Bond Boat Tour.” Down there was pretty touristy in general.

So I embraced the touristy-ness and took a Thai cooking class. We had been meaning to do it the whole time in Thailand and was one of my main goals in coming to Thailand at all. I found a pretty sweet operation and it was a great experience. They drove me out to this lady’s property where she had a structure with maybe 600 sq feet of undercover space, with 10 stoves, 3 sinks, two nice clean tables for preparation, knifes, cutting boards, mortars (I forget what they’re called), and all the ingredients cleaned and ready for preparation, sitting on the table. They show you how to prepare both red and green curries from scratch (using a mortar thing to pound out the pepper, cumin, and coriander), as well as the staple dishes: pad thai, tom yum, and stir fried stuff. When actually cooking, there’s an assistant there who tells you when to do each thing and how much. “OK, five spoons of alskdfjla.” “Five spoons of what?” They point. “Oh right. That bowl of mystery liquid. Of course. Roger that.” No, she explained the mystery ones later: tamarind mixed with water (kind of tasted vinegary), chicken stock, one bottle of fish sauce or whatever, and the other ended up being soy sauce. So nothing too crazy. But it was fun because what we were making tasted fricking awesome and if I can ever reproduce something half this good, well, let’s just say major good-at-life points.

It just tasted too good, and the other 4 people in the class would give me strange looks when I was oohing and ahhing after taking a taste of something, closing my eyes in enjoyment. I’m no great cook, but at least I wasn’t as stupid as the goofy Austrian dude who cut himself within – no joke – twenty seconds of receiving his knife and beginning preparation of the curry ingredients. He also ruined one of the dishes when he didn’t hear her say two spoons and instead dumped an entire small bowl of tamarind juice into the dish. The assistants had to go and quickly get the ingredients prepared again.

All the students ate together and we were all truly stuffed by the end before finishing all the things we had made. It made me teary-eyed to see some of the soups get thrown out. And I won’t remember much of anything from the class – there was too much information, too quickly – but hopefully following the little recipes I’ll eventually jar some of the great things they showed us.

Full Moon Party

2008-02-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

Sadly we found out we were getting kicked out of our hillside bungalow. A few days before Full Moon Party, when almost 30,000 people are on the island and we had to find a new place to stay. But by some awesome stroke of luck, Chris scored us a sweet, if a little sketchy, bungalow right on the beach! Complete with a money front porch and bar out in front, it was a great place and I wish we could have stayed for weeks. Our front row seat gave us full opportunity to take advantage of morning swims, Frisbee, and a few beers at sunset.

Another score was the free Wifi at a place 100 ft up the beach. Chris could sit and work while I was lounging in the sun, it doesn’t get much better than that. Days spent like this always seem to pass too quickly and before we knew it, it was party time.

The Full Moon Party at Hat Rin, Koh Phagnan draws a crowd upwards of 20,000 people most months. Imagine a pack of sweaty, drunk, young people raving all night long and you pretty much get the idea. After stashing our valuables, stocking the backpack with some beer, Faderade, and Bacardi breezers, we hopped in a taxi with the Canadian couple staying in the bungalow next to us and headed down to the madness. Within seconds of stepping down from the taxi we were offered “buckets” – the drink of choice at this event. Buckets come in all flavors: rum, vodka, gin, and tequila. Not only to you get a bottle of alcohol, but also a few mixers, straws, and ice. Mix it all up in the plastic bucket (think pail you would bring to the beach) and you are ready to go.

The closer we walked to the beach the louder the music, and the more crowded the streets. People stumbling along laughing, swearing and a few not looking so hot. Emerging on the beach was kinda shocking. There were people as far as you could see in both directions, music blaring from all the beachside bars and the ground was littered with bottles and straws. The first thing we saw was drunk people running through fire. Always a great idea of course. They had set up a ladder of flames allowing people to run across the sand by stepping between the rungs on the sand and jumping through the flames. Then there were fire dancers. People waving flaming balls, flaming poles, and flaming chains - probably one of the coolest things at the party. The visual effect of twirling flaming anything is pretty awesome.

And of course there was dancing.

The party really gets into the full swing of things around 2-3am. By this point there are people passed out in the sand, peeing and puking in the ocean while others swim, and lots and lots of empty buckets. Luckily we finished our buckets before seeing vendors collecting empty buckets off the sand and bringing them back to their stand to reuse. Yuck. Around 3 am it started to rain and the beach quickly emptied of all but the most serious party goers. Nerds that we are we had brought an umbrella, just in case, and had a great time dancing under it. We got a few funny looks but hey, we were dry and having a blast.

By 5 am we decided to call it a night and jumped in a taxi back to our bungalow which was about 45 min away. Let’s just say I was not a happy camper for the ride. The crazy driving, windy roads, alcohol and exhaust were all doing a number on my stomach. But we made it back without incident and even met a guy from Bozeman who was working on building Gates’ house at the YC. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Unfortunately the next day was travel day.

We had to catch the ferry back to the mainland. After packing the maximum allowed passengers onto the boat we finally left from the port. Forced to sit outside because there weren’t any seats, a fact I was happy about because of my still queasy stomach, we huddled on the deck and tried to stay dry when it started to sprinkle. And so began my 48 hours of transportation. 3 hours on the boat, hour bus ride, 13 hour train ride, hour bus ride and then 15 hour flight to LAX, not to mention the hours spent waiting around for my next departure. Sounds fun huh? But here I am at UCLA. I’m back in the U.S. to visit graduate schools for the week, while Chris is still living it up in Thailand. So weird to be back in the States, I actually brushed my teeth with tap water and slept with real blankets.

That's all for now. Love,

Emma

Haad Yao

2008-02-19T07:02:00.000-08:00

A hillside bungalow overlooking the palm trees and white sand beach, a Frisbee, a chess set, and a few bottles of beer. Yep folks, things are looking pretty great from this side of the globe.

Last week we made the journey from Laos to Thailand, which turned out to be a piece of cake. From Vientiane we crossed the border by bus and hopped on the overnight train to Bangkok. Sleeper trains are definitely an awesome way to travel; only downside is you can’t see the scenery going by. These trains have the program down pat. Not only to they make up your bunk with fresh sheets and a pillow, but they serve food and wake you up for your stop. Not the best night of sleep we’ve had, but certainly not the worst.

We arrived in Bangkok at 6:30 am. Of course nothing was open, but we watched Letters from Iwo Jima, ate some donuts, and bought another train ticket farther south. Our second sleeper train arrived in Chumphon at 4 am. Surprisingly this small city port was not completely dead, there were moto taxis milling about and a few businesses open here and there. We decided not to rush to the islands, but find a hotel for the night and catch our breath before any more travel. Chris found a café with free Wifi and worked for much of the afternoon. The following morning we caught the ferry to Koh Tao, the first in the group of three islands we are planning on visiting.

Stepping off the boat in Koh Tao brought us into a swarm of taxi drivers and people advertising various hotels and bungalows. The majority of the accommodation options on these islands are camps of bungalows. These small structures vary from very basic with only a bed and fan to those complete with aircon and hot water showers. We opted for a cheap room in town and decided to explore the rest of the island. Koh Tao is a very tiny island, it took us all of 15 min to drive from one end to another on our moto. The main attraction here is the scuba diving. There are dozens of diving operations offering week only PADI certification courses. The island was definitely picturesque, but not quite the vibe we had been hoping for. After a few nights we decided to move on to the second of the three islands.

Our current location, the island of Koh Phangan is well known for its famous Full Moon Party. Some 30,000 visitors flock here for the giant party of the beach. The next party is February 21st (another reason for our change in location). By a stroke of good luck Chris was able to find a vacancy at one of the bungalow operations on one of the northern beaches. Because of the upcoming party, cheap rooms are almost impossible to find on the island this week. We were picked up from the ferry and showed up not quite knowing what to expect.

We jumped out of the pickup, exchanged looks and knew we wouldn’t be leaving this place for a while. Our bungalow is situated on a steep hill overlooking the bay and beach below. It contains a comfy bed, bathroom and has a small deck in front. The best part? The hammock, of course. (In fact, I’m lying in it right now.) Walking along the beach that night, we felt our kinda vibe. Quieter, clean beach, chill people, I’m not really sure how to explain it. We decided it was absolutely necessary to buy a Frisbee and Chris bought a mini chess set. Today we spent the afternoon lounging in the sun, tossing our bright green “Flying Ring,” and reading. Chris destroyed me in a game us chess, but we are both pretty terrible right now and in need of more practice.

Other news…Chris loves driving around on our bright pink moto.

Miss you all! Love,
Emma

Just a sidenote

2008-02-14T17:27:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure if you’ve seen them, but some workout gyms in the US have a machine which at first looks like a stairstepper, but it has one horizontal platform for standing, and this platform moves in an elliptical motion with varying amplitude and velocity. It’s a quad machine, and you see plenty of people doing the typical behavior you see on workout machines, like supporting most their weight on the handrails, or proudly showing the no-hands-technique and scrunching their face to show how much they’re working. On this particular machine, this means you keep your head at the same height by extending your legs in rhythm with the machine; at one moment you’re standing on the platform and the next you’re in full squat.

So I was going to the bathroom on the night train from Northern Thailand to Bangkok and I finally understood what these machines are perfect for. As the train bounced up-and-down and wobbled side-to-side, the pit toilet was a moving target to say the least. I imagined those people at the gym and figured they must be pit-toilet-on-a-train professionals.

From a few days ago:
I was feeling fine at breakfast. But soon thereafter, I was reduced to a sniveling pile of worthlessness. Even more sniveling than Harry Potter in book 5.

Diahrrea. Quite a bit of it. And nausea. A few possibilities:
The food we gorged ourselves with last night. After all the sore butts motorcycling around, we had promised ourselves a good meal. I had steak, I had spring rolls, I had Tom Yum soup, I had some of Emma's meal, and some Beer Lao. Tasted great then. Not the second time.
I hadn't taken my malaria medicine for a day. Since they are pretty much antibiotics, we thought maybe that's what had protected me from whatever Emma got earlier in the week, and without it, the shield was down. Possible, but likely?
Still thinking of some more...

I stayed in bed all day, reading Shogun, having a hard time ignoring my nausea. Shogun’s a badass book by the way. I voted to not induce vomitting. Probably should have, because 4 hours later I was on my hands and knees, relishing the touch of the cold tile, and ralfed some knarliness into the wicker basket trash can.

Emma got me some white rice and Sprite and we watched a Blade Runner DVD we bought for $1.50 down the street. Feeling a bit better, but only at about 50-60% right now, if that. Ugh.

Motorcycle Diaries, Laos

2008-02-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

Going from towering cliffs and green mountains into city sprawl was awful. From the moment we entered a 100 km radius of Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, we felt a bit depressed. The first few days of our motorcycle adventure brought us through such stunning scenery we weren't prepared to enter the world of cities once again.

The road from Luang Probang to Vientiane is the main highway in Laos. That being said, the portion from Luang Probang to just north of Vang Vieng was a narrow two lane road winding along and over mountains. It reminded me somewhat of roads on Corsica....where truck drivers pass you on blind curves going way too fast. Luckily for us the road here was relatively uncrowded. At one point we passed five or six buses on their usual route north, but other then those 30 min we only saw an occasional moto, a few trucks and some cyclists.

Leaving Luang Probang the road took us along a river valley. We passed through tiny villages consisting of no more than two dozen bamboo and straw structures along the side of the road. It's impossible to imagine what life in these tiny villages might be like. Isolated in the mountains, walking for miles along the road gathering new roof thatch or wood for cooking. Throughout our whole ride we saw women laying what looked to be a type of grass or something along the side of the road. They would them gather piles, wack them on the pavement for a while and bring the bundles back home. We still aren't quite sure what what the end result was.

We also saw lots of babies. Children have so much time on their own. It wasn't uncommom to see five year olds playing along the street with their younger siblings tied onto their backs. Children riding along the street, sometimes three to a bicycle. There were also baby animals everywhere! We saw chicks, piglets, puppies, kittens, calves, ducklings, and baby goats whatever they are called. Chris has a few close encounters but luckily there weren't any casualties.

After climbing out of the river valley and up to a mountain pass of sorts we descended into one of the most beautiful spots we have seen so far. The green valley before us was spotted with towering rock walls and jagged peaks. We were totally unprepared for the scenery. It was unlike anything I have seen before and we hit it right at sunset.

The last hour in the dark to Vang Vieng was a bit scary because of the lack of lights along the road - there aren't any. We also drove through a village celebration and entered a mini war zone of firecrackers being thrown into the street.

And then we entered an episode of Friends, literally. The main street of Vang Vieng is lined with cafes outfitted with lounge beds and tvs. They play Friends reruns all day long.The next day, after catching a few episodes over one of the worst meals we've had so far, we jumped on our bike again and fled the area. While the town of Vang Vieng was mediocre at best, the surrounding area was awesome.

One of the most intriguing natural formations is the series of caves along the various rivers. I am not a huge fan of caves, the thought of walking into a mountain hole and being enveloped into total darkness with god knows what else does not sound like fun. Chris on the other hand was the kid who had to explore until the very end until even crawling became futile, so we set off to see three of the most famous caves. As we walked into the entrance of the first I couldn't help but shiver. Ugh. We joined up with another couple and were followed in by a couple of locals who were guides. Between the six of us we had three working flashlights and our dying headlamp, which I was clutching to like it was my life support.

We weren't 30 feet into the cave when we heard a shout from the lead guide. SNAKE! Probably my least favorite animal in the world. Don't worry it doesn't bite, they told us. But when on of the guys tried to poke it with a stick it coiled. There is no way that snake was harmless. So there I was creeping past a five foot long snake deeper into the cave, knowing it was out there somewhere in the darkness and that at some point I would have to walk by it again. Not seeing it on the way out only made it more creepy. Ahh.

And of course to make things just a little bit better, right after passing the snake we saw a huge spider, maybe the size of my hand, on the cave wall. I couldn't help but wonder what I was getting myself into. I will say that the caves had awesome formations - stalagtites and stalagmites of all shapes and sizes. The third cave required a tiny climb up a steep rocky hillside to enter, but way by far the coolest. The tiny entrance led to a massive cavern. Another higher opening let in a beam of light that fell right on the statue of Buddha and alter in the center of the cavern. From here to cave continued in a maze of passages where it would have been very easy to get lost. We wandered around for 30 min before I had had enough of caves and we made our way back to the entrance.

After our day of caving and another awful meal we decided to continue south to Vientiane. The city sounded much cooler in our Lonely Planet guide then it was when we got there. We found ourselves a nice little guest house on the river, which is a huge sandy bed at the moment, (something about the seasons they said). We went down to the edge to have a beer and watch the sunset. And of course what do we see? A freaking water snake! If there is anything worse then a snake in a cave it's a water snake. Ew just the way they move through the water.....

One highlight of the city - we found an awesome little stand that made hot fresh donuts at night. They had a huge wok of oil and made all sort of fried dough pastries. Mmmmm hot sugar covered donuts. And the best part - they were 10 cents each and you always got one extra for free. Let's just say I ate a lot of them.

Edge of Laos

2008-02-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

Vientiene sucks. We realized this during the 3 hour drive from Veng Vieng, most of it through a one dimensional, 3rd-world sprawl along the single road that penetrated the flat, hazy wasteland. The countryside, you could tell, should be lush green; instead there was a slight brownish tint, either due to it being the dry season, or due to the smoke from the locals burning trash on the sidewalks.

We were spoiled by the great terrain of the Laos mountains, but this was pretty brutal as far as drives go. Kind of like the LA portion of Route 66 maybe 20 years ago but with no strip malls. Just lamers.

We still had a day with the motorcycle, and we figured we might as well use it. Our selected destination was a national park about 1.5 hrs away that featured a few waterfalls. The coolest part of the drive was when we finally reached the red dirt road through the "park" and it wound up and down through jungle for 10 km or so. I was a bit nervous about handling the bike on some of it, but the thing handles awesomely; it was built for this kind of thing, after all. The entrance to the park was a shack with a hand operated wooden road block, with chipped red and white paint, manned by a senile uniformed dude who just kind of put his hand out until we had put enough money into it (about $2).

We found the waterfall. It was pretty cool. I was tempted to take a dive, but the water was a bit knarsty and I didn't feel like being wet while driving for 2 hrs. Walking down the river back to the parking lot, we said 'Sabaidee!' to a few people walking the other direction. They smiled and returned the greeting. Two had automatic rifles, not sure why. Further down there were also some teenagers with their pickup, drinking some Beer Laos and fishing with bamboo poles and god-knows-what as bait. Couldn't see any fish, and definitely didn't look like they were going to catch anything.

We took the long way back, driving west along the Mekong River. Much better than the highway, but we found out it was the highway for cattle. I swear: on this drive I have encountered every kind of farm animal here - goats, cows, chickens, pigs, dogs, water buffalo.... you name it, Emma and I have almost hit it.

Got dark just as we drove by the Friendship Bridge that goes into Thailand and we returned the bike with 5 min to spare. Booya.

It's kind of like riding a bike, but you don't have to pedal....

2008-02-10T19:34:00.000-08:00

I must have had an obvious "What do I do now?" look on my face. He had given me the keys to a Baja 250 dirtbike. It was as I had guessed and dreaded just a bit: a manual.

The guy from Green Discovery, the people we were renting from, had just given me a ride from the office to the bus station (where the bike had arrived) on the back of his moto. He wasn't that familiar with the bike either, but after a few minutes got it started and pointed a few things out (gas tank here, brake here, lights there... the basics), and let me get on and try driving around the parking lot. Hilarity ensued. I kind of got the hang of it on the way back to the office, but there was no way to see what gear I was in and I didn't know how to get into neutral yet. Other than that, I was good to go.

The boss at Green Discovery had a few questions for me. "Do you know how to drive one of these?" "No." "Do you have driver's license?" "Yes." "For motorcycle?" "No." Probably for his own amusement, he gave me a quick lesson on it and sent me down the street. While I was practicing shifting, he told Emma it was probably impossible, which made Emma even more nervous about getting on. After packing up a few things to strap on, we shipped the rest of our stuff south to our destination Vientiene. After a little warming up, Emma started feeling a little more comfortoable and we went and checked out some sweet caves to the north.

It is a bike, after all, and riding a bike is just riding a bike, and we never went faster than I would be comfortable riding a regular bike. At first, Emma would pinch me if we went over 50km/hr. (I ended up realizing that she simply was very sensitive to the feeling of going fast, so if we had a headwind or I accelerated too much, her nervous sensors went off pretty early.) As for me, I was so nervously excited I would sometimes catch myself holding my breath. Yeah, I stalled a few times and wasn't the smoothest shifter around, but it was a great way to see the Laos countryside.

The way south from Luang Prabang was mountainous and had some real great road. Mountain passes that reminded me of riding in Spain, cool little thatched mountain villages in the middle of nowhere with awesome views, and smooth descents along ridges and mountainsides. We passed a few cyclists doing the route, and I felt a bit guilty for being motorized, but oh well - I knew how many kilojoules some of these passes would take, especially with all that stuff to carry around, and Emma would have def mutinied.

On one or two descents, I did get a little tired of the high pitched Honda motor, so I put it in neutral (which I had learned how to do at this point), turned it off, and we were in "stealth" mode; peacefully and smoothly descending the innumerable corners. A spoonful of nostalgia for me, but it felt good. As for Emma, I think she was just thankful she wasn't in a bus.

Luang Probang

2008-02-09T21:15:00.000-08:00

We landed in Luang Probang amidst low lying clouds and dark forested mountains…quite a change from the dry planes of Siem Reap. It was overcast… reminding us both a little of home. After the usual visa on arrival procedures, we hopped into a shared taxi with a couple of British girls and headed for town. The town of Luang Probang is one of the “tourist destinations” in Laos, known for its waterfalls, river rafting, elephants and trekking, in addition to the many Wats or temples. After a cup of coffee and a piece of delicious quiche we found ourselves a guesthouse and set out to explore the town. We were so surprised to see so many foreigners! Even in Siem Reap, one of the most famous attractions in the area, we were visibly the minority, but here it was just the opposite. The city occupies a peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Ou rivers. There is one main street in the city, lined with tour companies, restaurants, internet places, and that’s about it. We returned to our room after dinner slightly disappointed with our first impressions.

The next day it rained; it poured buckets all day and we stayed inside for most of the morning enjoying our book, Shogun. (We had to rip it in half so that we could both read – books are rare.) When it became clear the rain was not letting up we decided to take a walk around the peninsula and check out the river. Our clothes were soaked through within a matter of minutes, but we were enjoying our walk so it didn’t really matter. The Mekong river is a huge muddy body of water winding its way down the country. The banks of the river are lined with lush gardens; the flat fertile soil is an ideal environment and it was hard for us to resist all the fresh produce we saw in town. These gardens are such a stark contrast to the muddy water, they almost seems unnaturally green.

The scenery around town was definitely a highlight, but our favorite part of being in Luang Probang was without a doubt the night market. We had read about the market, but because our first few days in town were raining we didn’t get to experience it until our third night. At about 4 pm the streets became visibly busier… mopeds and tuktuks piled high with goods going to market. The market itself occupied two or three side streets and numerous alleys and sidewalks. Merchants lay out their goods under lighted tents. I never tired of walking into the mass of brightly colored lanterns, scarves, blankets, t-shirts, slippers, jewelry and more, all lit by strings of tiny light bulbs. We walked through the market almost every night and couldn’t resist buying something each time. Tiny paper lanterns decorated with leaves and dried flowers. $2 T-shirts promoting Beer Lao, so soft. Embroidered slippers, blankets, pillow cases. Let’s just say we went on a little bit of a shopping spree.

When we finally decided it would be dangerous to our budget to be in town any more, we looked into moving—exploring a bit to the north and them heading south the capital, Vientiane. We’d heard from people that Vang Vieng, one of the towns on the route south was also a must stop – famous for its river floating and “happy pizza.” The 11 hour bus ride was not sounding so hot to me and Chris had his heart set on trying to rent a motorcycle. We found out that one of the companies in town rented motorcycles and allowed customers to return the bike in Vientiane – perfect. One slight problem…neither of us knew how to drive a motorcycle. Chris went to pick up the bike with one of the company guides and somehow made it back to the office. I had been expecting one of the motorbikes we had seen around town, little did I know we had rented a giant dirt bike. The seat was so high I had to lift my own leg up just to get on the thing. Haha.

We thought it would be best to test out Chris’s driving ability and my nervousness factor before making any long distance journeys, so we took an afternoon trip out to one of the famous caves in the area that we both wanted to see before we left. We made it to the tiny village about an hour north of Luang Probang with sore butts but no other problems. The bike was perfect for the dirt roads, Chris did great with driving, and I eventually got over some of the nerves, kinda.

The Pak Ou Caves are set into the limestone cliffs at the mouth of the Nam Ou river. The lower cave is filled with Buddha images of all styles and sizes. The second and higher of the caves is longer and we needed a flashlight to explore the statues within. The caves are a pilgrimage place for many locals who bring new Buddha images to place in the caves and even earlier had been a place of worship for Laos river spirits. After exploring the two caves we rode back to Luang Probang and judged it a successful motorcycle trip. We rented to the bike for the next 4 days and decided to take a bit of a road trip. More on that to come soon…

Love,

Emma

Somebody!

2008-02-03T19:49:00.000-08:00

When we arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos, we immediately noticed all the white people. We had these two super annoying Brit women on our taxi ride. Our taxi pulled up to a coffee house, and Emma and I did a double-take: the coffee place was pristine and modern, and the place had a vibe and clientele that easily could have been Portland.

Luang Prabang is a small French-influenced town in the middle of Laos at the juncture of some river with the Mekong. It has tons of cool temples and restaurants.

As an official World-Heritage site for the last 10 years, it's ability to handle tourists is well established already. So you get a fair share of British and French retirees coming to visit, staying in the fancer guesthouses that range from $20-100/night, smiling to themselves that their money gets stretched so far. It is also a major destination in Laos and along the only major north-south road, so you get any cyclist/motorcyclist on their way north. But the majority of tourists are in the 20-30something range. Many have just finished partying in Vang Vieng, a town to the south. Many proudly sport funky scarfs or simple cotton homemade shirts or homemade purses -- which would be considered cool and different among their friends, but here, everybody in the town has seen that exact shirt/skirt for sale from dozens of different locals.

It rained here the first couple days. Reportedly is very unusual for this time of year, the Dry Season. Everybody was buying umbrellas (we saw the Brits and they had huge frowns on their faces since they were hoping for sunshine and some tanning). We finally bought one after taking a walk around the town in the rain and two choices: a standard black one for 25000 kip (roughly $3) or another one, blue with floral decorations, for 15000 kip. We were leaning for the blue one because of its pure radness, but upon further inspection, it wasn't even waterproof; it was one of those delicate sun umbrellas that you see by the dozen when a Japanese tour group goes by. Gotta go for functional: we picked the black one.

The market here does kick ass. It gets bustling at nighttime, and there're tons of cool things for super cheap. Usually you ask a price, they look you up and down, they name a price (eg. $3), you name a price ($1.50), they name a price ($2.50) and then you give in because at that point you're only arguing over $.50.

Walking through the market, I kept getting creeped out because merchants kept saying "Somebody! Buy something? Please? Good luck!" It seemed so desperate that everybody kept saying "Somebody!" After mentioning this to Em, she laughed and said that they were really saying "Sa Bad Di!" (sp?) which means "Hello" here. Oh boy. After that, I bashedly started saying hello back. Quite a few merchants didn't speak English and used a small calculator to communicate prices while bargaining. Our favorite was near closing time (10pm) when a one merchant said, "You buy! Cheap price and I go home!"

I had been looking for a place to rent a mountain bike for a few days, but they were all part of guided mountain bike tours, and refused to just rent one. I considered getting a private tour for $35 (privately looking forward to pushing the pace with my guide and slowly ripping his legs off). We finally found one that would just rent a bike and since Em had some stomach issues, I took off for the afternoon. Felt like I had just jumped from the pond back into the stream, like a beached shark back in the deep ocean current. I was passing mopeds, hanging onto jumbos (a tuktuk-moped combination), drafting off pickups, and generally hauling ass. I felt like it was the first real deep breath I had had in a while. It was great.

I rode 20km north, and found a dirt road that went 10km along the Mekong to some limestone cliffs, and ate lunch along the river near some water buffalo. After getting back, we resolved to explore some more, and plan on renting a motorcycle to go to the Plain of Jars. We'll let you know how that goes.

Cambodia, part 2

2008-01-31T18:34:00.000-08:00

As it often goes, the ride from the airport provided my first impression of Cambodia. It was rainy, so the tuktuk ride gave us a frontrow seat to the damp dust on the side of the highway, cyclists pedaling by with cheap plastic poncho-style rain jackets, plenty of motos honking and getting honked at, and the occasional tour bus. Many hotels along this road seemed permanently half-finished, ghost-town-like with their lack of windows. You can see what somebody was hoping to build, but has since left behind for one reason or another.

A good number of locals wore those facemasks surgeons wear while driving around; we never figured out why… maybe pollution, maybe bird flu? A good number of locals also can fit 4-5 people on a single moto, and it’s not unusual to see a mother balance her 2 year old in front of her on the moto as she drives through town.

As Emma mentioned, we met an Australian couple. We all had a fun night of beer and dinner and beer and cards, but I think after they heard we liked math, they decided we had nothing much to offer and proceeded to provide innumerable tips and insights and directions and suggestions for our coming weeks of traveling. It was great stuff to hear, but a bit wearisome after a full evening of it, and Emma and I were happy to have met some cool people but also happy to escape again. All in moderation I suppose. We saw them a few times the next day too – twice at the temples and once at dinner – chuckling at the coincidence of it all, even when the probability of two couples of the same age and same budget and same goals searching out the same destinations is pretty high.

Emma and I found a pretty cool lunch spot called the Singing Tree Café (or something to that effect). A green salad with tahini that whet Emma’s appetite for veggies and then a glass noodle salad with peanuts, lime, and other stuff, and then a soup that was damn good too, but I defer to Emma for an analysis of that one. Also, a dang good iced coffee thing. Anyway, this Café had that hippie/backpackers feel with plenty of posters and announcement boards detailing different causes and foundations and stuff. There was also a Monk Chat every Wednesday at 5:30pm where a monk would come and talk about the basics of Buddhism.

That afternoon we rented bicycles and decided to ride south along the curry-colored river that ran through town. The scenery kept changing: the road went to dirt, the houses became one-room thatched huts on stilts, and there were wooden and bamboo bridges rather than concrete ones. I had become pretty impassive to people calling out for me, since any eye contact in the market brings a flood of “Want to buy? Cheap!” and expectations; but it was impossible to not respond cheerfully to the little school children’s “Hello sir!” as we passed. We kept going and eventually the road ran between huge fields. At the edge of town there was a small stretch of road where the main business seemed to be karaoke bars: these were often just one huge bamboo terrace with a thatched roof overlooking the rich green of the fields, and even in the late afternoon some of them had music going just loud enough to drown out the sound of their generators. I would have liked to stop for a beer, but I think getting out of one of their hammocks before dark would be pretty much impossible. And we don’t like riding in the dark too much since our janky bikes don’t exactly have lights or anything, but at least this time my knees could pedal clear of the handle bars and the seat wasn’t tilted backward 45 degrees.

We got back at 5:25pm and figured might as well go check out Monk Chat. We were a little hesitant after looking in, since at first glance the other 6 or so tourists seemed to be either yoga junkies or hippies who had gotten ripped beforehand. At the worst, it would be good people watching. Sitting down it felt like a self-help group and I was worried we might have to play the Name Game. One of the monk’s friends who had just dropped out of the order a few months beforehand was visiting, and the monk handed to floor over to him for most of the time. It was great to hear about Buddhism from his perspective; he tried to define it, tried to dispel a few common misconceptions, and provided a small glimpse into his life as a monk for 14 years. I think we both liked the themes and the ideas (I’d like to read up on it some more) but weren’t that interested in the part where those ideas become a religion, with the symbols and rigid rules that develop over time.

Emma and I happily debated some of the different parts of the talk over nachos and fajitas and a couple pitchers of margaritas ($15 for everything… suhweet) at the only Mexican joint in town. It was a nice goodbye to Cambodia.

Cambodia

2008-01-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

After five days in Siem Reap, Cambodia we finally saw Angkor Wat. The biggest religious monument in the world and the sole reason we came to this country and it took us five days to actually walk inside the walled complex the makes up this ancient building. It cost us $40 per day to visit the Angkor Archeological Park – the collection of Khmer monuments including Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and many others. When you are paying $8 a night for lodging and $1.50 for a meal this seems like way too much. Ok, maybe not really, but it’s all perspective. After spending the morning walking around the local market and enjoying some bomb chicken and ginger stir fry, we decided to bike up to the ruins to explore again. There are so many tiny temples and monuments that it’s impossible to see them all in a day. From what we had seen the previous day, they only check tickets at the entrance to each of the ruins so we figured we might get away without one.

As we passed the ticket office and official checkpoint at the entrance to the park we were, of course, pulled over and asked for our tickets - never mind the tuktuks and motos vooming past.We turned around and decided to head down a dirt path into the woods. From our previous visit to the park we knew there is an alternate entrance on the western side. Success, we made it to the outer wall of Angkor Wat. Thinking perhaps the gates would be closing soon as it was almost dusk and we could get a free sneak peak at the temple, we sat on the walled edge of the most to people watch. No such luck, the ticket official gave us the stare down and we were forced to continue biking up the road, after all we had paid $1 to rent the bicycles for the afternoon.

Chris decided it was a great idea to try the next tiny dirt path heading out in the woods surrounding the Angkor Wat moat, so off we headed in the general right direction. We were trying to get to the other side of the temple where we hoped to get some sort of view. Off-roading on a one-speed bicycle that is sketchy at best is not the easiest endeavor, but we made it though sand and grass on the fairly well traveled path. We ended up in one of the tiny villages that are scattered throughout the park and were politely pointed in the right direction. Next we came upon a small, lily pad covered lake in which a few men were fishing with huge poles (pictures to come on our Web albums). From here we finally hit the edge of the Angkor Wat moat which we followed around to the other entrance to the temple itself. As we rode around the road block and down the deserted road, we were just waiting to be caught. We reached the outer wall, parked our bikes, and hurried up the stairs into the ruin. Not only did we get to explore the whole temple in golden-glow lighting, watch the beautiful sunset, and see part of a local dance number, but we did it all for free! Yes, we didn’t get the classic sunrise picture of the towering monument peaks, but our own adventure was definitely worth it. Plus, we all know there is no way that I am getting up at 5 am.

After spending 15 hours in the airport in Kuala Lumpur, we spent our first day basically sleeping. We had decided to explore most of the ruins by bicycles – definitely the way to go – and our only regret turned out to be not reading more about the history of the place or hiring a guide to show us around. Walking through the temples you can’t help but wonder about the people who built them. In many cases the ruins have been overgrown with giant trees – one of the cooler things in my opinion. The trees have giant roots above the ground which seem to thrive on the temple walls. Another highlight was the intricate carving and stone work. One of the most famous temples inside Angkor Thom is called the Bayon; the whole building the covered with carved faces. In many cases, each pillar has four identical faces, each looking a different direction. Of course there is some controversy about whose face it is in the first place, but the main contenders are Buddha, some Hindu god, or the ruling king at the time it was built.

We have thoroughly enjoyed this city and spent longer that we originally anticipated here. The local market is filled with colorful silk wall hangings and scarves, as well has fruit, produce, and lots and lots of fish. We also had an encounter with a large rat which Chris didn’t see, almost stepped on, and was “quite surprised” (his words) when I pointed it out to him. We have spent our days biking around the ruins and town and of course tasting the local cuisine. We haven’t really written as much about food as we should, considering most of our daily decisions revolve around our next meal hehe. The local food consists of some great fried rice or noodle dishes, curries, and of course fish. We have been hesitant to try fish and have mainly been sticking with chicken dishes. Our favorite so far is a tiny place on the edge of the market. It lacks any resemblance to the many touristy restaurants, consisting of a half dozen plastic tables and chairs and display case of pre-maid dishes. We were brought to the place by an Australian couple we met at happy hour earlier in the night and subsequently have been back a few times. Chicken and garlic. Chicken and ginger. Yummy. They give you a plate of steamed rice and the food is gone in a matter of minutes. Though, I will say by our third trip the ginger was getting a little intense. The dish pretty much has one – maybe two – whole roots in it.

We decided that our next destination in going to be Laos, which has gotten rave reviews from our fellow travelers. We hope to spend a few weeks there before heading to Thailand. We fly out tomorrow and we write again as soon as possible. Miss you all!

Love,

Emma

Bali

2008-01-24T01:11:00.000-08:00

Driving into Ubud, neither Emma, I, nor the taxi driver knew where our street was. So he dropped us off and we walked around somewhat aimlessly, sweaty and laden with stuff. No street signs, no map, no clues. One small alley had a few signs pointing to homestays, and after walking past one, an older lady cried after us, "Please. Please, looking for stay? Come. Look." Emma stayed in the street as the lady led me to the back of her family compound to a small building with two rooms. She showed me inside; I saw a clean queensize bed and a small bathroom and a ceiling fan and figured, Good Enough. She said 50,000 rp per night, breakfast included. Quick calculation: $5. Gave Emma the headnod.

We stayed there three nights. We'd later realize the room smelled like anti-flea dog shampoo, the sink drained onto the floor and into the nearby shower drain, the toilet did not flush but instead there was a small hose hanging from the wall, the bed boards were too short for the bedframe, and a rooster lived outside our window. This rooster in particular began the neighborhood's roosters in a collective chant at 3am. The place afforded us a few chuckles. The owners were extremely kind and we only used the room as a sanctuary from the humidity.

Before Ubud, we had been in Sanur, a small coastal town east of the largest city in Bali, Denpasar. Coming from the airport, we had arrived in the midst of a huge rain and lightning storm. Walking around, the amount of trinkets and trash and pleading and pawning was a bit overwhelming. It was embarrassing how much the guesthouse staff waited on us - tea and coffee whenever, great eggs, toast, and fruit in the morning at our asking. We took a walk along the beach and saw people hoping to sell a dusty bottle of Coke for 50 cents or whatever, and a few hundred meters later saw chubby white shirtless tourists getting a massage at their hotel's beachside pool.

The next day we rented bikes ($2 total) and explored a bit. Emma sacked up and bit her lip for the 1km stretch we rode on the side of the highway (there were no connecting sideroads, I swear!). We rode a few kilometers out to the end of a spit, and found a beach with a dozen shacks that rented surfboards. We bought a couple beers and cokes and took a board out for an hour, not caring that it had been cracked down the middle and reglued. The water was a great color and it was fun to play in the waves.

Living in general, we've begun settling into a more relaxed paranoia, although I confess Emma's still a bit of a hypochondriac. ("I'm not a hypochondriac, I just have many valid concerns!") To ward off traveller's diarrhea, we have been (almost without fail) avoiding ice cubes, ice cream, and tap water. (We don't even brush our teeth with tap water.) And we've begun our malaria treatment. (We've only seen a few mosquitos so far.) So far so good.

My favorite part of Bali: by chance, we came just as one of their biggest biannual festivals began. The day after we arrived to Ubud, families were huddled on the sides of the streets constructing large bamboo poles that began very straight, rising 25 feet or so, then curving and hanging down delicately over the street. They carefully adorned them with ornamental grasses and fresh flowers and other decorations. Walking down our little alley we would pass under a dozen of these, and they looked really great in the morning and at dusk.

It was cool to see the Hindu influence in general. Each day many would construct small offerings of flowers and rice in a handmade leaf container and place them on the designated part of the nearby statue; each home and business seemed to have one, as well as the family, neighborhood, and town temples, of course. I liked seeing the thatched roofs in the temples as well as the little golden umbrellas poised over some of the statues.

On the day of the festival, everyone dressed in their celebration attire, and most women would get a ride to the temple on a moped while they held a basket filled with offerings. We also saw some women walking to the nearest temple balancing huge arrangements of fruit on their head.

I decided I really wanted to rent a moped. Because of the celebrations, most of the guys offering this were off praying, but one guy had a friend of a friend willing to rent me one, so I paid him $10 for two days. Straight Dumb-And-Dumber-style, Emma and I drove up to the top of the volcano and saw the lake in the crater. A few worries about oncoming rain and low gas brought us back down the hill after an hour or so exploring the towns at the summit, and we got a bit lost on the way back, but returned in one piece no problem.

One time when we were eating dinner, Jimmy Buffett had come on and I felt like an American abroad. But motoring up the only mountain in Bali, passing little villages with their stone temples, looking out over terraced rice fields, crossing bridges over jungle ravines, and having the sky and the puffy clouds -- still an American abroad but somehow better. Bali was great.

Abel Tasman, part 2

2008-01-18T21:29:00.000-08:00

The kayak rental base in Marahau is one of the biggest operations in the world. But after three hours of standing in the blazing sun, sweat pouring down our faces as we practiced kayak strokes in front of our teacher, we couldn’t help but question the efficiency of the system. After lectures in wind, waves, various safety techniques and a mock capsize and escape we were finally ready to enter the “dangerous” waters of the Abel Tasman National Park. The clear blue water was like glass when we finally left to venture out on our own, each of us wearing extremely stylish bucket hats embroidered with kiwis birds that we’d bought 15 min previously.

The paddle to our first campsite took almost 45 minutes. (We had been told not to try to make it any farther on the first day.) But as Chris mentioned the crescent beach of Te Pukatea was as close to paradise as we have gotten. As we pulled up on the beach, there was no one in sight and the golden sand was beginning to glow as the sky turned pink above us.

The next morning we spent some time on the beach before taking a leisurely paddle on to our next destination, Mosquito Bay. This campsite is only accessible by water. Along the way we explored a few of the lagoons that are present in the park only at high tide. The tidal patterns in the park are crazy to experience. The water level can drop/rise almost 12 feet in some cases. This tendency results in huge sandy beaches that are visible only at low tide and beautiful calm lagoons that fill only when the tide rises. We were able to paddle to the head of the lagoons and up part of the rivers entering the sea.

New Zealand is famous for its birds. The lack of predators, besides possums and stoats which are a huge problem and I will get too later, the birds have no natural predators. On each of the beaches we stopped on we saw oyster catchers. These funny little birds are completely black except for their bright orange eyes and feet and long pointy orange beaks. We also loved watching the pied cormorants dive from 100 feet in the air fishing.

We thought Mosquito Bay would be somewhat quiet because of its water access restriction, but it turned out to be just the opposite. The protected waters of the bay drew a handful of sail and power boats, these boats anchored in the lagoon and as the tide went out they simply sat on the sand. Kinda weird to see boats just sitting on the sand. We set up our camp at Mosquito Bay, excited about the prospect of exploring the northern coast the next morning. After a slight mishap with some spoiled broccoli – yuck- we had dinner and sat on the beach playing cards. Chris invented a new game which we are calling Anapai after our first beach campsite of the Abel Tasman. The game is a mix between pitch and a game taught to us by some fellow trampers on the Heaphy Track.

Before going to bed that night I was brushing my teeth when I turned to spit in the bushes and saw a pair of beady red eyes staring back at me. Ahhh! A possum! It of course quickly climbed up one of the tree and sat there just watching me and our campsite. They might look like a cross between a raccoon and teddy bear but don’t be fooled, they are scary little things. The first time we heard a possum cry was on the West Coast with Sean. We were all sitting around the fire when out of the darkness came one of the eeriest sounds I have ever heard. Gutteral, cat-like, evil…I can’t even describe it. Anyway the possum was right above out tent all night. It woke me up half a dozen times and I nearly peed my pants not wanting the leave the shelter of the tent. In the end I made Chris come outside with me.

That night the wind picked up and in the morning we struggled to push out of the bay and make our way north. I was getting a bit nervous about the building swell, but Chris wanted to make it up to what we had been told was the coolest lagoon in the park, Shag Harbor. Along the way we passed one of the islands that ‘s home to a seal colony. I think the rough water forced them to take shelter because we didn’t see any. As we battled the waves and wind to make it across the open channel between the island and mainland, I was having doubts about our ability to make it around the headland to the lagoon. The swells were getting bigger, definitely some of the biggest I have been kayaking in. Chris won out in the end and we rounded the point to an onslaught on wind and water. The white caps were spraying us with salt water, but we managed to make slow progress towards our target. Sitting in the front of the kayak, I was lifted off the water only to come crashing down into the waves. On more than one occasion the waves actually poured over the edge of the boat onto my lap.

We paddled through the narrow opening into the harbor and entered a serene little oasis. Definitely worth the trip. Shag Harbor was a maze of rocky passages and clear green tinted shallow water. Beautiful. After just floating around we decided it best to make it back before the weather got any worse. Surfing the waves back we saw a handful of seals playing in the water by the shore. They next day we paddled back to Marahau and caught a bus for Nelson, reminiscing about the awesome last week in New Zealand.

Chris and I are sitting on our balcony in Bali. I am forced to wear a sarong and treasure my one pair of underwear, but more on that later.

Love,

Emma

2008-01-18T21:23:00.000-08:00

Yes I need to learn how to focus the dang camera.

Mosquito Bay

2008-01-18T21:18:00.001-08:00

On the Water

2008-01-18T21:10:00.000-08:00

Anapai Bay

2008-01-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

Abel Tasman, part 1

2008-01-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

We were sitting on a deserted beach. Waves splashing just a few yards in front of us, we looked out at the eastern horizon as dusk set in and the clouds turned pink. Our tent, pitched only a few feet off the beach behind us, had a million dollar view out the mosquito netting. We had taken a few walks, hand-in-hand, looking for cool shells before sharing our beloved teriyaki veggies and rice dish.

And then one of us farted.

And then the other farted.

It didn’t matter if we were upwind, downwind, in the tent, outside the tent, a meter away or out-of-sight, up the trail and around the bend. The extreme nausea caused from these excretions was almost unbearable.

We feared giardia of course. And Emma, knowing I have 90% blockage of my nasal cavities, often tried to pull a sneaker in the tent without informing me, but as soon as I started to feel woozy from lack of oxygen, I would immediately know what had happened. As for me, I tried holding ‘em in, but within 10 minutes a true Marshall-Islands-worthy detonation would occur within my sleeping bag.

After the Heaphy we stayed in Takaka. The hippy vibe was enormous (like 70% of people had dreads) and there was a great fish and chips place with bomb potato wedges. Our bodies, clothes, and other equipment smelled, so much so that when we came back to our room, the Germans staying in the other two bunks said they had to open the windows because the room had been “quite stinky.” The half dozen Germans staying in the hostel were all farmers in their early 20s and came to New Zealand to work the farms for a month and then travel for two months.

While in Takaka, we happily threw a few bucks towards a pair of flipflops and knockoff clogs; we hiked in those while on the Able Tasman to let our feet heal a bit.

The Abel Tasman proved amazing. The trail wound alongside the ocean and through the white beech trees you’d get great views of the golden beaches and green waters. After a few days of hiking in this paradise, we took a water taxi to the southern end to hire kayaks and explore it by water. In this case, a water taxi is a boat that goes to beaches along the coast, picks up tourists, and delivers them to other beaches. If their destination is the main starting point, Marahau, the boat drives onto a boat trailer waiting on the water ramp, and from there a tractor pulls the boat trailer (with all the passengers still on the boat!) a kilometer or so into town, at which point the people finally get off. It was pretty hilarious riding a boat down the street being pulled by a guy in a tractor.

Our first landing spot with the kayaks was a perfect crescent beach called Te Pukatea Bay. It was great. In the morning, enamored with the setting, I tried getting a good panorama done, but just then about 20 people showed up on a water taxi. Quite deflating. But they ended up going on a day hike, and the cooler sailboat people stayed and swam around with us. I took a better panorama an hour later or so.

We have to go catch a plane to Bali, but there’s more to tell about our kayaking adventure, so we’ll try and post that later!

Swingbridge on the Heaphy

2008-01-08T21:04:00.000-08:00

Heaphy Track

2008-01-08T21:02:00.000-08:00

Sunset from Te Miko

2008-01-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

Trees on way from Wanaka to Greymouth

2008-01-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

Trail Swimming on Creek Trail

2008-01-08T20:26:00.000-08:00

Bullock Creek Tramping

2008-01-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Eel Hunting

2008-01-08T20:20:00.000-08:00

Heaphy

2008-01-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

We met sandflies. These little guys are bloodsuckers, and apparently their life goal is only one bite on your soft skin. After that, they have enough fuel to go make 100 eggs, or so the warden told us. At the Heaphy Hut - a great spot with 20 bunks, cozy unless packed with 20 sandfly-fearing trampers - we had a great sunset view on the beach and watched the river and tide make ripples against each other. We were monching on our staple - teriyaki packet, carrot, broccoli, garlic, white rice, ginger, onion - when we look at each other and see a swarm of 30 sandflies in the space between us. By then, my ankles were already bitten to all hell. Emma got off easy (I'm pretty sure it's because her blood is deficient in whatever those guys are searching for) but didn't mind telling me I shouldn't be scratching them, which was a lot easier said than done. In the hut, I overheard a few kids counting the number of dead flies on the windowsill; last I heard it was over 100. We slept with our silk sacks over our heads to keep 'em out. I finally found out they were attracted to dark clothing, so that helped the situation in the morning as we got out of there.

I've been growing out my beard. I thought it would be fun to not cut it for the whole trip. Sam and I discussed having a contest regarding this at one point, but I laughed it off. He won't find out the contest is on until he reads this, at which point I will have the sorely-needed head start. Anyway, the point is I haven't been trimming the stuff that grows straight down over the top lip. I've noticed several complications that arise from this: 1) it looks ridiculous 2) I can't drink anything without it getting wet, and 3) as Sean pointed out, when I eat from a spoon it looks like how you imagine a Balene whale (is that right?) might eat. I might break down and trim that part soon. Any votes either way from the readers?

The pooping has been going well. I've been very impressed with the quality of the portapotties on the trail. Some of them have sweet views. Some of them have flies, which can be annoying. One even had a hybrid flushing system. However, I have not been impressed with the hostel bathrooms: inside of the toilet paper rolls they place a small piece of wood that makes it impossible to spin the roll easily. To get more than 3 squares, you have to carefully pull the toilet paper through the open space between the roll and the wall several times. Pure frustration. I was so frustrated that at one point, I started plotting how to steal the whole roll just to get back at them.

The last few days have been really wet. Emma said it eloquently:"It's so wet I wouldn't know if I had peed my pants." Once we had set up the tent, the warden came over and informed us it would rain 150mm in the next day and a half, and that we should get past a creek 30 min down the trail by 9am. Kind of a bummer. I’m not sure if Emma was more bummed by the rain or the early “check out time.” But they weren’t lying. The next day it dumped, and we trudged along 19 km with our rain jackets. I had a garbage bag over my pack. We weren’t able to take many pictures (if any!) because of the constant downpour, and if it ever let up and we saw something cool, the lens was too foggy. Shucks. Lots of green though. And at the viewpoints, we usually saw a dense fog through the trees, which made it eerily like Lord of the Rings (maybe Lothlorien?).

I got blisters. I wore socks that were too thin the first day. Things compounded the second day. Tried popping them that night. Next day, they refilled and I had double layer blisters. Last day I was crippled in pain, as my taping/moleskin job must have made the blister go inwards or something, and we finally decided it was better to go the last 20km with my sandal. The move paid off and we arrived without delay.

Among my favorite images from the Heaphy:
• The trail going alongside awesome, long beaches with scattered sharp rocks. We saw a seal enjoying the sun at one point.
• Emma in the middle of the trail, bent over at the waist with her pack on, pulling down her black tights and going pee. I thought it was hilarious she didn't even care to take her pack off. Yay efficiency.
• The transition between lots of different types of ecology. I wish I knew all the plant names so I could describe it accurately. I liked the palm tree forests along the beach with fallen, dried palm leaves covering the ground. I liked the dense, foggy forests with fern trees and beech trees. I liked the big meadows with beachgrass-like shrubs and big trees that have a really dense canopy that covers the hillsides. There’s an occasional white boulder in the middle of fields (you can’t really tell where they came from) and there are creeks winding their way out of the valley. We noticed all this, but the muddy trail under our feet was more of a priority.
• The streams with signs like "Little Creek" that were thundering almost to the height of the bridges after all the rainfall.
• Getting to the Gouland Downs hut (1 room, 8 bunks, no stoves, stone fireplace). Nobody was there and we got to build a fire in the fireplace, dry out our stuff, make some tea, and take a nap. It was a really cool setup with a rainwater collection system and stuff.
• The long swinging bridges that we used to cross the bigger rivers. The metal pieces tying the cables at 1 meter intervals were slippery in the rain. Only 1 hiker allowed at a time. Support cables attached at the center of the bridge kept it from swinging too wildly.
• The wardens are weird. They all are a bit kookoo. Some of them look up at the ceiling for a few seconds before answering a question, some stare at you for a few seconds before answering a question. Some stutter, some have a blank look to them. I think all of them spend far too much time alone. After all, they live alone in one room shelters in the middle of the bush. Any emergency would require a helicopter, and food/fuel drops occur only twice a year.

Routeburn

2008-01-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

We have been in New Zealand for almost a month now and it feels like only a week. Time has gone by so fast it’s almost inconceivable – there are so many things we have seen and still don’t have time to see everything we want to. Our trip from one track to the next is a bit tough on the feet but so far we have survived, barely. We were quite a sight yesterday both hobbling the last few miles of the trail. Chris has about 8 different blisters, some forming directly on top of previous, and I think I have some sort of tendinitis going on in my left foot. Whatever it is it hurts.

We are currently in Takaka, our jumping off point for the Abel Tasman, the last of our tracks in New Zealand. We start again tomorrow morning bright and early. The last two weeks were spent hitching up the West Coast and on the Heaphy Track, which Chris is going to write a bit about. Before recounting some of the better moments from the past two weeks I want to spend a little time writing about the Routeburn. We never actually got around to describing it as we should have.

The morning drive to the trailhead was misty and it started to rain. Chris of course was monching on the BBQ wings we had just bought at the grocery store. Our first day on the track was Christmas Eve, and as we passed fellow trampers we received numerous “Merry Christmas!” greetings, one “Merry Fucking Christmas,” and even saw a guy with a tiny Christmas tree strapped to the top of his pack. Complete with twinkling lights and plastic protecting it from the drizzle, it was by far the best display of Christmas we had seen so far. Getting into the spirit of Christmas is a wee bit hard considering there is absolutely no snow; in fact most people here plan Christmas dinner as a BBQ. There is a definitely lack of Christmas trees.

The short walk to our first hut of the trip took only a few hours, which was fortunate since Chris and Sean were carrying three bottles of wine each. Chris, who simply carried the box of Red Wine in his hands, earned more than one double-take from passing trampers. We arrived just as a guided tour was leaving (thank god) and spent the afternoon playing cards, eating chocolate, and drinking wine. At approximately 6 am the next morning, we awoke to the sounds of two children ripping open presents and laughing. It was way too early for us. It was a wet morning so instead of moving on to our next hut we decided to make use of the stove and empty hut. Sean had trouble restraining himself with the bucket of coal he received for Christmas and the room was toasty warm for hours. We finally decided it was time to move on when another tour group arrived for lunch.

The second day of the track had us climbing up to Lake MacKenzie. (sp?) We were scheduled to be camping that night, so the hours of climbing in the rain were a bit discouraging – our tiny two person tent was definitely not going to be big enough for three people. We had heard so much about the famous Christmas party thrown by the resident warden that we were sure the hut was going to be full. We arrived just as the rain was really starting to come down and found the red faced warden in the middle of his Christmas dinner from the looks of it. By a stroke of luck he was willing to let us squeeze into some of the bunks – yippee! We lay in bed later that night as the rain pelted the hut thanking our lucky stars. Christmas at the hut was quite the affair, not only did the warden make little mince pies for everyone, but he organized a Christmas carol sing-along. What a night!

We started off the next day climbing out of the lake basin. The trail followed the edge of the steep cliffs, climbing along a ridgeline. It started to snow as we got to the top. Continuing along the ridge the weather finally cleared giving us our first views of the surrounding peaks and valleys. The wet weather left snow on many of the mountain and we saw tons of waterfalls. (I posted more pictures of the hike on Facebook.) We reached the saddle for lunch, after which we all took a quick rest leaning against the black tin roof of the shelter trying to suck out some of the warmth radiating from the metal. From here the trail descended, following a river to another hut perched right at the top of a waterfall. The wrap-around porch gave us a spectacular view of the valley floor below, which we would be camping on. It was a short hike down to the valley and we set up camp on a grassy field right at the base of the mountains. Awesome…until some sketchy French dude set up his tent 40 feet from ours. No one else seems to have the sense of personal space that we do.

The hike out to the trailhead brought us along the valley floor, weaving around the river. We crossed some awesome swing bridges. We arrived at the parking lot just a few minutes before it started to rain again and took a bus out to Queenstown. Great hike. Great to hang out with Sean. Sorry for the somewhat out of place chronologically post. PS We bought deodorant.

Love,

Emma

Up the West Coast

2008-01-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

We're in Karamea, NZ. It's the last town on the journey north along the West Coast as we head towards the Heaphy Track, which we start today. I slept 2 hours this morning after a full night of coding, putting in the last push for the HealthOne website. I'll be out of contact for the next two weeks, so I had to try and get my part of things finished off.

We're staying at a place called Rongo Backpackers (http://rongobackpackers.com/). It is all the awesomeness it advertises and more. The radio station and the movie room are my favorites, although I would also try the fire bath if I had more time here. I've been using the wifi (based on a donation system) more than my fair share.

The last week has been great. We've been hitchhiking north, starting from Queenstown. One night in Wanaka, a couple nights north of Punakaiki, a couple nights in Westport, and then here.

On the way to Wanaka, we picnicked and went wine tasting in between hitchhiking rides. Why not? Wanaka turned out to be a haven for 16-18 year olds on New Years' vacation, so it wasn't quite our scene and we took the bus (since the likelihood of rides coming OUT of this mecca was low) to Greymouth, where we met up with one of Sean's previous Woof places, called Te Miko. (By the way, to get a parallel view of our time together, check out Sean's blog: seanmccarron.blogspot.com. He suggests starting from the very beginning.)

Te Miko was rad. I'll try a better description later. Run down, functional house (was it ever fully completed? doubt it) with a monster view, 400-600m from a cliff to the water. It has a varied garden beneath it, with interspersed lawn and haphazard terracing. The lady who lives there is a glass blower, and sells her glass beads to any interested passerby. A redhead eccentric lady named Parrot lives lower on the property, in a house she built that features a hexagonal room and a room full of computer parts she tinkers with. She mentioned her next project was to try to cut a motherboard in the shape of a cow and a farmer.

I enjoyed my time, but couldn't help feeling out of my element. I am immediately known to NOT be a useful person here. The skills I have developed (which mostly consist of computer languages and the building of invisible constructions - not garden shed) have no relevance in their world. I know how to split wood, I'm just not efficient. I can weed weeds and water plants, but I'm unschooled in anything more advanced. It would take time to demonstrate my willingness to work hard; it would require proving it to them. For now, I'm an uninitiated city-boy.

The only time any differences in politics or opinions came out over the campfire, when we were discussing patent law and genetically modified food. At one point, the lady exclaimed in her NZ accent, "The world' going to shit, man! You can't patent life!" I came away from the conversation realizing I'm still on the path towards becoming cleverer, not wiser. I'm not convinced I will be changing that any time soon, though. There's too much to learn before you realize none of it is worth anything.

One highlight was the day hike we went on while in Punakaiki (sp?). Pictures coming soon. Grassy, muddy, soft trails through the woods. We arrived at a riverbed and followed it down to the ocean for 5-6 km. The riverbeds are awesome here, all wide and shallow with super clear water trickling over big smooth rocks. Sean and I had a bit of fun through some of the small rapids, although my sun glasses were a casualty of all this fun once I got sucked under for a second at one point. We also went swimming in a swimming hole and in the shadowy pats I found a 4 foot eel swimming around beneath our feet. Tried hunting him with some of the sticks nearby, but no luck. Emma was amused, but unimpressed all the same.

All three of us have been enjoying campfires the last few nights. The park we were staying at was 100 m from a great beach, with black, iron-based sand that was always super hot and great to lie down on. Sean and I have been digging the fire pits pretty big and deep because there's tons and tons of dry wood lying around. We even got marshmallows and roasted them a few hours after a great Mexican food dinner that Emma made. Pico de gallo with avocado, some chicken with burrito seasoning, tortillas, refried beans. We loved it.

Gotta go for now, but hope all is well!

Panoramas

2007-12-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

Kepler

Luxmore Hut

From the top of Kepler Track

2007-12-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

I'm typing up a few notes I took while on the Kepler Track...
---
We're just finishing up lunch after an awesome day of hiking. We only have a 1.5 hr descent down to the Iris Burn Hut.

The hut-to-hut system is awesome. Last night we stayed at Luxmore: sleeps 50 in big bunkrooms and has a bunch of gas burners in a kitchen with a monster view of Te Anau and the snow capped ranges that surround it.

We were happy to see the shelter since it had been a pretty steep climb... 2500' in 13.8 km. Emma and I had been laughing about how her pack looked super big but weighed about half of mine. The hike started along the lake, with nice sandy beaches and clear blue water. When the uphill started, however, we both realized just *how* heavy our packs were. By halfway up, Emma looked like a flower after 30 seconds in the microwave. And it dawned on us we were doing a loop; that is, we could have left a bunch of stuff in Te Anau. The tent, two stoves, two sleeping pads, and the liter of soy sauce all were suddenly extraneous.

I fantasized about having a contest on the blog where we post a comprehensive list of everything we were carrying, its weight, and its reason for being in the packs, then let everybody vote items off the list. But it would have been too much work.

So the main debate went something like this... Chris: We're carrying too much shit. Emma: This is what you have to carry in order to go backpacking. Chris: We're carrying too much shit. Emma: Find something we don't need. Chris: When I find it, I'm chucking it off the next viewpoint I find.

To be honest, my vision of backpacking is a bit unrealistic. In 7th grade I read Ray Jardine's book, which laid out a system for ultralight backpacking: like 12 pounds without food. Straight minimalist to a psycho degree. But there's gotta be a way to not carry over 60 pounds. (Update: we found a bunch of stuff to ship to Christchurch so that we don't have to hike with it. The next hike was a bunch easier because of it.)

But we both made it to the top without trouble and we got a great view as a reward. And upon arriving to the hut we found some other people had carried some extraneous stuff too... half a dozen guys had a 20 pack each, and a few bottles of whiskey as well. To each their own, eh? As for us, we made a huge stirfry with this teriyaki packet. Oh man it was awesome.

And today, the views have been out-of-control awesome. Panoramas. Lakes and green valleys and snowy mountaintops and a trail tracing its way along grassy passes.

Ummm...

2007-12-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

Math Conference

2007-12-28T15:45:00.000-08:00

View from Dr. Rad's House

2007-12-28T15:41:00.000-08:00

Overlooking Auckland

2007-12-28T15:37:00.000-08:00

Chris in Auckland - Full Sex Option

2007-12-28T15:30:00.000-08:00

Out of the bush!

2007-12-28T15:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lag in blog posts, Chris and I have recently emerged from two weeks in the bush. After two tracks, the Kepler and the Routeburn, we are taking a much needed break in Queenstown.

Queenstown is the center for tourism in the area, kind of a shocker for us after backpacking. Think Sun Valley. Not quite our vibe, but we were able to find a hostel on a hill just above the city. We spent the day yesterday with a few 12 packs of Tui lounging in the sun looking out at the city and mountains. The sun here is super strong due to a lack of ozone, so while Seaners and I ate it up, Chris had to cover up. Great afternoon, we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Now for a little rewind...the rest of our time in Dunedin was great. After the math conference ended we were able to drive out to our professor's house just north of the city. Awesome. The house is set up on the cliffs and looks straight down to the beach. Even with the wind and rain the ocean and sand reminded me of being in Hawaii. We spent the night playing a game similar to charades with all the math professors and went for a walk along the cliffs and beach in the morning before driving back to Dunedin.

Chris and I caught a bus over to Te Anau, the jumping off point for our first backpacking trip. The Kepler track started on the shores of a beautiful lake before climbing up to a ridgeline. We continued across the ridge to a nearby valley before descending and making our way back around to the beginning of the track. Chris is going to write more about this track in a bit.

Ending in Te Anau again, we stumbled our way back, our poor legs had been through a lot. It was painful just to get out of bed, but on the upside I guess my thyroid drugs must be working because I was able to make it up and down almost 3000 ft in a day without dying. After a quick nap and laundry we made our way into town again to find some food. We had been thinking about pizza for most of the 20 km forced march back to the trailhead. We were wandering the streets and scoping out a potential dinner place when we saw a head of curly hair come running out - Mr. Sean McCarron! We were planning on meeting Sean the following day at the first hut on the Routeburn. Quite the coincidence.

I am going to end for now since I want to call Ethan to wish him happy birthday. More on the Routeburn to come, along with Chris's post on the Kepler Track. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Miss you all. Also, here are the first of some pictures! I will probably post a most extensive album on Facebook.

Love,

Emma

Nerd Alert

2007-12-17T20:46:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody. We're in Dunedin, New Zealand right now. Thought we'd write you a quick note.

We left Auckland on Sunday without any trouble. Before catching the bus to the airport we thought it would be a crime if we didn't try the amazing smelling Korean BBQ joint across the street from our hostel. We'd been walking by everyday and pausing to check out the menu. The meal proved to be a life saver, since the trip to our hostel in Dunedin took a little longer then expected.

After chatting with a woman who moved to Dunedin to raise her childen as Kiwis and running the wrong way down an excalator because we were at the wrong gate, we finally made it on board our flight. Flying over sheep farms and herds of cattle was quite a change from the skyscrapers in Auckland, one which I definitely welcomed. Our plane landed in Dunedin (on the one lane runway) and after reaching the red lights signifying the end of the pavement we took a quick u-turn to make our way to the terminal. Never done that before.

There was only one way to get from the aiport into the town - a kind of super shuttle. The $50 shuttle was a bit more then we had anticipated (our daily budget is supposed to be $60) but oh well. The ride into town took almost two hours because we were the last ones to be dropped off. Dunedin might be one of the hilliest cities I have ever been in. Some of the streets we drove on were like a roller coaster, but luckily I didn't get carsick. The town even boasts the steepest road in the world - we have yet to see it but hopefully we will at some point.

We are staying at the Manor House, a huge old house-turned-hostel, which is a nice change from our windowless room in Auckland. For the past few days we have been at a math workshop at the school of pharmacy. Our days consist of modeling problems and two breaks for tea. Perhaps the best part comes when we get "wine and nibbles" at the end of the day. Its been awesome to see Dr. Rad and two other Pomona students who are here as well. The workshop has had its ups and downs. My group consists of a husband-wife team of optimal control theorists and a father-son team from Poland - so it's been hard to contribute to any problem solving. Chris, on the other hand, has a problem dealing with controlling the release of drugs from tablets. Today I got to work on some of the graph theory modeling with him and Rad, definitely a better experience.

When not occupied with our extreme awesome nerdiness, we have been exploring the town of Dunedin with Alison and Rob, our fellow Pomona math majors. One of the oldest in the country, it has a fair amount of Scottish influence. There are a handful of beautiful old churches and a train station that is the most photographed building in New Zealand. (We will post pictures soon.) We just got back from a tour of the Cadbury factory (aka free chocolate), which was fun. Not only did we get to see the second largest liquid chocolate "waterfall" in the world, but I got to make fun of Chris because he had to wear a beard net in addition to his hairnet. Haha.

Tonight we are going to dinner with the rest of the workshop participants. We start our first backpacking trip on Friday, so we will be sure to write again before then. We are enjoying all your comments, and no Chels: its not your blue shirt but a different one. Love you all,

Emma

Goodbye Auckland

2007-12-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

Well, Emma's on the other side of the room smelling her armpits, so I figure I'll just write a bit. We decided to go with ultralight synthetic shirts which have the delightful side effect of storing body odor and letting it really ferment to its full potential. So far Emma's ahead on this front, with her blue shirt in the lead, but my only cotton shirt of the trip might be making a comeback in the final stretch before we hit up the laundromat in Dunedin.

Today we finally decided on a way to track day-to-day finances. Up until now we had been tracking credit card activity for shared items on a Google Docs spreadsheet, having a row that calculates how much one person owes the other person. But now that cash is involved we're using the little Moleskin notebook and have three pages going: one page each that tracks withdrawls from checking accounts and any use of a credit card, and then one page that tracks how we use cash. It has four columns: date, D(ebit), C(redit), and Description. Yeah, I know: quite anal. But if all those Mediterranean traders arrived at this method, we might as well use it too. We were already getting confused at who had withdrawn what and how much we had spent where. Right now we're a bit over-budget, but NZ should be the most expensive: we'll keep you posted.

I think we'll both be happy to get out of the cities. I've almost been run over a few times after not looking the right way when crossing the street. Caught Emma looking the wrong way a few times too. It's so unnatural that I have to consciously twist my entire body to the right before stepping into the street. Must look like a tourist right off the boat.

But then again, on several occasions people supposedly have mistaken us for locals. Today the weather was pretty great, so we walked to one of the beaches just outside of town. Somebody came up to us saying she was taking a survey of Auckland residents for something or other. With the camera, the day pack, the goofy hiking pants? Come on! After chuckling about that, we had a great time for the next few hours, sitting on the sand watching all the action in the bay. I really wanted to get out in one of those fast little sail boats; a few high performance 3-person ones were going so fast they were almost catching air. I tried a bit of swimming to prepare myself for surfing in the months ahead, but just confirmed what I already know: I'm a sinker. We'll see if that improves.

Off to Dunedin.

City of Sails

2007-12-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

The only stressful thing about the airport is that I decided to be a rebel and not claim any food items on the card they hand out on the airplane. In fact, I’m carrying about 15 pounds of energy bars my mom used to make for my bike rides; they will serve as backup food so that I can ward off any grumpiness that comes when I get hungry. We didn’t get searched so it was fine.

The bus ride into town was about 40 minutes, and we arrived at our hostel at 6 in the morning, but couldn’t check into our room until 1pm. So we put our stuff in the storage room and explored the town a little. We found some WIFI at a coffee shop that had great muffins. I worked and Emma finished up a romance novel.

The main excitement so far: we were in our room and heard some laughing from people in an adjacent room as they left to go downstairs. Emma swore she recognized it. After we finished unpacking and were lounging in the kitchen area, Chelsea’s good friend Katie Hall and her boyfriend Todd walked in. Small world! They both go to Pomona and were on the last day of their month long trip through New Zealand. They just happen to be on the same floor at the same hostel in the same city at the same time. Crazy.

So we figured there was some celebration due. After trying out a few of the New Zealand beers we find out it’s quiz night. We figured four Pomona kids on the same team was pretty much unstoppable, so why not give it a try? There were some pretty random questions; the only section I provided some help was the Beatles section. We elected Todd for the challenge round. The goal was to be the first to be wearing sunglasses, scarf, bra, men’s underpants, and a hat. The girls ran up to the room, got everything together, dressed him in 2 seconds flat, and he ran back down to the bar as the winner. We won a weekend trip for 2 to some nearby islands. We ended up third in the main quiz after getting screwed with several valuable questions on an Australian soap. But then the winners came over to our table and gave us those prizes anyway; we bought their table a pitcher.

We went to check out another part of town, but we found that immediately next store was the most interesting of all. We weren’t sure if it was a hole-in-the-wall massage parlor or a Chinese restaurant, so I ventured inside to report to the rest of the group. I saw a guy at the register, but at the top of the stairs my peripheral vision saw about 15 women hanging out at the bar. I go up the desk and look down at the menu: massage $40, something else $80, and low and behold, “Full Sex: $180”. I nod approvingly, as if I were judging the value of such a proposition against other competing offers, and politely say “Thank you.” Walking back down the stairs as one of the women call after me, “Come back soon honey!” Wow. We were laughing about the Full Sex option for a while after that.

Unfortunately, the weekend trip didn’t quite work out because it’s peak season and we’re leaving for Dunedin before the trip returns to the hostel. The other prizes were vouchers for the Magic bus that goes around the South Island, but we are going clockwise and all their trips go counter clockwise. Shucks!

Needless to say, we’re feeling lucky to be here. Yesterday was sunny and we made a monster sandwich and went and chilled at a park overlooking the bay. Tons of sail boats out; Auckland’s the city of sails after all.

Getting out of dodge

2007-12-12T14:44:00.000-08:00

The morning was a bit stressful as predicted. I was pretty much on the phone all morning with work while Emma did everything to pack to get ready to go. (Emma's dictating here.) I chose a pack that is too small, although it is really cool - only 3400 cubic inches. Once backpacking we'll be able to get it to carry more stuff, but until then, Emma's bag is bigger (Chris says bulkier) and 6 pounds heavier (indisputable). Ah well. We'll see which pack the heavy stuff ends up in once we start gaining vertical feet.

A few of the last minute phone calls included: getting details straightened out between our web hosting company and our web design company. I'll be doing a bit of development work while in New Zealand before shipping the laptop home. Another phone call was to the Mommacita, asking her to send my international certificate of immunization to the hostel we will be staying at in Dunedin. Turns out it's required in order to enter Africa -- small detail. Typical airhead Chris.

In between phone calls, April, Peter and I are discussing the merits of bringing the nice camera case. We're bringing a digital camera that's got a pretty sweet zoom even though it's a compact rather than an SLR. The case has built-in padding and even has a hidden pocket with a pull out waterproof case cover. Mom could have spent an hour giving a sales pitch on this thing. Emma's still in bed, trying to give the no-go (because we don't have room in my pack). I put my laptop down on the corner of the bed to go over and examine the camera bag myself. Emma rolls over and -- oh sh!t -- her leg extends in such a way to lift the covers and nudge the precariously balanced laptop over the edge of the bed, landing very hard on the floor. Eh, it happens all the time, right? Well, we open it up and a third of the monitor is black, another third is nicely striped, and the last third shows Windows Vista perfectly.

Eventful morning. I'm typing this on Emma's computer, which has better music anyway. Other than, we got to the airport and on the plane without a hitch!

In case you're wondering about the mobile pharmacy we got going, I'm bringing:
Tylenol - headaches
Advil - joints
Aleve - arthritis? I dunno, my mom packed that one.
Vicadin - Real pain
Dioxycyline - Malaria
Ciproflaxin - Traveler's diarrhea
Arithromyacin - Travel's diarrhea

And here's Emma with her list;

Aspirin
Ibuprofen
Malarone - Malaria
Ciproflaxin - Traveler's diarrhea
Arithromyacin - Travel's diarrhea
Levothyroxine - thyroid meds
Dramamine - no puking
Iron - get strong
PeptoBismol - tummy medicine
Ambien - pass out!
Immodium - plug ya up!
Lactaid pills - eat some cheese!

Maybe we'll write a bit more once we land in Auckland.

Time to get up and go

2007-12-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

It's that feeling of being right on the edge of a cliff and suddenly realizing how close you are to the edge and how much space separates you and the bottom.

On one hand, it's exciting. On the other hand, I'm hesitant to leave. These last few weeks I've been cherishing the stuff I know I will miss. My showers have been extra hot and extra long. I've eaten at all my favorite restaurants and monched down on all my mom's best dishes.

This morning I woke up and met Mark and some other guys at Stumptown coffee and rode for a few hours. Light overcast and colder than a witch's titty; even started snowing a tiny bit. This will be the first winter I haven't been in focused training-mode for more than 9 years. Feels a little weird.

Just got Daddio's 5-minute-till-bus-is-leaving-call from upstairs. We're driving up to Seattle: they'll drop me off tonight, Emma and I will spend the day packing tomorrow, and we board Tuesday.

I will be reading math on the plane. We are going to a 3 day math workshop in Dunedin. It's a mathematical biology thing; doctors bring some problems and the professors and students who come try their best to come up with a solution. A little cramming, a little math with some nerds, and then the trailhead.

I do regret how little I hung out with people this last month or so. I got to play Halo, which was awesome, but I've been programming to the point of carpal tunnel, finger tips calloused from coding. I've been really focused on finishing what I said would do, finishing what is allowing me to bounce out of here and explore. Mom and Dad have been super supportive as always. Everything else is taken care of so that I can devote myself entirely to the task. Last year it was training. This year it was coding. My eyes are bloodshot from lines of C#.

Getting on that plane I'll have a big sigh of relief. And then I'll realize I'm in for a big, frickin' adventure. Here goes nothing.

So it begins

2007-11-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

At age 23, I have finally learned how to wipe my own ass.

I guess I had known for a long time, but I didn't know how to do it very well apparently. Sometimes I'd have to do 10-15 wipes to get things settled down there.

After some worry that this would compound my pooping problems abroad which are sure to come, I asked my friend Andy how he went about the daily "bank deposit." He has a two-stage approach: sit one cheek down, and without letting it slip, stretch the other direction a fair amount before sitting the other cheek down. This eliminates any unnecessary poop contact with butt cheek or butt hair. Sheer brilliance. It has made "dropping the kids off at the pool" a minimal-wiping event for the last 2 weeks.

I've been preparing for our trip in other ways too. I tried out my new Keen trail shoes today with a light jog on the muddy trails around Lewis and Clark. Great blue sky showing through the leafless trees, wet leaves covering the trail and hiding the mud beneath - pretty much unexpectedly good weather for Portland this time of year. After feeling a slight bowel movement, I figured it would be a great moment to try out my poop-in-the-woods technique. So there's a nice little steamy hole in the backwoods of Lewis and Clark College - no I won't tell you where.

To make sure I still knew how to walk with a backpack on, I found some big heavy river rocks in our patio and loaded up my backpack until it weighed just over 40 pounds and went for an hour long stroll through Tryon. Coming up the hill I got a little sweat going, but other than that, it appears systems are good to go.

I've been watching episodes of Man Vs. Wild and Planet Earth.

So, yes I'm excited. This trip is going to be a blast. I've been coding quite a bit down in my basement and making money before my departure, and my work breaks have been food, Halo, and exercise.

We have the New Zealand portion totally planned, we're working on Bali, and I've got a few destinations I want to see in Thailand. We should be posting some maps and pictures and itineraries in the near future for those who are interested.

This is just to get the ball rolling. Looking forward to posting in the future and around the world!

Chris

* Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: How much is the trip going to cost?
A: The budget is $10,000.

Q: How much did airplane tickets cost?
A: Airplane tickets have been $3700 so far. We went with a travel agent rather than one of the around-the-world tickets.

Q: Where do you work?
A: I work for a health care staffing agency named HealthOne Staffing. I've been doing some back end programming for their new website. (If you're interested in specifics: I was using .Net stuff (C# and Visual Web Developer) to create portal and job search functionality for their website. It had to connect with their new backend database via these APIs that required XML packets being sent back and forth, rather than binding directly to a database. That was the main headache.)

Q: What have you been doing and what are your plans?
A: I've been living at my parents' house saving up money for this trip, and I have a little left over from what I saved before going to Spain. I will be coming back broke and well-traveled, ready for grad school at UC Irvine in the fall.