Chris' Journal

2007-11-17T03:59:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Sorry for the absence! I'm re-settled into life in Phnom Penh. I'm continuing to live at the same apartment but am now designing a new, larger apartment that is being built on the floor above me. It will be big enough for mee to accommodate guests, so be sure and plan to visit me here!

My friend Glenn and I had a really nice 3 1/2 days when he visited from Oct. 18-21. We didn't do anything extraordinary, but he felt like he got a good taste of what Cambodia and Cambodian's are like and loved it. We took a 1 1/2 hour ride in a tuktuk, an open air carriage towed by a motorcycle, to the zoo. It's slow and gives you time to see things and take photographs. He visited NFC a couple of times and was impressed with the kids, the staff and how little it took to allow them to be happy. I was able to rent the apartment next to me for him for the 3 days and that was very convenient.

I flew to Bangkok on Oct. 31st to celebrate Korn's 32nd birthday on November 1st. He took two days off from work and we got to spend some relaxing time together. We went to the movies, went to a local zoo, ate out at some nice restaurants, rented DVD's and watched the rehearsal for the Royal Barge Ceremony on Chao Phraya river that flows through Bangkok.

I'm finally back to teaching again and am enjoying it. I teach 5 students in two 1 1/2 hour classes four days a week. They are the most advanced students in English and computer skills.

(Geek commentary) It took me a couple of weeks to clean viruses from computers at NFC and then another few weeks to finish the administrative parts of installing a Linux based SME Server for all the computers there.

2007-09-13T00:52:00.001-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I arrived in Bangkok on September 3rd and had appointments with opthalmologists on the Sept. 4 & 5. Their recommendation was to not have a lens replacement done. They said the cataract was very minor and that power of the replacement lenses for people that have had RK are very difficult to predict. They said my vision could be worse after the operation than before. I think if I want that kind of operation done I will need to have it done in Atlanta where all the other surgery has been performed.

I spent some time with my Thai friend, Korn, and then headed back to Phnom Penh on September 9th. It's taking me a while to adjust to being back here.

2007-07-30T17:24:00.000-05:00

Atlanta, Georgia USA - Short trip back to tie up loose ends...

Since I last blogged I have been appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of New Future for Children (NFC), had arthroscopic surgery on my knee in Bangkok and returned to the USA for a short period of time. Here in the USA I am starting a non-profit organization to help fund NFC, earning some money doing contract work for my former employer, helping to create a web site for NFC and making final decisions about what to do with the possessions that I still have in the USA. I believe this will be my last major trip to the USA for quite some time. I will be returning to Cambodia in September. I plan to be in Cambodia for at least 2-years. After that I will be living in SE Asia for the rest of my life, though I an not sure which country.

The family that I rent an apartment from in Phnom Penh gave me a ride to the airport in their brother's car on July 16th. That was a nice send off! I headed to Bangkok to have my knee examined and see about surgery before my return to the USA.

On Monday in Bangkok I went to Bumrungrad Hospital and had an MRI which confirmed the diagnosis I had previously been given of a torn meniscus in my right knee. Surgery was scheduled for Wednesday. My friend Korn accompanied me to the hospital and stayed the night after I had the surgery on a couch in my hospital room. The surgery went well, I was walking and released from the hospital the next day.

The following Sunday, July 22nd I took a flight to the USA via Seoul, Korea. The flights were pleasant, I got to catch up by watching current movies on the individual screens that were supplied even in coach class!

I moved into a downstairs room/apartment that I'm renting from a friend in the Morningside section of downtown Atlanta. My friend Tony helped me move my stuff from storage at another friends house to here and I am starting the process of deciding what to do with it all.

My vision has gotten significantly worse, so I had an eye exam and was told that I have a cataract in the left eye. They recommended surgery to remove it and replacing the lens with an artificial lens implant. They also recommended lens replacement for the right eye. It is quite expensive in the USA. I am planning on having it done in Thailand on my way back to Cambodia.

I have started working on creating a non-profit organization to help fund New Future for Children. I plan to call it the "New Future for Children Foundation USA". I am hoping that others in the U.K., Australia and Canada might start similar organizations. People at the church I am a member of, U.C.C. Church of the Savior, have been great in volunteering to be the volunteer staff of the new organization.

To be honest, it is at the same time both familiar and strange to be back here in the USA. I am happy to meet with friends, but am no longer really connected with their lives. Even amid the chaos of these countries I am much happier to be in Cambodia or Thailand. I miss the children and staff at NFC and my life there.

2007-06-26T09:17:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I know, I know, long time no blog! It is hard to describe how crazy and fast paced things have been for me here. Sounds inconguous for a place like Cambodia, but that's life here for me. The generator and UPS system works great! Since installed, we haven't had near as many outages for some reason, but it makes it possible to concentrate on teaching classes, which is what it's there for.

My friend Korn came for a 3-day visit and that was a pleasant break, even though I still had a couple of meetings I had to go the first day he was here. We had lots of good Thai food at restaurants here in Phnom Penh. The last day we worked on his 2nd visa application.

My knee has been bothering me a lot. I've had problems with it before, but this is the worst I can remember. I may have to have it checked out in Thailand.

I'm trying to get used to the craziness in traffic I encounter while riding the motorbike I've been renting since July 9th, but it's still a challenge. Cars and motorbike drive in every direction imaginable and some that aren't. I'm trying to think like a Cambodian and not worry too much, but accidents happen all the time. Rotaries are a nightmare. Motorcycles are the pickup trucks of Cambodia and people carry everything on them; Steel pipe, queen size mattresses, lumber, large propane tanks strapped down with strips of worn out bicycle inner tube, up to six people, rattan furniture and anything else you can or cannot imagine. The loads on the motorbikes are major hazards in themselves. The good thing about the motorbike is the fillup charge is only $2 (it only takes about 2-liters of gas!)

The kids are great! I had worked with them to get 5-computers running for the computer lab, but yesterday they figured out how to get 2 more computers working that I given up on. They're learning to install operating systems, applications and helping me teach the class. One of my assistants, Somoun, handles switching to the generator when the power goes out and knows more about it now than I do.

There have been a lot of serious issues surrounding funding and control of the orphanage. I am hoping they all work out, but things are quite tense in these areas right now. The director and staff are great, it's when you get beyond them where the issues develop. Please keep me in your prayers during this time.

I'm still very glad to be here. Life is rich and real. People are human here. Very few lawyers...

2007-06-09T21:42:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I have rented an apartment for $150/month which includes A/C, Hot water, satellite TV, bed, computer desk and they do laundry for about $0.50 for two pounds! It's in the city, but the view out my very large front windows is of palm trees in the yard of the house across the street. I am very happy with it.

I also rented a motorbike for $60/month. It will save on transportation costs and give me a lot more mobility and hopefully safety. You never know what the driver will be like when you hire a motorcycle taxi (motortaxi).

2007-06-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand

I'm in Bangkok to visit a Thai friend of mine, Korn, to relax and contact friends in the USA using voice the Internet and to renew my visa.

My first month in Cambodia has been both wonderful and very challenging. With the help of several of the children, I've been able to get the computer lab in place and with their help have taught the first computer skills lesson to 50 of the kids. This is in spite of 4-power outages, flooding of the lab and having to round up kids for each class since no one really knew their schedules and conflicts.

2007-05-28T09:44:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - a Day in the Life...

I really haven't settled down to a routine yet. I don't know if I ever will in this crazy country. In the morning I went over the NFC and spent some time with the kids working on the computers.

Later in the day Omry, a part time volunteer at NFC who is leaving Cambodia after living here for three years, had a going away party at his place. It was a fun event with good food, music and an ecclectic group of guests.

Sunday I was at NFC in the morning working on my computer lessons for the next week. The other volunteers, the director and I had a meeting with a couple of members of the NFC board of directors at noon, we had a short meeting of volunteers after that meeting to talk about coordinating our efforts in teaching. I spent the rest of the day working on computer stuff, teaching some of the kids one-on-one and practicing shooting hoops (basketball).

Monday I arrived at NFC and taught the first computer class for the week until the power went out. I then spendf the remaining class time showing and explaining the components of a computer to the kids. I had to skip the second class since the power was still out. I shot some more hoops. I definitely can use the practice!

A little later on a group of Cambodian student volunteers arrived. They are planning on helping out teaching the younger kids subjects that would be hard for them to understand from foreigners, such as science, mathematics and the like.

Then Gabe, a NFC volunteer from New Hampshire arrived with his friend Michael. Michael had been very successful raising funds in the USA for an medical organization he is working with in Cambodia. He toured the place with Gabe and I showed him the computer lab and asked himn questions about fund raising.

A short while later the heavans opened up and it rained cats and dogs! The concrete recreation/eating area became a large pond with about 6-7 inches of water. The younger kids go nuts playing in the water and having a good time. A few of the older kids and I moved all the computers onto the desks, as the room was in danger of being flooded. When it rains that hard everything is affected and there's not a lot you can do but wait it out.

We had lunch sitting in plastic chairs in 7"of water. I was not able to teach a computer class until 3:00 p.m. After class I made a trip to get a hammer, nails and a 8-foot by 4-foot board to act as a screen for projecting computer screens, images and videos on a large scale using the DLP projector I donated. We took a motorbike to do the shopping. I ended up carrying the 8' x 4' panel while riding on the back of the motorbike. Amazingly we made it back to NFC intact.

Sovanlay took to nailing and painting the panel while I worked with some of the kids on disassembling one staffs laptop PCs that had sustained water damage and was no longer working. Without a manual we managed to successfully disassemble the laptop and we think we discovered that the power switch had gone bad. I had a multimeter that I bought for $3.50 to check it out. We'll see if we're able to put it back together again, but not a big loss. It was very old and underpowered and undersized. If we couldn't get it working for next to nothing it wouldn't be worth investing in trying to fix it.

The kids helped me get a motorcycle taxi back to my place by the lakeside and here I am at the Internet cafe writing up a day in the life...

2007-05-25T09:05:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I made it through my first week of teaching computer skills to the kids. The kids are great! Power outages, schedule conflicts and still working on getting all the kinks worked out of the PCs has been challenging. We now have five networked PCs. Four are for the students, the other for the teacher (me). I have the DLP computer projector set up to display what is on the teacher's screen and it works well. I've come to find that it would really help to have another person to help teach computer skills. At present, I am the only one and with the current student load each student gets only one hour of class a week. They would like more class time per week, which I totally understand, but I need an additional person to make that possible. A few of the kids have been great in helping me get the computer fixed and set up.

I've been negligent in blogging for two reasons. One is that I got an intestinal thing that most newcomers who eat the local food get after a couple of weeks here. That slowed me down quite a bit. The other is that I have been spending time fulfilling dual roles. I'm was working to get the computer lab and building ready and also helping the director with a number of projects he needed my help on.

Backtracking a bit, I met a guy, Andrew, on the 4-hour bus ride back from the beach. After talking to him about what I was doing he asked if he could come by the ophanage with me the following day. It worked out great! He brought his guitar and played while some of the kids sang songs they had written. He ended up giving his guitar to one of the kids. The kid was thrilled, and later, when I was speaking to a volunteer who gives the kid guitar lessons, he said the kid was very talented and having a decent guitar would really help him.

I visited an organization called "New Hope for Cambodia Children" that deals with the needs of children who have AIDs. They have a home for the children in Phnom Penh called the "Happy House", a clinic/hospital for treating children with AIDs, both inpatient and outpatient, and a new village that is being built in another province for the children to live in. Visiting the hospital was difficult. One girl of 16 looked about 10-years old. She had been unfortunate enough to have caught AIDs from open sores while caring for her AIDs infected sister. She also had severe malnutrition and was lactose intolerant. Most of the other children were in much better condition and were coming in on an outpatient basis.

I visited the new village and it was wonderful. The kids seemed very happy and they had a caring staff. The buildings were well designed and pleasant. At the moment I was there, it would be hard to tell that these kids had AIDs. By the way, Bill Clinton's charity organization provided free AIDs medication for the children and there were several photos of him with the kids and staff when he visited them in Cambodia last year. It's nice to see that some of the money gets to where it should be going to!

By the way, it is hard to explain how crazy some things are here. The driving is like they gave 5-year olds licenses but these 5-year olds have the reflexes and coordination of an adult. You see, sometimes from the back seat of a motorbike, motorbike taxis drive on absolutely any part of the street or sidewalk in any direction. Cambodia is a "right hand side" of the road driving country, but it is more the rule than the exception to drive on the left hand side of the road after making a left hand turn until you have a chance to wander over to the right hand side of the road. I bought a helmet the second day I was here as a rider.

I got over my illness adjusting to the food and hope I am good for a while. I am eating two interesting meals a day at the orphanage. Rice is the basis of EVERY meal. In fact when they ask me to join them eating they say, "Eat rice with us?" as a general way of saying "eat lunch with us?". Today I watched the small children beating small fish to death that we later ate for lunch (the fish that is!). Hard to get the tiny bones out of them. We had some curry with bits of chicken chopped with a meat cleaver so the bones are rather fractured and dangerous. I've gotten quite used to the food and have lost most of my squeamishness. I had eel the other day. Not bad, but lots of bones...

I'm going to a going away party for Omry and his girlfriend Aereilla, tomorrow. They have been part time volunteers at NFC for over a year and they have done a lot for NFC. Sunday I have NFC related events in the morning and early afternoon.

I am very happy to be here doing what I am doing in spite of a lot of inconveniences. The kids make it all worthwhile.

2007-05-14T10:58:00.000-05:00

Sihanoukville , Cambodia - by the ocean

Since NFC observes the King's birthday clebration school closures on Monday and Tuesday, I've taken the opportunity to visit the coast of Cambodia. It was a four hour bus ride here for $4. We stopped once on the way for lunch. There was a helpful France person who knew Cambodian (he lives here) who helped me order at the small, local roadside cafeteria we stopped at. The food was good, a ginger/chicken dish, green peppers and beef and rice. It came to $1.25. I've booked a room with a TV and a fan for $4.

The beach is quite nice, but also quite crowded. I think it is busier than normal with the people being off for the celebration. The water temperature is perfect. There are simple restaurants lining the beach. I a good swim in the afternoon. Later in the evening I had the fish barbeque featuring barricuda, a small salad and rice. I ended up sharing it, and another order I bought, with three local kids who were selling bracelets and keychains. They were amazingly bright, spoke English well and one could even sing the lyrics to an American song quite well.

I haven't decided whether to head back tomorrow or Wednesday.

2007-05-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I did a shopping trip in downtown Phnom Penh today. I spoiled myself and took a tuk-tuk instead of a motorcycle taxi. It was $3 instead of $2 and found it offered a more relaxed view of the city, I wasn't worried about crashing every second of the trip.

I did some bargaining while shopping but I realize I'm not the shrewdest bargainer in the world, nor do I want to be. If they get a little extra from me, I'm not going to sweat it, but I do try. I picked up some "Ray Ban" sunglasses and a case for $12, they started at $18. I checked on battery chargers and found a small one that would be good for traveling but the girl wanted $12 for the off-brand charger alone. I found another place that sold a Sony brand charger for $10 and included 4-NiMH batteries with it. I bought a second Sony charger to use at the orphanage for $7, they just took the batteries, which I didn't need, out of the package. I bought a new motorcycle helmet for $19 (they have them for as little as $10). I also bought a rain jacket with a hood for $7. It's been raining a lot around here.

Later in the afternoon I went over to NFC and I am glad I did. The office staff isn't there on weekends (the regular staff is) and with the King's Birthday celebration they probably won't be there until Thursday. The computer area, next to the office, was like a disaster zone, papers and wrappers and food and VCD's strewn all over the place. One of the brand new mice had been broken. I decided if I wanted any computers to be useable at the end of the week I needed to lock the mice and keyboards in the office, which I did. Not being a total scrooge, I did stay around until evening and set up the DLP projector and speakers and showed a movie to the kids, "Princess Bride". Earlier in the afternoon I helped one of the children come back up to speed with Photoshop.

I bought a ticket to go to the coast tomorrow by bus. It's a four hour ride that costs $4. I still haven't decided for sure if I'm going to go. My backpack is locked up in the NFC office so I'll either have to buy one or use my heavy piece of luggage, which I really do not want to do.

2007-05-12T10:05:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I went over the NFC on this Saturday. About 15-kids are huddled around the 4-computers. I have password protected the one I use for teaching, but somehow they always manage to get in. I showed them some features of Photoshop and worked on a presentation for funding for NFC.

I spent some time with the kids of all different ages and played a catch ball game with some of the staff and kids. I had lunch and dinner there, as I have for the last several days. We ate some of the fish that the older kids caught last night. They caught the fish at the new orphanage location that they stay at during the evening.

I did the technology thing tonight with the DLP projector and 3-speakers (that I bought in Bangkok). It worked out well. I think about 60-70 kids were watching the movie. Of course if anyone touched any of the open metal on the projector they'd get a shock. Things are not well grounded around here.

I brought over a number of DVDs for kids, like Happy Feet, Finding Nemo, the Incredibles and Lion King and they had already seen them all. The spread of technology and DVDs is amazing! I ending up showing an animated movie called "Titan A.E.". They seemed to enjoy it.

The King of Cambodia's Birthday celebration is Monday through Wednesday and schools are closed. The volunteer programs generally do not run during this time. I may take a trip to the coast of Cambodia during this time.

2007-05-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - end of first week

In the morning I lent my camera to one of the kids to take photos of "normal", everyday life at NFC. He did a great job! He took over 190 photos and many of they turned out very well. We transferred them over to one of NFC's PCs. The kids and I picked some out and inserted them into a Powerpoint presentation for NFC.

Today was one of the volunteers birthdays and he had kicked in some money for special food during lunch, so we had duck, fish and clams as well as rice, the stable food with every meal. Lunch was quite good!

I took a ride with the director out to the new area for NFC where 24 of the 80 children stay during the evening. It has become typical that nothing works out normally. The motorcycle we were riding quit three or four times during the ride and we were skirting thunderbolts near the end of the journey. We made it under cover just as the sky opened up and dumped a load of rain. The facility looked pretty nice. They're still finishing construction. It's supposed to be finished in July. I took photos as best I could in the pouring rain.

I stayed later in the evening both to finish up some work and because it was pouring rain. One of the kids takes it as his responsibility to make sure I eat with them. I really appreciate that! This evening dinner was interesting as the yard and area where we ate was covered with about 4" of water from the rain. The chairs are plastic, so I guess they've been through this a number of times before. The kids didn't seem to mind very much.

Later on I saw one of the kids with a flourescent light tube using it as a "light sabre". I guess I should have taken it as my responsibility to confiscate it from him, if for nothing else than my own safety. Sure enough, about 5-minutes later he hit something solid and it broke into a millions pieces. Some of the shards landed next to my feet. They quickly cleaned it up before anyone stepped on the pieces. Boys will be boys and I'll know better next time.

I'm still getting used to the fact that I can't just leave anything I working with around. There are kids at NFC from 2 and up and they just like to play with things, like CDs and memory sticks. I'm not worried about them taking anything other than to play with it.

The kids of all ages love the computers. It amazes me how much the younger ones know and how fast the older ones learn. I have one PC for me, the teacher, and I think kids 6-8 have watched my fingers and figured out the password.

At about 6:30 I sloshed out to the street through water as deep as 6" to take a motorcycle taxi back to where I'm staying. It costs a dollar for the 15-minute ride back there.

When I got back I went to a restaurant showing Spiderman III. I was lucky, the power only went out once while they were showing the DVD. Gee, it's amazing how fast things come out on DVD nowadays!

2007-05-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I feel like I was pushing the edge today, I had four separate motorcycle journeys. Usually two is more than enough. It's really hard to express how insane these rides are. Every traffic rule you'd know in the USA is merely a suggestion in Cambodia. If you going a short distance, or you plan at some time to cross to the correct side of the road, it is perfectly normal to ride into opposing traffic while waiting for your moment to cross. The "safe" distance between vehicles while driving, whether front or side, is measured in inches, not feet. I've gotten really up close and personal to too many bigs trucks for me to remember, and I've only been here 5-days!

In the morning I went shopping with the NFC driver for computer keyboards and mice. I bought 3-keyboards, three optical mice and 4-mousepads for less than $40. The keyboards have both Khmer and English characters.

2007-05-09T09:43:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - So much going on!

So far I love it here! My motorcycle taxi always offers some excitement both in the ride getting there as well as whether the driver actually knows where NFC is. We eventually find it... The kids are great as usual. I asked them to move a CD ROM from one PC to another and they figured it all out on there own. They are all over the computers, writing stuff and making pictures and I haven't even started teaching yet. I played basketball with them yesterday during a break. I've been eating what they eat, which is mostly rice and soups with vegetables and a little bit of chicken or fish. Today was special, we had barbequed pork for dinner (with rice, of course) and it was really delicious! Not that you have whole heaps of it or anything.

(For geeks...) I think I have most of the computer stuff done. I have four PCs working most of the time. They are networked and I have set up a student folder for each child on the teacher's PC and gotten the user ID permissions worked out. I plan to use Powerpoint to create the lesson plans as I go along. Some of the kids have three months of computer training and I'm hoping that they can help out some too. They seem to be very bright! I'm hoping one or two of them can continue on teaching basic computing skills while I am in the USA.

The embassador from the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok visited the orphanage today and asked what we needed. I got to personally deliver a small list to him at the 59th aniversary of Israels independance at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh. The children performed traditional Khmer dancing at the anniversary. They had an excellent performance! I was backstage with them before the performance and they were having so much fun. The girls were doing the makeup on the guys, eyeliner, rouge and styling there hair different ways as well as doing their own makeup. They have fun, but are also very well behaved. They never seem to get really out of hand.

I took pictures and video of their performance and then started taking pictures of the kids. That may have been a slight mistake. I really can't count how many photos they asked me to take shortly after I started. It was all fun, though.

I also went to the bank with the director to see what options there are for getting funds from foreign countries, like Canada, the USA and Australia, to an NFC account in Cambodia for people that want to donate money either once or on an ongoing basis.

I'm thinking about buying a motorcycle helmet as a rider. It's hard to explain how insane the driving is here. The only saving grace is that generally nobody's going very fast. But they pay little attention to traffic lanes, including doing things like turning around to the opposing direction to traffic on a physically divided road if they miss a turn. To make a left turn you wait to amass enough vehicles to intimidate the straight ahead traffic and block them off when the slightest amount of space appears. In a 1-miles drive you play traffic "chicken" about 10-15 times!

So far the people have been great. The more I get to know the director of NFC the more I get to like him and the others on the staff, and of course, the kids.

I have a Cambodian cell phone number now, I just have to prepay for some air time. When I do that I'll send my number.

Last night I met a Malaysia guy who lived in Canada for 12-years and spoke perfect English. He is now working as a freelance photographer and doing programming on the side (his former profession) to help make ends meet as he develops his new career. It was fascinating talking to him. He said when he returned to Malaysia after ten years, he could hardly beleive. Many of the middle class parents had SUVs and drove there children to school because it was considered "lower class" to take the bus. The parents would also drive to school during recess and have their child sit with them in the A/C'd SUV so they didn't have suffer outside at recess with the heat. Eek! That's worse than the USA!

Well, back to my room before another day of Cambodian chaos!

2007-05-07T08:05:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - First day at New Future for Children (NFC) Orphanage

I had my first day at the orphanage today. It was good. The kids are great and I think the director of the orphanage is very good. I pleased that I recognized several of the kids from my visit 10-months earlier and they recognized me.

I will be teaching 4-classes a day with 3-kids in each class. I will also be helping out the staff with varous administrative tasks and playing with the kids in my free time. The work day is from 8:30 to 5:00 p.m.

Tomorrow I will be inspecting the computer equipment that has been donated to them and evaluating what can be used. I hope to be able to set up a simple network tomorrow as well.

It was pretty warm this morning but we had a huge thundershower in the afternoon that cooled things down. The kids played in a 3" deep "lake" generated by the downpours, as kids a prone to do!

The children are very well-behaved. They really take care of each other, the older ones taking care of the younger ones. They seem to have a lot of fun too.

I have found a good place to stay with A/C, a private bath and a hot shower for $9/night. It is about 20-minutes from the orphanage in the backpacker/Beong Kok Lake district. I can take a motorcycle taxi to and from the orphanage for about a $1 each way. Food is about $6-7 per day. Not too expensive to be here.

2007-05-06T20:06:00.000-05:00

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

At check-in in Bangkok for Air Asia the ticket agent was kind and charged me only $90 instead of the $150 I had expected for excess weight for my luggage. On the flight I sat next to a British man who has lived in Thailand for over 10-years and learned a lot of about living there as a foreigner. It was a good flight. Coming into Phnom Penh from the air it looks more like a large town than the capital of a country. I obtained a visa on arrival and was pleased that all my luggage made it intact.

The traffic is as crazy as I remembered. A motorcycle driver confided to me that it scared him driving here, so many accidents. I accepted the help of an employee of the Green Lake Inn to roll my luggage to their place and decided to stay there for the night. It was expensive by lake front standards, $10/night. But is was one of the few rooms that had good sunlight with two windows and was clean and kept up. Many of the cheaper rooms were like caves, almost no outside light coming in and not very well kept.

I wasn't able to really get hold of the director of the orphanage until in the evening, so I decided to wait until today to make the trip over. It turned out well anyway. I saw a group of people having a traditional meal on the floor of one of the nearby houses, one whole side of the room was completely open to the street, and I asked if I could take a picture. They immediately said "yes" and invited me to join them. They were very friendly and constantly encouraged me to follow their custom and chug the glass of beer they gave me when it was down to half full. I obliged a few times, but couldn't keep up with them by any means! I also tried a lot of the food, which was very good. There were curries, beef with spicy sauces, pickled vegetables, cashews, noodles and various other vegetables.

I am excited about heading over to the orphanage in a little while. Wish me luck!

2007-05-05T07:06:00.001-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand - Set to leave for Cambodia

I leave tomorrow morning for Cambodia. I have a lot of excess baggage and am hoping to plea for mercy and have some of the fees waived, otherwise I will be paying about $150 in excess baggage charges, more than my plane ticket! A lot of the extra weight is from things for the orphanage and from the weight of the luggage itself. Note that I had no excess luggage charges in the flights from the USA to Bangkok. The short haul/low cost carriers are a lot stricter on luggage.

I'm looking forward to meeting with the director of the orphanage, Sovanlay, in person. We have been conversing via email and we had one phone call over a very bad connection. It'll be nice to talk face to face. I also really looking forward to seeing the kids again! It's been about 10-months since my last visit.

I expect that my Internet access will be less frequent and, on my end, much slower. If you don't hear from me as often, that is very likely why. Your very important to me and I love hearing from you, so please do keep in touch and I will email back as soon as I can!

Most of my time in Bangkok has been spent helping Korn with the visa process, preparing for Cambodia and communicating with friends back in the USA. There's been a lot of rain here! The food has been great. I can find something to eat anytime of the day or night. Most of the time I eat food from street vendors, omelette on rice, pad thai, barbequed chicken, corn cut freshly off the cob, mango with sticky rice and freshly squeezed tangerine juice to drink. It'll be interesting to see what it's like in Cambodia.

2007-04-26T02:50:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand

I had a good 15-hour flight from Atlanta direct to Seoul. I watched 4-movies, 1 short travelogue and had lots of meals. The plane was a 747 and I had two empty seats beside me. After another 5-hour flight I arrived in Bangkok at 1:00 a.m. Thankfully, all my luggage (4-bags) arrived with me. I stayed at a hotel on Khao San road, the backpacker ("budget traveler) section, which was hopping as always. A hot shower felt very good. Afterwards I was still able to buy fresh tangerine juice on the street at 2:30 a.m. The 24-hour Internet cafe was open so I took care of some tasks on the Internet and finally went back to my hotel to sleep at 5:00 a.m.

It feels fairly comfortable being back here. During my round the world trip I stayed here 6-different times and probably accumulated a couple of months here at least. Some of the street vendors recognize me. I know where everything is. There are good Internet connections for contact with the rest of the world. I had my Thai cell phone activated at the local 7/11.

I'll be meeting Korn, the friend I will be sponsoring to take an English as a second language course in the USA, later in the afternoon.

I think the temperature is in the 80's, not too bad.

2007-04-22T21:11:00.000-05:00

Atlanta, GA - USA

I'm preparing for my preliminary trip to Thailand and Cambodia. I will be leaving on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 24th on Korean Airlines taking a 15-hour flight to Seoul, Korea and then a 5-hour flight to Bangkok. Lucky me!

I'll be bringing the relevant documents over and helping my Thai friend Korn to get a visa to the USA for language school through the US Embassy in Bangkok.

Sometime near the beginning of May I'll fly to Cambodia and start volunteering at Jeannine's Children's Association orphanage. I'll let you more about what I'll be doing after I find out myself.

I'm excited about going, but really do not enjoy the final packing experience. So many thing to remember, so many possible things to forget, and what exactly will I need?

I've appreciated seeing all my friends in the USA and give my thanks to all those that have helped me out in various ways, among them by providing housing, paying for a meal, storing my stuff, hosting a picture show, lending me a car and many other ways.

I'll be back in Atlanta on July 22nd.

2007-04-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

Scituate, Massachusetts USA - Sold the family home...

I am amazed and pleased that everything went very smoothly in selling the family home in Scituate, Massachusetts. The family that bought it are wonderful. They're thrilled, I'm thrilled! They started removing the carpets and exposing the beautiful hardwood floors the afternoon of the closing.

For me the sale means the foundation for me moving to SE Asia has been laid. I plan to use the interest from the money from the sale to support myself in SE Asia. I've contacted the orphanage, Jennines Children's Association, and they would like to accept me teaching there. I will make a preliminary trip there in May and June 2007. I will return to the USA in July and will probably be here until the end of 2007. I then plan to return to SE Asia, more or less permanently, at the beginning of 2008.
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I am working on sponsoring a friend from Thailand to take an English as a second language curriculum at the Georgia Tech Language Institute. If he is able to get a visa, he would be staying with me at an apartment in Atlanta 2-miles from the school. I hope to be working in Atlanta during that time.

Looking back I would say I was depressed during the last two months of my around the world trip. The previous few months had been hard. I was apprehensive about what it would be like to return to the USA, but all in all, things have been going wonderfully! Staying with friends in Atlanta has been a great experience. Getting to know my cousin Ellen, her husband Chris and her son Nicholas after losing touch with her for 20-years has been amazing. Spending time with my relatives in the Scituate area. The family house selling like it did in such a difficult housing market was miraculous. So far the road seems to be paved for me to go to SE Asia and I'm very excited.

I plan to be in Atlanta until after Easter and then travel to see a friend in Gainesville, Florida and then on to visit my cousin and her husband in Palm Coast, Florida. Somewhere around the end of April is when I will head to SE again.

I plan to continue updating my blog entries on an occassional basis, so check back from time to time to see what's going on with me, if you like.

Please feel free to email me and, if you would like to phone me, just send me an email asking for my phone contact information.

2007-02-28T22:40:00.000-05:00

Atlanta, Georgia - Sorting things out...

All of the photos from the trip are now posted on the web!

Since John and I decided to travel separately after 8-months, you'll see the following after the country names:

[no name after the country name] - We traveled to these countries together, photos from both of us.
[Chris after country and John after country name] - Each of us traveled to this country, but did our own separate itineraries.
[Only Chris or John after country name] - Only Chris or John traveled to this country.

David was kind enough to host me for a week or so and now Tony and Tim have been gracious enough to let me stay at their mansion for a few weeks while I sort things out, literally and figuratively, I stored much of what I had left in their basement. I have access to their 12-MB cable connection, so I've been trying to stuff the previous years of my life into a PC and plan my future ones in SE Asia. I've been visiting friends, co-workers and people from my current and former churches.

I'm in the process of selling the family home in Boston (Scituate), which will hopefully will go through by the end of March. I'll be in Scituate from March 13th until April 3rd.

I'm still not sure if I'll be working until I leave for SE Asia or if I'll be traveling across the USA to visit friends, relatives and national parks.

People ask me how it feels to be back, well it feels very comfortable to be back here, but I'm not staying. So it's different. I'm still living out of a backpack and figuring things out as I go. It's pretty much just as it was while I was traveling, except a lot more comfortable. I feel a lot more relaxed than I did before I started the trip. Not because it was such a relaxing "vacation", it's just the opposite. After having my mother die from cancer, traveling on my own in some pretty remote places, having $2,200 worth of stuff stolen and always having to figure every detail of where and what to eat, where to stay, how to get there and who I could trust, the kind of things I have to deal with here seem pretty easy. I'm thankful to the friends that helped me during the trip and who are helping me now by supporting me, in many different ways, as I prepare to live in SE Asia.

If you want to get in touch with me by phone, please send me an email and I'll send you my phone numbers.

2007-02-05T11:01:00.000-05:00

Scituate, Massachusetts - USA

I returned on January 26th to Atlanta via a business class seat on a jet from Johannesburg. My thanks to Tony for providing me a buddy pass for the flight! I'm in Scituate now to take care of affairs related to the family home and to visit with relatives. I'm also trying to determine whether to sell or rent the house.

I'm working on photos and blog entries for posting to the web site for Egypt and Africa. I will be returning to Atlanta on the 13th of February and will probably be there for about three weeks or so.

It's nice to be back in the comfort of the USA. Because everything is so clean and nice in the USA I feel very privileged and I am in comparison to many of the people I've visited in other countries.

My long term plan is to move to southeast Asia. I plan to start in Cambodia, volunteering at an orphanage I visited in June and eventually move to Thailand continuing to do volunteer work.

2007-01-16T09:18:00.000-05:00

Muan, Botswana - Okavango Delta

I've been on the road 22-days now. I've been lucky to be traveling with a group of nineteen friendly and courteous other travelers; South African, British, Scotish, Australian and New Zealanders.

It's been difficult to access the Internet while traveling with an overland safari, so please excuse the absense of blog entries. I hope to fill them in later.

In the Serengeti we saw a migrating herd of wilderbeasts, about 20,000 animals or more streching on for miles.

2007-01-01T08:03:00.000-05:00

Zanzibar, Tanzania - New Year's Eve & Day

During the day I went scuba diving with a few people from our overland group in Nungwi. It was an hour long bus drive to Nungwi from Stonetown and then a tedious 1 1/2 hour trip out to the dive site. The visibility was poor and the sky was overcast. I declined doing the second dive, which may have been a mistake, since the people on that dive saw five turtles the dive and said the visibility was improved noticibly. Oh well!

We had lunch and drinks at the "Fat Fish" restaurant right on the water and watched a beautiful sunset. Later I had delicious dinner of fresh king fish for dinner and more drinks. We moved to the beach later in the evening for the New Year's celebration. Obtaining drinks from the beachside bar was the main activity, which proved challenging when the bar ran out of glasses. Holes had been dug in the beach sand and set candles down into them, which created a neat lighting effect. About 15 of us from the group celebrated the break into the new year. After saying good by to two of our group, Sean and Jules, and having celebratory double shots of "Springbok", we headed to the bus to take us back to Stonetown. That is all of us except for Gary. We sent out a search party with no luck. As we departed we called his name out the window of the bus. Finally we spotted him in a taxi just ahead of us. Belinda had to do some aggressive negotiating to get $40 US back from the driver, leaving the driver with about $14 for a 5-minute ride.

Next morning no hangover. Hurrah! I had lunch and went for a swim off the beach. It's a beautiful sunny day. A good start for the new year!

2006-12-30T00:55:00.000-05:00

Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania - Africa Overland Journey

I finished the 16-day Egypt trip with Chris and Kim. It was a great trip and fun traveling with them!

I started the Africa overland journey on December 24th from Nairobi. Our first destinations were the Ngorogoro Crater and the Serengeti. I'm traveling with 19-others on a huge bus which holds us, all our backpacks, tents, food, water and other gear. We're camping most of the time, but can upgrade to dorms or rooms in some locations.

In the Serengeti we saw huge herds of wilderbeasts that are migrating north, the total herd is over a million animals. We also saw elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippos, hyenas, a cheetah and loads of other animals. It is truly amazing to see so many thousands of animals on the plains of the Serengeti. It's like the reverse of a zoo. You are the minority population here.

The Ngorogo Crater is a volcanic, now grass/lake filled, crator that is over twelve miles (20-Km) across. There are large numbers of the same animals as in the Serengeti, but in a much smaller area.

We're heading to the island of Zanzibar today. Some of us plan to do some scuba diving. It's supposed to be some of the best in the world (that is if the weather cooperates!). I'll be spending New Years in Zanzibar.

Internet access while traveling overland has been limited, so sorry about the sparse and short postings. I may try to embellish them after I return to the USA.

Side note: The Nepal photos have been posted to the web site!

2006-12-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

Mt. Sinai, Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Chris, Kim and I climbed Mt. Sinai (where Moses received the ten commandments) early this morning, starting at 2:00 a.m. and reaching the 7,000 foot summit about 5:00 a.m. We were frequently passed by people taking camels up the mountain. It was 5 below zero centigrade, pretty cold for Egypt. Vendors rented mattresses and camel hair blankets at the top, that we took advantage of, as we waited an hour for sunrise. It was like a big sleepover with about 200-people at the top of the mountain. The sunrise was quite nice, but amidst the crowd I really was not able to experience the spiritual sense of Moses getting the ten commandments here. But the mountain is quite impressive. I'm hoping Moses had a camel to carry the tablets down for him. Otherwise it must of been a very difficult journey! The entire area is very rugged and lacks for any vegetation. We visited the Monastery at St. Katherine and saw the tree of "burning bush" fame, which still survives.

2006-12-18T23:00:00.000-05:00

Dahab, Egypt - Camel ride, The Blue Hole

Chris, Kim and I took a camel ride to the "Blue Hole" in Dahab. Riding a camel is much less comfortable than riding a horse and we were all sore after just a 1/2 hour ride. It also seems that the saddle arrangement for riding was much less comfortble than the camel I rode in India. In India we did a 2-hour ride and I didn't feel that sore afterwards. In either case, this helped us decide not to take the 2-hour camel ride option for going up Mt. Sinai the next day.

The following description is from the Blue Hole Project Web site:

"Situated a few miles outside the town of Dahab on the Sinai Peninsular, The Blue Hole is a natural coral feature and considered to be a world class diving site. It is also the site that has seen the deaths of over 70 divers - more than any other diving site. Essentially The Blue Hole is a small coral lagoon which starts near the surface and drops down to a stunning arch which leads out to the main reef wall. At its deepest part, the Blue Hole reaches over 120m (394-feet). "

It's a beautiful area and we saw a number of people snorkeling and diving. One group of divers were using a nitrox mix, which meant they were going to do some deep dives. The water appeared to be very clear and a bit chilly for my taste, it is winter time here after all, but there were still hearty souls snorkeling without wet suits. I guess I got spoiled by the wonderfully warm water temperatures in Indonesia and Malaysia and decided not to do any snorkleing or diving on this trip. I might consider coming back some time in the summer.

Dahab is a small town with a nicely developed restaurant and shopping area along the waterfront. We went to the waterfront for dinner. The restaurant has the catch of the day displayed on ice in front of each restaurant. The restaurants themselves had wood firepots and come complete with your own set of begging felines. They'll supply with you with a water squirt bottle if the cats become a nuisance.

The meals were quite good and for about $8-$10 we had freshly prepared fish, rice, french fries, salad, hummis and pita bread in a beautiful setting.

It's a bit hard to beleive that the sleepy town of Dahab was the site of a terrorist bombing in April 24th of this year, but it was. 23 people were killed and 62 wounded. Three of the persons killed were foreigners. In talking to one of the locals he said at the time it was a feeling of disbelief. How could anything like this possibly happen here?

2006-12-16T07:01:00.000-05:00

Hurgharda, Egypt - Aborted ferry trip

We boarded the ferry and left port at 9:00 a.m. for a 90-minute boat ride to Sharm El Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula. About an hour into the trip the waves were getting very big, and though we were on a 46-meter (150-foot) ferry, some of the waves broke over the bow and spashed the windows on the top deck about 30-feet above the water! We turned around and the capatin announced that weather was bad and we were heading back to our port of origin. Just as we were due to leave the boat back in Hurgharda, they announced they were going to make a second attempt. We waited on the boat another hour and then they annoucned that the port at Sharm El Sheikh had been closed and the boat trip was cancelled. We talked with our tour company and they arranged for a van to take us to Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula, our final destination, instead of the ferry. The trip should take about 10-hours. We leave at 5:00 p.m. and will probably arrive about 2 in the morning. Well, you've got to expect some glitches when you're traveling!

2006-12-14T03:25:00.000-05:00

Luxor, Egypt

The amount of written and drawn history in Egypt is astounding! My favorite place so far has been Abu Simbel (280 km south of Aswan). The location right on a lake is very beautiful. The memorial to Ramses II is huge, and to realize it as moved from another location is astounding. It has extensive chambers and statues inside it, so it was like moving and re-assembling a mountain with something the size of the Lincoln Memorial inside of it.

2006-12-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

Esna/Luxor, Egypt - Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, Colossi of Memnon
(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)

We catch a private van to Luxor / Valley of the Kings, and grab a guide just before entering the Valley of Kings. The valley holds a majority of the king's tombs. It was intentionally built in the middle of nowhere to prevent grave robbers. The tombs have some of the best coloring we've seen, but regretfully cameras are not allowed inside the tombs. The depths of the tombs were amazing, how far in they went and how much time it must have taken to dig them into the mountain sides. In order to keep the locations secret the tomb builders had their own village and their whole life and generations thereafter did nothing but build these tombs. The tomb of Tutankhamen was here, but everything of note was moved to the Egyptian museum. Once again another tomb was found a couple of months ago by and American cleaning nearby.

*****"Updated: 2:38 p.m. ET Feb 10, 2006 CAIRO, Egypt - Through a partially opened underground door, Egyptian authorities gave a peek Friday into the first tomb uncovered in the Valley of the Kings since King Tut’s in 1922. U.S. archaeologists said they discovered the tomb by accident while working on a nearby site. Still unknown is whose mummies are in the five wooden sarcophagi with painted funeral masks, surrounded by alabaster jars inside the undecorated single-chamber tomb.
The tomb, believed to be some 3,000 years old and dating to the 18th Dynasty, does not appear to be that of a pharaoh. But it could be for members of a royal court, said Edwin Brock, co-director of the University of Memphis in Tennessee that discovered the site."
*****

Next was a visit to the tombs in the Valley of Queens, which were very similar in nature to the king's tombs. We were a little disappointed when we found out the tomb of Nefertari, favorite wife of Ramses II, was indeed open but required a special permit obtained in Cairo and only 150 people a day could visit the tomb. The guide book mentioned the tomb was closed, so it must have just recently been reopened. The tomb is the most well preserved with the most striking colors of all the tombs. We had to stick with a photo book to get an idea of what it looked like inside.

Colossi of Memnon - not a great site, two large statues in almost total disrepair. They reminded me of the rock creatures from Galaxy Quest.

"The twin statues depict Amenhotep III (fl. 14th century BC) in a seated position, his hands resting on his knees and his gaze turned eastward toward the river and the rising sun. Two shorter figures are carved into the front throne alongside his legs: these are his wife Tiy and mother Mutemwiya. The side panels depict the Nile god Hapy.

The statues are made from blocks of quartzite sandstone which was quarried at either Giza (near modern-day Cairo) or Gebel el-Silsila (60 km north of Aswan). Including the stone platforms on which they stand, they reach a towering 18 metres (approx. 60 ft) in height."

Temple of Hatshepsut:
"The masterpiece of her building projects was her mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. It was designed and implemented by Senemut on a site on the West Bank of the Nile close to the entrance to the Valley of the Kings. The focal point was the Djeser-Djeseru or "the Sublime of Sublimes", a colonnaded structure of perfect harmony nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon. Djeser-Djeseru sits atop a series of terraces that were once graced with gardens. Djeser-Djeseru is built into a cliff face that rises sharply above it. Djeser-Djeseru and the other buildings of the Deir el-Bahri complex are considered to be among the great buildings of the ancient world."

One of the more impressive sites built into the mountain side and also the discovery of many of the mummies seen in the museum. They had been moved constantly because of tomb raiders. The temple is in three massive layers with the third built into the side of the mountain.
Take a short break for a coke and a 30 pound ($6) can of Pringles... eek.

Off to Luxor.

Temple complex of Karnak in Ancient Egypt was named Ipet Sut, "the most venerated place" and it is a small...... "Al-Karnak (Arabic village in Egypt, located on the banks of the River Nile some 2.5 km north of Luxor (25°43'N 32°39'E). Visitors to the area – particularly foreign tourists – perceive no distinction between Luxor and al-Karnak, as the two are both parts of the same conurbation. The Karnak Temple is twice the size of the built-up village area, and it is the leading attraction in al-Karnak; essentially this is al-Karnak, as the term Karnak is nearly universally understood as the temple complex and not the village.

The temple area is a vast open-air museum and the largest ancient religious site in the world, and is probably the second most visited historical site in Egypt, second only to the Giza Pyramids near Cairo."

Another favorite site for us, basically a temple complex that was added on by many kings and queens (over 30). The scale was magnificent, large pillars, home to many obelisks, etc.
Next stop Luxor temple, which was basically an extension of the Karnak complex. Very detailed large obelisk out front. The site was great in that we arrived just before dusk so we got to see the temple in both the day and lit up at night. Hundreds of sphinxes once lined the road to Karnak and the government is trying to clear the ancient road.

Also the place of the great six toe joke on Chris... he might have been left counting forever.
Van ride back to the boat.

2006-12-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

Edfu, Egypt - Temple at Kom Ombo and Temple of Horus at Edfu
(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)

As we waited in the lobby of the boat for our guide, I head back to the room to put some valuables out of site and as I'm walking past the desk on the way back they hand me the phone. It totally throws me off that a) I have a phone call and b) how did the desk know who I am? The call ends up being from our local Memphis Tour contact, who between the language barrier and the noise from the crowd in the lobby, all I get from the conversation is "8 and 11". I assume it had something to do with our trip to Hurghada in two days, oh well, we'll just see what happens!
Our guide from the day before in Aswan meets us Kom Ombo, apparently having driven there, while we were cruising to Kom Ombo on the boat. We visited two temples today. The Temple of Kom Ombo is a twin temple to Sobek and Haroeris. Interesting sites here were the carvings of the surgical tools, the alligator mummies (Sobek was the alligator god) and our first siting of the "Nilometer", which was basically a well connected to an underwater passageway to the Nile that rises and falls with the Nile to determine the tax rate for the season. The temple also had a nice calendar showing the harvest seasons. The temple was only 5 minutes from where the boat docked.

Sail to Edfu.

Temple of Horus. Our guide meets us again and we take a 10 minute carriage ride to the temple. Only items that really stood out were the flag holders out front for what must have been 40-50' tall flags. A local temple guide shows me the Nilometer and sneaks a picture of me in the chamber. I also learned not to sit on the outside of the carriage, as a spray of mystery liquid from a pool we hit in the road runs up my pant legs. Chris gets a good laugh as he holds on tight for the ride there and our guide kids him about overreacting, but low and behold, on the way back we hit a hole in the road and she almost falls out but Chris ends up grabbing her before she falls.

At Edfu is the temple of Horus, the falcon-god built by Ptolemy III in 237 BC and finished 200 years later by Ptolemy XIII (father of Cleopatra). Edfu temple is one of the best preserved temples in Egypt. It is devoted to the ancient falcon-god, Horus. The inner walls of the enclosure depict the story of how Horus was conceived from parts of his father, Osiris, god of the underworld. Seth chopped Osiris up into little pieces and cast his parts into the Nile. Isis used her magic to restore Osiris to life only to have Seth do the same again. The second time Isis was unable to restore Osiris, so she used the parts to conceive Horus. Horus later slays Seth (now in the form of a miniature hippo) but looses an eye in the battle. The eye of Horus is an important religious symbol in ancient Egyptian theology."

Chris bargains for a Galabeyya outfit in a store just outside the boat. We have dinner and then dress for the party. We run into "Chinese Elvis" who I catch a photo with beforehand. We have a few beers. I win a massage in the raffle and we dance for a bit. The Asian group definitely had the most fun. Chris cut a rug for a good part of the night.

We discover the bad part of the cruise in that the Esna lock to Luxor is closed. We cannot sail all the way to Luxor, but have to stay in Edfu, which is a really small town. Luxor is about an hour van ride away and we have to shuttle back and forth from there.

2006-12-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

Aswan, Egypt - The Unfinished Obelisk and the High Dam
(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)

Our rep arrived in the morning and we ended up simply walking to the boat, since it was quite close. We hadn't seen it the day before because the boats moor tied next to each other (side by side), sometimes 5-7 deep. It was on the far side of a group of moored boats. The driver took our luggage as we walked. The boat, the "Crown Empress", was very nice compared to the 3 star hotels we had been staying in. The boat was indeed 5-stars! The cabins were spacious with sliding glass doors opening to the ocean.

We were met by our female guide, who spoke the best English to date and we headed off to our first stop, the unfinished obelisk. A 40' piece of granite that had been 70% cut away before it cracked. The Egyptians just left it where it was, as there was plenty of other granite about. It was interesting to hear and see evidence of the techniques used to carve out the granite. It involved chiseling out the outline of the obelisk and then digging holes at strategic points, filling the holes with wood, and starting fires to expand the surrounding rock. They were then filled with water to help push the granite up and away.

The conjecture about this obelisk was it was being cut for Queen Hatshepsut, who was almost as famous as Ramses II. She ruled Egypt for about 22 years (her first husband died and her second husband was weak, so she took over). She was unique in that she ruled just like a Pharaoh. Often she is portrayed as a man in her statues. She built some of the largest temples in Egypt, such as the one in Luxor. She wanted to have the largest Obelisk ever and this one would have been it if completed. Interesting note - her second husband (who was also her nephew) hated her so much for taking over that he defaced all of her carvings out of spite after she died .
Next stop was the High Dam, which was not all that impressive. The visit lasted a whole 15 minutes. Only interesting note is that the lake created by the dam, Lake Nasser is the largest man-made lake in the world. The Russians help Egypt complete the dam and there's a monument just outside the dam thanking them. Apparently the USA offered help, but during the Mideast crisis, we withheld the funds and engineering work, so the Russians stepped in.
Last stop was the temple at Philae, this time during daylight. Our guide purchased the tickets. Our boat driver could not have been more than 11 years old.

We headed back into town and we asked the guide about getting cheap beer (our previous Stella beer purchased in a bar was selling for around 25 pounds ($5) each). She mentioned a duty free shop which we passed on the way to our ship. As a guide she was unique in that she told how much to tip everyone, which had been a guessing game with us previously. As an example wages versus product prices, we meet a school teacher who makes 220 pounds ($45) a month and we end up paying 30 pounds ($5) for a can of Pringles in Luxor... some crazy economics! Kim, Chris and I headed out to the store, which is about a 15 minute walk, but when we finally found the store it's closed and doesn't open until 7 pm, so we had a long walk back to the boat. We rested for a bit and Kim decided to stay at the ship as Chris and I departed on our second attempted beer run. Now to find a cheap horse drawn carriage... the first guy doesn't speak English well, so we keep walking, next guy speaks English well, so we begin the bargaining dance. We had heard 5 pounds ($1) per hour during the day for carriage rides (which we knew was impossible to get at night) so we wanted to do the round trip for 10 Egyptian pounds ($2). After 10 minutes of haggling, the driver agrees to the 10 pounds and takes us to the duty free shop.

It was the oddest duty free store I've ever seen. The first floor had a hodge podge of items (vacuum cleaners, toasters, etc, all looked used), so we headed upstairs which has a small glass front cooler with beer. The price was 7.50 pounds ($1.50), so a great deal compared to 20 pounds ($5). We each buy some beer and head back to the boat. When we arrive the driver gives me the "need more money speech", I had already planned to give him 15 pounds ($3), since he was very efficient, but once I hand him the money he tries a slight of hand trick and pulls out a 50 pence bill (1/2 a pound) and says that's all I gave him. I just laughed and told him to be a tad bit quicker next time!

In the evening the boat sailed on to Kom Ombo.

Tomorrow is the Galabeyya party where passengers dress in Egyptian garb. There is a store on board selling costumes and Kim and I pick out a set for 190 pounds (less than $20).

2006-12-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Aswan, Egypt - Abu Simbel, Light and Sound show at the Temple at Philae
(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)

We had to get up at 3:30 am to catch the bus convey to Abu Simbel for a 3-hour ride to Abu Simbel. The convoy was put in place after a tourist massacre in 1997, but at this point is quite useless. Besides, what better way to plan an attack on a group of tourists than to know the exact time they will be leaving every day.

Tangent here, the current thinking is the pyramids where NOT built by slaves, but the Egyptian people themselves. During the farming season they would work the farms, but other times of the year there was no farm work to be done The Pharaoh, not wanting them to be idle, gave them something to do and paid them as well. This was also their chance to contribute something to the gods, so it was also a "labor of love". I tend to think that the craftsmanship is too precise to have been done under force. This was basically a work relief program instituted by the Pharaohs. They kept the people of Egypt gainfully employed building the pyramids. Today the Egyptian people are kept gainfully employed "protecting" the pyramids (my personal opinion). We arrived at Abu Simbel in the early morning with a nice view of the Nile. It was a bit of a walk to the ticket counter. Our rep had given us money to buy the tickets. Apparently the ticket included having the services of a guide, but we were not aware of how this worked, so we turned down someone offering to guide us. No biggie in my mind. A guide did not seem that necessary for this site.

We walked around a small mountain to the magnificent site of the Temple of Ramses II. In 1257 BCE, Pharaoh Ramses II had two temples carved out of solid rock at a site on the west bank of the Nile south of Aswan in the land known today as Abu Simbel. The massive scale of the statues of Ramses II was truly amazing. The rock-cut facade of Ramses' temple represents the front of a pylon in front of which are four colossal seated figures of Ramses. This facade is one 119 feet wide, and 100 feet high, while the colossal statues are 67 feet in height. The temple was designed to intimidate those coming up the Nile from the south and surely it must have.
Another astounding fact is that the temple and the mountain surrounding it were relocated from 800-meters away. After the construction of the Aswan High Dam the temple would have been under water at is current location. Surprisingly, the Egyptian government would have been OK with this. Fortunately a private group (UNESCO) collected funds to save and move the temple. This was accomplished between 1964 and 1966. They had to build a dam to hold back the already encroaching waters from Lake Nasser. The project cost about $40-million US dollars. They even built an artificial mountain to move the temple back into. They also moved a smaller temple to Nefertari (his favorite wife) at the same time.

The actual interior of the temple is inside the cliff in the form of a man-made cave cut out of the living rock. It consists of a series of halls and rooms extending back a total of 185 feet from the entrance. The long first hall is 54 feet wide and 58 feet deep and has two rows of Osirid statues of Ramses each 30 feet high. Those on the north side are shown wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt, while those on the south wear wearing the Double Crown of Lower Egypt. Trying to imagine the amount of effort and time necessary to carve these chambers and figures out of solid rock is mind boggling!

We had a 3-hour bus trip back to Aswan during which we slept most of the way.
We had a short nap at the hotel and had dinner at a local restaurant off of a square. This restaurant didn't try to rip us off, which was quite refreshing. We kept looking at all the cruise boats docked along the Nile trying to find which one was ours, the Crown Empress, without success.

Our goal for this evening was trying to go to see the light show at Philae, even though we knew it would not be in English this particular night. Our pushy rep offered us transportation and the tour for 150 pounds ($30), but we knew we could do better on our own. We grabbed a taxi and said, "Philae" to which the driver responded "OK". We drove off, then our driver starts yelling to another cab next to us as we are driving. We both pull over and the other taxi driver comes over. Apparently he spoke English and our driver didn't, so he bargained for our driver over the price with us. We ended up agreeing on 30 pounds ($6) one-way which was the price we originally offered. Our taxi driver was probably the slowest driver in all of Egypt but we finally got there.

There were about 20 people at the ticket gate, but tickets were not on sale yet. The another group, mostly German, had missed the earlier show so they asked us if we cared if they convinced the Philae people to have the show in German, as opposed to being in French, as it was originally scheduled. We responded it didn't matter to us. we wouldn't understand in either language, so it didn't make any difference. After about 10 minutes a group of 5-6 French people arrived and tickets went on sale. We bought our tickets for 55 pounds ($11) each.

From here we headed onto the dock where we had to haggle with the boat drivers on a price to take us to the island. This was a little backwards in my mind, since you have no choice but to hire a boat to get to the island, why not include their fee in the ticket price? We connected up with two nice older French women who spoke English and we negotiated a price of 10 pounds ($2) each for a round trip to the island.

The boat ride out to the island was relaxing. The show was actually a narrated (in French), walking tour of the ancient temple. The temple was very pretty all lit up at night. The temple is not completely finished, as it was added onto by many different rulers and the last ruler apparently died before completing his additions. This was another example of a temple (like Abu Simbel) moved from it's original location to prevent it from being submerged. To move this temple they had to build a small temporary dam around the original island to drain the water away.

The show lasted about an hour and we had no clue as to what was said in the French commentary. When we had gotten off the boat on the island of Philae, the boat driver stated that the boats name was "Ares" and to look for him when we were ready to return to the mainland. To reinforce this, a deck hand on the dock pointed to the Arabic name on the boat and says "Ares", like somehow we could distinguish boat names written in Arabic from one another. We found it quite amusing.

After the show we arrived back on the mainland and were somewhat worried about how we were going to get back to our docked ship, since there were no taxis or buses to be seen. But to our luck, our original taxi driver had apparently parked nearby and decided we weren't that bad of a fare, so he was eventually pulled up and picked us up. We returned to the hotel for another 30 pounds ($6). So in total we paid 85 pounds ($17) each... not bad compared to the 150 pounds ($30) each offered by our rep.

2006-12-09T23:00:00.000-05:00

Cairo, Egypt - Mosque of Mohammad Ali, Egyptian Museum, Flight to Aswan

(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)
We were back with our guide, Modi, from our first tour in Cairo. The first stop was to the Alabaster Mosque or the Mosque of Mohammad Ali. I must admit, I thought Mohammad Ali was a religious figure but he was actually a lieutenant in a contingent from Albania who took advantage of turbulent times to become governor. He is credited with bringing Egypt into the industrial age. He built this mosque which can be seen throughout Cairo. The funny story here is he traded a obelisk to France for a clock tower, which sits on the outer wall of the Mosque. The clock is ugly and was broken in transit so it has never worked. In my mind this was the worst trade ever! Not surprisingly, across from the Alabaster Mosque was a large alabaster mine.

Next stop was in Old Cairo. We visited the the Hanging Church from the 9th century built on top of the Water Gate of the Roman Fort Babylon. The floor is made of tree trunks meant to "float" the church if flood waters got too high. According to our guide, the wooden ceiling was also designed to look like Noah's Ark, but was basically just a curved wooden ceiling. We also visited a Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt dating back to the 9th century. It was built on the shell of a 4th century Christian church. We also visited the Church of St. George, built on the northern tower of the Roman wall.

Our next stop was the Egyptian museum. The museum has an amazingly large collection of ancient artifacts, the largest in Egypt! Our guide took us on a hurried two hour tour and then left us for an hour to explore on our own. An interesting note was that they had to cut up and then re-assemble two large statues of Ramses II and Nefertari to get them through the doors. I thought at first, "what a ridiculous thing to do to two priceless, ancient artifacts!", but on closer inspection, it appeared they needed a lot of restoration anyway and were better protected from further damage by being placed within the museum.

The showcase exhibit in the museum were of the artifacts found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun, the only tomb discovered completely intact. Especially impressive was his gold laden burial box, within a box, within a box, along with his sarcophagus, within a sarcophagus, within a final sarcophagus. The last sarcophagus was made completely of gold. They are tremendous pieces of work! It took 10 years to completely excavate his tomb.

We paid the extra 100 pounds ($20) to see the two rooms containing mummies of kings and other high ranking officials. Some of the bodies of the ancient kings and queens were still in remarkable shape, while some of them were quite gruesome.

Kim wanted a cartouche with her name on it, so Modi took us to a nice jewelry shop where she a had a silver cartouche made with gold inlays. We were in a hurry and a bit anxious, so we our guide took us to see the cartouche being made in the "factory". It was your basic Egyptian sweat shop, but the skills of the workers were quite impressive.

We returned to the hotel to take a bus to the airport for a late night flight to Aswan. Our Memphis rep seemed in a rush when we got to the airport. He was further frustrated by the fact that the usual entrance to the airport terminal had been changed to accommodate pilgrimage flights to Mecca, so we had to take a longer route to our departure terminal. In the end it was a nice flight on Egypt Air to Aswan. The hotel was on par with our place in Cairo.

We had the most annoying Memphis rep who met us and kept pestering us about "additional" tours as soon as we arrived in Aswan. We were a bit tired and cranky at this point, so we were not the most receptive audience. We arrived at our hotel in Aswan around midnight.

2006-12-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

Alexandria, Egypt - Pompey Pillar (Amud El Sawari), Roman Theatre, Roman Catacombs (Kom El-Shuqafa)

(text by Chris J., Kim G. and Chris M.)
We had an early star of 7 am for our 3 hour van trip to Alexandria. We met our guide in the city. Traffic was light since Friday and Saturday are considered the weekend in Egypt. Our guide was female and she was quite good. Her previous employment was giving VIP tours in the Greek Museum.

First stop was the Pompey pillar. This was a column raised in 300 A.D. in honour of Emperor Diocletian, who saved the city of Alexandria from a frightful famine. On the western side of the column is engraved, "To the just Emperor, the god of Alexandria, the invincible Diocletian." The monument is 22 meters high (72-feet) and 9 meters (30-feet) in diameter and is made of polished red granite brought from Upper Egypt across the Nile! Nearby we also saw a small sphinx.

Second stop was the Roman catacombs which was one the most interesting sites yet. It was a large underground burial chamber believed to have been built by a rich man in the 2nd century. It was constructed with an interesting blend of Egyptian, Greek and Roman influences. Since Alexandria was founded by the Alexander the Great, the presence of the Greek influence was obvious. At the time the catacombs were built, Rome was the ruling influence, but the builder liked to keep the Egyptian images of power to denote his stature in life (and the hereafter). One writer describing the catacombs said, "Its vast, intricately decorated interior spaces cut at so great a depth into the rock present an enormity of experience outside the normal human realm and tell us of a level of technological expertise equaling enterprises of modern subways and tunnels while far surpassing them in aesthetic response."

The catacombs included a dining area where visitors would eat and drink during their visit. They would never bring plates or anything else back from the cemetary ("the place of death"). It was it considered bad luck, so they would break them in the dining hall after eating. The entrance was full of dish shards when originally discovered. The Arab name for the catacombs, Kom El-Shuqafa, means "Mound of Shards".

Another interesting site was the Roman Amphitheater. Built in the 4th century AD, it remained in use until about the 7th century AD, or about the time of the Arab invasion. The seats of the amphitheater were still in great condition, you could still be read the seat numbers on them! There was also a "sweet" spot on the floor of the amphitheater where even a whisper could be hear by everyone in the amphitheatre and would also be echoed back to you.

Next we stopped by the citadel located right on the Mediterranean. The Qaitbay Citadel in Alexandria is considered one of the most important defensive strongholds, not only in Egypt, but also along the Mediterranean Sea coast. It formulated an important part of the fortification system of Alexandria in the 15th century A.D. It was erected on the exact site of the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The lighthouse continued to function until the time of the Arab conquest, but the lighthouse was destroyed by several earthquakes.

Our guide showed us a nice seafood restaurant for lunch, but we wanted something easier and cheaper, but still on the water... so we ended up at a Pizza Hut, of all places. Not quite what we were looking for, but nice and easy.

It was also market day... lots of fruits and meats along with all sorts of live birds. Pigeons are a popular meal entre and you can actually see brick towers erected to house and catch them in various parts of the city.

It was vacation day for school kids, so there were big groups at each of the sites, they all liked to yell "Ello, what's your name?" Our guide said that was the only English they learned at that age. We ran into a big group of school kids when visiting the King's Palace as well. It was a very nice location right on the waterfront with good boat harbor. We saw an older man coming out the harbor in his flashy Lamborghini Dialo. Our guide recognized him and confirmed the impression that this was rich man who used his wealth and flashy car to pick up women.

First time we really noticed the Muslim calls to prayer from the loudspeakers at 4:30 am... a little early for us!

Last stop was at the Alexandria library, the world's second largest after the Library of Congress. We didn't go inside, but took pictures from the outside. One of the outside views is designed to look like the sun setting into the water.

2006-12-07T14:37:00.000-05:00

Cairo, Egypt - the Pyramids at Giza

I made it through the gauntlet of customs and security checks with my newly issued passport, from Bangkok, to Mumbai, to Kuwait City and finally to Cairo.

Chris and Kim arrived from the USA last evening to join me on this part of the trip. It was great to see Chris again and to meet Kim for the 1st time!

I had been in Cairo for two days before they arrived and saw the pyramids both days from my hotel room. They are within walking distance. Unfortunately, this morning the smog/fog was so thick that even driving right next to them, you would not even know they were there. Our Guide gave us the option to go to Memphis this morning instead and come back later in the afternoon to see the pyramids, when hopefully the smog had cleared. We quickly took him up on this offer.

Memphis, founded around 3,100 BC, is the legendary city of Menes, the King who united Upper and Lower Egypt, but now not much remains. The highlight of Memphis is the "Colossus of Ramses II", a 34-foot long statue of Ramses II that lays horizontal inside of a museum. A modern sculptor commented, "How these master carvers achieved perfect surfaces on this scale with simple tools was beyond my comprehension. My own twenty years' experience provided no clue. But clearly this was not the work of slaves. This forty-foot length of stone could only have been brought to life through the sensitive hand and watchful eye of a master sculptor, and with a great deal of loving care."

Another notable artifact was the Alabaster Sphinx. The Alabaster Sphinx is 8m (26 ft) long and 4m (13 ft) tall and weighs around 90 tons. The type of figure known as a sphinx is created with the body of a lion and the head of royalty. The lion is in a crouching position with its paws outstretched. The human head is adorned with the covering reserved for kings of that particular period.

Next we headed to the Step Pyramids in Saqqara. Unlike Giza, Saqqara has the distinction not of having Egypt's largest pyramids, but its first, the Step Pyramid of Djoser. This was an impressive site, with a large courtyard and more pyramids, some very ancient, than Giza. The Step Pyramids were quite huge.

After the Step Pyramids, we visited a carpet school and papyrus factory... both ended up being pitches for vendors to sell their wares, but they weren't too bad. Quite interesting to see the hand-made Egypt carpets. Chris J. bought a small carpet for Kim.

Finally off to see the Great Pyramids and luckily by this time the weather had cleared, how funny to come to Egypt and not get to see the GP. What was most odd was the location... right in downtown Giza. Kinda expected a long bus ride in the desert but the Pyramids were about 2 miles from the hotel. Impressive to see all three Pyramids, we decided thanks to our guide not to pay the 100 pounds ($20) to go inside the main Pyramid but spent 25 pounds ($5) to go into the second. Both had the same flavor, very small shaft leading into the burial chamber. But no hieroglyphics or art of any kind just small stone passages. Still incredible the precision in the construction. Last stop was the Sphinx, once again not expecting it in such a crowded local, but still it was fascinating.

Afterwards we visited a perfume shop. We were subjected to the worst sales pitch I've heard quite in awhile. We left with nothing but an odd mix of scents lingering on us.

In the evening we paid roughly 25 pounds ($5) each for Stella beers in the hotel bar. We had a short, heated discussion with the waitstaff and left feeling slightly ripped off. The main issues were, beers are really expensive in bars in Egypt and we didn't understand Arabic numerals.
Egypt note: Necropolises, tombs of the dead, were always located on the western side of the Nile River while the eastern side was used for active temples for the living.

2006-12-03T07:05:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand - Photos and viruses on memory sticks! (geek stuff)

Bangkok is a great place to get prints made from digital images. 4x6 prints are 10-cents a piece and am 8x12 prints are quite cheap as well. I decided to have some prints made for friends and for myself.

I'd been having some problems with the memory sticks where I stored my photos and discovered that they had contracted a virus. I managed to get the prints made. On another PC I was looking at the memory sticks with a virus program and decided to "clean" out the viruses, which the program did. The only other issue was that all my directories on the stick were gone! Directories which contained some photos that I didn't have copies of.

I had some older backups of some of the other important stuff on the stick on my web site and started downloading them. I discovered I couldn't create a directory because, "it already exists!". I looked at the memory stick and it was using a lot of memory space that was unaccounted for. Fortunately I could change the folder settings on the PC I was using at the Internet cafe, and by allowing viewing of system and hidden files, I was able to find and recover the missing directories and photos. Hooray!

This has been one hell of a week...

I am supposed to pick up my Kuwait Airways ticket tomorrow and fly to Mumbai tomorrow evening. I fly out of Mumbai for Cairo the next morning. I hope everything goes well!

2006-12-02T23:00:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand - Ticket problems

I spent 7-days talking to the people in the Kuwait Airways office in Bangkok trying to get the stolen ticket from Mumbai to Cairo reissued. The people in Bangkok were very nice, but the office in Mumbai gave a variety of reasons why they could not reissue the ticket. They said they had to get a "letter of guarantee" from the travel agent who sold the ticket to me in Varanasi. I could not get hold of the travel agent in Varanasi and I think Kuwait Airways had problems trying to contact them as well. I even tried contacting the main Kuwait Airways office in Kuwait. I was within ten minutes of taking the cheapest alternative, purchasing an entirely new ticket from Bangkok to Cairo for $527, as opposed to likely having to pay Kuwait Airways $700 for an entirely new ticket from Mumbai to Cairo, when the Bangkok Kuwait Airways office called and said they had just gotten the OK to reissue the ticket. Whew! Having my stuff stolen, like this ticket, has caused a lot of stress. The rest of the day was spent working on getting documentation together for filing the insurance claim for the stolen items.

2006-11-30T11:00:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand - Chao Phraya River

I took an evening dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River from the Yok Yor Marina with a Thai friend. We had three dishes, green curry, a fish cooked in a tangy, lemon sauce and spare ribs in honey. All of the food was delicious! They start serving dinner while the boat is at the dock and then start the cruise on the river about 9 p.m. Sights along the way include other dinner boats, which are lit up like Christmas trees, 5-star hotels, traditonal stupas and the Royal Palace (all lit up by floodlights) and the quite nice night skyline of Bangkok. Not bad for $25 for the both of us!

2006-11-29T11:00:00.000-05:00

Kanchanaburi, Thailand - the Tiger Temple

So called because a monk offered to take in a orphaned tiger and ended up raising several orphaned tigers to adulthood at the temple. It is now open to the public for a $7 entrance fee. The tigers are brought out in the afternoon so that visitors can touch and have pictures taken with them to raise money for a new tiger project. They plan to upgrade and expand the park and they also hope to train newly born tiger cubs with the skills needed to survive in the wild and reintroduce them into the wild again. The Tiger Temple is about 2 1/2 hours from Bangkok.

When I went there the tigers were out in the canyon area and I got to sit next to, pet and have my picture taken with 5-different tigers. A very neat but strange experience. Tigers are VERY BIG! One of them was unchained, the others were on 15-20 foot chains. I was so close (touching them) that the tiger would have had no trouble chomping on me even with the chain. Every so often a tiger gets kind of feisty and the keepers and the head monk have to calm him down. I saw this happen a couple of times. For about $25 you can have pictures taken holding the tigers head in your arms. I noticed they only used one specific tiger for the head holding photo shots.

The temple area (looks more like a game park) has also attracted other aninmals that the monks take care of as well; wild horses, goats, boars, deer and a sun bear among others. They're all strolling around free in the park, except for the bear, which was on a long leash held by a monk.

It was definitely worth the trip out there!

2006-11-28T06:33:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand - recovery...

Monday I applied for a new U.S. passport (fortunately I do have a photo of my passport stored on my web site so that made things a long easier at the U.S. Embassey). I visited the Air India and Kuwait Airlines offices to try to get the stolen tickets reissued. I also dropped by the Indian embassey to see about a replacement visa for the 6-month, multiple entry India visa I had stamped in my stolen passport. Basically they told me I would have to get a new India visa and it would take 5-days, which I don't have. That's five days after I get the new U.S. passport! I'm going to try to change my ticket so I don't have a long layover in Mumbai, otherwise I will be spending about 30-hours in the transit area at the airport in Mumbai.

I spent today getting a new cell phone, a new camera (a Konica Minolta Z5 the predessor to the Z6 which I used for the rest of the trip, I couldn't find a Z6), a 2-GB memory card for the camera, rechargeable batteries for the camera and a 2-GB memory stick for storing photos offloaded from my camera. Hopefully I'll have enough memory for the trip through Egypt and Africa. In Bangkok there's a plaza that has 6-floors of stores for electronic stuff. That's where I purchased all the items. The prices seemed quite good.

The hotel I'm staying at (where the stuff was stolen from) agreed to discount the price of my room 15% for my remaining 6-day stay. Not a great concession, but something at least.

I hope to take a trip out of Bangkok tomorrow and get away from the city a bit.

2006-11-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand

I had my computer, passport, extra credit cards, and ATM card, 2 airline tickets, some cash in Indian Rupees and two cameras stolen from my room this evening in the time it took to have used towels exchanged for new ones. I found my empty backpack in the room of the people that stole the stuff.

I've cancelled the extra cards, I still have an ATM card and a credit card that were in my wallet. I'll be working on getting a new passport and hopefully getting new tickets issued for the ones stolen.

I'm doing OK, considering it all, but I lost all the pictures I took in India, and everything on my PC. Not the best evening...

2006-11-23T05:41:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand

I've been here a week recovering from a cold, working on selecting photos for Nepal, getting prints made for Dil Kumar, my Sherpa Kekam and my hotel friend Sunil. I also made a dentist visit and had three cavities filled for about $40. I'm finishing up details for traveling to Egypt and Africa. I've extended my health insurance to cover my travel back in the USA as well as for the end of this trip. I'm enjoying the ease and inexpensiveness of being in Thailand again.

2006-11-17T04:50:00.000-05:00

Delhi, India - Brief update

Yes, I am still alive! I took an 8-day Everest Trek in Nepal, myself and a Sherpa guide, flying into Lukla at 10,000 feet and reaching Kala Pattar at over 18,000 feet for some astounding views of Mt. Everest and surrounding, awesome peaks! No altitude sickness problems, but the hygiene in the mountain areas isn't so keen. I'm in Delhi, India now, flying to Bangkok in a few hours to recover from a serious cold I caught the last two days of the trek and to work on logging all of the awesome experiences that occured in Nepal, meeting my former sponsored child, Dil Kumar, spending 8-days with my Sherpa guide, Kekam, who has climbed Everest and other even more difficult peaks, and finding the warmth of Nepalis working at the hotel I stayed at Sunil and Ganesh in helping me to find and communicate with Dil Kumar.

2006-11-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

Kathmandu, Nepal - Delhi, India

After a rough night, I felt quite a bit better. I had gotten quite a lot of sleep, though intermittant, and the luxury of a hot shower. I felt like I at least had the option of making the flight to Delhi as booked.

I tried investigating what would be involved in changing the three tickets I had purchased for the journey from Kathmandu to Cochin, but couldn't get the information I required as quickly as I needed it. Dil Kumar had requested that I call him if I was leaving so he could drive to the hotel to say goodbye. I decided to take the flights as booked. Sunil called Dil Kumar and Dil started the trip from his village to Kathmandu on his motorcycle.

My sherpa guide, Kekam, came by to see me off. I showed him pictures I had taken during the 9-day Everest trek. He requested copies of some of them. Looking at a photo of Ama Dablam, he showed me where four climbers had died in an avalanche during the 2nd to last day of our trek. He had been on climbs of Ama Dablam three times and summited it once. During the successful climb he was the sole sherpa to set up all the stakes, ice screws and ropes for the final stage of the ascent. I cannot even imagine trying to climb that peak!

He also related that his father had been a monk.

He gave me a peach colored scarf as a symbol of good luck on my journey. He asked what kind of tea I liked and then went off to purchase some. He returned just as Dil arrived. I introduced Kekam to Dil. Kekam was able to act as an interpretor when I went back to my room to show Dil photos from my last days visit with his family and photos from the trek. Part way through Kekam had to depart. He gave me ginger tea in a beautiful cloth pouch as parting present.

Before leaving, Dil gave me a yellow scarf and a beautiful, hand carved wood frame for photos. Sunil also had a yellow scarf for me, so in all I had three "farewell" scarfs that I proudly wore from departing the hotel until after I boarded the aircraft several hours later.

At the airport Dil and I had a tearful goodbye. I was glad Sunil was there to be with him on the return journey to Kathmandu.

The plane was a couple hours late and there were some very recent security threats specific to India. They confiscated 3-spare AAA rechargeable batteries from me at the main security checkpoint and then later confiscated sun cream at the security checkpoint they had right at the stairway to the plane.

As we took off and the plane started leaving Nepal I was overcome with emotion. Two incredible things had happened here. I had re-united with my sponsored child from 20-years ago and I had climbed to a place and an elevation that I never thought I would be able to. The most beautiful place on earth to me.

2006-11-15T23:00:00.000-05:00

Lukla to Kathmandu, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 9 (2840-meters/9,318-feet)

I managed to get a nice sunrise shot of one of the mountains from the window in my room. I navigated down to breakfast and came somewhat back to life. I talked with a girl and her boyfriend from Canada. He's a helicopter pilot. They were really nice and helped to bring me back to reality.

The planes into Lukla were late due to the weather in Kathmandu. We had a 9:30 a.m. flight that didn't end up leaving until noon. I was getting worried, as the clouds and winds pcik up in the afternoon and places usually don't fly in much after lunch time.

I got to take some pictures and videos of the planes and helicopters when they finally started arriving. Once they started there were pretty frequent arrivals. Every landing was impressive.

We finally got out chance. I took lots of pictures of the amazing mountains and countryside as we flew back to Kathmandu. I am amazed byt the sheer volume of the mountains that has been terraced by the Nepali and Sherpa people - miles and miles of terracing!

We had an uneventful landing in Kathmandu, gathered our luggage and returned to my hotel.

2006-11-14T23:00:00.000-05:00

Namche Bazaar to Lukla, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 8

The hike from Namche Bazaar to Lukla was excruciating. A couple times, at stops for tea, I curled up and caught a few minutes of sleep. I was in the thick of a cold, hacking and coughing, and I think I just was exhausted from the whole trek. I dragged into Lukla 9 1/2 hours after leaving Namche Bazaar. Thank God for my sherpa Kekam taking care of things, because I was almost comatose. I think I ate a few spoonfuls of rice for dinner, but somehow managed to completely consume a warm apple struddle that seemed the most delicious thing in the world to me at the time.

2006-11-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

Pheriche to Namche Bazaar, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 7 (3440-meters/11,287-feet)

We stayed at the Khumbu Lodge in Pheriche. This is the nicest place we've stayed so far. I agreed to pay half the cost, since I requested to stay here. It had a hot shower, the first since I started hiking, and I made good use of it. What a luxury. Unfortunately I caught a bug/cold or something and was hacking my brains out most of the time I was at this beautiful lodge. Famous people who have visited this area, like Jimmy Carter and Robert Redford, had stayed here.

2006-11-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

Gorak Shep t0 Kala Pattar to Pheriche, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 6 (4243-meters/13,921-feet)

I had to wake Kekam up at 5:00 a.m. Apparently his alarm didn't go off. We wanted to make it to the top of Kala Pattar by sunrise. I had three cups of hot lemon and a snickers bar before the climb. I felt fine. No headaches, no nausea. The ascent is quite easy with the exception of the altitude you are climbing at. Kala Pattar is a very long, sloping hill. We saw the glow of headlamps further up the mountain. Though they started before us, we ended up passing them. I don't quite know how, as I was moving at a snail's pace. But I'm a very steady snail! We made it to the summit by sunrise.

It was a very clear day and there were some awesome views of Everest, Lotse, Nupse, Pomari and the other peaks. I built a small rock stupa in memory of finally making it to Kala Pattar, and hoping that my trekking partner from my first attempt, Ted, would make it here as well some day to add to it.

Kala Pattar - (5545-Meters/18,193-feet)

I am very thankful that God has blessed me with being able to make this trip. I think this region is the most awesome place on earth and I feel privileged to be able to visit here again.

2006-11-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

Tukla to Gorak Shep, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 5 (5140-meters/16,864-feet)

I remember waking up, going to use the toilet and having to break a 1/4" of ice off the water barrel used to "flush" the toilet. It as very cold this morning! Not sure when we started, but we were at Lobuche for lunch. Just before starting off for Gorak Shep, I ran into Doug and his Mom.

A few short spans on the trek to Gorak Shep were pretty steep, but most of it was pretty easy walking. We arrived in the afternoon. Gorak Shep is in an awesome location! After getting settled in the lodge, I walked around and took some photos of the surrounding peaks. I took a short hike part way up Kala Pattar as well for photos.

Back at the lodge most of the people were huddled around the wood stove. There were a few Japenese trekkers, including one gentleman who was 75. That's pretty ambitious trek at 75! I met a girl from New York and shared conversation about traveling. We turned in early for sleep, as usual.

2006-11-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Debuche to Tukla, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 4 (4300-meters/14,108-feet)

Woke up at 6 a.m., only had to pee once during the night! (It's all that hot lemon...) We left about 8:00 a.m. and got to Pheriche about noon. We had lunch at Pheriche. We decided to head onto Tukla. There are quite a lot of people staying at the small lodge at Tukla. There were a few people that were quite ill. Some may have been from food poisoning, others from altitude.

I had vegetable momos and boiled potatoes for dinner. I'm trying to keep to as safe a diet route as I can find. One of the guys here thought he might have gotten sick from the tuna pizza he had the night before.

I met Doug and his Mom who are from the Blue Mountains of Australia and talked to Doug for quite a while. We had travelled to some of the same places in Indonesia. We stayed up talking until the wee hours, almost 8:30 p.m.! That's very late for trekking time!

2006-11-09T23:00:00.000-05:00

Namche Bazaar to Debuche, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 3 (3820-meters/11,287-feet)

Wake up at 6 a.m. Dogs were barking most of the night. I used ear plugs and my MP3 player to try to block the barking. It was much colder last night. There's a sandbagged military post just below my room with about 6-8 solders manning it. Kekam said they were there to potect the nearby back.

I had left my main memory card for my camera in my computer back in Kathmandu. I looked into buying another card in Namche. It would have wiped out most of my cash and I knew I would need quite a lot more cash than I had expected. I decided to sacrifice the card I had for music in my MP3 player instead. I had the MP3 files backed up on my PC anyway, so I can get them back.

I used the Internet in Namche Bazaar for 30-minutes and it came to 450-Rs, about $6.50 USD, very expensive! I also had to pay 60-Rs to get my camera batteries charged.

We started out about 7:30 a.m. MY right knee is very slightly sore, but nothing serious, other than that, I feel fine. am a very slow trekker and I must drive Kekam nuts, but fortunately he does have friends to talk to along the way and seems to have developed a lot of patience.

I met Steve from New Zealand today. He snowboards, surfs, skateboards - all ourdoor stuff. It was fun hiking with him. His guide is very inexperienced. My guide has taken him in toe and tried to have us do some of the trek legs on the same schedule. I'm coping with my fear of heights, learning to focus on my immediate surroundings, the trail, my legs, my feet and not look at the sheer precipipaces that lurk slightly of the side of the trail.

Steve and I walked further along the trail after dropping our gear off at the lodge. I think I got some good shots of the mountains against the setting sun.

2006-11-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

Munju to Namche Bazaar, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 2 (3440-meters/11,287-feet)

I woke up about 4 a.m. after having gotten to sleep at 7:30 p.m. I was warm and snug in my sleep sack inside of the sleeping bag that Kekam had lent me at the beginning of the trip. Breakfast was a thick (good!) Tibetan bread with scrambled eggs. I had a couple of cups of hot lemon to drink. I washed and shaved in a small outside sink that supplied some warm water. I think they ran the water coils through the cook stove.

We started trekking to Namche Bazaar about 7:30 a.m. Again Kekam is talking with his friends, I'm hiking ahead a bit. It generally doesn't take him any time at all to catch up to me. We crossed a suspension bridge with wooden flooring, over half of one of the floor boards was missing at one point on the bridge.

One of the peaks, previouisly showing exposed rock, was now covered in fresh snow. Quite beautiful! On the way up to Namche I encounted my first views of Everest and the peaks surrounding it. Quite awesome!

I heard a pitiful sound, it sounded like a mewing cat, but discovered it was a small deer. He appeared to be in the woods alone. I think had gotten a bit separated from it's mother. I think they found each other shortly afterwards and bounded off into forest.

We arrived at Namche Bazaar, a large village built in a half-bowl cut into a hill, around noon. I had a lunch of vegetable momos and boiled potatoes along with a medium pot of hot lemon.

After lunch, We headed up the hill from Namche to see the museum. Outside the museum were two, large miliatry helicoptors that had crashed over a year ago. They were due to be removed the next day. The first museum was of Tibetan culture and artifacts. It had some very interesting items. The second is the museum of the history of Everest and nearby mountain climbs. Kekam showed me the wall of photographs of Sherpa that had summited Everest and noted that probably half of them were now dead from climbs they had done since Everest. Climbing in the Himalayas is a very dangerous job.

Kekam has summited Everest and other very hard peaks, including Ama Dablam. He was the climbing Sherpa on an expedition to Ama Dablam where he was the sole person to setup the stakes, ice screws and ropes for the final pitch to the summit. I admire his courage.

After climbing Everest he contracted cancer, was operated on and received radiation therapy. Amazingly he recovered very well and, to the surprise of his fellow Sherpas, is back guiding and climbing again. He has a wife, an 8 year old son and a 2 year old daughter. His wife and son live in Kathmandu. He's originally from the Makalu region.

2006-11-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

Lukla to Munju, Nepal - Everest Trek Day 1 (2835-meters/9,302-feet)

Kekam arrived at 5:3o a.m. and we headed to Kathmandu airport. We caught the Sita Air flight which left at 6:30 a.m. We were the first plane into Lukla. From my seat, just behind the cockpit, I got a bird's eye view of the landing and a new meaning for the word "committed". The runway is 450-meters (1265-feet) in length (very short), and slopes up in such a way that the top of the runway is 60-meters (170-feet) higher than the bottom. At the end of the runway is a mountain. The landing strip is on the edge of a cliff. The pilot dropped the wheels on the runway a few feet from the beginning of the strip, reveresed the engines and made a hurried decelleration as we approached the top of the runway. Step one of the Everest trek accomplished, a successfully landing at Lukla.

We ate breakfast and started out trek for the day. We immediately started cathcing glimpses of the awesome peaks that define this region. Mentally I unconsciously began my mantra for this region, "I am continuously filled with feelings wonder, excitement and gratitude for all around me!"

Kekam met many of his friends along the way and stopped to chat, giving me some time to try to get a bit ahead so I wouldn't slow him down more than necessary. The reality is that the Everest trek is not a race. In fact, you're body needs time to acclimatize, so most treks stop in Nanmche Bazaar and Pheriche for a rest day. My short schedule didn't allow this, but on the other side, I was trekking very, very slowly, and keeping constantly aware of my health for signs of headache or nausea.

Kekam had a new cell phone and 6-MP3s of Tibetan and Nepali music he loaded onto it. I became quite familiar with these tunes. BY the way, thankfully, the cell phone did not work in the Everest region. I think there is finally one place left on earth without cell towers!

We are traveling pretty light. Kekam is carrying some of my clothes, but not much and didn't bring a along much for himself. His day pack is barely larger than mine. He had come to my hotel room the night before to select what to bring. He is definitely a minimalist packer!

We've started crossing suspension bridges for people and yaks. These consist of two thick cables supporting a metal, see through grate flooring. In between the cables and the floor is some chain link fencing as a safety net. It took me a while to figure out that you don't want to look at the grate flooring to see where you're feet are going to go, because you also see the river a 1,000 feet lower and your eyes just can't keep both in focus. I started looking near the end of the bridge towards where I was going and things went much better. Call me chicken, but I don't like crosssing suspension bridges (2-person wide) with a 1000-pound yak coming at me from the other direction. I avoided that all but once.

We stopped at the Mao check point, which has become more of a toll booth than an act of terror. It indicated that the suggested "donaton" was 100-Rs per day of trekking. Since we were trekking for 8-days I paid 800-Rs, about $12 USD. We got a receipt for our "donation" and proceeded on our way. As a Britisher had described the experience, "it's the first time I've been robbed and got a receipt for it!".

We continued on trekking and had considered staying at Phakding but decided to push on to Munju to make the following days trek to Namche Bazaar easier. We stayed at the Manju Kailash Hotel. We were the only ones staying at this Tibetan guest house. This is where I began drinking lots of "Hot Lemon". You could buy a "small pot" which was a thermos bottle with about liter of hot lemon, for about $2 USD. For Nepal this is quite expensive, but we had started into the remote regions where everything has to be carried up on someone's back or on a yak. I think the gallons of hot lemon I drank on the way up helped in me avoiding altitude sickness. I kept very well hydrated.

At the Kailish hotel I joined the Kekam and the guest house family in the kitchen around the only active source of warmth in the building, a wood cook stove, and we shared boiled potatoes as a snack before dinner. ABout 6 p.m. Kekam asked me to put in my order for dinner, I ate, and then off to bed. Not a lot of entertainment after dark in the village of Munju. I'm thankful I brought my MP3 player to try to lull me off to sleep! I have some Tibetan chants a Tibetan friend in China gave me that can put you to sleep standing up!

2006-11-04T23:00:00.000-05:00

Kathmandu, Nepal - Finding my former sponsored child, Dil Kumar!!!

Today two of the hotel staff, Sunil and Ganesh, volunteered to help me find my former sponsored child in Nepal, Dil Kumar, who I first visited in Nepal when he was 12, but would now be 33-years of age. They hired a taxi for us to the bus station and then we took the local bus about 20-km outside of Kathmandu. They asked several locals and finally found someone who knew that Dil Kumar now owned a furniture factory and told us where it was. We found the factory and learned that Dil was not there at the moment, but they gave us his cell phone number. We tried it and got no answer and decided to have some lunch at a local eating place. We had some Nepali momos. These dumpling looking things packed with meat and spices were very delicious!

After lunch we dropped by the factory and they said he was in. Immediately on opening the office door I recognized him, as he did me, big smiles on both of our faces. Sunil and Ganesh helped in translating for us.

We exchanged memories of our last meeting twenty years earlier. I had taken him, his brother and another friend for his first trip outside of Kathmandu to Pokara. He was so nervous he got sick, throwing up on the side of the taxi, twenty minutes outside of his village. He recovered and we continued to Pokara. We went to a peaceful, calm lake and it took his brother and friend 30-minutes to convince Dil to get into a row boat to go out on the lake, but within a few minutes Dil was comfortable on the water and started having water fights with me and his friends. We also remembered playing cards. I taught them 21 and they taught me a Nepali card game.

On the way back from Pokara Dil remembered that I discovered that I had forgotten my wallet at a local eating place about 50-km back along the road. I asked the taxi driver to turn around and go back. The staff had the wallet waiting for us with my passport and the full amount of cash, equivalent to a year's wages in Nepali standards, inside.

After catching up a I bit, Dil took us back to the family house to meet his father, wife, daughter and son. He had gotten married 10-years ago. He mother had passed away a few years after my first visit with him.

His father and I recognized each other immediately as well. I will never forget that, a week after the trip to Pokara, his father showed up at the airport to bid me farewell and to tell me, with the help of a taxi driver acting as a translator, that the next time I came to Nepal, "You stay with me!". It was very touching and sincere.

I met his pretty wife and daughter for the first time and their infant son. His wife pulled a picture of me, from 20-years ago, out of one of their photo albums. We had some Nepali tea (tea with milk and sugar), some fried eggs and some apple slices. They showed me pictures of their wedding. I took some photos of his family and then had Sunil take a photo of us all together.

They invited me to stay overnight for an upcoming festival and I accepted. We worked out with Sunil and Ganesh that each of them would cover a shift so that we had a translator all of the time I stayed with them so we wouldn't miss any communications. I would come back with one of my hotel friends tomorrow afternoon and stay overnight.

Sunil, Ganesh and I returned to Kathmandu by local bus. I had prints made of the photos I took to bring with me for my visit with Dil and his family the next day.

2006-11-03T23:00:00.000-05:00

Kathmandu, Nepal - Cash, booking a ticket, tales from trekkers

I spend most of the day trying to get cash out of an ATM and trying to get a booking for a critical flight I need between Cairo and Nairobi.

I went to four different ATM machines before I could find one that a) wouldn't keep my card (warned by others), b) wasn't out of order or c) wouldn't give me money but would accept my card. I also spent $7 on a phone call to my bank to make sure the card was not blocked, which it wasn't. I finally succeeded in getting out some cash!

I did not have success getting the ticket booked. Making plans as you go is great until you run into a few situations like this. I was told by a travel agent in Bangkok it would be cheaper to buy a ticket on Egypt Airlines from Cairo to Nairobi in India. In the midst of the chaos that is Delhi India, I didn't purchase the ticket when I first arrived, when it was still available, but waited. Two weeks later all the Egypt Airline tickets had been sold and the cheapest flight fares were going up on a daily basis. Right now I am trying to get a ticket on Kenya Airways but cannot buy it in Nepal.

In the evening I had vegetarian lasagna with garlic bread, which was very good. At the restaurant I spoke with an Austrian man at the next table who had just finished a 24-day trek in the Makalu region of Nepal. He had hired a guide and a porter and said that, unlike the most popular routes (Everest and Annapurna) which are quite crowded (40-flights a day), probably less than 100 people a year do the Makalu trek. It requires much more investment as it involves some technical climbing with ice axes and crampons.

He also spoke about the Mao insurgents who request (require?) a donation from those trekking through the regions they occupy. He said the Mao he saw didn't have guns. He didn't know what would happen if you refused to donate anything. Generally they would ask for 5,000 rupees ($70 USD) but you could usually negotiate to "donate" 3,500 rupees ($50 USD) or less and they seemed OK with it. They would give you a receipt to let other Maos know that you had "given a donation".

As of October 27th, 2006 everyone who goes trekking must hire a guide. In speaking with a trekker from Holland who booked a trek in the Everest region, he said he was required to hire the guide through a Kathmandu travel aganecy, pay for the guides flight to and back from the beginning of the Everest trek as well as paying for the guides services, food and lodging along the way. Previously trekkers had been able to fly to the beginning area at the start of the Everest trek, Lukla, and go by themselves, if they wished. At Lukla it was also possible to hire a porter and/or guide without being required to, or having to pay for, their flights from Kathmandu to Lukla. The rational for the new requirement is the danger from the Mao insurgents in the region.

2006-11-02T23:00:00.000-05:00

Varanasi to Kathmandu, Nepal

Susan, Katherine and I shared a taxi to Varanasi airport. Susan graciously picked up my taxi fare. Amidst the chaos at the airport we finally found the check-in line. A slightly built Indian man cut in line in front of us and I had had enough of it. I picked him up by the shoulders and physically moved him behind us. He protested weakly, but knew he had cut in front of us and knew I was quite pissed.

Security at the airport was the tightest I have seen so far on the RTW trip. They hand searched every person and every bag as well as passing carry-ons through the x-ray machines. If you had a bottle of water, they had you drink some of it, to prove it wasn't an explosive, and then they confiscated it.

The Indian Airlines flight was 3-hours late. It took us only 40-minutes to get to Nepal. I had some beautiful views of the Himalayan mountains from the jet, including, I"m pretty sure, a view of Mt. Everest.

Kathmandu Airport was clean, spacious and pleasant compared to Varansi airport. We filled out forms for a Nepal Visa, supplied a photo, $30 USD and were efficiently issued a visa and passed through passport control.

A driver was waiting for me with a sign with my name on it (he had waited 3-hours for the flight as well). I must admit, the few times I have arranged this (and when the driver has actually shown up) I have felt like movie star as compared to the how I experience the rest of my traveling. The ride to the hotel was much less chaotic than in India. The drivers actually appear to follow a number of the traffic rules.

I'm staying at the sister hotel to the one in Varanasi and it is quite comfortable, I just can't remember the name or how to prounouce it - the Marsyangdi Mandala Guest House (I looked it up).

2006-11-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

Varanasi, India - ghats at the Ganges

We took a 5:30 a.m. visit to the ghats, different areas of steps on the banks of the Ganges River, by row boat. On the ghats people are praying, tossing flowers, launching dishes with lit candles, bathing, swimming, washing clothes, drying clothes, selling things and fishing. It is a sea of activity and variety. The colors of the women's saris are dazzling. The complexity of life is expressed at the rivers edge as well as the end of life. At one of the ghats are funeral pyres where bodies wrapped in saris are burned after death. Incredibly, we also saw some of the blind species of freshwater dolphins that manage to survive in the waters of the Ganges.

Hundreds of row boats filled with tourists make the journey along the ghats. The ghats and the tourists are another view for me into the chaos of India. I can only guess that many Indians at the ghats are able to tune out the chaos and focus on their own particular activity, be it praying, washing clothes or smiling at tourists. I am not so fortunate. I keep trying to make some sense, order or meaning out of it and I can't. I am not in awe. I am lost in confusion. I feel like I have flunked the exam at the Ganges River.

Later we visit a Hindu temple and our guide explained some of the Hindu gods to us. The main one, that includes all the others, is OM. This is the name they used for the administrative password for my computer when they installed the English version of Windows on my PC. Now I know why. This is kind of like the "three in one God" of Christianity. The other three in Hinduism are: Vishnu, who is thought of as the preserver of the universe, while two other gods, Brahma and Shiva, are considered the creator and destroyer of the universe, respectively.

2006-10-31T23:00:00.000-05:00

Varanasi, India - Delhi Belly, Election Day, the ghats

I finally managed to eat something or catch something that didn't agree with me and spent the day in the hotel room. I have no idea what it was, because almost all the food I had eaten in the last day was the same food that the others I was traveling with had had. I started taking Cyproflaxin tablets that had another ingrediant in them for intestinal problems. The main symptoms only lasted for about 12-hours, thankfully.

It was election day. All the stores and shops were closed. We were advised to stay near our hotel but Vince decided to walk several kilometers to the ghats (several areas with steps leading down to the Gangas River). He described to me that it was a very different experience of Varanasi, with no motor vehicles on the roads. There were many groups of kids playing cricket in the streets. He witnessed an impromptu battle bewteen two bulls, horn to horn, in the middle of a street, with the spontaneously formed crowd cheering them on and throwing water on them to keep them going at it. He also saw a large number of police and crowd gathered around an area, nearly blocking passage. He heard from a bystander that someone had been shot near the election area. That was later affirmed by the owner of a travel I was at.

He walked the entire length of the ghats. Ghats are areas of steps leading down to the Ganges where people pray, offer flowers, light candles, bath, swim, and wash clothes. They are called "the Life of India". There is one area he visited where they burn bodies wrapped in saris on wood pyres.

2006-10-30T11:00:00.000-05:00

Agra to Varanasi - slow Train and fast Autorickshaw

We went to the train station at 8 p.m. on the 29th to catch the 9 p.m. train, which was late and didn't leave until 1:00 a.m. on the 30th. I slept on the train until about 7 a.m. when the others woke. We were in the same room as three Indian girls and a Canadian lady. The three Indian girls were very friendly and hospitable, sharing tea and food with us. They were on their way to attend a law school in Lucknow, India. One of the girls said the train was always late and predicted that the train would be delayed more on route and would probably arrive in Varanasi about 4 p.m.

I started a conversation with the lady from Canada, Susan, and we ended up talking for hours. She was facinating to talk with, which helped, since the train took 23-hours to arrive in Varanasi instead of 12, finally pulling into the station at 7 p.m. in the evening.

The train station at Varanasi seemed like a war zone with incredible amounts of noise, traffic, people, intense smog and touts hounding us for business. We checked a hotel and didn't like it, so we took an autorickshaw to another hotel. The traffic was incredibly snarled, so the kama kazi driver took us on a route through very narrow alleys between buildings that are supposed to be off limits to these vehicles. The ride was a like a chase scene from a Bond movie. The ten inch wheels of the autorickshaw bounding over half foot high bricks and rocks and bashing into potholes.

2006-10-29T23:00:00.000-05:00

Agra to Varanasi, India

We rose at 6 a.m. to visit the Taj Mahal. It is quite impressive, but somehow I thought it would be a lot whiter than it looks in the morning. It is made of marble, but not pure white marble. The geometry and symmetry is awesome. The size is quite impressive. Beneath the domed, vaulted ceiling of the memorial a tour guide was speaking to a group and from the other side of the room and it sounded like a mystical cacophony of sounds. Outside we saw the unescapable band of monkeys strolling along the perimeter.

In the holy river below the Taj people were performing morning rituals, including two white robed persons standing in the middle of the river, apparently praying.

Security was very tight entering the Taj Mahal area. You were only allowed to bring a wallet, camera (no extra batteries) and water. I really curious to know what the concern is.

We also drove by a nearby fort, but by now we've been pretty forted out, there's only so many of those suckers that you can see...

This evening we take the overnight train at 9 p.m. to Varanasi. Surprisingly, this will be my first train journey since beginning this around the world trip. Call me a wimp, but I like flying and it's been pretty cheap compared to US airfare prices.

2006-10-28T22:00:00.000-05:00

Ranthambor to Agra

We loaded on a 20-person "Canter bus" to visit the Ranthambnor Tiger Reserve in hopes of seeing Indian Tigers. The bus is open topped and just barely fits through stone gateways, trees and bushes lining the trails in the park. Leaves and branches hit my head several times, and this was one time when "keep hands and elbows inside the vehicle" was not just a caution, it was essential to avoid bruises and possible amputations to your appendages.

The terrain reminded me a lot of game reserves in Kenya, dry grassland and thorny bushes. We saw some of the same animals you would see in Africa as well, monkeys, antelope, deer and wild boars, but alas, no tigers.

We returned for another meal prepared by B.K.s friend at the local restaurant. We ate inside their house this time. The meal was chicken, with what was supposed to be a mildly spicy sauce. The sauce was as hot, if not hotter, than the previous evening. Beads of sweat were pouring off my forehead at the end of the meal. I can't complain though, it was very good.

After the meal we started heading for Agra. Just to lighten our day, B.K. told us there had been an accident in Rajisthan the previous day between an overloaded jeep and a bus. 11-people were killed and 14-people were seriously injured. An overloaded jeep probably means there were close to 20-25 people in a six passenger jeep. Later in the day we saw a bus that had just run into another vehicle blocking one lane of the road we were traveling on.

2006-10-27T22:00:00.000-05:00

Jaipur to Ranthambor - Raj Palace Hotel

We traveled from Jaipur to Ranthambor, which is not a long ditance, about 90-kilometers, but because of the bad road conditions it took 4-hours.

B.K. was great in telling us about the local customs and cultures and how they change by time and by region. The birth of a male child is still considered much more important and valuable than a girl. When a boy is born, the father gives out candy to his relatives to celebrate. When a girl is born, many relatives express condolences and candy is not offered by the father. The father of a girl, in a village community, is responsible for many expenses and gifts when she is married. But if the a daughter is educated in private schools, she can obtain good employment and pay for her own wedding expenses. This relieves the family of expenses that can often leave them with no savings at all for their own future.

When a parent dies, it is the responsibility of the oldest son to burn the body. This is usually done at a local cemetary. After 2-3 days the immediate family members gather up the leftover bones, teeth and nails for ceremonial disbursement into the nearest holy river.

Our driver, B.K., bought some goat meat for dinner. He had it prepared at a local (3-tables) restaurant. The sauce was very spicy. The goat meat in spicy sauce tasted very good, although we were a bit on fire by the end of the meal.

2006-10-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

Pushkar to Jaipur - Rajisthan, India

We journeyed from the laid-back, small town of Pushkar to the bustling city of Jaipur. One of it's most famous attractions is the Amber Fort. We arrived later in the afternoon, which was a great time to catch the awesome views from this fort. It's built on the top of a large hill. Ways up to the fort included elephant and jeep rides. Our driver knew the way, so he managed to take us to the top without incuring any extra fees.

From the upper parts of the fort I thought I was back in China for a second, because across the valley there are the ruins of a wall that looks much like the Great Wall of China. There are also monkeys on this fort, it seems like we've seen monkeys at every temple and palace that we visited in India!

The fort has an incredible maze of stairwars and rooms. I actually got lost and had to ask a guide to find my way back out again. There is a large lake below the fort where the mahouts were bathing their elephants. The elephants had just finished their tourist hauls to the fort for the day.

2006-10-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

Pushkar, India - Sajjan Bagh Resort

We woke up to cool, misty morning. We had a breakfast buffet for a dollar which included pancakes, toast, butter, jam, mellons, pineapples, cereal, yogurt and tea or coffee. Not bad!

We opted for a two hour camel ride in the nearby desert area. It was much more comfortable than I had been told. I was able to take a lot of pictures from the camel. My camel was kind of cranky and made lots of noises in protest to being mounted or when encouraged to go faster. I never noticed that before, but camels have really huge hoofs. I guess big hoofs are quite helpful in soft sand.

We did the "throwing flowers in the water" ceremony by the lake. I was disappointed that it was even more commercial than I anticipated. While explaining the process and the prayers, my "priest" asked what I did for a living, a clear clue that he was attempting to evaluate how much he might squeeze out of me for a donation. He mentioned donation figures like $100 to $1000 dollars. I gave him two dollar and fifty cents and felt I overpaid.

I took a couple hour nap and then headed up to the top of a nearby moutain to watch the sunset. It was a healthy hike up the mountain, but the views from the top were great. Unfortunately the battery in Vince's camera was exhausted and I discovered I had left my camera's memory card in the laptop PC back at the resort, so no photos.

We had a dollar buffet for dinner that wasn't too bad. It is really cheap to eat in India!

Part of the constant atmosphere in India is being hounded to look at and buy things. On the way back from the mountain a little girl grabbed my fingers and tried to drag me to her mother's shop for about 200-yards.

2006-10-24T22:00:00.000-05:00

Udaipur to Pushkar, India - Sajjan Bagh Resort

We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant and had some excellent spicy dahl, potato and onion curry, nan bread, rice and chili sauce followed by a thin, sweet sesame waffer. Near Pushkar we stopped to photograph black faced monkeys. We have our own cottage at the Sajjan Bagh Resort. The swimming pool is being filled as I write. We saw a beautiful sunset at a sacred lake in the middle of Pushkar. Vendors were, as always, walking about selling their wares. One a cute 10-year old boy, spoke English very well and was quite persistent, but funny. We were warned of "priests" selling flowers to throw into the lake, offering to pray for you and then requesting $100-$150 dollar donation to the local ashram, not for themselves, of course! We avoided the temptation. Pushkar is home to the Camel festival, which will be in full swing in four days.

2006-10-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

Ranakbur to Udaipur, India - Hotel Raj Palace

Today we drove through the countryside - crossing over a mountain pass, cool morning air, herds of sheep, goats, camels, a cow drawn water wheel and kids asking for pens.

The city of Udaipur, a half million people, is again like the intense crowded streets and busyness of Delhi. We had lunch at a rooftop restaurant with a great view of the city. I had some very, very green stuff that included mushrooms, onions and other vegetables. It was quite good. I also had a mixed fruit lassi, which is yogurt blended with fruit. It was incredibly rich, but quite tasty as well.

We visited the City Palace where the entrance fee was a dollar but the camera fee was five! It was nice, but not too much different from the things we had seen at the other palaces we had visited. The best part was the views of the Lake Palace and Jagdash Temple across the lake.

We were both tired for some reason and just crashed for a couple of hours before going to dinner on the hotel rooftop. I enjoyed watching the DVD "Himalaya", a French movie on Tibetan people in the Himalayas on my PC before going to bed.

2006-10-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

Jodhpur to Ranakbur - Roopam Hotel

In the morning we went to Jaswant Thada, the White Palace, built in 1906 out of white marble as a memorial to Maharajah Jaswant Singh II. It was quite beautiful, peaceful and also provided a great view of the nearby Mehrangarh fort.

Mehrangarh Fort was built in 1459 and sits on top 125-m high hill. It is called the Citadel of the Sun and was never taken in battle.

Chaumukha Mandir (Jain Temple)
In the late afternoon we visted a Jain temple in Ranakbur. "A complicated series of 29 halls supported by a forest of 1,444 pillars, no two alike. The interior is completely covered in intricate knotted carvings... built in 1439" - description from Lonely Planet India.

This is the most beautiful temple I have visited in India to date. We visited it in the late afternoon on a day when dramatic, puffy cumulus clouds were set against a bright blue sky. The late day sunlight entering the temple bathed the columns and carvings in gold. Immediately on entering the temple you felt peaceful, calm and in awe of the cool majesty of the surroundings. Others around you were struck dumb, mouth agape, starring at the carvings and columns in every direction. There were a multitude of openings to the surrounding hills and the sky. You were inside, but never felt enclosed. The gardens and palm trees nearby were also quite beautiful.

After visiting the temple, we stopped and photographed some black faced, long tailed monkeys and a baboon that were poised along the road near buildings just outside the temple.

2006-10-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Bikaner to Jodhpur, India - Havali Hotel

We visited the Junagarh Fort constructed 1588-1593. It has 986-meter long walls, 37 bastions, a moat and two entrances. Inside are rooms and courtyards of sandstone and carved marble. Many of the rooms had stained glass windows, furniture, clothing or weaponary from the earlier periods. Examples of furnishings are the king and queens beds, an exquisite baby swing inlaid with gold, large guns mounted and fired from a camel, another from an elephant and a German Fokker 1st World War aircraft.

Karni Mata Temple (Temple of Rats at Beshmok)
According to a 14th century legend, Karni Mata, a Hindu God, had all storytellers reincarnated as rats after the Hindu God of death refused to grant a request to bring a storytellers son back to life. This was believed to have deprived the God of Death the souls of these people. The rats are now cared for and worshipped by some followers of the Hindu religion.

We had to remove our shoes to enter. The rats are everywhere and they are fed milk and corn meal. If one walks over your foot it's considered very auspicious. If you see the white rat you are considered very lucky. I guess we weren't either of these as all I noticed was the gritty feel of scattered corn meal and who knows what else as we traversed temple.

We reached Jodhpur and after being shown several hotels, chose one in the old city that was in a great location and had an incredible rooftop view of the city and a nearby huge fort built on a hill (Mehrangarh). It was the evening of the Diwali Festival when we arrived. One of the aspects of the celibration is fireworks, which could be seen and heard throughout the city for 5-6 hours. Our hotel had it's own fireworks, which we were invited to participate in igniting. As I suspected, safety was not a serious consideration, and one round fell over and went off towards all of us who were watching. Fortunately no one was seriously injured.

2006-10-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

Bikaner, India - Rajasthan

I was able to join Vince, a Canadian, on a 9-day car tour he had booked to explore the Rajasthan region and then visit Agra. It worked out well as he had paid more than he wanted to booking the trip. Splitting the costs made it much more affordable for both of us. This is a region I had wanted to visit, but preferred to travel with someone, so having a traveling partner and a car is golden! It is the two of us with our own driver and we can change the itinerary as desired.

This trip started on the less travelled roads toward Bikaner. We saw hundreds of camel drawn carts, donkey carts, sheep, cows, goats, autorickshaws, trucks, buses and people on the road on our journey there. We stopped at a small village and walked around and were immediately escorted by four local kids who spoke surprisingly good English. They, as nearly everyone I have met in India so far, were looking to get a little money, in this case as unofficial tour guides. They were fun to be with, guided to a place to get water and bananas and we gave them a few rupees. The main street of the village chaos. Trucks, buses, cars, people and animals moving through incredibly narrow streets in the middle of a marketplace, women in beautifully colored saris, fruits, vegetables, sweets for sale all assalted our senses.

Part of the road was about the wide of a bike trail. We would careen head on towards an approaching vehicle and then, at the last minute, brake and swerve off the pavement to avoid collision. We encountered seemingly untangleable traffic jams in narrow streets, but somehow they managed to untangle them in a few minutes. After dark most of the approaching traffic would keep there high beams on, blinding our driver and necessitating us coming to almost a complete stop. Apparently it's just a matter of money to get a license in India, some of the drivers may not have even known rules about headlights and approaching cars. In addition, there was still every kind of conveyance on the road, many with no lights at all, such as the camel carts and people on bicycles. We only ran over one already dead goat and I was thankful that was all.

Our lodging for the evening, the Sagar Hotel was very nice and affortable, we split a twin room for about $4.50 each. It even had a hot water shower! After the nine hours on the road we both sleep like logs.

2006-10-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

Delhi, India

I arrived at 2:00 a.m. on the 18th, got a little rest and spent most of the day doing errands and then some sightseeing with Andy, a guy I met at my hotel whose from England. The sightseeing was to the Red Fort. Delhi is all that I expected it to be, very crowded, noisy, smelly and full of life. Just going down the street to get a bite to eat is exposing yourself to being run over by rickshaws and motorcycles.

Today I spent the morning selecting pictures for posting from the China photos and in the afternoon taking my PC to a shop to get the English version of Windows re-installed on my PC, replacing the Chinese version I have been using since a system crash in China a month ago. I'm hoping to join a Canadian I met tonight on a 11-day car/train trip to Rajistan and Varanasi.

2006-10-16T22:00:00.000-05:00

Beijing, China - The Great Wall

I headed out to visit the Great Wall at Mutianyu today with a minivan load of people from the Red Lantern House. The smog cleared some as we approached the area. We had a forty minute hike up to the wall. The wall at this section is actually smaller in width than I expected and a lot steeper. We headed to the furthest point on one end of this section and found a steep staircase heading to an even steeper one at the top. The view at the top was quite fine, though still hazy. I hiked with an American couple from North Carolina, Tom and Kathy, and had some great conversations with them.

After 3 1/2 hours of hiking I decided to take the 1,500 meter tobaggan run back down to the parking lot. The run consists of a steel half tube negotiated by little carts with rubber tires and a brake stick connected to rubber pads to slow you down as needed. The only instruction was to "lean into the corners". You can purchase insurance for the ride for another 12-cents, but I'm not quite sure of the extent of the coverage. There were attendants stationed at corners to advise you to slow down or pick up the carnage if you didn't. Being in China, I knew this was not a Disney ride, so I took it pretty cautiously until near the end. Once I got the hang of it, I found it quite exhilerating. I just wish I could have afforded to do it again after what I would consider was a "practice run".

Tom and Kathy invited to join them for dinner. Tom found a restaurant on a nearby street that looked clean and even had items listed in English as well as Chinese. We ordered six dishes, three beers and nearly finished it all off. All this for $2.50 each! More great conversations, including one about sustainable growth for all countries in the world.

2006-10-15T09:05:00.000-05:00

Beijing, China - Forbidden City & Acrobats

Today I caught a very crowded local bus (like phone booth packing) to Tianamen Square to go to the "Forbidden City". Fortunately it is no longer forbidden. It is huge, 140,000 square meters (a meter is about a yard in length). A lot of it is under restoration, but it is still impressive.

In the evening I went to an acrobatic show. I enjoyed it a lot, but it was definitely a different entertainment experience. Some of the acrobatic feats were amazing (a man doing a one-handed handed stand on top of another man's head), but the auditorium was not full and the audience was not all that enthusiastic. Maybe during a sold out night it would have been quite different. It also seemed that the performers pushed themselves to the limit and beyond. Pushed to the extent that there were a couple of falls. Neither of them appeared to cause any injuries, but it let you know that these people were really at the extreme extent of their (and probably any human's) abilities.

2006-10-14T22:00:00.000-05:00

Beijing, China - The Beijing Zoo

Hardy and I decided to visit the Beijing Zoo, old Summer Palace and Black Bamboo park today. We caught the local bus (fare is 1 Yuan or about 12-cents) to the zoo. We started with the giant pandas who were goofy, cute, lazy and feeding, as usual. We saw a couple of Indian elephants that seemed to be doing a little dance step of their own accord. I'm not sure, but it may have been part of a mating ritual. Things seemed to come up after the dance and the zoo keeper let them into an area hidden from tourists after that. Speaking of mating, a male giraffe was obviously quite excited about the nearby female that was separated from him by a fence. He was doing all he could to get her attention and show his affection, but alas, they were separated by the fence and visitors were offering food to her. The monkeys were enormously entertaining as was the interaction of Chinese tourists feeding grizzly bears who had learnd to sit and beg for food. They could catch food food very adroitly in their mouths. One fat black bear merely lay on it's back with its feet to he wall to get fed. If they missed his mouth, he would wait until a little pile accumulated and then turn and eat it. Both of the feedings took place at the area that had a big "Do not feed the bears for their health!" sign. We decided not to go to the acquarium, which was an additonal $12, but opted for the penguin exhibit tht only cost a dollar extra.

The zoo is quite large and after tromping around for four hours we decided to call it quits, our feet were sore and it was time to head on. On exiting the zoo we found it was getting quite dark and cold. We spotted the only restaurant nearby, a Pizza Hut and decided to duck in and get some food. This was the first western type place I ahve eaten since entering China. It was very nice and they asked us to take a seat in the waiting area while they checked for a table. I've never seen that in the USA! We split a large vegetarian pizza, which was quite good. We had time for our weary legs and feet to recover. Due to the weather we decided to return to the hostel.

2006-10-13T22:00:00.000-05:00

Beijing, China - Sightseeing...

I met a German guy, Hardy, who was traveling by himself and talked to him about sightseeing together today. We met for breakfast and planned to visit four places, two of them a bit out of the normal sightseeing circuit.

We started out taking a bus to Tianamen Square. Hardy wanted to see the body of Mao in the memorial to him on the square, I was not interested in seeing another famous dead body after having viewed Lenin's in Moscow in a previous trip. We found the line and went to join it but were immediately approached by a uniformed officer, who pointed at my camera and backpack, and said they were not allowed. He strongly insisted that we follow him. We followed him across the street to what turned out to be a check room for such things. I decided not to visit after all and planned to meet Hardy at the exit of the memorial. Hardy checked his things for 5 Yuan and then the uniformed officer demanded 20 Yuan (about $2.50). Hardy tried giving him less, but he uniformed like a military officer and quite insistent. Afterwards Hardy said he thought it was a waste of money. You couldn't get very close, you could only see his face and he looked basically waxlike.

We next tried to find the "Underground City". Between 1969 and 1979 the entire Beijing population dug extensive tunnels beneath the city for shelter in case of attach from the Russians. We were told about two entry locations that foreign tourists could visit. We spent several hours finding the first one, located in a carpet factory. The factory had closed three years earlier and the carpet sales had moved to another location, which we eventually found. The owner told us that entry had been closed at the time of the closing of the factory.

We then took a taxi to look for the other location. He dropped us off on the wrong street. We found the correct street but couldn't find the street number. As noted in the Lonely Planet, street numbering in China is a randon affair. Street number sequences may start from both ends of the street and meet in the middle, numbers often being repeated within the same street. We wandered a bit and then found a bicycle rickshaw driver displaying a sign for the "Underground City". We hired him for 20- Yuan to take us about 1000 feet, but it was worth it. He knew where it was, and we didn't. The entrance fee was 20 Yuan but that included an English speaking guide. The most fascinating part of the tunnels, aside from the fact that they were built at all, was the pictures and posters displayed along the walls of the tunnels. The posters were of classic Chinese Communist sentiments from that period. The photos were of military airplanes, tanks, soldiers, commanders and of Mao Tse Tung.

After the tunnels, we took a bicycle richshaw over to the Temple of Heaven. This is a large park with several beautiful circular and rectangular temples.

Our fourth destination was to the Marco Polo bridge. We tried taking a bicycle rickshaw to the nearest subway station. We thought the driver understood our destination and had agreed on a price. On the way, we found out the driver was confused. He finally dropped us off at a bus stop halfway to a subway stop and demanded twice what we had agreed on. We refused to pay him more than we had agreed on and indicated take it or leave it. He would refuse to accept the lesser amount and we would walk away with the money and say he would get nothing. He finally called after us and accepted the original amount, but then tried to kick Hardy in the butt. Transportation in Beijing is a bit of a challenge!

We walked the rest of the way to the subway station and took a train to as near to the Marco Polo bridge as we could. We then hired a car to drive to the bridge for 30 Yuan. The bridge was over grassland at this time of the year. It had hundreds of stone carvings of lions on it's side posts, all slightly different. It was quite interesting, but the most bizarre event was seeing a young boy riding a camel along the grasslands under the bridge. I had not thought I would see a camel in Beijing! Other interesting sights were stone carvings depicting how the bridge was built and who had used it. There was also a sign for the "anti-Japenese" statue, which we think we saw at a distance, but did not have time to explore.

The ride back to the subway was a bit more expensive, 50-Yuan, as it was during rush hour. It was a great day, but exhausting. We not only got to explore the sights, but also explored parts of the Beijing transit system.

2006-10-12T05:09:00.000-05:00

Beijing, China

The usual annoynances in traveling in China, I got a taxi but I wasn't sure the driver knew exactly where I wanted to go, even though it was in Chinese on a map. I was going to where you catch the express bus to the airport which is near a hotel. I think he was trying to convince me to have him take me to the airport instead, which would be about 10-times more expensive then the bus. He dropped me off at the hotel name I had asked for, but it was part of the hotel that was on a back street, not the main road. I had to ask directions to find the main street and locate the bus to the airport. It all worked out.

The 2 1/2 hour flight to Beijing was pleasant, they served lunch, as they tend to feed you on third world airlines as opposed to USA airlines where you get almost no food. Beijing was pretty smogged in, which I hear it is a lot of the time. The only impression I had driving through Beijing was the immensity of some of the buildings and plazas. We went by Tienamen Square, which appeared to be enormous.

I'm staying at another cozy hostel called the Red Lantern House.

2006-10-11T02:25:00.000-05:00

Chengdu, China - Just hanging out...

I must admit I needed a break after traveling in western Sichuan and this has been the place for it. Sim's Cozy is an oasis for wearied travelers. I have met several cool people over the last few days here, enjoyed many meals, visited the nearby Wenshu Temple and it's vegetarian restaurant twice and generally relaxed in preparation for Beijing and the upcoming chaos of India. Lately I've hung out with two other Chris's, one from England and the other from Poland. Chris from Poland has been living in Beijing, learning Chinese and teaching English. Chris from England has been traveling for a couple months in China, is heading from Tibet and then back to England for work. He is job hunting through the Internet as I write.

I head for Beijing tomorrow. I'll miss this place. It and the people staying here have been amazingly peaceful and restorative. I think I'm ready to hit the road again!

2006-10-09T09:02:00.000-05:00

Chengdu, China - Pandamonium

I booked a tour of the Panda Center on the outskirts of Chengdu. We gathered at 7:30 and took a minibus to the Center. Fortunately we saw 10-14 pandas being their goofy selfs in the fairly large reserve. One was sitting up and looked at times like he was meditating, another was sprawled out on his back sleeping - everything akimbo, another sleeping in the fork of a tree, others were moving through the trees and bushes, another was scratching it's butt on a tree limb and some were feeding on bamboo shoots. This was morning feeding time and the attendants provided bunches of bamboo shoots to the bears. The bears stripped the outer rind and chewed the inner, juicy parts of the bamboo. They didn't really care what position they were in when they were eating, somtimes sitting and somtimes laying on their backs with their fat bellies covered with bamboo shoot husks.

We also saw the incubation area for the babies. They were very small and very cute! Fortuntely they were not newborns, as the newborns are hairless, pink and kind of ugly.

The Panda museum had some interesting information about the pandas, such as:

- pandas are only found in China (other than in zoos)
- they eat about 16-hours a day
- in the wild they tend to be solitary and mark their own territories
- they have twins 45% of the time, but in the wild cannot take care of two babies and one will usually die through starvation or be crushed
- they love water and will travel to find it, but otherwise don't move around too much, except when they are young
- they don't have dens, but will sleep in caves, trees or on the ground
- of the 60 kinds of bamboo they can eat, they really only prefer twenty kinds
- it is estimated there are about 1,600 pandas left in the wild.
- scientists have come a long way in breeding and keeping pandas alive in captivity, but on a very limited basis

The museum also had some of the most pitifully stuffed animals I have ever seen in diaramas. Sometimes it was to the point of the stuffed animals being unrecognizable. It gave me a greater appreciation for the artistry involved in taxidermy.

The giant pandas aren't quite as giant as I thought, though I wouldn't want to tangle with one.

2006-10-06T22:00:00.000-05:00

Kangding to Chengdu, China - Return to my comfort zone...

I escaped from Kangding today and took the 6-hour trip to Changdu. I met one other westerner on the bus to Chengdu. He is a medical doctor studying Chinese medical practices. He said one of the things he learned was that the Chinese have developed an herbal treatment to add to chemotherapy for cancer patients that counteracts a lot of the bad side effects.

When I arrived in Chengdu it was raining and it took me two hours to get a taxi from the bus terminal to my hostel, Sims Cozy. A young Chinese guy came to my aid to get a taxi during the Chengdu rush hour and instructed the driver where to drive to. The Chinese can be proud of the kindness of of the many people here who have helped me during my trip.

The hostel, Sims Cozy, is very comfortable and clean. There are a lot of westerners here. I watched a USA movie in the restaurant, "50 First Dates", starring Adam Sandler. I hadn't seen it before and enjoyed seeing something other than Chinese TV, the most boring television programming in the world.

I'm looking forward to recovering from the trauma of Kangding. It is the worst place I have been during the 8-months I have been away. Chendu is a major city of 10-million people. It is quite a contrast to the places I have been in the last 15-days.

2006-10-05T22:00:00.000-05:00

Kangding, China - Trip to the Mugecuo Hu Lake 3700m

I managed to take a shower without electrocuting myself despite the power strip dangling from water tank next to the shower head. For breakfast, I had heard dumplings are a common Chinese breakfast food, so I tried the yak meat dumplings. They were quite good. They gave me nine of them, which was far too much for one person.

I dropped by a outdoor store to see if anyone had expressed interest in a trip to Mugecuo Lake and no one had. I walked up to the Black Tent guesthouse/cafe and found a guy, Jason, from the USA was waiting for the minibus to pick him up to go to Mugecuo lake. I aksed him there was room for one more and he thought there was. A few minutes later I was on my way to the lake with Jason and a young Chinese couple. We had been informed it was about an hour to the lake.

Our minibus driver must have been training for the Indy 500 as he passed every vehicle we encountered and hit potholes at breakneck speeds in the process. The road is quite treacherous, but we managed to avoid the other cars, trucks, buses, tractors, pigs, donkeys, motorcycles, people and shear cliffs. How our driver did that at the speed he was going, I do not know!

He dropped us off and we found we needed to take a bus to the rest of the way. The price of the bus was included in the $10 entrance fee to the park. We took the big bus further up into the mountains and were dropped off again. At this point we needed to take a smaller bus to the lake. The driver was eating lunch so things got backed up for a while. A Chinese tourist waiting on the bus was yelling at the driver the whole time.

We finally arrived at the lake, which was mostly covered with fog. We decided to hike to another area and were badgered by locals offering horses for the journey. Jason was recovering from a previous 3-day horse trip and numerous bus rides and wasn't interested. The locals dogged us dropping the price from 50 Y to 20 Y. I couldn't keep up with Jason (he's 6' 4" and in better shape!) and decided to rent a horse. These are small horses and I think the one I had was rather old. He was none too pleased with me riding him, but the local guide had the reins and walked alongside. Jason kept up with us.

There wasn't too much of a view with the fog, but the jounery was pleasant and the countryside was pretty. It is autumn in this region and the fall colors were out.

After returning to the lake we took a beautiful walk alongside a cascading stream running from the lake down to the 2nd bus stop. I had yak meat on a stick on the way down, good, but very spicy! Some Chinese tourists asked to have their pictures taken with us on the way down and we obliged. I enjoyed some good conversations with Jason as we descended.

The minibus ride down was just as thrilling as the one up. I kept wondering, who was chasing us? We made it back in one piece, just slightly bruised.

I would not recommend Kangding as a place to visit. It is more a place to go to other places from. It is rather ugly, despite being nestled in a deep valley, surroundeded by mountains and having a river raging through the middle of it. There is construction everywhere, electric towers, cable car towers and just general clutter. I haven't found a peaceful, outdoor spot in Kangding yet. There have been more scams here than any other place I have visited. I have not found the people to be particularly friendly. If I don't find some people to share expenses for excursions out from here, I may head for Chengdu earlier than planned.

2006-10-04T08:39:00.000-05:00

Litang to Kangding, China - a day of embarrassment...

I had booked the bus (only 1-bus that leaves at 6:30 a.m., 6-hr. trip) to Xingduqiao planning on taking another bus once there onto Ganzi (10-hr. trip). It was pitch dark, none of the buses are named or numbered, and asking different people I got different answers about where the buses were going. Welcome to the Chinese bus system!

I finally found the correct bus (the driver even agreed it was the correct bus!) and loaded onto the fully packed vehicle. It held about twenty people and all of them, except me, were Chinese, and spoke no English, inlcuding the driver and attendant.

I had been drinking tea, trying to keep hydrated as the altitude tends to dehydrate you, before coming to the bus station. In the confusion there was no time to use the facilities before getting on the bus. About 2-hours into the trip I could wait no longer and had to use sign language to indicate I needed to pee. The driver was kind enough to immediately stop the bus and allow me to step onto the three foot shoulder next to a stream and pee in front of the entire bus load of Chinese tourists. Chinese are not a bit shy about starring.

Later in the day we stopped for lunch at a small restaurant. I pointed at one of the dishes someone else had ordered and that went fine, they brought me the same thing with rice (I think it was yak meat with potatoes). I then heard the bus horn and saw it leaving the parking lot with some of the passengers onboard. I ran out and tried to flag it down. All the others in the restaurant laughed. They gestured that it would returm. I think it must have been going to get gas and the people who weren't eating at the restaurant just stayed onboard. I'm always happy to amuse the locals.

As I journeyed towards the juncture where I would get off to travel to even more remote regions, I decided that might not be the best plan. For me it felt too hard to travel to a place where people spoke even less English and where there were even less western travellers. I decided to try to go onto Kangding, which was the destination of the other passengers. Before getting to the juncture, Xingduqiao, I tried unsuccessfly to communicate to the driver by change in plans. I then remembered that the word "mayo" (like in mayo-naise") meant "no" in Chinese and used it successfully negate the city I was originally going to go to and then showed some money and said, "Kangding" and they got the point. The extra fare charge was only $2.50. By now I'm sure they thought I was a totally crazy foreigner.

Along the way we saw the typical things that happen in any country, but a little more in these more remote regions with the rough roads they travel. We saw a backhoe that had toppled on its side right next to the road and broke an electric pole in the process and a large truck that had overturned. We also saw a small hotel on fire in one of the villages. Lonely Planet had said it might be good to bring your own smoke detector, and now I see why!

I found a room and negotiated a daily rate from 80 to 65 Y. The odd and annoying thing was, they wouldn't give me a key. Whenever I want to go in or leave I just ask the young girl in the lounge right next to it to unlock and lock it. If she's a sleep I just knock on her door, a room nearby. We'll see how well that works...

I talked to a few westerners already, hoping to find people to share trip expenses for something around Kangding, but they were all leaving on trips already or going to a different city. I'll continue the effort tomorrow.

2006-10-03T22:00:00.000-05:00

Litang, China - The road to Sacred Mountain

Bastian, Ivonne and I had requested a minibus trip to the Sacred mountain through contact of the Crane hotel where we were staying.

The person we had spoken to arrived 1/2 hour late and we discussed the trip, 3-4 hrs. driving there, a little walking/hiking around and return and the price would be 250 Yuan ($30). we followed her out to where we thought her minibus was and found out she only guided and expected us to pay for the minibus separately. This was not going to fly with us and we finally agreed to pay 260 Y if she took care of the minibus fee. She then stopped at the market and said she had to buy her food for the trip. She was gone a very long time and we were already frustrated with her, so we walked off and looked for another guide/minibus who could take us there. The only problems were that we didn't know where "there" was and almost none of the minibus drivers spoke English. We ran into our "guide" again and decided to risk a trip with her. She then said we were going to drive for 30-minutes to a place and then hike for three hours. That also wasn't going to fly us.

We started on the road to the Sacred mountain area and the views were gorgeous. It had snowed the night before and the mountains were sparkling and awesome.

We reached the top of a pass and decided to climb to the top of the nearest peak. It was covered in snow. It was a short hike, about fifteen minutes, to the top. It was a great place for photos!

We continued driving and stopped at a plateau to view the mountains and walk around a bit. We could see parts of Sacred mountain, but the clouds continued to envelope the rest of it. We convinced our guide to continue further.

We stopped at another area near a herd of yaks and decided to climb a hill (no snow)to get a better view of the mountain range, including Sacred peak. The hike up was beautiful. We walked right next to the yak herd of about 50-animals. We had a peaceful stay near the summit and were rewarded with a clear view of Sacred mountain on the way down.

When we arrived back at the minibus, our driver, our guide and a local yak herder were engaged in a local game played with stones. We waited until they finished. It was another gorgeous ride back out, but now most of the snow on the mountains had melted. Where we had hiked to the summit by the highest pass was completely free of snow.

We made it back to town and paid our guide the 260 Y and overheard the driver complaining, she had given him only 100 Y and pocketed the other 160 Y. Her part in the process was knowing where the road to Sacred mountain was (not at all hard to find if you're acquanted with the area, I'm sure the minibus driver knew where it was) and more importantly, knowing enough English convince foreigners that it was worth it to pay her for this knowledge.

It was a great trip, but we were fairly exhausted from dealing with our "guide" all day long. After returning, Bastian, Ivonne and I had a 3-entree meal at a local Chinese restaurant where the food was quite good (tasty Kung Pao chicken!). There were no leftovers.

2006-10-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

Litang, China - Life at 13,000 feet!

Litang is at an elevation of above 13,000 feet and it certainly let's you know it!Some people have headaches and fever. I generally experienced it as a "surprise" shortness of breath when doing something that normally wouldn't tax my breathing.

I decided to take a walk down to the far end of one of the main roads in Litang. I found one group of Tibetans working on the stone foundation of one of their traditional houses while another group, working on another house, were planing and cutting the timbers. A person from each group invited me over, and, after asking permission in sign language, I took photos of them and their work. I showed them the pictures on the viewer on my camera and they laughed and pointed.

Further on a Tibetan invited me into his house for tea (not yak butter tea, thankfully!) and I was able to take photos of him, his children, his wife and their beautiful home. I spoke no Tibetan and they spoke no English. The Tibetan people in the country seem to be very friendly!

Later that evening I met up with Bastian and Ivonne, two Germans traveling together in China, for dinner. We split three dishes along with individual servings of rice and the bill came to about $1.25 each. We talked some about the minibus trip we had "arranged" for tomorrow.

2006-10-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

Daocheng to Litang, China

I was a bit sleepless and decided to get up early (for a traveller) about 7:15 a.m. I just finished a shower when the manager, Big John, informed me he had found a taxi to Litang with three others and when could I be ready? Feeling some urgency in his voice, I told him in fifteen minutes. The taxi arrived a bit late, I loaded my bags, sat in the taxi for a few minutes and then was informed they would be leaving at 10:00 a.m. instead. Oh well, at least I was on time!

I shared the taxi (really a boxy little minibus) with four Tibetans, one being the driver. They were all very polite but did not speak a word of English. The scenery was beautiful and not near as dangerous as the trip from Zhongdian to Daocheng. Most of the countryside was rolling mountains and river valleys. We stopped a couple of times for pee breaks and once so I could take photos. One of the Tibetans wanted to buy my digital camera (new $400) for about $12. I was forced to decline. It was a very pleasant three hour trip.

Litang is much smaller than Daocheng, but lovable. It took me about 20 minutes to locate the hotel recommended by a friend, the Crane Hotel, and I'm glad I waited to find it. I had checked out a couple of other places along the way and their sanitary facilities weren't very sanitary. The section of the Crane Hotel I stayed in looked brand new. I got a private room with a nice, clean bathroom including hot water and a flush-style squat toilet. The room had large windows looking out at the mountains, a comfortable bed and a TV (not necessarily a plus, Chinese TV is the most boring I have ever tried to watch.) Even so, I was in heaven!

Nearby a restaurant owner had shouted "hello" and spoke some English before I reached the Crane Hotel. I decided to go there for lunch. I had chicken with green peppers, peanuts and a "yellow sauce" and it was excellent! The owner was very friendly and had a hand drawn map of Litang with points of interest, locally and in the surrounding areas, marked out. I decided to visit the monastery up the hill.

It was a 15-minute walk to the monastery. I arrived just as a bus unloaded a group of Chinese tourists. I mingled in and was included in a tour of the monastery led by the master monk. It was quite fascinating and beautiful. At first we were told not to take pictures, but a little later on they said "today" we could take pictures. I didn't understand a word of the what the master said in Chinese, but occassionally one of the young Chinese tourists interpreted for me. Later we visited the master monk's residence and were given a gift of a string necklace along with a blessing.

This monastary did not have any entrance fees (as many now do) but there were numerous and obvious locations to donate money along the way. I appreciated the "give as you feel" approach.

After leaving, I thanked the young man who had interpreted for me and found out he and three of this friends were not part of the tour either, but were students on holiday from Beijing. One of them wanted to talk to me further, as the others stopped to look at items in a store. He spoke English very well and was very smart. We covered subjects from A-Z, customs, movies, politics, cameras. He was then kind enough invite me to eat with him at a local restaurant. He confessed, he had never eaten with a "foreigner" before. He chose a plate of tasty dried beef that you dipped in a dish of dried chili, stir fried vegetables, and a chicken-mushroom soup. All of it was very good. He was able to get a doggy bag for some of the left over beef, only because they had given us so much. He insisted on paying for the dinner. We exchanged email addresses and I hope to be in touch with him in the future.

I copied the photos from my camera to the computer and sorted through them, as I usually do. I decided to venture out and find an Internet cafe, but was unsuccessful. Along the way, I heard some club type music and followed it upstairs to a local club. I later found that all the staff and clients were Tibetan. They were very friendly. I tried some of the Tibetan home brew by accident. I had asked for "Tibetan Beer" and they poured me some hard, home brewed alcohol out of a thermos instead. It's tough not speaking the language. The brew was pretty intense and had a strange taste to it. I managed to down about an ounce or so. I was invited to table of Tibetans and sat and drank with them. Later on we danced as a group and it was a lot of fun. Never thought I'd be partying with the Tibetans in Litang!

2006-09-30T02:42:00.000-05:00

Daocheng, China - Tongfu Hostel

The five Israelis and I had a eight bed dorm to ourselves in the Tongfu Hostel. Two of the group left at 7:00 a.m. for Yadang, a park about three hours by minibus away. I had originally intended to go there, but due to being delayed by the "no bus" situation in Zhongdian and not really having good information on how far the park is from Daocheng - 3 hrs., I've decided not to go there.

I spend most of the day with Rei, Noa and Lala as they were trying to plan their next nights stay. They want to stay with a Tibetan family nearby Daocheng and find out what there might be to do in the area surrounding the different Tibetan villages where they might stay. The guest house manager, "Big John", was great in helping out. It's a bit of an awakening for a westerner to find that all the good information about Daocheng and the surrounding area cannot be found in Lonely Planet or on English language web sites. All the good, detailed information is in Chinese on Chinese web sites. "Big John" located a Chinese web site and was very helpful and patient in answering their questions. He wrote some of the vital information in English and Chinese.

Noa and Lala bought food for breakfast. We used, what I think was, the guest house owners kitchen to eat. We borrowed bowls and they bought four spoons for us, they said they would need them later anyway. Noa, Lala and Rei prepared a kind of muesli with yogurt and potatoes(?) and had bread with yak butter, jam or tomatoes. It was quite good and very filling. We then checked out what information there was at the bus station (there were no buses there, it is VERY small!), did some shopping for food and bought a few things. We were starred at by several of the local Tibetians. Some of them would even come into a shop just to look at us. I've seen three other westerners here, so I think we are a rare commodity. In mid afternoon Lala, Rei, and Noah, with full pack gear, left to hitch hike to a Tibetan village.

Later in the afternoon I decided to rent a bike. We had found bikes to rent at a clothing store. It's no easy feet to find a decent bike to rent here. I tried the first bike and it had no front brakes. The second had brakes, but was way too small for me. We managed to adjust the seat a little so maybe it was good for a 2nd grader. The pedals would hit the ground when you tried to make any serious kind of turn. They spoke no English, but we finally worked out the price, about 2 dollars and that I would return it at 7:30 p.m. I brought it back to the hostel and the owner had a proper size wrench to adjust the angle of the seat, which had been flopping back and forth as I peddled.

I took a ride out to Rubu Chaka, which is a hot springs area. The road wasn't too bad, part paved and part not. A Chinese girl on a bike was paralleling me and talking in Chinese and making gestures around her shoulders. At first I thought she wanted to carry my backpack for money. When I got to the hot springs I realized she wanted to rent me a "hot springs hut" and was gesturing to indicate bathing in the hot water. Since I was biking I didn't want to have a nice relaxing soak and then just screw it up by breaking a sweat afterwards biking, so I opted to take some pictures of the area. It was quite nice. Some Chinese student artists were painting the scenery in the surrounding area. I took photos of a herd of yaks crossing a stream and then headed back to the hostel.

The hostel owner suggested I bike out to Sangdui where there are some great views of the mountains and I might run into my Israeli friends. It was a bit ambitious to start with, about 12-miles round trip and I started about 6 p.m., needing to return the bike at 7:30 p.m., but I started out in that direction anyway.

I came across a place that had awesome views of streams, mountains, Tibetan houses and dramatic cloud formtations and started taking photos. Vans were parked with people out taking photos of the scenery as well. I spend about 45-minutes taking photos of the striking landscape. It was one of those amazingly wonderful moments in my life.

It started getting colder and darker so I started back to Daocheng. I was fighting a strong headwind and made a couple miles progress when the left pedal on my bike fell off. I had no tools and I wasn't able to put it back on successfully. I ended up walking the bike about three miles back to town. I went to the hostel about 7:30 p.m., but they were unable to help me put it on correctly, but I was able to put it on partway. It was dark by now and walked it back to the shop. Fortunately they really didn't look at the bike, the pedal was on it but none too securely, and they returned my deposit. I was glad they didn't see anything wrong, as it wasn't my fault in the first place, but trying to explain it with them not speaking any English and me not speaking Chinese would be difficult.

By the time I got back to the hostel I was exhausted and frazzled. That's what I mean about my mood changing like the weather. At one moment I was in blissful scenery in a tranquil and spiritual mood, the next I'm struggling to make it back before dark with a broken bike and the prospect of a stressful negotiation about the incident between people that don't speak each others language.

I made a trip out to find dinner and discovered that the holiday Chinese tourists had started arriving and restuarants were quite packed. I ended up buying cookies and something like sugar smacks for dinner. I also bought a potato on a stick with chili pepper and salt at a roadside stand on my way back . I went to bed early, exhausted from the ups and downs of the day.

2006-09-29T21:05:00.000-05:00

Daocheng, China - now this is remote!

I arrived in Daocheng from Zhongdian last evening about 8 p.m. after a 13-hour bus ride through one of the most beautiful and dangerous highways in the world. It seemed that didn't want to miss going up and down every tall mountain they could find when they build this road. It also passed alongside some beautiful gorges, valleys and small Tibetan villages. Fortunately our driver was excellent. He drove expeditiously but not recklessly, beeping his horn when traveling in the other lane around blind corners and slowing in the worst parts of the road. I'm not sure what the hightest pass on this leg was, but during one of them I'll be going over a pass over 15,000 high.

Daocheng is situated in rolling hills amidst Tibetan villages at an altitude above 11,000 feet. I'm feeling the effects, shortness of breath whenever I exert myself. My Isreali friends (now 5, 2 additional from the bus trip) and I found a local restaurant and managed to order meat dumplings and fried noodles and avoid the "explode squid with fire" and other incomprehensible dishes. Whoever translated the menu into English had no clue.

The Israelis negotiated us into a dorm saving 10-Yuan per person (a little over a dollar) after about 30-minutes of negotiating. I'm learning from them. I was able to save a couple of dollars on a double I'm renting tonight but am staying in by myself. It's a bit overpriced already because this is a peak Chinese traveling time.

Today I think I will be back on my own. I plan to head to Litang tomorrow. If I can find people to share expenses traveling to Ganzi, then I think I will go there, otherwise I may stay longer in Litang or head onto Kangding. Whichever would be best to avoid the hordes of Chinese travellers and the accompanying higher prices wherever they go.

My mood changes like the weather traveling in the remoter regions. It's definitely a lot more difficult. It's inspiring and frustrating and amazing and at times digusting. I'm glad I'm doing some of it. I don't know for how long, but because it's quite stressful.

I'm thankful to the many kind Chinese people who help me as well as the help from fellow foreign travellers.

2006-09-28T22:00:00.000-05:00

Zhongdian, China - "No Bus!"

Yesterday afternoon I had tried to get a bus ticket to Daocheng. At the bus station the lady just said, "No bus!". I asked about a bus the following day, writing down the date, still the response, "No bus!".

Today I dropped by a guest house that will book a bus for you. The lady went to the bus station for me and found out that there are no buses traveling to Xiancheng or Daocheng because both roads to those towns are closed, one due to a landslide and the other due to flooding.

The good news is I'm feeling quite a bit better. I just have to figure out where to go from here. A major Chinese holiday begins on October 1st and you need to have things booked before then if you're going to be anywhere popular.

I met three Israelis today, Lala, Noa and Rei. They kindly invited me to join them on a trip to hot springs 1/2 hour from Zhongdian. It was a beautiful area and the hot springs had beautiful surroundings. I joined them for dinner at a small local Tibetan street cafe. They pointed to the vegetables they wanted and the cook cooked them up with garlic and hot peppers as appropriate. We had four dishes, onions and cabbage, mushrooms with garlic, corn with red peppers and brocolli along with servings of rice. They were all excellent! The bill came to less than a dollar a piece (7 Yuan).

When we returned to the guest house the manager, Becky, had checked back at the bus station and the afternoon bus from Daocheng had arrived. She was able to get tickets for the four of us for the trip to Daocheng tomorrow! I will have a couple days there before the Chinese holiday starts.

Lala suggested, since I was leaving Zhongdian the next day, that I make a trip to the largest monastery in Zhoongdian by local bus. I found the bus and took it, as directed, until the last stop. Unfortuately, the bus driver after leaving off the 2nd to last passenger, decided to just turn around and return instead of going to the monastery. He indiacted for me to leave and I ended up walking another two miles to the monastery. It may have turned out as well. I think I got some good shots that I never would have gotten if I took the bus and I got a lot of the local flavor as I was walking. I did get the bus coming back and it took me ALL the way back.

Tonight I go through the worst part of traveling, deciding what I need and packing up again. We need to be at the bus station at 6:45 a.m. It's a 12-hour trip to Daocheng.

2006-09-27T00:59:00.000-05:00

Zhongdian, China

I was coughing a bit during the night and took some Cypro in case it's a sinus infection. I went to take a shower and found only cold water, asked at the desk and the girl checked it and after she left it was only scalding hot water. Oh well... I had an OK "American" breakfast at the Tibetan Cafe, vegetable omelette (not bad), toast (no butter) and hash browns (floating in grease), the banana milk shake was quite good!

I'm trying to find an Internet Cafe that has the electricity on. So far the two places I have gone to have had no power. I don't know what the deal is.

It's pretty chilly in the morning, but now (near noon), it's quite hot when you're in the sun. I'm thinking about going to a monastery that's walking distance from here. I'm still not feeling the best, but hope my health improves soon. I may stay here another day or two to help acclimatize to the altitude as well as to recover from whatever illness I have.

I met a guy from Belgium who came to Zhongdian by land from Belgium via Russia and Mongolia and plans to return to Belgium by land via (Lhasa, Tibet), Nepal, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. I wish him luck! He's been working on getting a jeep "tour" from Zhongdian to Lhasa and is finally leaving tomorrow with 1 less than a full jeep. The first trip he had booked got cancelled because one of the participants got sick.

2006-09-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

Zhongdian, China - Tiger Leaping Gorge walk

I took the bus to the start of the Tiger Leaping Gorge trail. When I got to the town at the start of the trail, I grabbed some lunch at Jane's Guest House with a couple from London that I met on the bus. I decided to leave my big pack at the guest house and hike in an hour or so to get some views before heading on to Zhongdian. This is a gorgeous trail! Within an hour I was able to get some great views and pictures of the mountains surrounding the gorge. I then headed out to catch the bus.

The bus ride from the trailhead town to Zhongdian was spectacular! It followed a wild river and then wound up a series of mountains to the city of Zhongdian situated at an elevation of about 10,000 feet (3300 meters). The road was in excellent condition, the ride was comfortable and the bus driver drove reasonably.

An Italian traveller helped me find the guest house area in the old town. I decided to stay at the Shangrila Old Town Youth Hostel. I think several cities and towns in this area claim the name of the fabled "Shangrila", Zhongdian being one of them. I'm not going to argue with them. All of these places are quite awesome!

In the evening I had dinner at a nearby restaurant and ended up talking with two guys on a mid-level China tour. They were from Brisbane, Australia and having a great time.

My throat has felt funny for the last two days and I started coughing this evening. I've come down with something. I may hang out in Zhongdian to and see how I feel before starting the trip to Chengdu that goes through mountain passes that are above 15,000 feet.

2006-09-24T04:30:00.000-05:00

Lijiang, China - Jade Dragon Mountain

I met Mick, an Australian from Melbourne, at the Prague Cafe at breakfast and it turned out he and I were interested in visiting the same area today. We found a minivan and took a slightly hair raising trip to one of three areas that have cable cars. The cable car took us to an area at 3,750 meters or about 12,000 feet. There were pretty nice views of the much taller surrounding mountains, but the tops were in the clouds. The temperature was about 25-degrees colder than in Linjiang.

The locals raised yaks and also had them available for tourists. I think they were available so tourists could have their photo taken on them. We visited a Tibetian style monastery nearby with prayer wheels and prayer flags. We saw a couple of pigs roasting on spits and had some barbequed beef on a stick and BBQ'd mushrooms. They were both quite good and I still feel OK so far! On the way down our minivan overheated and Mick donated the contents of his water bottle to cool it down.

2006-09-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

Lijiang, China - Westerner Day

After several days of speaking with only Chinese people in very broken English, I met Dan from the Netherlands and Julie from Germany at the Prague Cafe. Dan had traveled extensively in Tibet and had a lot of good information about it. He recommended not going to Lhasa, but going to a less visited region. He had just returned from that area making the trip by motorbike.

The three of us chatted for quite a while, enough so that I left to drop back by the hotel, forgot to pay the breakfast bill, returned later and Dan and Julie were still there! I proceeded to have lunch and pay for both meals at the end.

Julie and I had a nice tour of the Old Town area of Lijiang. Later on Dan, Julie and I met at the Sakura Cafe for dinner and drinks. It was a lot of fun!

2006-09-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

Lijiang, China - Lhasa Jeep Fiasco

I spend the morning strolling around the beautiful old town section of Lijiang.

In the afternoon I started researching how to take a trip by jeep from Zhongdian (4-hours from Lijiang) to Lhasa, Tibet, about an 8-day journey. I did some investigation on the web and then asked Hieea, the woman manager at my resort, if she knew a travel agent that spoke English that I could discuss this trip with. I found she was interested in visiting Lhasa as well. She embarked on a mission to try to arrange a trip and find others who were going, as it is prohibitively expensive to travel there with just 1-2 people.

We visited several local travel agencies, all Chinese, and she had me post notes looking for others seeking to go to Lhasa by Jeep. She looked online for Chinese people looking to make the trip and found one group that had room for two people. Unfortunately I think this was a self-chartered trip and on investigation it would be illegal for me to join the trip. A foreigner has to have two permits to travel to Lhasa by Jeep and one of them can only be obtained if you are taking the Jeep trip as a "Tour" and can only be obtained by the tour agency. In addition, it can take a week to get the permit. By this time it was 10 pm in the evening.

The following day I talked to a westerner who had made the trip and knew a lot about it. He said it would cost about $100/day, after all was said and done, and he recommended a 8-day trip, if I chose to do it. He also recommended going to a much less visited region of Tibet that didn't require permits.

The following day I got one response. The person was supposed to meet with me and some friends I was meeting, but never showed up or called again. I think the estimated price tag scared him off. I'm thinking about the trip to the less visited region of Tibet.

2006-09-21T03:00:00.000-05:00

Lijiang, China

Arrived here yesterday. It was 68 degrees F, what a change! That's the coldest it's been since Tasmania. Lijiang is in a beautiful city in set in the middle of the mountains. It's at an elevation above 7,000 feet. I can feel the thinner air when I'm biking around here.

I'm staying at a very friendly Chinese run place called the Old Town Garden Resort. On arriving at here I discovered my computer would no longer boot. Considering I have all the Laos photos plus hundreds of bits of information and trip planning stored on it, it was quite anxiety producing. It has become a source of security for me. I stayed at a small guest house and asked the woman that worked there if she knew of a place to fix it. She did and helped me rent a bicycle and go with her to the place. We spent most of the morning there. She's very nice but doesn't speak a lot of English and no one at the computer shop spoke any. The technician was very nice as well. The data was still good, but the Windows systems was hosed. We left the system for him to work on and returned to the Garden Resort.

I had lunch with the family that runs the Garden Resort. It was family style with everyone picking food from the communal serving plates and bowls. I was using chopsticks and they kept trying to hand me a fork, so I guess I wasn't doing that brilliantly. Oh well, I persisted until the end. It was very kind of them to include me and I enjoyed it very much.

It ended up taking all day to fix it, including purchasing an external 2nd drive to copy the data to, and I now use the Chinese version of Windows. I will get an English version of Windows in India. The amazing thing is they got it fixed, I didn't lose any data (just programs) and it only cost me a little over $100 USD.

In the evening I decided to go to the Naxi Classical Orchestra performance at the last minute. My host at the Garden Resort again came to my rescue, providing me an umbrella and guiding me down the maze of streets in the old town to the performance hall.

The performers were dressed in brilliantly colored traditional costumes. The conductor was very generous in describing the origin and meaning of the pieces. The music and instruments were fascinating. There was a great variety in the music including solo voice, jew's harpe and flute as well as the full orchestra. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards it was pouring rain and I appreciated my hosts foresight in providing an umbrella.

It has been amazing and wonderful and frightening that I have entrusted by life to people in the most different culture I have encountered since traveling. I have not encountered another westerner in the last day and a half until now. Communication has been challenging, but reflects the patience and kindness of the Chinese people I have met. I have made frequent use of a picture book as well as writing things on paper. Chinese people appear to be able to read and write English a lot better than they can speak it. I am humbled by the experience.

2006-09-19T20:28:00.000-05:00

Yangshou, China

After 8-months of traveling John and I have decided to go our own separate ways.

I have been in China for three days and find this region very beautiful. I met a new friend, Dan, from W.D.C. and we have been traveling together. Yangshou is one of the places with the very steep limestone mountains and beautiful rivers flowing around them. We've been bicycling around the region and took a bamboo raft trip yesterday.

I'm heading for Guilin in a few minutes where I will then fly to Kunming and then on to Linjiang. In Linjiang I hope to do a trek along the Tiger Leaping Gorge.

2006-09-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

Luang Prabang, Laos - rain

It rained most of the day. It was a good day to use the Internet and read. I bought a fiction book set in Alaska called "Wild Animus". I also visited with Derek, the owner of White Elephant Adventures. He always had some interesting tales of living in Luang Prabang, Laos.

2006-09-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

Luang Prabang, Laos - Visit to village and Kuang Si Waterfall

John and I took purchased a one day trek from White Elephant Adventures to villages and a waterfall.

Apparently if it's just a simple village visit, the tour companies don't pay the village anything. One of the tour operators conjectured there's often not a lot going on in village life and a polite visit from a few foreigners provided some much needed entertainment. The village people often look at you like you're from another planet. I try to be as polite as possible, take a few pictures and smile a lot. On the trek, some of the villages require payment for passing on the trail through their village. In cases where tourist stay overnight at a village, the tour company pays the host family for the stay.

The thing that constantly amazes me about the villages is that they all have satellite TV. It appears the signals are decoded through a pirated device, so they just buy the equipment once and pay no monthly fee. I guess that how they're able to afford it. Every village also has motorbikes. They tend to be the work horse of poorer countries. They carry everything. For example, I've seen motorbikes carrying; a family of five, a queen size mattress, huge plates of glass, large earthen pots, bags of potatoes, small trees and just about anything else you can imagine. Some single drivers ride their motorbikes while holding an umbrella over there head to protect them from either sun or rain. I've seen one talking on their cell phone while riding a motorbike. They don't go at breakneck speeds, but it doesn't take much to cause an ugly accident.

We visited a school as well and there are some brave pupils that will laugh and smile, but many of them have severe scowls on their face. They're just not quite sure about these foreigners...

We started the trek and hiked through some very beautiful rice fields (not paddys, they were on a sloping hill. We came across women carrying huge sacks of peanuts on their back using a strap over their forehead to secure the load.

Further on a man was hunting birds with a flint lock rifle. They use shaved bamboo as the tinder for it. I guess it doesn't always work, as we heard him shoot and it was a misfire and sounded more like a twig breaking than a gunshot.

We came to steps leading down one side of the upper portion of the stream above the true waterfall. The curious thing was, the steps where partly covered by the waterfall. Your feet got soaked as you walked down water splattered steps.

The main waterfall itself was breathtaking! It was very high and complex. On the left side water oozed over rocks in such a way that it looked like snow. On the right there was a huge cascade of water creating it's own wind storm. A few of us ventured into the spray and it was a very refreshing, mist blasting experience.

Lower down was a swimming area with rocks and trees to jump into the water from. Some British friends practiced back flips and got quite good at it. I jumped off the tree, swam some, but decided against trying to break my neck with a back flip.

Afterwards we visited a area near the waterfall where they cared for abandoned animals, in this case a tiger and some Asian black bears.

2006-09-07T22:00:00.000-05:00

We've made it to Louang Prabang, Laos after discovering our destination in Laos was much more difficult and time consuming to get to than expected. It was a 2-day trip on the Mekong River from Chiang Khong, Thailand via the "slow boat". The "fast boat" is a speed boat that is reported to be very dangerous. It takes 6-hours and participants (victims) are required to wear motorcycle type, full helmets for the journey. Fatalities are not reported in Laos, but from web sites and stories I have heard, they are not uncommon from speed boat accidents.

2006-09-03T10:40:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand - An afternoon at the park...

I went down to a park on the river and heard some volunteer musicians playing traditional Thai music on archaic instruments. It was very cool! The've been doing this for five years, I think for free. They don't appear to have a donation box, hat, basket or whatever. I think the main guy really wants to keep the ancient music alive. The songs I heard told stories of Thailand a 1,000 years ago or more. He would sing in Thai and then translate into English. They started out with 5-people and then 3-more musicians of their group joined them. I guess they got there whenever they could after work. The tones are strange but they grow on you. Some of the instruments are very cool! I took some photos, hope they came out OK, it was later in the afternoon and less light.

I've had a couple of technology snafus. My camera will not longer stay in the electronic eyepiece viewfinder mode. I think it got moisture in it in Vietnam and hasn't recovered since. I can still use the large LCD on the back of the camera, but I loved using the eyepiece and it worked best for me without needing my glasses. Oh well, I may see if I can find someone to fix it here or someplace along the road.

I forgot and left my MP3 player in the seat pocket in front of me in a plane from Hue to Hanoi. I called "lost and found" for two days, but they didn't find anything. I've ordered a refurbished one from the USA. Tony is sending it to me. This stuff happens...

I do love the "street food" way of eating here. My favorite street foods are a 1-egg omelet on rice in the morning, 60-cents, fresh orange juice (kind of taste like tangerine juice, no sugar, no salt) for 25-cents. Lunch or dinner - Chicken drum stick barbequed with a sweet glaze for 75-cents, corn on the cob with the corn shaved off the cob and mixed with salt and butter for 40-cents, spicy chicken with basil on rice for 60-cents. If you avoid restaurants you can eat very cheaply here!

2006-09-01T08:56:00.000-05:00

Daocheng to Lintang, China

I woke up early in the morning not able to sleep anymore just laying in bed thinking. This is probably the worst time for me. Here in China it's been so challenging that I'm often preoccupied with the difficulties and trying to figure a way to solve them. Now the Chinese holiday tourist have arrived and will be on holiday for a week, where will I find places to stay? Can I afford the inflated prices? If I go to even more remote areas will I be able to cope with it? Should I just bolt back to a big city like Chengdu (10-million)?

I decided to get up early, took a shower and jsut finished when Big John, the manager, said he had located a ride for me in a taxi/minibus to Litang and that they were leaving immediately, how long would it take me to get ready? I told him 15-minutes and started packing like a madman. I think I was ready in 15, but the taxi hadn't arrived yet. About fifteen minutes later, it arrived, I put my luggage in, sat in the seat for a few minutes and then was told that they wouldn't be leaving until two hours later. I took my luggage out and prepared to wait at the hostel.

Having extra time here turned out well. I had time to show Big John my web site and he shared photos of Yadang that friends have taken with me. Yadang looks very awesome! I regret that I will likely not be going there. It's been a little over two hours, the taxi still hasn't arrived. I guess we're on Tibetan time. Wish I knew that earlier!

2006-08-30T06:58:00.000-05:00

Bangkok, Thailand - Thailand Photos posted, on my infrequent blog entries...

If you haven't visited the NLD photo gallery in a while, the Thailand pictures were very recently posted and Malaysian photos were also posted a couple of weeks before that. Thanks so much to cousin Ric for posting the photos we send to him!

Please excuse the infrequent nature of my postings. I've spent a lot of time in doing trip planning, including the visits to my sponsored children, getting visas and tickets, taking, editing and selecting photos and I am also working with my cousins back in the USA who are handling the affairs related to my Mom's passing. I've also spent time selecting, having printed and mailing photos to some of the native people I've met in the countries I've visited who have requested them. Along with that have been the short trips to northern Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and next to Laos.

You've probably noticed that my last three blogs have been on visiting an orphange and then on visiting my sponsored children. Visits to my sponsored children were planned into the trip at some point, but the timing was providential, as was the visit to the orphanage. I have no nuclear family left. My brother, father and mother have all passed away. It is comforting for me to meet with my extended, international family.

I think John did a good job of covering the trip to Halong Bay, Vietnam so please read his journal entries for that trip.