Into the Wild

Jambo!
It has been ages, I know. Internet access in Africa is tres slow. So much to catch up on...
Delhi was short but sweet. Met some great people and saw some sights. Really noticed the poverty and the people with deformities who used it to beg for money. Seemed more prevalent than in Calcutta.

Then it was on to Kenya. I just spent one day in Nairobi and then I did a 3 day safari in Masai Mara. It was incredible! We saw tons of elephants, lions, jackals, buffalo, warthogs, impala, hippos, crocs, many different birds... We did 4 game drives in the three days and the second day we drove all the way to Tanzania! Our safari van had a roof that opened up so we were really right next to the animals with nothing to block the view. The highlight was the three lions sleeping next to a buffalo carcass (the morning's kill) while 6 jackals alternately ripped it apart and watched for the lions to wake up. We also got to see lion mothers and cubs. The first night our guides took us into the Masai Mara village to hang out with the locals and listen to Kenyan music. It was definitely a highlight as well.

After the Mara I went to Lake Naivasha for a few days. The plan was to bike through the park (the only one in Kenya you can go into without a guide and vehicle) but I rode right past the turnoff and didn't realize my mistake for 15km. By the time I got back to the park I was exhausted and decided to pass. But I still saw giraffe, zebra, and impala on my ride near the park! The Lake was a great place to relax and the camp I stayed at had a social restaurant where I met other travelers and watched monkeys frolic.

Next stop was the coast. After 24 hours of buses and matatus (shared vans) and a boat, I arrived on the very chill island of Lamu on Kenya's NE coast. I planned to spend 2 dys there and work my way down to Mombasa, but I liked it so much I stayed for 5. The first night I went to the home of a local chef, Chef Alli Hippie, who supposedly once cooked for the Rolling Stones when they were in Kenya. The meal was by far the best I've had in Africa. Seafood fritters, fresh chapati and sauce, coconut rice, fish, and lobster. Plus a desert, juice and live entertainment from Alli's family after the meal. I met some other travelers at dinner including Paul from England who became my Lamu partner in crime. The next day we went to the beach and checked out the little town of Shela (where I accidentaly ordered entrails for lunch- ICK). Later we met some local guys who took us to a nearby local village to taste palm wine. I got a little oversunned that day so I spent the next couple of days doing a lot of reading and going to the local musuems. I also learned to play Bao which involves a wooden board and stones. Finally I felt it was time to move on and headed to Mombasa.

I didn't love Mombasa so I spent an afternoon on Diani beach which is about 45 minutes south (if I go back, I'll stay there instead- great place!). Then I headed to Tanzania! Yesterday I stopped over in a little coastal town called Tanga and today I came to Dar. Just arrived here so not much to report but Zanzibar is just off the coast so time to blow the budget again and check it out (I mean it is Zanzibar...). Oh but NB on my last post, Kara had to cancel in the end so I opted not to do Kilimanjaro. It'll have to stay on the list for now.

More soon!

Free Tibet!

No, I'm not going all political, I'm just quoting the signs, shirts, etc that are everywhere in McLeod Ganj. Seriously, I have seen more Free Tibet paraphernalia here than I have seen the rest of my life combined (and remember, I lived in Portland AND San Francisco). The reason for this is that McLeod Ganj and Dharamsala have a large Tibetan refugee community and are home to the Dali Lama as well as the Tibetan Parliament in Exile. Pretty interesting stuff as I've bever been exposed to a population and governemnt in exile.

Giong to take a moment to voice my frustration that once again there is an issue with my card, reader or this computer so I cannot upload my India pictures. Will try another cybercafe later. Grr.

Right. Well more about McLeod Ganj. Its a big traveler town with lots of yoga and meditation and buddhism classes. I may have touched on that in my last post. I didn't partake in any of this but it is interesting to be surrounded by it. For me, the highlight of my time in McLeod was the day hike I did to Triund. Triund is 9 km from Mcleod pretty much straight up. It was quite a hike but at the end you come over a ridge and there is a lovely meadow with colorful tents set up surrounded by loads of snowy mountain peaks that look close enough to touch. Totally worth the climb! I'd show you a picture but... OK letting that go. Also near McLeod I walked 2 km to Bhagsu and the waterfall and temple there. The waterfall is really a trickle at the moment but the people watching on the walk there was worthwhile. I also walked up 3 km a few times to the little village of Dharamkot which is smaller and more picturesque than McLeod and has a great vibe. It is also a haven for Israelis (all the restaurants serve Israeli food and there are loads of them there).

I decided to head north to the hill station of Dalhousie in the Chamba Valley instead of going to Shimla or Manali. It was fairly quiet and had some nice scenery but overall I wasn't that impressed. I had some issues with my guesthouse and kind of got ripped off on a day tour and just spent a day there before coming back to McLeod. Basically, if you get the choice, I say skip it and go to Manali. The one impressive thing about Dalhousie was the gigantic monkeys that were everywhere. Big white ones with black faces that were about the size of a human teenager. Pretty crazy. There are also many monkeys in McLeod but they are more your run of the mill little brown fellas.

Not much else to report at the moment. I've been catching up on movies here are they show them at a few makeshift cinemas in town. The momos here aren't as good as in West Bengal and Sikkim but there is lots of other good Indian and Tibetan food. Tonight I take an overnight bus to Delhi and Monday morning I fly out to Kenya. I'm hoping Kara's firm will figure out when she can meet me in Tanzania for Kilimanjaro. Its been pushed back 3 times now. Everyone cross your fingers for her as I really am excited to do that!

Got the pics up! Here is the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/stacyb/India#

West Sikkim and the road to McLeod

Howdy,

So West Sikkim. Well I shared a jeep with the couple from the lake trip, Sara and Mike so we got a room together in Pelling in West Sikkim. The room was kinda like summer camp in that it was made of wood and had a cabin type of feel. We also had a TV (luxury) which was good since it poured down rain our first day there. We also met up with my friend Dan from Darjeeling in Pelling. Once the rain cleared we hiked up to a huge monastery with a very ornate sculpture on the top floor. There were also very suggestive murals covered by sheets which we found amusing. Wlking in Sikkim is always hiking. Everything is stright up or straight down. And it totally felt like a lot more up than down (doesn't it always). Just thought you should know. So after the first monastery we trekked up to Pelling's other famous monastery which is the second oldest in Sikkim. And man was that walk exhausting! But the views from the top were nice and we posed in photos with Indian tourists (which never ceases to amuse me- they love us). Later we had beers on the rooftop of our hotel with Dan and some guys he'd met and an impromptu jam session broke out. Gotta love "Hotel California" in India. We later went to see some live music (Stevie Wonder covers and all).

From Pelling we piled 14 people into a jeep made for 8 and headed for Yuksom. Yuksom is the historic spot where 3 lamas met in the 1400s and decided to create Sikkim. The stone they sat on, Coronation Rock, is still there. Yuksom is a cute little mountain village. It has an 8 PM curfew but we discovered that if you head to a restaurant, you can stay out until 10 (don't tell). So we had dinner and Tongba and met a nice Frenchman and made plans to go hiking the following day.

The hike was part of the "monastic trek" and 9 km to Ketchapari Lake. 9 km does not sound like much but keep in mind it is Sikkim. The first 5 km were super steep downhill into a valley and then we had to climb 4 km back up to the lake on the other side. Plus the trail was not all that well marked so we had to keep asking locals for directions. It was a long, hot, 3 hour hike. But the lake was very peaceful and there is absolutely no debris on it. Legend has it that it is a holy lake and the birds keep it spotless. We spent the night at a homestay above the lake with great views of the valley- you could see all the way back to Yuksom. And the food was terrific! I didn't realize that random forrest plants could taste so good. Sara, Mike, Dan, and Alain liked the lake so much they decided to spend another night. I had to head on though since my permit for SIkkim was about to expire. So I trekked back alone (very glad I'd loaded up my iPod with Mike's music) and spent one more night in Yuksom.

The next couple of days were tedious travel days so I won't bore you with details of jeeps back to Siliguri and a 21 hour train to Delhi followed by a 5 hour train to Chandigarh. Chandigarh is where I decided to stopover on my way to McLeod Ganj (because I couldn't face 12 hours on a bus after 21 on a train). Chandigarh is India's experimental architecture city. It was designed by a famous Swiss architect whose name eludes me at the moment (Le something). It is very clean and set up in a grid with numbered sectors. There are many gardens and a big lake in the center of town. There is also a huge rock garden that reminded me a lot of Parke Guell in Barcelona. My only complaint about Chandigarh (other than the heat- NEVER go to southern India in May or early june) was that accommodation was really expensive. Oh well- just a stopover.

Yesterday morning I got on a bus to Dharamsala. Eight long, hot, sweaty hours later (no AC on the bus) I arrived and got a taxi to McLeod Ganj (was planning to take another bus but apparently the bus driver was drunk and the next bus was 1.5 hours later). McLeod Ganj is home of the Tibetan government in exile (well Dharamsala is but technically McLeod is part of Dharamsala). It has loads of yoga and meditation classes and is a huge Buddhist haven. There is also a good deal of environmental awareness going on here so this morning I participated in a cleanup of a dumping area in town. It was hot and gross and felt a bit like an exercise in futility since we all know the locals will be dumping more trash where we just cleaned (that's how they roll in India), but I got my karma points for the day. After the cleanup I headed to the Dali Lamas residence and temple and to a museum that details the takeover of Tibet and the crimes against humanity committed therein. Pretty disturbing stuff.

So that's me caught up for the moment. Ten more days in India and then I am headed to Kenya to begin the African leg of my trip. I'm deciding between a 4 day trek here or heading to one more place in India before I fly out. We'll see. I definitely will be coming back to India at some point though. It is fascintating! And I have only gotten to see a small bit....

Hope everyone is well.

St

Sikkim

Wow, hard to believe that I have been in Sikkim for a week now... So Julien, my French Canadian friend I'd been with since Calcutta, and I said goodbye to the Darjeeling crew and took a packed jeep ride up to Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. In the share jeeps in India, they pack 10 or more people in a jeep that we would likely think full at about 6. Such is India... Gangtok is a huge tourist destination for Indians during the hot season down south. There are not many foreign travelers and the ones that are here tend to hang out at the New Modern Central Lodge (not to be confused with the Modern Central Lodge down the hill). Julien and I went for a nice Indian meal and tried some of the local Sikkim beers our first night. The next day Julien found a group to do the GoechaLa trek in the West and I set out to find a group for the jeep trip to the north. Four hours and countless travel agencies later I had no leads and was a bit frustrated. Later, however, I met three guys who were interested in putting a group together and we decided to meet the following morning to get our permits squared away. The following morning Julien headed West and I met my new friends to sort out the trip. We opted for the 4 day, 3 night trip. I had some stomach issues that day so I pretty much stayed close to the hotel- not uncommon in India. On Wednesday morning we added one more member to our group and headed north!

The first day we spent most of our time in the jeep. Luckily the scenery was terrific. Lush green forested hills and loads of waterfalls. We stopped for thalis for lunch and continued to the small town of Lachung. It was dark when we arrived and the driver and guide had a bit of trouble finding the hotel. We drove up a dark, windy road which showed no signs of life, but then the New Season appeared. It was nowhere near the town but the seclusion meant no unnatural noise and the next morning we had incredible views of the snow capped peaks surrounding us. During this season, a clear day is a rarity so we were lucky to have about 4 hours of clear before the clouds took the views away again. We headed farther north to the Yumthang Valley. By this time the clouds had fully rolled in so we had hill views but no mountains. We'd heard of a hot spring farther up where foreigners are not allowed to go and talked our driver into letting us bribe him and the permit police to let us go up. So that afternoon we found ourselves hiking up to 16,000 feet about 10km from the Tibetan border to this small and very secluded natural hot spring. It was probably about 40 degrees and windy so hanging in the hot water was terrific! As we were leaving, we got a little glimpse of the glaciers looming above us. It was pretty magical to say the least. We spent another night in Lachung at the New Season (very warm and comfy beds and terrific food!) and got up at 5 AM to head over to Lachen a bit to the West.

Our hotel in Lachen wasn't quite as nice as the one in Lachung but it was still warm and comfortable (and comfortable beds can be hard to come by when traveling on a budget- believe me!). From Lachen we drove up to the Thangu Valley (we tried more bribes to go farther north again, but it was "Not Possible"- a common phrase in India). The weather was wet and chilly so we just did a short hike (about 1.5 hours) in the valley and headed back into town. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing cards and having a few beers with a couple of the guys while the other two went to a local house to try the Sikkim millet alcohol- I was a little bummed to have missed that. After another large, filling Indian meal, we called it a night. The next day we headed back to Gangtok in the jeep. The distance was only about 120 km, but the roads are small, windy and often scarcely paved so it took the entire day. We had hoped for views of Kanchendzonga on the way back but alas, we were foiled again. We did stop at a nice monastery and enjoyed another yummy thali (thalis are a bunch of small dishes that make a filling meal when put together).

Today four of the five of us joined another couple and headed to Tsongo Lake at 13,000 feet. The lake was nice but there wasn't a whole lot to do up there and it was rather cold and cloudy again. But we had momos and then we got our guide to take us to a local place to try the millet alcohol I had missed in the north. The millet is fermented in bamboo for 15 days and then put in a tin can. When you are ready to drink it, you pour hot water on it and let it sit for 10 minutes. If you'd like, you can pour more water on and keep drinking it once you finish your first cup. We also tried yak meat at the local establishment. All in all a good day of trying new things :).

Tomorrow I am heading to West Sikkim to see a few more towns and hopefully do a bit of hiking.

Hope everyone is well! Congrats to Sean and Christy on the arrival of Eleanor Lake!!

India- a country of extremes

Hi all,

I made it to India without a hitch. And right off the plane, I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Calcutta airport is totally old school. And the taxis there are cars that look like they are from the 1950s. And they don't have AC. And Calcutta is HOT right now. Like "I feel like I am melting" hot. I spent three days in Calcutta and most afternoons I found myself back in my room with the fan on sweating or looking for cafes with AC. The city was a great intro to India though. It is dirty, crowded, and poor like I have never seen poor before. But it was also amazing. The colors of the clothes people wear and the parks and well, everything is just so different. When I wasn't melting, I was transfixed by how everything in India is completely beyond my comprehension. The culture is totally opposite ours. I don't think I am describing this the way I want to, but just walking around and watching people and cars and carts and seeing the buildings and food stands.. well I could have spent my entire trip to India doing just that. I have to say, I really like it here. I did get to a few of the tourist spots in Calcutta while I was there. The Victoria Memorial is gorgeous and totally out of place in the city. I also spent a few hours in the Indian Museum and went to the planetarium. I met some great people in the guesthouse and spent the evenings on the roof hanging out with them. And the food in India deserves mention. It is terrific! Dahls and chapatis and curries. I eat all the time!

From Calcutta I took the overnight train to Siliguri on the way to Darjeeling. Another guy from my hotel was on the train as well and when we arrived (I splurged for AC, he was in the regular sleeper car) he had met a group of other travelers and we chartered a jeep to Darjeeling (after a bunch of bartering and some confusion about a bus- you barter for everything in India and nothing seems to run on a set schedule). Most of us stayed at the same hotel in Darjeeling and we met some other travelers here and that has been my crew for the past week. Darjeeling is totally different from Calcutta. It is a hill station at 7000 feet so it is rather chilly here (a welcome change). It is surrounded by hills and mountains so when it is clear you have amazing views. You can even see Kanchendzonga which is the third highest peak in the world. In the 6 days I've been here I've done lots of walking around, taken the famous "toy train" down to Ghoom (second highest station in the world), gone to a few temples and just hung out with the crew and read. Its been terrific. This is the longest I have spent in one place in over 6 months and I've enjoyed it immensely. Oh and I've had a lot of tea, of course :). Yesterday was my birthday and my friends organized a little party for me in the hotel complete with a cake, card, and present. It was terrific! I'm going to miss this crew. Yesterday was also election day in this province so there was dancing and revelry in the streets (including lots of colored dust thrown all over unsuspecting pedestrians) as well as fireworks last night which we watched from the roof of our hotel.

Today I am heading north to Sikkim which is supposed to be gorgeous. You need a special permit to enter Sikkim (but no worries, I have it). I'm hoping to do some trekking and a jeep tour to the north (guides and additional permits are required for both). I'm super excited about it!

All for now!

Back to Thailand and a quick trip to the US

Hi there,

Sorry it has taken me awhile, it has been a hectic couple of weeks. Turned out I had messed up the date of my flight from Hanoi and I ended up with an extra day. Which was cool because I went with some Argentinians I met to the "Hanoi Hilton" or the POW prison that John McCain and other US POWs were held in. The prison has been used as a prison since the French were in power so most of the exhibits were about Vietnamese revolutionaries. The two rooms dedicated to the US POWs focused on how well they were treated and showed pictures of volleyball games and Christmas parties. No mention was made of torture or suicide attempts. It was interesting to say the least.

After Hanoi I headed back to Thailand for 5 days. I had a rather crazy morning hitting the US Embassy for additional pages in my pasport (but if you need to get them, much quicker to do it on the road than in the US) and then the India embassy to drop off my info for the Indian visa (process takes a week and 3 visits to their office). Once I had that out of the way I went to the island of Koh Samet which is 3 hours by bus and an hour by boat from Bangkok. Like all of the Thai beaches I've encountered, Koh Samet is gorgeous! Turquoise water, white sand, and a national park inland as well. Koh samet is a big weekend getaway for urban Thais so it is pretty busy but if you walk south, you can find some secluded spots. I spent 3 days chilling on the beach and hanging out in the very social restaurant at the Naga Gueshouse (definitely one of the most affordable places on the beach) and then headed back to Bangkok to catch my flights to Austin.

I spent a week in Austin and Fort Lauderdale. It was great to spend some time with my parents (thanks for everything mom and dad!). After a couple of days there I went back to Austin for the wedding. Congratulations once again Meredith and Andy! The wedding was lovely and I was so incredibly happy to be there! A few more thanks go out to Jaclyn for my accomodation the first night, Heather and Meredith for airport transit and Forrest and Cathy for providing accommodation, food, communication and transport over the weekend. I owe you guys big! I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the trip since well it is the US and all, but it was definitely a nice break. And I celebrated my 6 month anniversary there (which is weird since I was in the US celebrating 6 months of being out of the US...).

Anyway, I am back in Bangkok for the last time. Tomorrow I fly to India. I'm very very excited!! Also, you may notice that I was finally able to post pictures again. Here are the links to the pics from S Laos and Cambodia as well as Vietnam. I think the Vietnam ones especially came out well (not surprisigly, it is gorgeous there!). Enjoy!

S Laos/Cambodia-
http://picasaweb.google.com/stacyb/SouthernLaosCambodia#

Vietnam-
http://picasaweb.google.com/stacyb/Vietnam#

I didn't take pics at the wedding so any of you who are reading this who were there, please either send me some or send me links!

North Vietnam

Well my trip to Ninh Binh was interesting. I was told we'd arrive there at 5:30 AM so I woke up at 5 to be ready and at 5:40 AM we pulled into Hanoi which is 2 hours north of where I wanted to be. I guess I slept through Ninh Binh (and I made sure to tell the driver and the woman working on the bus I was going to Ninh Binh, but it didn't seem to matter). So I had to then get a motorbike to the train station but the first train was 4 hours hence so I took another motorbike to the bus station and nearly got charged double for the bus (thank you nice man in front of me for telling me what the true fare was) and I made it to Ninh Binh about 8:30 AM. As this little tale illustrates, I've noticed in North Vietnam the people are much more likely to try and overcharge and misinform tourists than in the South. I'd been warned about this, but it is still frustrating to encounter.

Ninh Binh turned out to be fantastic! The first day I rented a bike and rode down to Tam Coc where you go on a row boat through caves and around huge limestone karsts and rice fields. The scenery is amazing. I was in a boat with a Swiss and a French girl and we had the boat let us off at a temple and walked back from there. There was a festival at the temple and the people were in colorful costumes with all sorts of accessories and things to carry in a parade. From there I walked to another temple a few km away and explored it as well. I met two nice Aussie ladies, Jo and Ally, who helped me not get charged twice (the boat woman took my ticket for the rest of the park "by accident"). Later that afternon I rode up to Hoa Lu which was an ancient capital city and wandered around a bit. The second day I joined Jo and Ally and we again took bikes. This time we started at a small temple tucked away into a karst. A lovely female monk took us on a tour of part of the temple that was in a cave and we watched as she performed a ceremony complete with some terrific chanting enhanced by the natural acoustics of the cave. I thought Jo was going to stay all day. Then we biked to Thang An which is somewhat like Tam Coc only 20 times better. There were no other tourists and the boat took us through about 9 long caves (which were lit up inside) and to 3 temples on the lake. It was truly magical. Later we rode to a new pagoda that is being built and walked around it. Even though it is under construction, they let people into the completed parts. Exhausted we headed back to the hotel (with a stop at another temple to eat more fresh pipneapple- yum!). Ally and Jo had to catch a night train that night. I was sad to see them go. The lady at our hotel came up to me after they left and told me I was lucky to make nice new friends. Pretty perceptive lady :).

The next morning I took a minibus to Haiphong to catch the ferry to Cat Ba Island on Halong Bay. There were 3 French travellers on my bus and I shared a cab with them to the ferry, hung out with them while waiting 2 hours for the next ferry and stuck with them on the boat (guess what, we were all overcharged- see a pattern forming?). I figured I'd continue stalking them so I went to their hotel with them on Cat Ba and they said I could join them on their boat trip around Halong Bay for two days. I lucked out! The boat trip was fantastic! Halong Bay is gorgeous- more limestone karsts, this time coming out of the sea. We shared the boat with a Spanish couple for a few hours the first day but after that it was all ours. We went through a huge cave (on foot) and sailed all over the bay. We rarely saw other boats so we felt like we had the whole bay to ourselves. The food on the boat was plentiful and delicious. We had fresh fish with every meal (so fresh we watched our second day's lunch get caught that morning). My fave was the spring rolls though. We spent the night on a floating fish farm and before going to bed we hung out and drank rice wine with the captain and the guys who live on the farm. The second day we went kayaking through caves to a secluded lagoon. Later we cruised to Halong City where the French crew (Severine, Vincent, and Gregory) left me to head back to Hanoi. I had the boat to myself on the way back to Cat Ba and just enjoyed the scenery. It really is gorgeous! The next day I did a trek in the National Park on Cat Ba. It was really hot, slippery, steep and there were loads of bees. Luckily I only got stung once. After that I headed straight for Hanoi (bus boat bus) and then onto an overnight train to Sapa so I really pity the people who were stuck in a cabin with me. The view fromo the top of the island was nice though.

My plan for Sapa was to hike Fansipan, the highest peak in Vietnam. However, the weather wasn't so great, the treks were pricier than I'd anticipated and I developed an allergic reaction to the bee sting which caused what I like to call "Cabbage Patch Kid arm" meaning pretty hefty swelling from fingers to elbow. So instead I hiked to local villages and waterfalls and enjoyed the scenery and chill vibe (if you can ignore the constant harrassment from local villagers to buy brightly colored crafts) in Sapa. I only stayed 2 days and met Lloyd and Loz from Wales and Emily from Austin on the way back to Hanoi. We thought we were all on the same train, but when it turned out Lloyd and Loz were on the later one, they traded their cush soft sleeper tickets and paid extra money to be snuck onto our train in the employees car (that's how they roll in Vietnam). But it was worth it as we all got to hang out (our car was empty) on the way and until the hostels opened in Hanoi.

I've spent the last couple days in and around Hanoi. The most fascinating thing I've done in the city was to visit the Ho Chi Minh masoleum. Yes, if you fly to Vietnam, you too can view the preserved corpse of Uncle Ho. You must be properly dressed (no shorts or tank tops) and can not laugh, talk or smile while in his presence (armed guards are there to enforce this). You may not take photos and must keep moving and not stop and gawk. Got it? Good :). Today I took a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda. I have no idea why it is named the Perfume Pagoda. It didn't smell particularly nice and after a sweaty hour on an open boat in 40 degree heat and then an hour hike up the hill, we certainly didn't smell very nice either. But the temples are nice to see- the highest one being inside a cave (so you can cool off before hiking down and getting back on the cramped, sweaty rowboat). I met a nice Israeli and a couple from Argentina so I'm going to head out in a sec and meet up with them.

Tomorrow is my last day in Vietnam. I'll be sad to leave it and highly recommend it to any of you who are thinking about coming over to SE Asia. Next stop a short stint in Thailand, a quick jump to the US for Mere's wedding, and then I am off to India. More adventures await!