'Round the World with Sarah and Matt!

Looking over the Pond

2008-09-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

Today (our last day in Ireland) is my 31st birthday, so Sarah surprised me with a great breakfast of scones and fruit. We're getting ready to go out on a drive and walk somewhere now. After three beautiful days, the weather is turning more typical, so we'll brace ourselves and go out into the wind and drizzle and enjoy the last full day of this trip. Tonight we're going out for a celebratory pint at a local pub.

Tomorrow we have an early flight back to the States. This adventure will switch gears at this point, with Sarah heading up to Minnesota to see her family and work on some various projects she's interested in doing. More on that later. I'm heading down to South America with my buddy Johnny B in a few days, so both Sarah and I are going to enjoy the few days at home in New Mexico by eating lots of good Mexican food and ice cream and spending time with my family, including my new little niece. Thanks for joining us on the adventure so far. It's been an amazing one!

-Matt! and Sarah

Dublin, Bray, and Wicklow Mountains National Park

2008-09-29T05:08:00.000-07:00

Sarah and the rental car, Bray, Ireland

Wicklow Mountains at sunset through the car window

Wicklow Mountains, Ireland

The Mucky Duck, site of my birthday beer

the seaside village of Bray

Give that dog a red card! No fouling!

The cliffside walk from Bray to Greystones

Sarah and Matt on a hike

cute picture of Sarah

Matt at the Guinness Brewery

Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin

The Temple Bar neighborhood, Dublin

St. Stephan's Green, Dublin

Guinness.

Believe it or not, we did actually manage to do some sightseeing while here. We took a day and went into Dublin on the train. The first strop in town was the Guinness Brewery (St. James Gate Brewery), since it was close to the station. This massive brewery complex churns out 2.5 million pints of Guinness every day. The brewery tour cost $21 per person, so we skipped that and simply went into the gift shop, Once there we were able to listen to the beginning of a tour, and could easily have gone on the whole thing without anyone noticing. A trip up to the restroom also let us see a couple more floors of the amazing multi-media extravaganza that is the Guinness Storehouse. We left feeling like we had done the tour anyway, and realized that really what people are paying for with their entrance fee was a $21 pint of Guinness at the bar at the top of the building. Guinness is a decent beer, but it isn't worth that much!

After the brewery, we wandered the streets of Dublin down to the city centre, where we ate out picnic lunch of soda bread, Irish cheese, and apples on the grounds of the Christchurch Cathedral, then wandered down through the manicured lawns of Trinity College and stopped at the bookstore and library where the famous Book of Kells is housed. After we left campus, we looped around to St. Stephan's Green, where people were out lounging in the sunny (!) fall weather. I bought the requisite fish and chips from a little place on the pedestrian shopping area of Grafton Street, then we headed to St. Patrick's Cathedral, the site of St. Patrick's holy well where he supposedly baptized the "heathen" Irish. We walked back to the train station through the neighborhood called "The Liberties", where we found a small pub and popped in for a pint. It was pretty fun to drink a Guinness just down the street from where it's brewed (and best of all, it was only old-timer locals in the bar). Though Guinness is a mediocre beer as far as taste goes, it is certainly the most beautiful beer out there, bar-none. Watching a Guinness being poured is like watching someone create a fine work of art.

After spending the day in Dublin, if I didn't know better, I would guess that the official language of Ireland wasn't English but was some Slavic tongue. We were blown away by how many Poles, Slovenians, and other Eastern Europeans have migrated to Dublin with the incorporation of their countries into the European Union. I would be willing to say that 3 of 5 people who were obviously local and not tourists didn't speak English as their first language. Very surprising.

Yesterday we put the car into use and headed down to the seaside community of Bray, just south of Dublin. Our goal for the day was to do the seaside cliff walk from Bray to Greystones. Once again, we lucked out with a beautifully sunny day, with a slight breeze coming off the ocean. The cliffs along Bray Head are nice and craggy, and held groups of European Shag and Great Cormorant, as well as Eurasian Oystercatcher and Great Black-backed Gull. There was a single Razorback off the coast at one point, and a migrating Whinchat in the cliffside heath. Once we'd hiked the seven kilometers to Greystones, we decided to hike back rather than catch a train. Once again, we were struck by the sheer number of languages being spoken by the people along the trail. This time, as we walked along the winding path along the cliffs, it provided an interesting analogy to our trip; we've wandered in a linear path through so many cultures and languages since we landed in China, and here we were seeing our trip in a microcosm. The diversity of this planet is stunning. I have to give Sarah credit for noticing this, since she was the one who made the observation.

Since the weather was so grand, we decided to drive the backroads back to Celbridge, and made a winding path south to Wicklow, then west through the Wicklow Mountains and up over Sally Gap. I had no idea there was such stunning scenery in Ireland. Up in the high heath, I felt like I'd driven right back to Alaska. The sun shining on the grassy mountainsides turned everything golden, and the green fields full of fluffy white sheep provided good counterpoint to the desolate gorse and heather higher up. Calling Ireland's hills "mountains" might be a bit of a stretch, but once you are up there, it's obvious the weather and topography makes it a tough place to live.

Irish hospitality

2008-09-28T15:45:00.001-07:00

With this trip amazingly drawing to a close, Sarah and I set our sights toward Ireland, the last destination on our itinerary before we fly home. The reason we ended up doing this jump is that we were able to get extremely cheap tickets from Budapest to Dublin on Ryanair, a low cost airline in Europe. Flying Ryanair is a lot like riding the local bus -- the clientele is similar and the feel is the same. They don't do reserve seating (kinda like Southwest Airlines used to do), so there is a mad dash to push to the front of the line to get the best seats. But since our tickets cost $15 each (that includes taxes), I guess we can't complain. =)

The flight ended up being delayed for three hours (of course), due to a radar failure in London airspace that disrupted air travel all across Europe. This was going to be our one flight the entire trip that didn't require getting up early or staying up ridiculously late, but with the delay we didn't get into Dublin airport until 2am local time, which meant that by the time we were settled for the night, it was 4am by our clocks (and 3am locally). But, the Budapest airport was comfortable, the flight was smooth, and we had a great place to stay in Ireland, so all was well.

We have been looking forward to this part of the trip for awhile, since my friend Joan McDonnell has a house just outside of Dublin and graciously allowed us to stay during our four days in Ireland. She and her husband Joe live currently live in Phoenix, so we weren't able to actually see them, but it was great to have an actual home to stay in! Their son John was home from university for the weekend, so it was nice to meet him. The house is located out in Celbridge, about 15 miles west of Dublin city centre. It is a small village that has grown a lot in recent years as the city has reached out to engulf it. Nevertheless, there are wonderful green fields and woods all around and the town feels fairly rural still.

We had done a little research and found that it cost as much to rent a car for the duration of our Irish visit as it did to take a taxi one way from the airport to their house, so that's what we did! We could have gotten there by public transport during the day, but our flight came in too late to catch a train out of town (even before the delay). So we picked up our Nissan Mirca and I tried my hand at driving on the left side of the road. Luckily it was the middle of the night and I was able to practice without many drivers on the road. The rental car was a standard, and I was concerned that the pedals were going to be switched around and I'd have to learn to push the gas with the left and the gear shift with the right, but luckily, that wasn't the case. Irish roads are often poorly signed and very narrow with no shoulder, so this just adds to the excitement!

Though Joan wasn't in Ireland to see us, we have been very well taken care of by her neighbors, David and Cooleen. We arrived at the house to find the bed all made up, a fresh, home-baked loaf of Irish soda bread on the counter, and even some groceries in the fridge! And if that wasn't enough, they also invited us over for dinner the evening after our arrival. We were treated to a wonderful, multi-course spread of melon and prosciutto, wine, rack of lamb, ratatouille, garlic scalloped potatoes, a french cheese, and finally, tea and an almond tort. This was hands-down the best meal of our entire trip, and Sarah and I left their house after 4 hours hardly able to walk! Irish hospitality is a beautiful thing to behold. =) We will be forever grateful to Joan and Joe and David and Cooleen for making our stay in Ireland so great.

Hungary anyone?

2008-09-27T01:12:00.000-07:00

a cool coffee machine, Budapest

Parliament, Budapest

A Common Quail that hit a window on the Royal Palace, Budapest

Sarah and Matt at the Royal Palace, Budapest

Sarah on top of Citadel Hill, Budapest

The former Nazi Headquarters which was later occupied by Russian KGB during the cold war. Now a museum.

The weirdest bike I've ever seen. How do you ride it?

Hungary is known for its chile too!

Sarah with lunch: a dark beer, strudel, and goulash soup.

Central Market, Budapest

Budapest at night

Janos, Sarah and Matt!

Part of a holocaust memorial on the side of the Danube River where the Nazis lined up prisoners and shot them so they fell in the river. They always took off their shoes first, so the memorial is dozens of cast iron shoes along the bank of the river.

Budapest

After a wonderful (and cheap) stay in Vienna with Eva, we boarded a train for a three hour ride to Budapest, Hungary's capitol city. This particular train trip turned out to be one of the easiest travel days of our entire trip. It was nice to have an easy one after some of the hellacious journeys we've been on. =)

Budapest is another big city situated along the Danube River. It was originally two towns, Buda and Pest, until it grew up and was eventually connected by a bunch of bridges. Buda is the hilly side, and has a wonderful historical district and a royal Hapsburg palace perched above the surrounding city. Pest is flatter and more of a shopping and governmental district now. This city is definitely rushing headlong out of the years of decline behind the Iron Curtain, with massive infrastructure projects going on all over the city (new metro lines, building refurbishing, bridge maintenance, etc). It'll be a totally different city in 10 years.

We stayed with a man named Janos (pronounced Ya-no-sh), whom we found on http://www.couchsurfing.com/. For those of you who may not have heard of this particular website, it is a wonderful way to stay places when travelling. Members offer up a room or bed in their home to travellers, but at no charge. The idea is cultural sharing, making new friends, and simple good hospitality. After a stay, there is a rating system for both guests and couch owners, so the whole system stays honest, fun, and safe. We've hosted a few people in Tucson, and will likely do so again. Anyway, Janos was a real gem. Not only did he put us up, he also made dinner for us the first night and ate dinner with us each night we were there. On our last evening, he took us out on a driving tour of the city at night, which I must say is quite a sight. Janos has one of the more interesting jobs I've ever encountered. In addition to working on his PHD in Norwegian/European Union interactions, he is a translator for English and Norwegian TV shows into Hungarian (which is a pretty tough and weird language, frankly). His translations are used for both subtitles and dubbing. He does all the translating work for such series as Bones, the Amazing Spiderman (a cartoon), nature shows, etc. What a crazy job! He is also an avid traveller, and jets off to some interesting destination several times a year. He has been in every single country in Europe (including all the little ones, like Monaco) except Lativa and Malta (we're talking over 40 countries here, from Ireland to Russia, Kosovo, and the Ukraine). He's going to Lativa in a couple months, and if Obama wins the election, he'll celebrate with a ticket to Malta. Anyway, he was a really interesting, intelligent, and caring host, so we enjoyed our stay immensely.

Other than that, we basically spent three days walking all over the city (literally), crossing back and forth over the Danube and seeing the sights. We especially enjoyed the Central Market -- it was slightly touristy, but we were able to get cheap and tasty strudel in various flavors (sour cherry, apricot and cottage cheese, etc) and do some great people watching. There was a line of food vendors on a balcony overlooking the market where I discovered Dreher Bak (a great dark beer) and Sarah found some great creme cake, so we sat and watched all the locals chatting over pints before they headed home. Interestingly (to me at least), Hungary is famous for its chile and paprika (though they call them both paprika), so it felt a bit like home to see all the chile ristras and tourist shops selling goods with peppers printed on them. Just like New Mexico!

Oh, and I had one of the absolute best burgers of my entire life here, too.

One of the "must do" activities in Budapest are the thermal baths that dot the city. I contented myself with looking into a couple instead of actually bathing, because even at home I'm not particularly interested in soaking in hot pools. I'm not sure why, but I've never been a fan. Sarah had the public hot bath (Hammam) experience when she was in Morocco a couple years ago, so she wasn't ready to jump in either. The bath buildings themselves were really neat -- some are many hundreds of years old.

Our stay in Budapest was really great. I highly recommend a visit if you ever get the chance.

Weinerschnitzl

2008-09-21T01:22:00.000-07:00

Hello from Vienna!

For the first time this entire trip, we entered familiar territory. I last visited this beautilful city in the winter almost twelve years ago, and Sarah was here about three years ago. This was an unplanned stop, but we decided that it was worth it to come here and see my good friend Eva Kuntschner.

Eva and I had last seen each other 7 years ago when she came to visit me in Las Cruces, so we had some catching up to do. We originally met in Minneapolis when we were both at school there about a decade ago (yikes, I am getting old!).

Eva graciously offered up her place to us, so we have spent the last couple of days doing typically Viennese things: drinking coffee in funky coffeeshops, going out for a nightcap and conversation at night (the current seasons drink is Sturm, young wine), and making meals at her downtown Vienna apartment. It has been pretty great. We did make some time to walk the old city districts, so we got our requisite sightseeing in. One new sight for me was the Hundertwasser house and art museum. Hundertwasser was a famous archtect, philosopher, and artist who believed in organic and curving structures, as well as bright colors and uneven floors. The neighborhood where he built a building according to his ideas is a neat site to visit. Sarah loves his work, so she was excited to go back and see it again.

The weather has continued to be cold, windy, and rainy, which encourages the sitting around in coffeeshops. Apparently, the weather was beautiful and warm here until last week. Of course.

We are backtracking a bit tomorrow and taking the train to Budapest for a couple days before our flight to Ireland.

I will write again from Hungary.
matt!

Sarah at McDonalds. Yes, we ate there. It was warm and cheap. Get over it!

Hundertwasser House, Vienna

Matt! and Eva at the street market, Vienna

Eva and Sarah, Vienna

Some important building, Vienna

Down for the Count!

2008-09-18T04:50:00.001-07:00

Bla! Velcom to Dracula's hometown!

Sighisoara was a short overnight stop for us. It's a fortified hill citadel city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the heart of Transylvania, and so was worth a stop since we were in the area. The old part of the town is a small collection of towering spires of churches, old buildings, and graveyards. The whole place was a bit of a mess, since UNESCO funds are hard at work restoring and upgrading the historic area. We walked around the old town for a while and enjoyed the old town feel, and then spent the rest of the time we were there in the flatter areas of town and on walks into the countryside. The rain and wind and gray added to the Transylvanian atmosphere, but the hillsides were green, forested and beautiful.

We found a little Italian place for dinner that made great pizza (Romanians seem to love pizza).

One funny incident of note happened in the graveyard at the top of the hill. Keeping in mind where we are (Vlad Dracul's hometown), we were joking that the graveyard we walked into up there would probably be a creepy place at night. As soon as I made the comment, a little, short legged dog came trotting by us. Suddenly, about ten feet away, it started barking its fool head off at a gravestone! Needless to say, we jumped. It barked and barked at the gravestone, and then we finally figured out why: a squirrel had scampered up the tree behind the headstone. Ha! Great timing, little dog.

We are on our way to Vienna to see a friend next. It will be nice to have a little visit with someone familiar for the first time in four months.

Matt!

Matt! and Sarah, Sighisoara, Romania

Sighisoara, Transylvania

near the train station, Sighisoara

Reading a scary book, Sighisoara

The house of Dracula, jr.

old town Sighisoara, Romania

A graveyard

The citidel on the hill, Sighisoara

Cute Sarah in the Romanian countryside

Photos from Brasov and around

2008-09-18T04:50:00.000-07:00

In Turkey boarding the train to Romania - We're in the Schlafwagen.

After no sleep in the Bucharest Train Station.

Beautiful Brasov, Romania

Genuine Romania -- a 2-Liter bottle of beer for 2 bucks-- that's a lot of beer after almost none for an entire month in Nepal and India.

Dinner in our room, Brasov

Sarah in Brasov

Sarah with the same bottle of beer and pizza for dinner!

A view of Brasov from the top of the mountain

Fall is in the air

Welcome to Transylvania!

2008-09-15T07:00:00.001-07:00

Sorry about the lack of photos... The last couple places we've found email have old computers, so I haven't been able to upload any. I'll try to get this done soon. Perhaps tomorrow? Perhaps not....

We're in Brasov, Romania now. What a beautiful city! We've been enjoying walking the streets and the nice, forested paths around town. We're going to a free orchestra concert tonight. So cultured!

The train ride from Istanbul was great -- having our own space made all the difference. It was a small space, but it had two full-size beds, a table/washbasin, and a mirror. We bought groceries in Istanbul, so we were set for the ride (including having a bottle of Turkish wine!). The biggest irritation of that ride was the 4 hours it took to do immigration and passport stuff between Turkey and Bulgaria. They woke us up for this at 3am, and we didn't get moving (or sleeping) on the train again until it was getting light. The Bulgarian officials harrassed other passengers a bit (at least they did with the Romanians in the room next to us), but they left us alone for the most part. In contrast, the crossing from Bulgaria to Romania took 5 minutes, and we didn't even have to get off the train! The scenery was stunning in southern Bulgaria, with wooded hills in full fall color. Northern Bulgaria flattened out into vast fields, and we could have been in South Dakota! We crossed over the Danube River at the border of Romania and stayed in the flats until Bucharest, the capitol city.

We arrived there late (around 8pm), so we decided to stay the night and then continue on to Brasov in the morning (so as not to repeat our 3am wandering in Pushkar). Little did we know that we as we wandered the dark streets of Bucharest with our packs that all the hotels and hostels in the city were booked full (though we did find one for 280 Euro; about $400). A cold front was also in the works, so it was freezing cold and really windy. I don't even have a jacket! I pulled my rainjacket out (for warmth... it has certainly rained plenty since China, but the umbrella has been the rain tool of choice) for the first time since China. After 3 frustrating hours of trying to find a place to stay, we got some help from a girl who worked at a hostel, and she ended up calling a place in Brasov to make a reservation. So three hours after we left the Bucharest train station we ended up at it again to catch the last train that night at midnight. Long story short, we got back to the train station to find that there wasn't a last train of the night.... So we sat around in McDonald's until it closed at midnight, then moved to the train station waiting room (where at least it was warm). Sarah actually slept some (and looked pretty cute bundled up and sleeping on the bench), but I stayed awake and guarded the bags until 4:30am, when they kicked everyone out for some bizzare reason. Luckily, McDonald's opened back up at that time, so we moved back over there and waited until our 6:30am train. What a night...

The train ride to Brasov was beautiful. The forested mountains were cloaked in thick fog and drizzily rain and full of small, cute towns. Exactly what I thought Transylvania would look like! We arrived in Brasov without any problems and eventually found the cheapest accomodation in town (about $30). We have a great little room overlooking a side street in the old town, with the church clock tower visible from the window. We've spent the last day and a half wandering the streets and finding the best espresso and pastries in town. What else are you supposed to do in Europe? =) Tomorrow we're going to take the tram to the top of the hill above town and maybe take a bus out to a fortress nearby. There's also a castle here that for a brief time housed Vlad Tepes (Count Dracula), but it's aparrently touristy and not really worth seeing.

The vegetation here is interesting in that it is very reminisent of Juneau (and northern North America in general). There's maple, alder, pine, Sycamore, and cottonwood amongst the trees, and the shrub layer includes blackberry, blueberry, twisted stalk, high bush cranberry, red osher dogwood, and various saxifrages. It feels very familiar; a feeling we haven't had much of in the last few months. The birding has been surprisingly good for the little I'm doing of it. Around Brasov I've seen European Roller, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Syrian Woodpecker, Eurasian Nuthatch, Coal Tit, Willow Tit, Chaffinch, Common Buzzard, European Robin, Eurasian Jay, Red-breasted Flycatcher, and Song Thrush. The train ride up here produced a couple surprise species: two Black Storks and (most surprisingly) a Great Bustard in a vast area of plains or fallow fields north of the Danube River. The train had stopped to let another pass, and I was able to see this large, rhea-like bird quite well. They are considered a species in danger, so I certainly didn't expect to see one, let alone from the train!

We're going to Sighisoara next, where the Count was born, so perhaps we'll see more of the Dracula hype at the next destination.

Later! M!

Istanbul (not Constantinople)

2008-09-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Pottery Sarah liked from Istanbul

Spices in the Egyptian Spice Bazaar, Istanbul

Nice chewy Turkish Coffee!

Mosque, Istanbul

Sarah on the ferry across the Bosphorus Strait to the Asian side

The Blue Mosque at night, plus Ramadan festivities

Baklava with pistacios - Yum!

Us in front of the Hagia Sophia

Blue Mosque at night

Hagia Sophia at night

Turka turka!

Hello all--
We arrived safe in Istanbul! We were pretty wiped out when we arrived, since our flight out of Delhi was at 4:45am and we had to be at the airport 3 hours early. Since we didn't have anywhere else to go, we spent most of the afternoon and evening in a coffeeshop, then went to the airport 6 hours early. No sleep at all. We did sleep some during the 6 hour flight here, but I spent a lot of the time watching the beautiful deserts and dunes of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and northern Iraq move by underneath us. There is some desolate, stunning country out here. Osama picked a good place to hide. =)

Istanbul is awesome. What a breath of fresh air for 2 tired travelers. It's Europe! Clean, cobblestoned streets, great cafes, old buildings, gorgeous waterfront -- what more could you ask for? Oh, and how about no hassling! woohoo! We can actually walk the streets without being constantly approached by people for one thing or another. It's Ramadan right now, so the city comes alive each evening with families picnicking in the parks. There is a big festival set up around the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia with lots of great food, colorful people, etc. It has been fun to watch all the families preparing to break the day's fast at sunset with a big meal.

This city is loaded with amazing mosques (and churches converted into mosques, such as Aya Sophia). Interestingly, they all look very similar from the outside -- a large dome-shaped building with four turret towers around it. The Muslim call to prayer happens several times a day, so speakers through the city broadcast the chanting and locals fill the mosques. An interesting counterpoint to all of this is the mass numbers of tourists wandering the streets and sitting in coffeeshops and cafes. Several large cruise ships are in port each day, which jams the downtown area with tour buses and adds to the bustle.

We took a ferry across the Bosphorus Strait from the European side to the Asian side. It was a great way to see the city better. Istanbul looks a lot like Seattle, but with large religious structures sticking up on the hillsides. The topography is hilly, with building-covered slopes dropping down to the water's edge and large bridges connecting each piece of land to the next.

We have train tickets booked for Friday night to take us to Bucharest, Romania. We plan on 4 days in Brasov and Sighosoara in Transylvania before we head to Vienna to visit my friend Eva. We're really looking forward to the train ride through Bulgaria. We have a private cabin booked; this is the first time we've had this sort of luxury. We're going to stock up on groceries and wine and enjoy the ride!

It's a girl!

2008-09-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

I'm officially an uncle! My sister gave birth to my first niece at 11:31am on September 7th! Her name is Isabella Rose, and she's pretty darn cute. Welcome her to the family!

newborn!

Isabella Rose at three weeks

Dehli

2008-09-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

We made it to Delhi safe and sound, though the overnight bus ride was pretty crappy. We had a double bed on the bus, so we weren't uncomfortable, but the bus didn't have any shocks and we spent most of the time four-wheeling around on potholed roads (or at least it seemed that way). The worst part was that when we arrived here in Delhi at 6 this morning, we pulled our bags out of the "safe storage area" that you have to pay more for in the back of the bus (to keep them out of the weather on top of the bus), and they had been soaking in muddy water all night.... I was really pissed off, but there's nothing we could do and the bus guys absolutely didn't care. Amazingly, almost nothing was ruined besides a couple paperback novels I was carting around and a t-shirt of Sarah's. All of our other books, electronics, and Sarah's purchases survived. The hotel room in Dehli looked like our bags had exploded in it.... We had stuff drying everywhere. Sarah had to wash most of her clothes because the muddy water really got to them...

We were kind of dreading having to deal with Delhi, but it has been surprisingly pleasant -- we're staying in a Tibetan refugee area, so it feels more like China or Nepal than India, and we took the new Metro into the city today and went to a coffee shop. It was so nice to have air con and good coffee (my first coffee in almost a month!) and a yummy desert. Big cities are good for this. We have all day tomorrow, and then have to get to the airport around midnight for a 4am flight to Turkey. We plan on more coffee shop time tomorrow, and if we get bored, we'll also catch a Bollywood movie!

Hiding away

2008-09-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

A friendly (sort of) long-tailed langur.

Hello again--
The rules at our hotel here in Pushkar state that "No drugs, alcohol, or non-vegetarian foods" may be brought onto the premises. Yes, this is the first city I have ever been to that not only outlaws alcohol within city limits, but also enforces a strictly vegetarian diet. None of the restaurants here serve meat or even egg dishes! Luckily, the food has been great for the most part, so meat has hardly even been missed. I can only think of twice I've had meat at all since we flew into Nepal over a month ago: buffalo dumplings in Kathmandu and a little bacon in a pasta sauce in Pokhara. Ironically, drugs are extremely easy to get for those so inclined: you can't even walk down the street without someone whispering "opium, hash, marijuana....." at your side. But meat or alcohol, no way!

We've adhered to the rules of the city for the time we've been in Pushkar, but it really would be nice to have had a bottle of wine or two at our hotel. Oh well. It's still been a great place to hide away from India for the last few days anyway. Really, I mean that. We've both entered "burn out" mode on our trip -- this is the point in these long term trips were a traveller usually goes somewhere easy like Australia and stays put for 6 months. Instead, we entered India, one of the most hassle-prone countries I've ever been to (and that's saying a lot, since this is my 31st country). In order to stave off burn-out, we've been taking it much slower here, and simply resting and enjoying the places we actually get to. We know there's Jodhpur (the "blue city") and Jaipur (the "pink city") and Jaisalmer (the camel safari city) and other places to see, but really we just want to do a little travel burn-out mitigation and rest before we fly on to our next destination: Istanbul. So without much regret we have chosen to see fewer places here in India for the sake of the enjoyment of the rest of our adventure. And honestly, the parts of India we've seen have been enough: we aren't enamoured of India like some travelers here. I can see the lure of the vibrant colors, fascinating people, varied topography, etc., but frankly, other countries have been far more enjoyable to travel in for me (and I know Sarah feels the same).

Basically, we've enjoyed our time here, but partly because we slowed down and saw less, taking it in small batches and resting along the way. This way we're ready for the next stage of this journey!

Personal space issues

2008-09-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we decided to hike up to the top of a small peak overlooking the town of Pushkar. It was a pretty straightforward climb up steps that have been built to accommodate all the pilgrims that head for the temple at the top of the peak. It took us a while to get to the top because we kept getting stopped by groups of Indians who wanted to take photos of us. Well, they mainly wanted photos of Sarah, but they let me be in a few too. It's interesting that they find us exotic enough to want photos.... I guess it goes both ways, since Indians are so colorfully dressed and look pretty exotic to us, too. They are just better at asking without embarrassment for a photo.

We finally got to the top and walked past the temples a little further up the ridge to where we could enjoy the views without people trying to sell us stuff, beg money from us, or simply staring. We walked past trees full of langurs (long-tailed monkeys) and up the ridge. Of course, there were a bunch of men lounging around behind the temple and when they saw us, we became the most interesting thing to happen that day. Lots of staring ensued. So we walked further along the ridge and out of their sight to enjoy the day. Sure enough, three of them followed us up the ridge. We weren't particularly worried about being robbed or anything, since they seemed pretty benign, but it's hard to relax or have some personal time when you are constantly being watched. The men came up to us and wanted to try my binoculars. I already knew they were interested in them, so I let them look through them. Pretty soon, the rest of the men from below had followed along and we had 15 men all watching us, trying the binoculars, and asking us questions in Hindi. Though I'm sure they were perfectly harmless pilgrims, but I don't think they realized that they were making two foreigners very nervous with their closeness and interest.

It's a very different cultural norm here, the issue of space. There are a lot of Indians, and they live very closely packed in cities. The idea of personal space is completely different, especially to our American standards. Once they started asking us about money (I think they just wanted to see some US dollars), we got really nervous and made an excuse to leave or at least get back by the temple. Even then, they didn't realize the anxiety they were causing us. They followed us back to the temple, and then a long way down the stairs....

There was never any sort of aggression or deception on their part -- they were just interested in us. But it certainly made us uncomfortable! Well, I guess that's why we travel, eh? To expand our cultural horizons. =)

Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

2008-08-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

Pushkar, India

Our arrival in Pushkar left a lot to be desired... Since the train from Barhatpur to Ajmer was late, we didn't arrive at the station in Ajmer until around 2am. We then had to go out of the train station and barter with the auto-rickshaw drivers to make a late night drive to Pushkar, about 11km away. This was quite a hassle, since it was late and it is ingrained in these drivers to rip foreigners off. The car drove through the night, over the mountain that separates the two towns, and down into the small town of Pushkar. Since no vehicles are allowed inside the town proper, we were dropped off in deserted streets and left to our own devices to try and find the hotel we had reserved. A little twist in this search was that the hotel we booked with was full, so they'd transferred our reservation to another hotel... We wandered around the completely deserted, locked up town for a good 45 minutes trying to find this new hotel. We finally approached the only people we saw, a group of men sitting around drinking chai and watching TV, and they pointed us in the right direction. It was around 2:45am by this point. We went to the hotel, pushed our way past all the cows blocking the entrance, banged on the door, rang the bell, and yelled (I was losing my cool by this point), but were met with only silence. Locked tight! Both of us were really tired from lack of sleep the previous night and such a late night this time that all we wanted was a place to sleep. Randomly, a man came riding along on his bike and kindly helped us find a hotel; he was much less timid than us and banged and yelled until someone opened the door. The second place we tried with him turned out to be nice, so we threw down our bags and crashed for the night. Quite coincidentally, we ended up at one of the places we were going to check the next morning as a better place to stay for the duration of the time in Pushkar.

Pushkar is a pilgrimage town for Hindus. The town itself is made up of whitewashed buildings surrounding a circular lake. Legend has it that Brahma (the creator of the universe) dropped a lotus petal here, creating the holy lake. An interesting twist to the tale is that Brahma took a milkmaid as a second wife when his consort, Saraswati (goddess of education) was late for a ceremony that required her presence. She was (understandably) angry at Brahma for this little mishap, and cursed him to never have temples built to worship him -- with the exception of one temple in Pushkar. And still, to this day, Pushkar has one of the only temples dedicated to Brahma in the entire world. Pilgrims flock here to worship at this temple, bathe in the lake, and go to the other 400 temples in the vicinity. With all of this worshipping going on, you can imagine that the streets are full of people, bells ring from the temples, chanting goes on over loudspeakers, cows wander everywhere... it's a pretty atmospheric place.

Our hotel! We "splurged" and stayed at a nicer hotel ($12/night) -- complete with a pool, green courtyard, views, a TV, and hot water in the room!

colors! pigments for paints.

watching the sunset over the lake and town.

The street view from our window. India is awash with color.

More colorful pilgrims

A local girl took this of her friend with Sarah's camera. Is it art?

The other view from our window

Sarah at the pool!

Keokoladeo National Park

2008-08-31T07:20:00.000-07:00

Comb Duck

Bluebull (Indian Antelope) - tried to taste Sarah's umbrella

Painted Stork and cormorant colonies

With the Taj Mahal in the bag, we decided it was time to move onto our next destination. Luckily, our goal was only a couple hour bus ride away, so getting there wasn't a full day ordeal (like most of our travel recently has been). We arrived in Bharatpur in the state of Rajasthan around lunchtime and found a decent hotel near the entrance to Keokoladeo National Park. The host was very friendly and gracious, but that night would prove to be one of the hottest, worst nights of sleep of the whole trip. The power going out repeatedly didn't help the situation at all, since the fan only made it only marginally tolerable in the hot, stuffy room.

Anyway, this national park is famous for its wetlands and huge breeding bird colonies. We spent the entire next day in the park. The lakes, wetlands, forest, and grasslands of the area are all easily accessible by bike along canal paths, so we rented a couple bikes and went out on the trails. We'd met a guide the day before at the entrance who offered to show us around, so we took him up on the offer. He met us at 7am, and we spent the next four hours with him. His bird knowledge was extensive, and I really enjoyed birding with him. We tallied a total of about 70 species that day, most of them with him, but adding a few others later in the day by ourselves. I won't put an entire list here, but highlights included:

Brown-headed Barbet, Grey Nightjar (on a branch), Common Chiffchaff (the guide knew all the little warbler-like birds by call), Comb Duck (awesome bird - check the picture), Booted Eagle (2 of these), Cotton Pygmy-goose (voted cutest bird - the size of a green-winged teal!), Painted Storks (hundreds of these fabulous birds), White-breasted Waterhen (sounds like a monkey), Indian Robin, Indian Silverbell, Wooly Stork (2 on nest), Spotted Owlet (very cute!), Black-rumped Flameback, Darter, Eurasian Spoonbill, Collared Scops-owl, etc.

I had a great time out here, and I think even Sarah was impressed with the show the birds put on. The other overwhelming factor of the day was the HEAT. It was so hot and humid.... I haven't sweated that much in a long time -- even in all the tropical places we've been in the last few months. The afternoon brought a huge, exciting rainstorm, which luckily played itself out by the time we had to head to the train station.

We caught a train to Ajmer that evening. This time we had booked ahead and gotten upper bunks. It was way more comfortable than the last time we were on a train. We arrived late at night in Ajmer, ready to head to Pushkar. More on that in the next blog posting.

egg sandwich on the train.

Little Glimpses from Sarah

2008-08-25T04:04:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
This is my first entry in our travel blog. I guess after almost 3 months, I should get to typing :). Matt's been great about spinning out the stories of these days and I'm glad he's so good with electronic communication.

I have only a few things I want to post; 4 poems from various parts of our traveled path. They are all still malleable, still in process... as are most things, hey? Here goes:

The Second of July (7/2/08)
Leaving Vang Vieng
Women holding wet umbrellas
Aloft as they zoom on mopeds in the
Morning rain;
Purples, blues, black checkers.

And I see them, and green,
And tin roofs through
Big streaming bus windows
Moving through Monsoon Laos

Summer Thailand (7/26/08)
Sticky
Sticky skin from sunscreen and sweat
Sticky fingers from cups of sweet cold tea
Sticky rice in woven straw baskets
Sticky bare legs and back of the neck
Hot, sticky, sun-soaked still air

Unmoving, anticipating a breeze, holding its breath
We hold our breath. And sweat. Sticky.

Kathmandu (8/8/08)
I look out my fourth-floor hotel window
And see men at prayer in the florescent-lit
Room across the close alley,
one level down

Children carry long drooping flowers and
flop them while they bounce through whizzing traffic
Women's dress and fruit stands splash bright color
onto the living road

Tiny street entrances lead to Tibetan restaurants
to broad courtyards with stuppas casting eyes far above to an open sky

Whole worlds open up
Through narrow doorways

Crossing Uttar Pradesh (8/20/08)
Street stand samosas served in newsprint
Stares, yelling men
Fragrant incense, heat, rests on piles of carted cut corn
Wet land and strewn trash reflected
on night brick roads

Banana peels dropped from bus windows
Hindi music floating
Women's garb floating
Colors and green and distance and stops and distance
So slow that every mile counts
Slow so that distance stretches

Across wide India.

The Taj Mahal and Agra

2008-08-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

After our crazy introduction to India, we were happy to arrive at our first destination: Agra. This sprawling industrial town is home to the Taj Mahal. We planned on staying here for a couple of days to see the Taj, then to head on into Rajastan. We spent the first day resting at our hotel in the Taj Ganj area just south of the Taj Mahal. It's a crazy, alley-filled area that sprung up while the Taj was being built, and really hasn't changed much since. The narrow alleyways are filled with people, rickshaws, cattle, dogs, carts, motorcycles and more, plus the open sewer runs on both sides of the road. As you can imagine, it's not the best smelling area. Nevertheless, it's what amounts to a "tourist area" in these parts. We did manage to find a couple restaurants we liked, usually above street level. Many of the restaurants and hotels in the area have rooftop restaurants, where there are fabulous views of the Taj Mahal. We spent a lot of time enjoying the views over a pot of masala chai.

On our second day there, Sarah was hit pretty hard with a second round of stomach issues (the first being in Thailand), so our 2-day stay in Agra turned into a week! There's not much to do in Agra beyond the Taj and Agra Fort, but we used the time to relax and catch up on blogging, sleep, meeting locals, and of course, getting over the stomach bug. After her second day of stomach problems, we decided to have Sarah start the Ciprofloxin that we brought along. It's a pretty hefty drug, so it kinda wiped her out even more. Good thing we had a comfortable room (it even had a swamp cooler!). The couple restaurants we frequented got to know us well; I even helped take orders one night when our favorite restaurant was really busy!

It was also nice to be around long enough to get to know a few people and have them notice a drastic change in my appearance. My huge beard had been bugging me for a while, so I finally made the plunge and shaved it off. It was funny the kind of response I got -- mostly favorable (including from Sarah).

The real reason to water harvest -- as a monkey drinking fountain

Finally, though it took us seven days, we made it to the Taj Mahal. The admission fee is ridiculously steep (and skewed), but it was worth it. Indians pay 20 rupees to enter (50 cents), while foreigners pay 750 rupees (19 dollars)! That's a massive mark-up! But what a sight.... There really isn't any place like it. Gleaming white marble and simple design -- elegance at it's best. The "masterstroke" was placing it up on a platform, so that there is only sky behind. It was built as a monument and mausoleum by a maharajah for his wife when she died.... and I don't think it's been outdone since. If you ever get to this part of the world, you must visit. Sarah and I visited in the late afternoon, a couple hours before it closed. It was a nice time to be there, with smaller crowds, cooler temperature, and wonderfully shifting sunset colors. Sarah took a bunch of great photos, which I'll post later. The place is very atmospheric, with hundreds of Rose-ringed Parakeets flying around and the Muslim call to prayer playing over the speakers. As we were being escorted out at sunset, several hundred Black Kites took to the air and rode the last thermals of the evening into the pink sky....

The Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Sarah and Matt! with the Taj Mahal in the background, India

More Taj

The Taj

The Taj upclose

The Taj at sunset

The mosque next to the Taj Mahal and the Yamuna River

Trash, chaos, and urine -- Welcome to India!

2008-08-22T10:07:00.001-07:00

And mud -- lots and lots of feces-filled mud.

OK, so that's not exactly fair to India, but it was pretty much our experience for our first two days here. We crossed into India at a typical dirty border town. The actual immigration stuff was extremely easy, luckily. One of our first observations was that India was even more covered in trash than Nepal (or Thailand or Cambodia or Laos). Plastic and sewage chokes every drain and creek, and clogs up everything, creating pools of extremely filthy water. There are cows and buffalo everywhere, so there is always lots and lots of dung to step around, and all of this gets pushed into the water. It was raining quite hard the day we crossed, which made everything a soggy mess, too. We caught a bus down to the closest town that had a train terminal (Goratpur), and were greeted by a muddy town that was even more chaotic and gross than the border. We walked to the train station and entered into an extremely chaotic scene where we couldn't figure out the train system and everyone was staring at us... Not particularly comfortable. The Indian train system is pretty confusing, especially for someone who just arrived... We went to the "tourist office", where a woman (sort of) helped us (but really made us more confused). Sarah took charge and tried to get us tickets for the first train to Lucknow, since we definitely weren't going to be able to get to Agra that day. Long story short, we ended up having to give a commission to the tourist office lady to purchase us a general boarding ticket (meaning we had no seats) to the train that pulled into the station. After waiting around in frustration for a couple hours, this all happened in less than five minutes, and the train was on its way out of the station. We wandered through the overcrowded sleeper car trying to figure out what to do until a kind man took pity on us and squeezed us in with his family. He had to run interference for us a couple times when people came who had more of a claim to our seats, but we managed to have a cramped place to sit for the next 6 hours. The man was nice, but was really insistent on having us take over his leprosy counselling job when he retired.... kinda weird. The only real plus side of the day was the great chai tea and samosas that were served on the train (quite cheap!). We arrived in Lucknow at 11pm and had to wander around in the dodgy train station area looking for a hotel to stay in...

The next day proved to be more of the same, except it was all on buses -- basically 14 hours worth of bus riding at an average speed of 25 - 30 kilometers an hour.... It was a dirty, slow, tiring day. We were just filthy by the time we reached Agra -- once again, really late at night.

The countryside was quite interesting, since the monsoon rains had hit the area quite hard -- all along entire stretches of road and railways the fields were completely inundated and flooded. Often there were a few building or trees sticking out of the water.

Since tourists don't take the buses in the areas we were going through, we got stared at constantly. One particularly memorable moment was when Sarah needed to find a bathroom during a stop on the bus, but she didn't know how long she had before it was leaving again. She was hurrying around in the bus "station", trying to find some facilities, with everyone (mainly men), all staring at her as she jumped around mud puddles and looked in vain.... It's hard not to stick out in a sea of dark skin when you are blond, tall, and a woman.

Oh yes, the urine. Men pee everywhere. I saw more men peeing in the last two days than in our entire trip so far. Entire walls in front of the train station and bus stations are impromptu urinals, and the smell permeates everything around these areas. Not pleasant. On the flip side, there are often no facilities for women at all.... quite bizarre.

Not all was bad, however. There were hints of the India that visitors fall in love with. A boy bought Sarah an ice cream once.... staring people break into a big smile when you smile at them.... people help when they know you are confused.... India might be the most chaotic, messy place either of us have been in a long time, but there is some magic lurking there. Hopefully we find more of it in the days to come.

Birthplace of Buddha

2008-08-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

Next stop: Lumbini, Nepal.

After Chitwan, we travelled by local bus to the historical birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who would later achieve enlightenment and become the Buddha. I visited the pond where his mother bathed before stumbling a few steps, grabbing a sal tree branch, and giving birth to a child who as a man shaped a good portion of the modern world with his teachings of the Middle Way.

This was an interesting sidetrip for us. Not many tourists come here. It's more of a place for pilgrims. The sparse accommodations in the little town nearby are very shoddy and dirty -- obviously more for the use of poor pilgrims rather than Western tourists. Still, we managed to get a decent room at the nicest of the cheapies in town. It had stunning views out over the rice paddies behind the village.

A large area around Buddha's actual birthplace has been set aside to preserve its woodland aspect, and quite a few countries have built their own monasteries and temples within this zone. It made for a great place to rent bikes and ride around -- no traffic and no hills. The forests also provide refuge for an interesting endangered mammal, the blue bull (boselaphus tragocamelus). Sarah's sharp eyes spotted several of these weird deerlike animals in amongst the trees. Just north of the protected area is a second protected area, set aside as a refuge by the government of Japan. It provides habitat for the critically endangered Sarus Crane -- there are few of these birds left in the wild. We managed to find three during our time there. They are bigger than a Sandhill Crane with a red head. Amazing! Sarah also found a great path for a run, so I spent a little time looking around for other birds and wasn't disappointed: new ones included Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch, Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker, Black Bittern, and Asian Koel.

Because of the lack of tourists in this area, we received a lot of stares (including a guy who took a picture of us). This turned out to be good practice for India, as you'll find out in the next blog. Overall though, it was a nice quiet place for walks and countryside. We had a rather magical experience one night during a walk outside of the village when all of the trees along the road were filled with thousands of twinkling fireflies. It was simply beautiful.

rhinos and crocs and sloth bears, oh my!

2008-08-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

Happy in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Elephant bathtime!

More elephant bathtime

Royal Chitwan National Park was a mixed bag for us.... on the one hand, we had some pretty incredible moments here and met some great people, but on the other hand, we had a bad experience with some aspects of our "tour". I'll touch on the bad stuff first so we can move on to the rest. Our problems centered around the tour package we booked in Pokhara. As I've mentioned before, we almost never sign on to tours, but we added up the prices for the different activities and accommodations, and it pretty much was a wash whether we went on a tour or did it ourselves -- the tour was simply less work for us. So, like suckers, we booked with a guy who was professional and nice -- too bad he contracts with a crappy lodge for the tour. He'll be hearing from me soon. Anyway, we got to the "lodge" (Tiger Wildlife Camp) around 9pm, after our landslide adventure. Exhausted, we were shown to our room, which turned out to be a hovel with some planks for beds (complete with Snoopy sheets), and a filthy (as in dirty toilet paper in the bin, etc), grimy bathroom. Don't get me wrong here, our standards are pretty low since we're travelling budget, but this place was just gross. And we were stuck with it for 2 nights because we'd already paid for our package. It got worse, too. The food was fine (though we didn't have any choice in the meals), but the manager (who was a loon) tried to cut any possible corner he could, including flat out lying to us about the river levels, saying that it was too high to canoe, so we should do a longer hike. We believed him because we'd just gotten there and didn't know any better. He basically pocketed the money he was supposed to spend for our canoe trip, and we found out later that most people were doing the canoeing and loving it.... Grrr... When our two nights were up, we packed up and moved to a much nicer room at a place down the road. We still had some of our programs to do since we were delayed in starting them by the avalanche. The crazy manager for some bizarre reason decided that we were unhappy with his place and program because of the guide who took us on our jungle hike (whom we loved) and fired the guy! I was pretty upset about that and told him repeatedly that we liked the guide and that it was the room and him (the manager) that were the problems. Seriously, this guy was sleazy and nuts. Despite repeatedly telling him our grievances, at the end of the tours when he had to arrange our ride to the buses, he tried to pretend that we had a great time there and wanted us to recommend him! I'm actually being pretty brief on the negative parts of our stay in Chitwan, because they had such an impact that it almost overshadowed the good stuff. Almost.

Now on to the good parts of the experience there. Chitwan is a beautiful place. The riverine forest and open grasslands of the valley are lush and stunning. We had the opportunity to explore these on foot, on elephant, and a bit by water.

The jungle walk was the first activity we participated in. David and Vicki (from Hong Kong) and Sarah and I went across the river by dugout canoe with our two guides, and walked into the forest from there. The lead guide was named Raj, a gentle, quiet man who has been guiding inside the park for 18 years. He took us on paths through the forest, pointing out interesting things like rhino tracks and Bengal tiger scratchings on tree trunks. We walked quietly, listening for sounds that would give away the location of any wildlife. The area was full of spotted deer, and a few rhesus macaques (the temple monkeys) were up in the trees. The riverine forest here is quite open in the understory, so we could see quite a ways through the trees. A few birds were around, including a Red-headed Trogon (rare at this time of year -- they are usually up on the slopes of the hills), a Red Junglefowl (wild chicken), and a couple huge Indian Peafowl (wild peacocks). A Crested Serpent Eagle screeched as it flew in and landed in a treetop. Suddenly, we heard a loud, snorty breath off to one side. Raj immediately became extremely cautious and hurried us along the trail for an additional 20 meters, then we squatted down to peer through the trees. Eventually we made out a rare one-horned Indian rhino -- a female based on her size (massive but smaller than a male). She was moving through the trees, but starting to veer in our direction. That was when Raj saw a young rhino trailing her (which Raj later told us was a male based on the scent of its urine!). Our guide went into high gear at that point, and quickly moved us out along the trail and onto a dirt road that bisected the forest. Just like bears, female rhinos have every reason to be very protective of their young ones. The snorting through the trees sounded closer, giving every indication that the mother was agitated and following us! Raj made us jog down the road for a ways, checking behind him often, then veered us back off the road and into the brush behind a tree (you are supposed to hide behind a tree if charged by a rhino). We crouched there, hearts beating fast, adrenaline pumping, and manic grins on our faces, hoping the mother wasn't too upset with us. THEN, there was another snort directly behind us. Another rhino was in the bushes! Raj got us up and running down the road as fast as we could. We were heading towards where the forest opens up into grasslands. He obviously had a destination in mind, because he kept urging us along while checking behind us. I was the last one in line, with Sarah right in front of me. As we ran, both of us turned and looked back at the same time -- just in time to see a huge male rhino come out of the woods where we'd been hiding. We both saw him in full profile on the road, right before he turned his huge, horned head towards us. Scary! We were out in the grassland by this point, but it was even scarier out there, since the thick, thick grass and cane was over 4 meters high. There were paths pushed through it where rhinos had passed. We eventually cut down a human trail through the grass and pushed through until we came to a viewing tower looming out of the grassland. We climbed the ladder to safety, and stood watching as first one, then another rhino came running by uncomfortably close to the tower. It was hard to see them most of the time, but you could definitely tell where they were passing by the movement of grass. We'd inadvertently stepped into the middle of a chase where a male was after the female and her young one. Just like with bears, males will sometimes kill young ones so that the female will become receptive to mating again. No wonder she was agitated and not happy with us being around.....

We stayed up there for about an hour until Raj felt like it was safe to continue. It proved to be a great place to birdwatch, with such exciting birds as Emerald Dove, Yellow-crowned Woodpecker, Bay-backed Shrike, both Coucals, Green-billed Malkoha, Rufous Treepie, and many others flying over the grasslands. When we descended from the platform, my senses were amped up to level that I haven't felt since the first few weeks of hiking in grizzly country when I lived in Alaska. There were BIG animals out there.....

hiking through the grassland

Sarah "birdwatching"

birdwatching from the tower

crossing by canoe

Gharhial

post-rhino encounter

Royal Chitwan National Park

The rest of the walk was uneventful, but Raj proved to know his birds extremely well, helping me locate Brown Crake, Little Heron, White-browed Wagtail, Black-breasted Weaver, Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, Red-breasted Parakeet, Pied Kingfisher, Plum-headed Parakeet and more. Along the river's edge, we spotted a gharhial (a bizarre, fish-eating croc) and a "marsh mugger", your typical man-eating croc.

David, Vicki, and Sarah on an elephant!

on an elephant

We also went on an elephant ride for a few hours. This was a lurching, uncomfortable journey, but it certainly is a unique way to travel and we did see some barking deer (muntjacs). The elephants themselves were really neat to spend time with. Later in the day, we toured the Elephant Breeding Center, where we got to get close to some ridiculously cute 6 month old elephants. The sun was setting as we were leaving this spot, and the river and distant hills were a beautiful golden color.

boat crossing

Chitwan

Sarah with the baby elephants

One evening we went to a village cultural show, where the local Tharu people showed off some of their amazing stick dancing skills, as well as performing a few of their traditional dances, such as the dance to bring a family out of mourning after the loss of a loved one. The house was packed and everyone had a great time.

An evening walk out in the rice patties was lined with Large-tailed Nightjars sitting up on the wires. An early morning birdwalk didn't add too many new ones, but I did see an Oriental Pied Hornbill, Eurasian Golden Oriole, and Large Woodshrike.

All in all, we're both glad we went to Chitwan. Other than the idiot manager of that lodge, it was a really special place. Highly recommended!

rhino tracks

through the grassland

Landslide!

2008-08-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

After our time in Pokhara, we headed out for our next destination: Royal Chitwan National Park. This park is located in the Terai region of Nepal, the low-lying flat area south of the Himalayan foothills. It comes as a surprise to most people that a lot of Nepal is tropical, and this park is in the heart of it.

The bus ride from Pokhara to Chitwan was supposed to take 6 hours, so we set off with high hopes that it wouldn't be a really long travel day. Of course, as usual, that turned out not to be true. We were starting to drop out of the foothills through some spectacular river valleys and were about 40 kilometers from Chitwan when we got backed up in a long line of traffic. It was pretty obvious that it was either because of an accident or landslide. It turned out to be the latter. We spent hours backed up along with everyone else, since there are no other roads connecting the Terai with the foothills anywhere in the area. There wasn't much shade, so it was a good thing that it wasn't unbearably hot -- just enough to keep people off the bus. Every once in a while a bus or car would come thundering by the line of cars, for some reason thinking they could get through when no one else could. Invariably, they'd end up backing up the highway causing all sorts of traffic issues. We met a lot of nice people while stranded on the road -- one guy on our bus was actually from Tucson! Also on our bus were Vicki and David, a couple from Hong Kong who we ended up spending a lot of time with in the following days. At one point I Sarah and I also watched a shady character get up on top of our bus and try to get into people's bags. Luckily the bus driver saw him and yelled at him to get down. He actually had the nerve to try to make it seem as if he was just trying to get a better look up ahead!

After several hours of waiting, word trickled back that there were huge rocks in the way and that vehicular traffic might not make it through that day. That settled it for Sarah and I, so we got our bags off the roof of the bus and started walking for the blockage, hoping to get across it and catch another bus on the other side. It was a two kilometer walk in the rain to the landslide spot. As we approached the area, there started to be a lot of movement of people coming towards us. They had just opened the gap for people to hurry through, and people were trying to get by before they closed it again to continue working. We sped up and pushed our way through the oncoming people trying to get there quickly. We reached the landslide as the last of the people they were letting through straggled by The road workers were frantically trying to stop people as they kept an eye upslope for sliding debris. There were a couple bus sized rocks still in the road, along with hundreds of tons of dirt and rubble. It was obvious they weren't going to get even one lane open for traffic for several hours. We rushed across the debris (two of the last 5 people to do so) and into a big milling crowd of people already stopped from going the other direction. The feeling as we continued walking in the rain away from the danger zone was very refugee-like; people were carrying all of their belongings, all walking in the same direction. Further on, the truck drivers and bus people were all taking the delay in stride. Many of them were taking showers in the small waterfalls, shaving, doing their laundry, and cooking dinner under their trucks.

We ended up walking over 8km from our bus to another bus that could take us to Chitwan. We ended up getting our "trekking" experience in Nepal after all! The bus we got onto waited around for several more hours to pick up any more people that might have crossed through the gap, then headed out. We ended up arriving at our destination almost 9 hours late. Vicki and David, both of whom had decided to wait with the bus, arrived 3 hours later (at midnight). What a crazy day, but actually not a bad one. We met a lot of really great people, including 3 Irish college boys (one of whom kept talking about his childhood as when he was a "wee" boy -- how cute) and a young Nepali man. The scenery was pretty impressive, as well. High steep green cliffs with waterfalls cascading off them will brighten any one's mood.

Heading for the landslide

Across the gap!

Pushing through the stranded masses

Pokhara and around

2008-08-11T03:48:00.000-07:00

HI folks--

I have a lot of catching up to do from the last week of adventures (and non-adventures), so bear with me if some of the next few blogs sound rushed.

We had a fantastic few days in Pokhara, Nepal. The city is the staging point for many of the Himalayan treks people undertake; most famously the Annapurna Circuit and Annapurna Base Camp. We didn't do any of these, though we'd like to sometime -- but preferably not during the monsoon/leech season. Instead, we spent 5 wonderful days rambling around the hills and the lake that surrounds Pokhara. We put in quite a few miles each day during our explorations, wandering through beautiful forests up in the hills and through brilliant green rice patties and wetlands along the lakeshore. Pokhara itself was a breath of fresh air -- no traffic, no hassles, great food, a nice room, etc. We were there long enough to establish a routine with our favorite restaurants. We figured out where we could get the best Nepali set meal (dal baat, vegetable curry, curd, salad, pickle (sauce), chapati, and rice), and even found a place that had fantastic Italian food (on par with food I've had in Italy -- including homemade noodles!). My typical drink choices at meals have changed quite a bit in past weeks -- no coffee at breakfast, no Coke at lunch, and no beer at dinner. Just a nice glass of black tea or masala chai. And way cheaper!

She wanted some rupees for this photo... but it was worth it.

Sarah near the International Peace Pagoda above Pokhara, Nepal

One of our hikes took us up the mountainside near town to check out the Peace Pagoda up there. It was quite a sight, but the better views were looking out from it. On clear days, the whole Annapurna massif of the Himalayas stretches out to the north and east, with Mt Machupucarrhe (7000 meters) sticking straight up above the town.We didn't see this, but were treated to views of these mountains through the clouds on our first day in Pokhara, so that's OK. The birding up on the mountainside was fantastic, with such lifers as Red-headed Vulture, Black-lored Tit, Golden-fronted Leafbird, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, Common Hawk Cuckoo, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Blue-whistling Thrush, Grey Treepie, Greater Yellownape, Great Barbet, Long-tailed Minivet and Grey-hooded Warbler. We wanted to go down the longer route through the forested slopes of the mountain, but visitors are often robbed at gunpoint along this route, so we stuck to the well-travelled paths. Go figure, people get robbed when visiting the Peace Pagoda.... We attempted a route that would take us all the way around the lake below us, but couldn't find the path at one point, so it turned into an interesting side trip to some small, little-visited villages.

climbing to Peace Pagoda

Matt! at Peace Pagoda

Peace Pagoda

view of Pokhara valley

cooling off at the top of the mountain. Gross.

Mt. Machupucarrhe

Another day in town sent us on a long, leisurely ramble along the lake. This walk included a long lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall place that had fantastic views over the lake. While waiting for our meal, I saw an immature (2nd year?) Pallas's Gull, Bronze-winged Jacana, Lesser Whistling Duck, Little Grebe, and several herons in the shallows nearby. The walk continued through rice paddies that were the most magnificent shade of green we've ever seen. Sarah got a lot of nice photos, so I'll try to add a couple here.

Ah.... papad and Nepali beer

rice fields along lakeshore

more fields

Additional pictures from Kathmandu

2008-08-11T03:31:00.001-07:00

Spices for sale

Sabu (holy man)

Now those are heavy paniers!

typical Kathmandu scene

Wine on the rooftop of the hotel! - Sarah is drinking out of a 7-11 cup she's been dragging around, and I'm using a tuperware container.

The latest in fashionable facewear in Kathmandu -- perfect for those dust and fume-clogged days!

Patan's Durbar Square

no comment.

Another typical scene in old town Kathmandu

The Road to Pokhara

2008-08-10T02:06:00.000-07:00

Before I forget, I wanted to mention that Nepal is 1 hour and 15 minutes off of Southeast Asia time.... I think the extra 15 minutes was Nepal's attempt to exert a little independence from its huge neighbor to the south that it relies on for most of its imports - India. Whatever the reason, it's highly confusing for me.

In coming to Nepal, we had both decided not to do a trek due to time constraints and because of the monsoons. Now that we're here, it was definitely the right decision, though it means we won't get up into the high elevations of the Himalayas on this trip. The evening monsoons are torrential downpours, which turn the roads into rivers. Not the sort of thing I'd like to be hiking or spending the night in a tent in.... Regardless, many people who trek in Nepal (including possibly me in the future) do so from Pokara, which is a few hours to the west of Kathmandu. There are some interesting day hikes possible from here, so we decided to make it our next stop.
The road to Pokhara was a spectacular drive along a massive glacial river in the Himalyan foothills. It got progressively hotter as we headed toward Pokhara, and was admittedly not the most comfortable ride. I'm going to try to sit on the roof of the next bus we are on. One extremely pleasant surprise was the clearing of the sky and the appearance of several of the Himalayan peaks -- Ganesh Himal, Himalchuti, and the Annapurna massif in particular. Each of these peaks are between 7000 and 8000 meters tall.... holy crap. This is the one thing I was hoping for while in Nepal. I knew we weren't going to be trekking, but I at least wanted to feel like we were in the vicinity of these mighty mountains; hard to do in sweltering tropical heat with the peaks hidden behind clouds. What a spectacular sight!

After 7 hours of driving and two 30-minute food stops, we finally made it the 140 miles from Kathmandu to Pokhara. It takes a while to get anywhere here, even on the busiest highway in the country. It's a two lane road that is frequently cut down to one-lane since trucks and buses just park in the middle of the road instead of pulling off to the side. Though there isn't often a place to pull off, we noticed the drivers seemed to pick the worst places to do so; in the middle of a bridge or at a blind curve are two frequent places.

Something we found out is that the price of gas and oil here in Nepal has doubled in the last two months, putting the price up around US$6.00/gallon. No wonder transport was costing more than was mentioned in the guidebook. India has a stranglehold on gas imports, so Nepal is at their mercy for this commodity.

We arrived in lakeside Pokhara without any fuss and were greeted by an aggressive and in-your-face crowd of "touts" trying to get you to go to a certain hotel (where they would receive a commission and you get a higher price). This is another fact of travel here in Nepal and India we'll have to deal with. This obviously happens elsewhere too, but I think it's going to be particularly ruthless here.

We're going to spend the next couple days hiking and relaxing in the hills around Pokhara. I'll let you know how that was in my next post!

-matt!

Namaste from Nepal

2008-08-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

Well, we're not in Bangkok anymore. Kathmandu is as different a capitol city as you could possibly get from Thailand's slick mega-city. More on that in a minute, though. Let me tell you about the flight in!

We flew direct from Bangkok to Kathmandu on Thai Airways, and I must say, they are pretty much the best airline I've ever flown, at least in terms of customer service. Sarah agrees. We got seats on the right side of the plane on the off chance that the Himalayas would show themselves through the mass of monsoon clouds. They never did (though I might have seen a peak in there), but I was able to see the vast flat deltas of Burma and Bangledesh sliding by below.

Anyway, soon after taking off the flight attendant came by with a hot towel, followed by refreshments and some peanuts. A little while later, lunch arrived. We'd signed up for the vegetarian meal (everyone in the States knows that these options are a joke), and when it arrived, it had cut fruit, a pommelo and avocado salad, a roll, a rice-stuffed bell pepper, and a lentil and okra dish! Wow! It was all awesome, especially the bell pepper. then came the choice of white or red wine with the meal (we both got red-- and I ended up drinking both of ours). Once the meal was over, trays were cleared and coffee and tea was served. Pretty sweet. THEN they came by with a snifter of cognac! I had to get everything, of course. I love this sort of thing. There was one point when I had a Coke, wine, coffee, and cognac all on my tray at once. About thirty minutes before the flight ended, the attendants came by and gave Sarah an orchid corsage. Oh, and we weren't even in first class, by the way. The first class passengers must have gotten full body massages and had a spa if us unwashed masses in the back were treated as well as we were.

My drink array on Thai Air - Coke, coffee, wine, cognac

Anyway, we descended out of the clouds and into Kathmandu Valley -- a green bowl surrounded by high hills on all sides, with brick and concrete buildings haphazardly spread over the valley bottom. Immigration took forever for some reason, but once we were through that, we were whisked off by taxi through rutted, potholed alley-like roads to our hotel. Quite a change from Bangkok, as I mentioned earlier.

Our hotel is located on the outskirts of the Thamel district, the main tourist area of town. This is the low season for tourism here, with the monsoons in full swing. Compounding the low tourism that is the large fluctuations in political power happening right now. For those of you who don't follow Nepali news, about a month ago the monarchy was dissolved and a new government that includes the Maoist rebels was formed. Big changes for this little country. The violence from the rebellion seems to be over, but the government is still very much in flux.

For the last three days we've been dodging crazy traffic and wandering the alleys and backstreets of Kathmandu and surrounding towns. Old Kathmandu is a confusing mass of very skinny streets in between tall buildings, and rickshaws, motorbikes, and cars all crowd into the small space, making simply walking quite a stressful experience. The neat thing is that down every back alley, a huge courtyard or plaza or temple appears. Some courtyards are reached by tunnels you have to duck to get into. On one of our walking tours, we even came upon the plaza that was home to the tea house where Cat Stevens wrote his song "Kathmandu"!

It has been quite a switch to go from the clean, well kept Buddhist temples to the crazy, intertwined Buddhist/Hindu beliefs that meld so well here in Nepal. Everything is more real, in a way. By that I mean the people here aren't aloof from their belief systems -- every nook, cranny, and hole-in-the-wall is a temple to Ganesh, Shiva, Buddha, etc. -- and nothing is well-kept. Ash, incense, red powder, candle wax, smoke, offerings, trash, and colorful fabrics line the recesses of the worship areas, and the area surrounding each one is full of activity -- cows, dogs, monkeys, goats, children, crazy holy men, beautifully dressed women and all manner of other things are in constant motion. It's a lot to take in, especially for foreigners who are used to the order and cleanliness (and dare I say tedium?) of Western places.

We visited many places in the Kathmandu valley during the last few days, including the world's largest stupa (a type of Buddhist temple. This particular stupa is Tibetan, and reflects the traditions and beliefs of the many, many Tibetan refugees who have settled (and even flourished) in Nepal. The atmosphere is calm and peaceful (especially in comparison to the chaos outside the plaza), with a cobblestoned walkway all around the circular stupa lined with shops and cafes. The Tibetan Buddhist chant "om mani padme hum" echos peacefully out of the shops selling singing bowls, incense, rosary beads, and beautiful tapestries, while people walk in a clockwise direction along the outside of the stupa's wall, spinning the many prayer wheels there. It's hard not to get caught up in the centrifugal force of the walk -- it literally feels like you are going against the current if you try to go the other direction, even though it isn't a crowded place.

The temple in the next photo is another similar structure, though it is set at the top of a hill overlooking Kathmandu. Locally it's called the "monkey temple" for the rhesus macaques that hang around and amuse the visitors. I did see one monkey take a swipe at a woman who was trying to place an offering in the alcove in which the monkey was currently sitting (and eating the offerings). His photo is included here. The view over Kathmandu was quite amazing, so we sat and enjoyed it for quite a while. There were dozens of Black Kites riding the thermals and sitting in the trees around the hill, while House Crows, House Swifts, Oriental Magpie-robins and other birds moved through the brush and around the buildings. Sarah and I both found this particular stupa to be very relaxing; perhaps it was because of the beautiful filtered light of the afternoon, the worshipping devotees giving offerings, or the hundreds of prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. It certainly wasn't due to the many steep steps to get up there. =)

Swayambhunath stupa (the monkey temple)

a monkey eating the offerings

Swayambhunath Temple (the monkey temple)

Cheeky monkey!

Sarah turning the prayer wheels

Pashupatinath Temple and cremation ghats (platforms)

These cremation ghats were pretty interesting. Many people are cremated here -- you can see the smoke from a couple bodies in the left hand side of the photo. Most of the Nepali royal family was cremated here a few years ago after the Crown Prince bizarrely gunned them all down and then killed himself. In addition to the ghats, there are lots of side temples where holy men gather. They are the crazy looking, dreadlocked guys in the next couple of photos. I'm not sure what they do all day, but it seems to involve a lot of laying around and smoking pot. They definitely serve a purpose in the workings of religion here, because they are supported with alms by devotees. The more enterprising of them (and probably some fakes) cruise around the tourist areas and waylay visitors with red dye to the forehead, for which you are then supposed to give them a "donation". Talk about pressure sales. We soon learned to avoid them if possible, though the one I have a picture with at the end of this post was nice enough. He liked that my beard was approaching the size of his.

Sabhus (holy men) - they look like hippies

More Sabhu - Durbar Square, Kathmandu

At Pashupatinath Temple

The Maoist guerrillas are now a part of the government here

Hot fermented millet beer - yum!

Now that's a special you can sink your teeth into!

Durbar Square, Kathmandu

Beard brothers!

After four days in Kathmandu, both of us were very ready to escape the exhaust and dust and crowds of the place. We are both a little concerned this is a foretaste of what it'll be like in India. Exhausting!

Contrary to what I originally thought, Kathmandu is warm and tropical. For some reason I assumed it was colder, or at least more temperate. Since it sits around 1500 meters, it was high enough to have cool nights, so we enjoyed the slight temperature respite after Southeast Asia. Now we're off to Pokhara for the next stop in our trip.

-Matt!

Surprises in Northern Thailand

2008-08-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

Hi! It has been a few days since I last wrote. If I recall, I last mentioned that we were going to head up to Chiang Dao for a couple days in some lovely bungalows there. Well, that did happen, it just took a couple more days to get there than we thought it would.

We packed up our bags on the day we were going to head out and went downstairs to get some breakfast. The day went downhill from there. I walked down the way to get money from the ATM and then Sarah went down to do the same. She was gone for quite a while, and finally returned with a stricken look on her face. The ATM machine had eaten her card! Talk about irritating timing. This isn't that big a deal in itself; every trip has to have at least one monetary emergency somewhere along it. We walked back over to the place that had the ATM and had them call the bank to get the card out. The bank said "no problem, we'll have it out... tomorrow." Grrr..... I was determined to get the card out as soon as possible, so Sarah and I started walking the mile or so to the bank offices to speak with a manager. We got about halfway there when Sarah began to feel seriously nauseous. We decided it was best if she rested in the shade while I took her documents and tried to work the card problem out. I fibbed a little to get them to hurry with the card extraction (I told them we were flying to Nepal in 2 hours), and they had the card for me within 30 minutes. The next problem arose when they wouldn't release the card to me. I went looking for Sarah but couldn't locate her (I figured she'd gone back to the hotel, but that was a long way). So, sweating profusely, I quickly walked back to the bank, where I convinced them I was legitimately picking up her card by showing them our matching Arizona Driver's Licenses, her back-up Xerox of the card, and finally a bunch of smiling photos of us on my camera. The language barrier didn't help this process.

With card in hand, I headed back to the hotel to find Sarah miserably sitting on a stool --- it was obvious that it would be a really dumb idea to travel anywhere that day. We checked back into the hotel (this time in a nice room with a TV, and most importantly, air-con). This turned out to be a good idea; let's just say Sarah needed it. It was obvious that she was going to be in the room for the whole day, so after making sure she had everything she needed, I went to a movie. When I got back, she was curled in a ball on the edge of the bed -- and pretty much didn't move for the next few hours. Whatever sickness hit her hit hard. I'll spare the details.

So here I need to confess that I'd been researching the possibilities of doing a day trip into Burma (Myanmar), and had planned it for one of these days. It's a common and easy crossing for people who need to update their Thai Visas; you just can't leave the border city. When Sarah got sick, that negated the possibility of doing this little side trip (I'm sure my parents are sighing with relief right now). I can certainly see the lack of logic in going on a full-day excursion into Burma while my girlfriend is sick in a hotel room.... It turned out to be good that I didn't go, because whatever got Sarah decided to visit me the next day. It wasn't as bad for me, but we didn't leave the hotel room all day. Sarah hadn't left for almost 36 hours by that point. It's never fun to be sick in a foreign country away from friends and family, but at least we had each other.

So, two days later than we planned, we packed up our bags and made it to Chiang Dao, an hour up the road from Chiang Mai. We caught a truck out of town and made it to Malee's Bungalows, a recommendation from my friend Emily Drew. We spent 2 days in a cute little bungalow and enjoyed the quiet and greenery of the area while our stomachs were on the mend. It did rain a lot, so that put a bit of a damper on my birding activities. Nevertheless, I had a great time prowling the trails and gullies around the Wat at the end of the road, about a kilometer past Malee's. Sarah and I enjoyed some walks on the surrounding roads and paths as well, but she wasn't quite back up to par yet, so she took it easy and read a lot.

We were the only guests at the bungalows -- it would have been fun to have at least a couple other people around (I was hoping for birders). The morning we arrived, a group of 20 cavers had just checked out. Oh well. Malee's food was great; one meal even made it onto the "Best of" list for the trip. I'll write up the current "best of" list in the next posting.

Scroll down below the pictures to find out a few of the birding highlights from our time in Chiang Dao.

Malee's Bungalows - ours is on the right.

Big moth -- actually, this is the small male.

Cute tokay gecko, but you can't tell scale in this picture. He's actually over a foot long! He ate that giant moth in the earlier picture!

Another monster.

Orchids - Malee's Guesthouse near Chiang Dao

Wat Tham Pha Phlong - near Malee's

ancient wat near Chiang Dao Caves

Amazing stir-fried veggies- only a buck!

flowers along road

It's the monk store! Everything a monk could ever need.

As usual, the best birding was along the roads, parking lots, and paths. Each time I went up the dense forest trails, I did a lot of work for few birds (though the ones I found were good ones). Around Malee's, I was excited to find quite a few Crested Treeswifts (a type of swift that can actually perch in trees -- unlike most). Other neat birds around were Little Spiderhunters, Blue-throated Barbets, Mountain and Dark-necked Tailorbirds, Black-throated Laughingthrush, Olive-backed Sunbird, Striated Swallows, Scarlet Minivets, Black-hooded Oriole, Oriental Turtle-dove, and Spotted Dove. At night, I heard Collared Scops-owl and Asian Barred Owlet. Closer to the wat, I added Asian Blue Fairybird, Violet Cuckoo, Buff-throated Babbler, Blue-winged Leafbird, White-crowned Forktail, Streaked Spiderhunter, Mountain Imperial Pigeon, Mountain Bulbul, and Rufous-fronted Babbler (the form here is sometimes split into a separate species -- Deigan's Babbler). In the afternoon one day, I hiked a "trail" along the firebreak in the forest around the wat. It turned out to be a trail in only the vaguest sense. It started off in extremely overgrown, dense grass and bamboo, then went straight uphill for a long time. This whole stretch was extremely slippery due to the clay and the recent rains. I was pulling myself up using the plants above me, with the thought that there were cobras in that forest constantly on my mind. When I got to the top of the steep part, drenched in sweat, and was finally in the area that had a good trail for good birding; then it started to downpour. I should also mention that the loudest cicadas I've ever, ever encountered reduced the audio detection of birds to almost zero. Seriously, I thought I was going to have permanent hearing loss! You can ask Sarah -- they were seriously loud! Anyway, it poured for the rest of the hike and I only saw a couple birds. The big consolation prize was right at the end when I was sloshing back down the middle of a stream; a Blue Pitta flew out in front of me. This is one of the birds people come here to see. Amazingly, I had dry feet after all that, thanks to the overshoes Sarah and I bought before we started the trip. All I can say about that hike is I'm so glad there weren't leeches....

After catching an overnight bus back to Bangkok, we're catching up on errands and whatnot in preparation for our flight to Nepal in two days. The next stage of our journey is about to begin!

-Matt!

Everybody Chiang Mai tonight!

2008-07-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

We are officially approaching temple overload. Seriously. It's just like old church overload in Latin America, only worse. There are only so many temples you can see without them all starting to seem the same. Chiang Mai tipped me over the edge on this one. There are over 300 Wats here, all glittering gold and beautiful and ornate. That's as many as Bangkok! I'm going to have to start pacing myself, since we are heading to a new region of the world next week (Nepal), and I want to enjoy the new styles of religious buildings we'll see there.

We've spent the last couple of days enjoying Chiang Mai. This is a city that is set up for tourism. There are so many restaurants, bars, and guesthouses it's ridiculous. This of course means that there are great cafes and coffeeshops, too. Visitors come here to go on treks, elephant rides, rafting, etc, so pretty much everyone and their dog offers these sorts of tours. Since neither Sarah nor I are interested in doing these things here, we're off the hook on that one. Instead, we've been enjoying the wats and markets and whatnot. Last night was the huge Sunday market, with streets full of vendors. We tried all sorts of goodies (edamame beans, waffles, passion fruit juice, etc) and enjoyed the chaos for over two hours -- that has to be a record for us. It was a lot of fun. Sarah even went out on a limb and got a dumpling, the first of these since China. She opted for the BBQ pork bun, though the Pao Rabbit Cream flavor came in a close second. =)

We also found a great coffee shop here, so we've had a required couple of hours each day to read the paper, eat desert, and drink some great coffee.

Today we hooked up with a taxi driver named Long (pronounced Lawwng) who couldn't have been older than 16. He was a funny kid, and took us around to several wats and a bunch of craft factories for an obscenely low price. He was definitely getting a commission for bringing people to some of the shops (I mean seriously, how many Persian rugs shops can we NOT buy something at?), but since he gave us such a good deal and he actually took us to a couple of great places, we humored him by going into each store. The highlights of the day were the big gold and white wat in the pictures below, and the silk-making factory where they actually spun the thread off the cocoons. Really amazing.

We're heading out tomorrow to little Chiang Dao for what I hope will be a couple days of good birding. I'll write more when we return!

Later-
-matt!

ps- Sarah wanted me to mention that I drank beer out of a straw the other night... I felt like a local doing it!

Wat with elephant, Chiang Mai

Hello Piggy Lady -- she sells mini pork balls.

Young monks, Chiang Mai

Suan Dok Wat, Chiang Mai

Suan Dok Wat, Chiang Mai.

Some of the offerings at a wat, Chiang Mai

Sarah and a Naga guarding a temple.

A silk weaver.

Ayuthaya, Day 2 and 3

2008-07-28T06:05:00.001-07:00

Sarah and I spent our second day in Ayuthaya riding bikes around the between each of the ruins. For the most part, Ayuthaya is a great place to bike ride, since it is all flat and covered in huge parks where the ruins of various temples are. I forgot to mention in the last posting about this city that the reason it the capital was founded here is because three rivers converge on this spot and create a huge island -- easily defensible in wartime and useful for commerce during peace. The city held off numerous attacks on it over the centuries, mainly from Burmese raiders. The Burmese finally sacked the city in the 1700s, which led to the establishment of Bangkok.

[Little side note: The rarely used official full name of Bangkok is: Krungthepmahanakhon Amornrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharat Ratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphiman Awatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit. This translates into english as: "The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated God, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn".]

Anyway, we pedalled all around the city, checking out the parks and ruins that were far from where the typically tourist gets to. Some of these areas proved to be good for birds, too. I added Stork-billed Kingfisher, White-throated Kingfisher, Red-wattled Lapwing, Paddyfield Pipit and several other awesome birds to my list, as well as getting much better looks at Indian Rollers, Asian Openbills, and others.

We ended up in Ayuthaya for a day longer than we wanted, since the one bus a day that goes through Ayuthaya enroute to Chiang Mai was sold out when we wanted to go. I personally think we were being sold a line of B.S. on that one. The tourist industry knows how to tweak the dollars out of you here. Anyway, it worked out all right. We got another day of biking out of it and rode the overnight bus to Chiang Mai the next day.

Sarah loves tuk-tuks!

And you thought Dumbo had problems....

BIG Buddha.

Expensive nail polish.

Our rides. Cherry red with racing stripes.

There's a what behind me?

Elephants on parade

One of many many ruins in Ayuthaya.

More ruins.... approaching temple overload....

7-Eleven rules!

2008-07-24T03:04:00.000-07:00

Hello once again.

It's true. 7-Eleven does rule. That was one of the biggest surprises when we arrived in Thailand. There are 7-Elevens on almost every block here. We've found ourselves visiting almost every single one we come across (and that's a lot) to peruse the aisles as an excuse to stay in the store for a little while. The reason: they are are always air-conditioned. Ah..... It also turns out that they have the cheapest beer in town, so that's good too.

We left Bangkok yesterday enroute to Khao Yai National Park -- a three hour drive by bus. It took an hour to get to the bus station in Bangkok, so by the time we got off in Pak Chong (near the park), we'd been travelling for about 4 hours. When we were just about to arrive, we did a little more research and discovered that it was going to cost us $15 each to visit the park -- that's almost highway robbery even in the States, let alone here in Thailand; especially on a tight budget. And that price didn't include the cost of getting up to the park and hiring someone to get us to the far corners of it by tuk-tuk. So we had a major gear-shift, bid the hornbills adieu (sob sob....), and walked directly to the train station from the bus station. The train to Ayuthaya arrived literally the moment we bought our tickets, and we settled in for a three hour train ride. The trip was beautiful, going through forested limestone outcrops and ridges with large Buddhas on them (there was a HUGE white Buddha on the side of a mountain that looked just like Mary on the Mountain in Butte, Montana... only it was Buddha), then out into rice paddies that were teeming with birds (see the previous post). The train ride was a vast improvement over our China experience. We arrived in Ayuthaya in the evening and eventually found a cute place to stay. Because of our circuitous rout, we ended up with a 9-hour travel day but were only 1.5 hours from Bangkok. Oops.

After dinner we got lost, which was fun.

Today we wandered the ancient temples of the city and generally had a great day. We had the best noodle soup we've had since Laos (though it still didn't come with the huge pile of greens we loved there) and got Thai iced tea to cool us down (seriously, Thai people put sweetened condensed milk in everything). We'll rent bikes tomorrow and continue our explorations further afield before boarding a night bus to Chiang Mai.

Buddha head in a strangler fig tree, Wat Mahathat

At Wat Mahathat, Ayuthaya, Thailand

ruined temple, Ayuthaya, Thailand

ps. -- did I mention they drive on the left side of the road here? It messes with your head.... It's like driving in England, but with scary third-world style traffic.

elephants, Ayuthaya, Thailand

Birds!

2008-07-24T02:30:00.000-07:00

Good birding. Got one!

Finally! After almost two months of crappy birding, things seem to be turning around a little. I have no idea of the reason for this, other than maybe the Thais don't eat every single bird in the area (unlike China, Laos, and Cambodia). I know that's a gross overstatement, but it certainly has seemed that way sometimes. There have been maybe 3 or 4 species to be seen in most cities we've been in (sometimes even less -- just Eurasian Tree Sparrows). Things started to turn around in Bangkok, where in addition to the regulars (Common Myna, Rock Pigeon, and Tree Sparrow), I also saw Scarlet-backed Flowerpeckers, Coppersmith Barbets, and Large-billed Crows. Oh, and I totally forgot to mention what my first bird in Thailand was -- right when we crossed the border from Cambodia; White-bellied Sea-Eagle!

We've travelled through hundreds of miles of rice paddies and fields since we left Beijing, and most of them (except around Dali, China) have been virtually empty of birdlife. Yesterday we were heading from Pak Chong to Ayuthaya on the train (more on that in the next post), and suddenly I saw a few large birds out in the fields. Then a couple birds on the telephone lines. Then some large birds in the trees -- there were birds everywhere! Birding from a moving vehicle is fairly difficult (obviously), but the next 30 minutes until we stopped in Ayuthaya were the most productive birding I'd done the entire trip up to that point. There were all sorts of goodies; Javan Pond Herons, Asian Openbills (a type of stork), Black-winged Stilts, Drongos, Indian Cormorants, Great Egrets, White-vented Mynas, Indian Rollers, etc, plus a whole slew of birds I simply couldn't ID at 55 kilometers an hour. I was thrilled, needless to say.

Ayuthaya is the ancient capital of Thailand (Siam), and there are ruins all over the town. We were wandering around last night (literally, since we were lost), and a Collared Scops-owl chattered from the antennae of a house across the street. Then he sat there and let us both get a great look at him!

Today, we checked out some of the ruins in the center of town, which are very well situated in a vast "historical park" of trees and ponds and grass. The birding continued to be great, with Lineated Barbets excavating nest cavities, Red-collared Doves, Common Ioras, Indian Rollers, Blue-tailed Bee-eaters, Pied Fantails, Oriental Magpie-Robins and more. Ah... I'm happy.

We're heading north tomorrow night, enroute to Chaing Mai and Chiang Dao. I'm hoping the birding continues to be good.

Alrighty. 'Nuff said.

=Matt!

Cool bus.

Same same, but different

2008-07-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

With a name like that, you know it's quality you can trust!

Greetings everyone!

Sarah and I made it safe into Thailand. We arrived in Bangkok a couple of days ago after a long and rather complicated bus ride from Sihanoukville. The bus companies there were selling direct to Bangkok tickets, so we did a little research and decided that trying to piece together that route ourselves wouldn't be that much cheaper than buying a direct ticket. We stupidly assumed we were going to ride the bus all the way into Bangkok, with a stop for border formalities, but it turned out that the bus took us to the border, where we had to wait around for almost 2 hours for everyone to get through immigration. Then they loaded us in mini-vans and we took off to Trat, about an hour down the road. Once in Trat, they loaded us into different mini-vans, and this one took us to Pattaya, where we dropped off most of the passengers. By the time we actually were heading into Bangkok, there were only three of us left!

Anyway, it's good to be here now. We were somewhat dreading arriving in this huge city, but it turns out that it is easy to navigate and has some "Western" conveniences that make it a more friendly city to be in (like 7/11 convenience stores, for example). The guide book talks of gridlock traffic and chaos, but that hasn't been our experience yet on the Skytrain, buses, or walking. 'Course, tomorrow is Monday.... so we'll see if that holds true during the work week.

Khao San Road, Bangkok

Pad Thai on the street - one dollar.

Our first hotel was a hotter-than-hades hole-in-the-wall place on Khao San Road, the main backpacker and tourist district in the city. It was fine for a night because it meant we didn't have to lug our packs in search of a place after 14 hours on the bus. The next night we moved to a new place (thankfully) a little farther from the action. Our new place, Riverline Guesthouse, has a view over the river and a great location in a small neighborhood -- for the same price as the crappy place! Khao San Road itself was a trip. It is THE place to go if you need fake IDs or documents, from diplomas to notary public stamps to drivers licences - they have it all. There is also a brisk trade in cheap, tasty Pad Thai, t-shirts, hair extensions, and pretty much anything else that a traveller might not realize he or she needs.

Along the river in Bangkok

A cool fort near our guesthouse.

The following couple of photos are of our second night in Bangkok, when a major downpour started at dinner time and didn't stop until early in the morning. Of course, it was the one night I didn't bring my umbrella. Sarah had hers, but she still got pretty wet getting back to the guest house.

Night market scene. Rain starting. Good, cheap eating.

The rain is coming down!

Hiding out under a canopy.

Today we spent a great day out on the town figuring out the local buses and checking out the markets. We went to the big Weekend Market, which apparently attracts 200,000 people a day! It wasn't at all what I was expecting. I was expecting chaos, bad smells, and pressing crowds (like normal). Instead of this we got coffee booths, good smells, and areas that felt like you were shopping at Pier One Imports. With the overcast skies overhead, the market wouldn't have been out of place in Seattle or Portland.

Sarah with her fish ball curry soup and huge amounts of fresh greens to put into the hot liquid.

Buddha's feet, Wat Pho

I had a mission today. I needed to get one of the big malls where they might be able to repair my camera, which has been out of commission for almost a month. So we took the Skytrain to the big commercial district, and were dumped squarely in a place so far removed from the reality of most of our trip (especially Laos), that it was hard to get ours mind around. Admittedly, it was fun to spend some time in an air-conditioned mall like you might find in large American cities. They even had a Dairy Queen! Actually, two of them. We found the Sony store, where the employee took one glance at my camera, found some new batteries, turned it on.... and it was fixed.... I was pretty embarrassed about that one. In my defense, I had checked it with my other batteries, but they were the same Lithium type I had in the camera in the first place. He told me to switch back to Alkaline and that should work. I hope he's right. Now I'm back in business with my camera though. =)

My Green Tea with Almonds Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

The other thing I really wanted to do was go to a movie. It had been a couple months, and we were in a place with a huge theater, so we went to the new Batman movie. It was awesome! It was also fun to be in a theater in Thailand because after many (many) commercials and previews, everyone in the theater stood up for the Thai National Anthem while they showed pictures of the king. Pretty fun!

Sarah and I have our big 2 year anniversary tomorrow. It's pretty amazing how fast that time has gone. We're going to pamper ourselves a little, maybe take a dinner cruise, maybe get some chocolate cake somewhere. Whatever we do, it will be nice to celebrate this milestone. The fact that we still totally enjoy being around each other this much after two months of traveling is a great sign.

Alrigthy. Off to bed. Hope everyone is well. I'll write again in a couple days, once we figure out the gameplan for our remaining couple weeks before our flight to Nepal.

Later!
-Matt!

Not all is pleasant in paradise

2008-07-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

So a little story is in order....

We had a rather unusual awakening this morning. There we were, sleeping peacefully under our mosquito net with our heads fairly close together when suddenly our faces get doused in a mist of sorts. We obviously woke up really quick, wondering if it was raining. It has rained a few times since we moved into our bungalow and we know there aren't any leaks, so we quickly ruled that out.... Then there was some scrabbling above us in between the ceiling and the thatch roof -- it turned out to be a rat! So basically, we were woken up out of a peaceful sleep by a rat peeing on our faces..... yuck! That got us up quick. We changed our pillow cases and went swimming.

Ah the things you have to put up with when traveling. This was a new one for both of us.

Later!
-Matt!

The beach!

2008-07-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

Sorry I haven't written in a while. Honestly, not much has happened in the last few days. =) We caught a bus from Phnon Penh down to Cambodia's "premier" beach side destination, Sihanoukville. As far as beach resort development goes, there really isn't much to speak of here yet. This town has only reemerged as a destination in the last 8 years or so, basically since the hostilities here ended. The place is ready to explode with upmarket, expensive resorts, but right now it still has the run-down feel you want in a beach get-away. The town itself isn't much to speak of, but luckily there hasn't been much reason to go there. When we first got to town four days ago, our moto driver took us to a place that was way out of town, but since it was relatively nice and we didn't know the lay of the land yet, we stayed there. This is a very common tactic for taxi, tuk-tuk, or moto drivers. Certain hotels pay commissions to have people brought to their hotels, and since travelers are often tired and disoriented from being in a new city, they end up staying at the place they were taken to. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; often these places are fairly nice (but often out of the way). We spent the first night there, then went in search of a place by the ocean. We found one, but it was more expensive and quite crappy (moldy, full of mosquitos, a loud fan, and a faucet that sprayed you in the face when you turned it on). We ended up here for a night because we'd put a deposit down on the place the day before and didn't want to lose it. First thing the next morning, we packed up our bags (again) and moved into a wonderful bungalow set up on a hillside with a fantastic view of the water from the deck. It even has a hammock! All this for $10. So finally, after three days, we feel like we're at the beach. The beach itself is a long stretch of sand lined with little eating shacks that all have beach chairs in front of them. At night these places all do BBQ, sell cheap beer, and have fire dancers that work the crowds. Pretty sweet. Our place is a little down the beach where it starts to turn into a rocky headland, so there's no sand, just beautiful sandstone rocks in the surf. This also makes our end of the beach quiet at night. All the partying takes place where the sand is. As far as I'm concerned, we have the sweetest spot on the beach.

A member of the cat family that adopted us and hangs out on our deck.

Our view from our porch.

Another pic of our view over Serendipity Beach, Cambodia.

Ours is the one that spells out Eva.

So we've been spending our mornings reading and eating fruit and coffee on our deck, then going for lunch, then going for a swim, showering, having a snack and wine on the deck, then heading out for dinner. Pretty rough. I'll have you know that Sarah especially seems to be enjoying herself. She's really gotten into this lifestyle, if only for a few days. Our date for leaving keeps getting pushed back, but I think we'll take off in a couple more days. We've been on the road for about 6 weeks now, and both of us think it was time for a little break (a "vacation") before we continue on into Thailand. Ever since we left Beijing, we've been travelling south. We've finally reached the ocean, so now it's time to turn west and continue our trip around the globe. We'll be heading to Bangkok when we leave Sihanoukville.

Wine on the lanai!

More wine on the lanai (yes, I have a sunburn).

Sarah's picture of a firedancer

OK, kinda romantic....

I thought I'd share a couple of our observations from our time here:

There are many locals working the beach scene selling various things. The children all sell bracelets and necklaces, while the women sell fruit, manicures, pedicures (seriously) and massages. Oh, and you can get waxed if you want a hairless back, legs, or whatever. They seem to use floss or something, and a surprising number of beachgoers take them up on this (even men). Sarah's old toe nail polish attracts these women en mass. They all agree she should do something about it, but I think it looks just fine. =)

Another local subset that works the beach are men who are missing limbs. Most of them are missing a leg, and are obviously victims of one of the biggest remaining threats in Cambodia; landmines. There are still millions of landmines scattered throughout this country from decades of war, though most of them came from when the US was waging a "secret war" here in the 70's, trying to keep the Communists from spilling over from Vietnam into Cambodia. Cambodia is one of the most heavily landmined countries in the world, and over 1000 children are killed every year by these old devices. Not a legacy you'd want for your country.... Anyway, the men who beg on the beach all drag themselves around on their rears, which they have wrapped up in a cut-up inner tube to keep somewhat dry from seawater. It's a hard thing to blend "beach time" with war casualties, but that seems to be what this place does. Everyone doing what they can to make a living.

On a lighter note, one of the most common forms of clothing here seems to be pajama sets! I didn't even notice it at first, but Sarah pointed out that a large percentage of the locals (especially women) wear pajama tops and bottoms all the time. I guess it works as a matching outfit. =) It makes me feel like there are a lot of dental hygienists walking around.

Cambodians on vacation at the beach are amusing. This is a fairly conservative society, even at the beach, so you get a funny mix of swimmers; naked Cambodian kids, foreigners in bikinis and speedos, and (funniest of all) fully-clothed Cambodian adults. Seriously. A family will all be swimming out in the ocean, and the adults will be wearing pants and a t-shirt. Hmmm....

Love to all!
-Matt!

Tuk-tuk, Lady?

2008-07-09T03:59:00.000-07:00

I mentioned tuk-tuks in a couple previous emails, but I wanted to emphasize their place in our travels again. The men who drive these carts (or motos) wait outside of every place a foreigner might go into and when you come out, they all jump up at once and yell "tuk-tuk" or "moto". They are, of course, trying to get a customer, but seeing as how Sarah and I try to walk pretty much everywhere we go around town, we usually don't take them up on this. So we endure a string of "tuk-tuk lady?" from every one of the thousands of these guys that we pass as we walk down the street. The only thing that keeps this from getting royally irritating is that it is always said with a big grin and good humor. Cambodians have a good store of both of these things. I decided I could make a lot of money selling t-shirts here that say, "NO tuk-tuk!" in really big letters. One funny side note is that we've noticed that many people selling stuff on the streets (especially children and some women) tend to use "lady" for either Sarah or I.... So I'm officially a lady!

Sarah and I arrived in Phnom Penh after a bus ride from Siem Reap. Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, and a pretty decent city. The outskirts are your typical big city slums, and the traffic and pollution aren't great, but the city really has a nice feel to it. The main downtown area is situated along the banks of the Mekong River, right where the Tonle Sap River joins it. The views across the water are great, and the colonial architecture hides a lot of nice restaurants and bars (almost none of which we ate at because they are spendy). There are long, wide open areas (similar to Washington D.C.'s National Mall) in several directions, with monuments and fountains and temples all along them. They made for a great place for Sarah to run in the mornings, and in the evenings half the city was out walking, playing soccer, or sitting in the grass with their families. It was a really nice space for all of this. We stayed at a guesthouse that was teeming with guests -- seriously, we were shocked by the number of people that were in the main restaurant area at all times of the day. It made for a fun atmosphere. And we had a TV in our room!

A few nights ago (on the last night of our stay in Siem Reap) we had watched "The Killing Fields", a movie about the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's. It was very eerie to arrive in Phnom Penh with that movie fresh in our minds. Some of you may remember Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army, but for those of you who don't, let's just say he was a bad dude. We were walking down streets in Phnom Penh that would have been deserted in 1976 when the Khmer Rouge took over the city. They forced a mass evacuation of the city, and marched most of the inhabitants out into the countryside and forced them into slave labor in the rice fields. Thus began a short (3 years & 8 months), brutal reign that resulted in the deaths of almost 2 million people. I don't think even Hitler managed that. Pol Pot's goal was to create a people-run, agrarian society where people lived simply and did as they were told for the betterment of all. In reality this translated to killing every intellectual, doctor, teacher, journalist, etc, (pretty much anyone that spoke up) until everyone was equal (except the leaders, of course). There's a high school in Phnom Penh that was converted into a place of incarceration and torture -- these days it is a museum. We didn't visit this, but we did go out to the "Killing Fields" of Choeung Ek, the fields where they took everyone they interrogated at the high school. The 17,000 people who were killed here (men, women, and children) were dumped in mass graves. They apparently played loud music a lot to cover up the moans and screams so that people who lived nearby wouldn't hear them.... There's a monument erected at the sight that contains over 8000 exhumed skulls of victims, all arranged by age and sex. It's a pretty gruesome sight. You can't really see the skulls in the following photo, but they are in there. This puts a shirt I saw a few days ago into stark perspective: "Communism killed 100 million people and all I got was this lousy t-shirt".

Choeung Ek memorial, Cambodia

The killing fields themselves are quite a contradiction. Despite the terrible things that happened there, it's a beautiful place; all orchards and green fields and trees. There are birds singing, butterflies everywhere.... Very different than my visit to Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany. It was stark; iron bars, wooden shacks, bare trees, and incinerators. Choeung Ek felt like it had life again. The Cambodian people are the same way -- they've been through unspeakable horrors, but still they retain an optimism and positive outlook that is amazing. Hardy people, that's all I can say....

So to end this posting on a happier note, I included a couple pictures that Sarah took (my camera is still broken) of the interesting impromptu gas stations that we see a lot in Cambodia. In all the other countries I've ever been to, I've never encountered this. Each "gas station" is a small stand with some 2 liter glass Pepsi bottles on it. Each one is filled with gas, and when a moto bike pulls up, they pay the set price and the person dumps it in their tank! There's also a version where the station is a 55-gallon drum of gas that they pump from.

A Cambodian "gas station"

Another gas station. A driver is asleep in his tuk-tuk while other men play a game.

Selling pomelos on the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

We're on the southern coast in Sihanoukville now. Lots of beach, sun, fish, and still no birds! I'll write more soon.

Later!

-Matt!

Angkor, Day 2

2008-07-06T01:45:00.001-07:00

The entire next day was devoted to the temples. We hired our airport pickup guy, Sanuk, to drive us around in his tuk-tuk for the day. He'd stop at a temple and we'd get out and explore to our heart's content, then we'd hop back in and head off to the next one. It was a pretty relaxing way to cover such a large area. At each stop we'd have to run a gauntlet of women and children all persistently selling trinkets and books, which was stressful -- but at least they weren't begging. Ironically, since most of them are direct descendants of the people who built the temples, they have more of a right to be there than anyone else.

We visited many temples, including several inside the Angkor Thom complex. The first place we went to was Bayon Temple, definitely one of the more interesting ancient temples I've ever seen. The whole thing is made up of small domed hallways and lofty towers (54 of them) that feature 4 two-meter tall faces carved on each-- a face in each cardinal direction. The effect is that no matter where you are in the complex, you are watched over by at least a few of the carved heads. Creepy!

A somewhat blurry photo of a monk on some ruins, Ta Prohm Temple

Another highlight was the Terrace of the Elephants, a long, intricately carved platform from where the god-king would review his troops or have court. Across from there were a series of towers were disputes were settled. It's thought that the two opposing sides of a dispute were made to sit in their own tower until one of them died of disease or starvation. The other person was considered in the right since the guilty person would obviously get sick first. Makes sense, huh?

One of the most amazing temples was Ta Prohm. This is the temple that is featured in the movie Lara Croft -- Tomb Raider. The jungle around here has been minimally removed, so it has a much more abandoned feel than the temples that now have grass lawns all around them. Many of the biggest trees are still around, with some of them sprawling over the walls or tops of the temples. There were definitely more people wandering around here than at some of the other temples, but it was easy to see why. Very cool place.

Ta Prohm Temple, Angkor

Ta Prohm Temple, Angkor Wat

another straggler fig at Ta Prohm Temple, Angkor

The actual temple of Angkor Wat was something of a let-down after all the rest of the temples that day. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty amazing, but others beat it out for mood, setting, or stone carving. The amazing thing about it is it's size; it's supposedly the largest religious building in the world, whatever that means. It's also in really good shape -- unlike most of the other temples in the area, Angkor Wat was never truly lost or abandoned. It even managed to survive the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Matt! and Sarah at Angkor Wat

Carvng detail at Angkor Wat

After a long, hot day at the temples, we were happy to get back to Siem Reap and find some dinner.

-Matt!

Angkor What?

2008-07-06T01:12:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned previously, Sarah and I managed to snag 2 for 1 tickets on Lao Airlines, so we flew on down to Cambodia rather than going overland. Everything went amazingly smoothly, and we were safely in our hotel room in Siem Reap, Cambodia by 10am. For some reason we didn't have to pay the $10 airport exit tax in Vientiane, so that was a good omen. It was also great to see someone standing at the entrance to the airport here in Siem Reap holding up a card with Sarah's name on it; free pickup from the airport! Not bad for a $6/night room. We were picked up in yet another of the endless varieties taxis you find in developing nations. This one was called a remorque-moto (or simply tuk-tuk, like in Laos), and was a regular motorbike with a little covered trailer attached. It had a big comfy seat for two and the words "Lovely Jubbly" written on the back.

The first order of business when we arrived at the hotel was to take a nap, which we both did very satisfactorily for a couple hours.

The main reason to come to Siem Reap here in Cambodia is to see the world-famous ruins of Angkor Wat, a Khmer temple and one of the largest religious structures in the world. Amazingly, Angkor Wat is simply only one of the many, many, many temples and ruins scattered over a 70 square kilometer area here. Seems that each of the ancient Khmer god-kings tried to one-up their predecessors and created a whole series of massive structures, each requiring the work of thousands of people. The largest, Angkor Thom, has a 5 meter high wall that encloses 10 sq. kilometers of forest and temples. This temple was built at the height of the Khmer kingdom's power (around 800 years ago), when there were thought to be over a million people residing in the area around the royal capital.

We spent the last few hours of the first day in town at Phnom Bakheng, another massive Hindu temple built around 900 A.D. People come here for the sunsets over Tonle Sap Lake, but we found that the sunset coloring the temple itself was more amazing. This was a lucky thing too, because there were bazillions of people on top of the temple waiting for the sunset. We got down a couple levels and spent our time enjoying the carvings and sunlight in areas that were secluded and quiet. A much better way to spend the evening. I have an image in my mind from that night of a couple Buddhist monks in their saffron robes perched high up on the temple, with a rainbow in the sky behind them, a light mist coming down, and dozens of Needletails (a large type of swift) flying around. Beautiful.

More to come in the next post. Check back for pictures later, too.

-Matt!

Vientiane, Laos

2008-07-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

Hello once again!

Once we were finally able to tear ourselves away from our cute little bungalow in Vang Vieng, we hopped on another bus and headed down to Vientiane, the capitol of Laos. This capital city definitely qualifies as one of the most laid back capitals I've ever been to. With less than 300,000 people and not much traffic, it was easy to see why. The city occupies the northern bank of the Mekong River, with Thailand just across the way. There really wasn't much to see in Vientiane, but we happily spent a couple days there sampling the foods and walking the streets. One of the most exciting finds was a small grocery store that caters to the foreigners who live and work in Vientiane at the embassies, etc. We were able to find peanut butter, great coffee, and whole grain bread! Sarah was stoked about the peanut butter, but I was even happier to find corn tortilla chips! Sweet! They were "Mexican style", and made in Thailand. Another great find was the Night Market. We were able to get a fantastic meal that filled both of us up for 11,000 kip -- about $1.40. The street was lined with stalls that had large bowls of many different types of dishes, from curries to steamed greens to cricket salads. You pointed at what you wanted, and they put it in a baggie and handed it over. All the locals were walking the market and picking up all their little to go bags to take home for the family. We sat on the curb and ate using our plasticware we took from our last plane flight. As we walked home to our hotel, we couldn't help but feel a little smug that we'd eaten a fantastic meal at a fraction of the cost of the meals other travellers were eating in the trendy restaurants.... We ended up eating here two nights in a row.

Sarah had been noticing a distinct chocolate-deficiency in her diet, so we did make use of the coffee shops to find a fantastic piece of chocolate cake along with some great coffee. Oh, and air conditioning.

The main tourist sights in Vientiane were both along a nice, 4km walk. The first stop was the Arc du Triomphe, in the style of the original in France, but with a nice Buddhist twist. The Arc was constructed in 1969 with concrete donated by the United States to build an airport runway. Many locals apparently call it the "vertical runway" for this reason.

The second place we visited on the walk was the Pha That Luang, the national stupa and the symbol of both the Buddhist religion and Lao sovereignty. The original was built in the 3rd century BC to enclose a piece of Buddha's breastbone, but it has been rebuilt several times since then -- most recently by the French in 1931. See the photos to get an idea of it.

We celebrated the 4th of July by getting up early and hopping on a plane to Siem Reap, Cambodia (site of the famous Angkor Wat temples). Back in Luang Prabang we found out about 2 for 1 tickets on Lao Airlines, so we took advantage of the deal and saved ourselves two days of bus riding for not much more than the bus tickets would have cost. More on temple trekking to come!

-Matt!

Vang Vieng, Laos

2008-07-02T03:16:00.000-07:00

We had another long bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. The road was consistently curvy, and the buses air shocks made for a bouncy ride through the mountains. Amazingly, only two people threw up (including the bus driver's helper). Sarah took a motion sickness tablet before we left -- a very smart thing to do, in my opinion. Later we talked to someone who had taken the double-decker "VIP" bus on the same route, and he said almost everyone on board threw up! See? Sometimes it pays not to go on the expensive bus. =)

The bungalows, Vang Vieng, Laos

Our porch, Vang Vieng, Laos

Sarah and I have mixed feelings about Vang Vieng. The surroundings are beautiful, but it's definitely on the "must-do" list for any young, party-hearty backpacker in the region. The town itself is kind of sad and dumpy. We splurged a little ($10/night) and stayed just out of town in a bungalow on the bank of the Nam Song River. The views were stunning, and our porch was the perfect place to sit and enjoy scene -- a muddy, big river flowing by and towering limestone ridges in every direction. This location made what could have been a crappy stop in a drinking town into a special couple days for us. We stayed out of town as much as possible, and enjoyed the stunning scenery outside of town; towering limestone cliffs, forest, and rice paddies. The residents of the town weren't as friendly and forthcoming as most people we've met in Laos, and from the way the backpackers who come through act, it's easy to see why. That doesn't mean they don't want to profit from them, though.

Here's the scene: Travellers come here to go "tubing" on the river, which involves renting a tube, being driven upriver a few kilometers, then floating back to town. The short trip takes at least a couple hours, because along the way there are riverside bars that throw ropes out and drag in the tubers (that's a funny name for them... tubers). After a Beerlao or two, they get back on their tubes and continue downstream to the next bar. Imagine doing this for 10 or 12 bars in a row. Now add in rope swings over the river, "happy shakes" (made with the finest marijuana and occasionally opium), and a large numbers of other tubers, and you get an idea of the scene. There were foreigners stumbling around town after their tubing that could hardly stand up. I realize this is many peoples' idea of a good time, but in a conservative, quiet society like the Lao, I can't help but think it's a little pathetic. After tubing, people go to the various restaurants around town and lie in long booths and watch endless reruns of "Friends" (literally) while they quench their post-"happy shake" munchies with food. If I was a local, I'd be a little jaded, too.

All this being said, Sarah and I had a wonderful time at our riverside get-away. We enjoyed several amazing monsoonal showers from the safety of the resort's patio and walked the back roads to several neat caves with Buddha statues in them. One area turned out to be good for birding, so I added Mustached Barbet, Black-naped Monarch, Striated Swallow, Shikra, Fork-tailed Swift, Plain Flowerpecker, etc to my list. The hills around town are riddled with caves where the local people famously hid from raiding Yunnan Chinese in the 1800's. Many of these are open to the public to visit.

Bridge across the Nam Song River, Vang Vieng, Laos

A sawngthaew (I call them sag wagons) -- one of the weirdest vehicles ever

A wat in town, Vang Vieng, Laos

This morning we hopped on an early bus out of town, and are now in Vientiane, the most relaxed capital city it the world. More on this location tomorrow! I'll also try and get some photos added to these posts, as well.

-Matt!

Beautiful Luang Prabang, Laos

2008-07-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

Greetings all--

Sarah and I are playing catch-up with our email... It has been a few days since we've been online. So to continue the story from the last posting, we headed down to Luang Prabang from Luang Nam Tha on a bumpy, slow mountain road. We arrived late at night, but even then it was easy to see why the Lonely Planet guidebook describes Luang Prabang as a "tonic for the soul." The city is the old royal capitol of Laos, and has a lot of old, historical French colonial buildings and Buddhist wats stretched out on a peninsula between the Mekong River and a tributary river. The city is certainly geared up for tourism, but that doesn't dampen the feel of the place. We found a little guesthouse with a nice little room with private bath for 50,000 kip ($5.50) a night, and spent the next few days walking the streets and markets. At night, the main street came alive with a crafts market, where locals sell their beautiful work for amazingly cheap prices. We also found an awesome street vendor who had a vegetarian buffet (all you can pile onto one plate) for 5000 kip (about $.60). We ate there a couple times. The food has been great -- in Latin America street food always seems very questionable and is a good way to get sick, but here the food is fresh, tasty and clean. It's a nice change. Our other favorite food in Laos has been noodle soup. You are given a huge bowl of hot, steaming broth with noodles. spices, and a little meat in it along with a huge pile of fresh greens to dunk in the broth. Mmmm.....

Royal Palace, Luang Prabang

We did go on one outing to Tat Kuang Si, an amazing series of waterfalls with terraced edges and beautiful, milky blue water. The stream comes out of some limestone caves somewhere up higher and brings a lot of calcium carbonate down with it, which creates the draperies and terraces you expect inside caves. It was a great place to swim, and quite refreshing in the humid tropical heat. There were even a few birds around! I saw a Crimson Sunbird (awesome), Puff-throated Babbler, Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher, Long-tailed Sibia, and a Common Tailorbird, to name a few.

Tat Kuang Si waterfall, Laos

The best thing about French colonialism - baguette sandwiches!

The swimming hole, Tat Kuang Si waterfall

Back in Luang Prabang, we whiled away the hours by going on long walks to look at the royal palaces (the royal family was "exiled" in the 1970's) and the amazing temples. There were young, saffron-orange robed monks everywhere. I even sat in the internet cafe next to one! Many young Lao boys choose to be ordained as Thevavada Buddist monks for a few months (or up to three years) before continuing on with whatever else they choose to do. They sure make for an interesting sight as they walk the streets, work at the wats (temples), or (early in the morning) collect alms from the faithful.

Luang Prabang has a large, forested hill in the middle of town topped by a wat. On our last night in town we climbed up there for an awesome sunset view of the surrounding countryside, with green limestone mountains rising in all directions and the Big Muddy (Mekong River) shimmering below us.

-Matt!

Seein' the Laos countryside from the back of a Hog (or Japanese moped thing, anyway)

2008-06-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

Hi all--

The day after our adventure on the river, we found a place to rent a small motorbike in Luang Nam Tha. It was ridiculously cheap at 40,000 kip (~$4.50) a day, so we headed out of town in several directions to see the countryside. Alright, I admit it.... it didn't start out as smoothly as I want to make it sound. You see, I'd never driven a motorcycle before. The very poor directions I received from the guy renting the bikes (language barrier, you see) helped a little, but it took some practice to make it work somewhat well. Everyone around here zips around on these things like they've been driving them since they were 3 (and some have been), but for a big clumsy foreigner it was a little different. Anyway, I eventually got the hang of it, and off we went. Sarah is very trusting.... =)

Matt! at Wat Ban Vieng Tai, Luang Nam Tha

We checked out several of the nearby Wats (Buddhist temples). They are usually placed in a prominent location on a hill, so they have great views of the surrounding area. The second Wat we visited, That Phum Phuk, had an awesome long staircase with dragons for each hand rail -- head at the bottom and tail at the top. We spent a long time up there looking out over the rice paddies and fields. The clouds building behind us finally started some pretty ominous rumbling, so we booked it back the 10 kilometers to town anticipating some rain. We were disappointed in that respect, but it turned out to be a beautiful evening.

One of the best things about Laos so far has been the lack of traffic. I walked along the main highway yesterday for 30 minutes and wasn't passed by a single car or truck -- only a couple bikes. It really is amazing, especially after countries like China and most Latin American countries where the traffic is non-stop, scary, and doesn't pay attention to pedestrians. So Laos seemed like a good place to rent the bike for that reason, too.

Cruisin' in Laos

Wat That Phum Phuk

Yesterday was a big travel day, so not much to report there. We missed the direct bus to Luang Prabang (it left 45 minutes early -- go figure), so we had to wait around for 3 hours for another bus going to a stop a few hours down the road and then catch another from there. The ride was supposed to take 10 - 11 hours, but only covered a ridiculously short distance on the map. Once we got underway it was easy to see why. We were on the main highway, which was a paved road only in the vaguest of sense -- a little bit of pavement every once in a while, otherwise all huge potholes and rocks. Plus, the bus had no shocks and we were sitting in the back. We almost hit the roof a couple of times! Always an adventure in places like this.... Needless to say, we were glad to get out of that bus. The second bus was equally bad, but the road was a tad better and we were able to drive faster.

We didn't arrive in Luang Prabang until about 11pm, so we've spent most of today hanging out and walking around. I'll write more about this beautiful town tomorrow or the next day.

Oh! I added a few photos to the posts on Dali, China and River Runnin'. Check 'em out!

Later!
Matt!

River Runnin' on the Nam Ha River

2008-06-24T02:52:00.000-07:00

Hi folks-

We got back last night from a great couple of days in Nam Ha National Protected Area. We managed to scrounge up a group (OK, more like we were scrounged ourselves) big enough to make the cost of this guided trip really reasonable. There were 8 of us; Sarah and I, a pair from Quebec, a guy from Poland, a girl from Sweden, and a pair from England (well, one of them was technically from the Isle of Man, but that's close enough to England). The hardest accent of the entire group to understand was the guy from Northeast England. =)

Northern Laos

We loaded up into a truck and drove about 20 kilometers out of town, where we were dropped off on the side of the road by a small village. The people living here are Lenten, an ethnic group that emigrated to the areas from Yunnan China a few hundred years ago. It was your typical third world village scene; chickens, naked children, thatched huts, dogs, and cattle. An old woman (at least I'm assuming she was old -- village life is pretty hard on a body) was making paper out of bamboo pulp, so that was neat. From there we hiked up the mountain side, passing through hillsides of slash and burn agriculture -- some fairly fresh, with charred trunks of trees still littering the fields. The main crops up in the hills seem to be corn, cotton, indigo, and various fruit or sap producing trees.

Bamboo paper making, Khmu village, Laos

We slowly left behind the farmed hillsides and entered into secondary forest filled with bamboo and tall but skinny trees. Bird life in here was vocal but very obviously hidden. The hike continued steadily upward for a few hours until we reached the ridge (and older forest). Here the guides set out a Lao lunch feast, all laid out on banana leaves cut from the jungle. Everyone got a packet of sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf, and the meal was eaten with our hands from communal piles on the "table". There was an awesome salsa (the Lao know how to do spicy), a squash dish, steamed greens with ginger, and dried strips of water buffalo meat. It was an awesome meal! After doing the dishes (i.e. tossing the banana leaves back into the jungle), we continued down the other side of the ridge, eventually coming out of the jungle at a little village along the Nam Ha River and within the protected area. This was a Khmu village, whose ancestors hail from Cambodia. There weren't a lot of villagers living in the village, as they have been slowly been moving to a newer village established downstream where the Lao government built a school. All of the villages within the National Protected Area are in charge of managing their area, with the intention of somewhat sustainably living off the land without deforesting it and killing all the animals. They also benefit directly from visits like ours, since we spent the night in their "lodge" (bamboo hut). Part of our fees for the trek go directly to the village. We spent the afternoon swimming in the river and hanging out with the kids and pot-bellied pigs. I attempted some pathetically bad bird watching, but the real highlight of the evening was the dinner; a similar affair to the lunch but prepared by the villagers over the course of three hours. This great meal was followed by some lao lao (rice whiskey) shots handed out by the village chief. It actually tasted pretty good! Especially the fifth shot.... =)

A Lao lunch!

Sarah at our home for the night

We slept on the floor under mosquito nets and woke early. The villagers and livestock were awake and noisy by 5am, but the foreigners slept in; Sarah and I were the first up by 6am. Once again I attempted to birdwatch, but ended up very frustrated. I expected your typical difficult jungle birding, but wasn't prepared for seeing almost nothing at all (literally) for the whole first day and the next morning. Grrr.... I think part of the problem is the season. Birds are really hunkered down on nests or singing from deep in the brush.

Lenten children, Laos

After breakfast we bid farewell to the villagers and headed off downstream in the kayaks. The water was fantastic -- easy kayaking along a beautiful river. We stopped briefly at another Lenten village where we did a lot of standing around -- we're still not sure what that was about. My camera also decided to break, so I'll have to get a new one or get it fixed soon. Once back on the water, the forest quickly closed in, and for 15 kilometers we paddled through undisturbed jungle. The steep slopes of the surrounding mountains were covered in huge trees and amazing bamboo that climbed the tree trunks and then cascaded down in beautiful spills of greenery. Pretty fantastic. The water was pretty sedate -- there were quite a few small rapids, but nothing big. Sarah had a great time in her kayak. I could tell by the big grin on her face she was loving the ride. We swam a couple times in calm stretches. During the lunch break I finally ended up with a land leech on my foot! Sarah doesn't think these are nearly as big a deal as I do, but I was pleasantly surprised that there weren't many on our trek. Yuck!

Water Buffalo in the Nam Ha River

When we finally left the park, we landed at a village near a dirt road and took that back into town. It was great to get back and take a shower and wash some clothes in the sink. We drank a nice cold, big bottle of Beerlao with our dinner and celebrated our trip (and the fact that we don't live in villages like we visited....).

Our traveling companion, Gandalf the Pastel

I did end up seeing a few birds, such as a Besra (a hawk), Black-crested Bulbul, White-rumped Munia, Green-billed Malkoha, Blyth's Kingfisher, Marron Oriole, White-rumped Magpie, Little Spiderhunter, and Slaty-backed Forktail. That's literally about it. Beautiful, but not plentiful.

-Matt!

China, in hindsight

2008-06-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

Hi all--

Well, after a marathon 24 hours of buses, tuk tuks (bicycle taxis), etc, we arrived in Luang Nam Tha, Laos. Our sleeper bus proved to be quite a sight better than our train experience, with beds that we could (almost) stretch completely out in. Sarah especially seemed to enjoy it. She'd been anticipating another very rough night, but it wasn't bad at all. We did make a couple inexplicable 30 minute stops where everyone just stood around smoking, but other than that, things went smoothly. Though the bus driver seemed to be avoiding the better and straighter highway in favor of very bumpy and curvy side roads at times.... maybe to avoid toll booths? I'm not sure.

We were on the sleeper bus from Dali for 13 hours, got off in Jinghong, bought some dumplings for breakfast, got on another bus for 4 hours to Mengla, rode in the back of a bicycle across town, got on another bus to Boten at the border, spent an hour doing Visa and immigration stuff, rode a motorbike across the official border, then caught a mini-van from Mohan, Laos, to Puang Nam Tha (2 hours). Whew! I was amazed at the large superhighway that is mainly completed heading down to (and through) the border. There were sections that were open and went through tunnel after tunnel through the mountains, while other sections were still being built (where we took curvy older roads). This massive infrastructure build-up by China is to increase trade and commerce with Thailand, and Laos is sort of gettng swept along since it lies between the two.

I was feeling like I wasn't quite ready to leave China, but once we got on the move, it made sense to get going. Now that I'm in Laos, I'm glad we made the change. China was quite an experience and I'm glad we went, but the feeling here in SE Asia is different and better. It's also cheaper!

Looking back at China, Sarah and I both agreed that the things we saw there (Great Wall, Lijiang, and Tiger Leaping Gorge in particular) we couldn't experience any other way, and for that reason alone were worth the trip. Things we won't miss about China are the incessant smoking in restaurants and on public transport, the nasty bathroom trenches (though these will continue in SE Asia), the heavy smog in the central areas of the country, and for the most part, the food. Things we will miss are the genuine smiles and hellos people give out so freely, the "Chinglish" translations (I'll give you an example later), the amazing mountains in the Yunnan Province, and our days in Lijiang, Xi'an, and on the gorge trek. Beijing was also a highlight for its alleyways (hutongs) and some of its sights.

It was interesting being an American in China. We think of China as a communist country, but in many ways it is one of the most capitalist countries in existence. I have never before experienced the massive build-up that a lot of China is currently undergoing -- with massive shopping malls, grocery stores, skyscrapers, etc etc etc etc going up around every corner. China really does seem to be pushing its 1.3 billion people steadily toward the "American Dream", with cell phones and expensive cars and designer clothes. This lifestyle is unsustainable enough with the 300 million Americans trying for it. The Chinese Dragon is rearing its head. The next few decades will be interesting, to say the least. Meanwhile, the government is able to restrict freedoms that Americans take for granted, like the freedom of speech (television and the Internet to name a couple examples). It's a pretty intriguing society that can restrict basic liberties such as freedom of speech while at the same time giving its people all the consumer goods they could possibly want. Hmmm..... just the musings of a wandering mind.

It's currently raining like mad here in Luang Nam Tha. The clouds and humidity were building all day and finally decided to dump it all in the last 20 minutes. I think this is the sort of pattern we should expect for the next couple months, as we travel through Southeast Asia and into Nepal and India.

We're going to be on a trek in the mountains for the next couple of days. We start out tomorrow with a 6 hour hike into Nam Ha National Protected Area, and will spend the night in a village. The next day we're going to kayak down the Nam Ha river and will be back in town late in the afternoon. There's a rumor there might be good birds around, too. =) I did see two Cinnamon Bittern, some kind of snipe, and some Scaly-breasted Munias today, by the way.

In signing off, I promised a little "Chinglish". This is from a package of "birdy taste broad beans" that I bought (they were gross): "Storage Method: Defend heat, defend tide, defend to squeeze." Got it? Now you know how to store this product! Here's another example that my friend Gordon sent me: http://www.engrish.com/detail.php?imagename=toilet-beard-know.jpg&category=CHINGLISH&date=2007-11-14

Alrighty. Love to you all! Off to walk back to the guesthouse in the rain!

-Matt!

Dali, Yunnan Province

2008-06-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

From Tiger Leaping Gorge, we headed back to Lijiang for another night, then hopped on a bus bound for Dali. Dali is another tourist city like Lijiang, but doesn't feel nearly as genuine or real. A lot of it has been rebuilt in the old style to attract tourists. It's pretty enough, but after Lijiang it falls a little flat. Perhaps we should have gone here first! People here are more aggressive with selling whatever it is they are trying to sell, which is irritating. This is also the first place in China that we have been constantly approached by locals (always older women) trying to sell us "smoka the ganja?". Pot grows as a weed all over around here, so it's no wonder why someone had the thought to sell it to foreigners. No thanks on that one. Chinese prison doesn't sound too fun to me.

Evening by the North pond

South Gate all lit up

All this being said, Dali is a nice enough place, and we spent much of the day wandering around the back streets and in the local vegetable market. There are a lot of yummy things for sale here, including live frogs, eels, lamprey, catfish, larvae, snakes and snails. Apparently all of these are pretty tasty, but Sarah hasn't convinced me to try any yet. Though the larvae kebobs do look pretty enticing....

We're going to spend tomorrow morning exploring the edges of Lake Erhai Hu and adjacent villages and rice paddies by bicycle. The valley the city is located in is gorgeous, green and surrounded by big mountains with temples and pagodas, so I'm sure we'll find something interesting to see. On the bus ride in yesterday, I was happy to see my first "waterbirds" of the trip, including Pheasant-tailed Jacana and several species of egrets. An exciting surprise was a Common Hoopoe flying across the road. For all you non-birders, you should do a Google Image Search for this bird. It's pretty awesome.

We have a 15-hour sleeper bus ride out of here tomorrow evening. We're booked for the "beds" on the seond deck. I don't even think we can stand up! Should be interesting. We've decided to skip Kunming and head straight down to Jinghong, a tropical town right on the border of Burma and Laos. We expect to cross into Laos a couple days from now. We've enjoyed the cool temperatures thus far, and I know we'll look back on them with longing after a few weeks in the steamy tropics. That being said though, we're really excited to get into Southeast Asia. Onward to adventure!

-Matt!

Yunnan Province -- Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

2008-06-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

Greetings from beautiful Yunnan Province! We've finally left the smog and big cities behind and have found a beautiful, cool, green, mountainous place in China. We can (literally) breathe better here. As I mentioned in the last post, we flew into Lijiang at night and so didn't get a taste of the area until the morning. Lijiang is the "stronghold" of the Naxi culture, a small ethnic group in this area with distinct dress, culture, writing, and architecture. In fact, Naxi is the only written language still in use in the world that uses hieroglyphics! Naxi buildings are made of stone and wood, and have graceful, curved roofs made of slate tiles. Old town Lijiang is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it was easy to see why. It's probably the most beautiful city we've ever seen -- trumping other amazing old cities like Antigua (Guatemala), Cuzco (Peru), and Santa Fe, NM. The small alleyways are completely paved with rock blocks, and wind around branches of a stream. Only foot traffic is allowed, and the alleys splay out in interesting directions, making it a delight to get lost in. There are hordes of Chinese tourists here, but that hardly detracts from the place. What a treat to spend a few days here.

One of the other reasons to visit this part of China is to trek Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world. From the towering peaks on each side, steep cliffs drop a staggering 3900 meters (12,500 feet) to the raging river at the bottom. The Grand Canyon is only about 5000 feet deep.... It really has to be seen to be believed. A tiger supposedly leapt across the river in the gorge back in the day, and that's how it got its name. The trek starts in a little village called Qiaotou and gradually makes its way up to about 3000 feet above the river, passing through scrub, forest, small villages, and terraced crops all clinging to the steep slope. Occasionally, we could catch glimpses downstream and see the edge of the Tibetan Plateau rising toward Llasa and the Himalayas. There were parts of the trail that were quite challenging (we'll remember the "24 Bends" for a long time), but by the end of the day we'd reached a village called Bendiwan, almost 20 kilometers down the trail. A local has tuned his home into a small guesthouse called the Halfway Lodge, and our cheap, nice room had a million dollar view. The cliffs across the way were over 5000 feet high and had huge waterfalls cascading down them. As we ate dinner, the almost-full moon rose between the jagged peaks. We lucked out with weather, since it had been very rainy for the last few days. Most of our hike the first day was beautiful and cool -- with one 20-minute hard downpour (thankfully) right after we finished the 24 Bends. During the night the clouds moved in and it rained hard for several hours. This helped us make the decision to take the trail from the village down to the road at the bottom of the canyon and catch a ride out, since these kind of rains frequently wash out the road a little further up. We ran the risk of getting stuck or having to hike all the way back out...

Now for a few bird sightings, since up until now the birding has been so poor. Lijiang itself proved to be pretty birdy. A few birds here included White Wagtail, Black-throated Tit, Oriental Magpie-Robin, Black-winged Cuckoo-shrike, Japanese White-eye, Little Grebe, Black-headed Sibia, to name a few. Tiger Leaping Gorge proved to be great for birds as well. Some I saw here included Grandala, Daurian Jackdaw, Blue Rock Thrush, Scaly Thrush, Sooty-headed Bulbul, Black Bulbul (both the black headed and white headed forms), Godlewski's Sparrow, Robin Accentor, Grey Bushchat, and Wedge-tailed Green Pigeon. The green pigeon was especially awesome. Sarah has proved to have both a better spotting eye than me and good attention to field marks, so she's helped me find quite a few of the species.

All for now! Thanks!
-Matt!

Xi'an and the Terracota Warriors

2008-06-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

Our next stop was Xi'an, the former capitol of the Chinese emperors and a damn fine city nowadays. It is certainly a big city (the size of Phoenix), but the central area (surrounded by an intact, huge ancient wall was really fun to spend time in. Most of the old buildings have disappeared and been replaced by huge shopping malls and hotels, but there were many side streets lined with huge trees, as well as parks and walking areas. We took a stroll along the park just outside of the wall one evening and were treated to many, many Chinese out using the park's exercise equipment (including stationary bikes!). Others (especially older women) were simply dancing around to the somewhat traditional music coming from across the creek. Many of the old temples are still in place, such as the Bell and Drum Towers (which announce dawn and dusk with -- you guessed it -- either bells or drums) and several pagodas. There is a mosque in the Muslim Quarter that looks very, very Chinese. The Muslim Quarter was one of the best places to wander around, with close streets, trees, food vendors, and lots of activity. We ate in a little mom and pop place and had yangrou paomo, a traditional Muslim dish from the area. It is a stew made with small bread dumplings, noodles, mutton, and broth. We both thought it was tasty, but I was especially effusive about it. Yum!

One of the primary reasons for coming to Xi'an was to visit the world-famous Terracota Warriors. It was pretty mind-boggling seeing the excavations and the thousands of life-size warriors and horses that were buried there. They were constructed for Emperor Qin Shi Huang over two thousand years ago, most likely so he would still have a standing army when he continued his reign in the next life. We'd been warned that the Warriors are a bit of a let down after so much hype over the years, so we were prepared and had a good time with it. We spent the day with Christina from Mexico, whose enthusiasm for attempting to speak Chinese was engaging and came at a good time for us, since we were still in the hesitant, culture shock mode. We now have a new perspective and are ready for the long-haul!

Yesterday we went to the airport in Xi'an to fly to Lijiang, Yunnan Province, the next stop on our itinerary. When we arrived, we discovered that the flight we had booked either didn't actually exist or was cancelled (depending on who you asked). It was a little stressful and chaotic, but we did eventually make it to Lijiang around midnight -- with our bags! Even though we have tiny packs, they still made us check them since they don't allow any liquids through and have a 5 kilo weight limit for carry-ons. Oh well.

We're in Lijiang now (wow! what a beautiful place!). I'll write more from here in a few days. We're going to hike Leaping Tiger Gorge for the next couple of days. I'm sure we'll have plenty more to tell after that!

-matt!

Around Pingyao and various China observations

2008-06-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

Hi all--

After our train event, we happily spent a couple days wandering around the ancient and well-preserved town of Pingyao, in the Shanxi Province south of Beijing. The old, walled area of the city is incredibly well-preserved (let's hear it for ancient economic downturn!) and a delight to walk around in. The streets are closed to vehicular traffic (except bikes and electric bikes), and everyone sits on their porch steps in the evenings. Every household has red paper lanterns hanging outside (think of the film "Raise the Red Lantern", which was filmed nearby), and gracefully curved roof decorations. We stayed in a hostel located in the former mayor's house. It had several courtyards with rooms surrounding each one (see the photo). The ancient city walls are intact, and it's possible to walk around the entire thing (though we didn't because it cost $).

Where is AAA when you need them?

On our second day there, we rented bikes and went on a ride out into the countryside to check out the Shaunglin Temple. It was rough going and not very scenic nearer the new part of the city, but that soon gave way to farms, fields, and trees. We were about 4 kilometers out of town and almost to the temple when Sarah's bike chain decided to fall apart. We pulled off to the side of the road and attempted to fix it with no tools. Eventually two police cars (with 5 people in each) pulled up, and with lots of advice from all of them, one took charge and tried to fix the chain..... using a large rock. That obviously didn't work, so eventually they told us (through lots of hand gestures) that we could get the chain fixed at the temple. So we walked our bikes down the road (which turned out to be a really nice walk) and gave them over to the guys hanging out front. We toured the temple, which had some amazing painted statues and well-kept grounds. When we got back out, the chain was "fixed". We got about 500 meters down the road before it broke again. Pretty much immediately, a couple guys on motorcycles pulled over, and ended up spending the next hour working on the chain. Eventually, one of them took it into town and got a couple new links put in. After that, we were able to get it back together with no problems. One thing about the Chinese, many of them are incredibly nice and will go completely out of their way to help, even for strangers who can't speak their language.

That was pretty much the main excitement around Pingyao. I did try to go birding at the river one of the days we were there, but it turned out to be a cesspool of sewage and trash. I was kind of expecting that, but it was pretty disappointing to come upon it anyway. The main birds I saw that day were in cages at a "pet store" enroute: Bluethroats, Rubythroats, buntings, Starlings, Hwamei, Leothrix, Great Tits (yes, this is a bird), etc. The Chinese think it's good luck to have a bird in the house, so all of these birds I mentioned are wild caught (and in this case, in horrible condition); some so freaked out they were beating themselves to death against the sides of the cages trying to get out. They seem to be a little better taken care of once they are in a home, but they are still in small cages. They get them to sing a lot by getting two males and putting their cages fairly near each other, so that the birds constantly feel the need to defend their "territory" by singing. Pretty sad...

So yesterday we jumped on a bus and headed toward Xi'an. Luckily, the bus ride was way more comfortable than the train ride. Sarah is trying to kick a head cold she must have picked up on the plane when we flew to Beijing, so we've been trying to take it easy since then. Our reason for heading to Xi'an was to see the Terracota Warriors and to catch a flight out to Lijiang, in the Yunnan Province. More on that in the next post.

OK, so a few observations thus far in China:

1. China is one of the safest feeling countries we've ever travelled in. Even in the back alleys of Beijing it felt safe. This is echoed by pretty much every traveller we've met. It's a refreshing feeling compared to places where you have to constantly be wary and on your guard. Here we still pay attention and keep ahold of our bags, but there isn't the feeling that everyone is eyeing your bag.

2. Smoking is extremely popular in China (at least with the men). People light up everywhere -- the most annoying times being on the buses and trains. Yesterday we were eating in a little mom and pop restaurant and their son (who couldn't have been over 13) was puffing away on a little smoke break from washing dishes.

3. Spitting. They hack and spit -- all the time. Apparently this is less common than it once was, at least in the cities. The authorities have started fining people for doing it in public vehicles and on the street.

4. There has been a massive, apparently country-wide tree-planting campaign in the last few months. There are millions of pole-planted willows, cottonwoods, and other trees lining all of the highways and roads for about 15 meters out on each side. They even did these tree plantings in ridiculous places, such as terraced cliffs. Not sure if this effort was a PR attempt for the Olympics or not.

5. People here are very friendly. We are constantly being greeted with a big smile and "hullo!" from all sides. It's almost never mocking or unfriendly (as it often is in Latin America), but genuine and open. We've been asked to be in pictures several times -- apparently foreigners are as interesting as the tourist sites!

6. Dogs -- There are almost no big dogs in China. Most, even the strays, seem to be little (as in lapdog size). For the most part, they are well-cared for, too. I have great memories of a little Pekingese who ruled the street in Pingyao.

Alrighty! Next post will be about the Terracota Warriors. Later.

-matt!

The Train to Pingyao

2008-06-08T01:21:00.000-07:00

Our fantastic day at the Great Wall was followed by a less successful day of searching for a grocery store. Once we finally found one though, we had a great time perusing the aisles for odd foods (prepackaged chicken feet, for example). We'll get photos later. We did manage to leave the store with some important money saving items, namely peanut butter and jelly. We also picked up some snacks for our upcoming overnight train ride out of Beijing to Pingyao.

We tried to get a couple spots on the sleeper car for the 13 hour ride, but they were sold out. Instead, we got seats on the only thing that was left: the "hard" seats. We should have known... I should mention that we had to have our hostel do the booking, since doing so in Chinese is completely beyond us. We rode the subway out to the Beijing West Train station and walked the 1.5 kilometer there. The train station was unlike anything I've ever seen. It was seriously the size of an airport, with streams of people crossing raised walkways over the highway into it. And this was only the WEST train station. There were people waiting around outside all over.... for what we had no idea. We arrived an hour ahead of time, and entered into the waiting room for our train, only to find that 1000 other passengers had already beaten us there. We crammed ourselves into the surging line (OK, so Chinese don't LINE up... they just push forward and cut ahead of anyone they can) and eventually fought our way to our train car (bypassing all the fairly comfy looking sleeper cars). Watch the video for a little clip of that. Our seats were waiting for us, but weren't what we were expecting. They were straight-backed, backward facing seats grouped in sixes -- three facing three, so we had to lace our knees together. Not only that, but the aisle also filled up with people who had tickets and no seats -- they stood the entire 13 hours. People were smoking and shoving their stuff anywhere they could; people even filled up the bathroom with their belongings. Speaking of bathrooms, they were so filthy (especially by the end of the trip) that we dehydrated ourselves so we wouldn't need to go in there the whole trip -- and we didn't! The air was pretty foul with various smells, including cigarette smoke, so Sarah wore a bandanna over her mouth and nose the whole night; an extremely good idea. Sarah's journal entry that night began: "We boarded a train to Pingyao with about 1,000 Chinese people pushing and carrying luggage and bags of food and holding children's hands and peering around... and peering at us. And so began what could prove to be the most physically harrowing night of my life thus far!"

All this being said, it definitely could have been worse. We actually managed to catch a little sleep; Sarah hunched over on my lap and me trying to keep my head up. One nice thing is that the train provides hot water for ramen, which everyone on board knew about except for us. They all had their ramen cups ready! This was like a Guatemalan chicken bus ride on steroids, and a memory that will stick with us for quite a while.

We're in Pingyao now, and will do a little exploring of this beautifully preserved Ming and Qing dynasty town in the morning.

Much love to you all!

-Matt!

The Great Pall of China

2008-06-08T00:14:00.000-07:00

Hi all.

Nope, that title isn't a typo. More about that later. After our day checking out the highlights of downtown Beijing, we decided to do what every person who visits China HAS to do: visit the Great Wall. Being the cheapskates (read very thrifty) travelers we are, we were determined to do this trip as cheaply as possible. We bypassed the hordes of "guides" approaching people for tours (and the hostels slightly more reputable version of the same) and settled on a more local tour with a sight-seeing company that does trips for Chinese tourists. It was a third the price of the tours (100 yaun per person, or about 14 dollars) geared to foreigners, so it seemed the thing to do. When we got there, the tour we wanted (NO SHOPPING) didn't start selling tickets until later, so we sat outside and weighed our options (while looking out on Tiananmen Square and listening to the Kenny G Christmas album piped over the bus station). Then we made the decision we should have made in the first place: roll like we usually do, with no tours. So we took the subway across town, found a local bus going the right way (after much confusion), and were on our way to the Wall! We even had a fantastic tour guide on the way there who had quite a sense of humor -- or at least we think so: the other passengers were laughing a lot, but we don't speak Chinese.... Best of all: it only cost us 12 yuan ($1.50) to get there!

We met the Wall at Badaling -- the most well restored and touristy part. It lies about 70 km (45 miles) from Beijing. We had some serious trepidation about visiting the part that everyone and their dog visits due to the crowds (they are serious when they say that there are 1.3 billion people here), but were in for a serious surprise. After some more confusion about where we got dropped off (it is really a hindrance to speak no Chinese), we found the entrance to the section of the wall. There were indeed hordes of visitors there (buses and buses and buses full), but for some odd reason they all were heading to the east when they got up on the Wall. So of course we turned West. We pretty much had the wall to ourselves from that point on. What a fantastic experience! Also, what an amazing piece of human construction. Altogether, the various walls (no, it isn't one long wall, but many sections) stretch almost 30,000 kilometers (17,000 miles)! It snakes along ridges through the mountains. I know you have seen photos, so you know what I am talking about. We hiked (some sections were really steep) until we came to the end of the restored section, then sat and had lunch. Then, as we were finishing up, Sarah noticed the HORDES. Whatever was causing people to go the opposite way at the beginning no longer applied, because they were coming. We said our goodbyes to an amazing, quiet experience on the wall and started back. Apparently, the busiest time for visits to the wall is also the hottest. Go figure.

Now, a brief word about the title of this post: we were 45 miles from Beijing at that section of the wall, and the air was still so smoggy that we could hardly see the wall stretching up the next mountain. I have never experienced pollution like this. We read that breathing the air of Beijing is like smoking 70 cigarettes a day. I would have to agree. The cars clogging the roads are one thing, but most of the pollution comes from 18.5 million Beijingers burning coal for a lot of household uses. We both certainly noticed the effects. By today I was starting to get a nice cough.

Anyway, this is already pretty long so I will sign off. Tune in next time for our adventures on the train out of Beijing!

-Matt!

Is bathroom Forbidden City?

2008-06-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

OK, so most of you won't get that title at all... It's probably better that way.

Anyway, we spent most of the day today in the Forbidden City. What an amazing place. The grounds cover over 170 square kilometers, and house some amazing buildings, courtyards, passageways, thrones, gardens, etc. Some of the courtyards are big enough for the emperor (or Chairman Mao) to have reviewed up to 100,000 troops at once! In the afternoon we climbed a sizable hill just outside the grounds that has a temple on top and is totally covered in trees. It was hard to believe, but the whole hill was artificial; it was made with all the soil dug up to make the moat around the forbidden city!

Tiananmen Square was also amazing, if only for the history and the sheer size of it. On the north end, Chairman Mao's huge painting still hangs on the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Tomorrow we might stop by to see his body lying in state after we get back from the Great Wall.

Something I've found interesting is the number of Chinese tourists here. In Latin America, it's very rare to find a tourist from the country you are traveling in, or even from another Latin American country. In China though, the Chinese can't seem to get enough of visiting all the amazing places in their own country. The majority of the visitors to the tourist sites we've visited have been Chinese.

Beijing's famous smog was in full force today. I've never seen anything like it. It felt like a cloudy, overcast day, but in reality it was sunny -- the sun just wasn't actually visible through the haze. This made it even more obvious that we were very lucky yesterday, because a rainstorm that kept us from landing on time actually cleared the air enough for there to be blue sky and sun for the rest of the afternoon.

Tonight we ate dinner at the "night market"; a series of (overpriced) street food vendors that sell all sorts of weird meats; almost all on skewers. There were snake, centipede, scorpion, starfish, grubs, and pupas, as well as more normal things like lamb, chicken, beef, etc. We stuck to fried dumplings and corn. =)

Sarah's upstairs writing in her journal, and I think I need to go to bed. The jet lag belatedly caught up with me, I guess. Or maybe it's the 10+ miles we walked today. Who knows.....

Good night!

-Matt!

El Paso to Beijing

2008-06-04T04:12:00.000-07:00

We made it safe and sound to Beijing! It has been a long 2 days, and we're both pretty wiped out, but I wanted to get this off so people wouldn't be worried (as if!). I've been up for about 27 hours now...

In the past 36 hours, we've been in El Paso, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Beijing, and we managed a 20 minute visit with Johnny B in the Phoenix airport, a great visit with his brother Jose and his wife Erica in Los Angeles (thanks for letting us stay at your place!), and got to sightsee over Siberia and Alaska! We also met a new friend, Dave, in the Vancouver airport who was on his way to Beijing for business. He had a driver picking him up at the airport, and offered us a ride to our hostel. What a great introduction to Beijing. Crazy traffic, crazy driving, unbelievable construction, and interestingly, lots and lots of trees. The new airport terminal (the largest in the world!) was pretty stunning, if a little empty. I'm assuming that won't be the case a few weeks from now with the Olympics starting.

For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, Beijing is 14 hours AHEAD of Mountain Standard Time. I found it extremely interesting that by flying west to get to China, we actually were getting further away in timezones until we hit the International Date Line. Then suddenly we were a full day ahead of where we were just over the line. So basically we flew 10 timezones back in order to get 14 time zones ahead. Confused? I hope so. =)

Alrighty! More to come. I'm excited about this adventure, as you can tell.

-Matt!

ps- for you birders out there, I've seen Rock Pigeons, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, and a Carrion Crow so far, plus a Red-billed Leothrix in a cage. Off to a slow start! Two lifers, though.

Made In China

2008-05-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

As Sarah and I have been getting ready for this trip, we've become increasingly aware that well over half our gear was manufactured in China, and is now going to head back to its country of origin on our backs. It makes me think of that family (featured on NPR) who tried to live for a "year without China"; i.e. not use or purchase anything made in China for an entire year. It was apparently extremely difficult to do, since it required extensive background research on all products they wished to purchase. Even if the product wasn't assembled in China, there was a good chance parts it were manufactured in China and shipped to the country where it was assembled. This really highlights just how influential China is on our daily lives, and we don't really think about it much. I certainly plan on thinking more about this impact as we travel and begin to learn a little more about the country where so many of our consumables come from.
-Matt!

The plane tickets

2008-05-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

We finally finished buying most of the airplane tickets last week. After extensive research (believe me, both Sarah and I exhaustively research this sorta stuff), we decided not to purchase round-the-world tickets, and instead book one-way tickets to each of our destinations. This had a couple benefits: we were able to search around many different websites for the absolute best deals, AND we were able to continue to change our trip around as we planned.

Now that we've booked all of our tickets (with the exception of the South America portion of the trip, which will be with airmiles), I went back and did a couple searches to see what the cost of booking our final route would be if we had done it in one lump ticket. Amazingly, we saved $1500/person by not booking our tickets this way! Our tickets, when all added up, cost us $2500 each.

Bargain hunting is pretty great; especially considering $1500 is like 3 months of budget travel for us.

We still have to figure out the Latin American part of the trip, but that'll fall into place in the next month or so...

-Matt!

Visas

2008-04-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

Something new we've had to deal with on this trip compared to previous trips is the need to acquire Visas for entry into some of the countries we'd like to visit. Somehow I've managed to avoid countries where a Visa is required for entry, so I had some learning to do for this trip. The majority of the countries we're visiting in the next few months need Visas for entry, but these can be arranged at the border or airport when you try to enter the country. The big exceptions to this are China and India. These needed to be arranged in advance from home....

Our passports arrived in the mail on Friday with our India Visa pasted inside. Woohoo! We're now set! The China Visa was a bit of a pain to procure, since you can no longer mail it directly to the embassy. You have to use a Visa processing company, which tags a fee onto the already high cost of the Visa itself ($130 each). China quickly figured out that it could double the price of its Visa costs due to the impending Olympics in Beijing, so even those of us who are trying to avoid those games get tagged with the high Visa cost.

It's worth noting that the United States has some of the highest Visa costs in the world, making it one of the hardest countries to enter. Many other countries that have high Visa prices for US citizens do so in direct response to the US imposing these same high prices on its citizens trying to enter the US. A good example of this is Brazil. It costs $100 for a US citizen to enter Brazil, but only because it costs a similar price for a Brazilian to enter the US. Hmmmm......

Ah, logistics.....

-Matt!

The Route

2008-04-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Hello!

I've added a graphic of our route; It makes it look like we are jumping all over the place, but really the trip focuses on 3 (possibly 4) areas: SE Asia/China, Nepal/N. India, and Eastern Europe (with a possible addition of an as-yet-to-be-determined section of South America). Other yellow dots on the map are layovers for a day or two; Dubai and Dublin being the most prominent. Of course, this is all subject to change!

-Matt!

Immunizations

2008-04-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

My arm hurts! I went in today and received the travel immunizations I needed for this trip.

Getting to the point where I could finally do these shots was a ridiculously long process, because I (almost unfortunately) found out that they were covered under my health insurance plan. Apparently, under Arizona state law, medically necessary immunizations are required to be covered, regardless of the reason for needing them. I was told by multiple people at Aetna (my insurance co), that yes, they were indeed covered. Great! Unfortunately, nowhere in my network gives the immunizations required, so I've basically spent a month calling my doctor's office and Aetna trying to get an out-of-network referral so I can have them covered. I won't go into details, but this process has been ridiculously difficult. I've been stubborn and persistent though, because one of the vaccinations I was hoping to have covered was Japanese encephalitis (JE), a series of three shots that costs almost $500. We had to start this series over a month before we leave on our trip, so I finally just made an appointment for today.

Ironically, after all of this hassle, Sarah and I made a last minute decision NOT to get the JE vaccination (literally while in the waiting room). Based on research last night and reading the Center for Disease Control info on this disease, we won't be at as much risk as we thought in many of the areas we are going to. We'll take extra precaution against mosquitoes, but then again, we were going to do that anyway.

So I left the lab this morning with three bandaids on my left upper arm. I got the adult booster for polio (for India), yellow fever (for South America), and typhoid (general). Sarah left with no shots whatsoever, since she's more on top of these things than I and has already finished her immunizations. She'd only gone to the clinic with me because we were going to get the JE shots.

Whew! Another step in the pre-trip process taken care of. And it only cost $250 instead of $800.

-Matt!

‘Round the World.

2008-04-07T13:48:00.001-07:00

Well, it’s time to do some wandering. After almost two years with Tucson Audubon, I’m trading my in desk for a backpack, and heading out on a grand adventure for a while. It hardly seems like so much time has gone by since I joined the TAS family. What great people! I’ve gotten a chance to work a varied and interesting schedule, from directing the Institute of Desert Ecology and Riparian Family Institutes, to planting trees with the Restoration crew, to mapping out data and doing bird surveys for the Important Bird Areas program. Along the way I’ve gotten to know many incredible people through programs, guided walks, and in the office.

In June, my girlfriend (and fellow TAS employee) Sarah Prasek, and I are flying to China, where we will begin an overland journey through China and into Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. From there, we’ll take a short flight to Nepal and spend some time in the Himalayas before moving down into northern India. Another flight will land us in Turkey (by way of Dubai), where we will again travel overland through Eastern Europe. Along the way I’m hoping to see a few birds (to say the least). We’re taking one carry-on bag each and using public transportation the whole way. We’ll be back sometime in December and will rejoin the Tucson Audubon staff. To keep up with our journey, check future issues of the Vermillion Flycatcher or my blog at wherearesarahandmatt.blogspot.com. Que te vaya bien!