Well, here we are in Pokhara, Nepal. It’s really nice here and we’ve had a chance to recover from our short stint in India. Now we’ve seen some ‘Breaking News’ about riots in north India and it may be good we left when we did.

I didn’t realize that there was any flat land in Nepal, but apparently, there is. We didn’t see any sign of mountains from the border. As we crossed the border, it was actually difficult to tell where India ended and Nepal began. The border itself is very open. There were people walking and driving through the gate without being checked. It seems the cows are allowed to roam freely between the two countries as well. We nearly walked past the Nepal immigration office because it was so understated and there were no border guards about to point us in the right direction. We were thrilled that it only took a couple of minutes to get visas and entry stamps and the border guards were really nice.

The first Nepalese people we saw as we crossed the border were very poor and the town was a bit of a mud hole. At first I was worried that our experience in Nepal would be the same as in India, but we noticed a difference the moment we left the immigration office. Several kids and adults in the town smiled and waved as we went by, but no begging. We haven’t seen a single beggar since we left India. In fact, the visa application form requested that we “Do not encourage begging with acts of benevolence.” So when the kids here come up to us and make goofy faces we just shoot silly faces right back. The kids laugh and run away. We’re not really sure what that’s all about, but it has worked out okay so far.

There are a lot of hill tribe people around town, many of them Tibetan. They make money by selling jewelry and clothing (which is spectacular by the way).  We spoke with one Tibetan woman down at the lake. She told us that she loves Pokhara and thinks it’s the best place in Nepal. Her story was fascinating. She left Tibet in 1959 because of the Chinese. She told us, with tears in her eyes, that her father was killed so they left to come here. She came with just a few others, including her husband. She arrived here with nothing. We asked how she traveled from Tibet and we weren’t too surprised when she said she walked. After talking for a bit we exchanged names (I couldn’t pronounce let alone spell hers). She seemed to take a liking to Rich and she told me I had Tibetan eyes. Sales tactics, sure, but she was charming nonetheless. She eventually said goodbye but asked if we would come and look at her handicrafts on our way back to town. As she left Richard said, “Oh man, now we’re going to have to buy something.”

“Oh, but she was so nice.”

“I kno-ow, that’s why we have to buy something!”

And so we did. Her jewelry was nice and fairly cheap. I bought a stone pendant, a rainbow moonstone she called it.

We also talked with another Tibetan lady who was actually born in Nepal, but she is a Tibetan refugee just the same. She is not allowed to work or vote or own land in Nepal and she can’t become a citizen or get a Nepalese passport. Like the rest of the Tibetans we’ve seen around town, she takes a bus to and from the tourist center everyday with a backpack full of handicrafts. She told us that there are many Tibetans living in Canada, one of the few countries that will accept Tibetan refugees.

I guess we haven’t really done much since we got here. We went to the Mountaineering museum, it was ok. A bit of boating and swimming in the lake. Oh yeah, it’s hot here and it’s the monsoon season so it’s really humid too. The worst thing about the weather though is the cloud cover over the Annapurna range. We’re nestled under some of the world’s highest peaks (8000 meters) and we can’t see them. But we’re not in a hurry to leave, and the weather has cleared a bit today, so maybe…  

I’m currently sitting in the dark in our hotel room in Pokhara Nepal.  I’m in the dark because, like India, Nepal seems to have no power just about as often as there is power. 

I hate to complain but today really sucked.  As I mentioned in my last blog we were stuck booking a really crappy bus to get here.  And it really was crappy.  It would have been ok except that one of the seats in front of us was broken in the recline position (as usual) and it was just about impossible to fit never mind to be comfortable.  We switched to the back seats in the bus but again the seats in front of us were so far back that you literally just didn’t fit.  That’s when the problems began.  As usual the bus kept stopping for more people despite there being no room for more people.  And of course you know where the people tried to squeeze in, next to the foreigners.  I fought with an old guy for a while and fortunately my ass was bigger than his so I sort of won.  They did offer us some other ‘seats’…on the roof of the bus…really, there were about five guys that rode up there.  Bryana said she would have gone except she didn’t want to get sunburned.  I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to die today.

Besides the really horrible bus ride and so many taxi drivers trying to get their two dollar toll out of us that we had to yell at them, Nepal has been really good.  Even on the bus the people were very friendly.  This one guy started talking to me, the usual stuff like where are you from, how long have you been here etc.  He then started to ask me where we were staying in Pokhara and I figured here we go again.  He said he knew of a hotel or two and I figured he was just trying to get his commission like everyone else.  He then said he was just asking because he lives close to these particular hotels and he never mentioned them again.  I was also blown away when a guy on the bus told us that we were stopping for twenty minutes for a break.  We have rode a lot of busses and almost no one has ever told us that we were stopping for a break (you kind of can tell since everyone is getting off the bus but you never really know how long you’re stopping).

The town of Pokhara is kind of the other town you can go to in Nepal.  The town you go to is of course Katmandu.  So far Pokhara is a really nice place.  It’s on a lake nestled in the Himalayas.  It’s very touristy here but that works since we’re, well, tourists.  There are restaurants, book stores, grocery stores, clothing stores and just about anything we need.  I don’t think India has ever heard of a grocery store never mind actually having one.  It’s also low season right now so the hotels are cheap.  This place even has sidewalks!  You don’t know what a luxury sidewalks are until you’ve walked the gauntlet down some Asian street.

The place we’re staying at isn’t anything special but we have lots of room and it even has hot water.  Of course the hot water isn’t such a treat because it’s stinking hot here.  The weatherman said it wasn’t supposed to go above twenty five but it feels a lot hotter.  All of the profits from our hotel apparently go to help some sort of children’s charity.  This is good except you feel really guilty when you try to haggle for the price of your room (don’t worry I didn’t).  The guy that checked us in was very interesting.  At first he seemed really nice, and he was and is but this guy never shuts up.  What should be a simple signing of the registry book and handing over a key turned into about a half hour talk about his philosophy of life and how his father died when he was six and how he’d like to write his life story but whenever he starts he has to quit because his tears dampen the page.  All of that after an 8 ½ hour bus ride from hell, let’s just say I didn’t shed too many tears.

That’s it for now.  Thankfully Nepal is looking much better than India and I’ve made a pledge to never ride on a crap bus again…never! 

Well, if you haven’t been able to tell, India hasn’t exactly been our favorite country and our last day, the day we got the hell out, wasn’t much better.  The plan was to take an auto-rickshaw to the train station, a train to Gorakpur (don’t really care if that’s spelled right), walk to the bus station, take a bus to Sunauli, walk to the Nepal border, change our 500 Rupee notes so they didn’t get confiscated at the border and then take another rickshaw to Bhairawa (don’t care either) and then find a guest house…what could go wrong?

The auto-rickshaw ride went well.  We paid five times the price we should have but we have resigned ourselves to the fact that tourists pay more and we’re frankly tired of arguing.  We weren’t sure the auto-rickshaw was actually taking us to the train station or kidnapping us but we did end up at the train station.

In all fairness, the trains in India are excellent, that is as long as you have enough money to ride in the upper classes, if you don’t you will literally be hanging out of the doors.  We were taking a night train which left at 12:30am.  It didn’t actually leave until 2:45am; however it wasn’t such a bad thing because it gave us a chance to get acquainted with the cockroaches and rats at the station.  Of course while we were waiting the power went out several times submerging the entire station in pitch blackness, don’t worry, the cockroaches and rats can see perfectly in the dark.  Our train did eventually arrive.  Unfortunately we didn’t have confirmed bed numbers (not seat numbers because you sleep on the night train).  The India train reservation system works something like this:  Like you’d expect they sell tickets to people and assign bed numbers.  However they hold back a block of tickets (not sure why).  Then they put people on a waiting list which are assigned to the block of tickets they held back (still not sure why).  If you’re on the waiting list, like we were, you have to wait until you get to the train station to see if you have a bed and what bed it is; don’t worry, if you get to the station, after having given up your hotel room, and aren’t assigned a bed you get your 10 bucks back.  On the first train this worked out fine.  On this train we got beds…but at different ends of the train car.  Again we weren’t worried because our last train was nearly empty and we could have slept anywhere…not this one (did I mention the people hanging out the doors?)  To make a long story short, I spent the night with a lovely Indian family that was a bit miffed that they had to spend the night with me.  Bryana spent the night clutching her bags and the computer because there really wasn’t anywhere else to put them (fortunately she didn’t have to turn over while she slept that night).

Our next step was to catch a bus from Gorakpur (yes its as beautiful as it sounds) to the Nepal border.  Our book said the bus station was to the south of the train station.  You could get maps at the tourist office but they didn’t open until 10:00am (our train wasn’t late enough for the office to be open).  Our book also warned of the touts who would try to sell you bus tickets to Katmandu, plane tickets to Pokhara and probably their mothers’ wedding rings.  Well the book was right.  We were hassled all the way to the bus station, which ended up being about half a kilometer away (fortunately we guessed south right because I lost my compass on the train).  Once at the bus station we realized our options were limited to a non AC bus with only enough leg room for really little people or an expensive ‘who knows where they’ll really take us’ taxi.  We also weren’t sure if we should take the bus because all of the taxi drivers told us ‘the bridge’ was out and the 2 ½ hour bus ride would actually take 7 hours (they never explained how the taxi would be able to navigate ‘the bridge’ and complete the journey in 2 hours).  The bus driver told us the bus would take 2 hours, it actually took 3, this wasn’t  so bad except that it took the bus 1 ½ hours just to leave!  Like usual, the bus sat around until it was entirely full, this took around 45 minutes.  We then left only to go around the block to get more people (not really sure where they were going to fit).  Eventually a bunch of passengers started to leave and demand their money back.  I’m not sure if they got it or not but we still didn’t leave.  I eventually got up to demand our money back and the ticket man told me the bus would leave in 5 minutes.  I told him we had already been waiting for an hour and a half and that I didn’t believe him.  He told me to go back to my seat and as he did the bus started to move.  I told him that if the bus stopped I was getting off, the bus never stopped.  I think traveling has really changed me.  The bus ride was hot, sweaty and crowded.  The bus constantly picked up more passengers, apparently there was always room for more.  When we got to ‘the bridge’ we all had to get out, walk across the bridge and get on a different bus.  This wasn’t too bad except on the new bus we had to put our backpacks on top of the bus.  We were pretty sure we’d never see them again so I climbed up on the roof to make sure they actually tied them down.  They did tie them down and we did see them again.

On arrival in Sunauli, there were about a million rickshaw drivers who all wanted our business.  The funny thing was that some of the drivers told us the border was 500m away, some said it was 2km and we were told distances everywhere in between, all of this commotion for about 15 cents!  The book said the border was walkable so we grabbed our bags (which everyone tried to grab for us) and we started walking.  Along the way we found a hotel where we got a drink and managed to ditch the rickshaw drivers.  The hotel also changed our money and gave us directions.

After some of our other border crossings, and considering how things had been going that day, I was really nervous about crossing the border.  We were pleasantly surprised, perhaps even tickled, at how well the crossing went.  We were actually treated well for once.

After beating off a few more rickshaw drivers on the Nepal side, we found a descent hotel and booked another bad looking bus (didn’t have any choice) for Pokhara tomorrow.  So far Nepal seems ok.  The people have been nice to us and this country has beer.  We’re also looking forward to a daytime high temperature in Pokhara of 25 degrees. 

Six days. We’ve been in India six days. It really feels more like sixteen days, or six weeks. The days go by so slowly. We go out to explore the city but I can’t take much more than a few hours at a time. Everyday we experience the same things – crowded, littered streets. Dust in our eyes and mouths, flies everywhere. The stench of urine and feces and garbage and sour milk. The noise from generators, horns, bells, loudspeakers, engines and people shouting all the time. Dirty, emotionless faces staring up at us as we pass by in rickshaws driven by old, frail men in rags. I hate it. I hate living above the people. I hate going up three flights of stairs to eat at a pricey rooftop restaurant where I cannot see what’s going on in the streets below. I hate walking past beggars to get to the doors of my clean, air conditioned hotel. I hate paying for boat tours just so I can get away from the throngs of people. I’m completely stressed out; there is no place to escape because India is there, just beyond the window, and I can’t ignore it.

I hate negotiating rickshaw rates and arguing over what amounts to an extra 25 cents. But it seems that’s the only way to find an honest, hardworking driver who deserves the fare. And I hate watching them pedal the rickshaws. Most of them don’t have enough weight to get the pedals moving and they work really hard in the hot sun over torn up roads. They only earn about 20 rupees (50 cents) for a 3 km journey, and that’s from tourists who pay double the regular rate. I always feel terrible by the time we get to our destination and I make Rich give the driver twice the agreed upon price - which still seems far from fair to me.

I hate not being able to talk to anyone in the streets because every time I do I end up being pressured to give money or buy something. I hate saying no to the kids who pull on my arms and ask me for rupees.

I’m starting to hate the food. We’ve been obsessively careful about what and where we eat. Even so, our digestive systems have complained a bit. And Indian cuisine doesn’t thrill me. I keep ordering different things but regardless of what it’s called it’s either flat bread or vegetables in a sauce that’s some shade of orange. It was fine at first, but it’s kind of boring and it all tastes the same. I’m starting to smell like the food. I scrub with soap and douse myself in deodorant and powder, but it’s coming out of my pores and I’m dying for an apple and a bubble bath.

I feel really guilty for not loving this place; I think I’m not trying hard enough or I’m trying too hard. I just don’t see it. We went to the sunset ceremony along the Ganges. It was ok for the first five minutes, but honestly, it was boring and repetitive. The music was loud and terrible. It might have been better if we’d had a guide to explain the proceedings to us, but the tourist police told us not to trust anyone. He said, “No guides. Go by yourself only. No talking.”

Very few of the people seem happy here. I know that sounds reasonable given that they are so poor, but even in the poorest areas of Cambodia and Laos, people would smile from time to time. They were friendly and curious. They enjoyed time spent with their families and friends. They played games and laughed and were happy. Nobody smiles here.

I saw a cow today with a wounded leg and it broke my heart. I’ve seen a lot of horrible things here, but I’d finally reached my breaking point. The cows’ hind leg was poorly bandaged with filthy rags and it hung limp as the cow hobbled slowly on three legs. It made its way through the crowd, searching for food in the garbage. This is India. This is the sacred city of Varanasi. It’s a Hindu city along the shores of the holy waters of the Ganges. The cow is a sacred animal, the symbol of fertility and nurturing. But today, I saw the cow as a symbol of something else entirely.

I hate the poverty, the caste system, the stench and the dirt. I hate being a rich foreigner.

But I do not hate India. I’ve only been here six days and I’ve only seen three cities, so I’m not about to pass judgment on the entire country. But we can’t take any more right now. We booked a train ticket to the Nepal border. Rich said, “We can go Friday, we’ve been in India almost two weeks now, right?”

“Six days.”

“What? Good Lord.”

And so we say good-bye. 

So now that we’re out on our own, we’re starting to see the India we’ve heard so much about.

We found ourselves a hotel in Old Delhi that was within walking distance to the train station. The first hotel we looked at wasn’t very nice, but knowing what I know now, it wasn’t all that bad, comparatively speaking. After the first we found we had a guy leading us through the alleys to show us his hotel that was “cheaper, better, very clean”. The problem with the guys on the street is that you don’t know if it’s their hotel they want to take you to, or if they’re just nabbing tourists to make a commission at any one of a dozen places. Richard and I have been through this before, so we were both thinking “here we go again”. These guys are really hard to shake, even if you walk your own way and completely ignore them, they’ll push in front of you at every guest house to claim the commission they didn’t earn. But we probably wouldn’t have found any of the hotels in Old Delhi without him because I never would have thought to walk down the dark, narrow alleys to find them.  So we followed.  He took us to a hotel where the owner showed us a room that was currently occupied by sleeping staff, but the guy said he would clean it. Still, it felt weird. So we tried to shake the tout and took off on our own. We got lucky; we found a place that was okay and they apparently don’t pay commissions to the touts on the street.

Calling our hotel okay is probably an exaggeration. It was really more along the lines of tolerable, but we didn’t see (and still haven’t seen) anything better. I could forgive the crumbling plaster and peeling paint; the squeaky ceiling fan and noisy generator; the old foam mattresses and threadbare sheets; but I can’t believe how filthy the bathrooms are. I don’t think these toilets get cleaned and I know they’ve never been scrubbed. I’m quite sure that the toilet seats are older than the buildings; they probably don’t get thrown out because of their antique status.

The power seems to go out every day for oh, an hour, maybe two. Fortunately, our hotel had a generator, noisy as it was, because with the thermometer pushing 40 degrees Celsius, the rooms heat up fast. We try to take a few cold showers every day, but the water pressure is inconsistent and sometimes there is no water at all.

But, amazingly, the train service in India is better than tolerable, it’s almost good. I’m referring to the upper class cars of course. The trains are old, but cleanish and there is almost no cigarette smoke in the air; I slept well and didn’t wake up with a sore throat for a change. Second class looks like it might be barely tolerable, but only at night since there is no AC. There is also another level of train ticket that doesn’t seem to get a label and really I’m not sure it deserves one. I’ve seen those cars completely packed; people spilling out of the doors and hanging on for dear life. Foreigners aren’t allowed to travel in those cars, which is good because I suspect they have a low survival rate.

What I’ve found most enlightening about our train trips is the life that goes on outside the train windows. There are farms and villages as in any other country in the world, but within the cities and towns, there are many poor people living along the tracks in shacks and tents, or just sleeping out in the open. The men’s’ morning ritual is one I’ve never seen (or even imagined) before. They walk out onto the tracks carrying a bottle of water. Then they squat (on the tracks) and take a dump. Then they use the bottle of water and their left hand to wash. I had heard that they wash with their left, eat with their right, but I didn’t actually believe it, I thought it was more like a tradition or at the very least I thought they’d use soap. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see, but it was hard not to look, there were men squatting and washing everywhere. But, just the men. We don’t know where the women go.

We have some really great pictures to share. Frankly, I’m not sure how it happened. Sure, the Taj Mahal is absolutely gorgeous, but everything else… well, lets just say we tend to aim the camera at the better stuff and some of it is surprisingly beautiful when you frame it just right. 

Well we’re in India now.  I’m not sure what the fuss is about…it’s a lot like home…just not like my home.

On the subject of eating:  Somebody please find me a McDonalds!  Actually eating here hasn’t been that bad.  Everyone always raves about how good Indian food is.  I, being a tad particular about the food I eat, was worried.  Fortunately the food here has been quite good.  Most of the areas we’ve been have been touristy and therefore cater to the tourist palette.  For example, have you ever eaten Italian in a German bakery while in India?  It basically means you eat pasta with curry served by a hairy chested guy wearing leather shorts.  In reality my pasta was extremely delicious, even if the sauce was green.  I’ve tried to eat some of the local dishes and they’ve been quite good too.  So not only is the food good but it’s cheap even by Asian standards.  You can easily get a meal and drinks for around $4.00 and that’s at a fancy tourist restaurant.  Those are the good points about eating but there are some bad.  Unlike, say Thailand, were there’s a restaurant or a street vendor, or two or three or fifty, on every corner, there are very few here.  Generally they say you should never eat at a street vendor and most of the restaurants, even the book recommended ones, don’t look like the kinds of places you’d want to eat at.  We look for places that have a lot of foreigners in them.  We figure if the food doesn’t kill them it shouldn’t kill us, at least not quickly.  So far, so good.

On the caste system:  I can’t believe I’m even writing about this.  It is very evident in India that the caste system is alive and well.  Even on the airplane coming into Delhi we knew something was up when all of the Indian passengers kept using their airline attendant buttons to ask for more lime for their water (we really knew something was up when the attendant brought back lemon and the passenger demanded a lime stating that the attendant was there to serve him).  Being a foreigner you’re automatically sort of an honorary member of a higher caste.  For example, there is a special lounge and ticket purchasing area at the train station for foreigners as well as special lines at many of the tourist sites (with prices to match of course).  We’ve seen these things in other countries but it’s somehow different here.  Somehow you can just tell that people treat each other based on some sort of unwritten rules that we don’t really understand.

On the subject of open sewers:  We thought we saw bad open sewers in other Asian countries but they were nothing compared to here.  In India they smell like an outhouse, the water is so grey and chunky that you probably can’t see a quarter of an inch through it.  You regularly see people squatting in the gutters to relieve themselves.  It all sounds gross, and trust me it really, really is but at least you never have to look far if you’ve got to go.

On the subject of loving India:  They say you either love it or hate…and I’m not loving it.  A lot of the people we’ve met say India is hard for the first couple of weeks but then you start to like it.  I really can’t see myself in that category.  There is simply very little here to like that you can’t find in other places. And there’s a lot not to like.  A lot of the people seem very nice and a lot have been very helpful.  However, there are so many touts and drivers trying to get your money and take you on a tour that I can’t trust anyone.  We are currently traveling with 7 locks a chain and a steel cable and on the trains and in our hotel rooms we’ve used every one of them.  It’s not that the locks are to keep away dangerous people (that’s what the big sticks are for…just kidding).  The locks are so that if you get distracted by someone, someone else won’t come up behind and open your bag and steal your stuff (we know someone that had their video camera stolen that way).  On arriving in Varanasi (nicknamed VeryNasty by a local) both our hotel manager and the government employee at the tourist info center told us not to listen to anyone trying to sell us stuff or take us on a tour.

We’ve decided that we’re not getting the hell out of India yet (although I probably would have if Bryana had let me).  We are however working our way to the Nepal border and don’t plan on wasting a lot of time getting there.

On the Taj Mahal:  Everyone says it’s wonderful and you have to see it.  Apparently Rudyard Kipling described it as ‘a teardrop on the face of eternity’.  Normally I wouldn’t buy any of that crap.  However it really did live up to the hype especially after you hear the story:  The story goes something like a guy’s wife dies while giving birth to their fourteenth child.  He is so distraught, his hair turns white overnight and then he decides to build this really big tomb to place her body in.  The tomb (i.e. the Taj Mahal) takes 20 years to build.  After building it he chops off all of the workers hands so they can never recreate such a marvelous building… but wait, there’s more.  The guy gets charged with ‘architectural extravagance’ and is sentenced to prison for the rest of his life, I believe one of his sons led the way on those charges (I wonder if he was the 14^th?)  Not only did the guy go to prison but here’s the catch, he could see the Taj Mahal from his prison cell and spent his days gazing at it from a distance. 

The building itself is also marvelous.  It is made entirely of translucent white marble.  Up close the marble doesn’t look really great.  However inlaid into the marble are flowers made of semi precious stones.  From a moderate distance the Taj Mahal looks like a sort of patchwork mosaic.  Ok that doesn’t sound all that great but trust me it really works well.  From a greater distance it looks extremely clean and white.  Another thing that hits you is how big the thing is.  When you’re looking at the pictures look for the people to see what I mean.  Another thing about the building is that since it’s white it takes on the color of the sun.  During the hot days its blazing white but during sunset and sunrise it turns pink and red and purple and all of the usual sunset/sunrise colors.  Apparently it’s also spectacular during the full moon which wasn’t for another two weeks and we weren’t going to hang around for that.

On the subject of Varanasi and the Ganges:  We are currently in Varanasi.  Varanasi is the place people come to die (I know our rickshaw ride just about did me in).  The reason people, more specifically Hindus, come here to die is because they believe by dieing here it breaks the reincarnation cycle of birth and rebirth.  I was expecting to see a bunch of old, near death people here but no such luck.  People also come here to give birth but I forget why.  We did get to see the Ganges River today as well as people bathing in it…yuck!  The river is actually huge and quite lovely, at least at first glance.  Apparently the fecal count in the Ganges is 3000 times what is considered safe to bath in.  And yes, you see people bathing in it; dunking their heads; rinsing their mouths out; drinking it.  Personally I just didn’t want to get any on me.  Lining the Ganges are ghats.  Ghats are just steps that lead down to the Ganges.  It’s all along the ghats where you find people bathing and probably dieing (although we haven’t seen that… yet).  There are also burning ghats where they cremate the bodies.  This is public so we’re going to see that tomorrow.  Apparently they charge for wood by the kilogram at the burning ghats and apparently it’s not uncommon for the poorer families not to be able to afford enough wood to completely cremate the bodies.  The bodies, what’s left of them are, you guessed it, dumped into the Ganges (did I mention people bath in it and drink it?).  

Here we are. India. Richard and I were really freaked out before we boarded our plane. The flight here was actually an experience in itself. The passengers were predominately Indian, most of them men on business trips. They spent the flight wandering around and introducing themselves to strangers. We sat with on Indian gentleman who took off his shoes and folded his legs beneath him. He wanted to know where we were from.

“Canada,” I said.

He shook his head disapprovingly. At first, I didn’t know why, but I think I got the drift from his conversation with Richard.

“You are from Canada?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Richard.

“And why do you come to India?”

Rich laughed, “Well…”

“I mean, what do you want to see in India?”

“I-”

“Because I have traveled much and the world is all the same. There is nothing to see. You know?”

“Um-”

“So then, why would you come to India?”

“Uh, I-”

“You see, I do not like to travel. I like to stay home. You know? Here, I come for business to Bangkok.”

For a moment, there was silence. “How long were you in Bangkok?” asked Rich.

“Only one night. Do you like to travel?”

Rich smiled, “Not re-“

“I don't understand, you know? Why would you leave home? Why do you come to-?”

“Well,” Rich interrupted. “I guess it’s because you just have to see it for yourself.”

The man nodded his head slowly. “Ahhh, a very good point. I see, yes, yes.”

And so we’re here, seeing it for ourselves. We’re staying with a couple of Americans living in Delhi. They not only have a magnificent place, but they are fantastic hosts and cooks. They showed us some of the best of Delhi (and some of the worst) and we’re so grateful for the gentle introduction to India.

We’ve posted some pictures from around Delhi. Humayun’s tomb was built in the 1560’s - before the Taj Mahal and in the same style, though the red brick is different. We also saw the Red Fort (Lal Qil’ah) which served as a palace for Emperor Shah Jahan in the 1600’s. There were a lot of people there today, most of them Indians. It’s Sunday and they come to enjoy the park within the walls. There has been at least one terrorist attack at the Red Fort in the past so they had tight security at the main gate. We walked through metal detectors and put our bags through x-ray machines, but apparently that isn’t good enough (or the metal detectors are just for show) because we were also frisked. They didn’t do a very good job of frisking me, I don’t think, but they did make sure that I wasn’t smuggling anything in my underwear. Richard had the same experience; he was blushing and grinning when we met up on the other side.

Anyway, it’s time to move on. We’ll be leaving in the morning for… somewhere else in India, yet to be determined. But we’re feeling a little more comfortable about the idea of venturing off on our own. 

I have to be honest.

I don’t really like Thailand.

I want to, really. The land and the beaches are beautiful. The Thai people are generally nice too. But Thailand is tainted by tourism. Some of the best parts of Thailand are literally overcrowded with tourists. There are some secluded beaches, but they aren’t the ones listed in the guidebooks. Everyone has a guidebook. Everyone’s looking for a secluded beach. 

We’ve also found that many of the Thai people we come in contact with (in the tourist centers) are out to get our money and can’t really be trusted, which results in us not really trusting anybody, which is really depressing.

And then there are the cities, like Bangkok. Noisy, dirty and rat infested places full of rip off artists. (Though I kind of like the rats).

So getting a little R&R in Thailand isn’t an easy thing. We have a week to kill while our Indian visas get processed, and finding a not too far and not too busy beach was a huge challenge.

We picked a destination described by a guidebook as “a relatively unknown and clean fishing village’. So we jumped on a hot, slow, stuffy, noisy bus south to Hua Hin. Coming from clean and efficient Japan, the ride was agonizing. It got even worse after we got off and I discovered that battery acid had eaten through my packs’ rain cover and made a mess. It’s a good thing I keep the rain cover on (to keep my pack clean) because it kept the acid at bay.

Hua Hin isn’t at all what we were hoping for. It’s crowded, noisy and a lot more expensive than we were expecting. The beach is full of foreigners and lined with 5 star hotels.

So we didn’t stay long.

We rented a motorbike and drove south for a good hour before the hotels thinned out. Suddenly we were surrounded by resorts, but it was an improvement since the resorts are all but deserted right now (it’s the low season but the rates are still quite high).

We inquired at a few, hoping to find a good deal so that we could splurge a little.

Then we got a flat tire.

We split up, Rich riding and me walking, a truly bad idea as Rich isn’t very good at finding his way even with his trusty wristwatch compass.

Rich never did find air and somehow we missed each other on the road. A nice, English speaking local appeared out of nowhere and took me to Richard on his bike. Then he led us to a mechanic who fixed our tube for 66 cents Canadian. (Not exactly ‘tourist price’.)

We fell in love with the place. We found a hotel that’s expensive for a no frills place in Thailand, but it’s just a stones throw from the water, the owner is nice, I think - I can’t understand a word she’s saying and she does say a lot. We’re the only people in the hotel, we think. We have the best room in the place, a private balcony with a sea view. There are a bunch of beach restaurants and plenty of nice cats and dogs about. And there are elephants behind the hotel.

The best part – not that many people. It’s a long weekend, so there are locals out for the day, but far fewer than back in Hua Hin.

It seems we’ll be able to get a little R&R after all. And I’ve changed my opinion of Thailand just a little bit. We managed to find a quiet beach, good food and good people.

This place… it isn’t in any guidebook.

And we’re not going to tell you where it is either. 

One of the first tourist things we did in Tokyo was to go to the Tsukji Fish Market.  I’m not sure of the actual figures but a significant portion of the worlds’ fish supply passes through this market, something like 30%.  Based on that I was expecting a lot of fish, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Getting to the fish market, like everything else in Tokyo, is ridiculously easy.  You just take the subway.  As an aside, despite Tokyo being an absolutely huge sprawling metropolis of 13 million or so people, you never feel like you’re lost because of the subway.  Whenever you’re out and about all you have to do to get anywhere is to find a subway station.  This is usually easy to do because there are signs and maps on most street corners.  The biggest challenge to going to the fish market was arriving there at around 5:00am (the biggest fish apparently like the early morning hours).

We managed to get to the market by around 5:30am and one of my first impressions was to ask myself why they let unescorted tourists in to this place.  The market is a frenzied bee hive of activity and I was sure I was going to get run over.  Not only are people going about in all directions on foot but there are people pulling big carts as well as these mechanized cart things that nearly break the land speed record.  The market, just like most areas in Japan, is somewhat short of space and I felt like I was in the way the entire time.  I did what I could to avoid this and everyone was very polite but I could tell they wanted the tourists to get the hell out so they could do their jobs!

As far as I could tell the fish market consisted of 3 main areas:  There was the loading area which packed zillions of Styrofoam boxes full of fish into trucks.  Not much to see here.  The next area was the processing area where the fish were sliced and diced and put into the boxes by various dealers.  This was perhaps the most interesting area and wandered around here the most.  There were all types of fish on ice (some of it dry ice), in boxes and in tanks.  There were a lot of different varieties of fish and general sea life (shellfish, eels, squid and sea urchins).  Some of the vendors seemed to have fish for sampling but we did not partake (we weren’t exactly sure what the etiquette was since we had no intention of buying raw fish and we weren’t even sure we could have.)  The most impressive thing was probably the sheer quantity of fish.  The next area we saw was the auction area.  This is where whole fish are auctioned to the various dealers.  I’m not sure if all fish go through here or if it’s just the more expensive fish.  The auction, like most auctions, was fast paced and I was really careful to keep my hands down so I wouldn’t inadvertently buy a fish.  I’m not sure how much a fish cost, all of the auctioneering was in Japanese of course, but I’ve heard a single fish can sell for hundreds to thousands of dollars.  Keep in mind the fish were giant fish, I think they were tuna but I’m not really sure.  The fish were about five feet long and took two guys to move them about.  Lastly there must have been an area where the freshly caught fish were brought into the market but we never found this area, I’m not sure it was open to the public.

As far as sampling the fish, like most things in Tokyo, it was very expensive.  We did however go to a revolving sushi restaurant.  By revolving I mean there’s a conveyor belt type device (very similar to the device that brings you your luggage at the airport).  The device is full of plates of sushi.  You then take whatever plate you want (prices are determined by the color of the plate).  We kept the price down by only taking a few plates (the guy beside us had an entire stack of very expensively colored plates, his meal came to about $30).  And for all of you wondering, yes I did eat some sushi, but not a lot.  For the most part I’m still not a big sushi fan but the eel is actually quite good. Bry really loved it and, although she says convenience store sushi in Japan is really quite good, the sushi at the restaurant was even better.

We’re now back in Thailand by the way, looking for a beach… that’s not full of people, that is. We’ll keep you posted. 

Two words come to mind; Wet and Windy.

I guess it’s to be expected when you’re a few miles high, in the clouds. But it was much worse than I was expecting. Rich would have hated it. Luckily, he decided to stay at a guesthouse in town.

So, a bit about Mt.Fuji. It’s the highest mountain in Japan and it is a volcano - classic cone shape with the crater and all. It can only be climbed in the summer (by average folk), every year about 200,000 people will make it to the summit, which is at 3776 meters (12,388 ft). Mt. Fuji is very popular among the Japanese people and while Rich didn’t come with me, I was never alone.

There are two ways to climb the mountain. During the day, or during the night. I thought night sounded cool (interesting and less hot). Sunrise at the summit is supposed to be amazing.  Besides, we didn’t get out to the mountain until late afternoon and we were only there for one night, so it was my only option.

So here`s my story;

I took the bus to the Kawaguchiko 5th station (where most people start their climb). It’s at about 2300m. 

It immediately started to rain. I reconsidered the climb because the only footwear I have is my pair of Chaco sandals and my wet feet were already cold. Everything I read said sandals were a definite no-no (duh), but I wasn’t about to spend a lot of yen on a pair of shoes and then try to break them in on the mountain.

I decided to go for it, so I bought a plastic rain suit (for the pants, but I wore the jacket over mine anyway).

A couple of the Japanese tour groups started out. I’ve seen expensive mountaineering gear in stores, but I’ve never actually seen people wearing it. By expensive, I mean $800 rain suits that I thought were just for show, I didn’t think people actually bought them.

I started walking at 5:30 pm and with all the plastic I was wearing, I was hot. The suit kept the rain off, but it made me sweat.

I took my time and tried to enjoy the view (I looked at rain clouds), but even at my very leisurely pace, I passed the Japanese tour groups that left ahead of me. They have a ‘shuffle up the mountain’ policy, very slow and cautious. I’m sure a high percentage of them make it, but I’m sure it takes twice as long to get up there that way.

By the time I reached the 6th station, the sky was clearing and I’d made a couple of English speaking climbing friends.

Then it got windy. I’m talking the windiest I’ve ever experienced; knock you off your feet gusts that forced us to crawl more often than not.

By the time I reached 2700m the clouds came back and it rained some more. Shortly after that, the sun set, and it was suddenly not only wet and windy, but also cold and dark.

My plan was to stop at each of the stations for a couple of hours, eat something, warm up, dry out a bit. According to my research, there are huts you can rest inside for a small fee. As it turns out, this wasn’t the case. Maybe the service is only available during daylight hours. Nobody would let me come inside unless I was checking in for the night. So at each of the 7th station huts I huddled with strangers and stared longingly through the windows. I sat outside on the benches to get some rest.  At most of the huts, there was little shelter from the wind and I could only rest for about 15 minutes before I started to get cold; I had to start moving again to keep warm.

On my climbing route, there were about 15 huts along the trail. Most of the huts on the mountain provide sleeping space inside, with basic bedding, but it means sleeping shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people and it costs about 60 dollars. Many people climb to the 7^th or 8^th stations and then check-in for some sleep before resuming their climb at 2AM. Other people don’t start hiking until around 9pm and they hike right through the night. The popular goal is to get to the summit for sunrise.  I had planned to hike through the night, but I wanted to start earlier, walk slower, and take a few long breaks on the way up (maybe a couple of short naps).

I lost my climbing buddies at the 7th station. They were cold and tired and decided to fork out the cash for an overnight stay. I never saw them again; they may have turned back in the morning.

I climbed to the 8th station. I didn’t use my flashlight; there was enough light filtering though the mist to see and every now and then the sky would clear for a few seconds and I could catch glimpses of the town below and the lights of Tokyo in the distance. This was the most exciting part of the climb for me. It was still wet, windy, cold and dark, but there were fewer people about. Being alone on a mountain in the dark is a little weird. Climbing alone is just a bit stupid, but there were plenty of other climbers on that stretch; quite a few were climbing solo. If anything had happened, someone would have been along within a few minutes. Besides, how much trouble can you get in when you’re crawling?

I found a really nice cluster of boulders that sheltered me from the wind. I stopped and watched the clouds roll about overhead. Occasionally, the clouds would part and I would see a star or two. It seemed like it never stopped raining, but I think the wind was just throwing clouds at me, and the effect is pretty much the same.

I really liked my rock shelter, but I only lasted about 15 minutes before getting cold, so I resumed my climb.

I should mention that my sandals were working out fine. I was wearing very good wool socks and my feet were never cold. Wet, but not cold. There was less wind down there.

At the 8th station, I still had no luck finding man-made shelter I could rest in. The wind was fierce. I lost my gloves to the wind and was wearing my spare pair of socks on my hands. It was about 6 Celsius. I wasn’t cold while I was climbing but there was no way I could sleep outside.

I reached the 8th station at 9pm, way ahead of schedule and they wouldn’t let me rest inside either. I did the math in my head. If I kept walking I would reach the summit before midnight. There was no way I’d be any warmer up there. I never even considered hitting the summit and descending immediately, but what would I have done at the base at 3AM? So with a sigh, I handed over 6000 Yen (60 bucks), put my shoes and wet clothes in plastic bags and was led upstairs. The hut employee showed me the change room and the vomit buckets (for altitude sickness). I was at 3020 meters. I was informed that check-out was 5AM.

It wasn’t cheap, but sleeping in the hut was an interesting experience. In the sleeping area, there were rows of people in sleeping bags. I was shown to the next empty sleeping bag along one row. I stretched out on top because I was wearing my damp base layer and I was hoping to dry out – stupid me, I forgot to bring a nightie. Lying down, I felt a bit nauseous, which surprised me since the altitude hadn’t bothered me up until that point.  But I did dry out and I slept ok. Much to my amazement, I was not too upset about spooning with a middle-aged Japanese woman. (She talked in her sleep.)

At 2:00 AM I was awake and ready to make my summit attempt (that just sounds ridiculous).  But nobody else was getting up. All around me people were snoring and there were no empty sleeping bags. Then a gust of wind rattled the windows and I heard the rain hammering the roof. I didn’t want to go out in that, so I went back to sleep.

I got up around 3:15 AM. People were still sleeping, but I kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, the sky would clear for sunrise – I’m not sure if I was being optimistic, but I wasn’t able to sleep anymore.

Putting on wet clothes and stepping out into the cold wind at 3:30AM was everything I hoped it would be. And it was weird. Surreal. There were a lot of people outside, milling about, drinking water and chatting. As I started walking, I found myself in a slow moving queue. And I mean slow. Two steps, rest a few seconds, shuffle, rest, two steps, stop. Some people were really struggling in the thin air. They sell oxygen along the route, but I never felt like I needed any, especially at such a slow pace. I found it a little frustrating. I passed slower people whenever I got the chance and found myself gasping for air each time I did.

At about 4:30 I reached the 9^th station and the sky started to lighten. I was surrounded by dense fog and hundreds of other climbers. At this point I noticed people turning back. I was at 3600 meters, and I felt good. I kept walking.

I made it to the summit before 6:00 am. It was still foggy and while I didn’t make it to the summit for sunrise, I didn’t miss much.

At the top, there was a hut where you could go in and warm up! For free! Imagine that. I bought a hot coffee and sat down. After a few minutes I started to feel terrible. I was nauseous and my hands were trembling, so I didn’t stay long.

I went out and got a glimpse of the crater. Basically, all I saw was a big mass of fog where rock should have been. You can do a one hour walk around the crater, but my head was spinning, the wind was ridiculous and all I could think of was getting down.

Down was rather easy, but unlike the climb, my sandals were giving me trouble. The scree was getting jammed under the soles of my feet with every step. My socks provided enough cushioning though, so I just tried to ignore it.

By the time I reached the 8^th station, the sky cleared. The view from the summit would have been fantastic, but I was glad to be back in the thicker air; I felt better and better as I got more oxygen into my system. The descent only took 2.5 hours.

I’m in a little pain now, but I guess I’ll live. As for Mt. Fuji… it was ok. It was a unique experience, but I can’t say I feel any huge sense of accomplishment and since the weather was so lousy it was hard to enjoy my time on the mountain. Not to mention the visibility. But it was something of a cultural experience, and it was neat being among so many other climbers.

Plus I have something to add to my list of accomplishments: Spooning with strangers on Mt. Fuji. 

The accommodations in Japan range from cramped, hot and smelly to luxurious and hi-tech. Our favorite hotel so far was a traditional Japanese Ryokan in Kyoto. We slept on the floor, but the floor is made from squishy grass mats and then you put down a futon and mattress yet, so it’s soft. I had a really hard time getting out of bed in the morning, it may have been the coziest bed I’ve ever slept in.

The Ryokan building was neat. It had sliding paper doors, low ceilings (poor Rich bumped his head many times), and wood flooring in the narrow corridors. We also had a shared lounge and kitchenette. Our Ryokan had air conditioning too, which we were glad for (yes, it’s hot and humid here…) And of course, the bathrobes and slippers are fun – especially since they don’t fit Richard at all.

We’ve found some great technology to try out, like the hi-tech toilets with washers, ‘powerful deodorizers’ and seat warmers. Not only in the hotels though - we’ve seen them in the train stations and in McDonald’s too.

Kyoto was a rather traditional Japanese city, but we didn’t do much while we were there. It cost money to go into most of the temples, so we only went to one and then just wandered most of the day. We also took a train out of town to see a big castle and the suspension bridge with the world’s longest span or something or other.

When it was time to move on, we took a bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo. This was really expensive and absolutely worth it. The train travels at over 300kph. It doesn’t feel like much because the train is so smooth. But, when we passed oncoming bullet trains that were also going 300kph, we really got a feel for the speed we were going. It means that the oncoming train is approaching at over 600kph. If you lean your head against the window and stare out along the other track and wait… the sudden appearance (and consequent disappearance) of the oncoming train will surely make you jump. Each train is 16 cars long, but it only takes about 3 seconds to pass another train. With the camera set to take pictures at max speed, we still only got pictures of a big white blur. It was hard to get pictures of passing trains; you had to be ready with the camera. But, it helped that there was an oncoming train every 2 to 3 minutes! That’s a lot of trains, and a lot of people. But it’s better than flying; you can show up at the station about 5 minutes before departure and the train takes you from and to the city centers. The only drawback to our 2 hour train trip was the headaches we were left with. We couldn’t help but stare out the window, which left us a bit motion sick.

We found ourselves in Tokyo with no clue where we were going to spend the night. Here are two bits of advice for Japan travelers; reservations are a good idea in the summer months; and if you don’t have reservations, go to the tourist information center where they will call around and find you a place in your price range, then make a reservation for you. Of course, since we were looking for accommodations for 6 days in a row on short notice, we had to settle for three places – it’s a lot of annoying moving around, but we do get to see and experience more of the city.

And what a city it is. Huge! Sometimes it’s hard to know what ‘ground level’ is, since there seem to be open air parks in the basement and roads on the second level. And there is a lot of reclaimed land here. The land always meets the water along straight lines and sharp corners. Some of the islands here are completely man-made. We are really impressed with the efficient use of space. Yes, there are a lot of people here, but it generally isn’t too crowded. And everyone is friendly. We’ve had a lot of help getting around.