Seth and Claire

Seth-
It’s been a while since we last wrote on the blog, so it’s tough to know where to begin. I think that I will start with the most recent event as it is the title of this post! Last night Claire had a visit to the Pakxe hospital. After 4 days of off-and-on fever and two solid days of a high temp it was time to find out if I was going to get to collect on her trip insurance! Needless to say, her blood test for malaria (at a total cost of US$1.60) was negative, but in good developing world fashion she is now taking eight pills twice a day (and two at lunch). Much like our experiance in Mumbai, the doctor here is treating her for pretty much anything she might have! Rest easy though Barb, she is feeling better today and is sitting right here next to me.

This is kind of just another facet of a two-week bad health spell for us… After our bike ride in northern Laos both of us started to feel low energy, unmotivated, and both suffered cramping in our stomachs. Doing some of our own investigating (what would you tell a non-English speaking doctor for those symtoms?) we self diagnosed and treated intestinal parasites. In only a few days we were back to our normal selves, so we are guessing that Dr. Internet was right!

While that may sound like we’ve been having a pretty loathsome time here, that’s not actually the case. We have been traveling happily in the south of Laos and really enjoying ourselves. After a hellish 8 hour bus ride from Luang Parbang to Vientiane which included highlights of 4 hours of linked turns in the mountains with a family of locals next to us filling a leaky puke bag, we moved quickly on to a 13 hour bus ride to Pakxe in the south – thankfully on a straight road.

We used Pakxe as a base and took a trip to Tad Lo waterfalls. Getting off the bus, we were so enthralled at making another new friend that we ended up walking right past the town and taking a 4km detour, with our full packs, in the 3pm afternoon heat! Oops. But once we found the town we were quite pleased by the unpretentious feel. It’s a small village that has not been highly developed yet, but still has all the services you could want or need. We stayed in a riverside bungalow, took walks and swam in the river. I know what you are thinking, we probably got more parasites swimming in the freshwater, but remember that most, if not all, shower and cooking water in these towns come straight from the river, so there is no escape unless you want to go for weeks without bathing! Most times we just relaxed on our balcony and listened to the sounds of kids playing in the water (apparently they only go to school in the cool mornings) and the sounds of the baby farm animals. Especially the little piglets…in fact, they were so cute we got to thinking, can one own a pig in Vancouver? Just until it’s big enough to eat, of course. We’ll be looking into that when we return.

One thing that we really appreciated about Tad Lo was the civil engineering. We have a couple of photos to explain what we mean, but you can get the feeling that your days are numbered if you spend too long here…

Claire-
From Tad Lo we moved onto Champasek, where we stayed in another lovely riverside hotel, and checked out the ruins of an ancient temple. In the video below, I try to ride my bike, avoid traffic, and explain the brief history of Wat Phou, and it comes out sounding like something Bush would say, as I talk about ‘those guys’. What I meant was that both Ankor Wat and Wat Phou were built by the Khmer Empire. We only stayed in Champasek for one night because we were looking forward to checking out the islands farther south, but we did get a chance to briefly meet up again with a guy from Vancouver we had originally met in Luang Prabang, and had a nice Valentine’s Day dinner drinking Lao Lao with him and a couple of others. We also had a fun time that night trying to figure out if the person serving us dinner was male or female – we saw several of these ‘what’s that? It’s Pat!’ people in Champasek during our 24 hours there, and wondered if it was a part of Laos that was more accepting of cross-gendered people or maybe a new social movement. Either way, ‘Pat’ sure was a fan of Seth, and gave him a large, toothy grin every time it saw him!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3309133011255932277The last picture below is of the ferry system across the Mekong…another great example of the superior engineering here. The most exciting moment was when our truck stalled on the ferry and had to be push-started as it rolled off the ferry over those sturdy looking planks…

Finally we arrived in Si Phan Don, the 4,000 Islands region that lies just north of Cambodia. We weren’t really able to count the islands, but I figure there were about 10 big ones, and a lot of little tufts of grass sticking out of the river (image). We stayed on the biggest island for two nights and Don Det, a smaller island without electricity, for two. I think we would have stayed a little longer if I hadn’t been sick and had to restock our tylenol supply (there being no pharmacy or doctor on the island), but as it was we still had enough time to get into the lounging swing of things down there. The people are, for the most part, really friendly and the days consist of riding around on bikes, checking out waterfalls, swimming in the river, or relaxing in a hammock with a book. Or, in my case, it’s more like lying in bed sweating with a fever and cursing the lack of a fan or a/c!
It seems for the most part that life on the islands still continues as it did before the nearby Laos/Cambodian border officially opened to foreign tourists three years ago and tourism grew exponentially in the area. However, I found that the fact that most tourists end up spending the equivalent of a month’s wages (in Lao terms) each day there is having a dividing effect among people on the island. There are, on one hand, the people who work in the tourism industry who grow wealthier, and on the other, the people who don’t work with tourists, who are still subsistence fishing and farming and don’t benefit much at all. When I think about the amount of garbage created and the stress on the ecosystem that the large numbers of foreigners have, I really hope that these people don’t end up losing their way of life.

Our last few days in Thailand were wonderful and we’ll just include the photos, since I’ve already gone on about the elephants! In the photo of me in front of the elephants, notice where the elephant on the left (the baby) is looking. Just moments after I stupidly tried to take my self-portrait, the baby almost managed to rip my hair out of my scalp in the quest for my sunglasses – the scamp! Too bad his trunk is already so strong! And we also managed to find some classy Thai farmer hats for about 30 cents, and now we are the most Thai looking tourists around…sort of.

We signed up for the 2-day, 14-hour slowboat ride to Luang Prabang, on the recomendations of a few friends (thanks Laura and Erin!). However, we weren’t quite prepared for how SLOW it would feel. The first day was lots of fun, as we ended up on the party boat, but the second day dragged on a bit, helped on by quite a few games of Soduku. They really packed us on like cattle and there were probably up to 100 people on the boat – not the most comfortable situation, especially with church pews as seats. But the scenery was breathtaking – thick jungle and isolated Lao villages. Both of us feel like we’d do it all over again if we got the chance.

Luang Prabang is a pleasant, if extremely touristy town. It has a wonderful night market and a very busy currency exchange office that will only give out the unstable ‘kip’ but won’t take it back! We’ve found it quite frustrating to figure out how much things are actually costing us, considering they quote and accept in baat, US dollars, and kip, and there are 9,300 kip to the dollar – not an easy thing to wrap our minds around. For instance, every night we spend about 50,000 kip on our hotel room! The pic below is of the food section of the night market, which has everything from freshly bbq’d fish to freshly stuffed entrails…maybe on their way to becoming sausage? We’re not entirely sure yet…

Tomorrow we head out on a 3-5 day cycling trip up north to Nong Khiaw, hoping to catch another slow boat back to Luang Prabang (we just can’t get enough of the bruises on our butts). We are armed with a map but it isn’t topographical so we may be turned around or rerouted by some steep terrain!

Well we somehow survived our 37 hour, 2000+ km train ride from Hampi back to the north, and arrived in Delhi for the second time.  However, two and a half months in India really prepared us for busy cities, and Delhi seems a lot more calm, pleasant, and manageable than back in October.  For example, arriving at the train station, we were barely hassled at all.  When we were last at that station, we were surrounded by touts and beggars all yelling at us and trying to head us off in their preferred direction.  I think we have perfected the ‘icy look of death’…!

Thankfully all that traveling was not in vain!  Hampi was easily one of the coolest sights that we have seen in India. It is unfortunate that such a nice place has a name that reminds me of a friend’s hampster, also with the same name, but nonetheless it managed to rise above my prejudice.   Not only did it have the impact of ancient Rome’s ruins, but one tenth the people (and the price)!  Hampi is the town which sits amidst the remains of a huge empire which ruled most of South India until it was sacked in the 16th Century.  What remains is a 27km square protected historical site with hundreds of temples and carvings spread out among huge boulder fields and banana plantations.  The town is peaceful and friendly, (except for the mosquitos) and the landscape is vast and powerful, with huge rocks that seem to be precariously balanced on each other (for those of you who know Wyoming, notice the striking resemblence to Veedawoo – except for the banana plantations and the river).

Although every single person told us it was “NOT possible” to cover the area on foot, we found that the roads didn’t really access everything we wanted to see, and walking was a much better pace anyway.  And less breathing in of exhaust.  So not only did we get some exercise, but we also got an in-depth tour of the plantation when we got lost and had to scale the palm tree and climb across the river to get back to the road.  After that we still felt like an adventure so we climbed to the top of the tallest mountain that we could find and took photo panoramas.

The rest of our time in Hampi was spent preparing for our marathon train ride.  After getting sick so many times we decided to try and take all our food with us.  The only problem was that the only food that could last in the heat was from the bakery and came prepackaged.  We have now proved that Snickers, chips and cake are all it really takes to survive in India.

After 6 days on Panolem Beach, we headed for Candolim, just north, to spend Christmas at a guesthouse we had reserved in advance…

Things didn’t work out quite the way we had envisioned, considering we walked into the garden and thought we had accidentally ended up in a retirement home.  And the blasting Christmas tunes didn’t improve our mood.  5 minutes later we had already had our first fight with the owner, amazed that her ‘free breakfast’ included only watery nescafe and two pieces of white toast.  All this for ten times what we normally pay for accomodation.  We ended up winning the battle for some fried eggs but the next day we set off to find some new, greener pastures.  The last ‘kick in the pants’ was when she served us the hard-won eggs and toast but denied us the butter until we had completed another argument.  Good times!

 This is the sign for the restaurant where we ate our xmas dinner…although we did not bathe or binge, much to the disappointment of the staff there!

Our Christmas day was 6 hot, dusty hours looking for the perfect spot in the hippie beach town of Anjuna.  Our search finally paid off 5 hours in, when a restauranteur called up his friend, who luckily had a suite in her place available.  As soon as we saw the brand-new house with green marbled floors, 15-foot coved ceilings, and our own private porch, and realized that it was half the price of our other place, we knew we were home!

With the money we saved, we rented a motorcycle for the week (if you happen to be our mothers you can go ahead and skip the next paragraph…) and spent the next 6 days tootling around town and daytripping up the coast.  Claire learned how to drive the little ‘Red Rocket’ and it was hard to get the driver seat back after that! One day we ended up at a beach near Arambol, with a freshwater lagoon just 30 feet from the ocean, and a hike through the jungle brought us to fresh mud baths and a huge, sacred Banyon tree with a 50M canopy span.  Pictures do not do it justice! Note in the last picture on the line that Claire is wearing her ‘water safety’ gear, a thoughtful Christmas gift from Seth.  Even on holiday, safety first!

Probably the highlight of the week was our night out on the town at Club Cubana, an open-air, three tiered club high up on a hill overlooking the Goan coast.  We had prepared for our big night out with an afternoon in the Anjuna markets and a few beers at a beach bar afterwards, listening to an aging hippie band that consisted of a sitar player, two drummers, a didge player, a guest accordian brought up rather randomly from the audience, and the star of the show, a mick jagger lookalike wearing skintight black pants two sizes too small, with a hairy belly hanging over the belt.  By this time we were PUMPED for our night out!  

We’ll be honest, the real draw to the club was that once cover was paid, all drinks were free all night.  And even better, the night we went, ladies cover was free!  So after Seth paid cover, we set off into the club to make sure we drank our money’s worth (not too tough!)  We were amazed by the decadence of the club, with multiple bars, free massages, and a pool with an incredible view of Goa.  We had a great time dancing and meeting all kinds of people and wishing this club existed in Vancouver…although the ski club would DEMOLISH it!

New Years was similarly fun, we got some gin and headed to the beach, where we discovered a bonfire, some good house music, dancing, and fireworks.  All was great until just after midnight when some drunken amateurs were setting fireworks off directly over (and into) the crowd.  After Claire found a spark on her foot, we decided to move along. 

Tomorrow, onto Hampi and then back to the North to check out the Rajasthan desert.

So we may not be decorating a Christmas tree this year, but drinking beer under a palm tree can be pretty festive too!  So after an arduous journey we arrived in heaven!  Goa is pretty amazing.  The food is incredible – the best we’ve had in India – but oddly enough, they can’t seem to make a good Indian dish!  They have, however, mastered fresh fish in the BBQ, thai curries, fruit lassis and cheap beer.

We thought that those of you enjoying the rain in BC, the snow in Colorado, or the wind in Chicago, we would outline a typical day here on Palolem beach, Goa.

As we rise grouchily from slumber to the typical Indian sound of someone horking up a giant spit ball we realize that it is almost 10 and we should be out of bed and embracing the day.  A short wander into town we gather fresh curd, milk, and fruit for our morning muesli and return to our coco-hut on the beach to eat on the portch in the shade.  Next we wander to one of the many restaurants along the beach front for a coffee and sit reading our books, playing Soduko, or writing in our journals.  The rest of the day is spent swimming, playing beach volley ball, sleeping, or having an evening workout in the ocean.

The pinnacle of the day occurs after dark as we spend 30min to an hour finding the perfect dinner spot.  Our criteria is harsh, we look at the menu and first of all judge on price.  No entre should be more than $2 and drinks should be less than $1.  Next is the display of fresh fish.  It should be only an hour or so from alive and be next to a BBQ and ready for cooking!  Last (but not least) is the atmosphere.  There should be good music, a young, English speaking crowd and hopefully a view of the beach (it is kind of escapism, but hey, this is our holiday from our holiday!)  The night is finished off with a beer or two on the beach, or a bit of shopping in the little town, and then back to sleep for a long, deep slumber!

So for those of you in the colder regions of the planet, rest assured that we are thinking about you (and the great skiing!) and wish you a Merry Christmas and (if you don’t hear from us by then) a Happy New Years!

So, we never did get a chance to write about Agra, you know, with the fever and the sickness and all.  It can pretty much be summed up by saying that the Taj Mahal is a very worthwhile, but also very expensive tourist attraction.  At 750Rs each it was more than two nights in our incredibly big, deluxe room with TWO queen size beds – and a room big enough to practice our cartwheel skills!

So we left Varanasi, feeling good that we could still find our way around an Indian city and have fun (and we felt that much holier), and traveled back to the countryside.

An overnight train journey took us to Gwalior where we saw a fort at hyper-speed and were back on the train for Orcha in only 4 hours – and that included lunch!  Needless to say the Gwalior fort wasn’t all that great, mostly due to the screaming hordes of school children that were on a field trip to see the fort and the tourists within.

Orcha is a 16km tempo-ride (sort of a shared rickshaw) from the train station and we were lucky enough to share it with a fat, happy, bean eating and bean throwing Indian lady!  She made our day forcing us to eat copious amounts of peas and throw the husks at the other tempos!

Orcha was great.  After doing our laundry in the morning (a surprisingly gratifying activity) we visited the fort, went swimming in the river – skinny dipping actually – and then went to the old temple.  We are generally forted and templed out, but the ones in this town were so unpresumptious that we could help but to love them.  And the thing that really made our day was having a swimming-hole just outside of town all to ourselves, to lay in the sun and read.  No staring.  No conversations.  It was heaven!

The next day our whirlwind schedule took us to Agra.  This trip was one of our more ‘interesting’.  First off, we happened to share a sleeper compartment with the prince of a grand old estate and as we went deeper into conversation we discovered that this French student in Delhi had his own Lamborgini, houses and cars in Australia, Mumbai, and all over the world, as well as a plethora of servants.  Needless to say we got his number in Dehli and secured (hopefully) a place to stay with a train station pickup in a Lamborgini.

This distraction from the outside world caused us to miss our stop and travel an extra 45 min and 60 km past Agra.  Oops!  Thankfully, general tickets were available to get us back, giving Claire a luggage rack seat in the crammed open seating compartment.  For those of you who don’t know what “general ticket” means in India, it gets you a ride on one of 4 cars that contain 90% of the people on any given train.  Cheep and always available, it was our only option, and we were just lucky to be able to get on (and off) at the right times.

When we got to Agra, we took a rickshaw to our hotel, only to find out that they had given our room away.  Apparently reservations are good for a 2 hour window!  Luckily we ended up at a nice place with a view of the Taj Mahal, and a room with 2 double beds and a gymnasium sized floor.  So much space is something we haven’t experienced for awhile in this highly populated country!

After an incredibly long journey from Kathmandu (11 hours on the bus and 6 on the train), we got the chance not only to check out another night at our FAVORITE town, Gorakpur (see the post involving lots of puking and rudeness) but also we got to meet about 647 new ‘best friends’ on the train.  A milestone – we started saying we were married and pretending we spoke French.  Kind of got busted reading a poster written in English though, oops!  We had a lot more patience our first two months, but after awhile, answering the same 5 question over and over again, and getting stared at for literally HOURS in a row gets to be a bit much. 

So it was with relief that we checked into our lovely family-owned guesthouse overlooking the sacred Ganga in Varanasi, and we had a chance to unpack and relax.  Our first impressions of Varanasi exceeded our expectations, and while it was dusty, hot and busy, it had an incredibly spiritual and holy presence.

We walked down the ghats, which are stairs leading to the river, we were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things happening – people washing clothes, bathing, burning their loved ones’ bodies, and praying.  The incredible thing is that this happens every single day of the year.  Some of the ghats had a very somber tone, while a few felt like we were at a mini-carnaval.  The interesting thing was that the cremation ghats were not somber at all – they had the busy feel of a marketplace as people bartered for the wood and services of the Untouchable caste members to handle the dead bodies.  If we hadn’t known what was in the wrapped cloths, we would not have immediately known that people were saying final goodbyes to their family members.  It really spoke to the power that people here feel is connected to this section of the river.

At the end of the day, we watched the beautiful sunset from our rooftop, and were entertained by the little boys playing with their kites.  It reminded us very much of scenes from the book ‘The Kiterunner’ as they fought each other and ran after the fallen kites.  However, we WERE in India and soon enough the romantical mood was broken by a bloated cow carcass floating up in the river and being attacked by a pack of ravenous street dogs.  As they tugged off one of its legs, we knew we were at home.  At the end of our stay in Varanasi, we were in love with the city and were well rested for the next ‘leg’ of our journey.

After much anticipation, we arrived in Kathmandu in the middle of rush hour.  We got a good view of the ‘automotive’ area of town while our bus waited in traffic with its engine off.  When it dropped us at the bus station (actually just a dirty street corner) we found a nice hotel and settled in for the evening. 

After our three days there, we had spent two of them doing chores and planning the next month of our trip, and only one day really ‘sightseeing’.  However, we didn’t feel like we missed out on much, in many ways the city disappointed us and we looked forward so much to returning to India.  At the end of a month in Nepal, we felt that the country really seemed to alienate us – in Nepal you are never a traveler, always a tourist.  There are special buses and every restaurant has a tourist menu with inflated prices and dulled down spices.  We did manage to get away from this a bit on our trek but it was never more evident than in the capital.  Kathmandu had some nice sights – we hiked up to a hill for a view of the city (covered in smog and haze), saw some gorgeous temples compete with resident playful monkeys, and stumbled across many hidden religious sites during our wanderings, but we missed the fairness of being able to haggle right alongside the locals and catch whichever bus we want.  Of course, Nepal does a few things the best: incredible bakeries (best chocolate cake ever in kathmandu, we went there every day) and more general politeness.  And it turned out to be quite the competetor with India in the ‘funny signs’ competition – when we entered the park to climb up the hill above the city, the sign announced that we would have to pay 20 rupees to walk on the path.  We felt relieved, because the same sign announced that if we happened to be riding an elephant, we would have had to pay 100 rupees.   

Overall, we did have a relaxing few days in the capital, but recommend the rural areas to the smog and busy nature of the city.  However, it did provide us with all the tools necessary to learn how to book our Indian rail tickets online (2 hours), plan our month and book said rail tickets (8 hours) and begin our search for accomodation in Goa over Christmas and New years (ongoing).