Day 154 - ? (going to have to open up my older notebook to find out the day-count)
And now, a brief recap of Syria.
Damascus: The walled old-town here is wonderful. Old stone buildings seems to lean towards each other blocking the sun from reaching the cobblestone alleyways that lay between. Formidable walls hem the area in from the modern capital of Syria and the remnants of what was once a very exotic hustle and bustle linger still. I'm sure that in the distant past there was a different way of life here - that people lived whole lives entirely within the walls.
The Damascus souk (market) is nice also... a sprawling mall of a marketplace.
Ate dinner twice at "Rosini" and nice fake Italian restaurant. Mia and I shared pasta and pizza way too often for my waistline to handle.
Qunetera: I visited this ghost town with Mia and one other Japanese fellow. It's a ghost town in the Golan Heights, originally captured by Israel in the six days war and liberated by Syria in the Yom Kippur war. Destroyed wholly by retreating Israeli forces in the latter conflict it now lies in ruins, abandoned and tainted by land-mines. Despite that danger, a few shepards graze their animals in the fields around teh city sight.
The Crac Des Chevallier: A few hours north of Damascus is this awesome crusader castle. One of the finest castles I have ever seen, it's a feast for the eyes and the imagination, with walls, towers, turrets, a moat.... well, all of that castle stuff. A true highlight of any trip to Syria.
Lattakia: Further north is this hip college town. Not much to see (just a few decent beaches and a middling museum) but it's neat to witness the presence of so many "hip" and "progressive" minded Syrians. Very few Burqas around here - mostly just revealing tops and skin tight jeans.
Aleppo: Further north... again. Much more conservative around Syria's second largest city. But it's a nice town, with a great old citadel and a decent museum. The Christian old town and the souk are similar to what is found in Damascus, but strangely enough they both seem a bit more touristy.
A note for travellers: the Spring Flower Hostel IS as horrible and creepy as the lonely planet suggests it is. Women travellers should avoid it at all costs. If you do stay, make sure to lock your doors: staff WILL come into your room at night for a peek. This warning goes double for Asian travellers.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Day 153
As you (who?) know, the online journal found here consists of excerpts from my paper journal. It's almost the same as the paper one, except that I (generally) excise all of the personal, emotional stuff. Some shit's private, right?
So, um, I think I'll excise ALL of Syria and post some sort of synopsis here instead. Look for that in a few days.
As you (who?) know, the online journal found here consists of excerpts from my paper journal. It's almost the same as the paper one, except that I (generally) excise all of the personal, emotional stuff. Some shit's private, right?
So, um, I think I'll excise ALL of Syria and post some sort of synopsis here instead. Look for that in a few days.
Day 152:
The Jordanian people seem very proud of the stability that their country enjoys. There is, here, a longstanding and benevolent monarchy. There is stable governance and economic growth, despite Jordan's relative lack of oil. Indeed, Jordan is a better place to live than many of it's oil rich neighbours. Jordan has also been blessed with some amount of empty space... it's a rather large country, with a rather small population. Things are not crowded here, nor are they overburdened as they are in Egypt. I've noticed, also, that many Jordanian people look down on the fundamentalism found elsewhere in the region (Iran, especially). For good reason.
So, yeah, I'm in Syria now. I got in! I didn't think that I would, actually: visitors are officially required to apply for a visa in their home country, something that was impossible for me to do. But... I just showed up at the border, paid my 56 bucks and thirty minutes later I was on the road to Damascus.
There is one quirk of middle eastern travel that all backpackers know: if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport, you will be denied entry to a host of Islamic countries (namely Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, UAE). There was a lady in line behind me who was forbidden entry for that reason. Curiously, she did NOT have that stamp, bur rather officials pointed at some residue from a sticker that was peeled off of the back of her passport. Odd, that.
I spent my first day in Damascus, the Syrian capital, wandering the street of the old, walled, centre of town. Nice winding alleyways, cobblestone streets and tenth century mosques. I saw Saladin's final resting place, a nice complement to my visit to Kerak castle a few days ago I think.
The Jordanian people seem very proud of the stability that their country enjoys. There is, here, a longstanding and benevolent monarchy. There is stable governance and economic growth, despite Jordan's relative lack of oil. Indeed, Jordan is a better place to live than many of it's oil rich neighbours. Jordan has also been blessed with some amount of empty space... it's a rather large country, with a rather small population. Things are not crowded here, nor are they overburdened as they are in Egypt. I've noticed, also, that many Jordanian people look down on the fundamentalism found elsewhere in the region (Iran, especially). For good reason.
So, yeah, I'm in Syria now. I got in! I didn't think that I would, actually: visitors are officially required to apply for a visa in their home country, something that was impossible for me to do. But... I just showed up at the border, paid my 56 bucks and thirty minutes later I was on the road to Damascus.
There is one quirk of middle eastern travel that all backpackers know: if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport, you will be denied entry to a host of Islamic countries (namely Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, UAE). There was a lady in line behind me who was forbidden entry for that reason. Curiously, she did NOT have that stamp, bur rather officials pointed at some residue from a sticker that was peeled off of the back of her passport. Odd, that.
I spent my first day in Damascus, the Syrian capital, wandering the street of the old, walled, centre of town. Nice winding alleyways, cobblestone streets and tenth century mosques. I saw Saladin's final resting place, a nice complement to my visit to Kerak castle a few days ago I think.
Day 149, 150, 151
I love it when a plan comes together.
Ahem.
My original plan, to follow Petra, was to spend a day and a night at each of Sarnok castle and Kerak castle - two old crusader castles north of Wadi Musa. Following that, I planned to spend three nights in Amman and then move on to Syria (or Lebanon or Turkey or Israel or whichever country would issue me a tourist visa). But instead of sleeping at those castles, I found a taxi driver who was willing to take me all the way to Amman and was willing to stop and wait for me while I explored each of those castles for a couple of hours. Thusly, I managed to shave two days off of my journey! Fourth months ago I wouldn't have CARED about two nights, but now I am anxious to visit friends in France and then get back to Canada before November sets in.
Those two castles, by the way, were wonderful to visit. The pyramids and even Petra were amazing and awe-inspiring and all of that, but visiting a place that I have spent some time studying (university, yo) is intellectually stimulating. I don't really know who the Nabateans were, nor do I really know what the ancient Egyptians were all about, but I have a pretty decent idea of what the crusaders were up to.
Of the two castles, Kerak played a larger role in the history of the region. It was there that Reynald of Chamblay (wikipedia, yo) commanded his armies and where he died while under seige by the armies of Saladin, whose prowess in battle sealed the fate of all of the crusaders. Today the castle is a crumbling affair, though restoration continues and visitors can clearly see walls, rooms, churches and towers. It's a very photogenic place, and I snapped a few nice pictures.
The fort was built in the early 12th century, I think and was captured by the Muslim armies towards the middle of the 13th.
Curiously, I was interested to learn that the Mongols plowed into the middle east around 1260, around the end of the crusader period here. Truly, in the 13th century, the entire world found it's way to the holy land.
While Kerak has more history (and more restoration work), Sarok castle was much more FUN to visit. This was mainly due to the fact that Sarok has an ESCAPE TUNNEL that visitors can crawl through. Indeed... despite my claustrophobia, I made the 20 minute trip down into the bowels of the earth.... in pitch dark, aided by a flashlight. And fuck, man, REALLY FUCKING SCARY. The crusaders didn't fuck around when it came to digging escape tunnels. Making my way deep into the ground was the scariest thing I have ever done, probably.
Anyways: the tunnel eventually exits at the base of a hill, rather far away from the castle.
Yikes.
I'm at the "Sultan Hotel" in Amman. Like I said, things have really come together. This hotel is great, and my taxi driver put it all together for me, arranging a great price. I'm paying about nine dollars for a great double room with a private bathroom, satellite TV and hot water. That would have cost me 15 or 20 bucks had I tried getting it on my own.
I've visited some of Amman's ancient sights, including a restored Roman Theatre (looking exactly as you might expect) and a pair of small folk museums built in the wings. I spend my evenings here watching BBC world and "Tyra," my new favorite talk show. Ever.
(also: I spent nine bucks chasing a Poste Restante letter from Jennifer all over town. And you know what? I found it. I love it when a plan comes together.)
I love it when a plan comes together.
Ahem.
My original plan, to follow Petra, was to spend a day and a night at each of Sarnok castle and Kerak castle - two old crusader castles north of Wadi Musa. Following that, I planned to spend three nights in Amman and then move on to Syria (or Lebanon or Turkey or Israel or whichever country would issue me a tourist visa). But instead of sleeping at those castles, I found a taxi driver who was willing to take me all the way to Amman and was willing to stop and wait for me while I explored each of those castles for a couple of hours. Thusly, I managed to shave two days off of my journey! Fourth months ago I wouldn't have CARED about two nights, but now I am anxious to visit friends in France and then get back to Canada before November sets in.
Those two castles, by the way, were wonderful to visit. The pyramids and even Petra were amazing and awe-inspiring and all of that, but visiting a place that I have spent some time studying (university, yo) is intellectually stimulating. I don't really know who the Nabateans were, nor do I really know what the ancient Egyptians were all about, but I have a pretty decent idea of what the crusaders were up to.
Of the two castles, Kerak played a larger role in the history of the region. It was there that Reynald of Chamblay (wikipedia, yo) commanded his armies and where he died while under seige by the armies of Saladin, whose prowess in battle sealed the fate of all of the crusaders. Today the castle is a crumbling affair, though restoration continues and visitors can clearly see walls, rooms, churches and towers. It's a very photogenic place, and I snapped a few nice pictures.
The fort was built in the early 12th century, I think and was captured by the Muslim armies towards the middle of the 13th.
Curiously, I was interested to learn that the Mongols plowed into the middle east around 1260, around the end of the crusader period here. Truly, in the 13th century, the entire world found it's way to the holy land.
While Kerak has more history (and more restoration work), Sarok castle was much more FUN to visit. This was mainly due to the fact that Sarok has an ESCAPE TUNNEL that visitors can crawl through. Indeed... despite my claustrophobia, I made the 20 minute trip down into the bowels of the earth.... in pitch dark, aided by a flashlight. And fuck, man, REALLY FUCKING SCARY. The crusaders didn't fuck around when it came to digging escape tunnels. Making my way deep into the ground was the scariest thing I have ever done, probably.
Anyways: the tunnel eventually exits at the base of a hill, rather far away from the castle.
Yikes.
I'm at the "Sultan Hotel" in Amman. Like I said, things have really come together. This hotel is great, and my taxi driver put it all together for me, arranging a great price. I'm paying about nine dollars for a great double room with a private bathroom, satellite TV and hot water. That would have cost me 15 or 20 bucks had I tried getting it on my own.
I've visited some of Amman's ancient sights, including a restored Roman Theatre (looking exactly as you might expect) and a pair of small folk museums built in the wings. I spend my evenings here watching BBC world and "Tyra," my new favorite talk show. Ever.
(also: I spent nine bucks chasing a Poste Restante letter from Jennifer all over town. And you know what? I found it. I love it when a plan comes together.)
Friday, October 12, 2007
Day 148:
"Are they your wives?"
"Nah..."
"I have FOUR wives."
"That's a lot of wives. Are they pretty?"
"No, not any more."
"Oh"
"My father had SEVEN wives."
Is that even allowed?
I spent another day at Petra, gawking at some tombs, monuments and the like. Again, all carved into the cliff side of a hidden and impossibly striking valley. Well... I don't even know if valley is the right word... some of the sight resembles the Grand Canyon, some of it is just a stretch of land hemmed in by rocky hills and mountains.
I'm no doctor, folks.
"Are they your wives?"
"Nah..."
"I have FOUR wives."
"That's a lot of wives. Are they pretty?"
"No, not any more."
"Oh"
"My father had SEVEN wives."
Is that even allowed?
I spent another day at Petra, gawking at some tombs, monuments and the like. Again, all carved into the cliff side of a hidden and impossibly striking valley. Well... I don't even know if valley is the right word... some of the sight resembles the Grand Canyon, some of it is just a stretch of land hemmed in by rocky hills and mountains.
I'm no doctor, folks.
Day 147:
D asked me a while ago if I am awestruck when seeing the "wonders of the world..." if I am bowled over.
Sometimes, I said. Not at the Great Wall - it's overly reconstructed and fake. Not really at the Taj Mahal - it's just not that interesting. A little bit, maybe, at the Potala in Lhasa. The natural wonders of the world, generally, are what do it for me... the occasion of staring into the Nile, and up at the peak of Mount Everest are the events that have struck me sideways. Likewise, laying in the sand dunes of the Gobi counting shooting stars by the dozens left me senseless for a week.
I'm at Petra now. It impresses as both a natural and man made wonder. Carved into the sides of a hidden valley are dozens of temples, tombs, palaces... and even simple storerooms and stables. All of it is more than two thousand years old.
It's all stunning. The approach to the sight - a 1.2 kilometer defile - is a sort of canyon, with impossibly high sides, incredibly far from the sky above is incredible. It's like walking through the grand canyon, perhaps, with the expectation that something BETTER is to come. And something even cooler does arrive... at its end, the canyon deposits visitors at the steps of the Al-Khazneh, an impressive facade carved, like everything else here out of the pink sandstone of the cliff side (and yeah, you might recognize the sight from that Indiana Jones movie that was filmed here).
And, well, pictures are necessary in order to describe the rest of Petra. There is the Al-Khazneh... and it IS incredible, and then there are fifty more sights just like it down the road: a 7000 seat theatre, the "Great Temple," and most impressive of all, "Al-Dier" - a massive monastery some 50 feet high into the cliff. Everything is so MASSIVE, indeed.
Anyways. Got up nice and early and took a minibus to get here. Arrived around eleven am. The town surrounding Petra is called Wadi Musa. I found a clean and quiet little hotel without too much difficulty and negotiated a fair price. I'm going to spend tomorrow making a second visit to Petra. I'll leave here the day after tomorrow... I hope to visit a couple of crusader castles to the north. I've decided that there will be no DAWDLING in Jordan.
D asked me a while ago if I am awestruck when seeing the "wonders of the world..." if I am bowled over.
Sometimes, I said. Not at the Great Wall - it's overly reconstructed and fake. Not really at the Taj Mahal - it's just not that interesting. A little bit, maybe, at the Potala in Lhasa. The natural wonders of the world, generally, are what do it for me... the occasion of staring into the Nile, and up at the peak of Mount Everest are the events that have struck me sideways. Likewise, laying in the sand dunes of the Gobi counting shooting stars by the dozens left me senseless for a week.
I'm at Petra now. It impresses as both a natural and man made wonder. Carved into the sides of a hidden valley are dozens of temples, tombs, palaces... and even simple storerooms and stables. All of it is more than two thousand years old.
It's all stunning. The approach to the sight - a 1.2 kilometer defile - is a sort of canyon, with impossibly high sides, incredibly far from the sky above is incredible. It's like walking through the grand canyon, perhaps, with the expectation that something BETTER is to come. And something even cooler does arrive... at its end, the canyon deposits visitors at the steps of the Al-Khazneh, an impressive facade carved, like everything else here out of the pink sandstone of the cliff side (and yeah, you might recognize the sight from that Indiana Jones movie that was filmed here).
And, well, pictures are necessary in order to describe the rest of Petra. There is the Al-Khazneh... and it IS incredible, and then there are fifty more sights just like it down the road: a 7000 seat theatre, the "Great Temple," and most impressive of all, "Al-Dier" - a massive monastery some 50 feet high into the cliff. Everything is so MASSIVE, indeed.
Anyways. Got up nice and early and took a minibus to get here. Arrived around eleven am. The town surrounding Petra is called Wadi Musa. I found a clean and quiet little hotel without too much difficulty and negotiated a fair price. I'm going to spend tomorrow making a second visit to Petra. I'll leave here the day after tomorrow... I hope to visit a couple of crusader castles to the north. I've decided that there will be no DAWDLING in Jordan.
Day 146:
I dig Jordan!
Though I paid extra to get on the "fast" ferry to Jordan, going was slow last night. I think I finally made my way through customs on the Jordanian side around seven pm... about five hours late.
But no worries: Jordan is quite nice. It's fairly more developed that Egypt, which makes it cleaner, and more hassle-free. Things are a bit more expensive here, however.
I'm in the city of Aqaba, which is Jordan's only port town (check your atlas, yo). I think that Lawrence of Arabia spent some time here back in the day. It's a quaint town, with only a token few sights for the tourists. I, of course, visited every last one of 'em. First up with the "Ayola" (??) ruins, an archaeological excavation of some old city buildings and temple ruins. That was such a neat "roadside attraction," not much to see - just the outlines of some old walls, and a camel tethered to an explanatory sign - but the roughly two acre sight has a little path that one is supposed to follow, complete with signs that provides a sort of commentary. I found all of it so "small town" and so damn cute.
Next up was Aqaba Castle. Little more than a ruin now, the sight does have some neat history behind it. Originally a crusader castle, it was one of the southern most fortifications that the crusaders built. Eventually abandoned by the crusaders when they were chased out of the regions, it was built up again by the Mamaluks, who held power in the middle east in the post-crusader period. The castle stood for some centuries after that, eventually being destroyed by allied shelling in the first world war. Now restored (a little bit) a Hashemite (The Jordanian royal family) coat of arms adorns it's main entrance.
Nice little history, that. Empires come and go. Castles remain, it seems.
Beside the castle is a small community museum. Like the ruins, it is very quaint and cute. Adorably, so of course... someone is trying really hard to make something interesting with very few resources. The museum reminds me a bit of the Dartmouth Heritage Museum back home, actually; inconsequential, but appreciated nonetheless.
Interestingly, some of the archaeological exhibits at the museum were created by people from the University of Victoria - there has been a Canadian dig north of the city ongoing since the 1980s.
I spoke to my father on the telephone today. We spoke about how nice it is to visit seemingly "inconsequential" cities... places like, say, Saskatoon. I referenced all of those silly cities I spent time at in "Chinese China" between Xi'an and Xinjiang. It's those places that have a real "sense of nostalgia" to them. Though not of consequence, they are places that are very important to the people that live in them. And that makes all the difference.
I dig Jordan!
Though I paid extra to get on the "fast" ferry to Jordan, going was slow last night. I think I finally made my way through customs on the Jordanian side around seven pm... about five hours late.
But no worries: Jordan is quite nice. It's fairly more developed that Egypt, which makes it cleaner, and more hassle-free. Things are a bit more expensive here, however.
I'm in the city of Aqaba, which is Jordan's only port town (check your atlas, yo). I think that Lawrence of Arabia spent some time here back in the day. It's a quaint town, with only a token few sights for the tourists. I, of course, visited every last one of 'em. First up with the "Ayola" (??) ruins, an archaeological excavation of some old city buildings and temple ruins. That was such a neat "roadside attraction," not much to see - just the outlines of some old walls, and a camel tethered to an explanatory sign - but the roughly two acre sight has a little path that one is supposed to follow, complete with signs that provides a sort of commentary. I found all of it so "small town" and so damn cute.
Next up was Aqaba Castle. Little more than a ruin now, the sight does have some neat history behind it. Originally a crusader castle, it was one of the southern most fortifications that the crusaders built. Eventually abandoned by the crusaders when they were chased out of the regions, it was built up again by the Mamaluks, who held power in the middle east in the post-crusader period. The castle stood for some centuries after that, eventually being destroyed by allied shelling in the first world war. Now restored (a little bit) a Hashemite (The Jordanian royal family) coat of arms adorns it's main entrance.
Nice little history, that. Empires come and go. Castles remain, it seems.
Beside the castle is a small community museum. Like the ruins, it is very quaint and cute. Adorably, so of course... someone is trying really hard to make something interesting with very few resources. The museum reminds me a bit of the Dartmouth Heritage Museum back home, actually; inconsequential, but appreciated nonetheless.
Interestingly, some of the archaeological exhibits at the museum were created by people from the University of Victoria - there has been a Canadian dig north of the city ongoing since the 1980s.
I spoke to my father on the telephone today. We spoke about how nice it is to visit seemingly "inconsequential" cities... places like, say, Saskatoon. I referenced all of those silly cities I spent time at in "Chinese China" between Xi'an and Xinjiang. It's those places that have a real "sense of nostalgia" to them. Though not of consequence, they are places that are very important to the people that live in them. And that makes all the difference.
Day 145:
Sometimes my Lonely Planet hits on the perfect word. Case in point: it describes the departure procedures at the Nuweiba port as "Shambolic." A perfect word! Damn it, but I think that the greatest accomplishment of the western world is our development of the concept of "lining up." Her in Egypt, as in EVERY OTHER COUNTRY I have visited so far, no one possesses any queuing mentality, but rather a mentality of pushing, yelling, shoving and butting ahead whenever possible. Eeek.
I'm on the boat now. We haven't yet departed. I'm not really sure why. I think that I have inadvertently sat down in the "women and children" section. Whoops. But anyways: the voyage to Jordan should only take an hour.
There is a nice restaurant in Nuweiba called "Dr. Sheesh Kebab." Nice food and nice staff is found there. Everyone should check it out. The place I slept at - "Soft Beach" - is decent enough, but like I said last time the ownership sends bad vibes towards people that don't spend much time at the in-house restaurant.
I tried to write a letter on the beach, but the words didn't come. The letter got away from me, so I threw it into the sea.
Sometimes my Lonely Planet hits on the perfect word. Case in point: it describes the departure procedures at the Nuweiba port as "Shambolic." A perfect word! Damn it, but I think that the greatest accomplishment of the western world is our development of the concept of "lining up." Her in Egypt, as in EVERY OTHER COUNTRY I have visited so far, no one possesses any queuing mentality, but rather a mentality of pushing, yelling, shoving and butting ahead whenever possible. Eeek.
I'm on the boat now. We haven't yet departed. I'm not really sure why. I think that I have inadvertently sat down in the "women and children" section. Whoops. But anyways: the voyage to Jordan should only take an hour.
There is a nice restaurant in Nuweiba called "Dr. Sheesh Kebab." Nice food and nice staff is found there. Everyone should check it out. The place I slept at - "Soft Beach" - is decent enough, but like I said last time the ownership sends bad vibes towards people that don't spend much time at the in-house restaurant.
I tried to write a letter on the beach, but the words didn't come. The letter got away from me, so I threw it into the sea.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Day 143, 144
People came after me, now they have left. I've been here too long. Every day I stagger around the beachfront. I walk very, very slowly. If I squint, I can see Saudi Arabia across the sea. The staff of the place that rents the huts is angry with me because I don't spent any money at their restaurant.
Going to leave tomorrow for sure.
Ramadan started today. I've been careful to show some cultural sensitivity by not eating in public places. While I was busy being sensitive, though, I spotted a big Russian guy sitting in the Internet place holding a Carlsburg in either hand, with a cigarette in his mouth.
Rock, 'bro.
I've read an entire Michael Chrieton novel. Time to leave the beach.
People came after me, now they have left. I've been here too long. Every day I stagger around the beachfront. I walk very, very slowly. If I squint, I can see Saudi Arabia across the sea. The staff of the place that rents the huts is angry with me because I don't spent any money at their restaurant.
Going to leave tomorrow for sure.
Ramadan started today. I've been careful to show some cultural sensitivity by not eating in public places. While I was busy being sensitive, though, I spotted a big Russian guy sitting in the Internet place holding a Carlsburg in either hand, with a cigarette in his mouth.
Rock, 'bro.
I've read an entire Michael Chrieton novel. Time to leave the beach.
Day 141, 142
Ah, Nuweiba. As I wrote last time, Dahab didn't do it for me. Too crowded, too busy. Too urgent.
But Nuweiba is nice. It's got a lot of great beachfront, and not too many visitors. I think that this place must have seen a lot of tourist traffic in the past; near my beach hut there is a strange promenade of unoccupied hotels and shuttered restaurants, along with a few touts trying to move some very dusty merchandise. Where did all the tourists go? I've been told that this place was very popular with Israeli vacationers, and that they stopped coming when some bombs went off in the region a few years ago. I think there was one at Dahab, and one at Taba.
Sort of a ghost town for the time being.
So, yeah. I'm not much of an "on the beach" sort of guy, but I'm enjoying myself regardless. I've procured a little hut, and I spent each day here walking up and down the old promenade and up and down the beach. A few times each day I wander fifteen minutes down the road into town, looking for food and Internet connections.
Meanwhile, the skin on my arms and legs has become quite dark. I could be a local. My belly, though, is pink and irritated. Exposed to the sun for the first time in a millenia, it's having some trouble coping.
Everything seems to have ground to (another) halt. It's nice to linger here. The ferry to Jordan leaves from a port about eight kilometers from here and I expect to be on it soon enough - perhaps in a day or two.
Ramadan begins in a few days. Traveling through the Muslim world during that month ought to be a real treat. Perhaps strange... perhaps a little bit trying.
Ah, Nuweiba. As I wrote last time, Dahab didn't do it for me. Too crowded, too busy. Too urgent.
But Nuweiba is nice. It's got a lot of great beachfront, and not too many visitors. I think that this place must have seen a lot of tourist traffic in the past; near my beach hut there is a strange promenade of unoccupied hotels and shuttered restaurants, along with a few touts trying to move some very dusty merchandise. Where did all the tourists go? I've been told that this place was very popular with Israeli vacationers, and that they stopped coming when some bombs went off in the region a few years ago. I think there was one at Dahab, and one at Taba.
Sort of a ghost town for the time being.
So, yeah. I'm not much of an "on the beach" sort of guy, but I'm enjoying myself regardless. I've procured a little hut, and I spent each day here walking up and down the old promenade and up and down the beach. A few times each day I wander fifteen minutes down the road into town, looking for food and Internet connections.
Meanwhile, the skin on my arms and legs has become quite dark. I could be a local. My belly, though, is pink and irritated. Exposed to the sun for the first time in a millenia, it's having some trouble coping.
Everything seems to have ground to (another) halt. It's nice to linger here. The ferry to Jordan leaves from a port about eight kilometers from here and I expect to be on it soon enough - perhaps in a day or two.
Ramadan begins in a few days. Traveling through the Muslim world during that month ought to be a real treat. Perhaps strange... perhaps a little bit trying.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Day 138:
A do-nothing day today. I am waiting for my bus to Dahab. I strolled a bit, down the main promenade to a nice Internet cafe and then to a pizza and pasta restaurant that I found last night. Good food. Good prices, too.
I took a little boat trip around the river, but cut it short because the boat tout kept making annoying conversation as I tried to read my book. He insisted that we go in his "motorboat" rather than in a Felluca, which also pissed me off.
I'll miss the falafel place down the street from my hotel. The guys that run that restaurant are pleasant and the food I've eaten there has been good enough to help me get my appetite back. I lost it, as you may remember, way back in Dharamsala. I've lost a bit of weight since then, and am looking a bit too frail for my own good.
A do-nothing day today. I am waiting for my bus to Dahab. I strolled a bit, down the main promenade to a nice Internet cafe and then to a pizza and pasta restaurant that I found last night. Good food. Good prices, too.
I took a little boat trip around the river, but cut it short because the boat tout kept making annoying conversation as I tried to read my book. He insisted that we go in his "motorboat" rather than in a Felluca, which also pissed me off.
I'll miss the falafel place down the street from my hotel. The guys that run that restaurant are pleasant and the food I've eaten there has been good enough to help me get my appetite back. I lost it, as you may remember, way back in Dharamsala. I've lost a bit of weight since then, and am looking a bit too frail for my own good.
Day 137:
I was unnecessarily cross with the hotel manager today! Eeep... I really have reached some sort of breaking point. Gotta get home soon... I've no more patience for stupid people.
Went to Luxor's "west bank" today in a small group. The five of us went to see Luxor's most famous historical sights, particularly the "Valley of the Kings" where a slew of Pharaohs were entombed back in the day (including "King Tut"). Some dozen kings, queens and their children were laid to rest here, and great temples and statues were erected over the years as a means of perpetuating the personality cults of the old Egyptian rulers. Everything on the sight is massive and awe-inspiring (if only for reasons of SIZE) - more so, maybe, than the pyramids. The hieroglyphics readily on display here seem to make the site more humane and literary. Our group went inside three tombs.
One temple that we visited later was built by Ramses III as a way to celebrate his military victories over the Libyans. We learned that defeated soldiers were mutilated by the Egyptians... and such acts are depicted on the walls of the temple. We saw images of women COUNTING trophies collected from enemy soldiers... heads, hands and genitals. Hmmm.
Tomorrow afternoon I will begin a 16 hour bus ride to Dahab. I will be in Jordan in four days time, I hope. For the record I have so far spent nine days in Egypt.
I was unnecessarily cross with the hotel manager today! Eeep... I really have reached some sort of breaking point. Gotta get home soon... I've no more patience for stupid people.
Went to Luxor's "west bank" today in a small group. The five of us went to see Luxor's most famous historical sights, particularly the "Valley of the Kings" where a slew of Pharaohs were entombed back in the day (including "King Tut"). Some dozen kings, queens and their children were laid to rest here, and great temples and statues were erected over the years as a means of perpetuating the personality cults of the old Egyptian rulers. Everything on the sight is massive and awe-inspiring (if only for reasons of SIZE) - more so, maybe, than the pyramids. The hieroglyphics readily on display here seem to make the site more humane and literary. Our group went inside three tombs.
One temple that we visited later was built by Ramses III as a way to celebrate his military victories over the Libyans. We learned that defeated soldiers were mutilated by the Egyptians... and such acts are depicted on the walls of the temple. We saw images of women COUNTING trophies collected from enemy soldiers... heads, hands and genitals. Hmmm.
Tomorrow afternoon I will begin a 16 hour bus ride to Dahab. I will be in Jordan in four days time, I hope. For the record I have so far spent nine days in Egypt.
Day 136:
The museum, last night, was quite striking. While the Cairo museum was a nice old-world affair - very much an "Indiana Jones stayed here" kinda place - the Luxor museum is a modern, well thought out, informative and engrossing place. The history on display really does reach out and grab you. This is a good thing, because the Luxor museum contains the same statutes and pharonic relics as the Cairo museum, which I couldn't really relate to.
If anyone reading this managed to get to Luxor, I highly recommend exhibit 61, "Statute of King Thutmosis III," excavated from the nearby Karak temple. It's one of the finest examples of ancient Egyptian sculpture I have yet to see. It's fine details and wonderful restoration are breathtaking in all of it's essential simplicity. That piece alone makes me want to return to the museum for a second visit.
I spent today taking in the sights at Karak. The temples is all about columns and statutes. And a horde of visitors. It made for a pleasant few hours of walking and gawking under the hot sun. As usual, though, there is little y way of explanation on sight - perhaps to create work for the local tour companies.
The heat here has me moving at a snail's pace, spending a few hours touring each day, and the remainder of the day just reading, writing and napping. Tomorrow I plan to travel to the other side of the Nile to see the famous Valley of the Kings and all of the famous tombs therein. Exciting!
The museum, last night, was quite striking. While the Cairo museum was a nice old-world affair - very much an "Indiana Jones stayed here" kinda place - the Luxor museum is a modern, well thought out, informative and engrossing place. The history on display really does reach out and grab you. This is a good thing, because the Luxor museum contains the same statutes and pharonic relics as the Cairo museum, which I couldn't really relate to.
If anyone reading this managed to get to Luxor, I highly recommend exhibit 61, "Statute of King Thutmosis III," excavated from the nearby Karak temple. It's one of the finest examples of ancient Egyptian sculpture I have yet to see. It's fine details and wonderful restoration are breathtaking in all of it's essential simplicity. That piece alone makes me want to return to the museum for a second visit.
I spent today taking in the sights at Karak. The temples is all about columns and statutes. And a horde of visitors. It made for a pleasant few hours of walking and gawking under the hot sun. As usual, though, there is little y way of explanation on sight - perhaps to create work for the local tour companies.
The heat here has me moving at a snail's pace, spending a few hours touring each day, and the remainder of the day just reading, writing and napping. Tomorrow I plan to travel to the other side of the Nile to see the famous Valley of the Kings and all of the famous tombs therein. Exciting!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Day 135:
Luxor, now. I haven't actually DONE anything, but I have located a nice cafe, where I am sitting now... writing in this journal and drinking fine mint tea. The mint tea in India was nice: just regular tea with a bunch of fresh mint leaves stuck in the pot. I wonder now when I started to like the taste of tea, rather than simply liking the IDEA of tea. Perhaps that happened on the floor of a temple in Jeollanamdo.
I don't think that I will spend much time in Luxor. I will see the museum and the temples across the Nile and then move on. Save for the historical sights, the city seems unremarkable and charmless. I was thinking of spending ten days in each middle eastern country I visit (perhaps longer in Turkey) and today is my seventh day in Egypt. Even if I rush to Jordan I will surely end up staying longer than ten days.
Something interesting will happen tomorrow, maybe. I must close now and walk to the museum.
Luxor, now. I haven't actually DONE anything, but I have located a nice cafe, where I am sitting now... writing in this journal and drinking fine mint tea. The mint tea in India was nice: just regular tea with a bunch of fresh mint leaves stuck in the pot. I wonder now when I started to like the taste of tea, rather than simply liking the IDEA of tea. Perhaps that happened on the floor of a temple in Jeollanamdo.
I don't think that I will spend much time in Luxor. I will see the museum and the temples across the Nile and then move on. Save for the historical sights, the city seems unremarkable and charmless. I was thinking of spending ten days in each middle eastern country I visit (perhaps longer in Turkey) and today is my seventh day in Egypt. Even if I rush to Jordan I will surely end up staying longer than ten days.
Something interesting will happen tomorrow, maybe. I must close now and walk to the museum.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Day 133:
Went to the Giza Pyramids (and Sphinx) yesterday. Pretty cool. I love that they charge twenty five Egyptian pounds to go inside Khufu. After paying, one walks down a cramped tunnel for three minutes. That tunnel ends at an empty room. After looking around for a few minutes, one turns around and goes back out.
All for the price of a happy meal, ladies and gentlemen!
The Pyramids are impressive. But what does one write? Who knows, who knows?
The guy who manages my hotel is a twenty-three year old Egyptian national of Saudi extraction. He tells me that he has a girlfriend that he wants to marry, but that his father doesn't approve of. His father has another girl in mind. "I don't love her," he said to me. He also said this to his father, who said it isn't such a big deal, because if they have some marital problems, he can just take a second wife. And a third. And a fourth.
Oh to be a Saudi man.
Went to the Giza Pyramids (and Sphinx) yesterday. Pretty cool. I love that they charge twenty five Egyptian pounds to go inside Khufu. After paying, one walks down a cramped tunnel for three minutes. That tunnel ends at an empty room. After looking around for a few minutes, one turns around and goes back out.
All for the price of a happy meal, ladies and gentlemen!
The Pyramids are impressive. But what does one write? Who knows, who knows?
The guy who manages my hotel is a twenty-three year old Egyptian national of Saudi extraction. He tells me that he has a girlfriend that he wants to marry, but that his father doesn't approve of. His father has another girl in mind. "I don't love her," he said to me. He also said this to his father, who said it isn't such a big deal, because if they have some marital problems, he can just take a second wife. And a third. And a fourth.
Oh to be a Saudi man.
Day 132:
Alright, here's my story:
I spent the winter of 2004 hanging out with The Kid. The Kid was good to know because she introduced me to a lot of good music. Back then I wasn't very hip, musically speaking. I really liked The White Stripes and The Ramones, and I had once heard the name "Karen O." But, really, that was about the extent of my coolness.
One day The Kid said to me, "do you know Elliott Smith?"
I said, "Is he that guy from The Smiths?"
The Kid's response was one of astonishment and vague disdain. Fortunately I was able to pass of my honest reply as some sort of unfunny Joke.
...
Okay, that's my story.
Alright, here's my story:
I spent the winter of 2004 hanging out with The Kid. The Kid was good to know because she introduced me to a lot of good music. Back then I wasn't very hip, musically speaking. I really liked The White Stripes and The Ramones, and I had once heard the name "Karen O." But, really, that was about the extent of my coolness.
One day The Kid said to me, "do you know Elliott Smith?"
I said, "Is he that guy from The Smiths?"
The Kid's response was one of astonishment and vague disdain. Fortunately I was able to pass of my honest reply as some sort of unfunny Joke.
...
Okay, that's my story.
Day 131:
I dig that there are Korean restaurants all over the developing world. I dig also that the only people we find dining at them are Korean people. Well, Korean people and former ESL teachers turned wayward backpackers.
I like to visit the Korean restaurants, rocking up in my dirty boots and ripped t-shirt. I like to eat my bibmbap in the style of Mr. Kim, the head of the parent's association at my old, twice a week, country school assignment in Suncheon. Mr. Kim was also a scruffy guy... HE was straight off the farm. Now at my city school post, the parents association was made up of 50 soccer-mom types, but in the country we had Mr. Kim. Indeed, he was a scruffy guy, but we were happy to have him - most of the kids at the country school didn't even HAVE parents, living instead with grandparents and aunts and uncles.
At the cafeteria lunch table, Mr. Kim's eating style was... well... it was all about the spoon. No chopsticks for Mr. Kim. Maybe you won't understand this if you haven't eaten at a Korean school cafeteria... but, yeah, Mr. Kim was rural and awesome. That's all you need to know.
I find that my Mr. Kim impersonation, performed at Korean restaurants in a half dozen countries so far leaves fellow diners mystified and confused.
I ate at the Hana Korea restaurant in Cairo this afternoon. Pretty decent... great rice. The K-restaurants in Delhi all used Indian rice. Yuck.
Spent today walking the streets, both in the claustrophobic and frantic downtown and in the upper-crust neighbourhood of Zamaluk. Mostly I was just looking for a Lonely Planet guide to Europe. After visiting four bookshops I gave up and went for lunch (see above). I saw a few nice buildings, including a big ol' cathedral, and a few nice gardens. From a busy bridge, I stared out at the mighty Nile river.
I dig that there are Korean restaurants all over the developing world. I dig also that the only people we find dining at them are Korean people. Well, Korean people and former ESL teachers turned wayward backpackers.
I like to visit the Korean restaurants, rocking up in my dirty boots and ripped t-shirt. I like to eat my bibmbap in the style of Mr. Kim, the head of the parent's association at my old, twice a week, country school assignment in Suncheon. Mr. Kim was also a scruffy guy... HE was straight off the farm. Now at my city school post, the parents association was made up of 50 soccer-mom types, but in the country we had Mr. Kim. Indeed, he was a scruffy guy, but we were happy to have him - most of the kids at the country school didn't even HAVE parents, living instead with grandparents and aunts and uncles.
At the cafeteria lunch table, Mr. Kim's eating style was... well... it was all about the spoon. No chopsticks for Mr. Kim. Maybe you won't understand this if you haven't eaten at a Korean school cafeteria... but, yeah, Mr. Kim was rural and awesome. That's all you need to know.
I find that my Mr. Kim impersonation, performed at Korean restaurants in a half dozen countries so far leaves fellow diners mystified and confused.
I ate at the Hana Korea restaurant in Cairo this afternoon. Pretty decent... great rice. The K-restaurants in Delhi all used Indian rice. Yuck.
Spent today walking the streets, both in the claustrophobic and frantic downtown and in the upper-crust neighbourhood of Zamaluk. Mostly I was just looking for a Lonely Planet guide to Europe. After visiting four bookshops I gave up and went for lunch (see above). I saw a few nice buildings, including a big ol' cathedral, and a few nice gardens. From a busy bridge, I stared out at the mighty Nile river.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Day 130
So here I am, outside of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Educational place. Sort of. It's a big, sprawling complex, packed to the rafters with... well, with "stuff." Really, for the casual visitor it's all a little random, with few information panels to explain the myriad of statues, gold ware, jewelery, tomb contents, carvings, potteries and knick-knacks that are on display. That said, the King Tut exhibition is quite nice and well explained and the centerpiece of the ground floor, two larger than life stone statues of some Pharaoh and his queen are rather stunning - they seem to hold court over the shambolic proceedings of the museum floor.
Lot of beautiful women here. Sort of. Like, they've got big breasts and lots of cleavage and short-shorts. And they speak with silly English accents. It's all sort of "chav," I guess you could say. Err... it's been awhile. I, uhm, got to Manali some weeks ago (months?) and upon seeing all the silly young hippies I proclaimed to S my love of white girls with big breasts. But upon seeing this? Uh... maybe I'll reconsider that proclamation...
So here I am, outside of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Educational place. Sort of. It's a big, sprawling complex, packed to the rafters with... well, with "stuff." Really, for the casual visitor it's all a little random, with few information panels to explain the myriad of statues, gold ware, jewelery, tomb contents, carvings, potteries and knick-knacks that are on display. That said, the King Tut exhibition is quite nice and well explained and the centerpiece of the ground floor, two larger than life stone statues of some Pharaoh and his queen are rather stunning - they seem to hold court over the shambolic proceedings of the museum floor.
Lot of beautiful women here. Sort of. Like, they've got big breasts and lots of cleavage and short-shorts. And they speak with silly English accents. It's all sort of "chav," I guess you could say. Err... it's been awhile. I, uhm, got to Manali some weeks ago (months?) and upon seeing all the silly young hippies I proclaimed to S my love of white girls with big breasts. But upon seeing this? Uh... maybe I'll reconsider that proclamation...
Day 128, 129
Egypt, now. It's been just a few hours so far. Seems okay - usual tout bullshit and price gouging, but not so nearly as obnoxious as in India. I got into an argument with a taxi driver who very much wanted to keep the change.
Anyways... Oman. Oman was pretty nice. Not nearly so hot as Dubai - a pleasant 30 degrees most afternoons, with night times that were breezy and wonderful. R and I spent out first couple of nights walking around Muscat, the capital, checking out the sights. We slept in Mutrah a neighbourhood of the capital district that is little more than a fish market and a gold and silver souk. There is a pleasant corniche (street?) that takes pedestrians and drivers from Mutrah to the old part of the capital... a (historically) walled area that houses some government buildings and the Sultan of Oman's palace. It also houses a very curious "Oman/France" friendship museum. Oman and France seemingly share very little history (about half of the museum's exhibits are about the museum's opening), but it is a pleasantly quaint place.
Later, a five hour bus ride took us to Sur, further along the coast. Sur is a soothing city, very laid-back and under-touristed. R and I visited an old fort on the outskirts of town which is ostensibly Sur's only "sight." Well... I should say that we TRIED to visit the fort; when we arrived, we found it closed up: without any visitors for some weeks, the sole museum, guide felt comfortable closing up to take a trip to the market for the afternoon.
Can't say I blame him...
Instead of visiting the castle R and I sat in the dirt and watched some children play dominoes. Those half dozen kids played the game like they were preparing to be 70 years old... slamming the dominoes in the dirt and actually keeping score in a ragged old school notebook. The eldest kid smoked a cigarette that the youngest fetched for him half way through the game.
And I guess that's Oman, in a nutshell. A few nice markets, a laid back pace, lots of Islam, nice buses, pricey taxi cabs...
R has left for America. I'm on my own again. Some words about Egypt next time.
Egypt, now. It's been just a few hours so far. Seems okay - usual tout bullshit and price gouging, but not so nearly as obnoxious as in India. I got into an argument with a taxi driver who very much wanted to keep the change.
Anyways... Oman. Oman was pretty nice. Not nearly so hot as Dubai - a pleasant 30 degrees most afternoons, with night times that were breezy and wonderful. R and I spent out first couple of nights walking around Muscat, the capital, checking out the sights. We slept in Mutrah a neighbourhood of the capital district that is little more than a fish market and a gold and silver souk. There is a pleasant corniche (street?) that takes pedestrians and drivers from Mutrah to the old part of the capital... a (historically) walled area that houses some government buildings and the Sultan of Oman's palace. It also houses a very curious "Oman/France" friendship museum. Oman and France seemingly share very little history (about half of the museum's exhibits are about the museum's opening), but it is a pleasantly quaint place.
Later, a five hour bus ride took us to Sur, further along the coast. Sur is a soothing city, very laid-back and under-touristed. R and I visited an old fort on the outskirts of town which is ostensibly Sur's only "sight." Well... I should say that we TRIED to visit the fort; when we arrived, we found it closed up: without any visitors for some weeks, the sole museum, guide felt comfortable closing up to take a trip to the market for the afternoon.
Can't say I blame him...
Instead of visiting the castle R and I sat in the dirt and watched some children play dominoes. Those half dozen kids played the game like they were preparing to be 70 years old... slamming the dominoes in the dirt and actually keeping score in a ragged old school notebook. The eldest kid smoked a cigarette that the youngest fetched for him half way through the game.
And I guess that's Oman, in a nutshell. A few nice markets, a laid back pace, lots of Islam, nice buses, pricey taxi cabs...
R has left for America. I'm on my own again. Some words about Egypt next time.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Day 122-127
I'm on the Arabian Peninsula! Oman, specifically. I don't really know how this happened.
A synopsis of a sort:
I left Delhi the morning of the twenty-second. I was sick at the airport, actually: one last bout of that bacterial bullshit that has been chasing me since Leh. It was quiet funny, really. At the check in counter I felt myself overcome and told the girl I had to scoot to the bathroom - "just wait five minutes, sir" ... "Nope, gotta go right now... bye!" Planning to throw up, I instead blacked out for a few moments on a bench halfway to the toilet. As if thanking me for getting a flight far away from India's dirty side streets and tourist ghettos my body decided to (finally) take care of itself and using a flash sweat it pushed the sickness right out of me long enough to let me check myself in and board my flight. For once I was able to get by without taking any antibiotics.
Flying with R, we stopped at Bahrain to change planes. R and I made a mad dash through customs so that we could spend a few hours poking around Manama, the capital. The city proved to be a curious, though agreeable city. Bahrain is quite a wealthy country, as is most of the peninsula (save Yemen). It's also a very EMPTY place, with a population of little more than 600,000. As a result, the streets of the capital are wide, clean and well maintained. It's a place full of American chain restaurants - TGIFriday, Chillies and Pappa John's are all well represented on the ground.
The people in the city are friendly, too, seemingly happy to encounter genuine tourists in a place where most people come only for business. We were given a lift by Khalil, a sales rep for Johnson and Johnson who happily explained that he's lived his whole life in the capital and that he loves the town and "knows everyone." Khalil really was a hoot... so happy with his work selling beauty products that he insisted on showing R every single page of his product catalogue while despairing the fact that he had no free samples to hand out.
Anyways, we wandered a bit around the bases of some impressive skyscrapers, sent a few postcards and then hurried back to the airport to get our connecting flight to Dubai. The departure area in the Bahrain airport, like all of Manama is a wide open and empty place, punctuated by high end retail spaces and chain restaurants. There many not be many Bahrainis on this planet, but those that DO exist seem to be in possession of some coin.
And then... Dubai.
Dubai is HOT. Forty degrees in the shade. Fuckin' 39 in the sun. NO relief! The heat is what visitors notice first. Then, one notices the cost of it all... ten dollar cab fares, eight dollar coffees, and the rest. R and I did get a good deal at a hotel by way of an Internet reservation, but I think I spent as much in Dubai in three days as I did in a month of India. Whoops.
But all in all, it's a pretty nice town. It's one of the wealthiest cities on the globe and also one of the most opulent. Fitting the THEME of it all, R and I spent an entire day at the City Center Mall, a sprawling retail complex of several floors. We enjoyed some retail successes at the bookstore and also at the movie theatre. Just getting to the mall was special experience - we staggered through 40 degree heat for about an hour, arriving exhausted and dehydrated, all the while mumbling platitudes about how awesome a guy Lawrence of Arabia was.
Even our hotel was, all by itself, a real fun experience. It was rather enlightening to see middle aged Saudi visitors dancing and getting drunk on forbidden Heineken in the hotel restaurant, all while wearing the usual white sheets and headpiece. We even had a very beautiful Arabic hooker knock on our door, trolling for business. One images that the Islamic world is not always like we think it is...
I'm in Oman now. Have been here for a couple of days. I'll write a bit about that next time.
I'm on the Arabian Peninsula! Oman, specifically. I don't really know how this happened.
A synopsis of a sort:
I left Delhi the morning of the twenty-second. I was sick at the airport, actually: one last bout of that bacterial bullshit that has been chasing me since Leh. It was quiet funny, really. At the check in counter I felt myself overcome and told the girl I had to scoot to the bathroom - "just wait five minutes, sir" ... "Nope, gotta go right now... bye!" Planning to throw up, I instead blacked out for a few moments on a bench halfway to the toilet. As if thanking me for getting a flight far away from India's dirty side streets and tourist ghettos my body decided to (finally) take care of itself and using a flash sweat it pushed the sickness right out of me long enough to let me check myself in and board my flight. For once I was able to get by without taking any antibiotics.
Flying with R, we stopped at Bahrain to change planes. R and I made a mad dash through customs so that we could spend a few hours poking around Manama, the capital. The city proved to be a curious, though agreeable city. Bahrain is quite a wealthy country, as is most of the peninsula (save Yemen). It's also a very EMPTY place, with a population of little more than 600,000. As a result, the streets of the capital are wide, clean and well maintained. It's a place full of American chain restaurants - TGIFriday, Chillies and Pappa John's are all well represented on the ground.
The people in the city are friendly, too, seemingly happy to encounter genuine tourists in a place where most people come only for business. We were given a lift by Khalil, a sales rep for Johnson and Johnson who happily explained that he's lived his whole life in the capital and that he loves the town and "knows everyone." Khalil really was a hoot... so happy with his work selling beauty products that he insisted on showing R every single page of his product catalogue while despairing the fact that he had no free samples to hand out.
Anyways, we wandered a bit around the bases of some impressive skyscrapers, sent a few postcards and then hurried back to the airport to get our connecting flight to Dubai. The departure area in the Bahrain airport, like all of Manama is a wide open and empty place, punctuated by high end retail spaces and chain restaurants. There many not be many Bahrainis on this planet, but those that DO exist seem to be in possession of some coin.
And then... Dubai.
Dubai is HOT. Forty degrees in the shade. Fuckin' 39 in the sun. NO relief! The heat is what visitors notice first. Then, one notices the cost of it all... ten dollar cab fares, eight dollar coffees, and the rest. R and I did get a good deal at a hotel by way of an Internet reservation, but I think I spent as much in Dubai in three days as I did in a month of India. Whoops.
But all in all, it's a pretty nice town. It's one of the wealthiest cities on the globe and also one of the most opulent. Fitting the THEME of it all, R and I spent an entire day at the City Center Mall, a sprawling retail complex of several floors. We enjoyed some retail successes at the bookstore and also at the movie theatre. Just getting to the mall was special experience - we staggered through 40 degree heat for about an hour, arriving exhausted and dehydrated, all the while mumbling platitudes about how awesome a guy Lawrence of Arabia was.
Even our hotel was, all by itself, a real fun experience. It was rather enlightening to see middle aged Saudi visitors dancing and getting drunk on forbidden Heineken in the hotel restaurant, all while wearing the usual white sheets and headpiece. We even had a very beautiful Arabic hooker knock on our door, trolling for business. One images that the Islamic world is not always like we think it is...
I'm in Oman now. Have been here for a couple of days. I'll write a bit about that next time.
Day 120, 121
Delhi and India are done! In five hours time a taxi will arrive to take R and myself to the airport. We will fly to Dubai, as I wrote last time, with a stopover in Bahrain. I'm excited - India has been, largely, a drag. Too loud... too crowded... too dirty... too many demands on my rupees...
I've actually developed a visceral reaction to Hindi pop music; it's so screechy and grating that I actually become ANGRY when I hear it.
China has a sense of decency and a sense of the space that humans require to remain sane. India lacks that sense.
But nonetheless, the last few days here have been okay... I went to the cinema twice with R and spent some hours walking in circles around Connaught Place, Delhi's finest commercial district. I spent a small fortune on food, both western and Indian along the way.
I'll really miss the HBO in my hotel room.
Delhi and India are done! In five hours time a taxi will arrive to take R and myself to the airport. We will fly to Dubai, as I wrote last time, with a stopover in Bahrain. I'm excited - India has been, largely, a drag. Too loud... too crowded... too dirty... too many demands on my rupees...
I've actually developed a visceral reaction to Hindi pop music; it's so screechy and grating that I actually become ANGRY when I hear it.
China has a sense of decency and a sense of the space that humans require to remain sane. India lacks that sense.
But nonetheless, the last few days here have been okay... I went to the cinema twice with R and spent some hours walking in circles around Connaught Place, Delhi's finest commercial district. I spent a small fortune on food, both western and Indian along the way.
I'll really miss the HBO in my hotel room.
Day 115-119
Okay, so I WAS going to update, but then I got SICK. My third beat-up, broken-down sickness in the past month and a half. Dammit. This one was a fever, combined with headache and a side of vomiting. I awoke from a restless sleep after the first night of the illness to find my muscles sore all over from the fever. BUT: Ciprofloxacin for the bacteria and ibuprofen for the head and muscles evened everything out.
Have been here in Delhi for the past four or five days. R's stupid bookish self and U's middling good-looks depressed me, as I wrote last time. And now that she has left, he is depressed also. We will fly to Dubai shortly. I turn 25 shortly. Twenty-five in Dubai.
I grow old, I grow old. I wear dirty clothes. The line sin my forehead are deep right now. Will it be possible to age backwards once I get back to comfortable living in Canada?
Delhi remains decidedly loud and unremarkable. I've cashed myself up with enough American bucks to carry me through to Cairo, and I've obtained a fresh passport. Going to try to find some sort of Indian souvenir next. Tomorrow, perhaps, I will buy one of those Rajistani fabric/glass work things. They are occasionally beautiful.
R and I are determined to get ourselves stamped into Bahrain during our layover en route to Dubai. There is also an Iranian island named Kish that might allow us devilish north americans in. Oman remains the main destination for this leg of the journey. Two weeks, tops.
Okay, so I WAS going to update, but then I got SICK. My third beat-up, broken-down sickness in the past month and a half. Dammit. This one was a fever, combined with headache and a side of vomiting. I awoke from a restless sleep after the first night of the illness to find my muscles sore all over from the fever. BUT: Ciprofloxacin for the bacteria and ibuprofen for the head and muscles evened everything out.
Have been here in Delhi for the past four or five days. R's stupid bookish self and U's middling good-looks depressed me, as I wrote last time. And now that she has left, he is depressed also. We will fly to Dubai shortly. I turn 25 shortly. Twenty-five in Dubai.
I grow old, I grow old. I wear dirty clothes. The line sin my forehead are deep right now. Will it be possible to age backwards once I get back to comfortable living in Canada?
Delhi remains decidedly loud and unremarkable. I've cashed myself up with enough American bucks to carry me through to Cairo, and I've obtained a fresh passport. Going to try to find some sort of Indian souvenir next. Tomorrow, perhaps, I will buy one of those Rajistani fabric/glass work things. They are occasionally beautiful.
R and I are determined to get ourselves stamped into Bahrain during our layover en route to Dubai. There is also an Iranian island named Kish that might allow us devilish north americans in. Oman remains the main destination for this leg of the journey. Two weeks, tops.
Day 109 - 115
Yeah, I've recently lost the desire to update. I feel sad. I'm here with R in Delhi, and he's brought his Korean sweetheart with him. They've been travelling together since Pokhara, as I think I have mentioned before. His stupid shy, bookish self coupled with that one reminds me too much of loves lost and loves that never were.
I can avoid being a third wheel by walking in the other direction, but avoiding feelings of longing and nostalgia is a little trickier.
C'est la vie.
R and I will travel together to Oman and the United Arab Emirates. We are sorting out the specifics right now. The Korean sweetheart will leave soon, and so R is also trying to sort THAT out. I spend my hours walking about, eating, and visiting the 'net cafe.
We are all staying in the Korean tourist ghetto. Yikes. Before coming here, the three of us spent a week in McLeod-Ganj (Dharamsala). Not a very exciting place.
Real updates starting tomorrow.
Yeah, I've recently lost the desire to update. I feel sad. I'm here with R in Delhi, and he's brought his Korean sweetheart with him. They've been travelling together since Pokhara, as I think I have mentioned before. His stupid shy, bookish self coupled with that one reminds me too much of loves lost and loves that never were.
I can avoid being a third wheel by walking in the other direction, but avoiding feelings of longing and nostalgia is a little trickier.
C'est la vie.
R and I will travel together to Oman and the United Arab Emirates. We are sorting out the specifics right now. The Korean sweetheart will leave soon, and so R is also trying to sort THAT out. I spend my hours walking about, eating, and visiting the 'net cafe.
We are all staying in the Korean tourist ghetto. Yikes. Before coming here, the three of us spent a week in McLeod-Ganj (Dharamsala). Not a very exciting place.
Real updates starting tomorrow.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Day 99-108
At long last, an update! I've been out of sorts, lately... variously sick, anxious and depressed. I've really lacked the initiative to write anything. But, I must keep at it. Whatever "it" is supposed to be. This update will be casual: I'm just trying to put pen to paper.
To catch up:
Srinagar was actually quite wonderful. The Kashmiri touts who haunt all of India and Nepal can be quite annoying away from home, but it seems like when they are in the homeland, they dial back the obnoxiousness a fair bit. Meanwhile, the soldiers at ever street corner are foreboding, the razor wire on the sidewalks in dangerous and the military checkpoint at the front door of the post office is annoying.... but all of it is quite adventurous from the perspective of an outsider.
The town has a somewhat interesting, if incredibly loud "old town," full of architecturally amusing mosques, temples and shrines. The real jewel of the town, however is the world famous (uhhhhh) Dal Lake. which is home to hundreds of houseboats, used by both locals and free spending tourists. The lake also is a home to floating gardens and a morning floating market. It is a stellar place for early morning row-boat trips.
I learned that at one point there was a Hindu Quarter in this time, but that that population mostly left the city following the civil violence of the 1990s. One can see the big old houses of that community on a boat trip around the canals of the old city.
Humorously, as I took a boat trip one day, some souvenir sellers approached me on the broadsides, trying to sell their tat pirate style. Points for originality, perhaps.
In Srinagar, for the first time since somewhere back in CHINA I actually felt quite "at home" in my hotel. I stayed at a big, rambling old guesthouse run by a local family, which was headed by a generous old patriarch who spent most of his days sitting out front forcing apple slices on all who passed by ("he could manage in English, "Kashmir Apples are best"). Cleaning and things like that were taken care of by a 30sish son, somewhat disabled. It made me happy to see him well taken care of by his big family... he was doing better than so many other disabled guys I've seen on this trip.
The tour work for the hotel was done by a 16 year old nephew, a real cute kid. Strolling one night with a French woman I had met earlier in the day I found him hanging out on a street corner with some much older looking dudes. I chastised him for hanging out with such shady characters (especially on a school night), much to the delight of those shady characters. He took it all in stride, and when the French woman kissed me on each cheek in parting (as the French are prone to doing) the kid demanded to know why I wasn't taking her back to the hotel.
Only in Kashmir, right?
More catching up next time.
At long last, an update! I've been out of sorts, lately... variously sick, anxious and depressed. I've really lacked the initiative to write anything. But, I must keep at it. Whatever "it" is supposed to be. This update will be casual: I'm just trying to put pen to paper.
To catch up:
Srinagar was actually quite wonderful. The Kashmiri touts who haunt all of India and Nepal can be quite annoying away from home, but it seems like when they are in the homeland, they dial back the obnoxiousness a fair bit. Meanwhile, the soldiers at ever street corner are foreboding, the razor wire on the sidewalks in dangerous and the military checkpoint at the front door of the post office is annoying.... but all of it is quite adventurous from the perspective of an outsider.
The town has a somewhat interesting, if incredibly loud "old town," full of architecturally amusing mosques, temples and shrines. The real jewel of the town, however is the world famous (uhhhhh) Dal Lake. which is home to hundreds of houseboats, used by both locals and free spending tourists. The lake also is a home to floating gardens and a morning floating market. It is a stellar place for early morning row-boat trips.
I learned that at one point there was a Hindu Quarter in this time, but that that population mostly left the city following the civil violence of the 1990s. One can see the big old houses of that community on a boat trip around the canals of the old city.
Humorously, as I took a boat trip one day, some souvenir sellers approached me on the broadsides, trying to sell their tat pirate style. Points for originality, perhaps.
In Srinagar, for the first time since somewhere back in CHINA I actually felt quite "at home" in my hotel. I stayed at a big, rambling old guesthouse run by a local family, which was headed by a generous old patriarch who spent most of his days sitting out front forcing apple slices on all who passed by ("he could manage in English, "Kashmir Apples are best"). Cleaning and things like that were taken care of by a 30sish son, somewhat disabled. It made me happy to see him well taken care of by his big family... he was doing better than so many other disabled guys I've seen on this trip.
The tour work for the hotel was done by a 16 year old nephew, a real cute kid. Strolling one night with a French woman I had met earlier in the day I found him hanging out on a street corner with some much older looking dudes. I chastised him for hanging out with such shady characters (especially on a school night), much to the delight of those shady characters. He took it all in stride, and when the French woman kissed me on each cheek in parting (as the French are prone to doing) the kid demanded to know why I wasn't taking her back to the hotel.
Only in Kashmir, right?
More catching up next time.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Day 99:
So, Srinagar.
I was a little bit lost tonight, trying in vain to find my hotel. I was scared - not of wandering the streets at night and stumbling into a bad neighbourhood, but rather of wandering into a nest of razor wire.
Yikes. It's that kind of town.
Indeed, Srinagar has the feeling of a city under occupation. This was evident to me from the beginning - on either side of the road into town soldiers strolled, carrying automatic weapons and walking slowly, seeing everything. The interior of the city proved to be similar - soldiers, razorwire and pillboxes are everywhere. The region's population is predominantly Shiite Muslim, and the territory is part of what India's 1948 war (and subsequent wars) was fought over.
I didn't explore too much today. Arriving at about 8:00 am after a fourteen hour jeep ride from Ladakh, I sacked out a t a hotel for a few hours before spending the afternoon walking around Dal Lake a bit, which lies at the centre of the city. The lake is pretty enough - full of touristy houseboats and little rowboats it is easy on the eyes. There's a lot of tourist infrastructure in that part of town, though it seems to be catering to only a small number of tourists. It seems that most of the foreign tour groups stopped coming here after the last round of violence, although I spotted a lot of domestic Indian visitors.
It's a shame that the industry is dead, but I'm sure it will come back soon enough. C told me that when the Maoists launched the last general strike in Kathmandu the tourist trade there simply died... but to look at Thamel now one would call her a liar... business is booming.
Oh.... I found a photography shop in town run by a toothless old Indian guy. I went in to buy some postcards (for some reason, postcards are hard to find around here). The guy had an awesome stack of cards left over from the 70s and 80s. I picked out twenty for myself, and as I flipped through the stack I came across a whole lot of old photos, sometimes of Indians and sometimes of westerner: all developed decades ago but never picked up.
So, Srinagar.
I was a little bit lost tonight, trying in vain to find my hotel. I was scared - not of wandering the streets at night and stumbling into a bad neighbourhood, but rather of wandering into a nest of razor wire.
Yikes. It's that kind of town.
Indeed, Srinagar has the feeling of a city under occupation. This was evident to me from the beginning - on either side of the road into town soldiers strolled, carrying automatic weapons and walking slowly, seeing everything. The interior of the city proved to be similar - soldiers, razorwire and pillboxes are everywhere. The region's population is predominantly Shiite Muslim, and the territory is part of what India's 1948 war (and subsequent wars) was fought over.
I didn't explore too much today. Arriving at about 8:00 am after a fourteen hour jeep ride from Ladakh, I sacked out a t a hotel for a few hours before spending the afternoon walking around Dal Lake a bit, which lies at the centre of the city. The lake is pretty enough - full of touristy houseboats and little rowboats it is easy on the eyes. There's a lot of tourist infrastructure in that part of town, though it seems to be catering to only a small number of tourists. It seems that most of the foreign tour groups stopped coming here after the last round of violence, although I spotted a lot of domestic Indian visitors.
It's a shame that the industry is dead, but I'm sure it will come back soon enough. C told me that when the Maoists launched the last general strike in Kathmandu the tourist trade there simply died... but to look at Thamel now one would call her a liar... business is booming.
Oh.... I found a photography shop in town run by a toothless old Indian guy. I went in to buy some postcards (for some reason, postcards are hard to find around here). The guy had an awesome stack of cards left over from the 70s and 80s. I picked out twenty for myself, and as I flipped through the stack I came across a whole lot of old photos, sometimes of Indians and sometimes of westerner: all developed decades ago but never picked up.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Day 98:
C spent five months living in Nepal. Her gig there was working as a volunteer at a rural orphanage. But much of that time she spent hanging out with the hawkers who work the streets of Katmandu's Thamel district, selling junk to the tourists. So, here are a few facts that she learned which will interest no one save those who have visited Kathmandu:
One: The shops are almost all owned and staffed by Kashmiri people from India, not Nepali nationals. That common refrain of "it's from Kashmir" is actually an honest statement.
Two: Prices are marked up about ten times. The 400 rupee bag was purchased by the vendor for 40 rupees.
Three: During peak season, the shops sell only about three items each day, with a value of about 2500 rupees (60 bucks). Most of this goes back to the owner of the shop... who does not work as a salesman.
Four: The hotel bosses have a set rate for the rooms. The people staffing the place charge whatever they think they can get, and pocket whatever amount is over the set rate. The boss gets the rest.
Five: Before Nepal's royal family was mostly murdered, they hung out in Thamel during the off season.
Anyways. I've really grown to love Ladakh. It's a place of simple beauty, found in it's craggy mountains, dusty valleys, and even in its cities, made beautifully green by age old irrigation techniques. This is a place where I wish I could stay. I wish I could linger. But I cannot... this is a "long way home," not a expedition meant to find a new home.
C spent five months living in Nepal. Her gig there was working as a volunteer at a rural orphanage. But much of that time she spent hanging out with the hawkers who work the streets of Katmandu's Thamel district, selling junk to the tourists. So, here are a few facts that she learned which will interest no one save those who have visited Kathmandu:
One: The shops are almost all owned and staffed by Kashmiri people from India, not Nepali nationals. That common refrain of "it's from Kashmir" is actually an honest statement.
Two: Prices are marked up about ten times. The 400 rupee bag was purchased by the vendor for 40 rupees.
Three: During peak season, the shops sell only about three items each day, with a value of about 2500 rupees (60 bucks). Most of this goes back to the owner of the shop... who does not work as a salesman.
Four: The hotel bosses have a set rate for the rooms. The people staffing the place charge whatever they think they can get, and pocket whatever amount is over the set rate. The boss gets the rest.
Five: Before Nepal's royal family was mostly murdered, they hung out in Thamel during the off season.
Anyways. I've really grown to love Ladakh. It's a place of simple beauty, found in it's craggy mountains, dusty valleys, and even in its cities, made beautifully green by age old irrigation techniques. This is a place where I wish I could stay. I wish I could linger. But I cannot... this is a "long way home," not a expedition meant to find a new home.
Day 95, 96, 97
From Manali, I took a 2o hour jeep trip to Leh. Some of my seat mates suffered on that trip, but since such things are becoming rather routine for me, I fared rather well. Some of the high passes reached altitudes of more than 5000 meters, and I didn't suffer from alitude sickness either - clearly I am becoming some sort of Superman.
Leh is wonderful. The tourist crowd is a little less obnoxious than in Manali (and a bit older) and the backpacker ghetto encompasses only a portion of the town, unlike in Manali where it now covers the entire fucking place (I exaggerate). The city has a population of only 25,000, so it is nice that it has been able to resist that sort of takeover.
Leh's most noteworthy visual aspect is a collection of Gompas and Stopas that ring the city, all of the built on high hills and on the sides of mountains. I visited some of these places with C, a young German woman whom I have been travelling with since the jeep ride here.
The most fun that C and I had was visiting "Leh Palace," an old fort built on a high hill south of the town. It's a crumbling, ramshackle affair, once the seat of this region's "king," but now long empty and stripped of its treasures. While some basic restoration work has been done, it looks a lot like what Lhasa's Potala would look like if it has been left to rot for a century.
Sharing a room with C, each morning we have woken up around nine and taken a wonderful laissez faire approach to each day - the hours are filled with trips through the old town, unnecessary errands, trips to the post office, eating....
Truly these have been idle days, but idle in a relaxing way that was impossible in Manali, with it's horrible, horrible "scene."
Unable to get a jeep to Srinagar as planned (the road is closed to civilians today) I am spending tonight at a hotel in Thiska with C. Thiska is a small village just south of Leh, home to a stunning (and large) monastery... and precious little else.
I must describe C in more detail tomorrow.
From Manali, I took a 2o hour jeep trip to Leh. Some of my seat mates suffered on that trip, but since such things are becoming rather routine for me, I fared rather well. Some of the high passes reached altitudes of more than 5000 meters, and I didn't suffer from alitude sickness either - clearly I am becoming some sort of Superman.
Leh is wonderful. The tourist crowd is a little less obnoxious than in Manali (and a bit older) and the backpacker ghetto encompasses only a portion of the town, unlike in Manali where it now covers the entire fucking place (I exaggerate). The city has a population of only 25,000, so it is nice that it has been able to resist that sort of takeover.
Leh's most noteworthy visual aspect is a collection of Gompas and Stopas that ring the city, all of the built on high hills and on the sides of mountains. I visited some of these places with C, a young German woman whom I have been travelling with since the jeep ride here.
The most fun that C and I had was visiting "Leh Palace," an old fort built on a high hill south of the town. It's a crumbling, ramshackle affair, once the seat of this region's "king," but now long empty and stripped of its treasures. While some basic restoration work has been done, it looks a lot like what Lhasa's Potala would look like if it has been left to rot for a century.
Sharing a room with C, each morning we have woken up around nine and taken a wonderful laissez faire approach to each day - the hours are filled with trips through the old town, unnecessary errands, trips to the post office, eating....
Truly these have been idle days, but idle in a relaxing way that was impossible in Manali, with it's horrible, horrible "scene."
Unable to get a jeep to Srinagar as planned (the road is closed to civilians today) I am spending tonight at a hotel in Thiska with C. Thiska is a small village just south of Leh, home to a stunning (and large) monastery... and precious little else.
I must describe C in more detail tomorrow.
Day 93, 94
I'm in Leh now. I spent twenty hours in a jeep getting here. There were ten of us in that jeep, including the driver, and it would have sat perhaps seven in some comfort. But no problem - I'm becoming a real pro when it comes to dealing with long automobile rides, and spending another twenty wasn't much of a problem.
Some of the passes we crossed were as high as 5000 meters, and it would seem that I'm now pretty good with high altitudes, also. Great stuff.
Leh is a part of Ladakh, which is a part of the province of Jammu and Kashmir, which has been at the hear of India and Pakistan's "cold war" (and occasional shooting war) for many decades. This is a mostly Buddhist place, and I think that is is rather sad that it is included in this longstanding Hindu/Muslim conflict. I've learned a lot, however, about India's multicultural character in the past few weeks, though I'm left wondering how the government here manages to "pull it off." Obviously there are a lot of economic problems and standard of living concerns in India and in the minority regions, but I wonder how decision making is done? Is there a cadre of Tibetan legislators in the Indian parliament?
The ride here included a lot of stops at military checkpoints along the highway, all because of the security situation. My passport is still back in Delhi getting renewed, a situation that caused a few questions to be asked of me, but every time I was able to continue on my way. My original plan was to turn around and go back to Delhi from Manali to pick up the new passport, but since every checkpoint officer so far has told me that continuing on to Srinagar is possible for me, I might just do that instead.
Leh is not only part of Kashmir, but it is also close to the border with China. Because China occupied a swath of Indian territory some years ago, the Indian military presence here is doubly strong. And along the sides of the road leading to Leh we saw literally HUNDREDS of fuel tankers.
The crowd here does not have as many dreadlocks as in Manali, and that makes me very happy. I think I should like to spend a few days here.
I'm in Leh now. I spent twenty hours in a jeep getting here. There were ten of us in that jeep, including the driver, and it would have sat perhaps seven in some comfort. But no problem - I'm becoming a real pro when it comes to dealing with long automobile rides, and spending another twenty wasn't much of a problem.
Some of the passes we crossed were as high as 5000 meters, and it would seem that I'm now pretty good with high altitudes, also. Great stuff.
Leh is a part of Ladakh, which is a part of the province of Jammu and Kashmir, which has been at the hear of India and Pakistan's "cold war" (and occasional shooting war) for many decades. This is a mostly Buddhist place, and I think that is is rather sad that it is included in this longstanding Hindu/Muslim conflict. I've learned a lot, however, about India's multicultural character in the past few weeks, though I'm left wondering how the government here manages to "pull it off." Obviously there are a lot of economic problems and standard of living concerns in India and in the minority regions, but I wonder how decision making is done? Is there a cadre of Tibetan legislators in the Indian parliament?
The ride here included a lot of stops at military checkpoints along the highway, all because of the security situation. My passport is still back in Delhi getting renewed, a situation that caused a few questions to be asked of me, but every time I was able to continue on my way. My original plan was to turn around and go back to Delhi from Manali to pick up the new passport, but since every checkpoint officer so far has told me that continuing on to Srinagar is possible for me, I might just do that instead.
Leh is not only part of Kashmir, but it is also close to the border with China. Because China occupied a swath of Indian territory some years ago, the Indian military presence here is doubly strong. And along the sides of the road leading to Leh we saw literally HUNDREDS of fuel tankers.
The crowd here does not have as many dreadlocks as in Manali, and that makes me very happy. I think I should like to spend a few days here.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Day 89, 90, 91, 92
Manali is just about done for me; a taxi will arrive to take me to Leh in a few hours. Leh is a seventeen hour drive away.
(and I haven't even written anything about Manali).
I read in a 1990 Lonely Planet for India that even at that time there were droves of hippies living in the hills around town. They are all gone now, and the town is very commercalized. It's more of a scene now, with lots of dreadlocks and scruffy facial hair on display. Yuck. Tony Wheeler used the word "scene" back in 1990, though, so maybe things are exactly like they used to be.
It's a little sad, though, that the hippie sub-culture is just about dead now. I've been reading lots of Kerouac, these days, and it's sad to think that the beat generation, also, is long gone. Ginsberg's been dead for more than a decade now.
(by the way: the depiction of Ginsberg in "Dharma Bums" is pretty hilarious)
It dawns on me now that this journal is not what it was a month ago. I suppose I've stopped writing about what I've been doing. Perhaps this is because I don't really enjoy travel in India that much. I don't really DO anything except take walks and read books and eat decent food.
The walks in Manali are nice though. I have spent my time here with a nice Swedish guy, strolling around the three "villages" that constitute modern Manali. We saw a few decent temples and some residential areas, and even some trees and some water!
I found a copy of Kerouac's "Mexico City Blues" and read through it. I don't entirely understand K's meaning, and frankly, all of the references to Nova Scotia are particularly perplexing.
The Palak Paneer here is very well done. Spinach and cottage cheese... delightful!
My Swedish pal is nice. He's 30ish, and very new to travelling. He's a bit of a lonely guy, and works in a factory in a rural part of his homeland. His factory makes spare parts for forklifts: "not even a whole forklift," he told me. "Just a part. A single part. And they won't even tell us what it does."
Manali is just about done for me; a taxi will arrive to take me to Leh in a few hours. Leh is a seventeen hour drive away.
(and I haven't even written anything about Manali).
I read in a 1990 Lonely Planet for India that even at that time there were droves of hippies living in the hills around town. They are all gone now, and the town is very commercalized. It's more of a scene now, with lots of dreadlocks and scruffy facial hair on display. Yuck. Tony Wheeler used the word "scene" back in 1990, though, so maybe things are exactly like they used to be.
It's a little sad, though, that the hippie sub-culture is just about dead now. I've been reading lots of Kerouac, these days, and it's sad to think that the beat generation, also, is long gone. Ginsberg's been dead for more than a decade now.
(by the way: the depiction of Ginsberg in "Dharma Bums" is pretty hilarious)
It dawns on me now that this journal is not what it was a month ago. I suppose I've stopped writing about what I've been doing. Perhaps this is because I don't really enjoy travel in India that much. I don't really DO anything except take walks and read books and eat decent food.
The walks in Manali are nice though. I have spent my time here with a nice Swedish guy, strolling around the three "villages" that constitute modern Manali. We saw a few decent temples and some residential areas, and even some trees and some water!
I found a copy of Kerouac's "Mexico City Blues" and read through it. I don't entirely understand K's meaning, and frankly, all of the references to Nova Scotia are particularly perplexing.
The Palak Paneer here is very well done. Spinach and cottage cheese... delightful!
My Swedish pal is nice. He's 30ish, and very new to travelling. He's a bit of a lonely guy, and works in a factory in a rural part of his homeland. His factory makes spare parts for forklifts: "not even a whole forklift," he told me. "Just a part. A single part. And they won't even tell us what it does."
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Day 88:
I'm sitting in a little restaurant in Shimla: eating, writing postcards and reading an Agatha Christie novel. Listen to how Christie described Tuppence:
"Tuppence has no claim to beauty, but there was character and charm in the elfin lines of her little face, with its determined chin and large wider-apart eyes that looked mistily out from under straight, black brows. She wore a small bright green toque over her black bobbed hair and her extremely short and rather shabby skirt revealed a pair of uncommonly dainty ankles. Her appearance presented a valiant attempt at smartness"
I'm in love!
...
Shimla is a nice place, my favorite so far in India and I am now very happy to be travelling in this country. Thank G-d for that. I've spent my time here with a couple of Swedish guys (both have now left), taking in the sights and eating lots of nice Indian and continental food.
I visited Shimla's monkey temple. The monkeys there, like the monkeys in town are quite vicious, with finding a particular enjoyment in snatching at the glasses of visitors. It's fun, though, to observe them playing in a little pool placed on the temple grounds for their enjoyment. It seems as if the games they play have actual RULES, as they hop from place to place in a sort of ordered fashion. It's also great fun to watch the smallest of monkeys sit on the side of the pool, slowly working up the courage to join in the game.
Shimla has a great post office and I found some really wonderful philatelic stamps there. The bookshops here are also top notch.
Tomorrow morning in Manali.
I'm sitting in a little restaurant in Shimla: eating, writing postcards and reading an Agatha Christie novel. Listen to how Christie described Tuppence:
"Tuppence has no claim to beauty, but there was character and charm in the elfin lines of her little face, with its determined chin and large wider-apart eyes that looked mistily out from under straight, black brows. She wore a small bright green toque over her black bobbed hair and her extremely short and rather shabby skirt revealed a pair of uncommonly dainty ankles. Her appearance presented a valiant attempt at smartness"
I'm in love!
...
Shimla is a nice place, my favorite so far in India and I am now very happy to be travelling in this country. Thank G-d for that. I've spent my time here with a couple of Swedish guys (both have now left), taking in the sights and eating lots of nice Indian and continental food.
I visited Shimla's monkey temple. The monkeys there, like the monkeys in town are quite vicious, with finding a particular enjoyment in snatching at the glasses of visitors. It's fun, though, to observe them playing in a little pool placed on the temple grounds for their enjoyment. It seems as if the games they play have actual RULES, as they hop from place to place in a sort of ordered fashion. It's also great fun to watch the smallest of monkeys sit on the side of the pool, slowly working up the courage to join in the game.
Shimla has a great post office and I found some really wonderful philatelic stamps there. The bookshops here are also top notch.
Tomorrow morning in Manali.
Day 84, 85, 86
I've escape Chandigarh! I was expecting to stay for a few days, but the temperature was too hot, so I left after one night. I met in the train station dormitory there an English guy who has been living in the city (in the dorm) for a whole month. "Nothing drew me to Chandigarh," he said to me, "I just happened to be in this city when I felt the need to stop moving around so much." The guy hopes to write some travel books, and has the crazy (interesting) idea of buying his own motor-rickshaw and driving all around the country in it.
I left the big-C on a ten a.m. train, switching engines in the tiny town of Kalka. There I boarded a cute little toy train (maybe ten cars, each seating about 30 people) that runs on a narrow gauge up to altitudes of about 2200 meters. The landscape on the train was, as usual, really stunning, with big tall trees unlike what I saw in Tibet and Nepal. Also, India has an overcrowding problem that doesn't exist in those countries, and along the way I spied lots of homes and even cities running up and down the side of the mountains. Quite different from the settlements in the mountains of Tibet, which run along a single street that snakes along the side of the hill.
Here in Shimla about 150 000 residents cling to the side of the mountain in that "up and down" way. It's quite a sight, all those boxy concrete homes on a crowded diagonal incline. The city itself is a treat. The weather is blissfully cool, and in the places I have visited so far there are no touts, no taxis, no rickshaws and no hash dealers. Walking around without any hassles I am reminded of distant China! There are also big fines for littering and spitting in the streets. There are even garbage cans with the words "USE ME" painted on them in neat letters.
But while the streets don't have any annoying PEOPLE wandering them, there are some annoying simians. The town has a monkey problem. Rather brave, sometimes viscous, hundreds of monkeys roam the streets, looking for food and making an occasional grab at a tempting bag or purse. Each night I have spent here I've been woken up by monkeys banging on my windows, trying to get inside. It can actually be a little frightening to be woken up by a crazed monkey...
Humorously enough, the monkeys also terrorize the stray dogs of Shimla, which are almost as common. It's very funny to see a tough, scrappy looking dog cowed by a monkey barring his teeth.
The food here is wonderful, if expensive. I sat in a nice chain coffee shop for a spell, alternately writing in my journal and gawking at the beautiful people passing through for drinks and snacks. Hanging out at yuppie coffee shops is a habit I picked up in Suncheon during that fateful "year two" (really just the last eight months) and is one of the many habits that I hope to kick (along with many feelings, ideas, mannerisms, successes that I will throw over my shoulder). Going to be my old self, you know...
...
Back on the home front, my dear friends X and Y are having a baby! X sent me an e-mail saying "Good news, Mike, you're going to be an uncle! Yahoooo!" This makes me happy... you have no idea.
But back in Korea, Z is feeling really bummed out. This makes me sad, because Z is very important to me.
...
Couple more days in Shimla, and then I press further north.
I've escape Chandigarh! I was expecting to stay for a few days, but the temperature was too hot, so I left after one night. I met in the train station dormitory there an English guy who has been living in the city (in the dorm) for a whole month. "Nothing drew me to Chandigarh," he said to me, "I just happened to be in this city when I felt the need to stop moving around so much." The guy hopes to write some travel books, and has the crazy (interesting) idea of buying his own motor-rickshaw and driving all around the country in it.
I left the big-C on a ten a.m. train, switching engines in the tiny town of Kalka. There I boarded a cute little toy train (maybe ten cars, each seating about 30 people) that runs on a narrow gauge up to altitudes of about 2200 meters. The landscape on the train was, as usual, really stunning, with big tall trees unlike what I saw in Tibet and Nepal. Also, India has an overcrowding problem that doesn't exist in those countries, and along the way I spied lots of homes and even cities running up and down the side of the mountains. Quite different from the settlements in the mountains of Tibet, which run along a single street that snakes along the side of the hill.
Here in Shimla about 150 000 residents cling to the side of the mountain in that "up and down" way. It's quite a sight, all those boxy concrete homes on a crowded diagonal incline. The city itself is a treat. The weather is blissfully cool, and in the places I have visited so far there are no touts, no taxis, no rickshaws and no hash dealers. Walking around without any hassles I am reminded of distant China! There are also big fines for littering and spitting in the streets. There are even garbage cans with the words "USE ME" painted on them in neat letters.
But while the streets don't have any annoying PEOPLE wandering them, there are some annoying simians. The town has a monkey problem. Rather brave, sometimes viscous, hundreds of monkeys roam the streets, looking for food and making an occasional grab at a tempting bag or purse. Each night I have spent here I've been woken up by monkeys banging on my windows, trying to get inside. It can actually be a little frightening to be woken up by a crazed monkey...
Humorously enough, the monkeys also terrorize the stray dogs of Shimla, which are almost as common. It's very funny to see a tough, scrappy looking dog cowed by a monkey barring his teeth.
The food here is wonderful, if expensive. I sat in a nice chain coffee shop for a spell, alternately writing in my journal and gawking at the beautiful people passing through for drinks and snacks. Hanging out at yuppie coffee shops is a habit I picked up in Suncheon during that fateful "year two" (really just the last eight months) and is one of the many habits that I hope to kick (along with many feelings, ideas, mannerisms, successes that I will throw over my shoulder). Going to be my old self, you know...
...
Back on the home front, my dear friends X and Y are having a baby! X sent me an e-mail saying "Good news, Mike, you're going to be an uncle! Yahoooo!" This makes me happy... you have no idea.
But back in Korea, Z is feeling really bummed out. This makes me sad, because Z is very important to me.
...
Couple more days in Shimla, and then I press further north.
Day 83:
Chandigarh, now. It's still hot here, but it's getting to be a little cooler as I move north. The city is not quite as interesting as I thought it might be, but it has some charm. It's still too hot to put in a lot of effort, so I've just done the usual walking tour. This city is fun to walk about. It's a planned town, built on a field of green - from the ground up - by a French architect/city planner in the early 1950s. Fitting the whims of that designer, the city is full of big concrete government buildings ("temples of democracy," they say) and a grid of roads, all intersecting at 90 degree angles and laid out into 40 or so "sectors."
This is a rich town, and a clean town.
I paid a visit to the National Portrait gallery, which houses a display of photographic and textual exhibits depicting the Indian Independence movement from the 1850s to the time of partition. The exhibit includes some delightfully grizzly dioramas, as well as the text of articles written by both Marx and Engels decrying atrocities committed here by the English in the 1850s.
Chandigarh, now. It's still hot here, but it's getting to be a little cooler as I move north. The city is not quite as interesting as I thought it might be, but it has some charm. It's still too hot to put in a lot of effort, so I've just done the usual walking tour. This city is fun to walk about. It's a planned town, built on a field of green - from the ground up - by a French architect/city planner in the early 1950s. Fitting the whims of that designer, the city is full of big concrete government buildings ("temples of democracy," they say) and a grid of roads, all intersecting at 90 degree angles and laid out into 40 or so "sectors."
This is a rich town, and a clean town.
I paid a visit to the National Portrait gallery, which houses a display of photographic and textual exhibits depicting the Indian Independence movement from the 1850s to the time of partition. The exhibit includes some delightfully grizzly dioramas, as well as the text of articles written by both Marx and Engels decrying atrocities committed here by the English in the 1850s.
Day 82:
Another day, another train station. I left Agra on a standing room only ticket, since I was so late booking my passage. I managed to upgrade to a seat after a half hour, though.
I'm heading north now. First to the 1950s planned-city of Chandigarh, and then further north, to Shimla, Manali and Leh - back into the Himalayan mountains. I really, really want to get away from this heat.
I finished reading "On the Road." It's a compelling book. Kerouac takes all the madness and depression and loneliness of being jobless, future less and itinerant in the 40s and blends those things with occasional moments of joy and exuberance. In doing this he seems to create a picture of a life that seems to be ultimately unfufilling, but yet so romantic as to be desirable.
There's a wonderful description of Sal's reasons for being on the road that I've scrawled into my notebook... he's "shambled after... all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time..." Well, he goes on for some time, about the people that he loves to be near.
But regardless, maybe life is the same no matter where one is. Kerouac wrote in a diary one time that "all of life is a foreign country."
Hmm.
Another day, another train station. I left Agra on a standing room only ticket, since I was so late booking my passage. I managed to upgrade to a seat after a half hour, though.
I'm heading north now. First to the 1950s planned-city of Chandigarh, and then further north, to Shimla, Manali and Leh - back into the Himalayan mountains. I really, really want to get away from this heat.
I finished reading "On the Road." It's a compelling book. Kerouac takes all the madness and depression and loneliness of being jobless, future less and itinerant in the 40s and blends those things with occasional moments of joy and exuberance. In doing this he seems to create a picture of a life that seems to be ultimately unfufilling, but yet so romantic as to be desirable.
There's a wonderful description of Sal's reasons for being on the road that I've scrawled into my notebook... he's "shambled after... all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time..." Well, he goes on for some time, about the people that he loves to be near.
But regardless, maybe life is the same no matter where one is. Kerouac wrote in a diary one time that "all of life is a foreign country."
Hmm.
Day 81:
I visited the Taj Mahal today! It carries a steep twelve buck admission charge, though I suppose it's worth it in a Great Wall/Forbidden City sort of way. Who visits India without taking a peek at the Taj, right?
This massive monument is a visual treat, though that's about all it is; there isn't really any interior access allowed. There are some nicely manicured lawns around the building, and some smaller mosques along the periphery of the thing.
I mailed a package today, as well as a few postcards.
I've decided to beat the heat by heading north, back into the mountains.
This morning I moved to a new hotel. My room resembles a solitary confinement cell from "Prison Break," but my bathroom is outside, on the roof of the building. Good times.
This afternoon I saw a cow kick a stray monkey right in the chest. The monkey, who had it coming, when flying into the air, but walked away on his own two feet.
I visited the Taj Mahal today! It carries a steep twelve buck admission charge, though I suppose it's worth it in a Great Wall/Forbidden City sort of way. Who visits India without taking a peek at the Taj, right?
This massive monument is a visual treat, though that's about all it is; there isn't really any interior access allowed. There are some nicely manicured lawns around the building, and some smaller mosques along the periphery of the thing.
I mailed a package today, as well as a few postcards.
I've decided to beat the heat by heading north, back into the mountains.
This morning I moved to a new hotel. My room resembles a solitary confinement cell from "Prison Break," but my bathroom is outside, on the roof of the building. Good times.
This afternoon I saw a cow kick a stray monkey right in the chest. The monkey, who had it coming, when flying into the air, but walked away on his own two feet.
Day 80:
Here I am in Agra. I'm sleeping in some dirty flop. It's dirty, but it has hot water AND it is cheap, so I can't complain. Well, the light flickers, and the squat toilet sort of smells, and there is noise in the hallway...
I've got a reservation on a cheaper place for tomorrow night.
Agra is home to the famous Taj Mahal, but I haven't visited yet. I'm not in the MOOD. Instead I spent the day writing a letter to J and I did some marathon internet chatting with K. And I called my grandmother, too.
I've gotten the hang of keeping my money inside of my wallet. So that's good. It's nice to say "no" in a sarcastic or mocking way.
The mercury hit forty today. Myself and my clothes are covered in a veneer of sweat because of the humidity. Washing clothes seems to be pointless, because they get smelly mere minutes after being put on. Showering seems similarly pointless. It's a damn good thing I'm travelling solo again.
Here I am in Agra. I'm sleeping in some dirty flop. It's dirty, but it has hot water AND it is cheap, so I can't complain. Well, the light flickers, and the squat toilet sort of smells, and there is noise in the hallway...
I've got a reservation on a cheaper place for tomorrow night.
Agra is home to the famous Taj Mahal, but I haven't visited yet. I'm not in the MOOD. Instead I spent the day writing a letter to J and I did some marathon internet chatting with K. And I called my grandmother, too.
I've gotten the hang of keeping my money inside of my wallet. So that's good. It's nice to say "no" in a sarcastic or mocking way.
The mercury hit forty today. Myself and my clothes are covered in a veneer of sweat because of the humidity. Washing clothes seems to be pointless, because they get smelly mere minutes after being put on. Showering seems similarly pointless. It's a damn good thing I'm travelling solo again.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Day 79:
Weird. I found myself with a free driver and a very nice a/c car today. We drove around alternating between running silly errands (post office, consulate, supplies, bookshop...) and stopping and surreal shops selling carpets and silks, all of which paid my driver a few bucks for putting me through the door. "Look like a proper tourist," he told me before we set off, "bring your camera." It was certainly strange - the staff there all assumed me to be interested in purchasing overpriced carpets and all gave me the hard sell on those, and also on three thousand dollar jewelry. Of course, all of the "Kashmiri" handcrafts they sell for a hundred bucks a pop are available on the streets of Kathmandu for three or four dollars.
I now know (and am trying to forget) all about how carpets are made, all about "knots per square inch," and how many Kashmiri families are employed in the carpet-making racket (thousands). Similarly, I know all about precious stones and semi-precious stones, which are which and how the earth creates them. The jewelry guy at the last shop was a sad little fellow who clearly dropped out of geology program at a local university in order to sell junk to tourists. He spent more time talking about the science behind his wares than about the beauty of them. There was such sorrow in his eyes.
C'est la vie.
In addition to my errands, my driver and I managed to visit a few of Delhi's tourists sights. Our first stop was at Qutub Minar, a mosque complex (historical and ruined... not alive) on the outskirts of the city. It proved a compelling, if dead place, home to India's very first mosque (built in 1193), and a 73 metre tall Afghan style minaret (Turpan's was cooler). The complex also contains some nice gardens.
We later visited a temple of the Baha'i faith, the architecture of which looked rather space-age. I must admit that that religion is a mystery to me - the signage indicated that the faith encompasses all forms of religion as well as science. They've got some nice gardens too, but no benches.
In between our last few silly shop visits we visited Delhi's National Museum. That is a very wonderful sprawling complex of three floors and many interesting exhibits. It contains the usual pottery and ceramic artifacts, but also some neat displays on the history of currency in India, and on fabric making in the country. Getting lost in those corridors I felt a little bit more of that sorrow that's been chasing me around these past few weeks - I thought of a visit to the sprawling AGNS with L sometime ago, before that relationship got all topsy-turvy.
I left the museum around five and headed over to the main post office. I found there a letter from J sent to me Poste Restante a few weeks ago, the second of her letters to find me since I started travelling. I'm madly in love with both letters and with J, and so reading it really chased AWAY the sorrow for a bit.
Later on I booked a train ticket OUT of this town. On to Agra and the Taj Mahal tomorrow afternoon.
Weird. I found myself with a free driver and a very nice a/c car today. We drove around alternating between running silly errands (post office, consulate, supplies, bookshop...) and stopping and surreal shops selling carpets and silks, all of which paid my driver a few bucks for putting me through the door. "Look like a proper tourist," he told me before we set off, "bring your camera." It was certainly strange - the staff there all assumed me to be interested in purchasing overpriced carpets and all gave me the hard sell on those, and also on three thousand dollar jewelry. Of course, all of the "Kashmiri" handcrafts they sell for a hundred bucks a pop are available on the streets of Kathmandu for three or four dollars.
I now know (and am trying to forget) all about how carpets are made, all about "knots per square inch," and how many Kashmiri families are employed in the carpet-making racket (thousands). Similarly, I know all about precious stones and semi-precious stones, which are which and how the earth creates them. The jewelry guy at the last shop was a sad little fellow who clearly dropped out of geology program at a local university in order to sell junk to tourists. He spent more time talking about the science behind his wares than about the beauty of them. There was such sorrow in his eyes.
C'est la vie.
In addition to my errands, my driver and I managed to visit a few of Delhi's tourists sights. Our first stop was at Qutub Minar, a mosque complex (historical and ruined... not alive) on the outskirts of the city. It proved a compelling, if dead place, home to India's very first mosque (built in 1193), and a 73 metre tall Afghan style minaret (Turpan's was cooler). The complex also contains some nice gardens.
We later visited a temple of the Baha'i faith, the architecture of which looked rather space-age. I must admit that that religion is a mystery to me - the signage indicated that the faith encompasses all forms of religion as well as science. They've got some nice gardens too, but no benches.
In between our last few silly shop visits we visited Delhi's National Museum. That is a very wonderful sprawling complex of three floors and many interesting exhibits. It contains the usual pottery and ceramic artifacts, but also some neat displays on the history of currency in India, and on fabric making in the country. Getting lost in those corridors I felt a little bit more of that sorrow that's been chasing me around these past few weeks - I thought of a visit to the sprawling AGNS with L sometime ago, before that relationship got all topsy-turvy.
I left the museum around five and headed over to the main post office. I found there a letter from J sent to me Poste Restante a few weeks ago, the second of her letters to find me since I started travelling. I'm madly in love with both letters and with J, and so reading it really chased AWAY the sorrow for a bit.
Later on I booked a train ticket OUT of this town. On to Agra and the Taj Mahal tomorrow afternoon.
Day 78:
"Lucille would never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused running from one falling star to another until I drop" (120).
I've been feeling very sad lately. Back in the bad old days I once said "I don't really suffer from depression. See, I'm sad for really good reasons." Over the last few days and weeks I've been chased by some sort of sorrow and I don't know what's fueling it. But it's only been for a week or two. Surely it will pass. Or maybe it's just an effect of reading Kerouac's stuff; "On the Road" is ultimately a very sad, very lonely book.
...
I think I'm getting the hang of India. It helps to be dominant and sort of "alpha" when some idiot is making a play for your money. A rickshaw guy asked me for 150 rupees to get me to my hostel last night and I was comfortable in saying something to the effect of "that's fucking insane... I can get across the whole city for that amount. Take fifty or nothing." Cheerfully, I told him he was lying when he told me later that his meter was broken and offered him sixty rupees.
And so on...
See, this is what the tourist to India does. So much financial bullshit. I'm happy that I started this India thing in Varanasi, which is so much more intense than Delhi, and so gave me an early warning of the nonsense in the capital.
...
A lot of my hatred of India has recently been transferred to that other most odious nation - Canada. Getting a new passport has proven to be a complicated and costly endeavour. My application requires that I supply FOUR references, and that I have my application stamped by a local notary public, in addition to handing over the usual photographs and wad of cash. You know, Americans don't have such difficult requirements, and they can also get extra pages taped into the passport when the document is all filled up.
Damn it.
Oh, when I was going to the theatre, a taxi driver offered to take me there free if I first agreed to spend ten minutes at a couple of silk shops. So I did, and he really did take me there after pocketing some commission money for getting me in the door. Such a stupid scam, but I guess if you can't beat 'em, you can only join 'em...
...
Anyways, India could be good. It could be a real kick. I've lost a lot of my inhibitions about dealing with the unequal social and financial exchange that is a big part of travelling in the third world. Knowing that everyone is trying to rip me off, I no longer have any problems fighting to get the "local price." I could be doing more to benefit the local populace... but spending and spending and spending... but the local populace is so fucking adversarial.
Uhm, so I'm going to stop blogging about cab fare now. Sorry. And about money, also. Sorry.
...
I'm sleeping in some dormitory near the local diplomatic enclave. It's a nice little flop used mostly by domestic tourists. The last foreigner came here three days ago, according to the guest register. I'll stick around here for a few days as I fight for my new passport, but there is probably a better place deeper into the city.
"Lucille would never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused running from one falling star to another until I drop" (120).
I've been feeling very sad lately. Back in the bad old days I once said "I don't really suffer from depression. See, I'm sad for really good reasons." Over the last few days and weeks I've been chased by some sort of sorrow and I don't know what's fueling it. But it's only been for a week or two. Surely it will pass. Or maybe it's just an effect of reading Kerouac's stuff; "On the Road" is ultimately a very sad, very lonely book.
...
I think I'm getting the hang of India. It helps to be dominant and sort of "alpha" when some idiot is making a play for your money. A rickshaw guy asked me for 150 rupees to get me to my hostel last night and I was comfortable in saying something to the effect of "that's fucking insane... I can get across the whole city for that amount. Take fifty or nothing." Cheerfully, I told him he was lying when he told me later that his meter was broken and offered him sixty rupees.
And so on...
See, this is what the tourist to India does. So much financial bullshit. I'm happy that I started this India thing in Varanasi, which is so much more intense than Delhi, and so gave me an early warning of the nonsense in the capital.
...
A lot of my hatred of India has recently been transferred to that other most odious nation - Canada. Getting a new passport has proven to be a complicated and costly endeavour. My application requires that I supply FOUR references, and that I have my application stamped by a local notary public, in addition to handing over the usual photographs and wad of cash. You know, Americans don't have such difficult requirements, and they can also get extra pages taped into the passport when the document is all filled up.
Damn it.
Oh, when I was going to the theatre, a taxi driver offered to take me there free if I first agreed to spend ten minutes at a couple of silk shops. So I did, and he really did take me there after pocketing some commission money for getting me in the door. Such a stupid scam, but I guess if you can't beat 'em, you can only join 'em...
...
Anyways, India could be good. It could be a real kick. I've lost a lot of my inhibitions about dealing with the unequal social and financial exchange that is a big part of travelling in the third world. Knowing that everyone is trying to rip me off, I no longer have any problems fighting to get the "local price." I could be doing more to benefit the local populace... but spending and spending and spending... but the local populace is so fucking adversarial.
Uhm, so I'm going to stop blogging about cab fare now. Sorry. And about money, also. Sorry.
...
I'm sleeping in some dormitory near the local diplomatic enclave. It's a nice little flop used mostly by domestic tourists. The last foreigner came here three days ago, according to the guest register. I'll stick around here for a few days as I fight for my new passport, but there is probably a better place deeper into the city.
Day 77:
I'm in Sarnath, just north of Varnasi, and the place where Buddha have his first "sermon" to his disciples. I'm in a park, and there's a pack of Korean tourists to my left having a singalong. A few moments ago they performed a fan dance of some sort. Man, Korean tourists - as I have said - are such a delightful sort. They are so charming and ridiculous. Almost as much as the average Canadian backpacker. The Korean tourists can do no wrong, and the Indian visitors to this park are in awe of this group of madmen and women. I think it will take some time to shake lose the Korean sojourn from my consciousness. I feel like I'm "in the club," or more accurately "in on the joke."
I'll head back to Varanasi this evening. Shortly thereafter I'll catch a train to Delhi. Varanasi is, without a doubt, the most horrible place I've ever visited. One simple CANNOT find a moment of tranquility there, which is odd considering that Varanasi is one of the holiest cities in all of India. The only quiet time is spent locked inside of a hotel room, and even that is a tenuous proposition considering how many times someone has knocked on my door to "sweep up" for a few rupees gratuity.
As I sat at the ghats (places along the Ganges river to bathe and to cremate bodies) a particularly annoying guy sat down beside me trying to sell me on a tour of the area. His pitch was thirty minutes long, and when he got to the part about "showing the burning bodies" he included such patter as "burning and learning... cremation education!" The dude wouldn't go away, and I really wanted to smack him and point out that he was in a holy place. But that's not for me to say.
Even my driver on this side trip to Sarnath has been making desperate lunges at my wallet. I had to firmly request that his "friend" NOT "explain Buddhism" to me in Sarnath in exchange for a donation to his "charity."
...
Now the Koreans have moved on, and so I shall pack up my things and do the same.
...
Delhi tomorrow morning.
I'm in Sarnath, just north of Varnasi, and the place where Buddha have his first "sermon" to his disciples. I'm in a park, and there's a pack of Korean tourists to my left having a singalong. A few moments ago they performed a fan dance of some sort. Man, Korean tourists - as I have said - are such a delightful sort. They are so charming and ridiculous. Almost as much as the average Canadian backpacker. The Korean tourists can do no wrong, and the Indian visitors to this park are in awe of this group of madmen and women. I think it will take some time to shake lose the Korean sojourn from my consciousness. I feel like I'm "in the club," or more accurately "in on the joke."
I'll head back to Varanasi this evening. Shortly thereafter I'll catch a train to Delhi. Varanasi is, without a doubt, the most horrible place I've ever visited. One simple CANNOT find a moment of tranquility there, which is odd considering that Varanasi is one of the holiest cities in all of India. The only quiet time is spent locked inside of a hotel room, and even that is a tenuous proposition considering how many times someone has knocked on my door to "sweep up" for a few rupees gratuity.
As I sat at the ghats (places along the Ganges river to bathe and to cremate bodies) a particularly annoying guy sat down beside me trying to sell me on a tour of the area. His pitch was thirty minutes long, and when he got to the part about "showing the burning bodies" he included such patter as "burning and learning... cremation education!" The dude wouldn't go away, and I really wanted to smack him and point out that he was in a holy place. But that's not for me to say.
Even my driver on this side trip to Sarnath has been making desperate lunges at my wallet. I had to firmly request that his "friend" NOT "explain Buddhism" to me in Sarnath in exchange for a donation to his "charity."
...
Now the Koreans have moved on, and so I shall pack up my things and do the same.
...
Delhi tomorrow morning.
Day 76:
I've been reading "On the Road" lately. Ginsberg's "Howl and Other Poems" has been in my kit on every voyage I've taken in the past few years (including Korea), but strangely enough I've never bothered to check out the stories of his good buddy Jack Kerouac. Odd, that.
In the dedication to that book, he says that Kerouac "spit forth intelligence into eleven books... creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature" (3).
Kerouac's book makes my heart ache. Here I am travelling across Asia, when 50 years ago, Kerouac told everyone quite clearly that the REAL action is in North America. Back in Korea, M spoke often about going to England and Australia on a working holidaymaker visa... spending nights at hostels and days working various odd jobs. How romantic would it be to do that in Canada or America? Impossible because of all of our rules and regulations regarding work and employment, I'm sure, but it FEELS easy enough... moving from town to town by greyhound. Hostels are cheap, you know?
But it's impossible. A contemporary "On the Road" is rendered impossible by the trappings of twenty-first century government and bureaucracy. C'est la vie.
And, of course, I haven't actually finished the book, so maybe it's not quite so romantic as it is presented in the opening few chapters.
Interestingly enough, travelling in Asia makes voyaging in Canada and American seem a little bit easier that it would have seemed in the past. Rough sleeping, either in a dirty hotel or on a train station bench is no longer so intimidating, and fifteen hour bus rides are no longer such a hassle. Wandering around all night a la "Before Sunrise" in an American city instead of paying for a hotel seems quite safe and a smart idea, now. And going three weeks wearing the same clothes every day? No problem!
Anyways, I really want to see Canada. I want to see Nova Scotia, which is a place that is quite foreign to me, actually. I want to "go west." I want to visit friends. I want to count my final dollars.
What I want, desperately, is to have a job.
Sarnath, shortly. Then Delhi.
I've been reading "On the Road" lately. Ginsberg's "Howl and Other Poems" has been in my kit on every voyage I've taken in the past few years (including Korea), but strangely enough I've never bothered to check out the stories of his good buddy Jack Kerouac. Odd, that.
In the dedication to that book, he says that Kerouac "spit forth intelligence into eleven books... creating a spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature" (3).
Kerouac's book makes my heart ache. Here I am travelling across Asia, when 50 years ago, Kerouac told everyone quite clearly that the REAL action is in North America. Back in Korea, M spoke often about going to England and Australia on a working holidaymaker visa... spending nights at hostels and days working various odd jobs. How romantic would it be to do that in Canada or America? Impossible because of all of our rules and regulations regarding work and employment, I'm sure, but it FEELS easy enough... moving from town to town by greyhound. Hostels are cheap, you know?
But it's impossible. A contemporary "On the Road" is rendered impossible by the trappings of twenty-first century government and bureaucracy. C'est la vie.
And, of course, I haven't actually finished the book, so maybe it's not quite so romantic as it is presented in the opening few chapters.
Interestingly enough, travelling in Asia makes voyaging in Canada and American seem a little bit easier that it would have seemed in the past. Rough sleeping, either in a dirty hotel or on a train station bench is no longer so intimidating, and fifteen hour bus rides are no longer such a hassle. Wandering around all night a la "Before Sunrise" in an American city instead of paying for a hotel seems quite safe and a smart idea, now. And going three weeks wearing the same clothes every day? No problem!
Anyways, I really want to see Canada. I want to see Nova Scotia, which is a place that is quite foreign to me, actually. I want to "go west." I want to visit friends. I want to count my final dollars.
What I want, desperately, is to have a job.
Sarnath, shortly. Then Delhi.
Day 75:
They say that with India, you either love it or hate it. I don't think it's quite like that. For me, one moment I hate it, and then a few moments later I love it.
The bicycle-rickshaw guys are annoying, the guys selling silks on the streets are annoying... but every so often someone is NICE, helpful, or even charming as they go about the business of making some money off of the passing tourists. When this happens the general annoyance I feel with this place washes away. Of course, the hate comes back a few moments later.
Hate, hate, hate, love, hate, hate, hate, hate, love, hate.......
One particular peeve I have is how the walking guy is constantly asked something to the effect of "what are you looking for?" No matter what one says - even "nothing at all" - the questioner will saddle up beside with directions to some shop, or a spiel about some silly product they are selling. Fuuuck.
In Varanasi, the walking guy has literally one request on his money every five minutes. This ain't a good place for the traveller who likes to stroll just for the heck of it. And as the previous 50 entries in this thing suggest, I'm a guy who likes to stroll...
So Varanasi has lots of cows. Cows in the streets, cows in the alleyways, cows all over. It's sacrilegious to kill a cow, and I guess Indian people really like cows. Accordingly, cows wander freely in the streets, all over the city.
They say that with India, you either love it or hate it. I don't think it's quite like that. For me, one moment I hate it, and then a few moments later I love it.
The bicycle-rickshaw guys are annoying, the guys selling silks on the streets are annoying... but every so often someone is NICE, helpful, or even charming as they go about the business of making some money off of the passing tourists. When this happens the general annoyance I feel with this place washes away. Of course, the hate comes back a few moments later.
Hate, hate, hate, love, hate, hate, hate, hate, love, hate.......
One particular peeve I have is how the walking guy is constantly asked something to the effect of "what are you looking for?" No matter what one says - even "nothing at all" - the questioner will saddle up beside with directions to some shop, or a spiel about some silly product they are selling. Fuuuck.
In Varanasi, the walking guy has literally one request on his money every five minutes. This ain't a good place for the traveller who likes to stroll just for the heck of it. And as the previous 50 entries in this thing suggest, I'm a guy who likes to stroll...
So Varanasi has lots of cows. Cows in the streets, cows in the alleyways, cows all over. It's sacrilegious to kill a cow, and I guess Indian people really like cows. Accordingly, cows wander freely in the streets, all over the city.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Day 74:
I remember at the beginning of this trip, back in Samcheock, I was so shy about asking the adjuma pimp running my hotel to give me a five dollar discount.
Funny.
I'm in India now, and the whole tourism industry exists only to extract money from travellers as quickly as possible. I'm steeling myself. I'm not looking forward to what it will be like to be in Varanasi or Delhi. China has a bit of that, Nepal has even more. India, it seems, has a hundred times as much money-related bullshit as Nepal.
It's amazing what I can now, compared to what took a lot of courage back in Samcheok. When the rickshaw guy at the border changed both his price and his currency at the end of our ride I was confident enough to tell him that he would take what I was offering, or he would take nothing at all.
(And in between the last two paragraphs, I was comfortable letting lose a stream of expletives to the guy who sold me a bus ticket for a bus that he now says will not arrive... no refund)
So the latest news? I'm in some nasty border town between Nepal and India. I overpaid for a package to get me from Pokhara to Varanasi, and I'm about halfway there. I waited an hour for that aforementioned bus, with the guys insisting that it would come "in a few more minutes." Eventually they said it wouldn't come because they didn't sell enough tickets, and then told me to go buy a ticket for the local bus. And here I am on a crowded local bus... it rather resembles an American prison bus....
...Thank G-d for my earplugs.
I remember at the beginning of this trip, back in Samcheock, I was so shy about asking the adjuma pimp running my hotel to give me a five dollar discount.
Funny.
I'm in India now, and the whole tourism industry exists only to extract money from travellers as quickly as possible. I'm steeling myself. I'm not looking forward to what it will be like to be in Varanasi or Delhi. China has a bit of that, Nepal has even more. India, it seems, has a hundred times as much money-related bullshit as Nepal.
It's amazing what I can now, compared to what took a lot of courage back in Samcheok. When the rickshaw guy at the border changed both his price and his currency at the end of our ride I was confident enough to tell him that he would take what I was offering, or he would take nothing at all.
(And in between the last two paragraphs, I was comfortable letting lose a stream of expletives to the guy who sold me a bus ticket for a bus that he now says will not arrive... no refund)
So the latest news? I'm in some nasty border town between Nepal and India. I overpaid for a package to get me from Pokhara to Varanasi, and I'm about halfway there. I waited an hour for that aforementioned bus, with the guys insisting that it would come "in a few more minutes." Eventually they said it wouldn't come because they didn't sell enough tickets, and then told me to go buy a ticket for the local bus. And here I am on a crowded local bus... it rather resembles an American prison bus....
...Thank G-d for my earplugs.
Day 73
Still feeling a bit anxious. I've got some unanswered questions. India remains a bit of a sore point... I think I'll just go to Delhi and get a new passport, since my current passport is just about out of pages. But that's a motherfucker: It will take three weeks to be printed, at least, and I will have to pay $105 for the thing. And I have to have some photos taken, I have to adjust my itinerary to pick it up, I have to get some references... and worst of all I have to travel without a passport for three weeks.
And I don't know how long I will stay on the subcontinent. I know that I really ought to leave India sometime around August 14. It seems that I can enter Pakistan around that date, and stick around for a month after I enter. But honestly, I have NO IDEA how the Pakistani visa really works. I might get 30 days of stay following my entry, while I might have to exit on August 14, no matter WHEN I enter. The latter possibility would really force me to move fast, if true, while the former would allow me to stick around that particular war zone until the middle of September. But do I want to be in such a horrible place for a whole month?
And what happens after Pakistan. I have been denied entry to Iran, with no hope of appeal. So my overland trek will have to end in Islamabad. One possibility is to fly to Bahrain, which is a hub for flights heading to Europe and the middle east. And if I take a short layover in that city, I can actually save a few bucks on a flight to Turkey or to the continent.
But where can I connect to? I would want to get back on land as soon as possible, so I could fly to either Istanbul (the original plan for post-Iran travel), or even to Cairo, and work my way up to Europe by land or sea.
Europe, meanwhile, is not a real destination for me. When I get there I plan to visit a friend in Paris, and to take a cheap Thomas Cook flight to Halifax from London.
Anyways... I'm still in Pokhara. I've leaving to India first thing tomorrow morning. I wish I could stay here for a bit longer, since it's a really great "hangout" (like Kathmandu, but cleaner). And while food/Internet/supplies are more expensive than in the Big-K, my hotel is pretty cheap, and stuff away from the backpacker ghetto is quite affordable.
Still feeling a bit anxious. I've got some unanswered questions. India remains a bit of a sore point... I think I'll just go to Delhi and get a new passport, since my current passport is just about out of pages. But that's a motherfucker: It will take three weeks to be printed, at least, and I will have to pay $105 for the thing. And I have to have some photos taken, I have to adjust my itinerary to pick it up, I have to get some references... and worst of all I have to travel without a passport for three weeks.
And I don't know how long I will stay on the subcontinent. I know that I really ought to leave India sometime around August 14. It seems that I can enter Pakistan around that date, and stick around for a month after I enter. But honestly, I have NO IDEA how the Pakistani visa really works. I might get 30 days of stay following my entry, while I might have to exit on August 14, no matter WHEN I enter. The latter possibility would really force me to move fast, if true, while the former would allow me to stick around that particular war zone until the middle of September. But do I want to be in such a horrible place for a whole month?
And what happens after Pakistan. I have been denied entry to Iran, with no hope of appeal. So my overland trek will have to end in Islamabad. One possibility is to fly to Bahrain, which is a hub for flights heading to Europe and the middle east. And if I take a short layover in that city, I can actually save a few bucks on a flight to Turkey or to the continent.
But where can I connect to? I would want to get back on land as soon as possible, so I could fly to either Istanbul (the original plan for post-Iran travel), or even to Cairo, and work my way up to Europe by land or sea.
Europe, meanwhile, is not a real destination for me. When I get there I plan to visit a friend in Paris, and to take a cheap Thomas Cook flight to Halifax from London.
Anyways... I'm still in Pokhara. I've leaving to India first thing tomorrow morning. I wish I could stay here for a bit longer, since it's a really great "hangout" (like Kathmandu, but cleaner). And while food/Internet/supplies are more expensive than in the Big-K, my hotel is pretty cheap, and stuff away from the backpacker ghetto is quite affordable.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Day 72:
I'm feeling very anxious today.
Earlier, as I walked down Pokhara's main strip, I got the peculiar impression that I was walking past the same group of Japanese cyclists over and over again. I got the impression that everyone in the city was Japanese.
...
backpackers belong to a sort of scene. A sort of subculture, I guess. If you don't fit into the scene in the right way, people can be apprehensive and mean. That sort of sucks.
I'm feeling very anxious today.
Earlier, as I walked down Pokhara's main strip, I got the peculiar impression that I was walking past the same group of Japanese cyclists over and over again. I got the impression that everyone in the city was Japanese.
...
backpackers belong to a sort of scene. A sort of subculture, I guess. If you don't fit into the scene in the right way, people can be apprehensive and mean. That sort of sucks.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Day 71:
Seven hours spent on the bus has left N and R and myself in the city of Pokhara. Pokhara is a soothing respite from the honking car horns of Kathmandu. It's still a very touristed place, but with fewer touts, rickshaw drivers, souvenir vendors and hash dealers per square kilometer.
N and I walked around the main strip for a few hours and took a little rowboat trip to an island temple in the middle of this town's beautiful lake.
Now, an early night.
Seven hours spent on the bus has left N and R and myself in the city of Pokhara. Pokhara is a soothing respite from the honking car horns of Kathmandu. It's still a very touristed place, but with fewer touts, rickshaw drivers, souvenir vendors and hash dealers per square kilometer.
N and I walked around the main strip for a few hours and took a little rowboat trip to an island temple in the middle of this town's beautiful lake.
Now, an early night.
Day 70
Seventy days! It's the beginning of July...
.....
There was a certain toothless old man at the Indian embassy. A real old dude with a shock of white hair, no shoes and an American passport. He said to me:
"What's the news from Baghdad?"
I didn't know how to answer such a perfect question. Such a great "old salt" question from such a perfect old man. That's the sort of old man I hope to be, if I must be an old man sometime.
Today was my last day in Kathmandu. Not too much to report. I bought the last of my needed supplies and packed up my bag. Looking for some kitchy fun, R and I spent a few hours at the "Casino Royale," a rather charmless casino in the Indian part of town. We were hoping for a place with 25 cent blackjack hands, but were disappointed to find a place with a three dollar minimum and lots of Indian high rollers.
Lots of short skirts, though.
In contrast to the shelpy madness of Thamel, the main backpacker hangout, the area where Indian tourists hang out is very classy, calm and subdued. Backpacker hotel rooms cost about six bucks for a double, while beds for the Indians cost about ninety for a single. eeep.
I forgot to mention in yesterday's entry that N and I visited "Freak Street," which was the original hippie locale (backpackers have since moved to Thamel district) in the 60s and 70s. The place is a quieter alternative to the hustle and bustle of Thamel. It's empty now, but some old business linger on - we walked around one guesthouse that has been in operation since 1960. That place had a lot of history in it's musty rooms and shabby walls. I brought me back to the first places I stayed at, that out of fashion backpackers hostel way back in Gyeongju, Korea... thirty years ago a first-class hangout, but now just a shabby shadow of it's former self.
Seventy days! It's the beginning of July...
.....
There was a certain toothless old man at the Indian embassy. A real old dude with a shock of white hair, no shoes and an American passport. He said to me:
"What's the news from Baghdad?"
I didn't know how to answer such a perfect question. Such a great "old salt" question from such a perfect old man. That's the sort of old man I hope to be, if I must be an old man sometime.
Today was my last day in Kathmandu. Not too much to report. I bought the last of my needed supplies and packed up my bag. Looking for some kitchy fun, R and I spent a few hours at the "Casino Royale," a rather charmless casino in the Indian part of town. We were hoping for a place with 25 cent blackjack hands, but were disappointed to find a place with a three dollar minimum and lots of Indian high rollers.
Lots of short skirts, though.
In contrast to the shelpy madness of Thamel, the main backpacker hangout, the area where Indian tourists hang out is very classy, calm and subdued. Backpacker hotel rooms cost about six bucks for a double, while beds for the Indians cost about ninety for a single. eeep.
I forgot to mention in yesterday's entry that N and I visited "Freak Street," which was the original hippie locale (backpackers have since moved to Thamel district) in the 60s and 70s. The place is a quieter alternative to the hustle and bustle of Thamel. It's empty now, but some old business linger on - we walked around one guesthouse that has been in operation since 1960. That place had a lot of history in it's musty rooms and shabby walls. I brought me back to the first places I stayed at, that out of fashion backpackers hostel way back in Gyeongju, Korea... thirty years ago a first-class hangout, but now just a shabby shadow of it's former self.
Day 67, 68, 69
I've been in Kathmandu for a week now. I've been hanging out with R. He's a cool guy, and we share a similar approach to the world and to travelling which makes spending time together east. We spend a lot of time chatting about current events and the world political scene. Good times.
So, Kathmandu:
A lot of my time here has been spent organizing for the next few months. Procuring an Indian visa took four days, while shopping for some supplies filled up a fifth day. But Kathmandu is a good city for that sort of thing. The city was, at one point, the ultimate hippie destination. The hippies have all since departed (most of 'em anyways... one still finds the occasional zoned-out graybeard walking a dog around Thamel...), but the city is still a "hang out" city Food and lodgings are cheaper here than anywhere else, and the souvenirs are pretty cheap too. The mood on the street is not one that encourages the tourist to get out and see some VERY IMPORTANT SIGHT, but rather one that encourages chilling out.
The touts touts and hawkers here are a tad obnoxious however. Particularly the "shady" drug pushers. But they can be funny, too. When I turned down one guy who offered hash, heroin and cocaine he gave me a determined look before suggesting I buy some crack.
Who comes to Kathmandu to buy crack?
The streets are wonderful here. The whole city is a bit of a maze of alleyways and bazaars. Maps are rather useless. The dirty streets twist and turn, while the low rise brick buildings on either side seem to lean in towards each other, blocking out the sun. The roads themselves are a wonderfully congested mess of pedestrians, bicycle rickshaws and a few motorcycles. The usual street vendors conduct business at all hours, and all over the city are small mandalas and temples, both of the Hindu and Buddhist type.
And the sounds... oh... the car horns... the honking of the car horns.... it's an endless cacophony. But it's not just cars... the rickshaw drivers are constantly ringing bells or their own homemade horns (something about a plastic bottle). Everyone is constantly making some sort of "get out of the way" type sound. It's a noisy city!
...
With my whole Tibetan group I visited Katmandu's famous Monkey Temple. Not much to report - it's a vaguely Tibetan style temple. With monkeys. Sort of neat. Later, with N, I visited Katmandu's Durbar Square, a central area containing many small temples and things of that sort. Sort of neat, also, but sort of incomprehensible.
I think it's time I moved on to investigating a new religion. Maybe Scientology?
What else? Lots of wandering with R. Lots of walking and talking. I find that sort of thing delightful. The two of us managed to sample lots of cheap street food while walking. I dig that, also. Today we spent an hour or so at a sheesha bar, smoking, talking and eating.
This reminds me: R spent time in Cairo studying Arabic. Sheesha became a great past time of his. And my great pastime from MY time overseas? Eating Korean dol-sot bimbmbap. There's a fine Korean restaurant in this town, and I've visited three times already.
Daily updates again soon. I hope.
I've been in Kathmandu for a week now. I've been hanging out with R. He's a cool guy, and we share a similar approach to the world and to travelling which makes spending time together east. We spend a lot of time chatting about current events and the world political scene. Good times.
So, Kathmandu:
A lot of my time here has been spent organizing for the next few months. Procuring an Indian visa took four days, while shopping for some supplies filled up a fifth day. But Kathmandu is a good city for that sort of thing. The city was, at one point, the ultimate hippie destination. The hippies have all since departed (most of 'em anyways... one still finds the occasional zoned-out graybeard walking a dog around Thamel...), but the city is still a "hang out" city Food and lodgings are cheaper here than anywhere else, and the souvenirs are pretty cheap too. The mood on the street is not one that encourages the tourist to get out and see some VERY IMPORTANT SIGHT, but rather one that encourages chilling out.
The touts touts and hawkers here are a tad obnoxious however. Particularly the "shady" drug pushers. But they can be funny, too. When I turned down one guy who offered hash, heroin and cocaine he gave me a determined look before suggesting I buy some crack.
Who comes to Kathmandu to buy crack?
The streets are wonderful here. The whole city is a bit of a maze of alleyways and bazaars. Maps are rather useless. The dirty streets twist and turn, while the low rise brick buildings on either side seem to lean in towards each other, blocking out the sun. The roads themselves are a wonderfully congested mess of pedestrians, bicycle rickshaws and a few motorcycles. The usual street vendors conduct business at all hours, and all over the city are small mandalas and temples, both of the Hindu and Buddhist type.
And the sounds... oh... the car horns... the honking of the car horns.... it's an endless cacophony. But it's not just cars... the rickshaw drivers are constantly ringing bells or their own homemade horns (something about a plastic bottle). Everyone is constantly making some sort of "get out of the way" type sound. It's a noisy city!
...
With my whole Tibetan group I visited Katmandu's famous Monkey Temple. Not much to report - it's a vaguely Tibetan style temple. With monkeys. Sort of neat. Later, with N, I visited Katmandu's Durbar Square, a central area containing many small temples and things of that sort. Sort of neat, also, but sort of incomprehensible.
I think it's time I moved on to investigating a new religion. Maybe Scientology?
What else? Lots of wandering with R. Lots of walking and talking. I find that sort of thing delightful. The two of us managed to sample lots of cheap street food while walking. I dig that, also. Today we spent an hour or so at a sheesha bar, smoking, talking and eating.
This reminds me: R spent time in Cairo studying Arabic. Sheesha became a great past time of his. And my great pastime from MY time overseas? Eating Korean dol-sot bimbmbap. There's a fine Korean restaurant in this town, and I've visited three times already.
Daily updates again soon. I hope.
Day 64, 65, 66
Okay, so its the twenty-seventh now, and I'm in Kathmandu, but since this journal is getting behind, I'm actually trying to write about what went down last week.
So, last week I was in the Tibetan countryside. Myself and my five new friends piled into a minibus around 8:00 one Monday morning and set off, with a driver and guide along for the ride.
The company was nice. But really, as a trip, the whole thing might have been a little ho-hum. We visited three monasteries over the first few days. They were nice, but all of the temples and monasteries sort of blend together after awhile. And also, the whole temple experience is tainted by the obnoxious presence of touts and hawkers at the entrances... and also by the exorbitant admission prices charged by the Chinese regime.
We drove along the "friendship highway" to Nepal, with the border to that country being our ultimate destination. Along the way we visited a few nice towns. Tibet seems to be an empty place, and most of the settlements inside the territory are quite small. Many are just one street, with homes and shops built along that street in a straight line that stretches for a kilometer or two with expanses of crumbling highway plugging into each end. Restaurants in these places are a treat, each looking rather identical to the last (dirty, with big padded seating along the walls) and with identical menu items (noodles, fried greens and rice with egg).
After a few days of driving through the small towns and monasteries we hit the big time - Mount Everest Base Camp. The clouds parted long enough for us to snap a few pictures, and also long enough to give our group ample time to gawk at the awesomeness of that 8800 meter peak, which is made more impressive by the fact that the mountains on either side reach almost as high.
P,D and N decided to spend the night in a hotel near the camp, while O,R and myself stomped four kilometers uphill to reach the "camp" (really a tourist trap of sorts, since the climbing season is long over), at an elevation of 5200 meters. There we spent a very cold night sleeping in a tent hotel dubbed "Hotel California" by its operators.
And that was sort of the end of out journey. The next day we spent a good 15 hours on the road pushing through the town of Zeungmu, the last stop on the Friendship Highway. The last three hours were a harrowing trip around the side of a mountain on a road where a skid a few meters to one side would result in a 3000 meter fall down a sheer cliff. This drive we made through the dark, through the fog and through enough mud to require us to get out and lay down rocks and branches to make a road, at one point. I was more than a little scared of dying, so I passed my Beatles CD to the driver and we twisted and turned along the mountain side while singing along (bravely) to "I want to Hold Your Hand."
After getting through THAT, we spent one night in Zeungmu, I made a trip to the post office to send some final Tibetan postcards and we walked down to the Nepalese border post.
Next time: Kathmandu!
Okay, so its the twenty-seventh now, and I'm in Kathmandu, but since this journal is getting behind, I'm actually trying to write about what went down last week.
So, last week I was in the Tibetan countryside. Myself and my five new friends piled into a minibus around 8:00 one Monday morning and set off, with a driver and guide along for the ride.
The company was nice. But really, as a trip, the whole thing might have been a little ho-hum. We visited three monasteries over the first few days. They were nice, but all of the temples and monasteries sort of blend together after awhile. And also, the whole temple experience is tainted by the obnoxious presence of touts and hawkers at the entrances... and also by the exorbitant admission prices charged by the Chinese regime.
We drove along the "friendship highway" to Nepal, with the border to that country being our ultimate destination. Along the way we visited a few nice towns. Tibet seems to be an empty place, and most of the settlements inside the territory are quite small. Many are just one street, with homes and shops built along that street in a straight line that stretches for a kilometer or two with expanses of crumbling highway plugging into each end. Restaurants in these places are a treat, each looking rather identical to the last (dirty, with big padded seating along the walls) and with identical menu items (noodles, fried greens and rice with egg).
After a few days of driving through the small towns and monasteries we hit the big time - Mount Everest Base Camp. The clouds parted long enough for us to snap a few pictures, and also long enough to give our group ample time to gawk at the awesomeness of that 8800 meter peak, which is made more impressive by the fact that the mountains on either side reach almost as high.
P,D and N decided to spend the night in a hotel near the camp, while O,R and myself stomped four kilometers uphill to reach the "camp" (really a tourist trap of sorts, since the climbing season is long over), at an elevation of 5200 meters. There we spent a very cold night sleeping in a tent hotel dubbed "Hotel California" by its operators.
And that was sort of the end of out journey. The next day we spent a good 15 hours on the road pushing through the town of Zeungmu, the last stop on the Friendship Highway. The last three hours were a harrowing trip around the side of a mountain on a road where a skid a few meters to one side would result in a 3000 meter fall down a sheer cliff. This drive we made through the dark, through the fog and through enough mud to require us to get out and lay down rocks and branches to make a road, at one point. I was more than a little scared of dying, so I passed my Beatles CD to the driver and we twisted and turned along the mountain side while singing along (bravely) to "I want to Hold Your Hand."
After getting through THAT, we spent one night in Zeungmu, I made a trip to the post office to send some final Tibetan postcards and we walked down to the Nepalese border post.
Next time: Kathmandu!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Day 62, 63:
A bit more about Tibet, now. Too much is happening, and I'm getting backlogged in the journal. So, to sum up:
I did a bit more touring around Lhasa with my three friends. Eventually they all had to leave on a tour to Mount Everest Base camp and back, with me sticking around the city trying to find a tour that would get me to Everest and beyond (to the Nepali border, natch). Lots of promises to keep in touch were made, and E promised to let me crash on her couch in Paris come September.
Eventually I did find an organized tour to the border (six days and then we cross). I signed up with five other tourists. They are: O, a Dutch guy of 33, D, a Serbian of 31, R, a young American of 23, N a Frenchwoman of 27, and P, a 50-something French hippie.
These guys are decent. Of course, I like to travel alone, but the five of them make me laugh. I chat most often with R, who has spent some time studying and living in the Middle East, and has such a great knowledge of that region - we have conversations that are mostly just me asking questions about twentieth century Arabic history.
The rest are nice people, also. N is very sweet - twenty-seven and on a break from art school in Brussels, she hope to become a children's illustrator someday. That makes her quite irresistible, I think.
A bit about what we've been doing in the next entry.
A bit more about Tibet, now. Too much is happening, and I'm getting backlogged in the journal. So, to sum up:
I did a bit more touring around Lhasa with my three friends. Eventually they all had to leave on a tour to Mount Everest Base camp and back, with me sticking around the city trying to find a tour that would get me to Everest and beyond (to the Nepali border, natch). Lots of promises to keep in touch were made, and E promised to let me crash on her couch in Paris come September.
Eventually I did find an organized tour to the border (six days and then we cross). I signed up with five other tourists. They are: O, a Dutch guy of 33, D, a Serbian of 31, R, a young American of 23, N a Frenchwoman of 27, and P, a 50-something French hippie.
These guys are decent. Of course, I like to travel alone, but the five of them make me laugh. I chat most often with R, who has spent some time studying and living in the Middle East, and has such a great knowledge of that region - we have conversations that are mostly just me asking questions about twentieth century Arabic history.
The rest are nice people, also. N is very sweet - twenty-seven and on a break from art school in Brussels, she hope to become a children's illustrator someday. That makes her quite irresistible, I think.
A bit about what we've been doing in the next entry.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Day 61:
These blog thingies are usally just transcritions of my paper journal with all of the personal stuff taken out. When I penned this "Day 61" entry, I wrote an illegible mess about love and attraction. Escwing my tendency to keep the personal stuff to myself, I give you the following:
"It was in the Gobi desert that I encountered C for the first time. My falling in love with her was a consequence of having read "Breakfast at Tiffany's" several times while driving to this particular location. Upon seeing C stepping in the sand before a particularly red cliffside I felt a Tourettic urge to write this in my journal: "HOLLY GOLIGHTLY IN THE DESERT." So I did that seven times.
C was wearing pants and a shirt that revealed her dark nipples and an overwrought hat that she clutched to her head, doing battle with the desert winds."
Ahem.
These blog thingies are usally just transcritions of my paper journal with all of the personal stuff taken out. When I penned this "Day 61" entry, I wrote an illegible mess about love and attraction. Escwing my tendency to keep the personal stuff to myself, I give you the following:
"It was in the Gobi desert that I encountered C for the first time. My falling in love with her was a consequence of having read "Breakfast at Tiffany's" several times while driving to this particular location. Upon seeing C stepping in the sand before a particularly red cliffside I felt a Tourettic urge to write this in my journal: "HOLLY GOLIGHTLY IN THE DESERT." So I did that seven times.
C was wearing pants and a shirt that revealed her dark nipples and an overwrought hat that she clutched to her head, doing battle with the desert winds."
Ahem.
Day 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
Some of my Tibetan experience, now. It's the morning of the twentieth, so I'm writing about stuff that happened four days ago...
What to say?
Lhasa is nice. The streets are busy - as the city is the centre of Tibetan Buddhism, there is a constant stream of visitors and pilgrims from the countryside. The town takes on a feeling of carnival, especially when a few thousands of tourists are thrown into that mix. I spent my time in the city with my three friends from Golmud - J and K, Americans (K a student of Chinese language studying in Beijing), and E (a Frenchwoman and consummate traveller). Those three people made such wonderful company.
J is a sarcastic guy. K is his girlfriend, a gentler soul, but very accommodating of her boyfriend. J tells really hilarious stories about being "just friends" with K for a whopping THREE YEARS. He's also got an impressive collection of stories detailing a plethora of romantic failures from his high school and college freshman years. His stuff is so wonderfully self-deprecating to be funny, but I can also identify with most of it. And while I play the self deprecation card with the driest of wit (I like my sarcasm to be undetectable), this dude is truly in love, and can diminish himself with a pleasant joie-de-vie. I hope to, someday, be able to tear myself down in such a way. K, meanwhile, endures J's sense of humor quite well, though since they've only been a couple for six months, maybe this is all new to her.
Wonderful stuff.
You (you?) have no idea how happy it makes me to see that goofy, NICE guy get his girl. THAT girl, specifically.
Wonderful stuff.
E, also, makes a superior companion. She's French, though to North American ears her accent sounds like something from Manchester, while Europeans usually place her somewhere in South Africa. She's a constant traveller, having visited all over, with a collection of fine stories to tell. She maintains a flat in Paris, and has promised me a few days tour when I pass through there next.
So...
The four of us visited some of Lhasa's sights, and ate some nice food together. With E, on the second day in Lhasa, I visited the Jokala, Lhasa's primary temple and the most important temple of Tibetan Buddhism. It's an odd place place - this sort of Buddhism is very intense when compared to Seon in Korea. There, temples are small places, sparsely furnished with visual intensity found only in the main temple halls which usually contain three rather subdued statues of the Buddha. The Jokala (and other temples), though, is a labyrinthine place with many random seeming furnishings and statues, with the smell of burning Yak butter permeating the place, with candles everywhere, with money stuck to every surface, with pilgrims circling the rooms, with beggars inside and out...
The bow here is more complete, we can say, than what is done in Korea; some of the devout have callouses on their foreheads from banging against the pavement outside the temple a few times too often.
Oh... there's also a pantheon of gods and deities and reincarnated monks and oracles. I'm not sure I'd be able to get behind a religion where the leader is a reincarnated god. Not sure at all. The fun thing about Seon Buddhism is that the most respected monks are those who are most intelligent and who can communicate ideas in the best way. These guys often live deep in the mountains away from civilization. Past Dalai Lama's, meanwhile, have lived Vatican style in a 1000 room palace in the capital.
Anyhow, yeah, the Jokala is a pretty intense place. More subdued was Same monastery, a quiet place located about five kilometres north of the city center. E and I reached that place by bicycle. The scene there is quieter, as I said, and more contemplative.
Two days after visiting Same, I got back to the big show of Tibetan Buddhism... that 1000 room palace. It's called Potala, and has been home to most of the incarnations of the Dalai Lama throughout history. It was pretty neat, but the admission ticket was steep (13 USD), for a self guided tour that included access to maybe 5o of those 1000 rooms. But hey, it included a peek at the Dalai Lama's bedroom....
Some of my Tibetan experience, now. It's the morning of the twentieth, so I'm writing about stuff that happened four days ago...
What to say?
Lhasa is nice. The streets are busy - as the city is the centre of Tibetan Buddhism, there is a constant stream of visitors and pilgrims from the countryside. The town takes on a feeling of carnival, especially when a few thousands of tourists are thrown into that mix. I spent my time in the city with my three friends from Golmud - J and K, Americans (K a student of Chinese language studying in Beijing), and E (a Frenchwoman and consummate traveller). Those three people made such wonderful company.
J is a sarcastic guy. K is his girlfriend, a gentler soul, but very accommodating of her boyfriend. J tells really hilarious stories about being "just friends" with K for a whopping THREE YEARS. He's also got an impressive collection of stories detailing a plethora of romantic failures from his high school and college freshman years. His stuff is so wonderfully self-deprecating to be funny, but I can also identify with most of it. And while I play the self deprecation card with the driest of wit (I like my sarcasm to be undetectable), this dude is truly in love, and can diminish himself with a pleasant joie-de-vie. I hope to, someday, be able to tear myself down in such a way. K, meanwhile, endures J's sense of humor quite well, though since they've only been a couple for six months, maybe this is all new to her.
Wonderful stuff.
You (you?) have no idea how happy it makes me to see that goofy, NICE guy get his girl. THAT girl, specifically.
Wonderful stuff.
E, also, makes a superior companion. She's French, though to North American ears her accent sounds like something from Manchester, while Europeans usually place her somewhere in South Africa. She's a constant traveller, having visited all over, with a collection of fine stories to tell. She maintains a flat in Paris, and has promised me a few days tour when I pass through there next.
So...
The four of us visited some of Lhasa's sights, and ate some nice food together. With E, on the second day in Lhasa, I visited the Jokala, Lhasa's primary temple and the most important temple of Tibetan Buddhism. It's an odd place place - this sort of Buddhism is very intense when compared to Seon in Korea. There, temples are small places, sparsely furnished with visual intensity found only in the main temple halls which usually contain three rather subdued statues of the Buddha. The Jokala (and other temples), though, is a labyrinthine place with many random seeming furnishings and statues, with the smell of burning Yak butter permeating the place, with candles everywhere, with money stuck to every surface, with pilgrims circling the rooms, with beggars inside and out...
The bow here is more complete, we can say, than what is done in Korea; some of the devout have callouses on their foreheads from banging against the pavement outside the temple a few times too often.
Oh... there's also a pantheon of gods and deities and reincarnated monks and oracles. I'm not sure I'd be able to get behind a religion where the leader is a reincarnated god. Not sure at all. The fun thing about Seon Buddhism is that the most respected monks are those who are most intelligent and who can communicate ideas in the best way. These guys often live deep in the mountains away from civilization. Past Dalai Lama's, meanwhile, have lived Vatican style in a 1000 room palace in the capital.
Anyhow, yeah, the Jokala is a pretty intense place. More subdued was Same monastery, a quiet place located about five kilometres north of the city center. E and I reached that place by bicycle. The scene there is quieter, as I said, and more contemplative.
Two days after visiting Same, I got back to the big show of Tibetan Buddhism... that 1000 room palace. It's called Potala, and has been home to most of the incarnations of the Dalai Lama throughout history. It was pretty neat, but the admission ticket was steep (13 USD), for a self guided tour that included access to maybe 5o of those 1000 rooms. But hey, it included a peek at the Dalai Lama's bedroom....
Monday, June 25, 2007
Day 55
Tibet! Lhasa! Shangri-la??
The train ride was okay. It took about fourteen hours, reaching all those high passes with great gusto, ending up at Lhasa, at an elevation of about 3800 metres. I got a little sick towards the end, but playing cards with my three new pals helped keep me in one piece (barely).
I did a bit of wandering around the city with E today, checking out Lhasa's sights (though saving actual entrances for tomorrow). Lhasa is a visually striking city with a style I've not encountered any time before. It's divided into a strongly Tibetan old town and a strongly Chinese influenced New Town. Both are very busy places. The old town is a maze of restaurants, shops, hotels and a general morass of tourist stuff that keeps it from getting gobbled up by the more commercial and boring new town. That place contains a collection of shops targeting the city's upper crust.
The people of Lhasa are really something special. In addition to the Tibetan and Han residents of the city, the streets are overflowing with visitors from the Tibetan countryside. These people, visiting mostly on pilgrimages to Buddhist holy sights are wonderfully dressed in the bright heavy tunics that are practical in the cold countryside, but merely curious in the city.
The smell of the city, too, is nice. The whole place smells of incense and yak butter which is burned as part of the religious tradition of the region. E and I saw great concrete "burners" (something like incense burners in temples) along a river in the new town. As we stopped to take pictures, many pilgrims stopped to add yak butter to the fires inside.
And the geography? Also rather nice. The city seems hemmed in by great mountains which forever seem to be "twenty minutes" away as one walks the street. And in the centre of town is a great hill, upon which sits the Potala Palace, a massive 1000 room building that was once home to all incarnations of the Dalai Lama.
Uhm... more next time. I'm awfully tired right now.
Tibet! Lhasa! Shangri-la??
The train ride was okay. It took about fourteen hours, reaching all those high passes with great gusto, ending up at Lhasa, at an elevation of about 3800 metres. I got a little sick towards the end, but playing cards with my three new pals helped keep me in one piece (barely).
I did a bit of wandering around the city with E today, checking out Lhasa's sights (though saving actual entrances for tomorrow). Lhasa is a visually striking city with a style I've not encountered any time before. It's divided into a strongly Tibetan old town and a strongly Chinese influenced New Town. Both are very busy places. The old town is a maze of restaurants, shops, hotels and a general morass of tourist stuff that keeps it from getting gobbled up by the more commercial and boring new town. That place contains a collection of shops targeting the city's upper crust.
The people of Lhasa are really something special. In addition to the Tibetan and Han residents of the city, the streets are overflowing with visitors from the Tibetan countryside. These people, visiting mostly on pilgrimages to Buddhist holy sights are wonderfully dressed in the bright heavy tunics that are practical in the cold countryside, but merely curious in the city.
The smell of the city, too, is nice. The whole place smells of incense and yak butter which is burned as part of the religious tradition of the region. E and I saw great concrete "burners" (something like incense burners in temples) along a river in the new town. As we stopped to take pictures, many pilgrims stopped to add yak butter to the fires inside.
And the geography? Also rather nice. The city seems hemmed in by great mountains which forever seem to be "twenty minutes" away as one walks the street. And in the centre of town is a great hill, upon which sits the Potala Palace, a massive 1000 room building that was once home to all incarnations of the Dalai Lama.
Uhm... more next time. I'm awfully tired right now.
Day 52, 53, 54
It's early in the morning of the fourteenth of June. I'm on the train to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. I was hoping to take the bus over the 5500 metre high passes that this trip requires, but with this NEW train service (it started last year), the bus is going out of style, and only runs a couple times a week.
The train originates somewhere in the west. I got on in Golmud, the last stop before the train spends 17 hours crossing the Tibetan plateau. Golmud is a STRANGE place. A 1985 edition of Lonely planet says this:
"Locals will tell you that from Golmud to Hell is a local call."
Twenty years later, my current edition says something like this:
"Unless you are an engineer or an escaped convict on the run, there is little reason to visit this strange outpost in the oblivion end of China."
Eeeep.
Really, though, Golmud is odd. It's very clean, with wide streets lined by landscaped gardens and cute little pools of water, covered with stepping stones so that pedestrians can reach the sidewalks. The shops suggest some kind of wealth. The town IS reach, I suppose, because of the resources extracted from the surrounding countryside. Honestly, it's all quite pretty, despite what the Lonely Planet books say.
But God, it is really out there. I was wrong when I said that Vladivostok and Kashgar were at the ends of the earth. THIS place is the end of the earth... those places line up with borders and oceans and trade routes. But this place lines up with nothing but nothingness... mountains and desert. Those places have neighbours!
There's nothing to DO in Golmud, no reason to visit... but it still has a three star hotel. How does that happen?
Moving on:
I've been travelling these past couple days with an American couple - J and K - and E, a solo French woman. Some company made the boredom of Golmud easy to bare.
And thank God for that, because Golmud serves as a sort of bottleneck for travellers to Tibet, easily trapping the unwary for an unplanned stopover of two or three days. The trap lies in the paperwork required to enter Tibet, specifically a 120 dollar "permit" that takes at least one day to arrange. It's just a sort of moneymaker for the Chinese tourism industry, but everyone is supposed to have it.
The other trap is getting train tickets for Tibet. For the four of us, that was a real nightmare. Acting on a tip, we lined up at 6:00, two and a half hours before the ticket office opened. We waited and waited and then, at 8:30, all hell broke loose. The Chinese, you see, aren't so big on the concept of a queue, and the mob that appeared two hours after we arrived weren't so big on the prospect of not getting a ticket (limited availability, you see), so they sort of broke out into a mob with everyone pushing and kicking and shouting and swearing and really trying hard to get ahead in the line. Two hundred people fought for about 40 tickets. Myself and my three comrades had to literally shove back the masses as they tried to get ahead of us.
You ever see "Dawn of the Dead?" Where the zombies really want to get into the mall and bang away at the glass doors? It was sort of like that. But with living, breathing people. I actually grabbed some guy's wallet and told him I would throw it over my shoulder into the crowd if he didn't go back to his place in line.
In the end, we managed to purchase three tickets (the last three!) and paid an extra twenty bucks to get one on the black market and the 150 people who showed up after us went home unhappy.
And now I'm on the road to Lhasa. Just five minutes out of town, looking out the window I saw a very barren landscape. The LED display at the end of my carriage says that our current elevation is 2833 meters, while in the distance some very high peaks loom. Like I said, we will reach heights of 5500 meters before the end of this trip (as a comparison, Mount Everest is 8200 at it's peak, I think) .
Sitting a couple of seats down from me is a trio of Korean retirees who are taking a year long trip around the continent. They are a very odd bunch, with the guys sporting a pair of very long and very un-Korean beards. The beards are about as long as the one that the guy on the 1000 won note has, which is pretty damn long. They are all hippies of a sort, and when I dropped a few references of Hongdae district and the "Art Free Market" they were duly impressed. Hee.
Okay. The train is picking up speed...
It's early in the morning of the fourteenth of June. I'm on the train to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. I was hoping to take the bus over the 5500 metre high passes that this trip requires, but with this NEW train service (it started last year), the bus is going out of style, and only runs a couple times a week.
The train originates somewhere in the west. I got on in Golmud, the last stop before the train spends 17 hours crossing the Tibetan plateau. Golmud is a STRANGE place. A 1985 edition of Lonely planet says this:
"Locals will tell you that from Golmud to Hell is a local call."
Twenty years later, my current edition says something like this:
"Unless you are an engineer or an escaped convict on the run, there is little reason to visit this strange outpost in the oblivion end of China."
Eeeep.
Really, though, Golmud is odd. It's very clean, with wide streets lined by landscaped gardens and cute little pools of water, covered with stepping stones so that pedestrians can reach the sidewalks. The shops suggest some kind of wealth. The town IS reach, I suppose, because of the resources extracted from the surrounding countryside. Honestly, it's all quite pretty, despite what the Lonely Planet books say.
But God, it is really out there. I was wrong when I said that Vladivostok and Kashgar were at the ends of the earth. THIS place is the end of the earth... those places line up with borders and oceans and trade routes. But this place lines up with nothing but nothingness... mountains and desert. Those places have neighbours!
There's nothing to DO in Golmud, no reason to visit... but it still has a three star hotel. How does that happen?
Moving on:
I've been travelling these past couple days with an American couple - J and K - and E, a solo French woman. Some company made the boredom of Golmud easy to bare.
And thank God for that, because Golmud serves as a sort of bottleneck for travellers to Tibet, easily trapping the unwary for an unplanned stopover of two or three days. The trap lies in the paperwork required to enter Tibet, specifically a 120 dollar "permit" that takes at least one day to arrange. It's just a sort of moneymaker for the Chinese tourism industry, but everyone is supposed to have it.
The other trap is getting train tickets for Tibet. For the four of us, that was a real nightmare. Acting on a tip, we lined up at 6:00, two and a half hours before the ticket office opened. We waited and waited and then, at 8:30, all hell broke loose. The Chinese, you see, aren't so big on the concept of a queue, and the mob that appeared two hours after we arrived weren't so big on the prospect of not getting a ticket (limited availability, you see), so they sort of broke out into a mob with everyone pushing and kicking and shouting and swearing and really trying hard to get ahead in the line. Two hundred people fought for about 40 tickets. Myself and my three comrades had to literally shove back the masses as they tried to get ahead of us.
You ever see "Dawn of the Dead?" Where the zombies really want to get into the mall and bang away at the glass doors? It was sort of like that. But with living, breathing people. I actually grabbed some guy's wallet and told him I would throw it over my shoulder into the crowd if he didn't go back to his place in line.
In the end, we managed to purchase three tickets (the last three!) and paid an extra twenty bucks to get one on the black market and the 150 people who showed up after us went home unhappy.
And now I'm on the road to Lhasa. Just five minutes out of town, looking out the window I saw a very barren landscape. The LED display at the end of my carriage says that our current elevation is 2833 meters, while in the distance some very high peaks loom. Like I said, we will reach heights of 5500 meters before the end of this trip (as a comparison, Mount Everest is 8200 at it's peak, I think) .
Sitting a couple of seats down from me is a trio of Korean retirees who are taking a year long trip around the continent. They are a very odd bunch, with the guys sporting a pair of very long and very un-Korean beards. The beards are about as long as the one that the guy on the 1000 won note has, which is pretty damn long. They are all hippies of a sort, and when I dropped a few references of Hongdae district and the "Art Free Market" they were duly impressed. Hee.
Okay. The train is picking up speed...
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