Whereami

Urban Trekking

Nepal is famous for its trekking (8 of the world's 10 tallest mountains are here) but even though I've been here for almost a week I have yet to do any...mostly because I'm having such a good time just wondering around the city (and jumping off 500ft bridges).

One of my favorite things to do on this trip, besides adventure sports, is to get lost. I'll grab some lunch and then just take off in whatever direction looks most interesting. No map, no guide, just some cash and a camera (and maybe a business card with my guesthouse name on it). Usually I'll give myself a couple of hours before I turn around and try to make my way home (as it normally takes me a little longer to get back). I judge how successful the trek has been by the number of westerners I see (the fewer the better) and by how high a person's eyebrows jump when I ask for directions to return.

While Theroux may prefer trains, I'll take traveling by plane and then foot anyday.

Some highlights from around town:
Downtown Kathmandu
Some colorful buildings 1,2 (of which there were many)
Discourage Beggars

Quite a wakeup

I was sleeping on the bus ride to Pokhura when our bus hit a bump and knocked my head against the window (no bruise)...when I opened my eyes I saw some of the highest and most beautiful mountains I've ever seen. The way they soared into the sky was absolutely breathtaking. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned bumps I didn't get to take any pictures...yet.

Although the pics linked above aren't mine, but my camera's at full strength...so hopefully I'll have many of my own to add soon. Here's a couple, check back in four or five days for more.

Liking bacon is a start

Recently got back from a short trek around Pokhura, Nepal. Good times, great people, and no safety worries...although at the start I was somewhat concerned :)

When we were registering for the trip our guide asked us for some personal info (name, DOB, passport #,etc...) and after seeing my info he told me that for this trip I shouldn't say I was American...mostly because we were going to be passing through some rural parts and if any of the locals knew I was from the states they might not like me so much (due to our government's position on Nepal's current political situation). No problem he said, just go Canadian.

Well, needless to say, a few hours into the trek and he was already talking to the locals and telling them I was American...so much for the secret :) But everyone we met along the way was perfectly friendly to our group (two Dutch people, our guides, and my pseudo-canadian self) so not sure why he made such a big deal about it at the start.

Attack of the hyperlinks

Been a lot less writing and a lot more photos lately...is that good or bad? See the whole collection here (recently broke the 200 photo mark!) or just browse through the latest highlights:

Just Feel Me! (more)
Trekking is Trekking (more)
Big rock, little Adam (thanks Ine)
Basketball overseas (more)
The locals (more)
Colorful buildings (more)
Big mountains (more)
New favorites

Random note: as all you tech-savy readers may have noticed, I recently started using Flickr's multi-tag browsing and it's been a pretty helpful feature for generating the 'more' links listed above.

It sounds a lot worse than it really is

Well, I was going to leave Pokhura for Kathmandu today...but there's been a slight delay. Seems that the Maoists felt like starting a two-day strike - meaning I won't be able to get a bus ride back to Kat until Sunday.

From talking to a few people the strikes aren't that uncommon but I had yet to experience one first hand. Everything in town is basically the same as any other day but coming and going is stopped because the Maoists block the roadways (among other things).

The whole situation here is probably the least-threatening, dangerous situation I've ever been in. It's hard to explain how calm everything here is for the tourists, even though at the same time it's supposedly more chaotic for locals in the more rural areas.

The most important thing to note is that the Maoists are trying to attack the government, not tourists, so there's basically no threat for us at all. Even if you do come across a Maoist all they want is money (of which americans pay the highest fees, hence the going canadian) but I can't stress enough how safe everything is despite how bad it may seem.

ps: luckily I've got a big project to keep me busy.

update: arrived back in kathmandu safely, and as i far i could tell there was no strike either today or yesterday...but lots of checkpoints along the way...making the ride back a couple hours longer :)

You're kidding, right?

The funny thing about the people here is that even when you know exactly what you're talking about, they'll still try and bullshit you. A couple of examples:

After arriving back in Kathmandu I returned to one of my favorite coffee houses for dinner. Nothing fancy, just a ham sandwich and a coke. Well, the coke they brought me was totally flat...no biggie right? Just give me a new one. But the guy behind the counter tried to tell me that only Pepsi had fizz and Coke didn't. He went on to explain how the sugar in Coke removed the fizz whereas there was no sugar in Pepsi....Come on man! I'm American - if there's one thing I know about, it's Coke and Pepsi :)

Then today I was trading in a bunch of paperbacks in exchange for a new Lonely Planet guide. The book was wrapped with all the other 'new' books and I didn't give it too thorough of an inspection as it looked pretty good from the outside (and again, it was in the section clearly marked 'new'). After arriving at Rum Doodle for dinner (where you can eat free for life if you've reached the top of everest), I opened the book and checked the date...1999! And then I looked at the price in Rupees (which was conviently covering the price in dollars)...and the price in Rupees was more than face value! I left dinner to return the book and when I asked for my refund the guy tried to tell me that he was charging more than face because of the dollar's current trade value...so I asked what he thought the dollar was trading at in 1999?!

Other notes - I leave Kathmandu for Delhi (again...groan) tomorrow morning...and as soon as possible I'll be getting on a train to Mumbai, Bombay, whatever...should take between 17-24 hours to get there, so hopefully I'll have a new post online around the 14th. And then on the 17th it's onto Cairo!!

It's better than Delhi

Which isn't saying much, but so far Bombay (Mumbai) seems pretty cool. The city is HUGE so I should have plenty to explore during the short stop here.

Living Large in Cairo

It's been nothing but large beds, families, and meals since I arrived here in Cairo and man is it a welcome change. Ezz and his crew have been giving me the royal treatment here and I think it's gonna be pretty tough for me to leave here (luckily I won't have to for a couple more weeks).

Haven't done too much sight-seeing yet, but I did see one of the pyramids from the plane, and we've driven across the Nile numerous times already.

Gotta roll, more words and pics to come later.

The beauty of hypertext

Gotta love the Wikipedia. Not only is it easy to find the information you want, but every now and then you stumble across some info you didn't even know you wanted.

For example, while reading up on the Nile river, I came across this tidbit:

See Also

Nile is also a death metal band from South Carolina, USA; see Nile (band).

You don't say...Want to know more about death metal??

Death metal is usually identified by extreme brutality, intensity and speed. The vocals - death grunts, (guttural roars) or "growls", as they're often called, are rough and often incomprehensible and they usually communicate macabre subject matter. The focus on mortality likely inspired the naming of this genre as "Death" metal.

See, this is the perfect example of what separates Wikipedia from Britannica.

K, back to more 'real' research on Egypt.

ps: while creating this post I accidently shut the computer off about halfway through. How'd I do that you ask? Because the power button is located directly below the 'delete' key on the keyboard. Are you kidding me??? That has got to be about the worst location (except for maybe somewhere near the spacebar). Thank you MediaTech for your truly awful industrial design.

Egyptian Cowboys

So, how do Egyptians spend the Christmas holiday? Pretty much the same way Americans do...they exchange gifts with friends and family, they have a big christmas eve dinner with turkey and mashed potatoes, and when they're done with all that, they go play soccer at 2am xmas morning and then do a little horseback riding around the pyramids at noon..you know, just typical everyday kinda stuff.

Some photos of said activities:
The Egyptian Cowboys
The American Cowboy (in Egypt)
Whole Lotta Pyramids
The Nile at Night