I am here...In San Francisco

I have been thinking about how simple things can be exhausting. How exhaustion is exhausting. How waking up is exhausting. How thinking about these dumb things is exhausting. And how it is all exhausting in a good way. And by that I mean, I choose it.

i am no longer traveling...

at least not literally.

but i have stumbled upon this blog once again, as a result of my good friend posting to my fb page where we were 2 years ago (peru) and this has made me consider the life i am leading and the metaphorical traveling i am doing. don't worry. i am not religious at all. (that is for you, rahima, the only one reading this blog). i realized how i would like to reveal/blog about the goings on in my life. it is much cheaper than therapy. although; i do need a therapist...

singapore

we are only in singapore for 3 days and 2 nights, which is plenty of time to be here. it is very clean and pretty, but it is also uber-modern with a mall every 100 feet. it just feels like a city. i could be in la, sydney, nyc and not know the difference. annette hates it here. i wouldn't say that i hate it, but i am pretty nonplussed. we are staying in chinatown, which is a pretty cool area, although there is not much to do if you don't want to shop. yesterday i walked to east coast park and got to bike for a few hours near the water, which was simply lovely. i also got to race some kids on their bikes. there is something quite gratifying about beating 3 year-olds on their tricycles. my ego was definitely stroked. i have been drinking a lot of coffee (there are coffee bean and tea leaf coffee shops everywhere!) and doing lots of crossword puzzles. this is a very expensive city and so there is not too much that i want to spend my money on. this is the first place since australia where we have had to stay in dorms. being in places like india, thailand, cambodia we could get our own rooms (granted they were not the fanciest or cleanest) for 3-5 dollars. here we are paying 15 dollars to share a room with 8 other people. but tonight we leave for bali. and go figure, the airline that we were on canceled the segment from singapore to denpasar, so we have to fly through tokyo from singapore to get to bali. what normally should be a 2 hour flight, is going to take us 24 hours (with a 10 hour layover in tokyo). oh, the joys of airline travel. at least i get to catch up on my tv. :)

thailand

thailand...what can i say? it is basically everything you expect it to be when you think thailand. annette's brother and her friend came to to meet us for 2 weeks, so we were more on vacation instead of traveling. and there is a difference. we did more resorty things and spent way more money than we have been as travelers. it was like we were on spring break, instead of backpacking. it took a while to get used to, but looking back on it, i can say that it was fun. a nice change of pace. the boys were amazing because they helped curb some of our costs, which was very nice.

we did the things tourists do. saw the islands (and of course did the boat tour to where the movie, the beach, was filmed. and yes, it is that beautiful). we went to an infamous show in bangkok and saw things that i am still having nightmares about. we went to a drag show and saw some of the most beautiful women ever (it really does not matter that biologically they are men). we also went scuba diving. and laid on the beach. all the thailand good stuff. i was able to dive 6 times so i am feeling a lot less panicked when i get in the water, which is comforting. i am glad i visited, but when it was time to leave, i was relieved to leave that tourist life and get back to it! and cambodia was a good way to acclimate back to backpacking culture. :)



the wonderful and beautiful lady boys at the drag show. they were amazing!




annette, her brother (kevin), me, and her friend, david out for a night of fun



this was so cute! at one of the restaurants that we ate at, this is how they brought out the rice. sadly, the waiter did not take my order and i did not get to eat lunch there that day. but this cuteness made watching all the others eat their food a lot more tolerable.



one of the many temples that pepper the landscape of thailand.



annette and me at the lying down buddha in bangkok. it was a ginormous statue. we got to put a piece of the gold paper on the body, so good luck will come to us. or something like that.

angkor wat (cambodia)

We spent two days visiting the gloriously incredible temples of Angkor Wat in Siam Reap, which is in northern Cambodia. Some of the temples are being restored (a Japanese company has taken over this project and now controls the finances of the temples in Cambodia). But other temples are just collapsing and deteriorating back into the jungle. My favorite temples were the ones that were still intact, but had tress growing out of them and overtaking them. There were some temples that had herculean trees seemingly constricting the life of the temple walls and slowly crumbling some of the structures as they grew around them. We spent our first day seeing the temples by tuk-tuk, which was a good way to get our bearings. We started the morning at 5 am to see the sunrise (which was no all that) and then walked around some of the major temples and got a sense of the grandeur of the structures. Annette was sick (and also she had been chugging cough syrup, thinking that it was non-drowsy) and was kind of a downer the first part of the morning, but once the cough syrup wore off, she bounced right back to life. So while i climbed up some of the steps of the temples, she acted as group photographer (thanks annette!).


The second day, we rented bikes and biked around the temples. The day before we had done the little loop so we opted for the grand tour. It was awesome because this tour was more off the beaten path. Since so many tourists want to see the famous temples on the little loop (including the one where Tomb Raider was filmed), we didn't have to deal with as much traffic or as many people. This coupled with the fact that there were a few rainstorms, we got to see a very peaceful part of Angkor Wat. Also, I think the temples on the grand tour were so much more beautiful than the ones we saw on the little loop. Mostly because these were the ones that were overtaken by the gargantuan trees and had a mysterious nature to them. I loved being there. Annette was also happier this day (she stopped chugging drowsy cough syrup) and the biking was flat so she did not complain at all. This was a far cry from her about to keel over and die at the claws of hawks when we were in Easter Island. We biked about 35km, and did get to see a lot. I was happy to be on a bike (a privilege that has been denied to me most of this trip) and be out in a such a beautiful space and experience such an important part of Cambodian history.



despite the fact that some of these temples are close to 1000 years old, there is beautiful art carved into them, which still looks pretty detailed. i am flummoxed by the craftsmanship that so many ancient civilizations had that was built to last for so long. what a contrast to present day societies, where everything is meant to be disposable or upgradable.




me in front of one of my favorite temples, called bayon. there were heads carved out of each side of the temples so that it looked like you were always being watched. it was eery and flattering both at the same time. kind of like having a stalker.


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more beautiful temples




here are a couple of pictures of the temples where the trees are overtaking them. isn't it beautiful?



scaling the steps of one of the temples. i felt like a bad-ass.




another beautiful picture of one of the temples of bayon

getting into nepal

nepal is a gorgeous country, with a troubled political climate that i am struggling to make sense of. i really know nothing, though. when we were crossing into nepal from india, we were warned that an overland crossing could take a super long time because there are all kinds of protests against the government, which close down the roads. if buses try to go through the demonstrators, they throw rocks at them. regardless, when we got to kikarbhitta, the border town in nepal, we still opted for a bus to pokhara (where we would be starting our trek). it is supposed to be a 12 hour bus ride, but we were told that it would take closer to 18 hours. in fact, it ended up taking closer to 24 hours. we did get to a road that had protesters on it, so the bus pulled over on the side of the road behind all the other buses. everyone filed off the bus and just hung out for a couple of hours and chit chatted. i wasn't in the mood so i listened to a couple of episodes of this american life. yes, i am a westerner. after 2 and a half hours, people filed on, and the bus started up again. there was a sense of anticipation in the air, but it was all for naught. there were a couple of false starts, but we didn't really hit the road for at least another hour. by this time all the electricity in the area was out (the government does daily, sweeping blackouts in the country) so the roads were pitch black. we drove for about an hour until the us was stopped by army personnel and told the bus driver that we were going the wrong way. after much arguing, the bus driver had to turn around and retrace all the ground we had just covered, which was a real pain. but it all seemed fine and good, until we were stopped by another gaggle of army officials. these guys were angrier than the previous army men and started shouting very loudly in nepalese and waving their guns around. the bus driver had to get off the bus, have a yelling session with the small men with guns, and then go a different way yet again. the men with guns always win. eventually after hours of sitting on a seat that was broken on a bus made for people less than 5 feet tall, we got to a destination only to discover that it was not our destination. we had to get on another bus to get to pokhara. so we got on another bus, squeezed into seats and were on our way. this bus driver also is close friends with death and careened through the mountains like satan on a harley. it was madness. he would also go over these huge ruts in the road so fast that we in the back would jump up from our seats almost 3 feet high. my back is still feeling the aftershocks. but 5 hours later we arrived in pokhara, which is a cool little town. it is very touristy, but has some of the comforts of home. like real filtered coffee and espresso. you can also buy knock-off trekking clothes and other such goodies. this was a good place to rest up before getting on the trekking road.

trekking in nepal

nepal was definitely one of my favorite places on this trip. i just wish that i had been able to stay longer than one week. the beauty and sanctity of nepal deserves much more time. sadly with a trip like this, there is just no way to spend a great deal of time in any one place. not that i am complaining or anything.

we opted for a 6 day trek because we only got a 2 week visa and annette wanted to do a 4 day kayaking trip. i decided to do a 4 day mountain biking trip, but that didn't pan out since most of the organized biking trips leave from kathmandu, which is 6 hours away. the trek was magnificent and a lot of hard work, but totally worth it.

the first day i struggled, seeing as how i made bad choices the night before. i realy need to learn how to say no when someone says, "just one more". needless to say, the next day was rough. i threw up on 2 separate occasions. the first time my dinner from the night before and the 2nd time the 2 liters of water that i had been drinking to quell my aching head. i really didn't think that i would be able to hike that day. we even had to stop for about 45 minutes so i could take a nap. the nap did the trick and we were able to make it to the first tea house where we were sleeping for the night at around 4 pm. i was promptly asleep by 5 and did not get out of bed until the next morning. there was a gnarly thunder and lightning storm that went on all night. i was terrified and titillated all at the same time.

while i was sleeping annette got to talking to some british kids who were just finishing their trek and decided that instead of doing the circuit we had planned to do, we should instead hike up to annapurna base camp, which takes most people 10 days to do. i was against this, considering that it didn't really seem we would have enough time, we didn't have warm clothes or sleeping bags, and i hate the cold and we would be hiking up to 12,800 snowy feet. but, despite my better judgment, i agreed to go. looking at the prodigious mountain that is annapurna was quite humbling. not too many people actually go on expeditions to summit annapurna (which has an elevation of 26, 545 feet and is the 10th highest mountain in the world). for every 2 people who summit, one person dies. actually a couple of days before we got to base camp a ukranian guy was up a bit on the mountain and slipped on a sheet of ice to his death. so seeing this herculean mountain was not only humbling, but a bit harrowing.

the good thing was that i was feeling remarkably better ater 14 hours of sleep and the toxins being out of my system. but day 2 was long, becausewe had to go further than we had planned in order to get to base camp in enough time to descend. the thing about this hike is that you are constantly going up, up, up (obviously. we are climbing a mountain) and it is exhausting. also it is not a gradual uphill. we had to climb at an almost 90 degree angle up all these uneven stairs. i did love the challenge, but at around 2 pm, i hit my wall and had to stop for food. eating lots of carbs was a good motivator though and after lunch, i instantly felt better.



here are some of the stairs that we had to clamber up

the trek was magnificent and really cathartic. i hadn't realized how much i had missed being out in nature after so much time being a city dweller, with no real escape (especially in india). the only bad thing, besides the little bit of snow walking and the shivering cold at one of the camps, was that annette got sick on the way down and seemed pretty miserable. we think it may have been food poisoning. trekking up and down all those stairs with an unstable body is no picnic. but annette was a trooper and managed to get through the entire trek (and was well enough to do her kayaking clinic!).



annette and me after making it to annapurna base camp. i really am awed by the people who actually summit annapurna. they are either the bravest or craziest people ever.






here are some pictures of the annapurnas. there is annapurna 1 and annapurna south, i am not sure which one is in the pictures, but the scenery is glorious.




as you are trekking, you encounter many different people who live in the mountains. i loved meeting the children, even though they were always disappointed that i did not have any candy or gum to offer them.




this is what the little villages that we slept in looked like. most of them were pretty small. they are cut off from roads so porters (who are men who carry up to 80pounds of goods on their backs) carry in all the supplies they need. seeing these men walk up to 20 miles a day with all this weight on their backs made me feel like a real weakling and also reminded me how amazing people are.




children would have to walk anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours each way to get to school, depending on what village they lived in. their tenacity was moving and inspiring.