Panama

Biggest leaves we have ever seen!

Critter feet

Doesn't Lori look happy?  Torerential rain has pretty much defined our trip through Panama, especially now that we are in Panama City.  Between the daily afternoon rain, traffic gridlock and being constantly lost, we are not unhappy to be boarding the sailboat to Colombia.

Costa Rica

 In the cloud forest of Santa Elena sesrching for that elusive quetzal.

Turtles laying eggs at midnight on Playa Naranjo.

Nicaragua

Chris rides his moto through the restaurant and bar to the inner courtyard to park during our stay at Via Via in Leon, Nicaragua....don't try this at home folks!

Stories from the road

So, half an hour into Guatemala, the road is blocked by big trucks.  As per custom, we ride around them to the front of the line, about 2km. We get to the front and find a road block in place by the local village people protesting electricity rates.  It is high noon and hot! We talk to people and the road has been blocked for 3 hours already and who knows how much longer. So now we are at the front of the line and it is getting really crowded.  Tempers are starting to flare as some people are let through and others not.  Suddenly I got the feeling of what it could be like to be in the wrong at the wrong time.  If things turned bad, we were up front and centre in the middle of it with nowhere to go...... Thankfully it ended 1 hour later and we were at the front of a very long line of cars and trucks jostling for position.  Sometimes you can end up in the middle of something, even when it was not your intention.  My sweating was not due only to the heat!

Fixers and crossing the border....
I know lots of motorcyclers use fixers or helpers to assist them with the myriad of details in crossing borders.  Usually the 10dollars or so you give them is a good deal for you and for them.  So it was when we crossed from Guatemala to El Salvador.  Great guy helped us through and all went smoothly. We were accosted by a fixer at our next border....El Salvador to Honduras...actually, many people wanting to help us, so we went along.  Should have known, this guy was really pushy.  We ended up paying $45 for each moto at the Aduana which I am sure we did not need to.  No receipt, but I watched the fixer give the official the money and she took it so I assumed it was valid, but then after doing more photocopying, the fixers needed another $25 per bike to have all the details entered into the computer and another 12$ per bike for the fumigation fee.  This was just a bit too over the top and I said no and collected up all the paperwork and headed back to the bikes cursing away at him because by this time, I realized that we had probably been taken with the original 45 I gave him.  Him and his buddy were protesting the whole time that we would get arrested at the next checkpoint for not having all the paperwork in order and when I paid him $10 for his help he insisted that it wasn't enough.....why I paid him anything at all is beyond me...We left and crossed the border no problem so at least I had wisened up and saved us another 75$ in ripoff fees. Bad experience, but learned early in the trip...Next border Hondurous to Nicaragua we said a resounding NO to all the fixers and did it ourselves no problem.  So my advice to those of you using fixers, sure the 10$ you might pay them is worth it if they are honest, but not all of them are....these guys even had an official looking id card.  They try to make it appear more confusing than it is....if you do it yourself, it is much more tranquillo and the officials will tell you what you need to do.  Besides, aren't border crossings just part of the adventure????

El Salvador

Riding the highlands with volcanos on the horizon

Centro in Juayua

There's the corn for our tortillas drying on the side of the road...

Guatemala

Hi

Our bikes share the hostal I

in Antiqua, Guatemala

Hiking in the jungle near Panachajel, Lago Atitlan

in Halloween in Antigua having fun

Adventuras

New road being built into Batopilas...gone is the awesome old road Iinto the Canyon..apparently the road into Uriche is still good

Jungle trails Near Panachajel, Guatemala

MEXICO

11 days riding in Mexico and we haintoe experienced:
~near end of rainy season so really lush and green..jungle like in the south
~camping in the dry desert like north in Chihuahua, Sonora and Durango is great compared to the wet south
~putting in long days 8.6 hours max so far and sometimes not so many km's
~up early and riding is heaven while it is still cool
~topes,trucks,and road construction keep it slow.
~amazing curving roads through the mountains...wonderful
~OXXO everywhere so brewed coffee there if no too hot

Lori's front tire..finally getting changed!

Many rockslides on the new road Into thr Copper Canyon..maybe should have left well enough alone

2014 South America on Motos

Hola!  Here we are 12 days into this adventure and it is already amazing.  Rode quickly through Canada and the USA as only have 6 months this time so want to spend as much of it in Mexico and south as possible.  Have already booked the Stahlratte for Dec 8th for the crossing to Colombia, so pressure on to get to Panama City by then.
Crossing into Mexico at Ajo was uneventful except now they take a 400USD deposit for any
vehicle as well as the 58.12USD import fee!!!! Really making sure you take those motos out of theirs country with you! Other than that, really professional ...impressive.
Rode Hwy 16 from Hermosillo to Creel in the Copper Canyon...wonderful two days of curves and amazing mountain scenery.  Haved camped every night so far and one night out of Hermosillo a rancher insisted we camp at his place and it turned out to be a really great experience..the family was so giving and had so little...a humbling experience.
Now down in Batopilas in the Copper Canyon.  The road in was a terrible disappointment when compared to our last trip.  The old amazing dirt steep switchbacking road has been replaced with 2 lane pavement that is still in the works and the road is an incredible mess and even the two lane is down to single lane due to rockfall.  The road grade is insane. Chris lost the rear brakes completely using first gear, and she is going to be a mess for years to come.

Cambodia

Greetings everyone from Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia.  It is time for us to reflect back on the month we spent in Cambodia.  (We also visited Cambodia back in October (rainy season) 2006)  So we left Vancouver on January 2nd bound for Shanghai (some 18 hrs distant) where we held over for 5 hrs. before completing the final 5hr. flight to good old Thailand.  This was one brutally uncomfortable flight aboard a Airbus 700...and the strange thing is that the China East Airlines staff did not allow anyone to open any side window shades the entire trip...a cave would have been more friendly!

So 'Blingkok' was the same old same old...good food and cheap beer which makes it a great place to base from.  (We also lost the 3rd somewhere over the top of the world and landed on the 4th)  A few days later we hit the road NW for Cambodia arriving in Siem Reap the same day... a bit different from 06 when it took over 10 hrs from the Cambodia border to reach Siem Reap via a horrific pot-holed dusty one lane road!  This place is tourist central and I doubt it there is any single feature in the world that receives a many visitors as Angkor Wat in Siem Reap!  We cannot recognize anything from 06 and tourism figures indicate that visitors doubled from 06 to 08 to 2 million annually and the amazing growth in tourism continues!  Of course no one goes to Siem Reap without visiting Angkor Wat and we paid up for three days two of which we spent riding bicycles through the ruins, which are as amazing as ever. 

 One big disappointment was that the neatest temple system called Ta Phrom was being rebuilt.  In 06 we had to explore our way through the ruins which were left in their original shape since being discovered by a french explorer in the 1800's...the huge trees growing throughout and through the ruins were amazing (the movie Tomb Raiders with Angelia Jolie was filmed here), but today there are hundreds of tourists travelling through these same ruins on board walks and all of the neatest areas are being rebuilt with all kinds of metal and wood scaffolding...its badly needed but sure ruins the experience!  We also checked out some remote ruins and stream carvings that we didn't see last trip.
After 5 days we bounced down some pretty rough dirt/blacktop roads to Phnom Phen, Cambodias capital of 1.5 million.  This place was pretty dodgy in 06...today is is close to Bangkok...what an amazing change!  Just don't eat at the KFC (we think they substituted crow for chicken) nor the Dairy Queen (offered about 5 icecream options and tasted like it was made with goat milk!...otherwise great food...oh yeah and the beer is CHEAP. (also great Margarittas for 1.50 and some amazing food options!
Next stop is Sen Monoram which is a mountain village about 10 hrs northeast of Phnom Phen...I should add 10 hrs of hell ride via a bus that resembled good old India!  None the less we made it and spent a few days exploring some waterfalls, farms and small patches of jungle that remain intact around this high elevation (we were actually kind of cold!) using 5 dollar a day scooters...a great way to go but hell on the ass! (One of the long drops was so bad (flooded) that by the time I got into it my urge to crap was replaced by the urge to puke.  Back to Phnom Phen and civilization!
Here we come Kampot...a sleepy colonial town resting on the shore of the Bay of Thailand.  Checked into the Kampot River Bungaloos for a big 6 (dollars that is)...had to share our stick and thatch hut on stilts with a couple of cool 8 inch gecko's and various flying creatures (Lori wasn't impressed!)  Renting motos to check out some cool local mountains and ruins was a ton of fun and a few days later we moved about 30 km down the road to the small community of Kep where we did some jungle hiking (in other words crawling up and down slippery hills in thick bush and trees without seeing anything! (anything that moves has been eaten by the locals unless it is poisonous!)  Still a very laid back place to visit and actually got some beach time. 
Back to Phnom Phen for a couple of days of relaxing (checked out the torture prison, Mekong River boat ride and our old digs around PP where we spent time in 06) 
From Phnom Phen we travelled the roads to the city of Battambang and spent another day riding motos and visiting some pretty amazing caves (killing caves where the Khymer Rouge bludgeoned thousands of people then threw them down into caves where their bones remain)  There was also a few good ruins to check out and just by riding around one could get a pretty good sense of what folks in the farming communities lived like...life is pretty rough for these good natured, hard working folks.
At this point in time we decided that we would fly to Malaysia vs. busing it back to Thailand then down to Kuala Lumpar where we are flying out to the Phillipines on the 5th.  So to get back to the closest airport (Siem Reap) we took a boat across Tonle Sap Lake and this truly was an amazing day.  This is dry season in Cambodia and the rice farmers (number one export is rice) are located on the lowlands around Tonle Sap preparing the fields.  Most live on boats but also have temporary tents etc. set up as once rainy season comes only a few places are above flood waters.
So we had a fantastic time in Cambodia but the old saying that the first time is the best time is true...it is the new places that we visited that we enjoyed the most in terms of finding new and exciting things to do and see.  The Cambodian people are pretty amazing so it is good to see that their country is definately doing alot better financially than back in 06.  However compared to countries like Malaysia, Cambodia has serious problems that will be very difficult to overcome.  Their population is rising at over 2% per year and despite having 25% of their land-base in Parks the environmental degradation is horrific...illegal logging is rampant and in terms of litter and water pollution Cambodia matches India with stinking raw sewage pouring into the Mekong right in front of the best tourist areas in Cambodia.  Poverty appears as bad as India yet in Phnom Phen there are Rolls Royce dealerships (500,000 $US), Range Rovers (150,000) Porches, Toyota PUs and we even saw some Ford 450's with 50 inch tires on at least 20 inch lift kits (can hardly fit on the roads!) along with hundreds of crippled beggars, mothers with a pile of young kids etc.  Looks like the ultimate capitalist state and government corruption is daily news. 

Food for thought

Was wandering around today and found some snacks in the market....

Savory deep fried cockroaches

Toasty frogs

Dried fish

I think I will give it a pass.

A big gecko ....10 inches long has taken up residence in our bungalow.  This is probably why we haven't seen any critters living in all the cobwebs. He is a shy creature and doesn't like getting his picture taken.  Beautiful blue spots..reminds me of Terisa and Matt's gecko in Had Yuan.

Waterfall Adventures in Eastern Cambodia

Scootering out of Sen Monorom.  Waterfalls, steep trails and red dirt jungle roads.

Angkor Wat Cambodia

Jungle taking back the ruins.

So, Angkor Wat and Siem Reap have changed (of course) since we were last here in 2006. Lots more of a tourist infrastructure in Siem Reap...feeling almost like a more civilized Kho San in Bangkok...we are relaxing along the banks of the Kampot river in sw Cambodia, a truly beautiful spot and at 6 bucks per night cheap.  We share our room with a bunch of Cambodian wildlife inc spiders and bats and something large crapped on Lori's sleeping bag yesterday.  Big changes at Angkor Wat since our last visit...Cambodge looks absolutely rich compared to 8 years ago which is fantastic as these folks are truly wonderful people that have lived through hell.  Its too bad that Angkor has  really been cleaned up...lots of the best old ruins that we visited previously are out of bounds.  None the less biking around was a great experience.  Phnom Phen was a revelation...it is full of tourists, many with kids and or ancient like us.  It is almost like another Bangkok and beer is 25 cents a glass.  We then took a bus from Hell to the mountain town of Sen Monorom where we rented scooters 7 bucks per day, and had a great time exploring some remnant jungle patches and waterfalls.  So it has been good so far.

Kathmandu & Everest!!!

A few days in Pokhara and its time to bus to Kathmandu...the capital of Nepal. Many people hate this place but Lori and I love it...Thamal is a "run down" ramshackle, ancient part of town full of funky stores selling everything one can think of and some great eateries....Nepalese food is fantastic...definately one of the things that have really improved in this country since 2003. We should also mention "power shedding"...another way of saying that there isn't enough electrical output in Nepal to keep the country in power...so every day the power shuts off for up to 10 hours! Imagine trying to run a business etc. without power...but the Nepalese seem to have adapted and have more solar power, independent water generators etc. than any country we have ever been in!

I might as well throw in our overnight visit to Bhaktapur: this city of 80,000 is a World Heritage Site (the entire city) and lies only 15 km from the outskirts of Kathmandu. An absolutely amazing place which consists of the most beautiful old temples and huge rock carvings that date back well over 500 years. What really amazed us is that the entire city is constructed of ancient brick and rock and honestly a good fart would bring down most of the buildings! Given the fact that Nepal has numerous earth quakes it seems inevitable that this city will be destroyed and at a huge cost to the people living in it. In the meantime it is a living legacy to what life must have been like 500 plus years ago...amazing!



EVEREST HIKE

So one of the major reasons we are in Nepal is to torture ourselves with a hike (or trek if your yuppie foreigner!) in the Everest region. The first step is probably the toughest...we decided to fly into Lukla....and this in itself proved to be a tough undertaking. Needless to say after two days of cancelled flights in a very overcrowded KTM (Kathmandu) airport we knew the airport better than we ever wanted to (but it was interesting watching the pigeons fly and shit inside the airport buildings!) The third day proved lucky and we were rewarded with a very bumpy ride in an ancient Canadian twin turbo Otter aircraft into the Lukla air strip. NOW this is an airstrip worthy of note...less than 300 m long, located on the very lip of a 1000 foot cliff and with the strip at a plus 20 percent grade she is interesting to say the least. The pilots put the otter down HARD and uphill you shoot THEN a 90 degree turn (while you are still speeding along!)-slam on the brakes!




Lukla airport





that's Everest in the background with the spindrift


So we are hiking by 11....again there are lots of changes since our Annapurna/Langtang hikes...and in this case we have to say the changes are positive! First of all the lodging is way better quality and same goes for the food! Without going into details we can say that the Everest and Gokyo hikes offer much better mountain scenery that any of the Annapurna hikes (circuit and base camp)....this hike takes in most of the worlds top ten mountains in height. Secondly the hiking is relatively easy with very short days (because of acclimatization) compared to Annapurna. The flip side is that you end up spending much more time at elevations over 4000 meters...not a problem if you can handle elevation but the fact is that any elevations over 4500m are a real bitch (even if you don't get sick, have headaches etc.)...it is really hard to imagine how hard it is to climb even one step at 5000m...literally a 4 inch step every 2 seconds is doing great! Both Lori and I seem to adapt easy to elevation but not so our travelling companions (two very fit young German fellows who had to bail out at 4300m).

Namche Bazaar



lodging on the way


So outside of the elevation issues the other major consideration when hiking is the timing of your hike. We did our hike in late Feb early March...which is out of season. The rewards: virtually no hikers...the downside...insanely cold (minus 25 at 5000m) which truly makes life a bitch after the sun goes down! (Not to mention long drop toilets that are a sheet of ice...enough to make you hold your bladder until your ready to blow! Another down side is that the few, but gorgeous alpine lakes are all frozen over...and not the beautiful picturesque blue shown in all the summer photos. The real downside of hiking during the tourist season is people...literally thousands of people and the resultant dust, traffic, full lodging etc. Bottom line is that you DO NOT want to hike the trails during tourist season (up to 2000 people on the trail at one time.


at the top of Kala Patar



memorial area to Everest climbers

made it!  Everest base camp!

Pokhara...Nepal

Its time to head to Pokhara...tourist bus this time and she is a JOY.  The changes to Pokhara are amazing...all of the small villages we drove through back in 03 are now one large city and new construction is occurring everywhere!  No doubt about it this is the "tourist capital" of Nepal and there are Chinese folks everywhere!  Pokhara is located on Lake Phew the second largest lake in Nepal (and it is small!!) There is lots of do around town and we did a couple of really enjoyable local hikes to the top of some viewpoints.  From here we get a good glimpse into the latest recreational pastime in Pokhara....para-gliding...the skies are full of para-gliders (up to 35 at a time!).  We also rented bikes and pedalled out to some bat caves about 15 km out of town...pretty neat as their are thousands of Horseshoe bats in these caves which also feature a narrow/claustrophobic climb through which I could fit my skinny ass through!

on to Nepal and Chitwan

Hello everyone...we have decided its time to head to Nepal so we book a seat on the Darjeeling Toy Train...running on two foot wide tracks and in operation since 1918 the coal fired train follows the existing road and literally runs down main-streets inches away from buildings etc. Today only two small carriages are attached to the smoking locomotive but the intricate wood work on the roof and velvet lined interior spells back to a time when British Royalty "owned" India. Unfortunately our ride only lasts for 35 km (but 3 plus hours...its a slow carbon filled ride!) as landslides have torn out pieces of the track. From the train we transfer to a jeep for a ride down the "hill of doom"...these drivers are amazing and know this 10 km hill like the back of their hand as there are only a few places that vehicles can pass each other...each hairpin is negotiated by constant blaring of horns and in a few hours we roll onto the flats and the BUDIC (big ugly dirty Indian City) of Silaguri. Come morning we are fortunate to grab a jeep ride to the border...only 30 kms but well over an hour as our 4X4 jeep dodges a seemingly endless morass of potholes.


Checking out of India was a pleasantly easy exercise and across a bridge in a pedal rickshaw (we always feel guilty when riding these rickshaws as they are inevitably powered by a 50lb Indian about 50 years old that has to jump out and push at the first hill!)

Kakarbhitta, Nepal is a typical border town (read: craphole!) and after the Nepalese visa's drained us of all our Indian Rupees and US dollars AND not one of the 3 ATM's in town were working we were more than a little worried as we piled onto a local bus for the ride to Janakpur. Take our word for it...you do NOT want to ride on a local Nepalese bus...as hard as it is to believe this thing is worse than any bus in India. First off the bus stops every 10 to 30 m in the cities (people do not congregate in any single spot and sometimes the bus literally stops every 10 m to pick up someone!) Thus the 8 hr bus ride ended up being well over 10 hrs and there is no way one can leave their seat or it is immediately taken...in which case you stand with well over 40 other people absolutely packed like rats in isles, seating spaces etc. As Dylan would say: "She's a shit show!"

Janakpur is well known for its gorgeous temples and they are indeed impressive...but none of their 4 ATM's worked...so we are down to our last coppers! The bus drivers have taken us under their wing and its a good thing that Mr. Kamikaze gets behind the wheel as the ride to Chitwan National Park is FAST!!

Chitwan is our first taste of the Nepal we came to visit...its changed a lot since our last visit with Terisa in 2003 and the winds of change are creating a "tourist trap" (for instance the lovely beaches along the Rapti River (sunset beer!) are being cut up by a dirty road!!!)...but it is still fantastic and the number of animals we saw is significantly more than in 2003...good job Nepal!!

We took a shortened Jungle walk (shortened because we got hit with an unusual 24 hour monsoon like rain shower that proved that our Indian "gortex" jacket is not only "not breathable" but also "not water resistant"!) None the less we saw Rhino's (the Indian one-horned rhino is my favorite Indian animal and is the fourth largest land mammal in the world) sambar deer, Chital (including 3 huge bucks) deer, Hog deer, Jackal, Mugger crocodiles and lots of new bird species...really nice! Next we spent a day riding pedal bikes into the 20,000 lakes area and again tons of wildlife as well as gorgeous old-growth Sal forest. Our elephant ride revealed 6 rhino's including one mother with a youngster and at least 20 mugger crocodiles, some of which are huge! (not to mention lots of deer and wild boar) The elephant breeding center is still a great place to visit and learn all about the Indian elephant of which only about 150 exist in thewild in Nepal. Again there have been some pretty significant changes since our 2003 visit...the biggest now being that one cannot play with the young elephants like we did "back in the day"! Lori checked out the elephant dung paper making "factory"...how about bear shit paper?...

Sikkim

We have really enjoyed our stay in Darjeeling but its time to head North (into the cold??) and check out the northern state of Sikkim. A delightful change in transportation consists of using small Jeeps vs. the usual bus and or train. Actually this is the only way that you can get around as the roads are too narrow, steep and curve filled to allow bus travel. Even with a pedal to the metal comfy jeep it takes about 6 hours to drive the app. 115 kms from Darjeeling to the capital city of Sikkim, Gangtok. Like Darjeeling Gangtok is spread over a very steep hillside...guaranteed to get one in shape lugging a pack around town!

We found a decent hotel and explored town...she is definitely "worn out" looking, but even cleaner than Bengal (state)...some facts: It is illegal to smoke any where in public anywhere in the entire state of Sikkim. It is illegal to wrap anything one purchases in plastic bags in Gangtok (and numerous other towns in India...a neat idea and it is amazing what they can wrap up in old newspaper)

It is evident that winter is NOT the time to visit Sikkim as virtually all of the mountain roads are closed to vehicle traffic due to snow and there are no tourists...so no one to share trekking costs with etc. And Sikkim does offer some fantastic trekking opportunities...even though the very best area near the northern border with China are completely closed to all foreigners!

We had heard that India has the second largest army in the world (second only to their unfriendly neighbour China) and we can believe it after seeing the army activity in Sikkim. Hundreds of large Tata 4X4 trucks are rumbling up and down the roads as the border area in northern Sikkim is under dispute with China.

Anyways..back to Gangtok...we were amazed to see this incredible street MB Marg (Mahatma Gandhi Street..very city has a street named after MG)...beautiful stone work super-wide streets with no traffic and all of the tourist facilities of a much larger city...in stark contrast to the remainder of the city which looks "rough" to say the least. Gangtok also featured some nice parks with great views and a beautiful orchid garden. We really enjoyed our short stay in town but decided to skip on exploring the remainder of Sikkim simply because outside of monasteries and its mountains (not accessible) the state does not have much else to offer until the snow levels drop...so its back to Darjeeling!



One of the resons we loved Darjeeling is the great "chill-out" room in our hotel...wood heat, comfy chairs, lots of books and fellow travellers (along with great food) makes for happy travellers. Leaving Darjeeling we decided to take the "toy train"...running on 2 foot wide rails this train has been in operation since the 1800's and despite a rock slide that prevented us from taking the entire 8 hour ride (only 4 hours to cover 35 km!) The train (which is coal fired steam driven and yes...one hell of a smoker!!) runs right down the main road for most of its length...which is kind of interesting as we literally pass within inches of hundreds of shops, vehicles and thousands of kids, goats etc. It is obvious that the daily passing of the train is an event as people and kids wave constantly as us passengers (about 30 or so on the train). We decided to go first class (120 R (3 bucks) vs 20R for regular)...our seat recline a bit more and not much else...but the interior of the small car is a piece of art dating back to the days when everything was hand carved out of wood...exquisite designs on the roof of the car, velvet everywhere etc....they don't make them like this any more!

We took a "hairy" ride off the Himalayan foothills to the Tehri flats and the squalid city of Siliguri...this hill makes the Bella Coola hill look like the flats (literally!)...it is obvious that the jeep drivers know the road by heart as most curves are single vehicle width only but each driver knows exactly where to pull over and allow literally an inch of space between vehicles as backing uphill is not an option! Siliguri is a crap hole...but we have to stay overnight before heading to the Nepalese border on one last shot to living hell/ pot-holed Indian Road...we are at the border and through India customs in no-time. Into NEPAL at 8:15 in a pedal rickshaw (no motor rickshaw's in Nepal) (Feb 4th)



India was a great experience! There was definately some very tough times...virtually all realted to travelling from one place to another. The people have been great and the variety of our experiences amongst the best we have experienced in our travels. NOW its time for NEPAL!!

Darjeeling

Greetings from a very cool (as in weather cool) Darjeeling! Our journey starts with a auto-rickshaw ride from Varanasi to the train station-a hour long journey that included a stop for some "holy flowers" (to protect the driver on the Hwy. full of full size junkers that we have to drive on!) At the train station the Indian train is on time...that is plus or minus 10 hrs. Today we are lucky...only 7 hours of counting the herds of rats that infest the station track area...actually quite entertaining which gives you some idea of how boring it is to sit for hours on end in a dilapidated Indian train station! The overnight train is pretty good and we arrive in JNP only 10 hrs late but in no time have a rickshaw (human powered and we always feel bad when we see some skinny Indian pedaling his guts out...and this trip was over an hour long! The jeep ride to Darjeeling was an insane combination of one tight switch back after another for over an hour but we had a great time as the jeep load of locals were entertaining and we laughed with them for the entire trip. Darjeeling is another world...so typical of India...the diversity of experiences terrain etc. has to be seen to be believed. West Bengal state is primarily made up of people of Tibetan and Nepalese origins and it shows...very clean (at least compared to the rest of India!), no cows and the people are super friendly but very quiet and respectful...no hassling over prices etc. Our hotel the Dekeling is fantastic with the neatest "chill-out" room (mainly because it has a great wood heater!


So for a change of topic we will talk about taxidermy! Our visit to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute today brought to light the fact that the Indians may be very good at a lot of things but stuffing animals (taxidermy) is not one of them! (we also saw this in the Mumbai Natural History Museum etc.) The stuffed animals bear a close resemblance to animals that have be shot with a 12 gauge about 5 times from 10 feet away then left to dry out..after which they are pasted to a wall in a local museum to display. I believe this is one of the reasons that most of India's wildlife is either extinct or close to extinction...if I thought our wildlife looked liked the stuffed animals I would also do my best to eradicate them!

In addition I noticed more than a few errors in identification...take the Himalayan marmot we saw today. It definitely was a weasel BUT with no eyes, 80 percent of its fur missing, big fangs and "dried" into a position that god never intended (unless it was hit by an Ambassador car full of 15 Indians and 500 lbs of luggage on the roof)....however I digress...back to Darjeeling!

This place is really nice but the weather has been cold and very foggy. You probably know or have heard of Darjeeling Tea...guess where it comes from? One of the more interesting things we have done since we arrived was a 4 (was supposed to be 5) day trek into the Himalayan mountain region near to Nepal. In fact we spent over half of the 79 km hike in Nepal and overnighted twice in Nepal. Most of the walk took place between 3000-4000 meters...a good warm up for Nepal. We were especially impressed with the 3rd day of the hike when the skies cleared and offered us incredible views of the Himalayan Range and we spent most of the day looking at the south face of Everest and Kanchenjunga and in fact 4 of the worlds 5 tallest mountains (only K2 was missing). This was against a backdrop of incredible ancient gnarly Abies well over a hundred feet tall, huge grasslands (and our first Yaks this trip), small diameter Rhododendron forests and NO people or villages! The last 15 (of a 30 km day and we had a 30 lb plus pack) we dropped close to 2000 meters...first through a forest of huge conifers with a bamboo understory then into a dripping wet (literally raining on us) fog shrouded very eerie forest of massive Rhododendron trees and finally our destination the small mountain village of Rammam. This is the most impressive scenery that Lori and I have ever witnessed in a single day...before India was thrashed it truly must have been heaven on earth...AMAZING!

Back to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute....because it is one fantastic museum! Firstly it puts the Himalayan Range in perspective: Simply put the Himalayans are more impressive than all of the mountain ranges in the world combined! (not counting anything under the ocean) They extend 2000 km and are 150 km wide and contain OVER 90% of the world tallest mountains! (this includes the Andes, Alps Rockies etc.) They had a neat display showing the tallest 30 mountains on each continent and only Aconcagua ( SA) would have even come close to making the list from Asia. McKinley and two Mexican volcanoes are the only NA mountains that rate in the top 100 as well as another 3 in SA...the other 94 are from the Himalaya!

The other thing that is apparent is that these old mountaineers were TOUGH! They had gear from hundreds of climbs of Everest: from Hillary and Tenzing's first summit of Everest on May 29th 1953 to 2009 expeditions (which by the way can be had for 29,000 US excluding all air fares) The boots used in the 50 and 60's were just leather and had hair on the outside...the oxygen cylinders look like 50 lb propane cylinders and I would have froze to death last night in our Darjeeling hotel with the sleeping bags they used!!!! I guess that is why today the biggest challenge meeting Everest climbers is the weather...good weather and getting through the traffic jam at the top of the mountain are big problems and climbing Everest, Lotese, Kanchenjunga brings in millions of dollars to the Nepalese and Indian economies!

Varanasi

Black Rock City, Nevada / Varanasi, India ~ Burning Man with a spiritual twist...oh the things you will see...

walking the ghats and a dog runs by with a piece of burned wood in his mouth-suddenly behind us a dog rumble starts over the wood and it is at that point that I realize that we are near the burning ghat and that piece of burned wood is really a piece of burned person that the dog has grabbed from one of the burning pyres on the ghat.....
sadhu with a badly deformed face - looks like a caul that hangs down from his forehead to mid chest with only a right eye showing and under the caul swollen sausage like pieces hanging down to mid chest making it look like he has an elephant trunk hanging down. All of this combined with the usual sadhu/baba(holy man)(clothes or lack of them, dreadlocks, and all exposed skin covered in grey ash. This particular sadhu has a prime sitting spot on the ghats with a nicely painted background of Hindu idols with Ganesh (the elephant god and bringer of good luck) prominent in the foreground. Along with several other sadhus, they all sit here all day playing music, praying, burning incense, smoking chillum, and receiving money from the crowds that gather around much of the day watching, taking pictures, and wondering if this fellow really is Ganesh reincarnated.

burning ghats - a much abbreviated version of what they are all about.

Hindu religion believes in rebirth or reincarnation. Depending on how many karma points you have accumulated in your lifetime, you will come back as either a higher caste person with an easier life, or as an animal. As life is suffering, the goal is to achieve freedom or moksha from this cycle of rebirth. One way of doing this is to be burned on the ghats of the Mother Ganga (Ganges River) in Varanasi which is but one of several holy cities in India. Varanasi by the way is supposed to be one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world..over 5000 years old...

So everyone wants to die in Varanasi and be burned on the ghats (steps down to the Ganges River) and then to have your ashes thrown into the river as by doing this they will achieve this ultimate freedom from the cycle of rebirth.

The process.... There are two burning ghats in Varanasi, a main one and a smaller one. Each are lined with stacks of wood of various types, with sandalwood being the most expensive. Each piece of wood is weighed and worth a certain amount. You must buy enough wood to make the funeral pyre to burn the body. The body must be burned within a short time of death (7days?) so many people come to Varanasi to die..

The dead body is carried through the small alleys leading to the river on a bamboo stretcher and is wrapped in shiney metallic fabric. It is set on the ghat awaiting its turn to burn. The funeral pyre is laid and when it is time, the body is dipped in the Ganges river and then laid on the wood and covered with wood on top. Someone from the family (the oldest son?) has his head shaved and wearing only a white length of material wrapped around his body walks around the body several times and lights the fire with a bundle of burning straw.

The fire starts and the body burns and everyone watches.
It takes about 2-3 hours for a body to completely burn.
There is no smell.
There are about 8-10 bodies burning at one time on the main ghat and the bodies burn 24 hours a day 365 days a year..
5 groups of people do not need to be burned-pregnant women, children, holy men, people with leporosy, and people bitten by a cobra; as they can achieve moksha by having their bodies are just dumped straight into the river without being burned.

So we are pretty excited to get back to Varanasi as we have fond memories of our short visit here back in 2003.  I think it is safe to say that we were mesmerized by India in 2003 with a a short visit and hectic train ride that seemed exciting.  Today the long bus and train rides are history with hundreds of hours on our butts and definitely not as exciting...same goes for the holy city itself.  It is still an amazing place of extremes but it is famous world wide and the result is a lot of tourists and along with that an increase in commercialism.  However some things appear to never change in Varanasi...the Ganges still has 1.5 million ppm fecal coloform (500 is considered max for safe swimming) despite a "14 year plan in its tenth year to clean it up!"...the floating bridge upstream of Varanasi is still floating with only one bridge abutment completed...the 10 rupee massage (?) is still going strong (it took us about 3 minutes to realize one does not shake hands on the ghats!)  If you do they start massaging your fingers and start on the 10 rupee massage talk...the problem is the 10 rupee charge covers your one fingernail only!!...cows still own the ghats and the narrow labyrinth of galis in which the absent minded shopper can be lost for hours in...although the water buffalo have taken over certain ghats!...the burning ghat is still going 24/7 360 days a year. (the scam to separate tourists from their money to support the poor elderly that couldn't afford the cost of burning wood no longer exists...or at least we weren't hit up for it this time).  What really surprised us is that the Japanese love this place for long term holidays and we have a hard time understanding this as Varanasi is about as close to the exact opposite of the well organized, clean Japan as one can get...but that probably is its drawing point!  No doubt about it Varanasi offers the best deals on handicrafts in all of India!  The Ganges River is way down (we actually ended up crossing the main Ganges on our trip to Darjeeling and it is huge...at least 3 km across compared to the branch of the Ganges at Varanasi which during our visit was only about 250 m across!  So we did a ton of walking and know every Ghat from north to south and did a good long hike into Ramnagar Fort...a awesome structure right on the banks of the Ganges...however the outside of the fort has huge painted advertisements all over one side of it????  Yup a 500 year old masterpiece of architecture looks really good with bright blue and red signs advertising Vodaphone and India Oil painted on the side of it.  Something like this in Canada would have been repaired and we would charge huge bucks for a visit...but India has literally hundreds upon hundreds of these ancient very cool forts etc. which is one reason why it is so popular with tourists...and no doubt about it Tourism is huge in India despite the rubbish and crap!!!  We still loved our stay...the Ganpati guest house was great..food is fantastic...shopping great...weather good (not to hot but unfortunately foggy) and we didn't step in to many piles of shit..and that is GOOD!

have chris & lori been in india too long



sometimes even the trains are a little crowded....







'Delhi Belly"...catches up with Chris...ohh that feels GOOOOOOD!

chris applying anti itch cream to his rashed up body