What Could Possibly Top Africa?

11/03/09: Nepal

Today was our second full day in Nepal’s capital city. Kathmandu itself is noisy, colorful and crowded. It’s a bit overwhelming at first – there are so many signs and shops and sounds and smells and people – very different from anywhere we’ve been so far.

Shoot, Zhou already said all that. I suppose then today it’s best to talk about what lies ahead and what we’ve been spending our time getting ready for: the Annapurna Circuit Trek (“ACT,” since I’m a lazy typer).

Where is it? The ACT is located in the Himalayan mountains, specifically the Annapurna Conservation Area (“ACA”). As far as I can tell, this area is highlighted by five main peaks, the tallest of which stands over 8,000 meters. The ACA is the largest protected area of Nepal, and since it is protected all menus and prices in the area will be set by a tourism sub-committee. This is especially good for me since there is no need to negotiate, and I still have no ability to do so.

What is it? The ACT is a 4.6 kilometer trek… vertically. That’s almost three miles of climbing, and that doesn’t even take into account all the intermediate up and down we’ll be doing. The highest point of the trek is 5,416 meters above sea level, or about the height of a 1,650 story building. The ACT takes approximately 16 – 20 days and covers 140 miles. Over 40,000 tourists attempt the trek each year, and Americans are the sixth most popular nationality to get permits.

How is it done? Despite the best advice of every single Nepalese person we’ve met this far, we are not hiring a guide or porter to help us through the trek. There are two main reasons for this: money and it’s our honeymoon. A porter costs approximately $15 per day, and I don’t want some paid joker carrying my wife’s bag when I can do it myself. (Just to be clear, I don’t think lowly of the Nepalese, but needed to call them “jokers” for effect. Actually not one person here has played a joke on us yet. They’ve all been very nice, and I expect other people’s guides and porters to be nice as well.)

How much is it? Usually costs are a private matter, but I like you so I’ll divulge this juicy tidbit. We’re budgeting $25 per day. For both of us combined. This includes all food, water, lodging and whatever other costs we’ll incur along the way. The problem is, now that we’re here we believe that this budget is so two years ago. Prices seem to be a bit higher in Kathmandu than we’ve expected, and this will likely continue onto the trek. I’d guess $30 – $35 per day would be a better guess, but it still beats New York City.

What are you taking? Remember how we’re carrying on all our belongings when we fly? For the next three weeks, we’re leaving my bag (the biggest one we have) at our hostel here in Kathmandu and just taking Zhou’s 40 liter-backpacker’s pack and our two personal items (Zhou’s camera bag and my day pack). Obviously we needed to make some sacrifices to pack so light, so the first thing to go was our extraneous clothing. We’ll both have the clothes we’re wearing, I’ll have one extra shirt and we’ll both have some extra underwear, hats and jackets for the cold. That’s pretty much it. I’m guessing you’re glad you won’t be the first ones to greet us when we finish the trek. (Also, unfortunately our Travel Scrabble did not make the cut – it was the last thing on the chopping block. We hope to make up for it by playing more games in Southeast Asia in December.)

Why are you doing this? Because you’ll like us more if we do.
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Picture of the Day: This is pretty much how the entire city is wired. I’d hate to be the poor guy who has to figure out which wire to cut in case of emergency.

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Kathmandu Day 1, or, In Which We Use a Cow to Navigate the Streets

11/02/09: Kathmandu, Nepal

We arrived in Kathmandu last night too late to do anything but get to our guesthouse and fall asleep. So this morning we woke up bright and early to explore the city. And as soon as we stepped out onto the streets, Kevin was promptly run over by a pedicab.

Just kidding. But it wouldn’t surprise me if stuff like that happens all the time here. In the backpackers’ district, Thamel, the roads are narrow and crowded and shared by buses, motorcycles, pedicabs, bicycles, dogs, the occasional cow and tons and tons of pedestrians.

Kathmandu itself is noisy, colorful and crowded. It’s a bit overwhelming at first – there are so many signs and shops and sounds and smells and people – very different from anywhere we’ve been so far. The most interesting thing is attempting to get around. The streets don’t really have names and our map was pretty useless (this could be due to the fact that we didn’t know where our guesthouse was on the map for the first few hours). But despite this, we did manage to get to the post office (our one errand of the day!), mostly through sheer luck. Emboldened by our success, we decided to take a different route back to our guesthouse – and we immediately got lost. Kevin, being the alpha male that he is, insisted on using the direction of the sun to help us navigate. This method was thrown out the window after I pointed out that it was one in the afternoon and that his “northwest” ended up taking us southwest instead. Fortunately, at this point we started recognizing things. Unfortunately, the first thing we recognized was a cow we had seen wandering the streets earlier in the morning. When I pointed the cow out to Kevin, he scoffed, “Yes, that’s very helpful, because cows don’t move.” I was hurt, especially as this comment was coming from Mr. Navigate-using-the-sun. But my point was proven a few minutes later when we saw another landmark we recognized – a picture of Jennifer Aniston randomly jutting out from a building nearby. From there, we did manage to get back to our guesthouse – how exactly, I still don’t know.

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Puzzles for Postcards

Where am I? Name the island.

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Picture of the Day: Regretting my hasty “curd with chocolate sauce” order for dessert

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Homeless Kevin Heads Karefully into Hong Kong

11/01/09: Hong Kong

I was a little hesitant to bring it up last night just before 3am, but finally popped the question: “What if you sleep in and I’ll go explore Hong Kong in the morning?” Zhou’s response came quickly: “I was just going to suggest that myself!”

We both know Zhou very well, and if she doesn’t get her sleep, she becomes a little grouchy. (On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the T. Rex from Toy Story and 10 being a pre-Whoville Grinch, Zhou falls in at around 8.2.) However, after the debacle from yesterday, we had planned to cover this morning what we missed last night. Then we got to talking on Google Video and didn’t get off, which left the predicament that led to the above solution. So this morning at 6:15 I woke up and took off. Here’s what happened:

Unlike most Hong Kongers (Hong Kongites?), I have not learned how to sleep through all stops up until my own, so I have to stay awake on the MTR. So I pretended to sleep on the empty red line, but really I just took a picture of myself with my eyes shut. If you’ll notice though, in an attempt to blend in with the natives, I have the iPod earbuds in (don’t tell them it was set on Dave Matthews Band – I don’t think they’re all that popular here).

Following directions, I looked right while crossing the road to the Peak Tram. Then following the directions that I learned in Kindergarten, I looked left as well.

This tram is city-renown for the steepness of its angle of attack up the hill. Buildings look like they’re at 45 degree angles, but I wasn’t fooled by the optical illusion.

Ooh! Bubba Gump Shrimp at Victoria Peak… I have to go! Nuts, not open at 7am.

The view from the peak was amazing, even though I’ve heard it’s much better at night when the city lights are on. Notice I’m still wearing the indigenous iPod earbuds.

Even my Pacific Coffee Company breakfast enjoyed the landscape.

These signs were everywhere at the peak, but I wasn’t scared. (a) There weren’t all that many people around and (b) it looked like I could take them in a fight.

After making my way back down to the city via the tram, I walked 15 minutes to Central Pier 2 to see the world’s only life-sized Noah’s Ark display. It didn’t open until 10am, but I figured I’d take a picture from afar. After all, if Noah really did fit two of every animal onto this boat, it must be huuuuuge.

Wait, where did it go? Oh, you have to take a ferry to another island. What a waste… I headed back to Central Pier 7 and took the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui, because I actually wanted to go there. Apparently the Star Ferry is a very touristy thing to do. Don’t let the Hong Kongian iPod earbuds confuse you – I’m really a tourist.

I grabbed my new addiction (McDonald’s overpriced Iced Chocolate) and walked right past the Hong Kong Space Museum to see something more worthwhile.

Ahhh, there it is – Jackie Chan’s square on the Avenue of Stars. Hey, look! His hands are the same size as mine. I think I’m destined for great martial arts things.

I’m going to put that last sentence to the test. Here’s a picture of me about to get in the ring with a statue of Bruce Lee. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Ok, he was better than I thought. I guess the only thing left to do is walk home in shame. Whoa, the stairs here are really small. My heels are pressed against the back and my feet still hang over the edge.

As you could tell I had quite a morning but I was ready to get back to the apartment so I could switch tenses all through the writing of this post. Plus, Zhou’s going to take me to one of my all-time favorite nice restaurants for lunch… I can’t wait!

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Picture of the Day: I’ve never heard of these before, but I’m bummed that we missed them by only a month!

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Complacency Killed the Cat

10/31/09: Hong Kong

“When in Rome, the best laid plans of mice and men something something…” Well, we’re not quite in Rome, but today we had quite a different adventure than what we were planning.

The plan was simple:

• Mail Zhou’s transcripts for grad school at the post office
• Dim sum for lunch
• Cable car ride on Lantau Island to the world’s largest outdoor seated Buddha
• Stop at Tsing Yi mall
• Stop at Elements mall
• See world’s only lifesize model of Noah’s Ark
• Head to top of Victoria Peak via the Peak Tram
• Take Star Ferry back to our side of the bay
• Eat dinner at a cheap noodle place
• Visit clock tower and watch the light show
• Walk Avenue of the Stars
• Return home to Google Voice dates with both families

Ok, so maybe we tried to squeeze in a little too much.

Without boring you with the gory details, we did make it to a few of the stops:

The view of the bay from the cable car.

Crossing the rolling hills, with our Buddha friend in the background.

Unfortunately the sun was behind him, but the Buddha is quite large.

If you go to this noodle place (we can't remember the name) don't order more than medium spicy! Zhou did, and paid for it.

I’ll pick up the story from here. We were finishing dinner, ready to watch the light show from the clock tower and then head back home to talk to our families for the first time since leaving the States. Quick quiz: What do you do after eating at a restaurant? Pay the bill. What does it take to pay the bill? Money.

Money?

Money! We kept our money in Zhou’s wristlet, but Zhou’s wristlet was conspicuously absent. By transitivity, that meant Zhou’s iTouch, Zhou’s credit card, our ATM cards and our student cards were all missing as well. (Before you ask why we keep all these important things in one place, let me just say that we had a reason for it, but agreed, we also had been getting a little complacent with security.) We carefully retraced our steps from the day, which actually wasn’t that difficult since we didn’t get in nearly as much as we had planned. We came to the conclusion that either the wristlet was still at the concierge desk at Elements mall (where we had gotten some travelers coupons) or it was gone forever. We just prayed for the former.

Since I kept our US dollars on me, Zhou quickly ran outside to exchange a $20 to pay for our $8 meal, then we were off. Thank goodness Hong Kong is the easiest city I’ve ever had to get around in – yes, easier than Charlotte, easier than New York, easier than any city with English writing everywhere. We hopped on the nearest MTR and made a beeline for Elements before Zhou had a heart attack.

Of course I probably wouldn’t be writing this story if we had ended up losing everything, so luckily the wristlet was at the mall, kept tightly by security. We were able to identify everything that was in it, then we filled out a form and were on our way. Kids, this brings me to the moral of the story:

When traveling the world (a) divide up your valuables into different locations and (b) when possible, keep them on your person. These are actually two things that we are going to do going forward to decrease our chances of losing things. First, since Zhou doesn’t have much in the way of pants pockets, I will carry the money in zippered pockets in my pants. Second, we will keep Zhou’s wristlet in my backpack. That way there are two people checking every time we use it: she will put the stuff back in it and then give it to me to put in the pack. Hopefully this system will work. We’ll be back to let you know if it doesn’t.
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Picture of the Day: A store entirely dedicated to chopsticks! I only learned later that pictures weren’t allowed.

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One Continent Down, Four to Go

10/30/09: Hong Kong

Though we were a bit sad to leave Jo’burg and Africa behind, we were also excited – for one main reason: we were going to get to fly Cathay Pacific for the first time. And ok, we were also going to never stay in a tent again and have lots of new adventures and tackle a new continent and eat lots of non-African food and have real toilets, blah-di blah blah.

Anyway, Kevin thought the Cathay flight was going to be the best thing ever, while I was a bit skeptical. But I have to admit that once we got settled into our seats, I was pleasantly surprised.

Somebody, please, tell me why no one in the US seems to have thought of this before: put a cupholder on the OUTSIDE of the tray. Pure genius. Also, please note the coathanger thing that you can pull out and hang a coat from – I personally don’t see why you’d want your coat hanging into your lap but these are the same people who devised the outside cupholder, so who am I to judge? And you can’t see it, but when the tray folds out there’s an outlet in the back of the seat in front of you! Again – pure genius.

The flight to Hong Kong took about 12 hours, but we spent the majority of it watching movies on our personal screens (Kevin’s first selection was Taking of Pelham 123, mine was The Soloist). The Scrabble board didn’t even make an appearance. We were supposed to stay awake only a few hours and then sleep as much as we could in order to get a head start on overcoming jet lag, but the lure of Transformers 2 (Kevin) and Jennifer Gardner (me) – really, it was just too much.

We finally arrived in Hong Kong bright and early at 7:30 the next morning after having only slept a few hours on the plane. Luckily, there were so many things that we hadn’t seen in a long time (cars! tall buildings! people walking like the might actually get somewhere on time!) that we were distracted from our tiredness. We got to Vanni’s apartment in the afternoon and got settled in. She then took us out to show us around the city.

First we went to the bird market, where parrots shouted “Bye bye!” to us.

Vanni and I are birds too

Then we went and had soup and dumplings for dinner.

One of the nicest things about hanging out with locals is good, cheap food

Then we had dessert.

Mango ice with glutinous rice balls and assorted fruit – all for me!

Then we rode the longest indoor escalator in the world. At least we think it was the longest one. Vanni seemed a bit unsure on that point, but Kevin and I were happy to believe her.

 

Looking bored on the 89.4 second escalator ride

We finally collapsed, exhausted, into bed. I stayed awake for awhile, not able to fall asleep, and not able to figure out why. Was it the new bed? New city? Strange environment? Horror of horrors, was I actually missing sleeping in the tent?! Surely not… Then perhaps it was the lack of noise? In Africa I had fallen asleep while waves pounded, elephants trumpeted, buffaloes trampled, cicadas shrilled, neighbors snored… Maybe it was too quiet, I thought. But then I realized what it was – it was that unfamiliar sound – the sound of the air conditioner. And with that realization, I happily fell asleep.

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Picture of the Day: The King still lives.

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