Annapurna: Altitude sickness

Dec. 31, 2008

One of the lesser known symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness.

Happy New Years from Nepal!

Annapurna: Thorung La

Dec. 27, 2008

For those who take on the Annapurna Circuit Trek, what looms largest in the back of nearly everyone's minds is the Thorung La pass. At 5,400 meters, it is the highest altitude pass in the world. After spending days acclimatizing above 4,000 meters, the actual day requires a one kilometer push upwards to get to the pass before a long, steep decent of 1,800 meters and hours of walking to Muktinath. The dangers of Acute Mountain Sickness is a frequent topic of conversation.

Some of the symptoms of the illness include loss of appetite, sleeplessness, confusion and lethargy, problems that each of us in our group had exhibited to varying degrees of severity at one time or another above 4,000 meters. But we were ready to get over this little hill and move on to lower and warmer places.

Following the hard journey to Tilicho Lake, we were all ready to get out of that dark valley and back on the main trail to head to Thorung La. The inn keepers of the Tilicho Base Camp lodge closed up shop after we departed and also headed out of the valley for the off season. We had been at altitudes above 4,000 meters for several days, but we weren't sure we were ready to ascend above 5,000.

On Day 10, Alina, Yannick and I stayed at the one remaining open lodge in Yak Kharka for a night. It was still too cold to take showers, but Alina and I ordered a bucket of steamy water to just wash our hands and faces. It had been too freezing in Tilicho to even do that. Never have I so appreciated such a simple amenity as a bucket of hot water and soap. Dirt and grime dripped off our fingers into the basin.

The next day we had a short, mostly flat walk to the base camp of Thorung La (4,400 meters). It should've been an easy hike, but I was having a diffcult time catching my breath as we moved along the dusty trail. At the camp, a group of Nepalese herders were removing the saddles and heavy packs off the backs of mules. The animals each shook their backs off and then all laid down for a big roll in the dust. We asked where the herders had come from. They said Muktinath, the first town you reach after the pass. They had to ascend 1,800 meters in one day to cross the path. We would only have to do 1,000. It gave us some hope.

I awoke at 6 on the morning of Dec. 11 having slept only an hour or two, unable to rest longer because of the altitude. I had been worried the night before because the "easy walk" to the base camp left me winded and weary. However, on the 12th, I was up with the sun and ready for the hike.

I had a black cup of coffee, some hot porridge and started out in high spirits, full of energy. The way I felt that morning, psyched, pumped, ready to roll, was the same sort of feeling I used to get before big soccer games. During the 1,000 meter climb, I distracted myself from the perpetual upward climb with thoughts of soccer. I kept replaying in my mind glorious moments from my nearly 20 years of playing.

Then I started a little shit-talking session with the mountain, saying things like "Ok mountain, if you can even call yourself that. You may be tall, but have you ever scored a hat trick?"

The strategy worked. I was at the top before I even knew it. Though a little loopy from the altitude, I was feeling great. The days dealing with sickness and some sadness felt like they were behind me. It was all down-hill (in a good way) from here.

The whole group of six of us, Marie, Yannick, Alina, Christof, Tony and myself, all hugged each other at the summit and spent about an hour in the cold sunshine amidst the prayer flags before descending to Muktinath.

Annapurna: The climb to Tilicho

Dec. 23, 2008

Tilicho Base Camp at an altitude above 4,000 meters is a small lodge that hovers in the shadows of Tilicho Peak (7,134 m) and the Muktinath Himal chain. The place has very few amenities, an outdoor toilet that is nothing more than a hole in the ground, tiny, simple rooms with four walls and two hard beds, and no showers, though it's far too cold to consider undressing there. The landscape is stark and beautiful but desolate. It is one of the most remote places I have ever been.

I awoke from my second long night of sleep feeling much better than I had the previous few days. I felt hungry again, though I was tentative about what to eat. In these high altitude lodges, as the trekkers were thinning out and the locals leaving to head to warmer climes, the quality of the food was becoming more and more questionable. Some of it tasted like real last rations, bottom-of-the-barrel type fare. The poorer quality food most likely is what made me sick, though my international comrades around me seemed to be doing fine eating the stuff.

I have a feeling my stomach ailments are correlated with our almost antiseptic, FDA-approved lifestyles back in the the U.S. of A. I remember one evening in New York City, a group of my friends all went out together for some Indian food. Everyone came back that evening with the runs except for this one little Filipino girl.

"Ha," she cackled. "You Americans can't stomach anything. Gain some damn microbes."

At Tilicho Base Camp, Alina, my Russian friend, was slurping down chicken soup which I wouldn't touch. There are virtually no refrigerators in these villages around the Annapurnas and there certainly wasn't anything of the sort at the base camp. The trek to get in supplies there takes several days. Because I didn't see any chickens running around outside the lodge, I wasn't going near the chicken soup.

I did eat eggs though. Two, fried with a little buckwheat toast. It was nice to eat food again.

Shortly after breakfast, Alina and I set off up the path to head to Tilicho Lake, a 3-4 hour walk. The way up is a long hard slog along a steep ridge and then up these switchbacks that rise high up the mountain out of sight. As soon as I started up, I started second guessing just how good I was feeling that morning. (See photo of me looking less than thrilled to be hiking at altitudes three miles above sea level).

Walking slowly along the pathway, I felt like a ghost. At one point I looked at the hundreds of meters of trails above me and thought about turning around and climbing back into bed. It was cloudy that day and quite cold and windy. I was hot from the effort, but also chilled to the bone by my own sweat.

But soon I started playing a little game with myself. "Ok, Maggie," I'd say. "Walk 20 meters to that boulder than catch your breath. Walk to that hairpin turn, then catch your breath. Walk 10 steps, then catch your breath."

I didn't look up the whole time and I didn't think about anything except the next target.

Along the way, I ran in to the Colombians who had set off early that morning with their guide to go to the lake. They were surprised, after seeing me in such a pathetic state the night before, that I was leading the way up the trail with Alina more than a hundred meters behind me and the others even further. The Columbians reassured me it was only about an hour more to the lake, that the hard part was over.

After getting through the switchbacks, the trail evened out substantially and headed over snowy flat lands covered in jagged ice spears. I picked my way through the ice and over a ridge and finally after several false ridges came to the lake.

Tilicho Lake, at 4,919 meters high (16,138 feet) is the highest altitude lake in the world. It was beautiful that day, a deep electric blue surrounded by white peaks under the cloudy sky. I stopped for a few photos, but once having seen it, I was ready to descend. It was cold and I was lightheaded and headachy from the altitude. I was also anxious to get out of the valley and push on toward Thorung La pass. It had been looming long in all our heads, this epic gateway at 5,400 meters to the other side of the circuit. Our hope was that our climbing at Tilicho would be helpful towards our acclimatization. We would know in a few days time.

Annapurna: A long, hard day

Dec. 21, 2008

After sleeping for 15 hours straight, I awoke on the morning of Day 8 feeling like hell. My stomach was still tumbling and I had completely lost my appetite. The smell of certain foods, of Tibetan bread which is much like fried dough, of chapati, of even black tea and sugar, made my stomach turn. I half-heartedly ate a few bites of plain porridge, but then pushed it aside.

I didn't even trust my drinking water which I was treating with iodine pills. I wasn't sure the damn iodine was working.

My only consolation was that we expected to have an easy day. We were headed for Tilicho Base Camp which we learned was in fact still open. We were also told it was only a few hours walk on mostly level ground.

Alina and I left the lodge before the others, but I was moving very slowly. My rucksack, which on some days I barely noticed, was weighing me down and I dragged my feet through the dust. I couldn't buckle the hip strap because my stomach couldn't take the pressure. I hunched forward pulling on my chest strap to take some of the weight off my shoulders.

In the village of Manang (3,530 m) I bought a bottle of Coca Cola and a Mars Bar. As the altitude increases so too do the prices of food, especially on goods like soft drinks and chocolate which have to be carted by mules from over Thorung La or from way down the trail back as far as Beshishar. Coke cost 200 rupees (about $2.50) in Manang and the price only went up in some of the more remote villages we would soon encounter. My moody stomach which only seemed to trust these processed goods was leading me to develop an expensive Coke habit.

Our group stopped for tea in the village of Khangsar where we took out our maps and considered our various options for getting to Tilicho Base Camp. The lodge owner, a nice Tibetan woman, said the walk was easy and flat. She told us to take the low road along the river. We would then soon come to a new lodge where we planned to stop for lunch before pushing on to the base camp.

Alina and I headed off first following a trail down low on the ridge along the river like our maps indicated. We were soon told by two shepherds that the path we sought was actually higher up on the hill. I cursed the ridge and my stupid stomach and plodded up to the trail. A short time later, Yannick caught up with us and the three of us reached a ledge where the path ended. After some back-tracking and scouting, we found the right trail that led to the new lodge. Our one hour trek had taken twice as long.

At the lodge, we met up with Tony, Marie and Christof who seemed to have found the place easily and had already finished their lunches by the time we arrived. I ordered a Coke and some plain macaroni which again I barely touched. The others seemed to be in high spirits. Tilicho Base Camp was supposed to be a short, flat walk one hour away.

There were two routes to get to the camp. One which would take four hours and crossed high along the ridge and then descended abruptly to the valley where the lodge was located. The other, though much shorter in distance and time, was also noted to be much more treacherous. We would have to cross through a steep landslide area.

The other trio took off ahead of us, while Alina, Yannick and I took our time with our lunch. When we asked the lodge owner how long it would take from there to the base camp, he said two and a half hours if we moved quickly along the short route. The information we had received from the Tibetan woman was dead wrong and it was already 3 p.m. If we didn't move fast, we would soon been walking in the dark.

The three of us hustled along the trail and soon learned that the Nepali definition of "flat" is slightly skewed from what we Westerners think the word means. The path was a series of steep inclines followed by abrupt, rocky descents. Every uphill was especially torturous for me. I kept repeating The Little Engine that Could's mantra: "I think I can, I think I can."

But it was hell. I was weak from my crappy stomach, and weak from not eating anything. My back was breaking and the sun was blinding and burning me. My fake Chanel aviators made me look really cool, but did nothing to keep the bright rays from piercing my retinas.

When we got to the landslide section, I couldn't believe that this was even considered a viable route. The pitch was so steep, and the path, if it could even be called that, kept changing as each person tread across it, knocking lose the stones. Right before I was about to start along the trail, a herd of blue sheep came galloping down from above, knocking football sized rocks down with them, right where only 20 seconds later I would've been walking.

When the sheep disappeared, I tread uneasily trying to keep my eyes focused on both my footing and the hillside above me. I didn't want to be swept down by a stray boulder. The drop to the riverbed was about 300 or 400 meters. It would be a long and probably deadly slide into the icy water.

But we all made it through the landslide area, just as dusk was setting it. Had we been 20 minutes later, we would've hit that area in darkness. Finally we got to base camp as the sun was setting.

I don't know if my body could have taken one more uphill climb. I nearly collapsed at base camp and again was nauseated by the smell of other people's food. There were two Colombians and an older British man all at the camp that night in addition to our party. They all cheered me on as I tried to eat a few mouthfuls of mashed potatoes, but it was of little use. I was exhausted and feeling disoriented. In this high, dark valley truly in the middle of nowhere I felt pangs of homesickness. I was also concerned that I might be feeling the onset of Acute Mountain Sickness, in which case I would need to be evacuated. How would I get out of this place? Along the landslide area at night?

Unable to hold my head up, I drifted away from the dining hall fell into my bed finding sleep almost immediately.

Annapurna: Rest day

Dec. 21, 2008

Starting out on the Annapurna Circuit, I felt robustly healthy and full of energy invigorated by the exercise and the mountain air. However, about a week in to the trek in higher altitudes and colder climate, some funky things started happening to my body.

Mainly, I was suffering from some gastrointestinal unease. This has been a recurring problem since I arrived in Asia. A little bout of food poisoning caused me to yak at the camel festival in Pushkar. I had the shittiest bus ride ever (literally) from Jaisalmir to Udaipur. I had a very nasty night in Varanasi. And now it was unhappy trails on the Annapurna Circuit.

In the village of Braga (3,460 m), my fellow trekkers and I agreed to take a rest day to better acclimatize and take a break from walking. I was popping pills for aches and pains and for my uneasy stomach and also spraying heaps of Second Skin on my heels which were blistering up from my new boots.

At the lodge in Braga, we met three other trekkers, a Brit named Tony, a French girl named Marie, and an Aussie named Christof. They all already knew Yannick because they happened to be on the same bus from Pokhara to Beshishar to start the circuit.

We were told garlic is good for treating and preventing altitude sickness, so we all scarfed down tons of it on toast. Word was floating around that the villages up at these altitudes were starting to shut down for the winter, and all the inhabitants were heading to lower, warmer places. The news put a bit of a damper on our moods because we had been talking about making a side-trip to Tilicho Lake, the highest altitude lake in the world. Rumor had it, Tilicho Base Camp was already abandoned.

During our "rest day", Alina, Yannick and I decided to visit Milerapa Cave, an alcove part of the way up Annapurna III where a monk, who was said to have the power of levitation, meditated for many years in the 11th century. Milerapa reportedly survived by eating nettles which gave a green tinge to his skin.

After climbing up to his cave decked in prayer flags, the three of us decided to ascend to the glacier line on the mountain. The climb wasn't tough technically, but it was steep and so far the highest altitude we had all reached (somewhere above 4,000 m, or more than 13,000 feet). We plodded upwards eventually coming to a space even with the dirty ice.

The mountains seen from this vantage point are sharp and brown peaked in white. A river cuts through the dry, amber valley like a sparkling sapphire necklace reflecting the brilliant sky. Above us, snow was blowing off the peak of Annapurna III. The mountain was creating its own clouds.

We saw up the peaks blue sheep, which are related to mountain goats, skittering among the rocks. Yannick found the skull of one of these horned sheep and created a little monument out of rocks placing the bone atop it.

We descended around 2:30 p.m. Though fairly early in the afternoon, it was already freezing. Once the sun goes behind Annapurna III, the valley is cast in shadow and the winds pick up. Back at the lodge around 4, I crawled into my sleeping bag to warm up. There I stayed until the next morning.

Annapurna: Bucket shower

Dec. 21, 2008

After nearly a week trekking, laundry and a good hot shower were much in order. Alina, Yannick and I spent our sixth night in the village of Ghyraru (3,670 m), one of two higher altitude villages one can visit after Pisang where the trail splits. Trekkers exhibiting symptoms of altitude sickness are advised to take the low route through a forest. The higher trail is more strenuous but the views of the mountains are priceless.

It had been several days since any of us had showered. The temperatures were just getting too low, and finding hot water in these villages is not always easy. What came as a delightful surprise to us was that many of the lodges use solar heating for their showers. How progressive.

The problem with the system (the little I know about it) is it's very basic and doesn't allow for any reserve energy. If it's cloudy that day, you're out of luck. Also, you better be sure to be one of the first in the shower if you hold any hopes of getting heated water.

In Ghyraru, there was not even a solar system, but you could still get a hot shower, so to speak. I paid 100 Nepali rupees (about $1.25) for the lodge owners to boil up a bucket of water.

Shivering violently between scoopfuls, I frenetically lathered myself up, dancing around in my flip-flops, rubbing and smacking myself to both get clean and stay warm. All the while I gazed out a small window at the glaciers on Annapurna II (7,937 m) and IV (7,525 m). The whole affair would have been hilarious if caught on film.

I bought this shampoo in India called Rejoice which is aptly named because the only time I used it on the trek was when I could find a legitimate shower with steaming hot water. Any time there was steaming hot water around, I was in exultation. Needless to say, my hair remained unwashed for most of the trek because it was too bloody cold to get it wet.

Once clean and shocked wide awake by the shower, I had to do some laundry. Again this involved a heated bucket of water and more dancing around in the frosty air, scrubbing my clothes under the darkening sky.

The next day, my clothes were still quite damp (nearly frozen actually). I had to tie my underwear and socks to the outside of my rucksack to dry as I walked. My unmentionables fluttered in the breeze like Tibetan prayer flags under the Nepali sun.

Annapurna: Higher and colder

Dec. 20, 2008

Everyday walking the Annapurna Circuit brings a complete change in scenery. From lower elevation Hindu villages, through rich river valleys and pine forests and into the stark Buddhist mountain towns, it is no wonder the path has been called one of the best treks in the world.

My Russian friend Alina and I ascended 800 meters on the day we joined up walking from Jagat (1,300 m) to Bagarchhap (2,160). We then had a comparatively relaxed fifth day of walking only about 10 kilometers but rising by 500 meters from Bagarchhap (2,082 m) to Chame (2,620 m).

The walk that day reminded Alina of autumn in the dark pine forests of Russia. Coming into view as we ascended were the peaks of Lamjung (6,931 m) and Annapurna II (7,937 m).

We could feel the cold as we rose higher each day. In the sunshine, we could walk in T-shirts, but any patch of shade made us shiver in our sweaty clothes. It was especially chilly at night and we knew it would only get colder as we climbed higher toward Thorung La, the highest elevation pass in the world. We went to bed early, sometimes as early as 7:30 if there was no electricity in the village. This walking everyday, up-at-dawn lifestyle was both invigorating and exhausting.

By Day 6, we had gained another trekking companion, Yannick, a French physiotherapist. Yann, who we called Yak the first few days when we couldn't quite remember his name, walked quicker than we did, but always started much later in the morning so we were constantly crossing paths.

Walking with the Frenchman and the Russian girl, I took a sort of strange pride in the fact that they could only communicate through my native tongue. Yannick said he found my flat New England way of speaking much easier to understand than a British or an Australian accent. Sometimes as the two stumbled through phrases, I felt like a referee of the English language.

If on the fifth day, we walked through Russia, on Day 6 we were in Yellowstone National Park. We passed by a massive unnamed rock formation curved like a bowl. We all walked in silence on the soft earth there. It was so quiet we could hear the flapping of crows wings.

Surrounded by such beauty, I started to feel at a loss of adjectives. The rivers ran ice blue, the sky was electric and clear and the air was fresh and crisp and getting thinner. I was starting to feel the altitude.

When the three of us stopped for lunch in lower Pisang (3,190 m), I smoked a cigarette that Yannick rolled for me. The thing hit me like a powerful drug. I was light-headed and laughing instantly.

The altitude was also doing something to all our appetites. Never before had I so appreciated sugar. I was devouring Snickers bars and heavily sweetening my tea. Alina went as far as to eat spoonfuls of sugar soaked in a little black tea straight from the spoon.

Around us, everything about the landscape was becoming bigger. The rivers and valleys were deeper, the mountains closer, colossal, the stars brighter. We were enraptured by everything around us, the beauty, beauty, beauty.

Annapurna: Quiet thoughts of nothing

Dec. 20, 2008

Walking for hours along quiet trails, one's mind has plenty of time and space for wandering as well. What I found interesting in the early days of the trek was that I thought mostly of nothing. Yes, I had thoughts, flashes of ideas and memories, but mostly my mind remained peacefully vacant.

While in India, I had talked with people about meditation. I gave it a shot one morning on a rooftop overlooking the Ganges in Varanasi. I received simple instructions from a new Israeli friend to just sit still, close my eyes, concentrate on my breathing and try to think of nothing. It was a struggle trying to sit still and just be. I kept noticing little pains in my body and my mind swirled around from thought to thought as hard as I tried not to think.

But in the mountains, walking and breathing hard shouldering a relatively heavy pack, I think I was unconsciously meditating. Like I said in an earlier post, I've often found solace in the outdoors. The rivers are my holy water, the mountains my cathedrals.

When I did have thoughts, they were more often than not songs that popped into my head. Two pieces of music in particular which happen to share the same name repeatedly came to mind.

During steep and grinding ascents, it was Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's solemn but hopeful Hallelujah that I sang through struggling breaths. Well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth... the minor fall and the major lift...The baffled king composing hallelujah.

At other times, especially after conquering those ascents and looking around at the scenery and the mountains around me, it was Haaaaaallelujah! Haaaaallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hall-ee-lu-JAH! the famous chorus from Handel's Messiah.

Annapurna: Children of Manang

Dec. 20, 2008

When I worked for the newspaper, one of my favorite assignments was to go to the elementary school and take pictures of children. Kids are the greatest and easiest subjects to shoot on film because they are so honest in their expressions. I expressed this sentiment earlier when shooting a scene in a Greek square of children chasing pigeons.

Kids don't try to look good or impress anyone. Even if they do, their innocence shines through.

In Nepal during the frequent power outages that plague this country, sometimes the only electric light is generated from the LCD screen of a tourist's Nikon. Their faces light up in the glow of these contraptions as they look at themselves projected back in the darkness.

Here's a sampling of some of these mountain children in the Buddhist Manang district.

Annapurna: Learn metric

Dec. 20, 2008

As I write about my trek along the Annapurna Circuit I'll include the distances covered and altitude changes. My dad tells me I should write these measurements in miles and feet so folks back home can truly comprehend these numbers. But I've been traveling outside the United States now for four months and no one besides us stubborn Americans uses these old fashioned measurements. All the maps I have are in meters and kilometers.

Also weight is in kilograms instead of pounds. Along the trails I saw Nepali women and men hunched over bearing 50 kg sacks of rice, or fertilizer or stone dust. 1 kg = 2.2 lbs. That's 110 pounds! My own pack weighed in at 15 kg, so I was shouldering just over 33 lbs.

Although I've been thinking in terms of metric, it wasn't until I converted some of these numbers into miles that I truly comprehended just how high I was walking. Thorung La pass, the highest altitude pass in the world is at 5,400 meters. That's 17,800 feet above sea level, or about 3.4 miles, more than three times higher in elevation than Denver.

Where possible, I'll make these conversions. But it takes time, and everyone knows time is money, especially when you're paying for relatively reliable internet in a third world country. Go to this site for help with metric conversions if you need it.

Annapurna: Tal

Dec. 19, 2008

This is Tal, the gateway to the Manang district of Nepal. Notice the flock of goats I passed on the way up, and the mule trains which are like Nepal's version of Mack trucks carrying food and supplies across the country along the "Annapurna Highway."

Annapurna: A new comrade

Dec. 19, 2008

On my third day of trekking, I set off from Jagat shortly after dawn on the heels of another trekker, the young woman I had passed the day before on the trail. I had ended my previous day early in the afternoon and this woman caught up with me and stayed at the same lodge. I was one of five trekkers who slept at the Hotel Mont Blanc that night.

At dinner, the young woman sat with two Germans. I learned from their conversation that the woman, a Russian named Alina, is a fellow photographer and journalist. Hearing this, I struck up a conversation with her and the others. One of the men who was from East Germany commented that our little group consisted of an American and a Russian, and two Germans from either side of the Berlin wall.

The next morning, fully intending to set off alone ahead of the others, Alina was also up with the same plan in mind. When we took off, one of the Germans rubbing sleep from his eyes said "Oh look. A new team has formed."

I think both Alina and I had the same thought: We were content to go alone.

She got ahead of me, but I passed her on the trail in the village of Chamje (1,430 m). I walked alone for miles. It was a long, hard ascent along switchbacks and steep inclines to the Buddhist village of Tal (1,700 m).

Tal was one of my favorite places on the trek. The muscles burning from the climb is worth the entry to this heavenly little town. Tal emerges after a long, dusty hill in this quiet valley where the blue, grey river widens and bends creating sandy beaches. From the cloud covered hills that create the valley spill high, thin waterfalls.

Alina caught up to me in this little village and the two of us sat down for lunch. It was over black tea and pumpkin soup in placid Tal that the Russian and I decided to walk together.

Annapurna: Happy solitude

Dec. 19, 2008

Day 2 of my trek, I was up before sunrise happily lacing up my new hiking boots. I ready for some real, hard walking.

A bowl of banana porridge in my belly, I walked swift and strong along the path leading through flat lands along a rumbling river. I passed women washing laundry in the stream, and men carrying crates full of chickens, hauling the loads on their backs held up by a thick band around their foreheads. I blew through the farming villages of Nagdi and Bahundanda which formed steps along the hillsides. before stopping for tea in Syange (1,100 m) and eventually ending my day in Jagat (1,300 m). I had walked about 15 kilometers and ascended almost 500 meters.

I was so happy and healthy on the trail. I was exhilarated by the river below me and the mountain peaks in the distance ahead. I also felt dirty, but a good, clean kind of dirty. Dirty in body, clean in soul.

For dinner that night I devoured a plate of dal bhaat, a common Nepali dish consisting of rice, potato curry, a spicy pickle and a lentil soup. All the walking and carrying of my pack left me famished. Eating this hearty meal was good and natural; I could feel my body's need for the food.

Right at the start of my walk, I passed a young woman, the first other trekker I'd seen on the trail. A few days earlier I feared I would meet no one else on the walk. But now, after spending day on my own, I didn't want to meet anyone else.

Annapurna: Setting forth

Dec. 19, 2008

When I began planning this whole big trip around the world, something about Nepal called out to me stronger than any other location in the world. I wanted to see these mountains, the Himalayas, these natural monuments of the gods.

As a child I always found peace in the outdoors. Climbing to a high tree limb was like a prayer to me. I offered sacrifices to the wild in the form bloodied knees scraped on boulders and cuts from thorn bushes.

I was always off in the woods, scouting rivers, building forts. The forest was my sanctuary.

When I was 15 and as awkward and angsty as can be, my parents shipped me off to Utah for a two week Outward Bound course of rafting, hiking and canoeing. I joined a group of 18 others my age, many of whom were juvenile delinquents who were taking the course as remediation for minor crimes they had committed. The courses are meant to inspire individual confidence and to teach teamwork and trust.

For two nights toward the end of the trip, each of us kids were left alone in the desert where we were meant to reflect on the lessons we had learned during the previous days. I spent my time writing in my journal and basking in the sun listening to echoes from the canyons and the Green River far below. That solo experience reawakened the joy I had found in nature as a younger child. It was return to grace.

Now, nearly a decade later, I would be setting off alone into the Himalayas on what felt like a familiar journey.

I was nervous planning for the trek. It was late in the season, maybe too late. The most popular time for trekking is October. By December, the temperatures drop around the Annapurna range and many of the inhabitants of the villages in the hills start to abandon their lodges for the winter to take up jobs in Kathmandu and elsewhere. Thorung La, the highest altitude pass in the world which connects the 220 kilometer circuit, is in danger of being snowed in and impassable.

I also was getting mixed information on whether or not I should get a guide. Both Lonely Planet and another book on trekking in Nepal strongly discouraged trekking alone, especially as a female. I talked to one agency that caters specifically to female trekkers and got information about all the supplies I would need. The agency suggested that I hire a guide-cum-porter for the trip.

But talking to other trekkers around Pokhara, the resounding message was that the path is easy to follow, the Nepali people are kind and helpful, and there are many others trekkers on the route.

I was torn. Two nights before I was slated to leave, this particular agency ready with a guide for me, I thought about the trip, about how I would be spending almost three weeks with this one person. I hadn't spent that long with anyone on my trip. On the night before leaving, I decided I would go it alone.

On Nov. 30, I boarded a local bus to Beshishar (760 meters above sea level) followed by a jeep to Khudi (790 m) and set off on the Annapurna Circuit. That first day, because of a late start, I only walked a short distance to the small village of Bhulbhule (840 m), named after the sound of a small spring nearby. I was excited but still anxious about what I was undertaking. I also felt quite alone. I was the only trekker staying in the lodge. But then I looked out the window of my tiny room and saw this sight (see photo). The river, the forest, the mountain... they were like an answered prayer.

Return from the mountains

Dec. 18, 2008

I'm back in Pokhara following a 19-day trek around the Annapurna circuit. Managed to pull a muscle only as I was getting into a cab to return to civilization. Good timing!

Will have tons and tons of things to report and pretty photos to post soon. But need to decompress right now. I'm off to eat a yak steak!

As appeared in the Easton Courier

Written by Julie Weisberg, the current editor of the Easton Courier, Easton Connecticut, the position I held before departing on my worldwide journey.

Going off the grid

Nov. 29, 2008

I am officially going off the grid for the next 16-20 days as I embark on a 150 kilometer trek of the Annapurna Circuit. The trek will take me through valleys and across plains and up over 5,000 meters to Thorung La, one of the highest altitude passes in the world.

The trek is not the wild adventure it once was. The trails are well-traversed and lined with dozens of small villages along the way. But still it is called one the best mountain walks in the world.

I am nervous but excited. It's a little late in the season to be undertaking the trek. Temperatures at the pass have been reportedly falling well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit in the past few days. But I'm feeling good and healthy, so off I go.

If you don't hear from me by Dec. 20, send in the search party.

Ahhhh... Pokhara

Nov. 29, 2008

This is how I spent my Thanksgiving afternoon.

Rejuvenation in the mountains

Nov. 29, 2008

I may have been a mountain goat in a prior life. For the second time on my trip, I have found peace and rejuvenation in a lakeside town at the foot of a major mountain range.

In Europe, my heart melted for Interlaken, Switzerland. In Asia, I have found Pokhara, Nepal.

Skirting Phewa Lake and within sight of the Dhaulagiri, Annapurna and Manaslu ranges, each with peaks over 8000 meters, Pokhara is actually the third largest city in the country. The city proper though is far from the lakeside along which a bustling tourist village has sprouted up. Thirty years ago my dad came to Pokhara when it was still a small village. He asked me if the old women still come up to tourists trying to sell magic mushroom omelets. Not anymore, Dad. Sorry.

Pokhara's lakeside district is lined with lots of good restaurants, Internet cafes and trekking gear shops. Everyone, rich tourist and poor Nepali alike, wears North Face gear. It's not the most authentic place in the world, but I admit it's nice to be back in a First World-feeling place after a few weeks in India where coming into intimate contact with extreme poverty is unavoidable.

Pokhara is actually a lot like Interlaken complete with its clear lake and paragliders in the sky. The town has even been called the Switzerland of Nepal. But in place of the apple orchards and crisp, cold air, there are rice fields and warm, hazy weather in the valley.

I've spent several days here doing some minor hikes and bicycling around town. One night I walked up to Sarangkot, a peak overlooking the valley, and then marched along the ridge to a small village called Kaskikot. There I was invited to spend the night with a Nepali family. Now this was an authentic experience.

Manbahadur, a man in his mid-thirties, offered me a room for the night in his family's house for 60 Nepali Rupees (less than $1). I had been heading toward a larger village where there was a guesthouse someone recommended to me, but this seemed like too good an experience to pass up.

Manny's elderly mother and sister kept busy around the fire in the middle of the floor of the house's kitchen/living room/dining room/bedroom. Manny's children
gathered around me asking all the questions they could think of in English. I sat with the family around the fire while the women squatted on their heels cooking up a meal of spicy chicken, curried vegetables, lentils and rice. I ate like the others with my hands, devouring the tasty food. Soon after the meal, I ended up going to bed in a room to myself adjacent to the main house. It was only about 8 p.m., but the electricity in the town was out and there isn't much you can do in the complete darkness in the hills of the Himalayas. I felt a little guilty about taking the room, knowing that on nights when they don't have guests, it probably is the bedroom for the old woman or the children.

I woke up before dawn and Manny's 17-year-old niece, and 10-year-old son climbed with me up to the peak over Kaskikot where there stands a modest Hindu temple. The children and I watched the sunrise over Pokhara from the temple for Kali.

When I left, I ended up giving Manny 400 rupees, more than I would've paid for a room in a guesthouse. The whole experience was well worth it.

Safe and sound in Nepal

Nov. 27, 2008

Just wanted to write a quick note to let people know I'm safe and sound in Nepal, far away from the terrorist bombings in Mumbai. I woke up this Thanksgiving morning to the shocking news and spent a totally surreal half hour in a Pokhara internet cafe listening online to New York City's WCBS 880 about the news of India.

My next stop in about a month's time is Bangkok where this is going on. In a few days I'm heading off on a three week trek into the Annapurna mountain range, far away from all that... so long as I don't run into any Maoist rebels on the trails.

What a crazy world.

Life and death in Varanasi

Nov. 23, 2008

The fire in the darkness reflected in the water of the Ganges was a magnet for my companion and me. Out walking along the ghats of Varanasi our first night in the city, my new Swedish/Porteguese friend Billie and I were drawn to the flames. They glowed orange in the faces of a crowd of somber men looking on from the steps along the riverside. Not wanting to intrude on whatever ritual was taking place, we girls climbed up into a cement enclave to look over the fire.

Then I saw it, a human foot crackling in the flames, the toes curling in the intense heat. I nearly fell to my knees at the sight.

The funeral pyres are part of the whole experience of Varanasi, also known as Benares, the holy city of India, the city of lights and the city of learning. One of the oldest continually inhabited places in the world, it has been regarded by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains as a place of great religious importance. One-time Redding, Conn. resident Mark Twain wrote "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together."

Even without knowing of its historical significance, a walk on the ghats along the misty Ganges at night, listening to the chiming of bells and women singing in the temples, and watching the funeral pyres, one can't help but be moved by the place.

I met Billie on the train from Delhi to Varanasi earlier this week. We agreed to split a rickshaw and check out a guesthouse together near the Assi Ghat in the south part of town near the river. I quickly learned that my new friend has a fiery soul herself.

Billie, who has traveled to India three times before, received her name from a friend several years ago. In Hindi, Billie means cat, fitting because her birth name is Caterina or Katervina or something like that. She speaks in the deep way the Swedes have when they speak English. It is a quiet but powerful voice.

Before each meal, she lays her hands on either side of her plate, closes her eyes to bless her food with Reiki energy. She works now as a street performer doing fire dances with poi sticks and fans. She's hoping to get some gigs this winter in Goa.

Billie has intense brown eyes that are always wide open, sometimes chillingly so. They are the eyes of a newborn taking in everything for the first time. When she makes eye contact, it's hard to look away. A thought once flashed through my mind that if I broke our eye contact, Billie might whip a knife out of her sleeve and slash my throat.

Though she scares me a little, I like Billie. She's energetic and resourceful. She talked me into taking a Kathak dance class with her. Her hope was that the traditional dance would help influence her fire performances. I was just kind of curious and wanted to do something that might make me feel pretty.

The woman who taught us was beautiful and intense with dark circles under her dark eyes. Billie called them opium eyes. This young woman had such fluidity to her movements, like her fingers and arms and feet were made of melting wax.

For me though, instead of transforming into a beautiful flower, the experience left me feeling as stiff as oak. Kathak is a graceful dance. I'm not really a graceful person. (Sometimes, with a soccer ball, I feel beautiful, but otherwise I kind of just plod... but with exuberance!

That night, Billie and I took our walk along the ghats and saw the burning foot. A man attending the ghat took the opportunity to explain to us the significance of the ritual. People from all over India and beyond come to Varanasi to die. It is believed that those who die along the banks of the Ganges in this holy city achieve instant enlightenment. The burning of the bodies is a ritual of purification. Only men attend the burning because it is feared that women crying out in mourning would disturb the spirit on its way to enlightenment.

There are five types of people who do not require the ritual purification when they die, the man explained. These are the Sadus, or holy men of Varanasi, pregnant women, children under age eight, those with leprosy, those with small pox, and those who died by snake bite. All these people, he said, are already pure having suffered before death.

The snakebite one strikes me as quite interesting. The man explained that the cobra is one embodiment of Shiva, so the person is killed and blessed by god.

When they die, the bodies of these five types of people are taken out to the middle of the river, weighted with a stone and dropped into the murky, green depths.

Many who come to Varanasi find the place fascinating but filthy. Nothing is hidden in India, but especially in this city. Animals and people share every space, rubbing up against each other, pissing and defecating everywhere. Spirituality is an outward and passionate expression. Children run along the ghats offering visitors little palm leaf bowls filled with a few flower blossoms and a candle to light and set adrift in the river as prayers for the dead. Always, always there is the sound of bells clanging in the Hindu temples. People sell sweet, greasy pastries and spicy, greasy food on the streets. While walking the streets or taking a chai break in a little makeshift street cafe, sometimes one sees spontaneous parades of men carrying the body of dead man or woman down to the riverside.

It's all a big carnival in the city of light. Everything is a celebration of life and death. These two things are viewed simply as continuations of each other.

Hippies everywhere!!!

Nov. 21, 2008

Oh man. I need to get out of Varanasi. Hippies everywhere.

My friend from college pointed out that a comment I left for him on Facebook about buying a tam tam drum in Jaipur was a little more "out there" than normal. To quote him exactly, Mike Hand writes: "Holy f*&k-s$*t, girl.. Last I knew you, your hippie hatred knew no bounds. When did you go and become their queen?"

I've had four conversations about meditation today alone. I was prompted last night into giving my own interpretation of writing from the Tao Te Ching. I've been seriously considering enrolling in a ten day silent Vipassana meditation course in the foothills of the Himalayas. Yesterday, I bought a shirt made out of hemp for Chrissakes!

Where the hell did all this come from?

Finding my calm

Nov. 20, 2008

For those of you who've been following my travels here for the past several months, you may have noticed that since I arrived in India the pace for posting entries has slackened. This is due to several reasons. One problem has been finding reliable internet. In the neighborhood in Delhi where I stayed several days ago, internet cafes are abundant. This however hasn't been the case in many of the other places I've visited.

Even when I've come across a computer that has been updated beyond Windows 95, many of the towns I've been in have been plagued by power cuts. I'll be in the middle of writing an e-mail and then the whole city goes dark and I lose everything I've written. In Varanasi, where I write now, the entire city goes without power between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. everyday. It's just a part of life here.

Those excuses aside, the major reason I haven't posted much is I find India a daunting subject to tackle. This place is tough to describe and impossible to sum up. I wrote earlier about how overwhelming Delhi was when I first arrived after the two month party that was Europe. But now after spending more than three weeks in this country, I've discovered a strange calm amidst all the chaos.

My friends at home can attest that I am not the most patient of beings. But here, on Indian time, where everything is rushed, yet takes forever, where docile cows lumber down streets as autorickshaws and motorcycles scream past, where women dressed in glittering bangles and flowing saris create a human rainbow as they walk along streets overflowing with refuse, where children bathe in busted pipelines in between the train tracks at the Old Delhi station, where young girls walk through the desert with a jug of water on their head and a bare-bottomed baby hanging on their hip, where beggers lacking limbs plead for rupees at every intersection, where a hundred brown faces and onyx eyes watch as a Western woman walks by, where the ceaseless honking of cars mixes with the chinga-chinga-chinga-chinga Indian pop music in the marketplaces, where the smells of spices, oils, animal feces and flowers fill the air, where every other Indian man wants to shake your hand and introduce you to their family, where people come to a sacred river in the midst of a holy city to die, I've discovered an internal calm.

I haven't been so hassled as I was when I first arrived. It could be that I've gotten a bit of tan from spending two weeks in the desert. It could be that I'm better at ignoring the calls from every other Indian man or street merchant and have taken on a bit of a thousand yard stare that keeps the hawkers at bay. I'm sure those things have something to do with it. But perhaps while taking this journey, I'm beginning to stumble upon my inner Om.

Bedbugs

Nov. 20, 2008

Look what the bedbugs in Varanasi did to my feet last night. Weird tanline too, eh?

Udaipur

Nov. 18, 2008

This was the number one thing to see listed in my Rough Guides book to India, the floating palace in Udaipur. Check.

Safari through the Thar Desert

Nov. 17, 2008

While in Jaisalmer, the boys and I decided to check off Lonely Planet's #3 "must-do" thing in India: "watching a bright moon out in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan during an overnight camel safari."

We booked the one night/two day tour through our hotel and took off in the jeep about 40 km outside the town to meet up with our guide, Tiger. The first thing he did when we met was tie bright orange turbans around each of our heads. The turbans served the functional purpose of keeping the sun directly off our heads and necks. They also were meant perhaps to authenticate the whole experience. I just think those bright orange scarves were mainly made to mark us as tourists, easily seen from miles away in the desert.

After getting turbanized, we mounted up. Jamie's camel was named Sonya. Ben rode Mr. Magoo. My camel was called Victoria. Vickie and I got along just fine.

Tiger, a Muslim from a small village 200 km north of Jaisalmer, explained to us that he had to leave his home and his wife and five children to search for work in the city after his home region experienced a massive drought. The Thar Desert hasn't seen rain in years and the drought has devastated the region's farming industry. The desert skyline is now lined with thousands of windmills the government built to pump water to all the small villages in the area. The water supplies them with enough for drinking and washing and to sustain some livestock, but not enough to continue farming. Instead, the villagers now make most of their money by cutting stones, Tiger said.

He took us to some of these villages where we were met by crowds of small children all a chatter, excited at the sight of a handful of goras (white people). As I pulled out my camera, dozens of hands grabbed at my arms as the children wanted to see the digital images I had just snapped of them.

During the hottest parts of the day, Tiger led us into the shade of a tree. He unsaddled the camels and let them loose to wander and graze. Then he made us lunch. Just watching him prepare the food and cook and clean the dishes and utensils using a splash of water and handfuls of sand made the safari worth the money.

He built up a small fire from tumbleweed kindling and boiled water and powdered milk together and dumped in almost a cup of sugar to make some super sweet chai.

"No sugar, no power. Full chai, full power. 24 hour," Tiger chanted. "Camel college, full knowledge."

Then he whipped up some spicy and delicious curries, some of the best tasting food I've had since I arrived in India. After lunch we all took a siesta in the shade.

It wasn't too long before the boys and I agreed that Tiger might have been out in the desert for too long. That evening as Tiger cooked, Jamie busted out his guitar and I took out my small drum from Jaipur and the three of us started singing Radiohead and Oasis songs. Tiger suddenly burst in banging on my drum and started screeching every English word he knew in rhyming couplets. Actually, Tiger only seemed to speak in rhymes. Beside the little history he gave us about his life and the drought, Tiger's English was limited to "camel college, full knowledge, full chai, no power, 24 hour." As we tried to sing through his screeching and banging, Tiger then launched into a crazed rendition of Aqua's Barbie Girl.

The boys and I looked at each other like who is this madman we're left with in the middle of the Indian desert. But thankfully he eventually wore himself out.

After dinner, the boys and I passed around a bottle of whiskey and then nestled under heavy blankets to fall asleep on the sand dunes underneath the bright, waxing moon.

Rough Guides #3 best thing do: Check.

Jaisalmer, the Golden City

Nov. 17, 2008

While in Pushkar, I met two funny Westerners, a smallish English bloke named Jamie, and a largish Canadian named Ben. I ended up joining them to travel to other parts of Rajasthan.

We headed first to Jaisalmer, the Golden City, located in the heart of the Thar Desert in the far west of the state near the border with Pakistan. The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone, crowned by a fort, which contains the palace and several ornate Jain temples. The town is also known for its havelis, or private residences which follow the Islamic style of architecture and feature rooms of intricately carved stone.

The boys and I stayed together in one haveli within the fort. We split the cost of 90 rupees for the simple room. That's a total of about $2, or $0.65 each per night. The catch was, we agreed to book an overnight camel safari through the hotel. That's where many of these Jaisalmeri hotels make their money. Still it was well worth it for the experience. More on that in the next post.

Pushkar Camel Fair

Nov. 16, 2008

A major reason I decided to explore Rajasthan was that my visit to India happened to correspond with the timing of the Pushkar Camel Fair. Each year Pushkar, a holy town in the Hindu faith, hosts the world's largest camel fair featuring competitions such as the "matka phod", "moustache", and "bridal competition."

Thousands of people from all over India go to the banks of the Pushkar Lake where the fair takes place. Men buy and sell their livestock, which includes camels, cows, sheep and goats. The women go to the stalls, full of bracelets, clothes, textiles and fabrics. A camel race starts off the festival, with music, songs and exhibitions to follow.

The festival falls each year around Kartik Purnima, the night of the full moon, the day, according to legend, which the Hindu god Brahma sprung up the lake.

OK, so that was the Wikipedia explanation of the event. For me though, my experience of the fair was that I spent most of the time avoiding it as I fought off a brutal bout of food poisoning. Welcome to Asia.

The smell of cow and camel dung mixed with whatever spice it was that was in the food I spent a long night vomiting up, hung thick in the air around the town. I could only bear walking around the grounds under the desert sun for brief periods of time. But the short time I did spend there were well worth it if only for the photos I got. Check out those colors and those dancers and those beautiful, beastly animals.

Superstar

Nov. 14, 2008

This is constant in India. Now I know how Britney feels.

The Pink City

Nov. 14, 2008

After leaving Delhi, I headed west to the desert state of Rajasthan. My first stop was to Jaipur, the state capital also known as the Pink City. The city is a bustling place with a population of about 5 million. The whole city was painted pink in the mid-nineteenth century in honor of Prince Albert who came to visit.

Jaipur is known not only for it's color but also for the fact that it is one of the first cities to be laid out in an orderly grid, like Manhattan. But that's about the only orderly thing about the place.

Though not a massive as Delhi, Jaipur is similar in terms of its intensity of touts and hawkers. After a few days in the country though, I'd learned to better manage the onslaught of "Hellos" "What country?" "You want pashmina scarf?" Still, somehow I got talked into buying a block print blanket, a tunic shirt, and a drum. I don't even play drums. Why do I need one, exactly? I have no idea. The guy selling it made a really cool sound though, and once I showed interest he pretty much followed me through the streets banging out a rhythm to the pace of my steps. I just had to buy the damn thing.

It turned out to be kind of a fun purchase though. As I was walking back to my hotel, banging thoughtlessly on the thing, I passed a little boy amidst a throng of sari-wearing women. He had two little drums in his hands and was hitting them absentmindedly. When I saw him, I bent down and banged on my own drum eliciting laughter from all the women and the biggest, sweetest smile from this little boy who banged right back. That was pretty neat.

Those are the kind of moments that make this country beautiful.

A snapshot of India

Nov. 14, 2008

I've been in India for more than two weeks now which is unbelievable to me. Time has just flown by. I've seen so much in these past days, it's all been a big colorful blur.

Now that I've found internet that I think is reliable, I'm going to bombard you all with photos, many of which I think are some of the best I've taken on this trip. This country lends itself to the camera. Here is one I quite like of a woman selling floral wreaths as offerings to be laid under images of Hindu gods and goddesses. She's sitting along a main road under the new metro line near the Main Bazaar in the Paharganj district of New Delhi.

Many, many more photos to follow.

Indian lucky

Nov. 11, 2008

Learning the different customs of a new place by inadvertently trampling all over them can be awkward at best or be dangerous at worse. Sometimes though doing something taboo can be completely hilarious.

When I left Delhi to catch a train to the desert state of Rajasthan, I had to say good-bye to my new Kashmiri friend Rafiq. I threw my rucksack into the back of a waiting autorickshaw and turned to him to bid farewell. He put out his hand to shake mine, but instead I gave him a big hug and kiss on the cheek and then jumped into the waiting vehicle which sped off for the train station.

A few nights later while talking with a British lady I met in Jaipur, I learned that Indian men and women never show public displays of affection. They never hold hands, and they certainly never hug or kiss.

"It's like having sex," she said.

So now I'm probably being talked about back in Delhi like the whore of Babylon, and good ol' Rafiq is getting pats on the back for getting Indian lucky the other day with an American girl.

Dusty, smoggy, funny Delhi

Nov. 7, 2008

I have arrived in India and wow! This place is a slap in the face.

India peels your eyes, drums your ears, waters your mouth and tweaks your nose. It is stressful and dirty and too-close-for-comfort. But at the same time, this place is a good shock to the system, one that can save you from slipping into a cultural coma.

Arriving in Delhi on Oct. 30, panic set in as soon as I stepped off the plane. Everyone was supposed to queue up to get through customs, however Indians don't seem to believe in lines. They are much more comfortable in a close, pushy mass.

After getting through immigration and retrieving my checked bag, I stepped out of the airport into the hot, smoggy morning in India's capital city. I did what all the guidebooks say and sought out a pre-paid taxi that would take me to the hotel of my choice. My guaranteed taxi instead took me to a different hotel than where I wanted to go. When I complained to the driver, he turned off the engine and then pretended like the car wouldn't start again. Anxious and overtired and on the verge of tears, I climbed out of the cab and walked into a guest house called Hotel Blue.

As I signed the guest book where they overcharged me for a prison cell with no bathroom, I shot the cabbie a look of death. It wasn't just death, though. It was the look death might have after traveling for 24 straight hours and spending a six hour layover trying to sleep under some chairs in Dubai's airport. I saw fear in that cabbie's eyes when I looked at him looking back into my eyes. It gave me a bitter tinge of satisfaction.

The Hotel Blue is officially a flea-bag hotel. On the bed and walls were giant winged bugs flitting about. I was tired and freaked out and had no real idea where I was. For the first time on this trip I actually broke down and started crying. What the hell was I doing in this mad, mad country? How could I fend for myself against hawkers, scammers, cabbies, malaria, and massive fleas?

But exhaustion overtook me. I cursed the bugs and wrapped myself tightly in my sleep sheet and slept all through the day and the following night.

The next day, I promptly checked out of Hotel Hellhole and hoofed it across Connaught Place to a funky-sounding place referenced in my Rough Guide's book on Delhi called Ringo's Guesthouse. The book touted the cheap hotel as a famous meeting place for backpackers from all over the world. Great, I thought. Travel companions.

This is where I learned the importance of having an updated guidebook. The one I had dated back to 2002. A lot can happen in six or seven years. Ringo's is officially over. The place was dead. Regardless, the rooms are cheap, so I decided to stay.

That second day in town, I took my first autorickshaw ride to India Gate and visited the National Museum, a rundown showcase of mostly Hindu artwork in the middle of a rundown city. Later I wandered around Connaught Place, the supposedly ultra-modern, metropolitan district in town, which is really just a giant, trafficky round-about. All day I spent ignoring people left and right saying, "Hello, Where you from? What is your name? You want tour to Agra? You want rickshaw?"

As I headed back to the guesthouse that evening, I was within meters of the place when someone behind me said, "Hello beautiful. You want a tour?"

I couldn't help but laugh. I felt insane. Enough. Stop trying to sell things to me. But the person who spoke to me, a young Kashmiri man seemed kind and spoke decent English. I kind of wanted someone to talk to.

His name is Rafiq, which in Kashmiri means "a kind friend" and he turned out to be a good and helpful guide over the next few days in Delhi. Yes, I had to sit through a pitch from his brother to hire a private car to go to Agra, Jaipur and the Pushkar Camel Festival, a deal which I turned down. But over the next few days, Rafiq showed me around the neighborhood and took me to Paharganj, a vibrant marketplace and hippie alcove near the new train station. He also took me for a ride in Delhi's new metro system which turns out to be the cleanest thing in the whole city.

One day I stopped at an Internet cafe to look up information about trains and travel around India and to catch up on e-mails. In a flustered state, I left the cafe forgetting my iPod behind, still plugged in to the computer I was using. I didn't realize what I had done until late that evening. Kicking myself for such a stupid, stupid forgetful thing to do, I wrote the iPod off as lost.

The next day, Rafiq met me for breakfast and I told him about losing the iPod. He said we would go inquire at the cafe to see if it was there. When we got to the place, Rafiq said a few strong words in Hindi. The cafe clerk shot me a look like "Stupid white girl" and retrieved my iPod and headphones from a locked cabinet.

I couldn't believe it. Rafiq laughed and lightly slapped me on the head. Things seemed a lot sunnier in Delhi, in spite of all the smog.

Fly Emirates

Nov. 2, 2008

I received a big present the other day. Gulf Air overbooked my flight on Oct. 30 from Athens to Delhi so they asked me if I could be bumped to another airline and compensated with a free flight between Delhi and Kathmandu. Awesome! Who cares about a six hour layover in Dubai. Free flight to the Himalayas.

I was bumped from Gulf Air to fly Emirates Airlines to Delhi. Now I have never endorsed any product or company in the blog (or formally anywhere else for that matter, as far as I can remember), but I have to say Emirates is the best airline I've ever flown with. The flight attendants are super nice and smiley and wear funny hats with scarves (How Middle Eastern!), they serve food that is tasty, the captain is calm sounding and tells you about your flight, the seats are comfy, and you get your own T.V. with hundreds of movies and lots of different music to listen to.

It may just be that I've been on the road for two months and haven't been near a T.V. that spoke English in a while, but I was positively giddy to learn that I could turn to a channel that showed a live camera feed from under the wings of the plane, and then switch to another channel to watch Estelle and Kanye West's American Boy music video about fifty times in a row.

Oh, and they gave me free wine. And free snacks when I got to Dubai, which, by the way, has a really cool airport. My mom, who last year took a similar flight to India through Dubai, aptly likens the airport there to Mos Eisley Cantina, the bar in Star Wars. (I am not a nerd. I had to Wikipedia the name of that place.) The airport has rocket ships on the ceiling and palm trees along the people-movers and glittering lights everywhere. It's like a casino, mall, space station all rolled into one. I would've taken pictures of the place, but I didn't want to be mistaken for a terrorist.

I napped for several hours on the carpetted floor of the terminal under a line of chairs before boarding my second plane onward to Delhi. That flight was delightfully uneventful and I really have nothing more to say about that. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep humming pop songs.

Reflections on Europe, interrupted by ouzo

Oct. 29, 2008

It is just after 5 a.m. now here in Athens and in a few hours after the sunrises I will board a plane to Bahrain and then on to Delhi. I was going to take some time this morning to write a final entry from Europe, to reflect on my first two months on the road and remember all the places I've been and people I've met.

But that's not going to happen anymore. I sit here now in the common room of the Aphrodite House Hostel traumatized by two Canadian girls who couldn't handle their liquor.

Some time in the night, a British bloke and an American or Canadian guy busted into the dorm room with one of these Canadian girls limp in their arms. She fell into the bottom bunk adjacent my top bunk as another girl offered slurred instructions on how to take care of her. Then the sounds of quiet gagging and whisper-yelling were accompanied by the perfume of ouzo.

"We need a bucket," stage shouted the Brit.

After a short while things settled down. The girl barfed quietly from time to time in the bucket. I covered my head in my sleep sheet and threw on my iPod and fell back to sleep.

Some time passed when suddenly a loud thud sounded against the dorm room door.

"Can someone open the bloody door?" real-shouted the Brit.

Into the room he and the other guy stumbled with the second Canadian between them. She was thrown/placed in the bed beneath me. She then proceeded to puke all over herself and the floor near my shoes.

Everyone was awake at this point. Some of the others in the room seemed worried. I was just plain grossed out. I have no sympathy for people who can't handle their liquor. And as much as this trip has opened my eyes to all the possibilities of this world, of different jobs I could pursue, I know I will never be a nurse.

The room was an effluvium of ouzo and vomit (how do you like that word of the day?). I had to get out of there.

Downstairs I retreated to the computers. The bartender, a thin, tall blond from Australia, leaned languidly against the reception desk counting her tips, puffing on a cigarette.

"My room is a shitshow," I said, jokingly but tinged with real resentment. "This is your doing, isn't it."

The girl gave me an I-didn't-do-it shrug and laughed through an apology. Bitch!

Ugh. So now I sit waiting for daybreak. So long Europe. Right now, I couldn't leave you soon enough.

Dead islands

Oct. 28, 2008

I thought I had a lot to say about the Greek Islands being dead in October and resembling a post-apocalyptic world, but it's the night before I depart for India and my mind is on other things. So just look at the pictures of arid and empty Mykonos and me along with two other travellers shunning the cold and laughing into the wind.

Children and pigeons

Oct. 28, 2008

A fellow traveller and I stumbled across this square on the Greek port island of Syros the other day. Children are my favorite subjects to photograph because their expressions are so honest. When you combine a camera with children and thousands of hungry pigeons, you get the opportunity to capture something magical.

Fixing the ruins

Oct. 28, 2008

One of the disappointing things about Europe is the scaffolding on everything. The metal and wooden platforms creep up the sides of nearly every cathedral, holy site and ruin like a fungus that attacks healthy trees. Nowhere is it perhaps more apparent than at the Acropolis in Athens.

I went on a walking tour led by a funny, dorky but knowledgeable South Carolinian named Walter. He has spent the better part of the past four years in Athens trying to convince his would-be in-laws to allow him to marry their Greek daughter. Walter's been earning a living giving these walking tours of the sites, a tour so comprehensive you really don't need more than a day in Athens to see it all.

Visiting the Acropolis all covered in construction material was a let down. The Temple of Nike Athena, the goddess of victory, was completely covered. Walter told us it was once a grand temple with a statue of the goddess, her wings chopped off because the Ancient Greeks feared she would fly away from the city. It was hard to picture, beneath all the metal bars and construction zone tape.

The Parthenon itself was buzzing with workers buffing the marble clean.

The Greek government is undertaking a controversial project to fix the temples and ancient theaters at the Acropolis. Workers are digging up fallen columns to re erect in their historic sites. In places where the columns and other pieces of building are missing, the government is just bringing in newly cut marble to resemble the old.

We left the temples on high and descended to the Agora, the ancient market place that was the center of life in Ancient Greece. This I found even more depressing. I didn't take many photos there because there was nothing to take pictures of. There were pieces of cut columns strewn about an overgrown, lumpy yard. There were empty pedestals with writings about the grand statues that they once held. All the statues that actually remained were devoid of limbs and heads. The place reminded me of a neglected and abandoned cemetery.

Walter told us the Greeks are very proud of their ancient history, but still smart from the centuries of war and the decline of their once great civilization.

"Either the Persians destroyed it, the Turks dismantled it, or the British stole it," Walter said.

The reconstruction of the sites is an attempt to bring back the beauty of the old.

But aren't they called ruins for a reason?

Istanbul, dark and light

Oct. 28, 2008

It was a long, hard journey to Istanbul and I arrived in a city that seemed steeped in melancholy. There was a hard edge to the sounds of the city and the streets amplified by a light but steady falling rain. The scowls of the kebap sellers and fruit vendors in the Beyoglu district mirrored my own blue mood.

During the night on the Dostluk/Filia Express from Thessaloniki, I was wrenched out of a dreamy sleep by the sound of banging on the sleeping compartment door.

"Passports, visas," yelled a Turkish border control officer. The young Greek woman in the bunk below me handed over her passport which the officer glanced at and then handed back. She sighed and turned over in bed and back into sleep. I, however, joined all the other Americans and Australians who were marched off the train and onto the tracks in the cold, pre-dawn hours. In pajamas and with sleep in all our eyes, about 20 of us shivered as we waited to pay for our visas into Turkey.

The next morning as the train rumbled through Istanbul's outer limits, through the slums built up against the ruins of a city that was once the center of the Ottoman empire, past herds of wild dogs roaming the streets, and tired buildings that looked abandoned but had laundry strung from the balconies, I was struck by what Turkish author Orhan Pamuk calls the huzun of the city. The word is Turkish for melancholy, but a vast melancholy felt by the individual but shared by an entire people.

Pamuk mentions one Turkish scholar, Burton, who in his 1,500 page tome Anatomy of Melancholy accepts it as a positive affliction, "one that paved the way to a happy solitude, because it strengthened his imaginative powers."

I can relate to Pamuk's observation. All my writing here and in my journal is done when I am alone, feeling usually somber and reflective about travelling from friendship to friendship.

"It didn't matter if melancholy was the result of solitude or the cause... solitude is the heart of melancholy," writes Pamuk. Then quoting Burton, he adds "All other pleasures are empty/none are as sweet as melancholy."

I tried to remember and embrace those ideas as I trudged through Beyoglu looking for a place to do laundry. Dirty clothes are definitely a negative affliction.

Don't ever go to Istanbul with dirty laundry. The Turkish people don't have laundromats anywhere. I asked at my hostel where I could get my clothes washed. The young man at reception pointed to an alley across the street that led to a second-hand clothing store. I walked in to the store bewildered to find that it was more like a dusty attic than a proper place of business. Clothes, shoes, costume jewelry was strewn everywhere without reason. Two cats licked each other sitting atop a pile of velvet dresses.

"Uh, I need to do laundry and I was directed here," I said to a hippie-ish looking young man.

"Oh, but it rains today. You can not wash your clothes," he said.

"Oh, but I really need to. Really really," I said.

"They will not dry. We have no dryer," he said. "We hang them on the rooftop to dry."

Exasperated but down to my last pair of clean underwear I said it didn't matter. I'd find my own way to dry them.

I paid the man 10 Turkish Lira and came back an hour later to collect my soggy clothes. Then making no friends in my hostel room, I hung my clothes from every available bar or door corner. Above my bottom bunk, I hung T-shirts and socks and my towel creating what resembled a child's fort around my bed. Listening to the rain and the splashing of cars through the puddles, I fell asleep within the cocoon of clothes awaking later to the sunset call to prayer.

The next day was a different story. It was sunny and bright and warm. I awoke in a better mood knowing I wouldn't be mired in my own solitude much longer. An Aussie friend, the one I visited in London, would be meeting me later that day.

Istanbul is a city of dichotomies. Built on two continents, its people and society are influenced by both. As much as Istanbul may be influenced by Europe and resemble in certain ways more western cities, it is tied to its Middle Eastern and Muslim history.

Everywhere little boys run around selling tissues, pleading with their dark eyes for a couple lira. The young people go out at night in Beyoglu sitting outside cafes and bars down the back alleys of the main streets clapping and singing along to the fiddle and flute-heavy Turkish pop music. Fruit vendors sell fresh, frothy pineapple and pomegranate juices. Cats and dogs laze about, asleep on sidewalks and ship decks, gnawing on fish heads or rummaging through trash cans. Despite the number of strays, the streets are kept clean of their droppings by the Istanbullus who discreetly pick up the waste of the homeless but beloved animals.

In the Egyptian bazaar close to the tourist attractions Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque, men sell fresh fish and spices and Turkish Delight. Shoe shiners hold their posts on nearly every random street in the city. Fishermen line the bridges and sell their fresh catches to cooks who fry up the fish and sell sandwiches for four lira along the docks of the Golden Horn.

The blue eye, or evil eye symbol is everywhere. Shopkeepers hang them above their doors and people wear necklaces warding off evil spirits and other general malevolence. When I was very young, a friend of mine who had lived for several of her earliest years in Turkey, had her childhood room filled with the evil eyes hanging from shelves. They used to scare me, especially at night. But now I find them beautiful and haunting and a reminder of that long ago friendship.

The Istanbullus in the markets work hard to make their living. Though there are hawkers among the crowds, most in the markets are good businessmen who will barter and haggle but won't over pressure you to buy anything. And they maintain a light-hearted sense of humor. Robbie and I were so struck by the professionalism of one particular spice seller, we returned the next day to buy tea and meat flavoring.

One of our days in the city, we took the ferry up the Bosphorus to mouth of the Black Sea. The boat docked at the foot of hill atop which stands the ruins of a citadel. As I stepped off the ferry, I realized that it was my first time walking on Asian soil.

Our first few nights, Rob and I struggled to find good cheap food. We asked the receptionist at the hostel for some suggestions and he accompanied us across the street to a small, local kitchen where he spoke a few Turkish words to the owner. I explained to a young man who spoke a little English that we wanted a big, hearty meal for 15 lira. He smiled and told the cook what I'd said.

We were served a brilliant, spicy meal of falafel, skewered meat, peppers and other vegetables and salads that we were never quite able to identify. They also gave us yogurt drinks to temper the fire of the food.

Later we found a cafe where we smoked apple-flavored nargila and sipped thick, delicious Turkish coffee.

There was a lot we didn't do in the city. We missed the Whirling Dervishes and didn't visit a hamam, or Turkish bath. But the city of darkness and light, of poverty and plenty, is a place to which I would like to return. I will remember the sadness and solitude I felt, but I'll also recall the old men sitting on stools and sipping their tea outside cafes, their smiles and their laughter.

An emotional journey east

Oct. 22, 2008

It was a long journey east that finally brought me to Istanbul late last week. I left Florence feeling rather melancholy. Part of it had to do with the stress of planning my trip to Turkey from Florence, hundreds of miles away and separated by a country and two seas. But the main thing that started playing in my mind was that as the travel season in Europe winds down, a lot of people aren't heading elsewhere, onward, beyond... they are going home.

I bid farewell in Italy to my two Aussie mates, Nat and Naomi, who were heading to Rome and then back home following a short stop in Singapore. Right now, they are either wandering through an Asian market in search of wallets, souvenirs or Bags!, or unpacking and readjusting to life in Mt. Gambier.

On October 11th, I hopped on a quick but crowded train to Bologna where I connected to a sleeper train to Brindisi. The compartment, which I shared with five Italian women, was about as comfortable as sleeping in a vending machine.

At dawn, the train arrived in the port city. Brindisi will remain in my mind as the first place I ever brushed my teeth in a public restroom. Thankfully it was a clean one, and I didn't even have to pay to pee.

In the Let's Go Europe and Lonely Planet guidebooks, they say Brindisi is a place you don't want to linger. It's just a town where you're either coming or going through the port. But I liked the town on that early morning. It had a warm and tropical feel, reminiscent of Florida. Palm trees line the streets and all the buildings are salmon-colored. The waitress at the train station's cafe served me a strong cup of coffee and a croissant with hazelnuts and gave me a nice smile when I attempted some Italian to ask directions to the port.

"Just straight ahead. Follow the signs that say 'This way to Greece'" she said.

The Mediterranean breeze was rejuvenating. The ferry to Igoumenitsa was called the Ionian Sky. Most of the day on deck was filled with reading and listening to music and watching the wake of the boat. I fell asleep for a while lying against my backpack with the afternoon sun on my face. The watercolor sunset that evening uplifted me. But as soon as darkness fell, I sank again into a state of despondence and worry.

The ferry arrived in Greece around 9 p.m. My plan was to find another ferry to Corfu where I would spend two nights before continuing on to Turkey. Luckily, I met two Asian women on board also looking to get to the island that evening. The three of us teamed up to find a boat that would take us back to the island which we passed en route to the main land. During the summer, a ferry from Brindisi connects directly to Corfu everyday, but with fewer visitors, the route is only open every few days.

The three of us found a ferry, one of the last of the evening, and chugged back across part of the water we just sailed landing on Corfu around 11 p.m. I talked the women into splitting a cab with me to the Pink Palace, a famous hostel notorious for its ouzo circles and toga parties, among other extracurricular activities.

When we arrived, we were greeted by Nick, an Italian American guy with a questionable past, and Andy, a one time CPA from London turned DJ/bartender. They greeted us warmly giving us each a welcome shot of pink ouzo.

The Pink Palace provided some relief from my forward movement. During my one full day there, I joined a group of mostly Canadians for a boat cruise along the coast which included cliff diving and bat cave swimming and beach sitting. It also included ouzo. Lots and lots of anise seed-flavored firewater.

The Pink Palace was a lot of fun. Too much fun, maybe. I would've stayed longer, but I had to get to Turkey by the 16th. I didn't sleep the night before I left Corfu because of the booze cruise (or Ouzo Cruizo.. my term, copyright pending) and the subsequent hours of drinking on land. I spent most of the night ignoring a boy from Alberta who inexplicably had an Irish accent. Accountant-turned-barkeep Andy gave me lots of free pineapple vodkas and let me play with the music all night. By daybreak, he offered me a job as his assistant DJ in the high season. It may have just been a drunk offer, but then again you may just see me cutting this trip short so I can return to Greece next March.

That morning, I got a ride from the Palace to the bus station where I fell asleep at a table for several hours before boarding a bus and then a ferry and then another bus along the Albanian border to Thessaloniki. Though the drive was beautiful, through dramatic landscapes of mountains and cliffs and seashores, it was the longest f-ing bus ride of my life.

In Thessaloniki, nine hours later with sunset again approaching, I was frantic. I took a cab to the train station with the hopes of securing a bed on the Dostluk/Filia Express, formerly the Direct Orient Express, to Istanbul. In Greece and Turkey, they haven't yet uncovered the full possibilities of the Internet... or the telephone for that matter. The only way you can book a ferry, or train, or bus in these countries is by showing up at the port, or terminal or station. So I was relying on a cancellation or just some luck that I could still board this train, showing up 30 minutes before it was to leave. Thankfully, there was a free bed for me.

A pretty, red-headed Greek girl with whom I would be sharing the compartment, asked me where I was from. When I told her Connecticut, she seemed concerned.

"You are a long way from home," she said.

It was true. In that moment having covered so many miles over land and sea, I felt suddenly a million miles away. However, once the train started moving and I settled into my top bunk bed I was lulled into a dreamy sleep.

Moving around from place to place, sleeping under different roofs every few nights can make a person realize just how vulnerable she is. But getting in motion, watching the world blur by out the window of a bus, feeling the ground drop away as a plane takes off, or watching the whitewater of the wake of a boat can be exhilarating.

Knowing you will be waking up in your final destination before being rocked to sleep by the rhythm of a train is one of the best feelings in the world.