Dave's Nomad Adventures

Eastbound

2011-04-14T13:06:00.000-04:00

For the first time in almost a year and a half, and overcircumventing the globe, I have finally done some traveling going east. I see that I left off my last post just before doing the inspection of the Cooper River Bridge with Vertical Access. It was fun to be on rope again in a really cool setting. Check it out:


Lowering myself down to the cable I was about to inspect

Also for those interested, there is a 2 minute clip of one of my inspection drops on youtube here. This gives a little bit of an idea of what it is like rolling down the cables.

Redwoods (small ones)

From here I met up with Nico in San Francisco. Unfortunately the weather was crap, so we went for a hike in the rain in Muir Woods just north of the golden gate bridge. Even in the shitty weather, there were hordes of people there, but at least I have finally gotten to see some of san fran, the bridge and redwoods. I now feel like a true American.

It was still too early in the year (too much snow) to get to either Yosemite or Sequoia national parks, so we went straight to Death Valley. Supposedly the hottest driest place in the country, and we had some of the coldest wettest weather so far on this road trip.

At least the following morning we got to see the snow capped mountains that we drove through the night before; while stopping to check in with 4 disabled vehicles due to the falling rocks! The next day though, we did the daylong grand tour of death valley. It is an amazingly diverse place with so much to see. We hiked up mosaic canyon, played on sand dunes, watched unique pupfish in salt creek, drove around to see multicolored rocks at the "artists palette", and checked out badwater basin - the lowest place in the USA at 282 feet below sea level. Badwater basin was my favorite place, as it is completely filled with salt, and is right next to 11,000 foot mountains. That is almost as much as an elevation difference as from Everest base camp to the peak.

Woohoo!

climbing some red rocks

From Death Valley we moved on to Red Rock Canyon, just outside of Vegas. It may only be 10 miles from the casinos on the strip, but it is a world away. It had rained the night we got there, and supposedly you are not supposed to climb on the sandstone after rain since it is soft. We went for a hike instead, although the wetness did not stop the tons of other rock climbers there. Red Rocks is known for the rock climbing on the vividly colored rocks there. On our hiking day we went up turtle head peak, which was in a great location to see the whole valley one way, and vegas the other. The following day we got to do some sweet climbing.

multicolored rocks seen from atop turtle head peak, with Vegas in the background

After Red Rocks, we headed to the Grand Canyon. Amazingly, with our lack of prior planning, we managed to score a campsite in the canyon at Indian Garden. Most of the campsites are booked 4 months in advance, so we were happy to get something. This place seems to hold with the pattern of most of our national parks, which is that you can just drive up to anything cool and take a picture. It was definitely cool to hike all the way down to the Colorado River and back, but really, the best views are from the rim, 100 yards from where you can park your car. It also wasn't until our last of 3 days there that we saw the sun, which definitely makes it all look more impressive. Although even without the sun, it still looks cool. It's amazing to think that all that stuff (that isn't there between the north and south rims) has been washed away by the colorado river. It's about 16 miles across in places, and gets down to 5000 feet deep. It is also neat to be kinda looking back in time, as you can see the different rock layers, each one is associated with a prehistoric period of time.

From the Grand Canyon, we finally headed to southern Utah, which is something I'd been looking forward to the whole trip. It's amazing that even though it is still desert, Utah was so much different than the other stuff we'd been experiencing. It has got such interesting rock formations and canyons that for over a week that we were there, we were constantly seeing new and interesting things.

Bryce Canyon Panorama

Angel's Landing

Zion is where we went first in the southwest corner of Utah. I actually wish that we spent more than just a day there, but at this point we both knew that we had to be back in Ithaca by April 18th, and so we were bums on a schedule. At Zion though we went to Angel's Landing, which apparently is a very well known hike. And for good reason. It is this giant piece of rock left in the middle of where 2 rivers meet. The last half mile of the walk is where it gets really interesting because it is thin, slanted, and quite exposed. There are just some chains attached to hold onto, with 1200 ft sheer drops on either side.

View from the top of Angel's Landing

From Zion we next went to Bryce Canyon. This place is home of the Hoodoos, which are freestanding pillars of rock that have been eroded by water and wind from the cliffs that they once were. Each year Bryce sees about 200 freeze thaw cycles, so in the soft sandstone that leads to lots of erosion. Here is another place that most of the coolest views are right from the rim where you can park your car, although here we did a day walk in and around some of the hoodoos which was actually quite cool to see them up close.

hiking through a tunnel at Bryce

"The Grand Staircase"

After Bryce, we went to a small corner of the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument where we found "Peek-a-boo" and "Spooky" canyons. These are some true slot canyons, like the one from "that movie with the guy who got his arm stuck" as many people pointed out to us. Although that canyon was in the San Rafael uplift (which we went to later). Anyway, this was probably the best day hike of this entire road trip. Peek-a-boo required us to climb up into it, and then through all sorts of arches and neat formations.

Peek-a-Boo

Then we went into Spooky canyon which was even tighter - 10 inches wide for a while. I actually had to take off my backpack and drag it behind me. There are many more cool pictures of these, and actually all the other stuff too at my picasa site.

Spooky Canyon

Moving on, we had a shorter day hike in the needles section of Canyonlands national park. This stuff is just general Southern Utah landscape. Would have been great to get in closer and get to spend a couple nights in the backcountry, but this time our lack of planning meant that everything was booked out.

neat formations in Canyonlands

On the fiery furnace walk

Next stop was Moab, which seems to be the Ithaca of Utah, and the home of Arches National Park. Here, our lack of planning once again worked out to our advantage. There is this one section called the "fiery furnace" which is an area of tight fin canyons which are very difficult to navigate, and so you need to get on a ranger guided walk (booked generally 4 months in advance). It was a nasty morning all windy and pooring rain, and luckily we met up with 2 nice canadian couples whose wives were not interested in the walk. So we got to stand in for them. Then luckily that afternoon, the skies cleared and so we got to go on a walk around the Devil's garden - an area with lots of neat arches. The following day was mostly a rest day to figure out how we're gonna spend our last couple weeks of freedom, and then doing the short walk to the "delicate arch". This is classic Utah; its even on their license plates.

Delicate arch

looking back down the side canyon

After our days in the Moab area, we drove out to the San Rafael Uplift and to Little Horse Canyon. We loved the slot canyons so much we decided to seek out another. This one was certainly really cool with some really narrow parts, although it wasn't quite as interesting as the peek-a-boo and spooky canyons. I did find a side canyon at some point and enjoyed wandering a bit up there to check it out. That side canyon actually required a bit more skill to get through which to me made it way more interesting.

In little wild horse canyon

From here, we began our long drive back to the eastern time zone. 3 long day of driving later, we made it to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and some of the best rock climbing in the country. It actually felt quite good to see some green trees, soil, humidity, and of course rain and thunderstorms and hail as well. Our tent got flooded out the first night there, but the climbing was so amazing it more than made up for it. I have finally gotten comfortable enough with leading that we could climb some more difficult and interesting stuff. It was unquestionably my best day of outdoor climbing ever.

Right now I am back in North Carolina for just a couple days... hence the time to get out these couple blog posts. Next week, after 16 months of traveling and being a bum, I finally start working again. Not as an engineer, but as a farmer.

Plants in the Southwest

2011-04-13T11:16:00.000-04:00

I have traveled around the world for a year, going to amazing places full of natural beauty like New Zealand, SE Asia, Nepal and Turkey. Out of all these places I have not seen such different plantlife as I have in the past weeks spent in the southwest USA. It sure is your typical desert with little shrubs, cacti, and brown hot mountains separating it all. There are even Wil. E Coyotes and Roadrunners! For some reason though I always imagined roadrunners to be much larger than they actually are.

the woody stem of a dead saguaro

Anyway this is about the plants cause I think that they were interesting. Everything is spiky. I made the mistake of wandering off the trail at Saguaro National park and ended up with tons of scratches all over my legs. Lets start with the saguaro cactus. This one is the typical cacti that most people think about when they think about a cacti. It is surprisingly huge too. It can get to be about 50ft tall and weigh 16,000 pounds. The outside is ribbed so that it can swell on the rare occasion that it gets any rain. They have woody insides and actually seems like a tree, but with all the green matter around the trunk rather than in leaves.

A saguaro cactus

Another really cool one is the Joshua Tree. These also grow really slowly and can get to be quite large. I like these ones cause they look like something out of a Dr. Suess book, but its real! They only branch when they flower which is not all too often. Of course, like all plants around here, they are quite spiky.

Joshua tree

Joshua trees are very similar to the yucca plant. Before a joshua tree branches it is easy to mix them up. Yucca is neat since native Americans were able to use the whole plant for something. The leaves were woven into sandals, the stalk could be boiled and eaten, and some part of the roots can be made into a soap.


Yucca

I don't know too much about ocotillo, but I like the name and think it looks really interesting.

ocotillo

On a sign at one of the national parks, it said that prickly pear cacti are found in more than half of the 50 states. This was quite surprising since I'd been to a whole bunch of states before and never seen it. But I suppose with close to 26 of them west of the mississippi... Here's another neat looking plant that supposedly can be eaten, but every time I touch one I end up with hair sized spikes all over my hands.

Prickly Pears - usually they are green, but here in Big Bend there were many redish ones too.

There are also just so many other kinds of cacti, all somewhat edible, but also ready to draw blood at the slightest of wrong moves.


cacti fruit

fish hook cactus

More spikeyness

Another update

2011-03-13T22:01:00.000-04:00

It looks like last time I wrote anything here was after spending a day at Carlsbad Cavers in New Mexico. Right now I am in a hotel in Charlston, SC. Here's how I arrived there....

The day after Carlsbad Caverns, we planned to hike up Guadalupe Mtn, the highest in Texas. As we were about to get on the trail a ranger stopped us saying that the trail was closed due to a forest fire. We hung around for a few hours, and luckily enough they determined that the trail up the mountain was the only safe one in the park that day. We went for it, and was rewarded with wind and great views.

Wind

Great Views

Then we headed on to Las Cruces, with first stopping off at the White Sands National Monument. Its a day trip sort of thing, but really cool! The sand is white as snow, and was a ton of fun to run up and down the dunes.


Jumping off sand dunes

From there we spent 2 nights with Raimey and Ben, a couple fellow couchsurfers with 3 awesome dogs who kept me entertained constantly. It was great to spend some time with folks from the area, and interesting ones at that. They are also rock climbers and told us about a few places nearby that we should check out. One of them was Franklin Mtns. state park back over in Texas. There was some nice sport leading there, and it just felt great to get on rope outside and climb some rock.

Then we head into the Gila Wilderness in Western New Mexico. There are these cliff dwellings there from people who lived in them about 700 years ago. They have a great story, told by Chuck the volunteer, but most of it is a mystery as to why they built so much and then only stayed 25 years...

Being that it is a national forest / wilderness, we got to camp anywhere and even have fires! It was also the coldest nights we've had so far (down to 18 deg) so it was really great to hang out by the fire until bedtime. We did an overnight hike down to the Gila river which is in a canyon with at least 300ft cliffs. There was also hot springs there that required 15 river crossings to get to each way.

Yay for ice cold water!

Following that mini adventure, we ventured into Arizona - home of the saguaro cactus. (pronounced sa-wa-ro) These are the iconic cacti from cartoons, but they actually exist! and so do roadrunners! They are also quite interesting, growing up to 50ft tall and hundreds of years old. They even have woody stems within to keep it upright and can weigh over 15000 lbs.

This one isn't even the largest in the area.

We finally left the Tuscon area after a couple days. Saguaro national Park is right outside it, and its ugly urban sprawl. Defo didnt like it there as much as I would have thought. Only an hour away though is Cochise Stronghold, a climbers dream. It is a chain of mountains with climbable areas all over. We went to only one small area that housed 3 crags, and was only a teenie tiny taste of what is there. The climbing is great too on some nice granite, and this area was well bolted for fun sport leading.

Sweet Rock - our afternoon crag

From Cochise, we head straight to Joshua Tree. You hear about tons of climbing there, and there is, but it is all trad leading which we do not have the gear for. We did manage to find one area with a couple bolts on top that we could toprope off off for half a day. Then of course there are all the hiking trails too. And Joshua trees, another crazy plant that looks like it came from a Dr. Suess book.

Sunset from Key's view

And finally we moved on to something out of the desert! It is a fascinating landscape and each one is a bit different, but it is really nice to get at something that is not all brown and deserty. Also, interesting thing we've noticed about the national parks. They are certainly in our American style of being able to drive up to something, get out of the car for a couple minutes to look at something cool, and then drive on to some other cool thing. Sure, you can just go wander off up that mountain that is 7 miles from any road or trail, but there seems to be a lack of something inbetween. Well, there is some, but just not as much as we thought. Hence, we've kinda been jumping around from park to park spending only a couple days in each cause that is all it takes. Being that it is desert, we are still limited in how far we can go without a ranger station with a water source.

As we drove towards LA, it was great to get up in the San Bernadino national forest and Big Bear lake, where it is high enough that there was snow on the ground and pine trees and water and colors other than tan! We did a hike there up to the Pacific Crest Trail and up a mountain close by. It actually closely reminded me of the adirondacks. We also happened to be in town to volunteer to help them do a bald eagle count. So we sat by the lake in our spot and actually spotted one of the 3 Eagles living around this lake for the winter!

So that brings me to LA. Now Charlston? Yup, I'm doing a little bit of work with Vertical Access. Inspecting the Cooper River Bridge. Its a really sweet one and I get to hang 500ft above the freeway tomorrow!

Nico silhouette - I just like this picture

The Journey Continues

2011-02-25T10:55:00.000-05:00

Where in the world is Dave now? And what are the plans?

car camping in the desert at Big Bend

I'm in western Texas, on a hiking road trip! As for plans... well... I cant even tell you what I am up to today yet. At 7:30 am we were strapping on our boots getting ready for a hike in the Guadalupe mountains (on the horizontal boarder between Texas and New Mexico) and a ranger comes to tell us that there is a forest fire 11 miles away and the wind is blowing hard in our direction. Trails are closed for now and so I am writing this. You can thank the fire, cause otherwise I certainly would have better things to be doing than sit in my car and write.

Anywho, after spending a full 6 weeks, visiting family and friends in Somers, Ithaca, Florida, Philly, Baltimore, Virginia, and Raleigh, Nico and I have finally hit the road again. The plan is to take it one week at a time and get to Big Bend National Park in Texas first. We couchsurfed with three wonderful hosts in Asheville, Little Rock, and Austin, before finally getting to Big Bend.

With 80mph speed limits and 95 degree desert weather, this sure feels like another country. Our first night camping there was also quite different from what I am used to. Other than the howling of coyotes early in the night, it was absolutely silent. No wind, no cars, no airplaines, no bugs, no crickets... nothing except the ringing in my ears which it turns out is quite loud when every other noise is gone.

The Rio Grande, Mexico on the left, Texas on the right.

We spent the first 2 days there exploring some random parts of the park, going on little hikes here and there. Then we did an overnighter in the Chisos mountains. Most of our pack weight for this was water, since there is none here. Over 3 gallons combined between the two of us for just a single overnight. This was a really sweet hike though, cause in these mountains you are about a mile higher than the rest of the surrounding desert. Beautiful views up there. And we got one of the best campsites that I have ever stayed in. It was a great place to spend my birthday. We had our own personal viewpoint of the whole basin below where we relaxed for the afternoon and watched the sun set. The following morning (actually on my birthday) we hiked up Mt. Emory, the highest mountain around – almost 8000 feet.

Hanging out at the South Rim

On top of Emory Peak for my birthday hike

The next day we drove up here to the Guadalupe mountains national park. Yesterday we planned on doing a hike here, but with wind gusts of up to 60mph, we decided on a day trip to Carlsbad Caverns nearby in New Mexico instead. This cave system is stunning. First of all I am used to going into some caves in PA where you get all muddy and squeeze through little cracks with very few decorations. These caverns are quite the opposite. Giant rooms – the big one having an area the size of 14 football fields – and tons of stalagmites (rising from the floor) and stalactites (from the ceiling) and other cool stuff like that. There were also paved paths, special lighting, and rangers walking around, which kinda takes the sense of adventure out of it, but at least makes it way more accessible to everyone and way easier to get around.

After getting a good nights sleep in the matrix at a rest area (and surprisingly finding another girl doing exactly the same thing as us, sleeping out of her car) we were all set for a hike back here in the Guadalupe mountains. I really hope that they can get this fire under control, so then I can go do something outside.

Sunset from our awesome campsite right before my birthday

We don't have too much of a plan moving forward, and it usually changes by the day, so I'm not even going to attempt to write it down here. And like always, I've got a whole bunch of sweet pictures posted at my picasa site – picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan

For Rachel - About Food

2011-02-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

As I've been hanging out at Nico's parents place near Raleigh, NC, I have had some time to do some reading. A great book that I just read is "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan (same guy who wrote "Omnivore's Dilemma"). Interesting that "food" actually needs to be defended, although I think that we all (at least me before reading this) have kinda forgotten what food really is, or more what it is not. It is not food products, such as wheat thins, or diet coke, or 95% of what we see in a grocery store. Actually about 40 years or so ago, food products would have to be labelled as "imitation"; so margerine was imitation butter, and now there would be things like "imitation" yogurt, and "imitation" bread! There are so many additives and things taken out of the actual food that it is not quite the same thing anymore.

I write this for Rach, cause as a student in the nutritional sciences, I think that you should read this book and there is a lot that you can get out of it. In so many places Pollan kinda puts down nutritionists and nutritional science as something that is destroying our food and therefore our culture and us as people. From the way it sounds in the book at least, he is saying that most nutritionists are interested mainly in breaking food down into its nutrients and figuring out exactly how much of each one is needed to keep us healthy and strong. The argument here is that food is way more than just a set of nutrients. How our bodies process it all and how we get what we need out of it lies a lot in the interactions between everything in whole foods. Just eating bread that is processed with white flour and lots of things I cant pronounce and then refortified with vitamins and minerals is not nearly as healthy as having some whole wheat bread.

From what it sounds like, most nutritional scientists work on trying to single out nutrients and see how they work. How else can you do it scientifically, other than by changing only one variable at a time? That appears to be the norm, even though a few people are starting to figure out that it is not the best for us or what we need. I propose to you that you not take the easy path and do the sorts of research that your professors would most likely lead you towards. But rather to try to prove something different. As in why we should eat whole foods and not food products. Which I think is most of what any of us should do to be eating well anyway. There was one study mentioned in the book about a group of aborigines who've moved out of the bush and was eating a western (processed foods) diet. They all had diabetes and were overweight, bla bla bla, and after spending around 2 months going back to their traditional diet of eating what they hunt and gather, they all were much healthier.

It wont be easy to do something different. But I think that it can be way more fulfilling and definitely better for us all as eaters. At the very least I would recommend you read "In Defense of Food" with the mindset of how you can be different from all those other nutritionists that he talks about who figure out ways to create food products which requires processing ($$$), and then marketing ($$$), and then more science to figure out the latest and greatest nutrient ($$$) and then the medical system to take care of our malnourished bodies ($$$). Apparently we are about the most overweight, yet undernourished people ever to exist. Also we are the ones who eat lots of processed food products, instead of real food. Hence, food needs defending.

I'm BAAAACCK

2011-01-02T14:01:00.000-05:00

Jan 1 2011. Exactly 1 year from when I left the US, and what a year it was.

Even though I am back in the US now, I will probably get to writing about the last couple weeks, just for completeness sake. Look for those coming soon.

Now I suppose would also be a good time to write all about what I have learned on this yearlong journey. But I think that I would rather let it all sink in a little bit, so that will come sometime later. Now for plans for 2011... That's a good question. I know I don't want to be working in an office. Some things that I do want for next year though is to stay with Nico, and play more ultimate frisbee (generally get back into shape). We've kinda decided to do this whole USA road trip, with two main interests. One would be to WWOOF on a lot of farms (work in exchange for food and accommodation), and learn a lot about farming and growing food from people that have the whole organic and sustainable thing figured out. Also after now seeing and experiencing much more of the world, I think that it is time to see more of my own country. We also want to visit lots of national parks, and maybe even all 50 states.

Happy New Year!!!

And, as a great way to end this year of travel, Nico and I spent new years in Kiev, on a 25 hour layover between Israel and NY. Kiev is quite a nice city with loads of cool old buildings. We wandered around taking some night photography... then got some good and cheap Ukrainian Vodka, and then went out to Independence Square for the New Years celebrations.

Cool buildings by night

Ok, hope I see you soon!

Israel and Family

2011-01-02T13:42:00.001-05:00

About two weeks ago we left Turkey to go to Israel. Wow... lots has happened since then. Anyway, our main goals there was to see family (I have some cousins who live in the Tel Aviv area), friends, and see some of the big sites. I'd say it was quite successful. Being that this is just about the end of the trip, we decided that it would be okay to move a little faster and see a lot more.

I just like this photo, its from a nature reserve north of Tel Aviv. Credit to Nico

We flew into Tel Aviv, spent a few days with my cousin Adela, then went to Jerusalem for about a week, and then came back to Tel Aviv to spend some more time with Adela, Yoram & family, and also got to see Nurit, Ronnie and Matan. Last time I saw any of my cousins here was about 5 years ago. Even in my whole life, I'd only seen them a handful of times. It really is neat though, that bond that we've got because we all share a couple great grandparents. It was really wonderful to actually get to know all of them quite a bit better and also in general just to have some family to be with since its been so long.

Hanging out with my cousin Adela

When we went to Jerusalem, we spent the first couple days at my friend Steph's place. We were really good friends about 6 years ago when we both were in the same dorm at UNSW in Sydney for a semester. She was such a wonderful host and provided us with a dinner full of typical Israeli salads and other dishes. She also set us up to do some ATVing in the Jerusalem hills.

Israeli dinner with Steph

The next day we went on a tour to the South Hebron Hills. This is in the west bank on the other side of the green line. It was super interesting to learn about what is actually going on there from someone who was stationed there in the military. There is a lot to talk about with the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what this tour was all about, but that will have to be another post. (hopefully soon).

Olive trees behind razor wire

Then on Friday I got to play some ultimate! Amazingly I can still throw quite well, but hiking definitely does not keep you in shape to run. After 2 hours I was really hurting, and sore. It was so much fun to play though. That evening, Nico and I went to the house of a friend of hers. He is quite religious, and so it was cool to have a Shabbat dinner – my one and only Shabbat dinner this year. His Yeshiva friend was also there and two others, and it is actually interesting to listen to them talk about random silly Jewish laws.

hanging out in the church of the nativity

Saturday, Christmas day, we went back into the west bank, but to Bethlehem – the birthplace of Jesus. Its one of those things that is interesting to see once. We went to Manger Square and there was a group of people playing instruments and leading everyone in some hallelujah song where the crowd was singing along and dancing and clapping. Then we went into the Church of the Nativity, where Jesus was (supposedly) born. It was a really beautiful church, and you can even go under the stage to see the little hole in the ground where he popped out. Like I said, it was cool, there were tons of pilgrims there, but any other day would have been the same to me.

We also spend almost 2 days just wandering around the old city of Jerusalem. There are so many holy sites for the Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. It is really cool to be in some of those places in person that you may have heard about in history class. This was also my second time there (that I can remember) but it is very different seeing all this with Nico that it was with my family.

Praying at the Western Wall

Our last day in Jerusalem we rented a car, picked up two other women from the hostel we stayed at, and went to Masada and the Dead Sea. The dead sea – totally worthwhile to float in it and experience it for yourself. No where else on earth is there a place like it. It was kinda neat that for our time there, we actually had some sort of agenda, and each day we had something planned, and then after the planned activity, we had some other time to just kinda relax.

Nico and I floating in the Dead Sea. It was a bit too windy to totally lay on our backs... this water in your face = pain.

After the dead sea day, we went back to Tel Aviv to spend a few more days with cousins before we left. One of the days Yoram took Nico and I to Cesaria, an old Roman port town that people always fought over, then to Haifa, and also to a nature reserve right above some cliffs by the sea. It was a really nice time.

At Caesarea with my cousin Yoram

I think that the country order worked out quite well. By this, I mean that Israel was a good choice for a last country before coming back to the US. I write this from the airplane right now, but I have a feeling that the biggest culture shock out of this entire year will be coming back home. Israel is very modern, people actually stop at crosswalks and there is some resemblance of road rules that people can respect. It was also amazing to think that we can finally again just turn on the tap and have drinking water. Hopefully this will help me readjust to life in the US. We shall see....

Rain in Istanbul

2010-12-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

About 5 days ago, Nico and I made another overnight journey from Kapadokya to Istanbul. Finally we are arriving at what was meant to be our original and most looked forward to destination in Turkey. There is so much history in this city which is the crossroads of Europe and Asia... Ottoman Empire... and all that which most likely you know more about it than I do. I really didn't like my world history classes in 9th and 10th grade.

Anyway, the first day we booked a hostel to have somewhere to crash. And that is pretty much all we did that first day. Nap, went out for a walk down to the water (Golden Horn and Bosphorous Straight), and then bought some veggies. For the first time since leaving New Zealand we actually have a kitchen. It was really nice to put something together, not to say that I don't like going out for Turkish food (which is really really really good) but its also a bit on the expensive side. Especially when coming from Nepal and SE Asia where I'd complain about paying $4 for a meal.

in the archaeology museum

Next day we went to meet our couchsurfing hosts, Efecan and Duygu. They are students, into film and photography, and showed us some awesome videos that they've recently made. Although, also cause they were students and its near then end of the year they were a bit busy. These few days we did a bit of wandering around, although it really was not all that nice since it was cold, windy and rainy. There is so much to do in Istanbul... if you feel like paying. The cheapo's that we are, we ended up skipping out on much of it. We still did go into the Blue Mosque, check out the AyaSofia, and go to a couple museums. Yea, the weather was that crappy that I willingly went into two museums that were totally non-science related. The archeology museum was actually kinda cool with loads of tombs and sarcophagus' from up to 5000 years ago. Many of them were amazingly well preserved too which was kinda neat.

Blue Mosque by Night

marble slab in the hamam

Probably the highlight of my time in Istanbul and the high point in experiencing Turkish culture was our visit to a Hamam on our last day in the country. Efecan told us of a good local one on the Asian side of the city that very few tourists go to: Çinili Hamam. Yea, I paid 37 Lyra to have some really large Turkish man scrub me down. It was gender separated, so Nico and I just planned to meet at a certain time. I walk into the building (which is about 400 years new – for a Hamam) and about 10 men who work there look at me, then one gives me a key to the changing room and give no instruction. One guy comes up and asks, “massage?”. I ask how much, “Kach para?”, and then they all start laughing.... Looks like I am getting the massage too. I am really glad that I did a little bit of reading on how these things work, cause no one there speaks any English. I drop trau, put on the given towel and go sit in the 137ºF sauna in order to get warmed up.

I wasn't totally sure if that is what I was supposed to do since no once else was in there at the time. After about 10mins I could no longer stand it and went to sit in the main room which has a big marble slab in the middle and is surrounded by a few benches and individual partitions with wash basins in them. A few minutes later the big Turkish man in nothing but a towel comes in, pulls me to one of the basins and motions for me to sit down. He then rinses me down, and pulls out what looks like a big mitten shaped brillo pad. An immense amount of grossness came out along with maybe a layer or two of skin. He then pulled me over to the giant marble slab, laid me down and started rubbing me down with soap. I guess this part was the massage, since he rubbed with quite a bit of force. Then once or twice kinda just pounced down on me with all his mass, cracked a few things, smiled, and said, “extra!” We went back to the wash basin, and not before determining that I was a tourist from America, he quoted the price for the hamam, 27 Lyra, and then basically told me that I was also paying a 10 Lyra tip. I wasn't really in a position to argue, so 10 it was. He then washed my hair, rinsed me down one more time and showed me the way out. I still had about 50 mins before meeting up with Nico, so I relaxed, cooled off and took a nap in the private changing room. It was overall a really interesting experience and I might even agree that it was worth it to clear out the grime from traveling in dirty developing nations for the past 5 months. I really do feel so much cleaner.

From the ferry across the Bosphorus

Anyway, once the rain finally stopped and the sun came out on the last day it was really pleasant there and nice to just wander around. I think I've realized that for me, a city is just a city, and there are some nice things to do but nothing that I am super excited about. Now get me in the mountains somewhere, or the canyons of Kapadokya, and I just want to explore everywhere and climb up everything. :)

Kapadokya - First Snow

2010-12-17T02:22:00.000-05:00

From the Southeastern region of Turkey, Nico and I took an overnight bus to basically right in the middle of the country - to the Kapadokya region. Now we've gotten used to some long 10 hour bus rides, but it is a totally different story here in Turkey as it was in Nepal. Theses are some nice buses. Way nicer than any Greyhound you can find in the US. And after you get going, there is even an attendant who comes by offering drinks and little snacks! It still is a bus though, and I am terrible at sleeping sitting up. We were both exhausted by the time we got to Göreme (the main town from where to go hiking) and so we spent much of the rest of our first day sleeping.

Our cave dorm!

Fairy Chimneys, and snow!

Kapadokya is a really interesting region. Most of the rock there is some sort of soft deposit left over from volcanic activity. Then over the years, the elements have carved all sorts of interesting formations - big gorges, tunnels, and these "fairy chimneys". The fairy chimneys are these cone shaped freestanding formations up to about 50ft high, in which people carved houses and lived inside. Not many people live in there now, but at least in Göreme all the hostels have cave dorms that are actually cut into the rock.

It is pretty obvious that now we are back in a touristy region, although at least it is not tourist season. There are tons of hostels in Göreme and you don't get invited in for tea by everyone. We were there to do some daywalks and less for the culture so it was all good. I'm quite glad that we were there in the off season though. With all the accommodation, I can imagine that it would get quite busy and there'd be tons of tourists all over. As it was though, it was almost like a ghost town. We were the only 2 people in our hostel for 2 out of 3 nights, and we barely saw anyone on our walks. And of course there was snow... which just makes everything much better.

Göreme in snow

Like I mentioned in the title - first snow. Our first full day there, it was sleeting/snowing/raining for much of the morning, so it was looking like it might have been an indoor day. But then it got just a little bit colder. The perfect temperature to turn it all to snow and stick to everything and be really pretty. Suddenly we had a lot more energy and were really excited about the prospect of going for a walk. We wandered out and planned on hiking Pigeon Valley. We followed a small road in a little ways, but then the road stopped, the valley split, and the trail was covered in snow.... so we had no idea where to go. We found one set of footprints heading up the right side valley and ended up going that way. Went in a ways, but turned out that was not the right one... but we still got to climb up some cool stuff and see some neat formations.

The next day we decided to come back and take the left valley this time which goes to a nearby town. All over in the sides of the canyon walls were these small holes carved into the rock (you can see them in the picture above). Apparently they were for the pigeons, cause they used to collect the pigeon doody for fertilizer. I've got no idea how they possibly got up there to make the holes and collect stuff, cause they were sometimes about 3/4 the way up a 100 ft cliff!

Luckily it remained cold enough that this day everything was still covered in about 4-5" of snow and the sun came out making everything super beautiful. Still the trail was covered, so it took a few wrong turns to eventually find our way out of the valley, but at each wrong turn was just more really beautiful scenery. You really should check out the pictures, cause they are sweet: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan/Cappadocia#

caves and tunnels

Alrightty, from there it was another rough night on a bus to Istanbul! I'll probably write more about this place later.

SE Turkey - Off the Tourist Trail

2010-12-13T10:02:00.000-05:00

Our "tour guides" in Diyarbakır

Exactly one week ago now we made it to the first new country in 10 weeks - Turkey. Obviously everyone goes to Istanbul, then most stick to the western part of the country. Naturally, we decided to not even leave the Istanbul airport (or we might have never left the city), and fly straight to the city of Diyarbakır in SE Turkey. From the moment we got to the airport it was clear that we were no longer on the tourist trail. There was no English signs in the airport, and no one there even spoke any English. We managed to get on a bus that was headed for the city center. As soon as we stepped off the bus with our large backpacks, lots of heads were turning. Tourists are not something they see very often.

We wandered into the old city which is a maze of small alleys. Within 15 minutes, 3 older schoolkids came up to us and was trying to help us get to where we were going. Only slight issue here, was that they spoke almost no English, and we speak no Turkish. Amazingly though that was not too much of a hindrance, for us to spend the next few hours together walking around the city and drinking tea. We would try to communicate using the few words we knew, hand signals, and other such grunts and gestures. It was actually quite funny and interesting. What was also truly amazing is that they were not at all trying to sell us anything or get any money from us. They were just genuinely interested in us as people and wanted to spend some time with us.

Looking through some ruins at the Tigris River

Then when it was getting time for us to go find our couchsurfers (Serhat's) apartment, they offered to show us the way and walk us there. Along the way, we had to stop and ask someone directions. He knew the way and walked with us the rest of the way. As we were there a little early (before Serhat got home from work), he called Serhat and organized that we'd just go to his house for dinner. This was all done in Turkish, so we had no idea what was going on. Muhammed, who also speaks almost no English, brought us back to his house, we met his Mom and sister, and had a wonderful meal. We then spent the next couple hours in front of the computer talking to each other through Google Translate.

Fish Ponds in Şanlıurfa

We spent the next day wandering the city of Diyarbakır and the next day we went to Şanlıurfa, another city in that region. These days were full of wandering around the cities, eating loads of wonderful food, and having so many random encounters with strangers, young and old, who just wanted to talk and have some tea. NONE of them were doing that just to try to sell us stuff. In Şanlıurfa we did get a small Turkish/English dictionary which was really worthwhile. Cause again in Şanlıurfa, we were walking around with our big backpacks until it was time to go meet our couchsurfing host, and we ended up being shown around by a group of schoolboys (ages 11-13) and conversing slowly - them practicing English with their dictionary and us responding in Turkish. They walked us all the way to this fish pond park, when some guy came up to us and asked us if we were couchsurfers! Turns out Adam was also a host, not ours, but I guess most people would drop their bags off at a hotel if they had one so he correctly assumed we were staying with someone.

Having tea with Adam

Entrance to Abraham's
birthplace

Şanlıurfa is another really cool city, and in fact one of the oldest in the world. Its history goes back some 6000 years. There is even this one cave there that is presumed to be the birthplace of Abraham - yea, that Abraham from biblical times.

It was really great and refreshing to finally get away from the tourist trail in order to have the opportunity to have some genuine experiences with the local culture and people. It seems one thing that had been really unsatisfying about our travels all through SE Asia and Nepal for the past 5 months was being in really touristy places. Unfortunately in these countries, the grooves are worn so deeply that it is nearly impossible to break out unless you have a lot of time, money, and previous knowledge of the language and culture. When people deal with thousands of foreigners a year, you are just another chance for them to make some money. These are mostly poor countries, so you cant blame them for trying to feed their family, but it does prevent any genuine encounters with people. The culture also begins to revolve around tourism and whatever festivals and local ways of life are adjusted so that tourists can watch and take pictures, and of course pay some money. Now that we managed to get away from all that for a little while, it really opened up the possibility to meet "real" people and genuinely enjoy each others company.

Şanlıurfa by night

On Nepal

2010-12-05T01:33:00.000-05:00

After spending 10 weeks in this country, less than twice the size of Pennsylvania, I am more than ready to move on. In fact I even have the rest of this international trip planned out. Here's the quick rundown:
Dec 6 - fly to Istanbul and wander around Turkey
Dec 19 - Fly to Israel and visit some friends and family and the sites
Dec 31 - Fly to Kiev, Ukraine (only for new years - gotta love the randomness)
Jan 1 - Fly back to NY

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about Nepal. I've spent the past week hanging out in Pokhara doing next to nothing except relaxing, reading, catching up on stuff, and planning this next month. It has given me some time to think about the past 10 weeks here and reflect.

Smog in the Kathmandu Valley

When I first imagined Nepal, I thought about quaint little Buddhist Sherpa villages among giant Himalayan mountains. Now this does exist, but for maybe 1% of the country. Having Kathmandu be my introduction to Nepal was certainly a shock. As you fly in, there is a thick brown haze that covers the entire valley. Then the taxi ride from the airport was insane, seemingly no roadrules, and people cars livestock and trash equally scattered all about the streets which wander confusingly all around the city. This is way more like what I have thought of for India, not Nepal. This was also reinforced once we wandered around a bit, and found that most of the food here is Indian and everyone is Hindu.

Luckily the beginning of our first trek was a great experience (other than Nico being sick for 6 days). We were doing a section of the Everest Trek that very few people do nowadays. Because of this the people were all very friendly and genuine, prices were reasonable, and the other trekkers were good company. When you order muelsi with milk the lodge owner goes out back and milks the water buffalo, and sometimes we be joined on the trail by someone who just wants to talk for a little while as they go about their day. Little did I know at the time that this would be among the best and most genuine of my experiences in Nepal. Once we met up with the main trail everything changed. We encountered mostly large tour groups with no respect for the environment, prices suddenly triple, and the locals are now way more interested in your money than they are in you.

Quaint little village.... before joining the main trail on the Everest Trek

I understand that this is among the least developed countries in the world. Hence it can sometimes take 11 hours on a bus to go a measly 110 miles, with people luggage and goats all over the bus and even on the roof. This is fine with me. One thing that I don't totally understand is the lack of hygiene. Certainly these people know what soap is, but i doubt many use it. Staying healthy has been a constant struggle. I rarely get sick, but I have probably gotten sick from the food here more in the past 10 weeks than I have at all in the past 3 years. And on most of the treks it is rare to find a group of more than 1 that has not been held up due to someone getting food poisoning or some other illness.

On top of Kala Patthar with the top of the world behind me

Even with dealing with so much crap in this country, the Himalayas are as amazing as I could have ever imagined. I still think that one of the highlights of this entire year of traveling is that day that we made it up to Kala Patthar and had the amazing views of Everest, the highest point on Earth. And on the Annapurna trek with Jay we saw constant amazing yet different scenery every day for almost 2 weeks. I feel an amazing peace with everything when I am just relaxing up high at some amazing viewpoint.

One of the places on the Annapurna trek where I was more at peace than I'd been in a long time... just soaking it all in.

The people here have certainly taken a little while to figure out and get used to. One of the strangest things is that for them, a shrug of the shoulders and tilt of the head means yes. Even knowing that it is hard to get used to when you ask if something is okay and it looks like they are shrugging as if they'll do it, but unhappily. When in fact they are actually saying, "sure, no problem". Also people here cannot give "I don't know", or "I cannot do that" as an answer. This very quickly gets frustrating, when you ask some people for information they will tell you something even if they are making it up on the spot. When trying to see if we could get Nico a flight out from the Annapurna trek, we got 5 different answers about how many planes there are per day and how to even go about getting a ticket. So when people tell you something, you have no idea if it is true or not. What also comes from being a major tourist destination is that you never know if someone is trying to genuinely talk to you, or if they just want your money. Everyone here knows some basic English, which is extremely helpful considering that is the only language I'm comfortable with. If you are talking about tourist activities, then they are fine, but as soon as you ask something different most people are clueless, but they will respond with an answer to some question even if it is not the question that you asked.

Kids on the trail - they love getting their picture taken

I mentioned earlier about how very few people do the Jiri section of the Everest trek (the first part). This is because for about the past 10 years, people would be asked for a "donation" at gunpoint to the Maoist party. You would at least get a receipt so you'd be off the hook the next time another Maoist asks for a donation. As of two years ago the Maoist party was recognized to most of the world as a terrorist organization. Although recently they have managed to gain control of the government and is now running the place. There were elections and the people voted them in on their promise to make things better. But of course after a couple years no one likes them because it was all empty promises and corruption.

One thing that I despise is TIMS - Trekker Information Management System. Sounds nice as they have tons of trekkers who come through here and it would be good to make sure that they all make it out of the mountains alive. But in fact it is a croc of shit, where you have to pay US$20 (plus another $15 to $30 on park fees, plus more ridiculous prices on food and accommodation) to just go on a hike. It might be checked once, your info gets written down, and then nothing ever happens with it again. They don't even pretend to notice if you've made it out alive or not.

Anyway, so overall, Nepal has not turned out to the hiker paradise that I had imagined before I came here. It was actually a tough country to be in for so long, and I actually feel a sense of accomplishment for making it this far alive. Although even with all the shit that you need to go through to get there, small parts of the country do come close to that mountain paradise. Unfortunately to get to some of it you need a budget about 1000 times what you'd expect in a poorly developed country (one region requires a US$500 entrance permit which lasts only 10 days). I am really happy that I made it to this country, saw some truly amazing scenery, even learned a new alphabet. 10 weeks might have been just a little bit too much time. Moving on though, I am very excited about what is coming up in the next month.

On Travel Buddies

2010-12-01T11:13:00.000-05:00

It has now been 10 months so far of traveling with a companion, Nico. Five of those months we have basically been within 10 meters of each other at all times, minus only a few days that we have spent in different places. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into over a year ago when we started talking about the idea of traveling the world together. I certainly am lucky that it turns out we've got very similar traveling styles. But like I said... before this began I had no idea what I was getting into, or how lucky I'd be that even after all this time we actually still talk to each other and enjoy each others company.

It is interesting to see how the dynamic changes when suddenly other people are thrown into the mix. Jay came for a visit. We had talked a bit beforehand about what we expected to do together and helped prepare him for what to expect, coming to a developing country for the first time. It sure was nice to have someone else to talk to and interact with for a while.

Then before Jay even left the country, we met up with Mike and Chris (my old roomates from Ithaca) and Charlie (another friend from Ithaca). This certainly opened my eyes to a few things that I otherwise had taken for granted. First of all, we certainly did not have enough communication before they came to figure out what we planned on doing together or what they should expect. In fact I didn't even know Chris was coming until he showed up with Mike at the hotel, and I didn't know Mike was coming for sure until about 2 days before. Much of this though is due to the fact that for the 2 weeks prior I was in the mountains with no internet access. Also, Nico and I spent time in NZ, then Australia, then Singapore before we even went to Indonesia and SE Asia. Each country was slightly less like what you expect in western culture. So thinking now about how I've had months to ease into such a different culture, I can understand how it would be a shock to come here straight from the U.S.

Also, 5 is a bit on the large side for a group traveling together – especially if you have no plans. To make a decision on where to go or even something as simple as where to eat lunch, it all takes at least 5 times as long. If you are in a resort or have everything planned out beforehand, then I don't think it would be much of a problem. Everything worked out just fine in the end, but just did not go as smoothly as say, having 2 people. Although even with all that, I am really glad that Jay, Charlie, Mike and Chris all made it out to visit. To see some familiar faces in such a foreign place really was quite refreshing. It also encourages me to do some things that I may not have done otherwise, like have a beer and play cards – a couple things I have not done in a very long time, but really enjoyed with Mike, Chris and Charlie.

As its looking like I might only be on the road for one more month, this probably wont come up again. But in case it does, here are some things that I learned for next time.
1. Have a plan
2. Inform your new travel buddies about what to expect and about cultural differences
3. Make sure you are all on the same page about how nice of places you want to stay and eat at.

After 5 weeks of having others in our party, it is now back to just Nico and I again. Right now is in the middle of a week where we have nothing planned and can just chill. When people come for vacation to a place like Nepal for 2 weeks, hanging out and doing nothing is not really the intent. But since we are constantly on the road, it is very nice to sometimes have that downtime to do nothing and catch up on whatever else happens in life.

Part 3 of Nepal

2010-11-30T11:05:00.001-05:00

It looks like I left off last time with the expectation of hiking the Helambu Circuit for 7-8 days. Although why should I expect that anything in this country will ever go according to plan... Beginning the day before the trek, Mikes face started to go numb off and on, and it only got worse throughout the first day of the trek. We made it to the first nights destination, Chisopani, but he was not feeling all that well. The next morning it was a tough decision as Mike wanted to see a doctor but didn't want to mess with everyone else's trip and the rest of us would rather that we stick together as a group. We ended up heading back to Kathmandu.

It is kinda interesting to see how Nico and I have just gotten so used to being in Nepal. When we come up to some view, like the picture below, we're like "oh that's a nice valley..." But when Mike and Chris saw the same thing, they were amazed.

We all made it back to Kathmandu, and then got ready to go to Chitwan. This is the national park in the southern part of Nepal, known for its wildlife. There's rhinos and tigers and sloth bears oh my! Too bad we never got to see any of them... We did stay in one of the nicest places I've seen since being in Nepal though. It was really quiet there and much less pollution than most of the rest of the country. I probably would have been happy to just stay there. On our full day there we did a jeep safari. It was a fun ride standing up in the back of the jeep through the jungle, but it seems they try to pack so much distance in that there is no time to ever just stop and see what comes by. All we got to see there was some deer and a couple crocodiles... a little disappointing, but it's nature and you are never guaranteed to see anything, such is life. Anyway, next time I'll opt for the guided walk instead.

sunrise in Chitwan

From there we head back to Pokhara for Mike and Chris' last few days. Spent a day walking up to the world peace pagoda and stopping a local waterfall attraction. Nothing amazing. Then on the 27th - happy birthday to Mike! - him and Chris went paragliding. Jealous... since they actually had a clear day for it and could see the mountains.

And now after almost 5 weeks of travelling with other people, it is nice to have it be just Nico and I again. We're in the middle of a week here in Pokhara to just relax and catch up on stuff and think about the last month of our trip in Turkey and Israel. More on my reflections on stuff to come soon.... Time for bed now :)

More Craziness Followed by Hiking Adventures

2010-11-18T01:50:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I last wrote anything... so I'm gonna put it all in this one post chronologically. Enjoy!

Well... this first part is not so enjoyable... but anyway. About 7 hours after my last post we woke up and basically just had to brush teeth and get over to the bus. I hopped on the computer real quick to see if Mike (my roommate from Ithaca) had gotten back to me about coming here, and found something else instead. Jon Traylen, the guy who ran Earthwise Valley in New Zealand, had died unexpectedly. I got the email from Bexie, and basically immediately gave her a call to say hi. This was definitely quite shocking. But thank you Jon for all that you have taught me and the opportunities I have had because of your visions and programs. I have certainly been inspired by your work.

Then it was a rush to the bus. This ride might have been better than the one to Jiri... but I actually felt a bit sick after hearing the news of the morning. So I basically spent 10 hours on a bumpy bus feeling like I was going to vomit at any moment. It was such a relief when we finally pulled into Bhulbule. I could not even eat that evening, but thankfully the next day I was doing better.

This was our sick picture...

Nico and Jay were not quite so lucky. By the evening after being on the bus, Nico started feeling sick (just like last time). The next morning she was not much better, so we decided to stay there for the day and let her sleep. Jay and I wandered off and up some side trail to just check out the area. He got his first (and only) leech! That was when we decided that it was time to turn around and hope that we made it back before it fell off and made him bleed profusely. We made it.

The visual of our "Cascading Waterfalls"

That evening Nico was perking up ... only to have Jay not able to eat dinner cause he was feeling ill! Rediculous. Anyway, the next morning I think he was not quite better, but was also too excited and really wanted to move on. So we put in a slow day, but by the end of the day I was the only one feeling totally well. Three more half days of hiking, two courses of antibiotics, and many "cascading waterfalls" later we were all finally feeling well.

Just in time too; for this was about when we started to get into some really exciting scenery. The day we went from the town of Bhratang to Ngawal we saw some incredible scenery, including a sheer wall that goes up 1 mile and a view of the mountains from a monestary way up on a hill. Ngawal was at 3660m, so we were also getting up there in altitude. Oh, also, interesting fact - marijuana grows all over the side of the trail around there. Jay, Nico and I were all too naive to recognize it though. It wasnt until we saw this French Canadian couple leaning practically over a cliff trying to pull in a plant. When we asked they kinda hesitated for a while and then told us that it was "marijooana" in their funny accent.

The next day we passed by Manang (which is the big trading center of the region), but then continued on to Kangsar. The scenery was sweet, it was like wild west meets huge snow covered mountains. Apparently the north side of the Annapurna range (where we were) is in a rain shadow from the mountains. This makes it practically a desert, but with scattered pine trees all over and large brown eroded rock cliffs. Kangsar is the beginning of a side trip that leads out to Tilicho Tal, the "frozen lake" and biggest and highest in the world. It sounded really sweet and Jay and I were really excited about spending a few extra days to head out there.

Nico on the other hand was not so excited about it. In fact she was basically mentally checked out of the whole trekking thing. Short story is that we'd already been doing it for about 5 weeks and it was time for a real break. We had only about 3 days between long term treks, all spent in Kathmandu, which is barely a break at all. Also she was worried about getting another caugh and just the effects on the body spending more time at high altitudes. She wrote about it in her blog if you want to know more - http://onegreatdewdrop.blogspot.com/.

The following day I packed a day pack and walked with her back to Homde (about 3.5 hrs back) to where there was actually an airport. Nepali's cannot say that they dont know to anything, even if it means that they make up information for you. We tried calling the ticket guy early in the morning and later again, but he would never pick up his phone. Then we asked about flights and every person told us different information about it and how many flights per week there are. The one thing that seemed sure was that we'd have to go to the airport to see if she can get a flight. We finally make it to the ticket office in Homde, only to find that there was a man in the adjoining hotel trying to tell us something about flights and "baiyo" and there was no ticket guy there. We got him to take us across the way to another hotel where someone could translate that - all the flights were booked for the next 2 weeks. Fuck! So what to do now, that she really didnt seem to be able to safely get herself over the pass, and she would not at all feel comfortable to walk back with only a single Nepali guy as a companion. At this point we both were horribly frustrated with this country, nothing ever goes right, you cant plan anything, and on top of that we all are getting sick constantly. The ticket guy was not supposed to be back for another 3 hours either, and I didn't know what to do cause most of my stuff and Jay was still in Kangsar with no way to communicate.

Luckily the woman from the second hotel phoned the ticket guy, and he came in about 1.5 hours instead. Good thing that we were persistent, as there was actually one seat left on a second flight in 3 more days. He had it written down that Nico was booked, but she would not actually get the ticket until the morning of the flight. At this point we kinda had to trust that something would work out and this flight would actually happen. It was tough, but I left Nico (at about 3:00pm now) and started back on the journey to Kangsar. I managed to completely book it and actually get back by around 5:30, just as it was getting dark. It was a long day, but I was feeling so much better now that it was looking like Nico should be able to get out. Jay in the meantime had a fine day hanging out with some Nepali women at a festival that happened to be going on just 30 mins away from where we were staying.

I was a little sore the next day, but happy to continue farther into the mountains. Those amazing views sure makes me feel better. This day the trail to Tilicho Tal base camp is supposedly a bit dodgy as it traverses across a steep landslide area. The alternative is a high trail that goes up and over and takes an additional 2 hours. I'm really glad we took the low trail, as it was not dangerous and was some of the most interesting scenery of the whole trek. There were such awesome rock formations in this area, and also some huge snow capped mountains all around.

We got to Tilicho Tal base camp by lunchtime, and it was chaos there. The owners had actually closed it up the day before to go to that festival, so many people (including us had we not spent 2 nights in Kangsar) got there and actually had to turn around and come almost all the way back to Kangsar to a single hotel on the trail. Apparently though some people got in and their guides and porters were cooking the meals. Jay and I showed up before the owners got back and wandered into the kitchen trying to ask someone about a room. We couldn't speak Nepali, so all we got was "no rooms, sleep here" (pointing to the dining area). Luckily we saw a Czeck group heading out that we previously met on the trail and so they just gave us their key. It seemed a bit dodgy, but we just rolled out our sleeping bags on the beds, locked up the room and claimed it as our own. There were 4 beds in there, and so we saved some space for the 3 musketeers. (I don't think that they know we were calling them that, but Reuben from Canada, Tesa from NZ, and Carlita from Oz, were a few people that we met on the trail and ended up spending a lot of time with.) We ended up playing cards with them all afternoon, and somehow successfully kept the room.

The next day was an early start for the 800m climb to about 5000m up to the "frozen" lake, which was not frozen. It was, however, quite beautiful. It was awesome getting way up high, into some snow and being surrounded by huge bright white glaciers and having a big ol' blue lake for some contrast. It was quite cold when we first got up there, but then the wind died down a bit and we spent over an hour there just enjoying the views. Amazing stuff. Jay and I got back to the basecamp hotel by lunchtime, had a break and then continued almost back to Kangsar to that one hotel on the trail.

Jay, me, and the 3 musketeers at Tilicho Tal

The next day we were able to take a shortcut up to Yak Karka, back on the main trail. Along the way there was one amazing viewpoint right in the crotch of the two valleys (one to Tilicho Tal, and the other to Thorung La and the main trail) looking back down the way that we'd come days before. You could see all the way to Homde (where the airport is), and I was thinking about Nico as her flight was supposed to be that morning. At the time I had no way of knowing whether or not things worked out for her.

Looking back towards Homde

Nepal strikes again... as this night Jay started feeling crappy again. Had a headache, but we couldnt imagine it being altitude as this was the third night we'd spent just over 4000m and he was fine before. Turned out to be more of a head cold. So we got a late start the following morning after some naptime. We only made it to Thorung Phedi (4500m), 3 hrs later, when Jay was not doing so well again. We met up with the 3 musketeers again and had some lunch together. Somehow these high up towns (made solely to house trekkers) have some good facilities, including wireless internet here. While we were having lunch, one guy was up in the attic looking for the manual for the computers as the wireless was not working. Having grown up in the 90's, Reuben states that "i'm a computer expert, I'll help you fix it." Two hours later, he and Jay actually got it all working again, which I cant imagine the Nepali's could have done without their help. In return, they got the wireless password and a cup of tea. This was relieveing for me, since Jay was able to see that Nico had gotten to Pokhara safely. Then of course he worries her by just saying something along the lines of, "sick again, 50/50 that we make it over the pass tomorrow."

I think that Jay was really excited and wanted to move on, but maybe wasnt quite feeling so well. Yet somehow we still did the 1.5 hour walk to High Camp (4800m) in 45 minutes. We made it up there, saw the 3 musketeers banging on the window as they were having breakfast, and Jay walked in a promptly laid down on a bench for the next hour. People had told us that it was not a good idea to stay in high camp, but it was actually a nice place with alternative and reggae music on their soundsystem. Carlita wasn't feeling to well when they got up there, so they decided to stay, and we decided the same so that Jay could hopefully feel well for the day going over the pass. We got a room and Jay passed out for the rest of the morning.

The 3 musketeers and I decided to have a drink at 9am ... of rum and hot chocolate. Then we managed to put away 5 175ml bottles between the 4 of us. Why not indulge at about 16,000 ft? Surprisingly I was not too sloshed by 11am when we decided to go for a little walk up this nearby hill with some sweet views. Then we all just chilled after lunch, Jay was up so we had to have another round where Jay could have some "medicine".

Snickers kept us going up to the top of the Thorung La at 5416m.

Amazingly we all felt quite good the next morning. At 4 am I wake up and need to pee. I walk out in my boxers and my hat (it's below freezing) and the toilets are all in use! The crazy groups were already up and getting ready to walk to get over the pass! We had a leisurely start and were walking a little after 8 once it started to warm up a bit. It was some awesome scenery, and not even that difficult a walk, up to the pass at 5416m / 17,900ft. Jay and I hung out up there a while until the 3 musketeers rolled up and we all indulged in a cup of tea. Yes, someone even runs a teashop all the way up there. Then we began our 1600m descent to Mutkinath. It was a bit of a shock getting there since there is a road that leads all the way there, meaning that it was quite developed. We expected that the towns (like on the other side) would be small high up and get bigger closer to the main roads. But anyway, we had one last night chilling with the 3 musketeers at the BobMarley Hotel with hot showers and yak burgers! They planned to walk the rest of the way, where Jey and I bus/jeep/taxi'd it all the way back to Pokhara from Mutkinath.

Getting ready to jeep it out

This trek had some really varied terrain and certainly some amazing mountains and views, but it was nice that it was a bit different than our previous trek to Everest Base Camp. There was no point that was quite as breathtaking as Kala Patthar, but I think there was more days of sweet moutain views. And it was nice that this trek is not completely overrun with large package tour groups, you actually see way more people doing this one independantly. The road from Mutkinath seems to be a bit of a mixed blessing. For trekkers, it straight up sucks. The road follows where the trail was and so you have to dodge cars, and deal with all the dust kicked up. Some trekkers were yelling at our driver as we passed... and all the Nepali's in the vehicle just laughed at them. It certainly can be really good for the towns there though. They can now get more supplies, or even go to a hospital if they get sick, and all those other benefits of being closer to civilization. It helped us too, since it was the only way we could have the time to do this trek - by not having to walk the second half of it. Taking vehicles isn't totally the easy way out though. It still took almost a day and a half of cramped bumpy rides for us to get out of there.

It was really great though to finally make it back to Pokhara and see Nico again. She made friends with Nirit, and Israeli girl who was also waiting for her boyfriend to finish the trek. Probably the only way she stayed sane, cause apparently there is not a whole lot to do in Pokhara, other than trek ... and paragliding. And that we did! But first... Apparently Charlie was supposed to get to Pokhara the same day that Jay and I did. Then amazingly in the afternoon, he pops up in our hotel! Him and his cousin Sarah. So 6 of us went out to dinner that night - I felt like a freshman again, travelling around in a pack in a new place.

Classic paragliding photo

The next day me, Jay, Charlie and Sarah all went paragliding. Its one of those things that I cant do often on this sort of budget, but Pokhara is well known for it. It is like scuba diving in Thailand. And it was sweet. We drove up to the top of this big hill, got about a minute of instruction before we were strapped into this harness and strapped to the "pilot", and then we took off. It was amazing, you just glide in the wind. Unfortunately it was really hazy, so we could not see the mountains at all, but the winds were good and we could just zip back and forth above the hillside. The parachute actually works like a wing. It traps the air and then creates a pressure difference as the wind blows by creating lift. You can just glide all day long out there. We only had a 30 minuite flight, but it was really neat just floating there with the birds - eagles and vultures doing the same thing we were. Then we had to glide over towards the lake and get ready to land. My pilot let me take the ropes for a few minutes on the way there, its pretty easy to control, but theres a lot to learn about the winds. He then did some tricks with me and we were practically upside down at one point. It was sweet.

Me with a huge grin after paragliding

The next day we had to get back to Kathmandu cause Jay was flying home the following day. I had also gotten word from Charlie that Mike actually did buy his ticket and was supposed to land the evening of the 15th in Kathmandu. Charlie had to go to the Indian boarder to drop off his cousin and then planned on meeting us back here in Kathmandu. For once we actually had a decent bus ride. It was only 2 hours late, and no one got sick! After dinner that evening, I was gonna use the computer downstairs, and on the way down I heard Mikes voice at the front desk. I got down there to find Chris (my other roommate from Ithaca) there too! We had no idea he was going to be there - complete surprise. Then amazingly early the next morning, Charlie walks in. Holy crap, something actually worked out totally according to plan, and now we are all here together in Kathmandu, figuring out what to do next.

It is really awesome and exciting that after all this time of just travelling, to see some familiar faces. We've spent the past couple days wandering the city here and getting ready for yet another trek. This one is the Helambu Circuit - only 6ish days and does not go up too high. Much better for wintertime as it is noticeably colder here now than when we first arrived a month and a half ago.

Ok, that is the update for now, we'll see how life unfolds. As always, more pictures are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan

Everest Base Camp Epic

2010-10-27T13:41:00.000-04:00

First off, I'd recommend you check out the picts: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan/EverestBaseCampTrek#

The Big "E"

Hi! 24 days of hiking and we made it there and back... and we're still alive! And it was stunning. That's the short story of this past month; here's the rest....

On Oct 1 I experienced the worst bus ride of my life. It took 9 hours to go the 188km from Kathmandu to Jiri, where the trek starts. The bus is clearly made for Nepali sized people, which are kinda like Indonesian sized people - they make me look like a giant. I barely fit in the seat, not enough room for the 6 of our shoulders across the back, and every bump I am in danger of hitting my head on the ceiling. Bags are everywhere, people on the roof, and every time we pass another vehicle one of us needs to get off the road. We finally get to Jiri, only to have Nico puking her head off.... great start, huh?

Jiri

At least she though she was feeling better the next day as we set off to Shivalaya, the first town in. Soon after though she was still heaving on the side of the trail, and so I ended up carrying her bag (like a Nepali). We got loads of weird looks, and you can see why... We did make it to Shivalaya, to the Kala Patthar guest house where we hung out with Padam, the owner. He is just getting started so we didn't even have to pay for the room! This is basically how the trekking works here, "tea house" trekking. You go from village to village and stay in these tea houses where the room is only a couple dollars (if that) but you eat all your meals there. This section of the trail was very chill without a lot of other tourists, so often we would be the only ones staying in the lodge. Then we'd get to hang out with the family that runs it and learn some Nepali language and culture.

Chiring and I

The next day Nico was feeling a bit better, and so we set off again for Bandhar. It was another half day but by the time we got there she was beginning to run a fever... This fever hung around for about 4 days, and so we just rested there until she was completely better. In rural Nepal, there are no roads... so the farther in we went the farther she would have had to walk out if it got any worse. Luckily, it did not. It did give me the change to hang out with Chiring, the lodge owner there and he even taught me how to read Nepali! Him and his wife took good care of Nico and also just did their own farming thing. It was great in the morning when we'd order a muesli with hot milk, he'd go outside and milk his water buffalo, and we'd have it as fresh as it gets.

Finally after the 4 days in Bandhar, we were healthy and ready to continue. This part of the trek was mostly in relatively low lands (5000-9000ft). It was lush green hills and big wide valleys, with lots of up and down over passes almost daily. It was really good to get us into shape before heading up to higher ground. Over these next few days, as we made some bonds with the other hikers doing this part of trail as well. We actually spent about 5 or 6 nights in a row with Kristen and James, the UK/Canadian couple, the South Africans - Duncan and Greg, the German family, and the big ol' kiwi group. It was really nice to hang out with some other people for once.

Sunrise in Bandhar

Normally monsoon is supposed to be done by mid September, although as we have heard in multiple places so far this year, the weather's a changin'... Almost every day after Bandhar, it was nice from sunrise until about 9am and then the clouds would roll in and by the afternoon it would drop some rain. This is the high trekking season now for a reason - clear skies. Oh well, at least down low the people are super friendly, there arent the huge mountains yet, and there is just good cheap food and clean water.

Watch out for those cows!

Being on the trail was always interesting. Not only is it a hiking trail, but it is the main road between the villages in the region. We were always sharing the trail with curious Nepalis who wanted to chat, porters carrying everything into the villages, and plenty of farm animals.

The crap weather actually worked in our favor in a way. Most people fly into Lukla, which we got to after about 8 days of walking. These are the package tours of people who get their hand held and bags carried all the way to basecamp. Anyway, this Lukla airport is tiny, and the planes that fly in there cannot land if it is cloudy cause they dont have the instruments that most commercial planes do. Anyway, as we were passing Lukla, there was 4 days in a row of no flights which meant that there were so very few people on the trail. Woohoo! No crowds. Because of this we decided to go right up to Basecamp and enjoy some of the Khumbu valley without the crowds.

Namche Bazaar is the main trading town of the region and is normally packed to the gills with tourists. We managed to have a guesthouse just to ourselves and this one other guy who got the beginnings of pulmonary edema and had to descend. He was in rough shape, iv's and rest... This is exactly why we took our rest day in Namche and took it very slowly the rest of the way up to basecamp. Our rest day in Namche we went for a walk up the ridge above town just to get out and do some walking at higher altitudes. Finally, we are getting some views of the big ones here.

After the rest day we had only half days (at the most) on the way up. Namche 3450m, Tengboche 3850m, Pheriche 4250m. Then a rest day in Pheriche where again, we went on a little walk actually with the South Africans this time. Now we are finally beginning to really notice the altitude. Even I would take a few steps uphill and then be gasping for air. It is also way to easy to just forget to breathe. I'd be eating or even just lying down, and suddenly realize I feel like I've been holding my breath for 2 mins, but really its been maybe 5 seconds... The next day, we slowly shuffled our way up to Dukla, 4600m. At least with this difficult walking we are rewarded with some really cool mountain views (before the clouds roll in at least).

Ama Dablam...

wearing everything I had getting carried down on a donkey

Then things started getting real rough. I woke up that night multiple times really nauseas. I hate puking, so I wouldn't let myself do it, plus that would mean getting out of my sleeping bag in my boxers in 30 degree weather. Diarrhea in the morning... I did manage to get my pack on and walk the 2.5 hours and up 350m to Lobuche. Luckily the South Africans were looking out for us and they reserved us a room at the nice lodge in town before it got all booked up. I made it up there, was feeling okay, ate a snickers (first thing of the day) and had some tea. Then it is a bit of a blur, but I got real nauseas, started puking what little I had in my stomach followed by blood, and then realized I needed some real medical attention. Luckily there is a western doctor in Pheriche, and luckily I had Nico to help me out here as she organized a porter and a donkey to carry my sorry ass back down a couple villages to where I could get some help. US$110 for a donkey that did not want to move. The porter dragged it down the hill with my bag on his back for a few hours... Got to the clinic where they gave me some meds and I was finally able to keep some water down again. Apparently in the mountains you'll see 3-5 helicopters a DAY medivacing people out. Mostly due to altitude sickness, but the second most popular reason is dehydration due to diarrhea. Thankfully I was not one of them. Luckily it was a classic food poisoning and the next day I was eating again, and the day after that we were back on our way to Lobuche.

The weather was finally starting to clear up and we were on our way once again. It was way easier getting up those hills the second time. We managed to get into Lobuche by 10am, among the first into town to find that the only room available was a single bed for the 2 of us. This is where it starts to get tough being an independent trekker. In Lobuche and Gorak Shep there just isnt a lot of accommodation and it all gets booked out by the big tour groups way in advance. By this time all the people who were stuck in Kathmandu for 4 days due to cloudy weather have now caught up to us. Anyway, we went on a little walk before it started to snow that afternoon to officially break 5000m for the first time! And of course we got a glimpse of what was to come...

Knowing that Gorak Shep was tight, we set off at 6am the following morning in the gloomy clouds. Amazingly though as we got up even higher, it started to break a bit for some of the most stunning views I could have possible imagined. It was pretty amazing. Then even though we were the first ones into town that morning, the first, there was not a single room available. F'n tour groups. At least there was some open dorm space, which I think is where the porters usually sleep, but at least it was a bed indoors.

Later that day, amongst the snow and clouds, we set off to basecamp. It was really neat to see things like the Khumbu Ice Fall and finally Mt. Everest poking out above the Nupse ridge. It was like a dream finally being there. Standing at 5364m, 50% oxygen and looking at the largest mountain on Earth! Then we were brought back to reality as more and more people piled into this "tourist" base camp. (the real one was about another 30 mins walk, but there were no expeditions at the moment...) We joined some crazy guys from this UK group that we had talked to the past couple nights, who had brought up whiskey and cigars to celebrate their accomplishment. A bunch of us even posed for a "topless basecamp" photo, freezing our asses off - but I still need to get a good photo from one of them from that.

We finally made it to basecamp!

Then that night (actually began way before that night) Nico started to get sick again. The "Khumbu cough". The air is so cold and dry up there that almost everyone gets a bit of a dry cough. Except for Nico it just kept getting worse and became rattly and constant. That evening she even developed a fever. Although luckily after starting on some 5 year old amoxicillin that I had been carrying around, and 11 hours of sleep, she woke up feeling a bit better. And what a wonderful day it was. We walked up to Kala Patthar, with the best weather one could possibly hope for. Finally! the weather has turned and it was clear all day. Kala Patthar is a 5600m/18500ft high mountain that is a dwarf compared to those surrounding it. There are mountains still rising about 2 miles above us! The scale is so difficult to comprehend that everything just looks so close even though it is still miles away. All the shit that we put up with getting here, was worth it for this:

Down that valley is where we came from the day before

After spending nearly 1 hour up there in beautiful clear calm weather, we finally started down and then head all the way back to Pheriche. Now that we are not limited by how high we can go, we actually made it all the way back to Lukla in 3 days. (it took over 10 to get on top of KP from Lukla). Every step forward we lost altitude and gained strength. Now even at Pheriche, ~14000ft, we felt great and could breathe easily... except for Nico's persistent cough.

Then back at Lukla, on the 25th of October (after starting this adventure on the 1st) we finally flew back to Kathmandu. It is a sketchy little airport with tiny little planes, but it was really awesome to zip by above the passes that we had walked over in the beginning of the month from Jiri. The plane actually follows the same path back, and what we walked in 8 days, we flew over in 10 mintes.

The Lukla Airport

It was two totally different worlds going from the Jiri section to the section above Namche. Once above Namche you are with the crowds of big package tour groups, food prices immediately triple, people are less friendly, and the Khumbu valley might be the most germ and disease ridden place in the world except maybe behind Kathmandu... yay mass tourism. But everyone is really there for the mountains which truly are spectacular. It was tough when we could not see any mountains for a while due to the crappy weather, but once that broke we were so lucky to be amongst the highest areas on the planet.

Sunset from Gorak Shep

Once back in Kathmandu it was really nice to finally take a shower again (too cold to do it above Namche, so 13 days or so without...) and do some laundry. And then get ready for our next adventure!

Jay, one of my best friends from Bucknell, has just arrived yesterday and will be joining us for the next few weeks. We've had about 2 days to recover (enough, right?) and in less than 8 hours we'll all be getting on a bus to go out to the beginning of the Annapurna Circuit to do it all again! So, don't expect to hear from me until, oh, say the 14th or 15th of November!

Holy crap, I'm in Nepal

2010-09-30T06:13:00.001-04:00

and it's taken 4 days to get our shit together. It is kinda amazing how thinking if we were to be coming here from the US, we probably would have known exactly what hike's we'd be doing, what permits are needed and all of our flights and stuff booked. Maybe we'd even know a little bit about the language and the country. But after all this travelling it is hard enough to plan the next week let alone all the details for a whole new region of the world. We at least had a guesthouse booked that had free airport pickup. After getting through immigration at the airport, we walked outside to see tons of people and madness everywhere, and had no idea what was going on. Luckily there was a guy just as we walked out with a big NICOLE sign. Hey, that's us.

Those are some huge mountains in the back there. Even higher than the clouds.

We are leaving to trek to Everest base camp tomorrow morning! Holy crap I am so excited about seeing some huge mountains and also hiking for 26 days! We take a bus to Jiri and start walking from there. Trekking here in Nepal is pretty simple actually, cause you walk from village to village. There are no roads, but there are people who live their whole lives up there. So no need for a tent or even to bring any food! This is a really popular trek too, but most people fly into Lukla, which is about a weeks walk from Jiri. In the beginning it should be a bit quieter, and also lower in elevation so we'll get used to the hiking.

Apparently there are tons of logistics to actually finally setting out on the trek. This is what has been taking 4 days... First off, I needed to get some more warm clothing. Got a hat and mittens and also a fake Northface down jacket. Every 30 seconds you walk by another shop selling some really good looking fakes of the popular outdoor gear. It may be almost as good,. but at 1/5 the price. Also cash. We hear that food and accomidation can get quite expensive as you get higher up, and there are no ATM's in the mountains. 26 days worth of cash is no small number.... about 45000 rupees. This means multiple trips to the ATM each day. Then there is the flight back to Kathmandu. There are just as many travel agencies here as there are knock off clothing shops. This is kinda how everything goes here: you agree on a price in USD, then after that they add on a 4% credit card charge, and then you get charged in rupees and they greatly devalue the ruppee so that you pay more. Then there are all the permits and entry passes for another over $30 just for the privelage to enter the park. To get it as an independent trekker, you need to walk across town and not use all the shops in town that will only sell it to organized tour groups.

The craziness that is Kathmandu. We also arrived the day of a big 'ol fesitval.

Anyway, we have finally made it through all the logistics, flights and busses are booked, permits are in hand, and gear is ready to go. For those who worry about our safety, hiking up to Everest base camp at about 17000 feet, theres no need. The hiking here is from village to village, so no need to bring food or cooking gear or even a tent. We'll be doing a bunch of hiking at lower elevations and not gaining too much elevation each day to prevent getting too sick from the altitude. And really, there are tons of westerners doing this very same trek. The locals are used to it, there are even a couple western medical clinics along the way. One thing that there is basically none of though is internet. So dont expect to hear from me for oh... about a month!

Then after that, you can expect to see some pretty crazy pictures of mountains. Woot!

Angkor Wat

2010-09-24T01:57:00.000-04:00

Ahh the great Angkor Wat. Everyone that I have talked to about this place has talked about all the hype and that all the hype is well deserved. So on getting to Siem Reap in Cambodia we figured we'd stay a week or so to mainly check out the place. We opted for the 3 day pass across a week, instead of the 7 day.

Thar she is

It's impressive. It's really neat. And amazing to think of how much work and effort went into creating these temples more or less 1000 years ago. Even today, it remains the largest temple complex in the world.

Now that being said... I think that we've been hanging out in SE Asia too long. Seeing ruins is just not something you see in the US, and the first time we saw some back in Indonesia it was really AMAZING. But apparently in this corner of the world it is just what the Hindu's and the Buddhists did 500-1500 years ago. So all over the place we have seen temples and ruins, and unfortunately they all begin to kinda look the same.

Angkor Wat certainly is bigger and grander than any we've seen so far. We even got up at 4:30am on day 1 to get to Angkor Wat for sunrise. This was actually pretty sweet. Then after we wandered into the temple and around the complex which all is quite impressive. Then it was the next temple that we went to and just climbed to the top and sat there thinking... "just another temple..." Part of the appeal of Angkor, is that it is a whole archeological park with at least 50 different temple sites of all different shapes and sizes. Angkor Wat is just the most well known of all the temples.

Ta Prohm

We spent the rest of the day biking around and seeing some of the other temples that you have probably never heard of. There was really only one that stuck out. This one was Ta Prohm. Here you can really see how nature is reclaiming the area with huge trees growing on the ruins and their roots going through the stone. This one also has had very little restoration, with passageways blocked off by blocks that have long fallen. It is the kind of place that you can really wander throughout for quite a while and get lost. But of course it was the nature that really drew me to this one.

Go Nature

Day 2 was more of the same... We went back to Angkor later in the day to get some picts with better lighting. We also went up this one hill (only one in the park) and got some great views of the area. Late afternoon, but at least an hour before sunset was definitely the time to be there. The lighting was great, and as we were headed back down, literally thousands of package tourists were heading up there for the sunset. The 10 foot wide trail was completely packed with people that we had a hard time pushing our way back against the grain. Sunset probably would have been nice up there, but it certainly is not something I've never seen before.

Phnom Bakheng, at the top of the hill

We took a day off in between days 1 and 2 in the park to take a break in the temple. Yesterday we went back for a third day mainly cause we could and it was the last day we could use the pass. We just biked around and went back to Ta Prohm, my favorite of the temples.

A couple recommendations for anyone who is thinking of coming to Angkor Wat:

1. rent bicycles - it is $1 a day. About a 30 min ride to the park, and you have total flexibility of where and when to stop. The alternative is a package tour (ugh) or hiring a tuk-tuk for the day for $10-15. Plus it is really difficult to get exercise while on the road, so this is a perfect opportunity.

2. Go to Ta Prohm

3. Do some research beforehand. I think that I might have appreciated the temples a bit more if I knew more about them. You can hire a guide to tell you about each of the temples, but lets be real, I'm not going to remember anything about them in a month anyway. Maybe it would have been worthwhile though.

4. Remain lighthearted when dealing with the hawkers (which is absolutely unavoidable). I have written already about other areas in SE Asia where people are really aggressive and intrusive about trying to sell you stuff. This was by far the worst. They yell at you constantly, and wont let you say no or leave you alone. As soon as we ride up to a temple (there are always food stalls and such outside all the main temples) you hear, "Sir! Lady! You buy water here!" As they walk up to the bike. "No thank you" "You buy cold water! $1" "I already have some, no thanks" "NO! You buy water now!" lock up bike and walk away... "Ok, you buy water when you come back." And of course when you come back, you go through that again. Every single time you come up to a temple... This can really start to wear on your patience, but at least eventually I stopped feeling bad about not giving them business. It is unfortunate how it makes you dislike everyone who lives inside Angkor Park.... and once or twice I even ignored the guy who checks your tickets, until he got up to follow me and I realized what he wanted. Whoops. But eventually I got much more lighthearted about it, and would ignore or maybe even stick my tongue out at them as I ride past. Existing there was a lot less stressful once I changed my outlook on the hawkers.

Biking is totally the way to go

Anyway, I do think it was worth it to come here, although I wouldn't go too far out of my way to go again. It was cool to see all the temples and Siem Reap is a good town, like I wrote about in the last post. Now moving forward, 3 days until I leave the heat and temples of SE Asia for the mountains of Nepal!

A little bit on Cambodia

2010-09-24T00:44:00.000-04:00

Tuk-Tuk ride.

About the time that I wrote my last post about the meditation retreat, is when I first arrived in Cambodia. We did the overland travel thing crossing the Thai/Cambodian boarder at the most talked about boarder crossing in SE Asia. Basically all you need to do is show up, and pay US$20 to get a one month visa. Sounds easy, but actually it is quite difficult. Even in Thailand on our way, the tuk-tuk driver stops a couple miles from the boarder and brings us to a place to fill out the immigration card. Then they start hassling us to get the visa there, express, for about $30. They say it is unavailable or will take hours at the boarder. We know better, and good thing Nico was doing the talking cause she is good at keeping her ground when the "experts" are telling us otherwise. Then we make it to the boarder and immediately there is a guy who comes up to us to help us through the process. No matter what we say, he wont leave us and even follows us all the way into Cambodia. We make it out of Thailand, and then to where we buy the visa. The officials in Cambodia say it is 800 baht ($26)... even though there is a big sign overhead that says the tourist visa is $20. When we point that out he says $20 and 100 Baht. Good thing we knew about this too, cause we showed our wallets and that they were empty other than a crisp US$20 bill. I do feel bad that these guards need to bribe people to get a bit of extra cash, but then again giving into the bribe only supports the corrupt government and lets this go on longer. Then we are taken on a "free" bus out the middle of nowhere where our only option to Siem Reap is a taxi for $48. For SE Asia, this price is ludicrous. For example... in Thailand to get from Bangkok to the boarder, a 6 hour train ride, cost less than $2, and Cambodia is poorer than Thailand. Anyway, after waiting about an hour to find people to share the taxi with we were about to give in and get it all for ourselves. Luckily just then 2 more people wander in and we jump on the opportunity to share. $12 a person is bad, but not as bad as it could be for the 2 hour ride to Siem Reap.

Surprises about Cambodia. Now I am not sure that all of this applies to all of Cambodia. My experience is mainly just in Siem Reap (closest city to Angkor Wat), which is a small city, but completely thrives on tourism. For this reason, everyone speaks English really well. Anyone who intends to get a job takes the time and effort to learn English. Another thing I noticed right after entering the country is that they drive on the right! After 9 months of being in countries where you drive on the left, it was actually quite strange to switch again. In the first couple days here, we almost got run over multiple times looking the wrong direction when crossing the street. And also the de facto currency here is the US dollar. The Cambodian Riel is not so stable, so everyone prefers to use US dollars.

A couple general things I've noticed so far about this country is that everyone has a positive outlook and really wants to make it. For the culture here, this land has often been in control of either Vietnam or Thailand or France. It was not until the 1950's that Cambodia existed as a country. There have been power struggles and a nasty civil war, and there has not been a stable government until almost 2000. Due to all this, there is not nearly the cultural pride that you'd find in other SE Asian countries. So although things have only been stable here for about 10 years, and it is a very poor country, and the government is rather corrupt, I still feel quite safe. Nico and I have walked through some neighborhoods here at night feeling perfectly safe, but if it was something similar in NYC I certainly would not.

Cooking with Bati

The food here I dare say is better than Thai food. You can get a large bowl of curry (with lots of veggies and all natural ingredients) and a side of rice for just $2. They also have this Khmer spice here that is unlike anything that I've used in the US, and it they add it to many of the foods here. Also they dont make everything spicy, which is quite nice for me. I thought maybe that is just because they are cooking for westerners, but apparently everyone does their own versions of a dish and everyone likes different amounts of spiciness, so they just provide chilies on the side.

Floating houses

Mainly we came here to Cambodia to go to Angkor Wat. It has now been about 10 days and we are still hanging out in Siem Reap even though only three of those days have we gone to see the temples. Its a nice city to chill in, and at this point both Nico and I are kinda ready to move on from SE Asia. So we are just relaxing a bit and doing some planning for the next few months. We've certainly kept busy by doing some stuff like renting bicycles and just riding, we took a cooking lesson at our favorite restaurant, and we have even gone a couple times to a local monastery to help this one monk that we befriended teach his English class.

The young Monk

One of the first days we were here, we wandered around the city just to explore. We came upon a couple temples, and at the second one we saw a couple monks hanging out in their little house. The older one right away sent the younger one to go show us around. It was nice that it did not feel like he was doing it to get money (as many interactions are here), it was just good for the younger monk to talk to us and practice his English. After the tour we talked to the older one for a little while. Seeing this, made me appreciate the monastic life a little bit more. This guy is 27, and has been a monk for 11 years. He goes out to the country to teach English 5 days a week, and also runs night classes at the temple 6 days a week. He is also working on a project to teach villagers about farming vegetables. (They all farm rice in the wet season and used to log in the dry season, but now there are no forests left... kinda sad). He has a phone and even a computer that was donated to him. Here it is easier to see how the public can help out the monks, and the monks in return actually do a lot for the public. So anyway, Nico and I offered to help him with his evening classes a couple times so that the students can practice talking with a native english speaker.

The first class was quite interesting. Basically Chia (the monk) showed us where they were in the book, and then handed us off to totally run the class! Good thing Nico has some teaching experience, cause I have no idea what I would have done without her. We started off by doing some reading and listening to what they all have trouble pronouncing. Apparently the “th” and the “v” sounds are very difficult for them, so we focused a bit on that. I realize that in only a couple sessions we are not going to make a big difference in their English proficiency, but I do think that it may renew their excitement which would certainly be worthwhile. Is was cool to see though by the end of the class, they were getting better at the difficult sounds that they are not used to.

Then yesterday we were to go back for a second class. I was thinking how it was good for me to teach the class, but I dunno if I really could have done it without Nico. Then she helped answer this for me... when after biking around Angkor for our third day there, she got a migrane and was down for the count. It was too late to back out of the class... so there I go all by my lonesome. And I think it still worked out! Phew! Maybe not as smoothly as if she was there, but I did teach the two classes on my own. And I think it was good that I did not have all day to worry about it. Even I would have trouble “living in the present” if I knew I had that to look forward too later in the evening.

Siem Reap sunset

Okay, I think that's enough for now, more to come on Angkor Wat soon!

The Greatest Insight to Lead Me Nowhere

2010-09-14T11:28:00.000-04:00

I have recently spent 10 days in a Theravada Buddhist meditation retreat in southern Thailand. This has been quite the interesting learning experience and finally there is some understanding of all that went through my head in 10 days of silence. This is a long one and I have chosen to not add pictures, cause that is not what this all is about. But I will post some soon at my picasa site so check there in a day or two. First of all let me talk about the retreat in general.

About the Retreat

It is a 10 day silent meditation retreat. Basically that means 10 days to meditate without distractions of any sort other than nature and yourself. It is silent, so no talking or really interacting at all with anyone. That is how it was for the men anyway, it seems that women become pretty good at communicating even if no talking is allowed. But men and women are separated in dorms, meals, and even meditate on different sides of the meditation halls. On day 0 when you register, you get rid of any external items that can stimulate you, such as iPods, cameras, books, cards, or writing. This afternoon there was also a weird saying goodbye to Nico, because even though we were going to be in the same place we were not even going look at each other or anything for the next 10 days. Our schedule went something like this:

4:00 – wakeup
4:30 – morning reading (by a participant)
4:45 – group sitting meditation
5:15 – mindfulness through movement (Yoga)
7:00 – Ajahn Poe’s (head monk) morning talk, group sitting meditation
8:00 – breakfast and chores and free time
10:00 – Dhamma talk, group sitting meditation
11:00 – walking meditation
11:45 – group sitting meditation
12:30 – lunch and free time (nap)
2:30 – Dhamma talk, group sitting meditation
3:30 – walking meditation
4:15 – group sitting meditation
5:00 – chanting
6:00 – tea and hot spring
7:30 – group sitting meditation
8:00 – group walking meditation
8:30 – group sitting meditation
9:00 – head back to dorms
9:30 – lights out

Surprisingly you get used to the whole getting up at 4am thing and eating only two meals a day. (The food was so good though that I think in those two meals I took in way more calories than I had been with three meals). Each dorm room was about an 8’x8’ concrete cell, with a concrete platform and straw mat to sleep on and a wooden pillow is provided. They made a joke about sleeping with the wooden pillow because that is what the Buddha did, but it really was not all that bad. Although, I think I might have been the only one to use it. I also did have some roommates. The first night I walk into my room to find two very large spiders on the floor that I gently escorted out. Then I look up to see a foot long gecko hanging out in the upper corner looking at me. He didn’t move at all, so I left him alone. Of course the next day the spiders were back, along with the gecko’s two female friends and there was even a wasp that was making a home in the other corner of the room. It was actually nice to have some friends there and during the 10 days I even began to see some of their daily habits.

Originally I came into this without many expectations other than that it was going to be physically and mentally a challenge. Luckily the physical part was not too much of a problem. They introduced us to all sorts of sitting positions and even if you were too uncomfortable you could do standing meditation. Mixed with the walking meditation, I certainly had muscle aches and pains, but at least they rotated around my body and never got too bad.

Mentally, it was tough in a different way than I originally thought. I actually did not get too bored, even though you don’t really do anything all day other than sit there and concentrate. Some people do get very bored, or listless, or angry, or frustrated, but I ended up just kinda going with it cause it is what I was there to do. I did found it really daunting though. After a couple days I had a hard time imagining doing this for another 8 days. Your brain just gets tired and you want to relax it and let it think about whatever, but you really need to stay focused. I took it one day at a time (or even one meal at a time) and made my way through the 10 days.

We started out with 42 participants (a small group for there) and ended up with 33 by the last day. So it is a very difficult thing for some people that they just cant stand being there any longer and have to leave. I found it interesting that they said around day 3 or so is the hardest. That is when people get through the basic emotions and really have to face themselves and their problems that they have always run away from by occupying themselves with something else (such as TV, music, shopping, or friends) when it comes up. I guess I am lucky that I am mentally in a good place and seem to take things head on. Cause I never felt anything like some of the others that many days led them to tears.

I mentioned in the schedule above that a couple times a day there were talks. These were on things like meditation instruction in the beginning and then on Dhamma in general. Basically they were about the different parts of Buddhism and how it says you should live your life. They were really interesting… when I could understand them. Thankfully everything was in English, but some of the Thai monks have such a strong accent that I could not understand half of what they were saying.

It was really interesting having Nico there with me. We talked beforehand about how we agree that we are not going to look at each other or try to contact each other and also what to do if one of us leaves. That first afternoon was very strange as if we were dragging out a goodbye, when we still had a few hours before the silence but we decided to have our last hugs and get it over with. But on day 3 I guess I looked miserable (even though I felt fine) and Nico was worried. I was able to sense that she wanted to contact me in some way. After tea that evening she came up to me with a note she had written. It said something about asking how I was and then something else. I just gave a big thumbs up and continued on my way really trying to not have any contact with anyone. Then of course all the next day I was worried about her and was thinking about that interaction constantly. What else did she have written there, was she alright? I would have been way better off just taking the time to see what she wanted and gotten over it. This was a bit of a lesson in the “middle way” and maybe I was being too strict with my practice. After that I would at least look up and smile at her and she would do the same. It was not until the following morning that I saw her doing the morning reading that I knew for sure things were good and I could stop thinking about it.

So what is meditation? Basically all you do is follow your breath and keep your focus there without letting your mind wander. Feel how it feels on nose and in the navel to breathe in and out and mentally follow it between the two. I had started to do a little bit of meditation with Nico in New Zealand and then I could barely get one breath before my mind was somewhere else. It is especially difficult to concentrate when you have everything in the world going on around you. But during this retreat there were times that I could actually have my mind clear and think only about my breathing for even a couple minutes at a time. Later on I realized that I should also be doing some insight meditation (contemplating things) as well as the concentration meditation. The concentration that I had so far developed was really neat in that it led me to have such clear thinking. We learned about Anapanasati, which is 16 steps to attain on the path to Nibbana (nirvana). Unfortunately without being able to speak and get further input, I am not sure if I was still on step 1, or if I was up to step 9 by the time the retreat ended. Once Nico told me that people spend their entire lives trying to attain Nirvana, I figured that I was probably on step 1.

One of the other rules in this place that they ask you to keep is to “not take away any breath”. This means don’t kill anything… even mosquitoes. I would actually blow away mosquitoes that were biting me. This definitely was a bit of a hindrance while meditating though. Sometimes I was good and just let them bite, but man I don’t think I will ever get used to that.

On the last night we all had a chance to get up in front of everyone to share any insights that we had. I am really nervous about speaking in front of people and so after thinking about it a whole bunch that day, I made myself go first. This way I could get it over with and then actually listen to what other people had to say. Of course once I get up there, my mind goes blank and only about half of what I planned to say came out, but according to Nico I still made some sense. What I said up there is a small portion of what I will write about below.

Then finally on day 11, after the morning reading and meditation, the silence was broken. We had some time to finally meet all the people that we had been going through this with and seeing for the past 10 days. It was really interesting to feel like you know someone without ever having spoken to them before. Another funny thing is hearing them talk. You make assumptions about where people are from based on their looks and mannerisms. The biggest discrepancy was from this guy who had very brown skin, looked Indian, and could sit for hours. When he spoke, though, Jon had the most American accent you can imagine complete with the volume of an American. Apparently he grew up in the US, but his whole family is Indian and he’s been meditating his whole life. Anyway, we also took a tour of the Suan Mokkh main monastery before parting our ways and continuing on our journeys.

About My Insight

A very good question now, and what I have been thinking about since the retreat, is what have I gotten from this experience? There is also the greatest insight that I realized, at least its how I feel at the moment, which is all about the “middle way”.

Let me explain a few things first:
The middle way – You are not meant to be too strict and also not too loose in your meditation practice. One monk told us of a time when he meditated for about 20 days straight with no sleep. And another that drank only coconut milk for 18 days until he almost died. This is not the middle way. And in general, by the nature of trying to get yourself to attain Nirvana you will never get there because you are hanging onto your ego.

Dependant Origination – “Contact” is when one of your senses or mind notices something which then causes a feeling.
Ignorance gives rise to contact
Contact gives rise to feeling
Feeling gives rise to craving
Craving gives rise to attachment
Attachment gives rise to becoming
Becoming gives rise to birth
Birth gives rise to suffering
Suffering gives rise to ignorance
It is ignorant contact that leads us through this endless cycle of suffering. Wisdom in contact will still give rise to feeling, but there will be no craving and thus no suffering.

Knowledge – there are three levels of knowledge and all are needed to truly understand something. The first is learning, like when you read books or hear talks on something. The second is reasoning. This is when you know all about it and can philosophize. The third is experience. A good example of this is sugar. If you’ve never had sugar before, people can tell you what it tastes like, but you can never truly understand until you taste some and experience it for yourself. As an aside, I think that all school teachers and professors should understand this concept, I bet it would revolutionize how we are taught in school.

Selfishness – All things are impermanent, unsatisfying, and not self (there is no “me” and no “my”). This not self concept is very difficult to swallow, and I have done some learning and reasoning about it, but you only truly experience it once you reach Nirvana.

Buddhism recognizes that there are four noble truths. A noble truth is something that is universally true irregardless of the time or the place or who it applies to. These are:
1. There exists Dukka (suffering)
2. The cause of Dukka is Selfishness
3. Nirvana is the end of Dukka
4. To get to Nirvana follow the 8 fold path.
Basically Buddhism says that everyone suffers and that no happiness that we know it is true happiness. The only way to be truly happy is to follow the teachings of Buddhism to the extreme – Nirvana. Buddhism as a religion is really the only one that claims to end all suffering in this lifetime. All other religions are also moral codes, but they seem to more deal with those unanswerable questions that humans have pondered forever like why are we here, and what happens when you die? On that subject, Buddhism simply explains that everything is a flow of events, and it all depends on previous conditions.

It seems that in Theravada Buddhism we all suffer. We all want to be truly happy, which means we all should strive for Nirvana. Since you need to do a whole lot of meditation with a clear mind, the only way to actually reach Nirvana is to free yourself from worldly attachments and devote your life to meditation. You can do this by becoming a monk. The monks in Thailand all live in monasteries. They rely on the goodwill of the population to provide food and in return they run some community events as well as being the spiritual leaders of the community. In being a monk, you can devote your life to meditation and spiritual development. Now let me briefly list the 8 trainings that all monks (and us for 10 days) live by:

1. Intend not to take away any breath.
2. Intend not to take away what is not given.
3. Intend to keep my mind and body free from sexual activity.
4. Intend not to harm others by speech.
5. Intend not to harm my consciousness with substances that intoxicate and lead to carelessness.
6. Intend not to eat before dawn and after noon each day.
7. Intend not to sing, dance, play, listen to music, watch shows, wear garlands, ornaments or beautify myself.
8. Intend not to sleep or sit on luxurious beds and seats.

So far, I’ve determined that I suffer and should work on my meditation to get to Nirvana to reach true happiness and release myself from this suffering. When I thought about what it means to be a monk and to reach Nirvana, I began to question if that is what I really wanted. Be free from attachments… does that mean that I wont ever play ultimate again? Then I wont be attached to trying to win, and winning is impermanent and unsatisfying, so why should I want that in the first place. Also to be free from attachments means no girlfriend or starting a family – sorry Nico. Once you reach Nirvana, you will be truly happy and fundamentally not interested with these impermanent worldly pleasures. You come to see music for what it is, an unharmonious conglomerate of sounds. I clearly will not want to listen to music or play the piano anymore.

A metaphor that I came up with about Nirvana is this: Imagine a garden of Eden plopped down next to your house. If you choose to enter it, you can never leave. While in there, everything is perfect, you have no worries or obligations or anything like that for the rest of your life. But in entering the garden you leave everything behind. No music, sports, family, or friends, even though all of that still exists all around you.

Really, why do I want this again? Is being truly happy and at peace with myself and the world worth giving up all that I currently hold dear? Maybe some people would say yes, but I don’t see it. I am not trying to say that Buddhism is incorrect, and maybe if I did give it all up to reach Nirvana I’d be happy about it later. But I don’t think that is a personal experiment I care to take up. And then I also wonder how things would work if everyone decided to become monks and nuns. Who would comprise the community that donates food, who would study medicine to take care of the sick?

This was around day 7 when I was truly beginning to doubt this whole meditation thing and was about to totally lose interest in being there. I felt that Buddhism itself is quite egotistical to say that no one experiences true happiness, and also that it would be a very selfish thing to do to remove yourself from those that rely and depend on you to seek your own happiness. Where is the “not self” which is such a crucial part of the teachings?

Luckily very soon after in the next meditation session something occurred to me. The “middle way” does not just apply to how strict or not you are with meditation, but also for how you should live your life. Nirvana is not something that I should strive for. Maybe I should just try to be a good person. If you don’t take all those teachings and trainings too seriously, Buddhism has a really great moral code to live your life by. Not only that but I had recognized that I do have much better concentration and mindfulness through all the meditation. I cannot control what sorts of things happen to me in my life, and I cannot control my immediate feelings, but I can approach them as best I can with a mindfulness that will prevent me to give rise to suffering. And I do realize that I will never be perfect at it.

Now I think that I am already pretty in control of my emotions and reactions to whatever life brings me. I am also usually aware when my sense of “self” becomes quite strong and leads to ignorant contact and suffering. So basically all of this has just gone to reinforce how I already live my life and the morals that I have. Hence, how this great insight has left me right where I started.

The retreat was definitely not a waste of time though. It was a great learning experience to first hand experience meditation and Buddhism. In the few days since the retreat I have continued to meditate at least daily. I also do have greater concentration and clearer thinking than I can ever remember having. Who knows how long this will last, but such is life.

I would also like to say that all of the teachings about Buddhism that I have talked about here are identified with Theravada Buddhism, as opposed to Mahayana Buddhism which is more widely practiced in the west. I learned from Nico after the retreat that Mahayana is much more focused on the general people, rather than the monastic life like Theravada. Also not to say that Theravada is all bad, because in all practicality, almost all of Thailand is Theravada Buddhist and it is a great country filled with nice and practical citizens who comprise a thriving country and society.

I did though realize something about myself through all this, even if it is unrelated to this big insight I have gained. I had kinda noticed this before, but never really thought it through. I guess if you’ve managed to read through this whole blog post, I can let you in on what this is. It is that I am in fact a proud person. I don’t have pride in the “normal” sorts of things such as material possessions or how good of a job I have. But it is more a pride in my own ways, especially because they are different than most people. I do care what people think of me. For example, way back in NZ there were thoughts of not continuing the trip and just coming home. Everyone expected me to do this whole world trip for 18 months, and would they all think that I failed and couldn’t take it? I guess sometimes I feel like I do things cause I think people would think less of me if I didn’t. There was much more reason than that as to why I continued traveling, but the thought did cross my mind. And all the talk about “I” and “me”, I clearly have an ego, and I understand that I am not going to get rid of that one. I really liked to have Nico tell me later that I did well with talking when I shared my insight at the meditation retreat (cause I thought everyone was going to think I was mentally slow with how ridiculously slowly I felt I spoke). Well, if you feel like fueling this ego, feel free to let me know what you think about all of this.

These sorts of meditation retreats exist all over the world, and even all over the US. I certainly would recommend anyone to go to one and experience it for themselves. One thing I do know is that what I have talked about is just my own experience which was quite different from everyone else's experience at the retreat. Everyone got something out of it in their own way.

Island Vacation

2010-08-30T02:21:00.000-04:00

In order to travel all the way around the world, we are on a bit of a tight budget. For the first time though we've decided to spend a little bit of money for some activities, which I think has been well worth it.

First off, a few days ago we went scuba diving! I got my Open Water Diver certification when I was in Sydney, 6 years ago. So I took a little refresher course and Nico did a “try dive”. Turns out the two are quite similar to each other. It was us two and a Norwegian couple to one instructor, Greg. About an hour before we got on the boat, we all sat down and Greg talked us through the basics and the gear. Then he got everything set up, made sure our gear was on correctly and we all jumped into the water. We started off right near the beach so that we could practice a couple skills – like taking out the regulator and clearing some water out of our mask. Then basically the only difference for me was then Greg and I went back under and ran through a couple more skills. For most of the skills we talked about them on the surface, and then went under and practiced them. But for my extra ones, he just said “we'll go through a couple more, I'm sure you'll remember them”. I had no idea what we were doing, but I just followed his lead to perform the extra skills. I guess I fudged it well enough that he was convinced I knew what I was doing. Then we went for a dive from the beach. There is so much life down there! It was really neat to just be able to stay under for so long and just look at all the fish and coral without worrying about coming back up in a few seconds like with snorkeling. Nico really wanted to rent a camera, which I think was a bit of a mixed blessing. I think I was spending a bit more time taking pictures than actually looking around, but it was still sweet.

Then for the second dive I did at least change my gear over to another tank (and also hand the camera over to Nico this time). This second dive was in a different site, with more coral and fish and even a stingray! The refresher was a bit on the simple side, but since scuba diving is really quite simple, it did give me the confidence to once again go diving. And doing it with guides, I don't have to worry about how deep I go and how long I stay under before I get nitrogen narcosis or anything like that. Although I did look up how to read the dive tables, which are also really quite simple.

Yesterday I went out for another couple dives. This time cheaper since I am a certified diver. We went to a couple different dive sites and saw lots more cool stuff. This whole diving thing is really neat and well worth the money for the few dives that I did. I cannot see myself ever living in such a tropical climate that I would ever really get into diving though. The ocean here is like a hot tub, and even I would not get cold after being underwater for an hour. And it is amazingly clear with so few “scary” things down there that it really was such a comfortable diving experience.

Rock climbing. Not only does this beautiful island have some of the best diving in the world, but its got rock climbing too. It certainly is not some of the best rock climbing in the world, but its outdoor rock climbing which is sweet. Since it gets “melt your face off” hot here during the day (especially in the sun) we rented the gear and a motorbike and got everything ready the night before. Then by 7am (after the morning mosquito attack) we were on our way. Somehow here it is way cheaper to rent a motorbike than it is to get a taxi, so we rented one to get both of us and all the gear there. Only a couple times did Nico have to get off the bike and walk cause the hills were so steep.

It was all top rope off of installed bolts, and lots of slabby climbs. Even as an experienced climber I was amazed how well I would stick to the rock standing on wee tiny pebbles. It is kinda cool that people have only started rock climbing here in the past 5 years or so, so the granite is not at all worn smooth yet. Most of the day we had the entire place to ourselves, and then later in the afternoon a guided group found their way up there. I have now gotten to climb twice in the past 8 months – so it was well worth it for the day.

Coming up soon is that meditation retreat that I was talking about. So don't expect to hear from me or have any way to contact me from now until about Sept 11.

Taman Negara and Kuala Lumpur

2010-08-20T01:07:00.000-04:00

Goodday. I've been saying I was going to write about Taman Negara... so here it is:

First off Taman Negara is a national park here in the middle of the peninsular part of Malaysia (as opposed to the part on the Island of Borneo). It is a 130 million year old rainforest, which they claim is the oldest in the world... To get there, we took a minibus from the Cameron Highlands and then a boat up the Tembeling River. The boat ride was pretty cool as we were in these long thin boats and it was over 2 hours of cruising along the sides where I enjoyed looking at the jungle and seeing monkeys and some of the Orang Asli (natives).

Eventually we got to Kuala Tahan which is the little village that is probably only there because it is the main gateway into the park. You actually had to take a river taxi to get across and into the park. All the restaurants there are literally "in" the river - floating. It was kinda cool to be eating in these floating restaurants, although the food was basically a bastardized version of Malay food that they think the westerners like. But in fact every single one of the 10 restaurants or so had the same crappy food and there was no other options. But check out the pic below - this is of the restaurants and of Kuala Tahan from the park headquarters.

Hiking in the jungle was cool.... and really hot at the same time. The first morning we did the main touristy walks which was up this one little hill to get some views of the park and then this canopy walkway. I really liked the walkway as you are up to about 150 feet above the ground. This reminded me how much I want to live in a tree "when I grow up". I'm gonna have to make that happen some day.

Overall, there were not so many main points of interest in the jungle to hike to, but what I really liked was seeing all the different plants and bugs and other animals there. We came across vines with huge spikes, monkeys, pigs, leeches (got 2 bites!), huge ants, and ginormous termite colonies where you can hear them chewing on the sticks on the ground. We even found an elephant footprint on the ground! But after 2 days of wandering around in the jungle sweating our faces off, it seemed we kinda saw what there was to see there. Of course there is always the tours where they boat you off to see a cave or a village, but that stuff is way overpriced and we've realized that it never works out to be a very good experience anyway.

So the next day we made our way back to Kuala Lumpur to get our Thai visas and head out of Malaysia. Unfortunately there is not a whole lot to do here that is of much interest to me.... which is why we've been in the food court of the train station just hanging out until we can go pick up our passports. Only one more hour to go! We spent one night in Chinatown right after we got here, and then contacted a couchsurfer and stayed with him for the past couple nights. This has been a bit of a different couchsurfing experience. This guy is a doctor, and is out until 9pm every night, but his apartment is full of couchsurfers. It is almost like a little hostel - he lets you in shows you around, and then leaves you to be and sleep on the floor until you get up and out in the morning. We did at least get to chat a bit with the 3 russians, peruvian, german, taiwanese, and two polish people who were there at the same time as us. It was much less family like and more do your own thing than other times we've couchsurfed so far. He did live on the top floor of his apt building and had some great views of the city though:

Cameron Highlands

2010-08-13T04:55:00.000-04:00

Hi from Malaysia!

We have so far spent our first night in Kuala Lumpur (the capital), and then the next day took a bus to the Cameron Highlands. Here we are about 5000ft. above sea level, so even though we are so close to the equator, it is nice and cool - a welcome relief from KL and Indonesia. This is a nice place to chill out a bit and also do some hiking.

The scenery here kinda reminds me of the Catskills. Rolling green hills with some decent views. Nothing amazing and defo not worth travelling completely across the globe to go see, but since we are here it is great to do some hiking. We've barely done any physical activity in a while, so getting out for 4 days in a row and doing some hiking has been great.

Something that is neat about hiking here though, is that the jungle sounds (birds and insects) are totally different from anything I have ever experienced and also there are loads of new plants. Like this pitcher plant (picture below). It is one of those carnivorous plants that lure bugs into the plant and trap it there to suck out the nutrients! One day while hiking, I came across one dead one that was lying on the ground. I brought it back and later started dissecting it. Even though it was separated from the main part of the plant I think it was still alive. On the inside, there were these little white tentacles that were actually moving and grabbed a nearby piece of fly when I opened it up! It totally looked like some little alien thing.

Another exciting thing happened on the last hiking day. We hiked up Gunung Brinchang (highest mountain in the area at 6666ft), which is also possible to drive up. Then at the top it started to rain, so instead of hiking back down the trail we thought we'd go via the road and then stop at the tea plantation for a cup of tea. But a little ways down we got lazy and hitchhiked. A pickup truck came by with 3 kids in the back and they offered us a ride! It was a Malaysian family who was getting a tour of this huge vegetable farm. We joined in and got to ride through it all and chat with the kids in the bed of the pickup all the way down the mountain. They were super nice and even offered to have us come out to lunch with them. Too bad we had just eaten! But anyway, here we are with them with some veggies behind us on the side of the mountain.

So thoughts on Malaysia so far:

-It is way more developed than Indonesia, but in a good way. There is a such thing as public transportation and garbage pickup. Also because people are a little better off, you may be offered a taxi but if you decline they don't follow you pestering.

-It is way more diverse. There are of course Malaysians, but also lots of Indians and Chinese live here too. We have had way more Indian food here so far than local food. The guys in the Indian place even recognize us by now!

-Part of it being more diverse, and probably more developed, means that people are way better at English. I know that I should not expect everyone else to speak English everywhere, but it is nice when they do. We can actually have a conversation with people and talk about something more than the weather or the fact that we can speak only a tiny bit of Indonesian!

So it's good so far, and tomorrow we head off to Taman Negara. This is going to be some hot steamy jungle, where maybe we'll get lucky and see wild elephants, monkeys, tigers, pumas or leeches.

Gunung Agung

2010-08-04T06:48:00.000-04:00

Originally the plan for the last week in Indonesia we were going to go work on someone's urban farm in Denpasar. I think it was going to be something like what I was doing in NZ, although with much less work. Unfortunately Nico got a bit of the travelers stomach bleh, and we decided to continue to hang out here in Ubud. Then kinda on a whim I looked up about climbing Gunung Agung, the highest mountain in Bali.

We'd always been saying it would be cool with either of us to do different things for a bit if that is where the wind takes us, and so since Nico was feeling a little bit better, I went off on my own little adventure for a couple days.

Sorry Mom, I rented a motorbike, but I made it everywhere perfectly safely. In the morning I got the motorbike, bought some snacks, and head off to Pura Besakih – the largest temple in Bali, and also the start point to climb Gunung Agung. All it would take is a few trail markers to make this a perfectly safe mountain to climb on your own, but instead you need to hire a guide to not get lost on the trails around the mountian. I get to the entrance of Pura Besakih and let the haggling begin. You need to buy a pass to get in and that is where I told the guy that I was there to climb the mountain. He starts off at 70 or 80 Euro. For some reason everyone here thinks that you carry tons of Euro on you all the time. I eventually got it down to 600,000 rupiah (about $65) for a guide and accommodation, which seems pretty steep to me but there really is no other option. He took me to my room in a homestay and said to be back at 5 to meet the guide.

I wandered around Pura Besakih for a while. It was another temple... It was cool though that there was some ceremony going on there. So even though there were tons of tourists, there were even more Balinese people there actually using the temples.

I met up with my guide, and he took me to register at the police station, and said he'd meet me at my homestay at 11pm. Yes, that is 11pm! People here are a bit crazy and think that everyone only wants to see the sunrise, no matter what sort of activity you are doing. Ok, I'll go with it, I've never hiked through the night before. I try to get some sleep listening to the dogs barking and little kid crying, and finally get maybe 1 hour before my alarm goes off at 10:30.

10 minutes early he shows up and we are on our way. After about 30 min of hiking we stop at the highest temple on the mountain to pray for good luck. It was kinda cool to be involved in this, cause normally you cant go into the main parts of the temples. With our headlamps on, we continue on through the forest. Basically the trail goes right up the side of the mountain following a ridge. (I didn't know the ridge part until the way down when I could actually see my surroundings). The jungle gave way to a pine forest, and when that began to thin we stop. He tells me that we are 1 hour from the top, but it was only 3:30 am! He actually builds a big ol' fire and we dry out our boots and try to keep warm while it rained off and on. He also pulls out some rice and egg and spicy fish thing for us to eat while waiting there. He got a bit of sleep and I just kinda hunkered down and waited until 5am when we could go on our way again.

He was right on with the hour estimate to the top, and we got there just as it was beginning to get light. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, but most of it was along the crater rim about 100m past the top. It was really neat to watch the clouds pour over the mountain and then fall and disappear over the other side (like in this picture to the right). Once it got light out I could see around and how beautiful it was. Pura Besakih is at around 3000ft, and with the top over 10,000 feet, it was crazy being so far above anything else. It is also twice as high as anything else nearby. After about 20 min (before the sun actually even popped up) he was asking if I was ready to head down. I had to tell him a few times, “not quite yet”. I guess for him though he's been up there for sunrise over 100 times, so he just got up there and sat down and waited.

After about 45 minutes and the sun was up I finally was ready to head down. It was kinda weird to be seeing the scenery for the first time on the way down. On the way up, I was actually always on my guides heels and kinda wanting to go faster. But on the way down, he practically ran. It was fun and it sure kept my mind 100% engaged to go down so quickly. I am a bit sad though that I didn't get too much time to look around and enjoy the scenery on the way down either. We did make it all the way back down in just 2.5 hours though. By the end, my quads were so spent and felt like jelly that it was hard to even just walk on flat surfaces.

He dropped me back off in front of Pura Besakih where I remember there being some lawn and trees, and I planned on sleeping for a couple hours before heading back to Ubud. Surprisingly I was still quite awake and so sleeping was not going to happen. Some locals there were looking at me when I was lying there and they invited me to sit with them on their platform. It was cool to be able to chill and not be hassled to buy poscards and buy sarongs like every other white person there. Then by about 10 am I was ready to hop back on the motorbike and go back to Ubud.

Gunung Agung - 2 hours after leaving the summit

Overall, this was a bit more expensive than most other things I've been doing, but sometimes it is well worth it and this is one of those times. I got to learn to ride a motorbike (it had a small engine and was automatic and I probably never went over 30mph) but it was fun. And this is probably the highest elevation gain and loss that I have ever hiked in one day. Surprisingly it was far easier than I thought. Adrenaline is wonderful and it kept me awake and alert all night long. It wasn't until I was back in Ubud and sat down that I became exhausted and passed out for 3 hours, got up for some dinner and Nico kept me up until about 8:30 when I couldn't take it anymore and passed out for the next 11 hours.

For more pictures, check out my picasa site.

Plans

2010-08-04T06:02:00.000-04:00

I guess I forgot to ever tell you all that we have some direction now. We spent a solid 3 hours a day for a bunch of days in a row planning out what we want to do for the next little while. I think we came up with some good stuff and real purpose for what we do.

Here it is:
-This friday we fly to Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia)
-We spend a couple weeks hiking in the Cameron Highlands and then in Taman Negara National park. Taman Negara is home to some of the oldest jungle in the world. (130 million years, while the amazon is only about 10 million)
-Then 8/22-24 we head back to Kuala Lumpur and get our visa for Thailand.
-No later than the 28th, we get on a train going north to thailand
-By the 30th of August we get to Surat Thani and register for a 10 day meditation retreat.
-Sept 12 we spend about a week rock climbing in Southern Thailand
-Sept 19th ish we go to and explore Angkor Wat in Combodia for a few days.
-Sept 26 we make our way back to Bangkok
-Sept 27 we have flights already booked from Bangkok to Kathmandu (Nepal)
-Oct/Nov we hike around Nepal
Then who knows.

So enough if this following tourists to the “main attractions” of different places. I am excited to move on and have purpose for what I do.

My doppleganger

2010-08-04T00:17:00.000-04:00

So crazy thing happened here in Ubud. I found my doppleganger. Look at this guy, he looks so much like me, even has a similar necklace and red shorts. He is a bit darker though, I guess from living here.

Who woulda thought.... all the way in Indonesia...

Hanging out in Ubud

2010-07-26T23:59:00.000-04:00

Yea, that's about what we've been going for the past 5 days or so. We are staying in a homestay which is sweet, cause it is in a nice area off the roads where a few families live. There are the just a couple rooms for travellers and basically is just a normal living space. The homes here are really neat to see to as there are intricate carvings everywhere, and it is just a different style of living than we americans are used to. Check it out, this is where we are staying:

The first full day here we wandered around a bit and went to the sacred monkey forest. There are tons of monkeys! Here's me hanging out with my power animal, or should I say "I've got a monkey on my back!"

Next day we went for a walk around Ubud to see some of the surrounding areas. It is really nice to get away for a bit after spending so much time in cities since we've been in Indonesia. Around Ubud are all rice patties and small villages and there are actually some trails that you can kinda figure out where you are going on your own. One frustrating thing about here so far is that to do any hiking you really need a guide. It's not like the US or NZ where there are trail signs and well worn trails.

Then yesterday we went to explore a little further away by renting some bicycles for the day. About US$2 each for the day, not bad. We first head toward this place called Elephant cave. Kinda disappointing as there were no elephants there and the cave was really small. But it was neat in that there is a Hindu temple and a Buddhist temple right next to each other. We hung out with an old lady at the Buddhist place and Nico made an offering and we stayed to meditate for a little while. Then after that we just found some small side roads (good to get away from the craziness that is Indonesian driving) and explored. I really enjoyed getting to do some physical activity even if it is 100% humidity.

Ok, now some planning is in action, and also tomorrow we are going to rent a car and wander around the island for a couple days seeing what we happen to come upon. Oh, and I suppose we should hit up a beach or two.

Ok, now if you've made it this far in the post, than you might care about how everything is going and what I've got to say. Nico is discouraged with the whole blogging thing, so now mine might be the only one with updates. We both have been feeling like this wandering around and finding the good things to see is actually not all that fulfilling. We've spent about 4 hours a night for the past 3 nights trying to figure out what to do from here (Bali) as our visa is up in two weeks and we have no onward plans at the moment.

I have been trying to figure out what I am really doing here on the other side of the world from the people and things that I hold dear in my life. Seeing some ruins is kinda cool, but am I really getting anything out of it? I think I need to be travelling with more of a purpose. A couple things that I am really excited about and have wanted to do for some time is trek in Nepal and work on a kibbutz in Israel. Another thing that is important to me for this trip is to experience other cultures and people, and learn about sustainable living. It seems like couchsurfing and volunteering are a couple things that I want to do more of here in SE asia before getting to Nepal in mid sept to oct when the trekking season starts. Another thing important for Nico is Buddhism, which is something that I am also interested in. So we'll see what happens from here on out.

More Adventures in Indonesia

2010-07-23T05:16:00.000-04:00

After that crazy time in Jakarta, we took a train to Jogja (the cultural center of Java). We got one of them air conditioned trains, which meant that it was 85 degrees in there instead of 90. And on the ticket it said we'd get in at 4:30pm, which apparently means sometime around 8 or 9. But apparently that is how travel here in Indonesia works.

Anyway we took a day to chill out there, went to a shadow puppet show and also saw some Gamelan music in the Kraton (royal family's palace). The puppet show was cool, and there is one guy who moves the puppets, tells the story, makes some other banging noises and also directs the gamelan music band. It was all in bahasa indonesia (Indonesian) so I had no idea what was going on, but it was cool nonetheless.

Then the next day the plan was to take some public transport to Borobudur (a huge Buddhist temple). We set out at 2pm and the plan was to get to the nearby town and spend the night, assuming that was enough time to get there. We go find where we are supposed to wait for the bus, and some guy tells us it is where we are standing, even though there is no obvious bus stop there. So we sit and wait, ... and wait ... and wait some more, until it was about 3:15 and we realized that the bus we needed to change onto stops running at 4. The bus never came. Many busses here just wait in one spot until they are full, and then they go on their route. I guess bus 5 never got full....

Later we decided that maybe we should do some organized transport, and booked a day trip to Borobudur and also a 2 day thing to get us to Mt. Bromo, and then on to Bali. First off, Borobudur is pretty cool. I have been meaning to look up some more info about it, but just havent gotten there yet. I just know that it is a big ol' Buddhist temple and you are supposed to walk around each level 3 times before going up. I'll let the pictures do the talking about how much work had gone into this thing. To see more picts go to my picasa site: picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan

Carvings like those above were everywhere!

After wondering around the temple, we thought it would be nice to walk to a nearby hill to get a different view of it. Turned out to be really nice and there were all these trails and walks around, but they were not advertized at all. Funny how when something is awesome, but not in lonely planet, no one goes there. Obviously Borobudur is in there and there were tons of tourists, but once we went for a little walk the only person we saw was a guy climbing a tree to get some coconuts.

The next morning we head off to Mt. Bromo. One breakdown and 3 hours late, we make it to the hotel to get about 5 hours of sleep. We are woken up at 3:30 shoved into a jeep and taken to a nearby mountain to get some wonderful views of Bromo and the sunrise. Apparently sunrise tours here are hugely popular. It was kinda weird for me to get way up on a mountain (2700m or about 9000ft) and have just been driven there. It was too easy. But it was sweet.

Bromo is the one smoking in the middle

Unfortunately it is so easy that probably about 400 other people were there that morning too! I of course had to climb down off the viewing platform and then into a tree to get away from them all. We were then shuttled down to the base of Bromo to go walk up it. It was quite easy, and then there was a staircase up the steep part! It just did not seem right to actually have to wait in line to walk up stairs to get to the top of the volcano. At least no one was adventurous enough to do the 45 min walk around the crater rim, and I at least got to do a bit of walking in peace.

Overall it turned out to be cheaper and easier to do the tour thing to see Bromo and get to Bali, but at the same time it was way less fulfilling. It was the first time we were with lots of white people since we got to Indonesia, and it was also quite chaotic. We never really knew what was going on, or where we were headed or where we were staying, yet somehow it all worked out. We made it to where we were going; although there was one other girl supposedly coming to Denpasar (Bali) who we met and I never saw her after leaving Bromo....

So anyway, now here we are in Ubud which is kinda in the middle of Bali. There is lots of art and dance and my favorite - trails with monkeys. We will probably spend at least a few more days here and also figure out where we are going from here. Our visa is only good for 30 days, so I suppose sometime soon we'll need to buy another plane ticket somewhere. Till next time...

Jakarta: a life Experience

2010-07-18T07:05:00.000-04:00

Holy Crap. I have never experienced such a dramatic change in culture and basically everything (except climate) in just a 90 minute flight. First of all, couchsurfing is amazing. Nico and I are so lucky to have had the change to really experience how people live in Jakarta and learn so much about it. We stayed with a 24 year old math teacher named Rheden, who lives with his family in a modest little house in South Jakarta. His whole family were amazing hosts as they were so happy to see us and talk to us and constantly feed us new Indonesian foods. About the only thing that was normal to me was rice. For them it is not a meal unless it includes rice (breakfast, lunch and dinner). But everything that goes with it and how it was prepared was different and equally new and delicious every time. They believe that when they have guests they really take care of them. They made every meal (and lots of snacks) for us when we were around and would not let us clean up at all even though we tried every single time.

This is Rheden's family at 6am on the day we left. Rheden is in the picture below.

Jakarta is not much of a tourist city. This has made for some totally unique experiences here, especially having locals as hosts. First off, when we first took a bus into the middle of town, we were constantly surprised by the people. It seemed that they all wanted to sell us stuff cause we were foreigners. But once we actually listened to what they were saying, the ones that have some broken english are all trying to help us get to where we need to go by pointing out directions. And everyone else just wants to say “Hi Mister!” That's it... not begging, or selling crap, they just want to say hi.

The second day that we were here, Nico and I went with Rheden's Mom and Sister to go pick up his 6 yr old nephew from school. Now in this small school, most of the kids had never seen a white person before, but it is part of their curriculum to learn some english. We kinda walk in and all the kids are just looking at us, and following with some distance. Apparently they all love photos... I take out my camera and say “foto!” and they all get super excited and pose, and then I get in there with them. Then they all want to talk in English with us. Next thing we know, a path is cleared and the teachers are ushering us to the front of a classroom with 40 super excited 9 year olds. So here we are trying to teach some english words. We'd say something and then they would all repeat it. I have never seen so much excitement in a classroom. Then after a few minutes we tried to leave, but then every single kid wanted to shake our hands. They also do this thing where they bring your hand to their forehead and sometimes kiss it to show respect to elders. I felt like some celebrity being there with everyone doing this to us. Crazy that it is all just because of the color of my skin. Then we were ushered into the headmasters office to meet with the people running the school and sign their visitors book. This morning was an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life for sure.

Later that day Nico went into the middle of the city and went to the national monument (Monas) and to Masjid Istiqlal which is the third largest mosque in the world. This city is something different. To continue with the craziness of being white from before... Wherever we went people would want to take their picture with us. About 10 times that day we took photos with strangers, probably so many times cause I have a really hard time ignoring people. I am constantly saying “halo” to people on the side of the road. The bus system here is also very different. The buses have no set stops. You just wave one down as it goes by and then tap the ceiling when you want to get off. The driver will stop (or just roll slowly) in the middle of the road; not even necessarily on the side of the road – so you wander through traffic to the relative safety of the sidewalk. The doors are always open and there is a guy who hangs out the door hustling people to get on the bus and collecting money. Then when we stop at a traffic light people with guitars get on and play a song or two, collect some money and then hop off and wait for the next bus.

It is a really good thing that Nico and I studied a little bit of bahasa indonesia before we came here. Unless they deal with tourists, which is not many people, very few people speak any english. Our broken Indonesian has saved our butts a couple times especially when we first got to where we were to meet Rheden for the first time and we borrowed someone's phone to send him a text saying we made it.

Now we are on a train (this will probably be posted sometime later...) to Jogja. It was an amazing experience being in Jakarta, but also very tiring. You always need to be “on” and paying attention. Also Jakarta has awful air quality. There is smog from the tons of cars and motorbikes and traffic that does not end even in the middle of the day. And everyone smokes all the time. So I am happy to be moving on, although I am not sure what we are moving on to. We hear that it is kind of the cultural center of Java, and there is a big Buddhist temple nearby. We might have to actually spend the $30 for a lonely planet travel guide, cause there is so much in this country and we are only allowed 30 days here.

getting a tour in Istiqlal

I think that is it for now, I feel like I could write pages about all we've seen in just these past few days, but maybe I'll save some for later. Phew.

Hey, we went to Singapore

2010-07-18T06:34:00.000-04:00

Singapore is not what you'd expect from an Asian city. First off, everything is in English. There are so many people there from so many different countries, that the national language is just English. It is also probably cleaner and safer than any American city I have ever been to. And understandably so when the punishment for drug trafficking is death and the fine for littering is $500, which is actually enforced.

We had 2 full days in Singapore (after sleeping in the airport cause it is nice and we got there after the trains stopped running). Mostly this time was meant to relax after the crazy random adventures in Australia and before the true craziness of Indonesia. The thing that we enjoyed together the most there was the food. We'd go wander to some random food court and just try stuff. I kept being amazed that when the price was $3, it actually turned out to be a full meal. Apparently everyone there eats out cause it is just as cheap, somehow if not cheaper, than cooking on your own. And my highlight for sure was finally getting to play some ultimate! It felt so good to play after so long, even though I am totally out of shape for sprinting and I had no cleats. They were all very friendly there and it was cool to go out to dinner after all of them and get to learn a bit more about Singapore.

A Week of Australia

2010-07-13T02:04:00.000-04:00

G'day. Its been much more difficult to get some internet time when doing this kind of travel, but now I am hanging out in my hostel in Singapore avoiding the heat of the day. So here is how it was in OZ:

We got to Sydney back on July 5 (after sleeping the previous night in the Auckland airport). It was kinda strange being back and seeing the city after not being there since I studied abroad there in '04. There was no where to ditch our bags, so we just wandered around the opera house with everything until about lunchtime when we met with Yash (a friend from UNSW). That afternoon, more wandering around until at one point we saw a bunch of people huddled around something. Oh; a free ferry. So we hop on, and it was not until we were going somewhere that we found it was off to an art show on cockatoo island. So random, just like the picture on the right...

Then we hung out with good ol' Fidel on his deathbed. See?

Anyway, that night we hung out with some couchsurfers, Cherie and Tim. The next morning, it just so happened to be that my cousin Jess was vacationing in Sydney and so we met up and wandered around until it was time to head to the airport and head off to Darwin.

With a 5 hour layover in Melbourne, we get to Darwin at 3am, and head downtown, and hostels are still open and there are tons of drunk college kids wandering around. This is quite different than NZ where everything is closed by 9pm.
So why Darwin? I dont know, but it was a sweet time.
We spent the next night with Rob, someone who we met on couchsurfing who lives on his yacht. He is all off the grid, does not own land or a car, and just sails all over the place. We had some great conversations and was gently rocked to sleep by his boat.

Thats us, Rob in the middle, and Christophe (another couchsurfer) on the right.

After that night we head back into town to pickup a rental car - a twin cab ute (a.k.a pickup truck). We found 2 foam pads in a tree (yea we're good like that), got some food and a mosquito net and headed out to Litchfield national park. There were all sorts of short walks to waterfalls and swimming holes and termite mounds and that good stuff. Below are the magnetic termite mounds who orient their nests north-south to have the least amount of sun on them. Oh yea, and did i mention, it was really f'in hot there. About as hot and humid as the hotter days in NY's summer, but this is the cool and dry season. I cant imagine what the summer is like. Yikes.

For each of the three nights we had the ute, we just set up the net in the bed and fell asleep looking up at the stars. It was actually quite a sweet setup. We did have a bit of a scare on the first night when we were eating dinner under the net with our headlights on and then found a ton of bugs under our legs. Oh shit, what if these mats were dumped cause they had bedbugs? We almost packed up and left right there to go burn all our clothes... but instead used our scientific thinking to find out what they were. Neither of us knew what bedbugs look like, but we had some itchy bites. With shining some light on random pieces of clothing laid out, and then on the mats, with some additional steps and details in there and an hour later, we eventually decided that the bugs were from the area, attracted to light, and small enough to fit through the holes in the net. All wee needed to do was not have any light inside the net. And luckily we were right! Check out this luxurious pad:

Then on our last night in Darwin when we thought our adventures in Australia were over.... haha. We were staying near the ocean somewhere (beautiful sunsets and sunrises by the way) and just when all the cars left the parking lot at dark and we got settled, 2 cars pull out and a bunch of kids and adults get out and start wandering all over the place with garbage bags and flashlights. We kinda do our thing for a little bit, but then go over to them to ask what they were doing. Toading!! Apparently the cane toad is an introduced species that is eating the local hermit crabs there. So they were gathering up all the cane toads that they could find (which turned out to be about 200 by the time we finished there). When I asked what they do with them, they said "take 'em to the dump so they can turn them into fertilizer". And no, they were not joking. So it seems Nico and I cant get away from randomness (which seems to go along with travelling, I like it) and also conservation work. So I got some latex gloves (yup they have poison on their backs), and Nico got a bag and a flashlight and we started catching the toads too!

Now we are chillin in Singapore for just 2 days before heading to Indonesia for an unknown amount of time. Singapore is an Asian city unlike all the rest as it is actually very clean and safe and everyone speaks English. And there was even some pickup ultimate last night! It felt so good to finally play a bit and then hangout and get some dinner with the locals.

Dont know when I'll have interwebs again... but I'll leave you with this nice picture from Litchfield - gotta watch where you walk! (I was within inches before I noticed this guy)

Safe in Darwin

2010-07-07T00:43:00.002-04:00

Hey Mom and Dad and Nico's Mom and Dad,

Just wanted to let you all know that we have made it through Sydney and are now in Darwin. It's hot here! About to go find our yacht living friend.
Ok, bye now.
-Dave

Beardless

2010-07-03T03:05:00.000-04:00

Cat and Mel, I am mainly writing this for you. After bugging me all program about shaving my beard, I have finally done it now that you guys are gone. See, pestering does not make me want to do it :). And I told you that when this happened I'd show you a picture:

By the way, I kept in the braids for about 5 days and then the hair bands started falling out on their own. (You should pester Nico to redo them, I hear pestering works better on her). For everyone else... I'm going to a hot climate, no need to wear my fuzzy chinstrap anymore!

In other news... I'm leaving here tomorrow, and we never did quite finish a cabin. Got pretty close on both though, as they are all closed in, roofed, have windows and doors and even have the floors varnished. They still need wiring, flashing, insulation and the interior lining. Anyway, here are a few more pictures of the cabins.

In only 2 more days I will be in Sydney and I'm getting really excited about being on the move and seeing loads of new things again. I am really gonna miss the dogs though.

Last week in NZ

2010-06-26T19:44:00.000-04:00

Today might very well be the last day that I just get to chill and relax for quite a while. On Friday, Jon, Bexie, Cat and Mel left for their road trip to Northland. Due to "logistical complications" this left Nico and me back at the house for a few days on our own. This is actually working out quite well for us to get all our shit together, learn some Indonesian language and forge any necessary return documents for our future travels.

There's all of us together on the last night that the girls were here. Also it seemed it was time for a new hairdo, and Mel braided my hair. I kinda like it.

I keep talking about making some cabins, but I dont think i've put in any pictures yet. Here on the right is the first cabin with all the walls up and rafters on. Below is another picture from when I was putting on the roof. Here, the construction is so simple. This is a testament to that, since I've never built anything like it, yet with a bit of Jon's help I wrote up the plans and did all the framing on my own. For a foundation all we've got are 3 4"x4" bearers that I levelled with bricks. Then the floor joysts sit right on those bearers. The walls as you can see are all 2x4. The roof that goes on top is just some chicken wire to hold up the roofing paper (acts as a vapor barrier) and then there is roofing iron that gets nailed in on top of that. Right now the walls are nogged and some plywood has gone on a couple of the walls. The second cabin has all the walls up and rafters on as well, but no roof yet. It was crazy to see all that happen in just one day. With 6 people working on it and the walls already built, it really goes up fast. In this last week, I think that we'll continue to work on getting these cabins finished up. I doubt they'll be totally done by the time I go, but it would be nice to have at least one totally closed in.

Big Plans

2010-06-23T02:40:00.000-04:00

Big news! Some onward plans have been made from New Zealand and on the morning of July 5th I will be heading to Sydney. One night in Sydney and the following afternoon onto Darwin (on the north shore in the middle of Oz). Then on July 11th I fly to Singapore, and on the 14th of July it is on to Jakarta, Indonesia. Indonesia will be the next place that I plan on staying a month or so. This should be a cool adventure as I know very little about Indonesia, but have heard some good stuff. You can get a good Pacific Island experience and see the culture without heaps of tourists.

So the reason all this is happening now, is that on Sunday, the winter program here at earthwise ends. From there Nico and I had 3 choices. If we come back to help out Jon for the spring program, we could use the van and work on organic farms or get a job for the next 10 weeks until the beginning of the program. Option 2 is to not come back to Earthwise and wander about NZ trying to find work, but with no vehicle or home base. We finally decided on option 3: leave the country all together. It would have been pretty expensive to stay in NZ and wander and we decided that it was just time to move on. This is closer to the original plan of spending 4-6 months in NZ. In the past week we've decided on all three options and then changed our minds. But now we have flights purchased and it gonna happen! I am getting really excited to experience another culture and see some totally new stuff.

On a different note, we finally got the needed supplies to move on with the cabins. In about a day and a half of everyone going hard, we've got all the walls up and a roof on one of the cabins already. Most of the work figuring everything out and making the walls and bases I had already done myself. Now it is cool to work with other people and see it really come up. I'll post again on this soon and add some picts and stuff.

Peace.

Road trip

2010-06-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

Last wednesday to saturday we headed out from the valley for a bit of recreation. First thing was a day of rock climbing at Whakapapa South. It felt so good to get back on rock and climb! There were loads of small climbing areas and since it is winter here, we had the entire place to ourselves. And winter here is like a cool spring day back in NY, so really not cold at all. All the routes there are bolted which is awesome for me as I was the only one comfortable enough to lead and I got to set up all the ropes. Nico, Jon and I all have some experience, but Cat, Mel and Bexie are all new to climbing. We started out on a couple easy climbs and taught belaying and got everyone on the rock.

Me leading and setting up Ninja, while Cat climbs Teenage Mutant

Then I set up a slightly harder one for Nico and Jon and myself. After lunch we headed over to a different part of rock and I got to lead a beautiful route called "terror incognita". It was actually quite difficult as it was about 80 feet and sustained difficult the whole way through. It was good that I got to do something that really got the adrenaline pumping. That's me going through the crux of it on the left.

Then another thing that this trip was about was going to Field Days. This is a huge agricultural expo sort of thing. It is a huge fairgrounds and there are all sorts of stands set up trying to sell you agricultural stuff, everything from wood mills to tractors to hats and food. I spent a lot of time finding the free samples of food and whiskey, and just wandering around. They also have this "Good Keen Bachelor" contest where a bunch of dudes compete in things like making breakfast, chainsawing, and the part that I saw - herding mama and baby llamas into pens. The best part though by far was a show by this dog trainer and seeing all the cool stuff she made the dogs do, like hopping on their hind legs in circles around her and then jumping up and off her back.

Then the last day we spent a bit of time in Rotorua and went to a Kiwi house. There are so many conservation efforts for the kiwi, cause they are cute and dying off and important to the ecosystem and of course, they are Kiwis! So this place will get kiwi eggs from all over the place and raise the chicks until they are big enough to fend for themselves. In the wild only about 1% of kiwi eggs make it to older than 1 year. There are so many mammalian predators that are not supposed to be here that they all go after baby kiwis. It is now almost impossible to see a kiwi in the wild unless you are on a special island reserve. So anyway, this place is trying to help prevent the kiwi disappear to extinction. Unfortunately I have no live pictures of them cause they dont let cameras in, but here's a stuffed one from the lobby:

Trees and Cabins

2010-06-15T23:14:00.001-04:00

Yup that's pretty much what's been going on here. Over 2/3 of the 1200 trees have been planted and the cabins are going a little slower but the bases and walls have been built for both cabins - all by my lonesome too.

Oh, I have been learning more about household appliances though as yesterday the washing machine stopped working. I managed to take it apart to find the exact little fuse on the motherboard that blew. Now we'll see how good my soldering is if we can find a replacement part. Its kinda fun getting to take this stuff apart knowing that it is junk unless i can fix it, so I cant make it any worse!

Now we are off on a 4 day trip to go rock climbing! and to Field Days and Rotorua. Field Days is this huge yearly agricultural festival that goes on here. It should be interesting, especially the good keen bachelor contest :P and especially especially all the free samples of food.

Tis all for now. Bye!

Back at Earthwise Valley

2010-06-04T04:31:00.000-04:00

About 10 days ago now, Nico and I ended our road trip and made our way back to Earthwise Valley to help out with the winter program here. The first day back we made a little glasshouse for the lettuce garden to help them grow during the winter. See!?:

And then... we flooded the house! See:

And in the process I learned a valuable lesson... about how to properly drain a water tank. No, not call the plumber, I can do it. Maybe... cause then I burned out the heating element in the hot water tank cause I left the power on when there was no water in it. So due to that I completely took apart the hot water system here, got a replacement element and put it all back together and 4 days later.... we have hot water again! Yay. I guess I forgot to mention... the whole reason for this was that we were changing the wood burning stove here to a better one, but this new one is not connected to the hot water system like the previous one so I needed to take out those pipes and in the process.... flooded the house.

Now we are 6 total here. There is Nico and me, Jon and Bexie, and then two 18 year old french Canadian girls named Mel and Kat. They are young and full of energy and happy to plant loads of trees, so this is working out well, especially since there are 1200 trees to plant this month! This is Nico's baby. My big project for this month is to build two small cabins that will be used as an additional bedroom and an office. I just got started today and got the bearers and floor joists all put together for one and its laid out for the second one and just needs to be nailed together. Not bad for a days work all by my lonesome.

Oh, and what else I did today was move our tent back to the old location. To explain... in the past couple weeks we have gotten multiple times more rain than we got for the entire summer here. It's wet. And we found out that our tent is not totally waterproof. We got a lot of rain one night and in the morning there was a wet spot on the bed (nope, not pee) and then we went to elevate the mattress to let it dry out, but found the whole underside soaking wet. It took 2 days to dry and then we put it in Jon's tent. He doesn't actually need it since he's got a bedroom in the house and I do not. But his tent is in the front yard right near the house and cars. That location kinda works... but just isnt so nice to live there.... so today I moved the mattress and tent back down to our old tent site. Yay. I'm excited for a good nights sleep there tonight.

The Real Deal with Living in the Van

2010-05-30T06:48:00.000-04:00

Little known fact: Living in a van is not as easy and cheap as one would think. Especially when you are cheap, want to do nothing but hike, and its almost winter. We've gotten back to Earthwise Valley in Tuateawa almost a week ago now, and I feel like I can reflect and share about how life really is living in a van.

1. not so cheap - we paid for accommodation once ($14 each) and cooked almost every meal, did no paying tourist activities, bought no alcohol, and somehow we averaged about $200NZ a week each. How? Gas. Ferry. Those were our main expenses. Paying for a van to go 5500 km in diesel turns out to be quite a bit. We did do almost all our own cooking, but of course food adds up, especially with my appetite. Then there was the transportation for the Routeburn and Caples tracks and our backcoutry hut passes coming in at $50 and $90 each.

2. cooking - best way to eat cheap, and well. And we did manage to have a propane cooker and full kitchen stuff, so that worked out well. It does get tiring though to cook every single night. After a long day of hiking and it is 6pm, dark and about 45 degrees outside, we still have to find a discrete place to set up and cook and try to stay warm. Good thing we had each other for this, cause all except for 3 nights at least one of us was motivated enough to whip something up.

3. the whole winter thing... - so 45 degrees might not sound too cold, but being in it all day and all night is a bit different than having a warm house and shower to retreat to at the end of the day. I was basically bundled up as if I were going outside in 10 degree weather just to cook dinner, but thats whats needed to keep warm. It also would get dark at about 6 (or 5 if the weather was crappy). Then with no electricity there is not a whole lot to do other than go to bed. Finally towards the end I was getting a bit better at managing to stay up until about 10 or even 11; but overall, I have never gotten so much sleep in my life. Consistently 9-10 hours a night. I was unaware of how your legs could just hurt from spending too much time in bed! I also got good at the whole wash cloth bath thing. It is a bit of a shock to get discretely naked in a parking lot somewhere and then also be wet in that 45 degree weather.

Overall though, even with all that and the fact that we never slept in the same location for two nights in a row, it was great. Nothing like being in sight of someone for 5 weeks in a row to create some new tensions, but Nico and I were able to work everything out and I even still like her, woohoo.

whats that? there's a pack rack for the card shark in the aardvark carpark.

Plus, we had the ability to go all over and see some really great stuff and do some amazing backpacking in the mountains. Now, it is nice to have a home base again and a place to relax and get dressed without being bent over cause only a 5 year old could stand up straight in that van. And I dont know if I'll ever have the ability to travel so freely with a home and kitchen on wheels ever again and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to do so. I guess there are always RV's, but lets be real, I'm not going to be getting one of those while I can still go backpacking.

Okay enough for now and more later on how the beginnings of the winter program are going here at Earthwise. But we did plant some trees today!

Nelson Lakes

2010-05-21T18:38:00.000-04:00

More Pictures!
We have just gotten back out of the woods from one last big hike in Nelson Lakes National park. This one is in the Northern part of the south Island, and probably one of the coolest hikes we've done. Even though the mountains are quite a bit smaller than they are further south, we were in a really sweet area. I think part of it is that we hiked up on top of a ridge for the entire first day. It is interesting how all the main walks in most places kinda follow the same pattern: Hike through beech forest, go up and over some saddle and be in an alpine tussock area for a while, then drop back down low and hike along a river in a different valley. It is a pretty great equation for an exciting walk, but after doing a whole bunch of those, it was really nice to do something a bit different. The first day of the hike was up to the top of Mt. Robert and then along this Robert ridge all day. We were quite exposed up there, so it was sweet that we had such a beautiful day. As you can see, the scenery there was amazing.

We got a late start that first day, but it actually worked out beautifully well that the sun was setting as we were coming up to the last part of the hike before we got to Angelus hut. The location of the hut was beautiful, surrounded by big mountains and right next to a big lake as calm as glass.

The next day we dropped into a valley and hiked around into another valley to get to the Hopeless Hut. This was a tiny 6 bunk hut that we shared with some very strange hunter guy. Arguably the weirdest guy we met so far who grunted a lot and did not seem to be all quite there. It was a bit of a relief once we got going the next morning and I no longer had to worry about our safety. That day was a chill one where we ended up at a hut right on a lake with a couple other hunters. These guys were quite a bit more friendly and also they had a saw and axe so we got a raging fire going. It is quite surprising what a fire does to lift your spirits, as we were all warm and sociable. It was in fact probably the warmest night I've had since leaving the Coromandel, also with going to bed at about 11 one of the latest. I think that it is amazingly possible to get far too much sleep as your legs actually hurt after lying down for about 10+ hours each night. So going to bed at 11 and getting up at 7 actually felt really good.

Now as we realized that we are going to go over the amount of k's that we agreed to put on this vehicle, we've decided to start heading back to the Coromandel a couple days early. This way we'll get a little bit of time to really relax and decompress before gearing up to prepare for the upcoming winter program at Earthwise Valley.

9 Days of Hiking

2010-05-13T00:15:00.000-04:00

Not much time for internet on the road here, but we are finally back into civilization for a bit after 9 consecutive days of hiking. It all started off in Mt. Aspiring national park outside Wanaka with a day trip to the Rob Roy glacier and then up the valley to get a glimpse of some huge mountains. That was a full on 17 mile day, expecting to do a little hike out of Queenstown the following day.

a Kea! "hmmm... can i eat your camera?"

So we get to DOC (department of conservation) in Queenstown at 9am the following day, to find out that there is some good weather for the next couple days before getting some more rain. Well, gotta take advantage! Plan a trip, get food, organize transportatin, get to the trail, pack up our stuff, and by 2pm we were on the trail on the Routeburn Track. This is a 2-3 day Great Walk. Since the end of the walk is about 300km (by car - crazy mountains) away from where you park your car, we decided to do the Caples track to get back closer to the van. The Caples is another 2-3 day track but is not a great walk. It comes out only about 40km from the start of the Routeburn. Good thing we had previously organized that on the start day we had someone follow us to the end of the Caples track, dropped off our van, and then got a ride to the start of the Routeburn.

On the Caples everything was so green!

Then the day we finished the Caples we go back to DOC in Queenstown to find out that there is a couple more days of good weather before more rain is on its way. Kepler track! We go crazy again resupplying and making our way to Te Anau which is where the Kepler track is. This is another Great walk that is generally 4 days. Totally amazing scenery on all of these. On the first night of this one we stayed in the Luxmore hut, which happens to be right near some caves. It is sweet that anyone can go in and explore them. It was defnintely quite the changeup of scenery. Then on the third day, we knew it was supposed to rain later and the following day, and after 9 days without a shower, we decided that the 10 miles to the next hut was not enough and so we kept on another 5 miles or so to get to a road and then hitchhike the last few miles back to the van. I also had a cold throughout the entire Kepler track, so i was okay not hiking through 5 more miles of beech forest next to a huge river (which is something that we have done quite a bit of in these 9 days)

Sweet mountains on the Kepler track

So yea, great walks are really cool in the scenery that you s ee, but they are really like great (side)walks. The trails are all graded and dont go too steep and are really easy. This was quite unexpected compared to many of the other trails we'd hiked so far. The Caples was interesting in that we went through boggy areas and up steeper stuff and had unbridges stream crossings and interesting things like that. All 3 tracks were really amazing, and it was also awesome to have a hut with a wood burning stove at the end of each day. Surprisingly there was about 10-40 people in each hut we stayed in, so it was cool to have some company.

Livin' large in the huts.

There has been so much amazing stuff we've seen, but i dont get too much internet time and I dont feel like writing about all of it... But, you can check out the pictures!
Mt. Aspiring day walk
Routeburn and Caples
Kepler
Okay, and off to Milford Sound for a few days of actual relaxation!

Heading South

2010-05-03T21:28:00.001-04:00

Since last wednesday on the ferry, we have done a lot of driving and have ended up in Wanaka for now. Wanaka is a small tourist town of 6000 permanent residents but swells immensly in the summer for hiking and the winter for skiing. So nice to be around here now without the crowds.

When getting off the ferry, we decided to make the most of the warmish weather that is left and head far south and work our way back north. This meant passing beautiful weather in the Nelson and Marlborough regions. We went straight to the glaciers on the west coast at just the wrong time. Turns out that in the past week they had gotten about a meter of rain (yes, almost 40 inches in a week) and so none of the trails were hikeable because of crazy river crossings. We did get to at least walk over to the base of the Franz Joseph glacier to take a look... although at the expense of getting drenched. After seeing more rain in the forecast we decided to move on. Pictures from We(s)tland.

On friday morning we got to Wanaka to only find out that you cannot even get to Mt. Aspiring National Park (where most of the hiking is around here) because there are river fords on the way there that are uncrossable. At least the rain is finally stopping here and we got to do a little hike up rocky mountain which also happens to be the location of the “rugged country south of Rivendale” from Lord of the Rings. (that's the picture on the right!). More pictures from Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain.

The Fern Burn hut on the Motatapu track

We have also done an overnight hike on the Motatapu track, which is not part of the national park. We stayed in the Fern Burn hut, all by ourselves. In the morning I went on a little adventure trying to get to the top of a ridge nearby. I've really been wanting to get to the top of some mountains, so this was really nice. I came upon some random wild billy goats on my way and had fun blazing my own trail through the tussock (quite easy as it was all above the treeline). More pictures from the Motatapu track.

And so Monday it is supposed to rain a bit more, but hopefully by tuesday we can do some hiking up in the national park here before heading off to Queenstown and the Milford Track.

View from the top of my little adventure

Taranaki to Wellington

2010-05-02T21:26:00.001-04:00

A few days back, Nico and I made our way to Mt. Taranaki. Excited about our newly purchased backcountry hut pass, on saturday afternoon we hiked into the Maketawa Hut which is at the base of Mt. Taranaki. It was a sweet shelter with great views of both the mountain and the farms below. We also met 3 other Americans there who just came up from the South Island doing similar hiking and camping to what we are planning. It was nice to know that there were going to be some other people on the mountain the next day. Apparently getting to the top of this one is very weather dependent and there was no guarantee that we'd be able to get to the top.

Turns out the world was shining upon us, with a beautiful day. The hike was about 3.2 miles with a mile of elevation gain. This is like the steepest trail in the Adirondacks... with 3 times the length. It turned out not to be that bad of a hike though. We were kinda exposed the whole time, up until we got to the top where there was some shelter among the rocks, and we could just relax and have some lunch.

We also met this crazy guy who is planning on summiting the mountain 100 times this year. He was on his way down as we were going up, and then we saw him heading up as we were going down! Not sure what his motivation would be to climb the same mountain 100 times... but good luck to you.

View from the scoria fields. It was amazing being above the clouds!

Then from there we headed down towards Wellington. Both Nico and I decided that big cities really are not our thing, as we both were pretty uncomfortable for our day there. We did get to meet up with Hannah from Earthwise and catch up. We spent last night at the top of a hill that overlooks the city, which was actually a really nice spot close to the city to spend a night. Now we are on the Ferry to Picton and the south island and really excited about getting back out to the wilderness!

I've got some more awesome picts from this hike posted at my picasa site

The Magnificent Tongariro Park

2010-04-25T18:03:00.001-04:00

See photos of Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu

Monday afternoon Nico and I finally left Tuateawa for a while and embarked on our journey around the rest of New Zealand in the van. We basically came straight down here to Tongariro after a minor side trip to pick up a new seat for the van. Coming here to these volcanoes is super exciting for me and I have been looking forward to it ever since I missed out on the epic trip with Earthwise about a month ago. My knee still hurts a little bit, but actually got better with each day of use! Tongariro is basically right in the middle of the north island and has two of the biggest mountains on the north island, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe (pronounced narahoee) a.k.a Mt. Doom.

These mountains are all volcanic, and Ruapehu is still somewhat active. There are ski slopes on it and a few years ago they had to be closed all season because the mountain was erupting. Tongariro is another smaller and much older volcano in the area.

We first set out to do an overnight to get to Ngauruhoe. We basically followed a track most of the way, but then continued past where the track goes and set up camp right at the base of the cone. Good thing Nico was there not too long ago, cause she was able to point out the way and the sweet campsite. The landscape there is very strange, with lots of rocky ridges, and very little vegetation. It is not that high up, but still has only alpine type vegetation. It gets dark around here by 6:30 nowadays, and after that there really isn't much to do when it is dark cold and windy. So an early bedtime was good for an early start with the sun the next day.

Our campsite

Sunset with Mt. Taranaki on the left in the distance

Going up Ngauruhoe is unique. It is actually a ~2300 meter high pile of loose rocks. Going up was night too bad, we just had to find our line, but our heads down and chug. The top consists of an outer and inner crater and completely barren of animal or plant life. Coming down is where the fun was. Every step we would sink in and slide through the rocks and sand. It was quite steep though, so we had to be careful of tumbling all the way down. I think we must have gone a different route than most, cause we saw no one else once we left the normal track in the middle of the previous day. And it was a damn good thing that no one else came up the way we were descending, cause we would set off these rockslides and watch the rocks tumble basically all the way down to the bottom. We had to be sure to travel side by side in order to be safe. Then once we got back down, we packed up camp and hiked all the way back out. All day we were able to see some clouds rolling in but we were way above them. Eventually we dropped below and that was the end of the nice weather for the day. We were quite tired by the time we made it back. Good thing there was a public shelter nearby with running water. We cooked dinner and cleaned up and even took some washcloth baths, and then was in bed ready to sleep by 8. Felt like 1am though.

Then the very next day we got up and hiked up Ruapehu. It is actually the biggest mountain on the north island at 2751 meters, but can easily be done as a day hike since you can drive closer to it. And a full day it was. We were both a bit tired already from the past 2 full days, but somehow by the end we were not feeling too bad (probably cause of the 5 hours it took us to get down). Somehow for being another volcanic mountain with no plant or animal life on it, Ruapehu was actually quite different than Ngauruhoe. We hiked up the ski fields for a while, but then just wandered up the random valleys up to the top. You can easily see how this was covered by lava flows and everything was actually quite solid. Then on top, there was a huge crater that had mud flats and glaciers in it. Then you can circle the crater and find another crater with the lightest blue lake that I have ever seen. Then on the way down, we took a slightly different route that took us down some glacial snow and along a glacial river. It was a bit unsteady, but some really interesting stuff.

Glacial fed crater lake at the top of Ruapehu

Now we are chilling in the public shelter near the base of Ruapehu. This one even has hot water and heat and electricity! I am writing this from there, but it will probably be a few more days before I get to post it. I am also looking forward to washing up with warm water. Once we are done here, we can wander anywhere we want and park for the night. It is working out quite well so far doing this whole living in a van thing.

All that above was written a couple days ago. Right now we are in New Plymouth chillin in a library with the free wireless. Today we plan on heading to Mt. Taranaki, another huge one on the North Island and plan on hiking up to the summit tomorrow.

Thought I'd write about last night though, cause it was interesting. We were cooking dinner under cover of the back door of the van in a random parking lot, and some older guy on his way home from the bar stops to talk to us for a little while. Then before we know it he is inviting us over to his house for a real bed and a shower. Now we actually have quite a good setup in the van there with a full size bed, but I thought it would be cool to take him up on his offer and have a little adventure. We went there and watched some rugby with him and slept inside for the first time in ages. Turns out our van is actually more comfortable, and we got up at 6am to jet out of there and to a beach were we parked and went back to sleep.

Something I learned through this → if someone is being nice to offer you their place, either really take them up on the offer, or respectfully decline. We were a bit unsure and kinda in the middle there... ended up buying a $6 bar of chocolate to bring which I dont think will ever get eaten and all we did was sleep and jet out. It probably would have been better to just go to the beach and sleep there in the first place, cause he really did not have much to offer beyond what we already had. I just kinda wanted to take him up on the offer for the heck of it.

Live and learn and off to Taranaki!

Onward HO!

2010-04-18T03:48:00.002-04:00

Tonight is my last night here in Tuateawa where I've spent this whole year so far. Nico and I leave tomorrow in the van to road trip all across New Zealand with the intent to get out into the wild and do as much hiking as possible. We kinda started that yesterday with a trip to the Pinnacles. I hiked there with everyone a little while ago, and since it was so amazing I was happy to do it again. (see pictures here) The weather wasn't quite as good, but it was still a great day. It is also me finally being sure that my knee is no longer an issue. It's still been hurting a bit, but if I feel good the day after that hike.. (which I do) then i am set.

Below is our ride for the next 6 weeks (and the dogs!):

We built the bedframe in a way that it is easy to take out and put back in so that it will always be an option for this van. It actually took only 10 minutes to put it in or take it out.

Here to the left is the frame. The four horizontal pieces are each individual units. Then the three long bits are just cut to size and screwed in. Then there are two plywood pieces that go on top and get screwed in. The furthest horizontal bit is on an angle because the right side is the length of a sheet of plywood and the left is the length of the bed. This gives us a nice shelf, and we have easy access to everything that is stored in the front.

Right now we have a double mattress in there fully sheeted with 4 wool blankets (we'll be comfy on those cold nights in the south island). In the front we each have our own cloths bin and a box of stuff. This is all easily accessed. Then behind that is the toolbox with stuff for basic van maintenance. There is also a bin full of camping stuff like cookware, tent, ice axes, poles, etc... Next to that one is the bin with all the kitchen stuff; pots, plates, cookware, cutting board... Stuffed on one side are our frame packs, and on the other side are a couple car jacks. Then in the back from left to right is an extra 20L of fuel, the food bin, the chilly bin (cooler), dual burner gas cooker, and a can of propane. So basically we'll have everything we need except a toilet and a shower.

I'm psyched to wander about wherever I choose to go for a while and see where we end up and who we meet. There is also going to be no one saying what to do and when.

Although one consequence of this wandering will be a lack of internet... I'll try to write when I can, but I would guess that there wont be a lot in the next few weeks.

The End of the Beginning

2010-04-12T05:09:00.000-04:00

The summer program here at Earthwise Valley has come to a close a few days ago. In the last few days here we had some time to wrap things up and share all our photos and music and all that good stuff. We also had an afternoon of the Gnome Olympics. Laura and Hannah went down to the land to set up some random games and stuff like a scavenger hunt, obstacle course, egg toss, blind/dizzy race, and a frisbee game (similar to cups). We split up into two teams and competed for nothing in particular, but it was a good ol time.

On saturday, Nico and I took Jon, Laura, Hannah, and Dani over to Coromandel town, as their ferry to Auckland was that arvo. It is defo a bit weird, and much quieter here now without all them. I think we may meet up again, since we all are going to be travelling around this country for at least the next month or so.

I have also gone through all my pictures that I've taken since being here and chose a whole bunch as a greatest picts sort of thing. It is on my picassa site here. There are some good ones in there, so enjoy.

Nico and I are now getting ready for the next part of our adventure. Main thing right now is pimpin out the van. We are building a bed in the back and getting all sorts of gear together that we are borrowing from here. Then on Monday we are going to start driving south and do tons of hiking all over the place. Since we'll sleep in the van and cook most of our food, diesel should be our only big cost. We also have only a few ideas of places we definitely want to hit, and I am optimistic that we will have time to randomly go and stay wherever seems nice. Our main limitation at the moment is that we are going to be helping out Jon to run the winter program at Earthwise which begins in June. So we'll have to be back by then. I am really excited though to get down to the south island and get deep into some awesome mountains and glaciers.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures, and here's one last one of the group.

Flax, Passover, and a Piano

2010-04-07T03:05:00.001-04:00

Hello, I figure its about time for an update. This past week was Passover, and thanks to Mom, a box of Matzoh and some lollycones (passover candy) showed up here on the first night of passover. Since no one here knew anything about passover (other than Nico) I led a short and simple seder, telling the story and talking about some of the food symbology and sharing the matzah. It was cool that everyone was interested and that Nico was there to back me up on some of the "facts" as she has actually read the bible before and i have not. Matzah has been a small part of every meal since until we finish it up.

We have also done a third round now of harvesting and planting flax, bringing the number up to about 600 flax plants that we've harvested and planted in the valley. After the first time we did this, I wrote about it and why flax is so important. So if you missed that one, check it out here: http://nomaddave.blogspot.com/2010/01/flax.html. This time we also planted some by the ocean, right across the stret from the valley. I think a flax god dressed as an old man stopped by... Laura, Hannah, little John, and myself were planting off the side of the road and suddenly a couple old guys walked by wondering if we lost something. They came from the sea and it is a dead end road, so basically they appeared out of nowhere. When I told them that we were planting some flax, expecting to explain why, the one old guy who asked replied something along the lines of "Good on ya. I planted over 30 flax plants just yesterday." Then just as they appeared, they went on their way, with no vehicle, and no where to go within walking distance.... random.

And.... a piano! On our way back from getting flax we stopped by the storage in Thames to bring back a big piece of furniture. There was also a piano in there that is quite out of tune, but works just fine. Jon was going to donate it... but then I played "the luckiest" by Ben Folds... messing up quite a bit and didnt even finish cause its been so long since i've played, but it was good enough! We all convinced Jon to bring it back to the house instead and now we've got a piano.

Oh, and while we were in Thames we stopped off at the community pool where they had this huge blowup obstacle course floating in the pool. There was a line of kids, probably none older than 13, waiting to get on, and we just hopped in with them. I was the only one out of our group to actually make it all the way to the end, mostly cause I used the leap-frog method learned from some scrawny 10 year old kid. It was good fun.

People again!

2010-04-03T01:45:00.000-04:00

Finally on Tuesday night everyone came back from the epic trip. It is so nice to have people around again here at the house. It defo was a relaxing week, but now I am glad to have company again. That night we had another spa bath. It is an awesome thing to be able to have it basically whenever as long as we plan ahead a bit and start the fire early. Before everyone left we filled up the vat with water from the river and filled the fireplace with wood.

Then the first day everyone was back we finished up Jorge (the composting toilet). Put up the door, added stairs, and varnished the inside.
Now we have our new
place to poo
with a view.
Shitty poetry, huh? Below here is a picture of the finished product:

Then two days ago we tried out the earth oven for the first time. I dug out the sand in the middle of it which was holding the shape while it was built. Then I got a fire going in there for a couple hours. Laura and Dani had spent most of the afternoon making pizza dough and bread to bake in our new earth oven. And then when we go to bake... its barely hot at all. I think that first fire was needed to dry everything out, and right now we've got another fire going that will hopefully heat up the oven this time.

Other than these couple projects its been a quiet few days here. Today was a free day, and we went to the beach even though its been slowly getting cooler here. I was the only one to get in the water. I also went for a very light jog to test out my leg which has been feeling better. I doubt it is back to 100% yet, but I might be able to stop worrying that I will strain it at any moment now. Tonight is the end of daylight savings here and so tomorrow there will be 8 hrs difference to the east coast.

Fijoas are my new favorite fruit. And here's some to the left. Yesterday Jon went over to the neighbor's house and got 2 huge bags of them. I have eaten about 40 of these in the past 24 hours. Yum.

Happiness on the Bureaucracy Front

2010-03-26T02:19:00.000-04:00

Just found out the other day, I got the approval for my working holiday visa! All those headaches dealing with immigration and the airlines paid off, and now I'll be leaving NZ on Dec 31. Sydney for new years anyone? And now I dont have to worry about making plans for quite a while. Now, what will I do after the winter program here at Earthwise? who knows! Maybe fruit picking, maybe ski instructor, maybe working on a glacier, or something completely different. Ahh freedom of life, this is great.

Composting Toilet

2010-03-26T00:38:00.000-04:00

Another major project we've been working on recently, with the brains of it coming from Nico and I, is a composting toilet for the house. I have so far really enjoyed working on it, and there are only a couple more things to until it is totally complete. I just felt like writing about it now, since I'd like to be working on it in my solitude here, but cant really do much with a bummed leg. I put a couple photos in here, but you can see more on my picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan/CompostingToilet#

So why make a composting toilet when we have a perfectly good one inside? Good question. One huge reason is to save on water. With 8 people in the house, flushing the toilet takes up a large amount of water and since water is still scarce around here it will be good to use less. Also we will be making less waste in general by using an outdoor toilet. Sounds counterintuitive to leave your shit where it lies, but I'll explain in a moment. Another good reason for this toilet is; with 8 people living here it'll be good to have another place to take a crap when someone jumps in ahead of you. And yes, it will actually smell better than a conventional toilet!

This is it here to the left. It could still use some stairs and a door, but we're almost there!

So how is this all possible? Less waste, and smell better? Simple - let worms eat it up! The way that a composting toilet works is by pooping into a bucket with some worms and mulch in it. We use the half barrels which are about 3 feet in diameter and about 2-3 feet high. After each poop, the "flush" is a handful of mulch to cover it all up. This prevents the flies from coming and prevents it from smelling. As the bucket fills up, the worms go to work breaking down all the worm goodness in the barrel. There are actually 2 barrels in the system, and once one fills up, it gets put aside while the other is put into use. During this time the worms break it all down more until it just looks like some nutrient rich dirt. At this point you can feed the trees with it as it is great plant food.

So there you go, you can even turn your poop into something useful instead of using loads of energy by sending it to a waste water treatment plant. Ewww... city water that most of us drink, could have been flushed down the toilet with your poop...

Not only was this a fun project in getting to do carpentry and having the satisfaction of seeing the progress on a daily basis (instead of monthly or yearly as it often goes with conservation), but now I have written down plans and can reproduce this fairly easily some other time in my life.

I do know that this all works, because we have a composting toilet on the land that we've been using the entire time we've been here. That is also where I got the plans from. Jon has had very little to do with this project, so I've gone to the other one a few times to study it and take a whole bunch of pictures on how it was put together. So who else wants to poop with a view?

A Bummer in Paradise

2010-03-24T02:10:00.001-04:00

It seems like ultimate is not the only thing that will mess with my body. A little over a week ago, I woke up one morning with a really sore knee. That evening I think I somehow managed to pull or even tear my hamstring where it attaches to the back of my knee. In a day I was feeling fine and even two days later went on a hike. Then of course it got a bunch worse, and all swollen, and I haven't been able to straighten my leg for almost a week now. I even went to see a physiotherapist (good thing NZ has awesome accident coverage and it cost only $5!) and got some ultrasonic therapy and some exercises to do. It's feeling a bit better the past couple days... but defo not good enough to go hike up the two highest mountains in the North Island with a backpack. Boo...

Unfortunately that is what everyone else is going to be doing for the next 6 days... Which leaves me with the predicament of what the F am I going to do for the next 6 days here by myself and I can barely even walk!? So this would be a great time for all you with skype or some other form of communication to get in touch! I will have internet access all the time and a whole lot of time to fill. Get in touch and let me know how life is for all you back home, and those of you not at home too. I'll probably get to do a whole lot of posting on this blog as well. I've been pretty slack and here could be a good chance to catch up. Talk to everyone soon, I hope!

Coming up with some Plans

2010-03-22T23:59:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago I realized that my flight onward was for the end of May, and in thinking what I was going to do until then, I realized that June was too soon to move on! It is really amazing to have the ability to make that decision and just stay here longer. Well, almost. I applied for a working holiday visa that will let me stay for another year here. But if you are here for over a year, you need to get all this medical stuff done that is expensive and blah blah blah. So in order for the visa to be good for less than a year I need a flight confirmation out of here. So I call Air New Zealand to change my flight (on the hopes that I get a visa and wont have to pay again to change it back) and of course they want proof of a visa to let my delay my flight. Bureaucracy sucks.

Anyway I got to change my flight by sending the airline some info, and now I am waiting to hear back from immigration. But my new flight date......bum bah dum... Is December 31 going to Sydney, Australia for new years! I might actually spend less than 24 hours there before going north in OZ or even to Singapore cause it is cheap to fly there. None of that is set in stone yet though.

Now what to do for the rest of 2010 in NZ? thats easy. Right now Nico and I are planning on borrowing the van from here and road tripping down to the bottom of NZ and back from mid april until June. Then in June we agreed to come back here and help Jon run a month long winter program at Earthwise valley. After that we can either get a job somewhere or travel around south some more, or WWOOF, or even come back here again for the spring program.

Yea, I know, we were planning on being back in the states by June 2011, and that would give us only 6 months for the rest of the world. Or, more likely, we just dont come back then. Amy, no worries, I will at least be coming back for your wedding and then continuing on my journey. And a congrats to Tim and Kate who recently got engaged, and so nicely planned their wedding to be the weekend before Amy's, so i could be back for that too.

Anywho three months in and already totally changing around plans. Who knows what we will actually be doing before I end up back in the states again for a while. OK, Bye.

PS. by the time anyone reads this we should be off for an epic week long hiking trip up some volcanoes in the middle of the north island.

The Creation of a Spa Bath

2010-03-20T23:57:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone. I am alive, no worries. Just been busy recently doing many things here like constructing a composting toilet, making cornhole (yay games), clearing out storage in Thames to save some cash for the trust, weeding, mulching, planting, hiking, fishing, and bonfires. But a lot of energy has been spent making a spa bath here which works in a totally unique way that I thought I'd like to highlight here.

First thing, we need a big ol' bath tub to have our spa bath in. We chose a spot right by the gazeebo that is near my tent, and started digging a hole. Next was to make a frame to hold the tub and also create a deck around it that joined up to the gazeebo. I may have mentioned before, but it was interesting building a structure on non-level ground. Something I had never thought of before was to drive big posts into the ground (or even auger out holes to put in even bigger posts) and then attach the main supports to these posts so that it is all level. Then we added joysts between the inner and outer frame which gave us a complete frame to put the decking wood onto. Below is a picture of the tub and deck all completed (minus the bench seats that Nico and I added on later).

The next part of this spa bath is to have some way to hold and heat up a whole lot of hot water. Here, there is an unexhaustable source of firewood, so we made a fire pit! We also got a 1600 Liter vat to hold the water. I learned a whole lot about concreting and brick laying in this part. A hole was dug into the side of a little hill to make a flat area to have the firepit. We mixed and poured concrete into the bottom to make a level ground to build the walls up from. We then built walls on three sides to support the huge vat, and added a concrete pipe as a chimney in the back. And vuallah! a cheap way to heat tons of water.

The fireplace and vat are uphill of the tub so that when the water is hot and ready, we can open the valve to let water flow down. We used 50mm alkathene piping (I dunno if it is called something else in the US, but it is a black barely flexible plastic tube). There are valves both at the vat and at the tub so that we can have control at either end of the water flow. Once you are in the bath sometimes it is good to top up with some more hot water without having to get out. It was a bit of a puzzle to get all the fittings together and get it all connected, but once we did, we were ready to have a bath!

Since we've been a bit short on rain (and hence water at the house) we filled up a tank of water from the river on the land and pumped it into the vat. It took about an hour and a half of having a fire in the new pit to get the water up to about 140 degrees F. Then with the gravity feed and the 50mm (2") piping, it took only about 3 minutes to fill almost the whole tub! We even had to mix in some cold water cause it was too hot!

Then finally, enjoy :)

There are some tarata leaves in there which is the New Zealand lemonwood. It makes the bath smell all nice. Also in the background there are the benches in their finished state. As far as I know we are the only people who have a spa bath (or hot tub) set up in this fashion, but it works great here and costs very little.

I've got some more pictures of the whole building process up on my picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan/SpaBath#

Little hike for today

2010-03-11T02:06:00.000-05:00

Today was a free day. A few people decided to go with Jon to Thames for the day, while the rest of us hung out here for the day. Nico and I went on a little hike up a ridge right near the house. It was short, but we took our time looking at the views and trees. We passed some puriri trees that were over 7' in diameter and were 800-1000 years old! We also came out to a really nice (and random) lookout. Check out the picts, they are really nice.

Also today, I met our neighbor. The dogs were in their run and barking and then I hear some guy whistling on the side of the property. He was looking for Jon, but I told him he wasnt around. The guy didnt look happy, and I thought he was going to complain about the dogs barking. I went down there and he says "Do you like apples?" yes "Do you like pears?" yes "Well come with me" Okay! Do I need a bag? He pulls two plastic bags out of his pockets. Well then. I felt like a kid being lured by candy from an evil stranger. Turns out David (using all 5 letters of the name) was a nice retired old Brit/Kiwi. I went over to his yard and he gave me bags of apples and pears that he picked right in front of me. This was a very pleasant surprise!

Past few days of projects I've started building a cabin in the woods. I am really excited about getting to build more stuff. I'll have to get some pictures of the progress to show off. But for now, bye bye!

Stuff

2010-03-05T20:49:00.000-05:00

Past few days have been more of the similar kinds of projects. Yesterday we finally finished the decking around the spa bath. It is awesome to have seen that structure come along, since none of us knew much about building structures from scratch and yet we've come out with some good. The spa bath fireplace is done as of yesterday, and we're just giving it a couple days for the mortar to set before putting the chimney and vat on top. All that is left for the spa bath is for us to lay out the hose and get some rain!

Last night Jon and I went flounder fishing. It was a really cool experience. We started out in an estuary and walked towards the sea. Where we parked had no water to begin with, but soon we were ankle deep as the tide was coming in. By the end, there were areas where the water would have been over our head. We were far enough away from the sea that it just seemed like the water was filling up from nowhere. All we had was a light and a spear fro each of us, and not knowing what we were doing, I was happy that we each got one. They are really well camouflaged and slowly swim with the tide. We'd slowly walk towards them, and just spear them (or just one) as they came towards us. It is neat to catch it and then have it go full circle when we pan fried them up and ate them for breakfast.

hmmm... just took a break for lunch, and now i am no longer motivated to keep writing. bye for now.

Is There Anybody Out There?

2010-03-01T23:29:00.000-05:00

G'day everybody. One thing about this blog that I am not sure I like so much is that I just keep posting stuff, but i have no idea who actually reads it. I am definitely still interested in what is going on in everyone's life back home. I'll also try to be a bit better about sending out some individual emails occasionally. But if you feel like it, I'd love to hear from you, or at least a quick note saying, "hey i actually do read your blog". Cheers.

Earth Oven Plinth and Spa Bath Fireplace

2010-03-01T23:23:00.001-05:00

These are a couple things that we have been working on recently. We are soon going to be making an earth oven, but need a base upon which to build it (plinth in kiwi terms). This is just a mound of rocks that I have carefully placed and we've mortared together so that the earth oven will sit at a height that is comfortable to work at.

An earth oven is basically a hollow dome with a door that is all made of clay. You build a fire in the oven and let it burn for a while to heat up the inside of the oven. Then after 30 mins or so, you can take out the fire and put in the food to be cooked. supposedly it is significantly more efficient than a normal stove, and since we have more firewood here than we could ever possibly use, it is way more sustainable too.

Another thing that I have been putting a lot of energy at is building a fireplace for the spa bath. We cleared out an area and concreted a level(ish) base. A couple days ago we started building the walls that are going to enclose it on 3 sides and will also support the vat of water and a chimney.

Here is a picture of the vat and the bricks that we have laid so far. We still have a couple more courses to add on, but it is surprisingly sturdy so far considering I was leading the charge for the day and I have never done this before.

Anyway, the vat will sit on top and we will plug up the holes except for a chimney in the back. Then we can have a fire underneath the vat and heat up the water which will then be gravity fed down to where the bath is.

PS, I was up early this morning and caught a beautiful sunrise that I thought I'd share.

Best Birthday Surprise Ever!

2010-02-28T02:57:00.000-05:00

On the 22nd of February, a new volunteer, Liz, was supposed to arrive from England. Then when late afternoon rolled around and Jon came back with the new vol, I took a peek outside to see what she looked like. By golly, she looked a whole lot like Nicole!
Everyone did a really good job at not letting me on that since October her flight was actually set to leave on the 20th of February and not the 1st of March! Well done. She even came with socks and trousers which were the second, and less important thing that I asked for and received. When I casually said that she should come early I certainly did not expect it.

That night we had some celebrations with homemade pizza and some drinking games. We also had a couple of Jons friends around, Kelly and Julie. It was neat to have some random people hanging out for a couple days.

The Pinnacles

2010-02-28T02:46:00.000-05:00

About a week ago we went to hike the Pinnacles. It is about a 3ish hour hike up to the top where it is a rocky summit with some amazing views. I had the best seat ever on the edge of one of the pinnacles which even had a foot rest. I also explored over to a different pinnacle where there was no track. Don't worry, Mom, it was much safer than it looks.
Check out the picts, they're great.

Zeitgeist

2010-02-16T05:37:00.001-05:00

A few days before we left on our Epic trip, we watched a movie called Zeitgeist. It was interesting enough that I am actually writing about it and I recommend everyone to see it. It is documentary style. The first section is about religion. It goes into a lot of detail about how Christianity is the best story ever told, but thats all it is. there are so many aspects about it that come directly from astronomy and are exactly the same as some other older religions.

Then it has a whole section on 911. They certainly have some pretty convincing evidence for how it actually was an inside job. Not only do they give evidence, but also reasons as to why our government would do that to the public. Mainly to support our "war on terror" and begin to take away our freedoms. How else would the public not be outraged when we just start bombing middle eastern countries and control them and their oil?

Then the third part is about things that I was even more clueless about and that is some of the ways that our government and other institutions work, and our economy. Apparently the federal reserve bank is a private corporation and actually is not controlled by the government. So they lend money to the federal government, at interest. This puts our govt in debt, and so they need to borrow more money from the federal reserve. A terrible endless cycle, especially since money is no longer backed by gold, the reserve can pick and choose when and how much money to release. Our federal income tax that takes so much out of everyone's salary is actually just to repay that debt that the govt owes the reserve. According to the film, this tax is actually unconstitutional and we dont actually have to pay it. This is something that I feel like I should look more into, especially before I get another job (though that might not be for a while)

So there are way more interesting points to this movie and it is really eye opening. There are definitely some things where I wonder how much the makers of this movie have exaggerated or made up facts. I feel that it is truly difficult to find the whole story from one source, and I would be curious to learn more about all this. And that is was it is good for as the message is really stop letting our institutions deeducate us, and that we should do more thinking for ourselves.

One quote from the movie (or quoted in the movie) that was quite interesting to me went something like this: "when people can feel the power of love rather than the love of power, we can truly be at peace."
For those interested, you can watch it online for free:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197#

NZ can kill you?

2010-02-16T05:17:00.001-05:00

So I thought that NZ was completely harmless... but it turns out that there is some stuff here that will hurt you:

Cnetipedes - they live basically all over the place and will sting you. Supposedly they pack a nasty punch.

Sand flies - wont really hurt you, but will bite and leave a mark and itch like a mosquito. Except at the lake where we were camping if you are uncovered at all you get bit constantly. For every 10 seconds that you stand still except to be bitten multiple times.

Wooly Nightshade - This is a pest plant which is actually a tree. Its leaves are all fuzzy and when you move it, the fuzzies brush off and irritate your lungs. Good thing I dont have asthma for when we had a couple days of cutting all the wooly nightshade trees in the valley.

Tree Nettle - This will actually hurt you and has even killed some dogs and horses. It is a tree that is basically covered with hypodermic needles.

We ran into some of this on our hike the morning before we went to the lake. Hannah got a couple stings in her finger and Rich got a whole armful of them. He said it was still stinging days later...

Epic Kayak Trip

2010-02-16T05:02:00.001-05:00

Last week was our week long rec trip. I posted some of the picts on picassa: http://picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan/EpicKayakTrip#

It started off with some paintball for some of us. It was supposed to be a club game but since there was a tournament nearby, only three other people showed up. It was actually sweet with only 7 people playing. It was way easier to keep track of what was going on. Anyway, later that day we met up with everyone else in Rotorua and then headed out to our first campsite way off in the middle of nowhere. The next morning we took a hike, and of course ended up wandering off the trail and getting lost. But we made our way to the river that the campsite was along. I thought the hike was going to be easy so i wore my Teva's, which in the end worked out great, as everyone else tried to stay out of the water and one by one everyone fell in.

Later that day we made our way to Lake Waikaremoana. It is amazing that this huge lake has no houses around it and very few people. We saw only a few other people the whole time. The water is even clean enough to drink.
That first afternoon we got everything packed into the kayaks in the rain, but as soon as we launched it stopped raining. Apparently the lake was 4 feet higher than last time Jon was there, and what was supposed to be our first campsite was underwater. We paddled on and actually made it to what was supposed to be the second nights campsite. This was a sweet place with a big hill and an inlet for swimming and snorkeling. Since we did all the extra paddling, the second day on the lake was just a completely relaxing day with no planned activities... except for celebrating Rich and Hannah's birthdays, which were that day and the day before. We planned on bringing two bottles of liquor, but through a minor miscommunication ended up with two vodka and two rum. It was a bit of a sloppy night, and because of that day three was also a chill day while everyone recovered from their hangovers. The next day though we paddled on and then went for a hike. We went to a new campsite that night. The following day on the way back, we went to a place on the lake where a 50 footish high waterfall is that you can actually paddle behind and through. It was quite a beautiful place. Then the trip ended with a trip to the polynesian spa in Rotorua.

We got back here at about 2am, and the following day I went to pick up the new volunteer, John. We did a weed bash on wild ginger and wooly nightshade. And we've also started getting our own spa bath setup. We've got a big tub set up next to the gazeebo at the house. The past couple days, we've put in some posts and have started framing up a deck to come off the gazeebo and go around the bath. Jon has been busy with some administrative stuff recently, so it has been mostly up to me to plan how we are doing this building. It's quite interesting since I've never really done this before, especially with leading other people to build it. Once its done I'm sure i'll get some photos up.

This whole post might be a little disjointed... this would be because we are all watching Team America right now and I am not so good at blogging and watching at the same time. So, bye for now.