Hello again,
I have now been in Egypt for twelve days. I arrived in Cairo at 1.30am on the 18th December, sixteen sleepless hours after waving goodbye to Korea. My rather naïve plan was to find a bench in the airport to kip on until a reasonable hour, then to head off sightseeing. The consideration that I was coming to the Middle East, and that the airport building would likely be smaller than your average Korean jjimjilbang, hadn't crossed my mind once. So I was left to the touts in the balmy early hours; I relented to being ripped off and caught a taxi to the driver's mate's hotel.
The following day I agreed to an express tour of the Cairo area. I hired a taxi driver for the day and went first to Saqqara – home of the famous Pyramid of Djoser. I was then taken to the driver's mate's papyrus museum (anyone see a pattern emerging?) for 'just look no buy', then to Giza. I hired a camel and guide at the entrance and spent a couple of hours riding around the Pyramids and the Sphinx – constructions that I suspect would be awe-inspiring if they didn't already feel so familiar. Saying that, I had no idea that the Sphinx was carved from a single stone – I had to tip a bloke for telling me that. I decided to go back to the hotel as the noise and tourist traps were stressing me out. Plus the camel ride had seriously bruised my nadgers. I actually spent the next couple of days walking like John Wayne...if someone had kicked John Wayne in the bollocks. As it was the middle of the Eid-el-Kbir festival and all the buses were booked out I was forced to take a ludicrously expensive overnight taxi to Sharm el-Sheikh. I arrived at the hotel at 5.30am and was told I would have to wait until mid-morning for a room. Fortunately the receptionist seemed to resent a dirty, smelly, bearded gypsy asleep in the five-star lobby so sorted me out before the other guests woke up.
I spent my solo day either asleep, ordering room service or watching obscure 80s B-movies. I also considered why I'd had such a miserable day yesterday – the traffic, noise and hassle are certainly no worse than Thamel, yet I couldn't relax all day. The fact I hadn't slept for 48 hours probably didn't help, but I think the main problem was that I hadn't mentally prepared myself. I didn't consider how easy Japan and Korea had been, and I needed to realise that everything in Egypt (besides finding people who spoke English) was going to be tougher. I spent the day giving myself a serious talking to! My parents finally arrived in the evening; it was odd to think that it had been four months since I last saw them, though the stress of the previous day had made the chaos of Nepal feel like an awfully long time ago. Luckily they brought a Cadbury's Selection Box to soothe my bruised backpacker ego.
The next few days were mostly taken up with underwater activities. Mum really got into her snorkelling while dad and I booked into a recreational SCUBA course. It was run by a group of Germans so was suitably detailed and overcautious…we were even lumped with homework (boo!) The course gradually progressed from the swimming pool to confined water, then finally into the Red Sea where the coral is breathtaking. Unfortunately by this stage the instructor and my dad had come to the mutual agreement that he was rubbish, so I did the last two days of the course myself. I finally got my Open Water certification on Boxing Day and I'm already itching to get back to the coast for my first qualified dive. Though diving took up the days we were still able to go out in the evening, either to the extremely tacky Na'ama Bay or to the fractionally less tacky Sharm Old Market. We managed to get some decent food here (I had roast pigeon on the first night!) and on Christmas eve we were treated to a festive dinner at the hotel...namely cold meats, salad and potato croquettes. I even managed to squeeze in a shave and a haircut, though I wish I hadn't; after the normal routine the hairdresser whipped out a long strip of dental floss, held it taut and proceeded to rip the hairs out of my cheeks and forehead by the roots. He even tried to shape my eyebrows but as I already had tears in my eyes, and had a level of resistance to looking like an utter idiot, I managed to dissuade him.
On December 25th we ventured into the desert – first to St. Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai (that one's for you bible fans) then to the Coloured Canyon, where you hike through a narrow passage between the rock, often blocked by ancient fallen boulders for which the guide claims ignorance. The tour stops were beautiful but the jeep was ridiculously uncomfortable and our lunch stop in Nuweiba didn’t come until gone 5pm. It was dark by the time we got to the supposed snorkelling spot of Dahab. The whole day was really the antithesis of the normal British Christmas; instead of frost we had desert; instead of Christmas lunch we were starved; instead of peace and goodwill to all men I was stuck in a confined space with a Frenchman. Dad summed it up concisely: "great sights, shit tour"*. Incidentally, Christmas dinner was a tuna baguette in the hotel at 10pm. As for presents, lots of people had contributed to the fee for my diving course (many many thanks) and I also got some new clothes and trainers, as well as Lonely Planets for the foreseeable future. Exactly what I needed.
On Boxing Day I said goodbye to my parents. It had been really nice to see them over the festive period but I was now ready to start slumming it again (so long as I had the Egypt guide nestled comfortably at my side). I stayed for an evening in Old Sharm with couchsurfer Jay, who I will hopefully dive with when I return to the area en route to Jordan, and the next morning I jumped on a bus back to Cairo. It cost less than a tenth of the taxi to Sharm. The bus was surprisingly comfortable and the journey pretty uneventful until twenty minutes after the brief lunch stop, when the driver got a call saying he'd left somebody behind. He did an immediate U-turn but as soon as he hit the desert beside the road the bus sank. We spent an hour trying to dig it out with our hands before a tow truck came to our rescue. The bus immediately took another U-turn and we set off for Cairo – never mind the bloke at the lunch stop. We arrived two hours late, despite only having stopped for an hour, and I checked into the hostel. Brown walls, hard beds, the subtle waft of effluent from the unflushable toilet – bliss!
Since then I have been exploring Cairo with some fellow travellers. The Egyptian Museum has some exceptional exhibits, but after three hours you get serious Pharoah phatigue. The museum is a bit of a mess, with exhibits like Tutankhamun's Gold Mask hidden amid some nondescript pottery, but that's part of the charm. The fact that you have to try every room means you find some real unvisited gems, such as a beautiful rock carving from 5000 BC! I have also been to Coptic Cairo, Downtown, Garden City, Midan Ramses, several mosques and (my favourite place) Islamic Cairo. It's no more Islamic than anywhere else in Cairo, but it is absolutely crazy! It houses the notoriously chaotic Khan al-Khalili bazaar – best experienced from a nearby sheesha café. I think if I had been taken here on my first day I would have had a meltdown.
So I'm in Cairo for one more year, then I have an overnight train to Aswan on 1st January. I'll figure out the rest at some stage.
Have a fantastic New Year,
Joe x
PS. I've decided that the most annoying things about Egypt are the computer keyboards – some genius decided to put an ‘off’ button right next to ‘delete’. I’ve accidentally rebooted the computer three times since I started writing this entry. Oops, four...
* Mum, you can't have a go at me for swearing as it's a direct quote from your husband! Never Mind The Bollocks...
Sunday 30 December 2007
Thursday 27 December 2007
Gyeongju & Seoul
Hello,
During my last two weeks in Korea I tried to learn as much as possible about the history of the country. I visited the ancient capital of Gyeongju, which contains a 7th century observatory, an 8th century Shilla temple, a grotto housing a granite Buddha masterpiece and hundreds of Tumuli – large boob-shaped grass burial mounds. I learnt about the Japanese occupation of Korea up to World War II at the medieval Seodaemun prison and, most interestingly, I got to feel the full force of the Korean War at the De-Militarised Zone.
The 'DMZ' is the border between North and South Korea. Whoever named it obviously has a sense of irony, as it is the most heavily fortified border in the world. North and South Korean soldiers stand mere metres apart (both wearing shades and adopting 'ready-for-action' Taekwondo stances) and both face into the North – the Southern troops prepared for invasion and the Northern troops wary of deserters. Occasionally the Northerners turn around to have prolonged stare-offs with their Southern counterparts. There are also watchtowers just over the border where North Korean snipers carefully watch all South Korean tour groups, rifles at the ready. The whole situation felt like a strange mixture of the deadly serious and the comically theatrical. The ridiculous spreads from ground level, where the opposing guards often make faces at one another, to a political level, where there are fierce battles for supremacy; when the South built a sizable government building, the North eclipsed it by adding two storeys to their own; when the South put a large flagpole flying a gigantic flag just on the border, the North built the largest flagpole and flag in the world (the pole is 160m high and the flag weighs over 300kgs). Even the 'third tunnel' – dug by North Korea as an invasion point into the South in the 70s – was slightly silly. It could have let over 30,000 troops an hour across the border, and seriously affected the way the political map of the world appears today, but the fact that the North painted the tunnel black so that on discovery they could claim it was a 2km long disused coal mine makes it slightly absurd.
Alongside the history of this fascinating country, the modern life of everyday people is just as interesting. Unsurprisingly there are many significant cultural differences between Korea and the UK, but there are two examples of modern Korean life that appear particularly alien. The first is the concept of family. With very few exceptions, Koreans live with their parents until marriage. Family weddings also have to take place in descending order – so the eldest child must marry first, then the second eldest and so forth. However, this proves to be a big problem as the eldest is also expected to take in and care for his/her parents in old age, so is often undesirable to marry. And if they don’t marry, nor do their younger siblings. The second unusual tradition concerns age. When a child is born he/she is considered to be one year old. The argument for this is that the gestation period should be accounted for – though this doesn't explain why it is a year and not nine months. On top of this, although birthdays are celebrated people do not get a year older on this date – instead the entire population ages at the strike of midnight on New Year's Day. Consequently, a baby born today will be two years old within a week. This also means a Koreans have a dual age - one worked out by their system and one worked out by the Western system - and both are legally accurate. How many people in England wish they could legitimately claim to be eighteen at sixteen, or thirty-eight at forty?
A summary of my final two weeks in Korea. After I last posted I spent a few more days in Busan (including a night in a transvestite bar called 'Don’t Tell Mama'), two days in Gyeongju and six days in Seoul. I spent the first few in a youth hostel (before staying with couchsurfer John) and realised it was the first time I’d slept in a bed since Nagasaki. It was very refreshing to meet lots of fellow travelers – I went sightseeing with a Canadian woman, Christmas shopping with an Australian girl and ice-skating with a bloke from Scunthorpe. As a side note, my introduction to the Aussie wasn’t the classiest; she found me at 7am spread-eagled on the living room floor in nothing but a pair of pants (I had locked myself out of the dorm room). I also met some of the natives; Sojung, the girlfriend of Kenny (see post comments), who was very sweet and an associate of the Orange Guy – I told her to tell him I think his election campaign is awesome – and HyeWon, a girl who contacted me through couchsurfing. We got on really well and ended up spending three evenings together in art galleries, sheesha cafés and live Korean metal bars, where the metal-heads sit on hardback chairs and politely applaud each act. I was also introduced to the delights of Korean porridge and sweet potato tea...the main meal and beverage shared a similar consistency.
Oh, and then I flew to Egypt. But I'll tell you about that in a few days.
Happy holidays,
Joe x
During my last two weeks in Korea I tried to learn as much as possible about the history of the country. I visited the ancient capital of Gyeongju, which contains a 7th century observatory, an 8th century Shilla temple, a grotto housing a granite Buddha masterpiece and hundreds of Tumuli – large boob-shaped grass burial mounds. I learnt about the Japanese occupation of Korea up to World War II at the medieval Seodaemun prison and, most interestingly, I got to feel the full force of the Korean War at the De-Militarised Zone.
The 'DMZ' is the border between North and South Korea. Whoever named it obviously has a sense of irony, as it is the most heavily fortified border in the world. North and South Korean soldiers stand mere metres apart (both wearing shades and adopting 'ready-for-action' Taekwondo stances) and both face into the North – the Southern troops prepared for invasion and the Northern troops wary of deserters. Occasionally the Northerners turn around to have prolonged stare-offs with their Southern counterparts. There are also watchtowers just over the border where North Korean snipers carefully watch all South Korean tour groups, rifles at the ready. The whole situation felt like a strange mixture of the deadly serious and the comically theatrical. The ridiculous spreads from ground level, where the opposing guards often make faces at one another, to a political level, where there are fierce battles for supremacy; when the South built a sizable government building, the North eclipsed it by adding two storeys to their own; when the South put a large flagpole flying a gigantic flag just on the border, the North built the largest flagpole and flag in the world (the pole is 160m high and the flag weighs over 300kgs). Even the 'third tunnel' – dug by North Korea as an invasion point into the South in the 70s – was slightly silly. It could have let over 30,000 troops an hour across the border, and seriously affected the way the political map of the world appears today, but the fact that the North painted the tunnel black so that on discovery they could claim it was a 2km long disused coal mine makes it slightly absurd.
Alongside the history of this fascinating country, the modern life of everyday people is just as interesting. Unsurprisingly there are many significant cultural differences between Korea and the UK, but there are two examples of modern Korean life that appear particularly alien. The first is the concept of family. With very few exceptions, Koreans live with their parents until marriage. Family weddings also have to take place in descending order – so the eldest child must marry first, then the second eldest and so forth. However, this proves to be a big problem as the eldest is also expected to take in and care for his/her parents in old age, so is often undesirable to marry. And if they don’t marry, nor do their younger siblings. The second unusual tradition concerns age. When a child is born he/she is considered to be one year old. The argument for this is that the gestation period should be accounted for – though this doesn't explain why it is a year and not nine months. On top of this, although birthdays are celebrated people do not get a year older on this date – instead the entire population ages at the strike of midnight on New Year's Day. Consequently, a baby born today will be two years old within a week. This also means a Koreans have a dual age - one worked out by their system and one worked out by the Western system - and both are legally accurate. How many people in England wish they could legitimately claim to be eighteen at sixteen, or thirty-eight at forty?
A summary of my final two weeks in Korea. After I last posted I spent a few more days in Busan (including a night in a transvestite bar called 'Don’t Tell Mama'), two days in Gyeongju and six days in Seoul. I spent the first few in a youth hostel (before staying with couchsurfer John) and realised it was the first time I’d slept in a bed since Nagasaki. It was very refreshing to meet lots of fellow travelers – I went sightseeing with a Canadian woman, Christmas shopping with an Australian girl and ice-skating with a bloke from Scunthorpe. As a side note, my introduction to the Aussie wasn’t the classiest; she found me at 7am spread-eagled on the living room floor in nothing but a pair of pants (I had locked myself out of the dorm room). I also met some of the natives; Sojung, the girlfriend of Kenny (see post comments), who was very sweet and an associate of the Orange Guy – I told her to tell him I think his election campaign is awesome – and HyeWon, a girl who contacted me through couchsurfing. We got on really well and ended up spending three evenings together in art galleries, sheesha cafés and live Korean metal bars, where the metal-heads sit on hardback chairs and politely applaud each act. I was also introduced to the delights of Korean porridge and sweet potato tea...the main meal and beverage shared a similar consistency.
Oh, and then I flew to Egypt. But I'll tell you about that in a few days.
Happy holidays,
Joe x
Tuesday 4 December 2007
Busan & Jeju
Hi everyone,
South Korea is brilliant. I have now been here for ten days and I'm having a really good time. I've been couchsurfing with an American called Kevin who seems content for me to stay indefinitely. I'd feel guilty about imposing upon him if I wasn't saving so much money.
I arrived in Busan on the morning of the 24th. The sleeping quarters on the ferry contained the familiar five-foot mattresses so I stayed up all night chatting to a couple of Kiwis. I spent my first day in Busan exploring the subway system, which runs all under the centre of town and is populated with hundreds of black market stalls, and the evening with fellow couchsurfer and genuine Austrian Isa. She introduced me to gimbap (meat, vegetables and rice rolled in seaweed), makgeolli (a milky rice wine) and 'scheisskopf' (a card game that has a rude name in English). We were supposed to meet Kevin in town 'about three-ish' but I hadn't slept since Japan so didn't really fancy it.
Over the next few days I saw most of Busan; Hae-undae, an average beach billed as a 'tropical paradise'; Guemjeong, a beautiful hiking route with panoramic views over the city; Beomeosa, an impressive temple that has been around in one form or another since the 7th century; and Gupo Market, the place to go for all your dogmeat needs. I personally have no problem with eating dog - I can't really see a moral distinction between a dog and a pig - but the conditions that the animals are kept in are appalling. Six-by-six foot cages piled on top of one another, each containing around ten adult dogs. I also visited Hurshimchung, the largest hot spring complex in Asia. It is absolutely huge...there must be over thirty different water baths, inside and out, all themed differently and at different temperatures (I walked past an elderly chap sizzling in 72°c water!) You can even bathe in mud or various fruit juices including cherry, grapefruit and citrus. A Korean man expressed an interest in my naked form and began to defend the comparitive 'smallness' of his nation's menfolk. Although it was an uncomfortable discussion I discovered an interesting fact; all Korean boys are routinely circumcised in late childhood, though the practice has no religious or traditional roots and has only been prevalent for around fifty years. When the man actually took hold of my penis to "show his friend" I made my excuses and left.
On my second night in Busan I went out with Swedish couchsurfer Jonatan to try dogmeat (this was before I went to the market) and jeon (savoury pancakes with spring onions and ridiculously spicy red peppers). We met three middle-aged Korean businessmen and shared our soju (a vodka-like spirit) with them. Despite the fact that they spoke very little English, and we spoke absolutely no Korean, we continued onto a bar. Most of the night's conversation consisted of them trying to correctly pronounce my name (in the end we had to settle on 'Chow') while knocking back soju, berry wine and pitchers of beer. I spent the next couple of nights with Kevin watching crap horror flicks and eating Korean biscuits.
On Wednesday evening I flew to Jeju, a self-governing island off the south coast of Korea. I spent the night in Jeju City in a jjimjilbang, which is a large public bath with mattresses for sleeping, and the next morning I hired a bike to go to Manjunggul. I cycled about five miles before the handlebars started to wobble and slipped out. I had to walk all the way back to bike shop and, as I no longer had time to cycle, asked for my money back and hopped on a bus. Manjunggul is a lava tube - an underground cave formed from a lava flow millennia back. Unfortunately there had been a small collapse so only 400m of the usual 3km was open to the public. I was also surprised to find that visitors were allowed to smoke in the enclosed cavern; it's odd to be in a UNESCO World Heritage Site that smells like a French café. In the evening I returned to Jeju City and had an amazing dinner; a vat of boiling water was placed on my table and I was given different ingredients to drop in - vegetables, noodles, raw pheasant, chicken and octopus...and even Nepalese-style momos! That takes me back!
I decided to stick with the bus system so the next day I climbed Seongsan Ilchulbong, a peninsular ending in a stunning volcanic crater. It is beautiful from ground-level but I wish they offered flights overhead as the aerial photographs look incredible. There was a woman halfway along the walk who tripped UP a step and screamed as though she had fallen over the edge. I wonder if over-reaction is a Korean trait - when I was on the subway in Busan a woman ran up to the train as the doors were closing. She was just too late so started to shriek and punch and kick the side of the train...another one was due in three minutes! I spent Friday evening in Seogwipo (Jeju's only other town) watching a live election campaign. The most prominent candidate is the very cheerful 'Orange Man', so dubbed not because he looks like David Dickinson, but because he sports a bright orange jumper...plus I don't know his real name. The campaign posters show him grinning innanely with a child kissing each cheek. There is even a poster where, as you walk past, his eyes twinkle. He has an enthusiastic entourage, also dressed in bright orange jumpers, who dance for hours on end in the middle of the street, often obstructing cars and pedestrians. If there's one way to win votes...
On Saturday I went SCUBA diving. A small group of us sailed to 'mosquito island' just off the coast of Seogwipo. The dive was quite shallow compared to Okinawa (we only went down to thirty feet) but we saw some really interesting things. On the way out I grabbed onto a rock covered in sharp barnacles and ripped the tips of my fingers to shreds. It was ridiculous how much blood came out of me - it took over two hours to stop, during which time I must have lost at least a pint of the stuff (the rock floor was painted red). I stayed the night in the 2002 World Cup stadium, as the lower floor has been converted into a jjimjilbang.
On Sunday I was up early to go to Hallasan volcano - the highest point in South Korea. I was surprised how little time it took to climb - less than two-and-a-half hours from Seongpanak (750m) to Beongnokdam (1950m). It made me realise how unfit I was when I tackled Ben Nevis a few years back...only another 150m but the ascent took at least twice as long. When I got close to the summit of Hallasan I began to realise why everybody was wearing a thick coat, hat and gloves. I'd previously assumed they were just overreacting like the Japanese (who take trekking poles, down jackets and ice-picks on cross-country hikes) but it was absolutely freezing - I had actual icicles dangling from my hair. The irritating thing was that the visibility was terrible, so the crater lake that is supposed to be the highlight of the hike was nowhere to be seen. On the way down I started to feel quite ill. I had developed a cold a few days before, with an increasingly aggravated cough, and the icicles probably hadn't helped matters. I also wonder whether I picked up an infection from the cuts on my fingers. I caught a bus back to Jeju City and was asleep in my jjimjilbang by 7.30pm. However I woke up several times in the night with a fever. I also went a bit crazy; more than once I sat bolt upright convinced that I had to get up to attend the Rio de Janerio carnival. At one point I actually got out of bed and walked halfway into the communal room before it dawned on me that I probably wasn't in Brazil. I think it was the sheer number of Korean people that threw me.
Yesterday I caught a flight back to Busan and I've spent the time since relaxing and trying to recover. As an aside: I've noticed that I have been whinging about being ill quite a lot - it just seems to have been a theme of the trip for some reason. From now on I shall keep any maladies to myself. So tomorrow I shall visit Gyeongju, the old capital of South Korea.
That's if I'm feeling up to it.
Joe x
PS. Kevin was telling me about an exercise he was doing in his English class today, where the kids had to write a statement about something they like and the reason why. One girl offered "I like kittens because they are cute". Another followed up with "I like puppies because they taste good".
PPS. I thought I should attach some photographs of what I could have seen on Jeju if (1) the rest was open (2) it wasn't December (3) I was taller.
(1) - Manjunggul
(2) - Mt. Hallasan
(3) - Seongsan Ilchulbong
South Korea is brilliant. I have now been here for ten days and I'm having a really good time. I've been couchsurfing with an American called Kevin who seems content for me to stay indefinitely. I'd feel guilty about imposing upon him if I wasn't saving so much money.
I arrived in Busan on the morning of the 24th. The sleeping quarters on the ferry contained the familiar five-foot mattresses so I stayed up all night chatting to a couple of Kiwis. I spent my first day in Busan exploring the subway system, which runs all under the centre of town and is populated with hundreds of black market stalls, and the evening with fellow couchsurfer and genuine Austrian Isa. She introduced me to gimbap (meat, vegetables and rice rolled in seaweed), makgeolli (a milky rice wine) and 'scheisskopf' (a card game that has a rude name in English). We were supposed to meet Kevin in town 'about three-ish' but I hadn't slept since Japan so didn't really fancy it.
Over the next few days I saw most of Busan; Hae-undae, an average beach billed as a 'tropical paradise'; Guemjeong, a beautiful hiking route with panoramic views over the city; Beomeosa, an impressive temple that has been around in one form or another since the 7th century; and Gupo Market, the place to go for all your dogmeat needs. I personally have no problem with eating dog - I can't really see a moral distinction between a dog and a pig - but the conditions that the animals are kept in are appalling. Six-by-six foot cages piled on top of one another, each containing around ten adult dogs. I also visited Hurshimchung, the largest hot spring complex in Asia. It is absolutely huge...there must be over thirty different water baths, inside and out, all themed differently and at different temperatures (I walked past an elderly chap sizzling in 72°c water!) You can even bathe in mud or various fruit juices including cherry, grapefruit and citrus. A Korean man expressed an interest in my naked form and began to defend the comparitive 'smallness' of his nation's menfolk. Although it was an uncomfortable discussion I discovered an interesting fact; all Korean boys are routinely circumcised in late childhood, though the practice has no religious or traditional roots and has only been prevalent for around fifty years. When the man actually took hold of my penis to "show his friend" I made my excuses and left.
On my second night in Busan I went out with Swedish couchsurfer Jonatan to try dogmeat (this was before I went to the market) and jeon (savoury pancakes with spring onions and ridiculously spicy red peppers). We met three middle-aged Korean businessmen and shared our soju (a vodka-like spirit) with them. Despite the fact that they spoke very little English, and we spoke absolutely no Korean, we continued onto a bar. Most of the night's conversation consisted of them trying to correctly pronounce my name (in the end we had to settle on 'Chow') while knocking back soju, berry wine and pitchers of beer. I spent the next couple of nights with Kevin watching crap horror flicks and eating Korean biscuits.
On Wednesday evening I flew to Jeju, a self-governing island off the south coast of Korea. I spent the night in Jeju City in a jjimjilbang, which is a large public bath with mattresses for sleeping, and the next morning I hired a bike to go to Manjunggul. I cycled about five miles before the handlebars started to wobble and slipped out. I had to walk all the way back to bike shop and, as I no longer had time to cycle, asked for my money back and hopped on a bus. Manjunggul is a lava tube - an underground cave formed from a lava flow millennia back. Unfortunately there had been a small collapse so only 400m of the usual 3km was open to the public. I was also surprised to find that visitors were allowed to smoke in the enclosed cavern; it's odd to be in a UNESCO World Heritage Site that smells like a French café. In the evening I returned to Jeju City and had an amazing dinner; a vat of boiling water was placed on my table and I was given different ingredients to drop in - vegetables, noodles, raw pheasant, chicken and octopus...and even Nepalese-style momos! That takes me back!
I decided to stick with the bus system so the next day I climbed Seongsan Ilchulbong, a peninsular ending in a stunning volcanic crater. It is beautiful from ground-level but I wish they offered flights overhead as the aerial photographs look incredible. There was a woman halfway along the walk who tripped UP a step and screamed as though she had fallen over the edge. I wonder if over-reaction is a Korean trait - when I was on the subway in Busan a woman ran up to the train as the doors were closing. She was just too late so started to shriek and punch and kick the side of the train...another one was due in three minutes! I spent Friday evening in Seogwipo (Jeju's only other town) watching a live election campaign. The most prominent candidate is the very cheerful 'Orange Man', so dubbed not because he looks like David Dickinson, but because he sports a bright orange jumper...plus I don't know his real name. The campaign posters show him grinning innanely with a child kissing each cheek. There is even a poster where, as you walk past, his eyes twinkle. He has an enthusiastic entourage, also dressed in bright orange jumpers, who dance for hours on end in the middle of the street, often obstructing cars and pedestrians. If there's one way to win votes...
On Saturday I went SCUBA diving. A small group of us sailed to 'mosquito island' just off the coast of Seogwipo. The dive was quite shallow compared to Okinawa (we only went down to thirty feet) but we saw some really interesting things. On the way out I grabbed onto a rock covered in sharp barnacles and ripped the tips of my fingers to shreds. It was ridiculous how much blood came out of me - it took over two hours to stop, during which time I must have lost at least a pint of the stuff (the rock floor was painted red). I stayed the night in the 2002 World Cup stadium, as the lower floor has been converted into a jjimjilbang.
On Sunday I was up early to go to Hallasan volcano - the highest point in South Korea. I was surprised how little time it took to climb - less than two-and-a-half hours from Seongpanak (750m) to Beongnokdam (1950m). It made me realise how unfit I was when I tackled Ben Nevis a few years back...only another 150m but the ascent took at least twice as long. When I got close to the summit of Hallasan I began to realise why everybody was wearing a thick coat, hat and gloves. I'd previously assumed they were just overreacting like the Japanese (who take trekking poles, down jackets and ice-picks on cross-country hikes) but it was absolutely freezing - I had actual icicles dangling from my hair. The irritating thing was that the visibility was terrible, so the crater lake that is supposed to be the highlight of the hike was nowhere to be seen. On the way down I started to feel quite ill. I had developed a cold a few days before, with an increasingly aggravated cough, and the icicles probably hadn't helped matters. I also wonder whether I picked up an infection from the cuts on my fingers. I caught a bus back to Jeju City and was asleep in my jjimjilbang by 7.30pm. However I woke up several times in the night with a fever. I also went a bit crazy; more than once I sat bolt upright convinced that I had to get up to attend the Rio de Janerio carnival. At one point I actually got out of bed and walked halfway into the communal room before it dawned on me that I probably wasn't in Brazil. I think it was the sheer number of Korean people that threw me.
Yesterday I caught a flight back to Busan and I've spent the time since relaxing and trying to recover. As an aside: I've noticed that I have been whinging about being ill quite a lot - it just seems to have been a theme of the trip for some reason. From now on I shall keep any maladies to myself. So tomorrow I shall visit Gyeongju, the old capital of South Korea.
That's if I'm feeling up to it.
Joe x
PS. Kevin was telling me about an exercise he was doing in his English class today, where the kids had to write a statement about something they like and the reason why. One girl offered "I like kittens because they are cute". Another followed up with "I like puppies because they taste good".
PPS. I thought I should attach some photographs of what I could have seen on Jeju if (1) the rest was open (2) it wasn't December (3) I was taller.
(1) - Manjunggul
(2) - Mt. Hallasan
(3) - Seongsan Ilchulbong
Friday 23 November 2007
Kyūshū
Hello everyone,
Since I last posted I have been slowly making my way up Kyūshū. To save money I've done a little 'couch surfing', where residents of towns and cities offer up their beds/couches/floors/bathtubs to backpackers. As a consequence I have met some great people and have already organised places to stay in South Korea. My sunburn has also developed into increasingly peeling skin; a few days ago I could yank off huge sheets like Clingfilm.
So, some of the highlights of the last eleven days. I think the sand bath in Ibusuki was one of the most unique experiences; you get buried up to the neck on a black sand beach that is naturally hot due to thermal activity below. It's pleasant enough initially but, as an incorrigible fidget, I started to feel quite claustrophobic after about ten minutes, and had to emerge after fifteen. Still, I outlasted several of the locals. The active volcanic island of Sakurajima was also an interesting experience and had a beautiful onsen overlooking the sea.
Kumamoto castle, though a concrete reconstruction, was very nice. In Shimabara I finally managed to try fugu (pufferfish) in the forms of sashimi and tempura and also took a morning hike to Mt. Fuken (1359m) near Unzen. In Nagasaki I stayed in a "guesthouth" (catering to backpackers with speech impediments) and visited some of the many atomic bomb parks, museums and statues. The main museum was similar to Hiroshima but with more personal stories and shocking exhibits, such as a rock with the bones of a human hand fused to it. It also had a gift shop.
On Monday I arrived in Beppu and immediately got into a fracas with an obnoxious English woman. She was in her fifties with broad shoulders and granite features; it was only when she bellowed at the staff that she revealed her softer side – a flap of excess skin that swung hypnotically from her neck. She pushed in front of me in the queue, snatched my Lonely Planet to angrily gesticulate at the non-English speaking staff (though she never attempted any Japanese) and condemned me for enquiring about the local delicacy of wild-boar. I gave her some polite advice along the lines of "you won't get anything done by shouting" then she offered me some advice of her own...though I don’t think I’m that flexible.
In Beppu I stayed alternately with two teachers; Matt and Tyler. They showed me some onsen hotspots (where we bathed with the mafia), took me to some decent eateries and even inducted me into their aikido lesson – I was repeatedly made to surrender by the pint-sized fifty-year-old instructor. Beppu is most famous for its "hells", which are open (very) hot springs that gush from the ground all across town. The most impressive was the red-coloured "Blood Hells", though it looked more like a pool of watery tomato soup.
I spent yesterday with macaques on Mt. Takasaki, and tonight I catch a ferry from Shimonoseki to Busan in South Korea. So, after precisely six weeks, it's goodbye to Japan. In some ways I'm sad and in others I'm not. On my limited journey through the country I have seen some incredibly diverse sights (skyscrapers and temples, mountains and coral reef) but I definitely feel there is more to explore – I'm particularly keen to see the northern island of Hokkaidō, full of hiking trails and ski-resorts. However I am glad to be moving on to a new adventure and now seems like the ideal time with Christmas mania taking hold of Japan. It is a wholly commercial venture here with the traditional Xmas dinner usually eaten at KFC. Mind you, at least the festive songs give some respite from endless Disney tunes (did I ever mention that?), even if they are all played on the glockenspiel. The other thing I won't miss, on the whole, is the general public. That may sound harsh, and I have met some incredibly kind, friendly and hospitable Japanese people on my travels, but as a whole I haven't felt particularly welcomed in this country. There seems to be a general wariness around foreigners – especially outside of the big cities – and I have spent many subway journeys in otherwise packed carriages with the seats either side of me unoccupied. There are also sideways glances and communal murmurs whenever you enter a public place and, unlike the staring of surprised and interested Nepalis, it doesn't always feel particularly friendly. On top of this borderline xenophobia, the lifestyle and attitude of Japan often baffles me. It seems entirely anti-family, with people working ludicrous hours and then heading out on the town with their colleagues. They return home – if at all – in the wee hours, get up at six and start the routine all over again. They get so little sleep that it isn't unusual to be the only person awake on a busy afternoon train. Even the great benefits of Japan, such as the organisation, inevitably come at a price. While transport is always obsessively on time, this means that fumbling over your coins as you pay to exit the bus makes the driver very irate, and God forbid if you take too long carrying your backpack onto a tram. If I had the choice, I'd rather have the occasional delay but maintain a sense of humour.
I hope this doesn't seem an overly downbeat conclusion to Japan, as I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here. I've seen some amazing things and enjoyed some amazing experiences, but I think the main difficulty for me has been the strange mixture of the known and unknown. On the surface Japan is very Westernised, which means you get comfortable and the cultural quirks can take you off guard, rather than somewhere utterly foreign like Nepal where you are constantly prepared for the unexpected. When I return for another trip I shall be much better equipped for this fascinating country.
As for the future, I have three-and-a-half weeks in Korea then I'm flying to Egypt to meet my parents for Christmas. After that I am planning to travel in Israel, catch a ferry to Europe and slowly make my way home through as many countries as I can afford. But then again I might not...my travel plans have a way of changing from day to day. Who mentioned China?
Dōmo arigatō gozaimas,
Joe x
PS. I shall leave you with one more interesting tidbit from Japan. "I have diarrhoea" translates as "Geri o shite imas". Don't ask me how I know that.
Since I last posted I have been slowly making my way up Kyūshū. To save money I've done a little 'couch surfing', where residents of towns and cities offer up their beds/couches/floors/bathtubs to backpackers. As a consequence I have met some great people and have already organised places to stay in South Korea. My sunburn has also developed into increasingly peeling skin; a few days ago I could yank off huge sheets like Clingfilm.
So, some of the highlights of the last eleven days. I think the sand bath in Ibusuki was one of the most unique experiences; you get buried up to the neck on a black sand beach that is naturally hot due to thermal activity below. It's pleasant enough initially but, as an incorrigible fidget, I started to feel quite claustrophobic after about ten minutes, and had to emerge after fifteen. Still, I outlasted several of the locals. The active volcanic island of Sakurajima was also an interesting experience and had a beautiful onsen overlooking the sea.
Kumamoto castle, though a concrete reconstruction, was very nice. In Shimabara I finally managed to try fugu (pufferfish) in the forms of sashimi and tempura and also took a morning hike to Mt. Fuken (1359m) near Unzen. In Nagasaki I stayed in a "guesthouth" (catering to backpackers with speech impediments) and visited some of the many atomic bomb parks, museums and statues. The main museum was similar to Hiroshima but with more personal stories and shocking exhibits, such as a rock with the bones of a human hand fused to it. It also had a gift shop.
On Monday I arrived in Beppu and immediately got into a fracas with an obnoxious English woman. She was in her fifties with broad shoulders and granite features; it was only when she bellowed at the staff that she revealed her softer side – a flap of excess skin that swung hypnotically from her neck. She pushed in front of me in the queue, snatched my Lonely Planet to angrily gesticulate at the non-English speaking staff (though she never attempted any Japanese) and condemned me for enquiring about the local delicacy of wild-boar. I gave her some polite advice along the lines of "you won't get anything done by shouting" then she offered me some advice of her own...though I don’t think I’m that flexible.
In Beppu I stayed alternately with two teachers; Matt and Tyler. They showed me some onsen hotspots (where we bathed with the mafia), took me to some decent eateries and even inducted me into their aikido lesson – I was repeatedly made to surrender by the pint-sized fifty-year-old instructor. Beppu is most famous for its "hells", which are open (very) hot springs that gush from the ground all across town. The most impressive was the red-coloured "Blood Hells", though it looked more like a pool of watery tomato soup.
I spent yesterday with macaques on Mt. Takasaki, and tonight I catch a ferry from Shimonoseki to Busan in South Korea. So, after precisely six weeks, it's goodbye to Japan. In some ways I'm sad and in others I'm not. On my limited journey through the country I have seen some incredibly diverse sights (skyscrapers and temples, mountains and coral reef) but I definitely feel there is more to explore – I'm particularly keen to see the northern island of Hokkaidō, full of hiking trails and ski-resorts. However I am glad to be moving on to a new adventure and now seems like the ideal time with Christmas mania taking hold of Japan. It is a wholly commercial venture here with the traditional Xmas dinner usually eaten at KFC. Mind you, at least the festive songs give some respite from endless Disney tunes (did I ever mention that?), even if they are all played on the glockenspiel. The other thing I won't miss, on the whole, is the general public. That may sound harsh, and I have met some incredibly kind, friendly and hospitable Japanese people on my travels, but as a whole I haven't felt particularly welcomed in this country. There seems to be a general wariness around foreigners – especially outside of the big cities – and I have spent many subway journeys in otherwise packed carriages with the seats either side of me unoccupied. There are also sideways glances and communal murmurs whenever you enter a public place and, unlike the staring of surprised and interested Nepalis, it doesn't always feel particularly friendly. On top of this borderline xenophobia, the lifestyle and attitude of Japan often baffles me. It seems entirely anti-family, with people working ludicrous hours and then heading out on the town with their colleagues. They return home – if at all – in the wee hours, get up at six and start the routine all over again. They get so little sleep that it isn't unusual to be the only person awake on a busy afternoon train. Even the great benefits of Japan, such as the organisation, inevitably come at a price. While transport is always obsessively on time, this means that fumbling over your coins as you pay to exit the bus makes the driver very irate, and God forbid if you take too long carrying your backpack onto a tram. If I had the choice, I'd rather have the occasional delay but maintain a sense of humour.
I hope this doesn't seem an overly downbeat conclusion to Japan, as I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here. I've seen some amazing things and enjoyed some amazing experiences, but I think the main difficulty for me has been the strange mixture of the known and unknown. On the surface Japan is very Westernised, which means you get comfortable and the cultural quirks can take you off guard, rather than somewhere utterly foreign like Nepal where you are constantly prepared for the unexpected. When I return for another trip I shall be much better equipped for this fascinating country.
As for the future, I have three-and-a-half weeks in Korea then I'm flying to Egypt to meet my parents for Christmas. After that I am planning to travel in Israel, catch a ferry to Europe and slowly make my way home through as many countries as I can afford. But then again I might not...my travel plans have a way of changing from day to day. Who mentioned China?
Dōmo arigatō gozaimas,
Joe x
PS. I shall leave you with one more interesting tidbit from Japan. "I have diarrhoea" translates as "Geri o shite imas". Don't ask me how I know that.
Monday 12 November 2007
Okinawa
It has been a fortnight since I last posted, and things could hardly have changed more. My trip has evolved; from temples to tempura, bullet trains to bullet boats, kimonos to clownfish. And, most importantly, from rain to sunshine.
On the day of my last post I left Kyoto for Himeji. The castle is beautiful with much of the original complex still attached. As a five-storey, bright white wooden structure, it appears utterly unlike anything in Europe, but still contains some recognisable features like a moat and drawbridge. I spent a few hours exploring the grounds and, on recommendation, tried a green tea flavoured Häagen-Dazs ice cream. I've since had about twenty. In the evening I caught a shinkansen to Hiroshima. The oddest thing about the bullet train isn't the speed – which is barely perceptible from inside – but the fact that the trolley dolly has to ceremoniously face the aisle and bow every time she enters and exits. Poor woman; our train had about thirty carriages.
In Hiroshima I found an extremely posh hostel, where I got an en-suite room with double bed, satellite television and a coffee machine all for about twelve pounds. No Corby trouser press though. I spent a day in Hiroshima visiting the Peace Memorial Park. The museum gave an account of the events leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb and the after-effects. There were very graphic images of some of the 140,000 victims, with severe burns and flesh dripping off their skin, but I found the most moving exhibits were the more symbolic representations of the event. The exhibit that most affected me was a watch recovered from a victim. There was hardly a scratch on it, but it was stopped forever at 8.15am on August 6th 1945. I was also very ashamed to see a letter from Churchill to Roosevelt suggesting that Japan be considered as the primary target.
After Hiroshima I left the main Japanese island of Honshū and caught a shinkansen to Kyūshū. I checked into a twenty-floor capsule hotel in Hakata with its own restaurant and sento. I saw a few sights, including the largest wooden Buddha in the world and a couple of half-decent art museums, and also spent an afternoon in the cinema (luckily films are subtitled not dubbed in Japan). While I was in Hakata my medication ran out, having failed to cure me, so I went to see a Dutch doctor. He prescribed another colossal pile of pills and sent me on my way.
The next day I caught a sleepless overnight train to Miyazaki where I changed for Shibushi. The tourist board in Hakata had told me that this tiny port town had ferries to Okinawa leaving every day. But at the port I was told that there are only ferries once a week and the most recent left that morning. So, thoroughly annoyed, I caught the three-hour train back to Miyazaki and stayed the night. I caught a bus first thing the following morning to Kagoshima – the port which actually does have regular ferries to the southern islands – and managed to get a place on a boat leaving that evening.
I had chosen the cheapest ticket and when I boarded I was shown to the sleeping quarters. It was a huge floor space completely covered in roll-mats laid end to end. The only other non-Japanese on the ferry were two American guys who had spent two weeks cycling down from Tokyo. I managed to sleep a little in the sitting position, as the mattress was five feet long and I didn't think the woman in front would be happy to sleep with my feet on her shoulders. I had planned to spend a night on Amami-Ōshima but when the call came at 5am I really couldn't be bothered. Instead I got off at the next island of Tokunoshima. The port boasted a tourist information but it had closed the previous year. Luckily, a man who owned a ryokan (inn) in the main town gave me a lift. I spent the day skirting the island on a bus and jumping off whenever the coastline looked interesting.
I also saw the largest butterfly ever. This thing could have carried off a puppy.
The next morning I was back on the boat and headed for Naha, Okinawa. The journey was ten hours and very dull, though I briefly chatted to a Japanese Liaison Officer who had been on exercise in Kagoshima. He told me a nice story about how he had built a radio from scratch when he was thirteen years old and managed to tune into the BBC World Service. The first sounds he heard were the chimes of Big Ben and since that moment he has been desperate to visit London. It was a moving and heartfelt story, but when I asked why he hadn't visited he just said that he "hadn't gotten round to it". Not that desperate then.
The ferry landed at 7.45pm and I headed straight for Naha Youth Hostel. No room. It was the same story at the next two places I tried and so, resigned to my fate, I set up my sleeping bag on a wall by the river. This seemed a good idea for a couple of hours, then it started to tip it down, so I found a sheltered doorway and set up there. It was only when a couple of cyclists stopped to examine me that I realised what I must look like. Despite my tramp-like appearance, I didn't manage to sleep due to unrelenting mosquito attacks. I spent the night wandering around and occasionally trying to kip somewhere (at one stage I just lay down in the middle of a pavement) but never managed more than ten minutes at a time. It was thoroughly miserable. I found the hostel again and waited for it to open at 7am so I could reserve a bed for that night. That was fine but I couldn't check-in until 4pm so I went to see a few sights. I went to the fish market, which had some tropical tasters, then walked a couple of miles to Shuri castle. I rode the monorail (my first unless you count Alton Towers) to a beach on the other side of town and fell asleep by the sea. Later, back at the hostel, I met a couple of Austrians and went for a quick drink before bed. The main alcohol here is awamori, which is similar to sake but much stronger...some older varieties are as high as 120 proof.
The hostel room included a meal so in the morning I ordered a classic 'continental breakfast' (sausage, egg, dressed salad, very salty chips, brioche and green tea) and then headed for Tomari Wharf. I planned to spend the day on nearby Zamami island, home of Furuzamami beach – supposedly the most beautiful in Japan. It was really nice, and I had a clear 200m stretch to myself. I spent all morning and afternoon just lying on the sand and occasionally swimming in the crystal clear sea, with coral and tropical fish clearly visible below me. It was only when I returned to Okinawa in the evening that I realised how ludicrously sunburnt I was. Every time I turned over in my sleep the pain woke me up.
On Friday I slept in very late, then jumped on a bus to the Memorial Peace Park at the south of the island. I changed at Itoman but, as the next bus wasn't for an hour and a half, I went to get some lunch. I seriously think it is the strangest place I have ever been; some kind of isolated community for people with mental illnesses. In a supermarket a woman clouted me on the back, muttered a few words (I'm not even sure it was Japanese) then just stared intensely into my eyes. When I tried to politely move on she blocked my way, never losing eye-contact. I managed to do my shop and make it to the checkout, but she was shadowing me all the way. The checkout lady was already laughing at a nearby cabbage as I approached. Once outside I managed to make a break for it, and found a wall to eat my lunch. However, people kept stopping and merrily chatting to me in Japanese. A group of men with Down's Syndrome sat down either side of me on the wall and began to have a conversation across me, as though I wasn't even there. I went back to the bus terminal but a man told me that the bus for the Peace Park was cancelled, so I just headed back to Naha. Productive day.
On Saturday I went SCUBA diving. I was up at 6am to catch a bus to Chatan, thirty minutes north of Naha. Instructor Chad took me to the port to meet divemaster Otis and we set off on a speedboat bound the Kerama islands. The boat was ridiculously quick, and consequently extremely bumpy, and I just managed to keep my breakfast down. Mind you, a Sausage McMuffin probably wasn't the best preparation. We dropped anchor off the coast of Tokashiki for the first dive. I spent ten minutes practicing snorkelling then got into the dive suit. We descended via the anchor rope to about sixty feet and Chad began to direct me, showing me some interesting fish and coral. It was beautiful but short lived – this dive was more about learning technique and gaining confidence. Otis took the boat to another spot just off Zamami (the spot of my sunburn fiasco) and we prepared for the second dive. This time Chad and I went down with five other Americans and a couple of Japanese girls. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The water was so clear and everything was so colourful. We were right on the seabed, about 80 feet down, and we saw poisonous sea snakes, starfish, parrotfish, clown anemone fish (Nemo), Moorish Idol (Gill) and much much more. Otis took an etch-a-sketch underwater so he could write down everything we were seeing. The dive lasted half an hour, but I could happily have stayed hours longer (the oxygen tank may have disagreed with me). I spent a few hours afterwards seriously contemplating whether to take the four-day diving certification course, but due to the cost I reluctantly decided against it. It is definitely something I'll consider in the future though.
Yesterday I visited some underground bunkers, where hundreds of Okinawan committed mass-suicide. This was during the "Typhoon of Steel", one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two, in which 200,000 civilians (half the population of Okinawa) along with 66,000 Japanese soldiers and 72,000 Americans were killed. In the evening I went to a brilliant buffet restaurant. As raw fish and beef are delicacies in Japan I didn't hesitate to pile them on my plate, along with raw pork and raw chicken. It was only after I polished them off that I noticed people cooking their meat on the barbecues provided. I was wondering what those things were...
Tomorrow I head back to Kagoshima. Oh and I feel fine now, thanks for asking.
Joe x
On the day of my last post I left Kyoto for Himeji. The castle is beautiful with much of the original complex still attached. As a five-storey, bright white wooden structure, it appears utterly unlike anything in Europe, but still contains some recognisable features like a moat and drawbridge. I spent a few hours exploring the grounds and, on recommendation, tried a green tea flavoured Häagen-Dazs ice cream. I've since had about twenty. In the evening I caught a shinkansen to Hiroshima. The oddest thing about the bullet train isn't the speed – which is barely perceptible from inside – but the fact that the trolley dolly has to ceremoniously face the aisle and bow every time she enters and exits. Poor woman; our train had about thirty carriages.
In Hiroshima I found an extremely posh hostel, where I got an en-suite room with double bed, satellite television and a coffee machine all for about twelve pounds. No Corby trouser press though. I spent a day in Hiroshima visiting the Peace Memorial Park. The museum gave an account of the events leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb and the after-effects. There were very graphic images of some of the 140,000 victims, with severe burns and flesh dripping off their skin, but I found the most moving exhibits were the more symbolic representations of the event. The exhibit that most affected me was a watch recovered from a victim. There was hardly a scratch on it, but it was stopped forever at 8.15am on August 6th 1945. I was also very ashamed to see a letter from Churchill to Roosevelt suggesting that Japan be considered as the primary target.
After Hiroshima I left the main Japanese island of Honshū and caught a shinkansen to Kyūshū. I checked into a twenty-floor capsule hotel in Hakata with its own restaurant and sento. I saw a few sights, including the largest wooden Buddha in the world and a couple of half-decent art museums, and also spent an afternoon in the cinema (luckily films are subtitled not dubbed in Japan). While I was in Hakata my medication ran out, having failed to cure me, so I went to see a Dutch doctor. He prescribed another colossal pile of pills and sent me on my way.
The next day I caught a sleepless overnight train to Miyazaki where I changed for Shibushi. The tourist board in Hakata had told me that this tiny port town had ferries to Okinawa leaving every day. But at the port I was told that there are only ferries once a week and the most recent left that morning. So, thoroughly annoyed, I caught the three-hour train back to Miyazaki and stayed the night. I caught a bus first thing the following morning to Kagoshima – the port which actually does have regular ferries to the southern islands – and managed to get a place on a boat leaving that evening.
I had chosen the cheapest ticket and when I boarded I was shown to the sleeping quarters. It was a huge floor space completely covered in roll-mats laid end to end. The only other non-Japanese on the ferry were two American guys who had spent two weeks cycling down from Tokyo. I managed to sleep a little in the sitting position, as the mattress was five feet long and I didn't think the woman in front would be happy to sleep with my feet on her shoulders. I had planned to spend a night on Amami-Ōshima but when the call came at 5am I really couldn't be bothered. Instead I got off at the next island of Tokunoshima. The port boasted a tourist information but it had closed the previous year. Luckily, a man who owned a ryokan (inn) in the main town gave me a lift. I spent the day skirting the island on a bus and jumping off whenever the coastline looked interesting.
I also saw the largest butterfly ever. This thing could have carried off a puppy.
The next morning I was back on the boat and headed for Naha, Okinawa. The journey was ten hours and very dull, though I briefly chatted to a Japanese Liaison Officer who had been on exercise in Kagoshima. He told me a nice story about how he had built a radio from scratch when he was thirteen years old and managed to tune into the BBC World Service. The first sounds he heard were the chimes of Big Ben and since that moment he has been desperate to visit London. It was a moving and heartfelt story, but when I asked why he hadn't visited he just said that he "hadn't gotten round to it". Not that desperate then.
The ferry landed at 7.45pm and I headed straight for Naha Youth Hostel. No room. It was the same story at the next two places I tried and so, resigned to my fate, I set up my sleeping bag on a wall by the river. This seemed a good idea for a couple of hours, then it started to tip it down, so I found a sheltered doorway and set up there. It was only when a couple of cyclists stopped to examine me that I realised what I must look like. Despite my tramp-like appearance, I didn't manage to sleep due to unrelenting mosquito attacks. I spent the night wandering around and occasionally trying to kip somewhere (at one stage I just lay down in the middle of a pavement) but never managed more than ten minutes at a time. It was thoroughly miserable. I found the hostel again and waited for it to open at 7am so I could reserve a bed for that night. That was fine but I couldn't check-in until 4pm so I went to see a few sights. I went to the fish market, which had some tropical tasters, then walked a couple of miles to Shuri castle. I rode the monorail (my first unless you count Alton Towers) to a beach on the other side of town and fell asleep by the sea. Later, back at the hostel, I met a couple of Austrians and went for a quick drink before bed. The main alcohol here is awamori, which is similar to sake but much stronger...some older varieties are as high as 120 proof.
The hostel room included a meal so in the morning I ordered a classic 'continental breakfast' (sausage, egg, dressed salad, very salty chips, brioche and green tea) and then headed for Tomari Wharf. I planned to spend the day on nearby Zamami island, home of Furuzamami beach – supposedly the most beautiful in Japan. It was really nice, and I had a clear 200m stretch to myself. I spent all morning and afternoon just lying on the sand and occasionally swimming in the crystal clear sea, with coral and tropical fish clearly visible below me. It was only when I returned to Okinawa in the evening that I realised how ludicrously sunburnt I was. Every time I turned over in my sleep the pain woke me up.
On Friday I slept in very late, then jumped on a bus to the Memorial Peace Park at the south of the island. I changed at Itoman but, as the next bus wasn't for an hour and a half, I went to get some lunch. I seriously think it is the strangest place I have ever been; some kind of isolated community for people with mental illnesses. In a supermarket a woman clouted me on the back, muttered a few words (I'm not even sure it was Japanese) then just stared intensely into my eyes. When I tried to politely move on she blocked my way, never losing eye-contact. I managed to do my shop and make it to the checkout, but she was shadowing me all the way. The checkout lady was already laughing at a nearby cabbage as I approached. Once outside I managed to make a break for it, and found a wall to eat my lunch. However, people kept stopping and merrily chatting to me in Japanese. A group of men with Down's Syndrome sat down either side of me on the wall and began to have a conversation across me, as though I wasn't even there. I went back to the bus terminal but a man told me that the bus for the Peace Park was cancelled, so I just headed back to Naha. Productive day.
On Saturday I went SCUBA diving. I was up at 6am to catch a bus to Chatan, thirty minutes north of Naha. Instructor Chad took me to the port to meet divemaster Otis and we set off on a speedboat bound the Kerama islands. The boat was ridiculously quick, and consequently extremely bumpy, and I just managed to keep my breakfast down. Mind you, a Sausage McMuffin probably wasn't the best preparation. We dropped anchor off the coast of Tokashiki for the first dive. I spent ten minutes practicing snorkelling then got into the dive suit. We descended via the anchor rope to about sixty feet and Chad began to direct me, showing me some interesting fish and coral. It was beautiful but short lived – this dive was more about learning technique and gaining confidence. Otis took the boat to another spot just off Zamami (the spot of my sunburn fiasco) and we prepared for the second dive. This time Chad and I went down with five other Americans and a couple of Japanese girls. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The water was so clear and everything was so colourful. We were right on the seabed, about 80 feet down, and we saw poisonous sea snakes, starfish, parrotfish, clown anemone fish (Nemo), Moorish Idol (Gill) and much much more. Otis took an etch-a-sketch underwater so he could write down everything we were seeing. The dive lasted half an hour, but I could happily have stayed hours longer (the oxygen tank may have disagreed with me). I spent a few hours afterwards seriously contemplating whether to take the four-day diving certification course, but due to the cost I reluctantly decided against it. It is definitely something I'll consider in the future though.
Yesterday I visited some underground bunkers, where hundreds of Okinawan committed mass-suicide. This was during the "Typhoon of Steel", one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two, in which 200,000 civilians (half the population of Okinawa) along with 66,000 Japanese soldiers and 72,000 Americans were killed. In the evening I went to a brilliant buffet restaurant. As raw fish and beef are delicacies in Japan I didn't hesitate to pile them on my plate, along with raw pork and raw chicken. It was only after I polished them off that I noticed people cooking their meat on the barbecues provided. I was wondering what those things were...
Tomorrow I head back to Kagoshima. Oh and I feel fine now, thanks for asking.
Joe x
Monday 29 October 2007
Kyoto
'lo,
I know it hasn't been long since my last post but I'm off on the road again, and thought an update couldn't do any harm.
So...Kyoto was really nice. The evening after my last post was spent with a German couple and two unrelated Taiwanese people at the hostel. We were all in the lounge/my bedroom, knocking back complimentary sake (at least the first pitcher was complimentary, and then we sort of helped ourselves) and dressing up in the kimono that was enigmatically present. The following morning I relocated to another hostel with an actual bed available for the next three nights.
The two Taiwaneans (?) – Tasha and Ferri – invited me to go to Nara with them for the day. We caught a train to the small town and looked around the many shrines and temples – eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The most impressive is Todai-ji, the largest wooden building in the world containing the largest bronze statue; a sixteen-metre tall, 437-ton Buddha. We also went to a sake brewery and tried different versions of the rice wine, including some fruit-flavoured numbers and even sparkling sake! In the evening we went out for a traditional Japanese meal and I ordered the unfortunately titled "octopus balls".
The next couple of days were very wet, so I spent most of the time in cafés looking artistically melancholy. However, I did manage to visit a few sites – and indeed see a few sights – including the famous Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion Temple) and the Imperial Palace. I also went to a sento (public bath) where you undress in the locker room, take a naked lift up to the third floor and either bathe with the Japanese people staring inquisitively at your genitals, or watch television in the lounge (still in the nip). Bizarre. Apparently there is a sento in Tokyo that's mixed-gender!
The weather was slightly better on Sunday so, having moved back into my original hostel, I spent the day exploring a beautiful area of Kyoto called Arashiyama. There was a little temple called Takiguchi-dera with a real-life Romeo & Juliet tale behind it:
A nobleman was forced into the priesthood by his father after showing an interest in the peasant consort. One day she came to the temple with her flute to serenade him, but he told her they could not be together. She consequently wrote him a farewell sonnet on a stone, in her own blood, and tossed herself into the river.
The stone is still at the temple, and supposedly the blood is visible by moonlight, but the place closes at four so I'm cynical. In the evening, Taiwesian (?) Tasha, Singaporean Chua, two Swedish guys, a Japanese girl and I went out for dinner and drinks. As the others were engrossed in Mandarin and Swedish conversation, I began chatting to the Japanese girl and discovered that she lived in England for ten months – on the road adjacent to me in Bournemouth! Small world.
Yesterday morning I went to the doctors. I have had a perpetual cold since Nepal, which isn't a huge problem, but I have also gradually been losing my hearing, and am now at the point of needing an ear trumpet to hold any kind of conversation. The doc told me that I had contracted some exotic fever and plied me with drugs – fifty pills to last me five days! Afterwards I went to explore Nijo-jo castle and got talking to a German woman called Honne. We spent the afternoon looking at more shrines and temples (the things are endless) and found a stepping-stone path across the river, so ended up having childish races from bank to bank. As it was my and Sam's (Swedish guy) last evening in Kyoto a huge group of us went out to a Japanese bar for the night. I had a bizarre cocktail comprised of half beer and half tomato juice, then we rushed back to the hostel for the 11pm curfew.
So this morning I am catching my first shinkansen to Himeji – home of 'Japan's most beautiful castle' – and on to Hiroshima. The trip should be refreshingly short, as the train travels at around 300km/h*. To put that in perspective, the same technology in England would allow you to travel directly from London to Manchester in under fifty minutes. Or indeed Manchester to London, if you're that way inclined.
I shall post again sometime. In the future. Obviously.
'ye,
Joe x
* There is actually an experimental shinkansen that has reached 581km/h.
I know it hasn't been long since my last post but I'm off on the road again, and thought an update couldn't do any harm.
So...Kyoto was really nice. The evening after my last post was spent with a German couple and two unrelated Taiwanese people at the hostel. We were all in the lounge/my bedroom, knocking back complimentary sake (at least the first pitcher was complimentary, and then we sort of helped ourselves) and dressing up in the kimono that was enigmatically present. The following morning I relocated to another hostel with an actual bed available for the next three nights.
The two Taiwaneans (?) – Tasha and Ferri – invited me to go to Nara with them for the day. We caught a train to the small town and looked around the many shrines and temples – eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The most impressive is Todai-ji, the largest wooden building in the world containing the largest bronze statue; a sixteen-metre tall, 437-ton Buddha. We also went to a sake brewery and tried different versions of the rice wine, including some fruit-flavoured numbers and even sparkling sake! In the evening we went out for a traditional Japanese meal and I ordered the unfortunately titled "octopus balls".
The next couple of days were very wet, so I spent most of the time in cafés looking artistically melancholy. However, I did manage to visit a few sites – and indeed see a few sights – including the famous Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion Temple) and the Imperial Palace. I also went to a sento (public bath) where you undress in the locker room, take a naked lift up to the third floor and either bathe with the Japanese people staring inquisitively at your genitals, or watch television in the lounge (still in the nip). Bizarre. Apparently there is a sento in Tokyo that's mixed-gender!
The weather was slightly better on Sunday so, having moved back into my original hostel, I spent the day exploring a beautiful area of Kyoto called Arashiyama. There was a little temple called Takiguchi-dera with a real-life Romeo & Juliet tale behind it:
A nobleman was forced into the priesthood by his father after showing an interest in the peasant consort. One day she came to the temple with her flute to serenade him, but he told her they could not be together. She consequently wrote him a farewell sonnet on a stone, in her own blood, and tossed herself into the river.
The stone is still at the temple, and supposedly the blood is visible by moonlight, but the place closes at four so I'm cynical. In the evening, Taiwesian (?) Tasha, Singaporean Chua, two Swedish guys, a Japanese girl and I went out for dinner and drinks. As the others were engrossed in Mandarin and Swedish conversation, I began chatting to the Japanese girl and discovered that she lived in England for ten months – on the road adjacent to me in Bournemouth! Small world.
Yesterday morning I went to the doctors. I have had a perpetual cold since Nepal, which isn't a huge problem, but I have also gradually been losing my hearing, and am now at the point of needing an ear trumpet to hold any kind of conversation. The doc told me that I had contracted some exotic fever and plied me with drugs – fifty pills to last me five days! Afterwards I went to explore Nijo-jo castle and got talking to a German woman called Honne. We spent the afternoon looking at more shrines and temples (the things are endless) and found a stepping-stone path across the river, so ended up having childish races from bank to bank. As it was my and Sam's (Swedish guy) last evening in Kyoto a huge group of us went out to a Japanese bar for the night. I had a bizarre cocktail comprised of half beer and half tomato juice, then we rushed back to the hostel for the 11pm curfew.
So this morning I am catching my first shinkansen to Himeji – home of 'Japan's most beautiful castle' – and on to Hiroshima. The trip should be refreshingly short, as the train travels at around 300km/h*. To put that in perspective, the same technology in England would allow you to travel directly from London to Manchester in under fifty minutes. Or indeed Manchester to London, if you're that way inclined.
I shall post again sometime. In the future. Obviously.
'ye,
Joe x
* There is actually an experimental shinkansen that has reached 581km/h.
Wednesday 24 October 2007
Izu-Hanto
Konichiwa,
My baggage did arrive at the capsule hotel on Monday night as promised, but with no padlock keys. I was inches away from cleanliness but it was just out of my grasp. Dirty pants were perfectly acceptable on the Everest trek, when everybody else was in the same situation, but in Tokyo I was simply the smelly white bloke. The keys finally arrived on Wednesday – is it odd that my first instinct was to charge my iPod?
From Tuesday to Friday I stayed at a youth hostel in Iidabashi. For fifteen pounds a night you get a decent-sized bed, forty-seven vending machines, cheap Internet access and great views of the city (as it's on the eighteenth floor of a high-rise). Technology is utilised at every possible occasion, with automatic doors everywhere (even going into the showers), tannoy systems, vibrating chairs in the common room and heated toilet seats with non-touch flush! When you lock the cubicle door a sign lights up requesting that patrons "Do Not Flush Any Unnecessary Things Down The Toilet". So no squeezing then.
Japan is an unusual place. On the surface it is extremely Westernised and seems to idolise America; the national sports are baseball and American football and there are hundreds of American brands, including some that haven't made it in Europe (Wendy's, K-Mart, 7-Eleven, Denny's). Even exclusively Japanese products are marketed using Hollywood film stars (Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz are part of a huge poster campaign for phone company Softbank) and US teen culture is visible on every corner. But once in a while you are reminded that you're in Asia; the beautiful stumble-upon Japanese shrines; the latter-day geishas running to catch a train; the endless bloody rice.
And the people here are amazing. If you enter a coffee shop every member of staff shouts out an indecipherable greeting at you. Everybody bows to you after any brief exchange; the lower the bow, the higher the respect. I got into a bowing contest with a very determined shopkeeper, who was grazing his face on the gravel to express his reverence. The Japanese also do everything they can to help you; if you appear lost for a single moment somebody will pop up to offer their assistance. An elderly gentleman walked me nearly ten minutes out of his way to show me to a museum. It's a shame I'd asked how to get to the train station.
On the other hand there are some real oddities to the Japanese. Firstly, the population is incredibly old, with noticeably more pensioners than young people. So few children are being born that the population of Japan is actually shrinking! The young people you do see are often dressed in a ludicrous fashion. I suppose it is to do with the lack of immigration throughout history, and the consequence that the Japanese are not an especially varied race (almost all are slim, with naturally pale skin, dark eyes and black hair), that they try to stand out from one another as much as possible. But I'm not complaining; a Japanese girl wearing a bright yellow top, black skirt and pink leggings with a blonde bouffant hairstyle certainly cheers you up on the subway.
So anyway; the sightseeing. I was in Tokyo for exactly a week and saw all the big tourist spots, as well as spending a lot of time relaxing in parks and cafes. An interesting urban area was Ikebukuro, which is surely the superlative capital of the world; home of the highest building in Asia, Japan's oldest shrine, the largest car showroom on the planet, the world's highest escalator – not as high as you would expect – and two of the largest department stores on Earth. However, my favourite place was Harajuku, a little suburb with a beautiful woodland shrine (Yoyogi-koen), and which at weekends is home to the Costume Play Gang – a collection of teenagers, most of whom are bullied in school, who dress up in ridiculous clothes and make-up and prance around for the tourists. When I went there on Saturday I saw a few of these kids, but the most interesting exhibitions were a German bloke in a spandex thong and a Japanese man dancing vigorously at his watching girlfriend. In all, I was very surprised how few tourists I saw in Tokyo; there were only a handful of travellers at my youth hostel as most were middle-aged Japanese businessmen (the word ‘youth’ is redefined in this aged population).
I found a place that was showing the Rugby World Cup final at 3.30am on Saturday, so I decided I would not book into a hostel for the night, but simply stay up all night in the pub. After the heartbreaking defeat I caught a three-hour train to Shimoda, a town on the Izu-Hanto peninsular. It was lovely to be by the sea, and I almost instantly fell asleep on the grass in a park. I awoke three hours later and wandered around the coast. I was a little disappointed that there was no natural coastline (everything was concrete) but it was still a nice change from city life. The following day I travelled west to Dogashima – another coastal town with several islands and rock formations visible from the (still concrete) coast. I went to my first onsen (hot springs) which were absolutely boiling, but very refreshing. And yesterday I went back north to an onsen town called Shuzen-ji and bathed in hot springs originally tapped in the 9th century.
At about 1.30pm I decided I could make it to Kyoto in the same day, so booked a train ticket. Rather than opt for the two-hour shinkansen (bullet train) for 10,000 yen, I paid 6,800 yen and spent eight hours on six different trains. It wasn't worth the fifteen quid discount. Anyway, I finally arrived at 9.30pm and went in search of accommodation. Everywhere I tried was fully booked and I had resigned to trawling the streets all night when one hostel told me I could sleep in their living room. I wasn't allowed to kip until midnight, and had to be up by seven, but I agreed whole-heartedly. I spent the evening chatting to other guests (there are loads of other tourists here) until everybody was turfed out and I could set up a mattress on the floor. All the hostels are booked out for tonight as well so I'm doing the same again.
This morning I went to a place boasting an English breakfast – toast, scrambled egg, bacon, sausage and pasta-salad (?) – then went to visit the northeast part of the city with several different shrines and temples. I met some American tourists and ended up spending a (perfectly innocent) half-hour with some Japanese schoolgirls. I'm now back at the hostel, doing some laundry and deciding what shall be on the agenda for this evening. I still need to try fugu...
Sayonara,
Joe x
My baggage did arrive at the capsule hotel on Monday night as promised, but with no padlock keys. I was inches away from cleanliness but it was just out of my grasp. Dirty pants were perfectly acceptable on the Everest trek, when everybody else was in the same situation, but in Tokyo I was simply the smelly white bloke. The keys finally arrived on Wednesday – is it odd that my first instinct was to charge my iPod?
From Tuesday to Friday I stayed at a youth hostel in Iidabashi. For fifteen pounds a night you get a decent-sized bed, forty-seven vending machines, cheap Internet access and great views of the city (as it's on the eighteenth floor of a high-rise). Technology is utilised at every possible occasion, with automatic doors everywhere (even going into the showers), tannoy systems, vibrating chairs in the common room and heated toilet seats with non-touch flush! When you lock the cubicle door a sign lights up requesting that patrons "Do Not Flush Any Unnecessary Things Down The Toilet". So no squeezing then.
Japan is an unusual place. On the surface it is extremely Westernised and seems to idolise America; the national sports are baseball and American football and there are hundreds of American brands, including some that haven't made it in Europe (Wendy's, K-Mart, 7-Eleven, Denny's). Even exclusively Japanese products are marketed using Hollywood film stars (Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz are part of a huge poster campaign for phone company Softbank) and US teen culture is visible on every corner. But once in a while you are reminded that you're in Asia; the beautiful stumble-upon Japanese shrines; the latter-day geishas running to catch a train; the endless bloody rice.
And the people here are amazing. If you enter a coffee shop every member of staff shouts out an indecipherable greeting at you. Everybody bows to you after any brief exchange; the lower the bow, the higher the respect. I got into a bowing contest with a very determined shopkeeper, who was grazing his face on the gravel to express his reverence. The Japanese also do everything they can to help you; if you appear lost for a single moment somebody will pop up to offer their assistance. An elderly gentleman walked me nearly ten minutes out of his way to show me to a museum. It's a shame I'd asked how to get to the train station.
On the other hand there are some real oddities to the Japanese. Firstly, the population is incredibly old, with noticeably more pensioners than young people. So few children are being born that the population of Japan is actually shrinking! The young people you do see are often dressed in a ludicrous fashion. I suppose it is to do with the lack of immigration throughout history, and the consequence that the Japanese are not an especially varied race (almost all are slim, with naturally pale skin, dark eyes and black hair), that they try to stand out from one another as much as possible. But I'm not complaining; a Japanese girl wearing a bright yellow top, black skirt and pink leggings with a blonde bouffant hairstyle certainly cheers you up on the subway.
So anyway; the sightseeing. I was in Tokyo for exactly a week and saw all the big tourist spots, as well as spending a lot of time relaxing in parks and cafes. An interesting urban area was Ikebukuro, which is surely the superlative capital of the world; home of the highest building in Asia, Japan's oldest shrine, the largest car showroom on the planet, the world's highest escalator – not as high as you would expect – and two of the largest department stores on Earth. However, my favourite place was Harajuku, a little suburb with a beautiful woodland shrine (Yoyogi-koen), and which at weekends is home to the Costume Play Gang – a collection of teenagers, most of whom are bullied in school, who dress up in ridiculous clothes and make-up and prance around for the tourists. When I went there on Saturday I saw a few of these kids, but the most interesting exhibitions were a German bloke in a spandex thong and a Japanese man dancing vigorously at his watching girlfriend. In all, I was very surprised how few tourists I saw in Tokyo; there were only a handful of travellers at my youth hostel as most were middle-aged Japanese businessmen (the word ‘youth’ is redefined in this aged population).
I found a place that was showing the Rugby World Cup final at 3.30am on Saturday, so I decided I would not book into a hostel for the night, but simply stay up all night in the pub. After the heartbreaking defeat I caught a three-hour train to Shimoda, a town on the Izu-Hanto peninsular. It was lovely to be by the sea, and I almost instantly fell asleep on the grass in a park. I awoke three hours later and wandered around the coast. I was a little disappointed that there was no natural coastline (everything was concrete) but it was still a nice change from city life. The following day I travelled west to Dogashima – another coastal town with several islands and rock formations visible from the (still concrete) coast. I went to my first onsen (hot springs) which were absolutely boiling, but very refreshing. And yesterday I went back north to an onsen town called Shuzen-ji and bathed in hot springs originally tapped in the 9th century.
At about 1.30pm I decided I could make it to Kyoto in the same day, so booked a train ticket. Rather than opt for the two-hour shinkansen (bullet train) for 10,000 yen, I paid 6,800 yen and spent eight hours on six different trains. It wasn't worth the fifteen quid discount. Anyway, I finally arrived at 9.30pm and went in search of accommodation. Everywhere I tried was fully booked and I had resigned to trawling the streets all night when one hostel told me I could sleep in their living room. I wasn't allowed to kip until midnight, and had to be up by seven, but I agreed whole-heartedly. I spent the evening chatting to other guests (there are loads of other tourists here) until everybody was turfed out and I could set up a mattress on the floor. All the hostels are booked out for tonight as well so I'm doing the same again.
This morning I went to a place boasting an English breakfast – toast, scrambled egg, bacon, sausage and pasta-salad (?) – then went to visit the northeast part of the city with several different shrines and temples. I met some American tourists and ended up spending a (perfectly innocent) half-hour with some Japanese schoolgirls. I'm now back at the hostel, doing some laundry and deciding what shall be on the agenda for this evening. I still need to try fugu...
Sayonara,
Joe x
Monday 15 October 2007
Tokyo
Hello everyone,
Just a quick note on Nepalese productivity. First, I nearly didn't leave Kathmandu as my travel agent had failed to confirm my flight (despite leaving him my passport on Tuesday). It was only through a lot of shouting and pleading with the manager that they got me on - I was lucky that they had a spare seat. I had a four-hour flight to Guangzhou (China) and when I arrived it became clear that my baggage hadn't left Kathmandu. They gave me a number to call them from Japan and bundled me off on my second flight. It was only when I got to the gate that I realised the flight was for Tokyo. My travel agent had booked the wrong bloody destination.
I was tired - what the hell, let's go to Tokyo!
I arrived, baggageless, in the early afternoon and (following the advice of the infallible Lonely Planet) went to a capsule hotel in an area called Ueno. I booked in and went to sleep, having not done so for a long time. The capsule is basically a space saving idea - little beds inside pods that are stacked on top of one another and mainly used by businessmen. No other tourists here.
Yesterday I woke up in my undersized capsule and went for a hot power-shower. It was amazing. As I was drying myself I noticed a cryptic sign on the hairdryer which read "Not to be used for the other purpose". I also went to the centre of Tokyo and looked around. The first thing that struck me was how clean and quiet everything was. Even the cars don't seem to make any noise. I heard one car horn the whole day (in the taxi from Thamel to Kathmandu airport, at 8.30pm, I heard at least two hundred). Also I saw my first skyscrapers - everything looks huge here; even the McDonalds is across seven floors. I wandered around the Royal Palace Gardens and went to the Sony Centre, which has previews of their super-hi-tech upcoming products (there's a Sony Vaio hard drive which wirelessly links to your TV so it also becomes your computer!) I went for lunch at a little noodle place and noticed something called 'Cora' on the drinks menu. I asked what it was and the woman looked at me, utterly perplexed, and said: "You know, Coca-cora". Ah, stereotypes! I went to the toilet and was unzipping my trousers when I noticed I was standing over the sink - everything is so low here!
For dinner I had an 'unagi bento', fried eel on a bed of rice. It was very nice. I wandered the streets looking for another tourist but there aren't any. All of the locals were sitting in the amusement centres pumping endless coins into the machines. The lights are so bright here it felt like you were walking around during the day. I didn't find a pub (only restaurants) so went back to my little capsule to sleep.
Today I woke up and finally got through to China South baggage people. I had tried from every phonebox I found yesterday, but nobody ever picked up. My stuff is being delivered to my hostel tonight - which means I have to stay in Ueno again. I was hoping to go somewhere else with people I can actually converse with. Never mind - one night then I'll try to make some friends. Later on I'll go to visit Shinjuku; the ultra-modern Tokyo that you see on posters.
That's it for now.
Joe x
Just a quick note on Nepalese productivity. First, I nearly didn't leave Kathmandu as my travel agent had failed to confirm my flight (despite leaving him my passport on Tuesday). It was only through a lot of shouting and pleading with the manager that they got me on - I was lucky that they had a spare seat. I had a four-hour flight to Guangzhou (China) and when I arrived it became clear that my baggage hadn't left Kathmandu. They gave me a number to call them from Japan and bundled me off on my second flight. It was only when I got to the gate that I realised the flight was for Tokyo. My travel agent had booked the wrong bloody destination.
I was tired - what the hell, let's go to Tokyo!
I arrived, baggageless, in the early afternoon and (following the advice of the infallible Lonely Planet) went to a capsule hotel in an area called Ueno. I booked in and went to sleep, having not done so for a long time. The capsule is basically a space saving idea - little beds inside pods that are stacked on top of one another and mainly used by businessmen. No other tourists here.
Yesterday I woke up in my undersized capsule and went for a hot power-shower. It was amazing. As I was drying myself I noticed a cryptic sign on the hairdryer which read "Not to be used for the other purpose". I also went to the centre of Tokyo and looked around. The first thing that struck me was how clean and quiet everything was. Even the cars don't seem to make any noise. I heard one car horn the whole day (in the taxi from Thamel to Kathmandu airport, at 8.30pm, I heard at least two hundred). Also I saw my first skyscrapers - everything looks huge here; even the McDonalds is across seven floors. I wandered around the Royal Palace Gardens and went to the Sony Centre, which has previews of their super-hi-tech upcoming products (there's a Sony Vaio hard drive which wirelessly links to your TV so it also becomes your computer!) I went for lunch at a little noodle place and noticed something called 'Cora' on the drinks menu. I asked what it was and the woman looked at me, utterly perplexed, and said: "You know, Coca-cora". Ah, stereotypes! I went to the toilet and was unzipping my trousers when I noticed I was standing over the sink - everything is so low here!
For dinner I had an 'unagi bento', fried eel on a bed of rice. It was very nice. I wandered the streets looking for another tourist but there aren't any. All of the locals were sitting in the amusement centres pumping endless coins into the machines. The lights are so bright here it felt like you were walking around during the day. I didn't find a pub (only restaurants) so went back to my little capsule to sleep.
Today I woke up and finally got through to China South baggage people. I had tried from every phonebox I found yesterday, but nobody ever picked up. My stuff is being delivered to my hostel tonight - which means I have to stay in Ueno again. I was hoping to go somewhere else with people I can actually converse with. Never mind - one night then I'll try to make some friends. Later on I'll go to visit Shinjuku; the ultra-modern Tokyo that you see on posters.
That's it for now.
Joe x
Thursday 11 October 2007
Everest
Hello everyone,
The following are extracts from my journal, written either on the evening of each day or on the morning after. A semi-detailed map of the trek is available here (open in new window). The details and measurements here come from a larger and more accurate map.
Day 1: Kathmandu to Monjo (1355m-2835m)
Woke up at 4.30am this morning. Caught a taxi to the airport with Lucyna and Marian and met up with the American family; Mark, Laura and Aubrey. Within thirty minutes we were sitting on a rickety twenty-seater biplane and headed for the Himalayas. The scenery was truly incredible and the stewardess was beautiful, so all in all a very nice flight. We came into land at Lukla (2840m) on a worryingly short uphill runway – the plane has to cut its engines as soon as it lands and make a handbrake turn at the end. We headed straight for breakfast at a German bakery and got chatting to an American father and son – Jerry and Evan – and an Italian bloke – unsurprisingly named Guiseppe. We had a gentle two-hour hike to Phakding and a leisurely lunch; this consists of incredibly fresh ingredients (they actually pick them from the garden to order) so takes quite a while. We continued our trek after lunch, passing increasingly impressive waterfalls, and finally arrived in Monjo (2835m – we’d lost five metres!) Evan tried to teach me how to play cribbage for two hours then gave up and went to bed. I had decided yesterday not to pack my sleeping bag, as it’s too heavy to carry, but immediately regretted the decision with a cold and restless night.
Just realised I left my sunglasses in the permit office. Bugger.
Day 2: Monjo to Namche Bazar (2835m-3440m)
It was a difficult day today, but thankfully quite short. We left late at 9.15am and only trekked for three hours, but it was really tough going. From Monjo we dropped over 150m, crossed a long, high suspension bridge over river rapids, then climbed a very steep 750m. Namche Bazar is, well, bizarre – an odd kind of mini-town at 3440m, complete with supermarkets, banks and Internet access. We arrived about 12.30pm on the outskirts and had a drink. I left without paying and the poor café owner had to chase me up a very steep climb for his 150 rupees. I’ve developed a habit of forgetting to pay for drinks in Nepal that could get me in a lot of trouble. When we arrived we had lunch and did a little shopping. I bought a cool bandana and North Fake cap (I left my normal cap in Kathmandu) and enquired about hiring a sleeping bag. At close to 90 pence per day, I decided to brave the trek without one. Well, I’m British aren’t I?
After dinner Evan, Guiseppe, Lucy and I went to a pool bar. The guy had to open it specially, which made us feel guilty when we played one game, without even buying drinks, and felt the need to head to bed. We’re not even going anywhere tomorrow.
Slept in my down jacket and three pairs of trousers.
Day 3: Namche Bazar Acclimatization Day (3440m)
On acclimatization days, the general idea is to climb a certain height (somewhere around 500m) to prepare your body for what is to come, then descend again to sleep. However, when we woke up at 6.30 it was tipping it down, so we went back to bed for an hour. After another eggy breakfast (not sure how many more eggs I can take – I might get daalbhat tomorrow) we set off up the mountain to Khumjung. I was arsing around with different breathing techniques and consequently strained my chest. On the way down I saw a very obese woman waddling up the hill. God knows how she got so high; mind over matter I guess (she must have one hell of a mind). I also saw several yaks grazing; the yaks here are half-breeds – part yak and part cow – but they bleat like sheep. If cows are Gods, why aren’t these yaks Demigods? Spent the evening talking and playing cards then headed to bed.
Day 4: Namche Bazar to Mong (3440m-3973m)
Up at 6am with the intention of an early start, but it was clouded with fog and tipping it down. We sat around drinking milk tea until about 10.30 then decided we would just have to get wet. We said goodbye to Guiseppe as he was waiting for his girlfriend to join him and headed off. After the initial climb out of Namche we hit a flat, easygoing jaunt along the mountainside. The views were stunning (we could see the suspension bridge we crossed on day two far below us) but it was raining too heavily to take out the camera. Once we reached Kyangjuma we had to set off in the direction of Gokyo, as a falling boulder destroyed the bridge between Kyangjuma and the amazingly named Phunki Tenga. The walk from here was tough, wet and miserable, along rocky paths that dipped up and down. I finally arrived at Mong, the agreed lunch stop, and they lit a fire for us to dry our clothes. We ate eggs and waited for the American family to arrive. Our plans of continuing to Phortse were scuppered when the family arrived at nearly 4pm (over two hours after the rest of us) and the fog had returned in spades. We had no choice but to take a room in the smelly, shabby hostel and we'll just have walk hard tomorrow.
Day 5: Mong to Dingboche (3973m-4410m)
Today seemed to go on forever. Up at 5.15am and gone by 6.30 (girls). We left the American family in Mong as we were going all the way to Dingboche and they (rather sensibly) didn’t want to go so far in one day. So we set off, initially descending 300m to Phortse Tenge, then ascending 150m to Phortse. We weaved up and down for two hours to Pangboche. Everybody stopped for lunch but it was too early for me (barely 10am) so after a cup of tea I set off. A Nepali man informed me it was four hours to Dingboche, and I made it in two. My legs felt really strong and I’ve really got to grips with my breathing; Jerry showed me a cough to shift the layer of carbon dioxide that settles on your lungs. The others arrived around an hour after me and we decided to climb to the highest lodge in the village to acclimatize. I didn’t eat lunch and really struggled to finish my dinner, but I made myself as I knew that loss of appetite is a sign of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness).
I’ve just been given a cup of tea in a mug that reads ‘Hao aer you?’
Day 6: Dingboche Acclimatization Day (4410m)
Lucy, Marian and Evan went for a long hike today, but Jerry and I thought we’d relax in the morning and climb to the top of the hill overlooking Pheriche in the afternoon. I say ‘hill’ as my sense of perspective has changed slightly – it’s well over three times the height of Ben Nevis, there just isn’t any snow. The others returned from their walk in the late afternoon and Lucy was feeling rough. In the evening, three Americans arrived with news that our American family have descended as Laura was unwell. I’m starting to feel pretty grimy, so paid for a small bowl of lukewarm water to dab at the necessaries before bed.
Day 7: Dingboche to Dhukla (4410m-4620m)
Lucy still isn’t well. We decided that the 500m climb to Lobuche is silly today if we’re not all feeling 100%, so instead we set off at 11.30am for Dhukla (less than halfway). It was a beautiful walk – there was mist everywhere and you could barely see what was happening ten feet in front of you, but it was so refreshing. Very Scottish. We also passed some yak herder huts, which consist of four walls of precariously balanced rocks. We arrived by 1pm and spent the rest of the day playing cards with two German guys called Janko and Karsten. Although I wasn’t especially tired, we were kicked out of the communal room at 8pm so the Sherpas could get their kip.
Day 8: Dhukla to Lobuche (4620m-4910m)
Today it was Evan’s turn to feel ill. We woke up early, but as it was snowing we hung around for a while. Incidentally, while the snowfall was pretty minimal, it was the first time I had seen such incredibly defined snowflakes. We finally set off about 11am and arrived in Lobuche little after 12pm – our shortest day yet! I arrived fifteen minutes before everybody else; compared to my pathetic first few days I am flying now...I just hope it lasts. We found the only accommodation with space, which is constantly stunk out by the toilet or by plastic burning on the stove – I spent the evening with my head out of the window like a dog. It’s odd to see so many other trekkers around – we’ve obviously passed others while trekking but never shared a lodge with more than a few other people. One of the groups – a joint Malaysian and Chinese outfit – randomly began to sing traditional songs in the evening. It was really pleasant and left me with a big grin on my face, but everybody else was trying to ignore them. One of the songs reminded me of Auld Land Syne, which reminded me of Christmas, which reminded me of Christmas dinner; turkey, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, the obligatory Brussels sprout, stuffing, gravy – at which point I was interrupted by a boy plonking a plate of runny egg and half-cooked potatoes in front of me. Oh well.
As a side note, one of the Chinese men began a passionate rendition from the Chinese score of The Phantom of The Opera, complete with increasingly emphatic gestures, and his poor wife had to keep ducking out the way of his flailing extremities. She timed her dodges perfectly – it obviously wasn’t their first time.
Day 9: Lobuche to Everest Base Camp...nearly (4910m-approx. 5250m)
It was my turn to be ill today. We left a snow-covered Lobuche at 7.30am. I felt really rough and pathetically weak – it took me over two-and-a-half hours to get to Gorak Shep (5140m), twice as long as I had anticipated. I managed half a bowl of chicken soup (sans le chicken) before we set off for Everest Base Camp. Big mistake. I struggled slowly on for an hour before realising that I was less than halfway there, and would die trying. The Nepalese clearly never got to grips with the term ‘base’. I was showing signs of severe AMS (loss of appetite, headache, nausea, dizziness, walking drunkenly with no kebab in hand) and knew I needed to descend. However, I blacked out and descended a lot quicker than I had intended. I fell from the path for about twenty metres before managing to wrap myself around a rock. I initially found it very funny, but when I tried to move and simply slipped further, I started to panic. I was on a scree slope (broken rock with no attachment to solid mountain) so had absolutely no grip. When I grabbed a large rock, it simply came out and went crashing down the mountainside. I decided I would have to descend onto the glacier below and started to do so (with very little control over how far I was slipping), but finally spotted some solid rocks that I managed to clamber over. Finally, after half an hour, and with only a twisted knee and a swollen ankle to show for my ordeal, I made it back to the path. The adrenaline left me and the illness returned with a vengeance. I staggered back to the teahouse in Gorak Shep and went to straight to bed. I slept a little and awoke to discover that Mark had arrived. Laura and Aubrey had returned to Kathmandu but he had climbed back up from Namche in record time (and with no acclimatization) to meet us. Everybody else returned from Base Camp feeling sick, especially Lucy. Mark shared a room with me and kept me awake with his ridiculously loud snoring. Interestingly, he sounds just like my dad. Why don’t people snore with an accent?
Day 10: Gorak Shep to Dhukla (5140m-4620m)
Woke up at 4.30am and popped outside to fill up my water bottle. I stopped in my tracks at the stunning view. It was dark, clear and silent, and the moon and stars lit up the mountain range. It was one of the most serene moments of my life. We set off up to Kala Patthar at 5am and I was feeling ill again. Kala Patthar is a peak with clear views of Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse (most shots of these mountains are taken from this peak), and we planned to get to the top for sunrise. I was really struggling but wanted to get a good view of the mountains and at least get higher than Base Camp. I managed around 5400m (Base Camp is 5360m) and some amazing views of Everest before I had to turn around. Although it would have been nice to get to Base Camp, I managed to get to the same height, which is really the only claim that Base Camp offers you (being many miles from Everest itself). And I did it all without a sleeping bag! Lucy also turned back and when the rest returned we decided that we desperately needed to descend. We all went down to Lobuche, where we said goodbye to Jerry and Evan. They wanted to go to Gokyo as planned, but we had considered that crossing the Cho La Pass (which required two days above 5300m) wasn’t plausible in our conditions. Instead we descended all the way to Dhukla and slept there. Superman Mark went from Kala Patthar to Base Camp, then arrived in Dhukla in the early evening. Just in time to keep me awake with his bloody snoring!
Day 11: Dhukla to Pangboche (4620m-3930m)
Woke up at 6.30am feeling much better. Lucy was also feeling better so we set off at 9, aiming for Pangboche. I steamed ahead, feeling really good, and stopped to wait for the others in Pheriche (4270m). I ordered tea in a guesthouse and sat in the garden. I got chatting to the owner and soon discovered that it was his family home, and not a guesthouse at all. I apologised but he was really sweet, and gave me some Hobnobs (!) with my tea. It turns out that he owns the lodge we stayed in at Gorak Shep. The others caught up – Marian was now feeling ill – and we commenced down past Orsho and Shomore to Pangboche. We found a great teahouse with Western toilets and sinks to wash in. Compared to the last week or so it was like a 5 star resort. There are also great views of Ama Dablam, which was obscured by cloud on the way up. It’s the most beautiful mountain, with a huge slab of ice on one face that looks ready to avalanche at any minute. Marian spent the rest of the day throwing up and Mark spent it snoring. I couldn’t sleep again so went for a midnight walk. I tripped over a Buddhist chorten in the dark and narrowly avoided falling off the path again.
Day 12: Pangboche to Tengboche (3930m-3860m)
Mark left for Namche Bazar about 8.30am as he plans to join his family in Kathmandu the day after next. I spent the morning washing and experimenting with bandana techniques that appeared unfailingly ridiculous. My head is simply too big for such an average-sized piece of cloth. My ginger mess of a beard is quite long now as well so I look like a hippy – I think I’ll go for a shave when I get back to civilisation. We left late in the morning with the aim to go to Tengboche – we were reliably informed that the bridge between Phunki Tenga (such a cool name) and Khumjung was repaired. I steamed ahead again. My knee was troubling me, the blisters on the balls of my feet (which had developed on descent) were painful and my left ankle kept inexplicably collapsing, but I was enjoying this new, untrodden route. It was nice to go through the forest for a change, and the views of Everest and Ama Dablam were superb. Whoever said that coming downhill was more difficult than going up was an idiot. It can be painful (especially if you fall down) but I know which one I’d choose. Perhaps they meant with regards to concentration; apparently nearly 10% of people who make it to the Everest summit don’t make it back down again.
In Tengboche I fell in love with a mountain called Thamserku, which was visible high above our lodge. In the afternoon we went to visit a Buddhist Monastery – the largest gompa in Nepal and the highest in the world – where they had an hour’s chanting. It was very relaxing, but I think my monks in Baneshwor are better chanters (perhaps I could arrange a chant-off). In the evening I had a ‘Mars Pie’ – a melted Mars Bar in pastry – and felt very sick. I spent the evening tolerating the conversation of two strange Yorkshiremen called Richard (that’s both of them) who told me all about their amateur dramatics society. Incidentally, Richard 1 began the conversation in your average, civilised way – he leaned over my shoulder while I was writing some private notes and began reciting them out loud.
Day 13: Tengboche to Namche Bazar (3860m-3440m)
Got up at an extremely leisurely 8.15am today. I walked down a very long steep slope to Phunki Tenga (finally!) It’s a tough climb and made me glad we’d come the other way – though perhaps I’m forgetting how tough Kyangjuma to Mong was. Had a quick coffee in Phunki – bit of a non-event but an essential stop – then continued down the hill. I saw a girl walking up with her back bent awkwardly over and advised her to “stand up straight, you’ve got a long way to go”. It was only afterwards that I realised what a cruel thing that was to say – I’m sure if she had the energy she would have thumped me! I crossed the new, temporary wooden bridge (you could see the remains of the old one still flapping in the river rapids) then had a long climb to Kyangjuma, where I treated myself to three bottles of Sprite. I also saw my first genuine 100% yak and set off for Namche. It was quite an easy trek but with one-and-a-half litres of fizzy sloshing around my belly, resulting in three stitches (one in each side and particularly bad one in my forehead) and the innumerable blister clusters on my feet, it felt quite tough. I eventually arrived about three, had a lie down and a poo on a toilet seat (aah!) then Lucy and Marian arrived. We went for a cake and bumped into a Spanish guy called Javier, who had descended from Gorak Shep to Namche in a single day (which is ridiculous), and is now off to climb Ama Dablam. Since my usual sense of irresponsibility was now coupled with access to a bank, I ordered pizza, chips and my first beer of the holiday for dinner. I needed to go back to the bank. Lucy and Marian got talking about girly things in the evening so I toddled off to bed.
Day 14: Namche Bazar to Toktok (3440m-2600m)
I woke up late and had a very lazy morning – I could get used to this. I went with the girls to bring our flight date forwards two days (we didn’t do Gokyo as planned) then we split up; they wanted to climb a nearby peak while I was reluctant to stop going downwards. I set off about 12.30pm, expecting to find the down from Namche much easier than I had whinged about on Day 2, but I was impressed how legitimate my tiredness had been. It was also slow as I got stuck behind a herd of yaks with no room to pass. I stopped for lunch in Monjo (where we spent our first night) and pushed on to Benkar, which my map informed me had hot springs. I asked a local about these and he said that there were no springs in the entire Solokumbu region, and that the mapmaker was “an idiot”. I advise anybody to travel to South Asia purely to hear a Nepalese man say the word ‘idiot’. I was disappointed but decided to walk for another twenty minutes to Toktok and stay in a lodge by a waterfall that I remembered from the way up. The only other guests were a group of Germans, who spent the evening drinking local beer and listening to Pink Floyd.
Day 15: Toktok to Lukla (2600m-2840m)
Had a very greasy breakfast this morning – a hash brown, translated as a single flat blob of potato, with an omelette on top. I set off at 11am and around the first corner I saw conjoined dogs. I initially thought somebody had tied their tails together, but on closer inspection I saw they were actually fused at the buttocks. Two little boys were chasing them as they crabbed along the path. All my blisters popped yesterday so I powered up, then down, then up again, and made it to Phakding (2610m) in record time. As I was climbing out of the valley on the other side I saw an extremely English gentleman who, instead of a walking pole, was using an antique umbrella. He sat down in a tiny café and I decided that I’d have to join him. When he asked if the lemon tea was Twinings I nearly wet myself. I continued on and up (shouldn’t I have done all my climbing?) and passed a heavily pregnant woman heading to Base Camp – that can’t be a good idea. I finally arrived in Lukla and waited for Lucy and Marian, who arrived a couple of hours later with a Canadian guy called Ian, who looks incredibly Irish and has a Gaelic twang...despite never having set foot in Europe. I hadn’t had lunch so to compensate Ian and I both had two dinners. The restaurant was the nicest we’d seen on the trek but unfortunately had a Vengaboys album on loop. The word ‘venga’ must have popped up at least a hundred times. The two Richards poked their heads around the corner and asked to join us, so we promptly left. Strange day.
The flight is booked for 7.30 tomorrow morning.
Day 16: Lukla to Kathmandu (2840m-1355m)
The flight took off at 9.15am. After learning that Gorkha Airways weren’t flying we were transferred, after much fuss, to Yeti Airlines. We watched for two hours as planes from Yeti Airlines, Sita Air, Royal Nepal Airways and Gorkha Airways (what?) landed, until there was finally a plane for us. There are so many tourists showing up now and I have no idea where they’re all going to sleep. I noticed a significant increase in traffic when we were heading down – I’m so glad we did it on the cusp of tourist season.
The scenery from Lukla to Kathmandu was just as beautiful as on the way – I guess it was unlikely we’d change routes and go via Tibet – but the stewardess was disappointing and flight was very rocky. We came into land very steeply (so much so that my stomach lurched) and the plane was swaying from left to right. We touched down, were momentarily airborne, then touched down again.
Smooth.
The Rest: Leaving Nepal
So that was it. Everest Trek over...and I didn’t even make it to Base Camp.
We returned on Sunday and went straight for Thamel (the tourist region, complete with Western toilets, showers and juicy steaks). I went for a haircut and a scary shave with a huge blade, and spent the day in a rooftop café sipping filter coffee. In the evening I watched some Rugby – I left for the trek assuming that England were out of the World Cup – ate a huge dinner and drank several local beers.
Since then I have collected my things from the family in Lokhanthali and just relaxed – a bit of shopping, some sightseeing, and lounging around on scatter cushions. I’ve really got into reading ‘The Himalaya Times’ – Nepalese news in English for the tourists. It’s use of language is peculiar, using very informal words such as ‘cop’ and ‘jailbird’ in deadly serious articles, and the least informative and evocative headlines imaginable; some good examples are “Man Arrested”, “Woman Outraged” and “Rocket Fired”. One page sported the headline “Man Injured in Mishap” and the following informed “Mishap Victim Dead”. I was shocked by such a sudden downturn in fortune, but it turns out they’re unrelated ‘mishaps’...I put the word mishap in inverted commas as one reported a car colliding with a train, and the other was a man “mowed down” by a speeding bus.
As an aside, I have also discovered that Milan, my mentor and language teacher, has been sacked from VSN. It transpires that everything I paid for in my orientation week – bus rides, entrance fees, lunch – should have been taken from my volunteer fee, and was instead pocketed by her. Cheeky cow.
And so tomorrow I head to Osaka. I shall post again sushi-side.
Joe x
The following are extracts from my journal, written either on the evening of each day or on the morning after. A semi-detailed map of the trek is available here (open in new window). The details and measurements here come from a larger and more accurate map.
Day 1: Kathmandu to Monjo (1355m-2835m)
Woke up at 4.30am this morning. Caught a taxi to the airport with Lucyna and Marian and met up with the American family; Mark, Laura and Aubrey. Within thirty minutes we were sitting on a rickety twenty-seater biplane and headed for the Himalayas. The scenery was truly incredible and the stewardess was beautiful, so all in all a very nice flight. We came into land at Lukla (2840m) on a worryingly short uphill runway – the plane has to cut its engines as soon as it lands and make a handbrake turn at the end. We headed straight for breakfast at a German bakery and got chatting to an American father and son – Jerry and Evan – and an Italian bloke – unsurprisingly named Guiseppe. We had a gentle two-hour hike to Phakding and a leisurely lunch; this consists of incredibly fresh ingredients (they actually pick them from the garden to order) so takes quite a while. We continued our trek after lunch, passing increasingly impressive waterfalls, and finally arrived in Monjo (2835m – we’d lost five metres!) Evan tried to teach me how to play cribbage for two hours then gave up and went to bed. I had decided yesterday not to pack my sleeping bag, as it’s too heavy to carry, but immediately regretted the decision with a cold and restless night.
Just realised I left my sunglasses in the permit office. Bugger.
Day 2: Monjo to Namche Bazar (2835m-3440m)
It was a difficult day today, but thankfully quite short. We left late at 9.15am and only trekked for three hours, but it was really tough going. From Monjo we dropped over 150m, crossed a long, high suspension bridge over river rapids, then climbed a very steep 750m. Namche Bazar is, well, bizarre – an odd kind of mini-town at 3440m, complete with supermarkets, banks and Internet access. We arrived about 12.30pm on the outskirts and had a drink. I left without paying and the poor café owner had to chase me up a very steep climb for his 150 rupees. I’ve developed a habit of forgetting to pay for drinks in Nepal that could get me in a lot of trouble. When we arrived we had lunch and did a little shopping. I bought a cool bandana and North Fake cap (I left my normal cap in Kathmandu) and enquired about hiring a sleeping bag. At close to 90 pence per day, I decided to brave the trek without one. Well, I’m British aren’t I?
After dinner Evan, Guiseppe, Lucy and I went to a pool bar. The guy had to open it specially, which made us feel guilty when we played one game, without even buying drinks, and felt the need to head to bed. We’re not even going anywhere tomorrow.
Slept in my down jacket and three pairs of trousers.
Day 3: Namche Bazar Acclimatization Day (3440m)
On acclimatization days, the general idea is to climb a certain height (somewhere around 500m) to prepare your body for what is to come, then descend again to sleep. However, when we woke up at 6.30 it was tipping it down, so we went back to bed for an hour. After another eggy breakfast (not sure how many more eggs I can take – I might get daalbhat tomorrow) we set off up the mountain to Khumjung. I was arsing around with different breathing techniques and consequently strained my chest. On the way down I saw a very obese woman waddling up the hill. God knows how she got so high; mind over matter I guess (she must have one hell of a mind). I also saw several yaks grazing; the yaks here are half-breeds – part yak and part cow – but they bleat like sheep. If cows are Gods, why aren’t these yaks Demigods? Spent the evening talking and playing cards then headed to bed.
Day 4: Namche Bazar to Mong (3440m-3973m)
Up at 6am with the intention of an early start, but it was clouded with fog and tipping it down. We sat around drinking milk tea until about 10.30 then decided we would just have to get wet. We said goodbye to Guiseppe as he was waiting for his girlfriend to join him and headed off. After the initial climb out of Namche we hit a flat, easygoing jaunt along the mountainside. The views were stunning (we could see the suspension bridge we crossed on day two far below us) but it was raining too heavily to take out the camera. Once we reached Kyangjuma we had to set off in the direction of Gokyo, as a falling boulder destroyed the bridge between Kyangjuma and the amazingly named Phunki Tenga. The walk from here was tough, wet and miserable, along rocky paths that dipped up and down. I finally arrived at Mong, the agreed lunch stop, and they lit a fire for us to dry our clothes. We ate eggs and waited for the American family to arrive. Our plans of continuing to Phortse were scuppered when the family arrived at nearly 4pm (over two hours after the rest of us) and the fog had returned in spades. We had no choice but to take a room in the smelly, shabby hostel and we'll just have walk hard tomorrow.
Day 5: Mong to Dingboche (3973m-4410m)
Today seemed to go on forever. Up at 5.15am and gone by 6.30 (girls). We left the American family in Mong as we were going all the way to Dingboche and they (rather sensibly) didn’t want to go so far in one day. So we set off, initially descending 300m to Phortse Tenge, then ascending 150m to Phortse. We weaved up and down for two hours to Pangboche. Everybody stopped for lunch but it was too early for me (barely 10am) so after a cup of tea I set off. A Nepali man informed me it was four hours to Dingboche, and I made it in two. My legs felt really strong and I’ve really got to grips with my breathing; Jerry showed me a cough to shift the layer of carbon dioxide that settles on your lungs. The others arrived around an hour after me and we decided to climb to the highest lodge in the village to acclimatize. I didn’t eat lunch and really struggled to finish my dinner, but I made myself as I knew that loss of appetite is a sign of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness).
I’ve just been given a cup of tea in a mug that reads ‘Hao aer you?’
Day 6: Dingboche Acclimatization Day (4410m)
Lucy, Marian and Evan went for a long hike today, but Jerry and I thought we’d relax in the morning and climb to the top of the hill overlooking Pheriche in the afternoon. I say ‘hill’ as my sense of perspective has changed slightly – it’s well over three times the height of Ben Nevis, there just isn’t any snow. The others returned from their walk in the late afternoon and Lucy was feeling rough. In the evening, three Americans arrived with news that our American family have descended as Laura was unwell. I’m starting to feel pretty grimy, so paid for a small bowl of lukewarm water to dab at the necessaries before bed.
Day 7: Dingboche to Dhukla (4410m-4620m)
Lucy still isn’t well. We decided that the 500m climb to Lobuche is silly today if we’re not all feeling 100%, so instead we set off at 11.30am for Dhukla (less than halfway). It was a beautiful walk – there was mist everywhere and you could barely see what was happening ten feet in front of you, but it was so refreshing. Very Scottish. We also passed some yak herder huts, which consist of four walls of precariously balanced rocks. We arrived by 1pm and spent the rest of the day playing cards with two German guys called Janko and Karsten. Although I wasn’t especially tired, we were kicked out of the communal room at 8pm so the Sherpas could get their kip.
Day 8: Dhukla to Lobuche (4620m-4910m)
Today it was Evan’s turn to feel ill. We woke up early, but as it was snowing we hung around for a while. Incidentally, while the snowfall was pretty minimal, it was the first time I had seen such incredibly defined snowflakes. We finally set off about 11am and arrived in Lobuche little after 12pm – our shortest day yet! I arrived fifteen minutes before everybody else; compared to my pathetic first few days I am flying now...I just hope it lasts. We found the only accommodation with space, which is constantly stunk out by the toilet or by plastic burning on the stove – I spent the evening with my head out of the window like a dog. It’s odd to see so many other trekkers around – we’ve obviously passed others while trekking but never shared a lodge with more than a few other people. One of the groups – a joint Malaysian and Chinese outfit – randomly began to sing traditional songs in the evening. It was really pleasant and left me with a big grin on my face, but everybody else was trying to ignore them. One of the songs reminded me of Auld Land Syne, which reminded me of Christmas, which reminded me of Christmas dinner; turkey, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, the obligatory Brussels sprout, stuffing, gravy – at which point I was interrupted by a boy plonking a plate of runny egg and half-cooked potatoes in front of me. Oh well.
As a side note, one of the Chinese men began a passionate rendition from the Chinese score of The Phantom of The Opera, complete with increasingly emphatic gestures, and his poor wife had to keep ducking out the way of his flailing extremities. She timed her dodges perfectly – it obviously wasn’t their first time.
Day 9: Lobuche to Everest Base Camp...nearly (4910m-approx. 5250m)
It was my turn to be ill today. We left a snow-covered Lobuche at 7.30am. I felt really rough and pathetically weak – it took me over two-and-a-half hours to get to Gorak Shep (5140m), twice as long as I had anticipated. I managed half a bowl of chicken soup (sans le chicken) before we set off for Everest Base Camp. Big mistake. I struggled slowly on for an hour before realising that I was less than halfway there, and would die trying. The Nepalese clearly never got to grips with the term ‘base’. I was showing signs of severe AMS (loss of appetite, headache, nausea, dizziness, walking drunkenly with no kebab in hand) and knew I needed to descend. However, I blacked out and descended a lot quicker than I had intended. I fell from the path for about twenty metres before managing to wrap myself around a rock. I initially found it very funny, but when I tried to move and simply slipped further, I started to panic. I was on a scree slope (broken rock with no attachment to solid mountain) so had absolutely no grip. When I grabbed a large rock, it simply came out and went crashing down the mountainside. I decided I would have to descend onto the glacier below and started to do so (with very little control over how far I was slipping), but finally spotted some solid rocks that I managed to clamber over. Finally, after half an hour, and with only a twisted knee and a swollen ankle to show for my ordeal, I made it back to the path. The adrenaline left me and the illness returned with a vengeance. I staggered back to the teahouse in Gorak Shep and went to straight to bed. I slept a little and awoke to discover that Mark had arrived. Laura and Aubrey had returned to Kathmandu but he had climbed back up from Namche in record time (and with no acclimatization) to meet us. Everybody else returned from Base Camp feeling sick, especially Lucy. Mark shared a room with me and kept me awake with his ridiculously loud snoring. Interestingly, he sounds just like my dad. Why don’t people snore with an accent?
Day 10: Gorak Shep to Dhukla (5140m-4620m)
Woke up at 4.30am and popped outside to fill up my water bottle. I stopped in my tracks at the stunning view. It was dark, clear and silent, and the moon and stars lit up the mountain range. It was one of the most serene moments of my life. We set off up to Kala Patthar at 5am and I was feeling ill again. Kala Patthar is a peak with clear views of Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse (most shots of these mountains are taken from this peak), and we planned to get to the top for sunrise. I was really struggling but wanted to get a good view of the mountains and at least get higher than Base Camp. I managed around 5400m (Base Camp is 5360m) and some amazing views of Everest before I had to turn around. Although it would have been nice to get to Base Camp, I managed to get to the same height, which is really the only claim that Base Camp offers you (being many miles from Everest itself). And I did it all without a sleeping bag! Lucy also turned back and when the rest returned we decided that we desperately needed to descend. We all went down to Lobuche, where we said goodbye to Jerry and Evan. They wanted to go to Gokyo as planned, but we had considered that crossing the Cho La Pass (which required two days above 5300m) wasn’t plausible in our conditions. Instead we descended all the way to Dhukla and slept there. Superman Mark went from Kala Patthar to Base Camp, then arrived in Dhukla in the early evening. Just in time to keep me awake with his bloody snoring!
Day 11: Dhukla to Pangboche (4620m-3930m)
Woke up at 6.30am feeling much better. Lucy was also feeling better so we set off at 9, aiming for Pangboche. I steamed ahead, feeling really good, and stopped to wait for the others in Pheriche (4270m). I ordered tea in a guesthouse and sat in the garden. I got chatting to the owner and soon discovered that it was his family home, and not a guesthouse at all. I apologised but he was really sweet, and gave me some Hobnobs (!) with my tea. It turns out that he owns the lodge we stayed in at Gorak Shep. The others caught up – Marian was now feeling ill – and we commenced down past Orsho and Shomore to Pangboche. We found a great teahouse with Western toilets and sinks to wash in. Compared to the last week or so it was like a 5 star resort. There are also great views of Ama Dablam, which was obscured by cloud on the way up. It’s the most beautiful mountain, with a huge slab of ice on one face that looks ready to avalanche at any minute. Marian spent the rest of the day throwing up and Mark spent it snoring. I couldn’t sleep again so went for a midnight walk. I tripped over a Buddhist chorten in the dark and narrowly avoided falling off the path again.
Day 12: Pangboche to Tengboche (3930m-3860m)
Mark left for Namche Bazar about 8.30am as he plans to join his family in Kathmandu the day after next. I spent the morning washing and experimenting with bandana techniques that appeared unfailingly ridiculous. My head is simply too big for such an average-sized piece of cloth. My ginger mess of a beard is quite long now as well so I look like a hippy – I think I’ll go for a shave when I get back to civilisation. We left late in the morning with the aim to go to Tengboche – we were reliably informed that the bridge between Phunki Tenga (such a cool name) and Khumjung was repaired. I steamed ahead again. My knee was troubling me, the blisters on the balls of my feet (which had developed on descent) were painful and my left ankle kept inexplicably collapsing, but I was enjoying this new, untrodden route. It was nice to go through the forest for a change, and the views of Everest and Ama Dablam were superb. Whoever said that coming downhill was more difficult than going up was an idiot. It can be painful (especially if you fall down) but I know which one I’d choose. Perhaps they meant with regards to concentration; apparently nearly 10% of people who make it to the Everest summit don’t make it back down again.
In Tengboche I fell in love with a mountain called Thamserku, which was visible high above our lodge. In the afternoon we went to visit a Buddhist Monastery – the largest gompa in Nepal and the highest in the world – where they had an hour’s chanting. It was very relaxing, but I think my monks in Baneshwor are better chanters (perhaps I could arrange a chant-off). In the evening I had a ‘Mars Pie’ – a melted Mars Bar in pastry – and felt very sick. I spent the evening tolerating the conversation of two strange Yorkshiremen called Richard (that’s both of them) who told me all about their amateur dramatics society. Incidentally, Richard 1 began the conversation in your average, civilised way – he leaned over my shoulder while I was writing some private notes and began reciting them out loud.
Day 13: Tengboche to Namche Bazar (3860m-3440m)
Got up at an extremely leisurely 8.15am today. I walked down a very long steep slope to Phunki Tenga (finally!) It’s a tough climb and made me glad we’d come the other way – though perhaps I’m forgetting how tough Kyangjuma to Mong was. Had a quick coffee in Phunki – bit of a non-event but an essential stop – then continued down the hill. I saw a girl walking up with her back bent awkwardly over and advised her to “stand up straight, you’ve got a long way to go”. It was only afterwards that I realised what a cruel thing that was to say – I’m sure if she had the energy she would have thumped me! I crossed the new, temporary wooden bridge (you could see the remains of the old one still flapping in the river rapids) then had a long climb to Kyangjuma, where I treated myself to three bottles of Sprite. I also saw my first genuine 100% yak and set off for Namche. It was quite an easy trek but with one-and-a-half litres of fizzy sloshing around my belly, resulting in three stitches (one in each side and particularly bad one in my forehead) and the innumerable blister clusters on my feet, it felt quite tough. I eventually arrived about three, had a lie down and a poo on a toilet seat (aah!) then Lucy and Marian arrived. We went for a cake and bumped into a Spanish guy called Javier, who had descended from Gorak Shep to Namche in a single day (which is ridiculous), and is now off to climb Ama Dablam. Since my usual sense of irresponsibility was now coupled with access to a bank, I ordered pizza, chips and my first beer of the holiday for dinner. I needed to go back to the bank. Lucy and Marian got talking about girly things in the evening so I toddled off to bed.
Day 14: Namche Bazar to Toktok (3440m-2600m)
I woke up late and had a very lazy morning – I could get used to this. I went with the girls to bring our flight date forwards two days (we didn’t do Gokyo as planned) then we split up; they wanted to climb a nearby peak while I was reluctant to stop going downwards. I set off about 12.30pm, expecting to find the down from Namche much easier than I had whinged about on Day 2, but I was impressed how legitimate my tiredness had been. It was also slow as I got stuck behind a herd of yaks with no room to pass. I stopped for lunch in Monjo (where we spent our first night) and pushed on to Benkar, which my map informed me had hot springs. I asked a local about these and he said that there were no springs in the entire Solokumbu region, and that the mapmaker was “an idiot”. I advise anybody to travel to South Asia purely to hear a Nepalese man say the word ‘idiot’. I was disappointed but decided to walk for another twenty minutes to Toktok and stay in a lodge by a waterfall that I remembered from the way up. The only other guests were a group of Germans, who spent the evening drinking local beer and listening to Pink Floyd.
Day 15: Toktok to Lukla (2600m-2840m)
Had a very greasy breakfast this morning – a hash brown, translated as a single flat blob of potato, with an omelette on top. I set off at 11am and around the first corner I saw conjoined dogs. I initially thought somebody had tied their tails together, but on closer inspection I saw they were actually fused at the buttocks. Two little boys were chasing them as they crabbed along the path. All my blisters popped yesterday so I powered up, then down, then up again, and made it to Phakding (2610m) in record time. As I was climbing out of the valley on the other side I saw an extremely English gentleman who, instead of a walking pole, was using an antique umbrella. He sat down in a tiny café and I decided that I’d have to join him. When he asked if the lemon tea was Twinings I nearly wet myself. I continued on and up (shouldn’t I have done all my climbing?) and passed a heavily pregnant woman heading to Base Camp – that can’t be a good idea. I finally arrived in Lukla and waited for Lucy and Marian, who arrived a couple of hours later with a Canadian guy called Ian, who looks incredibly Irish and has a Gaelic twang...despite never having set foot in Europe. I hadn’t had lunch so to compensate Ian and I both had two dinners. The restaurant was the nicest we’d seen on the trek but unfortunately had a Vengaboys album on loop. The word ‘venga’ must have popped up at least a hundred times. The two Richards poked their heads around the corner and asked to join us, so we promptly left. Strange day.
The flight is booked for 7.30 tomorrow morning.
Day 16: Lukla to Kathmandu (2840m-1355m)
The flight took off at 9.15am. After learning that Gorkha Airways weren’t flying we were transferred, after much fuss, to Yeti Airlines. We watched for two hours as planes from Yeti Airlines, Sita Air, Royal Nepal Airways and Gorkha Airways (what?) landed, until there was finally a plane for us. There are so many tourists showing up now and I have no idea where they’re all going to sleep. I noticed a significant increase in traffic when we were heading down – I’m so glad we did it on the cusp of tourist season.
The scenery from Lukla to Kathmandu was just as beautiful as on the way – I guess it was unlikely we’d change routes and go via Tibet – but the stewardess was disappointing and flight was very rocky. We came into land very steeply (so much so that my stomach lurched) and the plane was swaying from left to right. We touched down, were momentarily airborne, then touched down again.
Smooth.
The Rest: Leaving Nepal
So that was it. Everest Trek over...and I didn’t even make it to Base Camp.
We returned on Sunday and went straight for Thamel (the tourist region, complete with Western toilets, showers and juicy steaks). I went for a haircut and a scary shave with a huge blade, and spent the day in a rooftop café sipping filter coffee. In the evening I watched some Rugby – I left for the trek assuming that England were out of the World Cup – ate a huge dinner and drank several local beers.
Since then I have collected my things from the family in Lokhanthali and just relaxed – a bit of shopping, some sightseeing, and lounging around on scatter cushions. I’ve really got into reading ‘The Himalaya Times’ – Nepalese news in English for the tourists. It’s use of language is peculiar, using very informal words such as ‘cop’ and ‘jailbird’ in deadly serious articles, and the least informative and evocative headlines imaginable; some good examples are “Man Arrested”, “Woman Outraged” and “Rocket Fired”. One page sported the headline “Man Injured in Mishap” and the following informed “Mishap Victim Dead”. I was shocked by such a sudden downturn in fortune, but it turns out they’re unrelated ‘mishaps’...I put the word mishap in inverted commas as one reported a car colliding with a train, and the other was a man “mowed down” by a speeding bus.
As an aside, I have also discovered that Milan, my mentor and language teacher, has been sacked from VSN. It transpires that everything I paid for in my orientation week – bus rides, entrance fees, lunch – should have been taken from my volunteer fee, and was instead pocketed by her. Cheeky cow.
And so tomorrow I head to Osaka. I shall post again sushi-side.
Joe x
Thursday 20 September 2007
Thamel
Hi everyone,
Just a quick post as you probably won’t hear from me for three weeks.
I went back to the orphanage on Sunday and a new, three-week-old baby had arrived in my absence. It’s heartbreakingly tiny, and makes the other ten-week-old baby look massive. I’ve also been teaching at the school and monastery all week, and after my last monastery class yesterday I joined in with the chanting. It’s a very relaxing atmosphere, though quite surreal when all the monks bow into their laps, simultaneously muffling their voices. I was getting into the chanting when I noticed one of the kids has eleven toes, and my attention was lost. After an hour of counting and re-counting I took Parshant and Madhap to see Transformers in a surprisingly good cinema. In fact, with the good image and sound quality, comfy seats with cup holders and wailing toddlers I could have been in any cinema in the UK – that is until I looked to the empty seat on my right, where a rat was enjoying the flick. After this we went for a late dinner in Baneshwor then walked home. Parshant and Madhap were telling me all about Dasain (the month-long festival) and I’m quite disappointed that I won’t be here. On Fulpati, the seventh day, every household sacrifices a goat; they behead it with an authentic Gurkha sword then slice it straight down the middle. There are also buffalo sacrifices in the main Durbar square and many businesses make sacrifices to ensure a successful following year (Nepal Airways sacrifice a goat on the wing of each of their planes). When we got home we watched England get stuffed by India in the cricket, though Yuvraj’s maximum over was still great to see.
I have also booked my flight to Japan. After a long walk to the airport on Tuesday, where I discovered you cannot buy flights from airlines directly, I went to a travel agent. So, after arriving back in Kathmandu on the 9th October, I fly to Osaka on the 12th. I arrive in the afternoon so will have plenty of time to find a hostel.
So there you go. I leave for Everest very early on Saturday morning for eighteen days and it’s pretty unlikely I’ll be able to post en route. So I bid you adieu until my next (undoubtedly bloody long) entry.
Take care,
Joe x
Just a quick post as you probably won’t hear from me for three weeks.
I went back to the orphanage on Sunday and a new, three-week-old baby had arrived in my absence. It’s heartbreakingly tiny, and makes the other ten-week-old baby look massive. I’ve also been teaching at the school and monastery all week, and after my last monastery class yesterday I joined in with the chanting. It’s a very relaxing atmosphere, though quite surreal when all the monks bow into their laps, simultaneously muffling their voices. I was getting into the chanting when I noticed one of the kids has eleven toes, and my attention was lost. After an hour of counting and re-counting I took Parshant and Madhap to see Transformers in a surprisingly good cinema. In fact, with the good image and sound quality, comfy seats with cup holders and wailing toddlers I could have been in any cinema in the UK – that is until I looked to the empty seat on my right, where a rat was enjoying the flick. After this we went for a late dinner in Baneshwor then walked home. Parshant and Madhap were telling me all about Dasain (the month-long festival) and I’m quite disappointed that I won’t be here. On Fulpati, the seventh day, every household sacrifices a goat; they behead it with an authentic Gurkha sword then slice it straight down the middle. There are also buffalo sacrifices in the main Durbar square and many businesses make sacrifices to ensure a successful following year (Nepal Airways sacrifice a goat on the wing of each of their planes). When we got home we watched England get stuffed by India in the cricket, though Yuvraj’s maximum over was still great to see.
I have also booked my flight to Japan. After a long walk to the airport on Tuesday, where I discovered you cannot buy flights from airlines directly, I went to a travel agent. So, after arriving back in Kathmandu on the 9th October, I fly to Osaka on the 12th. I arrive in the afternoon so will have plenty of time to find a hostel.
So there you go. I leave for Everest very early on Saturday morning for eighteen days and it’s pretty unlikely I’ll be able to post en route. So I bid you adieu until my next (undoubtedly bloody long) entry.
Take care,
Joe x
Sunday 16 September 2007
Chitwan
I’ve decided that this is the laziest country in the world. I have no doubt that people work like slaves in the rice fields and the Pepsi factory, but everyone else seems to spend most of their time watching Indian Idol. I arrived in one of the world’s poorest countries apprehensive about the six-day weeks, but soon discovered that ‘six days’ conveniently translates into ‘as few days as possible’. Strikes, religious holidays and minor occurrences (such as Father's Day) have resulted in multiple days off every week I’ve been here, with two work-free days last week and three this week! Oh, and from October 12th there is a month long Hindu festival, during which the Buddhists – in the name of religious tolerance – have also decided to shun work. In a single calendar year there are over two hundred days where children don’t attend school. That’s six-and-a-half months!
Last Thursday was a day off in commemoration of a student who died in the bomb blast. I should add that this was a student from a disconnected school on the other side of town…just have two minutes silence and do some bloody work! I returned to my jobs on Friday, though I ended up simply playing Hangman and Simon Says all day. In the evening I caught a taxi to Thamel for a night on the town, starting with dinner followed by a sheesha place, then onto a jazz club playing upbeat techno and a reggae bar playing Elton John. On Saturday we booked our flights into Lukla (first point on the Everest trek) for the 22nd September and back on the 9th October. I tried to watch England vs. Israel in the evening but was thwarted by the inevitable powercut. The next few days were pretty uneventful, though the family had a party on Tuesday night. They taught me how to make momos (which are buffalo meat or mixed vegetables wrapped in flour and water dough), painted a red spot on my head and put flowers in my hair. I felt like a Nepali princess.
Oh, and the momos were followed by my first dessert in a month: RICE pudding.
On Wednesday, Lucyna and I went to Chitwan National Park. After waking at 5.45, flagging down a taxi to Thamel, completing a sweaty six-hour coach trip, picking at a lentil-based lunch, sitting through a one-hour bus transfer, wading through deep mud and kayaking down a fast-flowing river, we arrived at the resort. I thought it was very nice, though my standards have lowered so much that this judgement was predominantly based on the fact that the bathroom had a toilet seat. Anyway, we were soon sent off on a nature walk. This began with a ten minute scare-the-crap-out-of-the-whiteys lecture on what to do when various animals attack. If a rhino charges you simply run around a tree trunk at close quarters, mocking their Volvo-esque turning circle. With tigers you maintain eye contact and slowly back away (probably into her hungry family), and with bears you simply die with as little fuss as possible. Thankfully we saw bugger all! The trek was followed by dinner and a yawn-inducing black and white slide show of big cats that nobody seems to have ever seen – I’m sure they just shipped in a handful from India, took a few snaps and sent them back, and they've been living off gullible tourists ever since. We spent the evening in the bar with some other guests then hurried back to our cabin for lights out at 9.30. We were hurrying as ‘lights out’ is literally ‘power out’, and we didn’t fancy weaving through trees and beside a river in the pitch black.
The next morning we were up at 5.30am for an elephant-back ride through the jungle. I’ve never really seen elephants in action before; they’re so beautiful but so powerful. It was an amazing two hours, if a little uncomfortable, and we even saw a rhino bathing in the mud. After this we had breakfast and went for a nature trail along a nearly identical route. We saw ‘another’ rhino, suspiciously in the same place and with the same lack of enthusiasm, and spent some time ploughing our way through eight-foot grass (I felt like I was in a Vietnam film). After lunch we bathed with the elephants in the river. This was absolutely incredible – we sat on their backs and splashed them with water, and in return they filled their trunks and sprayed us back. I tried to stand up on the elephant’s back but slipped and landed on my right testicle. I didn’t try again.
In the afternoon we had another elephant-back ride (I think they were running out of ideas) and saw the rhino yet again. I had a much needed hot shower and remembered how nice it was to actually be submerged, rather than simply standing to the side and dabbing cold water over your vital areas. In the evening we witnessed a Tharu stick dance – which was not unlike morris dancing, but infinitely more appealing with attractive local women in place of bearded Brits – and had a few drinks in the bar, until the clock struck 9.30 and we all legged it back to our rooms.
On Friday we were up at 6am (three early mornings in a row!) to trek upstream and catch a boat across the river. We waded through mud, caught a transfer back to the resort centre and had breakfast. Lucyna caught the coach to Pokhara and I caught the (one hour late) coach back to Kathmandu. The journey was pretty uneventful until we were 30km from the city and high in the hills, where we hit a traffic jam. After an hour of no movement and no information, some of us decided to walk ahead with all our gear and investigate. After about 6km we came to the blockade, which was a single tree-trunk deliberately felled across the road, with several Maoist demonstrators making sure that none of the drivers dare move it. We jumped on a severely overcrowded bus just past the blockade, where I had one bum cheek perched on an armrest, and the other on the sturdy lap of a Nepali woman. The bus climbed higher and higher for about 4km then came to another standstill. We jumped off again and hiked about 5km to the second roadblock. We managed to convince a white van man to drive us some way towards Kathmandu, then managed to pick up a taxi to Thamel. I finally arrived at 6.30 (having agreed to meet other volunteers three hours earlier) and had a lovely dinner comprised of three steaks with a side of pork. I made a cursory effort at a few bars, but soon headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.
Yesterday was mostly spent sorting out trekking equipment. I went shopping with South African volunteer Marian and I ended up buying a quality knockoff down jacket, gloves, a water bottle and two walking poles. We stocked up with some dried fruit, nuts and cereal bars, as we had read about a couple on a twelve-day trek getting through thirty Mars Bars. We also stocked up on medicine – everything in Nepal is available without prescription and Marian was like a kid in a hypochondriac’s sweet shop.
And last night I had an epiphany. I’m going to Japan. I feel the need for a comfort break and it makes sense to go to the expensive country while I have some money to spend. Also, getting from Nepal to China is a visa nightmare and only possible through Tibet (at extortionate cost). Therefore, my new plan is to fly to Japan then South Korea then China. But, as I have no restrictions, it is liable to change. I might go to Tahiti.
I’ll keep you updated,
Joe x
Last Thursday was a day off in commemoration of a student who died in the bomb blast. I should add that this was a student from a disconnected school on the other side of town…just have two minutes silence and do some bloody work! I returned to my jobs on Friday, though I ended up simply playing Hangman and Simon Says all day. In the evening I caught a taxi to Thamel for a night on the town, starting with dinner followed by a sheesha place, then onto a jazz club playing upbeat techno and a reggae bar playing Elton John. On Saturday we booked our flights into Lukla (first point on the Everest trek) for the 22nd September and back on the 9th October. I tried to watch England vs. Israel in the evening but was thwarted by the inevitable powercut. The next few days were pretty uneventful, though the family had a party on Tuesday night. They taught me how to make momos (which are buffalo meat or mixed vegetables wrapped in flour and water dough), painted a red spot on my head and put flowers in my hair. I felt like a Nepali princess.
Oh, and the momos were followed by my first dessert in a month: RICE pudding.
On Wednesday, Lucyna and I went to Chitwan National Park. After waking at 5.45, flagging down a taxi to Thamel, completing a sweaty six-hour coach trip, picking at a lentil-based lunch, sitting through a one-hour bus transfer, wading through deep mud and kayaking down a fast-flowing river, we arrived at the resort. I thought it was very nice, though my standards have lowered so much that this judgement was predominantly based on the fact that the bathroom had a toilet seat. Anyway, we were soon sent off on a nature walk. This began with a ten minute scare-the-crap-out-of-the-whiteys lecture on what to do when various animals attack. If a rhino charges you simply run around a tree trunk at close quarters, mocking their Volvo-esque turning circle. With tigers you maintain eye contact and slowly back away (probably into her hungry family), and with bears you simply die with as little fuss as possible. Thankfully we saw bugger all! The trek was followed by dinner and a yawn-inducing black and white slide show of big cats that nobody seems to have ever seen – I’m sure they just shipped in a handful from India, took a few snaps and sent them back, and they've been living off gullible tourists ever since. We spent the evening in the bar with some other guests then hurried back to our cabin for lights out at 9.30. We were hurrying as ‘lights out’ is literally ‘power out’, and we didn’t fancy weaving through trees and beside a river in the pitch black.
The next morning we were up at 5.30am for an elephant-back ride through the jungle. I’ve never really seen elephants in action before; they’re so beautiful but so powerful. It was an amazing two hours, if a little uncomfortable, and we even saw a rhino bathing in the mud. After this we had breakfast and went for a nature trail along a nearly identical route. We saw ‘another’ rhino, suspiciously in the same place and with the same lack of enthusiasm, and spent some time ploughing our way through eight-foot grass (I felt like I was in a Vietnam film). After lunch we bathed with the elephants in the river. This was absolutely incredible – we sat on their backs and splashed them with water, and in return they filled their trunks and sprayed us back. I tried to stand up on the elephant’s back but slipped and landed on my right testicle. I didn’t try again.
In the afternoon we had another elephant-back ride (I think they were running out of ideas) and saw the rhino yet again. I had a much needed hot shower and remembered how nice it was to actually be submerged, rather than simply standing to the side and dabbing cold water over your vital areas. In the evening we witnessed a Tharu stick dance – which was not unlike morris dancing, but infinitely more appealing with attractive local women in place of bearded Brits – and had a few drinks in the bar, until the clock struck 9.30 and we all legged it back to our rooms.
On Friday we were up at 6am (three early mornings in a row!) to trek upstream and catch a boat across the river. We waded through mud, caught a transfer back to the resort centre and had breakfast. Lucyna caught the coach to Pokhara and I caught the (one hour late) coach back to Kathmandu. The journey was pretty uneventful until we were 30km from the city and high in the hills, where we hit a traffic jam. After an hour of no movement and no information, some of us decided to walk ahead with all our gear and investigate. After about 6km we came to the blockade, which was a single tree-trunk deliberately felled across the road, with several Maoist demonstrators making sure that none of the drivers dare move it. We jumped on a severely overcrowded bus just past the blockade, where I had one bum cheek perched on an armrest, and the other on the sturdy lap of a Nepali woman. The bus climbed higher and higher for about 4km then came to another standstill. We jumped off again and hiked about 5km to the second roadblock. We managed to convince a white van man to drive us some way towards Kathmandu, then managed to pick up a taxi to Thamel. I finally arrived at 6.30 (having agreed to meet other volunteers three hours earlier) and had a lovely dinner comprised of three steaks with a side of pork. I made a cursory effort at a few bars, but soon headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.
Yesterday was mostly spent sorting out trekking equipment. I went shopping with South African volunteer Marian and I ended up buying a quality knockoff down jacket, gloves, a water bottle and two walking poles. We stocked up with some dried fruit, nuts and cereal bars, as we had read about a couple on a twelve-day trek getting through thirty Mars Bars. We also stocked up on medicine – everything in Nepal is available without prescription and Marian was like a kid in a hypochondriac’s sweet shop.
And last night I had an epiphany. I’m going to Japan. I feel the need for a comfort break and it makes sense to go to the expensive country while I have some money to spend. Also, getting from Nepal to China is a visa nightmare and only possible through Tibet (at extortionate cost). Therefore, my new plan is to fly to Japan then South Korea then China. But, as I have no restrictions, it is liable to change. I might go to Tahiti.
I’ll keep you updated,
Joe x
Wednesday 5 September 2007
Baneshwor
Hello everyone,
Wow, it's been an eventful week! Immediately after I last posted on the blog I had two hours of teacher training. This consisted of a nauseatingly enthusiastic man giving me a three-point-lecture on the bloody obvious. One pearl of wisdom was "for a well-planned lesson you need a lesson plan". Why didn't I think of that?
First thing on Tuesday I went to visit the kids at Rasuwa Langtang Orphanage. There are forty-one children (including a two-month-old baby) but only twenty-six beds. The orphanage is on three levels with an accessible roof – and it’s here that the kids spend most of their time flying kites. In fact, the moment I arrived a cheeky little git called Bikay conned me into buying a new kite for him, then promptly snapped the string on a neighbour’s TV aerial. In general the children seem perfectly happy and are always pleased to see me, but I must admit I have three favourites already. They are Surya, a three-year-old boy who won’t leave me alone, Kanti, his unbelievably cute two-year-old sister and Amala, a fifteen-year-old girl who is so rubbish at maths that she can actually benefit from my tuition. I brought some craft materials with me from England and I gave Surya one of the foam stars from a ‘space pack’. Within ten minutes every kid in the orphanage had asked for a star from me. They don’t do anything – they’re just crappy foam stars – but I suppose it’s a rare opportunity for them to own something. Generally the orphanage is a lot of fun but there are occasionally upsetting moments; when I asked one of the children how old he was he replied that he didn’t know.
On Wednesday I went to The World Peace Monastery to observe a lesson. Unfortunately the teacher didn’t show up so I had to take the class myself. I don’t think I have ever been more terrified – I hadn’t prepared any kind of lesson plan (despite the repeated, enthusiastic insistence of Teachertrainerman) and had no idea what level of English the monks had. It went predictably badly; I started with very basic stuff, merely receiving bored expressions in return, so then took an inexplicably huge leap towards explaining conjunctives, prepositions and phrasal verbs. To twelve-year-old monks! I also managed to complicate simple explanations; my favourite example is when I drew a picture of a man and described him as 'short, rotund and jovial'. One smart-arse stood up in his seat and addressed the class; "he means little, fat and happy". My second lesson, with six more advanced students, went much better. The biggest challenge here was not glancing too often at the large red swastika on the far wall. I know it’s an ancient Buddhist symbol for eternity, but since the whole Hitler debacle it makes for some intimidating décor. And they call themselves enlightened!
On Wednesday evening I tried eating rice with my hands for the first time. There’s actually a very intricate technique to it – they don’t tip food into their mouths, but arrange their fingers so they can transfer rice up each digit until it reaches the top, where they chomp it down. It’s quite messy but strangely enjoyable, like being a kid again.
On Thursday I observed two lessons at the Mahendra Lower Secondary School. I didn’t think the teacher was very good, and she made several mistakes such as pronouncing leopard ‘le-o-pard’ (like ‘leotard’) and growled ‘grew-led’. When one of the kids pronounced ‘growled’ perfectly, the teacher scolded and corrected him. After school I caught a bus to Baneshwor for lunch, and found a place called Meatco that does an amazing chowmein. I’ve had this same lunch every day now for a week – by the time I get to China I’ll be sick to death of both rice and noodles. I finished lunch with a refreshing Gaylord ice-cream then walked to the monastery for my first over-prepared lessons. They went really well, the kids looked much less confused and I started to feel like a real guru. Every day since I have grown in confidence and now I’m not at all nervous about teaching lessons. This is actually a little disappointing – I thought teaching would be my biggest hurdle (due to my crippling fear of addressing groups and my lack of experience with kids) but I’ve conquered it already! I’ve also been going to the orphanage every evening and basically doing Amala’s homework for her. I had heard a rumour that Europeans smell of milk to Nepalis so asked Amala if this was true. She confirmed that I smelt milky to her. I told her she reeked of daalbhat and stormed out.
On Friday I taught my first class at the school. It went okay, but it’s often difficult because the classrooms are only separated by a half-wall, so every noise penetrates the entire building. I looked quite foolish when I was telling my kids to shut up, then realised it was the class next door. On Saturday – the single day off in the week – I got up a little late and went to the VSN office to meet some of the newcomer volunteers. There was an American family (Mark, Laura and daughter Aubree) and a Polish/British girl called Lucyna, who I ventured into Thamel with in the afternoon. We ended up going to several travel agents to look at possible trips from Kathmandu. There’s a three-day safari trip to Royal Chitwan National Park and a sixteen-day trek to Everest base camp. While we were in Thamel we saw a cow walk over to a market stall and start eating the produce. The owner simply stood there and watched, unable to do anything. I know I should respect different cultures and religions, but it seems grotesque to me that families go without food while there are several well-fed bovine wandering the streets.
On Sunday I was back to work. I found some good internet phones during my lunch break, but the delay makes every conversation like speaking to your grandparents. I met volunteer Natasha in Baneshwor and took her to Meatco for a chowmein! It’s actually very rare to see another Westerner around town, so it was odd to see how much she stood out. Whenever you do see another tourist it’s mandatory to nod acknowledgment, which feels a little sectarian to me. Anyway, after lunch I went to the monastery but didn’t manage to get to the orphanage as no buses were running. I later discovered this was because there had been a bus-bomb in Kathmandu, killing two locals and injuring several more. This is the first bomb since the peace treaty two years ago, and I’m praying this isn’t the start of another spate of bi-weekly Maoist attacks.
On Monday I awoke with a very sore eye. At first I thought it was just an eyelash but it didn’t shift after two-hours of clumsy prodding. I had to teach all my lessons with one eye half-closed, which was fine until it came to drawing cubes and cylinders on the blackboard. At the school I was told that I shouldn’t go back until the infection had cleared up. Sugandha told me not to go to the monastery or orphanage either, so I went for a beer with some of the volunteers. When I woke up yesterday my eyes were virtually glued shut. I bought some eye-drops which simply seemed to transfer the problem from one eye to the other. Instead of work I went into Thamel with Lucyna to sort out our trip to Chitwan, and we booked it from next Wednesday to Friday.
Today I woke up and my eye infection had subsided a little, but I still wasn’t allowed to go to work (woe is me). I am feeling quite guilty about the orphanage, as I now haven’t been since Friday and I’m having three days off next week, but there’s nothing I can do (except give up the safari trip, and I’m not an idiot!) There are six volunteers now interested in the Everest trek and we’re meeting this evening to discuss when to go. Two of the others are experienced trekkers, so we’re considering simply booking flights in and out of Lukla and doing one of the routes independently. I’ll definitely get a porter though as I’m far too lazy and unfit to carry my huge rucksack the whole distance. Our highest point will be Everest base camp at 5545m, but as we have to go up and down valleys, we will actually climb over 9000m.
So that’s about it. On Friday there’s another drunken outing to Thamel, but this time with people who aren’t sodding off the next day. And hopefully my eyes will be okay so I can get back to work tomorrow. I haven’t told the monastery or orphanage about Chitwan so I really need to get back.
All the best,
Joe x
PS. Did I really begin this entry with "wow"?
Wow, it's been an eventful week! Immediately after I last posted on the blog I had two hours of teacher training. This consisted of a nauseatingly enthusiastic man giving me a three-point-lecture on the bloody obvious. One pearl of wisdom was "for a well-planned lesson you need a lesson plan". Why didn't I think of that?
First thing on Tuesday I went to visit the kids at Rasuwa Langtang Orphanage. There are forty-one children (including a two-month-old baby) but only twenty-six beds. The orphanage is on three levels with an accessible roof – and it’s here that the kids spend most of their time flying kites. In fact, the moment I arrived a cheeky little git called Bikay conned me into buying a new kite for him, then promptly snapped the string on a neighbour’s TV aerial. In general the children seem perfectly happy and are always pleased to see me, but I must admit I have three favourites already. They are Surya, a three-year-old boy who won’t leave me alone, Kanti, his unbelievably cute two-year-old sister and Amala, a fifteen-year-old girl who is so rubbish at maths that she can actually benefit from my tuition. I brought some craft materials with me from England and I gave Surya one of the foam stars from a ‘space pack’. Within ten minutes every kid in the orphanage had asked for a star from me. They don’t do anything – they’re just crappy foam stars – but I suppose it’s a rare opportunity for them to own something. Generally the orphanage is a lot of fun but there are occasionally upsetting moments; when I asked one of the children how old he was he replied that he didn’t know.
On Wednesday I went to The World Peace Monastery to observe a lesson. Unfortunately the teacher didn’t show up so I had to take the class myself. I don’t think I have ever been more terrified – I hadn’t prepared any kind of lesson plan (despite the repeated, enthusiastic insistence of Teachertrainerman) and had no idea what level of English the monks had. It went predictably badly; I started with very basic stuff, merely receiving bored expressions in return, so then took an inexplicably huge leap towards explaining conjunctives, prepositions and phrasal verbs. To twelve-year-old monks! I also managed to complicate simple explanations; my favourite example is when I drew a picture of a man and described him as 'short, rotund and jovial'. One smart-arse stood up in his seat and addressed the class; "he means little, fat and happy". My second lesson, with six more advanced students, went much better. The biggest challenge here was not glancing too often at the large red swastika on the far wall. I know it’s an ancient Buddhist symbol for eternity, but since the whole Hitler debacle it makes for some intimidating décor. And they call themselves enlightened!
On Wednesday evening I tried eating rice with my hands for the first time. There’s actually a very intricate technique to it – they don’t tip food into their mouths, but arrange their fingers so they can transfer rice up each digit until it reaches the top, where they chomp it down. It’s quite messy but strangely enjoyable, like being a kid again.
On Thursday I observed two lessons at the Mahendra Lower Secondary School. I didn’t think the teacher was very good, and she made several mistakes such as pronouncing leopard ‘le-o-pard’ (like ‘leotard’) and growled ‘grew-led’. When one of the kids pronounced ‘growled’ perfectly, the teacher scolded and corrected him. After school I caught a bus to Baneshwor for lunch, and found a place called Meatco that does an amazing chowmein. I’ve had this same lunch every day now for a week – by the time I get to China I’ll be sick to death of both rice and noodles. I finished lunch with a refreshing Gaylord ice-cream then walked to the monastery for my first over-prepared lessons. They went really well, the kids looked much less confused and I started to feel like a real guru. Every day since I have grown in confidence and now I’m not at all nervous about teaching lessons. This is actually a little disappointing – I thought teaching would be my biggest hurdle (due to my crippling fear of addressing groups and my lack of experience with kids) but I’ve conquered it already! I’ve also been going to the orphanage every evening and basically doing Amala’s homework for her. I had heard a rumour that Europeans smell of milk to Nepalis so asked Amala if this was true. She confirmed that I smelt milky to her. I told her she reeked of daalbhat and stormed out.
On Friday I taught my first class at the school. It went okay, but it’s often difficult because the classrooms are only separated by a half-wall, so every noise penetrates the entire building. I looked quite foolish when I was telling my kids to shut up, then realised it was the class next door. On Saturday – the single day off in the week – I got up a little late and went to the VSN office to meet some of the newcomer volunteers. There was an American family (Mark, Laura and daughter Aubree) and a Polish/British girl called Lucyna, who I ventured into Thamel with in the afternoon. We ended up going to several travel agents to look at possible trips from Kathmandu. There’s a three-day safari trip to Royal Chitwan National Park and a sixteen-day trek to Everest base camp. While we were in Thamel we saw a cow walk over to a market stall and start eating the produce. The owner simply stood there and watched, unable to do anything. I know I should respect different cultures and religions, but it seems grotesque to me that families go without food while there are several well-fed bovine wandering the streets.
On Sunday I was back to work. I found some good internet phones during my lunch break, but the delay makes every conversation like speaking to your grandparents. I met volunteer Natasha in Baneshwor and took her to Meatco for a chowmein! It’s actually very rare to see another Westerner around town, so it was odd to see how much she stood out. Whenever you do see another tourist it’s mandatory to nod acknowledgment, which feels a little sectarian to me. Anyway, after lunch I went to the monastery but didn’t manage to get to the orphanage as no buses were running. I later discovered this was because there had been a bus-bomb in Kathmandu, killing two locals and injuring several more. This is the first bomb since the peace treaty two years ago, and I’m praying this isn’t the start of another spate of bi-weekly Maoist attacks.
On Monday I awoke with a very sore eye. At first I thought it was just an eyelash but it didn’t shift after two-hours of clumsy prodding. I had to teach all my lessons with one eye half-closed, which was fine until it came to drawing cubes and cylinders on the blackboard. At the school I was told that I shouldn’t go back until the infection had cleared up. Sugandha told me not to go to the monastery or orphanage either, so I went for a beer with some of the volunteers. When I woke up yesterday my eyes were virtually glued shut. I bought some eye-drops which simply seemed to transfer the problem from one eye to the other. Instead of work I went into Thamel with Lucyna to sort out our trip to Chitwan, and we booked it from next Wednesday to Friday.
Today I woke up and my eye infection had subsided a little, but I still wasn’t allowed to go to work (woe is me). I am feeling quite guilty about the orphanage, as I now haven’t been since Friday and I’m having three days off next week, but there’s nothing I can do (except give up the safari trip, and I’m not an idiot!) There are six volunteers now interested in the Everest trek and we’re meeting this evening to discuss when to go. Two of the others are experienced trekkers, so we’re considering simply booking flights in and out of Lukla and doing one of the routes independently. I’ll definitely get a porter though as I’m far too lazy and unfit to carry my huge rucksack the whole distance. Our highest point will be Everest base camp at 5545m, but as we have to go up and down valleys, we will actually climb over 9000m.
So that’s about it. On Friday there’s another drunken outing to Thamel, but this time with people who aren’t sodding off the next day. And hopefully my eyes will be okay so I can get back to work tomorrow. I haven’t told the monastery or orphanage about Chitwan so I really need to get back.
All the best,
Joe x
PS. Did I really begin this entry with "wow"?
Monday 27 August 2007
Pepsicola
Well, the buffalo made me sick. At least, I assumed it was the buffalo, but just to make sure I had another dose the following day. Yep, definitely the buffalo.
Now, I have a confession to make. While I posted an upbeat message last week, I was actually feeling quite down. My first impression of the city was that it was hectic, dirty, smelly and hotter than a camel's armpit. I was feeling tired and sickly and was expected to endure the rubbish three-ingredient menu twice a day. I tried to save my sanity with a bar of Dairy Milk but it just wasn't the same. I couldn't even rely on Cadbury's to bring me comfort.
But, slowly and surely, as the hot hours ticked by, I started to cheer up. The initial culture shock subsided and I came to my senses. How had I not noticed the beauty of the city; the surrounding mountains, the helpful locals, the cheap beer? How could I feel low at 1,300m above sea level? So I learnt how to sleep on a solid, paper-thin mattress (not on my side), how to manoeuvre between homicidal tuk-tuk drivers, and how to squat above the hole-in-the-floor without losing balance. I remembered the showers were unheated before stepping in, accepted the wave of congratulations on my abnormal height, and no longer smirked when I saw two men holding hands.
Most of all, I began to enjoy the eccentricities of Kathmandu. For example, the main VSN office is situated in an area of the city officially called ‘Pepsicola’, as the Pepsi factory is its predominant feature. Pepsi seems to have a stranglehold on the whole city, as I haven’t seen anyone flogging Coca-Cola anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entrance to the city reads ‘Kathmandu – brought to you by Pepsi’. I live a bus ride away from the office with the Shrestas, a lovely family of five (son Parshant, daughter Sudha, uncle Madhap, mother Mongola and father No-Idea). Through my family and semi-productive language lessons, I’ve learnt some helpful Nepali phrases such as ‘Mero naam Joe ho’ (my name is Joe), ‘Malai sancho chhaina’ (I don’t feel well) and ‘pugyo bhat, malaai ek botal gaaiko masu dinus?’ (enough rice, may I have some beef?) I had the opportunity to meet some other volunteers on Wednesday afternoon but it was rather short lived as I was still suffering from buffalo-bum.
On Thursday and Friday, I visited a few temples around the city – two Hindu and one Buddhist. I have to say, the Buddhists beat the Hindus hands down. They're colourful and flamboyant but without a sniff of homosexuality. All the temples have decorated cylindrical 'prayer wheels' which each person must ritually spin clockwise as they enter and exit. I watched some Buddhist kids pissing around with a six-foot version, spinning it as fast as they could until the tiniest one went soaring into a well-placed rug. Well, I suppose you only live once!
On Friday night I went out with some of the other volunteers. We went to a rooftop restaurant and I ordered something random off the menu. I ended up with bloody rice again, but I swapped it with someone else for a naan bread and had a tofu curry sandwich. It was a really enjoyable evening, but I discovered that I have arrived at somewhat of a transition period; several volunteers left last week and everyone I have met so far has now left for Pokhara for varying lengths of time (between two weeks and two months). This means I am one of very few volunteers left, so I'll have to get used to hanging out with the monks – obviously maintaining a strict teacher-student relationship – until the new intake arrive!
Most of Saturday was spent walking from Thamel (where we had stayed in a hotel the previous night) to Pepsicola. I figured it would be nice to walk the 8km journey once so that I got a better sense of the geography of the city. Unfortunately, due to my complete incompetence at map reading, it took me over four hours, having spent at least an hour walking 2km in the opposite direction. During one of my diversions I went to get my phone unlocked so I could put in a Nepalese SIM card. This was a success, but in the process I managed to lose my English SIM, complete with fifty pounds credit. On the plus side, I saw two shop signs on the long way home that more than made up for it. One boasted 'STD available here', while the other was a sweet shop with the unfortunate misprint 'sweat shop'. It was only when I got home that I considered the sweet shop may be a cunning front for an actual sweat shop, and the sign may be a desperate attempt by a worker to reach out to an enlightened Westerner who could help them escape their terrible oppression, but by then the Liverpool vs. Sunderland game was on. Well, that's until fifteen minutes in, when the power was cut. These blackouts occur between 6 and 8pm most evenings because the city does not generate enough power for all its residences. What baffles me is that the power remains on all night – why not cut it for two hours then? When the sun goes down at 7pm, an hour with no electricity, no candles and a chargeless iPod can seem a very long time.
On Sunday I got a lift to the VSN office on the back of a motorbike. Never before have I clung onto another man with such vehemence. I had my language lesson first thing (well, 10.30) then went to visit the orphanage in Gathaaghar where I will be working. I then went for lunch in Baneshwor and ordered a ‘sizzler surprise’ – the surprise being that it was ox and goat meat – and I decided that I really needed some familiar food. So I went to the supermarket and stocked up on chocolate, crisps, chocolate, bread and chocolate. I spoke to Mongola in the evening about having my own rice-free breakfasts and she seemed quite happy with that. So first thing this morning I had suspiciously dark honey on dry, Nepalese bread…and it was bloody lovely! My poos are still weird though.
Today, I finally learnt what will occupy my time over the next six weeks. I teach intermediate English in a Pepsicola school from 10am-1pm, then get a bus to a monastery in Baneshwor where I teach advanced English from 3.30-4.30pm, then quickly hop on another bus to the orphanage for 5-7pm. However, it is a national holiday tomorrow and the school and monastery don’t have lessons, so I’m just going into the orphanage in the afternoon to meet the kids. I start at the school on Thursday, but I’m sharing lessons with a Nepali teacher until Monday. After that, I’m on my tod in a government school with sixty hormonal teenagers and no fixed curriculum. As this is hogging all of my available terror, I’m feeling quite relaxed about teaching fifteen monks from Wednesday, probably because I’m assuming they’ll all be pretty well behaved (unless they want to revert to cockroaches - or Frenchmen - and start climbing the reincarnation ladder all over again).
So there you have it; by this time on Wednesday I’ll be a proper, bona-fide teacher – cushy hours, crap pay and a class full of skinheads staring up at me. I’ll let you know how I get on with the orphans, the monks and the school kids and, more importantly, try to find out what the hell my Nepalese dad is called!
Namaste,
Joe x
Now, I have a confession to make. While I posted an upbeat message last week, I was actually feeling quite down. My first impression of the city was that it was hectic, dirty, smelly and hotter than a camel's armpit. I was feeling tired and sickly and was expected to endure the rubbish three-ingredient menu twice a day. I tried to save my sanity with a bar of Dairy Milk but it just wasn't the same. I couldn't even rely on Cadbury's to bring me comfort.
But, slowly and surely, as the hot hours ticked by, I started to cheer up. The initial culture shock subsided and I came to my senses. How had I not noticed the beauty of the city; the surrounding mountains, the helpful locals, the cheap beer? How could I feel low at 1,300m above sea level? So I learnt how to sleep on a solid, paper-thin mattress (not on my side), how to manoeuvre between homicidal tuk-tuk drivers, and how to squat above the hole-in-the-floor without losing balance. I remembered the showers were unheated before stepping in, accepted the wave of congratulations on my abnormal height, and no longer smirked when I saw two men holding hands.
Most of all, I began to enjoy the eccentricities of Kathmandu. For example, the main VSN office is situated in an area of the city officially called ‘Pepsicola’, as the Pepsi factory is its predominant feature. Pepsi seems to have a stranglehold on the whole city, as I haven’t seen anyone flogging Coca-Cola anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entrance to the city reads ‘Kathmandu – brought to you by Pepsi’. I live a bus ride away from the office with the Shrestas, a lovely family of five (son Parshant, daughter Sudha, uncle Madhap, mother Mongola and father No-Idea). Through my family and semi-productive language lessons, I’ve learnt some helpful Nepali phrases such as ‘Mero naam Joe ho’ (my name is Joe), ‘Malai sancho chhaina’ (I don’t feel well) and ‘pugyo bhat, malaai ek botal gaaiko masu dinus?’ (enough rice, may I have some beef?) I had the opportunity to meet some other volunteers on Wednesday afternoon but it was rather short lived as I was still suffering from buffalo-bum.
On Thursday and Friday, I visited a few temples around the city – two Hindu and one Buddhist. I have to say, the Buddhists beat the Hindus hands down. They're colourful and flamboyant but without a sniff of homosexuality. All the temples have decorated cylindrical 'prayer wheels' which each person must ritually spin clockwise as they enter and exit. I watched some Buddhist kids pissing around with a six-foot version, spinning it as fast as they could until the tiniest one went soaring into a well-placed rug. Well, I suppose you only live once!
On Friday night I went out with some of the other volunteers. We went to a rooftop restaurant and I ordered something random off the menu. I ended up with bloody rice again, but I swapped it with someone else for a naan bread and had a tofu curry sandwich. It was a really enjoyable evening, but I discovered that I have arrived at somewhat of a transition period; several volunteers left last week and everyone I have met so far has now left for Pokhara for varying lengths of time (between two weeks and two months). This means I am one of very few volunteers left, so I'll have to get used to hanging out with the monks – obviously maintaining a strict teacher-student relationship – until the new intake arrive!
Most of Saturday was spent walking from Thamel (where we had stayed in a hotel the previous night) to Pepsicola. I figured it would be nice to walk the 8km journey once so that I got a better sense of the geography of the city. Unfortunately, due to my complete incompetence at map reading, it took me over four hours, having spent at least an hour walking 2km in the opposite direction. During one of my diversions I went to get my phone unlocked so I could put in a Nepalese SIM card. This was a success, but in the process I managed to lose my English SIM, complete with fifty pounds credit. On the plus side, I saw two shop signs on the long way home that more than made up for it. One boasted 'STD available here', while the other was a sweet shop with the unfortunate misprint 'sweat shop'. It was only when I got home that I considered the sweet shop may be a cunning front for an actual sweat shop, and the sign may be a desperate attempt by a worker to reach out to an enlightened Westerner who could help them escape their terrible oppression, but by then the Liverpool vs. Sunderland game was on. Well, that's until fifteen minutes in, when the power was cut. These blackouts occur between 6 and 8pm most evenings because the city does not generate enough power for all its residences. What baffles me is that the power remains on all night – why not cut it for two hours then? When the sun goes down at 7pm, an hour with no electricity, no candles and a chargeless iPod can seem a very long time.
On Sunday I got a lift to the VSN office on the back of a motorbike. Never before have I clung onto another man with such vehemence. I had my language lesson first thing (well, 10.30) then went to visit the orphanage in Gathaaghar where I will be working. I then went for lunch in Baneshwor and ordered a ‘sizzler surprise’ – the surprise being that it was ox and goat meat – and I decided that I really needed some familiar food. So I went to the supermarket and stocked up on chocolate, crisps, chocolate, bread and chocolate. I spoke to Mongola in the evening about having my own rice-free breakfasts and she seemed quite happy with that. So first thing this morning I had suspiciously dark honey on dry, Nepalese bread…and it was bloody lovely! My poos are still weird though.
Today, I finally learnt what will occupy my time over the next six weeks. I teach intermediate English in a Pepsicola school from 10am-1pm, then get a bus to a monastery in Baneshwor where I teach advanced English from 3.30-4.30pm, then quickly hop on another bus to the orphanage for 5-7pm. However, it is a national holiday tomorrow and the school and monastery don’t have lessons, so I’m just going into the orphanage in the afternoon to meet the kids. I start at the school on Thursday, but I’m sharing lessons with a Nepali teacher until Monday. After that, I’m on my tod in a government school with sixty hormonal teenagers and no fixed curriculum. As this is hogging all of my available terror, I’m feeling quite relaxed about teaching fifteen monks from Wednesday, probably because I’m assuming they’ll all be pretty well behaved (unless they want to revert to cockroaches - or Frenchmen - and start climbing the reincarnation ladder all over again).
So there you have it; by this time on Wednesday I’ll be a proper, bona-fide teacher – cushy hours, crap pay and a class full of skinheads staring up at me. I’ll let you know how I get on with the orphans, the monks and the school kids and, more importantly, try to find out what the hell my Nepalese dad is called!
Namaste,
Joe x
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