photos from cambodia

no comments
11 March 2010
in cool photos, my photos, photography stuff, random pix, travel, tagged b&w, beggar, bike, black, cambodia, fence, girl, humans, killing fields, phnom penh, photo, photography, pictures, prostitution, remains, sex, skull, white, woman

top — skulls from the killing fields
middle — a girl peers through a fence and begs for money
bot­tom — an old man fin­an­cially com­pensates a girl for ser­vices rendered

travel diary — day 350

no comments
11 March 2010
in buddhism, travel, tagged airport, armoured personnel carrier, army, baksheesh, book, canal, caretaker, chowkhang gompa, coffee, computer, dal lake, email, fish temple, flight, floating store, french wife, gompa, hill, hindu, horse, hotel, houseboat, india, indian, indian archaeological society, internet cafe, islam, island, kashmir, kashmir valley, ladakh, leh, marijuana, military, mohammad, monastery, money, mosque, mountain, movie, muslim, pahalgan, paulo cohelo, people, photo, photography, photos, picture, riding, runway, school, sledding, snacks, snow, soldiers, srinigar, stars, strike, temple, the zahir, tibetan restaurant, victoria, view, weather

day 346 — it snowed like mad the whole day. after break­fast i walked around town tak­ing pho­to­graphs of the snow. it was a lot of fun because people were happy to let me take their pic­ture — even though it was snow­ing and freez­ing cold. i returned to chow­khang gompa and took some pho­tos there too.

it was cold and my clothes were start­ing to become wet from melted snow. i retreated to the inter­net café for a while to warm up, then i returned to the snow and took more pho­tos. i bought some food and returned to my hotel to let my clothes dry out and read my book. i fin­ished the book in the even­ing, packed and slept.

day 347 — there had been no flights out of leh for the past three days, due to the bad weather. so when i went to bed the pre­vi­ous night, i secretly feared that the poor weather would con­tinue and i’d be stuck in leh. being stuck in leh isn’t so bad actu­ally, but i wanted to keep mov­ing and was keen to reach kash­mir. when i woke up it was still dark, but i went out­side and looked at the night sky — it was dot­ted with stars and i knew that the weather had cleared.

i packed and left my hotel right on dawn. i walked into the main street but there was nobody awake yet and no taxis. i man­aged to get a ride with some air­port work­ers and arrived in time for my flight.

the flight was delayed by five hours because the air­port offi­cials hadn’t been able to clear the run­way of snow from the pre­vi­ous day. sur­pris­ingly, they had no snow-clearing equip­ment and the local army had come in to clear the run­way using shovels. dur­ing the long wait i got talk­ing to a couple of kash­miri guys who work in leh but live in srin­igar. we talked about india, cricket, islam, kash­mir and numer­ous other things. it passed the time and i was happy.

even­tu­ally we got on board the plane and flew to srin­igar. i’d already arranged a house­boat and guide, who was wait­ing for me, so i was quickly whisked off to dal lake to my house­boat, some food and hot tea. on the way to the house­boat i couldn’t help but notice the enorm­ous num­ber of sol­diers lin­ing the streets, sup­por­ted by vehicles and armoured per­son­nel car­ri­ers. i star­ted to worry that maybe it wasn’t as safe as i first thought, but the guide reas­sured me that it was just a reg­u­lar sight in srin­igar, espe­cially when some kind of event was com­ing up — like the planned strike on the fol­low­ing day.

the house­boat was really nice and i enjoyed sit­ting in the warm room with food and drink. i found out that the owner, who is a kash­miri muslim man, has a french wife. i talked with the owner’s son for a while and after din­ner the french wife appeared. she intro­duced her­self with a huge reefer in her hand and asked “do you want to smoke?”.

her name was vic­toria and she was actu­ally the owner’s second wife (his first wife is also kash­miri) and they all live together on the house­boats which he inher­ited from his father. we talked for quite a while and i got some sleep.

day 348 — i spent the morn­ing relax­ing on the house­boat. the boat was warm from the fire in my room (inside a huge stove) and the gas burner in the liv­ing room. i ate and talked with the owner, mohammad, and organ­ised a four day itin­er­ary to see srin­igar and the kash­mir val­ley. i talked with vic­toria a little bit, drank some great cof­fee, and walked into town.

everything in town was shut due to some local strike, so i walked for a bit and had a snack at a local tibetan res­taur­ant. nearby was an inter­net café, so i also checked my email. i returned on dusk and spent the quiet even­ing watch­ing a movie on my com­puter.

day 349 — i had break­fast and then went on a long two hour boat ride around dal lake. dal lake is enorm­ous there are thou­sands of house­boats scattered around it. parts of the lake have small islands and these often con­tain shops, mosques and schools. we went through some canals and saw the old city side of the lake. the place is amaz­ing and it was nice to look around and see the whole thing.

after­wards i spent some time edit­ing and back­ing up pho­tos (which i hadn’t done since ladakh). then i went into town to with­draw money. i had a cof­fee, checked email again and returned to the boat. i edited some more pho­tos and went to bed.

day 350 — today i got an early start and we drove out to kash­mir val­ley and the city of pahal­gan. i ren­ted a horse and rode to the top of the hills which had a great view of kash­mir and the val­ley itself. i took a break at the top and had some cof­fee. there were a few vendors there and i had the chance to go sled­ding. instead, i fol­lowed the sled­ders and took photos.

i rode back down and returned to the car. i had some lunch and then vis­ited a hindu temple called ‘the fish temple’. inside the temple is a small lake which comes down from the moun­tain. fish live in the lake and it’s part of the temple’s long his­tory. the place wasn’t very inter­est­ing though, except for the fish, so we kept going and wandered around some ruins of another hindu temple which are 1100 years old. the local care­taker was keen to guide me around (i knew he’d want money) but i scorned him for how dirty the place was — littered with cigar­ettes and fire­cracker paper. he blamed the local kids, but i didn’t care since he was the care­taker and it should have been his respons­ib­il­ity … not to men­tion the fact that the site was looked after by the indian archae­olo­gical society.

indi­ans have a way of say­ing ‘as you wish’ when they want money. it’s sup­posed to mean ‘pay me as much as you wish’ or ‘you decide how much to give as a tip’ … of course, they’re never happy with the amount of the tip and will always sug­gest more. i’d become fed up with indian bak­sheesh and, since i hadn’t asked for the guided tour, walked off without pay­ing any tip at all.

we returned to srin­igar and when i returned to the house­boat a float­ing store (a paddle boat act­ing as a shop) came by. i bought some snacks for the even­ing, edited some more pho­tos, had din­ner, watched a movie and slept.

photos from cambodia

no comments
11 March 2010
in buddhism, cool photos, my photos, photography stuff, random pix, travel, tagged angkor wat, b&w, black, buddhism, buddhist, cambodia, faces, phnom penh, photo, photography, picture, portraits, reflection, ruins, s21, siem reap, torture, tree, water, white

top — angkor wat reflec­ted in water
middle — the ruins of angkor wat
bot­tom — the faces of S21

travel diary — day 345

no comments
11 March 2010
in buddhism, travel, tagged acute mountain sickness, airport, altitude, ams, beanie, book, buddhism, buddhist, ceremony, chess, children, chowkhang gompa, cold, dalai lama, email, flight, goa, gompa, heater, hemis gompa, ice hockey, india, internet cafe, jacket, kashmir, kids, korean monastery, ladakh, lama, leh, leh palace, market, monastery, namgyal tsemo gompa, palace, paolo cohelo, photograph, prayer, retread, shay gompa, skating, skating rink, snow, soma gompa, stok gompa, taxi, tea, temple, the zahir, thiksay gompa, thukpa, tibetan market, tour, tyre

day 341 — i got star­ted early for my flight to leh. at 5am i got a taxi to the air­port but had to stop along the way when the taxi shred­ded a tyre. retreads are very com­mon in india and the qual­ity is, in a word, shit. 10 minutes later we were going again and i soon arrived at the air­port. i grabbed a quick break­fast and then flew to ladakh.

leh was sunny but cool and my first impres­sions were of a beau­ti­ful town. i found my hotel and walked around the mar­kets and the main street. the town is small and it didn’t take long to wander around nearly the entire vil­lage. being cold i figured that i needed to get myself a warmer jacket and did a little shop­ping, but the prices were high and i was dis­ap­poin­ted. i figured i’d try again the next day.

i couldn’t do much today, since the risk of ams is high on the first day after fly­ing to a high alti­tude, so i got some thukpa for din­ner and res­ted in my room.

day 342 — i walked into town and decided that i needed a jacket regard­less of the cost. i found a store and man­aged to haggle a good price. i also bought a beanie. then i went for a walk up the hill to the old leh palace and soma gompa. fur­ther up the hill was namgyal tsemo gompa, which had a great view of the town.

i walked back down the hill and into the main street. i found an inter­net café and checked my email. i had thukpa for din­ner again and returned to my hotel before it got dark (and too cold).

day 343 — today i went on a driv­ing tour of leh and the sur­round­ing area. being winter there are no tour­ists and little busi­ness. i’m the only guest at my hotel and the owner offered to take me on the tour him­self. we vis­ited 4 of the district’s major temples. shay gompa was really nice and at thiksay gompa a young import­ant lama had been invited to give talks to the monks. the mon­as­tery was full of people — monks were listen­ing to the talks and buddhists were sit­ting out­side listen­ing via speak­ers. there were so many people, but they were all sit­ting quietly and shar­ing tea. i drank some tea too and looked around.

hemis gompa was hid­den high up in the hills and it took a while to get there. the roads were icy but the scenery was amaz­ing. the gompa was mostly empty but it turns out that my guide and hotel owner is very well known amongst the loc­als and is prom­in­ent in the buddhist com­munity. in fact, he’s met the dalai lama sev­eral times. so whenever we arrived some­where, tea was served, doors were unlocked and we were invited to watch and par­ti­cip­ate in the local celebrations.

the last temple was stok and we arrived at the begin­ning of a 49 day mourn­ing cere­mony for an old lama who’d died. monks had been invited from as far as bhutan to per­form rituals and chant to bless the lama. we were invited inside and got to sit with the monks while they chanted and prayed. i sat quietly and respect­fully, some­times tak­ing a photo or two, and enjoyed the atmo­sphere of the scene. actu­ally, i kicked myself that i hadn’t thought to bring my mp3 player which is able to record sound. it would have been nice to keep a record­ing of the chanting.

we returned to leh and i walked back to the main street to check email again. i had a quick din­ner (more thukpa) and got some sleep.

day 344 — i woke up to find leh covered in snow. it had snowed dur­ing the night and the entire town was white. most of the shops were shut (because it was sunday, not because of the snow) so there wasn’t much i could do. i walked around town and wandered through the tibetan mar­ket. much of it was shut too, dur­ing the tour­ist off-season, but some stalls were still open. actu­ally, when i was in goa i dis­covered that many kash­miri and ladakhi people head south dur­ing winter to make money. many of them work in the goan mar­kets or in hotels then return north again for the sum­mer tour­ist sea­son. obvi­ously though, some people remain in ladakh and tried to make the most of the winter season.

the inter­net café was warm so i devoted an hour catch­ing up on chess. i grabbed some food and returned to the hotel. actu­ally, nights are really cold in ladakh, so i was always keen to get home before dark and crawl into my warm bed to read.

day 345 — i had break­fast in town and returned to the tibetan mar­ket. more was open this time and i bought a ‘save tibet’ tshirt and some long under­wear. i walked to chow­khang gompa, which is hid­den in the middle of town, and walked north of the vil­lage to find the korean mon­as­tery. the mon­as­tery must be small because i couldn’t find it. but i enjoyed the long walk and pho­to­graphed some kids slid­ing down the ice slopes. leh also has an out­door ice skat­ing rink, so i watched the local kids skate and play ice hockey.

the even­ing was really cold and i finally gave in and got a heater for my room. up to now i’d been sur­viv­ing without one, but the days were get­ting colder and there was more snow around. i also grabbed a book from the hotel lib­rary, paulo cohelo’s ‘the zahir’, which i read in my now-warm room.

photos from cambodia

no comments
11 March 2010
in buddhism, cool photos, my photos, photography stuff, random pix, travel, tagged angkor wat, buddha, buddhism, buddhist, cambodia, carving, face, girl, photo, photography, picture, rock, saffron, siem reap, statue, stone, ta promh, travel, woman

top — the giant faces of ta promh
middle — loc­als sit­ting amongst the ruins
bot­tom — a buddha, clad in saffron

travel diary — day 340

no comments
8 March 2010
in travel, tagged acute mountain sickness, altitude, ams, apple pie, bakery, beer, beggar, cable, coffee, connaught place, delhi, diamox, dinner, flights, house boat, hp service centre, india, internet, kashmir, killing time, ladakh, leh, liverpool game, non-genuine, pakistan, pakistan embassy, pakistan visa, passport, phone, photo, power surge, rooftop bar, srinigar, tickets, underwear, washing

day 336 — basic­ally, i’m killing time until i get my pakistan visa. i can’t leave delhi without it. so i have been spend­ing my days as lazily as pos­sible, try­ing not to spend too much money.

i bought some under­wear and spent much of the day online. i had din­ner at a rooftop bar which was unli­censed. they sold beer in mugs which they called ‘cap­puccino’. i watched the liv­er­pool game live on tv, returned to the hotel and slept.

day 337 — i had break­fast and did some research about pakistan. then i returned to con­naught place to find a beg­gar i’d seen a few days earlier. she was old and had patches of dif­fer­ent col­oured skin on her face. i really wanted her pho­to­graph. i walked around for half an hour but couldn’t find her. then, sud­denly, i almost bumped straight into her. i took her photo, gave her some money (and craig’s old phone!) and ran away.

i returned to the hotel and inquired about flights to ladakh and kash­mir. the hotel owner also told me about a friend he knew in srin­igar who had a house boat. it soun­ded prom­ising, so i planned to make arrange­ments the next day (after con­firm­ing the pakistan visa).

day 338 — i went to the pakistan embassy early. i got inside and had to wait two hours for the inter­view to get my visa. the inter­view was fast (fur­ther proof of the bur­eau­cracy) and i returned to main bazaar. i scanned some pho­tos, with­drew money and bought two flights: one to leh (ladakh) and one to srin­igar (kash­mir). i would have gone in by bus, but at this time of year, the roads to leh are shut and the only way in is to fly.

i checked email, had a nice cof­fee and apple pie at the bakery, and spent the rest of the day online. in anti­cip­a­tion of going to leh, i also star­ted a course of anti-ams (acute moun­tain sick­ness) med­ic­a­tion. i would be fly­ing to leh, mean­ing a quick ascent to high alti­tude, which i knew could be a problem.

day 339 — i picked up my pass­port and pakistan visa. finally! i still had two more days to kill, so i spent the after­noon online. in the after­noon there was a power surge which fried the ac power cable. damn! another freak­ing thing to go wrong.

day 340 — i went to see if i could get a replace­ment power cable. i ended up at a hp ser­vice centre and was told that the cable was nearly $50. to hell with that! i went back to the main bazaar and got a non-genuine cable for a quarter of the price.

i checked email, picked up my wash­ing and packed my bag. after din­ner i with­drew some more money, paid my hotel bill and went to bed early in anti­cip­a­tion of a very early start the next morning.

photos from cambodia

no comments
7 March 2010
in buddhism, cool photos, my photos, photography stuff, random pix, travel, tagged angkor wat, b&w, black, blue, buddhism, buddhist, cambodia, costume, face, girl, portrait, reflection, siem reap, sky, stone, ta promh, temple, white

top — the face of ta promh
middle — angkor wat reflec­ted
bot­tom — a girl in tra­di­tional costume

travel diary — day 335

no comments
7 March 2010
in rants, travel, tagged application, approval code, australia day, australian embassy, bakery, bed bugs, book, breakfast, bureaucracy, camera stores, chess, computer, connaught place, conversation, cult, delay, delhi, email, foreign ministry, france, hippy, hostel, hotel, india, iran guide book, iranian embassy, iranian food, letter of introduction, lonely planet, main bazaar, mumbai, music, natural born killers, new delhi, official, operating system, pakistan embassy, phone, prayer, religious, restaurant, salvation army hostel, shower, singing, spain, train, ubuntu, upgrade, visa, water

day 331 — aus­tralia day — i woke up, had break­fast and packed. the hostel had no water at all … so no shower … and i was covered in bed bug bites … again! i stored my bag and headed into town. i checked out a few cam­era stores, checked email and returned to the hostel to get my gear. when i returned, the water was work­ing, so i had a long shower. as i was leav­ing, i noticed a dis­carded copy of ‘nat­ural born killers’, upon which the film was based. i threw the book in my pack and decided to read it on the train.

i bumped into the french and span­ish tour­ists again, so i talked with them for a few minutes before i left to get my train. the french guy gave me his iran lonely planet (in french) which i figured i could use for maps and stuff. i had some ira­nian food for din­ner and got the train to delhi.

day 332 — i spent the day on the train. i read ‘nat­ural born killers’ and fin­ished it in a few hours. i listened to music and also listened to some singing from the com­part­ment next to me. the people in the com­part­ment were trav­el­ing as part of a group. i couldn’t fig­ure out whether they were reli­gious or a good samar­itan group or what. they sang a lot, which was fun, and in the even­ing they did a prayer. i had a long con­ver­sa­tion with an indian guy and was given some lit­er­at­ure about ‘love, life and the uni­verse’ by one of the sing­ers. it seemed like hippy/cult/religion stuff, so i smiled politely and didn’t read it.

day 333 — the train was delayed by six hours and we arrived really late. the train had stopped at a sta­tion an hour south of delhi in the early hours of the morn­ing. many people got off, think­ing that the train wouldn’t con­tinue, and went in search of buses. the con­ductor told every­one that there was a prob­lem with the train.

i was in two minds whether to go or stay, when sud­denly they announced that the train was leav­ing. i jumped back on and got to delhi. the train was half empty and i think there must have been a lot of angry people stran­ded on the plat­form or look­ing for a bus.

we arrived in delhi and i had to wait another hour for a con­nect­ing train to the new delhi sta­tion. when i got to new delhi i walked through the main bazaar and checked into a hotel. after a shower and change, i headed straight to the pakistan embassy to start my visa application.

the freak­ing pakistan embassy require a ‘let­ter of intro­duc­tion’ from the applicant’s home nation. i couldn’t get the let­ter or pakistan visa applic­a­tion forms until the next day, so i headed back to main bazaar. i had din­ner in a nice rooftop res­taur­ant, checked email and did an upgrade on my ubuntu os.

day 334 — i got up early, had a quick break­fast and went straight to the embassy district.

the pakistan embassy offi­cial gave me the applic­a­tion forms and con­firmed that i need the let­ter of intro­duc­tion. that meant walk­ing to the aus­tralian embassy (which was nearby) and fork­ing out $30 for a stamped let­ter. damn! i returned to the pakistan embassy, filled out the forms, had them typed (as is required and is a retarded rule) then walked down to the bank to sub­mit my visa pay­ment. apply­ing for a pakistan visa is a ridicu­lously com­plic­ated pro­cess. it’s not dif­fi­cult, it’s just stu­pid bureaucracy.

i had to wait three days to com­plete the visa.

i then headed to the ira­nian embassy to see if there was any easy way of get­ting the ira­nian visa (without the approval code issued by iran’s for­eign min­istry). the embassy offi­cial was very rude to me and told me to get the visa in aus­tralia. so i gave up and returned to the main part of town.

i walked around con­naught place, bought a phone and decided to relax for the even­ing. i chat­ted and played chess online.

day 335 — i had break­fast and walked around the bazaar. i found a small bakery which had nice food, and the owner liked to play chess. we played two games (1–1) and i was happy with the res­ult. i sold some books and had dinner.

photos from nepal

no comments
3 March 2010
in buddhism, cool photos, my photos, photography stuff, random pix, travel, tagged blue, buddhism, buddhist, face, field, flags, girl, gompa, green, himalayas, mountains, nepal, photo, photography, picture, portrait, sky, spring, travel, wheat

top — a gompa against a blue sky
middle — a young girl poses for the cam­era
bot­tom — wheat fields in spring

travel diary — day 330

no comments
3 March 2010
in travel, tagged anjuna, anjuna beach, anjuna markets, atm, baksheesh, band, bed bugs, beer, bom jesus, breakfast, bribe, chapel, chapora fort, chess set, church, cigars, coast road, corruption, delhi, diary, elsa, email, fine, france, goa, helmet, hotel, india, licence, live music, movie, mumbai, old goa, panaji, patron saint, police, salvation army hostel, scooter, spain, st christopher, st francis of asissi, sunset, taxi stand, tibetan food, ticket, tourists, train, tshirt, vagator, village, wednesday

day 326 — i arrived in goa in the morn­ing and headed to the taxi stand to arrange trans­port to anjuna (the town in goa where i’d decided to stay). at the stand i met a french girl called elsa who’d been on the bunk dir­ectly beneath me. we hadn’t spoken on the train, but we star­ted talk­ing at the taxi stand and decided to share a taxi. she was going to vag­ator, which was near anjuna, and i figured i’d work some­thing out along the way.

when we arrived in vag­ator i real­ised what a nice little vil­lage it was. the hotel elsa had booked was nice and she invited me to split costs and share the room (there were two beds). i agreed and we dumped our gear and went for breakfast.

being wed­nes­day, today was the day of the fam­ous anjuna mar­kets. we ren­ted a scooter and rode a few kilo­met­ers to the massive weekly mar­ket. the mar­ket was fant­astic and i enjoyed walk­ing around. there were bands play­ing in a few places so we sat and listened to a few, drink­ing beers and talk­ing about travel.

we split up for a while to explore the mar­kets sep­ar­ately. i bought a chess set, a new diary and a cheap tshirt with a ganesh pic­ture on it. elsa and i met up again in the late after­noon. she wanted to return to see the even­ing bands and i thought it was a good idea. we sat and watched the band per­form. after they were fin­ished, it was late and we rode back to the hotel. we got some tibetan food for a late din­ner and, since i was tired as hell, got some sleep.

day 327 — i had an early break­fast, checked email, then met elsa. together we took the scooter to panaji (a big­ger city) to see old goa and get tick­ets (bus/train) to our vari­ous des­tin­a­tions. on the way we were stopped by police because we weren’t wear­ing hel­mets and didn’t have a licence. we paid 600 rupeees as a “fine” (bak­sheesh) and con­tin­ued to old goa.

old goa was fant­astic. we vis­ited bom jesus and st fran­cis of asissi. i bought a small fig­ur­ine of st chris­topher (the pat­ron saint of trav­el­ers) and we wandered around the other chapels and churches.

we took the coast road back, hop­ing to avoid police, and enjoyed the goan vil­lages along the way. we stopped for a late lunch and rode up to chapora fort for sun­set. in the even­ing we walked to the beach for beer and cigars, then returned to the room to sleep.

day 328 — elsa was head­ing south towards the ancient city of humpee. i decided to check out too and move to anjuna beach for a few days. i had a small sleep and wandered around the mar­kets. i bought a ticket back to mum­bai, then had din­ner on the beach and watched the sun­set. i watched a movie on my com­puter and went to bed late.

day 329 — i had break­fast and spent a little bit of time online. i was run­ning out of money and made the 1.5 km walk to the nearest atm. when i returned i decided to buy a train ticket to delhi, since it seemed that the trains were busy and i didn’t want to be stuck in mumbai.

after lunch i had some beer and took a long walk along anjuna beach. it’s a beau­ti­ful stretch of beach, but (like much of goa) is crowded with indian and for­eign tourists.

i had a very early start the next morn­ing so i organ­ised a taxi, packed and got some sleep.

day 330 — i woke up at 3.30am, got a taxi to the sta­tion and got on the train to mum­bai. some arse­hole was in my bunk, so rather than wake him up, i slept in the vacant win­dow bunk. in the morn­ing, the same arse­hole wanted the win­dow bunk (which was his ori­ginal seat). i swore at him and let him take the seat. fuck­ing shit­head didn’t want the win­dow at night because it was cold, so he stole my bunk and then wanted his back dur­ing the day when it was warm. hoo­ray for indian ethics!

i arrived in mum­bai and was for­tu­nate enough to get a bed in the sal­va­tion army hostel. i didn’t want to stay there, but it was the cheapest place in town and i was pre­pared to play the ‘bed bug’ roul­ette game. i checked email and had din­ner. in the even­ing i got talk­ing to some french and span­ish tour­ists that had come through iran and pakistan. so we chat­ted about travel and shared advice on what was hap­pen­ing in the places we’d been.

photos from nepal

no comments
2 March 2010
in buddhism, cool photos, my photos, photography stuff, random pix, travel, tagged architecture, bells, blue, buddha, buddhist, eyes, face, kathmandu, monkey, nepal, orange, photo, photography, picture, sunset, temple, travel

top — bells on a rope against the sun­set
middle — a gompa in kath­mandu
bot­tom — a mon­key sur­veys his territory

travel diary — day 325

no comments
2 March 2010
in travel, tagged 1984, bazaar, bed bugs, beer, breakfast, cafe, caves, christian, commission, complaint, dinner, dormitory, elephant island, entrance fee, ferry, france, goa, grottos, guns, hotel, india, kolkata, laundry, lonely planet, lookout point, manager, mattress, mumbai, ngo, salvation army hostel, scam, shave, sleeping bag, station, street market, taxi, ticket, train, wifi, windows

day 321 — it was cold on the train and i had dif­fi­culty sleep­ing. without a sleep­ing bag i had noth­ing to cover me or pro­tect me from the cold wind that came in through the gap in the win­dows. the morn­ing was bet­ter and i sat in the sun read­ing my book and look­ing through my india guidebook.

not long after, some old codger came along and star­ted ram­bling at me in hindi. i couldn’t under­stand what he was say­ing, but it was pretty clear that he wanted to sit in my seat. being an indian train, people sit wherever they please, des­pite the alloc­ated seat­ing. rather than fight­ing with him, i moved. then i grabbed my bag and walked the length of the train (if you’ve been on an indian train, you’d know that’s a damn long way), and found the con­ductor. i com­plained and asked for another seat. he obliged and i had a nice win­dow seat to myself for the after­noon. i listened to music, read and tried to get some sleep through the cold, drafty windows.

day 322 — i arrived in mum­bai early in the morn­ing. it was still dark. i got into a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel. the driver said that the hotel i asked for was shut down. in india, that’s a typ­ical scam used by taxi drivers to get you to go to a dif­fer­ent hotel which will be more expens­ive and pay a com­mis­sion to the taxi driver. so, nat­ur­ally, i didn’t believe him. i told him to take me to the hotel any­way … and as it turns out, the hotel was shut down. damn!

i walked to a few nearby hotels, which were all full, and headed back towards the main street. i found the sal­va­tion army hostel and was told that i could check in after 9am. i waited and man­aged to get a bed in the dormitory.

i was happy. i put in some laun­dry and headed off for break­fast. then i went to a shop­ping mall to find a sleep­ing bag. one store had sleep­ing bags, but they were quite expens­ive, so i headed to the main bazaar. i got a cheap sleep­ing bag and returned to the hotel. i read my book, found a café which served beer (a rar­ity in mum­bai, appar­ently!) and got some sleep.

day 323 — i had break­fast and checked email at a wifi café i found near the main inter­sec­tion. then i went to the train sta­tion and bought my ticket to goa. i decided to have a lazy day and spent the after­noon read­ing my book. i went for a walk through the street mar­ket, had a shave (which is always fun) and col­lec­ted my laundry.

day 324 — in the morn­ing i woke up covered in bed bug bites. des­pite the sleep­ing bag, i had been bit­ten by bugs in the mat­tress. annoyed and itchy, i moved bunks. some of the other guys in the dorm also com­plained about bed bugs. it was then that i checked the guide­book and it men­tioned bed bugs in this hotel too. damn! rather than move to another hotel, i decided to com­plain to the man­ager and hope that the new bunk was clean.

i went for break­fast, scratched myself silly, checked email, scratched more, and walked around town. i returned to the hostel to read my book and met a french­man called chris­tian. we star­ted talk­ing and in the even­ing decided to go for a walk to find some beer. we ended up walk­ing half way through col­aba (the touristy sec­tion of mum­bai) before we found a small place which served grog. we had a few beers, talked about trav­el­ing, and returned to the hotel for the night.

day 325 — today was my train to goa, but the train was in the even­ing, so i had a full day to kill. chris­tian was leav­ing too and his train was also at night. we decided to spend the day together and go to ele­phant island. i had break­fast and some cof­fee then we got the ferry to the island. much of the island is free, but the caves and grot­tos require an entrance fee. chris­tian didn’t want to pay it so we walked up the hill to the lookout point and saw the old guns which were used in ww2.

then chris­tian asked a drinks vendor if it was pos­sible to walk around the hill to the caves. the vendor, wait­ing until nobody was look­ing, showed us a small path. we fol­lowed it over the hill and around the corner, jumped a fence, and were inside the caves area. sweet! we enjoyed the free caves and grottos.

we had lunch and returned to mum­bai. i spent an hour check­ing email then met up with chris­tian again for din­ner. we ended up talk­ing to two indian ngo guys we’d met at the hotel.

after that, we jumped in a taxi to the train sta­tion and, upon arriv­ing, chris­tian real­ised he was at the wrong sta­tion. he scrambled back into a taxi and made the dash across mum­bai to his train. i had plenty of time, so i got some water, bought an inflat­able pil­low and got my train to goa.

photos from nepal

no comments
2 March 2010
in cool photos, my photos, photography stuff, random pix, travel, tagged animals, basket, beads, boy, face, hair, himalayas, holy, man, nepal, photo, photography, picture, portrait, travel, working, yaks

top — a boy prac­tices car­ry­ing loads on moun­tain tracks
middle — a holy man in kath­mandu
bot­tom — yak, yak, yak

one year on the road …

no comments
1 March 2010
in life, travel,

march 1st marks the anniversary of a full year of travel. in the past 12 months i have vis­ited 17 coun­tries, been to 2 wed­dings and returned home for the first time in 8 years.

i had my ipod stolen, bought a new lens and a new ‘point and shoot’ cam­era, met hun­dreds of inter­est­ing people and adven­tured to the top of the world (5600 meters).

the next 12 months will hope­fully be even cra­zier than the last 12 months …

travel diary — day 320

no comments
28 February 2010
in australia, buddhism, travel, tagged 1984, airport, apple, around the world in 80 days, australia, beef masala, beer, bookshop, breakfast, buddhist, burma, business class, cold shower, corn, dharma, dinner, dorm, email, flight, fudge, gaya, george orwell, hotel, hotel maria, india, jules verne, kimchi bokeumbab, kolkata, korea, koreans, loud speaker, market, money, mosque, mumbai, myanmar, package, sleeping bag, street stall, taxi, the bastard of istanbul, train, vip, yangon

day 316 — i had break­fast and talked to dave for a while, then star­ted my new book ‘the bas­tard of istan­bul’. the book annoyed me (focus­ing on how much armeni­ans hate turks and visa versa) and i refused to read more. i’m sure the book has a happy end­ing and they all grow to love each other, but i wasn’t buy­ing into the storyline and shut the book.

i headed into town for another wander around the streets. i had din­ner at a street stall and bought an assort­ment of junk to eat in the even­ing; chocol­ate fudge, a giant apple, a hot corn cob and beer.

day 317 — i was woken up by someone talk­ing on a loud speaker at 3am. at first i thought it was pray­ers from the nearby mosque, but it soun­ded dif­fer­ent. it could have been some buddhist ser­mon or some­thing else … i don’t know. it was quite loud and took me a while to get back to sleep.

i woke up later, had break­fast and checked out. i checked my email then got a taxi to the air­port. my flight to india was busi­ness class (yay!) so i spent the free time in the vip lounge drink­ing beer, eat­ing snacks and watch­ing bbc news.

the flight to india star­ted late and, due to the stop­over in gaya, arrived in kolk­ata in the early even­ing. it was dark by the time my taxi reached sud­der street and many of the gues­t­houses were booked solid. i ended up stay­ing in a dorm, with three other koreans. i bought a lonely planet india, had din­ner and slept.

day 318 — i changed hotels in the morn­ing, return­ing to hotel maria — an old favour­ite from my pre­vi­ous trip to india. i walked around the mar­kets, with­drew some money and bought myself a train ticket to mum­bai.  i mailed some pack­ages to korea and aus­tralia, then found a book­shop and acquired a copy of ‘1984’ by george orwell. i had been want­ing to re-read it and snagged a copy very cheaply.

i headed back to the mar­ket, looked around some more, and spent some time online. i returned to my room and star­ted the book. i bought some deli­cious kim­chi bokeum­bab for din­ner from the street stall out­side, read some more and went to bed.

day 319 — i had break­fast and checked my email. then i devoted a few hours to find­ing a sleep­ing bag. i had no luck and decided to leave it until i got to mum­bai. i returned to the same book­store i’d gone to the pre­vi­ous day. this time the owner showed me some rare and expens­ive books he had for sale. some were beau­ti­ful, but there was no way i could buy them. i picked up a copy of ‘around the world in 80 days’ by jules verne. it’s an old clas­sic that i’d never had a chance to read. i also got a book on buddhist dharma for free.

i walked through the mar­ket, had a great beef mas­ala for din­ner, then returned to the hotel to read and sleep.

day 320 — after a cold shower, i checked out of my hotel. the train to mum­bai was late, so i had all day to kill. i had break­fast and con­tin­ued read­ing 1984. then i spent some time online play­ing chess and chat­ting. in the after­noon i got some take-away kim­chi bikeum­bab from the same res­taur­ant, jumped in a taxi and headed to the train sta­tion. i ate din­ner on the plat­form, read my book and waited for the train.

the train depar­ted and i read for a little while longer before going to sleep.