Nepal in Fall (a lame title)

There are multiple options for getting to Nepal from Varanasi. You can fly at a modest price, you can take a tourist bus to the capitol for about have the price of the flight or you can take the local bus nfor ten hours to the boarder, walk across and catch another local bus from there. We are intrepid travelers, makers of use of the local transportation, people of the people, travelers instead of tourists, so naturally we took the public bus. The guest house we were making use of recommended we take the tourist bus, as you might expect, and when that failed, they insisted that we use their taxi to get to the bus station at a cost nearly double that of the bus ticket its self. We passed on that too and had no problem what-so-ever finding a pair of rickshaws to chariot us to our departure point.

The bus ride to the boarder was less eventful. It was a long push in cramped space and we got into Sunauli as the sun set. The walk from the bus station to the boarder was brief and we crossed with a minimum of hassle. Negotiating the Nepali side was a little trickier, but not by much. We required passport photos, which we lacked. However, for an extremely modest price, we could photocopy our passports and use that instead.


The Nepali side of Sunauli is about as flea-bitten, depraved and dusty a town as I have ever seen and good only to pass through at as rapid a pace as possible. Feral dogs scrounged the streets for food, drug addled Nepalis and Indians worked various hustles and everyone attempted to separate you from you hard earned pocket money. We had to exchange our Indian rupees for Nepali rupees and were fleeced like golden sheep. I mean royally swindled on the rate. Then we purchased a bus ticket for Kathmandu at a slightly excessive price from an agent that seemed genuinely sorry to be doing it to us. Then we dealt with a drunken Nepali who admittedly hated Sunauli because he “drank and smoked too much.” We avoided him after that. We got to Kathmandu safely, though not one of us slept soundly for longer than maybe 30 minutes (it was a night bus). The road was sparsely paved and the seats were made for people who are six inches shorter than us on average.


We arrived in Kathmandu early in the morning and immediately headed for the Thamel part of town where all the other tourists stay, shop and arrange travel. We checked into the first hotel we could find that wasn’t too expensive, but still paid a lot more than we should’ve. We were promised hot water, but as it turned out, that hot water was only available when it was sunny because the entire town runs on solar power, which is great for the environment, and very respectable, but sucks when you are filthy from 20 hours of bus riding. We dealt with it and scouted out another, cheaper hotel. We spent the rest of the day getting ourselves together, gathering our wits and generally relaxing, resting and rehydrating. The next day we ventured out into the city to see what there is to see, which turned out to be much more difficult than we had expected due to the ineptitude of our map and the fact that every street in Kathmandu seems to bend slightly until you are going in quite the opposite direction of the one you intended. Also, there is a bare minimum of street signs. We first set out for Swayambhunath temple in the west of Kathmandu. The temple is affectionately called the monkey temple due to the number of monkeys that live on the hill that the temple is situated on. Somehow we ended up at Drubar Square where the city’s kings were once crowned and legitimized, and from where they ruled, or so our Lonely Planet tells me. If you enjoy being asked to take a tour repeatedly, this is the place for you. Don’t waste your time looking anywhere else. Durbar Square has more tour guides offering their services than tourists and travelers visiting. We passed. But we did pay to take a picture of a monk or Brahman or some such religious figure who had dreads he said he’d grown for 30 years. They were long. I also took a couple pictures of another similar man, but on the sly. The square its self was pretty exquisite, with extremely old pagodas and whatnot, all intricately engraved with images of various Hindu figures ranging from Shiva and Ganesh to Hanuman and Vishnu. The roofs all had dried grass growing out of them and the wood the structures were made of looked handsomely aged. It was nice.

From there, we headed to Swayambhunath and actually found our way there. The temple is atop a relatively steep hill and you climb a few hundred steps to get to it, but there are several benches along the way and monkeys to entertain you. The pictures we had seen of the stupa made it look stunning but they were not at all fair and could not capture the tranquil beauty of it. The white dome and golden spire are brilliant against the velvet blue of the empty sky. Even with monkeys screeching and taking food from tourists, people snapping photos and chattering on, the temple and stupa have an extremely peaceful feeling. The peace was only broken by a particularly large monkey that had staked his claim to an area and took offense when another monkey invaded it. There was a brief and terrifying moment when the monkeys, squabbling and shrieking, came tumbling toward where we sat. We narrowly averted being in the middle of it and were lucky to escape without rabies or any puncture wounds. It was
dangerous, I’m telling you. We walked around the base of the stupa clockwise, as you are supposed to, spun the prayer wheels and repeated om mani padme hum (hail to the jewel in the lotus – this is also what is inscribed on the prayer wheels). Atop the white dome are the watchful eyes of Buddha and the question mark-like “nose”, which is actually the Nepali number ek or one, and the symbol of unity of all life. It was quite a day.

The next day, we headed out to Bhaktapur, about 30kms outside of Kathmandu. We spent two days in this small town roaming the cobblestone streets and checking out the numerous pagodas which strongly resembled those in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square. In fact, the central area was also called Durbar Square. It turns out that there are Durbar Squares in most of the main cities of Nepal. I guess that’d be due to each city having its own ruler and each ruler living in a Durbar Square.

From Kathmandu, you can hardly make out the luminous mountains that are just beyond the valley, partly due to hills that obscure them but more so because of the thick smog that clouds the horizon. It was very disappointing. We had hoped that it would be different in Bhaktapur, but it wasn’t much. The only things that the city had over Kathmandu in this regard was a higher altitude and a different position in the valley. We could make out more of the awesome and jagged mountains but they were
still shrouded in dust and smoke particles. Also disappointing is the fact that I will not be able to stare in awe at the glory that is Mount Everest. It is impossible to reach a viewing point any other way than flight or trek, which is great because it protects the mountain, keeps it unspoiled and pristine, saves it from the hordes that would surely clutter it, me included, were there to be buses that would take you there. Once again, sucks for me but is good.

We are briefly in Kathmandu right now and head for Pokhara tomorrow. We will be staying at a yoga center for at least a few days and perhaps longer. The town its self looks spectacular, with a large lake and an excellent view of the Annapurnas. We have heard several excellent things about it and are really jazzed to spend some time there.

And now a side note about food. I have been eating Indian food and Nepali styled Indian food steadily from the moment we got into India and have been loving it. I’ve eaten paneers and dhals, rotis and naans, curries and chutneys, rice and raita, and loved them all, however, too much dhal gives you gas that is extremely foul and singes the nostrils. It smells like you hatched a rotten egg into a pan of burned butter and rotten garlic. I mean, it is awful, vile and despicable. Somehow, I keep ordering the dhal, despite this. It tastes too good and is easy on the stomach, no matter how violently it assaults the nose. Anyone who has been here can understand.


(For those wondering what the kids are saying in the video, they are say "Hilary Teacher is beautiful.")

Planes, Trains and Automobiles to India

Well, we made it. After two buses, three taxis, four subways, two planes and a train, all spread over more than 48 hours, we are here in Varanasi, India. We survived despite exhaustion and intermittent delirium, confused and uncertain travel plans, and of course, language barriers. The first thing that struck us upon arriving in Delhi International Airport (where we landed in India) was the poverty. It’s not so much its prevalence as it is obviousness and ubiquity. From the airport, we took a taxi to the train station. We had decided on our second flight that the best choice was to head to Varanasi and from there go to Nepal. We arrived at the train station early in the morning and had to wait for close to two hours before the tourist ticket office opened. The station its self is nothing like what you’d expect to see in the U.S. not that that’s surprising. What was somewhat surprising, at least for us, was the number of people who appear to live at the train station. There must have been more than 75 men, women and children sleeping in various places throughout the building, and everyone simply went about their business without paying them any mind. We had of course heard of the rampant poverty, but nothing really adequately prepares you.

Anyway, our train didn’t leave until 6:30pm so we had a considerable amount of time to use up before hand. We ventured through the throng of people that surrounded the train station, waving off offers of all kinds – I think I could’ve purchased a child or a kidney for a below market price, if I had wanted either, but it would’ve been too much of a hassle and our bags were full enough already. Straight across the street was a somewhat touristy area, though it was also a bit seedy. We spent the day walking around and eating at a rooftop restaurant where we almost surely wore out our welcome, but so it goes on the road.

Finally, departure time came and we boarded the train for Varanasi. The ride was simple and easy. We had purchased middle class sleeper tickets and the bunks were adequate. We shared with a pair of Japanese travelers and a pair of Indians. We got to Varanasi around 8am and got into a taxi. The taxis probably deserve a mention. They are beautiful little round-ish vehicles that look circa 1950s New York City, but they are either bright white or green and yellow. I love them. I want to buy one and ship it home. We took a nice white one to our hotel, the Yogi Lodge. We had thought we were going to the Yogi Lodge down by the Ganges River, but as we found out after checking in, the taxi driver had taken us to a different one. The one we’re at turned out to be better than the one we wanted to go to anyway. We made our way to the other one and found it cramped with shared bathrooms.

Varanasi is packed, same as Delhi. Again, like the poverty, nothing can adequately prepare you. The streets are absolutely clogged with cars, motorcycles, mopeds, bikes, rickshaws, carts full of fruits and veggies, cows and people. It is utter madness, especially at intersections. We spent most of our first day here getting acclimated to the chaos and traffic, and exploring the city. Varanasi is billed as one of the most holy cities in India because of its number of Ghats and its proximity to the Ganges River. There must be 30 or more Ghats all along the banks of the river and several temples within the city. Along the shoreline of the river runs a pathway with steps down into the water and there are people bathing (literally soaping up and rinsing off) and washing their clothes. Behind the path are the Ghats that range in style and use from prayer centers, to yogi centers to burning Ghats. There are two burning Ghats and you are forbidden to take photos at either one, so don’t expect any here, though we have visited both. At the first one, we witnessed the wonderful circle of life. A stack of wood with a shrouded body burned on the steps shortly before the water and directly next to it a pair of dogs were copulating. Now, I wish I could say the dogs were making wild and passionate love, however, that is not their way. It was more a quicky. A wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am (pardon the cliché). It did illustrate the cycle beautifully though.

The Ghats are somewhat better viewed from the water and to that end we arranged to take an early morning boat ride along the shore. So, at 6am we set out for the river where our guide, hired from our lodge, rented us a row boat and a guide and we set off into the great Ganges to pear at the Ghats and the people bathing in the holiest river. The sun was rising, red and cloaked, and the air was thick with smoke from morning fires. We scooted lazily along surrounded by hundreds of other tourists and travelers doing precisely the same. About an hour in, we saw something in the distance that resembled a dead body and as we approached we become more certain until the fact was undeniable. We asked our boat captain and he explained that there are five kinds of people that do net have their bodies cremated: Brahman, pregnant women, children, people killed by a bite from a cobra and lepers. This was one of those five. I have only seen one other dead body in my life and it was much more serene. This one was white and pickled, covered in a shroud except where the cloth had been washed away like around its tight, narrow toes and pail, thin scalp. It was ghostly and dead. Really dead. Not like the body I’d seen before at a funeral. That one was all rouged up and dressed to look like it was napping on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner. This one was not.

We moved on from there to a monkey temple – a temple dedicated to Hanuman, the Hindu god that resembles a monkey (I would call him the monkey god, but I don’t think monkeys are particularly concerned with religion being too busy with cleaning their mates and jumping from things to other things). It was alright. The monkeys that were everywhere were more interesting than the temple its self, if you ask me. That’s really about it thus far.

From here, we will head to Nepal. We should be in Katmandu by Sunday. Wish us luck. We’re having a great time and eating all the Indian food we can handle. I ate a vegetable thali and a half today alone. Go Ducks!

I will include more photos next time.

Moving On!

Well family, friends and felines (that means you Persia), I'm back to ramble, rant and write run-on sentences for to keep you abreast of what Hilary, Smith and I are up to. We're off for the road in little more than a week. We've eclipsed a year since we came to this fair-weathered nation and yet it doesn't seem hardly so long. I can't possibly recount everything that's happened in the past year, not simply because my memory doesn't have the capacity, but also because it would be downright droolingly boring and I wouldn't subject anyone to the minutia of everyday existence. It's just not that interesting no matter what country you are in. What I can say to cover that period of time is this: it was okay.


Next we are off to India and Nepal. Nepal is a recent addition to our itinerary. We didn't know whether or not we could cross into Nepal from India or how safe it is there until about a week ago, but it looks like a go. In fact, I think Nepal is our first destination upon arrival. We fly out to Delhi on November 10th and arrive in the morning, so we hope to make it to the border crossing that day. We'll firm it up this week. At this point, that's all we've got planned for Nepal, but we'll get it figured. From Nepal, we'll cross back into India over by Darjeeling. We're expecting Darjeeling to be spectacular and tentatively planning on staying there for near to two weeks. That's the way we like to do it. Pick a place and stay for a while to get to know it. We don't care for the mad, break-neck, scuttle. We're more dawdlers and loiterers, dalliers and leisurers. Anyway, if it doesn't work out there, it will somewhere else. Perhaps in the south.


So, that's where we're going. Now where we have been.


My sister Smith came to stay with us almost three months ago. She is in high school and doing her classes on-line. It's been great having her and she and Hilary have been getting along great. Smith will be accompanying us to India and on. She came right around the time of Chu Seok, which is a holiday here something like Thanksgiving, only instead of making a turkey, we make song peyon, Korean rice cakes. These cakes are not like the crisp round treats that come with buttered popcorn baked in or coated in carmel. Not the ones we enjoy in the west. These are glutinous, globular balls of rice paste with various sweetened things inside. Some have a mix of sugar and sesame that when cooked tastes a bit like honey, while others have sweetened red bean paste, which I find disgusting, or close to disgusting. Ghastly? Well, the tradition is that you make these confections. So, naturally, the school decided that we'd make them with the kindergardeners the day before we finished for the long weekend, however, no one bothered to explain to Hilary or me just how we were supposed to go about making these things. When it came time to make them with our kids, we were pretty much lost. To be fair, they assumed Hilary knew what to do and didn't give me a class, either because I'm a man or they thought me incompetent. Either way, I helped her and took pictures. It wasn't really a disaster, but while the other kids had bills, our kids had amorphous blobs and globules.


Also at Chu Seok, people wear the traditional clothing called hanbok. It is often characterized by vibrant colors and simple lines without pockets. The women's hanbok consists of a chima meaning a wrap-around skirt and jeogori which refers to a jacket. The ensemble is often called chima jeogori. The men's hanbok is comprised of jeogori and baggy pants called baji. Hilary and I wore normal clothes because a good hanbok is expensive, but most of the kids came dressed in them as you can see from these photos. Yeosu is still pretty small when compared to other cities in Korea, so I think the families are a little more tied to tradition. However, with the rapid growth of the factories here, that might soon change.


I spent most of the year teaching a private lesson in addition to my normal workload. The father of two of our students had been getting lessons from the man I replaced and I took them over. He is a really nice man named Mr. Kim and he took me out to dinner on several occasions. On one such occasion, he took me to the factory complex outside of Yeosu. The complex is around ten minutes drive from town and factories sprawl out over the terrain like mechanical spiders. They are mainly power, chemical and oil factories and they are all ensconced in masses of bending and turning pipes covered in bright white lights. It's a rather striking sight at night, what with the flame stacks burning off the excess gasses and the intensely brilliant bulbs all over. It's somewhat fantastical. Mr. Kim worked on one of the factories as some kind of planner, safety checker and trouble shooter. I'm not quite sure of his title right now. Anyway, he explained to me that many of the factories never shut down because they are far to difficult to restart. They run all day, every day, all year, which I thought was kind of wild.



Factories aren't the only attractions around Yeosu. The place is all hills and slight mountains, and every one has at least one trail to the top, if not several. And on all of these mountains, you will find Korean burial mounds. These mounds are commonly earthen and covered in grass, but in some places they are bade of stone. The largest mountain in Yeosu is called Chomchi Mountain (I made that name up because I don't know it's real name - chomchi means tuna) and is surrounded by apartments and rice paddies. The first time Smith, Hilary and I hiked it it was cloudy so I went back again later to get pictures and enjoy the view. By the time I got back there, they'd harvested most of the rice, but I managed to get some nice pictures none-the-less. It's a nice hike and goes almost straight up the side of the mountain. The trails around here aren't much for cut-backs, but then I never liked them anyway, and besides, the mountains are more hills anyway.


Hiking is very big here and Koreans have all the gear, even for a walk across town. I'm completely serious on this. It is a very common sight to see a Korean wearing a neckerchief, North Face jacket and pants, and a backpack, strolling down the street with a hiking stick in hand - and not some wooden thing they picked up from a park, but a high-end hiking pole or even two. They could be in the middle of the Patagonian steppe and be equally okay. They go all out for it, but then they're better prepared I suppose. They do seem to have better meals when hiking. I've seen a family at the top of a fair sized hill with a burner out grilling up some pork loin. I can't deny envy there, though I'm not big on pork per say.





Anyway, as we prepare to leave, I've been trying to reflect on the year and think of some grand coin of wisdom I came upon or some distinguishable moment of impact and I've got nothing, which isn't to say I didn't enjoy myself or see interesting things. I did however meet a lot of good people, mostly Canadians because they make up the majority of the foreigners here. I thought about giving a bunch of shout-outs here like some athlete on camera after a big win, but none of the people I would mention will read this save for maybe James and Brad (so, I'd like to give a shout out to my Edu Best homey, James and my Apple amigo One Ankled Brad). Working at Edu Best has been a great experience (that is a hideous cliche but I don't really know what else to say about it... that's kind of disappointing). We're going to miss the kids and teachers a lot. Hilary got really close with the youngest class, Hippo Class, and it's going to be sad to say goodbye to them. This is most of them. Hippo kids are around four years old and for most of them, Edu Best was their first experience at school so it has been really nice getting to watch them grow this year. When they first came, there were three kids that cried if I so much as walked by the class, but now they give me hugs and say "I love you." Hilary didn't have that problem. They loved her from the start. I'm getting a little choked up just sitting here writing this and thinking of leaving. They're just so damn cute. Anyway, I think they're the kids I'll miss the most. They were difficult for me because their language skills were so low but they've been great and they always give me something to laugh about at some point. They pick up the funniest things and bust them out on you at the most random times. Suddenly you'll have some kid telling you, "Josiah Teacher is monkey... I don't think so." Precious. Also, they'll say just about anything:


Well, I think that's about all for now. I wish I had more, but I don't think I do. Of course, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them, so feel free to send them. Otherwise, check back in in couple weeks for the latest.


I'll leave you with Moonie showing nostril and Robin showing monster face (Hippo Class):

Live From Korea

It’s been a long time since I last posted here - six months to the day I think – and I doubt very much that anyone even checks this thing anymore, so if you are here reading this now, you probably got an e-mail from me or Hilary. If not, well, count me impressed. (How did you get here, then?) Anyway, there’s really no reason for the long absence other than my own laziness… I thought maybe I’d say something like, I wanted to wait until I knew the country more so that I could more accurately explain our experience here, especially considering the length of time we’ll be here, but that would just be a lie. It was really only lethargy. I think I told Hilary ten times since we got here that I would write this. But enough already, chances are you didn’t visit our blog to read what you have so far.



There are so many things to be said about our stay so far, stories and impressions and whatnot, that it’s somewhat hard to pick a place to start from, so I’ll pick one at random.

This is a photo of the staff, including the people that we were replacing (the large bald man and the smaller hispanic woman).

Our first night in town, the headmaster of our school, MC, took us to a sashimi restaurant that specializes in tuna. Hilary and I are both big sushi and sashimi eaters, and were excited to try it here closer to the meal’s roots. Almost every restaurant in Korea serves a myriad of side dishes along with whatever you order, and the number of sides increases greatly when you go to a restaurant with a set menu. Tuna Village is one of the latter. Along with the large platter of raw tuna off all types came kimchi, salad, some sort of fried vegetables, some green spinach-like steamed leaf, some small octopus limbs in a nice sesame sauce still wriggling away and what appeared to be slivers of tongue also still wriggling. Hilary and I, both wanting to show MC that we were going to jump right in, proceeded to try one of everything. There really is no need to explain the taste of all of the things, as I’m sure anyone reading this is only wondering about the octopus and the tongue, so here it is: the octopus was great and the tongue wasn’t tongue at all and was actually disgusting – it had the consistency of cartilage and was stickier than snot, so it clung to the back of my throat from the entirety of the meal, no matter how much beer I drank to wash it away.

There, I’ve at least temporarily satisfied my desire to tell food stories.

I was Santa last year. Probably the worst ever, but maybe not. Next year it's Macy's for me.

Our jobs have been roughly the same since we got here, though our students have changed due to the Korean school year starting in March. In the mornings we have the youngsters. When we started out, Hilary had the really young ones while I had the kids a little older and with a little more English experience. That all ended for me in March. Hilary and I now share the young ones. We have 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds. It was extremely difficult for me at first, partly because I had a handful of kids that cried every time I entered the room. Hilary didn’t have the same problem. Korean kids spend much more time with their mothers than their fathers, so they are much more comfortable with a female teacher, also Hilary’s better with the little guys and girls than I am. Thankfully that has stopped. Actually, the kids are great and while it was very hard going early on, it has gotten much better, so much so that I really enjoy my morning classes (mainly because the kids are funny a lot of the time). Hilary and I share a favorite morning student. His name is Moonie, and he is wild and funny and cute. Hilary wants to take him home with us. I’m including some pictures of him and many other kids.

Maybe I should back up and explain about our school a little bit. We are teaching at an English academy, which means that the school teaches English and nothing else. We have children too young for standard school in the morning (from 10:30 to 2:30) and school agers from first grade through middle school and first year of high school in the evenings (from 3:00 to 7:30).

We have a book or a set of books for each class but have the freedom and necessity to supplement that with almost anything we see fit. The materials we have range from moderately interesting to narcolepsy-inducing. As a result, often I try to work in as much conversation and story telling as possible.

I’m running out of school things. Especially without Hilary here to remind me of things or anyone asking me any questions (if you have any questions, put them in the comments and when I update this next, which will be within the week, I will address them). I don’t want to write everything into this one post because it would be too massive a block of text, so I’m going to split it up some. I’ll try and cover more of our impressions of the country in the next entry. Hope everyone’s doing great wherever you are reading this from. We miss you all.

(Also, uncle Craig and aunt Mia came to visit. It was great to see some family and we had a really good time with them. So, if you two read this, thank you so much for coming to see us. It was great.)

(Also, I must apologize for how scattered this is. I tried to make it as coherent as possible. My next post should be better. And the lack of photos. It was loading really slowly. Another time.)

Back to Bangkok, Korea Prep and a Last Scare

Being back in Bangkok was nice, especially so because we were staying at Eileen and Kristina’s again. It cannot be overstated how much we appreciated having a place to use as a home base. It made our travel much easier than can be expressed here. We owe them a great measure of thanks.

Also, most of these pictures are from Mae Hong Son, at least the one of us and our bike and of the temple.

Anyway, we had a fair amount of minor tasks to complete in the two weeks we had before departing for Korea, so we got on them. After a few lazy days spent lounging around the house of course. Our first priority was to acquire our Korean visas. We were told that this might take upwards of a week, but in fact it did not. We went in on a Friday and returned on Monday. No interview required. Perhaps that was because our school here in Korea made most of the arrangements for us while we traveled. It was a bit of a test finding the place though, so we did our share. We called and got a general idea of the embassy’s location but when we arrived in that part of town, it was not immediately obvious and our directions consisted of the name of the subway station to get off at and that the building was opposite a large mall. In fact, the embassy was not across from the mall but rather down a street that was behind the building across from the mall. We walked all over and found nothing. In the end, we resorted to taking a taxi to find it, but by then it was noon and the embassy was closed for lunch. We had an hour and a half to wait. We walked back to the mall and got lunch.

Our other business was healthcare. Thailand has a major medical tourism industry as healthcare is dirt-cheap there. You couldn’t rent a car in the US for what you pay to get a dental check-up. Seriously, you pay more for a night in a Motel 6 than you do for a physical. So, we signed up to see the dentist and get checked out. Everything was pretty normal, except an odd encounter we had with a frantic French woman. We passed her talking to another westerner as we entered the hospital and she caught up with us in the magazine shop. Her story was this: Her and her husband had been somewhere on the coast in the south when they found themselves in a dingy, prostitute ridden town. They planned to spend the night and take the train back to Bangkok the next day. That night her husband went to get money from the ATM. As he was walking away, a pair on a motobike road past, the guy on the back grabbing her husbands bag which contained their passports, ATM cards, money, etc. Instinctively he grabbed the guy by the shoulder. Apparently he came flying off the bike and split his head open on the cement. Her husband then contacted the police who arrested him and charged him with assault. They demanded something like $3,000, but eventually she and her husband managed to get it down to $1,000, I think. Well, that wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the driver of the motobike hadn’t managed to keep the bag with their ID, cards, etc. She paid what she could up front and rushed back to Bangkok to get help from her embassy, but the French embassy apparently doesn’t give its citizens financial assistance in these types of situations because they do not support bribery, which is what this thing was. They found a hotel for her, began getting her new IDs issued and arranged for their flights home to be moved up, but that was about all they were prepared to do. She was frantically trying to get the money when we met her, afraid that the police would renege if she didn’t get the money right away. She was asking us for help. She needed something like 12,000 bhat. We gave her 1,000. It was about all we could afford. We felt terrible for her. What a terrifying position to be in. Later we learned that the Thai police hold westerners responsible in any legal situation. If you’re in a taxi and it gets into an accident, it’s your fault. If you’re being robbed, you defend your self and the thief is injured, it’s your fault, and on. The logic for this is that had you not been there, this thing wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Ass-backwards if you ask me. Generally I’m pretty accepting of cultural differences and appreciate that different countries have different mores and beliefs, but this one is just plain ridiculous, especially when you take into account how much the economy depends on tourism. Thailand has something like a million visitors a year. Bullshit. The country is beautiful, just avoid contact with the police at all costs. It’s better just to throw some cash at the person and leave. After that encounter, we were extremely careful.
On one of our days free of any errands to run we went to Lumphini Park where we saw comodo dragons swimming in the lake there and lounging along the banks. They are incredible. We saw one that had to be at least 6 feet long. It was great.

In the end, we said a sad goodbye to Eileen and Kristina and headed off to Korea, which is where we are now. The flight was easy and coming through customs was a breeze.


This is a Lady Bug in a plant of some sort.

Slice of Pai

So for the delay in writing this, raft of things have happened in the past few weeks and I’ve not felt up to it until now. Last I wrote we were taking the treacherously coiling road up to Pai from Chiang Mai.

According to our Lonely Planet, Pai is one of the last spots along the old hippy backpacker route through this region and we found that assessment to be pretty accurate – this is of note because the book’s accuracy has been less and less reliable throughout our trip. We arrived and found a dusty town with dirt roads choked with internet cafes, guided tour agencies, hip clothing shops and restaurants, a surprising number of which offering middle-eastern fair from baba ganouj to hummus and falafel. The town its self was populated with old ‘60s hangers-on and Thai men dressed and living as if it were still the summer of love, wearing bellbottom jeans and mesh tank-tops, long hair or dreadlocks flowing down their backs, stoned to the gills.

We headed toward Pai River and found a pleasant little bungalow, reasonably priced and on the water with indoor plumbing and a nice deck. We spent 3 nights there and didn’t do much in between them, just relaxed and explored town. We did take a daylong yoga class, my first, which we enjoyed but apparently was more advanced than most beginners’ classes. One of the draws for us was that the package included lunch and dinner, both of which were supposed to consist of Indian food cooked by a genuine Indian woman, this is a paraphrase of the flying that drew us there. In actuality the food turned out to be sub-par Thai-tourist fare. We were unimpressed. Mama, the name the teacher insisted we call her, was easy going enough and a decent enough teacher, but that didn’t make up for the disappointment in the food.

The rest of the time was divided between milling around, reading, shopping at over-priced bookstores, eating and checking e-mail (this is where we learned that our friend Annie was getting married to her boyfriend Tim – if you two read this, CONGRATULATIONS! We’re so happy for you.) The food was incredibly cheap and on our last night in town I had the best curry I ate all trip. It was yellow curry with eggplant. Delicious. (To all the food blog readers, I’m sorry about the lack of attention it has gotten. I’ll write more on it soon. Don’t worry, I haven’t stopped eating.)

We’d read that you can take a rafting trip on to the next town, Mae Hong Son, so we investigated and eventually signed up at one of the numerous tourism agencies. We left early in the morning and as it turned out, we had an even more nauseating drive ahead of us than the one in to Pai. The road was even more twisted and cutback riddled and this time we were riding on benches in the back of a pickup. I was thoroughly sick by the time we arrived at the drop. Only the mint gum I chewed furiously the entire time saved me from divulging the contents of my stomach all over the 5 other people we were riding with. For future reference to anyone who might be daring to take a similar route, an entire pack of gum is about right, no less than 5 pieces, but be sure to spread them out so that you take them at intervals and build up a tolerance for that much gum in your mouth at once.

In our group were a pair from England who’d been traveling for three years spending time working all along the way, a father and daughter combo from England (they had rented a car and drove themselves to the drop) and a Canadian couple that had just finished teaching English in Korea. Hilary took care of the questioning for me while I did battle with my inner ear.

Once at the river we got all suited up, life jackets, helmets and paddles, aumnd pushed off, the British father/daughter team in our boat. I immediately snapped my aluminum paddle. The paddle just peeled right off. Hilary, being the generous person she is, offered up her paddle and sat back to enjoy the ride until we reached the lunch stop where we could pick up another. The trip was billed as intermediate and supposedly had at least two class 4 rapids. The danger was heightened by our guide’s continuous attempts to high-side us sideways on any rocks he could find in the river, thus dumping one or another unlucky person. Mostly it was the father who was sent sprawling into the water or grappling with the edge of the boat to hang on. It was fun and in the end we all got it as we got a little too squirrely in the class 4 and flipped the boat. Hilary took a pretty good bump on the leg and I had the father come down on top of me, also I wrapped my ankle on a rock and had to ride out the rest of the rapid floating on my back. It mellowed out considerably after that and gently floated down river through a giant wildlife preserve spotting a pack of monkeys and several king fishers. All-in-all, it was a fun trip and we felt good at the end of the day. Plus we got to ask the Canadians lot more questions about living in Korea.

Mae Hong Son was an entirely different sort of town than Pai. It did not pander to tourists what so ever. In fact, we had a bit of trouble finding a guest house. It is a regular small town, the same as you might find in the U.S. There is of course a market, but it wasn’t any different from the rest. Near to the town are several Long Neck Karen villages. They are considered refugees from Burma though many of the villages they live in are pretty old. Hilary and I decided that we would rent a motobike and check out a village then look for the biggest waterfall in the area. We had a map we got from our guest house, but weren’t sure of our competency on the roads on our own. I drove and Hilary rode on the back with the map. She got us to both places successfully.

The Karen village was not at all what we’d hoped for. There were several on the map and we chose one of the smaller ones because we figured that was our best shot and seeing one that wasn’t thronged by tourists and constructed around the accompanying trade. It didn’t matter. We paid 500 bhat a piece for entrance – the money supposedly goes to supporting the villagers as they cannot work in Thailand due to their refugee status. The village was little more than several little stalls where villagers were selling postcards of Long Neck Karen (in one case a woman was selling postcards of herself), little trinkets and cheap art pieces. The understanding was that you’d buy an item in exchange for taking a picture. We did this once. We don’t mind contributing to a village, especially when it’s so little, but it just seemed tawdry in this manner.

The waterfall was beautiful.

In the end, we did something like 100kms on the bike that day. It was great. We even got the bike up to 80km/hr.

The next day we left for Mae Sariang, but when we pulled into town, we decided we were ready to get back to Bangkok, and the fastest way to do that was to go back to Chiang Mai and catch the train the next day. That is what we did.


More Pictures later.

Bangkok, Jobs and the North

When we got to back to Bangkok, our intentions were to stay overnight and get on up to Chiang Mai (a popular city in the north of Thailand) and the surrounding region for a couple of weeks, but as it turned out, we had potential job offers waiting in our e-mail inboxes and they would require some attention. For those of you who don’t know, which may be very few, we applied to teach English in Korea via Park English, a job placement organization. We had been waiting to hear from them for a while and had become somewhat antsy about it as our departure date was fast arriving. Before heading out on our travels proper we had purchased a pair of tickets to Korea that left on October 10th and here we were, little more than a month from flying and without jobs. So, we pushed a little and it paid off. The e-mail we received was a job posting for a pair of teachers at Edo Best English School which is located on the southern coast of Korea in Yeosu. We did a little research on the area and found it to be everything we were looking for. It is in the least developed region of Korea, is right on the coast and with a mere 300,000 people is smaller than most other cities. We e-mailed Park English right back, saying we loved the job and would like to move forward with it. The next step was a phone interview with the headmaster. That went swimmingly and what followed was a whirlwind of e-mails and phone calls between Park English, the headmaster and us. After a few hours, everything got worked out and we were e-mailed contracts which we signed and faxed right back. And we then had jobs. Relief. If you want details, comment and we’ll e-mail you them.
Sorry for the simple nuts and bolts beginning, but that’s pretty much how it went and I couldn’t find anything humorous to write in there. At least nothing that wouldn’t be a complete diversion. Besides, there’s nothing funny about job hunting and the particulars. This is serious business people.
Anyhow, having gotten that squared away, we boarded a night train for Chiang Mai and slept restlessly through the night because the air-con was on high and the lights were left on all night. It was cold. While we’re looking forward to the coldness that Korea will offer, being cold when you know it’s hot outside is a different thing entirely. It’s not nice. We don’t like it. It’s like when you order something and then it arrives and what the person next to you is eating looks better. Maybe.
It was hot when we got to Chiang Mai. Very hot. Made especially so because of the ice box we’d slept in over night. We were not impressed. The first few guest houses we stopped at were all booked up and so we took what we came next. The room looked a little dingy but beggars and all that stuff. We took it, brushing away a few hairs we found on the mattress and planning to move the next morning. We had the whole day ahead of us, so we set about making plans for the next day. Hilary wanted to take a cooking class and I had seen a mountain biking trip. So we signed up for separate things. I signed up for my biking trip at a guest house near to ours that we had over-looked and had vacancies. This would come in handy later that night. We spent the rest of the day exploring the city. It was nice enough, I suppose. Nothing all that remarkable if you ask me.
After dinner we headed home, got ready for bed and went to settling in. That’s when we found the band-aide. It was until then hidden underneath one of the pillows and it was used. Now, we can handle a few stray hairs, we can take a couple of roaches or ants, we can even deal with large reptiles living in the walls, but we draw the line at used band-aides in the bed. Call us prissy or pampered or what-have-you, but we’ve got our standards. Though we’d paid for the night, we said F this place. We’re out of here and headed over to the aforementioned guest house where I’d signed up for mountain biking. The next day went much better. I can’t say exactly what Hilary’s cooking class was like but I know she enjoyed it and learned to make green curry, som tam, sticky rice with mango, and something else I’m probably forgetting. As for myself, I had one of the best days of the whole trip. Hilary has had to hear about it several times since.
The trip started at around 9am. Now, in the brochure there were pictures of riders in heavy gear, chest protectors, shin guards, gloves, elbow pads and helmets. It struck me as ridiculous that we would be made to wear so much gear, but by the end I was thankful. When I signed up I was offered rides ranging from beginner to expert. I didn’t want to get myself in over my head, but at the same time, I didn’t want to find myself on a leisurely ride through the park. As luck would have it, out of the 6 signed up (3 women, 3 men) there was an Aussie in the group who was in a similar situation. We were all taken to the top of a nearby mountain, outfitted with all the heavy duty gear and told to ride around a bit to get comfortable. Once we were set, the guides badgered the third guy into trying the advanced track we were starting on. At the start the trails split for a ways and then rejoin so that anyone who can’t handle the advanced trail can take it easy. The third guy could not handle it. Not five minutes in I saw him go flying headfirst over the handlebars. He proceeded to do that 5 more times before we met up with the women and he begged off. To be fair, the ride was damned dangerous. We spent a great deal of time riding the breaks down near shear, mud covered, root riddled trail. I was sent off my bike several times as was the Aussie and even our guide. It was great. I was at the point where I was pretty scared, but not so much that it wasn’t enjoyable. Meanwhile, the trail was just about all my technical skills could and some times more. I was filthy and exhausted by the end of the day, and feeling like I’d accomplished something.
The next day we took a minivan up the most twisted road I’ve ever been on to Pai, a small hippy town in the mountains.