Hong Kong Update, New India Pictures

I think I like Hong Kong more and more the longer I am back here.  I usually spend a few hours every day just walking around the city, taking everything in.  I have probably done about as much shopping as India and Nepal combined.  I bought some new running shoes and have started running again, after not running at all in India and Nepal.  It is usually ridiculously humid, but running at night seems to work out pretty well.  I have seen more old friends and plan to have a big group together for my birthday tomorrow.

I have finally uploaded a new set of pictures to my flickr: a few from the bungy jump in Nepal, and the rest from northern India.  The set can be seen here:  Bungy, Return to India.

 

Hello Hong Kong

So, with India and Nepal mostly explored, I am now back in Hong Kong after almost 3 years since I studied here.  It was very strange to say bye to Davy, get on a plane out of Mumbai, and leave what felt like my home of India.  After spending over a month there in total, I was incredibly used to being bothered by tuk-tuk drivers, cab drivers, goods sellers, beggars, and random people staring at me.  I would even enjoy being bothered, and found it slightly amusing.  India has definitely made me take the small every day botherings more lightly.

Being back in Hong Kong after so long is also a little strange.  Things are mostly as I remember them; some new buildings, expanding subway lines, new stores, but mostly the same.  Seeing all the familiar things certainly brings back memories from my semester abroad.

So far, it has been great here.  Seeing old friends after so long away is pretty awesome.  I love the efficient public tr ansport system of subways, buses, mini-buses, and even cabs if there is a crunch for time.  I’m not sure if I’m just used to a ton of people being everywhere from India, or if I’m naturally more comfortable around the crowds of Hong Kong, but I haven’t been bothered once by the amount of people all around.

I will write more about India as well as Hong Kong in the coming weeks.  I will also edit and upload many more pictures from India and some from Hong Kong too.

 

Bungee Jump, Canyon Swing, Goodbye Nepal

Our original plan was to take buses back into India and then our first AC train ride of the trip into northern India. When we were still wait-listed a few days before the train, we decided to change our plans. An extra day in Nepal, then flying to Delhi, India. The best part about this new plan was that it allowed us to bungee jump and canyon swing over the Bhote Kosi River in northern Nepal, near the Tibet border.

This is definitely one of the craziest things I have ever done: one of the world’s largest bungee jumps and maybe the world’s largest canyon swing. I was one of the last of our group to do the bungee jump, so the anticipation had plenty of time to build. I got to watch Davy jump, and it sounded like he had fun. When they are putting the harness on you and getting you ready, the video guy is in your face with the camera filming you and asking you to say something. A little weird. Finally, I was harnessed in and standing on the edge of the platform. The bungee guy says 3, 2, 1 bungee, then pushes as you jump headfirst, arms outstretched off the bridge and toward the water below. Initially, it is pretty crazy free-falling headfirst into the valley. After a few seconds, the free-fall is over, and it isn’t quite as crazy. The first bungee bounce was the most fun and the highest. After I had been pulled to the ground and harness taken off me, my heart was still going nuts. It was a pretty incredible rush.

After hiking back up to the bridge, I was harnessed for the canyon swing. Instead of being attached to a bungee cord and jumping straight down off the bridge, you are attached to a line that parallels the river below, which is connected to a line going across the valley. You jump off the bridge, free-fall for a while, then the line catches you and you swing down the valley with the river. After doing the bungee jump, I was better prepared to jump off the bridge again. Similarly, the guy says 3, 2, 1 big jump and pushes as you jump off the bridge, this time feet-first. The free-fall most of the way into the valley was absolutely awesome. When the line caught, I swung down the river with quite a bit of speed. The free-fall and then swing combination was great, even more fun than the bungee jump I think. Again, after I reached the river-bank, my heart was beating like crazy. I definitely want to bungee jump and canyon swing again, and doing them makes me want to go skydiving more than I already did. I’m really, really glad we changed our plans so that we could do this.

Tonight, we fly to Delhi, then take a train into the northern part of India. It’s going to be very interesting to be back in India again after a month in Nepal.

 

Rafting, Chitwan, Kathmandu, more Annapurna pictures

We wanted to do a three day rafting trip on the Kali Gandaki River, but due to monsoons, we were told by all the travel agencies that the river was closed.  We later found out that we could have rafted on the Kali Gandaki if we had a group of 6 people to fill up the raft.  The next best thing was rafting on the calmer Seti River for two days.  The first day was mostly uneventful with only a few real rapids.  We camped out on the sand next to the river for the night.  Instead of a tent, we were sleeping out in the open under the raft itself.  Not the most comfortable or bug-free night.

The next day was a good deal better in terms of whitewater.  As a whole, the rafting was a lot of fun, and the scenery was similar to some of what we saw on the Annapurna Circuit trek.  We finished up around lunchtime and headed to Chitwan National Park.

At Chitwan, we took an extremely unstable canoe ride with our guide.  Within the first few minutes of the ride, we spotted a Gharial, one species of freshwater crocodile found in Nepal.  It entered the river and swam across in front of our canoe.  We also spotted many different birds along the river bank.

Our visit to the elephant breeding center consisted of our guide saying here are some elephants, that little one is 20 days old, and I’ll be waiting over there.  The highlight of Chitwan was definitely the elephant-back safari.  We had immediate good luck again and spotted 2 rhinos within the first few minutes.  We also saw wild deer, monkeys, and another 3 rhinos cooling off in a small pond.  The tigers never ventured anywhere near our elephant unfortunately.  The early morning bird watching got nixed due to rain, and we headed onward to Kathmandu.

We are in Kathmandu for another day, then it’s into northern India.  The scenery and climate will hopefully be more similar to Nepal than the rest of India.

Here are some more highlights from the Annapurna trek as well as Chitwan National Park.  The complete sets can be found at Annapurna and Chitwan sets.

 

Safe After Epic Trek

We returned to Pokhara yesterday after a completely amazing 16 day trek through the Annapurna Himalayan mountain range. We managed to survive the hike with only minor cuts, scrapes, and sore muscles. Certainly a very intense hike every day, with us walking some days for as many as 8 hours. Very easy to sleep each night.

The views during the hike were incredible. For most of the hike, we were next to different rivers, which were always roaring loudly. One night, we slept at a place right next to the water, and the sound of the rapids next to us filled the air constantly.

One of the highlights was hiking up to Tilicho Lake, at 4916 meters. The water was incredibly blue and clear, there was snow on the ground, and there were snow covered mountains all around.

To get across the mountain range, we had to cross Thorung La, one of the world’s highest, widest passes at 5416 meters. Fortunately, Davy and I made the hike across the pass successfully with no acute mountain sickness from the altitude. The hike down the other side was a brutal downhill assault on the knees. Once the land leveled out a bit, the hike was more pleasant.

We are back in Pokhara now for a few days relaxing and then we plan on going whitewater rafting before heading to Kathmandu, Nepal. I should be posting pictures to flickr within the next day or so.

 

Varanasi, onward to Nepal

The next morning in Varanasi, we woke up before the sunrise and arranged a boat ride down to the Main Ghat and back. We definitely had visions of our boat spilling us into the polluted Ganges when we were planning on doing this. Luckily, no such thing happened. In fact, the boat ride was very nice. We witnessed a ton of Indian people bathing and swimming in the Ganges. The early morning is the most popular time for this.

After a nap to refuel, we headed to the elusive Iba Cafe, which was now open after being closed for our first attempt. It was certainly one of the nicest restaurants we had eaten at yet. I wanted to get the Udon Curry, a combination of Japanese and Indian foods, but it was not possible. I had to settle on a really good Japanese rice dish instead.

The next morning, we wake up and manage to catch our train this time. It is a shorter ride, around 4 hours, and actually one of our most pleasant yet. We catch a 2 hour bus from near the train station to the India/Nepal border. This bus ride almost rivals our overnight bus in terms of unbearability. The bus is incredibly crowded, with barely room for me and Davy to sit down. Whenever people do get off, more just seem to get on the next time the bus slows down. The bus is also extremely hot, and we are up front right next to the scaldingly hot engine. After a very long 2 or so hours, we arrive at the border. We cross over and after being stopped by no one to get a visa, realize we have to find the Immigration Office on our own. Equipped with visas, we arrange an overnight bus, since the taxi turned out to be much more expensive than the guide books suggested.

This bus ride definitely rivaled our overnight bus episode. It wasn’t a sleeper bus, but just a normal bus with seats. Not too long in, I move to the very back row of seats so that I can lie down. For some reason, the bus stops for a few hours for dinner, and then for even longer during the middle of the night. Already haven eaten dinner, I would have much preferred if the bus drove all night and got us to Pokhara, Nepal sooner. The roads on the way to Pokhara are filled with potholes and the bus is constantly bouncing up and down into the morning. I am almost thrown from my seat in the back onto the floor several times. Amazingly, I manage some sleep during the ride.

Once we get to Pokhara, I immediately like Nepal better than India. Pokhara is so much quieter and cleaner than anywhere we have been in India. There is a nice lake, and the city is surrounded by mountains. I’m glad we plan to trek in Nepal for around 3 weeks.

We walk around a bit before getting a taxi to Sarangkot, a nearby village on a mountain peak overlooking Pokhara. We catch a brief glimpse of snow-covered peaks, Annapurna South apparently, before the clouds completely obscure the mountain tops. When we finish the short hike to the peak, we are greeted with really good views of the surrounding landscape.

We plan to stay in Pokhara one more full day before heading off to start the Annapurna Circuit trek. Some recent pictures can be seen below, with the whole set on my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/38888549@N00/

 

Oops, Varanasi

Our interesting train stories continued with our early morning train ride from Gaya to Varanasi.  Davy and I both went to sleep in the train station, and neither of us set an alarm.  We woke up a little after when our train was supposed to leave and ran over to the platform where we thought it was.  We boarded this train, before being told by someone on board that it was the wrong train.  At this point, the train starts to leave the station.  We jump out of the train, see that our train number is actually on the side, and decided that maybe we should actually be on this train.  We manage to leap aboard the last car with the help of the Indian police officers already in the train car.   People aboard this car tell us that we are in fact on the wrong train, so we must have just missed our train.  They also tell us it will be easiest to stay on the train until Patna, then get another train from there to Varanasi, where we want to be.

We get to Patna, and have to go through the stressful process of buying tickets.  After several trips around the ticketing building, I manage to purchase two tickets on the train going to Varanasi, leaving in less than 2 hours.  We actually catch this train, though we are unsure if our tickets are in the sleeper car or 2nd sitting with the harder wooden seats.  We eventually find out they are 2nd sitting, but the family we are near says we can stay there in the sleeper car seats.  This train ride ends up being extremely cramped as usual, and pretty hot by the end of it.  We end up in Varanasi about 5 hours later than expected.

After our guest house, we head down to the ghats along the Ganges River.  People believe it to be holy, and thus many swim, bathe, and wash their clothes in it, even though it is highly polluted.  We eat at a restaurant overlooking the Ganges called Pizza Hut, though pizza is the only thing it has in common with the American chain.  We end up eating a really good pizza here before getting a tuk-tuk ride back to our guest house.  The owner of the guest house, Papu, draws us a detailed map of the ghats and temples near the ghats.

We get up the next morning and walk along the ghats.  It gets pretty hot quickly with the sun beating down, even though it is well before noon.  We walk the entire length of the ghats to the huge bridge.  We then set out on an epic quest for lunch.  After a bicycle rickshaw ride followed by much searching, we find Lotus Lounge, which is unfortunately closed in the off season apparently.  We then set out on foot for Iba Cafe.  After walking and walking, we ask around several times for directions before finally being led to the also closed Iba Cafe.  We eventually end up at our third choice, the Bread of Life Cafe, which is actually open.

This night, we walk to the main ghat, where there is a huge celebration every night.  There are tons and tons of people, and a lot of people ringing a lot of bells.  We are approached by kids selling post cards as well as people wanting to bless you and then ask for money.  After we have had enough of the bells for one night, we head back to the guest house on a cycle rickshaw.

See some pictures below, with the whole set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/38888549@N00/

 

From Kolkata to Gaya on 17 hour Jampacked Express

We end up not seeing too much in Kolkata.  We tried to go to Victoria Memorial to see the daily light/music show, but were too early and decided to get dinner and call it a night instead.  We chose this random restaurant called On Track, with a train car accounting for about half of the seats.  We of course decided to sit in the train car, which wasn’t a problem, since we were the only people eating in the restaurant.  The food was really good, and as usual in India, the portions were pretty large.

The next night we caught a night train from Kolkata to Gaya.  The first 7 or so hours were fine, with a decent amount of sleep.  The trouble started around 3 am.  A family got on, and apparently had seats right by ours.  I’m not sure if someone was already asleep in their seats or what, but the mother decided she would literally sit on my head so that she could have the edge of my seat.  She finally noticed me staring at her with a “what the hell?” look on my face, but it didn’t seem to affect her at all.  After getting comfortable again, I was unable to go back to sleep due to the couple talking.  Even though everyone in the sleeper car was trying to sleep, they thought it was perfectly alright to talk in loud voices for as long as they wanted.  After giving up on them quieting down on their own, I loudly shushed them and gave the universal head+hands symbol for sleep.  This seemed to work, as afterwards they talked less and in much quieter voices.  Just when I had gotten back into a good sleep, the chai-wallahs came through our car at around 4 am or so shouting loudly “chai, coffee, coffee, chai”.  Apparently, 4 am when everyone is asleep is the perfect time for tea.

At around 6 am, most of the people in the sleeper car are awake, and I give up on any last hope I had of sleep.  Not too long after, the sleeper car becomes much, much more crowded.  It seems that for the last leg of the journey, there will not actually be anyone checking tickets, so anyone who wants to ride the train can for free.  I thought 14 people in the space for 6 or 7 was a lot, but there are now at least 20 people in the space for 9.  Davy has it worse than me, with three little kids sitting right next to, even almost on top of him for a while.  When we stop at this one station, a man reaches through the window to put his hankerchief on the sliver of seat between Davy and the girl sitting next to him.  He then gets on the train and wedges himself next to Davy.  Davy has to sit like this for the remaining few hours of the journey.  Not only is it incredibly crowded, it is also around 100 degrees for most of the morning.  To make this ride just peachy, the train is constantly having to stop and wait on the tracks, to give way for cargo trains.  After a brutal 17 hours total, we arrive in Gaya.

We are smart enough to look up the typical price for a tuk-tuk ride into Bodhgaya from the train station, so we don’t get ripped off this time.  The tuk-tuk driver is reluctant to take us to the guest house we picked out of Lonely Planet instead of one where he would get a commission.

This afternoon we walk around outside the main Mahabodhi Temple.  Buddha achieved enlightenment under a Bodhi tree at this very temple.  We meet Frake, from Holland, and Michelle and Amil from America.  I had already met Frake in Kolkata, but only briefly.  We chat with them before heading to a meditation session at the nearby Japanese temple.  The person leading the session is away, so we are left to meditate on our own in front of a statue of Buddha.

The next day, we further explore the Mahabodhi Temple, as well as get some pictures of the giant Buddha statue in better sunlight.  Tonight, we plan to get a room in Gaya near the train station, so that we can catch our train to Varanasi at around 4 am.  Hopefully this 4 hour train ride will go much smoother than the crowded 17 hour one.

 

Observations

As described in some of my other posts, we are approached by a lot of random Indian people.  These encounters generally follow the same format: shaking our hands, asking our names, and where we are from.  Usually, this is about as much as their English will allow.  If we are just encountering them in passing, then they will say hello and shake our hands.  A little girl at the Hospet train station commented on my ponytail and Adam’s apple in Hindi.  Also, certain Indian people will stop us and ask us to take their pictures.  They really love to see the pictures.  Other people will want to take pictures with us as well, but most of the picture taking has been Indians simply wanting us to take their pictures so they can see them on the camera.

Being western, beggars approach us more than they do locals.  This happens pretty much everywhere: the streets, on trains, at train stations, at tourist sites, etc.  When the trains stop at stations, beggars get on and go from car to car asking everyone for donations.  There are even kids that sweep the floors of the train cars and ask for money as they go by.  One of the only times I have given any money was to a woman and child who were going through the train cars singing a song in Hindi.

We have seen quite the array of animals on our trip so far.  Large crickets, cockroaches, goats, monkeys, sheep, cows, buffalo, mice, elephant, lizards, chipmunk-squirrel things, giant crab, a ton of mangy dogs, mangy cats, cobras, and in Kolkata: a dead dog and 2 dead mice on the side of the road.

Warning: the following isn’t for the squeamish.

Just before I came into the internet cafe this time, I had the displeasure of witnessing 2 Indian men slitting the throats of chickens before throwing them into a bucket.  After they had slit all of the chickens’ throats, they pulled them from the bucket and threw them on a table still kicking and moving around.  One man then further prepared them by cutting off their legs.  This was the extent of what I saw, as I decided it was probably past time to get into the internet cafe.

End squeamish portion.

There is trash pretty much everywhere in India.  Indian people rarely use trash cans, if there is even one available, most times there is not.  Trash is simply discarded wherever it is most convenient.  If you are on a train, you simply throw your trash from the train window.  This was epitomized perfectly when an Indian guy threw his empty water bottle into the banana grove outside Mango Tree Restaurant right in front of us.

The smells in India can be a bit overwhelming at times.  Most of the time it is probably from the high levels of trash everywhere.  Randomly smelling urine has become quite common, and I am pretty used to it.

Hopefully the environment will be a lot nicer when we get up to Nepal for our 3 week trek.

 

More Hampi and Hot Trains of Doooom

Our second full day in Hampi turns out to be a lot of fun.  We explore the temples and boulders right at one end of town.  The temple here is at least as impressive if not more so than the 2 temples we paid to enter on our temple tour the day before.   After taking some pictures here, we decide to head to the temple on the top of the hill overlooking Hampi.  We make it most of the way up before it looks like there is no direct path the rest of the way.  We stupidly decide that the boulders between us and the temple can be easily climbed over.  After an hour or so and much coaching from Davy, we make it to the temple triumphant.  It was definitely a bit trickier than we had originally envisioned.   We take some pictures from the temple before heading down the epic stone staircase on the back side of the hill.

We eat lunch at the Mango Tree restaurant for the second time where we meet James again, the South African who is also staying at our guest house.  We tell him about our epic bouldering session and that we are going to head to the temple atop the hill for sunset.  When the time for this rolls around, Sammy, a french guy that James has met, has decided to join us as well.  We get rides on the back of James’ and Sammy’s motorcycles to the start of the trail to the epic stone staircase.

When we reach the temple, we realize that there are stairs leading to the roof.  This is the perfect spot to view the surrounding boulders in all directions as well as the sunset.  After hanging out for awhile atop the temple, we head back into town to eat at the Mango Tree for the third time.  Their garlic cheese nan is delicious, like pokey stix but oh so much better.

The next day we wake up early to eat breakfast at Gopi House before heading to the temple atop the hill one last time.  When we get back into town, the tuk-tuk driver who was supposed to meet us and take us to the train station is MIA.  The new driver we find has a sweet sound system in the back of his tuk-tuk, and we jam out to Indian tunes on the way to the train station.

While waiting at the train station, Davy and I are almost immediately approached by a group of children wanting to talk to us and shake our hands.  At one point, I count 10 kids all just staring intently at us.  This continues while we wait, with random children and sometimes adults coming over to ask us where we are from and shake our hands.

The train eventually arrives and we manage to get window seats, even though our assigned seats are not.  Shortly thereafter, the set of seats we are in is filled in by a huge Indian family.  The 2 seats intended for 6 people are instead sitting 14 people, though several of them are small children.  Apparently children don’t need train tickets, so they ride for free with their families.  When another Indian family boards, they angrily kick most of the kids out of their seats.  We are not too far behind, as the window seats we are in are actually theirs.  The rest of the train ride isn’t too bad, and part of it is spent sleeping.  This is my first overnight train, and it is a lot easier to sleep here than it was on the overnight bus.

We reach Vijayawada around 4 am and wait roughly 3 hours before our next train arrives.  This time, we have managed to book window seats, which make for a pretty pleasant journey.  It does get up to around 110 degrees fahrenheit though, which is the hottest we have experiened on our journey thus far.  When we reach Bhubaneswar, it turns out that our next train to Howrah has actually been canceled.  After pushing and shoving with the Indian people at the enquiry counter, going back and forth between two counters, and finally being pointed toward the ticket counter, I manage to buy new tickets for a different train.  These tickets are 2nd class instead of the sleeper class of the original tickets.  It turns out that this means wooden slats on the seats instead of semi-comfortable padding.  It is much more uncomfortable sleeping on these seats, but not impossible.

We reach Howrah station, just outside of Kolkata, at a little after 7 in the morning.  We don’t realize there is a taxi queue outside of the station, so we accept a wayyy overpriced ride from a guy who approaches us as we are leaving.

If Mumbai driving was crazy, then Kolkata’s is absolutely insane.  The streets seem to constantly be full of pedestrians and honking cars, buses, and tuk-tuks.  Most of the time when our taxi driver is honking, the cars in front of him have nowhere to go.  We reach the tourist district in one piece and visit several guest houses before deciding on one with AC and a decent looking room.  We will stay in Kolkata for one night until taking a train tomorrow to Gaya.

Check out my flickr for some more pictures from the journey.