--STRANDED!--

Someone get a hold of Kevin Skobac (I just emailed him) and tell him not to meet me at the airport in New York!

I was with Luke in Delhi until about midnight on the 20th and then I found a shuttle to the airport for only 50 rupees. Once I had found the correct place to catch the bus, and asked some guy to confirm that I had the correct spot, he asked for my sunglasses as a gift for all his help. Are you serious? He was. I got to the international airport around 1am and found out the flight to Moscow had been delayed about 3 and a half hours. Because of this, I was going to miss my connecting flight to New York and so they told me that I would have to stay in Delhi for 24 hours and try again tomorrow. The flight however has changed, because someone at Aeroflot told me I would need to return for 2am to get to Moscow. So I would love to give Kevin new information but I don't have it yet.

Free hotel room!

This hotel is frickin' sweet. I bitched and moaned at the airport (to try to get a seat upgrade or free booze on the flight) but I was really just excited to get a bed to jump on and free food. I know at least Daniela (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!) will know what I'm referring to, but this hotel has an Eggspectation restaurant. We went to one in Quebec or Montreal and it had what was probably the best breakfast I've ever eaten. Well this hotel has one and its where all my meals are comped. Awesome. So awesome. I've just been reading and eating and drinking free tea and coffee. I don't want to hike all the way back into Delhi proper so I'm gonna take a nap or something to kill some more time.

The point is that I WON'T be arriving in New York at 4pm on the 21st, and that sucks. See you all when I see you.

Kisses.

************IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT*****************

I will arrive at JFK Airport in New York at 4:00pm on May 21st, this Monday. That is all. See you guys soon.

Varanasi India and old pictures

This internet cafe's connection speed isn't too shabby so I'm able (inch Allah) to post a few old pictures along with my ramblings. The picture to the right was from early on in our hike, before I filled my camera up and Luke took over all picture-taking responsibilities. The second one was from a few days later, at about 1,600 meters, when we found ourselves surrounded by wild Cannabis. I'm the Ganja Caesar in case you can't tell what I was going for. I stayed dressed up until some young and impressionable kids approached us on the path.

I burned all of my photos onto a CD and I know now there's no way I'll get these uploaded before I return home. Enjoy the visuals while they last.


We're in the ancient and holy city of Varanasi, located along the Ganges. The city extends away from the river and the surrounding ghats (any area that you can approach the river from), where bodies are cremated around the clock, and from where people do their morning puja rituals. We went down to the river this morning and watched the Hindu cremations while a guy explained to us what we were seeing. He was unasked for and demanded money at the end (for the local hospices, naturally) but we both happily donated because he was so informative. I'd say this is one of my favorite stops on this trip so far, because of the purity and importance of what we're seeing. There may be tourists watching the burnings (of which we're clearly a part) and a whole group of people making a living off of us, but the ceremonies themselves aren't tainted by tourism and it's interesting to know that these rituals have been performed, every single day, all day long, for (if the guide is to be believed) at least 2,600 years. It calls Varanasi 'one of the world's oldest living cities' and it does feel like an accurate description.

Anything trite I have to say isn't going to help you visualize what its like to be here and take an observer's part in what's going on. It's something I'm glad I got to see and think about.

On another note the fruit is incredible. If I come home and can't find mangoes like this I'm going to be really pissed off.

Kathmandu's psuedo-hippies

This blog post has nothing to do with the fake hippy community that lives in Kathmandur or its even more laughable counterpart in Pokhara. I'm just letting you know it exists. Also, are Luke and I the only foreigners here who aren't trying to GET INTO Nepal? We saw two big white tourists walk by us a few days ago (we could easily picture them as football players in high school or college or something) and they're both sporting shorts, t-shirts, North Face backpacks, and local kopi hats. Picture a little cap that looks almost like some kind of tall French beret, pushed in at the top. Only old Nepali guys seem to wear them and these two jokers who looked ironic in them.

I got my new Indian Visa (I will have spent a grand total of a week in India, and it will have required me to get 2 separate visas and spend about $150 on them) on Friday so Luke and I are ready to leave Nepal, maybe forever. The local beer sucks (Nepal Ice, Gorkha, Everest beer and everything I'm forgetting), the beaten rice that identifies Newari food is dry and lame, the hippies here are annoying, and the poverty is pretty intense, but Nepal is fucking awesome. Other than that beaten rice stuff, Newari food is some of the best I've eaten on this trip through Asia (I've been trying to identify my top 5 meals in Asia and what Luke and I had last night makes the list). The hiking was spectacular and the people here (especially those trying to sell you something) are so friendly. I highly recommend Nepal to anyone thinking about traveling. Not so much Viet Nam. In fact, fuck Viet Nam.

I didn't really have a point in posting today, I just felt like since I have cheap internet access I should write something before I disappear again for a long time.

Oh yeah, and there is this local fruit called Lapsy. It's only available in Nepal and Luke has been experimenting with it. You can buy these little packages of dried Lapsy almost anywhere and what neither of us understand is that there are probably 20 varities of it, and none of them taste or look alike. Not even a little bit. Luke first tried it because it looked like black licorice and we would have described the flavor as: slightly spicy not-quite-fruit, with a peppery aftertaste. I tried it and then spent 20 minutes trying to get the taste out of my mouth. Luke, ever the adventurer, got some more last night and it couldn't have looked any less like our first attempt. Two packages: one looked like dried papaya and one like dried pineapple. The papaya-looking one was again, peppery for some reason and as Luke said: 'it tastes like a fruit that they're trying desperately to make sweet, but isn't.' Then we had success. The pineapple-looking package was awesome. We checked the back of the package and 'Lapsy fruit' was the second or third ingredient in this package of Lapsy fruit. First and foremost was sugar. Artificial flavorings was maybe fourth. It tasted just like pineapple. I think the local Lapsy growers have been trying to find a way to make this palatable and they've finally hit upon it: make it pineapple instead and then add equal parts sugar. Brilliant.

A sobering experience

No, Luke and I aren't dead. We were hiking the Annapurna Circuit in the western mountains of Nepal and now we're in Kathmandu on "Freak Street." We started our hike on the 20th (I think) and wrapped it up on the 5th of May, making it a full 16-days. We did about 8 hours a day (broken up by lunch) and we were understandably pretty fucking exhausted by the time we got back to Pokhara. The hike was awesome and the pictures that Luke and I took look fantastic. The internet speed here in Kathmandu isn't so great so you'll all probably have to wait until we get home to see them on Flickr. Our hygiene left a little to be desired as we took four or five showers between the two of us, and I only remember washing my hair three times in those 16 days. Once with a bar of soap.

Kathmandu is great and we're staying right off of Durbar Square, where a lot of temples, pagodas, and the old royal palace are located. We've seen a few sights but more or less just lounged around. Because of my Indian Visa fuck-up we will be forced to stay here for at least a week (while I get a new one) but that's ok by us as the city has enough to do and we don't want to move around too much after the hike.

This morning we went to the Kathmandu Central Jail and visited a foreigner being held on drug charges. A 25-year old Romanian guy. Our guidebook suggested it as a sobering experience but as something that can really benefit the prisoners, as they're supported by their friends and families and they usually need things that we can grab for them. We got patted down, had to check our things, and then selected from a list of the foreigners being held a Romanian guy (most of the inmates are from Nigeria and it looks like almost all of them are being held on drug charges), and our logic was that maybe he will speak a little bit of English. We took a seat across from the building with the holding cells, and the guards went and found our guy. He came outside, the only white face in sight, and took a seat on one side of a low partition. Luke and I took a seat on a bench across from him, next to everyone else visiting someone, and there were no screens or bars separating us from him. He shook our hands and we asked him a few questions right off the bat, "how long have you been here?" "what was the charge?" "how much longer do you have?" "how many other Europeans are inside?" "do you need anything?" It was a pretty quick visit and he told us that he was busted on drug charges (no details offered) and he had only been in Nepal for 2 weeks before he was arrested, at 22-years old. He was given a 16-year sentence without the possibilty of parole (if Nepal has parole at all). He didn't want anything from us but did give Luke a hand-written note so that we could email it to a friend or family member for him. It was in English so we were able to glace over it and he's hoping for an extradition.

I'm not sure what we learned from the experience because I think we would have assumed a lot of what he said was true anyway. Yes, conditions in a Nepali prison suck (he stays in a huge room with lots of other prisoners, but didn't give many other details). Getting busted for drugs in a foreign country is a major fuck-up. Stuff like that.

We, a little happier with our own meager problems and concerns, found a place that teaches Yoga and plan on going there for a 4:15pm session tonight. It feels strange to not be exercising after our hike and I think this is a way to keep up our momentum.

I'm going to look into plane tickets home after I post this entry, but Daniela's search came up with $900 tickets at their cheapest. Damn. Anyone wanna buy me an early birthday present?