Nepal, Varanasi and North India

Here are a whack of pictures from my travels over the last month. Enjoy!

The incredibly short runway at Lukla airport, 2800 meters.

The first and only Starbucks I've seen on this trip, on the way to Everest of all places.

Look closely and you can see how the Sherpa people carry all of their gear on their heads. Crazy. I met one man carrying 90Kg.


The stunning mountain town of Namche Bazzar, 3500 meters. There are no roads up here so everything has to be carried in.

Dawn at Namche Bazzar.

Sam, Me, Tamara, Chris and Jess. Sam and Chris were two stellar Canadians we met on the plane to Lukla who were on their way to summit Everest. By far two of the best people I've met on my trip.

The highest camp, Gorak Shep, elevation 5100 meters.

Of all the days we decide to go up, we arrive on the day a bunch of Brits decide they're going to set the world record for the 'Highest Cricket Game'. British people do some really weird things.

I must say, Cricket is incredibly boring.

An early (4AM) start to catch the sunrise over Everest. This is looking back down the valley we came up over the previous 8 days.

Kala Patthar, 5550 meters. So so awesome.

So we celebrated with some whisky.

Sunrise over Everest, the peak on the left.

Everest and Everest Base Camp below left next to the ice flow.

Later that afternoon we walked to Base Camp.

And had some delicious apple pie!

The walk back through some enormous valley's was impressive.

The streets of Kathmandu.

Kyaking on the lake in Pokhara, Nepal.

A flash storm in Pokhara, I watched lightning strike less than 100 meters away. THAT was scary.

Bathing the Elephants at Chitwan National Park, Nepal.

Sharing the roof of a bus on our way out of Nepal.

Varansi, India. By far the craziest most intense place I have ever been in my life. This is the holy Ganges River, where people from all over India come to cremate their loved ones. Let me just say the water is pretty sick and there is nothing in this world that would get me to jump in there.

But thousands of people bath and swim here everyday. It's holy water.

But aside from watching dead bodies be carried through town and their smell that penetrates the city from being burned on the ghats, and if you can get passed the endless harassment and the dozens of cows and cow shit you have to avoid in the narrow streets that are just wide enough people (and dont forget to keep your head up for oncoming motorcycles) and if you make a point not to look at the dead bodies that wash up on shore after they've been sunk in the Ganges (children, pregnant women and suicide victims can't be cremated) then Varanasi is a really beautiful place.

And the Puja festival performed on the ghats every evening is pretty cool.

Ahh Rishikesh, a quiet hill station in the North, the place where the Beatles came to chill out and write the White Album. Definitely a great place to escape.

I was God awful sick from the food in Varansi so Mama Jee took care of me at her guesthose with tea and thali.

And when I felt better we when rafting on the Ganges, here at the mouth of the river the swimming was pretty stellar.

The Golden Temple in Amritsar. Very beautiful although the constant bombardment to have my photo taken with Indian tourist was really trying.

The India-Pakistan border closing ceremony. This was like going to a sporting event. 'Hindustan! Hindustan!'

The Golden Palace at night.

My last stop in India before returning to Delhi was Dharmsala, the place where the Dali Lama keeps his Tibetan Government in exile.

Outside the Dali Lama's temple. This place was really really beautful. A nice tranquil and spiritual place to end my journey of India.

I leave for Singapore this evening and will start the SE Asia leg of my trip. First stop: Tioman Island, Malaysia. Man I can't wait for the beach!

Nepal

Well, first off I'm sorry for not posting in a month, I feel like I've done so much and there is so much to tell!

The trek to Kala Patthar and Everest Base Camp was simply amazing and by far one of the best experiences of my trip so far. We flew from Kathmandu to Lukla where the elevation is about 2800m (thats about 10,000 ft to you Dad). This airport is insane. The runway is maybe 300m and it's on a very steep slope up a ridge that they use both for slowing the planes down when they land and for airspeed when they take off. A little hair raising landing here? Bah, I love that shit! From there we climbed for 8 days to reach the highest camp, Gorak Shep, elevation ~5100m. Gorak Shep is the hub for day hikes to Kala Patthar and Base Camp. The weather couldn't have been more perfect.

Base camp, at ~5350 meters, I have to say, isn't much. The walk there was stellar, a trail is cut through an enormous moraine and you're only a few meters away from the ice flow, often walking over buried ice along the way. The camp is nothing more than a bunch of tents full of mountaineers and their guides and due to the size of the surrounding mountains, there is no view of Everest from here. Seeing the ice flow they have to cross to reach Camp 2 however, was impressive. This is the most difficult part of the accent and they will have to cross it 3-4 times. To put it simply, it was massive. We had apple pie at the German bakery they constructed made our way back.

At 4am the morning after we arrived in Gorak Shep, we left to summit Kala Patthar (elevation 5550m/18, 200ft) and catch the sunrise over Everest. This was by far the most spectacular place I have ever been. The sky was very dark blue, the darkest I've seen, and there wasn't a cloud to be seen. Kala Patthar is completely surrounded by many of the tallest mountains in the world. Everest was certainly not the most beautiful mountain, but seeing the sun rise from behind it's peak was breathtaking.

To put things in perspective, mount Robson in BC is just under 4000m, Everest is 8900m. At Kala Patthar, we were only a few hundred meters short of the highest mountain in Canada (Logan) and the surrounding mountains were still several thousand meters above us.

The weather was great, it was definitely cold at night but certainly not as cold as our trek in India. The climb was somewhat difficult but I loved every minute of it and enjoyed carrying my own pack this time. I was eating three solid meals a day but I still think I lost over 10 pounds.

Food was expensive. A bottle of water, that might cost 30Rp (50 cents) climbed up to 300Rp ($5) at Gorak Shep. But I understand it, there are no roads or anything so everything has to be carried in by the Sherpa people. These guys and girls are amazing. They carry the loads on their heads, many of them over 50-60Kg. I met one man carrying 92Kg on his head. Unreal.

The trekkers atmosphere was great. We met tons of people from all over the world from all age groups. But by far the funniest (or weirdest) thing we saw was the world record attempt at 'The Worlds Highest Cricket Match' held at Gorak Shep. This was funny. I will never understand, nor do I want to understand, how to play cricket. British people do some really strange things sometimes.

Oh, and no altitude sickness! I think Jess and I were probably still acclimatized from our trek in India 2 weeks earlier so we felt great the whole way up. But I'd say more than 70% of the people we met had symptoms, including our travel companion.

So, after 9 days of climbing, we descended in 3 very long and tiring days back to Kala Patthar and caught an early morning flight out to Kathmandu. We spent a few days there exploring more of the city and then moved on to Pokhara, a quiet lake town and the general starting place for the popular Annapurna Circuit, something I hope to do one day when I return. Pokhara was a nice place to relax for a few days. Jess then took off on a kayaking trip and I went to the jungle on safari in search of Tigers. Didn't see any, but I got to play with elephants in the water and managed to spot a few crocodiles and rhinoceroses.

Nepal was amazing and I loved every day that we spent there; all 30 days of our allowed visa. I'll save my next post for describing the shear insanity and chaos that is Varanasi.

All this and now Everest!

OK wow SOOO much to write about but so little time especially if i want to post pictures!

Ok so... We left Calcutta on an overnight train to Darjeeling, a nice little hill/mountain town to the north. This was a really nice place and such a great change of pace from the incessent honking and street harassment in Calcutta. Unfortunately it was raining when we arrived and didnt seem like it was going to let up anytime soon. On our way to Darjeeling, we obtained permits to enter a northern region of India called Sikkim so we decided two days of the rain was enough and kept going further north to the mountains. We also managed to organize an expedition to the base of Sikkim's highest mountain Kangchenzonga, the 3rd highest mountain in the world.

Yuksom was a 5 hour jeep ride away through some pretty awful hillside terrain. We did however manage to fill the jeep with 12 people including the driver which made for an even more enjoyable ride! :S

We spent the night in Yuksom and met with our 'crew' that was to take us up there. For two people to reach the Gochela, the base of Kangchemzonga, and return over a total of 8 days we required 1 guide, 1 cook, 1 helper guy, 1 Yak Man and 3 Yaks. Gochela is approximately 4900 meters. This whole experience was unreal and I want to go into more detail but I dont have the time so I will try and let the pictures speak for themselves. What I will say is that this was probably the best I have eaten on my entire trip and it was extremely challenging but absolutely worth ever minute (although I was seriously questioning my motivation freezing my ass off sleeping at 4000 meters).

After our trek, we were pretty burnt out and our faces were fried from the snow and sun so we decided...for some reason...to walk to a little lake town called Kachepouri. This took about 3 hours carryng all of our gear (~30-35 pounds) on our backs but again totally worth it. We settled into a little homestay at the top of this hill run by an 82 year old man who has 11 children the youngest being his 4 year old daughter. Pretty awesome guy, he cooked for the Dalai Lama in Tibet for 30 years so the food we ate, as you can imagine, was stellar.

NEXT...we jumped on a 7 hour jeep ride back to the closet border town to Nepal and crossed the border at about 9 o'clock pm, everything was closed of course, so although we could walk across the border we had no visa's to enter Nepal but had already stamped out of India...this meant getting random people to help us wake up the immigration officials! We overpaid for our visas.
Next morning, wake up, buy bus tickets to Kathmandu, 17 hours the tell us. Our bus leaves at 2pm. Now Nepal is notorious for it's bus accidents but we didn't have too many options so we decided driving overnight was what we should do. Didn't matter. Five hours into our bus ride (well we were probably stopped waiting for people to fill the bus for at least 2 of those) we reached a ferry crossing on some random backroad that was closed due to a 'strike'. It's 7pm and people on the bus are telling us it won't open again until about 6am. Pretty sweet. There were about 15 buses in front of us and it takes about 15 minutes to get one bus across the river.... see pictures. So of course Nepali's want to capitalize on these 'strikes' and our meal options were very limited so we ate some rice and dal that im sure was made with river water. I didn't get sick but I can't say the same for my travel companion...

I slept on the riverbank, and on the bus, both were god awful places to try and sleep. The next morning we got across the river by 10am...not bad. Then it was another whole day of riding the most uncomfortable bus in the entire world. We finally arrived in Kathmandu the following morning around 6am. So a 17 hour bus ride took 40. The icing on the cake was getting ripped off by some asshole taxi driver on the way to the hotel district. So not the best first impression of Nepal for me, but the people we met when were were waiting for the ferry were amazing and patient and now that we are here I am definitely stoked about this place.

Kathmandu is crazy. I love it here. There are people everywhere, and its smoggy as hell (many people on the streets wear face masks and I really don't blame them) but there is no harassment to look in shops and the Nepali's are just not as obsessed with westerners as Indians are. A shopping spree in this city would be SO awesome. There is brand name outdoor gear (fake and real) in everyshop and it's all SO cheap compared to home!

Tomorrow we leave for Lukla, the start of a 15-18 day trek in the Everest region. It should take about 8-9 days to reach base camp (~5500 meters), I'm really looking forward to the challenge. We will have to cross alot more valley's than we did to reach Gochela and this time I don't have a Yak to carry my pack...

I hope you enjoy the pictures everyone, some of them date back as far as the beginning of March and you will have to scroll from the bottom up if you want to see them in order.

Drinking Everest beer in Kathmandu after a day of planning and preparing for our asscent.

A relatively quiet street in Thamal, Kathmandu.

"You make dollars in your country, why wouldn't you just fly?" Some Nepali to me and Jess when we were waiting for the ferry crossing.

A double rainbow at Paule's place on the hill above Kachapouri Lake.

Gochela, our final destination after 6 long days of trekking. Elevation 4900 meters.

Prayer flags at Gochela. Although it looks lower, Kangchenzonga is the peak on the right, the 3rd highest mountain in the world.

There was alot of snow and we both forgot to wear suncreen...

One of the many outstanding meals we ate on the trek. They actually cooked us pizza up there...PIZZA!

A lookout about an hour away from Dzongri.

Totally worth getting up at 4am for.

Dzongri. Elevation 4200 meters. So so so beautiful.

Then we encountered snow...

And then we spent the night in a mountain village called, Tsokha, the only village on the trek. Elevation 2900 meters.

But the sun came out the next morning.

So we froze that night. The first of many cold nights.

It was a rainy start to the trek.

Sometimes, even in the streets of Calcutta, a herd of goats may come by...

Rickshaw pullers and their passengers in Calcutta.

Jess and I enjoying some chai and beedies in Calcutta.

One of the unreal sunsets on Beach #7, Havelock Island, Andman Islands, one of my favorite places in India.

The lagoon at Beach #7, Havelock Island.

Beach #5, Havelock Island, the beach where we stayed. You could walk for 500 meters and the water wouldnt get over your knees.

The aftermath of getting 'painted' at the festival of Holi, a celebration that takes place all over India (don't ask me what it's all about I just know you throw paint at EVERYONE).

Some night traffic in Chennai.

Calcutta

If I had just arrived in Calcutta and it was my first day in India I would seriously be freaking out right now. But I know India. I love it here. We see so much about places like this at home, on western TV, and think that they must be so impoverished and filthy and a real dreadful place to live. Poverty is staring me in the face. And it is filthy. But there is also real beauty here you just have to know where to look for it, or maybe you just have to want to see it.

Each of the major cities I've visited in India; Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and now Calcutta, have a unique character to them and I feel comfortable in each for different reasons. Here in Calcutta, the street food is what drew me in immediately. There are street vendors cooking up food on every corner and they all smell so great. Yesterday I had a fresh made grilled sandwich and some mango juice and this morning we had an egg sandwich and some chai. Amazing.

I completed 8 dives on Havelock in the Andaman's. Diving is freaking crazy. I love it! I saw everything from stingrays to baby Nemo fish. Definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far.

Anyways, since I keep getting shit about not posting pictures here are a bunch from the last month or so... I will provide a better update soon. Thanks to all of you who have been emailing me. It's so great to hear from people at home.

Catching up with friends in Kodaicannal. Miss you guys.

The Indians love to be in pictures with us so we thought it was high time we got into some pictures with them!

Pilgrams paying their respects. Kanyakummari, Tamil Nadu.


Not all Indians are Hindu's. Sometimes it takes places like this to remind you of that. This is a magnificent church I visited, also in Kanyakummari.

The most southern tip of India. Kanyakummari, Tamil Nadu.

View of the beach from our cliff resort in Varkala, Kerala.

A relaxing canoe ride through the Keralan backwaters.



Me and Jess on a backwater tour outside Alleppey, Kerala.

Sometimes...this is India. Our bathroom at Paradise Beach, Karnataka.

Palolem Beach, Goa.

Just one of the stellar sunsets in Palolem, Goa.

A small church we found when exploring around Anjuna, Goa.

Our beach accommodation in Anjuna, Goa.

Fishing boats anchored off the coast in Anjuna, Goa.

Extending Paradise

The Andaman Islands. Wow. If you dont know where they are look it up on a map. These little islands, in the middle of the Bay of Bengal, belong to India but they are actually much closer to Myanmar and Thailand. We are staying on a small island called Havelock. This is my paradise on earth. We both love it so much that after only 4 days we had to come back to the main island to change our flights and extend our visas (we'd initally only booked for 1 week).

I dont think the words I know will do this place justice in describing it. The water is pristine. You can see clearly down almost 10 meters. We went snorkeling the other day and I've never seen so many colorful schools of fish and brilliant corals in my life. I had heard that there was world class diving here but not being a diver I didnt really understand how great that is. I'm taking my PADI course this week... 6 dives. I can't wait.

And it's not just the water and the beaches that are amazing. It's not touristy like Goa. There are many westerners of course, but it doesnt feel like Goa. I haven't once been called into someones shop to buy something nor have I been approached on the beach to 'just loooook'. I think these might be the only beaches left in India where you can actually sit alone and not see someone else or be harrassed to buy necklaces or have your body covered in henna tatoos.

Havelock is pretty small, there is no internet or ATM and its a 2.5-4 hour ferry ride away depending on what ferry you luck out with. The accomodation is basic, but stellar. Everyone is very friendly and the only real nusance is the Isreali crowd, if you know what I mean. We of course found some other Canadians on the island and have shared a few bottles of Rum while exchanging travel stories. One of them, Rick, is a founder of an orphanage in Cambodia and is going to set me up with a place to stay if I'm interested in working there for a while. This is what I love about traveling.

Yesterday was an Isreali holiday, and I'm not lying here, we were told by several different groups that the objective of the day was to 'drink until you can't remember'. Apparently it's in the bible or something. So I did what I was told. haha. Good thing Jess was there to turn the lights out and put me in my mosquito net otherwise I may have woken up attacked by hornets, I guess they like to come out around 3-4 am and are drawn to light.

But other than last night partying is pretty rare in that sense. It's a real laid back vibe and even as far as parties go, this was small and reminded me how few people are actually on the island.

One thing I've learned is that they will be opening an international airport here next year. The thought of this really breaks my heart. Right now you have to enter India and then make your way to the Andaman's so it keeps them relatively under developed. Once they start flying here from Bangkok or Singapore our cozy little beach huts will no doubt be leveled to make room for 5 star hotels. What is even more sad is that the locals are excited about this because they see it as an opportunity to make more money.

So I recommend to everyone, if you come to India you must come here. This is my favorite place, not for cuture of course, but for just relaxing and enjoying the unrreal and untouched beauty of the islands.

OK, one last thing I have to mention is about my short time in Chennai. After a 12 hour overnight bus from Kodaicannal we found a basic room and headed into the city. I wanted to get a haircut and I really needed a shave so I thought I might knock them both off at the Indian barber. We were in a local, non-tourist area of the city and when you're a white person walking into a barber shop there it's just assumed you want, and can afford, the works! So what I expected to take 20 minutes took 2 hours. I had my head massaged, my hair cut using only sissors, no electrical tools here, head massaged again, face massaged, washed, shaved with a straight razor, and washed again. There was also a short break for chai, of course. Then he proceeded to put a facial mask on me, washed my face again, applied a new mask, washed, massaged my head and face, then we breaked for chai again. Then I got the finishing touches around the edges with a straigh razor, had my head and back massaged and handed the guy 200 Rupees ($5). All in all a pretty fun experience. Maybe not so much for Jess, she wasnt planning on spending 2 hours in the barber shop drinking chai and watching cricket with the Indians :)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Tamil Nadu

We've managed to escape the sweltering heat, for the time being anyway. We are in a small mountain town called Kodaicannal, situated 2000m asl in the Western Ghats of the most southern Indian state, Tamil Nadu. It's a breezy 25 degrees here with almost no humidity, a far cry from the +40 degrees celsius we were experiencing in Kerala.

After leaving Alleppey, we cruised down the backwaters for about 8 hours to southern Kerala to meet up with two of my friends from EWB, Nicole and Carly. We spent 3 days in Varkala which was like being back in Goa, although I think it was actually more touristy. But it was nice, all of the beach restaurants and accommodations were situated on a very high cliff overlooking the ocean and a beautiful beach below. This place again made me lose my India feel a little bit but it was so great to catch up with my friends from university and the town was the perfect place for that!

The four of us then decided to head south, to the most southern tip of India, Kanyakumari. This place was spectacular, there were so many beautiful Christian churches and the shore was lined with hundreds of colourful fishing boats. This is where both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal meet the Indian ocean. As much as we enjoyed this place however, it was just too hot and we decided to head for the nearby mountains.

This place is truly amazing. The people are very friendly and the food is fantastic. Yesterday the four of us rented a boat and peddled around the local lake. Today we set out into the forest with a guide to explore the rockfaced cliffs.

I think we will be heading to Chennai tomorrow and attempt to catch a flight to the Andaman Islands as soon as possible. I hope the Islands will give me a chance to get my ass back into shape for the trekking that's ahead of us in Northern India and Nepal. I've definitely been smoking to much of the local tobacco and havent been doing much physical activity next to swimming and carrying my pack from hotel to hotel. Maybe I will run on the beach everyday or something.

I tried to put pictures up today but somethings not working. Hopefully in the next day or two.

All the best to everyone at home.