Published September 13th, 2009
in Pictures and road trip.
We’ve just recently moved into our new apartment in San Jose. Finding a place in San Francisco from across the country was more difficult than expected so we’ll be at this place for the 6 month lease and then possibly moving on.
The 2 week trip across the country was amazing. We visited some of the most beautiful places like Rocky Mountain, Zion, Arches, Bryce Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks.
Check out the picture slideshow by clicking here. Note: The pictures are only 800×800 at the largest so I recommend not full screening your window if your resolution is higher than 1280×1024 or else the pictures might pixelate a bit.
First day of work is tomorrow, I’m looking forward to it.
Published August 28th, 2009
in Uncategorized.
Sandra and I are leaving tomorrow morning to drive through many beautiful national parks on our way to San Jose. We should arrive on September 11th and work starts on September 14th. Yeeeeehaw!
Published August 4th, 2009
in Uncategorized.
I’m back in America, Asheville specifically although I’ll be moving to California in a few weeks. If you want to hang out give me a call: 828-337-8267
Published July 28th, 2009
in India and Travel.
Rajasthan is great. It’s full of maze-like dusty streets, ridiculous mustaches, camels, Arabian style weapons and architecture, snake charmers, deserts, temples, enormous forts on hills, and many other things that are straight out of Aladdin. In a couple hours we are going out head out for our 2 day camel trek through the desert near Jaisalmer, where we currently are. Riding on a camel is something I’ve been excited about all trip so this is a nice way to finish up my last week of travel. After that we have only 1 day in Udaipur, an overnight train to Mumbai, 3 days in Mumbai, and then a long but comparatively comfortable flight back to America. See you soon!
Grandapa: There are lots and lots of places where families live and convert them into guesthouses for tourists to stay at. They are generally minimal with hardly anything more than a ceiling fan and a bathroom. There is usually only 1 drain in the bathroom so the shower sprays directly onto the floor as does the sink. Prices usually range between 4-10 dollars for a room.
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Has anybody in America received a postcard from me yet?
Published July 25th, 2009
in India and Travel.
We had a 15 hour overnight jeep right from Leh to Srinigar. I was crammed in between an overweight Indian guy and the window with hardly any room to move. This was actually not a problem for me at first, the initial 6 hours of the trip were totally fine for me. Chris, on the other hand, was not doing so hot. He had to stop the jeep and get out and vomit every 15-20 minutes for a few hours. They moved him to the front seat so he could dry heave out the front window. I felt bad for him… and then I started to feel literally bad as well. I ended up puking a couple times. When we finally arrived in Srinigar we didn’t take much time to find a houseboat to stay on and just slept all day. I didn’t eat anything that day except a little rice at night. Although the jeep ride ended up being our most unpleasant transportation experience so far, we are feeling better now though, it’s allllllllll gooooooood!
Srinigar was great, sleeping on a houseboat on a lake. I spent our day in Srinigar not sightseeing but instead meditating and cultivating peace of mind and happiness.
We spent a few hours today seeing the Taj Mahal, a beautiful building but an unsurprisingly touristy experience. We have a car rented now with a driver who is going to take us around to see some much deserved sights in our last week here. 6 hours of driving to Jaipur today.
No more time to post, it’s time to ride. Road trip, wooooooooo!
Published July 20th, 2009
in India and Travel.
The bike ride down from Khardung La was amazinggg. It ended up taking us a long time (4 hours) because we stopped so much to enjoy the views. The ride was 25 miles long with around 7000 feet of elevation drop.
The next day 4 of us (Me, Chris, Trudy, and Korbi) went in a jeep to Tsomoriri lake with Sasha following behind on his motorcycle. The ride was an incredible 6 hours with just enough time to enjoy the sunset at the lake. The next day we packed our tents up and headed to Tso Kar lake which was even nicer because it gave us a chance to camp directly near the water and away from other campers. The lake was quite high at 15,000 feet, higher than any in America, and the stars were out in full force creating one of the most beautiful night skies I have ever seen.
Today is a rest day after our 5 day non stop activity fest. Tomorrow Chris and I head to Srinigar on an overnight jeep ride. We have a flight from Srinigar to Delhi on the 24th where we will (hopefully) have arranged a rental car that we are going to use to go around and see the sights of Rajasthan for 6-7 days. This will include the Taj Mahal in Agra. After our hurried trip through Rajasthan it’s back to Mumbai for a few days before we fly out of India. My trip is coming to a conclusion but there is still so much to see… what gives?
Published July 15th, 2009
in India and Travel.
I’m in Leh right now at the very Northern tip of India. It’s almost 12,000 feet elevation and a center for trekking, rafting, and snowy mountain peaks. It’s also extremely beautiful in a Western desert mountain kind of way. Our guest house that we are paying 3 and a half dollars each for is up a bit away from the city and is a great place to hang out and watch the sunset over it.
The drive to get here was a great experience on its own. It took us 2 days to drive 300 miles. The road is essentially only 1 lane but there is still traffic going both ways. When vehicles pass each other they generally do it very slowly or stop and often have to back up to find an acceptable place to pass. There are no guard rails or anything and you come remarkably close to falling off the edge but you just gotta trust that the driver knows what he is doing. I have a few pictures of truck corpses that had fallen and rolled down the mountain some time ago.
We have been hanging out with the same people (2 German guys and an Australian girl) for the last week or so, traveling together from McLeod Ganj to Manali and then Manali to Leh. There are tons of Israelis up here and we’ve been having a good time with some of them as well.
Today we went white water rafting on the Zanskar river, known as the “Grand Canyon of Asia” here. It was an incredible 1.5 hour drive to get there and then 2.5 hours of rafting through a hugeeee rocky valley. The perfect weather, rapids, and scenery made it a superior rafting experience for me compared with the rainy Seti river in Nepal.
Tomorrow we are going to take a jeep up to the highest motorable road in the world (18,000 feet) and then mountain bike down from it (1.5 hours). Apparently it was snowing up there a couple days ago. Oh man I love India and Nepal.
The day after tomorrow a group of us are going to Tsomoriri lake to camp for 2 nights. Check it out (not my picture):
No more time to type but I will quickly say that I have some bad news. I have noticed multiple viruses on my external harddrive and I have met some body who had gigs of pictures ruined because they got viruses on their external harddrive. It happens when you connect it to computers here. It means that to play it safe I’m not going to post any more pictures for the remainder of the trip (less than 3 weeks). Anyways, things are great in India. More after our trip to Tsomoriri.
Published July 9th, 2009
in India.
Chris and I just finished our 4 day stay in McLeod Ganj, a beautiful city perched on a mountain side in Northern India. It’s the capital of the exiled Tibetan government and is filled with mostly Tibetans and supporters. We came to celebrate the Dalai Lama’s birthday on July 6th but he was a no show which was slightly disappointing. Instead apparently he was around here but he left the day before to go to Delhi and thank the Indian government for allowing the Tibetans to stay in India (this year is the 50 year anniversary of their headquarters in McLeod Ganj). There was still a pretty big event on his birthday which was interesting, although admittingly we left early because most of the speeches were in Tibetan and it was crowded.
I had a strange experience in McLeod Ganj during a run. Jogging is not a popular past time here so first of all people are staring more than normal, yelling random things, and shaking my hand as I run by. A few groups of Indian guys tried to stop me and talk but I successfully avoided them and kept running. One group though got me to stop and one guy says to me “Can I have just one kiss?” Uhhhh… I was pretty dumb founded and didn’t really respond to that. While I was standing in surprise another guy who was apparently more adventurous didn’t need to ask me for permission and kissed me on the cheek. In fact, they decided they needed a picture with me so the one guy was just kissing my cheek for 30+ seconds while another was (slowly) taking a picture. Yeah… pretty gay.
Which brings me to my next point… guys are very touchy with each other here in a way that if you saw it in America you would definitely think they are homosexual but apparently they are not. Guys holding hands and walking down the street is a common sight. Men and women are, however, not allowed to show affection towards each other. You will hardly ever see them holding hands or even just touching in public, you will generally only see it between 2 guys.
Another thing: Toilet paper. Not so common here. At all the places we’ve stayed we only got toilet paper 2 or maybe 3 times. More common is a bucket that you fill up with water then simultaneously pour it over your butt and use your left hand. Another less common but popular solution is a small hose next to the toilet that you can use.
The left hand thing is big here which is why most Indians eat with their right hand. Not with any utensils or anything, just picking up the food in their hand and passing it into the mouth. This actually isn’t so gross for me until the rice is covered with sauce and then things get pretty messy and difficult for me to look at. My Western brain just doesn’t get it… I will stick with a spoon.
Anyways, we will be in Manali for 2 days before we take an 18 hour minibus ride to Leh that involves 1 overnight stay at 14,000 feet. The road goes over some of the highest mountain passes in the world, getting up to around 17,500 feet. Sweet!
Published July 2nd, 2009
in crazy, Pictures, National Parks and Nepal.
Chris and I found ourselves jumping off a suspension bridge 500 feet above a raging river near the Nepal/Tibet border yesterday. I was doing pretty well standing on the bridge waiting my turn. Not so nervous. Then it’s my turn and I get suited up and creep up to the edge. Wow. Not too much time to anticipate what is going to happen before it’s “3… 2… 1… BUNGEE” time. I spread my arms and jump off the platform. The ground begins to rush up at me faster than ever before in my life and for 2 seconds adrenaline floods my system as I am sure I am going to hit the bottom and die. As quickly as the panic sets in the cable dutifully saves me from an early grave and I start laughing hysterically because I had forgotten about it during the free fall. Definitely worth doing and the most intense few seconds of my life.
I highly recommend this video to check the jump out.
We also ended up doing the canyon swing, the highest in the world. You are connected to another cable that spans the canyon a few hundred feet in front of you by a rope. You jump from the same ledge as the bungee but the rope pulls you and you free fall for a longer period of time before you gently swing down and around.
Here are some pictures from Chitwan that I talked about in the last post.
The full flickr slideshow can be seen here.
We are flying to Delhi, India in a few hours and then heading up North into the mountains. Good bye sweet sweet Nepal! You have been so good to me!
Published June 29th, 2009
in Pictures, Travel and Nepal.
We are in Kathmandu right now after finishing a 2 day overnight rafting trip. Highlights include:
- Nobody understanding our incredible quiet, monotone, and apathetic sounding tour guide explaining safety instructions.
- Our guide dangerously tying a large metal pump to the top of our bags in the middle of the raft. We joked about smashing our teeth into it during a big rapid but actually a British guy did end up smashing his head into it and getting a pretty nasty bump.
- On our overnight stay we slept underneath a tarp with no tent or mosquito net. This meant that if you had your head lamp turned on you were getting swarmed with insects. I woke up the next morning with a nasty open wound rash thing on my leg that was apparently caused by a spider squirting venom on me sometime during the night (says the guide).
Afterwards we continued on to Chitwan National Park which feels more like Africa than Nepal. It has jungles as well as wide open flat land covered with elephant grass up to 8 feet tall. It’s the most popular national park in Nepal and is famous for its rhinos, tigers, crocodiles, birds, and lesser known mammals such as the sloth bear.
In Chitwan we took a canoe ride through the river which was nice despite the fact that the canoe was a traditional skinny one and it felt like it was going to tip over at any second. I asked the guide about it and he confirmed that yes, if we hit a rock or the people in the canoe have bad balance it can tip over. We saw a rare ultra-skinny crocodile which I don’t care enough to look the name up during that excursion.
My favorite part of Chitwan though was the elephant safari. Chris and I rode on an elephant through the jungle and ended up spotting 5 rhinos and countless deer. Elephant bathing was also great. The elephants come down to the river and you climb on top of them and wait for them to spray you with a trunk full of water. Most of the time this knocks you off and you climb back on again for a repeat.
I am loving Kathmandu right now. It is well known for its budget yet quality eateries. Our first night back I had one of the most incredible steaks of my life for 8 dollars (by far the most I have paid for a meal on this trip). It tasted extra delicious since I’ve been close to a vegetarian for the majority of the trip thus far.
Here are the second half of some of my favorite Annapurna Circuit pictures.
Check out the full slideshow here.
