Great Cities of Asia

With great zeal, we left our simple trekking days behind us and embraced the frantic pace of urban Asia.  After flying through the night to Hong Kong, we were so excited to indulge in a hot shower and clean sheets that we started trying to check into our hotel at 9:30am.  They appreciated our vivacity, but sent us away anyway.  Suffering from a potent case of travel haze, which afflicts us when lack of sleep and food pile up for an extended duration, we went in search of comfort.  This lead us to a traveler's most potent temptation - the Golden Arches.  After nearly a month in Nepal without meat, we spent a gluttonous 90 minutes gorging $75 worth of artery-clogging deliciousness (okay, they were HK dollars, but it was still quite a feast).  Sated, we sheepishly returned to the hotel, passing local restaurants offering up cheap, authentic fare.

After a shower and nap, we were as good as new and set out to explore Hong Kong.  As in Europe, the city's public transportation is remarkably efficient, inexpensive, and easy to navigate.  Our first destination was Victoria Peak, where one can theoretically take in panoramic views of the overwhelming skyline, the harbor,  and the South China Sea.  Sadly, due to the plentiful coal-fired plants pumping pollutants into the air in nearby Southern China, a dense haze of smog smothered the city throughout our visit.  Next, we took the subway underneath Victoria Harbor and repented for our earlier McDonald's debacle by dining with the locals in the Kowloon night market.  Then, to get the true local experience, we topped the night off with karaoke, torturing a room of Chinese with pitiful renditions of a few American hits.

Our next stop was everyone's favorite city-state, Singapore, and the friendly confines of our friend Grace's flat.  After six months in perpetual transit, we were delighted to be welcomed to a place that we could call "home" for a few days.  For the first time since Budapest in mid-October, we were greeted by a familiar face when we arrived and it was such a great feeling.  Grace treated us like royalty, the highlight being a jaw-dropping, traditional American Thanksgiving feast, complete with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and everything else that you ate that day.  To top off the familial warmth we felt, Ben's parents surprised us by shipping in a box of our favorite homemade Christmas cookies.  Besides being thankful for the amazing adventures we have shared this year, we toasted to bellies full of our favorite foods courtesy of cherished friends and family.

Singapore is clean and lush, with sweltering weather that hurriedly drove memories of shivering in Nepal from our sweaty heads.  With no regard for the stifling heat or the fact that less than 15% of the populace is Christian, the marketers put on a grand display of Christmas decorations.  Plentiful faux icicles and artificial snow hung from the palm trees, a juxtaposition designed to open wallets. Despite a reputation for stifling sterility due to its strict governance, we found the city inviting and escaped without a single caning.  We explored surprisingly little, instead relishing our time without a schedule, swimming in the complex's pool, and playing with Grace's adorable daughter, Kristin.  Though shy at first, Kristin soon warmed up to us, drawn in by the foreign allure of our yellow hair, which she kept comparing to the color of her yellow blocks.  We built some pretty epic Lego towers together, shared many pots of invisible tea, and ended each night scraping PlayDough from underneath our fingernails.  By the end of our stay, Kristin even felt comfortable jumping on our bed with us (but don't tell Grace).  It was hard to say goodbye after a relaxing stay, with the knowledge that once again we were treading into the unknown to fend for ourselves.

With a jolt, we found ourselves in the frenetic Thai capital of Bangkok.  Snarled by ever-present traffic, this overwhelming metropolis has a remarkably efficient system for separating "farang" (Thai for "gringos") from their money.  Nearly every backpacker gets funneled to a strip called Khoa San Road, with the cheapest lodging in the city and a buzzing nightlife.  From here, visitors are barraged by salesmen, women and children anytime they are outside their guestrooms.  Like nearly every other farang that we talked to, we made the mistake of using an inexpensive tuk-tuk, a three-wheeled motorized cart, to explore some of the city's renowned sites.  A cunning web of seemingly innocent bystanders conspired to get us in the tuk-tuk, help us along our way, provide us with travel information, and eventually book us a tour.  It was not a scam, per se, but the tour delivered on neither the promise nor the price.  We are still kicking ourselves for making a rookie mistake, but hope we can save readers some hassle.  Short story - don't get into a tuk-tuk in Bangkok.  Even if you escape the tourism office, you will not escape the gem market, silk shop, tailor, etc. who are all licking their chops waiting for you, the walking greenback.

Bangkok did have its redeeming qualities, especially the myriad royal palaces and Buddhist wats (i.e. temples).  Though Thailand is a democracy, the Thai monarchy is genuinely revered and highly visible.  Our visit coincided with the King's Birthday, an annual national holiday celebrated with parades, music, and giant omnipresent portraits of the king throughout the country.  The most splendid regal residence was the aptly named Grand Palace, a sprawling complex of gilded wats, ornate buildings, and museums.  The press of the tourist throng here was reminiscent of the Acropolis, especially around the country's most revered religious icon, the Emerald Buddha.  This jade idol is renowned for its miraculous powers - some scholars even credit the statue with the invention of peanut M&Ms.  On our tour, there was no mention of the fact that the Thais stole the statue from both Cambodia and Laos at different intervals in history.

 

 

Thailand has provided the culinary highlight of our trip, with liberal use of flavorful curries and coconut milk.  At mealtimes, Ben's nose is like a rusty faucet that just won't stop dripping and his forehead is swabbed of sweat often.  Sweatbands should be standard issue in Thai restaurants.  We also branched out into more curious menu items, crunching some locusts on a late-night whim.  We drew the line at the roaches and grubs for sale.  Finally, we splurged a bit and treated ourselves to new t-shirts in December.  Since moving from "Home is where the car is" this summer to "Home, sweet backpack," we've grown tired of our increasingly dingy three shirt rotation.  Keep your eyes peeled for fancy new threads in upcoming posts.  Hopefully you will still recognize us!

As a closing aside, we want to report on a consistent vibe that we have felt since leaving the US.  Throughout our international journeys, we have met and befriended innumerable locals and fellow travelers.  We do our best to gather sentiment on how the world views the US and the American people.  Sometimes this comes from asking pointed questions, but often it is offered up unsolicited.  As with all of the observations on our blog, this is unscientific.

We are pleased to report that the vast majority of the people we have met (primarily European, Asian, and Australian) feel very positive about the US and its citizens.  Without exception, they praise President Obama and the new political direction the country has taken.  Many bash former President Bush, ask about our economy, or inquire about war, but there is recognition that these issues do not negate positive feelings for America.  No matter what your political leanings are, this direction is a boon for the US.  The embarrassing downside of American popularity is the heavy international consumption of (in our opinion) trashy American media.  It is remarkable how many people, once we are done talking foreign policy and politics, mention TV shows like Paris Hilton's "The Simple Life" or "Real Housewives of Orange County" that are playing as reruns overseas.  It is a sad state of affairs that this content will shape some views of the American people for impressionable TV consumers.  Regardless, we are delighted that the world is still a welcoming place for Americans.

Happy Holidays from Team Opps

Season's greetings from the beaches of Thailand!  We hope you are able to spend this time with your loved ones.  Thanks for following us in 2009.  We're looking forward to seeing you next year!

Thorung La Pass

For ten days, we slowly ascended into the heart of the Himalaya, always wending our way higher towards Thorung La Pass.  This is reputed to be the world's highest pass, at nearly 18,000 feet, and it filled our thoughts as the air grew thinner and colder.  We knew that conquering the pass was the trek's greatest physical challenge, with high likelihood of altitude sickness, at least eight hours hiking in the frigid cold, a 3200 foot ascent, and a 5200 foot descent.  Why did this whole gambit seem like a good idea?

An unforeseen benefit of the physical test lying ahead was the camaraderie that it forged between the trekkers.  The circuit is nearly always traversed in a counterclockwise direction to make the high pass as manageable as possible.  Because of this, many of our fellow hikers became recognizable companions, as we leap-frogged each other by day and gathered around the same stoves in the evening.  Since we were all experiencing the same joys and challenges, there was typically instant rapport and these friendships emerged as one of the trek's highlights.  Our most steadfast companion was Fabrizio, the Italian in his 50s who careened up the trail under his hefty pack like he was in his 20s.  He accompanied us for 10 days and by the end we felt like we had known him, his twinkling eyes, and his wry commentary forever.  We also enjoyed the company and commiseration of Ilana and Linda, an Israeli and Canadian respectively living in Montana.  Their caustic humor toward the physical tribulations of the climb lifted our spirits.  Finally, there was "Poor Tony," the Irishman, whose guide was intent on making the trek as uncomfortable as possible for his client.  There is nothing like watching someone else suffer to make you feel better about your own situation.

The morning of the final push to the high pass, we woke from our fitful sleep in the frigid darkness of 3:30am.  We slept in most of our clothes, including stocking caps and down jackets, so there wasn't much to pack.  After a quick breakfast, we began the climb, dressed for a strip poker tournament with two down jackets, long underwear tops and bottoms, two wicking undershirts, hiking pants, stocking caps, mittens, gaiters, wool socks, and Gore-Tex hiking shoes.  The steep ascent quickly warmed our cores, but fingers and toes slowly lost mobility.  At 10 degrees Fahrenheit, the tubes to our drinking water bladders froze solid within two hours, hampering hydration mightily.  For the last two hours of uphill slog, we trudged into a biting wind that strafed us mercilessly with crystalline snow.  Zombie-like, we reached Thorung La, the pinnacle of the circuit, around 8am.  The word "Himalaya" comes from Sanskrit and means "Abode of Snow"; this was an apt description of our frozen surroundings.

 

 

 After a few hasty pictures, we retreated to the warming shack perched on the saddle.  Here we were both choked up - Carolyn succumbing to the emotion of successfully reaching the hard-fought pass and Ben from inhaling the noxious cloud of secondhand cigarette smoke and kerosene fouling the shanty.  As if the lung-searing elevation was not enough, the porters all huddle with their cigarettes to celebrate reaching the arrival of the downhill segment.  We beat a hasty retreat from the hut and took off down the other side, ecstatic to descend in search of warm, oxygen-rich air.  Pending genealogical verification, we think that standing atop the pass at 5460 meters earns Carolyn the prestigious title of the World's Highest Bruner, which should make for good resume fodder.     

The remaining five days of the trek were surprisingly challenging, though it was more mental than physical.  After psyching ourselves up for the draining attempt on the pass, it took some mental gymnastics to come to terms with the fact that we were safely on the other side....and still had five days on the trail.  After one last rendezvous with our aforementioned friends, we left the village of Muktinath and descended through the alpine desert that surrounds the Kali Gandaki river basin.  Directly to our north lay Nepal's remote Upper Mustang region and eventually Tibet.  This valley, billed as the deepest in the world as the river cuts between two 8000 meter peaks, has served as a main caravan trade route between Tibet and India for centuries.  Due to the topography, each day in the late morning the valley is scoured by a fierce, sandblasting wind as the cool, dense mountain air rushes northward to fill the void left by rising heated air on the Tibetan Plateau.  Trudging through this maelstrom was a challenge that rewarded us with gritty whitened teeth and freshly exfoliated faces.

Because of the importance of this trade route to the North, the government hacked a winding road connecting these villages to lowland Nepal in the mid-90s.  This infrastructure made irreparable changes to both the local residents and the trekking route.  The latter now crisscrosses and even runs atop the road for much of the descent.  At first glance, the towns look the same on this side of the pass, but closer inspection shows much higher consumption of Western media, Bollywood films, and cheap Chinese-made goods.  The trekkers are much different too.  The road enabled an airport in the town of Jomsom and inns to support the higher maintenance jet-setters who drop in for four day treks, so they can check "Himalaya trek" off the list.  We have typically been in their shoes with scarce vacation days, so we felt especially blessed to have had the time to experience Nepal at a slower pace.  There is certainly no "right" way to vacation, however we reflected on the vast difference in conversations on the ascent versus the descent.  Talking to our friends on the ascent typically focused on the wonder of our shared experience, while eavesdropping on the fly-ins on the other side of the pass inevitably yielded hubris-ridden games of one-upsmanship regarding all of the remarkable destinations they had visited.  Regardless of the clientele, the Nepali people were as gracious and friendly as always.

One of our favorite experiences on the descent was gingerly lowering our weary, filthy bodies into the natural hot springs in the village of Tatopani.  The bubbling cauldron is nestled into the river bank and towering peaks are visible in all directions through wisps of rising steam.  We felt fresh and new again after simmering for a few hours.  Another highlight was enjoying sunrise over the entire Annapurna Range from atop Poon Hill.  (At 10,500 feet and higher then anything east of the Mississippi, it is hard to call it a hill, but it's all relative.)  The steel blue of famed peaks like Machhapuchhre and Dhawalagiri erupted along the horizon in the first feeble rays of sun.  Surveying the terrain traversed over the previous weeks, we felt alive in the truest sense.  Day after day filled with little more than walking, eating, and sleeping has a way of chipping away at our typical needs and wants, leaving us with gratitude for the simplicity of warmth and nourishing food.  By this point, Ben's most pressing materialistic desire was simply for a pair of clean socks.

The final day of our trek led us jarringly back to civilization, with its blaring music and incessant vendors.  We celebrated our return by releasing our suppressed consumeristic monsters and loading up on souvenirs for our families.  Don't tell our nephew Calvin, but someone is getting the cutest, snuggliest, little fleece that we have ever seen!  Ben also indulged in the best sub-$2 haircut and straight razor shave that he has ever had.  Against all odds, Carolyn escaped without adopting a darling Nepali child, which would have been a burden on the rest of the trip.  (There were a few close calls on this one.)  Enchanted with Nepal, but happy to retreat to the comforts of the First World, we flew east, in search of our next adventure.

 

Namaste Annapurna

With three weeks to spend in Nepal, we decided to fully commit and signed up for a 17-day trek.  This allowed us to slow down, gradually acclimate to the hiking, and come face to face with Nepali culture.  We opted for one of the planet's classic treks, the Annapurna Circuit, which opened to the Western world in the 1970s.  Nepal is home to the tallest mountains on Earth and this trek exposed us to many of these ice-bound beauties.

Before the hiking began, we put our Team Opps Himalaya Stimulus Plan into action.  Code-named NEPAL (Nepali Employment Provided by American Laziness), it entailed hiring a guide and porter to help us along the way.  This increased our costs considerably, but took lots of the unknown out of the journey, freed us from logistical concerns and heavy backpacks, and provided jobs for some hard-working locals.  Our guide quickly earned the nickname "Silent Drew" for his tendency towards minimal chatter.  Over the course of our weeks together, enormous cajoling, questioning, prodding, and joking loosened him up and we considered him a friend by the end.  Our porter was an Equal Employment Opportunity poster child.  Since we don't discriminate on the basis of age, we had a 55-year old grandfather from low-lying Southern Nepal carrying our gear while we lollygagged along with daypacks.  Most of the time, we felt somewhere between guilty and sheepish about the arrangement, but kept coming back to the fact that he had done the trek many times and knew what he signed up for.  Our porter, Ram, also evolved into a lovable character as the sojourn progressed and Ben is honored to have a constant reminder of him everytime he smells his backpack.

The terrain of the first half of the circuit was a slow and steady climb from low-lying foothills to the world's highest pass.  Over ten days, we inched our way from summer to winter and lush jungle to desolate snowfields.  Climatically, it was like walking from the equator to the polar ice cap in just over a week.  We started our journey in steamy jungle foothills, which the residents have tamed with marching escalators of terraces clinging to the steep mountainsides.  Most of the terraces contain rice paddies at the lower elevations, where water is plentiful, and these mountains enjoy a verdant green shag carpet, the product of the summer monsoons.  As we climbed higher, the scenary grew drier and more desolate.  Millet fields replaced rice paddies and the banana trees gave way to pines, which eventually dwindled and petered out.  As we neared the high pass, we hiked through falling snow for three days and the barren surroundings took on a unblemished sheen of blazing white.  Luckily in the lowlands, we grabbed some bamboo hiking sticks from the forest, as these would prove quite necessary on the slippery ascent.

Throughout the climb, we watched the local people change as well.  At lower elevations, the faces of the villagers bear a close resemblance to those of North India.  Likewise, the predominant religion in the low-lying areas is Hindu.  This is definitely not the place to ask for a double cheeseburger.  As we worked our way north, the Tibetan influence increased visibly.  Shrines to Ganesh and Vishnu faded away, to be replaced by ubiquitous Buddhist prayer flags and wheels.  These religious icons send prayers to heaven with every gust of wind or turn of the wheel, assisting the populace with their quest for Nirvana.  Local faces also grew increasingly Tibetan at higher elevations, a stark reminder of the natural dividing line that these gigantic peaks provide.

The wildlife we encountered along the way tended toward the invertebrate.  There must be a Himalayan law of nature that these beasts meet rather generous minimum size requirements.  We tangled with spiders, mantids, millipedes, and moths, all of which were at least as long as our index fingers.  With this in mind, we are thankful we did not visit during the monsoon, which is known as "leech season."  Our fauna highlights were sightings of monkeys and blue sheep, though most of the animals we saw were livestock.  This was a novelty at the beginning, but we quickly became immune to the crowing roosters and bellowing cows.  Community Sustained Agriculture, organic produce, and free range livestock may be the latest fad in the US these days, but most of Nepal knows no alternative.  The villages we passed through rely on their goats, oxen, and chickens for food, clothing, fuel, fertilizer, and horsepower, the same way most of the First World did before the Industrial Revolution.  Our favorite farm animal was the shaggy yak, whose dung became a trusted source of valuable heat in the treeless and frigid highlands.

 
 The extreme inaccessibility of the hamlets we passed through insures that even with a steady trickle of foreign backpackers infringing, the traditional way of life does not change rapidly.  Any product that cannot be grown or raised in a particular village must be brought in on the back of a mule or human.  This has slowed the influx of "modern" goods.  From a sightseer's perspective, this is a wonderful thing, allowing us to see villages in something close to their original cultural state.  It is less clear if this benefits the locals, who are struggling with the tug-of-war between the allure of consumerism and the preservation of their own culture.

Our excitement along the trail came from some predictable, but also many unexpected, directions.  Certainly the towering peaks and cultural learnings provided the expected highlights.  Often it was the more commonplace occurrences that we had not anticipated that got our hearts racing.  The narrow, winding trail often clung to steep cliff sides and we had innumerable river crossings on swinging Indiana Jones-style bridges, with white water surging underneath.  We saw copious graffiti bearing the Soviet hammer and sickle, a constant reminder of the Maoist element, whose on-going quest for a Communist state has boiled over into civil war at times in the last decade.  We were stopped on the trail at times by armed soldiers while construction crews used dynamite to blast into the cliffs around us, in a controversial bid to build a road.  Minutes after the explosions ceased (and well before the dust cleared), we were allowed to proceed, picking our way through the jagged stone remains and splintered fuses.

Outside of these unforeseen pulse-quickeners, we quickly settled into a satisfying routine on the trail.  After the day's hike, typically lasting 3-6 hours, we settled into our lodge for the day.  A large part of the appeal of this circuit is that one can avoid carrying and using camping gear and instead stay in local villages.  The inns are called "tea houses", and consist of small plywood-walled rooms for sleeping, a common room for dining, and pit toilet.  Lodging conditions have modernized considerably over the last few decades - it was not long ago that hikers slept on piles of straw on the the floor of a family's house.  Once we checked in and ate lunch, we generally explored the town and often did some side hikes to higher elevations to assist with the acclimation.  We also burned considerable time playing cards, as evidenced by the two decks that we wore out on the trek.  With a handful of new games at our disposal, we will have no problem entertaining ourselves next time we get stranded somewhere.  One of our most memorable nights was spent in a tiny local "cinema", where "Into Thin Air" was projected onto a hanging bed sheet while we huddled around the stove on yak skins and munched popcorn.  Aside from the fact the the film ends with death and disaster in the Himalaya (which hit a bit too close to home for skittish trekkers), it was the prefect way to spend a cold, snowy evening.

In our next installment, we will detail our assault on the high pass.  Enjoy the pictures, and see you soon!