Monthly Archives: December 2013

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India: First Impressions

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I was prepared for a very difficult India — a dirty, noisy, chaotic, and dangerous India. These are the impressions I was given before arriving and I land in Delhi fully on guard. But this is not the India that greets me. I walk out of Delhi airport to a fairly calm morning, without the expected rush of touts and chaos. I take the metro to Greater Kailash 1, a much nicer and calmer neighborhood than the main backpacker area, and easily find my guesthouse with the help of some kind locals. It’s an unexpectedly gentle introduction to a country full of extremes.

Gradually I do begin to see the India that so many warn about: streets so crowded it’s impossible think or breathe; the pungent smell of shit that hits without warning; the extreme poverty; the stares from men as you simply walk down the street; the constant bother from touts and beggars that you can only deter by being extremely rude and harsh in return. All these things exist but they’re part of an India that I already knew to expect. I’m not shocked or put off by these things.

What shocks me is how much I love it here. I can talk about the heavenly array of vegetarian food, the delicious chai, the beautiful clothing, the cheap cost of living, the ease of communicating in English, the fascinating temples and rituals, and so much more. But above all, there’s a palpable energy here that’s unlike anywhere else. The life lessons, realizations, and experiences I’m having here every day is blowing my mind. It’s almost impossible to explain in words except to say that India is taking me on a very spiritual journey.

So far I’ve spent 5 days in Delhi, including a one-day trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I stayed in a wonderful guesthouse and got to spend time with an old friend and many new ones. I then took a sleeper train to Rishikesh, also known as the “yoga capitol of the world.” I completed a 7-day yoga/meditation retreat at an ashram, which I will definitely write more about separately as it was a really unique experience. Rishikesh as a whole has a unique vibe. It’s a spiritual and peaceful place along the Ganga river, full of ashrams offering different yoga and meditation courses. I’ve been here for 2 weeks so far and plan to stay another week more. I’ve made a great group of friends and am looking forward to ringing in the new year here.

More to come in 2014!

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To India and Beyond

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Leaving for India tomorrow!! Planning on being on the road for a few months. Rough itinerary:
December –  Yoga/meditation retreats in Rishikesh
January – Western & Southern India
February – Permaculture Design Course at Heal The Soil in Auroville
March – Malaysia Borneo & Brunei
April-May – Philippines

Made a playlist of my favorite traveling tunes:
One the Road Playlist

Will update when I get there and settled!

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Laos Part III: Some Anecdotes

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For having spent only 13 days there, I have a lot of fond memories of Laos.

The LPB Night Life
After months on the road, Luang Prabang is a good place to put down the backpack and chill for a while. Stick around for more than a day and you will discover the top three hangout spots that almost every backpacker in town will inevitably frequent in this order:

1. The night market buffet – For 10,000 Kip (~$1.25) you get all the vegetarian food you can possibly pile on a single plate. Meat eaters have to dish out a few more thousand Kip. This place is wonderful and disgusting at the same time. The first time you go, you can’t believe someplace this great actually exists. By the third night, you try to talk yourself into going somewhere else for dinner — after all, there’s no way those huge piles of food can be fresh night after night — but the pull of the buffet is just too strong.

LPB Buffet

Really, how can you resist?

2. Utopia – A typical backpacker bar scene. Beerlao, volleyball, and a view of the river. Not to mention it’s a nice walk over after stuffing yourself silly at the buffet.

Utopia 1

Utopia 2

Utopia 3

3. Bowling – Ah, the night’s main event. All the bars in LPB are required to close at 11:30pm sharp; the bowling alley is one of the few places open and serving alcohol past this curfew. Walk out of Utopia around closing time and every tuk-tuk driver in town will be waiting to take truckloads of drunk backpackers to and from the bowling alley. This is the place to be if you want to go out for a good time past midnight. It is as ridiculous and hilarious as it sounds.
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Laos Part II: A Crash Course in Motorbiking

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No SE Asia trip would be complete without some motorbike adventures. Mine takes place over the course of five action-packed days in Laos.

Day 1: Crash
I arrive in Luang Prabang fresh off a 13-hour night bus from Huay Xai and decide this is the perfect time to drive a motorbike for the first time. Some new friends from the hostel are renting motorbikes to go to the Kuang Si waterfall, about 30km away. When the kid brings out the bikes, I ask him to teach me, emphasizing that I’ve never driven one before. His tutorial lasts about 30 seconds. I’m sensing a trend in this country (see previous post on the amazing tutorial I got on zip lining in Laos).

With not much else to go on, I decide to hop on and give it a go. Women and kids all over Asia ride these things with bags of groceries, half their family, and a chicken coop piled on the back. This can’t be that hard. I inch down the narrow little street, wobble over a couple speed bumps, and then crash full-on into a parked car while trying to make a tight left turn. Crap. The bike falls on me but luckily not much damage is done except for a scraped knee and shattered ego. The locals at that corner got quite a show.

I decide perhaps this isn’t the best time to drive a motorbike for the first time after all.
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Laos Part I: The Gibbon Experience

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This might be the coolest place I’ve ever slept: a treehouse 40m off the ground in the middle of the Laos mountains!

Gibbon Treehouse 1

The Gibbon Experience is a conservation project established in 2010. It built an extensive network of zip lines and tree houses in the Bokeo Nature Reserve in northern Laos. Money earned through tourism here goes toward protecting the forest and its resident gibbons.

The first thing I learn about zip lining is that you must first climb up to be able to fly down. Funny how that works. After being driven from town into the forest and meeting up with our guide, we spend the first morning on a 2-hour uphill trek. Most people opted for the longer 3-day, 2-night package, so our group is an intimate party of two: me and a Kiwi from Auckland. Our actual group is much larger though — we’re accompanied by two local guides, a chef, a woman carrying food, and a few other staff that inconspicuously travel just ahead of us so that everything is miraculously arranged and ready upon our arrival. This must be how the queen lives.

Gibbon Group

Two guides and two queens

The zip lines set up through the forest are impressive. The longest lines are 600-700m long and some parts must be at least 40-50m off the ground. Here are the “safety instructions” we receive to fly on the zip lines:
1. A 5-minute safety video shown at the Gibbon Experience office before heading into the forest.
2. A 30-second demonstration by our local guide upon arriving at the first zip line.

Got it? Great. The guide zips off down the line, leaving the Kiwi and I staring at each other, hoping to god that we correctly understood and remembered everything he just said. The remaining guide, who doesn’t speak English, watches as I hesitantly clip onto the line and then nods that I’m good to go. His confirmation is far from reassuring — I’ve learned long ago that the locals will always nod and answer yes, even if they don’t understand a word you just said.

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