Sawadee ka Thailand

We arrived into the 'land of smiles' as soon as we boarded Thai Airways - and what a massive smile we had when we met up with Nathan - one of Blandy's favourite ever people - in Bangkok.  What a guy!  For the past two months we've had fun meeting a lot of new people, but how awesomely special old friends are. As we had dinner near Khoa San Rd, minding our own business and savouring our authentic Pad Thai's, along came an older Thai gentleman and shoved a tray of nibbles under Bry's nose. Doing a double-take, Bry tried to compose herself, as it's not every day you see roasted scorpions on a skewer.  The dark spindly legs looked rather ticklish, so we were polite and saved the entire tray for the next tourists.  

A bit further down the road we stumbled across a trolley-cart-thing with a real decent menu of bugs and creepy critters.  The delicacies were beautifully displayed, and came complete with a skewer for easy eating.  For a dollar or so you could treat yourself to two inch long roaches, grasshoppers of the same length, or a tasty selection of larvae.  The most eye catching and dry-wrench inducing were the palm sized hairy black spiders. Blandy "didn't have the right change," so we opted for the 10 baht (almost 50 cent) photo instead!  If anyone's hoping for a souvenir, we think we're onto something here, so might pop back to one of the many bug trolleys and stock up.

Khoa San Rd is dubbed the epicentre of the backpacker world.  We stayed on the street parallel, which was more packed and vibrant at 11pm than 11am.  Nothing seemed out of place.  A metler with long jet-black hair looked right at home.  Hippy tie-died tshirts, beards and barefoot people sauntered up and down contentedly.  Tons of 18 year olds on their first adventures filled the streets.  Bangkok is old and young all at the same time.  Calm and rowdy, frenetic and orderly (well, after Nepal, that is!). We were stoked to be able to breathe again without ingesting a lungful of dust and grime. Bry left Nepal with a rotten cough, sounding like she was bringing up half her insides with each raspy cough.  So to breathe some half decent air again felt great ... we can only imagine what coming home to kiwi air will be like.  And iceberg lettuce in a big juicy summer sandwich - that'd be yum!  We caught the pic below on Khao San Rd, it's a veggie vending cart, chocka with as many types of vegetables as you can imagine. 

The photo below shows a section of Khoa San Rd, we've purposefully left out the unsavoury ping pong ball pimps, who offer both males and females walking past a written menu of imaginative suggestions with their corresponding prices.  A waiting taxi can whisk you away to experience a show at any time of the day or night.  Bry very politely told one of the men 'no thank you' ... to which he asked 'why not?' ... We hope he understood when Bry sternly said 'because that's VERY rude.'

Hanging out with Nathan for the day, we went to Wat Po, the Recling Buddha (check out his size in the photos below), and some other temple that was ornate and had an amazing display of gold leaf sculptures.  We're already a bit 'templed-out,' which is great because we can hit the Thai beaches uninterrupted during the next three weeks!  

Within minutes of being at the tourist-packed shrines like the ones above, we were at a massive shopping mall, pictured below.  Level upon level of mass produced, packaged products lined the shelves, which was highly contrasting to the past two months where all we'd seen was homemade and handmade items (along with bottled water, coke, chips, and other little convenience shop things).  Being in a real supermarket again was buzzy, Bry was not a fan, and Blandy wanted to explore for hours. Supermarkets tell you a lot about a society. 

Catching up with Nathan felt brilliant, and hearing about his adventures was pretty cool.  It was impressive to hear him chatting away in Thai phrases, and we were glad for his insider knowledge of Bangkok.  Nathan - thanks for being hilarious, thoughtful, a genuine gentleman and an adventurer.  Hope you LOVE Bali.

Our second day in Bangkok was spent in a tuk tuk driven around madly by our pink-shirted friend Boss.  We careened around corners and revved at red lights.  Boss took us on a whistle-stop tour of a temple (we were easily distracted from yet another temple by a freaky looking water monitor in the stream nearby), we drove past the Royal palace, to the mandatory souvenir shop (Boss explained that he got a stamp if he brought tourists, and two stamps if they purchased something, he could later cash in the stamps for fuel), we took a quick look at the standing Buddha (who may have had too much sun, as he was peeling ... gold!), and to the mandatory tailor for another stamp or two.

Like Paris, London and Auckland, it seems that Bangkok evokes a love or hate relationship with visitors.  We loved our couple of days there.  Both of us are country girls at heart, so it'll be neat to head out of suburbia towards the south, and those famously white sands.  

Nepal - our parting memories

Our last Nepali week was spent lazing it up in Kathmandu.  KTM as its affectionately known is the   hub of the nation, and over the past five weeks we've popped in and out of the capital city between adventures.  So this post is a collection of our KTM experiences.

KTM is mad.  Little alleys.  Dark brown eyes.  Dusty brick buildings.  Little Nepali men wearing their traditional autumnal-coloured hats.  Patchouli incense seeps through shop windows lining streets and lungs.  Dust.  Invariable and multitudinal midget white Suzuki cars, serving the city as its taxi fleet.  Marigolds adorn pavement shrines, and Shivas and Buddhas coexist.  And spitting.  Too much spitting.

Easily our most favourite spot in KTM is the peaceful Garden of Dreams.   Perhaps the only oasis from the hubbub and franetic pace of the city, the Garden of Dreams is a green getaway.  We spent many a happy afternoon in the sun, reading books, munching picnics, and people-watching.  The Garden was originally created in the 1920s, and was one of the most refined gardens of the time in this neck of the woods.  Restored and reopened in 2006, it would be interesting to see what nature would have created if she had of been left to her own devices.  We saw a flurry of workmen doing everything from watering to weeding the grass with Nepalese tweezers. And what a place of beauty they've recreated.

It'd be neat to add in some aromas and scents into the blog, but a photo of spices will need to suffice. Mini shops, perhaps 1.5m wide are brimming with every kind of colourful spice imaginable, and even more that you can learn about.  Whole series of shops sell spices, and they're all in a row.  A hundred metres or so down the road you'll find yourself in the button section of the street, with a series of button shops.  And so on until your legs get sore and you're a few km's further on.  Tape shops, plastic ware, sewing items, paint shops, anything you like!

Mostly life seems all very practical round these ways.  But every now and again a touch of thoughtful and pretty delights you.  In elegant hotels or restaurants a pot of water with floating flowers and/or candles greets people at the door.  When we asked if there was some significance around the floating bouquet we were told it's just to prettify the place.  Reason enough!

Speaking about pretty - you'll notice the colours in the guys hat below are quite flower-like.  Males in Nepal commonly wear pink, and almost all of the little traditional hats are a pattern of pinks, oranges and crimsons.

The Sadhu (holy men) are easily spotted in the streets with their yellow and orange robes, dreadlocked hair, and ancient-looking face paint.  They're also easily spotted because they will pick you out in the crowd and bee-line towards you for a photo and a generous donation.  You absolutely can't miss 'em!

The Sadhus raise their right hand, and we'd assumed it might be a blessing type practice ... and it's curious cos almost every day one of us says to the other 'we are so blessed/fortunate/lucky.'  Glad to have the resources to travel, thankful to have strong legs and bodies, so thankful to have this season of our lives to be free from routine and pass the days however we choose.

Karhmandu has a chalkboard on a street side, with chalk attached for people to write their wishes about KTM.  There's been a book published with these boards from around the world, showing people's wishes ... Which can be quite an insight into the lives of others.

Looking through the list, most wished for Kathmandu to be clean of pollution. No one mentioned to have electricity 24/7.  Apparently for the last ten years there have been power cuts each day, currently they are four hours long, twice a day.  There is a schedule per week, but it interrupts daily life, in ways that are both obvious and obscure. For that reason people carry cash on them, as opposed to using bank cards for purchases. 

Don't think we talked about it much at the time, but at altitudes above the tree line the people use dried yaks poop for heating their houses and cooking their/your food. The collection of wood is restricted to preserve the vegetation, so the locals spend time and their bare hands to scoop poop.  Village stone walls end up with clumps of poo pressed into them, often with handprints visible in them as they harden in the sun. The photo below shows a lean-to laden with dried yak poo.  Yak cheese is also used in cooking, but the taste of yak poo is probably just as appealing!

We did a cooking course actually, with no yaks involved in any way, thankfully!  Six of us met in a weeny kitchen to try our hand at making momos.  Momos are Nepali dumplings, and are commonly filled with veggies, chicken or buff (buffalo).  We made two varieties, mixed veggies as well as a spinach and cheese combo.  The mini dumplings can be steamed or fried, and were so yum! 

Our Nepali cooking guru friend told us that most Nepali dishes are made from the same spices ... turmeric, chilli, masala spice, pepper, paprika, and our least favourite dried coriander. 

The momos were tiddly to make, and even after making 20 of them they still weren't that pretty. After they were steamed they tasted fabulous though!

A sneaky addition to the cooking class menu was a few Mars bars momos, the gooey chocolate was a happy way to farewell our friends and cooking tutor.  

Watching movies at the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival filled our last two days in the city.  We watched a couple of documentaries ... about free climbing insanely impossible mountains (rock climbing pitches of hundreds of vertical meters, surrounded by slivers of ice that dropped all the time).  And another movie called 'No word for worry' about the Moken sea-gypsys who live off the sea on some very remote Thai islands.

And with those beautiful images still in our minds we boarded a Thai Airways plane, headed for the big smoke of Bangkok.  Thanks Nepal - it's been a pleasure!

Bhaktapour/motorbike

traffic wardens with whistles and soldiers with guns

outdoorsy shops, hippy 60's shoes

Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha

One thing about travelling in Nepal is that it takes forever to get anywhere.  Upwards of six hours on a rickety bus and you haven't even made 200km.  Chitwan to Lumbini didn't look soooo far on the map, so we figured let's give it a whirl.  The bus below was our home for all of the next day.

Arriving into Lumbini several hours after our ETA, we found most of the guest houses were either already full or charging inflated rates.  It turned out that we had shown up midway through the 23rd annual 12-day prayer gathering for world peace, and there were 5000 more monks in town than usual.

The streets were awash in burgundy robes, bald heads and benevolent smiles.  We checked into the last available room - a dingy little den with the corpses of a thousand Mosquitos smeared onto concrete walls - and paid three times more than what we were used to.  Back outside we settled down on the edge of the road to a feast of ten-cent samosas, and people-watched til the sun went down.

The monastic zone is several kilometres long so in the morning we hired some pretty snazzy pushbikes and took a picnic of oranges to see what we could see.

First we came upon the butter-tea station, and it looked like they were preparing for quite a crowd...

You can't really tell how big those pots are, but I reckon I've seen smaller spa-pools than the one on the left.  Carrying on into the complex we encountered the marquee, empty but for a few snoozing souls at 10 o'clock in the morning.  Apparently the first session kicked off at 5am, and it was time for a rest before the chanting would resume at 2.

So we meandered to the shrine marking the actual spot where Buddha was born.  The locals have constructed a large plain building around the old palace ruins, and no photos are allowed because it's so sacred.  We were told that Buddha (the main guy, as there had been many Buddha) was born into royalty and privilege.  As an adult he was saddened as he witnessed the poverty and injustice experienced by the lower classes.  He sat under a tree to think through the rich/poor divide, became enlightened, and the rest is Buddhism.  

Outside Buddha's birthplace is the pool where he was bathed.  A visiting monk told us that the surround had been built since, but the trees were ancient, likely to have existed when Buddha was around.  The boys below were mesmerised by four turtles that live in the pool.  They were there a long time, intently studying the mini creatures.  We joined them and at first the scarlet-clad lads were shy, but a few brave ones smiled and nodded.  

One twinkling-eyed boy of about 12 asked us where we were from.  On the iPad we showed them a map.  Crazy to think that we've travelled a quarter of the way around the world (and have both circumnavigated the globe several times) and these boys were likely to remain within the borders of Nepal their whole lives.  We showed our eager-eyed friends photos of our trip through their stunning landscape.  When their massive mountains were on the screen, about 20 kids had gathered around, and one exclaimed 'Himal' to which the others grinned in agreement.  

The twinkling-eyed new friend who'd asked us our nationality told us his name.  And with his arm slung around the guy beside him, we asked if they were friends.  A puzzled look came on his face.  He emphatically said no, and pointed to the other guy saying 'monk' and then pointed to himself and repeated 'monk.'  

Apparently monks espouse that all people are equal in relation to them, which denounces friendship ties or family relations.  Denounces sounds negative, but I'm sure the belief and enactment of it is supposed to be for the positive.  After about half an hour of hanging out with the boys, we left them to their turtle spotting.  We remarked that the time spent with them had been the most mutually enriching of all our interactions with locals so far in Nepal.  The boys wanted nothing from us, but showed happiness with company.  We wanted nothing from them, but to pass the time of day.  

Over the past few months we've been constantly approached on the street to buy, try, visit, take a taxi, come into this shop, best price for you, it's your lucky day.  In Kathmandu the funniest of them all is usually early evening when we're walking about, and a bloke takes a couple steps close to you as you stroll along, and says quite softly in your ear 'smoking something?'  To which we laugh and carry on.  

Hanging out with the ... Just needed to ask the clown beside me what the young monks are called ... she said monklings.  Hmm, not sure if that's right!  Novices, perhaps.  Hanging out with the novice monks was such a happy time.  Like being with old friends - who let you just be.

Tons of local and international pilgrims were in Lumbini.  These colourful saris came complete with bindis, and some even had heaps of grains of red rice stuck to their foreheads (?!)

Heading back to the marquee, we were greeted by a sea of red.  And a smidge of orange monk robes in the back corner too.  The marquee was filled with cross legged men of all ages.  A few women were difficult to distinguish, their heads also shaved. 

A middle aged monk with the look of leadership on his shoulders beckoned for us to stand up, as did everyone around us.  Some horns played, and the guest monks ceremoniously walked through the mass, including the iPhone and camera toting monks who'd positioned themselves appropriately for photos of the famous monks.

Chanting started.  We didn't understand so cruised off on our super cool bikes.  A posse of monkeys inhabited the stretch of road from the monastic zone to the town area, and they were quite enthralled in nit-picking.  The cute little faces also had a 'don't mess with me' look about them.  One particular monkey had scaled the entrance arch, and tried playing with the tail of the wooden deer, then some other R18 rated antics. Two local women in saris noticed at them same time, and giggled like school girls at the monkey who was trying to cross-breed with the wooden deer.

The Buddhist monastery below is Chinese.  There are an assortment of monasteries in Lumbini - mostly from Asian countries.  It's possible to stay in them (even if you're not a monk or monkling) for a donation.  

Lumbini is small, even though the monastic area is spread out, so two nights was heaps.  We took our 6am bus bound for Kathmandu, unfortunately it was the one with the maniacal driver.  Practicing patience on the 10 hour journey home was character building, especially seeing we'd been allocated seats in the very back row.  Tip: try to get seats in the middle if the bus looks crappy and dodgy.  It's likely the shocks and suspension will be crappy and dodgy too!

Otherwise if you're a goat, you might need to settle for being tied on to the roof of the bus like this poor fella below.  Had to double take, but sure enough, this long distance bus had a goat on top.

Back to Kathmandu for some variance in delicious food, and to enjoy Nepal before this leg of our trip is done.

On safari in Chitwan National Park

Chitwan National Park is ideal for a touch of animal spotting, the locals say, so we found a guide and headed out.  Chitwan is pretty much a wildlife 'island,' as the Park is surrounded by rivers.  The river that protects our village from the wild creatures is also home to two species of crocs, so only half reassuring!  Hopping in the dugout canoe (pictured above) with 14 people on board it turned out to be wiggly.  Perhaps the others saw more crocodiles than we did. 

Cruising down river in the foggy half light we spied a ton of exotic birds.  Happy bird songs came from every direction.  We're no ornithologists, but there were mini flittery birds darting around feeding on the wing above us.  Plump bronze and cream birds that looked like big dumplings feeding on the waters edge.  Our guide Dave said every year they take a winter getaway from the Siberian chill ... They'd need to be well insulated dumplings to get over the Himalayas.  

We noticed energetic black and white pied mini birds on the rivers edge.  Dave explained how they make their homes by digging up to 1.5m into the sandy banks, creating a U shape, and then pecking out an exit hole.  The sparrow-sized birds fly straight into their hole in the wall, and disappear.

There were grey-mottled waders.  Long billed white stalks.  Egrets.  Kingfishers.  Minahs.  Brighter than usual peacocks perched right up high on the tip tops of the tallest trees.  

Rising through the mist, the sun finally warmed up the air, and the birds responded with even more volume.  By the time we scrambled out of the dugout, it felt like summer again.

Heading into the trees on the river bank, Dave said he needed a nature stop.  He wandered away, leaving us to fend for ourselves.  We'd heard we were in the territory of rhinos, elephants, tigers, sloth bears, pythons, cobras, and an assortment of spiders.  Hmmm.  We looked at each other, and around to find Dave.  He had the stick after all.  

Turns out Dave had wandered five meters away for a cigarette, and all was fine!  His briefing followed, including these instructions....

"If a rhino charges us, hide behind a tree that is bigger than you.  If you can climb it, then get up two meters or more.  Same with an elephant.  If a sloth bear comes to attack us, stay together and clap and shout, and I'll try to hit him on the snout, they're very sensitive there.  Tigers are shy of people, but if they're hungry they'll attack from the side or the rear.  Just look him in the eye and slowly back away. Any questions?"

And with that we were off!

Stalking through the jungle, we followed pretty closely behind Dave and his midget sized serious-faced sidekick.  Both the men had 1.2 meter bamboo sticks (and eyes to ward off the ferocious tigers).  Before long we were shown 2 meter wide bushwaking 'trails' and Dave candidly said "oh a rhino's been here."  Sure enough, there were trails all through the jungle.  Hide and seek wouldn't be very fun if you were a rhino.

We heard a couple of kids say 'we have rhiiiinosaurs in the park' which sounded like dinosaurs, and at that point we cracked up.

After a lot of walking, and a lot of stopping and tilting of the head to hear sounds around us, we ended up on a jeep trail.  Apparently tigers like to hide in the elephant grass either side, so we stalked them out for a while.  The closest we got to those elusive tigers were these ominously large pawprints.

Our $3 a night hotel (yes you read that right) packed us a lunch, which was well-deserved after such a long spell of walking and stalking.  Fried rice is tricky to eat without a spoon.  The guides scooped up the rice with their fingers, adding spicy tidbits and raw garlic from their locals' lunch package.  As you can see the package was wrapped with a few pages from a book, which is rather novel.

The afternoon sun felt so warm.  But we'd come to see animals and all we'd seen were rhino trails, a million red silkcotton bugs, and the territory-piss-marking of a tiger, those tiger prints we talked about, and all those birds.  We'd been shown elephant poo (they walk along as it comes out), rhino poo (they stop to take a dump), and tiger poo (all the deer hair comes out like furballs).

Just when energy and excitement had started to wane, we came upon a rhino about 40 meters away munching on leaves.  Ooooh!  Finally.  They're big beasts alright.  But their horns are only midget.  The Indian rhinos have only one horn, while their African counterparts sport two.  Apparently their bum skin is so thick that bullets can't get through.  Good if you're being chased for ya horn I guess.  

Speaking about being chased, Dave said that when a boy rhino wants a girlfriend he chases her.  If she outruns him, tough luck, he didn't deserve her anyway.  If she gets tired before him, then the gestation period is 15.7 months and the baby will weigh around 55 kgs.  He'd better be fast though, cos rhinos can run at 55kms or so per hour.

We quietly waited and watched as a rhino waded through swamplands, manging on plants, while half a dozen white egrets bustled about him, catching frogs and fish that tried to escape the incoming tide of the rhino hoof.  They were a happy pairing, neither bothering the other.  Just going about their day.

Hiding under a grassy clump was a scaly 15 cm diameter black python.  We left him to it.

We also saw a couple of hairy black wild boar.  

Midway through the afternoon we were ambling along quietly, when a short deep rumble of a baloo (tiger) stopped us in our tracks.  We heard a few more mini rumbles, but he must've been cat-napping, so we opted not to upset him.  It was striking that this much-loved yet fiersome creature was close enough to know we were about, yet no fences existed.  (I needed to go and 'mark' some territory of my own after that thought!)

A smidge disappointed about not setting our eyes upon the orange striped creature, we took the path towards home.  We'd seen guides and travellers all day long, mostly they had annoyed our mate Dave cos he thought the animals would scamper away from all their noise.  But this last time the travellers in front of us had poised themselves on the edge of the path, with eyes peering into the lush green.

"A rhino" someone whispered, "see him?"  No.  There were only trees and vines.  Dense and verdant.  Before long, the serious faced midget guide put on his brave face and snuck further down the path to see what all the fuss was about.  He disappeared around a few trees, but quickly came back sprinting, bamboo stick bobbing with his strides.  He didn't need to explain, we were hot on his tail and followed him down to the river bank.  

Moments later we hear some bushwacking and the aforementioned rhino came sauntering down our path, along the bank (away from us thankfully) and traversed the river.  Quite delicately he 'minced' his way up the other bank like he was on a catwalk ... which amazed us for the giant beast he was.  And that was our safari.

The next day we took the rickety old jeep on equally rickety gravel roads to The Tower.  The drive there was super pretty, through 'fields of gold' as the paddocks of bright yellow mustard flowers stretched out around us.  Bamboo enforced mud houses were teeming with life.  Women working the water pumps, with the gushing water being absorbed into a basin of washing below.  Children playing in the dirt, with grubby faces and big smiles.  Men gathering around warm cups of masala chai in the late afternoon sun. Dogs scratching.  Chickens and goats getting in the way and being shooed off the crops by nana.  

Kids shouted 'bye bye' as we drove through their village.  At one point we stopped for a few minutes, and it was rather intense fending the kids off Bry's hair, and repeating that we didn't have any chocolate.  

The Tower is set in the Maruni area of the villagers' forest.  There are four rooms which are hired out, plus a deck, and on the very top there is a mini observation deck that can squeeze two bodies in.  We sat so quietly.  For a long time.  We practised the expressions we'd need if we saw tigers.

To save you the hours of suspense and anticipation we experienced, we watched for ages but only saw a big mama bambi, and a cluster of bambini.  A bit sad we didn't spot that tiger, but we hope that means he's safe somewhere else.

Our other days in Chitwan National Park were spent soaking up the sun, reading, and general lazing about.  If you head that way, pop into KC's on the main road for a banana lassi and a decent coffee.  Their hammocks in the sun are pretty good too!