Hello, Saigon. Vietnam greeted me with open arms, and it's pretty much been that way all along. I got into the airport in the afternoon, got some dough out of the ATM (one million Vietnamese dong, thank you very much), then started the taxi negotiations. My reference point was the 5 year old copy of LP that Lacy had given me, so I knew prices were probably going to be a bit higher than the 60,000 dong they paid. After lots of hassle and one guy who even had the audacity to quote 300,000 dong ($18) through a big smile, I got a guy that eventually gave in and used the meter. I made it into town for something like 130,000 dong, much delayed by the motor bikes here. The sheer volume of people on motor scooters is just incredible. I've taken several pictures, but it's very difficult to capture in a single frame. There are about 4 million of them in a city that's probably less than 2 miles on each side. Just incredible.
The taxi dropped me near the main backpacker strip (Pham Ngu Lao) and I started around looking for a place that was in the old LP. It had since closed, but another place (possibly in the same building) welcomed me in for $9 a night. Not too shabby either. I settled in and then went back out to find food. I had a quick meal at a corner pho place, then wandered the streets a bit to get my bearings. I noticed lots and lots of tour companies, which pack most tourists that come through here onto little buses to run around and see everything from here to Cambodia. I'm usually pretty averse to such things, but I was faced with a major language barrier, my usual time shortage, and a basic ignorance of what all there is to see. I decided to sign up for a tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels the next day, which would finish with a half day around the city. I wandered around a bit more that night, then turned in.
The next morning I was up early to meet the tour place right across the street from the hotel. I joined up with a few other people, then we all walked over to some other tour office to board a bus. It turns out that these dozens of offices all pretty much feed their people to one or two companies that actually run the tours. But, they're still so cheap that it doesn't seem to matter. The ride out to Cu Chi was kind of long and I think I fell asleep, but we eventually got there and made a hasty, crowded walk through the place to all these recreations of the Viet Cong tunnels and booby traps. They also had an American tank that was destroyed (mostly) by a land mine on display. The whole thing was pretty interesting, and my first real view of the war from the Vietnamese perspective. The Viet Cong were also extrememly clever with most things they did to stay alive. It's really not surprising that it was such a losing battle for the Americans. When you're standing there in the middle of the former battle ground it feels a bit like you'd be walking into a maze with threats looming on all sides and no good information about how to do your job. I think it's probably similar to the urban warfare conditions guys have been seeing in Iraq, where you can't hope to level the playing field when your enemy knows it so much better than you do. So, political reasons for the whole conflict aside, it was obviously just a hugely insurmountable task from a tactical standpoint. And now, only 33 years later, the Vietnamese welcome American tourists into the site with open arms and never once display any kind of resentment for the nationals of a country that terrorized that area so recently. I think that's the most impressive part.
The last attraction at the tunnels is this shooting range. This is one of very few places in the world where it's legal to fire such things as AK-47s. At $1 per bullet, it's not exactly cheap, but... when else could I ever do that? I'm really not big on guns at all, but I decided to go for the AK-47 and ten rounds. This guy gave me some hearing protection (about as effective as the lightly padded headphones from a 20 year old Walkman), loaded the banana clip, and let me have at it. The gun is mounted to a little wall, so kick back is minimal and the range where you can aim is quite limited as well. This keeps it all safe, so I was glad to see it, even if I couldn't move around much. I clicked through the ten rounds pretty quickly on semi-automatic and totally forgot about the full auto capability until the guy wanted to sell me more bullets. I was happy with what I'd already done though, and my ears were already ringing, so I left it at that. We then took the ride back into the city and swept around the major sights there, which included the Reunification Palace (where VC tanks broke in in 1975, hung their flag, and claimed Saigon), the Notre Dame Cathedral (pretty basic French cathedral that doesn't hold a candle to the stuff in Europe), the Central Post Office (big post office... with shops for cruise ship passengers), and I think that was it. I could've walked between these things easily enough, I later discovered, but this was a good way to get quickly through some things that turned out not to be that interesting afterall.
I grabbed dinner at a good Indian place later that night (cheap Indian food will cease to exist as soon as I leave Asia) and ended up signing up for a three day / two night Mekong Delta tour. With my little bit of time here I decided to just maximize it in the southern region and leave the rest for the next visit. I wasn't crazy about the tour option, but again, it solved a lot of logistical problems. I got pretty well ready to go that night, slept, then rose early to check out and get on the next bus. More to come...
So there I was in Chiang Mai... I rolled in via the airport and got a cab to the bus station, dropped my bag, then took a tuk-tuk to the local women's prison, which is where I left off. This was another of Lonely Planet's major successes in terms of informing travellers of things that are fun and unique (not always a quality of their books in their entirety). So, one of the things you can do in Chiang Mai, now that you're planning a trip, is go to this women's prison and visit the "prison shop." They have it set up so that women that will be released in the next 6 months can sell goods and services to earn money for themselves, which they can take with them upon release to get their reintegration off to a good start. I wasn't much interested in the knitted goods, but instead opted for the first massage I've ever had, Thai style. I had to wait a few moments, as many LP readers obviously go through there, then got a change of clothes and got ready. I tied the pantaloons and shirt up incorrectly, of course, so they motioned for me to change things around, which I did. After that this woman comes by with a basin of water and washes my feet (I was biting my lip to defeat the tickle factor here). I'm not necessarily into having people touch my feet, but I was a bit self conscious about them, being that I had been on an overnight flight and spent many hours in airports for the hours preceding my arrival at their massage parlor. The wash, therefore, was much appreciated. So, I lay down on this mat after that and the woman proceeds to do this hour long massage that I have to say was pretty nice. The fact that it cost about $4 was also pretty nice. She karate chopped, stretched, twisted, and kneaded her way all over the place, and I felt much refreshed despite the 4 broken hours of sleep I had going in there. So, that done, I also wanted to see a Wat (Buddhist temple) with my remaining time. There are lots and lots of them in and around Chiang Mai, but I opted for Wat Pho, a forest wat, a bit outside the city (big surprise). It was a very peaceful place that put all things on display, from the Buddhist teachings to the daily lives and labor of the resident monks. I spent some time walking around the grounds, checking out some small caves constructed a while back there, and found this awesome Buddha sculpture that depicts him in a fasting form with exposed ribs and veins. Pretty cool / atypical image.
After there I headed back into town, got on the bus, and took the hour long ride up to Chiang Dao. Upon arrival in town I was dropped on the street (there's really just one main strip) with no clue what to do about finding the place I wanted to stay in. It came from LP again, and is a place called Chiang Dao nest. It's a "mini resort" as they call it, so it's a bit outside the center of town. English was pretty uncommon at this point, so I walked up the road with my bag until I found a 7-11, and decided to head in to see if anyone had heard of it. Again, not much English, but the level of service in this Thai 7-11 is quite a bit different from that in the American stores, to say the least. I poked by big, mute finger at the name of the place in the LP book for one of the employees, and she took the book, motioned for me to wait, then went in the back. A burst of chatter revealed the fact that several other female employees were talking about this little puzzle, and about a minute later the original woman came back out and handed me a cell phone that was already connected to someone. "Hello" was pretty much all it took. I was talking to one of two taxi drivers in the town who spoke a fair amount of English and told me to sit tight for a few minutes until he could arrive there at 7-11 to pick me up. Sweet. Sweet, sweet Thai people. I think the American equivalent of those women would've asked me for smack and / or totally ignored me.
So, along comes the taxi driver and he takes me out to this place, which is now dark except for a large covered patio area with lots of tables where the restaurant serves everyone. I check in to a room with no problem for $15 / night and am immediately impressed by the whole place. I had my own little A-frame bungalow with a couple of twin beds in it and an attached, sunken bathroom that's decked out with fancy soap and everything. The whole thing used pretty rustic / indigenous construction methods and did it very well. The windows were nice and big, I had a balcony off the back with a couple of chairs that looked into a forested area, and no noise at all besides the fall of rain drops and the symphony of insects, birds, and whatever else lives all around that place. It was gorgeous. I cleaned up and went back for dinner on the patio, which is where they make their real money. The food is fancy western kind of stuff (the whole place is run by and Englishman and his Thai wife) and I think I probably paid about $20 for two courses, dessert, and tea. The food was excellent. I didn't mind parting with the money at all. I stayed up for a bit, then finally gave in to my fatigue and hit the hay. The next morning I got up to ask the owner about the treks they organize, which range from 1-3 days. They involve all kinds of things, including elephant treks, bamboo rafting, hiking, hill village visits, etc. It all sounded good to me, but time was way too limited, as usual. I realized I wouldn't be able to start anything that morning and was told to check in again later in the day to see what everyone else was up to. So, instead I headed out in a taxi towards the Chiang Dao Elephant Training Center. I thought the taxi would take me all the way there, but instead he dropped me at the bus stop in town. I guess he didn't want to go that far... The bus came a few minutes later, but I wasn't sure it was the regular bus I was waiting for. I stood up with my bag and was two steps behind an older Thai gentleman, but this is the kind of place where the bus doesn't stop - it just slows to a roll. The Thai guy got on, I did not. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared. They run every 30 minutes, so I sat back down. During this time some of the Thais hanging around the bus shelter showed me a vendor cart of particular interest. It had several pieces of sugar cane hanging down from the little roof on strings, with each cane being about 16" long. Half the cane was stripped of the outer coating, exposing the white flesh beneath. On that portion, one per cane, sat a very large beetle with a big horn coming off its snout (I think these are long horn beetles). A short length of string was attached to the piece of cane on one end, and to the horn of the beetle on the other, securing it to the cane but giving it a bit of room to move. The description I got was in Thai, so I didn't quite get it... I let it go by, but ended up coming back later in the afternoon looking for it. I figured it must be something you eat, and I was determined to try it by then. Unfortunately it was gone by the time I checked back. I would've been way off, I later discovered, as the resort owner lady explained that the beetles only come around at this time of year, and they're made to fight one another (two males are placed in a small trench with one female on a little island in the middle), which is a huge gambling attraction for Thai people. So really I would've been eating someone's prized horse, which might have caused a little trouble. Good thing I missed it, I guess.
Eventually a shared taxi came by (a pick up truck with benches on either side of the bed), and I hopped in at the urging of one of the locals, who knew where I was headed by now. A bit later he stopped to let me out at the elephant center, for much less than I would've paid any other day. I went in and found it to be a pretty standard tourist trap, so I fed an elephant and its calf, took an hour long ride in the forest, and departed via bamboo raft. At the end of the raft ride I caught up with another raft and briefly talked to the two tourists, who were in Thailand from Hawaii but one of them was born in San Diego - Grossmont Hospital actually. Small world.
I went back up to Chiang Dao Nest after all of this, then set out to hike around. I went first to a Buddhist temple that is set high on a hill near where I was staying, and I took the 500 steps to get up there, sweating heavily despite the fact that it was raining. It was bloody humid.
I hung out up top for a while, found a seated, dead monk that I'm pretty sure is the actual remains of the founding monk, took some haunting photos of him, then left. I next tried to conquer a poorly marked "nature trail" but couldn't get more than a few meters in before the trail disappeared and I was in a dry creek bed. I finally gave up on that and walked back. I dropped some stuff off, then decided to go by road to a nearby cave complex. I was raining pretty well by now and I was already soaked, so I gave up trying to be dry. By the time I got down to the entry I was dripping wet and was greeted by an old man and a young buy who were waiting out the weather in a small (bus?) shelter. He told me that the caves were already closed. Bummer... so, I walked around a bit more, arrived back at the cave gate (but farther in off the road) by another path, hiked up to the closed gate, then left and headed back towards the nest. On the way one of the employees recognized my dripping wet back as she went by in a pickup and stopped to pick me up, then shared her ride back to the Nest. The wind (in the back of the pickup) combined with the heavy rain pretty well got anything that wasn't already soaked the rest of the way wet, so I changed clothes and took advantage of the availability of the laundry service. I talked with an English woman who was also looking to do a quick trek (only a day), and told her I'd check in again after dinner. I went that night to Chiang Dao Nest 2, the second generation, to try out their Thai kitchen. I walked the 5 minutes back and forth in absolute darkness (there's nothing out there), which was fun. I had another great meal, cheaper than the first, then headed home and decided to go out the next day for a one day hike deal with the English lady. We stayed up a bit enjoying that patio and a couple of drinks, then turned in at about 10pm, which feels very late in that part of the world. I slept well, got up early, had breakfast, and got the news that we'd be joining a couple for the first day of their 3 day trek. They were a recently married English couple that booked a private trek for their 6 month anniversary, but graciously let us tag along for the first day. Really nice people, so they were fun to go out with. We got a ride to the top of a mountain, hiked down into a village, then had a guide show us into a cave network at the edge of their fields. These were the most interesting caves I've seen so far. Lots of standard stalagmites and stalactites, but the passages were narrow in many places and forced a lot of scrambling around on all fours. I loved it, but my companions were a bit more claustrophobic. We went at least a quarter of a mile, maybe more, before we stopped to rest. I got everyone to turn off their lights and it was the darkest thing I've ever seen. We were so far from any natural light that there was just nothing at all to see. Complete black. One of the ladies wanted the lights back on pretty quickly after that, so we complied. The guide then wanted to head into one more particularly tight passage, but the others weren't having it. I went alone with him, as they said they didn't mind waiting, and we went at least another 1/4 to 1/2 mile into a separate section. I think the most interesting thing was that many of the stalactite formations are hollow and produce sounds almost like musical instruments as you knock on them. We did this pretty frequently as we walked along. Eventually, to the relief of the others, we re-emerged to where they were waiting, then worked our way all the way back out to the surface. Afterwards we went back to the village and ate a delicious lunch on a small hut's veranda and watched the rain come down. On the way out we suited up in plastic over-wear kind of things to stay dry, then started a second hike up towards a big waterfall. About 5 minutes in we ducked beneath a tree branch and, somehow, a bee or wasp of some kind got into my hood, which was pulled up over my head, and buzzed around on the back of my neck long enough to give me a couple of quick jabs. Lovely... So, I got the plastic off, threw down a few Benadryl, which I remembered to carry with me, with uncharacteristic speed, and just asked for a few minutes to see what would happen. Being that the sting site was the back of my neck (sort of close to my breathing area), I didn't want to start hiking and circulating the blood again. There was no stinger, fortunately, and I don't think much venom got in at all. It only ended up amounting to a couple of large mosquite bit types of wounds. But Thailand's wilderness wasn't done with me yet... We hiked a while longer and got up to the waterfall, which our guide walked right under. He wanted us to do the same, but no one was jumping at the opportunity. Eventually I couldn't resist, and stripped off my shirt and pack to go under. The fall was about 20-25' high and the force of the water hitting me was amazing. It nearly knocked me over, more than once. I got a free shower out of the deal, then collected my stuff and we started back down. 30 seconds into that, something, yet unknown, bit me right at the top of my ass crack. It then took a few steps down and got me again near the same place. It was a sudden, definite pain that gave me a bit of my typical reaction to venom, but my finger scoops through the top of my crack never yielded a perpetrator. I have no idea what it was or how it managed to stay there after such a torrential downpour as that I had just enjoyed. But, it got me... and not much more came of it than had the bee stings. That's two. The last leg had us continue on to another village where the couple would stay the night and we would head back to the Nest. We walked along for a hile before I grazed my shin on a small plant that was hanging just a bit into the path (the path was about as wide as a goat path and it cut through pretty dense forest). Id' been grazing plants all along with no trouble, but this time I saw some blood start up right away. "That's some kind of sharp grass," I thought, but I was wrong. The woman in front of me and the one behind both got the same thing. Our guide then pointed out the extremely colorful, bristly, poisonous caterpillar that had just hit all three of us. It was a good-looking thing, but I didn't manage a picture. Instead I rubbed some anti-histamine on the wound, which one of the ladies had, and we continued on. Eventually we got up to the village and admired the view out for a bit, which consisted of dark green mountain peaks cloaked in drifting white clouds. It was really pretty... but, I had to get back, get my stuff, and catch the last bus down to Chiang Mai. I had arranged my plans again to go to Chiang Mai that night, get a room, then fly out the next morning to Bangkok, then fly directly out again to southern Thailand. So, we drove on. The people at the Nest helped me get a taxi once I got there, which took me directly to a bus station outside of town where I was guaranteed a bus down south. It was later than the last advertised bus, so this was lucky. I got on, went to sleep, and got in a bit later. I next grabbed a tuk-tuk to a tourist strip, found a nice, cheap room, and headed out for food and to purchase the tickets to the south. Air Asia is really cheap, even 18 hours before your flight, so I got a good deal to head into Phuket without much of a layover the next day. I basically went to sleep after that, exhausted from everything else that day. The next morning I got out early, got a cab to the airport, flew to Bangkok, then went from Bangkok to Phuket, then took a boat directly to Ko Phi Phi. I only had three days and I decided to judge everything based on LP descriptions, so I went straight to the island.
Ko Phi Phi was heavily affected by the tsunami, but is looking pretty decent now. I walked way into town and past it and found a small, quiet complex of bungalows, where I grabbed a room. Another cool place, if a little mosquito-infested. I went right back out to check out the dive scene and ended up in the first shop I saw, where a friendly dive instructor took me through all their dives. He was a Spanish guy who had just moved there three weeks ago, but he knew his stuff and the shop had all the insurance, etc., so I knew I was already miles ahead of the Red Sea experience. I signed up for a couple of deep dives for the next day, then headed out for food. I jumped on Thai pancakes left and right and spent the afternoon getting to know the town. That night I stopped in the dive shop to make sure we were still on for the next day (the weather wasn't cooperating) and found that the deep dives were too rough to make, so we'd do local dives on nearby islands instead. Not ideal, but I just wanted to dive. I milled around a bit more that night, read, and slept soundly in a nice big mosquito net.
I got out the next morning and killed some time in the dive shop (someone was late or something so we got delayed), then we went out. Several instructors had people on the boat and I ended up having Joan (my guy) all to myself. This was cool because we got in and out of the water first and had lots of flexibility with the dives. This turned out to be important in the second dive, where we found a sea turtle that later divers would miss. It wasn't afraid of us at all and it swam along with me for a meter or two while it was just about a meter away. The seas were rough, currents were strong near the surface, and visibility was a bit impaired (5-12 meters), but it was still some fun diving. I was so comfortable in all the equipment compared to the other dives that I was right on par with Joan was far as air use. We got good, long dives in, then went back to the docks in a wild rain storm that I watched from the top of the boat. Thoroughly soaked, I went back to the room to clean up, then set out a while later for a hike up to the Phi Phi Viewpoint. There are major steps along the way, but you're justly rewarded with a view over the narrow land bridge that connects two larger sides of the island. I was taking pictures up there when a guy wanted me to take some for him, and we exchanged the favor. He turned out to be a friendly Brazilian guy and we started talking. We decided to head down the other side of the hill together to check out another beach. We moved fast, despite the rain and mud, found a pretty small, desolate, and inactive beach, then hiked back to the summit, all in about 30 minutes. He's a dance instructor, so he was keeping pace very nicely. I expected him to run away from me, but we had a pretty compatible speed, which is always good. At the top we stopped again, debating about looking for the sunset behind the heavy clouds, and started talking to a guy who runs a whop at the top. He was busy chasing his little girl around but let us sit beneath his overhang out of the rain for quite a while and told us a bit about the tsunami experience and displayed his ability to speak about 5 languages. Cool guy... After that the Brazilian guy wanted to find another beach, so we hiked down to the town and started along the shore in the right direction. It turned out to be a 45 minute hike that ended in the dark. We picked up a couple of English girls along the way, which was fortunate for them because they were staying at this beach and didn't exactly know how to get back to it after going into town for dinner that night. I got us there eventually, and we went for a quick swim in the sea before going to have dinner at the little restaurant attached to their ... what would you call it? Resort? Shabby resort. There we go. After dinner we had the good fortune of seeing a water taxi pull up on shore right in front of us, and we split it back to the main town (there are no roads or cars on Ko Phi Phi) with a couple of other people. At that point I split off and headed to the dive shop again. I booked a night dive for the next night and decided I'd probably just stay on Ko Phi Phi as long as I was in southern Thailand.
The next morning I got up and planned on a nice little kayak trip. I got a waterproof bag from a local shop, stuck the camera in, then rented a one person and particularly squirrely kayak on the north side of town. The shop owner seemed surprised since the sea was pretty rough, but I think he really just wanted to upsell me to renting a guy with a motor boat. So, I packed my stuff on the back and started out. As soon as I jumped on I tipped it over immediately and fell back into the knee deep water. Good thing I got that bag. I was successful the second time and now a bit used to the easy tipping, so I headed north, hoping to make it to the northern tip of the island in a couple of hours. I think it's about 3 miles to get up there. I went maybe 3/4 of a mile and pulled into a little bay to check out an empty beach and played around there for a while. I tried my hand at climbing a coconut tree (got a good 6 feet before I decided I'd do better on land), climed up through a limestone chimney I found on the edge of the beach, messed with the resident crabs, then headed back out. An hour or so later I made it up to the north point, which seemed a little too fast, but I later verified that that was where I was with a map of the island. There's a very shallow reef there with lots of fishies and very clear water, so I hung out for a while and tried to use the snorkel mask the kayak guy had given me. It was way too big for me and leaked like a sieve, so this didn't last long, but I caught a few fun glimpses of the life below the surface. Afterwards I packed up again, and headed down. It had been very rainy and cloudy the whole time I'd been in Thailand, but this changed while I was out on the water. The sun wasn't unobstructed, but stronger than it had been and behind only a thin layer of clouds. My casual sunscreen job proved insufficient later on, as I got pretty fried. Who knew... So, I eventually got back to the original beach, pretty wiped out, and gave the boat back. I then spent several hours eating and resting before the night dive. I met Joan again later on for that, had some tea with him while we waited for the right time of day, then we headed out to the dive boat. Again, I was the only diver besides him and we were the only two on the boat this time. We went along a reef not too far from the main island. Visibility was crap, maybe 5 meters or so, but at night this was kind of cool because you can only see by your light anyway. It just kept things nice and dark all around. We caught a few fun things, including several moray eels, some kind of cuttle fish (I think), and lots of sleeping fishies. We only spent 45 minutes on a pretty shallow dive (I don't know why, but he did stipulate 45 minutes ahead of time), so we both came up with over 100 bars left in our tanks. Oh well... It was still fun. I went back to the room afterwards, cleaned up, then submitted to the calls of the women at the local massage parlor only because they had "aloe vera massage" on the menu. So, for an hour, another Thai woman coated me from head to toe in the stuff. I had dinner after that and called it a night.
The next day I had to head back toward Bangkok, so I got my stuff together and brought it straight to a Thai restaurant where I had arranged to do a quick cooking class before I left. This was one thing I really wanted to do in Thailand and it had hitherto evaded me, but this was a good (if short) opportunity to still do it. I made three dishes with the instructor and devoured all of them in about an hour and a half, got a little cook book out of it, then continued to the boat to head to Krabi, where I'd catch my next plane. I flew into Bangkok eventually, and got the bus to the tourist strip. I got my cheapest room yet near there for only $6, then spent time in the little market strip observing the intersection of traditional Thai food, Ronald McDonald, and the internet.
The next morning I got up early and grabbed a tuk-tuk to a local temple that houses a huge reclining Buddha. I had very little time before I had to head to the airport, so this was kind of the only thing I got to do during the day in Bangkok. It was a good choice, though, and I got some good photos there to boot. Afterwards I made my way to the airport, checked in, was stripped of my Camp Suds (bastards), got on the plane, and flew to Ho Chi Minh City. Hello, Saigon. Okay, one country at a time. I'll continue with Vietnam next.
Hotel Manor, continued...
So, Hotel Manor turned out to be largely under construction. We checked in to this "3 star" palace and quickly discovered that the place (and apparently the surrounding city) is plagued by frequent power outages, which, in our windowless bathroom, left us blind on numerous occasions. In addition to the outages, the construction activity left our room as the only one being used on its floor, with the rest have doors ajar and / or garbage and construction debris filling the views in. Not quite the "very nice hotel" our trusty Bombay-based guides promised. But we were locked in, so we did nothing about it. After a quick check in, clean up, and brief nap, we went back downstairs to the lobby to meet the tour bus. It picked us up a bit late (lost precious napping time), then drove us out to the first of many sights on the tour schedule for that day. I wasn't fully tuned in to the fact that we'd be seeing so many other spots around Aurangabad that I don't really care about. It wouldn't have been a big deal except for the fact that our "all inclusive" tour suddenly did not include entry fees to these places, which quickly amounted to about 50% of what we paid for the whole tour in the first place. So... I'd late contact VISA to cancel the charge.
We went to a big fort whose name escapes me at the moment, then some other little turd sites, and finally to the Ellora Caves, which are an incredible collection of cave shrines dedicated to Buddha with various works of art, all of which were carved out of volcanic basalt over the course of many years. The caves, as well as the works in them, were created by carving and excavation from a solid starting block. It's really incredible stuff. That made the day worth it, despite the obligatory stop at a saree shop, and at the end of it we were returned to our (sc)h(m)otel for the evening. We wandered around a bit and found a nice little Indian vegetarian eatery with a really cool host / employee guy who helped us navigate the menu. We had some delicious dosas and a few other things whose names I've already forgotten. This is like a week and a half ago now... But, the food was great. Afterwards we went to find a market to get some water and snacks for the next day. We found a cool little place that was about as large as your kitchen and packed with something like 20 people at all times. We were picking things out when I stepped outside to check out the case of chocolate items in order to get my fix. In front of the case I found a young mother with her little boy (about 5) staring longingly at the case. It was pretty clear that he wasn't going to get anything out of it, so I'm not sure why Mom was letting him stare so long, but that's her decision. So, I asked him what he liked and found the language barrier to be pretty... well, neither of them spoke English at all and I don't exactly speak Hindi, so that was it. I think the Mom understood my intentions though, and tried to translate, but the little guy got a bit shy. I picked something for him and had the stuff included in our bag of groceries, then pulled it out for him on our way out. It was either simple shock or shyness, but he stood there clutching the thing and staring at it, which I took for satisfaction, and then we left. Sometime after that we turned in for the night so we'd be refreshed for the next day (this was our first night back in beds). We set the weirdness of the hotel situation aside and let the hum of nearby diesel generators lull us to sleep.
The next day we got up and hopped on the bus and headed straight to the Ajanta Caves, which are a bit farther out of Aurangabad and were the only thing on the schedule for that day. When we got out there we were told that our bus was leaving at 3:30pm, so we just figured we'd be back by then and then get out of town. We took a second bus (a green one, apparently, that is mandatory to exclude internal combustion engines from coming within about 5km of the caves), got out entry tickets, and headed inside. Our guide took us through several the of the caves, which are even more impressive than Ellora, if I do say so, then told us to take time on our own to see what others we wanted, but to head down the hill around 2:30pm. Something didn't add up... we verified that the bus was leaving at 3:30pm, and planned on being there for that. We ultimately figured out that he was trying to force people back down the hill with an hour of extra time so that they'd shop / fatten his commission earnings at the shops below the cave complex. So, we maximized our time up there, came down, then had to wait around for people who had screwed up the green bus connection and in the process cost us another 45 minutes while we waited for them. We also had to spend that time being harassed by shopkeepers, one of which appeared to think that we had established a casual friendship while he followed me around on the way in. He seemed genuinely hurt that I didn't want to visit his stall. Oh well.
Finally, we got out and on our way. We got back into Aurangabad and wandered around looking for internet access. We were told that there was none for another 45 mins. or so because of a power outage, then noticed how dark everything was. So, we hit up a small restaurant that was offering about 4% of what they had listed in their menu, had some bad "milk shakes," (in India this means milk + whatever flavor you choose, there is no ice cream or blending action), sat on the street a while, then got to the internet. We caught up there, then went back to the tasty restaurant from the night before to eat again before the next overnight bus. We had a nice short chat with the same guy after our meal, then collected our bags at the hotel and walked down the street to a patch of dirt with a bus and a hanging banner that confirmed it as the bus pickup point, and took a seat. When our bus arrived we climbed in, now familiar with the routine, reclined our seats (kind of mandatory, as everyone gets the same amount of space when everyone does this), and tried to sleep our way to Mumbai. Pretty uncomfortable, but we made it. The next morning we got back in early and just went straight back to our same hotel there, the Causeway, to check in. The guys in that place were really nice to us the whole time we were there and let us check in at about 7am. We got in, got a nap in a bed, then later showered up and headed out.
We started that morning with a meal at Leopold's, by now a big favorite of mine, then tried to go visit the Fort area, which I knew to be the starting point for the whole city from a little project I did back in school. We got a cab there but didn't have a specific landmark in mind, so we walked around and found some big walls (a prison, we think), a cruise terminal, some poop on the street, a sign pleading with locals to not "pass urine" on a street corner, and that was about it. I think we missed the mark... oh well. So, we got a cab back to Colaba and spent the afternoon shopping for souvenirs in the many hawker stalls along the Colaba Causeway. We had long chats with plenty of the guys, much to their enjoyment, I'm sure, and picked up a few things. We also took a McDonald's break for some Coke (my new addiction while traveling) and fries. I think we had dinner at the hummus place again that night, and the rest is a bit cloudy.
The next day we had a flight to Delhi to go see the Taj Mahal. Man... I waited too long to do this. Umm... I have forgotten something. The sequence of pictures will help me remember more later. I know we spent the morning in Mumbai, but I'm not sure how. In the afternoon, at least, we went to the airport to catch our flight. We took the short jump up to Delhi, got in, then caught a cab to the train station. We got our tickets (exceedingly cheap, bottom of the barrel class tickets) and spent a bit of time trying to figure out which train to get on. English was kind of sparse, so this took some work. While we were staring at signs, some monkeys came by to play on the overpass that crosses the tracks. There was an adorable little baby monkey clutching to its mother and a less attractive and kind of big male that was being taunted with a cup of water by a group of Indian guys. They filled it for him, he drank it with surprisingly human movements, then put it back down. At that point one guy in the group would stomp at him or shout, and the monkey would show its teeth and walk around slowly. I kept my distance, but enjoyed the show. Eventually we found an English speaker who told us to get on the same train as his, and we began the 4 hour ride to Agra. As the train pulled up we jumped in and fought for some decent seats (we'd been warned of this process in Shantaram), then settled in with our new pal and some other kids. Shortly after some guy in a uniform made all the men vacate and declared our car a "ladies only car." That left about 6 ladies in a whole car and men scrambling back and forth with bags held high, much to the amusement of the ladies. So, we settled in again. And then we were told to move again. We went back towards our original car, and after standing around, finally just sat down in a ladies car at the urgings of the local men. Several other guys followed suit and the uniform finally stopped barking at people, so that was how we spent the rest of the ride. When we got into Agra we were greeted by a vicious pack of tuk-tuk driver cheats who wanted to stick us in hotels. Ian had read about a good place on Trip Advisor, but one of these guys assured us it was "finished." We declined his services over and over but we were the only foreigners coming into the station that night so they were particularly relentless. Eventually a new guy showed up and offered the same fare as the best we could squeeze out of the first two guys, so we gladly took the business away from our assailants and placed it with the third guy. He found the hotel Ian read about, open for business by the way, and we checked in. It was a pretty nice place. There was some kind of extremely loud Arab festival happening nearby, but other than that it was solid. We ate in the hotel restaurant, which was really good and cheap, then slept. The next morning we got up nice and rested and walked down to the Taj east gate to survey the situation. We decided to wait until afternoon to go in so we could try to catch sunset, and started out with a meal at a little locals' place where our plates were continually replenished until we had to refuse any more food. We used the afternoon to go run by a garden and the Agra Fort and took tuk-tuks to get back and forth. I think those tuk-tuk rides were one of my favorite parts of India. They were incredibly hectic, with our driver narrowly avoiding livestock, bicyclists, pedestrians, all kinds of other vehicles, and many immobile objects to boot. Ian got some good video of one of the rides. Just gold. The fort was really cool and I wish we'd had more time there, but I could say that about most days and destinations I've been through. We made it to the Taj Mahal around 4:00pm and got in with plenty of time to enjoy it before they closed. It is definitely one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. It has a style of its own and is just an incredibly graceful, yet imposing, structure. The grounds are pretty as well, if a little unkempt. We spent several hours inside the complex before being kicked out with everyone else at closing time. When we left a tuk-tuk driver somehow talked us into going to a commission shop with him, which we ran through quickly, then took a ride back to the east gate (very close to our hotel). We actually ate dinner at the hotel restaurant again and had the exact same meal deal (huge portion), and loved it all over again. That night we slept away, then rose the next morning to go back to the Delhi airport - for Ian to head home and for me to head back to Mumbai to catch my next flight. We took the train again and spent a long ride chatting with a guy who called himself "Lucky." He was a genuinely nice kid in hotel management school who was happy to have the opportunity to chat with some foreigners. He and and other guy helped us get off at the right stop, and from there we took a cab to the airport. I realized as we were getting on the train that I hadn't allowed enough time to make my short flight back to Mumbai, so we were kind of rushing. Somehow we got there with an hour before takeoff, so Ian and I got out, said our goodbyes, then I rushed into the domestic terminal to take off. He had to take a second taxi to the international airport (a whole separate airport in Delhi), so he was working some guys over on cab fare as I left. Once i got inside I found the check in counter closed. Fortunately, the airport has people circulating in polo shirts with buttons that say, "Can I help you?" I flagged on down, discovered that my flight was canceled, then with his help got a change to the next flight. I looked for Ian outside but he was already long gone, so I had a quick bite and waited around. The next flight was delayed, so I ended up back in Mumbai pretty late. I decided to avoid taking a taxi all the way down to Colaba that night and just let the airport hotel booker guys set me up with a pretty cheap room that came with free transport to get there. The hotel, as they call it, turned out to be a dump that is literally steps from a major slum. They check in clerk guy had two very long finger nails - pinky and ring finger - on his left hand. He was a creepy little dude and I'm pretty sure he's moving something through that place other than tourists. The room was basically acceptable, so I took it, and hit the hay. The next morning I just wanted to get out of there, so I checked out, left my sunglasses somewhere unknown, then haggled with cab drivers to get back to Colaba. Once there I stored my bag at the good old Causeway Hotel, and went straight to Leopold's. I had a delicious breakfast / lunch, chatted with our original waiter a bit, then started talking with a girl (basket case) from Michigan who was in Mumbai doing research. She had been there for months on her own and wanted some American conversation / perspective on her failed relationship with a guy who she really, really does not belong with. I did what I could. It helped kill time, so that was nice. I spent the rest of the day eating and sitting around Colaba, then went back up to the airport to fly out to Thailand. I had a red eye flight (only 4 hours though) to Bangkok, so I loaded up and fell quickly asleep. A short while later I landed in Bangkok, but didn't even leave the airport. I had arranged to keep going and to fly directly to Chiang Mai, a hub in the northern piece of the country, the night before, so I did just that. Domestic flights are nice and cheap in Thailand, so booking 18 hours in advance was no problem at all. So, I landed in Chiang Mai late that morning and started my Thai adventure. I wanted to keep going to Chiang Dao - even a bit further north, so I decided to stay the afternoon in Chiang Mai and then take a bus later that evening to go to Chaing Dao. With such limited time in Chiang Mai, I had to choose my activities wisely. So, naturally, I went straight to a women's prison. To be continued...
Back at the pyramids... we got out of our cab and into the complex and already had to start refusing camel rides and everything else under the Egyptian sun that could be exchanged for money. There are lots of hawkers inside the pyramid complex that are just incredibly persistent about trying to get into your pockets, by whatever method. As we wandered in we took a cursory look at the Sphinx, which we'd return to later, then Ian took a picture of a guy on a camel. He jumped right off and wanted a tip. We eventually offered him 1 pound to try to get rid of him, which apparently insulted him. He left for 30 seconds, then came back and wanted it. So... that time we refused him. We spent the next several hours going around the outsides of the pyramids and also bought the extra ticket to go up into the largest of the three main pyramids and into a tomb. It was fortunate that we had Takano with us because he decided not to go and we weren't allowed to bring in bags, so we had to leave them with someone trustworthy. He was the perfect solution in a sea of people who constantly referred to us as their "friends." The climb into the tomb was really cool - nice cramped little corridors with steep slopes and stale air, just what you'd expect from an Indiana Jones lifestyle. The tomb wasn't much to look at and didn't have any explanatory signage, so I guess I just blame my own ignorance for that part. We got back out, spent more time refusing all kinds of people (one of which wanted money after Takano used the bathroom, despite the fact that he had nothing to do with the bathroom), then got some cold drinks at a little tourist pavilion. Spent a little more time getting closer to the Sphinx, then eventually headed back to the hotel to get our bags (which were retrieved from a very different spot from the crack den in which we left them, but they were fine so we didn't ask questions), then headed into Cairo by taxi. We were dropped off at a way more central part of Talaat Harb this time and got a cheap room in a hostel very near to the Egyptian Museum. That worked well, since it was our next planned stop. We checked in, dropped the bags, got some food at a little locals restaurant with good grub, then went to the museum. It was a bit like being in the British Museum - lots of really interesting stuff and not nearly enough time to see it all. They have a whole area for King Tut, which includes two of the three coffins he laid in as well as a head dress / mask thing that's in lots of photos all over the world. Really cool to see in person. Takano later decided to check in to stay in our room since we had an extra bed, and to leave the next day, so we went to a travel place with him and worked out tickets for him to fly back and forth to southern Egypt. Somewhere in there we also discovered that the travel places ran trips to the Red Sea for divers. We inquired at one, discovered we'd do best to just buy bus tickets directly from the station, then did that later on the next day. That night we had shokari for dinner (good pasta mix that's incredibly cheap) and wandered the streets a bit before heading back to the pyramids to see this light and laser show that was supposed to be interesting. Takano's guide book said the story was boring but the lights were cool, and that there's no need to pay the $20 a head to see it since you can see into the whole complex from the rooftop terrace at Pizza Hut across the street from the entrance. We went and tested this theory after a very long cab ride (cabbie apparently wasn't aware of a major freeway that we used later). As we pulled up to Pizza Hut I noticed some incredibly bright lights above the entry gate for the pyramids that were pointed towards Pizza Hut. No way... yes, way. They've attempted to blind you with glare so that you can't freeload. But Pizza Hut wouldn't be defeated so easily... In response they stacked old cardboard and tables up to block the lights and provide a few spots where you can still kind of see in. The show turned out to be really boring, so we were all glad that we paid nothing to see it and not sorry at all that we missed the first 15 minutes. If you go, don't bother. After that, we went back to the room and crashed.
Takano left really early the next morning and after checking out and storing the bags, Ian and I went out to get bus tickets. We managed to find the right place with some pages from Takano's Japanese guide book that he left behind for us, so we grabbed those, then got some food. All of a sudden the sidewalks around the city were being plastered with green prayer mats, and we eventually realized that a huge afternoon prayer was part of the preparations for Ramadan. This meant that most businesses closed too, so we found an open cafe, had a drink, and waited things out. The prayer session was really interesting to see - men lined up shoulder to shoulder for many city block lengths all acting in unison to the tune of the broadcast prayer that blares from towers around town. That broadcast happens everyday and multiple times per day, but this was a special session. As hectic as the city is, I always felt that the prayer broadcasts kind of humanized the place. I guess maybe they just make the culture a lot more "visible" when it seems that everyone's main purpose is to shake money out of your pockets.
Eventually that came to an end and decided to use the internet for a while, then headed in a cab to the Citadel to try to finish up our sightseeing in Cairo. Our taxi driver took us all the way there, then told us it was closed. I think he wanted to score an additional ride out of us.. so, we got out. We walked along one side of the complex on the street for a few minutes, then our next best friend arrived and told us over and over that he wanted to practice English and didn't want any money. He was a student of something or other and wanted to show us around his neighborhood... we tried to break off once, then Ian and I hesitated, he latched back on, then insisted upon showing us two mosques that were open, despite the fact that everything else was closed. Somewhat reluctantly, we decided to walk with him... I hate being outwardly rude to / ignoring all these people, but you really have to be on guard in Cairo. You never know who wants to screw you and who doesn't. So, we walked into this neighborhood that can be best described as a sprawling slum and let this guy lead us around in the general direction of the mosques we had pinned on our little tourist map. He talked and talked and pointed out a few things of interest, talked more about the earthquake of 1993 (I think that was the date), about how this mosque is trying to help children who lost their parents, etc. So, this was all well and good because we were seeing a definite slice of local life that we'd never have seen otherwise, but as usual it ended with the money issue. He took us to his local mosque, we shed our shoes, went in to look around, then took us to the old man who runs the place and wanted all kinds of money as a donation to help these children. It seemed legitimate, but Omar said he didn't want any money... He wanted us to donate some each right then, then some more when we went up into the minaret on top of the building to look out over the city. We told him no over and over, and he finally settled for us just paying some amount to get up into the minaret. We gave him something like $10, then went up on our own to look around. Even the seemingly nice guys all suck you in for money... even when it's for a good cause. Christ. Or... someone else. Allah?
After admiring our $10 view, we came down, left discreetly with no further discussion, then wandered through more of the slum area and the locals' bazaar to find our way back to the west and the area we were staying. We saw all kinds of things in the slum / bazaar, including carpets, food, and a million other things for sale, a dead sheep carcass slumped up against a building with some rubbish, and a crazy traffic jam that totally blocked up this really narrow dirt road (great place for an explosion, I thought). We managed to get back out with an alternative route, hailed a cab, then went straight to Cairo Tower to see one more bit of the city. The view from the tower is awesome, as it sits right near the Nile and gives you a top down view of most of the city area in 360 degrees. It's a bit hard to interpret where you are with no maps and the walls of the city constantly rising around you, so this was a good way to figure things out spatially. It was also a good stop for the best strawberry juice we'd ever had (pure fruit) and some really nice waiters who did not want to put us in taxis or hotels. We killed several hours there, then went back to get our bags, then went to catch the overnight bus to Hurghada. The bus wasn't spectacular but it wasn't horrible either. It did break down for a bit in the middle of nowhere (literally couldn't see anything out the windows, because were in the middle of undeveloped desert), but it got us to Hurghada eventually. We checked in to the Sea View Hotel (an okay place with good views of the gargantuan rats that live across the street). Oh, they also came by the room to spray pesticide around our toilet, which kind of poisoned the air in there for the next 10 hours or so. Classy... But we weren't there to lay around the hotel. We got out and started looking for diving advice. A nice guy who runs an equipment shop called a friend and had him come talk to us / take us to his dive shop in a local resort, and at that point we realized we wouldn't be able to make boat dives. We had to leave the next evening (this was kind of an unplanned detour) and that wouldn't necessarily give us enough time for making the bus and almost certainly not enough time before we could fly. So, thus began our long deliberations on what to do. We eventually settled on going the next morning to drive down to a place called Sharm Elnaga with this little dive shop. This place is part of a resort that's around 45 minutes south of Hurghada and it has pretty awesome reef dives that you can do from shore. Our guide came along and met us at the office in Hurghada, loaded the equipment into his tiny car, got us in, then drove us down there. As we suited up we realized the gear was pretty crappy. Nothing was exactly new, my regulator hose was backwards somehow (forcing me to do a little S-curve with it so it wouldn't be upside down and leaking all the time), my depth gauge turned out not to work, and my mask leaked a lot. Nonetheless, the first dive was gorgeous. The sand of the desert goes right up to the sea and looks completely desolate, but this incredibly reef is teeming with life just below the surface. We stayed near 50' on the first dive (being a bit cautious because we had to fly around 18 hours later) and visibility was fantastic. I've never seen so many kinds of coral, or even fish, anywhere. We spotted a ray and Ian saw a lion fish, among many other things of interest. We had a pretty long surface interval since our guide kind of disappeared, then after 1:30 hours or so, got ready to go again. At that point my tank buckle on my BCD broke, and the guide swapped gear with me. He had swapped once already, so I was back to a broken depth gauge. The BCD buckle couldn't be fixed properly, so he bent the metal part into shape, discarded the plastic, and somehow felt comfortable jumping in with totally crap gear. So... whatever. The second dive was very cool as well, but we didn't catch any of the sharks we were hoping to see. We did see a great lion fish though, which was some consolation. The gear continued to be uncomfortable and kind of annoyance throughout the dive, and I think that contributed to me using air uncharacteristically fast. After a little safety stop on our way back in I was down to about 25 bars (half of the absolute minimum you're supposed to surface with). But, I'm still here. After that we drove back to the dive shop in Hurghada, got our stuff, and headed to a place for lunch.
After lunch we went to the bus station and caught our evening bus back to Cairo. This one was a little nicer and a bit more comfortable, but still a very, very long ride. We got in that night around 11:00pm and then headed to the airport to spend a few more hours before we'd take of for Mumbai. By the time we were ready to leave I was wasted and really needed sleep. Ian was about the same. He got to enjoy the business class lounge at the airport (somehow he got a business class ticket cheaply through STA) and I had a Cinnabon while I waited for the flight, then eventually woke up with my head on the Cinnabon table when he returned. We finally got on the plane and I fell asleep instantly, slept through take off, and woke when a flight attendant shook me for breakfast. It was a nice flight (Egypt Air) - another good example of non-American companies that are still treating passengers pretty well. Then, around noon, we landed in Mumbai.
We could see the slums reaching right up to the edges of the airport as we came in - a sight that had become familiar during my brief research on the city for a class back at school. I think the fact that I had previously read a fair amount about the place made me like it before we even touched down, and I've been glad for that ever since. India has been very refreshing after the rudeness of the Greeks and the conniving of the Egyptians. Again, I'm generalizing, but that's what we experienced more often than not.
As we exited the airport we asked about hotels at a little hotel counter, and they set us up with a cheap room in Colaba (the southern most of the original 7 islands that were joined) at a place called the Causeway Hotel. We took an hour long taxi ride there for about $10 and started to realize that Mumbai would still be a bit cheaper than we had previously thought. We checked into the hotel, freshened up, then asked about a good place to eat. The guy at the desk sent us downstairs back onto the street right in front of the hotel to eat at a place called Leopold's. That sounded awfully familiar...
So, we went down, grabbed a table, and I became increasingly convinced that we were sitting in the restaurant described in the book Shantaram. At one point I finally asked our waiter if he knew the book and he confirmed that this was the exact same place. Gregory Roberts (the author) still frequents the place, he said, and last sat at the same table we were dining on. Wow.. I got so excited that I bought a t-shirt. The food was great, neither of us got sick, and it was even pretty cheap. Just awesome... suddenly the town became pretty familar as I continued to spot scenes from the book, which Roberts does a great job of describing. It was almost like I'd been here before.
That afternoon we got online to do some tourism kind of research and got info on the Dharavi slum tour (something I'd found months back and really wanted to do), local monuments, etc. Afterwards we went to the slum tour office (conveniently about 1 minute away), booked the tour for the next morning, then walked over to the Gateway of Indian (big stone monument thing that greets people who arrive in Mumbai by boat). It was... covered in scaffolding. Like many things around here at this time of year. Oh well. So, we did that, then stopped in a little tourist booth thing to ask about tours out to the caves at Ellora and Ajanta. These guys set us up with a tour that included "everyting" (not really). We paid with my visa, which we're still hoping will help us reverse the charge, or at least part of it, and decided we'd leave the next day after the slum tour on an overnight bus, see the Ellora Caves the next day, stay in a "nice hotel," see the Ajanta Caves the day after that, then overnight bus it back to Mumbai. So, that's what we did. The rest of that day we went out to the Haji Ali mosque (one of the dirtiest places I've ever been in my life - kind of deprecated the significance of it), rode to Gandhi's old house (closed for pest control that day), and saw a couple of parks that sit on a hill on the north end of Marine drive, providing good views out over Chowpatty Beach. They were... the something Mehta gardens and... another one. I'll have to edit that in later.
Once we were done at the gardens we got in a cab to head back to our hotel, and it made it half way, then broke down in really heavy traffic. Ian and I jumped out to help push it off the road, much to the amusement of the Indian cab drivers all around us. Our driver didn't ask for anything after we pushed it a couple of blocks, so we took off and were actually close enough to cruise down Chowpatty Beach for a while. It's not anything spectacular, but it is a nice open space that is heavily used by the residents around it. And open space isn't easy to come by, so it's worth a leisurely stroll. Eventually we took a second cab to get the rest of the way back, then dropped our stuff, had dinner at a cool little hummus shop, then went to Leopold's for a night of drinking. We ordered a pitcher of beer, which comes in the shape of a huge cylinder about three feet high. I drank more than one beer for the first time in my life that night. It wasn't easy, but the Bacardi Breezer I used as a chaser helped. We went through a couple of those, then called it a night (they close at midnight anyway). We got a reasonable amount of sleep, then got up and out the next morning for the slum tour. It was a great tour, and I definitely recommend that everyone see it. We began by checking out the open laundry area where a whole laundry operation is regulated (people rent stalls and wash clothes for individuals, businesses, etc.). Pretty fascinating. That was sort of our first glimpse of just how industrious Indian people are as compared with many other nations. The tour continued with some short glimpses of other slums from the road, but the main event, the Dharavi slum, was where we finally got out of the car and onto our feet. The guide led us into the slum through a narrow corridor, where light began fading. The interior of the slum is pretty dark in places, due to the extremely dense building placement. To give some idea of the density, the Dharavi slump apparently houses 18,000 people per acre. I don't see how that's possible, but that's what our guide said, more than once. Maybe he meant 1,800?
The most impressive part of the place is its industrial pursuits. The gross domestic product there is over 500,000 dollars annually. We saw everything from its incredible recycling industry (cardboard, plastics, copper wire, glass, most any kind of rubbish) to its leather production, for which it is famous. We also had glimpses, albeit short ones, of the housing areas. The slum was really where the white person celebrity thing began. We get a lot of stares pretty much everywhere, but there are enough whites wandering around Colaba that it's not that big a deal for the locals. In the slum, however, we enjoyed many curious smiles and waving, and the kids were hilarious. They'd run up to us, want to shake hands, and practice the few English phrases they'd picked up in school. Many times we heard their young voices calling out, "Hello, Sir, how are you.?" If one succeeded in shaking our hand, he'd run off immediately to tell his friends and they'd then chase us down as a group to get a handshake each before laughing and saying goodbye. There are some really cute kids in there. I think their culture really overcomes their circumstances and it hardly feels like a place of deprivation, so long as they have each other and those beaming smiles to keep them going.
After the tour we headed back to Colaba to spend a little more time before we'd catch the overnight bus to Aurangabad for the cave tours. We grabbed some more food (still solid - no diarrhea), got our bags, and made our way to the bus. Then, our next overnight jounrey began. Again, not a great, comfy bus, but it could easily have been worse. Early the next morning we woke up in Aurangabad and got a quick cab to our hotel - Hotel Manor. Sounds impressive, anyway, right? Details to follow...
Trying to catch up once more, this time from the shore of the Red Sea. Okay, so we landed in Cairo and started trying to find our way into town. This was quite difficult. After taking an airport shuttle in a big circle, we got off the second time around at a bus stop and started trying to figure out what to do next. At this point a Japanese guy wandered to the same spot with a guide book. Sweet, sweet Japanese people - this was a fortunate thing. Ian started up with him in Japanese and we were able to put our heads together long enough to figure out that we needed a particular bus number, which we would need to recognize in Arabic. Some local guys told us the same number, then indicated that it was racing through the traffic circle toward us after about 45 minutes of waiting. There's not so much a system of but stopping here as there is bus slowing down and people running and jumping into open doors. Three foreigners with bags couldn't have predicted this, so it ran right by us and left us standing there. So... cabs became an option. We hailed one and had our first cab fare negotiating experience (something we'd become well versed in soon after), got a price and headed for a piece of town that we knew had some hostels in it. Our Japanese companion, Takano, came with us just to get into town. He ended up getting out at our stop too, despite the fact that he already had a hotel reservation across the Nile over in Giza. So, we get out and hit the sidewalk, or what most resembled a sidewalk. The center of Cairo is the most vivid depiction of absolute pandemonium I've ever seen. But I haven't been to India yet.
The scene basically included 4-10 story buildings on all sides, lots and lots of cars, scooters, pedestrians, and incessant honking in the streets, and a surplus of Egyptian people who wanted to talk to us as soon as they saw us in hopes that they could score some kind of dough from us. We didn't really know the scene on the streets of Cairo yet though, so we were really only trying to figure out where to sleep at this point. Enter the first friendly man of Cairo... This guy strides up to us as we're standing on the corner of the road we asked the cabbie for. We're trying to figure out which way to go, and he tells us what direction the address we have is in, but then also wants to know what we're going to do in Cairo. So do all of them... so he proceeds to tell us that we can hire him with a car for a day to go around Giza, Memphis, etc. to see the sights. We'd been told by other people that this was a good way to get around during the day and it could be done pretty cheaply, so we bite to get some information from the guy. His name was Ahmed, by the way. So, he takes us back to his family's shop... just a few doors down. Apparently he hangs out on the corner and waits for people like us to wander by. He wanted to give us a business card that never actually appeared (this happened with more than one person, ultimately), and took us into the shop to tell us all about where he'd take us the next day for 120 Egyptian pounds (about $25). Suspiciously cheap... but we talked on. He was pretty assertive about trying to get us into a hotel just a few doors down, etc. etc. Typical offers that many, many Egyptians have made to try to get commission from us, or something. At any rate, we finally broke off long enough to go check the prices at the hostels and he left us alone. So, bags and all, we walked down this very busy street (Talaat Harb) with pretty much everyone staring at us and talking to us in broken English, found a couple of hostels, checked prices, found them way higher than we thought they'd be, then decided maybe we'd check out Takano's place with him since he was signed up anyway. The city is so chaotic as soon as you land that we just wanted to get off the streets and be free of the tourist costume as soon as possible. But it's not that easy...
So, we go back towards Ahmed, he finds us on the same corner immediately, then after a lot of additional exhausting conversation he says he'll take us over to Giza to Takano's hotel and we can coordinate meeting there in the morning for all three of us to go on this day tour with him. I ask him how much the ride to Giza is and he says "don't worry about it." So, anytime you're in Egypt, just remember, absolutely nothing is free.
So, we do some waiting around as his cousin goes to get their car. For some reason we had to go to another of their "essence" shops (shelves full of perfume and papyrus drawings on the walls..has to be some kind of front, Ian observed), but we finally got to the car, got in, and they drove us over to the hotel in heavy afternoon traffic. Let me just pause for a second to emphasize that the streets of Cairo are absolutely insane. I've never seen such chaos in my life - people (including women and very small children) walking or running across huge streets and making little maneuvers every few feet to narrowly avoid the cars and trucks and buses that are careening past them and honking angrily if they have to slow in the least. Somehow, we have yet to see an accident. But we made it to this place, or perhaps "dump" is a better term, went to the desk, agreed to stay there (partly to separate ourselves from Ahmed, who was inside with us and insisting on arranging this tour for the next day), then got ready to head up to the rooms. Finally Ahmed asks for a deposit for this tour. We say we're going to meet at 5:30am the next morning, which is no problem with him, but he wants a deposit. Ian was the most reluctant at this point, and so Ahmed gave him a whole lecture about trust, etc. Blah, blah, blah... We were light on cash because the hotel's Visa machine was broken, so Takano pays a 50 pound deposit (about $10), which reflects the fact that we suddenly had to pay 30 pounds for the ride from Cairo to the hotel. Hmm... After much discussion, we finally do this, and he leaves us alone and leaves the hotel. We then head up to the rooms, find them to be moderately satisfying after a very superficial glance, then we tell Takano we'll meet him after we freshen up to get some food. A bit later we headed back down to the lobby on our way out and were immediately approached by a tour operator guy who is based in the hotel, and even more aggressive and insistent than Ahmed. He bad mouths Ahmed (whom he doesn't know) all over the place, offers a lower price, and we tell him we'll talk it over during dinner then get out of there. If this were a decent hotel they'd prevent these guys from constantly badgering every tourist who walked in the door, but it's not. It's called Hotel Europa, by the way. Don't stay there.
After wandering unpaved streets that were obviously strictly local haunts for a half hour, we finally found a recognizable restaurant and went in. It was a tiny place and was just big enough to seat the three of us. We ordered some kind of meat stick hot dog thing, which was all they could really explain to us and all we could understand. It turned out to be pretty good, but a bit much for our pal Takano, whose stomach was less accustomed to such heavy meals. He succumbed to the diarrhea monster first, but not until the next day. Ian and I are still going strong, so cross your fingers. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and had to listen to this slime ball talk for another ten minutes as we told him no on the tour, then went to the rooms. We showered at that point and found that the shower was broken, the main room light was broken, and the place was just kind of grimy in general. At that point, however, sleep mattered most, so we cleaned up and went to bed, only to rise about 6 hours later at 4:45am. Takano met us at our door at 5:00am, right on time, and we went down to collect our boxed breakfast since it was too early for the restaurant to serve their included breakfast. Somehow this did not translate and we had no breakfast waiting for us, but they did pull together and get us a few meals to go just in time for us to go meet Ahmed on the curb. Welllll.... 6:00am rolled around and still no Ahmed. The man who appealed to us on a trust ticket somehow failed to keep his word. The more Egyptian men we have approaching us on the streets, the less surprising that is, but we were bummed that we lost out on sleep more than anything (after all, he only really got away with $5 or so). So, we went back into the lobby, ate our meal, and asked about a driver inside again. A new guy, slime ball #2, invites us into his office (a garage sale quality desk from 1964 that sits in an open area off the end of the check in counter) to discuss our needs. He tries to rip us off on the price and we ultimately tell him to take a hike, then decide we're just going to check our bags with the desk and do a one time taxi ride to the pyramids, then one time it back or wherever we'd head next. So we go to the desk to check our bags. A couple of bell hop types tell us to follow them into the elevator to head to the baggage storage area. We all cram into this undersized box, then watch one of the guys run the elevator down a floor, emergency stop it, force the doors open, and gesture for us to follow him through what is essentially an unfinished basement fit for a bunch of crack heads. There's discarded furniture frames, boxes, and other refuse all over its dirt floor, which makes it a bit difficult to navigate. We are taken back a bit, but press on. They eventually open this little cellar door to a locked room, which has no other bags in it whatsoever. Our options aren't great at this point, so we take a leap of faith and leave the bags there, then go back to the lobby and get out of the hotel to get a cab to Giza. At this point it's all of 7:45am or so, thanks to our early rise. Lovely morning. But we eventually get a cab, or should I say guy with car who saw an opportunity to make some dough, then ride to the pyramids for a mere 5 pounds (90 cents or so). That's more like it!
Coming upon the pyramids, which you can see from the edge of Giza as you approach, was really kind of startling. This was one time when something like this was actually bigger than I expected it to be. These things are mammoth - it just boggles the mind.
Posting from Cairo now... it's been an adventurous time getting here, being here, and planning to move on. But back to Greece for the moment. Let's see, I left off arriving in Amorgos. Okay, so according to Lonely Planet Amorgos is considered by some to be the "jewel in the Cycladic crown." (Cycladic refers to the Cyclades, the island group we were visiting). I'm not sure who wrote that, but it was probably someone who enjoyed a lot of hospitality from people that wanted to be included in LP. We landed at the first of two ports, got off the boat, and found everything pretty much full as far as lodging. Not just full, but we were flatly ignored and denied by more of the lovely hostile Greek people that are so easily bothered when you ask them to briefly operate their businesses in the middle of the day. The only bite we had was from a big family that was eating a meal on the patio outside what we think was a guest house. Ian went there and I went elsewhere, but he told me they had a room available. So, we looked around furthyer, came back, and as Grandma was ready to take us in, her daughter (?), who was much less welcoming, told us to hit the road and that someone else had taken the room. In the last 5 minutes. Without them moving. Right... so on we went. We eventually sat down at a cafe right on a tiny beach and pondered sleeping in someone's boat, but instead we caught a bus (after an appropriate amount of struggling, waiting, and interacting with rude Greek bus drivers) to the other port town (Aegiali) and showed up around 2pm. I think it was 2pm - whatever it was, it was during the time that Greece takes a four hour siesta. So we settled in at another cafe to wait for things to open. We got some drinks, waited, then finally re-emerged in the early evening. At that point we were able to get into the town dive shop, sign up for a dive the following morning, then inquire about a room at the only open travel booking place. The only room they had left, they said, was at a nice ass hotel. The Aegialis Hotel. Don't think I'm recommending it, but that's the name. So, we got a quote for 90 euros (way more than we wanted to spend), then deliberated a while, thought about sleeping on the beach or at a local camp site with no gear, then finally decided we needed to get a good night's rest before the dive, so we took it. The lady called a van driver to pick us up because the place is about ten minutes from the main town center. You can see it across the harbor, but it's kind of a long walk. So, eventually this guy shows up, takes us up there, and we leave our bags at the desk while they get our room ready. Our room was the "Pool Room." Everyone else seemed to have a room number. Hmm... So, they show us the spa, whose ground floor facilities are included with the room, and things are looking pretty good. It's actually a really nice facility, just a bit much for the likes of us. We had a look around, got into the room, found it to be a very basic room with a full size bed and small bathroom next to the pool (former chlorine storage space?), then immediately went back to the spa to enjoy it before it closed. They had a weight room too, so we took quick advantage of that to get some honest exercise in. I went to a dry sauna after that and endured ten minutes (according to a cool hourglass that you spin), then rinsed off and went out to the pool. The pool is salt water and has a huge curtain shower thing that you can turn on and off to massage your shoulders, or something like that. That was fun. The hot tub was full of loud Greek men and a bit chilly for a hot tub, so we eventually returned to the pool, sauna, and pool again. At that point they closed up so we went back to the room, changed, and headed back to town for dinner. We were falling asleep at the table by the time we finished the meal (typical service in Greece - I'm pretty sure 20 minutes went by before they even approached us with menus), so it was a brief bite to eat and then we walked back home. We slept pretty solidly that night, got up and got showered up. Showers here are increasingly faucets that stick out of bathroom walls with a floor drain. So it's like you and the toilet are taking a rinse together and it all just happens in that one room. Our drains were pretty clogged (infrequent use of the pool room, methinks), so I showered second and managed to flood the bathroom and most of the room, getting my bag a bit wet and causing red ink from a paper folder to stain all their towels. Oops.
So, we headed for the dive next (on foot - the bastards wouldn't put us in a van down the hill because it was already "full"), got there all nice and sweaty, and spend the next 4 hours doing lots of waiting and a single 45 minute dive. It was a nice site between Amorgos and a smallisland off its north side, and we did a swim into a big cave, touched some coral (surprisingly flexible - we didn't hurt it), saw some ancient amphoras that were nearly covered by sea grass, and those were the main highlights. It was funny watching these guys try to run the dive. We got to the site well before our gear showed up (something about running out of gas), did the dive, then couldn't leave because the van was parked in by a guy who was out on a little boat adventure. Sweet. It was a lot of fun though.
After that we decided we were camping that night to compensate for the previous night, so we had some lunch, then headed to the camp site and checked into a tent. Barely big enough for two of us to lie down inside, but it worked. We ditched our stuff in there, got cleaned up, and went back out to the town for the evening. We found ice cream along the way, which always picks you up, so we wandered the harbor and ate that before settling back in for the night. It's a pretty small town without a whole lot going on, so it's hard to be out for the night. We also had to get the next boat out at 6:50am, so we wanted to sleep.
And sleep we did. The next morning we were up and out and crowded onto a huge ship with lots of other people from various islands (multiple stops), then disembarked in Paros. Paros is cool, I think, but we decided to head to Antiparos as soon as we landed. We did that on a small boat that runs back and forth several times a day, and when we landed on Antiparos we found that it was a much smaller and laid back version of Paros, but not so small as the port towns on Amorgos. That meant it still had enough shops and cafes and stuff to keep us entertained. Again, most places were full, but we were eventually stopped by a guy on a moped who interrupted his cruise along the harbor to try to put us in a room. He led us to a pretty nice little place and we negotiated the price to a reasonable-ish number, then dropped the bags while the cleaning lady finished up inside and headed out to find beverages. Greece and Egypt both have been incredibly hot... we're downing water and Coke like they're going out of style.
We found that the dive shop opened after a siesta or whatever somewhere during this time, so we went in and got details about the Antiparos scene. We signed up for a dive for the next day, then went back to the room. Somewhere in there we discovered that the room was plumbed with salt water, which is not nice for drinking. Weird.
We were sort of realizing at this point that we also had little else to do on these islands besides dive. It's so bloody expensive that we couldn't afford to drink much of anything alcoholic, so we would eat, walk around, eat some more, sleep, and dive. That was pretty much it. Good thing we had diving to keep us entertained.
The next morning we got up and went to the dive shop, which was run by some really cool guys. Mostly English fellows, and entertaining ones at that. We were told that the weather might've been clear enough to dive a sweet reef, which is usually precluded by too much wind, but we crossed our fingers. As we headed out with some other people they told us we were first headed to a wreck dive, that neither instructor had been to before so we had to find it with GPS. That was really cool. We did some circling, but eventually found a spot where we thought it could be. We couldn't see the bottom and we weren't very far off shore, so we knew it was quite deep. Visibility was in the neighborhood of 75-90' probably, so not being able to see the bottom is kind of weird around there. To be sure we had the right spot one instructor went in and dove down a ways solo to mark the wreck, then came back up to us to invite us in. It turned out to be my favorite dive so far. Not to mention my deepest ever. We were down at about 32 meters at the deepest point (more than 100'). You'd never know it if you hadn't descended for so long. The wreck was an old shipping boat of some kind, probably at least 100' long, and pretty degraded. It was swimming with fish and had lots of crusty crap all over it to check out, and it made for a fun start. Originally we had planned to do only one dive, but they eventually said it was too windy for the reef and so the wreck would be first, and a site called "Red Rock" second. They weren't going back to the harbor in between, so we decided to just do the second dive as well. It was a very reasonable price and we were on the boat with the gear anyway, so... what the heck? When am I going to dive in Greece again? The Red Rock site was awesome. Basically a big red rock that sticks up out of the sea and has spots for exploration and swim throughs with about 100' visibility. Just gorgeous. We basically free fell to the bottom, which one of the instructors mentioned as being particularly fun here, then explored the bottom all around the rocky island for the next 45 minutes or so. It was really cool to see these little diver bodies scattered around with the streams of bubbles rising up through so much water to the top. The sun penetrates so far that it's really beautiful to just look around you and see whatever you can when it's cast with this blue, rolling light. Makes me want a waterproof camera. So, we did that one, then surfaced after a lengthy safety stop (these guys were really responsible with that, which was good to see), then headed back to port. They let us store our bags in the dive shop for the rest of the day because we had a boat out that same evening, so we did that and then wandered to some cafes to see soem Olympic broadcast action. The first place we settled into had a nice big screen out on their patio and no one sitting in front of it, so we settled in. Along the way we realized that it was probably empty because of the sewer gas that kept wafting past us. I don't think Greek plumbers know about traps. I've expereicned that in several places now, most of them in Greece. Nasty, nasty, nasty. A second place gave us a better experience, and we got to see some solid track and field time between the two.
Oh, I think it was actually before the Olympics and after the dive when we decided to go up to this cave on the top of the island in its interior. It's full of stalactites and stalagmites and is a pretty standard cave, according to Ian, but it was very deep and fun to explore. It also kept the heat off for a bit. The bus we caught up there was the last for the day, so we were lucky to make that. We took another back afterwards, then settled into the cafes, then caught a boat back to Paros. We planned to stay in Paros that night, but were had to leave the next morning, so we didn't really have time to explore it. A Greek guy took us to his little hotel, where he showed us a room and we proceeded to break his balls by haggling the price down (the first time I felt guilty about this), and we checked in for the night. We went out that night to get some food and check out the port town. The town is actually really nice and I was kind of sorry we didn't have more time to explore that island. It is supposed to have good diving too. It might be one to return to. I kind of wanted to get some more octopus (I had some the previous night on Antiparos), but it's kind of expensive and the portions are small, so we actually ended up with gyros one last time. We were settling in to eat them on a stoop in front of a bank and this old man started chattering away in Greek and insisted that we sit at a cafe table on the sidewalk. Not the same place we bought the gyros, so we didn't want to sit there. After a while it seemed he was trying to tell us that he owned the place and wanted us to sit there while we ate, so we did. A few minutes later a waiter appeared and I tried to explain why we were there. He never looked at the old guy I kept pointing to, but eventually left us alone. Then 5 minutes later (after a team of people inside put together enough English to tell us to get out) he told us just that. Meh... so we finished up while standing on the sidewalk, then went exploring. We found a church that is kind of well known (according to LP) and strolled through it, lighting a couple of candles for our late uncle along the way. It was a nice little place. We browsed through some shops after that, had a lady briefly convinced that we wanted to buy Greek property, saw some good toy stores, drank fluids, watched a Greek soccer game at a nice cafe, then went back home to sleep. The next morning it was up and out again to head back to the mainland. Goodbye, Greek islands. I hope to return one day, but it will be after a lot of other destinations. Maybe Greek people will become polite between now and then.
The boat we booked was a cheap one, and we found that we had "deck seats" as soon as we got on. So did most everyone. So we found some uncomfortable chairs, eventually changed to uncomfortable floor space next to a door that never stopped slamming (windy conditions and unaware people), and spent the ride that left an hour and a half late, took an hour longer than it was supposed to, and arrived 2.5 hours late just waiting for it to end. It did, eventually, back in Piraeus. We took the metro back to Athens, got an internet fix, then checked into a hostel I had stayed in previously. It was cheaper this time, which was nice, and we shared a room with some cool Canadian kids from Vancouver. It was a brief stay and an early night, and we got up early the next morning to catch our flight to Cairo. So we did that, then landed in Cairo that afternoon (2 hour flight but we still got a meal and comfortable seats - it was a non-American airline). And that was the beginning of the Egyptian adventure. We had no guide book, cannot read Arabic, and there is no signage whatsoever in that airport to get English speakers into the city. So... we headed outside. And think I'm going to cut it off there. Too much excitement for one post. Tales from Cairo, up next. Cheers.
I'm always behind... I have 7 minutes to get a little farther. Go!
So, as I was saying last time, I finished up dinner with Ian in the middle of the buildings on the southwest side of Oia, then I headed out to go find this book store. It was a short walk and I found it quickly enough, and inside, there was this girl. Let's call her "Sally." So, I browsed around in there for a bit with her as she finished her conversation with the shop keepers (a pretty young crowd from mixed nations) and she then suggested we head out for a drink. We just wandered towards the sun's most recent position and ended up instead at a spot where you can look down over the harbor at Ammoudi. This was where we went out on the tourist boat to see the volcano island and near where we did the cliff jumping. So Sally and I settled into a little notch in this big rock wall and sat there for the next couple of hours talking about all kinds of terribly important things, ranging from Greek racism to the possibility that alien saviors will rescue a select few people among us once we finally bring on our own apocalypse. Once the town clock struck two we headed back towards the hostel. It was sort of a thing where we each wanted to continue hanging out, but also needed to sleep, and needed to do that in a hostel with rooms organized by gender amongst bunk beds. So, we went back and split up there. The next morning we got up and packed, grabbed breakfast, then bumped into Sally again before it was time to go, so I got her email (and physical address, which she provided for some reason - is that a hint or what?) and got back in touch with her a day or two later. We waited around for a bus that was characteristically late / non-existent and finally decided we needed to use a cab to make our ferry on time. Fortunately a couple of other kids noticed this and decided to do the same and split the cost with us. Coincidentally, they're both students at Columbia, as is Sally as well as my friend Valerie. Small world... And I'm nearly out of time. Okay, well, we made the ferry after the cab driver neglected to give me my towel out of his trunk and several hours later arrived in Amorgos. More soon...
