It may sound a bit stupid, but when I came to Thailand I was bit shocked at how little English people spoke. This was because when I was in Nepal, nearly everyone I dealt with spoke passable to very good English. In Nepal you only really talk to people who talk to tourists frequently. The only people I met that didn't speak English were our porters (and they were porters and not guides because they didn't speak English) and the wife of one of my guides with whom we had dinner one night.

In Thailand it's very easy to get around speaking no Thai, but I do often deal with people who speak no English. In those cases I usually just point or shake my head and I can get the idea across. Typically these people are vendors, selling me food or taxi/tuk-tuk rides.

I have taught myself a little Thai that is making things much easier. I can now say 'how much?', 'too expensive' and can count to 99. It's incredible how far this is taking me. It really makes life easier when dealing with street vendors, and I think I have a little more credibility when haggling if I do it in Thai. Also, it's good fun.

I've noticed two things related to the sun here in Thailand that I'd like to bounce off the physicists and other miscellaneous nerds in the audience:

1) It seems that it gets dark very quickly here. I don't mean early, I mean it goes from bright sun to dark night very quickly. The theory is that because I'm closer to the equator my linear velocity is faster than at home because I'm farther from the centre of the earth, so the sun disappears more quickly. This makes sense at first blush, but then I realized that I have farther to travel too, so the faster speed shouldn't help. Does anybody have any ideas? Is the sun setting faster, or is it an illusion?

2) I've discussed this with many people, and although we spend a lot of time outside in the blazing sun, no one seems to get a tan or a sun burn. On further observation, it seems only shoulders and other body parts that are normally horizontal seem to tan or burn, and other parts (like faces, arms, legs, etc) don't seem to tan/burn at all. The theory this time is that because the sun is much more overhead than it is in North America or Europe (I've talked to a lot of Europeans about this) that any vertical surface actually absorbs very little UV radiation. Does that make sense?

People seem to think that I'm not having a good time. I'd like to go on record to say that I'm having a really good time. I wasn't enamoured with Bangkok when I first got there, but other than that I really like Thailand (it could be a little cooler too, high 30's everyday is starting to get a little old). I'm meeting lots of interesting people, I've been out drinking and 'partying' the past 4 nights. Things are good.

The second day of the cooking course was much better than the first. Not because the course was better, but because I think the second day I got more into it and got more out of it. Other people said the same thing about enjoying it more as it went on. I wish I could have done another day, but I planned to do a rock climbing, trekking thing on the weekend. I spent Saturday and Sunday on a lake near Chiang Mai, with some nice limestone cliffs coming right out of the water. We did some climbing from a raft, jumped off the cliffs, floated around in an inner tube, and generally relaxed. It was pretty nice.

Yesterday I just relaxed in Chiang Mai and ran some errands. Today I'm in Chiang Rai, about 180km north of Chiang Mai. Tonight I'm going to a guest house out in the hills which over looks a valley of tea plantations and is within walking distance of some nice waterfalls and hot springs. It's supposed to be really nice. I'll spend two nights there, then head south the islands. It's going to be a bit of a marathon getting down there. I leave the guest house at 9am on Thursday, and get to Ko Tao at 9:30am on Saturday, after a mini-bus, a bus, two overnight trains, 12 hours in Bangkok and a boat. Not looking forward to it.

So, if you were worried I'm not enjoying myself, don't. I think I've enjoyed everyday in Thailand more than the last.

I just wrote a long entry but I lost it, and I'm too lazy to write it again, so here are the highlights:

Things are good, I'm enjoying thailand, the food is good, it's hot, and I posted some pictures.

Don't you hate it when you write a long email or something and you lose it?

I arrived in Thailand 6 days ahead of schedule because I cut my trek short. At the time 30 days seemed like a long time, but I'm only 6 days in and I'm already realizing I won't have enough time to do everything I want to do. Here's the plan:

I spent 5 days in Bangkok, two of those were on the trip to Kanchanaburi.

Today it took a cooking class in Chiang Mai, and I'll do the same tomorrow (the class was pretty good. Not fantastic, but I made 6 dishes that were pretty good, ate them all so I won't have to eat again today and got a cookbook all for about C$28).

Saturday and Sunday I'm going on an overnight tour thing where I'll do some rock climbing, kayaking, relaxing, hanging out, etc.

Monday I'll spend in Chiang Mai, and the Monday evening I'll leave for Ko Tao, and island south of Bangkok on the Pacific side, about halfway down the peninsula. There I'll get scuba certified in 4 days.

Then I have 3 or 4 days to hang around Ko Tao, or go to Krabi (near Phuket) to do some more rock climbing, then I'm off to Ko Phi Phi, one of the islands hardest hit by the tsunami to do some volunteer work for a week.

I'll probably just end up doing grunt work, but I'm looking forward to volunteering for three reasons: 1) it seems like the 'right thing to do', 2) it will be nice just to stay somewhere for more than 2 or 3 days, 3) after almost 2 months of just fulfilling my own desires and doing nothing productive, it'll be nice to do something worthwhile and constructive.

Then I have a day or two to get back to Bangkok and I'm off to Australia. I kind of wanted to get to Siem Reap in Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, but it costs C$275 to fly their from Bangkok, and going overland seems like a big hassle, so it looks like I'll miss Angkor Wat.

That's me for the next 3 weeks.

After my last post I got a few supportive emails saying that I shouldn't worry if I don't like a place, etc. I really appreciate that, but I never expected to like everything, especially right away, and I know that I'm going to get ripped off.

Something I've been thinking a lot about on this trip is the concept of relaxing. I'm not a good relaxer. I like to be doing something all the time, and know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow and the next day. While travelling, it's usually easy to fill up about 8 hours a day, but that leaves about 8 waking hours to fill. Travelling on my own makes this even harder, because I don't necessarily have anyone to talk to.

I knew this going in, and I've been consciously trying to get better at relaxing, and I think I am. The trip to Kanchanaburi was ok. We visited some world war II cemeteries and museums, went for a 20 minute trip down the River Kwai on a bamboo raft, rode an elephant, and then went to a waterfall that would have been spectacular in the rainy season, but didn't have enough water. Then most of the people returned to Bangkok, but a Czech guy and a guy from Hong Kong and I stayed around, and had dinner. Then we went to this floating house on the River Kwai where we were going to sleep, but it was only about 6pm. I think that naturally I'd feel kind of pent up and bored in this situation, but I spent a lot of days like this in Nepal, and I think I'm getting better at just chilling out. I swung in a hammock, read my book and watched the geckos on the ceiling eating bugs. I stayed up until about 9:30 then went to bed. It wasn't the time of my life, but it was pretty ok. Very relaxing.

I guess I know that there's going to be lots of time to kill, so I may as well try to enjoy where I am at the time (it was a really nice spot last night) and just enjoy it. Hopefully I'll meet up with more people in Chiang Mai, or later on, but when I'm on my own I'm getting better at just being.

Oh, today we went to Erawan National Park, where there is the '7 steps' waterfall. It's a river that flows down a hill, with 7 big waterfalls with pools at the bottom. We got there early before the crowds, and had the place to ourselves. It was really nice, we walked through the jungle, and swam in crystal clear pools below waterfalls.

I'm back in Bangkok now, for about 24 hours, and I go to Chiang Mai tomorrow night.

So, I'm in Bangkok. I can't say I'm crazy about the place, at least not yet. I think whenever I get to a new place I tend to see the bad, and it takes time for me to see the good.

I feel like everyone in Bangkok is trying to rip me off. When ever I get into a taxi or tuk-tuk they quote me a ridiculous rate (and most taxis won't put on the meter even if I ask). I've had to get out of two or three cabs before I went anywhere to get a good rate. Anytime I pull out my map or Lonely Planet a 'helpful' stranger will offer to give me directions to a hidden or special temple that's open today only. They'll offer to talk to a tuk-tuk driver to take me to these temples, but I'll end up a clothing or jewelery store. I read about this in the Lonely Planet, but actually fell for it once. I was taken to a jewelery store, and ended up having to get another taxi back to my hotel. Since then I'm wiser, but it's ridiculous: if I pull out my map within 10 seconds someone will approach me and offer something, and they aren't being helpful.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to Kanchanuburi, for a two day tour to see the bridge over the river kwai, some WWII museums, and then some national parks with jungle and waterfalls. I think the tour operator is somewhat legitimate, but I'm feeling a bit jaded so we'll see. After that I'm back in Bangkok for about 24 hours, then I catch an overnight train to Chiang Mai, where I'll take some cooking courses and maybe some jungle trekking. But that won't be until Wednesday.

Oh, I should recount my crazy first night in Bangkok. When I arrived I arranged a cab from the airport to Khao San Rd., which is the big backpackers area. When we were within about 2km of Khao San Rd. we started driving through a street party, with people all over the place with water guns, and buckets of water in the back of pickup trucks, and fire hoses, all soaking each other. Also, they were rubbing some kind of fine mud all over each other.

When we got within 1km of Khao San Rd. the road was closed, and I had to get out. So I walked down the street, with my big backpack on my back and my day pack on my front, through this massive street party with people soaking each other. As I got close to Khao San Rd. people completely filled the streets. So I was wading through people, with my big packs, when people started shooting me with water guns, pouring buckets of water down my back, and wiping the mud all over my face. When I got to Khao San Rd. I was making almost no progress, and it was clear it would be futile to try to get to the guest house I wanted to get to, so I just ducked into the nearest place that rented rooms. Ironically, it was called the 'Namaste Guest House' (ironic because I had just come from Nepal, home of a million Namaste hotels, lodges, restaurants, etc). The place was a hole, I have no idea how they stay in business without street parties driving people inside.

I dropped off my stuff and went back out, and danced in the street with everyone else. It was the last day of the week long new year's celebration. I got drenched, covered in mud, and generally had a good time. There was tons of cheap street food. The first thing I ate in Thailand was some pad thai from a street vendor, which was better than Nepal, where the first thing I ate was a chicken quesadilla.

Since I got back from the trek, I've been taking things pretty easy. I spent a few days doing almost nothing, trying to feel better, which I think was a great plan, because I've been feeling much better the past couple of days.

One of the guides from our trek took me climbing on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday we went to an artificial wall, which was actually outside under a big awning. On Tuesday we went outside, to a park on the edge of Kathmandu. Here's a shot of me leading a 5.9:

Climbing in hiking boots is not recommended. Yesterday I just hung out a bit and didn't do too much. Today the couple I was with on the trek and I went to a nearby town called Bhaktapur, and did a bit of sight seeing. Bhaktapur is a very old city, with lots of temples and small streets. Today is the Nepali New Years Day (Happy 2062!) so there were lots of people there celebrating and praying at the temples, etc. It was quite nice.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Bangkok, 6 days ahead of schedule.

One of the most unexpectedly interesting parts of the trek was seeing the Nepali people working on the trails. The local ethnic group in Khumbu are the Sherpas, but because there is lots of work from tourism lots of people come from all over Nepal to work there. So I met a lot of sherpas, and many other ethnicities too.

The main employment for people seemed to be as porters: carrying cargo for trekkers, for Everest expeditions, or to restock the many lodges in the area. A lot of the carrying of cargo was done by yaks, or jopkyos (yak/cattle crossbreeds), but there where still many porters.

The amount the porters carried was amazing. Our tour company limited each porter to 30 kg, but I think they carried more. Some, though, carried massive loads. I saw one guy (going up a particularly big hill) carrying 5 20 litre containers of kerosene. They weren't full, but he was carrying at least 75 kg. Other porters would have a load extend 5 or 6 feet above their heads.

All of this was carried in a 'doko', a big basket with a rope wrapped around it that they balance on their foreheads. They didn't use shoulder straps, all the weight was on their foreheads.

There were signs indicating that we should 'try to stop child labour', but there were many young kids carrying huge loads. On the way down we came upon a kid, probably 12 years old, with his doko on ground, sprawled out on some rocks looking terrible. I don't know if he had altitude sickness, or if he was just malnourished, or what, but he was in a bad state. Our guides (who at one point were porters themselves) weren't too concerned, saying that at the top of the hill (400m up) his friends would be waiting for him. We gave him some water and food, and he seemed happier when we left. This seemed like a normal situation to our guides.

As I've said before, there were 3 Canadians on our trek. For the 3 clients, the company arranged 2 guides, a cook, three kitchen boys and 5 porters. One of our porters looked about 12 years old, though the guides swear he was 17 (Nepalis do look younger than they are, but I swear he was no more than 14). When we got to Dingboche the youngest porter got pretty sick, he was vomiting and very weak. Our guides totally hid this from us, pretending like everything was fine.

It was very strange how we were treated. I've never had a servant, but that's the relationship we had with the kitchen boys and our porters. Bed, Dil and Mehendra served us food everyday. Along with Indra, our cook, they prepared the most amazing food on single kerosene stoves. There was always protein (beans, or maybe canned fish or chicken), two or three kinds of cooked vegetables, and one or two kinds of starch (rice, potatoes, chipatis, etc). They even cooked cakes and pies for dessert. The food was pretty incredible, given the conditions it was prepared under. When it was served to us, we weren't allowed to do anything but sit there. If the kettle was on the other side of the room, and we moved to go get it, they would run over and pick it up and bring it to us. They wouldn't even look us in the eye, and were incredibly gracious, to the point of sycophancy. It was really quite a strange relationship, not one that I was entirely comfortable with, but after a while I got used to. Our guides were more our equals, though they wouldn't eat with us even when we asked them too.

Really, the people in the Khumbu showed me how truly, amazingly easy we have things. Everything there is done by hand. Everything that is eaten was probably carried for several days. Buildings are constructed by digging and clearing foundations (including splitting and moving boulders in the ground) by hand. All the stones for each house was cut by hand using a hammer and chisel. Everything was done by manual labour, there was no machinery, and almost no electricity. Really, the people there were incredible.

Before I left I spent a lot of time wondering in coming to Nepal would be safe, given the escalating Maoist insurgency. I'm very glad I came, because I have been completly safe the whole time, but some recent events have been interesting.

Kathmandu and Khumbu (the Everest region) are both totally safe and secure. However most of the rest of the country are under Maoist control. The road to Jirii, for intstance, goes through several districts that are controlled by Maoists.

Until recently no white tourists have been injured in the civil war (I think some Indian tourists may have been though). From April 2 to 12 there was a natiionwide blockade imposed by the Maoists, meaning that people in Maoist controlled areas weren't allowed to work or drive. On Sunday a bus containing some Russian tourists was attacked with grenades and the tourists were injured: the first time whites were injured in the civil war.

I've been talking to the guy who runs my tour company here, who knows people in the British and American embassies, and to my guide from my trek who has lots of friends and contacts, and apparently what happened was that a tour company was driving the road to Jirii with trekkers in opposition of the Maoist blockade, figuring the Maoists wouldn't target them. The Maoists let the first bus go through, but said that none others should be sent during the blockade. When a second bus was sent it was attacked.

This is going to cripple the already devastated Nepali tourist industry. It's too bad, because the people here are so poor and need the business, but it looks like things have just taken a turn for the worst.

As I said, the blockade had no effect on me. The only thing it stopped me from doing was going white water rafting. I wanted to go rafting at a place about 3 hours outside of Kathmandu. The first scheduled course was to start early on the 13th (the day after the blockade), leaving Kathmandu at 6am. Given that the Maoists may have mined the roads, I thought it prudent to not be on the first bus to drive the roads after the blockade. So I'm not going rafting.

I changed my ticket, so I'm leaving on Friday. I don't feel at all unsafe, but it will be nice to get to a country where I don't have to worry about being attacked with grenades or land mines.

I've had a few days to reflect on the trek. Here're some of my thoughts on the actual specifics of the trek. I want to talk about the people I met too, but I'll do that in a subsequent post.

There are two ways to get to Everest Base Camp: either you drive to a town called Jirii, or you fly to a town called Lukla. Jirii is the end of the road, but it's a 7 day walk from Lukla. The flight to Lukla is only about 40 minutes, so we went that route. You can't fly much past Lukla because it's too high, your body couldn't handle being dropped into that without acclimatization.

The first day was a leisurely stroll downhill. Because tourism is so down in Nepal right now there were only three of us in my group: myself and a couple from Toronto named Daniel and Solange. Dan and Solange turned out to be very nice. Something I didn't count on was the enormous amount of free time we would get every day after we stopped trekking. We arrived at the first town we were going to stop in at about 1:30pm (you have to fly very early in the morning when the winds are light, so you get in early). They served us tea at 4pm and dinner at 6:45 every night, but other than that we had nothing to do. After about 4pm the sun would go behind a mountain and it would start to get cold.

I think that in a normal large group we would spend all of our time outside, but because we were a small enough of a group we were always allowed to sit inside a lodge in the evening (we'd rent camping space and a little cooking shed from lodges for a small fee). Most lodges had a wood stove and lights, so we could stay warm and read, but that's all there was to do for about 6 hours/day. The first day this came as a bit of a shock, but after a few days I got used to just sitting and doing nothing, and I kind of liked it.

While we were trekking it was always very enjoyable. When you are trekking at altitude you have to go very slowly, so on the uphills we were maybe doing 2km/hour, with lots of breaks, but that just gave us a chance to enjoy the scenery. Also, days tended to be very short. We never trekked for more than 6 hours, plus one hour for lunch, and some days it was more like 3 hours. This is because you can't gain more than 300-400m/day, or if you do, you have to stop an extra day there to acclimatize.

Day 2 was a big uphill to the town of Namche Bazar, which was the only real town we saw. You could get satelite internet there, and there was tons of counterfeit North Face gear for sale at bargain prices. We were scheduled to spend 2 nights in Namche, because we gained too much altitude for one day getting there (we did 800m getting to Namche) so we spent two nights there acclimatizing. On the second morning Daniel and Solange were both sick, so we decided to stay another night to see if they felt better. They did, so we continued to the town of Tengboche. By this time I was really starting to enjoy myself. Once leaving Namche you round a corner and can see Everest and Lhotse (see the picture below) for the entire time. It snowed quite heavily on the way into Tengboche, but by 4pm the clouds broke and the sun came out and the mist and snow on the mountains was breathtaking.

The next morning I got sick, but we kept going up to the town of Dingboche. We were scheduled to spend another acclimiatization day in Dingboche too, so I sat there for a day feeling like crap. On the day were supposed to go up Daniel and Solange decided they weren't feeling well enough and I don't think were fully enjoying the trek, so they decided to turn around. The original plan was for us to go up for 4 more days, go to base camp and return to Dingboche, where I'd met another client and she and I would climb a mountain, and Daniel and Solange would take one of our two guides and go down. So I know had to decide if I wanted go with their guide down immediately, or wait 9 days for my guide to finish the climb with the other client. As I've alreay said, I went down.

The hike down was pretty excrutiating. My stomach was just in knots, and walking, even mostly downhill, for 6 hours a day sucked. Solange really wanted to get out quickly, so we turned a 4 day walk out into 3. The last day was really long, and it just sucked. I was in constant pain, and it was mostly uphill. But it's probably for the best, because I got to a doctor a day earlier, and I got cleared up a day earlier.

The antibiotics the doctor in Kathmandu gave me seem have done the trick. I'm feeling great, eating a ton and am generally happy.

I finally got the file uploading working. Here are some photos.

This one is Ama Dablam, a mountain that sits by itself and is really pretty stunning:


This is one of Everest (it's the bump mostly in the centre), with Nuptse in front of it (Nuptse is a long, wall like mountain in front of Everest) and Lhotse on the right:


I'll write more about this later...

Those of you paying attention will know that today is Apr. 9, not Apr. 18, but I'm sitting back in Kathmandu. My trek has ended a bit prematurely, 9 days prematurely. I got pretty sick and decided to turn around. I have lots of interesting things to say about they trek (well, interesting relative to most of the stuff on this blog), but I think I'll break it up over several posts. Today I'll just talk about why I turned around, and I'll save the rest for another time.

The trek started out with me freaking out a bit. I was still really jet lagged when we started and I think that had a big part in it. Also, the whole things was just a bit daunting and committing: 20 days sleeping in a tent, in the cold (0 degrees the first, lowest night, getting colder from there), eating weird food (more on the food in a subsequent post, it was really quite good, just different) and generally feeling alone.

After 2 or 3 days I finally got a good night's sleep and I was in much better spirits. I was in the most beautiful place I'd ever been, and all I had to go was walk around and a appreciate it. On day 5 I woke up feeling fantastic, in one of the most picturesque places I'd ever been: overshadowed by Ama Dablam (sometimes called the most beautiful mountain in the world) with Everst, Lhotse and Nuptse of in the distance. After about 30 minutes I started feeling lousy, by 10am I was vomitting, and by the afternoone I was vomitting with diarreah. This went on for two days, at which point we were about 3 days from Everet Base Camp. I was taking Cipro, but I think I got something resistant to Cipro. My itinerary was to go to EBC, then come back to where I was, and go up a different valley and climb a mountain. The people I was travelling with were supposed to go with me to EBC, then return the the town we were currently in, and take on of our guides a return to Kathmandu. They weren't feeling well, so they decided to turn around early.

So, I know had a decision to make. One of our two guides (and some of our support staff of cooks and porters) was going to turn around, but we were supposed to meet another client to climb the mountain, so the other guide wouldn't be going down for 9 days. I had to decide if I wanted to stay or go. I knew that Base Camp was out for me. I wasn't keeping fluids down, so I wasn't acclimatizing to the altitude I was at, so it would have been idiotic to try to ascend for a few days. I might still have been able to make the climb by resting a few days. I decided, though, that trying to force myself to go to 6189m when I hadn't been able to eat anything in days (it's day 6 since I got sick and I've still barely eaten anything) was foolish. I think it was the right decision. I sat around watching TV all morning resting up, and I finally feel somewhat better, but I'm still super weak and I know I'm not up for doing the most strenuous excercise of my life. So it was probably the right decision. On the plus side, I got a letter from a doctor saying I was physically incapable of doing the climb, so I should get some money back from insurance.

I'm going to see another doctor today in Kathmandu, but I think the worst is behind me. Apparently they have the best hospital of diarreha in the world in Kathmandu, so if any bugs are lingering they should be able to find them.