Scottish Whisky

We were planning to go to the Castle right away, but it was really crowded and late in the afternoon so we opted for the Whisky Tour instead. It's right outside the Castle on the right. I've been trying to get everyone I know who goes to Edinburgh to get on this thing, but no one ever listens to me. It's been renovated, sadly, so is less surreal. When I stumbled in years ago, sodden wet and by myself, it just freaked me out. It started out all normal, with a miniature reconstruction of a whisky distillery and someone explaining how they make the whisky while pouring out small amounts into your souvenir glass, they there was a room with a ghost projected onto a screen to tell you about the history, and by the time I stepped into a wine cask and went on this 'It's a Small World After All' tour with animatronics making illegal whisky in the woods, I was just absolutely boggled.

Now you get into the cask right off the bat, it's well done, but without the freaky moving mannequins. They do have the largest collection of Whisky in the world, something like 37,o00 bottles, from a Brazilian collector.

They really like their whisky.


That's a condom dispenser full of Scotch Whiskey flavoured condoms. Now, I don't know if you've ever had Scotch Whisky, but it's kind of like getting a kick in the face. It's not something you slowly savour, if you get what I'm saying. I can understand these being a gag gift, but this was in a bathroom beside the tampon machine.

Those bastards stole my idea!!

Hermit crabs in glass shells video.

Edinburgh

I love Edinburgh. It's becoming really popular as a tourist destination apparently, I hope all the visitors don't ruin what is so good about it. One thing I'm really sensitive about now, after so much travelling, is how you are treated by the locals. If there are a lot of tourists, people get sick of it. I can't fault anyone for that, so now I try to go to places no one wants to go to. It turns out that places people avoid aren't necessarily the poor travel choices, if anything it's the really popular places that suck. Colombia was amazing, and no one goes there. The occasional kidnapping might have something to do with that.

We stayed at a small B&B a 30 minute walk from the downtown area. There are about a billion festivals going on all at the same time and it was the only one I could find that had space for us. It was nice enough, but we had to share a bathroom with 8 other people, and that never works. On the plus side, their logo was a tyrannosaurus holding a heart, so that kind of evened things out. Plus after all that uphill walking and trekking up four flights of stairs to get anywhere, we are vaguely less out of shape!

York

I spent a week in York in 2003 when I was supposed to be staying with a friend in London who apparently forgot this fact and left for France. It was a confusing few weeks. My Dad's cousin was kind enough to put me up, especially considering we'd never met, and also her son almost died of pneumonia a few days before I got there. I had a great time back then, and will probably never be able to repay her. It's a lovely city, so Mom and I decided to spend a night there instead of going all the way up to Edinburgh in one day.

Most places won't book for only one night, so we ended up at Crook's Lodge, which was lovely, but whenever I tried to figure out exactly where it was on Google Maps, it appeared to be situated in the middle of an empty field. Considering the name of the place, I was a little concerned, but thankfully it's just a programming glitch.

We wandered about and I made Mom climb to the top of the York Ministry, and then we spent the rest of the day with jelly legs and a surly Mom. We also got to listen to Don McClean's doppleganger. We're not entirely convinced it wasn't Don McClean. We took another Ghost Tour, only this time instead of a small group and mostly historical facts, it was an enormous group and a man in costume playing the part of a surly ghost hunter. It was really funny, the best part being the little kids who probably didn't get to sleep until 3am after all that hysterical giggling.

Graduation

Mom and I spent 5 nights in Oxford. Derek and I had been there for a few days back in November, it felt a little odd being back so soon. It's such a great city though, beautiful parks, lots to do. There's a great Ye Olde Print shop that sells old prints, most from books, and I picked up one of a giraffe from the 1800's that was clearly drawn by someone who had never seen a giraffe. It looks like a mutant polka dotted camel. We also took a ghost walk, which, much to my Mother's great disappointment, didn't involve any ghosts. I suspect this might be because they don't actually exist, but that's because I am boring.

Matt graduated with a Masters in Law, with a class prize in one course. You thought he was smug and arrogant before, that was just practice. I got to spend the ceremony in his dorm room surfing the internet, as there was a limited amount of tickets, which ended up me being the lucky one. Apparently some people go to these things without bathing, and they sit jammed up against my Mom and might occasionally pass wind. Also it poured rain as soon as they stepped outside, and didn't stop until I was to join them. So everyone was very proud, but also had really big hair.

(Matt had to wear that outfit, minus the blue part, to sit his exams, which is one of those traditions in Britain that just cracks me up. Like the lawyers in the British Law and Order in their silly wigs.)

Oxford

So we flew business class, which I'm just going to casually throw out there. Travelling with my Mother is a very different story then backpacking with Derek was, starting with the lounge area, that had a free self serve bar (we tried to smuggle out a ziploc bag of wine, but were thwarted by the fact that I had checked my ziplocs with my luggage), and ending with The Pod.


I am in love with The Pod. Really, there's no reason why a flight shouldn't take 12 hours when you are cocooned within your multimedia and constant supply of free roasted nuts sanctuary. The only snag came when we received our gluten free meals, which was, wait for it... boiled chicken with nothing on it. No salt. No butter. What do these people think gluten is?! We're not allergic to flavour. The strangest part was that all the meals in the menu (yes, you get a menu in business class) were gluten free. So we switched our plain boiled chicken for scallops and veal, and snorted at such poor service rendered to us by the flea ridden masses.

We took the bus up to Oxford (they have free wifi on the buses in the UK. We're such savages in Canada) and checked into the Burlington House B&B, which is just darling. I can't recommend it enough. The manager is totally sweet, the breakfast was delicious, and the rooms very comfortable.

Tired

So I was planning to post today, but I am too tired. We just left Oxford this morning and spent the day in York, walking up the Ministry tower and joining a Ghostwalk.

We leave for Edinburgh tomorrow.

I did get up at 6:30am, this isn't completely pathetic. Only mostly pathetic.

Red Deer, Alberta!

I just spent a week with my Mom in Red Deer. I've never really spent time there before, just driven through. Your average small city, lots of franchises and strip malls. The University, where we were, was nice. They added a new wing, and the week long art classes we were taking were held there, which seems like a good idea, but the construction wasn't finished. I'm thinking maybe having a cherry picker backing up towards me four feet from my desk might be a matter for the safety board, because that ain't right. 

Besides the mortal danger, it was a lot of fun. I painted flowers, Mom drew naked people. Then we both drew naked people in the evenings. It's like a really weird mother-daughter bonding activity; drawing a penis together. Mom got carried away at one point and drew one model's penis the same size as his head. I doubt he minded that much. You can see what I did at my sketch blog at evernon.blogspot.com, something new every day this week. 

Oh man, there's a bunch of bugs in the keyboard and every word I type is mashing them to death.

Espanol

I don't think I could live somewhere where I did not speak the language. It is far too stressful. People who snarl at immigrants to just learn English already need to be beaten.

In Canada I mean. I don't think they say that here.

The Gold Museum in Bogota

We went to the Gold Museum on Sunday (free on Sunday! But English tour groups during the week), and I have to say, I was impressed. I've been to a lot of museums and my tolerance for bad ones has gotten pretty low. Unless you are so bad that you've hung rotting stinky whale bones in the foyer, at which point you've crossed right over to awesome. (and smelly)

It's all about the indigenous people of Colombia. There is a lot of gold in the mountains and rivers here, this is where El Dorado was supposed to be, so they have room after room of ancient gold jewelry and sculptures, as well as pottery and a dead guy in a sack. A lot of it is quite artistically inspiring, they could do some crazy things with pots.

Traffic lights and roses

So in Bogota the traffic lights are set directly in front of the line of cars, not across the street. This means that if you drive too close to the line, you can't see the lights, but also if I am standing on the meridian trying to cross, I can not see any of the lights. This is why it is important for people to travel, so that perhaps they'll know THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG.

One fun past time here is to tell the locals how much roses cost back home, which is always met with a WHA!? You can get a large beautiful bouquet from the kid walking around the cars parked at the light for 5 bucks, in any colour roses grow in. Almost all of the worlds roses come from Bogota, at least the ones we get in Canada are grown here. We drove past the greenhouses last sunday on the way to the salt mine. I feel I need to stock up on flower related happiness while I'm here, though I have no idea what I'll do with them. I guess the one pot Dad has is kind of like a vase.

Medellin

Medellin was once listed as the most dangerous city in the world, with a recorded homicide rate 11 times higher then Chicago. Escobar, one of the two largest cartels in Colombia and the 7th richest man in the world in 1989, lived there and he was fond of killing anyone who refused to work with him, as well as building shelters for the poor and throwing lavish parties. His house is still there, as well as the plane used to fly drugs to the states. Escobar was killed after a call to his family was traced and they shot him through the ears as he ran, barefoot, over the rooftops.

Anyway, now it's a tourist destination.

The Antioquia Museum is there, with one of the largest collections of Botero (link) paintings and sculptures as he donated most of his work to them recently. Most of his work is of very large rotound people, which appears a lot less original after being to Medellin. They love their food there. At the museum I got told off for taking a photo of an old obscure sketch of a skeleton chasing a guy on stilts with a lasso (I know it's wrong, but I didn't use flash and they don't sell postcards or prints of it. I mean, come on.), then for standing too close to a painting (they put tape on the ground. You weren't supposed to step over the tape. It was grey tape on a grey floor.) and then for putting my hand on the ledge of a large case so I could get closer to the one inch carving that was set at the back of a three foot deep cabinet. We were also two of maybe five people in the museum and every person working there would follow us around, standing maybe 3 feet away and STARING at us. It is not a friendly museum.

Outside they have about 15 large Botero statues, and we found one of Derek's massive head.
There was a large pool at the hotel, and I forgot my swimsuit, so after we drove around looking for one, which you know I love doing, especially in a foreign language. The top photo is taken from the most beautiful mall in the world, which also has one of the best views in the world. You know, for a country that has had so many problems, they're doing alright. I swam laps for 45 minutes after dark. The water was heated (it's cold at night in the mountains) and small bats glided through the mist rising from the water a few feet from me.

The next day we checked out the small zoo. It's mostly full of local animals, which in Canada is boring as hell, but pretty awesome in a country that has rainforest, mountains, deserts, and beaches. There were large iguanas in almost every section, and we're pretty sure they weren't put there, as well as large parrots screeching from the tops of trees, and some large rodent that looked like a cross between a guinea pig and a capybara that stuck it's nose through a fence trying to get at my icecream bar. There was one large pen that had a small island in the middle with pygmy marmosets in the trees, and a zookeeper was trying to chase an iguana off and chased it around and around the island for a good 5 minutes. When he finally got it off, the iguana, a tapir, and a capybara wandered off out of sight together.

Crazy large flower growing near the sidewalk at the zoo.

Look at his silly face!

Afterwards we drove off to Santa Fe de Antioquia, a city founded 50 years after Colombus got here. The country side in Colombia is amazing.

Right before we got there, Dad had his gall bladder attack, so he lay down at a local hostel and I got lunch with the cab driver to see if the painkillers would help any. The cabbie didn't speak any English, and I speak about eight words of Spanish, so we flipped through my phrasebook and pointed at sentences. He was an incredibly good natured guy, and got us to the airport with Dad curled up in agony in the front seat at top speed. Thankfully the flight to Bogota is incredibly short, they gave me a juice box when we got in the air, and I didn't have time to finish it before we landed.

Hospital

Dad and I went to Medellin for the weekend, and right at the end, 3 hours from the airport, his gallbladder tried to kill him. When we got back to Bogota Giovanni drove us to the hospital and they said it would have to be removed. The surgery was yesterday, and he was discharged today, everything went fine. I'm really impressed by the doctors here, and they all speak fluent English, which is surprising since finding english speakers here is as common as it was in South Korea. I spent two nights sleeping on the couch in his room, the nurses brought me sheets, a blanket and a pillow and made a bed up for me. There was also a large flat screen TV with cable, and there are usually about 3 english movies on at any time in Bogota, so it wasn't too painful an experience. For me anyway.

Also it turns out to be the same hospital I was born in, and Raphael helped to track down where my records might be kept. All part of my hairbrained attempt to renew my citizenship, so I can get searched on my flights. Colombians need a visa to go anywhere. We don't realize how good we have it as Canadians.

Colombian Fruit

One of the depressing things about living in Canada is our fruit selection. We can only get the types of fruit that travel well, which usually means they have to be able to ripen after being picked (which destroys most of the flavour, and nutrition content) and they can't bruise easily. So one of the first things I wanted to do here was go to the grocery store and grab one of every fruit I didn't recognize. Turns out there are quite a few.

Pitaya (link) Also known as Dragon Fruit.
You can get these in Toronto, in Chinatown, but they are a different variety, bright pink with green tips. The yellow ones are better, they actually have flavour, and are very juicy with fewer, larger black seeds. They have a mild fruity sweet taste.

Tamarillo (link)
These are gross. The skin and area near the skin are bitter and inedible, which doesn't take long to figure out. The insides aren't as bad, kind of musky. I think this falls under ingredient fruit.

Passionfruit (link)
I always assumed passionfruit would be pink and delicious. It is neither! It's a fruit the same way a lemon is a fruit, you don't eat them. Very bitter and tart. Why the hell it's called passionfruit I have no idea. It should be called Mucas Lemon.

Curuba (or Banana Passionfruit) (link)
These taste exactly like passionfruit, but instead of having a hard round shiny shell, they are like a furry soft cucumber. Still gross.

Uchuva (link)
These are trendy in Montreal right now, you get one with it's brown leaf thing still attached when you order pastries. Here you can buy a pint of them for a few dollars, and they are very juicy and sweet. They call them snake berries.

Granadilla (link)
These are the best thing ever. When I started cutting it the shell just broke apart, it's very brittle, and the insides fell out ready to be eaten. It looks like frog spawn, the seeds are crunchy like pumpkin seeds and it's very sweet and fruity.

Guava (link)
I'm always annoyed when you get guava flavoured drinks, because they NEVER taste like guava. Guava juice should taste like you should be chewing it, which is a sensation you will only understand if you have had fresh guava juice. We had guava in Asia and it was dry and flavourless, it's much better here.

Lulo (link)
It tastes like a kiwi!

And thus concludes fruit round up one. There are still some I need to find and try, and also there are some crazy looking vegetables that I have never seen before.

Safe

If it wasn't for all the press and warnings you would have no idea that Bogota was once considered a most dangerous destination. There are the occasional army personal holding a machine gun standing around (on that note, is jungle camo really appropriate for an urban area? Not exactly blending into the skyscraper there.), but there were more of them in Paris and no one raised an eyebrow when I went there. Not to say it's as safe as Toronto, kidnappings still happen and there are still plenty of guerrillas in gum boots hiding where they can, but life goes on downtown.

When I was boarding the plane, right after having my ticket and passport checked, I turned the corner and there were 8 armed police officers checking identification and asking for reasons why one would be going to Colombia. They waved me past, I don't know if they were looking for anyone in particular, but the plane that was fully booked when I checked in was half full. I've never dealt with that kind of security before, it was kind of ominous.

On the way to Dad's apartment we drove past the building I was born in, maybe. Dad's not sure and like hell I'd remember. I left when i was 6 months old.

One thing that surprised me: they have the exact same voltage and outlets that we have in Canada. That certainly makes things easier, electronic wise.

BOGOTA

WOO
Leaving in 4 hours, totally not ready. Oh man, I gotta get going.

Excuses

So, Dad is something of a power tourist, and I've had a lot less downtime then during my four month aimless wanderings, which is mostly a good thing, but did mean whenever I had spare time it was used for napping. I'm heading home today, and then I leave on the 25th for Bogota, back in Toronto on May 26th. Considering Dad will be working during that month, and I can't wander too aimlessly by myself around the FARQ, events will be more commonly updated.

I'm fairly certain my readers currently consist of Mouki and Joel right now anyway (hi guys).

One things I've been really impressed at in South America is how NOT creepy the men are. I think India has scarred me for life, but seriously, people here are very kind and, well, not creepy. I've always kind of agreed that people could stand to be more modest in western culture, that no one needs string bikinis, but now I'm not so sure. In cultures where women cover up, the men deserve to be beaten. They aren't covering up out of modesty, it's honest fear of molestation. But in cultures where suntanning nude in the middle of a downtown park is normal, the scent of wannabe rapists is gone. We NEED skanks! It's a real light bulb moment for me.

Vina del Mar

We managed to pick up Nanny the next day, despite a preference for sleeping in. She got off a two week cruise somewhere in the city so it was another driving aimlessly around trying to find something without a map or an address, thankfully people were very helpful and knew where we needed to go. It's hard to miss a boat that big.

We took a drive up the coast, through little summer cabin neighborhoods and past beaches. The water is quite cold around here, so most people in the water were wearing wetsuits. We stopped at a little resorty town and had some amazing ceviche.

It is really a beautiful place.

Chile!

A couple things have surprised me about Chile. First, I am in the exact same time zone as I was in Toronto despite a 10 hour flight, which makes Chile my new favourite vacation destination because jet lag sucks. The other is how clean and modern it is. I was all prepared for a hint of developing nation and now I feel all racist. Toronto is dirtier then Santiago.

Dad met me at the airport which started off a panic because he didn't have his luggage. He'd arrived 6 hours before me, and due to circumstances I still do not fully understand, he had left without picking up his bag. It was eventually found in the airline's office. You could see it through the glass, behind its locked doors, which were to remain locked until Monday because everyone had taken off for Easter weekend.

(I'll save you any suspense, we managed to pick it up today.)

We drove out to Vina Del Mar without the aid of a map because we couldn't find one, and even managed to find the hotel I'd booked by driving aimlessly around. The luck of the Vernon's, which held out at the casino, when I managed to win enough money by hitting random buttons to buy Dad a cigar. Admittedly we were given coupons and I won less then the coupon was originally worth, but I still consider it a victory.

Again

Off again, sitting the airport waiting for my flight to Chile. They have free wifi at Pearson now! We've finally caught up to every international airport in Asia! But there are no plug-ins anywhere, because that would be too obvious.

I haven't been writing in here because I'm a horrible person, but also because I found this 3D program that exports flash files, and so who needs you anymore. I really do still intend to write a few things, especially about Mumbai when we visited the neighborhood I spent a year of my childhood in. Also, the pillow menu. And Korea was amazing.

Eventually.

I already miss the ability to drink the tap water and I haven't even left yet. I am so judging people who buy bottled water in TO now, the tap water here is amazing. It's almost sweet tasting. Also it's not brown and won't give you the runs, you can't improve on that people!

Back in Canada

So we're back. Crashing at Joel's place and infesting his attic. I haven't been writing anything here due to a combination of the Koreans love of getting white people drunk and then recently trying to adjust to a bedtime 12 hours away from where it used to be. There are still a couple posts on India in the works, we ended up in two five star hotels and I tried to find my old apartment near Juhu beach. Turns out things have changed the last 20 years. I also need to write about Korea, which ended up being one of the highlights of the four month trip.

I'll be heading to South America in a few weeks and will keep writing about my travels, but Derek will be staying in Toronto. He managed to land a job before we even got back, to the collective sigh of relief of all parental figures. I'll be in Chile and Argentina for almost two weeks, and then to Bogota for a month. I was born in Bogota, so I'm particularly excited about that. Also, already knowing how to say hello, please, and thank you in Spanish without even having been there yet! I could never figure them out in Korean. There's like 6 syllables in thank you.

So, anyway, posts coming soon, if I ever figure out which box I put my computer monitor in.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBERT from Korea!

The best part of this video is Jonathon on the left drinking his beer and being too hungover to sing or even acknowledge what is going on. The St. Patrick day parade is going on in the background, and by parade I mean a bunch of expats milling about and drinking free guiness.

Mumbai, again

We spent another couple days in Mumbai before leaving for Korea to do some shopping. Thankfully our train ride in was not 48 hours, it was 26. Derek blames the Lonely Planet book, I'm just very thankful he was mistaken.

Most of the tourist hotels downtown are near the Taj hotel, so up and down the main road there are tons of tourist shops and the sidewalk is lined with stalls. We wandered around and did some shopping, and there was one women, just off to the side, who I noticed last time we were in Mumbai who was still in the same spot. She sets up her stall before anyone else, and shuts it down last and she sleeps beside it at night. There are a number of people who sleep on the streets, but she stood out in my mind partly because clearly everything she has for sale is trash she's cleaned up, and I never saw her sell anything, but also because she has befriended a fat street dog who sleeps curled up beside her. And one night, when it got cold... she put a t-shirt on the dog. Fine. You win this round old woman. I wandered over to buy something from her and poked around the broken jewelry and dirty scraps of clothes before choosing a piece. She said it was 70 rupees, I offered her 40 and bought it and as we were walking away Derek was like ... what the hell?

I don't know what happened. I was trying to treat it like an actual shopping experience and we'd been bargaining all day, so I guess it was like a knee jerk thing, but seriously, who goes to buy some garbage from an old street person and offers them less money. Arrrg. I suck at this.

I love you India

This probably could have been easily predicted, but now that we're leaving I don't want to leave. I blame the north. I started thinking that I must have just over reacted, but the taxi driver we caught from the train station in Mumbai tried everything he could to scam us and Derek is still in a foul mood and oh right. The scammers. There are many of them in India, but the concentration is in the north. That rickshaw who offered us a tour of Kerala? Didn't once try to take us to a gem shop or a government store. Not once. I'm still vaguely stunned by this.

We're leaving on the 10th, for Korea (the south. Mom, not the north) which means we miss Holi by one day. One day!! This is painful. It's the festival where everyone goes around and throws paint at strangers. One traveller we met told us about how his hotel manger stormed into the dorms as soon as the sun was up, yelled out HAPPY HOLI and doused them in neon pink. And how they were on a bus which suddenly hit a roadblock made from debris and everyone started rolling up their windows when a bunch of 10 year olds ran out out of the ditches and pelted the bus with colour.

So mad.

I blame the bachelour party. The bachelour party I am not even going to. I am missing Holi so my boyfriend can go to the strippers. I think this is karma for trying to give a 5 rupee note that had been ripped in half to two different urchins.

Alappuzha (Alleppey)

So we decided to take a houseboat on the backwaters. Derek thinks calling it the 'Backwaters' makes it sound very mysterious and adventurous. It isn't. It's something you do when you are old and like to sit in a wicker chair and look at things. I am both glad we did it and glad that we only did it for one night.

We originally ended up in Kottayam, booked into a hotel and then realized we needed to go to Alappuzhu. This is what happens when I plan things. The hotel (which was very nice and had a pool because Derek, in his sickness, has turned into a princess) offered us a houseboat for 8000 rupees, and we said we wanted to pay 3000, and they scoffed and said it would never happen. Everyone says this when you don't give into their scams. EVERYONE. Oh, you don't want to book my hotel? All the other hotels are full. Oh they aren't, you were just there? Well, you will never get a room for 300, that is insane. What, they all had rooms for 300? IT ISN'T TRUE. (Derek had that exact conversation a few days ago) The one thing you can say about the scammers in India is that they are poor on originality. If one person does it, they all do it. It makes things easier, but there's also an element of oh god just shut up I've heard this a million times.

So we get on the bus to Alappuzcha, which I enjoyed if only for the bat jerky hanging from the electrical wires. At first you think they are leaves, and then when the bus stops beside one for a moment you realize, no, that is a very large, very dead, very dry bat hanging 12 feet in the air.

We walked into the first travel agency we found and booked a houseboat for 3000 (HAH). One of the enormous difference between the north and the south is how relaxed people here are, which is best demonstrated when Derek gets off the bus and is promptly surrounded by touts. Alappuzha is hugely touristy, more so then many areas we were in in the north, and the touts stood in a circle holding their business cards waiting quietly for the one currently giving his spiel to Derek to finish. This would never happen in the north, they'd all be yelling and waving in your face and you'd end up with three of those cards up your nose before you managed to break away and then two of them would chase you for at least 10 minutes. I imagine this is climate related, no one in Kerala is worried about starving to death in a desert.

The houseboat was very nice, it even had a tv on it that we never used. We floated around and looked at things and read books.

They offered a canoe ride through the smaller local channels (extra money, of course) so we hopped on and Derek got to paddle me around which THRILLED him to no end. The best part was all the other tourists we saw in either motorized boats or two locals paddling. I don't know why Derek was so whiny, he keeps talking about all the time he's going to spend at the gym when we get back.

We also purchased a very large fresh water prawn, from a passing canoe, that had the longest blue arms I have ever seen on a crustacean. You can't really tell from the photo, but his arms are BLUE.

He was delicious.

All the food was really awesome, with enough for four people. It was the best part. After dinner entertainment was a gecko a few feet from us eating all the bugs that were attracted by our light. We went to bed early, because Derek is still feeling sick, and there's really not much to do on a houseboat at night.

The next day we were heading to the train station to catch a ride to Kochi so we can get on our 48 hour train ride of death tomorrow, and the rickshaw driver kept pushing a much more expensive tour up, with him of course, where he would take us to some sites on the way. I said no at first, but with the upcoming train ride looming in the future, decided that maybe it would be better. Plus while it was clearly more then a local would pay, no one in Canada would ever drive you around for 3 hours for 17 dollars. It turned out to be a good idea because neither of us had any idea there was an amazing beach here.

HUGE beach, no one on it, but some fisherman, gorgeous sands. Far better then anything we saw in Goa. I'm so confused. There is a resort that charges 500 dollars a night, so clearly people know about it. There are cheaper places, of course, and some homestays. If you wanted to go to a beach, then we found you one. We also found you a miming Jesus. He's good, you could almost believe he's actually stuck in a glass box.

Our driver also took us to some small factories where they were making coconut fiber mats and string, which was really cool to see because it's all made by hand, and the workers are all friendly and (occasionally toothless) smiles.

Illness!

Derek caught some bug yesterday, leaving me to wander around the town by myself. It's so different here then it was in the north, I'm the only white person around, and NOBODY CARES. I love it. I picked up a large dinner for the two of us with desert for 3 dollars. I was getting really worried last night, Derek felt like a radiator, but was shivering and complaining of being too cold. Then a few hours later his fever broke and he was all clammy, now he's almost fine. Who knows what that was, probably food related. I was worried I'd have to bundle him onto our 42 hour train ride all fever-dreaming.

We're in Munnar right now, surrounded by tea plantations and spice farms. It's lovely here. A month ago I was all GOD why won't this end, but now I don't want to go home. Of course. We're heading to Mumbai on the 4th to do some shopping, then a week in South Korea annoying Courtney before heading home so Derek can go to a bachelor party in Montreal and I can send him angry text messages every few hours.

There's a shop nearby that sells spices and homemade chocolate (of questionable quality), and their halwa is AMAZING. It's like a large block of jujube-jelly full of figs and nuts and every spice in the store. Also it's 30 cents for 100 grams.

We saw this painting for sale in Kochi. They wanted about 600 dollars for it. I'm tempted to go back and try to bargain them down, this is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

Camel Trekking Part 1

(I wrote this a month ago and haven't finished it, but it's getting long so I'll just put up the first part for now. The camel trek is one of the reasons I'm glad I went to Rajasthan. Also - green mustard curry.)

Part of our over-priced car rental was a free camel safari, which is a very touristy thing to do in the northwest of Rajahstan. I was looking forward to this, and not too worried since I figured if they deal with hysterical suburbanites and their sullen children then we probably won’t get thrown into too many thorn bushes. (Just the one.) Now that I’ve done some reading on the treks, I think we got very very lucky, not in where we stayed (scammer central), but in one of our camel drivers, The Smartest Camel Driver in the World. He must work for tips, and instead of being the smarmy annoying scammer that is all too common to the north, he’s gone with the be really nice and authentic style of tip-upping. Is it possible to start a school to train people in that style? Somebody needs to write that book. I feel like I need to track him down right now and give him more money, with everyone else I just want to go back and kick them in the butt. Derek’s camel guy was somewhat less impressive, a 15 year old who treated it much like your average teen would treat flipping burgers.


Khuhri is a small town outside of Jasailmer, located within a national park. The place we were at, The Desert Camp, has a group of thatched huts inside an enclosure for tourists to stay. They offered to show us around the village, which is all old-style mud homes with goats and cows wandering around, which of course ended with a sales pitch. Oh, won’t you help these poor people by buying these homemade blankets that take them many months to sew, you know, the ones you can buy in Canada for half the price that are made in Nepal. TTHHPTH.

There were two options with the camel ride, sleep out in the desert (a kilometre or so away) or come back and sleep in the hut. I chose the desert, so they piled on the heavy blankets and assured us they’d be bringing us dinner.

(My camel driver and his Camel, Lalu. When I went to take the photo he held up a hand and took his turban off and stuck it on Derek's head. This is when I realized he is the Smartest Camel Driver in the World.)

Riding a camel is a lot like riding a horse, if that horse was on pogo sticks. They lie down for you to climb on, and when they stand back up they stick their butt in the air, putting you at a nearly vertical angle. It's terrifying. It's also the only thing keeping you from telling them you want down, because you know the camel going to stick their butt in the air to do so. And there’s nothing to hold onto. At least on a horse you have that thought that if things get out of hand you can grip the horse’s neck. A camel’s neck is very far away, and long enough so that it can reach around and bite you, or perhaps spit in your face. Our camels were very nice though, and only stumbled occasionally.


They took us on a roundabout journey, a few hours through rocky land before hitting the sand dunes. We saw lots of antelope, some large Egyptian vultures, a desert fox that they chased for a bit, and, of course, goats and cows. I didn’t get many photos as that would have required loosening my death grip on the saddle. My camel driver, who sat behind me, only knew the few English words he needed to know, “okay?” “welcome”, and “okay, okay, many many tourist”.

(Camels have weird feet. I'd never really thought about it before. Also weird tails, they don't have a brush on the end, they have thick fur running down both sides so it looks like a big centipede growing out of their butt. Usually their tail is tied up by the tip to the saddle, I'm not sure why. Probably poop related.)

We set up camp in the dunes and wandered around barefoot. I tried to track some animals by their prints, but we could never figure out which direction they had gone. It’s just as well, turns out they were spider tracks. A very large spider. Some small local urchin showed up and tried to get Derek to give him his watch, then maybe 10 rupees? Pen? Rupees? Rupees? Rupees? And so on.


Our driver and a man from the resort showed up with our dinner in a large tiffin box set and stayed to chat for a while by the fire. It was a very good dinner, including small thin “desert beans” and fresh chapattis that my camel guy (I think his name was Acheze. It was very guttural. There are only so many times you can ask someone to repeat their name before you just smile and nod.) roasted for us on hot embers. They got to eat after us, which I found awkward. If we ate too much, they get less dinner, if we take too long, their dinner gets cold. Cultural difference between valuing a guest over not wanting to be a hassle, I suppose. After they washed up by rubbing everything down with sand, and a tired looking dog came by and licked the spot for a long time.


(to be cont...)