The Colors of Kathmandu

From Kathmandu

Kathmandu is dusty and leaves a layer on you that requires some serious scrubbing at the end of the day, but that is about the only bad thing I think I can say about this place. The tiny windy roads provide oodles to see. The architecture, with stone and brick buildings packed in one next to the other, with interesting wooden window frames, and the gorgeous women in colorful sarees moving in and out make it hard to walk without stopping ever second to take a photo. There is something to see at every turn and I love it.

From Kathmandu

We spent one day just soaking in Kathmandu and one day in Patan, another of Nepal's three kingdoms and short ride over the river from Kathmandu. Patan is slightly smaller, slightly less touristy and lacking some of Katmandu's severe backpacker culture and was a nice little break. While there are tons of tourists in these parts, Nepal seems to have done a stunning job retaining much of its original culture and traditions. We can literally walk for hours and not be bored in the least.

From Kathmandu

You might also notice an increase in quality in our pictures. Well, the Olympus point and shoot that we had fixed in Vietnam broke once again, this time during our one night in Bangkok. Not sure what was going to happen and knowing we would want good pictures in Nepal and India, we took the plunge and got a DSLR. We are still getting used to all the fancy features, but already we are loving it and seeing a difference. We cannot wait to put it to use on the trek.

From Kathmandu

Speaking of the trek, this will be our last posting for a bit as we hit the trail on the Annapurna Circuit. We head out tomorrow for a night or two in Pokarah and then 20 days or so on the circuit where we will be lucky to find a hot shower, let alone an internet connection. Until then...

From Kathmandu

From Kathmandu

From Kathmandu

From Kathmandu

Back to Bali for all the old favorites

It is hard to sum up what a great week this has been back in Bali. There was a little bit of everything we both love - the beach, frisbee, good friends, fabulous food and even a bit of Passover.

We arrived in Bali on the 7th, just in time for Pesach and a seder at the home of Liat Soloman (who it turns out owns one of our fave Bali restaurants, Zula and we now understand why the falafel is SO good!) We had no idea what we were in for, how many people would be there and what kind of affair it would be, but it turned out to be a big crowd complete with a few Chabad rabbis from Australia.
There were mostly expats at the table, but our friend Maureen from Jakarta (we met her with the other Indonesian Jews at that Mumbai dinner) was there with her sister and neice, as well as a parlimentarian from Manado (on the island of Sulawesi) who is not Jewish, but apparently is a great friend to the Jewish community. He knew all the Hebrew songs and, as we expected from a Indonesian, loved the gefilte fish. It was not the seder I am used to, but it was a nice night and we were really glad we made it out.
The rest of our time in Bali was spent on the frisbee field for Howie and on the beach for me. Many of our friends were in town, both playing and not, so both of us had a really nice time catching up. The end of the tournament party was a blast as always, complete with some great Javanese costumes.
We spent the last couple days slowly saying our last farewells and now it is just us for our last couple nights here. We are off to Kathmandu, via Bangkok, on Thursday and we will try to get in one more entry before we start our trek.

However you spell it, Melaka is marvelous!

After romping in the jungle we headed about 2 hours south of KL to the lovely historic town of Melaka (sometimes spelled Melacca). We had one long day of travel to get there from the Cameron Highlands and one day of wandering before Barb and Scott came to meet us Friday night, just in time for the famous Jonker Street Night Bazaar - a huge night market in Chinatown, which was a lot of fun.

Melaka is a World Heritage City and most famous for its Peranaken people and culture. Peranaken people are Chinese-Malay couples, the men are called Baba , the women Nonya, and they have a wonderful mix of Chinese and Malay customs and foods. Wandering and eating is what you do, despite the insane heat and humidity, so that is what we did. We saw basically the whole city by foot - an old Baba Nonya house, many Chinese antique shops, all the Chinese temples and pagodas, the oldest mosque in town (a striking mix of Chinese and British architecture with a pointy pagoda like roof and a lighthouse looking minaret), some churches, the fort and the riverside.

We also ate all the treats we could get our hands on, including a wonderful dim sum breakfast, some curry puffs and a sweet and sour fish that was so good, we went back when Barb and Scott arrived.

When our feet got tired and the rain cloud started to really look threatening, we headed into a bar across from our hotel that offered "Doctor Fish". This is a new fad spreading across Asia, where you put your feet into a fish tank and these little fish nibble at the dead skin on your feet. (As you can imagine this has been banned in the US.) Usually this is done at a spa, but this place offered it for 5 Ringit (less than 2 USD) and a beer while they nibble so even if it was a bit of a crock, we figured it was worth a shot. The first couple minutes we both did not think we would make it the full half hour, the tickling and nibbling sensation was almost unbearable, but you get used to it shockingly quickly. It never got old to watch those fish go at it - as you can imagine our feet are in some pretty horrible shape after all the hiking and walking we have done - and we are not sure if they really did anything, but it was an experience.

We've uploaded photos from the last 6 weeks of our travels for safekeeping if you are interested.
http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/BangkokThruKL#

Hiking in the Highlands

After being really lazy in KL with Barb and Scott (mostly resulting from some somewhat questionable Indian food) we hit the road for the Cameron Highlands, about 4 hours north east. The Cameron Highlands have a great temperature and we were thrilled to finally pull out our fleece jackets and not sleep with the AC running. It was a pleasure. And we were SUPER lucky to not have any rain. The Cameron Highlands are known for trekking, tea plantations, the famous rafflesia flower (the biggest flower in the world!) and strawberries. We decided to check out as much of it as we could and can proudly say that all we missed out on was the rafflesia, which we saw in Indonesia anyway. And it is a smelly, hard to find flower that requires a guide and tour and we were not quite up for that. But we did see some really cool orchids without any help.Anyway, we did two awesome treks. The first was a pleasant 3 hour jungle trek which had a couple nice peaks, stunning views from everywhere and ended in an "orang asli" (literally translated traditional people, but the locals call them aboriginals) village.

The other trail started in the middle of the BOH tea plantation (Malaysia's number one tea, which we got to see picked, dried, oxidized, sorted and sent for packaging), led us up to Genung Brinchang (the second highest peak in the Cameron Highlands at 6000 feet) on a paved yet steep path and then down a steep, muddy, root filled jungle trail. It was a great adventure heading down and lucky for us there was a stream at the bottom we could wash our feet off. We were both muddy, sweaty and pretty stinky after walking about 17 kilometers.We did check out the strawberries as well, but they were a bit underwhelming. They grow them in green houses, so it is strawberry season all year round and while they were yummy at the end of the day, they were just strawberries. They were, however, a nice little treat at the end of our first trek.