Himalicious

As far as I am concerned a new word needs to be invented to properly describe the Himalayas - stunning, gorgeous, beautiful, awesome, they just do not do it. So I will give Himalicious a shot... see how it sits with you.

From Trekking in Nepal

We have just returned from 23 days of trekking on the Annapurna Circuit and can say with confidence that if you ever have the chance to do something of this sort, stop hesitating and just do it. It was exactly what you would expect and then some - incredible, stunning, grueling, awe inspiring, dirty, sweaty, fantastic.

From Trekking in Nepal

The scenery is jaw droppingly beautiful and throughout the course of the trek changes drastically from lush green valleys to arid desert looking landscape. The villages are packed with life, interesting stone houses, runny nosed adorable children, goats, water buffalo, temples, monasteries, nunneries, prayer flags and wheels and even the occasional brandy distillery (they make apple brandy in Marpha, the apple capital of the Himalayas. Go figure, I guess you need to stay warm somehow!)

Sure it was grueling at times - there were some long days of 6 hours of trekking gaining some serious altitude - but the feeling of accomplishment and the few lost kilos make ever second worthwhile. The highest point of the trek, 5416 meters, the Throng La Pass (claimed the biggest pass in the world whatever that might be)is a stunning sight and feels like a sensational accomplishment. Slow and steady are the name of the game and it feels sooooo good at the top!

From Trekking in Nepal

We also took a side trip/acclimatizing trip to Tilicho Lake, claimed by Nepal to be the highest lake in the world. Not sure about that, but it was pretty incredible. Three and a half hours up, straight up not 10 m of flat land to be had, and a big frozen lake at the top. While a real challenge to get to - just getting to the basecamp meant crossing some landslide areas and tricky terrain, not to mention the climb itself - it was quite a sight to behold.

From Trekking in Nepal

Howie was here 10 years ago and a few things have changed. The biggest change is electricity, so no more kerosene lamps and headlamps to get around in your room at night. Nepalis have also harnessed the awesome power of the sun and now have solar heated water for hot showers... of course the sun needs to be shining all day and you need to get into the guesthouse before 4 PM to take advantage, but it is there. All for the better really. The main and very controversial change, however, is the road.

From Trekking in Nepal

They are in the process of building the road heading north, towards the Throng La, and some days of the trek did include some dusty walking and some waiting for the workmen to stop throwing rocks over the side so you can pass. To be honest, they are blasting and chipping away at huge rock face and it is hard to imagine this road ever being done. But, they succeeded on the other side of the pass and the original Jomson Trek now can be ridden all the way by jeep. We had heard AWFUL things about this road, and expected to hop a jeep at some point, but we never did. The road, as it turned out, was not that bad. We had rain pretty much each afternoon on that side and this kept the road from being dusty. And really, at the end of the day, maybe 4 or 5 vehicles (jeeps or trucks) passed us. And the people seem happy about the road - they now have easy access to hospitals that were days walks away, they can get more goods and services and generally easier - you really cannot fault them for that.

From Trekking in Nepal

So, it was 23 days, the biggest pass, the highest lake, 3280 stone steps and about 10 kilos lost between us and we could not be happier. A little sore, but feeling wonderful. Now the only question left is, "what's next?"

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/TrekkingInNepal#

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.

Birds and Elephants in Kuala Lumpur

Our first stop in Malaysia was KL, where our friends Barb and Scott have a great place, not even a 10 minute walk from the Petronas Towers. We were both expecting KL to be a lot like Jakarta, but have found more similarities to Singapore. We spent a whole day wandering the city by foot, something you simply cannot do in Jakarta, the city is pretty clean and there are sidewalks. Already an improvement. While there is not that much to do/see per say and despite the intense humidity and daily rain, you can see the appeal of living here.Day two we decided to check out the bird park, the largest walk in aviary in the world, and it is pretty incredible. (And this is coming from a girl who got pooped on by a lorikeet.) When you walk in immediately there is a dish of feed and some colorful birds flying around who land on your arms and eat from your hands. We discovered they are also fond of sweat as one latched on to Howie's back and and was nibbling at the back of his neck for quite some time. He had to be forcibly removed before we went into the next section of the park. From there we encountered the second coolest thing in the park, which was a peacock who decided to show off his stuff and hopefully attract a female that was wandering by. He did not seem bothered by all the people watching, spread his gorgeous feathers and did a little dance, shaking his tail feathers and really putting on a show. Sadly, with all the people jumping in and taking photos, he did not seem to have much luck, but since there were many small children around, maybe that was for the best.After that awesome display we walked through the rest of the park seeing emus, ostriches, eagles, hornbills, lorikeets, parrots, flamingos... you name it. Saturday, since Barb and Scott were not working, we headed about 90K out of the city to the elephant sanctuary where, if you are one of the first 100 people you can go for an elephant ride and bathe with the elephants. Luckily, it is an afternoon thing, so being in the first 100 was not too difficult. It was an incredible day and despite how crazy it could have been with the number of people that were there, it was really well organized and we got a lot of time with the elephants.After an interesting movie about the relocation of elephants in Malaysia - the palm plantations have encroached on the elephants natural habitat and they move them from what is left of their small forests to the national nature preserve - we went and fed the elephants some fruit and peanuts. Then there was a short, but fun, elephant ride and then into the water on an elephant's back. He dumped us intot he watre and we bathed and played with three younger elephants. The elephants were amazing and wonderful and it was a great experience.Monday we will leave the comfort of Barb and Scott's for the Cameron Highlands for some trekking and exploring... and hopefully some more fun animals!

Through the Central Highlands and Back to the Big City

Sorry for the delay in posting, but without the camera postings just seemed to blah. So, the good news is, we have the camera back. With only a moderate struggle, they were able to replace the part, for a very reasonable cost, and we are back in business.

Vietnam has been really nice. After shopping and eating our fill with Chad in the very charming and tourist filled Hoi An, we headed to Da Nang. We actually visited a couple sights between Hoi An and Da Nang - including the Marble Mountains with caves of shrines that were packed with Vietnamese prayer makers and the Ba Na Hill station which we had to hitch a ride to the top of since it is technically closed for repairs. Both had stunning views and provided a good distraction from the backpacker's trail. Anyone headed here in 2015 should check out the renovated hill station - looks like quite a project.From Da Nang we hopped a minibus to Kon Tum, about a 4 hour journey into the central highlands of Vietnam. Kon Tum is a very small town and the main reason to visit is to see some of the traditional hill tribe villages that are a close journey from town. We did check them out and although most still have some traditional "Rong Houses" - very cool long buildings on stilts that have awesome thatched roofs and are supposedly built with no nails - that is about all that is traditional about them. As we have felt checking out "traditional" villages before, there is a thin line between poor and traditional. Most of the time here it teeters more on the poor side of the line.In Kon Tum we also had the interesting experience of meeting some Australian Vietnam veterans (2 were in Vietnam and one was actually a mine clearer in Cambodia) who were doing some work with the orphanages in Kon Tum. There are two "famous" ones, one connected to a beautiful church in town and one set back in the surrounding village. They are actually in the Lonely Planet so get a decent amount of tourists and while we were really expecting the worst, these places were not THAT bad. Do not get me wrong, it is sad, but the people who work there were incredibly loving and there are a decent amount of donations and many organizations like the one the guys we met were involved in helping out. We have seen a lot of poverty on the countryside here and it just makes you think that maybe some of these kids are better off, as sad as that is.From Kon Tum we headed about another 4 hours to Buon Ma Thout, a coffee town, also with hill tribes. The coffee was as good as they claimed and the interesting traditional houses did provide some nice sight seeing. Personally, Buon Ma Thout won my heart with the street of roll your own Vietnamese Spring rolls. You just get all the fillings and stuff to your heart content. I love food with a process and the mixture of textures and tastes made me drool even hours after just thinking about it.

From Vietnam

Last stop before coming back to Ho Chi Minh was Dalat, a beautiful little hill town about 6 hours from HCMC. Dalat is a bit of a domestic tourist town, people come to escape the heat, and it is really perfect for wandering. With a touch of French influenced architechture and downright cold weather in the evening, we had a great time walking everywhere. And due to the perfect weather, there was wonderful fruits and veg and we certainly indulged. Our only mistake was renting bikes one day - when you ask people who live in a hill town of the route is flat, note that their idea of what is flat might be VERY different than yours.HCMC, despite the insane heat and even more insane driving habits (really these people are CRAZY on the roads in a way I have never seen before), is a really great city. We got back here on Sunday and decided to adventure to the Cao Dai Temple via local bus and while it was a schlep, the country is stunning and the temple was very peaceful and beautiful. And Chad treated us to what might have been my favorite dish so far - a deep fried fish, served with herbs, vermicelli, veggies and a delightful dill/fish sauce dip. You roll up what you want in the rice paper, dip and enjoy. The combination of the flakey fish and crunchy fried bits, along with the fresh herbs and that dip. Mmm...

From Vietnam

Next stop is KL, where instead of mooching from the Canadian Embassy, we will mooch from the oil company employees and hang out with our friends Barb and Scott.

Enjoying Vietnam

We arrived in HCMC (aka Saigon) last Friday and spent the weekend with our old friend from Jakarta, Chad, who works at the Canadian Consolate. We also randomly saw an old work friend of ours who we heard was in town (Jillian from Elderhostel) and my old college roommate (Vince) who is working at the US Consolate. After a great weekend gorging ourselves, we flew to Danang, in the middle of the country.

After a night and a morning in Danang we headed an hour south to Hoi An, a quaint little ancient town filled with tourists and tailors. Wandering aimlessly and getting clothes (and shoes) custom made are the thing to do, and we partook in both. Haviva got a great business suit, a fabulous winter jacket and a pair of leather boots made. Not sure when exactly they'll see use... As for me, I had a nice pair of brown shoes made, plus a shirt. I would have had a suit made, but I just had one custom made in Jakarta before we left.

We parted ways with Chad, who flew up for the weekend, and are now about to head inland to explore some less touristy areas of Vietnam (we can only hope).

Why no pictures, you ask? Our camera broke today. Chad has taken it back to HCMC and will look in to getting it fixed. In the mean time, we are camera-less.

Further North by Motorbike

The day after the cooking course we rented a motorbike, packed up a few days worth of clothes and headed north a couple hours to Chiang Dao, a nice little market town in the hills. We made a few stops on the way and got in just in time for a swim in the frigid pool at our not-so-budget accommodation. It had been recommended by multiple friends and was really only 20 bucks a night, but was a significant step up from our $8 a night room in Chiang Mai.
We spent two full days cruising around Chiang Dao. The first was spent on a great little hike through a bamboo forest which led to the caves that Chiang Dao is (duh) famous for and a trip to hot springs and waterfalls. The second was spent visiting some temples and monestaries, plus a visit to the big weekly market that draws people from all the surrounding villages.
It was a great few days. We put 420 km on our motorbike and loved it, although our butts are quite sore. Today we drove back down to Chiang Mai via a few stops along the way, including an elephant camp where retired logging elephants are put out to pasture. Now we are about to get on the overnight bus to Bangkok, where we'll pick up our Vietnamese visas and fly to Ho Chi Minh City on Friday.

Turning 33 in Thailand

...specifically in Chiang Mai.

As per my request, and as you can imagine Howie was happy to oblige, we spent the day doing one of the many cooking classes here in Chiang Mai. We chose a cooking class that took place on an organic farm, partly because we wanted something a little different and partly hoping to catch a glimpse of Norman's long lost cousin. There were no snail sightings (it is really dry here!!), but we had a pretty wonderful day anyway.

The day started with a market tour at a fabulous market on the outskirts of town. We got a quick but informative lesson on various kinds of rice and other Thai staples (our teacher was all business, but really warmed as the day went on) and then we were let loose for about 15 minutes to do some wandering. The market had about everything and Howie found a woman making fresh donuts (who can resist?) and I got my Thai iced coffee, as has become morning ritual here.

After the market it was off to the farm, about 20 mins outside the city. It is a nice place, small, but in a great rural setting and a virtual cooking school factory. There were three groups all taking classes at the same time, but they were great about keeping us separate and making the lessons personal. We did a quick tour of the farm, in our spiffy farm gear, and then it was on to cooking. We each had our won cooking station and I made green curry, while Howie made red. And this was read deal, mortar and pestle and all.

It took a lot of pounding, but we did end up with paste and from there things went fast. So we had the curries, then soup - Howie Tom Yum, Coconut milk and mushroom (a new fave for me here) then we made some stir fry, broke for lunch and then, completely full, we both made noodle dishes (I made pad thai, Howie made "big noodles") and then, last but not least, mango and sticky rice.

Everything we made in the afternoon became take-away and turned out to be a great dinner at the picnic tables outside the hostel, along with the bottle of wine we have been lugging since Jakarta. Quite possibly a perfect birthday.

For anyone coming this way, check out www.thaifarmcooking.net.