Suss it out

"Heeeelloo, Namaste (bow, put hands together in prayer sign in front of chest) how are you doing today? where are you from? You want to do trekking? rafting? Oh from USA, I love USA, I have friends in California, you want hashish too? "
that's the typical rap I get walking down the street. Kinda gets old, but is fine, they're all very friendly. Have yet to meet a negative nepali. They have so little compared to the rest of world, esp the westerners, but are so happy.

We've spent the past two days organizing our Everest base camp trek, which we leave for tomorrow morning at 6:30am, flying into the village Lukla at 2800meters from there it should be a 14 day walk to base camp and back. Packs are nice and light, will be staying in 'tea houses' and eating/getting food along the way. Altitude is an issue and will be looking out for signs of sickness for sure, while going as slow as we can. I think we're ready and will be guiding ourselves, from all of our trusted sources this seems the way to go, have maps, guidebooks, GPS, etc... Tim and I have a lot of experience and Matt is great as well. If the going gets too tough or we just get a little lazy, we can hire a guide while we're going. Have registered with our respective embassies, got permits, flights in/out, last minute gear... Matt, is in fact taking a full size Criket bat and a tennis ball, only what we need to survive. Tim has the biggest camera you've ever seen and an even bigger waterproof/crushproof/dustproof/tornado proof case I've ever seen. I have the essentials, which includes enough diarrhea pills to make a line from here to basecamp.
We've organized and put a deposit down on a trip to Tibet leaving Oct. 18th. We'll be driving out of Nepal towards Tibet and then through Tibet, see Everest from the North Side basecamp, and then onto Lhasa (watch seven years in tibet for scenery) Should be a wild ride. Flying back to Kathmandu from Lhasa. So things seems to be progressing nicely, haven't had a whole lot of time to hangout, but hopefully the trek will provide plenty of time for reading and relaxation (after the hiking of course). Glad to hear from everyone, I really appreciate you all following along. To know you're all here with me, in spirit if not in person, keeps me smiling too.

I hope to get some photos online after the trek... I'll be out of contact for the next two weeks or so, but will update if I can sooner.

rocking the full beard too. SAF

We're not in Kansas anymore!

Well, it's been a seriously interesting few days! Since my last entry in Hong Kong, i've taken three flights and been through three different countries... flew from HK into Bangkok, Thailand on Dragon Air. Great flight and airline for sure, chatted with a woman from HK the whole time, she was very nice and interested in using her english, and i was happy to chat her up. Got into Bangkok around 9 or 10am, collected my bag, and then stored it so i could head into the city without it. Asked some friendly folks at the Air India counter about the best way for a guy like me to spend 7 hours in Bangkok, they recommended the bar upstairs... I was keen to go a bit further than that :) so i found a book store and read up on the Chatuchuk market, the largest in Bangkok, and only on the weekends, luckily it was saturday! pick up the map and found a taxi to the market.
The market was huge, so many stalls, vendors, people, and SMELLS. It's oflactory paradise, delicious food, insense, flowers, hot garbage, and open sewers all at once! You go from 'oh that's nice' to 'ahhhh! im going to puke' in 3 steps. There's all kinds of stuff there, more than one could possibly take in at once. cloths, 'handicrafts,' flowers, plants, hardware, musical instraments, and lots of food. A good mix of mostly locals and some tourists. Pretty hot in bangkok, esp in the inner market stalls. but so great. the folks there are so nice and friendly, they just light up with huge smiles and i smile back automatically, you just walk around with a big smile the whole time. nobodys very pushy, they're all keen to talk and barter, but when i said i wasn't interested, they were still just as nice and smiley. I eat some AWESOME fresh waffles, one bananna, one coconut. delicious, later in the day for lunch i had garlic thai beef veggies and rice, and a coke again great. My taxi driver gave me his number to ring him when i wanted to return to the airport; Mr. Bunsri Chaisongmoung (04-0895208, if you're in bangkok and need a lift...) and since he wasn't skimping on the aircon, i was happy to ring him around 3pm to ride back. Once i got a hold of him, i was unsure from the convo wheter he could come and pick me up right away or not. since i speak zero thai and he spoke next to zero english, the phone was less than perfect means of communication. while in the cab i had relyed on mostly sign language and body language to figure out what was being said, forgot that doesn't work so well over the phone ;) So, i just got a cab back to airport, and it was cool. got my bag and check in without drama, shopped around got my air india flight into Delhi. nice old 747 from the jurassic era, but it did in fact fly. After a 4 hour delay while they put 2 new wheels/tires on. but at least we got to stay on the plane, had 3 seats to myself!, and snack were passed out. Cake 4 hour flight in Delhi, which i slept the whole way. got in there around 11pm, waiting for matt in the baggage claim for 3 hours , his flight landed at 2am. what happend next was made worse by our lack of proper sleep and general confusion. We tried to get into the Delhi arrival area, but since we only had a reservation and no paper ticket, the AK-47 toting gaurds were not letting us in. I wasnt going to argue to much... the Cosmic Air counter opend at 6;30am, it was now 2:30am... we had a long night in the vistors lounge ahead of us. We also had to contact and meet up with Tim Porter the final member of our crew, who was currently asleep in a delhi hotel... left him some messages. and then busted out the thermarests and sleeping bags under the all criket all the time tv screen. thank the angels for earplugs... we had a dozen or so flys to keep us company while we slept on the floor. not the best sleep i've had, but we weren't going to get a hotel for 3 hours.
woke up 6am met Tim, great guy! going to be awesome traveling with this crew. got tickets sorted eventually and flew into kathmandu at 10am. Most beautiful flight yet, we could see the himalaya in the distance and lush green valleys below. met a nice sherpa guide on the flight who was really keen to help us out. I had made a reservation at the famous kathmandu guest house a few days ago and their free shuttle took us into Town/Thamel district. it's SUPer nice, and cost us $6 US a night. We've been organizing our Everest base camp trek which we hope to start on the 28th. and will probably be gone for 12- 15 days. After that we'll fly into Tibet and spend 11 days riding back on the Friendship highway to eventually view Mt. everest from the North side. After that return to Kathmandu, head to Pokara and trek in the Annapurna range for another 2 weeks. Maybe some rafting and then down to Royal Chitwan National park for a little safari.... not sure about that yet.
it' so great to be back on the backpacker trail, tatoos and dreadlocks and the tell tail signs your on the road most travelled by those in search of fun. so many trekkers here, lots to talk about, but almost no americans. I've been keeping my cowboy boots in my pack, and i'm not wearing my stars and stripes cape anymore... :) j/k no dramas at all, most folks are concerned about the hurricanes. Nepal so far has been awesome, loving it, and inexpensive. I'll try to catch up more later....