As I try to distill three day’s worth of travel through Burma I get the calming privilege of sitting on a terrace facing the muddy brown waters of the Irawaddy River. I can see a line of foothills across the opposite bank, one hill with the white spire of a pa…
Read → BURMAThree days ago we woke up in our Rangoon hotel at 5:30 a.m. and headed to the airport for our departure up country. We’d gotten a “special monsoon fare” from Air Mandalay to get us to a series of points around the country since it’s the rainy season and the ro…
Read → BURMACochin / Ernakulam, Kerala, India – Got up and went to our usual breakfast at the Indian Coffee House. After walking around for a spell we decided it was too damn hot to be outside so we headed back to the room to play the new game we’d invented two nights bef…
Read → INDIARepublic Day, Mysore, India – I guess the tea man can only speak, not read English because after hearing our summons to the room he ignored the note and still knocked to find out what we wanted. Oh well, tea and newspapers in bed still worked – even if we had …
Read → REPUBLICWoke up, rang the bell, and had our usual tea and newspaper in bed. Kate and I dropped off more material at the tailors, then headed out to the hospital to see what was going on. When we arrived it was outside visiting hours, but because we’re white we were ju…
Read → INDIAMysore, India – Woke up and Kate hit the bell so we could have our tea. We headed out and over to the tailors, as usual, then went to the outdoor market to pick up the supplies we’d need for this afternoon’s activities at the hospital. We headed to the hospita…
Read → MYSORENo tea in bed this morning, for I had food poisoning from dinner the night before. The toilet was my friend for the first half of the day because I didn’t want to venture too far without having a toilet nearby. The tailor was just down the road so I paid him a…
Read → INDIAGokarn, India – A very lazy day, none of us got up until 11:15 a.m. and only left the room at 1:30 p.m. in search of food. After our snack we took a very leisurely walk through the city back to our place, where Rich and Kate sat on the beach and I sat under th…
Read → GOKARNBhuj, Gujurat, India – Up at a reasonable hour and immediately took my swords to the tailor to have him sew me a bag so I could cart the damn things around with me (they were way too big for my pack). Once that was finished I met Rich and Nicky and we headed o…
Read → BHUJPalanpur to Udaipur, India – We woke up the next morning stiff from the cold. We weren’t prepared for a cold night so all we slept under were our sleeping sheets and when we woke up we could see our breath inside the compartment. It was definitely the coldest …
Read → INDIAUdaipur, Rajasthan, India – We were up relatively early and as we were walking though town we were befriended by a ten year old boy. Now when I say befriended we didn’t befriend him – he latched onto us and followed us around all morning offering to take us to…
Read → UDAIPURRanakpur to Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India – We woke up and walked outside to admire the temple and take yet more photographs before embarking on our journey to Jodhpur. We checked out of our room and when Rich asked the clerk how much the room was, his response wa…
Read → INDIAJaisalmer, Rajasthan, India – Our train arrived this morning where we grabbed a free jeep-cab for a ride to the gates of the fort; we were headed for a hotel actually inside the fort at the centre of town. We entered the fort and all of a sudden this feeling o…
Read → JAISALMERWe’d tried to leave Brastagi the day before but couldn’t muster the energy, so we’re really leaving today. We were up at 8:30 a.m. because the church next door believed in worshipping the lord very early and very loudly to music. I thought the organist and cho…
Read → INDONESIAToday was market day in Haranggaol and the bi-weekly boat to Samosir Island was going across the lake today when the market was finished. We walked down to the market – once again the only foreigners and the entire marketplace was teeming with people. We made …
Read → INDONESIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Colva Beach, Goa, India – Woke up at 3:30 a.m. because my arms felt like they were being chewed up by bed bugs or scabies. It turned out to be neither, but that is certainly what it felt like. Could not get…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Colva to Gokarna, Karnataka, India – Woke up at 7 a.m. to pack our bags and get out to the road to catch the bus to Margao where we could get a bus to Gokarn, Gokarna to the Indians, the next beach town we …
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Pune, Karnataka, India – At the snake farm, there was the most amazing array of animals, huge Bengal tigers, lions, cougars, and while tigers, plus you could get really close to the cages and get a good loo…
Read → INDIAGokarna, Karnataka, India – This morning, we woke up inside our basket, gathered our things, and upgraded to a room with solid walls. This was your basic room, a little smaller than our basket with walls made of homemade bricks and mortar. I touched the mortar…
Read → GOKARNAGokarna, Karnataka, India – Woke up at 7:15 a.m., not fully rested after our cockroach ordeal, so we all had a smoke at 8 o’clock to relax us. We went to the town early for our usual breakfast of chai and sheerah before making our way back to the room to get r…
Read → GOKARNANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Gokarna, Karnataka, India – Three weeks ago, today, Rich and I arrived on the Indian subcontinent. I never would have thought we would be spending this much time here. This country really has a lot to offer…
Read → INDIAGokarna to Jog Falls, Karnataka, India – It was time for Kate, Rich and I to put ourselves together and move on. We have been sitting on the beach for almost 12 days solid. We packed our bags, took our last walk through the movie set town of Gokarn and jumped …
Read → INDIAWe were heading to Hassan today to check out what is supposed to be two really cool temples. Little did we know that getting there would be such a herculean task. No buses to Hassan, so we jumped on a local’s bus to the nearby town of Sagar, thinking we could …
Read → INDIAMysore, Karnataka, India – At 5 a.m. this morning, I awoke to the sounds of Rich getting sick in our loo. This happened at Colva beach, so I was not too concerned but then he told us his back hurt on the left side. You could tell the pain was really bad becaus…
Read → MYSOREMysore, Karnataka, India – We woke up in the late morning and had tea and the newspaper delivered to the room. It was Sunday, so we skipped visiting the doctors and just went walking around the city instead. We decided to have an easy day, so we went to an Ind…
Read → MYSOREMysore, Karnataka, India – Tea in bed once again. Then after breakfast, we headed to change money at the bank, which was supposed to be a major project, but it turned out to be painless. It was on the way to the bank that I found for the first time, the offici…
Read → MYSOREMysore to Bangalore, Karnataka, India – We got on our express bus to Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka, but as usual, the “express” part was optional. Today’s choice of interruption was a strike by the school bus drivers whose routes happen to be on the…
Read → INDIABangalore, Karnataka, India – Bangalore is the total yuppie capital of India with everyone here just like they were in the 80s at home. Everyone is dressed really nice and this city just exudes new money and wealth. The first thing we did was upgrade from our …
Read → BANGALOREBangalore, Karnataka, India – We got up and Rich headed to the hospital. He is on a tour of the hospitals of the third world while I took a rickshaw out to the commissioner of police’s headquarters to try and get our visas extended because they would expire be…
Read → BANGALOREBangalore, Karnataka, India – Out to a local’s joint for breakfast. Then, we went out to the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens to sit and read during the afternoon. I sat on a bench aways away from Rich, but situated so I could see him at his bench. After beating off …
Read → BANGALOREBangalore, Karnataka, India – Woke up and started watching MTV, sounds like a theme by this point. We had absolutely nothing to do and Bangalore being a government city, had nothing to offer us. We finally got lunch at 2 o’clock. Then headed to the state house…
Read → BANGALOREBangalore, Karnataka, India – We checked out of the hotel leaving our bags behind and headed over to the British Library, the twin to the USIA to catch up on world events. We had taken a rickshaw over there, but he took us in these out of the way loops to make…
Read → BANGALORECochin, Kerala, India – We arrived in Cochin, actually its sister city called Ernakulam and booked ourselves into the Biju tourist home, great hotel. Now the Cochin area is almost exactly like San Francisco bay area. We were in Ernakulam, which is like staying…
Read → COCHINCochin, Kerala, Karnataka – Woke up at 11 o’clock and the first words out of my mouth were “too many drugs.” My brain was mush from the night before and we had learned that you could take one hit and then put it out anymore in your history. We left our room in…
Read → COCHIN8th February, 1993, Cochin, Ernakulam – Up late morning and back to the Indian Coffee House to create an entire table of dirty dishes. Walked around a bit but it was oppressively hot, so went back to the room to escape the heat “relaxed”. The only notable thin…
Read → INDIAAlleppy, Kerala, India – We got up early this morning and boarded the boat for an our all day journey to Quillon via the delta backwaters. Our boat pulled away and Rich and I grabbed prime seats in the sun on the roof to take in the sites. The backwaters consi…
Read → ALLEPPYWe grabbed a bus to Trivandrum, the Kerala state capital, first thing in the morning after the India Coffee House breakfast. As our bus without windows was cruising along, Rich turned to me and said, “Did you see that?” “See what?” was my reply. “The sun just …
Read → INDIATrivandrum, Kerala, India – Rich had to go to the post office, so I arranged to meet him on the beach later in the afternoon, went to the bank to restock the coffers for the northern half of the country. Then boarded an Indian version of an African matatu down…
Read → TRIVANDRUTrivandrum, Kerala, India – We woke up and judging by the temperature outside at 10:00 a.m. we declared a “Weather First No. 2” This was by far the hottest day we’d experienced in India. Our heat wave wasn’t going to last that long, for we were crossing out of…
Read → TRIVANDRUEn Route to Ahmedabad, Gujurat, India – We both awoke at 4:30 a.m. due to the clambouring, bumping and talking of the Indians in the compartments on either side of ours. Laid in bed for a few hours until the sun came up, then we got up when we heard the calls …
Read → INDIAEn Route to Ahmedabad, Gujurat – Both Rich and I were awakened at 5:00 a.m. again by the crashing and banging of the Indians in the adjoining compartments. God only knows what they do from 4:30-6:00 a.m. then then be completely silent for the rest of the day W…
Read → INDIAAhmedabad, Gujurat, India – We had a good sleep, that was, until 4:30 a.m. when the mosque across the street (the one with the 500 amp loudspeaker 20 feet from our window) began morning prayer. It really did sounds as though the priest , or whoever it is that …
Read → AHMEDABADAhmedabad to Bhuj, Gujurat, India – We had our usual prayers at 4:30 and 6:30 a.m. Then after we got up, we headed over to the GPO so I could post yet another parcel. Stitching, wrapping, riding, pasting the Indian Postal Service does love their arts and craft…
Read → INDIABhuj, Gujurat, India – We woke up and got Nikki into our compartment, then after being accosted by a milkman and his pack of eight young, blue-vested assistants. We appeased them by letting them look at the maps and pictures in the India book. We arrived in Bh…
Read → BHUJNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Bhuj, Gujurat, India – Up the next morning, when Nikki returned to our room to deliver the following news. Today was Shiva’s Birthday and all the locals would be drinking bhang lassis. We got up and left ou…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Indian Express 26. February.93 — Headline: Lathis, gas, and water cannon foiled BJP rally. Article text: Scores were injured in pitched battles on the streets with security men firing rubber bullets, rainin…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Camel Safari, Jaisalmer Desert, India – I packed my bag pack and after buying the essentials for a desert camel safari: water, oranges, pot cookies and chocolate. I met the jeep driver and was off. I was in…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Camel Safari, Jaisalmer Desert, India – We woke up as the sun rose not like we were not already up but it was too cold to come out from under the blanket, so we just sat there talking to each other while th…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Camel Safari, Outside Jaisalmer, India – March, How did that happen! Have we really been traveling that long! A bit dawn and breakfast in bed again before getting ready for the morning ride to the next vill…
Read → INDIAJaisalmer, Rajasthan, India – We met Nikki and headed into the city to get some breakfast. Our restaurant of choice was on the roof of this building overlooking once of the streets with a blank head balanced on two poles serving as our roof. So pleasant in the…
Read → JAISALMERJaisalmer, Rajasthan, India – Nikki and I went shopping today and we headed back towards the larger havelis to have another look. On this visit, we went up into the roof and noticed we could climb onto the next haveli over the rooftop. We decided it added a se…
Read → JAISALMERNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Pushkar, Rajasthan, India – Our bus pulled into Ajmer station, Pushkar’s sister city at 3:15 a.m., so we piled out and hung around the station until 4:30 a.m., the departure time for the first bus to Pushka…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 5 th March 1993, Pushkar, India – As there is not a lot to do in Pushkar, but go shopping, that is exactly what I did all the day. When you go into the shops, the merchant requested to take off your shoes b…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India – Arrived in Agra at 8.15 a.m. and got a rickshaw over to the Shanti Lodge. This is a great hotel, not a two-minute walk from the Taj’s east gate, perfect. We arrived there and in…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India – 6 a.m. this morning, there was a knock at the door, it was Emmy, the girl from Santa Cruz, we have met the evening before, waking me up to see the Taj at sunrise. I got up, Rich…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Agra, the Holi festival, Uttar Pradesh, India – Woke up at 5 a.m. this morning due to the Holi festival music that has been playing at a deafening volume all night long. I got up at 7:30, put on my white sh…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India – Up in the morning and headed over to the central telegraph office via bike rickshaw to meet with someone to get the letter we needed. We worked our way up their hierarchical sup…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India – We took pictures of each other, the Taj, the reflection of the Taj in my sunglasses, you name it, plus as an added attraction it was cleaning day at the Taj, so they drained the…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India – Our train arrived Muglie at 9.a.m. and we jumped on the bus for one hour ride to Varanasi. We arrived no problem and Rich and I got a rickshaw to the outskirts of the old ci…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India – Up at 6 a.m. and headed down the river for our sunrise boat cruise to see all of the people bathing in the river. We cruised down the river but I was surprised not to see li…
Read → INDIANormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Belahiya, Nepal – Sunauli in India, Belahiya on the Nepal side. We woke up at 6 a.m. and headed over to the immigration office to get our visas and get stamped into Nepal. We arrived at the immigration offi…
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Pokhara, Nepal – Up at 7:00 a.m. and walked out on to the deck of our hotel only to see the most breathtaking, stunning view of the snow-capped Himalayas. Those two days of bus riding were worth seeing the …
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Pokhara, Nepal – Up this morning and headed straight to the German Bakery down on the corner. We had discovered this place the previous morning and it was a God send. They served tea and coffee and served t…
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Pokhara, Nepal – Up at 5 a.m. to see Rich off on his journey. I told him that I would leave him a note at the hotel and another one in Kathmandu telling him where to find me. He got on his bus to start his …
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Pokhara, Nepal – Battled the mosquitoes in the bedroom all night and had to fumble around in the dark at 3:30 a.m. looking for matches to light the mosquito coil because there was not any power. Left the ho…
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Trekking, Day 2, Khare to Ulleri – Up at half seven, a quick tea, then we were off. For the first part of the morning, we followed the paved road. Evidently, the Chinese come down and build a new section of…
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Trekking, Day 3, Ulleri to Ghorapani – Up and breakfast of Tibetan bread and honey. Ram and Som told me they were going to set me and them up with a Nepalese girl in Ghorapani. Left Ulleri and climbed up mo…
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Trekking, Day 4, Ghorapani to Tatopani – Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Up at 5:30 a.m. and it was absolutely numbingly cold, great and I was about to climb 300 meters straight up the…
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Trekking, Day 5, Tatopani to Kalopani – We got up and I bid Som and Maurita farewell as they were headed down the mountain while we were headed up. We walked all day and Ram kept saying that Kalopani was to…
Read → NEPALNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Trekking, Day 6, Kalopani to Marpha – We woke up late like 8 o’clock and sat around the lodge because it was rainy and windy outside and I did not particularly feel like walking to our next stop in the rain…
Read → NEPALJomsom, Nepal, Interview with Ram Gurung – I was speaking with Ram and he explained that the Nepalese differentiate between the terms forest and jungle. The jungle to them would be forest in our vocabulary. The uncamped wilderness with very old trees, the basi…
Read → JOMSOMNormal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Trekking, Day 7 Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 , Marpha to Kagbeni – Left our lodge in Marpha at 7 a.m. and headed for Kagbeni, a village up on the Tibetan plateau. We rounded the fir…
Read → NEPALTrekking, Day 8, Kagbeni, Muktinath, Jomsom – Up early at 6 a.m. because I wanted to hike up to the pilgrimage point of Muktinath at 3710 meters to see the village and temples up there before hiking down to Jomsom in the late afternoon in order to get our flig…
Read → TREKKINGTrekking, Day 10, Jomsom, Nepal – Woke up this morning at 6 and climbed up the ladder out back up onto the roof to have a look at the runaway. An inch of new snow everywhere. Went back inside and climbed to back into bed, woke up about an hour later and sat ou…
Read → TREKKINGPokhara, Nepal – I woke up, packed my bag and rode down to lakeside where I had gotten a room at the Namastay Lodge the same complex Som lives in. Met Som and he told me Ram had left early that morning to go home. I guessed his family had run out of rice and h…
Read → POKHARAPokhara, Nepal – I was going to head to Kathmandu today via mini bus, but there is a national bus strike, maybe tomorrow. I woke up late and lounged around. It was really warm today, so warm that for a minute I thought it was a Sacramento type spring day. Brou…
Read → POKHARASom’s house above Phedi, Nepal – God only knows what time it was when the rooster in Som’s house decided to start crowing, but the sun was nowhere neat being up. I really wanted to kill it as it was only about four feet away cock-a-doodle doing for half an hou…
Read → NEPALSom’s House Above Phedi, Nepal – The bloody rooster woke us up at half past four again and by 6:15 everyone was up and starting their daily duties. Som and I had tea with his family, then we bid them farewell and I thanked them heartily for such a nice time. W…
Read → NEPALPokhara to Kathmandu, Nepal – Got up at 5.30 a.m. and finished packing my bag. I was finally leaving Pokhara for Kathmandu. Met both Som and Ram who hung around and chatted to me until my mini bus left. When the bus finally pulled up, I said my final farewells…
Read → NEPALKathmandu, Nepal – Woke up, used my hot shower, then checked out of my hotel and moved to the hotel Potala around to the corner across from KC’s Restaurant, a little cheaper with a better view and a roof deck. Once I got and settled in, I grabbed my camera and…
Read → KATHMANDUKathmandu to Patan, Nepal – Walked around Kathmandu this morning looking for yet another hotel because the one I am in is too expensive. Did find a room at my mom’s hotel f or 80 rupees, more my style, grabbed breakfast, then picked up my photos that I had tak…
Read → NEPALKathmandu, Nepal – Changed hotels yet again because the last hotel had too many Israelis in it. After living in London and seeing the way different nationalities traveled, I used to think the Americans and Australians were bad. Israelis are the worst to be aro…
Read → KATHMANDU6 th April 1993, Kathmandu – I took Rich on a walking tour of the city, Durbar Square, etc. and we stumbled across the US embassy library, so we popped in there for a couple of hours to catch up on current events at home. On our way back to the hotel, we stopp…
Read → NEPALCairo, Egypt – Finally! It’s begun! I flew into Cairo on October 12th and met Rich, who’s been traveling on the Continent for the last six weeks, at the Nile Hilton at midnight. Sat there and caught up with Rich until 3:…
Read → CAIROCairo, Egypt – Our first day in Cairo we headed over to the grand bazaar for the day, and the first thing that I noticed was that it exemplified everything I’d ever imagined about Egypt; the hustle and bustle, small back alleys full of spices and materials, th…
Read → CAIROCairo, Egypt – We were all exhausted from going to bed at 4: 00 a.m. yesterday morning and from walking miles all over the Market that we crashed out at 9:00 p.m. last night to the incessant honking of the traffic on the street. Egyptian drivers love their hor…
Read → CAIRO12th October 1992, London, 3:00 p.m. GMT British Announcer for Capital FM radio station: “For Capital FM, this is the three o’clock news. One of the most powerful earthquakes in Egypt’s history rocked the city of Cairo today. The medium-strength quake, 5.9 on …
Read → EGYPTCairo, Egypt – Today we bummed around Cairo and finally made it to the Egyptian Museum to see Tutankhamen’s treasures. Going to the Egyptian Museum certainly sounds like something innocuous, but there in Egypt it was still a mission of sorts. First of all it s…
Read → CAIROOur train ride from Cairo to Aswan was a very interesting experience. We’d booked reserved seats, but when we boarded our carriage there was someone sitting in one of our seats. There was this Egyptian who asked the dude in our seat to move, and when he wouldn…
Read → EGYPTAbu Simbel, Egypt – We had to wake up at 3:45 this morning to make the 4:00 departure time down to the temple. We drove what seemed like forever through the desert, and I can honestly say there is absolutely nothing between Aswan and the temple. When you think…
Read → ABU SIMBENile River, Egypt – We got up, put our stuff together ands walked over to Adel’s boat at 8:00 a.m. Piled into the felucca, which looked like it had been in the family for a while. It fit seven people perfectly, had a removable plank floor for storage, then the…
Read → NILE RIVEToday we sailed all day, and Adel let me sit and steer the boat up the Nile for an hour or so. I sat on the mats watching the world pass as I zig zagged the felucca up the river with my foot on the rudder. We pulled up to shore in the late afternoon and Sarah,…
Read → EGYPTThis morning we had breakfast, our last with that excellent fig jam Adel had brought along, then it was ashore to find some way to get to Idfu. We’re sitting in Adel’s village waiting for a friend of his to drive us to Idfu, then on to Luxor. If we wanted to s…
Read → EGYPTThis morning we woke up at 7:30 a.m. and rented some bicycles to go see some of the ancient Egyptian wonders situated across the river. We took our bikes and jumped on the ‘locals ferry’ which cost each of us 50 pts (US$.15) to cross the Nile. We started ridin…
Read → EGYPTBought our tickets to the city of Hurgurdah, the port city for the ferry across the Red Sea to the Sinai, and once on the bus we met two other groups of people we’d seen before. Rob, Edward and Simon (from the felucca trip) and these other guys. When comparing…
Read → EGYPTHurgurdah to the Sinai – We woke up at 6:30 a.m., packed our stuff and made a very silent exit from our hotel before the manager could tell us the ferry was full again. We got a minivan to the port and arrived at the boat just as the last of the travelers were…
Read → EGYPTWe didn’t motivate much today, we sat under the shade of the palm trees along the beach reading our books and playing backgammon. Each of these lounging areas is directly in front of one of the restaurants, so each of the merchants has a monopoly on the folk l…
Read → EGYPTWe went over to Dahab City today with the intention of snorkeling in the “Blue Hole”, but it was too windy so Sarah went to the bank and changed some money instead. We walked back to our Bedouin village and went and lounged among the palms again. That afternoo…
Read → EGYPTWe’re both getting a little tired of the chaos and filth of Cairo. Today we wandered around the city looking for the Tanzanian embassy. No such luck finding it because in my infinite wisdom, during the planning of this trip it didn’t dawn on me that we wouldn’…
Read → EGYPTToday we wandered around the city doing some errands we needed to do before heading into Sub-Saharan Africa. We were on a quest for a sink plug today (which are amazingly hard to find in Cairo). We only got one after I played a demented version of Pictionary w…
Read → EGYPTThe plane landed five hours later – hard. It jolted me out of my sleep, making me instantly nauseous, forcing me to run to the back to boot in the plane’s loo. The stewardesses kept telling me to get back in my seat as I was running past them to be sick. I vot…
Read → KENYAI’m sitting here on the porch of our lodge we’ve moved into for the next couple of days. It’s sunny and I’m surrounded by loads of travelers. Our lodge has a huge open yard, and if you go looking for them you’ll find chameleons on the branches of the bushes. R…
Read → KENYAWe decided to venture out of the compound today to have a look at Nairobi some more, but not without a larger group this time. The first time Rich and I went walking we were on our own, and when we began to wander into an area where we the people didn’t seem a…
Read → KENYAIt is absolutely pissing down with rain this morning; if these are the short rains I wouldn’t like to see the long heavy ones. After talking to these other travelers, we decided it wasn’t worth it to travel around Kenya on our own right now; if everything gets…
Read → KENYARich and I both really like Harare. This morning we had our first walk around, and I feel really comfortable here. The city is clean, hot (at times) and from the small shopping centers I’ve seen I would think I was in Sacramento if I didn’t know better. The ci…
Read → ZIMBABWEHarare, Zimbabwe – Rich and I had planned to get up early and go to the Embassy election party, but we needed to get our passports over to the Zairian embassy so we could get our visa issued; we had a few to get before we could take off traveling before the sa…
Read → HARAREFrom the moment we set foot in Nairobi, everyone we’ve spoken to has said Malawi is amazing. They were all correct. We’d been talking to people at the Sable Lodge in Harare about the various ways one could get to Lilongwe, the capital, from Harare. The shortes…
Read → MALAWIHere’s the text from the Christmas postcards which are being mailed out: “Nov 18, 92. Dear ——, MERRY CHRISTMAS! We’ve made it to Malawi for the two weeks we had to kill before our safari. This place is heaven. We’re staying in one of the few modern buildings i…
Read → MALAWICape MacClear, Malawi – We met these two British girls (who turned out to be medical students) at breakfast named Cathy and Karine. Wednesday night they’d organized a local to cook a barbecue on the beach and they invited us along. Went down with them to the b…
Read → MALAWIWoke up this morning and lounged around. Rich and I thought we should go haggle with the sellers to get some stone carvings, so we rummaged through our backpacks looking for anything else we didn’t want. You see, no one tells you this, but when you cross over …
Read → MALAWIWe left Cape MacLear two days ago on a bus to Blantyre. The bus ride wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as the one to Monkey bay, and we got to go through some beautiful countryside. Blantyre is the industrial center of Malawi, with not a lot to offer the backpacker.…
Read → MALAWIWriting on the truck doesn’t work, so the writing will just have to be done when it’s possible. That’s the only really frustrating thing about being on the truck – you sit there for six hours at a time and are unable to write, unable to read, unable to do anyt…
Read → MALAWIJim is really good natured, able to talk to anyone and seems intelligent. Tom doesn’t appear to be that educated at all. He says things like, “If you eat a bulb of garlic you’ll be really healthy. I haven’t tried this myself, but . . .” Things like that. Throu…
Read → ZIMBABWEI took my five minute courtesy look and got back in the truck. A few stayed behind in the truck because they thought it’d be boring, and they were right. The dung beetles rolling their ball down the steps was more interesting. Once everyone was back if was off…
Read → ZIMBABWEWe were all really excited – it was our first safari in search of a dangerous animal. Our vehicle was a converted VW minivan with holes cut in the roof so everyone could standup to see the animals. We got to the park where Wally, our Rhodesian guide took us wa…
Read → ZIMBABWEMaun, Botswana – The morning of the 23rd we packed up and headed for the Botswanan border; we were on our way to the Okavango Delta. Once in Botswana we drove all day across the northern tip of the Kalahari Desert (spotting ostrich running away from the truck …
Read → MAUNThanksgiving, Middle of the Okavango Delta, Botswana – We woke up at 6:00 a.m. to start our elephant trek – our guides were taking us walking around the island we were staying on. We walked inland quite a distance from clearing to clearing spotting tons o’anim…
Read → THANKSGIVOkavango Delta, Botswana – We were all tired from camping out on the Delta so we packed up our camp and got back in the makoros to work our way back to civilization. One relaxing makoro ride, one exhilarating speed boat ride and one very long, hot and dusty sa…
Read → BOTSWANAMaun, Botswana to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe – We woke up and packed up camp, for we had one and a half days of straight driving to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Had a quick pick me up smoke before getting on the truck then just vegged out for about ninety minutes. …
Read → MAUNVictoria Falls, Zimbabwe – We all awoke at around 8:00 a.m. the next morning – mainly because we were so hungry, so Mike (the Brit), Rich and I went out to get some food. We started walking to the Vic Falls Hotel to get breaky, but we could see white mist risi…
Read → ZIMBABWEVic Falls sits on the Zambezi river, which doubles as the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Rich and I got up, had our all you can eat buffet breakfast (which was quickly becoming the norm) and decided to go across the bridge to the Zambian side of the falls…
Read → ZIMBABWEWoke up, sans hangover (unlike a few others in our group) and headed to the Vic Falls Hotel for breakfast. After our tea and scones experience Rich and I wanted to see what a buffet breakfast there might be like. Remember I mentioned the “travel river” – the r…
Read → ZIMBABWEVictoria Falls, Zimbabwe – We went white water rafting today, which was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve done so far. We had our pre-rafting meeting where we signed the “if you die we’re not liable” form and heard our safety talk before heading down th…
Read → ZIMBABWEHwange National Park, Zimbabwe – Because we still had a few days to kill before the truck arrived, Boz arranged for us to go on a full day safari at Hwange National Park, known for its high concentration of elephant and lion. Our safari company was Kalambezi a…
Read → ZIMBABWEOur truck finally arrived, new truck, as the old one was truly dead, and a new driver so we’d lost Steve. The new driver is a thirty year old British guy names Mick. He’s one of the most negative people I’ve met so we won’t be writing much about him. Because t…
Read → ZIMBABWENo money landed yesterday, so guess who’s still lounging around Vic Falls. We were! Lounging around was exactly what we did that day – Rich, Jessica, Lucy, jenny, Brenda & I all headed to the Sprayview Hotel (where they don’t make you pay to swim) to sit by th…
Read → ZIMBABWEToday we took Lucy and Jessica across the border to the crafts market to go shopping one last time (I said that before) prior to our departure the following morning, provided the money came through. We got to the market ad started bargaining away. I bought a m…
Read → ZIMBABWEToday I shipped home my tenth two kilo box out of Zimbabwe. My parents are going to wonder what I didn’t buy in southern Africa. When Rich and I were at the post office in line, who should come find us but Simon, – the Aussie doctor we’d sailed down the Nile w…
Read → ZAMBIACamping there wasn’t that bad except for the torrential rain which leaked into the tent a bit and threatened to collapse it all together. We got up extra early, for we needed to get to Mpulungu, the port town on Lake Tanganyika (the deepest lake in the world) …
Read → ZAMBIAWe needed to be in Mpulungu tonight, or we might not make the ferry, but we had a lot of k’s to cover so who knows if we’d make it or not. We left at 6:20 a.m. and drove all day long. It was definitely a long day – about twelve hours later it was pouring torre…
Read → ZAMBIAMplungu, Zambia – We got up and after packing our day packs for our ferry journey we took a walk around this port town. Not a lot in town but the port itself so we went and vegged our at our nicely landscaped campsite. While we were sitting there killing time …
Read → MPLUNGULake Tanganyika, Between Zambia and Tanzania – Woke up at 2:00 a.m. because it was so damn hot so I grabbed my sleeping bag and moved up to the first class outdoor deck where a bunch of other people from the truck had been sleeping. I awoke in time to see the …
Read → TANZANIAI awoke at 7:00 a.m. to the sound of the captain blowing the horn at our newest port of call. After making a few inquiries I found out that we’d made it to Kigoma over three hours early. That must be a new African world record – arriving early! We were so earl…
Read → TANZANIAThe truck didn’t arrive last night so today Rich and I are taking everyone to Ujiji, a city near here where Stanley finally found Livingstone and met for the first time. The girls had never been on a packed matatu, so Rich and I showed then the ropes re: ridin…
Read → TANZANIAWhen we woke up this morning it was pissing down rain, so we just sat in bed reading until noon when it was time to get food. We went into town for lunch, then since the rain had subsided we sat by the lake drinking beer all afternoon. I ended up going to bed …
Read → TANZANIAWe left at noon today headed towards Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, but not before stopping off at the candy store to spend al our remaining Tanzanian shillings on Cadbury’s chocolate. We headed out of Kigoma on the worst road we’d driven on so are. It can…
Read → BURUNDIThe next morning we woke up at dawn, and our viewing gallery of locals was standing on the outskirts of our camp watching us – right on time. I kept trying to take pictures of the locals, but Africans are afraid of cameras – we think it’s because they think it…
Read → BURUNDIWe headed out early and hit the Zairian border in the mid-morning. Zaire is a total dictatorship – as bad as one can get – so the bureaucracy is massive. We’d read a few weeks earlier that the Prime Minister wanted to have some governmental body directly elect…
Read → ZAIREOutside Bukavu, Zaire – We went down to the springs the next morning and the boys weren’t kidding – it was a large stream flowing through the jungle, only it was warm and the air was filled with steam from the river. Stef, Mike and Tina splashed around the wat…
Read → ZAIREWe got up, took down camp and started driving. We had to be in Goma today, no matter what, and the roads were flatter than usual so it was pretty smooth riding. We were told we were going to drive until we got to Goma – we needed to book the gorillas – be it m…
Read → ZAIREEn route to Jumba, Zaire – Woke up this morning still very drunk from the night before so I just crawled onto the truck to rest up for the day’s activities. We headed into Goma where everyone got out and wandered around for a few hours. I stayed behind and gua…
Read → ZAIRENational Parc de Virunga, Zaïre – Today was the day we were to see the Silverback gorillas – one of the main reasons we came on this safari in the first place. We hiked up to the rangers station in the hills at 7:30 a.m., only to be told that they couldn’t tak…
Read → ZAIREWe drove all day through Uganda, admiring the beautiful countryside. I got a photo of four dormant volcanoes in a row – beautiful. Everyone was getting a bit delirious from riding in the truck, plus it was Christmas Eve, so when we pulled into the hotel at Mba…
Read → UGANDASo much for leaving at 8:00 a.m.. We woke up at 9:00 a.m. feeling very slow, but not hung over. We all piled into the truck by 10:00 a.m. and had, I think, the most relaxing day of driving we’d ever had because everyone was so out of it from our Christmas Eve …
Read → UGANDAWhen we woke up today the music from the disco was still blaring away. Don’t know what the management was thinking because I certainly didn’t see anyone dancing at 6:00 a.m! We jumped in the truck and made the thirty minute drive to Kampala and made a bee line…
Read → UGANDAToday was the day. Today, against my better judgment, the truck left Jinja and headed for the Kenyan border. The Kenya/Uganda border is technically closed for security reasons, but we’d heard that they were letting tourists through. Upon our arrival at the bor…
Read → KENYAKisumu, Kenya – One day to go until the election and we were headed to Nairobi to try to get out of a country which no longer the stablest in East Africa. We packed up our stuff and jumped in the truck with Mike, Tom and Jim who were also going to Nairobi to h…
Read → KISUMUMoi declared today a public holiday so there aren’t any Air India flights leaving today, let alone the fact that no one at the airport was answering the phone anyway. We ended up just hanging around the Kumuka compound watching the only Kenyan television stati…
Read → KENYAQuote from today’s The Nation “Nairobi – UK awaits election monitors’ reports The Foreign Office said yesterday that it would not make a statement on the outcome of the General Election until it had reports from the British High Commissioner in Nairobi and the…
Read → KENYA