slacking off

ok ok, so i've been slacking on this whole blog thing.  and in the city with more internet cafes per square inch than i've ever seen before.  i guess there was no panic to blog before internet was yanked away from me forever.

 anyway, things are great!  the rickshaw run finish was tons of fun, big ol parade, big ol partay, plenty of newly showered people, good times!  here's a smattering of the things that have gone on since the run ended:

the morning of the parade and party, drew and i rode mountain bikes up a mountain at 4am to see the sunrise.  after huffing and puffing my way up (a taxi driver laughed at us and said "not possible on bicycle!" but we showed him!), we found out it was a cloudy morning and we couldn't see shit, not even the sun.  so we ate breakfast, watched some japanese tourists take pictures of clouds and then road back down a dirt "road".

did a rafting trip down a furious river for about 2 hours of nonstop rapids (3-4+), very cool and good fun.  there was a bunch of bangladeshi dudes in the other raft that didn't know how to do anything, so their raft just kept spinning around in strange circles.  one of the guys, before he got into his raft came up to me (speaking bangladeshi, which i pretty much interpret as a series of gutteral "blahs") and basically pulls down his pants, then says something (i assumed he was asking if he could raft the river in the nude), i said "i don't care man" (he wasn't in my raft) and he hurridly pulled his pants back up and got into his raft.  no idea what the actual translations there were (like what he said and then what he thought i said) but it was funny.  and another example the men in this part of the world being completely gay for me (more examples to come).

drew flew to germany.  i cried, lots.

did a kayaking trip for 4 days with some fellow rickshaw runners, was amazing!  camped out on the river at night, learned how to kayak big rapids, can even flip myself upright after fuckups now!  and there were lots of those.  anyway, it was amazing.  

promptly got an ear infection from all the kayak flipping which delayed my departure for the annapurna trek (was supposed to leave yesterday, waiting till tomorrow morning now).  felt like there was an icepick in my brain for a couple days and could only eat liquid foods because my jaw wouldn't open, so i went to a nepalese doctor, who perscribed a shitload of drugs of varying usefullness.  eventually i just told him what i wanted him to perscribe and he nodded his head in agreement and now i'm on a couple antibiotics and such.  feeling better, solid foods are good.

anyway, i've been stuck in pokhara in limbo.  nice town, but too touristy for me and i'm itching for a change.  so tomorrow i'm off to hunt the abominable snowman in a mountain cave.  will be hiking for about 2 weeks (maybe a bit more).  got all my equipment for super cheap, and really good stuff (even if the brand names are fake).  so i'll be out of interweb range for a while.

wish me luck!

nepaleasy

 forgetting where i left off here, but i think we were in kajurho looking at the karma sutra temples.  very cool little town, the temple art was amazing and quite funny in places.  i'm talking threesomes, beastiality, positions galore, all lovingly carved into the holy temples of their various gods and religions.  indian tourists were staring at them open mouthed trying to make sense of things.  it was good.

 next we drove to varanasi, well we didn't quite make it the whole way, we stopped about 60km outside of the city because i was down for the count (i ate some dal at a truck stop that refused to cooperate with my stomach, it was a bad 6 hours).  then we drove into the city and had a major breakdown about 10km away (drew discovered a plastic bag in our air intake to save the day, because our mechanic sure as hell didn't know it was there).  then into varanasi where the streets are insane mazes of back alleys roamed by giant cows (seriously, think greek labrynth here), ghats along the river ganges, burning bodies on funeral pyres, and cobras.  good stuff!  if a bit smelly.

we took a whole luxurious day off from driving in varanasi and toured around, relaxed, slept well, ate well, all kinds of good things.  then drove off the next afternoon for ghoazpur near the nepal border.  absolutely miserable road the whole way.  think of it like driving a rickshaw on the surface of the moon, without the helpful lack of gravity.  we shook the old girl apart in several places, roof was falling apart (actual steel poled snapped in two), muffler is hanging on by a single bolt, and she sounds like a jungle cat with a mouthful of nails.  we ignored all those problems the rest of the way.

met a bunch of rickshaw teams in ghoazpur, ate a nice meal, slept in, and then drove all the way to pokhara the next day.

well, we had originally planned to be driving for about 3 days through nepal once we crossed the border, but it actually took us about 6 hours.  so, here we are!  and amazing it is!  there are the obvious mountains everywhere, plus jungles, lakes, super nice people (way nicer than india, actually).  and there's tons of outdoorsy things to do here (right up my alley).  planning on extending my trip and doing a week or two rafting trip and a week or two trek through the himalayas, if i find buddha along the way, more the merrier!

so we did it!  and no injuries, and shaw that still sort of functions.  we were the 3rd team here out of 65, but we did 3403km on the old girl, more than anyone i've talked to by about 600km.  so, hooray!

will keep up with this blog while i am in nepal, so feel free to keep checking.  and maybe i'll get drew to show me how to upload pics too.

beard is getting bushy!

hot and bothered

been a few days since i was able to drop a blog.  seen tons of india thus far!

met up with a couple other teams randomly on the road from bijapur to bidar, joined up with them for a few days (monkey legion, some like it hot, and abu dabi).  saw bidar (sort of, we got in late due to our rickshaw crapping out on us).  talked to a bunch of mechanics (thank god it's the same word in hindi).  the final word seems to be that we're driving too fast. so taking it a bit easier.  no more 60+ kmph.  well, most of the time.

good thing though, we now know how to repair just about everything but broken metal on the old girl.  and we've been able to solve most problems on our own (several a day thus far). 

got separated from the caravan due to rickshaw trouble followed by phone trouble.  vodafone is my nemesis and i will do all i can to end them.  drove through the night to pachmarhi two nights ago, saw some waterfalls and buddhist caves on a mountain top station of sort.  quite nice drive along the way, finally some good roads!

last night were headed to khajuraho, but had to give it up around midnight, slept on a nice patch of dirt next to our trusty steed.  in the morning she broke down again (fortunately in a town this time.  last time it was in the middle of the rain and we had to get a tow from a combination rickshaw and extension cord.)  couldn't fix her ourselves this time, but a mechanic appeared from nowhere and litterally pushed us with his foot about 1km while he drove through town.  took apart the engine, replace two broken things, cleaned her out, oil change.  now she purrs.  2400km on the old girl so far.

checking out the erotic sculpture art of khajuraho today, very excited.  that should hold us till varansi (either tonight or tomorrow).

wish us tuk!

SMS Update

after half a dozen rickshaw repairmen verdict is: drive slower. Still looking for other options.

SMS Update

break it down breakdown- mouthful of petrol and drainage fix.

SMS Update

Slept in Hampi temple ruins last night. Now on north to Bijapur. Was hell on the old girl. Started sounding funny but a friendl ** some text is missing **

hump to hampi

morning of the second day. spent all day yesterday driving to hampi over hill and dale (very big hills and neverending  dales).  through much stubborness, luck, stupidity, and head bobbing, we charged through the night and rain to arrive at hampi around 2am.  our hotel wouldn't open up and everything was closed, so we slept in one of the temples.  hanuman (the flying monkey god), is our new diety of choice.  hampi is amazing, but can't stay long, bijapur or bust!

SMS Update

Over the jungle mountain and thru the deep backwoods villages-beautiful - but finally a proper road. Heading to Hampi through the night. Americans - driving hours means nussing.

bring it on goa

survived all the way to goa!  lots of trains, spent about 16 hours on one from mumbai to goa (rain had washed out the track in places and we could feel the huge bump of the train going over the newly connected part they'd literally just put together.)  ride was amazing, through jungle mountains of southern india, over giant plains and rivers and waterfalls.  really incredible ride.

met some indians on the train with a sense of humour!  my sarcasm has been failing miserably to impress on indians so far.  so i've had to resort to things like "wit" or "jokes".  but these folks were sarcastic right back at me.  so hooray for that.  very cool people, they fed me homemade indian food from tupperware and we played strange card games i'd never heard of.  i was never the donkey though, so i think that's good.

rented a scooter to drive around goa for like $4 a day.  very handy for short distances.  tried to drive a long way on it yesterday, got extraordinarily lost.  everything is green and shacklike here.  i kept thinking, "this all looks the same!"  it was the same, i drove on a circle road, before i thought there couldn't be two ladies with that many metal pots balanced on her head.  anyway, got unlost and badly scooter sunburnt.

p.s. if vodafone had a face, i would punch it.

auranga-not-so-bad

trained from mumbai to aurangabad (spelled correctly!) 2 days ago.  i dig the trains here!  quite comfy and lots of snacks and chai tea along the way.  chatted it up with anyone who would talk to me and was having quite a nice time, until it kind of backfired and a seemingly nice indian guy sat across from me and wouldn't stop talking.  eventually the conversation turned into him propositioning me to "go to the back of the train with him" for some kind of nefarious sexual act, which he laid out explicitly in perfect english.  i politly declined and convinced one of the other people sitting nearby to take his seat when he went to the bathroom.  he looked very sad when i disembarked.

while the city is a little plain, the area around aurangabad has some of the most amazing caves ever!  house sized buddhist caves hand carved into solid rock walls with intricate paintings and sculptures.  incredible.  did some meditation in an alcove used by buddhist monk in 200 a.d.  off to see more of them today, then training to goa tonight!  will have my tazer ready.