Slovenia: Ljubljana and Bled

I made it to Ljubljana after a fairly uneventful but scenic 2hr train ride and was fortunate enough to get the last available bed at the Alibi hostel, a nice place with a cozy communal area, free albeit slow internet and character painted walls. It's pretty amazing how much a good 'common area' facilitates and greatly eases the process of meeting new people.

Ljubljana was a great town with lots of old streets, wonderful cafes and restaurants, great events and live music, interesting 'street art' (ala radiohead), and friendly people. Unfortunately it rained most of the three days I was there which limited my walking around to the nearest cafe/restaurant.

I did manage to make it to the small town of Bled one day, whose claim to fame are the great mountains and wooded areas surrounding bled lake, which also has a small island containing a chapel. I'm sorry to say that the rain soon induced a cold in me and so I decided to press on to the warmer weather of Venice on my way to Geneva.

Photos: Ljubljana, Bled
Videos: Alibi Hostel, Rowing Lake Bled

Croatia: Plitvice Lakes National Park and Rijeka

I arrived at the Plitvice Lakes around mid-day and wandered for a while before coming upon a house with a sign indicating they had a room available. After finding a very nice, smiley young woman inside, she explained that the room included dinner and breakfast and I would have my own bathroom all for 50...50 what I wasn't quite sure (it turned out to be Euros), but after lugging my bag around for an hour or so I decided to take it. After dumping my stuff I headed to the lakes and spent several hours walking around and exploring the amazing lakes, waterfalls and scenery. The clarity and color of the water was so amazing and different from lake to lake (11 in total) and you could look down from the wooden walk way to see fish swimming right beside you.

I met an English family that night that mentioned they were headed to Rijeka the next morning and they graciously offered to give me a ride. Unfortunately Rijeka was the dirtiest city I had seen in Croatia, with graffiti fairly rampant. Fortunately it just acted as a stop off on my way to Slovenia.

Photos: Plitvice Lakes, Rijeka
Videos: Plitvice Lakes 1, 2, 3, 4

Croatia: Split and Zadar

As I headed North I was hoping that things in Croatia would get slightly cheaper, and was a bit surprised when I arrived in Split to even higher prices for accomodation and food. I stayed in Split for two nights, in the house of an old woman who liked to wander into my room at all times unannounced (especially at 8am when I was freshly woken) and tell me long stories in Croatian despite my gestures of incomprehension. She was friendly, and we did manage to share some comprehension through our smiles, I think she was just a little lonely. Split houses another old town, similar to the others, but surrounding the remnants of Diocletian's Palace. I explored the old town with two Irish students I met and got the chance to brush up on my fashion sense as we bounced from one clothier to the next in the old town.

I continued my way up the coast to Zadar and made the acquaintance of two Australian travelers, both on vacation from working in London and traveling solo. The three of us stumbled around the Zadar old town in search of accomodation and ended up in the apartment of a man named 'Robert Wagner' (not the actor). Robert was nice enough, but things soon proved strange: it appeared that the girls and I had been assigned to stay in the master bedroom of Robert's parents, complete with clothes, china, and pictures of young robert and his sisters. The remainder of the apartment consisted of three other bedrooms also let out to travelers as well as a kitchen/lounge area which appeared to serve as Robert's bedroom, with clothes stacked on the sofa and countless nail-clippers, nail-files, and scissors splayed out on the tiny kitchen table. Another oddity was the pervasive presence of ballet paraphernalia throughout the house...all adding to the mystery was Robert Wagner. The strangeness aside, Zadar was a relatively quick and uneventful stop on the way to the Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Photos: Split, Zadar
Video: View from my window in Split

Croatia: Mljet and Korcula

Having had such a good experience in Dubrovnik and having no specific plans, grandpa suggested that I go stay in his house in Sobra on the island of Mljet close by, which I did. A wonderful small island town that gave me the chance to escape the hustley, bustley mode for a few days and just relax by the cool green and blue water, albeit on a concrete slab of a beach. On Mljet, I met Aisling and Athol, a couple from England, who were having a bit more success than I when it came to relaxing. We spent the evening cooking a wonderful pasta meal (my first home cooked meal of the trip) and reading a play, which was a fun and new experience.

After three days of relaxing I started to get a bit antsy and decided to press on to the island of Korcula, which also has a nice 'old town' similar to that in Dubrovnik but much smaller. I have to admit that Korcula was a bit more my speed and size, perfect for leisurly strolls and a bit of getting lost, but not to lost. The first night there I met a fellow American traveler who provided some reassuring words about long term solo-travel as we swapped travel stories over dinner. I ended up in the 'one love' hostel, where there were no locks on any doors, you only get 10mins in the bathroom, and the party goes to the early morn. Needless to say, sleep was not bountiful.

Photos: Mljet, Korcula
Videos: Sobra Beach, Live Music in Korcula

Croatia: Dubrovnik

Croatia has been killing me, or more precisly my budget, slowly with expensive accomodation, food, and most importantly internet access, which is the primary reason for my lack of posting frequency lately. Enough about that, down to business...

After arriving sick in Dubrovnik at 4:30am and relaxing on the concrete for an hour, I was fortunate enough to be greeted by an old man offering a room, unfortunately it was a bit more than I was planning on paying at roughly $22 a night, but being sapped I took it (I would later find out that $22 was the cheap end of accomodation). The man proceeded to drive me to his place in the most rickety car (apparently a communist era Yugo) I have ever had the pleasure of riding in: sitting in the back seat it felt and sounded like a metal rod was about to break through the seat at any moment. The place was nice, also housing the man's son and a daughter and grandsons visiting from Virginia for the summer.

Dubrovnik itself was an amazing, and surprisingly large, old, walled town that has been impressively restored/maintained. The town has been filled with expensive restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, clothing stores and other shops that fill the narrow, winding streets and cater to the large tourist crowd. Unfortunately Dubrovnik was the most touristy place thus far along the way, largely filled with german and french tourists. Despite the large crowds it was nice to spend a day getting lost amongst all the back allys, stop for a coffee, and drink from the large, multi-headed fountain. At night, parts of the town were filled with jugglers, musicians, and peeps dressed in traditional outfits. Alas, two days was all I could manage before heading off to the small island of Mljet, just off the coast.

Photos: Dubrovnik
Video: Inside Dubrovnik

Review: The Arabs

I also just finished The Arabs by David Lamb, a book about Lamb`s experiences during his 4 year stint as the Times Middle-East bureau chief based out of Cairo. Part experience, part history, `The Arabs` was originally written in the 80s but recently updated, and is a fascinating look at the complexity of the Middle-East states. It`s a fairly quick read, and I would recommend it for anyone interested in a primer on the Middle-east.

Review: Blindness

I recently finished Blindness by Jose Saramago, a great book about a town who`s citizens suffer a sudden white blindness where all they see is whiteness. The style took some getting used to as there are no seperations for speech and no quotations, but overall a fascinating read. The book was certainly chock full of social commentary, the second half of which I glossed over in my hurry to finish the book. A fairly which read, I would definately recommend it for anyone looking for some fiction and mental stimulation.

Mostar to Dubrovnik

I was originally planning only 2 days in Mostar, but when I showed up at the bus station on the morning of day 3 to catch the 10am bus, I was informed that there are only 3 buses a day (7am, 10am, 1am), that there are only 5 seats available on each bus, and that the 10am was sold out so I would have to wait for the 1am. Upon asking for a ticket I was told I would just have to buy one from the bus driver when the bus arrived at 1am.

The day passed fairly quickly with a bit of reading, lots of coffee drinking, and several chavapi meals. I showed up at the station at 9am to wait. Around 11 the on-set of sore, scratchy throat, ferver, headache, and chills were settling in, and by 1am it was in full swing. Though several buses came and went, none were the one I needed. About 1:30am I started chatting with a group that was apparently waiting for the same bus, and they informed me that they had been told they all had reservations and tickets aboard the coming bus and were very surprised that I didn`t.

When the bus finally arrived at 2am the bus driver was very reluctant to take my money and let me on the bus, but after some hard-nosed, hand-signal driven negotiations he relented and I was awarded a spot. We pulled into Dubrovnik at 4:40am, to the wonderful aroma of salty ocean air.

Mostar

After Sarajevo, I stopped in the small town of Mostar on my way down to Dubrovnik in Croatia. Mostar was a great little town with and old section of cobbled streets lined with market shops and cafes, all surrounding a very striking bridge across the emerald green river. I had only intended to stay in Mostar for a day, two at the most, but got stuck there for 3 days due to a very sparse bus schedule.

Unfortunately, expensive, and few internet cafes have prevented me from being able to upload any photos and videos, but there are a lot to come...

Photos: Mostar
Video: Mostar at Night

Sarajevo

After initially planning on just passing through Bosnia, I was convinced to stop off for a few days in Sarajevo if I could spare them. I have to admit, I was very pleasantly surprised. Sarajevo lies in a valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides completely covered in lush vegetation; very picturesque.

The first day was spent lounging after the long, sleepless bus ride. The hostel was very well placed directly next to a tastey, cheap bakery and across the street from a square that`s part of the old town containing lots of cafes. The coffee here is excellent, I`ve been lapping up the cappacinos, and I don`t even really like coffee.

I spent the second day on a tour that talked a lot about the war with the Serbs (pictures are forthcoming). We visited a tunnel that was built to connect Sarajevo with outer Bosnia for ferrying of supplies, men, etc. We saw the sniper alley where people were constantly gunned down by serbs in the hills, and visited the Jewish grave yard used by the snipers. It was very disturbing and and disconcerting to hear first hand account of the war, and especially the total and utter failure of the UN in so many different areas.

Last night I arrived in Mostar, a small town 2 1/2hrs south of Sarajevo, for a brief stop over before heading to Dubrovnik in Crotia tomorrow morning.

Photos: Sarajevo
Video: Sarajevo Panorama

Bus`n it to Sarajevo

I am beginning to realize exactly how spoiled I was by the bus rides in Turkey...

I knew that the bus ride to Sarajevo wasn`t going to be pretty, but apparently my expectations weren`t quite low enough. The ride involved taking one bus across the border with Serbia, over to Nish (about 5hrs) where I would transfer to another bus to continue on to Sarajevo (about 9hrs). Things started out decent enough, the bus from Sofia to Nish, while a bit old, was pretty roomy and had pretty good AC. The 5hrs passed fairly quickly with the help of my iPod.

We got to Nish, had a brief respite before boarding bus number two. I boarded to find seats with half the leg room of an economy class alirline seat, no AC, and prison guard style spot lights to light the walk way from above, strategically positioned to shine directly through ones eyelids no matter how tightly they were held shut. Needless to say, the 9hr ride was a sweat soaked, knee and neck dabilitating journey...I tried to look at it as `training` for Africa.

Last night in Sofia

After dearest mom took off, I decided to stick around Sofia for one more day/night and do a little reading/writing and take it easy for a bit longer before shoving off once more. I thought it would be relativly easy to get a spot in a hostel, but stopping by the recommended `hostel mostel´ I was sorely mistaken as they were booked for days, but kindly directed me to the `hostel sofia´ down the road.

While not the cleanest or most spacious hostel I´ve stayed in, by any means, hostel sofia was cozy with friendly people. I thought it was going to be a calm, relaxed evening until I discovered that there was an extremely emaciated, chain smoking (with smokers cough to match), racist extremist, bulgarian woman amongst the rest of the averagely docile backpackers. Having blocked out her racial shouts at the TV for over an hour, I decided to call it an early night. It was only once I´d crawled into bed and had just fallen asleep that an incredibly loud, flemy smokers cough roused me with the realization that the woman was staying in our room! The rest of the night was spent unsuccessfully trying to block out the wince inducing cough, with scattered glimpses of sleep surprising me now and then.

And then it was off to Sarajevo...

Review: The Clash of Fundamentalisms

I finally made it all the way through Adam's book: 'The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity' by Tariq Ali. It was definately not quite what I was expecting, which was more an emphasis on the 'clash' part and the history/evolution of that aspect. He certainly discusses this in the book but not to the extent I was hoping.

The primary emphasis (2/3 to 3/4 of the book) is on Islam and it's history: how Islam came about and it's evolution and disection into what we have today. There is a lot of explanation of the formation of the various Arab states as well as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Kashmir which I found absolutely fascinating and enlightening, seeing as I knew nothing about all of that prior to reading this book. This information alone made the book a worthwhile read, despite serveral dry sections where lots and lots of names are thrown around, which are hard to remember. I should probably mention that Tariq Ali is an atheist with a 'cultural' Islamic upbringing, so most of his discussion of Islam through out the book is from this perspective and discusses Islams formation as a political tool.

I was a bit disappointed with his discussions of 'A brief history of US Imperialism', which lacked the comprehensiveness of the aforementioned discussion of Islam and also saw a far amount of 'soap boxing' which was tiresome. There was also a section 'thrown in' at the end about Indonesia's 'history' as related to and an explanation for the bombings in Bali, which I thought was entirely unnecessary and would have better served being left out with more attention paid to 'US Imperialism'.

In any case I would definately recommend giving it a read if you have an interest in a unique perspective/explanation of Islam as relates to the middle east and India/Pakistan and can manage not getting bogged down with all of the names.

Bulgaria

After 4 1/2 weeks in Turkey it was finally time to take off and head towards Croatia. After a 12hrs on a bus, and 4hrs stuck crossing the border into Bulgaria, I finally arrived in Sofia where I have been taking it easy and catching up with my mom who is here on business for a few days. I have to admit, its been quite nice to stay in a hotel, have a nice piping hot shower, big meals with pork, and pretty much do nothing. We did manage to get out and go see 'Pirates of the Caribbean' last night, which was fun...I've still got to catch 'Superman' though.

Mom was nice enough to bring me a fresh supply of books to keep me busy for a while: Blindness by Jose Saramago, and The Arabs and The Africans both by David Lamb. I also managed to get a copy of Shantaram from Audible.com, which should keep me busy for a while. I'll post reviews as I finish the books.

I'll wrap up my time in Bulgaria in the next couple of days and head through Serbia and Bosnia over to Croatia and then work my way up the coast an into Slovenia over the next several weeks, at least that's the plan so far...

The Hamam

Well...Adam and I finally managed to make it to a Turkish bath (hamam), and what a bath it was...

I guess at a basic level it was similar to a child being bathed by his mother: one small helpless individual in a new place being cleaned, via splashing water, by another large odd looking individual speaking in a strange tongue, only in this case 'mom' was a big, sweaty, incredibly hairy turkish man, the place: a hot marble room, and the tongue turkish.

Adam and I arrived at the Haman not really knowning what lay in store. With some hand gesturing we gathered that we needed to go change into towels, after which we were ushered into a room with a large marble 'table' in the middle, at a balmy 115+ fahrenheit. Inside this room was a small sauna (at 130 fahrenheit) which we decided to check out for a few mins, but I wasn't able to last long at that temperature. After waiting on the host marble slab for 15-20 mins our big turkish bathers came and took us into another, slightly cooler room, where the fun began.

They started by dousing us with copious amounts of warm water and rubbing us down with some kind of 'exfoliating glove', not unlike sandpaper. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of dead skin that literally came of in big rolls from my neck, back, arms, legs, etc. Every now and then they would throw in a hard slap on the back for good measure. After a bit more rinsing they lathered up the palmolive soap bar for the washing: he jerked my arms, lifted my legs, flipped me on to my stomach, and generously dug his nails deep into my scalp to make sure no dirt possibly remained.

Then it was time for the 'massage', which turned out not to be so much a massage in the traditional sense as it was a beating. After a bit more arm jerking to make sure I was good and loose, he put me onto my back, crossed my arms over my chest and applied the full force of his 300+ pound heft...my back has never cracked so loudly or completely. But he was just getting started. He flipped me on to my stomach and started pounding away at my back to the point that my adam's apple was actually being smashed into the marble slab. Next he moved to the legs and solicited several winces as he burried his thumbs deeb in my ham strings and calves, all the while my knee caps close to shattering against the marble from the force. A few more bowls of water over the head and down the back and we were done, left to haul our bruised, albeit clean, bodies into a cold shower.

I have to say that it was one of the best experiences I had in Turkey, and would highly recommend it to anyone that has the opportunity. I'm hoping I can squeeze one in when I get back to Istanbul before heading to Africa. Unfortunately for all of us I wasn't able to take any pictures...

Shemales of Istanbul

Walking back to Adam's place of residence after dark on several occasions I noticed what looked like your garden variety prostitues on one street in particular. Upon consultation with Adam, I learned that these were in fact trans-sexuals. In itself, I guess this doesn't seem all that strange when considering how large of a city/society Istanbul is. It is a bit more strange however, when you consider that this is in the context of a predominantly muslim society. Adam and I are both curious to know how/why this practice of apparent trans-sexual prostitution seems to be culturally tolerated if not outrightly accepted by turks, especially when there don't appear to be any female prostitues. Eda, I will be curious to get your input.

Cheap Flights

Finding cheap flights has become a pretty important part of getting around between all of these different countries/cities. There are a lot of flight finding websites out there, but a few of the ones that I have found to be the best are: skyscanner, Kayak, Flights.com, and EasyJet (europe only).

Photo Recovery

Every now and then something happens to your memory card, you pull it out too early, static charge maybe, who know, but all of a sudden all of those photos that you've taken over several weeks are gone. Luckily this hasn't happend to me yet, but it has happened to several people I know. For those of you that may run into this problem I wanted to let you know about a great photo recovery tool, that my buddy Tien found: Photorec. Photorec does an amazing job of doing a low level scan of your memory card to search for photos. Unfortunately, the interface is DOS based, but it is pretty straight forward and easy to figure out. Hopefully this will save a few of you in the future.

Back in Istanbul

Its been a hectic last few days. Having spent a while traveling together it was time to leave Goreme and part ways with the folks I met on the blue cruise. We parted ways wednesday, with Kristen and Fernando heading west again to Pamukkale and then on to Greece, Andrew on his way to Syria and Kayley and I sharing a bus back to Istanbul with her continuing on to Switzerland/Germany.

Unfortunately, the Kebab I powered down before hopping on the bus back to Istanbul decided to make a second appearance several hours into the ride and resulted in several vomiting sessions on the bus in the wee hours of the morning. Lucky for all of us on board the elderly turkish man and his son sitting next to me had some spare plastic bags, so things didn't end up on the floor.

In any case, food poisoning and the inability to keep down any food/liquid has keep me fairly incapacitated for a couple of days, but I think I'm at the tail end now. I thought I'd make it out of Turkey without incident, but hopefully this will fortify my stomach a bit for the next country.

I did manage to visit the Topkapi Palace yesterday, but unfortunately some remnant lethary prevented me from taking any photos. I'll get back to that soon enough.

The next couple of days will be pretty laid back, but I am going to try and squeeze in a traditional turkish bath before heading out to meet my mom in Bulgaria.

Video: Open Air Museum

After a late night last night, and a sluggish start this morning we managed to drag ourselves to the Open Air Museum in Goreme as our last tourist stop before leaving. The Open Air Museum is a large collection of churches, chapels, monastery, convent built just outside of Goreme over the 11-13th centuries. Several of the churches contained incredible, bright frescos very well preserved due to the lack of light entering the church. Unfortunately many of the frescos have been damaged by vandals, and the eyes/mouth/faces scratched off by non-christians that settled in the area a a later date.

Photos: Open Air Museum

Sunset Over Goreme

After a relatively easy going day yesterday Fernando, Kristen, Kayley, Andrew and I hiked up to a hill behind our hostel to have some wine and watch the sunset over Goreme. The big jug-o-wine was more like vinegar, but the people were great and the sunset amazing.

Photos: Goreme Sunset

Video: Ihlara Valley, Selime Monastery and the Camel Palace

From the Underground City we headed to the Ihlara Valley, which houses more than 200 churches built into the rock walls. We hiked down into and through the valley for an hour to a spot where lunch was provided.

After lunch we had a quick ride over to the Selime Monastery, a huge monastery built into the side of a hill which was used as Theological college. The monastery housed a couple thousand monks, hospital, stables, kitchens, library, etc.

From Selime we headed to a Camel Palace on the old Silk Route through Turkey. It was a place where traders could get free room and board for upto 3 days while traveling through turkey.

Photos: Goreme

• Ihlara Valley
• Camel Palace

Video: Underground City

Yesterday was a whirlwind 10hr tour around Cappadocia. We started at 9am and headed to one of the many underground cities in this area that were built by the Hitties as places to hide during attacks from invaders. Of the hundred or so cities in this area we visited the largest one which is 8 stories deep and could house 2000 people for upto 6 months. It was amazing to see what they were able to construct with probably little more than hammer and chisel: winery, chapel, school, defense systems, places for animals, kitchens, wells, etc...they thought of everything.

Video: Walk Through the Valley

Several folks from the Blue Cruise (Andrew, Fernando, Kristen, and Kayley) and I all left Olympos at the same time and headed to Goreme. We arrived in Goreme in central turkey a few days ago after a long, mostly sleepless overnight bus ride from Olympos. After deciding to stay at the 'Shoestring Cave Pension' (We are actually sleeping in a cave), we did some walking around town and then went for a 3+hr guided hike through the Pigeon Valley, Honey Valley, White Valley and Love Valley.

It was nice to get out and do some hiking after a few lethargic days. The rock formations were amazing, and a lot of the landscape reminded me of Utah/Arizona. Some of the unique formations are the fairy chimneys, and giant love sticks.

Chimaera

In the last post, I kinda forgot to mention what exactly Chimaera is. Up above the small beach town of Olympos, Chimaera is a hill which has a large number of naturally occurring flames, caused by some kind of methane based gas seeping out of the ground and bursting into flame due to the pressue loss (I believe). What's amazing is that these flames have been burning for a few thousand years apparently...never ending flames.

We did a night hike upto Chimaera while in Olympos and it was pretty amazing to see these natural flames all over the hill side. It was good to get a little exercise in the hike up the mountain, after being on the boat doing nothing for several days.

Video: Flames at Chimaera

• Take 1
• David Brent on the Flames of Chimaera

Video: View from the Boat

• Swimming
• Another View

Blue Cruise Days 1-4

I spent another day in Fethiye, walking along the water and taking it easy. I met up with Eda at the 'Lykia World' resort for some lunch and sea kayaking which was a lot of fun. Tuesday (July 4) I caught the boat for the cruise over to Olympos.

Day 1: The cruise was a great time, and finally gave me a chance to soak up some needed sun and enjoy as much clear, blue (albeit incredibly salty) water as I desired. The original plan called for stopping in the Blue Lagoon and Butterfly Valley (the primary spots I had been told were a must see) on the first day, unfortunately, due to some issues with the boat, or something of the sort, we didn't actually get rolling until after 2pm, which meant that we had to skip both of those and head straight for our over night spot in St Nicolaus bay. We spent the first evening sending messages back and forth to a neighboring boat, via bottle, and met them on their boat later that night for some socializing.

Day 2: Unfortunately, the cruise was so relaxing, that I have to confess I don't really remember much about the specific ports of call that we visited each day. Other than the fact that day 2 started at 5am with 4+ hours of motoring to our next spot, it (like the other days) is mainly recalled as being full of blue water swimming and jagged, rocky land. We did visit Kas on day 2 (I believe): a really nice small town, with great, friendly people, and good food.

Day 3: On day 3 we broke down...and were stuck in a small port for about 24 hours while the oil pump was replaced. Fortunately, we had such a great group of easy going, and relaxed people that we spent the day jumping off the boat and playing cards, before heading to the 'smugglers inn' at night to celebrate a fellow passengers birthday (fernando) with some dancing and mingling.

Day 4: On day 4 we visited and swam in the pirate's cave and around a few more bays before heading to shore around 2pm to catch the mini-bus to Olympos (turns out the cruise doesn't actually go all the way, as one might believe by the 'Fethiye to Olympos' title).

Photos: Blue Cruise

Downtime in Selcuk

Yesterday was a needed rest day. Having been on more than my fair share of buses since Monday, and going through a bit of 'ruins overload' I ended up spending the day hanging out with a canadian couple also staying at 'Jimmys Place' that I met the day before on the free ride to Ephesus.

We spent the day hopping from one eatery to the next consuming meatball sanwiches, tea, baklava, hummus, and copious amounts of water to help stave off the incessant heat (something that later caught up with me on my late night bus ride). During all of this consumption, they shared some of their travel stories with me. Sebastian spent 8 months in South East Asia several years ago and offered some helpful tips, including how to handle the use of the 'water gun' when no toilet paper is around. He also told me about a fascinating trip spent walking through the giant sand dunes of Tunisia for a 5 days, something that I have definately added to my list for some point in the future. He emphasized bringing my own sleeping bag for such a trip, as his friend got stuck sleeping in the 'blankets' they put between the camel and the cargo during the day!

After the leisurely day, I grabbed a late night bus to Fethiye and arrived at 3:30am, quite a bit earlier than the stated ETA of 6am...not a good thing. I'll spend the next day or so here before taking a 4 day/3 night cruise over to Olympos.

Video: Ephesus

I arrived in the small town of Selcuk after a quick three hours on the bus, and spent the evening wandering, reading, writing and making the aquaintance of two canadians (on a whirlwind tour through turkey and greece) and an american from california (taking the summer off from traveling and currently working at Jimmy's Hostel, the place I'm staying).

This morning I caught a free ride over to the ruins of Ephesus and met two more fellow travellors from canada doing a three week tour of Turkey. The ruins at Ephesus make up one of, if not the, best preserved/reconstructed representation of an old roman/greek city, with the best ruins at Ephesus being the temple and a theatre that seats twenty-five thousand.

According to the guide book, Ephesus was primarly made up of the temple, baths, fountains, theatres, and a big market...not a bad life for the Ephesians. Additionally, we came across the public toilets...you had to be pretty friendly wıth your neighbor. Unlike Bergama, Ephesus is very popular with the tourists which packed the place.

Photos: Ephesus

• Market at Ephesus
• Theatre at Ephesus

The Ruins at Bergama

Having caught up on a bit of sleep, a fellow American staying at the Athena Pension and I headed out to see the Acropolis Ruins at Bergama. 5 mins into a search for a taxi we ran into an enthusiastic local that took great care in explaining a short cut we could take to walk to the ruins, so we figured 'why not'. Unfortunately the short cut turned out to be a little less short than we realized and it ended up taking a little over an hour to hike up the hill in scorching heat (I have finally become accustomed to constantly being drenched and sticky).

There are quite a few ruins on a hill above the current town of Bergama which are pretty amazing. The most intersting of which is a Greek Theatre built into the side of the hill. Additionally there is some great white marble still standing as the remnants of a temple. Luckily these ruins aren't too popular and it was easy to get some great photos unspoiled by throngs of tourists.

After wandering the ruins for 2 1/2 hours we caught a taxi back to town, packed up and I hopped a bus to Ephesus.

Photos: Bergama

Video: The Road to Bergama

After Troy turned out to be a bit of a bust, I decided to hot stop out of there and head to Bergama, a place recommended for its ruins, by the hostel folks in Canakkale. I caught an early morning bus and 5 hours later was in Bergama. The buses here are incredibly comfortable and make long trips a piece of kosher cake. What I didn't realize is that the bus I got on didn't actually stop in the city, so when it came time to get off I was rather unceremoniously dumped on the side of a dirt road about 5 miles out of town! After failing to wave down a few Mini-buses, I started trekking. Luckily about 1 1/2 miles into my walk a kind Turkish man on a scooter took pity on me, pulled over 15 feet ahead and waved for me to hop on. He took me to the edge of the city, about 2 miles closer, and with a shake of my hand and a hearty smile told me to have a 'fine day' and was on his way.

I spent another 2 hours walking into the city center and stumbling around in search of a reasonably priced hostel, finally succumbing to solicitation by a taxi cab which took me to the Athena Pension. The Athena Pension turned out to be a really quaint restored Ottoman house with a great open court yard kinda place, a mother bird and four babies living in the raftors, and a great sign.

Having walked around all day, I decided the ruins would have to wait til morning. Instead, I took a stroll around downtown. I stumbled across a dirt street with a tea house that is apparently the place to be in Bergama, especially if you're a retired man. I met a retired biology teacher who now owns a carpet shop and spent a couple of hours chatting with him and watching some hearty turkish retirees drink tea and play of Dama (turkish checkers). I finished the evening off with some turkish meatballs and an amazing glass of 'mountain tea', before making it a fairly early night.

• The Place to be in Bergama

Troy

I finally left Istanbul and struck out on my own across the vast expanse of Turkey. My first stop was a town called Canakkale, just outside of which rest the remains of Troy. I took an overnight buy from Istanbul and arrived in Canakkale early Tuesday morning and after a quick nap hoped on a tour bus to Troy. I'm sorry to say that, as I had been warned, Troy turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. There is a giant wooden horse replica (apparently built specifically for tourists as it has windows), and a lot of scattered ruins. Interestingly, Troy has been rebuilt, largely from the ground up, 9 different times and it was pretty amazing to see a cross-section of the many different layers on top of each other. Troy was certainly much more interesting with the Tour guide, without whom it would have been a bunch of useless scattered ruins.

Photos: Troy

Books

I've been enjoying the chance to catch up on reading I've been meaning to do for a while. I'm currently reading: 'The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity' by Tariq Ali

I wanted to solicit any book recommendations that anyone might have. I'm interested primarily in books that may be relevant to travel or areas I will be going, or nice easy reading enjoyment books...

Turkish European/Islamic Dichotomy

I've just finished reading 'A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat' by Jeremy Seal, a book that discusses Turkey's history and cultural identity in relation to the Fez, which was the defacto Turkish hat until being banned in 1925. One of the most interesting topics that the book touches on, albeit rather briefly, is this contradiction of Turkey being a secular 'European' country (still vying to be part of the EU, and striving for European/modern identity) which at the same time has a 98% Muslim population as well as an Islamic governing party currently in power. My limited experience in Istanbul certainly leans towards the former; while Turkey may be reported as being 98% Muslim, in Istanbul, aside from the errant headscarf and the many mosques that pepper the city, one would be hard pressed to distinguish this from any other European city.

What is most interesting and curious to me is that what I took from the book above is that Turkey, as part of the Ottoman Empire, was largely made up of practicing Muslims. However, in the 1920s, Turkey became a secular state when Ataturk (father of the Turks) came to power. With those two points in mind, what I am anxious and interested to find out is what was unique about Ataturk (past, upbringing, etc) that pushed him in such a strong secularist direction. Additionally, I'm curious to see how this euro/Islam divide is apparent in places outside of Istanbul.

If anyone has any input, or if I have made any gross mis-statements, please let me know.

Smoke Like a Turk

Adam informs me that in this part of the world there is no 'smoke like a chimney', its: 'smoke like a turk'. Needless to say, smoking is quite prevalent. It seems that everyone smokes at least to some degree, anywhere from the 1-2 cigarettes a day (the so called 'non-smokers') to the several packs a day. Surprisingly, the actual smell of smoke is no where near as bas as the actual level of smoking would suggest. I'm not sure what would cause this, but the smoke definately seems to be less potent, at least aromatically, than it is in the US.

Scrounging for Frappacinos

Adam and I had a brush with poverty yesterday when we had to covertly dig through the couchy chairs at Starbucks for change (roughly 5 cents) to afford a Frappacino to split. The sweet taste of victory...;)

Video: Protest

Another one of Istanbul's regular cultural experiences is the protest. In the 10 days I have been here I've seen at least 5 protests. What's interesting, as you can sorta pick out in the video, is that a 'protest' may consist of 5-10 individuals, but the police sent to 'keep order' and what not usually outnumbers the protestors 10 to 1...

For the Gear Heads

Now that I've been using it for about a month or so now, I wanted to give a brief update on some of the gear and how it's holding up. The pack has been phenomenal, still slightly larger than I would like, but so far I've been able to take it as a carry on on all of my flights. The REI Daypack has also been great, I use it pretty much every day walking around the city.

The clothes have also been holding up well, and keeping me cool during these hot days. Having washed everything by hand a couple of times already, I am starting to have some doubts that the clothes will last the duration of the trip. By far the best piece of 'clothing' has been the Chacos, they are so comfortable that I've taken to wearing them almost exclusively. They have definately proven their worth; I can walk anywhere in them and they keep my fee cool and dry.

The camera has worked amazingly well, especially for taking video. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the short video clips do a great job of providing a good perspective or experience.

More later.

Sheep Intestine...ummm...

Just a quick update on sheep intestine (kokorech), and mussels with rice (midya dolma). I was finally able to get a taste, and I was right...really good stuff!

Video: Istanbul, a tourists perspective

Adam and I finally had the chance to do some site-seeing at the end of the week and made the rounds to a few of Istanbul's primary tourist attractions. We walked through the Blue Mosque, an enormous mosque with an amazing inside and ceiling. We also spent some time in Aya Sophia, originally a church built by Justinian which was later converted into a mosque and is now a museum and in the process of restoration. While the outside leaves a bit to be desired, the inside contains several amazing Christian mosaics (1, 2, 3, 4).

The most enjoyable part of the tourist trip was the Grand Bazaar: a huge indoor/outdoor market with everything you can imagine, from nuts, dried fruits, and mounds of turkish delight, to shoes, leather goods and electronics. It was fun to banter with the vendors as we fended them off...Adam has a hard time saying no.

• Outside the Grand Bazaar
• Gold Trading in the Grand Bazaar
• Belly Dancing Babies

The Prince's Islands

I was fortunate to have my own personal tour guide, Eda, to one of the Prince's Islands this past week: Buyukada. The Prince's Islands is a group of 4 or 5 islands about an hour ferry ride from Istanbul, and Buyukada is the largest of the group. One of the nice things on the islands is that there are no vehicles, aside from horse drawn carts, so it was a very welcomed retreat from the insane traffic of Istanbul.

We arrive on the island around mid-day, spent some time walking to the top where we had lunch and soaked up the pollution free air for a while and took in the view. After lunch we tried, unsuccessfully, to find a beach for some swimming, did a lot of walking (passed a 'new age' mosque), had some tea, played some back-gammon (seemingly the national game), before catching the ferry back and having some interesting 'special sauce' drenched but very tasty mini-hamburgers at 'the Bambi cafe', the name of which I don't think is indicative of the contents of the bugers.

The Toilet

I keep forgetting to mention the Turkish bathrooms and related custom. Somewhat to my surprise, the Turkish toilets are unable to handle the use of toilet paper, by means of flushing anyway. I guess the pipes are too small and clog if toilet paper is flushed. This is not to say that toilet paper is not used at all, it is indeed used (thankfully), however instead of being flushed it is deposited in a waste basket next to the toilet. This definitely takes some getting used to. I'm trying to view it as a half step between full blown 'western' toilets and the squat toilets I will undoubtedly encounter in Asia and elsewhere. In fact I have encountered a squat toilet in Istanbul, but luckily didn't need to go quite that bad.

In addition to modified toilet paper use, there is another bathroom related custom that I'm still getting used to: you have to pay to use the toilet. That is to say that almost every restaurant bathroom and certainly every public bathroom has someone sitting outside, usually an elderly person, with hands open to receive a payment, roughly 25cents, for bathroom usage. Sometimes you pay at the beginning and sometimes at the end, at which time it is usually a courtesy and I have had to be reminded several times. Adam informs me that these payments are to maintain the order and cleanliness of the bathrooms...

Turkish Food

Istanbul has been full of great new food to sample, and Adam and friends have done a great job of making sure I try it all. One of the first things I tried was Simit: sesame crusted bread rings, which although somewhat bland, could single handedly sustain the starving backpacker, being that they cost about 25 cents a piece. Next was Matı: pasta filled with minced meat (somewhat like ravioli), covered with olive oil and a tastey yogurt sauce, definately one of my favorite dishes so far. A dish which is quite popular, much to my surprise, is the baked potatoe. Don't be deceived however, this is no 'American' baked potatoe, but one on steroids containing: cheese, potatoe salad (that's right), corn, peas, olives, some kind of rice, sausage pieces, (and potentially more that I'm forgetting), topped off with generous helpings of ketchup and mayo. For those that may be cringing at the contents...it's really good!

Two more favorites have been the pides (sp?) and borek, pides being some what of a 'pizza stick' of bread filled with cheese or meat and the borek being a very flakey pastery filled with meat or cheese.

Tonight we'll be trying some sheep intestine sandwhich, the name of which escapes me, and rice stuffed mussels. The descriptions sound a bit less than desirable if you ask me, but if experience serves, then they should prove to be fantastic.

Video: Cruising the Bosphorous

Yesterday brought some perfect weather for a nice cruise along the Bosphorous.

• More of the Bosphorous

Video: Istanbul

I made it to Turkey without too much ado.

Before getting here, I really hadn't done any research on what Turkey would be like. Outside of a vague knowledge that they were trying to get into the EU, my understanding of Turkey was pretty ignorant. One of the things that came as a big shock is the sheer size of Istanbul: apparently there are around 20 million people that live in the city. 20 million! As you can imagine that makes pollution fairly bad and traffic is just crazy (it took Adam and I 2 1/2hrs to get back to his place from the airport). One surprise, despite all of the people, is the lack of garbage/sewage smell that seems to permeate a fair number of European cities. I was wondering what happens to all of the garbage (having not seen any garbage trucks), and found out last night that it gets picked up at 2am apparently.

I'm staying with my buddy Adam, who has most generously allowed me to crash at his apartment while in Istanbul. He lives with a Kiwi, and two Turkish students in a fairly small place that is, unfortunately, somewhat consumed with mold in places, primarily the bathroom.

My second night in Istanbul Adam took me to a traditional Turkish 'Meyhanes' (tavern). We spent about 4hrs hanging out with some friends of Adam, eating various dishes of eggplant, yogurt, cheese, and deep fried battery goodness, along with some 'Rakı' (aka "lion's milk"): a very strong, licorice tasting alcohol that starts out clear and turns white/cloudy when mixed with 3 parts water.

According to Adam the Meyhanes is the quintessential Turkish experience and I certainly got a feel for the locals when the band started walking around playing round after round of traditional Turkish love songs, some of which are apparently about eggplant (the Turks love their eggplant!). The mixture of Rakı and traditional songs led to a lot of great table dancing (see video below).

Aside from the revelry of late Turkish nights, the days have been busy with lots of walking and relaxing. I have managed to make it to a mosque (and inside) or two but site seeing is later this week. We did manage to while away a few hours sitting and watching soccer around a hukah. I've also started to plan the rest of my Turkey trip and plan to head south next weekend for about 3 weeks, down through Troy and Ephesus along the Aegean sea coast.

Photos: Istanbul

• Meyhanes 2: The Dancing Begins


• Meyhanes 3: Things are Heating Up


• Meyhanes 4: Full Swing

Wrapping Up Oxford

Well it's been a great few days in Englad. I've been able to see a few new cities I've never been to, get in lots of sleeping, catch up with a couple old friends and meet several new ones. For those looking for a relatively sleepy town, with a decent number of character ridden pubs and cafes, I'd recommend spending a few days in Oxford. It has a nice pace to it.

We had a pretty fun and relaxed day around Oxford yesterday. Rikki, Greg and I spent the day wandering around, stopped in the Three Goats Heads pub for a drink, narrowly avoided a flash downpour by ducking into Cafe Loco for a spot of tea, and went punting.

I spent most of today just wandering the streets, getting lost and finding my way, admiring the buildings and relaxing in the park with 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'.

One of the activities I have been enjoyed taking part in, to my own surprise, is watching all of the World Cup 'football' games. Somewhat to my embarassment, although not really, all of the English folks that I've met know much more about all of the US players/team than I do. I have to admit it was a bit disappointing to see the US get destroyed by the Czech Republic the other night.

Tomorrow I'm off to Turkey and the beginning of a bit more culture shock.

Photos: Oxford

Video: Ducklings

While 'punting', a group of ducklings and their mother came begging at the side of our boat.

Video: Punting

Rikki, Greg, and I doing a bit of 'punting' along the Thames in Oxford. Punting => using a giant pole to propel a flat bottomed boat.

Work and Play

My friend Rachel has a great quote stuck to her computer monitor that I wanted to share:

"Man was born to spend his life alternately a prey to the throes of anxiety and the lethargy of boredom".

Voltaire - Candide

Brighton, England

Coming back from France, the plan was to meet up with Rachel and Rikki in Brighton, about 2hrs south-east of Oxford, on the coast. Unfortunately, due to a lack of communication and planning on my part I was unable to get a hold of them when I arrived in Brighton Friday night, and ended up spending the night at the very lovely Queens Hotel. Luckily we were able to connect the next day and meet up to enjoy several of the World Cup games.

We also spent a nice amount of time on Saturday and Sunday enjoying the sun at the beach. Strangely, to me, the beach at Brighton doesn't really have any sand, but is made up of fairly large stones, which was an interesting experience. It certainly made things much less messy.

Photos: Brighton

Lille Europe

Well, after missing the first train, I was lucky to get a seat on the next train to Lille and got going about 2hrs later. Unfortunately, we had to swith trains half way to Lille due to technical problems, but I did finally make it about 2 1/2hrs behind schedule.

My friend Becky very graciously met me at the train station and gave me a wonderful tour of the city. We saw a lot of old squares and narrow streets, the old stock exchange, and an interesting building with a few cannon-balls still embedded in the outter wall, where we had some very strong coffee.

After coffee, we had a fabulous and leisurely pizza-esque meal, the name of which escapes me. Much to my surprise, the sun didn't really set until almost 11pm, which gave the day a much slower pace. We spent the next day doing some more walking around, checked out the Citadel, and soaked up some sun in the park, before I headed back to England that night. Thankfully the ride back was much less eventful.

Photos: Lille

Missed the train

I just missed my train to France (apparently you have to check in a minimum of 30mins before departure) so I had to hop into an internet cafe to get a few phone numbers and thought I'd provide a quick update.

I had been doing pretty good with jetlag, meaning not having much of it, until yesterday. After having a great day on monday walking around, taking it easy, and catching up with my friend Rachel I had planned on doing more of the same yesterday. When I attempted to get up at 11am my body finally rebelled and I crashed, sleeping most of the day until 5:30, with a brief wakeup from 11-1.

The weather here has been great, about 80F degrees plus/minus, which I am told is highly unusual and that I shouldn't expect it much longer. Ok time to go, before I miss the train again. This will be my first trip on the chunnel, I hope I don't get claustrophobic.

Audio: Farewell my pen

Boston to London

Much to my surprise and delight, the flight from Boston to London was actually about 30mins early arriving, which was nice after the Denver to Boston debacle. Arrived at the airport, went straight through customs with no issues and made it on the bus to Oxford all in about 20mins. So far, the weather looks warm, so it should be a nice relaxing week of touristy lounging and strolling around Oxford, maybe take in a lecture if possible.

Audio: Leaving Boston

Emotionality

It turns out that leaving work was much more difficult than anticipated; even though you know it's coming, it's tough to abruptly stop a 40hr a week habit, even if you didn't necessarily love it. Above all, it wasn't so much the work that's missed, but the people that made it bearable.

Seeing as I'm only in Boston, it doesn't quite feel like I'm 'on my way', but I imagine once I start hearing foreign accents and languages it will hit me pretty hard. You always hear people talk about being in your 'comfort zone' and that leaving it is such a good way to grow, that was one of the motivations for this trip: to leave the comfort zone. I'm only now realizing how comfortable that really was, and I think that's due in large part to all of the great relationships and people that it feels like I'm 'leaving behind'.

This trip has a very qualitatively different feel than past travels in the sense that it's not a vacation with a foreseeable end, and at the same time I'm not completely moving to a new place, but it falls somewhere in between: its a 'vacation' but with the timeline of a move. (I use 'vacation' very loosely, I think it's going to be much harder than that.) With this sense of vacation, it feels like a great chance for some new, fun experiences while the sense of moving brings a feeling that everyone and everything is going to move on without you. While I am confident that it will be, right now it's not so clear that it would be worth it if indeed things did completely move on in my absence.

Out the door

I was scheduled to leave Denver at 1:15pm yesterday on what I thought was a pretty quick and easy flight to Philadelphia and then on to Boston by 9pm. A little less than 5hrs after the initial arrival time (1:30am), I finally made it to Boston...not a good start. In addition to many delays, my hope for warm weather during the entire trip was shattered when ther was cold rain in Boston all day today and it's still going. Despite these minor set backs, I did get to catch up with my friend Jill and meet some of her friends and have some good food and fun.

Pictures: Boston

Skype - Call from anywhere to anywhere

This isn't directly related to my trip, but great news none-the-less. Yesterday, Skype announced that all phone calls to landlines and cell-phones within the US and Canada are now free. If you aren't familiar with Skype or haven't tried it yet, now is a good time to download it and give it a shot. All you really need is a microphone for your PC and some speakers/headphones.

Those with a little more tech-savvy might want to check out Portable Skype, which allows you to take Skype with you on a USB drive and use from anywhere. While it's only calls to phones in the US that are currently free, their rates for all international calls are still very cheap when compared to normal phones.

Updated Itinerary

Ok, finally something useful. It seems pretty late in the game at this point, but I'm only now finalizing my itinerary. Nothing much has changed really, it's just been a matter of flight details etc. I'll still have a few details to work out once I'm on the road, but I don't anticipate any major changes. Below is my trip:

• Boston: June 2 - 5
• UK (London): June 5 - 15
• Turkey/Croatia/Greece: June 15 - Sept 14
• Kenya/Ethiopia/Tanzania: Sept 14 - Dec 16
• South Africa: Dec 16 - Jan 10
• India/Nepal: Jan 10 - April 1
• Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam: April 1 - July 1

Voice

One of the great features of blogger is the ability to post audio to your blog via AudioBlogger. AudioBlogger allows you to call from any phone and make recordings directly to your blog over the phone. The downside however, is that there is no way to upload audio-files directly to the blog from the web. In comes GabCast: a third-party site that allows you to host audiofiles and embed them in your blog, similar to what YouTube does with video clips.

Now if I only had some audio to post...

I know, I know, I promised no more gear blog entries, but I've got to throw this in there. My final purchase, to facilitate all this audio wizardry, was the Olympus WS-100 Digital Voice Recorder, along with the Griffin Lapel Mic. So keep your eye out for a few audio posts in the future.

Culture Matters

One of the things I had neglected to think about until recently was the phenomenon of 'culture shock'; how I would actually interact with individuals in all of these unique locations and how different perspectives might help or hinder my personal experiences. Having lived overseas for several years, and experienced 'culture shock' in the past, this wasn't something that I was especially concerned about at this point. To help me give this issue a little more thought, my father took the liberty of recommending a few books on the subject. So far I've only managed to get through: Survival Kit for Overseas Living. The book does a great job of concisely explaining 'culture shock': what it is, how to recognize it, and how to deal with it. One of the things I liked best about this book was the section pointing out American cultural characteristics, and how to qualify those as positive or negative within the context of a broader cultural arena; essentially, it helps make one aware of the unconcious cultural habits that most Americans embody, how those characteristics are perceived by other cultures and what can be done to help minimize negative perceptions.

Another book, which I have yet to read, but is on my list is: GenXpat. Perhaps my buddy Josh will grace us with a review in the not too distant future.

Finally, I just acquired an autographed copy (thanks to old Sambo) ofAmerican Cultural Baggage: How to Recognize and Deal with It. A review is forth-coming...

Vaccines: Check

After a, longer than expected, one hour meeting with a nurse at the CO Springs Health Dept, I walked out a little lighter in the wallet and with all of my necessary vaccinations: Hep A, Typhoid, Yellow Fever, and Polio. Thankfully I didn't need to get Meningitis, Hep B, or MMR which would have doubled the cost. The nurse did suggest that a rabies shot might be worth getting to help fend of the 'sacred', rabid monkeys in india, but I decided to risk it all and fore-go the expensive 3 part rabies shot.

I was very surprised and impressed by the amount of time spent going over the details of each location I planned to visit, with regards to the associated disease risks. I was also surprised at the great amount of very updated information that they provided. Much of the information revolved around the risk of Malaria in different regions, which definately seems to be the biggest risk. The WHO also has some great up-to-date info on Malaria, maps included, for anyone else interested.

Cool feet and dry clothes

I'm hoping this will be the last post about the aquisition of gear, and that from here on out any 'gear' related posts will be in relation to actual usage. I've wrapped up a few more purchases as I inch closer to closing the bag, opening the door and walking through it. Originally I thought that I would take only the new Salomon (XA Pro 3D XCR) shoes and a pair of cheap flip-flops for walking around, however after testing out the Salomons a bit I decided to reconsider. Don't get me wrong, the Salomons are great, and I'm sure will prove to be worth every penny, but they do tend to get pretty warm after a bit of walking. As a result, I thought that it might be nice to take another pair of shoes that would allow me to still do a fair amount of walking, while keeping my feet cool in the process and so I decided to purchase a pair of Chaco ZX/2 'performance sandals'. I haven't been a huge fan of these in the past, but have several friends (mostly hippie extremists) that swear by them. Based on my limited experience, they should be perfect for the above stated goal.

Another item which I wasn't entirely sold on taking, but finally decided to order (thanks to some input from my buddy Adam) was a travel clothesline.

After trying on a couple dozen, I finally managed to find a hat that fits my oddly shaped, oblong head: the Mountain Hardwear Fast Pack Cap. I'm also happy to report that my Mountain Hardwear Compass Shirt long-sleeve finally arrived this week and it's great: fits well, is comfortable, fast dry, looks good (meaning normal).

Walking the Digital Tight-Rope

To square the electronics away and make sure I can take all the pictures possible, I picked up another 1GB SanDisk Memory stick, a second Camera Battery, and a travel charger. One obvious concern was running out of memory for my camera, since I'm only taking one 1GB stick and one 512MB stick. In order to overcome this problem, my plan is to upload all of my photos to Flickr, which will allow me to upload upto 2GB of photos per month, and essentially act as an online photo archive. To aid in this upload process I purchased a SanDisk MobileMate Memory Stick Reader.


Another 'digital' concern is the fact that while I will have internet access, I will almost exclusively be using internet Cafe's for access. Internet Cafe's certainly make things easier than having to carry my own laptop, etc, however the big downside is that any sites I visit, will store cached data on the local system which could be a problem if I'm accessing things such as my bank accounts. To help mitigate this risk I'm taking a 2GB A-Data Flash Drive, loaded with a suite of 'portable apps' for anything from email, web-browsing, watching/editing videos, editing images, etc, all of which can be found at PortableApps.com and the Portable Apps Wiki. The basic idea is that I can use these applications on the flash drive, and not have to leave behind any data on the Internet Cafe system, we'll see how well that works in practice. For one more level of security, all of my data on the flash drive will be encrypted using TrueCrypt, which provides encryption that is "automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent", so that if I lose the drive or it gets stolen, all of my data will be secure.

If anyone wants more info on the portable-apps, let me know.

Global Climate

As I've begun to finalize my itinerary (which I should have finalized and posted next week) and lock in time frames for each destination, I've been researching the climate in all of these places to make sure that it will indeed be warm the entire time I'm gone. I thought this info would be readily available and relatively easy to find, possibly in some central location. Alas, no such luck, as far as I've been able to find. I did find one site, Responsible Travel - Weather to Go, which lacks temp details but gives you a red/yellow/green assessment of each month for many countries. Some additional details can be found here. I will also continue to fill in the list below as I find sites for each individual country:

• Turkey
• Greece
• Croatia
• Kenya
• Ethiopia
• Tanzania
• South Africa
• India
• Nepal
• Thailand
• Vietnam
• Cambodia

Almost done with Gear

Every time I think I have all my gear, a few more things pop up, but im pretty confident that I'll be done after next week. This weekend brought a few more goodies. To help keep all my money and important docs safe and concealed I picked up the Eagle Creek Undercover Deluxe Security Belt. With coolmax and hi-tech anti-microbial material, we'll see how it holds up.

To help keep all of my soap, tooth-paste, pills, etc organized, I picked up the Nalgene Travel Bottle Kit. I've also done some research on soaps that would be easy to take, that could be used to wash my skin, hair and any clothes or dishes in a pinch. All of the soaps I've come across seem to be pretty much the same: concentrated enough to use on dishes/clothes, but 'sensitive' enough for skin, as well as biodegradable. The consensus so far seems to be that Campsuds is the standard.

I was wondering what to do for a watch/alarm clock, since I haven't really worn one for the last 4 years. Luckily my dad helped me solve this problem by graciously donating a watch he no longer needed, the La Crosse Technology K2-100; a super fancy watch with altimeter, thermometer, and barometer.

Gear: Few more things

My Pack arrived over the weekend, and I finally had a chance to pack everything up and see how it all fit. A bit to my surprise, the pack is pretty darned full with everything in it, but there is still a bit of breathing room. The biggest surprise however is that with everything (sans my sleeping bag and a few toiletries) the pack only weighs about 15lbs completely packed. Trekking is going to be easier than I thought. At this point, I think the only things left to pick up are toiletries (shampoo, deodrant, etc), medical stuff (advil, bandaids, etc), pen/journal, a few other odds and ends and we should be good to go.

To help keep things organized, I did pick up a few seperate stuff sacks (Outdoor Research Helium Compression Sack and Helium Ditty Bags) for: socks, underwear, shirts, pants, dirty clothes. Having everything seperated makes it a breeze to pack and unpack everything and find exactly what I'm looking for.

I've also started to test the gear out: the REI towel is pretty amazing, it soaks up water much better than the previous 'camping towel' I used and dries extremely fast. The camera is performing well, but there are still a lot of features to familiarize myself with. The socks and boxers and performing well, but I've yet to decide if they were worth the price.

Gear: Shirts and Pants

Little did I know how difficult it would be to find 2 pairs of pants and 2 shirts. Apparently, an unspoken rule of designing light weight/travel clothing made of quick-dry material is that if you are going to use those materials the clothes themselves either have to have some kind of hideous pattern (in the case of shirts) or (in the case of pants) be completely off the wall, ie. dozens of pockets, zippers, and mounds of excess material to make things excessively baggy. The trade off for finding any 'normal' pants/shirts that are quick-dry and pack light is that you have to pay twice the price as you would for the shirts/pants mentioned above. My experience and frustration comes from trying on about two plus dozen pants and shirts over the weekend, and luckily after all that I did manage to settle on two pants, one long sleeve shirt and one short sleeve shirt.

The first pair of pants comes from Patagonia, the Patagonia Sol Patrol Pant: light, wrinkle-free, quick drying, and very comfortable for hot weather. After wearing them around for a day, I've been pleasantly surprised at how comfortable they are. Pant number two is the Prana Traveler Pant, a very comfortable pair of mostly cotton pants, which packs light and is very functional.

As for shirts, we went with the Prana Bandana Print short-sleeve and the Mountain Hardwear Compass Shirt longsleeve. The Bandana Print shirt certainly falls outside the realm of my normal 'style', but after some outside consulting I decided to take the plunge. It's has a nice material blend, wears comfortably, and is a good color that won't show dirt too readily. One of the main reasons for going with the Prana shirt is that apparently most 'travel' shirts are made for a race of people where a small is considered to be 200lbs, meaning I was swimming in the excess of even the small sized shirts of most other brands. The Compass Shirt was actually a bit of a gamble...I ordered it without actually trying it on. Based on the other Mountain Hardwear shirt I tried on, the size and fit should be good, but we'll find out in a week or so I suppose.

Visas and Vaccinations

I spent a fair amount of time over the last few days figuring out what I needed to do regarding visas for all my destinations as well as what vaccinations I needed to get. I used the CDC Travelers' Health site to get a rough idea of what I might need. After contacting the local Colorado Springs Health Department, it looks like I'm going to need the full gamut of shots: polio, MMR, tetanus, typhoid, meningitis, hep A/B, yellow fever.

As for visas, the US State Department site does a good job of providing the entry requirements for most if not all countries. I was anticipating lots of visa related headaches, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case. For a few destinations (greece, croatia, south africa, thailand), no visa is needed for stops less than 90 days; for a few others (bali, kenya, turkey, nepal), I can pick up a visa upon arrival; and for the remainder (india, vietnam, cambodia), I'll have to pickup visas at their respective embassy's somewhere along the way.

Travel Resources

I thought it would be a good idea to compile some of the travel resources that I've used, and offer some info. A lot of these are under the 'Links' section, but this will be easier to update as I come across new resources.

Travel Independent - www.travelindependent.info

This is by far the single best, ultra-light/backpacking travel resource that I have come across and several of the resources below came from this site. This is a site that is, as far as I can tell, put together by a single person in the UK. It hosts roughly 200+ pages of info on what to do before you go, what to pack, where to go (including coutry/region summaries), what to do when you're on the road and a host of other valuable resources.

OneBag - www.onebag.com

This is another great 'traveling light' resource. The main thing I used from this site is the convenient PDF packing checklist.

The Travel Insider - www.thetravelinsider.info

A good resource for traveling in general. I haven't used this too much, primarily because the sites above were so comprehensive. This site does however include info that the others are lacking, including: how to book and buy tickets, airline reviews, info on security, and some gear info. Additionally this seems to be updated more frequently, as it has several article series about traveling.

REI - www.rei.com

This has certainly been my primary source for gear, mainly because they provide great info on all gear, can't seem to be beat on price, and have an amazing return policy that I can't find anywhere else.

The Mountain Chalet - www.mtnchalet.com

This is my other gear resource, which carries more specialized/high-end stuff that couldn't be found else where. This store is local to CO Springs, and I would highly recommend it to anyone local: the staff are incredibly knowledgable and friendly, and you can always find someone that has used the specific product(s) that you are looking at and will give you and unbiased opinion.

Mountain Hardwear - www.mountainhardwear.com

A great maker of high end outdoor/camping/etc gear: packs, tents, clothes. I will be taking a couple of their windstopper products.

Osprey Packs - www.ospreypacks.com

Great backpacks.

The North Face - www.thenorthface.com

More good gear, some what overpriced at times, but generally pretty good.

Patagonia - www.patagonia.com

More clothing gear, a bit on the pricey side but very nice.

Arc'Teryx - www.arcteryx.com

Another high end gear, pricey gear maker. Taking their shirt.

AirTreks - www.airtreks.com

A great site for finding complicated, multi-stop, international airline fares. They have a nice, intuitive tool that allows you to create your route by clicking on cities and when you're done it will find the best ticket options for you.

TravelTree - www.traveltree.co.uk

A great place to find adventure trips all over the world. The site is primarily gear towards European and Australian students taking a 'gap year', but its a good general resource for hunting down obscure trips to anywhere you'd want to go, ranging from straight adventure travel to overseas volunteer opportunities.

Guerba Adventure Holidays - www.guerba.com

A site for booking pre-packaged adventure holiday trips. Makes things nice and simple, if that's what you're going for, but also a great place to see what type of routes/trips you might want to do and then plan it yourself.

World Nomads - www.worldnomads.com

The best place I've found for international travel insurance, came recommended by both the Travel Independent site as well as personal friends.

Misc. Gear

Now that the big ticket items are all taken care of, it's time to start filling in the gaps with all of the small stuff. I snagged a nifty little spork, by Light My Fire, with a built in knife. Cheap, durable, knife, fork, spoon all in one utensil.

For post-shower dryoff I picked up an REI MultiTowel Lite: an ultralight, super absorbant, quick-drying towel made of microfiber. To organize all of my toiletries I picked up the REI Deluxe Shower Kit: compact, hook for hanging, mirror for shaving, mesh pockets for organization, and removable zippered pouch to carry a few items on short trips.

For the long desert jaunts in the middle of nowhere I've got the MSR Cloudliner Hydration Reservoir for sipping and the Nalgene Wide-Mouth Cantene for holding extra water if need be. Both are made of taste free plastic, and when empty pack down very small. To make sure the water doesn't kill me I'm taking the MSR MIOX Water Purifier, a purifier that uses and electrical current to kill 99% of viruses, bacteria, Giardia and Cryptosporidium.

Sleeping

Sleeping has been another tricky issue: to being a sleeping bag or just a liner? to bring a sleeping pad or no? to bring a bivy sack or no? So far I have decided to take a sleeping bag, liner, and pad, and while I'm leaning against not taking a bivy sack the jury is still out. For the sleeping bag, in keeping with the 'ultralight' theme, I ordered the Western Mountaineering Highlite. This bag is rated for 40 degrees, and amazingly only weighs 1lb. All indications are that this bag is perfect for this kind of trip: light, warm, small, and durable.

To provide some insulation, a little padding and overall make sleeping on the ground just a bit more enjoyable, I also picked up a 3/4 length sleeping pad. Originally I was intent on getting the Therm-a-Rest ProLite 3 due to its small pack size. At the counter however, I was convinced to give the REI Lite-Core a try instead. The Lite-Core is definately very comfortable, and as a bonus it comes with a stuff sack and repair kit, overall saving me ~$40 over the Therma-a-Rest. Unfortunately the Lite-Core is a bit heavier and more bulky to pack, a factor which I'm thinking may out weigh the cost savings and require a return. I'll give it a couple more days.