Nader Akhnoukh

To say that we've spent a lot of time getting from point A to point B in the past year is a bit of an understatement. Other than taking a major toll on the environment (we're going to buy a hybrid soon we promise!), these hours on board were a significant component of our adventure. Here's a look back at some of our favorites....

CARS
There's nothing like a good old fashioned road trip. Our aging Subaru was a champ making the journey up to Alaska and "Petunia" drove like a dream around the coasts of New Zealand.

The Chinese have a special talent for creative translation of their many signs posted throughout the country targeted towards tourists. Here are some of our favorites....

Our last stop.  Five continents and almost exactly one year later, we've ended up in Shanghai (still sore from the great wall 'hike').  By this point we're more or less done sightseeing and Shanghai has a great place to transition back into normal life, with its metropolitan feel and a growing number of friends in town it almost feels like home.

While places like Western Sichuan might be considered the wild west, the true Chinese wild west is definitely Shanghai.  Ten years ago there were no tall buildings, now you can drive for half an hour from downtown to Pudong airport and be on an elevated highway the entire time surrounded by skyscrapers.  Everywhere you look there are dozens of cranes and major construction endeavors.  Shanghai feels like an adolescent child entering puberty; it's clearly changing quickly, but it doesn't quite know where it's going.

May 16th marked our one year annivesary of unemployment.  We didn't do anything out of the ordinary to celebrate as every day is special, but it did get us thinking about coming home.  We've been increasingly excited the last couple weeks to get back into things.  I'm itching to start building things again and have been doing some preliminary designs for a couple iphone apps.  Allison's similarly eager to jump back into education reform.  This accompanied by the desire to try and find a house has made us change our travel plans and we're coming home a month early!  That means we're cutting out Western China and Mongolia, which likely would have been amazing, but we'll just have to save them for another trip...

From the Tibetan plateau we bussed down, down, down to the Sichuan capital of Chengdu.  Chengdu is famous for primarily two things, incredibly spicy food as it is the heart of Sichuan cuisine and as the home to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.  Since Indonesia our spice tolerance/addiction has gone way up, to the point where we're putting chili sauce on toast in the morning and are really looking for a spicy meal for every meal.  We finally met our match with the Chengdu hotpot, a steaming oily broth filled with hundreds of chopped chili peppers, in which you dip and cook your veggies or meat; a kind of massochistic fondue.  While incredibly delicious and fun, we did have to take a break from the spice the next day.

Our adventure into western Sichuan, across the Tibetan plateau began in the town of Shangri-La.  Emblematic of the Chinese tourist industry's way of blurring fiction with history with reality to attract the most yuan possible, the town was named after the fictional location descried in the novel The Last Horizon and not the other way around.  Although not quite living up to the mysticism and paradise embodied in its name, Shangri-La was a pleasant stop over for a few nights.  At 3,200 meters, it helped us acclimatize for the journey ahead and we enjoyed some delicious home cooked dinners at our guesthouse outside of town.

Our emerging understanding of Burma - the beauty of its people juxtaposed with the tragedy of their political situation - was further solidified during our second week in the country. Because of our limited time and the travel restrictions, we've stuck to the popular traveller circuit: after Yangon and Kalaw we journeyed to Inle Lake, then Mandalay and finally onto Bagan.

Within minutes of landing in Myanmar, or Burma as it's better known, you immediately get the sense that this country is different from anywhere else in Southeast Asia. While the rest of the continent is racing into the 21st century, Burma feels stuck in the 1950s. Electricity in Yangon the capital (Rangoon back in the day) is off as much as it is on, and in other towns they're lucky to get 2 or 3 hours a day. Ice is manually shaved in the streets from big blocks, toast is made on wire mesh over coals, there is no credit card network or ATMs, and the most common car on the streets is a World War II era British jeep. Outside of every building in Yangon is a noisy generator keeping the fans running to deal with the 100F degree heat of April, the cruelest Burmese month. The poverty in Yangon is unmatched by anything I've seen besides maybe Delhi.

This situation and blame are perfectly clear. The military junta dictatorship has run the most corrupt government in the region for decades. The manufactured disparity and control is evident everywhere and the Burmese are eager to talk about once you are away from prying ears in the confines of their homes or car or alone on a trail. There is widespread belief that all post and phone conversations can be intercepted. The mobile phone chips that are required to operate on Burmese networks cost US $2000 while the average Burmese income is under US $200 annually, making it impossible for anyone outside of the government to use them. There are two television channels and two newspapers, both government run. The tax on cars is such that even if I was to give a Burmese a car for free, the taxes would be over US $10,000. Restrictions on international travel make it nearly impossible to leave the country without a significant bribe, and within the country foreigners like us, are only permitted to visit a handful of areas. Internet availability is spreading through the country, but many politically sensitive websites are blocked including blogger, the host of this website. (This post is seeing light post-facto from China - ironic, yes)

This is probably not news to many of you as Western countries are attempting to shed light on the situation through embargos and UN resolutions. (Though because of the 'special' relationship with China, these are for the most part futile.) What we have been consistently amazed by in our short time in this country, however, is not only the gentleness, warmth, and generosity of the Burmese, but also their incredible resourcefulness and self-sufficiency. Faced with taxes that return absolutely nothing to the people they are forced to create their own systems. When the government commandeers a water reserve, the monastery on the hill digs a well. With promises of power never realized, local villages pool money to build a hydro-electric power source (which provides power only for the 3 months of the rainy season). In the mountain town of Kalaw, the local bar (where a glass of whisky is 20 cents, there's always a troubadour belting out 80s ballads set to Burmese lyrics, and where a great time is guaranteed) collects donations for the poorest at the hospital. Throughout our travels we've witnessed the poor taking care of the very poor, but this is magnified here.

I don't mean to make it sound like we're not enjoying ourselves here. First of all the mangos are in season and they're the deliciously sweet Indian variety I remember from my childhood. Much better than the fried crickets. And the Shwedagon complex in Yangon with its 82 golden pagodas is a really atmospheric place to wander around barefoot as the sun is setting.

Continuing our not so direct route around the world, we ended up with an impromptu stop in Thailand for a few days to get our Myanmar vias. Our journey was a little touch and go as political protests and riots broke out in Bangkok a few days after we bought our plane tickets and a few days before we were due to travel.... But peace returned in time for our trip.

Planning on the stop being not much more than logistical, we actually ended up having a wonderful few days - checking out temples while touring the city in a tuk-tuk, re-charging our backpacks with some cheap new clothes, and exploring the night markets. Oh yes, and eating some delicious food of course :)

Our time in the southern province of Guangxi was filled with days spent biking, hiking and boating amidst the spectacular beauty of a truly remarkable countryside.... Karst peaks surrounding Guilin and Yangshou, staggaring rice terraces built on the "Dragon's Backbone" near Longsheng.  It all set the backdrop for some amazing explorations that even a few rainy days couldn't damper. 

I'm sitting in an underground internet cafe with about 200 gaming teenagers.  The two girls to my right are furiously clicking away at a Chinese version of Dance Dance Revolution, while the guys to my left are watching movies while loudly video chatting and surfing the web at the same time.  This is more or less a microcosm for what we expected all of China to be like.  With the notable exception of places of congregation, like internet cafes and train stations, our first stop in China has been a pleasently surprising revelation.

So much of the experience of travel has to do with expectations.  One of the main reasons people travel is to experience new things, whether that is a foreign culture, an awe-inspiring vista, or a curious meal.  Over time a traveller's expectations become more and more concrete, because a) you've seen more of the world, b) the abundance of travel media, whether they take the form of travel guides, documentaries, or travel blogs, and c) the world is getting increasingly globalized and places are sadly (to the selfish traveller) losing some of their uniqueness.  This is why travellers every year are searching out ever more remote locales. 

We had done a decent amount of research into China, but at least based on our first two days, pretty much all of our expectations were wrong.  Times like this are why I travel.

Guangzhou is a large city in southwestern China with 11 million people, one of the many cities in China with over 10 million people that most people have never heard of.  We picked it as our entry point into China purely because it was in the region we wanted to start in and it had the cheapest flight from Singapore. (My China visa was about to expire so we came here before Burma.)  I expected a brash, crowded, dirty, hectic city void of personality.  There are a lot of people, but there is also plentiful common spaces, with large squares, wide sidewalks, numerous parks, and a nice walking strip by the river.  It doesn't feel crowded.  The metro system is probably the best I've been on anywhere in the world; a train comes every 2 minutes, it's clean, fast, cheap and goes everywhere you want to go, including inside the train station.  The neighborhood we stayed in, Shamian, is leafy and calm, older women doing some form of synchronized paddle dancing in front of the colonial buildings in the mornings, people of all age using a badminton birdie as a hackeysack in the afternoons, middle aged guys using the public outdoor gyms.  The focus on public exercise is pervasive.

Air conditioning, a proper bed with clean sheets, hot showers, flushing toilets, drinkable water, cooking dinner, wine, scotch, yoga mat, elliptical machine, TV shows, movies, trashy magazines, fast internet connection, shopping malls.

Singapore seems to fall behind only one country in the world regarding hedonistic consumption.... Which makes it feel very much like home :)

It's been a wonderful little first world break as we're almost halfway through our Asia journey. THANK YOU to Crispin and Ali for letting us stay in their apartment while they're back home in South Africa.

Off to China on Wednesday.... Mixed reports on whether blogger is blocked there or not so it may be awhile until our next entry.

Sumatra wasn't on our initial itinerary, but after meeting several travellers who said it was there favorite destination in Indonesia, we decided to add it to the mix. As it's the 6th largest island in the world, covering all of Sumatra in the two weeks we'd alloted would be a bit aggressive and so we decided to focus on the North. Getting from the airport in Medan to the bus station, we added a new form of transport to our lengthy list -- the sidecar motorbike, where we rode next to the driver in a covered seat with my pack strapped to the front.

Vacation.  After a couple weeks of roughing it across Kalimantan and Flores, that's what we were looking for in Lombok, Indonesia's second most visited island after Bali.

Vacation is what we found, but first we had to get there.  Getting from Flores to Lombok ended up being the longest continuous journey we've taken yet, at about 30 hours door to door (8 hour ferry from Labuan Bajo that left 2 hours late, overnight bus across Sumbawa, early morning ferry to Lombok, back on the bus for another hour, and lastly a hired minivan for a couple hours).  You meet way more interesting people using public overland transportation than you do flying and we met our share of characters.  On the ferry we met a couple guys who in their words run a "local exim".  After a little while we deduced that was short for export import.  They take the 8 hour ferry each way twice a week, carrying oranges one way, and bananas the other, staying the night in an apartment they rent for $2 a month.  By the way they were dressed this is apparently a very profitable line of business.  We thought we'd get some rest on the overnight bus, but with the freezing air condition and blaring Indo rock music, we didn't have a chance.  I had the good fortune of sitting next to an older man who had hiccups that manifested themselves as burps every three seconds.  Just as the music is beginning to die down and we're beginning to fall asleep we stop for the promised "included dinner"...at 2:30 AM.  Six women got on after dinner all screaming into the cell phones, and we completely forgot about sleep.  As the sun was rising on the second ferry we talked to a guy who worked in Cleveland for two years and loved American casinos.  He had been to them all and couldn't wait to go back.  Atlantic City was curiously his favorite.

Travel in Indonesia is slow going even when you're willing to pay for flights. Cottage airline businesses are a popular enterprise these days with over 10 domestic carriers running similar routes, some with only 1 or 2 planes under operation.  The result is a jumbled map of very cheap flights, with not always the most logical connections. After our adventure in Tanjung Puting National Park our next destination was the eastern side of Flores.  To traverse this distance of approximately 1,000 km took us five flights over two days.  However our journey felt very small in comparison as we soon met some travellers who had taken a four day / four night ferry to cover the same distance.

Flores further rounded out our emerging sense that the only cohesiveness of Indonesia is the islands' geological proximity to one another.  First Hindu Bali with it's luxury seeking tourists.  Then Muslim Kalimantan with it's steamy jungle.  And now Catholic Flores with it's spine of dramatic volcanos traversing the island.  We've met travellers who have 6 months in this country and still can't fully experience it all.  So for all you who thought Indonesia was just beaches, think again...

From the early planning days of this trip, we've been really excited to venture into mysterious Borneo and see orangutans in their only natural habitat.  Straddling the equator, Borneo is the world's third largest island, and is shared by three countries, Indonesia (the Kalimantan region), Malaysia, and the sultanate of Brunei.

Our first stop in Indonesia, Ubud is located in the hills on the island of Bali.  Originally a small artist village, the town has grown significantly in recent years due to the number of tourists who are drawn to its multifaceted beauty -- art, gorgeous landscapes and wonderful people.  Despite the hustle and bustle of tourists, we've loved our time here in Ubud and chose to use all our time on Bali here in this town (rather than exploring the beaches).

We were very fortunate to have our good friends Crispin and Ali come join us here for the weekend from Singapore with their amazing little daughter Clara.  We hadn't seen them since Crispin and Allison finished business school 3 years ago so it was a wonderful reunion.  Clara showed off her stellar swimming skills in our hotel's pool (look out for her in the 2024 Olympics!) and we enjoyed some great meals together, including a local hotspot for suckling pig.  The food here in Bali has been delicious and we look forward to trying new dishes at every meal.  Food was definitely not a highlight of our South American leg and so we're exciting that Asia is living up to our expectations so far.

The last 5 days have been a mad rush up the West Coast to get back to Auckland for our flight tomorrow morning.  We didn't have as much time to explore the little places, but it felt like the West Coast was much more of a circuit with the same couple sites that everyone stops at.  But again, that was probably just our limited time. 

We did manage to squeeze in some fun, camping on yet another beautiful beach, kayaking through a bird sanctuary, and checking out New Zealand's most famous glacier, Franz Josef (which of course led to us calling each other Franz for a day or so.  This is what happens when you spend half a year interacting primarily with one person.)

We spent a wonderful week with Allison's parents -- five days on the Milford Track with a day in Queenstown on either end.  Self proclaimed as "one of the best walks in the world", the Milford Track had a lot of expectations to live up to.... It meet and exceeded all of them for us.  Our first day on the track was mostly a transportation day from Queenstown through Te Anu and into the first hut with only a mile of walking.  The real trek began on Day Two.  10 miles through a beautiful valley along the Clinton River.  There was a swimming hole a few miles from the end of our day and we started a trend braving the frigid waters... Followed first by Yutaki, who according to our guide was the first of the many Japanese travellers on the track she'd seen go for a swim all season.  Not to be outdone by his kids or the Japenese, Dad quickly joined in as well.

Around 4 pm we arrived at Pompolona, our second of three lodges along the track.  A quick note on our trip which was organized through Ultimate Hikes.  There are two options for doing the track -- independent hikers carry their own food and bedding, sleeping in basic huts along the way (how we would be living without Mom and Dad as travelling companions :).  We were on the guided version which meant luxury huts complete with showers, 3 course dinners and wine at the end of the day.  Thanks Mom and Dad!! It was an amazingly organized trip from start to finish --great guides and a wonderful group of travelling companions.  The most noteworthy was 84 year old Jack from Australia who jogged down the steep descents on our trail and closed down the bar around midnight on our last night.  An inspiration for us all to say the least.

Day two was the big one.... 9 miles over Mackinnon pass.  A challenging hike in good weather, we woke to torrential downpours that didn't let up until late in the evening.  The most magical parts of the Milford Track are all the waterfalls, many of which only show their true splendor when fed with a fresh rainfall.  And so our dread of a day trudging through the rain quickly changed to wonder and amazement as we witnessed some of the most beautiful and unique scenery any of us had ever seen.