The wheels have been spinning a bit here in Berkeley (both literally and figuratively). Sorry to leave all of you dedicated readers hanging for the last week or so. I arrived in San Francisco and promptly made my way across the Bay to visit my friend Daniel. The next week was spent exploring various neighborhoods,parks, restaurants (i.e. Taco Bell), and bars both in the city and around Berkeley. Pretty pleasant weather and lots of good company made for enjoyable days filled with the bliss of not having to go anywhere or accomplish anything.
But alas, all good things must come to an end and thus I've been dropping resumes at every restaurant, bar and retail store that I deem worthy of having me. With any luck I can find some work and make money for about 2 or 3 weeks until my next riding partner is supposed to join me. From there I believe we are planning on heading north towards Seattle and then cutting diagonally down to SLC. But who really knows. I'd like to see Yosemite and Redwoods but I also want to see the Grand Canyon. Yikes.
Anyways, this is just a short blurb to let you all know I'm alive and well. As plans come together better and I have some interesting news to report I'll drop you another update. Also I'll try to put some thoughts together about what the return to the US feels like after 8 months because either the US is stranger than before or I am. Or both.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
One night in Bangkok...
and the world's your oyster! Okay. Three nights in Bangkok. Pretty cool city and Songkhran is absolutely insane. Songkhran is the Thai New Year and is celebrated by a week long waterfight throughout the city. You pretty much can't go anywhere or do anything without getting soaked by waterguns, hoses or just buckets of ice water. When you are trying to accomplish things it is extremely frustrating but you can't stay angry very long when the people are all smiles. When you AREN'T trying to accomplish things it is probably just about the most fun holiday ever. You just run around splashing strangers and smearing flour/talcum all over them. I fully intend to ring in all of my future birthdays with a Songkhran party the week before.
Bangkok is a much nicer city than I had imagined or the travel books had led me to believe. It is not as filthy, smoggy or congested as I thought it would be. Sure, it is nowhere near the level of Singapore when it comes to glossy finish and greenery, but its not so bad in its own right. Certainly beats Athens!
Yesterday I arrived early in the morning and spent the good part of the day searching out a bicycle box. Finally got a nice one from Cannanasia, an absolutely awesome Cannondale exclusive dealer with a stunning amount of bikes on the floor (the Factory Scalpel was looking pretty nice to me...). I made use of a fancy enclosed taxi to safely deposit the box back at Peak's house (my gracious couchsurfing host) and then I headed down towards the notorious Patpong area for the largest waterfight I had ever seen. A wet, floury mass of thousands of Thais (and a few farangs) writhed and squirmed their ways through the streets and alleys to the thumping beat of Thai pop and electronic. An absolutely amazing experience. I wish I had photos to share with you but alas I have no waterproof camera!
Today I may repeat the experience or I may just take it easy, not quite sure. Tomorrow I have to get everything packed up and find a big enough taxi to take me to the airport because I'm doubtful my stuff will fit in a normal sedan type. I'm also far to lazy to deal with dragging the bike box and near-50 pound bag of gear onto and off of various trains and buses required to reach the airport.
After all this goes down (and a nice 9 hour layover in Beijing) I will arrive in San Francisco. I will travel for 23 hours or something, but arrive only 11 hours after I leave. The jet lag is going to be monstrous. Thank goodness San Francisco is a hobo's haven and I have no less than 3 couches offered to me already! Brace yourself States, the hobo cometh!
Bangkok is a much nicer city than I had imagined or the travel books had led me to believe. It is not as filthy, smoggy or congested as I thought it would be. Sure, it is nowhere near the level of Singapore when it comes to glossy finish and greenery, but its not so bad in its own right. Certainly beats Athens!
Yesterday I arrived early in the morning and spent the good part of the day searching out a bicycle box. Finally got a nice one from Cannanasia, an absolutely awesome Cannondale exclusive dealer with a stunning amount of bikes on the floor (the Factory Scalpel was looking pretty nice to me...). I made use of a fancy enclosed taxi to safely deposit the box back at Peak's house (my gracious couchsurfing host) and then I headed down towards the notorious Patpong area for the largest waterfight I had ever seen. A wet, floury mass of thousands of Thais (and a few farangs) writhed and squirmed their ways through the streets and alleys to the thumping beat of Thai pop and electronic. An absolutely amazing experience. I wish I had photos to share with you but alas I have no waterproof camera!
Today I may repeat the experience or I may just take it easy, not quite sure. Tomorrow I have to get everything packed up and find a big enough taxi to take me to the airport because I'm doubtful my stuff will fit in a normal sedan type. I'm also far to lazy to deal with dragging the bike box and near-50 pound bag of gear onto and off of various trains and buses required to reach the airport.
After all this goes down (and a nice 9 hour layover in Beijing) I will arrive in San Francisco. I will travel for 23 hours or something, but arrive only 11 hours after I leave. The jet lag is going to be monstrous. Thank goodness San Francisco is a hobo's haven and I have no less than 3 couches offered to me already! Brace yourself States, the hobo cometh!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Feelin' Kinda Laos-y
HAHAHAHAH. Another solid pun. I wasn't actually feeling lousy at all until a few days ago I was the victim of some debit card fraud. The series of events is probably the most frustrating and discouraging thing to happen on this trip (which I guess shows how fortunate I've been). Hopefully I can pull things together this weekend and make it to Bangkok in time to box the bicycle and get my flight to San Francisco.
But sour topics aside, I do have some entertaining tidbits for you.
Let's start with Luang Namtha, over a week ago, high in the mountains. There I had the pleasure of meeting and riding with one of the craziest guys I have ever ridden with (and I've ridden with some pretty crazy dudes!). His name is Pablo and he comes from Argentina, although he's been riding the bike on and off (mostly on) for about 8 years. You can read about his adventures from the link on my front page.
Anyways, Pablo and I decide to ride the next leg together and set out upon the 107km ride from Luang Namtha to Oudamxai (which included something like 1200meters of climbing). I had originally planned to break it into two rides but upon arriving at the base of the big climb around 4pm, Pablo convinced me we should just go ahead and knock it out. Bad choice. The climb ended up taking us until just about dusk. At this point, the prudent thing to do would be to stop in a village and ask if we could camp nearby. Of course, Pablo, being insane, said we should continue down. After all, its all downhill so how long could it take? Poor choice. The worst 25 km of my life. Dark, sketchy deteriorating road the whole way. Probably the worst road conditions I have seen. Anyways, we did survive and it made a good story, so my thanks go to Pablo for pushing the envelope.
So Pablo decided to go towards Vietnam while my path lay southwards towards Louang Prabhang. Another series of challenging climbs. At one point I finished one ascent and was greeted by a guy selling ice cream out of a cooler on the back of his motorcycle. This was probably up around 1200meters. On the way down to 600 meters we must have passed each other 15 times as he would stop, sell some ice cream, then come past me. It was pretty funny and we were both having a good laugh by the bottom. Another fun aspect of riding that day was my discovery of a little game I like to call "Tag-a-Falang" whereby all the village kids run out screaming, giggling and shouting "FALLAAANNNNGG!!!" (which attracts more kids). Whichever children can wrest the prize of a high-five from me as I fly past is ensured the envy of his or her mates. It is rather entertaining, for me probably even more so than them!
On that uplifting note, I must head out into the city. I've crafted up another hobo sign looking for some money, so hopefully I can get something going for lunch. I'll drop you an update as soon as possible letting you know how the outlook for making my flight next week looks. Wish me luck, I'll need boatloads of it!
But sour topics aside, I do have some entertaining tidbits for you.
Let's start with Luang Namtha, over a week ago, high in the mountains. There I had the pleasure of meeting and riding with one of the craziest guys I have ever ridden with (and I've ridden with some pretty crazy dudes!). His name is Pablo and he comes from Argentina, although he's been riding the bike on and off (mostly on) for about 8 years. You can read about his adventures from the link on my front page.
Anyways, Pablo and I decide to ride the next leg together and set out upon the 107km ride from Luang Namtha to Oudamxai (which included something like 1200meters of climbing). I had originally planned to break it into two rides but upon arriving at the base of the big climb around 4pm, Pablo convinced me we should just go ahead and knock it out. Bad choice. The climb ended up taking us until just about dusk. At this point, the prudent thing to do would be to stop in a village and ask if we could camp nearby. Of course, Pablo, being insane, said we should continue down. After all, its all downhill so how long could it take? Poor choice. The worst 25 km of my life. Dark, sketchy deteriorating road the whole way. Probably the worst road conditions I have seen. Anyways, we did survive and it made a good story, so my thanks go to Pablo for pushing the envelope.
So Pablo decided to go towards Vietnam while my path lay southwards towards Louang Prabhang. Another series of challenging climbs. At one point I finished one ascent and was greeted by a guy selling ice cream out of a cooler on the back of his motorcycle. This was probably up around 1200meters. On the way down to 600 meters we must have passed each other 15 times as he would stop, sell some ice cream, then come past me. It was pretty funny and we were both having a good laugh by the bottom. Another fun aspect of riding that day was my discovery of a little game I like to call "Tag-a-Falang" whereby all the village kids run out screaming, giggling and shouting "FALLAAANNNNGG!!!" (which attracts more kids). Whichever children can wrest the prize of a high-five from me as I fly past is ensured the envy of his or her mates. It is rather entertaining, for me probably even more so than them!
On that uplifting note, I must head out into the city. I've crafted up another hobo sign looking for some money, so hopefully I can get something going for lunch. I'll drop you an update as soon as possible letting you know how the outlook for making my flight next week looks. Wish me luck, I'll need boatloads of it!
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