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Archive for August, 2007

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Pre-volunteering…

Saturday, August 25th, 2007

HURRAY!  WE MADE IT TO KATHMANDU, NEPAL!

And wow, I mean, literally, wow, we made it.  We flew an airline called Royal Nepal Airlines (when the locals refer to it’s acronym RNAC as Royal Nepal Always Cancels…)…we should have known when they canceled our first flight that this was going to be sketchy.  So we had to stay in Bangkok another 2 days (we heard from our volunteer coordinator that some other volunteer got stuck in Mumbai for 36 hours because of the airline – hmmm, I’m thinking we lucked out)…and our plane was an hour late.  And no other flights were late for like an 8 hour block.  I’ve never flown on an plane that didn’t just go up and then level off.  It kind of got halfway going up, then they turned off the fasten seat belt sign, and then they kept kind of going up.  But we made it, and really, any flight that lands safely is a good flight?  And rest assured, we’re going to try and avoid using them in the future (we booked a one-way ticket here so we have options!)

Right now, we’re in Kathmandu learning Nepalese.  It’s pretty much a crash course through VSSN – the volunteer place we’re going to be teaching through.  Our teacher is pretty cool Promila (sp.?).  She has been teaching us 2 hours/day and then 2 days she also took us sightseeing to 4 of these popular tourist attractions.  They all seem to be Hindu/Buddhist sights (there seems to be quite the cross-over) – one place we actually saw someone being cremated by a river.  And 2 of the places – one of them called the Monkey Temple – had these crazy SCARY HUMAN LOOKING MONKEYS!  I mean, one looked like John’s brother…Mark…

All I can say, is we totally suck at Nepalese so far – but hopefully we’ll get better once we leave Kathmandu since we’re not really forced to use it.  Most people speak English in Thamel (the backpacker part of Kathmandu – I mean fake North Face, Mammut, etc. stuff EVERYWHERE).  Considering the majority of people coming to Nepal go to hike it kind of makes sense – just a bit strange…

Anyway, we leave for our placement (of course, I can’t remember the name of the place – it’s south of here) on Monday…should be interesting, informative, and definitely a learning experience for us both…

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Our last days in Africa…first days in Bangkok…

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

We decided to spend a few days in Kampala before our flight just to do some shopping, and just relax before our trip to Bangkok.

We had one last dinner with John’s friend Cephas – the Indian food at this place Haandi was AWESOME!  And so different than the stuff in Seattle – not as rich but more flavorful without being so HOT! 

Africa was good.  But we’re ready to head east.  Asia is calling.

It’s kind of funny that the 2 things that I didn’t thing we’d be exiting Africa with from our original stash from America is:  sunscreen and bugspray.  I’m telling you – coming in the winter is the way to go.  Granted we kind of let nature take it’s course since I’m pretty tan and John’s, well, pretty tanish for him but the bugs weren’t super-bad and the weather was pretty temperate.   I think we came with 3 bottles of each and left Africa with 2 bottles of each.  But I’m sure we’ll use them here in Asia.

Kenyan Airways is what we flew.  Entebbe, Uganda to Nairobi, Kenya to Bangkok, Thailand.  4 hour time difference.  It was actually a really good couple of flights.  Lots of legroom, those little mini tv sets at each seat – the food was pretty awful, but how good is airplane food REALLY?

Anyway, now we’re in Bangkok for 10 days.  Yeah, I know – kind of a long time in a city but we’re restocking.  As you might have guessed, Africa is not really a great place to find “stuff”.  In our opinion, anyway. 

If you can imagine, wearing 2-3 changes of clothes over 4 months kind of wears them out.  Plus the selection of toiletries is much better here (it probably helps that we’re just about to run out of stuff like shampoo).  Once I got over the hurdle that I went from a size S/M to L/XL (on the streets they sell a lot of one-size-fits-all stuff – I think I could fit only one arm into some of these shirts).  Of course John didn’t run into any of this because men seem to be immune to vanity sizing – he actually went down a shirt size from M to S if you can believe it.  We finally found some semi-quick-dry stuff today — most everything is 100% cotton which takes FOREVER to dry if you’re hand-washing or on a trail somewhere…oh and John found some nike sandals for cheap to replace the African ones that I had to stitch back up just so he could wear them after a couple of wearings (Uganda has these MASSIVE HOLES on their sidewalks and one of them was covered by apparently a sketchy piece of wood because he went straight through – luckily the only casualty was the sandals).

Bangkok is pretty darn cool.  We’re staying in a HOTEL.  With our own bathroom.  And Air Conditioning.  We had wanted to splurge a while back but just couldn’t justify spending $200 for a Holiday Inn in Africa.  So we decided to just do it for the 10 days we’re here since we’ll be volunteering in Nepal (staying with a family) and then trekking after that…

Great food (then again, I LOVE THAI FOOD!), huge shopping malls (and lots of them – kind of overwhelming, really).  I’m no longer “white”.  It’s a kingdom here – we went and saw the Bourne Ultimatum and before the movie starts you stand up and honor the king and they play a little video of the king.  Good movie by the way.  I think we have had our fix of movies between Entebbe and Bangkok – we saw the Transformers in Entebbe (I couldn’t get the sound where the cars change into robots out of my head for days)…oh and did I mention ice cream – it’s everywhere.  And not the kind of bumpy ice-cream we saw in Uganda…and snacks.  Oh and cake – that’s moist.  Did I mention that John is in heaven (except for the necessary evil of shopping – WAY too much going on)…

Oh, and fast internet.  GLORIOUSLY FAST INTERNET.  John is downloading pics as we sit here.  Since it’s been like 3 months since he’s actually been able to do it. 

Oh and we saw my friend Jeff who I used to work with and sort of took over my job after I left!  So good to see him!  And saw his new pad (okay, actually they’re building it so it won’t be finished for a year and a half but it’s a very cool condo from the model).

Anyway, we’re off to Nepal on Wednesday…we start volunteer teaching for a month and then who knows from there!  I think we’ll be ready to leave this busy city knowing we’ll be coming back to tour the rest of the country at a later date! 

 

Posted in RTW Trip, Thailand, Uganda | No Comments »

Rest and Relaxation

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
So we got picked up at 5 am for our 6 am departure.  None of the buses could leave until 6 am because it's so near the Congo.  I'm sure there is a really good reason why but I don't ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Big Pile of Stones

Thursday, August 9th, 2007
So in Kisoro, the mtn we decided to go up is called Big Pile of Stones because in this volcanic area if you want to cultivate your land you have to dig out all these volcanic rocks and so there's ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Gorillas – or not!

Thursday, August 9th, 2007
So, at the start of our trip, we wanted to go see the rare Mountain Gorilla.  Then we found out the price in Uganda to see them went from $360 to $500.  For 1 hour.  And other people that went ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in RTW Trip, Uganda | 1 Comment »

Chimps, chimps and more chimps…

Thursday, August 9th, 2007
So after a brief visit to another place that was full...which we couldn't call because the Lonely Planet's phone numbers - can you say that half of them didn't work?  I swear, we wanted to chuck the book out the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in RTW Trip, Uganda | No Comments »

Too good to be true…

Thursday, August 9th, 2007
So we get back to Kampala and find out from the Backpackers that our trip got cancelled.  Which is so funny considering the Red Chili Backpackers who we wanted to go with has been booked for about a month out.  ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in RTW Trip, Uganda | 1 Comment »

Mount Elgon and Sipi

Thursday, August 9th, 2007
So after doing nothing the next day except for walking to a waterfall which was really a rapid...we headed to Mbale because we were contemplating doing Mt Elgon. We stayed at this place called the Mt Elgon View Hotel ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Jinja by Bike

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
So we get up the next morning and decide we want to see Jinja by bike.  So this guy at the backpackers rented us bikes that we could just bike for the day and then bike out to the Bujagali ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in RTW Trip, Uganda | 1 Comment »

Getting out of Kampala, Uganda

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
Yes, we're lame.  Yes, it's been like a really long time since we've updated this lovely blog.  And John is looking at pictures right now.  So hopefully we'll be able to update some stuff.  Anyway... We head to Jinja.  The Source ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in RTW Trip, Uganda | 1 Comment »