Cindy and John’s Adventures

So after Jomson we pretty much booked it down the trail and decided to do the easy route through Beni. Unfortunately that also consisted of going through some really hairy landslides (I don’t think I’ve ever talked to myself more) since it’d been raining like mad for like 48 hrs…our final stop before Beni was Tatopani – hot springs – love hot springs – although I could have done without the Nepali men in the speedos strutting around. I just don’t need to see this – big rice bellies and speedos – I just don’t think I need to explain any further…

Anyway, after going through more landslides we reached Beni and with a German couple and their guide and porter, we hired a jeep to take us to Pokhara. Fortunately for us, we decided to have lunch in Beni because an hour before we hit the road a bus had gone down the hill (nobody was hurt! :). We got to the place where it went down and traffic was just stopped as they were going to try and pull the bus up. So we went to the other side of the bus going down, got into a different jeep which turned around and headed to Pokhara.

Pokhara was really nice and relaxing and we did NOTHING! Well, not nothing, but John went paragliding (he didn’t think it was really all that and a box of donuts) – I passed since I’d had enough of the heights factor…those suspension bridges (some of which were a little bit sketchy) and those landslide areas gave me enough of an adrenaline boost for a while…then we went back to Kathmandu (where it totally was different – it’s amazing how you got to a place during rainy season and return during dry season (okay, not really dry, but supposed to be dry)) and the amount of tourists! Wow! But we wanted to make sure our tickets were a-okay and pay for them and all that…we were so ready to leave…Kathmandu pretty much sucks – and I felt like our lungs were going to shrivel up and die from all the pollution (let’s see, narrow streets + being in a valley = hack, hack, hack – people spitting all over the place)…the only good thing is they have all these used book stores…love used books…I miss the library…

We grabbed a cab with Miss Laura who was going to party party party in Bangkok while we slept in the airport (how random that we were on the same flight to Bangkok. Nice economy lounge and everything is open – love that – and then we headed to Hong Kong!

Day 15.  High Camp>Thorung La>Muktinah.  4800 M>5,416 M>3,800 M.  Around 6.5 hrs.

Hurray, the day of reckoning was here.  We headed out with everyone else (safety in numbers) and made a slow go of it at around 5 am.  We ended using a modified-Barbara-breathing system (she would go 100 steps and take a break) and made it to the top.  It was kind of nice when we were passed by a guy that turned out to be the guy that ran the teahouse at the top – so we would have a nice cup of tea at the top.  I almost cried when I saw that bloody sign – which was better than Laura who promptly threw up.  We had made it!  And hadn’t died of AMS!  Woohoo! 

After taking the obligatory pictures in front of the sign and John tied his prayer scarf deal onto the post we decide to head since it was butt-ass cold.  And let’s just say it was a heck of a time going down.  I think it was harder going down then it had been going up.  And a bit anti-climatic…and I’ve always hated the downs.  But, as luck would have it we weren’t having to go down the other way!

We finally get down to Muktinah – checked into a hotel after they said they had hot shower; them left and went to Royal Mustang when they didn’t even have a lukewarm shower.  John was adamant – he’s like I haven’t had a hot shower since Pisang – so I went across the street to the Royal Mustang and had them turn on the shower to make sure it was hot.  Blissful.  And the food ended up being good so we decided to rest our weary limbs and stay one extra night.  After all, we had plenty of time and no schedule!  Kind of a bonus not having the guide and porter…

Day 16.  Muktinah.  We rested.  And went to the temple.  Quite an amazing place and for once it was by donation only.  So we actually went in together.  108 taps of water…I can see why it’s a pilgrimage site…

Day 17.  Muktinah>Jomson.  2,710 M/8,891 ft.  4.5 hrs.  It’s so funny how much more developed this side of the pass is then the other.  First off, we saw motorized vehicle.  We hadn’t seen one of these for days.  There was a jeep service from Muktinah down to Jomson so you didn’t actually have to walk.  When we were planning this trip I stumbled over some blogs and one of them mentioned that as soon as you cross the pass you see overweight people.  I didn’t really understand this until we did this trek.  On the other side you didn’t really see any overweight people.  On this side – wow, what a difference!  Since you could fly into Jomson and then take a horse to Muktinah you could be as unfit as you wanted to be and still be fine.  The other side of the pass has an airport but it only operates in high season. 

It also probably doesn’t help that the food on this side was much better.  Which kind of makes sense since they have an airport and could transport by vehicle instead of porter.  We had the most awesome hot chocolate apple crumble in Jomson where we said goodbye to Lars and Barbara and toasted with some really good apple brandy they make locally.  Hopefully we’ll see them again when we head to Europe! 

Day 12.  Ngawal>Manang.  3540 M/111,614 Ft.  2 1/2 hours.  After a quick snack we headed out early and down the hill where we had breakfast at Braga?  The town before Manang.  I think in 20/20 hindsight we would have skipped staying in Manang and stayed here instead, but since we hadn’t been to Manang we went on.  We stayed at the Thorung La – kind of a miserable place with pretty bad food and only lukewarm showers – had a good lunch at this place in the guidebook though (Malvis’s or something like that?) – boy, my recollections are starting to get really bad…

Anyway, we ran into Laura at a bakery and she said she was headed to this lake so we tagged along.  Beautiful, but FRIGGIN’ COLD!  I mean, really, it is fed by a glacier…

Day 13.  Manang>Letdar.  4200 M/13,780 Ft.  4 hoursish?  As usual, we got up early and after a quick snack were on the road.  It was getting to be our schtick – quick snack in the morning and then we’d stop in a couple of hours and grab a chicken noodle soup.  Apparently, this Spaniard from Barcelona was on the same schedule – he’d have a black coffee and a cigarette in the morning and then would stop and snack at teahouses along the way.  We’d often see him in the mornings or at a teahouse somewhere.  Today, we stopped at Yak Kharka for soup and apple pie – the Spaniard was going up to Thorung Phedi that day.  We thought, well, that seems reasonable – maybe we’d do the same.

Hmmm – that didn’t really work out.  I just about died in the stretch between Yak Kharka and Letdar.  For some reason I couldn’t regulate my breath.  So Letdar it was for the night.  We stayed at Churri Latta, one of 2 places, as did the rest of the people we would ultimately cross the pass with.  No shower, but it did have a nice warm stove they lit with buffalo dung. 

Day 14.  Letdar>High Camp.  4800 M.  We’re just about to leave the guest house when lo and behold, here comes the 2 German guys that we had leap-frogged with a bit along the trail.  We figured we wouldn’t see them again on the trail since they were going to the lake and it was supposed to be 3-day excursion.  But they must have been pretty speedy!  Anyway, we headed out, this time taking a break at Thorung Phedi.  We were feeling pretty good and it was very early so we went up this mega hill up to High Camp.  John started yelling at me because I was being slow (isn’t he a kind and considerate husband 🙂 ) but I just couldn’t regulate my breath.  But finally we made it.  This would take an hour off of our way to the pass the next day…within a few hours we were joined by the Israelis, the 2 German guys, the German couple (Lars & Barbara), the English couple (Caroline & Tom), the Canadian (Dale), the Australian (Laura) and probably other people I can’t remember off the top of my head.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been sitting in this internet cafe listening to the same Nepali songs over and over again.  At least the Jumbo Jumbo song they played over and over again in Tanzania was catchy.  Shoot me now.

Anyway, yeah, most of us got some symptoms of AMS.  I ended up taking some of that Diamox stuff but I was feeling better in the morning.  I had a raging headache that night.  And couldn’t force anything down for dinner.  Oh and we had a mouse that decided to invade our remaining chocolate stash that night.  Luckily he only got into one.   

Day 10.  Chame>Pisang.  3200 M/10,500 Ft.  4 3/4 hrs.  These days seem to kind of float together – it kind of started to become a countdown to the pass.  All I remember is that this and the prior day were kind of weird because we hiked in Washington.  Okay, not really, but it was all green and stuff.  With trees.  It kind of started to look like we were back at home.  And that after we climbed we would descend and then hit a Taco Bell on the way home to Seattle.  But alas, no Taco Bells in Nepal (no McDonalds or Burger King either – but they do have a Baskin & Robbins in Kathmandu).  

Anyway, we stayed at the Hotel Maya where everyone and their mother was staying.  I mean, I think everyone that hiked to Pisang that day stayed there – and it was kind of funny because they had wood planks between the rooms and if you happened to have one of those wood holes in one of the planks you could see right into the next room! 

Day 11.  Pisang>Ngawal.  3657 M/11,998.  4 hours.  We decided to take the upper route and not go to the lake.  The lake was a 3 day detour and seemed kind of hard especially since…  

I started having doubts about getting over the pass after the 9th guide we met said “no porter and no guide? – you should have gotten a porter” – I mean, I thought I was doing okay – yeah, the backpack was getting a bit heavy but it’s not like I’m a total weakling.  And, thanks, great time to be telling me I needed a porter when I’ve been on the trail for like what seems like a gazillion days.  I would prove them wrong, darn it!

Anyway, to go the Upper Pisang route you go up this killer hill – but before we did that we went to the monastery in the town of Upper Pisang – ran into Laura who was on her way down from doing yoga at the monastery – it was really cool – the monasteries and gompas around here were amazing – it’s kind of amazing that I “technically” grew up with the same religion, Buddhism, as these people in Nepal.  Then again, Nepalese people actually grew up in it; I just kind of went to church on Sunday and didn’t live it.  Religion is so much a part of life here (and I had no idea Lumbini, where Siddhartha was born was actually in Nepal, not India).

Anyway, the hill was pretty much straight up and had almost 30 switchbacks – at the top we had chicken noodle soup and played with the cute doggies (one of which had puppies – I wanted to take one and put it in my pocket but John, being the mean person he is wouldn’t let me).  From there we headed along the ridge to Ngawal.  We decided to stay the night here because our guidebook said we should stay at roughly the elevation of 3500 M for 2 nights to acclimitize and rather than stay in Manang for 2 nights, we thought it’d be cool to stay in a small town.  And it was really neat.  Super basic, terrific food, beautiful Gompa.  It was all really nice except for we really didn’t sleep since some, what I assumed were porters, rolled in around 9 pm to stay and the walls were super-thin again…but, well, you can’t have everything…

Day 7.  Bahundanda>Chamje  4.5 hrs 1430 M.  So we finally felt like we could leave and start the trek again.  So after saying goodbye (temporarily) to our German friends, Lars and Barbara, who were having porter problems (not a good sign when a porter can’t even make it through the first day). 

It’s kind of cool that we kept seeing some of the same people every few days depending on which town we were all staying.  It was almost like playing leap-frog.  You wouldn’t see some people for a few days and then all of sudden, there they were at the guesthouse you were staying at.  Or you’d hear about them from someone else trekking – I guess those are the advantages of going trekking during Monsoon season – not as many people but AMAZING WATERFALLS! 

This was a brutal day for us (I’m sure it had nothing to do with being bed-ridden for like 3 days) – we thought we were only going to be making it to Jagat again but after taking lunch we were refreshed enough to make it to Chamje (like a 1/2 hr down the road).  We ran into a couple that were coming down who unfortunately got all the way to Thorung Phedi and got bad AMS and had to come down without crossing the pass.  Not exactly the confidence booster.  We also met Laura, the Australian, who thought we were on some serious drugs since our eyes were so red (she also gave us the name “The Americans with the red eyes”) & Dale, the Canadian, who had also come from Africa and was doing an extended trip as well. 

This is also where John started getting addicted to chicken noodle soup.  They’d use those packaged soups and then add a bunch of stuff to it – he was so sick of chow mein by this point that we started eating it pretty much until we got to the other side of the pass – for breakfast and usually lunch.  It never tasted the same but it usually tasted pretty darn good! 

Day 8.  Chamje>Bagarchap  4.5 hrs 2160 M.  Not much to say, except for our guest house, Marsayangdi, had really good food.  There was this killer hill you had to go up before Tal that had about 1,500 steps (yes, I’m crazy, but it prevented me from actually looking up and freaking out).  Tal was supposed to be a “Wild West” looking town but it didn’t really look like that much different of a town than the rest of them.   

Day 9.  Bagarchap>Chame  3.5 hrs 2670 M.  In case you haven’t figured it out, I estimated the times – I just took the maximum time allowed from our guidebook – which we seemed to be right on pace with.  Anyway, this was a short day and I really have no recollection of this day except for the super hot showers at the New Tibet Hotel where we stayed and the extortion they were charging for internet at this cafe (which was advertised all the way up the trail).  So we passed on the internet since we probably could have bought a piece of land with the amount they were charging.     

We made it! Woohoo!

Anyway, to preface this, I have wanted to do this trek for a very long time.  I’m not sure why.  Actually, I just wanted to be able to accomplish something on this adventure of ours – something tangible.  But, of course, it was not without its challenges…

Day 1.  Kathmandu>Dumre>Besisahar.  Okay, this kind of sucks as a day 1 since all we did was ride buses but after getting off the “tourist bus” in Dumre it was a crazy bus ride to Besisahar.  I’m VERY GLAD we did not have window seat because I’m not sure I’d still be sane right now. 

Day 2.  Besisahar>Ngadi.  4.5 hrs.  820 M>930M.  We decided to make it kind of a short day because, after all, we hadn’t done anything particularly active for quite some time now.  Can you say, no muscle tone?  Anyway, because we started the trek during “monsoon season” we had to take off our boots a few times to go wading through some streams.  Fun times.  And John, who has either some incredible boots or perhaps just some luck convinced me I could go across this one stream with my boots on since he made it across without getting wet – I ended up with the most soaked socks ever and had to wring them out on the other side.  Darn that John!  We stayed at this neat little guest house called Seasons and the restaurant was called Sore Back.  If this wasn’t a bit of foreshadowing to come, I don’t know what is! 

Day 3.  Ngadi>Jagat.  5.5 hrs to 1300 M.  This day started out just fine – our first really good hill up to Bahundanda, met a German guy that fell face first into a rice paddy, then as we were heading up to our destination, Jagat, my eyes started to itch.  Like I had 20 contact lenses in (which luckily, I had my glasses on at the time).  And it never got better.  So, John was rinsing my eyes out every couple of ours throughout the night hoping they would get better.

Day 4.  Jagat.  No way I was going anywhere – still rinsing out my eyes but they were starting to close.  We got some kind of semblance that this was a common occurence from the owner of the guesthouse but his English was really sporadic and our Nepali was even worse.  John’s eyes started to itch. 

Day 5.  Jagat>Bahundanda.  John’s eyes started getting red and closing up.  We decided to go back down.  Our intention was to go to Besisahar since they had a hospital there.  We hired 2 guys to carry our bags and headed down at 6 in the morning.  We got to Bahundanda a few hours later and found out this red-eye thing was happening all throughout Kathmandu.  We got some drops called Ciplex (with Cipro in it – that stuff that you use if you have really bad diarrhea) and headed to Mountain View hotel for a couple of days of R & R.

Day 6.  Bahundanda – rest.

Well, we’re currently not.

Let me preface this by saying that the family we were placed with was really nice.  We stayed with the headmaster of the school we were “supposed” to teach at – the headmaster was really nice and he and his son knew English.  His wife knew pretty much no English; our Nepali sucked – but we managed with hand signals and the like.  One of our favorite phrases “Thik Chha?” means Is okay?  And you have to do this little head-bob – kind of like a bobblehead – well, I guess you’d have to be here…they do it here a lot…

The one thing John LOVES is Dal Bhat.  They have it twice a day here.  After living with the family for like a week he cringes now at the words.  It’s really not that bad…rice, a curry, a pickle type thing…the part that kind of killed him was the soy.  I’m not sure how it’s prepared but it’s not like tofu – very strong flavor – it’s hard to describe.  And the problem is the part where once you touch something on your plate it’s only eaten by you.  Oh, and it’s impolite to leave stuff on the plate.  So if you hate something you eat it anyway.  We got used to eating with the right hand thing and just using your hand pretty quick.
Anyway, we were supposed to teach.  The first problem for John was that he was told there had been no computer teacher so he brought all this material on the basics.  Well, they had a teacher and the kids all knew the stuff and she kind of did it on the fly.  Like we’re talking, no curriculum – just making stuff up as she went along.  So he didn’t know what they knew and didn’t know.  Makes it kind of hard to teach a couple of classes when you have no idea what they know/don’t know.  For me, I’m not sure if I just completely didn’t understand the volunteer position but I got the feeling after a few days that I was just going to end up hanging out with John in the computer lab (where he was fixing a couple of computers) because I got the distinct impression that the teachers just didn’t want me to go into their classes.

It’s such a strange system here.  So you go along, merrily, in a government school (vs the more expensive boarding school) being taught in Nepali.  Then boom – you hit college after Grade 10 – and everything is taught in English.  Just like Africa.  I don’t get it.

Anyway, we just decided to cut our losses and left Chapagoan (the town we were placed at) and just go trekking early.  So we leave tomorrow for the Annapurna Circuit.

All in all, so far, this has been a great country.  The Nepali people are super-nice and always smiling.  Half of them look “Mongolian” and the other half look “Indian”.  It’s kind of weird in one way to be mistaken for a Nepali (Sharika – the wife of the headmaster said that like once a day) – but, on the other hand, not like I condone it or anything, I was getting into tourist places for free.   And can you say super-cheap!  We’re staying in a place in the touristy area of Kathmandu with a bathroom, fan, cable TV for under $10.  And food is as cheap as you want to make it too.  But even if you want “Western” food it’s not that expensive.
Anyway, in a month, we head to Hong Kong for 2 weeks, then to Taiwan for a month and then to Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam until very nearly the end of the year.   We’re thinking of trying to head to Europe in time for New Years – we shall see!

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…

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! 

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 get the logic.

Anyway, it took us 2 hours on the scariest bus ride – I mean the bus took the bumps that the minibus couldn’t take at an alarming rate.  We were really glad it was dark for the first hour.

After we had breakfast at a place in Kabale we took boda-bodas to Lake Bunyoni.  Let me just tell you – never again.  Anything over a few blocks with a huge backpack on the back of a motorbike – not going to happen.  Especially since we found out it was like $1 more to take a taxi…we stayed at a place called Lake Bunyoni Overland Camp – we mostly just did nothing for 3 days –

We tried to canoe in this dugout canoe (like a hollowed out tree), but we did what the locals refer to as the “Mzungu corkscrew” – let’s just say we went in circles and finally just headed back to the dock because we figured if we got into the middle of the lake there was no guarantee that we would actually make it back to the dock.  Before dark.  And it was noon when we started!

Oh, and we did hike up to this resort at the top of this hill one morning – really super views…we met this local guy and he became our unofficial tour-guide – which was probably a good thing considering the whole going up dirt roads thing and no signage…

The annoying thing about being “white” (that still trips me out) is that people want your e-mail address so they can come see you (on your dime of course), or fund an orphanage or some type of schooling…totally understandable but it kind of gets old after a while…

Anyway, we took a special-hire taxi back to Kabale after 3 days and then a 4 am bus to Kampala.  The good thing about that early bus is they didn’t stop nearly as much (except for pee breaks) – so not as many snack breaks (I mean, do we need to stop every 30 minutes for a snack?)…