At the Crossroads of Europe and Asia

Entry 43:

Believe it or not, it was quite refreshing to touch down in modern Istanbul after spending the last 3 months in the developing world. We cabbed over to Hotel Poem, which was in old Sultanahmet, a wonderful neighborhood of cobblestone streets and beautiful buildings. Most of Istanbul is a mix of modern and ancient buildings with a great streetcar network to carry locals and tourists alike around the city. Even though it was January and the temperature barely reached above 60 degrees F, we were happy to be in the cosmopolitan city.

Everone's heard the jokes about being a Turkish millionnaire, but the Turkish government has actually revalued its currency, the Lira. To make it even more confusing, the Euro is also a common currency and ATMs also dispense American Dollars. We were really happy to have held onto our cheap pocket calculator that we picked up in Vietnam.

Istanbul is an anciet city filled with historic places from both the Muslim world and the Christian world. The sights and sounds stand out.

1. Great architecture can be found in the famous mosques of the city (both inside and out):

2. Colorful artifacts:

3. The food experience: both tastes and sounds.

Ever since the authors of this blog got together six and a half years ago, they have been talking about one day owning their own stainless steel manual citrus juicer. For years they never purchased one, just waiting for the perfect one to present itself. Not any old juicer would do. It would have to be a real "heavy lifter." As we wandered down the streets of Istanbul, we found many vendors selling fresh pomegranate juice. We asked the owner of a nice juicer where he purchased his. He pointed us in the right direction and we headed to the Bazaar. After much investigation and negotiation, we were the proud owners of one heavy lifter. However, this presented us with a new problem...

How to get this thing back home. We roamed the isles in search of a cheap duffle bag. Lo and behold, Sharon spotted a symbolic duffel bag that could not be passed up. It carried the San Francisco 49ers logo. We thought it to be the perfect one for our needs. It was a good thing that we only had one more stop on our journey before heading back to California.

A trip to Turkey would be incomplete without the requisite "Turkish bath" experience. Our hotel staff recommended a particular hammam that has been around for centuries. For those of you that have spent time in the steam room of your local gym, you'll be surprise to learn that this was quite a different experience. After disrobing and wrapping yourself in a cloth, you make your way wearing your wooden slippers to the domed steam room. The majority of the room is a massive heated stone platform on which you lie to warm up. After 30 minutes or so, we were taken into a side room where we lay on stone beds and were scrubbed enthusiastically from head to toe with soapy water and sponges. This is how they used to bathe in the old days before showers were installed in the home. After the scrub down, we sat on the floor near a sink, filled up buckets with cold water, and cooled ourselves down by pouring them over our bodies.

Istanbul was quite an amazing place and a great introduction to the ancient culture of Turkey. We would certainly put it on our list of places to go back to, especially the far-reaching places off the beaten path.

For more photos on Istanbul, go to: grossmintblog.shutterfly.com

Land of moustaches

Entry 42:
We landed at the airport in New Delhi, which was remarkably modern compared to others parts of the country we had seen.



We made our way to the taxi stand and after we felt somewhat confident that our driver might actually know where to go, we jumped into the car. As you might imagine, he basically had no clue where he was going. Fortunately, Sharon spotted the street name and after a couple of 3-point turns, we found ourselves in the lobby of the hotel.

Since we didn't have much time to waste, we headed for the elevated metro and went a few stops to the downtown area in an attempt to book our Delhi city tour and a private tour of the Taj Mahal. Wouldn't you know it - all the information found in our guidebook and online was outdated! But being resourceful, we managed to take care of business and find a wonderful travel agency, book our tours, and find a vegetarian thali restaurant right near our hotel.

Delhi is an enormous city. We spent just as much time in traffic as we did sightseeing. Our first stop on the city tour was Lakshmi Narayan Temple, a Hindi place of prayer that was architecturally beautiful.


Next, we hit the Lotus temple of Bahai. The grounds surrounding the main building were nicely manicured, but the building itself was in the shape of a lotus flower. Inside were rows of seats like you'd find in a temple or church. We were asked to take off our shoes and wait in line to enter. Once inside, we realized nothing was going on, and headed back out.

The Indira Ghandi Museum showcased letters and photographs of this assassinated former prime minister, which was interesting.

As all tours do, we ended up at a tourist trap (AKA shopping center) where we were herded like cattle inside for a display of "authentic" Indian handicrafts. We already knew the drill, so we stood outside instead. While we waited for our group, we noticed a local man pull out a cigarette and toss the empty package on the ground. Sharon kindly informed him that there was a trash bin no more than 5 feet from where he was standing. The man seemed embarrassed, thanked Sharon, and went to pick up his trash and deposit it in the appropriate place. Sharon proceeded to remind him that "it's your country," hoping that the one-person-at-a-time motto will catch on. Our guess is that they don't have the "Woodsy the Owl" public service campaign on Indian television.

The next day, our driver picked us up at approximately 5am for the four-hour drive to Agra. Even though it was 100 and something miles away, with all the traffic, it takes a long time to get there. Our first stop was Akbar's tomb. It was a beautiful building, but we chose to take a quick snapshot and continue to our main destination, as time was short.

On the way from Akbar's tomb we picked up our guide, Ram. When we reached the gate to purchase our admission tickets, our guide walked up to the window with us and somehow managed to get Marc in for free by showing his white cane. After going through the metal detector, we were inside the grounds and Ram told us the history of this memorial shrine.

When you first enter the grounds, you are not yet faced with the famous Taj Mahal building. Rather, you see another beautiful building and walk through it to enter into the courtyard of the Taj Mahal.

As you go through the arch, you are slowly exposed to more and more of the famous white structure. At first, you see just the main dome; then you see a set of pillars alongside it; and finally you see the whole picture:

After walking through the gardens, it was time to finally enter the building itself. For those of you who saw the film Slumdog Millionaire, you'll be disappointed to know that foreign tourists are actually given cloth foot covers to wear over their shoes while Indian tourists remove their shoes and walk barefoot. We guess that's why the foreign tourists pay the higher admission price.

Seeing the Taj Mahal is not an every day occurance. Consequently, we wanted to have a souveneir of our journey there. We asked some locals to take our photos. Without exception, all the pictures taken of us ended up being lopsided. Luckily, our tour guide was good with the camera...

We were impressed at the amazing handiwork displayed in the intricate stone inlay and carved marble walls. All in all, it's a long journey to get there, but it is really spectacular and worth seeing in person.

That night, we returned to the hotel around 10pm, but did not have much time to sleep as we needed to be at the airport around 3am. While this was to be our final night in India, there are some things we will never forget.

People have often asked us to describe our time in India and compare it to other parts of the world. Unfortunately, India can in no way, shape, or form be compared to any place on earth. So when we tell you the following idiosyncrasies, it is not meant to be judgmental, but rather for information purposes only:

1. Red puddles are sometimes found on the ground. These are not the result of colored rain. Rather, Indians chew bettlenut as a stimulant and then spit out red juice onto the ground. Red remnants can also be found on the chewer's teeth.

2. Bathrooms may be a rarity or an inconvenience in many places as we often saw men peeing against a wall out in public.

3. Indian men's dress code is drastically different from that in the West. We saw men wearing sequenced vests and our tour guide wore a pearl necklace around his neck.

4. Indians love to honk their car horns. When we asked one of our drivers about that, he mentioned that it a game to them. In fact, honking is encouraged on the road. Many vehicles have phrases such as "Horn Please" or "Blow Horn" (see below):

For more incredible pix, head to: grossmintblog.shutterfly.com

India's Venice...Almost

Entry 41:

Being back in India may not have been such a culture shock after being in Nepal, except for the fact that Varanasi is not your average city. Its downtown area is comprised of a maze of alleyways that lead to the holy Ganges River. Each alley has a different purpose, or at least it once did. Each was related to a particular commerce once upon a time. Today, one of the most important ghats, or stairways leading to the water, is the one where cremations take place around the clock. Bodies of the dead are carried on stretchers down the narrow ghat until they reach the cremation site. The family then needs to purchase wood, which is charged by weight. The secret is to finding the right amount of wood so the body burns thoroughly, but that you don't overspend on unneeded wood.

Varanasi is called Kashi, or City of Illumination, by people coming here for a pilgrimage. It is called Banares in Poly language, the language of Buddha. It is surrounded by rivers on 3 sides - a liquid barrier to the holy city and is among the holiest cities for Hindus. Everyday 60,000 pilgrims come to Varanasi. They must stay a minimum of one night and are provided free accommodations and meals (money is provided by the rich). Indians strive to make pilgrimages there at least once in their lifetime to bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges. We watched people bathing, doing laundry, and sending cremated remains all into the same body of water.

To top it all off, there are many cows in Varanasi. They are also considered holy by the locals, so other than providing milk, they are not to be disturbed. We had an interesting first encounter with a cow when we arrived and were searching for our guest house. We found ourselves walking down a street when a cow charged toward us. As we had no where to go, being stuck between a store front and other people on the street, Sharon let our a scream. But, to our luck, the owner of the cow soon came running after it and redirected it elsewhere.

As is true for the rest of India, Varanasi was not a clean city. There was trash lying on the streets everywhere. After seeing the cows chomping on this rubbish, we decided it would be best to stay away from dairy drinks. Interestingly enough, the urine of cows is used for gallbladder surgery in Ayurvedic medicine.

No Lassi for us:

While we're on the subject of cleanliness, neither of us would never walk barefoot in the streets, especially in India. However, plenty of locals do. That is, they attend ceremonies at various temples nestled inside the narrow alleys. Because you must take your shoes off, people either have to ask someone to watch their shoes (which is not so efficient considering the numbers of people going to these temples as well as the cost involved), or leave their shoes at home. Most seem to go with the latter plan. This means they have to skip over cow dung and garbage on their way to temple.

Lucky for us, our friend Priscilla from New York planned to meet us in Varanasi. We accompanied her on a city tour, which included a boat ride along the Ganges early in the morning to watch the locals bathe.

We also ended up in a silk production factory where we were urged to purchase something, but were fortunate enough to watch how their beautiful art is hand made on the premises.

Some of our other stops on the city tour included the Temple Mother of India where a map of the entire country was laid in 3D on the ground; Varanasi University which we drove around; Monkey Temple (we weren't allowed to enter, however); Sarnath, an important Buddhist pilgrimate site where Buddha gave his first sermon.

.

The most unique aspect of our connection with Priscilla in Varanasi was our trip to the Smile Train Hospital. Priscilla works for an organization in NY that fundraises money for children in 3rd world countries suffering from cleft palate. The hospital's incredible work was featured in the Academy Award winning documentary short called Smile Pinki. We were fortunate to spend several hours with the hospital's head surgeon, Dr. Sabai, who showed us around, told us about the progress made, as well as what goals he has to expand in the future. It was touching to see these kids waiting with their families to have surgery, knowing that in a short time their lives would be different on so many levels. They'd appear like their peers, their speech would improve, as well as their self-esteem. All this for the price tag of a few hundred dollars and about 2 hours of surgery.

.

As we were walking through the alleyways one night, we came across a young man trying to get tourists to come listen to some Indian classical music. He told us there was no charge for the show, but donations would be collected at the end. After removing our shoes, we leaned up against the wall, sitting cross-legged on the floor. We were joined by one Russian tourist and when it appeared as if no other tourists would come in, the show began.

We were treated to a half hour of tabla and sitar (Indian musical instruments). We put a small donation in the bucket and resisted pressure to purchase the accompanying CDs.

Every night at precisely 7pm in the Main Ghat, an elaborate ceremony would take place. Spectators, including ourselves, sat on the stairs watching the ceremony with fire, music, and dance.

Varanasi is one place that cannot be recreated with words or photos. Anyone who has the least bit of interest to visit India, absolutely must include the holy city in their travel plans. Make sure to forego the fancy hotels in town and stay in one of the guest houses along the ghats. Here are some views from the rooftop of our guest house:

p.s. - don't drink the water!

For more photos, check out: grossmintblog.shutterfly.com

Final Thoughts about Nepal

Entry 40:
The town of Pokara is a smaller version of Kathmandu. It has many touristic shops, restaurants, and offices, as well as guest houses. Among other services, the town offers massages and shaves. We took a couple of days to unwind after the trek and before getting back on the 7-hour bus to Kathmandu. Meanwhile, Marc got more than his money's worth when he sat down for a shave. The young fellow took the libery of massaging Marc's head with such intensity, it seemed as though he might kiss his head. He then offered Marc a full massage in the back room, which sadly Marc declined.

It was finally time to return to Kathmandu. After a long bus ride, we checked into the Pyramid Hotel. The bathroom in our room had a broken window, some of the lights were broken, wires were sticking unnecessarily out of the wall, there was a window that wouldn't close, the porcelain of the toilet was broken, and as we'd seen several times before - the TV did not work as it either lacked electricity or had no channels coming through. Believe it or not, this was an improvement over our previous accommodation!

It had been a wild adventure, but we were ready to move on. We had a morning flight back into India, so we checked ourselved back into the airport. We found it strange that after passing the metal detector, each person is also then hand-patted down and their bag is inspected by hand. Men and women have separate inspection areas, each with appropriate gendered inspectors. Afterwards, we sat in the waiting lounge. As we started up the stairs to the plane from the tarmac, all passengers were checked again! Incredible.

Aside from the lack of electricity, which often affected what could be ordered at a restaurant, we will remember Nepal for the following unique features:

• The locals are often either on strike
• Unpaved roads lead to slow travel
• Buses always entail broken seats and loud music
• The diesel fumes are on par with India
• There are garbage littered streets in Kathmandu
• The multitude of stores selling yak wool products and pashmina, pashmina, pashmina: always fun.

While we were in Nepal, we spoke with many people who told us about trekking in the mountains at various times during the year. September through November are the most popular months due to the dry, mild weather. We experienced pretty extreme cold which may have affected our stay in country. One thing we will never forget is the advice given to us to avoid June through August when the monsoons bring heavy rains and leeches. If you want to see the most magestic mountains in the world, you'll have to plan a trip to Nepal. It's quite an adventure.

Keep on trekking

Entry 39:
Everybody knows the expression "ugly American," but we discovered other "ugly" travelers as we readied ourselves to leave Kathmandu for Pokara, a city approximately 7 hours away where tourists head before the start of their trek into the mountains. As there's only one departure time for Pokara, all the tourists gather at the bus depot at approximately 5am. As we sat quietly sipping our tea, a loud group of English speakers sat down at a table near us. One particularly annoying woman kept repeating in a loud voice (inbetween bites into her danish and chain smoking her cigarettes) how great a packaged danish was. Luckily, she and her group of friends ended up on a different bus from us.

Upon arriving in Pokara, we were greeted by the usual cast of characters trying to get us to come to their guesthouse, promising us a wonderful room for a great price. They were even willing to drive us there at no charge. Sure enough, after seeing the room, the price given to us ahead of time was suddenly inflated, but was then magically reversed as soon as we were out the door. It's all part of the game they like to play with tourists.

Our next order of business was to secure the services of a porter to carry our gear on our 6-day trek into the mountains. We walked from agency to agency until we found someone with whom we felt comfortable. It was especially important for us to secure someone who could understand that Marc would need special attention along the trek. We agreed to meet Ponkaz, our porter, the next morning at the office and begin our adventure.

We then wandered down the main street and sat at a sidewalk cafe for a snack. We ordered two OJs from our pint sized waiter, a 9-year-old local with a pretty good command of English. He was in charge of taking orders while his 5-year-old brother was in charge of squeezing fruit. Twenty minutes later two buckets of juice arrived at our table. That night we dined fire-side at Lemon Tree restaurant. As with Kathmandu, Pokara only has sporadic electricity.

After a 90 minute drive the next morning to Nayapul, we hopped out of the taxi along with Ponkaz and prepared for our trek in the Annapurna region. We weaved through the hoards of Korean tourists with their massive SLR cameras and giant duffel bags. That day, we came across some local children who danced for us:

In addition to seeing dancing children, along the trail we saw donkey trains and shephards with their flocks of goats and sheep.

Seven hours after leaving the taxi, we climbed the stone stairs and arrived at our first tea house in the small town of Ghandruk. We weren't sure what to expect and were pleasantly surprised. As soon as we got to our room, Ponkaz came to get our food order for dinner. We told him we weren't hungry yet and that we'd order when we got to the dining room. What he failed to explain was that the kitchen takes quite a long time to prepare the food. Therefore, it is customary to order your meal ahead of schedule. As we were uninformed, we ended up waiting a long time for our order that evening. After dinner we made sure to give the kitchen our breakfast order so we wouldn't have to wait in the morning.

Note: The Nepali government has made a strong effort to encourage trekkers to refill their water bottles at their tea houses where water is purified as a way to avoid the waste of plastic bottles. This allowed us to drink as much water as we wanted without worrying about having to carry a lot of weight.

After a quick stop at a local museum, we hit the trail onto our next destination. It was a nice sunny day and we got to sunbathe during our lunch stop at Hillside Paradise, a restaurant on the trail. The owners had a dog around whose neck they hung a cow bell. Just when we thought we were having lunch with a cow, the dog turned up.

During our second day of the trek, we came across a group of local teenagers who were trekking with their teacher. The girls in the group took turns interviewing Marc. They wanted to know where we were from, among other things, and took notes of the answers. We managed to take a photo with them.

We continued our trek until we reached a village named Baan That. At this point, the days were fairly warm out, but the nights were very cold. Additionally, at this altitude it is easy to become dehydrated, so we were both drinking a lot of water and hot tea. Unfortunately, at this particular tea house, the toilet was located down a flight of stairs several feet away from the rooms. Since we went to sleep at roughly 9pm, Marc was up a couple of times in the middle of the night to take care of nature's business. In an attempt to save himself from falling down the stairs, he merely walked outside the room and "watered the flowers."

On our third day, we had to climb up and down hundred of stairs. We breaked at a place named "Lonely Planet" of all names. The local women there were sitting around a picnic table talking. We asked permission to take a photo with them, but apparently they didn't realize that would actually involve them having to look at the camera. Here's the result:

The rest of the day we walked through a forest to the summit. We were feeling a bit silly by this point:

We then descended to Gorepani where we spent the night. That evening we sat by the fire to stay warm.

Day four: We woke up exceedingly early to watch the sunrise. Once again, there were many stairs involved. Considering it was early in the morning, still dark, and all the stairs were going up, it was difficult to get to the top of Poon Hill. Marc was not feeling well and ended up waiting alongside the middle of the trail while Sharon continued up to the top. Although this exercise involved a lot of early morning sweat, it was worthwhile:

On my way back down the trail, I found Marc shivering from the cold. His lack of movement combined with the outside temperature left him feeling miserable.

Side Note: Did we forget to mention Marc's condition? Back in Kathmandu, Marc had experienced some "gastro-intestinal" distress. After loading up on Immodium, he was "stuffed up" for several days. Consequently, on the trek we stopped at a Red Cross firstaid station where we purchased a laxative. Within a couple of hours, Marc was contributing back to nature. Later that night at the tea house, Marc would spend the majority of the time perched on his thrown. For the next several days, at any and all hours of the day/night, Marc would carry a roll of toilet paper for self-evident purposes. Picture this: a blind guy stumbling around in the pitch darkness of the night with nothing more than his TP roll looking for a toilet. Marc would like to thank the makers of Purell (antibacterial hand gel) for providing him with a sense of cleanliness despite the lack of soap at the tea houses.

As if we hadn't been faced with enough stairs already, that day we had to walk down an endless number of stairs for a total of 5 hours. Believe it or not, it's actually a lot harder going down than going up. We finally reached Sikha where we spent the night.

More stairs awaited us the following day. After four hours of that, we were thrilled to finally reach Tatopani. We put our belongings down in the Trekkers' Lodge where we had a quick lunch, and headed to the nearby hot springs. We got to soak for several hours to soothe our aching bones.


We had one more day left on our trek, a day which involved travel via several vehicles that would bring us back to Pokara. To start off, we woke up early to get to an area where we would catch a jeep that would connect to our bus. We waited 90 minutes for the jeep driver to gather up enough passengers to fill up the vehicle. We drove for about 15 minutes and suddenly the jeep broke down. We were told not to wait for the jeep to get fixed as it could be a long while. So we did what we had been doing for the past 5 days - walked to town. Ponkaz assured us we could catch another jeep there. Sure enough, though, there was a road block as the locals were fighting over some issue. No one knew how long it would be before this issue would get resolved. After waiting for a while we decided to start walking yet again.

After walking for 30 minutes, the locals were able to reach some agreement and consequently removed the barriers from the road so that vehicles could pass. That meant that jeeps were now running again. We jumped on board one which finally brought us to Beni - the bus station. We began our bus journey, but after 2.5 hours, we reached a jam in the road. It turned out that several hours earlier a bus had overturned and fell down the embankment. The locals were attempting to bring the bus back onto the road from the river below. This would hold us up an additional three hours. We were just thankful that it wasn't our bus that got overturned, especially after hearing that six of the passengers had died.

We were finally on our way again. After this never-ending day, we made it to Pokara, said goodbye to Ponkaz, and checked into the Pushpa guesthouse.

Our biggest disappointment for this trek turned out to be our porter. We initially liked Ponkaz because we felt he had a good command of the English language and assured us he would help Marc along the way. However, he would constantly walk ahead of us, leaving us to walk by ourselves. We asked him several times to stay nearby, but he seemed uninterested in what we wanted. This earned him the nickname "Punk Ass" (similar to his given name), which we would use to talk about him whenever he would abandon us. This was one more reason we were glad to be back to civilization.

Although this 6-day trek was more difficult than we would have liked, it was rewarding. We saw incredible views, hiked up and down more stairs than we care to recall, and best of all - we can say it's behind us. Maybe next time we'll research an easier trail, but there is a good chance that we will have a "next time."

The sign at the Nice View restaurant summed it up best:

(NEPAL: Never Ending Peace And Love)
To see more photos, visit: grossmintblog.shutterfly.com