Tatopani

In a superhuman feat, we walked downhill to the lowest point on our trek, Tatopani.  As we descended from Ghoropani, we hit "the road", which was constructed about 3 years ago and gives access to Jomsom from Beni, which is just a jeep or bus transfer away from Pohkara, a decent-sized city.  This road meant that the rest of our hike would be on a wide trail, but also introduced us to crazy Tata buses and Mahindra jeeps.  All of the downhill hiking was tough on our knees and feet, so we enjoyed our Dal Baht andthe hot springs all that much more.

Jomsom-Beni Road

Kalopani

Whereas Ghoripani and Tatopani mean warm and hot water, Kalopani means dark, murky waters.  So naturally, we decided to make it to Jomsom in two days, rather than the traditional three by stopping in Kalopani.  This meant that we would do 1400m of elevation in one day, which, if you aren't familiar with the metric system of mountaineering, is crazy.

For this task, we needed energy.  Luckily, there was amazing Dal Baht in Ghasa, which is where we stopped for lunch.  We ended up eating in a courtyard with a bunch of drunk men playing musical instruments to celebrate a wedding.

Sounding the Good News of Wedding and Delicious Dal Baht

We pressed on through the afternoon and into a new ecosystem, which I will unscientifically dub Coniferous Mountain Forest.  Several sketchy shortcuts and bridges later, we emerged onto a sort of glacier-carved valley where we would spend most of the rest of our trek.  The views also became a lot more interesting.

That's a Big Mountain in the background

We also noticed that all of the houses turned into stone, which is very plentiful in this valley that is covered in fist-sized rocks.  We enjoyed being the only guests in our Kalopani tea house, and the apple pie was amazing.

Jomsom

As part of our quest to reach the mecca (an actual mecca for Hindus, actually) that is Muktinath, we had another long hike, which had very little elevation gain and followed the widest path in the world, which was kindly built by a glacier.  The valley floods in the rainy season, but we were able to walk through it with ease, crossing the meandering river every once in a while.  A very environmentally friendly bus followed our EXTREME path by fording the river.

Notice the the bus says "Save the Environment" on the top

We arrived in Jomsom to find a city that is just an airport with one runway and a bunch of shops.

Muktinath

In order to complete our pilgrimmage, we needed to hike another 20 km and about 1100m up to the town of Muktinath, which is nestled up against the back side of the Annapurna Range and just after "the highest pass in the world" if you are hiking the Annapurna Circuit.  We started early, but had to backtrack a mile or two after finding that the river had flooded the normal trail.  As we made our way up the steep mountainside, Nathan decided to take up DC's mantle and hike much too fast in the uphill direction.

Nathan Powering Up the Mountain

All of this hiking wore out our guide, Matt's boots (delamination between midsole and outsole), and Matt, in that order.  Nathan managed to get the gps on his iPhone working, so we soon realized how far we were from Muktinath's HACE-inducing 3700m elevation, but we in fact made it in one piece.  After chilling on the roof of the hotel, Nathan convinced us to check out the temple, which features water and fire.  There were 108 water spouts which people alternatively drink from and streak through.

Water Spouts with Beast Faces

Also, there was a natural gas flame which naturally occured at this location and had been enshrined in a temple that discouraged pictures, so we can't show you how cool it was, but we can tell you that it was amazing.  Here's another shot of the temple, with mountains and prayer flags in the background:

Pokhara

After spending the night playing chess and chatting with some Annapurna Circuit trekkers from Australia and the Bay Area, we took a jeep back to Jomsom and chilled out until our early morning flight the next day.  The jeep ride was a unique experience and was not photochronicled, but we did take some cool pictures during the flight.  Those cool pictures are on Nathan's camera, so theses will have to suffice:

Boarding the Death-Turboprop

We sat on the left side of the plane. It was the right decision.

Safely deplaning, back in 3rd world civilization

For those worried relatives and friends out there, the weather in Pokhara and Jomsom is very bad much of the time, so we were lucky that our flight happened in relative safety.  The rest of our travels will take us slowly back to the US, passing through Kathmandu, Bankok, and Tokyo.

DAY 1:

Welcome to Nepal!

So we're in Nepal now. Our flight here can best be described as uneventful...our arrival, not so much. After we got through passport control and retrieved our bags, a man immediately seized our bags, hoisted them onto a cart and ran away with them through customs. This happened in the space of about 10 seconds. This is only the beginning.

Once outside, we were immediately swarmed by at least 10 guys, all of whom were yelling shades of "hello! Welcome to Nepal! Where are you going! Taxi!" and so on. The choice of "swarmed" here isn't accidental...they followed us in front and back. Again, madness.

Eventually we found our way into a small metered taxi with both a pilot and copilot. While maybe necessary for the rally-style driving required on Kathmandu streets, we soon discovered that the copilot was an agent from a trekking agency riding along to sell us a trek. To make a long story short, after he convinced us that a nationwide strike was planned for Wednesday (the day after we arrived), we ended up using his trekking agency to book the Jomsom trek out of Pokhara. DC will call us pushovers right now...and it didn't feel good, but in our defense all the trekking agencies are the same and we looked them up on the internet first. Since it was what we came for, using this agency worked out in the end (I can say this now, having finished the trek).

A short while later, one vital roll of toilet paper richer, we found ourselves pulling away in a beat-up 20 year old corolla without seatbelts (seatbelts are only necessary in countries with Ralph Nader). The ensuing seven hour ride through the mountains was hellish. Bumpy, winding, dark, loud, dusty, and cold, are the mildest adjectives I can think of. If I had to choose, I would only call it surreal.

Day 2:

THERE ARE NO MOSQUITOES IN THIS COUNTRY! VICTORY IS MINE!!!!!!!

Sorry I got carried away....we had just become tired of all creepy-crawly-bitey bugs in Thailand.

Yes, I've been waiting to make that pun. I would take a bow, but I have to keep dodging the tomatoes.

Also, we're in Pokhara now. The crazy car ride finished around 11:00pm and we crashed in our hotel room. We woke up, ate some breakfast with some creative substitutions (mango instead of orange juice, mint tea instead of coffee, and potato curry instead of hash browns), met our Nepali guide, Prakash, and piled into a taxi to drive to the trailhead!

Did you know that he speaks Nepali, Hindi, Japanese, and English? Neither did we for the first couple days

We drove for an hour or so on the highway* before we got to the first village, Birethati:

*highway here is a bit of an overstatement...any highway with six-inch drop-offs and bovine roadblocks needs some tender loving care.

Anyways, Birethati:

You can measure the distance we went from civilization by the price of coke. Here: 70 rupees, about a dollar.

From that point, we hiked several hours up into a canyon until we arrived at Hile, our stop for the night. Before I put up more pictures, it's worth describing how this whole trekking process works. Trekking is distinct from mountaineering in that there are no technical skills required to do it. We hike every day, generally from around 8:00 am to 2:00 pm, covering a distance anywhere from 10km to 25km, depending on the grade and condition of the trail. We stop at "tea houses," small dinner-and-bed-and-breakfasts run invariably by very nice middle-aged* ladies.

*middle-aged here needs a little context: the lifespan of the average Nepali is around sixty years. This knowledge made us all the more impressed to see wrinkled men and women carrying 50-100 lb loads of firewood up and down mountains.

All the tea houses look something like this...very simple stone and mortar construction. The flowers, while somewhat more transient than the stone buildings, were a nice touch. For reference, 1 coke = 90 rupees.

As a guest at one of these tea houses, you are expected to eat from their restaurant. The menus are very strange: as they have been standardized and price-fixed by the tourism commission, you can get anything from pizza to macaroni to yak curry or dal baht (the standard Nepali dish).

Dal Baht is worth explaining, since we ate it for at least 50% of all our meals.

dal and rice often means a lot more than just Dal and Rice. This is great when you're really hungry and really cheap.

Dal is a watery lentil curry and Baht is rice. Curry and Rice. Simple, yet effective, as pretty much every single one of the 20 million inhabitants of Nepal eat it twice a day. Even though it's a standard meal, the flavors are by no means the same: differing amounts of ginger and other spices make each meal often surprisingly different and tastier than the last. Kind of like a certain artist:

+1 art reference points. Hopefully these points are worth something at some point in life. I remain optimistic.

Anyways, in the continuing interest of describing how the whole trekking thing works, here's a picture of a representative room from our trek. Note: no heating, no sheets, and only one light:

Packing light doesn't mean you can't still make a mess .05 seconds after walking into a room for the first time.

That about finishes up day two. Therefore, sticking with the decidedly boring linear recollection of events, we move begrudgingly on to:

Day 3:

Welcome to Nepal! Part 2. This picture is more representative of why we came to Nepal.

Today we have found the droids we were looking for! The Himalayas!

this was not the droid we were looking for.

On day 3, we hiked from Hile to Ghorepani, a small village in a pass. The hike involved the greatest vertical change we did on the trip, 1400 m or 4600 ft, which is basically the vertical climb of Half Dome in Yosemite. Here we have Matt and Prakash taking a short break:

onward!

Some five hours and two Dal Bahts later, we arrived at Ghorepani:

asomewhat unremarkable town, significant for two reasons: 1. Internet

Reason 2:

HIMALAYA! this is a view of the Annapurna range. the view from our hotel was all kinds of spectacular (thanks DC).

As we discovered around 5am, the real reason that trekkers converge on Ghorepani is to hike a nearby hill, called "Poon Hill," early in the morning to watch the sunrise. The view from the top is around a 270 degree view of the Annapurna range and is reputed to be one of the best views in Nepal. Since I couldn't take a picture of the whole thing and my camera batteries worked in the freezing wind about as well as I did, I have a couple pictures:

sunrise

matt is cold. so is my camera, so it decided to take a really long, lazy exposure in the early morning

i know, this picture needs some photoshopping. i also need a haircut. complaints can be left in the complaint box by the door.

The photo from the beginning of the Day 3 post is also during the sunrise.

Later that day, after we had unfrozen, we hiked down the pass to Torepani, a small town with some hot springs. To tide you over until Matt finishes his post, I have a picture of a chicken, which may or may not be symbolic of the situation of Nepal:

but it is symbolic of what's for dinner. bye!

We just finished an awesome trip. A side-trip, but still--we spent the week in southern Thailand, on hills, on a beach, and in no less than four caves.

The first two of these were in Petchaburi, our first stop. A place so far off the tourist trail that it was hard to find any signs in letters I could recognize, where getting food was an exercise in sign language. The town's one attraction was that pair of caves, which had been converted into religious spaces--one was a wat, or temple, while the other was just filled with Buddha images. Both had an interesting, unexpectedly postapocalyptic feel to them, empty and surrounded with stray dogs. Hundreds of monkeys sat in the side streets as much as in the trees, scratching themselves and squawking at us. They seemed to be waiting for throngs of snack-laden tourists that didn't exist. Inside the "cave of a thousand buddhas," were two women in white robes, meditating in silence. The darker corners of the cave were filled with the guano and high-pitched chirps of lots of bats.

the Buddhas

and us, waiting patiently for the shutter timer

The real Terminator vibe, however, came from the wat cave. Its entrance was halfway up a hill that rose out of the otherwise flat outskirts of Petchaburi. As we approached the hill, locals were burning trash and leaves in ditches by the side of the road. The smoke wafted up to large, but decaying facilities--a half-finished parking structure, some food stalls, and a long line of bathrooms. These buildings, like the monkeys surrounding them, seemed to be waiting for visitors that never came. We were the exception.

Only one other person entered the cave with us--a lady, like those in the by the "thousand buddhas", dressed in white. Three dogs followed her in; they looked as though they had definitely seen better days. We followed the dogs.

Inside, the wat was lit with bare fluorescent tubes. The Buddhas were beautiful, but the smell was consistent with the handful of stray animals who seemed to call the place home. Nathan and I found a side cave that was only accessible by crawling through a tunnel a few yards long. It was just big enough to stand in, and black except for the dim glow of Nathan's iPhone. It also contained two floorboards, a broom, and a piece of cloth--we're guessing that a monk spent some quality time alone there.

then we set the iPhone flashlight to red and Ben took a really long exposure shot.

We kept walking. One of the coolest statues in the cave was a very large reclining Buddha. So Matt whipped out his headlamp and Ben did another 15-second exposure:

...every year during New Student Orientation, there's a slideshow of the wildest pictures people have taken with the word "Stanford." With a little luck, this might qualify. (Also, the way the word overlaps the Buddha a bit was unintentional.)

We walked deeper into the cave, and into the most surreal experience I've had on this trip so far. We heard someone's voice echoing from the walls, piling syllables on top of each other in a fast staccato rhythm. It was the lady who had walked into the cave in front of us, and it was clear that she wasn't saying anything in any language. She was exerting herself visibly, though, taking short sharp breaths between long stretches of sound. This was glossolalia--"speaking in tongues." I had only known it from the book Snow Crash (which, by the way is awesome.) In real life, however, there was something seriously disconcerting about it. I watched open-mouthed for about a minute. The three unkempt dogs stared back, presumably hoping for food, but the lady was facing one of the Buddha images and never acknowledged our presence.

We left the cave and climbed to the top of the hill, which is capped with an enormous (20-ish yard tall) sitting Buddha.

and some extreme scaffolding

The statue was under renovation, surrounded by an abandoned-looking construction site. The hilltop also had some excellent views of Petchaburi and the countryside.

like this one

The next day, we took the slow train to Hua Hin, through some scenic farmland. Hua Hin is only about 100 km south of Petchaburi, but in many ways the cities seem to be opposites. Hua Hin, it turned out, is a sunny beachside resort town. Once an annual destination for the Thai royal family, it is now full of Hiltons, Courtside Marriotts, and middle-aged vacationers in beach chairs. Nathan and the others found some really good seafood.

Our last stop was lots more memorable. It was Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, and it was almost as devoid of tourists as Petchaburi. Steep, dramatic, jungle-covered limestone peaks rose up next to a white-sand beach. We had a bungalow surrounded by palm trees.

yeah, it was this good

That night, I walked over a short, steep path to a nearby fishing village. The boats were all ridiculously colorful. No English was spoken or written anywhere, so I just walked up to some dude who was loading fishes into a giant cooler and asked "khao lai"--"how much?", one of the five or so phrases of Thai I know. (I have the same understanding of Thai that a parrot might have if it was still in training.) It worked, though, and with a bit more gesticulation and waving of Baht bills, I got some fish. I got a few other things from two little shops. (This town was so small, it didn't even have a 7-Eleven. Those are totally ubiquitous in Thailand, kind of like McDonalds in America, and like McDonalds, you know you're really off the map when you find a place that doesn't have one.) In any case, I carried the fish back and Nathan showed me how to cook them Japanese style, encrusted in salt. We made a bonfire out of coconut shells and palm fronds.

the fish was ridiculously delicious

We got up the next morning to go caving again. These were a different kind of cave altogether, though--no black chambers or hair-raising utterances here. Instead, these caves were gigantic, and most of their roofs had caved in, creating two gaping sinkholes. Lots of sunlight filtered in through really tall trees reaching toward the surface. We shared the space with a couple of butterflies and a group of elementary-school kids.

two Thai kings visited here a long time ago. the first left this throne.

and then the rocks parted, and blinding light shone through

We rolled back to Bangkok again by the scenic route--chugging along in a German-built diesel contraption from a couple of decades ago.

your friendly neighborhood travel bloggers

Until next time... peace!

Great Scott!

We apologize for any inconvenience caused. The actual normal order of the last week was:

Chiang Mai, Trekking, Don Inthanon, Massages, Ayutthaya, Phetchaburi (forthcoming), Hua Hin (also forthcoming), etc. Marvin!'s post about Bangkok can go anywhere you like, or nowhere at all if you close your eyes.

Peace

-nathan

View of Napapon Phoom-siri Chedi around 5km from the actual summit

*this is an active implementation of the "after-the-fact" method of keeping our parents in a constant state of medium level worry. They don't know that we're doing something dangerous, but always rest slightly uneasily, knowing that we might just be up to something.

Anyways, the idea of the day was to see something of Doi Inathon national park, one of Thailand's most spectacular national parks. This park is essentially a reserved area in a mountain range, crisscrossed by various streams and some of Thailand's best waterfalls. The name comes from Doi Inathon, one of the Thai kings. When we first arrived, we almost took advantage of this by taking our first showers in several weeks...but the water was cold...so we took pictures while we tried to comprehend the mysterious script that had been emblazoned on the sign:

I don't know....it could be fun...

the water is flowing

Next, we drove a kilometer of pavement and half on dirt in search of a cave.

check out our super awesome dirt biking skillz

Supposedly, the cave was unlit and offered the possibility of spelunking. My friends will know that I have an unnatural affinity for spelunking, mostly because spelunking is the best word in the English language (IMHO). Unfortunately, the cave had collapsed moments before our arrival, resulting in us wandering around for an hour looking for it (translation: we couldn't find the cave. sadness). Nevertheless, there will be more spelunking! Look forward to more posts on the subject.

By this time, our bikes, unlike us, had cooled down and were ready for the climb to the summit, also unlike us. We had already tasted something of the road, and I at least was apprehensive about convincing an urban scooter that it was a hill-climbing machine. Fortunately, this was somehow not a hard sell; the little scooters did well up the mountain.*

Yes, we were wearing helmets. It's the law (in Thailand)

*that is until DC's bike just stopped working. At this point, we had a decision:

1. leave DC. this would have been bad form, as you never leave a wounded man behind

2. turn around. (this isn't really an option, I'm just listing it to give the appearance that there was an alternative to number three.

3. 2 people, 1 bike. (Let's do a little math. Honda Scooter: 220 lbs Myself: 150. 530 DC: 160. Adding another person increases the total mass of the system by 44%, making the scooter only stable at speeds much greater than it could climb with two people on it. Ridiculous.

This was the worst idea we'd yet had

So on we went, having left DC's scooter at a waterfall about halfway up, reaching the summit around thirty minutes later. There were some spectacular sights on the way up in addition to the ongoing sight of one of the most insane roads I've yet been on:

At the summit, we had the most scenic view of a country full of pollution I have ever witnessed. We could see nothing. Being at the highest point in Thailand only meant that we were on a small island of green in a smoldering ocean of hydrocarbon-derived smog. It was a sobering sight.

There would be a picture of the smog here, but it's such an off-putting sight that we're going to spare our readers the trouble. (We're working on the picture)

However, the Thai air force, realizing that the summit needed some help in the PR department, built two spectacular chedis on the other side of the summit. This is one of them:

They take their temples very seriously here.

These two temples are so far our favorite in Thailand. Built in 1989, they are tastefully decorated in shimmering copper tiles and dark stone reliefs. The inside has a single Buddah figure in the center surrounded by marble carvings depicting the life of Siddhartha Guatama, the founder of Buddhism. We took some photos at the top. Bonus points for anyone who identifies the culture we're imitating.

Now, the moment that we had been dreading had come...downhill. The only bike that didn't have puny prone-to-overheating-and-failing-shortly-before-catching-fire drum brakes was DC's bike, which had a frozen engine halfway down the mountain. However, having survived this far against all odds, we spun the roulette once more and biked down the mountain. (It was Ben's turn to carry DC. The manual bikes were much better on the downhill due to their engine-braking abilities.)

It's a good thing that cameraman Daniel Posch has both hands on the bike while we careened down the mountain.

And......we made it!*

*Dc's bike was able to make it all of the way down since it was mostly downhill. However, about 20km or so into the journey back, his bike just cut out again. We went back to find him only discovering that he had mysteriously disappeared. He later described how a local had stopped to help him, ushered him into a bike repair shop, and tried to fix his bike. He learned that no-one had oiled the bike in the last decade (decade?!?!) and the cylinder had frozen, necessitating an overnight repair job. Enterprising DC, having been abandoned by his comrades already (we thought he had gotten his bike repaired and raced past us trying to catch us) wandered into a 7-11, somehow convinced the attendants to find him a ride back to Chiang Mai, hitched a ride with a group of GPS surveyors for a power company, and turned up several hours later at our hostel.  The day after, DC gave detailed instructions to the mechanic from the motorbike rental agency, who hopefully retrieved the bike and got it working again.

You just can't make this stuff up.

historically significant piles of rock

History lesson time: Ayutthaya (Aye-yuhtt-eh-yuh) was the capital of the Ayutthaya Kingdom from 1351 to 1767, when it was sacked by the Burmese for the last time. This kingdom, at one point, was the center of power in Southeast Asia in addition to being a major trade hub. Ayutthaya was the source of many of the "oriental" goods so prized by the West, such as sandal and tigerwood, rice, and a variety of spices and medicines. We discovered all of this in the morning at the Ayutthaya Historical Study Center, a fantastic and informative museum built in collaboration with the Japanese. The general principle of the construction of the exhibits was :

On the right is the Emperor of Japan visiting the museum. Seriously, the dioramas were the most detailed and impressive I've ever seen.

Afterward, we headed towards the ruins of the Grand Palace, in the north of the city. We rented bikes, this time of the non-powered variety (except for Ben, who rented what the dealer assured him was a Kawasaki superbike but was actually an upscale scooter. He still did burnouts for us). We then toured the major ruins, examining a variety of stupas, chedis, wats, and other remnants of the Ayutthaya Empire. As Ben had a motorbike, he toured the city a bit faster and took his own set of good photos. For those, check out the Ayutthaya portion of the gallery. Anyways, the requisite photos:

We think that the preponderance of headless Buddah figures was a symbolic move take by the Burmese invaders.

After we examined the major ruins, we toured the city on our bikes, examining the various smaller remains spread throughout the city. Like everything we do, this was not without its dangers:

DC tries his hand at being an Australian road train

matt moments before being run over by an elephant

All of this is merely a prelude to the major event of the day, which Marvin! will tell you is dinner. We found a real night market (we didn't see any other tourists there) and proceeded to acquire a feast of decidedly non-Thai proportions.

these fish were swimming not five minutes ago

Pointing and grunting works surprisingly well.

Monks Accept Offerings in Their Bowls

The idea is simple. 10,000 monks line up and the people of the city donate food and drink to them. There are a few complications:

1. It starts at 6 AM. We have not woken up this early aside from the night we stayed in a hill tribe village and were awoken to the sounds of farm animals.

Farm Animals That Woke Us Up

2. There is a lot of traffic. We had scooters, which normally circumvents this problem, but it was still hard to weave around all of the cars.
3. There is 1 1/2 hours of chanting prayers and various speeches in Thai. We don't speak Thai.
4. Westerners stick out like a sore thumb, especially if they stand up the whole time and have massive cameras around their necks. We had massive cameras around our necks, and we wanted to get a good view of the line of soldiers and monks.

We really enjoyed the whole thing, and the highlight was watching the monks go down the offering line. They were all dressed in amazing robes of various shades of red and orange. We were told that they came from all over, including neighboring countries like Burma and Cambodia. People dressed in white lined up in four rows with offerings, leaving two aisles with red carpets on them. Soldiers them lined up in the middle of the aisles and knelt while the speeches, ect were being made. Then, the monks walked down the inner aisles, came to the end, and walked down the aisles. They held large silver bowls, which the villagers put offerings in. These offerings were then placed in bags that the soldiers held, and more offerings were put in the bowls. The offerings, as well as cash offerings made at booths, were donated to monasteries as well as schools in remote villages.

The Ceremony

The best part of the whole thing was that there were 10,000 monks. It gave us a profound respect for Buddhism and the monks who dovote their lives to it to see them perform this magnificent ceremony.

The Monks!

We got to Chiang Mai on the 23rd, and the next morning our guides picked us up for a three day trek through the forests around the city. On this trek we learnt many things about Thai custom, the merits of correctly sized blankets, waterfalls, and the feeding of elephants.

Day 1

Our journey to the start of the trek involved some truly, truly insane driving. We were piled in the back of a Chevrolet Colorado, a vehicle designed for transporting shopping bags between districts of suburbia. At one point we were overtaken on a blind corner by an equally insane, non discript, people carrier. At this point a car met us travelling the opposite direction. None of the drivers were phased by what appeared to be an inevitable collision- instead, the approaching car moved into our lane, passed the people carrier, then squeezed diagonally through the gap between us and the people carrier, putting it back in it's own lane. The people carrier then completed the overtake. I have prepared a diagram to explain this maneuver.

I should point out that no brakes were used in the making of this diagram

Later, we did some walking. It was fun. We stayed the night in a village on top of a hill, inhabited by Thai farmers. They were very friendly, and it was really interesting to be somewhere that was 'authentically' Thai, where people were living more or less as they had been before the invention of tourism, rather than centering their efforts around extracting money from tourists, as has been the case in the cities we've visited.

Camp site in the village

Local people

On the second day, we continued to wander through the forest. At one point we stopped next to a lookout tree, which was a tree that had a ladder up the side so you could climb to the top and see stuff. Ladder is a slight exaggeration.

DC scales tree

On the second night, we camped down river from a waterfall. It was a good waterfall.

Waterfall!

On the third day, we were done walking. This was good news for Marvin! who is still suffering slightly from the time his foot almost had to be amputated. Instead, we employed two unusual forms of transport.

First we rode elephants. In the museum we visited in Bangkok, they explained that elephants were effective as military mounts. This is clearly false. First of all, elephants are extremely hungry- all the time. We were given some bananas for the elephant. Within about 2 seconds of being on its back, the trunk was up in Nathan's face, asking for a banana. Naively, we fed it a banana. In less time than it takes Marvin! to eat a three course meal, the trunk was up again. We fed it another banana. The third time, we thought we would trick it by feeding it two bananas at once, but this backfired because somehow it managed to eat them even quicker in tandem. By this point we had moved less than four meters from the start of the walk, which brings me to my next point; elephants are very very slow. In the museum there were paintings of Thai princes dueling their enemies on the backs of elephants, which would never happen, because some foot soldier would just walk up beside them and push them off while the elephant was asking for a banana. If, of course, the elephant had even made it to the battlefield. This leads on to the third point, which is that elephants are extremely hungry, all the time! Every now and then it would give up on us trying to separate a banana from the bunch, and go off and pull a small tree out of the ground and eat that instead. This became an issue when it tried to eat a tree that was on the other side of a deep crevice. It inched closer and closer to the edge, while the three of us inched further and further towards the back of the elephant. Apparently they occasionally fall off cliffs around here. This, also, would not be helpful in a combat situation.

Elephant gives up and eats a tree

DC tames elephant with crocs

The last item on the agenda was bamboo rafting. After that, we slept. More to follow... very shortly!

*This may or may not be an inside joke... I'm not sure if we've mentioned it on the blog, but Marvin! is the new solarcar math team. When he approves something, you know it must be awesome to a high degree of accuracy.

Anyway, there is one question I know you must be asking.

What happened to Sydney??!

Sydney was awesome. Two main things happened in Sydney.

1) OPERA HOUSE!!!

Indisputable evidence that we were in Sydney

2) CSIRO

Our last observer on the race was a guy called Colin who works for CSIRO, which is this ridiculous Australian entity that is effectively a government owned science think-tank. Apparently they invented Wi-Fi. Their building had gold in the windows. They have a measuring machine that is accurate to 0.1 micrometers. It's made out of granite. If more governments had these we'd be building solar spaceships instead of solar cars.

Unfortunately all the stuff inside CSIRO was top secret so I don't have any photos. Imagine something s0 futuristic that it has blue glowy lights and makes a whirring sound.

Anyway, it is now (very early) on day 2 of Thailand. Our plan of action for today is to rescue DC from Kuala Lumpur and then make a plan. And then eat. As is not said in Thailand, adiós!

Day 1 in Raglan

Rain and wind caused us to spend the afternoon on the beach playing with Ben's failboard (he insisted on calling it a skimboard). Before that we checked into "Sunscape," a small eco-community/campsite/hostel/experimental living/hippy haven up on a hill above the ocean. Some relevant pictures:

we're living in a train car...it's awesome

marvin struggles with the laws of physics for the first time

Day 1's dinner was delicious. There might have been lamb. The rosemary plant outside the kitchen might have been involved. The local police are still sorting through the details.

Day 2 in Raglan

Sunshine! Glorious sunshine meant that it was time to surf. Or as Matt said, "Surf's up, but DC is not." Once we all woke up, we headed to the beach, rented surfboards and the required wetsuits, and headed for the beach. Before we break into surfing photos, it's worth mentioning how awesome this beach was. Ngarunui Beach, a black sand beach, consisted of several miles of perfectly(unnaturally, we think) flat sand. So flat, in fact, that most of Ben's pictures seem mirrored. This isn't just water, the ground was probably cut by lasers....

Anyways, pictures of the beach:

nathan getting his TRON on

Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. This does not make sense. There are horses on this beach. Again, this does not make sense.

why is this not an album cover?

And now, moving on to day three, lovingly entitled: "THE BRITISH ARE COMING." Here we go!

THE BRITISH ARE COMING*

*they're not. We were going to meet up with some members of the Cambridge Solar Car Team, but they were waylaid in Auckland by administrative details including but not limited to lost wallets and persnickety rental car companies. Very sad. Hopefully we'll see them around at some point in the future (NASC hint hint nudge nudge).

Anyways, we spent a third day in anticipation of meeting the Cambridge team for dinner in Raglan. In order to pass the time, Matt, DC, and myself did what we usually do the pass the time...climb a mountain! This hike was amazing, and involved lots and lots of mud. I felt like a good hippy with my feet:

finger-lickin' good...

Anyways, pictures of the hike:

hike

the view from about 3/4 of the way up. We're currently staying in the closest spot of civilization.

The others went into town to do laundry and get kebabs, which were supposedly really really good. Upon hearing this, the first thing both Matt and I asked was "what was the place named?" Over the past several weeks, we've realized that the kebab quality is proportional to the quality of the pun in their name:

Abrakebabra: 9/10

Mecca Kebab: 6/10

Ali Kebab: 5/10

Wrap-Up: 9/10

We've gotten to know a few of the characters around the hostel over the last couple days. I talked to a guy from Germany for a bit today and ended up asking him what brought him to New Zealand. He said: "In Germany...everything has its place....is exact. This is not for me. New Zealand is....different." This is the most insightful description I've yet heard of this awesome country. It's a shame we're leaving so soon.

I leave you, as always*, with a picture of Marvin!

what is there to say?

*it's a lofty ideal...we don't always make it, but we try.