Myanmar, SE Asia

Mention the country of Myanmar to the average westerner and you're likely to be greeted by blank stares, and the inevitable "Where's that?" This nearly forgotten Southeast Asian nation is better known to the west by its former colonial title of Burma.

The history of Myanmar can outlined by a long stretch of failed occupations by crumbling empires. The Mongolian hordes of Kublai Khan, the colonial British, and the Axis army of Japan have all held these people within their grasp at alternate times. And sadly, to this day, this trend of tyranny and occupation still shows no sign of ending.

Since 1989 Myanmar has been ruled by a military junta with one of the worlds worst records regarding human rights. For the last twenty years the nations democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been held captive in her home a mere few miles from the hotel in which I write these words. And things have only gotten worse as of late. In 2007 the military publicly slaughtered a group of demonstrators lead by Buddhist monks who dared to protest the suspension of government oil subsidies that had led to rising gas prices. Then in 2008 when cyclone Nargis killed tens of thousands in the region, the country's leaders refused to allow western aid groups inside the borders, worsening a situation that eventually led top the deaths of at least 140,00 people.

But in the streets of Yangon and Mandalay you could be forgiven for being blind to the current plight of the Burmese people. Life goes on here as usual, though an eerie veil of Orwellian calm haunts many interactions. In Myanmar, it's important to read between the lines, to hear not only what is said, but what is implied in conversations. People will frequently silence or censor themselves. Like the monk who mid-sentence shuffled away from us whispering, "In my country, many spies everywhere." Or the tour guide who, while explaining the vast amounts of teak the government clear cut and sold overseas, joked "Myanmar is a rich country, but..."

It is for these reasons that when one travels to Myanmar, it must be done mindfully. With awareness of the situation at hand, and with great care to what one says, how loud you say it, and where you spend your money.

Most large restaurants hotels here are owned by high government officials. Money spent in these places does nothing to help the local people, and only serves to bolster the regime that suppresses them. Sadly it is impossible to travel this country without monetarily supporting the government in some way. The cost of your visa goes straight into their coffers, and even locally owned hotels with no government ties are charged a 12% tax. Fairly, for this reason many people choose to simply pass on visiting Myanmar. But doing so hurts the countless individuals who depend on tourism for their livelihood, and reinforces the peoples fears that the rest of the world has forgotten about them. The general consensus from folks that we talked to was that they desperately desire an increase in the number of travelers to their country.

I'm not going to lie to you. Some amount of the enjoyment I derived from traveling here was related to how few people currently come. On an average day we would see less than a dozen other tourists, and most of these would be during breakfast at our guest house.
Amenities are sparse, but this lends to the romance. Riding down a rough dirt road by horse drawn carriage to explore ancient temples. Chatting with a fourth generation puppeteer after a private evening performance of his art. Being awakened at dawn by the gentle hum of chanting monks after spending the night in a remote Buddhist monastery. Unique and memorable adventures abound here.

Travel was not easy, but frequently the experiences were more rewarding than in other places. This is not Thailand, or Malaysia. This is not Asia-light. It can be frustrating, awkward, and uncomfortable. You may be speechless at the stories people share, and the desperation on hand here is often heartbreaking. But Myanmar is also magical, captivating, encouraging, and delightful. The people here will surprise you with their kindness, resilience, and generosity. They are among the friendliest, and most genuine people I've encountered in all my travels. For all these reasons I would encourage adventurous, mindful travelers to give the country a chance. Your efforts will be rewarded.

Yakcast, Interrupted...?

Hey everyone, just wanted to post a quick update from Bangkok to let you all know that I am boarding a plane tomorrow headed for Myanmar (Burma). I will be spending two weeks there, and due to governmental restrictions on internet, I'm not certain whether I will have access to update the blog while I'm there. So if you don't see anything here for the next 14 days, don't worry, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm deceased or incarcerated. I might be, but not necessarily. It also means that after February 7th, you'll probably see a fast and furious set of updates. Until then, take care and enjoy life.

Similan Islands Live Aboard, Thailand

One of my main reasons, scratch that, the main reason for my returning to Thailand again so soon was my desire to take part in a diving live-aboard in the Similan and Suran Islands. The Similan National Park (whose name is derived from the Malay word, sembilan, meaning nine), are a series of nine islands that lie off the southern west coast of Thiland. This small stretch of the Andaman Sea is home to some of the ocean's most diverse gathering of life.

Manta Ray, sea horse, nudibranch, and moray eels are all common here. As are leopard sharks and black and white tip reef sharks. The elusive whale shark is also found in this area, though sightings are rare and always seem to have happened "...last week..." just before anyone (and everyone arrived.

It was with a cautious mix of excitement and trepidation that I boarded the West Coast Cruiser, the boat that would be my home for the following four nights and four days. There were eight of us booked for passage. Myself, two Dutch girls from Amsterdam, a quiet and heavily tattooed Swede man, three older Germans, and my bunk-mate (and subsequent dive partner) Hugo, a Scottish gent who had lived for the last eight years in my native Seattle.

It's frequently remarked on what a small world this is, but the cliche can only truly be appreciated when one experiences a coincidence such as this: to travel half-way around the world and end up sharing a cabin on a boat with with someone who lives a scant six blocks from your most recent home. It's a small, small world indeed.

The German's were all PADI certified dive-masters, and thus were separated into their own group, leaving the five remaining of us others to form our own enclave.

Our dive leader Andy, was a rough-humored affable young Brit whose closely cropped hair, hoop earrings, and myriad of tattoos gave him the appearance of a classic sea-faring pirate. The missing front tooth he displayed when he smiled (as he frequently did) did more to lend him character than it did to diminish his rugged good looks.

The first night aboard was spent much the same as the next three would be: drinking beer, swapping tales about diving, laughing, and watching poorly bootlegged DVDs of Will Ferrell comedies.

The sea that first night was rather rough, and our first hours aboard, heavy rain and lightening filled the night sky. I found myself retiring early that night (and indeed every night of the trip), rocked to sleep by the natural ebb and flow of the ocean.

Our first dive the next morning was at 8am, before coffee, but before breakfast. I hadn't been diving since I'd left Egypt nearly a year and a half before, and was worried that my performance would be poor. I needn't have worried though, as it turned out none of my colleagues had dived much more recently. We were quite literally and figuratively, all in the same boat.

By the end of the first day my air consumption was reasonable, and my buoyancy was steady. I felt confident though still a tad clumsy.

Sightings that day were good, but a tad typical. A few lion fish, puffer fish, Asian sweetlips, and ever present villainous titan trigger fish. The highlight of that first day for me however, was not biological but geological.

The unique dive site of Elephant Head Rock was an underwater labyrinth of swim throughs, and coral canyons, that delighted and staggered the senses. The number of ways in which this site could be navigated made it a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of diving. I often found myself thinking we were headed in some new direction, only to find we had doubled back to a familiar location. This sort of dive, while loads of fun with an experienced leader, could be dangerous and bewildering without one. Thankfully Andy knew the site quite well, and was more than up to the task of leading us through it.

The third dive of that second day was memorable for a completely different reason, as it provided us with a glimpse at one of the ocean's strangest and most extraordinary creatures: the Mata Ray.

It was nearly two in the afternoon when we dove into the murky depths of Koh Bon. Visibility was only around ten meters, and the current was quite brisk. The destination of our dive was the tip of a reef 25 meters down which we had been instructed to swim to and hold on while we awaited the possible appearance of manta ray.

"I sent an SMS to the mantas," Andy had joked dryly before jumping into the water, "They should be around soon."

I'm not especially fond of strong currents, and I hate touching anything underwater, so it was with great regret that I found myself pinching the edge of the reef and fighting against the flow of the water. But after several minutes our collective struggle was rewarded. I snapped my head to attention as Andy banged his metal pointer against the aluminum of his tank, and there it was.

Over ten feet wide from tip to tip, it's wing-like fins adjusting to adapt to the flow of the current. Seeing one of these creatures in person it's hardly a wonder that their form has so strongly influenced the design of modern stealth planes. It's dark skin would camouflage it momentarily, and as it moved it seemed to slip in and out of existence like a desert mirage. Sometimes only the white ring of skin around it's massive mouth would be visible, betraying it's position to us. Then as quickly as it it had appeared it disappeared, gliding along the current, the sharp tip of its tail disappearing int the inky blackness behind us.

Mantas are oceanic nomads. Great travelers of the sea. The same ones found in these waters have often come up from as far as Australia on their long life journey, and I felt very grateful to have had even a glimpse of one.

Our third day on board brought us out to Richelieu Rock, one of the most famous dive sites in all the world. Made famous by Jacques Cousteau and the crew of his boat Calypso, the reef here was big enough that it took two dives just to circumnavigate the majority of the site. The amount of life on hand in the area was incredible. Teeming with clown fish, angel fish, trigger fish, coronet fish, eel, barracuda, and more. It was a much denser site than could possibly be absorbed. During our second dive on Richelieu I became so distracted that I nearly collided with a crown sea jelly whose head was nearly three feet across. After swimming to avoid contact I hovered in place as it drifted away, watching its translucent insides pump to propel it forward. Nothing in all my life has seemed so strange, so staggeringly alien as this mysterious creature. This was the stuff that inspires science fiction.

Our last day brought us an encounter with leopard shark. These lazy, gum mouthed, dweller of the deep are named for the the radiant, iridescent spots that cover their skin. I felt badly for this particular beast as it swam away each time we approached. Obviously shy, it valued its privacy, which I for one could understand. It seemed only to want to be left alone by these five strange fish that keep hovering around it, gawking. Though I greatly enjoyed seeing it, I felt secretly glad when it swam away from the reef where we would not follow it.

Fourteen dives in four days makes for a lot of time spent underwater, and as our boat headed back towards Khao Lak I was looking forwarding to a day off from diving. When we reached the shore I said good-bye to my new friends, and headed back towards Phuket.

When we reached the office of the dive center where this adventure had all began, I was surprised to find myself signing up for six local dives in the water around Phuket. I had only four more day in the area, and couldn't help but spend a couple more of them in that strange and fascinating world that exists so close to us, just beneath the surface of our Earth's sea.

Patong Beach - Phuket, Thailand

I'd never really wanted to go to Phuket in the first place. Unfortunately, that was where the dive center I'd booked my live aboard through was located. Thus I found myself, barely fifteen hours back in Thailand, stepping off of yet another plane and headed towards southern Thailand's premiere resort destination, Patong Beach.

It was evening when I arrived in town and I saw no sense in hitting the beach at 7pm, so after checking into a hotel and touching base with my dive shop, I allowed my jet lag to get the best of me and called it an early night.

The next morning I had a whole day to kill in Phuket before my dive boat left. After enjoying a simple breakfast of rice porridge with fish and a cup of instant coffee at a nearby cafe I decided to wander down-wind and check out the nearby beach front.

To say that Patong Beach is over developed would be an absurd understatement. And to simply call it tacky would be an insult to kitsch. The massive urban sprawl that lines the shore here is a labyrinth of Go-Go bars, 7-11's, fast food restaurants, sex clubs, Family Marts, and T-shirt shops that extend as far as the eye can see.

It's only mid-January, so of course most of the businesses here still have their "X-Mas" decorations up. Gaily colored images of Santa Clause are proudly displayed next to posters for (God help me) Thai Elvis impersonators and price quotes for massage parlours that promise every customer a "Happy Ending." It's as if the Las Vegas strip threw up on Highway 99, travelled all the way across the ocean and washed up up on these shores, jumbled but intact. Feckless fodder for one culture to use to exploit another.

It would have been hard to tell that I'd reached the actual beach except that I could clearly see thin blue line that separated sand from ocean. Besides that nearly every square meter of beautiful white sand was covered with recliner beach chairs and gaudy umbrellas advertising Cheers Beer, Red Bull, and Western Union. I could barely find a sparse enough sliver of bare sand to walk a straight line along slide the surf.

I gazed into the water at the jet skis, cruise ships, and luxury yachts that bobbed along the horizon, mobbing the view, and cursed myself for contributing to this whole God-damned mess.

It was an insult to anyone with taste. Though it didn't seem this would be much of an issue, as no one here appeared to have any. Strolling up the coast I looked over towards the folks who called this place paradise. Every one of them seemed to be twice my age, and three times as drunk, though it was only 11am. Old Swedish men in yachting caps and Speedo shorts, aging French women still shamelessly sunbathing topless at 65. Americans with their beer bellies and beer cozies, and thick necked Germans digging deep trenches in any bare bit of sand, as if anticipating some impending invasion to which only they were privy.

If this were paradise, then I was glad Eve had bitten into the apple.

After a short half hours walk I could hardly stand it any longer. I went back into town and found a small cafe where I could while away the afternoon with my Graham Greene and my Arthur Conan Doyle. I could only hope that my diving trip would make this all worth while, because so far, this was not my idea of a good time.

Welcome Back to the Yakcast...

Well, here I go again... Back in Bangkok much sooner than I expected. I will do my best to update this blog as often as possible, however due to some of the places I will be visiting this will be a greater challenge than it has been before.

I am flying down to Phuket today for a five day scuba liveaboard in the Similan Islands, and heading to Myanmar (Burma) on the 24th. After two weeks in Myanmar I will head to Laos for some trekking and three nights living in a tree house in the jungle. As always, I'll do what I can to keep you all informed. Stay tuned.

Varanasi, India

The city of Varanasi is one of the holiest sites in the Hindu world. The waters that are carried through here along the Ganges River are believed, by the faithful, to posess the ability to wash away a lifetime of sin. They are also the site of innumerable holy cremation ceremonies where bodies are burned and left to float away, forever becoming one with this sacred river.

My guest house, the Hotel Sonmony is situated directly over one of these cremation sites, or burning ghats as they are called. The entire establishment has a stale smokey scent about it, but it is clean, has friendly staff, and is centrally located. At only US$4 a night, I have little to complain about.

This city wakes up early. It's only 5:30am but by the time I reach the banks of the Ganges there are already crowds of people gathered along the concrete steps. Religious devotees preparing for their morning bath.

I gaze out at the still and purple morning sky, momentarily hypnotized. These buildings have stood for hundreds of years, and look as old as they really are. They seem to have grown from the shore, jumbled piles of varying color and architecture. Stacked high against the river their walls flake with brown, yellow, pink, white, and blue paint. Hand drawn murals advertise Pepsi-Cola alongside local restauants and guest houses. Some of the buildings are adorned with columns, others peaked roofs, towers, or turrets. All are built high above the water to minimize flooding during the monsoon season. I hire a boat for a ride along the shore, climb aboard and prepare to be swept away.

And I am. Nothing I've experienced so far in my travels could have prepared me for this hour long boat trip through the heart of the Hindu faith. As we paddle slowly past, I see men jumping up and down in the water over and over, trancelike, stopping only to chant and pray. Women in peacock-bright saris laugh and talk amongst each other while wading up to their hips in muddy brown water. Bells tinkle, drums boom, and buffalo roam.

A holy man painted ash white with long hair piled atop his head swings a flaming gold lantern shaped like a hooded serpant. Children in white and orange robes, their black hair shaved in curious skullcap haircuts, stand in rows and sing along with to a small band of tabla and harmonium. Practicing their morning excercises these children perform a routine which includes tht which I now believe to be the most distinctly Indian excercise of all – laughing.

I'd call it a circus, but that might be misconstrued as condecension, I don't meant it like that. It's just that the whole sight is so bizarre. So, well... foreign to me. This is not a holiday. Not a festival, not a special event. And it's not a show put on for tourists either. This is traditional India, and it is how life unfolds each morning here alongside this river.

As the sun begins to filter through the clouds, brightening an already colorful display, it seems as if the whole city is alive with prayer. Even a cynic like me finds it impossible to not be moved by the spirit of devotion on display all around. There is no irony, no self-concious mugging to any of this. No tongue, no cheek.

An old man with a bald head and thick Groucho Marx eyebrows waddles forward on bowed legs, crouches down and splashes himself with the holy water. He is grinning from ear to ear like a giant child, and so am I. Because so far, I love India.

Annapurna Circuit, Nepal

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not much of an outdoorsman. For me a long trek lasts a weekend at most, and my idea of camping nearly always involves a car. I'm clumsy. I dropped out of the Boy Scouts to edit my school newspaper and I can barely use a compass, much less read a map. All the same though, I decided that while I was in Nepal I should take advantage of the opportunity to hit the trails. After taking careful stock of the routes available to me, I decided I'd take the longest, most challenging one I could find that didn't involve mountaineering. I decided to tackle the Annapurna Circuit.

The treks in Nepal are world class, and the most popular of all them is the Annapurna Circuit. It takes nearly three weeks to complete, and local guide companies give it a grade of Medium-Hard. It rises to a elevation of 5416 meters at its highest point and provides stunning views of the Annapurna Mountain range from which it derives it's name. The mountain trails that comprise it wind through some of the most diverse landscapes this country has to offer, and it has the added advantage of not requiring days of backtracking to complete. It also introduces hikers to a wide array of the local mountain communities that comprise so much of Nepal's population outside the Kathmandu Valley. On the Annapurna Circuit you are nearly never more than two hours away from a local tea-house, or small village with ample accommodation. The entire trek can be completed without ever having to pitch a tent.

Taking on this trek may have been brazen of me, but I'm not stupid. Which is why I decided to hire a guide through a local company that could lead me safely along the path and help me carry the belongings I'd need with me along the way. My guide, Om, was a twenty-five year old Nepali native with a goofy smile and an endless supply of corny jokes. He sang, screamed, and laughed his way through our long days with a level of energy and enthusiasm I thought only young children could possess. The guys at the trekking company refer to him as “funny,” though I think “crazy” could possibly be more appropriate. Nevertheless his services were invaluable to me. There was no way I could have completed the trek without him, and I am eternally grateful to him for his support and friendship.

What follows are excerpts from the diary I kept during the seventeen days it took us to complete the circuit:

Day 1
Today I awoke early at 5:15am to do my final preparations for the hike. Om met me around six and we took a short taxi ride to the bus station. The bus was local. Small and cramped. It seemed to stop every five minutes so that passengers could jump on and off. Here, as in most countries I've visited one can board a bus merely by waiting alongside the road and flagging it down. Bus terminals and official stops are found only in town centers where along with new passengers, the bus is raided by children selling bottles of water and men peddling cheap flutes, plastic toys, and numerous kinds of snacks.

The bus ride seemed to last forever, but thankfully the scenery was beautiful. The lush vegetation of Nepal comes as a welcome relief after weeks of dull brown landscapes in Egypt and Jordan.

I'm still a little nervous about the hike. Twenty-one days is a long time, and I can only hope I'm fit enough to handle it. Tonight we will be staying at a hotel in the small city of Besi Sahar and leaving for our adventure first thing in the morning.

Day 2
Today we started our hike around 8am. The walk was beautiful. Winding around mountains, past steeply tiered rice fields, and criss-crossing back and forth across the Marsyangdi River. There were several suspension bridges along the way and a few points where we needed to remove our shoes to cross small streams that fed the mighty water mass below.

It was a six hour trek, and thankfully was not that demanding. The change in altitude was not drastic, but most of the uphill climb was towards the end- during the hottest part of the day.

Day 3
Trekking in Nepal during the monsoon season is far from ideal. It started raining late last evening and lasted into mid-day. Much of the trail today was under water from run-off higher up the mountains. It made for slow but steady going. On a positive note however, along with the rain comes an increase in the size and beauty of the many waterfalls that line the valley.

Due to the downpour Om thought it best if we called it an early day and we stopped around 1:30pm in Jagat, a small village that used to function as a toll station back when the salt trade route wound through these hills. Nowadays it seems as if this town's main economy comes from tourism and the farming of corn. You can see this crop being stacked, shucked, and hauled everywhere in town. On arrival corn on the cob was the first thing we were served here. It was delicious and a real treat after two days of rice and dahl.

Day 5
Today we met up early on with a couple of women from California named Tracy and Rita. As much as I enjoy trekking with Om it was nice to have some other people to talk to. We gained 800 meters of elevation today and are now walking in the fog instead of below it.

Om told us today how lucky we are to be doing our trekking now rather than a few years ago. Apparently Maoists soldiers used to stop tourists at gunpoint and charge them a “fee” for using these trails. It was basically robbery, but the government was powerless to stop it.

Now the Maoists are the government, and are too busy ripping off the locals to bother with shaking down tourists. However all along these trails you can still see their hammer and sickle logo spray-painted along with their slogan, “Join the Maoist Revolution!”

Day 6
Another easy day. A short five hours to Lower Pisang hiking our way though thick pine tree forests. The landscape here reminds me a lot of home. On the one hand this is nice, but on the other hand it makes me quite home-sick. If I could choose right now I'd skip India entirely and just head straight to Boston from Nepal. But by purchasing my ticket I've once again locked myself in for the duration. And it's only another few weeks, right?

There are a large number of other trekkers staying here at the the Hotel Maya with us tonight, Along with the Californians we've been joined by three Israeli's named Yael, Ori, and O, as well as an Australian named Charlie. We played rounds of cards and drank steaming cups of milk tea to ward off the cold.

The village we're staying in tonight is especially beautiful. A number of old grey wooden houses are interspersed among the usual array of gaily colored wood hotels. Most all of the buildings here have the same corrugated metal roofs that are so common on homes in third world countries. To the north of town we can see the beautiful sight of Upper Pisang, an equally old collection of grey and blue buildings sitting atop a high hill covered in red buckwheat flowers. Prayer flags flutter from the tops of the roofs and crowning the village is a white and gold monastery with a pagoda style roof top. I can't believe how lucky I am to be doing this.

Day 7
Today we made it as far as Manang, a village that sits at 3540 meters above sea level. We will spend two nights here acclimatizing to the high altitude before we head up and across the pass.

Sometimes it's hard to believe we are at such high altitude. It's not like Kinabalu where you're climbing a mountain and you see the world dropping away quickly below you. Here the gains are more subtle and there are always higher peaks around you to make you forget how far up you really are.

The trail for the most part is wide and there are few points of actual danger along the way. The hardest part really is the endurance aspect. Day after day of pressing on despite bad weather, wet clothes, and occasional home-sickness. The worst of it will be over soon, but there are still many days of switchbacks and elevation gains ahead.

Day 9
Today we reached 4000 meters. It was a short walk, but the beginning was steep and my breathing is getting heavy and shallow. The path has become quite rocky and at times slightly narrower. The sky is clearing up and much of the day we had an excellent view of the mountains.

We've been joined on our journey by an old friend of Om's named Mukti and a young New Zealander named Kyle. But as we've gained members, we've lost some as well. Our Israeli friends have taken ill, and along with that they've fallen behind. I hope they catch up with us as it would be a shame not to see them again, but we have to keep going. They have a local porter with them so there is no reason for us to worry for their safety.

Around 1pm or so we reached Yak Kharka. There was a large field of yaks nearby. White, back, brown, and mixed colors. We watched them eat grass, fight, dig holes, and try to impress possible mates, They are strange Muppet-like creatures with their long matted hair and shaggy trails. There was even a white and brown spotted baby one that looked like an overgrown sheep dog.

Day 10
It was a short day today, but the last hour was the hardest part yet. We gained a total of 907 meters today, 475 meters of which was done in the last hour. We are staying the night at High Base Camp just up from Thorung Phedi. It's cold up here at 4925 meters.

I notice I have a slight headache developing and I can tell I'm more easily irritable. I don't think I'm developing altitude sickness, but I can tell that the height we're at is effecting me.

Day 11
Up and over the pass. Our day started early. We woke up at 5am, breakfast at 5:30, and we hit the trail by 6am. It took us a good two and a half hours to reach the highest point of 5416 meters. Rita was pretty sick on the way up, and my headache got worse. But once we reached the top it was all smiles and group photographs in front of the hundreds of flapping prayer flags that adorn the summit.

Just as we were throwing our bags on to leave, a goat herder came marching up the path shooing along his large and lively flock. One particularly rebellious goat strayed momentarily up a hill and was reprimanded with a swift stone thrown at his side!

It was extremely cold and windy at the summit so we began our decent reasonably quick. It didn't take long for the path to change to a steep, precarious, and unstable rocky, downward slope.

The first part looked to be a no-man's land. Nothing in sight except dull brown hills and a slippery path of sharp stones. The snow-capped peaks slipped away behind a mass of clouds and the only sound besides the harsh winds was the jovial singing of our group's three guides.

After an eternity of going down, the harsh brown environment have way to mossy hills, and the stone path was occasionally broken up by grassy plateaus. My right knee began to ache fiercely, smarting with each step. Around 1:30pm we reached Muktinath a small village that seems like a metropolis after the solitary tea houses of the last few days. With internet, guest houses, and even a counterfeit 7-11, Muktinath has all the comforts a weary traveller could hope for, or at least all one could expect.

Day 12
We woke up around 7am this morning and made a pre-breakfast hike up to the monastery in Muktinath. There was a Hindu temple there as well as a Buddhist one. Before entering the Hindu temple one must splash themselves on the head with water that pours out from a long series of bird head fountains. Only Nepali and Indians are allowed inside the temple so us westerners waited outside while our guides said their prayers.

A couple of sadhu (Hindu holy men) from India were sitting near the temple with red dots and long dreadlocks passing back and forth a hash pipe within sight of two police. Hash is illegal in Nepal but apparently this law does not apply to the holy men for whom smoking the drug is part of their religion.

After breakfast we set out on our trek which was a short two and a half hours. Around ninety minutes into it at a literal fork in the road we split off from Rita and Tracy as they headed to Jomsom to fly the rest of the way back to Pokhara. We'd been traveling together for over a week and I was quite sad to see them go. We all shook hands and waved goodbye, then set off in our respective directions.

Day 14
Today was a long day but we made excellent progress. Eight hours from Larjung to Tatopani. We met back up with the Israeli's along the way. They were in better health than when we had last seen them and told us that they had gotten so sick that they had to take horses across the pass. They were headed the same way as us, but they were in a jeep when we first saw them. Later on in the afternoon we met up with them on foot to finish the days journey.

We have been hiking full days since leaving Kagbeni and are running ahead of schedule. Therefore we will be spending two nights in Tatopani so we can relax and regain our strength. There is a hot spring here where for the equivalent of fifty-cents we can sit and soak ourselves for as long as we like in warm medicinal waters. My calves are still aching from the decent down the pass, but thankfully my knee has long since stopped hurting.

This town has so many amenities I almost feel like I'm in civilization again. Prices are significantly lower here and I can afford simple luxuries like laundry service and Coca-Cola. I am thankful for the rest day tomorrow as the last two days of the hike will be long and taxing. But at last the end is in sight.

Day 16
Today was the day we'd all been dreading. Long, arduous hours of steep and steady climbing. It feels somewhat defeating after coming down all that way the last few days to be going back up. We gained nearly 1700 meters today putting us back at the 2860 meter mark. Our guides had predicted it would take us eight hours to make the climb, but we all pushed hard and made it in six.

In Ghorepani we were treated by the hottest shower any of us has had in weeks. I can't explain to you just how refreshing it felt.

Day 17
We woke up at 4:00am this morning to head up to Poon Hill to see what was supposed to be the best view of the mountains on our entire trip. When we started our ascent, it was still dark and the sky was so clear that you could see the stars. After thirty minutes walking the sun began to rise and the air above us was thick with clouds. Besides the occasional mountain top poking through the mist there would be no view from the top of Poon Hill for our group.

Once we realized this we all pretty much decided it was pointless to continue on to the top and headed back to down to Ghorepani to have breakfast together before our last day of hiking.

After we left the village behind us it was all downhill from there. Literally. Thousands upon thousands of steep narrow steps. I took my time, alternating which leg I was leading with and sidestepping down in the hopes of not straining my knee any further. Many folks do this trek in reverse up to Muktinath, and I do not envy them. The way we took down would be a horrible way to go up. Not to mention the fact that they miss the most beautiful parts of the trek which I believe were nearly all on the other side of the pass.

It was strange to ascend as we did, passing back into the same climate we'd left behind so long ago in the first days of our journey. Towards the end we saw the reappearance of the multitude of dragon flies that I remember so clearly from that first days walk.

We all became elated as we ticked off the final few milestones. One hour remaining. Thirty minutes. Twenty minutes. Ten. But it seemed that fate was stacked against our celebration as mere minutes from the end a thunderstorm erupted along with a heavy miserable rain. Then, at our appointed meeting place, where our van was to be waiting to take us to our final destination of Pokhara, one of us was missing.

Ori, one our Israeli friends had forged ahead of the pack and managed to make a wrong turn along the way. We waited a half hour for him in the hopes that he would wise up and turn around, or ask for directions. Then we raced around in our taxi to see if he had popped out somewhere further on up the road. Then, just as we were about to give up hope and leave him behind, he pulled up in front of us on the back of a policeman's motorcycle.

No one wanted to hear about his adventure that involved him going the wrong way, getting on a bus, and finally eliciting help from the police. We all just wanted clean clothes, hot showers, and soft beds. The hour and a half long ride back to Pokhara was unpleasantly grim. But by the time we all met up later on that night, Ori was forgiven and everyone was elated to be at last be finished.

We ate steaks and drank cold beers. Laughed about each others struggles along the way and patted ourselves on the back perhaps a little bit too hard. But what can I say, we were finished and it felt really, really good. If you'd asked me two years, or even two months ago if I would do a thing like this, I'd surely have told you “No.” But I did. And I'd do it again. Just don't expect me to be doing it again anytime soon.