Updated 1/11
Back home. Arrived late PM 1/8/2015.
My iInet is still not set up after travel and a new ISP. But TV cable works.
Go Ducks.
Have a few good travel story drafts of the last few days for the blog.. Over the next few days I will peck them out on the ipad as post as updates using my phone as a hotspot.
A good walkabout...lots of ground covered via:
Munich, Germany
Big planes
Ankara, Turkey
Nice, new, modern 1st class busses
Big tuk tuks
Suicide busses
Little tuk tuks
Sane traffic
Kathmandu, Nepal
Vehicle ferries
Full planes
Lhasa, Tibet
Bicycle
Expensive flights
Slow boats
Free for all traffic
Bangkok, Thailand
Little planes
On foot border crossings
Passenger ferries
Cheap flights
Nearly empty planes
Big international airports
Nearly empty planes
Hong Kong
Old, beatup really small taxis
A rickshaw
A kayak
Lukla, the most dangerous airport in the world
And many more.......
I saw Ankara and stayed on the top of the hill in old Ankara, just 50 meters from one of the oldest mosques in Ankara. I attended prayers in mosques Then traveled overland over the Himalayas from Kathmandu to Lhasa, with a stop at the Tibetan Everest Base Camp at 17,200 feet elevation. I made many great friends in Nepal and have many fond memories of people I met everywhere.
Maybe except some Chinese Tourists, both to which I developed an aversion and an overly critical eye and a nearly confrontational - hmmmmmm........attitude. You would have had to been there to fully understand. I still can act like a Tighthead Prop on the front row of a rugby scum if I need to.....especially if someone 50% of my body mass starts cutting in line in front of me and rudely pushing me.. But if a 61year old gweilo rugby player acts out in a foreign country he may be arrested.
I rode in a police car in Sinop and toured a Turkish prison.
The trip to Lhasa was a dream come true.. I loved shopping in Thamel. Bhaktapour started to feel like home. Traffic in Kathmandu was an unbridled free for all, and absolute chaos. I made the border crossings from Nepal to Tibet and from Thailand to Lao on foot. I landed and tookoff safely at the Lukla airport, touted as the most dangerous airport in the world. One end of the runway is a 1000 foot cliff and the othher end is a 75 foot tall vertical wall of rock. It is a short runway. I returned for the two day slow boat down the Mekong and again visited Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, home of the Happy Pizza. Luang Prabang was even more enjoyable than last year.
Went through roadside searches. I ate yak butter and several yak hamburgers. I walked the streets of Lhasa with both the morning and evening waves of Tibetans circling their holy sites while constantly being watched by the Chinese with CCTV cameras. I attended a Full Moon Party on Koh Phagan.
I took pictures of Chinese police, a strictly phohibited act. Tibet in certain ways was a suprise. Solar power was everywhere....most road signs and lights, street lights, cell towers.......and Tibett had suprisingly good roads with relatively sane drivers.
I made it 1/2 of the way to the Nepail Everest Base Camp, hiking about 40 miles on difficult rocky trails gaining and losing thousands of feet elevation.
I made the following flight connections:
Portland to Washington DC
DC to Munich
Munich to Ankara
Ankara to Sinop
Ankara to Istanbul
Istanbul to Kathmandu
Lhasa to Kathmandu
Kathmandu to Lukla
Lukla to Kathmandu
Kathmandu to Bangkok
Bangkok to Surat Thani
Surat Thani to Bangkok
Bangkok to Chiang Rai
Ventiene to Bangkok
Bangkok to Hong Kong
Hong Kong to Vancouver BC
Vancouver to PDX
Namaste.
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