Southern India

Auroville...slightly surreal. Apparently not many people leave the cult, err...community alive.

My scooter. I named her, Sketchy.

You know you're at the bottom of the barrel when you're passed out in a puddle of your own urine in an Indian bus station.

Massive Hindu temples of Madurai.

Typical Indian meal, or Thali. Also pictured is the French guy who would later consume that meal.

Holy Cow!

The Spice Baron commands his minions. And yes, I believe that is a younger picture of himself hanging up.

Scene of a traffic accident or Indians hard at work?

Kerala backwaters.

Thanks to an unusually speedy connection tonight...more Kerala backwaters.

The tests for Malaria and Dengue came back negative, so that was good. Although the sickness has definitely faded, it's still with me even now. I stayed at Sesha's for 4 nights in total, attempting to regain my strength through the heaps of food his wife would serve me each night. Overall I was fairly lazy in Chennai and basically just tried to adjust to India. Sesha gave me the heads up on a local electronics black market, so I headed
down there and bought a new mini mp3 player (which totally sucks and only fits about 40 songs on...but you cant expect much for the price I paid). Could have spent a year in this place. It was similar to a vegetable market except people just hawked sticks of RAM and state of the art video cards instead of potatoes and peppers. Another day was spent accompanying the Sundarams and another family to an Indian cultural theme park (sort of like Fort Langley but much better). It was good to see lots of the traditional stuff and the palm reader there declared that I should live to at least 90 if I don't do anything stupid in between, so that was a bonus. The hospitality put forth by Sesha and his family was tremendous.

From Chennai I caught a quick bus down to Pondicherry, also on the coast of the Indian Ocean. Pondicherry used to be a French province and the food there was spectacular. Spent a night in Pondi then rented a scooter and decided to risk my life on the chaotic Indian streets. There really are no rules here except to watch your surroundings. I often found myself dodging people as much as other vehicles, in situations where I would be passing the guy who was passing the guy who was passing the herd of cows and in doing so I was on the opposite sidewalk. Very normal driving experience here and once out of the city it was well worth it. Whizzing along right beside the Indian Ocean was awesome, especially during the rare occasions when I managed to get the road to myself and open up the throttle a little. The original reason I rented the scooter was to make the 15km trip north to a town called Auroville. Auroville is a strange 60's experiment going slowly nowhere. Basically a bunch of hippies decided to form an "international township" where all races could come and feel free from whatever was bugging them. I think the main reason I went up there is because it sounded like a cult and that was something I wanted to see. I managed to get lost several times up there, so by the time I arrived it was beginning to get dark and I didn't have a whole lot of time. Was very strange driving through rural India, then just popping out into this area where a bunch of 60 year old white guys with pony tails herd goats around. I couldn't help but think, this is where Gav would love to live if given the chance.

Following Pondicherry I caught a positively brutal night bus (maybe 3 hours of sleep...maybe) south to Madurai. Upon arriving I booked a night train out of the same town, ensuring that my weary body not get the rest it so desperately craves. Having a whole day (14 hours in this case) in a town without a room always sucks, but I wanted to stop there due to it being one of the best Hindu temple sites in India. Luckily during the battle to buy my train ticket I met a French guy who was in the same bind, so I had company. We saw the temple for a few hours, then set off on the French guy's journey to find the "scummiest part of Madurai". I have no idea why he wanted to accomplish this, but I figured it would be worth a laugh. Problem is, as we got farther away from any tourist areas and farther into shady little alleys and lanes, the people just kept getting nicer. By the end of the day we were stuck in a slum under some guys roof, drinking tea while avoiding the monsoon that raged outside.

I passed out quickly on the night train and awoke as the train was pulling into its destination of Thiruvananthapuram (cities and towns around here have massive names) in the neighbouring state of Kerala. From there I grabbed another passenger train up to Kollum where due to delays I missed the ongoing boat by about 6 minutes. I hung out in Kollum for the day and awoke today to catch the boat north to Allupezah, where I am now. The 8 hour boatride was fantastic as it wove through some rural villages along the waterways and is probably one of the highlights of the trip so far. Tomorrow I catch an early bus up to Kochi, where I grab a 30 hour train to Mumbai for the reception with ole Jas.

So far probably the best thing about India has been the food. Not just the Indian food (which typically doesnt sit well with the stomach but is still very good) but the chinese and "westernised" versions of food that they have here. Getting used to eating with only your right hand (although you're allowed to drink with your left, making buffalo rules easy to follow) and the complete lack of any sort of utensils has taken some time, but I can now flick it into my mouth as good as the locals and I no longer get curry covered rice all the way up to my elbow. Also, I can't stop taking pictures of the cattle. So many of them have jewelry and other strange things attached to them and its great watching traffic and people frantically move out of their way.

Touchdown India

Behold! The pyramids...in technicolor

India from the back seat of a rickshaw.

The Sundarams! Fantastic hosts.

My last few days in Egypt were fairly lowkey. I headed back to Cairo from Alexandria to pick up my Indian visa, then had pretty much two full days to hang out in the city. Visited Old Cairo and Islamic Cairo while there, getting completely lost in the windy little tunnels that they call roads. As usual it was extremely hot there and by the end of the day I had something along the lines of heat stroke. The last night there I accompanied an Australian fellow over to the pyramids for one last glimpse of them as well as the infamous Sound and Light show that they put on every evening at 8:30. We didn't want to pay 60 pounds to see it, so instead we just secured prime viewing seats at the nearby pizza hut. The lights were decently cool for a few minutes but, as expected, the show got really boring and stupid, fast. They had this cheesy booming voice, who talked about Ramses for a while that you would expect out of some kind of Simpsons joke. I'm sure the ancient Egyptians would be thrilled to see their monuments turned into this sad excuse for a tourist trap.

That night I grabbed a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Yes, I know what you're all thinking, Addis Ababa WAS the spot that Lex Luther finally obtained the kryptonite that he was used to thwart Superman on several occasions. The airline was pretty cool after seeing the length of my delay and put me up in a hotel with all my meals paid for. Driving through Addis I was accosted by the endless hordes of beggars and cripples, more than I've seen in any other country. I had to keep the window tightly rolled up so that they would stop trying to shove their open wounds and broken limbs into the taxi. Instead of really exploring the city, I decided to catch up on my sleep in the plush hotel room.

From there I grabbed another flight to Mumbai, India, previously known as Bombay. Managed to secure a hotel that was literally located in the slums (for those that were in Brazil...think favelas, but somehow worse) but relatively close to the train station. Some thoughts on my first few days in India....

The Good: The train that I grabbed from Mumbai to Chennai was awesome. I secured a first class berth for a decent price and it was much better than pretty much any bus ride I've been on (with the exception of perhaps super-cama). There is a little guy that comes around to serve cheap meals every few hours and the beds are definitely livable. There's also peddlers at most stops that sell the latest North American novels for about $3, definite bonus given that I can read on the trains.

The Bad: Arriving in India I soon developed some kind of ailment. Not sure what it's from since I really hadn't been in the country long enough to catch anything I would think. I felt pretty crappy the first evening and sometime during the first night, feeling pretty crappy progressed into a fever, which I woke up with as well. I had to get to the train station decently early, so I painfully pulled my body out of bed and hopped in a rickshaw to the suburban train station. The suburban trains are what they use around Mumbai and are EXTREMELY packed. I was breaking out into random hot flashes and sweating profusely, so my sole concentration was directed at keeping my hand grasped on the hanging roof handle so that I wouldn't get washed away in the sea of humanity. After one crowd disembarked, I noticed that my day pack had slipped down and was hanging around my elbow, pulled it back and in horror saw that the front pouch had been opened and looted. Goodbye MP3 player. Finally got to the central station and went to pull out my train ticket for my trip down south, nope, that's stolen as well. Not sure if it was the same guy, but the ticket was in my front pant pocket along with some money. The guy managed to get the ticket and about 200 rupees, but somehow left the remaining Ethiopian money I had there...not sure how, but regardless, I have to give him some credit for that superb job. Frustrated and feverish I had a sudden yearning to be back home, curled up on my couch watching Star Trek with a 6 pack of Kokanee. I briefly looked for any trains heading towards Vancouver, but the closest I could come was Rajastan, just not good enough. 2 hours and 3 police reports later, I managed to get a replacement train ticket for a mere $20...pretty much the cost of the original. Given that the train line I was travelling along was the one hit by terrorists a few months back that killed 200 people, I GUESS things could be worse...

And The Ugly: Mumbai is a little disgusting. Its similar to many Central American cities but just with WAY more people. It didn't help that the place I stayed at was in a slum, but the piles of garbage everywhere are monstrous and just on the way from the airport to my hotel I saw several people openly shitting on the sidewalk.

Luckily I only stayed one night in Mumbai before, as I mentioned, catching a train south to Chennai. The train ride down was quite depressing as I didn't have my usual library of mp3's to keep me company. The guy across from my seat spent at least 23 of the 26.5 hours watching me. That's all he did, was watch me. He watched me eat, he watched as I fell asleep and every moment in between. The guy watched me buy the latest John Grisham book from one of the vendors, watched me read every one of the 461 pages of the book (I had a lot of idle time), then when I triumphantly raised it above my head to signal its end, he gave a brief applause. Attemping to replace my stolen mp3 player, I would periodically attempt to hum songs from the Abbey Road album, but found myself simply repeating the lyrics to Mean Mr. Mustard, making my cabinmates confused as to why I kept talking about shaving in the dark.

Waiting for me when my train arrived was Sesha, the reason I b-lined it down here. When I actually worked for a living, Sesha was one of the people who worked with me. He moved from Canada back to India about 5 months ago and mentioned visiting him when he found out I would be coming through. It really cannot be overstated the simple joy of seeing a familiar face amidst so much chaos. The room he has set up for me is lightyears ahead of my Mumbai accomodations and his family is quite nice. Unfortunately the strange illness that hit me my first night here is still with me. I visited the doctor once arriving here and he took some blood out (wanted to rule out a malaria relapse), he also gave me the scare that I'm showing the signs of Dengue fever, so he's going to run that test as well, keeping my fingers crossed on that one, from what I've heard, Dengue is not fun.

Last days in the Middle East

The little platoon of stray cats that accompanied me at each meal after figuring out that I would usually give in and start feeding them fries.

Moon coming up over Saudi Arabia (the far shore, although not very visible here) and the Red Sea.

Diving the Red Sea.

Alexandria, from my new home in the lovely Union Hotel.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In an attempt to regain some of their former prestige, the city built this library, one of the largest in the world. The outside is covered with characters from every known alphabet on earth.

Diving in the Red Sea is definitely all it's hyped up to be (for those who don't know...it's hyped up a lot). I managed to squeeze in 3 dives and was planning another 3, but had to cancel due to an unplanned exit, more on that later. The first dive I did was a total waste of money due to a wee bit of a hangover, most of my time was spent trying not to vomit into my regulator. The next two dives (the day after) were the best I've done. It's all shore diving here, and access to the dive sites involves either camel trekking or a 4x4, as they're all out in the desert somewhere, I chose 4x4 due to cost restraints. The first dive was mainly spent going through underwater caverns and caves. The water down here is amazing and visibility is a whopping 40-45 metres, plus the abundance of sea life is unparalleled. At one point my dive master told me to take my regulator out and open my mouth (while 35 metres down), and I was soon startled to feel 3 or 4 of those 2 inch cleaner fish diving right into my mouth and cleaning whatever they could off my back molars. Very cool, but they would soon become irritating after they wouldn't leave either of our ears alone. The second dive started with a 30 metre headfirst drop down a thin little chimney of rock, scary, but well worth it. At the end of this dive, while hanging out at about 35 metres (with the ocean floor 200 metres beneath us), I was surprised to see a woman emerge from the black depths below without any scuba gear or breathing apparatus, just holding her nose. Turns out this is where many of the world's top skin divers compete/train and that she had just broken some kind of female European record (she went down to 90 or 100 metres).

Dahab itself is an awesome little place and if I ever go back to this region, it will be where I would spend some time. Due to 3 suicide bombers a couple months ago (who's craters I eerily walked over each time I left my hostel), the place is absolutely deserted. Lots of the restaurants and hotels that should be packed during the summer season are completely empty and a decent amount of them were in the process of shutting down while I was there. Unfortunately I wouldn't have as much time as I thought to enjoy it. That evening while having dinner with some English people, the subject moved towards my next destination, India. The guy explained to me that an Indian visa was necessary before entering the country (as well as an onward ticket from India...thanks pops!), something that the woman who sold me the plane ticket forgot to mention. So, after looking around on the internet for an Indian embassy in Cairo, looking at its hours and seeing how long it takes to process a visa, it became clear that I needed to return to Cairo this very night or else my plans for India would take a turn for the worse. I asked the guy at my hostel about any buses or taxis leaving for Cairo (I already missed the last scheduled one), and after talking to a few of his friends, he found me a strange 1am minibus that just happened to be leaving this very night. It seemed a little odd to me, but I figured as long as it gets me to Cairo in time, I'll be happy. Things became stranger when we stopped at the back of the police station to load on 5 black duffel bags, but no passengers. They became even stranger when upon reaching the first check point out of the Sinai Peninsula, the driver handed each of the 3 guards a pack of cigarettes. No biggie I thought, little bribes like that are common, except when I looked back as we drove away, the nearest guard opens his up to reveal thick wads of cash stuffed into the packet. The only thing I could think about is that because I'm obviously on some kind of smuggling mission, it was totally unnecessary for me to get a full Egyptian visa when crossing in from Israel, cause the guys who were supposed to check it, are the ones who were just bribed to not check my van, oh well.

After completing the Indian visa stuff at their consulate (with a full 10 minutes to spare before they closed for the weekend...), I headed north to Alexandria where I am now. Alexandria's a bit more European in looks and attitude, but unfortunately I can't explore much due to the stifling heat. So instead I've resigned to sitting in my slightly cooler room, figuring out ways to time the constant mosque calls from the tower next door with different Doors songs. If all goes according to plan (which is actually unlikely) than I should be flying to India in two days time. Really looking forward to my 21 hour layover in Ethiopia as well as the wave of humanity and suffering I expect to hit once touching down in Mumbai.

Israel and on

Dome of the Rock as seen from my hostel roof.

A church within a church, which holds JC's supposed tomb. I don't know exactly what this Jesus fellow did, but based on what they have set up for him, carpentry must have been a PRETTY big deal back in the day.

Western Wall. Taken from my spy cam as the Uzi wielding guard next to me looked away. Photos weren't allowed while I was there due to Sabbath.

Floating in the Dead Sea, whatever you do, do not taste the water.

Dahab, my new home on the Red Sea.

After leaving Amman via shared taxi with 4 awful smelling Palestinians, I made my way to the King Hussein bridge, which is the border crossing from Jordan into the West Bank. Stamping out of Jordan was simple enough, but getting into Israel is a process like no other. First you have to submit your bag to the soldiers at the beginning of the compound, where it gets searched, checked for explosive residue and who knows what else, I didn't see it again for almost 4 hours. Next you talk to the first line of questioners, then take a stroll through this weird booth thing that blows high pressured air at you and takes a bunch of snapshots. Following that you actually get to the immigration official. If they're nice, you can walk right through after a quick little interview but if not you can be interrogated and checked up on. The American/Syrian girl behind me said the last time she came through the border the entire process took her 16 hours. I managed to get through that unscathed, but was held up at the personal bag check for over 3 hours for whatever reason. After finally emerging back into the god awful heat of this place, I caught a bus through the West Bank to Jerusalem, passing some notorious places along the way like Ramallah and Hebron. All in all the Palestinians were very nice.

Once arriving in East Jerusalem, I quickly walked to the old city, getting strange looks from the locals and soldiers alike. The old city of Jerusalem isn't actually that big, but it's incredibly easy to get lost along the windy little lanes that are scribbled throughout it. A giant wall surrounds the entire area, so at least you have some kind of sign when you've gone too far. It's divided into 4 sections, the Muslim Quarter being the largest, followed by the Jewish Quarter, Christian Quarter and Armenian Quarter. I grabbed a hostel in the Armenian Quarter and set about getting repeatedly lost in the city.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I arrived in Jerusalem, the holy city, on my own religion's most holy of days, Boatmas. Attempts to set up a church of good times in honour of our prophet, Lionel Ritchie, were met with opposition from the already packed religious community here.

Walking around the place is an eye opener depending on which quarter you're in. The Muslim area seems to constantly be packed with kebob stands and pirated movie booths, whereas the Jewish quarter (which was rebuilt following its destruction in 1948) is modern, spacious and clean. You bump into some interesting groups of people, whether they be the super orthodox Jews with crazy fur hats, the Muslim cleric guys that walk around with these giant canes, the Christian pilgrims or the ever present, combat-ready Israeli troops that seem to be everywhere. I still don't understand exactly how the security system works in Israel, but I think their logic falls somewhere along the lines of "just give everyone guns". Seems like anyone between the ages of 17 to 25 has a weapon. You'll see a group of young guys hanging around, wearing hoodies and skater jeans about to fall off, then do a double take when you see that they all have Desert Eagles and extra magazines stuffed into their pockets. It took a while to get used to the sight of 3 or 4 18 year old girls walking down the street, all with M-16s strapped to their backs. Crazy place.

Unfortunately my main day for sight seeing in Jerusalem fell on a Saturday, which limited what I could do. I first set about looking for the church of the holy sepulcher (where Jesus was crucified and buried). It was fairly early in the morning when I found it and didn't actually know that I had (I expected there to be lots of people, signs etc..) until it was too late. So, fast forward 2 minutes and you have the incredibly awkward situation of 3 women (the only other people there) sobbing away at the tomb of Jesus Christ, while ole Jord tries desperately to finish his dripping cinnamon bun after realizing what he's stumbled onto. The church itself was pretty cool, there's actually a church inside a church. I wandered around but had no real idea of what I was looking at most of the time and actually had to go back after looking it all up on wikipedia. The actual crucifixion site is a giant shrine now where you climb under this table thing and put your hand through a dark hole to touch the rock. I did it, but I still don't know what I was supposed to be doing besides feeling a bunch of rocks that have probably been fondled by 10 million people. I immediately used hand-san after that debacle.

Next I made my way through the madness of the street to try to get to the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim holy site in Jerusalem. With it being Saturday though (and the fact that the previous day a group of radical Jews had broken into the place), my way was blocked by Israeli soldiers and I could only go so far. Walking down the street a little further I went to the Western (Wailing) Wall, the Jewish holy site. This was probably the biggest disappointment (not that I was expecting anything actually...), but from my vantage point, all it amounted to was hundreds of Dr. Hubermans bobbing their heads at a wall. I stayed there for about 1 minute before heading back to the hostel to watch Superman. Some other sites that I saw were the tomb of King David, some old Roman stuff and the site of the last supper. I tried to find the Church of Crom and the birthplace of Santa Claus, but failed on both accounts.

After Jerusalem I headed south for an afternoon at the Dead Sea. I always figured that the whole floating on the Dead Sea thing was sort of like how people talk about floating in salt water compared to fresh water and really wasn't expecting much. Luckily I was pleasantly surprised to find that it really does completely float you and it actually takes effort to get one of your limbs down into the water, very cool experience. From there some strange cabbie picked me up to head south, back to the Red Sea, to Eilat. An hour or so into the ride the cab broke down amongst a hail of Hebrew cussing and cigarette smoke. For some reason the guy wanted me to help fix it, but instead I caught another taxi. Finally arrived in Eilat several hours later to find the city completely full from Northern Israelis fleeing the kaytusha rockets. After much searching and haggling I finally managed to pay a whopping $30 for a little closet room.

The nightmare of crossing back into Egypt actually began when I first arrived at the Cairo airport and asked the immigration guy if I'd be ok reentering through the Sinai with the visa he was giving me, to which he said, yes yes, fine fine, next. After bussing out to the border, stamping out of Israel, converting all my Shekels back into Egyptian Pounds and walking across to the Egyptian station, I found that this was not the case. The obese, chain-smoking official there told me I would have to go back into Israel, to the Egyptian embassy and apply for a visa. So that sucked. Thankfully the Israeli girls (border duties and things like that are all done by the female half of the army, a pleasant change from the typical border guards) were quite nice to me after hearing my plight and let me breeze back through into Israel.

After clearing through all that garbage, I had missed all the buses going deeper into the Sinai, so I had to succumb to another breaking down minibus. Ended up in Dahab where I am now, and probably be for the next few days while I do some diving. Last night I had a few drinks (or more than a few...) with an Australian who's been traveling non stop for 14 years (thanks to being seriously wounded in the Falkland Islands war and receiving a generous monthly pension from the British Army) who's brother I actually met while I was in Perth, he was one of the odd assortment of characters populating Tony Smash's party, small world.

Jordan in Jordan

Search for the grail continues...

The treasury building of Petra. Awesome, awesome site.

The monastery building. A little more secluded, it takes about an hour to get to from the main site, but well worth the trip.

I left Cairo the night of the 29th and endured a 10 hour ride through the Sinai desert and right to the coast of the Red Sea. I must thank Allah for sitting me directly under the only speaker that worked on the bus, which blared Arabic love songs the entire way. That, combined with the weird Syrian guy who sat beside me wanting to practice his english meant that I simply didn't sleep. At 5am or so, there was a commotion at the front of the bus which made sure everyone else was awake. The driver was screaming at a departing passenger, who then spat in his face. A fistfight ensued, followed by some rock throwing and eventually degressed into the driver leaving the bus and engaging the man in a running rock fight around the vehicle, so strange, but hilarious.

I arrived in Nuweiba early in the morning and was greeted by a local policeman who quickly swiped the glasses off my hat and put them on. I tried to get them back to no avail and eventually had to get another cop to come over and get them back for me. The two guys argued, a shouting match began then it turned into a shoving/fist fight. I grabbed my glasses and b-lined it for the ferry ticket office.

Buying the ferry ticket was a process like no other. I arrived 2 hours before the office was even officially supposed to be open and found a massive line up of shouting men. I stood at the back of it for an hour without moving before realizing this wasn't how to get things done. Tried to budge my way up further like everyone else, but was met with strange arabic curses and hand gestures, so I returned to the back of the line. Few minutes later the ticket salesman had had enough. He exited his booth and starting throwing elbows into guys, the scene quickly turned violent with seperate fights breaking out all around the area. Finally another ticket window opened and a massive rush of humanity ran towards that in an attempt to be the first in line. Dozens of small fights broke out as these guys budged and kicked their way into the fray. 3 hours later I somehow came out with a golden ticket and headed towards the ferry.

The ferry was only 3 hours late, but when it did show up it was much nicer than expected. I finally arrived in Aqaba, Jordan sometime at 7pm. As expected the immigration guys and everyone else in the country love my name. Frequently after saying it I get some strange stares which I take as them thinking that I don't understand what they're asking, usually both parties leave the conversation a little confused. I was unable to find a dive shop open late in Aqaba, and instead of wasting a day there, decided to head right for Wadi Musa the next day.

Wadi Musa is the home of Petra, the ancient Nabataean city that served as a huge trading post during pre-Roman times. More importantly it's where they filmed the last Indiana Jones movie. I headed out there with Indie himself, actually a high school english teacher from Toronto, and we spent the day roaming around the site. The first experience of walking through the Siq (a 1.2 km narrow valley leading to the site) and coming out onto the Treasury (where Dr. Jones finally discovered the holy grail) was like nothing I've seen before and quickly put Petra above any of the other ruins I've seen on this trip.

Spending the night in Wadi Musa, I headed out early this morning for Al-Karak. Karak is the home of one of the more significant crusader castles (the one from the movie Kingdom of Heaven for anyone who's seen that) and was the scene of a massive battle between the crusaders and Saladin (the bad ass Arab fellow who ended up sending them packing back to Europe). Was a cool site to see and pretty much had the entire castle to myself. Leaving Karak I headed up to Amman on a 6 hour journey that should have been only 2 hours. Travelling in this part of the world is probably the toughest I've had to do, not only cause I'm without my normal companions but also because very few people speak enough useful english and I can't seem to pronounce the simplest town names properly. Showing them the english version of the word is useless as they can't read our alphabet, so I've resorted to luck...which proved rough today when I took a 45 minute bus ride from Karak to a town called Ahman, when really I wanted to go to Amman, the difference being a slightly more pronounced 'A' in the latter.

Not sure exactly what I'll be doing tomorrow, but most likely I'll be continuing my mideast blitz with trying to get to Jerusalem. I've talked to a few guys who have recently come from there and they've helped explain what to do, so we shall see.