So we've decided to do the SE Asia portion of the trip rather than India first as was originally planned. We're already here, and SE Asia is more geared towards backpackers, whereas India is supposedly a much more difficult place to travel, so it only makes sense to do this portion of the trip first. I'm thinking we'll stay in Bangkok for another week before heading down south to the Samui island group. No clue how long we'll be there, but we've been invited to celebrate Songkran in Udon Thani, so I'm thinking we'll spend a month on the islands, come back north for Songkran in mid-April, cross over into Laos and head to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
Thus far, we've toured Wat Pho and Wat Traimit, learned the subway/skytrain/river boat system, visited the chic Siam Square (where I got three cavities filled and a cleaning for $93), walked through the beautiful campus of Chulalongkorn University, visited the Standing Buddha festival (where we were the only farangs in a crowd of thousands) and generally traipsed around a good portion of Bangkok.
We also managed to see Alice in Wonderland in the most amazing theater I have ever been in - 15 regular screens, 3 'Nokia Ultra Screens' (whatever that means), and an IMAX theater. Unfortunately, we were too late for the IMAX showing, but we did watch it in 3D, and it was a fantastic experience.
A few days ago, we went to a jazz pub near that was recommended to us, and Ryan made friends with the musicians playing there while simultaneously picking up his first Thai fan, a 30 something woman, who was apparently smitten with his drunken rendition of a Kenny G song or something.
Earlier that day, I looked up my friend Sureechai, and for the last two days, Ryan and I have split paths, with Ryan doing his thing with the jazz scene and myself hanging out with Sureechai.
We were going to go see a big Muay Thai match last night at Lumbini Stadium, but Ryan got invited to something jazz-related and I was pretty tired from drinking the night before, so we skipped it. I spent the night resting and recuperating, and Ryan spent the night... elsewhere.
Rest assured that we are having a good time, and that we are both alive and well. I'll probably write another post in a week or so, hopefully from the islands.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Four Months in India? Probably not....
Well, it looks like India will be our first destination. The last map of India that I put up sucks balls; here's a better one:
Ryan is questioning the wisdom of attempting to visit so many countries within the span of four months, even after trimming the list of countries to be visited from 9 to 5. His stance is that one should enjoy one's time in these countries, rather than constantly rushing to see the next area/landmark/city/country.
I fully agree with him, at least on the latter part of his assertion. Rushing around on vacation to see things for the sake of seeing them, at the expense of relaxation and enjoyment is foolish.
Time spent in a foreign country is time wasted if all one is doing is scurrying from A to B to C without taking the time to kick one's feet up, drink a Kingfisher, puff some charas, and relax and enjoy one's surroundings. Although I would like to visit every country in the world before I die, I will not do so at the expense of enjoying myself in the process.
That said, there is only so many fun and/or interesting things to do or see in any given country. India and China are huge, and I have read that even six months is not enough time to see everything inside each of their borders, but then again, I do not want to see everything - I only want to see the best of the best. Yes, there are a thousand temples in India, but after you've seen the top five, the other 995 are a bit underwhelming. Yes, there are a thousand different cities and regions in India, but after we've been to the cities listed in my last blog post, do we really need to see any more?
What I am attempting to do is to find a compromise between lazily whiling one's time away in one area and rushing from A to B to C simply for the sake of going, because as in so many things in life, moderation is the key to travel. That is why I am doing this research - to determine which cities, landmarks, attractions, and activities are the most interesting and fun, so that we can focus on them, rather than drift aimlessly from one mediocre area to another.
Besides, if I spend too much time in one place, I might decide to give up on the west altogether and become a wandering, charas smoking Sadhu, and my mother might not like that too much.
But enough of the rhetoric - let's do some math to determine just how much time one must devote to actual traveling to ring the entire country of India. After we find that number, we can determine just how much non-travel time is necessary to create a suitable ratio of time spent relaxing to time spent traveling. For instance, if it will take five days of total travel time to travel our intended route, then a week of total time allocated to travel that route (or even a few weeks) would probably not be too satisfying.
In order to answer this question, we must first find the distance required to circumnavigate the entire country. Although I cannot get an exact number for that, we can get a decent approximation from google maps:
View Larger Map
To travel from Darjeeling in the northeast corner to Trivandrum at the southern tip, to Mumbai, to Amritsar, to Varanasi - which would put us right in front of Nepal, and would take us near every point on my list of things to see - is 7,500 km, according to Google Maps. A bit of basic research on the Indian train system shows us that the average train speed for the mid-range trains is at least 50kmph. If we use these numbers and divide 7,500km (the total travel) by 50kmph (the average speed of travel), we arrive at a total travel time of 150 hours, which is to say that, if our route is 7500 km long, and we do nothing but ride the train, it would take us 6.25 days of total travel time to circumnavigate the country. If we allocate 5 weeks of total India travel time, this means that less than 20% of our time will be spent traveling.
Also, bear in mind that those numbers are very conservative, as we are not going all the way to the southern tip of India, nor is it even certain that we will start in the northeast corner of India. We might begin in Goa so we can gather intelligence from the robust backpacker scene, which would cut total distance down to 3500km, which equates to just under 3 days of total travel time.
Another consideration is that there are much faster trains to be had that can take us pretty much anywhere in the country in 24 hours or less. If we travel on these newer, faster trains, we can reasonably expect average speeds in excess of 100kmph, which would cut our travel time down to as few as 1.5 days.
All that said, if we find a spot that we like, we can certainly spend some additional time there. When I took my 14 days of leave in Thailand in August 2008, my plan was to spend a few days in Bangkok and a week in Koh Tao, and during the last four days I was going to do things like an elephant trek, cave kayaking, rock climbing, and whitewater rafting in Phuket (I had actually prepaid for these things), but I decided to stay in Koh Tao (even taking a loss on the prepaid Phuket adventures) because I was enjoying myself so much.
When I find a place I like, timetables take second priority to enjoying myself, but I also tend to get bored easily. Besides, when there are so many interesting things to do elsewhere, why settle for one place? I don't intend on rushing through any of these countries, but I don't intend on settling down in any of them either. In every country, there are a few areas/activities which are the most interesting, the most fun, the best of the best - and those are the things that I'd like to see and do. I'd like to do the Gibbon Experience just as much as I'd like to hike to Mt Everest base camp, see the Golden Temple, Angkor Wat, Chiang Mai, the backpacker scene at Goa, etc, etc, but most of these things take only a few days to a week to experience - any longer than that, and I tend to get bored. After what we have come to see has been seen, after we are sufficiently rested, after we have had our fill of conversation with the locals, it is time to move on to the next thing. That is the nature of traveling, at least if one is to do anything more than sit around drinking beer all day.
Don't forget, Ryan - I have traveled a good bit thus far, and I have had a good time during all of my travels. I have a pretty good idea of how to balance the desire to see things with the desire to sit in one place and have a good time. I will not be rushing through things in India, but I would feel like we wasted time if we spent the entire four months in one country.
In 2007, I went to Germany for two weeks. In those two weeks, my friend Dan and I managed to circumnavigate the entire country, and we had a GREAT time. Here are a few pics:
I fully agree with him, at least on the latter part of his assertion. Rushing around on vacation to see things for the sake of seeing them, at the expense of relaxation and enjoyment is foolish.
Time spent in a foreign country is time wasted if all one is doing is scurrying from A to B to C without taking the time to kick one's feet up, drink a Kingfisher, puff some charas, and relax and enjoy one's surroundings. Although I would like to visit every country in the world before I die, I will not do so at the expense of enjoying myself in the process.
That said, there is only so many fun and/or interesting things to do or see in any given country. India and China are huge, and I have read that even six months is not enough time to see everything inside each of their borders, but then again, I do not want to see everything - I only want to see the best of the best. Yes, there are a thousand temples in India, but after you've seen the top five, the other 995 are a bit underwhelming. Yes, there are a thousand different cities and regions in India, but after we've been to the cities listed in my last blog post, do we really need to see any more?
What I am attempting to do is to find a compromise between lazily whiling one's time away in one area and rushing from A to B to C simply for the sake of going, because as in so many things in life, moderation is the key to travel. That is why I am doing this research - to determine which cities, landmarks, attractions, and activities are the most interesting and fun, so that we can focus on them, rather than drift aimlessly from one mediocre area to another.
Besides, if I spend too much time in one place, I might decide to give up on the west altogether and become a wandering, charas smoking Sadhu, and my mother might not like that too much.
But enough of the rhetoric - let's do some math to determine just how much time one must devote to actual traveling to ring the entire country of India. After we find that number, we can determine just how much non-travel time is necessary to create a suitable ratio of time spent relaxing to time spent traveling. For instance, if it will take five days of total travel time to travel our intended route, then a week of total time allocated to travel that route (or even a few weeks) would probably not be too satisfying.
In order to answer this question, we must first find the distance required to circumnavigate the entire country. Although I cannot get an exact number for that, we can get a decent approximation from google maps:
View Larger Map
To travel from Darjeeling in the northeast corner to Trivandrum at the southern tip, to Mumbai, to Amritsar, to Varanasi - which would put us right in front of Nepal, and would take us near every point on my list of things to see - is 7,500 km, according to Google Maps. A bit of basic research on the Indian train system shows us that the average train speed for the mid-range trains is at least 50kmph. If we use these numbers and divide 7,500km (the total travel) by 50kmph (the average speed of travel), we arrive at a total travel time of 150 hours, which is to say that, if our route is 7500 km long, and we do nothing but ride the train, it would take us 6.25 days of total travel time to circumnavigate the country. If we allocate 5 weeks of total India travel time, this means that less than 20% of our time will be spent traveling.
Also, bear in mind that those numbers are very conservative, as we are not going all the way to the southern tip of India, nor is it even certain that we will start in the northeast corner of India. We might begin in Goa so we can gather intelligence from the robust backpacker scene, which would cut total distance down to 3500km, which equates to just under 3 days of total travel time.
Another consideration is that there are much faster trains to be had that can take us pretty much anywhere in the country in 24 hours or less. If we travel on these newer, faster trains, we can reasonably expect average speeds in excess of 100kmph, which would cut our travel time down to as few as 1.5 days.
All that said, if we find a spot that we like, we can certainly spend some additional time there. When I took my 14 days of leave in Thailand in August 2008, my plan was to spend a few days in Bangkok and a week in Koh Tao, and during the last four days I was going to do things like an elephant trek, cave kayaking, rock climbing, and whitewater rafting in Phuket (I had actually prepaid for these things), but I decided to stay in Koh Tao (even taking a loss on the prepaid Phuket adventures) because I was enjoying myself so much.
When I find a place I like, timetables take second priority to enjoying myself, but I also tend to get bored easily. Besides, when there are so many interesting things to do elsewhere, why settle for one place? I don't intend on rushing through any of these countries, but I don't intend on settling down in any of them either. In every country, there are a few areas/activities which are the most interesting, the most fun, the best of the best - and those are the things that I'd like to see and do. I'd like to do the Gibbon Experience just as much as I'd like to hike to Mt Everest base camp, see the Golden Temple, Angkor Wat, Chiang Mai, the backpacker scene at Goa, etc, etc, but most of these things take only a few days to a week to experience - any longer than that, and I tend to get bored. After what we have come to see has been seen, after we are sufficiently rested, after we have had our fill of conversation with the locals, it is time to move on to the next thing. That is the nature of traveling, at least if one is to do anything more than sit around drinking beer all day.
Don't forget, Ryan - I have traveled a good bit thus far, and I have had a good time during all of my travels. I have a pretty good idea of how to balance the desire to see things with the desire to sit in one place and have a good time. I will not be rushing through things in India, but I would feel like we wasted time if we spent the entire four months in one country.
In 2007, I went to Germany for two weeks. In those two weeks, my friend Dan and I managed to circumnavigate the entire country, and we had a GREAT time. Here are a few pics:
This was taken at some small bar in Garmisch. Dan and I went out looking for something to do, heard a commotion coming from a hotel, went in to investigate, and found some stairs leading down to this bar. We drank there for hours, and then proceeded to get completely lost in the city. We eventually found our hotel after a few hours of wandering around, half drunk, on empty streets, with a huge plastic case full of beer.
This was taken in front of the Hofbrauhaus (literally "House of Beer") in Munich. It was one of the main gathering places for the German National Socialist Party in the 1930's, and Hitler gave many speeches there. We happened to be there during Fasching, and we met these girls during the celebrations. I have no idea who the guy is; he just happened to be standing there when we took the picture. I don't think he even spoke any English.
This was also taken in Munich. These guys were two bums to whom I decided to give the rest of my beer. We drank with them for a bit before they tried to get us to go down a dark alley. Common sense kicked in, and we said our farewells - but not before getting this picture.
Inside the Hofbrauhaus was a polka band, and this lady kept asking me to dance. I kept refusing, but eventually, she grabbed me as I was walking by and wouldn't let me go. I can't dance at all, and I never found out if she regretted her decision to dance in front of me while I flailed as if I were having a drunken seizure for 15 minutes.
Met this girl in Frankfurt. Goddamn, she was gorgeous. She was a medical student, actually. I felt a bit intimidated by that, but I don't think she cared about our differing stations in life much...
This was taken in southern Bavaria, right next to the Alps. That castle in the background is Neuschwanstein, built by King Ludwig in the 1800's. If it looks familiar, that's because the Disney Castle is modeled after it. Oh, and we are standing on a bridge that spans a huge gap between hilltops - it was about 500 feet above the valley below.
This was taken in Berlin, and that's me in the picture. There was a trance club in on the top floor of that building in the nearmost room. We went up to it later that night, but it was pretty lame, probably because we were the only ones there who were restricted to alcohol.
The gas chamber at the Dachau concentration camp.
Absinthe in Leipzig. I drank four of them, and it's not all it's cracked up to be.
I have many more pictures like this, but you get the point. We went everywhere and did quite a few things in two weeks. We visited every major city, saw some good attractions, met a bunch of people, and had a great time, and we traveled about 2500km in the process.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
India
Yesterday, I was trying to decide whether we should cancel the India/Nepal leg of our trip and instead see Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore (collectively known as the Malay Archipelago). After doing some research on Indonesia and Malaysia (I already know a bit about the Philippines and Singapore), I decided that the better idea would be to stick with the India/Nepal plan, for two main reasons: I've heard much more good things about India and Nepal than the Malay Archipelago, and, well, India/Nepal was my original plan, and I tend to stick with my plans - even tentative ones - unless I have good reason to change them. Since the vacation value of India and Nepal vs the Malay Archipelago seems to be a wash, I am sticking with India and Nepal.
So, I have narrowed the countries we will visit down to India/Nepal and Thailand/Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam (which will be referred to as the SE Asian Mainland from here on), and since India is such a vast country, it seems logical to allocate two months to India/Nepal and two months to the SE Asian Mainland.
The trip is scheduled to begin on the first of March, and assuming we are able to get our Indian visas in Bangkok in a week, we should be in India by March the 10th, which is a week before Holi. If we spend 5 weeks in India, we will arrive in Nepal towards the end of April, which is a great time for hiking the Himalayas, as temperatures are relatively warm and everything is in full bloom. That will give us three weeks in Nepal, which is just enough time to complete either the Mt Everest Base Camp hike or the Annapurna Circuit hike. More on that below.
Edit: It looks like Holi begins on March 1 this year, so we may be starting the trip a week early. It will cost me $1.5k to lose that week of work, but Holi seems like something that is not to be missed.
That said, here is a preliminary list of places I'd like to go in India:
- Darjeeling
- Kolkata
- Varanasi
- Goa
- Mumbai
- The Golden Temple at Amritsar (Next to Chandigarh, but closer to the Pakistani border)
- Delhi
- The Taj Majal at Agra
- Jammu and Kashmir, specifically Ladakh, which is the much safer eastern portion of the state. However, this is contingent on both stable Indian/Pakistani/Chinese politics as well as advice given to us from other travelers in India.
- Teh Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya, which is where Buddha attained enlightenment (between Kolkata and Varanasi).
This is a dynamic list - it can (and almost certainly will) change, depending on a variety of factors. It is likely that once we are actually in India, we will receive many recommendations from more experienced travelers and will modify our plans accordingly, but I think it is a good idea to have at least a vague notion of what one wants to do when traveling in strange lands before one arrives there. It is easier to build a framework when time is plentiful, and to modify it as necessary when time is short, than it is to start with nothing and plan the trip from scratch upon arrival. Others may disagree, and if I did not have 12 hours of time to surf the internet every day, I would probably not do nearly as much research as I am doing, but I need a way to pass the time, and reddit has gotten old.
Anyways, what I'm trying to do is determine the best point of entry and basic route to see these things. Should we start at Varanasi or Darjeeling for Holi, stay a few days in Kolkata, head to Goa, head back up the northwest cost to Mumbai, northeast to the Golden Temple at Amritsar (possibly further into Ladakh) before crossing the border into Nepal?
Edit: Alternatively, we could just fly into Goa, which is somewhat of a mecca for backpackers in India, and decide where we want to go from there based on what we find from talking to people. Holi isn't such a big deal in Goa, so we'd miss out on that, but we could circle back and see Varanasi and/or Darjeeling before heading into Nepal if we want to.
Also, there's the possibility that we see mainland SE Asia first, and do India/Nepal second. Either way, we're going to be hot in June and July.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Blog Title?
For those of you who are not familiar with my plan to conquer the world, my next goal to that end consists of a four month trek through Asia. This trek will begin on the first of March, and if everything goes as planned, it will take us from the southern tip of India to Nepal, possibly through Myanmar, down into Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, and if we have time, into China and Mongolia. I say 'we' because I will be flying my little brother, Ryan Whitehead, into asia, and we will be doing this together.
Now, a trip such as this requires a lot of planning to get things right, and I decided that a good format for said planning would be that of a blog for three main reasons: it's easy, anyone can read a blog, and visitors can leave comments on the posted articles. The latter reason ties into why I am creating my travel blog two months early: my brother and I need a place to collaborate on the trip, and a blog serves that function perfectly.
While attempting to create a general outline of the trip, I will be posting articles on possible landmarks to visit, routes to take, and preparations to be made, and any and all suggestions will be duly noted and appreciated. If you have some experience with traveling, or if you have been to any of the countries we are planning on traveling through, or you have some general recommendations on travel, feel free to post your suggestion/recommendation as a comment.
To this end, I have made commenting as easy as possible - anonymous comments are allowed, and no login is required to do so. Even if you just want to suggest a place we should visit, no matter how obscure, if it is in one of the countries we are traveling through, please post your suggestion. Some of the countries we will be visiting are immense, and it is often the places which are overlooked by tourists (and thus touring websites) which are the most awesome. Besides, everyone's seen the Taj Mahal, but how many people have been to the birthplace of Buddha or the island where The Beach was filmed? The information on India alone is enormous, as is China, and that's only two of 9 countries.
I simply do not have the willpower to find all of the cool things to see in all of these countries, nor do I remember all of the interesting things that I have stumbled across on the internet - but you might. If you remember something interesting in one of these countries that you would like to see one day (or you think that I would like to see), by all means, please, make a suggestion, and if it can be integrated into our trip, we will probably go there.
Note that I am not creating a strict timetable/route plan for this trip, because on trips like this, plans change, and restricting spontaneity for the sake of sticking with a plan usually leads to regret. However, when undertaking a trip as gargantuan as this one will be, it is foolish to do so without having at least a general idea of where we are going, which order of visitation would be the most efficient, and what preparations need to be made for travel in each country. There are literally thousands of points of interest in these countries, and the best way to see the best of the best is to have a general plan of what we want to see, and in which order we are want to see them.
Also: any suggestions for a blog title? I found a good url, but I'm not so sure about the title... ;)
Update: After thinking about this for half a minute, I came to the conclusion that traveling nine countries in 4 months is nuts, so the new goal is India, Nepal, and mainland SE Asia (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam), and anything beyond that is icing on the cake.
Now, a trip such as this requires a lot of planning to get things right, and I decided that a good format for said planning would be that of a blog for three main reasons: it's easy, anyone can read a blog, and visitors can leave comments on the posted articles. The latter reason ties into why I am creating my travel blog two months early: my brother and I need a place to collaborate on the trip, and a blog serves that function perfectly.
While attempting to create a general outline of the trip, I will be posting articles on possible landmarks to visit, routes to take, and preparations to be made, and any and all suggestions will be duly noted and appreciated. If you have some experience with traveling, or if you have been to any of the countries we are planning on traveling through, or you have some general recommendations on travel, feel free to post your suggestion/recommendation as a comment.
To this end, I have made commenting as easy as possible - anonymous comments are allowed, and no login is required to do so. Even if you just want to suggest a place we should visit, no matter how obscure, if it is in one of the countries we are traveling through, please post your suggestion. Some of the countries we will be visiting are immense, and it is often the places which are overlooked by tourists (and thus touring websites) which are the most awesome. Besides, everyone's seen the Taj Mahal, but how many people have been to the birthplace of Buddha or the island where The Beach was filmed? The information on India alone is enormous, as is China, and that's only two of 9 countries.
I simply do not have the willpower to find all of the cool things to see in all of these countries, nor do I remember all of the interesting things that I have stumbled across on the internet - but you might. If you remember something interesting in one of these countries that you would like to see one day (or you think that I would like to see), by all means, please, make a suggestion, and if it can be integrated into our trip, we will probably go there.
Note that I am not creating a strict timetable/route plan for this trip, because on trips like this, plans change, and restricting spontaneity for the sake of sticking with a plan usually leads to regret. However, when undertaking a trip as gargantuan as this one will be, it is foolish to do so without having at least a general idea of where we are going, which order of visitation would be the most efficient, and what preparations need to be made for travel in each country. There are literally thousands of points of interest in these countries, and the best way to see the best of the best is to have a general plan of what we want to see, and in which order we are want to see them.
Also: any suggestions for a blog title? I found a good url, but I'm not so sure about the title... ;)
Update: After thinking about this for half a minute, I came to the conclusion that traveling nine countries in 4 months is nuts, so the new goal is India, Nepal, and mainland SE Asia (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam), and anything beyond that is icing on the cake.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
