Spirit Island Via A Rented Canoe in The Rain
As I am getting older, there’s things that I just thought would come into my life, big and small, that just somehow, for the most part, haven’t. For example, I assumed I would do more snowshoeing and snowboarding trips in the winter, and I always wanted to get more into duck hunting, fishing, and canoeing. I have a real hate on for motorboats though, as I know several people who own them and I end up doing a sizeable amount of winterization each year in exchange for an hour long lap around the lake every two or so years. Though, I am not too sad these things are minimal in my life, I’ve put very little effort into them, usually picking something else to spend my time on. So its always a nice treat when someone else talks me into it.
It wasn’t my idea, few of my adventures are. As is often the case, Natalie had suggested it. Her and her boyfriend Cole were coming to Alberta for the Calgary Stampede and she wanted to do the famous Spirit Island canoe trip. I had never heard of it before her, which is odd, I’m usually pretty up on things.
I drove my barely running Subaru to meet them in Jasper. That evening we went to Pyramid lake so I could practice my fly casting and we had dinner on the beach, souvlaki skewers and a bagged salad, not a bad feed when roughing it. In the morning, we braved the nightmare traffic to get to the downtown shop and get our rental gear and the key for the canoe lock up. From there it was a lengthy drive to Maligne Lake. We parked our vehicles, found our canoe locked on the stand, heaved it to the shore and began loading equipment.
Three’s a crowd in a canoe, you never know who to put in the middle and which side to paddle on. We switched out throughout the day, each time we stopped for a snack or the bathroom. We also had to spin and face into the waves created by the big boats ferrying tourists to spirit island. Stronger canoers with better balance likely wouldn’t have this problem. We eventually rolled into our site, behind some very gear laden video bloggers, they did not appear to be having much fun when not filming. They should take up writing, its the thinking-mans vlog. We found a nice campsite near the shore and made ourselves comfortable around one of the fire pits, the other had clearly been commandeered by another group of older gentlemen who really made it into a nice kitchen, complete with tarp a tarp roof. We would later befriend them, nice guys who were there for the fishing, and having some luck.
After making camp, we loaded back into the canoe, less our gear, and went further down the lake to our intended destination of Spirit Island… though we couldn’t actually go onto the island, we just canoed to the view point, also at the time it was a small peninsula. The whole thing was a technicalities mess, but we had fun on the walking path and on the stairs getting us up nice and high to see it. I kept being told its a spiritual place with great significance to the local First Nations but no one there, or online, was able to be specific about that. The only useful information I am able to find is that someone in 1960 won a Kodak photo contest by taking its picture. While we were there as tourists, less good tourists were also there, hauled in on a boat that they didn’t paddle themselves. They did however, feel very comfortable climbing into our canoe, left unattended on shore, to get some pictures. I was tempted to push it out with them in it, allowing them some impromptu paddle practice, but everyone panicked and scattered as I got close. Please dont touch my things, even if they’re just things I rented.
We got our pictures, and our fill of fellow tourists and made out way back. I fished a bit from the canoe without so much as a nibble. Along our journey, Cole was wearing a painted straw cowboy hat, mother nature took offence and a gust of wind blew it off. As penance for that one time in 1997 that I littered, karma planted that cowboy hat right on my beak. Not sure if you’ve ever had a solid cowboy had sneak up on you from the front, but its a rather disorienting experience. I wasn’t paying attention then suddenly a white blur slapped me and blocked my vision, for a moment I thought seagull had taken offence to may paddling technique. Once back at the site, my sore nose and I continued to fish the shore and continued to do little more than practice casting. Dinner was communal affair, a lovely South African family had joined us and tried their very first smores. At some point a young family showed up and couldn’t find space, the dad was frustrated, but polite, and suggested everyone get out their paperwork as it appeared someone was in imposter, camping illegally. There was brief moment of us all looking at each other suspiciously. Before papers could be produced, the final empty campsite was found buried in the woods.
Three in a canoe was a crowd, but so was our sleeping situation as we were only able to book a single site and it was explained to me clearly and slowly by Parks Canada that it was one tent per site. A second tent would cause steep fines, ridicule, exile, and making fun of my hiking pants. So the three of us spent the night in the tent. Luckily it was quite large so we didn’t have to cuddle, though, due to weather, I did offer. Fair bet that I snored, but somehow no one mentioned it.
The last day of our trip we paddled against the wind, all three as hard as we could, as the rain came down. The ride out was a fun look at the scenery, the ride in felt like voyageurs hauling furs up river, methodic, hard rowing, and lacking in fun. Admittedly, a song would have helped but none of us are singers. I sat in the middle of the boat, grinding the tops of my feet into the hull under my own weight, when stopped on the shore for rest, I stuffed what I could under me but by then my feet were already asleep and my ankles sore.
After what felt like a few days paddling we arrived at the docks. Cole got his truck while Natalie and I unloaded and stowed the canoe. Cole backed down to us and we loaded up, he also informed me that his heater core had failed recently so he just plugged the lines off because he usually didn’t need it anyway, so now he had no heat. Initially, my instinct was to feel bad for him, but then I remembered he lives somewhere that doesn’t require his vehicle to have heating. We changed into dry clothes and warmed up in my car while eating whatever snacks were left. From there it was a drive into town, an afternoon lunch, then a goodbye. They had to get to Banff, and I had to get home. I haven’t seen them since, but Natalie has invited me on her next group canoe trip, Cole has politely declined his invitation, but I’ll see them both soon in the Philippines, hopefully there’ll be less cold rain and paddling against the wind, but with my trips, you never really know.
Post story
Just as a post amble, not much technical to this one, we rented a canoe and all the gear from a local shop, its a pretty sought after campsite that Natalie was able to get her hands on. Really just a big thank you to Natalie on this one, it was her idea, her planning, and all her photographs. Cole and I just paddled, and I fished a bit. As a side story, I was in a customers house for work and he had an old framed photo of Spirit Island from, I would guess the 60s, that he said he took himself. Something about that warmed my heart, knowing people have been going to see this little place for a long time and someday Ill be the old guy with the photo framed in my house that people will comment on. As for canoe camping, it was as much fun as I thought it would be, even with the weather. It also has the advantage that you dont have to be as concerned about weight, so you can bring little luxuries like a full sized pillow.
Posted in Fishing, Travel and tagged adventure, backpacking, canoe, Jasper, maligne lake, Outdoors, spirit islandwith 1 comment.
Peru Part 5: An Oasis and An Ending
The trip was coming to an end, I could smell it in the air and it was effecting my mood.
The day we boated out of the jungle, we also flew to Arequipa. The town itself was old Spanish colonial with beautiful stonework buildings. During a tour of a convent, I threatened to leave the girls behind to adjust their attitudes. They didn’t take the threat seriously. Our stay was short because our only reason for being there was to see Colca Canyon. Our bus tour started at 3am, and fearing a repeat of the Rainbow Mountain incident, I preemptively dosed myself with medications. The tour bus stopped for breakfast at a terrible café that served scrambled eggs and what I referred to as “judges bread” as I banged it on the table like a gavel… no one laughed but that’s show biz, baby. At the canyon itself we did see a few condors flying in the distance and some people dressed in rather impressive condor outfits getting photos with tourists for tips. Somehow during this outing, my paternal instincts earned me the nickname “Father Condor”… Made me regret not leaving my companions at the convent. After the canyon we took a night bus to Ica. The bus was actually kind of fun, but uneventful. I sat on the top level a the very front and had an amazing view of the sunset and sunrise and watched movies in-between.
In Ica we somehow had our wires crossed and ended up at the wrong address, a van passing by stopped to inform us this was a bad neighborhood and that if we were staying we should not go out at night. NOTED. We got properly orientated and situated at the right address a bit further north at what I chose to assume was a safer area. I had a bit of a nap but was in a bad mood from the girls giving me a mean nickname and definitely not sleep deprivation and being a little hungry. We had some local Chinese food that I can only describe as bad and then caught a taxi to Huacachina, a small Oasis in the desert. It appears designed for post cards. I wanted to rent a buggy and fly through the dunes but was informed we could only get driven around by “professionals”. We bought our tickets and were walked to the buggy, a Nissan 4×4 that had the body stripped off and some chairs and a frame welded on. Looking at the bald street tires I didn’t have much hope for this trip. I was wrong, that driver must have been having marital problems because he drove that rig like he didn’t want to go home. We got a bit of air a few times and all my videos have excited screaming in them. We stopped and did a few short trips down the sand dunes on toboggans, plywood with some plastic on them shaped vaguely like a snowboard. The buggy was wilder than expected and the sand boarding was milder, but as any good Canadian, I have had several near death experiences on toboggans so maybe my perception is skewed.
It was now Renata’s turn to pick an activity. She chose a vineyard tour, at first I wasn’t very excited but, I skipped breakfast and we did a wine tasting first… so I got in the spirit pretty fast. With the better part of a buzz on, we got to tour TACAMA, the oldest Vineyard in South America. They explained a lot about wine but I was just enjoying the fresh air and architecture. I’m not sure I’ll ever be a wine guy, but I’m definitely a have a few drinks and wander around an old farm guy. That evening we found a street food vendor doing chicken shawarma and given the last few days of bad food, this food was nearly a religious experience.
Mildly hungover and sad to be leaving the shawarma stand behind, we caught a bus to Paracas, Peru’s tourist town. A small oceanside town with an abundance of hotels and restaurants but somehow, the locals just couldn’t quite connect the dots to make it fun. First was our hotel, Renata and I got put in a room right beside the reception so all night we could hear the receptionist getting phone calls, and in the morning guests stood outside our door to shout their daily plans to each other. We asked about changing rooms or even to a partner hotel across the street and were told that was not possible. We asked the hotel across the street anyway and they said they would be happy to… so we moved before anyone could change their minds. Natalie and I wanted to do some scuba but could only find a few places offering it, but it was actually through the same dive shop. The prices were steep and the photos looked like it was just mucky water. I looked into renting a bike to cruise around, maybe drive through the desert nearby but all we could find were little scooters. Then I found dune buggies but they were small cc and guided tour only, the tour was slow along a paved road. This place felt like a retreat for toddlers.
We ended up hiring a car to take us for a drive to some local beaches and viewpoints. The ocean was too cold to swim in and the wind was picking up so we mostly got driven around. The guide was fun and insisted on getting a bunch of funny photos of all of us jumping at the same time. Somehow, at the time it was about the funniest thing we had ever seen. We then had a lazy day of walking around the town and the beach nearby, ate some seafood and had an early night.
We caught the bus to Lima and I could feel the dread in my chest, the trip was winding down. We met with Fiorella again, she returned my jacket and took us around the city for last minute shopping and a tour. We had a nice dinner and watched a movie in our rental apartment, which was probably the nicest place we stayed. It was a high rise with big windows and a view of the ocean. I was sad to leave but real life was calling, I had to get back to work and to my little apartment.
All that was left was to get home, and Air Canada did such a bad job of it that they ended up booking me a flight on WestJet that got me home 12 hours late. Typical of Canadian Airlines.
Peru was a lot of fun, and like everywhere I’ve been, I feel like I scratched the surface. Now find myself daydreaming about going back and exploring just a little more… maybe someday, until then, I’ve already got other destinations in the planning stages.
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Posted in Travel and tagged backpacking, peru, travelwith 1 comment.
Peru Part 4: Glamping In The Amazon
When people think of The Amazon, they get images of dangerous animals and impenetrable bush. Man eating cats and bold men, like Sasha Siemel. I was surprised to find that some of the nicest accomodation of my trip was in the middle of the jungle just a few miles (as the parrot flies) from where Paul Rosalie makes camp.
We flew from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado, a town on the edge of the Amazon. I had been to the edge of the amazon before. Just rubbing elbows with it had resulted in a hostel robbery, a symphony of puking men, and a bus ride that I consider a brush with death. This time I was much further south, and hoping it would be a little more relaxed. We stepped out of the airport, shocked at how hot it was outside, just a gross, wet heat. The micro van was no less hot as it snaked its way through the city to the hotel. This city was deep inland, nearly in Bolivia, but the flip flop clad motorcycle riders had a real island vibe so did the big palms lining the streets. We got checked into our hotel and explored town a bit. The only notable things from that first day are my big chicken lunch and then going last for a shower and noticing that no one in the group turned on the electric water heater, so I was the only one who got a lukewarm shower instead of a cold one.
Late morning we hauled our gear to Jungle Pros and were told to separate out the essentials, as though my backpack was full of luxuries. We left as much as we could in a storage closet and the rest was tossed onto a long skinny boat. We were introduced to our guide, the boatman, and a lovely swiss couple who would be joining us for the trip. I don’t know if I was ever told their names, but I do know I don’t know their names now. They were friendly people and were making their way all around South America and eventually up to Canada in a Land Rover with a rooftop tent. A brave endeavor if ever there was one. I was, naturally, quite envious of this. But, to be fair, I am envious of anyone doing anything that isn’t working or sitting around… actually sitting around is kind of nice too.
Once we were prepped and loaded, the big outboard motor hummed us upriver. Along the banks we spotted howler monkeys and capybaras and were treated to a delicious lunch of fried rice with tofu and veggies. I’m not usually a fan of tofu, but like any great meal, the atmosphere and company played a role. We passed our intended camp and went ashore where we were handed rubber boots to march into the jungle. It wasn’t a long walk and it ended at a little lake with another boat, a raft with a deck across two hulls, each about the size of a canoe. A bunch of us took turns paddling at the back of the boat until we got to our fishing spot, a task I was eager to volunteer for because I like to feel involved and it distracted me from my upset stomach. We were then handed long branches with about six feet of fishing line, a wire leader and a single hook at the end. A pale piece of beef was pulled from a plastic grocery bag and cubed into small pieces with a dull machete. We put the cubes on the hooks and the hooks in the water. I don’t know who caught the first piranha that day, but it was sure exciting when they did. Its a very human reaction to pull a fishing pole up, see a toothy fish come at you, then swing it away… right at someone else in the boat. For about half an hour we were best described as a flying piranha regatta. Probably not the right use of regatta but exceptions get made when it has a nice ring to it. It is my belief that I caught the largest fish of the day, though, being to gentleman that I am, I didn’t brag about it until now. I also only caught one, they are very much like perch, a surprisingly gentle bite and will steal your bait if you aren’t fast enough. In that same lake we witnessed a family of giant otters playing, we were close enough I could hear one slurping and crunching as it ate a fish. We got to our camp after dark and were shown to our cabins. I thought there had been a mistake, it had a porch, queen sized beds, and a high pressure shower with hot water. Rather uptown for a fellow like me.
Despite our fancy accommodations, I was forced out of bed at 3am for the days events. We loaded back into the boat, like a family into a station wagon on a cold Christmas morning. Tired, wrapped in blankets, excited for what the day held. It was well before daylight and we were warned against using our phones or headlamps as the driver needed to retain his night vision. So, I stared at the stars while the boat hummed us upstream for two hours with little more than moonlight to guide us.
As day was breaking, we unloaded and scrambled across some rocks on a sandbar, the guides set up spotting scopes and chairs. We felt very far from civilization, but there were probably 40 other people there from different tours. We watched the birds come in, land on the cliffs, and lick the clay. The guide had told us they do this for the salt. Once the early morning action died down, we had some breakfast and found our way back to camp.
I had an afternoon nap as best I could, in the evening we climbed a tower of stairs 50m tall to get above the canopy to get another look at the birds and watch the sun set. I actually didn’t like this much, I dont care for heights and that tower was so tall it had a natural sway to it that kept me clutching the hand rail. We worked our way down the tower and were given a night tour of the jungle. Our guide used a UV flashlight to point out all the scorpions and spiders hiding on the trees. Many of us used red light headlamps to navigate. A funny thing happened, when we bumped into another group. Both groups crowded around our guide who was showing a glowing scorpion and asked us to turn our lights off. We all did, except one woman in front of me was having trouble, in a sour huff, she swung her headlamp toward me and said “here, honey, I can’t figure this thing out.” Without much thought I took it, clicked the single button on the top and it turned off. I then realized, she probably meant to hand it to her husband, so I offered it to the man beside me who denied being her husband, which then led to a comical game of “is anyone here this woman’s husband?” sheepishly, a man across the group admitted guilt and accepted the headlamp. This led to a joke that lasted over a week in our friend group, usually along the lines of “he’s our boy, get your own”. That evening, after dinner we stayed late in the dining area with our guide and had a long chat. It was clear that he was passionate about his work and knew a lot about the history of the area. To me, that passion is what makes a guide good, that joy of being there and sharing it with people. This is also when he mentioned that he was friends with Paul Rosalie who lived nearby. For those not in the know, he is a conservationist and author who has a very interesting Instagram and has even been on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
The next morning, we said our goodbyes, loaded up, and headed out. I think a longer trip would have been either exhausting, or require enough downtime to turn boring. Two nights was the right amount. We got lunch in town and then hit the airport again, this time flying to Arequipa via Cusco. The airline lost Renata’s luggage and we got to the apartment late. Her luggage was eventually found and returned, for dinner we went to a sushi restaurant and because I don’t know sushi, I told the waitress to surprise me. It ended up being another amazing meal on this trip.
Technical data
The jungle trip was Natalie’s idea, and it a darn good one at that. We used a company called Jungle Pro they are highly rated on google, trip advisor and every other rating website I can think of. The lovely swiss couple are documenting their trip via Instagram on their account RustyGary (the name of their Land Rover), I’m sure they’d appreciate a follow and are always posting interesting content from their travels.
Posted in Fishing, Photo Drop, Travel and tagged adventure, amazon, backpacking, bird watching, jungle, Outdoors, travelwith 2 comments.
Peru Part 3: Sick As A Dog And A Day Of Rest
I often feel a bit of a fool when writing. I tend to default to “and then I, and then I, after that we, then we, and then I” and it makes me feel like a toddler telling someone about their day. I’m excited about what happened but do my readers really want a chronological play by play that almost feels like a police report? So here’s my attempt at something with a little heart.
I find myself losing sleep a night thinking of all the places I will never go, and the places I have been haunt me as places I may never see again. I want to see Africa and hunt big game and ride the famous ore train in Mauritania. I want to go back to the Himalayas and feel the cold air on my face and take deep breaths in the Buddhist temples and smell the tapestries older than the country I am from. I want to spin the prayer wheels and hear them squeak on their metal rods. I want to see the huge vultures fly overhead again, but the truth is, I barely survived the first time.
This was my second try at South America. The first time through I went home six months into my one year trip nearly 40lbs lighter. I was sick, downright sick. Food just wouldn’t stay in me and I didn’t want to eat anyway. It broke my heart and irreparably damaged my now ended marriage. And I was now in Peru.. in South America.. again, and sick again. Natalie had stayed in the apartment that day feeling unwell and I wished I had joined her. I had been sick for over a week, just a problem beginning daily anew. A combination of nerves, bad genetics, and bad food. Earlier in the week, a horrible tasting Hawaiian pizza Vanessa and I split ended my day early. In fact, one of the few things that didn’t upset my stomach was the alpaca burger I tried, though, spiritually, that didn’t feel great. The day before, our usual driver, Victor, had taken us through the sacred valley and showed us amazing sights including open air salt mines that had somehow never come under the thumb of a major conglomerate, instead remaining the property of the community, growing as the families did. For me though, the trip was simply a drive from bathroom to bathroom while swilling Pepto-Bismol and taking concerning amounts of anti-diarrhea meds. Its funny to talk about but at the time, it broke my heart, because I cant help but think of the person I could be if I weren’t sick.
Instead of hanging back with Natalie, I joined Renata and Vanessa for a 4 am pickup to take us to Rainbow Mountain. How could I not? Its THE Rainbow Mountain, the one on the postcards, the one I see on all the dating apps, along with an unusual amount of paddle boarding pictures… that’s not related to travel, but why are so many people on dating apps into paddle boarding? it always struck me as boring. At any rate, as we stepped out of our apartment, my stomach was making it clear, every step out of my home was in defiance. My stomach churned in a way that I can only describe as a direct threat to my dignity.
The microbus driver was late, he couldn’t find us for nearly half an hour. In his defense, we were in Cusco. I don’t think there’s a harder city to navigate, its all narrow one way roads on steep hills. Walkways and roadways are indistinguishable. He found us, and I pulled him aside and explained I was unwell and would need a bathroom very VERY soon. He shook his head and said we were the first on the bus and the next bathroom was 45 minutes out of town. I told him I probably couldn’t wait that long and he said he would find something. The bus slowly made its rounds, struggling to find each passenger in the maze of a city. After a few stops, I think the guide noticed the sweat beading on my face and waved me off the bus. He took me behind a city bus stop and said “you can pee here”.. this was not the first time someone in Peru thought my stomach ache meant I had to pee. I was starting to wonder if maybe Peruvians dont get digestive issues, that would explain some of the street food I had seen. After clarifying the situation, we got back on the bus. We plowed our way through the very early morning traffic. My entire body tensed and I counted down the 45 minutes on my watch, praying he was telling the truth. True to his word, right on time, we pulled in to a truck stop for fuel. I sprinted to the bathrooms in an outbuilding and had a seat. It was bad, it was shameful, and it was depressing. I was in pain, but in an embarrassing way, a way that rarely gets sympathy. I texted the girls in the group chat and asked them to text me when the bus was done fueling. I sat for a long time. I weighed my options… it was: risk an accident on the bus, or stay there until I felt better enough to travel and maybe try and take a taxi home… but I was nearly an hour away from our rental, would a taxi take me that far? I sat there disheartened and embarrassed, I wondered if traveling just wasn’t for me, and I worried I’d never get invited on another trip. Who would want to travel with me? I’m just sick all the time. The girls didn’t see my text but I heard the bus fire up. Snap decision, I ran and got on.
Nearly an hour of driving later, we stopped for a breakfast. I barely touched it, but again used the facilities and filled my pockets with tissues. The girls ate my share of breakfast, we did have a long day ahead of us. The bus rattled up a gravel and mud road surrounded by amazing mountain views. I squinted my eyes and did my best to distract myself any way I could. I listened to a podcast and tried to imagine everything they talked about in extreme detail. Renata had shown me study that activating your imagination can sometimes shut down anxiety, it worked a little, but as soon as the bus stopped, I b-lined for the bathroom. We started our hike and hit light rain. The hiking wasn’t bad, the exercise distracted me from my stomach and we slowly made our way to the top. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy at the top and the famous view just wasn’t there. We saw a muted red hillside with hazy clouds in the way. We got what pictures we could and waited as long as possible for the weather to clear but it just didn’t. Out of time, we turned and headed down. Once we descended the steepest part, the clouds parted, Renata turned back but I just didn’t have the energy left in me. The clouds came back before Renata could make it back up. The bus ride home wasn’t as tense for me, but I was still off and making use of every bathroom at every stop.
We were scheduled to hike the 7 lakes of Ausangate with the same tour company the following day. Natalie was still sick and I yielded to my stomach’s demands and stayed back with Natalie. It ended up being one of my favorite days of the trip. Vanessa and Renata left early in the morning, and I slept in a little then went to the local shop and got some snacks. I came back and fired up the little ceramic plated propane heater. The apartment was exposed wood beams made of logs rather than squared off lumber, and cracked plaster coated the walls. It looked, felt, and smelt, like a South American home, it had unique architecture and the floors had a charming squeak to them, its imperfections made it perfect to the point that houses here in Canada feel like soulless hospital waiting rooms and office cubicles by comparison. The kitchen was simple, but the kettle worked and that’s all I wanted. Natalie and I settled in on the lounge chair and couch and scrolled through Netflix. I found just the right movie, a comedy from my childhood, The Three Amigos. It was what I needed in that moment, we followed it up with another of my favorites, Tremors. I’m a sucker for a double feature. Natalie hadn’t seen either before. After sufficient lazing about and movie watching, the other girls were back from their trip and we went to Cafe Organik. The waitress walked us to our table, but there was a grey kitty on the chair. She picked him up and carefully set him on another chair at another table without so much as a meow or head raise. We sat and I motioned for her to hand me the cat, she smiled and plopped him on my lap and informed me that his name was Tiburon (the Spanish word for shark). He was soft and cuddly and sat on my lap the entire meal. It was a lazy waste of a day and it was perfect. The following morning, we hopped another flight that would start the jungle adventure part of our trip which was another amazing highlight but also another fight against my health.
Despite my weak stomach and willingness to complain about it… my friends and I are already planning our next big trip so… guess I’m just going to keep powering through. Hope the next trip has a few rest days and friendly cats in cozy cafes.
Posted in Hiking, Travel and tagged adventure, backpacking, Cusco, Ollantaytambo, Outdoors, peru, Rainbow Mountain, travelwith no comments yet.
Peru Part 2: Birthday in Cusco and Salkantay to Machu Picchu
I’ve always hated birthdays, just a reminder of the relentless passing of time and my shortage of progress. The closest thing I’ve ever found to a cure is have really weird birthdays, last year I took my motorcycle off-roading with a friend and didn’t mention it was my birthday until I was leaving, it was a good day. 2023 I was in Pokhara doing a tour of Tibetan culture in Nepal. Wonder what I’ll do next year.
Lima
Natalie and Vanessa arrived in the morning, dropped their gear and we were off. We met with Renata’s local friend Fiorella. They had met via a Facebook group for people wanting to learn new languages and had been video calling to learn English and Spanish. She was kind enough to give us a tour of the city that included a local ceviche place, a visit to a Paddington Statue, a market, a park full of cats, and a fancy restaurant called Clon. I felt a little like Guy Fieri checking out a hole in the wall local joint and fine dining in the same day. Fiorella was also kind enough to hold onto my motorcycle jacket and gloves as I didn’t need them for the remainder of the trip.
Cusco
The girls only got to spend a single night in that nice AirBnb because in the morning we flew to our next destination. Cusco, its an amazing city, but its all steep and narrow stone streets. I joked it wasn’t a walkable city but a climbable one, no one laughed, but that show biz, baby. Our first day there we got checked into a bit of a shabby hotel high up the hill of town and walked down to the market. We had amazing falafel for lunch and somehow I was the only one who didn’t get a little sick from it, which is unusual. We wandered the city a bit and the girls made a few coffee stops and we saw what felt like a few dozen churches.
Birthday
The day of my birthday I met Renata at a café, she had left the hotel long before me. She was kind enough to buy me a pistachio croissant for breakfast. From there we hiked to a giant statue of Jesus, high above the city. The highlight of that was getting a picture with an alpaca named Javier. We then met up with the other girls and went to a market where we had a smoothie. The smoothie lady was very excited about my birthday and kept giving me extra to drink. I think I was the only one not excited about my birthday, I had actually been dreading it and was somewhat dragging myself along around the city that day. For dinner I was taken to yet another fine dining establishment, I had the beef and it was amazing, and a birthday brownie was brought out for me. I felt a little awkward in my travel clothes being served by people in suits, but it is what it is. Fancy restaurants always make me feel like an old farm dog that snuck into the house, it feels a little unnatural like at any minute I’m going to get scolded and removed for no particular reason.
Pisac
As a test and prep for our upcoming trip to Machu Picchu we went to Pisac to see the ruins. We were driven by a delightful man named Victor. He spoke a little english. I had showed Renata the Punch Buggy Game (where you punch someone when you spot a VW beetle). He thought it was hilarious, but I was losing to bad, he started pointing them out to me before Renata could strike. On the way he stopped off to show us a big alpaca and llama farm where we could feed them by hand. Not sure what the point of the place was, but it was sure fun. The ruins themselves were beautiful and we could walk all over them. We hired a guide who seemed knowledgeable but he must have been quite a busy guy because he had a backpack full of homemade goods to sell. He first showed us his polished moon stones, then his hand made flutes, and his hand made beaded birds (identical to the ones we saw for sale in Guatemala), and his homemade aroma therapy oils that he somehow had a perfect factory looking label on… or maybe he was just full of alpaca dung and trying to sell us mass market goods. Hard to say, but I know what I would guess.
Salkantay
At 5am Victor picked us up and drove us to the start of the trek. It was a few hours drive and the last of it was on a narrow road carved off the side of the mountain. Eventually we hit a stand still traffic jam and someone informed us the road ahead had washed out. We were instructed to jump out, gear up, and start hiking. It was lightly raining and I was already cold, I hate starting a hike that way on top of being upset about being reminded just how old I am getting. My friends, my creaky knee, and I all hiked along the road between the jammed cars and micro busses until we saw the washed road and a trail down and around it. As we took the detour I saw the entire community had come together with shovels and pick axes to make our new trail and begin repairs on the road. That road was important, and it would seem the government probably wouldn’t be fixing it soon. We had only hiked about an hour, if that, and we asked someone for directions to our hotel for the night. He pointed at a building and said “that one” we assumed it was a mistake but no, Victor had driven us nearly to our hotels doorstep. We were checked into an uninsulated and unheated room with 7 beds. We dropped our gear and hoped no one else would be joining us. I put on my thin fleece sweater and my rain poncho. I left my down jacket and rain jacket at home hoping for warm weather and reduced weight… I was wrong. I ended up cold and carrying Renata’s poncho in my bag, however she was kind enough to let me wear it. We hiked uphill, in the rain, to Humantay Lake. The hike was all of an hour but I was cold and sweaty at the same time, my flimsy rain poncho, still holding on for dear life from when I purchased it for $1 in Thailand, was really just trapping moisture in. We got to the top and I was feeling a little ill and was immediately annoyed by all the influencers doing costume changes and photo shoots. I get the importance of social media fame for, almost, every job now, but it still annoys the hell out of me to see influencers in the wild. I headed back to the hotel long before the girls. When I got there I put on as many layers as I could and hid under the blankets desperate to get warm. In the evening we all played cards and huddled as close as we could to the ceramic pot being used as a mobile fire pit. Unfortunately we were seated by the door and people were seeing how much they could come in and out and they were most definitely unfamiliar with doors, especially the concept of closing them. The lovely old woman running the place caught on that I was cold and unwell and brought me a hot water bottle to put on my stomach under the poncho. She also started laying down the law on the door being closed. Lovely woman, five stars.
Also, a funny thing happened. It doesnt fit smoothly into the story but I just had to talk about it. The kitchen area for the hotel was outside, and there was a big group staying at the hotel so there was a lot of food being brought in. The chef, was wearing hiking pants and a down jacket, typical of the younger men in the area, but he felt it important to wear a white chefs hat. That on its own was funny enough, but more than once he ran past us, with a tray in each hand, the hat on, and running on his tip toes like a cartoon character sneaking. It was just so candid and caught us all off guard it became something we laughed about a lot on the hike.
Day two of the hike was the real highlight. It was the hike over Salkantay pass… The over part was the problem. It wasn’t raining but the previous days rain had left mud which contained a large amount of horse manure. It was effectively an uphill trudge through wet horse poo. The view at the top was nice, and we did see condors flying high overhead, but the trail was crowded and I was downright exhausted. From the top of the pass we hiked downhill for nearly seven hours. It was long enough I thought we had gotten lost. We eventually landed at our hotel which was noteworthy for how bad it was. Keep in mind how much I travel, this one was probably top 10. The rooms were simple, but had art on the wall that still had the corner protectors on the frames, and one was hung blocking part of the window. The bathrooms upstairs near our rooms didn’t have showers that worked so we had to go downstairs through the, thankfully, empty dining area to get the the shower. Three of us had lukewarm showers, but poor Vanessa had a cold one. There was no shower curtain and the drain didn’t work well which was just unpleasant. In the room I had to smash a bug for Renata, one more reason to bring a real book instead of an e-reader. Now, dinner was another sight, we paid about $5 for it, which is steep in Peru. It was boiled spaghetti with salsa and something similar to parmesan cheese. It. Was. Awful. Just downright bad. I had hiked for nearly eleven hours that day and just couldn’t finish a plate. In the morning we were woken up by a half hour of a diesel engine idling. I was glad to be walking away from that place.
Our hike to the next stop was a boring one. We hiked along the road all day, Renata and Vanessa ran off far ahead so Natalie and I had the day to catch up on gossip. There were a few waterfalls that ran across the road, so I swapped my hikers for crocs. We arrived at the Eco Lodge to find it was actually a really nice hotel and I got my own private room, which was nice. Dinner was veggies, rice, and beef, but the beef was a rather pathetic unidentifiably cut that resembled a bat wing… sometimes, its best not to investigate. After dinner the hotel called us a car to drive us to the local hot springs, the road was narrow, and the shoulders steep. I also noticed a lot of burning clutch smell and the dash lit up like a Christmas tree with warning lights whenever we went up hill. The hot springs were nice, but not worth talking about. We left after dark and I found our car had only one working headlight, and a dim one at that.
The last day of the hike was to a town called Agua Caliente, it was effectively 22km in the heavy rain. Luckily, the rain was warm and we were headed to a hotel so it didn’t bother me much. Renata and I hiked together, we thought we were ahead of the others so we stopped at a hotel/cafe for tea, from there we could see Machu Picchu across the valley, barely. We waited over an hour for the girls, and decided they must have gone around (they actually snuck passed somehow). As we got closer to town we walked along train tracks, where I couldn’t resist the urge to put a coin on the tracks and see what happens. The train squashed it, but not as dramatically as I had hoped. We met the others in town and got into our hotel, again somehow uphill. It was ok, but the windows opened into the hallway not outside, and all night the lights were on and coming in through the window. Somewhere there’s an architect who needs a slap. We then took a day off to rest, we explored town and found another Paddington statue.
Machu Picchu
We had the option to hike to the site, but it was a few kilometers of steep switch backs, so we opted to take the half hour bus. Once up there, we did a self guided tour based on some research I had done, and the previous days rain had left a lot of the drainage and irrigation systems functioning. We were supposed to hike to Huayna Picchu as part of our pass, but due to rainy season, it was closed so we were allowed to go up top to get the famous post card view. There isn’t much to tell of it, the weather was great, the views were great and I was a little sad. I wanted to visit this famous place for decades, ever since I was a kid, and especially since university. I almost went during my honeymoon in 2015/2016 but didn’t quite make it. And now I was here, and it was all just kind of a pile of rocks. I know there’s great history there, but everything was “maybe it was this” and “we think it was used for that” and in the end, it again felt like an influencer photo studio. We got our share of photos too, hopped the bus, got our stuff from the hotel, and caught a train. To be honest, I think the train was almost as much fun, we were comfortable, eating, and taking in the view together.
The Lucky Horseshoe
On the first day of the Salkantay Trek, I had left the lake early and headed back to the hotel to lie under blankets and try to warm up. When the girls came back, they found a horseshoe stuck in a muddy creek bank and knew I would want it. So they brought it back for me. I wrapped it in a plastic grocery bag and stuffed it away in my pack. It stayed there until I got home. I cleaned it with some vinegar and gave it a scrub, it revealed that it was fairly modern (not surprising) and had been made from rebar. It now hangs above my doorway for luck. In Peru I noticed they would hammer them into the floor at entryways, typically on the top step, unfortunately, that isn’t an option in my apartment.
Posted in Hiking, Travel and tagged backpacking, Cusco, hiking, Machu Picchu, Outdoors, peru, travelwith 5 comments.
Peru Part 1: Motorcycle Fool’s Errand
I’ve been to Peru before, but was only in Lima for about a week. I haven’t been to South America since my honeymoon in 2015, that trip didn’t work out, and neither did the marriage. So of course when the idea was suggested in the group chat I was hesitant but also looking for a bit of redemption. Its hard as a writer when you can’t put a feeling into words, that’s my job, but I guess I just wanted to salvage South America. Like if I could go there and have a good time it would undo some of the failures of my past.
The plan was for me and three friends: Natalie, Renata, and Vanessa to all go to Peru together. You may remember them from other adventures like my Guatemala trip. As it turns out, I would be there a week before the girls arrived so I did the natural thing and rented a motorcycle and did a trip north. I found a few motorcycle rental options but the most affordable, by a huge margin, was a Hero Eco 150cc (boasting a whopping 13.5 horsepower). I did a sizeable amount of research on the best available route and decided to do Canyon Del Pato. It was a long flight there, and getting from the airport to hotel resulted in some confusion when my pre-booked ride didn’t show up so they sent another only to have both arrive at the same time. In the evening I explored the city a bit and got some food. Ordering that first meal, alone, in a new country is always a great feeling when successful and in this case I was able to use my Spanish, which felt like a big win.
Lima to Barranca
In the morning I picked up the bike and hit the road. My first impressions were that Peruvians were crazy. Traffic was bad and the motorcyclists belonged in a circus exhibition show the way they drove. I did my best to match their style in an attempt to be predictable. An easy trick was to find a bike and follow it through the traffic. Once I got outside of the city it was a much calmer ride, but my bikes lack of power became quite obvious. I found I was topping out somewhere around 70km/h. The landscape was also a little depressing, it was all desert and sad huts and shacks barely standing. Peru also has a major little problem with at times resulted in a bit of a landfill small. The rental place suggested I see Chancay Castle. I googled some pictures and it looked like an interesting old castle, maybe a relic from Spanish colonialism. I drove half an hour out of my way to find it was actually a theme park… I didn’t go in. I passed a checkpoint and was waved in, my blood pressure spiked and I had visions of Peruvian incarceration because I didn’t have cash for a bribe. Turns out this cop was very honest, he checked my paperwork and we did our best to communicate, eventually he just asked “tourist?” “si, tourist” “ok, have good day”. My hotel for the night was off the beaten path down some dusty back roads and at one point a dog ran out to chase me, I barely got away… my motorcycle was barely faster than a terrier, thank got it wasn’t a whippet chasing me. The hotel was nice, but no one spoke English, with my lacking Spanish they explained that they dont have a kitchen, I had to order food. After some “chatting” with them, they were kind enough to call and order for me. The food was amazing, grilled chicken and french fries. I spent the evening alone in my hotel room wondering just how foolish this idea was.
Barranca to Huaraz
It wasn’t an interesting day, but it was a challenging one. I started the day early as there were predictions of rain and I wanted to get ahead of it. The landscape changed from desert to more grassland and I gained elevation.. nearly 4000 meters of elevation actually. That little bike with its carburetor really struggled, in fact, I was going so slow up the switchbacks that I got pulled over. Again, I was nervous and again the police were honest. A quick license and paperwork check followed by a handshake and a goodbye. I arrived at town tired, dehydrated, and starving and promptly got lost looking for my hotel. Google Maps kept leading my down a dead-end alleyway. After the second time I used satellite view to science it out a bit better and finally found it on the edge of town. Then it took 15 minutes of banging on the door before someone let me in, as usual I was the only guest. I had more chicken for dinner at 5pm, my first meal of the day, and went to bed early not feeling well. I was quite cold, as we were high up, but the hotel had no heaters, the owner was kind enough to give extra blankets.
Huaraz to Caraz
While loading my bike, I tipped it against a brick wall and broke the last inch off the brake lever. Not a great start to the day. The road to the next town was a bit rough, but it was paved. I then deviated to see a lake that the hotel owner in Huaraz had suggested I visit. The road was a sand and gravel mess, more potholes than road and no shortage of wash out. I fought my way up it for 45 minutes and paid to get in to the park. 15 more minutes of driving and I was at Llanganuco Lake. It would have been at home anywhere in the Rockies with its turquois waters. Downhill was a little faster, more in the fashion of a mountain bike than a motorcycle. I made my way to my hotel in Caraz, only to find my phone not able to make calls and no one opening the gate, again I banged on it and rang the bells until someone finally came. A woman with an American accent expressed shock that I was on such a small bike with such little luggage. She let me in, got me squared away and explained that I was the only guest. I joined her for a walk around the property with her dogs, which was quite lovely, then had a nice meal in the attached restaurant. The owner told me she was from Montana originally and she introduced me to her business partner, a woman from Venezuela named Maria. The room was nice, with a big bed, proper shower with hot water, and lamps beside the bed for reading (oddly rare when I travel).
Caraz to… Caraz…
After a few days of rather dull riding along roads that were either straight and boring or tight switchbacks that were a slog, I was excited to finally hit the canyon. Canyon Del Pato is well known for its winding roads, tunnels through mountains, and views of waterfalls. It comes highly recommended on adventure motorcycle travel. I loaded up my bike, bid farewell as they wished me safe travels. At 21km I excitedly went through the first tunnel and was so happy and excited to finally be doing it… but the bike felt…off. I pulled to the shoulder and had a good look at my, now flat, rear tire. Some serious adventure bikers from Argentina stopped to help, but I found my emergency tool kit provided with the bike had no spare tubes in it, just an old wrench and a clutch cable. They aired my tire up and suggested I turn back, which I did. I made it 1km to a cafe, the woman explained that I couldn’t get a tire shop to send someone to me and hiring a truck would be very expensive so I was best to wait for a truck to come by and catch a ride. Only one truck came by, a large gravel truck who couldn’t fit the bike. I decided I best press on, the woman lent me a hand pump more suited to a bicycle. I aired the tire and made it a few hundred feet before it was flat again and now unable to hold air. I couldn’t ride the bike at any speed on the flat so I had to push it. This was going to be a long day so I made a better plan. Stripped off as much gear as I could and changed to a light long sleeve shirt to keep sun off. I grabbed a gear tie (heavy duty wire that can be shaped) and used it to tie my clutch lever half way, then I set my helmet on the throttle as a lock. In this way I could let the bike slowly power itself while just holding it up. It was slow but it worked, except the foot peg would occasionally bash into my calf. A few people on motorcycles stopped but were unable to help, finally enough sun had penetrated my skull that I came up with an idea. The next bike to stop happened to be a young man who spoke some English. I asked if he could get to where there is cell service and call my hotel from last night and see about a truck. He left and I kept pushing, 45 minutes later he came back and said “that’s Maria, I know her, she said she would try and get a truck so just wait here. I’m sorry, I have to go.” and off he went. I stopped in some shade, had some water and a snack, after what felt like an hour, I started focusing on how he said that she said “try to get a truck” and decided I didn’t like that. I started pushing again. Around kilometer 4 and hour 3 of pushing a farmer stopped in his tuk-tuk, I asked if his phone worked and if I could use it. I also thanked myself for taking all those Spanish lessons, because they were absolutely paying off. Maria answered and she excitedly explained that she was on her way in a truck and I should stay put. I thanked the man for letting me use his phone. Within minutes Maria and a man were there with a big truck, a cabover larger than a pickup but smaller than a semi. He and I lifted it up and into the back and rested it on a tire. He drove Maria and I to the tire shop were she came with me to make sure I didn’t get ripped off. The driver asked 120 soles for the ride (about $45), and a new tube, tire, and install was 105 soles (about $40). I couldn’t see what caused the tire to go flat as it had been so beaten by me pushing the bike, there was no obvious puncture, so my guess was I damaged it by hitting a pot hole, or maybe the protective band inside the rim slipped and the spokes poked a hole in the tube, I’ll never know for sure. The driver left, Maria caught a taxi, and I got some gas and headed back to the hotel. It was now nearly 5pm and I was exhausted. I spent the night at that hotel and Maria informed me she was giving me a special deal on the room, which is crazy because she had already saved me, if anything I should have paid extra.
Caraz to Barranca
Unfortunately, due to that lost day and the flat tire, I couldnt keep my original route, I had to turn back and retrace my route. I laughed a little at the fact that I had driven 3 days of meh roads to get through one tunnel of the canyon and then turned around, but thats life sometimes. Now I had 2 days to retrace those steps, so I did the long ride back to Barranca. It was better riding as it was mostly downhill, but the entire time I worried about another flat. In a lapse of judgement, I booked a different hotel this time, something more central. I booked online for about $35 but when I arrived I was checked in and paid $20. In my room I wondered if this was a umm… well… a sex hotel.. there were mirrors everywhere and all the bedding was bright red velvet and zebra print. Putting it out of my mind I had a shower, the bathroom looked like they forgot to finish it, there was exposed water valves they had cut the tile to access and a hole in the top that I assume they plan to put a window in at some point, and there was no shower curtain. I got out of the shower and saw a text from booking explaining that I had been put in the wrong room at the wrong rate and I had to move to the penthouse and pay the difference. It wasn’t much nicer, but it did have a balcony, but it looked out over unfinished buildings and smog. The TV worked, and it was nice to watch a movie.
Barranca to Lima
The road back to Lima was quite dull, just a long 4 lane road through the desert. I did take this opportunity to find that bikes top speed, going down a long hill, full tuck, top gear, full throttle, I hit a whopping 97km/h. I was honestly a little furious at this point. I got back to Lima and white knuckled my way through traffic back to the man I rented the bike from who seemed shocked I was there to return it and told me he would be there in an hour, when I explained I was there now, he arrived in 10 minutes. I showed him the damage to the lever, and the new tire, and politely gave him a bit of a talking to about his pathetically insufficient emergency kit. He seemed genuinely surprised that the tire change tools weren’t in there along with a new tube. He gave me my full damage deposit back and promised the next guy would get a better kit.
I caught an Uber to the AirBnB and got checked in. Renata arrived shortly after and I nearly cried I was so happy to see a familiar face after those last few days. Our internet wasn’t working so the owner came by and fixed it and brought us a bottle of wine to apologize for the inconvenience. We drank it that night, and ate way too many maple cookies after a short walk around town to try a pisco sour. In the morning Natalie and Vanessa arrived and the rest of the trip began.
Honestly, I was quite sad about this part of the trip, the riding I was able to do wasn’t great and the bike was severely under powered for it. I considered a large bike but this one cost $300 to rent while a larger one, 500 cc, cost around $1200. It made me realize the importance of enough power but also my need to learn how to change a tire and have the tools to do it myself. For an experienced biker that could have been a 1 hour setback, I lost an entire day that cost me the main purpose of my trip, that’s on me. I did learn that there are trustworthy people willing to help in these countries, like the friendly police, all the bikers who stopped to help, the café worker who gave me a pump, and especially the hotel owner who came and retrieved me. But in the end, like most things in life, it was on me to help myself and I just couldn’t in that instance. I was off to a rough start, but I have four weeks and three friends to help salvage it.
Posted in Motorcycle, Travel and tagged adventure, backpacking, Outdoors, peru, travelwith 1 comment.
Thailand Notes Part 4: A Resort And An Ending
For the remainder of my trip, I wanted sun, beaches, and relaxation. So I picked a small island and booked a scuba resort.
Koh Tao Island
The process of getting from Chiang Mai to my hotel on Koh Tao Island was quite a long-drawn-out event. Here’s the short version. I caught a plane to a city who’s name I dont recall, and had to deal with taxi drivers and tourists arguing over the cost of transportation… again. I will never understand why a tourist will argue with a taxi driver over $2cad. Spent the night at a hotel, then took a taxi to a bus to a boat to another boat and spent a lot of time baking in the sun between. At some point someone stuck a sticker on my shirt that showed my final destination. It made me wonder how many tourists they’d lost before they came up with that idea. Once again I was alone, heading out to somewhere I had never been surrounded people I don’t know. Luckily Thailand is visually more inviting than Nepal and I arrived at my destination during the day. They also had someone from the hotel pick me up at the dock. I had booked my stay at Ban’s Diving Resort, thinking, to hell with it, I’ll spend the last of my money at some beachside motel and relax. Well, I thought it was a little hotel claiming to be resort, a common exaggeration when you budget travel, but this was, by far, the nicest place I had ever stayed. They had multiple pools, a dozen buildings to house guests, a landscaped garden between, and even a golf cart that worked like public transit. I signed in and signed up for a scuba refresher in the morning, I had my license, but I was rusty. After food I went to bed, sunbaked, desperate for sleep, and thankful I had paid extra for AC.
The refresher was fairly uneventful. I was tossed into a pool with another diver and an instructor and retested on the basics. It didn’t take much for me to get back into the groove. However, I was a little suspicious of the other diver with me. He claimed to have done over 100 dives and to have his advanced open water. His skills in the pool and general lack of knowledge shed some doubt on that. It crossed my mind that no one actually asked to see my certification, and therefore, one could easily lie and just go diving. It strikes me as needlessly dangerous for yourself and those around you but, it could be done. I believe this was the case with that individual but it wasn’t for me to say. After class, I got talked into an afternoon excursion and the dive master was the instructor who gave me the refresher, so it all worked out well. The first dive I was plenty nervous but it was fairly uneventful. It was exciting enough I decided to ignore my budget and take my advanced open water course. The following days dives were a little more exciting. I dove with a French man who was rather rude and pushy underwater, swimming too close to me and to wildlife. He got within inches of a turtle and bluff charged by trigger fish, shame they didn’t nibble him a bit, pain may have taught him a lesson. In the evening I went for a long walk up and down the beach. It was beautiful, but it was lonely. It’s a strange feeling to be lonely in a place many consider to be paradise. I had once read that resort towns, like the big ski towns in The Rockies, have a really high suicide rate because people move there and find it doesn’t solve their problems.
Getting my advanced open water was a lot easier than I had expected. I assumed there would be some course work, maybe some theory, or a test. We just did specific dives. Basically there is a list of dives and you pick 5 of them, that’s the class. In this case, the instructors picked based on what was available to us and what they felt would be the most fun, which is a fair way to operate. We started with a deep-water dive, we went down to 28m and played a math game to check for nitrogen narcosis. A condition I am told will cause a sensation similar to being intoxicated and impact motor skills and brain function. The test was: the instructor holds up fingers and we hold up however many we needed to add to get to 11. For example, she holds up 6, so I hold up 5. It’s a smart test, though somewhat revealing of how bad some of us are at mental math. We were only that deep for about 4 minutes, then slowly worked our way up and took in the sights. Interesting side note, at that depth we hit the thermocline, that razor sharp edge where water gets very cold, if you’ve ever jumped into an Alberta lake you may know what I am talking about. Our next dive was supposed to be a “fish identification” dive where in we practiced hand signals for different species of fish. Once we got down to depth, we saw that the ocean was littered with plastic bottles, one of the instructors went up and got a large mesh duffel while the other got us all stacking the bottles into a pile. In the end we only made a small dent but cleaning garbage out of the ocean was very satisfying. I like the idea of having a task beyond looking around, much like hiking, I prefer to have a goal. After the dive we dumped water out of the bottles and stashed them away. I’m hoping they didn’t just go onto a barge and back into the ocean somewhere else.
Night Dive
We sat on the boat and waiting for dark, as the sun set, we slipped back into the water. Truth be told, I was terrified while waiting on the boat, but as soon as I got in the water I was just excited. It was like motorcycling in the rain, I was so focused on the task and it was such a rewarding challenge, my brain just didn’t have room for fear. We pointed our flashlights and saw the blue patches on a stingray glow. The instructor brought us in a circle and had us shut of our lights and wave our hands. As we did, bioluminescent plankton lit up. It was very faint and you had to really look for it, but the little blue flashes were there. It was not a light show that rivaled fireworks, it was just faint whispers of light not intended for the human eye. After the dive I went to the restaurant attached to the resort and found I couldn’t get anyone to come take my order, or even bring me a menu. This was a common theme at that establishment during my stay. Throughout the week I just went to the nearby 7-11 for suppers and ate them on my balcony. It was quite isolating, and very stereotypical of a tourist to eat all his meals from 7-11. Towards the end of my stay, one of the instructors informed me there was a really good fried chicken restaurant about a block away… I became a regular there during my stay.
The rest of the week was more diving and relaxing. One of the dives was a navigation dive where my partner and I were shown a map, given a slate to draw our own and make a plan, then off we went. I suggested she take the lead as I have a lot of experience with maps and she said she needed the practice. She got lost almost immediately. I recognized a large rock crack and took the lead. We did a lap around the pinnacle and did a swim-through at 26m. I was about to lead us south west to a rock pile, but she stopped me. It turns out I was running very low on oxygen. We made our safety stops and surfaced. The entire ascent, we locked arms ready to share her air via the spare regulator. It never came to that, I ended with just under 15 bars on the gauge. Typically, you try to end with somewhere between 40 and 50 bars of pressure. After that dive we did a shipwreck, unfortunately visibility was horrible. I could barely see my outstretched hand. So I followed the group only able to see their silver tanks in all the green algae. We did a swim through on part of the ship and got some pictures. It was a strange disorienting sensation to be swimming and see the current change direction, without a fixed object for reference, it felt like I was spinning and changing direction against my will. It felt like drunken spins. Diving in poor visibility is something I thought would be terrifying, but once down there I realized that no matter how bad it got… I could just go up. This made it an interesting learning experience, but I was sad I didn’t get a good view of the ship, the pictures I have seen of it look amazing… One more reason to go back.
I decided I wanted to get a tattoo on my second last day on the island. My diving was done and I wanted a full day to recover before taking boats, busses, and planes where aftercare would be difficult. I booked my appointment at a well reviewed shop. He quoted me a price of about $150 cad and told me to be there at 3pm. I came back at 3, after my last dive. He was tattooing someone else and without looking up, he told me to come back at 5. I went for pizza and never came back. To hell with him if he can’t keep a schedule. Didn’t need that tattoo anyway. Later, I had a few drinks at the bar with some of the dive instructors. It was nice to see they were super friendly even off the clock. After a dozen dives and about a week on the island some part of my mind was considering finding a way to stay, maybe get trained as a dive master and make my living that way. Its weird, I was still quite sad and alone feeling, but I wanted to stay. I liked the diving, I didn’t like the empty hotel room.
Back To Kathmandu
My full week in a private room on the resort and diving daily resulted in a bill of just over $800. I don’t know how it ended up that cheap, I was expecting a little over double that but they offered discounts for dives and accommodation. I didn’t ask too many questions or look too close. Happily and hurriedly, I paid my bill and left the office. The next few days were just an uneventful blur of busses, boats and a plane back to Bangkok. I stayed at the edge of town near the airport far from anything a tourist would want to see. The next day I went to the airport and waited for my flight back to Kathmandu. In the airport, I did a tourism survey and was given a small coin purse. It really felt like a scam of some kind but they never asked me for personal information so it must have been legitimate. I also took the opportunity to send a few post cards to my family. While waiting to board the plane I noticed a Nepali man wearing a Magpul shirt. Naturally I went over and complimented it. He informed me he was from Nepal but lived in the USA, hence the firearms shirt. On the plane, near Kathmandu, we hit some hard rain and turbulence. We circled the city for about an hour waiting for the weather to clear. We were told we may divert to Delhi, luckily it didn’t come to that. This time I stayed at the same hostel, they just texted me the room number and I helped myself. It went much smoother than the first time I stayed. I was also very relieved to see the duffel bag I had left behind in storage was still there, dusty, but untouched.
I spent the next few days wandering the streets of Kathmandu in a smug self-satisfied way, I was proud of myself for all I had done. I picked up a few more gifts for friends and family from the various little shops and decided to splash out and stay at a $35 a night hotel my last two nights. It was beautiful, big, and clean. The balcony overlooked a little shrine statue in the alleyway. In the evenings I smoked cigars on the balcony while writing in my journal. Mamita asked to meet me at a café at 9pm. I wandered the dark streets to get there, thinking about how 10 weeks ago they would have terrified me. Upon arrival I found my phone was off, I turned it on and found she had texted me to reschedule for the morning. Mamita met me for breakfast and I told her about my travels, it was nice to catch up. On the way back to the hotel I bought Natalie a Royal Enfield T-shirt to match mine, she had requested it. I wasn’t sure when I would see Natalie again, but we were already talking about her coming to visit me at home during the summer to do some hiking, that did end up happening, along with a few other trips. Repeatedly I repacked my gear for the flight home, and relaxed in my hotel room, for supper I had a water buffalo burger that was positively amazing.
The last day was dull, almost intentionally so. I tried to sleep in, I checked out at 2pm and stored my bags. I walked Thamel one last time and tried my best to soak it in and remember the feeling and the smells. After some lunch, I bought a 200npr copy of H.G Well’s The Time Machine. Finally, it got late enough, I got a ride from the hotel to the airport and started the long trip home. There were long flights and layovers and I had no idea what my life would hold when I got home. At the time, I had no job, and no plan, and was somehow, ok with that. My friend Troy picked me up at the airport, fed me a burger, and delivered me to my apartment. Everything was how I left it, and I didn’t feel too terribly different… Maybe a little thinner… I was sad it was over, and I was glad to be home, it was time to sleep in my own bed, and see what the future held.
There’s no great way to say this, but I took this trip because I hated my job and was depressed about my divorce. It’s hard to say if it helped with either of those much, but I think it turned out to be a net positive for me in other ways. I made friends that I am still in touch with and in less than a week of posting this, I will be meeting Natalie, her boyfriend, and two of her friends in Cabo to do some diving. And probably never would have gone to Guatemala if it weren’t for Natalie and Renata. Aside from the people I met, it let me do a bit of a hard reset and take stock of what I want to do with my life. Certainly I don’t have all the answers, but I know now that I want to keep travelling and I know I want to spend time with friends and family… After some time at home and at a semi-office job, I took another run at HVAC, it turns out that job wasn’t a good fit, but the industry is and I am now a first year apprentice and going to trade school in the new year. Turns out I like working with my hands and fixing things. Not everyone has the opportunity to travel like I do, but that was the life I had built for myself… and this trip has made me optimistic about what the rest of my life could look like now that I have a better understanding of what I do and dont want out of it. As for healing from my divorce, it didn’t help, only time was able to do that. But hey, it might help you, so book the trip, and tell me all about it when you get home.
Thank you to everyone who has been reading these stories… more to come in the future.
Posted in Scuba Diving, Travel and tagged adventure, backpacking, Koh Tao, Outdoors, Scuba diving, Thailand, travelwith 4 comments.
Thailand Notes Part 3: The End Of The Loop
In the morning, we all agreed to stay an extra night at the same hotel in Mae Hong Son, I needed the rest and I think the others did too. We decided to do a day trip to visit a Long Neck Kayan village (sometimes spelled Karen). Riding to the village, the roads deteriorated from nice tarmac to dirt, and just before the village there was a steep downhill. The road was cut out of a hill and had a steep berm on both sides. Courtney and Will were far ahead of me and when I came to the hill, I saw the Courtney had been the victim of our first crash. She was, for the most part, unhurt. She had some scrapes on her elbow and knee, but nothing serious. Her bike took a few dings, and a mirror had spun loose. I used my multi-tool to tighten the lock nut holding the mirror in place, and we continued. We arrived at the village and found it small and nearly empty. We walked the main street and saw a few vendors had small huts set up selling trinkets. The Karen people are refugees from war torn Burma, the women famously wrap brass coils around their necks to give the appearance to a longer neck (it actually pushed down the collar bone creating the illusion of a long neck). The women were friendly, but the village was primarily peoples houses and small stalls selling to tourists. I didn’t want to invade peoples’ privacy and wander into their homes, which I have heard of other tour groups doing. A local woman with excellent English introduced us to some other women selling their souvenirs, I bought a bottle opener for myself and a post card for my nephew. I decided not to take pictures of the locals, it already felt like an awkward invasion of privacy and snapping pictures felt like another level of that. After a very brief tour, we headed out.
Natalie had mentioned seeing a sign along the way for “something she wanted to check out” so we stopped and had a look. It was some sort of business sign outside of a farm and while we debated what it was and if we should pull in, a woman was riding out on a scooter. She informed us that it was a restaurant owned by the farmers. Natalie was interested but Courtney and William weren’t, I wasn’t overly interested myself, but Natalie didn’t have a GPS to get her home. With all the charm of a wet blanket, I decided I best have some lunch with her while the others headed back. We went in to the empty open-air restaurant. Our table was shaded by a thatched roof held up by beams and no walls. The waitress spoke little English so, I just pointed at the cooler and ordered us a glass bottle of soda water, thinking it was cool. It turns out that cooler was just for show. We were brought glasses and a bucket of ice to go with it. I wash shocked at how refreshing that was in the heat. We finished the small bottle, and someone who spoke better English came by. We ordered another bottle of soda water and some chicken with rice. While we ate and chatted, I got my phone onto the Wi-Fi and translated the menu. It turns out their specialty was frogs. I was tempted to try some, but we had just eaten and I was full. At least, that’s the excuse I used. This lunch, somehow, stands out to me as the best meals of my trip, or possibly ever. It was probably the company, and the fact I was in a country I never thought I would see and doing something I never thought I would do. But there I was, on the other side of the world riding a motorcycle in a jungle, and now eating lunch with someone I had known for little more than a month. There was no rush to do anything for the rest of the day, the food was good, and the drinks were cold. We explored the grounds a little and then went back to the hotel to relax for a bit before doing a hike up many many stairs to get to two large stupas. While there we saw monks doing evening prayers. I don’t know for sure, but that high up, we looked west and I am sure we could see Burma. Or, rather, trees that were growing in Burma. We went for supper and then went for a walk so the others could show me roti, a local dessert. It started to rain and we ate our crispy, crepe-like dessert under the eave of a building next to the sweet woman who made it for us. Afterward, we had a late night at the hotel, we sat on the patio out front of our cabin until nearly midnight talking a lot about not much at all and stuffing our faces with snacks from the local convenience store.
I woke not feeling well, a price paid for my over indulgence in sweets before bed. Our first stop of the day was at the Su Ton Pae bridge. On the way there, Courtney and Will had gotten ahead, and Natalie, without a nav system, missed a turn. I struggled to catcher her on the winding narrow road, eventually I flagged her down and we got going in the right direction. It was a large bamboo bridge across a field. I think the field flooded seasonally to necessitate the bridge, but I don’t know that. The bridge ends at a Buddhist temple. While there we hung a small slab of wood, about 2 inches by 6 inches on a wall with others. People write their names and their wishes on them, we put “loop group”, our initials, and “good vibes” on ours. I used the bathroom, on the way out saw a dog curled up drawing ragged breath, I found an empty bowl on the ground and filled it and put it near him. I hope he was just dehydrated and that I helped, but I will never really know.
Our next stop was at Fish Cave, a spring fed cave that became a stream full of carp. They were called Mad Carp because they contain a toxin, and possibly as a result, they are considered holy. At the entrance we were sold a small pail of greens to feed them. When dropped into the water, it was an absolute frothing feeding frenzy. The grounds were well kept, and the river was crystal clear. Natalie had mentioned seeing a sign about a hike from the main road and wanted to investigate after the fish cave. We went and followed the trail until it led to a steep hill with some signage. My phone translator wasn’t overly clear but it seemed to say do not enter, and possibly something about danger. Will and Natalie promptly ignored that sign and continued. Courtney and I decided to head back and wait. We sat in a small wooden hut near a bridge at the trailhead where the bikes were parked. The others were gone for nearly an hour and I think we were both fairly annoyed by that. I think the heat was starting to get to me and my attitude. My grump session was interrupted by seeing locals spear fishing in the river. They had scuba style face masks on and rudimentary fishing spears and were having pretty good luck, it seemed.
Eventually Will and Natalie came back, having found some sort of small monastery at the end of their hike. It was now time to head for the hotel. Unfortunately, we got somewhat separated and Courtney got far ahead. I ended up guiding the others to our destination, the town of Ban Rak Thai, a Chinese settlement, about 1km from the Burma border. I read online it was started by soldiers who were opposed to the communist revolution in China. The town had beautiful red lanterns hung over the streets. At the hotel it was a bit of confusion about rooms but we settled on a 3-bed dorm style room for 1000 baht total. The hotel was also very confusing, it was mostly concrete and wood and had a variety of stairs and ramps going every which way. It felt somewhere between a treehouse and a maze , or perhaps a combination of the Winchester Mansion and The Lost Boys hideout in Neverland. We went for supper, but the first place only had Chinese soups and noodles that my western eyes didn’t recognize as food. Luckily, they were sold out of what the others wanted to order so we went elsewhere. The next place we went to was lakeside and much nicer inside. I got a pork omelet and it was amazing. On the walk back, we bumped into another tourist on a scooter who was very much lost. He wasn’t very clear but it sounded like he had missed the turn to get to a monastery. We wished him luck as he left, I do hope he made it.
We got a late start on the day and ended up leave at about 12:30, it was raining lightly and I bought us some cheap rain ponchos. Somehow I still have mine here at home and still take it with me on motorcycle trips. We initially wanted to go to a small town called Ban Jo Ba to do a farm stay. Just before town, I was in the lead, and rounded a corner followed by downhill S- curves. The curves surprised me and I hammered on the rear brakes to lose some speed before the turns. As I rounded the second corner, I looked in my mirror in time to see two scooters high-side in near perfect unison. I parked my bike and ran up the hill. Courtney and Natalie seemed to have come in a little fast and hit the brakes too hard, I think. Both girls were shaken, but uninjured. Natalie’s jacket seemed to have taken a good scrape on the shoulder but luckily, I think, she rolled on landing instead of taking the impact or skidding. Courtney’s bike needed another mirror adjustment and it was good to go, aside from the addition of a few extra scratches. Natalie’s bike also got a mirror tweak, and when I went to move it, the bike revved but didn’t go. It didn’t take long to see that the chain had come off the rear sprocket, sadly, it was hidden under a chain guard and my Leatherman wasn’t up to the task of removal. A local, who spoke no English, stopped his truck and took a look. He motioned for me to follow him, I jumped on my bike and we went into town. He stopped at a house and spoke to a man, he was on his step sitting like buddha in loose fitting and somewhat grubby exercise clothes, his long hair piled on and around his head. Shortly, he jumped up and drove off in a hurry on a scooter that had to be push started, had I not seen it running, I would have assumed it had been stripped for parts. When he returned, he had a little nylon duffel bag full of rusty wrenches, and I spotted a set of vice grips that had been ground flat like a spanner wrench (which strikes me a genius). He handed the bag to the man in the truck. We then went back up the hill to my companions. The man propped the bike on the stand, pulled the guard off, loosened the rear wheel, set the chain on, set the proper tension, and put it all back together. It was very impressive, the speed and confidence with which he did it. We gave him 1000baht palmed in a hand shake to thank him, it was all we had for cash that wasn’t buried in our bags. I then drove the two scooters up the hill as the girls didn’t feel confident doing so. We debated the merits of facing the hill again and decided against going down it. A consideration was that the town below didn’t appear to have much and having to come back up the hill in the rain felt a bit risky to them. As we got back on the road, the light rain turned into proper rain. Luckily, the next town was only about 15 minutes down the road. We went slow, dead slow. Everyone had a bit of a spook in them and I feared another accident could result in a refusal to get back on the bikes and we were far from home. In hindsight, I think all members had more grit and dedication than I was giving them credit for. The hotel was nice, but the man checking us in spoke no English so he just held the phone while someone else walked us through check in. William and Natalie went for supper, I walked to the local corner store and grabbed food for Courtney and I. Neither of us felt up to dinner out. I had been not feeling well and her spirits were low. It was an early night for us all.
In the morning, considering the previous days events, I was relieved to find the weather was clear. We opted to skip breakfast and drive straight to Pai. We made it without incident and stopped for lunch. While waiting for food, I grabbed a Rubik’s cube off a nearby shelf in the café and solved it. I thought I was a big deal for that, Courtney then solved it much faster than I had. We didn’t waste much time in Pai, and I was thankful for that. Its hypocritical of me, but, that place is an absolute tourist trap and I hated it. It looked like a town the tourists were taking advantage of. Entitled foreign teens everywhere and in the way. Scooters flew by us with riders wearing little more than swim suits and clearly lacking skill and hoping blind arrogance would make up the difference. There was also no shortage of tourists with large bandages covering areas commonly afflicted with road rash after a crash. Outside of town and clear of its chaos, I started to feel pretty good on the winding road. Unfortunately, the girls were possibly still a little shaken and a bit slow on their much smaller scooters. I would race ahead, making full use of the street tires affixed to my dual sport bike, get my fill of thrill, and then sit and worry while they caught up. That must be how my mother feels every time I go somewhere. I didn’t mind, but my mind did wander to the idea of doing the trip again solo someday or even with more experienced riders on sportier bikes. Not worrying about others sounded nice, in that moment. We hit some rain towards the end of our ride, but nothing too severe. As we got into town, I missed a turn. Courtney offered to take over as navigator. I was glad to see her up to the task. Were I a better navigator, I may have done that on purpose (I am not a great navigator, and that was not a ploy, but I may use a ploy like that in the future). My bike read one bar of fuel remaining and we were stuck in Thai rush hour traffic. I once was lost in Aukland rush hour in a rental van with the fuel light on. That was far more stressful, I can push a bike and I wasn’t lost. I informed my companions of my low fuel and told them I was heading directly to the rental shop. When I pulled into the shop I was expecting a full white glove and magnifying glass inspection, but the woman barely looked up from the counter before giving me back my deposit. Honestly, I felt a little annoyed, I was mentally prepping for this all week, I was ready to defend myself with pictures of every scratch and scrape on that bike.
We went for supper at a very fancy, and empty, steak house. After the weeks of vegetarian Nepalese food and the various gas station and street food of the motorcycle trip, a big slab of meat was just what I wanted. So I treated myself to pork chops. Our trip was over and I was sad about it. All that was left to do over the next few days was for the others to return their bikes and for me to book flights for the next leg of my trip. The entire loop, I was worried about bike damage and had read some horror stories about insane charges and even scams involving the rental company stealing the bike from in front of your hotel, but ended up having no issues. The girls got a lot of their deposits back and weren’t charged much at all for damages. They inspected Will’s bike a lot, I guess he looks like the type to crash, but he kept it shiny side up the entire time and they gave him his full, deserved, deposit. We had a few lunches and dinners together after that, but eventually all had to go our separate ways. Natalie caught a train and I got a plane. I was worried I had seen the last of my friends.
Technical
The only technical thing I can think of, is that I made sure to pack light for this trip and that really paid off, I just had a small 20L dry sack and a 25L collapsible backpack and neither were full. The waterproofing ended up being a big savior. I really liked the jacket the rental agency lent me, it was from a company called Dianese, and I did try to find it in Canada but the model is out of production and was quite expensive when it was in production, so maybe someday I’ll buy the new model when I am feeling spendy. The Mae Hong Son Loop is famous for a few reasons and the twisty roads are a big part of that. I met a few people along the way who were on their second or third time on the loop and had done it decades ago before smart phones and GPS maps. I could definitely be talked into going back, and I would definitely try and talk this same group into going again. Another fun thing I did do on this trip that was perhaps a little silly, I would text my parents what hotel I was staying at so they could use google street view and satellite images to see the layout.
A big thank you to everyone I came across on this trip, the locals were always friendly, welcoming, and did their best to help tourists who had gotten themselves into trouble.
Posted in Motorcycle, Published Work, Travel and tagged adventure, backpacking, Mae Hong Son Loop, motorcycle, Thailand, travelwith no comments yet.
Thailand Notes Part 2: Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son
Motorcycle fever had gripped me and made it easy for Natalie to talk me into the trip north to do a week long ride called The Mao Hong Son Loop. A very short version of this story found its way into Motocycle Mojo Magazine.
After much research, we rented our bikes from two different shops. Mine, from a larger shop that carried full size motorcycles with manual transmissions and the others rented scooters, Natalie and Willy rented “semi automatics” which were essentially clutch-less manuals. Courtney rented a true automatic. We agreed to pick up the bikes in the morning. That night we went to a very crowded street market, I felt very claustrophobic and was annoyed to see some of the items I bought at The Silk Factory in Bangkok were for sale for a fraction of what I paid. The food smelled delicious but I didn’t dare risk being sick the next morning. That night I also read up on common scams from rental agencies. The most predominant seemed to be trying to get you to pay for pre-existing damage.
When we got started the morning, I had brief moment of being everyone’s dad and somewhat forced everyone to get a full-face helmet. Thailand is littered with road-rashed tourists and I was hoping to not add to that demographic. All the rental shop helmets had some kind of damage on them ranging from scratches to full splits down the middle, which made for excellent visuals during my presentation. No one else seemed worried about that. We picked up the other’s bikes first, and Natalie was so uncomfortable, she asked me to drive the bike back to the hostel with her as a passenger. That was a nerve-wracking endeavor, she wore a helmet and I had a ballcap. It wasn’t rush hour, but there was definitely more traffic than I wanted to deal with. In my life, I have done some questionable things on motorized equipment, but that one made me the most nervous.
Once back at the hostel, I packed my bag, a 30L waterproof stuff sack, and picked up my bike. The only helmet they had that fit me, and had a visor in good enough shape to see through, had a big doobie on each side and “420” on the back. I found it funny but a little annoying. To avoid getting scammed, again, I took dozens of pictures of my rental bike and a video, when I left, the owner was well aware of every scratch. Once we all met up with our rides, we realized Courtney and I had the only bikes with phone mounts so I asked her to lead so I could bring up the rear. We were finally on the road at 3pm, which annoyed me greatly. Traffic out of the city was bad and Natalie was unfamiliar with bikes so her and I went slower than Will and Courtney. Somewhere deep in my memory, from an unknown source, was a belief that the most capable rider should bring up the rear. Sadly for our group, that was me, but I didn’t mind going slow and seeing the sights.
The only thing of note on the highway was a very large reclining buddha statue on the side of the road. A ways out of the city, we got separated enough that Natalie and I stopped at a run down shop for water and to contact the others ahead of us. Natalie ordered the fried chicken, looking at the state of the place, she will never have to prover her bravery to me. Though it did look crisp. We regrouped but the park we wanted to drive through was closed, we detoured to the town of Hot, the name felt appropriate given the absolute heat of northern Thailand. Courtney picked a hostel for us, and it was an absolute winner. It was little two bed cabins, with attached bathrooms and AC for 400 baht each. Will and I shared a room and I mused at the thought that I was paying $8 cad a night. We walked along the street and found a vendor selling noodles, this was my first Thai street food experience. It had, I believe, pork and fish balls in it (though I am not sure what part of the fish is the ball and I intentionally don’t think about what part of the pork that is), it was good and filling and cost 40 baht ($1.60). We went back to the hotel and sat chatting in the girls’ cabin, the power had gone out and we debated how to pass the time. Someone suggested cards. With nothing better to do, I walked to the corner store and purchased a deck, not realizing they were 375 baht ($15!). They are nice cards, heavy waterproof plastic and in a nice case, but that still pretty steep. By the time I got back, the power was back on and no one was interested in cards now that we had TV and internet. I went to bed thinking about how much nicer the roads in Thailand were than the roads in Nepal. I was also somewhat grumpy about the heat and our late start, I reminded myself that I am on vacation and shouldn’t worry so much about clocks.
We left Hot at the crack of noon. I was a bit frustrated to leave so late. From there we went on a very winding road and stopped at a temple but it wasn’t open to visitors. It was still interesting to drive up to it through the main gate and see the architecture. From there we went to Bo Kaio Pine Tree Garden. It was a nice forest walk, a smooth dirt track through well spaced conifers like we had driven through in Nepal. We also witnessed a bride and groom getting their photos taken. As we headed back to our bikes, it began to rain. We drove to a nearby restaurant and had dinner. It was chicken and rice on cheap plastic plates, and cups that didn’t look clean to me. I asked for the bathroom and got a lot of confusion and pointing and was eventually sent out back to an unlit outhouse with a squat toilet. The rain eased and we continued our trip.
Unfortunately, the rain came back even stronger, we were thoroughly soaked by the time we found a roadside shelter to stop at. After a long wait, it became clear the rain wasn’t stopping and it was now getting dark out. We packed our gear as best we could to avoid damage to electronics. I put my phone in a bag in my pocket and let the mapping app guide me via my headphones, Courtney did the same. Within a mile of leaving our shelter, we passed an overturned semi truck. We slowly snaked around it, it served as a reminder that this was real and dangerous, up to this point, in my mind, it was just uncomfortable. We continued on, driving as a team. Courtney was leading and would give hand signals showing when to pass slow traffic and when to turn. It felt so coordinated, high stakes, and the quiet concentration made it feel somewhat clandestine. It felt like we were a team sneaking into town. Looking back, it reminded me of being a boy and playing soldiers with the neighborhood kids. The rain slowed and stopped as we came into town. The residual heat in the pavement dried the water off in minutes. The steam filled the air like a fog. It was the closest I had been to cool since I had entered the country (both temperature and otherwise). We wove through back roads to find a hotel Courtney had picked before we left. Unfortunately, it was hard to find and when we did get there, it was full. She quickly picked another and headed toward it. We rounded a corner and suddenly I was driving on a main road lined with vertical lights, there were hundreds, all about 4 feet tall, like a vertical fluorescent bulb. They lit the road in an interesting effect and the steam from the rain made it look like a dream or maybe a rave. I could have driven back and forth for hours. We got to our new hotel, a white stone building, we parked along the street and went in to check availability. The place had no guests and the woman at the front had to call the owner to come in. He was excited and rented us dorm beds and told us to bring our bikes in off the street. As we backed our bikes from the curb and pulled into the court yard, Natalie dropped hers. I think it was just a result of the low speed and perhaps tired from the days riding. I lifted it back up for her. We parked in the courtyard out front and he closed gate to the street. We all had showers and gave our wet clothes for laundry. I spent the evening in a long sleeve shirt, underpants, and a towel around my waist. I guess only a single pair of jeans wasn’t a great strategy, but at least they got a wash. We sat outside and ordered food from the attached restaurant. We ate a variety, mostly fried, and drank sodas. We stayed up late eating, drinking, and telling stories and I went to sleep happy. This was the best slumber party I had ever been to and the days riding in the rain was a real team building exercise. Before this we were friendly, after this we were friends.
I woke up feeling terribly ill. Likely a result of supper the night before. After several trips to the washroom, I dosed myself with anti-diarrhea meds and hoped for the best. I bought toast with jam from the restaurant attached to the hostel, it was outright nasty. The bread was yellow and had a sour tang to it, it reminded me of bread I had in Colombia years before. To me, it tasted like it was made with rancid butter, but that cant possibly be accurate. Throwing the bread in the trash, I forced down a granola bar that had been rattling around in my bag and we headed to a café to get breakfast for the others. After a rather lengthy ordering and eating process we hit the winding road again.
The ride was really getting exciting, these curves are what the trip is known for and Thailand’s climate allows for road surfaces to stay nice. Natalie and I stopped for gas and found an odd self serve station. It was a small pump, inset on a wall on the side of the street. I put the nozzle into my tank, loaded my cash in like a vending machine and hit the green button. Immediately the gas started flowing and a little tune played. I was glad I had the nozzle in already, the handle did nothing to stop or start the flow, that could have been a disaster. I declined lunch that day as I still was not well. We rolled into the city of Mao Hong Son around 6pm and had no rain that day. We checked into a nice hotel with a pool in the courtyard. Courney and I went for a swim while Will and Natalie sat by the pool. Somehow a joke came up about Natalie and I doing the lift from Dirty Dancing. We never actually got to try it, until a year later in Guatemala. After the pool we went off in search of food. I was positively starving, and Thai food was getting the best of me. I requested that we go for western food, and somehow the few places that sold it were all closed. I was getting very down and outright frustrated, I was in that stage of hunger where I no longer felt hungry, and just felt grumpy. We eventually found a little restaurant and I had some kind of spicy rice-based dish. It was good but I could barely eat it. I went back to the hotel long before the others and relaxed. Truth be told, I was having fun overall, but in that moment I just wasn’t feeling it. Luckily we still had a few more days of riding to enjoy so I didn’t have to end on that note.
Posted in Motorcycle, Published Work, Travel and tagged adventure, backpacking, Mae Hong Son Loop, motorcycle, Thailand, travelwith 1 comment.
Thailand Notes Part 1: Scammed in Bangkok and Cooked on a Train
I flew to Thailand with very little research and absolutely no guide book. Something I had never done before. This whole trip was a big whim and I had no idea what to expect, it was exciting and scary to think about.
Bangkok
I flew into Bangkok without a plan or clue. The hostel I had booked was dorm style, I wasn’t looking forward to shared accommodations, but private room prices were outright wild. In the airport an official scolded me for having an Ushuaia stamp in my passport she warned “this is for official stamps only” and waved me along. I had gotten the stamp at the tourist center in the town of Ushuaia in 2016 and no one said anything about it until now. As I walked out of the airport, I was shocked by the heat, and the cleanliness, of the city. It was a long cab ride to the hostel and the entire time I marveled at the smooth roads. Going from the infrastructure of Nepal to that of Thailand felt like being hurled into the future, it was a bit of a shock.
The next day I could barely leave the hostel, the heat was so extreme. I would walk building to building, refreshing in the air conditioning. In my travels, I spotted a gun shop. I went to walk in to see how they compared to Canadas. Before I could get a single foot in the door, an old lady shooed me out. It was then I spotted the sign on the door “no tourists, no pictures”. I kept walking and suddenly discovered dozens of gun shops all with the same stickers and equally welcoming. I even saw a street vendor selling accessories, I thought some wood grips for my 1911 would be a neat souvenir but he wouldn’t even look at me, never mind sell to me. I laughed at the fact that I had officially been kicked out of a gun store. That evening, I went to Kao San Road and was thoroughly disgusted. It was a short walk from my hostel and it was everything Thailand had to offer sleazy tourists… bars, “massage” parlors, laughing gas, grilled alligator, knockoff clothes, and drugs. There were also old men walking around asking people if they wanted to see a “ping pong show” and making a popping noise with their mouths… I didn’t spend much time there, it wasn’t my scene.
On my last day in Bangkok, I got scammed. I was walking around, bogged by the heat, and waiting for the streetlight to change so I could cross the road. A man said “in Thailand, we just cross, like this” and walked with me across the street. I thanked him and kept walking. He then kept pace and asked me about myself and what I was doing etc. He then claimed to be some sort of tourism board something or other and had suggested I see some temples and a silk factory. I said that sounded nice, and he wrote their names down. He also said the silk factory usually only exports but for a few days a year they do local sales.. I wasn’t interested in buying anything but I was curious how a silk factory worked. He told me most tuk tuks would take me for 100 baht to all 3. He then waved one down on the road and chatted with the driver, then turned to me and said “he will take you”. So I hopped in, thinking it was odd but some temples would be nice. The man drove like a maniac, I had no idea these little 3-wheelers could go so fast. We went to the first temple, The Happy Buddha Temple. It was small and somewhat unpopular, but I went in to see. There, a man was praying and started talking to me. He asked what I was up to, I told him and he said he really liked the silk factory, that it was where he bought his suits from for business trips. The driver took me to the next stop, the silk factory… instead of a factory tour, it was just a sales pitch, which wasn’t shocking, I figured they just had all the tuk tuk guys on some kind of consignment. I politely declined the salesman’s offer to have several custom suits made… Shockingly, I am not a suit guy, and I didn’t feel like stuffing 6 of them into my backpack. As I was leaving, he asked if I needed anything for gifts, I looked around and picked out a tie set for my brother and a silk kimono for my dad, he then said he could do a custom dress shirt for me since I was buying something. I said sure, I went with a dark green linen material in a long sleeve button up. The salesman asked for my hotel and said he would have them delivered that evening, all in I spent about $180 cad. Our next stop was a temple complex, beautifully built and maintained. I wandered the ground and took some pictures and was ready to leave.
The tuk tuk driver suggested a trip to the docks, he had a friend who could take me out on a boat, I declined because my stomach was upset and I had had enough heat. I went back to my hostel and relaxed. As 5pm approached, I went downstairs and asked the hostel staff if any parcels had come for me and then explained my day. The woman looked at me worried and said “how much did you give them?”… then proceeded to explain there are lots of scammers. I looked online and googled the shop, it turns out everything about that day was a setup, the man walking, the tuk tuk, the man at the temple, all of it. They also run another scam, which is they take you out on a boat and refuse to come back to land until you pay the driver off. It sounds like I almost got the boat scam too. Reading online, it looks like people were scammed into slightly over paying for suits, usually multiple suits. I guess its harder to get scammed when you are cheap. I had paid by credit card and was now hoping the salesman wouldn’t show up so I could just cancel the purchase… I also wondered if violence was the answer if or when the delivery guy got there, but they seemed to use a 3rd party delivery service. The items did arrive, and sure enough, the shirt fit, little short on the sleeves but the torso was long enough. I usually roll the sleeves anyway so it was a practical shirt and I paid about $90cad for it. I essentially got scammed into paying western prices for things. Later in my trip I found the tie set I had bought for $40 for about $5 at a night market… I got got, no doubt, but not for much, and its sure a funny story now. I still laugh at the idea of an elaborate four man setup just to rope me into paying $180. At this point I was more or less done with Bangkok.
The Heat Train
Natalie had reached out to me and suggested I meet her in Chiang Mai, in the north, to do the Mae Hong Son Loop with some travelers she had met there. When I first planned my trip to Nepal, I considered trying to get into India as well for some kind of train trip. The idea interested me but I just couldn’t make it work. So I was excited to get my chance at train travel. For this trip I had booked the train online, the website was in Thai and I used google translate, making sure to book a carriage “With Air”… Before departing I loaded up on various drinks and snacks from the local 7/11 and hoped for the best. I boarded in the early afternoon, I quickly learned that a car “with air” was not the same as one with air conditioning. In my seat, looking out the window I saw that it was bolted shut. The small ceiling fan did its best, but it was over 40 degrees outside. The landscape was beautiful, but it was sweltering in the car.
Initially the train was rather full and there was an American couple that staff had to walk back to their seats several times. They seemed to have trouble with the idea of assigned seating and eventually settled for leaving their bags unattended while wandering to seats they liked more. Over time, the train made stops and people got off. They were the lucky ones, to escape that sweltering heat. Around sunset, a well dressed man with white gloves came through and converted my seat, and the one facing it, into a bunk. Similar to a dining table in an RV being converted into a bed. He also put on a clean sheets, a pillow and a top sheet to be used as a blanket… in case I got cold. The bed was a little wider than me and a bit shorter, it had a fabric curtain I could close for privacy, but that blocked airflow. I tried to sleep but it was simply too hot.
Around midnight, I ran out of beverages. What little sleep I did get had bizarre fever dreams, I had dreams that my ex was texting me, when I came to, I checked my phone and couldn’t find them. When was the last time you saw a cellphone in a dream? Sweaty and confused and more than a little dehydrated.
The train arrived an hour and a half late, which was confusing to me, I can’t imagine it got lost or stuck in traffic. I stepped off the train into that, comparatively, cool 5am air and decided I wanted to walk. Prior to leaving Bangkok, I had asked Natalie to book me a bed at her hostel, she said she would, late in the night she had texted and told me she was not able to, “but it would be fine”. I was anxious about that, but it was morning now and there was nothing to do but head to her hostel and go from there. I talked to my dad on the phone while walking. When I passed an open McDonalds restaurant I hung up on him… I ordered a breakfast sandwich, a water, an orange juice, and an Iced tea. I took my time getting it all in, and felt thoroughly nauseous, I think I had mild heat stroke. My head felt foggy, I was weak, and my stomach was rather upset. Throwing some anti diarrhea meds down, I proceeded toward Natalie’s hostel. I arrived around 8am and sat in the waiting area reading my book until 10 am when she got up. I was rather annoyed by that, she knew when my train was coming in, I didn’t expect her to meet me at the station, but waking up at a more reasonable time just seems considerate. Mentioning it seemed like a bad idea, I correctly assumed my irritability was the dehydration and exhaustion. We walked together to a hostel our other would-be travel companions were staying at. It had proper AC and I got a private room with a small bed, but couldn’t check in until the evening. I put my bag in storage and went for a shower. The shower area had no AC and I struggled to peel off my sweat-soaked clothes. After the shower, I was still sweating so much I struggled to dry myself. I was then introduced to William and Courtney, our travel companions for the trip. Even now I am not sure how Natalie found them, but I am glad she did. William was a Swedish man who had been living and working in Australia, throughout the trip I would find he was immune to stress or worry. I found myself envious of that. Courtney was from Chicago and was very sweet, her and I were very different politically and yet I still enjoyed all of my time with her. Of our group, I had the most motorcycle experience, which was minimal. I had my International Drivers Permit and a motorcycle license, Natalie and Courtney both had regular driver’s licenses, and William had nothing. I was far and away the most experienced on two wheels with my total of about 4 days of riding. I was immediately worried, but no one else was.
Technical
There’s not much technical here beyond maybe read the guide book or google common scams in the country you are visiting otherwise you may end up with a funny story. Furthermore, always try to get clarity and never make assumptions about AC, beyond assuming it won’t be working. In south america I learned to ask “does the bus have AC? does it work? will it be turned on?” because sometimes the answer to those questions is no all the same.
Overheated, dehydrated, and delirious on that train, in my opinion, was probably the most dangerous part of this trip. I brought a lot to drink and I shudder to think what would have happened had I been less prepared. I’m also a little sad that my first and only real train ride experience was so terribly uncomfortable, I had been romanticizing the idea for years.
Posted in Travel and tagged adventure, backpacking, Thailand, travelwith 1 comment.