Gerhard's Blog

www.davegerhardphotography.com

2011-06-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

Well. Just registered the domain....that is step 1. Hoepfully that bodes well for getting a self promotion website of awesomeness off the ground in the near future.

Also coming in the near future. Tales from down under, castles, and some cracking and unique shots from muliple trips to Germany and France.

Watch this space!

This is Austria

2010-02-17T03:25:00.000-08:00

Snowboarding is awesome. The Alpenrider Hostel is aweome. Jagermeiseter is awesome. Pretzels are awesome. Austria is, in a word, Awesome!

Even taking a week off from marathon training to go snowboarding is pretty awesome although it's not technically in any trainig plan that I've seen.

Snowboarding one week every three years is not a great way to stay in pratice. Good thing for me then that the other guests at the hostel were in a similar situation and it wasn't hard to find someone at my level to ride with.

Having picked up the new lens "Gordo"** over Christmas in Canada I was determined to bring it out on the mountain and get some cracking action shots.

Results were mixed for a couple of reasons. First, the conditions. Bright and sunny, while a beautiful day for riding, also meant for some serious reflective conditions. So not only was I figuring out my new lens and fighting the cold while trying not to get snow in my bag or on my camera, I was also struggling with my settings to get the results I wanted.

The second was skiers. I had forgotten how obnoxious they are. There's always been a skiier snowboarder rivalry but and I'm not just saying this because I'm a snowboarder: Skiiers suck. If you were walking down the beach, society would deem it unacceptable for someone to unprovokedly kick sand in your face. Similarly if you're walking down the street you don't expect to get spit on spontaneously. Why then do skiiers find it acceptable behaviour to spray snow on everyone they can find includig photographers or snowboarders who had pulled off to the side for a quick lie down because he was hungover. Ooooo skiiers you can make snow change direction in a big spray cloud...you're soooooo coool.

Ok rant over. The reaon why I brought the camera onto the mountain was that I do think skiing is cool. It's fast and graceful and a perfect test for me and Gordo to capture the action. That's why, in addition to not wanting to get snow all over my valuable and uninsured camera equipment, it's all he more frustrating to that skiers' personalities (on the mountain anyway) makes me want to punch them in the face.

The other challenge I had to overcome was the mountain itself. It's huge.

It takes a long time and a lot of riding to get from one lift to the next and when you're trying to do it with a bag full of camera equipment and a monopod on your heel edge so you don't wipe out and fall on top of your stuff so if you do decide to go wayyyy over to the other side you definitely earn your mountain side beer at the end of the day.

As an aside the little mountainside pub was great. Like a little oasis of beer and german themed music that pops up unexpectedly*** over a little riser on the run home.

Somehow, even though I kept all of my equipment safe and sound and dry and (as) warm (as possible) I managed to lose my goggles on the way back. It was disappointing for more reasons than the fact that they were virtually brand new (having used them only one other time climbing Aconcagua) but also because, well, I needed them.

In retrospect I should have just bought new ones. The goggles I borrowed were a friend's spare pair, having been relegated to spare status owing to the fact that they fog up easily. Combined with the low visibility and and snow and my desire to keep up with the group led to me boarding virtually blind for a good couple of hours. Predictably it didn't end well and I ended up face down in the snow with the front of my board wedged into about 3 feet of snow.

Although it was, by eye-witness accounts, an "amazing wipeout" I knew right away that something was not right and though I managed to get down to the little lunch place my ankle was killing to the point that after lunch I could not put any weight on it.

This would be the end of my riding for the week. Although my primary concern was whether or not it was broken (it wasn't) and what that would mean for my marathon training to which I'd already devoted considerable time and effort (it was a setback but not too serious****

Secondarily of course I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get back on the mountain to seek out the terrain park with my camera. After a day off of relaxing at the pool I could manage to hobble around well enough to get out on the mountain.

I figured free-stylers would be more acommodating to photographers and I was right. Well they paid me no mind anyway which is actually what I wanted.

The conditions were'nt great for photography, fog has never really been a good canvas on which to paint a picture, (unless fog is the subject) but with a lot of patience and until my feet started to get cold I did manage to get some decent shots.

Surprisingly the shots I ike best were not with Gordo but with the super wide angle from less than 1m from the ramp.

I also experimented a bit with the polarizing filter.

It was my first real session with my new lens and I learned a lot about capturing action ***** I think I might be getting to old for the type of holiday where you ride all day and stay up all night partying but Austria was amazing and I recommend it to anyone.

Photos 1) Scenic mountain view 2) Scenic mountain view 2 3) The crew 4) The crew 2 5-7) Skiiers. I never did get a really great photo of skiing action 8) See how much more laid back boarders are? 9) Scenic mountain view 3 10) A bit of après-ski 11) A skillful boarder who could see perfectly - shot from a moving chairlift. 12) With a sprained ankle I had to bid auf weidersein to the crew for the day at an easily recognizable landmark. 13-18) Terrain park action 19) Scenic mountain view 4.

*It's great cross training especially for the first few days when you're going full out all day and using the legs differently from the everyday.
**Gordo is a 70-200 f2.8 Canon piece of super awesome camera equipment.
***It's even unexpected when you are expecting it because you forget the topography and can't remember which corner the pub is around so it's got the unexpected thing going for it even when you are looking for it. If that makes sense?

****To be addressed in a future post.

*****When shooting on the mountain I think you have to decide whether you're shooting or riding and not try and do both. I should have just picked one or two spots close together and waited for the action to come to me. That said a couple of my better shots like the photo 1 came from "the othe side".

Sitting on Couches!*

2010-02-14T03:07:00.000-08:00

Ok so when I said "Do you want to go to Harrods and sit on the couches?" I got a funny look. It tooks some convincing. "Come on" I said "They've got a whole floor of nothing but couches. Some of them are bigger than cars and most of them are more expensive."

I still got a puzzled look as if to say "You're strange". But then I suggested that we tie it in with ice skating at the Natural History Museum and then dinner afterwards and suddenly a Saturday night never sounded so good.

As if the idea of sitting on couches did not stand alone on it's merits.

Photos from iPhone 1) I don't know who buys £10k couches but I know who sits on them. 2) Ya that's good but I could get 473 1/2 camping chairs for that so I'll keep looking. 3) Ok this one is a chair and not partcularly comfortable so I suppose there must be a secret compartment where the treasure is kept. 4) It's definitely a nice way to unwind after a session of ice skating in the snow (photos of ice skating lost to the archiving system....:(

*Without the exclamation mark it just didn't sound as fun as it actually was.

Marathon Training

2010-02-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

Marathon training is going very well. I’m quite optimistic that I will be able to finish it and on my better days feel like revising my goal from mere completion to have a shot at the 4h barrier. But then on some days when 10k feels like a hundred-thousand miles. I come to my senses.

I’m into Week 5 of training. I’m feeling fit and healthy and energetic.

I run to work 3 days a week. Run home either 1 or two days a week. Many of those times I take the indirect route 10k from Bto A instead of the mere 4k straightline route.

Also generally make 5 or more classes per week at the gym for cross training (Aerobics and Body Pump) or stretching (Body Balance and Yoga). I tried the LBT class last week and other than the fact that the instructor kept referring to everyone as “ladies” (there were only 2 blokes in the class to be fair but “guys” would have been acceptable used in the generic sense) it was another good one that will hopefully strengthen my knees and prevent me from hurting myself on all this pavement running.

"I've Got a Spreadsheet and Everything"*

As part of the training I’ve invented the Friday Night Long Run (marathon training usually involves at least one session of >10k per week which I have strategically planned on my spreadsheet training log). Rather than get up early and run for a couple of hours on a Saturday or Sunday I run home from work on Friday nights in order to 1) keep myself out of trouble on Friday and avoid the inevitable “I don’t feel like it/I’m too hung over” excuse on Saturday and 2) To be able to sleep in on Saturdays which is a favoured pastime.

Two weeks ago I ran 20ks home from work on Friday night – This Friday I’ve scheduled a 24 k epic (map below). Each run is now my new longest and feels strangely good especially when running in winter which has been unusually cold and snowy and icey and treacherous in London – As a reward, I leave for a week off of snowboarding in Austria on Saturday.

There's no need to feel guilty because even though beer and pretzels are on the menu a week of snowboarding will be good cross training and I do like to mix up my training.

Once I get back from my snowboarding trip to Austria. I’m going to have to add healthy eating to my strategic plan. My problem right now is that I consider garlic bread to be a food group. It gives five-a-day a whole new meaning.

Photos 1) Well it's pretty much impossible to get a shot of myself running on London streets in the winter so I had to ge someone else. 2) 10 k running route. Isle of Dogs is not too crowded with pedestrians and,when there is no construction, has quite wide and for the most part level sidewalks. 3-4) Victoria park winter. 5) Friday Night Loooong Run. When you start in Canary wharf, take a lap of isle of dogs, and then continue home via blackfriars bridge you definitely deserve a beer when you get home 3 hours later.

*When you start from no experience at distance running and generally have no idea what the hell you're doing it really pays to be well organized.

Christmas Traditions

2010-01-15T14:58:00.000-08:00

It had been a while since I've decorated the Christmas tree. Like years. Maybe even 10's of years. I'm not sure. I haven't lived closer than 500kms since I moved to Ottawa in 1997 so getting home to decorate is somewhat tricky. Normally I fly in a few days or maybe a week at most before Christmas to find the house already decorated and just walk straight into the Christmas cheer but this year was different.

It was our first Christmas without Dad and we all missed him. It just wasn't the same and the motivation to decorate was waning a bit. Steve and Matt had collected the tree though* and it wasn't going to decorate itself.

Technically I was supposed to start with the tinsel garland but I couldn't find it. To compensate I just used more lights. When I ran out at the top I had to switch to outdoor lights. Then I couldn't fit the Angel on the top. Then the tree fell over. It wasn't going to plan. But once I put the Neil Diamond Chirstmas CD on it took a turn for the better. Oh and Mom finshed up with her other stuff and everything started looking sparkly and Christmasy.

The Neil Diamond CD is a Christmas Tradition.** Another Christmas tradition is Egg Nogg with just a bit of nutmeg and a candy cane garnish served from a goblet. Despite only being 11am who am I to break with tradition?

Another tradition that has come to pass is the annual random, midweek Christmas trip to Peterborough to visit Sean and Karen. Poker is the traditional game but ever since the 2007 Project Chabal inspired Bearded-Garage-Shisha-Jenga,***Jenga has also featured prominently. Probably somewhat to do with alcohol consumption 2009 Christmas Jega resulted in this:

Christmas traditions are great. It's good to have a lot of them as well. That way on the years when circumstances and family considerations necessitate the discontinuance of, say a pint and a card at Shakespeare's or the Christmas Eve pub crawl, we still have the old ones to fall back on like champagne on Christmas morning:

and Catharine snooping for gifts:

and also new ones, like Christmas eve at Sylvia's house complete with excentric relatives and some basic Hungarian lessons and magnums**** of red wine:

or maybe a nice Chrismas Poem:

Merry Christmas. Missed Dad but he was there in spirit and I am very happy to have grown up in a family that values its traditions especially the silly ones:

Photos/Videos: 1) Team Christmas 2) After the tree fell over I put it back up, reinforced the hell out of the safety wire and then decorated the hell out of the tree 3) Mom helped too of course. 4) Nohing says Christmas like Jenga and poker at Sean and Karen's 5) 7am Christmas morning. Champagne? 6) Snoop. 7) Best. Christmas. Poem. Video. Ever 8) I was looking through my memory cards to see how my time-lapse-Christmas tree setup video came out - not well incidently - and stumbled on this from Cristmas 2009. It's one of those clips that makes me glad that I have 9 4 gig memory cards so I haven't deleted anything in a long time. :)

*As I recall it was about a three-beer job and Steve did most of the work.
**Neil's rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to town annoys Steve to no end which amuses me to no end and is an integral part of the tradition.

***As seen in the Big Book of Beardvember

****You might of thought I would have learned my lesson after the Movember party....but you'd be wrong.

Running to Work2

2010-01-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

So Monday morning when I walked into the lobby of my building I noticed the big Reuters news screen flash up that Pearl Jam had announced their 2010 European concert dates. I thought “Right. I’m definitely looking into that”.

Tuesday morning when I walked in and saw some news flash or other about Gordon Brown I thought “hey, I forgot to look into the Pearl Jam concert details. I’ll do that today.”

Wednesday morning I couldn’t wait to tell people about the high tech dentist who showed me what my mouth bacteria looked like under a microscope when the big screen headline “Michael Owen scores hat trick for Man U”. I thought “sure in a meaningless game when they're already in first place and….HEEEEYYYYYYYY. I totally forgot to look into the Pearl Jam concert ticket details.”

Wednesday afternoon I finally looked up the dates and found this

Which, if you could see what it says, would be a pretty impressive listing of the European tour dates including 22 June Dublin, 23 June Belfast, 25 June London.

Wow. I thought. Pearl Jam in Ireland. That would be cool. Dublin is great from what I recall. And I’ve always wanted to go to Belfast also so either one of those would be a good option. And O2 is my mobile provider so I seem to remember something about being able to get priority tickets through them for events at their venues. Let me check.

As a UK customer I’m not eligible for priority tickets at O2 events in The Republic however it appears that the Hard Rock in Hyde Park is sponsored by O2 so I could buy tickets immediately. So I did. 4 general admission tickets to the outdoor festival type concert on Friday afternoon 24 June.

Still, though. Once I started thinking about seeing Pearl Jam in Ireland I started liking the idea more and more. "When do tickets go on sale?" Friday 11 December 2009 9:00am. Shit. I have a 9:15 doctor’s appointment for my annual check-up. Well, the opportunity to get tickets has to be more important than a silly physical. Right?

Ok then. It’s settled. Friday morning I’ll get in nice and early. Get my coffee. Set the Ticketmaster browsers to “dominate” and rock ‘n roll.

So Friday morning I’m running to work.* From Mile End tube It’s normally around 13-17 mins depending on traffic and motivation. I’m bit behind schedule but not too much when I pass a clock that says 8:47. Then it hits me. Shit! Pearl Jam tickets go on sale at 9:00! I cancelled a doctor’s appointment in order to get tickets! I’ve got no choice I’ve got to make it. Man it is going to be close....

So I elevated my game. Cranked it up a notch. Took it to the next Level.

And absolutely sprinted the last kilometre that I normally reserve for a leisurely cool down walking session. Rounding the corner of the Reuters building and down the stairs the "field of clocks showed 8:57".

Wow this is going to be sooooo close. I fly down the stairs and sprint through a pack of commuters crossing over Bank St and through the lobby checking the time on the big screen but ignoring the headlines. The time says 8:58.

I dash through the swipe-in gates and see that the furthest elevator has just arrived so and I accelerate to the end of the corridor and arrive and step in just as the doors close and hit 22. Elevator time still says 8:58. “If we don’t stop at the 7th floor* this is doable.”

Approaching 7 the elevator accelerates and the word express flashes up on the display. Wicked. I might just make it. Dash out of 22 though the security doors and still in my running gear and dripping with sweat dodge my way through the cubicles to my desk and login.

Thank you for purchasing tickets on Ticketmaster.
You purchased 2 tickets to: _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Pearl JamThe O2, Dublin, Tue 22 Jun 2010, 18:30 Order for: David GerhardSeat location: section BLOCKL, row 45, seats 140-141

Thank you for purchasing tickets on Ticketmaster.

You purchased 2 tickets to: _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Pearl JamOdyssey Arena, Belfast, Wed 23 Jun 2010, 18:30 Order for: David GerhardSeat location: section STHU, row T, seats 25-24

How much difference does it make?

In the “every man for himself online ticket ordering game” seconds make all the difference. All that running to work finally pays off!

The only thing now is I'm suddenly going to see 3 pearl jam concerts in 4 days in 3 separate countries.....I guess that's pretty hard core. Awesome!

*I'm really taking this running thing seriously now that I'm running the Paris Marathon in April. Also, I've moved to Bow and public transportation isn't great.
**7 is the food court and gym and coffee and dry cleaners etc. Pretty much every elevator all day long stops on 7 on its way past. I would typically stop on 7 after a run into work to y’know get showered up and grab breakfast on the way to my desk on 22.

Movember 2010 Wrap Up

2010-01-10T14:17:00.000-08:00

Movember is over, the Mo is no more and even though all that’s left are the memories I can say that Movember 2009 was a smashing success.

Everyone was really supportive. Even in the early days when it wasn’t particularly noticeable or just looked crappy. I’m happy to report that my infectious Movember enthusiasm rubbed off on people and that:

Collectively we’ve raised over £800!

This is tremendous support. You’re helping people live with cancer. Until you’re personally exposed to it, it can be difficult to remember that there are people out there who have greater things to worry about than “what shade of brown their moustache is coming in” and by donating to Macmillan Cancer Support you’ve made their lives a little bit easier.

If you didn’t get a chance to donate yet the site is still open for a few days so if you want to help out please visit my donation site before it’s too late and I’m on to the next crazy project.

I didn’t get to catch up with most of you this month so you could see my Movember efforts (except for the lucky and people I work with). So if you missed seeing the Mo in person or just want another look then hope you like "Hats off (on) to Movember".

You might have noticed that I had a lot of fun this month working the “Mo-Mojo” on my multimedia skills.

If you enjoyed the footage why not check out the special bonus clip of me receiveing the "Mo of the Match" official Magnum of Champagne which I'm not too proud to say I got into a little over enthusiastically at the Movember wrap up bash. It really is a hell of a lot of champagne.

Anyway thanks again for your amazing moral and generous financial support!

MOVEMBER UPDATE: Day 22

2010-01-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

Since the last update a lot has happened moustache-wise.

1) I’ve signed up for the Paris Marathon. Yes that says marathon, not beard-a-thon or beer-a-thon, or act-like-an-idiot-athon or any other stuff I might normally be associated with. (Ok this has nothing to do with Moustaches but it’s pretty big undertaking nonetheless).

2) Partly as a result of point 1 I ran the Movember 10k and, sporting bib number 1001 and a barely visible moustache, clocked a disappointing time of 57:15. But did get some decent photos out of it not to mention a shiny medal.

3) Donations have exceeded £400!!!!! This is unbelievable support. I’m super excited that my enthusiasm for Movember has rubbed off on so many to donate so generously. This is made all the more amazing because there are some people who have yet to donate who I am 100% confident will do so and presumably are just waiting til the last minute. If you are one of these visit my donation site before the Mo is gone.

4) I’ve taken a lot of good natured abuse about the quality of my moustache growing efforts. It seems that while my beard growing skills are world class, when taken in isolation my Moustache growing ability is sub-par.

It comes in very light coloured and for a good portion of the month was not visible to the naked eye. In order to rectify this situation (I mean what is the point of having an awesome moustache if nobody can see it right?) I took to the streets of Camden Town to see if the population considers it acceptable to colour my moustache.

5) After getting the ok from the people on the street, I took the plunge and cranked up the awesomeness of the moustache to try to keep pace with the projection.

What do you know. It really works!!!!!

Bonfire Night - Via Picadilly

2010-01-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

In case it hasn't been apparent I've been really taking enthusiastically to photography.* Thus, when Zads offered to sell me his Sigma 10-20 wide angle lens (a purchase that would double my lens collection!) which was surplus to his requirments I decided to take it out for a test drive.

I'd never used a wide angle lens before. I have to say there is something very liberating about having no preconceptions about a piece of equipment and just getting out there and shooting. The flip side of this is that while you are fiddling with the settings and analysing the results you can miss out on certain moments.

Specifically the one where a shiny red super awesome Lamborgini, followed immediately by an even nicer (if that's possible) yellow one cruised down Embankment at just the right time of day lighting wise that, in my mind at least it would have made a really really cool photo if only I was paying attention.**

Anyway as disappointing as that was I couldn't really complain since I was still getting acquainted with the equipment but moreso because I still hadn't reached my destination.

It was Bonfire night. And I happened to have a camera and my tripod. And I had a line on a pub where due to connections that are not all that complicated to explain but I won't get too into now, I could get free beer. In Blackheath village. With a clear view of the fireworks:

Ooooooooo.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get a photo of a small group of people doing that "ooooo-aaaaah". I think I had to swear at them to "Look at the f'ing fireworks."

It's not the fastest lens in the world and I've still got a lot to learn about using my camera to its full potential after the sun goes down* but I was pretty happy with the results!

Photos: 1) Picadilly Circus tube entrance. 2) Oh man, what do you call that thing, I totally forget. The big gates that separates Trafalgar Square from Buckingham palace. 3) Lamborghini free shot along Embankment 4-6) Oooo-Ahhhhh 7) "Oooooo-Ahhhhh"

*Less so to doing anything with my awesomely named and registered "website".

**This being London it's reasonably probable that if I hang out on Embankment long enough I will see that again but it wouldn't be the same.

***Not having a remote shutter release I was still using my patented 10 second timer technique which, when taking photos of fireworks requires quite a bit of luck. Luckily there was free beer so we didn't mind standing around for the entire show.

Some Mo Related Science

2010-01-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

The Problem

How, if at all, does a MO affect the coefficient of drag?

Facts

The drag coefficient Cd is defined as:

where

Fd is the drag force,
ρ is the mass density,
v is the speed of the object, and
A is the reference area.

In drag coefficient formula the variable “A” refers to the surface area. If we use the upper lip of a standard North American Male as our sample surface area then if said male was to attempt to grow a moustache for some reason (presumably either some silly project or maybe he just thinks they are cool (he’d be right)) he would be manipulating the surface area in question by a factor of “Mo”. We refer to this as the “Mo Multiplier”.

Each individual male’s Mo Multiplier will be unique and dependent on many Mo related variables (Time of Mo growth, genetic predisposition to Mo etc.). In order not to confuse the O in Mo with a 0 the Danish character Ǿ will be used. Each individual’s Mo Multiplier (MǾ) will be annotated with their name or initials i.e. MǾ dave or MǾdg

After a series of tests are performed MǾdg is precisely calculated and expressed in scientific notation. In the test subjects’ MǾdg was initially not determinable and the computer kept spitting out errors such as “what mo?” or “Mo not found”. But after increasing the calibration the MǾdg in question was determined to be 4.357 x 10 ^-4,000,000,000.

Summary:

To factor in the effect of Mo growth on the coefficient of drag we needed to derive the Mo Multiplier MǾdg and revise the formula as follows:

Note that the 2nd bit of the denominator of the formula reads "A Mo" which is the objective of Movember (to grow A Mo) and is not a coincidence which I don’t have time to prove mathematically so you’ll just have to trust me.

Result:

For the case study in question it can be confidently predicted that the Mo Multiplier would have a negligible effect on the coefficient of drag and similarly on the Tuesday Club 6 k run time.

I am available for questions after class.

Good Day.

Professor D.J Gerhard
Founder Movember Labs
Mo-Emeritus of the Movember Institute

MOVEMBER UPDATE: Day 4

2010-01-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

....Sadly nothing to report. Mo still barely discernable.

Still, there is a long way to go yet (see projection below plotting the month of Movember along the x axis and Moustache Awesomeness on the y axis – Note how the Awesomeness of the Mo is projected to increase exponentially as the month progresses)

Also note I’m already up to £70 on the fundraising. Wicked!!!!

Movember 2009 is operated by the Moustache Division of http://www.sillybeardprojects.com/.*

Visit my donation site for more information and please give generously.

*Soon to be an actual website and not just a link to my blog and by soon I mean eventually

Running to Work

2010-01-06T02:52:00.000-08:00

Lots of friends are moving back to Australia these days. Sure they are originally from there but I still think big cities are where the action is. Exciting stuff happens unexpectedly here.

For instance, I’m running to work this morning (running or walking to work probably isn’t even an option in Adelaide) when suddenly some guy about 10m ahead of me (approximately directly across the street from Nandos on Commercial St) does a kind of wobbly legged collapse in slow motion (probably was in real time but seemed slow) and fell over backwards into the street and hit his head on the pavement.

I rushed over to see if he was alright and maybe help him up when he started convulsing, legs shaking and saliva bubbling out of his mouth with his eyes kind of rolling back into his head. Well quite frankly I panicked. I did not know what to do so I started shouting for someone to help out and call an ambulance even though I was still listening to my headphones which were attached to my iphone which would have been useful for say calling the afforementioned emergency response vehicle.

While passersby were simultaneously calling an ambulance, I was left to tend to the guy who was still shaking around and seemed to be getting worse. I had absolutely no clue what to do so I said “you’re going to be alright mate, help is on the way” even though my face would have told him that I was super-freaked out and scared on his behalf, if he was watching that is.

Luckily the cops happened to be on patrol and were there probably within 1 or 2 mins. The two lady cops didn’t really inspire confidence in their first-aid knowledge but they did roll him on his side and by the time the second cop car came and the officer suggested that passers-by move along, he seemed to have stabilized.

I was standing there watching them for a bit when a lady asked me what happened. I gave her the short version then she said “I think I know that guy” but that maybe it was from passing him in the street regularly and that she recognized me as the guy who runs to work and lost his shoes that time.

One day back in September when I was still a carefree cyclist but having left my bike at work the night before for alcohol consumption related reasons, I decided to run into work. In my haste and likely as a result of the previous evenings alcohol consumption I had kind of carelessly zipped up my backpack. So as I’m running down Commercial street my stuff, unbeknownst to me starts falling out, work clothes, shoes, then shirt etc. and this awesome lady runs after me with one of my shoes and lets me know.

Who knows how far I would have got before I noticed my pack was a bit light but it probably would have been pretty far. And I had a big meeting that day as well.

Anyway I thanked her again but was too distracted from the panic-based adrenaline to get her name. I’m sure we’ll meet again though. Maybe in first-aid class.

I emailed the cops to let them know I was concerned about the guy and if they could recommend a first aid course. The Hackney Police said commercial street was the jurisdiction of Tower Hamlets Police and that they would forward my comments along to them. I haven't heard anything back.

They also recommended St. John's Ambulance first aid courses. So I'm looking into that.

I'm of the opinion that a little knowledge could save someone's life and this experience was a massive eye-opener that I don't even have a little knowledge least of all the confidence to use it in a crisis. And crises tend to crop up now and then unexpectedly in big cities.

Photos: 1) Map zoomed in to Commercial St. 2) Running route Tabernacle St to Canary Wharf.

Opearation Beardvaria

2010-01-05T04:35:00.000-08:00

OPERATION BEARDVARIA

Objcetvies:

1) Grow Beard
2) Go to Bavaria
3) Go to Oktoberfest

Results: Awesomeness

One of the coolest things about Oktoberfest is, thatdespite the reputation for Beer Tents, partying, pretzels, amazing costumes, Beer Tents and um..Beer Tents (all of which are perfectly cool in and of themselves) the “Oktoberfest” as it is done in Munich is really a family thing.

It’s a big fairground with games and rides and food and everybody (including small children) is dressed up in traditional Dirndl’s and Lederhosen. There are balloons and candy and stuffed animals and even real animals in the petting zoo.

Sure, if you want to you can get really pissed in a Beer Tent. No question there. That is a given. But equally you can take the family and have a nice day out enjoying traditional food and culture.

For me, I think the fact that ridiculously huge beer tents (so big that they could hardly be called tents at all and realistically are permanent structures) full of pissed up Germans and Italains and Australians (by far the biggest ethnic groups) are integrated seamlessly into what is essentially a family culture festival really makes it unique and awesome.*

Billsy and I had arrived on the Friday (me from Fussen, him from London) and he immediately answered the only question I wanted to know. “How was your flight?” No. “Are you ready to Party?” Try again. “HAVE YOU GOT THE SHIRTS?” He had. This was going to be the best Oktoberfest ever!

But before that, we decided that we would have a look around. We were in a fun hostel in a prime location just a short walk from both the train station and the Oktoberfest park but thought we had better get out there and get the lay of the land, suss things out, maybe have a beer or two and take some photos. Billsy tells the story nicely in this blog entry.**

Our group had tickets for the 11:00am Saturday*** sitting in the Lowenbrau tent and when we met up in the train station at 10:00 and the energy was already buzzing. It was readily apparent that some “Oktoberfesters” had not yet been to bed from the night before and yet were back for more bright and early.

In a way it did seem a bit early to start having steins of beer. After all it was Saturday and while I’m not a complete stranger to getting up first thing in the morning and having a litre of beer, it’s definitely for special occasions only.

There was no arguing that it was a special occasion at least. To prove it Billsy and I were dressed in matching costume lederhosen and essentially matching green Operation Beardvaria shirts (they had our respective names and roles in the beard project on the back but other than that were the identical****) so we were dressed for a special occasion if nothing else.

When you walk into a giant Beer Tent full of thousands of Bavarian themed revellers who have already been drinking beer for 2 hours you quickly forget what time it is and start about the business of catching up.

I will admit that enthusiasm got the better of me and I soon encountered a problem that I had not considered. A litre of beer is a lot. My bladder cannot hold that much. The toilets were at the other end of the tent. Despite the fact that I was in the culmination of Operation Beardvaira at a fun and lively festival I found myself in intense pain (as if my bladder and intestine and well everything would burst) on the way to the toilets on more than one occasion.

During one of the trips while I was struggling not to wet myself, slowly weaving my way through the masses towards the toilets, a girl on the sidelines read aloud from the sleeve of my shirt “To Beard or Not to Beard?” and then answered the question aloud while giving my beard a bit of a tickle “To beard obviously!”

Ahh. I was temporarily in love. (this would happen about 10 or 20 times during the night – Hey, it’s a happy place) It’s too bad I was experiencing excruciating “I-drank-my-beer-too-fast-and-now-have-to-pee-really-really-badly” type pain otherwise I would have loved to chat more with her about the Operation.

And even though I had taken the trouble to work on my German and learned how to say “Do you like my beard?” Or I had it written down and practiced it numerous times at least. After a few litres of Paulaner beer I sort of forgot and just asked people in English. Most people did which is part of the reason why Operation Beardvaria is considered a success.

The day kind of flew by in a blur of talking and laughing and drinking and trying not to pee my lederhosen. By 5 o’clock some of us had had enough of the beer tent and some of us hadn’t. I was in the later group. We were obliged to vacate our table for the 5pm sitting but we could still hang out in the tent which is a fun place.

At what seemed like 3 in the morning I remember thinking, hey, where is everyone. I thought Teresa and co were just going to the loo. I can’t find them. Better look around. Hmm still can’t find them. Maybe another lap.....um...guys...hello, where is everyone.....Oh man, I’m really drunk...maybe I should just go home. I know the way. After all I’ve done it 3 times already.”

But even though I technically knew the way, I couldn’t seem to find the way and soon got lost. Not to panic though, after a week of travelling in Germany by train, one of the words I recognized Banhauf (“train station”) and jumped on the first bus that was headed there. About 45 seconds and one stop around the corner later I arrived at the train station. I felt like a bit of an idiot but at least I knew where I was and as importantly I knew that it was only a short walk to my bed.

When I finally got in and checked the time on my iphone (it was still new to me so I had left it in the hostel in order that I didn’t lose it) it was shortly after 9pm. Hmmm. That’s a bit early....Well I was pretty drunk. So at least this way I’ll get a good sleep and be ready to make my 10am flight.

One of the worst things about Oktoberfest (especially the days that start before 11am) is getting a really really bad hangover while you are still awake (or actually trying to sleep. Unfortunately for me and the other guests of the hostel, I was up most of the night returning the many many litres of beer to mother nature.

At 9am on Sunday, when I felt like death a large group of revellers bound for London from Munich on an Irish Airline had all ordered full 1L steins of beer and were carrying on like they were still in the beer tents. I hated them. But even though I felt terrible (I would be sick for like a week afterwards as well) I was happy to get home shave off my beard and declare Operation Beardvaria a complete success!

PROST!

Photo 1) Final Operation Beardvaria Logo. 2) Prezel shot in front of the ridiculously huge beer "tent" Hofbrauhaus 3) Pretzel girl...mmm...pretzels...4) Good shot showing the outfits. Shirt. Lederhosen. Beards. Stiens of beer. Everything really. 5) Video: Photos put to Gemma Bier trinken by DJ Ötzi 6) Operation Beardvaria close up beard.

*It’s like those day care things that they have at the mall except in reverse, the kids can explore and ride the rollercoaster and pet a goat and then pick up Mom and Dad at the beer tent after. Something for everyone!
**He’s much better than me at real-time blogging.
*** Reserved seats get only ½ a day although you can stay in the tents you do not get to sit at a table unless you can schmooze your way in. People who want to get up at the crack of dawn, queue up for several hours until 9am when they open the doors, can secure a table and sit there as long as they want. Frankly, as the rest of the story will attest, 6 hours was perfectly adequate.
****I also sent Matt a shirt as thanks for his awesome logo design.

Schloß!*

2010-01-04T04:24:00.000-08:00

Untitled Screenplay:

Working title 'Schloß'

Maybe 'Schloß!' with an exclamation mark!

Bavaria, 1850

A young lad of 10 or 12 gazes off into the horizon. He's looking east over rolling hills. It is farmland as far as the eye can see. It is late summer. Hot and dusty. All around him hustle and bustle. Crates and sacks are being loaded on to carts. Maybe 20 or so people seem to be preparing for some sort of trip. The oxen destined to pull the carts* are not yet hooked up but are grazing nearby.

The boy is not sad exactly but wistful. Lost in his thoughts. Imagining he were somewhere else. We see into his thoughts which follow the topography of the land over the dusty fields and into a lush forest over the hills and down into a river valley and follows the river. For having never been there his imagined geography is remarkably accurate. Following along the river a handful of white tailed deer are spooked and bound off into the trees.

A cottage with a rowboat pulled up on shore is the first sign of civilization. This is followed by an old sone bridge that looked like it had been made with more care and craftsmanship than most people's houses. The next bridge is not so quiant. It is industrial and a steam engine is passing over head carrying about 6 passenger cars. It is shiny and black and magnificent.

Down on the river the boat traffic is unbelievable, boats of all sizes, fishing boats and steam engines and navy ships, one even made entirely of iron.A nautical smell kind makes its way up to the city which spreads it's way up the hillside on either side of the river.

In the town square we see gentlemen and ladies dressed in the latest fashions and we see university students practicing their fencing skills in the shadow of Heidelberg castle.

The camera zooms out and we see the young boy in his farm surroundings mimicing some fencing moves with an imaginary foil. Casltes were something that he couldn't really imagine properly. The tallest building in Brumblebach was the 2 1/2 storey church and even that had been built at the bottom of the hill and so looked smaller than it actually was by comparisson. Were he to ever see a castle he felt certain that he would defend it with all of his honour!

Mama [in a kind of motherly sing-song voice]: Adam. It's time to get ready Liebes.

Papa (clearly a farmer but with a well groomed and awesome beard): Look at him. [said gruffly] He's always daydreaming.

Mama [giving Johan a look like "as if you aren't prone to daydreaming yourself!"]: Come on now Schatz. It's time to help prepare for the trip.

Adam busied himself but his thoughts were elsewhere. He was still thinking about castles and swords and big cities. Places that he could see and smell and hear and taste in his mind but places that that he'd never visit.

Why he should be swept off to Canada over 3,800 miles away when he had never even been allowed to visit Heidelberg only 80 odd miles and less than one day's ride on a horse was something he profoundly did not understand.

He knew nothing of Canada. Were there castles there? He had no idea.

Still, in a few days he was going to be on a boat crossing the Atlantic Ocean. He'd never been on a boat before. And his mind turned to that.

And roll super awesome opening credit and title sequence.

Photos 1)Heidelberg castle from up on the hill. It was hard to get to that spot although the little park up there was a pretty good spot for it 2-4) Central Heidelberg riverside type shots 5) The closest thing I could find to reproducing the postcard that I sent Matt from Heidelberg castle with a duel. I think that one was more a painting though. As I recall it was quite awesome. Steve got a postcard of a bunsen burner which I thought was also quite cool. I had to leave that out of the screenplay though as there just wasn't room. 5-7) Even thought King Ludwig of Bavaria was about the same age as my Great Great Grandfather Adam Gerhard and wouldn't complete his famous Bavarian castle until about 1875 it is still exactly the sort of castle that you could create in your mind and I happened to go there and take a bunch of photos so it worked on a lot of levels.

*Schloß is german for castle. That "ß" is pronounced as double "s" as in Schloss or GerhardStraße.
**Rich folk would travel by horse but these are farmers and oxen is what is available so there you go.

The search for Gerhardstraße

2010-01-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

It’s exciting tracing your roots. There’s very much a sense of adventure associated with it. Mind you the journey of my Gerhard ancestors' immigration to North America in the mid 19th century would have been a bit trickier than my 21st century reverse journey. Though I was headed to the correct place, the tiny village of Misseau/Sand in the region of Western Germany known as Rhine Palatine, I wasn’t exacty retracing their steps.

My travel time was probably something like 12 hours including a nice relaxing wait in the Air Canada lounge and an overnight flight where I could have an unlimited amount to drink and watch as many moives as my heart desired (although Transformers 2 was pretty crap) and if I wanted another blanket I just pressed a button and voila.

Having grown up in Southwestern Ontario and spent many a weekend afternoon playing hide and seek in cemeteries across South-western Ontario so that my Mom and Dad could track down filing cabinets full of this type of genealogical information, it’s safe to say that the land that constituted the exotic “new world” to my ancestors was familiar and, dare I say it, boring. I was more interested in the place that they left. Germany. The Motherland.

For the Gerhards in the 1850s it would have taken weeks or even months of travel and preparation involving horses and rail a very very long and perilous and uncomfortable and...um...long, steamship ride across the Atlantic. In many cases the emigration of entire families from Europe to “the new world” would have been accomplished over years or even decades!

Records are sketchy on when precisely each of Adam Gerhard (Gt Gt Grandpa) and his parents Johan Adam and Elizabeth (Gt Gt Gt Grandpa and Grandma) actually arrived, but somewhere between Adam’s birth in Sand, Germany in November of 1841 and his marriage in Canada to Martha Jane Dennis in Elgin Ontario, Canada in December of 1861, The Gerhards made the transatlantic journey and settled to a new life in Canada.

It seems to me though that in order to speak English well enough to win the hand of a fair Scottish Maiden* by the time he was 20, Adam would have had to have had at least some education or upbringing in Canada. Therefore he would have had to have arrived, likely along with one if not both of his parents, sometime in the early to mid 1850s.

Rhine-Palatine is one of the tinier regions of western Germany. In the 1850s though it was part of a much larger region controlled by the King of Bavaria Maximillian II. This has nothing to do with anything. It's just something I thought was cool. Another thing I found cool was how familiar the area looked. With farmland and forests and rolling hills stretching as far as the eye can see in any direction it looks a lot like southwestern Ontario. Geographically that is. Obviously there is a reliable and efficient passenger train service and the signs are in a different language but other than that the landscape is basically the same.

I still have no idea of the circumstances that caused The Gerhards to leave the motherland and settle in the relative backwater of Norfolk county Ontario.** After all Germany was an influential centre of European culture and scientific innovation in the 19th century. Even around the time of Gerhard emigration, Robert Bunsen was busy inventing his infamous namesake burner*** at Heidelburg University a mere 100kms away. (In 1850 a 100km train journey would have taken less than 4 hours)

In fact the precise reason for any one family's decision to emmigrate from Germany is impossible to ascertain without personal journals and letters whcih sadly have not been preserved in the Gerhard family****but the ever present threat of war, political uncertainty, economic hardship combined with a vast array of books and publications promising a "better life" in North America****saw more than 1,000,000 Germans emmigrate to North America between 1840 and 1875.

We’ll never know what life would have been like for Adam or his descendents (ie me) had they remained in Germany.

Maybe they would have lived and farmed in relative peace in the Rhineland until the present day. Maybe my ancestors would have had more exciting destinies like flying alongside the Red Baron in WWI or matching wits against Indiana Jones during WWII.

I like to think that the Gerhard genetic proclivity for enjoying beer and pretzels would have taken hold spawning a worldwide brand of delicious Gerhard Pretzels TM and all the future Gerhard descendents could be Pretzel heirs running the business (especially quality control)

and with the wide availabilility of reasonably priced freshly baked delicious pretzels neither of those Great Wars would have ever happened because at all of the summit meetings the caterers would put out a bowl or a tray of soft fresh melt in your mouth delicious Gerhard Pretzels TM and the delegates from both sides would forget all talk of war. Maybe not. but then again you never know.....which is why it is fun to think about and it’s why I went to visit.

Meisau is a small town. Really small. So small that when a bearded tourist with a camera walks down the main street old ladies glower out their windows in a disapproving scowl and, possibly because they were called, the police stop and ask what you are doing. If it is this small in 2009, It must have, but for the church, scarcely even existed as a town at all in 1841.

So I guess it should come as no surprise that there is no street named after us. No Gerhardstraße. I know because I walked down them all. It took about 30 minutes.

Photos 1) 1st Gerhard to return to the Motherland (as far as I know) 2) Steamship image pulled from google. Kind of sets the mood I thought. 3-4) Landscape in and around Miesau. 5) The "original" bunsen burner 6) Gerhard Pretzels mockup. Photo obtained without permission from Billsy's Oktoberfest album 7) Miesau main street 2009.

*According to Mom if I want to be factually accurate Martha Jane Denis was not Scottish or even of Scottish ancestory. She was 4th generation American and it is through her line that I can claim United Empire Loyalist heritage. I think a Scottish accent would really help add that sort of period feel to my screenplay though.

**I say relative backwater but it would have had a lot of air of the familiar about in addition to geography. German culture flourished in the region and up until the outbreak of WWI even the biggest city now Kitchener, was called Berlin. To this day Kitchener is a great place to find a good Oktoberfest party.

***Took me by surprise a bit to see, if not the original Bunsen Burner, then at least a period replica on display at Heidelberg Castle which randomly also houses the Germany Pharmacalogical museum which is about as exciting as it sounds, except for the burner of course which was cool.

****This would also show some insight into the personality of my ancestors which I think would be equally fascinating.

*****Not least of these was Gottfried Duden's 404 page book Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America which not only enticed German settlers to Missouri but spoke glowingly of the German immigrant experience and opportunities in North America in General.

Mr. David James Gerhard M.C.

2010-01-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

When Sean and Karen asked me to be the Master of Ceremonies at their wedding, obviously I was very honoured and said “Hell yes” immediately but then got to wondering a couple of things:

Why do couples keep asking me that?
Having planned out my next beard growing project well in advance to coincide with Oktoberfest would they be OK with me MC’ing their wedding while on the home stretch of a 6 week beard project?

As to the second question I didn’t so much wonder as asked directly:

Dave: Well ya I’d love to be your MC but well, your wedding is the weekend before Oktoberfest and I’m planning on having a big kickass Okotberfesty themed beard so, just wanted to check if that was ok for what you want in your MC or whatever (Not said aloud: also if you say ‘no’ and I have to choose between being your MC and keeping my beard then...welll...umm....well I mean it’s a beard project isn’t it?...people get married all the time...but growing a beard and going to Oktoberfest, well as far as I know that’s never happened – at least not in any official or deliberate and well documented way).

Sean: Oh Dave! That is why we want you to be the MC.* (He went on to add, in case there was any doubt, that I could keep the beard and in fact he and Karen were very laid back and open minded about all of the details.)**

Which leads me to the first question: What is it about me that causes people ask me to MC their wedding? It’s happened three times now. Each instance completely unprovoked and independent of the others, there being no relationship between the three weddings or any guest list overlap and so no way that any feedback could have spread to “get the word out”. I do have some presentation and speaking experience but only one of the couples knew that at the time of asking.

I honestly don’t know why. All of the weddings were quite big so there would have been a large pool of friends and family to choose from. If you were making a list of personality traits that you want in your MC probably gregarious, out-going, witty and articulate would be right up there. And looking in the mirror I would have to admit that none of those characteristics directly apply to me except maybe witty if you mean it in a sort of sarcastic sardonic sort of way. I do have an affable nature and an ability to laugh at myself (and awesome beard growing ability) but I those are probably secondary characteristics for a typical MC though I suppose if you combine that with also being organized and reliable and genuinely enthusiastic then it might be a better fit.

Whatever the reason, people keep asking me and I quite enjoy it so I’m happy to do it.

You Should Do That Professionally

Is there any higher praise than someone saying “you should do that for a living”? If there is then I can’t think of it. I mean anyone can say “Good job” or “That was awesome” but you have no way of knowing if they mean it (unless it actually was awesome and then you can just agree with them “Ya it was pretty awesome wasn’t it?”).

Well that’s the type of feedback I received from my two previous MC gigs and Sean and Karen’s kept the streak alive. The only problem I have with this high level of praise is when people say “you should do that professionally” but there isn’t actually a profession as far as I’m aware. I mean I don’t know how lucrative “Professional Master of Ceremonies of weddings” is, but something tells me that anyone who is a “Professional MC “ isn’t going to retire early because of it.****

I guess the closest professional gig that would actually be quite lucrative is hosting a show like American Idol or something which employs essentially the same skill set as a MC and now that I think of it I’m sure I could do a better job than what’s-his-face with the phony smile and fake tan so maybe it’s time for a career change after all.*****As Sean put it, "He's a great guy (referring to me) don't let the beard fool you!"

Footnote: Great wedding by the way. Good times. After my official duties wrapped up and Sean started “forcing” people to have double gin and tonics it gets a bit hazy though.

Photos: Ok so I was too busy with my MC duties to take many photos. Not that there weren't many beautiful people or good photo ops. Clearly the opposite was the case. 1-2) Thanks to Nancy Widish for patiently letting me pose for a few photos after I realised that I had already completed my MC duties and didn't yet have any shots. The real MCing would have looked a lot like this though. 3) Not an official duty of an MC but selecting an appropriate vintage is important none the less. 4) Brett Auger figured out how to work my camera just long enough to get a decent beard shot albiet in challenging lighting conditions. 5) Sean, finally dressed and celebrating his final few hours of "freedom".

*Not an actual quote.
**In a way this is quite annoying since while I’m happy to be the MC and keep things moving during the reception I’m certainly not a wedding planner and definitely not a mind reader so, y’know, some direction would be good. (we would take care of that in the conference call which if I recall was about 10 mins of wedding logistics and 30 mins of beard related nonsense)
***but If someone hears of a lucrative job MCing weddings once a week then by all means let me know and I’ll take it up professionally
**** Also I think it would be tricky to conjure the necessary enthusiasm and energy to be the MC for a couple that you didn’t know well and didn’t really care if they had a good time at their wedding as long as the cheque cleared.
*****And now that I think about it even more I seem to remember getting pretty encouraging feedback from my MC duties at the EY Cayman team beach Olympic challenge and the Stag-and-Doe-lympics so I definitely need to get into that. Someone in the Caymans actually asked if I was a radio announcer which I think would be a pretty fun job though I doubt it pays as much as most people assume it does.

www.sillybeardprojects.com

2010-01-01T05:07:00.000-08:00

Mid-to late September 2009 was the culmination of some late nights at work trying to hit some important deadlines. Accounting work can be uninspiring at the best of times but factor in conference calls with a legal team based in New York and the requisite 5hour time difference, a significant portion of the long hours were spent waiting for the legal team to get back to us so that we could then get back to them and the cycle would repeat.

During one of these lulls, on 10 September 2009 to be precise, presumably while stroking my beard in a kind of evil genius way, I registered the domain name www.sillybeardprojects.com . I'm not sure why I did this but it seemed like a great idea at the time. Having done that, what next?

I suppose a logo would be in order, if only I knew someone who was both adept and keen at logo design...

"If you were to register the domain name www.sillybeardprojects.com what logo would you associate with it? All hypothetical of course." I asked. "I think I would associate the photo of bearded you drinking nogg and reading the beard book" Replied Matt, meaning this photo:

I liked the idea. "Good one" I replied back, and I spent a good 3-4 hours over the weekend (even though we were working long hours the thought of the mere possibility of working weekends was never entertained) trying to "logoize" the photo in various photo editing suites with absolutely no luck whatsoever.

To most people, the fact that you were struggling to create an appropriate logo for your non-existant website (albeit one with a cool and duly registered URL) would not be the source of stress, but I think it's fair to say that I was, if not downright stressed, at least seriously concerned.

In the meantime the Operation Beardvaria beard started come in nicely, and on 15-Sept 2009 I dropped a note to some friends and fellow beard enthusiasts:

Just thought I'd send a quick note to let you all know that the Beard is really coming in nicely.
Really nice and rugged and manly.
Yet soft and well groomed and handsome.
Everything you would expect really.
Anyway that's it.

Beardily Yours*,

DG

With this excellent beard progress in mind, and during another Friday night lull waiting for a return call, I devoted all my artistic ability to the logo problem. I don't know how many tries it took but I was really satisfied with myself when I finally came up with this:

Actually I was more than satisfied. I was pumped. Majorly stoked. Not only was the Beard coming in nicely, as I said in my correspondence, and Matt had finalized the Operation Beardvaria logo (see shirt link),but now I had a graphical image that perfectly captured the spirit of my beard projects (and the non-existant website that bore its name).

I was so excited that I decided to take the weekend off from logo design which turned out to be a mistake since I was leaving for holidays on Wednesday and hadn't yet designed the shirts. I didn't know exactly what I wanted for the shirts but knew that a hand drawn logo scanned in by a photocopier wasn't exactly how I wanted to present my newly created logo for the non-existant website*** and that with all this working long hours and stuff there wasn't much time left.

Luckily, we made the work deadline and as a reward for the hard work we were granted a day off. I took mine on the Tuesday in order to pack for the holiday. Instead of doing this I spent the day designing the shirts. Well I only spent about ½ hour designing the actual shirts as I had a pretty good idea what I wanted them to look like but I did manage to spend about 4 hours on the www.sillybeardprojects.com logo and even though it seems like a ridiculously long time to slightly tweak an existing image I'm pretty happy with the results.

I was also happy with the results of my shirt design although I was not too happy to hear that they "could not guarantee delivery" before Bills left for Oktoberfest. Nothing like spending over £100 on shirts then to find out you might not get them for the specific intended purpose you created them to fire up the stress glands.****

If you'd like a Gerhard shirt creation visit The Gerhard Shop.

Photos: 1) Final logo for a certain url 2) Shot from back in the New Beard's Eve Beard days 3) Scanned image of hand drawn logo 4) Various iterations after "cleaning up" the logo.

*I can't remember when I started to use "Beardily Yours" obviously it would have had to have been during a beard project or at some time when I had a beard but it's fair to say that it is my favourite way to sign-off correspondence.
***Since the shirts were for one of the projects it made sense, if you thought about it, to include the logo for all of the projects as a kind of secondary logo on the shirt.
****To eliminate the suspense we did get them on time and not to put too fine a point on it were very happy with the results.

Operation Beardvaria: The Story Behind the Story

2009-08-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

The following tells the story leading up to Operation Beardvaria. Events occur in real time:*

8 March 2009 12:11am

Email from: Teresa

Subject: Munich Oktoberfest

Hi guys,
I thought the other day it would be nice going to Munich to the Oktoberfest :-)
I could book us a table in a tent - either for 8, 10 or 12 people. Would be in the Lowenbrau-Festhalle. Would you be interested?

8 March 2009 04:16am
Email from: Teresa
Subject: Munich Oktoberfest

Hi Teresa, that sounds awesome! Count me in. I'm in Siberia now on my way back to London for the end of the month.**

30-March-09 - 2pm:

Text Message from DG: Billo. I'm back tonight at about 5:30. What's say we celebrate with a little Schnitzel Madness at the Bavarian Beerhouse.

Simultaneous Text Message from Simon: G. What time do you get back. I'm thinking that Schnitzel Madness might be a great way to welcome you back to London. My treat.

3 hours later

Text Message from DG: Ha ha. Nice one. You know me too well. Mine was first though. On the ground. See you guys soon.

16-April-09 10:20pm

Email from Teresa

Good news, The table's booked!. ...So, up to you now, too, to watch out for flights and accommodation possibilites. Munich - here we come!

20-May-09 4:24pm

Email from DG:

Subject:

Can you send me the German town name and relevant dates. I'm doing some trip planning.

22-May-09 11:50am

Email from Mom

Subject: Ancestroal Homeland

The Gerhard and Zumstein families from whom you are descended lived at
Miesau, which when you Google it comes up as Miesau Bruchmuhlbach. About 3
km down the road is Sand where I believe the church was located. Going back
another generation the family appears to have been at Glan Munch weiler and
Lambsborn. These are all places very close to one another.

I will copy a couple of things and mail them to you as I can't get my
scanner to work

22-May-09
Email from DG:
Subject: Re: Ancestroal Homeland

awesome. i'm totlly going there in september. to the first one thatis. the Adam Gerhard place. that's as far back as I know so....what'sadam's dad's name? Horst? Michel? Jan?

30-May-09

Surface Mail from Mom (Contents include maps, summary chart indicating Name, Place and date of birth and death, german language marriage certificates). Summarizing the contents, the Gerhard direct ancestoral chain looks like this (Name, Relationship to DG, Birth year, Birthplace)

David James Gerhard (1973 Canada)

Kenneth James Gerhard - Father (1942 Canada)

Kenneth C. Gerhard- Grandfather (1908 Canada)

Clarance Gerhard - Great Grandfather*** (1867 Canada)

Adam Gerhard - Great Great Grandfather (1841 Bavaria)

Johan Adam Gerhard - Great Great Great Grandfather (1810 Bavaria)

Joh Theobald Gerhard - Great Great Great Great Grandfather (1774 Bavaria)

Philipp Gerhard - Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather (circa 1749 Austria)

....and that's as far back as we know. Still, not bad though eh. 5 Great Granfathers dating back 260 years. Can't wait to go there and hang out and check it out.

1-June-09 12:34am

Email from Teresa:

Subject: you can book Oktoberfest accommodation today 11 am.

Just a quick reminder - today, 1 June, you have a great (and maybe the last)
chance to book accommodation for Oktoberfest. Wombats opens their booking
website at 11 am English time. Book within 5 minutes, afterwards all rooms
will be gone...

1-June-09 11:36am

Email from DG:

Subject: Re: you can book Oktoberfest accommodation today 11 am

SWEEEEEEET. After 26mins of relentless refreshing and entering my cardnumber I got billsy and myself space in dorm rooms for both nights. Ihope everyone else's luck was the same. If not. the key is to not giveup and just keep refreshing. Bring it on!!!

25-Juni-09 12:27am

Email von Teresa

Betreff: latest Oktoberfest news

...Dave, have you been successful finding a place to buy Lederhosen? Let us know as some others were interested in getting some, too.

25-June-09 9:01pm

Email from DG:

Subject: Re: latest Oktoberfest news

It's cheap costume quality but I figure there is about a 99.99999999999999999% certainty of spilling beer all over it so don't want to be thinking about how much I spent on lederhosen when I could be having a wicked time.

http://www.flagshipfancydress.co.uk/lederhosen-costume-1025-p.asp

I haven't ordered yet but once I get my first paycheque in 9 months I will be all over it. PROOOOOOST!!!!

31-July-09 12:03pm

Email from DG
Subject: lederhosen

Want me to order you a lederhosen while I order mine???!!!

31-July-09 12:23pm

Email from Simon

Subject: lederhosen

Yep, do it.

31-July-09 12:35pm

Email from Flagship Fancy Dress

Subject: Your Order at Flagship Fancy Dress

Your order has been received and will be processed as soon as possible.

31-July-09 12:45pm

Email from Flagship Fancy Dress
Subject: Your Order at Flagship Fancy Dress

We want to let you know that your order status has been updated to....DISPATCHED.****

3-August-09 7:45pm

Text Message from DG : My Lederhosen arrived!!!

Up until now. This has been a history of the communication relating to securing a table at Oktoberfest 2009, booking acommodation in Munich on one of the busiest weekends of the year and and buying online some kickass Lederhosen. This is the background which gave rise to the genesis of the brainstorming session that resulted in "Operation Beardvaria".

Operation Beardvaria gets a Name

13-August-09 3:16pm

Email from DG:

Subject: Beard-tember?

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the date I started growing my epic travel beard. To celebrate I am going to begin growing my Oktoberfest beard. What do I call this one?

Two years ago it was Beard-vember***** (aka ProjectChabal), last year it was Travel Beard/New Beard's Eve, but what about the2009 version?

Project Oktoberfest sounds cool but doesn't really make one envision beard growth. Beard-tember or Beard-gust just don't havethe same ring them as Beard-vember. Beard-toberfest could be good but it has yet to grow on me. Any ideas?

13-August-09 4:08pm

Email from Simon

Subject: Re:Beard-tember?

Operation Beard-varia. You know it makes sense.

13-August-09 4:22pm

Email from Jason

Hmmmm...at first mention Beard-varia sounds awesome, however I think that Beard-toberfest has people recognizing instantly the link between the beard and event. Also Beard-toberfest sounds like an event (which the beard growing is), while Beard-varia is more like a place (which the beard might be for small pieces of food).

13-August-09 4:32pm

Email from DG

Good insight by Jay. And just when I had almost officially changed the name to Beard-varia. Although I can’t help but notice that he didn’t actually provide any ideas.

It doesn’t really help idea generation that Beard-toberfest is pretty good and I hadn’t actually thought of it when I started the email survey. Might have set the bar too high there. Beard-varia does sound like a great place though. I propose a trip to the Beard-varian Beard-house in the near future to celebrate Beard-toberfest.

13-August-09 5:00pm
Email from Simon

I guess Beard-toberfest is okay.... if you like your mini-projects to have obvious, cheap, unsophisticated, unsubtle names without any clever word play.

Beard-varia sounds like Bavaria which is where the genuis lies, a witty little play on words, Beard-toberfest sounds like a movie co starring Adam Sandler and Rodney Dangerfield filled with lame fart jokes and no plot or dialogue to speak of, on the other hand Beard-varia is more Cohen Brothers - picture The Big Lebowski meets Oh Brother Where Art Thou?

13-August-09 5:00pm

Email from Danny

Beard-toberfest is a bit of a mouth full and doesn't roll off the tongue like Beard-varia does

13-August-09 5:07pm

Email from DG

Beard-varia is a place though. Although maybe if I called the project “Destination Beardvaria” that has a pretty good ring to it. Or maybe “What happens in Beard-varia stays in Beard-varia” you know because a lot of crazy stuff would happen there I bet. If it were a real place that is. But then that’s the idea, it’s up to me to make it real. Right. Beard-varia is back on.

13-August-09 5:17pm
Email from Simon

Chabal is a person, Beard-vember is a month, new beards eve is a day, Travel beard is a...well, I don't know what it is, but the point is that the name of a beard growing project doesn't play by anyone's rules, least of all society's, and naming this one Operation Beard-varia adds another string to the already well strung bow of beard project naming variety.

The fact it's operation Beard-varia actually gives the name a nice framework. What's the operation? Going to Bavaria with a beard. Oh, that makes perfect sense. You are awesome.

13-August-09 5:36pm

Email from DG

Very well. Operation Beardvaria with the subtitle “What happens in Beardvaria, Stays in Beardvaria” (that won’t actually be the motto it just sounds cool to say – make no mistake there will be loads of sharing the stuff that happens in Beardvaria with all).

I’m working on designing a graphic and logo. Well technically I’m thinking about working on designing a graphic and logo. I can imagine really applying myself and coming up with a kickass logo though.

13-August-09 7:22

Email from Andy

Beard-varia does sound like a great place, and Billsy you have put some strong arguments forward for Operation Beard-varia.

What about Bundes-Liga-Beard-a? Terrible, i know******... perhaps more appropriate if you were actually going to a Bundes-Liga fixture and not the bier festival. Back to the spreadsheets for me, hopefully I'll be more creative in a couple of weeks when I'll have no reason to be working with spreadsheets.

14-August-09 11:22am

Email from DG

Subject: FW: Beard-tember

Sorry not to involve you guys in the “Operation Beardvaria: What happens in Beardvaria, stays in Beardvaria” event naming debate. Beard-toberfest was a close second.

Operation Beardvaria will span from yesterday until 4 October when, after a Saturday night at a massive Oktoberfest Beer tent in Munich I will shave it off.

For the logo I envision a circular badge with Operation Beardvaria written along circularly along the top and the subtitle What happens here stays here wrapping around the bottom with some mix of Bavaria related and beard related graphics in the centre and an appropriate font.

It’s still a work in progress so any design assistance/advice would be welcome.

24-August-09 2:55pm

Email from Matt

So, do you have the logo developed yet?

24-August-09 2:55pm
Email from DG

Not developed per se. but I have been thinking about it and next Monday is a holiday so I might take Thursday and Friday off and finish my blog and design the logo and a few other admin type things.

Do you have loads of fonts on Corel draw? Perhaps the Oktoberfest font or one similar.

25-August-09 12:00am

Email from Matt

Here is the Bearvaria draft logo I made.

Beardvaria continues...This was written on Operation Beardvaria Day 13.

Photos: 1) Draft graphic courtesy of Matt (also designer of National Beardographic and Bearded People).

*Not really but it's very 24-esque phrasing. All of the events are in the past. Some by several months. Some from earlier today. All actually happened. Though not all are actual quotes. The text thing from March is by best rememberance as I've since broken that phone and some of the emails have been edited for brevity but not many.

**Up until 2009 the closest thing I've come to Munich Oktoberfest is the Bavarian Beerhouse approximately 700m from my flat. It was also the venue of the 2007 50 Days of Beard-vember Party. Before that a photo of me in my Bavarian hat made it into the Bavarian Beerhouse Newsletter.
***Clarance isn't the coolest name these days but you should have seen his mustache. From the old timey photos it was awesome!

****10 minutes from order time to dispatch time has got to be some kind of online shopping record! Ordered it Friday at lunch and even with free shipping received it on Monday!

*****Did I ever tell you about the time I made the Big Book of Beardvember which photographically recorded the 2007 Project Chabal (also known as Beardvember) and then sent a copy to Grandma Gerhard. I never heard back from her. What's up with that?

******Ya, it wasn't great but in the mad mad game of Beard Project Naming all ideas are welcome.

Canal Boating it Uuuuuup!*

2009-08-04T02:22:00.000-07:00

"Hey Dave, Wanna go canal boating in July?" someone had asked me. "Put me down for a Hell Yes!" I replied. In the end I was fortunate to be able to make it in the end and I'm glad I was because it was a terrific weekend.

There were 12 of us, 6 on each boat. The boats we hired came already named (ours was Harry) but I took it upon myself to rename it the "Spirit of Awesomeness".***

The network of canals in southern England is pretty impressive. Allegedly you can get all the way up to Manchester, but we only had a long weekend so we just went one day out and one day back. It was really nice to get out in the countryside and a experience a completely differnt side of life compared to the hustle of London which is the norm though.

In a boat crew, everyone has their roll. Mine was to make sure the ipod didn't run out of batteries, try not to fall off the roof while taking photos, break glasses (I was relegated to drinking red wine out of a plastic cup - not because I was banned from using glassware but because after I broken 2 of them there were none left****), tell everyone what a great job they were doing and man the centre rope (a roll that, in more than 70% of circumstances is completely unneccessary).

I like to think that I was also in charge of enthusiasm generation although everyone else didn't really need much assistance to enjoy themselves. Once I made french toast for all on the first morning no one could really give me a hard time about my contribution though.*****

Piloting the boat was too much responsibility for me although when I did try it i picked it up quickly enough with only one minor incident smashing into a docked boat at maximum speed (4mph).

Instead I just practiced using my SLR (I'm slowly getting the hang of it!).

Us vs Them

Pam had organized canal boating with a friend of hers from work, Chad. They did a terrific job sorting things out and made it easy for everyone else to just show up and chip in (for which I was grateful all things considered).

The result of two groups of friends on two boats was a natural rivalry.

Farbeit for me to say that our boat was better than theirs, but it was. Not just in atmoshpere (the Boat Cruise Playlist that I made as DJ for the UBS work cruise down the Thames 2 years ago really came in handy), but also in overall boating capability.

For some reason Simon, Jay and Josh took to piloting like a dead badger to water, or a goose to water. Whatever the analogy they were quite good at it.

The same cannot be said about our rivals. They were continually oversteering into things.
Things like bridges, other boats.... the shore. Nothing was safe.

In the spirit of the weekend, they didn't seem to concerned about it though. Which I like.

And the boats are made of steel and are virtually indestrcutable so other than the one captain who wasn't too impressed and reported "the incident" it was not really a big deal (except when pointing it out in a friendly but superior "you are rubbish at boating and we are awesome" kind of way over a few drinks later).

The rivalry continued over some late night (it was dark so I assume it was late, time is irrelevant on a canal boat) pictionary. The team of Dave, Lucinda and Shanel comprising possibly the worst pictionary team since the ancient Egyptians chiseled something into sandstone and forced slaves to guess what it was. I came up with some nonsense about how it was about the comraderie and that who actually won pictionary was not important but everyone knew that was rubbish.

I made up for it by completely dominating at Batman Uno (Uno cards with pictures of batman characters on them for those not in the know) during the Sunday afternoon when it was raining heavily and I was holding down the fort (and the wine) with the ladies indoors while the lads piloted us home.

It's pretty fair to say that it was a super awesome weekend packed with awesomeness. There's something to be said about weekends where the worst moment is when you drop your Sherlock Holmes hat in the canal - I managed to recover it and after several washes it is just about clean again. (Canal water is mighty disgusting you see).

For further information about canal boating and how awesome it is see:
http://billosphotos.blogspot.com/2009/08/18-locks-12-people-2-boats-and-1-super.html

Photos: 1) Why Go 2) Rearviewmirror3-4) Even Flow 5) Porch. 6) Given to fly. 7-10) State of Love and Trust 11-12) Alive 13) Bustin' makes me feel good.

*the suffix "it uuuuuup!" is defined as "doing or having done something with extraordinary levels of enthusiasm for that thing that you are doing or have done"**
**Not an actual definition.
***Earlier in the summer I recently became aware of the word "Awesomeness" when a food vendor advertised that their food was "Packed with Awesomeness". I tried it and it was. From then on things have been packed with Awesomeness or in some way shape or form related to it.
****Technically the first one was gravity's fault. When I got distracted taking photos my wine glass slid along the roof of the boat and off the edge into the abyss. The second one was J's fault. In a rare moment of driver error he steered too close to a tree branch which smacked into my drink.
*****I'm sure my french toast was waaaay more delicious than the copy-cat rival boat who made french toast the next day but they came up with the french toast canal boat dance which I must

Shoot This!

2009-07-06T05:20:00.000-07:00

SB: How does £300 sound for the camera, kit lens, 2 batteries and a 2gb memory card?

DG: Hmmm. The camera expert that I would ask if that is a reasonable price is the one quoting the price.

SB: My 30D is in great nick as I only got it in mid / late 2007 after the first one was pinched in Spain and about 6 months later I got the 40D, so for much of its life it hasn't seen much action. An upper level point and shoot goes for £300, so that price for a quality SLR is the sale of the century.

DG: Lock it in.

And so on the eve of my Birthday I became the proud owner of an SLR. To celebrate i rewarded myself with a "Get the most out of your SLR" course. * It was pretty cool. The emphasis was on setting the correct exposure and practicing using manual mode. There was also considerable effort spent on learning post processing techniques in photoshop and lightroom.

What with being a busy man and all I've only had a handfull of chances to get out and actually practice shooting so progress has been gradual. Once the cash flow improves I'll be adding to the meagre lens collection because having access to the wide range of lenses of Old St. Photography

has illustrated the difference that a good lens can make.

Also I've begun to learn how to edit photos using Lightroom. It is a lot more user friendly than photoshop but there are still a lot of subtle nuances which I need to figure out but you can do some pretty funky things.

Anyway the photos for the blog are likely to get a lot more interesting that is for sure.

Wimbledon 2009

On Day 2, a Tuesday if I remember correctly, I adhered to annual tradition and braved the after work trek down to SW19, (the post code of Wimbledon for the uninitiated). It seemed like a perfect venue to flex some of my new photography "muscles".** Having forgotten to charge my phone I was unsure if I would be able to meet up with my friends.

Luckily the old school method of arranging a meeting place and time before hand worked out well. It probably helped that the place was "Court 4. The one Ana Ivanovic is playing on" and that meant that the time was irrelevant because once there...

Early on in the Tournament is a good time to visit. There are so many matches that there are always some good or notable players on the outer courts accessible with the £12 ground pass.

Even though I didn't recognize all the names it's still good fun.

And with the sun and the shadows it gave me a chance to further my understanding of the exposure settings required in different lighting conditions which,

when you are trying to capture brief flashes of action, while thinking about your shutter speed, f-stop and ISO settings then trying to frame it nicely and not get some onlooker's head in there it's actually a bit stressful.

Next year I'll hopefully have my own equipment and a year's worth of practice under my belt so will be that much better. Whether or not I'll be lucky enough to see Ana I. on the outer courts again is another matter.

Photos: 1) East London, famous for booze and gambling among other things. Probably explains some of the other things actually. 2) Borough market. 3) O2 Centre (formerly known as Millenium Dome) 4) Tower Bridge and town hall 5) Tower Bridge 6) City at night 7) Ana I. fist pump. 8-9) More. 10) Big serving Taylor Dent um..doing one of those. 11) Accidental example of narrow depth of field. Looks cool though eh? 12) Shadows over Wimb. 13) Who's going for this?

*It was a bit of an extravagant reward really since I had yet to receive a paycheque after taking 9 months off.

**It also helped that Billsy had swapped over my kit lens for his 18-200 in anticipation. He's good like that.

MDO: The 4th Annual Mother's Day Open

2009-05-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday 8 May 2009, the residents of 3171 20th Side Road, Campbellville got an unexpected visitor. Mom and Dad sat at the table discussing the recent developments of Dad's health with a nurse when the front door opened and their son Matt walked in. This was not unusual. Matt lives about 30mins drive away. What was unusual was that Matt was accompanied by his brother Dave who had popped in unannounced.*

To say Mom freaked out would be an understatement and Dad had a big smile as well. It probably added to the surreality (not sure if that's a word) that I was wearing my Mongolia fur hat, the kind that Genghis used to wear.

I love doing this type of thing. The unannounced arrival from long distance. It amuses me greatly. In addition to being with the family for Mother's Day** I was in for another treat.

Back in the days of Play Station 2 (if you can remember that far back) there was a video game called Super Swing Golf. "Well that's not actually the name"recalls Matt, "I belive the name from the publisher was "Swing Away" Golf. However marketing people are retarded, and as with most other titles, when marketing fails to come up with an adequate name, I make one up, so the game became known as "super swing".

Having mastered the game it was decided to make it a bit more challenging and play with just two clubs. Driver and putter. And no matter where you were on the course, it was mandatory to alternate between the two. Hence: Driver-putter. As in, "Hey Steve, wanna have a quick 9 of driver-putter?"

As Matt remembers it "Steve slowly became interested in real golf, and one Mother's Day when I showed up at the house he was out in the field practicing his pitching. I suggested we have a little game of driver- putter and after some discussion we decided to ditch the video game system and do it out-doors."

The yard is ideally situated for this although due to constraints relating to yard size driver-putter became pitcher-putter. This gave rise to some interesting questions like "how far do you think I can putt off a tee anyway? The answer: "quite far actually". In fact it gives whole new meaning to the saying "Wow, that putt really got away from me there" (ie. it is in the woods, or across the road or bounced off the house and into the garden, all generally not situations you associate with putting).

Matt: For those of you that have never teed up with a putter, you'd be surprised with the distance you can get if you get a good solid connection, the trickiest part is hitting the ball, as the putter is too short to be used, in the traditional golf swing style.

This lead to the search for "putting tees". You would be surprised how long they make tees. after searching only one Canadian Tire I managed to emerge with 10" golf tees that are perfect for teeing up with the putter.

The term MDO itself evolved the next Mother's Day when upon showing up at the house I asked Steve if he was ready for the "Mother's Day Open". He naturally had no idea what I was referring to, and after a brief discussion the clubs were polished up for the 2nd annual game of pitcher-putter.

That's about it really. Steve won the first MDO, and the second. Matt came from behind to win the third after Steve gave up more than 20 strokes on the always challenging asphalt hole.***

The 2009 MDO, the first one to feature three players****, offered some new rules as well. First, since everyone was now the owner of a Mongolian fur helmet they were mandatory attire.

Second the ATV helmet camera should be affixed to Steve's helmet in order to capture the spirit of the day. We got some good footage as well if I recall (what ever happened to that?).

Also I made a sign, which had never been done before, for some reason, presumably because no one had thought of it, not because it wasn't a good idea (it clearly was).

The results were predictable, Steve, then Matt +10, then me +12.

My two, one stroke penalties for beer spillage preventing me from tying for 2nd.

Still with one year's experience I feel I could challenge for the lead next year. Bring it on!!!

Photos: 1) The MDO logo. Loosely based on the NBA logo. More Mother's Day-y though with the flowers and all. 2) A ball burried in the dandelions. Tough putt from there. 3) Matt and Steve discuss strategy for teeing off from the tire iron. 4) Steve looks for his ball in the woods. That putt really got away from him there. 5) DG tries to get the ball. Watch out for the thistle. 6) Matt concentrates while putting from the long grass 7) Matt and Steve contemplate what should be the next "hole" after completing the well hole. 8) Matt makes sure the helmet cam is set up correctly before tee-off. 9) The sign, prominently displayed as you would expect. 10) After a tough bounce across the road, matt waits for a car before taking his putt. 11) Good action shot. Guess which club. 12) Victorious Steve. Winner of the 2009 MDO.

*You see, Dave lives in the UK and at the time had no job and had spent all his money travelling so wouldn't be expected to just stop by for the weekend from across the Atlantic Ocean.
**Which was great because living so far away for so long it's kind of tricky to get back regularly.
***you still have to alternate clubs but can't hack up the driveway with a pitching wedge so have to use it like a pool cue.

****Last year we had a 50% increase in registration for the event which shows significant demand for this golf variant. If turnout continues to grow at the previous rates we can expect 4 registered golfers by 2011. And if so Ratification of this as an Olyimpic sport will not be far off.

A Tale of Two Couches: Revenge of the Unemployed Accountant*

2009-04-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Returning from a round the world trip to the harsh realities of the real world, not having a job or a place to live or any money is like a having a ice cold bucket of water thrown over your head while simultaneously being kicked in the nuts.

Four weeks later when you still haven't had an interview and the newspaper predicts that the recession could last all summer (they say a lot of things to sell papers) it's as if the water hasn't dried yet but has warmed up to luke warm and is soaking into the wet blanket of your soul.

It could have been worse too. At least I had someone to hang out with during the day. Barry, the guy who took over my room in the flat, had found himself a victim of the credit crunch back in February and was likewise free from the shackles of employment. The rule was, whoever was up first got the coffees. If both of us had nothing specific planned by 2pm then we went to the pub. If someone said, "wanna play playstation" you were obliged to say "yup".

Instantaneously going from constantly being on the move in different countries, meeting new people, learning how to say "thank you" in different languages and generally enjoying yourself to someone who watches so much tv that you memorize and then detest the ads* messes up your sense of normality.

Having an unlimited amount of free time sounds like the best thing ever but when the price is not having any money, living on other people's couch/floor and having to be the last one to go to sleep, not having any personal space, complaining about the price of drinks on the rare occasions when you do go out and generally feeling like an idiot. I could not wait to have a job again.

Six weeks of lethargy is not the best way to finish up the trip of a lifetime especially when there were quite a few things that I still didn't get around to. Things like geocaching, getting regular fitness*** and finishing my travel blog.

I do have a short attention span though and when opportunities for something interesting pop up I jump at them. So even though the fact that I returned to London just before the G20 summit (no business was getting done due to the threat of protests) and Easter followed immediately (potential interviewers take holidays on either side of the long weekend apparently).

So when Billsy said "why don't you head down to the protests and take some photos." I did. I got some great shots as well because, as usual, I had the use of the photography equipment of Old St Photography.

I also had the added bonus of being trapped inside a 3 or 4 block radius because of the police strategy of containment so I couldn't even leave the protests to get lunch even though I had skipped breakfast and was hungry, which meant that I stayed around for several hours longer than intended. I was rewarded for this with some of the better photos in the bunch.

There was a lot of publicity about the way the police handled themselves but from the 4 or 5 hours I spend down there I didn't see anything even remotely resembling unprofessional conduct and in fact thought the cops handled themselves remarkably well.

As protests go, (I haven't been to many/any before this) I actually thought it was pretty lame. At least 80% of the people were just curious observers or photographers and of the actual vocal protesters I'd wager at least 90% of them had no idea what they were actually protesting against.

There were some other memorable moments from April 1 to June 8 including discovering a new bar that does live music karaokee, sampling a lot of Pam's Easter cooking (mmmm*), having a go at yoga on wii-fit and discovering and losing badly at wii curling and then finally, after a rather drawn out process more than a month after my initial interview for which I received positive feedback, secured employment. It was a good feeling. I was even feeling confident enough by then to get them to bump up their offer 5% as well.

Photos 1-7) Series of photos celebrating getting back to work at lunch on workday 1 around Canary Wharf. Video - tells the story of the G20 protests in London in April 2009.

*I'm not sure that revenge is accurate but it is a cool word for a title of a blog chapter

**Although I was pretty stoked during the 3 week stretch when Columbo was on every day.
***I've more than compensated for that btw after 3 months of cycling to work and having discovered yoga, body pump and other classes in the buildig at work.
****When you are unemployed and someone offers to put you up, put up with you and feed you a ridiculous amount of delicious food over easter then you'd probably overstay your welcome too.

Водки поезд (The Vodka Train: Beijing to St Petersburg)

2009-04-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

The trans-mongolia railway. It spans the entire width of Asia. Beijing to St. Petersburg over 6,000 kms. Setting foot on that train was pretty exciting. Looking at the locals and others on the train I was kind of surprised not to see excitement on their faces. "Don't you know that we're on a train to Mongolia?". Despite the fact that we had booked our tickets months in advance and had a schedule and itinerary for when we arrived in Ulan Battur, to me it still seemed like a great adventure into the unknown.

Our initial stretch from Beijing to Ulan Battur was about right though. It takes about 36 hours. For a journey of this length leaving in the early morning is definitely the way to go. By the time the excitement wears off it's time to go to sleep and by the time you wake up and have some pot noodles you have arrived.

In general though life on the train is, well long. For some reason it sounds a lot better in the brochure. There is a certain amount of romance and adventure that comes to mind when you think of the riding a train the entire breadth of a continent. But there is a certain amount of tedium that accompanies being stuck on a train for a prolonged period of time.

For example, there is no "on board entertainment" so you are obliged to make your own. For us is was cards. A$$hole to be specific. It's funny that almost everybody, with only minor rule variations, knows how to play this game so...we played...and then...played...

and then took a pot noodles break...

and then...played a bit more...then a break for some instant mashed potatoes...then some interaction with the locals...then mock the hostess who seemed obsessed with straightening the runner carpet that spanned the carriage and would get rumpled or crooked from people walking on it but would be straightened almost immediately.****

Once cards got a bit boring I managed to go 5-0 and retire the undefeated Trans-Mongolian Railway Chess Champion. Although I only played 2 opponents and one of whom wasn't entirely 100% sure of the rules. Still chess champion. Not bad considering I probably hadn't even thought about chess since I last played in a pub in Iceland 3 years ago.

Some Like it Hot

The trains don't run on coal any more, what is this the 19th century? No the trains run on diesel. The boilers for hot water however do run on coal. Yes, that's right. Every carriage has it's own coal fuelled boiler that provides hot water for tea, coffee and pot noodles. And a main part of the hostess' job is to keep the fire going and ensure there is lots of hot water.

Funnily enough, even though there is a massive coal powered fire generating enough heat to bbq a yak, the heaters for the carriages were not radiators but electric base board heaters. They too seemed to have just the two settings. So even though it was the middle of winter in the Gobi desert we were all more than comfortable in short sleeve tshirts***

As you would expect with a coal fire there are two temperatures, extremely hot and evaporated into steam hot. Luckily the area between the carriages are not burdened with electric heaters, or heaters of any kind, so if you want to cool down some boiling hot water to drinking water about 90 minutes in -20 degrees does the trick.

Crossing into Mongolia

The border crossing from China into Mongolia involves changing the train carriages from Chinese gauge* to Russian guage. The tracks are wider in Russia than in China (the russians having built the mongolian railway in exchange for, well whatever they had at the time). So at about 10 at night after around 14hrs we stop, pull into a big hangar and they make the change.

This process is notable for two reasons,

1) They physically lift the carriage of the Chinese chasis while you are inside. It is actually as cool as it sounds and is all the more impressive because they are so good at it that if you were'nt paying attention you wouldn't even realize it was happening.

2) For the several hours it takes to change over an entire passenger train no one is allowed to use the toilet. This makes sense when you consider that the toilets empty straight out onto the tracks and that we were in an indoor hangar surrounded by workers...

The second thing led to a near emergency and one of our group had to sweet talk the guards to use the toilet on the strict condition that the toilet was not to be flushed until we were back under way. Even though there is not a lot to do on a train and you have to make your own fun and stuff, standing around guarding the restroom door so that once we got underway again you are the first one in to flush your....um.....

Anyhoo, time is measured in short intervals between pot noodles and instant mash potatoes, card games and books, then chapters then pages of books.

It was almost lucky then that I had hung some laundry up to dry (freezing cold Beijing hostel rooms aren't the best for drying laundry) which then reminded me that all this free time would be a great opportunity to mend a hole in my pocket and replace a button with my trusty needle and thread.

It wasn't long though before Jenny, one of my cabin mates had had enough of my poor sewing technique and took over for me. She did a hell of a job too as that button is still on.

Crossing into Russia

Since the tracks are the same in both countries then a mere border crossing should be a mere formality right? Right? No. Say whatever you want about Russian political and economic reforms but state desire to control everything is still prevalant. Two examples:

1) When handing out the customs forms, which are sequentially numbered, the hostess skipped over one of our group. She was adamant that she had distributed the forms correctly and that Andrea had lost hers and under no circumstances was she allowed to issue another one. This is where Mike's lawyerly skills came into play (not for the first time either) and he gathered and presented the evidence to her in such a way as to prove her wrong conclusively and obtain the much sought after customs declaration.

2) When we got on someone mentioned something like "oh ya and watch out for people stashing things in your cabin." Things? What things? What people? It's not drugs is it? Oh man if someone tries to stash drugs in my cabin they are going to get the beatdown of the century.

No it wasn't drugs.

It is unclear what the duty restrictions are on cheap goods from China being imported through Mongolia (it must have something to do with Russia considering itself part of Europe) but I guess the rules are quite strict. So more than once someone tried to stash a pair of shoes or just generally enquired about the possibility of stashing stuff in our cabin. We politely declined.

When we arrived at the border however and opened up the hatches to prepare for inspection what did we find but another pair of shoes. Sneaky buggers. It worked too. Whomever's palm needed to be greased at the border obviously was and a smug looking Mongolian lady collected her inventory once we were safely across the border in Nauski, Russia.

If there is a town that is a stereotypical one-horse, border town it is Nauski. We had quite a long time here. This was evident because in the middle of the night, a uniformed Russian border guard in a surprisingly short skirt and high boots took our passports and hadn't yet returned them and didn't seem likely to any time soon. Also because our now one carriage train was resting on the track outside Nauski station all by itself, unattached to any engine or any other carriages.

From this we garnered that we weren't going anywhere anytime soon.We took a wander around town. And I literally mean we walked the entire visible circumference of the town which has maybe 100 houses and a few businesses. We really wanted to replenish the supplies but none of the "stores" had signs.*****Eventually, I thought that there was just too much traffic going into this unmarked building for it not to be a store so I walked in "If I don't come back tell my mom I love her". It was indeed a store and not just any store.

A store where we could pick up some cups, you know to drink stuff out of. There wasn't a lot to chose from. "I call "Lion cup" I said. Hey, I called it. Trevor got the monkey cup, and Andrea had to settle for the stupid kitten cup. Normal rules, you snooze you loose. But then again if you make a big enough deal about it then you actually win. So Trev got stuck with the pussy cup.

Siberia to Moscow - The Longest Train Ride. Ever.

I know I'm an accountant and all but the only thing I can think of when I hear that something is going to take 76 hours, is that it is a hell of a long time. Especially when it is continuous travel in a train with all there is to look at out the window is birch forests and more birch forests:

Too bad for Russia that birch bark isn't a global commodity or they would be uber-riche.

Three (+) days on a train leaves you with a lot of time to think. You ponder a lot of things. Some questions big, "Should I have stayed with my girlfriend and not bothered with this round the world trip?" and some not as profound "if you put a fresh layer of deoderant on overtop of 3 days of previous layers does it actually make a difference?"

It also brings to light a few cultural differences. Example: The hosteses are allocated an office, for taking care of paper work and a cabin for sleeping. The cabin for the hostesses is denoted thus:

as opposed to the rest of the cabins which have a number. The hostess cabin is the smallest cabin imagineable for two people but is probably reflective of the fact that generally one of them is working at all times so there's not a lot of time when they are in the same cabin at the same time.

Why then, would they come to me, about 1/2 an hour into a 76 hour journey and ask me to switch cabins because an old lady and a separate family of three, one of whom was an infant were crammed into the two person hostess cabin, while the hostesses (I found out later) were two people comfortably situated in a four person cabin) and that if I didn't switch I would be a total dick.

I'll be honest. At first I didn't mind. I felt like I was helping out. Then I felt like I was being taken advantage of especially when the Novisibirsk army got on at 2 am and the snoring colonel from hell joined my cabin. But then I remembered about the existence my good friend vodka and his second cousin beer and all was well. Oh and also their distant relative, ear plugs.

Except that is until the three straight 5am stops when the hostess would banging ice from the underside of the carriage with the shovel.

Sleep comes really easy on a moving train. It is one of the most relaxing things ever. A steady clickity-clack. A gentle rocking but not like on a boat where you need to be sick. It was when the train was stopped and I checked the gps and we were still 2,200kms from Moscow and moving at 19kmph that time really seemed to drag. Also when a baby was crying or 9 inches of ice was being cleared from directly below your cabin by a 50kg woman with a shovel at 3 in the morning.

I think it's safe to say we were more relieved than anything to arrive in Moscow without having killed one another or anyone else.

Photos 1) View out the back window of the Gobi desert enroute to Mongolia from Beijing. 2)3) The corridor. Note the straightness of the rug. 4) Hanging out on the train. 5) With these cards I'm going to be President. Again. 6) Mmmm. Pot noodles. Hey, I had to get at least one shot of me eating with chopsticks! 7) TRANS-SIBERIAN CHESS CHAMPI-OOOOOON! 8) Coal burning fire. Probably could have waited and taken one of our hostess shoveling. 9) Ultra-hot pot noodles that make you cry anyone? 10-11) Changing guages. 12) A little light reading. Got maybe 1/2 way through. Even when you're bored on a train reading can be a chore. 13) "Jenny" sewing up my buttons! 14) The team boarding the train to Irkutsk. 14) Whose shoes are those? Not mine. 15) "I call lion cup!" 16) The team boarding the train to Moscow. 17) Birch bark city 18) When will this train ride end? 19) Ummm....why is this "conductor" logo on my door? 20) Ok. We're here. Can we shower now or what? 21) The team boarding the train to St Petersburg. The easiest one yet. Board train at 1am. Sleep. Wake up at destination. Kind of a waste of a Saturday night but whatever.

*Note that they don't actually say all aboard and all indications are that they could really care less whether everyone was aboard or not. The train leaves regardless. Nothing like a little paranoia about being stranded in the Gobi dessert or Siberia to make you stick pretty close to the train during stops!
**Actually I looked it up and it appears that China uses standard gauge and it's just the Russians who use a narrower gauge.
***If you are the big fat Mongolian dude then just walking around in your underwear was fine.
****Pride in the appearance of the carriage was unique to the Mongolian hostesses and while it was amusing at the time we were grateful for it especially the cleanliness of the toilets which were spotless and a marked contrast to the trashed loos on overnight trains within say China for instance.
*****We, and by we I mean I, had already mastered the Cyrillic for super market - Супер -super маркет -market) so had my eyes open.

Сибирь (Siberia)

2009-03-26T02:15:00.000-07:00

From Siberia

Siberia in March. It was the element of the trip that I'd been trying to mentally prepare myself for since I noticed that it was -40 when I happened to check the weather in January while on the beach in Thailand. It had warmed up a bit since then but when we arrived in Irkutsk at 12:30pm Moscow time* it was still a brisk -12.

Temperature aside, crossing into Russia after two months in East Asia was most notable for its culture shock. Russia considers itself part of Europe. Irkutsk itself has the nickname "Paris of the East" and the architecture and infrastructure have a notably more european flavour (especially compared to Ulan Batar). When you consider though that Irkutsk is further east than Nepal, Burma, Singapore and even Bangkok and has shared borders and interacted with China and Mongolia for thousands of years it would seem natural that there be some eastern influence.

So probably the biggest surprise is Siberia's lack of ethnic diversity. Everyone there are Russians and they look like it. So while we still stood out from the crowd due to the wide eyed, camera toting, general touristy behaviour, we were no longer noticeable solely because of the colour of or eyes or skin or hair (especially with my regrown beard, which was rapidly becoming awesome again, I could have easily passed for a Russian). This was a stark contrast to China and Mongolia where I would look like an outsider no matter how well I knew the language customs or culture.**

I didn't really care about fitting in but I was more intrigued by how instantaneous the change was. In my many travels between adjoining countries I've found that the change between them usually seems more subtle due mostly to language, tradititon and politics than overt ethnic differences. So in this way our first stop after Mongolia was unique.

From Siberia

Geographically, Siberia is also unique especially when compared to the steepes and Gobi Desert from where we had just come. To be honest though I thought it looked a lot like Canada, with an abundance of rocky hills, lakes and forrests as far as the eye can see. Even the types of trees are similar to Canada and provided a nice air of the familiar.***

From Siberia

Did I mention lakes? I did. Excellent. Because the most of the non-travel time spent in Eastern Russia was around the village of Listvyanka on the shore of Lake Baikal. Baikal is notable for being the world's largest freshwater lake by volume*** - home to more water than all of the Canada's Great Lakes combined - and in the winter (in Siberia winter includes March and April and sometimes even May) it is frozen over.

From Siberia

Not the frozen over that you might associate with a world in tumultuous climate change which might mean a small bit of ice on the surface for a few days a year. No. It freezes over properly.

Estimated ice thickness exceeding 1m****being sufficiently stable that you would trust it to keep your Mercedes from falling through:

and a thickness that would take you a good hour or more to cut out a small triangle even with the proper tools.

From Siberia

Why would you want to spend an hour cutting a triangular opening in the ice on freezing cold March morning? Some ice fishing perhaps? Nope. Guess again.

Ice diving was never something I would go out of my way to do but as it was right under my nose I became quite excited when I thought I might be able to try it. After all I even had a mask, snorkel and underwater camera housing that I was still carrying around in my backpack (don't get me started on the Mongolian post office related reason why i was unsuccessful in mailing them home to lighten my load) so getting underneath the ice would have been a real and unexpected thrill.

From Siberia

Unfortunately I never even considered that the opportunity to go ice diving would ever come up in the first place so I didn't book far enough in advance****. I guess the nature and amount of the dive equipment required to say nothing of the crew and tools necessary to cut the hole (triangle) and tend the safety lines, limits the number of divers they can accomodate in a day.

From Siberia

Compounding the issue was the fact that it was a long weekend in honour of Women's Day (which is apparently celebrated worldwide but is an actual holiday in Russia in a manner similar to Mother's Day which I'm unure if they also celebrate) so all the dive shops were completely booked up with long-weekend holiday maker types. So after getting my hopes up and coming to terms with the price (about USD 75- not bad when you think about it) I was pretty disappointed to then be denied the opportunity.

In lieu of diving though, we did get to spend lots of time exploring the the surface of the ice.

From Siberia

The lake was nice and smooth (although with a few cracks) for skating and considering how cold it was there were a surprising number of people enjoying the oudoors, the holiday weekend creating a friendly, family atmoshpere.

From Siberia

I guess when faced with a harsh climate you can either embrace it and get out and enjoy the winter or sit inside and wait it out. If you live in Russia and you chose the later you wouldn't get out much. So there are a lot of activities and though we couldn't do everything we did get a bit of a taste of dog sledding.

From Siberia

I wouldn't say 8 minutes is much more than a taste, but it was enough to get a feel for it, get the GPS up to 28kmph and take some cool photos. It was also just long enough for me because my my feet were starting to get cold and after Argentina I was under strict doctor's orders (and mom's) to keep my feet warm.

From Siberia

Speaking of keeping warm, we got to learn first hand one of the ways Siberians keep warm in the depths of winter. One word: sauna.

From Siberia

This was an authentic Russian sauna, so in addition to sitting in the sauna working up a good sweat and then cooling down with some icy water or a roll in the snow, there was the added element of a "massage" with pine bows.

Massage is a term used loosely in this context because it basicaly consists of being thrashed with sticks. The trick is that the pine needles soak up some ice cold water first to soften up and the result, while not really to my liking, is an interesting sensation - sweating in a sauna, being smacked with sticks by a nearly naked Russian dude with prickly needles which are actually soft on the skin accompanied by the aroma of pine and then needle bits that find there way into your shorts. Like I say, it was good to try once, and I do like a good sauna, but the whole pine bow massage element is not really my thing.

Besides sauna there are other ways that Russians keep warm:

From Siberia

but for method number two I had to settle for just looking at the sign so ended up opting for the third way of staying warm during the depths of Siberian winter:

From Siberia

After an hour or so out on the ice testing out the new tripod (obtained from the silk market of course!) and experimenting with photographic settings to try and make a frozen over lake more interesting, nothing quite warms you up like a shot or two of Russia's finest.

From Siberia

Then, in the spirit of the holiday weekend, we went out for a night on the town (the very very small town) where, although not much was happening, it occurred to us that we might have to make our own fun so when someone obeserved that"hey, it's cheaper if we get our vodka by the bottle." We did. And good times were had by all. Just about everyone slipped at least once on the ice on the way home. At least one glove was lost. Trevor may or may not be married to a Russian bride. And more than one person said "I'm never drinking vodka again" the next day.

From Siberia

Photos: 1) A lone figure sets out on a journey to cross the lake in a time when the world was in black and white. It is unknown what became of him but he may have waited 10 seconds and returned to look at the camera screen to check if the shot was in focus and make sure the tripod didn't blow over in the wind. 2) Overlooking the spot where the flowing river meets the frozen lake. 3) Frozen lake as far as the eye can see 4) Close up of ice 5) Where I'm from we take our boats out of the water in winter but whatever 6-7) I had my hood on and didn't hear him coming 2nd shot is on full zoom out. A bit scary at first but not so much that I couldn't take a cool photo. This guy and a pickup truck were doing donuts for about 20 mins. Got some decent video footage as well. 8-9) The tools of the trade used by divers to gain access to freezing cold, crystal clear water 10) A Siberian couple go for a nice romantic walk to the middle of the lake 11) Ice skating 12-13) the howling dogsled team. They went absolutely crazy when a horse drawn carriage passed by. They are somewhat high strung, Siberian Huskies. 14) Entrance to sauna. Note the pine bows hung up by the side. 15) I'm surprised there aren't more traffic accidents near the lake with signs like that. 16-17) Warming up Siberian style 18) It's cheaper by the bottle which really says all you need to know about Siberian nightlife.

*Trains run on Moscow time which kind of makes sense since the long distance trains all head towards/away from Moscow anyway but is pretty confusing when you are 5hours time difference from Moscow and getting off the train in Siberia. - More to come in future blog on the train journey itself.

**It would be a fascinating study to see if this lack of ethnic diversity is a result of political choices in Russia (I get the impression that Siberia was not the most desireable place to go even if you were Russian during Soviet times ) or if maybe Russians and asians don't mix (pretty unlikely - I mean have you seen Miss Mongolia or Miss China - That's what I'm talkin' about).

***Familiar to me but not to my Aussie and Kiwi travel companions who rarely even see snow nevermind pine and birch forrests and frozen lakes.

****It's 5th by surface area - Lake Superior is 1st! - but 1st by a longshot by depth 1,642m maximum depth and as a result by volume.

*****Estimated by me from observation without precise measuring tools

******The same day that you find out about it not being really in advance anyway never mind far enough in advance

Genghis Khan and the Yak Attack

2009-03-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

Genghis (pronounced by the locals Chingis) Khan is the best thing that has ever or will ever come out of Mongolia and the locals know it.* His warriors conquered 1/2 the world with speed and ferocity and his souvenirs (ie hats) are found everywhere and his likeness is on everything from brands of vodka to...um...other brands of vodka.**

One thing Mongolians do well though is stick to what they know. Around 25-30% of the population are still nomadic moving one or more times a year so their livestock can graze. Also, despite centuries of rule or influence by neighbours China and more recently Russia (who imposed the use of cyrillic despite the existance of traditional Mongolian script which sort of looks like a cross between Chinese characters and Arabic and is written downwards instead of accross), Mongolia has a rich and unique culture based around religion, family, Ger tents, the love of all things Genghis and...yes...vodka.

Take religion for example. Buddhism in general is a very superstitious religion. The version practiced in Mongolia is really really superstitious crossing Buddhist beliefs with nature based Shamanistic practices from times gone by. All of these rituals are performed because they are meant to bring "luck" or "good fortune".

Take spinning these things (I forget what they are called) usually located near or immediately outside temples. The canisters are said to contain sacred scrolls of knowledge which when spun bring good fortune or success. Wouldn't success be more likely if the people actually read or otherwise learned something from the scrolls to then apply to daily life?

Ulaanbaatar

We stopped just long enough in Ulan Battur long enough to marvel at the fact that this is in fact a capital city. It is quite small for one thing and quite noticably dirty looking for another and there is no Starbucks for another!!!. Some "highlights"include:

All the cars and busses seemed to be hand me down versions of 15 year old Chinese or Russian ones.

If 4 people are trying to cross the street then you take your life in your hands but if there are five or more then traffic is compelled to stop to let you cross.

Every car on the road is potentially a taxi but none of them are marked as such.

In an effort to mitigate alcoholism certain areas of the city will designate certain days (say the 1st of the month) to be alcohol free. This would be a great idea except that not all areas of the city ban alcohol on the same day so from the Mongolian BBQ restaurant where we had dinner (but no drinks) on 1 March it was a 5 minute taxi ride (in some random guy's vehicle) to the pub across the bridge which was allowed to serve.

Unemployment is said to be somewhere near 30% and even when there were jobs I didn't get the impression they were that good so it shouldn't have been a surprise when, in broad daylight about 100 m or less from the hotel entrance Mike and Ana got mugged (but not hurt) for their pot noodles which they had picked up to take on the train to Siberia.

Ger Tents and Horses and Yaks (and Fuzzy Camels)! Oh My!

By far the best part about Mongolia, other than getting a really awesome Ghengis hat which I wore everywhere and which was surprisingly warm for a souvenir hat, was heading out into the countryside and staying in Ger tents. It wasn't quite as rustic as I initially thought (one of the Gers had a satalite dish on the roof and there was a lady who came into our tents and stoked our fire every 3 hours***) but it was still a unique experience.

The tents are set up with a wood stove in the middle and beds all around. In an authentic Ger the man's side (tools, hunting weapons) is the left and the women's side (kitchen) is the right with a wood stove in the middle and you are supposed to enter the ger and walk around it counter-clockwise (for some reason - presumably luck related). Of course nobody told me this stuff until after I had walked in, turned right (clockwise) and selected the first bed (on the ladies' side). Oh well. I did remember to bring the vodka so all was good.

Speaking of vodka...by luck or good fortune (or maybe Buddha's intervention) we happened to be in Mongolia at the tail end of the Mongolian New Year. Mongolians celebrate by feasting with family for 3 weeks or something.

Near the camp where we were staying were some authentic Nomadic camps and we visited an elderly couple who were happy to have us and talk to us about their life and culture. The guy was a former Math professor at the university and tended to his cows while wearing a blazer (classic!!!). He only changed into "traditional" Mongolian garb after we arrived.

Apparently as part of the New Year celebrations it is customary to offer guests food and drink. It is also very rude to refuse. The food being delicious dumplings and the drink, initially being hot milky tea but soon enough the man, happy to have some drinking buddies, broke out the vodka.

So despite being quite hung-over from finishing off a bottle of vile Chinese vodka that I had picked up from the Silk Market while playing Mongolian Monopoly the night before, we were compelled to have 5 shots of vodka each before 11am. Just in time to go horseback riding.

The cold and fear of falling off a horse because we'd been drinking was enough to sober us up and good thing too because riding these small horsies was another highlight. I couldn't pronounce my horse's name so I just called him "Genghis Jr" and we ruled the plains (for approximately 45mins).

Collectively we had some trouble getting our horses to follow instructions. The main reason for this was that the instructions were in Mongolian, which is hard enough to pronounce at the best of times, but when the instructions aren't actually words but a kind of hissing sound, that makes it virtually impossible to get right. It was probably for the best though that I couldn't instruct my horse to gallop as, for obvious photographic reasons, I had ditched my safety helmet in favour of my Genghis hat.

One of the highlihgts of traveling generally is the opportunity to see weird animals. To the locals a Yak is just a cow and a fuzzy camel crossing the road is a traffic jam.

But to me a Yak is a crazy and exotic creature that I have never seen up close before with an awesome name.**** And a fuzzy camel with round snowshoe feet bigger than dinner plates crossing the road is a fascinating sight.

Going Postal - Mongolian Style

Unfortunately Mongolia wasn't only memorable for positive reasons. By far the worst part of going to Mongolia was my trip to the post office to send home some Genghis based souvenirs. This time I will actually spare the detials but suffice it to say that after going to the post office on a weekday afternoon, the ensuing frustration and chaos made me understand why alcoholism is such a big problem in Mongolia. A wee nip of vodka anyone?

Photos: 1)Genghis and Genghis Jr. Ruling the plains. (or steppes as the case may be) 2) Nothing beats Grand Khan vodka. And don't let anybody tell you differently. 3) Man in traditional Mongolian silk robes outside temple 4) Worshipers spinning those spinny things clockwise. NO. counterclockwise I mean! 5) Ger tents. 6) Inside the Ger 7) Warm and toasty outside ther Ger in new coat and Genghis hat. 8) Ger camp from up on the ridge 9) Blazer wearing nomad pouring some new years shots for breakfast 10) Genghis and Genghis Jr. 11) Yak 12) Fuzzy Camels 13) Parcel finally being weighed. Actually posted much much later.

*Although I must say that Miss Mongolia is not too bad either, eh?.

**I opted for the "Grand Khan" vodka because it came in a funky metal case but could have just as easily enjoyed "Chingis" brand which also looked delicious.

***This was a bit weird actually especially on the first night but as it kept the tents super warm it was service above and beyond. 12 and 6 I can see but the 3am stoking

****One of the best stories the old man told us was how a pack of wolves had taken down one of his Yaks (hmmm...I can't seem to write Yak without capitalizing it...well they are pretty awesome so that's good enough reason for me not to change it) on the other side of the mountain. It had everything, mountains, wolves, Yaks, death, wolves, Yaks, vodka....

Three Days in Beijing

2009-03-24T02:54:00.000-07:00

So to recap, my China experience had been somewhat of a whirlwind tour. In 8 nights, one of them was the night I arrived (at midnight in the rain), two were spent on overnight trains and the other 6 nights were spent in 4 different cites which by the time I arrived in Beijing at 7:00am on a Wednesday, spanned over 2,700kms* of overland travel.

Having not planned much of my China adventure in advance other than the Beijing departure for the Trans-Siberian Railway, I think 2,700kms represents a pretty good effort on my part. And now that I've seen two of China's more notable sites outside Beijing (Huang Shan and the Terracotta Warriors) I can take it easy on the next visit.**

Leaving out the details about how the bus system from Beijing's Western Train Station doesn't intersect with the Metro system as one might expect from personal experience with public transportation in other big cities, or the fact that even though the ticket checker girl indicated she would let me know where to get off to actually find the metro but rather than actually do that she let me ride the bus all the way to the end of the line which was 10 blocks or more from the nearest station, I managed to get safely to my hostel. This was thanks largely to some friendly locals pointing me in the right direction and a super nice north-american sounding expat who gave me exact change for the ticket machine and asked nothing in return (I did it again didn't I...started a sentence with "Leaving out the details" then went on and on with all the details...oh well...too late now).

Tienamen Square and the Forbidden City

Certain places hold a global fascination more for what they represent than for the places themselves. Tienamen Square is one of those. It is unspectacular in that it is a wide open square of concrete surrounded on three sides by unspectacular rectangular concrete buildings.

But it represents the beating heart of the one country where communism not only still exists but appears to be flourishing.

It doesn't hurt either that 1) it is huge. and 2) on the 4th side, across the street lies the entrance to the Forbidden City with the giant portrait of Chairman Mao overlooking the Square generally adding a colourful and pictureqsque and unique atmosphere to an otherwise grey concrete pavillion.

Like any big city, where there are tourists there are touts. Most of the stuff they are selling is absolute crap with two exceptions.

1) It was February in Beijing and the wide open square allowed the icy cold wind to freeze my fingers off while taking photos which I was doing more or less continuously while I was there. Whether or not the gloves I bought for a reasonable price were actually North Face brand or contained Goretex as the labelling purported is debateable but they were warm gloves on a cold day at the time and place I needed them so it was money well spent.***

2) Even though guidebooks warn you about scammers trying to sell you art, the so called scammers do actually have art to sell, some of which is quite good**** and once you bargain them down to a reasonable price (somewhere in the 10-15% range of their starting price) then I figuered "why not buy some" and so I did.

That night I met the group I would be traveling with for the next three weeks and despite us all being at different stages of our voyage we unanimously agreed that the Great Wall should be the first thing we saw the next day. We celebrated our likemindedness by having Peking Duck for dinner. Mmmmmmmm, duck.

Great Wall (Starbucks et al.)

Four things struck me about the Great Wall.

1) It is pretty much the coolest non-mechanical thing***** ever built by mankind.

2) To me it makes absolutely no sense that they built it in the middle of the mountains.

Mountains make a kind of natural barrier or "wall" if you will (Switzerland doesn't need a wall for instance) so why not build a wall on either side of the mountains. Or I can see having watchtowers up on the tops of the mountains and connecting them all together for ease of transport makes sense so why not go from peak to peak in order to rain arrows down on the enemies from above. And surely a straight line would have been a much more intimidating and efficient barrier.

Maybe the Emperor just wanted it to look cool and envisioned that in 2000 years it would be a mega cash cow for the nation and would look significantly better on a postcard if it kind of slowly meandered all around and up and over the mountains.

3) The Great Wall Starbucks is pretty much the world's best location for a Starbucks. It's not actually on the wall and the guidebook that says it is the only place to get a coffee is seriously out of date (there are loads of competitors now) but when you visit the wall in February and there is still snow on it, a nice hot cup of Starbucks really hits the spot.

4) It would have been nice if they had taken down the Beijing Olympics - One World, One Dream sign. They Olympics had been over for 6 months by then and it kind of hindered the ancient and timeless feel of my photos (I did take about 150 photos so some of them are ok) besides none of the events actually took place at the wall so I'm not sure the sign was really necessary in the first place.

Olympic Village

Though we were all on the same page with the Great Wall, some people had not yet seen the Forbidden City and some wanted to see stuff other than the Olympic village so it was their loss that I went this one alone.

The water cube might be the 2nd coolest man-made structure ever. Although the whole ticketing system which made me walk about 2kms back the way I had come to queue up and pay £15 just to wander around was pretty stupid (it did take me past the building they used to house the athletes which is now a 7, yes 7 star hotel), the place was pretty amazing. If wandering around inside six months after the Olympics had been over was this cool, competing there must have been off the charts.******

In fact the whole Olympic village had an amazing aura to it. Still. In February. Months after the games had been over. When it was freezing out. It must have been unreal to be there when Phelps was dominating the pool or Usain Bolt was lightning-ing up the track.

It helped that so much of the area had been specifically designed just for the games. Only in China could the appropriate so much land in the middle of what was previously a business park specifically for the Olympics.

The only disappointing thing was that, having paid to tour the Bird's Nest Stadium, I was unpleasantly surprised to see that the track had been covered up by artificial turf and in place of a podium where elite athletes might have recieved their medals there were stupid inflatable animals and displays for children. Didn't stop me from having a go at the 100m record though.

Silk Market - Why is everything so cheap? Is this stuff fake or stolen or what?

I didn't actually see any silk on sale here but that was the only thing. Specifically I went there to get a winter coat for the wintery climate ahead******and I was successful in that mission but even with a bit of forewarning from others I was shocked at both the selection on offer and the pressure sales tactics.

From the minute you step off the escalator from the metro you are offered everything from shoes ("shoes? shoes? you need shoes?") to gucci handbags ("how about a present for your girlfriend") at a "good price" and all in perfect english right up until you have another question or want to question the validity of a brand name item (although "it's real" is definitely part of the vocabulary lesson).

Bargaining is essential at the silk market. You would loose a lot of respect if you paid the initially quoted price. Not that gaining the respect of random vendors in a Chinese knock-off market was particularly important to me but paying the lowest possible price was and besides which the initial price was outrageous anyway. From the Y5,000 price initially quoted for my "real" Canada Goose winter jacket finally set me back a mere Y300. And I probably still overpaid.

I'm obviously no expert but as far as I could tell it was real as well. The labelling all apeared genuine and was even bilingual as you would expect from a Canadian product and it is the warmest article of clothing I've ever owned. There are a few things wrong with it which make me think that a lot (probably not all) of the brand name stuff here is genuine, the reason everything is so cheap is that the silk market is where all of the finished goods that don't quite meet the quality control standards end up.

The main defect with mine was that every time I took off my coat I would be covered in goose down feathers. A small price to pay considering the price I paid.

Photos 1) DG outside the Forbidden Palace. 2) Finally made it past security and into the square. 3) Little girl with 2 China flags just in case you weren't sure this was China. 4) In the 21st century Mao keeps an eye on things from beyond the grave. 5) If there's another photo that says "China" better I'd like to see it (not including Great Wall shots). 6) Me and Mao. I tried to read his little red book but it's really hard to get through. 7-13) Some stones that someone arranged in a sort of fence type thing. I'm led to believe it took several weeks to set up.14) Water Cube exterior. 15) Water cube interior. Note the revised olympic slogan "Go Beard or Go Home. 16) Water cube interior. Not pictured here the souvenir water cube kleenex box which I nearly bought but didn't and now wish I had. -17) Foreground Water Cube. Background Bird's Nest Stadium. 18) A light jog in the Olympic Stadium 19) DG modelling the new coat. Not shown the thousands of feathers that escaped from the lining and stuck to the wool sweater.

*Hangzhou to Huangshan 206kms,Huangshan to Nanjing 307kms,Nanjing to Xi'an 1,144kms, Nanjing to Beijing 1,125kms (according to google maps driving directions)

**The winter festival in Harbin looked particularly awesome from the highlights on Chinese tv and the Great Wall Marathon caught my attention though I'll probably never actually do it after getting tired from just climbing the stairs on the great wall as a tourist.

***I set my other gloves down on the steps of HuagShan to take a photo and they miraculously disappeared by the time I was finished. With a tour of Mongolia and Siberia in the winter time awaiting, replacement gloves were a good investment.

****I may not know much about art, but I know what I like!

*****I had to qualify it a bit because the space shuttle, porches and dive gear are all seriously cool. And while the mini skirt is really really really awesome I wouldn't say cool exactly.

******It was probably a bit optimistic of me to have brought along my swimsuit. I knew from experience though that the outdoor pool used for the Barcelona games was now a public pool but I guess it's still too soon for this one especially when so many people will pay just to see the place.

*******The last time I checked it was -40 in central Mongolia and while that was a few weeks beforehand I sort of thought that my NBE hoodie and polar fleece might not be warm enough.

The Smokey Train to the Ultimate Warriors

2009-03-23T02:03:00.000-07:00

After a rainy trip to Nanjing I made my way by train up to Xi'an, the jumping off point to see the Terracotta Warriors. Traveling by train is a cost effective and efficient means of traveling overland in china especially taking the overnighter, but in every other respect it is absolute chaos.

The waiting area for a train that can carry thousands* of passengers only has about 50 chairs. Everyone else is relegated to jostling for position to wait in line because, unless you have a guaranteed sleeper bed, which I'm happy to say that I did, you don't even have a reserved seat.** So if you're traveling overnight you could conceivably spend the entire time standing or leaning against someone else's luggage. As a result, once the gates open to begin boarding it is an absolute chaotic pushy-shovy free-for-all. Even little old ladies are cutting in front of you and shoving from behind.

From asking around, this level of chaos is completely normal and accepeted in China. It seems that when your country has over one billion people in it, waiting patiently in a queue doesn't get you anywhere.It difficult to get used to though, this pushy shovey attitude (although there is something sort of humourous about getting shouldered out of the way by two 60 something ladies carrying giant handbags that look like they weigh more than my backpack), and when you combine it with the overt stares from curious Chinese who don't see westerners much it makes travelling a bit stressful.

I won't say too much about the toilets on the chinese trains except to say that if you can hold it in then that is probably better. But toilets and tight confines aside (bunks are stacked 3 high in the same space that normal trains fit two bunks) the worst had to be the smoking. Technically smoking is not allowed on trains except in the area between carriages or in the bar car. But since there are a billion people in China and all of them smoke and there are no doors separating the carriages from the tiny platform in between carriages then smoking is essentially allowed or at least tolerated. This meant it was very uncomfortable sleeping on the top bunk where all the smoke would rise and just hang there and suffocate would be sleepers.

Xi'an is a former Chinese capital and one of the few ancient cities to have it's stone walls intact squaring off a 12km perimeter. These walls are something like 18 metres tall and wide enough to have 2 lanes of traffic on the top with cool looking watchtowers evenly spaced for defensive purposes and surrounded by a moat.

For me this was an equally impressive legacy to the Ming dynasty as was the Terracotta Warriors are to the Qin dynasty. Interestingly one of the main reasons that the current walls are so well preserved is that no one attacked them once they were finished so it's unclear whether or not they would have stood up, although they do look pretty impressive even now.

Once again my laissez-faire style of tourism had me pleasantly surprised since the only reason I went out of my way to go to Xi'an***was to see the Terracotta Warriors so the cool ancient wall was a bonus and walking around it, (even though it was raining) was pretty unique with the ancient and classically designed buildings on the inside of the wall and giant glass skyscrapers on the outside making for an interesting contrast.

The Terracotta Warriors are easy to access with tourist busses leaving from the Xi'an train station regularly every day. An entire tourism industry has been built up around the clay pits where the warriors were discovered. Thirty years ago the area was a farmer's field until one farmer happened upon the warriors while drilling a well.**** Now there are climate controlled hangars surrounding the pits with all the tourist amenities including KFC.*****

There are also relentless touts selling all kind of crappy merchandise or offering services such as tour guides. I was pretty disappointed in my guide because, even though I negotiated a reasonable price and she spoke english very well, she didn't really provide me with much factual information that I couldn't have got just from reading the displays and she had absolutely no passion for the site that some call the "8th wonder of the world". And when you've been up all night on a smokey train some infectious enthusiasm would have been welcome.

I did buy a crazy hat to add to the collection but stopped wearing it as it turned out to be a magnet for vendors and may as well been a sandwich board that read "Come and bother me. As you can see by my hat I like to buy stupid crap."

The statues themselves lived up to the hype and were incredibly impressive with one exception: They estimate that there are about 8,000 individual statues and they quote this figure in all the tourist publicity brochures and guidebooks etc. So far though, they have only unearthed and repaired something like 2,500 of them. So when you are expecting from the publicity to see an army of 8,000 strong and only 1/3 of the troops show up is slightly disappointing. Although it's difficult to argue 2,500 unique statues lined up in formation to "guard" Emperor Qin's tomb (a few kilometres up the road) is still pretty impressive, if maybe just a touch egomaniacal on his part.

Photos: 1)One of many different angles from which I took photos of the statues. 2) Crowded train from view from the top bunk. 3-5) Xi'an city walls. Note the raincoat...6-9)More views of the 8th wonder. Not shown here the 40 other "keeper" photos of statues.

*Or however many.
*The general admission seats are a lot cheaper though so that's something at least.
***And it really was out of my way. If you consult a map you won't see many routes from Nanjing to Beijing that go anywhere near Xi'an but hey that's just how I roll. It could be a while till I'm back around this way.
****The farmer is now quite a celebrity in China and was available to sign autographs, I would have except paying for the autograph of someone who essentially made a lucky find does not agree with me. It's like getting the autograph of a lottery winner. It's not like he did anything remarkable. He didn't even get the well dug!
*****KFC is by far the most popular western franchise in China and since it was everywhere else I wasn't all that surprised to see it at the Terracotta Warriors complex.

Yellow Mountain Stair Climbing - I'm the King of the World!

2009-03-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

The forecast was for more rain. So was I content to just hang out at Starbucks and go to the movies? Nope. I figured "why not climb a mountain."

Huang Shan, means Yellow Mountain. It's not really known for sure why the mountains are called that. They are made of granite and aren't particulary yellowy. Also they are almost perpetually covered in mist or clouds (so some people also refer to them as "misty mountains" and by some people I mean me) so it can be difficult to even see them in the first place especially in the winter when it rains a lot.

Whatever the reason these mountains are a renowned Chinese landmark. Now, you may have noticed from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics that the Chinese do have a slight tendency to go all out or even overboard sometimes. This "nothing is impossible" mentality has nothing to do with communism or other political ideology and everything to do with the fact that manual labour has been an abundant natural resource in China for thousands of years.

With this in mind the some Emperor must have once said "Hey these misty, yellowy mountains are pretty cool. We should build a temple up top".

And when someone said "How are we going to get the thousands of granite building blocks to the top?The emperor said "How do you think? We're going to carry them up to the top one by one?"
And the conversation must have continued like this:

Lackey: "Won't that take a long time?"

Emperor:"Only a couple hundred years. But that's nothing. We spent 900 years on the Great Wall after all and it didn't even work. But you're right it would probably be better if we built 50,000 or so steps to the top to facilitate transportation. That way it will be much easier for my great-great-great-great grandson Emperor to be carried to the temple."

Lackey: "Um...are you on crack? That will take even longer."

Emperor: "I guess you'd better get started then."

Even though I was prepared for a rainy day mountain hike with my by now trusty and well used raincoat, along with a fresh pair of dry socks (wet feet are not pleasant), I was rewarded for this preparation with a beautiful sunny (or at least not rainy) day.

This really made the day (and the resulting photos memorable.) The day was memorable for other reasons as well though.

As I was applying my well practiced trekking skills by power climbing the stairs, I passed a lot of other tourists. A small group had caught up to me and much to my surprise started talking to me in English.As I was applying my well honed trekking skills by power climbing the stairs I passed a lot of other tourists. Unlike South-East Asia where you encounter lots of native English speakers, I found the opposite to be true of China.

In general, standing out from the crowd for no reason other than appearance can either make you feel like a rock star, like when people approach you out of the blue and ask to have their photo taken with you,* or the opposite when they just stand and stare from point blank range on the platform at the train station. Either way English speakers are hard to come by so it can be hard to interact with the locals. So when a small group of 3 students struck up a conversation in English I was pretty surprised.

James, Sunny and Susan** were taking time to see some sights in China that they had never seen before. James quickly suggested that we climb the mountain (ie walk up the stairs) as a team and it was great to make some local friends and learn about life in China.

I was also grateful for their hospitality as they not only shared their company and photo taking/modelling skills but also their generosity in sharing their snacks and lunch since though I had come prepared with many layers of clothing and lots of water I hadn't remembered to bring food.In reference to my powering up the stiars much faster than them and on my own Susan mentioned that I was very brave. She then went on to say that I was very handsome and reminded her of her favourite western movie star Leonardo DiCaprio.*** As nice as that was to hear it was a bit unrealistic as, although we are about the same age, Leo and I don't really look that much alike. That and he has questionable beard growing abilities. Still a compliment is a compliment and as they go being compared to a huge leading man, heartthrob movie star is always good.****

It is really difficult to capture the scale of a stone staircase to the top of a mountain range in photos or in words except to say that it very very impressive. I was expecting to be impressed by the trees and mountains and mist and general atmosphere but the man made staircase and temples at the top of a mountain range was a really historically fascinating element. I'm always fascinated by engineering marvels so if this was impressive I can't wait to see the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall.
Photos: 1-2) The famous trees, mist and mountain landscape near the top of Huangshan. 3) One of the many temples 4) Old school method of transporting building materials to the top. Presumably because it is cheaper. And I thought hauling a 30kg pack around Madagascar was hard work! 5-6) DG taking in the vistas. Rainjacket completely unneccessary for a change. 7) Just-going-to-take-a-quick-break-from...huh...huh...powering up the stairs. 8) Sunny, Susan and James. 9) The climbing team. 10) My new admirer Susan. 11) Look at all those stairs!

*This happened at least 10 times in my slightly more than a week in China. The staring bit happened much much more unfortunately.
**They all either chose their English names or were assigned them by their English teachers. James in particular chose his because he likes James Bond. A pretty good reason if I ever heard one.
***This was awesome!!!!!!!
****Being compared to legendary bearded karate master while in Madagascar was slightly better is all. No offense Leo.

2009-03-21T01:36:00.000-07:00

Rain!

Deep down I knew that winter (mid-February) in China would hold different weather conditions in store than winter in South-East Asia. After all I was prepared for cold weather having carried what seemed like a hell of a lot of kilograms of warm clothes all around Thailand and Laos, but I was expecting proper winter: sub-freezing temperatures and snow.

Unfortunately I was welcomed into China with technically above freezing temperatures but with relentless icy cold rain that would dampen the spirits of even the most avid sightseer. I arrived at midnight and it was cold and raining and then it was also raining the next day and the day after and the day after and the day after...

I´m led to believe that Hangzhou is a very picturesque place featuring a giant lake in the middle of the city and numerous parks and gardens from which to view the lake and its thousands of years of history. It's hard to say really if I agree. There is definitely a body of water there, but whether or not there is any of that other stuff remains to be seen - at least by me. It was so rainy and cloudy that I could barely tell where the sky ended and the horizon or the lake began.

It wasn't just the rain mind you, it was the cold and the damp or probably the triple combination that really caught me off guard and had me shivering to the bone. In fact, much to my disappointment the weather was probably the most surprising part about China.

I was expecting and hoping for some serious culture shock but, other than the insurmountable language barrier, I found Chinese cities to be pretty much the same as any other cities. This was disappointing from the perspective of an adventurous traveller, but from the point of view of a freezing cold, soaking wet tourist I didn't mind so much and when I saw the familiar green and white letters,

I knew where I would be spending the rest of the afternoon warming up:

It wasn't just Starbucks that lent an air of familiarity to China (though given the conditions it was the most welcome). Western culture hasn't been merely embraced by the Chinese so much as swallowed whole without even a hint of chewing. Consumer culture is everywhere.

From KFC which is seemingly on every street corner the way Starbucks is in London, to high end shopping malls that I can't afford to shop in and feel out of place peering in the windows and to well, ya, the real deal:

And it wasn't just because Hangzhou is 2 hours or so from the financial centre of Shanghai. All the cities* were like this and I really wasn't expecting it. I was expecting, and hoping for, an experience a little less familiar.

One thing that wasn't familiar was the city called Huang Shan City.** I did know it was near Huang Shan (which means yellow mountain, also sometimes called the misty mountains - see future blog about my trip there) but otherwise it literally wasn't on my map.

I found it quite weird that a city of over a million people would not be noteworthy enough to include on the map. (One other thing I found out is that just when you think you understand how to pronounce a seemingly straightforward place name like Huang Shan - think again because you are waaaaayyyy off.) I guess when your country has over a billion popuation then a million here or there isn't really a big deal. Quite a bit different from where I grew up though where going into "town" of 30,000 was pretty important.

One thing about Huang Shan City that I found noteworthy, other than it's proximity to one of China's most famous mountains, was that it had a district called Old St.***

As you can see it's nothing like the Old St. in London but the sign is a lot more interesting. although the surrounding area wasn't nearly as much fun. It was raining though.

Speaking of places that it was raining it was also raining in Nanjing where a 16 year old kid acted as my guide after I got turned around exiting the metro and started off in the wrong direction for my hotel. The next day, instead of going out to the Ming Dynasty mountain monument after a visiting the drum and bell tower, I became fed up with sightseeing in the rain and so instead went to the movies.

Transporter 3 was the only one in Engish with Chinese subtitles. I would have preferred watching a local Chinese movie with english subtitles but there's not really much of a market for it. It was ok. Warm and dry in the theatre. The movie itself was pretty much the same as another Jason Statham movie that I had previously seen which may or may not have been Transporter 2.

I did get enough of a respite from the rain in order to take a few decent night photos though.

Even though the rain had dampened my spirits a bit I was sure that it would eventually stop raining. The last time I checked, Xi'an and Beijing were on the fringes of the Gobi Desert so there couldn't be much rain there could there? Could there?

Photos 1) Chinese character for rain. Not so much a photo as a graphic but whatever. 2-3) Dave in the rain in Hangzhou 4) West Lake. Hangzhou's "picturesque" lake 5-6)mmmmm Starbucks 7-8) High-end shopping 9) The gates to Old St. in Tunxi in the rain10) Nanjing's Bell tower in the rain 11) It seems not many people go to the movies on Sunday afternoons. Or at least not this one 12) Nanjing at night. Note not raining in this photo!

*The cities I went to anyway, Hangzhou, Tunxi, Nanjing, Xi'an and Beijing.

**Also known as Tunxi - although it took a while for me to figure out the two name system, especially when the names are in Chinese characters!

**Depending on the translation it is also sometimes referred to as Ancient St. but Old St. feels a bit like home and it's my blog so Old St. it is.

Tubing in Vang Vieng was Laos-tastic

2009-03-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Initially I was a bit apprehensive about visiting Laos becuase, after spending more time than I intended in Thailand, every day that I spent in Laos was a day that I couldn´t spend in China. And the more I read about China the more time I wanted to spend there.

During my travels however, I met lots of people who had either already been to Laos or knew someone who had been. I cannot understate the effect that everyone's reviews of Laos - in particular Vang Vieng - had on me.

Floating down a river on an inflatable innner tube. Effectively pub crawling from bar to bar in a tropical mountain environment. With great music, fun rides like swings and ziplines, cold drinks by the bucketful for only 10,000kip, beautiful smiling people everywhere and the hot sun shining (34 degrees in the middle of February). If ever there was an activity with my name all over it than this was it. How could I skip it? I couldn't.

So, I made my compromise and decided to spend 5 days in Laos, including 4 straight in Vang Vieng which left only 10 days in China*, down from the 20 or so days I initially thought I originally planned to spend there.

Back to Vang Vieng. If you want it to be, it is one big continuous party every day of the year and people brag about how many straight days they have attended.** It is a lot like what I imagine US spring break to be. Or, from personal experience, it reminded me of Cayman Islands Stingray City boat parties only instead of being in the Carribean Sea it`s on a fast moving river in South East Asia, instead of taking a party boat out to the North Sound you jump in from the banks of the river and instead of having live stingrays to play with you have manmade swings and ziplines with questionable safety records. Also instead of it being once a month or whatever the boat parties were it goes on every single day.***The attitude of the two events are the same though in that no one ever has a bad time, even when they hurt themselves.

Speaking of which, if you think that young backpacker types, mixed with cheap and readily available alcohol and giant swings over a fast moving, and in places quite shallow river are a recipe for people to hurt themselves, then you´ve given it a lot more thought than most of the people who actually attend.

It was commonplace to see people with bloody faces from landing too close to a rock or limping around with cut feet or worse and I even bumped into a guy who, even after he broke his leg, bagged it up and was back tubing down the river within a few days.

One girl (from Toronto if I recall correcly) who was on an organized tour and had only one day in Vang Vieng, arrived at the river, ordered a drink, went up to use the swing at the first bar, lost her grip and fell on her face into the water and knocked herself out cold. She seemed fine when I was talking to her that night though.

All of this element of danger does nothing to dampen everyone`s spirits and people wear their injuries like a badge of honour (after the pain goes away and or they regain conciousness that is).

I managed not to hurt myself on the river but, I will say that, at my age, four straight days of tubing is about three too many**** but, like any good holiday, it makes for some interesting stories and it`s good to find out where your limits are. My limit is four straight. The bucket of gin and tonic late on the fourth day probably being an unwise move.

Later on the fourth night I would, in separate incidents, trip and fall on my face, lose my flip flops and, I´m sure in a voice much louder and drunker than I inteded, vocalised to my new best mate Jaimie***** my disappointment about my lack of success trying to convince a pretty girl that I was the most charming and handsome and articulate guy she´d ever met.

Even in my post tubing state I was pretty excited that my next stop would be China though. It had been a long time comig. Bring on some culture shock!

Photos 1) Foreshadowing my stay in Vang Vieng, the bus I was on from Vientianne stopped to add some cargo. About 80 boxes of Tiger whisky. They stashed it wherever they could find room, behind seats, in the aisle, etc. I am not too mature to have made a little fort out of the boxes they piled around me and then take a photo. I got too busy in Laos to take any other photos so hopefully I´ve done a good enough job describing it. If not use google images to lookup tubing in Laos you´ll see what I mean.

*I would cram an awful lot into those 8 days though.
**One guy was up to 85 out of 90 days which he "tatooed" on himself with magic marker
***I heard tale that in the wet season the river really moves fast and it is too dangerous but something tells me that people still do it anyway.
****Though probably the greatest cure for a hangover is simply to go tubing again. Once you jump in the refreshing river, see smiling faces all around, listen to the exact same playlist you listened to yesterday and have that first sip of Tiger Beer, which for some reason was cheaper thanthe local Beer Lao, you forget all about why it was that you didn´t feel like getting out of bed just a few minutes earlier.
*****Met Jamie on the bus to Vang Vieng from Vientiane. He took the photo. We took turns convincing each other to go tubing on alternate days when either or both of us deep down new a break was probably a better option.

Dave Gets Trapped in Thailand with no Passport

2009-02-23T06:14:00.000-08:00

Did I mention that all this time, while I was checking out historical sights, diving in tropical waters, learning to rock climb and whatnot I've been stuck in Thailand unable to leave until I get my passport back. No eh? Well I was.

x

I arrived in Thailand still needing to get entry visas for Russia and Mongolia.* Unfortunately for me they can't issue them in Thailand but can only issue them in the country of citizenship or residency. So, within 12 hours of arriving in Bangkok, there I was at DHL sending my passport to the UK in order to get a visa assistance company to take my passport and application forms to the relevant embassies to apply for the visas on my behalf.

In my head a best case scenario would get me my passport back within a week. But real life had other plans. DHL itself were conspiring against me from the start as they couldn't even guarantee my documents would arrive within three days and because I was sending a passport which is of a 'sensitive' nature it would take three additional days.**

Then I lost two days when the Russians asked for bank details since I in the employment box I put 'unemployed-travelling'. ***Then once my application had been submitted I was informed my visa to enter Russia would not be ready until the 3rd of February.

I'd really like to know what happened between Canada and Russia relations since the last time I travelled there in 2007 when I was able to receive a travel visa in one day because they've now changed the rules and in all circumstances Canadians have to wait 15 days to process a visa application.

Regardless of the reason there was nothing I could do about it and though I was initially quite stressed about travelling around with no passport I quickly got over it. That is mostly because Thailand is such an easy going society. Not one passport checkpoint to be found in the entire country. I still broke into a sweat every time I saw a police officer though (even more of a sweat than the 30 degree heat was causing I mean).***It was helpful to know the date that I could expect everything to be finalized though as this meant I could stop checking email and hoping every day.

So there I was, travelling all over thailand and generally enjoying myself waiting to receive my passport until the given date. When I didn't hear from them on the expected day, February 3, I didn't even panic and instead took the opportunity to use my extra day in Krabi to go deep water solo climbing which was memorable not just because it was awesome but because I hurt myself.

On the fourth, late in the day after getting back from climbing, I got the word that my passport was enroute and that I could expect to recieve it on Friday February 6. I should mention that because I anticipated travelling around I thought it would be safer to have my precious, precious, round the world trip dependant travel documents sent to the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok rather than trying to predict which hotel I would be at at the time.

This turned out to be a tactical blunder for two reasons. First, I didn't forsee the process taking so long and so figured I would be near Bangkok when my documnets were ready. I wasn't. I was an overnight train journey away in Krabi.

Second, according to the tracking number, my passport was due to be delivered before 5:30 on Friday. No problem I thought. I'll arrive Friday morning by train, swing by the embassy in the afternoon and, passport in hand, make for the Laos border on another overnight train and be having fun in the sun sometime on Saturday.*****One problem with that scenario was that being a cushy tropical government office, the embassy closes at 1:00pm on Fridays.

A further wrinkle was that Monday, February 9th was a public holiday in Thailand and other Budhist countries to celebrate Makha Bucha Day. I've since learned that it represents the full moon of the third lunar month when hundreds of monks independently made a pilgirmage to see Buddha, though at the time I was pretty unimpressed as I considered my self to be quite inconvenienced by this 'unexpected' holiday.

I'm not going to lie to you. I thought this really sucked. I don't expect much sympathy for being trapped in Bangkok for a long weekend but I had already overstayed my 30 day travel visa and every day that I continued to stay in Thailand was a day that I wouldn't be able to visit somewhere else like Laos or China for instance.

So, the travel plan appropriately revised. I was determined to enjoy my long weekend in Bangkok, where I took in some Muay Thai Boxing and nearly bought a suit (if I hadn't had a really heavy backpack already overflowing with winter clothes for the Trans-Siberian railway I would have) caught up on some Premier League football (it's really popular in Thailand - I even got them to show the Fulham match!) and both relaxed and partied my face off (I did have four nights to kill remember).
x

Over the course of the weekend I learned a few things about Bangkok. If you want to, you can get just about anything in the world on the streets of that fair city. Weapons for instance, including brass knuckles, extendable battons, switchblades, butterfly knives, ninja throwing stars (all illegal in western countries) and even pistol crossbows are available on the sidewalk markets and street corner stalls next to the tshirt vendors. 'Massages' and at night-time more overtly sex is for sale no matter what street you walk down.
x

'Sidewalks' are a completely different concept in Thailand and Bangkok in particular. There it is where the scooters drive or where people set up tables to sell goods and services (see above) or just where they plant trees which then get so big that you have to step out into the street just to walk around the trees that are growing in the middle of the 'sidewalk'.
x

Pink taxis were a nice touch and gave Bangkok a bit of a happy-go-lucky feel but the one of the things that took me by surprise was the sheer number of 7-11 stores. I bet you could give directions from any point in Bangkok to any other point solely by using 7-11's as a guide:

'Go straight on Soi 1 until you hit the 7-11, turn left and then take another left at the 7-11. Drive until you hit the 3rd 7-11 then get on the expressway. Get off at the 7-11 and go straight. If you hit the 7-11 you've gone too far...'

Anyhoo, on Tuesday morning I arrived at the Canadian Embassy at 10:00am, not wanting to get there too early since I already spent so much time there on Friday hoping the package would be delivered before closing and successfully retrieved my passport and went immediately to the train station to buy my ticket outta there. Free at last I could finally leave Thailand. More optimistically I could finally go to Laos.
x

If you're thinking that all this visa related chaos might lead to quite a lot of additional expense then you are absolutely right. Not only did I have to pay around 50 quid each way for courrier service for my documents but I had to pay 100 pounds for the admin fee of the visa processing company and then, because of the time it took to process my Russia tourist visa, I overstayed my allowed time in Thailand by 9 days and was fined another 100 pounds. So in addition to the cost of the visas I'm out GBP 300! I sure hope there is a lucrative job waiting for me when I get back!

Photos: 1) Checking out the Wats in Ayuttaya, the former Thai capital. 2) Buddha stautes lose their heads over time apparently. 3) A little bit of trip planning 4) Passport in hand outside the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok which is on the 15th floor. They wouldn't let me take a photo inside.

*In case you've forgotten, I'm taking the trans siberian railway from Beijing to St. Petersberg via Mongolia in late February. The visa to enter China was really easy to get and I went straight from the airport to the Chinese embassy in Toronto on the 23rd of December after arriving from Buenos Aires and had my passport with visa in hand by lunch time the next day.

**I have absolutely no idea what this is about. I guess there is a lucrative trade in sending forged passports around by courier or something that requires additional scruitiny in order for the courier to cover their a$$.

***By contrast in Argentina I had to show my passport every time I purchased a bus ticket and then again when I got on the bus and also every time I checked into a hotel and even a couple of times randomly on the street.

****Riiiight. So I'm not currently employed while travelling the world and if I run out of money I'm going to chose Russia in the middle of winter time to overstay my visa and sponge off the government. I really think not.

Rock Climbing 101

2009-02-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

I actually didn't really envision myself doing any climbing when I went switched to the east coast of Thailand. Even though Krabi (Tan Sai Beach in particular) is famous for it's picturesque limestone cliffs with routes for climbers of all abilities, I'd been rapidly burning through cash and needed to slow it down a bit. Krabi isn't the place to do it. For one thing, on the beaches where everybody stays there is a scarcity of accomadation owing to tsunami when all the buildings were damaged if not completely destroyed so rooms were pricey, at least by Thailand standards. And for another thing there is nothing else to do there really.* It does look like this though so you can see the appeal generally:

So, with some time to kill and since I was there, finances be damned!...I took a three day climbing course.

The course focused on basic safety techniques and how to spot someone else when they are climbing, what knots to tie etc.,

with minimal concern for how high you actually went, and since most of the beginner to intermediate walls have adequate hand and foot holds you could get way up there.

The course then went on to teach lead climbing, (taking the rope up and setting it up in the anchor) and then multi-pitch climbing and abseiling down.

It was a real thrill though to climb up and meet my instructor at the 'top' only to continue on and lead the rope up the next 'pitch' to another anchor and then abseil down. It was really cool and you can see how climbers get addicted to it.

It was amazing. My muscles weren't ready for three straight days of that though and I could barely make it through the third day.

I took a well deserved rest day. With the beach and sun, Tan Sai is really a good place to chill out. It is the type of place where the worst thing that happens is the sort of thing that was posted on the message board:

Then, on my 2nd rest day I was out taking some photos when I bumped into a guy I'd met a few days earlier named Mike. He really wanted to go deep water solo climbing. It's climbing over deep water with no rope so if you fall you land in water.

The idea is not to fall but to climb as high as you can or as high as you feel comfortable, then jump into the water. In fact Mike wanted to go so badly that when the place said we needed three more people or else the outing would be cancelled he ran up and down the beach recruiting people and as luck would have it, it was an easy sell.

Some of the guys were absolutely outstanding climbers, and could comfortably climb up the wall until they got so high they were scared to jump (around 23m). I got the one guy jumping from around 23m on video and it is truly impressive. I, however, am still a novice. Though growing in confidence, most of the techniques I mastered in the course related to knots and use of clips and ropes and whatnot so that was of very little help over open water.

Still, I managed to get up to about 12 metres or so but then got a bit stuck. The trick was to swing one leg over to the stalagtite and then transfer the rest of your body weight over. It's easier said than done for a short guy like me and I was not at all confident I had the leg span to make it. So rather than risk it I decided to just get myself in the absolute best position before trying.

It's a difficult thing climbing. There really is no one best position. Sure some are better than others but you have to keep going. If you're stuck, you're stuck. Just admit it and enjoy your jump into the water. But if you've read my Aconcagua blog you'll know that I don't concede defeat easily whether it is to a world class mountain or just some rock face in the middle of the ocean. So I powered on trying to slowly move into the best position. The chalk had worn off my hands and so had the reserve chalk that i chalked up on my arms (climbers like chalk) so my grip was starting to fade. But if I can make this one last.....ooops...... SPLASH

OW!

I landed on my left side. I gave the boat the 'i'm ok' line but I wasn't really. I was quite sore . Still, we moved to a slightly less challenging wall and I successfully did that 2 times so it's all good. My ribs still hurt 2 1/2 weeks later but i'm sure by the time I get back to London I'll be tip top.

Photos: 1) Learning to climb. 2) View of Tan Sai and East Rai Lei beaches. Hidden from view west Rai Lei beach. 3) Self photo having reached the top of one of my first lead climbs. 4) My excellent doubled up figure 8 knot. It better be excellent. My life depends on it. Needless to say I spent a lot of time practicing. 5) View from about 20 or 22 metres depending who you believe. 6-7) Showing off some mad skills. 8) Abseiling down all by my self. 9) Monkey theft advertisment. 10-11) Deep water soloing. Starting out well. 12-13) Making the move across towards the stalagtite. 14)Note the splash in the last one -sideways for some reason but don't have time to fix it for now.

*Why did I go then? I guess subconciously I wanted to learn to climb. I met people who were serious climbers who loved it there but I just thought it was also just a cool place to hang out. It is but really only if you are a climber.

Underwater Photography 101

2009-02-10T00:17:00.000-08:00

Back on December 25th I unwrapped possibly the best Christmas present ever; an underwater housing custom designed to fit my digital camera. It just looks sweet all on it's own as most dive gear does:

But a few weeks into the new year I was tired of just looking at my precious gift and showing it off to strangers everytime a random backpacker I met mentioned diving, so once I got to Ko Tao, a small island off Thailand's west coast remowned for it's diving, I was more than ready to take some kickass underwater shots. I was so excited that I didn't even care that the proprietor of the dive resort made me do a scuba skills review even though I have over 400 dives under my belt and I had been diving as recently as October in Madagascar and I've had my PADI Advanced certification since 1995.*

Anyway, skills review quickly dispatched we still had 1/2 hour of bottom time left so I spent the time furiously taking shots. Here are some of the early ones,

Actually these are the best of my introductory bunch which had a lot of flaws it must be said. It seems I have a tendancy to overuse the flash which led to a lot of particles showing up in my photos despite the awesome flash diffusion screen on the case. I am also inclined, probably as a result of taking so many landscape shots in the past few months, to zoom out and try to capture the entire scene which doesn't work too well underwater especially when the lighting or visibility is poor.

I did learn a few things by trial and error though. Sometimes the flash can work in your favour. Even though everything may look grey/brown as in the next photo, once a little light, or in this case a bright flash of light, is introduced into the equation you see the true colours of the undersea world shine through.

Still my shots were inconsisent at best and as the lighting conditions kept changing I was forever tweaking the settings never really confident that I knew what I was doing. Even my successes like this one,
or, diver from below

were basically good luck. For the diver from below I don't even think I was looking because I was concerned I would surface underneath him. I got to talking about some of the challenges I was facing with some of the divers on the boat** and it turned out that one of the divemasters, Chris, was teaching the underwater photography specialization and gave me a few pointers.

Later when we were talking over beers for 5 nights straight he suggested that I might benefit from the course and I told him that ever since PADI refused to recognize my 20+ logged wreck dives and declare me a 'wreck diver' I don't put too much stock in holding a specialized certification. The quality of the photos will determine whether I could call myself an 'underwater photographer'. But I had to admit that I could use some practical tips so I settled on a one day workshop.

This would explicitly help me overcome one of the biggest obstacles to good underwater photography: being rushed. For normal recreational divers the tendancy is to see as much as possible but in order to get some of the better shots (the same goes for land based photography it could be said) you have to have a lot of patience to wait for the right conditions and for the fish to come to you because chasing fish around is fighting a losing battle.

I recieved a lot of pointers about depth of field and manipulating the amount of light you let in the camera. One of the biggest pointers though was to be sure to calibrate the white balance at depth by taking a clean white slate because how your camera interprets white will influence all the other colours.Another awesome tip was to explore the effects of what on land would be an extreme close up. The effect is remarkable and some of the patterns in the coral are really unique and cool (as above) and some of the shots up close of fish are also quite cool (below).

I still need lots of practice but I've got a much better idea about what makes an interesting photo and it doesn't help to have a bright sunny day either!

Photos: 1-3) Try as we might we couldn't get the bubble ring entirely in the full frame. The challenges of a moving target while the photographer is also swaying with the waves. 4) My new toy. 5) Showing off the skills. There's really not much to it. 6) Me UW self portrait 7) Crown of thorns. Enemy of the reef. 8) Not bad for a first attempt. It looks like they are hiding. 9) Diver and reef. 10) Hey, this coral is actually red!!! 11) I like how the eyes of all the fish came out in this one. It's busy but there is still a focal point. 12) Kind of cool looking silouette from below. 13) Chris. Truly a crazy and unique individual and excellent underwater photographer. 14 -16) Coral close ups. 17-19) Fish close ups.

*Ok it sort of bothered me I mean give me a break man. It doesn't really help that I stopped keeping logs after hurricane Ivan got mine all wet and so have no actual proof of any of my alleged dives
**It is a pretty big boat and on any given day there are beginner classes, specialty classes and just recreational divers.

Dave on the River Kwai

2009-02-07T22:50:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about travelling without a set itinerary is the amount of pleasant surprises that you encounter along the way.* For instance did you know that the river kwai and it's historic railway bridge and related WWII historical site is located in Thailand? I didn't. But I was pretty excited to find out that it is just a short two hours bus ride away from Bangkok in a sleepy but cool riverside town called Kanchanaburi.

The movie The Bridge on the River Kwai is a classic Gerhard favourite and even though none of the filming of the movie was done in Thailand and the wooden and bamboo bridge that the forced labour of WWII prisoners of war built in the movie and then later blew up looks nothing like the current concrete and steel bridge (Kanchanaburi is an actual place after all so the bridge was rebuilt after the war), it was pretty cool to see.

I'm not going to lie to you, I made a video of myself walking across the bridge whistling the renowned "Colonel Bogey March" that is forever associated with the movie and goes something like:

Whoo whoo. Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whooooo. Whoo whoo. Whoo-whoo-whoooooo-whoo-whoo-whoo. Whoo whoo. Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-who. Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-who-whooooooooooooo. (repeat)

Unfortuately the video is about 10 minutes long so is both too big to upload and too long to be particularly entertaining (10 minutes of me whistling is pretty much unwatchable even if it is in picturesque Thailand on an historic bridge) but it features some interesting moments like:

1) Me side-stepping other tourists who were hanginging out on the bridge (it is pretty much the only tourist attraction in the town**)

2) Me whistling slightly quieter whenever I would pass said tourists in an effort to not get their reaction in the video but also in the hope they wouldn't notice what an immature idiot I was being.

3) Right at the moment I crossed the bridge and was about to dramatically emphasise it by zoomig in on the historic Japanese rising sun emblem on the bamboo watch tower they put on the opposite side some dutch tourist comes up to me and asks me if I know any good hotels or possibly somewhere to have dinner.

4) Almost as soon as I told the dutch guy to 'F$%! off and stop ruining my kwai river bridge whistling video'***, the guard started blowing his whistle indicating that the train was coming. I mean it was near perfect timing, which was lucky because train and bus schedules and schedules in general are more just suggestions in Thailand so I couldn't have planned it that well. So I ended up getting the train crossing the bridge in the video as well which also took an excruciatingly long time since it had to slow down or stop often to allow all the aforementioned tourists hanging out on the bridge to get to the saftey platforms.

Once I get back and edit it I think I can probably turn it into a pretty entertaining 2-3 minute clip. Too bad you already know the best bits.

Right. Kanchanaburi itself is a generally relaxing place (though if you stay too long a slightly boring one). In particular, the guesthouse I stayed in had a massive riverside garden and hammocks and deck chairs which was great for,you know, relaxing by a river in a hammock for instance.

The city is also a great jumping off point for doing activities like elephant riding, rafting down the river or checking out the Tiger Temple.

The Tiger Temple has an awesome sounding name conjuring up images of tigers and monks living on a mountain-top, but is actually just a zoo. And not even a very comprehensive zoo with just a few animals other than tigers.

Although there is a temple thee it isn't particularly historic, is made of poured concrete with pillars tall enough to allow the monk's 4x4 pickup to be parked underneath and had a satelitte dish so the monks can presumably keep up do date with news from the dali lama or just watch the Simpsons in HD, whichever strikes them.

It also wasn't so much on a secluded mountain top as it was in a field. The field was secluded though. Although by secluded I mean inconveniently located in the middle of nowhere requiring a long and expensive journey from Kanchanaburi. Speaking of expensive, I didn't mention the outrageous entry fee of about 500 bhat. Which may not seem like much (it's about GBP 10) but this is Thailand and, I thought was supposed to be a temple, but I guess satellite upkeep, 4x4 fuel and insurance and tiger food is pretty expensive these days.

This brings me to the tigers. Real live tigers (although not particularly ferocious as they are prone to sleeping during the heat of mid day and are kept well fed and are used to the attention that hundreds of visitors a day bring).***

The tigers weren't near the temple though. For saftey purposes they were in the viewing valley a few hundred metres away where, for the price of admission, you could line up, hand one yellow shirted unsmiling worker your camera, where another would hold your hand and lead you around to where the various tigers were sleeping, while yet another would be sure to stand directly behind you so that you have an authentic yellow shirted tiger temple employee in all your photos of authentic, aweomely powerful, amazing, full grown, giant tigers who are sleeping.

There was also an authentic monk there but you had to pay more for him to appear in your shot.

Still though, tigers are cool. Especially big ones with big pointy teeth who even with their chains on and sleeping could easily rip your face off so being up close is a thrill and something you couldn't really do in a westernised country.

More adventures of Thailand to come....

Photos 1) Bridge on the River Kwai. The real one. Not the fake movie one. Which was blown up at the end anyway in a great movie ending. 2) DG crossing back over the river. Note the bombs that they placed on either side to emphasize the authenticity of the WWII site. 3) Some guy riding an elephant. 4) DG at the 'Tiger Temple'

*Incidently one of the worst things about doing that is missing out on stuff that would have been easy enough to see 'if only I had known sooner'

**That is if you don't count internet cafes, massage parlours and the awesome tree fort bar that I got ridiculously drunk at with my two Sedish friends Matilde and Emma on 'bring your own vodka night'

***Actual words 'sorry mate I can't help you out I just got here this afternoon myself but most of the restaurants and stuff are on the other side'

****Also, allegedly, they are not drugged according to the volunteer english speaking staff. Did you get that? A tenner a head AND you don't even have to pay your staff. These monks must have gone to Harvard Business School or something.

New Beard's Eve - Because All Good Beards Must Come to an End

2009-02-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Some people loved my beard. I know because they would say things like "Hey, love your beard!" or "Great beard man." Other people had not so much love for the beard and they would say things like "Your beard is silly"* or "Dude, your beard is getting a bit out of control".

In fact, towards the middle of December, once I passed the 4 month milestone I had to agree that my beard was starting to look a bit er..unkempt. But I was allowing it to become so because I had already determined my exit strategy from bearded life. I decided to host a new year's eve beard shaving party at my parents house near Toronto where I had scheduled a 10 day stopover for the holidays on my way from Argentina to Bangkok.**

In early November I set up an event page in facebook for a new year's eve party and, so people might feel more involved, invited anyone who wanted to to grow a beard which they could likewise shave off on what I was calling 'New Beard's Eve'.

The main reason I set it up so far in advance was that I was due to be travelling in South America and specifically trekking in the Andes for a few weeks ending in mid December which I figured might be a bit late to schedule a new year's eve party. Since I also knew that access to the internet would be sporadic and I wouldn't be able to answer questions and generally keep up the hype I appointed Matt as administrator of the event in my absence. Initially he was less than enthusiastic***, but once he came up with the title 'Beardministrator' which he could use when referring to himself in the third person (eg. 'The Beardministrator would like to remind everyone...etc.) he was ok with it.

Not only was he ok with it he took to it like a duck who was growing an awesome beard would to water ( basically such a duck would take to water the same as a normal duck but would be more cool due to his wicked beardedness). In the 20 days that I was offline trekking in the Andes, he continually hyped up the event and generally raised the 'beardthusiasm' to incredible levels. Not only had he and my other brother Steve started growing beards but so had my good friend Sean from high school.

There were now going to be four of us shaving off our beards on New Beard's Eve. And the lads were exchanging notes about how their beard growing was coming along and transformed the event from just a vague concept that I came up with one day while wondering how long I should keep my beard, to a ligitimate 'Event' that now even had an acronym: NBE.

Evidence of the enthusiasm include the following magazine covers:

and:

And to top it off, my bearded breatheren****had even gone so far as to order NBE hoodies that even said 'STAFF' on the back and VIP shirts for the ladies which all came out on Christmas morning after I unwrapped mine.

Having a custom made NBE hoodie really fired me up and looking back it's hard to say which was more fun, the final planning stages or the actual event.

Planning was excellent becuase it gave us a chance to flex our creative muscles a bit. Like creating the Beard Trivia Game or Jeap-Beard-y using the latest PlayStation 3 quiz game that lets you upload your own Q and A like: Q: "Who wrote the line: To Beard, or not to Beard, that is the question?" A: William Shakesbeard. We came up with 31 more just like it!

We also created the Great Hall of Beards featuring great beards of history so people would know they entered the right house:

There was also the NBE Guest Orientation packs which included a fake beard for all those who did not or were incapable of growing their own beard:

The fake beard came with graphical instructions for how to wear it similar to the lifejacket instructions on airplanes. "Don't forget to secure your own beard first before helping others."

The night itself was really good fun and I got to catch up with great friends who I don't see that often. Not eveyone could stay late due to the fact that their small children require a lot of attention and have more enthusiasm for the snack table than the official NBE Beard Shaving Centre but it was nice to see them all the same. Still, I declare that NBE 2008/2009 was a big success. As a group we went from looking like this:

to looking like this:

Passing through various stages like this:

this:

and this:

Until the result was four clean shaven "gentlemen".*****

I would like to point out that for me, growing a beard while travelling was easy and fun and all part of the adventure but I think it took real guts for Matt, Steve and Sean to start growing beards in Mid-November with the sole objective of shaving on NBE all the while still working and living their 'normal' lives. Thanks guys! It was a fun night, and going from this guy:

to this guy:

on NBE wouldn't have been the same without you.

In the end my 2008 beard travelled with me through 8 countries and lasted from August 15, 2008 until the wee hours of new year's eve which, if you're counting, and I am, is 140 days assuming you count Friday August 15th as day 0 which I do. Whatever the count, it shattered my 2007 Project Chabal/Beardvember beard which only made it to 67 days but was still pretty impressive.

The clean shaven adventures of Dave continue. Next stop: Bangkok!

Photos: 1)DG having just applied mousse to the beard to y'know make it stylish and whatnot. 2) Hanging out chez Gerhard with a nice xmas nogg doing some light beard related reading 3) Matt taking care of some last minute Beardministrator business. 4-5) Magazine covers made by the Beardministrator 6) Beardthusiasm at its best with the new NBE shirts. 7) Sean and Matt in the 'Great Hall of Beards' that's Darwin in the background Al. Samuel de Champlain was the other one you couldn't guess. Excellent guess on Czar Nicolas though. 8) Matt demonstrating proper fake beard technique. 9-10) The beards before and after. 11-13) The 'durings' 14-15) more before and after.

*Sounds better when coming from a Malagasy girl in french 'votre barbe est drole' or something to that effect.
**Some may not consider this to technically be 'on the way' but it was the way that I took
***I think his initial reaction was something exactly like 'Wait a minute, how did I get to be administrator. I am not a beard Curator by anymeans I am still a beard noob. I am only 3 weeks and 1 day into said beard and it does not warrant any kind of administrator privlidges. oh.. I;m off to climb a mountian.. can;t talk now have great bearded adventures to take part in. well yer not the only one thats busy.. in fact as you have so previously pointed out you are probably the least busy as you are on yer vacation'
****Matt came up with that handle. Further evidence of his outstanding performance as Beardministrator.
*****Technically 3 since Matt didn't finish the job until the next morning and was actually passed out sleeping on the couch while we were saying final goodbyes to our beards. But hey, as Beardministrator he's entitled to do what he wants without people giving him grief about it eh?

The Search for the Valley of the Moon

2009-01-10T23:33:00.000-08:00

After nearly 10 days of essentially doing nothing except hanging out and drinking wine (albiet in a few different and very scenic locations like Bariloche in Pategonia) and finally getting a doctor to give me the all clear on my feet, which I had started to worry about because they were still numb after 2 weeks since the summit, which, call me crazy, just didn't seem right, I thought I'd get out and actually do something.

The Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) provincial park* boasts, as you would expect, moonlike terrain, but also some of the world's most well preserved dinosaur fossils from the triassic period. Though the fossils aren't actually there now so I didn't get to see them. It seems that sometime between when my guidebook was last updated and when I was there they moved them all to a museum in Buenos Aires or somewhere that get's a bit more traffic than out of the way desert park. I'm also led to believe that there is a lot of other really interesting stuff about the valley but since the tour was in spanish I missed a lot. Anyway this story is about the journey to get there and back which was much more eventful than the actual park visit.

After leaving the doctor's office in Mendoza with my new foot xrays I headed to the north of Argentina to San Juan, a kind of blue collar town with nothing much happening and no real reason to go there other than it's near the Valley of the Moon. Well 'near' is not exactly accurate. It turns out it is about 350kms south-south-west of the Valley of the Moon but looks much much closer on the map I was using for trip planning.

As a result of it's 'proximity' to the park, San Juan my not have actually been the best place to base myself for this excursion but there I was. Did I mention that there's not much happening in there? And also that it's hundred's of kilometres away from the main tourist attraction? I did. Oh Ok. well it also has the very weird distinction of being a desert town that is super hot yet prone to violent thunderstorms and heavy rainfalls that from time to time flood the roads.***Since there's not much going on, there's not many people there so unlike other places I'd visited, the hostel was empty and I was doing this tour solo.

The lady at the hostel was friendly but ultimately unhelpful and so a quick internet search indicated that it would be cheap and easy to rent a car. It turns out it was neither,but, by 10:30am I was behind the wheel and doing my best to hold up the map to navigate and shift gears and drink a McDonalds coffee** at the same time.

Once I got my bearings and was 85% confident that I was going the right way (I at least knew from the GPS that I was at least going the right direction - ie. north-ish) the fuel light came on. Even though I find starting from the rental company with an empty tank quite annoying and inconvenient at least this gave me a chance to take a few mins to consult my my properly while not also driving and stuffing my face.

Back on the open road I was feeling good and started making some time. With a little luck I could be there by 1:00, do the tour and get back before it got dark.****It was outside of the cities that I saw the most evidence of the previous night's rainfall. There were very large puddles in the desert that sort of remined me of the Cayman Islands post-Hurricane Ivan puddles that never seemed to go away, but in general the roads were clear.

So when I came up over a little rise to see a "puddle" spanning the road I didn't really give it too much consideration other than to take my foot off the gas but it turns out that "small river breaching the road" would have been a better description for this particular "puddle" and I thundered into about 1 1/2 feet of water at about 120kmph. Nothing like crashing into a surprise body of water at high speed to get your heart pumping! It wasn't just the noise (kind of a whoooomph sort of sound) or the fact that my car was now covered in brownish water (even the roof), but suddenly I smelled fuel. That can't be good I thought. I was right. I started to lose power. The car wasn't responding to my desire to get away from that puddle and continue on my journey as fast as possible as if nothing had happend. I did manage to get most of the way onto the shoulder and for a while just sat there. trying to restart the car.

"Maybe it just has water in the engine and needs to dry out?" I theorized noting that on a hot day in the middle of the desert drying out the engine would be something I could accomplish without a lot of effort on my part other than opening the hood. So I did. Everything looked normal. Nothing was particularly wet. But then the water had come in from the bottom so who know's. Anyway I decided to give it 10 minutes and try restarting it. You know in case my water theory was correct. It turns out it wasn't correct and it also turns out that 10 minutes is a really long time to be sitting on the side of the road in the desert staring at your watch.

So I tried starting the car again. Same result. Which is to say nothing happened. Hmm, this could be more serious than I thought. I better put my hazard lights on. Since no passing cars were stopping to help me out. I thought I would get down on the ground and really suss things out for myself. So I looked underneath the passenger side of the car around where the fuel tank was to see if I could at least figure out why there was still a very petrol like smell coming from the car.

Now, as you may have guessed, I'm no expert when it comes to being an auto mechanic but I'm pretty sure that the fuel line is supposed to be attached to the fuel tank in order to, y'know, get fuel to the engine. Well it wasn't anymore. The metal piece where the fuel line attaches to the tank had sheered off when I drove through the "puddle" and was now dragging on the ground (or I guess it was actually resting on the ground since, as a direct result the car was no longer moving).

"Well at least I know what's wrong" I thought. Immediately followed by "Wait. How does knowing what's wrong help. I'm not going to be able to fix it and am still stranded in the desert." But knowing what the problem was still felt comforting for some reason.

Anyway, so I'm stranded in the middle of the desert approximately 1/2 way between my starting point and my destination and I start waving at cars to stop and call a tow truck. Two problems: 1) I don't know the spanish for "I stupidly drove too fast through that puddle back there and broke my fuel line. Can you please call a tow truck?" and 2) no one is stopping anyway. The second one is getting to me more than the first. After a while a car going the opposite direction does stop and I convince them, I think, to inform the police checkpoint that I passed about 20kms back that there's a stranded motorist. This makes me feel better and I stop waving people down.

Since I'm a bit bored I start inspecting the damage. Looks like it's pretty clean. The two halves fit together perfectly. If only I had some electrical tape or some crazy gule.....wait a second. I've got both. Miraculously, I brought my 1st aid kit with me. Something I would have had very little likelihood of needing. I didn't bring my glasses. But I brought band aids, electircal tape and crazy glue.****Now, I was under no illusions that this would fix the problem. But I thought there might, just might, be an outside chance that I could fix the problem for long enough to get to a service station. No, I was wrong. I couldn't. It would have been really really awesome if I could have. I'm talking MacGyver awesome but no it wasn't happening.

Although...while I have the crazy glue out, I might as well have another go at fixing my prescription sunglasses....

Just then, a transport truck pulls off the road and stops behind me. He saw the hood up and my flashing lights and just stopped. All by himself. I was trying to fix my glasses and waiting for the cavalry to come save me from the police checkpoint who, I'm sure by now have been notified and will probably be sending out search and rescue helicopters any minute.

The trucker, gets out and approaches me. What happens next is awesome! Not only have I figured out the spanish for my fuel line is broken and as a consequence my car is in an undrivable state (I just point continuously underneath the car until he looks there. But before he can even look he lights a cigarette. Um....not so wise with the leaking fuel and all...I tried to say but mostly my eyes just widened waiting for the impending explosion.....phew.

So I'm going over my options with this guy. And by going over my options I mean that he is talking quite a bit in Spanish and I don't know what the hell he's on about. I'm thinking "best case scenario I can get him to call a tow truck" but deep down, having driven through 189kms of desert villages already I'm not overly optimisitc. So then just as I think I understand him that he wants to give me a ride to the next village, which I'm not super keen on as it would mean leaving my rental car and it's 7,200 peso deductible in the middle of the desert, he pulls ahead of me hooks up my car to a 10ft strap, gives me extremely explicit instructions (which I somehow understand perfectly) to be very careful on the brakes especially on the down hill parts, and starts towing me.

This has me freaking out. A minute ago I was worried about leaving the car and now i'm illegally (I assume) towing it behind a big rig and trailor. I've got a great video of it but it is about 15 mins long so is too big to upload from internet cafes. A lot of it has me saying things like "Holyshitholyshitholyshit" and "I'm so scared right now, not of dying but of messing this up". Funny that I wasn't so scared as to put down the camera and steer with two hands....

After 20mins or so of stress we pull into a "garage" (which is basically a shack in the middle of the desert with some wrecked cars and oil drums around it). The truck driver explains what's wrong and miracle of miracles the mechanic claims to be able to fix it. This is outstanding. 20mins ago I was trying to fix my car with electrical tape and now I've got someone with a jack and blocks and parts and know how with his head under my car.

Well, he tinkered around under there for a good hour, periodically getting out to get a part or see if I was comfortable sitting in the sun and would maybe like some shade. Who are these mystery people. 1st a guy stops without me asking and rigs up a towing system for a stranded motorist that could seriously damage his truck and therefore his livelihood and then the mechanic is more concerned that I'm comfortable than he is with the vehicle. Absolutely incredible. If you are going to break down I highly recommend the Argentine destert.

Whn he asked me to start the car and it actually started....the feeling....indescribeable. Maybe exhilerating would do it justice but I don't think that's quite right. It was that but it was mixed with relief and excitement as well. Unfortunately he recommended that I turn right around and go back to San Juan and get it fixed properly. And maybe if it was my car and I was from Argentina and could see the Valley of the Moon any time I want then I would have but as he seemed to do a kickass job of fixing what I was confident was the only problem I figured why not continue on.

So I did. And this is what the valley of the moon looks like:

I had arrived at 4:50. 10 minutes before the last tour of the park started. I arrived in time to see the red ridge that looked like they should have named it the "Martian Valley" and then to see the really cool moonscape and generally drive around a really cool valley very very carefully, stressing out over just about every bump, hoping my new fuel line system wouldn't let me down.

It didn't. But because I got there at 5. I was leaving to return back to San Juan at 8:00. Just before it got dark.

Remember my glasses? I didn't. So the drive there which, was supposed to take about 4 hours took me about 6.5 to get home. Partly because the line markings suck and it was another dark and stormy night and partly because up in the desert the Argentines don't bother to fence in their livestock so around seemingly every corner my high beams were lighting up a horse or a cow in the middle of the road. Soon I started seeing cows and horses even when they weren't there.

To compound matters when I got back to the city I immediately got lost. Even though the city is a reasonably straightforward rectangular grid it has three layers of encircling roads and at 2 in the morning after stressing out about horses on the road for 6 hours it's not nearly as easy as it looked on the map the next day.

When I returned the car I was just about to tell the guy about the problems I had but he went on and on about how I wasn't returning it with enough fuel and actually accompanied me to the pumps where I put about 3 bucks worth in to get it to the level of his satisfaction. Remember I picked it up and had to almost immediatly get fuel. I was very disappointed in him and so forgot to mention that his fuel line was currently held together by a rural desert patchwork of miscellaneous parts and ingenuity.

Nothing is ever easy is it? But it makes for a good story....

Photos 1) The landscape, and cactuses in particular reminded me of the roadrunner cartoons. So I took lots of photos. 2) Bariloche. See I told you it was nice. 3) Fuel line detached. 4) Car getting fixed in desert lot. 5-7) The valley of the moon.

*Actual name of the park is Ischigualasto and valle de la luna is just a part of it but I mean c'mon I can't even pronounce it so I'm not going to bother writing it either. Except for just now. But I actually copied and pasted it from wikipedia so didn't actually write it per se. Anyhooo, back to the blog.

**Proper take away coffee houses just haven't reached some corners of the globe yet unfortunately

***BTW don't listen to wikipedia on this one. It says that San Juan has lots happening with all kinds of culture and whatnot as well as noting that "very little rain falls in the region". Normally I don't have a bad thing to say about wikipedia and rely on it heavily but it got this one wrong. At least as far as a weekend in late December 08 goes when I was there.

****In my haste to get going I had forgotten to bring my eyeglasses which I need for important things like watching tv and driving at night.

*****What can I say, along with some other stuff that really is what is in my 1st aid kit.

********That's like CAD 2,500 or something

Mt Aconcagua Expidition: Summit Baby!

2009-01-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

So back in 2001 when I went on my then 'epic' 6 week trip in South America I went to the foothills of the tallest mountain in the Americas, Mt. Aconcagua which peaks out at 6,962m or (23,841ft). I've got a good photo of it but it was so long ago that it was not taken on a digital camera so it's not featured here. Anyway being there and then meeting some people who tried to climb the mountain whet my appetite for summiting and when I found that there was an opportunity to join up with an expedition group and still be able to be back in Canada for Christmas I signed up immediately.

Not having any experience with high altitude I opted to go for the expeditions 'Extended Acclimitization Plan' (EAP) which saw me and two experienced German climbers begin our trek 2 days earlier than the rest of the group. We made it to the first camp at 3,100m with no issues other than the fact that I was a bit sick and needed to use the toilet constantly. The safety measures in place in the park were impressive but even though we had to visit the doctor daily to have our blood pressure and blood oxygenation levels* checked and discuss our general health, I conveniently forgot to mention that I was having trouble staying hydrated due to the fact that all the water I was drinking was finding it's way immediately back out.**

Even though I felt crappy (no pun intended) and did not enjoy any of the excrutiatingly long 8 hour hike up to the actual base camp Plaza des Mulas (4,300m) I got a full night's sleep once there and enjoyed the 'day off to acclimatize' the next day by augmenting the rock wall around my tent.

The next day saw the rest of the group arrive which was good because I had little in common with the two 50 something year old german dudes and one of them didn't speak English so communication was also difficult. We were now 14: Dave, Jan, Letitia, Dennis, Simon, Steve, Pascal, Cedric, Bernard, Walter, Caesar, Ricardo, Dieter and Helmut. Nationalities spanning the globe.

With lots of down time we spent a lot of time BS'ing in the food tent, just hanging out in our respective tents, playing cards***( in particular a game called Shit Head which Dennis was particularly bad at) or just waiting to be fed all with an upbeat attitude about the task ahead and lots of laughs now that there were some people in the group who both spoke English and had a sense of humour.

Once our acclimitization period was over at Plaza des Mulas we had 6 straight days of torture, well 7 if you count day 0. Tuesday the weather went bad and it snowed and the wind blowed and sleep was difficult to come by especially because part of acclimatizing meant drinking 5 litres of water per day which meant waking up at least once a night to go pee.

Wednesday we set off with full packs**** for the first of three high altitude camps Plaza de Canada (which we just called camp 1) and for the first time since Madagascar I was carrying a heavy load up a mountain. Believe me my legs let me know it the next day. The snow and wind started to blow on the way up the mountain and even though I would have been warmer I opted to let my beard warm my face instead of my bandana which was absolutely disgusing smelling having been absorbing sweat for two weeks or so since last being washed.

The high altitude camps meant no more meal tent so we ate our meals, either outside if the weather was good or, except for camp 1 when the sun came out, huddled up inside our tents.

Thursday and Friday saw the same crappy weather with snow falling and wind blowing and the two nights at these camps were probably the worst. It was -15 degrees outside not counting the effect of wind chill and even once I was warm and cozy in my sleeping bag my breath would condense on the outside of my sleeping bag or my pillow making them wet and disgusting and ultimately would condense on the ceiling of the tent, freeze and then when the wind would blow, would fall back down on me as if it were snowing inside the tent!!! Very unpleasant to say the least. It makes it really hard to get enthusiastic for a day of trekking when you've only had a couple of hours sleep and your pillow is wet. That said, the higher we went the more scenic and panoramic the views became, though my photos are few due to the fact that it was too cold to take off my gloves to opperate the camera or just too cold to be bothered leaving the tent altogether.

Saturday was summit day. On Friday night, our first night at camp 3, there was some concern whether or not the weather would be good enough to make an attempt on the summit. The wind was howling and it was freezing (exact temperature unknown but 'F'ing Freezing!' seems about right) so at 5:00am when our guide awoke us to let us know we were going to depart for the summit at 6:30am, it was hard to get up for it. Also, in the course of getting ready, I found that the outer shell of my trekking boots were frozen solid and I had to struggle for 15mins just to get my boots on, as a result I was delaying the group and getting stressed everytime the guide said 'c'mon guys, we're going'. Once I finally got my boots on I still wasn't ready and had to fill my water bottles which was met with a frustrated groan and eye roll from the guides. Then I had to find my ice axe, which wasn't where I expected it to be. So rather than panic and look all around for it I just said 'forget it' and went without it. The only one to do so I noticed after surveying everyone else's packs but I knew from discussions with others that there was only a slim chance of needing it anyway.

At about 6:50 or so we finally left and I took up my position near the back of the pack just, cause that's the way I do it, I don't like to feel like I'm being pushed and like to trek at a slow yet continuous pace.

As we were trekking I noticed that there weren't as many of us as there were supposed to be, Steve and Caesar were not in the group. When added to the fact that Bernard, Dieter, Helmut and Dennis had already turned back at various stages we were only 8 making a run at the summit.

Later, when reflecting on the trek over a few beers, we were all of the same opinion that our primary guide, Pablo, did not do his best to motivate the group and seemed insistent on convincing people to turn back as we reached certain milestones. For me he asked me how I was doing, I said "tired but fine' as, other than heavy breathing I was not suffering at all from the effects of high altitude and had no symptoms of altitude sickness or any other discomfort other than being tired from lack of sleep and having tired legs from 4 straight days of steep mountain ascent. Reminiscent of the Malagasy mountain guide when I climbed Pic Boby, he wouldn't let up though, "How are your legs?" "Don't forget you have to come back down too" "We only have a certain amount of time to reach the summit"*****. I think in his efforts to talk me down, he inadvertantly motivated me to keep going just out of spite. Never underestimate the power of spite.

By the time we broke for lunch at about 1:00pm there were only two of us left, and I felt sure that Ricardo, who had earned the nickname La Machina, (due to the fact that he was fit and built like a tank Argentinian rugby player) would continue on with me but before I knew it he had turned around and was heading down the mountain with Pablo, the last of our group's guides and I had joined up with another group who I had never met before to make the final 3 hour ascent towards the summit.

From the photos you can tell that it was a beautiful sunny day and my legs were surprisingly holding up very well considering I'd never before undertaken such a physically demanding activity. With Pablo gone I could turn off the spite and just turn off in general and, like a robot, follow the person in front of me step by very, very slow step.

One hour into the final ascent we could see the summit. It looke really close. Like a couple of hundred metres away. But still two hours of trekking. Head down. One foot in front of the other. Don't forget to breathe.******

Finally, I made it! I mean I actually made it. On December 6, 2008 at about 3:50pm Andes time I reached the summit of the highest mountain in the Americas. It was really wierd that it wasn't a more emotional reaction. No sense of pride or even sense of relief. Just a matter of fact "I made it". The weirdness was compounded by the fact that, after a couple of weeks of talking about it with the group I was the only one there and had no one to high five or likewise congratulate. Seven years after I had originally been awe inspired by Mt. Aconcagua and the Andes in general I had no more emotional reaction than if I had just cycled across London to pick up my awesome goggles. 'Yup I'm here. Guess it's time to turn around and go back." Which I did. Though I did take some time to take and pose for some kickass photos if I do say so myself!

So I said 7 days of torture, that's only 5. Well to pariphrase Newton, "He who goes up a mountain must come down". My feet were hurting. I was tired. Exhausted even. In general I'm a slow trekker and even more so on the downhill due to not wanting to further tweak my wonky****** left knee. Trekking downhill was very slow but when I got down to the base camp there was a heroes welcome for the 1/14 to summit and hamburgers and coke. All of which were welcome.

That night we celebrated our experience and our last night on the mountain with champagne, beer and....whatever it was we had for dinner.

That night my lips exploded. Apparently my beard is unable to protect my lips from harsh sunlight at high altitude continuously reflecting off the snow into my face as I look down carefully placing every step for 8 hours up and 4 hours down on a bright and sunny summit day. That made Monday equally crap as i had to hide my lips from the sun and coddle my aching feet for the 8 hour hike down from base camp to the park entrance.

I assumed my feet were hurting due to wearing my boots too tight and really cinching on the crampons because I had taken the precaution of wearing all 4 pairs of my wool winter socks so I couldn't have frostbite right? Well, sort of. It turns out I had mild frostbite and when I went to the doctor a few weeks later because my toes were still numb, something I didn't think was consistent with 'boot squeeze' or whatever you want to call it, the doctor said that i had "no problem" and that I should regain feeling in my toes within 2-3months. Yes that says months.

Anyway it appears that success has it's price. Luckily around Mendoza and in Argentina generally red wine flows like a river and at about $2 a bottle so 'medicating' myself as I slowly recover was really quite pleasant.

Photos: 1) Summit Baby! 2) View from the toilet 'window' 3) View of the summit at sunset, awesome tent wall in the foreground 4) Dinner at high altitude camp 1 5) Freezing cold sunset 6) View from the summit. 6,962m. Waaaaay above the clouds. 7) Oh Ya! I made it! 8) Group photo, middle guy who made it to the top 9 + 10) Success has a price 11) Enjoying the medication

*I still don't know what this is, something like the higher your number, the fewer breaths you need to take to get the same amount of oxygen in your blood. Though how this is measured by cliping a sensor to your finger and not actually drawing blood, I'm not exactly sure.

**My logic was that, from experience, this is a temporary condition and I didn't want to be prevented from continuing up the mountain for something that would go away in a couple of days.

***Which I luckily remembered to bring but only because I had lost my bank card and had to go rummaging through my bag that I had earmarked for storage while we climbed the mountain for my mobile phone to cancel it only to find my cards there too

****Full meaning all of our personal stuff, not counting food and tents which were carried by the guides/porters.

*****Alluding to my 4 straight days of being one of the slowest in the group

******Don't forget to apply sunscreen to my lips should have also been on my mind.

*******Tweak and wonky both being proper medical terms for my condition

Gettting to Chile and Celebrating Beard Day 100

2008-11-21T20:02:00.000-08:00

Getting to Chile

So from London after a lovely break to sort through my Madagascar photos while watching Columbo on the couch at my former flat and catching up with friends, notable for the Friday evening repeated attacks on my 94 day old beard by J-Fo, I began my official "trip round the world" that left from London to Santiago Chile (via Zurich of course) on November 17, 2008 and returns from Stockholm to London on March 31, 2009.

Well I luckily made it to Chile. You see I barely made my flight. I'm talking minutes or maybe even seconds at the check-in-desk to spare here. Here's what happened:

During my travels in Madagascar I had been listening to a few audiobooks (Catch 22) and lectures from the teaching company on random topics* and some standup comedy. A lot of the time I use my ipod is at nighttime to help drown out ambient noise (like dogs fighting and annoying Malagasy music on taxi brousses) and find that people talking does a better job than music. So while I had some couch/internet time when I was back in london I searched out as many audio books and lectures that I could find to add to the collection. The only problem was that with all the new stuff I now exceeded my 80gigs space on my ipod and had to now select individually the tracks that I wanted to keep. The reason this was such a problem is that I had left it til 2:30pm on the day I was supposed to catch a 6:40 flight from Heathrow to synchronize my ipod. 2 1/2 hours later at 5:00 I had to shut it down the syncronizing process at 50% and make a mad dash for the airport at rush hour.

Since you already know that I made it I'll spare you all the details:

Details like 1)how I was sprinting so fast with my 15kg backpack**that a lady on the Hammersmith and City Line to Paddington offered me a stack of tissues because I was sweating so much. Or that I missed the 5:25 Heathrow Express by one minute***.

Or that 2) my dead all out sprint to terminal 1 was for naught as, despite what my ticket said, Swiss Air actually flies from terminal 2.

Or that 3) another all out sprint from T1 to T2 caught 4 police officers off guard as I charged between them yelling over my shoulder, sorry, I'm late for my flight.

Or that 4) the guy at the check in desk had to check with his supervisor who in turn had to check with her supervisor to see if 6:10 was too late a check in time to let me on the flight. "Ok but he is the last one" was the consensus that I was grateful to hear.

Actually that's quite a lot of details for someone who was leaving out the details. Sounds like something I would do.

Anyway, so I got there and after accidently tipping the taxi driver the equivalent of GBP 20 due to an exchange rate misunderstanding I arrived at the Chili Hostel (play on words deliberate) http://www.ajihostel.cl/ which was a really social place where I met lots of fun people.

One of the fun people was a guy who worked there named Alvaro, a big fan of Rush, which I can't say helped endear him to me but since they are Canadain it fostered conversation about music and in general. Alvaro is a bit of a metal head. Or if not a metal head then definitely a hard rocker.

Anyway, on beard day 100, which happened to coincide with the hostel's Friday nigt bbq, Alvaro broke out the hard liquor, a Chielan firewater called Pisco and then took me and Randy, a guy from the states who is about 10yrs my junior with the energy of a guy about 20 yrs my junior, on a random tour of hard rocker type clubs where the people where scary looking and the music was hard rock (though due to Pisco related memory loss I don't remember any actual songs that we heard).

In general, though much is hazy, beard day 100 celebration was a roaring success and saw me get back to the hostel sometime between 5:30am (the time stamp of the last photo) and 6:30am when Randy scaled a wall and climbed through a 2nd storey window ****to let me in the building because no one was answering the door.
The major issue with the beard day celbration, other than it was to celebrate 100 days of an awesome beard which is less an 'issue' and more a statement of fact, was that I had a 7:51am bus ticket to Mendoza (7hours away across the border into Argentina) already purchased for the next day so waking up at 10am I scrambled around as fast as possible to make it to the bus station in time to catch a bus that would see me arrive in Mendoza before dark.*****

After a healthy breakfast of a double whopper with cheese at BK, I still had about 1/2 hour til the next bus left at 1:30pm so I decided to look through my bags and take inventory of my stuff. Hmmm.....where are my GBP 200 brand new never been worn prescription ski goggles. They should be here. or here. or here. Crap! Crap, crap crap crap crap. I must have left them at the hostel. Damit. there's only 15mins left now til my bus leaves. Decision time....do I say "forget them" and continue on? or forget the bus ticket (after all I was going a day early for my mountain tour anyway) and go back and get them? I can't very well leave them just to get value out of this bus ticket. Guess I'm going back to the hostel for another night.I was greeted with an amused smile from the girl at the desk and sure enough my goggles were there. My pride was nowhere to be found but I had a quiet afternoon and used the time productively to send an email to Mom and Dad informing them that I had planned a kickass Beard Removal Themed party for New Year's Eve at their house if that was all right with them. I was calling in New Beard's Eve and during my mountain expedition it would take on a life of it's own.

Photos 1) Nothing to do with arrival in Chile but I just find it interesting that a guy named O'Higgins was such a great Liberator of Chile that he has the main st named after him. Mental note to wikipedia Chilean history and find out what's up with that? 2) Mi amigo Alvaro and his buddy who's name I don't remember one of the rocker clubs in Chile.3) Me and the official beard calendar. 4) DG and Randy taking a "when in rome" attitude and getting into the spirit of the local rocker clubs.

*The best one being History of Roman Empire which I originally downloaded in April when I went to Rome but revisited in Madagascar due to lack of selection

**Despite now carrying winter weather clothes I still managed to ditch a lot of stuff that I was carrying around Madagascar. Nearly 9kg worth which really helped for the sprinting through airports.

***26 mins from Old st to Paddington is pretty good at rush hour I thought after the fact.

****Before I could even finish my response "No way man I'm way too drunk for that" to his question of who should climb through the window? his feet were already hanging out of the window.

*****Normally I would opt for the overnight bus but since it arrives at 4 in the morning I decided against it.

Madagascar 8 - La Dernier Chapitre

2008-11-20T13:18:00.000-08:00

Ok so I´ve left Madagascar and am now in Chile. Big deal. I´ve got a couple of unaccounted for weeks on the blog so instead of writing a chapter on each event (which would be amazing but time consuming) I´ll sum it up with a paragraph on each.

Parc Ranomafana

Amazing park. Greenest place in the whole country with lush rainforest and beautiful waterfalls and rivers along with lots of lemurs and a nice campsite. As I arrived in the middle of the night on a taxi-brousse it was an amazing awaken to the sight of mist rising off the rainforest and birds chirping. That´s right birds. Going tweet-tweet. Not roosters cock-a-doodle-do-ing or dogs barking just nice tranquil bird song. The main problem then was that the hotel was in the village and the parc, my destination, was 6.5kms away. According to the guide book it was a slightly windy road but I figured it must follow the river or something like the road near the hotel so I thought I'd walk it. It turned out to be entirely uphill. Lucky thing I was in training for Aconcagua climb and I had just made an awesome "On-the-go" playlist by selecting 2 songs titles beginnig with each letter of the alphabet. I arrived at the park in the middle of Lenny Kravitz´s "Lady". 13 songs. Not bad time considering it was all uphill. The well deserved honey rhum (a bit on the sweet side though if you ask me) went down a treat and was still in time to tour the park and see some lemurs. The brownish ones.

Ambositra ("Boringtown, Madagascar)

If boredom could be exported and capitalized upon then Ambositra would be the richest town in the world. The guide says something like "all the fresh mountain air you can gulp" and that made me think that since I was going past there anyway, why not stop for a couple of nights and check it out. Except for the scenery and the half decent although seriously difficult mountain biking there is "rein chose a faire la."*

I tried and tried and tried but I just couldn´t make the "woodworking captiatl of Madagascar" interesting. Sure, the little wooden trinkets are hand made but so are pirogues and bricks and just about everything else in Madagascar where labour is cheap and the zebu cart represents cutting edge technology. I think it was a good eye opener for me and reinforces why I am not a writer for guidebooks. If I were under Ambositra I would write "this town sux. Don´t go there. Ok sure. If you really really really think woodworking is interesting and want to buy some mass produced trinkets carved and assembled from wood then stop by for lunch on your way through, but by all means don´t go out of your way". One thing that was cool was that I could pitch my tent in the yard of the hotel for only 2 euros a night and there was a baby tortoise sharing the yard with me I named him Georges because the Malagasy lady and child who welcomed me either didn´t understand me when I asked them his name or they ignored me.

28 Hours in a Taxi-brousse and the Search for Nosy Mistrio

Madagascar is ridiculously huge. So if you want to see the north and you are currently in Boringville, you either need to fly there, (rubbing fingers and thumb together indicating that it's a bit pricey) or suck it up and take to the road. 1,200kms is a long way to go on windy mountain roads at the beginning of the rainy season but in the end after leaving Snoozetown at 9:00 on Thursday I got to, where I thought I wanted to go, at 1:00pm on Friday, Ambilobe, gateway to the north and where the streets are paved with, well, nothing.

Before you read this just remember one thing. I am an idiot. Also, language barriers suck.

The guidebook says that Nosy Be, while amazingly beautiful with world class beaches and diving, is also infested with vazahas, and the island even has direct flights from Italy and France to facilitate vazaha visits. No thanks. Not my cup of tea. The guidebook also says that Nosy Mitsio has even better worldclass diving and hardly any vazahas but it is hard and therefore expensive to get to. BUT, the guidebook map has a dotted line indicating a ferry that goes from Grand Mitsio Island to a mysterious place called Ampasanantenina.** People in and around Ambilobe generally agreed with this and so they dropped me at a place called Port St. Louis. Language barrier issue 1) Is this where I catch a "bateau" to Nosy Mitsio. Technically no. it isn´t but it was where I could catch a pirogue which for some reason is not considered a "boat" even though it floats and has sails and whatnot. Ok then, I´ll go to Ampasanantenina where the "ferry" goes. I knew something was wrong. There was no road to get to this place. Wouldn´t a ferry carry trucks and supplies and stuff? No there was a tiny zebu path and some very surprised children and villagers when I arrived. Luckily, the villagers were friendly and welcoming and let me set up my tent on the beach and it was only after 20 mins or so when they tried to get money out of me. Luckily again they are not that smart and after about 2 hours of negotiations I made them think they got me when in reality I scored a 75% off "boat" trip to the island. One catch, it leaves at 3.00am. For me, I had just travelled 28hrs on a taxi brouse, then 2 hours in the back of a pickup truck, then walked for 90 mins and forgot to eat or pick up extra water and now I was going to sleep on a strange beach in the middle of nowhere and no one knew I was there and then wake up and get in some dudes carved out canoe and sail 31kms offshore to the big island where I had no hotel reservation or even knew if there were even any hotels.

When I got there, the hotelier said, "sure you can stay here (though I don´t think he was expecting guests!) but there is a problem with the food. There is none." What? I said. Well what about water. I mean I haven´t eaten or slept in a while and just spent the first 6 hours of the day in the sun on a "boat". Nowe have no water either. Oh man I felt like crying. I think he could see the deflated look on my face he instructed a guy to climb a tree and get some coconuts and I tell you what that was the best coconut I´ve ever had in my life and maybe even the top beverage ever as well. After I was sufficiently hydrated we established that the problem with the food was not lack of existence but lack of variety which was a much much better problem when you are in the middle of the mozambique channel on a tiny island that you arrived on unexpectedly and unannounced. Hell of a beach though. The guidebook got that bit right.

That night, one of the staff at the hotel, a bit wasted and talking loads of crap, asked me if I was married. I said no. He said was I interested in Malagasy women. I thought he meant generally and I said that they were generally quite pretty and smilely and friendly and then he left and I forgot about him. A while later, after dinner once I was in my room I heard a knock, and so there is this guy with "my choice" of two local village girls.***I had to decline. It was just too weird. Also the 3 carb meal (spaghetti, with fries and a side of rice) combined with no sleep for nearly 2 straight days had me a little on the tired side. Maybe it would have been a night to remember, as it was it was quite memorable, but I´ll never know and I´m ok with that.

Communication problem 2) yes i would like to "plonge" meaning dive. But they also use the same word to mean snorkel. I don´t want to fucking snorkel. I want to dive so I add "avec boutaille" (with tank of air) but for some reason this also got lost in translation. So instead of being taken to the dive store. I was taken to a remote smaller island to snorkel where I felt quite lucky that they didn´t just leave me on it and take all my stuff. After explaining that under no circumstances was I going to leave all my bags and money with my priogue crew while I go snorkeling off a deserted island we headed inland.

Dave is a big stupid idiot: right so we sail all afternoon and get back to the mainland. Port St. Louis where I originally landed. It´s only 27 kms from Ambilobe. If it comes down to it I´m a hardened backpacker and I´ll walk it. (What? that is stupid! don´t be an idiot!) Oh look it might rain. I´ll just get my rainjacket out. That should help. (You are a retard) Ok I´m off I´ll just start walking by myself in rural Madagascar on the verge of darkness on a sunday when there are no taxis this should work out fine (It is a wonder you were´nt mugged and left for dead!). Right well anyhooo, long story short after a brief conversation with a complete physcho I managed to pay a ridiculous but worthwhile sum to a private taxi driver (guy with a car) and just as I got inside it started to piss down rain like I´d never seen before. And lightning. Holy crap the lightning. What great weather this would have been to walk 27 kms with over 30kgs of luggage. Theres roughing it and then there is being stupid. This was a million miles into stupid.

Result: Nosy Mistrio found. Dives completed: 0. Amount of stuff I had left:all (what a ridiculous miracle)

Diego Suarez

This place is like a proper city. Except for the number of old french expats with young Malagasy women****, the city makes sense and is tourist friendly with lots to do. While updating the blog I met up with Nero the poker instrcutor at the local casino and stopped in a couple of times to play. I also climbed my very first real rock face to a ridiculous height of 28m, hung out at the pool at the Grand hotel working on my tan and chilling out, mountain biked about 150kms, climbed French Mountain, would have taken windsurf lessons but a group of russians had booked months in advance for the time I wanted to do it and went on an amazing ATV excursion with my new ami and the coolest guy in Madagascar, Garcia.

Garcia welcomed me into his house for dinner 2 times and showed me the town and even introduced me to lots of ladies (he´s quite the ladies man you see) on halloween when I went out on the town dressed as, yes, Chuck Norris, even though no one else was celebrating halloween.

I ended up making the 1,200km trip back to Tana in time to hang out in the Capital on a Sunday when everything is closed and then got wasted and made my flight to France just in time to pass out and wake up mid flight with my first case of African traveller´s diarreah.

All good now though. Starting the climb of Cerro Aconcagua on Sunday, 6,962m (22,841ft) of Argentinian Mountain. I´ll wave from the top on Dec 8, 9 or 10 so have a look up.

*A phrase that I would repeat over and over while drunk and generally badmouthing Ambositra to my new Malagasy friends when one of them said they were going there. The enthusiam with which I trash talked the town was received with much hilarity and it became a running joke for like a week (ie. What´s going on? I don´t know but I hear there´s lots happening in Ambositra.)
**Amazing that I remembered the name as it´s been about 3.5 weeks now but I asked just about everyone I encountered if I was going the right way.
***He said they were 20 but who the hell knows.
****I still can´t decide whether to cheer them (nice work buddy!) or feel sorry for them (they{re only with you for your money!) I think the fact that none of them were ever smiling despite living in a tropical paradise with enough money to live like a king with a beautiful women on their arms has me leaning towards feeling sorry for them.

Madagascar 7 - Chooo-choooo! All aboard the FCE (Also known as taking the long way through Banana country to get to Parc Ranomafana)

2008-11-04T23:01:00.000-08:00

I'll be honest. Originally I had no interest in riding in Madagascar's only passenger train the Fianarotsoa Cote Est (FCE). It's one of those things that they build up in the guide books as being a must do but I could see right through it. Or I could, until some people who had already done it sort of convinced me that it was worthwhile and since I didn't have an agenda anyway I figured I'd give it a go.

I have a couple of problems with this train though:

First, It starts in a city that I had no reason to go to (other than to catch the train)* and ends in a city that I had no desire to go to** and that was a day's travel out of my way (to the extent that I had a "way" not really having a set travel itinerary and all).

The second problem I had is that is overhyped and swarming with vazahas. Actually that's two separate problems but one is a consequence of the other.*** In the description it notes that it traverses "some of Madagascar's most scenic countryside". Having already been here for six weeks I've seen a lot of the countryside and while I can't argue that the view from the train wasn't scenic, it was no more or less scenic than you can see in many other places (and how exactly do you rank whether one amazing landscape is more or less scenic than another anyway?)

It goes on to boast that it "offers the traveller magnificent vistas". Ok this may be true if you had a window seat (which I didn't) and it was on the north side of the train (nope again) then you could hang your head out the window and partake in some vistas and also block the view of all the other passengers such as those sitting on the aisle on the south facing side of the train (ie the side where there is just a sheer rock wall along which they built the railroad of which my view was splendid thanks).

The other descriptive words they use are "liesurely" to describe the pace (aka slow) and "lots of opportunity to enjoy the bustle of the 17 village stations as they come alive with the whistle of the train" (ie the train stops a lot).

As a result of this exotic sounding description the train is swarming with tourists. Not the young hip, bearded backpacker types that I like to socialize with (or non bearded in the case of girls) but the older french vazaha's who wear out of context adventure gear like those old photography vests and big hiking boots even though they now have digital cameras and are presently taking a train. They all go in the first class carriages. Wanting to distance myself from that kind of pre-packaged group travel I booked in 2nd class.

So to recap, the train starts in a city I didn't want to go to in the first place, travels extremely slowly and stops frequently and I can't see the vistas because I'm stuck on the aisle seat on the non vista side of the train having got up at 5:30am in time to get my ticket (oh yes that was the other thing I meant to complain about) and then arrives at a city that I don't really want to be in at night time with no hotel reservation.

Hmm, how did I cope with this situation. Get pissed I bet you're thinking. Well that would have been possible because as I said the train stops a lot. And actually, now that I think about it you could turn the FCE into an all day drinking game/pub crawl. If you had a beer at each of the 17 stops you would be pretty wasted when you got to Manakara (especially since beer comes in big 650ml bottles). But then if you saw the toilet in the 2nd class compartment the last thing you'd want to be doing is drinking more fluids. So no I didn't get drunk until I arrived.

Instead I took photos, lots and lots of photos. Photos of the train stopped, photos of it moving, photos out the window (once people got off at about the 5th stop so I could actually take in a bit of vista action) photos of people on the train, photos of people at the station, photos of chickens crossing the tracks and photos of the biggest most prehistorically huge bananas I've ever seen in my life. Then I switched to videos because hey why not capture some of the sounds as well? If I could have somehow captured the smell of the deisil engine it would really be a collection for the senses (the bananas taste the same so just eat a banana while you check this out for the taste sensation).
The other thing that helped me pass the time was expaining to the locals, especially the kids, how my gps works. Basically, despite having read the wikipedia article explaining how the gps works when I first got it, I have no clue. Malagasy children can't seem to sense BS though so I just started randomly explaining the things I did know (like how many kms were left to where the GPS map thinks Manakara is (it's 5kms from where it actually is btw) and filling in the rest with technical jargon and making sure to pronounce "satelite" with an appropriately authentic sounding french accent.
Once I had a few photos of the beard out the window I felt like the whole train journey was actually worthwhile. After all as long as I got one good keeper beard photo with the train in the background that I can use to encapsulate all of the travels of Dave and his beard and from that perspective I was right it was worthwhile. Hell it was worthwhile just to see those giant bananas.

But then I got to Manakara. Adrien, one of my group members from the Pic Boby ascent told me that it was worthwhile going there because it had a kind of end of the world feeling. Didn't sound all that great to me. I'd been trekking and taxibroussing around for the past 10 days I think some right smack in the thick of the world would be pretty awesome right about now.

Since I was pretty sure I didn't want to go there I had consulted the guide book and just figured I'd get the first pousse-pousse guy to take me and my bags to any hotel he could recommend that might have a room. We agreed the price up front but as I didn' have the correct change he decided to up the price to match the currency I did have (double) on the grounds that the first hotel that he recommended was full and he took me around the corner. I argued that I agreed the ridiculous price that he quoted in the first place on the understanding that he would actually find me a hotel and would therefore save me a lot of hassle but then he brought his kids into it and the hotel wouldn't make change for me so I had to suck it up and pay the man his £3.50. Consulting the guide later saw that there was actually a big article warning against the Manakara pousse-pousse drivers and how ruthless and relentless they were.

Even though a ride from the train station on the outskirts of town to find a hotel in the dark might well be worth way more than the price I paid in London or elsewhere in the world, in Madagascar I should have paid about £0.50 for it and it is the feeling of getting ripped off which starts to wear on you after a while and makes you stop returning peoples smiles knowing that they are almost always followed by some kind of request or scheme for you to give them money.**** I deliberately didn't take another pousse pousse ride just out of spite even though it would have been much easier. On my way out of town I walked with my pack the 4kms to the taxibrousse station passing pousse-pousse after pousse-pousse explaining them my distaste for their dishonest business practices and arguing that since I was generally younger, stronger and fitter than them it really didn't make sense for them to be carrying my stuff anyway. Photos: 1) Train leaving on time (ish) from destination 2) I like this one. You can't really see the red of the engine but you get the kid's head in the foreground looking out. 3) Why did the chickens cross the tracks? Don't know. In this photo they're more walking along side the tracks but it still seemed a bit risky if you're a chicken .4) This one didn't turn out so great partly due to my overwhelming enthusiasm for the pre historic bananas but it's the best one I have that really show's how huge they are. 5) A random one after the bananas were put down and lots of people got off the train at the rest stop and the kid was sleeping. 6) Self portrait out the window of a moving train with the left hand. Let's see you do that with an SLR eh? 7) Ok so Manakara does have a kind of end of the world/old west feel about it. It doesn't mean I'm ever going there again now does it? Just look how lazy those pousse-pousse drivers are! Also I've locked in photo number 5 for the beard chronicles and can save the rest of my train pics for the trans-siberian.

*After spending 2 days there because the Thursday train was cancelled I realized that I also had no desire be there either.
**This was reinforced after I was actually there and had no desire to be there.
***It is overhyped DONC it is swarming with vazaha's. Merçi Simon R. pour la leçon français.
****Actually I smiled but just a sarcastic smile often accompanied by an some english that I know they don't understand. What? don't understand eh? Well I don't understand Malagache so welcome to my world. No "argent" for you. BTW friends beware due to the lack of speaking english I have a lot of pent up sarcasm that will need to be released when I get back so by no means interpret that as me complaining or not enjoying my madagascar experience