One-third

Mexico was lovely (but hot), but I don't have a single picture to show for it. I did everything I wanted to do. Mostly. No massages happened, but I still count the trip a success. And now I'm back in Guatemala, at once longer than I was planning on being here, but at the same time not here for much longer. You see, before I left for Mexico my plan had been to fly back to Guatemala City, just for the night, and leave the next day for El Salvador. But somehow - and this happens when you travel, at least if you're me - within hours of leaving Cabo I'd decided that I was going to scrap ES for Honduras instead (for the time being, anyway). This meant that rather than traveling to Santa Ana, El Salvador yesterday as had been my plan, I instead came to Livingston, Guatemala (on the east coast of the country, not far from Belize, actually). It was more of a stopping point, really, because from here I'll head south along the coast, cross into Honduras, and head to the Bay Islands where I will (hopefully) get some diving in. What happens from there is still up in the air...

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I was lying in bed the other night, not able to sleep. In my "real" life when this happens, I usually am kept awake by something work related, or maybe I compose to-do lists, that kind of thing. But when I can't sleep in my traveling life? At least during this trip? I compose sentences in Spanish, apparently. Yep. I think of everything I had to say in English during the previous day and I translate it to Spanish. If I don't know the words, I open up my internal thesaurus and riffle through it until I come up with a word I do know the translation for. I practice the whole sentence in my head until I feel comfortable and confident that when an instance comes up again where I'd need to say something similar, I'd be able to. Then, I do it all over again in as many different ways as I can figure out how to say the same thing.

This leads me to believe that my Spanish IS getting better, even though I haven't taken any formal Spanish lessons while I've been here (I've thought about it, though). For now, entiendo más de lo que puedo hablar (I can understand more than I can speak). That's good and it helps a lot, but it makes for very one-sided conversations...

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Lucky for me, I still have two more months left to go. I'm one-third of the way through this particular trip and already I've added six new stamps to my passport. I still have five blank pages left, but there were eight just a month ago. El Salvador may be out, but there are still four countries I'd like to hit up in my remaining time - Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. That only leaves about two weeks per country and that should be enough, but I guess time will tell...

Melaka/Malacca

Melaka has a varied history which is apparent in the architecture styles seen throughout town. There are predominantly Dutch, Portuguese, and Chinese influences and it makes for very interesting wanderings. There's not exactly loads to do in Melaka; perhaps the most interesting sightseeing that I did involved the People's Museum. For the most part, the museum was actually pretty blah, but the third floor contained the "Beauty Museum" which was all about self-mutilation (piercing, tattooing, neck coils, foot binding, that kind of thing) in the name of beauty around the world. Two negatives that the museum had going against it were that 1) the photos were very old copies and of fairly poor quality, and 2) the A/C wasn't working so it was broiling in there. If it hadn't been for those two things, I'm certain I would have read every single word and spent hours taking it all in.

So why did I stay for so long in Melaka - also spelled Malacca, in case you were wondering - when there wasn't much more to do than wander around, talk to cool people, watch DVDs, and eat duck (seriously, it was the best duck ever and I ate it four out of six days!)? Well, I found out the day I arrived that May 1st was Labor Day and was told that getting a bus around that time could be difficult. I figured I'd just leave a day or so after that, but then I was having such a chill time that I decided to stay longer. Then I started looking through an Indonesian guidebook to begin the planning process there and realized that I was going to need more time there than I thought initially. Ultimately I decided that I was going to skip Pulau Tioman (where I'd wanted to do some diving) and Singapore (where I'd only planned to spend two days or so anyway) altogether.

This brings me to the change of plans I mentioned the other day. Hey, guess what? I'm in Indonesia! I took a bus this afternoon from Melaka to KL and then flew to Medan (on an AirAsia flight that I just booked yesterday for $41). It ended up being an expensive day because I missed the bus that would've taken me directly to the airport and instead had to take a taxi once I got to KL, at a cost of RM72 instead of RM22, a difference of $15. Then, I had to check my backpack for the first time ever on this journey and that cost me an extra $10. Ah well, it happens sometimes, I suppose. I'm staying in Medan at a place called Zakia Hotel which, quite honestly, is pretty much crap, but I have my own bathroom for the first time in ages and I get free coffee in the morning. Besides, I'm leaving tomorrow for Bukit Lawang anyway and will only be using this room for 10 hours or so.

Btw, I'm back to being a solo traveler. Rowan left Melaka early yesterday morning and headed to Bali. There's a chance I'll run into him again, but for now I'm on my own.

Sad decisions

There's been a change of plans to my change of plans. I went to the Chinese Consulate this morning to apply for a Chinese visa since I wasn't able to get one in Hanoi. I could get one and I could have it by tomorrow, but it would cost me $150. That's a lot for a visa! The most I've spent up til now for a visa is $100 for India, but even that was an anomaly; normally a visa is $30 or less.

I'm sad, bummed, and disappointed. I'd been looking forward to seeing friends both old (met in high school) and new (met in Thailand). I don't think I officially mentioned here before, but I'd also planned on going to Korea. The new friend that I met in Thailand offered up the extra room in his house if I was ever in the area and when I realized how close Seoul was to Beijing, I figured I'd be a fool not to go.

But, to use a really professional sounding term, I did a cost-benefit analysis. The high cost of the visa, the multiple bus and trains through China, the high cost of living in Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul, and the nearly $400 one way ticket back to Cambodia just didn't add up. Or, rather, it added up to a lot more money than I wanted to spend for a two week diversion. Even considering that I'd have (free) places to stay in all of those cities, I'd end up spending well over what I spent the entire time I was in India in less than half the time (5 weeks in India vs. 2 weeks in China/Korea).

The new plan is the old plan. From HCMC I will head into Cambodia, first stop Phnom Penh. From there I'm not exactly sure what direction I'll head, but I'll figure it out along the way.

Hoa Lo and Halong Bay

Just a warning ahead of time that I'm about to talk about some amazing pictures...that you won't actually get to see for a couple of days or so. Sorry about that! I've either lost my flash drive or it was stolen (most likely it was lost) and until I get a new one, it's going to make uploading pics kind of difficult. Luckily my pictures aren't totally lost since they're on Flickr, and I should be able to pick up a new flash drive "cheap cheap" (as everything in Vietnam is declared!).

The British arrived on Monday night, a bit later than they expected after a 25 hour bus trip from Vientiane to Hanoi. We'd originally planned on leaving Tuesday morning for a trip to Halong Bay, but their late arrival meant that we didn't really have the time that we needed to plan, so we spent Tuesday running some errands in the morning and then we went to Hoa Lo Prison Museum in the afternoon. Since the weather wasn't great anyway (overcast since my arrival last Friday and on the cool side), we figured we'd leave on Wednesday for Halong Bay and only spend one night there instead of two.

Hoa Lo Prison, aka the Hanoi Hilton, is where American POWs were held during the Vietnam War, although it had been in use since then late 1800's when the French built it. Most of the focus of the museum was on the French colonial time when Vietnamese prisoners were held captive and these sections didn't hold our interest for very long. Some photo captions and artefact descriptions were in English, but not all, and there wasn't a lot of information given so we were left with more questions than answers. I'm sure those particular exhibits have more meaning for the Vietnamese than they had for us.

The exhibits that focused on the American War (as it's known here) were more interesting. I knew going in that I was going to get a completely different perspective from what is taught in US schools. No disappointment there. After the last presidential election, we all heard from John McCain plenty of times on the torture he received while he was a POW (he was held at Hoa Lo). At the museum, however, there's a picture of McCain receiving medical treatment with a caption testifying to the great level of care and attention given to the prisoners. There's also a number of pictures of smiling American prisoners sitting down to a huge Christmas dinner, playing chess and sports, receiving care packages from home, and otherwise not looking particularly unhappy to be prisoners. As I continue my travel in Vietnam and go to other places that tell the story of the American War, it will be interesting to get more of the other side's point of view.

After the prison museum, we needed some light heartedness. We decided to go to the grocery store for dinner and snacks for the boat trip, and then go back to the hotel where Rhian and Marina were staying to watch a movie and call it an early night. I had checked out of my hostel to stay at the same place as the other girls. It was four of us in the room, including Holly, another British girl Rhian and Marina had met on the bus to Hanoi. Kind of like a slumber party - as soon as the lights went out, that's when the talking and giggling began, lol. But, as we all are adults, we knew that being up and ready for our 7:30am pickup the next morning meant that we had to get some shut eye.

There was a bit of tension between us and the front desk staff the next morning, but that story will have to be saved for another day. After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel room, leaving our luggage for storage and just taking a small day pack with us for the trip. We took a van about three hours away to Halong Bay and then transferred to the junk (aka boat, but I'm not sure why it's called a junk). Actually, before we got on the boat, there was more tension because there was a question of whether the boat would be able to leave or not. It was kind of misty and very foggy and pier management wasn't allowing boats to leave. That's understandable, but the tension came about because there were rumors that we wouldn't get our money back. Long story longer, our boat was able to depart - yay!

This is when pictures would be really helpful. The scenery was absolutely amazing. There were huge limestone cliffs and random islands jutting out of the bay all over the place. Those of you on my SPOT email list received this link with my GPS coordinates. Pretty cool, huh? While some people were complaining about how crappy the weather was, I was snapping away on my camera because I thought the mist and fog made everything look very mysterious and romantic. After lunch on the boat, we stopped off at Hang Dau Go (Cave of Wooden Stakes), a cave that was quite possibly the coolest cave I've ever seen. It was massive and had a number of very large rooms to walk through. The stalactites and stalagmites were lit up with pink, purple, green, blue, and yellow lights and while that wasn't exactly authentic or natural, it certainly made everything look pretty! We had dinner on the boat, too, and then we spent the rest of the evening playing cards with Andy and Katherine, a Canadian couple living in China that we'd met earlier in the day.

Today we had the option of kayaking in the morning, something all of us were keen to do. Except that kayaking was to start at 6:30am and none of us were keen on that. We slept in instead and woke up to a bright, sunshine-y day, the first I'd seen in almost a week. After breakfast, we all went to the top deck of the junk to read and soak in some rays. When the boat arrived at Halong City, we got off the boat for lunch and then got back in the van to head back to Hanoi.

In case you hadn't figured it out, there's been a minor change of plans. I'd said before that I was going to HCMC today, the 25th. Obviously that didn't happen. I decided that I'd change my flight and fly from HCMC to Hanoi on March 14th instead. This way, I can work my way south in Vietnam and hang out with Rhian and Marina a bit more. We won't be traveling together the whole time, but since we're going in the same direction instead of the opposite direction, our paths will cross more frequently. I leave tomorrow night on an overnight bus to Hue where I'll spend a day or two before going to Hoi An.

Restored

Here's a recap of the last few days while I was out in the middle of nowhere:

The trip from Luang Prabang to Muang Ngoi was mostly uneventful. I arrived in Nong Khiaw just after 2:30pm and had missed the last boat to Muang Ngoi by a half hour or so. The logistics of how I got to Muang Ngoi don't really matter. In the end, I got a boat and only paid a little more than what I should have, after some hard core bargaining (and another passenger coming by, which helped, too).

(What a view!)

The boat trip to Muang Ngoi took an hour and gave me a chance to talk to Adam, a British guy who'd been in Nong Khiaw just to grab some cash before heading back to Muang Ngoi. He said that the whole village had been preparing for a wedding. Foreigners and locals alike were chipping in to help, particularly since there's a huge set of steps leading from the boat landing to the main road. Adam was clearly psyched about the place which got me in the mood for it since I'd been less than thrilled with my Laos experience up until that time.

(Foggy morning beginnings)

Muang Ngoi is truly a village. There are dirt roads and electricity only works from 6:30-9:30pm. There are just a handful of places to eat and locals outnumber foreigners. I went to a few guesthouses to see about a room and everyone was full. Not a great sign since I was hours away from civilization. Then someone said that I should go to the guesthouse on the corner because the owner was letting people sleep on the balcony. Apparently, the wedding party was the cause of all the full guesthouses. One enterprising owner, Penny, recognizing that she had unused space, decided that she'd supply hammocks, mattresses, and mosquito nets, let people sleep on the balcony, and only charge 10,000 kip a night (just over $1). Not too shabby, huh? I got my bag situated and immediately felt like I'd just joined a hippie commune except Pink Floyd was playing instead of Grateful Dead - more my speed anyway. :-) I walked down the street for a bottle of water and got a proper welcome to the village. A group sitting outside called me over to offer me a shot of lao lao (rice whiskey). It's bad form to turn down a shot lol, so of course I took it. Some people like it and some people hate it, but I think it's pretty tasty. The locals asked "good?" with a thumbs up and when I said yes, good, they cheered and offered me more. That time I had to laugh, but pass, and I went back to the guesthouse.

For the next little while, the guesthouse was the hangout spot. But then someone said something about a bonfire on the beach and the whole crowd started the somewhat treacherous trek to the beach. It was dark, see? Very, very, dark. So the people who didn't have torches (flashlights) stuck really close to the people who did. Once there, the bonfire was built and everyone settled in. It was a great night for a bonfire beach party. It was cool enough that the fire was needed and the sky was dark enough and clear enough that as far as your eye could see were stars, stars, stars. Some people had iPods, some had guitars, most had a Beerlao or two and we just hung out, joked around, and got to know people.


The next day my first order of business was to find a room. I found a riverside bungalow, complete with my own (cold water) shower and a hammock for 50,000 kip. On my way to the bungalow I'd seen some people from the night before, so after I checked in I went back to join them for breakfast. They were trying to get a group together to go on a fishing trip and since I didn't have any other plans, I decided that I would join them. On the trip were our Lao guide (Kao) and two of his helpers, me, a Japanese couple (whose names I never did catch), three Aussie guys (Tom, Aiden, and Cam), and a guy from New Zealand (Jason). We fished with nets rather than with poles and it entailed getting in the water and really wrangling the fish. On our first attempt we caught a fish and we were all so excited! After more fishing, some nets coming back with fish, some not, we did some tubing and then went to a weaving village about an hour up river from Muang Ngoi. The villagers didn't speak Lao, but they were happy to see us and show/sell the silk scarves that they are known for. The kids, particularly, were very excited and wanted to play and see the pictures we were taking of them. As excited as they were, they were also very wary of Cam and Tom who both have beards (Cam's especially is pretty big and bushy). The kids got used to the guys, but you could tell they still weren't totally sure that there were actually men behind all that hair. :-) When we eventually left, all the children followed us down to the beach to wave us off and say goodbye. It was really sweet.


It was finally time for lunch and what a spread we had! While we'd been shopping and playing with the kids, Kao's helpers had been preparing the food. Huge banana leaves had been laid out on the beach with place settings for each of us. We had grilled fish, sticky rice, community bowls of fish soup, pickled greens (which we guessed were a local green called morning glory), and sardines in a spicy sauce. Man, was it ever good! Everyone dug in and we ate until we didn't think we could eat any more. Then the lao lao came out and was passed around before we all helped clean up the banana leaves and clean the dishes in the river. Back into the boat for us, back down river to a spot where we were going to tube the rest of the way to Muang Ngoi. As the sun was going down and it was starting to get cool, I wimped out and decided to stay in the boat and not tube. In order to save face, though, I offered to take pictures of everyone with their cameras and that seemed to do the trick!

(Cam, the Japanese couple, Tom, me, Aiden, and Jason, getting ready to enjoy lunch.)

After a quick shower - and a shot or two of the sunset from my balcony - I was ready for the evening. Kao, our fishing guide, had invited all of us to his family home for dinner that evening. None of his family joined us at the table, but they all crowded around to join in the conversation (or try to, at least, as most of them spoke very little English). We had the most delicious noodle soup with chicken and some more of that ever present lao lao. The group of us ate, laughed, and hung out for hours before we decided that we should mozy on and let the little kids go to sleep. There was brief talk of another bonfire, but I think everyone was tired from the night before and the fishing, so we mostly just hung out at the restaurant near my guesthouse until people slowly started dropping off and making their way back to their rooms to call it a night.

Day three ultimately brought complete laziness. By this time I'd met my bungalow neighbors Julie and Adam, siblings traveling from Australia. The three of us seemed to get on well right from the beginning and it didn't take long for us to be laughing, joking, teasing, and all around giving each other a hard time. The cause of the laziness were the hammocks - they're just too darn tempting and way too comfy once you're in them! The most any of us could muster was a trip to the restaurant about 10 yards away. :-) Eventually Julie and Adam did go for a walk to a nearby cave (which they declared "meh"), but I pretty much didn't move. Later, Leslie (Canadian) and Lars (Norwegian) came around and we all hung out on the balcony, watching the sunset again and listening to Adam and Leslie play their guitars. The rest of the night was more of the same, pretty quiet, as a lot of people including me had decided that the next day was going to be the day they left. The first boat is at 9:30am, but it can often sell out so people try to get their tickets as early as possible. The following morning, I joined Adam and Julie for breakfast after packing up (and giving a passing-by Aiden money to buy my boat ticket for me!). Emails were exchanged all around with promises of "If you're ever in Australia/America, let me know and you can stay with me!"

(Dusk from my balcony with a tiny sliver of a moon.)

So what boat was I getting on and where was I headed? Well, after much back and forth, I decided that I was going to have to leave Laos a bit earlier than I'd originally planned. I'd wanted to head east and cross the Laos/Vietnam border overland, but the bus from Nong Khiaw to Sam Neua is 12 hours long and leaves once a day. Logistically, it was looking like it was going to take me longer than I'd have liked; if I have any hope of being in Beijing by mid-March, I need to get started on Vietnam to do it justice. It was back to Luang Prabang for me where I've booked a flight on Friday to Hanoi.

In closing: Muang Ngoi was just what I needed to end my short jaunt through Laos on a positive note. It was incredibly beautiful and laid-back. The people were fabulous - I can't remember the last time that I saw so many foreigners working together with locals to get a job done. And I met people from all over the world: Lao, British, Italian, German, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Israeli, Japanese, Australian, New Zealanders, American, Canadian, and probably a handful of others that I'm forgetting. I think I must not be doing a good job of explaining why it was almost a magical place. Not just for me, either; some people would come for one or two nights and end up staying for four or five. Eventually you have to leave because if you don't, there's a chance you never will!

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Pictures: Yeah, who knows when they'll be uploaded. I think there's a total of 24 shots on Flickr now, but there are at least 100 more to go. The connection for uploading is painfully slow, but I'll get there eventually.

Into no-man's land

Laziness today. Pure laziness. Although I went to bed around 11pm last night, I still didn't get out of bed today til about 10am. I had coffee at my guesthouse, took a quick walk up the street for bottled water, and then went back to the guesthouse...where I proceeded to do absolutely nothing that didn't involve a book or a hammock.

After a few hours of that, I started to get hungry, realized the time, and then realized that I knew *exactly* what I was going to do. I walked to the market and got another one of those chicken sandwiches. What can I say? It was good, cheap, and portable! I took my sandwich up 138 steps to the first landing of Wat Tham Phu Si. There are more than 400 steps in total, but I wasn't feeling that energetic after my day of laziness. I ate my sandwich, read some more, and watched a lovely sunset. Since my pictures aren't up and running yet, check out some of these images instead.

Now I will head back to the guesthouse where I suspect I'll do more of what I'd been doing earlier. In addition to a new novel (a 900 page Stephen King/Peter Straub doozy), I've also spent time looking through a guidebook (oh! did I mention that Simon gifted me with one before he left?) to figure out next steps. I can't stay in LP, in a guesthouse out of my budget, for much longer, after all. Remember when I said I was pretty sure I was going to head to Luang Nam Tha? Well, change of plans, peeps. The only concrete reason I can think of for changing my mind is that Luang Nam Tha is west of LP, so I'd have to do some backtracking since Vietnam is the next country I'll visit and that's to the east. Backtracking wouldn't have been so horrible, but I think Vietnam is calling to me more than Laos these days.

The new plan is to take a bus to Nong Khiaw tomorrow where I will then transfer to a boat to Muang Ngoi Neua. Neither of these places have much in the way of infrastructure and I highly doubt they will have phone or internet connections. I'll be out of pocket for a few days, but I'll still try the SPOT to see if it works. Back in a few days!

Backpackers unite

I arrived in Ayuthaya yesterday around 2:30pm. I dumped my bag in my room, got something to eat, checked email, and then did a whole lot of nothing for a couple of hours. I decided to grab a beer at the Streetlamp Restaurant and Bar (in the same building as my guesthouse) and ended up meeting Mark from the UK and Jorgen from Holland. Later we met Zach from Texas and the four of us hung out for the rest of the night. We were chatting and talking about our travels and our lives back home as we listened to live music. At one point, Jorgen got up and took over for the musician, so we got to hear him play and sing, too. After Mark and Jorgen called it a night, Zach and I played pool with some Thais before we also called it a night.

This morning the four of us met for breakfast. Mark and Jorgen were off to Kanchanaburi and Zach and I had just come from there, so we were giving them advice (and telling them how much they were going to love it!). It was my first opportunity to give other travelers info on a place (rather than being the one on the receiving end), so that was cool; I was glad that I was able to help them. Zach and I said goodbye to Mark and Jorgen and then we rented bikes so we could more easily see all of the different wats in Ayuthaya. Ayuthaya is a former capital of Thailand, so there are lots of them, but most are in ruins from when the Burmese conquered the city in 1767. Three wats in and we decided to take a break from wats for a bit and ride over to the Portuguese settlement. (Ayuthaya is basically an island and the Portuguese settlement is off the island.) That was the plan, but we never did find what we were looking for. It wasn't a wasted trip, though, because we got to see some gorgeous countryside. Also, we stopped for lunch at a place where no one spoke English, managed to order (Zach even using the phrase that he'd memorized - I'm a vegetarian), and I had the best bowl of noodles and chicken soup that I've had so far in Thailand.

Zach and I parted ways when we got back on the island, but just for a couple of hours. We're both checking email, showering, and taking naps before we meet up for dinner later. And there's been a minor change of plans - my first for awhile, so I figured it was time. :-) Rather than go to Lopburi, I'm going to go to Chiang Mai. The plan had always been to go to Chiang Mai, I'll just be going sooner than planned. I'll even have a travel partner for a couple of days because it's the same direction that Zach is heading. (I mentioned the "backpacker's trail" to ToadMama yesterday - so called because a lot of backpackers go to the same places - and this is a prime example of it in action.)

Also, in case you're wondering, I haven't uploaded pics in awhile. I still have the rest of Kanchanaburi plus all of Ayuthaya to upload. I've had free internet at my guesthouse, but the connection speed is ridiculously slow, so I haven't even bothered to try. Chiang Mai is a university town, though, so connections should be better and I'll be able to get all caught up.

Modern city meets the desert

Dubai it is. ToadMama guessed it right, but I think I had already hinted to her that I was thinking about coming here.

So I don't know what exactly prompted my decision to skip my other plans in Egypt. Luxor and Aswan were starting to look more expensive than what my budget could handle because those are places that are really a lot easier to do with a tour (there's too much to see and it's too spread out to really do on your own). Even after talking to Kharboush, my travel agent friend of a friend, it was going to be about $100/day, not including site entrance fees. The most expensive entrance fees are only about $12 USD, but those add up, too, if you see 4 or 5 sites a day.

As an aside, regarding my budget for those of you who may be wondering: My budget varies depending on the city I'm in since some places are more expensive than others. My daily budget for most of Europe was about 36 euros, or 54 dollars. This, I have to say, is ridiculously low for Europe. Most of the other longer term travelers I met were spending double this and people who were just on a short term trip were spending about 100 euros per day. But, honestly, there have been a lot of days I spent less than budgeted so it's been working for me. When you're working with a budget like this, you have to pick and choose a bit. Are you more interested in sight seeing or is nightlife more important? I also briefly considered a safari in Kenya, but that was even more of a budget buster than Luxor and Aswan.

So. I weighed my options and decided to move on. It was indeed a very last minute change of plans as I booked the ticket to Dubai on Friday night for Saturday night/Sunday morning at 2:35a (my flight back to Cairo had already been booked). I left Sharm on Saturday for my short flight to Cairo. I spent a couple of hours in Cairo trying to decide between a bus or a train to Alexandria, and then deciding when I'd leave. The train to Alexandria was about 3 hours and when I arrived, I met up with Islam (another friend of a friend who met me at the station) for a whirlwind night time tour of Alex. Then it was to the airport for the flight (which somehow managed to leave a half hour early!) and I arrived in Dubai at 7:15am on Sunday.

I really need to talk more about two experiences I had on my last day of Egypt, but I'm going to save them for another post on my overall impressions of my first trip to an Arab country. Hint: It may (or may not) be what you'd expect, depending on your perspective. :-)

In the begınnıng, was there a plan?

Today ıs November 4th and I've been offıcıally travelıng for 35 days now. Remember way back when, when I fırst started (tryıng) to plan my ıtınerary? Then I thought I had a plan, but I stıll wanted to be able to keep thıngs flexıble. Basıcally, I knew even before I left that I mıght end up wantıng to do thıngs or see places that I hadn't consıdered before. And that certaınly happened, as evıdenced here, here, and here.

Where's all thıs leadıng? To an ıtınerary change, of course. :-) I was certaın that I was headıng to Bangkok from Istanbul, but wouldn't you know ıt? I ended up bookıng a flıght to Caıro, Egypt ınstead. No real partıcular reason except that the flıghts to Bangkok were a lıttle hıgher than I wanted to pay. Besıdes, Egypt was on my orıgınal lıst, so why not? (I'm stıll goıng to Bangkok, btw, just a lıttle later than I thought.)

When I decıded on Egypt, I got ın touch wıth Mohamed, the Egyptıan couchsurfıng frıend that I met ın Athens. He started rıght away gettıng ın touch wıth hıs frıends and famıly ın Caıro and I now have the names and phone numbers of people who wıll be takıng care of me whıle I'm there.

I leave Istanbul on Frıday at 12:30pm local tıme. I thınk my tıme travelıng to number of ıtınerary changes mıght be staggerıng. Some math genıus out there can fıgure ıt out.

Just kidding

Alright, fooled ya, I was convinced to stay in Athens one more night, so I'm not actually writing this from Thessaloniki right now. I switched my train to tonight, instead, and I'll do Thessaloniki tomorrow and head to Istanbul tomorrow night. Remember what I said about wanting to keep things flexible? :-)

Last night my host, Evangelos, took me to Lycabettus Hill on his motorbike. Lycabettus Hill is the highest point in Athens and I actually hadn't been there yet. I figured I wasn't really missing much, but I was definitely wrong. From Lycabettus you get a 360 degree view of the city. My pictures are horribly blurry because my camera really doesn't do great night shots, but you get the idea. St. George Cathedral is on this hill and I think I got a pretty good shot of it:I still have about 10 hours until I have to catch my train tonight, so I'm going to wander a bit, see if there's any more pictures I can take, maybe chill out with coffee and a book in a cafe. Then, tonight (for sure!) - sleeping on a train.

Itinerary Update

I'm sad to say, but India may be off the table for the time being. You can bet your bippy I'm gonna try try try to make it happen, but it's really not looking good for me. Apparently it would have been better if I'd gotten my Indian visa before leaving the US, but I didn't know that. :-(

Here's the new plan for the moment. Tonight I'm going to take an overnight train to Thessaloniki. Tomorrow I will spend the day there and then take another overnight train to Istanbul. My first host in Athens, Thanos, will be in Istanbul and has said that he can show me around a bit. I'll probably spend about 5 days in Istanbul. I will see about getting an Indian visa while there, but if not, I'll head straight to Bangkok instead. Perhaps I'll be able to backtrack a bit so that I can still get to India. Right now it's all a bit up in the air. . .

The answer to the cliffhanger

I mentioned earlier that I had an itinerary change to talk about. Talk about cliffhanger, huh? :-) Well, I kind of forgot about the whole needing a visa thing for India. It takes 4-6 business days for it to be processed and since I was planning on heading to India early next week, clearly I don't have enough time. My choices were to either wait it out in Prague (have I mentioned that it's cold here??) or figure out some other place to go before I go to India.

I pulled out a map to see what was between Prague and India and the two clear choices were either Greece or Istanbul, Turkey. I did some research on flight prices and exchange rates and I booked my flight today. So the answer to the cliffhanger is that I leave Prague on Tuesday and will be heading to...Athens. My current CS host says he has a CS friend in Crete that I could probably stay with, so that's a possibility. And, who knows? I may still hit Istanbul before heading to Mumbai anyway. I'm meeting up with a friend of a friend in Mumbai who will be showing me around for a couple of days and he's leaving on holiday on November 10 so I have to be in India before that, but my schedule is kind of flexible up until then.

What do you think about the change? Pretty cool change of events, right?