http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Isaiah/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Isaiah en-us Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:57:04 +0000 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:57:04 +0000 He has gazed upon the slopes of Chomolungma without fear Crossed the Sahara by camelback He has danced with cobras in Marrakesh The seoritas of Andalucia sign psalms of his stamina Here our hero is undone by the duplicity of a shirtless Chinaman Read onPART ONEWhere our hero tames the tigers of Kanchanaburi and bridges the river Kwai.His heart pounded but our hero's hand was steady. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Luang-Prabang/blog-307249.html For five days without reprieve the filth and soot hung in the clouded sky like some great fecal smear on a porcelain toilet bowl. For five days without reprieve there was not even the remotest suspicion of the chance of the possibility of blue. I had arrived in Beijing. Where pollution has usurped the heavens.And in this sense is not industry China's new God Even the universallycoveted touris http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-294781.html Tengboche Debuche Pengboche Dingboche Lobuche. The days and villages began to blur together in a single image of short stone walls dusty pastures alpine scrub lodge kitchens squat toilets and frigid Himalaya mornings. Walking out at dawn to wash my face and teeth by the village stream sitting back on my haunches as the icy water rises steaming off my face and neck and I breathe hard into http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Gorak-Shep/blog-289588.html It's true. My pack was too heavy my knees were too fragile my legs were too weak and my feet were too delicate.But on a 1000meter ascent it's the altitude not the fatigue which you can't bear.Long before the symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness AMS set in the thinning of the air around you as you climb is palpable. At 1000 meters the oxygen delivery rate is still 88 of that at sea http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Namche/blog-287607.html Part I AccessThree days I stayed in Kathmandu and I saw a city neither completely Indian nor fully Himalay.Streets bustled with traffic anarchic taxis buses rickshaws bicycles tractors motorcycles stray dogs and lowly humans swarmed apparently without law or reason through dusty lanes past colorful wares displayed from dawn to dusk but entreaties of touts were polite almost docile and b http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-286882.html Look I'm no Carmen San Diego but this ain't my first rodeo either. I've changed money on the street all over Central America and more times than I can count in West Africa where black market rates were always better than posted ones. You'd think I'd know the ropes by now.I had to be reminded the hard way that anyone can make a mistake.Here's how it went downI'm on the road again after nearly http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/blog-281043.html I ended up in Dakar.I supposed to look at things from the lighter side it was actually rather amusing that I was completely out of money except for the price of a hamburger stuck in an African whorehouse with nothing to do but drink Nescafe and hope the hours would pass faster. I mean forbid that I should end up with money and freedom Or a clean pair of underwear That would be totally o http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Senegal/Cape-Verde-Peninsula/Dakar/blog-83056.html THE WESTERN SAHARA ROUTEIn the Czech Republic at Christmastime I met a Dutchman who was a thousand years old. His leathered skin hung off oncesharp features in great Byzantine folds and his voice groaned out in thick English terribly slow and breathless. I asked the man of his travels and he told me quite solemnly that he had been everywhere. Twenty at twenty he told me he had crossed the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Mauritania/blog-78313.html JULY 6thPAMPLONALA FIESTAI arrived in Pamplona on the evening of the sixth having spent that entire day traveling from Santiago de Compostela far in Spain's northeast. The train along the final stretch from Vitoria to Pamplona was already filled with only partygoers most my age already decked out in the allwhite garb with red scarf traditional to the Fiesta de San Fermin. Everyone http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Navarre/Pamplona/blog-74443.html Well it's been a long time since I've sat down to write an entry. Months actually. But even though I am on the road again this entry is going to be more about how I felt about things coming out of my Madrid university experience and less about my travels. So it will probably only interest you if you want to know about the Spanish education system or my personal academic affairs. Two thri http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/District-of-Madrid/blog-73462.html Immediately upon my exiting the bus station it began to snow. Not the delicate flurries of Prague Christmastime but the sleety drizzlerun of Dublintown. Falling then from a blank sky. Each insubstantive droplet dissipates as it lands as it becomes a part of that which is Dublin that slickening dulling sheen which clings to the coalblackened brick of the curving wallform whose perimeter I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Dublin/blog-48021.html Part II of IIIn the mountains behind Bulnes my trial began anew.I had followed out the same path which had led me in but the signpost now announced travel time to the nearest destination as eightyfour hours. The route here was much less worn barelytraveled and faint. It quickly turned its back on the small river gurgling to my left and began to switchback its way out of the valley. Almost i http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Principality-of-Asturias/blog-33787.html Photo Entry.No stories from Prague which one would find interesting. I was sick a lot and at one point was accosted by a very large sweatcovered Czech or German he was not clear who basically offered that I take vodka shots with him or lose my life at his ogrelike hands. I made the wrong choice and the next morning would have given anything to have my life ended. And that's really about http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-33410.html Part I of IIOn the morning of that third day I packed my bag drank a warm diet coke and began walking up the highway north out of Salamanca. I cut a piece of white cardboard off a box I found lying on the roadside and scratched on it with my black sharpie HACIA LEN and below that in smaller letters POR ZAMORA. About a kilometer out of town I set down my pack with my new sign strapped to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Principality-of-Asturias/blog-32061.html Part II of IILast Friday. After a few friendly volleyball matches Andres Flavio Nacho and I head to a neighborhood tapas bar. We start off with patatas bravas and a round of caas. I'm starving weak subject I am to the demands of my metabolism but I'm forced into the spanish habit of slowly eating light snacks along with the endless flow of small tumblers of beer. I think it best not to te http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/District-of-Madrid/blog-29085.html Part I of IIThree Weeks Ago Last Friday.From an inquiet vacuous oblivion am I jerked. Confusedly blinded by a needlelike chirping. Its origin. Where. Grey square nondescript. Perched upon this hospital table at my bedside. A bed Where I am then. And was Something important on the edge of revelation gone now. Go back. A girl's lips one marked. A man with something to tell me a glimpse o http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/District-of-Madrid/blog-27933.html The wind whips at the pages of my journal causing my errant pen to scribble shaky lines inadvertently across my text. Waves crash dramatically in foamy bursts against coffeegrind boulders halfburied in the sand. I pass my hands unconsciously through the cool fine grains admiring the tribanded sea a swampy olive for the several meters that whitecaps form and stir up the sand turns abruptly http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Andalusia/Tarifa/blog-20278.html Here are some pictures. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Andalusia/Seville/blog-18439.html Let me first assuage latent fears I will be subjecting no one to the gross sentimentality of my previous entry. Upon rereading it occurs to me for why I generally refrain from departing from a more or less narrative structure.Well I made it barely to Valencia on the night before La Tomatina. I had to sacrifice time in Barcelona but this did not concern me greatly. Barcelona is a great cit http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Valencian-Community/Valencia/blog-18294.html I am here to report that the mullet is alive and well in Spain.Nay flourishing. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-18006.html