In a way, nothing has happened since we last wrote (well, almost nothing, but we'll get to that). The truth is that something so vastly wonderful has happened that the complexion of our trip has been altered completely. We left India. So that seems a loaded statement and to be sure we say it with a grain of salt, but India can be a hard place to travel and we were so totally relieved to have left that words can hardly do it justice. Incidentally, we're in Pokhara, Nepal, on the eve of an eleven day trek through the Annapurna mountains [View Full Entry]

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There are two very distinct types of people in India with regards to the working population. The first, put us to shame in that they often do jobs that we consider dangerous or unsavory and they perform their task reasonably well for more hours than seems humanly possible. Local bus drivers are a good example. They drive pathetically old vehicles over terrible roads for as many as twenty-to-thirty hours at a time. Sure they average about 25km per hour and they stop whenever the urge takes them, but it's undeniably hard work. The second type, the one that baffles us, include [View Full Entry]

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Ah, India ... The following blog entry will be a little longer than the others so far. And not just because it's been a while since we last wrote. No, this entry will exceed the usual parameters of short and sweet because we're in India, and the damn place just seems to demand greater attention. Ah, India? First off, we promised to answer why it is we're even India already (rather than Tibet or Nepal) and only now can we get to it. Basically it comes down to two major determining factors. The first is that China in all it's grand [View Full Entry]

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So the blog entry is going to say that we're in Chengdu, China. That isn't entirely correct. More accurate would be to say that as we write this we're actually in the Paharganj district of Delhi, India. Long story. We'll get to it. After Beijing, we decided to stop in Xi'an for the Terracotta Soldiers and some good old fashion air pollution. Ten years ago, I (Dez) hated Xi'an with an unmitigated passion because of how disgusting the air was. Rated the fifth most polluted city on earth at the time my enduring memory of Xi'an was itchy skin and stinging [View Full Entry]

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Confucius talked a lot about the "cultivated man". Education, music, poetry, correct moral attitudes, and proper filial piety all figured into his ideal human being. He went to great lengths to expound and cement his ideals into his pupils such that the reading of Confucius can get really painfully boring. For the most part, he wasted his time. What follows is a biased, unfair, and very limited account of what we perceive to be the current state of Chinese manners in modern day post-Cultural Revolution China. It should be said that my (Dez) experience comes from years of living at hom [View Full Entry]

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"How do you do? You love me, I love you! Won't you take me by the hand cause I wanna be your friend!" The above lyrics are to an Ace of Base or Aqua style pop song that encapsulates just how little the Chinese REALLY know of the English language. Beijing. North capitol. ... It's changed a bit in the last ten years. We could talk about the laundry list of historically significant tourist sights we saw. While places like the Summer Palace, Forbidden City, and even the Great Wall of China (at Simatai) are spectacular in all the ways you [View Full Entry]

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Beijing. The political and cultural heart of modern day China. This is our first major stop since Shanghai where we plan to spend at least a week checking things out and wow, what a welcome. Our family friend, Lee Jin Bei, lives here and evidently does well for himself as a businessman. I say this because Jin Bei, with whom we were planning on staying with during our time here, decided instead to put us up in a fancy hotel ... for the whole week. We're talking about a beautiful building with all the trimmings and even western comforts like flushing [View Full Entry]

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Without doubt the most sublime way to overcome the jetlag and culture-shock of a ten thousand kilometer journey is to be utterly pampered by a loved one ... Massages, fantastic meals, a warm bed, a flat-screen tv, and metro passes. Dad layed it on thick playing the uber-host and it was lovely. As a result, a full week into our trip and the whole six-month-epic-journey thing still hadn't "hit us". Shanghai felt more like an extremely extravagent all-inclusive rather than the start of some backpacking jaunt through Asia. Not complaining. We did the usual tourist circuit of Shanghai duri [View Full Entry]

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