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Published: June 21st 2008
I've been home for a long time (since March 1st) & have been quite delinquent in getting these summary entries posted. Apologies. Here you go...
I've decided to do a two part summary to this fiasco of mine. This one is meant to satisfy all those questions out there regarding the "stats" of the trip. I'll hit up some of the typical questions...and then I'll prove just how dorky of an engineer I really am. The second entry will be more of a final summary of thoughts about the whole gig.
Everyone wants to know..."So what was the best place?" Well, I can't answer that question. How do I compare living in a car in New Zealand vs. genocidal history in Cambodia vs. trekking in the Himalayas & teaching monks? It's impossible. But here's what I can tell you:
(note - all the lists below are not necessarily in order of preference.)
Top 3 Places
- New Zealand
- Cambodia
- Nepal
As I say above, that's not necessarily in order. They're all co-champions. Why these three? My standard spiel to people has been the following:
New Zealand is like an adult outdoor Disneyland. It's constantly beautiful, has limitless adventure/outdoors activities (bungy, rafting, hiking, ice climbing, sky diving, etc), is super-easy to travel in (info sites everywhere, hostels in every town, hitch hiking, living in cars, etc)...and it's Middle Earth. What more could I ask for?
Cambodia is a bunch of different things, including cultural extremes. There's the beauty and enduring accomplishment of the Temples of Angkor...and there's the brutality and evil of Pol Pot's genocide. The people are amazing, the tourism industry is raw(er), and I had that certain
je ne sais quoi that made me happy to be there despite the dirt, poverty, and craziness.
Nepal was my longest stop and was filled with 3 unique and amazing experiences. The authentic hike to/thru the hills of Rukum...the Himalayan magic of trekking in Annapurna...and the semi-monkish life at a monastery for a month. I got involved here and knew more of what was going on than anywhere else. An overall great country.
Certainly the questions haven’t been limited to the one above, so I’ll rattle off some others that have come up and some that I think would be of interest.
Top 3 Experiences
- Living in a small 1985 Mazda with someone I hardly knew for 3+ weeks
- Living in a small Nepali village (Rukum) with a bunch of people I didn't know & couldn't talk to for 2 weeks
- Living in two different monasteries with a bunch of nutty monks (Kathmandu) and with some westerners (Bodhgaya)
They were all rather large departures from what I've done before in life & certainly were highlights.
Most Beautiful Places
- The Annapurna Range of the Himalayas
- All of New Zealand
- Halong Bay in northern Vietnam
- The Great Barrier Reef in Australia (though this was tempered by my extreme sickness experience on that trip)
I'd comment more, but just look at the pictures in these blogs and you'll understand. It's hard to choose just a few...I was in so many beautiful places.
Most Random People I Met
- Labasa (Fiji) airport worker...who had worked at the airline for 15 years...then quit to serve in Parliament until the coup of December, 2006...at which point he went back to working at a small airline check-in counter. The full story of our meeting is longer and somewhat more entertaining...involved the military eavesdropping on us...and me wondering where my 1st Amendment rights were...but that's all you get for now.
- Minister of Interior for Burundi...I met him at the Mumbai airport while waiting for my flight. I have his card, so if you ever need a hook-up in Burundi, give me a call.
- Crazy Nepali politician guy...who knew someone that worked for VIN (my volunteer org) & marched with us on National Volunteer Day. He claimed that his girlfriend was India's representative for the Miss World competition - who I think he had claimed had actually won a few years ago. His proof...a wallet full of photos of her cut out from magazines and a vague quote of hers about her boyfriend. He claimed she was talking about him, but doesn't like to use his name in the media. Uh-huh. I declined his invite to meet him in Mumbai in January to hit the clubs with Miss World.
- The Indian Sadhu who invited me into his tent for chai...and then proceeded to strip off his robe and wrap his genitals around a stick. (it's detailed in the India blog)
Best Specific Moments
- The view of the Ice Lake that I had at 4600m when I took a side trip one day with my buddy Misael on the Annapurna Circuit. I had hiked up a bit higher and was all alone with the most amazing views of my life. I could have stayed forever.
- S-21. The torture prison in Phnom Penh. I'd write more...but I'd cry. My photos and story from there say all I have to say about it. Perhaps "Best" isn't the right word to describe it though.
- My Cambodia Easy-Rider day cruising around Kampot exploring rice paddys and caves with local kids. It was a beautiful day, it was my first motorbike rental, and I loved exploring the countryside on my own.
Honorable Mention - Reaching the peak of Kilimanjaro with my Dad. It would make the top 3 if I hadn't been dizzy, in pain, out of breath, pissed off, etc at that moment.
Most "Magical" Places
- Ngorongoro Crater...read the safari blog for my explanation.
- The beach in Abel Tasman when it was just me and some seals hanging out.
- Ta Prohm...the jungle temple in the temples of Angkor. Wandering around Ta Prohm truly felt like I was Indiana Jones in some ancient place.
- The Ice Lake viewpoint...again. I felt like the only person in the world. Or perhaps the luckiest person in the world. Either way, I felt fantastic up there. Just thinking about it excites me and makes me want to go back.
Best Food
- Thai
- Indian
- Thai
- My cooking in the Mazda
- Thai
- All the cheap & fresh fruit in Asia
Craziest Things I Ate
Really I didn't eat many crazy things. But people ask. So here you go.
- Snake in the Mekong Delta
- Coagulated chicken blood in Chiang Mai, Thailand
- All the other weird things I wasn't aware of along the way. Sometimes it's just best to close your eyes, eat, and hope for the best.
Best Place Not Yet Mentioned
- Vorovoro, Fiji (
Tribewanted). Do it. Seriously. You can go for as short as one week. Great people (both locals and travelers)...great cultural experience...beautiful...unique. One of a kind experience. (TW recently won an award for being the best networking site at some awards thingy in the UK…beating out MySpace)
Best Looking Women
I've been asked, but I'm not answering that here.
Most Viewed Blog Entries (As of July 19, 2008)
600hits -
Around Annapurna - Part III: 5416m / 17,800ft...Zoikes
562hits -
I'm Over The Legal Limit For B.C.C. (Blood-Chai-Content)
540hits -
Maka Na Leka and the Butterfly Effect
You may have noticed some recurring themes through all of these categories. I guess some places really stood out in more than one way. So there you have it...the answers to all your questions. If you have more, post a comment and I'll add an answer...or just ask me when you see me next.
Let's Run Some Numbers
Now for the dorky stuff. I may not have done any engineering work for the last year, but I'm still an engineer and need data. Any data will do. So what kind of data could I possibly track and compile while on this journey? I'll tell you.
334 - Total Nights
201 - Total Nights Paid For Lodging (Not counting nights on transportation or parts of tour costs.)
144 - Total Beds (Including nights on transportation or parts of tours.)
$6.31 - Avg Cost Per Night
$10.49 - Avg Cost Per Night Paid
10 - Number Of Countries (Excluding U.S. and my 10hr layover in the UK)
33.2 - Average Days Per Country
86 - Most Days In A Country (Nepal)
8 - Fewest Days In A Country (Laos)
$0.50 - Cheapest Room (Village on hike to Rukum, Nepal)
$22.00 - Most Expensive Room (Twice in Aus - Though technically the NZ D.O.C. huts were the most expensive at $30 per night...but I consider that to be a charge for hiking access as well)
2.32 - Average Nights Per Bed
$3.29 - Cheapest Country Per Night of Lodging (Laos)
$21.01 - Most Expensive Country Per Night of Lodging (Aus)
1.31 night/bed - Most Mobile Country (Vietnam)
3.33 night/bed - Least Mobile Country (Fiji. Though Nepal is 3.19 night/bed & might be a more accurate picture due to the short time in Fiji)
14 - Number of Flights
22 - Number of Flight Segments (some flights were comprised of multiple legs/segments)
4,500 - Total Minutes Spent Flying (75hrs)…ish.
32,355 - Total Miles Flown (51,767km)…ish.
16 - Number of Different Airline Carriers
51 - Number of Countries I Met People From
28 - Number of U.S. States I Met People From
109 - Number of Cars
199 - Number of Buses
42 - Number of Boats
25 - Number of Trains
110 - Number of Other Forms of Transport (motorbikes, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, etc)
32 - Books Read
19,942 - Number of Photos/Videos Taken By Me (note - this does not include the 100+ photos taken and lost on my camera that was stolen. those are lost). No...I didn't add them up every day. I simply looked at the first and last index numbers on the image files from the cameras. So if you add those extra 100 from the stolen camera I managed to eclipse 20,000 in total. Yikes.
5,033 - Number of Photos/Videos Discarded After Reviewing On The Camera (leaving me with 14,909 to review now that I'm home)
$???????? - Total Cost Of The Trip - If you really want to know, I'll tell you. But you have to send me a guess first. If you're really smart and observant, you can guess it correctly.
Right about now (or 30 stats ago) you're thinking, "How did you record all this?" Well...I had a lot of time on my hands. Mind-numbing hours on buses (199 buses, in fact), ferries, etc along with coming home every night to a bare room generally without TV. So I kept track of things. All the compilations and calculations were done once I was home, but all the counting did indeed go on almost daily. I actually recorded every expense in my journal...even $0.15 for a micro-bus in Kathmandu...which, by the way, was the source of many of those 199 buses.
I'd Like Some Pie With That
So speaking of expenses, you'll notice that I've included a pie chart of my cost breakdown. The dorkiness reaches a new level, no? Some of the categories are self-explanatory, but some require an explanation.
"Activities" - Includes a variety of things...bungy jumps, TribeWanted, ice climbing, tour costs, SCUBA trips/dive, porter fees in Annapurna...stuff like that.
"Gifts" - Includes both gifts I bought for others and things for myself.
"Gear/Supplies" - Clothes, gloves, toiletries, batteries, blank DVDs for photos, etc.
You'll notice that I included a segment for "Maoist Extortion". The irony has not escaped me that the only political "contribution" I've made in my life is not to the Republicans or Democrats, but rather to Communist thugs...who now hold a majority of the seats in the newly elected Nepali General Assembly. So if I go back to Nepal, I expect some preferential treatment.
In general, I was right on target for my budget. I'm not sure how that happened...when I consider the following.
1) The US dollar dropped about 10-20%!a(MISSING)gainst most currencies between the planning phase and actually traveling.
2) There were some expenses I didn't anticipate. I hadn't thought I'd spend what I did on reading material & some gear...and I didn't think I'd have to buy/replace so many things along the way.
I've considered that I was on target with my budget simply because I was paying attention and spending accordingly. But I reject this theory and just go with the one that claims I'm a brilliant planner.
Speaking of what I had to buy/replace, I kept a list of that too.
Lost/Broken Things
- 1 sock (the dryer in Queenstown ate one of them?)
- Pounamu necklace (the Jade pendant that got lost in Rotorua, NZ 2hrs after buying it)
- Wetsuit (was rented...and lost)
- Brown t-shirt (somewhere in AUS?)
- Rain jacket (left at a bar in Chiang Mai)
- Polarizer for my camera (broken at Angkor Wat when I dropped my camera)
- Backpacker towel (left on a train in Thailand...thanks to Alicia for giving me hers since these can't be found in Asia...except for one on a train somewhere)
- Flip flops (Ko Phi Phi)
- Black tank top (this was the shirt I lost at the Full Moon Party)
- Flip flops (Full Moon Party again...4 days after losing the previous flip flops)
- Alarm Clock (lost somewhere in Phnom Penh)
- Camera (liberated from my pocket in Nha Trang)
- Keychain carabiner (left on a room key somewhere)
- Travel soap container (???)
- Pair of socks (left out to dry in Rukum...likely snatched by a local kid?)
- Hat (I think I left it in a cab in Kathmandu)
- Bandana (cab in Kathmandu)
- Chocolate croissant (left in the lobby of my guest house in Kathmandu)
Yes, that's right, I even mentioned a croissant. I wanted that croissant...so I'll mention it.
And for completeness, my entire laundry bag was lost in Kathmandu by the laundry guy at my guesthouse. It contained:
- 1 pair of mesh shorts
- 2 pairs of convertible trekking pants
- 3 Merino shirts (this loss killed me)
- 3 other shirts (2 of which were technical hiking material)
- 6 pairs of boxers
- 2 pairs of socks
- my laundry sack
Why, oh why did I bore you with all those details? Who really cares that I lost a sock in Queenstown, right? I guess I'm just trying to point out that by the time I got home, the contents of my backpack looked very different from the beginning. To all the gear that made it through I say, "Well done, good and faithful servants." (is it bad to use that quote in this context?)
I'm confident that the data above is almost all accurate. The only categories that seem questionable to me are the amounts I spent on water and internet. I would have expected more for each, but can't find much fault after reviewing the accounting.
A few final stats for you.
12,122 - Total number of hits to my blog (As of July 19, 2008). Thanks for stopping by.
600 - Highest number of hits for a particular entry.
Around Annapurna - Part III: 5416m / 17,800ft...Zoikes
155 - Lowest number of hits for a particular entry.
GoodBye SEA, Deal or No Deal, and a PM Checkpoint
Though the blog tracking stats give some indication, I'd be curious to hear from you which stories & photos you liked the most & why. Please feel free to comment, message me, or tell me in person.
Dhanyabad. Asante. Khawp Khun Khrap. Shukriya. Danyavad. Vinaka. Cam On. Ah Khun. Khawp Jai Lai Lai.
Thanks again for coming along on the journey with me. I really did enjoy writing the stories and being able to share with everyone. I’ll give my sappy and sniffly final remarks in the other summary entry, so I won't repeat it. Until next time....
Gone Global,
Marc
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SC Wheeler
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love it!
LOVE IT, LOVE IT! Love the top / most lists. Love the packing list as well as what things didn't make it back. Love the accounting and the pie chart. For anyone who's backpacked on a budget, the memory of the nightly tally must be very familiar... I kept a little tiny lined notebook and wrote down every penny I spent when I backpacked around Europe after college. Thanks for the wrap-up. I'm now re-reading those entries of the best/most and enjoying them again...