Here, There, and Everywhere

Well I made it. Cathryn and I had plenty of time, or so we thought. But as we sat on the Cross Bronx at 8:00 in bummer to bummer traffic I thought my chances of making a 10:00 a.m. flight were looking slim. But something miraculous happened and I had time for a cappuccino in the Porter Lounge at EWR. Nothing quite like a coffee and the New York Times.

I know we are getting close when the Falls come into view

What an indulgent night in town with this man and our fantastic drinks.  At Cantine.  Spent the rest of the night in Yorkville attending the city wedding party of one of Toronto's most dynamic musicians, Ms. Clara Venice.  It was a night of glamour, love and mariachi.  All with good friends.

The rest of the weekend was spent abed in the arms of a man and his chocolate Lab.  But Monday was so beautiful and I was so happy to be in the "old 'hood"  I had to get out and met Lauren, Crystal, and Beef at Fire. The old stomping ground of yore.

                                                               By Wednesday I was back in the tri-state, at MoMa with Joey B, of S.O.T.A fame, and Paul.  These two are the most famous guy I know in New York City.  Joe got me a ticket to see his show at The Cell  - Hard Times, which, by the way, got a fantastic review in the Times.  And Paul is bringing Patty Smith to Toronto in February.

The next week, I was back at it dolled up and going to Gramercy. 

Sometimes timing is just right, and you get to see one of your Toronto favourites in New York, like I did when Ms. Sharron Matthew's world tour stopped at Flute Gramercy.  She looks so great in Gold.

Had a late night dinner with Paul on one of my last nights in town.  It is always nice being at The Club.  I only wish Blackie could be there with us.  Oh and that reminds me I better send my Uncle a check for my bar bill.  This is what being "here" is all about.  

One last time around the horn

 Made it to Wonderland this summer.  Leviathan is epic!

 There's Justin wandering the park!

Mason found a new favourite place to hang.   

Let's go Blue Jays

 August long weekend at the Connor Cottage.  It wouldn't be complete without an all-night Euchre game.

Spent a week in Markdale with the Guy.  Loved our hike to Innis Falls

 And the Keady Farmer's Market.  I have never seen so many Mennonites.

Andy built the deck with his dad. Love a man who is good with his hands.

Second to last night in town with some of my favourite people at the Havelock Hotel.  I miss you already Crystal.  

Last night in T.O. Ash, Lo and I went to Blue Rodeo.  Wandered through the EX on our way home.  

Thanks for the great time ladies.  I'll "TRY" to keep it together without you.  

How now Lao? Wow!

Getting to Lao entailed busing all day to Chang Kong in the north of Thailand. Thankfully Noi, our driver, made Justin and me sit up front so we able to plug my iPod into the van's speakers and drink beer, which is not illegal here. I have had a lot of long road-trip djing experience, (thanks Lo and Ash) and was more than happy to oversee the task. It was also a good opportunity to listen to a lot of the new music that I added to my iPod in Koh Tao. All of our fellow passengers expressed their gratitude for our efforts.

After a pleasant enough six hour drive we pulled into the guesthouse where we were staying and promptly overheated. Spending all day in the air-coned van left us woefully unprepared for the stiffing heat and humidity. By now I have just accepted that for the next month I will be constantly sweating. And I don't mean sweating in a normal Canadian kind of way. This is the kind of sweating where large beads of moisture are forever forming and streaking down all over every body part. The kind of sweat where rings are not confined to the underarms but are in fact visible where ever fabric meets skin. You basically always look like you have just gotten out of the shower. But in fact you desperately need to get into one.

Our guesthouse for the night was nice enough. Although it was overrun with other Laos bound travelers who partied late into the night irritating Justin and me. The next morning we got up before 6am so that we could go down to the morning market and get fresh fruit for the long boat journey. The morning market was great. There wasn't anything about it that was particularly special but it felt like a genuine local market unlike others we have seen (i.e the floating market near Bangkok.) In other words there were no beer logo t-shirts for sale. We got quite a few stares and more than one chuckle at our expense, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. And I will remember it as one of our most authentic moments in Thailand

After breakfast, if you can call it that, we packed up and waited for the bus to take us to the ferry which would shuttle us across the Mekong to Laos. While waiting we met a few of the other travelers who we would come to know over the next three days of travel. There were quite a few Canadians and a group of really nice guys from Tennessee as well as innumerable Brits. Apparently there is a video of the Vang Vieng tubing on Youtube which became a viral hit in England and now Laos is THE destination for gap year Brit kids. Some of them have been really nice but by and large they have been a bit of a pain in the ass. (The Brits were the major offenders in Chang Kong.)

After sitting around waiting for an inexplicably long time we were finally told to board the bus and we headed for the border crossing. Crossing the overland boarder into Laos involved visiting no less than three windows on each side of the river, handing over my passport to complete strangers with no explanation more than half a dozen time and shelling out way more money than expected. The exchange rates up there were decidedly unfriendly to budget travelers, which was just about everyone there since anyone with any money or sense would have skipped this rigmarole and flown. Eventually we were all loaded onto another bus on the Laos side of the border and were headed for the slow boat that would be our mode of transportation for the next two days to Luang Prabang.

But before we could get on the boat we were forced to endure a thoroughly infuriating shpeel by our Thai tour leader about how the Lao people can't be trusted and that we should be wary of everyone. And perhaps most importantly that we should A.) book our guesthouse for our overnight on the river through them and that B.) It would be a good idea to change Thai Bhat to Laos Kip now with them, or we risked getting ripped off. Right, the Lao people are the ones to watch out for. Justin and I rolled our eyes a' la Jean Amabile and headed to the boat.

It was a long day of floating through sublime scenery. And while Laos is stunning it is only so long before the beauty becomes monotonous and all you want is to get up off the floor of the boat and step on dry land. It didn't help that three of the six or seven people around us were the biggest twats we have met so far. We didn't actually even meet them but we knew they were twats nonetheless. (Brits - no surprise there.*) Finally at around 5pm we docked at a small village, the name of which escapes me, and happily disembarked. We found accommodation, not surprisingly much cheaper than the offer from the Thais at the border, and went for dinner.

It was a fairly uneventful night for us, made even more uneventful when we heard what happened to our friend Philip who had been ahead of us by a day. Apparently when they rocked up their whole boat had had a few drinks and later in the night ended up smoking opium with some locals. (Philip notwithstanding.) He went to bed shortly there after but was awoken in the middle of the night by a fellow traveler who had been beaten in the head and couldn't find his travel companion. He did end up finding her, but apparently he had suffered quite a beating. By whom remains unknown.

Our night was no where near as exciting, thankfully. The next morning we again assembled at the dock and waited to depart for our final leg to Luang Prabang. We were due to arrive mid afternoon. But unfortunately some of the travelers had been given the wrong departure time by there guesthouse and we ended up leaving an hour late. Despite being behind schedule we pulled into Luang Prabang with plenty of daylight left to search for accommodation, and have a nice dinner. But it was a long journey.

Since arriving in Laos we have been here in LPB almost a week, and so far I think this might be one of the best places we have been so far. (The heat however is nearly unbearable.) It is certainly the most beautiful city I have seen in Southeast Asia. We have enjoyed strolling around, for as long as we can bear, and have loved the atmosphere of the old French quarter where we are staying. One day we took a day trip to the nearby waterfalls and swimming hole. The waterfalls were absolutely breathtaking and it was so refreshing to take a dip in the cold water. They even had a rope swing. Sadly, I did not partake because I didn't want to get my hand wet yet. So I mostly just sat in the shallow end and read my book.

The last two days I went on a trekking/kayaking trip on my own with Green Discovery tour company. Me and seven others hiked 15 km through babbling brooks and local farming villages until we came to a largish village where we stayed overnight, and had a delicious communal Lao style dinner. We got to bathe at the local watering hole, since the village had no plumbing and minimal electricity. The watering hole consisted of little more than a trickling stream funneled through a bamboo shoot, where all the water used by the villagers is collected. We had to bathe in the traditional style, which means fully clothed, which was awkward and didn't leave any of us feeling particularly clean. But it was a memorable experience. After dinner the guides offered us shots of Lao Lao, rice whiskey, which was shocking palatable and we all told riddles and sang songs until bed time. One of the best days on the trip. Aside from being woken by roosters at 2:30 am and not being able to get back to sleep, (those roosters are persistent,) I felt pretty well rested and ready for another full day of trekking and kayaking.

After breakfast and delicious Lao coffee we headed off for another intense hour or two of hiking. It was only 8:30am, at the latest, but already it was hot and everyone was sweating buckets by the time we came to the road, where we met the truck with our gear for the kayaking leg of the trip. We kayaked for almost 20 km and it was after 4 pm by the time we reached the Buddha Caves, our end point for the kayaking. The river is so low since it is the end of the dry season, and that made our efforts down labored and slow.

Sarah, my kayaking buddy and I did pretty well but we did have one mishap, which involved a tricky set of rocks that sprang up out of nowhere and capsized us as I tried to steer around them. We ended up going over the rocks sideways and Sarah, at the front, got jammed up on top of them while I, still free at the back, continued sliding along with the current. That caused us to go over, and Sarah end up pinned under the kayak against a rock for a few terrifying moments. When she popped up I could tell she was a bit shaken, and had lost her bearings. I told her to hold on to the kayak as we came through the white water and to keep her legs up. Considering how scared she must have been she responded really well and we were able to right our kayak and climb back in with some help from the guides. The only casualty of our accident were Sarah's sunglasses which never surfaced. And I for one was glad that was all we lost. We took stock of everything in our dry sacks and all the stuff strapped to the boat and everything appeared to be fine. We didn't even lose a paddle down the river. All in all it was a minor incident. We were lucky as well because a few of the other vessels had major leaks and two of the boats were constantly taking on water and were forever needing to stop and dump it out.

Overall that was my one criticism of Green Discovery. The kayaking gear and instruction from our otherwise fantastic guides definitely left a little to be desired. We weren't the only team to capsize either and I blame that accident entirely on poor white water instructions. And by poor I mean non-existent. We got some basic distress signals and a demonstration on forward and backward strokes but that was it. The Dutch couple who went over had never kayaked in white water before, and at least one of them had never even kayaked at all. They flipped because when they got to the rapids they stopped paddling altogether and turned sideways which of course left them more susceptible to the waves. But we were in very easy rapids and it was so shallow that nobody was ever in any really serious danger. At least as long as they didn't panic, which nobody did. It was a long day on the river though and by the time we got to the Buddha Caves everyone was completely spent.

We didn't stay at the caves long before we headed across the river and boarded our van to go to the elephant sanctuary, our last stop for the day. I say sanctuary but that isn't really accurate, since there were only two elephants there and we got to ride them. I don't think they usually let you ride elephants at a real sanctuary. Being on top of that great animal I definitely had misgivings but I am glad I got to experience it once. They are so big and strong it is amazing to feel their power beneath you.

We were also supposed to stop at the nearby Whiskey village where they make the famous Lao whiskey but we were behind schedule so we opted to skip it and headed back to Luang Prabang. All of us agreed to meet for dinner and we had a lovely evening reminiscing about the trip and sharing our travel stories. All in all it was really fun couple of days. But it was an early evening because we were all exhausted and a few of the group members were departing Luang Prabang in the morning. Today I didn't do much of anything. It was unbearably hot, surprise surprise. Justin had suggested when i got back to LPB that we might want to change our plans and head south a day early. I was too tired to discuss it last night but when i woke up this morning to another day of unfathomable temperatures I saw the wisdom in making for the water and agreed to head to Vang Vieng and the famous tubing tomorrow...



*NO offense to all of the lovely Brits out there but some of your Limey brethren are really unbearable. And as an American with equally awful countrymen I can attest.

It should also be noted that all of the Brits on my trek were lovely. Not a drunk pain in the ass in the bunch. Thank god the drunks of any nationality aren't really into trekking.

India - commercial musings

This one is so great for so many reasons. First Katrina Kaif is a very famous Bollywood star. Second the nails and manic hand modeling. Third they managed to incorporate some good old fashion hair flipper porn. Fourth the elixir of life metaphor. Not to mention slow motion and close ups. What more could you want?



It only gets better in the newer version. This time they have incorporated the woodland fairtail cliche. Improved the sensual lip close up and slow motion. And there are more sexually gratuitous fruit. Way to go Slice!



Air India.
"Flying Air India?... No, that's too bad."

The Fab Four

After the whirlwind of Agra we boarded a train and headed to Delhi to meet my parents who were flying in for the week from Beijing. They were due to arrive at 2am and then a driver was meant to pick us up and bring us to Rishikesh. My parents flight landed on time but no sign of the driver. So I called the hotel to find out where he was and where we should meet him. They told me that he was 45 minutes away. Bummer. Well forty five minutes turned into three hours and 27 minutes of roaming rate phone calls between me and the hotel. Needless to say we were not happy campers when we did eventually locate the driver resting with his eyes closed in his car, without a sign or even any indication that he was looking for us. Luckily I got the back seat with all the luggage and fell right asleep for the five hour drive to Rishikesh. I say lucky because Justin unfortunately had to sit up front and had a near heart attack as our driver pulled some NASCAR-eque moves: passing cars, speeding and swerving to avoid potholes, cows and other road obstacles. When we arrived in Rishikesh Justin was white as a ghost.

We all sleep for a few hours first thing and then went to explore the city and have some lunch. I didn't think so at first but over the next two weeks I came to find Rishikesh exceedingly beautiful. It is in the Ganga river valley, in the north east of India, surrounded by the smallest of the Himalayan foothills and very close to Nepal. (The Ganga is the same at the Ganges but is only referred to in the plural further south were the river diverges into several waterways.) We didn't do much else that first day, but we made up for it over the next week.

My mum is a machine I tell you. She insisted that we cram as many 5 am wake up times into the next five or six days as possible and so we went white water rafting one day, and hiking at sunrise the next. We got up a dawn another day to do a Jeep safari and bike ride along the canal. And everyday Mum would barely be able to walk when we got home but still she said, "Guys, I've signed us up for (blank) at 6 am tomorrow, and were going to walk there instead of taxi. Isn't that great?" The white water rafting turned out to be everyones favourite. I particularly enjoyed the lead up to the rafting when Justin kept saying , "I am not sure your mum is going to want to do that." Or "Jean wont want to do any class III rapids I don't think." Which was a very sweet gesture except that my mother was constantly like, "O lets go rafting," or "We don't really need a safety briefing, it's obvious... don't fall out." Which made me laugh because her enthusiasm was such a hilarious contradiction to Justin's panic masked as concern. There was even a hilarious encore performance on hiking day when after 11km of steep downhill we reached the main road for the final 3km, and Justin said
"I think maybe Jean might like to take a rickshaw back into Rishikesh." Nice try J.

I loved that hike, which we obviously did at sunrise since that is the Jean Amabile special, to a small temple at the top of one of the foothill peaks. From there we could see the sun rising over the snow capped Himalaya in the distance. It was a pretty powerful moment, just ask the girl who was meditating there when we arrived like a heard of elephants. The large noisy American kind. From there we descended along a steep mountain path, and all the time I was thinking, "boy if the foothills are this rough I can't imagine what the actual mountains would be like." Eventually we came to the Neer waterfall, which spilled into a beautiful reservoir where I took a refreshing dip before we had to pick up and continue on our hike. Poor Justin didn't bring any appropriate hiking shoes and he took a couple spills during our hike. In fact although i know he loves my parents I think he could have done without the Mattimore family gusto. We're not actually that fit or adventurous but we sure can fake it. With mum at the helm the week absolutely flew by.

And since we were big pimpin' on Pat and Jean's dime we got to stay in a suite with a TV and watch the Olympics every morning while having coffee and oatmeal in bed! Our suite was fine although way overpriced at 3,000Rs a night and the service at the Tapovan Resort was less than stellar. After our driver fiasco I had a week long feud going with the hotel staff over the price of the ride. And was livid at how much they were planning to over charge us to wait three hour at the Delhi airport. I mean honestly does it really make sense for four white people to try to find one Indian driver without a sign. I think not. Anyway, once my dad threatened to write to every US newspaper about it and I told them I would be contacting Lonely Planet they acquiesced and charged us the standard rate for taxi service. They really should have done more but that's fine we will definitely write to LP about our experience there. There must be dozens of hotels in Rishikesh worthy of a Bible mention instead of the Tapovan Resort.

Before we knew it my parents were off heading back to Beijing by way of Delhi, and Justin and I were headed to our new rooms at a different guest house. I can't remember the name but it is across from the 3rd Eye Restaurant near Laxman Jhula, if you're headed that way. For 250Rs each Justin and I had our own rooms for a week. That was a big splurge for us, since we have been sharing a room, and usually a bed, for the past two months. Anyway I'd recommend that place over Tapovan any day. Although you might ask them to run a duster over the room before you settle in.

During our second week in Rishikesh Justin and I had some alone time, which we probably needed. I took kayaking lessons a few days with Ayodahan, my new Indian boyfriend. He's 20 so he is about the right age for me. If you (the reader) are friends with Justin and me on Facebook you can check him out in Justin's album from our rafting trip. He is in one of the last pictures where we are sitting on the raft and Justy has his arm around him. So cute. We had a good time together. He taught me some Hindi in addition to the basics of kayaking, and I taught him some English. Mostly the importance of cheesy English expressions and puns. Like for example "go big or go home." Good one for rafting. Or
a delicate balance." (I.e. just getting your kayak to go straight sure is a... And also
"Don't make a mountain out of a molehill." Or,
" a fish in the boat is worth two in the river," I modified that one myself. And one of our puns - Surf and Turf. Anyway you get the idea. Ayodahan barely got any of this I was mostly just talking to myself to keep from freaking out about flipping upside down. I am not very good at the Eskimo rolls and waiting for him to paddle over to me for a t-rescue while trying to avoid slamming into a rock was not exactly relaxing. I figured the less practice on the rolls I was required to do the better. Thus don't flip over.

Those rolls are tricky primarily because your instinct tells you to get your head out of the water as fast as possible, what with the whole not being able to breath thing. But in fact when you do rolls you actually want your head to come up last, (how's that for irony) because your kayak will only actually roll if you start with the hips. If you try to pull yourself over head first you simply wont make it, and then you will drown. Or at least that is how it feels. Oh and don't forget you are still in whitewater. (Read shitting yourself.)

If you do have to bale, and I am obviously not speaking from personal experience here, (since I am a star kayak-er) you have to pull off your splash guard, which can be panic inducing in and of it self, (so I am told.) And you have to locate your paddle and kayak so they don't whack you in the head. Grab your paddle if possible. (The guys were constantly telling us the paddles were worth more than we were.) Then, and this is the mortifying bit, you have to grab a hold of Ayodahan's rescue kayak at the front, lie on your back, and straddle the kayak upside down while trying not to choke as you get pummeled with mouth fulls of the Ganga River. Once you have cleared the whitewater looking extremely graceful, believe me, you have to watch as poor Ayodahan hauls your 25 k, plus water, kayak out of the rushing river and swing it back and forth to get as much water out as possible. And to finish off this glamorous water ballet you have to get back into the kayak - you and your helmet, life jacket, splash guard, wetsuit and all. (probably for the third time -or something like that, again I am only speculating here.*) I was pro obvs.


In addition to kayaking on my own, Justin and I took a whole bunch of yoga classes with this super dynamic guy named Amit. Both Justin and I had a crush on him, but since I had already claimed all of the rafting guys Justin got dibs on Amit in our fantasy league. We got to do a whole bunch of yogic stuff that neither of us had ever done before including a whole class of kundulini yoga and laughing yoga. That's right I said laughing yoga. It's great by the way.

We also hiked out one day to the now desolate, former Ashram of the Beatles guru Mandrblahblahblah. (Read I don't/never could remember the dude's name but it started with an M if your googling.) Anyway in the 60's and 70's this guy was huge and the Beatles all went to his Ashram before writing Sgt. Pepper, makes sense now eh? Although I think Ringo only stuck it out for like a week. The place is totally deserted now because the guru pulled a Tiger Woods with a whole bunch of the women devotees and that didn't go down so well in the 90's. (Feminists, always ruining everything.)

It was kind of amazing /really creepy, especially as it started to get dark. It took us forever to find the place, hence the getting dark. Which may have been because we kept asking directions by saying, "Hey Ji (sir) Beatles Ashram? You know, where is?" Maybe if we had ever remembered the guru guys name it would have been easier. It also didn't help that the gate out front was locked and said No Entry all over it. We actually walked right past it and continued on for 500 meters before someone gave us a clue. (Read led us there.) Anyway, it was a pretty awesome Ashram, surround by nature and set into a hillside. It reminded me a really big fancy camp, complete with meditation bungalows, which were a little kooky igloo/solitary confinement-esqu, but they were built in the 70's so I forgave. In one of the dorm rooms we actually found some original cartoon drawings done by who knows who, but let's say the Beatles cause it's cooler, which featured a whole whack of song lyrics and titles from the Sgt Pepper album.

AnyIamtheWalrus, Rishikesh was amazing. Justin and I have been talking about how it was the first place were we were genuinely sad to leave, with no restlessness etc. I mean don't get me wrong I am excited for what's next but I would definitely go back to Rishikesh and hang out there for a while. The only bummer was that I didn't get to do a multi-day trek, because it was still a bit too early in the hiking season and I couldn't find anyone to take me alone or any other groups that I might tag a long with. Oh well something for next time. This week we are in Varanasi and then next week we are at the Ashram. I can't believe that the India leg of the trip is actually 2/3 over.

Highlights of Rishikesh
Mum and Dad
The guys at De N Ascend (spelling is incorrect, will edit later.)
Amit
The food - We ate salad can you believe it!
rafting, kayaking, yoga, hiking, biking, safari-ing and general badassness
THE OLYMPICS
Oh yea and I almost forgot Justin and I went to get our teeth cleaned and each got a new pair of prescription eyeglasses made. Yes all of the health care that is not covered in Canada, (for Canadians, I wouldn't know anything about health care. Health care what is health care?) is super cheap and amazing here.

Lowlights
leaving on Holi
leaving the day of the Canada-US Gold Medal Hockey game - very poorly planned. (And no I don't want to talk about it.)
leaving

oh yea and Tapovan Resort - beware!

*I only had to bale out of my kayak twice, and perform the above mentioned act of mortification once.