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bhkann


39 Blog Entries
3 Trips
387 Photos

Trips:

Ben's SE Asia Voyage
Peru 2010
New Zealand, 2012

Shorthand link:

http://blogabond.com/bhkann




Salkantay - Day 3: Jungle walking

Aguas Calientes, Peru


We woke up sore, cold, and filthy on the third day of our trek. Today would be a relatively easy day with 6 hours of hiking through up and down terrain on a horsepath. We were now firmly in the tropical forest, which means the conditions become hot, muggy, and mosquito infested. It is fascinating to experience the drastic changes in climate in only a few days, and I feel like Peru is one of the few places that can offer such and quick transition.

Today's trek followed a path alongside the base of mountains and a river. We crossed many bridges and even a few waterfalls. We got a chance to see some interesting wildlife too - different kinds of birds and insects, plus a Lizard and some ferret-like thing. We passed by a passionfruit grove and the fruit-pickers dropped us fresh passionfruits from the trees above. Very tasty. We finally reached our destination in the village of Lucacamba. Since the Salkantay route has increased in popularity (over the last 5-10 yrs) villagers along the route have set up kiosks catering to trekkers needs like water, Gatorade, and candy. At our campsite at Lucacamba, they also had a bathroom with shower! I've never appreciated soap and water! Another nice thing about this campsite was that there was an actual toilet. For the past two nights our toilets consisted of holes dug in the ground with a small privacy tent surrounding them. Let's just say late night trips to the great dung hole in 20 degree weather were not so fun! After taking the best cold water shower I've ever taken, we capped off the night with a great meal prepared by the tour's cook and a few beers.

For the first time it was a pleasant night out weather-wise, due to being at a relatively low altitude and I finally got a decent night of sleep.

permalink written by  bhkann on August 10, 2010 from Aguas Calientes, Peru
from the travel blog: Peru 2010
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Salkantay - Day 2: The Ascent

Mollepata, Peru


Last night was interesting. It became frigidly cold, even with sleeping and a full set of clothing on. To catch any more than an hour or two of consecutive sleep without waking up shivering or uncofortable was an accomplishment. I think I ended up taking a series of 5 power naps throughout the night, which would have to be sufficient.

5am wake up - to coca tea served at our tent. Very nice. We braved the cold and wind and made our way to the breakfast tent. After a nice breakfast of eggs and toast we set off for the most difficult part of our trek - the ascent to Salkantay pass. For the next 3-4hrs the hike was basically all uphill, but the scenery was still gorgeous.

Our group consists of 8 people - a group of 4 Brits and a couple from Canada - everyone in their 20s. Our guide taught us how to chew Coca leaves to help with altitude sickness and give us energy. We were hiking through a rocky valley, and on our way up we passed a lake. Finally we reached Salkantay pass - at 4700m (over 15,000ft). This is as far up as we'd go. Our guide said noone had ever reached the summit of Salkantay - one Japanese man had tried years ago and died. The views were breathtaking and we took some group photos. Then we continued on - the next part of the treak would be all flat or downhill. We started descending through a rocky canyon between large mountains, and after a lunch, we continued down into the tropical cloud forest. The change in climate, from snowcap mountains, to rocky grassland, to lush tropical forest was amazing - and the transition occurred within only an hour or two.
We continued on until reaching our campsite for the night. We are at lower altitudes now here in the forest - so thankfully the temperatures are much milder. This should hopefully make for a better night of sleep. Also I've never seen such an amazing look at the stars in the night sky - literally thousands crystal clear. That's all for now. Goodnight.

Note about pictures: I´m still trying to find a fast internet connection that will let me upload pictures to the blog without taking forrrrrever. Hopefully I´ll find one by tomorrow. Until then, I´ll just be posting text...


permalink written by  bhkann on August 9, 2010 from Mollepata, Peru
from the travel blog: Peru 2010
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Trekking in the Andes - Salkantay: Day 1

Mollepata, Peru


Day 1:
5am - I've been up for about an hour, having had a little more than 3hrs of sleep. We take a taxi and wait to board the bus to our trek's starting point. It's eerily silent outside except for stray drunken tourists and the faint sound of a disco still going strong. We board the bus and take off. Driving up and down winding mountain roads with cliffs on either side. We pass by a few small satelite towns and I notice a soccer match going on well before dawn. It is still very dark, though from beyond the mountains you can begin to see a rim of blue light that is slowly rising. It is cold. Glad that I bought those 2 dollar mittens from the market yesterday.

There's some delay going on with the bus and the guides are arguing about a taxi or something. The sun is now starting to rise, but unfortunately our view is obstructed by the gas station we are stuck at.

We jolt forward. That's better. The scenery looks gorgeous now with a little sunlight. There are towering snow-capped mountains appearing off in the distance. Maybe that's where we're going.

10pm: Sitting in our tent now after a long day of hiking. Around 8 hours of it. We started off with a nice breakfast in a mountain town called Mollepata and then continued by truck to the start of our trail. The truck ride was crazy - we were loaded on the back of the pickup and it rocked up and down a cliff side dirt road for about 30 min. Once we almost hit a pack of donkeys, and about 10 minutes later almost hit another truck full of donkeys barreling down the same single track road. Yikes. Then we started the hike. Today was mostly a flat hike day, and we are told tomorrow is by far the toughest - basically all uphill for 9 hours! The scenery was gorgeous, we hiked alongside a mountain that overlooked a giant valley/canyon with a stream running underneath it. Off in the distance we began to see the snowcaps. It was warm and very sunny throughout the day. We stopped for lunch and had a great 3 course meal prepared by our tour's cook. Then we continued on and finally turned a corner and saw the might Salkantay in the distance.

Salkantay means "Savage Mountain" in the indigenous language because on the opposite side it leads down into the jungle. The Salkantay route has been used for hundreds of years as a way to transport goods from mountain town to town. It stretches about 60km (around 40miles) from end to end, the highlight of which is the ascent to Salkantay pass at around 15,000ft, which passes right by the peak of the mountain.

Happy to report that I feel completely acclimatized at this point. We finally reached basecamp #1 as the sun began to shy away and the temps dropped. We have a tent that was set up by our porters, which is pretty nice if a bit snug. We've got a happy hour in a few minutes with tea and popcorn, and then dinner a bit later. Tomorrow we start at 5am for the long ascent up to Salcantay pass.

permalink written by  bhkann on August 8, 2010 from Mollepata, Peru
from the travel blog: Peru 2010
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¡HOLA!

Cuzco, Peru


Hello there,

This is the first entry of the trip, though it has been a few days since we arrived here in South America. Joe and I landed in Lima, Peru late on Thursday night, pretty beat. We had taken SpiritAir, which left something to be desired. Let´s just say I had to basically sit cross-legged in order to not be constantly kicking the person´s seat in front of me. Guess that´s the price you pay for such cheap international tickets. Can´t really complain all in all. We took a taxi through some very shady parts of town to our hostel in Miraflores, one of the "upscale" neighborhoods in Lima. We checked into our hostel and got some food at a local eatery. Decided to play it safe tonight and got a grilled cheese sandwich and some corn'bread.

The next morning we woke up early and got a taxi back to the airport to fly to Cuzco. It´s kind of a bummer we didnt get to spend any real time in Lima. It seems like a bustling city with a bunch of things to do. But we´re on a tight time frame and Peru just has to much to offer to stick around.

We decided to fly into Cuzco (a nice 1hr flight as opposed to the 20+ hr bus ride!!), and arrived late morning. I was struck with how dry, clean, a crisp the air was, until we actually started walking around the city...where buses constantly spew unfiltered smog onto the sidewalks. Overall, Cuzco is really a pretty city.

Lots of interesting colonial architecture and some great Inca ruins, which we will check out today. Yesterday, we checked into our hostel, which is great, took a quick nap, and started exploring. The elevation here is HIGH, over 3,000m, so it definitely gives you a bit of a light headed feeling when you´re walking around. I think Joe is having an easier time adjusting than I am, but hopefully after a couple days things will stabilize before our trek.

The high elevation and thin air here makes for some extreme climate changes during the day. The sun is very strong, and when in it, it feels like the temp is mid-70s to 80s. But when you step out into the shday the temp drops a good 15 degrees. At night, we´re talking Northeast winter temps that hover in 30s. Good thing I brought a winter hat (also bought some 2 dollar gloves at a market). We explored the Plaza de Armas, the center of town that has some old cathedrals and monuments (pics to be posted later).

Today we´re going to check out some big ruins on the outskirts of town and then go to an orientation for our trek tomorrow.

We are taking a 5 day/4 night trek up the mountain, Salcantay. It is supposed to be an amazing and challenging hike. The hike then leads us to Macchu Pichu. I will be sure to post more about that later. Anyways, time to head out into town, hope all is well with everyone, and I´ll try to post some pics before we head off for our trek tonight!

Adios!

Side note: Sitting in this internet cafe I´ve confirm my suspicions that people just about all over the world people are completely obsessed with Michael Jackson, moreso than in the US. Right now I´m listening to a spanish'dubbed version of "You are not Alone," and last night at dinner, the entire time they were playing jazzed-up versions of MJ. Pretty funny. I actually haven´t heard any music hear yet that isn´t American, although after having traveled to other places around the world I´m really not that surprised. No matter what happens to the U.S. economy at least we´ll always have Lady Gaga and Jonas Brothers.

permalink written by  bhkann on August 7, 2010 from Cuzco, Peru
from the travel blog: Peru 2010
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Frenzied in Hanoi

Hanoi, Vietnam


We had heard a slew of negative things about visiting Hanoi - "the people are aggressive," "you will get hustled," etc... The Lonely Planet said that scams were common, especially when booking excursions out of the city. We were pleased that during our three days in Hanoi, we found, with an exception or two, people to be extremely hospitable and friendly. The exception or two was getting out of the airport (some random guy, who smelled like booze, followed us around for a while trying to convince us to ride with him to the city - no thanks) and dealing with Hanoi traffic (crossing the street was an adventure - there are very few traffic lights in Hanoi and intersections are pure chaos - Corey nearly got knocked over by a moped going the wrong direction out of his lane). Aside from that, Hanoi was great! It was good to see locals out everywhere and not feel like we were in a strictly tourist zone for once.

We arrived at our hostel to find that it had been fully booked for the night - no worries - we were hooked up with a free upgrade to the owner's hotel a few minutes away. The hotel was extremely nice - we even had our own computer with internet in the room (for a total of $16 US / night).

For dinner we had Pho, a Vietnamese specialty that is a chicken noodle broth with various spices - kinda like Ramen.

The next morning we walked around Hanoi in the blistering heat. The city is chaotic and noisy, but in a cool, culturally interesting way.

The streets are packed with scooters and bicycles, and people walking with baskets of food and fruit everywhere. It was very cool. We went to the Temple of Literature, an important cultural landmark in Vietnam that honors, among other things, Confucious and his impact on Vietnamese culture. At night we went out for some cheap beers (around 80 cents a pint) and sampled some of the nightlife. The next morning, we would be traveling to Ha Long Bay, originally the reason we had headed to Hanoi in the first place.


permalink written by  bhkann on July 17, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Ben's SE Asia Voyage
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Ha Long bay

Ha Long, Vietnam


Through our hostel we arranged a two-day, one-night excursion to Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is in northern Vietnam near the Chinese border. It is a bay dotted with thousands of limestone cliffs. We boarded our boat and set off. The scenery was breathtaking, and, as seems to be the pattern on this trip, too big, and too beautiful to be captured properly on my 6-megapixel Canon. Here are some pictures anyways...


We stopped at a large karst formation and walked through a few of its caves. We continued on through the bays, stopping at a fishing village where they had on display a virtual aquarium of different types of fish and sea creatures. Finally, we parked for the night and were given time to jump off the boat's deck and swim.



The next morning we kayaked around the bay for a bit and then returned to the port. Back in Hanoi, we found a great beer hal that served Czech beer, and to our Surprise was dominated by locals. It was a nice way to cap off our time in Vietnam. With our trip approaching its end, we have one last stop where we head today: Hong Kong.


permalink written by  bhkann on July 17, 2009 from Ha Long, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Ben's SE Asia Voyage
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Viva Cambodia

Siem Reap, Cambodia


Though we have only spent 3 days in Cambodia, I feel like I could write pages and pages on this place. It is an complex land, with complex people who have gone through incredibly tragic things in recent past. This is set side by side with the other-worldly beauty of Cambodia's ancient past - that of the awe-inspiring temples and cities constructed by the Khmer empires from hundreds up to a thousand years ago.

Despite having gone through so much hardship (from the Khmer Rouge genocide which claimed over 2 million lives in the late 70s to the brutal Vietnamese occupation to the recent communist party takeover) along with being an incredibly poor population (average income is a couple dollars a day), the Cambodian people we encountered were all extremely nice, gracious, and had a certain pride for their country - an eagerness to show-off what Cambodia has to offer (I should note that we were only in Siem Reap, where most Cambodians we encountered were affiliated with the tourist industry - our view may be slightly skewed). By the end of our time there I really came to admire them.

I learned more from our taxi driver in a few days than I learned about Thailand our entire trip.

We were picked up by our driver and agreed to let him take us around the Angkor temples over the next 2 days. He had an incredible, tragic story that I get the feeling is similar to that of many other Cambodians: His father, a teacher, was murdered by the Khmer Rouge when he was seven. His brother was killed by a Vietnamese-planted landmine in later years (Cambodia is on of the most heavily mined countries in the world - 4 to 6 million still remain). He explained the current plight of his family and many other Cambodians: Education is not encouraged or supported by Cambodia's government. There is only one public university in the country and even that one costs around $500 a year. On a salary of a few dollars a day, hardly anyone can afford that, and thus, the population stays uneducated. Meanwhile, while elections are held in name every few years, the communist party controls the police and the army, and is unwilling to give up any power. Thus reforms, like funding for education and medical care, are impossible to implement. There is no freedom of speech, and any denouncing of the prime minister can result in harrassment or arrest. It seems Cambodians are forced to deal with a government that's goal is the suppression of its people - keep them uneducated and unconnected in order to stay in power.

That said, the people seem to maintain a cautious optimism that someday things might change, though without heavy international pressure, I'm not so sure.

I could go on and on, but nowwww, back to our trip!

We settled into our guesthouse (which was VERY nice for a price of $6 /night per person). The next morning our driver picked us and we started our tour of the Angkor temples.


The Angkor temples were built over hundreds of years, from around the 800s to around the 1600s. There was a large Hindu influence in Cambodia in the early years, and thus, many of the temples are Hindu temples. Later, Buddhism took over, and many of the later temples reflect that.

Our first stop was Angkor Thom - which literally means "Great City". The architecture was incredible. It is really hard to capture this stuff in pictures and I recommend that it definitely checked out in person. The first temple we saw was Bayon - famous for its 54 towers containing 4 faces in opposite directions for 216 total faces!

We then visited a few other temples including my favorite - Ta Prohm. This one was overgrown with these amazing, huge trees. I felt like I was on the set of an Indiana Jones movie. Actually, it was used as the movie set for a recent temple hunting movie, Tomb Raider.



After a few more temples and palaces in Angkor Thom, we had lunch, and made our way over to the main event - Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is the largest religious structure in the world, and damn is it large...Again, the pictures here don't do it justice, go yourself.




We returned back to the guesthouse in the afternoon and wandered into town for some food. We had a specialty Khmer dish called "fish amok" which is a curry-like prepared fish served in a banana leaf.

The next morning we set out for the second half of our Angkor temples explorations (there are tons and tons of temples everywhere, and apparently some people spend up to a week and beyond exploring them). This time we drove out through the countryside where it is rice-paddy dominated.



We visited a few amazing ruins - Banteay Srei, Sumrai?, and the Roulos Group.




By then end of the day we were templed out, and because our time is short, decided to take off to our next destination: Hanoi, Vietnam. Cambodia was really great though, and I'd like to come back here sometime to get a fuller experience of the country.


permalink written by  bhkann on July 13, 2009 from Siem Reap, Cambodia
from the travel blog: Ben's SE Asia Voyage
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End of the Islands - The Full Moon Party

Ko Samui, Thailand


The full moon is significant to many cultures for various reasons. In southern Thailand, it is an excuse to host an enormous island beach party, the scale of which is dizzying, with 50+ bars/clubs, techno/house/rave music, and, of course, tens of thousands of people. The Full Moon Party was to be the grand finale of our island stint, and as it turns out, our last hurrah in Thailand all together.

Fresh off our diving certifications, we took the ferry south to the island of Ko Samui. Ko Samui is a less developed version of Phuket, but still way more developed tahn the typical backpacker destination. There are many tourists here of all shapes and sizes. There are more families and older couples, perhaps due to the abundance of midrange-to-luxury accomodations. The, or maybe it's all the McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Subways squeezed together. We were able to find a decently priced guesthouse called Embassy that was great. We met up with our friend Ash, from Tufts who currently lives in Hong Kong, and two of his friends. The nightlife in Samui is strong - lots of beach bars and clubs. Turns out our hostel was next to a great, 24 hour thai food place - great for the late night pad thai cravings.

Ash was staying at a really nice hotel on the beach, so the next day we went over there to relax by the pool and rest up for he full moon party.

The party takes place on an island called Koh Phangnan, which is sandwiched in between Ko Tao and Ko Saui. During the night of the party, speedboats are run constantly from Samui to Phangnan, so we hopped on one at night, and set off to the party spot.

Arriving in Ko Phangnan was something like stepping into a hedonistic/bohemian/teenage wasted-land. Locals were selling 'buckets'of drinks being gulpd down by the masses. Some people were shirtless and most had neon paint splattered over themselves in trippy-hippy patterns or slogans. We decided to blend right in and got neon-ed up (In case your were wondering - at the advice of many people, I did not take a camera with me and currently have no pictures of this madness - maybe that is for the best, however, Ash's friend brought her's and is going to give them to me next week, so I'll post a couple then). We entered the beach and were greeted by thousands of people on the sand, up on platforms, on roofs, dancing to blaring techno music. There were fire jugglers and torches all over the place. It had a kind of tribal feel to it.

We stayed out until sunrise (the place was still packed by then), and took a longtail boat back to Samui around 7am for some much needed zzzzzs. We relaxed by the pool later that day, and stayed one more night (only thing notable here was getting locked out my hostel, having to track down a place to sleep at 3am - it all worked out fine though. That, and Corey and I have finally come down with a bit of stomach problems). Today, we sadly leave Thailand and head to Cambodia to see, among other things, Angkor Wat. More later!

permalink written by  bhkann on July 11, 2009 from Ko Samui, Thailand
from the travel blog: Ben's SE Asia Voyage
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Open Water SCUBA - Ko Tao

Ko Tao, Thailand


With about 15 people squeezed into a minibus (fit for about 11 people), we set off for the east coast. A high-speed catamaran called the "Lomprayah" took us from the port to the island of Ko Tao.

Ko Tao (which means "Turtle Island" in Thai) is the smallest and least developed of the chain of three islands in the gulf of Thailand (Koh Samui and Koh Phangnan are the other two - see the map). It is known for its laid-back atmosphere and its multitude of scuba dive-shops. In fact, Ko Tao is the second-most popular place in the world for getting scuba certifications, apparently.

We enrolled in a 4-day course to get our open-water scuba certs. The course was a ton of fun.

The first two days involved watching a few movies, learning about a slew of possible things that can go wrong underwater (gulp), learning to use the scuba gear, and taking our first few breathes underwater. The last two days were where we really got a chance to experience diving with 4 open-water dives with our instructor up to about 60 feet deep!

At the end of day 4, we took a final exam, and I'm happy to say I am now a certified openwater scuba diver (I can dive anywhere with a buddy up to 18m or ~60 feet). We celebrated last night with a few drinks with our instructor and then passed out, looking forward to sleeping in for once in the last few days.

Aside from diving, Ko Tao is great. Again, it is an island with very few cars, and although the scenery isn't as breathtaking as the Andaman coast, it is still one of the most beautiful islands I've seen.

Today we rented mopeds and explored some less traveled-to beaches on the island. In a few minutes we will be hopping on the ferry over to the largest island in the Gulf, Koh Samui. Here we will meet up with another Tufts friend, and it will be our jumping off point for tomorrow night's full-moon party.


permalink written by  bhkann on July 7, 2009 from Ko Tao, Thailand
from the travel blog: Ben's SE Asia Voyage
tagged KoTao

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Our Full Dose of the Andaman Coast

Ko Phi Phi, Thailand


Ko Phi Phi (pronounced Pee-Pee) is one of those places that comes to mind when words like "pristine," "breathtaking," and "enchanting" are tossed around. The landscape of the Andaman coast is truly beautiful - limestone cliffs jutting out of crystal blue, warm waters that lap against sandy shores lined with palm trees.

If you like those tropical/beach posters that college students and stressed out white-collared workers tack onto there walls - you can thank the Andaman coast. And if you like the gorgeous scenery in that Leonardo DiCaprio movie, "The Beach," you can thank Ko Phi Phi (it was filmed there).

We arrived via ferry from Phuket and walked (there are no cars / scooters on Phi Phi) to our Guesthouse. We settled in and enjoyed the sunset on the main beach. Our Guesthouse there was pretty dingy (our room was RIGHT next to the septic system and we saw cockroach and her child crawling skittering around our floor a couple times). No matter - we spent very little time here, because everything is outside in Phi Phi.

The next morning we took a long-boat tour around Phi Phi and its neighboring islands. We stopped to swim a few times and did some excellent snorkeling (TONS of fish here and the visibility is incredible). We visited "Monkey Beach," which hosted many, many Li monkeys who were not shy. We visited Maya Bay (the actual beach where "The Beach" was filmed), which was gorgeous as hell, and watched the sunset from our boat.

There are a lot of young tourists / backpackers around Phi Phi and thus lots of nightlife to keep us satiated. Eventually, late into the night, the crowds wander down to the beach where makeshift bars / clubs / discos offer specials on "drink buckets." They are also big on "fire-shows" on the islands - professional fire jugglers perform and they get the drunken tourists involved with "fire limbo" and jumping through fire-hoops. (No pictures of this have been found yet...)

The next day we left Phi Phi and took a ferry to Krabi, which is on the mainland of Thailand. Again, we were greeted with stunning beaches, but this time with less of a crowd, and huge cliffs.

Krabi is a top destination for rock climbers, so I felt that I needed to get a taste of it here. Today, we took a longboat to Railey beach, and I signed up for a half day rock-climbing tour.
It was the first time I climbed outdoors, and it was awesome! The climbs were of varying difficulty but most had great views of the bay and the islands at the top of them. I will be sore tomorrow, I'm sure.

Speaking of tomorrow - we will be switching to the east coast of the peninsula - The Gulf of Thailand. First stop is Ko Tao where will be getting our SCUBA certifications. More later!

permalink written by  bhkann on July 3, 2009 from Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
from the travel blog: Ben's SE Asia Voyage
tagged KoPhiPhi and Krabi

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