Local Insanity

This weekend is the weekend I have to do Christmas with my mom. In deciding whether to take the train or to fly, I eventually decided to fly since it was just barely cheap enough to make it worth it to me for the amount of time I expected to be in Bakersfield, which was about 1.5 days. I, like probably many people, still think of buying an airline ticket as a guarantee of travel. Not that they guarantee that you’ll get there on time, but that if something does go wrong they will compensate you. Most people choose their flight times for good reasons, either because they have a connection, because they have a limited time to spend where they’re going, etc. So when I buy a ticket, I think of going at a different time as something that should be compensated. That, apparently, is where United and I disagree. My flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems, but not before they let us board, did the whole pre-flight routine, then told us to get off and wait, which we did for about 30 minutes before they told us that it was cancelled.

To be fair, I suspect United is not alone in this, and that most domestic airlines including United share Delta’s motto according to Ze Frank: “Go Fuck Yourself”. If I were to value my time according to how much I get paid at work, and take into account that my taxi would be unnecessary later in the day since I can take BART, I’d say United owes me about $150 bucks for wasting my time, which is incidentally what they wanted me to pay them to change my return flight to a day later since I’ll now be spending less than 24 hours in Bakersfield.

I propose that United and the other airlines get together to dispel this myth of timely, courteous, and guaranteed travel with a marketing campaign designed to educate consumers about the realities of flying in the United States. Some of their key slogans might be:

• Home for the holidays, maybe
• Come fly the friendly skies, only to be told to go home
• Super savings, so long as you don’t mind being our bitch
• Customer service is our #284298212 priority

Something along those lines would really be a major step in the direction toward truth in advertising.

Sarah and I went to Mojave, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, and Death Valley for a week of winter fun. We froze a bit in Grand Canyon with -13°C! That is frickin’ nuts. Update: The slideshow can be found here.

Day 1 - Bakersfield to Mojave

We spent the first day driving out to Mojave from Bakersfield, a decent drive along highway 58. We stopped in a campground, paid our dues, and set up camp. It was cold, but not too cold. We went on a quick hike that day and then did dinner - the corn chowder from Trader Joe’s.

Day 2 - Mojave to Grand Canyon (South Rim)

This morning we had the freeze-dried scrambled eggs - not so good because I’m bad at measuring water and following directions.

I drove. Brian talked. I pretended to pay attention. Then it got cold. brrr.

Thanks for that Sarah… We drove for a long time to get into the park, then drove around a while longer until we found a campground, which we weren’t sure was open because there was, almost literally, no one there. We parked two spots away from the Almighty Bathroom and set up camp again.

This was the first night we had the freeze dried dinner. It was the spaghetti with meat sauce, and it was actually pretty good. Mountain House++. This was the freezing cold night which was colder than most standard freezers. Our sleeping bags were not quite up to the task, and we kept waking up.

Day 3 - Grand Canyon

This morning was spent thawing out mostly. I made scrambled eggs again - better this time - and that helped. Hot cocoa++.

This day was the South Kaibab Trail, which we took down to Skeleton Point: 3 miles from the start, and about 2000 feet down. They warn you over and over again not to attempt to go from the rim to the floor and back in a single day. I can see that, as in the winter the days are short and in the summer it gets really hot. Still, it’s not exactly a superhuman feat, and I suspect I could do it with some Prior Planning.

The trail was nice, except for the horse/donkey/mule crap. Sarah spotted some cross-bedding in the rocks which excited her and sorta interested me. We ended the day with hurt knees and sore legs.

Next thing you know we’re at the visitor center where we learn how cold it was last night (Really Cold) and that it’ll be even colder tonight (a frosty -14°C).

We decided to spring for a lodge, and Bright Angel lodge had the right price: $55/night (of course we ended up spending even more than that on the dinner at the fancy schmancy El Tovar restaurant).

Shower. Bed. Light. Warmth. Not the most I’ve ever appreciated those things, but close. My dreams were disturbed by the extremely dry air that night.

Day 4 - Grand Canyon to Zion

Another day of driving took us along the very looonnnnng drive from Northern Arizona to Southern Utah around the Grand Canyon, past the Vermillion Cliffs, and into the Sandstone Jungle that is Zion.

On the way we ran into some trouble.

‘Round about Page I thought it’d be a good idea to take a short drive on a gravel road to a scenic overview where we could overlook Lake Powell. Sarah’s car is, by nature, a low-slung beast. Being loaded with lots of camping gear, food, and two passengers made it even more so. Thus even the simplest gravel driveway becomes trouble. For some reason the engine light came on, and stayed on. We stopped in Kanab, UT at a service center. They pronounced the engine in good health but pointed out that the rear tires were worn all the way to the tread indicator, or whatever it’s called.

Uh oh.

So we bought new tires for the rear and went on our way. The engine light eventually went off and things were looking up. Zion was pretty warm and looked beautiful when we arrived.

We set up camp at Watchman Campground near the west entrance to the park and made another freeze-dried dinner, which was again pretty good. I believe this time we did two: Mac and Cheese and Chicken Teriyaki.

Day 5 - Easy Hikes around Zion and the Legend of Zorro

After the fiasco of the really cold Grand Canyon night, we decided to buy fleece inserts for our sleeping bags. This, combined with Hot Hands air-activated warmers, a propane-powered catalytic heater, and two Duraflame logs turned out to do the trick, and kept us warm at most times of the day.

We walked along the paved path leading up to the Narrows, snapping pictures and being wowed by the ice that had formed on the rocks.

We went into Springdale later to watch the Legend of Zorro on the Giant Screen Theater, mostly to keep warm and to stay up to an hour that would make us tired. We had an electric lantern but we didn’t have full charge on it, so reading was difficult.

Day 6 - Angel’s Landing

We started the hike around 10am, and we were cold. After only a little while of hiking we began to get warm, and started shedding layers. I was down to two, and Sarah to three. We made it up to the point where the trail splits off into other places, with 0.5 mile of chain-aided scrambling to the top of Angel’s Landing.

Angel’s Landing is, at the end, broken into two chain parts which I call Round I and Round II. Round I is like scrambling over any normal non-flat, sometimes-narrow rock, except that it is accompanied by not-too-long-but-still-deadly drop-offs on one side. Round II is not much worse except that it’s steeper and has, in parts, drop-offs on both sides which are quite far down and can be very vertigo-inducing.

Sarah made it up Round I, but decided not to go any farther. I went all the way, since I’d done it before and didn’t want to miss the view nor the excitement of getting to the top. Though this trail is only 5 miles round trip, 1 mile of it is somewhat tricky.

Our nights in camp had become somewhat routine up to this point, so I’ll omit the details except to say that I was quite getting into my book, Quicksilver.

Day 7 - Observation Point

We started this hike a little later, about 10.30am. It begins with a steep ascent via a number of switch-backs, keeping your point of origin in view until you come to the top of a small stream-canyon. The trail continues through this canyon up for a while until it begins another set of switch-backs, the top of which has a sheer drop off on one side which Sarah didn’t like one bit, but she did make it up.

The top is quite high, and is nearly in line with Angel’s Landing and the rest of the valley, giving you a similar, but elevated, view. This hike is 8 miles round trip.

We were done by about 3pm and decided to head straight to the Desert Pearl Inn, where we’d made reservations the day before. This is the same place I stayed four years earlier with my mom and sister, and it’s still a nice place. Expensive for the area (I’m assuming), but nice. The hot tub was quite nice, and then we ordered Chinese food for takeout and watched Back to the Future. The bed was nice but it got really dry here again. Must keep glass of water by the bed.

Day 8 - Zion to Bryce and Death Valley

We decided to skip Bryce in part because it’d be an extra 4 hours or so of driving and because we were unsure of the road conditions. Another time.

We went to Death Valley after a long day of driving and arrived at the visitor center to find it a warm 51°F! We set up camp at Stovepipe Wells and decided to do Mosaic Canyon via walking the next day.

Day 9 - Death Valley to Bakersfield via 178

We did the morning hike and headed out. We might have done more, but the Observation Point hike had screwed up Sarah’s ankle somewhat because of her less-than-great shoes. We’d both about had enough, and we decided to head home.

We took the 178 back past Lake Isabella along the Kern River. It’s a nice drive as long as you’re not in a hurry and don’t mind the windy roads. Sarah insisted on driving the whole way, so I was fine as long as I ate something.

It was weird arriving at 178 and Commanche cum Alfred Harell Highway from the other direction. Kelly was home, and we went to Mimi’s after a long unpacking. The next day (today) I finished my book and figured out how much we spent on the trip. It was more than we thought, but a lot of the expense is in reusable goods, so I gotta go again to make it worth it.

Technorati Tags: death valley, grand canyon, mojave, travel, zion

I’m on the minibus I paid US$13 for with lots of people who certainly didn’t pay that much. As Nicole said, it’s the relative amounts we can pay, but that won’t help my legs stretch out any. Well I didn’t ask for comfort when traveling abroad, otherwise I would have stayed home.

hours later

Yikes, the nice pen I got today turned out to be terrible for writing. Good thing I bought two crappy-looking ones too. So Siem Reap. It sure did take a while to get here. The guy at the guesthouse in Kratie said it’d take about 5-6 hours to get here, but in reality it took 8.5 - 9 if you count the fact that it left 30 minutes late. I’ll just count this as yet another lesson to take claims made here with a grain, or maybe even a kilo, of salt.

Siem Reap is fairly nice. It’s the most modern of all the cities in Cambodia I’ve been to so far. Too bad I had to skip Phnom Panh. My three days on Angkor start tomorrow! I wonder if I’ll see anyone I know. Nicole should still be in the area. I promise to take lots of pictures.

So I’m trying to decide what to do now. Do I stay here and do a tour or do I get on the road to Cambodia? I’m sitting eating breakfast and I’m thinking about schedules. If I stay, I may not be able to go to Cambodia until tomorrow morning. I’d probably arrive in Phnom Penh at around 1800, giving me that night and the morning to look around. Siem Reap would find me on the night of the 9th, giving me the 10th, 11th and 12th in Angkor. The 13th would be spent going from Siem Reap to Bangkok. So it’s either here or Phnom Penh. I think I’ll stay here.

Wow I haven’t written since leaving Chiang Mai. Laos has happened since then. Laos is much more relaxed than Thailand. The night market at Luang Prabang was much calmer than the one in Chiang Mai. Instead of booths lining the sidewalks they were on large mats on the sidewalk and street, which was closed to traffic. The stuff they sold was all cloth and clothing and figurines - none of the watches and lighters of Chiang Mai and Bangkok. This made it nicer but also didn’t interest me as much. The food was excellent.

We left the next morning on what we were told was a VIP bus but was really a public bus. The aisle was stacked with bags of rice weighing 50kg each. I got the center seat in the back, which means that I could put my feet up as if sitting in a reclining chair. The problem was that our guard (the man with an AK-47 who, presumably, was there to protect the bus from robbers - route 13 is a dangerous place sometimes) sat in front of me and kept scooting back until I couldn’t extend my legs. This lasted for about seven hours. The scenery was beautiful though. Everywhere there were green hills and striking rock formations, the occasional village dotting the road as we passed.

Vang Vieng was a cheaper place to stay, but not to eat. We had dinner along the Mekong, a river we’ve followed throughout Laos which ends near the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Unlike Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng itself is not the attraction. There are caves, waterfalls, and tubing. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and take a kayak trip down to Vientienne. It only took a few hours more and was quite fun, plus we got breakfast and lucnh out of it.

We were in Vientienne a total of about two hours: one hour walking around, another waiting for the bus at the station. The bus to Pakse was pretty nice and went at night, allowing us to forego a guesthouse. Pakse saw us for about an hour before we left for Ban Nakasang. Nicole and I were already feeling not so well, and sitting near the back of the minibus delivered a good amount of exhaust, making it worse. Thus we wasted a whole day lounging and sleeping on Don Det. Lora couldn’t get her visa for Cambodia en route, so Nicole and Lora decided to fly from Pakse to Siem Reap, probably going to Phnom Penh after and then train or boat to bangkok. They just left for Pakse, so for the last week, I’m on my own.

a few hours later

I called Sarah today but we only got to talk for about six minutes - such is the Lao phone system. I’m not as distracted without Nicole and Lora here, so I find myself thinking about her a bit more now, and that makes me homesick. I haven’t been in the States, or even a western country, for five months (one might consider Singapore as half western, but it’s different enough that I never mistook it for home). It’s a long time, but I think I could go longer with some company (hint hint Sarah). I’ve been thinking about starting a travel wiki as a place for travelers to share information in the LP style. Imaging having all the LP books on your PDA. As long as you’ve got an internet connection every few weeks you could travel on very up-to-date information, not some 1998 edition LP.

I am currently on the shadiest airplane I’ve ever been on, and we’re going toward Luang Prabang in Laos. We decided to fly because it’d take two days to get to Luang Prabang by land, with nothign terribly interesting in between. This should give us more than enough time to be in Angkor Wat, but we’re still not sure about the border from Laos to Cambodia, hopefully it’s open.

The night market in Chiang Mai is really neat, but it still suffers the everyone-has-the-same-wares problem. We all bought stuff, mostly clothes, though we kept our expenses fairly low.

The other big thing we did was a tour that took us up to the long-neck Karen tribe near the Myannmar border. We stopped along the way to see some things like a cave and temple. It was sort of anti-climactic. When we arrived, it seemed to be set up not like a vilage but like a shop. It was something of a human zoo, ad was kind of sad. I didn’t buy anything, but Lora bought a scarf, which were probably one of the only things there that was handmade. I still looked, to be polite and at one of the huts I picked up and looked at a small wooden box. The girl came over, baby on her back, and told me it was 100B. I told her I didn’t really want it and she didn’t say anything. When I started to walk away she said 80B, but I just shook my head and left. After reaching the minibus again I decided I wanted a picture of her, since, of the people there, she seemed to be the prettiest (partly because of her youth, partly because she didn’t chew the Betel nut that so many of them did, which would eventually turn their teeth black). I went back and asked if I could take a picture (miming more than speaking), and she helf out the box and indicated my camera, then said 70B. I said I didn’t want the box but could I take a picture anyway?60B. I don’t want the box, I just want a picture, okay? Nod. I took the picture, then gave her 10B, nodded and smiled, then left. The whole tour lasted from 0700 to 1730 or so.

So I’m in Chiang Mai, and I can update my website. Cool. We just got in today and are spending two nights here. After that we fly to Luang Prabang in Laos for a number of reasons (as opposed to overland). I’ve been writing stuff in my little paper journal, which I’ll get around to posting tomorrow maybe. It’s nice to keep you all (5?) in suspense and make you come back for more. MORE!! Hahahaha.

Oh and Chiang Mai is much cooler than Bangkok in every sense of the word. Unless you’re into sin and big cities, come here instead.

Nicole: ‘We are doing pretty well so far - we have taken a bus, the SkyTrain, a tuk-tuk, and almost got arrested.’ Brian: ‘Yeah, and all before noon.’

Flying to Bangkok on a delayed flight and arriving at about 0130, Nicole suggested we find some benches and sleep. I dazedly assented. We found some benches (actually rows of plastic airport chairs) and each got situated on our own rows. After a while it got pretty uncomfortable, so I moved to the floor. The next time I woke up was because it was too cold, and I noticed Nicole had also moved to the floor next to her bench. After that I woke up and the sun was shining. We went to go do immigration and they got confused - our names weren’t on their list. We explained that our flight had arrived about six hours ago and that we’d just slept in the airport. They took us to the office and talked amongst themselves for a minute before asking what we’d been doing. We told them we’d been sleeping. They told us we were supposed to go directly to imigration. We told them we were sorry, but we didn’t know. They said we were lucky security didn’t find us, or we’d probably have been arrested. They then stamped our forms and sent us on our way.

We took a local bus through the morning rush hour traffic to Siam Square, which took about an hour. From there we took the SkyTrain to get to the Myanmar Embassy so that Nicole could get her visa. Now comes the part about backpacks. both of ours were too small to hold stuff for our travels and souveniers, so we decieded to get new ones in bangkok where they’d be cheap. Well, cheaper than the US and Singapore maybe, but not exactly cheap compared to Vietnam. Mine is a Lowe Alpine, medium-sized bag about 80cm in length. It cost me 1800B. The plan is to use it to keep all the extra stuff that won’t fit in my original two bags and then… Nicole’s bag is smaller and cost her 1300B, whereas a comparable one was selling at the North Face store for 2650B. I love haggling.

several hours later

And they’re late, by two hours. Nicole went to go pick up Lora from the airport, and we were supposed to meet at the Siam SkyTrain station at 1615, about 105 minutes after Lora’s flight is supposed to arrive. I don’t even know if Nicole made it to the airport, much less found Lora (oh yeah, this is what it was like to not have a cell phone). I do know that I have Nicole’s passport, so she has to find me.

one hour later

Three hours. Crap. Do I try to find them? How do I get word to them? Do I stay? What if they never show up? The childhood mantra of ’stay where you are’ doesn’t work as well as one gets older.

THEN: S$74.00 Flight from Phuket to Singapore 600B Taxi to Airport 500B Departure tax

And here I thought I was getting a good deal on a flight. ‘Only about 1800B’, I thought, ‘that’s only 700B more than the bus, and that takes 18hr or so.’ Well it really cost me 1800 more than taking the bus, all because of an expensive taxi and, as the LP calls it, a ‘cheeky departure tax’. Other snags today: my taxi was waiting at the wrong place, so I left 30 minutes later than planned, but it just made me nervous, not late. I had to leave my swiss army knife at the counter. On the way back from Vietnam they simply checked it in an envelope, but they wouldn’t do it this time (on Tiger Airways, a subsidiary of Singapore Airways, which I used to fly from Vietnam).

On the plus side, the flight is pretty much empty, and I get to sit in an exit row. Yay for leg room.

NOW: Okay the taxi was because it was too early to take the 200B airport shuttle. The departure tax is annoying, but its pretty standard practice and I DID read about it beforehand, it just slipped my mind. The swiss army knife could have been saved if I’d checked my bag, but I didn’t want to. Besides, it was a cheap knock off I’d bought for S$5.00. So I was really just being grumpy and exaggerating. I don’t want this journal to become a rant, so that’s partly why I included these NOW parts.

THEN: Phuket doesn’t seem to even stretch its legs and brush its teeth until 0900. There are people just setting up shop and it’s already 0915. I guess this is more a reflection of the average traveler here rather than the Thai people. I’m kind of glad to be leaving, in part because of this cold I’m getting, in part because of the ultra-touristy nature of the place, and in part because of the impending final exams. Phuket is nice, but I don’t think I’d come back without a family and cash to burn.

• 43B Internet @ 1B/min
• 170B Brunch (eggs + toast + ham + bacon + tea + juice + pineapple pancake)
• 50B Chair by the beach

As I talk to more and more travelers I’m realizing that it is possible to travel for extended periods of time, optionally using australia as a sort of work hub. It would be really cool to do that with Sarah for a year or so. Maybe life doesn’t have to be as formulaic as I’ve been told. Careers don’t have to start immediately after school, house and car and mortgage and wife and kids can wait. Let’s see what the world has to offer.

• 140B Dinner (garlic pepper pork + banana shake)
• 105B Misc stuff (ice cream + post cards + stamps)
• 168B Snacks (actifed + dried pineapple + lychee drink + ritz)
• 30B Chicken wing
• 300B 1 night @ Merit Hill Bungalows

NOW: Can you tell I missed Sarah? It’s hard seeing lots of couples and families around when your girlfriend is halfway around the world. I am still going to look into the traveling option. I don’t have immediate plans to go to grad school, so it might be cool to do it next year or something. However, that would pretty much exclude Sarah from it. If I want to go with her we may have to wait until after grad school. It’s all up in the air. I’ll see when I get back.

THEN:

• 600B James Bond Island tour
• 100B Souvenir plate

Like most places, in Phuket only the walkers, workers, drivers and dogs are up at 0630. I Tried for 0600, but didn’t really succeed. Sunrise still hasn’t really occurred. Well, it has, just on the other side of the hill. I’ll take sunsets over sunrises though.

• 62B Internet @ 1B/min
• 200B Brunch (club sandwich + garlic bread + vanilla shake)
• 105B Snacks (dried fruit + ice cream + banana bread)

So the James Bond Island tour included the movie which used the island, The Man With the Golden Gun, and was shown on the way there and back on the bus. I think the best part was the boat ride in Phang-Nha bay. The rock formations are awesome, even in the less than optimal light. The island itself is a crowded tourist mess, much like Phuket, and didn’t exactly have what the brochure promised. Oh well. It was still worth it, though it wasn’t as nice as the one in Vietnam for USD7, which included an awesome lunch and fruit. Oh and as I sit here I’m surrounded by white people, an odd feeling. I’m looking forward to Chiang Mai and Laos, maybe I can escape the tourist trap.

• 130B Dinner (pork curry w/rice + banana shake)
• 300B 1 night @ Merit Hill Bungalows

NOW: Phuket really is touristy. What I don’t like about tourists is that they seem to refuse to believe they’re someplace else. They want things to be like home even when they’re away. I guess Phuket sees a lot of people from Sweden and surrounding areas, so there are a number of restaurants with Swedish menus and Swedish food. My own selection of meal that day is not exactly Thai (club sandwich), but I like to think it’s mitigated by the fact that I was sick.