Gettin' Leh-ed

We started the trip in Goa, which we felt would be a great party place for the Hindu festival of Diwali, without realizing that there aren't so many Hindus in Diwali, its more Christians and grimey-looking Europeans. So Goa was pretty sleepy, it had a nice beach but I was a bit sick of beaches by this point and the weather wasn't really cooperating. Nothing much happened in Goa.

So we took a sleeper bus to Bombay. We had the choice between a semi-sleeper which had reclining seats or a sleeper which had actual beds, so we foolishly went with the sleeper. Ryley and I, gentlemen not small in stature, especially by this point, shared a twin sized bed. There was basically no way we weren't spooning. We couldn't see the road because it was dark but it felt like the highway to Bombay was a logging road.

The bus stopped at 6am for what I thought was a pee break. We had stopped on a bridge, which seemed like a weird place for a pee break but I peed in the small stream that was probably the next village's drinking water without much regret. The driver suddenly motioned us to the back of the bus and I assumed that this was due to some safety concern (this is always the wrong assumption in India). I get to the back of the bus to find the driver seemingly leaning on the bus. Weird, I thought, until I realized that he wanted me to "lean" on the bus too, and that instead of leaning, we were actually going to push-start this giant fucking bus. I didn't know you could do this. But we did.

Bombay was pretty cool, lots of good food and an impressive array of stenches. Honestly nothing smells like India smells. Sometimes delicious and sometimes eye-wateringly horrendous. We saw where Gandhi lived, checked out some markets, admired the colonial exploits of our British ancestors, and got hassled by countless vendors and Hindu "holy men". One of them "blessed" me (for a very low price that he insisted was the same as what an Indian would pay), and confidently predicted that I would marry an English girl inexplicably named "Shishtel". Bollywood is also huge in Bombay obviously and we got recruited to be extras in a Bollywood movie, but went to the "beach" the night before filming and sampled some local delicacies and then came down with a local case of food poisoning. So our Bollywood stardom was postponed indefinitely.

Driving in India is nuts. The roads in most third-world countries are presumptively dangerous places to be involved with, but India is another level. We got in a cab to the airport, and I tried to find the seatbelt until the driver assured me that "I no need". Great. As he was honking the horn like our brakes were cut, I wanted to ask him why those silly white lines were painted on the road at regular intervals, as all the cars just seemed to weave and bump into each other like sperm driving through a uterus. Same went for those annoying red lights on posts we kept passing. There was even a four-way stop on a 6-lane highway for some reason. But we made it.

To find that our flight was delayed. Which wasn't so bad and we still made our connecting flight from Delhi to Leh in Kashmir. We got on the plane in Delhi and I promptly fell asleep. I woke up 2 hours later, still on the tarmac. What the fuck?! We were there for 3 hours until they admitted that the plane didn't actually work. So we all had to get off, go get new tickets, and re-board another plane at a different gate. And then we sat down. And waited. For about an hour, until the Indians started to get riled up and they admitted to us that they couldn't find the pilot. How hard is it Air India? Before you make passengers board your 1970's-era cramped tube of an airplane, you need to have two things at the very least: 1) A plane that is able to fly and 2) Someone who knows how to fly the plane. The flight was pretty cool when it happened though, flying over parts of the himalayas into Leh.

It was cold in Kashmir and most things were closed for the winter. At least a couple of locals asked us why the hell we came to Kashmir in November. But it was still very pretty and sunny the whole time and we didn't have to talk with too many tourists. It was around -10 degrees at night and we were without insulation or heating so we slept fully-clothed with about 6 blankets and 2 hot-water bottles. Showering required a bucket of hot water brought up by our stout, friendly landlady. Showering became a low priority.

After hanging out Leh for a day, we headed off to Pagong Lake, one of the biggest lakes in Asia. The travel guy we got advice from told us that it was a 5-hour* bus trip and we could stay at this village* called Pangmik. We got on the "semi-deluxe"* public bus in the morning and quickly found that that "semi" means "in no way" in Kashmiri. There really is no point in complaining about bus trips in Asia but nonetheless: The bus was fucking freezing, which was not helped by all of the locals puking out of open windows due to the "road" we were on. At one point Ryley peed out the back door of the bus and told me that it took him 5 minutes to find his penis, which made me laugh until we made a pit stop and I couldn't find mine. Regardless of the discomfort, it was an amazing drive for the scenery and seemed pretty safe since we were surrounded by soldiers in automatic weapons heading off to the border.

* Lies.

We got to Pangmik which consisted of what looked like two families and a collection of huts and outhouses. The lake was really nice but since it took until 3:30pm to get there, we had about an hour of sunlight. The sun in Kashmir get blocked by mountains really early and then it's too cold to live so it's basically bedtime.
We got some stone-skipping in though, which was incredibly successful up there for some reason, but left me panting, reminding me of the altitude and my current fitness level (I didn't need to be reminded of the latter). Our homestay family was quite nice but it wasn't too much of a social visit. The bus ride back to Leh was better. The next day we went off to the Nubra Valley, going over the highest motorable pass in the world, no big deal. Huge valley with giant mountains and statues of Buddha and sand dunes and closed restaurants and army trucks. It was good times and there was no public bus so the ride in our private jeep was a little more comfortable.

There were very few Westerners up in Kashmir but we met this couple from Texas in a restaurant before we left for Delhi. I was fairly surprised that people in Texas knew what a Kashmir was, but we found out that they were filmmakers, which made a little bit more sense. Then we found out that they were filmmakers doing a film on Christianity in the region and everything made a whole lot more sense. They told us that their Christian friend up there was getting bullied by the local buddhists, which isn't so nice, until we found out that their friend was trying to "evangelize" the locals, which left us siding more with the bully buddhists. They also complained a lot about how they couldn't find good Western food in Kashmir. Really? In this small town of non-westerners in the very North of India, you couldn't get great western food? How surprising. How are the mutton dumplings and chapati in Texas anyways?

Then we went back to Delhi for a few days, Ryley went to see the Taj Mahal and I saw some stuff in Delhi I didn't see last time I was there. Lots of gross-looking shitbag travelers with shaved heads save for one strand of dirty dread-locked hair out the back, dressed in all black. And I mean a lot of them. We were going to meet up with my friend's family for dinner so decided to get cleaned up a bit at the barber. Simple shave and a haircut turned into a weird golden facial which sounds worse than it is but probably costs about the same. There was an Israeli guy just finishing up when we arrived and he tipped the barber 4 rupees. That is 10 cents. The barber was not amused. Ryley informed him that 4 rupees was around 10 cents, and he tried to inform Ryley that 10 cents was a lot of money to this guy, despite that guy's protestations to the contrary. Anyways, after we left everyone in the barbershop vigorously agreed that "Israel is very very bad country".

One thing we really discovered about India is how good their food is. Another more important thing we discovered is how they cannot fucking form a line to save themselves. There would be a line of 20 at the airport for check-in, and some guy would just wander up to the front and say something and stick his passport out. This happened frequently. What are you thinking? What is he saying to the check-in girl? "Oh hi, I think its my turn next. My name is Sanjay." Oh Sanjay! It's Sanjay Saturday! Of course you don't have to wait in that long and blatant line behind you. Come right over. Holy shit it was shameless.

So now we are leaving Singapore for the Philippines and then Thailand for a good old fashioned Asian christmas.

Welcome to East Timor, bring your wallet.

We flew from Singapore to Bali to Kupang in West Timor where we took a 13 hour bus ride into East Timor. As 13 hour bus rides go, it wasn't bad. First thing you notice about East Timor is that ET is fucking hot. Second thing you notice is that there is almost as many UN personnel as there are locals. Aussie peacekeepers, Portuguese National Military police, international police troops, and tons of NGO do-gooders ride around the streets of Dili in UN vehicles. Independence has not been a "smooth" transition for ET. Third thing is that everything here costs the same as in Canada. I go to poor countries because I'm a thrifty Scot, and ET tricked us.

We checked into the only "backpackers hostel" in ET and were told that we would be paying $14 for a "dorm room", and given keys for the room that suspiciously had "Staff Room" written on them. It was not a staff room we soon realized, but a windowless closet in which a bunkbed had been placed. Imagine sleeping in that room.

The staff was really nice but they didn't have a great system for late-night entries. They locked the gates at 10:30pm every night (standard procedure in ET), and so we asked how we would get in if we came back after. "Oh just hop the fence," was the reply. We looked at the fence. It was 9 feet high and topped with razor-wire. "You mean the fence that is specifically designed to prevent people from "hopping" it?" we asked. "No," he explained, "there is a section in the middle where its just barbed wire. Kinda trampled down." And so there was. Lucky we are so athletically gifted it wasn't a problem for us. Honestly though, the richest man (or woman, but definitely man) in ET has got to be a barbed wire wholesaler.

ET has some great diving and we booked some trips for the following week. We then ran into Nina. Nina was a ex-marine from Angola who was blinged out and told us that she had trained some of the Aussie troops in ET how to shoot weapons, that everyone knew her in ET, and that she had a gun in her purse. We trusted her completely. She promised to get us into a party at the Portuguese military compound the next night.

That night, we met a furious Nina at the bar who was threatening some local chick at the next table for vague reasons. She had to get talked down by some Aussie guy she knew (this guy later informed us we should lose Nina immediately, and that she would try to steal from us). But she did get us into the compound party, and then left us alone, so it worked out pretty well.

The party was kinda surreal, we walked past armoured personnel carriers and military satellites to find a dance floor with a DJ and bar and everything. There were Caporeira fighter/dancers, fire dancers, guys with guns, diplomats, and lots of douchey, beefy portuguese soldiers with v-neck shirts. We did not fit in with flip-flops and beards. We are beefy in a different way. But we got pretty drunk there and it was fun noticing the skeptical disdainful looks we kept getting.

The next day we rented a 4WD to go up into the mountains. After a night at a "guesthouse", we tried to find ET's highest mountain. In no way did we get lost and give up half-way. The summit we "climbed" was undoubtedly the highest mountain in ET. It was pretty foggy anyways so shut up. Up here (or anywhere outside of Dili) the locals are basically subsistence farmers and we were gawked at pretty good. Very friendly people though. On the way back, we saw some local guy walking and offered him a lift to the

nearest town. We got there, and then he suggested we take him all the way to Dili. We shrugged and agreed, and he sat in the back seat and learned all about Wu-Tang and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. He rewarded us by puking all over the side of our truck near the end of our journey. He refused to get out and puke, we don't think he trusted us not to drive off. So he just passively dribbled vomit down the side of our truck. It was gross.

The week was spent diving around Dili which we unfortunately had to do with a group of middle-aged Aussie guys. From this experience, I learned that Darwin must be like Fort McMurray but without all the culture, and that our Aussie divemaster seemed to think that our local driver spoke Spanish. We were also exposed to multitudes of small, naked East Timorese boys who made us uncomfortable by swimming at the dive sites and thrusting their penises at us. Some decided to climb on Ryley when he exited the water which was quite amusing for Bouche. In general the diving was pretty sweet with great coral and visibility.

Our exit out of ET was not graceful. 10 days into the trip, I lost my camera. I have no idea how. I took a picture, got into a cab, got out of the cab, walked 10 feet, realized I didn't have it, and ran back to the cab. Completely gone. So it takes between 5-25 seconds for a camera to get scooped on the streets of Dili. Then we found out that we needed an Indonesian visa for a land border crossing, and that we didn't have time to get one, so we had to buy a plane ticket to Bali. 10 days in one of the poorest countries in the world cost me over $2000.

We got to Bali and tried to find a place for the night. Fan rooms were 1500, A/C rooms were 2000. This was our negotiation at Hotel Rita:

Ryley: Can we see a fan room?
Indo Lady: All fan rooms gone. But A/C room with only fan OK, 1500.
Bouche: OK, let's see.
(Go into the room, turn on the fan, it barely rotates)
IL: OK, so you take?
B: How about better price on A/C room?
IL: 2000.
R: That is the original price.
IL: Aieee! OK, wait. (She goes talks to her boss). OK, A/C room 1700.
B: That's better, I'm sure -
IL: But no A/C.
R: What?
IL: Room 5 is A/C room, but for 1700, no use A/C.
B: Not really an A/C room then is it?
IL: Yes room 5 is A/C room.
B: The defining feature of an A/C room is the -
R: Forget it, let's just go.
IL: OK, OK (Runs talks to boss). OK. You can have A/C room for 1700 with A/C.
B: Well, OK then.
IL: But has to be room 3.
R: Alright, let's go to room 3.
(We go to room 3, looks the same as room 5).
IL: OK 1700 but you pay now and no complaints.
R: What?
IL: If you complain about room, no get money back.
B: (Looking around suspiciously) Why would we complain about this room? What happens to people in this room?
IL: (Shrugs)
R: If I were to complain about this room, what would I complain about?
IL: Aieee! Nothing, A/C goes "tick tick", little dripping.
B: Alright, doesn't sound too bad.

Later that night when I tried to have a shower, I discovered that there was no running water.

So then I went off to the Komodo Islands for some diving. I met up with a nerdy US investment banker and a tragically boring British woman who ended every sentence with an insane upwards inflection, like she was about to sneeze. We found a 4 day liveaboard on a boat owned by Frou-Frou, a German with shoulder length blond hair and pink-tinted sunglasses. It was a sick boat, and the diving was incredible. Sea turtles, sharks, rays, other huge ass fish on basically every dive.

The company was a little lacking though. For example, Frou-Frou was talking about when he lived in Africa, and the British woman mentioned she would like to go there. Frou-Frou said he never wanted to go back. When asked why not, he replied, "I don't like niggers." He then added, in a sing-sing voice, "Niggers, niggers, niggers". I agreed that he should not go back to Africa. He did have a cute baby on board, who was very entertaining. Especially when he got a mustache from drinking a mango lassi and Frou-Frou exclaimed, "Look, we can make baby Hitler!" and shortened the mustache. Then he was able to make the baby give a Nazi-like salute. Oh how we laughed, uncomfortably. Great dive trip overall though.

Dear East Timor - Advice for a Fledgling Country:

1. Do not try to kill your children.

This one seems obvious but maybe no one has told you. I know kids can be annoying, seemingly useless, and expensive to feed, but they are important for ensuring

that there is an East Timor after you die. Seatbelts are obviously a few years off, but we can start by not transporting your children to school on the roofs of large trucks. Yes, they can probably "hold on", but I doubt they can do this after colliding with another, large truck. I really wish I hadn't lost my camera so I could show a pic of this scene.

Also, this is a recipe for disaster:

What happens is that the children play in the garbage water, and then the water gets backed up (because of all the garbage), and when the rains come, it bursts open, washing all of the children (good thing) into the ocean (bad thing). Especially since most children can't swim and have, as one dive instructor told us, "heavy bones". This leads me to my next piece of advice.

2. Learn to swim.

You are an island nation. You are literally surrounded by danger at all times if you don't do this.

3. Choose your Western friends wisely.

Having the Portuguese and the Aussies as your major influences is not a good start. This can only lead you to becoming douchey convicts with shaved chests, v-necks and retarded accents.

4. Get off the US currency and adjust your prices.

Curry chicken and rice, with a mango lassi should not cost me $10 USD. Especially when the chicken consists mostly of parts I have never seen before on a chicken. In fact, very few things should cost $10USD in your country. Your immigration office is a portable.

And cigarettes should not cost one-tenth of said chicken curry. This pricing scheme will ensure a delightfully skinny population, but will also cause rampant lung cancer. And I doubt anyone is "beating" lung cancer in your country for awhile.

5. Get your priorities straight.

The two cleanest, most expensive buildings in your country should not be churches.

They should be hospitals (I did not see a hospital the whole time by the way). Also, you should not be known for having the second largest Jesus statue in the world until you have at least one factory.

6. You cannot have ferries leave "early".

We tried to go to this island off the coast on this once-a-week ferry. Our ticket said 9am. We got there at 845am, surprised to see the ferry already sailing towards the island. The ferry "official" shrugged at our incredulous shouting and exasperated watch pointing and told us that, "ferry sometimes leave early. leave when full." It wasn't full however, because we weren't on it. So the next goddamned week, we got there even earlier. People on the dock recognized us and urged us to start running. We did. We jumped on board as it was taking off. They had to open some special sealed door for us to get inside the ferry. Everyone was amused by our stupidity. I looked at my watch. It was 8:32am.

Aside from all the cynicism, East Timor is a really beautiful place with really friendly people. The UN is leaving in 2012 and no one knows what is going to happen, so try to go before then if you want to see it.

Two Canadian migrants land in Sri Lanka.

I’ve been in Singapore for a couple months now but don’t have too much to say about it. It’s hot, clean, a bit bland, and populated by obedient nerds. School is fairly easy, and they say that English is their official language but I don’t believe them. They are quite nice here, and the food is great, but there’s not too much to say about it. It’s in South East Asia, but isn’t real SE Asia, because squatting young women aren’t cooing “massage?” at you when you walk down the street.

We felt like experiencing some authentic SE Asian culture and so of course went to Kuta beach in Bali. There was some culture here, but it was mostly crawling on the skin of disgusting Aussies with rat-tails so we stuck to surfing and drinking. I surf like a wounded seal would surf.

I quickly realized that there is being in shape, and there is being in Bali beach shape, and that I am in neither. Bali was packed with gorgeous people meaning I didn’t exactly fit in, looking like a pasty white/tomato red member of the Taliban. We went to a bar that had $5 all-you-can-drink Heineken draft for 3 hours, and then 30 min of free vodka red bulls. Needless to say this resulted in us being dragged off dance stages by bouncers. Bali was fun but we weren’t there for long.

Then we went over to Sri Lanka, which blends the stench of death of India with the garbage strewn beaches of Cambodia. It has some nice scenery, very friendly locals, great food and plenty of automatic weapons. The small bookshop we went to had two security guards.

Starting off in Negombo, we took the train down to Galle, which has a nice colonial fort on the water but only needed a day or two. We made our way along the south coast for some surfing (Ryley) and “surfing” (me).

We soon noticed that there were pictures of babies in every tuk-tuk we rode in. Weird pictures. So we asked a local about it and he said that Sri Lankans really liked babies. It’s not a little bit creepy. Look at this gem:


That ain't right. After some beach time in the South we went on a safari at Yala Nature Reserve where we saw buffaloes, wild boar, elephants and glimpses of two leopards. Our guide also pointed out some “jungle fowl” which looked suspiciously like chickens. There were also some jungle stray dogs and I got a lot of jungle mosquito bites. Animal junk is funny.

We were also with some horrible Israeli girls who bitched and complained the whole time. Here is how any conversation with an Israeli traveler goes:

Anyone: [Anything]

Israeli: [Complaint, insult, or something a dickhead would say].

After the safari we went over to Arugam Bay on the East coast for some more surfing and Israelis. Nice surf town with lots of good food and beach. Then we went up into the mountains which was nice because it was actually cool and had great views. We saw some tea plantations and stayed in an old colonial hotel that had a fireplace in the room. We also bought awesome hats and spoke like how we thought British colonialists spoke.

With our matching hats and impressive beards, 4 Sri Lankans asked us if we were twins, leaving me a little affronted and Ryley secretly flattered. We got drunk one night with this German man who kept insisting that Cuba was 3,000km wide, and then almost got into a brawl with a van full of Sri Lanka broadcasting employees, who kept yelling at us that Sri Lanka was “their country!!!”. I don’t even know where to start on that one. The rainy season started when we were up in the mountains though so the last few days of the trip were a little slow.

For the last night, we were in Colombo and stayed at a 145 year-old hotel that cost a bunch of money and had room service and a high tea buffet and HBO and butlers in bowties demanding that they carry our bags. We did not see the city at all. We justify this because Colombo is not a very nice city and shut the hell up we don’t have to explain ourselves to you.

I now feel that I can assess some strengths and weaknesses of Sri Lankans:

Strength - Preparing food.
Most meals we had were great, with many dishes of curries and vegetables and fresh fish or whatever. Also had a really good dish called khottu and BBQ fish on the coast.



Weakness - Getting that food from the kitchen to your face.
Some of the most laughably awful service I have seen. And I worked at Swiss Chalet. One place in Tissa was incredible. If you asked for a spoon, there was no chance you were getting it. But if you said you didn’t want one, your chances improved significantly.

We were the only people in the place and after receiving our newspaper napkins, and glasses that we specifically said we did not want, we ordered breakfast. Right after this we heard some chuckling from the kitchen that we took as a bad sign. 20 minutes in, we caught the attention of the manager. We told him that our taxi was coming at 10:15am. He looked confused. I said that we were warning him, because we did order the cut-up pieces of fruit, and we were worried about missing our taxi. He glanced at the clock on the wall and ran off to the kitchen in a panic. The time was 9:40am. The fruit made it just in time.

Strength: Pricing.
They don’t try to gouge you here. Their first price is generally just a tiny bit over what is reasonable. This may be a weakness actually, as they have not heard of my famous inability to haggle. I almost concluded deals by walking by them and whispering, “I would have paid anything for that."

Weakness: Anything else to do with money or currency.
Try to pay for something that is $7.80 with a bill that is worth $10. Fat chance foreign weirdo. No one has change. For anything. I don’t know what happens to it.

Changing currency is also an experience. We went into a bank, past the guard with the tsarist-era shotgun, and tried to change $300 to rupees, with 3 one-hundred dollar bills. We were diverted to a fat guy, who I assumed must have been a specialist in English, currency exchange, or simple arithmetic. Nope, none of the above. He counted the 3 bills we gave him 3 times, each time taking 2 minutes, and thus 2 minutes too long. Meanwhile he was taking notes on his calculations. Next, after consulting with the woman next to him, who was inputting figures on a computer I swear was fake, he started filling out a form, writing half of my name on it before giving up and thrusting it at me.

Next, he visited the man in a nearby office, and after arguing with him for about 10 minutes, they both came back to me and the office guy asked if I was sure that I had given him $300. I thought carefully about it and confirmed, the $300 being in his hand. We then filled out forms in triplicate, which were held by another employee. We took the forms from the form-holder across the bank to another teller, who informed me that I was missing, incredibly, despite my three forms, the one form that he needed to complete my transaction. More counting and confusion, then I got the money. 40 minutes and 6 employees. In an empty bank.

Strengths: Killing terrorists.
They recently ended their internal conflict with the Tamil Tigers by wiping them out after 30 years of fighting. One Sri Lankan told me it was a world record (ending terrorism). So that’s good.

Weakness: Killing bugs.
Jesus I got eaten alive. Bed bugs, mosquitoes, flies, smaller flies who wanted to land in my eyeballs all day, I was itchier than a stray dog in Thailand. I would have applied Deet with a hose if it was available and dealt with the cancer later.


Yeah so that was September basically. I recommend Sri Lanka, and soon, because now that the war is over and the tsunami damage is being dealt with, there will be a bunch of tourism there soon and it will become more like Thailand. Without the sex tourism, because Sri Lankans aren't the prettiest bunch of people. Especially if you have a foot fetish.

Here is something that is guaranteed to make you smile:




Just an ordinary bus, with a….