Today was a wee bit ridiculous.
On the one hand, the list of animals one can find on the street is ever expanding. Add chickens, horses, ponies, camels in either couples or herds, never any other combination. Also pigs and goats, who wear coats. Dr. Seuss would have a field day.
We've also taken the public restroom revelation to a whole new level, let's just say it's not a story for polite company.
Also I talked about the ridiculous cacophony of car horns that is constantly blasting in the background. This was not correct. I'm convinced that each vehicle has a tiny little trumpet player tied to their grill blasting away till Miles comes home. The bigger your auto the more skilled your musician, motorcycles and rickshaws get your traditional squeal but the buses get little melodies and the trucks blast out arpeggios.
Horns are for everything. If you're passing someone honk your horn. If you're turning honk your horn. If you're approaching a group of school children doing cartwheels on the freeway, honk your horn. If driving on the wrong side of the road, honk your horn. If you're eating a banana, don't honk your horn that will just confuse people.
Most of the temples have marble floors. They're VERY slippery.
I am now in deep in the heart of the Madhubani region, after another solid 10 hours of bus time, which is now officially the biggest shenanigan I have ever experienced in a bus. Besides the breakneck speeds and weaving through opposing traffic, every turn we make leads to a smaller road. Eventually the bus is wider than the entire strip of pavement. That's when they start stopping to ask for directions.
There's a whole team of drivers on our bus, and they have a very nicely furnished cockpit at the front of our bus with a bed and an extra chair and a shrine.
On the way we wandered through a couple mud sculpture workshops, two excavations of sacred Buddhist sites as well as a Sri Lankan guest house for pilgrims (not the thanksgiving kind) for a rest stop and bathroom break. Think hole in the ground.
Don't take pictures of people with guns.
In the cities, we were generally ignored by everyone either because of our language or our skin or our ridiculously tacky fashion sense. Not so out here in the country. This is as close to being a celebrity as I will get. Every time we stop we immediately collect a tail of anywhere from 4-30 people following us and staring at us.
Probably wondering why we would try and squeeze a bus through a herd of camels.
Well the life of a celebrity is exhausting so until next time!
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
Showing posts with label Curry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Curry. Show all posts
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
What's that smell?
Why it smells like India! and Naan.
It took about 31 hours to get here (a new personal record) and I'm exhausted so I'll just start rambling now.
So. I don't have Malaria. Yet. I'm workin' on it.
There are dogs everywhere on the streets. Also Cows. Also Monkeys. Also Snakes. I charmed one.
First stop was New Delhi, which is also old Delhi... I don't quite understand either.
The term "public restroom" has a whole new meaning for me. Think a wall with a drain.
The soundtrack of life in India is car horns, constantly blasting in the background of everything.
Schoolchildren love to be in your photos. All of them. I feel like I need a spray for the kids instead of the mosquitoes.
I got to wear a snake. Two snakes actually. The first was your garden variety "give this to a tourist" kind of snake, which I would like to think I handled quite well while it explored my arm. The second one was the kind of snakes they make movies about and staffs for disney villains. It lunged at me. I jumped. Snake #1 was not a fan of the jumping. It was a vicious circle to say the least.
They're not police cars here, they're "Mobile Police Posts" and they have curtains in the windows.
I definitely did NOT oversleep this morning almost getting left behind.
I'm going to fall asleep on my keyboard now so I will talk to you all soon, hopefully with select arts-y photographs.
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
It took about 31 hours to get here (a new personal record) and I'm exhausted so I'll just start rambling now.
So. I don't have Malaria. Yet. I'm workin' on it.
There are dogs everywhere on the streets. Also Cows. Also Monkeys. Also Snakes. I charmed one.
First stop was New Delhi, which is also old Delhi... I don't quite understand either.
The term "public restroom" has a whole new meaning for me. Think a wall with a drain.
The soundtrack of life in India is car horns, constantly blasting in the background of everything.
Schoolchildren love to be in your photos. All of them. I feel like I need a spray for the kids instead of the mosquitoes.
I got to wear a snake. Two snakes actually. The first was your garden variety "give this to a tourist" kind of snake, which I would like to think I handled quite well while it explored my arm. The second one was the kind of snakes they make movies about and staffs for disney villains. It lunged at me. I jumped. Snake #1 was not a fan of the jumping. It was a vicious circle to say the least.
They're not police cars here, they're "Mobile Police Posts" and they have curtains in the windows.
I definitely did NOT oversleep this morning almost getting left behind.
I'm going to fall asleep on my keyboard now so I will talk to you all soon, hopefully with select arts-y photographs.
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
Monday, February 9, 2009
Volcanoes, I Climb Them
Ok. So at the moment, I am hanging out in Rotorua, where they charge you by the minute for the internet.
Ridiculous.
After leaving Wellington, we moved on to Turangi (tUr-an-ee) where I was promptly assaulted by every sand flea within spitting distance. My feet look like some sort of cross between hamburger meet and a leper.
In between biting and being bitten by the fleas, we managed to wander our way over to the Tangariro Crossing, a very spectacular hike over one of the most active volcanic fields of modern times. This includes Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.
Mt. Doom stinks.
Seriously, it smells like rotten eggs and sweaty tourists.
But the rest of the volcanoes were amazing. After wandering past river after river of (cold) lava, we hit the flank of the ticking time bomb everyone kept calling a mountain. A few stops to inhale dangerous volcanic fumes and we were hiking across the floor of a crater about a 1/4 mile across.
Awesome is a pansy word compared to these peaks and craters.
After scrambling up a few more volcanic rims we came to a series of lakes, which were that beautiful turquoise blue that you always see when you're exhausted from climbing volcanoes. Sadly for us, they were quite literally lakes of sulfuric acid (dilute, but hey you don't see me jumping head first into the acid lake). Warning signs abounded, so naturally a couple of girls from another hiking party (Americans of course) thought it would be fun to have a swim. While their skin was slowly eaten away (they got a rash) we stumbled upon what would be the first of many fumerals, all of which smelled like burnt sin.
Natural deposition of a pure mineral, one of the rarest occurrences in the world, brings about the absolute strongest urge to vomit I've had in recent memory. Vaporized sulfur spouting out of these vents was crystallizing around the edges of the fissures in the ground. Apparently, moving directly from a gas to a solid is smelly business because there is no escaping the brimstone (rotten eggs). We continued on and found tons of interesting (says the geology prof.) rocks, one of which he had only heard of but never seen in person but expected us to identify it just the same (Olivine bearing Rhyolite).
If you have ever seen the movie Cool Hand Luke (the correct answer here is "Yes The Wayward Hoover, of course I've seen Cool Hand Luke") then you have a pretty solid of where we stayed in Turangi.
There were rows of small 8x8 cabins with spring-net cots, and the proper dosage of sand fleas. But it was so far my favorite stop. We spent the majority of our time sitting on our stoops playing ukelele, singing and swatting bugs.
Rotorua is world famous for its hotsprings, which are heated by volcaninc vents, which vent sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs. Seriously, the whole town smells like rotten eggs, and its a tourism hotspot.
I will never understand.
While in Rotorua we are responsible for our own food. For the most part we've teamed up with our roommates and been able to wrangle some pretty decent meals out of the Pack 'n' Save (Kiwi for Costco).
The tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world is approximately 25 ft high, and I rafted it.
I have not gone Zorbing yet.
I know that I have had too much art history because today we were at a museum and I noticed that the guide was wrong.
I don't know what you know about masking tape and newsprint but if you are looking to create a realistic portraiture in the round, pick some other medium. I spent the better part of 12 hours last night trying to convince the sports section to look like my ears and nose.
At the end of it all, I thought it looked pretty decent. My art professor disagreed.
Things I still want to do:
Luge
Jump out of an airplane
Bungee Jump
Shave a sheep
If someone ever asks you what Kiwi peacocks do for fun, the answer is bite tourists.
I have lost all track and sense of time. I can't tell you what day or hour it is, all I know is that in 3 days we leave Rotorua.
I think that is awesome.
The ketchup here is weird. It's sweeter, almost like bbq sauce except not tasty. The hunt is on for some good old fashioned Heinz 57.
Have I mentioned how much the Kiwis love curry?
It is wicked hot here in Rotorua. I sleep on top of the covers underneath the window with as few articles of clothing as my roommates will allow.
The actor who played Jango Fett also apparently used to work making videos (very cheesy videos) for New Zealand museums.
I already miss my friends from Lewis and Clark.
I am running out of coins so this post has to stop here.
Tune in next time for something else I haven't told you about yet!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
Ridiculous.
After leaving Wellington, we moved on to Turangi (tUr-an-ee) where I was promptly assaulted by every sand flea within spitting distance. My feet look like some sort of cross between hamburger meet and a leper.
In between biting and being bitten by the fleas, we managed to wander our way over to the Tangariro Crossing, a very spectacular hike over one of the most active volcanic fields of modern times. This includes Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.
Mt. Doom stinks.
Seriously, it smells like rotten eggs and sweaty tourists.
But the rest of the volcanoes were amazing. After wandering past river after river of (cold) lava, we hit the flank of the ticking time bomb everyone kept calling a mountain. A few stops to inhale dangerous volcanic fumes and we were hiking across the floor of a crater about a 1/4 mile across.
Awesome is a pansy word compared to these peaks and craters.
After scrambling up a few more volcanic rims we came to a series of lakes, which were that beautiful turquoise blue that you always see when you're exhausted from climbing volcanoes. Sadly for us, they were quite literally lakes of sulfuric acid (dilute, but hey you don't see me jumping head first into the acid lake). Warning signs abounded, so naturally a couple of girls from another hiking party (Americans of course) thought it would be fun to have a swim. While their skin was slowly eaten away (they got a rash) we stumbled upon what would be the first of many fumerals, all of which smelled like burnt sin.
Natural deposition of a pure mineral, one of the rarest occurrences in the world, brings about the absolute strongest urge to vomit I've had in recent memory. Vaporized sulfur spouting out of these vents was crystallizing around the edges of the fissures in the ground. Apparently, moving directly from a gas to a solid is smelly business because there is no escaping the brimstone (rotten eggs). We continued on and found tons of interesting (says the geology prof.) rocks, one of which he had only heard of but never seen in person but expected us to identify it just the same (Olivine bearing Rhyolite).
If you have ever seen the movie Cool Hand Luke (the correct answer here is "Yes The Wayward Hoover, of course I've seen Cool Hand Luke") then you have a pretty solid of where we stayed in Turangi.
There were rows of small 8x8 cabins with spring-net cots, and the proper dosage of sand fleas. But it was so far my favorite stop. We spent the majority of our time sitting on our stoops playing ukelele, singing and swatting bugs.
Rotorua is world famous for its hotsprings, which are heated by volcaninc vents, which vent sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs. Seriously, the whole town smells like rotten eggs, and its a tourism hotspot.
I will never understand.
While in Rotorua we are responsible for our own food. For the most part we've teamed up with our roommates and been able to wrangle some pretty decent meals out of the Pack 'n' Save (Kiwi for Costco).
The tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world is approximately 25 ft high, and I rafted it.
I have not gone Zorbing yet.
I know that I have had too much art history because today we were at a museum and I noticed that the guide was wrong.
I don't know what you know about masking tape and newsprint but if you are looking to create a realistic portraiture in the round, pick some other medium. I spent the better part of 12 hours last night trying to convince the sports section to look like my ears and nose.
At the end of it all, I thought it looked pretty decent. My art professor disagreed.
Things I still want to do:
Luge
Jump out of an airplane
Bungee Jump
Shave a sheep
If someone ever asks you what Kiwi peacocks do for fun, the answer is bite tourists.
I have lost all track and sense of time. I can't tell you what day or hour it is, all I know is that in 3 days we leave Rotorua.
I think that is awesome.
The ketchup here is weird. It's sweeter, almost like bbq sauce except not tasty. The hunt is on for some good old fashioned Heinz 57.
Have I mentioned how much the Kiwis love curry?
It is wicked hot here in Rotorua. I sleep on top of the covers underneath the window with as few articles of clothing as my roommates will allow.
The actor who played Jango Fett also apparently used to work making videos (very cheesy videos) for New Zealand museums.
I already miss my friends from Lewis and Clark.
I am running out of coins so this post has to stop here.
Tune in next time for something else I haven't told you about yet!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Bees, Trees and Kiwis
So.
New Zealand.
Its pretty fantastic. True story.
Things are well under way here and, Geology homework aside, everything is great! The weather, more or less, refuses to dip below 70 and when it's hot the wind keeps things cool.
About that wind. It never stops. Ever. The windows in our rooms are designed to only open part way which is great for all sorts of reasons but nothing gets you out of bed like a good gust of wind slamming it shut come 3 in the AM. Going down the harbor you see people riding bikes at 45 degree angles leaning into the wind (this gets absolutely hilarious between gusts).
I've been spending more and more time in libraries lately: city libraries, university libraries, research libraries, quiet libraries, loud libraries, libraries that serve drinks. The on-campus library at University of Victoria is currently my favorite for one reason alone; they have so many books that they simply started lining them up on the floor. At first I just thought it was messy, but when I saw bookends on either side I knew that this library and I were going to be great friends. Every row, between shelves on the floor there are little lines of books when they run out of room on a shelf, labeled and organized. It just goes to show what I've been telling my parents all along:
The floor is the biggest shelf in the house...err..library.
Directly up the hill from our dorm building is the Wellington Botanic Gardens, go ahead, Google it. You know you want to. It is absolutely gorgeous on 6 or 7 different levels. The upper parts of the garden are all natural foliage just left to grow with oodles of noodling paths running through it. In a week of going at least once a day I haven't taken the same route twice, which is wonderful. Anyways at the top of the garden is a tree, a magical tree.
Imagine, if you will, wandering along a quiet path with some friends when you happen upon a tree. As you walk past this tree, you notice it has been manicured and trimmed to form a perfect cylinder and then just before you turn away it does something really weird.
It says, "Hello."
If that doesn't make you re-read the labels on your medication I don't know what will. Turns out that this tree has grown together at the top to form a very sturdy web of branches that you can walk across, sit on and view the whole city from. It really is pretty magnificent. Of course, there are a few holes in the web, most of which I promptly found (and fell through). It has turned into the premier place to meet people. So far we've encountered just about every variety of south pacific culture there is and scared even more varieties of tourists.
Speaking of tourists (I am not one). (Really). We've become something of a tourist attraction ourselves. Be it a game of good old fashion American football or just throwing a baseball around, we manage to gather an audience. My favorite is playing catch under a near by cable car and watching everyone scrambling in the windows to pull out their cameras. Kiwis love baseball.
They love cricket too. Cricket is something that I don't understand. At all. I spend a good 2 hours trying to watch a game and all I got out of it was that there is a very specific way to wipe the ball off on your pants. I will admit that it is probably the best dressed sport out there; all collared shirts and khaki pants and trendy hats and whatnot.
I actually have nothing to say about bees in this post, it just rhymed with kiwi and tree.
I do have something to say about birds. Today I saw a bird going after a grasshopper and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to root for. Comments? Suggestions? Theories on the social paradigm represented in the struggle for food?
Speaking of food.
Curry. So much curry you wonder what the plural for curry is. Wellington (which is where I am) is one of the stops where the group is fortunate enough to have some sort of dining facility to prepare meals. However, this means we do not get to control the menu which apparently means that we are to eat our bodyweight in curry. All varieties of curry: lamb curry, rice with curry sauce, vegetables with sauce and more lamb curry. Our chef is Welsh.
I don't get it either.
I miss Mexican food. A lot.
A kiwi introduced me to an interesting new dip for your potato chips: cheese & bacon. Weird, right? The taste isn't all that interesting one way or the other but the texture reminds me of old jello.
I cannot for the life of me get over how many things are free here. There are free concerts every night in the Garden, and they're really good and they're packed every night. All of the museums are free, the cable car service is dirt cheap and so are the taxis. Four bucks American can get you anywhere in the city in a taxi. Even the auto insurance is free (my parents would love it). There was a free reggae festival serving free food; free delicious food, mind you. They had watermelons cut in half and filled with assorted fruit, like a fruit salad in a bowl you could eat.
Pictures are taking me longer than I thought. This has nothing to do with my being unable to locate my connector cord for my camera. Nothing at all.
Well I think this is a sufficiently aimless and long winded post for now so stay tuned for more kiwi adventures! Coming next time: Kiwi slang!!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
P.S.
I am missing the Superbowl and this makes me sad.
Edit ::
This is a really long post, should I make them shorter? Should I post more? Should I just please, for the love of all that is good, stop rambling?
New Zealand.
Its pretty fantastic. True story.
Things are well under way here and, Geology homework aside, everything is great! The weather, more or less, refuses to dip below 70 and when it's hot the wind keeps things cool.
About that wind. It never stops. Ever. The windows in our rooms are designed to only open part way which is great for all sorts of reasons but nothing gets you out of bed like a good gust of wind slamming it shut come 3 in the AM. Going down the harbor you see people riding bikes at 45 degree angles leaning into the wind (this gets absolutely hilarious between gusts).
I've been spending more and more time in libraries lately: city libraries, university libraries, research libraries, quiet libraries, loud libraries, libraries that serve drinks. The on-campus library at University of Victoria is currently my favorite for one reason alone; they have so many books that they simply started lining them up on the floor. At first I just thought it was messy, but when I saw bookends on either side I knew that this library and I were going to be great friends. Every row, between shelves on the floor there are little lines of books when they run out of room on a shelf, labeled and organized. It just goes to show what I've been telling my parents all along:
The floor is the biggest shelf in the house...err..library.
Directly up the hill from our dorm building is the Wellington Botanic Gardens, go ahead, Google it. You know you want to. It is absolutely gorgeous on 6 or 7 different levels. The upper parts of the garden are all natural foliage just left to grow with oodles of noodling paths running through it. In a week of going at least once a day I haven't taken the same route twice, which is wonderful. Anyways at the top of the garden is a tree, a magical tree.
Imagine, if you will, wandering along a quiet path with some friends when you happen upon a tree. As you walk past this tree, you notice it has been manicured and trimmed to form a perfect cylinder and then just before you turn away it does something really weird.
It says, "Hello."
If that doesn't make you re-read the labels on your medication I don't know what will. Turns out that this tree has grown together at the top to form a very sturdy web of branches that you can walk across, sit on and view the whole city from. It really is pretty magnificent. Of course, there are a few holes in the web, most of which I promptly found (and fell through). It has turned into the premier place to meet people. So far we've encountered just about every variety of south pacific culture there is and scared even more varieties of tourists.
Speaking of tourists (I am not one). (Really). We've become something of a tourist attraction ourselves. Be it a game of good old fashion American football or just throwing a baseball around, we manage to gather an audience. My favorite is playing catch under a near by cable car and watching everyone scrambling in the windows to pull out their cameras. Kiwis love baseball.
They love cricket too. Cricket is something that I don't understand. At all. I spend a good 2 hours trying to watch a game and all I got out of it was that there is a very specific way to wipe the ball off on your pants. I will admit that it is probably the best dressed sport out there; all collared shirts and khaki pants and trendy hats and whatnot.
I actually have nothing to say about bees in this post, it just rhymed with kiwi and tree.
I do have something to say about birds. Today I saw a bird going after a grasshopper and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to root for. Comments? Suggestions? Theories on the social paradigm represented in the struggle for food?
Speaking of food.
Curry. So much curry you wonder what the plural for curry is. Wellington (which is where I am) is one of the stops where the group is fortunate enough to have some sort of dining facility to prepare meals. However, this means we do not get to control the menu which apparently means that we are to eat our bodyweight in curry. All varieties of curry: lamb curry, rice with curry sauce, vegetables with sauce and more lamb curry. Our chef is Welsh.
I don't get it either.
I miss Mexican food. A lot.
A kiwi introduced me to an interesting new dip for your potato chips: cheese & bacon. Weird, right? The taste isn't all that interesting one way or the other but the texture reminds me of old jello.
I cannot for the life of me get over how many things are free here. There are free concerts every night in the Garden, and they're really good and they're packed every night. All of the museums are free, the cable car service is dirt cheap and so are the taxis. Four bucks American can get you anywhere in the city in a taxi. Even the auto insurance is free (my parents would love it). There was a free reggae festival serving free food; free delicious food, mind you. They had watermelons cut in half and filled with assorted fruit, like a fruit salad in a bowl you could eat.
Pictures are taking me longer than I thought. This has nothing to do with my being unable to locate my connector cord for my camera. Nothing at all.
Well I think this is a sufficiently aimless and long winded post for now so stay tuned for more kiwi adventures! Coming next time: Kiwi slang!!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
P.S.
I am missing the Superbowl and this makes me sad.
Edit ::
This is a really long post, should I make them shorter? Should I post more? Should I just please, for the love of all that is good, stop rambling?
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