Back in the Saddle

Despite all the medical excitement at home, I'm on the road again.  My initial flight plan took me from Shanghai to Buenos Aires through LAX.  So I'm reconnecting with my trip by canceling the Shanghai to LAX leg and flying from Seattle to LAX.  So fear not: the blog shall continue.

PS: GO HAWKS!

Nanjing, Interrupted

Upon arriving in Nanjing, we were met by a few of my uncle's relatives.  They too had rented a van and volunteered copious amounts of their time and energy to show us around the city.  Our first mission was simple: find our hotel.  Actually accomplishing that mission, however, was anything but simple.  Another hotel down the street had the same name, and even after asking for directions several times, ours was very difficult to track down (in no small part because there was neither a sign nor a lobby -- checkin took place in a room on the fourteenth floor).  Still, we found the place eventually and the rooms were very nice.

We met two more of my mom's cousins for dinner; these cousins are the two sons of my grandpa's immediately younger brother.  After dinner, we took a quick walk around what used to be JingLing University, where my grandparents attended school (it's now one of the Nanjing University campuses), and enjoyed a delicious mango dessert.

Unfortunately, what had begun as a small problem blossomed into a big issue during dinner that night.  For a couple of days, beginning in Chongqing, my mom had seen a small black spot in her field of vision and had some difficulty seeing, explaining that it was like she was "looking through a bubble."  During dinner, the black spot had expanded to fill almost her full range of vision, leaving only a slight light halo.  (Finding it easier to see with that eye closed, she appeared to be winking at everyone we passed.)  We hoped it was a cyst that would go away on its own, but my dad (over email) worried that it may be a detached retina.

We spent the next morning at the gorgeous and newly renovated Nanjing Museum, where one of my uncle's relatives works.  (Check out our van's primo parking spot in the picture on the left.)  They have a very interesting collection of artifacts from before Nanjing was part of China.  Another highlight (for me) was their recreation of how Nanjing looked during the Republican period, when my grandparents were living there.

Leveraging our connections, we ate in one of the museum's special banquet rooms for employees, and the meal was phenomenal.  In the afternoon, we visited the tomb of the founder of the Ming dynasty.  I particularly liked the path leading toward the tomb: it was lined with stone statues of various animals (see below).  There were four statues of each animal: one pair standing and one pair sitting.  

Having been convinced by other members of her family to visit a doctor, that afternoon my mom skipped the tomb and instead went with some of my uncle's relatives to get her eye checked out.  The doctor diagnosed her with a torn retina, and recommended immediate surgery.  Not wanting to have the operation in China, we began making arrangements to get her back to Seattle.

She initially categorically refused my company on the flight home, but accepted an escort on the bullet train from Nanjing to Shanghai.  Accordingly, after making a brief appearance at the big family banquet planned for that night, we packed up our stuff and headed to the train station.  (My uncle's relative -- the one who worked at the museum -- provided invaluable help, looking up the train schedules and even arranging for one of his friends to drive us to the train station and help us buy our tickets.)  Throughout the train ride, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of putting her on the plane, unable to see, despite her assurances that she would ask for wheelchair service.  After we arrived at our Shanghai airport hotel, and without asking for permission, I booked my own ticket home on her flight.  We flew back to Seattle the following morning.

So, for the past week, instead of seeing more of Nanjing, visiting Shanghai, and going on a $49 "shopping" tour between the two cities, I've been enjoying the creature comforts of home: watching football, sleeping in, and catching up with friends.  Meanwhile, Mom had a doctor's appointment the day we arrived in Seattle.  The US doctor seemed significantly less alarmed about the situation than the Chinese doctor, which is good, but could only schedule the surgery a week later, which is less good.  The surgery took place yesterday and seems to have gone well -- she can already see *something* in the affected eye, which is a marked improvement from before the surgery.  We won't really have an idea how much of her vision she'll be likely to regain for a couple of weeks.  Please keep your fingers crossed.

Chongqing

After bidding adieu to Monju in the Shanghai airport, I caught a flight to Chongqing, where I was picked up at the airport by my mother and her cousin-in-law.  (Being described as a "little girl" by the woman standing in front of my mom: highlight/lowlight?)  Thus began the family travel leg of my trip.  In addition to my mom, our group included all three sets of maternal aunts and uncles and one cousin -- all of whom had arrived in Chongqing from the United States the day before.  Although we would visit several tourist attractions in Chongqing, tourism was not our primary purpose.  Our visit had other aims: food and family.  More specifically, spicy food and my mom's paternal aunt (who's 95, mobile, and mentally sharp) and her five children (my mom's cousins), who all live in China, most in Chongqing.  The generosity of our hosts -- both in terms of of time and money -- seemed boundless.  Not only did they insist on treating us to several meals, they also rented a large van and took an abundance of time out of their schedules to show us around the area.  

Very brief historical and familial background: Chongqing was the capital of China during World War II (see capital building on the left).  During the war, the government and many families (including mine) moved there to get further away from the Japanese invasion.  After the war, my immediate family (specifically, my grandparents and two oldest aunts) returned briefly to Nanjing (where they were from), but moved to Taiwan (where my mom and her younger brother were born) before the Communist Revolution.  The branch of family we visited, headed by my grandpa's youngest sister, stayed in mainland China, initially moving back to Nanjing but later returning to Chongqing for work.  

Recently, Chongqing has been underoing extremely rapid development -- my mom visited around 13 years ago and could barely recognize it.  A large city (the population of the municipality is almost 29 million), it is one of only four cities (the others being Tianjin, Beijing, and Shanghai) to report directly to the federal government rather than through a province.

On my first day, after a delicious and elaborate lunch, we visited "old town" Chongqing and then drove to a scenic overlook of the city at night (see right).  The weather was somewhat Seattle-esque, making it difficult to see the city clearly, but creating a pretty cool misty look.  For dinner, we ate special Chongqing spicy mountain chicken.  (Aside: Many of the food names don't seem to translate -- or at least no one in my family knows how to translate the specifics into English.  "Special Chongqing spicy mountain chicken" is one example.  Another is the plethora of "special Chongqing/Nanjing vegetables.")  Exhausted after a long day of travel and family photo sessions, I fell asleep pretty early.

Our major destination the following day was a scenic site a few hours outside the city: the Three Natural Bridges.  The tour was in Chinese, however, severely limiting my comprehension.  I enjoyed our visit nonetheless; it's a gorgeous place and it felt good to get outside and walk after so many large meals.  

I also very much enjoyed our visit to the Baodingshan rock carvings the following day.  At this site, Buddhist scenes and figures (mostly Buddhist, that is, there is also some Confucian and Taoist art) were carved into rock caves during the 12th and 13th centuries.  Again, my Chinese was far too inadequate to understand our tour, but several scenes ("hell corner" in particular) required little explanation.  Upon returning to the city, we spent some time visiting an upscale shopping area.  I'm not much of a shopper (understatement), but I did really enjoy seeing that the so-called "People's Liberation Monument" memorializing the Communist Revolution was sponsored by Rolex.

That night, we enjoyed another Chongqing staple: spicy hotpot.  For those interested in adventurous food, the restaurant's specialty was duck intestine, so it became my specialty as well.  I also put away a substantial quantity of cow stomach.  When in Rome and all that.  (Plus I liked it.)  Indeed, throughout our visit, the more I ate (especially of the more unusual food), the more our hosts lauded me for being well-behaved.  Fine by me; under that definition, at least, I can behave well all day every day.

The morning before our flight out, we had one more full family gathering at our hotel: my great-aunt wanted to check and make sure our accommodations had been adequate.  After promising to visit again when she turns 100, we said our goodbyes and headed for the airport.

Siem Reap

Subtitled: Bike Tours Are Somewhat Less Fun with a Bruised Tailbone

Siem Reap (literally, "Defeat of Thailand") is a town that seems designed to cater to the millions of tourists who arrive each year to visit the temples of Angkor.  And it's quite a nice one.  Being members of the catered-to population, we had a very pleasant stay.  The only downsides I experienced were not specific to Siem Reap, but general tourist trap issues: the omnipresent feeling of being ripped off, whether warranted or not; a discomfort with the strict division of people into two noticeably separate tiers (the locals, who are serving, and the tourists, who are being served); and a lingering sense that it's not a "real" place, whatever that means.  

We spent our first full day on a bicycle tour that began by viewing the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the largest of the hundreds of temples in the Angkor complex.  Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see much of a sunrise, but getting an early start was still beneficial: the temperature was lower and there were fewer people.  The temple itself (see above and left) is magnificent, impressing on both a large scale (the enormous structure) and a small one (the attention to detail manifested in the ubiquitous carvings).

Only after we'd spent quite a bit of time exploring Angkor Wat did we begin the "bicycle" portion of the "bicycle tour."  I usually really like bicycle tours: its an environmentally-friendly, exercise-heavy method of sightseeing that strikes a good balance between seeing more places than you can on a walking tour and having a more personal experience than a bus tour.  Regular readers may recall, however, that I landed heavily on my rear when I fell coming down Kilimanjaro.  Despite the length of time that had passed, it was still uncomfortable to sit down quickly or to sit in certain positions, which made riding a bicycle somewhat awkward -- especially because we were mostly riding on dirt trails packed with tree roots, potholes, and other unavoidable obstacles that made the ride bumpy.  Sitting on the very back of the seat helped for a bit, but eventually caused its own pain problems (I'll spare you the details).  Further, the pain had secondary effects: it's difficult to concentrate on steering under those circumstances.  

Discomfort aside, the tour was fantastic.  After we left Angkor Wat, we visited the Bayon (see right), a Buddhist temple known for its many "face towers," carved to show four enigmatically smiling faces looking in each direction.  Strangely, one empty enclave within the inner temple contained a "no entry" sign, but the other empty enclaves contained no such signs.  We asked our tour guide why: apparently, there used to be a statue of Buddha in that particular enclave, but there had been an incident of some sort and the statue was gone.  We speculated that it had probably been stolen, but further research revealed it had actually been broken by a Dutch woman visiting from New Zealand (where she lived).  Apparently, while visiting the temple, she heard the voice of a goddess telling her that the Buddha statue "did not belong" in the temple and took it upon herself to remedy the situation.  Woah.

After the Bayon, we cycled over to the "Tomb Raider" temple, Ta Prohm (see left), which was probably my favorite of the day.  The visible ease with which nature, in the form of tree roots, can wreak havoc on what people spent so much time and arduous effort to create reminded me of Ozymandias -- "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."  Additionally, the place managed to satisfy all the adolescent romantic fantasies about discovering a lost civilization in the jungle that I'd forgotten I'd had.

In short, it was really cool.

Suckers for punishment, we'd also signed up for a bike tour for the following day.  This tour had a different focus, however, bringing us through the gorgeous Cambodian countryside and taking us kayaking around one of the floating villages on the Tonle Sap.  

We first stopped at a Buddhist temple to learn a litttle about life in the monastery; apparently it is quite common for Cambodian boys to spend some time as monks during their early teens.  We then went on a (walking) village tour led by a representative from Husk (http://www.huskcambodia.org/), a nonprofit organization dediccated to improving the lives of the poorest families in a few target rural villages.  Most Cambodian people (a little under 80%) still live in rural areas, so it provided really important insights about how most of the population lives.  As an added bonus, the organization appears to be a really good one that employs many innovative and interesting ideas.  For example, they've helped some families plant "vertical gardens," where recycled PVC pipes are used as planters for herbs and vegetables.  The benefit of doing this instead of more traditional gardening is that, during the rainy season, the pipes can be elevated to a higher shelf when it floods.  I also found their method for building community buildings, such as schools, very interesting: they use discarded plastic bottles stuffed with garbage as insulation.

The undisputed highlight of the tour, however, was an unplanned event.  As we started to approach Tonle Sap, we passed a long procession of trucks, tuktuks, motos, that were all stuffed with people.  One of the trucks was playing music on big external speakers so loudly that there were serious feedback problems.  When we arrived at the waterfront, our tour guide explained its purpose.  I didn't fully understand his explanation, but I think he said it was a procession to celebrate the return of children from the monasteries, in which the community was proceeding to the monastery to give tribute and thanks.  The procession caught up to us at the waterfront and continued celebrating there.  Several women descended from the trucks and began dancing to the music with a couple large puppets -- paper mache heads over long robes that covered up the person standing underneath (see left).  One woman came over and, despite the language barrier, somehow conscripted me into joining them.  I even learned a couple of the distinctive hand movements born from Cambodia's long tradition of apsara dancing.  Despite my complete lack of ability, it was really fun, but there were a couple things I didn't fully understand.  For one, they women seemed fascinated by my upper arms, often squeezing them and talking and laughing with each other.  Perhaps it's because I was inappropriately clad in a sleeveless shirt (oops, but in my defense it was really hot!), or because I was tan, or because my arms were bigger than theirs.  For another, they all seemed to get a huge kick out of leading me to the people-puppets and then flipping up the puppet's robe to reveal the person's legs beneath.  Go figure.  All told, the experience was unique and we felt extremely fortunate to have witnessed it -- even the tour guide was using his phone to record a video.

We left the celebration and boated over to one of the floating villages on Tonle Sap, where we switched to kayaks and paddled our way through a short floating village tour.  The houses are kept afloat using huge bundles of bamboo, which need to be replaced periodically. It strikes me as a fascinating, but difficult, way of life.  I did really love seeing so many kids out and about just being kids; most children we'd seen up to that point had been tasked with selling us various souvenirs.  Here, however, we saw children playing and driving boats (some of the boat drivers looked scarily young).  One little boy (see right) was an absolute ace at steering his bucket, a difficult task if you want to go in a particular direction and not just spin in a circle.

We'd so impressed our tour guide with our bike riding ability on the first day that -- despite the tour group being made up of only the two of us -- he called in extra help for the second day.  So we were joined by a second "trainee" guide on our second trip.  This wound up not being to my benefit; he rode behind us and noticed all of my bicycling incidents.  Only one was of any note: at one point we were making a turn and I eventually realized I wasn't turning sharply enough and would probably hit a tree.  Panicking, I gripped both brakes with all my might.  The brakes were in remarkably good shape: the bike stopped immediately.  

I did not.

I'm not entirely sure how I got off the bike; I know I didn't fly over the handlebars.  But I didn't fall off either.  I just found myself standing next to, but a little in front of, the bike (which did fall).  I imagine I probably managed some sort of jump to the side or similar move.  The trainee guide couldn't stop laughing, though, so I'm sure it was an incredibly graceful dismount.

For our last day, we opted to hire a tuktuk to take us to a few more temples and the land mine museum.  The highlight of our second temple tour was Banteay Srei, also known as the "Lady Temple," primarily because it is extraordinarily well preserved.  It's small, so it lacks some of the grandeur of the three we visited on our first temple tour.  Still, I think I'd prefer something like it -- dainty and intricate -- if a temple is ever built for me (I hope y'all are taking notes).  It feels a bit odd to call the landmine museum a "highlight," but it was by far the most interesting and effective site we visited that day. It's (unsurprisingly) incredibly sad, not least because of the large role that U.S. foreign policy played, both directly and indirectly, in causing the problems on display at the museum.

After a brief dinnertime excursion to pub street and the night market, we tuktuked to the airport and left Cambodia.  A few closing thoughts: Cambodia is a beautiful country full of lovely people, who have been, at worst, brutalized and, at best, criminally underserved (to put it mildly) by their government.  The country has a fascinating if depressing history, and I'm very glad we took the time to go beyond Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields and see a bit more of such an interesting place.

Koh Rong Samloem

After a brief detour to Kampot for some ribs (conclusion: the ones from the market in Phnom Penh were better), our taxi took us to Sihanoukville to catch a boat to Koh Rong Samloem, one of a few Cambodian islands in the Gulf of Thailand, where we were to spend two nights.  I'll preface this post by acknowledging that the purpose of this stop was to relax on the beach, not to participate in any specific activities, and that we'd deliberately picked the relatively undeveloped Samloem over backpacker-favorite Koh Rong, its somewhat more developed neighbor.

Still, to my mind there's a difference between "not much to do" and "NOTHING to do."  We arrived in the afternoon and spent some quality time wading and swimming in the incredibly warm, shallow water.  There aren't really any restaurants, just resorts that serve food, so we walked over to the next resort for dinner.  After dinner, we did some reading in the seaside hammocks outside our bungalow and turned in for an early night.

The next day, we walked pretty much the full length of the beach looking for something to do.  Aside from one sad-looking kayak, our search was unsuccessful.  The absence of activity generally puts me in a dark mood and this time was no exception: I was pretty much grumpypants (to put it mildly).  Monju kept in admirably good spirits despite her crabby companion, but I think we were both relieved when I opted to take a walk through the jungle to the other side of the island for sunset, returning in the dusk with a much sunnier disposition.

There are several signs on the island welcoming visitors to "Paradise."  To which I say: maybe for some people, but not for me.  Give me one activity to undertake or one mission to complete and, after it's over, I'll gladly sit on the beach for the rest of the day.  In the absence of that activity, however, I get pretty restless.  Being in the warm, shallow water is like being in a really big bathtub, and who doesn't like a bath every once in a while?  But even if it's the most beautiful bathtub in the whole world, who wants to spend the whole day hanging out in the bathroom?

Plus our resort hadn't quite finished construction.  Our bungalow itself was *very* nice, but there was no restaurant or lobby -- to order food or drinks, we had to hunt down the manager at the construction site or in the trees behind it.

Takeaways: (1) Koh Rong Samloem will probably be a great place to visit in a couple years when there's a bit more to do.  (2) For your own sake, don't go with Erin E on a beach getaway unless you've verified there are activities beyond sitting, swimming, and reading.

The most exciting portions of our visit came after we left the island.  First, we saw Koh Rong (left), and after seeing it we both agreed we should've gone there instead of Samloem.  Ah, well, you live you learn.  Second, we ran into people from each of our three Phnom Penh tours during transit: a woman from the cooking class was on the boat to Koh Rong, a woman from our street food tour boarded the boat at Koh Rong, and a couple from our trip to the animal sanctuary was  on our flight from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap.  Finally, a torrential downpour began right around the time we were supposed to board our plane.  We didn't have to walk through it, though: they bused us from the terminal to the plane and used several umbrellas to protect us during the short walks to and from the bus.  It was pretty cute (see below).

Kep

Kep is a (seemingly) sleepy seaside town in southern Cambodia.  Despite hearing horror stories about the ~3 hour drive there from Phnom Penh, our taxi ride was sufficiently comfortable that Monju managed to spend most of it asleep.

Our major mission in Kep was to visit the local crab market.  After some initial confusion among the vendors about whether we were just taking pictures or actually purchasing crabs, Monju selected ~1.5 kg of live crabs for our consumption and negotiated the price, with some (though not complete) success at lowering the (unofficial) tourist tax.  We paid an extra dollar to have them cooked on site and feasted on super fresh crab: delicious!  

We'd discussed our plans and interests with the owner of our super cute treehouse hotel so he could make additional activity recommendations.  Having spoken with us for less than five minutes, he quickly understood that our priorities centered on our stomachs and recommended that we visit a local coffee shop known for big chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.  After our crab market lunch, we were ready for dessert, so we meandered over to the coffee shop, passing the massive crab statue and the newly white sand beach (the sand was recently imported from Sihanoukville).

In one of those perfect small-world moments, it turns out the coffee shop owners were from Port Angeles, Washington, so we reminisced about Washington state for a while.  After dessert, we made our way back to the beach to rest and read before dinner.  Our sunset dinner was (you guessed it!) more crab, this time at Srey Pov, one of the small crab shacks behind the market along the water.  The crab in green Kampot pepper sauce we ate there was probably the most delicious dish I ate throughout my time in Cambodia.  We capped off the night with a couple drinks at the sailing club then went back to the hotel and turned in for an early night.

Overall impression: Great place for a short visit. Delicious crab.

Phnom Penh

Subtitled: If Being Pooped on by Animals Is Good Luck, I Should Buy Lottery Tickets

After Kilimanjaro, Monju and I bade farewell to Africa and embarked on a 20+ hour flight to Asia, my next continent, first stop: Cambodia.  Well, actually, the first stop was in Dar es Salaam, the next in Doha, the next in Saigon, and only then to Cambodia  -- but Cambodia was the first destination.  We arrived in Phnom Penh in the late afternoon and spent our first evening settling in by becoming acquainted with Khmer cuisine at Malis (delicious) and with traditional Khmer massage at our hotel (amazing).

Knowing that the Khmer Rouge historical sites would be a necessary portion of our visit, we opted to see them on our first full day in Phnom Penh, to ensure sufficient time to recover emotionally and have a less depressing experience during the rest of our stay.  In town, we visited S-21, the high school-turned-prison in which the Khmer Rouge tortured and often killed individuals accused of being hostile to the regime (although they moved most of the executions to the killing fields after they ran out of space at S-21 to bury the bodies).  The photographs of the prisoners taken during intake are displayed in some of the old classrooms, and the emotional impact of the display -- the faces staring back at you from black and white photographs -- is impossible to put into words.  In other rooms, the instruments of torture are on display alongside photographs showing how the Vietnamese army found each room, including the bodies of prisoners who were hurriedly killed before the place was abandoned.  Although it was a pretty nice day outside and the gardens were quite pretty, the place had an oppressive feeling that was difficult to shake.

Next our tuktuk took us a little ways outside of the city to visit the Choeung Ek Memorial, otherwise known as "The Killing Fields."  Despite the definite article, it is only one of ~300 such locations in the country.  This particular location was primarily used for executing S-21 prisoners and their families en masse, usually by forcing them to kneel over trenches and hitting them on the head with a blunt instrument (as the audioguide explained, bullets were too expensive).  The location, which was a Chinese cemetary before being put to its more sinister use, really is beautiful.  It's easy to stand and admire what appear to be small, gentle, rolling hills until you learn that those hills were formed by mass graves, some excavated, many not.  The site is both effective and affecting; the audioguide is really informative and, at times, eerie (as when it plays what the victims would have heard as they were dying: Khmer revolutionary songs being blared from a loudspeaker along with the whir of a generator).  Additionally, a stupa has been built to honor the victims, and it houses many of the bones that were exhumed from the mass graves.

In need of some emotional uplift after such a day, we looked first to our stomachs by going on a street food tour, which began with a welcome drink on a rooftop bar with great views of the city.  We then visited the markets and tried various fruits, insects, reptiles, as well as more usual proteins (ribs and pork belly: yum!), ending the evening at a local BBQ restaurant.  The experience went a long way toward curing my spiritual malaise.

A change of pace was in order for the next day: we'd booked a "behind the scenes" tour at the Phnom Tamao animal sanctuary and refuge through Wildlife Alliance.  I was a little concerned that it would be anticlimactic after our safari experiences, but I shouldn't have worried: the animals in Asia are different from those in Africa, and we were able to get up close and personal with a few of them.  VERY personal, in my case: we were allowed in with the juvenile monkeys and one of them felt so relaxed with me that he relieved himself on me -- not just once, but twice (the culprit is pictured on my head below).  I tried to take it as a compliment after the first time, but after the second time, I decided I preferred hanging out with Lucky the elephant (pictured on the left).  Lucky's friend Chhouk, another elephant, injured his leg in a trap and has a pretty amazing prosthetic.  (Sad sidenote: the prosthetic was made by a school for making prosthetics, a skill for which there is great demand in Cambodia due to numerous landmine injuries.)  For dinner, we made our own street food tour, revisiting the rib/pork belly place from the night before and trying all of the noodle variants in the market.  Although perhaps a bit gastrointestinally risky, we suffered no ill effects.

Our last day in Phnom Penh began with a cooking class, which Monju had to miss due to a camera emergency.  Her loss: we made deep fried tarot spring rolls and fish amok.  The spring rolls were fresh and good but nothing too special.  At the risk of patting myself on the back, however, the fish amok I made (see picture below) was the best I had on the trip.  Full disclosure compels admitting that its superiority was likely due to the fresh ingredients, not my culinary skills, but I felt pretty accomplished nonetheless.

Having resolved the camera issue, Monju joined me for an afternoon visit to the National Palace.  Unfortunately, we'd both forgotten about the requirement that visitors' knees be covered.  To avoid a trip back to the hotel to change, we purchased $3 plastic drawstring pants.  The pants' sartorial inelegance was outstripped only by their incredible discomfort -- let's just say that on a hot day, nonbreathable plastic pants are not an optimal clothing choice.  The palace itself was good to see, but nothing too special, especially without explanatory plaques -- for example, we visited the Silver Pagoda without realizing that's where we were.  We ended our visit to Phom Penh on a fun note: dinner and drinks with a friend of a friend who works at UNICEF.

A few closing thoughts:

(1) Nobody seems to walk in Phnom Penh and walking in Phnom Penh is terrifying.  I'm sure these two facts are related, but I'm not sure which is cause and which is effect.  I suppose it would've been easy enough to take a motorcycle tuktuk everywhere -- it's generally $1-3 per ride and there were always a plethora of drivers offering to take us ("Tuk tuk? You want tuk tuk?").  But it's still hard to justify doing so when you're only going a 10-minute walk away.  Of course, a justification occurs to you when you're stuck standing in the middle of an intersection with tuktuks, motos, vans, cars, and other various vehicles zooming past you, but by then there's only a 5-minute walk left.  And so on.  Eventually you learn how to take the leap, step confidently into the street, and weave your way through the bustling traffic -- but the learning process is not a particularly pleasant one.

I may be exaggerating a little bit.

(2) Somewhat relatedly, the preferred method for disposing of trash is by leaving it on the ground.  Supposedly it gets collected, but in the meantime there are still piles of trash around, requiring further vigilance from pedestrians.  Add in the plethora of sidewalk eateries and you're generally walking in the street even when you aren't crossing it.

(3) For all that, I genuinely liked the city, and I don't generally like cities.

Kilimanjaro (more details)

I'll freely admit to having some apprehension about climbing Kilimanjaro.  For good or for ill, that apprehension manifested itself primarily through studious avoidance of any information about what it would be like.  Accordingly, other than knowing we were taking the Lemosho route (green in the image above) with the African Walking Company (which Rose had recommended) through Exodus UK, the only information I sought out was what to pack.  My apprehension luckily turned out to be entirely unwarranted: the experience was amazing, the scenery was gorgeous, our guides were phenomenal, I loved our group, and all of my (minimal) injuries were entirely self-inflicted (more on those later).

Days 1-3, or Ramping Up.  We spent our first couple days checking in at the gate and hiking up to acclimatization altitude (roundabout 3600 meters).  Days 1 and 2 were primarily in the "rainforest zone" -- we saw monkeys, flowers, etc.  By the end of Day 2 and into Day 3 we'd entered the "heather and moorland" which again was more beautiful than I expected.  (For those of you following along at home, there are five climate zones on Kilimanjaro, though basically everything after these first few days was alpine desert.)

The walking really wasn't overly strenuous, ranging from 3-7 hours per day.  Our guides made our group take things slowly ("pole pole" in Swahili), and we were the most pole pole of them all, taking our time at 

the back of the group.  Having never really experienced altitude before, Monju was surprised at how much better you feel when you walk. really. slowly, which required fighting every instinct honed through years in NYC.  Between the weather gradually getting colder, having to adjust to sleeping (and going to the bathroom) in tents, acclimatizing to the altitude, and (most of all) her phlegmy cough, Monju was not much of a happy camper (literally!) during this period.  Get this: my singing actually made her feel *better* -- she assures me *not* because it made her want to walk to get away -- which tells you something about her baseline.

Day 4, or Lava Tower, The Most Stupid (Yet Incredible) Decision I've Made So Far This Trip.  The general principle of acclimatization is to "walk high, sleep low."  This principle sounds good in theory, but its correlary is that when you're already sleeping high, you have to walk even higher.  Hence on Day 4, we walked up to the base of lava tower, around 4600 meters high.  We'd had pretty good luck with the weather up to this point: some clouds, but they'd mostly clear out during the night, and it was generally pretty warm by the time we got going in the morning.  But as we approached the top of the tower, it started to snow/sleet/hail -- one of those amorphous blobs of somewhat frozen water.  We therefore ate our boxed lunch huddled under an overhang.

But the 4600 meters was at the *base* of the Lava Tower and the whole point of this exercise is to get to the *top* of things, right?  So when a group of folks expressed interest in climbing to the top of the Lava Tower, I joined up, even through it involved rock scrambling in the sleet.  After about 10 minutes we came to a pretty sizable gap.  I probably should've joined the majority of the group, who decided that making it to the top of Kilimanjaro was significantly more important than making it to the top of the Lava Tower and opted to stay behind.  But by that time I'd already climbed up one side of the gap, given an incredulous look to the guide when he showed me where my other foot was supposed to go, and taken that leap of faith.  Once on the other side, it didn't get much better because you realized that you were then on top of *another* gap in the rocks, so I very quickly crabwalked past that one while I waited for Lukas (the only other person stupid/brave enough to keep going -- and he's really tall so he has the advantage of extremely long legs) to make the crossing.

After that, it was pretty easy getting up to the top, and it was incredible to be up there even though we couldn't see anything.  Coming down was not fun, though, especially because the clouds cleared enough to see just how far it was possible to fall.  In one instance, I lost my footing on a slippery portion and wound up getting pinned to the wall by the guide until I regained my balance.  Let's just say my adrenaline was pumping enough that I was extremely warm even in the sleet, a feeling that was seemingly shared by the guide, as he was the most shaken I'd seen him the entire trip during our descent... By a lot.  Oops.

In the end, everyone made it down the tower safe, sound, and (in my case) kicking myself.  We then booked it down through what was rapidly becoming rain to the campsite.

Days 5-6, or Getting Warmer, by Which I Mean Colder.  Over the next two days, we climbed gradually higher toward base camp.  After the Lava Tower, I barely even noticed kissing the Barafu Wall, though Monju didn't need to climb up in the sleet to also find it somewhat anticlimatic.

Day 7, or SUMMIT DAY: THIS IS NOT A DRILL.  Technically, summit day begins on Day 6, because we woke up at 11 pm to eat some porridge, pack our daypacks.  We hit the trail by a bit after midnight, using headlamps.  It was pretty incredible to see the system the guides had for monitoring us; the head guide was in the lead, setting the pace, and the assistant guides would stand right by the turning point of each switchback, seamlessly moving from one to the other, and check to see how we were doing.  When one member of the group started to fall behind a little, an assistant guide would fill in -- not only to monitor that person, but to keep the group together.  All in all, it was a pretty impressive display of logistics.

I was fine for most of the 6 hour climb to Stella Point.  It was tiring, and I definitely noticed the altitude (no singing from me on summit day), but I was fine.  Only once we were within sight of Stella Point and the sun was starting to come up did I really struggle -- probably about the last 20 minutes or so.  I just lost all of the energy in my body, somehow.  My hands were really cold, so I had to put on my big outer gloves, which made it hard to grip the poles, so I basically had my hands hanging in the pole loops, flinging them forward and then resting on them as we gradually wound our way up.  I would've laughed at myself if I'd had the energy.

Somehow I managed to have a resurgence of energy at Stella Point, however -- in no small part, I think, because I got to take my backpack off.  Hugs all around, and I've never been so glad to drink a hot cup of overly-sweet tea in my life.  After another hour, we were at Uhuru.  There's only a ~200 meter difference between Stella and Uhuru point, but I noticed the altitude much more at Uhuru.  I didn't feel particularly nauseous or lightheaded or anything, I just felt... weird.  And, of course, exhilerated and excited and all those other ex- words.

We probably only stayed up there for about 15-20 minutes, then headed back down.  One member of our group was experiencing some pretty strong altitude sickness, so I lent her my poles and slid down the scree.

Day 8, or It's All Downhill from Here (Literally).  Our last day was about 4-5 hours of walking down, down, down, mostly on a pretty clear, open path.  Obviously, this is where I would hurt myself.  Once I slipped and caught myself on a rock, so I had a 1 centimeter cut on my hand.  Another time I did a more classic fall: somehow my legs flew out from under me, I was airborne for one glorious second, and then I slammed down, butt first, on the wood beam that formed the step.  At the time, I was busy convincing everyone I was fine and not at all embarrassed, but later I noticed that sitting had become a decidedly less pleasant experience than before, and even now -- over a week later -- I occasionally have a wince-worthy moment when I'm adjusting my sitting position.

Once back at the lodge, we convinced a few of the guides to take us out for a night on the town, eating BBQ chicken, drinking beer, and dancing the night away.  It was sad saying goodbye to everyone the next morning; there's nothing like a shared goal (or shared misery) to help people bond.

A few additional items of note: 

(1) To borrow from a favorite Earl family story, Monju was "a real trooper," making it up to the summit despite suffering from the plague (well, at least some form of cough/cold/flu/bronchitis/pneumonia thing), never having experienced altitude before, and not having spent the night in a tent for several years.  Although I don't think she enjoyed it as much as I did (OK, fine, I know full well she didn't -- in fact, I know she was pretty miserable most of the trip because she so informed me), she kept her complaints to a minimum and never interfered with my enjoyment.  Thanks, friend!

(2) My inability to gracefully exit tents was not limited to the model used in Eileen's and my overland trip.  Although these tents were significantly larger and more weatherproof than on the last leg of the trip (I could hear but not feel the wind, for example), I still managed to get my hair stuck in the zipper despite emerging ass-first on several occasions.

(3) In addition to struggling with exiting our tent, after exiting, I had real difficulty finding it again.  This handicap was apparently quite well known among the porters because, after an evening visit to the toilet, they'd often point out to me which one was ours.  This was particularly the case after I accidentally unzipped the wind flap of the wrong tent, doubtless startling the poor girl sleeping in there (sorry, Brit!).

(4) I could get really used to being served coffee in my sleeping bag.

(5) I'd heard a lot of hooplah about appetite suppression being part of altitude sickness.  No such luck for my diet, however.  Actually, none of the 14 of us really experienced that symptom, which suggests either that our cook was particularly gifted or that this route really is amazing for acclimatization.

Kilimanjaro

Both made it to the top (Uhuru) and back safely. 

More later.