Cairns

We've moved to Cairns...

We have a new house

We have a new car

We have new jobs

Find out about it on www.marcusandjenincairns.blogspot.com

Home Sweet Home... and Work.

Well I've been back home now for almost 2 weeks...

There are a few things I need to mention regarding my flight back home.

So I got chatting to this Aussie couple in Delhi. They were two really okka people who had just spent a whole week in India, on a tour doing the Golden Triangle thing. My God, did they have an experience! It was great talking to them about travelling in India and its trials and tribulations... Don was very much looking forward to getting home I think. He was grumpy as all hell. Bloody hilarious.

The flight to KL was uneventful. Slept like a log.

From KL to Melbs was another matter... you know how on long flights you get the little individual computer screen on the seat in front of you so you can watch whatever you want to and play shitty Atari computer games? Well two columns of seats weren't working, and guess where I was sitting?

So as I settled in to what was going to be a painfully boring flight, I got out my book... I was going to get through a lot of it by the end of the flight!

So anyways I'm reading, and finish the book after 2 hours... 5 hours to go and I'm bored shitless. I'm like a little kid that's been made to sit in the corner cos he'd been naughty, and all the other kids are busy inflicting pain on frogs or some other poor innocent living creature. Then I notice this guy in my row two seats to my right is fast asleep, his video screen on and working. So as I step over him after a pitstop, he stirs, and I gain the courage to ask him if he wanted to swap seats with me because my screen wasn't working and his was, and he was asleep and wasn't using his screen. He looked at me blankly and replied in a thick Russian accent, "I'm sleeping" and promptly shut his eyes and pretended to snore. Fucking prick.

I got talking to the Indian youth next to me who was in fact on his first ever plane trip, and heading to Australia to live! He was very nervous and excited about the whole thing. Luckily his cousin lived in Melbourne so he had someone to stay with and help him out. He very kindly let me swap seats with him because he wanted to sleep. "Fantastic," I thought, so I started watching some movie starring Jack Black about a monk who wants to be a wrestler.

So after about an hour into the movie the Captain announces: "Unfortunately there are some computer screens not working, and to get them to work we have to reset all screens. We apologise for the inconvenience." And then our screens go black. For almost an hour.

When they finally came back on (and after starting a new book) I managed to watch a further 15 minutes of the movie before we started our descent and we had to give our headphones back.

ARGHHH!

Such is life.

Anyways got to Melbs and got through customs as easy as pie (she just checked my immaculately clean shoes) and then stayed the night at Formule 1 Motel next to the airport (no point going into Melbs getting in at 10pm and having to leave at 6am, was there?)... slept like a log, then got up at 7am and checked in to my flight to Launceston.

Dan picked me up (cheers Dan!) and I got home by about 11am, and had to start work at 1pm. Ah, what a wicked transition from the most amazing trip and experience that I'd ever had (and probably will have for a long time) to the mundane crud of the LGH Accident & Emergency, where most of the patients are neither Accident nor Emergency. Oh well.

m.

Delhi Airport

Well I'm on my way home now :(

And Jen the stupid b#$%& is paddling the Kaligandaki whilst I'm stuck here in Delhi Airport. Ah well.

I decided to take a flight back from Pokhara to Kathmandu and it was a wise decision in hindsight... I first thought it was going to be cloudy and crappy views as it was at ground level that morning, but as the plane lifted skyward it punched through the low-lying cloud and rewarded all the passengers with amazing blue sky and crystal clear views of the Himlayas. Sweet.

Heard that I may need a transit visa in Delhi airport so thought I'd better sus it out at the Embassy... which wasted almost my whole day in Kathmandu! But I got it in the end. People were still telling me I wouldn't need it though, but I was glad I had it either way.

So here I am in Delhi Airport... and managed to find an internet cafe to my surprise.

Ruthless inefficiency yet again rules this stunning establishment... though I must admit it doesn't seem as bad as last time we were here.

I did need a transit visa in the end... It's funny, there was a sign when we got off the plane saying "transit lounge" and I headed over there but the security guard turned me and every other transit passenger back and asked us all to proceed past the sign saying "transit passengers do not enter here" but they insisted. So I basically had to collect my baggage and then check out of the airport and even had to cross the road so I could get into the international check-in place. So I could've actually just headed into Delhi, not that I would've wanted to... probably rather put my balls in a blender actually.

Almost had to pay Indian Rs >1000 (>$30 Aussie dollars) per kg for 5kg of excess weight (too many souvenirs!) but took out 4kg of CDs and DVDs and squeezed them in my hand luggage...

Hope to see people when I get back to Tas...

Thanks Dan for offering to give me a lift! You're a life saver.

Woefully missing Jen already,

Yongers out.

Seti River

We've just come back from 2 days paddling on the Seti River... it was fantastic and a nice relaxing thing to do with my remaining time here in Nepal.

Jen paddled superbly as could be exected, and I thought I was doing pretty bloody well till the last wave of the last rapid of the whole river where I went over and couldn't roll back up again (my bloody paddle had turned in my hand and stupid me couldn't work out why I was slicing through the water) so I swam... :( But that's ok I got to the end and made myself do 5 rolls and they were all good. Phew.

I was as sick as a dog in the 2 days prior to this trip - high fevers, sweats, and rigors, but with no apparent infectious focus. It was a pain in the ass cos it meant I couldn't go mountain biking with Jen or do anything remotely interesting at all really, apart from lie in bed and shiver.

Hopefully going for a mountain bike tomorrow (it's Jen's birthday!!) and will be flying back to Kathmandu the next day (6th Oct) and then out of Ktm on the 7th Oct. Back home and back to work :(

Marcus.

PS Can anyone give me a lift from Launceston Airport on Monday the 9th? I fly in at 10:25am and I have to be at work by 1pm (I know, I know).

Pikers

I didn't want to die, so I piked.

I also had my first bout of travellers' diarrhoea yesterday and am feeling very shithouse today... excuses, excuses.

So the plan is to ride up to Sarangkot either this arvo if I feel better (I'm going to hire a crappy bike and try and trash it as much as I can) or tomorrow morning to look at cool views of the Annapurnas.

There is an easier paddling trip leaving on 3rd Oct so we're going to jump on that which'll be good for me.

It is HOT, HOT, HOT here at the mo. Humid as hell, with some rain in the evenings. Need to go for a swim I think, or have a cold shower.

Love yas all,

Mr Piker.

Pokhara

So being the yuppies that we are, we decided to avoid a nauseating 7-8 hour bus trip and hired a private van to take us to Pokhara in 4 and a half hours instead.

So in we piled: The two of us, Lumon, and Chrissy who is the German lass we met on our cycle trip who was also riding with panniers, and 3 bikes. Chrissy is apparently an awesome snowboarder and didn't go in the Olympics cos her dad wanted her to go to school instead... I think she's won a few World Cup events though. Anyways she is an awesome chick.

We made it to Pokhara and Lumon and Chrissy have decided to ride the Annapurna Circuit (Lumon's going to use Antho's bike - and lucky for me I won't have to lug it back to Australia, which means I can buy up on souvenirs) leaving tomorrow, and Jen and I have signed up on a 3 day kayaking trip down the Kali Gandaki river which is going to be way too hard for me. Fortunately there will be a raft I can sit in when the going gets tough. I envisage I'll be spending most of the trip on this raft. That's ok with me; I just don't want to die.

So we'll be off for the next 3 days... wish me luck as I'm not sure I'll come back alive!

m.

the descent

this bit was very cool- the descent from nyalam to the border. meant to be the biggest descent in the world. the rocks on the road are from a landslide the day before. (we were happy we didn't ride)

view from base camp

















the little village of tents at basecamp
























riding out of base camp...this road was basically 75 km of corrugations, loose rocks and sand with a 5100m pass. marcus had issues with flat tyres

Even more Everest.

Karsten, our Danish brother, showing off.

We had an instant connection when we mentioned we were from Tassie... you know, Princess Mary and all that (we both didn't really realise at the start but Karsten was on to it straight away).






Marcus and Karsten establish even greater Tasmanian-Danish ties.

Apparently the Chinese measured Mt Everest and came up with 8844.43m, which is different to the 8848m measured in the 1950s, and also the 8850m measured by National Geographic at the top using a GPS... the debate continues. The Chinese are obviously right because they're the only ones who have erected a monument to their measurement.











Everest.













Hey Karsten, fancy a skinny-dip?



















"Ok."

More Everest Photos... by Jen.

Marcus riding on the way to EBC. The road looks good in this photo, but actually it is full of ass-pounding corrugations. Good for stopping mild diarrhoea.

Everest.

Everest.

Sung Man

SungMan...from Korea...carrying about 4 tonne of gear....we lost him one day in tibet and hoped he was ok...but he turned up behind my shoulder as we were riding into kathmandu.

He has a great website with awesome photos; check it out: www.thejourney.co.kr







Marcus at the local shower provided entertainment for the village children.

















The Pang La pass...the pass you have to go over to get into everest base camp. It was a bitch of a climb (5200m I think) and we left before sunrise at 6:30am, arriving with an ok view at 10:30am.










Some sort of deer thing...there was a herd of these on the road on the way up to base camp

Are We Idiots?

Apparently so...



Red bull is good... fuel for going UP. Dunno who the hell the model is. Looks like a freak.

















And who's this idiot with the beard? Weirdo.





















Hmmmmm... Foamy.
















After a bit of a face-massage...


















Much better, don't you think?

Descent into Nepal

Here's a photo of the descent from Nyalam to Dram near the Nepal-Tibet border. It was after 2 days of solid rain and the river in the gorge was swollen and there were waterfalls everywhere.

We were very glad we took that rest day because it fined up a treat for the descent and we had blue skys and mountain views. We literally had to look everywhere at once... the mountains, the gorge, the waterfalls, and also the rough road in front of us so we wouldn't go ass-over-tit.

After Everest...

This was a horrendously windy day going up the first of the doube passes. We camped between them. Holy f$%# it was windy. It was meant to be a pretty easy climb of around 400m in height, but unfortunately, it wasn't.

Jen decided to keep up with a group of jeep-supported riders with no pannier bags: you go girl! They were thoroughly impressed.







This is at our campsite. Here's our friend Chandra cleaning Jen's bike. He was a guide for another guy we met called Karsten, who was also doing a jeep-assisted ride and apparently having much more fun, but we begged to differ. Chandra was very generous with his time and bike maintenance skills. We bought him several beers in Kathmandu!






The next day we started our assault on the second of the double passes, the Yarle Shung La. As you can see, it was cloudy. Jen decided to take on the No-Panniers crew and won. Awesome.

The descent was fun until it started raining, and raining, and raining. The next day it kept on raining, and raining, and raining, and we took that enforced rest day that we mentioned earlier in the blog. There were supposed to be great views of Everest and Cho Oyu from the top of this pass. Not on this day.

Here's another one...

Yep.

Obligatory Mt Everest Pics

Here's we in front of Mt E. The first one was when we first got there. It cleared up a treat and it was cold. Brrrrrrr.

This is Mt E.



















I think this was the next day. It was warm. See that glacial lake? We swam in it. Brrrrrrr.

How heavy did you ask?

This heavy.

The Eagles have Landed

So we've made it! We got into Kathmandu yesterday at around lunchtime, and boy, is life sweeeet.

Will upload some photos in the next few days... there are some good ones I hope. We've had an absolutely corker of a time and it's unbelievable that we're at the end of the road.

Geez the food is good here!

More later,
m