Gray looks like a happy camper

We aborted our plans for an all day hike in the Tatras Mountains after reaching the tree line and realizing the swarm of flies had only gotten worse.  It was awful!  And some of them were biting flies.  We pretty much sprinted back down.

Esztergom, Hungary and the Danube from Štúrovo, Slovakia

A few noteworthy tidbits about Slovakia:

• The adorable old town centers, with beautiful old castles and churches, were frequently in the shadow of huge and hideous communist-era concrete block apartment buildings. It was quite a contrast and we saw it in town after town.
• Four out of five restaurants were pizza joints. The Slovakians love them some pizza (and we thought the pizza was pretty bad, to be honest). Who knew?
• To indicate the number “one”, Slovakians use their thumb rather than their index finger. To indicate “two”, they use their thumb plus their index finger. Until we got this down, we frequently accidentally ordered two items instead of one, since seeing our index finger up clearly means two to the average Slovakian. (Gray would no doubt appreciate me mentioning here that he got this down way faster than me.)
• Slovakian is a very difficult language to understand and pronounce to our American ears and tongues, and very few people spoke English. Lots of charades!
• Slovakians eat a lot of ice cream– the most popular spot in every town was the ice cream shop. Walking around, it seemed like a quarter of the people we saw were in the middle of eating an ice cream cone. Ironically, Slovakia also had one of the thinner populations we have seen on our trip. Now, before you rush off to eat some ice cream as part of your new Slovakian diet plan, I will note that a Slovakian-size serving of ice cream is much, much smaller than an American-size serving. And, other than ice cream, Slovakians don’t seem to eat out a lot.
• In my experience, most cultures have a societal expectation that you don’t drink alcoholic beverages before noon. Sometimes there are exclusions to the rule, like our Sunday brunch classics of Mimosas and Bloody Marys. However, back home we don’t generally see people having a beer with breakfast. Not true in Slovakia! Beer and other alcoholic beverages are a stand-by breakfast choice. (For those who are wondering, no, we did not follow the “when in Rome…” advice on this one.)

View from a Hilltop in Kremnica

In other news, we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary in Slovakia, and to get mushy on you for just a sec, I have to say that I’m still so in love with Gray. This past year together has been so special and has really reinforced that we are great together. I feel truly fortunate that we have been able to travel together and experience such amazing things together over the past months.

More photos from Slovakia here.

Aileen checks the maps

We picked Vienna as home base because that’s where Aileen’s super-supportive extended family lives. From there we were able to acquire bikes, paniers (luggage bags), a toolkit, extra inner tubes, maps, and the like for what turned out to be a real song. Aileen, who decided long ago that the only way to bicycle across Europe was wearing a dress, was prepared with three gorgeous dresses purchased back in Turkey. With a borrowed bike from Aileen’s aunt helping tremendously, our total equipment and dress outlay was way less than expected at under $300. And our stay with family had another added bonus: we were able to fuel up big time on delicious home cooking; we’re still burning those calories off weeks later!

On our first morning we headed east from Wöllersdorf and into Burgenland, a major wine and relaxation region of Austria over by the Hungarian border. These first days were across flat, green farmland and through picturesque little towns. Austria is etched in my mind as rows of cute houses trimmed with window boxes of blooming flowers. I’m still baffled by the fact that these flowers seem to be perpetually in bloom whenever I visit the country.

In general our route took us east across Austria and then north to the Danube river which we would follow all the way to Budapest. We saw a touch of Slovakia in its capital, Bratislava, before entering the Hungarian portion of the Danube.

Each day followed a very clear and rewarding pattern: wake up and eat breakfast (smuggle leftovers for a snack), bike through beautiful scenery, eat lunch in a cute, small town, bike some more, find a place to stay in another adorable town, eat dinner, and fall early into a deep, blissful sleep. It’s been great, but it doesn’t make for a compelling play-by-play: “Aileen pedals hard and, seeing a slight incline ahead, downshifts. Her cadence jumps to around 80. Gray follows close behind…” Instead, here are some highlights:

- Riding through parks of wind turbines. These things are huge and oddly beautiful and ugly at the same time. We got to ride right beneath them and stopped to stare straight up in awe for quite some time. We did learn an important lesson: windmills mean wind and, most importantly, you never want to find yourself riding a bicycle when you’re facing the same direction as the windmills.

- Győr: We rolled straight into the main square of this Hungarian town and didn’t leave for hours. The centerpiece was the fountain that was designed to be highly interactive. We watched scores of kids running around half-naked trying to predict just where the next jets of water would emerge. In the evening we watched the Germany / Australia world cup game along with what seemed like the entire town on an immense jumbo-tron set up on the opposite side of the river from our seats amongst the temporary stadium bleachers. Too bad I picked Australia to root for, ugh.

- We happened unexpectedly upon a super-crowded water park in the tiny, tiny town of “I don’t even remember the name” in rural Hungary. Who knows where all these people came from. We couldn’t pass up such an obvious gem and ended up spending the better part of a day lounging on shaded grass, swimming in the wave pool, and relaxing in the mineral pools.

One side of the world's best town square in Vac, Hungary

- One morning we passed by a you-pick strawberry patch. Not having a set agenda is great. We turned right around and picked to our hearts’ content. No joke: these were the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted.

- The recent flooding of the Danube was really interesting. Aileen’s family spent a lot of time warning us about it before we took off and luckily it’s now back down mostly within the banks. It was amazing to see just how high the water had been so recently. At some points we could see in the leaves of the trees that the water had been something like 10 feet over our heads as we rode down a cycle path. It must have been terrible for the folks who live here.

- Vác: This little town a days ride from Budapest has the very best town square in the entire world (you heard it here first!). Complete with delicious restaurants and seemingly endless dessert cafes, the square is both beautiful and functional. It even has a skateboard park. Full disclosure: Aileen thinks this is only the second-best town square in the world because Győr’s won her heart. We say move Győr’s fountain to Vác and end the debate.

After a brilliant trip, we spent several days recuperating in Budapest, exploring the beautiful historic castles of Buda and the restaurants and clubs of lively Pest (the two towns on opposing sides of the river were joined in 1873). And then it was time to head off again! But that will have to wait for the next post.

More photos from this leg of our journey are here.

Hiking the Lycian Coast

We only hiked a short part of the 509 km (316 mile) Lycian Way, a one-day hike from Oludeniz to Kabak Valley. (We know that at some point in our lives, we will have to hike the whole thing from end to end.) The entire challenging trail hugs the Mediterranean Coast, taking you along and over jagged cliffs overlooking the sea as you hike from small town to small town. Many nights you can lodge in and eat at tiny guest houses. You can stop by some of the many beaches along the way to cool off. If you can get past the frustrating paucity of information to be found about the Lycian Way, you will be rewarded. We cannot recommend it highly enough.

Our own journey ended at a little slice of heaven, the Shambala Resort in tiny Kabak Valley. We had planned to stay only one night in order to return to Fethiye for a 3-night boat trip, but we canceled our plans when we realized that we had stumbled upon paradise.  (The screaming deal we negotiated– less than half the advertised price– didn’t hurt either.)

Shambala is a peaceful resort perched on the hillside of Kabak Valley overlooking Kabak Beach. It is very new age, billing itself as an 11:11 project. But somehow, chatting with the staff about their quests to attain a higher plane of consciousness just felt right at this place, even to these two skeptics. It’s hard to describe exactly what it is that makes it so amazing; the Lonely Planet describes it as “more than the sum of its parts”. I would say that it gets all of the details right, from the wooden sculptures to the cozy seating areas to the mind-bogglingly delicious organic food. It is also run with such attentiveness and efficiency that when we commented that the little seating area outside our bungalow could use some shade, within fifteen minutes there were five men putting a thatched roof over it. And the zen of the place and inner peace of the staff can’t help but infuse the atmosphere. A fellow guest quipped, “Peace, love, and dinner at eight,” and we couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, we have no pics from Kabak or our Lycian Way hike since we accidentally left our memory card behind in Fethiye… oops!  Well, that’s just one more reason why we’ll have to go back.  Pics from Fethiye and a day hike we did in the area here.

Fairy chimneys in Cappadocia have been carved by both the elements and people

Fairy chimneys are these huge rock towers that were formed when the surrounding rock eroded. Chunks of harder rock cap the towers, protecting them from the elements. They are gorgeous and strange. The huge rock structures are sometimes golden, sometimes rose colored, and they positively glow when hit by evening or morning light. Persecuted early Christians (Byzantines) carved homes and churches into these structures, and the resulting labyrinths of interconnected rooms is mind-boggling. They also carved pigeon holes into walls so they could collect the droppings, which apparently make for excellent fertilizer. Who knew?

It is a wonderful area to just set off in a random direction and wander. There are a number of marked paths through the various valleys, but they are surprisingly difficult to follow since enterprising Turks are quick to supplement the trail markings with signs pointing you to their fine establishments. No matter, as all of it was beautiful and interesting, and scrambling into and through the twisting passageways of these ancient dwellings was tremendous fun.

Old cave dwellings in Çavuşin, Cappadocia

But what we loved most of all about Cappadocia was something we loved about all of Turkey: the relaxed pace epitomized by lounging on Turkish-rug-covered cushions around a low table playing backgammon. We spent a good number of hours doing just that.

More photos from Cappadocia here.

As we often do upon arriving in a new city, Aileen and I decided to head out on a more or less aimless stroll around town to get our bearings.  With no real idea of where we were headed, we started to head downhill towards the waterfront.  A few minutes later we arrived at a beautiful boardwalk along the edge of the Bosphorus, the narrow waterway that connects the Black and Marmara Seas and cuts Istanbul straight in half.  Right as we crossed the road and stepped foot on the path, a group of four middle-aged men called out to us from the big boulders that lined the edge of the water.  They made wild beckoning motions with their hands.  One held a piece of chicken in one hand and pointed to it emphatically with the other.  This could only be interpreted as, “Get over here!  We have fresh grilled chicken and you know you want some!”  Well, sure we did! 

Grilling on the Bosphorus waterfront in Istanbul

We climbed over the rocks to where they were sitting and joined them as they greeted us with big smiles.  Among the four just one man spoke just a few broken words of English and we, of course, spoke zero Turkish.  Luckily language wasn’t needed as they proceeded to set us up with loaves of fresh bread, tomatoes and cucumbers, and chicken off of their portable grill.  I sampled the local beer, Efes, and Aileen tried out Raki, a clear anise-flavored spirit that turns white when mixed with mineral water.  Tasty stuff!

Despite the language barrier, we were all able to learn quite a lot about our new friends them about us.   It turned out that Aileen is a common Turkish name while Gray, unfortunately, is not.  They welcomed Aileen warmly and pretended to shun me as the only non-Turk. Luckily, they soon renamed me Mustafa and welcomed me back!    After a while, they called over a whole group of teenage Turks who were out enjoying the beautiful evening.  As the sun sunk lower in the sky, everyone took turns playing a guitar and singing various Turkish songs.  We continued like this for many hours and enjoyed a truly magical evening.

Nothing like a little guitar to set the mood

A few more photos from Istanbul, a city that surprised us with it’s modernness, liveliness, diversity, and beauty, can be found here.

overall impression:  What can you say about a place where the number one ranked attraction on TripAdvisor is a mall?  Dubai is a sprawling city of tall skyscrapers, expats from everywhere imaginable, and yes, shopping malls.  It’s a place where you can see women in full burqa holding ostentatious designer handbags as they browse through a lingerie store.  The general cleanliness and orderliness of everything was a soothing contrast to our time in India, but it bordered on sterile.  While we don’t regret checking the place out, we sure weren’t impressed either.  We sum it up as, “a shrine to consumerism.”  Move along folks, nothing to see here.

A day in Dubai: Morning on the Beach

what we did:  We spent three days in Dubai on a stopover between India and Turkey.  In that time, we took in the top attractions: we swam at the beach, gaped at the world’s tallest building, wandered around the two largest malls, went indoor snowboarding, and swam at our hotel pool.

And afternoon on the slopes

exchange rate: 1 USD = 3.6 UAE Dirham

the people:  Incredibly diverse.  Arab women in burqas; white women in tank tops; Indians everywhere; a gregarious Cambodian waiter who grew up in Thailand.

the food: We ate delicious Thai food twice (at our hotel) and Lebanese food once (at a mall).  We have no idea what real Dubai-ites, if there is such a thing, eat.

The street is mine

exchange rate: 1 USD = 44 Indian Rupees.

relative cost: India can be one of the cheapest places in the world to travel. But, if you want to do it in style, there are ways to spend a lot of money on lodging and food. We almost exclusively chose the budget route, paying $5-10/night for budget hotels and found that we could have delicious meals for just a couple of dollars. Train rides of 20+ hours in modern air conditioned cars were about $10.

our love/hate relationship with India: India is a country of extremes. It is impossible to visit India for the first time and not have it make an impression. There was immense beauty everywhere we looked. But it was so exhausting, sapping us of every last bit of energy we had. Indeed, we found ourselves see-sawing between falling head-over-heels in love on the one hand and feeling a deep loathing that made us want to escape as fast as possible on the other. It seems impossible to provide our usual overall impression for India (our guide book says, “bamboozling”). Here are some of our impressions:

Love: The food. Curries so delicious you want to cry. Masala chai so tasty you wonder why anyone drinks anything else. And the mangoes. Oh, sweet lord, the mangoes!

Hate: The food. Inevitable and most likely violent gastrointestinal problems result.

Love: The rich colors. Vermillion turbans, saris of magenta, turquoise, garnet. India is ground zero for color, and everywhere else seems dull and desaturated by comparison. It appears that they invented color here, and in fact, they kinda did.

Hate: The disgusting filth. There is trash absolutely everywhere. You have to stay constantly alert lest you step in feces. The air is so polluted, our eyes and throats burned and wiping our grimy faces with a wet-wipe after a couple of hours outside turned the wipe dark gray.

Love: The smells. Rich spices, freshly baked naan, deep fried street food, incense.

Hate: The smells. Open sewers, rotting garbage, human and animal excrement.

Love: The warmth of the people. They were eager to help us and share tips about their country. Time and time again, we found ourselves in fascinating conversations with about Indian culture.

Hate: The continuous honking. This drove Aileen so nuts that she feared Gray would have to drop her off at the loony bin and continue the trip on his own.

Love: The constant flurry of activity. This is a country that is quickly modernizing, with an economy that is growing at break-neck speed, and it is easy to see why when you look around.

Hate: Lines. It’s near-impossible to make forward progress with the line cutters and elbow-throwing grannies.

Love: The smiling faces and outstretched hands that greeted us wherever we went. Check some out here.

Hate: The heart-wrenching poverty and how the Hindu religion seems to say that people shouldn’t even try to change it.

Love: The cows everywhere.

And so much more!

One of a sea of beautiful faces

we recommend:

- Eating amazing cuisines local to distant parts of India right in the heart of New Delhi

Aileen stumbled upon a New York Times article that tells of eating in the cafeterias of the government workers who represent the different Indian states in Delhi, the national capital. It’s like learning that the U.S. House of Representatives has a different restaurant, for the workers from each of the 50 states, with imported chefs and subsidized prices no less. We only had time to eat at one, the Southern state of Andhra Pradesh, home of Hyderabad. The all-you-can eat thali cost us next to nothing and was some of the best food we tried in all of India.

- Visiting Jaisalmer and taking a camel safari with Ba

We had an amazing time in Jaisalmer. The ancient, but still living, fort and surrounding city were beautiful and fun at the same time. We visited in the low (read: hot) season and it felt like we had the entire town to ourselves. Your mileage may vary if you’re visiting during the peak season. If you’re heading to Jaisalmer, drop us a line and we’ll point you with the best of our ability to Ba’s hotel.

- Eating lunch at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, if your budget allows

If you have $80-100 to drop on a mediocre lunch, I guarantee there is no place better in the world. We had an absolute blast and would highly recommend it.

- Taking the train rather than using a driver, and book trains via cleartrip.com.

Many visitors to India hire drivers to take them on tours across the country. Unless you grew up in India, driving yourself would be simply insane. Lacking a clear better option, we traveled with a driver on our overnight jaunt to Agra. The pollution, constant honking, and idiotic drivers drove us bonkers. We used the train to travel throughout Rajasthan and to Rishikesh, and found it to be way more pleasant (and super-cheap to boot!). Book tickets online with ClearTrip.com and take a bit of time searching around IndiaMike.com to learn the intricacies of getting a reservation (e.g. on one trip we actually purchased four tickets each and then canceled three once we received a confirmation of our preferred spots).

After two weeks of traveling around India, we arrived late at night at the Old Delhi train station.  An Iranian girl we’d befriended on the train said that she wanted to use the prepay taxi stand instead of negotiating with one of the many drivers that were sure to hassle us at the exit of the station.  Liking her thinking, we decided we’d follow suit.  For those that don’t know, prepay taxi systems are set up in areas frequented by tourists in order to avoid taxi drivers taking advantage.  It’s pretty simple: you go to an official window where you tell the attendant your destination and fork over some cash in exchange for a voucher.  You give the voucher to the driver and you’re all set. We’ve had great experiences with this system in Colombia, Chile, and elsewhere.  But nothing in India is ever so simple.

The prepay window turned out to be surprisingly hard to find.  The swarming rickshaw drivers certainly weren’t any help, and everyone else we asked either had never heard of this prepay thing or else pointed us in a seemingly random direction.  After six or eight queries, I struck gold with a gun-toting security guard who indicated a decrepit stone shack across the parking lot.  We strolled up and I got into a line of about ten people, mercifully short.  At this point I’d been in a line or two in India (though, to be honest, I’d never before made it to the front of one) so I knew what would ensue.    As I stood there, several men walked up one after the other and put a hand on the shoulder of someone a bit ahead of me, acting like they knew the person (they didn’t) and joining them in line.  I knew this trick and I pointedly told them they were behind me in line.  Directly confronted, they moved behind me.  Then there were the tiny elderly women.  They walked right up to the front of the line and bent their slight frames with the skill of linebackers to the task of shoving the head of the line out of their way.  Again, I was ready.  Along with others near me, I assumed a classic basketball stance and “boxed them out”.  A couple made it through; most did not.  Finally at the front of the line, I handed over my 80 rupees (~$2) and received my prepaid voucher.  Success!

Or so I thought.

I asked the first rickshaw driver I saw and he said that in order to use the prepaid voucher I would need to catch a rickshaw just outside of the gates of the train station.  We followed his pointed finger and hailed ourselves a driver.  Very politely, this new driver informed us that we would need to seek out a rickshaw driver within the gates of the train station.  Great.  Back inside, we saw another line of rickshaws within an inner parking lot.  They helpfully pointed us back where we started.  We tried several drivers there, each one mumbling some slightly different suggestion of where else we should try.  We were not alone in this: there were eight or ten Indians also in the same pickle and looking pretty exasperated.  We noticed that they were starting congregate around a different gun-toting security guard and were having a bunch of heated exchanges with him in Hindi.

I marched up to the security guard and, in my best “you need to listen to me” voice, demanded that he help tame these rickshaw drivers so that I can get the ride for which I’ve already paid.  He gave me the universal “just one minute” sign and proceeded to pull out his phone and start chatting with someone.  He walked right away from me and the rest of the hoard of angry voucher-holders and went inside the voucher booth.  He then fully ignored everyone.  This was when I finally had my “Ah-ha!” moment.  Why would a rickshaw driver ever want to give anyone a ride for the official fare when he can extort more money out of his clients?  It’s not like other countries where there is that pesky “rule of law” and associated civil or criminal penalties.  Not for this sort of thing anyway.  I finally knew what to do.

I walked back over to the first rickshaw driver we’d talked to who had so kindly offered us the advice to head outside the gate and asked, “I have this voucher, how much more do I need to pay?”  After studying the address on the voucher, told us 40 more rupees (~$1) would cut it as a “nighttime fee”.  The deal struck, Aileen and I hopped into the back of the rickshaw.  The driver revved the engine and then turned around and confirmed, “You will give me an extra 50 rupees with the voucher.”  I had to stop Aileen from protesting – I was not willing to lost this ride over 25 cents.  I agreed, 50 rupees, and we were finally off (well, after he pulled over to buy himself some cigarettes and something to eat, and pulled over again to chat with another rickshaw driver a while, but close enough).

The ride itself was pretty normal for India – lots of pollution, horns blaring, kids begging, running red lights, seemingly random turns – except it turned out that our driver had absolutely no idea where he was going.  He kept stopping and asking random people on the side of the street where to go – again and again.  When we were finally in the right neighborhood, but hadn’t yet found where we needed to go, he pulled over and suggested that we had arrived at our destination and asked us to pay.  Uhm, no thanks!  He then said that he expected us to pay him a “tip” on top of the our original agreement.  Not really having much of an option, we agreed.  After two more stops for directions and some helpful suggestions from the back seat, we finally arrived at our hotel and forked over the voucher for 80 rupees, the “night fee” of 50, and a “tip” of 20.

During the ride Aileen and I had been surprised and amused to see that the rickshaw was actually equipped with a meter.  The final listed fare?  63 rupees.

Rishikesh is one of the sites where Hindu pilgrims come to bathe in the sacred Ganga.  Many Hindus believe that life is incomplete without taking a bath in the Ganga at least once, which is purported to cleanse the soul of sins and the body of ills.  It was fun to watch everyone, especially the kids, splash around.

More photos from Rishikesh here.