Osaka

After running around for two straight weeks I had decided I was going to take it a bit easier in Osaka! Although of course on arrival there’s no check in until 4pm so I dropped off my bag and had to figure out what to do for the next few hours until check-in. Turns out there’s a very famous fish market a few blocks away, so sure, sounds good. I hadn’t had lunch yet. Oh man, what an easy place to spend some dough! I had a bunch of pieces of sashimi, some scallops and clams grilled right in the shell, eel, a crab leg, mmm great stuff. Expensive lunch though, as everything is pretty small portions and surely tourist prices!

A bit later I went back to the guesthouse and checked in, it was run by a couple who spoke really good English, the girl had lived in New York and the guy had done a study abroad program in Iowa! The guesthouse had opened just before Covid, so obviously it was a bit tough for them, but I was really happy to give places like this my business. Beats a corporate hotel for sure.

In the first floor common area I ran into a Canadian guy from Montreal and we decided to grab some dinner together, a well known okonamaki place recommended by the guesthouse owner. She pinned it on google maps and it didn’t even have an English name, which I suppose is a good sign! The okonamaki is some sort of pancake looking dish filled with a bunch of stuff and griddled on the outsides. I ordered the pork one, which had strips of bacon on the outsides, and it was pretty great. The restaurant has a grill surface that stretches all the way around the whole bar eating area, so you definitely don’t have to worry about your meal getting cold!

Next we just wandered around the downtown area, Donaburi, which is famous for it’s street lights, elaborate restaurant signs, and takoyaki – fried octopus balls. The lines are a mile long for the most popular spots. Oh and the most famous icon is the Glico Man, built sometime in the 30’s. You basically have to take your photo in front of it, which even though I hardly ever take photos of myself, I did do the obligatory running man pose!

In Osaka I realized there was a very popular Japan travel meetup thread on Reddit, and I posted on it and got quite a few responses. So the next day I met up with a girl from Singapore, Ling, for lunch at a place she made reservations for. It was a place that specialized in one thing only, fried rice topped with and an omelette and huge portion of bbq eel! It was great, really great, and I’m glad I found someone who knew the various food scenes in Osaka better than I did! I mean I never ever ever would have found a place like this. Ling said it’s quite famous on Singapore social media!

We parted ways after lunch, but would reunite later in the evening for an even bigger Reddit meetup, an American guy from NYC and a Kuwaiti girl who was living in DC. I really like the random meet ups of internet people! We went to TeamLabs Osaka, I already posted about TeamLabs Tokyo, but it was the same group who redid a botanical garden with all sort of weird stuff and trippy music. It was fine to walk around but it was much more boring than the immersive TeamLabs Tokyo experience.

After that me and the NYC guy parted ways with the girls and were heading to a techno/house concert that he heard might be good. Seriously people do so much more research than me, I just go to place and wander around without any real foresight or planning!

But the show didn’t start until midnight, so we ventured off to some random bars. They have these highrise buildings that have bars on every floor, so we basically just found some random spots to have a drink. He was pretty into the Japanese whiskey so we had a few to sip, neat, in each bar. Most places have a very good selection as it seems to certainly be the most popular drink in Japan. And everywhere has Highballs, whiskey and soda water, but you wouldn’t normally drink that with higher end stuff. One of our bartenders was a rapper, who gave a 30 second impromptu performance, we had no idea what he was rapping about, but it was just a fun, random experience.

That would be some foreshadowing for the rest of the night, because we would be treated to lots more music in Japanese that we couldn’t understand, but could appreciate. We rocked up to the venue, also a very unassuming places as usual in Japan, at about 12:15 and things were just kicking off. It was a small venue, but it did sell out, so it was pretty packed. They had rotating DJs every 40 minutes or so. My friend from NYC had also done some DJing so he was pretty in tune with the ins and outs and the technical aspects of each performer. My critiques were more along the lines of this guy is kinda good, this guy is kinda lame. Then at some point a rap duo came out, who weren’t on the set list, but EVERYONE knew who they were, and they went off for 20 minutes with people just going nuts, so that was definitely the highlight of the night. They’d also use a bit of English here and there, which was entertaining. It’s nice to meet other people who know of the less touristy things to do that I don’t!

We left around 3:30, but it was supposed to keep going until 5 or 6 am. No thanks! The next day I met another guy from the Reddit thread, a Korean Canadian guy, to go to the aquarium, which is quite famous. They have one huge tank which is full of all the cool big stuff, sharks, manta rays, whale sharks, you name it. Then you slowly circle that tank downwards in a spiral, with lots of other displays as well. Of course the stuff hanging out at the top of that huge tank are different than the stuff at the bottom, so your views change as you go down. Very engaging design.

And then I met up with the Kuwaiti girl for dinner, she had a Halal grilled meat place in mind (Yakinuku) so we ordered a whole bunch of wagyu-like cuts of beef – I wasn’t sure if it was officially “wagyu” but the marbling was fantastic and the taste was superb. You just put for 30 seconds to a minute on each side to get a little sear and that’s it! It was a fantastic meal. But damn, I was going over the food budget in Japan!

And here’s a few shots I took in the rain. I love the light drizzle and the lights!

More Kyoto and Nara Deer Park

The next morning was one of those, “Ughhh I guess I’ll wake up early” to see the Arashiyama bamboo forest, one of the ‘must-see’s of Kyoto. So obviously it will get pretty crowded. I saw some photos of it during cherry blossom season, it looked a line to get into a BTS concert. But at 8 am, on weekday, in the off-season, there were only a couple other people around. Very cool place to walk around, super peaceful.

There’s also a bunch of temple around there (of course) so I spent the next few hours  checking them out.  They’re all walking distance too, and it was another beautiful day. When it was cloudy/rainy every day when I first arrived in Tokyo I thought I might be in trouble doing Japan in December, but the weather was working out pretty well. Once again temple had something different going on – a cemetery built back deep in the woods, a moss garden, and one place had all the maple leaves recently fallen, making the entire ground completely red. Beautiful. The only place the leaves looked better off the trees!

In the evening I visited the Fushimi Inari Shrine, one of Kyoto’s oldest and most historic landmarks, dating back to 711. Inari is a traditional god of food and rice. In the 1500’s the thousands of torii gates were added along the pathway up the sacred mountain, and that’s what most tourists are there to see. It really is quite impressive. The only thing that bothered me was there was no view from the shrine at the top! Its just trees! For some reason I assumed I’d be watching the sunset over the city, but that was not the case. I had some nice post sunset colors back at the bottom though.

Next it was off to the very touristy downtown geisha district, which surprisingly still has geishas around and you see them flitting from one building to another every once in a while.  In two nights I saw three in total, so it’s not like they’re everywhere. It felt too rude to snap a photo of them from the front, but I did take some photos after they walked past. Geisha literally means art-person and it was their job to entertain guests with song and dance, as well as be skilled at calligraphy, teahouse rituals, and the art of conversation. They are mostly found nowadays in high end teahouses and restaurants called ryotei – where the private tatami rooms are used booked by business men or politicians, by referral only, and served by geishas. I would not be experiencing this part of the Japanese experience!

My meal for that night would be a little lower end, a large selection of meats on sticks, kushiyaki. Still very tasty!

Next day was a trip to Nara (which means deer in Japanese) the capital of Japan from 710-784. It’s most famous temple has a Buddha hall, and whatever specific type of Buddha is in there, it’s largest form of it in the world. So I guess that kind of makes it a big deal! And then there’s all the deer scampering around. In Shintoism deer are holy animals, helpers of the Gods, and there’s hundreds of them in the park, in the streets, waiting in front of shops etc. They’re fully capable of feeding themselves, but many are lazy and prefer to go after the deer crackers from the tourists that you can buy from many different streetside vendors.

Although they’re tame, they get quite aggressive when the crackers come out. Some of the males, who already have had their horns sawed off, will keep butting you with their head until you give them one! It’s better the keep the packet of crackers in your pocket and discretely hand out some here and there rather than take out the whole thing and start a feeding frenzy. I saw a few people just throw their whole pack on the ground because they got an uncomfortable amount of attention from the deer! So that’s the fun, unique thing to do in Nara, hang out with the deer.

they’re coming!

Kyoto

Japan’s cultural heart! It was the capital city of Japan from 764 to 1868 until Tokyo took the reigns, and sometimes called the 1,000 year capital. It was largely spared from US bombing during WW2 so most of the temples and shrines stayed intact. I guess it was near the top of the list for cities to drop the atomic bomb on, largely because of the tremendous impact it would have on the Japanese people, but was fortunately reconsidered. If I was lucky I’d be there in time to catch the very tail end of the fall colors.

When you step off the train you’re greeted with the sight of Kyoto Tower, built in the 1963 to coincide with the 1964 Olympics, a very optimistic time in Japan. Although it does draw some controversy because it (and the train station) clashes a lot with the rest of Kyoto’s traditional style!

Before I went to my guesthouse I wanted to stop at a temple first before the sun went down, this one in particular being one of the not-so-touristy places in Kyoto and I was very impressed! The temples were huge and I guess one of the largest all wooden structures in the world. The gingko trees still had their leaves too. Good start Kyoto!

The next day I rented a bike, the weather was perfect, 50’s and sunny and it was off to see the temples. There’s almost too many to count all around the city, so I was just going to a specific area east of the city. One of the first ones I stopped by was the Kiyomizu Dera, originally built in the 700’s, then further expanded in the 1600’s using not a single nail. Impressive carpentry! In Japan there is a phrase just like “to take the plunge” which means to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu, which people did because it is said if they survived their wish would come true. 85% of people who attempted survived the 43 foot jump. The practice is now discontinued.

That area was packed with people, but the further on I got the temples and gardens had much fewer tourists and were quite peaceful. Every single one seemed to have a little something different to offer, whether it was tucked away pagodas, water features, bamboo forests, zen gardens etc. The smaller places had just a handful of people walking around. Of course I was a bit bummed I was too late for the real fall foliage season, but the amount of tourists in town during that time does sound kinda nuts, so I must say this was pretty nice.

To finish the day I went to the famous Kinkaku-ji temple, aka the golden pavilion.  It was built for a powerful shogun (military warlord who ran the show in the name of the Emperor. The top two floors are literally made from gold leaves. The entire grounds were mostly destroyed, but the main pavilion remained intact, and then that was burned by an arsonist in 1950. So this is mostly a restoration to it’s former grandeur.

Then it was time to bike home, which has to be the most stress free city biking on the planet. Where else do you see mothers biking their children to and from school, or just around town? They have specially designed bikes just for this purpose, and they’re everywhere. Every street or sidewalk has a bike lane, and it’s customary to not ride too fast to avoid bad crashes. I was the fastest biker heh. Then there’s the side streets, which are perfectly paved and have almost no cars on them. Just an amazing way to get around.

No cars! Perfectly paved

Then at some point on walking street with lots of shops and restaurants (and walking streets – another thing we do have enough of!) I smelled something so good I had to stop. It was a crème brulee donut shop. The guy hand blowtorches the top  to caramelize the sugar right in front of you! Oh man I really like Japan. Then I’d have some pork katsu (fried pork in a curry sauce) for dinner. Good stuff.

One night in Kanazawa

Here’s a quick one, I was on the train to a city I’d heard good things about, Kanazawa. From the train station I walked 7-8 minutes to my guesthouse, dropped off the big back, then stopped in a small coffeeshop that specializes in drip coffee of a couple of types of beans - I had the Ethiopian - and went on my way. There’s a big castle, park, and series of gardens set right smack dab in the center of town, so sounds like a good place to start. I could (and do) walk around Japanese cities all day.

So obviously it’s very nice walking through the gardens, but there’s also a bunch of smaller museums around, so I picked one of the art museums  and killed some time looking at some of the ancient artifacts and scrolls etc. Then I found my way to the downtown area and got in some nice photos of the sky when the sun was going down.  Although I ran out of time for the Samurai district, doh!

One of the museums

the main strip

Adjacent to main strip downtown is a little pub street, although I don’t know if you’d call them pubs, more like tiny bars. But having these alleyways with all the tiny bars and restaurants is just one of the absolute coolest things about Japan. It’s cheap and easy to get a liquor license and I guess the costs aren’t that crazy to rent out such a small space. Walking into locally owned 7-8 seat bars (or food joints) all with their own set-up and vibes, is just something that’s almost unimaginable in the US. Although it was kinda early in the evening for anything much to be going on in them when I walked by.

just a random building I liked

Geisha district at night, nobody around

Of course I got back into the guesthouse, but no one was really around and it was another very chill night in Japan. The next morning I had the contemporary art museum on the menu, which I got there early for, because I guess it’s popular. Although their most famous exhibit you had to buy a pass for in advance, so I was out of luck. Weak. It really wasn’t my favorite museum. Alas.

It was raining outside, but I still wanted to get to the traditional Edo-era section of town, also called the Geisha district. And of course like always it’s gorgeous, lots of shops to stop in for cute gifts and snacks and desserts, and girls walking around in their kimonos to get their photos taken. The place looked especially photogenic in the rain with all the umbrellas out. I really don’t mind this occasional drizzle in Japan!

And that was my quick stop in Kanazawa! Soon I was back on the bullet train to Kyoto. Although I was annoyed I didn’t see the Samurai District, hmmph. This should have been a two-nighter, plenty of stuff to do in Kanazawa!

Takayama

It was a 3 hour train ride from Nagano, and I had to transfer off the bullet train to a normal train that ran it’s way through the foothills. Super pretty and relaxing. None of these trains are crowded so I can spread out, switch over to more scenic side etc. I arrived in Takayama around noon, so it was the usual - drop the bag off at the guesthouse and then go wander around.

Takayama is known for having some really nice restored Edo period building in it’s downtown touristy strip area so that’s where I headed. And of course it’s spotlessly clean and perfect looking, Japan just does so many thing right!

Just look at those streets

The other thing that the area is known for is their beef, called Hida beef. I think it’s wagyu or maybe it’s a variety of it? It has that same crazy marbling throughout! I ordered some beef skewers and raw beef nigiri, mmm. After that is more walking walking walking. There was a traditional village set up further on the edge of town, it was 50’s and sunny, so why not walk.

The village was cool, nobody lived in the old houses, but they were all done up well with nice exhibits inside each one - woodworking, clothes making, charcoal making, a wedding house, you name it. And I basically had the place to myself.

Back at the guesthouse it was pretty quiet, I just took it easy for the night and had a cheap dinner from the convenience store. The next day I check out some Japanese kitsch museum in the morning and then it was on the bus to Shirakawa-go village, which is a Unesco Heritage site.

So many similar consumer products and electronics to us, but so many differences!

It’s famous for those traditional farmhouses with the steep thatched roofs, called Gassho-Zukuri. Which means hands folded in prayer, supposed to be similar to the way the buddha holds his hands. I guess you can also book some of them for the night, which sounded kinda cool. There’s not exactly a ton of stuff to do there, but it is neat to see for a few hours!

Then back on the bus to get home. And fortunately I found an Aussie guy to go get some off that beef with. They have popular restaurants called Yakiniku where you have your own little hot plate and they bring out the slice of raw beef (among other things) and you just cook it yourself on the grill. Just a little sear on each side and that’s all you need!

Nagano

So it was finally time to head out of Tokyo for good. I figured I’d be on the road for two weeks, so I bought a Japan Rail Pass for 14 days. This gives you access to almost all the major railways and bullet trains. You can’t book the fastest ones though.  Although the ones you can book are certainly fast enough! It’s not exactly cheap though, a bit under $400 for the two weeks, but man is traveling by bullet train just about the best way to travel in the whole world. It used to be you had to buy this pass outside the country, but not anymore. I picked mine up at Tokyo Station the same morning I wanted to hit the road.

First stop: Nagano! These trains go often, I only had about 10 minutes from buying my ticket to departure time. But it’s really easy to find the Shinkansen area, find your track number, and you’re there. Inside the train the seats are comfy, plenty of legroom, and very easy to get a window seat as the trains are not very crowded this time of year. I never even had someone next to me the entire duration of the pass! I pulled down the tray, set down my coffee and opened up my laptop to go through some photos, all while having time to watch the scenery go by while throttling along at  300 km/hr. Smooth as a whistle. So nice. We were there in an hour!

I want this house, holy crap

Now, off to find my guesthouse. I guess I expected to see a bit more mountains, as Nagano is one of the mid-level cities everyone knows about because of it hosting the winter Olympics. But I guess most of the snow is further out in the mountain resorts and not so much in the actual city of Nagano. Oh well. It’s really kind of weird walking around in some of these cities, outside of a few main streets, there’s just so few cars! I mean zero traffic. It feels a little eerie. But there’s plenty of people walking around and on bicycles. And the roads are just in such good shape, everything seems to be recently paved, shiny, no potholes, no litter, it’s just very satisfying walking around. You could eat off the damn streets. I don’t know how they do it.

so clean, so smooth, so shiny

I booked a 4 person room at a guesthouse that included an ensuite kitchen and small dining area. It had 2 sets of bunk beds, but it’s not like usual dorm beds, they’re like fully contained capsule-like beds. I met the owner and he gave the rundown, a shockingly long list of things, where to put your shoes, what lights to turn on and when, rules for the kitchen, what to put in each type of garbage bin, how to use the remotes, dimming the lights, using hot water, damn. They like running a tight orderly ship in Japan! Hopefully I was putting my toiletries in right spot on the shower caddy! I’d be sharing the room with just one South Korean guy, although he didn’t really speak English, so I was kinda on my own.

I dropped off my big bag and headed right back to the train station as I wanted to get to Matsumoto castle, maybe 50 minutes away by train, covered by the railpass. Although I screwed up and booked the local train instead of the express, so make that an hour and half! Didn’t matter though, I still had plenty of time. The castle was a 20 minute walk from town. Once again, fantastic looking town. Lots of cute cafes, French pastry places, just generally well designed and decorated shops and building, and if my ice cream bar happened to fall off the stick onto the road, I’d be happy to lick it off.

So onto the castle, it was built around 1600, needed for the great clan wars going on at the time. At the entrance they offered a free English speaking guide, but he was about 75 and spoke really bad English, so took a pass. Kind of a nice gesture though! The inside of the castle is actually kind of dull, as they were mostly used for stockpiling weapons and munitions and having strategy meetings, nobody actually lived in them. Although they did have a cool display of lots of old guns, and a decent a view of the city from the 6th and final floor. But I honestly preferred walking around the outside and taking photos, it’s a helluva good looking building, with a moat. Really nice moat. Great moat.

After the sun went down, at around 4:00 since it went behind the mountains, I had some time to mosey around town a bit and then hop on the express train this time, back to Nagano. I found some Ramen place that looked inviting, as one does, and called it a night. I wanted to be up early to get out to the snow monkeys the next morning.

The town of Matsumoto in the evening

It was an hour long, 8am bus to the monkey park plus a 30 minute walk to get up to the hot spring where they like to hang out. I was kind of hoping it would be a larger area with a bunch of natural pools, but nope, just one small hot spring! They were mostly just hanging out on the sides of it, because the weather was relatively mild, unlike freezing winter temps when they chill in it for long periods of time. But I had beaten most of the tourists – the tour buses come midday, so it was a pretty tranquil experience. The monkeys also hang out up on the rocks and along the river that runs through, so it’s a bit more than just the hot spring. An hour there was plenty and then left out and decided to do a stroll to the train station an hour away. I walk so much in Japan, but it’s just so damn nice. I can’t recommend it enough. Especially when it’s 50’s and sunny.

a chirpy bunch

this one is having a good time!

The onsen in the background

Here’s the onsen, or Japanese hot spring resort type place

It was a slow moving local train, but that’s fine. I got off a few stops away from downtown Nagano at the Zenko Ji temple. This one is an old one, started in 650 AD, not long after Buddhism was spreading through Japan. This temple was created to enshrine a large budda image. In front is a walking street with all sorts of sweets and street food, the regional specialty being a wheat bun, fried, and filled with mostly vegetables like pumpkin, or radish, leeks, or mushrooms. Not bad! Very earthy. A little bit different. And then apple pie pastry for dessert, mmm.

nice countryside around here

Zenko Ji Temple

Back at the guesthouse this time there was a Japanese guy, who spoke no English or pretended to – seriously the level of English is Japan was much worse than I was expecting. And then there was a young Czech guy, who was trying to get a visa to stay in Japan for a bit and learning Japanese. Not a bad idea when you’re 23! We went out for some gyoza, fried pork dumplings, which you can never go wrong with. I’m wondering what food you can go wrong with. The next day it was a train to the mountainy (hilly) town of Takayama, known for their high quality beef.

So many cool looking places!

Last Tokyo Post, Photo Dump

This time around I stayed on the east side of the city, which is a bit more chill than the west side. My neighborhood was called Asakusa, which has a huge temple that gets really busy. It seems to be where all the girls go to get their traditional kimono photos in. Although some do drag their boyfriends along in their yukatas! Then there’s all sort of street food and endless alleyways of shops. Pretty cool area. Although at night it empties out pretty quickly.

Next up is the William Mori Tower skydeck, located in Roppongi

Next up was a thing called TeamLab Planets, and interactive immersive experience that I’d heard good things about. Lots of lights and reflections!

I had an evening to walk around Akhibara, which is Tokyo’s anime capital. It was great in the light rain with the reflections and neon lights!

FUJI

I got into the town of Kawaguchiko just after dark and found my way to the guesthouse with a basic Japanese style room. It’s traditionally styled room but it’s almost completely empty with just a roll out mattress and a pillow and blanket that goes on the floor! Alrighty then. I didn’t go out for food until after 8:00 and to my surprise everything was closed. Quiet little town! 7-11 it is! The nice thing is all the convenience stores have pretty good food options, surprisingly good food options - so I had some microwaveable pork char siu, with veggies and an omelet topped over white rice, and it cost $4! And then I had a few pieces of sushi to boot. Really not a bad dinner.

I set my alarm at 5am, looked out the window, and there it was, Fuji, the big beautiful bastard! The weather had held up, right at the perfect time. I happily gathered my stuff together and headed out towards the big lake nearby to scout out some good photo spots at sunrise. Although I think my favorite photo was actually looking back at the mountain from the street just two minutes away from my guesthouse.

Once I made it to the bridge over the lake I was not alone, there were definitely a few other photographer types out there, and with good reason. I wandered around for a bit and found a few decent photo opportunities, but nothing that was really enthralling. It really was too bad most of the fall colors were finished! Oh well. It was still a great morning and it was a very pleasant walk back to town for breakfast. Then it was time to rent a bike for the day.

I had a good 20 mile circuit mapped out and thankfully the weather was just perfect, 50 and sunny. Like basically all forms of transportation in Japan, getting around by bicycle around is a very pleasurable experience. The road are immaculate, there are bike lanes everywhere, cars drive slow, and outside of the main roads, there seems to be hardly any traffic. Definitely one of the biggest surprises I’d find in Japan was just how not-crowded the streets are. In the US all these little side streets would get taken up by cars looking to the avoid the traffic jams on the main roads. So I really like using a bike to get around.

Along the way I made pit stops at a Shinto shrine in the woods, a little hobbit-like tourist town – I think I caught the tour buses because it was jammed, the old part of  town, and did a hike up to a temple with views overlooking Fuji. So it was another successful tourist day, although I wouldn’t have minded another morning to go out and take more photos. But I already had my Tokyo hotel booked, so off I went.

Kamakura, Yokohama, and Hakone

The next day I checked out and wanted to get outside of Tokyo for a bit. I took a train to Yokohama, left my bag at another capsule hotel (they’re so convenient because there’s always one right next to the train station) and then hopped right back on the train (it’s so easy!) to a place called Kamakura. Temples galore! The Kamakura period (1192-1333) was important because it marked when the shogunate, who were basically military dictators, took power from the emperor and the court, and were the primary source of government. It was the start of feudalism in Japan. I wish I could have dug deeper into the history, as I find it fascinating, but I mostly spent my time there walking from temple to temple, trying to get as many in as I could! Also it gets dark by 4:30 pm, so there’s no time to waste! So here’s lots of Kamakura photos!

I made it back to Yokohama in the evening and had time to head to the downtown and up to the observation deck to see the view of the whole city. It really puts things in perspective how built of the entire area is. I wished I had more time to check out the waterfront park, which is supposed to be really cool and futuristic, but alas I was in a bit of hurry the next day. According to the weather, there would actually be one clear day! The day after tomorrow, and I wanted to get to Mt. Fuji for that. I hadn’t seen the sun thusfar on the trip. But in order to get to the base of Mt. Fuji it’d take a pretty solid travel day, so I’d be out of the capsule bright and early.

From Yokohama I thought it would be an interesting trip to get to Mt. Fuji via Hakone, a touristy hot spring town up in the hills that is accessed by a toy train. In Hakone they also have a funicular, to get you higher up the mountain, as well as cable cars to maximize your view of the scenery. So my route was going to be metro train, toy train, funicular, cable car, then bus! Really hitting all the modes of transportation in one trip. Just needed a boat ride!

Unfortunately as the train got higher up into the hills the sun went away and it was cold and cloudy in Hakone town. I stopped at a touristy breakfast place that serves these big fluffy pancakes. Overpriced but delicious! I would come to really like the Japanese style of pancakes and French toast. I had a walk through the park, but it was starting to drizzle, so I didn’t stay long. On to the funicular and cable car. It was about 40 degrees and raining, so there were no views to be had, except for the sulfur mine that you pass over. I was glad I was traveling through and not staying in Hakone, like I originally thought of doing. Once off the cable car it was two hours of buses and I was in the town of Kawaguchiko, at the base of Mt Fuji by 5pm. Although I was hoping to get there in time for some sunset photos around 4:30, but with the clouds it didn’t matter either way. The forecast for tomorrow was good though. Fingers crossed!

More Tokyo

Well another night in the capsule. I woke up to more cloudy and drizzling weather, so back to sleep for a bit and then another dazzling breakfast of raw egg and rice. This is considered comfort food in Japan! It stopped raining around noon so I was off to another park. Although the word park isn’t heavy hitting enough, it’s a park on steroids. On the menu today would be the Meiji Jingu shrine and encompassing grounds, which were dedicated to the deified spirits of the very famous Emperor Meiji and his wife. In Japanese history the Meiji period, or the Meiji restoration was an extremely important time in Japan when the mostly isolated and feudal society began to industrialize rapidly develop with many western ideas and influences. So here’s some shots of the place, the fall colors still just hanging on…

After that I was off to Harajuku, the ostentatious fashion capital of Tokyo, which draws a bold, young crowd. You can see girls dressed in doll-like outfits (called Lolita) with lots of whites and pinks,  plenty of lace. Often with dyed blond or maybe pink hair. There’s also the more edgy goth version of that as well, which is kinda cool. And there’s a good amounts of schoolgirl outfits to boot, which Japan seems to be quite fond of.

It’s the capital of Kawaii, which the easiest translation is ‘being cute’. So it’s definitely an interesting place to walk around. It’s a fashion hub, so tons of clothing stores as well as sweet shops. I bought candied strawberries. Cute. And a coffee with foam art. Super cute! You could pay even more and get 3d foam art, whoa. Walking around I didn’t really take many pictures of the outfits because it felt too weird aiming my camera at groups of young girls, but it really is one of the more unique places in the world to have a gander. Oh and speaking of unique, I also went to a café where you can hold hedgehogs and chinchillas!

the shell

Photo stolen from the internet, girls on Takeshita street

me holding a hedgehog. The novelty doesn’t last long!

3-d foam art

this is what candied strawberries look like. Pretty tasty!

Then it was back on the train back to my hotel in Shinjuku and after another dip in the hot spring, then back to the free drinks lounge. I pieced through their collection of anime books, which seem to delve into softcore porn every 10 pages. Hmm. Another white guy chatted me up, a guy from LA, named Steve, who’d been to Tokyo many many times. So we ended up going out in Kabukicho for a bit. I played pachinko for the first time, which is kinda like a less skilled version of pinball where you fire off metal ball bearings through a bunch of metal pins and hope to land them in the middle gate, which triggers a jackpot reel (basically like a slot machine) where you’re hoping to get three of the same numbers to send your machine into overdrive. This of course never happened to me, but I was told that’s what would happen!  Your winning are the amount of metal balls you collect in your basket and then eventually you can call the attendant and exchange your basket of balls for prizes.  It’s crazy popular, there’s literally rows and rows of people playing this game in the arcades!

Next we went to get some ramen, and then it was off to the Golden Gai area, which is that stretch of  a few blocks of narrow alleyways packed with tiny bars, jammed in one after another and on top of one another! It’s a super cool spot. I was really glad to go with someone else, who knew spoke some Japanese, as each bar is usually only 6-10 seats at the bar and that’s it! There’s not a lot of English spoken,  although the so it’s kind of intimidating for a first timer. Although the bartenders seem to know enough. First we went to a whisky bar, where I learned the highball is an extremely popular drink in Japan, which is just whisky and some soda water.

We ended up hopping around to a few different spots, with whisky certainly being the drink of choice, and if you want cheaper you’ve got shochu, some sort of grain alcohol.  I noticed that the only time local people will actually try and converse with you in English is when they’re a bit tipsy, so that was kind of a nice change of pace. Normally when you’re walking around Japan, even though you’re a foreigner, nobody pays you any mind, at all. Of course it’s great that nobody is bothering you or trying to sell you stuff, but compared to other Asian countries, China in particular, it’s like you’re invisible. In China it sometimes get’s a bit annoying having people come up to you to practice their English, that doesn’t happen in Japan! So it was nice to actually to actually chat with some Japanese guys, even if it was not exactly the best English. It was a nice little night out.

Ended the night at a 3 story McDonalds

First Day: Zen in the park, chaos in the streets

For my first full day in Japan I slept in and then sauntered downstairs to the café area to get some food.  Specifically egg-rice, mmm. I filled up a bowl of rice, cracked the egg in it, stirred it real good so everything became fluffy and yellow, added soy sauce, pickles, and crunchy things, and there you have it, a simple Japanese breakfast! Of course there are lots of different Japanese breakfasts, but this would be my first one – and 2nd and 3rd, as I was there for three nights and will not say no to free food. And it’s not bad! I mean I wouldn’t got out of my way to eat it, but it was reasonably tasty. I did google the raw egg situation in Japan first to investigate if it’s totally normal to eat raw eggs, and I guess they’re rated to that  higher standard by the health inspectors or whatever, so good enough for me!

After a hop in the artificial hot spring and shower I was ready for my first walk around in the daylight. It was pretty gloomy weather, cloudy, a bit drizzly, reminded me of the winter in China, where the sun never came out, just a penetrating white fog that always felt colder than it really was. Nonetheless, I had places to be – I figured I’d start a few blocks away at a famous park in the city, the Shinjuku gardens, which used to be specifically for the imperial family. Now open to the for 500 yen or about $3.50. I certainly have no qualms paying for a park as stylish as this, they do an amazing job with the plants and keeping everything very well kept an impeccably manicured. It was one of the last days of November and my timing was just a little late, I had missed most of the peak autumn foliage, rats! But there were still some maple trees, unhurried to lose their leaves, which boasted some fiery oranges and reds, stealing the show from the more lackluster surroundings.

 It’s tough to not take a ton of photos in Japan!

It had stopped drizzling, so it ended up being a very enjoyable place for a stroll, beautiful landscaping with few people around. Nice. After two hours of walking plus a matcha latte stop, it was off to the train station and a very quick ride to the world’s busiest intersection, Shibuya crossing. I hopped off the train with the horde and found my way to street level, where I quickly remembered I was umbrella-less, total rookie move.  The rain had picked up again and everyone, I mean everyone had one. In my luggage all I had packed was a poncho, but wearing a crumply bag over your body would be just too boorish American compared to the sharply dressed Japanese. Nobody dresses down in Tokyo. Athletic gear? I don’t think so. I felt like a bum wearing hiking pants, trail runners, and a hoody. I couldn’t possibly know, but were the locals silently judging me? The answer is yes, yes they were.

 I arrived at the six-way intersection behind the crowd and watched the digital advertisements on the screen. Louis Vitton had teamed up with a famous red wig wearing Japanese contemporary artist who is somehow 93 years old and she’s still going strong!  The ads were synchronized on multiple huge screens. Then the lights all turned green and started gently beeping, a soothing beeping, that slowly picked up pace as it got closer to the red light. All the pedestrians crossed through the intersection at once in all directions. Organized chaos. So many umbrellas! On the other side I was hoping to visit a particular rooftop deck for viewing, but it was closed in the rain, so I went to the next best thing, Starbucks! It had a shop right in the heart of the intersection and the 2nd floor had huge glass windows for viewing. Those were some hot seats to get! I ordered a cappuccino and looked for any place to sit, but that wasn’t happening. But I was able to fire off some shots of the intersection which looked pretty neat with the sea of umbrellas around. Although not quite as jam packed as I was expecting!

Eventually the rain slowed to barely a drizzle and I was able to walk around Shibuya. Normally I would hate being in a cold drizzle, but when you’ve got bright city lights everywhere, reflections, well-dressed people with their stylish clear umbrellas, it makes for some pretty cool street photography! So I was just kinda standing off in the distance creeping around with my telephoto lens trying to get some interesting shots. The nice thing about photography as a hobby is I can keep myself entertained very easily if I’ve got the right shooting conditions. And when the neon lights turn on in Tokyo you’ll always have great shooting conditions!

After I had gotten wet enough it was back on the the train and only a few minutes to Shinjuku. You literally never have to wait more than a few minutes for these trains, it’s marvelous. Moving this many people, especially through the major train stations, is a work of art. Shinjuku station is basically a mini-mall with a myriad of restaurants and I couldn’t help but follow my nose to a French patisserie and grab  a coffee and toasty golden brown mushroom and onion toasty thing, mmm. The quality of the food at  train stations, and even convenience stores is very solid!

I went back to the hotel, swapped into my PJs and was off to the spa area to relax after a solid tourist day. Naked in the hot spring with a bunch of Japanese guys. I could get used to this! I meant hitting the spa immediately after a full day of touristy escapades, not seeing all the ballsacks flopping around! Next it was up to the cafe to indulge in the free booze. I was kinda liking this capsule hotel setup. The downside was it’s not a very social place, so meeting other foreigners to hang out with was probably not going to happen, as it was 95% Japanese.


It ended up raining the whole night, so I stayed in, still annoyed by the fact I didn’t have a stupid umbrella. Although eventually I did have to make a run two blocks away to a late night ramen place for dinner, as I was not eating egg rice for dinner. Ramen just really hits the spot in a chilly rainy Tokyo evening. Fantastic. When I was leaving they offered me an umbrella, which I thought was weird because do they expect me to return it to them the next day? Keep it?! I politely declined and made the jog back to the hotel in the rain, but it would have been nice to have that umbrella! I did find out the next day that if you ask reception they’re happy to give you one, haha.

The Land of the Rising Sun

Somehow I haven’t been Japan yet! Time to change that! I suppose it’s expensive by my usual travel standards but with the dollar being so strong right now, and it being low season, and Japan finally re-opening just six weeks earlier I decided it’s time for a new experience. Plus everyone seems to love Japan. First I visited my sister in Seattle, who shockingly had already beat me to Japan a few years ago, and then two days later I was on a 10 hour flight to Tokyo, which was a relative breeze compared to the 15 hours it usually takes me to get to Asia via Hong Kong or Shanghai from Chicago. No delays whatsoever, I landed in Tokyo Narita in no time.  Although Narita really is in the middle of nowhere so it was a long (but no stress) train into the city. I had booked a men’s capsule hotel for the first three nights that just two blocks away from Shinjuku station, one of the major hubs in the city.

Having never been to a capsule hotel before, the whole process was quite interesting; it was explained to me in some very broken English and with a pamphlet. They love their pamphlets in Japan. It was a good thing I’d read enough reviews online to get the idea of what’s going on. You don’t take any of your luggage upstairs, you store your clothes and valuables in a locker and they give you a yukata to wear, basically a robe plus drawstring pants and slippers. Everyone wears these all throughout the ‘hotel’. If you have big luggage it get stashed on top of the lockers, out in the open, free for anyone to take or rifle through! You just have to trust that nothing will happen to it. Which it won’t, because Japan! Heading up to the next floor is the spa area, which has an artificial hot spring and sauna as well as washing stations, which are done sitting down on a stool. Hmm. There’s no curtains or dividers or anything and of course everyone is butt naked, as to be expected in Japan. Get used to it!

The next floor up is the cafe/lounge area, where they have free soft drinks, coffee, miso soup, and rice + raw eggs. I had to spy on other people, but you crack the egg and mix it in thoroughly with the rice, add in some soy sauce and crunchy stuff, and there’s your snack! And yes, I guess that eating raw eggs is super common in Japan, they have high standards for their egg safety apparently! There is also free booze from 6-12pm and hundreds of anime books if you want something to peruse. Some being a bit risqué, but it is an all men’s place! Then there’s the capsules on the top floors, basically a big room lined with individual sleeping pods, either on ground level or higher up, about shoulder level. These ones didn’t have doors that close, just curtains for privacy for each pod. The pods all have outlets for charging, a light, and a mini fan. Basically a slightly improved hostel dorm bed setup.

The toilets are also worth talking about, as when you open the stall door, the lid opens up for you! How welcoming. And then when your butt hits the seat you will satisfactorily notice a slight warming sensation. Heated seats too! Each toilet also has full bidet options, where you can control the stream and water pressure aimed at your bum. It kinda tickles! There’s also a flushing noises button in case you’re making too many loud awkward noises that you’d like to disguise without actually flushing! Just great stuff all around. The Japanese really have done all they can to make pooping a more enjoyable experience. And this is one of the joys of traveling in Japan, very high standard of living but with so many little (and often better) differences from the West.

So with this hotel setup it felt annoying at first having almost all of your stuff downstairs in a locker, but once I had my toiletries and chargers and stuff in my cube I started to come around on the idea. And I must admit, I did enjoy being able to have a long day out around town and then be able to come back and get into the pajama clothes and then hop right into the spa. The problem was getting motivated to put back on my regular clothes to go out again at night!

And Shinjuku is definitely a place you want to go out at night! My place was just a few blocks away from Kabukicho, the main nightlife district, filled with the bright lights, clubs, arcades, and more. Any movies that involve after dark scenes in Tokyo are usually set in this area. It’s an iconic spot and good place for a first timer in the Tokyo! Of course I was running on fumes from my 10 hour flight, but I had to eat something so it was off into the neon lit streets of Kapukicho.

The first thing I noticed about Tokyo, is it does not cater as well as thought to English speakers. Checking into the hotel was not particularly straightforward. On the streets every single place with advertisements, drink specials, or food menus out front was all Japanese, almost no English. I was also expecting more foreigners to be around, and I’d spot some here or there, but  we were certainly in a small minority. Not that I cared, I was just enjoying walking around. I stepped through arcade, which I guess was multiple floors, and it was packed with people staring at screens and pushing buttons, beeping, whirring, and chiming. Next door was a claw machine place where you stick in some coins and try to snack the cute stuffed animal. It looked impossible as far as I could tell.

One thing I liked was how small and unique so many of the places seemed to be. Lots of the bars and restaurants were very narrow strips with mostly bar seating and maybe a few two person tables. Nothing exemplifies this more than the Golden Gai section of Shinjuku, which is a mass collection of sardine can bars all jammed in next to and on top of one another. It’s a very cool spot. But it seemed kind of intimidating to me, not knowing any Japanese, to stop in such a small and intimate setting! I’d pop in another night.

One of the alleys at Golden Gai

famous street called Drunkard’s Alley

Kabukicho is apparently Tokyo’s biggest red light district, but I read it’s been cleaned up a lot from the past - or at least outwardly. There’s very little signs of it on the streets, but as with many things in Japan, there’s more than meets the eye. I did notice that the Japanese seem to have a fondness for privacy, so many establishments didn’t have windows or views inside, you really have no idea what is happening behind closed doors. I heard that lots of the businesses are also run by the Yakuza, so you don’t want to be pissing off any of the wrong people!

After a bit more wandering and snapping a few photos here and there – it’s a great place for street photography – I really needed something in my stomach. So eventually I found a busy ramen place with bar seating and pictures on the menu so in no time I was slurping down some noodles in a rich creamy pork broth, listening to others doing the same. The Japanese may be very polite and respectful in general, but those type of manners do not apply when sucking down noodles, it seems to be encouraged to be as loud and obnoxious as possible!  I paid the bill, which was about $8 and it was back off to the hotel to crash.

Amritsar and The Golden Temple

Even before I got to the Golden Temple, I liked Amritsar immediately. My bus pulled in at 9am, from a 5am start (why why why must they have these obnoxiously early start times?!) and right away you could tell it was a place that had that hustle and bustle. Lots of rickshaws driven by Sikh men with their flowing shirts and white beards, competing on the road with the cars and rickshaws. I’m a sucker for old towns, and Amritsar’s old town feels very old, borderline falling apart, with building that looked to be hundreds of years old. You could tell the Indian government certainly wasn’t pumping any money into this area.

rickshaws fighting for space in the narrow streets

You never know what you’re gonna see just walking around

The state of Punjab is where the majority of the Sikhs in the world live, 16 million of them, almost 60% of the population. There is also a sizable diaspora worldwide, with Canada’s population being almost 2% Sikh. You can easily tell the Sikh men by their turban, although many people confuse the look for being Muslim. Uncut hair is one of the pillars of Sikhism and the turbans are worn to show equality within the group.

The street right outside the temple

The religion itself was started in the 1400’s and was distinct from Hinduism and Islam, with a focus on equality of man, which was at major odds with the caste system in India. The Golden Temple was built in 1604 and then rebuilt in the 1800’s where it was inlaid with gold, and then more gold added in the 90’s. It’s the crown jewel of Sikhism and is the 3rd most visited holy site in the entire world. So it gets a lot of people! And it’s open to anyone who wishes to come.

the view at sunrise

As I mention before, it also operates the world’s largest free kitchen (called a Langar), serving 100,000 people a day. Volunteers run the kitchen, rolling the rotis, cutting vegetables, adding the spices to the huge vats of dhal. Everyone gets one metal serving tray and a bowl to keep dishes to a minimum. You sit in parallel lines and the different servers come by with rollable canisters of water, rice, dhal, and the rotis. You just signal to whoever is walking by and they’ll put the food on your plate. It’s not glamorous, but the system is definitely efficient. It’s a sight to see such a large communal eating experience all in one place. And the amount of volunteers is seriously impressive!

Of course now that I’m out of the mountains it’s back to being 113f in the middle of day, so I was happy to take a short walk and around and find a mango lassi, and then retreat back to room to relax for most of the day. It is kind of nice, they have water stations set up around town to make sure people are properly hydrated, they never wash the cups though! At one of the stores nearby I found what was basically a giant chunk of strawberry fruit roll up, which became my new favorite snack. In the late afternoon I finally meandered over to the temple. The sheer amount of people around, even though it’s hot as balls outside, is certainly noteworthy. I can only imagine how many people are there in the peak season.

You never know who you’re gonna meet walking around. This guy had albino rats who lived on his shoulders!

To get in you have to take off your shoes and wear a headscarf, which they have a huge bin of right outside the entrances. Best to wear sandals so you don’t have to worry about them, just chuck ‘em somewhere. They’ll check inside your bag, and then you’re good to go. Hopefully you don’t mind dirty feet! If you’re a germaphobe, India is not the country for you! Immediately you can see the temple through the arched entranceway, albeit over a bunch of heads all trying to get a look at the same thing, it does make an impression! Once you head down the stairs you can see the grandiosity of the whole complex, from the huge lake, the sheer amount of gold, the intricacies carved into the marble, and just that palpable religious energy. You’re expected to walk clockwise around the perimeter (the lake) where they have mats laid out because the marble gets really hot in the day! Every single spot in the shade is taken up by worshippers who are staying at the temple for who knows how long. It takes about 30 minutes to do the loop, and what a loop it is!

first look

tea delivery

It’s definitely worth it to visit the temple at least twice, once in the early morning around sunrise when they do the chanting of the prayers and once around sunset, where the color of temple’s golden color really seems to radiate just after the sun goes down. It’s just way too hot during the middle of the day though. You can visit the guru inside the middle of the actual temple, but the lines are just crazy long, at all hours of the day, so I decided to take a pass on that. And I did get one meal at the langar, which is certainly a unique experience. I also didn’t see another white person around, so I did get lots of attention, definitely more than I would have liked. It wasn’t just peace and contemplation, I had lots of people chatting me up, requesting selfies, trying to get me to show up at their English class, asking what I do for a living, warning me of the moral bankruptcy of gambling for a living, etc! But still, the Golden Temple is one of the coolest places in all of India! Here’s a few night shots to finish up…

not a bad way to spend an evening

The Popular Spots: Tosh and McLeod Ganj

After getting down from the Hampta pass and back to Manali I had one night to recover my concrete block legs and then it was off to the Parvati Valley, specifically the village of Tosh. The whole valley is known as the hash capital of India and the police simply look the other way, as it provides the livelihoods to many of the villagers. Traditionally Kasol is the most commercialized village that gets more Indians and Tosh is higher up in the mountains and gets more Europeans and Israelis, so many it’s nicknamed Little Israel. It is (or was) a hugely popular place for young Israeli’s to go after finishing up their military stints. I was a little skeptical because large groups of young Israeli’s have not been the most pleasant groups of people to be around, but at the same time I hadn’t talked to anyone who wasn’t Indian in well over a week and I wouldn’t meeting some more foreign tourists. Plus the setting of the village is gorgeous!

The old temple that you can’t touch

I like that it’s more like a town with actual inhabitants than a tourist strip

 I was able to take a bus most of the way there, then it was another bus to get to the village right below Tosh, and then a shared taxi from there to climb the potholed road, and then a nice sized walk to get to the accommodation. Easy! If you can’t tell I’m starting to get a bit worn out from all the mountain transportation at this point. This trip, which included at least 30 minutes mountainside gridlock, took over 6 hours to go 60 miles total! Sigh. I did meet some Indians on the bus to who wanted to hang out, although I couldn’t help but sounding like a snob when I didn’t want to stay in some crowded $4 dorms with them. I had a nice room with a western bathroom, good mattress, view and balcony in mind. We exchanged numbers to do dinner together. Spending $15-20 on a room seems crazy cheap in USD, but for these young Indian guys, that’s prohibitively expensive.

my view

Anyway the place I wanted was booked out, but I could stay next door for $10, also with a balcony and view! So fine by me. Finally some real time to relax! I did absolutely nothing that afternoon, and then did next nothing the whole next day, great stuff! Just sipping on mango lassies and watching the birds go by.  I had certainly not had enough R&R days on this trip. I couldn’t take too many days off because I had a deadline and I wanted to get in enough of Pakistan! Oh and somewhere around this time my visa did eventually get approved for Pakistan, nice. I did have to fork out an extra $100 for a Letter of Invitation, which I was told weren’t needed for most applicants. Annoying.

Curiously there were very few Israeli’s and yet again, almost all domestic tourists. And they all seemed to be doing this one hike called the Kheerganga trek and camping overnight. I also did it, but woke up early to pump it out in the morning and avoid the crowds. Compared to the other stuff I’d done it was woefully underwhelming, and at the end is dozens and dozens of stationary tents and campgrounds where all the Indian tourists spend the night, hundreds of tents. Ugh, not my thing at all. Everything popular in India has to involve tons of other people around. You don’t even have a nice view of the mountains from where the camps are located! Anyway I was glad I was doing it as a day hike. There’s also some hot springs, which is was the one redeeming factor of the hike, and I forgot by swim trunks, doh.

The next day I checked out of the guesthouse and stopped by a Sikh holy temple called Manikaran, which also had hot springs, and I did have my suit! The popular holy sites in India are pretty damn great, there’s nothing like them in the world. The Sikh sites in particular are cool  because they staff massive kitchens that feed everyone who comes, for free, no matter who you are. At the Golden Temple in Amritsar they feed 100,000 people a day during the busy seasons, crazy. So of course I grabbed a platter and took a spot on the floor where they served up rice, chapatis, dhal, and potatoes. It’s a cool experience! Even when I get frustrated with India, the unique experience of a place like Manikaran perks me back up again.

After Manikaran, lots more buses! A few hours to get down the mountains, a few hours to another city, a few more to Dharmshala, and then a 30 minute taxi ride up into the hills to Mcleod Ganj, and further up, a 9 hour day. Mcleod Ganj is the home of the Dalai Lama and is nicknamed Little Tibet, you can see monks strolling everywhere around the streets. Where I was staying (Bagsu Village) was further in the hills was a bit more calm, more of a western style hangout. Foreigners like to come here for yoga and meditation courses, energy healing, that kind of stuff. You get more of the longer term crowd who get an apartment for a month or a few months.

You can also find western breakfasts! Where I was traveling you might be able to find western lunch/dinner options, stuff like burgers, chicken sandwiches, pasta, pizza etc, but the Indian + Tibetan dinner cuisine is diverse enough that I usually didn’t eat much western food. But what does not seem to exist up north is anything other than bread omelets (usually greasy and overcooked eggs on two pieces of toast) and parantha (a type of fried flatbread, usually with onions or potatoes inside) for breakfast. I had literally started my day with those two dishes for weeks straight! So I was more than thankful to be able to eat something like a fruit salad with yogurt and granola, or avocado toast with poached eggs, or French toast with berries. With a decent cappuccino. Yessss.

boring!

So it was nice to hang out here a couple of days and chill, drinking good coffee, reading my book, editing some photos, getting some massages. You could even smoke hookah. Of course there is one popular trek that I felt compelled to do, the triund, 3 hours up, 2 down, with some great views of the mountains in the background. Although compared to some of the scenery I’d already seen, this trek was a bit underwhelming (I’m spoiled, I know). Also very crowded. Everything in Northern India this time of year is just so crowded! But nothing compared to the crowds at the Golden Temple!

The Hampta Pass Trek

I awoke with my alarm bright and early at 4:45am, first light. I had already packed up all my stuff, I wasn’t exactly eager to remain in the cheapest lodgings of the trip so far, a stand-alone building/garage with some cheap beds in it, $4 for the night. I rolled up the squeaky garage door to the dismay of the one other person sleeping there, and I was on my way, snack in hand. I crossed the bridge over the river, passed some tents, and easily found the start (or end) of the trail.

The usual way that 98% of people do this hike is starting from Manali and finishing where I’m starting, using a tour company, staying in their tents, fully cooked dinners and breakfasts, donkeys to lug up all the stuff, etc. The whole production. It’s the same standard package at every single fricking tour company, the 4 days/3 night tour. Sooo slow! Independent trekking still isn't a big thing yet here in India. One the previous week I had emailed a bunch of the big companies wondering if I could just get a guide, and ONLY a guide to do the trek in reverse, where I carry all my own stuff and do my own meals, and we finish the whole thing in 2d/1n. Absolute crickets on this request! Not a single response! Ahh screw it, I’ll do it by myself. I’ve got my offline map, it’s a well trodden route, what could go wrong?!

The previous night I’d already seen from the road that there might be a tricky part right at the beginning, a large section of snow/ice going all the way down to the river, but it appeared to have a path cut through it. It looked very steep from the road, but once I got up to it the angle wasn’t so bad. But what worried me was how deeply frozen it was. I started to cross, but if you got further out and happened to slip, you’d slide all the way down into the freezing, rushing river. Nope Nope, too risky. It would probably be fine in the afternoon once the snow thawed and you could cut out steps, but not all slicked up at 5am, no sir-e-bob.  

So it’s either go back or go around. Around it is, arghh! Already lots more work than I hoped. I scrambled 45 minutes uphill until I could finally get around the sheet of snow/ice. Hard work! By this time I was already so far up above the trail that I wondered if I could just meet up with trail a bit later. As I kept going it looked like I probably could, the only problem being that I was on the wrong side of the river and I’d have to find a good way to cross, which might be difficult. Eventually the river flattened out a bit and I’d have my chance. I tested out a few spots, didn’t really love any of them, but eventually settled on a route that took me on a long diagonal.

the trail going up, finally the sun coming out

The important thing on these crossings, besides not crossing anywhere too deep, is to have enough rocks above the surface to be able to rest a hand on for stability. It’s very easy to have your foot slip from the slick rocks of the riverbed, especially when you’re not wearing shoes - and you really really do not want to fall all the way in. I took off my shoes and socks, strapped them to my bag, got out of my hiking pants and started across. The water was absolutely freezing and flowing at a good clip. It didn’t take long before my feet were going numb, but I had to keep moving. My feet were getting so cold that I thought about stopping, climbing on a rock and attempting to warm them up, but nahh, just gotta keep going. Towards the end my feet might as well have been bricks, it was hard to place them as I literally could not feel them at all. Finally I scampered to the other side, quickly dried them off on a sunny rock and tried to smack some life into them. Come on!

I think this was the coldest my feet had ever been! I was actually somewhat paranoid that I possibly did some long-term damage to my toes. They weren’t coming back yet! Even after I started hiking again the toes on my left foot stayed tingly and not completely revived. It would be hours before they felt normal again. But hey, the good news was that I was back on the real trail! From here it was just a steady ascent further into the alpine valley, with one more annoying river crossing, and then the steep uphill climb of the pass. Soon snow started almost all of the ground, it was lovely. There was also one small lake which made for a nice photo with blanketed white peaks looming not far away.

I made my way up the weak point where I thought the trail would be, but I guess I lost it in the snow. It took me a bit of scrambling to find it and then it was straight up up up to get over the pass! Fortunately most of the trail was not snow covered, so it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Not long later I was looking down over a completely white valley, the mountain peaks looking very close! This was it, Hampta Pass! No prayer flags to mark it, just some absolutely outstanding views. (pictured at the top)

Then it was down some rocks and to the bottom of the valley, I’d have lots of snow to cross now. But it wasn’t steep or dangerous and it was soft enough where you could cut out your steps to make sure you didn’t slip. There were also parts with no rocks where you could sit on your butt and slide downhill for 40 or 50 feet, called glissading, and that was obviously the fun part! It took about  two hours before I would get completely out of the snow, but it was mostly enjoyable.

Once the snow ended it was all standard downhill trail hiking, nice! Around 2 pm I passed the camp that all the tours sleep at before heading over the pass in the opposite direction. They were a bit surprised to see me. I said some hellos and chatted for a few minutes before heading on my way. I was in a good hiking mood and was happy to descend rapidly. From the camp I picked up two guide dogs to lead me along the way. Well one was always running ahead and waiting while the other one was happy to stay right behind my heels. It was nice to have some company.

My guide doggo

I was moving fast enough downhill that I thought I might be able to finish the whole trek in just one long day, the full 20 miles. This became my new goal. And then maybe I wouldn’t have to camp overnight – I uhh didn’t actually have a tent, but I did have a tarp and some twine, although I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use it or not! So down and down it was, passing plenty of groups slogging their way up. Judging by the facial expressions and body language, most Indians did not appear to be enjoying their hike whatsoever!

Hours passed, I had now made two more river crossings, passed another big tour group campsite, made my way through a bunch of sheep, saw some waterfalls, and I was getting pretty close to the end of the trek. My knees were hurting pretty good at this point though. I talked to a local and he said there wouldn’t be any cars to take me down if I made it to the road, and it was another few miles until the next village down the road. So while I could have made it to the road, doing an extra 3 miles past the road sounded absolutely miserable, so I decided to make camp about a mile before the road, where I still in nature and had a nice view of the valley. So technically I didn’t do the whole trek in one day, I only did 95% of it, blah blah blah.

Now all I had to do was find a flat spot with two trees about 8 to 12 feet apart where I could tie my twine across and make a little A-frame tarp/tent. Of course I could not for the life of me find two trees across from each other on a flat piece of ground, so I would have to improvise. I’m not sure the Boyscouts would be proud! But my shelter seemed to hold up, very fortunately it didn’t rain, and due the exhaustion I slept pretty damn well considering that I was not close to being comfortable!

Not pretty, but it got the job done. Thank god for no rain!

I woke up with sun in the morning, packed up and made it out to the road. It was still to early for people to be getting dropped off up there, so I decided I’d just walk down back to Manali. And fortunately there were dirt trails in between the switchbacks so you didn’t have to follow the meandering road the whole time. A few hours later I had reached the very bottom of the valley and finally flagged down a taxi to get me the couple miles to the city center where my hotel was. A very successful day and a half of hiking! I can’t say I’d recommend it my way, but I was certainly pleased with myself!

After so much high altitude desert, it was great having trees again!

Manali down below

Spiti Valley

Ok, so I was in Spiti, at last! Kaza is the largest city in the valley, it’s not particularly that exciting, but it does make a good jumping off point. On the bus a younger (Spitian?) guy I was chatting with had told me about a festival a few hours away, and that a head Lama was attending, and he said I should definitely come, ok sure! The next morning I was on the 7:30 am bus to Tabo, two hours away. And the roads were mostly smooth! Like riding on a cloud compared to yesterday. Although still lots of narrow spots and blind curves to navigate. These drivers are pros though. In Tabo I found a ‘homestay’ and had a quick rest. I put homestay in quotes because with more development to the region, a lot of newer hotels call themselves homestays, but it’s not a homestay whatsoever, it’s just a normal smaller hotel, hmmphf. It should be noted that it’s difficult to do day trips in Spiti with only one bus running to each location per day, so it’s better to stay a night somewhere and then catch the bus the next morning. But once a day buses sound pretty great compared to Leh’s once a week buses!

kids in their costumes

The festival was held at the school, and I followed the crowd of people also headed in the same direction. They were offering free tea and snacks to everyone coming in, so I took some tea. At the courtyard all of the spots in the shade were taken, so I took a spot in the sun. Being the only foreigner, I was getting a lot of looks! Then one of the guys who was running things came over and welcomed me to the festival and asked if I wanted to come up to the balcony area, I wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t really asking, he was insisting, so I was dragged upstairs and given a front row seat a few spots down from the Lama dude. The benefits of being the only white guy! I was sat next to a guy from Delhi doing development projects in the village. As things were starting some women came around with the white Tibetan scarves and lowered them around our necks as a welcome invitation. It felt a little awkward, but thanks!

The setting of the school

The festival itself was more of a school assembly I suppose, some talks from teachers and administrators (some even in English!) and lots of song and dance performances from the students. They did have some older women doing traditional dance routines as well. All in all it was pretty entertaining, lots of cute kids. It lasted a bit longer than I would have liked, but we were continually being plied with tea, juice, cookies, nuts, so I certainly couldn’t complain. At the end the Lama stood up and gave a speech, I had no idea what he said, but the crowd listened enthusiastically! Then it was game time for the students and I made my exit.

There wasn’t exactly a whole lot to do in Tabo after that, but with no buses until the next morning I’d have to keep myself busy wandering around, which I’m used to. The next morning I was back on the HRTC bus to a place called Dhankar. Well not really, just the side of the highway where a road leads up to Dhankar. I could have probably hitched a ride up the five miles, but I packed light specifically for this purpose, so I took the walking trail up, which was nice, passing some little houses and farmland with the monastery a small dot in the background.

the walk up to Dhankar

I booked a hotel in town, right by the famous monastery, perched on the steep hills overlooking everything. It cost $17. After dropping off my stuff I was off to the lake, about an hour walk above the village. In Ladakh I had felt kinda sluggish and low energy, but now that I had some miles underfoot an being at a lower elevation (still a pretty high elevation!) I was feeling good, springy, I could basically run up this trail.  The lake really wasn’t anything special, but you also got superb views over the whole valley, so it was worth it.

Back in town when the sun started get low it was time to bust out the big ole camera, it was a particularly scenic town, with the sun disappearing behind the mountains directly behind the monastery, making for some splendid photos. This is the stuff you miss out on if you’re just quick day-trips, the really nice light. Back at the hotel, the guys who ran the place were from Delhi, so even though I prefer to stay at locally run places, the upside was that they could make good Indian curries – and I didn’t have to eat Tibetan food yet again! I love the Tibetan areas, but man the food could use a bit a variety - and some spice.

The next morning it was back to hiking down to the road to catch the bus. You really get to be an expert in the HRTC bus schedule in Spiti Valley! As I was waiting by the road a young guy came out the house nearby and said his brother was coming and would give me a ride to Kaza, so sure, great! A few minutes later he pulled up in a little beater and I was with him on the way to Kaza. I tried to pay, but nope.

In Kaza I met some Indian med students near the taxi office, and we agreed to do a shared taxi tour up to the villages higher up and finish with the famous Key Monastery. Nice. We stopped off at some good viewpoints, checked out an apparently famous bridge and then explored the Key monastery. I didn’t go back with them though, I wanted to stick around to get a nice sunset photo overlooking the monastery, which was totally worth it! Risky though, because I had to hitchhike back to Kaza and it was getting dark! Fortunately some middle aged guys road-tripping from Delhi had some room in their SUV and gave me a lift. Whew.

The next morning (surprise surprise) it was back on the HRTC bus! This was the one back to Manali but I was only going a few hours to the top of the Kunzum La Pass, where there is a hiking trail to one of the most well known lake in the region, Chandra Tal. The hiking route was much preferable to the bumpy 4x4 road you’d have to take to get there. After a few hours of hiking I arrived and ran into the med students again, who had taken a 4x4 taxi to get there. Originally I had planned on camping at the lake, but it turns out the tent camps are almost 2 miles from the lake, wtf, so I shared their taxi back the little village/encampments on the highway. We said our goodbyes as they were able to hitch a ride to Manali.

I was hoping to get a ride to a village called Chhatru, only 32km (20 mi) away, where I could then  hike back to Manali on the Hampta Pass Trek. I’d had just about enough of these roads! But it was a bit awkward for me, not speaking Hindi, to approach groups who stopped and ask if they had room for a ride. It was getting to be late afternoon and cars were getting fewer and further between, and usually full anyways. I was mostly resigned to the fact that I’d have to sleep in the crappy roadside village and wait for the bus the next day - not the end of the world, but certainly not ideal! After a few more No’s I was talking to someone having tea, and he was a driver, he said his car might have room and he’d ask the family. And they said ok!

So I hopped in the SUV, it was man his wife and their teenage son, taking a vacation from Mumbai.  They were super friendly, spoke perfect English (all the educated people from the big cities do) and were interested to hear how I like traveling in India. It was also a good thing they had me, because at one point we got stuck in the sand going uphill and everyone had to get out and push as the driver slowly gave it some gas. It took many tries, placing different rocks under the tires, but we eventually got it and 3 hours later (to go 20 miles!!) I was dropped off as dusk settled in, at the Chhatru roadside encampments. Excellent! The Dad also gave me his number to stop by if I’m ever in Mumbai :) I found a (dingy) place to sleep, had some rice and beans, and got to sleep nice and early.

Now I’d be able to start my trek first thing in the morning back towards Manali, wheee!

Misadventures in Road Travel

North India is not exactly known for it’s ease of travel! The roads in the Nubra Valley were just a glimpse as to what else I’d have in store for me up in this part of the world. With the infrequent public buses, expensive taxis and poor information, it’s a real treat. In Leh particularly I swear the bus stand people made it as confusing as possible for tourists to use local buses so you’d have to deal with the taxi cartels! Anyway it was about time to for me to be moving on from Ladakh to Himachal Pradesh (the next state to the south) via the vaunted Leh-Manali highway. And the word ‘highway’ is used very loosely here! It’s 266 miles through the mountains with often poor road conditions. It used to be a mandatory two day trip, but with the completion of the Atal Tunnel near Manali you can do it one full day now, only 14 hours! A government bus does the route once per day.

The afternoon before I wanted to leave I stopped at the bus station and the guy in the office told me it leaves at 3am, so I should show up at 2:30, UGHGH. Fine. That evening I attempted to get to bed early and of course I was treated to some of the loudest sobbing, yelling, hysterical screaming I have ever heard. I was 100% sure that someone must have just died, so I did feel pretty bad. The man in the room left, then woman was leaving shrieking voicemails, some women in the guesthouse came down to offer help - turns out it was an Israeli girl and it was just a breakup, whew! But omg wow, such drama! She turned down the offers to help look for him and went back to crying. Not much sleep for me.

I was off just after 2am to walk the 25 minutes downhill to the bus station. The street dogs were just going nuts at me. They mostly talk (bark) a big game, but never get too close to bite. Still kinda scary though. I made it to the bus station and it was eerily quiet. Uh oh - Literally nobody there, no lights on, just a few dogs barking their heads off at me. It didn’t take a genius to know that there was no bus going. Damn that bus station attendant! I waited until 3am just in case, but yea, it was hopeless. And then I had the 30 min walk straight uphill to get back to the guesthouse with all my stuff. Come on. And now round Two of possibly be turned into dogmeat, yay. But you see, this one of the things I like about traveling, always staying active! Not.

I had read you can also try and get a shared taxi in the morning, so I got a few hours of sleep, and it was back down to town and into a taxi to the shared-taxi (jeep) stand. I found one, but I would have to wait for it to fill up. After 1.5 hours (9:30am) it was totally packed and we were ready to go. Fortunately I had a window seat, but man it was just not a comfortable seat, at all. Bring the pain! The first few hours were nice and flat until we got up into the mountains. Then it was a mix of decent road and unpaved track. There were certain parts where our driver would turn off the road and take these extra steep and bumpy dirt trails to cut some time off of the switchbacks and pass trucks. That was kinda fun.

Getting high up in altitude

These buses are everywhere, pretty cool decorations

Everything was going smooth enough, until it wasn’t. We turn the bend and LOG JAM. We sat in the jeep for maybe 30 minutes not moving and then people started getting out to investigate what was going on. As always it was a narrow part where only one car could pass at a time, but now the cars were so piled up in each direction that nobody could go anywhere. The only remedy for this was a coordinated effort to get all the people in one direction to back up and keep backing up until all the cars going the opposite way could pass. We’re talking 50 or 60 trucks and cars that all would have to back up in unison. It took forever, but they got it done, and maybe 2 hours later we were back moving again!

There ain’t enough room for both of us pal

Our dinner stop

It was smoother for the rest of the afternoon; we stopped at a scenic spot with roadside stalls for dinner, as the sun sank behind the hills. It’d been over 9 hours and we still had a long way to go. After dark the roads turned into complete shit again and it was a miserable couple of hours. We also got a flat tire, so that was another half hour sitting on the side of the road. It’s never just a super straightforward trip! But at least they built that tunnel getting into Manali. We finally pulled into the bus station at 1:45 am, so about 16 hours. Nice. I had booked a hotel three minutes away and went to pass out.

Temple in Manali

I had a full rest day in Manali, my one short excursion was visiting some temple in the forest (greenery yesss!) and I also inquired about the bus up to the Spiti Valley. It left at 6am, but I couldn’t buy my ticket now, I’d have to buy it on the bus the next morning. Hmmm. So fast forward to 5:30 the next morning, I find the bus and all the seats are full. Internal groaaaaan. Well I’m already up, packed, wide awake, I guess I’m standing. The high pass that this bus goes over to get into Spiti Valley had only just been cleared of snow recently, which is why the bus was so crowded I guess. When the bus started to move, all the standers outside the bus hopped on and crammed in the aisles. This would be fun.

We went back north through the tunnel and then east towards our destination: Kaza. Eventually the paved road just abruptly disappeared and you’re left with a bunch of rocks and gravel. At one point everyone had to get out to make it easier for the bus to get over a stretch of boulders. We continued on and on this bumpy 4x4 track for hours and hours and hours, it never improved, not even for small stretches. We had to be averaging less than 10mph. The bus driver’s navigational work getting past every obstacle was quite impressive though. And like usual, there were lots of parts where the bus has to pull over or go in reverse to let other cars get by. Often the driver would be shouting instructions to the self driving noobs in SUVs who weren’t confident on these types of roads.

Getting rocks in the proper location

Everybody out!

The route was just recently cleared of snow, can you tell?

It’s kind of trippy seeing the next village on the map being 20 miles away, and it’s well over two hours to get there! Oof. It was entertaining watching some people being able to sleep on the way, I mean if you could sleep on this bus, you could literally sleep through anything. As for me, I’d been still standing for six hours or so, kind of numb to the discomfort at this point. Sometimes in India you just have to switch on the Zen mode.

We finally climbed over the Kunzum La Pass and it got better from there. We stopped at the first village marking the beginning of the Spiti Valley, I gave my passport details to an officer, and amazingly some people got off the bus!! After eight (EIGHT!) hours of standing I was able to sit down, thank god! And two hours later on good roads we were in the largest town in the valley, Kaza. This would be my base for exploring the area.

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Outskirts of Kaza

I must say, I’ve seen plenty of long bus rides and horrible roads before, and normally I’m pretty resilient, but these couple of days were really pushing my limits! As for the worst roads, this part of India might just take the cake. Either that or Western China. Honorable mention to Tajikistan. Real distinguished company…

Will the worst of my India bus travels be over now?! We’ll see!

Nubra Valley and Pangong Lake

This is the signature trip when you’re in Leh, which takes you over the world’s highest motorable road. Exciting stuff!  Once I returned from the Markha Valley trek this was next on the list. My hiking partner was off to a high altitude medicine conference, so she was out, back on the hunt for travel buddies. Leh is a bit odd in that it doesn’t really do group trips. You have to find a group and then split a shared taxi and a driver. The travel agencies can help find you seats if you only have one or two people, but with so few foreigners around the most likely thing to happen is I would get put as +1 to an Indian group or family.  Ehhh. Anyway, I put my name and number down at two agencies to see what would happen.  That night I got a call they had a spot for me. Lucky! It was two Koreans, a German – Indian couple, and me. We were off the next morning at 9am.

I met everyone at the agency, and then we were into the jeep going straight up and up and up. We climbed well over a mile in elevation on a surprisingly nice stretch of road, as the snow kept accumulating on the tan colored mountains. After a couple hours we were at the top, Khardung La Pass! There were a couple of cafes – all saying the highest café in the world, as well as the world’s highest medical tent and government office! You get the idea. We hiked up a bit to the lookout point and I had to bend over to recompose myself after about 3 minutes of steps, oof. You’re only supposed to stay at the pass for up to 15 minutes for safety reasons, and it’s cold enough where you don’t really want to stay for longer than that anyway!

the drive up with Leh down in the valley

Khardung La Pass

the other side

The other side of the pass looked much different, everything was completely blanketed in snow and the roads deteriorated quickly. I did not enjoy sitting in the back seat for this part. A couple hours later we were down in another valley, this one called the Nubra Valley. There were a few small villages, but like most of Ladakh, it was mostly rocky, dry, and barren. We stopped at a huge Buddha statue and monastery overlooking the valley and had lunch at roadside restaurant. The Koreans actually weren’t traveling together, they coincidentally met in Leh and were both from Busan. The German girl was visiting her Indian boyfriend for a month. They had just taken the ‘highway’ from Manali in a shared taxi, which included their driver drinking whisky, some sort of belt in the taxi going bad making them lose electricity in the car and having to drive many hours at night with no lights, for a grand total of 18 hours. I’d be taking that route the opposite way next, yikes!

Sandstorm - Darude

The greenest part of the valley

Besides the mountains, the Nubra Valley is known for its sand dunes and Bactrian camels. The one thing everyone does in the valley is go for a camel ride. Well at this point in my travel career I’ve been on enough camels by now to know that I don’t really need to sit on another one. They have to be one of the most uncomfortable animals to ride, clunking along, jerking you up and down every step. No thanks. I was happy enough to play photographer.

After getting through a sand storm and another hour of driving we arrived at the sand dunes, where the camel/tourist zoo was located. The rides only lasted about 15 minutes and the camels were certainly kept busy with an unending supply of Indian tourists. For being in such a remote part of the world, it certainly didn’t feel like it! In our group just two opted for the camel ride, while the rest of us walked around with our cameras. I was not the only photographer in the group! And it was an excellent location for photography with the dunes and the mountains in the distance. I just wished we could have arrived just a bit later for better lighting!

Camels waiting for their riders

3/4 of our group

chilling on the dunes

Our driver took us to a guesthouse he thought would have room, Rishav did some negotiating in Hindi and we were all set. The valley isn’t exactly cheap, it was 2,000 rupees per room, pretty expensive by Indian standards, but in dollars it was $24, fine by me. We took a rest and then walked around a bit, the sheer number of guesthouses, many of which had been built in the last 5 years, was pretty wild. We got back for a typical dinner buffet of rice, chapatis, dhal (lentils), and curried vegetables. You don’t get much variety out in the mountains. We all retired pretty early, the combination of the altitude and the amount of time on the road that just seems to sap all your energy.

The next day was a solid 5 or 6 hours of mostly dirt track to get to our next spot, Pangong Lake.  Despite the driving conditions there was a steady caravan of tourist jeeps, sometimes piling up a bit when the roads got narrow and only one car could pass. At one point a rockslide had washed away some of the road and we had to sit and wait while the Bihari road crews cleared it away. Bihar is the poorest state in India and I guess they get employed en mass to do roadwork in Ladakh, not with machines though, all by manual labor, while living up on the roadsides in small little camps. Pretty bleak, but I guess it’s better than having no work.

rockslide delay

the roads

Our first glimpse of the bright blue alpine lake was a wonderful contrast to the dullish grey-brown terrain we’d been driving through. We even got a few minutes of sunshine breaking through the clouds. We eventually stopped a very famous section of the lake, one where they had filmed a scene from a famous Bollywood movie, 3 Idiots. You can pay to take photos with props from the movie, it’s a must stop for almost every Indian who goes to the lake. Although by the time we had stopped the clouds had completely closed in and the winds picked up, so it was absolutely freezing. The photos looked nice in a dark, ominous type of way.

first glimpse. Sadly you only get that nice blue when the sun is out

Not so nice weather. Not pictured: The wind

We drove further along to lake to get away from the most touristy villages and found our way the smaller town of Merak. After stopping by a few guesthouses we found one with 2 rooms and I got to sleep on the cot in the common area, ha. It was fine, I’m not really that picky. After a nice tea break we had a chance to walk down to the lake, beautiful, but also still numbingly cold. Dinner was basically the same as the night before, as expected! Later on the Koreans wanted to make some fire ramen (Buldak) and Soju (Korean rice wine) as customary back home, so we all joined in the festivities. A nice way to spend the final evening.

scenery outside Merak village

Then it was back in the jeep the next morning, one more stop at the lake, and over a different pass. This one was in much worse shape than the first one, and it was mostly a snowy whiteout, making for a long day on the road. I would be getting very used to horrible road conditions on this trip! Once we were back in Leh we ate dinner together and the next day we parted ways, some people back to Manali and some going further into Ladakh. And I was happy to take a rest day! So all in all it was good trip, and the scenery was spectacular. Although the ratio of time spent driving was certainly a bit higher than I would have liked! And of course I do have to lament on how friggen touristy this part of Ladakh is. I’m hard to please :p

One last stop at the lake

Taking a photo of someone taking a photo of someone taking a photo

just the beginning of the ascent, ugh

The top. Very popular route with motorcyclists. I’m glad I’m not one of them!

Next up: The Leh – Manali highway and onto the Spiti Valley. As if I hadn’t had enough desert mountains, monasteries, and rough roads!

Leh and the Markha Valley Trek

It’s wayyyy to hot in Delhi! I gotta get out. So it’s certainly convenient that you can hop on a flight and be all the way up in the mountains of Ladakh in 1 hour and 15 minutes! Soon enough I was on a tuk tuk to the airport - of course when we get there the driver tells me he isn’t allowed to go any further and I have to walk with all my stuff to the terminal, which I can’t see, but I’m assured it’s just 300m down the road! I had a few choice words for this new development, but what can you do? Ahhh India. It really wasn’t hard to find and a few hours later I was stepping off the plane outside Leh, swapping the sweltering heat for beautiful 60 degree and sunny weather. Although I really should have paid a little more and booked a window seat though, oops

I shared a taxi into town with the only other foreigners on the plane, a German couple, got dropped off and headed up the hills a bit - really feeling every step in my lungs! I had gone straight from sea level to almost 12,000 feet, which is not ideal obviously, but I took some Diamox to help prevent altitude sickness beforehand, just in case. I’ve never really had many problems with high altitude, so I wasn’t too worried. But I would certainly need a few days to take it easy and acclimatize. First order of business upon clamoring to my guesthouse: a nice long nap!

The guesthouse was nice, especially the rooftop terrace with a view, although it appeared to all Indian couples or families. Later that afternoon I headed down to the main tourist strip to see what’s what. I was pretty surprised at how bustling it was! It looked like Covid had certainly dampened the international tourist crowd, as there were none that I could spot, but domestic tourism appeared to be alive and well! I guess I didn’t realize how popular Ladakh had become with Indian tourists, it seemed like the place to be. Everywhere you look there are new guesthouses being built wherever there’s any open space. It used to be that you had to take the brutal Manali-Leh Highway to get to Leh, but nowadays you can just hop on a flight, so I guess that helped it’s popularity considerably, along with being featured in a famous Bollywood movie. And while it’s nice that Indians are out exploring more of their country, mass tourism isn’t exactly my scene. So I was looking to get out of town and do some trekking in some more remote parts outside of Leh, preferably one you an do independently - the Markha Valley.

the main tourist street of Leh. Feels more like Nepal than India!

strolling the side streets

Well, it’s time to see if I can find any like-minded people who might also want to do this trek. I stopped into some hostels to see if they organized any treks or had a message board for travelers looking to recruit some other people for excursions (quite common in western hostels), but nope, nothing of that sort. Then I stopped in the travel agencies, and they all said they had received almost no interest in the Markha Valley trek, as I guess Indians don’t really do trekking, heh. Plan C was sit around the main strip and chat up the very few foreigners I saw walking around, seeing what their plans were for Ladakh, but alas, no trekkers. Welp, I guess I’m on my own.

After two days of rest and acclimatizing and visiting some monasteries, I took an expensive taxi up to the mountain village where the trail starts. The nice thing about the Markha Valley trek is that there’s a few tiny villages along way, which have some homestays where a family gives you a very basic bed (well, mattress pad), cooks you dinner and breakfast, and give you a few snacks for lunch, in exchange for about 1200 rupees – about $15. Although my taxi driver thought they might be shut down because it was so early in the season and there were so few tourists trekking. Uh oh. But why would a homestay shut down, it’s just a spare room in the house right? Well we’ll see.

very simple lodgings, but a sweet view

I really do enjoy this type of trekking though, they call it teahouse trekking in Nepal, and it’s very convenient because you don’t have to carry a tent and all your camping gear. All that stuff is huge PITA to carry along on a longer term trip. Also it adds a nice cultural component to the hike, but you still get plenty of peace and solitude once you’re back on the trail itself. As for the start of my hike, once the taxi dropped me off it certainly seemed like I would get PLENTY of peace and solitude! There were two villages right at the beginning where I saw some people, but after that, it was just me and the trail. I had 15 miles total to Markha village. My taxi driver had made me a little nervous, these guesthouses better be open or it would be cold miserable night somewhere! And then I’d have to hike out the way I came and hitchhike back to town, ugh.

Prayer wheel marks the start

The scenery itself was very pretty, in a rough, raw type of way. Very few things seemed to be alive except for some patches of vegetation along the river bank. Apart from that it was all sand and rocks, flanked by dry brown mountains. After hiking a few hours I spotted what appeared to be someone with a big backpack ahead, another trekker perhaps? And it turned out it was! It was a German girl, about my age, also doing the trek solo, looking to get to Markha Village for the night. The Gods are good! She’s a doctor in between jobs, here in Lakakh for a high altitude medicine conference, well traveled, and very interested in Tibetan culture, and we got along well! She did have a boyfriend though, I’m not THAT lucky.

looking after the sheep

We arrived in Markha and stopped at the first place we saw that said homestay. The man, who spoke some English, welcomed us to our little room, which had a nice view of the mountains. His wife brought us some milk tea and cookies while we took some time to relax on our mattress pads. Very nice! We also had some time to walk into town and check out the small monastery up on the hill. The views of the valley were great, there wasn’t much in the way of civilization even though this was the largest town in the valley! Fifteen or so houses, a bit of farmland, a handful of people in the fields, some kids sliding down loose scree in the distance, plus some sheep, donkeys, and dogs roaming around. Extremely tranquil. We got back for a dinner of popcorn, curry vegetables, lentils, rice, and some dense Tibetan bread rolls. It was a nice way to start the trip!

The town of Markha

the small monastery

they’re called blue sheep or bharal

The second day would be an easy day. We slept in and had chapati and tea for breakfast, with a few different types of jam to choose from, peanut butter AND nutella. We didn’t realize how good we had it so early on! That morning our hike to the village of Hankar was pretty flat, ever so slightly uphill, with the valley walls steepening and closing in on us a bit. At one point there was a homestay perched way up in the rocks, closed sadly, but it looked like one of those places in the movies where you go and train with the monks and start acquiring special mental abilities. Someone alert the instagrammers when it opens again!

If you squint you can see the little house up there

We arrived mid afternoon to Hankar, which was less than 10 homes, and didn’t see any homestay signs, but we did see a woman outside to who beckoned us to come in. We were shown our room and brought some tea, and then headed out to see what was around. Hankar had an old fort that was built way up on a steep rocky pinnacle, with a precarious trail to get up there. We made it to the main fort section, but the highest tower was via some very very exposed rock steps, the fall to your death kind, and we took a pass on that part. But it was quite the excitement for such a quiet sleepy place.

Now this is a tea room

The fort sits on that sharp rocky point

ruins of the fort

Sheep looking over the valley

wider view

Back in the homestay was a little weird, the woman and husband were very solemn, and didn’t really acknowledge us and left us waiting well into the night for dinner. Finally they invited us to the common room, which was looked great, where we ate a dinner of some Tibetan flour dumplings and some potatoes, along with the parents (presumably) of the man or wife. They looked to be in their 90’s (they probably weren’t) but these old mountain people have such leathery weathered faces. Everyone sat and ate in silence, and we speculated this family may have fallen on hard times, but we couldn’t know for sure, the place felt a bit awkward. Some visible baby shoes with no baby around seemed like a bad sign.

the old man reading his prayer book at breakfast

Anyway, it was chapati and jam and honey for breakfast, and off for a tougher hiking day, almost all uphill to a camp called Nymaling. It’s a seasonal camp, so I was worried it might be closed, but Olga (odd name for a German) had the intel that is was indeed up and running.  We had nice sunny weather at the start but eventually the clouds came and the wind picked up, and we were pretty chilly by the time we reached the camp. The hosts weren’t there, but we each grabbed a tent and were happy to throw on all the blankets and take a nice little nap until the two young Ladakhi hosts returned and made us some tea. And the sun did end up peaking its head out for a bit in the evening, making some nice light for photos. Although after about 15 minutes outside my fingers were about ready to fall off.

looking back down into the valley on the way up

The valley eventually flattened out and got greener: Nymaling Campsite

struttin

so cold!

Later on we were invited by the two guys into the mess tent for our soup, rice and dhal meal. They were surprisingly chirpy in spite their living conditions in a high altitude, freezing valley. Olga said it was a place she could spend a few days because it was so peaceful. A big nope for me, I’ll find a peaceful place where I can feel my extremities, thank you very much. Once again it was an early night, although the quality of sleep was kind of lousy, presumably because we were at 16,000 feet.

The next day we tackled the high pass, which was steep, but only 1200 feet to climb. The cold wind really picked up near the top, making the last few hundred feet quite the slog. At the top (hooray!) we had some views of the mountain ranges in the distance, but that was quickly enveloped by clouds. Soon we were in a total whiteout and the wind was blowing the snow just about horizontally. We threw on every layer we had, and this was the time to bust out my sock gloves, and quickly scurried down the other side. These were not conditions to mess around with! Of course 30 minutes later it completely blew over and it was sunny again. The rest of the day would be all downhill, but much more challenging than I was anticipating. Loose rocks, an ice/snow covered riverbed, narrow and exposed sections of trail, and then a few hours of no real trail, but just walking and carefully placing footsteps in the rocky riverbed. It’s exhausting having to pay so much attention to where you’re walking! I was kinda hoping to get down to the highway that afternoon, but nahhh, we were both pretty tired, so one more homestay it is!

clouds moving

A few minutes until zero vis!

This homestay the woman came down the hill and grabbed Olga’s bag to carry up to our room. It was located beautifully at a fork in the river and you had views of the valley in three different directions. This woman was super friendly and quickly got us tea and cookies, then instant noodles for a snack, and pulled up plastic chairs so we could watch the sun go down behind the mountains. We were glad we made one more stop! Dinner was the usual, rice and dhal and some veggies. The next morning we just had to walk a few miles downhill to the highway, but we got lucky and flagged down an Indian Gov’t jeep and they took all the way down. Then we split a taxi back to Leh, and that was it. It was really a enjoyable hike, we had mostly all good experiences at the homestays, and we had the whole valley pretty much to ourselves. Quite the opposite of being in Leh. Totally worth it!

Traveling again: India and (hopefully) Pakistan

Well now that I’m traveling again I suppose it’s time to hit up the ole blog. The last couple of years have been pretty slow for any type of real active traveling, but I did enjoy my time in Nicaragua and Mexico during the pandemic times. And now it’s been a full 10 months of pretty heavy grinding at the poker tables with very few breaks, mostly in Texas and Florida, as the Chicago have been hit by some pretty severe dealer shortages. Although I can’t say I really enjoy traveling this much for poker though, I kind of like having a home base and some sort of stability when I’m ‘working’. Not being on the road ALL the time, it’s too much.

Fortunately the games I’ve played in have been pretty juicy, and it was a solid poker year. Unfortunately my expenses have been basically off the charts this year. Between travel costs, short term airbnbs/hotels being insane (FL, cough cough), eating out too much, paying for a broken collarbone and aftercare, dental work, and of course my good for nothing health insurance which doesn’t cover anything, my monthly expenditures have been stupidly high. Oh and now whatever I have in crypto is now in the tank, yay.

Humayun’s Tomb, Delhi

Anyway, it’s been a kinda frustrating year, so it’s very nice to be on the road again. I find the more time I spend outside the US the happier I am! So the plan is to be in the Himalayas for most of the two months I have to travel, in the Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh states of India and the mountain villages in Pakistan, north of Islamabad. After spending a lot of time at the beach in Florida, I felt like some cool fresh mountain air and snowcapped peaks were calling my name. Also there’s some interesting Tibetan culture, plenty of centuries old monasteries perched on the cliffs, and some great trekking opportunities. And I could certainly stand to lose a little weight. At high altitudes I’ll burn a lot of calories hiking and at the same time the altitude also seems to decrease my appetite quite a bit - the Himalayan Diet! Maybe throw in some diarrhea for even more effective weight loss, heh.

hanging with the blue sheep

Logistically it makes the most sense to start from India, as their e-visa only lets you choose airports, while in Pakistan you can choose land crossings. It’s also worth noting that Pakistan has made their visa situation much easier in the last few years and the political situation is pretty stable right now, so I’m hoping it won’t be too difficult to get. For the India e-visa (for Americans) you can apply for a 5 year visa, which is really convenient, and they approved it, no problem! Also I found some $350 flights direct from Chicago to Delhi, which is a pretty damn good deal. I won’t be staying in Delhi very long though as they’re experiencing a heat wave where its 110+ degrees every day, yikes. And it’s a only a 1 hour 15 min flight up to Leh in the Ladakh province.

Qutub Minar in Delhi

Update: I actually missed my flight to Delhi! I got to the airport 2 hours early, which is normally fine, but the line at the Air India check in counter was snaked way down the airport and almost everyone seemed like they had a cart fully loaded with jam-packed suitcases, and thus the check in process was moving along very slowly. I had apparently forgotten how much luggage Indians travel with! Also the check in closes a full hour before the flight, uh oh. So I finally get the counter with 5 minutes to spare, and I had my vaccination card ready, but I did not do my research properly and you have to upload that and your passport to the Indian government website. Shiiiit. It’s mandatory to fly. I still have time though!

My fingers were flying typing in all the blanks on the form on my phone, just mashing buttons at lightning speed, when eventually it gets to the photo upload part. They don’t take Jpegs, only PDF files, noooo. So I had to download an app to switch them to PDF and tried again, but it still doesn’t work, too large of files! AGHGH. At this point they’re closing up the counter and me and few others are still frantically trying to finish up on this stupid clunky gov’t website. Then the staff leaves the counter. And that’s it. Nothing you can do, nobody you can protest to or rebook a flight or anything. Air India doesn’t even have an office or ticket booth at O’hare. Nothing. I had to call my mom and to get picked up, and we went to the Air India office a few miles down the road. $300 cancellation fee + other fees basically meant I’d lose the value of the whole flight, but fortunately I could book the next day for the same price, so it could’ve been worse I suppose.

And now I’m in Delhi, the 14.5 hour flight really wasn’t that bad. Of course it’s hot as hell here and my guesthouse/hostel is oddly quiet, so not exactly ideal. But I’ll be off to Leh in two days! Although I’ll still have time to check out a few sites I haven’t been to yet, if I don’t fry to a crisp first.

Hauz Khas Fort

Lodhi Gardens

Qutub Minar again

Hauz Khas Fort overlooking Deer Park