Lesbos

pics: lesvos harbor,
Elle on our street
don't know what they sell but probably good stuff
delicious snacks prepared by the chef on our cruise








A couple of days after Joey left Athens we decided we should start making our way towards Turkey where we planned to meet up with our friends Dawson, Genevieve and Senor a.k.a .Paxson Revel. There were three choices train, bus or ferry. The train was supposed to be slow and when we went to check on tickets they said the tracks had been wiped out due to rain. The time when they would be fixed seemed to be unknown. The bus sounded nice but long and boring compared to the third option which was a ferry to the island of Lesvos and then a short ferry to Turkey from there. I'm sure there's a good joke involving ferries and Lesvos but I don't know it. Anyway Elle and I have never been on a cruise together so we dubbed the ferry a cruise and booked the sleeper cabin for the 12 hour trip. It was mostly overnight so we didn't see too much but it was a nice trip nonetheless. Elle made us gourmet Greek snacks for dinner which we enjoyed with ouzo purchased from the cruise ship gift shop.


We didn't know too much about Lesvos island when we arrived so we just searched around for a place to stay that morning. It turns out that unlike most Greek islands which are very seasonal Lesvos has year round residents and a vibrant cafe and bar scene.
The island is also famous for it's olive oil production and is reported to be some of the best in
Greece. The food was amazing and the people were really friendly. There are also some famous spas and historic ruins on the island. Unfortunately we did not get to explore as much as we would have liked. Due to the low demand for travel between Turkey and Greece in the winter time the ferry we planned to take was cancelled. Luckily for us a group of Turks visiting for the weekend had a ferry booked for the next day which we were able to hop on.

Greece: Athens

Acropolis Joey Elle and I

Acropolis view from apartment at night.

From Tanzania we flew to Greece via Dubai. We didn't have enough time to do anything during

our layover in Dubai because it was during the middle of the night but it was pretty cool to see the craziness of that airport. We were there all night and there must have been about 50,000 other people there all night also. It kind of looks and feels like a Vegas casino without the gambling.

Anyway from there we flew to Athens where we met up with Joey a friend of ours who studies the classics at the cleverly named American School of the Classics. We arrived on Thanksgiving day and Joey somehow arranged for us to have Thanksgiving with his school. Thanks Joey! The chef is Greek and I'm not sure if he has made thanksgiving dinner before but he nailed it dead on. Amazing food. Then Joey showed us around some of the major sites in Athens it's pretty fun to go with an expert you get some more insight than you probable would just reading the plaques. Joey had to go to Crete to do some learning and one of his friends offered us her apartment while he was away(Thanks Cher and Anne). The place had an awesome view of the acropolis and was in a cool part of town so we stayed on for a few more days exploring Athens and some areas nearby. Elle was offered a job cooking at a little cafe where we had some drinks with some of the classical students. She probably would have taken it if we weren't so broke by this point in our trip.

Zanzibar

Sooooo ,

After four long hard days of safari action we all felt that we needed a vacation. Zanzibar seemed the ideal place for us to kick back during the remainder of our time in Africa. Zanzibar is a group of islands off the coast of Tanzania. Zanzibar has seen it's share of foreigners over the years and many of the locals now make there living in some way or another off of tourism. The main island has beautiful beaches, coral reefs and Arabic architecture in the plus column. In the negative column it also has very persistent touts know as "papasi" or ticks in Swahili. Elle and Jamie had fun shopping the markets for souvenirs but I couldn't handle the aggressive sales people. Sometimes you can sometimes you can't. I didn't. I had a small meltdown. It's amazing what 90 degree heat and humidity do to your patience level. But since this is retro-active blogging I can say everything was perfect. We stayed for a couple of days in Stone town home of the world's record number of self proclaimed tour guides and then went to the north for some beach lounging.

In the pictures is the white washed buildings and narrow streets of Stone town.

And rancho relaxo in our Italian owned beach villa northern beaches.

Not pictured is the Italian George Clooney who was spotted by Elle and Jamie in the villa lounge. He wasn't that good looking.

We are back!

I received a few emails asking if we were still in Africa so we decided we had better finish the blog. Sorry to all of our loyal reader(s) we just kind of ran out of internet options (within our budget that is) near the end. Since arriving home I am happy to say that after looking for a month we have found the perfect home and are mostly moved in. We could not have done it without Mike and Jayne who let us surf there couches for the entire month of Jan. We love you guys!!! Also thanks to everyone who let us keep our various items at there houses. We will now attempt to recap the final days of our trip through the rosy glasses of retrospection.

Serengeti Pictures

The Serengeti does not disappoint.

More Hot Safari Action

These ones are pretty self explanatory.


Very large chicken.



















The road to the Serengeti.

Elephant

Female lion early morning mist.

Safari Pictures

We took a bus from Dar es Salaam north towards Kenya to a town called Arusha to start our safari. On the way we passed Mt. Kilimanjaro which you could barely see the top of with just a little patch of the glacier peaking through the clouds. It was pretty cool though. Our book said the glacier is predicted to disappear by 2020. So hurry.





Our safari was divided up into to parts over four days. First we would camp on the rim of the Ngorogoro crater and drive down in to see the wildlife.


Then we would travel to the famous Serengeti park where we would camp for the next two nights.


As you can probably see National Geographic isn't going to be calling to borrow my 3X zoom digital camera for any upcoming wildlife shoots. Luckily we got pretty close to the animals.



Photos: our camp on the crater rim
peak of the snow Kilimanjaro
wildebeest crater floor
zebra and wildebeest derriere

Tanzania

Elle and I were both really excited to get to Africa. We knew that going on a safari was expensive so we were prepared to go extra budget while in Dar es Salaam. I guess neither of us were prepared for the cost of things in Tanzania. The declining dollar and our declining bank accounts added a little stress to the situation but we came up with some creative money conservation tactics. We left India a little ahead of schedule but we didn't really anticipate Tanzania costing much more than India. We were wrong. Many things are priced similarly to what they would be at home. Not what you would expect in a third world country. It makes you wonder how people who according to our book make on average $250.00 a year can afford to live.

So we had a couple of weeks to kill before our friend Jamie came to meet us. We originally thought that we might do a short trip to one of the national parks in the south. Our guide book is slightly dated and the current prices made that option impossible. This gave us an excellent opportunity to explore Dar es Salaam an option most people might not choose.

Hotels are very expensive in Dar so we opted for the less luxurious YWCA. At six dollars a night it can't be beat. They have a canteen with good food and free aerobics with the nuns. Our other big saver was going to the casino for drinks. The minimum gambling amount is $10. We found that if we gamble very slowly and drink very quickly we could finish two drinks each before our money ran out. Since drinks are free to gamblers this worked out pretty well especially for Elle who loves gambling.

After two weeks Jamie arrived. This was her first trip overseas and she deserves some respect for making it a huge one. The guide books make it sound a little more scary than it actually is so I think she was pretty relieved to see some familiar faces at the airport.
Typical guide book suggestions for Tanzania:
don't carry around valuables
don't carry a walet
don't wear jewelry
don't carry a camera
don't walk around at night
don't look scared
never look anyone in the eye
don't leave anything of value in your hotel room
run from your cab to the front door of your hotel
O.K. I made up a couple of those but you get the picture. You are going to die if you go to Africa. We lived though and we had a good time. I'm not saying that taking precautions is a bad thing but reading about them may scare you.

Pictures: our sweet room at the YWCA
Beach camping we did outside of town
Kilimanjaro Beer it was 1000$ to climb the mountain but only about $2.00 for a little taste
Jamie Justin Elle at Ngorongoro Crater rim we totally blend in here many people had us mistaken for locals.

India rap-up

We spent two weeks tooling around the Andamans and we met some really cool Dutch people who we spent alot of time with.
Hans, Bouke, Nicole, Nicoline and Stephanie.

This is Elle, Stephanie and Nicoline having a dance party in front of the hut.


The downed tree is the result of the tsunami.

After the Andamans we flew to Bombay(mumbai) where we spent a couple of days before flying to Africa. Bombay is the Hollywood of India where most of the Indian films are made. Many tourists are asked to play extras in films and Elle and I were approached to be in one but we declined. We thought it might be a scam and were leaving the next day anyway. Then we received an email from Bouke. He and Nicole were asked to be extras and they got to meet Jesse Metcalf who is apparently pretty big stuff in the U.S. So we may have missed our big chance to be stars but Indian films are mostly musicals and I can't sing or dance so maybe not.

Youre stoked

Guys,
Glad you guys found a cool island in the Andamans. Hope you 2 are well. Same old back here. Been getting some fun surf, workin' the Wang, drinkin' bloody Mary's, (Cathy and I are are obsessed w/ making the perfect bloody mary). Take it easy and we'll rap soon. P.S. the Honda's still running awesome! Adios, Jason

Havelock

These are all shots of Havelock Island. The beach and our hut where we stayed.
Very good decision to go here as you can see.

Andaman Islands

So we left this.


For this... Pretty much a no brainer for us.
The Andaman Islands lie far off the east coast of India much closer to Myanmar and Thailand than India. They are all protected because of there amazing marine life and native populations. Foreigners are allowed to stay 30 days and can only visit certain areas of the islands and have to pay higher fees than Indian nationals. When we first arrived we landed in the only large town Port Blair. It's a really dirty busy town full of diesel exhaust and trash. We were a little disappointed. You have to go through Port Blair to go to any of the other island though so we stayed for a few days and rode around the South Andaman island on a motorcycle. We decided after a few days to take the eight hour ferry south to Little Andaman.

That cost us about 40 cents each. The ferry was surprisingly not that uncomfortable. When we got to Little Andaman we were pretty excited. The main (only) port is on a five mile golden sand beach with crystal clear water. Once we got to shore we found a little different story. Little Andaman was hit really hard by the tsunami and while there used to be some tourist hotels and restaurants there now is very little. We were the only tourists on the island that we saw. There was one decent hotel but no restaurants. One guy had a small food shack that was really good but he left town the day after we arrived. So we ate alot of dried nuts and potato chips. The island itself is gorgeous but what you can't see from the ferry is that almost every inch of it is covered in manure. Cow, goat, dog, cat and people. The golden sand arc that lines the bay is used as a cattle road and is completely covered in fertilizer. You really can't even walk on the beach without hitting a land mine. After a few days of non stop rain and manure we decided to head back to Port Blair ready for some hot food.

We were about to give up on the Andamans when we talked to a couple from Tazmania who told us that another island, Havelock, was worth a look.
Havelock is the main tourist island so we were going to give it a miss but after Little Andaman some tourist facilities sounded pretty good.

India

As it turns out India has quite a lot of people also. We used the lonely planet guide book to find our hotel and when we arrived we were not impressed. The conditions of the hotel were about the exact opposite of the book's description. We now know from talking with many people that while usually very good the 2005 India lonely planet may be less than accurate. One of our freinds calls it the crap book. We agree. Delhi was a little much for us so we decided to get out after a few days and head to the Andaman Islands far off the east coast. We booked a flight to Calcutta spent the night in an overpriced hotel that tried to rip us off and then flew to Port Blair the next morning.

Qsingtao

Keg Beer for sale on the sidewalks all over Qsingtao they give it to you in a plastic bag.





This is the beer garden near the Qsingtao factory I could only finish one beer.











This Fujia the cop who saved us. Thanks Fujia!



The internet connections have been few and far between lately so just to let everyone know we just arrived in Tanzania last night. I did want to bring the blog up to date though so I will try to start off where we went off course. China. We arrived in Beijing and we knew that it would be pretty tough to get train tickets to Tibet since the train has only been running for one year so we made that a priority. We didn't know that it takes ten days of waiting and paying the ticket scalpers a hefty commission for the tickets but we still wanted to go that route so we did it. After site seeing in and around Beijing we still had a few days to kill so we took the bullet train over to QsingTao on the east coast. The town is renowned for its international beer Tsingtao. Once a German colonial town the city looks as if it could be part of Europe.


The part with many Chinese people.





We arrived late at night and went for some food at one of the nearby seafood shacks on the boardwalk. After eating we received our bill and it was about ten times what it should have been. We argued over the price but ended up paying the bill and leaving. All night I plotted on how to destroy the shack and the owner and did little sleeping. The next day I told Elle about the excellent plans that I had devised for revenge but somehow we came to the conclusion that going to the police might be our best option. We were both pretty sceptical about the success of this maneuver but we figured it was our only choice. The Qsingtao police turned out to be the best police force in the world. Instead of laughing at us they brought in a translator from a nearby hostel and we went over the story and then went and confronted the store owner. It was a fantastic scene because it was lunch hour rush and the place was full. We marched in with three police officers and they made the owner give us our money back and then apologize. Sweeeeeet justice!





After the ordeal the officer who helped us the most (Fujia) invited us out to dinner and brought us gifts!!!!!! L.A.P.D. if you're reading this take note.





After that we returned to Beijing and then left for Tibet. In Tibet we contemplated going over land across the border to Nepal because we were so close and then continuing on to Delhi our next stop. However this turned out to be fairly expensive and since we already had air tickets out of Shanghai we decided to take an even longer train back to Shanghai 51 hours. We spent a few days in Shanghai but it was a week long national holiday and very hard to do anything. I don't know how busy Shanghai normally is but it was hard to breathe there were so many people. Luckily we only had a couple of days there and then we were off to uncrowded India!

More China

These are some of the delicious kabobs you can get on the streets of Beijing. The second one is our favorite restaurant down the street from our hotel in Beijing. It's decorated in dark wood and the walls are stained yellow from all the cigarette smoke. It looks like a place that would be in an old western movie so Elle and I did our best old western poses.

The Mao portrait is at one of the old Beijing gates and is the entrance to the Forbidden City which is also pictured.

Mt. Everest

Pictures Tibet

Elle 's B-day cooking class!





Tibetan high mountain lake seen from 17,000ft pass

Summer Palace Sigatse Tibet






One of the many windy roads on route to Mt. Everest