Ladies and gentlemen, I have re-emerged! Some of you may have been wondering if I had been involved in a bad paragliding experience, or a bus crash on the terrifying roads of Nepal, or straight up fell in love with Ramu and his nails and became a Maoist supporter living in rural Nepal.

No no friends. No no.

Actually it all comes down to simple math. See, when traveling, your bank account only goes down, not up. 

I ran out of money.

In the beginning of May, I decided to head back to the States with just enough money for a visit home and to get me back to California.

Now back in California, I’ve been busy running rivers with the river rafting company called OARS, hiking up on the Lost Coast in Northern California and perfecting what my boyfriend and I like to call Hobo Stew (beans, potatoes and hotdogs wrapped in aluminum foil thrown over the campfire). Oh so delicious.

 I’ve got to figure out what to do with this website now that I’m back home. Stay tuned for more updates. If you have any suggestions, please email or comment below!

Which means in Nepali, “How are you?”

It took me about a week to learn that one.

Other phrases I learned on my two week Annapurna Circuit Trek:

• Big potato
• There is a waterfall
• Small river
• See you again when I return
• I am in pain
• Water please
• I am full thank you

You could pretty much call me fluent.

The hike was absolutely spectacular; beautiful views, new friendships, awkward moments, severe soreness at times. At last minute I decided to take my friend Ramu who is a trekking guide.

Ramu spoke pretty good English, but spending two weeks straight with any person, even if you’re already friends, can be harsh. He only knew three songs-Bob Marley’s ‘Buffalo Soldier’, The Venga Boys ‘I’m blue da da da’ song, and some really popular Nepali song that went something like, ‘Resim Phirry, Resim Phirry, I am a donkey, you are a monkey’. Whenever I tried to hum a new song, he would just start singing one of these songs really loud over me. And for some reason, his nails on his hands were extremely long. Wolverine-esque I would say.

Very strange.

The hike is supposed to take 16-21 days but being the speed demon hiker that I had no idea I was, we finished in 14. Here’s me very happy to reach the pass.

The day we went over the Thorong La pass, (5416m; 17,something ft), was my brother’s 30th birthday. After waking up at 5am to hike over the pass, we spend an additional 6 hours hiking to a town with a phone so I could try to call him. I didn’t get through, and the next morning my feet were swollen and covered in blisters from the long hike before. I’ll spare you the photo.

I wobbled around town trying to find a doctor for some bandages. The only doctor I could find was a traditional Tibetan medicine doctor. I was a bit skeptical, considering his office was inside a place called the Dancing Yak Lodge and Restaurant.

You can’t make this stuff up people.

The office was like nothing I’d ever seen. The walls were lined with small glass jars with all sorts of powder, dried ‘things’, seeds, and who knows what else, all with Tibetan written labels. The doctor walked in, dressed in a down jacket and with a long ponytail. He spoke good English, which took me by surprise. After taking a look at my feet, he drained some blisters, and then picked two jars off the wall and gave me two kinds of medicine to take. The first looked like cornstarch, and I was supposed to soak my feet in water with the powder every day. When I saw the second, the first thing that came into my mind was mice turds. I was supposed to take three ‘turd looking things’ in the morning and night. I didn’t ask what the medicine actually was; I really didn’t want to know.

At this point I think he must’ve seen the shock on my face; there’s no way I could hide it.

He began to tell me that he teaches traditional Tibetan medicine at Virginia Tech. He pulls out a folder with Virginia Tech written on it, and a copy of the Roanoke Times, which had a long article on him. A painter from Virginia had made a 10ft by 10ft mural of his life story. Here’s the medicine he gave me and a photo of the mural.

I was blown away. Dr. Tsampa Nawang is his name. Giving out mice turd medicine is his game. (I kid, I kid.)

My feet slowly got better and I started hiking with these guys for the last few days-Mel and Guy, an Australian couple, and Joe, one hairy man from New York. Here we are on the last day of the hike at sunrise.

All in all it was a great time, but it would’ve been better without Wolverine and with Eli my boyfriend. Lesson learned.

Now I leave Kathmandu and head to Pokhara to do some paragliding, which I am very excited about. I’m not sure where I’m heading to next-let me know which place you think I should go from here.

Two things I fear I am not.

But oh well, I’m reminded of the time my friend Bridget and I hiked up Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and decided to do so on somewhat of a whim.
As she and I looked around at all the trekkers decked out in their aluminum walking poles, their broken-in boots, their shiny new gortex jackets, she turned to me and said,

 ”So I’m pretty sure I’m the only one on this mountain hiking in Old Navy pink linen capris”.

It’ll all be fine. Thank God I double checked about my trusty Salomon cross-trainers being enough for the hike. My friend Ramu, a trekking guide, looked at them and replied, “You are making a 5,500m (~17,000ft)  pass. You will trek in snow for four days. You need hiking boots.”

Good to know.

For anyone familar with the area, I am doing the Annapurna Circuit Trek, continuing possibly to the Annapurna Base Camp. I will be somewhere up in the mountains on my birthday, the big 25, and I find it fitting, considering last year I was somewhere in the backcountry in Moab, Utah around the same time.

I’ll write more in late April, with pictures and stories galore. Until then, all y’all should decide what should be the next adrenaline activity I do in Nepal.

I am so glad to be in Kathmandu. The 18 hour bus ride from the Indian border was definitely the most nerve-wracking bus ride I’ve ever been on. I prayed to God, Allah, Muhammad, Buddha, Jesus- pretty much anyone I could think of, that I would arrive in Kathmandu in one piece. Ohhwee and here I am!

Unfortunately, there were only two women on the bus ride to K-doo. One looked ancient and had very few teeth, and rightly assumed, spoke no English. The other, a middle aged woman, couldn’t really understand what I was talking about, and just looked at me strangely every time I brought up the subject of staying at her house. There were plenty of men that would have been happy for me to stay with them, but I decided that’s just a bit too sketchy for me.

The couchsurfing people I emailed have yet to respond, and sadly enough you have to be a monk to stay in a monastery.

But there is good news! Yesterday morning I went to the Boudhnath Stupa, one of the largest stupas in the world. The stupa is magnificent, absolutely breathtaking. A stupa is a mound of clay or other material that is covers some relics of the Buddha. Small prayer wheels surround the stupa, and there are a number of fifteen foot prayer wheels that people walk around, spinning and saying mantras.

As I walked around it, I met a family that had just arrived and were setting up for a ceremony of some kind. I talked to them for a few minutes, and they invited me to join them. When I asked what kind of ceremony they were having, a man said, “My mother died three weeks ago, and every week we go to another holy site to make offerings to her and wish her a safe passage”.

I couldn’t believe it. This was my second buddhist mourning ceremony in the last two weeks.

And here I am with the lama’s, the main man and the offering. When I asked why there was a flask of whisky to go along with the fruit, the traditional Nepali food and my donation of a liter of mineral water, Balram, the main man, said, “Ahh yes, my late mother was an alcoholic”.

I spent the whole day with them, taking part in their chanting, prayers and prostrations. I learned alot from the Gurung’s, who let me take part in their mourning ceremony. After the ceremony and offering was made, we ate the food and talked about how I would go visit the lamas at their monastery outside of town in the next few days. It was a unique experience, with such a warm welcoming to share their culture with me.

Some important lessons of the day:

• When prostrating towards a statue, try to be as graceful as possible when fully extending on the ground; avoid thud-age.
• When given a handful of rice to throw at key points in prayers, only throw a few pieces at a time; don’t throw the whole handful of rice on the first throw.
• A white woman taking part in a buddhist mourning ceremony, with lamas chanting, prostrations occurring often, and many family members present, receives a particularly large amount of attention from Nepalis and western tourists alike.
• There is absolutely nothing comfortable about sitting cross legged for long periods of time.

There are so many things I could write about Kathmandu-how it has quite possibly the coolest capital name in the world, up there with Tegucigalpa, Ouagadougou and Antananarivo. How there is so much cheap gortex here I need to really not go on a shopping spree. How the people are so welcoming and all smiles, and how the nightlife is a strange, strange experience. Live music next door to each other compete to bring in more tourists-just as ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ ends in one place, you can hear another place rocking out with ‘Tainted Love’ just a few doors down. And I’m not even touching on the upcoming elections, the Maoists, the continual damming of rivers that keep changing the nepali geographical layout, all the more serious subject matters.
What I do want to note, with intense excitement, is that I found a hula hoop! Sure it might be called an ‘exercise hoop’, but hot damn, I got to do some hoopin’!

This just made my day. For anyone who knows me, they know I love me some hoopin’.

Now I have to decide, in a bit of a rush, what I should do in Nepal. I could either do a three week Annapurna trek with a few friends, or I could do a month long yoga retreat, or finally, I could do an intense Vipassanna meditation course with no talking or contact with the outside world for ten days. OR, if you have a better idea of how I could spend my time, write a comment, let me know what I need to check out here in Nepal!

Nothing ever goes the way it’s planned when traveling. You just have to go with it, let go of your expectations, and then just accept all of the what I like to call, ‘Huh? Whaa? I just..wait..? What the..?’ thoughts. And it usually turns out to be a pretty good time, just like the hike was in Sikkim.

The Swedish couple backed out of the hike at last minute, and so it was only three of us that set out from Pelling. Here’s Russo, the Spaniard who likes to say he’s from Albania. Thank God he stopped calling me Priscilla.

Here’s Stephen, from Oakland, the recently retired dental hygienist/real estate broker.

Tom Robbins couldn’t make up better characters than these two.

The hike went on a main road, but there are a bunch of short-cuts to take, where you get the real ‘rural’ perspective…aka getting lost on random footpaths and having to ask people directions from their homes. Russo took the responsibility of this.

With the houses spread out like this, you can imagine how many people we met.

We were convinced that these people were pulling our leg about which way to go. I mean, seriously, look at these poker faces.

We eventually made it to Kchecheopalri lake, just before the rain set in. No electricity meant sitting around a candle under a tarp in the pouring rain, drinking tea out of a plastic bucket. It was fun in that ‘memorable but I don’t want to do this again cause I’m cold’ kind of way.

The craziest thing though is the next morning, as we’re loading up on tibetan momos and tea, I see my friend Toby from California walking down the path! His girlfriend, Bella, and him were supposed to be in Thailand, and here they are in Sikkim, no less in this ’so small it’s not even a town’ place near the lake! Unbelievable.

That night after another day of walking on the road/trying to find short cuts, we arrived in Yuksom, the starting point to a longer, more costly hike called the Goecha-La trek. We met some other travelers, Toby and Bella got ahold of a guitar and a harmonica…

And then somebody pulled out a dijerido (an australian instrument). (How often do you get to say that anyway?)

A jam session was born.

The next day Russo decided he was tired of walking, and took a shared jeep back to Pelling. Stephen joined my California friends on the longer hike and I was left to finish the trek alone. But then who do I see walking down the road? The Swedish couple!

We couldn’t find the short-cuts the last day, so we walked on the main road the whole time, which was lame-o. There were some interesting bridge crossings…

And some adorable school kids.

I started the trek with Russo and Stephen, and ended it with the Swedish couple. And in between, I had a dijerido/harmonica/guitar jam session in the foothills of the Himalayas. Strange how things work out.

Now I head to Nepal. There are plenty of cheap guest houses to stay in Kathmandu, but who wants to do that? I figure let’s make it interesting- I could try to stay with a nice Nepali mother I meet on the 20 hour bus ride, or look to stay in a monastery with monks. Or I could couch surf it, using www.couchsurfing.com. Vote or write a comment, tell me what you think.

Well here I am in Pelling, a small town in western Sikkim with only one internet place that only works sometimes. Man, that’s when you really know that you’re out there-there’s only dial-up internet. I’m about to head out on a five day trek with some other travelers I met. The trek is free, walking from hut to hut, from town to town, but is very popular because of the views. It’s the best option for me, as everything else is way out of the budget, and the people I’m trekking with are real characters.

The first person in the group is Russo, from Spain, who has been traveling for nine months. He likes to tell Indians he’s from Albania so he doesn’t have to get into an intense discussion about the latest Spanish soccer match (Indians love European soccer/futbol). He has a hard time pronoucing Joslin, and so he has begun calling me Priscilla. Why the name Priscilla, I have no idea.

Then there’s Steve, a recently retired dental hygienist/real estate broker from Oakland. He really wants to teach a seminar called, “How to Retire at 55″, and is planning to do the Peace Corps in 2010.

Finally there is a young Swedish couple, the woman’s name is Maria and I still don’t know what the guys name is. These guys have some of the most hilarious travel stories I’ve ever heard. One story they shared at dinner last night was a recent trip to a snow covered holy lake in Eastern Sikkim. It was just the two of them and something like fifty Indian tourists from Kolkata. The Indian tourists had never seen snow, and one guy walked all the way down to where the ice/snow and lake meet. The Swedish couple thought to warn him about the whole, ‘ice and snow covering water underneath and isn’t stable to walk on’ thing, but before they knew it, the ice broke and the Indian tourist fell waist deep into the lake. Meanwhile his friends looked on as they threw snowballs at each other and the women sat in the snow in their saris. The Swedish couple tried to warn them they would be very cold on the three hour jeep ride back, but there was no stopping the fun the Indian tourists were having in the snow.

As we’re about to embark on this trek, I have the theme song from ‘Gilligan’s Island’ running in my head.

I’ll be back in about a week to tell y’all how it went. For now though, you guys need to decide where I’m heading to next!

Yesterday was epic. It was Holi, the Hindu celebration of the beginning of spring. People celebrate it by throwing powdered color on each other, dancing in the street, and just all around letting loose and having fun.

Holi isn’t as big of a holiday in Sikkim as it is in other parts of India, because it has a high population of Buddhists and the geographical location (way up near Nepal and Bhutan). Still no one, not even me, could avoid getting involved in the festivities.

 I met Kristoff, a frenchman who had been traveling for two and a half years, who was planning on leaving today and then decided to stay just one more day. Talk about strange coincidences. It was one of those insta-connections where we met, immediately enjoyed each others’ company and spent the afternoon roaming around the small capital. Here’s what Gangtok looks like.

As we walked around the hilly streets, I shared about how I was struggling with what to do in Sikkim, where to go, missing home, missing my boyfriend, just the whole basic feeling of ‘what the heck am I doing here?’ feeling.

Kristoff, who after traveling for so long, blew my mind with what he said in response. It was one of those moments when something you think you ‘know’ takes on a greater meaning and becomes something which you truly believe.

He said it’s not about where you go or what you do when traveling. It’s about how present you are in what you are doing, whatever or wherever it is, not thinking you are ‘missing out’ on something or somewhere else. I already knew this, heck that idea is what I based this website on! But I needed Kristoff to say it and make it real.

I felt like saying, “Ahh yes.. I see Nobu san..”

Just then we both heard loud chanting and drumming coming from a house nearby. We were waved to come in from a man on the roof. We thought it might be a celebration for Holi, but soon we realized this was a completely different event.  About ten to fifteen women and men were seated in a large room, with a table of lit candles in the corner. Lamas were taking a break from chanting in the other room.

We had crashed a buddhist bereavement procession.

It was so fitting, considering we had just been talking about being present, living in the moment. You can’t plan something like this. We tried to understand more about the ceremony but the old language barrier kept communication to simple sentences. So we drank cola and ate chundis, fried tibetan sweet bread, said we were sorry for their loss, and left after about forty five minutes.

As I lay in my dorm bed that night, the events of the day were spinning in my head-the Holi celebration, the Buddhist funeral, watching everyday life in Gangtok-it all came back to my talk with Kristoff.

Travel isn’t about ’seeing the sights’, or making sure to check off all the ‘must sees’ according to what the Lonely Planet says. Put the book down people! Put it away! Open your eyes and just be present to what is going on around you!

For me and Kristoff, travel is about the little things- playing chungee (hackeysack) with a group of teenagers, having tea with the locals on the street corner, being absolutely jam-packed into the back of a jeep with 12 other people, laughing about how uncomfortable everybody is. It’s these instances when you realize that we all are pretty much the same-we all cry, laugh, eat, worry and die-geography and culture only change things slightly. We all have more in common than we think. This continual realization is one of the reasons both Kristoff and I love traveling so much.

And what a better way to get across my point than to end this post, with Stevie Wonder singing on the stereo, and everyone in the room, (I kid you not!) Indian and foreigner alike, singing along together… “I just called to say, I love you…”

I’m staying in Gangtok for now waiting to find a cheaper trek, I’ll let you know what the choices are soon. 

Okay guys! This post is just a quick one to decide where I should go next in Sikkim. I am currently in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim.

I have a few options. The northern area of Sikkim, in Yumthang Valley, has recently been opened for tourism and there is a group of four people who I could do a three night, four day trip with-some light hiking, mostly beautiful area with lots of photo taking. This option is good but it would be a bit of blowing my budget, which isn’t good.

The next option would be to stay in Gangtok for a few extra days, look for a cheaper tour to the Yumthang Valley and hope to meet other people wanting to take a trip up there as well (you need at least four people to get the permit). There is a good chance I could meet more people I think, just FYI, but it would be more work than the first option.

The third option would be to head to Pelling, in Western Sikkim, and decide whether to go North or West from there.

From Pelling, I could blow the budget on a seven day trek with amazing views of Mt. Khanchengdzonga (say that three times fast), the third highest mountain in the world.

Or finally, from Pelling, I could simply organize smaller day treks to neighboring areas. This would be the option best in my budget.

 All choices are great ones-I would be happy with any of them. I love this website poll idea, making you guys decide all of the tough choices! Vote quickly though, as I need to tell my friends soon, by Sunday night the 23rd! *Which is morning time for many of you!*

Darjeeling is absolutely magnificent. (Just for geography sake, Darjeeling is in eastern India in the Himalayas, about two hours from the border of Nepal.)

I cannot tell you guys how much I love it here. The fresh mountain air, the hills, the crazy fog, all of it. But the best part, the true GREATNESS of the place, is the people. The Darjeelingers (Darjeelingese? Darjeelingis? I have no clue but I like Darjeelingers best) are the most warm and welcoming people that I have met these past four months. I have been able to feel invisible, to be anoynymous, to just… blend in. This is awesome considering that in every other place that I have been in India, I’ve received full rock star status and treatment. Here’s a snap of some girls that sold me the hat I’m wearing-they were smiling like this even before the photo was taken!

Although I have only been here for a few days, I have to say- almost everyone I see just seems so….happy. Perhaps it’s because Darjeeling is so far away both geographically and mentally from what so many of us consider the ‘real world’. It’s easy to get caught up in the way of life here. The Clinton-Obama campaign, all the usual hassle of Indian travel, my student loan payments… it all just seems so far away. Even now, as I’m typing this, there is jazz-funk being played in the cyber-cafe. Where am I?? India? Sure doesn’t feel like it. The crowded streets do kinda look like it though.

Because Darjeeling is so different than other parts of India, it’s been tough trying to ‘tout’ tourists. See usually, when you arrive in any place in India off the bus or the train, you are literally SWARMED with men trying to give you a rickshaw ride to a guest house, cause they get a fat commission (tip) for bringing you there. But in Darjeeling, when I was dropped off (there is no bus stop, you just get out on the main road), get this-no one, not one single person, approached me. I could ask all the directions I wanted, all with very helpful responses, but no one pushed me to go anywhere-it was out of the twilight zone.

I found a guest house, and without much charming on my part, they agreed to my tout deal. (I recruit tourists, if I get people to stay there, I get a free night stay). Have I mentioned how much I love these Darjeelingers…err.. people from Darjeeling?

But now the problem was how to find the tourists. Without any bus stop to tout at, I sat down on the main road and watched for white people with big backpacks. For a while, I saw no one-in fact, during most of my time in Darjeeling, I saw very few tourists. The season wouldn’t really begin until next month I was told. I did happen to make a friend and he waited with me and watched for tourists. Here he is in mid-gum chew.

Finally I saw two big bags and a guidebook-bingo. Ahh! Two South Koreans! I have met more South Koreans in India than any other nationality-I love ‘em! They were very happy to get some sort of directional assistance, and I took them to my guest house, where they promptly signed in. They’re happy, I’m happy, the guest house is happy-happiness all around I tell you! Here are my friends-

I kept my eye out for big backpacks, but saw no one else fresh off the jeep. Anywhere else in India this would have been a totally different show, and to be honest I was looking forward to competing ‘touting’ with the male Indians, but no such luck here.

And can I just say I am so glad I didn’t have to rub alot of strangers hands- I was not looking forward to that.

I head off to Sikkim either tomorrow or the day after. There are so many places I want to visit there, but I need to get some more information about which places are open to tourists and which aren’t. Then, prepare yourselves for picking out where I’m heading to in Sikkim! North, south, east or west…

The last two days have been a serious whirlwind of travel. The bus to Patna was the nicest bus I’ve ridden on in the past three and a half months. No one was standing up, my chair wasn’t broken, peanut shells weren’t covering the floor; I’m talking first class quality for only a buck fifty. It was so nice I just had to take a picture of it.

Finally we reached Patna at 9pm after leaving Bodhgaya at 2. I’ve had an upset stomach bug the past few days and hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, so I got some food at a local Indian restaurant. It went down fine but about an hour later, while taking a cycle rickshaw to the train station, I began to feel really sick. Although I felt like cow poop, I managed to find my train platform, which was packed with people. Look:

I sat down and started to wait, trying not to notice the mass of people that had gathered around and were staring at me. It sucked-all I wanted was to wallow in my belly ache and be anonymous. But considering I was the only white face around, like always it seems, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Jos no happy. Here’s the visual.

About two minutes later, with nowhere to hide, I took about four steps to the edge of the platform and threw up. It was crazy-the puke was a like rocket shooting out of me, not wanting to spend one more second in my body. Trajectile vomit I tell you. A couple of more dry heaves later, I felt on top of the world.

When I turned around, and found every single pair of eyes within sight were staring, absolutely STARING at me. I gave this weak wave, said, “Ehh… Namaste..??” and sat back down on my bag, knowing full well that everyone was still staring at me. That definitely goes down in my record books as one of the most uncomfortable moments in India thus far. All in all though, the day ended alright-I got on the train, in my bunk and laughed to myself about it all.

I swear I’m having a good time.

On a lighter note, I’ve made it to Siliguri and from the poll it looks like I’m heading to Sikkim! I’ll get the permit tomorrow and take a bus up to Darjeeling. The permit only last 15 days, so I need to make a plan before I go if I want to do any trekking or rafting. I hear the scenery is spectacular up there, I can’t wait to get in the mountains.

I had to get an unexpected root canal in Delhi in the beginning of March, so my budget for the month is running low. I’m gonna try to skimp when I’m in Darjeeling and have some ideas on how to do it. One-I can limit myself to eating only street food-the more local the better. Two-I can try to stay for free in a guest house in exchange for recruiting (touting) tourists at the bus station. And three-head to a touristy place, bring a sign that reads five minute hand massages for 20 rupees (50 cents). I’m up for hearing your ideas of how I should save-write a comment! As you can guess, I’m open to suggestions…