Well our trip is a little more than half over so I figured I'd write up a trip report of what's happened so far. Apologies if some of this is old news for some of you. We got underway as planned on July 21st... just 4 days after I wrecked my Saturn by falling asleep at the wheel coming home from San Francisco late at night. Nothing could stop us now. First stop: London. Honestly it was boring. We visited a bunch of musuems, lost my prescription sun glasses, visited more musuems and drank more beer in 1 week than I do in 2 months normally (still not a lot by most standards but a lot for me nonetheless). The problem was that we were in the city, it was hot and we weren't decompressed after spending a week packing up our house. Not the best way to start a vacation. We went to Dublin by bus and ferry (across the Irish sea). Here we stayed with Maria's friends from when she went to college in Dublin for a year. Finally we had a chance to relax... we went sailing with Maria's friends and genuinely enjoyed hanging out in and around the Dublin area. The coast is beautiful and for the first 4 days there wasn't even a drop of the famed Irish rain leading me to doubt its existence. Soon enough though I got more than enough rain... After staying in Dublin we rented a car and drove to Killarney a mountainous region in the south west. We did some hiking (through peat bogs) and even rescued a sheep that had become stuck in a bog. The mountains there are quite picturesque, although it comes at a price: that steep slope that looks so pretty is also a bear to climb up. The highlight of our time in Ireland was our bike tour of the west coast. We saddled up on hybrid mountain bikes and set off with a group of 10 others. We stayed in B&B's where the tour company would make sure our bags were each evening. The west coast of Ireland is scenic and the towns pleasant. There's also good food and music each evening. The Burren is an area we passed through that has a crazy limestone landscape that's all eroded into bizarre shapes, crevices and tunnels. At first it looked completely inhospitable but on our rest day we went for a walk with a local naturalist and it amazed us how many plants and animals live there. Even fragrant orchids grow in what at first glance looks like a uninhabited volcanic landscape. The music in the pubs got better each night as we got to smaller and smaller towns. People just crowd in, the smoke is thick and the music just flows and flows... I'm sure the scongs are written down somewhere but these people just would jam for a good 10-15 minutes, improvising as they went. From the west coast of Dublin we made our way up to Scotland and the island of Islay. Islay is known for its single malt whiskies and in particular (for me anyway) the Bowmore distillery. Driving there the weather was typicallys scottish: cold, drizzly and miserable. After the ferry ride to the island it wasn't raining anymore but it was still overcast and then it started raining again. The island seemed bleak and uninviting. We toured the Bowmore distillery but with the solid grey skies, it put a damper on what we could do. On the morning of the third day though it was clear and sunny and the island changed from desolate to beautiful. We hiked around a bit, checking out the mostly uninhabited west side of the island. The coast is rough and the seas blasts it with big waves almost constantly. We were also treated to a phenomenal sunset which turned out beautifully in our photos. Another lesser known treat on Islay is the lamb. I'm not sure what makes it so good but it's superb. We were staying in a youth hostel and we made roasted lamb chops with a whiskey-apricot sauce that was mighty good. From Islay we decided to road-trip it down to the London area where Maria's cousins are. After a two hour ferry ride we drove through 2 hours of torrential rain and another 6 hours of english countryside by night to get to Guildford (south of London). Guildford is a great town. From Maria's cousin you could walk five minutes and be out on "the downs" which are public lands where everyone can walk. There's a 1,000 year old church up on a hill and all sorts of nooks and crannies to explore. In the other direction it's 10 minutes to the downtown area and shopping galore (which made maria happy). We spent a couple of pleasant days here just taking it easy. We left England on August 24 and went to Italy. We picked up a rental car, drove to see my family in Rome and then continued on with them up to the central mountains and the village where they come from, Villetta Barrea. I always love visiting here because of the clean mountain air, the great food, and the beautiful mountains. We spent a week doing some hiking in the area in preparation for Nepal. Our first hike we stumbled on to quite a bit of wildlife, including a herd of red deer that were mating and making a huge ruckus. We also took a day and a half trip down to the east coast of Italy with my cousin and his fiancee. There it was blazing hot and the ocean a nice change of aace. We of course sampled gelato at every possible occasion to insure that it was as high quality as we remembered from our last trip to Italy. After our stay in Villetta we headed up to Venice and the Dolomites in the north. Venice is a city unlike any other. It's not something you think about but in a city with no cars, busses or mopeds/vespas, it is remarkably quiet. You can walk down little alley ways and hear the sounds of people talking, someone practicing the piano, or smell someone cooking dinner. It's an incredible experieince and the great part is that you can't get lost since the city isn't that big and it's an island so eventually you'll come out to some recognizeable point. The unfortunate thing is that the food isn't so great in Venice. We even went so far as to try Chinese food -- not bad but certainly not up to bay area standards. From Venice it was off up to Cortina D'Ampezzo in the middle of the Dolomites. Cortina is quite a posh town but if you stay on the outskirts it's not expensive. The food here was excellent -- big slices of fresh porcini mushrooms in a dish of pasta are something else! The hiking was nice too and Maria fared well on a 7 hour 1300 meter elevation gain hike with a viscious descent through a rock fall. We also took a cable car up to the top of one peak (Cima Tofana) which was at 3200 meters. Breathing is hard at that altitude. The views were great too but it's not quite the same when you don't have to work for it. We drove down to Florence to visit a friend of mine (Hi Duncan) and it was here that the September 11th attack happened for us. I was in Duncan's office when one of his friend got a call and he told us that someone had flown a plane into the world trade center. I raised my eyebrows but figured it was some crackpot in a Cessna. A few minutes later and another phone call. Soon we were scouring the web trying to find out what happened. Within an hour it was clear that something serious was going on. Maria and I left to go back to our hotel to watch the TV (since the web was useless) and on the way back we passed a bar that was showing the footage on a big screen. It stunned me and then I passed to tears. I'm sure you've all read your share of "how I learned about the attack" stories so I won't go on about it here, but I was devastated and wasn't sure what we should do. One half of me wanted to fly to New York immediately and start sifting through the wreckage as a volunteer. The other half of me practically knew that there was no way I could get a flight and that it wasn't realistic. We returned to Rome, subdued and still a bit shocked. Everyone we spoke with expressed their sympathy and support. The day before we left we had a big get together with all my relatives and cooked up some American food -- burgers and chilli! The burgers didn't go over so well due to me undercooking them on the grill and the buns being sub-standard quality. The chilli was a huge hit though. I also got to hear some hair raising stories from a great uncle of mine that was a prisoner of war during WW-II as well as a few funny stories about my dad and some of his antics (which explains a few things about me as well). We left the 17th of September for Kathmandu and arrived on the 18th in the morning. We flew Thai airlines which is absolutely the best airline I've ever flown. They serve better food and wine that a number of restaurants I've eaten in. Kathmandu was nuts from the moment we stepped out of the airport. A huge crush of people are all trying to get your attention. I spotted the fellow from our trekking company and we tried to follow him to the waiting van. Hands came to grab our bags to "help" us and I assumed that they were with the trekking company. At the van I figured I'd tip a dollar or two but these folks wanted $10 each. I mistakenly assumed they were with the trekking company and paid it. And in doing so was suckered for $20 to carry two bags about 100 meters. Sigh. The trip from the airport shocked us... Nepals is a full-on third world country. That means squalid shanty towns, trash everywhere, cows nosing through the garbage on the side of the road, traffic that just goes wherever it's convenient, beggars galore, and a general downtrodden feel to everything that is unescapable. Our hotel was fortunately a small haven of sanity amongst the chaos although I wouldn't call it first rate by any standard. We timidly ventured out the first day... careful even to where we put our feet as there was excrement (both human and animal) everywhere, trash, dead rats and who knows what else nearly every place along the road. Once into the center of the Thamel (tourist) district the conditions improved but the touts selling tiger balm, cheap nepali fiddles, and hashish were constant. It amazed us what we saw. Once we ventured a bit further we got to see a bit of more normal nepali life in Kathmandu. Here there were stalls selling big piles bright red chili powder, yellow curry powder and other more mysterious spices. Shops selling pans, buddha's, bolts and vegetables lined the streets. The squares were a mass of people, some with their goods spread out on a cloth, others milling about, the usual cow or two and of course the omnipresent hindu and buddhist statues annointed with red paint. We saw beggars with no legs and malformed hands dragging themselves along the street, dirty children looking hungrily at you for a handout and well dressed shop owners. Walking down back streets there were tiny entrances to Nepali restaurants serving the national staple of daal bhaat (rice & lentils). The next day we wandered more and became moer at ease with our surroundings. Still when you pass a man slaughtering a goat on the side of the road with 2 or 3 other freshly slaughtered ones sitting nearby, it's a bit of a shock. At Swayambutha temple we also saw the monkeys and heard the buddhist monks praying. The buddhist monks were chanting, beating a drum intermittently and blowing on these horns that issued a low-end sound like you've never heard before (unless you've seen 7 Years In Tibet in which case it sounded *exactly* like that). After a few days of this we set off for our trek. First stop: a town on the border with India called Nepalgunj. You have to fly there first before getting a smaler plane up to the mountains (unless you want to walk for 12 days from where the road ends in the north). In Nepalgunj the heat was oppressive and if we thought that Kathmandu was third world, this beat it by a long ways. Here the heat and monsoon rains just made the whole situation much more miserable. The ride from the airport to the hotel saw us pass water buffalo munching idly in swamps. People doing something while sitting beside the water buffalo in the swamp. Trash everywhere. Masses of people in the street. Motorbikes, rik-shaws, carts and all manner of transport. And even 2 shops advertising e-mail -- although for who I don't know since most people here seem more concerned with getting their next meal not staying connected with their friends overseas. For those of you that have been to third world countries before this probably seems a bit overdone but when you've never experienced it first hand before it's a remarkable thing. And it makes you think about your situation a lot differently. Even our hotel, one of the best in Nepalgunj had the power go out 2 or 3 times during the evening and for a place that was only 12 years old it was more run down than 30-40 year old motels in the states. Must be the heat & humididty. The next morning we boarded a Twin Otter plane for the trip up to the mountains. This is where the real adventure started. The plane isn't pressurized, you're loaded in with the cargo right in front of you (for stability). In flight service consists of someone offering you some cotton for your ears and a piece of hard candy before take off. Our destination, a town called Juphal, has a dirt landing strip that's at a about a 5-10 degree slope. The plane flies up a valley, makes a right turn, fly's alongside the mountainside (which according to maria was about 10 meters from the wing tip) and then makes a precarious landing and comes to a halt just before the end of the runway (where's there's a pretty steep cliff). From here it was a matter of getting the trek underway. Our guide went about hiring porters, getting gear arranged and making sure we were good to go. After some time we were off and the trek started for real. It's hard to describe how excited I was. Below us a river tumbled along it's course to the Ganges, above us towered 4000-5000 meter peaks and strung throughout were towns, fields, and Nepali people working the fields. There is also a rather surprising amount of marijuana that grows both wild and cultivated pretty much everywhere up to about 4000 meters. It takes some getting used to when you see a huge plant with about 20 buds on it. The first few days of the trek were spent mainly getting into a groove. There were 7 porters, the cook, the guide and us. Each day we walked about 3-5 hours and the further we went the more poor and more remote the towns became. It even became difficult for our guide to speak with some of the people because they speak a dialect that's not proper nepali. About 4 days into the trip I became rather ill and spat up the previous nights dinner into my camp shoes just outside the tent. Be careful what you eat... I had tried some chilis that were drying in the sun and accepted a piece of roasted corn from one of the porters who may not have washed his hands. Bad idea. The next time I didn't quite make it to the toilet tent which resulted in another mess. Fortunately it only lasted about 2 days but it was miserable as we had a 6 hour hike and I hadn't eaten anything. By the end of the second day though I felt a lot better and my appetite returned. We had a rest day in the town of Dho Tarap at 4000 meters. Here the people harvest their barley (maria says it was wheat) non-stop while there's a full-moon. We could hear the women singing in the fields the whole night. Great stuff. It's interesting though because each grain is so precious that they send the kids back through the field to pick up any stray grains that may have fallen. We helped some kids do this and they don't let anything go to waste. Maria also played parchese with the kids -- it's quite a popular game in Nepal. We also visited a budhhist "gompa" (monastery) in Dho Tarap. Here we saw some of the herbs and plants the monk collects to make medicines for the people. And we saw the top-half of a human skull that he uses as a bowl to crush up the plants and herbs. Whoa. From Dho Tarap we headed up to a high camp at 4700 meters. Maria wasn't feeling well and this made it a difficult day.. walking at this altitude is slow anyway and she wasn't feeling well so it was a particularly long day for her. Once the sun set it got *cold* too. I promised her I'd make it up to her once we were done. The next morning I blazed out of camp eager to reach the pass at 5100 meters. My heart rate was about 140-160 and I was taking one step every 2 seconds. It's tough at that altitude. I can't imagine what it was like for our porters, some of whom were carrying 40 kilos (85 pounds). The view at the pass was great. I scrambled up the nearby slopes and had great views of Dhalaguri, an 8000 meter peak about 60 kilometers away. From here we hit our stride and although the hiking was hard, we knew what to expect. each day. Get up in the morning, have tea, wash up a little with some hot water, eat breakfast and start walking. We'd stop for lunch around noon or 1 pm and either make camp where we stopped or hike a few more hours in the afternoon. We'd have afternoon tea and cookies around 4pm and eat dinner by 5-6pm. Our cook Nema attempted to cook some western meals but it was best when he did Nepali food. You just can't make a pasta sauce using ketchup. One cool thing I got to see was an ice cave below the Norbu Kang peak. I hiked up a valley one afternoon to the base of the glaciers draping Norbu Kang. There I found this piece of glacier that had a tunnel melted through it from the meltwater of a higher up glacier. It was possible to walk through it and I got some great photos of it. It's amazing to see rocks and debris trapped in ice, untouched for the last 10,000 years or so. Maria and I were both a bit bothered by the remarkable amount of trash that the Nepali people leave about. It's a bummer to get to a gorgeous spot only to look about and see packages of Rara noodles, someone's old tennis shoe and a few cigarette butts. Sadly the Nepali don't seem to look at things the same way we do. The further into the trek we got, the more poor the towns got. The worst though was the town of Chaurikot. Almost no trekkers ever stop here and so we were quite the attraction when we walked into town. About 10-15 kids appeared within minutes, amazed by maria's blonde hair. A couple of them even tried to pet her hair because it was so strange to them. Unfortunately this isn't a healthy thing to let them do since a lot of them were ill and probably hadn't bathed in a long time. This town didn't even have a pit toilet -- so people just go wherever. Plus we hadn't bathed in about 5 days either so I'd say this was a low point for us until we got some hot water and were able to wash up a bit. After that we spent some time trying to talk Nepali with the kids and I had an English lesson with one of our porters who desperately wanted to improve his english (at the end of most days before dinner I'd sit down with him and work on pronunciation and various phrases). By the time we reached our last pass, we were getting quite tired. Sadly though we also encountered the first trouble of the trip. In western Nepal there is a group of Maoist rebels stirring up trouble. Another trekking crew heading the direction we'd come from told us that they had to pay quite a lot of money to be allowed to pass. In fact that evening one of the Maoist chiefs paid us a visit too. Our guide is a smooth talker though and managed to avoid paying then. The next morning we set out early and avoided them in the town of Chaurikot. Our cook did have trouble buying food though because the Maoists declared that the price of rice is 20 Rupees (about 40 cents) per kilo even though it costs 50 rupees per kilo in the town where it is brought in. I think that communists have all failed basic economics. Fortunately some surreptious bargaining ensured that we'd have food for the coming days. As the day went on though things got a bit strange. After lunch we started encountering a steady stream of young (14-18) boys carrying rifles and shotguns. One of them stopped Maria and I and proudly declared "I am part of the People's Liberation Army". I smiled and said "I am Dominic and this is Maria" and we politely continued on our way. It was at this point that we decided it would be best if we walked all the way to the district capital, Jumla, where there's a strong police presence. It made for a long day (about 9 hours) butno one was too keen on spending the night near a bunch of kids with guns. Jumla was also the last town on our trek so we finished a day early. I went out with our guide to find some beer and other beverages for the crew... it cost me $20 for 5 beers and a tiny bottle of Nepali Whisky (which tasted oh so good). After a rest day we made our way back to Nepalgunj which now seemed like a big city to us after 22 days in the mountains. It somehow did not seem as dirty or awful as it did before even though nothing had changed except us. Our next plan was to visit Bardia National Park which is a jungle along the border with India. There are tigers, rhinos and elephants that live in the park along with quite a collection of deer, monkeys, and other wildlife. On my first hike into the park we saw a leopard and I even got a photo of it. This was after about 15 minutes of walking so I figured that this place must be teeming with game. Sadly the only other thing of note that we saw was tiger, rhino and elephant footprints. Some quite fresh but we didn't get to see them live despite spending quite a few hours fending off leeches in the the bush. We did see a ton of monkeys and deer though and even went on an elephant ride (not particularly pleasant). By the time we got back to Kathmandu it seemed like we were pulling into a huge metropolis or something... the city was way more crowded with tourists and somehow it seemed like a normal city (almost). Since I'd promised Maria some luxury and comfort after the trek we decided to head to Thailand early and check into a nice hotel. We got a room at the Peninsula Bangkok and treated ourselves to some serious creature comforts and good food for 3 days. Then we headed to the south where we figured we'd take a suba diving course since it is supposed to be way cheaper in Thailand than anywhere else. We spent 6 days near a town called Krabi -- beautiful like Phuket but without the prostitution and nastiness. The water is a clear turquoise and is as warm as a bath. The suba lessons went by quickly and on our 4th day we were out by the island of Koh Phi Phi (pronounced pee-pee) diving down to 18 meters (about 55 feet) and looking at clown fish as they swam about the sea anenome's that they live with. Great stuff (except for the problem with my ear after I didn't equalize properly on the descent...). Now we're in Bali and the last part of our trip is just starting....