Jan 23rd - Home sweet home!

Jan 23rd - Home Sweet Home!

I am finally home from my 3 weeks of travel. I am so happy and ready to be home. I day dreamed about my bed on the whole trip back! The flight was 15 hrs with additional layovers and transit times. The first things I ate was a bowl of Pho with my mom. I slept for 16 hours (talk about jet lag!). When I woke up I drank 3 cups of early grey tea and ate four slices of good ol' American toast!! I went from 25 C to -2 C so my body is shocked back into life! I can't get enough of this fantastically fresh BC water and air! Ahh!!! =)

I`ve taken 8 different flights in 3 weeks and have covered 32,083 km in total there and back not counting the road travelling in between! I have 6 different currencies in my wallet (CND, USD, Hong Kong HK, Taiwan NT, India Rupee, Indonesian $). My trip opened my eyes to new places and different cultures and I feel that I can understand more of where people come from and a piece of them has now become a part of me.
I made a travel map at http://tinyurl.com/2wc3fj (same as the photo above)

Thanks for joining me on my journey and I hope to share with you many more travels and adventures in the future!

Taiwan in a nutshell

Jan 17-23 - Taiwan in a nutshell
Hello. I spent 5 days in Taiwan getting an indepth taste of the life and culture of city and rural Taiwan. Michael's parents made sure that I tasted all of the unique foods and went to all of the nearby site seeing. Michael's grandma insisted on cooking every meal so that I could taste the traditional way the foods were made. She's 82, has one good eye, but has lots of energy and is a very sweet woman. Michael's grandpa is a nice man too. He pretty much spends the day in his favorite chair like most men his age. It's winter in Taiwan 15-25 degrees. They all thought my clothes were too thin and everyone kept insisting that I wear more and more clothes. Just for your amusement I will describe one outfit that I wore to make my in-laws happy. Okay. Donated beige wool pants...waist 2 inches under my rib cage...hammer pants bum...super tapered bottom that stopped at my ankles...topped with big grey sweater. It was 20 degrees and sunny outside so I was roasting! If that wasn't bad enough, I wore this outfit sight seeing and to a super trendy mall downtown where the little asian girls all had cute and trendy outfits on. I didn't care though because it made the inlaws happy. I stopped layering up as the days went by. =) Somehow the photo evidence of this outfit didn't turn out....heh-heh...
They took me sight seeing everywhere they could reach by car. We saw tons of temples since there are temples for everything. They were more colorful than the Indian temples and easier to see from the road because they all had the same architecture and design. We also went to many districts in downtown Taichung. We walked down their main streets, side streets, alleys...you name it. People in Taiwan are so nice and open to strangers. If we stopped our car in the middle of the street and asked for directions, randoms strangers of all ages would help us out with a smile of their face. Cars would just drive around us and not even honk that we blocked the whole road.
We also went to Sun Moon Lake which was in central Taiwan. The mountain ranges around the lake had all shifted during the huge earth quake in 1999. It was a big tourist attraction and that's where I found the first Starbucks in Taiwan and happily ordered my coffee in a long time! Everyone drinks tea so I've been soooo caffeine deprived.
So I managed to meet almost all of the family members from both sides of the family. They were pretty curious about the new daughter in law and either we would go see them, or they would just pop by to visit. People always came with some sort of gift (a handful of fresh veggies from their garden, or some food that they just cooked). People really take care of each other and especially take care of the elderly.
Most of the family spoke Taiwanese so I had no hope of communicating using words. I basically was a parrot and repeated basic greetings. Michael`s parents translated for me the best they could and it worked out just fine. I was stuffed and stuffed and stuffed again with all sorts of foods (free range chicken, goose, gluten, buns, local veggies, pickled stuff, blood rice, wine chicken, eel, local fish, clams, oyster cakes, 5 diff. types of noodles...and so on). I don`t know the names, but most of them were pretty tasty. The basic meal was a brothy soup, a meat cooked with ginger, wine or garlic, and a veggie mix with white rice. Almost everything was made fresh to eat so I had so many different varieties of foods. I ran out of camera batteries and left the charger with Michael in India, so I didn`t take many pictures in Taiwan. I`ll have memories of how nice the people are and of how I`ve been welcomed to my new extended family. Of course I have been told by all of my family member that I have to have a children soon and bring them home to visit! Such a universal wish from all family! =) I promised that I would, so I guess there will be more trips to Taiwan some day. Maybe next time we could go through Japan and do more sight seeing! Who knows...the future holds endless possibilities!

Jan 16-17 - traveling for 24 hours straight

Jan 16-17 - traveling for 24 hours straight

It was my last night in India and the bog boss at BioSync wanted us to go to a party that he planned at his friends' farm/ estate. The friend is this mega rich guy who makes money doing all sorts of things like building buildings and owning real estate. I guess he's one of the top 5 richest guys in the area, but he is simple in appearance. He dresses very simple and he was helping cook us dinner at the BBQ. I think it's a universal thing for all men to gravitate towards the BBQ. They burned these indiginous leaves to ward away mosquitos, but it was like camp fire smoke and us foreigners were more affected by it than the local mosquitos. I felt bad leaving Michael behind, but in my heart I knew that I had had enough of this part of India.

The ride to Mumbai was hellish as expected. The extra guy who came with me was this poor young engineer who just started in the company. He was all polite and happy to be coming and he said, "I like car rides"...which rang a bell in my head that maybe he doesn't get in a car much...It was true. About an hour into our trip I noticed that we were making more and more frequent pit stops along the way. They were giving directions that they were not to take any stops. It was because the poor kid was car sick and puking! Aww. I also wasn't feeling so hot cause of the start-stop motion and lumps and bumps along the way and I never get motion sickness.

When we finally got to the airport, I managed to find my way through the whole process with the assistance of an airport porter. I waited for 3 hours to board and was surprised to hear that we were stopping in Bankok (it wasn't in the itenerary). Thank goodness it was only a 1 hour stop and we remained on the plane. The next stop was Hong Kong. I waited there for 3 hours because there were two delays. Something was wrong with our plane - not something you want to hear twice!

When I got to Taiwan, I had been traveling for 24 hours straight. Needless to say, I was a bit tired and I just thought that it was a miracle that my luggage made it as well. Michael's parents and their family friends met me at the airport. I had another taste of the amazing race because we were tight on time due to my flight delays. We ran to a ran car and were driven to the High Speed Rail. We were running and just made it onto the train. We took the train to TaiChung and from there drove home. Michael told me he was watching the Amazing race last night and the contestants had to do the same thing at the same place we did!

Jan. 13 - Uttratayan / Kite festival

Jan. 13 - Uttratayan / Kite festival
Okay, where was I...oh yes, the kite festival. I'm going to keep it short and sweet since I have to hit the sack soon. I need to insert some comments now that I forgot to mention before.
#1 -On arrival to the airport in Mumbai the plane captain annouces that we have been quarantined and that the cabin air has to be sterilized as per the world health organization. What the bleep? So we were told to cover our noses and eyes and the stewardesses walked down the aisles spraying something aerosol into the air. I guess that cleaned us up cause then we got off. Strange. I guess it was routine, but the flight from Mumbai to Hong Kong didn't do that....
#2 - When Michael's co worker arrived they told us funny stories of their travels - at a pit stop some man from India asked to take a photo of his coworker. I guess either they'd never seen an Chinese guy before or they thought he was Jackie Chan. We of course teased him endlessly about this during our meals together.
- now to the Kite story. I guess it's a government sponsored holiday that's been happening for over a hundred years. Everybody participates. We went to Ahbiskeks' home and met his family and some co-workers. We flew kites on their roof - although that's a bit of an overstatement since all we did was crash their kites. They were pretty skilled at wrapping their kite strings around another kite and snapping the opponent out of the sky! The sky was covered in kites of all colors! It was beautiful! The buildings were so close that you could battle your kite with someone blocks away. There was music from people's houses and it was a pretty festive atmosphere all around the city. The kite fighting went on until sunset.
We had a traditional Gugarati lunch and then tried our hand at Cricket. Yes. I did hit the ball. Nobody believes me for some reason?? lol This country is completely obsesses with Cricket. It's all we ever see on the news. Such drama from the teams right now. If you're interested, you can google the cricket news online for details.
We didn't expect this - at sunset there were fireworks shot all around the city. Us lame westerners at first thought that there were bombs being shot! lol! Not everything on CNN happens all the time I suppose =)
The fireworks went all night and some were left over for the next night. Luckily most buildings are made of concrete. I have so much more that I want to describe. I want to talk about the taste, smell and texture of everything but just so you can experience it through my eyes....but - I think you may get bored AND I have to get up early tomorrow...so I'll just leave it at that. Spending time in Ahbiskeks's home was a wonderful and perfect way to get a taste of life in India - it beat's a tacky westerner tour around India any day!

Going to Taiwan

Jan. 15, 2008 - Going to Taiwan
I'm going to skip ahead a bit on my blog to mention that I'm leaving Surat tomorrow night. I tried to change my flights to travel at the same time as Michael, but it will cost an additional $1200 (on top of the $2600) for me to move my flight from the 17th to the 21st. It's because any flight after the 20th falls in the time frame of chinese new years and all the Cathay flights have jumped in price. We found this out after dinner last night and have been making last minute arrangements to get me to Mumbai. Michael is pretty anxious about me going without him. I am nervous but for different reasons. I'm nervous about going to Taiwan to meet my grandparent- in laws for the first time withouth Michael!! I'll be there for 5 days staying at his family's house! Eeek! Michael will come on the 21st and I'm returning home on the 23rd. I might take the flight home solo as well because Michaels' family want him to stay in Taiwan for more than just one day. We'll see.
So what's funny about this trip tomorrow is that I feel like a VIP or a celebrity or something. Biosync arranged my driver to take me at 8 pm. They are also sending another employee to escort me. He has to call the secretary every hour to update them and then take me into the airport. I feel soooo bad for the poor soul who has to travel with me because it's a 10 hour round trip overnight! They won't have it any other way though because night time travel is pretty risky. I have to go at night because my flight is a 5 am flight. Origionally, we were supposed to stay at the Hyatt (oh the beautiful hyatt!! lol) but there's no way I'm paying $325 out of my own pocket to hang out there for a couple of hours before the flight. Anyhow, that is the going rate of the 5 star hotels in the area. Mumbai can be pretty pricey I think.
I'm also hoping that I don't smell too strongly (if you know what I mean). I'm going to meet my in laws smelling very much of my recent travels! lol
When I get to Taiwan I'll try to blog about the kite festival. It was just the most amazing experience. We also got to try playing cricket. lol. More about that later!

Jan 12, 08 - BioSync Tour

Jan 12, 08 – BioSync Tour

I went to work with Michael today and decided to stay since they have internet access. His company is in the specialized economic zone which the government created as a tax free import/ export zone. It's a massive gated zone that is so nice and clean and there are no people in the streets (a nice change!). It was a 30 min. ride there and our bums got wet from the car seats! (Michael had complained that the car smelled like diesel so I guess they must’ve washed it).
Abhishek is the production manager and hooked me up with a private tour of the company. I got to see every single step of how their heart stents are made – from the raw piece of metal to the inflated final product. In each department, there was a spokesperson who told me in great detail what their job is. Most of them were chemical engineers and were really smart guys. The 3 women in the building were me, the secretary and one technician. I think they employ 100 people…
During the tour, I think they thought I was a chemist or something and that I knew what they were talking about! One guy actually broke into a sweat explaining how they laser cut the stents into their shape. They used the chemical names and the technical terms for everything which made it tough to understand but I got the gyst of it. It was strange that they allowed me to take so many photos - I’m not even allowed near the clean rooms in the company in Canada. I have some crazy shots of the technicians in the clean rooms doing various stages of the production. There are so many steps that I never realized need to happen. Even the packaging is done at this facility. The marketing folks are out in Mumbai, but in the future the company will house both groups in a new building. I met the president of the company and the man had this huge diamond ring on his right hand (nobody here really wears jewlery). I guess that business has been good…

Some subtle things happened during the tour that I must mention. When we entered the facility, we had to change our shoes and wear slippers (white). When I was starting my tour, I walked into a room and someone told me to take off the slippers I was wearing and put on another (blue) pair. I was told much later by Michael that the blue slippers were for the administrators, engineers and guests and white ones were for everybody else. There are servants in the company. They served us water, tea and lunch. The lunch was buffet style, but when I stood up to get some rice I was told to sit and that the servant guy would get it for me.
I spent the whole day sitting in their conference room using the internet. It’s strange, but they didn’t mind me sitting in there at all and went ahead with their everyday business. I sat in on 3 job interviews. They asked the applicants lots of questions. One guy was being offered a job position as a new engineer. His starting wage was Rs. 5000 ($125)/ month and he would move up to 8,000- 10,000 based on his performance. I was thinking “don’t do it man!” but of course…he took the job. Remember that they work 8-12 hrs day - 6 days a week…. They had all sorts of meetings all day, but didn’t bat an eye that I was sitting at the table with them using my laptop.
Our ride home was nuts. There were mobs of people walking home from work. Imagine the crowds for the symphony of fire, in the pitch black darkness, with all sorts of motorcycles, rickshaws and cars pushing past them.

Curious about arranged marriages? It seems pretty straight forward. You tell them what you want and tell them what you have to offer and your parents arrange it. They even post their annual income!
Check this out:
http://www.shaadi.com/matrimonial/gnbn

More misc. things from India coming soon!

Jan 10, Temple time

Jan. 10 - Temple Time

Today I spent the day reading by the pool. A big coconut fell down right next to me. Pool time can be pretty dangerous! I ran downstairs to catch a photo of the cows that were grazing in the fields behind our hotel. There was also a pack of dogs sun bathing by the Tapi River. There are stray dogs everywhere. They sleep and sun bath in the medians between roads. In the evening Michael’s co-worker Abushak was kind enough to take us around to do some sight seeing. We are poor examples of Canadians. It was maybe 20 degrees and windy and we were freezing. Notice how we're wearing all of the winter clothes that we packed? - yes, I'm wearin two hoodies!

We went to the local temple. When you go, you are supposed to bring an offering of some sort. You remove your shoes and people will touch their mouths and then the stairs before walking up. Along the way, there are statues and shrines of the different gods. It started with an elephant god and there were about…7 other displays? I can’t remember exactly because they sort of all looked the same. We went around the building and were only allowed to look at the statues inside. People were so humble. Some people would lay flat on their stomachs in front of the shrines in prayer. Others would cross their legs and simply meditate. We were supposed to circle the building 7 times. 7 is a very special number in the Hindu religion. When they marry, they walk around the fire 7 times to seal the deal. When Buddha was born he took 7 steps and a lotus flower bloomed in each step. Michael ate the coconut chunks that were offered back to us. I was still quesy from the ride there so I couldn’t stomach it.
The next stop was the “Big Bazaar”. It was exactly what I had wanted to go to. It’s our equivalent of Walmart. I love Walmart. Lol. Michael made me feel guilty or else I would have bought more stuff. People here earn about Rs. 10,000 a month. I spent Rs. 1450 on spices and tea and pop. I only had a chance to explore the 1st floor. Tomorrow I’ll go again to check out the clothes on the second floor.
Here are some more things we learned from Abushak. The flats (aka apartments) downtown go for Rs. 200,000 for about 1,000 sq. ft. (approx. $5405 CND). A home that is twice the sq. footage is about double the price. People work 6 days a week for a minimum of 8 hours. Minimum? What is that supposed to mean? Well! Get this. People here work 12 hour days 6 days a week! Holy cripes! On Sunday, Abushak tells me that he sleeps in until 9:30, then goes to visit some friends, then has lunch, then goes to Temple with his family, the travels to several households in the evening to visit friends. People usually eat out on Sundays. Wow. What a jam packed day. Hearing that made me feel supremely lazy (and I’m always the first to admit that I’m a lazy person). =)

Jan 9, Where's the Guru?

Jan 9 – Where’s the Guru?
Once again I couldn’t sit around and twiddle my fingers in the hotel any longer. I left Michael a note with my itinerary and a brief description of what I was wearing (sort of morbid, I know). I took the auto rickshaw to Ghoddard Road that has all types of different stores. In a store called G3 their merchandise are all packed in plastic bags. How did I see the items you wonder? Well as soon as I walked in a sales guy very enthusiastically opened over 20 packages to show me things he thought I might like. I’m not sure what planet he thought I was from though cause I would never be caught dead in any of the things he was showing me. Yet again, another cultural difference. I walked down the street and instantly the beggar children swarmed me. They were like the beggars you see in Chinese movies. They look like someone dropped them in a bag of clay and rolled them around until they just look walking clay people. They all had long walking sticks too. They were fighting each other with these sticks to stake claim over me! I picked up my pace and went to a vendor. I bought peanut sweets for them and they snatched the bag out of my hand and ran away hitting each other with sticks to fight over the bad. A security guard actually thought they were stealing from me but I said it was okay. Much later another beggar woman and her little child came to me. They didn’t say anything but the little girl kept stepping on my foot for attention. I gave her my fruit bar and she zoomed off right away. I have to remember to load up on candies and treats when I go out again because it would be crazy to pull out money in front of these people.
As I was wandering I happened upon a religious procession for a Hindu Guru that happened to be passing thru Surat. There was a band and dancers and religious followers milling around waiting for him to show up. The band members told me about what was going and they welcomed me to join in on the procession. What luck, and I had nothing better to do at the time (I was getting weary of the beggars). I did stick out like a sore thumb. I wrapped myself in a green shawl that I just bought, but I still had my sketchers, capris, and purse poking out underneath. I also have short and colored hair with is incredibly rare here. At first the band man was so nice about telling me about what was all going on. Then he started to creep me out. He was asking stuff like, “what are you doing tomorrow?”, and I would respond that I’m spending the day with my husband. Then he would say “I’ll spend the day with you, I’ll wait right here, all day until you come” etc….creepy. Eww. I had to step away from him at that point because my repeatedly talking about my husband wasn’t a deterrent. I took some pics of the female dancers. They were so beautiful! There was a little girl who was so poised and lovely that I had to take a picture of her. I can only hope that it captured some of her spirit and enthusiasm about the event.

Jan 8 - Do you speak English?

Jan 8 – “Do you speak English?”
So I was good for one whole day. I stayed in the hotel and read and watched TV. It was quite sad. I was watching Indian soap operas in Hindi. They are sooo cheesy that I was actually watching to see what would happen next! I’m getting used to the sounds of the words and can sort of guess what’s going on. I couldn’t take it anymore and my curiosity took over. I went to the travel agent, bought a map and got him to circle places that I should go. Unfortunately there is no where interesting to go to. I went to Iscon Mall. It’s a very high end mall that I think only tourists go to. I had to go thru a metal detector to get inside. Every store had a security guard. I was about the size of a standard mall in Canada. I’m getting really annoyed with the fact that I am NEVER alone anywhere I go in India. There is ALWAYS a person one step away from me to “help” me with whatever I might need (even in the gym, the trainer will just work out beside me in each room in case I need something). I know that it’s a part of their culture to have “servants” but hate having a shadow. It wouldn’t be too bad if they just stood there, but most of the time they want to “help” me by showing me items that they think I might like. I’m also a “ma’am” wherever I go which takes some adjusting to. “Yes ma’am, no ma’am, good morning ma’am…”
The most interesting thing there was eating at the food court. You have to purchase a preloaded debit card and then purchase your food with that. I had a sandwich for Rs..35 (less than $1) whereas in the hotel they charge Rs. 350 ($10). What a huge price difference! The funniest thing that happened was when I was waiting around to get my money back from the debit card, an Indian woman (tourist) was trying to figure out how to buy food in the food court and she looks at me and says “do you speak English?” Hah-hah! I think she felt kinda silly when I responded to her.
The last thing I did worth mentioning was I went to the hotel spa to try out “threading”. I’ve heard all about it and thought I’d try it from the experts. I look pretty goofy in the pics – almost happy to be tortured…. Lets just say that it hurt more than it was worth. I’m sticking with waxing and plucking! It only cost Rs. 85 ($2) though.

How she do dat?

I bet you're wondering how I'm getting all of these blogs up. I wrote most of the early ones while I was on route to Surat. There were long lay overs and long flights where I had time to kill but no actual internet connection. Now that we're settled in Surat, I have the laptop for 1 hour each day when Michael is not at work. That's when I upload photos and write stuff for the blog. =) I'm not sure how people can do this everyday though. It's more frustrating than not when the internet poops out on you which happens all the time. Kudos to Kim for keeping her blog up and running all of the time! I'm still several days behind in the written portion of my blog but I'm making up for it all today because I'm hanging out at Bio Sync. (Mike's company). We're going to have a drinking party in our room tonight. So totally weird. Our room is as big as a small office with a bed in the middle of it. The company president, his wife, the VP and some other co workers coming. I have to hide my bra and socks!! Drinking is illegal here so they're using our passports to get alcohol to our room. I'm also really excited about Monday because we are celebrating Uttratayan. It's the international kite festival and I've seen kites everywhere! More pics to come!

It's a girl!

Hi, it's Jan 11 now and I wanted to send out a congratulations to Carol, Minh and Angelina! Carol gave birth to a 7 lb 14 oz baby girl!!! I can't wait to come home and see her! Apparently she JUST made it to the hospital and was ready to deliver when she got there.

Jan. 7 The long road to Surat, India

Jan. 7 - The long road to Surat, India

Our driver arrived at 10 am to take us on the 5 hour ride to Surat. We were in a decent SUV with AC and it was mostly clean. On route we saw so many amazing things. Along the highways in Mumbai people have dug into the soil and created dug out squat homes. The roofs are slats of metal and they are about the size of the average backyard shed (except that our sheds are much more sturdy!). As we got farther out onto the highways, we saw the size of the squat homes increase to the size of a master bedroom (housing whole families). We saw true tent cities. The tents were made of tarps and were in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. I'm not sure how these people got water let alone food??? The land was dry and desert like. The trees and bushes didn't have leaves or any greenery unless they were near bodies of water. There were scattered rivers along the way. The rivers were brown and filled with fishing boats, people bathing and garbage.

Our car was weaving within inches off the other vehicles on the road. Once we went between 2 trucks that had overhanging cargo, so basically there was a little "box" of space the exact size of our SUV that we zipped through at 100 km/hr....I think Michael and I flinched a lot during our ride! lol...

The car would honk and flash it's headlights at every vehicle to tell them that we were behind them and then force them to give us the right of way. Apparently the road etiquette is that you have to turn off your headlights when coming around a corner so you don't blind on coming vehicles. I wonder though how the other vehicle is supposed to know you're coming?? Somehow...it all works...

I think that drivers in Richmond try to drive like this. lol. Our theory is that both cars need to cooperate and understand road rules for the crazy driving to work - therefore, that is why it doesn't work in Canada and asian people are known as "bad" drivers. It's not us, it's the other car that doesn't understand us right?!

I have two photos of the "hospitals" along the way. Ew. They looked like someone had dropped a bomb on them and then they propped them up again with bamboo sticks. But in all fairness, they were larger buildings compared to the lean-to homes. And having a clinic is better than not having one at all I suppose.

One comment I about the people here that make them unique from other asians is that the lower castes don't seem to guard their skin from the sun like other asians do. In Vietnam women went to extremes to cover up every since inch of their skin from the sun (since they don't use sublock). The working class are pretty dark brown/ black. I have to roll my eyes though that when women are "advertised" for marriage, a desirable term to describe them is as "fair".

On another note, our hotel is kind far away from downtown. I feel a bit isolated because I can't just walk to any stores at my leisure. I would have to take a autorickshaw and actually know what my destination is before going. In other words. No wandering. Plus, I've already sent an email about how "wandering" is absolutely not an option because it's not safe. I mentioned before and I'll say it again. Michael gets driven 30 mins to work and he's seen some bad things. His car pinned 3 women up against a wall turning a corner, and last night he saw a dead man on the road. Some truck had flattend his rickshaw and people were simply driving around his body. Nobody stopped!!! On a lighter note, they have this really funny way of calling for a car. The usher guy at the front has this micro phone and he says "autorickshaw to the Gateway, Autorickshaw!!" and it booms overhead in speakers around the hotel. Within moments, some random rickshaw will pull up. That would never fly in Vancouver! Can you imagine having that system to get a taxi?
I've got to surrender the laptop to Michael so he can go to work. Later!

January 6 - Mumbai, India

January 6 - Mumbai, India

We arrived in Mumbai (formerly Bombay at 8 pm). We immediately felt the hot and humid air that envelopes you as soon as you get off of the plane. Getting our luggage was a complete zoo. I'm very happy to say that all of our luggage arrived intact (although one package of liquids leaked and a bottle of mosquito spray must have been spraying the whole time - lessons learned how to pack on the trip home).

On the way out we saw a sign saying that we had to prepay for our taxi ride. We purchased our ticket, but when we stepped outside the airport, there were the staff from the Hyatt waiting for us. We soon found out that it was Rs. 900 for the hyatt to drive us whereas the taxi was only Rs. 120 ($26 vs. $3 CND). Sheesh. What a rip off. The taxi's are not allowed to enter the airport so we had to walk out to find our taxi using it's number. Luckily the guys from the Hyatt helped us find our way. The taxi was so tiny! We had to strap our precious luggage to the teeny tiny trunk. When we got to the hotel, we had to go through security to drive into the courtyard. There were 6-12 people out front (most of them porters). They pretty much leapt to attention and helped us with our things. Then, believe it or not, I had to walk through a metal detector before coming within 3 meters of the entrance to the hotel! It actually made me feel like I was going to a really safe place. The Hyatt is a 5 star buisness class hotel that I now realize is supremely luxurious.

We were informed that the AC was broken. It was shocking to think that we were going to spend the night roasting in our room. They gave us %25 off and put us in a room near the top floors. I was so impressed with our room! I have more pictures of the room then of anything else. It was decked out in dark wood and marble. The bathroom had an independent shower area with overhead and front facing showerhead with a full soaker tub on the side. The only thing to do at night was to go to a night club. The lonely planet book tells me that night clubs are for men to go to get drunk and that no woman would be caught dead there. I believe the book. We went to their state of the art gym instead and tried to work off some of the fat we packed on in Hong Kong.

Jan 6 - No Visa? No Bangkok!

Jan 6 - No Visa? No Bangkok!

So our next stop was a 6 hour layover in Bangkok. We had big plans on jumping off the plane, flagging down the first taxi and zooming around the city for a quick tour. Those plans were quickly dashed when we realized that we needed travel visas to enter Thailand. Darnit. We could have applied on landing, but it just wasn’t worth it because of the time we would lose at the immigration office.

We wandered around the airport instead. Needless to say, it was a long wait. I started and finished a book. I only brought 4 books so that was a bad thing to do. We had some thai dished that were actually really good. You might roll your eyes at our selection, but we really wanted to know how these dishes are "supposed" to taste! We ordered Pad thai noodles, red curry, papaya salad and a thai iced tea. Everything was sooo good! Especially the papaya salad. It had these super crunchy long beans on the side that were a nice touch. The iced tea was a bit off for me. It tasted like it had cane sugar or tamarind syrup in it?? Michael says that that's how drinks taste in Taiwan. Hmm...I wasn't a big fan of the flavor.

We waited most of the time near our departure gates. We went there 10 mins before we were supposed to begin boarding. We got to the security desk and overhead it announced last call for our flight?! We were shocked. The sign next to our flight also blinked in red that it was final call. Yikes. We ran all the way to our departure gate only to see that nobody was boarding yet! How crazy. We ran for nothing (just another taste of the amazing race). Our plane taxied down the runway for a while. There were 6 planes all lined up waiting to use one take off lane. I've never seen that before and it was a bit surreal. Our plane this time was smaller and I sat beside a VERY smelly guy. He was all greasy and smelly so I was pretty grateful that the flight to Mumbai was only 5 hours long.

Jan 4-5 – Hong Kong & Kowloon

I’m on the flight to Bankok right now feeling much better after inhaling my inflight meal. This morning was a mad rush to get onto the plane only to have to wait an additional hour for other passengers to board from another flight.

Yesterday we took the airport express from the airport to downtown HK. It cost 100 HK (approx 12 CND) and the trip was about 20mins long. It was 15 degrees with overcast skies (or was that the smog??). The subway system is called the MTR and it costs anywhere from 1-3 CND to get from one place to another. It’s like a whole other city underneath the city of HK. For those of you who have seen resident evil, the underground city reminds me of the “hive” in that movie. It goes 3 levels down!

The people dressed are in fall/winter clothing (did I mention it was 15 degrees!) and boots and the color black and grey seem very popular with everybody. Many of the stores were high end like we would find in downtown Vancouver (Gucci, Fendi etc). We walked around the downtown business district, the dried food district, and all other downtown areas. Almost everybody spoke clear english and all the signs were in English so it was easy to get around. Most of the chinese spoken seems to be Cantonese. Michael didn't even speak a word of mandarin (the bugger!) and I said "hao?" to someone when asking if the product was good. Man. All that practicing of basic phrases and I didn't even use them! lol. For some reason I forgot to pull out my camera and take pictures. You will definitely notice a lack in photos in these few days.

We walked up and down lot of little hills and there was an interesting mix between cobblestone streets and well marked sidewalks. I enjoyed the “all ways” cross walks where we could all cross in any direction. I kept reminding myself to look the other way to before crossing because people drive on the other side of the road. Michael liked to remind me frequently how in asia, the vehicles (especially Taxi’s) have the right of way. We had lunch at this diner that reminded me of Hons. Everywhere downtown had food places like that and people were even lined up outside to be seated. We had the best Hainamese chicken meal that I’ve ever eaten. Super tasty, had all the fixin’s and it was pretty cheap. We paid about 49 HK (8 CND) for our 2 meals.

After a couple of hours in HK, we took the MTR to Kowloon across the water. Kowloon is like the "old" Hong Kong. The buildings are older. There are air conditioners hanging out of every window and there are clothes hung outside as well. There were more food and restaurant type stores and the stores were more affordable. There we walked around the ladies market, the sports market and headed down to the night market. We walked the whole way and needless to say we had a film of dirt and exhaust to wash off at the end of the night. I finally found bubble tea in Kowloon! I had a mango and red bean combo. I also snacked on bubble waffles and octpus balls from street vendors. We sat for a while in another café/ cafeteria style restauraunt. I was traumatized to have to use their washrooms. They had squat toilets! I rolled up my pants, laid down a whole bunch of toilet paper (available outside of the toilet stalls) and did my best. Michael told me that the mens room had open squat holes – no stalls! Yikes!

The temple street night market was a bit disappointing. I think we’ve been spoiled by the variety we have in Vancouver (and what we’ve seen in our other travels). It went on and on for 12 blocks, but it was the same stuff over and over. All of the knock off purses in the world, a bunch of watches and T-shirts and other misc. items. We thought it was funny that there were a whole bunch of stands that sold sex toys! We only bought 2 shoes, earphones, some novelty toys (jelly balls that splat flat and then reshape into circles), my token starbucks HK mug, a magnet and a shirt. Very very lame purchases for a city known for good shopping…I’ll have to make up for it when I go to Taiwan.

We had dinner at another semi-street vendor. The district is known for having fresh seafood that you can choose how to prepare. That was too sketchy as I saw many unsanitary methods of food prep and dish cleaning/ storage. We ate clams, oyster cakes, thau mieu and eggplant hotpot. My stomach was so full by the end of the day! Both of us probably gained 10 lbs. We barely drank any water. I think it was a mix between already retaining it from the super salty foods and being afraid of getting sick from the restaurant water. We were exhausted by the time we got to our hotel. We had planned to wash up and go out to hang in the airport to use the internet but that didn’t happen. We both fell asleep after soaking our sore muscles and dreamed about our our next adventure tomorrow!

Jan. 3- Vancouver to Hong Kong

We arrived at YVR at 11 pm and waited until 3:05 am to board the plane. We were the last passengers on because of a bathroom break and problems with our boarding pass. The flight was 13 1/2 hrs long and overall it was uneventful. Michael and I slept the whole way and I was very very happy that I sat next to a polite and petite Chinese woman!

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of walking from one end of the HK airport to the other - I recommend you wear good walking shoes. It took 20 mins for us to get from our gate to the hotel half way across the airport. We’re staying at the Regal Airport Hotel in Hong Kong. It’s a very chic place with l’Octaine bath products, a flatscreen TV, and an iPod speaker stereo to name a few things. The room is about 150 sq. ft., but is tasteful with modern décor. There are still Christmas decorations all over the place (maybe left up until after Chinese New Year?)...

Jan. 3rd - India or Bust!

Day 1 - January 3, 2008
Hello! Welcome to my blog =)
I want to warn you in advance that it's going to be filled with my random and often scattered thoughts of the sights and sounds I'm going to encounter along my travels. It's my travel journal to send out the flavor of everything that I'm experiencing. Please send comments if you would like more details or suggestions about formatting. I'm new at this blogging thing, so bare with me!

So why the heck are we in India? Michael is the research and development engineer for his company that has a branch in Surat India. Michael and a couple of other people have been sent here to set up the production of coatings for heart stents. I'm sure it's more technical than that - but that's the gyst of it. I caught the travel bug a long time ago and saw this as an opportunity of a lifetime. When else would I ever get the chance to lay my feet on this part of the earth?! We made last minute arrangements (for ex. I injected Michael with his immunizations in our kitchen 2 days before departure!) and hit the ground running on this 3 week Asian adventure!