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The Boat to Mandalay
I woke up at 3:45 to Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on my iPod alarm. That song has, since 2004 been an alarm clock song for me. Gets me up every time. I threw my pack over my shoulders and got my shoes on. I went out in the darkness of the early morning, and started walking. It was reasonably temperate out, but the sweat, nonetheless, started covering my body as usual. I walked and walked and walked. I wonder how much time has passed. Is there any way I’m going to miss is? I looked at my iPod. 4:45. Shit. I pulled out my map. I was only 2/3 of the way there, and I needed to catch the 5 am boat. Desperate times call for desparate measures. I saw a man just ahead with a bicycle and one of those little seats attached on the side. There was no one else on the road. No taxis, no horse drawn carriges, no motorcycles. This was it.
The Train. The Zoo.
It’s hard to come up with words to describe such a day, so I am relying on the video clips I have. Please excuse Pavlo’s language in a couple…
The train was packed. There were people shouting, dancing, singing, sleeping, selling, and moving their household furniture.
It was nothing I could have imagined it would be. We were on the train for five hours. I felt like passing out from the heat. I should have brought more water. I looked at the water from the vendors on the trains longingly, wishing I could drink just a couple of sips. It wasn’t bottled. I might get sick. I ate watermelon, sucking the rind for all the water I could get. We got off between two stops, two hours from central Yangon. We walked down the tracks and saw a family. The kids were flying kites. A man beckoned us over.
Sweltering in Yangon.
I am safe and sound in Myanmar. I don’t have much time to write, as I am heading to the zoo with two new friends I met at my hostel, from Australia and Greece, but I wanted to check in for my mom’s sake.
A Letter to my Gut.
A letter to my gastrointestinal tract:
The havoc that is about to befall you, is one that I would not wish upon my greatest enemy…
Beijing, for 13 hours.
After arriving in Beijing, I quickly began to feel like I had lost my marbles. What the hell were you thinking, Anoush, everything was going to be in English? Everything was definitely not in English. I was the only non-Asian on my flight, and anywhere I looked for that matter. What were you THINKING it would be like? I began feeling a little overwhelmed. I was exhausted from an 18-hour flight and two failed attempts at knocking myself out with ambien, and I wasn’t imagining it would be like this upon arrival.
Superstorm Sandy
I’m smelly, tired, and culture shocked, and I haven’t even left the US yet. It’s been an interesting couple of days in New Jersey, to say the least. We heard that “the perfect storm” was coming through, and we saw on the news the catastrophic predictions. Never before, they kept saying, had they seen a…
Gettin’ ready
Oh my, here I go. I’m ready for my trip. Well, at least physically ready, I’m not sure if I’m mentally all there. I have spent the last week tying up loose ends and getting my stuff together for my little adventure over to the other side of the world. My bag is packed and…
Home!
I’m home. After quite the journey through airport after airport, my mother was there at 1 in the morning in Philadelphia to take me home. I walked out the airport doors and heard a measly honk from what must have been my mom’s car. They don’t make horns that sound like that anymore. It was…
Back in the Boze
I’m exhausted. Leaving San Francisco: Woke up at 4 am, to get a ride to SFO. Danny had to be at work at 6, so he had to drop me off many hours before my 9 am flight. I had stayed at his girlfriends house in the city the night before, mindlessly watching television for…
The Honey Badger made me miss my flight
It’s true. I think. I was sitting at gate C31, in Chicago O’hare, my least favorite airport in the world, just wasting time. I had 2 hours before my flight, so I got comfortable. Bought a $13 salad, and was feeling good about being almost home. My flight was to depart at 6:20. I sat…
The Foggy City
San Francisco! Gosh it’s good to be back. So let’s see: I guess this post begins the day before yesterday. After spending the day in Sebastapol, and seeing the coast and some more redwoods, we decided to head into Frisco for the evening, to meet up with some of my friends from high school. We…
Sebastapol
After a wonderful day in the Redwoods, we moved on Southward towads Sebastapol. Ray has a friend from way back in the day that lives in Sebastapol, and so our goal was to make it to Graham’s house by the evening. We drove pretty much straight through, down the 1, and only stopped to cook…
The Redwoods
“The last 24 hours have been kinda hectic, yeah?” Ray commented as we drove away from the Trees of Mystery. “Yeah, but it’s been awesome.” After leaving Crater Lake yesterday, we headed South towards the Redwoods. It was about a 5 hour drive, and we were planning to get to the Redwoods just before sundown….
The Oregon Coast
We left Portland at noon today, and headed South on route 5. The drive to Crater Lake from Portland could be 4 and a half hours, if you go down the interstate through the middle of the state. We decided to drive along the Oregon coast, on 101, and see the Pacific Ocean again. It…
Crater Lake
We arrived somewhere in the Umpqua National Forest last night around 9. We drove up to a campsite near Diamond Lake in the dark, and set up camp in less than 4 minutes. We sat and cooked Ramen and told stories until it was time for bed. In the midst of the Cascades, we knew…
Portland, Oregon
We made it to Portland around 2 in the afternoon on Sunday. Driving up to Sole’s house, and seeing her out in the year waving us down was priceless. It’s a nice feeling to see her outside of Yellowstone, in her element, and living her own life. It made me realize how Yellowstone really gives…
Olympic National Park
We drove for three hours yesterday, and ended up in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. I have always wanted to see the Pacific Northwest, especially after Michael went here in 2010 and spent a semester with NOLS backpacking and sailing. He told me that the trees were incredible here, and I…
Bye Bye Yellowstone! Until next time…
Well, folks, I’m on the road! After a little over a week at Old Faithful, I threw in the towel and hopped in a car with a friend to do a roadtrip of the Pacific Northwest. And I couldn’t be happier. You see, working at Yellowstone was awesome. Working at Lake was awesome, really. Lake…
Brief Update
Wow, time has been flying; life has been busy. I only have a 31 minute lunch break, so I must be brief. But here is what’s been going on: On the 23rd, the Lake Hotel closed, and on the 24th, we started “deep clean.” My friend Pete, a Becket guy, came to visit right…