Into the wild

Finally out of the city!

After the thick urban haze of Kathmandu, we were really excited to get out of the city and start trekking through the Himalayas. We had found ourselves a fantastic local guide named Karma Mustangi (you can contact him at karmakurt@hotmail.com to organize your own adventures) and a super cool porter named Monaz. With Karma's help we mapped out a 33-day itinerary that included the fabled Annapurna Circuit, the secluded kingdom of Upper Mustang and the epic views of Annapurna Base Camp (aka ABC).

Our team assembled, we piled into a small sedan and started the drive from Kathmandu to the trail-head at a small town called Besisahar. But it wasn't smooth sailing as of yet: we spent most of the six-hour drive trying to pass massive Indian-made cargo trucks belching exhaust on two-lane twisty mountain roads. Finally we arrived (albeit with a massive headache from the pollution) and ate lunch in Besisahar before lacing up our boots and setting out.

Over the next few days we hiked up a river valley that wound its way up the west side of the Annapurna mountain range. It was hot but at least the air was mercifully clear and fresh. A single lane unpaved dirt road ran up one side of the gorge but we often took goat trails up the opposite side. Plant life burst forth from every surface and the greens were almost blindingly vibrant. Tiny villages were sprinkled along the sides of the valley and as we passed local kids would run out calling, "Hellopen!!!" Many trekkers bring pens for the kids to use in school so they've combined "hello" and "pen" into one word. The villagers were subsistence farmers who were busy plowing their rice paddies with oxen.

High altitude agriculture

We passed a bridge being constructed over the river and noticed that the construction machinery and managers were Chinese. Karma explained that although India supplies the vast majority of Nepal's aid (in addition to oil and electricity), China is now jumping into the fray. This has apparently resulted in an escalating "Nepalese foreign aid war" between China and India, both vying for influence in the country sandwiched in the middle.

Along the way we stayed in 'teahouses," extremely basic guest houses that host trekkers in the region. As we climbed higher up the valley the temperature eventually dropped and the environment became more rocky and alpine. We visited a beautiful lake and were surprised by a flash hail storm. After a day or two more the dirt road ended and we were left with only the rugged foot path. We passed through huge glacier-carved valleys as the Himalayas rose up around us.

Nepal is a country of unparalleled scale. Words and pictures just can't capture how friggin' huge everything is. Massive glaciers pouring down into rushing rivers, row after row of breathtaking mountains marching off into the distance, meter after meter of elevation gain...

Tibetan Buddhist prayer stones

By this point in the circuit some of our fellow trekkers were slowing down and starting to suffer from altitude sickness. You just never know who it will hit. Career guides are just as vulnerable as first time hikers -- apparently, there is no true medical explanation for this 'phenomena'. We weathered a snowstorm and hid in the tea-houses to avoid the freezing night winds. We spotted the endangered blue sheep effortlessly scampering across cliffs with thousand foot drops. We sipped masala chiya (Nepalese chai tea) and slurped down potent garlic soup.

Almost two weeks into our trek we finally were nearing our goal for the first section: Thorong La pass. At 5416 meters (17,769 feet) it was the highest pass Andrea and I had ever attempted. It allows travelers to get around the northern edge of the Annapurna range and it happens to be the widest pass in the world. As we trudged up towards it we were passed by group after group of hikers headed the other way, defeated by the combination of thin air, steepness and altitude. Every day emergency helicopters would buzz over our heads, rescuing those unable to make their own way back to civilization.

Our goal, Thorong La, finally in sight

We fought our way up one last, nearly vertical escarpment to reach the final tea-house before the pass. After a nearly sleepless night (Eliot saw jackals near the bathroom) we left at around 5 A.M. with headlights to make our way through the snow. Even with long underwear, thick pants, wool socks, a quick dry shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a fleece, a down jacket, a windbreaker, gloves and wool hats - we were freezing! The sun finally peaked out over the ring of peaks around us. Eliot was leading our little team up a ridge when suddenly his vision disappeared into a kaleidoscope of stars, his stomach clenched into a knot that would do a sailor proud and nausea tsunamied through his system. He stumbled and then collapsed into the snow. We hadn't escaped altitude sickness after all...

The best way to describe the experience of altitude sickness is that it's almost like the feeling you get at the end of an extremely fast sprint when your entire simply rebels and you want to puke and collapse in a twitching mess. Imagine that plus the fact that the feeling does not stop. It just goes on and on and on until you go to lower altitude, or die.

Success!

In our case we turned around and stumbled back down about one hundred meters of vertical height. After about thirty minutes of recovery we attempted the climb again. The second time turned out to be the charm and we reached the peak of Thorong La about an hour later. The top was absolutely spectacular with tremendous views of the Himalayas on all sides and a snow pack so deep that it had buried the sign at the top.

After a break at the top to take pictures and relax, we grabbed our gear and crossed the pass, ready for the long way down and our next adventure into the hidden Kingdom of Lo...


Co-posted on www.eliotpeper.com


Some additional pictures from the trek:

River valley leading to Annapurna

Prayer flags decorate every village

Chah!

Crazy erosion on the cliffs

Glacier melt at Tilicho Lake in Manang

The doctor is in!

Epic

Our awesome porter Monaz carried both of our backpacks and barely slowed down

Thorong La pass

We made it!

Prayer Flags at the pass

Altitude sickness survivor

Happy to be back in nature

How to afford a 6-month globe-trotting sabbatical

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Dreaming of escaping the rat race to explore the remote jungles of Madagascar? Want to drop the 9-to-5 in favor of a pristine beach in the Seychelles? What about hiking through the mist-shrouded mountains of Bhutan instead of grinding through the morning commute? If only the pocket-book would allow it...

Light at the end of the tunnel...

As we were planning our round-the-world adventure (right now we're sipping macchiattos in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) our friends constantly asked, "How can you afford something like that?!" Luckily, the answer is, "Easily, if you make it a priority..."

This was a question we had struggled with when we started thinking about doing our trip. It seemed impossibly expensive to do an extended travel jaunt, especially as young professionals in our twenties. Wasn't globe-trotting restricted to the realm of trust-fund babies or the comfortably retired? This hung like a specter over our daydreams until we finally figured out how to solve the problem: with numbers...

Turns out that, if you do it right, traveling the world is a hell of a lot cheaper than daily life in the US. Drinks might cost $100 for a night of clubbing in San Francisco. That same $100 could cover a week's worth of top-notch local Thai food in Thailand. Of course, cost of living in Western Europe, Japan or Brazil is comparable to the US so you won't be able to leverage your purchasing power as much. That brings us to Lesson 1: choose your destinations carefully. Want a postcard worthy beach paradise? You might be thinking Fiji but the Philippines has beaches just as nice and is probably 70% cheaper. Want to climb some beautiful mountains? The Swiss Alps are picturesque but Nepal's Himalayas are absolutely epic and you'll probably spend 80% less. A great way to start is to do a Google search for phrases such as: "budget travel countries" or "cheapest countries to travel in." These long-term travel sites might come in handy as you research country costs:

• http://www.legalnomads.com/wds#budget
• theroadforks.com/offtheroad/how_we_budget_for_rtw
• http://www.rtwexpenses.com/articles/
• http://www.livingthedreamrtw.com/2011/01/final-numbers-part-3-country-to-country.html

The Annapurna range in Nepal

Okay. You've done some research and trimmed your list to countries that are a little more affordable. Now let's figure out how to pack in every activity in your 15 country list into a 6-month itinerary! Whoa there, wait a minute... Time for Lesson 2: take your time. International plane tickets are likely to be the single biggest line-item in your trip budget. Cost of living in Indonesia is insanely low but flying from San Francisco to Jakarta will drain your checking account like crazy. Instead of four countries per month why don't you spend six weeks really getting to know Sri Lanka (you can come join us while we do exactly that this July)? You'll save a ton on airfare and you'll actually get to experience the country, something you're guaranteed not to do on a whirlwind tour.

Great. Now you have your itinerary rationally planned out. You've researched the average costs in the countries you plan to visit and the activities you want to do. You've added up all the costs and although it's a good sized chunk of change, it is something you can definitely save up for. But then this lingering sense of doubt seizes your mind: not only will you be forgoing paychecks for the extent of your trip, you won't even have guaranteed income when you return home! Your job won't let you take a six-month leave of absence so you'll be forced to quit (or thrilled maybe). Then you're going to go blow all your money and with a return ticket to unemployment! There's no way this will ever happen. Unless... Lesson 3: build in a cushion.

The inevitable job search isn't an endgame, it's just part of the process of long-term travel. Seriously, you're obviously a smart person (you're reading this blog after all) so how long do you think it would take you to find a job if you gave it a truly concerted effort (i.e. 40 hours/week networking, etc.)? Three months? Four months? Remember, this doesn't have to be your dream job. We're just talking about making sure you have income flowing. Okay, so you're understandably a little paranoid, let's make it six months. Add up all your costs for six months of living without an income when you get back home. Now add that to the cost of your trip. Ta-dah! You now have the total cost of your adventure including your eventual job search, no more professional paranoia allowed.

Budget in minutes with our tool

Damn, these all sound like great ideas but it also sounds like a ton of work. Luckily for you, we built a financial planning tool for budgeting our trip. Even better, we're willing to share! Just download the Excel spreadsheet here and start playing around (click the 'down arrow' in the top left corner to download after the link opens). All you need to do is fill in the relevant details for your dream trip (all input cells are green). Then our model does some math on it and instantly spits out tons of useful info all customized for you: trip cost per person, cushion cost per person, average daily expense, number of months needed to save for the trip, etc. The first tab gives you an example so you can see how it works. The second tab has a blank version for you to fill in. Wow, how cool!

But wait! Should my daily cost of food in India be $6 or $7? What if there's an unexpected $20 airport tax in Nairobi? My budget is ruined and I'm heading for personal financial collapse! Calm down and pay attention to Lesson 4: don't pinch pennies. Nobody wants to spend their entire trip thinking about cash. When you're diving the Great Barrier Reef you want to look at the fish, not think about the Australian exchange rate. Make sure to be conservative in your estimates and then add a 20% buffer on top of that. That way once you're on your trip you'll be able to relax and have a good time with no nickel and diming.

Now you have everything mapped out. It's all fine and dandy and you plan to leave early next year, except... Well, you aren't meeting your savings goals because your new BMW's lease payments are too high, you're carrying a balance on your credit card and you don't want to skip those $100 happy hours. What to do? Lesson 5: don't be an idiot. What's most important to you? Friends, family, health, etc.? You should be able to achieve an enormously fulfilled and happy life without breaking the bank. If you like to spend money on a ton of useless crap that's absolutely fine with me. But don't you dare complain about not being able to afford a kick-ass sabbatical. Choose your priorities and stick to 'em.

It's a loooong flight to Madagascar

We found that the process of modelling out the finances for our trip was enormously useful. But not because our final spreadsheet was accurate. Only one thing is guaranteed: you're going to be dead wrong. Prices change in country, estimate are off in one way or another. You'll be in the ballpark but you're not going to be exact. No, the process was useful because it forced us to openly articulate and discuss our various financial doubts, worries and fears. A job search is stressful in the abstract but once you have to make numerical estimates about it's length it gets a lot less threatening. Remember that the deepest fear we all harbor is that of the unknown. It's much harder to worry about concrete numbers on a spreadsheet. By actualizing our abstract fears we finally banished them.

If you are thinking about a long-term travel adventure, ask yourself if you seriously want to do it. When you are absolutely sure that this is what you want, make a commitment to make it happen no matter what - when we decided to do our trip, we actually shook on it. Once you make that mental switch, you will be amazed at how things just seem to fall into place and the path to travel almost paves itself.

Choose your destinations carefully. Take your time. Build in a cushion. Don't pinch pennies. Don't be an idiot. If you keep these five things in mind you'll be swatting Madagascan mosquitoes in no time at all...



Co-posted on www.eliotpeper.com

Garlic breath, Garlic sweat

Hey garlic lovers! How much garlic can you eat in a week?

I love garlic! My answer would be: there is no limit! Right? After eating it every day for an entire week and reeking of garlic 24/7, maybe there is a limit.

One of my favorite things about cooking is sauteeing garlic in olive oil just so that wonderful smell can fill in every square inch of the kitchen. One of my favorite things to eat is food with plenty of garlic plus you get the added health benefits such as cancer prevention, lowering risk of hearth disease and removal of toxins in the blood, especially for women. I was happy to find that most dishes we ate in Nepal had generous amounts of garlic: the stuffing in the momos had minced garlic, spinach was often stir fried with garlic, many curries had crushed garlic and many of the Dal Bhat side dishes also had garlic. I was very excited when we found out that one of the natural methods for altitude sickness prevention was eating lots of garlic.

Altitude and Garlic
All the guides we spoke with preferred eating garlic soup or drinking garlic water over taking medicine to try to prevent altitude sickness. On top of all the health benefits, this was a great added bonus! Since we were about to go up to more than 5,400 meters and I just so happened to love garlic, I immediately signed up for the ultimate garlic diet.

On the way up to 5,416+ meters to cross Thurong La Pass

All of the guesthouses and restaurants along the trek offered garlic soup and I started ordering it a week before we were due to cross the world's widest pass, Thurong La. This soup is serious business: it is loaded with garlic and definitely leaves you with a great dragon breath that lingers on for a while. Sometimes they would serve it creamy style and sometimes it would be just salt, boiling water and garlic. 

A nice carbo-heavy lunch (yak cheese sandwich and rosemary potatoes) with a healthy dose of garlic soup

The sacrifice: smelling a little bad...
After a few days of having garlic soup, I definitely noticed that the smell was just not going away and I am convinced that even my sweat smelled like garlic. About four days before the big day on the pass, I got really sick and had an awful cold with an intense sore throat. On top of garlic soup, I now carried hot water in my bottle with about a half head of crushed garlic. I definitely reeked now but it made me feel a little better and I tried to stay positive by reminding myself that I wouldn't get altitude sickness if I just kept up my garlic consumption. I'm not sure how Eliot and I managed to still stay close to each other 24/7 during that week but I think it's a good sign for our relationship!

Crushed garlic inside our Nalgene - it took about a whole month to get rid of the taste

A true cure for altitude sickness? 

The true test to this supposed miracle medicine began 48 hours before the crucial ascent. We had a ridiculously steep 300 meter climb from Low camp to High camp, at almost 5,000 meters altitude and Eliot started feeling some of the effects of the altitude. It took us almost two hours to go a very short distance and once we got to High Camp, Eliot felt awful. I was tired but felt fine and had some garlic noodle soup while Eliot opted for a tomato soup for dinner. Aside from shortness of breath, I was surprised at how 'well' I was feeling.
The big day arrived and we started the climb to the pass at around 5:30 am. I was freezing but I kept a steady slow breath and kept my garlic water with me. In spite of taking Diamox (legit, chemical medicine used to prevent altitude sickness at least a few days prior to being up in high altitude) in addition to the garlic diet, Eliot had an awful time and became a victim of the altitude, losing his vision and all. It was very scary as we were on a very snowy and narrow part of the trail (a foot and a half wide at most) but we managed to climb down a few meters and rest a bit so he could recover.

The amazing Thurong La Pass (finally!)

50/50 success
We crossed the pass successfully in spite of the altitude sickness and were very happy once we started the slow descent. Although Eliot felt the wrath of the high Himalayas, I still never felt even the slightest headache.

Would I rather smell a little (okay, okay a LOT) bad or a little better? In the end, I choose smelling bad over better: consuming all that garlic definitely made it worth it for me, even though it felt like garlic was oozing out of my pores. The miracle drug -- garlic, that is -- worked wonderfully for me (even just as a placebo!) but was way less effective for Eliot. Although I was spared, I really hope I don't ever have to eat that much garlic again.

I still love garlic but I definitely prefer moderation over extremes with this potent veggie!

Carboloading

Carbs Galore in the Himalyas

 

There is absolutely no shortage of carbs in Nepal, especially while trekking and rafting. My body had to get used to the absurd amounts of carbs I was eating and it was not a pleasant experience in the beginning. However, since we were doing so much exercise, it wasn't too bad after the 10 days. Our bodies took in all the carbs, quickly converted them to sugars and gave us plenty of energy to trek anywhere between 4 to 9 hours in a day at an average altitude of basically 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).

 

Food does not really grow very well around the Himalayas during winter. Temperatures get freezing cold and the soil also freezes up. Most people rely on more 'durable' or 'root' vegetables such as potatoes, carrots or cabbage that are brought in by mules in some of the more remote areas and other items such as spinach is often dried so that it can last through the tough winter months. Given the unavailability of fresh vegetables or fruit while we trekked (yes, March is still considered winter), there was not a single day during our 33-day trek that we did not eat carbs: between eating one more carb and starving and feeling weak, we definitely opted for carbs. Carbs are a curcial and essential component of the Himal (mountain) diet, without them, it would be very tough to get through the day.

 

Here is a list of all the different carbs we ate, we had unimaginable loads of potatoes, yards and yards of noodles, piles of chapatti (essentially a flour tortilla) and heaps and heaps of rice among other interesting ones:





Champa porridge made out of buckwheat (carb), a good breakfast item



Buckwheat (carb) pancake for either breakfast or with curry for lunch



Yak Cheese sandwich on a white bread roll (carb) and french fries (carb)

Potatoes (carb) with a little egg and shredded vegetables - the dark picture reflects the lack of electricity during most dinners!



"Chowmein" basic noodles (carb) with egg - I'm pretty sure the 'noodles' were just dried pasta that was cooked and then labeled as noodle

 

Samar bread (flour (carb), baking powder and water) with cheese, a special item in Samar, Upper Mustang

"Spaghetti" (carbs), momos (carbs) and curry with rice (carbs)

Noodle (carbs) soup, with chapatti (carbs)

Banana pancake (carbs) with honey - it was very exciting to find banana!



Apple pancake (carbs) with honey

Plain chapatti (carbs) with plain omelette in between for lunch outside of Lomanthang, Upper Mustang (only 7 kms away from the Tibet/China border with Nepal)

Plain chapatti (carbs) with fake red jam as a snack in Yara, eastern Upper Mustang

Fried prawn cracker (probably carbs) and fried pieces of dough (definitely carbs) - the appetizer we ate at a wedding we attended in Samar

Somme of the better carbs we had! Homemade toast with yak cheese, jam, butter, seabuckthorn juice, organic coffee and a chocolatey croissant (at YacDonald's in Kagbeni, Nepal)

Finally, although there was a carb overkill during our stay in Nepal, I definitely learned to appreciate where all these grains come from. A lot of different kinds of wheat is grown throughout some of the regions we trekked and it looked like really tough work. From tilling the soil with oxen to harvesting the grain by hand, I am simply amazed at how cheap grains are. A lot of the hillsides are terraces where grains grow and are later harvested. Some of the trails go right through the rows and rows of colorful grain everywhere, adding a really unique element of beauty to the Himalaya landscape.

Dal bhat twice a day every day for ever

Lentils and Rice Dominate the Nepali Diet

Dal Bhat, although delicious, healthy and varied, is way too overserved and overeaten!

What is it?

Dal Bhat is the national Nepali dish. It always has rice and lentils accompanied by a few side dishes of various vegetables and sometimes a little bit of meat. It is a fairly healthy dish: you get steamed rice, the lentils are in a stew that is borderline soup, usually there are potatoes, the rest of the vegetables are lightly fried, you also get a fried papad (aka papadum) which is a very thin and crispy flour 'cracker' (sometimes you can also get a prawn cracker instead) and then a few pieces of meat (if you order non-veg) are served in a curry. Dal Bhat is usually served on a large metal dish and the lentils are served separately in a small bowl.

Difference in taste? At this point we thought this was the best Dal Bhat we'd ever had. Our guide later confessed it was the absolute worst Dal Bhat he'd ever had in his life. Looking back, he was probably right! (Annapurna Circuit Trek)

 

 

Endless refills

 

The first time we ordered Dal Bhat in Thamel, Kathmandu, we felt very bad because we shared one order and we got unlimited refills; all for one, fixed price. We figured out that free second, third, fourth and more servings are just simply included in the price so you can get as many servings as you can handle. Two is the absolute maximum I ever did but I definitely saw some locals eat twice as much as I could.

 

Dhal Bhat served on the traditional metal plate - this particular one was slim pickins. There were no fresh vegetables available and the spinach was previously dried due to the harsh winter (Chusang, Upper Mustang)

Dal Bhat Power!

 

Dal Bhat gives you strength without making you feel overstuffed and heavy. We enjoyed eating it and it is definitely a healthy food choice. There are enough carbs in Dal Bhat to fill you up, allowing your body to convert them to sugars to power up your day. Since we trekked for 33 days straight and also went on a 10-day rafting trip, Dal Bhat definitely came in handy plus our guides all swore by it -- Energy Bars would face stiff competition in Nepal!

A slight variation on Dal Bhat (on the right): both the curry and lentils were served separately and they gave us plastic instead of metal plates (Manang, Nepal during our trek)

 

 

33-days and counting

 

The main problem I personally have with Dal Bhat is that it is eaten every single day for lunch (served at 10 am) and for dinner (served around 7pm). Nepalis seem to be perfectly content eating Dal Bhat twice a day, every day for eternity. For example, when we started our trek, our guide told us that he and our porter were looking forward to having Dal Bhat twice a day, every day for the entire length of the 33-day trek even though there were many other options. They actually did this! Our whitewater rafting guides would cook us really good meals when we camped: fried fresh caught fish, lasagna and curries but sometimes they would cook Dal Bhat separately and eat that instead.

 

Moderation is key, even for Dal Bhat!

 

I love food but I also love variety in the food I eat. Dal Bhat is a nice dish but there is no way I could have it every single day. Nepali cuisine could really benefit from more variety but innovation in the kitchen could be a pretty big challenge. For now, I'm pretty sure that I've had enough Dal Bhat for the rest of the trip, potentially for the rest of my life...

The week that starts it all

Kat Man Doooo!

Our first week of travel in Nepal's crazy and surprisingly hazy capital

"ppffffftt!!! ppfffffftt!!" 

In a daze, we woke up around 6 am, confused about that strange noise and what seemed like a LOT of crowing/chirping/singing. Once we figured out that it was just 6 am and we weren't on some plane or in some airport anymore, we realized we had slept for nearly 10 hours after a 36 hour flight from California to Nepal. We got up, dressed and went outside and finally figured out what the strange noises were: hundreds and hundreds of birds were flying ALL over the place and the tea-shop owner three stories below had just opened up his shop and was sweeping the entrance -- "ppffffftt!! ppfffftt!!". This was the second day of a three-day 'strike'; apparently a very common occurrence in Nepal. Even though our guesthouse had promised that they would pick us up from the airport the day before (like, 99.9% of the reason we picked it in the first place!), no one showed up at the airport even after we waited for about an hour. They then informed us that the 'strike' we heard about from the taxi drivers at the airport was indeed real and that the guesthouse driver was not able to get through the traffic jam. We were upset initially but we then laughed about it as we remembered what our friends who had been to Nepal before warned us about: expect nothing to go as planned and you will have a blast! 

Kanghsar Guesthouse in Thamel, Kathmandu wasn't all that bad. For 16 bucks we had a 'soft' bed (later on we'd find out how much of a luxury this was), our own bathroom (a western toilet would also become a luxury), a hot shower AND breakfast. Plus, there was a pretty cool rooftop garden with some tables that offered a spectacular view of... the haze. Apparently it's 'not pollution' but there is a crazy dense haze that hangs out around Kathmandu Valley around March/April and visibility just, well, pretty much did not exist. 

The 'view'!

Thamel is the most touristy area of Kathmandu. We usually don't like doing the 'touristy' thing but we just wanted to start off easy. Plus we heard that there was very good and very cheap food all over the place, all within walking distance. Our first week in Nepal, thus, consisted of lots of eating, walking around and trying not to pass out before 7 pm - the jetlag was intense. Our favorite place to eat was this Pilgirm's bookshop/restaurant that served freshly prepared organic, vegetarian food and had an amazing selection of food and literature (plus fast wi-fi). 

Hygiene in Nepal needs some work, especially seeing the butcher shops scattered down the dusty, unpaved alleys. It is hard to recount how much raw meat we saw just sitting out in the open with dozens of flies all over.... refrigeration is hard to count on when there is very little electricity due to very limited supply of energy in Nepal (most of which is imported from India; the oil is imported too and there are multi-hour lines for gas). Even though we purchased a Steripen at REI before we left (it sterilizes tap water with UV light), we bought bottled water: the tap water was literally brown and the rivers that go through the city were just a tad too smelly and littered with garbage and raw sewage. 

How would you like that cooked?

Day at the beach?

After overcoming the initial shock, we sought out some culture: we visited the monkey temple, walked around the neighborhood of Boudha and we went to a Hindu festival in what they call "little Varanasi", i.e. where they burn/bury dead bodies along the river. The monkey temple is actually a very significant Buddhist Stupa (religious center) in Asia and many mothers come with their sick children to pray to one of the goddesses for their children's recovery. 

Swayambunath, aka, 'monkey temple', it's watching you...

Boudha, east of Kathmandu is a really beautiful spot and we even liked their Stupa even better. We discovered that Boudha has the second largest concentration of Tibetan refugees (outside China), second only to Dharamsala in India. We also visited a very beautiful Tibetan monastery (Kopan Gompa) sitting on top of a hill right above Boudha and enjoyed wonderful conversations with some of our friends who were living there, learning and practicing meditation. That same day it just happened to be one of the most important Hindu festivals of the year so we walked on over to Pashupattinath and it was crowded with literally THOUSANDS of people burning/burying their dead in the river. We couldn't really see much but it was really cool to see the crowds and feel the energy. Boudha was by far our favorite part of the city and we will spend a few nights there before we leave Nepal.

If they're looking for places to stage the sequel to The Hunger Games, Kathmandu might be a good place to start. With it's crazy mixture of diverse humanity, medieval sanitation and network of monochromatic alleys that could fool the most nefarious pickpocket, Nepal's capital felt, well, post-apocalyptic! 

Our first week had started with a bang but we were ready to breathe pure Himalaya air and get our trek on! The mountains beckoned...

Himalaya BLISS

This post was co-published on www.eliotpeper.com

The 35 day trek

During our 35 day trek, I won't be able to post much. Come back in mid-April to learn all about our awesome trek through Annapurna Circuit, Upper Mustang and ABC!

Kathmandu: Week 1!

Lassi and momo galore in Kathmandu!

Food in Kathmandu, Nepal has been really good so far. We arrived in the late afternoon and the first thing we had was a mango lassi from Pilgrims Feed N Read Restaurant in Thamel which tasted like heaven. Lassi is similar to kumis, which is a yogurt drink and you can get it with banana, papaya, apple and other fruit, or just drink it plain/tart. I wanted to help my stomach get used to the new diet and yogurt, with all its probiotic goodness, seemed like a great first thing to have. We also enjoyed some yak cheese and vegetable steamed momos (stuffed dumplings) along with a potato dosa, which is an Indian dish, very similar to a thin, crispy crepe. The yak is like a Himalayan buffalo and is a very useful animal, not only for food, but also for carrying goods up and down the mountains where there are no roads.

Banana lassis with dinner. Candlelight is often used since there are long power outages in the city.

We couldn't stay up past 8 pm the first night as Jet Lag hit us hard so we went to bed very early. The breakfast at our guesthouse is included and is very basic: two eggs and toast with "dud chiya', the delicious spiced milk tea. The eggs here are very tasty and I have had my share of orange yolk eggs, a good indication that the hens we get these eggs from have a good life and diet!

We went to a small Nepali restaurant for lunch on our second day, Thakali Bhanchha off of Z street and we weren't too hungry yet so we ordered one dish and got lemon sodas. Lemon soda is just lemon juice with plain soda added to it. It's really refreshing and it guarantees that your drink is safe: tap water here is not at all potable and it's best not to risk it. The mutton curry we ordered came on a metal plate with a large serving of rice in the middle, a bowl of yellow lentil curry, pickled radish, two spicy sauces, spinach, cauliflower and potato and a side of yogurt. We got free refills once we were done and we felt really bad because we shared only that one plate. The tip we gave at the end was rather large. For dinner, we went to Yak restaurant, which is a Tibetan establishment, and ordered pork and vegetable momos and also got a buffalo soup with clear noodles. We heard about the hot Tunga beer they eat there but we have not really felt like drinking alcohol so we missed out on it. Again, we passed out early as we succumbed to the intense jet lag (it took 36 hours or so just to get here!).

Lemon + Soda water

We started our morning at Pilgrims and had some lassi and we had a potato paratha (Indian dish) for a late morning snack. All the food at Pilgrims is vegetarian and this one was really tasty as it was made to order and took about one hour to come out! We changed it up a bit and met up with our friend Carole and went to an Israeli restaurant, OR2K and ordered some more vegetarian food. There was a special dish served only on Friday and Saturday so we ordered it. Jochnne, I believe it was called, is a pastry that is cooked over night and is served with a green chutney and a really good tomato garlic sauce with a boiled egg on the side. We also shared a large platter of hummus, labneh, falafel, babaganoush, tahini and a tomato eggplant dip. We also ordered mint lemonades to wash down our food and we couldn't really finish it all - the portions were very generous.

Sample platter at OR2K

Believe it or not we had dinner that night at Nepalese Kitchen, a Nepali/Newari restaurant very close to our guest house. For habit sake, we started our meal with a banana lassi, no sugar. We had a candle-lit dinner and tried Bari, which are meatballs with a sweet marinade, vegetable pakoras and a grilled chicken with pulao rice. The pakoras are basically shredded vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, cauliflower that are spiced and dipped in an egg batter and then fried. They are really good and we ate a whole plate of them. The pulao rice with our chicken was also very good, it had peas and some nuts as well as fruit. We were a little skeptical about ordering the chicken since most of the chicken shops we have seen around here have no refrigeration and chickens just sit out there at room temperature for hours... we bit the bullet though and I'm happy to say the chicken did not betray us! We were ambitious and had ordered two desserts but we had to cancel the order, we were too full and tired.

Grilled Chicken with Pulao Rice and Cauliflower side

 Suddenly, the weekend had arrived and it felt like we had already been in Nepal for ages! We had a great foodventure experience during the weekend, I'll detail them all in my next post about our first weekend in Nepal.

Foodventuring: How our 7-month trip came to be

Food + adventure = Foodventure

Part 3. How we ended up pulling the trigger on our 7-month trip to Nepal, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and others

 

All you really have to do is save some money, organize your finances, leave your job, invest in gear, organize your finances and just go!

Going on a long-term trip as a couple sounded a lot harder than it was. Eliot and I had always wanted to do a long trip and we thought we would do it after we got married. The idea was something like a 6-month honey moon full of adventure (trekking, diving, rafting, etc) in exotic places. We gave ourselves about 3 years to plan for it and figured we'd go sometime around late 2014. Around the fall of 2012, we started thinking about possibly accelerating that timeline to the beginning of 2013: Eliot's job was slowing down and I had just been notified that my company wasn't going to give raises to anyone that year. By the end of 2012 we had pretty much committed ourselves to making this trip happen, and by February, it was all a done deal. I will go into much more detail about finances, packing, plane tickets and other trip logistics in future posts, but for now, this is the detailed story about or food and adventure-themed journey.

Why?
We love to travel and we love exploring the world so, why not? We never really let ourselves get comfortable in any situation and travel is a great way to accomplish that. We are also not resortists or fans of very touristy destinations so we usually end up going places and doing things that most people would never even consider. We are flexible, adaptable and extremely adventurous with our physical activities and of course with food (I think I'm even more adventurous than Eliot, I would actually eat tarantulas if they were served to me but Eliot said he'd refuse!). Traveling allows us to push our sense of adventure to new and undiscovered levels so we need a healthy dose of it every once in a while.

A very fine Tamal establishment in Angeles Valley, Honduras. Most good food places don't have to look like a restaurant!

Nepal, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Sumatra, how come?
The road less traveled is usually the most attractive to us. Barring Nepal, our destinations are not exactly 'popular' and you won't hear too many people talking about how their dream has always been to travel to Addis Ababa or Colombo. This is how we prefer to travel. We picked four countries over a 6 month period so that we have the opportunity to really get to know the local culture.

We also wanted to go to places that were very budget friendly, had ample opportunities for outdoor adventure and, of course, offered delicious food! All four countries are very affordable and, once you get there, the cost of living is extremely affordable: 2 people can easily eat a very filling lunch with a drink included for less than $2USD TOTAL.

Nepal. We were least excited about Nepal from a foodie point of view but we heard from several friends that the momos (steamed or fried dumplings), chiya (masala-style tea), daal bhat (traditional lentil dish) and even fresh fruit juices were really good there. We also heard that Thamel, the backpacker/trekker place in Kathmandu had a some of the best food in the city. Still, we don't have a lot of Nepali food in California so we were very excited about trying our Himalayan cuisine.

Steamed Vegetarian Nepali Momos - Spicy, Healthy and Delicious!

Ethiopia! The absolute highlight of our culinary expedition will definitely be Ethiopia. Ethiopian food is amazing and we cannot wait to eat it all the time during the 6 weeks that we're there. Ethiopian food, just like its history and culture, is very unique and I have never had anything else quite like it. Ethiopians are very proud of their food and for good reason! The Injera, a spongy, pancake-like sour bread absorbs so much of the flavor of the various curry-esque servings. I am a big fan of the cardamom-spiced curries and they definitely know how to do lentils right. We are also very excited to see some of the coffee ceremonies and will pretty much be caffeinated night and day as Ethiopia is the birthplace of this wonderful bean.

A Coffee Farm in Nicaragua, where coffee is also grown

Sri Lanka. Tea and Curries. I actually don't think I've ever had Sri Lankan food but I imagine that sipping on tea and eating curries is basically what we'll be doing on the tear-drop island. Ceylon tea originates from Sri Lanka and we hope to visit a tea plantation while we're there. I hear the seafood is also very good and if it is at all similar to South Indian seafood, then I think we're in for a treat.

Sumatra. We've both been to Indonesia before but only to a handful of its thousands of islands. Honestly, we picked Sumatra because of the relaxed vibe, the opportunities for diving and trekking in jungles with orangutans. We were not sure about the kind of food there but as soon as we heard about Padang, we got really excited! For us, the spicier the food, the better and Padang is supposed to have the spiciest food in all of Indonesia. Padang food has been highly recommended to us, especially by friends who frequent Indonesia.

I plan on keeping a detailed visual memory of almost everything I eat and will upload posts full of pictures when I can have internet access. Most of the activities we want to do are in very remote areas so I won't always be connected, which is part of the point anyway! For example, our 35-day trek in Nepal includes very remote areas such as Upper Mustang and we'll also be rafting down the world-famous Karnali river for 10 days.

California: Healthy Eating Extraordinaire

California - a Foodie's paradise!

Part 2. How Living in California became my personal catalyst for healthier eating, cooking from scratch and foodventuring

My Favorite Beach in California (and my backyard for a while)

I started cooking a lot more in California, probably because I was a starving graduate student and eating out was too expensive while cooking at home was just cheaper. Living costs in California are definitely high but what might be surprising to a lot of people is that the cost of food is actually not that bad! You can get three avocados for a dollar during avocado season, 2 pounds of strawberries for a dollar, a bunch of cilantro for 35 cents, 64oz of local, organic, milk for a little over three dollars and a few jicamas for a buck or two. Eliot and I don't shop at the big chain supermarkets, instead, we shop at stores like Henry's (now Sprouts) for our fruit and bulk items, we subscribe to a CSA (community supported agriculture) where we get the majority of our locally grown, organic vegetables delivered to our house, we sometimes frequent Trader Joe's for arugula, mache, tofu, cheese and sausages and we stock up on frozen fruit, frozen fish from time to time, apples and spinach at Costco. This shopping combo has allowed us to save a lot of money on our groceries while still eating very healthy and less processed foods. For example, we make our own muesli, better known as granola to most, by buying nuts, oats, granola, dried fruit and buckwheat from a store like Henry's where you can buy these items by the pound. It's great because you don't really pay for packaging and what you get is what you actually pay for. We usually eat this mix every morning with our home made yogurt - we stopped buying yogurt and started making our own a while ago. Getting our CSA box once every two weeks has been fantastic and a great way to afford local, organic vegetables. Everything we get is seasonal so we get really creative with our cooking and we don't really shop for vegetables at the store anymore, which ends up saving us not only money but also time. We have made spinach strawberry salsa, fennel salad, baked turnips and pumpkin quinoa just to name a few dishes. In my opinion, Trader Joe's is way too much into packaging (do peppers really have to be on a tray wrapped in plastic?) so we only go there for a few items every once in a while because quality is still very good and prices are very reasonable. Costco has made smoothies really easy and cheap to make! We get their frozen berries and add it to the kale, spinach, and/or cabbage we get in our CSA with perhaps some oranges and bananas and ginger. In a matter of minutes, we have a meal ready to go.

Making a summer smoothie after blueberry picking in Santa Barbara

One of the private events we catered: lentil salad, veggies sticks, Moroccan Kefta, Spicy Hummus, Fruit Kabobs and Chocolate Mousse

Now that we cook more at home (we even cater sometimes!), we rarely cook meat at home and often opt for vegetarian meals just because it is easier. We don't really go out to eat but when we do, we make it count. We have explored many of San Diego's culinary hot spots and have found some stellar restaurants. We have found our favorite spots (at a great bang for your buck!) for:

Lebanese (Alforon), fish tacos (Oscar's), adobada tacos (Tacos el Gordo), French with a California twist (Bo Beau), juice bar (Casa de Juice), Vietnamese/Chinese (Phuong Trang), lobster tacos (only on Tuesdays at Jose's in La Jolla), craft beer (too many to name here since SD is the craft capital of the world right now but Green Flash, Regal Beagle, and Tiger Tiger are all pretty good), pupusas (El Salvadoreno), carnitas tacos California style (Carnitas Snack Shack) and sushi (expensive but oh so worth it at Sushi Ota) to name a few.

Foodventuring in San Diego has been really fun. Unlike other cities, you have to go find good food places as they are not all concentrated on one place. Some people complain that food in San Diego is just okay but I feel that SD has great food choices! When I travel I definitely try not to just eat in the touristy spots, and I'm willing to go explore in order to find good, legit local food.

Cooking at home!

This is the kind of spirit I will continue to have during our 6-month trip, which officially starts now! Follow me in my foodventures as we trek around Nepal, explore Ethiopia, cover every bit of Sri Lanka and walk around with Orangutans in Sumatra, Indonesia and then top it all off with a week at Burning Man in Nevada. Eliot and I will try to co-post as much as we can about our trip so make sure to check out his blog as well at www.eliotpeper.com! Before diving into the trip, I'll talk about how this crazy Foodventure trip came to be in Part 3.