Kicking back in Kathmandu, Nepal

I am sitting in the Kathmandu Valley surrounded by the tallest mountains in the world. They are called the Himalayan Mountains and Mount Everest is the highest. We got to Nepal a week ago and it is a very cool place. We were in India for a week before crossing the border into Nepal. I am glad to be out of India and in Nepal.

India was very challenging. After flying to from Bangkok, Thailand to Hong Kong, China, we caught another plane to India. We arrived in Delhi in the middle of the night. We took a taxi into town to find a place to sleep. As we were walking around we could see hundreds of homeless people sleeping right in the dirt. There was piles of garbage everywhere. Even though it was late at night there were many cars, motorbikes, rickshaws and cows in the streets. You would not believe it but they let the cows go anywhere the want in India. They even wander onto the freeway or into train stations and everbody just goes around them. Something about the people thinking that cows are sacred. I don't get it. After several tries we finally found a place to sleep. I told my dad that the hotel we found was discusting, but he didn't listen. I think he just wanted to get off the dirty streets of Dehli. We woke up the next day and found a better place to stay.

We hung out in Dehli for two days. It was horrible. There are over 11,000,000 people living there and it is crowded where ever you go. There is garbage everywhere. Nobody seemed to be taught that littering is not good. It was early in the morning and it was already 95 degrees outside. People are begging everywhere. It was very sad. There were many kids even younger than me that were living on the streets and begging for food. Why did my parents bring me to this place? We did get to visit the Red Fort which was really old and I liked exploring the buildings of the old military fort. We tried to go inside the museum but we almost suffocated because there were so many people inside and there was no air conditioner or windows. We barely made it out and caught a rickshaw back to our hotel. The only other thing that happened in Dehli was that we were in an autorickshaw(three wheeled little car) and the front wheel fell off. We were o.k. and just jumped into another rickshaw and kept going.

From Dehli we took a train to Agra. I was very glad to leave Dehli. Agra was even hotter than Dehli and we were walking around carrying our backpacks sweating a lot. I thought Thailand was hot, but India is really hot. Plus in India everyone stares at you all the time and wants to touch you. My parents say it is because they don't see a lot of light skinned kids with blond hair and blue eyes. I don't care why they do it, it gets really old. In Agra we visited the Taj Mahal. It was voted one of the 7 Modern Wonders of the World. It was great. Agra sucked, but the Taj Mahal was amazing. It was built hundreds of years ago and looked like it could have built one year ago. It was built out of marble and you could tell they did a really good job. I learned that the artists that built the temple had their hands cut off when they completed the job. Apparently the king did not want them building any other temples as nice as the Taj Mahal that was built for his 2nd wife that died. That is crazy. Instead of telling the builders they did a nice job and maybe giving them a bonus, he instead cut off their hands!

We got out of Agra beause it was very hot and dirty. From there we caught an all night train to Varanasi. The train was great. Each cabin has 6 bunks. I got to sleep on the top bunk. In the morning my mom and dad said they didn't sleep very good. I don't know why, I slept great. I liked Varanasi a lot more than Dehli and Agra. We stayed there for a couple of days. Varanasi is one of the most important cities in the world for Hindus. The people who practice the Hindu religion belive that there are 330,000,000 Gods. That seems strange. How do they even remember the names of the all the Gods? Anyways, they come from all over the world to bathe in the sacred Ganges River that flows through Varanasi. The river is huge and we got up at 5:00 a.m. and rented a boat to go out on the river. We watched the sunrise and saw 1,000's of people bathing in the river, washing clothes, brushing their teeth, and performing all sort of religious rituals I had never seen before. We also saw people being cremated right along side the river. You could actually see the people being burnt on huge piles of wood. I could barely believe my eyes. It was a strange experience.

Hindus believe that the water of the Ganges is so sacred that if you jump in the water one time it will wash away all the sins of your entire lifetime. That is why pilgrims travel so far to bathe in the river. There was no way I would ever jump in the river. It was nasty. It looked like and smelled like raw sewage. When we were on the boat you could see all kinds of stuff floating on the surface and we even saw part of a body float by one time. The water is some of the most polluted water in the whole world. However, this did not stop them from jumping in and even drinking and brushing their teeth with the water. Yuck! I was worried one of the guys who was paddling our boat would splash water on us. I was glad to get off the river. We also visited all kinds of temples in Varanasi which was pretty boring. Next door to Varanasi is s town called Sarnath where Buddha taught his first lesson on Buddhism after becoming enlightened It was o.k., but I was ready to leave.

We left Varanasi and headed to Bodigaya. Bodigaya was where Buddha sat under a bodi tree and gained enlightenment. There are all kinds of religions in India, but Hinduism and Buddhism are the two biggest ones. We sat under the same tree that Buddha became enlightened under. It was cool. The town of Bodigaya is the most important town in the whole world for people who pratice the Buddhist religion. We also explored all the temples and momestaries built by all the Buddhist countries of the world. At one temple we actually sat down and meditated with about a 100 monks.

From Bodigaya we headed up to Nepal. It ook us two full days to get from Bodigaya, India, to Kathmandu, Nepal. We had to take a lot of buses and it sucked. These buses were horrible. No air conditioning, lots of dust, people crammed inside and bumping into you, nothing to do, and lots of sweating. Just when I thought we were done. We had to get on another bus. We did not see any other tourists and everyone was staring at us all day long. It was hard to find food that was safe to eat and would not make us sick. On one of the days we were traveling we ate just one meal. Also, finding bottled water that was safe to drink was not easy. My dad said that there is a scam that is very popular in India right now where they fill up the empty bottles with tap water and make it look like new bottled water. The tap water will make you very sick in India beause of all the tiny bugs inside it. Discusting. So finding save water was tricky and there were times that I got very thristy beafore we could find safe water.

I was very glad to make it to the border of Nepal. India was rough traveling and I was ready for a break. My parents said that Nepal would be a little more relaxing and a lot cooler as it is in the mountains. As we left India the police at the border made us pay a bribe to get our passports stamped. My dad was not very happy about the corrupt police officers making tourists pay bribes. He did manage to negotiate the bribe to a smaller amount and I did not have to pay a bribe because I am only 10 years old. I don't get it.

When we crossed into Nepal, I hit country #8 of my around the world trip. When we got to the immigration office the Nepal officials also tried to get us to pay a bribe.This time my dad refused to pay any bribe at all. This did not make the police happy, but eventually they let us enter the country even without paying any bribe. We took a minivan for 8 hours to Kathmandu. It was a lot better than the buses of India and a lot more comfortable. We road through the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains and saw some amazming views. We arrived in Kathmandu and it was nice and cool.

Kathmandu is a city of about 1,000,000 people sitting in a valley surrounded by mountains. There are temples and Buddhist stupas everywhere. We are eating good food like pizza everyday. I have gotten to buy some really cool souveniers for really cheap. Yesterday I bought a small sword for less than $1! It is even better than the swap meet at home. Everyday we exlpore Kathmandu and the surrounding cities and see all these temples and shrines. I am about "templed out." Yesterday, though my dad and I got to help paint an important Tibetan Buddhist temple here in Kathmandu. I painted yellow and my dad painted blue on this statute of a God with 6 arms and 3 eyes. It was cool. I can't believe they let a 10 year old help paint the temple. I did the best I could with the paint brush because I knew how important the temple was to the Tibetans. Since the Chinese kicked them out of their country many of them came to Kathmandu and northern India to live. They are very friendly people and they seemed very happy that a 10 year old from American wanted to help them paint their temple.

I love Kathmandu and don't really want to leave. I would rather stay here for the next couple months and not go back to India. We have decided that we will stay longer in Nepal than we had planned. Right now we are preparing to go on a trek in the Himalyan Mountains. We are going on an 11 day trek on the Annapurna Circuit and then cutting over to Annapurna Sanctuary Trail. We are going to be treking very high in the mountains and into the snow capped Himalayan Mountains. We are going around Kathmandu buying jackets, hiking boots, gloves, wool hats, and other stuff we need. We could not bring all this stuff from home because it would be too heavy and our backpacks were already so full. We hired a guy named Nilem who will act as our porter and guide. I am very excited about hiking in the Himalayan Mountains. I know it will be hard to hike for that long and up higher than I have ever been in my life, but I know it will be a great experience.

I feel very lucky to be taking this trip and seeing all the cool stuff I get to see everyday. There are a lot of kids that are not as lucky as me and my friends at home. There are kids my age that don't go to school because they have to go to work. There are kids are that homeless and have to beg for food. There are kids that will never get to travel outide of the town they live in. I have a lot to be grateful for and I know how lucky I am to be here in Nepal getting ready to go on a trek in the highest moutain range in the world.

Please send me an email at Kylearoundtheworld@gmail.com and post a comment on my blog. I really enjoy hearing from people at home. Oh yeah, my parents make me do homework all the time even though we are on vacation. Talk to you guys later.

Off to India

I am leaving for India tommorow. I loved Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. I am sad to leave S.E. Asia but I am exicted about our next adventure.

Yesterday we got to bring food to the poor people here in Pattaya. It was sad to see the kids living in the slums in little shacks made of anything they could find.Today we are volunteering at the orphange where we are going to hold and feed the babies. Then we are going to bring food to the people in the jail. I have seen a lot of things on our trip that I never saw at home. It has been a good experience, and I am learning a lot about life and people in other countries.

Tonight my dad has a surprise for me and I have not guessed what it is yet. Tomorrow we are flying to India where we will spend 4 months in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Don't forget to read my last posting I made on August 29th. All my friends started school and even though I miss them a lot I am glad I didn't have to go with them. Send me an email and make a posting and give my email address to anyone who wants it. Thanks.

Circle around SE Asia, now back at the beach in Thailand

We went up to northern Thailand and stayed with a guy named John. I got to do some really cool things. We went fishing, ate home cooked Thai meals, hiked in caves, climbed up to a temple on a mountain top, and went swimming at the bottom of a waterfall. We had such a great time we didn't want to leave.

From there we went up to Laos. In Laos we hung out in the capital of Vientienne. We rented biclycles and cruised all over seeing all the temples, museums, and other stuff. We got a bus north to Vien Vang. That place is great. We floated down the river in innertubes and went on a bunch of rope swings into the river. on some of them you would fly 30-40 into the air before letting go. It was awesome. We also went into a bunch of caves and got to swim up a river inside a cave. We road bicycles to one cave temple and on the way back it started raining. The rain never stopped. It was pouring and we got drenched. We were riding through huge puddles and it didn't matter because we couldn't get any wetter.

Next we left Thailand for the country of Vietnam. I didn't know anything about Vietnam except that my grandpa fought in a war over there a long time ago. To get to Laos we had to ride on three separate buses. One of them was riding in the back of a pick-up truck. There was not just people crammed in there but also pigs, rice, and a bunch of other stuff. At one point I counted 26 people stuffed in the back of the small pick-up truck. We were sure glad to get off that bus. Two days later we were at the border of Vietnam. It was a lot of work getting there and then the guys at the customs wouldn't let us in the country. They said it was because my mom did not have a second picture ID card. My dad said they were just trying to shake us down for some money. A couple of times they said, "You go back Laos." I did not want to take miserable buses back to Laos for two days. It took almost 2 hours before they finally let us into the country and in the end we did have to pay a small bribe.

In Vietnam we went to a lot of cool places. My favorites were China Beach, Na Trang (where we kicked back on the beach for 6 days, and they had a cool water amusement park), and the Cu Chi Tunnels. The network of tunnels went underground for 250 miles. My dad and I got to actually crawl through the tunnels that were used by the Viet Cong soldiers during the war. They lived in these tunnels for over 20 years. The Americans did not even know they were there for a long time and set up a base right above the tunnels. Crawling in the tunnels was cool, even though my dad got scared and I had to help him find the way out. It was so small at places that we had to crawl on our hands and knees.

While in Vietnam we also went to the capital of Ho chi Minh City, which they use to call Saigon. It was a big city and people were riding motorbikes everywhere. Even kids around 8-12 years old were riding motrbikes in the streets. It was very dangerous just crossing the street. We almost got run over a bunch of times. After awhile we would just walk out in the middle of the street and hope they didn't run us over. They were good at dodging us. We also got to ride in a bicycle rickshaw where a guy pedaled us all over the city. It was cool.

From Vietnam we took a taxi to the border and then a bus to the capital of Cambodia. The capital was called Phnom Penh and I liked it a lot. We cruised all over the place and saw some interesting stuff. One of the most interesting places was called Tul Sleng. It was a place where they locked up people and tortured them. They had this really mean guy who ran the country about 20 years ago and he hurt and killed a lot of people. In four years he killed somthing like 20,000. The place where they locked up and hurt the people was a school. I could not even imagine what it would have been like. I learned that they would take kids away from their parents and make them work in the rice fields. If the kids did not work good enough they would he tortured and their parents would be killed. When they were done torturing the people at the school they would take them to this place called the Killing Fields and kill and bury them. We went there and saw the graves that they had dug up. You could still see bones and pieces of old clothes in the ground. They also had a temple they built that had thousands of human skulls. It was creepy. It is hard to believe that somebody could be so mean and hurt so many people. It was very sad, but I was glad I got to visit Tul Sleng and the Killing Fields.

From there we went to Siem Reap and saw Angkor Wat. It was awesome. There were temples built over a 1,000 years ago. I don't know how they were still there all those years later. The coolest part was that you could climb on them all. You could climb anywhere you wanted, except when my mom would say, "Kyle don't climb up there it is too dangerous." I don't know why she was worried. I am a good climber even in my flip flops. We got up before 5:00 to see the sunrise. I don't know what the big deal about the sunrise was, but it did look pretty cool seeing the sun rise over the temples. We had our own private tuk-tuk driver that took us all over the place. It was great. That night we got to eat at a nice place that had an all you can eat buffet and Khmer dancing. The dancing was kind of lame, but the food was great. By the end of the day we were exhausted.

After Angkor Wat we took two buses back to Pattaya, Thailand. We were on the bus for over 11 hours, and one of them was 6 hours on a dirt road. It sucked. I was glad to be back in Pattaya where they have all kind of cool stuff to do. Yesterday we went to the movies, swimming, out for a great dinner, and then a Thai foot massage. This is the good life. We are going to hang out here for 6 days before flying to India. I am having an awesome trip so far. I feel bad for all my friends who are going back to school. Please send me an email or make a post on my blog.

Roughing it in Thailand

We ended up spending a week in Phuket. I had a great time and did not want to leave. I got to teach a class of Thai 1st and 4th graders. My friends and teachers back home will never believe me, so I had my dad take a picture to prove it.

We left the main part of Phuket Island and got to spend 2 nights at the nicest 5 star resort in all of Thailand. It was the bomb. It had 3 swimming pools! One was only for adults, they called it the "relaxation pool," but we went into it anyways when it was raining and nobody seemed to care. I don't even know why they call it a relaxation pool, it just seemed like any other swimming pool. Not only did we end up having to leave the Marriott, but the very next night my dad made me stay in a $6 hotel that did not even have air-conditioning. It stunk.

The next day the bus never showed up so my dad came up with this great idea to hitch-hike. Doesn't my dad know that it is not safe to hitch-hike? The worst part was that he made me stand there with a sign that said, "Ranong." I didn't even know what "Ranong" meant. When I asked my dad what it meant all he would say was, "Just hold the sign up so the cars can see it." After 10 minutes, 2 Thai women who hardly spoke any English gave us a ride. They were nice except they shared some wierd food with us that my parents made me try. It was nasty. They dropped us off at a Buddhist Temple after what seemed like 4 hours, but my parents said it was only an hour and a half. We hitched-hiked another ride and got picked up by a Thai man with 7 kids in the cab of his truck. Who were all the kids? Were they all his, or was he a soccer coach taking the team to a game out of town? My questions were never answered because he didn't speak any English and just pointed to the back of the truck. My dad said that meant we could ride in the back of the truck if we wanted to. Heck yeah, I jumped right in. I'm not allowed to ride in the back of a truck at home. It was cool. It started to sprinkle which was o.k. Then it started to rain. I huddled between my mom and dad and tried to stay dry. Then it started to pour. It was like I jumped into a swimming pool with all my clothes on. It was great. I like hitch-hiking. I will never forget the ride from Phuket to the border of Burma.

The next day we went to Burma and it rained even more. It looked the same as Thailand and the people were very nice. We had to take a bus and then a boat in the rain. It was a lot of work to just get a stamp in our passport. I don't know why Thailand makes you leave the country every 30 days. I don't get it. AnywayS, we then took a bus to a town called Surat Thani. It looked like we were going to stay there for the night, and my dad would probably find some cheap hotel room that he claimed was a "real bargain" which really just meant a"dump" room without air-conditioning. I talked my parents into taking the all night cargo ship to Ko Samui Island that left at 11:oo p.m. It was a real adventure that I'll never forget. I got to explore the whole ship and we slept on these thin mats on the ground. It was cool. I don't know why but my parents said they couldn't sleep all night. I slept great. We woke up and were in Ko Samui. It was like being in Hawaii only people don't speak english and the ocean water was clearer. We did some cool things and stayed at a nice resort with a swimming pool, a ping-pong table and a fooseball table. It was awesome. We also hiked up and went swimming in pools at the bottom of waterfalls. We even got to swim behind two waterfalls and stand behind the water. It was the bomb. I hated to leave Ko Samui, but when we did my mom and dad wouldn't let us take the all night cargo ship. I tried to talk them into it, but they said, "No way."

It took us two days to get from our hotel in Ko Samui back to Bangkok. To get back we had to take: an hour ride in the back of a songthaew(pick-up truck with bench seats), a shuttle bus to the boat, a 3 hour boat ride, a 2 hour bus, a 3 hour ride in a minivan, a horrible night sleep in a $6 hotel with a fan, a 5:30 a.m. alarm clock, a 6 hour 3rd class train ride that was nearly 2 hours late leaving, a 3 hour bus ride, a 1/2 hour local bus ride and a 10 minute tuk-tuk(3 wheel taxi) ride. Why couldn't we just take a plane or an overnight bus?

On Monday morning we went to the India and Vietnam embassies. It was very boring. They took our passports and said we had to come back in 5 days. I can't figure out why it takes that long. But at least we could hang out for 5 days in Bangkok crusing around in tuk-tuks and eating banana panckaes all the time. Then my mom and dad said we were leaving and that Bangkok was a "zoo" and that they wanted to go to the beach for a few days. Sounded good to me. We went to a town called Pattaya which is nice, but not as nice as Ko Samui or Phuket. We rented a motorbike and are crusing around having a good time.

The next part of our trip will be back to Bangkok to get our visas and then going to northern Thailand. We will then head across the border and make a circle through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. My dad says the traveling is going to get rougher. I think this means he just doesn't want to pay for air-conditioning. I may not be able to update my blog for awhile, but please sign my guestbook. Click on "sign my guestbook." No excuses, it is very easy. Ask for help from a kid if you can't figure it out.

I am sad to leave paradise here at the beaches in Thailand. However, my parents say it is all part of the adventure. The first night of our trip was in Hong Kong and we were looking for a place to sleep in what my dad said was the backpacker zone of the city. The places we were checking out were a total dump. My mom said it fairly standard for budget travel in thrid world countries. Whatever that means. I turned to my dad and said, "Dad, we are not staying here!" My parents started laughing. I wasn't trying to be funny. Well we did end up staying there, and we survived. I am having a great time and it seems like we have been on the road for 3 months. Talk to you later and please make a posting on my blog.

Island Hopping in Southern Thailand

We liked the pool and waterslide that we snuck into at the Hilton so much that we ended up staying there. It was a blast. We then jumped on a bus that went all night long. When we first got on the bus I was excited because there was a movie playing on the video player. However, it was a terrible movie and not in English and was very loud. It was not easy to falling to sleep, but when I woke up it was 10 hours later and we were in Krabi, in southern Thailand. We hung out at the beach in a town called Ao Nang for 5 days and did some really cool things. My dad rented a motorbike and we cruised all around for a couple days. We visited the Tiger Cave Temple which is a famous place, but kind of boring. We rode to a national park with a waterfall, but we got caught in a rainstorm and they would not let us even see the waterfall because it was too dangerous. We went on a hike to a secluded beach and went swimming. We found a bunch of monkeys that were living in some trees on the beach and fed them bananas. We road in a longtail boat to this place called Railay Bay and rented a kayak. We kayaked to our own beach and also out to an island. After kayaking we sat on a beach and ate banana fritters while we watched a soccer game being played on a beach. We road into the jungle and went to this place where I got to ride an elephant. My elephants name was Honey and it was fun to ride and its hair was prickley when I road on its neck and it was bleading from a wound and the flies were sucking it blood during the entire ride. It was cool. After the ride I got to feed Honey some pinapple.

We left Ao Nang and took a snorkling boat trip the the island of Ko Phi Phi. On the way we stopped and went snorling at a place called Bamboo Island. There were so many fist it was like swimming in a fish tank. We also stopped at Phi Phi Ley where they filmed some movie called, "The Beach," which I have not seen. We went snorlking a bunch of other places and saw like a 100 different kinds of strange fish. We arrived in Ko Phi Phi and it was very hot and boring. We stayed in this dump motel that my dad found called the Gypsy Motel, which was cheap but had no air conditioning. We sweated all night long. I was very happy when I heard we were leaving the next morning.

We jumped on a boat to the island of Phuket.Phuket is way better than Ko Phi Phi. We ended up at this great hotel called the Coco Palace Resort. We were the only guests and it had a great pool that had a waterfall and hot tub. We also had an air conditioner. We stayed there for two days and swam a lot and went boogie boarding in the ocean. The ocean is warm, but very salty. The waves were great. When you get out of the ocean your swim suit is dry in two minutes. We are now kicking back at another part of the island called Patong Beach which is great. They have everything here and I even got to eat pizza for dinner last night. Thai food is good, but pizza is the best.

I get to go to a school and teach a class of 1st through 6th graders here in Phuket. I am a little nervous, but it should be fun and interesting. Thailand is cool. I am having a great time and thinking about everyone back home. Click on "sign my guestbook" and leave me a message.

Quick stop in Hong Kong and onto Thailand

Hello everyone. The 14 1/2 hour flight was tiring after the first five hours. When we got off the plane it was nighttime but it was way too hot. Like 95 degrees of something. After getting of the plane we caught a train, then a bus, then walked to our hotel. Then we unloaded our stuff and caught a ferry boat and then another bus, and then walked to the tram to the Peak in Hong Kong where you could see the whole city. We then walked back to the boat adn went to the other side of the island back to hotel and crashed out. The next day we cruised around on a double-decker bus in search of the annual Dragon Boat Race Festival.

We jumped back on the plane and 5 hours later landed in Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok is a cool city with lots of motorscooters and tuk-tuks(1,000's of them at every intersection). After hanging for 3 days in Bangkok exlporing all the temples, the 100 foot standing Buddha, the Emerald Buddha, and the solid gold 14 foot Buddha, and the Grand Palace. The Thail people must really like this Buddha character. Then we took a bus to Hui Hin, right on the beach. We snuck into the Hilton Hotel's pool, that even had a waterslide. We missed our bus so we ended up staying at the Hilton. It was awesome and I got to swim all day long and play pool and ping-pong. We are now in Krabi after a 10 hour overnight bus ride. Today we jumped in the Inidan Ocean and rented a motorbike and got caught in a monsoon rain storm. I'm having a great time, I'll talk to you guys later.