Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in stoyak's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, February 24th, 2004
9:44 pm	laos is for lovers lets get down to the nitty gritty, since i last spoke to you en masse i have left Bangkok and travelled through Laos to Vietnam, i sit here basking in the fact that i visited the Hanoi Hilton today, and i don't mean the hotel, i would have put that in quotes, but i cant find them. ok so Bangkok is loud, big and modern, Ayathaya the old thai capital was small quet and wonderful, had a great time on bicycles, then we jumped on the train, and went to chaing mai, where we met the lovely Faye Leone, long lost college friend, who sends me gifts to Russia, which i never recieve, a possible conspiracy there. it was great fun with Faye, with Jeremy and her takling turns zipping around town with me on the back of their motorbikes, unfortunately i think i need to lose some weight, as it was difficult for us to get up some hills together. Faye also introduced us to the local cuisine, that is strange custards and drinks made with things floating in them, but don't worry, there was no sign of the bird flue anywhere. Faye was a magnificent host, but alas we had to move on to Laos, the land of the lao i guess. so we crossed the Mekong into Laos and spent a day on a slow river boat travelling down stream towards the ancient lao capital Luang Prabang. unfortunately the slow boat was realy slow, and 99 pecent full of foreign tourists, who got drunk, and one Irish man decided it was high time to accost the non-drinking americans, jumping over his seat into Jeremys lap... i escaped most of banter when Jeremy told him i was reading the Bible in my spare time, a true story... in any event we ran aground, as the river is at the lowest level it has ever been at due to Chinese dams, and about 25 drunken guys striped down and jumpedin to help push it, it was really funny, alas a fear of getting river flukes after my parasite problems from Russia kept me from joining them, that and the fact that i was wearing a pair of polyester chinese briefs that were too big for me, and kind of looked like an ill fitting speedo, also they have a pocket in the crotch to hide money, and i didn't want to have to deal with drunk irishmen trying to figure out what it was for... in any event after about 10 hours we reached our destination, the river , the jungle and the small town were amazing, we camped, and in the morining decided to try the fast boat, also known as the suicide boat. it is a flat bottom boat rigged up with a 4 cylinder Toyota truck engine, there were 4 of us, plus a driver and a man spotting rocks up front, it only took 3 hours to cover the same ground we did the day before, although we had to wear life jackets, crash helmets and earplugs. the boat also broke down once, and then we ran out of fuel, but over all it was ok, a little nuts, but fast. Luang Prabang was great, Laos is the most laid back country i have ever been to, everyone is very nice and friendly as well and the coutryside is great. from there we headed down to Vientiene, the French capital, along long ride, a twisting mountain road for 10 hours, for the first time in my life i got car sick, but i held it in, not so for the people in front, to the side and in back of me, good thing the windows opened. Vientiene was terribly boring and like a provincial city in Africa, or what i imagine one would be like, nothing there, so we hoped on a bus to Vietnam, well not exactly. by the way i want to reiterate that Laos is beautiful, and i suggest anyone who loves tropical jungle go there, just look out for unexploded american bombs... ok so there was a bus to Hanoi, 18 hours, $20. we both thought this a bit pricey, we are on south east asia mode, and also were not excited to hop on a bus after the bus trip to tibet. so without knowing where we were going exactly we jumped on a bus to Paksan. when we got there we walked for about a half an hour until we found a bus, sic, going to anoter town closer to the border. the bus was really a flat bed truck with two benches running along the sides. so we spent 2 hours in this truck as it picked up and dropped off cargo, then we transfered to another which spent 4 hours picking up and dropping of people and their chickens, until we were within 40 km of the border, but by now it was getting dark. as i am hyper i wanted to press on, but sober witted Jeremy wanted to stay i the town and take the bus in the morning, needless to say we got a good price for a tuktuk, a 3 wheeled cart of sorts, and in an hour and a half were at the border in the rain and the dark. we were met by border guards who told us the border was closed, it was in the middle of the jungle and there was nothing else there, so he woke up the canteen workers and we had our last meal in Laos. afterwards there was a heated discussion with the boss about wether we could sleep in the border hall, or camp outisde. it ended up that the vietnamese agreed to take us off of the lao hands, so we jumped in the back of a borderguard truck and crossed the border, to spend the night in a store room full of old communist posters and a plaster bust of Ho Chi Mihn. in the morning we tried to cross the border, but they wouldn't give back our passports until we paid them $5 for the hotel, that should be in quotes. it was ok though, Jeremy thinks that it is great that we have a one day lag in the dates of our stamps in our passports. ok, so now we were about 100km from Vinh, where we could get the train, but the minibus drivers wanted $30, so we started walking. we walked through the mountains for about 3 hours before the first van passed us, on the way we met lots of vietnamese construction workers who loved us, i gave a book of matches to some of them and they were estatic... anyway we bargained for the bus and got to a intermediate point for about 70 cents, down from the original $25 he wanted. from there we got a bus to Vinh for about $1 after he orginaly wanted $45. in Vihn the guy was mad we paid what locals paid so he made us get off at the city limit, so be as pig headed as we are we walked for about 5 hours with our packs on to the train station, but it was great, everyone was so curios and friendly, we loved it. anyway got the train to Hanoi, couldnt sleep, it was too noisey, so i am exhausted, but it only cost us $15, although it took us more than 48 hours to go about 500km. Hanoi is great, it is like a French costal town in Asia, beautiful and great weather and people. saw the Hanoi Hilton as i said, tomorrow off to see old Ho himself, now i will have see Lenin, Mao and Ho, what a good marxist i am. having fun, hope everyone is ok in the cold. maybe this was too long winded, i had lots more to say, things about reed huts, rats and other such things, but those stories can wait for the person to person. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 12th, 2004
6:08 pm	the saga continues hello y'all, alright i am in bangkok, but more on that later, it has been a month since i last wrote and things got better in india, so let me tell you about it. after delhi we went to jaisalmir near the pakastani border, great old desert town. did a 2 day camel safari, although the guys tricked us it was still really cool to ride a camel through high sand dunes, however i am not sure that my groin muscles agree. let's just say 1 day would probably have been enough. after that we hit jodhpur, the blue city, which as, for the most part, blue but i have a theory that they just painted all of the buildings blue to trick the tourists into coming. then we went to mumbai (bombay) a great place, lots of slums, but the nicest big city and the most western (european) place in india, it was alright. then a few days on the beach in goa, the old portugese colony, quit nice, but i got a sunburn, and i had sand everywhere, we stayed in a hut on the beach. from goa we took a train to bombay, met a cool guy dylan, who has been turned crazy from the heat i suppose, and slept on the floor of the train station, in the morning head out on a 33 hour journey to kolkata (calcutta). the train ride was boring, but we met 3 indian guys on the way to their firends wedding, and they invited us along. so it was a punjabi wedding, which ment it was a 3 day affiar, the engament, the marrage and the party. insane, i mean 1000 hindus partying at the same time, and the men can't talk to the women or dance with them, so i spet 5 hours dancing with indian men who all wanted to dance with me and jeremy because we were the foreigners. also they were secretly eating meat (hiddne under towels) and openly and secretly drinking, in fact the brother of the grom got waisted during the wedding ceremoney and started yelling at his brother over the priests chants, and our firends said it didn't matter since they were in sanskit anyway and no one could understand them. anyway hada balst. calcutta was a great place, no one bothered us, and although it was really poor it had a lot of charachter. flew to bangkok since they wanted $200 for a bangladeshi visa and the myanmar borders are closed. bangkok is hot and western, but head off to chiang mai tomorrow night to visit my friend faye. sorry this message is kind of boring, it is impossible to sleep where we are staying, it is the party district, we didn't know, and we took a room with a window, since it wasn't noisey when we looked at the room. we hear shaggy and britney spears all night. hope eveyone is well, happy valentines day. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 24th, 2004
5:50 pm	passage to hell so i am in new delhi, but more on that later. so we left khatmandu and went to chitwan national park, where we went on an elephant safari and were lucky enought to see 4 rhinos, it was an experience, also nice and warm, so we shed our warm clothes and headed to bhutan. tuesday really was bhutan since it costs $200 a day for a visa, so we went to the one city that you are allowed to go to for one day without paying. it was interesting, the men walk around in the traditional dress which looks like a bathrobe, an asian bathrobe. the food was a cross between indian and chinese, curried noodles. left bhutan and headed through tea plantations to patna, the ancient capital. let me say that the indian rail system, although being the biggest in the world, is perhaps the worst managed. the train we wanted was 15 hours late, then while we were on it it ran 5 hours late. patna was the dirtiest place i have ever been in my life, this is not suprising since it is the capital of the poorest indian state. we saw families who live on the street cooking breakfast over burning tires. the poverty and dirt is unbeleavable. saw a huge sikh temple, and decided to convert since they were the nicet people to us in india, but when one tried to scam us here in delhi yesterday i changed my mind. from patna a 100 km trip took us 6 hours, it was so uncomfortable that i got blisters on my butt, but more on that some other time. we wento bodhgaya, the place sirdharta, the buddha recieved enlightenment, it was a great place, very peaceful, but the people constantly harrasing you to buy things, give money, buy drugs, or those just trying ot scam money or rob you detracted form it a little bit. next to the buddhist temple is a hindu which is basicly abbandoned(in hinduism the buddha is a incarnation of vishnu, the preserver), we went in, only to find some sadhus (indian wandering holy men) smoking marijuna, who tried to get us to join in, it was quit strange, especialy since we were only 200 meteres from the police check point for the other temple. from bodhgaya we went to varanasi, won't even mention the train ride or the bus, lets say bad, and late, but made it. ended up walking about 15 miles to avoid being scamed by touts, the people in the auto rickshaws wouldn't give up though, they drove next to us in packs for about 5 km. varanasi was dirty and terrible, all it was was people yelling at us to buy things, or seing if we wanted a ride, the river was disgusting, but people were bathing, and living, saw some corpses burning, and people bathing 1oo m downriver from them, also body parts floating by. i wanted to go in, but jeremy held me back. from varanasi we travelled to satna on the way to khajuraho, the famous temple city. satna was interesting since the tourist agency in the train station tried to scam us by saying there were no more busses, so we would have to take a taxi for 1000 rupees, when we told them we wanted to walk to the bus station to find out, they laughed at us and said you have to take a taxi, we can arange it. of course there was a bus for 50 rupees, and we couldn't walk as no one would tell us where to go... khajuraho was worse, the temples were amazing (these are the ones famous for their ertoic art, although there is not much of it). the carvings were just fantastic. the problems was the poeple harrsing us, we couldn't sleep, we couldn't walk down the street, we couldn't do anything without being harrased. even the temples which are free weren't, since the locals come in the morning after they have been unlocked by the government and put their own locks on the gate, then they charge you to get in. people dressed as hindu priests and told me about a temple and then demanded that i pay him money, i said your a priest, he said no, i dress like this for the tourists, i am a tour guide... next was orccha, a nice place, foremly a princley capital, now forgotten by all but the tourists. had a fight at a resteraunt when they tried to charge us more than the menu said. it gets frustrating in a country where you can not buy a soda without arguing about the price, since it says 5 rupees on it, and they want 10 from tourists. it was awful, so we left and went to agra, home of the taj mahal, this is where we lost it. everyone was just harrasing and pusching us, honking horns, soliciting, jeremy started shoving people, as he should, i just stopped responding to anything. even the bag check at the taj, which says "no charge" demanded money from us, after we payed $20 to get into the taj, we refused to pay... hated agra so much, we only went to the taj, and left as soon as possible. delhi is better, people don't harass us as much, but we both have decided to leave as soon as possible, we even find it hard to eat after being sick to our stomachs so many times. today i had a nice experience, i got a haircut on the street. my hair had become pretty mangy as i had not cut it since i left, as well as the fact that i have grown a beard for the last 2 months made me look silly, so while walkign i decied to get it cut. the man was sitting on the sidewalk between a urinal and a bus. i sat on the ground indian style and he cut it, using a rusty straight razor for parts. as it got dark he had to have a guy who was watching (a crowd formed) us a lighter so he could see. it hurt, and was scary but i percieveird. following the cut was a 10 min head massage, in which he pounded my head making my teeth slam together, it hurt, and my head burned afterward, but now it feals good. with my big beard and a short haircut i look like a muslim, so i bought a skull cap to fit the part. i just keep rambling on, so i should say that we leave tomorrow for jaisalmer, where we will do a camel safari, then off to goa and the beach. ps: in case you couldn't tell india is the worst place i have ever been in my life. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 23rd, 2004
8:12 pm	delhi i am in new delhi, india is terrible, i cannot wait to leave here, in fact i may fly home from here, with a stop in either moscow or belrin, i just can't take it, it is really dirty, we get sick to our stomachs alot and the people constanly try to rob you or cheat you out of your money, they even lie when a coke has a price written right on it... not much going on. tried sihkism, not for me, maybe i'l become a jain. do you guys know about sai baba, we are interested and may go to his university, we met a bee keeper on the train last night from bishkek who just spent a month with him, look him up online, you will be intrigued. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 16th, 2004
5:54 pm	buddha lots to tell, but difficult, i am in india now and travel and internet are very hard, especialy on the butt (popa). a new years was great, we saw a michael jackson impersinator,,, now i am in boghgaya the place that the buddha found enlightenment, amazing, i saw the son of the tree under which he found it. did not hear the one handed clap, but i heard arguing monks clapping a lot, haven't found spiritual enlightenment yet, i think i may become a sihk, i visited my first sihk temple today and it was very interesting, lots of swords and beards. jeremy won't go into half of the temples because you have to take your shoes off, we even skipped the big monkey temple where there is a 60 kg monkey! (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 8th, 2004
5:57 pm	if i evcer get out of here i'm going to khatmandu hello all, happy new year. by popular request there will be no stories concerning vomit in this instalment of my life. I am in khatmandu nepal, and in case you haven't heard there is a war going on here, and if you are wondering about it, it is heating up right now as i write this. the country is going on general strike tomorrow, so instead of heading out of the cold himilayas to the jungle to spot rhinos, we will spend another day in the smoggy city. but that is ok, this is an amazing city, ancient temples next tomodern slums, the smells are great, inscense, food, spices, laundry soap, people, it all comes together so well. since we have been here there have been two riots in town, and we have been told that this is no longer uncommon. we saw the burning tires and thrown bricks, and the marches, 7 student unions are on strike right now. the conflict is betwen the king and the parliment. the communists won the election about 10 years ago, so the king disolved the parliment. the maoists have been fighting ever since. the new king came to an agreement with the maoists to let them be a legal party again this past spring, but everything fell apart in the summer, and now things are geting worse since the students annonced that they support democracy. we were told that we have nothing to worry about as tourists, unless we are americans, and as you know we are americans. don't worry we will be ok, we are not normal amis. a french guy we met on the bus today was in a battle on the way here from the indian border. the bus was stopped for 12 hours and he saw and heard the fighting. his bus was ok, but he said that he passed a bus with bullet holes in it's side on the way to khatmandu. don't worry the fighting is in the west and we are headed east. everything will be fine. the people are really nice here, although many try to con you and others just want to sell you drugs. yesterday we saw ritual bathing in a putrid river and cremations buy its side, also lots and lots of monkeys. the ride through tibet was freezing but amazing, saw everest, quit a site. nothing much else to say except that i think everyone should visit khatmandu, oh and did i mention that it is dirt cheap because of hte war? workign on buying a sitar too. ok i hope everyone is fine, my next email sould be from india after a brief stop in bhutan. (Comment on this)