Chronicles of a Quickly and Poorly Planned Journey

I don't know how many years on this earth I got left, so I'm gonna get real weird with it.

[borrowedbackpack]

Trekking Day 8: Louche - Gorak Shep - EBC - Gorak Shep

The day we’ve all been waiting for! After years of no training or anticipation, but days of walking, we finally reached the bottom of the top of the world!

From the paper blog: (it starts with what I think was an attempt at a poem but I think I’m going to skip that because it really doesn’t make sense). Anyways: today, after a restful four-hour sleep in Lobuche, we made our way to EBC. We only slept four hours because my body didn’t acclimatize until 1am. I spent the previous hours gasping for air and waiting for death to take me. Unfortunately, death did not take me, and so we had to wake up at five to walk to Gorak Shep. The trail was not too amazing. Idk if it was even a trail. Eventually we ran into the Vancouver people’s porter and followed him all the way to the Shep. He was very nice and told us the names of all the various moun10s surrounding us. This was useful, because although it’s not necessary to have a guide to actually guide you down the trail, it’s kinda nice to have someone be like “that one’s Everest” for you. Up until this point, we had been using a pack of Himalayan-themed playing cards to identify the mountains. Which worked quite well, actually. Budget travel hack.

Please enjoy this horrible picture I took of myself suffering in Lobuche. Peep my sunburn peel and my dead blank stare.

When we arrived in Gorak Shep, we ate delicious pancakes with so many condiments at the Free Lodge (everything was free! Except for food! Even phone charging! And they had soooo many condiments. Just a full table covered in self-serve condiments from around the world. My dream). Also they had real coffee.

Enjoying a portion of the condiment garden.

After breakfast, we began the truly terrifying (but not physically demanding and relatively short) trek to EBC. At one point, early on, I found myself sliding down an enormous pile of loose rocks, screaming about the danger of rock slides. Soon after, I was clinging to a vertical rock face screaming that I was stuck, and also about the dangers of Falling Rocks (for good measure). Luckily, I spent a lot of time on the climbing wall at the camp where I worked this summer, so I would consider myself well prepared for this high stakes rock climbing moment. Also, please note that this was definitely not the trail, so don’t let this scare you out of trekking to EBC with a guide or better maps or something. There was just no obvious trail and the climbing wall looked like the best option for some reason. Next, (we were almost there at this point), I found myself lying on my stomach on a boulder with one foot on a very wiggly rock, stuck once again. To become unstuck, I had to perform my first ever pull up, which will hopefully be my last as well. Then, in an odd twist of fate, we ended up leading some Italians who had no idea where they were going across the Khumbu Glacier. They just kinda yelled at us from across the valley “hey! Do you know where the base camp is?”

Mountains, pile of rocks, Khumbu Glacier (the pile of rocks in the middle).

Luckily, I sighted some yak poop which led me to the final bit of trail to base camp. So I yelled back with great authority like I wasn’t just hanging off a rock screaming 15 minutes ago: “yup! It’s just over here! Down this trail!”

And then Chris told me to stop yelling because there was going to be an avalanche.

After traversing the glacier, we were…there. At the big pile of rocks that is EBC. 5300 and some metres above sea level. Cool I guess.

Amongst the rocks. The tiny triangle behind the big triangle (second peak from the left) is Everest.

Perfect weather for viewing the Big Pile of Rocks.

           Going back down the trail was a nightmare. We got confused and all turned around and the glacier was getting very melty and unstable (it was very warm and sunny). So we were, once again, just clambering through a big pile of loose rocks without a heckin clue. Soon I tripped on a loose rock and then some other loose rocks started coming at me. So the logical next step was to start screaming about how we were going to die and how we shouldn’t have come here: “this is stupid! Everest Base Camp! Who cares?!”. Christopher was very calm throughout all this, however he later told me that he thought our chances of survival were about 50/50. Happily, after we found the actual trail and traversed the glacier, the rest of the trip back was uneventful because we were able to find the actual path. We cruised right back into Gorak Shep, where I was welcomed by a nice horse. Then we ate some noodles and watched 90 Day Fiance at 5130m. Then the Austrians showed up and announced that no flights had taken off from Lukla for the past two days. Idk why this was a necessary announcement, as we were like five days away from Lukla, but it made me very grumpy because at that point my dream was to get on that horrible plane in Lukla and go back to KTM for a shower and a few days of not walking. The Austrians thought it would be just fine to stay in the mountains for longer.

“When are you flying out?” they asked us “you were so scared on the plane on the way here!”* added one of them.

*a healthy amount of fear of dying in a fiery plane crash at the world’s most dangerous airport is fine, in my opinion.

“September 3rd” I replied “if the plane can’t leave on September 3rd, I will take a helicopter. If the helicopter cannot fly on September 3rd, I will walk.”

They laughed. I don’t think they realized that this was absolutely not a joke.

Tomorrow morning we’re supposed to climb Kala Pattar (5555m), but tbh I truly believe that Buddha or God or whoever spared me today and shouldn’t push my luck any further. Happily, I didn’t have to make the call on whether or not to climb KP the next morning, because it was too cloudy and snowy to see anything anyways.

Menu at the free lodge. You can contact them for everything you’d ever need, apparently.

[borrowedbackpack]

Trekking Day 7: Pheriche - Lobuche

Hello from GEOG302! It is so boring! Luckily we are just talking about descriptive statistics (yes, they are still teaching you how to calculate the mean in a 300-level class), so I am free to blog.

  So apparently I didn’t record a paper blog for this day, which is unfortunate because this day (from what I can remember) was pretty hype. After having a nice breakfast at our lodge with The Dog, we set off through the field of rocks towards Lobuche. When we left Pheriche it was very cold so we were very bundled, but after about ten minutes of walking in the warm sun I was very hot and had to pause on a rock to change into my shorts.

 We continued on at a speedy pace, soon passing the other Canadians (from Vancouver) and a guy from Singapore who we’d heard the guides at our hotel complaining about the previous night (apparently he is very slow). Soon the field of rocks turned into a sharp uphill slope of rocks, so that was lame but also by this point we were pretty much resigned to walking uphill with backpacks so it was whatever. Sadly, it was on this hill that some very Euro looking guy who I’m pretty sure is secretly a mountain goat went zooming past us with great authority. Like he really looked like he knew what he was doing. Can’t relate.

 Next we arrived at a biiiig sketchy field of rocks which eventually turned into a biiiiiig sketchy river which we traversed with the help of a smaaaaalll sketchy bridge. Then up again and then we arrived in Thukla/Dughla (the Sherpa language has no written component, so written translations of town names vary greatly). In Thukla/Dughla we had a small Spat about which way we were supposed to go from there. We pulled out our charts, which did not reveal much.

“It’s up there”, insisted Anna, the GEOGRAPHY MAJOR “we are going UP the mountain so we have to go UP the trail”

“no, it’s that way”, proclaimed Christopher, White Male, pointing to the way from which we had just come.

Anyways, some locals soon resolved this problem for us. Guess what? It was up the mountain after all. What a surprise.

So then we started going up up up UP this horrible thing called the Thukla Pass. It’s just a big cliff face tbh. Anyways, we made excellent time up this bad boy (39 minutes, in case anyone would like to compare times with me). The key is to not take any breaks because otherwise you will not want to start walking again. And then you’re screwed. Life hack. Once you eventually reach the top of the pass, there’s a big ol graveyard. This is disconcerting, because you feel like you’re dying all the way up, and then when you arrive in the graveyard you’re like oh dear maybe I actually died. Anyways, the graveyard is for people who died climbing Everest. Sadly, most of the gravestones are for local Sherpas because they’re the ones who are employed (for not very much money at all by our standards) to do the hard, scary, and dangerous work on Everest such as finding the routes, hauling the stuff, setting the ladders, storing the oxygen, fixing the ropes, and, of course, pulling/carrying/dragging rich white people up the mountain. As a result, 1/3 of the deaths on Everest are Sherpas (I took this statistic from Into Thin Air by Jon Kraukauer). There are also memorials here for other climbers, most notably Scott Fischer and Rob Hall, who died in the 1996 Everest disaster (and of course were heavily featured in the books Into Thin Air, The Climb and the recent-ish movie Everest). So that’s sad, I guess. But also it’s so easy to avoid dying on Everest, just don’t climb Everest. For goodness sakes.

Looking down the Thukla pass, I believe.

After the Thukla pass, we went on a long and mostly flat walk along a river bed before eventually arriving in Lobuche. I had heard a lot of bad things about Lobuche, mostly that it’s a shithole, so I wasn’t expecting much. However, Lobuche is a delightful little hamlet! I highly recommend it for your next vacation, although it is a hell of a walk to get there. Also you can’t breathe there really (it’s at an elevation of about 5000m above sea level, so you only get about 50% of the oxygen that you get a sea level up there). Otherwise, great place.

As we rolled into Lobuche, someone leaving pointed us toward Hotel National Park, which met our criteria of being a) open and b) that’s all. However, there were quite a few open lodges in Lobuche, which I thought was weird because there were like four trekkers there. Anyways, as soon as we walked into our lodge we were greeted by very friendly people who wanted us to drink a lot of tea. So we did that, and then we ate some food (sadly they were out of potatoes), and then played a lot of cards outside next to the lodge’s very own 10-piece bongo band (for real). There was an odd sense of joy in the air for such a strange and cold and oxygen-deprived and remote place. One of the bongo band people noticed we were sitting on the ground so he ran off to somewhere and came back with a kinda gross mattress for us to sit upon, making a lovely outdoor couch. Amazing service!

There were many signs in Nepal that I loved. This one was my favourite. First of all, I agree. Second of all, Hotel National Park was doing a great job, 4930m or not.

Chilling on the sweet patio furniture.

After I won at cards, I started not feeling very well so I took a small rest. Then I ate some dal bhat and also a trekking special called an apple pie. Except it’s not like a Canadian apple pie, it kinda looks like a deep-fried pizza pop that’s filled with apple pie filling. Delicious stuff.

Next we went for a little walk around town, at which point I really could not breathe at all. Nonetheless, I was having a great time. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I think this is because my brain was dying. Then I went to bed, where I huffed and puffed and couldn’t sleep. I thought I was going to die, so Christopher read me my espresso machine poem and a poem about dogs to cheer me up. Finally, at 12:51am I magically acclimatized and drifted off into a very cold but restful sleep.

On the helicopter pad, praying for the rescue helicopter to come fetch me.

[borrowedbackpack]

Trekking Days 5 and 6: Tengboche - Pangboche - Pheriche and Acclimatization Day in Pheriche

Hello everyone! Before we get into the trekking content, I would like to announce that I have finally made it back home after idk how many hours of flying/airports. I am very pleased to be back in a nice, clean, not hot environment. Also this means that I have officially survived Nepal. I think I should get a commemorative t-shirt or something.

ANYWAYS: From the paper blog: Today took a turn for the horrible. It started out quite pleasantly, with monks and apple pancakes. In the morning we went to the Tengboche monastary, which is right across from the lodge we stayed at. They have visiting hours where you can just go sit in their main room and listen to them chant and occasionally play instruments and bang a gong. It’s quite a nice time actually. We began walking, stopping to pet many animals and then continuing on down to Pangboche (only 2 hours of walking and 70m altitude gain, easy stuff). On the way out of Tengboche, I had to make a long stop in the meadow to pet the horses, cows, and dogs. There were a bunch of people standing on the roof of the lodge yelling “Pangboche! That way! Down the trail!” because they thought we were confused and lost already.

“Thank you! We know! She just wants to pet the animals before we leave!” yelled Christopher.

“Ah! Okay! No problem!” they called back.

The beautiful meadow in Tengboche. The mountain on the far far left is Everest/Sagarmatha. This was probably the best view we had of it throughout the whole trek. Apparently it’s easier to see from the Tibetan side; Lhotse blocks it on the Nepali side I believe.

When we arrived, however, everything in Pangboche was closed. So that sucked. And also caused me to kind of give up in my brain because I was very much ready to have a short walking day after yesterday’s long walking day. The common route is to go from Tengboche – Pheriche, however we decided to stop in Pangboche because we wanted to do a side trip to Ama Dablam Base Camp the following day. Anyways, we continued on towards Pheriche and soon saw the Austrians in the distance. I picked up the pace a lot and zoomed past them, which gave me the surge of heck ya I needed to continue. But then it started to rain/snow and I got a surge of heck no (I wrote a sad face here). Things went downhill from there (but also uphill…geographically speaking). It rained and rained and fogged and fogged and fogged. Finally we reached a town. Except it was not The Town. It was Dingboche. This would’ve been fine if it wasn’t the off season, but it is, and so everything was closed. So we had to accept we’d made a wrong turn (kind of…I sat down on the ground and cried a lil bit because fuck the Himalayas). Sadly, there was nothing else to do but turn around and go back the way we came, into the rain/fog/wind and in search of shelter and tea. So down the mountain we went. Then up. Then down. Then up up up. And down down down across a river, past some doggos, and into Pheriche. We ended up at a lodge that kind of sucked, but at least it was open. Also the people were very nice and the pancakes were good. And the yak dung fire was warm. So what more could you want, really?

Day 6:

Rest day. We are bored. So we’ve written some poems. And we will probably write more.

We had to stay in Pheriche for two nights so we could adjust to the altitude. Sadly, Pheriche is basically a field of rocks, so there isn’t much to do, less so in the offseason. The most exciting part was in the morning when a bunch of helicopters landed right outside our lodge. Hence all the poems. They’re probably not that funny if your brain has an appropriate amount of oxygen, but please enjoy.

New hotel lodgings

Acceptable toilet

Owner is not impressed

His vacation; we spoil it

White people demanding

Pancakes and tea

And a suitable place

To expel our pee

Reading a book

The wind howls outside

The wifi password

They continue to hide

High above the clouds

Towers Ama Dablam

But all I want

Is some toast with jam

-A.S. 2019

This poem was inspired by our move from the sucky lodge with unacceptable toilets to the lodge across the road (trail). The lodge across the road was beautiful, probably the nicest we saw on the trek, and had some of the best food on the trek, but the owner was not impressed with our presence at all.

We found wifi!

Or so we thought

But understand the owner

We can not

So we sit and we wonder

Is Jen now in mourning?

Will she send a helicopter

To find our bodies in the morning?

But maybe the Czech’s guide

Can join the conversation

And connect us to the wifi

To bring Jen some elation

-C.P. 2019

A Czech couple showed up with a very nice guide. The very nice guide explained that the wifi doesn’t work when it’s cloudy. So the wifi never works.

We walked too far one day

But found a place to stay

The toilets aren’t nice

But at least there aren’t any mice

3/5 stars

is what the internet will say

-C.P. 2019

espresso machine, espresso machine

come back to life

instant coffee

brings so much strife

tired body

requires caffeine

and the smooth bold taste

of the espresso bean

-A.S. 2019

This poem was inspired by all of the sleeping espresso machines along the trail. Every lodge/restaurant/café has a huge sign that says Red Cherry or Lavazza (Italy’s favourite espresso) or Illy to tempt all the Euros that trek EBC every year, but they all had blankets over them for the offseason. I would gaze longingly at the espresso menu and the incapacitated espresso machine at every lodge. It was tough to see those guys in such a state. Luckily, from great pain comes great art.

Rest Day Report:

·      we moved hotels to one with a nicer toilet and a large doggo population. One even came into the dining room for a hug J I think he mostly wanted a momo. But he accepted a hug anyways. Also, best momos ever.

My favourite trekking dog.

·      A Czech couple showed up with their guide. The dude expressed disbelief that we were guideless and porterless. Then he started saying to his guide that this will be his “last hike”. Same dude.

·      Also we met a Spanish guy on his way down from Base Camp. He was having a rough go:

o   Me: “How was the trek?”

o   Spanish guy: “I need a hospital! I am so tired!”

o   Me “oh. They’re all closed”*

o   *there’s a medical centre for trekkers and Sherpas in Pheriche but it closes in the off-season.

o   Spanish guy: “yes! All closed! Terrible sleep! Can’t breathe! And no helicopters can land!”

o   Me: “hm” (he seemed okay to me. He was also using a lot of oxygen yelling).

Morning doggo cuddle.

Breakfast guest. 

Yeah so basically I only took pictures of dogs. There’s literally hundreds more where that come from if anyone is interested. 

[borrowedbackpack]

Trekking Day 4: Namche - Tengboche

From the paper blog (italicized): Just made it to Tengboche. It is raining quite a lot. We are staying at Tashi Delek.* There is an adorable baby cow here. I will hug him soon.**

Little cow in the meadow.

*This was another Best Place to stay. Everyone was so nice and the food was soooo good. Especially the apple pancakes. Also they had syrup (2% real maple, a true delicacy out on the trail).

**I hugged him. He was soft, but damp.

The walk here was flat, then two hours downhill (very discouraging), then two hours uphill (more encouraging but also uphill so that’s rough). However, I felt not very horrible today and we got here in super speed!***

Uphill through the trees.

*** Yes to brag, because I’ve earned it after almost dying (in my opinion, which does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Nepali Medical Establishment), but we got everywhere in super speed. Like we blew the Walking Time Expectations out of the water. I credit this to my love of the Destination and my not love of the Journey. I do not love to hike, which makes me a good (or at least fast) hiker. Also I’m very competitive, so if we saw people ahead of us I would make Christopher hurry up so we could pass them. I really relished in passing people with guides who were having all their stuff carried for them by 12 year olds in flip flops. Especially people we knew from the plane. Especially the bad exit row attendant. Perhaps this makes me a jerk. But it also made me a very fast and mostly focused hiker.

There is another person at the lodge, which is bamboozling. The other person was Raoul from Venezuela and his guide Lhakpa. We saw them occasionally along the trail. Raoul was one of the 11 people on our plane (those were pretty much the only other tourists we saw the entire time). We got a very “My Parents Have A Lot of Venezuelan Oil Money” vibe from Raoul. This is a very niche vibe. They had a chess board at the lodge so I got straight to practicing my chess. When Raoul saw we were playing chess, he said “oh wonderful! Chess! May I play the winner?” in a fancy British-something else-hybrid accent.

“Sure” said Christopher “but we’re not very good”

“oh I’m not good at chess either” laughed Raoul. Then he paused. “Well, not that good” he added softly.

I gulped and hoped I wasn’t the lucky winner. Except then suddenly I was the winner. I gulped again and Christopher quickly dumped the pieces off the board. “We’ll pretend I won so you don’t have to play this guy” he said. I nodded gratefully and went to get my book, because chess is not an interesting spectator sport in my opinion.

When I returned from getting my book, I was surprised to see Christopher on his way upstairs to get his book.

“What about chess?” I asked.

“Raoul won.” He said solemnly. “He’s really fucking good at chess.”

“In three minutes?”

“About five moves, yes.”

And that is the story of an actual chess prodigy. We decided this is okay because Raoul probably had a chess tutor back in his courtyard as a child.

We spent the rest of the evening eating dhal bat (we got many refills, which are free), and meeting more animals (mostly me). The town of Tengboche is essentially two lodges, a monestary, and a huge meadow full of various animals. I might move there. Also Lhakpa taught us a card game. And the Nepali way of shuffling, which is surprisingly violent for such a peaceful place. We also made this list of essential questions for hiring a guide, because we were thinking about how weird it would be to have a guide that you just had to hang out with all. The. Time.

Mountain Guide Question Checklist

1.     What is your zodiac sign?

2.     What is your favourite music for mountaineering/mountain walking?

3.     If you walked through a village and saw seven doggos, how many would you pet?

And that’s all. If you ever need a mountain guide, that is the foolproof method for finding the perfect match. (please do not hold me to this).

The end.

Handsome soft horse in the mist outside of the lodge.

Also, please note that I took very limited photos while trekking because it cost a lot of money to charge phones. But Christopher took a lot of photos on a real camera, so better photos will be posted at a later date.

[borrowedbackpack]

That Time I Got Very Sick in Nepal

Hello from the Hong Kong airport and welcome back back once again to Borrowed Backpack. I apologize for the interruption in our regularly scheduled trekking content, but a) trekking is kind of boring (how many different ways can I say that I walked, ate, and petted dogs?) and b) I have exciting tales from a real live Foreign Medical Emergency! Let me walk you through it:

September 5th, 2019, Morning

           I am living my best air-conditioned Kathmandu life! My hair and skin love the humidity! My mouth loves the pancakes! My body loves the coffee! Hooray! I go to a nice café where I eat my Last Meal. I cannot describe this because, while I don’t believe it was what made me sick, thinking about it makes me gag since it was the last thing I ate before becoming Very Sick. I even have a picture of it because it was very pretty, and I think I’m going to have to get someone to go into my phone and delete it because if I look at it I will die. You probably understand this I don’t have to explain it to you.

           I enjoyed a couple games of cards and the café because I am an Old Person and then went for a walk around. On my walk around my legs started to hurt and I started to feel hot and tired. So I pounded a litre of water and embarked on a food tour. Of course.

A dog I met on the tour.

           The food tour guides were very nice and sweet and knew everything about Nepal (one of them was a guide and one of them was a guide in training). Once I told the guide-in-training that I loved dogs he started pointing out all the dogs to me which I appreciated. Also he knew facts about some of the dogs. Like which ones were related and such. Which I also appreciated. I made it through 2 stops on this tour although it definitely was not my Best Eating Work because at this point I was not feeling amazing and was in survival mode. I had some tea and then a lentil pancake (the lentil pancake was so heckin good even in my horrible state). Then they took us to momos and I tried to persevere because I love momos. And these were high quality ones in sauce. But 1/3 through my first momo I was like “I can’t do this everyone I am so sick” and then immediately zoomed (probably didn’t zoom) to a nearby pile of wet garbage to gag into. I would like everyone to know that at this point I was basically actively throwing up and the tour guide came over and PATTED ME and tried to reassure me. The level of service and attentiveness these people provide for like $10 is wild. Then they went to the trouble of locating a taxi and negotiating a reasonable rate with the driver and trying to explain to them where my hotel was. Amazing.

           Anyways then I had to survive the taxi ride to the hotel, which, in case you have never been in a KTM taxi before, is very treacherous. “There are much bumps” the driver told me apologetically.

“Yes” I said.

Several eternities later and after near misses with countless people, dogs, motorbikes, and other cars, we arrived back in AC land. I limped up the stairs and collapsed directly on my face into my bed. The only times I moved for the next several hours were to barf or to try to move my body into a more comfortable position so that all my limbs didn’t feel like they were exploding.

 At some time during the early afternoon or evening, I started saying things that didn’t make sense/were unnecessary.

“how many people even live in Australia? Why are they all here?”

Then I saw the Zipper Octopus. It is like an octopus, but he has zippers on his tentacles so he can go from a uni-tentacle octopus to a normal octopus to change up his look. Innovative. I believe he also had a hat.

  Then I slept a little bit. Then at 1:30am I started screaming for medical attention and also that I wasn’t going to survive the night. I think Chris agreed with this sentiment so he found a hospital, the kind I wouldn’t die at (I’ve seen some YouTube videos about hospitals in the developing world). But then I fell asleep again. 3:45am or something I woke up and did some more screaming/howling (P.S. I am so sorry to all of the other guests on the first floor and probably the other floors of the Timber House Hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal. I truly thought I was dying and I guess my final wish was to go out screaming). So then a taxi was summoned and I inexplicably donned my bright orange GoreTex jacket in preparation. I put in an absolutely massive effort to walk down one flight of stairs, out the door, and into the taxi. I then slumped in the taxi for like 3 years while Chris, the taxi driver, the hotel security guard, and the hotel front desk guy all tried to figure out where the hospital was. I guess it was eventually decided upon because we soon drove away on a Very Much Bumpy road. “careful of the dogs” I mumbled to myself.

           When we arrived at the hospital a guard had to let us in through a big gate. Sadly I was too ill to appreciate this moment of exclusivity. I used my final strength reserves to basically tuck and roll out of the taxi and get into that hospital as quickly as I could.

“Hi” I said gravely to the reception dude “I am very sick”

“Okay!” he said cheerily. “Let’s go to the emergency room then!”

So then I got to go to the emergency room where I blessedly was able to lie down under a lot of blankets (I was very chilly despite my GoreTex gear). Immediately a nurse started attending to me. First she took me temperature and was like “whoa! High fever!”*

*I prefer if medical professionals don’t remark about my Condition but okay.

Then she remarked about my low blood pressure, high pulse, etc etc etc basically I was in rough shape. Then she drew some blood and started an IV to rehydrate me but that was a bit of an issue because I have bad veins. Eventually she got a good stab in and I began hydrating.*

*I would like to take this time to thank modern medicine. As soon as I had a bag of fluid in me I started feeling a lot better. I think a lot of my problems were compounded by the fact that I had been too tired and nauseous to drink water for a lot of the night.

Then the doctor came in and he was very nice and apologized about the IV. Then he started asking me about my trip to Nepal, etc etc. When trekking came up, he was like “oh! How was the Lukla flight?” and I was like this is not the time to discuss the Lukla flight. Anyways, I guess between the doctor, the nurse, and the nice receptionist it was decided that I was sick and could stay. So I got to go in a wheelchair upstairs to a nice room overlooking some embassy (there was a guy with a big gun pacing back and forth there all day).

           They proceeded to give me lots of drugs through the IV, which contributed to me feeling a lot better in a relatively short amount of time. Again, modern medicine is a miracle. Also since there were no other patients there in the early morning/night, I think everyone was kind of bored so I got waited on a lot, especially when a bunch more nurses came in the morning. Like I got tucked in once and hour and stuff. This was a nice touch.

I legit don’t remember taking this disgusting picture but in case you’re wondering what you look like after they pump fluids into you for 30 ish hours while you lay in bed...it’s this.

           The rest is not too terribly interesting. In the afternoon I started feeling sick again and my fever went up so the doctor decided I should probably change my flight (I was supposed to fly back to Canada that night). Happily my mom and sponsor Jen took care of that for me back in Canada. I slept through most of the rest of the stay, started to feel better in the mid-morning of the next day, and was freed from my IV line to go for a walk around the hallways (the nice nurse freed me even though the nice doctor told me I didn’t look very good and should stay another night). I went for a nice walk and saw a white guy downstairs requesting a rabies vaccine. Hopefully it was the pre-exposure one.

I was trying to walk around shoeless and the nurse came chasing after me like “Anna! Anna! we have the shoes for you!” Sadly I did not get to keep The Shoes.

After that I got to go on an outdoor walk, which was weird because I hadn’t seen the light of day in like 30+ hours. Chris took me on a tour of the fancy embassy/ex-pat neighbourhood that he had wandered around for many hours looking for the “plain noodle soup” I had kept requesting during my illness. I even got to make a triumphant appearance at the home of the soup:

“Here’s my girlfriend! She’s still alive!”

“ah ha!” said the soup guy “how was your soup?”

After passing all the walking tests (I am an excellent walker), I was officially freed from the hospital. I would like to note that my entire stay at this bougie* hospital didn’t cost any cash money at all, thanks to my parents’ sweet Canadian travel health insurance and also the hospital for being good at dealing insurance companies.

*100% nicer than any medical facility I have visited in Canada

And this is what you look like after you walk a little bit and the fluid relocates. And when the hospital lobby has good lightning. Highly recommend the selfie lightning at CIWEC.

So thank you CIWEC Hospital in Kathmandu for bringing me back from what I thought was the brink of death (but probably wasn’t), thank you to my parents insurance and my parents for remaining calm, switching my flights, and dealing with all that stuff on the other side of the world, and thank you to my boyfriend Christopher who doesn’t read the blog but sure dealt with a lot of screaming, located the noodle soup, put my hair in a horrible bun, found out how many people live in Australia for me, and otherwise waited on me day and night for quite a while. All absolute legends.

[borrowedbackpack]

Trekking Days 2 + 3: Monjo - Namche and Acclimatizing in Namche

First of all, I forgot to mention yesterday how happy I am to no longer be trekking and be back in Kathmandu drinking iced coffee every day. So hi everyone, I am so happy to no longer be trekking and be back in KTM drinking iced coffee every day.*

*trekking was fun too, and I expect I’ll have fonder memories of it once the trauma wears off. I just prefer civilization.

From my notes (paper blog):

           Today was pretty short (approx. 2.5 hours of trekking), but pretty gnarly. We started the day with some delicious oatmeal and Tibetan bread and tea, and met a new (but very shy) catto. Then we packed up and started heading to Namche. We had to get new permits for the Sagarmatha National Park just outside Monjo (Sagarmatha is the Nepali name for Mount Everest. Some white guy named it Mount Everest even though the Nepalis had already been calling it Sagarmatha and the Tibetans had been calling it Chomolungma for hundreds of years. Classic). Then we went through the park gates which featured a sign about respecting the local Sherpa Buddhist culture – please refrain from: anger, jealousy, offending others, and taking lives in the park.

           Soon we met a nice and brave doggo who accompanied us all the way to Namche. We went down, down, down for a while, then up, up, up, up. We saw many flip-flop clad Sherpa* carrying enormous amounts of stuff on their backs: doors, windows, flour, cases of beer etc, which makes a 13kg backpack seem like peanuts.

*Sherpa is a job, an ethnic group, and a common last name in the Khumbu Valley region.

A cow in Namche. I am including this picture because before this trip, I didn’t know that cows could go up stairs. But now I know and I want you to know too.

           Eventually we reached the iconic Tenzing-Hillary suspension bridge. It is very tall and very scary and very covered in prayer flags. I’m not sure if the large amount of prayer flags is a good or bad sign. Either way, I was able to cross this horrible beast with the emotional support doggo. It was very windy on this bridge and I swear I almost blew off once.

The bridge of my nightmares. The lower bridge is the one Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary built so they could climb Everest originally. The upper bridge was built by the Nepali Government’s Department of Suspension Bridges (for real) and is what is currently used by trekkers, climbers, porters, and locals. And dogs. And unfortunately, me.

           After the horrible suspension bridge it was just straight up the gd mountain. So that sucked. We gained 700m of elevation (please note that this does not account for all of the down at the start so it was much more than 700m of climbing). Eventually we arrived in Namche, which was very anticlimactic. Just an “oh. I think we’re here” kind of situation. We got our passes checked and continued on, straight up the mountain, in search of lunch. Then like four doggos came running out of the woods and chased our doggo straight down the mountain! This made me extremely upset (I was also very tired at this point) so I broke the rules and got angry at the guard doggos. Happily, our doggo somehow infiltrated the guards and we were later reunited.

           We ended up at this place called the Sherpa Village Lodge, to the great disappointment of the lodge keepers (it’s the low season and they were busy playing cards. We inconvenienced many people on this trip with our existence. But nothing was open really so what were we supposed to do? I didn’t know that “off season” meant “absolutely no one”).

           We lunched and then purchased some pricey Ritter Sports. Luckily a doggo was able to accompany us into the store. Then I learned how to play chess and made the horrifying discovery that all the bakeries and espresso machines that were so heavily advertised along the route were closed/out of operation for the low season. So I had some masala tea (delicious) and read a book about how horrible climbing Everest is (climbing Everest is not a good idea).

Day 3 – Acclimatization in Namche

           We went on a brutal hike way up the moun10 in search of the elusive Everest View Hotel, a hotel which you can view Everest from (surprise). After 4 hours of trudging around to every building on top of the moun10, we concluded that this hotel does not, in fact, exist, and descended. We also couldn’t find the Government Yak Farm, which was equally disappointing. Must be a state secret. Luckily, I was able to keep my spirits up during this trip by meeting and petting many fun animals: yaks (big scary ones, did not pet), a huge white cow with two lil white calves (these guys were filthy – white is not a good colour for a cow during monsoon season. I petted anyways), two kittens, and many, many dogs of course.

           We spent the rest of the day eating, playing chess, and reading. I won at chess once. Also I bought peanut butter, which is in limited supply during the off-season. That’s all I think. The end.

The entertainingly named International Foot Rest Lodge and Lunch Place will forever be known as the place where the non-chess prodigy learned her craft. And rested her gross feet.

[borrowedbackpack]

Trekking Day 1: KTM - Lukla - Monjo

We woke up at very early o’clock, woke up the hostel guy, stored our non-trekking gear, and took a taxi to the aeroport’s beautiful domestic terminal (it is not beautiful). Our tickets told us to be two hours early for our flight. This was definitely not necessary. Everyone was very confused as to why we were there so early. Before embarking on this journey, I had heard many unfavourable things about flying to Lukla, namely, expect major delays (like delays of days to weeks). So imagine my surprise when they bumped us on to an earlier flight and took that tiny horrible plane off right on schedule. Basically, they crammed all 11 of us onto a tiny squishy toy airplane, gave a brief safety thing (essentially: if we crash you’ll die so don’t worry about it), and off we went. I remember being very angry at this point (what a surprise) because the Austrian chick seated in the exit row was not taking her job seriously at all and not listening to the flight attendant (yes, there’s a flight attendant for a 25 minute flight of 11 people). 

This is a plane. It is also a very bad picture of a very bad exit row attendant. But that’s not my problem.

Just as I was about to push team Austria out of the way and do her job myself, the plane started limping down the runway. For real. It limped. Like one of the wheels was broken or something. At this point I was about to ask if the plane could please be stopped so I could get off. It started limping faster. And faster. I closed my eyes and assumed the brace position. We were airborne. Oh jeez. This part wasn’t too bad actually; Nepal is very pretty from the air. Then the flight attendant gave us candies. Then it was time to land. There were clouds over Lukla (the planes can’t land or take off if it’s too cloudy as there’s no radar system on board), so we did a big circle to kill time. By the time our circle was finished, there was a nice hole in the clouds (I couldn’t see this since I was sitting in the back, this is just what I was told) and the Most Dangerous Runway in the World was visible (again, not to me. And I was fine with that). We began plummeting towards the runway. For real. Like you just fall out of the sky. Again, I assumed the brace position (because someone pays attention to the safety demos). We hit the tiny runway hard and fast, and bounced once (this is protocol; it’s the only way to slow the plane down quickly enough that you don’t hit the mountains on the other side). And then we stopped. Everyone clapped. Not me. If I clapped every time someone did their job and didn’t murder me, my hands would be very tired. Then I ran off the plane, hit my head on the doorway, and grabbed my backpack where it had been left on the tarmac. And then we started to walk.

This is an airport.

           We did a few laps around Lukla because the trail isn’t too obvious. I met lots of nice dogs and three puppies. Then someone pointed us to the trail, we got our permits, and started on our way. Discouragingly, the first few km’s are downhill. Happily, we met lots more doggos and also cute childrens. Not happily, we soon came to the first of many horrible suspension bridges. This bad boy was max tall (unnecessarily so, in my opinion) and took us over a big deadly Rushing River. This bridge made me cry. But then a porter came up behind me (those are the people whos’ job is just to carry enormous amounts of stuff up the mountain on their backs) so I had to get moving. I kept crying though because I’m not even that brave.

           Anyways, I didn’t die on the bridge and we soon arrived in Phakding. We stopped there for lunch and also to meet a lovely cat. Also I petted a baby cow here J I love petting. From Phakding the trail was straight up the moun10 and it was very hot. Also there were more suspension bridges. Luckily I met a doggo who accompanied us all the way to our destination for emotional support. Even across the horrible bridges. A very brave and handsome boy.

Christopher does not like cats. He is also very allergic to them. I love this cat.

POTATO ITEM.  

         When Christopher, the dog, and I arrived in Monjo, we got our permits checked by a nice army dude who was very surprised at how far we had walked. Then we went to the Monjo Guesthouse, which was probably the best lodge on the entire trek. It is owned and run by the Potato Queen of Monjo, a true legend and inspiration. She brought us free Welcome Potatoes from her garden. Also she made us delicious dal bhat (probably the best on the trek as well) and tea. Also she had a lot of books. And a free hot shower (this is extremely uncommon). 15/10 worth walking to Monjo for.

[borrowedbackpack]

22

Today I am 22. Kind of. I’m currently in the future so I’m not sure if it counts or not. Anyways, some interesting things happened after I published the blog yesterday, so we’ll pick up from there:

Yesterday, post blog, Kathmandu, Nepal:

           First, I had to go rain pants shopping (the #2 garment in Iceland!) because tomorrow I’m going Trekking and it is going to Rain. So I went to the first trekking gear store I saw (there are 10 million of them here) and requested some nice rain pants. Turns out, “rain pants” is not a term here. So finally we put our heads together and figured out that I needed some waterproof pants. Then the guy looked through stacks and stacks of waterproof pants and found some nice “North Face” and “Gortex” pants. He oddly (flatteringly) judged my rain pants size as small (and a Nepal small at that…) so then I got to try a bunch of plastic pants on in front of everyone until we came across a sort of appropriately sized pair. After knocking it down to a reasonable price and getting a lovely pink towel thrown in, I found myself to be the proud new owner of a pair of $30 counterfeit rain pants that sort of fit and make me look like a cross between a construction worker and 80’s ski jumper (photos soon, don’t worry).

           Next we went to a bookstore that featured an impressive collection of Archie comics. Not much to say on that, really. I just really like Archie comics.

           Then we went out for Tibetan food and got enough food for a family of four for less than $10. For some reason, Christopher thought it would be a good idea to order the Tibetan “butter salt tea”. Turns out, butter salt tea is not actually delicious. What a surprise. Everything else was delicious though. Except for the thing that I thought was a small green bean that turned out to be a Fire Vegetable of Spicy Death. Then it started to monsoon. Luckily, I am accustomed to the monsoon season, as I experienced it in its full glory at my summer job this year.

Momos! Noodles! Spicy death vegetables :(

Tea skin. I tried to make Christopher drink this so not to be Rude and Wasteful. He would not. Then I tried to drink it. I also could not. In conclusion, I do not recommend this beverage.

Because it was monsooning, we then returned to the hostel to wait for it to not be monsooning anymore. Sadly, this is where things went horribly wrong. I accidentally tricked myself into thinking that if I just rested my eyes for like 30 seconds during 90 Day Fiance (I think I actually had to close my eyes in exasperation when Avery mentioned for the 300th time that she’s going to move to SYRIA to be with her true love Omar From The Internet….) I would not fall asleep and everything would be good and fine. Obviously, this was false. Because there I was, sleeping away at 6:45pm. And then there I was, a few hours later at midnight am, ready to be up for the day. Things continued to go horribly wrong from here. I tried to go to the bathroom, only to find that it was already occupied by the fastest, largest, and longest antennae’d bug I had ever seen. I did not scream. I simply closed the door calmly and decided I would revisit the horrible beast in the morning. Only then I couldn’t sleep because I was worried that the horrible beast would find its way out of the bathroom and into my bed. Or backpack. Or ear. So then I had to wake Christopher and send him to murder the bug. Because I like to exaggerate sometimes, I decided to open this request with “there is a three-foot-long insect in the bathroom”. I quickly realized that that description was not going to help my cause, so I revised it to “I need you to kill the bug in the bathroom. It is so fast.” And he did. But not with much enthusiasm, I must say. Anyways, I have received word that the bug’s remains have been laid to rest in the “Health Soap” wrapper in the bathroom garbage can. So don’t go in there.

Present Day, Nepal:

           To start off my birthday right, I FaceTimed my family in beautiful giant bug-free PA. This was nice because it gave my brother Duncie the chance to make a ride hand gesture at me and not wish me happy birthday. Next we went for pancakes at a hippie restaurant where you sit upon pillows on the floor and eat organic vegan stuff and don’t wear shoes. I love a shoe-free establishment. While I was there and not wearing shoes, I really had to pee because I’d been boycotting the site of the horrible bug murder. I was en route to their hippie bathroom when one of the hippie guys came chasing after me and made me wear his own personal flip flops to the bathroom. What service! Next we almost got run over soooo many times. Tuesday is a very busy day in Kathmandu, apparently. Then we went to a place called the Garden of Dreams. Which is a garden that you might dream about because it is so nice. But so so so so so so so hot. And humid. Then it rained a little bit which was nice and cooling. And I did my favourite kind of shopping, the kind where you find some beautiful shiny stuff and/or fabric layers that tickle your fancy and pay what you feel like. Like today one guy just asked me how much I’d like to pay. And then I was like “1000” and he was like “okay”. It’s not an amazing business model tbh.

Plant life.

           Then we went to a place that can only be described as a naan garage. Like a gross, dirty garage where they make delicious naan. All the kinds of it.

My bottle of Purell straight up quaking at the sight of the filthy naan garage. I will let you know in about 48 hours if he was up for the job. (P.S. I did look up the reviews for this place. Like I’m not out here just trying to get a horrible food borne illness. Anyways, they were all positive regarding the food but most people were not big fans of the location/decor/general building. e.g. “the food is incredible. But the building is so hot. It is like hell” etc).

 NOTE: BorrowedBackpack is only BorrowedBackBack for a short time. Tomorrow I am going trekking for 2ish weeks and will not be taking my computer because it is very heavy and there won’t be wifi anyways. I will be keeping a Paper Blog while I am internet-less and turn it into normal blog form upon my return.

Re: Trekking: tomorrow we have to fly to the Most Dangerous Airport in The World to start our trek. So that’s rough. Anyways, I’m living large today in case I don’t cheat death tomorrow. Also I’m staying loose so I’ll be able to remain in the Brace Position for the full 35 minute flight tomorrow. 

[borrowedbackpack]

Nepalin’

Namaste from Kathmandu, Nepal, and welcome back to Borrowed Backpack. We are Borrowed Back-Back, if you will. Ha. Ha. Ha.

           So anyways, yup I decided to go to Nepal. I don’t really know why, since I don’t care about mountains or anything. But so far it seems nice. Also I’m probably as surprised to be here as you, my loyal followers, are surprised that I’m here. See, after my last trip, I was heckin broke. So I then I made some money. But then I went to uni and spent all my money. Just as I was resigning myself to a year of no international travel (how tragic), a generous old lady decided to give me a bunch of money for writing a couple paragraphs about how much I love managing natural resources. I think this money was intended to help finance my continued education in managing natural things, so of course I came to Nepal to do some experiential learning about mountains, yaks, stray doggos, sub-par water quality, and carbs. Lots and lots of carbs.

           We arrived last night (yup, we – Borrowed Backpack found a travel companion) at late o’clock after the longest combination of flights of my life (but a limited amount of those signature Borrowed Backpack 19 hour layovers, so that was nice). Ya’ll probably don’t care about my flight itinerary, but I’m going to discuss it anyways because it’s my blog and I think it’s interesting:

·      August 17th, 4:45am: Christopher’s mother drives us to YXE. I told her we could take an Uber, because 4:45 is a very early o’clock, but she insisted on driving us so she could say “one last goodbye” (she thinks we’re going to die on Everest. I’m not sure if she knows that we’re not actually climbing Everest. But that’s okay).

·      6:30am – YXE – YVR. Not much to say. I watched a documentary about Fyre Festival. It was good.

·      7:33 am (YVR time) – we arrive at YVR and eat French toast. I buy 6L of hand sanitizer.

·      10:30am: this is where shit gets real. We embark on a 13 hr and 20 minute Hell Flight* to Hong Kong. Christopher sleeps for 8/13 hrs. Anna sleeps for 15 minutes/13 hrs. I watched all of season 10 of Modern Family, Crazy Rich Asians (to get pumped for Hong Kong), Bohemian Rhapsody, and something about the making of Back to Black. Also I listened to a podcast about Not Complaining. Which I think helped.

·      ***this was not actually a hell flight. It would have been a Hell Flight on any other airline. I will exclusively be flying Cathay Pacific from here on. Around hour 7 I started to feel some moderate despair, mostly because my entire body was sore from canoeing a bunch of 8-10 year olds around all day the previous day (weird flex, I know). It was at this point that I realized that the free alcohol on the flight was, in fact, free, and not a Trick. This was a turning point – I went from “I am never flying again. If we ever reach Hong Kong, I will stay there and start a new life as a ground-dweller. I do not care” to “oh heck yes. I love being an adult. I am a Fancy Adult Traveller. Nothing hurts anymore and I roam the skies as I please.” And then they brought out gelato! What a time.

My sweet canoeing look. Oddly, a large part of my summer job was “canoeing instructor”. Which is terrifying, considering a came in with about 45 minutes of canoeing experience. Anyways, last week I was finally able to rescue a blowing away canoe full of children without assistance so hooray for personal growth.

·      August 18th, 2ish pm HK time: we finally land in Hong Kong. Flying into Hong Kong is very beautiful. Everything is lush and green. There are a lot of boats. Also I saw the beautiful rainbow sustainable social housing project. No one else on the plane cared L

·      Slightly after 2ish pm: HK customs. A wonderful time! I was greeted by the customs agent with a cheerful “Hey lady!” then when I handed over my passport he looked at it and said “almost it is your birthday! Have a very happy birthday!” AND THAT WAS IT. No questions. 10/10. Then we were free to roam the HK airport. Initially, I was very nervous about flying through HK due to the protest action earlier in the week. Fortunately, there was absolutely no sign of any sort of Situation by the time we arrived. We were greeted with many moon cake samples and more people toting around designer leather goods than I have ever seen in my entire life. Also a sign that just said “octopus”? idk. I was very sleepy and mildly grumpy at this point. Next we decided to look for food. As a person who does not eat meat, this proved to be extremely challenging. We walked 5,474 steps back and forth through the international terminal trying in vain to find something that didn’t have any belly, neck, or knuckles in it. Finally, we found vegetable miso ramen! Hooray! The quest was over. Except not. When I attempted to order this dish, the girl at the counter was like “okay, it has meat though. Is that okay?” and I was like actually not really but thanks. So then we walked and walked more and found the best noodles and seaweed ever and I was a Happy Traveller again. Then I slept on a bench for an hour because I felt the need to return to my Airport Hobo Roots.

My noodles! My seaweed! My weird (delicious) fried peanut cabbage stuff!

·      7:00pm – our flight (mostly empty) attempts to embark for Kathmandu. Unfortunately, it was extremely rainy by then so we had to wait on the tarmac for an hour-ish. I slept for most of this and also for most of the 4ish hour flight.

·      10pm (KTM time) – arrival in Nepal. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about the Kathmandu airport, the visa process, and the general immigration system there so I was prepared for the worst. Luckily, I found this whole thing to be extremely quick and easy. My backpack (the NBF) came zooming off the carousel very quickly. Christopher’s took a long time so I left him to deal with that and stood off to the side to eat some spicy nuts I picked up from first class during the de-planing process because I am nothing if not a resourceful gal.

·      late o’clock, idk: we took a taxi to our hostel and a very nice person showed us to our room. I tried to pay him and he was like “oh no. You’re very tired. You can just pay when you feel like it.”

This morning we woke up after a restful sleep on the World’s Hardest Bed. I had a shower, which was a big step for me because I fear the water here like I fear being struck by lightning, being involved in a shipwreck, and geology 105. So far I am fine. Then we went for a long walk, during which we went to some temples, saw a picture of a guy’s baby, almost got suckered in to buying some art (it was very beautiful art, to be fair), unsuccessfully looked for a bank, got #blessed, met a lot of dogs, almost got hit by cars/motorbikes/rickshaws  x infinity,  got pretty lost, saw a lot of plant life, and ate some delicious (and cheap) food (this country is the light at the end of the non-vegetarian friendly tunnel that was the HK airport).

Overall First Impressions:

·      so hot. So humid. Not raining all day err day as advertised.

·      A little bit…filthy. But like I understand it’s a developing country and they just don’t have the infrastructure to deal with pollution/garbage, etc at the moment so that’s okay. If anyone knows of any reputable environmental/clean up Nepal type of charities please hit me up.

·      A lot less dusty than advertised. So that has been nice.

·      No tourists. Or at least no noticeable tourists. Our hostel is mostly empty at the moment, presumably due to the current monsoon season situation

·      Very beautiful! Very culturally rich and diverse! Very lovely people! And so many doggos!!

We at Borrowed Backpack love a good roof view.

[borrowedbackpack]

Throwback to my last day in Morocco when I stopped to admire some guy’s tortoises and all the sudden ended up with this cute lil guy in my (severely rashed - not pictured, you’re welcome) hand.

Marrakech is cool because even if you think you’re just going on a ten minute errand to get a bottle of water, chances are high that ten minutes will turn into two hours of being lost in the souks, meeting tortoises, monkeys, donkeys, fortune tellers, and pretty much any other interesting character imaginable, and that bottle of water will turn into a bottle of water PLUS a lamp, a rug, a magic carpet, an assortment of jewellery, and perhaps a lovely tagine. And you’ll be okay with it, because it’s Marrakech.

(May 10th, 2018)

[borrowedbackpack]

наздогнати

Yo yo yiggity yo (I’m running out of opening lines for this thing). As you can see, I’m still in Ukraine (Lviv). Get used to it, cause it turns out I’m going to be here for a while. Allow me to explain:

The other day it was raining, as per usual. I didn’t have anything much to do, so I decided to go on a Spending Money Spree. Classic. The first thing I spent money on was an AirBnb here in Lviv for a couple days after I leave this hostel because AirBnbs are mad cheap here and after ten million days in various hostels I am pretty over listening to other people’s breathing/snoring/mouth noises/sweet nothings/late night phone conversations/music/laughing at memes/etc. Like the North Atlantic Right Whale, I am deeply affected by anthropogenic sound. So anyways, snapped up a sweet AirBnb that is advertised as “much sunny”. Things were all good and fine, and I was still feeling spending more money (when you’re on a roll you’re on a roll), so I hopped on Kiwi to look for a fun place to go next. I found a fun place I could fly to from Kiev, but not for a while, so I was like k cool I’ll just go stay in Kiev for a bit, sounds swell. Except it wasn’t swell, because apparently the four days I want to stay in Kiev are the four days that everyone else in Europe wants to stay in Kiev. Never in my life have I seen such a severe lack of places to lay my little (big) head! Like actually nowhere. Except for this one place, but I can’t actually afford a $1000/night hotel at this point in my life. So yeah, that put a stop to staying in Kiev.

THEREFORE I will be staying here, in good old Lviv, until May 28th. At first I was like “hm, that’s kinda a long time to be stuck in one place, dunno what I’m supposed to do for all that time”. But then I remembered that I lived in PA for like 15 years, so yeah, I have experience in finding things to do when there’s nothing to do. That’s probably the greatest gift PA has instilled in me: low standards. I can go pretty much anywhere in the world and it’s cooler than PA! Except Bratislava. Bratislava is garbage.* Like oh no, I’m going to have to look at beautiful buildings and eat cheap pierogi for longer than expected! Whatever will I do?!

So yeah, I’ll just be out here working on my Cyrillic reading/Ukrainian speaking/pierogi eating/opera watching skills for the time being. Hmu if you know any cool (free) things to do in Lviv. Or if you have any lucrative work that I can do

*no, I’m still not over Bratislava. Yes, it’s probably time to move on.

Without further adieu, here’s some of the sights from the past few days:

On Thursday I got my shit together and did laundry! Here’s proof. 

While my laundry was drying, I hit up this epic candy store. Fun fact: the Ukrainian president owns a big ol candy company (Roshen). Like many things here, this is a tad bit controversial. But dang these people love their candy. Never in my life have I seen people shovel bulk candy into bags so aggressively and with such purpose. It was inspiring, really. The guy in the white shirt is one of the many designated candy consultants. Another fun fact: Thursday (May 17th) was national embroidered shirt day, hence the candy consultant’s embroidered shirt. People are very into their embroidered shirts here.

After I went to the candy store I went to yet another church. It was a no pictures church, but it was hands down the most beautiful church I’ve ever been in in my life (Bernardine Church and Monastery). And I’ve seen some Euro churches. Seriously, I peeped in there and my jaw legit dropped. I was about to say “holy shit”, but luckily I remembered I was in church just in time so I said it in my inside-my-head voice instead. You can take the girl out of PA...

Yesterday I was out for a little walk (not even anywhere weird, just in the middle-ish of town) and I came across this construction site (”construction” is a strong word... I would call this more of a destruction site. Or a mud hole). Anyways, this thing was taking up the entire road as far as the eye could see. There was nothing blocking the public from walking through it or anything. In fact, right after I took this picture, the eastern euro girl ahead of me straight up traversed this mud hole in her four inch heels. Guess this is a regular occurrence here? My Birks and I opted for a detour.

A very Ukrainian tree.

Today I went to the opera in this majestic building, so that was a pretty culture-ful experience. 

Opera hall ceiling (ooooo, shiny).

[borrowedbackpack]

Pro travel tip, courtesy of the Polish/Ukrainian border.

[borrowedbackpack]

йде дощ

It rains. It rains and it rains and it rains. And guess what? It’s going to keep raining and raining and raining, for the foreseeable future at least. When you’re on a roll you’re on a roll I guess.

Rainy Lviv.

Luckily, Lviv offers plenty of shelter from the rain in the form of like ten million beautiful, huge, churches. If you’ve got a religion, they’ve got a church for it. So today I went to churches. Church going is definitely a Euro Travel hack, because they’re almost always free to go in to and provide an aesthetically pleasing/dry/warm/quiet environment to chill in for a bit. Luckily, hanging out in Poland has taught me Proper Church Etiquette. Similar to Poland, they take their religion stuff pretty seriously here, so if you go into a church, recall the important Serious Church Going Guidelines:

1.     Don’t get in the way of actual serious church goers

2.     Watch out for people hitting the deck to pray and stuff

3.     Keep your godless mouth shut

4.     Keep your godless paws off the fancy stuff. Actually, off of all the stuff

5.     The candles are not actually for playing with, no matter how fun fire is

6.     Getting in trouble is not fun, but getting in trouble in foreign countries is even less fun. So if it says “no photos”, maybe don’t take photos?

7.     Just follow the gd rules and pretend you fit in. It’s not that hard.

Church (Apostles Peter and Paul Garrison, in case you happen to be in Lviv and are looking to get your church on).

The best church I went to was the Armenian Cathedral. It was also the most difficult to find and had the most rules. This was my favourite, and the main church I wanted to see not due to the fact that it’s especially grand or anything, but because it’s Armenian. I don’t know much (anything) about Armenia, except that it’s the homeland of the Kardashians. So yes, I spent an hour walking back and forth in the rain looking for the secret entrance of a church just because it has a vague connection to the Kardashians (a Kardashian Konnection, if you will). Eventually I found it, walked in, said “hm”, and walked out. And you know what? I regret nothing. 10/10 experience.

So many rules. They must have been having a serious issue with people dressed in modest swimming costumes trying to enter the church, since that got it’s whole own sign.

I didn’t take pictures in the Armenian Cathedral cause it cost 5 entire UAH (like 25 cents probably). This was less due to financial constraints and more due to not actually wanting to dig out my Ziploc bag o’ foreign currencies and look through all my crazy Ukrainian money* in an attempt to find some change. So just google image that if you really care. Or just take my word for it that it’s pretty.

*can somebody please knock a couple zeros off this stuff? It’s getting ridiculous.

All of that religion and culture made me hungry, so I made a pierogi stop. It pains me to say this, but Ukrainian pierogis are definitely better than Polish pierogis. Sorry, Poland. The things that these people can do with potatoes, flour, a shit ton of butter, etc is blowing my mind. If you like butter and bargains (and I’m pretty sure everyone does), Ukraine is the place for you.

There she is, folks. The pierogi lady herself. All day she stands in the window and she makes them pierogis. This woman is a true artist.

Next I went on a long and mildly depressing rainy walk. On my rainy walk, I saw lots of weird things! This included a weird market (where I finally saw some Putin toilet paper) and a lot of decrepit looking stuff mixed in with a lot of unbelievably beautiful stuff. Eventually I ended up at a giant mall! Euro malls are another travel hack, as they usually provide wifi, comfortable places to sit, places to charge your phone, grocery stores, a roof (handy for when it’s raining and raining and raining), and free bathrooms. Plus I just love a good mall.

The most beautiful grocery store. Anyone who knows me knows I love a good grocery store. A good foreign grocery store? Now THAT my friends, is a my kind of travel activity.

[borrowedbackpack]

вияснюючи це

Hello from the Ukraine! My first full day here has been interesting. It started after a restful sleep amongst all the old eastern euro dudes (very comfortable beds though). Fortunately, the snoring situation was pretty manageable, eventually. There was some extreme snoring action at around 11pm, which I did not care for, so I went for a little walk to the staircase where I attempted to employ positive mindset hacks. Those didn’t really take, so after awhile I returned to my room, ready to wake snoring dude right up and tell him to slap on a gd nasal strip or get the heck out. After 3+ weeks of living the hostel life I have no more fucks to give. It’s everyone for themselves out here. Fortunately, things didn’t come that, as I found that somehow the snoring had magically ceased in my absence. Travel win.

So anyways, I actually crushed a pretty good sleep. The beds here are super comfortable. Also, my hostel is $8 a night and someone makes my bed for me every day?! Maybe it’s a Ukraine thing, or maybe it’s a this hostel thing but I’m pretty impressed.

Next I went to a grocery store, which, like many activities in Ukraine (for those of us who can’t read Ukranian, anyways) was time consuming and challenging. Definitely worth it though, seeing as I ended up with a lot of strawberries, some bananas, and a loaf of bread for less than 2 CAD.*

*way cheaper than Morocco. Crazy.

Crab chips???

Next I walked around and tried to figure out strategies to not get lost. This proved to be a mildly treacherous activity, as all the streets are made out of cobblestones and feature a lot of gaps suitable for tripping. It’s also CROWDED af here. Like I can’t believe the amount of people everywhere. Wasn’t expecting that at all. And not even tourists! Nope, just Ukranians, walking around. I don’t get it. Like it’s 2pm on a Tuesday, where ya’ll going?

Just sellin some books I guess.

I saw many interesting things and people in my walkings. These things were included, but not limited to:

·      Lots of pretty euro buildings

·      Lots of nuns (made me feel like I was back home in Krak)

·      Lots of very beautiful, tall women*

·      Some short, ugly men*

·      Some anti-Putin propaganda

·      A big park

·      A lot of people yelling at each other (not in Hippie Land anymore, that’s for sure)

·      A lot of words I couldn’t read**

*Fun fact, for every 100 women in Ukraine, there are only 87 men. It’s cause the men keep dying from drinking too much. That’s why there are so many mail order brides from Ukraine; they’re outta options over here.

**being here is really making me appreciate being literate. Damn it’s annoying as hell to not be able to read stuff. Also limiting.  Yesterday I tried to buy face wash, and was like 70% confident I’d gotten the right stuff until I actually put it on my face. Now I’m more like 75% confident that it’s hand lotion. So that’s fun. Tried again today though, and I’m pretty sure I was successful. Things are improving, people.

I have no idea what this says, I’m assuming it’s not overly flattering though. Hi Vlad, if you’re reading this. The content of this doormat does not actually reflect my personal views on you, maybe. If it helps, I had that picture of you hanging out with a dolphin as my phone screensaver for quite awhile at one point. 

So yeah, Ukraine is a little bit of a learning curve, but it seems cool. And, as I keep mentioning, it’s cheap af, which is my favourite kind of place. Which means I can afford to hang out here for a while and figure things out. Anywhere where I can knock back plates of pierogi for $2 is a good place, in my opinion.

??? I don’t even know.

[borrowedbackpack]

О, малюк

Ayyy guess where I am? Hint: all the signs here are written in squiggly lines (as seen above). Another hint: it’s a pierogi hotbed. If you guessed Ukraine . . . you are right! Good guessing.

But let’s start from the beginning (which is a very good place to start, or so I’ve heard anyways). This morning I awoke at the krak (hahahaha get it? Cause I was in Krakow????) of 7 am to get my shit together, leave my hostel, and haul my blisters and my travel documents (ie the ten pages of paper that were apparently my “ticket”) to the bus station. I even remembered my passport this time, which was a win. Although I was sad-ish to leave Krak again, the blow was softened by the realizations that a) I’ll be back snart and b) leaving Krak means no longer having to be visually/aurally assaulted by the American/Czech couple frickin spooning and whispering sweet nothings to each other in the bunk adjacent to mine. Like stick to your own bunks. I’m sure you’ll survive. Or, even better, get a gd room. It’s Poland, you could probably pick up a side hustle in the bagel industry or something and make enough cash zlotys to go halfsies on a private room pretty quick.

ANYWAYS y’all know the travel day drill at this point. I do my best to tape up the blisters, strap on the NBF, and off to the bus station I go. I arrive in plenty of time, and my bus isn’t listed on the departures board yet, so I go kick around the station for a bit and use the free bathroom while I still can. Unfortunately, by 8:35 my bus still isn’t listed (I was supposed to leave at 9), so at that point I was “hm”-ing a little bit. But still I remained calm, reminding myself that I am one with the Krakow transit systems and that everything would be fine. So I used the free bathroom again, because I’ve heard plenty a horror story about sitting at the Ukranian border for eight hours on a bathroomless bus. Then 8:45 rolled around. Where is this effing bus? Does it not exist? I’m starting to feel a travel freak out creeping in at this point. I open my Kanken and take out my travel documents, reminding myself that we’re still being calm. Unfortunately, the action of me removing my travel documents from my Kanken somehow resulted in me spilling random international currency all over the freakin floor. “fuckfuckfuck” I said.

“stay calm and pick up your change” said my brain.

So I did. Unfortunately THIS action resulted in my sunglasses being launched off my face and on to the ground below

“maybe stop dropping things and being a general disaster” my brain helpfully suggested. “btw it’s now 8:50, so you might want to get going on that”.

So there I am, just trying to follow my brain’s orders and get my shit together. Picking up small change involved me squatting down on the station floor, which nearly resulted in the weight of the NBF causing me to fall right over on my back like a turtle. I probably would’ve found this pretty funny if I wasn’t in such a Big Stressful Rush.

Finally I get all my stuff picked up, which occurred just in time for me to have an epiphany. This epiphany was called “there’s another level to this dumb station, maybe you need to go up there”. So the NBF and I freaking sprint up them stairs, accidentally kicking a pigeon along the way. Unfortunately, there’s no sign of my bus up there either. It’s 8:54 at this point and I’m panicking. So I run into the station building, shove my entire booklet of travel documents at the first official-ish looking person I see, and beg for help. She is very calm and informs me that the bus will be leaving from somewhere around the upstairs bit. So I run out again and scour the upstairs bit. Nope. Then some hot cop sees me panicking and reassures me that I’m in the right place, the dumb bus just isn’t here yet. It’s 8:59. I’ve made it. You can bet I was the very first person on that gd bus.

Things improved drastically from there. The bus itself was a real beauty, I’d say 1989 or whenever she was built was definitely a prime year in the bus industry. She safely carried us through the Polish countryside, making two stops at some dope free bathrooms. Taking buses in Europe is fun cause there are always lots of stops on account of smoke breaks.

We cruised happily along towards the border. After about four hours* I could tell we were getting close to the ol border cause things were starting to look increasingly desperate. We arrive at the border and the Polish border guard gets on the bus and collects all our passports. Then we sit for awhile, get out, use the free Border Bathroom, etc. Eventually we get back on to the bus and our passports are returned to us. THEN we drive a little bit and the Ukranian border guard hops on our bus with a gun! He collects all our passports and stares into our souls while doing so. As the only non Pole/Ukranian on this sweet ride, I was treated to extended eye contact. When Ukranian guy is satisfied, he hops off our bus and inspects the baggage compartment and all that (he didn’t put that much effort into it though, like I was expecting a bit more through search tbh). Then we sit for a loooooong time. I got so bored I even did reading. Eventually we all get our passports handed back to us, yay! We passed! Except for that one guy. Hope he’s okay.** We’re on the road again! Except not really, cause they let you drive a little bit to get your hopes up and then make you wait more for good measure.

*the driving distance between Krak and Lviv is actually only like 325, it just takes eightish hours cause of border stuff/smoke breaks/ukranian roads etc.

**jk we all passed. No

Ukraine does not look like Poland! Everybody’s yard has chickens in it! And an old baba tending to said chickens! There were lots of goats too! And undertones of “damn did those soviets ever eff us over”! Strong sense of that, I’d say.

All jokes aside, I had a pretty positive first impression of Ukraine. I even met a nice dog. Then I got to the station in Lviv and things got a bit messy from there. The only directions my hostel had provided were “take bus 9 to Main Post Office”. Hm. Kinda hard to tell which stop is “Main Post Office” when you can’t actually read Ukranian. Or even try to decipher it, cause that alphabet though. So the NBF and I hike around for a long time. We see many buses, none of them 9, of course. Eventually we decide that we’re not making progress, so we’re going to take a loss and hop in a taxi. This also proved to be challenging, as Ukraine is not actually a hot bed of English speakers (or Norwegian, or French. I tried everything. One guy spoke Spanish though?? Not super helpful but go him I guess). Eventually one of the taxi drivers pointed me to The English Speaking Taxi Driver of Lviv. And so off we went.

Now I’m at my hostel, which is nice, except I seem to be the only non-Eastern Euro man here. So I’m predicting a long night of listening to snoring. Assuming I survive this nonsense, I will be providing my actual impression of Lviv tomorrow after I’ve had the opportunity to do some research.

But so far:

·      Cheap af

·      Euro af

·      Little gritty

= seems dece

PS there are no pictures because my stupid computer is ignoring the existence of my stupid phone and I dunno how to deal with that.

[borrowedbackpack]

Reverse Culture Shock/Moving Right Along

Hello from one* of my favourite places in the world! Yup, still being boring and hanging out in Krakow for like the fifteenth time. I should just frickin move here already. Like I’d been away from Krak for what, two weeks? Maybe less? But guess what corny Polish wannabe was sitting on the edge of her rock hard Ryanair seat with her face glued to the window peeping that Polish countryside as we were piloted safely through the pierogi-scented air and eventually to that nutrient-rich** Polish soil? This gal. Brings a lil tear to my eye every time.

*note that Krak has been downgraded from my favourite place in the world to one of my favourite places in the world. Morocco/Hippie Land is that good, people. So here’s your daily reminder to get yourself there.

**One of the main motives for the Austro-Hungarian empire’s annexation of the Galicia(??? Galencia???) region of Poland was so they could grow shit in that good dirt. If you’d like to know more about this, I spent about half of last semester writing a truly awful paper about this situation. Ol’  Dr. Mark Meyers sure as heck didn’t like it (I tried, Mark. I really did), but maybe you will.

Anyways, what am I even talking about? Oh right, so I’m here, back to civilization, all that. Basically just trying to recover from whatever brutal allergic reaction hit me in Hippie Land, as well as refining my blister care game (Band-Aids seem to help, who knew???). I’ve also assumed the position of Krakow Expert In Residence in my dorm room. Mostly I give directions (I even have a map!) and try to convince people that there are actually cool things to do here outside of day drinking/recreational drugs/hanging out at Auschwitz.

Apparently it’s some sort of holiday weekend here, so there’s a big festival going down in the main square. Not exactly sure what they’re celebrating, but whatever it is seems to involve a lot of sausage. And pierogi. Also flower crowns. And bubbles. Hung out there for a bit yesterday and watched some folks put eastern-euro spins on American pop tunes. The quality of the music was questionable at best, but the confidence levels/dance moves were through the roof. Then I got a free prune sample from an old Polish lady in a fun Polish costume.

After I got tired of watching the Poles butcher a large chunk of Justin Timberlake’s discography (come to think of it, they might’ve actually improved it. Depends what you’re into, I guess), I went to go do First World Activities (ie shopping in an actual store. Like a store with a roof. Wild). This was pretty exciting, as I hadn’t seen the inside of a grocery store in quite awhile (and honestly I’m not sure how I feel about grocery stores anymore. Got kinda used to getting my provisions from my bread man, my bread lady, my avocado/tomato/cucumber man, and my banana man). I also went to my favourite place, H&M, and peeped some spring fashions (my Hippie Land wardrobe is not going to fly over here in Europe amongst all these beautiful, clean, well-dressed people). It was here that I realized that it might take a hot minute to reintegrate into western culture. I was looking at those price tags like “hm, well this says it costs 50zt, seems kinda steep, I could probably get them down to 20 if I play my cards right”. Set prices really suck the fun out of shopping, in my opinion. And so I left empty handed.

The next first world activity on the list was called Buying a Bus Ticket to Go to Another Place. And so off I went to complete this, which involved a long, confusing conversation resulting in me just buying the first ticket offered to me without actually considering other options. Which is fine. I mean, I don’t know where the bus leaves from (I kinda know when it leaves though, which I’m assuming is half the battle), what bus company I’m going with, which one of the large sheets of paper I was given is an actual ticket (if any of them are…), how many stops the bus makes, etc. All I know is that my dumb ass didn’t think to bring my passport with me to buy this ticket (I’ve heard that many countries require this thing called a passport in order to enter/leave. What a concept. Get it together, Anna). So we’re well on our way to completing this rather complicated transaction right? And we’re even kinda on a roll, until buddy, who’s really trying his best, is like “passport-y?”*

And I’m like “Hm”. Luckily, I’m nothing if not a quick thinker, so I bust open my Kånken and start pulling out everything that I could possibly use to confirm my identity. This included my U of S student card, my health card, and my PA lane swim pass. He pondered all this for a long time, and eventually decided that I was, in fact, who I said I was. (pretty sure it was the lane swim pass that sealed the deal). Either that or he was just real ready to get rid of me.  Anyways, that’s neither here nor there, cause I now seem to have a bus ticket outta here for 9:00am tomorrow morning. Heck ya.

*Polish 101: just add a “–y”to all words. Sometimes a “–z” will suffice.

[borrowedbackpack]

Mother’s Day

In honour of Mother’s Day, here’s a little story.

Remember wayyyy back like three entire weeks ago when I was in Krak? Ie the first leg of my trip? Well I do. Anyways, you may recall that I made two solid hostel friends on that leg, Robbie from Canada and Lolita from Australia. Pretty sure they’ve both received some blog coverage, so hopefully you’re familiar with these characters.

Lolita from Australia was relatively close to the start of an epic four-month long Euro jaunt at this time. Unfortunately, Lolita had decided that she was not actually into being a Euro traveller, and morale was in the gutter. So being the good hostel roommates that me and Robbie were, we did our best to offer some sweet positive mindset hacks to hopefully prevent Lolita from having to go home to Byron a defeated Euro Traveller. Most of these hacks involved her choosing to make the best of her situation, realizing travelling isn’t all sunshine, rainbows, and sweet insta shots, and managing expectations.

“That sounds like something my mum would say!” whined Lolita. “and I would just tell her to fuck off”.

Robbie and I looked at each other in shock, cause I’ve never been to Australia, but in Canada, we don’t actually talk to our mums like that. Damn.

“but I’d tell her to fuck off and then realize she was right” she continued. “my mum’s a legend, actually”.

Then we were all quiet for a little bit as we nodded in agreement and thought about or respective legendary mums, supporting us and our questionable decisions from afar.

So shout out to all the legendary mums, but mostly shout out to Jen, my own personal legendary mum, and borrowedbackpack’s number one fan. Although I wouldn’t describe Jen as a pro-traveller per se, I would definitely describe her as a pro get-shit-done’r. Without her working behind the scenes, to, oh, I don’t know, call Kiwi’s customer service line to remedy my flight booking mistakes (pro tip: learn how to spell your gd name correctly before you try and book a flight), offer rash treatment suggestions, sympathize with me and my blisters, etc, this trip would be a mess. And not even a hot one. Just a mess. So this one’s for you, mum (except they’re all for you, cause you’re like the only reader. “this one’s for you” just sounds cooler).

 See? Legend.