Days 370-372: Cusco

The flight between Lima and Cusco was short but interesting.  It's just over an hour long, so you never really reach a high altitude as you fly into the Andes.  When you're coming in to land you're flying below the tops of many of the surrounding mountains.

We got a bus to hotel we were staying out and dropped things off and going out to explore a little.  Cusco is culturally very important as it was the capital of the Inca Empire, but its also a convenient place for hikers to acclimate to the elevation before moving on to more strenuous things.  It's around 3400m (11,150 ft) above sea level and considerably cooler than Lima.

The tourist influence is pretty evident in Cusco as the central plaza (Plaza de Armas) accommodates a KFC and a McDonalds, and the central area is full of little touristy shops selling Peruvian souvenirs and hiking equipment.  Despite these the city still has a very old-world feel and remnants of both Inca and Spanish periods are everywhere. We were there over Easter, which they celebrated in part by marching crosses and a Jesus replica from church to church around town.

Near the city center are the old Inca walls, including the strangely famous 12-sided stone.  Like the pyramids in Egypt the stonework is impressive for the tight precision of each stone fitting into the next, and without the aid of modern machinery to carve them.  The 12-sided stone is just the most noted because it shows off how each stone is so perfectly set.

A few other buildings of note are the Convent of St. Dominic which doubles as the Cusco Museum and the Church of la Compañía de Jesus which houses some colonial art.

To help everybody get used to the altitude we did a hike up into the hills at the fringe of the city, climbing past the old Inca ruins of Saksaywaman and finally up to Cristo Blanco, which is a smaller Christ the Redeemer that stands above the city.  I always like this sort of small climb outside of cities, and this one gave a really nice view of the city below and the surrounding landscape.  Also, this short venture let me see the first of many llamas and alpacas in Peru.

We also stopped by the cental market, Mercado Central de San Pedro, which was... an experience.  I'm always fascinated by all the bustling markets of the world, but indoors I found this one similar to many of the others, and outdoors, where most of the action was happening, things were too chaotic/crowded for me to really enjoy.

The only other location of note is Jack's Cafe, an Australian/Peruvian restaurant that was quickly established as everybody's favourite place to eat.  So maybe it didn't have the most traditional Peruvian menu, but everything we ate there was amazing.  (For the record, the Jack's Cafe burger is definitely in my top 5 of the world, maybe even top 3).
Now that we were used to the elevation and had gotten to know each other it was time to travel deeper into the Inca heartland...

Day 279: Medan

I had an early flight from Kuala Lumpur over to Northern Sumatra early this morning. The flight left around 7:30am, and it the bus ride to get to the airport is an hour, so I had to leave quite early to get to there with enough time to feel comfortable. I was flying out of the LCCT, which is the low-cost budget airline terminal, and you can definitely see where the low cost part comes in. Things were pretty disorganized and checking-in/dropping off bags was a massive free-for-all of people pushing towards the front without much of a queuing system. Luckily I came with time to spare and managed to get through everything without any of the frantic scrambling I try very hard to avoid.

Medan itself isn't much of a tourist destination, but it's the biggest city in the center of quite a few interesting things in North Sumatra part of Indonesia. It's one of those rare cities where the airport is actually near the city center, and I just avoided the swarm of taxis and tuk-tuks and just walked from the airport to my hostel and fortunately he extra weight of the stuff I bought in KL was barely noticeable. It was still early when I got to the hostel and my room wasn't ready, so I left my bags and went off on a lengthy walk without a map or any knowledge of the city at all.

Medan is a bit rough around the edges. It reminds me a bit of some of the more sane cities in India. It's hard to go a few minutes on foot without somebody trying to get you into their tuk-tuk or on the back of their motorbike, as if the only reason you were walking around has to be that nobody else has bothered to offer you a ride yet. I was obviously something of a rarity. All the old men sitting in front of shops would call out and wave to me, and lots of people came up to talk to me. Even though it does get a bit tiring when you can't just have a little peace, I much prefer the ones who just come up and want to talk out of curiousity to the ones always trying to offer you things. At least here people are pretty accepting when you just say no or shake your head, and don't hound after you. The streets all look virtually identical, full of squat little random shops and apartments. I can't think of a single building I saw with more than 3 floors, or a single recognizable brand name other than one McDonalds I came across.

My McDonalds anecdote deserves special mention. After walking around all morning after an early morning flight I was pretty hot and exhausted, so I went into the McDonalds with the intention of buying an ice cream. At the counter they told me there was no ice cream, so I left. I instead bought a cold drink from a shop outside and just sat on the patio in the shade relaxing. About 10 minutes later, a group of 4 Muslim girls who had been in the McDonalds came out with a bag of food. They, having seen but not heard my exchange at the counter thought that I hadn't had enough money, and when they saw me sitting outside had bought a meal for me. I was pretty embarassed, because obviously I do have money - probably a good deal more than they do, and I tried to explain the situation, but they insisted I keep the meal (I suppose there wasn't much else they could do with the food). I should have offered to pay them for it, but I didn't think of it at the time, and in a way I feel it might have cheapened their gesture. Instead, the only gesture I can offer is to mention this story and hopefully help out somebody in genuine need of a meal later in my travels. In the "western world" there's unfortunately a lot of negative feelings towards Muslims these days, but the fact that these girls were so willing to do something like that for a random stranger deserves special consideration.

I finally made it back to the hostel around noon and checked in. There's no AC and no windows, which means the one outlet in the room has to be for the fan when I'm in the room, which makes charging / using my tablet a bit of a problem. My plans in Indonesia are somewhat off the beaten trail, so it's very possible I'll have trouble keeping in touch for the next 10 days. If I stop posting things, don't worry - odds are I won't be dead.

Day 277: Batu Caves

Today my destination was the Batu Caves just to the north of Kuala Lumpur. The caves are inside of limestone hills and are interesting for a couple of reasons. It's the site of a big Hindu shrine to the god Murugan and is also one of the most studied cave ecosystems in the world.

I took one of the train lines out of town to get there, which only cost about 30 cents. The stop is right next to the caves, and the first thing you see upon leaving is a giant statue of the Hindu god Hanuman. A few steps further towards the caves and there's an even bigger statue of Murugan, as well as the stairs leading up to the caves themselves.

I went to the shrine part first, which is in a large cave chamber that's fairly well lit by openings in the top of the cave. There were little statues and shrines throughout the cave, but the cave itself was the more impressive part.

The more interesting part of the caves for me was the natural, untouched part. Tours into the cave system cost about $10, which is a lot for Malaysia but still pretty reasonable. The only source of energy getting into the caves is through the guano of the fruit and insect eating bats, and this supports an ecosystem of 180 types of animals and insects. The tour was about 45 minutes, pointing out all the different limestone formations and little creatures. One of the most unexpected animals was a dog curled up in the dark deep in the caves. Apparently the dog is the 3rd generation of a family of dogs born in the caves, and has become so accustomed to them that it won't leave. It gave birth to puppies, and they hoped that caring for them would lure it out of the caves, but when they tried to remove it from the cave it just immediately ran back into them. The caves are also the only habitat of a specific type of trapdoor spiders, and contains the last 180 of them in the world.

On the way out there were lots and lots of more monkeys. No matter how many monkeys I see (a lot) I still find them incredibly fun to watch.

Day 256: Ream National Park

The majority of us went on a tour of Ream National Park for our second day in Sihanoukville. Despite the van we were travelling in already been quite full, we still found room to fit Roger in for the ride with us (Roger, you'll remember, is a large inflatable dinosaur). We drove to the river at the edge of the park then took a boat along the river, surrounded by mangrove forests.

The boat stopped in a small village, and we walked through a few farms and outlying buildings as we headed towards the woods. Near the edge of the woods was a small Christian school, and the park guide's reaction to it gives a little insight into religion in Cambodia. He described it as follows. "This is the school by the Christians to advertise the Jesus god. You know the Jesus god?" Now, there's a few things going on here. Using the word advertising to describe missionary work is amusing, but probably pretty accurate. The more interesting part is calling Jesus a god (also, true, by Christian beliefs, but not as I'm sure our guide meant it) and especially just treating him as just one more god among many that the Christians happen to worship. Cambodia is almost entirely Buddhist, at least on paper, but we got a bit deeper insight on how they treat religion back when we were in Siem Reap. Angkor Wat was originally built as a Hindu temple, and despite it later being converted, there are still a lot of Hindu statues in it. What's more, all the local Buddhist villagers will go to pray at the Hindu statues. They go to pray for good luck, good crops, healthy children, and for them it's just the process of praying and giving an offering that matters, and the actual god it's directed at isn't all that important. On our travels we saw a mix of Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism and, apparently the Jesus god, all, for the most part, practiced by the same people claiming the same religion.

We walked for maybe half an hour through the woods with our local guide pointing out different plants and animals. The beach itself, when we got to it, was beautiful. We were practically the only people there, and a few hours of swimming, walking along the beach and lying in the sun was a nice way to spend the afternoon. The guys running our tour also brought a picnic-style lunch that was delicious as well.

The final two stops were brief. First we went out to a waterfall in the area, but we didn't stay long enough to really do anything there. Last, we stopped by the road to give our picnic leftovers to some local monkeys. I don't know where the monkey got a hold of the red bull from - it wasn't from us - but I wasn't above taking pictures of it!

Day 248: The Temples of Angkor (Part 1)

Siem Reap, despite not being especially big, is the most popular destinations in Cambodia for a single reason: the Angkor Temples. The area was the heart of the Khmer empire for almost 600 years, during its peak, and they loved building temples. During a long period of instability from wars with neighbors, occupation and civil war all the temples fell into extreme neglect and became ruins, but during their occasional periods of stability in the last hundred years the temples have slowly been pieced back together.

We got up early in the morning to watch the sun rise at the famous Angkor Wat. Before visiting the site we had to get our photos taken and stamped onto badges for a 3 day pass to all the temples in the area. The area was a bit busy as coming to watch the sunrise is a popular tourist draw, but we were only staying for the sunrise and then coming back later in the day to really explore the place. Randomly I came across one of my group members from my India/Nepal tour who was also in Cambodia on further travels, and we caught up a bit. It's a bit strange how you keep running into people unexpectedly you last saw thousands of kilometers away.

After returning back to the hotel for some breakfast and a short rest we headed back to Angkor Wat for a more thorough visit. While the thick stone stairways and towers of the iconic structure are impressive enough, the best part of the temple are the long bas-relief friezes showing scenes from Hindu mythology.

During our visit at Angkor Wat our local guide gave us a constant stream of lessons on both the temple in general, Khmer history, and different aspects of modern Cambodian life. He showed a special interest in Cambodian astrology, which he picked up some of during a brief stint as a monk acolyte in his childhood, and how it's roll in romantic matchmaking. Even more important than the astrological compatibility of the couple, however, is the size of the dowry the husband is able to pay the wife's family. Or, as our guide eloquently summed it up for us, "No money, no honey!"

We had lunch at one of the many nearby outdoor restaurants. I had a tasty Cambodian dish called amok, which is only especially of note this time because it was served in a green coconut. I also had a lychee Fanta, which is especially of note because it's lychee Fanta.

The next temple was Bayon in the Angkor Thom complex. Bayon is another very famous piece of architecture, primarily for its collection of 216 Buddha faces spread across the towers. I had been afraid that I'd get bored by the similarity of all the temples in the area, but each one seemed to have its own unique personality.

The third and final temple of the day was Baphuon. It had a step pyramid shape, and in my opinion the least personality of the three. On the backside of the temple there is a giant reclining Buddha statue that they are still working on putting back together.

After getting down from the temple on the opposite side and walking around a bit I came upon a tree that was just too tempting to pass up. The few moments distraction is caused led to me getting briefly separated from the group and lost, and upon reuniting got me a short lecture ("Does your insurance cover climbing up trees??"). Ultimately though, the risks of walking around in the Cambodia traffic are more likely to get me hurt than climbing a tree, and if I can't do the things that I find fun, what's the point?

We had a few more quick stops at the various ruins along the way back to the bus, at the Terrace of the Elephants and Terrace of the Leper King.

We had all been up since very early in the morning, and the day was hot and very humid, so were were all pretty exhausted by this point. We went on back to the hotel and mostly spent the evening relaxing.

Day 243: Cruising Chao Phraya River

One of the cheaper ways to get around Bangkok is using the ferry service along the Chao Phraya river. There are a few different boat routes, identified by different coloured flags on the boats, and there are nearly 40 docks that the most thorough ferry stops at. The places I most wanted to see were mostly located along the river, so hopping on the boats was a nice way to see things and get away from the traffic and crowds.

I took the ferry north and got off near Wat Pho. Wat Pho is most famous for a giant golden reclining Buddha statue housed in one of the temples, the site also has a mix of other statues, temples and other buildings to explore.

While in the area I walked next door to check out the Grand Palace. The price to actually go in was more than I wanted to spend, so I just walked around on the grounds outside for a bit.

I walked down to the next dock and took the ferry across to the other bank of the river to visit Wat Arun. Wat Arun is just a structure, so there wasn't really all that much to do there. The structure had an awesomely steep staircase which was the best part, in my opinion. Other visitors would go up (and especially down) clutching at the railing with both hands and slowly crawling up, and I would just bound by them. On the way down I got stuck behind an especially tentative group, and it took me almost 5 minutes waiting at each step for them to finally get down.

Since the price was the same no matter how far you go, I took the boat all the way up to the last stop to just enjoy the day, then took it all the way back and got off near my hostel and walked back.