Checking Things Off Our List

We haven't posted anything for a while mostly because we didn't have much (positive) progress on our trip planning. Until this week we hadn't sorted what exactly we were going to do with our apartment.

When we got permission from our landlord to sublet our place, we assumed that it would be super easy to find someone. Our apartment has a ton of things going for it namely, location, location, location not to mention its relatively big size (for a Dutch apartment). But after weeks of posting and reposting ads on various roomfinding websites and classified websites we still had no good leads. Would we find someone? Or would we have to give up our apartment, put all of our stuff in storage and then have to go through the ever laborious task of finding a new place when we got back? Well after changing our tactics slightly, we have signed contracts with subletters!

Now we can finally get back to actual trip planning and fun things like buying the last bit of gear!

New journey

We've decided to head out on another trip, so it's time to revive this old blog.

This time our plan is to bike from Holland to Turkey, roughly following the route below. The map is broken up into monthly sections (click to see where we'll be when). We'll start the journey in May, and hopefully be in Istanbul by August...

Part two of our bike trip will take us back to Canada for a fall tour of Ontario and Quebec (no route yet planned).


View Rough Route - Europe in a larger map

Local windmill

This windmill is located a few blocks from our place. It was once a lumber mill, and it still works (open to visitors on Saturdays). Just another reason for you to come visit Utrecht.

Now that our trip is over...

I can’t believe that it’s already been two months since we’ve been back from our trip. Since then, however, a ton has happened. We went back to Ontario for a quick whirlwind trip, going to a friend's wedding and visiting friends and family. Afterwards, we moved to Holland, where Anthony had a contract to start as a consultant with a renewable energies company. I am still looking for work as a consultant, but the job hunting/interviewing process is slow…Our current apartment (hhrrmm, room in the attic of our landlords house) isn’t ideal but we’ve got our own place due to start June 1st. The nice thing is that spring is in full swing, so we don’t really spend much time at home on the weekends anyway.

Despite a few start up “pains”, we like life in Holland. The city of Utrecht is really quaint, yet there’s plenty to do. Just this past weekend we were running with a Greek friend of ours from Anthony’s work and we spontaneously decided to rent an old wooden row boat for the afternoon. So we spent an unseasonably warm spring day navigating the canals within the city.

Hopefully the weather will keep up and we’ll have an awesome summer in Utrecht! So if anyone of you in the area (i.e. Holland, Western Europe), drop us a line (crockford@gmail.com) and we should meet up.

Trip Statistics

Today is Day 151 of our trip (the last day)! Here are some other statistics about our trip (for our nerdier friends)...

Overall
Distance covered overland from Copenhagen to Delhi: 27,000km
Time spent in-transit (overland): 512 hours (21 days)
Average speed: 52 km/h

Inter-city transportation
5 day trains, 16 night trains (mostly in India), 23 day buses (most in Nepal), 3 night buses (only in Europe)

Inner-city transportation
Public bus (too many to count), metro (in 4 cities), mini-bus (in 3 cities), tram (1), tempo (2), taxi (6), shared jeep (3), private car (2), tour bus (1), auto rickshaws (6), cycle rickshaws (2), motorcycle (1), bicycle (3), row boat (1), ferry (1), camel (1) and walking (everywhere)

Accommodations
Hostels (37 nights - in Europe and China), hotels (59 - in Nepal and India), night trains (22), night buses (3), friend's houses (10), ashrams (4), monastery/nunnery (3) and in the desert (1)

Restaurants
222 in total: 12 in Europe, 70 in China, 40 in Nepal and 100 in India

Budget (per person)
$40/day in Europe (including Russia), $30/day in China (including Tibet), and $20/day in Nepal and India

Random
Maximum temperature: 22°C (in northern India)
Minimum temperature: -15°C (in Tibet)
Number of times we did laundry ourselves: 6
Number of times we did our own dishes: 40
Number of mosquito bites: 10 (approx)
Number of outbreaks of food poisoning: 4 (Marieke: 3, Anthony: 1)

Yes, we know we're nerds.

If you have to visit Delhi, go see the toilets

Our impression of Delhi from our first three days here was that it was a place we did not want to be. Our flight home leaves from here, and we had purposely avoided Delhi until we couldn't put it off any longer. Before coming to India, several people warned us that we would not enjoy ourselves - "It's not if you get sick but when," "rickshaw drivers won't take you where you want to go," "all official government tourist offices are fake," "the traffic is nuts" and "the hotels are filthy and infested with bedbugs and cockroaches." Luckily, we found that most of India was very pleasant and we thought that these warnings must be exagerations. Then, we came to Delhi. It is easy to understand why someone wouldn't like India if they started in Delhi. The whole tourist industry here (shops, sights, hotels, rickshaws) seems intent on getting the most money possible from you now, with no consideration that you might ever return.

Still, if you are ever unlucky enough to spend time in Delhi, we have a few recommendations. Visit Old Delhi for a taste of local life and an escape from the hassles of tourist markets (Marieke especially recommends the wholesale spice market).

Go see the Lotus Temple, a beautiful Bahai temple.

And, go see the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets. Seriously. The museum itself was well-run and interactive, but the most interesting part was learning about the works of the Sulabh charity. They are dedicated to improving the designs of toilets in India, for many reasons. They are improving sanitation and health. They are reducing pollution. They are creating low-cost alternatives so that even the poorest villages can have toilets. They are reducing water consumption. They are improving the lives of over 600,000 "scavengers" - members of a lower-class (called Untouchables) who clean out pit-toilets and transport the waste. They are generating electricity from biogas and using composted waste as manure. All this, just by rethinking the toilet... It was a humbling experience to think how much waste our toilets back home actually generate.

Rishikesh

Rishikesh is most famous as the village where the Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and took up transcendental meditation. For us though, it was just another peaceful place to sit back, relax and get used to the idea that our trip is almost over (less than a week left). We wandered along the banks of the Ganga river (the same holy river that later passes through Varanasi), hiked in the Himalayan foothills and did a bit of yoga.

Amritsar

After a couple days of Delhi, we had to get out! We headed north to Amritsar (our original destination after Pushkar) - home to the Sikh's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple. It is truly beautiful - simple, but ornate and somehow not gaudy (despite a lot of gold). It sits in a pool of water (err... nectar of immortality), surrounded by white marble buildings. To enter the complex, you have to remove your socks and shoes, and wash your feet. The marble floor is very cold! You must also cover your head.

People of all faiths are allowed to enter the temple (unlike many Hindu temples), so we crossed the bridge to have a look inside - more gold! With music filling the air, standing in line with hundreds of pilgrims was a really "spiritual" experience.

The real highlight for us though, was the meal in the community kitchen. Everyday, thousands of people visit the temple for a free meal of dal (lentils) and chapati (bread). Volunteers prepare the food, serve it and do the dishes. The idea is that everyone sits side-by-side, regardless of caste, religion, gender or race. It was another amazing experience.

Amritsar is also very close to the only entry-point to Pakistan. The nightly flag-lowering ceremony is somewhat of a spectacle and attracts hundreds of tourists (mostly locals). While the guards on both sides of the border march about (like John Cleese at the Ministry of Silly Walks), the crowds cheer and chant patriotic slogans. As the gates slam shut, everyone rushes in for a photo. It seemed more like a sporting event than an official ceremony.