My entire life I have had strong female role models. Well just strong role models in general. So much so that when my cars clutch goes to the floor at midnight on the way home, I drive it to the mechanic shop like a rally car driver with no clutch, park it out front and then start the hour and a half walk home because it doesn’t occur to me to call my house mate and ask for help getting home because it is my problem, not theirs. So much so that I will still be attempting to haul my own bags down the street 400m and up the stairs for an hour after just being released from the hospital after 5 days with pneumonia. So much so that I would crawl my way home after getting hit by a car and walk an hour and a half to get to the hospital for an x ray to make sure my arm isn’t broken. The thing is, I never, ever ask for help. Like EVER. In some ways I have been taught that it is like admitting defeat that you simply cannot do things yourself. It is an act that has made me an incredibly strong and independent person, but in many ways it has also made me quite inaccessible to others as my walls are too impermeable.
So my good friend laid me out a challenge for the month of September that she calls “Servitude September”. She feels that “acts of service is one of the ways that people show love. The theory is that you do things for people all the time, and it makes you feel good. By allowing people to help you, it will create a space for people to start showing you love” and thus will help me become more open to others.
The challenge set is as such:
You must ask someone for at least one favour a day building up to five a day by the end of September. I must record what I asked for and how I felt about asking for it. I must ask a mix of genders for different things in equal amounts, so half men and half women for such favour. These things that I ask for must be things that I can do by myself without help from anyone else. This is the most important of the rules. It has to be something I can do for myself. If not it defeats the purpose of the whole idea.
To be honest, I am terrified. The idea of asking people for help makes me more vulnerable, regardless the size of the favour. I fear that people will see me as being less capable. I feel like I will owe people and be in their debt. That it in many ways will strip down the strong and independent woman that I am. I am also terrified of the doors it may open up with regards to allowing other people in and letting them to not only help me, but to love me. I guess we just have to wait and see what happens. But I accepted the challenge. My friend in London is holding me to account on a daily basis and is super excited to watch me squirm while I do it. And as such, let Servitude September and all of its helpfulness begin…. with a bit of luck, it might just change my life!
When I was working the Taste of Calgary last week, I met a German psychologist who uses his skills to read people’s auras and then purchases art for them. At the end of our two minute conversation he told me that when he looks at me he sees a lot of internal happiness, and someone that spends more time looking forward than back. I found this to be incredibly insightful for someone who had met me for two minutes. I have always said that you create your own happiness from within and truth be told, I always look forward instead of backwards. Sometimes too quickly. And this is how we wind up moving ourselves to London on a whimsical decision made in a state of unhappiness.
Most other people who probably should know me a little better ask me what it is that I am running from. But then maybe that’s unfounded as well. I prefer to see it as “running to”. Life is too short to spend time on things that aren’t working and moving on seems to have become a life skill that I am far too good at. So my job sucks. Find another one. People don’t like me or have issues, find different people to hang out with. Don’t like the city you’re in? Time to move.
This is all well and good for the most part until I was challenged in thought by a saying I came across a couple of days ago. It went something like this. “The hardest decision you will ever have to make in this life is knowing when to stay and fight for what you’ve got and knowing when to walk away”. For the most part, I always walk away…. (with the odd exception of trying to stick it out with rubbish boyfriends, in such cases I probably should have walked away). But anyway the point is, I have gotten so comfortable with walking away that my own personal challenge from here is to stay and fight for what I have and what I can gain. For the first time in my life I look at London as a long term challenge. Not somewhere to set roots for all of five minutes and then move when something goes wrong or upsets me. My challenge is to stay and fight for what I can build. My challenge is to create a life for myself.
So here I go… I’m in my last week here in Calgary and I face the ever difficult and horrid task of saying goodbye to people I know and have come to love. I face the notion that I am leaving my safety blanket of Canada. One that I have lived in on and off for over five years and that has challenged me immensely for the good and the bad. And most of all, I walk away from who I am now as a person and I start again in a way that is more tantamount to the person that I want to be.
It is time to tackle a meaningful job in which I can change the lives of young people. It is time to develop stronger relationships with the many amazing people I have in London that I am proud to call my friends. It is time to develop new relationships with work colleagues, new friends and even maybe a romance or two. Most of all, it is time to soften and be less hard and more approachable as a person. It is time to find my way in a world that is more real than the bubble of travellers’ life. Because if I constantly run and don’t fight to stay for anything, I will miss out on some of the best things in life. If I don’t open myself up and let the love, the disappointments, the excitement and the whole spectrum of the emotions of living into my core, then I will never have anything real or anything worth keeping.
I arrived in Vancouver approximately ten days ago really flat and a huge part of my turn around has been all of the pianos that I have found from one end of the city to the other. The Keys To The Streets program has been running for the last two summers in Vancouver and has bought much joy to the locals, myself included.
The first I saw of this was when my friend took me to a park in Coquitlam and there was a piano on the dock for people to play. Small children gathered around and thumped on it gleefully. I sat down and played a couple of songs and then was on my way. This was the first time I had sat down and played at a piano in many years given that they are not very portable for travel. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the piano. While I love my ukulele, there is something within my soul that awakens when I sit at a piano and I play and sing.
Science Centre Piano
So when I got to Vancouver and found my first piano in Chinatown I was super excited. I sat down and started to play a few songs and felt immediately calm and happy. People crowded around from the surrounding businesses and stopped along the street to watch me play and for the first time in a long time I felt the performer within me coming back. And thus began my quest of the ‘pianocrawl’.
Piano along the river walk. It got wet one day in the rain and the keys expanded and got stuck. After a couple of hot days it was back to normal
Along more of my walks, I found a piano at the Science Centre, a piano along the river front and one underneath the Cambie Street Bridge. This piano was my favourite and the best sounding by far. While sitting along the waterfront, I observed some of the most amazing musicians sit down and play this piano. From classically trained pianists, to jazz pianists…. there were some amazing talents. Not only was I fortunate enough to witness some of the magic, but I was also granted the ability to play music with some of them.
My favourite piano under the Cambie Street Bridge. Many an awesome musician was seen playing this piano, even in bands.
The first time this happened for me, I was playing for a while and when I was done a guy asked if I wanted to jam. He was a piano player and we tried to figure out what songs we both knew and harmonized and ad libbed things. It was a whole lot of fun and I remembered how much I loved jamming with other musicians.
The second day this happened, a group rocked down to the waterfront to use the piano with their other instruments. While they were getting things organized, I played a couple of tunes with the drummer and double bass player. People crowded around and were excited about the music in their streets. When they were ready, I relinquished up the piano to one of the best jazz pianists I have ever seen sit down and play music with the band. I sat and listened happily. The music had gotten into my body and my soul and I felt alive.
Sitting under the Cambie Street Bridge playing the piano.
Over the course of the week I was in Vancouver, every time I walked past a piano, I sat and played it. I played five pianos in total and I made videos of many different songs that I have played. You can find them on my Facebook music page at following link. There will be more uploaded over the coming weeks.
This whole activity has inspired me to find a band and start working again as a musician in the coming months when I have settled into my new life. It has also inspired me to start writing more music again. For more updates, join and follow along with the music Facebook page, otherwise I am sure there will be more updates coming about through the blog when it starts. To check out some more of what is happening in Vancouver check out the hashtag, #keys2streets. There have been some incredible musicians recorded around the city!
Post my little hospital visit in Nepal, I developed a secondary infection. One that would see my time in India being very uncomfortable for the first couple of weeks. I thought that the medication that I was on for it would do the trick. Unfortunately for me the infection didn’t go and what was left made me sicker and sicker and eventually I left Pushkar in a taxi bound for a doctor in Jaipur.
When I arrived I had high fever again and they made me go through different tests to identify the type of bacteria causing my infection and what antibiotics it was resistant to. While I waited for these tests to come back for two days they put me on a series of medications to manage my symptoms and I spent two days in bed watching Bollywood sitcoms and drama shows in Hindi that I didn’t understand.
Hospital gowns… my most prominent Asian attire.
The day I went back to the doctor I sat in wait for the results. As he hands me the sheet of paper with the results, I nearly cried. Of the fifteen different antibiotics that they had run this bacteria against, only three of them worked. My infection was resistant to twelve different classes of antibiotics. As someone who has studied science, microbiology and chemistry, I understood the severity of this.
Of the three different types of antibiotics that they gave me, the one that showed the most efficacy was amikacin…. an injection to be taken every 12 hours for five days. The doctor says to me “so how long are you going to be around for? You will need to be injected by a nurse”. Me being me and stubborn as hell, I said to him “I leave tomorrow. I will give them to myself. Teach me.”
The giant pile of drugs and injections they sent me home with.
Both the doctor and the nurse stood there dumbfounded because they weren’t sure whether I could do it or not. They demonstrated where I had to inject myself into the buttocks and I dug the needle in and pressed down on the plunger. Too easy. “OK, they said, you seem to know what you are doing, here is your bunch of needles and all of the other pills you will need to take for the next week or so. Good luck!”
I left the doctors office, got into a cab and went back to the hotel where I was met by my tour leader in the lobby. I started to cry for all of the thirty seconds that I allowed myself before telling myself I need to pull my shit together and get about it. There is nothing else I can do about it other than just suck it up and deal with it.
That night I didn’t sleep well. Nor did I sleep well any other night for the whole five nights that this went on. I dreamt of needles. I had anxiety about not doing it properly and my ever growing bruises on my arse. The first time I gave myself an injection unsupervised by medical practitioners I was freaking out. But I did it. I got up and I got on the bus and I went to Bharatpur.
On the third day of having needles I still wasn’ feeling too bad. My symptoms had started to disappear and I was feeling better. It was my day to go to the Taj Mahal. So slowly but surely, I went. I got dressed up in a sari, I did my hair and make up and I went to the Taj Mahal. It was a great experience and I am so happy and lucky that I got to go. Everybody keeps telling me I look so happy and healthy in the pictures. Pictures for the most part lie. I felt happy, but also very weak and very sore. My time at the Taj was cut short by my needle schedule and I had to depart to go back to the hotel to take my fifth needle.
Looking apparently healthy at the Taj Mahal.
The following day after needle six, I was suffering big time. I could barely walk without pain. I had giant bruising on either side of my butt and it became almost impossible to manage. From here we had to leave however and go to Varanasi on the train. This was one of the worst times that I had with needles.
Because of my soreness, they put me in a side berth on the bottom bunk overnight. Many of the Indian locals however found it quite OK to use my hips as bag holders at 2 am when they were getting off the train or to lean over me and put their hands on my hips or knock me as the night went on. The amount of times I cried out in pain and started yelling at people I couldn’t count. And of course they had no idea what was going on and I couldn’t explain as I didn’t speak Hindi.
The morning bought with it a new challenge. Trying to give myself a needle on the train. As the train slowed to a stop, my friend climbed down off the top berth and helped me alcohol wipe down my skin and hands and take the medication into the barrel of the syringe. Whilst she grabbed a chunk of my flesh, I plunged the needle in and started to inject as the train started moving and we had to finish the injection while taking off. We were half concealed by a makeshift curtain sheet that I tied up that didn’t really cover very much and the men on the train sat staring as my butt hung half way out of my pants, but when it is your life and your health on the line, you kind of stop caring. We survived the train needle, needle number eight and we were on our way to the finish line.
My next needle was on the floor of a silk shop in Varanasi. We were visiting there to learn about how to identify real silk from fake ones. Three girls held up a cashmere blanket curtain and I injected myself again with help in style from behind the blanket. The whole thing had become oddly funny. Instead of scheduling my activities around my needles, my needles had just become a part of my activities.
My last needle was the following morning. Never before had I been so happy to not have to deal with anything anymore in my life. I was happy that I could finally rest without having to inject on to bruise after bruise after bruise.
My left buttocks by day 3.
Upon arrival back in Delhi three days later I went to the hospital to get a check up. After x-rays, ultrasounds, blood work, urine samples and the entire works, I left the hospital and went to the hotel to await the results. Two days later they arrived. For the first time in over a month and I half I was infection free. My body had been put through absolute hell and I was tired. I didn’t care too much about being in India even. I wanted somewhere to sleep and rest. I wanted to eat a giant steak to get some protein back into my body to heal my bruised and weary muscles. I wanted so much to not be on the road. But despite all of this, I was incredibly thankful for the amazing doctors in India for figuring it out and dealing with it so thoroughly. And I was incredibly happy to be alive. There is nothing like a near death experience in Nepal followed by severe antibiotic resistant secondary infections to scare the shit out of you. From here on in, I look after myself every day the best I can and am thankful for my health being so good ordinarily.
For the longest of times I have wanted to go to Calgary Stampede. 4 years ago I ran out of money and had to stop and get a job. 2 years ago I didn’t get my relocate a car in time to get to Calgary from Toronto. But this year I arrived a month early, scored myself a job at the Stampede on the Bell Adrenaline Ranch station and a free pass daily to go with it. Even better, I also scored a job managing the backpackers hostel right over the road from the Stampede Grounds. And so the 12 days of ridiculousness was to begin.
I took one for the team over the first weekend working the night shift at the hostel on the Friday and Saturday night. The Sunday however was to be my first experience of Stampede.
At 6:30am my friend and I awoke to go to Stampede to work for two hours dressed in a sheep costume as Shaun the Sheep and his cute little baby, Timmy. I of course being the shorter of us had to be Timmy the fat baby. We stood in the grand stand and danced and had our pictures taken with a bunch of kids. Some kids pulled Shaun’s tail, one kid ran around hitting my belly and his parents wouldn’t control him. So I may have accidentally head butted him. Tehehe….. It is not like I can see out of the costume anyway. It was eventually time to go and we are tearing down the corridor pretty much blind in the suit while people grab at us for photos. We eventually got out of the hot suits and went home for a nap before the real fun began.
On break time in my Timmy the Sheep outfit.
In the afternoon we began drinking sangria at the house before heading over to go proper stampeding. The atmosphere hitting the gates was great and we made our way first to the mini donut stand. A rookie error on my behalf as it was to start my obsession over the next week with mini donuts. Equipped with food, we headed off to the bar to hang out for a while and grab a few drinks before catching Vance Joy playing at the Coca Cola stage.
Mmm. … mini donuts!
Vance Joy was awesome. We danced, we screamed and jumped up and down. It was awesome. At one point trying to get out of the crowd to a toilet I jumped a fence into a restricted area and then got thrown out over an even bigger fence. It’s a wonder that I didn’t fall on my face to be honest.
Hanging with the girls at Vance Joy
Back to the B Bar it was for more drinks, watching people ride the mechanical bull and dancing on the tables to the Spice Girls before getting kicked off them. Fireworks ended off the evening and it was down the road to the pub.
Monday was a struggle. After a massive detox session it was back to work and doing the double shifts on Tuesday. It was my first day in the evening working on the Bell Adrenaline Ranch with the Cannon Lady and the boys from Keith Sayers doing the Evolution of Extreme motocross show. I was super impressed actually. These guys do some crazy stuff on their bikes.
One of the motocross guys doing a massive aerial jump. Too cool for school.
Wednesday was some more of the same except the wind got up and the shows got cancelled so I got to.go and see the Corral Show of acrobatics and explore around the BMO Centre getting fed donuts and whipped cream from guys we didn’t know and hanging about in the massage chairs. A cruisy day indeed.
Calgary Stampede
On Friday I had my first proper day off work and so I went to go and see the rodeo show. I watched the calf roping, bucking horse, bull riding and the girls.barrel races. It was pretty good. I sat next to a new couple I met there and they explained different things to me and we had a great time judging points.
The rodeo in the main Grandstand.
It was the last of my stampede experiences. And I was glad to have gotten to experience it from so many different angles. Another thing to tick off the bucket list. Done and dusted and ready to set out for the next adventure!
I was sitting on a rooftop overlooking the lake in Udaipur when the word came in. “Tell your families you are safe and do it now. There has been a massive earthquake in Nepal and Kathmandu is severely damaged”. I started panicking. My close friend who I had trekked with a bit over two weeks before on Everest Basecamp was still in Kathmandu. She had messaged me the day before saying her bus nearly got ran off the road by a gravel truck and how much of a close call it was. It wasn’t to be the last of the close calls. I was talking to her about fifteen minutes before the earthquake had struck. I didn’t know where she was, if she was alive, injured or whatever. All I knew was an approximate location.
The Zen Bed and Breakfast where I stayed in Nepal and where my friend was staying during the earthquake. This alleyway caved in and there were cracks in the concrete through the walls of the Zen.
For days we worried. Me, her family, my tour leader who grew up in Nepal. We worried. And we waited. Eventually news came through that my friend was fine, but as word came through about this, it came through that my tour leader had lost two of his friends. It was an devastating time. We had no idea of what it was that we could do to help and yet we wanted to help.
Patan Durbar Square. The building on the left was a giant pile of bricks by the end of the earthquake. Incredibly sad that such a beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site was so badly damaged and destroyed.
The Nepali government even now is still very disorganized. While I was there they had a traffic strike over their constitution as they haven’t managed to come to an agreement about it. Coordination efforts for delivering emergency supplies were halted severely by the lack of organization of the government. In such disastrous circumstances coordination is one of the most necessary aspects of getting relief to where it is most needed. It is no use having funds and supplies if they just can’t get to where they are needed. And this was very much the case. Half cooked rations of rice were handed out and no water to many of people of Kathmandu. Charity organizations did the best they could in the circumstances. My friend worked for a few weeks building huts and distributing supplies in villages. But even then this didn’t seem enough.
With my new friends after finishing our attempt at the Annapurna Circuit. I am so thankful they are still with us. These local boys are amazing people!
Locals started messaging their friends through Facebook and any means necessary in an attempt to get money for families and rebuilding villages. Many foreigners had their own fundraisers and took the money to Nepal themselves to distribute funding. While many of the people mean well and do the right thing with their money, you never quite know where it is that it is going. It is a tough thing to have faith that your money won’t be hoarded by the rich and organizations and not given back to those that are most in need.
The Pathuputinash. The place where the Hindi people of Nepal cremate and bury their dead in the river that leads into the Ganges.
I feel a massive compulsion to go back. As does my friend and so many others I know that I have been there. My support can go back in the form of hiking and partaking in activities and accommodations within the mountains. The best thing we can do in times like these is help provide support by travelling there and supporting business while they rebuild. I know then where my money goes. I also know that I can spread it around and share it so that it all isn’t going to one place or the deep pockets of those that don’t need it. It is a sad thing that in the biggest times of need for most, many take the opportunity to capitalize. It is always the case in moments of war and natural disaster.
Cashmere scarves I bought at SK Handicrafts in Kathmandu from my friend Keshab.
So three months on…. The country is still strained. Things are still far from normal. Some villages still struggle to rebuild. And in the grand scheme of things, most people have moved on and forgotten. But to my friends in Nepal who still live with this everyday I am in awe of your bravery. To those who stay and help, I am in awe of your heart and compassion. My health was facing serious issues at the time and I could not have been a help at the time. But I will get back there soon. And hopefully I can make a difference in a community of people who even before this tragedy showed me great heart and kindness. To one of the most amazing countries I have ever visited, I am still with you Nepal. For now in spirit, but hopefully soon in body too.
“The mountain always wins. You never win. Occasionally it just decides to let you through.”
With all that has been going on in Nepal in the last month, it has been an emotional time for many, including me. I have worried and feared for friends that were in Kathmandu, I have seen other friends of mine lose loved ones. It has taken a huge toll on many. While for myself, for those who didn’t know, I was evacuated out of Dingbouche on the way to Everest Basecamp with pneumonia and acute pulmonary edema. I was incredibly lucky to be in a place where I could be evacuated or otherwise I could have died. After my stint in the hospital I met someone also evacuated and he said to me ‘the mountain always wins. You never win. Occasionally it just decides to let you through’. This has resonated with me for a while considering the incredible misfortune people have been suffering in Nepal during the earthquakes. It has given me time to reflect on my own trek while I was there before everything went sour for me. The following is the first 8 days of my trek to Everest Basecamp.
Pre-Trip
We didn’t start on the best of notes. The day before we were due to leave I came back to find my friend on the bathroom floor dying of a chest infection. I went to the pharmacy, bought her the best antibiotics I could get my hands on and then fed her paracetamol to lower her fever while I sat in the bathroom with her with hot water steaming out the bathroom while I rubbed tigerbalm on her back and tried to pound some of the crap out of her chest.
The following day, despite still being a total mess we got up and went to the airport as a group to get our flight to Lukla. But there was a thick fog over Kathmandu that day and our flight was delayed until the fog lifted. We sat in the airport for four hours before they said the fog had lifted enough for us to leave. We got onto the bus that took us out to the tarmac to wait for our plane only to be turned around and told that we had had our flight cancelled due to bad weather in Lukla. It was somewhat a blessing in disguise. We got to go home and rest for another day.
Day 1- Kathmandu to Lukla, Lukla to Phakding
Better luck than the day before and the skies were crystal clear and we managed to take our flight to Lukla. We were told that the best kinds of views are seen from the window on the left side of the plane so we rushed our way in to get prime seats. I had never seen anything more spectacular in my life than the view of the mountains as I excitedly flew next to the Himalayas on my way to Lukla.
The scenic flight from Kathmandu to Lukla with amazing views of the Himilayas.
Before I knew it we were approaching the runway which is pretty much a strip that runs on an incline uphill from a sheer drop at the beginning of a cliff, to a cliff wall at the other end. I could see how it had gained the reputation as being one of the most dangerous airports in the world.
The airport runway in Lukla. Cliff drop on one end, cliff face on the other.
After eating lunch, it was time to start on our way towards Phakding, our first destination for the evening. It was a relatively flat and easy walk and along the way I met the most adorable boy who was drawing with permanent markers. He drew a watch on my wrist with red permanent marker to match his watch that he was wearing and for the rest of the trip I wore that red watch until it eventually rubbed off. Every time I looked at it, it made me smile.
My new friend drawing me a wrist watch in red permanent marker so I can always tell mountain time.
We arrived in Phakding and checked into our tea house. After dinner it was time for a rest. It had been a long day.
Day 2 – Phakding to Namche Bazaar
It was the first day of solid hiking and as my friend was still not feeling a hundred percent it was a slow day. The views as we progressed along the trail became more and more spectacular as the day progressed. For lunch we stopped in a village where there was a small boy who was believed to have been reincarnated from one of the elderly men in the village down the way. He apparently can tell you who his mother was and other family members from his previous life. Incredible story.
The young boy was reincarnated from the older man on the left.
As we continued on, we arrived at the foot of the town of Namche Bazaar, the town that was later to be the epicentre of the second massive earthquake within the region. We were staying near the top and it was starting to get dark. It was a long slog up giant staircases but we eventually made it. The night was spent hanging by the fire and playing Monopoly (in which I behaved like a five year old competitive child and won everybody else’s money and properties).
Giant bridge crossing in massive winds across a canyon.
Day 3 – Day hike to the Everest View Lodge
Acclimatization day number one. We started in the morning in decent enough weather on the climb up to the Everest View lodge. About half way up it started snowing and the weather turned and became freezing. Eventually we made it to the top and sat in the lodge drinking tea and soup, somewhat disappointed that our first ever view of Everest was not going to happen due to the haze covering all of the views. It did have a very eerie and cool feeling to it though.
The town of Namche Bazaar.
On the way back down we got lost as there was so much snow we couldn’t see the path. At one point we went the wrong way and then had to back track. I fell over in a super muddy patch and got my pants incredibly dirty and yet still laughed the whole way. It was a great day and I was settling well into the routine.
A wild yak on the mountain on its way down in the snow.
Day 4 – Namche Bazaar to Debouche
I woke up not feeling the best. I was starting to cough a little and my lungs were starting to hurt. We walked the first part on the flat and for the first time I laid my eyes on Everest. She popped her top out from behind a bunch of other mountains. As far away as she was, she was daunting and beautiful. We sent our porter ahead to buy some boiled eggs from a local place and we ate those as a snack before the hard work began… the massive uphill climb to Tengbouche.
Stunning views from the trail after my first view of Everest.
I struggled. But I kept on going at my own pace with my earphones in and I actually made decent time. At the top I was fairly spent and we tried to go to the Tengbouche monastery but it was not open. I had a rest on the stairs out the front and then made my way down the hill another twenty minutes to Debouche where we sat around by the fire, drank lots of tea and went to bed early.
The monastery at Tengbouche.
Day 5 – Debouche to Dingbouche
I woke up feeling great. The rest had done me good from the day before as had the cold and flu tablets I took to try and kick my symptoms overnight. The hike for the most part of the day was fairly flat along the edge of the mountain ridge towards the holy grail of mountains. Towards the end it was getting very windy and two of my group members started to feel unwell. One of them started vomiting. The altitude was kicking in
One of the most incredible views I have ever seen in my life.
Eventually we arrived in camp at Dingbouche and got settled in. I bossed the others into drinking heaps of water and got the nurse from the volunteer medical centre to check them over. They both were diagnosed with moderate altitude sickness. I had a test myself and my oxygen levels were normal. My heart rate was getting pretty high though and was 124. I assumed this was somewhat normal for me as I have high resting heart rate anyway. I took a couple of photos on extended shutter of the mountains in the dark and went to bed.
Stunning moonlight views from Dingbouche.
Day 6 – Dingbouche Day hike
Up early and time to do the acclimatization hike. I was feeling good until I started and as soon as I started uphill I started feeling the effects of the altitude. Breathing was harder. I felt so ridiculously fatigued I didn’t know if I was going to make the top of the hill at 4700m. I kept plugging away at it slowly, determined. I knew that if I couldn’t make this I couldn’t make basecamp and I was determined to do it. I watched everyone else sail up the hill past me and felt rubbish about it. I eventually got there. I sat for half an hour resting and looked out over the most spectacular views. Then I started my descent.
Completely spent and enjoying the views from 4700m, the highest point I would reach during the hike.
Once I got back to the teahouse I sat with two minus twenty sleeping bags on trying to get warm drinking a 2 litre thermos of hot lemon. I tried to read my book and couldn’t concentrate. I still felt incredibly fatigued and was trying to stay awake for the afternoon and do what I needed to to ward off altitude sickness. Eventually I caved, ate dinner and went to bed.
Day 7 – Getting evacuated from Dingbouche to Kathmandu hospital
At one in the morning I awoke to severe coughing with the realization that I was coughing up handfuls of water. High altitude pulmonary odema had set in and I knew I was in a very serious situation. After a night of trying to be calm and conserve oxygen we sent for the helicopter and they evacuated me back to the hospital in Kathmandu. The dream of getting to Everest basecamp this trip had died. But I knew I would be back to finish what I started at some point later, because I hate not finishing what I started.
If you haven’t read already, check out my blog post “This Week I Almost Died” for a more detailed account of what happened when I got evacuated off of Everest Basecamp trek.
Despite only being a whirlwind five days in Scotland, I spent most of it sitting in my friend Paul’s kitchen drinking wine and eating cheese or painting sunsets terribly in the studio drunk on wine. I did however do the odd museum tour and in the grand scheme of me and learning, I learned quite a few odd and interesting things.
SirRoger
Sir Roger is a famous Glaswegian elephant who went on heat, got a bit violent and then they were forced to shoot him in the head. In the awesome tradition of not letting go of things we love, Sir Roger was then stuffed by a taxidermist, preserved in arsenic and formaldehyde and put on show in the Kelvingrove Museum (ps. Kelvin as in the man who did the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature… science nerds rejoice!)
The famous Sir Roger complete with broken trunk and bullet hole.
Sir Roger of course is a children’s delight. So many of them can’t resist touching him all the time and one child accidentally snapped off his trunk….. so then they glued it back on. Poor Roger.
Christ Of Saint John Of The Cross
This famous painting by Salvador Dali is also now housed in the Kelvingrove. Once upon a time a few moons ago, some crackpot who thought he was Jesus decided that he didn’t like the portrayal of himself within the painting. Of course the only acceptable way of dealing with such an offensive representation is to go to the museum and throw a brick through the painting. If you look closely you can see where the painting went through repairs.
The famous Salvador Dali painting equipped with square rip from the offended real Jesus’ brick.
This, however was not deemed enough by another group of crackpots who went to the museum and shot bullets at the painting with a gun. Jokes on them though, the Dali is now housed in bulletproof glass. Epic fail.
McDonald’s Is Technologically Apt
So I wander drunk into a Maccas at midnight and have a massive flip out when I discover that not only can you order your food on a giant touch screen before you get to the counter, but once you have your drunken cheeseburger and fries, you can sit and play angry birds and other cool games on a touch screen computer. You can also do some Facebooking if you feel so inclined…. what is this socially antisocial world coming to?
Drunken cheeseburger and Facebook in the upscale McDonald’s.
Painting
I was fortunate enough to be able to spend my time with two exceptionally talented brothers that are painters while I was in Glasgow. This opened my world to art galleries and exhibitions I would not otherwise have experienced. It also allowed me one afternoon to sit and paint with a canvas. I learned firstly that drunken finger painting is fun. Secondly I learned to look at things in a context of colors and shadows more. It is incredible to sit and watch my friend Paul paint and to watch his brain process where colors and paints go. Awesome 🙂
My glorious painting. Now an exceptional masterpiece on a bathroom wall for hilarity’s sake
GOMA Statue And The Traffic Cone
Glaswegians have such a good sense of humour that a traffic cone constantly lives on the head or some other part of the statue outside of GOMA. Apparently the council will remove it but someone always climbs right back up there to deposit yet another traffic cone in its rightful place, statue head.
The GOMA Statue and it’s glorious traffic cone hat
Glaswegians Kick Arse And Balls
Once upon a time in Glasgow at the airport there was an attempted terrorist attack. A few guys decided it would be a good idea to fill a Jeep with some fuel canisters and set it on fire whilst driving it into the front doors of the airport. The guys in the Jeep got out and were tackled by some locals. One awesome Glaswegian kicked a guy in the balls so hard he broke his foot. Local hero! And now you can’t approach the front door of the airport by car, you get dropped off a hundred meters back from the entrance.
For those of us who travel quite a lot and like to be prepared by carrying everything that we may need on our trip, the frequent pain of excess luggage in airports always manages to crop its ugly head. And as airlines are getting progressively more frugal with what it is that they allow you to travel with, the cutting down of things becomes harder and harder. Sure you can buy everything you need when you get there, but then you are going to have to wind up throwing it all away and then buying new stuff when you get to the next destination. The added cost of doing this can be painful. So here are a few tips and tricks from someone who not only loathes airports, but also loves to get through them cheekily carrying more than she should.
Where They Check Luggage Weights
There are two places they check luggage, at the front desk when you are claiming your ticket and checking your bags on, and at the gate before you embark on the plane. Sometimes in foreign countries I have seen luggage weights be checked before you enter the security area. So it is best to hide your weight best as you can before you walk through the airport door and leave it there until you get to the security checkpoint. Once through security, chuck the stuff back in your bag for a while for a bit of comfort and then make sure you resume original position of hidden goods when you get to the gate if they look like they are checking peoples luggage weights.
Be Nice To The People Working Behind Check In
I was told once that you catch more bees with honey. And is indeed true for excess luggage at airports. One time I got super mad because I was five kilos over and willing to pay for it but they told me I could not take another bag or pay the excess. I was tired, shitty and generally grumpy. It certainly didn’t get me anywhere except for throwing all of my clothes in the rubbish bin. The woman behind the counter was a bitch and I certainly didn’t help things. So where possible, find a counter with a person of the opposite sex, be happy, jovial and polite and flirt. Sometimes they will let you off with being a couple of kilos over. If this doesn’t work, then it is time to hide some stuff. It is quite difficult to hide luggage in your check in as that goes on a scale and that is as it is. But on your body and in your carry on is where you will get away with your weight. As I will explain in this glorious section of carry on luggage.
Carry On Luggage
Gone are the days of 10kg of carry-on luggage. Majority of the airlines now have opted to move this down to 7 kg. So what that pretty much means is put a small notebook computer and a charger for it in a backpack and you are only a couple of kilograms off your weight limit. So here is my advice for excess in carry-on luggage.
Items you are wearing do not count as a part of your weight limit
The amount of people I have seen going through airports looking like the abominable snowman dressed in all of their clothes is hilarious. Massive puffer jackets going out of tropical countries is indeed laughable but for the most part, your clothes won’t weigh more than a couple of hundred grams each item unless you are taking a massively heavy item of clothing. So in this case I suggest wearing the heaviest shoes that you own (for me that is often hiking boots or snow boots) and wearing clothing that is comfortable and loose but has a stack of pockets. This will help with phase 2.
Items in your pockets are also not attributed to your weight limit
Anything that is heavy and small goes in the pockets. I am talking about phones, point and shoot cameras, money (especially coins), and other electronic gadgets that might be fairly weighty. Your friends here in this endeavour are the money belt around the weight and around the neck. While these are supposed to be ‘concealed’ while travelling for safety, I usually wear something stupidly baggy and put my money belt stacked with my passport, all coins, phone and ipod in there if I need to get luggage down. I carried my water purifier in my pocket as that weighs quite a bit too (oddly it is shaped like a dildo and I get quite strange looks from people with regards to what this is… quite humorous).
Keep books and water in your hands as books can often be weighty and nobody thinks twice about telling you to put a book in your bag to weigh it as it is seen as something you are using to pass the time. If worse comes to worse, hide heavy books in your jacket pockets or in your pants.
One time when I was travelling in Warsaw, Poland with Ryan air I was concerned about my carry on weight limit. So after I got through security, I put my laptop computer down the back of my pants underneath my giant winter puffer jacket (which didn’t look so odd given that it was -16 degrees Celsius at the time) and got away with it. Automatic 2-3kg loss out of my luggage. They will never check your weight at security screening, only usually at the front counter and before you get on the plane at the gate.
Look Like You Aren’t Carrying Much
Most people get these exact to size carry on suitcases and jam them full of stuff. Nothing says ‘check me I am heavy’ like a jam packed carry on suitcase. I on the other hand prefer to travel with a smaller 40L backpack. I fill it up with a stack of heavy items that are small and dense and then compress the bag down so it looks like I am only carrying half of the bags capacity. This looks to people like you wouldn’t really be carrying excess because you didn’t bother to fill the bag up. You still have more space right?
Sometimes I have gone through with around 15kg in my carry on backpack and as I am strong and can pick the bag up and make it look effortless nobody asks questions. Which leads me to the next aspect. When you pick up your bag, make a conscious note to not look like you are struggling with it. If you look like it is heavy when you are picking it up then it will be seen to be heavy to others.
In some countries this is easier to get away with than others. In places like Indonesia where the women are not very strong and don’t do very much exercise in many parts, the men will look at you carrying a backpack and assume that because you are a woman you aren’t very strong and as such the bag couldn’t be more than 7kg. I was literally the only person in this cue that wasn’t stopped and I was sure it was because I was a woman with a backpack and not with a wheely suitcase.
Prepare What You May Need To Hide, Part With Or Pay If You Get Caught
Last but not least. If you run the risk of getting caught, make sure you are either willing to pay for or part with what you have packed in your carry on if you are over. That means like I said before, cameras, passports, wallets and phones in pockets. I usually carry my less than 100mL foundation in a glass bottle in carry on as it is heavy and if I have to part with it so be it. Books usually go in the carry on, if I have to leave them for someone else then again so be it. And I usually pack some crap clothes I would be happy to part with in there too. But, if you aren’t willing to part with things, make sure you have another jacket with deep pockets and get stuffing your things in there.
Happy travelling! And may the odds forever be in your favour at airport check in and security!
After spending such a large amount of time sick while I was travelling around Asia (of which there are more stories to come, I just haven’t gotten around to writing them down yet) I was done with it. Never before had I wanted the Western comforts of home more. And by Western comforts I am not talking about things like mummy and daddy and a room to myself as much as I love these things. But my first request getting off the plane was steak. Lots of steak. And brie cheese… my Achilles heel.
I arrived at the airport only to have a dispute with the arsehole immigration officer who seemed to be concerned that as teacher I was going to attempt to work in the UK for the all of 2 weeks I am here with adequate funds and my old Canadian visa and onward ticket. In true Dano fashion I said to him “seriously? Your country would sponsor me to come here and work and get paid as a teacher. If I wanted a work visa I’d have one already and you’d organize it for me. I’m her for two weeks to buy bras, eat steak and visit friends before working jobs I have lined up in Canada! Why would I lie?” He let me through. I am pretty sure he was just having an arsehole day. I wanted to tell him if the wind changed his face would stay looking like an arsehole but thought better of it, grabbed my passport and ran.
After a ten minute interrogation, finally got my passport stamped!
So I got out of the customs area and am looking for signs of subway when I hear this familiar high pitched screaming “THOMAS!!!” At which point I am then throwing myself at my friend Tash with the railing in the way and there is screaming and crying for a 3 year reunion. At which point I then got annoyed with the barrier railing and knelt down to crawl through it with my pack still on and people staring at me while I tell her this immigration arsehole nearly wouldn’t let me in the country. She says to me “only you would make me laugh so hard being too lazy to walk around the rail and have a complaint come out of your mouth as the first words spoken… I love you!”
After getting back to her house we had a think… couldn’t figure out where to get the best steak ever but the place down the road does the best ever BBQ meat platters and I am all in! Brisket, baby back ribs, spare ribs, pulled pork… more meat than you could poke a stick at and more than two of us could eat in one sitting and being such a precious commodity, I wrapped the rest of that meat up and took it home for breakfast.
My first meal… hordes of meat, coleslaw and sweet potato fries…. mmm… meat….
Protein was one of the many things I missed in Asia. Especially through Nepal and India, after the stress on the body from the pneumonia and secondary infections and then having to give myself intramuscular injections twice daily (a hilarious and not so hilarious story to come later – watch out for “Adventures With Needles”), I lost a lot of muscles and damaged muscle tissue. I needed protein to heal and protein in Asia is a measly scrap of chicken on a bone in a pile of curry sauce. And vitamins! I was tired, lethargic and felt shitty a lot of the time from diet. But here I was, munching down on meat and Sainsbury vitamin pills for every meal in England and became a force to be reckoned with. That force wound up in Marks and Spencers shopping for bras…. something I no longer owned and yet deemed necessary in this society.
Protein shakes and vitamin pills. A woman’s guide to returning to normal health.
I will say this. I have a ginormous fondness for bras. When I was a teenager the only ones that fit me were horrendous grandma-type looking bras with inch thick straps and material that sat up near my collar bones. As fashion started to compensate for those of us well endowed, my love of pretty bras began. And so continued in M&S as I spent 2 hours in there trying to figure out what size I was now and what they have in my size and then pretty much trying on one of everything they had in my size. Plus matching undies because those were also novel in the unattractive teenage days. The ladies that worked in there stared at me for a long while trying to figure out who the disheveled looking woman in their store trying everything on was. I explained to them “I have been in India, all of my clothes smell and have holes in them, this crop top I am wearing is the only bra I own. I don’t know what size I am anymore”. It was like a state of emergency. They were both horrified and excited and helped me out and by the time I left I was quite a debt on the credit card and super happy with my giant bag of bras hanging off the arm down the street.
Piles and piles on non granny bras 🙂 Ecstatic!!
So off to Primark. For those not English or unfamiliar, Primark is considered cheap and daggy, kind of like the Australian K-Mart and the North American Walmart but done up in a classier way and heaps cheaper. I headed here for basic tank tops, long sleeved tops and t-shirts. And then wound up with shorts, boob tubes, hoodies, bikinis, socks, underpants, leggings and the rest. Another couple of hours later and I emerge from Primark swallowed underneath piles of bags I can barely carry and with waaayyyy too much stuff. My friend Tash says to me “but you deserve it! You haven’t bought things for yourself in a very long time! And you need it! And…. you don’t smell like India anymore thank fuck!”
Just a few of the clothes and shoes I accumulated….
The next days were a hunt for shoes, jeans and accessories. I pretty much bore me new wardrobe in the first 3 days of being in London and then the guilt set in. These clothes were too pretty and nice for me to wear. I am a bum. I wear clothes with holes in them. Looking nice feels weird. What if I trash these nice clothes….. ugh…. people are obviously staring at me because I look so strangely normal now…. and so the readjustment continues…
After a couple of days I started getting used to it. My largest concern now is how to get all of this junk I have to Canada after going out of control. I can check an excess bag but after my adventures of getting it to Glascow on the all too familiar sleeper bus I am pretty excited about my next stop being my last stop for a while. Bring on more work and a bit of normality. Oh and more steak. Mmm…. steak….
Thomas Takes On.... 