Rowdy Roadie

Rowdy Roadie

So there I was on Koh Tao sitting at Maya Beach Club enjoying a sunset on New Years Eve thinking what a Rowdy Roadie year it has been. It all began in Alaska getting a new passport and finalizing the house for sale before stepping back out on that elusive path into the unknown. I met a lot of traveling friends and even more acquaintances this year and I can’t count the number of pictures I took. I managed to finish a book that is now in its final stages of pre-publishing, The Women of Cho’ should be out soon.

In the process I managed to cross the globe from Alaska to Ireland, the long way round. And again, I can’t pin down the best pictures but I’m going to give it a try in this recap. Starting off in Alaska where I still have a voting card and a P.O. box I went to California to visit my hometown, Mill Valley, where I grew up and saw a few friends before flying off to South Korea.

I still had a little research verification to do for the manuscript so South Korea was an important stop over visit on my wayward path. I spent a few weeks in Seoul hopping from some of the Palaces to museums and ancestral shrines for the dead among others. I taught English in South Korea many moons ago and that is actually what got part of the first book going and certainly kept the second book in motion and will give enough momentum for the trilogy.

I had recently picked up diving as a hobby whilst at Asia Divers Resort on Koh Tao and that sent me splashing down in such places as Borneo and Sulawesi but I wasn’t close to finished so after south Korea I flew due south-west to the Philippines where I had pre-booked some time on Sangat Island Dive Resort. I was immediately introduced to wreck diving and borrowed one of the guides go-pros so I could have a memory of it and I am still looking at the footage now that I’ve bought a go-pro myself and can now edit a little bit. The resort is one of the nicest I’ve stayed at and I will return to the Philippines to dive more probably down near Cebu. Here is a still from one of the clips. The wrecks are part the WWII fleet of Japanese boats suck by the U.S. Navy. There are also a lot of boats in Luzon Harbor to the north. I spent about ten days there and spoke with others that took a chartered sail boat from Sangat Island out to the outer reef and the stories they came back with were epic so it is a ‘MUST’ see in the future.

I ended up back in Luzon and everybody I spoke with had different places for recommended must go see. I ended up blasting through Manila and headed for Baguio, an old JI r & r spot that has grown exponentially up the mountainsides between the rice fields. I met Sigurd Hogsbro there and we still make contact every now and again. He showed me the brewery and I knew we were kindred spirits.

I flew back to Incheon, South Korea for a brief visit with the KGB Bar staff and catch an early flight to Bangkok, Thailand where I needed to pick up a visa for Nepal and fly off to Vientiane, Laos to actually sit down and finish the manuscript before heading off back to Thailand for some diving on Koh Tao just to stay in practice knowing there isn’t any diving in Nepal that I know of.

This was my first time to Nepal and boy, what a doozy; new sights, smells, earthquakes, Rhinos, Elephants, Wild Boar, deer everywhere, Crocodiles, Garials, Bison, trekking in the outback of Bardia National Park where I made some most excellent friends that I will not forget.

A Scottish friend I made in Rangoon told me to go visit a Yorkshire man living and working in Thakuduwara and partnering a trekking company called Wild Trak Adventure, www.wildtrakadventure.com. After a few days in Katmandu I flew to Nepalgunj and met Sitram and Johnny. I stayed with them for a month of trekking through the Bardia Nation Park and doing some trekking on the Babe, (phonically Ba-bay) River following tiger, bear, and leopard tracks and avoiding wild elephants en mass.

Now I can’t show every photo and some of you may have seen some of the good photos before in previous blogs so I hope I surprise you.

Returning from the jungle we felt the first earthquake and I bolted for Pokhara to see the damage and see if I could help. The damage was extensive but the supplies were not reaching the needy so I joined in with Hands Helping Hands and volunteered time and money to buy supplies and run them into the mountain areas where they were needed until Unisef and Red cross began showing up. I moved on south to Chitwan National Park to see the Rhinos there before returning to Bardia for more fun in the jungle.

 Chitwan was amazing.

Returning to Bardia was amazing.

I flew to London to get my computer fixed. Somewhere along the way the screen had shattered and it drove me crazy so I hopped a tube for the Apple store in London and they were to busy to deal with it but a lovely woman at Apple recommended another fix-it place close by. Meanwhile I did research for another book in the making as of now, among many beginnings.

I love London but boy is it expensive. I moved north by train seeing friends in Liverpool and there abouts, all people I have met on the road, mostly in Thailand be it Pai, Ton Sai, or traveling across northern Lao and down the coast of Vietnam; lovely people from all walks of life.

I spent a bit of time in Edinburgh, Inverness, Isle of Sky, and returned back to Glasgow to jump a boat for Belfast where they were still building a pyramid of pallets to be burnt in the near future. I walked that road where the British flag is on one side of me, and the Irish on the other. Not a safe place but seeing as I’m a yank and dress differently I figured I’d be safe and was safe. I had people looking after me from unseen places. Thank you boys.

A friend I met in Ton Sai grew up in Cavan and off I went to visit. This was one of the best decisions I didn’t have to make. I met a family at the other end of the world and their friends that made me feel like a long lost cousin, 3 times removed. Caroline Fay is a wonderful artist and had a painting class that I joined in. Her boy friend Rob, a part time DJ in London and a great person in general, arrived and a merry time was had by almost all. There was some late night light flickering from pops upstairs and we heeded the call for beds. I had a date with a lawn mower the next day to make up for miss-spent moments of adulthood. All went well.

Dublin was a blast just wandering around the live music pubs and watching Beck play an outdoor concert. It was a really great place to have fun before heading back to Liverpool and Manchester and south to London.

I took a train into Paris, France to be part of a movie crew but that deflated rather un-climactically but I stayed my course and took a train to Pamplona, Spain for the running of the bulls. I met two characters from Oakland, California on the train to Pamplona. We met up frequently and shared a lot of laughs; Dave is a DJ and Lee is a drummer among other things. After I had seen and had my fill I wandered up to San Sebastian and enjoyed the ocean and food for a few days. It was the end of a particular lump in my craw so from here on out nothing was intended and my mind began to wander across the globe.

But while I was on this side of the globe a quick stop in Lisbon, Portugal was mandatory due to an artist friend of mine who had painted such beautiful landscapes and life there I had to go. I took the train down the coast wanting to stop a lot more than I would allow myself but I made it to Lisbon just in time to watch a Sting concert. That was great and again just by luck. The architecture and history in Lisbon is thick and the food and growing art scene were worth every minute. I saw a bridge that looked like the Golden Gate suspension Bridge there and found out later that the same builders did them both. I saw this from a castle on top of a castle on top of a castle all buried under one another. Musical notes soared through the alleys as I wandered home.

From Lisbon I was trying to get to Sicily, Italy but the flights were so expensive I changed directions and went to Venice for a few days. Again, walking through history and the heat put me in a great mood and it was time to get on my way.

I met a friend in Sulawesi who lived in Slovenia but I missed her at the airport and then miss understood some friends in Switzerland so I didn’t go to Germany nor Poland and just high tailed it back to Paris and on to London for the return trip to some place.

(San Sebastian)

I got into Paris for two nights so I’d have time to get a ticket for London.

In London I needed a few days to get a new tourist visa for Nepal where I decided I was going to help my friends Johnny and Sitram build a new dinning hall and bring a few tools with me. Hyde Park is always calling so I spent a lot of sunset hours wandering and shooting pictures. Before I left I met up with my Scottish friend, Fergus, I met in Burma at the Strand Hotel Bar and had a few laughs with him before heading out and making a round trip.

To Be Continued

www.davidcdagley.com

Manchester, York, Newcastle

Manchester, York, Newcastle

Considering it’s summer in Europe and sort of summer in England, Scotland and Wales there are stacks of people everywhere and I rarely get to in the same hotel. The bookings are steady so do book early. I’ve stayed at the Manor House twice in Earls Court, another hotel in the Victoria station area, and the Continental Hotel in Paddington. The Continental Hotel was the cheapest and offered everything the others did but at half or less the cost. Small single rooms are at 29 pound versus 80 or more at the Manor House or others. The good thing about Paddington is that it’s near the tube station and the Heathrow Express runs straight to the airport for easy arrivals and departures without paying for a cabbie.

I took the train to Manchester to see some friends I met in Pai, Thailand. I booked a couple nights at the Mecure Hotel and then was to stay with friends for a night or two. The train takes a couple hours to get to Manchester Piccadilly station and the hotel is a short walk from the station, most of them are. There are two Ibis Hotels and a stack of older more expensive ones to choose from. Check on line for good prices. And again, always buy your train tickets at least a day in advance for a considerably cheaper rate, in many cases half the cost of same day travel.

Manchester seemed more industrial than I expected except there are a lot of empty buildings around and refurbishing and new construction remain steady. It is gentrifying in Manchester, old run down areas are becoming the places to live. Many of the old warehouses have been turned into secure flats for sale but parking remains at a premium. The old mills still have huge chimneys sticking out of them even though they have long passed their use.

Most of the buildings are red brick or light gray stone. The cool thing about Manchester lies in its canals and the pub scene being created along its banks. The old pubs in city center are a hoot being unusually small and packed. The canal scene, such as The Wharf, are great destinations on a hot weekend afternoon when the BBQ is up an running. There is a cool China town in Manchester and a few good Thai restaurants in the same area.

My friends showed me around to the circular library, the museum, and we walked the canals to get in and out of town. The canals are all locks so every so far there would be a Watergate that would be manually operated by the boat owners or their helpers. Raising water levels or lowering them take a little time but what a way to travel into the city. I was told that I could walk the canal from Manchester all the way to Liverpool and to the sea. Of course the canals were built for industry transport in the first place but most of that has gone by the way side and now there are numerous canal boats that you can hire in advance and see for yourself. It’s a slow tour so expect it to be all day or two. After a great time in Manchester I hopped another train to York.

I didn’t have a hotel in York and had to bounce around to find what I was looking for. I pulled into a guest house/hostel and it was still expensive because I’m traveling solo in a double bed room. It was better and cheaper than the Travel Lodge around the corner. It was close to the wall of the city and near the cathedral so there were many ways to get around. It is not a big town but is has a great deal of history. There are of course numerous pubs and restaurants on almost every street. I was told to go to the Trembling Madness and that was worthy. Downstairs is a spirit shop but upstairs is a proper pub with good food. I also spent time in the Evil Eye just down the road. It has a mostly Thai menu or at least Asian influence and the music is contemporary.

It was a lightly raining day when I arrived and pretty much remained that way for three days. I didn’t really have a lot set up for York considering I wasn’t really supposed to be back in England. I was supposed to be in Slovenia and Germany and Poland. Next time.

I hopped a train to Newcastle where I did have a reservation at the White House in a suburb of Newcastle, in the student area but they were all on holiday to home or the rest of Europe. I took a cab to the hotel and there I remained for three days of leisure. I ventured out a few times to see the town but I really did have some writing to do so I really just parked. The river Tyne is a sight with its many bridges, one rotates over to let boats through. I sat with a woman on the river having wine for half a day and enjoyed her world and perspective. Back at the hotel stag and hen parties are popular and big groups of men and women show up in droves because there is a bar and a restaurant and outdoor seating when the sun makes an appearance.

I decided to go to Kendal in the Lake country so I booked a ticket via Manchester with a return to Manchester. Unfortunately there was a festival on in Kendal and all hotels were booked unless I wanted to spend an arm and a leg. I retreated to Manchester and checked into an Ibis for a couple nights before heading back to London where I was scheduled to see a rave and then head off to Lands End and the Jurassic Coast. Of course all plans made have a clause at the end and simply states, maybe.

My friends were busy in Manchester so I continued to write and explore the town on my own and that suits me just fine. I meet new people that way and that is what its all about. A little more about London coming and then we are out of Europe and England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I will return when my friends invite me to weddings or there’s a book fair or something but it may be awhile. My heart and mind are elsewhere.

www.davidcdagley.com

Hpa An to Yangon

Hpa An to Yangon

Jeffrey and I took off on the same bus heading north only to meet up with a honeymooning couple from England and their father who had joined them for a short spell. The three were heading to Yangon and at this point had plans to go to a few hours out of Yangon and stay a night where a monk is supposed to have reincarnated into a snake. The snake is supposedly 4 or 5 meters and eats 20 pounds of chicken a week. I love snakes but something didn’t feel right I think it was the fact that I’d have to get an accommodation and then get back on a bus the following day. I opted for continuing on to Rangoon. (I use both Yangon and Rangoon and Burma and Myanmar interchangeably. The people may live in Myanmar but if you ask them they are Burmese and they speak Burmese.) Jeffrey wanted to go to the Golden Rock Pagoda and stay in the town below that is considerably cheaper but he would have to climb up and down the thousand plus stairs. I hope he made it. Cheers Alfred.

The three English and myself hoped in a taxi at the bus station and headed into Yangon. Shared taxi, tuk-tuk, tours, etc. is the way to go. It brings the costs down considerably. Once again I didn’t have a reservation for a guesthouse so I just cruised along for the ride into town and low and behold they were a few doors down from the Cherry Guest House where I had stayed on my arrival. It’s a challenge to find cheap accommodations and in Burma you just have to ‘Bite The Bullet’.

Two nights in Yangon would allow me enough time to set up arrangements for Mandalay and get on with it. At this point I had heard mixed reports about Mandalay; ‘dirty’, ‘nothing special’, ‘lots of garbage’, ‘just another jump off point’, that kind of comment. I don’t remember it that way at all so now I had to go see for myself. I had made arrangements to meet up with a Nepali guide that was going to give me the heads up about Nepal and some side treks other than Everest and other popular treks I want something a little more remote and the two men I met in Moulmein from Colorado had spent almost three months in Nepal and had a lot of information for me and said the same thing, ‘Get away from the over-crowded treks. There are plenty more.’ The Nepal guide got held up elsewhere and I missed him.

www.davidcdagley.com