The End

From the banana and sweet potato hills of Uganda to the banana and sweet potato hills of Papua New Guinea, my round the world adventure has come full circle. Now, at the end of it all, I am struck with an overwhelming warmness and appreciation for all the folks who gave me a place to stay and lent me a helping hand along the way. Amazingly, I have traveled for the better part of a year and rarely had to find my own accommodation. So whether I stayed with you for one night or one month, thank you so so much for your generosity. It has meant much more to me than affordability. You wonderful people have given me the reassuring comfort of kindness that sustained me all the while. And now, I am slightly obliged to extend the same courtesy to you. If you ever need a bed or a tour guide in California, or wherever I end up for that matter, I'm your man.

How about a short logistics recap on the trip. It all started in August of 2008 with Engineers Without Borders in the village of Nkokonjeru, Uganda. We partially successfully made mud stoves for more efficient and cleaner cooking, amongst other things. I rafted the first few kilometers of the Nile getting washed about in several class 5 rapids. November was spent exploring the island of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania where I lazed about with white sand at my feed and coco palms over my head. This was a mellow time for me where I observed others fasting for Ramadan and managed to read all 1,136 tiny print pages of Atlas Shrugged as well as doing a scuba course. October I crossed Tanzania below Lake Victoria to reenter Uganda where I spent a week on the exotic lake Bunyoni with its terraced hills and unstable canoes. The rest of the month was spent between Nkokonjeru and the capital, Kampala, where I attempted to contribute to a university hybrid vehicle project without much success. Never the less I enjoyed some dusty bars and plenty of televised English football matches. Go Arsenal! I heard they play Man U. in the Champions League semifinal. What a match that will be. Relief in the form of fermented grains came my way in November when I relocated to Belgium and joined the boys at Group T in Leuven on their electric vehicle project. It was winter in Europe and beautiful and I had a blast. I also joined my friend Jason from California in Holland for some fun and exploring. We did Amsterdam, Den Hauge, Delft and later we became the tourist and made that ridiculous music video in Copenhagen and Sweden. Some where in the mix I made my pilgrimage to Gelderland and acquired the secret recipe to spinning bitches (translation from Dutch for a French toast like food). I spent Christmas eve in a Moscow airport on my way to India for a wedding engagement party and to be reunited with my good friend from Australia, Kartini. India was India showing me amazing ancient cave temples, providing delicious foods, and generally being a trip and a half. I got Chicken Pox for some silly reason in Mumbai then beached it up in Goa where I happened to learn to para glide and picked up fire dancing. Then Some time in February I made it to Nepal for a brief visit, crashing Mike and Corinne's pad and discovered an ancient (10 years old) battery powered public transportation system to compliment the cacophony of temples. To kick off the Buddhist new year 2136 I hiked to over 12000 feet into the yak and Tibetan Himalayas. Before leaving I treated myself to some sick threads fulfilling my wildest paisley fantasies. I only gave Sydney 10 days but they were very important ones containing my 27th birthday and heaps of nostalgia from six years prior. Finally, mid March, I zoomed off to Papua New Guinea where I kicked it with Sally, the coolest person ever. We built an industrial fruit dehydrator, hung out in some villages, did some snorkeling, and read a pile of books which frankly could have been better. Echart Tolle, whew.

Thats it. Now I'm home in California. And California is home. It is my friend, it is my mother, it is my community. Leaving home and looking back I realized that everything I am looking for is here. So many times I had the privilege of answering the question of where I am from with a proud and resounding, “I'm from California.” Oohs and aahs inevitably followed but not always for the right reasons. Most foreigners just think about a sunny, beachy Los Angeles and want to hear stories of movie stars. But that's not what makes California a great place. The photo above is a picture I drew in my notebook to describe where I am from when people asked and didn't know. Here we have it all, geographically, culturally, economically. Find the life you want in California. California isn't just great it is also where my roots are at, something I have learned to value recently. I know the language here, have a phatty social network and a mastery of fun things like transportation and shopping. So yeah, California, or Oregon possibly, is where I want to be for the foreseeable future.

With that said, I now have a new network of friends and acquaintances around the world which only invites more business and pleasure abroad. Being away I have fallen in love with California all over again but I am far from being bored with travel. On the contrary. The things I have experienced and seen in the past several months have only whetted my appetite to see more because, of course, there is so much out there and all of it is interesting. In due time I will be traveling again.

Finally, I must share the one thing stands out as the most important experience of this adventure. In a word, grief, the grief of loosing the affection of a girl I love, a girl who I left in August expecting to forget about but never did and who, bless her heart, managed to let go of me and find beauty elsewhere. It is a bit embarrassing to admit to this emotional lameness but avoiding the subject all together would be like describing the contents of a room without mentioning the massive elephant taking a dump on the carpet. Being me, I would have to mention the elephant. This experience of grieving lost love isn't one I am able rationalize very well. A bit of grief seems reasonable to me but consuming grief that overshadows every day of the last however many months strikes me as a bit wacky. The important part isn't why or how but simply that it happened - real emotions, real pain, really surprising. I had fully anticipated this round the world trip to be an extroverted experience, one where my time would be spent soaking it in and causing a ruckus. Instead, it has turned out very introverted. I still soaked and ruckussed but I also found myself on a heavy introspective quest to resolve my pain that has yet to bear fruit. Don't worry, I am still a very happy person by any measure, but just one who has been taking a serious emotional ass whipping for a while now. So what can I take from this? Well, pain is an awesome teacher. I doubt I'll be running away from a happy loving relationship anytime soon. Perhaps this has just been a serious case of the lonelies and reintegration into a social community, perhaps meeting a new girl, will solve everything. Then again, maybe I have some nasty deep seated issues with attachment to be dealt with internally, or something heavy like that. Its hard to say. At any rate, I don't think I am a very good loner. What I have learned, in a substantial way, is that life is not necessarily a straight line. This lesson has been a long time coming for me and I have a feeling it is something everyone gets to learn sooner or later. Now is my time.

Back when I was a teenager the motivation for this round the world adventure was born. It came from a fear of quiet complacency, of taking the path laid in front of me and ending up being quite unremarkable in my own terms. So I vowed to myself that I would strike out into the great wide world with absolute freedom for an entire year and give myself every opportunity to imagine what my life could be like, no strings attached. In doing so I hoped to squash my fears of not living my life to its fullest and gain the confidence to choose whatever path is most me. To this end I have succeeded. Ironically, it has been through humility, not the cockiness I showed up with, that I realized how I can be whatever the heck it is I want to be. The trick is just to pay good attention to that inner me and not get distracted by some fantasy identity I cook up. Easier said than done but I think I've got a good start.

So what is next? Well, I have a whirl wind May and June reconnecting with old friends, going to my brother's wedding (Yay for Tom and Kendra. May you live happily ever after.), and continuing my early retirement with a fun filled retreat to Kauai. Hey, why not? Afterward I will finally, regretfully, have to come out of retirement and find a job. I have my sights set on Bay Area or Portland, engineering for a greener tomorrow, or whatever pays the bills. I know, I know, the economy sucks. Lets see what I can come up with.

Boom Shakalaka Gaia and thanks for reading,
EVG

Potholes New Guinea

Suddenly, the whole ritual of the Easter Bunny, chocolate, and a painted egg hunt didn't make much sense with respect to the resurrection of Christ when I tried to explain it to Sally's uncle, Sally, on the porch of his jungle village bush house. Us Westerners sure can be weird. Sally, the uncle, definitely knows about Jesus, most likely better than I do, and eggs and bunny rabbits to boot but I found myself fairly completely unable to make any sort of connection. Can someone please help me out here? Anyhow, it was a happy Easter. We visited a beautiful jungle village where Sally, my friend, has relatives. I spent a couple days there earlier in the week and got a taste of the simple life. Lunch is usually a pile of plantains, still in their skins, barbecued wherever one might happen to be. Anyone got a match? A dip in the lazy river afterward seemed to be a requirement. If I was thirsty there were plenty of coconuts at hand to drink from and everyone carried a handy coconut opener aka bush knife aka two and a half foot saber for just the occasion. Thankfully I am fond of coconut juice. The family I stayed with had an amazing garden with rice, sweet potato, bananas, plantains, yams, kasava, taro, coconuts, and lots of cocoa. Everything was for their own sustenance but the cocoa which they sold in town for good money. I got to help harvest some rice which was surprisingly fun. I guess the novelty of seeing rice coming from the ground and not a bag was enough to get this city boy excited. Afterwards I had the privilege of getting high on buai (beetle nut). I had tried it a few times before with no effect but for whatever reason I this one time I was feeling wicked. Check that one off the list. Locals chew buai more than they drink water. Its pretty fun because you get to chew a big fresh seed thing then dip some stem bit in crushed coral powder and add it to the mix which turns bright red. Just chew and spit, don't swallow. If you have good ingredients and get the mix just right the high should be something like tobacco. There are some fantastically frightening grins waking around all red lipped with black stained teeth from all the buai chewing.

I also fulfilled my snorkeling fantasy. I had been psyching myself up for this moment since I was a kid pretending to be a seal by swimming about at the bottom of our pool in Fresno. I can remember how it felt so lovely to zip around weightless under water. I have been snorkeling many times before and found that not much is more interesting to look at than tropical marine life. My father was an exceptional swimmer and when he went snorkeling he would ditch the snorkel and dive deeper than I could comprehend to look for shells. I wanted to do the same, to dive deep deep deep and be one of the fish, to look around as if I lived there too, like a scuba diver without the bulky gear and noisy breathing. I had a good go at it in Zanzibar but the coral I found wasn't quite the spectacular scene I was looking for. Anyhow, I found what I was looking for. We took a small taxi dingy out to a small island preserve to have a swim, a picnic, and spend the day. I had heard the coral in PNG is some of the best in the world and since most of it is scheduled to die soon (something about climate change) I was eager to get a look. It was the spectacular scene I dreamed about with sprawling plates and people sized barrels of coral. Squigglies were everywhere with the most delicious bright colors on the funniest of shapes all swaying and swimming about in the weightless underwater world that is the ocean. I got to take my time and deep breaths, one after the other. It is a fun game to play, skin diving. Just as you are running out of breath you spot something you just have to come back with more oxygen to have a look at.

While its sea gardens and village life is quite fantastic, Papua New Guinea also has an ugly side, the towns. There are only three or four places worth calling a town in the whole of the country and they have all turned into centers of crime and pestilence. Its not that Fresno or even SF doesn't have similar criminals, we all lock our doors and plenty of neighborhoods have barred windows, but here in PNG they define the towns. People from the bush, mostly men, migrate to the towns looking for work and when there is none they turn to crime - robbing houses, holding up cars and buses, dirty deeds for hire. A fantastic tension develops between the the jobless locals and the wealthy expats cruising about in new trucks running construction and mining companies and the like. A major industry in Papua New Guinea is security. Fences and armed guards are found everywhere. My friends fairly rural dwelling, just outside of the mountain town of Goroka, recently acquired full time security guards after some sketchy incidents. A house Sally and I were house sitting was broken into while we were enjoying the beaches in another town. The security guard was tied up. Two of the thieves were caught and are in jail awaiting trial. Apparently the robbery was a drunken operation and not a very tight one at that.

In the midst of it all I managed to get some engineering done. Sally has a fledgling dried fruit export business, bananas and pineapples, and I got to help her design a drying chamber for the new coffee husk burning hot air blower she got from Brazil. We spent a week and a half building the furnace with a prototype drying chamber getting sidetracked every which way with electrical issues. Can you believe that after a masters degree in mechanical engineering I didn't know the difference between three phase and single phase electric motors? But now I do. I'll never be fooled again. So that was fun being useful and learning a bit.

Now it is time to come home. The flights are booked, an insane four day blitz of seven flights to get from point A to point B, Port Moresby, Cairns, Guam, Tokyo, Honolulu, Seattle, San Francisco. Credit card sky miles aren't all they are worked up to be. I have got a day in Guam and a day in Honolulu to kill so maybe I can get some more snorkeling in.

Next blog will be written from Fresno, the exciting finale. It will be time to make up all sorts of far fetched conclusions about my adventure so I can derive some meaning from it. So stay tuned!

Its been great PNG. I'll be back some day, hopefully before all the coral is gone.

Fire and Lightning

I was in line at customs preparing myself for an eight hour layover at the Delhi airport on my way to Sydney from Kathmandu, woot! Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a curious sign that read, “Airick Vain Gelthens,” being shown by a less than enthusiastic man to the queued up travelers. I did a double take. Could someone have a name so bazaar yet so similar to mine? When in line for customs in a developing country one should never take chances, so I flagged the gentlemen down. “I think this could be me,” I told the vacant eyed airport employee with the sign. He was satisfied and gave me another paper with a name and number on it. I did my best to suss out the purpose of this vague and slightly disconcerting message but all I could gather is that the number was for a travel agent who urgently wanted to talk to me. Thankfully I still had my cell phone with airtime on the Tata Indicom SIM card so after a successful visa check I sat down with my luggage to eat a sandwich and ring the mystery number. I was confident there was just some simple misunderstanding I could ignore or smooth out quickly or that there was actually an Airick who wasn't me but then I could also imagine some catastrophic disaster waiting for me on the other end of the phone. I took a deep breath. Indeed, the number was for me. The travel agent I purchased my Kathmandu to Sydney tickets from in Mumbai over a month prior somehow knew I didn't have a visa for Australia. Ouch! Was that my fault? I swear she told me I didn't need one. She advised me to get an online visa and she would book a flight for a few days later. She had already canceled my tickets for the flight that evening. It was as if India were an inescapable vortex sucking me in and I might be stuck there forever. I hung my head and drug my bags to the prepaid taxi stand to head into the heart of the beast, the Delhi backpacker slum.

Amazingly, I was able to get a visa equivalent for Australia instantly at an internet cafe, a drunk Canadian in a dirty stained T and beads of sweat on his forehead cursing at his Facebook behind me. There was still time to catch my original flight! Enthusiastically, I rang my agent to organize the tickets and rushed off to the airport at 21 mph in a CNG three wheeler. I was relegated to the waiting list but it didn't matter because by midnight I was sitting on a plane ready for fifteen hours of in flight, back of the seat movies courtesy of Air Thai.

Then there was ten days in Sydney, Australia. Thanks Kartini for the beautiful and loving home away from home. There was instantaneous mingling with lovely friends from six years past with wonderful friends of their own for me to meet. It was a cascading triumph of joy. I had my twenty seventh birthday. I wont go into details since my mother reads this blog but let me just say that someone brought three bottles of sparkling wine and they were all empty by the end of the night. We also happened to find a steam sauna. There was camping and fire dancing on the beach complimented by an offshore lightning display. That was super cool but my favorite highlight from my time in Sydney was lecturing third graders about the Earth Goddess, Gaia. They totally got it.

Now I find myself in the fabulous island nation of Papua New Guinea in the twilight of my great adventure. My awesome friend, Sally, is taking care of me here. PNG is a wicked place. It ain't so big but has heaps of rainforest, second only to the Amazon, with the worlds largest butterfly (I hope I see one) and the best snorkeling anywhere. And of course awesomely colorful tribal life. I am pretty relaxed with my month here, keen to do some snorkeling, maybe go on a trek or two and otherwise hangout. I brought a pile of books to massage that ranges from spiritual enlightenment to global catastrophe. I will have read more books this month than ever before, probably five. I am a slow reader. I am also working on my CV and gearing up for a safe landing in the lovely California. Ill blog again from Fresno. Here we go.

Instant Noodles!?

The morning after the wedding I hopped into a great big winged metal global warming machine with dozens of others and we flew to Delhi then Kathmandu where I rocked my Pierce Coop connection and met up with my lovely friend form Uni Mike Slouber. Mike is living in Nepal for the year studying Nepali and Sanskrit for his PHD work at Cal. Pretty cool eh? He is also spending some quality family time with his wife Corinne and two baby daughters, Anna and Lilly, two years and two months old. Thanks Slouber family for letting me stay in your spacious apartment and feeding me good home cooked food. The steamy hot showers were a nice touch as well.

Kathmandu is a lot of things. It is the capital of city for an epicenter of Eastern spirituality with plenty of devotees, shrines, temples, and spiritual merchandise. It is also very polluted. The rivers running through town are stinky toilets and on a bad day the hazy air beats Delhi's for opaqueness. Nepalis are keen to the pollution problem, however, and are often seen wearing urban survival masks to filter out some of the gunk before they breathe it in. There is also battery powered electric public transportation! Thats right, three wheeled electric cars carrying a dozen or more commuters all over town. There are hundreds of these Safa Tempos (Clean Busses) operating in the city every day and they have been around for a dozen years competing successfully with their C02 emitting counterparts using way primitive lead acid technology. It makes me wonder why we are unsure of electrics in the West. Ok so these guys only go 25 mph but that's kinda nice and they only cost a couple thousand bucks. As you can imagine, I am stoked on Safa Tempos.

After a week of hangin' with the Sloubers and doing some more shopping (I got a silicon mouthpiece for my teeth grinding at night and some wild paisley pattern clothes made for the price of a big night out in SF) I went on a fancy big hike in the Himalayas. Looking through a Lonely Planet I chose the Langtang Valley hike which ascends from 4,000 feet to 12,000 feet, wow, with peaks up to 23,000 feet towering above. The hike took 6 days with an extra day on a sketchy overloaded windey cliff side bus ride to reach the beginning from Kathmandu. I had my pick of lovely lodges to eat and sleep at along the way up and back. No sleeping bag or camping stove necessary on this adventure. The day I started happened to be Tibetan New Years, 2136, the celebrations of which lasted the whole of my hike. At one particularly memorable instance I was getting drunk on home made rice beer, Chawng, before noon at 10,000 feet. The new years fried bread twists handed out to guests quite readily was my favorite trail food. The bread is best when served with a steaming cup of Tibetan tea, or Yak fat with salt in hot water. The scenery was spectacular, on par with Yosemite back home. I saw plenty of Yaks as well, grazing on the late winter brown thorny alpine bushes. On my way down I bumped into a Buddhist ceremony parading my way. Dozens of villagers were carrying sacred texts wrapped in orange cloth to the local monastery where they would be read by monks for blessings. Singing and dancing around an altar of Chawng at the monastery ensued with plenty of food and drink after wards. It was all a beautiful experience. I highly recommend it.

On the bus ride back, not quite as overloaded, I had my very own Nepali spiritual enlightenment experience. Painted onto the side of a village shop in the brightest of colors was my very own spiritual mantra, "Boom Saka Laka." Back home I had been awakened to this prayer in a dream and had been using it accordingly but it wasnt until now that I discovered its true meaning here in Nepal. Just below the sacred mantra is written a reference to the great one, Instant Noodles. The great Western learning Easter sage, Michael Slouber, says that the Earth is Food so Food is the Earth. This whole time I had been chanting to Gaia, "Boom Shaka Laka Gaia," but really I should be chanting to instant noodles, "Boom Shaka Laka Instant Noodles!" Thank you oh holy noodles which cook so quickly when added to boiling hot water and are conveniently seasoned with a small packet of MSG for delivering me from my material prison.

Next stop, Sydney Australia.

Rajasthani Wedding

So I trained it up from Goa to Jaipur only about an Amtrak's 10 hours late because of a derailing ahead of us. I bought some pirated DVD's of Indiana Jones, James Bond, Lord of the Rings, and Kung Fu and watched Octopusy on my laptop like a geek showing off. The Kung Fu turned out to be King Kong. Some kid also repaired some zippers for me for a few cents. I was quite impressed.

I haven't shopped at all during my travels because I didnt want to carry anything extra around with me but I decided to go on a massive spree in Jaipur and ship a parcel back home. So I spent the better part of a week getting ripped off in jewelry stores, buying cashmere wool shawls, etc., but it was loads of fun and now I've got plenty to share when I get home just in case I need to make new friends. I also had three suits tailored. Two for myself, a fabulous white linen Colombian drug lord suit and a blue pinstripe three piece business suit. And one for my brosther, a gray pinstripe three piece business suit.

Then I got to try out my new fits at the wedding. The ceremonies lasted two days with delicious catered lunch and dinner. The brides father owns a fabulous restaurant near by. The first evening were song and dance performances from friends and relatives. It was quite impressive really. The second evening was the ceremony. The princely groom rode in on a white horse, waited for his bride to be on a throne, then lassoed her with a flower necklace. At midnight, after several hours of photographs with the hundreds of guests, the actual marriage ceremony began at a temporary altar with the remaining guests sitting around it being served tea and coffee. The ritual has to be hundreds of years old with Sanskrit recited and dozens of steps involving parents, throwing rice, fire, smudging colorful stuff on foreheads, etc. At three in the morning they were married. I have several weddings to attend back home this summer (big congrats to my brother Tom and his fiance Kendra!) and it will be fun to compare traditions. So that's my second Jaipur wedding in Just 5 years and I am not even close to tired of them yet. Thanks Kochar family for inviting me!

Just before the wedding I got caught up in a Bollywood movie. I found myself spending the day wearing a cheap British officer uniform circa 1930 on a fancy movie set by a lake for the day. Mostly I just sat there but it was quite the eye opener to be inside a movie set and watch all the works that goes on. Look for the Bollywood movie "Veer" when it comes out in a year or two. Its an action romance musical and should be a big hit.

Hippie up in Goa

OK, where did I leave off last. I think I was in Bangalore recovering from a late curse of Chicken Pox last I wrote. The Pox really wasnt so bad. I was lucky to get away with mild fever for three days. Going to Bangalore ended up being a big mistake. I spent most of my efforts busing across town to the Tata Indicom service center to have my mobile modem service repaired. In a week there was no success to I took the loss and threw in the towel. I guess the future of information technology is not for me, not quite yet. My big Bangalore highlight was test driving a REVA, India's own electric car. Short but sweet. I also randomly visited a non proffit, Anti Corruption Agency, and learned all about India's systemic funds filching woes.

On a whim I set off to Goa to recharge my social life and boy am I pleased I did. I landed in Benaulin then bounced up to Arambol after a couple days seeking out the young writhing masses. There they were, European, jobless, free, and getting tan on the warm cow infested beach. Arambol is where it's at. Beach huts from $4/night with restaurants and bars line the sand (my hut was enviably the most exposed with a door that landed me directly in the beach traffic). Hella hippie outfit shopping lined the one street with swirly colors and Ali Baba pants everywhere. I bought nothing expecting to get my fix in Jaipur. And the water is bath temperature with happy little waves to play in.

A short walk around the hill at the end of the beach and you will discover a small paradise with another beach, isolated and backed by a clean and swimable fresh water pond. The ridge above this beach hosts lovely conditions for paragliding. For $30 you can go tandem. I opted to throw down $120 and spend the week learning to do it solo. My instructor was a super tanned Dutchman renamed Madu by his Guru, Osho. Everyone was talking about Osho. Apparently he was arrested in Oregon at some point. Madu is a wise paraglider and heatedly advised me not to do it as he could provide no insurance or responsibility for my life. But I thought, "Isn't that how did people do things before trial lawyers?" Besides, how could I say no to flying free like the birds, soaring effortlessly, hundreds of feet above the earth and what a view. This was definitely my style. The grin on my face says it all.

I also picked up a staff and started to learn to spin fire. Flying like a bird, playing with fire, stupid things I know but hey, I made it right? Actually, I never got around to using fire. I just practiced my moves.

Yeah, Arambol was loads of fun. Lots of new agieness going on. One of my favorite spots was the magic park where you can receive a sermon on The Great Freedom (short moments of awareness many times is the road to salvation) in the morning, and participate in a contact improv session after dark eating vegan chocolate cake in the mean time. To all my alternative minded, hippie, burner, circus friends, go to Arambol if you get the chance.

I will leave you with an especially insightful ditty David, my slightly cynical English friend, and I picked up from a group of spiritualizers on the beach at sunset. "Everything is magnificent. The waves are coming in. The waves are coming in" Repeat until you are the last one there. A hand drum helps as well.

Mumbai-o-listic

I had big hopes for my week in Mumbai, a list of companies and non profits to visit, and the big city nightlife to captivate me. Unfortunately, I will always remember Mumbai as the city where I got Chickenpox. I know, right. What the heck? I am definitely too old to get Chickenpox and most certainly no where near my mother's loving care. Oh well.

Before I got feverish and rashy I managed to enjoy myself and do a bit of exploring. My first night I was whisked away by Kunal, the lucky gentleman just engaged in Jaipur, to a rooftop birthday party under the full moon. Friends and family sang amplified Bollywood classics until the neighbors called the cops. Everyone was singing along to dozens of songs from decades ago. As it was explained to me by Kunal, The movie culture here is more of a religion than a pastime and of course it is all about the songs.

Next to the hotel I first stayed at was a massive Hare Krishna temple so I poked my head in for a look. It was quite ornate with plenty of marble, sparkling gold and silvery trim, and brilliant draperies with matching holy men. My Hare Krishna experience is limited to hippie festivals which is much less impressive than witnessing the source. Honestly, I always though it was some sort of cult. More cultish, that is, than a regular once a week sort of religion. So I bought a book from the temple gift shop to educate myself, Introduction to Bhagavad-gita, basically an intro to Krishna's version of the bible. And thats how I was converted. I'm not coming home anymore. Come visit if you would like. Just kidding.

I also snuck in a lovely sunset walk along Juhu beach. I was lonely as heck but delighted by the massive stretch of sand and throngs of Mumbai'ites out getting messy in the low tide. Strangely, I couldn't see the horizon because of the nasty air pollution which I learned more about later. The water was warm but too brown for my blood. Lots of fun games like cricket, capture the eel, and dodge ball were going on. With nightfall a carnival scene emerged with silly electronic fortune tellers along with vendors selling crappy, glowing, spinning toys from china.

My one sightseeing splurge was to go on a guided Slum Tour. Sounds miserable but the idea of the tour is to show a fun and highly functional slum with massive recycling industry, leather production, pottery, etc. My favorite part was the machine shops where they made their recycling shredders. Shoes and eye protection? Yeah right. Saddest part was watching toxic black smoke pouring from a kiln burning old paint cans. There were workers with their faces in it.

I wasn't so interested in sight seeing and such so I visited the Indian Institute of Technology to see what I could learn about transportation and pollution in India. I actually got to give a presentation to a dozen transportation students and some professors. I told them what I thought about stuff back home and asked them about theirs. The students were disappointingly shy; I probably looked cooler and more important than I actually am. Basically, India and Mumbai are all about trains. Six million folks commute by train every day just in Mumbai. I took the trains to get around too and they were great, came every three minutes, pay if you are in the mood, no doors, people pooping next to the tracks. The professor I talked to about air pollution had just finished a massive study to characterize the city's air which is cool because it is the first of its kind and signals a shift to awareness and possibly action.

Later I moved to the backpacker ghetto to make friends and share some company. Unfortunately, thats when I got the evil skin blistering poultry virus only meant for children. I was first incorrectly diagnosed and given antibiotics but disappointingly that didn't pan out. I just holed myself up for a few days in my spacious hotel room, had weird dreams, and commiserated with my Chinese come Australian roommate, Yan, who just had thousands of dollars of camera equipment stolen and is taking rabies medicine for a dog bite.

A really important thing to come out of my time in Mumbai is that I'm coming home early! I realized I'm not up for 6 more months away from home and especially not wandering around alone in scary places like India and China. So, I'm gonna visit my friends in Nepal, Papau New Guinea, and Australia and be home around April 18. Don't plan a party or anything.

One last thing. I had a beer at a table with a grenade crater under it from the November attacks. Pretty cool eh? Security was high.

The Ancients

Hey, look at me. I'm blogging from my laptop harbor side in Mumbai. I splurged big time and bought a mobile modem so I can connect anywhere there is mobile phone reception, anytime. Its a bit over the top but I felt like treating myself and how cool is this. Its the FUTURE! Invest in this stock, especially for the third world where wires are expensive. In a fit of blissful digital mastery I took two of these photos minutes ago to to beam them to your screens and note the spot from where I am blogging. ZAPP!

India is a place that takes a long time to describe. There is heaps of stuff to mention. One of my favorite attempts at a description is simply to call it weird because there is just so much randomness going on. One street in a given town will have several marble temples dripping with fresh chrysanthemums, a walk in well turned turtle shrine, piles of garbage, a juice man, children flying kites, beggars, business suits, and a veg restaurant, beauty salon, or fabric store along with the ubiquitous chanting and bells parade. After family time in Jaipur (in spite of my taking the piss out of them they really are a fabulously functional and fun family) I jumped down to Araungabad with Scott to check out some ancient history at the caves of Elora and Ajanta.

The Elora caves are a mere 1000 years old and hand chiseled from volcanic rock. Of the 30+ caves, Jain, Buddhist, and Hindi temples are represented, the Shiva temple being the largest monolithic carving in the world! Wahoo! People really did stuff that long ago even without the internet. Larger than life ball reliefs everywhere told amazing stories of celestial creation and hella' god drama like weddings, card games, war... You name it, Shiva and his friends did it. Brilliant people they were planning ahead a thousand years to provide their ancestors a source of tourist income.

The Ajanta caves win the age contest at over 2000 years old. These are all Buddhist and are set half way up a horseshoe cliff cut by the river below. Amazingly, delicious colorful paintings of daily life and spiritual matters survive on the walls and ceilings throughout. It was too much to take in during my day trip but I could begin imagine the fabulousness of spending weeks, years, a lifetime meditating there next to your very own massive stone Buddha chillin' in teaching pose, cross legged with thumb and forefinger pinching the opposite pinkie. Id probably just do a week.

Scott and I also poked around nearby Dalautabad, an epic castle starting from 1100 AD with layers of walls, motes, sheer cliffs and labyrinths to protect the palace, temples, shrines, and giant red falice. The locals are very proud of their creation, naming it the best fortified castle in all of India and the first to use psychological strategies i.e. darkness and false doors. How clever. Again, people were serious about making stuff happen way back in the day. Thanks for dragging me along Scott. It was a supreme week of sightseeing.

Now I'm in Mumbai. Ill have to write about it soon so stay tunned. In the mean time, check this out. Stuff White People like #120. I have been nailed. Whats the use of privilege if you dont use it anyways? And my backpack only costs $4 so ha.

Jaipur

Five years ago I was blessed to be able to join the festivities of an Indian wedding in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The party lasted four nights with the final ceremony in the Maharajah's palace. The decorations were elaborate with chrysanthemum hung walls around marble terraces. And the food, I will always remember the food. Night after night, day after day, vegetarian spreads of several curries marbled with clarified butter fat to be eaten with a freshly made whole wheat flat bread. Spicy, but not too spicy, the tasty sensations captivated me.

For five years I have dreamed of that food and now I have the immense pleasure of enjoying it again. Same family, same town, but this time it is an engagement ceremony. All the elaborateness is still there just the ceremony is missing. Oh delicious spicy fatty savory sweetness of uncomprehendablly delicious combinations how I love thee. This is also the first time all twenty plus members of this particular family have ever been together at once. Everything is lovely and fabulous. Sort of. With such a dramatic family event will obviously come some drama and the characters in this particular family are keen to play the games. So here is the gossip.

The occasion is an engagement so all the overzealous matchmaking mothers and aunties get super excited and cause problems by starting rumors and blowing whatever they can out of proportion. There is a generational conflict involved as well that I think fuels the flames or at least increases the stress levels. The parents, for the most part, are in arranged marriages where their parents held the power and the final word when it came to choosing their partner. The current marrying age generation, at least in this family, has managed to assert themselves, both boys and girls, and marry who they like. This engagement is no exception coming from a love affair that has lasted for four years with a stubborn daughter refusing to back down to her fathers objections. I pried a bit but no one was making a big deal of it, probably a good thing, and attention was focused elsewhere. All the eligible ones are put on the spot and prodded about their marrying possibilities.

In particular, my Indian friend Kartini, and her Australian boyfriend, Scott, were the subject of such discussion. Prior to this visit Kartini spent weeks delicately breaking the news to her father that she is seriously dating this Australian boy and thus their very substantial relationship was acknowledged. Kartini's mother, Rimi, took this as clear enough evidence that they would be getting engaged. So, when Kartini and Scott arrived immediately after an undoubtedly emotional reunion (they had been living in different countries for six months prior) the first thing they were greeted with were congratulations. Scott though it was for his PHD work but in fact the whole family had been wrongly informed that they were to be married. Outraged and outdone, Kartini pulled her mother behind closed doors and shared a fantastically tearful conversation demanding, first, some respect, and second that her engagement be officially recalled. And so it was. Good effort Rimi but you are just going to have to wait a bit longer for that one.

Karini has an older sister, Riki who arrived before her. Riki didn't bring any boys with her but Rimi was kind enough to ask, in front of a crowd of family members, if she had any plans to get married. Awkwardness seeped into the room signaling for everyone to leave the mother and daughter for some one on one. Riki has been dating Cathleen for four years now and recently had a confidence breakthrough becoming more secure about her homosexuality. So, when the room was cleared, Riki collected herself and told her mother everything, and that was that. Rimi at least had suspicions and was prepared to some extent. Riki's father, on the other hand, only gets to know that she isn't getting married yet. That makes two strikes for Rimi. It has been a tough few days for her but she is a fabulous woman and takes it all in perfect stride.

Everyone seemed to be getting sick. Scott was sick, Kartini, Riki, these other people were sick too. The groom, who was sneezing, says it is because the local water is has so many minerals. Fortunately for me I grew up with Fresno well water and was nicely adapted. Rimi has been medicating everyone with batches of zinc and orange juice with fantastic results. Cousin Nanu could be seen taking half a dozen pills to cure something exotic. Remedies are everywhere. Uncle was quite sick as well. He is a brave man who traveled around Europe for four years starting at the age of 18 with only five hundred bucks in his pocket. He was bringing his American wife and two teenage daughters to India for the first time and the wife's family was giving him hell for it. They accused him of needlessly endangering his children by bringing them to a war zone. Remember the recent terrorist shootings? Of course you do. He described the week before coming as the most stressful week of his life. Even the eldest daughter, who is presently submitting college applications, got a stomach ulcer from all the turmoil. In the end the correct decision was made and after a brief period of adjustment, comfort and fun has become the norm for all.

And then there is me. Since I'm only a friend I don't get to participate in family craziness, unless I did something stupid to offend people. I probably just don't hear all the gossip about me. Actually, I am a little disappointed there were zero attempts to match me up with daughters. Don't the elders think I am a catch enough? My ego is tarnished. Instead, my drama is far removed from the scene here. I am terribly love sick having realized that what I now want is the girl I left behind and who is no longer mine. In the brief moments I can stand to the side and look in objectively I can see that I am nothing unique, just another casualty of love, one among countless others. “Welcome to the club,” I was congratulated by a good friend. But from the inside, it is the whole world.

Becomming The Tourist

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjni3dOwSBE

Up to the land of my ancestors I went,
Holland and Denmark were my grandfathers' decent.

I imagined lots of white and fluffy Christmas snow,
And for everyone and their mother to look like my bro.

So I packed extra clothes, warm gloves and all,
And headed north from Belgium, long gone was the Fall.

Of the snow there was none,
So I looked for other fun.

I studied the culture with lovely brick/cobblestone clues,
And found that indeed, they wore pointy wooden shoes!

The cliches kept coming
As herds of windmills running,
Out of their grainy past
And into modern electrical masts.

There was a Christmas man around complete with white beard and velvety red coat
But his name wasn't familiar, it was Sinterclaus, and he came on a boat.

Even more awkward were his gangs of black slaves,
Dressed in bright clothes, gingersnap cookies to children they gave.

But I was happy to learn, even with the wet and the cold,
Everyone was riding a bicycle both young and old.

Speaking of bicycles, I joined a good friend named Jason Moore,
Who studies the wobbles of a two wheeled mathematical metaphor.

Together we moved from The Netherlands to Copenhagen,
We missed the train so we took a bus, barely a covered wagon.

Couchsurfing.com we were ambitious and tried,
Considering Denmarks prices we would have otherwise surely died.

A bowl of soup at a cozy downtown cafe,
Costs $15 or five Californian burritos what the hey?

Two strangers took us in,
They names, Claudia and Morton.

They were friendly and generous and travelers of their own.
Staying with them I felt almost at home.

Crazy and rowdy we danced in the street,
Hella cool people were easy to meet.

With a cargo trike full of DD bliss.
We cruised that bad city “Becoming the Tourist”.

Then off to Sweden we roamed,
To an old friend's farm country home.

Swedish Christmas dinner parties are fantastic,
The spread will make your taste buds go spastic.

So we at and drank and did easy things of the sort,
I was saving energy for three nights at the airport.

Now here I am all ruffled and cute,
Flying from Moscow to Delhi without my parachute.

Netherlands Safari

It was a brisk but sunny winter's day. I was bicycling just North of the city of Amsterdam on my way to an Ajax football game, that's Dutch for quality soccer. Cars were zipping along the highway safely to my right separated from the smoothly paved bicycle and moped path by a few meters of grass and a railing. Sheep grazed in the grassland to my left. Unexpectedly, a shimmering red dot appeared on the horizon in line with the bicycle path. My eyes were adjusting to the distance as the dot approached at an impressive pace. I couldn't believe my luck. It was a real live Sunrider in its natural habitat eating up kilometers with the utmost efficiency. The Sunrider is a highly evolved species of pedal powered transporters indigenous to the Netherlands. It combines battery electric assist with human muscle to achieve speeds of up to 50 kph for at least 50 km. At 15 Wh/km when cruising the Sunrider sips energy at the rate of over 1000 miles per gallon. Later in the day, after my friend and I snuck into the game at halftime and enjoyed some invite only hors d'oeuvres in the business lounge, I spotted another Dutch native, a wind turbine swinging its arms in the sunset winds. The Wind Turbine is not as rare as the Sunrider but enjoys a symbiotic partnership with its more exotic friend by harvesting electrical energy from the wind for the Sunrider's batteries. In return, the Sunrider's passengers keep the Wind Turbine well oiled and plant new ones. It was really nice to get the chance to witness two beautiful native species coexisting happily in the Dutch ecosystem.

The next day I visited the small warehouse in the nearby industrial center where the Sunriders are assembled. This vehicle has been in development for a good ten years now and is easily the most efficient commercially available enclosed electric vehicle, a true work of art. It boasts a carbon monocoque frame with simple steering and suspension systems mostly engineered from scratch. The electric drive is from the same Chinese company I used for my trike project, Crystalite, and peaks at 1.2 kW. I got to drive/ride one myself and found it to be a bit touchy in the steering control but otherwise awesome and sexy. It was a bit like flying a small plane but on the ground. For comparisons sake, the PET feels more powerful but it also uses more energy. They cost about 5k euro fully equipped and there is a waiting list as production is slow. Apparently it is difficult to find investors to sponsor medium scale production facilities for this cool lookin' animal, even in Holland.

Presentation

I got to give a presentation of myself to some faculty at Group T. How cool is that? I guess the students I was working with had some trouble explaining who I was and what I was doing there. I love talking about myself so it was easy. Here I am describing my biggest passion in life. Bass fishing. Look at the size of those mothers. Actually this was the opening slide, just trying to break the ice.

Hoping for Gezelleg

A whole month busting my butt in Belgium building (sort of) an electric vehicle to save the world is coming to a close, www.vehicledesignsummit.be/en. Actually I spent much of my applied time looking for fancy new lithium iron phosphate battery pack for the vehicle. It turns out the Chinese have the market cornered and sell packs at less than $500 per kWh. What on earth does that mean? Well, here in Belgium we want our vehicle, the Vision GT, to go at least 100 km or 60 miles per charge and we would have to spend $6,000 on a pack that would do this. Sure thats a lot of money but it is also the retail price. These batteries should be able to take the vehicle 200,000 miles before they need to be replaced but no one knows for sure. Im excited. The electric vehicle battery industry is zooming along at a whip crack pace. Interestingly, it parallels the solar electric boom. Wait a minute, we could all be driving solar powered electric cars ten years from now! Or at least a lot of us would be able to afford it. The future is going to be cool, and hot at the same time but hot in a temperature way and cool in a style way.

So how is the cruddy economy treating everyone. Im glad I planned to not work for this year. Otherwise I might be concerned. On second thought, I'll be looking for work when I get back and I dont think things will be much better by then. Oh well, Im sure Obama has a plan. He did promise to promote the development of electric motive power in vehicles to boost our economy, and save the environment. I heard him say it in a debate and I'm gonna hold him to it. Speaking of the economy, lately I have been wondering what money really is. I remember learning in school that it has a value equal to some comodity like labor or cows but sometimes it just looks like a pass card for the rich. Rich people show up to big buildings or nice golf courses, hand over some pass cards and walk right on in. Now I am far from poor but sometimes my pass cards aren't enough. I have to wonder what value these other people posess or created that earns them the right to be in such exclusive clubs. Its a tricky game for sure. The $700 bill bailout doesnt easy my doubts either. I actually heard an 'expert' on TV suggesting that it was the thought that counts, not the ammount, to give people confidence in the market. Anyways, buy some canned food maybe.

My next bit of adventure is stupidly into the freezing cold. Im gonna poke around Amsterdam for another weekend, catch an Ajax game (biggest football team in Holland), then head on over to the magical province of Gelderland from whence my ancestors came. Ill be staying in Arnhem, the capitol city and thanks to couchsurfing dot com I'll have some instant friends when I get there. Couchsurfing dot com is a bazzar and amazing facility. I haven't actually gone through the whole process yet but from what I understand it brings a world of free and friendly support to the lonely traveler. It is eerily close to online dating but sure beats hanging out at bars trying to meet locals. I actually thought of doing as a way to avoid hotel costs. Where else can a traveler meet locals? If all works out in Arnhem I'll be using couchsurfing dot com in India and China as well.

Oops, did I say India? Spiritual do do. If your are worried about my safety in India then good because so am I. I plan to grow my beard out and stay away from big cities. Thats all I got. Does anyone have a better strategy, other than not going, for avoiding roving gangs of organized ethnic clensers targeting whitie? Maybe I can get a fake Turkish passport or something.

After Gelderland I will join my good friend Jason for a romp up to Copenhagen where the people are happy but the beer is expensive. How that can be so I have no idea. I'm not exactly sure why we chose Copenhagen but here we go anyways.

Please send me lots of love this Christmas. Ill be on a plane or in an airport the 24th and 25th and 26th getting to Moscow then Jaipur. But when I finally arrive it will be curry and ghee bliss. I did have a nice thanksgiving though. Check out the pictures. I cooked all that by myself! Clocwise from the top we have a fresh salad with bell pepers and fennel, a miniture turkey, steamed greens sauteed in white wine with almond slices, my first attempt at stuffing, butterlicious candied yams, awesome gravy with truffle oil, and my favorite, cranberry rellish. The people sharing dinner are all the nice folks in Leuven who have hosted me in their apartments, my new family. I am very thankfull for them and I didn't even have to use coughsurfing dot com. The lighting is a little dramatic but you could say we had a modern Thanksgiving dinner.

Amsterdam and Brussels

I had a good time hanging out with Jason and his friends in Amsterdam. I also got to wander around Brussels a bit where I saw the weird human body exhibition in a centuries old brick arches basement that used to be a butchery.

I have navigated myself nicely into Belgium and was received well in the city of Leuven , a small but important city in the Dutch region, buy an ambitious group of engineering students. Thank you Group T VDS team for being so helpful and inviting. Hundreds of years and plenty of half decent planning have turned this place into a problem free family town full of history and culture. Bricks, cobble stones, and gothic architecture texturize everything.

Leuven has about the same population as Davis and only takes 20 minutes to walk across but feels like San Francisco with 150 bars and three story buildings lining every street. The massive and dramatic architecture of the Catholic churches and town hall add to the effect. On the weekends markets pop up selling piles of cheeses and other such goodies. Bakeries of the spungiest bread hang out on most street corners. Leuven is nice, a little too nice. There is no crime here, not that anyone can remember. It is the sort of place you would love to raise a family in but would be itching to leave if you grew up in. Most of the students, and they are about half the town's population, go home on the weeked leaving the city relaxed and uncroweded for the locals to enjoy. Bicycles rule the streets but follow the system or you will be fined on the spot by the police.

Belgium is really about one thing, beer. Quite a long time ago, Trapist monks from France settled here in monestaries called Abbeys and perfected the art of brewing, austensibly to preserve grain. So a Trappist or Abbey beer is usually bery nice. Their beers can be quite hearty indeed. Drinking an Abbey or Trapist beer here in Belgium is unlike any experience I have ever had. I never knew I liked beer so much. It is one of the most magnificent beer cultures in the world where local beers are celebrated and consumed dutifully by the locals. The famous beer, Stella Artois actually has its brewery here in Leuven. I am planning a visit soon. A 250 ml pour of Stella a the bars costs $2, no tip please.

Well I have a lot of work to do with the electric car project. Does anyone have a 10 kWh battery pack they can lend? And I have lots to see here in Europe before Christmas. I would like to get a good taste of Belgium and Holland. Any suggestions?

Leaving Africa

It is my last day in Africa for at least a couple of years, until the World Cup maybe, and I am more proud than a soccer mom to report that other than a couple mild head colds and occasions of soft stool I have remained illness free for my three months here. I want to give a big thanks to my stomach who endured so much but kept its cool all the while.

So of course there is much to be taken from my visit. But, all I am prepared to say at the moment is I have had some deliciously memorable encounters, none to them too painful. People, in general, are perspiring with beauty, almost against their wills, and in the last three months I have been privy to a lot of that beauty, unpracticed as it may be.

My final days here in Kampala have been relaxed and enjoyable, spending some time with the friends I made and hanging out at bars. I finally came around to this city a little bit. There is a lot here to be discovered and if you are into Mad Max it makes it quite a bit easier to settle down. On an unfortunate note I never made it to the expat bars.

With regards to my the international car of the future efforts the student I was working with gave me one of the most detailed and thorough reports ever that applies directly to the work I will be doing in Belgium helping a student team at the University of Leuven build an electric car. Unfortunately I was not able to assist the team here much.

Big day for us all anyways. Election time. I will be in a plane or at an airport when the world learns if America (dont they mean the USA?) will elect a liberal black man to redeem itself for the recent years of being a global does whatever it wants. Thats a pulpy breakdown at least. My views on the subject are too wierd to put into writing so Ill leave it to your imagination. I wish I were here in East Africa when Obama wins (it looks like he is going to win doesnt it). I can imagine the party lasting for weeks. Of course, if Obama doesnt win it might be a good thing for me to be gone.

I wont be voting. It was just too complicated for me to anticipate. As a Californian, it doesnt mean much for the presidency anyways, but I will be sorely missing the opportunity to vote on referendums and measures to give free hybrid SUVs to all the yuppies in silicon valley and employ me when I return, to specifically define marriage as ungay, and for some animal rights.

When I pop my head up next Ill be enjoying the culture shock of paved roads, and the imaculate combination of chewey bread, creamy stinky cheese, and good wine or maybe beer. Western world here I come.