lovett abroad

Gallery: Nepal - Annapurna Trek

annielovett — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 14:45:00 GMT

12 day trek to Annapurna Base Camp

Gallery: Nepal - First Week

annielovett — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 14:43:00 GMT

Kathmandu Valley and Bhaktapur

Gallery: A whistle-stop trip through Northern India

annielovett — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 14:40:00 GMT

Kolkata, Varanasi, Agra and Delhi

12 Days in the Annapurnas: Are you going up or coming down?

annielovett — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 13:41:00 GMT

12 trekking days, climbing up, down and around. Stone stairs and rough trails. Over babbling streams and icy wild rivers. Through forests and valleys. Over a glacier or two, and through an avalanche zone. Just a compass and map to guide us.

11 nights cosied up in sleeping bags, in draughty wood and stone huts, often layered up in everything we own.

10 + 10 frozen digits on the snowy morning's climb to Annapurna Base Camp and ten mountains in the 360 degree panorama of the Annapurna Sanctuary.

9+ nationalities met along the way and more than nine bridges there and back; some strong steel and stone, others icy, slippery logs.

8 lungs fit to burst on reaching 4000m and eight weary sore legs at the end.

7 Mars and Snickers bars for power to keep putting one foot in front of the other and seven creatures seen and unseen: snow leopard, musk deer, eagles, himalayan weasel, pack horses and donkeys, and the legendary Yeti.

6am starts, rising and sleeping with the sun, and six smelly socks used in rotation.

5 colours of the Tibetan prayer flags strung up, five top layers on the base camp days and nights, and "Five more minutes" said Thellie, "just round that bend, over that ridge...", never true.

4 bright red and pink tikka-ed faces in celebration of Holi, four sick days and four meals missed on the way up, and four greasy hat heads after living in them for six continual days.

3pm naptime, after the day's walking is done and the afternoon rain and snow creep into the valley, three packs per porter for every trekker's one, and nearly 3000m: the total elevation gain.

2 hot showers, one up, one down, two slightly charred shoes belonging to Tom, and two near misses for Tom and I crossing icy boulders on the Modi Khola.

Things too many to quantify: dishes of dhal bhat eaten by all, games of cards and subsequent accusations of 'fix, 'cheat' and 'jammy git', steps taken up and down and shouts of "Not another uphill", goose pimples creeping in and spreading under thermals at Macchapucchre Base Camp, and positive adjectives to describe the view and feeling of finally reaching the top.

1 crunchy, dodgy knee collapsing on Dawn on the way down, one trekker's card and permit, pack, walking stick and yak wool hat each, and one awesome panoramic view on reaching our destination: Annapurna Base Camp at 4130m.

And into Nepal

annielovett — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 21:21:00 GMT

Sitting in the café whilst trying to find Tom and Dawn and the hotel, both Thellie and I felt immediately relaxed after the chaos of India. The main tourist area of Thamel is packed with trekker's shops, travel agents, souvenier and craft shops; you can find pretty much anything you want here. We had a couple of days here before heading out to Bhaktapur, and old, intact medieval town just outside Kathmandu.

The town is a maze of cobbled streets, squares, temples, shrines, craft shops and craftsmen at work; a good step back into Newari culture. Our guesthouse was right next to one of the oldest temples in town and we were, somewhat surprisingly, woken up at 4am by people starting to pass by: walking clockwise around the temple, men in traditional Newari caps chanting, touching their heads and chests, everyone putting red tikka dots on their foreheads, women carrying leaf trays of offerings of tikka, flower petals and rice grains, and clanging of bells to make it known they're there.

For the next couple of days, we wore in our boots and trekked out through the Kathmandu valley, up to a temple, and across to Nargarkot, a well-known Himalayan viewpoint. Sadly the clouds stopped us from seeing any actual mountains in both the evening and morning, so we walked down to Dhulikhel the following day, down the valleys and past numerous villages, and up to another viewpoint. We were duly rewarded and were greeted with a sunrise view of the Langtang region of the Himalayas, Thellie's and my first proper view of the Himalaya (aside from a quick moment when flying into Kathmandu earlier in the week and catching a brief glimpse of snowy mountains poking through the clouds).

After a brief day or two in Kathmandu and Pokhara, we finally started our much anticipated trek in the Annapurnas. I've written a separate piece for this as it was an absolute highlight. The going was tough on occasion, more so for me as I fell ill on the way up and had to spend a couple of days recuperating and trying to eat again, but the view at the top at ABC, or Annapurna Base Camp, was just astounding – surrounded on all sides by 7000m+ snowy peaks, about a week's walk from civilisation and everything we're used to. No telephone, internet, email, newspapers or television; just perfect.

For the last few days we’ve been resting up (and getting pissed off) in Pokhara. We're surrounded by western-ities, which while useful and comforting at times, right now it's all making us angrier and more irked as the hours go on, definitely not the Nepal we wish to see so we're running off to the jungle and Royal Chitwan Park in the morning, hoping to spend a good few days trekking in the jungle and spotting the odd rhino, elephant and monkey, and maybe a tiger…but not too close hopefully;)

It's also election time on the 10th, which could spell trouble, so we're planning on staying well away from the main tourist areas, especially Kathmandu just in case there are problems with the Maoists, the army and any of the other parties. There are regular reports in the newspapers of candidates attacking and killing each other at the moment so it would pay for us to stay away…

Also, as you should've seen, the political situation in Tibet has taken a turn for the worse and at the moment, the border crossing from Nepal isn't even open, so our plans to travel onward and into China have been shelved. Even if the border did open soon, neither of us really wants to put any money into the corrupt Chinese government's hands, and any travel in Tibet would be severely restricted and monitored, so for now, it's a no go.

The silver lining is that we get to spend more time in Nepal, using our full two month visas, and for those at home, maybe!, I'm now heading home earlier, aiming to be back in Cambridge by mid-May.

Hope everyone is well, and see some of you very very soon!

Annie xx

A jump in at the deep-end - A week in India

annielovett — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:02:00 GMT

Just shy of 48 hours from finishing work in Busan on Friday night I found myself in Kolkata...! Natalie and I flew down together (thankfully for her as I had to wake her up at the boarding gate, haha), met Thellie/Dave, and spent a night in Bangkok eating, drinking some beers, and myself taking a ridiculously short deep breath to get myself ready for the next 2 - 3 months. After some delay we landed in Kolkata on Sunday evening, with no plans, bookings or any confirmed ideas as to how, what, when and where...! Seeing this as our 'qualifying' week, we figured, if we could get to Delhi in 7 days with no planning the rest will be fine...and it is so far.

Kolkata was just mental. Heading to the backpacker area of

Sudder Street

we sat in the back of the taxi trying to take everything in. People everywhere, traffic crazier and more ruleless than any I've seen elsewhere (something akin to rally driving on a densely packed urban scale, with human-led rickshaws and cows thrown in for good measure), noise, dirt, smells from the street stands of food, less savoury smells that don't need describing...it was an overload to say the least, but an exciting one too. And seeing for real the reverence that cows have Hindu society – they are literally given free reign of entire areas and cities. If they want to sleep in the middle of a main road, fine. If they want to take a break and nap whilst blocking an alley or doorway or three, fine also. We only spent a day and night here, and mainly wandered the streets and got lost, trying and failing to find Mother Teresa's Mission, and starting to get used to a tasty and cheap Indian diet of paneer and vegetable curries, lassies and naans.

Moving onto Varanasi (cultural city on the Ganges) by train was suprisingly easy, and for the price of three quid, we got a bunk in an air-conditioned carriage. Stepping out at the station in the morning was a little bit of a jump in atmosphere from Kolkata. Quieter, dustier, more laidback, we were thankful that we'd chosen to spend a couple of days here. We spent our first day being driven round in an auto-rickshaw by a guy called Shiva, round to a famous university, a temple or three, and down to the Ganges and the ghats (quays) in the evening. We hired a boat to take us down the river to watch some celebrations from waterside. Rowing down was an eerie, calming experience: not a sound apart from the splash of the oar, stars twinkling above, and the odd candle floating past in a mini leaf dish.

We spent the next day ambling around the river and ghats again and through the back alleys. The ghats go on for miles and miles and have a real mix of people and life about them: people bathing, doing laundry, families walking up and down, women in saris buying bright garlands of orange flowers, holy men dressed in orange, a funeral or two, with the human cremation taking place at the side of the river in full view. Wandering ther back alleys, I passed umpteen traveller's shops selling all the hippified clothing you could possibly wish for, small, dusty chemists, fruit and vegetable basket sellers spilling out onto the street, dairy shops with urns and urns of fresh curd, with numerous tuktuks and cows to dodge as well. I also stumbled across a street parade, some kind of start to the forthcoming festival. It was a very bizarre mix of dressed up elephants and camels, children on tall poles dressed as devils and gods, a man covered in black soot, in a black dress, with a flower garland dancing around crazily to whatever beat surrounded him at the time.

Agra was our next stop, and another sleeper train beckoned, but this time was a little more fraught. We were given the wrong platform and subsequently found ourselves in the right carriage and at the right bunk, but on the wrong train...! And it's just as well this turned out to be wrong because this particular train was rammed with people and, what looked like, their entire belongings. People four or five to a bunk, top bunks sagging under the weight of boxes, and people and bags stacked up in the aisles. We fought our way down to 'our' bunks, got wedged in, then realised we were on the wrong train and had about five minutes to get out, oh dear. After much shouting, pondering going out the window as it looked closer and easier, and literally climbing over people, we burst out, ran over the platforms, and found ourselves sat in the right place, on the right train with about five minutes to spare.

We spent a day's sightseeing in Agra, going to the Taj Mahal first, of course. Walking round to the gates, and seeing the first glimpse of it through the shadowed arches was surreal. It looked like a mini-model someone had built from marble and stone and placed by the river. Walking around the main building itself in barefeet was fabulous (apart from the odd patch of hot stone warmed by the sun). We went around to the opposite side of the river to watch the sunset over it, and rise again the following morning. In the evening, there were only a few tourists around which made for a change, and we watched the sun turn the famous domes pink and orange as farmers and workers walked back along the track next to the river, children, goats and a couple of camels in tow too.

We also visited Agra Fort and the 'baby Taj', both … I think my favourite part of Agra was not the main tourist sights, but simply wandering the quiet back streets on our free day, through small communities usually skipped by the package tourists coming in and out of town, and the amazing street food. We started at one stand, sitting on a rickety wooden plank watching the street traffic go by, with a bag of samosas for 10p, and had to buy more that evening and the following day because they were just too good. One thing that really irked the both of us was a supposed student; on the face of it just wanting to chat and practice his English (for his future study in England…whether this is true or not we don't know), but ultimately trying to get us to buy a load of marble goods. He seemed honest enough, so we said we'd sit down with him and have a chat. Stepping into his shop, I told him that we had no money between us so would not be buying anything but were more than happy to sit and chat, as he had asked. He got incredibly defensive and ended up saying it was bullshit that he was trying to sell us something. As it sadly turned out, he was a salesman first and foremost, and Thellie ended up storming out when he accused him of being a girl and not making a decision to buy something. He did apologise to us in the street the following day, but it just really grated and made us feel like every interaction we had, and were going to have, with local people was going to be based on us not as people but as walking dollar signs.

Our final city was Delhi for another 24 hours. Arriving at the main station at 3am and wandering to the nearby Prahaganj area to find our hotel was something of an experience. Minimal street lighting, rickshaw drivers parked up, people sleeping in shadows and doorways, barking dogs…not entirely comfortable that's for sure. The following day we tuktuk-ed it out to the Red Fort, and walked down through the main market area of Chandi Chowk and the adjacent spice market. Here there are hundreds and hundreds of spice sellers, selling everything from chili and tumeric to saffron and coconut in huge great baskets and sacks. The air was thick with spices, with even the locals walking through were coughing and sneezing a bit, and groups and groups of porters hauling around sacks of spices on their backs and on wooden carts; times don't change much.

As for Delhi Airport, I can't even bring myself to say how supremely awful this airport is. Trust me. Pay extra and avoid it. Which now leaves me at the end of the rollercoaster that is four Indian cities in a week, and on to Nepal...

The finale and the next step

annielovett — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:15:00 GMT

Hi all!

I'm going to keep this brief and let you take a photographic journey through my last couple of months in Korea (with a little sojurn to Japan). As expected packing to leave tomorrow was left to the last minute and I have only hours left...! Thankfully everything is ready and all that's left to do is eat a last dinner of galbi, wash it down with soju and hang out with the ladies till departure time...

Needless to say the last couple of months have been ace; Christmas in a cabin, new year's in Tokyo and Kyoto, a trip up north into a winter wonderland, snowboarding, a retreat to the countryside, Bjork in Seoul and all the usual shenanigans.

I can scarcely believe I’ve only a matter of days left. It really does seem like a couple of weeks ago I was packing up and coming out here, throwing myself into the unknown…which turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made. I’ve had some of the best times and made friends for life; which also means I have people to visit all over the world now which is grand too.

And as for the next three months, I’m jumping in at the deep end and within 48hours of writing this I’ll be in Calcutta! I’m meeting my friend Thellie/Dave in Bangkok, and we’ll then spend a week travelling across northern India via Varanasi, Agra and Delhi, before flying to Kathmandu to meet my friends Tom and Dawn. The original plan to spend 6 weeks in Nepal and a further 6 in Tibet and China is still in place. I can’t wait to get to the mountains!

Then I’ll be home in June and I’ll see where things take me then…

Which just leaves me to say to my Korean family (you know who you are)…I love you and I will miss you horribly - some I already am, but I will see you again in different lands, we have hostels, cafes and galleries to be opening after all!

Hope you’re all well as always. And, for the Cambridge peeps, get some roast dinners and pints ready for my return in 12 weeks:)

Annie xxx

Gallery: Winter BWs

annielovett — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:04:00 GMT

Here and there in Busan and Seoul, and wider Korea

Gallery: My Wiz Kids

annielovett — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:47:00 GMT

My kindergarten, Busan

Gallery: Last week in Daehanminguk

annielovett — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:18:00 GMT

Nicole's last night and my last week

Gallery: Seolnal

annielovett — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:17:00 GMT

Lunar new Year countryside break with the ladies

Gallery: Bjork weekender

annielovett — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:17:00 GMT

Bjork concert in Seoul and post-party

Gallery: Winter Birthdays

annielovett — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:16:00 GMT

Mine and Nicole's birthdays

Gallery: Snow!

annielovett — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:10:00 GMT

Mt Taebaek and Phoenix Park

Gallery: Japan in Holga

annielovett — Fri, 4 Jan 2008 23:09:00 GMT

Tokyo and Kyoto as seen through the lens of my Holga camera

Gallery: Winter Parties

annielovett — Fri, 4 Jan 2008 23:08:00 GMT

Birthdays and celebrations using my new fisheye and holga cameras

Gallery: Kyoto

annielovett — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 23:41:00 GMT

The first day of the new year

Gallery: Tokyo New Year's Eve

annielovett — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 23:40:00 GMT

Shinjuku and Shibuya

Gallery: Tokyo

annielovett — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 23:38:00 GMT

New Year's Weekend

Gallery: Christmas week

annielovett — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 23:35:00 GMT

Galbi and dancing in Kyungsung and christmas-ing in Muju