superlatives

delhi, india

when not attempting uncomfortable sleep or offering sex education lectures to indian adult males, time spent on indian trains can be fertile for self-reflection. with the hour of departure looming ever nearer, the final rail journey fully in the rearview mirror, and the muddy/fecal alleys of delay being peppered with ceaseless rain, now may be as good a time as any to offer my take on that which was. for your reading pleasure or casual disinterest, i present the superlatives of my voyage.

best sunset
hanuman temple, hampi. the sun seemed to explode like a red paintball behind a bouldery ridge, while the villages and river below gradually dimmed. simply incredible. honorable mention: just about every sunset i saw in west africa.

best in pack
cotton/nylon blended hiking pants. packed almost as an afterthought, i hadn't realized that men wear long pants throughout much of muslim africa and parts of india. breathable, tough, comfortable, and most importantly, i never baked inside of them. honorable mention: head lamp.

worst in pack
alarm clock. if there were not statutes against it, this dense piece of non-functioning garbage would be returned through the front window of the duane reade on broadway. i want my $4 back, and punitive damages for transit costs.

best local dish
jolof rice, ghana. a healthy portion of baked chicken mixed in with a variety of vegetables, sauteed in a subtly spicy sauce, served over a fluffy bed of golden rice.

best ride
the bus from the senegal/mali border to kayes, mali. two hours long with a window seat in the back row to myself, we rolled through the late afternoon with nothing but an endless vista of baobab trees, the only interruptions being idyllic villages constructed entirely out of mud.

worst ride
oahiguyou to ouagadougou, burkina faso. we left just after sunset, but were packed into an airport shuttle's bigger brother like sheep. we sweated for a good twenty minutes before the bus finally departed and my lower half went from pain to numbness to sharp pain in the course of the trip.

too little time
dixcove & busua, ghana. i only had one night to spend on an idyllic beach sandwiched by two traditional fishing villages, one of which featured a break suitable for surfing.

too much time
dakar. should have slept in the first day, seen ile de goree the day after, and gotten my malian visa at the border (where it was apparently cheaper too). honorable mention: varkala's time should have been donated to hampi.

next time
timbuktu, niger, more time in ghana, leh, kashmir, nepal.

best vibe
hampi.

best city
lisboa. to be overly critical, i was on the whole unimpressed with the cities i visited, making this award similar to the 'most desirable real estate in nebraska' honor. however, lisboa was worth days and days beyond the 12 hours i was fortunate enough to give it a wander.

best bucoli-city
southern burkina faso/northern benin. this is like the best picture award, having seen some of the best rural scenery the planet has to offer. offering terre rouge against the backdrop of verdantly green rainy season vegetation, driving through this part of africa was a feast for the eyes.

most disappointing
1. not seeing live music in bamako
2. not seeing a tiger (parks are closed during monsoon)
3. not taking a boat on the niger river
4. i did not surf
5. i did not go scuba diving

most depressing
seriously, the heineken bar at newark's liberty international airport. despite traveling through some of the world's poorest countries and seeing the stark inequality of india, there was something so tragic about the gathering of souls in this pre-departure airport lounge.

best westerners
the spanish. factoring in both quantity and quality, these iberians were consistently great company and friendly to the locals.

worst westerners
1. the english guy at the ghanaian embassy in ouagadougou. this guy was an absolute jerk to the receptionist (i loved it when the superior came out and scared this guy out of his knickers).
2. the english family at the restaurant in jaipur. who splits a bill in india? when you're dining with family? they not only told the waiter to split the bill so father and son could pay separately, but they proceeded to debate the most miniscule items line by line. and the total? less than 10 pounds. they probably paid more to a neighbor boy to water their plants while they were on vacation and then proceed to ruin thirty minutes of it arguing over pence.

best book
extremely loud & incredibly close by jonathan safran foer. honorable mention: kafka by the shore by murakami.

biggest con
the omelet guy in bamako. the damage was a little more than us$20, but it was an absolutely stupid, transparent, easy-to-spot duping that was executed to absolute perfection. it had all your classic elements of a good con: offering protection from a perceived third party con, building trust, and using the sun to fatigue the subject. i'm still shaking my fist in his general direction.

best splurge
sushi & ayurvedic massage, bangalore.

best save
not shipping from ghana and storing at the guest house in delhi.

best sign of hope
accra, ghana. i did not see all of it and i hate to be one of those people making inductive leaps based upon infrastructure, but i was impressed. just about all african cities can show off a central business district or two, but accra has more depth to its prosperity than most that i have seen. i departed with some hope that development that can lift all boats is possible in africa.

worst sign of hopelessness
slums outside dakar. several kilometers outside the city, the drive to the east is lined with poor, informal settlements. these are, unfortunately, not an aberration in africa or the world. what was so disconcerting about these particular communities is the sheer distance and state of the road lying between them and the city, their only opportunity for economic advancement.

most pleasant surprise
kayes, mali. the guide book trashed it and while i would agree that it's not a vacation destination, i was able to make a pair of friends and enjoy the beautiful views of the senegal river.

best accomodation
under the stars, dogon country, mali.

best acquisition
tie: hand-woven tapestry carte d'afrique and the vintage bollywood posters.

worst acquisition
1. malaria
2. hypersensitivity to car horns
3. hate this one: an ability to ignore people.

thing to hate i am jaded of but know that i am going to miss
the 'we are all human' conversation. i strongly endorse its thesis and strive to live by its principals, but i've had some form of this conversation every day for the past hundred days. plus, the people who engage in this conversation tend to be of the more intense variety.

fallen comrades (things lost along the way)
1. adapter for francophone country outlets (fell out of incompletely zipped pocket between parakou and cotonou, benin).
2. orange hand towel (left on restaurant table, delhi).
3 & 4. camera battery charger and usb cord, taj mahal. wake up at 5 to catch the sunset and the overzealous security guard told me i couldn't bring these innocuous items inside. i tucked them behind a corner of a nearby building and, as expected, they were not there when i returned from the taj.
5. in the neighborhood of 10-20 pounds.

aside from obvious (family, friends, college football, burritos, etc....), reason i am ready to come home
green backpack. i subscribe to the 'all eggs in one basket' theory of travel, and the light green north face backpack is my basket. it has my passport, wallet, emergency money, camera, spare medicine, and anything i could need in a day. due to its value, it is always with me: next to my head on the overnight train, set on the sink during bathroom trips at restaurants, at my feet or on my lap during auto transit, and on my back while walking (and sweating profusely) through some of the hottest climates the world has to offer. i am ready to not have to look after this bag (it feels like the home ec baby assignment with a bag of flour from junior high) and it needs to be washed. badly. thing could probably hitchhike by this point.


blogger's note: thanks to the readership for sharing in my travels, any questions/comments are gladly welcome: there's nothing i love to talk about more than travel (well, maybe horses, cause they're so cute!). there will be one more posting from here, but in the next week or so i should have several videos to upload.