golddog goes for a ride
Inspired by chopstick's excellent thread, I'm going to try to keep one running as well.
Fair warning, though: I am neither as interesting nor as good a writer as chopstick.
Suggestions for a better title, are welcome. I was trying to think of a play on 'chasing the ball', which would be both golddog-ish and the ball representing the world, but I failed. Running around is something golddogs like to do too though.
I'll start a little bit with last week's trip to Costa Rica. I've traveled a fair amount over the past several years; if this becomes something people are interested in, I can try to recount some of these as well.
Some stats:
Miles: 4605.5
Gas saved (~.8 gallon)*
States: 12: (CO, KS, MO, AR, TN, NC, SC, VA, WV, KY, IN, IL)
Days: 13
Avg MI/day: 354.27
*One of the few things I don't like about the Subie is the "auto turn off" feature when I'm stopped. I like the idea, I just think it's executed very poorly. Sometimes I pull up to alight, and the engine keeps running (with a symbol of an 'A' with a slash through it to let me know it should have invoked the feature). Or, shift my foot on the brake pedal; not moving the car, just stretching or something; car turns back on.
Seems to me it should be as simple as, "car stopped with engine running? turn it off until gas is invoked." Of course, I don't know the engineering behind their decision to make it perform in the manner it does.
no barracuda in fresh water so gar it is 😀
yep, that's a gar
we used pet store goldfish to catch 'em
would put up quite the fight
season heavily with garlic s&p, roast on a stick over the campfire and just at the moment they were done we'd toss them back into the river and eat the stick.
yep, that's a gar
we used pet store goldfish to catch 'em
would put up quite the fight
season heavily with garlic s&p, roast on a stick over the campfire and just at the moment they were done we'd toss them back into the river and eat the stick.
LOL
I thought you had lost your mind--right up to the end.
On the plus side, I was finally able to find a spot on United's website which allowed me to see upgrade cost with miles.
55K total miles for the possibility of upgrading to Premium Plus for the two legs coming to and going from Delhi. Unfortunately, they can't guarantee upgrades, but I'm on the list.
Don't understand that, the "normal" upgrade path shows all seats in those areas except one open. I guess they want to wait til the last minute to see if people buy those seats with cash?
On the plus side, I was finally able to find a spot on United's website which allowed me to see upgrade cost with miles.
55K total miles for the possibility of upgrading to Premium Plus for the two legs coming to and going from Delhi. Unfortunately, they can't guarantee upgrades, but I'm on the list.
Don't understand that, the "normal" upgrade path shows all seats in those areas except one open. I guess they want to wait til the last minute to see if people buy those seats with cash?
bad use of miles imo
i would regularly spend 33k miles to get a one way trip between USA & China (requires flexible dates and airports)
Oh well. They're just sitting around in my account.
I figure the most likely scenario is no upgrade available, and I get them back in my account on flight day.
Got some travel insurance today. Required by the tour provider, though I think I would've gotten some anyway, on a trip of this scope.
Filled out the tour operator's "good to go" form with the policy information, so I guess I'm good to go.
Phone tells me it's T -123 days.
Looked at the flight map from Newark to Delhi. Looks like across the North Atlantic, head SE over UK & Europe, Russia and some of the mid-Asian countries, then the corners of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Roughly 14 hours, though there's some variation historically, of course. Indeed, today's flight got cancelled. Let's hope I don't have that problem, though I did schedule a day early arrival to allow for stuff like that.
Then, I looked at my world atlas. Assuming this happens, there will be a slice of Earth (kind of from Varanasi, IN to Ipoh, Malaysia, o r 83E to 101E) which I haven't been to or over.
Looking at google maps, seems like that slice is a lot of Bangladesh, Myanmar, western China, and Siberia. Not too interesting to me.
Maybe someday I'll figure out a reason to go to/cross that space so I can truly say I've been around the world.
A couple from the Cities, who I met on the Brazil trip, was nearby, visiting her brother. Met with them for lunch.
Nice day in Castle Rock. Really good to see them again, heard about their travels, talked about mine. They gave me some good ideas for future adventures (Katmai, Galapagos, something else I'm not thinking of right now).
Just a nice afternoon, except for the traffic in-between.
so you hung out at casterly rock with the lannisters
where cersei and jaime suggested far away lands to explore
can't wait to read the book
Had to look up 'the lannisters'. Never watched GoT, but I'll assume that's another clever Red reference. 😀
👍 that was a reference
is it quantumly unpossible to call yourself clever?
That's why I did it for you. Don't want to ask the unpossible of the people in this thread.
I spent four months in India in 1992. Flew to Mumbai, then travelled through Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. You've already broken my two tips, which would be to go for more than a couple of weeks (get ready for culture shock), and go to the south rather than the north first (as, from what I heard, it's a little less crazy and intense). Proper third-world country. Although probably much has changed since then. It was an incredible experience. Karma is all.
Thanks for the insights, Charlie. I'll be on a tour, so I expect a lot of hustle from here to there and not a huge amount of time to take it in, but we'll see.
Let's hope for tigers.
Arriving in Mumbai, or Bombay as it was then called, was post-apocalyptic. I got on the tube from Seven Sisters to Heathrow, and then Singapore Airlines, smoking section, as it then was, on a ticket bought from a travel agent in Earls Court. Stepping out of the airport, you're stepping over teenage girls with babes in arms sleeping in the gutter. Like literally stepping over them. The taxi from the airport to downtown goes through the
slum, the biggest slum in South-East Asia. A British legacy, of course. Seeing a slum IRL, albeit from a taxi window, is not like seeing one on TV. Corrugated iron shacks with people living in them as far as the eye can see. I felt like some White Prince, just by being from the West. There were signs along the side of the road, saying Please Keep Bombay Clean and Tidy. Then arriving at the metropolis, a good 80 or 90% of the buildings would here be condemned outright, on the spot; no roof, front hanging off, etc. I kept thinking, when are we going to get to downtown Bombay, and then then it dawned on me that I was already here. No welfare state. Six years old and no one to look after you? Too bad. They grow up fast that way. Like miniature adults.
The lack of respect people have for nature does disturb me. Got super-lucky in Africa; some of the treks it was just me & the guides. When there were people around, they mostly were quiet and watched.
One time I was in with a group of three middle-aged Asian folks. Driving around the bush, the guy gets a phone call and starts jabbering. WTF.
I am concerned over how I'll react to the crushing poverty. I get what you're saying about realizing how privileged I am. It's shocking how many Americans don't realize how good we have it compared to the world.
I had a similar experience with the super-rich. My friend's brother was head gardener to a Mr Weston, the third-richest man in Canada, who rented Fort Belvedere, where Edward VIII made his abdication speech, off the Royal Family. The budget for the upkeep of the grounds was a million pounds per year. and the Westons spent about five weeks a year there. That's rich, except adjacent was a polo ground owned by the Sultan of Brunei, with its own purpose-built village for the staff. I went to the brother's for a BBQ once, and walked around it all; all of it being deserted. I found that and the Dharavi slum experience similar and liberating. You are somewhere somewhat comfortable on the continuum between rich and poor, and it doesn't matter exactly where.
What I meant was your describing your arrival at Mumbai. Stuff that I'm lucky enough not to have to deal with, or even see, very frequently.
Maybe bad phrasing. Lucky/fortunate instead of privileged? I appreciate and try to keep in mind it was a huge stroke of fortune to have been born into a society where it's possible to be be able to travel and see the world instead of working hard every day just to stay alive.
I don't mean to imply that you were saying anything about my personal experience.
