The ocean's most dangerous predator

Great White Shark, originally uploaded by john white photos.

What is the ocean's most dangerous predator? Actually, it is rubbish. yes, plastic bags and human garbage kill more sea ecosystems and wildlife than great white sharks every year.

Anyways, today, Jennifer and i spent the day in Gaansbai where we got to go cage diving with the great white sharks (note, that is not my picture, but one borrowed from John White of flickr). We met the Animal Planet's Sharkman, John Rutson. In fact, John and many people at the dive shop and crew remembered Jennifer from 5 years ago when she did her research out in Gansbaii. They were all really nice and gave us a huge discount on diving, free gifts, and good times.

Anyways, the dive was pretty awesome. We pretty much get taken 20 mins off the coast and then get dropped into a steel cage. Then the shark crew throw "chum" and huge fish into the water to lure the great white sharks in for our viewing. It was pretty exciting and we were within a few feet of sharks measuring over 10 feet long.

On a side not, after the shark viewing, the entire boat got to view a very exciting yack show. Yes, I entertained the whole boat on our ride back to town by vomitting 4 times off the side of the boat. For some reason I coudln't find my sea legs and hold breakfast down. It was quite a sight and even two motion sickness pills couldn't help me. I hope this won't kill me during the Sardine run.

anyways, i will post our own actual pics from the shark dive and South Africa on our flickr soon so keep on checking..

www.flickr.com/photos/ruchbum

Hope everyone is doing well at home

Lemur watching in Madagascar

Caught looking, originally uploaded by jasonwmak.

We just finished a one week tour of Antanarivo, Madagascar. The country was suprisingly developed as it was once a French colony. Jennifer and I had to get by on some broken French for a few days but it was fine. I think we were both pretty worn out after India so we didn't talk to many locals anyways.

The one highlight of going to Madagascar was to see the lemurs (pictured). These are monkey-like specimens that are indigenous to the island. Contrary to what I thought earlier, Madagascar doesn't have lions, zebras, and other "big 5" animals as shown in the Disney movie "Madagascar". These little lemurs were the most exotic creatures there. Nevertheless, they were really cool. During our hike, we caught a family of lemur mid-howling. Their screeching was very loud and intimidating.

We are in South Africa now. This is our 2nd time here and Capetown has become even more developed since our trip here in 2003. We spent one day in a shopping mall just getting back to some 1st world conveniences. It's also winter here so we had to go to the local department store to buy some warm clothes. The real treat was watching a movie in the movie theatre. How nice it was to sit in a nice cushy chair and watch Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe run around for 2 hours. Nevertheless, we feel refreshed and ready to finish our last month travelling in Africa.

2nd time in India

City View from the City Palace, originally uploaded by jasonwmak.

I thought I'd give Jennifer a break from blogging and chime in with my report of my 2nd trip to India. Five years ago, I came to India with Bobby. India chewed us up and spit us out and we vowed never to return. Jennifer has always wanted to come to India, so as a dutiful husband, I decided that I would return to India's touts, scorching weather, poo poo streets, and urine stenched glory. One of my big goals this time was to "unpeel the onion". Every traveler we have talked to about India has said it was "amazing" and "unreal"; I too wanted to seek out this exotic and magical India that everyone raves about.

So far, the trip has been quite mixed. Our first stop in Goa was not too spectacular. The low season in Goa is barren, dirty, hot, and smelly; for the first time in our trip, we yearned to surround ourselves with Western tourists.

Mumbai was a little better. A nice driver took us to visit the slums so we could relieve Dev Patel's "Slumdog Millionaire" and Jennifer enjoyed some shopping in the trendy (even by Western standards) Colaba district.

Delhi welcomed us with scorching heat (46 degrees fahrenheit) and Indian touts. A visit to Old Delhi really wore us down. Thankfully, we discovered Khan Market, the Delhi hangout for Indian yuppies and expats. Sometimes, it's nice to hang with the regular locals, yes those that have white collar jobs, cars, and flatscreen TVs. We must remember that not everyone in India walks around with a turban and eats with their hands. A day trip to Agra let Jennifer say "been there done that" to the Taj Mahal. I was surprised to see how much the local government regulated the touts. There is now considerably less touting and better tourist services for foreigners in most tourist attractions in India.

The last week has been spent caravaning across Rajasthan, the India state known for it's vast deserts, forts, and mosques. Most these forts overlooked wonderful shanty towns that looked charming from above but were littered with cowpies at groud-level.

Our first stop, Udaipur was a nice surprise. Our hosts at the Tiger Hotel welcomed us as their only customers for three nights and we enjoyed roti, curries, and daal (chickpea mush) on rooftop restaurants every night overlooking the city. It was also this time where we received the sad news that my Aunt in Taiwan lost her battle with cancer so we spent the days less active and remembering her good character.

Our next stop Jodhpur reminded me of Jaipur, a large city, a dump, with a large fort. We took an unpleasant 5 hour bus and got stuck by a rickshaw driver in a crappy hotel. I think Jennifer was getting a little homesick at this time so we were quick to make Jodhpur a fading memory.

The next day we recruited our spunky driver, Sanjay, to take us to Jaisalamer. Our trip ride was hugely entertaining. Sanjay was a feisty father of 4 who enjoyed Indian hip hop and bungra dancing. Throughout the 5 hour car ride, he entertained us with shaking shoulders, waving hands, and his Indian trance/rave/bungra music....even when we were trying to sleep or read. Finally, we made it into Jaisalemer and turned up into our beautiful hotel inside the actual fort and overlooking the city. What a great find! We are living out of a scene of Aladdin. Thankfully, Jaisalmer is a smaller town which translates into less touts and more sincere people...this has been very welcoming.

Today Jennifer and I went on a camel safari and ate dinner in the desert with the local people. Our camels, Badu and Moinka, had the unfortunate task of hauling us up and down sand dunes through the hot day and at night. The desert people were really poor and really put in perspective our good our lives back home are. We also met a very interesting family from Arizona. The Cohen's stand 5 strong and are taking a year off from work and school to travel. What a cool family....they are fallowing a similar itinerary as us, but they have also been through mainland China and will be hitting up Europe and South America as well. Jennifer and I were all too glad to hear some American voices and glad we ran into such a cool family.

Tomorrow we head back up to Delhi (via an overnight sleeper train) and wrap up India. Next up, Africa...this will be a challenge but I do foresee many cool pictures and stories to tell.

I hope everyone is doing well back at home.

Jason

Udaipur, Rajasthan

Indian moustache, originally uploaded by jasonwmak.

Greetings from Udaipur, located in the central state of Rajasthan. Udaipur has been heralded as the "Venice of India" because of its famous Lake Pichola but the water has been missing for 2 years due to poor monsoon rain fall. Luckily, the city has still retained much of its charm due to a few beautifully bejewled palaces and temples. Also, its fairly underdeveloped and untouched by western modernization so you can get a nice sleepy feel for Old World India.

The gentleman in the picture is sporting the classic Rajasthan-y moustache which, as he proudly informed us, takes 30 minutes each morning to recreate. Among styling cream and gel, this creation is held up by spit and butter, yes, butter. He was such a jolly fellow (a minority in this country, it seems) and was quite happy to have his portrait taken. I love hiim!

Tomorrow we are off to Jodhpur, home to more forts and searing temperatures.

- Jennifer

Those damn touts

The most aggravating/annoying aspect of traveling in a 3rd world country is the endless barrage of locals speaking pidgin english asking one or more of the following:
- "Taxi?"
- "Tour Guide?"
- "Bracelet?"
- "PASHMINA SCARF?"
- "Take look, Madam?"
- "Madam, take look?"
- "Book?"
- "Give me moneyyyy?"
- "Battery?"
- "Memory Card?"

and then followed by "cheap price for youuuu!?" Touts are relentlessly annoying, but are part of the traveling scenery.

The absolute worst is the child-tout. Not only are they super energetic and even more supercharged their their adult counterparts, but it is heartbreakingly depressing for a 3 year old to bear the brunt of the attitude of fed-up, tired tourist (such as myself). The worst experience occurred in Siem Reap as we were pulling away from the Killing Fields in an auto rickshaw (fancy scooter). A tiny, scrawny, adorable little girl had been trying to sell us some useless cloth bracelet for the past 5 minutes. She climbed onto the edge of the rickshaw as we were pulling away still begging as we moved faster until finally the driver scolded her to get off, then proceeded to chase after us for a few hundred meters in bare feet.

They are everywhere: lurking at stop lights in the craziest traffic you have ever seen, lying in the middle of busy intersections, pacing at the top of a temple near Angkor Wat.

Its utterly depressing..kids have it so good in the states, its unbelievable.

Delhi,India

Imagine the hottest you have ever been, multiply that by about 10 and you will know how Delhi feels in June. It is ridiculously hot here, but I dont think the sun has even reached its maximum potential at this particular latitude and longitude. I am hoping we will have escaped to Africa before we need to experience that. Even at 7pm, when light is barely perceptible on the horizon, I feel like i'm standing in the wake of the exhaust pipe of an old '65 Chevy pickup that hasn't had a smog check in 20+ years. Its dusty, smoggy, and thick. My eyeballs feel hot.

Oh, its hot!

We whirled through Mumbai pretty quickly, and I found it to be a pretty vibrant and charming city. We visited Cafe Leopold and the Taj Palace, sites of the tourist shootings in late 2008, I took a nice picture next to the bullet holes...they still haven't patched it up yet. I have been thinking about terror tourism. I'm wondering if violent acts committed in the name of terrorism actually boost tourism. I mean, prior to 9/11, the twin towers had never crossed my mind. Its slightly morbid but seems to be true so far.

Oy, its hot!