I’m using a DS18B20 temperature sensor because I had one from another project. It’s only rated to 257F but I tend to smoke cool anyway. I am not relying on the parasitic mode because that’s supposed to not work well at high temperatures. The Arduino (a RBBB from Modern Device) reads the temperature. If it’s below 210F then it turns on a relay. If it’s above 210F it turns the relay off. I might experiment with fancier algorithms later.

The relay is soldered in line with an extension cord, which just has the hot plate plugged into it. Because the relay’s coil voltage is 12V, I use a 15V (unlabeled) power supply. A 5V regulator creates power for the microcontroller and the display.

I got some 7-segment LEDs to display the current temperature. Using a 7 (1 for each segment) by 3 (for each digit) matrix they are controlled with 10 pins. Only 1 segment is lit up at each time, so each segment is on for at most a 7th of the time. With my current code it’s worse than that, but I don’t know how much. (Scope donations are welcome.) This works great indoors, but as you can tell in the pictures is not bright enough to be read in bright sunlight. I stuck a tube over the display so I could read it.

Anyway, results: It worked pretty well. I had a problem with getting the sensor in the right place. Probably this has to do with the air flow in the smoker. I might drill a hole in the lid next time instead of running it through the side somewhere. But once I had it in a good spot, everything was very reliable. With the oven thermostat the temperature would regularly be off by 40F either way, and I’d check up on it every 10 minutes and often would adjust the thermostat a little. There was none of that this time. I still checked every 15 minutes, but towards the end left it alone for almost an hour. I overdid the ribs I put in there a bit, but the flavor was still good, and the thick parts came out very nice.

You can grab source/schematic here. The schematic is a little rough, but all the wires are there. It does show 2 buttons which I haven’t wired up yet, and for which no code exists. The idea is to use them to change the goal temperature. I build the code with jam and avr-gcc. This is not an Arduino project. I’m just using that hardware.

I’d love to hear from anyone who builds this, has questions, or has done something similar.

Everybody wants to know how much it costs to go on a trip like this, but most people are afraid to ask. Here’s what it cost us, as close as I can figure it. From Jun 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009, we spent $44,937. That includes about $2,468 in medical bills, which we later got $468 back from our health insurance for. (Basically they covered it all from our deductible on.) We had paid IMG insurance $2407 before we went on this trip to be covered for the year. I picked them mainly because their insurance will cover you for a full month when you return to the US, which would give us time to figure out health insurance once we got back.

There were some other things aside from insurance that we bought before our trip that were definitely part of it. We’d bought plane tickets from LA to DC, NYC to Paris, and Munich to Dar Es Salaam for a total of $2881. We’d paid for our Tanzanian safari which was $3120. Finally we paid $1685 to get shots so we wouldn’t get any number of scary diseases. We also bought a bunch of travel gear, but I’m going to leave that out. So the bottom line for the money is, drumroll please… $54,562. That’s quite a bit of money, but for what we got it was totally worth it. If this number is scaring you from taking your own trip, don’t be. This is just what we did. You are totally different! We could’ve easily saved 10 or 20 thousand dollars by not visiting Europe, not doing our African safaris, not taking the container ship, and eating cheaper.

Packing and what to bring is another subject that’s endlessly debated. I made a decision to just go with the list on onebag.com and I don’t regret it. It’s a good list. I brought some harmonica stuff that I ended up never using, and had to ship home. Definitely bring 4 pairs of underwear. 3 is not enough. And don’t sweat your packing too much. Just about everything you might need is available for sale in any major city in the world. Do bring a money belt. It made us feel like our money was in a safe place. As for bags, I highly recommend Rick Steves’ Convertible Carry-On. It’s light, has the right amount of pockets, and sturdy enough to show little wear even after a year.

If you have any questions I didn’t address here, leave a comment. I’ll do my best to answer questions.

And finally, I’m done blogging this trip! It sure felt like a chore at times, but I’m glad to have done the work and look forward to rereading it all in a few years.

_tput() {
   tput $* 2> /dev/null
}

# Color definitions.
blue=`_tput setf 1 || _tput setaf 4`
green=`_tput setf 2 || _tput setaf 2`
cyan=`_tput setf 3 || _tput setaf 6`
red=`_tput setf 4 || _tput setaf 1`
magenta=`_tput setf 5 || _tput setaf 5`
yellow=`_tput setf 6 || _tput setaf 3`
white=`_tput setf 7 || _tput setaf 7`
default_colors=`_tput op`
bold=`_tput bold`
# clear all attributes
plain=`_tput sgr0`

prompt="$"
prompt_color=$cyan

# removed code that changes prompt_color depending on some conditions

# Check for being root.
if [ `whoami` == "root" ]; then
    prompt="#"
    ps1_user="\[$red\]\u\[$prompt_color\]"
else
    ps1_user="\[$prompt_color\]\u"
fi

PS1="${ps1_user}@\h:\w$prompt\[$default_colors$plain\] "

Back “home,” we’ve been very busy. We stayed at Andy and Juliette’s place for about a week and a half visiting friends and doing chores, before driving up to the Bay Area where I had a job interview. Things looked promising, we looked at apartments, I went to another interview just in case, Danielle had an interview. I accepted my first offer, and we drove down to Andy and Juliette’s again.

For a few days we did nothing but relax, in preparation for moving. We packed up a truck on Saturday, and unloaded it at our new apartment on Sunday. Having gotten rid of about half of our stuff at the start of the trip really made this step a lot easier. Still, now we are in a position where we need to buy a fair amount of furniture. Monday is when I started my job, leaving Danielle to do a lot of the unpacking. That was almost 2 weeks ago now. We’re mostly unpacked and I’m finally starting to get the hang of the new routine.

In that time we haven’t experienced the culture shock that some people describe. Certainly things are different from where we’ve been, but they’re also the way that they’ve been for us most of our lives. The main thing we noticed is how rich people here are. The average US homeless person has more possessions than the average person in India. The other big thing we noticed was that women here have just about any job there is. We both immediately noticed that the shuttle-bus driver was a women.

Being able to understand the language of everybody around us was also not as nice as you might think. In fact it was a bit distracting at first. I was just as happy in the Philippines where everybody we wanted to talk to spoke English. All in all it took us a surprisingly short time to get back into a “normal” life, and it was easier than expected. Which is the story of our trip, really. Traveling the world isn’t that hard. There’s all kinds of information available. The only thing you need is money, and you need less of that than you might think.

The port agent drove us to the place where our ship had just docked. The gangplank wasn’t down yet, so we spent a while just standing next to the car taking pictures. It was dark, and huge cranes with bright lights were already starting to take containers off the ship. Trucks drove by to move the containers to different cranes further back. Those cranes would haul the containers onto big piles about a hundred yards away from the water. It was awesome.

After maybe half an hour of picture taking, the gangplank came down. In the ship’s office we met the captain who took our passports and sent for the steward to help us with our bags. We took the elevator to our cabin, and were impressed with how nice it was. We had a very comfy bed. A table, a lazy chair, an L-shaped seat around the table, TV, DVD player, mini fridge, plenty of storage room, and a nice little bathroom. Most amazing of all was that we could drink the tap water.

We got into our ship routine pretty quickly, and it was built around our food schedule: 7:30am breakfast, 10:00am tea, 12:00 lunch, 3:00pm tea, and finally 5:30pm dinner. At mealtimes we would sit at the captain’s table and eat whatever had been cooked for this meal. The food was nothing special, but we enjoyed it. The captain was quite the talker, and we enjoyed him also. He was German, had been a sailor for over 40 years, and enjoyed talking about his experiences, or just answered the questions we had about life at sea.

Some people might get bored on a container ship, but we both kept plenty busy. Danielle knitted and read a lot of books. I worked on random programming projects and played on the PS2 in the officers’ rec room. We both took advantage of the gymnasium to get some workouts in, and every day we take a walk on deck at least once. The deck was 260 meters long, so an easy walk all the way around could be stretched to last quite a while.

We stopped by two ports on our way: Osaka and Tokyo. On those days I spent a lot more time outside, watching everything that was going on in the harbor. As I mentioned before, the best part was seeing the containers be moved by the truly enormous cranes. I don’t know what to say about it, except that it was the highlight of our sea voyage. One day we went down to the engine room, and got a tour from the chief engineer. For the curious, the engine has 9 in-line cylinders, generates 55,890 horse power, and is still bigger than you think it would be.

After more than 10 days of seeing nothing but ocean (and a very rare passing ship), we stopped just in sight of the California coast. We were ahead of schedule, and the engines don’t like going slow. During this time all the lifeboats were lowered to make sure they all still worked. We also saw quite a lot of whales which were making their way north. None were really close to the boat, but with binoculars it was still great to see. Several of them showed us their tails as they dove down. We also saw dolphins, and even a mola mola which came to the surface briefly. It was a beautiful day.

In the evening we sailed through the Santa Barbara channel, arriving in Long Beach just as the sun was coming up. US Customs came aboard, asking us about our trip and checking the fridge for contraband. After breakfast we got off the ship and took a shuttle to the harbor’s parking lot. The security guard called us a taxi, and soon we were on our way. We should have just gotten a taxi to the closest Metro Link, but instead we spent a small fortune going all the way to Union Station. From there we took a train, and early in the afternoon we arrived at Andy and Juliette’s house.

The bus ride to Busan was over an hour shorter than the book had said it would be. I think they must have built some new roads since the book was written. It was easy to find a locker that fit both our bags at a metro station. Then we spent the afternoon just wandering a little until it was time to meet Matthew, our CouchSurfing host. There wasn’t a whole lot to really wander where we’d chosen, though. Just a few busy shopping streets and some blocks of huge apartment buildings. We couldn’t even find an Internet cafe that was open.

Matthew lived high in an apartment building in the middle of the city, with a giant window which gave a nice view. He took us out to a great bar, where we sat on lots of pillows around a low table, in low light. It was in a much more trendy area of Busan, and lots of people were on the streets when we went out. The area was so trendy that there were two Outback Steakhouses visible from one intersection.

We had two things we wanted to do in Busan: visit a Korean bath house, and visit the fish market. On our first day it rained hard and we decided to tackle the bath house. We took the metro and walked through the downpour to what’s supposed to be one of the nicest ones in the country but sadly it was closed for renovation. Dejected we just went back to Matthew’s apartment. When he came home in the afternoon he pointed us at a different one and so we set off again.

It wasn’t raining anymore, and with the help of some locals we found the bath house. Men and women went to separate all-nude sections. I put my clothes in a locker and showered like I was supposed to. Then I sat in baths of various temperatures, went in the sauna for a few minutes, and spent about as much time as I thought I could. It was an odd atmosphere, with almost no socializing going on. Everybody just was doing their own thing and almost completely ignored one another. I was supposed to meet Danielle after an hour but after 45 minutes I was done. Through some confusion at the entrance we hadn’t bought the extra robes which would let us into the common area where people have snacks etc., so we missed out on that part. I was pretty down on the whole thing when we left, but Danielle really enjoyed her experience.

At night we went out with Matthew to a local chicken shop where we ate some nice fried chicken, including an appetizer of little unidentifiable pieces of chicken (also fried). Afterward we met some of his fellow English teachers.

The next day was our time to leave. We’d called a harbor representative a few days before the 23rd as instructed. Our ship was running a little early, and we were supposed to board on the evening of the 22nd. This meant we had to meet somebody at a downtown coffee shop at 8pm, leaving us plenty of time to visit the fish market. Unfortunately Danielle was feeling a bit ill in the morning, so I went by myself.

The fish market was huge and awesome. It consisted mostly of live fish, shellfish, and octopus. It was at least as interesting as going to a medium aquarium. I loved seeing the clams squirt water around, the octopus swim, abalone crawl around, and some sizable fish sit in barely-big-enough tanks. Most of it was housed in a building that looked very new. After wandering a bit I went upstairs and had a lunch of cooked eel. I think the eel was supposed to be an appetizer, but Korean restaurants aren’t set up for people eating by themselves.

I thought the market was so awesome that I dragged Danielle over there in the evening, when she was feeling a bit better. Many of the stalls had closed down in the evening, but it was still worth a visit. Then we had a dinner of raw fish, where we spent just about all of the won we had on us. The fish was fairly nice, but did not have a lot of flavor and was a little chewy. One of our appetizers was some fish in teryaki sauce which was very good. On the whole, we’ve had only 1 meal I didn’t think was good our entire time in Korea which was something at a hole-in-the-wall place consisting of 4 different kinds of starch in a red sauce. Part of that was probably that we just ordered the wrong things.

From the restaurant we went straight to the coffee shop to meet a harbor representative. We found him easily. Our boat was a bit later after all, so after waiting for an hour he drove us to the harbor. He listened to a baseball game on the radio all the way, alternately cheering and pounding the steering wheel. His team was behind, came back, but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at the very end. In talking about this, I said we don’t follow baseball but do watch a lot of American football. The next thing he asked is if we knew Hines Ward, which of course we do. Apparently he is quite the local celebrity because his mother is from Busan and he comes to visit once a year. Then he took our passports to get stamped, and we had technically left South Korea.

We took the bus from the Express Bus Station in Seoul to Cheongju. It was great. The bus had leather seats similar to business class in an airplane, yet ticket prices were still pretty low. The scenery was nice and green. It felt like Korea has a lot of space that is not built up, and is determined to keep it that way. What a change from every other country we’ve been to since East Africa.

In Cheongju we wandered the neighborhood around the bus terminal to find a motel. It was cheap, and the common areas were just what you’d imagine: dark, with blacklights, and paintings of naked ladies on the wall. We had fun trying to tell the attendant what we wanted, both of us crouching down so we could see each other’s faces through the small hole that is usually just used to swap cash for a key. The room, however, seemed like every other hotel room except that the complimentary toiletries included condoms. It was big, and came with a really fast Internet connection. (Actually, port 80 was blocked but the webpage it directed me to was all in Korean so I tunneled through a friend’s machine at home.)

The good food streak continued with lunch at Mr. Pizza, which advertises itself as a place where Korean women love to go. (It was true. Maybe 80% of the customers were women.) The pizza was excellent. In the evening we walked into another busy-looking place and we had our first sit-on-the-ground meal of some beef soup with a lot of stuff in it. For breakfast we stuck with yogurt and fruit that we bought at nearby Lotte Mart. We couldn’t find real yogurt so it was the sugary stuff but still alright.

On our first full day there we used local buses to go to Sangdang Sanseong fortress. This involved transferring once, but the English speaking lady had told us where. By saying the name to each passing bus driver and getting on when he looked positive we got there. We almost got off the second bus one stop too early, but almost everybody else on the bus told us to stay on and wait. They were all saying it in Korean, but we got the idea.

There was nothing left of the fortress besides a long wall surrounding it. The village now consisted of restaurants. So we walked the length of the wall, which was very pleasant. Quite a few Korean hikers were out, in full technical gear, but there were also plenty of people just going for a walk. The easiest way to get to the wall from the bus stop is to walk by the lake on the left side, and follow the steps up. After the hike we had a good lunch, and timing was great because 5 minutes after we were done a bus left to town. In town we checked out the local Golden Temple. It’s not a huge complex like the one in India, and it’s for a different religion, but it did look cool.

In the evening we walked to a restaurant we’d seen the other day that had a picture of beef on the outside. We did our usual pointing and saying OK. They brought out a plate of raw pieces of beef, for us to prepare on the center grill. The beef was awesome. I don’t know if I’ve ever had any better. As with every meal here, it came with many sides. Unfortunately in their eagerness to help us with everything, we felt the owner rushed us through the meal a little faster than we would have liked. The menu didn’t have any prices and that should’ve been a clue. It was expensive but it was also really great beef that I would talk about for several days.

The following day we rode a luxury bus to Songnisan National Park. It was the first bus of the day, and it was fairly quiet when we started walking about 8:30am. It took a while to walk from the bus station through the tourist village into the actual park, and even there we walked on a paved road for a long time. Along the way we stopped by a Buddhist temple which had some neat buildings in the style we’d seen everywhere, and a giant Buddha statue.

Once we had walked a third of the way to the top of our mountain, we turned off the paved road that followed a river onto a paved road that went up. It turned into dirt, and then finally we were on what I think of as a trail. Most of the trail was stairs. I don’t think we encountered a single switchback, but there were many, many stairs. They were well maintained, and we passed several trail crews working on the stairs. All the stairs made for a tough hike, and we took many breaks before we reached the top.

From the top we did have a very nice view of the surrounding mountains forests. Everything was very green, reminding me of spring. It was a bit hazy so we couldn’t see very far. At the top several groups of hikers stopped for their lunch break, and they went all out with with tea, soju, rice, kimchi, and whatever else might be necessary to have a good meal. The North Face stores were all over the towns here, and now we could see why.

On our way down we passed a couple having lunch in the same style, and the woman motioned to us to join them. Hungry, and ready for an experience (which I not always am) we joined them. They moved over on the rock, and let Danielle sit on the cushion they’d brought. The food was great, and there were at least 8 different little dishes to try. There was also obviously plenty of food for the 4 of us. The Korean couple spoke barely any English. I think, and lack of understanding as well as bad memory foreign names means I’m probably wrong, that the woman’s name was Miha while the man’s name was Kyim.

With our limited common language we didn’t talk much, but we learned that they also live in Cheongju. When they discovered we’d taken the bus they offered us a ride back which we gladly accepted. We raced down the mountain, barely keeping up with their fast pace. It definitely felt like they hiked for the conquest, and not to appreciate the views along the way. Their car was nice and we had a very comfortable ride back to Cheongju where they dropped us off at the bus station like we asked.

All the while Miha was excitedly trying to tell us and ask us everything. Her cell phone had a Korean-English dictionary in it, and she used it a lot. She bought us some drinks along the way, so I finally got to try the Pocari Sweat that’s advertised everywhere, as well as something she called a Korean cookie but felt more like a large, chocolate-coated gummy bear.

To round off our locals-interactions for the day, the attendant at the motel followed us up to our room and came in with is. She went to the fridge, and we think she was trying to tell us that we were allowed to drink its contents, although she called it “room service.” The previous day she’d put a sticky note on the fridge that said “room service” but I suppose she thought we didn’t understand. (Really, we just didn’t feel the need for more alcohol or soda.) That night we drank the bottle of soju in the fridge.

In the morning we got on a bus to Busan, our final stop in Korea, and our final stop outside the US. It was another luxury bus with leather seats that reclined way back. The scenery was about the same as it has been. We watched a Korean TV show about a city girl who had to go live with a family on a farm. Hilarity ensued.

Our flight to Seoul was as good as we’ve gotten used to. We ended up at the end of the immigration line, and this is the first time that our bags made it to the luggage carousel before we did. The airport was clean and organized. We had little trouble with the payphone calling our CouchSurfing host Paul.

After a comfortable bus ride through downtown Seoul we met up with him at a metro station. A short train ride later we were at his studio apartment. It was small but had everything including a laundry machine which we made good use of. Washing clothes in the sink gets a lot of dirt out, but our white (whitish at this point) sure get a lot whiter in a machine than when we wash them by hand.

Paul took us out for some great Korean barbecue. They brought us raw meat, which we cooked ourselves on a small hot plate in the center of the table. The meat was accompanied by a small bottle of Soju, the national Korean alcohol which is at least 40 proof. Afterward we visited a bar where we wrapped up with an OK beer. Meanwhile we were still impressed with cleanliness and the neon lights everywhere.

The next morning was spent learning how little English is spoken in Korea. To start off, as we were having some cereal for breakfast, Paul’s landlady showed up wanting to show the apartment. Luckily the prospective tenant spoke enough English to indicate they just wanted to see the place for a few minutes. At lunch we walked into a small restaurant where I eventually just said OK to something the waitress told us in Korean. We got a very tasty kimchi and beef stew.

Fortunately many signs are in English as well as in Korean. Especially in the metro this made it quite easy to get around. In the afternoon we visited Inwangsan temple complex. The architecture looked Chinese with a twist. The brightly colored paint on the buildings were especially neat. I really enjoyed hiking up a bit to a quiet view of the city.

When Paul got home in the evening, he’d had a bit much to drink. In Korea, you drink when your elders or superiors drink. In fact, they will pour for you (you never pour for yourself) and not drinking is not even something that’s considered. This must at least in part explain why South Korea consumes more alcohol per capita than any other country. Paul may be a western English teacher, but when his principal invites him for drinks, he goes. So we had an easy dinner whose main feature was some kind of savory pancake. 3 out of 3 South Korean meals so far had been excellent.

The following morning we got up early for a tour of the demilitarized zone. A lot of time was spent getting there. Bus from Seoul, transfer to an army bus, safety briefing where they repeated what they’d already told us on the bus, drove some more. Then we marched, in line 2 wide, into the small building that is on the border between North and South Korea. We were there maybe 20 minutes, taking pictures of the stoic South Korean soldiers, and enjoying the novelty of being “in” North Korea even though both sides of the room are identical.

Next we marched to a small observation tower, which was originally built by the South as a nice place to have meetings. It’s built in the South though, and no North Koreans ever came. We couldn’t see very much from there either. The most interesting thing were a group of businessmen from Singapore who wanted their pictures taken with the 2 Americans (us) on the tour.

We drove around a bit more through the DMZ, getting out of the bus once for a view of the building the 1953 peace was signed in, about a mile away. We also got out at the gift shop. The whole experience was kind of strange. There wasn’t anything worth seeing there. The best sight was of some wild pheasants, which we’d never seen before. The reason for going on the tour was to be at a place where politics has utterly failed. But it was just a place, and we couldn’t see the politics. We could feel them a little bit in the rules we were supposed to follow: no pointing, no carrying anything besides a camera out of its case, wear conservative clothing, and so on.

Just outside the DMZ was a different story. This is where most of South Korea’s military might is massed, carefully hidden of course. All we saw were some anti-tank fortifications, which included some giant concrete blocks that could be dropped onto the road at the push of a button. No pictures were allowed at all, here.

In the afternoon we went on an extra tour of the 3rd tunnel. North Korea has dug up to 20 tunnels under the border, presumably to be used in case they want to invade the South. 4 of these tunnels have been found, and the 3rd one is open for visiting (but not photographing). We walked down, and to the end, and back up. There wasn’t much to look at here either, although it was neat being in an underground tunnel dug through solid granite.

The rest of the afternoon we visited a few other places, but I was ready to go back. The most interesting was the train station. South Korea has built a large train station by the border which is virtually unused, but shows that they’re ready when the border opens up again. Similarly, close by are some huge customs buildings to handle cargo going between the two countries. No cargo has even gone into or out of those buildings. When South Koreans talk about reunification it’s not “if” but “when.” Kind of the way we’d talk about warmer weather coming in summer.

Going on the DMZ tour was expensive, and I’m not overall convinced it was worth the money. But if we hadn’t gone then we would have wondered what it would have been like, so overall I’m not unhappy that we went. Back in Seoul, we wandered a bit around downtown. We stopped at a coffee bar which had more emphasis on “bar” than on “coffee.” Overall the emphasis was on high prices, and a dark slightly dingy atmosphere. On the menu was a USD 5 Budweiser, as well as several 3-bottle alcohol sets.

The next day we moved from Paul’s small apartment to a motel around the corner. Motels started out as places where Koreans could come for “privacy” for a few hours. They still serve that function, but they’re also used as cheap accommodation. For less than USD 40 we got a room with AC, a nice bed, refrigerator, TV, and a proper hot shower. Best of all, we didn’t have to do any silly sign-in dance where they need passport photos, blood samples, and whatever else. Just hand over the money and take the key.

We stayed there for a few more nights while we explored the city a bit more. We visited a palace whose name I forget. It was almost entirely reconstructed so everything looked very new. The style was interesting, and the changing of the guard ceremony was fun as well. I prefer my castles made out of stone, though. We had late lunch at an Outback Steakhouse, which is huge here. We’ve seen more of them than of any western fast food chain.

We also visited a giant market area, which really meant a huge shopping district. To me a market means there are stalls, but here there were all buildings. It was big, but did not sell the kind of things I’m interested in. I did walk through a large electronics parts area but for whatever reason most of the stores were closed. Still, it was fun to watch a store full of heat sinks, and a store full of LEDs, etc.

This was not the consumer electronics market which was somewhere else and we did not visit. These gadgets are very common in Korea. On the metro, about 10% of the people are watching video or TV on a little hand-held device, and another 20% are listening to music. Internet cafes were everywhere, and their main purpose seemed to be for people to come and play video games. Video gaming is so popular that there was a separate TV channel dedicated to it, where I was reminded about college while watching some Starcraft battles.

Just having a few days to kill before our flight to Seoul we stayed in Solano to dry out and relax. It still rained regularly, but not non-stop like it had been. Solano was a small town with no sights, so we used the Internet, read, ate ice cream, and spent a lot of time in our room. We stayed at the Governor’s Garden Hotel which was quite nice. Being in a small town it was also very cheap.

We both got haircuts. My hairdresser was even more flamingly gay than Danielle’s, wearing lipstick and hot pink glasses. He also flirted with me non-stop. It was an excellent haircut though, and at 50 pesos (1 USD) each we did not complain. I also had the zippers in my day bag fixed again at a shoe repair shop (20 pesos). This time the repairs lasted.

The food in Solano was typical Filipino fare, insert my usual complaints etc. here. The chicken-on-a-stick at various stands was excellent though. We did continue to stay away from what was obviously intestine. A first for us, we also saw chicken heads on a skewer. They remained untasted as well.

On Mother’s Day we failed to use Skype but we did get on the bus to Manila. It wasn’t raining, and we stood in hot shade next to McDonald’s waiting for the right bus to go by and stop. After a little lack of assertiveness we finally got on the 3rd one. There even were seats for us. We spent all day in that bus, getting off about every 3 hours when there was a 15 minute break.

After dark we once again went to Adriatico Pensionne who had lost our reservation. We want to like this place, but it just wasn’t happening. Instead of the AC room we had booked we stayed in a room without AC and that hadn’t been aired out in quite a while either. But we only had to sleep there. In the morning we stocked up on cheap used books in preparation for our sea voyage. Then we took a taxi to the airport, and did the usual airport things. Our plane left on time.

The Philippines has a lot going for it. I kept wondering why people would come to Hawaii if they could fly just a little further and spend less money on just about everything. The only downside is the food. Other than that the Philippines are beautiful with plenty of beaches, snorkeling, hiking, and resorts of every kind. Culturally it’s the most American place that we’ve been to and English is widely spoken.

As we got off the bus in Banaue, a friendly local wanted to know where we were going. She took us to our hotel, the Banaue View Inn, in a tricycle. We checked in. She wanted to talk tours but we just wanted to sleep for a few hours, which we did. Banaue is built on a valley with a steep side and a steeper side. The steep side was terraced so people could grow rice. Our hotel was halfway up the steeper side, which gave us a great view of rice terraces all around.

It turned out the guide’s name was Lolita, and in the afternoon we took a tricycle up to the viewpoint and walked back to the village with her and her husband. It was a great walk, although at times steep and slippery. We went up a muddy slope that I would not have considered going up without a guide, and most of the time we walked on the edge of one irrigation channel or another. Sometimes we just walked on the wall of a rice terrace. The weather was cool, the scenery beautiful, and our guides helpful.

Afterward we had a local lunch with the worst tasting vegetables I’ve ever eaten (with the possible exception of Brussels’ sprouts, as a kid). On top of that Danielle had gotten some blisters. But we took it easy all afternoon and that was nice. The next day it rained. Between the rain and Danielle’s blisters we decided to do nothing. The day after that it also rained. But rain or not, we were going to see a sight.

Our goal was to see the rice terraces at Batad, which have stone walls instead of mud ones. Lolita was our guide again, and we set out early on a tricycle. We’d heard that there was a mudslide on the road, but it had grown enough over night that there was no way for the tricycle to make it past. So we started walking on the mostly dirt road. The walk was pleasant enough, crossing the occasional stream and enjoying glimpses of rice terraces through the fog. And it rained.

About an hour on we had arrived to where the tricycle would have dropped us off. It was time to leave the main road and hike up a side road for another hour. We crossed another mudslide but made it to the pass without any real problem. Going down from the pass we were on a narrow trail, with quite a few creek crossings. The trail was on a steep mountain side so more often than not the creek would flow across the trail and then drop down a few meters in a nice waterfall. And it rained.

The fun of walking on a little trail, wading through creeks, in the rain, was starting to wear off for me. Danielle was getting tired also, and we were aware that here blisters could come back any minute. So when we reached the village of Batad and Lolita brought us to one of the many tourist restaurants there we were grateful to sit down for a while. The restaurant had a brilliant view of the fog, which was occasionally replaced by mountains covered in rice terraces. And it rained.

Having rested a bit and placed our lunch orders we hiked a bit further down to get under the fog and really got a good view of the rice terraces here. They looked remarkably like the mud-walled once, except that the were in fact stone-walled. Lolita told us that people are still building new rice terraces because the people here cannot grow enough rice to live on. And it rained.

After a good lunch we started our walk back. The first mudslide we hit had gotten quite a lot bigger. As we watched, more mud flowed down the hill accompanied by the occasional melon-sized rock bouncing down. The workers who had been working on the road helped us cross safely. I did not realize quite how deep and sticky the mud was. When I didn’t step exactly where I was told to step my leg disappeared up to my knee. When I pulled it up my sandal stayed behind and I had to stick my arm down there to grab it. And it rained.

We made it down to the main road with no further incident, but the poor road workers apparently lived at their work site. We watched them move their camp a bit downhill, away from where the mudslide was. By the looks of it everything was wet and they were in for a miserable night. We, on the other hand, got in our tricycle. The mudslide that had blocked it earlier had been cleared so we had to walk an hour less than we feared we might have to. On the way back we passed several new, small mudslides but none too big to pose a problem. And it rained.

At night the power went out. First in our hotel, and then a bit later we saw the street lights in the village disappear as well. We had a candle-lit dinner at a newly opened fast-food franchise in town. The next day the power was still out and we decided to leave because relaxing with no power (meaning no laptop) is no fun. Unfortunately word was that there were 21 mudslides between us and the main road to Manila which were not passable by vehicles. Some people had tried to leave early in the morning and had turned back. It did not rain all day, though. It only poured at night.

We awoke to another day without power and decided to try to leave and see how far we’d get. We rode a jeepney following a “bulldozer” which cleaned up small mud slides as it got to them. It was slow going, and after a few hours we got to a mudslide that was too big to be quickly cleared. We all got out and walked across where more transportation was available. That was the pattern until about 2pm when we arrived in Solano. Altogether we did jeepney, slide, tricycle, slide, tricycle, jeepney, slide, jeepney, slide, jeepney.

Some of the mudslides were huge. The deepest was in a village where a church and a few other buildings were completely destroyed. The mud must have been at least 2 meters deep. Next to the road, where heavy equipment was moving a lot of mud, people were digging out their home with shovels. There were also some long slides, where there must have been a river of mud on the road for several hundred meters. Large trees were downed, which people attacked with chainsaws. A few limbs had already been cut down into firewood by the time that we passed by. Lucky for us, it only drizzled in the early morning and the rest of the day the weather was fine to be slogging through the mud.

While our mudslides experience was adventurous, not everybody was so lucky. About 40 people died in mudslides in the area where we were, including almost 10 who were in the church we passed. This is not even that uncommon. It happens every few years.

I should also mention that whenever it was raining we wore emergency ponchos that Jessica gave us as part of her wedding gift. We’d mostly tossed them into our bags when packing because we had them. They took up almost no space and weighed very little. Most importantly they did a pretty good job keeping us dry when we needed them. Thanks!