Penang

After leaving Hong Kong, Kristen was sent to Penang, Malaysia to visit a factory there.  She ended up getting to spend a weekend in Penang, so I visited her before returning back to the US.  (She was put up in an absolutely gorgeous colonial hotel called the Eastern & Oriental, which is where we stayed for the weekend).

Our trip was set up and planned by a very friendly person at the client named Nithia who had grown up in Malaysia, and was formerly the manager of the client’s plant there.

He booked us a driver, and set out an itinerary to tour the city.

The view of the Penang coast from our room at the E&O

Day 1

Kristen at the Penang Botanical Garden

The Chew Jetty in Georgetown

Kristen with street art on Armenian Street in Georgetown

On our first day in town, our driver took us first to the Reclining Buddha Temple, which is exactly as it sounds.  I’d never been to any Buddhist temples before, so it was a great experience for me.  We then walked across the street to a Burmese Buddhist temple, and were blessed by a monk there.

Afterwards, we headed to the Penang Botanical Garden, where we had a gorgeous walk through jungle trees, where wild monkeys were playing.

From there, we went to the Snake Temple, where live, venomous snakes are hanging around inside.  They also have a “snake farm,” which was sort of like a zoo.  The guide was so happy to have Americans in his farm that he took us on what amounted to a private tour of the place.  He took us into the python cage, got a viper to spit at him, and took out a king cobra (which absolutely scared the hell out of Kristen).

Our driver then suggested we head over to Georgetown, which is the colonial section of town.  We walked the Chew Jetty, which is a series of houses built out over the ocean (originally put there by Chinese immigrants to avoid property taxes), and then walked Armenian Street, which is famous for its Banksy-style street art.

After sampling some of the really excellent street food for lunch (Penang is known for its street food, such as char kway teow – something similar to pad see ew but with more curry flavor), our driver suggested a tour of the Pinang Peranakan House.  Peranakan apparently means mixed marriage, and the house was very interesting.  It was the mansion of a early 20th century Chinese gangster who had moved to Penang and married a local woman.  The house was extraordinarily ornate, and our guide told us crazy stories about the family that had lived there.  The house had been purchased and restored recently by a Chinese antiques collector, and was stocked full of interesting things.

And after an exhausting day, we went back to the hotel to hang out at the pool, and then got dinner at the best Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to, called Kashmir, right near the hotel.

Day 2

View of North Penang from Penang Hill

The Pagoda and Chinese zodiac horse at Kek Lok Si

Jeff in the Penang Spice Garden rainforest

The view from Batu Ferringhi beach

We woke up early Sunday in anticipation of another full day.  First stop was the overly-touristy but must-do Penang Hill.  We rode the cable car up from town to the top of a large hill with views of the city and the strait.  There were a couple of temples and mosque at the top, but not too much else.  We had actually hoped to hike the hill, but the sweltering heat and limited time turned us off of it.  Anyway, the views from the top really were very good, though the throngs of people were annoying.

Afterward, we went to the biggest and highest temple/buddha around - Kek Lok Si.  We got to walk up through a narrow market to the base of the structure, and took a short tram ride to the temple area.   Again there were nice views and cool pagoda structures.

For lunch, we went to a Nyona restaurant.  Nyona is the food from the Peranakan mixed-culture families mentioned above.  As it turns out, it’s not that good.  We would much have preferred street food again.

In the afternoon, our driver took us to the Northwest part of the island, to an area called Batu Ferringhi.  It was a gorgeous little beach town with lots of resorts.

First stop in the area was the Spice Garden, which is a botanical garden featuring a wide array of native jungle species and spices, including nutmeg, coffee, tea, and many others.  It was a really well laid-out and interesting place, and it was super fun to see all the interesting native rainforest plants.

After a stop at the local beach at Batu Ferringhi to feel the water (warm and clear), we headed again back to the hotel, since Kristen had to catch a flight to Jakarta.  I had dinner by the pool and enjoyed the view.

Penang is a really great place.  Everyone was extremely friendly, there was a lot to see (including ornate temples which I’d only seen in other people’s pictures before this trip), and the food was fantastic.  I’m really glad it was my introduction to Southeast Asia.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong at a glance:

- National Pastime: shopping

- Selfies: constant

- Sidewalks: impassable

- Tea: high

- Overall impression: great

Visit 1: October

Approaching the Buddha from the trail on Lantau

Lantau island

I visited Hong Kong several times this this Fall/Winter.  My first trip was only 3 days, but I soon came back for about 2 weeks.  My colleague and friend Jason was there with me, and we decided to explore the city a bit.

We were working for a client based in Kowloon, near the Star Ferry.  The office is located in Harbour City shopping center, which is probably the most luxurious and insane shopping mall I’ve ever seen.  It’s full of impossibly priced luxury stores, and even has a kids couture wing (Fendi Kids, Armani Kids, etc.).  WTF.  A common sight is a person dragging 2 massive suitcases through the mall – apparently mainlanders flock to Harbour City to stock up on luxury clothing they can’t get in China, and pack it all into huge suitcases to take back.

Over the weekend, I spent a day walking around Kowloon, stopping in at Yau Ma Tei temple and Mon Kok, which is a bustling area that apparently had some Occupy action going on at one point.  Jason and I also took the train to Lantau Island (where the airport is located), and did a ~2 hour hike up to a giant buddha statue located in a touristy village area.  The hike was gorgeous and a fun time – basically stairs the whole way up, following the track of a gondola (which we took back down).

I also got to visit mainland China for the first time for work, traveling to Shenzen (which is just across the border) for meetings, and visiting a factory in Zuhai.

It’s interesting – the sky could be blue in Hong Kong, and as soon as you approach the China border, the sky turns grey with pollution.  Apparently the situation is improving, but from what I saw, it’s still pretty bad.

Visit 2: November

The city of Hong Kong

Kristen at the top of Victoria Peak

During my second visit to Hong Kong (this time for 3 weeks), I got extremely lucky.  Kristen got staffed on a project for the same client, and ended up spending 2 weeks in Hong Kong with me!  It’s probably the first time in history that traveling to Asia for 3 weeks could be described as “convenient”.

For work, I got to attend several meetings at factories in mainland China, near Guangzhou.  For some reason, they always seem to serve Pizza Hut when the white people come to town.  Seriously, I was probably in mainland attending meetings for a total of 8 days, and I was served Pizza Hut for lunch probably 6 times.

But outside of my trips to the mainland, I had some really spectacular food in Hong Kong (and in Guangzhou for that matter).  We tried to get as much local flavor as possible while we were in town – we hit Cantonese joints on side roads, got Peking Duck at Spring Deer several times, and tried out various dim sum places.

The most memorable dim sum experience came the weekend when Kristen arrived.  We wanted to do as much Hong Kong-centric stuff as possible, so we’d gone to high tea at the Intercontinental the night before, and spend the next day walking through the Central district.  We were joined by our friend and colleague Vikas.  We went to a very famous dim sum restaurant for lunch on Sunday – it’s reputation was “hot, crowded, and local.”  It was a zoo.  Nobody spoke english, and it was not clear to us how the system worked.  A cart would come out of the kitchen, it would get mobbed by people before it could make the rounds, and would go straight back to the kitchen, empty.  Since we don’t speak Cantonese, our only choice was to go up to the cart and try and just take whatever they were serving (we never had any idea what we were eating).  Though we did end up flagging a waiter down and pointing to some tea duck soup a guy near us was eating.

The following weekend, our group walked up to the top of Victoria Peak for some great scenery, and then found a much better (and cleaner, and friendlier) dim sum place for lunch in a train station in Central.  It was probably the best dim sum I’ve ever had (finally!).  We spent the rest of the day walking around central and Kowloon.

Finally, after another week of traveling back and forth to mainland, Kristen left for Malaysia and Indonesia to visit more factories, and my time in Hong Kong was done.

Iceland Lake Overnight Trip

Iceland Lake

The granite slab in which Iceland Lake is located – we had to climb into there

Kristen, Trisha, Ben, Helen, Jeff with Relief Reservoir in the background

Descending the cross-country section on solid granite

We have been wanting to do a backpacking trip with Ben and Trisha for a while now, but hadn’t been able to get it together.  So we started shopping around for a 1-2 night weekend trip close by.  Steve recommended Iceland Lake, which can be done as a single night out-and-back, and is located in the Emigrant Wilderness (between Tahoe and Yosemite) only about 3.5 hours away.  We did some additional research and decided it sounded perfect.

Kristen and I assumed the trip would be pretty easy after our abuse at Rae Lakes.  Iceland Lake is only about 8 miles (2500ft elevation gain) from the Kennedy Meadows trailhead.  However, the 8 miles took about 5.5 hours of trail time each way, and was actually a bit grueling.  The trailhead is at 7,000ft, and the lake is at 9,200ft, so altitude definitely played an issue (we drove up from Oakland the morning of the first day), plus Kristen and I are probably were not fully recovered from Rae Lakes.

We started from the Kennedy Meadows trailhead, where we paid $10 to park at the private resort (it was either that or walk 3/4 of a mile from the free parks service lot to the trailhead).  They run horse tours out of there, so the first several miles of trail were dusty and filled with horse poop.  After passing Relief Reservoir (which is a gorgeous milky green color) at about 3-4 miles in, though, the horse poop dissipates along with the people on the trail.  At about mile 6 or so, we were into Saucer Meadow, where the trail comes close to the river.  Trip reports we had read indicated we should cross the river and start the cross-country ascent at the confluence of two rivers, but Trisha and Ben had walkie-talkies, and Ben said we should cross earlier (Ben had hiked in the day before with Helen and were already up at the lake).  We did, and began a steep cross-country section up a solid granite slab into the high lakes basin.  We knew we were shooting for a saddle (a pass) that would take us into the basin, so after a bit of climbing, we saw the saddle and it was fairly obvious where to go from there.  The climb up was surprisingly gentle, especially since all the trip reports had said it was dangerously steep.

When we got to the top of the pass, we had a great view of the reservoir.  Except we shouldn’t have had a view of the reservoir.  We were confused.  Iceland lake should have been straight ahead and visible, but it wasn’t.  Ben told us via radio to go left (South) toward the huge granite cliffs making the edge of the basin, so we consulted the map and decided it was good idea, as the lake was near the cliffs.  We were still not totally sure what had happened to our route, and for the next 45 minutes or so, we expected to see the lake around every bend, but instead there was only more rock and a large marshy area.  Finally we spotted Ben and Helen, who had been looking for us from a high vantage point.  They directed us to the campsite.

Ben and Helen had spent the day exploring the lake basin (Iceland Lake, Ridge Lake, Sardella Lake, and the Lewis Lakes), and had figured out what had happened to our route.  We had climbed a far gentler saddle slightly to the North, and then had cut back South to get to the lakes, likely as a result of us crossing the river before the junction.  We decided this accidental route was WAY better than the one suggested in the trip reports, and made a map of it for future reference:

The “typical” route takes you over the pass just North of Sardella Lake, which is apparently sketchy.  We also camped accidentally at a tiny lake just next to Iceland Lake, which actually turned out well since the campsites were very nice, and the shallow lake was warm.

We settled into camp, set up the tent, and cooked dinner.  There were zero mosquitoes.  It was amazing.

After the sun set, we laid on some rocks and watched the night sky come into view.  I have to say, the view of the sky up there was probably the best I’ve ever seen.  It was totally clear, not a cloud, and the moon did not rise until midnight.  The show was spectacular.  We saw several ridiculously bright shooting stars, had a very defined view of the milky way, and spotted several satellites traversing the sky.  Ben and I stayed out watching the sky for about an hour after the girls had gone to bed.

The next day, we woke up, ate breakfast, and went over to check out Iceland Lake proper.  It’s quite gorgeous.  The entire lakes basin appears to be a giant granite slab, with sheer cliffs overhanging most of the lakes.  Iceland Lake was the most dramatic we saw – there were cliffs on the East side of the lake, and a granite slab of an island in the middle of the lake.  It was really spectacular.

From there we made our way back down the way we had come up.  After crossing the river and hitting the trail, we told Ben, Trisha, and Helen to go ahead.  Kristen had twisted her knee a bit (a lingering injury from the Rae Lakes abuse), my left achilles was hurting (also from Rae Lakes), and we were going to descend very slowly.  Ben had planned on having lunch after hiking out, so they were low on food (Kristen and I had brought a couple extra PB&Js).  The only issue was, we had forgotten that Ben had our first aid kit, so Kristen was not able to take any ibuprofen for her increasingly painful knee.  The last several miles seemed to take forever – each step on the steep descent hurt Kristen, and we arrived at the car to find a note from Ben and Trisha that they had left to go home (which is what I would have done).  We bought some Gatorade and salty snacks from the Kennedy Meadows store (we had run out of water about 45 minutes before the end of the hike, but didn’t want to stop), and drove out of there.  Of course, we stopped at In n Out in Manteca on the way home, and actually met up with Ben, Trisha, and Helen (they weren’t THAT far ahead of us) as they were finishing their meal.

All in all, this was an absolutely gorgeous hike, and one that I’d do again, maybe with an extra day or two built in to explore the huge granite basin.  However, I would not recommend doing back-to-back trips like this, as it apparently takes a longer than two weeks to recover from the musculoskeletal abuse.

Rae Lakes Loop

After all the insanity from buying our house, Kristen and I wanted to take a vacation.  We’ve also been looking to do a backpacking trip with Kristen’s friend Vicky, who lives in LA.  So, on Steve’s recommendation, we decided to get together in King’s Canyon National Park and do the Rae Lakes Loop.

The Rae Lakes Loop is ~40 miles total, with about ~7,000ft of total elevation change (the trailhead is around 5,000ft, and Glen Pass, the highest point, is around 12,000ft).  Most hikers do the loop clockwise, ascending the Woods Creek trail, and descending down Bubbs Creek.  If you do the loop in 4 days, the clockwise approach means you crest Glen Pass in the middle of day 3, and thus spend 2.5 days acclimating.  We could only get permits to go counter-clockwise, however, which would require cresting the pass mid-way through day 2.

 

Day 1 – Road’s End Trailhead to Junction Meadow (12 miles, 3,400ft ascent)

Granite domes above Junction Meadow

We all arrived at King’s on Friday evening, and camped at a frontcountry site near the trailhead.  Saturday morning was a bit of a slow start – taking down camp, distributing the food, pre-moleskinning our feet, etc.

The loop is a “Q”, with a short, sandy 2-mile tail from the trailhead to start and end the hike.  At the first fork, we veered right to start the large loop, and headed up Bubbs Creek valley.  The ascent could most accurately be described as “relentless.”  Switchbacks led to stairs and upward pitches which led to more switchbacks.  And it was HOT.  80-90 degrees with solid humidity, and little tree exposure.  Who knew it would be so hot this high up?

Everyone was feeling good – we were making fantastic time up the ascent, pushing the pace, and working up a good sweat.  Until about 7,500ft.  I started to feel nauseas and had a migraine coming on.  Uh oh, altitude sickness, probably exacerbated by the big effort in the heat.  The last 2 miles of the day were a disaster – basically willing my legs to go on while everyone else felt fine (the 3 others had also taken Diamox, while I had not).  When we finally arrived in camp, it was all I could do to inflate my sleeping pad and pass out for 2 hours before dinner.  Luckily, the sleep (and 4 ibuprofen) helped significantly, and I was functional from that point on, though the headache didn’t really go away until we finished the hike.

 

Day 2 – Junction Meadow to Rae Lakes (8-10 miles, 3,800ft ascent, 1,400ft descent)

Allen and Vicky ascending from Lower Vidette to the Charlotte Lake area

Nearing Charlotte Lake

The Rae Lakes basin from Glen Pass

The Rae Lakes basin, with Painted Lady and her reflection to the left

I ranged the mileage on this leg because we’re pretty sure the distance markers are wrong (particularly from Charlotte Lake to Rae Lakes, which is marked 3.9 miles but is definitely more like 6).

This was our hardest day, though the most beautiful.  We were out of camp at the crack of 9am (most of the other camp sites were empty when we woke up), and set a good, but not blistering pace up to Lower Vidette meadow, where we took a snack stop (jerky and trail mix).  We didn’t actually eat lunch on Day 2, probably due to a combination of altitude and wanting to finish out the day quickly.

When we arrived at the Charlotte lake turnoff (~11,000ft), the wind picked up and it started to spit rain.  We put on rain gear, but the real rain never actually materialized, so we soon took it off.  The trek up to Glen Pass was slow going – even Vicky, our pace leader, dropped her tempo.  But the views from the pass were amazing – a huge granite bowl off of one side, and Rae Lakes and the surrounding mountains on the other.  And on top of it, I felt great – energized and barely out of breath.

We assumed the way down from the pass would be a victory lap, but it wasn’t.  The 1,500ft descent to Rae Lakes took almost 2 hours, and felt like several miles.  We had a view of the lakes the whole way down, and they never seemed to get any closer.  By the time we hit camp, we were all exhausted.  We didn’t even set up the tents right away.

The Rae Lakes basin is just gorgeous.  From our camp, we had panoramic views of the upper basin and Painted Lady (a colorful banded mountain), plus its reflection in the lake.  Rae Lakes was one of the nicest campsites I’ve ever stayed at.  We all took a quick dip in the lake before dinner.

Just after dinner, dark clouds started to gather over the ridge to the Northeast.  This was bad news.  We assessed our camp situation, and quickly decided we needed to move to higher ground.  We picked up the tents and transferred them to a campsite higher up the rock, and covered our packs with ponchos.  Just in time, we got into our tents and rode out the thunderstorm.  It hailed.  Everything got dirty, but most of our equipment remained dry, thankfully.  After the storm passed, we had a period of calm and a gorgeous sunset.  Throughout the night, though, storms rolled through.

 

Day 3 – Rae Lakes to Road’s End Trailhead (22 miles, 5,800ft descent)

Kristen at the start of the descent out of Rae Lakes, before the rain

The view down the valley from Rae Lakes

Nearing the bottom – Kristen and Vicky on the final switchbacks down Woods Creek near dusk

On the morning of day 3, there were clouds in the sky, but the weather looked like it would hold.  We descended the valley from Rae Lakes at a leisurely pace, with beautiful views of the mountains below.

Our hike today was supposed to be easy – 10-12 miles from Rae Lakes down to Upper Paradise Valley.  But as we neared the bottom of the Rae Lakes drainage, the clouds gathered once again and it poured rain.  Now we were truly soaked.  Vicky and Allen had forgotten to bring garbage bags for their clothes (none of us expected rain, and definitely not like this), so their packs got drenched.  We were miserable.  We ate peanut butter sandwiches for lunch while crouching under a tree.  Allen tried to change his socks to a drier pair, only to find his reserves were even wetter than the ones he had on.  We decided to shoot the moon and hike all the way out – camping in the rain with all wet clothes didn’t sound good to anyone.

The hike was fine for most of the day, though very slow going, as Kristen’s back tends to act up if she pushes the pace downhill.  We were doing about 1.5-2mph max, meaning we walked for a total of about 12 or 13 hours that day.  After Lower Paradise, we hit mosquito territory.  Now we were wet, miserable, sore, and getting bitten.  And worse, twilight was approaching.  We pushed the pace a bit in order to make it to the bottom of the Paradise just at dusk (descending down steep terrain in the dark + rain sounds pretty treacherous).  We hiked the final 2 miles with headlamps, and made it to the cars around 9pm.  First stop out of the park – In ‘n’ Out burger.

This was easily one of the most beautiful hikes I’ve ever done.  I had never really been to the High Sierra before this trip, and was just blown away by the granite formations.  I would definitely go back, and can’t wait for years of backpacking trips to come in the Sierra.

Blog Re-purposing

From here on out, we’re going to use this blog as a diary of our trips and adventures outside the bounds of our Big Trip.