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personal

• personal

  Meet Sheri the Social Worker

  12.19.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Meet Sheri the Social Worker

  
  Meet Sheri the social worker, formally know as Sheri the student. Also known as my wife. She graduated a couple of months ago and her diploma arrived last week. She couldn’t attend the official ceremony in Victoria because we were in Nepal so it had a bit of an official feel to it when it arrived. It has a prominent place in the living room. Nobody could be more proud than me.

• personal

  What happened online while I was away

  12.07.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on What happened online while I was away

  Innovation online still happens rapidly. I was on vacation for a month with virtually no access to the internet (except some blog updates). I’m still plowing through hundreds of entries in my feed reader to try and get back up to speed. Here are some things that stand out so far:

  • Jacob Nielsen claims the end of WYSIWYG. His argument is that Microsoft will re-define the User Interface to a Results-Oriented UI with office 12. Jacob hasn’t been without controversy over the years and he often uses his alertbox to create discussion, stir the pot, or get exposure. Peter Merholz is not impressed.
  • I forgot where I found this. A great article in Forbes about the way Google manages people, teams and projects. I like a lot of this stuff. I’m a fan of small teams, with great people, who are empowered to make decisions.
  • My favorite Gaping Void art.
  • Found through Gaping Void: How to spend your marketing and ad budget Old vs. New.
  • You can now search for airfare through Google. I think this is just the beginning, and I’m sure hotels are next. Be afraid travel search engines…
  • Found on the Yahoo Blog: A new mapping tool for Yahoo is in Beta, including API’s. It’s using Flash (in a nice way) and the route planning functionality is more than decent. It includes the opportunity to plan multiple destinations, something that’s in the works for HelloBc.com so it’s nice to see an example of a good application.
  • Yahoo has updated Site Explorer and accepts RSS feed for easy indexing. Yahoo has indexed over 1700 pages of HelloBC.

• personal

  Pouring the perfect beer

  12.02.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Pouring the perfect beer

  Heineken has created a website about how to pour the perfect beer. Dutch style that is because in North America, they have a lot to learn about this subject. The website is in Dutch, but here’s a summary:

  1. Foam. The main problem in North America is that beer is poured without foam. Foam is actually very important. It keeps the oxygen away from the beer. Oxygen and beer create gasses that fills you up, so less room for more beer. It also shows that the beer hasn’t gone bad and the glass is clean. The foam eventually turns into beer, so the nett loss is minimal. That’s why beer comes with “two fingers” of foam in the Netherlands.
  2. Clean Glass. Always clean the glass before pouring. Don’t use a dishwasher because the glass gets damaged. Use warm water with sodium. After, rinse the glass with cold water. Never dry the glass with a dry towel, it leaves fibers that destroys the layer of foam.
  3. Perfect Pour. Let some beer leave the tab before putting the glass under it. Control the flow so the beer spirals into the glass. Let some beer spill over.
  4. Remove access foam with a wet stick. It leaves an extra thin layer of water on top of the foam, another layer of protection against oxygen.

  And that’s the perfect pour. For a video, goto http://www.perfecttappen.nl/, Click “Ouder dan 18 en grote breedband verbinding”, allow the popup to come up, click “tapcursus” and “doe het voor”. You’ll see the perfect pour in a typical Amsterdam cafe. Cheers!

• personal

  My sister

  11.26.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on My sister

  My sister will be moving to Canada in january. She has started a blog to detail her adventures.

• personal

  Home

  11.25.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Home

  We arrived back home last night and we’ve been trying to get both cats off us ever
  since. Usually, they’re mad at us for days but not this time.

  The flights home went well, it was just long. Sheri is fine, she slept most of the time. We visited 8 airports on this trip; Vancouver, Toronto. London, Delhi, Kathmandu, Abu Dhabi, Bahrein and Paris.

  Now the fun part starts, reading all my email and going through my feeds.

• personal

  Hangin’ out in Abu Dhabi

  11.23.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Hangin’ out in Abu Dhabi

  We’re on our way back home and we’re on our first stop in Abu Dhabi. I talked myself into the first class lounge to use the internet but I feel somewhat underdressed. And if you know me, you understand what that means. We continued our airline bad luck streak by having a 4 hour delay right of the start in Kathmandu this time. As a bonus Sheri got violently ill last night (probably food poisoning) and believe me, the Kathmandu airport is not a good place to feel sick. Now you probably ask yourself why I’m hanging out in the first class lounge and let Sheri vent for herself with the plebs. Well, she’s feeling a lot better at the moment and the Abu Dhabi airport is a very nice place to sit anywhere so don’t worry; she’s fine. They even have a pharmacy so we got some killer drugs to keep her fluids under control and it seems to work.

  We spend the last couple of days in Kathmandu not doing all that much. We just did some shopping and watched a lot of movies in the hotel to be honest. We felt we deserved it after the trek. So we didn’t venture very far. We did spend some time with our guides and their boss. I never expected I would leave Nepal with 3 new friends, because that’s what it feels like.

  We should be back in Vancouver late on Thursday but there’s still 3 flights to go. If everything goes bad, hopefully it will be in Paris because I miss that city so much, you have no idea. But we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

  
  William in Abu Dhabi

• personal

  Pictures from our trek

  11.21.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Pictures from our trek

  We took a lot of pictures, here is a small selection.

  
  The bus that took us to the start of our trek.

  
  Sheri and a porter carrying chickens up the mountain. Sheri wore dresses out of respect for the locals who greatly appreciated it.

  
  Some of the many, many sheep we saw.

  
  The Daulagiri was the highest mountain we saw at 8,167 metres (26,794 feet), the 7th highest mountain in the world.

  
  Kagbeni in the Mustang district. Still well above the tree line. We visited a very nice Tibetan Buddhist monastery there.

  
  The food around the trek was very good, with many local specialties…..

  
  The beautiful fields around the village of Ghandruk.

  
  The higher we got, the colder the nights got.

  
  William, after 3 weeks of trekking.

• personal

  Back in Kathmandu

  11.20.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Back in Kathmandu

  The trek is over. We’ve made it and we’re both in good condition. We hiked for 19 days all together. Over 300km and about 90 hours of hiking. I cannot describe the experience in a few lines, it wouldn’t do it justice. I enjoyed every second, ever meter up and down, every freezing shower I took, every time I had to blow my nose because of my cold, every sheep and goat, every insanely high mountain, every time I turned a corner and the landscape would change, every person I got to interact with and I’m happy I had Sheri there with me. I’m planning to create a little section of this website when I’m back in Canada to detail our trip (but I’ve planned things before that never materialized).

  We took over 1100 pictures. The connection I’m on right now is too slow to upload pictures so stay tuned over the next few days.

• personal

  Middle of the trek

  11.11.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Middle of the trek

  We’re on day 9 (I think) of the trek. I’m sitting in a town called Kagbeni in the Yak Donalds (no joke). They have a satelite internet connection. That’s really something because most towns I’ve been don’t have electricity. We started our trek at about 600 meters and we crossed the Thorung La Pass (5416 meters) yesterday. That was a long day, it was freezing cold and the whole pass was covered in snow. But it was awesome. We’ve had the best time so far. There is so much to see and take in, every corner we turn is different again. The people are amazing and the scenery more then spectacular. Our guides Mukti and Rajan are great, they are our guides, porters, waiters and personal assistants. And they tought us a new card game we’re playing every night.
  
  
  
  Near Manang
  
  
  
  On top of the Thorung La pass.
  

• personal

  Bags arrived, trekking tomorrow

  10.30.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Bags arrived, trekking tomorrow

  Well, it seems like we have everything in order for our trek. Our bags arrived yesterday, thanks to the Virgin staff in Delhi and Arjun Chhatkuli, the owner of our trekking company Himalayan Humanity Trekking. He was our contact person for Virgin and Sahara Airlines (who flew us from Delhi to Kathmandu) so we could go explore the Kathmandu area. I don’t what would have happened without him because we talked to a Finish girl yesterday who had been waiting for over a week now.

  To avoid further damage the Air Canada transfer desk in London might have caused us, I decided to call Gulf Air, our airline who’ll fly us into London, to make sure our tickets are ok. Well, it turned out Air Canada didn’t only cancel our flights on Gulf Air from London to Kathmandu, but also our return tickets. So I’ve spend the whole day correcting their mistake by phoning faxing and finally sitting in a cue for over an hour so Gulf Air could re-confirm my tickets. Un-be-lie-va-ble. I’m not a person why gets mad easily but I’m ready to sue at this point.

  So we’re back in our Zen mind now that we’ve got our trip back on trek. Tomorrow we’re going on a 7 hour busride to the trailhead in Besi-Sahar. From there we will start our 16 day trek around the Annapurna Circuit. We’ve spend the last two days sightseeing with one of our porter-guides Rajar and a guide called Taranath. If you ever go to Kathmandu, drop Arjun an email because the experience wouldn’t be the same without some of the great legends, history and relious stories Taranath told us. You also don’t have to worry about how to get anywhere and they’ll tell you what you can and can’t do. We usually don’t travel using guides but in this case it was worth it.

  So we visited Budnath, the largest Buddhist Stupa of Nepal, Pashupati, the largest Hindu Shiva temple on the Indian sub-continent, along a holy river where they cremate their deceased. A very strange experience to witness. Monkey running around everywhere, bodies burning, ashes being swept into the river (Watch Video) while 100 meters downstream people are bathing in the same water. A very surreal experience.

  Our last stop yesterday was the town of Patan, the old capital of Nepal with another Dunbar square with the old royal palace and temples. Another beautifull place to visit. The artwork on the temples is of a very hight quality. The drive to Patan was another experience by itself. We had to go through an alley that must have been no more then 8 feet wide (2.5 meters). We were following an army truck with military in the back, guns leasurly hanging out the back pointing straight at us (Watch Movie Clip). There were bikes, pedestrains and oncoming traffic. I still don’t know how we all managed to get through there. I’ve observed that there are two two rules in Nepal. 1) Drive on the left side of the road. 2) Don’t hit anybody. That’s it. For the rest, it’s a complete free for all on roads with potholes the size of bathtubs. You honk once to make sure people know you’re coming. You honk twice when you’re passing or turning. If it’s a potential dangerous move, you increase the number of honks. It’s bizare but I haven seen a single accident (knock, knock) or any form of road rage. People respect everybody, but they won’t give anybody the right of way, even the 80 year old woman who was standing in the middle of a 4 lane highway waiting to cross the other two lanes.

  So today we’re taking a rest day and tomorrow we’re off. I probably won’t be online for a while so (family) don’t panic when you don’t see anything from me.

  
  
  In front of the Stupa
  
  
  Patan; Dunbar Square
  
  
  
  Patan; Temple Art Detail
  

William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog