Altitude sickness

Since I will soon be going to Chile I am reading bits and pieces about it. There seems to be quite a bit mentioned about altitude sickness.
I wonder?!?!? I haven't decided whether this is something I should be worrying about. But on the plus side I guess that in Chile you are never really far from the low elevations so it is not a huge concerned.
But I just found more information that you could possibly want on altitude sickness on the website for the Beijing-Lhasa train.... This sounds like a fantastic trip and the one way ticket is less than US$200 !!! (OK; I'll admit I was NOT looking for altitude sickness information at that point)

Have a look at this dream train trip: here is the link


Added later: you guys cannot be trusted  ;-) I first posted this with "Altitude thickness" as a title (typical English as a foreign language thing) and nobody said a thing!!!!

Month to a Flame

I heard something recently which I thought was pretty good.

It was just said as:
"Moths are us"
(for those not in North America: there are a few companies here calling themselves things like "Toys are us" etc, and this is what the play on word is about)

And it was explained as:
We are like moths attracted to a flame. We rush towards what we think will make us happy but we are often wrong, wrong about what we really want, wrong about what will make us happy.

I have reasons to suspect that this is a pretty accurate description.

Tasmania - The Wombats

We all know that Australia has its own set of animals and wombats are one of those. They are only seen in South-eastern Australia mainland and Tasmania. They are quite plentiful in Tasmania but just like wallabies they are not easy to see because they sort of blend in.

Also just like wallabies they are difficult to get close to (unless you are in a National Park and you are lucky).

And what you most often see is them walking away in a fashion which appears quite debonair but can be quite fast, resulting in a this type of photo:

But I tell you they are adorable.

They have a cute face

and a seriously solid body plan.

Honestly what is with this little bum hanging out at the back?

One evening at Castle Mountain National Park when everybody was gone for the day and I was walking around I spend a good amount of time watching a mother and her teenager kid fighting because the kid was trying to feed and the mother would not let it happened. It was really funny little scene to watch.

You can see in the photo above is the kid trying to hang on while she is walking away. She was actually dragging him/her behind.

I just thought that they were great: Peaceful herbivores (marsupial obviously), very quiet, unlike Tasmanian Devils and actually much bigger than Tasmanian Devils. Those I saw were just under a metre in length whereas Tasmanian Devils were probably about 75cm (so 3/4 of the length) and much much lighter in weight (I would guess Tasmanian Devils are about a third of the weight of wombats). Wombats are very solidly built. You want to imagine a large matchbox with little piece of matches in the corners as legs and you pretty much have the general sense of them. With a body like this it is good that they are herbivores.

Hippocrene Books - Publishing house

I've mentioned in a  previous post that I had borrowed from our library "Taste of Nepal" and today as I thought I would go through it to find a another daal recipe (I've already made Mismaas Dall quite successfully I thought) I noticed on the front page a list of "The Hippocrene Cookbook Library" which is quite unusual and quite extensive. Out of curiosity I thought I would go to their web page and I was not disappointed. They have books like "The Kerala Kitchen: Recipes and Recollections from the Syrian Christian of South India" !!! This sounds absolutely fabulous to me. Now I will have to go to our library' catalog and see if they  have it.
I can't buy anything right now I am moving. If anything I need to get rid of things.

Two reasons why I wanted to post about this publishing house:
1. I want to be able to find the link again

2. I saw in their list of cookbooks on their webpage: " Imperial Mongolian Cooking" by Marc Cramer. They describe the book as follow: "This collection includes 120 easy-to-follow recipes, a glossary of spices and ingredients and a list of samples menues. It includes such dishes as "Bean and Meatball Soup", "Spicy Steamed Chicken Dumplins", "Turkish Swordfish Kabobs" and "Uzbek Walnut Fritters"." and I wondered if you (really mostly wondering if A., I don't know many other people with interest in Central Asia really) have heard of it.
......... (added later, after further browsing of the web page) they have "Art of Uzbek Cooking". When I was in Kazakhstan I used to go to this little Uzbek restaurant. They had great food. In fact in Kazakhstan Uzbek food was reputed, and recognized by all, as the best food in all of Central Asia. ..... Oh no! I am salivating just to think of it!

Tasmania Bay of Fires - one more thing

I should really add one more thing about the Bay of Fires. (it scares me a little to see how much I go on about the Bay of Fires when it wasn't even my favourite place in Tasmania. The one thing that will save you endless posts about my favourite place is probably the fact that it was a mood place more than a picturesque place. There will be few pictures, which means less posts.)

All along the beach you see below on another Google map there are several very nice campgrounds which are totally free. They only have toilets (out-houses or long-drops however you refer to them) but in St Helen which is less than 20 kilometres away you can get a free hot shower in the harbor.

You can walk along the beach I show on the map and even across the rocky points you see directly South and North of the area I have highlighted. And you can go for hours, probably even for days if you had the equipment needed. The forest on the West side has lots of really pleasant (and completely deserted from my experience) small forestry roads which makes for excellent hiking. Along those roads I was able to go to the northern beach on this map and it is a beautiful spot. One of those totally empty spots that makes you think "I cannot believe that I am here" it is that beautiful. I never saw another person there. Honestly the pictures do not do it justice.

Tasmania - the maps (from Google maps)

I can't believe that I haven't posted maps yet.
You will recognize the "look" I am sure but all the maps on this post are from Google maps with some labels I've added.

I mean no insult, but first here is the map putting Tasmania in perspective.

And this is the Bay of Fires tucked in the North East corner of Tasmania.

And this one is just to show how much of Tasmania is still "green" protected space with no or little roads. The South West corner is basically out of reach though there is a hiking trail along the coast.
Note: I put "green" in quotation mark because all of Tasmania is very green (as the colour green). You want to imagine something a bit like jolly old British landscape in term of greenery.

Tasmania Bay of Fires - Part 5

I took very few pictures of marine life. I am not sure why.


I particularly liked this algae. It looks like a string of beads ready to be a necklace.

And what is there not to like in red sea anemones?

Tasmania Bay of Fires - Part 4

The water was so clear. It is funny but before Tasmania I associated this type of blue clear water with warm water and I tell you one thing this water was not was warm! I did manage to swim twice on warm afternoons when I was just getting back from a long hikes.

Tasmania Bay of Fires - Part 3

From close the rocks are possibly even more beautiful.

Tasmania Bay of Fires - Part 2

The Bay of Fires is best known for it red rocks.
The orange lichens on the rocks at first I thought was probably the reason for the "Fires" of the name but it isn't. Apparently the first explorers (and the book on the history of Australia is packed so I cannot checked out who it was) saw fires on the shore and this is were the name comes from.