And an asshole. Let me explain.

I really hate to resort to despoiling my personal blog with this, but I have been thoroughly fleeced by one Nic Ingle.

Since I’ve been back to the US, looking for gainful employment, I’ve made ends meet from freelance work and eBay sales.

So I decided to sell a very high quality North Face jacket. Turns out, Nic wanted to buy it.

I’m an honest person, and I’ll give others the benefit of the doubt that they too share a desire of an honest transaction.

So he decides to purchase from me for $150.

Here’s where I went wrong: to save eBay fees, I directly sent an invoice from PayPal. It was payment pending.

I know, never ship unless you have payment.

But I wanted to be nice about it, he seemed honest enough and even engaged in some conversation peripheral to the purchase.

I told him: I’ll ship when its completed.
He told me: But, I need it for a ski trip on Monday!
Kind of odd that was never brought up, it being a Wed an all.
I told him: Ok, I’ll ship. You pay Priority Shipping if you need asap.
He told me: Ok, please send an invoice.

Again, I get payment pending for $14.65. I made sure the jacket was shipped as soon as possible.

So, not only did this douchebag proceed to cancel his “payments,” but he got expedited shipping out of me.

Unfortunately for Nic, I happen to own a blog that maintains quite high traffic. That means quite quickly a search for his name will resolve here! That’s right, possible future employer, Nicholas Ingle of Burlington, NC is a top shelf ass.

So, pay up, Nic.

Nic Ingle
2511 Parrish Street
Burlington, NC
27215

now of Raleigh, NC

eBay ID: nicatnite01

Feel free to email him at: nic.ingle@gmail.com

Darjeeling is amazing set in the foothills of the Himalaya in northern India. The oncoming monsoon season brings with it great rain and, sometimes, lightning storms. I snapped this pic on one such night.

China, I thought, preferred to keep visitors out; many Southeast Asian countries invited foreigners in, with ambiguous wink and smile; Japan smilingly greeted visitors at the door and appeared to admit them without ever really doing so. India, by contrast, took in all the hordes and simply swept them up in the undifferentiated tide.

-Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu, p 281

The one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse of the rest of the world combined.

-Mark Twain on his 1st visit in 1896

I love the hill stations of India. Darjeeling, set at 2,128 meters, is no exception. Started by the British as a sanatorium in the 1800’s, members of the East India Company used it to escape the summer heat of Calcutta. My trip would accomplish much the same.

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Tongba is the traditional and indigenous drink of the Limbu people of eastern Nepal. To Limbus, Tongba is analogous to what vodka is to Russians, wine to French, Guinness to Irish and saké to Japanese.

-Wikipedia

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You may remember Stephen Michael Kulkhe from such “classic” blog posts as Kumamoto Cliff Jumping, Surfing in Miyazaki, and of course as my trekking partner on my first journey to Nepal.

We knew each other from university at Iowa State and were placed a few hours from each other as teachers in Japan. He has since moved on as a swimming instructor in Taiwan’s Taipei American School with the lovely Aki-chan, where he “teaches stroke development, boating, snorkeling, is an assistant coach and the BSA Swimming and Lifesaving merit badge counselor”.

Well, he’s back! And he’s saved a life.

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Back when I first visited Nepal in 2006, I met a local villager named Ram. You can see Ram and his house in Episode 2 of the video series I created about that trip.

On that trip and after my trek was completed, I went back to the village and Ram took me to meet a sadhu living in the hills nearby. For some strange reason, the video I took of that disappeared.

This time around, I contacted Ram again and went back to see Baba Srinath again.

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He explained that to be defeated was a condition of life which was unavoidable. Men were either victorious or defeated and, depending on that, they became persecutors or victims.

-Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (1971)

Photo courtest Flick user Marc Shandro

Over the last few months I have taken buses, trains, boats, rickshaws, bikes, and horses through a multitude of cultures and minorities therein. It occurs to me that a lot can be inferred about these places based upon my main means of communication: the internet cafe.

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Michael Palin may be best known as a member of Monty Python, but I’m fond of his travel documentaries produced with the BBC. Before I started my trip I watched his series entitled Himalaya where he traverses the cultures in Pakistan, India, China, Bhutan, and Bangladesh that reside in this greatest of mountain chains.

I’ve recently stated reading the book published of his journey and am quite taken aback at the similarity to my previous 7 months of travel. For example, his Pakistan travels mirrors my own greatly with stops along the Karakoram Highway, Hunza Valley, and polo matches in Gilgit. (With all do respect, though, I have done mine without the BBC treasury and have come overland from Japan.)

If you’re interested in further detail about the places I have visited, by all means put this in your Netflix queue or get it for your Kindle. You can also find the book, DVD, and of course torrent file. You won’t regret it.