Amazing Race winners: what to do with the money?

by Jamie Rhein on

This article contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the finale, please do not read this.

The answer to “Now what?” of TK Eriwn and Rachel Rosale’s Amazing Race million dollar win is travel first. Rachel is taking some time off and they are hitting the road with a hefty sum even though savings is part of their idea as well. I’ve done some imagining to see how the dollar amounts might work out. Each won $500,000. Let’s say taxes take $200,000–maybe less, but for these purposes, let’s work with $300,000 remaining. With $300,000 for each person what would you do? Both Rachel & TK did say they are going to travel. Since they are getting along so famously, they’re going to travel together. Rachel also said she is going to do some work on her house, buy a few new outfits and save the rest for later. TK already got a haircut.

Let’s say Rachel decided to save $100,000 in some sort of aggressive funds. She’s young so she can do that. Risk taking is on her side. In 8 years or so, she’ll have $200,000. In 16 years, $300,000. In 24 years, at age 46, she’ll have $600,000, and by the time she’s 52, if all goes well, she’ll have over $1,200.00. By 60, over two million. That’s if she doesn’t touch that $100,000. That strategy could give her a very sweet deal for later travel. But, that’s later; this is now.

Let’s talk about the remaining $200,000. Even if they each spent $50,000 on travel over the course of a few years, providing she rents out her house so someone else is paying the mortgage, what a great time they could have.

As a budget traveler, I’ve tended to stay in two-star hotels unless at a conference where the conference hotel has a terrific deal and my employer has helped pay. We did spring for the Westin in Taipei once. This is a honey of a hotel and well worth the money for a treat, but in general, we don’t stay in our rooms much when we’re traveling, so paying for elegance is wasted on us, but in some places elegance does come cheap. In India, even if one stays in a former Raj palace, such as a Grand Heritage Hotel, something I highly recommend, the chances of spending over $100 for a wonderful room is not going to happen. I should amend that this is funky, historical, artsy wonderful–not plush linen, a bed fit for a king, and fine china wonderful. I went to Neemrana twice.

Besides staying in a Raj style hotel, here are three other suggestions for Rachel and TK based on my most deluxe trips.

Pack mule trip to Ladakh: The most expensive trip I ever took was a pack mule trip to Ladakh where each grouping of people had their private guide who made sure stragglers didn’t wander off into the hills, or if blisters were too unbearable, he had the means for doing some doctoring. The mules carried our stuff and there were cooks along to prepare wonderful vegetarian meals three times a day. They also made tea and gave us snacks. I’d suggest a trip like this one to TK & Rachel. They could do a private trip with two mules and one guide and a cook. Don’t give up the cook and don’t give up the guide. What’s the point of all that money if you’re on a mountain in Ladakh trying to breath and cook dinner? Better let someone else whip up a delicious dahl and rice dish. The guide is a necessity because this is a place of trails that head off in every direction without destination makers pointing the way. (Here’s a detailed account of someone else’s trip published in The Seattle Times three years ago. I bet the prices are not that much more.)

Cycling in Western Australia: Another wonderful trip I took was an everything included cycling trip in Western Australia. That lasted for 9 days, but didn’t cost me a cent. I went along as a chaperone for high schoolers–mostly 9th grade boys. Let’s just say, I more than paid my way fair and square. If anything, I wouldn’t have minded if someone had slipped me a $20 for my efforts of staying cheerful and upbeat. For Rachel and TK, they’ll have the added bonus of being able to buy beer in one of the many pubs in Freemantle. Chaperones weren’t allowed to drink, so I only gazed into the pubs with small whimpers of I can’t believe I’m in Freemantle with all these great pubs and a slew of adolescent males. (Here’s a previous post. There are links to companies that do such trips.)

Antique Rice Barge Cruise in Thailand: If TK and Rachel have a feel for romance, they should take a rice barge cruise in Thailand. The one I took with my husband, dad and daughter (our theme was not romance) was one night complete with gourmet meals, tropical drinks and a full moon. The trip went from outside of Bangkok, including Ayuthaya and traveled along the river back into the city. Watching life awaken along the river as the sun came up was quite special. A warning though. The trip included a visit to a temple where we gave gifts to a monk who sprinkled water on us. It was part of a holy day. I got very unexpectedly pregnant right after. Perhaps there’s no correlation, I’m just saying. Okay, maybe there was some romance.

What advice do you have for TK and Rachel for how to use their travel money wisely, but with style?

Hiring A Guide Can Enhance a Travel Experience

by Jamie Rhein on

I’m a huge fan of guides–not necessarily guide books, although I do use them to give me a running start on figuring out where I might head before my interests lead me in other directions, but living, breathing human guides who know a place well. These folks are worth hiring for a few hours tour–or a day. Or even a week. Guides can save lives even.

When trekking with a guide and sherpas through the Markha Valley in Ladakh and on the Annapurna trail in Nepal, I saw fliers for missing hikers who had set off on their own. Either they become lost or hurt. Regardless, they were unable to get back from what they probably imagined as a solo adventure. With thieves not uncommon in Nepal’s mountains, guides offer protection. The trails in Ladakh are so rugged and faint and head in so many directions, it would be easy to get lost. It’s certainly easy to get sick. The sounds of people in my group heaving at night from altitude sickness on my Ladakh trip was not exactly music to my ears. We had a trip that involved people cooking for us and mules carrying our bags, so I can’t fathom what it would be like to attempt 17,000 feet while carrying belongings, food.and water. And, by the way, the people who got the most sick were the ones who fancied themselves the most athletic. They pushed themselves to prove something and BAM!!! a real puke problem.

Even if you don’t need a guide to save your life, guides are a way to find out little tidbits of places and people you wouldn’t know otherwise. In Benares, (Varanasi) India, we hired a guide for a day who took us on a city tour that began early in the morning and ended late in the day. We clicked immediately and since we were traveling with our son, who was not yet a year and a half, and our daughter who was nine, having him take us to a boat for our crack of dawn boat ride on the Ganges River made this excursion seem less daunting. He also filled us in on facinating details about who gets cremated and who doesn’t and pointed out prominent people’s houses and details about the architecture. He also took us to places to buy the best masala tea mix and filled us in on details about trying to get a job as a professor in India’s affirmative action system. One of my favorite moments was listening to him sing in one of the temples we went to to show us how the sound carried.

When we went to Sri Lanka (before kids) but with my father, we hired a guide and a driver for the entire trip. Since we stayed in budget hotels (clean and airconditioned but no frills) and ate simple, local food, the money we spent on our guide/driver/car helped us to see most of the country in nine days. Since my dad got sick for a couple of the days, having a driver allowed for my dad to wait with someone while my husband and I continued to sightsee. Our guide also took us to his house to visit his family at the end of the trip and helped us make a delivery of art supplies and books to an school for kids with developmental delays. We could go at our own pace.

In Beijing we hired a guide to take us around for two days. He was a guide who a friend of ours knew. Besides pointing out historic details when we went to various places, he knew exactly where to shop and where to get the best, local spicy food. As my husband said, “Hurt me.” The hot pot restaurant he took us too was excellent and filled with neighborhood locals.

While living in New Delhi, we mostly headed out on our own, but one of my highlights was the personal guided tour we took with a guy named Nigel. He is British and has been giving guided tours of Old Delhi for years, but unfortunately, I think he may have stopped.

Although, I also like the experience of winging it, guide free to see what comes our way, guides can make traveling easier and provide the details you might miss otherwise. Here’s a helpful tips article, Hiring Guides in Foreign Countries from Wendy Perrin over at Concierge.com.

How to Take a Bath in Half a Bucket of Water

by Jamie Rhein on

When I went on a nine day trek in Ladakh , India a few years back there were adolecent girls on the trip. Somehow, no matter how remote a location we were in when we camped for the night, they managed to wash their hair. All I know is, they would head off somewhere into the distance and come back with towels wrapped around their heads. It was amazing.

When I was in the Peace Corps, though, I could take two or three decent baths with one regular size bucket of water. One of the assistant Peace Corps directors did show us some tips while we were in training by doning a bathing suit, filling a bucket and grabbing a large plastic cup with a handle. Since I lived in a village for two years with no running water–I hauled water from a well with a vegetable oil can bucket and a long rope, I became pretty savvy with water use.

Here are some bucket bath tips:

You will need.

  • One regular size bucket (not so big that you can’t carry it) filled with water
  • One large plastic cup or a small plastic pitcher that has a handle

The technique:

1. Stand close to the bucket, and dip your cup in the water. Stretch out your other arm (the one not holding the cup) so that your hand and fingertips are over the bucket of water. Pour the water over your head so that the water runs off the opposite side of your head over your shoulder, down your arm and back into the bucket. Keep repeating this proceedure lowering your arm little by little each time until one side of your body totally wet. To wet your back, stand with your rear almost over the bucket and pour the water carefully onto your upper back allowing it to roll over the rest of you. Some of the water will find its way back into the bucket.

2. Once one side of your body is wet, repeat the process but switch arms. When your body is totally wet, wet the soap by pouring water over it. Do not put the soap in the bucket. The idea is to keep the water soap-free.

3. Soap up. For the body rinse cycle, repeat the process in step 1, but don’t put your hand over the bucket. Let the water fall to the ground. Again, keep the soap out of the bucket. For best results and low water use, start rinsing at the shoulders and angle your arms and hands so that the water will roll off to another part of your body. Keep repeating the process until all the soap is gone.

4. To wash your hair–lean you head over the bucket and wet your hair by pouring water over it, but making sure the extra water goes back in the bucket. Shampoo and then rinse with your hair over the ground instead of the bucket.

If you follow this method you may have a half a bucket of water left–more than enough to wash the dishes or take another bath. The photo is thanks to Zac Shepherd on Flickr. If you click on his photostream you’ll see some shots of The Gambia and Senegal with captions. The bed in the photo is the kind I had as well which drew me to this picture. The caption mentions how bucket baths helped Shepherd survive the Gambian dry season. Yes, those were the days.

For an overview of people’s experience bathing in Ghana, check out World Wise Schools Water in Africa page. World Wise Schools is a Peace Corps program designed for use by educators.