Day 082 – A sort of homecoming

Visiting the USA certainly can have that eerie feeling of familiarity. I feel like caught in some cliché movie, watching the bums in the streets (man, there are so may of them!), listening to the sound of urgency of passing ambulances and the cops in the streets, and the shopping malls

Naturally one of my first objectives was to inhale some American culture. So my first day was spend at malls (still looking for a damn cable for my damn Panasonic razor- I gave up and bought a new one). Then I had some typical American burrito, and everything they say about the US is true- everything is bigger in the US (and the coffee is thinner). They use a flour tortilla that has the size of those little carpets that some people put in front of their toilet. They then fill it with beans equivalent to a quarter of a month harvest. After adding the meat of a little herd of cows and the cheese production of a small central European nation the whole thing is wrapped up. And they throw in some nachos just in case it would not fill you up.

One thing though is not true, it is not as cheap here as I expected from reports. But then again, I come from India where the money I paid for the burrito would have fed me for a week or so. I topped off my culinary tour de Frisco with a real American pepperoni pizza pie and later on a double cheeseburger with triple bacon from Jack in the box. It took me a day to gain three kilos I believe. It all makes sense, why the US has the biggest of problem with type 2 diabetes and obesity.

That first night I went to bed around midnight and was proud I survived that long. In the end you do not want to wake up in the middle of the night due to jet lag. But far from it I woke up fourteen (14) hours later. I could not believe what had just happened. Man was I battered. This is the short explanation why I have not done any sightseeing. Probably today, as I woke up after just some six hours of sleep this night. Worst jet lag ever…

Gotta go, on TV they are broadcasting some military thingy where Bush speaks live. The fact alone makes me laugh- live! Enjoy him as long as he lasts, soon we have to listen to a boring and eloquent celebrity president.

Day 080 – Good bye Asia

I am sitting in Seoul, Korea right now and contemplate my Asia journey, which is coming to an end in about 3 hours, when I move on to the USA (sadly enough due to a change in schedule and a delayed plane I cannot go and visit Seoul for some hours as I had planned ). It has all been very nice and I have seized upon the chance to spend a lot of time alone in especially south east Asia. It was nice to avoid the party and backpackers crowds.

Nevertheless I have met nice people, had nice conversations and have learned a lot. While Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos did not feel entirely novel since they are culturally and also by landscape somewhat close to other countries in the region I have visited, India was a novelty.

I think I have made my peace with India in the last couple of days and “main bazar” in Delhi looked less dirty, less crowded and less stressful yesterday. However, it is certain that “main bazar” area has not changed but I have gotten acustomed to India after all. However, it will not be my first choice for another holiday, especially not when looking for tranquility. But then again, I knew that beforehand…

All in all Asia was cheaper than I had planned even though I did not hold back in spoiling myself with nice food and somewhat luxurious accommodation, based on the “normal” backpacker standard.

The budget was:

Cambodia, 29 € daily
Vietnam, 21 € daily
Laos and Thailand, 19 € daily
India, 16 € daily
Nepal, 20 € daily

Day 078 – Traveling without moving

Quite entertainingly people I met, frequently revealed some type of theory to me of what the right way of traveling is. In the process I got rather tiered of hearing phrases like “if you have not been there you have not been to x,y,z” and “I went there to see the real x,y,z”. As if there was some essence of a country you could suck up somewhere while it would go amiss in other places. Often these ideas are interwoven with the impression that it is possible and necessary to try to blend in with the local population in some intimate fashion and that this is more possible in some places than in others.

The reason it is especially silly to think this way is that as a tourist in exotic countries you stick out like a nuclear mushroom cloud in the Nevada dessert, no matter where you go or what you do.

Now it is understandable that one would try to blend in and get a genuine impression of a place´s culture and qualities. Nevertheless, the means for doing so are very limited indeed. And unless one is prepared to go to extreme lengths most activities a tourist can indulge in are designed to be an act rather than a natural reflection of what is going on somewhere.

Saying that, there are of course different ways of traveling. Personally I have been less occupied by the question how I manage to be a tourist without feeling like one (I am fine with being what I am for the most part) but rather what emotional qualities the different ways of traveling have to offer.

Especially India is a great place for observation of the species Homo Travelensis. As Ajax put it, a guy from Mexico I talked to, “the hippies go to meditation class in the morning, visit Yoga class in the afternoon, go to a meeting with the Dalai Lama in the evening and then chase away a beggar yelling and swearing at him- it is illogical”. I can agree with that. But this type of traveler seems to need the feeling of being in a spiritual India that has maybe never existed, but certainly does not exist in 2008. Unless you live in a hash and XTC induced d illusion.

Another popular way of traveling is the power-traveler type who will manage to see 15 major sights in places with at least 6000 km between them in ten days. This type basically needs a picture of himself in front of every temple, river, bridge and tree that has any even remote meaning in Indian history. This type is not compatible with the hippie traveler- at all. Hardly compatible with any traveler at all really because of the naturally stressful and restricted schedule the traveler has to follow.

And then there is me, I guess. I do not know what my goal here is. I am not keen on getting too close to the spiritual culture and I need not see all of India´s sights either. But I have noticed that it took me a while to get into that mood of mellow and sweet indifference. The real “chill” while traveling seems to come at around two months for me. And yet, it naturally is in a constant flow. With every country putting new demands on your ability to balance curiosity, fun and entertainment with health, safety and budget. So we will see what if anything will throw me off that balance. Though if India doesn´t do it, what could?

So the remaining question is: why do we travel? Seemingly the reasons vary a lot, but maybe it boils down to the same core of things. It seems to me every traveler searches for something, though the objects vary. And every traveler seems to run away from something. Some search for themselves, or a rescue from themselves, some search for a thrill, other for the absence of thrills and so forth.

However, I do believe that you can get into the “zone” of traveling. And in my mind that is when you travel without traveling. When you are on the road and forgot why that is. When you are taking a step at a time as you naturally do living, just because… Basically then life and traveling is the same thing. And maybe, just maybe, it always is anyway. In a way all of us are travelers then, some just without moving.

Day 077 – !ndecent !ndia – Erotic temples

The erotic temples of Khajuraho were on my itinerary next. It is a rather entertaining site even though the shopkeepers and other scam artists of the town are a pest as in so many other places of India. However, I was travelling with Lior from Israel and Raul from Italy which always buffers all the hazzle quite a bit.

The roughly one thousand year old temples depict a range of sexual activity. Most amazingly they seem to have predicted the invention of silicon implants for breast enlargement!

Unfortunately I fell ill again for one day which meant no sightseeing and a day in bed. But I was up an d running again the next day. From there I made my way by means of back-killing transportation to Agra, where the Taj Mahal can be found. It is amazing how one building- which I am looking at right now from the rooftop of my hotel, while enjoying my continental breakfast- can pull so many people.

But since the Taj is closed on Fridays I will have to wait until tomorrow in order to unravel the mystery. Meanwhile I am looking forward to leaving India soon.

Day 073- Gull!ble !ndia

Whenever you see Indians burn their loved ones on TV or on pictures- after they are dead that is- this usually captured in Varanasi. Varanasi is a wholly place to the Hindus and plenty of people come here to be cremated. The process itself has little resemblance with a peaceful and graceful happening. In fact it rather reminds of a busy fair or flee market.

However, completely unmotivated, Indian bystanders will inform you that “Cremation is education, and burning is learning”. I am not making this up, it has been told to me like that every time when I passed this place where they throw corpses into the smoking flames and where they jack butter and sandlewood powder into the fire to make the corpses roast well.

People never got tiered to add that I am guest in India and that we should all show respect. They probably could see my slightly amused but very little impressed expression. The phrase “burning is learning, cremation is education”, even though a poor rhyme, made me wonder what hides behind it. So I grabbed the next best guy and asked him what it means. “Learning about life”, he replied. “Learning what about life?”, I insisted. He explained that you would learn about life and dead due to the cremation. So you would be educated in spiritual ways.

Alright…sure… So, naturally I needed to know more. But all that happens is that they keep repeating the above phrase over and over again, like a mantra, until they maybe believe it themselves. I mean c´mon…if you want me to have respect you need to give me more. However, all the Spanish and British hippies standing around seemed to get into the groove of the human roasting, contrary to me.

Being the spoil sport that I am when it comes to spiritualism and religion I explained to my Indian friends, that it is bizarre to me how one can actually think this has any value. I mean come on, nirvana? It seems that they indeed believe that being burned in Varanasi can guarantee them access to what they call nirvana, and they pay real cash for it, loads of it.

I find it impressive, how complicated the myths have become that humans have invented in order to cope or deal better with their own mortality and their loved ones dead. Understandable and psychologically certainly useful. But sadly enough people all over the world hold their believes to serious and not only defend them against other believes but also attack other´s believes. Where is the tolerance in that? No, I cannot accept nor respect this. Though it is fun to watch, I must admit.

However, this explanation did not go down well with my Indian friends. So they became a bit “short” with me and offered me to make a donation to the 103 years old “mama” who runs the “hospiz”, as they called it. “It would be against my believe to make a donation”, I explained. Which caused them to become even less impressed with me. “Then come and see my cloths factory and buy a nice scarf of shorts”, they insisted.

Life and dead are so close at times. I walked off silently, without new scarf or shorts….

In an other conversation I asked a guy who bothered me with explaining the “meaning of life” to me, without me asking him for it, if he believed in reincarnation. Since he did I had found the victim that I wanted. I wanted to know if he would agree that people who do good are born into a good situation and people who do bad are born into bad circumstances in their next life. He agreed. Bingo!

So, most Europeans must have been really good in their formed life, considering our prosperity and our easy, wealthy living, and an awful amount of Indians must have done awful things in their last life, considering their poor living circumstances, I insisted. He indeed agreed. I explained to him that it then is strange how the Indians are the ones who believe in reincarnation while literally almost none of the noble Europeans believe in it. The rest of that conversation became very short.

It is not necessarily that I walk around trying to piss people off, not only at least, but really, does anyone ever think their arguments through anymore? I am afraid that as long as one argues with religion, you will find they will not think. Else the myths that build on thousands of years of mere story-telling would be identified as what they are: empty and at times not even interesting stories.

It is interesting to be here and see all this and hear the myths behind the temples, the stories behind the naked babas in the streets and the funky god-tales behind the rites, but it is sad to see once more that a tradition is stronger also in this part of the world that common sense, logic and human intelligence and able to substitute in one more society tolerance, sympathy and compassion for others. And that here, in such a diverse society as India with such a violent past and also present, which is based on religious hatred and intolerance. A real shame when one think about what this will mean for the future…

Panasonic does not know its products

While traveling I have lost the cable that is used to charge my Hair-trimmer ER220. I have bought the device in Germany and noticed the loss of the cable in Thailand. I ran around Thailand and tried to get a new cable. No success. They seemed no to have this type of trimmer even.

A call to the US-customer support was useless. A lady promised to get back to me in order to inform me if there was a chance to get the damn cable in India or the US (my next two stations). She never got back to me.

I wrote to the German support team. They had nothing but “wise” advice for me. Go to a shop near you was one of the. Had they bothered to read my question they had known that I could not get the damn cable.

They could send a new one to me, for 33 Euros PLUS packaging and delivery costs! I could almost buy a new trimmer for that! Whether a cable bought in the US would fit they could not say, they wrote, I should ask in the US instead.

So naturally I tried the US support once more. But they told me to ask the German support, since that was where I bought the device.

I find it rather amazing that a company´s support teams cannot manage to figure out whether a cable bought in one country would fit the socket of a device bought in another country.

Why I bother in the first place, you wonder? Of course the sockets and cables should all be normed for the products of one company no matter where they are bought, you think?

That would be nice. But I had to discover that I could not buy any cable in Asia that would fit my trimmer no matter if the trimmer models here looked almost identical or not. None would fit. Either Panasonic does produce varying sockets and cables for different markets or they even produce different cables for different (but similar types) of products.

And no: it has nothing to do with voltage, as one might think. Of course you would expect them to protect stupid customers from plugging in cables delivering wrong voltages to appliances and thereby destroying them. But that was not the problem here either.

Despite: the US support lady kept asking me what WATTS I ran the device on. Only when she asked if I ran on 210 or 110 WATTS did I realize what she wanted and could answer, correcting her. But she insisted that we had different WATTS in different parts of the world… Mental WATTS I guess… Yes, definitely less in the USA that is for sure….

Day 072 – !ntolerable !ndia

When God made India he forgot to give them a sense of…well, common sense.

It is amazing with which dedication and blind certainty people manage to screw things up. And since most things already start off at a poor level before the average Indian gets a go at them, one can easily see how this place must have gotten into its current situation. When I look around I see chapter after chapter for my book of “How not to do things”, subtitled “Fail! You do it wrong!”.

It starts with the redistribution activity of dust and trash in the morning which seems to lack someone who actually ever takes away any of the redistributed trash, which naturally leads to streets eventually drowning in shit… and it does not even end when I see how a bunch of Indians attempts to, lets say, fix a fridge to the roof of a car for transportation over hundreds of kilometers over some of the most poorly sealed roads in the worlds. I don´t even have the energy to go into the details. But I will say, it does not lack a certain comic dimension.

To make matters worse people seem frequently to lack any sense of either fairness, honor or honesty. I have a great and sad example for it which happened to me recently.

I was on my way from Nepal to India again, two days ago, after some relatively relaxing weeks in the mountains of Nepal. Arriving at the border I was to meet some guy who was supposed to hand me a bus ticket, which was pre-booked in Pokhara, Nepal. This person who we can call Saroy convinced me to take a train instead when I arrived by the Nepali border in the evening, which would save me time, he said (in fact all that was correct and I wanted to take a train originally, restrained from it though thanks to the horrendous commission fees they wanted in Nepal for booking an Indian train).

So, we changed all the arrangements and I was not to take the bus after a good nights rest but the train over night immediately without resting. The whole thing became somewhat stressful due to the change of ticket, taking out more money from an ATM and all the customs and border arrangements with visa and the like. And it was not helped by the fact that the rickshaw driver who was to bring me to the actual border started an argument with some bicycle rider. One angry word provoked the next and so it went on until both jumped of their vehicles and engaged in a rather sissy and girly looking fist fight. I had neither time nor nerve to enjoy the exhibition of semi-manly power and walked off instead.

Anyhow I made it sweaty and tiered just to be told by Mr. Saroy´s contact person on the Indian side that I would have to pay another 34 US$ in order to get my train ticket. That was the four-fold amount the whole trip was supposed to cost in the first place- high commission fees already included. And that despite the fact that Saroy had told me that everything had been paid and I was fit to go once the Indian contact would hand me my train ticket. But there was the hick-up right then.

After some yelling I realized that I was slightly too exposed with two bags on me and not in the position to argue any more, especially since the bus that should have brought me to the train was leaving right then and there, it was getting dark and I had no clue how to get my ticket now. Of course it was a rip-off attempt and I was mildly speaking furious about Mr. Saroy. I knew that if he was involved he would count on me taking the bus to the train station in any case, and maybe arranging a train ticket on my own at the train station, especially since my visa for Nepal was already devalued. There was no way back. Or so they must have thought.

At the customs I lied my way back into Nepal in order to confront Saroy (which I guess can only work in India, where everyone is too lethargic to care if you have the proper visa or not). He was surprised and shocked, genuinely it seemed, about the whole situation. I got to talk to his contact person on the Indian side over phone and it was not the person who had just tried to rip me off (though it would not be too hard to call someone else and tell him to pose as this person, right?).

Naturally I remained skeptical, even after he gave me back my money and arranged for a bus in the morning for me. He made the effort to bring me to the border at 5 in the morning and took good care that I made it on the bus. Despite not having my passport in order I made it back into India (no one checks anything anyway: this time good that they are so unorganized ).

The trip to Varanasi was dreadful. Someone once said, the potholes in India even have potholes. A fitting description of what the trip felt like- 11 hours long! However, I made it, almost without being ripped off. Not quite though! Somehow this Indian contact person managed to cut 80 Eurocents out of me for luggage surcharge. I blame the early morning for this little mistake . What it shows, sadly enough though is, that not even the seemingly honest Mr. Laroy managed to find himself honest companions. Since it was he who had told me to trust this Indian contact guy. So for now the Indian I do business with and who I can trust has yet to cross my way.

Now if you think this a weired and seldom occurring story I must disappoint you. Check the travel forums and you will find heaps of stories much worse than this one (especially if people pay the money in their despair and never get a ticket anyway). This part of India (Uttar Pradesh) seems to be one of the worst for traveling and people (as a generalized tendency) seem to not be on the honest side.

A lot of people had stuff stolen here too, and I hope to make it out alive and with all my stuff. Here in Varansi one should not be outside past 22 h in the evening in the popular old town area for instance. Ghandi´s children are not all that peaceful as one would love to think.

One of the greatest facts about the Indian rip-off-mentality is that they seem not to have any shame when being caught cheating you. A friend told me this story which happened to him recently. He booked a double bed in a rather nice looking hotel- on pictures. When he arrived the place was totally run down (pictures maybe taken 5 years ago when the place was nice, and meanwhile- as custom in India- no one had bothered ever cleaning the place or repairing anything, so it looked 30 years old). And worse for him, the room that was booked for him had a small single bed.

He looked at the hotel-guy and demanded some kind of explanation or apology. The Indian just wiggled his head from side to side and smiled the “you got me mate- we screwed you. But what are you gonna do?”-smile. My friend just laughed since there is hardly anything else you can do. That reminds me of the “modern air-conditioned tourist buses” one can book at every street corner. But enough stories…

And so is India for traveling. Never lacking a surprise or a rip-off. Never letting you let your guard down and never ceasing to surprise and annoy.

If that sounds just too annoying and bad to you, and you are planning a trip to India right now, I can not offer any words of consolidation. People I talked to seem to agree on one thing: India is intolerable. But many come here because of it, it seems. I think it is like some of the sweet and spicy Indian food. You take a bite and can´t stand the heat in your mouth. Though maybe the next moment the flavorful sweetness spreads over your palate in a way that gives you an enjoyable taste in one second yet seems disgusting again in the next. India seems to be a bit like that on the whole.

On the other hand I have been told that the south of the country is very different not just in terms of landscape nut more importantly in terms of people. I cannot tell. That might be for another time- if I ever come back that is. Even though a lot of people think that the annoying facets of India are also what makes them come back here I am not too sure it will work like that for me. In the end I guess one only needs to eat shit once in order to realized that billions of flies are actually wrong.

But that is for another time to be decided. For the moment I will do my best to survive and maybe even enjoy at times…

State of science education

It is a complete mystery to me why people would choose to remain ignorant to the laws and principles that govern their existence. However, quite frequently people choose to do so.

Just recently I had two experiences that made me wonder if there ever will be a time in which people will be able to take informed decisions when it comes to their environment, their health, well basically everything which exceeds the realm of fantasy.

I am talking about people to vote against science and for “cultural education”. Whatever that may be?

Experience number one was when I met a young Nepali who inquired what I did for a living. To make matters easier for me I replied I was a chemist (when I say I am a geneticist or molecular biologist I get the more “respectful” reactions, but most people have not the faintest clue what it is). His reaction was a surprise. “I hate chemistry. I hate science”, he exclaimed. After a discussion it turned out that his real problem was that he felt that science education in his school left him with too little information. He felt as though it was useless to know about science because the “big picture” was missing. Ironically it seemed he would have preferred to have no science in school. While obviously the solution to his evident lack of information (in order to fill in the pieces missing from the big picture) would have been massively more science education.

The second such experience was with my travel mates; two Israelis and one Canadian. In a conversation about school education they all said that they think there is too much science education in school and they wanted more cultural education, like arts and languages.

I was stunned mildly speaking. Here we had three individuals who basically did not know the first thing about science (sorry Izzy, you did in fact impress me by remembering the principle of entropy ), yet they wanted to know even less. From the rest of our conversations I can deduce that there was a lot of interest in mysticism, spiritualism, religion and esoteric subjects in these three guys.

Obviously it does not surprise me. With a decent amount of science education you need not wonder if there are “other forms of energy” that science has not yet discovered and which explain alternative healing schemes (Izzy ).

With a basic education in science there need not be any further discussion about the fundamental truth and correctness of the law of evolution and the age of the earth (Asaf ).

I am saddened by the fact that so many opt against science. However, I see the fault not only in the fact that people are generally lazy, and the babble-subjects of arts and social education are easier to handle than the mathematical oriented science subjects. The fault lies also with the way science is taught, and the lack of education of philosophy of science. There is a fundamental lack of time for science subjects, yet the time is decreased in many countries even further.

Science education would have to give an insight into what science is good for and what the scientific method is in the first place. Ask any person with a school education what the scientific principle is and find that most have no clue.

It would be necessary to inform kids about that without science they would not be playing X-box, they would not eat microwave pizza, they would not be driven around in a gas-guzzling car, they would not live in heated homes and most would not even be alive or at least not as healthy as most f them are. Only a person who knows what they sacrifice when they opt against science can opt against it in the first place.

Science has become the victim of its own success it seems to me. The fruits of science have become so incorporated into our lives that we do not even see them anymore. Most of us are so healthy that we have the luxury to play around with non-functioning “alternative medicine”, knowing all too well that if it goes wrong “conventional” medicine can rescue us with antibiotics and other fantastic inventions. (I cannot begin to tell you how much I praised Mr. Pasteur and Mr. Flemming when they fixed my Indian-diarrhea in a matter of days- impossible before them and potentially deadly, but we forgot that already thanks to them)

Scientific progress has put us in a position where we have the luxury to enjoy all its benefits while at the same time blaming it for everything from global warming and the hole in the ozon layer to nuclear weapons and the threat of bio-terrorism. And while these are the dark sides of how science has been applied (as has been the iron ax when it was a novel invention to cut trees) far too many will concomitantly with their complains utter the most bizarre and too far reaching hopes in science to fix all these problems and more yet in no time.

So many people I talked to lately are caught in a weired twilight zone of scientific ignorance from which they are not capable to judge the most basic things surrounding them. A person without proper scientific knowledge has no means of distinguishing right from wrong.

I mean it almost as general as this sounds. Because the understanding of what the scientific method is and how it can be applied gives you the measure to distinguish between why a TV-commercial is selling you for stupid versus buying a product because it says that it works for 90% of people (“1000 individuals were asked if they felt the effect in a phone survey. 900 agreed to the statement that the product may have had beneficial effects for them”- I love these thingys…).

Scientific knowledge will help you figure out how to improve your health, give you guidance how to help the environment and show you the way in life in everything outside of the realm of fantasy. Unless of course you prefer fantasy over reality.

Some interesting reading about how you can impress people with ignorance if you just manage to make it sound complicated enough… Yes, I am looking at you so called “intellectuals” and disciples of “humanistic studies”… watch it, haha

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Reviews/1998-07-09postmodernism_disrobed.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Day 066 – Into thin air – Annapurna Circuit trek

Day 1 – Jagat

Bus to Bhulbule

from 820 m to 1130 m height; 15 km, 5 h walk, start: Bhulbule

Day 2 – Tal

1700 m height; 12 km, 6 h walk

Day 3 – Timang

2400 m; 10 km, 7 h

Day 4 – Chame

2670 m; 9 km, 3 h

Day 5 – Upper Pisang

3200 m; 14.5 km, 4.5 h

Day 6 – Manang

3540 m; 20 km, 8 h

Day 7 – Manang

Acclimatization to height, to avoid AMS (Acute mountain sickness)

Day-hike to 4500 m height

Day 8 – Yak Kharka

4030 m; 9 km, 3 h

Day 9 – Thorung Phedi

4530 m; 5 km, 3 h

Day 10 – Muktinath

3800 m; 16 km, 7 h

Max height at Thorung-La Pass: 5416 m (+1.88 m)

Ascent 900 m, descent 1600 m in same day

Day 11- Lete

2535 m, 42 km, 9.5 h

Day 12 – Tatopani

1200 m, 21 km, 4.5 h

Bus back to Pokhara

This was one of the most amazing, at times most exhausting, most rewarding and most beautiful things I have ever done to myself in my life. Putting it in words is hard and would probably not do it justice, since it would require a greater poet than I am to paint the wonderful sceneries and the emotions into words.

The facts are easier: I have been standing higher than any mountain in Europe. I have walked about 200 km in 12 days, and up to 42 km (Marathon anyone?) in one single day, with changes in altitude as high as 2500 meters in one day all while carrying up to 20 kg on my back. I have been breathing the incredibly thin air of the high Himalayas, which sometimes makes you feeling like suffocating, despite breathing as heavily as if you were running, though you are actually standing still. I have seen some of the worlds most outstanding landscapes, mountains, waterfalls, Yaks and people.

—

Some tips for you who is going to do the Annapurna circuit trek:

• Guide is not needed. The trek is well trodden and many other travelers/locals will point you in the right direction. A map for some rupees will help and can be bought in Pokhara
• Porter is not necessary. Besides, many people feel restricted by a porter. Some have also reported trouble with guides/porters, like disagreements over activities (or timing etc), communication problems and porters who suddenly want you to pay their food, even though that was not part of the deal.
• You need not take any food or drinks with you. There are so called tea houses all along the way.
• Your clothing is subject to personal preference, however, there are two possibilities: wash daily and restrict yourself to 2 or 3 sets of underwear/socks or take 6 sets and wash once (or have it washed for about 30-40 rupees per piece) when you have to take a acclimatization day in Manang. The other items are: long sleeved cloth for high altitude suitable for down to -5 degrees (around September to December). Best you take 3 to 4 layers of cloth since you can adjust all along the trek to varying temperatures. One layer at least should be wind-/rain-proof jacket and pants.
• If you plan on cutting the trek short, there are jeeps running from Jomsom down to Tatopani. However, right now there is a section in between that you will have to walk (roughly 6 hours walk). Plan 2 days for a transport back to Pokhara by Jeep. Else, take the plane from Jomsom. In that case 2 days ahead booking is recommended. Price for Jeep is around 1000 Rupees for Jomsom to Tatopani and another 500-700 for the bus to Pokhara. Planes cost above 80 Dollars.
• Boots can be hired in Pokhara which I did, but good ones are hard to find. Buying boots in sizes above 43 is hard to impossible (hence I rented them). The quality of the boots is poor (copies) but they are inexpensive (do not pay more than 30 Euros for a “better of the bad ones” pair). Other equipment (jackets, rucksacks and sweaters) can be good quality and is cheap.However, sleeping bags can be of poor quality. You have to check carefully.

Ask me if you want to get more info on the trek.