Back and yet always on the go again

Yes – I’m still very much alive and kicking!

After getting back from my travels end of May (geeze, Frankfurt seemed so tiny in comparison to all the cities (Beijing, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur…) I’ve visited the days before…), I used the summer time to travel around in Germany, visiting friends, family and several music festivals while slowly starting the job application process. Oh, and of course I went back to England and Scotland for a couple of weeks, hiking along some amazing paths and hitting the local pubs afterwards…

Unfortunately, in the following the weeks the amont of activities decreased due to a low tide in my bank account, causing me to be pretty much stuck in my little home town. As a result I started temping at a little guest house in one of the villages around here, serving food and beer to local music clubs and old men who, with every beer served, tried to chat me up with some stupid lines…. Grrrr. Well, all I did was to smile artificially and ignore them as good as possible. Who’d have guessed that I’d suffer a culture shock in a little village just a few kilometers away from my place of birth? I might have as well skipped the little India trip thing… Haha.

Anyway, that’s all past and gone now, as I’m going to move to Bremen, northern Germany, in the next few weeks where I’ll start my PhD in coastal management. It’s really the perfect job for me, not only because of the topic, but also as it is involves one year in New Zealand…! Now that’s something, isn’t it? I’m sure I’ll find some time besides work to explore this amazing country, so you may look forward to new travel stories soon!

About travelling and going home…

I’m currently in the Cameron Highlands, a nice hilly area in the middle of Malaysia with lots of tea plantations, strawberry farms (though they cost as much here as they do in Germany!), butterly farms and loads of jungle and ancient rainforest… I’m staying in a nice lodge in Tanah Rata with chillout area, TV room and Jungle Bar, a good place to hang out and meet loads of people from all over the world. I tried to do some hiking yesterday, but had to stop because my leg started aching really badly… Oh well now, I can’t change that I guess so I spent my day today in and around the little village, eating yummy Indian roti (bread) and having a proper English cream tea (thanks to the British colonization habit…), and sitting in a park full of flowers reading a book. It’s really been the first day in ages that I do nothing but to chill out, and I think it does me good! It’s just been so extremely busy the last weeks, I’m starting to feel a bit tired (well, that shouldn’t surprise me really, after 4 1/2 months of travelling, but it still does…). I’m starting to be all emotionally wound up again – on the one hand wanting to continue to travel forever, on the other hand wishing to be home this instance. It’s this period of  transition that screws me up every single time, when I feel like something’s coming to an end but I can’t yet hold on to whatever comes next… I wonder, will it ever get better?! In any case, I guess I’ll just have to live through it. And come tomorrow everything will look different again, as I’ll be going to Kuala Lumpur for 2 days, and I can well imagine that this city will keep me from thinking about these kind of things too much… As far as my further plans are concerned, I’m planning to head out to the Tioman Islands after KL (a couple more days relaxing at the beach) before making my way to Singapore in about a week. From there I’ll be flying out to Bejing, China on the 25th, and then land in Frankfurt early on the 29th. Wow, I still have lots of exciting destinations left for the last two weeks…!

Yup, that’s it for the moment I guess… I hope you’re all good, speak soon!

A Thai kiss for goodbye and the first day in Malaysia

I finally made it to Malaysia yesterday, one day later than I had actually planned to. The reason for the delay was not a very nice one, but something that is commonly called the “Thai kiss” – a burn on the leg by a motorbike exhaust… It happened shortly before I was scheduled to hop on the night ferry, so I decided that it would make more sense to pay a visit to a doctor instead and delay my trip for a day. Luckily that was no problem and even despite the pain I had another great and relaxing day on Koh Tao! However, I had to leave at some point and I managed to get the night ferry on Tuesday which took me (and a bunch of other people sleeping and snoring all around me) in 8 hours to Suratthani (mainland Thailand). From there I took several minibuses and finally landed in Georgetown, Malaysia in the evening… The whole trip went by without any problems, there was just one woman in a travel agency that really made me angry. She kept telling me (at 5 am) that, as I was one day late for my visa, would have to take an 8-hour taxi-ride to some office, costing me 6500 Bhat (more than a 120 Euros) in order to pay for my overstay. I was a tiny bit confused as I had heard from several other people that I could simply pay the fine for the overstay at the border without much hassle, but as soon as I mentioned this she just said: “Well, try it if you want, it’s not my story, you’ll have big problems at the border!”. I really didn’t know what to think, especially at 5 in the morning after a night with little sleep, and started t0 discuss this with her, with the result that she threw me out of her office!!! I couldn’t believe it! In the end it turned out that it was no problem at all to pay the fine at the border, and that – after talking to another traveller – this travel agency tries really hard to rip off anybody… So if any of you reading this are planning to come to Thailand, be warned that there is a travel agency somewhere in Suratthani that tells you loads of stupid stuff in order to get some money out of you!

Anyhow, the important thing is that I finally reached the place I wanted to get to: Georgetown, Malaysia. It’s a nice city on an island with a history of British settlement. It has quite a nice atmosphere, and there is a “Little India” and a “Chinatown”. Both of these cultures heavily influence the local food which you can enjoy from the small food stalls on the streets – it’s very tasty indeed, yummy! The Malaysians speak very good English, which makes communication with the locals a lot easier than in Thailand, and they are – all in all – a pretty nice bunch of people, very helpful and smiling at you all the time… However, I’ve also noticed that there is a lot more harassment than in Thailand, many men stare at me again or start whistling when I walk by, one even touched me in order to make me stop and talk to me. But all in all I guess it’s not as bad as it was in India, or maybe I simply know better now how to handle it… However, it’s not bad enough to make me want to flee the country, I rather have to admit that I still enjoy travelling enough that I started thinking about delaying my flight again… I just don’t know, I kind of look forward to go home, but then I don’t really have a time limit and could easily just go on travelling for a couple more weeks. Geeze, there are just too many options and things to see and discover, hehe… A friend send me this link earlier, it’s a damn good article (unfortunately in German) about the way that the travel bug is able to destroy lives, very true I think!

Well, I’ll hopefully be able to decide within the next couple of days, I’ll let you know then… Speak soon!

Discovering the world underneath the surface…

Heya guys!

I spent the last few days on a small island called Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand -  a truly nice place to hang out! I rented a small bungalow right at the beach and fell asleep listening to the sounds of the ocean, nice, aye? I rather spontaneously decided to do a diving course, and I’m glad I did! It’s such an incredible experience to dive down into this peaceful world and discover life down there! It’s so peaceful and calm, and you really just feel weightless and free! It’s fun to observe the fish and all the other living organisms (we even saw a whale shark the other day!!!) – you would never believe how rich the world is underneath the surface! If you ever get the chance to do some diving – go for it!

Well, besides diving I spent a lot of time just chilling or wandering along the beaches and in the bars. It’s fairly easy to get to know people here, I’ve been here a week now and I can’t walk through the village without having to stop every couple of meters and have a quick chat with somebody I met the night before… It’s almost like a home away from home… I’m a bit sad to have to leave tonight, but my visa expires so I’ll take a night boat and several busses busses tonight and head down to Georgetown, Malaysia and then spend two weeks discovering that country before starting to make my way home… Time is flying, geeeeeze, I can’t believe it’s already mid-May!

Oh well, I’ll better use the remaining few hours on this island in order to chill at the beach and have a couple of fruit shakes instead of hanging on the internet, so I keep it short today… Hope you’re all good, I look forward to see you all soon!

1 month in Thailand: it’s all been about food and massages

Hello out there!

I know it’s been a while since my last entry, but I assure you that this has been due to our absolutely stuffed travel schedule… We’ve been cruising all over the country and spent hours and hours in several busses and trains, seeing a variety of landscapes, cities, people, wats etc etc. We hardly ever stayed anywhere for longer than two nights, so it really isn’t much of a surprise that I didn’t manage to spent very much time in internet cafes…

After making our way up from the south to the north we spent a few days in Chiang Mai, which is a rather big, but farely relaxed city with loads of cafes and bars. We relaxed for a day or two (it was too hot to really do anything), spent a lot of time shopping at the night market and the Sunday walking street, and participated in a one-day cooking class on an organic farm outside of the city. We cooked a few different dishes like curry, soup and mango with sticky rice, which we unfortunately weren’t able to eat completely – it was very tasty but simply too much… But it was nice to be able to cook again, even if somebody tells me what to do, haha.

After that we made our way to Pai, a little but fairly touristy town northeast of Chiang Mai. From there we took a bus and a motorbike taxi to a village in the mountains where we stayed with a local Lisu-family for two days (Lisu is one of the hilltribes that immigrated from Tibet to Thailand and Burma some time ago…). We had actually planned to do a one-day hiking trip with our host Suzanna, but then we went to a Lisu-wedding in a close-by village instead. It was quite a nice experience, although the atmosphere has not been very festive; it felt more like that the wedding was a just welcomed excuse for a gathering of all villagers and the slaughter of a pig (which of course was the women’s job)…

After that we returned to Pai again, where we spent two days trying to learn the art of Thai foot massage from a local woman. It was quite hard work, but I think we managed alright in the end… Although I have to admit that I still find it a bit strange to massage the feet of some unknown person (as we had to do as part of the course)… Oh well, I’m sure there will be enough well-known persons back home that wouldn’t mind a go, am I right?

Anyhow, from Pai we travelled further north to a somewhat strange city named Chiang Rai… It’s not a terribly interesting place to visit, but as it is quite close to the Myanmar/ Laos borders and as I had to do a visa run (go out of the country and come back in again in order to get a new stamp in my passport so I’m allowed to stay in Thailand a bit longer), we made our way up there. While I spent a day hopping over to Myanmar for a few minutes, my friend Lia visited all the wats (temples) around. The next day we went on a guided trekking tour including a boat and an elephant ride and some trekking through hilltribe villages. It’s been an excellent and very informative day, despite the heat and the fact that I pretty much suffered from a heat stroke at some point… But it’s been worth it, haha!

The night after the trekking we spent in a bus back to Bangkok, where I still am at the moment… Lia and I used our last days together in the capital to explore it’s wats and the royal Grand Palace, and to do a little trip to a floating market. And then, last night, I had to say good-bye yet again as Lia had to catch her flight back home… It was quite sad, our one month together went over so quickly, it’s really hard to grasp! But it was an awesome time!!!

So, here I am now, all alone in the big city of Bangkok. For those of you who are wondering what I’ll do next, here’s the answer: I’ll head down south to the beaches again tonight and then I”ll gradually make my way through Malaysia to Singapore from where I’ll catch a flight back home – however, not without stopping en route in Peking, China for three days. I’ll be touching German ground again on May 29th! 

The next few weeks should be as exciting as the past ones, with so many places to visit! But I gradually do start to look forward to come back home, and give all the impressions I’ve gathered in these past months the chance to settle a bit…

So, I guess I’d better go and fetch a Pad Thai from on of the street stalls before I go on the night bus to the south, so I won’t get hungry in the middle of the night. I’ve uploaded new pics, make sure to have a look!

Speak soon!

A visit to paradise and loads of water

Heya guys!

It’s me again – and I’m doing good. I’m currently in Trang, way in the south of Thailand and far away from all the troubles in Bangkok… Lia and I spent the last few days on a little island called Koh Lipe in the Andamon Sea: turquoise waters, white sand beaches and not too many other tourists… We spent our days there  enjoying the beaches, snorkelling, eating and chilling the evenings away in some beach bar drinking cocktails – what a life!

However, after a few days we decided that we want to see some more of the real Thailand, and thus left paradise in order to stay at a little fishermen village on the mainland. There, we rented a kayak and explored some mangrove forests, pirate caves and deserted beaches. Moreover, we spent some time observing the rural life of the people there, and tasting their food and drinks… Last night, we planned on taking the bus to Trang, but were somehow misinformed about the departure times, so that we missed the last bus. Great! But no problem, I mean, two girls sitting at the deserted bus stop are a good reason for the whole village to gather in the centre, talk a lot and find a solution: three lifesavers gave us a ride to a bigger city close by, from where we were able to take a taxi to Trang. It sounds alright now, but it was a bit creepy at that time: we didn’t really know what was going on (most Thais don’t speak English, or only really really bad), the guys themselves were a bit scary carrying weapons and it was just turning dark. Oh well, in the end we managed to get to Trang in a safe and healthy state, and after checking into a really nice hotel with a clean bathroom (!), we hit the nightmarket for some dinner. That was the absolutely best idea of the day: numerous stands were offering all knids of items and food, we couldn’t restrain ourselves from eating lots of tits and bits, and later falling into bed with aching stomachs… But it was worth it!!! We weren’t really convinced of the Thai cuisuine until now, but the visit to the night market has definitely changed that! So my advice to any of you coming to Thailand: try to eat the food on the street, it’s tons better than in the restaurants, and a lot cheaper, too!

So, anyway, we spent the day today in Trang, having some nice breakfast and watching the ongoings on the streets. No, there are no strikes here, but the Buddhist celebrations of the Songkran festival, so instead of using weapons, people here ‘fight’ with water… It may be a bit less dangerous, but still quite mad, geeze. People drive around town in their pick-ups (up to 10 of them on the back), throwing with water and shooting water pistols and soaking everybody who dares to be outside. So, of course we didn’t get spared, and so ended up completely wet after a short ride with a tuk-tuk to the bus station (I think the driver drove through the really bad roads on purpose, haha) and of course we got blessed numerous times by having some baby powder rubbed in our faces… But it was (and actually still is) fun! The cool water is quite refreshing in this some 40 degree hot weather (ok, the ice cubes that were put down the back of our shirts maybe were a bit too much… hehe), and everybody is smiling and laughing and having loads of fun!

So that’s the news for the moment, I uploaded some new pics, you’ll be jealous seeing those nice beaches, I promise you! Take care guys, and speak soon!

Bangkok

Heya folks!

I just wanted to let you know that (after a 2 hour delay of the plane) I safely arrived in Bangkok yesterday. I was greeted by some very damp 36 degrees celsius, and – together with two Israelian guys I met on the plane – took a taxi to the main tourist area Th Khao San. We quickly found a reasonable room and ended up in a metal bar right away, haha… Bangkok is pretty cool, a lot different than the big cities in India or Nepal: more clean, more quiet and a lot more western. There are lots of food stands lining the streets, most of them smelling pretty good, and you can buy almost anything in the small shops and stands (even fake driver’s licences…). The people here are pretty nice, and you meet loads of traveller’s from everywhere… After one day I can already say that I really like it here, and I can’t wait to meet Lia later this evening when she”ll come flying in from New Zealand! I’m sure we’ll have an awesome month together here!!!

That’s it so far, the first pics are online, so check them out… Take care folks!

Two birthdays, six days of trekking and one night in a local village

Namaste! Lots of things have happened in the last two weeks, and that’s just what I needed after that week of sickness and rest! But let’s start from the beginning…

First thing was Maira’s 20. birthday last week Tuesday. Being far away from home I tried to make it a day full of surprises for her, and I think I did pretty well… We had a nice day starting with a yummy chocolate brownie in bed and a proper breakfast at one of the nicest cafes in Lakeside, Pokhara. After that we went for a one-hour paragliding session with the most amazing views of the landscape surrounding Pokhara – hills, mountains, rivers, small villages, fields and in the far distance the highest mountains of the world (which we unfortunately couldn’t see too well due to some haziness…). It was nice, but after about hald the flight both of us started to feel kind of funny in the stomach and tried very hard not to let the breakfast see daylight again, ehem… Well, we succeeded and in the end landed safely on the ground again, ready for some more birthday cake! In the evening we then went out for some curry and cocktails with a German guy we had already met in Kathmandu and accidently bumbed into again that night, and then stumbled into bed quite late…

The next day started early, the taxi to Nayapur picked us up at 8am. From there, we started our six day trekking experience together with our guide Gonga (a 23 year old woman from Pokhara) and a porter, Bina. I at first had some serious issues with having somebody else carry my luggage, but in the end it turned out to be really fortunate that we had taken her along – Maira got very sick on the second day and had to return to Pokhara the next morning and Bina accompanied her and brought her home safely. Together with our guide Gonga I went on, carrying my own stuff now, and was so lucky as to meet Jana on the way. Jana had just spent 7 weeks volunteering in the school of a local village and was now on a little trekking trip with her host dad Dhurba and as they had the same route, we decided to go on together. We had an amazing time wandering through the most beautiful landscapes, ranging from millet and potato fields along small villages to bewitched woods along small waterfalls and deep canyons… In the distance and high above us were the Annapurna mountains; once or twice we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of them, but most of the time they were not visible due to thick clouds. Our days usually started early (breakfast at 6:30 or 7:00am) and we walked something between 5 to 9 hours every day. Some of the days were quite hard, well, we had to crawl up some thousand steps to cover the 2500m from Nayapur up to Poon hill. But it was absolutely worth it, the little guest houses were very cozy (some of them had quirky ovens in the living rooms made out of old oil cans…), and we even made the aquaintance of a snowman and a yak! And we had a little birthday celebration for Jana yesterday, including the obligatory tika (hindu blessing) on the forehead and a flower chain around the neck…

So, with lots of sore muscles and aching feet I returned to Pokhara yesterday, and – after checking on Maira, she’s fine now – went to the little village where Jana has volunteered for the last weeks. Her hostdad Dhurba was so kind as to invite me to stay at his house for a night (and of course eat plates full of Dhal bat), and I was happy to join them and check out the local village life. It took us a very shaky hour to cover the 12 kilometers by bus, and then Jana showed me around a bit. It was rather shocking to see the condition of the local  public school (no glass windows, teaching material or decoration, just plain wooden benches and a blackboard) – it altogether seemed to me that life in the village here in Nepal is somewhat like it must have been some centuries ago in Europe. My hostfamily (which was rather rich by the local standards) lives in a little stone (!) house with three rooms and a kitchen with a fire stove made out of clay, and of course without running water, but at least they have electricity (even if only for a few hours a day).  They were all very kind to me, and I enjoyed my stay at their house very much! I mean, all of us know that many people live under such conditions, but then they don’t actually know what it’s like… I am very thankful to Jana and her hostfamily to have given me the opportunity to actually experience such a way of life and I am very sure that this will help me to appreciate even more all the facilities and opportunities I have back home (e.g. being able to open the fridge and eating a variety of different food, hot running water and electricity 24 hours a day, being an eduacted woman with the freedom to decide what I want to do with my life…).

So today I returned to touristy Lakeside from that little trip into the past, and (of course not without a really nice breakfast!!!) started to sort out all kinds organisational stuff for the next days,  such as collecting air and bus tickets, selling old books, writing my weblog entry… Tonight we’ll have a couple of cocktails to celebrate Jana’s birthday properly and then we’ll head back to Kathmandu tomorrow. There we’ll spend a lazy day in Thamel again, and then, on Friday, I’ll fly out to Bangkok already!!! Geeze, time really is flying by!

So, my dear friends, that’s it for now. I probably have forgotten at least half of what I was meaning to write, but at least you have some sort of an update now…. Oh, and I managed to upload a few pics, though these do not resemble the collection of amazing pictures I was able to take during the last days…

I hope you’re all well!!!! Speak soon!

Rearranging our plans

Heya!

It’s me again – this time from Pokhara, Nepal. We left Kathmandu on Monday, hoping that we would leave the dust and smog of that city behind us as well… But that didn’t really happen, it seems to be some kind of a fog coming up here from Rajasthan, covering the whole of Nepal. It’s bit sad, really, that we can’t even see the mountains, but at least it rained a couple of times in the last days (the first rain I’ve come across in nearly two months!!!), clearing it all up a bit…

However, I sadly have to admit that – after having been in Nepal for almost a week now – I have felt rather sick most of the time: first it was simply a headache due to the foggy smog in Kathmandu, then a pretty bald cold came along, resulting in a rough two days spent in bed with fever and – again – diarrhea (thought I had left that behind in India, haha). So that’s where I am now: the fever is gone, but I’m still terribly weak and nauseous. And I started to become terribly frustrated because I want to explore this country, go trekking, be outdoors, enjoy the mountains… and instead I’m stuck in the hotel room. So that was why, today, we had the brilliant idea to extent our stay in Nepal and skip our little trip to Varanasi (too much hassle to get there anyway). This way, I’ll have enough time to actually be in this country and get to know it before I fly out to yet another country – Thailand. Two weeks are just not long enough for Nepal, especially if you fall sick…

So, I guess that’s all my news, keep your fingers crossed for me guys that I’ll quickly recover my strength so that I can hit the trekking paths soon!

Cheers, and speak soon!

Rajasthan, Taj Mahal, lots of colour and hello to Nepal

Geeze, guys, lots has happened since my last entry, so I’ll try to sum up the most important bits and bobs as good as I can…

We left Mumbai on March 5th and headed up to Udaipur – again in a sleeper-bus. We’ve spent a few nights in theses buses by now, but it was different every single time. We’ve had buses filled with western tourists and hardly any incidents, and some bus rides where we’ve been the only white women amongst Indian men. This has been fine the other time, when one of the guys working for the bus company was all crazy about us, but very polite, so that he really made us feel comfortable and even brought us some chai to our little booth! This time, however, all the men were rather young and unpolite and the bus was rather shabby, so that the curtains didn’t really give us much privacy: one time in the middle of the night, Maira woke up, finding that the curtains had been drawn apart so that one of the guys could shamelessly stare at us sleeping (and he didn’t even looked away when Maira opened her eyes…!). Can you believe that?! I felt really odd when Maira told me later, you know you’re just so vulnerable while asleep, and those guys had nothing better to do than to take advantage out of that! Grrr. It was one of those moments in which it would have been really nice to travel with a guy. But oh well, at least Maira and I had each other, I wouldn’t have wanted to be all alone in that situation…!

So, we reached Udaipur that morning, and quickly found a nice hotel room with a nice view upon the lake and the palace(s). The woman running the hotel was a very sweet lady, and cooked VERY tasty Indian food, served by her son in the romantic privacy of the hotel rooftop terrace. We spent a few days in this city at the border of the desert, visiting some impressive palaces which reflected the romantic streaks of the 22 kings that lived there in the past centuries… There were courtyards with impressive fountains that were only designed for the pleasure of the king with his numerous wives, and rooms that gloomed from all the glass and gold on walls and furniture. Here, unless anywhere else in India, we felt like being in some oriental place, and a very beautiful one!

So, after three days we left Udaipur again – however, not without spending several hours getting frustrated by the bureaucracy of the Indian post system while trying to send home a packet…. Grrrr, sometimes the most simple things that you assume to take not more than 5 minutes turn out to be a day-filling activity, and of course this always happens when you’re tight on time anyway… And when you then have to catch a bus, but the rickshaw driver doesn’t bother turning up, you’re in real trouble… Well, that’s India for you!

Anyhow, we somehow made it to catch the bus and arrived in Agra (close to Delhi and home of the Taj Mahal) the next morning. After checking in our hotel we checked out the Taj Mahal, which – I have to admit – really is one of the most impressive and beautiful buildings I’ve seen so far. However, I found that it looses some of its mysterious charisma the closer you get to it, but it was worth paying the impressive entry fee of 750Rs (ca. 12 Euro), at the very least to take some pictures of yourself in front of this famous site; and, of course, to also pose on numerous pictures with Indian guys or families ( “one quick picture, madam, pleeeeeaaaase!”) – I wonder on how many living room walls I will end up, haha.

We originally had planned to stay in Agra for one day only and then head to Delhi by train in order to catch our flight. However, we discovered that India would be celebrating the ‘Holi festival’ on that day, so we decided to treat ourselves with the luxury of a four-hour taxi ride directly to the airport the next morning in order to take part in the celebrations. ‘Holi’ is one of the biggest festivals in North India, celebrating the beginning of spring with loads of load music, lights, bonfires and – most importantly – colour! So, that morning, wrapped in old clothes and well equipped with bags of powder in the brightest colours, we hit the rooftop of our hotel. There, we had a splendid time throwing colour over every person we met and rub it into their skin, hair and clothes; together with the water bombs thrown by kids from other houses and the loud music from everywhere – well, maybe you can imagine in what kind of a mess that ended, hehe! But it was fun, and it was an easy and relaxed way to meet new people, some of who we were hardly able to recognize again once they had taken a shower… So we spent the rest of the day (and most of the night) with the ‘Holi crew’, including a trip to the backside of the Taj Mahal during sunset…

The next morning, while we were sitting in the taxi to the airport, we decided that this luxury transport option was definitely worth every darn rupee – not only because we were able to enjoy ‘Holi’, but also because it saved us having to fight our way through Delhi using public transport – it was already enough to look at and smell this city covered in yellow smog while passing through its suburb in the safety of a car… And so we got to the airport on time, killed a few hours in the food court of the airport and finally boarded the plane to Nepal. It was a bit of a weird feeling to leave India after seven weeks during which I found that I actually love this country more than I dislike it, but hey, I will be back again for a few days at the end of March before heading over to Thailand, so that made it a bit easier to say good-bye…

So, here I am now, in Nepal. Unfortunately, we only got a glimpse of the mountains while flying into the country as there were loads of clouds (he first clouds I’ve seen for seven weeks!!!), but what I saw already looked very promising! Since our arrival yesterday we’ve spent most of our time relaxing in some nice, western garden cafe, as we both feel a bit exhausted and worn out, I guess we just need a day’s break to take some rest and adjust to the new country – especially after the last few days. Kathmandu with its many western style restaurants and side lanes is quite good for that (although it’s covered in smog, you can actually feel it in your lungs!). From what I can say so far, Nepal is in some respects quite similar to India (food, bargaining, pollution, price levels etc.), but very different in others, e.g. there’s A LOT less honking, it’s cooler (you actually have to put on a sweater in the evenings…) and the people look and behave differently; they act in a less intrusive manner and many women wear western style clothes… I like it so far, and I can’t wait to actually explore this country and its culture! We plan on staying in Kathmandu and its surroundings for a couple of days, before heading the Pokhar, from where we want to go trekking for five or six days. I particularly look forward to get out there, to be in and with the nature for a while, far away from pollution and noise!

Phew, I’ve written quite a novel here, but – if you really made it all the way down here – you should be updated now! For pictures check out http://lisa.gezeiten.org…

Hope you’re all good and healthy!!!! Speak soon!