Today I had a look back at our fantastic trip, and went through some of the little bits and pieces I collected as souvenirs. Great memories!
Among these was a special treasure: A card in the shape of a suitcase we got from our best friends in Aachen. They gave it to us before we left. Inside were little shirts folded out of Euros, our emergency money for the trip: Use only if we don’t even own the shirt on our back! We almost needed it, but now I am glad I have this souvenir from my friends in Aachen with me.
Thanks a million Pat, Jürgen, Jolle, and Andrea!!
We are in Melbourne: We actually made it to the other side of the world!! I am very excited, but also nervous. This is the end of one adventure, and the beginning of another adventure. Will we make it in Australia?
We are lucky that Mathias has family from Marcela´s side in Melbourne: Uncle Jesus and cousin Felipe. They were so nice to give us shelter for the first few weeks.
Got into the plane of AirAsia in Kolkata, and immediately the dirt and stench of India washed off. We had leather seats and sweet asian stewardesses serving delicious sandwiches. And then comes Thailand all air conditioned, nice, clean at us. We are not in the third world anymore, this first world! You could mistake the Bangkok sky train for Miami if it wasn´t for all the Thais :-)
We ended up staying in a side road to Khao San road, the tourist mile of Thailand. The people are a mix of adventurers, freaks, and plenty of annoying tourists from all over the world. Unfortunately there is no ping-pong show here, which I heard is a must-see for anybody who likes to play the game.
Bangkok is interesting, and the Thais are pretty friendly, as friendly as you can be with all these annoying people here. Because our budget is used up we don´t have money to look at Thailand, which certainly seems very intriguing. Next time we´ll explore more here. Thailand is only an 8 hour flight from Melbourne!
We did get to see my brother, but only for a few hours. We had to stay here in Bangkok to get our Australian visas back in our passports, while Oli and Bernd and the gang from Germany went on to beautiful Thai islands, crazy night life, and then on to Cambodia for some 3rd-world fun.
Our flight to our new home Melbourne is tomorrow, and I am very excited already. Another day, another adventure!
We were stuck in Kathmandu as if it was magnetic. Every day we would say “tomorrow we are leaving”, and then something else came up. Another milk tea, another day.
Eventually we did make it out of town. On the last day we emptied out the campervan, gave it the best car wash, and dropped it off spotlessly clean at our friend Kishor. He is our mechanic and a Volkswagen enthusiast, who took care of all the repairs that had to be done in Kathmandu.
The campervan will stay with Kishor until I figure out a way to get it over to Australia. I have about 6 months to do so. I already miss my baby soo much!
So off we went without a car to India to catch a flight to Kolkata. Crazy crazy crazy I can tell you. We were in one bus or another for 24 hours straight: First to the Indian border, then further on to the holy city of Varanasi. This is the city where the Hindus burn the dead and dump then remains in the Ganges river.
Varanasi turned out to be a nightmare in overdrive: Everything you expect from India all condensed into one place. Overcrowded streets, narrow alleys, pitiful beggars, sneaky touts, bored cows, and piles of filth, and all wrapped in biting smell of spices and urine. The city was just one big sensory overload.
Next day we went to catch a train to Kolkata. The train was 5 hours late when it left in Varanasi, and 9 hours late when we arrived, making this a 17 hour train ride in Indian 3rd class. Now that´s what I call adventure! It was all good fun, though, and we met some interesting travelers.
One night in Kolkata, and then we took a plane to Bangkok, where my brother and I wanted to meet …
I ran into a great celebration of the Chinese new year by various Nepalese ethnic groups. In one park there were thousands of Tamang gathered in celebration, offering traditional Tamang food, traditional dances and beautiful girls in Tamang dress. The next day there was another ethnic group celebrating in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square with music and drums and elephants. Excellent!
We stumbled upon this restaurant featuring a traditional Nepalese dance company. This was so much fun, as the all-Nepalese crowd was going mad over the songs. They even got me and Mathias dancing with them. Great fun!
We went on a little trip to the Royal Chitwan National Forest in Nepal to see some wild animals. It was a neat experience, as we got to see deer, wild boars, mongoose, a huge python, crocodiles, peacocks, monkeys, and all kinds of other animals in their natural habitat.
Some pics from the trip we took with Andrew and Ann. We first went to the Chinese border, and then onto a town called Jiri, an old starting point for the Everest climbers.
We drove up to an altitude of 3000 meters, and the roads were a bit slippery from frost. This is pretty dangerous when the side of the road drops sharply. Within 5 kilometers of where we were one truck driver crashed down the mountain the night we camped out, and one truck driver crashed the next day when we were heading back from Jiri. Pretty scary.
The Chinese border was an eery experience. The Chinese turned out to be pretty unfriendly, as undercover border guards tried to arrest Andrew for taking a picture of a sign on the Nepalese side (!) of the border. The sign read “Nepal Tourism Year 2011.” Clearly he was spying on the Chinese. This happend on the “friendship bridge” that marks the border. Fitting name!
Kathmandu has been our home for the last few weeks. The Nepalese - just as the rest of the people we met on our trip - are again exceptionally nice. We are currently busy getting new passports and finding out how to get our Carnet de Passage for the car stamped.
So far the temperatures have been around 25 degrees during the day dropping near 0 during the night, but now the days are cloudy, and without proper heating anywhere even the daytime is mighty chilly. Soon it will be time to leave for some warmer climate.
How awesome is this: Last week met met this couple from Australia here in Kathmandu, that are traveling overland like we are, just the opposite way. They are on the road from Australia to the UK, all in a Toyota Landcruiser.
We have been staying with Ann and Andrew on an empty lot in the middle of Kathmandu ever since, and enjoyed exchanging stories about far off places around the camp fire.
They have a bit of a leg up on us, though: Ann and Andrew have been on the road for five years, while we have only been a measly 3 months. Here is their website.
Today we are driving with them to the border to Tibet. The view of the mountains is supposed to be really good from there.
Theft in Kathmandu
After three months of feeling totally safe in all the countries we traveled we got a bit lazy and let our guards down. We left our backpack with both our passports, the carnet (car papers) , the iPad, the cameras, and the backup discs in the car to buy some water. When we returned after 10 minutes some thieves had entered the car and took the backpack. Loosing the valuables was bad. We are looking at about 7000 Euros damage. The real shit is loosing the passports and the carnet, though!!
We are now sorting out the damage done…
Happy New Year from Kathmandu
I want to wish our friends in Aachen and around the world a happy happy new year. Check out our new home-made windshield visor to keep nosy Indians from staring at Mathias while he sleeps.
Here are some more shots of India. We spent about 10 days there, mainly driving around, looking at the Taj Mahal, and then driving some more trying to figure out a way to get to Nepal. After Nepal we will gladly return to India, because it has been great fun.
It was one of those chance encounters: Late at night I was in Agra looking for a LAN cable when I stumbled upon Adil, owner of the Mughal Carpet Company. Even though I was a total stranger he let me borrow a cable for the night, and when I returned it next day we had a great talk about carpet making and Islam.
He described carpet making as a type of meditation that results in a beautiful work of art. Being able to watch the process and see the result I understood what he meant.
Having converted from Hinduism to Islam he also gave me some wonderful views on religion. What struck me most was his explanation, that if you give something to others without wanting something back then you can see the image of God within you. Beautiful thought …
Next destination: India. Let me tell you: India rocks! We are thoroughly enjoying our time here: People are friendly, traffic is exciting, and food is great. Now that we are back within our original schedule we can take our time and get to know the country we are in. A wonderful experience.
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