Click on the below button to drop me a note. Suggestions and questions very welcome !
Halfway around the world in 1 year
Welcome to Sotje62 ! My blog intends to make the world a smaller place. Automatically and real-time, the blog traces Beatriz and myself's whereabouts, it might just tell you a thing or 2 that interests me - therefore not you, that's the privilege of having a blog - but read new blogs on the top and click on the pictures in the side bar to see older blogs, the blog,and Beatriz and I hope you grow a good 'travel' appetite. Sotje62 travel blog is in Vlaams (donker gekleurd) and in English (light coloured). So read what you understand and again what you like.
31-05-2009
India Photo Album Uttar Pradesh - from Agra to Tansen (Nepal)
02 Juni. Varanasi.
Vanavond vertrekken we naar Nepal. Eindelijk !! We kijken erg uit naar Nepal - ik waarschijnlijk meer dan Bea want ik heb genoeg van de vervuilde lucht in India. We nemen de nachttrein, een lokale 'rammel' bus van 3 uur en arroveren in Sanauli rond middag tijd.
Het papierwerk aan de grens is makkelijk. Aan de grenspost ontvangen we onze stempel, we betalen elk 40 US dollar, en we kunnen 1 maand als toerist in Nepal blijven.
Tonight we leave to Nepal. Finally !! We are looking really looking forward to arrive in Nepal - me probably more than Bea cause I have had enough of the pollution in India. We ll take the nighttrain, a 3 hour 'scrappy' bus and get in Sanauli around midday.
The paperwork will be straightforward. At the border we get our Nepal stamp, we pay 40 USD each, and we have a 1 month visa.
Bekijk hieronder het tweede deel van onze fotos van Rajasthan. Onderaan begint het met Jodhpur, daarna gaat het over naar fotos van Jaisalmer, de bovenste fotos zijn genomen in Jaipur. Veel kijkplezier en we spreken af in de Taj Mahal !
Have a look at the second part of our pictures in Rajahsthan. The blog starts with the first picture taken at the bottom. This is in Jodhpur, then it goes over into pictures we have taken in Jaipur. Enjoy picturetime and we meet at the Taj Mahal !
Jaipur. Indian kids that really want to have a picture (with our camera ?)
Jaipur. Sunset from Palace of winds.
Jaipur. Palace of winds.
Bea. Palace of winds.
Jaipur. Palace of winds. It's probably the only palace that we paid an entry fee for.
Jaipur.
Jaipur. Pinky.
Jaipur. Pink bazaar.
Jaipur. Cyber cafe.
Jaipur. The pigs.
Jaipur. What a detail, a Belgian saree.
Jaipur. The pink city, this is one of the entry gates.
Jaipur. 05:01 AM
Jaipur. 05:00 AM
Jaisalmer. Bea watching her step.
Jaisalmer. A haveli balcony.
Jaisalmer. Haveli courtyard.
Jaisalmer. Haveli courtyard.
Jaisalmer. Fort gate.
Jaisalmer. Bea in the narrow streets of the fort.
Jaisalmer. Haveli facade.
Jaisalmer. Temple.
Jaisalmer. View from the fort.
Jaisalmer. Bea very dandy.
Jaisalmer. Busted !!
Jodhpur. Most of our time in Jodhpur we spent with Barbara & Christoph, learnt more about Marseille than Jodhpur.
Jodhpur. Where was I with my Indian efficiency, this one self explanatory.
Jodhpur.
Jodhpur.
Jodhpur. How cute !
Jodhpur. Pure joy doing the canon, what a grin.
Jodhpur. View from the fort.
Jodhpur. Jodhpur, the blue city. view from the fort.
At the mo, we seem to get hotter and hotter, Jaisalmer (city in desert area close to the Pakistan border) - now 49 C - will be the hottest of our trip I hope. Too hot to ride a camel. Seeing them run is fun already, their clumsy running style and their long legs just make me laugh, so horsebacking one must be gasss. But we are just going to stay away from them, just taste the ambiance here in the desert area is good enough and the more we are in the shadow the better.
I follow the Taliban fights in Pakistan because we are very close now, we see soldiers in Jaisalmer - and with their guns they are taking the same trains like us - but it is not scary at all. For both Indians and Pakistanis it's hard to cross the boarder. More trouble is going on in Kashmir where Pakistan and Indian have their ongoing dispute-history.
We stay in Jaisalmer tomorrow and then off to Jaipur and Amber.
PS: I have some open mails and I just want to say that I am not forgetting that, have a fantastic day !!
Have a look at the pictures of Rajahstan so far, tomorrow we go to Johdpur. This is on our way to Jaisalmer where the desert is. We are looking forward to this a lot !! Talk to you sooon.
Pushkar. Ha ving a smoothie.
Pushkar. Me posing on one of the ghats where Hindus get their blessing. Pushkar for that, is a very sacred place.
Pushkar. Boy washing his face in the lake.
Pushkar. Bea's new 100 rupees slippers.
Pushkar. Bea in full Indian style.
Udaipur. We broke a new record, 4 backpacks and 4 people in one rickshaw!! Marie Claire & Jason, the Canadian couple, are in the picture.
Udaipur. a saleswoman on the veg market.
Udaipur. Jason is taking pictures from people behind him, and is changing shoulders.
Udaipur.
Udaipur. Now these are the Indians I like to talk to.
Udaipur. Bad picture of a Vodafone billboard.
Udaipur. Entry of Vishnu temple, nice elephants.
Udaipur. Vishnu temple.
Udaipur. Great picture of some houses.
Udaipur. View on the city, this picture is taken from a roof top restaurant. We spent most of our time on those rooftops
Udaipur. Bea and me.
Udaipur. Nice picture but do not go swimming in that river. The river is longing for the monsoon to come.
Udaipur. This is the main lake in Udaipur, completely dried up because of the enormuous heat.
Fotos on Facebook of Karnataka & Kerala - 18/05/2009 (English)
Hope you are doing well. We are missing you but are on our way and enjoying every second !! Bea has put some pictures on facebook so that makes it easy for me, here is the link to the pictures of Kerala. www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=88977&id=533760845&l=4a0b4c1636 I don't have the link for the pictures of Karnataka and Bea is in for a hair treatment, so you best ask someone who has a facebook account to see these. The last couple of days we did a lot of public transporting to get in the North of India. Yesterday morning, finally, we arrived in Udaipur, Rahajastan. We met a Canadian couple and so far it looks like our trip is even passing through Montreal
Hampi reminds me of Bruges. It is small, touristic and a fantastic place to be. The world heritage site, protected for its temples and history of a great city it once was, gives the locals good tourism business, and we enjoy to relax, read a bit, and wonder around. To compare Bruges with Hampi is blunt, but being from Bruges I am prejudiced I guess. And in both places, local people either treat you like dirt or like kings depending on how much money you can bring them.
The temperature is 40 C plus so during the afternoon we stay inside. In the early hours and after 5PM are the coolest times. In between, the biggest hobby is to find a fan. The fan makes it cool however sometimes the fan is out of work cause Hampi has electricity problems for an unknown reason - Also my phone does not connect to the local network anymore - We have given up on finding out exact explanations. Under a fan we read a book, we have a chat, make notes, and just wait till it cools down.
The main purpose of my blog today is to give you the route that we have followed for the last month, so let me tell you more about that route.
Hampi, where we are right now, is our last stop in South India, before going to the North. The picture of this blog illustrates where we have been and stayed during the last month, with the cities and the amount of nights. When you click on the picture, a new window opens and you see the picture bigger. The picture comes from my notebook so it has no technology like Google earth or Tripit or anything like that behind it, it is hand drawn and I hope it does the works to explain our route.
Started off in Mumbai, 3 days, we went to Goa - Arambol & Baga - 1 week; then south to Kerala - Fort Cochin, Varkala, Thrissur - 2 weeks; passing through Tamil Nadu - Ooty - 1 day; to Karnataka - Mysore, Bengaluru, Hampi - 1 week. The picture does not say how many nights in Hampi because I didn't know at the time, I can tell you now that it is 3 nights. That is plenty for Hampi. Without one day of sightseeing with Chris and Eric, 2 days would have been enough. Name ?? Country ?? Rickshaw ?? Definitely the most commonly spoken words by Hampi locals, ranging from an age of 2,5 years or any age a baby starts talking, to the age that someone just gives up. Please give up faster. It did give us some good laughs.
The next states on our route are Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajahastan, Punjab, (maybe Himachal Pradesh), Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh. I will definitely draw that route again in my notebook and post the picture :)
My last blog has the pictures of Thrissur so let me start there to tell you more about the places we have visited on the way starting with Ooty. Ooty, ridiculous name in my opinion and an enough reason not to go there, is high in the western ghats mountains at an altitude of 2,200 metres. It is popular for its tea plantations, hiking trips, cool mountain temperature, and nearby wildlife parks. Having taken a bus from Thrissur (4 hours) and then another bus (7 hours), it took more time than planned. The last 5 hours, the bus climbed and climbed. We did 22km in one hour. I am faster with my foldable bicycle. We saw two head on collisions on the way up too, and that slowed us down a lot. After 5 hours of hair pin bends we got there eventually.
Surprise for us was that it was raining in Ooty. And the lonely planet says it is high season with a 'cool' temperature. We were fooled. we arrived in slippers, 2 hours late so it was dark, and we had too look for a place to stay. After an hour of looking for accomodation, soaked, we gave in to take a room of 1000 rps and make Ooty a short and luxurious stay of one day. We saw the tea plantations on the way up by bus, hiking trip we do another time, and nearby wildlife can stay wild.
A bus trip from Ooty to Mysore takes 6 hours. The bus goes through wilderness, national parks and local tribal villages. Mysore is good times, being popular for incenses, parfums and its palace. We found accomodation fairly quickly and thought to stay a few days after the many bus trips.
Walking around on the amazingly colourful market of Mysore, we found out what else Mysore is popular for. Good salespeople. They don't do good business with us though. A good example is the incenses and parfums salesman. He showed us how incenses are made. You mix sandwood with water and you get a moisty paste. That paste you roll on to a small bamboo stick and incense is done. One person can make around 5,000 to 6,000 incenses per day. He shows us a book of all Belgian customers with pictures and notes in Flemish. The guy even spoke a bit of Flemish. It is really weird to hear an Indian, that has never left his country, ask you "Hoe gaat het ?" and translate things for you. Other oneliners are Como estais ? Barcelola and I know Bilbao .... from a James Bond movie : )) We had to leave politely when he started to give us tips of how to send parcels to Belgium and how nice his parfums are as a gift and that it is better to buy them per 10.
Mysore its nice palace, the Maharaja palace, is worth to see and there are a few nice temples. Also it was a good place to eat for its upper class restaurants and we were happy to find Cafe coffe day in Mysore. No kidding, that is the best place to have breakfast in India !!
Bengaluru, next stop, is unmissable for IT people like Bea and me. Infosys is in Bangalore and have a whole campus for them, and the development of B're as an IT-hub changed the area around MG road dramatically. there is KFC (understandble, they have chicken), Mc Donalds (only chicken, Big Mac is Maharastjha Mac :)), pizza hut, also good restaurants, Louis Vitton & chanel stores, Levi's and Lee stores, many cafe coffee days, convenience sotres (Bea even found chorizo there !) and the whole area has western prices and the public is young and fashionable. This is the MG road area, the Mahatmi Ghandi road area. Once yhou go outside the area, B're is like every Indian city, crowded, chaotic, the traffic is a playground, rickshaws, motorbikes and buses buzzing around, and it is like the people never sleep. It's intensity in overdrive 24/7.
Now that I talk about IT, I heard the news that Oracle has taken over Sun Microsystems. It is not really a shock that Sun is bought by a big player, but incredible that it is Oracle again. That raises a lot of questions on roadmaps of Sun and Oracle products and what customers think about the take over. A customer that was on Oracle, BEA and Sun 2 years ago, is now completely on Oracle. It is hard to get your head around it. I will defo follow that more.
Tomorrow we go to Hampi, a very hot place. Hopefully I didn't write too many mistakes cause in this blog because it was quickly done,
16.09.09. Half-Round the world in 1 year / Kick off. 9th of April 2009, Mumbai, India’s biggest city, is our best destination to take the train south to Goa, Kerala and Bangalore. From there we go 4,000 km by train back to north India, see Karnataka, Rajasthan, the Taj Mahal, Varanasi and Nepal. In Nepal we do small treks in the Himalayas and visit Kathmandu. Over de friendship highway, the route goes from Kathmandu to Lhasa by jeep, maximum altitude 5250m and we get to see the Mount Everest. In Lhasa we take the train through China, see the Terracotta warriors in Xi'an, and go 3,500m north to enter Mongolia and arrive in Ulan Bator. In Mongolia we camp in the Khovsgol area near the Russian Siberia, and renew the Chinese Visa to go back south. The clock says 4 months when we trained through China and see Yunnan, South China with its wonderful terraced rice fields. We enter the tropics and after 6 months travels we are in Vietnam. 2 months after that, we should have seen Angkor, the beaches in Thailand & Maleysia ...<e.d. 25.10.09. There is a change of plan after Angkor: we fly from Bangkok to Manila, we go to the Philippines!!> and on a ferry to Indonesia. From either Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok, we find our way to Sydney and work for 3 months. We will have traveled for 1 year when we are in Oz and ... and ... and ... that is how far we planned. But we were supposed to come back in 1 year but we are only half around the world. Beatriz and myself love Asia!! So much for planning ahead and scheduling. Let's just see how we get on and the more exciting our trip will be. Wish us good luck on the trip!!
