Nam!

Lotsa bikes = lotsa helmets

Having lazed around on Phu Quoc for long enough, it was time to get down to some serious sight-seeing. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) or Saigon as it was formerly known was our first stop. In HCMC we were staying with Adam - a Brit who had found his calling in Saigon. He lived along with his partner and 5 month son in a beautifully renovated Vietnamese house and he made sure we had a good time in the city. One of the days he took us out for lunch to a really fancy restaurant - turns out Brad and Angelina were doing a Vietnam trip and had eaten there the previous day - and proceeded to order what seemed like half the menu. However, he knew what he was doing and the meals was one of the best we've had so far on our trip. He also managed to get us invited to the opening of a restaurant where he was DJing where we had a chance to observe Vietnamese high society attempting to out do each other. When we weren't consuming free drinks or eating too much food we managed to squeeze a few sights in too. Of note is the War Remnant Museum. The Museum chronicles the Vietnamese War, specifically the atrocities committed by the US forces on the civilian population. Another poignant reminder of the disconnect that exists between what bureaucrats think is the right thing to do and the effects that are borne by civilians as a result. For example, Agent Orange, a highly carcinogenic chemical was used extensively by US forces to kill off vegetation and flush out the VC. The chemical did its job fairly well and then decided to stick around to do long-lasting damage. Entering the food chain via the soil and water it has caused innumerable birth defects and deaths and to this day the country continues to suffer as a result.

I need to learn how!

The Vietnamese know how to bounce back though, and the war, while not forgotten, is definitely in the rear-view mirror as the country steams ahead to join its more prosperous neighbours. One effect of the economic progress is the sheer number of bikes. I used to think Pune has a lot of bikes, but HCMC makes Pune look like there's a bike quota in place. Everywhere you look there's bikes - on the footpaths, on the dividers, running two abreast down the wrong side of the street. Our respite from all the bikes and traffic came in the form of a potent local drink called Ca Phe Sua Da, or Iced Coffee. But this was no ordinary coffee. Think coffee filtered a number of times so that what you're left with is a thick black bitter liquid to which they add condensed sweetened milk and a couple of ice cubes. Pure bliss in the heat of HCMC and we downed a couple each day.

Halong Bay

From HCMC we caught a flight to Danang which is well on the way to being ruined by package tourism resorts and escaped to the town of Hue. Hue is a town so picturesque, that over the centuries, as various wars were waged, all sides involved decided to leave the town alone. The resultant town is one of the most intact towns in Vietnam and we spent a couple of days exploring it and trying out the various local delicacies. As was the case for the last ten days, we were amazed by how tasty the food was in Vietnam, and promptly proceeded to do it justice. From Hue we headed north by train to Tam Coc National Park. The park is essentially just paddy fields with massive limestone karsts rising out of it. The highlight of the park are three passage-ways in the limestone formations formed by a river, and we spent a very agreeable afternoon being rowed through them. From Ninh Binh our next stop was the spectacular Halong Bay. After a long journey from Hanoi which included three separate buses and a speed boat, we made our way to Cat Ba island, the only inhabited island in the Bay. Halong Bay recently made it to the 'Top Natural Wonders' list and it isn't hard to see why. The bay has over 1600 islands magnificent limestone islands that rise straight out of the ocean in a multitude of shapes and sizes. We took a cruise through the Bay which involved clambering aboard a Chinese junk and then lazing on its sun deck gazing at the aforementioned formations. Cat Ba island also has a national park and we spent a day hiking in the dense rain forests keeping a wary eye out for leeches, snakes and other forms of creep inducing animal/insect life.

Fruits!

Returning from Halong Bay the same way (3 buses and a boat) we decided to take it easy in Hanoi for a few days. They have a beautiful lake bang in the middle of the city which proved to be an oasis of calm in what seems like a steroid powered city. Just as in HCMC, the number of two-wheelers here is mind-boggling and walking around the city without being driven over by one or being accosted by the numerous moto-drivers was proving to be an adventure. Hanoi is the city of cafes and after spending adequate time in them we headed on north to Sapa. Sapa is a hill-station established by the French almost a century ago as it most reminded them of their dear Alps - and I don't disagree with them. After the heat and noise of Hanoi, Sapa with its terrace farms and high altitude proved to be a welcome respite. We hiked around town on one of the days and then spent the other exploring the insides of a number of cafes and then retiring to a Spa for a well-earned break. Massages and Vietnam go hand in hand and we finally succumbed to its charms, emerging an hour later, feeling even more rested.

We are drawing close to the mid-point of our travels and Laos, the next destination, is our final country before heading to India for some quality time with the folks back home.

- Ashish

The Million Bucks Room

Sun..sand..and a lot of seafood - that pretty much sums up the last three days which we spent on Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam (Picasa link). Usually, Phu Quoc doesn't make a showing on any Vietnamese itinerary, but we'd decided to make a detour and include it as it came highly recommended by Manu, our Phnom Penh host. First though, we had to get there. We'd decided to travel from Siem Reap by bus - which in hindsight might not have been the best idea. We left Siem Reap around 8PM on one of those sleeper buses and made it to Sihanoukville at around 6AM the next morning after a fairly uncomfortable and bumpy journey. The bus station at S-ville was deserted except for the requisite tuk-tuk drivers soliciting business and a pack of stray dogs doing the rounds. The bus station itself was set around a dirty ground with a couple of stalls that were just starting to show signs of life. We spent the next two hours fending off the dogs, a mobile bakery and other inquisitive folks until our minibus arrived to transport us to Ha Tien, Vietnam. The ensuing four hours were spent looking out at the stunning country-side punctuated by a halt for clearing the borders. The Vietnamese health form was a good indicator of what lay ahead. The form listed over 20 diseases and required you to have a medical certificate for each of them. In reality you ticked 'no' for all and paid the man behind the counter a dollar to walk through. Welcome to third world countries. Upon reaching Ha Tien we waited for an hour before a shuttle took us to the ferry terminal where our bags were unceremoniously dumped into a boat and we were shepherded onboard. The boat was full, the seats at water line, and the cabin enclosed - resulting in a fairly claustrophobic ride. Add to that some screaming kids, couple of puking infants, and a kung-fu movie playing at full volume and I seriously considered diving off and swimming to the island. Two miserable hours later we were deposited at the Phu Quoc jetty.

That's our room!

A short cab ride later we arrived at our hotel with a fair amount of apprehension. I had made the booking the previous day over the phone and the English/Vietnamese conversation that had taken place did not quite inspire confidence. By some stroke of luck, they were expecting us and rather than the garden view room that I had booked, they bumped us up to a fabulous room, with an enormous balcony that lay 10 feet from the water. All this for a million bucks only - which equals fifty USD! Thank god for the American dollar. It has actually managed to maintain some semblance of value in certain third world countries - and in some cases even appreciate in the past few years - I have no idea how.

Dinner on the beach

The next few days were bliss - early morning runs followed by a swim in the crystal clear water. Then a hearty breakfast overlooking the sea. On one of the days we rented a bike and tooled around the island. We also visited Bai Sao - a white sand beach on the other side of the island and had one of the best meals of my life in terms of sheer location and ambience. The restaurant had set out their table right at the water's edge so that as you ate, you had the odd wave lapping at your feet. Evenings were spent on the beach awaiting sunset and me attempting to catch the crabs that populate these beaches. Later, after a shower, we'd walk at one of the restaurants who'd setup a barbecue and have dinner on the beach.




All in all one of the best place we've visited so far on our trip. The island is yet to see mass tourism and most of the roads are still dirt tracks. 90% of the hotels/resorts on the island lie within 10 feet of the water's edge and have just a few rooms each. Service is with a smile and the water clear. We did however see the shell of a big resort go up - so consider yourself warned. Get to it before it turns into the next Phuket or Bali!

- Ashish

Angkor Wat!

Tuk-tuk

Right then, having escaped the floods in Bangkok we landed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Picasa link) on a hot and humid morning. Walking off the plane onto the jet bridge, it felt like we'd hit a wall - wall of heat and humidity. It was 9 AM and the mercury was well north of 30 C. Loading our bags into a tuk-tuk we headed into the city. For those of you who don't know what a tuk-tuk is, allow me to explain. Its basically a carraige on two wheels attached by a pivot to a severely under powered motorcycle (think old school M80 for those from India). In short, a 100cc engine with or without gears pulling a home built carraige into six adults can squeeze themselves into on a good day.





Anyhow, after getting to the city and settling in, we then spent the next four days taking in the various sights that included a museum, the Royal Palace, and a couple of pagodas. The museum, S-21, deserves a special mention. The museum was a prison/interrogation center used by the Pol Pot regime in the late 70s. What makes it so eerie is its location, bang in the middle of a residential neighborhood and its original function, a high school. Still standing on the school grounds are bars and ropes for gymnastics, which the Khmer found more dark uses for. Having visited the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, I thought S-21 wouldn't faze me much. However the location, its original purpose and the fact that it was used as a prison/torture center just 30 years ago was a bit unnerving.

Aerobics!

Before I move on from Phnom Penh though, there's one more issue I'd like to talk about. It deals with exercise, specifically the Khmers and their apparent love for exercise. Just across the road from where we were staying was the one and only stadium in the Phnom Penh. On our first evening as we lounged about on the balcony I happened to look over at the stadium as the sun set behind it. I could see the upper level of the bleachers and around a thousand stick figures moving, not in unison, but close enough to see that it was organized. Awanti and I headed over there to check things out and saw around 10 large groups performing aerobic exercises. Each group had a boombox (along with some big speakers) and a instructor (along with a mike to shout out instructions) at the fore. The age group ranged from kids as young as 10 to grandmas pushing 70. The concept's really simple - you just walk up and join a group and at the end pay a couple of cents to the instructor. There appeared to be no fixed length and you could join or leave as you pleased. What amazed me is that Cambodia is still very much a third world country and yet, a number of its citizens, especially the middle-aged ones, were taking an active interest in their health. India and even the US definitely have a long way to go. This was confirmed the next day as the same scene was repeated while walking along the river-side promenade.

Flood proof

From Phnom Penh we caught the slowest possible bus to Siem Reap - think seven hrs for just over 300 kms. The country-side was beautiful though - the monsoon had just finished and everywhere there were water-logged rice fields and green forests. There's not too much to write home about Siem Reap. Its the sights that lie around seven kms north of the city that draw most tourists to Cambodia - the Temples of Angkor. The Angkorian civilization really came into its own around the 9th century and like all good kingdoms with a point to prove, embarked on a temple building spree that was only rivaled by the Egyptians and possibly the Mayans. For the next 600 years each successive king strove to outdo the king before him resulting in a series of stunning temples. Angkor Wat is undoubtedly the jewel among them and is so big that its said to be the largest religious building in the world. On our first day we hired a tuk-tuk to seek out the far-off temples, but then picked up bikes for the next two days to check out all the main temples at a more leisurely pace. The scale of these temples is truly beyond belief and their setting among the forests gives them a magical quality that is definitely worth checking out. When the temples were built, they were sorrounded by villages and cities - the biggest of which housed over a million people and this was when London could count only a couple of thousand as residents. However, Angkorian culture deemed that stone would only be used for building temples as stone is permanent and so shall be the house of God. All other structured were built of wood of mud that quickly disintegrated once the cities were abandoned in the 15th century. This being the tropical zone, the forests quickly made a come-back resulting in famous photo-ops like the Tomb Raider temple. Most of the temples are sorrounded by moats or reservoirs that in some cases were 7 kms by 3 kms - and these were dug out by hand!

Voila!

Having checked out the temples, we decided to take it easy in the city for a day. Awanti attended a cooking class that included a visit to the market for the ingredients and cooking a 3 course Khmer meal. I joined her for the best part of the course - where you get to eat your preparations - and thoroughly enjoyed it. Vietnam is next on the itenerary, though its been called up for action a bit sooner than planned. Cambodia like Thailand is also facing severe flooding - though without the accompanying publicity. As a result our plan to continue onto the more remote parts of Cambodia was vetoed by the management and we're heading to Vietnam instead. A 20 hr bus/boat journey awaits us..sounds like fun.

- Ashish

Baklava Time

Right then...having spent 3 great weeks with the in-laws it was time to head to Turkey (Picasa link). I, being a history buff had really been looking forward to this leg of the trip. The lady however, had had enough of Kings, Empires, and assassinations over the past 3 months to the point where she protested even looking at another ruined city/fortress/harem. She was however looking forward to their Baklava.

Hagia Sohia at sunset

We flew directly to Istanbul and landed just as the weather was improving. The previous 10 days had been marked by daily showers and cold stiff breezes - both highly unusual for this time of the year I was told. Still, pulling on a layer and we made our way to the Asian side of Istanbul where our host Varol lived. One fact unique to Istanbul (among other things) is that it is the only city to span two continents. Later in our Turkey visit we were to stay on the European side of Istanbul too, thus getting to see both sides of the city. Upon getting to his place and laying down our bags, we marched right out to one of the best fish restaurants in Istanbul. Along with the great fish we also downed cirrihosis causing quantities of Raki. Raki is to Turkey as vodka is to Russia. Its an aniseed flavored grappa liquor that clocks in at a solid 45% proof. Varol decided that we needed a good introduction to Istanbul and a bottle was essential to that plan. After downing two drinks I demurred from taking the third, whereupon he took it upon himself to finish the rest. Credit to him that we didn't need to carry him to the taxi stand. The next day we got a bright and early start and took a ferry across to the European side of Istanbul. This was to become part of our daily routine and we enjoyed our daily hops between the two continents. The next three days we spent visiting the palace, numerous mosques - including the stunning Hagia Sophia (though its technically not a mosque anymore), and consuming prodigous quantities of kebabs, pide (Turkish pizza) and baklava. A good chunk of our daily 'being a good tourist' time was set-apart in hunting down a good baklava store and then enjoying the fruits of our labor.

Ephesus Library

From Istanbul we headed south along the Aegean cost to Selcuk. The original plan was to head to Cappadocia - a magical place in Central Turkey - but seeing that the temperatures were dropping to -6 C at nights, we decided magic would just have to wait. One our primary goals when we planned this trip was to enjoy a year of sunshine and warmth, and we weren't going to let some underground cities and other sights ruin our plans. So to Selcuk it was, specifically Ephesus. Ephesus was a coastal port of major importance in 550BC - even Cleopatra visited it! A majority of the spices and other precious goods making their way to Europe had to pass through it and the citizens helped themselves to a nice cut off the top - which worked really well for them. However, as is with these things, its booty also made it the target of many a neighbouring warlords. Numerous battles were fought and many a lives lost, which resulted in a slow decline of the city. The final insult though, was when an earthquake struck in the 6th century AD, and silting of the river caused the sea-shore to move out by a couple of miles. Suddenly no-one wanted anything to do with the city and even though there were sporadic bursts of activity, it was completely abandoned by the 15th century AD. Through a combination of various factors though, the city managed to avoid being pillaged for its marble and other building materials and what's left is one of the best preserved ancient cities in the world. The amphitheater was magnificent, the library inspiring and we spent a great day walking around the ruins.

Ruins of Kayakoy

From Ephesus we headed to Fethiye, where I promised Awanti - no more ancient ruins. The devil's always in the details though. I did say 'ancient', so I promptly convinced her to hike to Kayakoy - a more recent set of ruins. The hike was a fairly pleasant tramp over the hills behind Fethiye to a town that needs to be seen to be believed. Turkey and Greece had some major issues to sort out post WWII, and one of the sad outcomes was the displacement of large swathes of Turks and Greeks back to their home countries. Kayakoy was one such town - it was occupied primarily by orthodox Greeks who left enmasse when the swap was hammered out by the two sides. In principal, the numbers were supposed to balance out - and all houses and towns on each side were to be occupied by citizens of the other country. In reality a lot more Greeks went to Greece than Turks moved to Turkey - resulting in ghost towns such as Kayakoy. The town climbs its way up a hill-side and it was eerie looking at the empty shell of an entire town from below. From Fethiye it was onto Kas, which is one classy town. In spite of the large number of hotels and pensions that have sprung up in the last decade, the town still manages to retain an extremely refined, but at the same time mellow feel, and we spent two wonderful days walking around town, eating some great food and doing absolutely nothing.

We headed back to Istanbul for our last two days in Turkey and weren't so lucky with the weather this time around. Things were definitely gloomier - though thankfully there was no rain. On both our nights there we headed out to Taksim, specifically Istiklal Ave. Istiklal is approximately a mile long street that is the pulsing heart of Istanbul. Every evening, hundreds of thousands of Istanbulians head to Istiklal to shop, eat good food, indulge in some people watching, and soak in the atmosphere. It felt like a street festival - only one that was held every night. After devouring some more baklava and packing some more for the long flight to SE Asia, we finally took leave of Istanbul and Turkey.

Cambodia's next, specifically Phnom Penh. The original plan called for us to fly to Bangkok, but seeing the floods situation, we decided to keep flying onto Phnom Penh and head to Thailand later. I've heard fried crickets await us...YUM!

- Ashish

INDIA...PAKISTAN...SHAH RUKH KHAN!!

That's what we were hailed as at pretty much every step of our visit to Morocco (Picasa link). At the first word we pretended to not hear them, at the second we'd turn around and look a bit quizzically - as if to say, 'Really?'. Having realized that we were Indians they'd then cry out the most popular Indian origin word/person in Morocco - King Khan! This was then followed by an invitation to their shop, home, to have some tea etc. - anything to get you to step into their shop and loosen the purse-strings! Such was the story of Morocco.

We flew into Casablanca on a warm and muggy night (unfortunately it wasn't cold and stormy, so I couldn't start this blog on a better sounding note). Passing reasonably quickly through customs and a fairly clean and boring airport we headed to the city - and it felt like being back home. Rinky dinky taxis not much bigger than rickshaws, asthma inducing levels of pollution and hap-hazard roads - all of which somehow work without overpowering the city morgue. Our stay in Casablanca was all to brief - there really isn't much to see here other than an enormous building which also passes off as the second largest mosque in the world. So we headed to Marrakesh to pick up a car and drive out to the Atlas Mountains and a taste of the desert.

They say travelers to Morocco shouldn't rent their own cars, especially small city cars (and the dents on the rental certainly attested to this), but being 'independent' travelers as we like to consider ourselves, and just plain cheap, I picked up the smallest and cheapest model available that looked like it had won the destruction derby. Well - I am happy to note that the roads were good and while there were a couple of hair-raising moments, by and large it went well and we made our way to the Higher Atlas.

The next two days we spent driving around the mountains, exploring 'Kasbahs' - fortified mansions, driving up one gorge, down another and eating some fabulous Moroccan food. We also managed to score a night at a Kasbah as a result of some plain dumb and our overall lack of planning. We were headed to Zagora for the night and as is usual were running a couple of hours behind schedule, when we stopped for dinner at a small god-forsaken town called Nkob in the middle of nowhere Morocco. The waiter was a chatty chap and after he heard where we were headed to and at what time in the night, he just said 'NO'. A bit confused, I asked him what he meant by 'NO', and he replied its too late and too dangerous to drive there at this point. He then made his way over to the only other non-locals in the joint and had a chat with them. Turned out they were a German couple who had purchased a Kasbah and had spent the last five years painstakingly restoring and converting it to a fancy hotel. They had just about opened the place and didn't have any guests staying that night. They very graciously offered us a room for half the price (and that was still way expensive!) and we headed over to their Kasbah. We slept like babies, wallowing in luxury and followed it up with a great breakfast the next day.

Having got our 'living like royals in the desert' fix, we headed to Marrakech and its famous Medina. The Medina is the old city and is a warren of two-three story buildings accessible by the tightest and twistiest lanes you'll ever encounter - all set within the fortified walls of the city. 99% of the lanes have only foot traffic and getting lost is the first thing you'll accomplish upon entering one. We couchsurfed the first night and then spent the next night at a great Riad in the middle of the Medina. Riads are the two story traditional family houses built a couple of hundred years ago in the Medina. They normally house around 60-80 occupants clustered around a central courtyard with balconies running along the inner courtyard. These days however, a number of them are being converted into specialty hotels with five to six rooms/suites each - which gives you an idea of how the crowded it is usually! The Riad was to be our oasis in the madness of the old city. The minute we stepped out, we were assaulted from all directions by offers to check out shops, people curious to know who we were and where we came from and constant offers to guide us to some sight or the other.

Jamma el Fnaa

Unemployment is pretty high in Morocco and on every corner there are a couple of men aged 18-35 who in passing ask you where you are headed to and then proceed to walk along with you while at the same time engaging you in conversation. After arriving at your destination they then put out a hand for baksheesh - irrespective of whether you asked them to come along or not, or knew the way yourself - and get downright pissy when you refuse to indulge. At one point even a six year old girl asked us where we were headed to - they do start them young! Even opening up the map is a scary proposition and in no time you are surrounded by folks wanting to 'help' you. Shaking off these 'guides' proved to be a full-time job and I think we got pretty adept at it. Marrakesh's medina has a gigantic square - Jamaa El Fna - which turns into a mad-house/Kumbh mela every evening. Every available space is taken up by snake charmers, henna painters, orange juice sellers and pick-pocketers. There were also stalls selling smoked snails - yes, I did try a bowl, and yes, they are delicious. Having thus enjoyed Marrakesh we moved onto Fes, and pretty much repeated the story by staying in a Riad, wandering around the medina lanes, and visiting the tanneries - which smelt hideous.

Chefchaouen blues

Needing a bit of fresh air and peace we made our way to Chefchaouen. Chefchaouen is a small town set high in the Rif mountains in the northern part of the country and is the official marijuana capital of the world. The plant is grown in prodigious quantities here and legally too - most of which then makes its way to Europe - where it is illegal. The city medina climbs up a fairly steep hill-side and only two colours are permitted, white and blue, which gives the entire medina a very Spanish or Greek fishing village look. Well, the air was fresher, the medina smaller, the shop-keepers not as pushy and we spent pretty much all our time lazing around town and exploring its lanes. After two days of refusing all offers to smoke some pot and convincing people that inspite of being named Ashish - which they all heard as 'Hashish' - I don't smoke pot we headed to Tanger to catch a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar and onto Spain.

The next 20 days will be spent with the in-laws and in the interest of remaining their son-in-law I will be picking the thread up again in Turkey :).

- Ashish

Family Time!

Having just spent 10 days mooching off my various relatives in the UK (Picasa link), I thought I should take the time to write about the great time we had. After a long day of traveling that included a metro, bus, flight, and regional train, we bothered Helen to come pick us up from the train station in the dead of the night.

Stonehenge

What followed was a action packed weekend in the English country-side. Our weekend included going to Bath (a beautiful Roman era city), visiting Stonehenge (yup - it is just as impressive as in the pictures), having authentic cream tea at a 500 yr old tavern/restaurant and spending some good old quality time with Vikram, Helen and the twins. Helen & Vikram also managed to squeeze in some great fish pie, fish and chips as well as a visit to an authentic manor (whose owner had fallen on hard times and had decided to 'gift' his estate to the state). As you can see, it was a packed weekend and we enjoyed every second of it.

Alex providing the day's entertainment

Post-weekend fun we headed to London and had a great breakfast with Usha & Mona Mami at their place in New Malden. From there it was onto to the great city of London. After depositing our bags at the National Gallery baggage counter - we were just to cheap the pay the 8 quid they were asking at the train station - we saw a bit of the gallery and then took a nice long walk through St. James Park and then along the water-front. After spending some more time in the National Gallery checking out the Monets, we headed to Harrow and Samir & Malini's place. They had graciously accepted to host us for the next entire week - little did they know what week were getting themselves into!

The next day we woke up bright and early and headed to Heathrow. I for once had decided to play the role of the older responsible sibling and part of that included receiving Payal at the airport. The Brits in their infinite wisdom had assigned one immigration agent to the 400 students that had decided to fly in that day - so it was a good three hour wait before we finally caught sight of her strolling through the gates. Grabbing her bags (more of the responsible sibling here) we headed to her place in Sudbury Hill. Having made sure that the said apartment did exist (end of responsible sibling), we dumped her bags and headed to the city. We checked out her school - the AA School of Architecture - and man, is it fancy.

The school is located in 5 conjoined row houses in one of the poshest parts of London and looks more like a millionaire's row. After that we headed back to Samir & Malini's where we had a really good dinner courtesy Chef Samir. Our days took on a familiar pattern after this. After a not too early start to the day, we'd head to town and catch a few sights - London Eye, Tower Bridge, Hyde Park etc etc.. After a nice picnic lunch in one of the numerous parks that seem to be all over the place in London, we'd wander around some more before making our way home as the sun called it a day. Once home, I'd play some TT with Armaan and then we'd all have dinner. Post dinner we'd sit chatting and maybe catch a movie. Thus passed by an ideal week.

Having thus fulfilled my sibling duties, we decided to stop bothering my relatives any more and head to Morocco. That's a story for another day though.








- Ashish

PS: I know we've said this before (or at least I hope), but it can't hurt to say it again. Malini, Helen, Samir, & Vikram - thank you so much for hosting us in Trowbridge and London and for going out of your way to make our visit a special one.

A Hot Shower..

I had a hot shower today - the first one in two weeks. I can already see the disgusted looks, but loathe not - I have been bathing daily. It's just that it's been so damn hot since we entered Italy (Picasa link) two weeks ago, that its been cold showers daily. Let me backtrack a bit. After our hike in the south of France we spent a wonderful week in Paris at Camille and Alice's place. We caught all the major sights as well as spent a lot of time walking the smaller streets in Paris and try out a lot of the local delicacies. Our daily breakfast consisted of one of us getting pastries and bread from the local bakery and having a nice relaxed meal with Camille before he headed out to work.

Breakfast at Camille's

We'd then spend the day wandering around Paris, popping into some or the other museum or monument and then having dinner at some cafe. We also found time to catch a Woody Allen movie at a open-air theater and shop for some fresh veggies and cheese at one of their famed local markets. Having thus spent a thoroughly agreeable week in Paris, we headed to Italy.

Our first stop was to be La Speiza, where we'd planned on spending a day doing the Cinque Terre hike. This is a hike that makes the 'top 10 hikes in the world' or some similar list. The hike links five seaside villages that for the most part can only be accessed via a boat or a railway line. We first had to get there though. The plan was to get to Florence by 7AM on an overnight train from Paris and then catch a local train to La Spezia. Having set an alarm for 6.55AM, I woke up to see us chugging through a lush valley surrounded by steep mountains that looked suspiciously like the Alps. A lot of hand waving and sign language with the conductor who didn't speak a word of English or Marathi, I confirmed that it was indeed the case, and in the course of the night we had somehow managed to lose 7 hrs - this in a 11 hrs journey! Alighting at the next major station, we took a combination of 2 local trains and one mad bus ride to make it to La Spezia. We did the hike the next day and it was nothing short of spectacular. I won't even attempt to describe it in detail - I'll let the pictures (Picasa link) do the talking.

From La Spezia it was onto Florence where we got our history and Renaissance art fix. Having gaped at Michelangelo's brilliance and the greed of the Medici family - which ruled Florence for over four centuries - we made our way to Rome. The next four days we spent wandering around the Vatican City, doing a circuit of the Coliseum and learning more about the various Ceasers than we cared to know. Still - it wasn't all fun and games. We were also on a culinary mission and that required us to sample various pizzas, pastas, lasagnas, tiramisus and gelatos. I say it with pride that we did succeed in accomplishing our mission and report that Italy has some of the best food we've had so far on offer. One thing that did strike Awanti and me were the similarities between India and Italy, especially as we headed south. There are a lot of crazed moped riders all over the place, traffic lights are taken to be suggestions as against orders, garbage on the street, the sheer number of people, and the aforementioned heat. We fitted right in - though I must say Denver has softened us with regard to our heat tolerance.

Post Rome we headed to Venice, Padova, and Verona where we spent two fabulous days walking the canals and furthering our culinary mission. Next up were Naples and the Amalfi coast. We spent some time in Naples eating all the pizza we could - it is the birthplace of pizza after all, and then a day in the city of Pompeii. This city deserves a special mention. The city was a vibrant trading port and holiday location under the Romans when in 79 AD Vesuvius decided to crash the party. It blew up spectacularly and in the course of a few days completely covered the city under 40 feet of ash and stones. As are with these things, people soon forgot about the city and its exact location and it was only from the 16th century onwards that serious efforts were made to locate the city. However it managed to elude all attempts to locate it - the primary reason being it had gone from a sea-side port to being over two miles from the sea - courtesy of Vesuvius and the new shoreline it had created. It was only in the 19th century that the city was accidentally discovered when some Count or the other decided to build a villa on the now buried city. The city has been a permanent archeological site since and they've managed to unearth around 75% of it so far. What makes Pompeii so special is that the eruption allowed the it to be perfectly preserved under a layer for the last 2000 years allowing for a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the Romans. Right from the 23 fast-food stalls to the 30 odd bakeries, the fancy villas to the workers quarters, the passage from the port to the city brothel - you realize the Romans lived pretty much just as we do today. Having thus spent a fascinating day in Pompeii we moved onto the Amalfi Coast.

The Amalfi Coast is Italy's answer to the French Riviera. It stretches for around 30 miles (which can take over 2 hrs by car) from Sorrento to Salerno and is comprised of steep hillsides, hidden beaches and coves, and formerly small fishing villages - now over-run by tourists and million dollar villas that appear to tumble down the cliff-side into the sea. The entire coast is turning into a giant tourist trap, though all is not lost. On one of the days there we did a walk called the 'Path of the Gods' or 'Sentiero degli Dei' (Picasa link). Unlike the Cinque Terre hike, this walk stuck to the highlands and made its way along cliffs and gorges affording spectacular views of the Bay of Salerno and the villages at the bottom. Having thus earned our dinner, we retired to the Agriturismos that we were staying at for our three nights along the coast.

These are working farms that Awanti had found online that also operate five to ten room bed & breakfasts on the side. We had stayed in similar places during our hike in France and really wanted to experience the Italian take on it. Well - they're fabulous. Set on steep hill-sides away from the tourist centers, they consist of a couple of hectares of land on which is grown a variety of fruits and vegetables including grapes, olives, lemons, and tomatoes. The second farm we stayed at also kept a pony, two cows, couple of sheep and goats, as well as some dogs and birds to ensure a well-rounded menagerie. We opted to have dinner at these places, and as was the case in France, they were multi-course affairs cooked using ingredients from the farm itself. To anyone heading to this region anytime soon, I highly recommend skipping the big sea-side hotels and opting for these farms instead. The views are great, the food delicious, and you'll receive great service from the family who owns the joint. Oh also, being situated at a much higher elevation, the nights are cooler - hence my first hot shower!

- Ashish

PS: There have been a few comments on the great pictures and I must give credit where it's due. All the pictures are courtesy Awanti's skill with a relatively simple 'point and shoot'.

TAKE A HIKE!

This is the story of a hike we did last week - probably one of the finest medium distance hikes (Picasa link) I've ever done. It all started a couple of weeks ago when Awanti wrote to Alice, her friend from France and who she met while studying in Sydney. They had been out of touch for the past few years, but as soon as Awanti wrote to her she responded back enthusiastically about meetingup in France. A few days later, she wrote again saying she was planning on doing a hike in the south of France, and asked us if by any chance we would be interested in joining her and her boyfriend, Camille. Realizing that such an opportunity does not come along daily, we jumped at it.

Well..first we had to get there, which was no mean feat. A bit of background will help you see why - the hike is a 240 kms hike over 12 days and follows the route taken by the US author RL Stevenson in 1878. The hike is in the Cevennes Range which, while not the highest by any stretch of imagination (it tops out at 1700m), it certainly does take home a few trophies for stunning French countryside. The trail passes through numerous villages, hamlets really, of five to twenty houses. Alice was planning on joining the hike at its mid-point and hiking for 6 days to its end. Agreeing to meet her at the mid-point, Le Blemyard, we started to look at public transportation options, confident that the vaunted European public transportation would not fail us. Well, we found out we needed 2 trains, a bus that only runs 2 twice a week and our legs to get us to the starting point. Wisely, Alice suggested we meet her at her parent's place in the country-side. A bit about her parents and their place.

The Carr Villa

They both are doctors who just moved back to the mainland from Reunion Islands and bought a 500 yr old house in the countryside. The house is one of those rambling stone semi-manors you read about in novels and is perched on a hill-side surrounded by a couple of acres of lawns. They even have a stream flowing through their property! We had a great dinner at their place that was accompanied by some good wine and the obligatory cheese plate. Having eaten way too much we hauled ourselves to bed for an early start the next day.

The hike started off under overcast skies that soon led to a downpour. This was the only blemish on what was to be six sun drenched days. Alice had planned out the hike so that we skipped any 'major' towns and ended up staying in a succession of smaller and smaller villages as the hike progressed. The hike is pretty popular in France and has led to creation of at least one bed & breakfast (b&b) or hostel in each of the villages. Our plan was to camp each night, but Alice had made reservations at each of these place before-hand so that we could eat a hot home-cooked dinner in each village.

Here's a brief snapshot of how each day passed:

We woke up fairly early and after packing up our tents headed to the hostel kitchen for a cup of coffee. From there we headed to the village bakery, or if it was too small to sport one (which was the case in quite a few), we walked to the next village and picked up some croissants and other baked goods for breakfast, as well as some bread, cheese, and sausage for lunch. We then did some serious walking until about 1pm, at which point we found a nice meadow, or ridge, or some other scenic point to have lunch. Lunch was a simple affair of bread, sausage, and cheese. Dessert was fruits that we plucked along the way, which included apples, raspberries, and blackberries. Having thus sated ourselves, we would take a nap for 30 minutes or so. Having roused ourselves, we would then resume walking and be at our campsite by 5pm. After setting up tents, we would have hot water showers, which Awanti and I still found a novelty, having never experienced showers on our hikes in the Sahyadris, Himalayas, or the Rocky Mts. This was usually followed by a beer and an hour of reading or playing cards until dinner time. Dinner was around 8pm and was cooked by the b&b or hostel host using ingredients from their gardens. A bit more detail on dinner - these were 4 course affairs, that started off with an appetizer or salad, followed by a local and rustic veggies and meat dish. Post this was dessert which was normally pie (the rhubarb pie was my favorite) or cake and topped off by a cheese plate and coffee. The cheese was for the most part made in the near-by farms. In one instance, the goat cheese served was so fresh that it was still leeching milk (I assume) and had to be served in plastic containers with holes for the milk to drain. All the courses were obviously accompanied by prodigious quantities of wine and a few of the local drinks. Having thus eaten and drunken, we would stumble to our tents.

Trout for dinner

It wasn't all fun and games though. We also had to hunt or rather fish for our dinner one of the nights. At one of the camp-sites, the host did not make any dinner. However, she had a pond that was stocked with trout and she handed us an over-grown twig to which attached a rusted hook via an old twine and told us to go fish. The first step involved finding some bait. So its 7pm and you have a French and Indian couple running around the campsite trying to catch grasshoppers by hand. Having captured a few, we proceeded to skewer them on the hooks and toss the line in the pond. The fish were biting that night and in short order we had four large trouts. The next task was gutting and cleaning them, something neither of us had done. Camille gallantly stepped forward and completed the messy task while the rest of us attempted to look busy making canned soup. Dinner was great though - grilled fish and veggies.

And so passed 6 ideal days. On the last day we hiked out the final 15 kms to St. Jean du Gard and took a steam train from there to Anduze where we were picked up by Veronique - Alice's mother. We had covered 120 kms by foot over the past week and were glad for some fossil fuel driven mode of transportation. The hike also has the distinction of being the only hike where I ended the hike weighing more than what I did at the start. And so ends the story.

- Ashish

Fatherland - Teil Zwei

Onto the rest of Germany..Dusseldorf, Munich, Karlsruhe (Picasa Link) and a few other cities. We were definitely seeing a lot of the country. One big reason is this sweet DB Rail deal that Awanti found online - the Weltmeisterinnen Pass, or the World Cup pass. I know, I know, the FIFA World Cup was over 5 yrs ago, but this pass was for the Women's World Cup which was held in June and July in Germany. The pass entitled us to unlimited travel on all of Germany's trains, including their crown jewel - the ICE. They have a speedo in each compartment and we saw it check in at 320 km/h when traveling from Dusseldorf to Munich.

Anyhow, from Hamburg we moved onto Dusseldorf, where Johanna, Awanti's exchange partner from yesteryears lives. After a day spent walking around Dusseldorf and the Rhine promenade, we took a couple of day trips to Cologne and Aachen. We also managed to drag Johanna, not the most enthusiastic of walkers, for a small hike near Bonn. Her parents, who Awanti stayed with for a month the last time she was in Dusseldorf, also invited us over for dinner and Annette, her mother, cooked us a fabulous Auf Lauf. One interesting tid bit that I feel worth mentioning is that Johanna owns a horse which she rides and cares for almost everyday and keeps at a stable close to her place. Coming from India, where owning a horse is something you only read of in story-books or need to be fairly wealthy to afford, it was interesting to see that normal people could and did own horses in Germany. The stables are set in a couple of hundred acres of rolling woodlands and hills, barely 3 miles from the city-centre and I enjoyed some good long runs on the wooded trails.

Post-Dusseldorf we took the ICE to Munich. If there's a city in Germany I could see myself moving to, it would be Munich. We spent 4 wonderful days walking around the English Gardens - one of the largest urban parks in the world, checking out the fabulous wealth in the form of jewels, crowns, and other ancient object accumulated by the Kaisers over the past 6 centuries. On one of the days we headed out to Schloss Neuschwanstein. This is THE CASTLE and is universally regarded as one of the most beautiful in the world. They say it also served as inspiration for the Disney castles. The castle was built by King Ludwig II, the last of the fore-mentioned Kaisers. As Bavaria moved towards democracy, the King was increasing side-lined, but still given a huge allowance to keep up appearances. Ludwig decided to build a couple of castles will all his money - but just not any castles. His castles are some of the most extravagant and over-the-top edifices built by man, and they bankrupted him in the process. The King wasn't able to enjoy the fruit of his labors though, as he was mysteriously found dead in 2 feet of water - his life is the stuff of pot-boiler mysteries. Getting back to the castle - it has probably the perfect location imaginable and it rises as if in a fairy-tale from the woods and a rocky outcrop. The crowds that turn out to see the castle befit it too. Feeling the heat, we decided to hike up Tegelberg, a 5000 ft mountain right behind the castle and were rewarded by stunning alpine beauty and clear vistas. At the top, which is also served by a cable car, there were hundreds of paragliders and hang-gliders taking advantage of the weather to soar with the birds. We enjoyed a nice picnic lunch watching the good and not-so-good attempt to emulate Icarus.

Work sets you free - or so they say

Before heading out from Munich, we also spent a morning at Dachau - the first concentration camp built by the Nazis. At its peak, the camp which was built to house no more than 2000 political prisoners, was crammed with over 200,000 Jews, POWs, Romas and Gypsies, and other sections of society deemed to be unworthy of an existence by the Nazis. The camp also served as a blue-print for other concentration camps, including the infamous Auschwitz and Treblinka concentration camps. The memorial and museum were a great source of information and served as poignant reminders of what could happen when fundamentalists take over a country.

From Munich it was onto Karlsruhe, a university town just north of the Black Forest, where Nayan, Awanti's college friend lives. We decided to spend a day driving around and through the Black Forest and really enjoyed the narrow winding roads through the heavily wooded forests. From the Black Forest we drove to Strasbourg over on the French side of things. Definitely one of the more prettier cities, it is dominated by a giant catherdrla and is is full of cafes and narrow cobble-stoned paths. There was a bomb-threat/hoax on-going, so we were only able to catch snatches and glimpses of the cathedral as we walked around the city. On our way back we hit a section of the famous auto-bahn and Nayan made full use of this by pushing his VW Golf to over 200 every time the road opened up.

We head to France tomorrow and its with some regret that we leave Germany. While German efficiency and the famous engineering is encountered at every turn, its not all straight lines and right angles. We were fortunate to meet and spend time with some fun and interesting people, take in a some great sights and sample new cuisines. Up next is a 120 km, 6 day hike in southern part of France.

Auf weidersehen or Au Revoir as I better start saying.

- Ashish

Fatherland - Teil Eins (Part 1)

Having romped our way through Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, we decided to head north to the Fatherland (Picasa link). Berlin was our next destination and the first taste of a big European city. Granted, Prague and Vienna are big, but not on the scale of a Berlin or Paris or London. The first thing that hit us as we got to Berlin was the weather. The past 3 weeks were filled European sunshine, 10 pm dusks, and a feeling of warmth and well-being. Berlin was cold, and wet, and miserable.

Checkpoint Charlie

We promptly headed indoors to one of Berlin's museums - all of which are set in fantastic pre-war buildings that were extensively rebuilt post-war. Berlin is regarded as one of the 'museum capitals' of the world and rightly so. From 200BC Greek temples to 200mph racing cars, they have a museum for both, and everything in between. We headed to the Pergamon museum which housed pretty much an entire temple. How it came to be in the middle of Berlin makes for an interesting read. 19th century German archeologists were either very wealthy, or funded by some Kaiser or the other, and they traveled the world digging up anything that looked remotely interesting. Once in a while they stumbled on something larger than pottery shards, dug it up, promptly paid the local ruler and shipped the whole thing back. The Pergamon museum is a perfect example of this. The temple of Pergamon which is from the 2nd century BC was discovered by Carl Humann in 1878. He excavated the entire temple and sent it all back to be housed in the museum, which was built primarily to host this stunning find. Other than the temple, the museum also houses the Gates of Ishtaar, stunning 20m high mosaic inlaid gates that framed the entrance to the fabled city of Babylon in 575 BC. I bet Turkey is pissed off at having these stunning works sitting quite legitimately in Germany after being paid a pittance for them.

The miserable weather was interspersed by snatches of sunlight and we spent those walking through the Brandenburger Gates, Checkpoint Charlie - in a way the birthplace of the Cold War - and the city gardens. A consistent and stark reminder of the years spent behind the Wall is the difference in building structures and wealth between the Eastern and the Western parts of the city. The 45 years or so that East Berlin spent under Communist rule have had a harsh impact on both, the residents and the economy, and its effects are still obvious even 20 years after the fall of the Wall.

On a lighter note - Berlin's known as THE party city, so we headed out to one of the local hot spots. After getting there at 11 pm and realizing that we were there wayyy to early, we waited it out with cocktails for company at a nearby joint. As Cinderella made her way home, we finally entered the night club, called for some reason SO 36. 12 AM quickly turned to 2.30 AM, and what had been a relatively nice place to dance turned to a mad house. Realizing we're too old for this, we headed out and lamely decided to call it a night. But Berlin had other ideas. We got to the train station and in the atrium saw a crowd of around a hundred dancing away to a band that had decided to setup shop in the train station. After a brief stop there we headed down the escalators to the subway platforms, and promptly ran into another crowd - this time jamming away to a large juke box in a wheel barrow. At this point we half expected to walk into our apartment and see a party under-way there too. Berlin - you have earned your party creds!

Kind of random, but if anyone has any doubts on the impact of military spending or lack thereof on a country's economy, look no further than Berlin. The city was heavily bombed during the war - so much so, that the term 'carpet bombing' was probably coined here. Pictures taken just after the war show entire neighbourhoods leveled out and the only structures standing are shells of buildings such as the Parliament. Well, they certainly wasted no time rebuilding. With post-WWII agreements curtailing military spending, and aid pouring in from a number of Allied countries, the city went on a re-building, renovating, and constructing spree that has resulted in a city that's spanking new and yet has managed to retain a large part of its heritage through restored pre-war buildings. This rebuilding has been topped off with a stunning new dome on the Reichstag (Parliament house) designed by Sir Norman Forster. The glass dome is 40m in diameter and has some cool features like a sun-shade, a funnel to carry out hot air from the parliamentary chambers (no pun intended), and a walk-way that allows you to walk to the top and take in one of the best views in Berlin.

Gates of Ishtaar

Having thus spent 5 days gaping at The Wall, Rembrandts, and 2000 yr old temples, we headed onto Hamburg. While Berlin is the big daddy of German cities with its booming economy, party scene, and large immigrant population, Hamburg is decidedly the smoother of the two. After the obligatory church and civic hall visit we decided to spend a day walking around Blanknese. Blanknese is a mini-Malibu - replace the Pacific with the Rhine and multi-million dollar homes with million dollar cottages/houses and you have it. The entire neighbourhood is set on a heavily wooded hill and a large number of houses can only be accessed by cute stair-ways and quaint ivy covered passage-ways. Surprisingly we seemed to be the only out of towners around and we enjoyed a great morning walking up and down random paths, peering into cottages, and being pesks to the high-falutin crowd inhabiting the hill. All that walking built up an appetite and we paid a visit to the local farmer's market, which unlike the US had products that were actually grown within a couple of miles, and followed it up by a picnic lunch in the city park. Having thus sampled Hamburg, we bid it adieu. Next up is Dusseldorf.

- Ashish

Of palaces, museums and churches...

If I had to sum up our time in Europe so far, those would be the key words. It would be a tad unfair, as it is really so much more than just that, but visiting palaces, museums and churches has constituted a fairly large part of the European leg of our journey so far. Even as I write this, we are whizzing past gorgeous castles perched atop lush green carpeted mountains in one of Europe's super-fast trains (the ICE), on our way from Prague to Berlin. I'm not saying that we're "castled out" as yet, as Ashish likes to put it, but I think we might be on our way there. Nonetheless, with its cute roadside cafe's, narrow cobbled streets, incredible architecture and houses with flowers in the window sills - Europe feels like you have stepped right into a fairytale.

So since we last updated you on our whereabouts, we have been to three beautiful cities in three different countries; Vienna, Budapest and Prague. Vienna proved to be quite lucky for us from the beginning. To start with, we managed to snare a ride from Salzburg to Vienna at the last minute in a brand new fancy car, almost door-to-door. The concept of 'ride share', called 'mitfahrgelegenheit' in German, is extremely popular in Europe. The way it works is, say you're driving from Salzburg to Vienna just by yourself, and are looking for either companionship, or someone to split petrol costs with. You put up the necessary information online - such as what point you are willing to pick people up, where you can drop them off at, the number of available spots in your car and how much you want to charge them for the ride (which is normally very minimul). This works out well for everybody involved - especially budget travellers like us. To put it into perspective, the train ride from Salzburg to Vienna would have cost us 60 Euros per person, that too only till the main train station in Vienna, while the car share guy dropped us off at the door of the place we were staying and charged us 15 Euros each. Thats my whole point of mentioning this.

On our first night in Vienna, our couch surfing host Elizabeth, a very sweet and friendly young mom, made 'Topfen Knoedel' for dinner, a delicious local specialty consisting of dumplings and homemade strawberry sauce. She then marked out all the worthwhile local places to visit in Vienna on a map for us, which tourists would never even know of. Speaking of which, I feel that is one of the best parts of couchsurfing - staying with locals, you get to see all the hidden secrets of the city, which there is no way you would know of, if you were staying in a hostel or a hotel. And it dosn't end there. You get a chance to try out real homemade food which the locals eat on a daily basis which you would not normally find in the typical touristy restaurants. Plus, it is so interesting to learn about the local traditions and customs and have long conversations with your hosts about what everyday life is like, in cities we view only from the eyes of a tourist. To have someone come pick you up at the station, cook for you, give you clean sheets and towels, as well as insider tips about the city, and generally take good care of you - almost feels too good to be true. Its like having a home away from home, literally. Or staying with good friends. And there is no monetary exchange at all. I normally cook one dinner (Indian food ie.) at all the hosts we stay with, in exchange for two or three days of staggeringly warm hospitality and friends for life. Its like a small community of people who simply love traveling, helping out other travelers, meeting and getting to know people from different corners of the world and making new friends, all completely based on trust. It is wonderful to just have a home to laze around in on a rainy day when you don't feel like trudging around the city. The concept, I feel, is just amazing, and makes such a big difference to how you experience a city. In fact, we have been so lucky in getting wonderful hosts, that we both agree that we're quite spoilt now.

Getting back to Vienna, I have to admit, it is definitely one of my favorite cities so far. It might be because we spent a good seven days traipsing around the city's numerous medieval "Gassen" - the tiny and very narrow cobbled lanes, where you can touch the buildings on both sides if you stretch your arms out - and exploring the hidden courtyards these Gassen usually end in. One such courtyard, which Elizabeth took us to on a Friday night-out, turned out to be a big open-air beer garden. There were about five or six bars in a circle, all with seating in the courtyard, and quite clearly, as we could see from the turnout, it was where all the locals went to have a good time. Of course, we also visited all the must-see sights Vienna has to offer; such as the opulent Schonbrunn Palace, which is anything but a summer residence as it is supposed to be; Schloss Belvedere with its beautiful Monets (my favorite artist); Stephansdom, the icon of Wien; the Kunsthistorisches Museum, with its mummies and a fabulous collection of Egyptian treasures, and the Shatzkammer, where the ridiculously exorbitant jewel-encrusted crowns, gowns and jewelery of the Habsburger dynasty are on display.

On one of the afternoons, we went for a walk in the Augarten, a haven of green in the middle of this bustling city, and happened to chance apon a street band performing live in the beer garden within the park. They were playing old American tracks and listening to them sing in thier thick German accents kept us entertained enough to stick around till late evening. On our way back, we stopped at Tel Aviv Beach which I think deserves a mention here. Note that it is not a real beach. The people of this landlocked city have made parts of the Donao river banks into so called 'beaches', by dumping truckloads of sand along the water and setting up beach chairs and cocktail bars on them. These 'river beaches' are packed with people tanning and swimming in the frigid water of the Donao during the day, and turn into party central by night. Having lived in Sydney for two and a half years, I can surely call myself spoilt, and while I found this concept fascinating, I could not help but feel bad for the Viennese. (Another reminder of why Sydney is by far the best city in the world!) Having ticked off all the typical tourist stops, we decided to spend my birthday doing what we like best - hiking. We spent a very nice day climbing up through vineyards and small picturesque villages, up to Kahlenberg, which presented picture postcard views of Vienna and a good break from the city madness.

Quite sad to leave Vienna, which had almost started feeling like home, it was onto Budapest and more castles, museums and churches. Only this time, nobody spoke German and suddenly, the feeling of being in a foreign country without being able to communicate, hit for the first time. Having visited only German-speaking cities till now, it was wonderful to understand signs, train announcements or to speak with the locals at resaurants or shops. I was actually very happy to find out that I still understand everything being said, although my spoken German has become quite rusty given that I have not been in touch with the language for almost four years now. Inspite of that, I am definitely enjoying listening to and speaking German again after so long, and am hoping it comes back to me by the end of our time in German speaking territory.

Anyway, as I was saying, at the Budapest train station itself, we were rudely awakened to the fact that communicating in any non-German / English speaking country was going to be painful. It took us half an hour just to figure out the way from where we were to Castle Hill. Nobody at the station seemed to speak English, or had ever heard of Castle Hill, the main sightseeing landmark of Budapest. All the signs were in the local language too, which I thought was quite tourist-unfriendly. Finally, after gesturing wildly, locals counting the number of stops we should get out after, different locals telling us different directions and speaking with some youngsters who do seem to know basic English, we managed to get to Castle Hill. Other sights of interest in Budapest included St. Stephens Basilica, the Citadel with the statue of the Lady and the Jewish synagoge. After a nice walk through the city park, which we always make it a point to do in every city that we visit, and sampling the local speciality 'Dobos torta', a layered chocolate, cream and caramel cake, we were ready to head to Prague.

As soon as we arrived in Prague, we were picked from the station by our host Lucia and whisked away for lunch to a place where we could sample 'Haloushki' - a local delicacy made from cheese, dumplings and sprinkled with fried bacon. Prague was beautiful, and unlike Budapest, did not seem to have suffered as much from the communist era in terms of aesthetic beauty. We diligently visited the Karlovska Castle the next morning and even caught a show of the "change of guards at the castle gates" at noon, as one is supposed to. We saw Loreta, walked around Mala Strana and it's farmers market, and then around Kampa, an outcrop of land which has been converted to an urban park and also boasts of the famous 'graffiti wall'. Thereafter, we strolled across the much-crowded Charles Bridge, by far the most touristy attraction in Prague, and then walked along the Vlatva river till sunset.

Having played the role of a tourist fairly well, we decided to spend the next day relaxing at home and spending time with Lucia, the sweetest host we have gotton so far. She started the day off by baking delicious chocolate croissants for breakfast and then as if that was'nt enough, she took us to her favorite cafe for some cake and coffee in the afternoon. Feeling guilty about all this eating, we went to Letna park, a very nice park in the area that we were staying in, where Ashish played frisbee with our next host in Prague, Tomas, while Lucia and I did a spot of yoga. After much debate and discussion about which side or town is better, our two hosts finally agreed apon a restaurant where we could sample some of the authentic local fare. On the way to dinner, we even stopped at another park from where we had a fabulous view of the city.

The following two days in Prague involved going on a fantastic hike from the castle Karlstejn to the Monastery of St. Jon under the Rock on the outskirts of Prague, being taken on guided night walking tour of Prague by Tomas and visiting the Vysehrad citadel. On the last day, we met up with Lucia again, our favorite host so far, for a goodbye lunch at a Vietnamese place, before catching the train to Berlin. The perfect end to a perfect city.

Oh, there goes another church...

- Awanti

Surfing

This post is about surfing..no..not that one. This one is about Couchsurfing. Some of you might have heard about it...other not...but there's a community out there called Couchsurfing. Its a group of people united by their love to travel and meeting travelers from all over the world. The underlying tenet is simple - you create a profile similar to Facebook and have friends, likes/dislikes, pictures etc. You also let others know what your current status is in terms of being able to host, meet up for a drink, or currently traveling. When you visit a new city, you search for 'couches' in that city and depending on whether you like what you see or not, send out a couple of requests. If the folks you send request out to like what they see and are able and willing to host you, they reply back in the affirmative, and voila - you have a place to stay. Obviously this works the other way around too, and you are expected to host too. There's no exchange of money involved and you primarily do it for the sheer joy of meeting new people and some interesting experiences.

About a month before we headed out on our trip, Awanti and I thought it'd be something we should give a shot. The reasons were two-fold. One, it would save a lot of money as against staying in hostels and hotels. The other, and more important reason for us, is that it would allow us to meet the locals, hang out with them, and get the low down on what to see and what not. Both of us approached this with a bit of hesitancy at first. The concept of staying with complete strangers was a bit foreign - though if you think about it, the trepidation from the other side should be greater given that they are letting total strangers into their house. Anyhow, we setup our account, sent out a couple of request for Austria, received positive replies, and headed over to our hosts' places. Well I must say, we've blown away by what we've encountered so far. We've couchsurfed with 5 hosts over the past 3 weeks, and in each case have been blown away by their trust, kindness, and friendliness. Just a few instances of what we've experienced:

- in each of the cases, within 5 minutes of meeting for the first time and being introduced, we were handed over the house keys and told to come and go at our leisure.
- late-night trip to the airport to pick up our delayed baggage as against waiting for the next morning when they were to be delivered - just so that we could wear some fresh clothes and be more comfortable.
- being cooked local specialties that you can't get in restaurants.

All in all, we've had some fabulous experiences and have spent time with people who are sure to remain friends for a long time to come. We have a few more stays coming up, and I can only hope they are as good as the ones so far.

- Ashish

Bags, Bikes, and Fortresses..

Onto NYC or the Big Apple as it seems to be better known. Spent a couple of days in NYC being a propah tourist by eating road-side food, visiting the Wall Street Bull, and walking around Central Park. We stayed at Sahili (Awanti's sister) in West Village and then at Rekha Atya (her Aunt) in Chatham, NJ. The first day there, a live deer (emphasis on the live as I couldn't believe my eyes) walked into the backyard and proceeded to mow (or eat) the lawn. And so passed 2 more bucolic days interspersed with barbecues and visiting more relatives...

Time to head to the airport and after safely navigating Samit's (Awanti's brother) 'exceptional' directions, we got to LGA. Well, no trip begins without a delayed flight, and so did ours. We promptly hot-footed over to the Red Carpet Club, courtesy Awanti and her high-flying status, and hung out amid a miserable selection of food and drinks. The plane arrived in due course (due course being 2 hrs late) and we made our way to Toronto. The 2 hrs 15 mins layover was reduced to 15 mins and I ran my personal best 400m in making it to the flight. Unfortunately, someone forgot to remind the bags to do the same, so after an uneventful flight we landed in Zurich and stared at the empty conveyor belt for quite some time before resigning ourselves to the obvious. We already had non-refundable train tickets to Salzburg for that afternoon, so us and our two small day-packs headed over the Swiss-Austrian border. The looks we got when we told people we were headed on a year long backpacking trip with only 2 small daypacks was priceless.

On to Salzburg(Picasa link) the first taste of Europe. The first thing that came to attention was the number of bikes! Bikes bikes bikes..and some more bikes!

That's right..bring your bikes onboard

In Denver, when you see other bikes on the road, its mostly hipsters riding single speeds and oozing attitude. In Salzburg, everyone rides - the old, the pretty, the kids, the employed, the unemployed - I really do mean everyone! There are bike racks everywhere and finding bike parking is just as hard as finding street parking in NYC on a Friday evening. The next thing you notice is Sound of Music. Everyone except the Austrians seem to have seen the movie and there are bus tours in 14 different languages making sure you see every place the movie was shot at. I hear you can even sing the title song on the bus. Being the seasoned and snobbish travelers that we are, we thumbed our noses at it, and promptly headed over to the second most popular tourist destination - the Festung Hohensalzburg - which I must admit is simply wonderful. The Salzburgers (not sure if that's right, but I like the sound of it) have done a good job restoring and up keeping the fort and a thoroughly informative afternoon ensued. The entire city of Salzburg is set between 2 hills - both topped with forts - and a river running in the valley in between. Quite the ideal setting. The next day, at the recommendation of our host, we set out on a fairly long ride out of town to the Salzburg version of a beach (more of a sand bar) on the river. The day was beautiful and most of the trail passed through woods along the river, so all in all, a thoroughly enjoyable ride. I'll spare you the beach details which included more gravel than sand and in true European fashion, a lot of skin. Being the Mozart's birthplace and all, we also felt it necessary to take in a concert, and enjoyed a fabulous string quartet at the highly ornate Mirabell Palace.

On our last day in Salzburg, I decided that I needed to get some sort of exercise in. Eating pastries for breakfast, followed by some even more rich food for dinner meant that the pants were already a tad more snug than the day we headed out from Denver. However, this plan only came to me at around 11.30 the night before we skipped town. Not to be deterred by the lateness of the hour, I still headed out for a run along the river in a full sleeve shirt (trying to reuse clothes you see and thus reduce laundry), running shorts and shoes. Not sure if it was the fact that I was running at 11.30 at night, or I was running in my shirt, or I was an Indian running in a shirt in Salzburg at 11.30 pm - either ways, it caused a few heads to turn. Ran up to the fortress and enjoyed a spectacular view of Salzburg before heading back down and to bed.

Vienna's next and from what we hear its going to be full of castles, museums, and more tourists. Can't wait for it!

- Ashish

And so it came to be..

Its been almost 6 weeks to the day that I got the go-ahead from work to take a sabbatical. Took a bit of wrangling - but it all came through in the end! The next task was convincing Awanti that even though Leave No Trace is an awesome job, and they love you there, and yes - having dogs in the office is super cool, its time to have a talk with with them and hit the road.

The interim weeks have been filled with planning (an ongoing concern), making sure we have the money (if this blog shuts next February instead of June, its because we ran out of money!), getting my visas (ahh...the joys of being an Indian citizen), and making to-do lists (my new favorite activity after mountain biking).It's all finally falling in place though - the past weekend was hopefully the storm before the calm. We finished packing and moving all our stuff (or junk as I like to call it).

Packing..not my favorite activity

Allow me to digress and rant a bit on this topic. Its amazing the amount of stuff a couple living in a one-bedroom apartment manage to accumulate in the span of 22 months. When we moved in together, Awanti was fresh off the boat from Sydney, Australia and her life possessions consisted of one suitcase, a backpack, and as many clothes as she could wear without customs mistaking her for a smuggler. I had a bit more, but it all still fit in 3 big cardboard boxes. Add to that, you'd think being on the 15th floor would serve as a natural impediment to the accumulation of stuff - but NO! 'It' somehow crawled its way up 15 flights and into our home in the middle of the night - 'it' being stuff. Anyhow, we managed to box, throw, or unload onto unwitting friends/family our worldly possessions and now are sitting in our bare apartment floor contemplating a night on the carpet. Think its finally sinking in what we are about to embark upon..

A bit of background on how this trip came to be. A long long time ago (3 yrs to be precise), Awanti, inspired by some backpackers she met in Sydney, Australia, decided its something we should undertake too at some point. I then followed it up a year later by mentioning that my company does allow sabbaticals. Ever since then, every month or so, at the most unexpected of times, Awanti gets this look in her eyes, turns to me, and declares - LETS GO ON A SABBATICAL! I, being adept at making excuses (blame it on my consulting background), always came up with some or the other reason, usually a variation of the following: I don't qualify for a Sabbatical as yet; we don't have enough money; just not the right time at work - which bought me a couple of weeks. However, when she again proposed the idea in April, I suddenly had no excuse to give. Having thus run out of excuses, realizing that this is something I really want to do too, and that I should stop being a 'Debbie Downer', I said YES. And so having committed to the idea, began the planning. We went through a couple of iterations including a 6 month road trip in the US, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (a 6 month, 2600 mile long hike along the western coast), 6 months in Europe and India only, before we finally settled on 12 months and a trip around the world. Blame it on Awanti.

Below's a rough itinerary:

Denver - Europe - N. Africa - SE Asia - India - S. America.

Well..I did warn you it's a rough itinerary.

Our journey begins fairly close to home - a couple of days in the Big Apple before we head over to Austria. From there its onto the Czech Republic, Germany, and other European countries. If you're still reading this, it means one of two things - you are my mother, or you really really have nothing better to do at work. Either ways, I hope you enjoyed my  rants and ramblings. We hope to keep this going over the course of the year and I do hope you check in from time to time to read the latest rant.

Time for bed!

- Ashish