Ein kurzes hello aus Nepal! Wir sind wieder in Pokhara, d.h. nach einer 4-Tages-Wanderung zum Poon Hill, was abgesehen von einem Gewitter, ein paar kleineren Wehwehchen und die nervige und teuer Buerokratie im Vorhinein echt schoen war. Vor allem der interessante aber steile Umwege, die bluehenden Rhododrendrombuesche , aeh, -baeume, Winnie und Jimmy waren hammerstark. Aber mehr davon (und Bilder!) beim naechsten Mal, mit besserem Internet. Vielleicht wenn wir von der Farm zurueck sind.
Ciao ciao! :)
PS: Wir haben heut spontan Ultimate gezockt, weil ein paar Leute auf ner Wiese hier ein Spiel gestartet hatten. Sehr cool! Natuerlich auch sehr simpel, aber hauptsache zocken!
PS(2): Wir haben schon ueber ein Dutzend Postkarten verschickt, wenigstens die aus Indien sollten angekommen sein. Meldet euch, wenn nicht und ihr noch eine wollt...
PS(3): Zeit zum Abendessen!
by Lia
19 March 2013
11 March 2013
music and people
da wir in Kathmandu nicht viel zu tun haben, sind wir schon wieder im Internet... Mir ist aufgefallen, dass zwei sehr wichtige Dinge fuer das Glueck auf unserer Reise bisher relativ unbeachtet blieben. Musik und Menschen. Das holen wir jetzt nach:
Enjoy the music, Nepal O.S.T.:
And now some of our friends:
Enjoy the music, Nepal O.S.T.:
And now some of our friends:
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| the GREAT Lara (GER/ Windarra) |
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| the incomparable Gansham (INDIA/ Windarra) |
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| the memorable Moijtaba (INDIA/ Windarra) |
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| sweet Bree (GB/ Windarra) |
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| cute Mokscha (Sweden) and Sina (IRAN/ Windarra) |
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| Carina (BRAZIL), Lara, Lia, Bree, Lydia (RUSSIA) and Maite (BRAZIL) |
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| beautiful Namoh (PORTUGAL) and Mojib (INDIA) |
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| funny Leela (GER/ Auroville) and her friend and Klaus |
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| the incredible Massi, Sion and Laura |
10 March 2013
this was India
Hey hey, we're out of India and back to bad english... Staying at a farm with many non-native speakers and Indians on top of that didn't really help improving our skills. But what else happened?
At last we got to travel a bit, first of all in trains, which was nice, not to say a lot better than what rumors say. Mostly, trains were on time, food and drinks were available almost all of the time and overnight travels were almost comfortable (we always took the lowest class). Only during the day it got so hot that just reading a book got us sweaty all over! No need to mention that it was a cheap way to get over huge distances...
Busses weren't as comfortable, local ones, I mean. The system is quite confusing, since vehicles sometimes don't have numbers and people only seem to know where the bus goes that takes them home... Next to the driver there's a helper who stands in the door, shouting the destination when the bus approaches, chasing people in and collecting the money. The A/C is ... open windows! But the bus to Hampi, for instance, stopped so often that it barely helped to sit next to the window. The seat must have been designed for people of slim built, students maybe, or Nepalese. The music shouting from the speakers is surely taken from some Bollywood movie, and despite not being beautiful, it's very appropriate in a way. So while we're given a good shake on this endless bus ride, we had enough time to think about the lessons this country has taught us...
So how does India appear to the traveller?
First of all, as a country of spicy food (lassi and not breathing through the mouth helps), chaotic traffic (a street has exactly x lanes, and x being the number needed at that time), hundreds of languages (hindi is only spoken by a fourth of all Indians), thousands of gods and last but not least millions of cows, everywhere. On the second glance we saw the beautiful sarees and punjabis of the women, which are (like snow-cristalls) never the same. We saw the curiosity and suspiciousness in the eyes of most Indians when they saw white people like us, and not only when it came to the multiple times higher prices for us, I had to think of racism. It's an annoying and tiring feeling to be always different, excluded in a way, to be stared at and looking at pointing fingers. But still, I'm grateful for that experience, showing us what it's like to be different. And of course we've also had many positive moments: people smiling at us, asking where we from and trying to help if we needed it or not, especially with busses. They seemed to be fascinated by Germany ("good country!"), and usually wanted to know what we work (or even how much we earn).
As you may have heard about India, PDA (kissing, hugging, even holding hands) is like a crime and you will never see even a married couple doing it. So you can imagine our surprise when we saw men of every age hugging, cuddling and holding hands! I'm not sure if girls do it, but two men walking hand in hand on the street is very common...
We won't spare you some of the dark side we saw in India, like the stray dogs, the litter lying around (globalization and plastics came here before the concept of recycling did) or being burned everywhere, and the poverty. There're many beggars walking around, and not only the slums of Mumbai were scary, because we saw them right next to the runway while driving in a bus on the airport. Anyway, even the poor ones have smartphones which really makes you wonder about priorities in life...
And now, after so many words, some pictures from our trip in India:
At last we got to travel a bit, first of all in trains, which was nice, not to say a lot better than what rumors say. Mostly, trains were on time, food and drinks were available almost all of the time and overnight travels were almost comfortable (we always took the lowest class). Only during the day it got so hot that just reading a book got us sweaty all over! No need to mention that it was a cheap way to get over huge distances...
Busses weren't as comfortable, local ones, I mean. The system is quite confusing, since vehicles sometimes don't have numbers and people only seem to know where the bus goes that takes them home... Next to the driver there's a helper who stands in the door, shouting the destination when the bus approaches, chasing people in and collecting the money. The A/C is ... open windows! But the bus to Hampi, for instance, stopped so often that it barely helped to sit next to the window. The seat must have been designed for people of slim built, students maybe, or Nepalese. The music shouting from the speakers is surely taken from some Bollywood movie, and despite not being beautiful, it's very appropriate in a way. So while we're given a good shake on this endless bus ride, we had enough time to think about the lessons this country has taught us...
So how does India appear to the traveller?
First of all, as a country of spicy food (lassi and not breathing through the mouth helps), chaotic traffic (a street has exactly x lanes, and x being the number needed at that time), hundreds of languages (hindi is only spoken by a fourth of all Indians), thousands of gods and last but not least millions of cows, everywhere. On the second glance we saw the beautiful sarees and punjabis of the women, which are (like snow-cristalls) never the same. We saw the curiosity and suspiciousness in the eyes of most Indians when they saw white people like us, and not only when it came to the multiple times higher prices for us, I had to think of racism. It's an annoying and tiring feeling to be always different, excluded in a way, to be stared at and looking at pointing fingers. But still, I'm grateful for that experience, showing us what it's like to be different. And of course we've also had many positive moments: people smiling at us, asking where we from and trying to help if we needed it or not, especially with busses. They seemed to be fascinated by Germany ("good country!"), and usually wanted to know what we work (or even how much we earn).
As you may have heard about India, PDA (kissing, hugging, even holding hands) is like a crime and you will never see even a married couple doing it. So you can imagine our surprise when we saw men of every age hugging, cuddling and holding hands! I'm not sure if girls do it, but two men walking hand in hand on the street is very common...
We won't spare you some of the dark side we saw in India, like the stray dogs, the litter lying around (globalization and plastics came here before the concept of recycling did) or being burned everywhere, and the poverty. There're many beggars walking around, and not only the slums of Mumbai were scary, because we saw them right next to the runway while driving in a bus on the airport. Anyway, even the poor ones have smartphones which really makes you wonder about priorities in life...
And now, after so many words, some pictures from our trip in India:
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| Chillout area at Lara's, Windarra Farm |
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| visiting a worker's family, Tamil Nadu |
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| rice harvest, Windarra Farm |
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| those strange bugs, grown together on their butts |
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| a normal swastika on our hut, Hampi |
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| sunset at the monkey temple, Hampi |
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| view from the monkey temple |
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| temple in central Hampi |
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| the temple elephant goes for it's morning bath, Hampi |
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| the trains were really long... |
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| chillin out in Palolem, Goa |
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| those two crazy travellers! |
5 March 2013
is this India?
Unsere Indienreise ist beinahe vorbei, nur das dickste steht noch bevor: Mumbai. Immerhin haben wir schon Hampi und jetzt Goa ueberlebt...
Hampi war angenehm. Ok, ueberraschend touristisch, an der Hauptstrasse gab es wie erwaehnt unzaehlige Ramschlaeden, die einen Tag nach unserem Eintreffen niedergemaehmt wurden. Die Zeit danach war wesentlich ruhiger und gepraegt von Ausfluegen in die Felsenlandschaft, inklusive Sonnenuntergang wie man sich ihn sonst auf Kalenderblaettern findet.
Wir verliessen Hampi frueh morgens als noch keine Faehre fuhr und trugen unser Gepaeck selbst durch den Fluss. Das heisst, Klaus tat das, ich war damit beschaeftigt, im Dunkeln die Untiefen zu uebersehen, ein Fliflop zu verlieren, ihm hinterzuspringen und zu erwischen, dann beinah weggetrieben zu werden und schliesslich den anderen zu verlieren. Immerhin blieb die Trommel in meiner Hand trocken und ich schaffte es ans andere Ufer. Ein paar Tage spaeter bekam ich von unseren britischen Freundinnen in Goa neue alte Schuhe geschenkt. Ueberhaupt laufen wir in zahllosen Secondhand-Klamotten rum, auf der Farm haben wir eine Menge Gebrauchtes abgestaubt, sehr gute Sachen teilweise. Die Schuhe, von denen einer jezt im indischen Fluss treibt, waren auch dabei.
Die Zugfahrt war angenehm, bis auf die Hitze. Aber zur Abwechslung mal tagsueber zu fahren bereicherte uns mit Einblicken in die indische Einoede und spaeter den Dschungel.
Angekommen in Palolem, Goa, war ich tatsaechlich ueberrascht, dass es am Strand ein wenig so aussah, wie ich mir Mallorca immer vorgestellt hatte: zahllose Strandbuden mit Cocktail Happy Hour and noch mehr Touristen mit Hautkrebs im ersten Stadium. Dann eben baden, warum auch nicht? Unsere Huette ist etwas weiter weg vom Strand, vorbei am Bikinishop ("Barely covering girls since 2006"), aber nicht an der Strasse, eigenes Bad, nur 500 Rupien, coole Sache.
Morgen machen wir uns wieder auf die Socken, entspannter mittlerweile, da wir um die Gegebenheiten im indischen Transportsystem bescheid wissen: Klimaanlage heisst Fenster auf, Busse fahren, wenn genuegend Passagiere da sind und mit dem Ticketchecker legt man sich besser nicht an, nur weil man den "Weisse-Haut-Aufschlag" bezahlt...
Hampi war angenehm. Ok, ueberraschend touristisch, an der Hauptstrasse gab es wie erwaehnt unzaehlige Ramschlaeden, die einen Tag nach unserem Eintreffen niedergemaehmt wurden. Die Zeit danach war wesentlich ruhiger und gepraegt von Ausfluegen in die Felsenlandschaft, inklusive Sonnenuntergang wie man sich ihn sonst auf Kalenderblaettern findet.
Die Zugfahrt war angenehm, bis auf die Hitze. Aber zur Abwechslung mal tagsueber zu fahren bereicherte uns mit Einblicken in die indische Einoede und spaeter den Dschungel.
Angekommen in Palolem, Goa, war ich tatsaechlich ueberrascht, dass es am Strand ein wenig so aussah, wie ich mir Mallorca immer vorgestellt hatte: zahllose Strandbuden mit Cocktail Happy Hour and noch mehr Touristen mit Hautkrebs im ersten Stadium. Dann eben baden, warum auch nicht? Unsere Huette ist etwas weiter weg vom Strand, vorbei am Bikinishop ("Barely covering girls since 2006"), aber nicht an der Strasse, eigenes Bad, nur 500 Rupien, coole Sache.
Morgen machen wir uns wieder auf die Socken, entspannter mittlerweile, da wir um die Gegebenheiten im indischen Transportsystem bescheid wissen: Klimaanlage heisst Fenster auf, Busse fahren, wenn genuegend Passagiere da sind und mit dem Ticketchecker legt man sich besser nicht an, nur weil man den "Weisse-Haut-Aufschlag" bezahlt...
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