G&T wish you a Happy New Year from India

It's been a while since we've updated our blog and many exciting things have happened since Nepal. So, we believe the 31st of December is a perfect day to send you all the best wishes for 2010 and also give you a brief update how we like India so far.

Speaking of which, how do we like India? Well, to be honest, even after one month here we are still struggling a bit. Our first stop Varanasi was India "full on": fascinating on the one hand with everything that's going around the holy river Ganges (the daily swimming and cleansing rituals as well as the frequent and for anyone accessible body cremations), shocking on the other hand with the huge amounts of waste, its inescapable smell, India's poverty and people using public space as toilet literally everywhere.

After Varanasi we already needed some break by escaping to a lovely mangrove national park south of Kolkata called the Sunderbans where we tried to spot the fearsome Bengal Tiger. Even more relaxing was our two week Christmas holiday on the Anderman Islands. Basicly, we've spent the time sleeping in our bamboo hut, eating fresh fish, reading plenty of books and observing the Islands' perfect underwater life. We even saw a great big turtle as well as an octopus while snorkeling that was pretty special.

So ... now we are back on the mainland, so to speak back to Indian reality and willing to give India another chance. Just today we had a brilliant travel planning day where we decided to spend some more time in Kerala in South India, but also travel to Rajastan which was not on our travel agenda so far. Originally we intended to travel through Iran into Turkey, but recent events make this a not too wise choice. We gladly found a great alternative today!! Keep coming back for the news...

Beautiful Nepal

Nepal

Nepal was different to all the other places we have visited so far. Why? Firstly, we did not travel on our own, but had two companions, Andrea and Philipp. This was great, especially as both are keen hikers and as such they chased us up high mountains. Secondly, Nepal's capital Kathmandu is a monster in terms of traffic, people, poverty, dust and dirt. A real introduction to what will come in India (apparently, this is "India light" here). Thirdly, this was a real outdoors country, we - the sunshine daywalkers - did two hikes, all together 18 days of walking 5-8 hours a day. And lastly, it was a country where we had all travel illnesses you can think off, including a visit to a hospital (see the picture story below).

Our first trek took us to the Annapurna region, famous for its great scenery of 6000-8000m high mountains. We organised a guide and a porter, because we thought that walking alone will be challenging enough, so we spared ourselves carrying our big backpacks as well. This decision proofed to be right as we had to gain 1500m altitude in the first two days and this by walking up stairs the whole time! The trek took us in a loop to the Annapurna Basecamp which is at 4100m altitude. The scenery on the whole trek was amazing and changed with gaining altitude: first rice fields, then rhododendron and pine forest, followed by low bushes. All in front of a panorama of white snow capped mountains. We were extremely lucky with the weather as well, we had blue sky and sunshine for 11 days straight. Every night we stayed at basic lodges which offered 2 beds and wooden walls to separate you from your neighbours (not their snoring), unnecessary to say that earplugs as well as a head torch were essentials. Asian squat toilets and a basic, sometimes hot shower where mostly across a little courtyard. The higher we got the colder it was, especially at night where temperature easily hit the minus 10 degree mark at the two base camps. The huts cooked mostly over open fire or with a 2 stove gas cooker and for such little means they offered a huge variety of food: from spaghetti to pizza to Mars rolls (a Mars bar wrapped in dough and then deep fried). As we were four, we could always order an array of dishes and test most what was on the menu. Surprisingly, the national park authorities were very organised and every lodge offered the same menue, only prices increased with altitude.

After our first trek we had to go back to Kathmandu for a couple of days rest, sightseeing (for Andrea and Phil), visa organisation (for us), and not least laundry. We also witnessed the country's instable political landscape, as a strike by the Maoist party delayed our departure for our second trek by a day. Nepal has abandoned its monarchy last year, but the recent government is at disarray to say the least. A coalition of 22 parties is in charge, but only when the biggest party, the Maoists, don't block the parliament (which happened for the last 5 months).

So a day late, we made our 10hr journey to cover 160km of pretty bad dirt road to reach the beginning of our 7 day Langtang walk. Our second walk led along a river for 2 days until we reached an open valley. We stayed at a village at 3800m and climbed the 4984m high Tsergo Ri peak (a 5000m high mountain for our sake of arguing). Normally, the ascent should be fairly easy, but unfortunately it snowed a couple of days before we arrived and the trail was covered in snow which left us a bit disoriented. Without a trail we then had to climb over big boulders and walk through deep snow to reach the top. Needless to say that boulder jumping above 4500m and with a chilling wind in the face was quite strenuous. Finally, we made it and G could only think of getting back down soon so breathing would be a bit more comfortable, T on the other hand loved the climb up and took the time to film the top (see video below).



After the second trek and another 10hr public bus ride back into the Capital, we soon had to farewell Andrea and Phil, which was very sad as both of them proved to be perfect mountain companions. After their departure, we took life in KTM easy, did some sightseeing, spend another day at the Indian embassy to receive our visa (in total it took us 13 hours over 2 days), and ate a lot to spoil our bodies after nearly 3 weeks of hiking. After a week in KTM we left to our second last destination in Nepal: Chitwan Nationalpark. The park is in the south, so nice warm temperatures compared to KTM where the winter is settling in (4 degrees at night). We chose a nice hotel next to a river where we are currently planning our first weeks in India. We also saw some very interesting wildlife on a jungle walk and on the back of an elephant: 3 crocodiles and 3 rhinos, all wild!

We will leave here soon to see the birthplace of Buddha, which is still in Nepal and then with a lot of good karma that we will gain there, we are off to India.

So, will G&T come back to Nepal on an ongoing basis like so many others? Probably not, although we loved the mountain scenery, we have to admit that we remain "1-2 day warm weather, sunshine walkers" rather than "serious high mountain trekkers". Still, Nepal is a very amazing country!!

Sick Nepal

The Stans in pictures

The Stans - Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan

The Stans were originally the highlight of our Bordertrekkers trip. Unfortunately due to G's father illness and her 5.5 week stay in Germany it got drastically reduced to just a week in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and a short 2 week round trip through Uzbekistan. Nevertheless, G&T obviously were really happy to continue their trip and The Stans presented us with some true marvels:

First of all, after nearly three months of Chinese (vegetable) food, Almaty in Uzbekistan was such a welcoming change for T that he had a meet shashlik extravaganza at least twice a day. The Kazakh do know how to do a good skewer of meet and also have great beer to accompany it (Derbes). Apart from that (and the abundance of well dressed Kazakh women), I found Almaty surprisingly boring with typical Soviet style architecture dominating the streets and no real city centre to do people watching. Venturing outside the city, some amazing sites are within a day trip distance from Almaty: First of all Chimbulak, a ski resort, where snow capped mountains can be seen even in summer. And secondly Charyn Canyon, the Grand Canyon of Kazakhstan which with its deep gorges and steep red rocks it does look as impressive as its American counterpart.

Arriving in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, felt like leaving Asia and entering the Middle East. Huge Islamic bazaars and mosques as opposed to Soviet style basilicas, Muslim women dress code as opposed to Western style fashion, more Uzbek language as opposed to just Russian.

After finally meeting G at the airport in Tashkent, the two of us went on a "Arabian Nights" / "1001 Nacht" trip through the ancient cities of Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand with a side excursion to the horrible environmental disaster site of the Aral sea. All three cities were scattered with old mosques and medressas (Islamic schools) dating back to the 13th century (after the Mongols left most of Central Asia destroyed). All buildings were true marvels of old times and had beautiful tile work on display, mostly held in blue colours. However, due to a keen renovation government programme, most of the old buildings were a bit over renovated and quite often it was hard to imagine that the site in front of us dated back nearly thousand years. Somehow it felt like walking within a giant museum rather than a living old town. Nevertheless, all buildings were very impressive and Bordertrekkers recommend Uzbekistan as a travel destination (G more than T).

A welcoming change to old buildings although quite daunting was the trip to a desert landscape formerly known as Aral Sea. A too ambitious Soviet project to grow cotton in a desert lead to an impressively complex irrigation system all over Uzbekistan, but also to a disastrous disappearing of the lake and many related health problems for the people living there. We visited the fishing village of Moynak where old fishing ships are stranded on sand. Apparently, since the start of the cotton project in the 60s, water levels fell by 18 meters and the lake has declined to 10% of it original size!!

So ... The Stans fascinated us enough to put them on the list of potential destinations in the future, but we will make sure to come in summer (when it's warm) and seriously brush up our Russian (as communication without Russian is difficult).

China: Chenglish Pictures

China: Chenglish

The Urban Dictionary defines Chenglish as: 'inaccurate or faulty translation from Putonghua or Chinese into English, frequently humorous'. Timo and I have to agree, more than once we had to laugh out loud reading translated signs. Have a look at the pictures above. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of my favourite, a motorway sign reading: 'warning continuous downgrading' (translates 'careful long downhill stretch ahead'). 

China pictures - The South West

China - The South West

You may be wondering how can you possibly top our experience of the "Katze im Sack Tours"? Bordertrekkers have to say that China is an amazing country to travel in with nearly endless possibilities and after 2.5 months of travelling China there is still plenty of China that needs to be explored. Bordertrekkers certainly will be back for sure!

After our return to Chengdu and more than 5500km in a 4WD, we really needed a rest and our Chengdu friends were so kind to let us stay in their lovely appartment for another relaxing week. It's probably testament to real travellers that we got ichy feed again after this week and continued our adventure to explore China's South West with the provinces Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan and finally Hong Kong / Macau.
First, we took a flight to Lijiang, an area with a couple of very traditional Chinese villages. It's been great to get out of the cities and experience real traditional village life. Have a look through the pictures above, they will say more than 1000 words and it's been good to see that although all the progress and modernisation that is evident throughout China, traditional village life is preserved for tourists (in the case of Lijiang) and also lived (in the case of Baisha and Shuhe where we stayed).
Further north, the Tiger Leaping Gorge provided a challenging trekking opportunity for our upcoming trip to Nepal. We climbed up steep tracks to the top of the mountain (the apparently 18 bends up there turned out to be 42, but it felt like a hundred). The Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world with spectacular drops of up to 4000m from the mountain peaks down to the roaring Yangzi river.
After two exhausting days we needed some rest (again) in the lovely town of Dali. Dali with it's old town and the nearby lake is very accessible for Western backpackers with lots of bars, restaurants and hippies, but still managed to keep its old Chinese village charm. We were delighted to find the German owned Bakery 88 for our Leibspeise project (see article on our Leibspeise blog).
A long bus ride followed by a 18h train ride brought us to Guillin which is famous for its karst mountain sceneries and Dragon's Bone Rice Terraces. Unfortunately, we had to separate in Guilin as Gislind had to fly home to her critically ill dad (thanks god, the immediate life threatening situation has passed and he is now on his long way to recovery). Timo continued as single bordertrekker with a cruise down the Li River, plenty of bamboo rafts and mountain bike rides around Yangshou brought these amazing karst mountains perfectly into display.

All these activities needed to be followed by another relaxing week or two on China's only beach island of Hainan where Sanya provided the perfect hangout near the beach with plenty of fresh seafood restaurants. You literally could point at any living seafood creature possible in small aquariums and 15 minutes later you had the best and freshest seafood you could imagine.

The buzzing city of Hong Kong with all its expat bars and clearly British heritage was a welcoming return to a Western culture.

So, how did we like China after travelling around nearly have of this massively big country for 2.5 months? In a nutshell, we simply loved it. Yes, the big city pollution is a problem, so the tight government grip on its citizens and censorship which denies you to access for example blogs or BBC, Chinese spitting habits need some time to get used to, summer can be unbearably hot and communication can be very tricky without speaking the language, but we discovered a nation full of really friendly and helpful people and a diversity of cultures that hardly any other country can match.

China 'Katze im Sack Tour' Pictures

China's Southwest or Katze im Sack Tour - Part I

As many of you know, we have two lovely German friends who live and work in Chengdu, the capital of the province of Sechuan. Mirko and Olli visited us in Sydney in February and mentioned that they will be touring western China in July, so they offered us to join their little trip. There were a number of compelling reasons to accept the offer: 1) Mirko is a diplomat, so nothing can happen to us, 2) Mirko speaks fluently Mandarin, so we won't starve, 3) Olli is a good old friend of mine and always fun, 4) we can travel in our a private vehicle, so traveling will be more convenient. Most of the reasons turned out to be true, but reason number 4, the roads in China are shocking and traveling takes a lot of time (have a look at the pics). As we practically booked an 'organised' trip, Timo and I did not really look into where we would be going or what to expect. That's why we named the 19 day adventure: Katze im Sack Tour (pig in a poke tour).

After having spent 4 days in muggy Beijing, we flew to Chengdu where Mirko started the Katze im Sack tour with a personal airport pick up. Upon arrival we received instructions on what to expect: 19 days traveling, 6000 km to cover, spending every night in another hotel, crossing 4,000m high passes, passing military and police checks with the possibility of being send back, driving through tibetan grassland, desert, minority villages as well as Chinese mega cities.

So initially 5 of us (tour guide Mirko, us and two other friends of Mirko's, Olli joined later) started the Katze im Sack Tour the day before the total solar eclipse on July 22. Aim was to see the eclipse on a 3,000m high holy buddhist mountain (Emei Shan), yet, everything was covered in thick clouds and mist, so we witnessed darkness, but no solar wind nor corona. Nevertheless, it was a very mystical experience as there is a monastery on the mountain top and pagoda and temples disappeared into the darkness only to be revealed again 6 minutes later. 

Our tour continued through the mountains of northwest Sechuan, a landscape that impressively shows nature's force. We were traveling in the rainy seasons, so massive swollen rivers destroyed and landslides blocked roads and buried trucks or whole villages. Roads under construction became mud slides and 200km sometimes took more than 6h to cover. Mirko's appeasement strategy was to say loudly and frequently: "This is China, this is China". 

Once we were past the dangerous terrain of rivers and gorges we entered the dreamlike world of the tibetan highland (tibetan autonomous region of Sechuan). There old style architecture is still preserved, houses are still being build with mud and straw bricks and decorated with ornamented windows and doors. It all looks very romantic as we love to discover the 'old' China, yet mobile phones and 4WDs are ubiquitous. Young people and kids dress normal, only old people seem to dress in a traditional way, time will show if traditions can survive. Thanks to the economic boom, most villages have electricity. In most regions air and water pollution seems to be more of a problem, not to speak of access to education or health care. 

We spent almost a week in the tibetan highlands, witnessing by pure accident temple festivals were everyone was dressed in their best sunday outfit (as we would say in German), a village excited because a worshipped Lama was passing by in a car convoy, a very big monastery (Labrang) from the yellowhat order where the number of monks is limited by the Chinese government. The Tibetans in general are very strong believers in Buddhism and religion is part of every aspect of life. Once we stopped to take photos of prayer flags and noticed women walking bent on the road picking something undefinable from the road. As we were approaching them, we discovered that they were rescuing earthworms from passing cars. 

From the tibetan grassland we travelled west into the desert. Yes, this is China's part of the Gobi and there is also a lot of nothing and something, mostly passes to climb, snow capped mountains, muslim minority villages, and our favourite city Golmud. Golmud is in the middle of the Gobi, it only exists because mineral richness surrounds the town. The city  looks like someone dropped a lot of concrete in a very big sand playground, everything is artificial, the city can only survive because of its umbilical cord of trucks bringing goods and water in and out of town. For us, it epitomises hell on earth. It is an ideal place to put inmates or detainees, a bit like one imagines Siberia. 

In the middle of the desert there are several oasis, one of the most famous is Dunhuang. Famous for its strategic position on the old Silk road; the city marks the end of civilisation (Gansu province) and the beginning of the unknown (Takla Makan desert) and was one of the highlights on our Katze im Sack Tour.....to be continued...

Mongolia update

What did we had in mind when we planned our trip to Mongolia? Probably the vastness of the never ending steppe, massive sand deserts, Mongolian gers (their nomadic tents, "jurten" in german), their love for goat products (milk, cheese, Cashmere) and of course the national hero Chengis Khan. We've spent 3.5 weeks travelling through Mongolia's Gobi desert, stayed in the striving capital Ulaanbaatar and were privileged to attend the famous national sport festival called Naadam, and yes, Mongolia certainly lives up to its stereotypes, but there is much more that meets the eye.

Take the vast steppe and the dry Gobi desert for example: Sure, the scenery doesn't change much and that's part of the Gobi fascination. However, if you look closer you discover the real richness of the Gobi. Quite surprisingly there's a lot of change in Gobi's nothingness: Every couple of kilometers you see a lonely set of gers where nomads still live like hundreds of years ago. animals and herders are never far away, but all of them already own a mobile phone and a satelite dish is decoratively placed outside every yurt tent. Then you have this enormous blue sky that doesn't want to end at the horizon, it's even bigger than in Australia. It also came to us as a big surprise that there is a lot of life in the Gobi desert. We came across a couple of camel and goat herds that eagerly waited next to wells for someone to pull up some water for them (which we of course always did on our tour). Last but certainly not least there are many spectacular mountain ranges (we even hiked to a deep valley that still had ice along the river bed) and the massive sand dunes of Khoryn Els. Yet, only 3 per cent of the Gobi consists of sand! Watching our driver navigating through the Gobi was another highlight. Picture a massively big field of steppe grass land, no trees, no mountains or houses let alone street signs to find orientation, just some tyre marks here and there in the dirt. Now you know how difficult it must be to find your way through the desert (much to our discomfort our driver had to ask for directions numerous times).

Then there is the quickly growing capital called Ulaanbaatar (UB) in the middle of all this nothingness. For us it was a bit like a beast: Soviet style inspired building blocks didn't make it look pretty, the non-existence of any driving rules made it chaotic and nearly dangerous of us to walk around (the bigger and stronger a car is, the faster it will reach its destination; red traffic lights don't mean that cars stop) and we could see and feel the (too) quick growth rate of the city. But UB also has its nice sides: Eg. the old monastery in the middle of town where ancient Buddhist traditions are still alive. Or the numerous traditional yurt tents in the middle of a 3 million inhabitant metropolis.In fact, half of all Mongolians still live in these yurt tents, but only a quarter are real nomads and move from place to place with all their belongings.

A true highlight towards the end of our trip was the national sports festival called Naadam Festival. Imagine the whole nation in a stand still for 3 days, all trying to look beautifully, some with colourful traditional Mongolian dresses all eagerly watching the three Naadam disciplines archery, horse riding and wrestling. There's also a fourth weird competition going on called angle bone shooting where three sportsmen try to hit 2 sheep bones in a distance of about 3.5m with a little square bone that gets accelerated on a angle bar through their ring fingers.

And of course, we were succesful in researching for Leibspeise. We could sample a German Wurstplatte at the Khan Bräu, and speak to the owner who is from Böblingen (around the corner from Leonberg, Gislind's hometown), we ate Berliner at the Sacher's Bakery and we found Liverwurst from Werner's Fleischwaren in the supermarket. Check out our Leibspeise blog for the Khan story.

Mongolia pictures

rough edit only, more to come (depending on the Internet access in China)

Japan pictures

Japan - what we liked and what we didn't like

Likes:

• Ubiquity of automated food vending machines
• Most perfect transport system we experienced ever
• Toilets that need a little instruction booklet to understand
• The clean feeling after using such a toilet the right way
• The Japanese Alps - After 5 years in Oz a real eye candy
• Crazy Harajuku girls
• Traditional houses in Magome and Tsumago
• Mingling with locals in the hot onsen in Nozawa Onsen, best and cleanest body scrub ever
• Naoshima art island with Yayoi Kusama sculptures and Tadao Ando buildings
• Cycle paths everywhere
• Kyoto's temple abundance

Dislikes:

• Limited English language skills in Japan
• Bowing the lot
• Starting every sentence with "excuse me" or "thank you for waiting"
• The Japanese fear of sunlight and with it comes the lack of outdoor seating
• Architecture weirdness - either extremely ugly or super modern
• Non-existence of chairs and lounges
• The costs of travelling in Japan

G&T's Japanese food experience...

... or two Germans lost for words while dining out in Japan.

Everyone knows that Japanese culture is one of the most complex and one of the hardest for all Westerners to comprehend, let alone putting it into practise in the correct way. Even if you try hard, you will encounter numerous situation where you wonder "why are they doing this" or "what have I just done wrong".

First of all, Japanese and Western views on how to enjoy a comfortable meal are very different. Sitting down on a nice and soft chair in a restaurant hardly exist in Japan. The best you can get is a pillow on top of their tatami mats, which hardly adds to your comfort. In fact, after travelling through Japan for 3 and a bit weeks, we started to judge places to eat and sleep by the pure existence of chairs. I guess, IKEA (or any other furniture store) has a really hard time to get business here. This is how we had dinner at a traditional Japanese B&B. Obviously we chose the wrong dress code:

Secondly, speaking while eating is still not very common. That's why there are numerous restaurants with automated vending machines. These "quick bite - no speak" restaurants become one of our preferred lunch options. This is the way they work: In front of a restaurant you find a big box with lots of buttons on it like pictured below. These are automated vending machines where you can chose a dish, pay for it and receive a dish voucher. If you are lucky, you can see pictures of what you are going to expect. However, in most cases you are faced with lots of unrecognisable Japanese characters. In a way you can't go wrong as most of the dishes are udon soups (Japanese noodle soup) in different variations. We always enjoyed judging the dish by the price, then pressing a button and hoping for the best. Once you receive a voucher, you present it to the kitchen staff inside and minutes later you receive your dish.

The same system at Japanese beverage vending machines that are literally everywhere. All different drinks are sold through these vending machines including cold AND hot drinks:

Thirdly, bowing in pretty much any occasion is just normal and of course considered very polite. It's quite funny to realise that we automatically started to bow while talking to locals as well. This short video below is a nice example of a Japanese train attendant:

Finally, we found a restaurant in Hiroshima that epitomises Japanese food culture in a nearly bizarre way. It's a nice example of people not really talking to each other as you sit in your own booth and you don't order food by speaking to a waiter but by pressing buttons on a machine. A little curtain in each booth blocks the view to the inside and also never really makes your waiter fully visible to you. Your food gets served through this curtain and as soon as the food is served the curtain gets fully pulled down so you can enjoy your udon soup in privacy. Have a look at the video below. It's bizarre and hilariously funny at the same time:

Of course, everything is followed by a nice Japanese bow behind curtains:

Some observation on Japanese housing and architecture

If I had one word to describe Japanese housing, it would be `dense`, not even in height as the floor levels are restricted due to the frequent earthquakes, but there is housing everywhere, squeezed into the tiniest lots, next to each other with no space in between.

Apparently they have land use regulations and development control plans that outline things like building height, usage, built form. But I could not make out any pattern, high risers are built next to one storey houses, massive housing developments close to temples, industrial operations 10m apart from hotels. Also the design of most houses is appalling to say the least. They remind me of a mix between socialist GDR style and cheap Australian prefabricated housing.

Yet, in between all this chaos there are jewels of modern architecture: my absolute favourites was the Cocoon Tower in Shinjuku designed by Tange Associates.

Another great building is the Tokyo International Forum by Rafael Vinoly. As one website describes it "a gracefully expressive great curving ship shape in glass and steel, set off across its plaza with blocky recalls the scale of other European supporting halls".

Also I now have a new favourite architect: Tadao Ando. We went to an art island, Naoshima, a once tiny fisher village where a publisher decided to build a world museum by a world class architect (Tadao Ando). They even had some of Yoyoi Kusama's art, one piece was a nice big yellow pumpkin sitting on a pier.

Bali and Lombok in Pictures

G&T in Bali and Lombok, Day 1-21

We spent 21 days in Bali and Lombok and it already felt like being away for months. How can this be? Maybe because we saw so much in such short time, maybe because the islands are so different, one Hindu, one Muslim, one with a parallel universe of super chique tourism next to very basic farming villages, the other struggling to get tourism off the ground after it had been hit by racial tensions in 2000.

We started in Padangbai Bali, a small seaside village and the jump off point for ferries to Lombok. The best hotel in town - with 3 swimming pools and massive rooms - was our resting point for the first days. It is amazing, but you can easily stay in famous Lonely Planet `mid range accommodations`, eat and drink as much as you want, and still don`t spend any money (see Timo`s price index below).

After adjusting to the constant approach by local hawkers who will sell you anything, but most frequently `transport`, `sarong`, `massage` and only give up if you strongly decline their offer several times (ignoring won`t help at all), we decided to rent a scooter for a week. With our own set of wheels we discovered lovely rice paddies, an amazing variety of shades of green, lovely small villages with literally no tourists, volcanic mountains often hiding in the clouds and fantastic small seaside towns with excellent snorkeling off the beach.

The underwater life in Bali and Eastern Indonesia is amazing! There are so many varieties of corals, so many fish, including Lion fish and we even saw Hawksbill turtles. On the down side, there is no concept of trash collection, all waste is still burnt. A lot of it also ends up in the ocean and we saw a lot of trash floating in the open water. If Indonesia will not tackle this problem, it could severely affect their tourism, who wants to snorkel with plastic bags? On the other hand, Indonesia has a lot of other problems and I guess, rubbish collection is one of their last priorities.

We also spent a few days in the famous artist town of Ubud. We found it more touristy than arty and you have to look very closely to find real art, nevertheless, the surrounding landscape is very lovely and the Balinese dance and Gamelan orchestra we saw was enchanting.

On a very rusty old Ferry (a big thank you to our parents that they gave us swimming lessons) we tackled the 7h journey to Sengiggi in Lombok. From there our 5 day `Komodo hunting adventure tour`(that is what the brochure said) started. With 20 Dutch, one Swiss, three Australians and three French, we boarded a very small ship where Timo and I were lucky to have the best room on the upper level away from the engine noise and fumes. After a day adjusting to be on a moving vessel we really enjoyed the frequent snorkeling stops and of course we were thrilled of seeing the Komodo dragons. They are amazing creatures, with elephant like skin and hawks like claws. They look friendly and almost lazy, but can speed They look friendly and almost lazy, but can speed up to 1 and almost lazy, but can speed up to 18kmph and feed of creatures such as waterbuffaloes. The five stays went by in a fly and we really loved the under water life around the islands, though not the stingers that attacked Gislind.

Back in Lombok we could not resist of renting another scooter to explore the country side and further beaches in Southern Lombok. Again we found it really striking that outside the few tourists spots we hardly met any other tourists and that is probably why we liked driving around so much. The last two days of our trip we spent on a nice little backpacker island called Gili Air where we had the luxury of a two storey house with hammocks and daybeds on the second floor right next to the beach, and guess what it cost less than 20 AUD.

On our last day we boarded the shortest flight in our life: 17 minutes from Lombok to Denpasar Bali and spent a couple of hours in Bali`s major tourist town Kuta. We didn`t expect much of tourist town Kuta. We didn`t expect much of that place, but it was even worse than what we imagined it to be: no nice beach, loads of people, plenty of hawkers, busy congested roads and teenagers on the loose, etc you get the picture. One good thing was that we interviewed a German restaurant owner for our Leibspeise food project.

We nearly had the opportunity to extend our stay in Indonesia, as Garuda Airlines refused us to check us in for Tokyo at around 11pm due to the fact that we had no outgoing ticket from Japan. After a lot of hassle, we had to purchase a refundable ticket and made it just in time on our flight to Tokyo.

In a nutshell, it was the perfect start for our one year trip as it was very easy to travel around and we felt very relaxed from day one on.

Timo's Preisindex fuer Bali

In diesem Land sind wir Multi-Millionaere. Jedes Mal beim Geldabheben erhalten wir mehrere Millionen Rupien und haben wahrscheinlich Milliarden auf unserem Girokonto.

1 Million Rupien sind umgerechnet AU$ 130 oder Euro 70 oder 2 Tage Miete in einem kleinen Haus in Balmain. Auf Bali ermoeglicht einem 1 Million Folgendes:

• 3 Tage Unterkunft in einem besseren Mittelklassehotel inkl. Fruehstueck, Pool etc
• 10 Tage Unterkunft Backpackerstyle
  

• 70 Flaschen lokales Bintang Bier trinken oder
  
• nur 2.5 Flaschen Wein (Jacob's Creek Niveau). Da stellen wir uns die Frage, ob wir lieber 1 Flasche mittelmaessigen Wein oder lieber 30 Flaschen Bintang trinken...

• 10 Abendessen fuer 2 im normalen Bali-Restaurant inkl Bier
• 4 Gourmetabendessen

• 20 Tage Mofa mieten
• 100 mal Mofa tanken und damit ueber 8000km fahren (mehr als 20 mal um die ganze Insel)

• 100 Sarongs kaufen, allerdings nur bei excellentem Verhandlungsgeschick

• leider nur knapp mehr als 1 Tag auf einer organisierten Touristenbootsfahrt verbringen
  

First Impressions of Bali

It is day 8 of our journey and we already feel like we have been away for months due to the overload of impressions, colours and smells. Bali embraced us with a striking heat and humidity, much to the dislike of Timo. Yet, the ocean cooled our bodies and the tropical fish inspired our senses in our first days at Padangbai. We rested there for 2.5 days before heading off on a little scooter, the way we like to explore hot climate countries (taiwan, laos, now bali). Driving through the countryside, we discovered lovely beaches with an abundance of ocean life, high volcanic landscapes (mostly misty and in the clouds), rice paddies everywhere and great balinese dishes.
Stats for today: water feels like 27 degrees, outside 31 degrees, humidity high. Large beer costs 3 AUD, wine non existent.

Morgen geht es los

Nur noch einmal schlafen und dann geht es los, um 10 uhr morgens geht der Flieger nach Denpasar. Wir fliegen Garuda, da ist die Aufregung noch ein wenig groesser, denn der Sicherheitsrecord der Fluggesellschaft ist nicht der beste. Aber das wird schon klappen. Anbei noch ein paar Fotos von unserem Abschieds BBQ und Auszug

G & T say good-bye to Sydney

Countdown

Only 6 days to go and our little house is emptying at a scary pace: pictures gone, wardrobes empty, rocker packed, boxes and suitcases everywhere. Tomorrow our belongings will be picked up and shipped to Stuttgart (yes it is located next to the river Neckar) and then transported to Timo's mom; she is definitely looking forward to have even more things stored at her house (Timo's stuff from Hamburg has been already sitting there for the last 4 years).

So Wednesday is our departure day and then we will be on the road. We are quite happy to leave on the brink of winter, the house is already getting chilly in the evenings. We will post pictures and stories here, alternating between German and English posts, and you can leave messages in our guestbook. And of course we will continue our quest for German food, so check out our Leibspeise blog and contribute if you come across a great German eatery.
Bali will be our first destination, summer and beach again.
G

Meet the Bordertrekkers

Vorbereitungen

Nun sind es nur noch 7 Tage bis zu unserer Abreise. Endlich haben wir ein Umzugsunternehmen gefunden, das unsere 7 Boxen (150kg, 0.9 cbm) per Schiff von Sydney nach Stuttgart und dann per Lieferwägelchen ins schwäbische Wernau bringt. Die erste Probepackung der Rucksäcke hat gezeigt, dass 55l doch nicht so viel Platz ist. Eigentlich ein Segen, denn bisher wiegen die Rucksäcke nur um die 8kg, mit Bücher dann wohl 10kg und das ist schon schwer genug.

Sodele, meldet euch bei uns fleissig, bleibt in Kontakt vie email, blog, skype. Wir haben auch eine internationale SIM karte, sind also per SMS erreichbar. Schickt uns einfach eine email, dann können wir euch die Nummer mitteilen.

Hier unsere Reiseroute und Zeitpläne, falls ihr uns spontan besuchen wollt, Reisepartner sind jederzeit herzlich willkommen:
Bali-Lombok: 13.Mai - 4. Juni
Japan - Südkorea: 4. Juni - 29. Juni
Mongolei: 29. Juni - 16. Juli
China: 17. Juli - 2. Woche September
Kasachstan: Sept - Okt
Usbekistan: Okt
Nepal: Letzte Woche Okt - Nov/Anfang Dez
Indien: Dez - Feb/März
evtl. Landroute zurück nach Europa (Flug nach Iran um Pakistan zu umgehen, dann Türkei, Griechenland, Albanien, Montenegro, Bosnien, Kroatien, Slowenien, etc nach Stuttgart) oder per Schiff oder per Flugzeug, je nachdem wann wir des Reisens übertrüssig werden.

Ganz schön aufregend, aber was für eine Chance, einfach so ein Jahr unterwegs zu sein.