Bears migrating to Asia

The only issue we had before going to Vietnam was getting the visa done on time. We’d forgotten all about it on our little break in Thailand and found ourselves in quite a rush and trouble to get our “visa on arrival” documents sorted out (read paying some money into someone’s bank account).

Once we got to the airport, we just had to pay more money (to the customs this time) to get the visa papers sorted out. There were quite a few tourists waiting for the customs to give them their “visa on arrival” documents and get their passports stamped. Someone explained that if you give an extra 5-10 dollars when paying for your visa, the documents are found and stamped by the customs in a few minutes instead of the “normal” one hour wait.

Being in no hurry (and a tight budget) we decided to wait with the others… who also happened to speak English, which was always nice to hear as we were gradually realising that clearly not everyone speaks English in Vietnam. In fact, hardly anyone speaks English in official and public buildings. I guess the Turkish boat captain with his ten crew member waiting in the same room as us hadn’t realised that either as he was desperately trying to understand what the authorities were  asking for… (more money?)

Two hours later and we were out of the airport, in the public bus to Ho Chi Minh (or Saigon as everyone except the government calls it in Vietnam). We had to get back in travel mode quick as the ticket selling lady in the bus had already managed to make us pay an extra ticket for our bags, and for some reason I still can’t explain, served herself to one of my notes whilst I was counting my cash. I got my note back a bit later, after double checking with Sonia that I hadn’t imagined what had just occurred. The lady let my take my money back without saying a thing. Very strange…

Saigon was exciting, busy, and very lively. Quite a few people have told us since that they hadn’t enjoyed it much, but we were clearly enjoying it, especially the death threatening game of trying to cross main roads as the hundreds (if not thousands) of scooters were racing in between us.
The people were nice, the everyday life entertaining and bars opened until late, which meant there actually was life after 9 pm!

We went to a few museums and saw in depth the atrocities of many wars the Vietnamese have been fighting for the last thousand years, especially in the last hundred where the Americans clearly win the claim for the most horrible and vicious stuff that we’ve seen so far (we hadn’t been to the infamous S-21 Khmer rouge prison camp yet).
Amazingly, or incredibly to be more realistic, the Vietnamese hold nothing against the Americans, the French and more or less anyone else except the Chinese, who seem to clearly unite Vietnamese in their hatred…

We also went to visit the Cuchy tunnels, where we were explained how exactly did peasants (men and women… or even children) armed with basic weapons and a load of courage managed to make the heavy equipped GI’s look like fools, whilst killing a few in the process. Vietnamese are very very cunning. You don’t want to mess with them, especially on their own soil. They exploited anything that could be turned in their advantage (like being roughly half the size of an American soldier).

Back to Saigon, and we got a bus to travel south, towards the Mekong delta. Vinh Long will be our first (and unfortunately only) stop. The city is small and very basic, not really geared towards mass tourism, which can only be a plus. This is one of the few places where you can still go up to someone and say, rent his boat for a short trip without having to deal with a tourist orientated boat mafia. Same goes with scooters or even laundry (where individuals will be more than happy to add your dirty washing to the family’s lot for a small amount of cash).
We also met a very kind (and strange?) local boy who often “looks out for tourists” when cycling home in order to have a chat and practise his English. Unfortunately, it seems most people shun him away, so he was more than happy when we agreed with him to meet later for a drink! He also brought a friend over to practise her English, which I believe was also to prove that he actually manages to find sociable tourists from time to time. We had good discussions about our different lifestyles and ended the day with a quite enjoyable street meal, which started making us more comfortable with the local food (I might not have pointed this earlier, but Vietnamese food is a little too Chinese orientated to our tastes!).

Next day we were off to the (disappointing) local floating market where we saw our first roasted dog and then had a little ride on the Mekong, visiting smallish islands and their various farms. This was also the occasion for our first (of many) self driven motorbike rides… which went amazingly well given that I had never ridden a manual motorbike before! (I did have to bluff the lender that I knew all about them though)

Back in town, for a famous “Vache Qui Rit” (Laughing Cow) sandwich, a Vietnamese speciality…believe it or not!!
Unfortunately, I lost a filling whilst eating it, so our trip in the Delta was cut short as I requested an urgent visit to the dentist in Saigon…

After ending the first part of our trip, we thought we’d treat ourselves to a little rest in a familiar and pleasant surrounding… make that Krabi, Thailand.
Or good old Railey beach to be more precise. We’d spent a week down there when we were in Thailand last march, and as we thoroughly enjoyed it, we’d thought it was a safe bet.   

We managed to stop for a few nights in Kuala Lumpur in the process, so it was quite a shock discovering this ultra-modern-high-tech city after a few months in a different world !
As we’re going back to Malaysia in February, we’ll have time to see more then; but the contrast with basic India is just unbelievable… This is the city were the sky train is air conditioned, the 7 to 10 storey malls are each bigger than the other, often only separated by a street, and there is just so much choice for food !! Actually, more or less every other kid is fat (we hadn’t seen much of them for a while) thanks to a complete range of fast foods, and other junk food stores all open 24/7. But you can also find the more reasonable (and healthy?) street restaurants, were you will eat as much as you can for less than an underground ticket….actually, it’s more like a quarter of a ticket. The eating conditions might not be the best (usual plastic tables and chairs, with the odd rat - that I had actually mistaken for a small dog at first! - running in front of your table) aaaand you get to see the 3:00 am Champion’s League football games live on the TV setup on a cardboard box in the street. Great stuff !!

Time for Krabi and some relaxation now. We just rented a wooden bungalow with a lovely little terrace for our stay. We clearly understood after a few nights that this wasn’t OUR bungalow, but that the numerous mice living on the bamboo made ceiling and the pair of squirrels living on the roof were just “tolerating” our presence. We’d sometimes get some mouse droppings in the ceiling-less bathroom as a gentle reminder…
Time flew by with plenty of rest, buckets, visits to Mama Chang’s restaurant (our local cantine - tastes even better than before!! - for the ones who know it) and more rest for whoever needed it… and by the time it was all over, we were ready to start the adventure again.
Good people of South East Asia, here we come !!!

After a really long travel, we finally arrived in Pondicherry, our last destination in India. It was a really good surprise to discover a much more relaxfull and clean atmosphere in India... here you can't see any cows (or dung) in the streets!

Pondicherry is an old french colony with a lovely and colorful architecture, a real paradise for "Decoration Addicts" like me (guess you know by now who is writting this post). There are a lot of antic and modern shops, especially in the French quarter. On our last day, we found a really nice statue of Ganesh that we wanted to buy but unfortunatelly the salesman could not wrapped it on time before the post office closing time. The statue weighed eighteen kilos so we could'nt carry it during our travel.
The city is also full of nice restaurants and cafes all along "The Promenade" where you can chill out with a fantastic view of the sea.

We stayed in a Sri Aurobindo Ashram Guesthouse. This movement, founded in 1926 by Sri Aurobindo, has grown under the Mother's (the french partner of Sri Aurobindo) guidance, from a small group of two dozen disciples into a large diversified community with a few thousand members. The dynamic character of the community reflects the life-affirming aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. Work as an offering to the Divine is an essential aspect of the Yoga, and all Ashramites do a certain amount of productive work each day in one of the Ashram's departments. There are no obligatory practices, no rituals, no compulsory meditations or systematic instructions in Yoga.
The Ashram provides its members with all they need for a decent and healthy life. Various departments have been organised to look after the basic requirements of food, clothing and shelter, as well as medical care. There are also libraries for study and facilities for a variety of cultural pursuits. This might sound like a mystic and potentially dangerous cult, but it actually is a very peace minded community

Initially the Ashram Guest Houses were built to welcome the Ashramites disciples but are also open to the tourists in some areas. The rules are strict: no alcohol, no drugs, no smoking and every evenings the doors close at 10:30 pm so you have to be back before. Appart from that, the Guest Houses are really basic, but confortable and clean. Probably one of the best places we stayed in India, and for just over an euro a night. Add a bike rental for the day and two meals in their cantines (you do have to eat at specific times), and your daily costs amount to less than three euros. Can't beat that !!

Deja 100 jours.... et toujours le sourire aux levres !!
Plus que 75 jours avant de rentrer, le temps passe vraiment trop vite. Tellement vite que le blog n'arrive plus a suivre !

Demain repos pour la journee, nous devrions donc avoir le temps de mettre le blog (enfin) a jour...

A bientot tout le monde,
Nicho & Sonia

We took the convenient option of a rafting trip between Pokhara and Kathmandu so that we could leave from one and return to the other. We weren’t to sure what to expect as the guy who sold us the trip told us it was a level IV river (you have I to VI levels in rafting, VI being the most dangerous).

We got dropped at the spot after another entertaining bus ride. As usual, the locals don’t enjoy much their bus trips, and there’s always someone to start the throwing-up-chain (a bit like that family guy episode) after an hour or so on the road. The bus is well equipped though, they give little plastic bags for everyone who needs any. The routine is then to knot your bag and thrown the sick bomb out of the window.
Unfortunately for a poor tourist traveller, this time the bag was not dispensed in time and her bus neighbour threw up all over herself (and everything else within a meter). This poor girl had an awful bus ride as she basically never stopped being sick for the next three hours…

We are now on the river bank, ready to set off on our boat (that seems to have had quite a few punctures) and tackle the great river!
The guide sits at the back, giving orders whilst the rest of us paddle…stop…paddle hard…stop…pad...stop! And so on for a few hours…
It got really funny when the four Bengalis rowing with us started taking the piss at the guide, with the two sitting at the back giving wrong orders in the rapids just to make things more confusing. They were also on holiday, very welcoming, and as it seems to be the norm, we got an invite for our visit to Bangladesh

Once the rafting over, it was time to take the bus to Kathmandu. Being a festival week, the transport gets saturated and when trying to get on a bus in the middle of nowhere with a load of luggage it gets tough to find a seat, impossible to find two! So we ended up on the roof. Sonia was delighted as you can see on this picture:

It was great but dangerous fun, and when night arrived, it got really cold. Fortunately, it only lasted four hours, and we got settled in Kathmandu before ten.

After a thirty dusty minutes walk we finally got to a hotel that suited our criteria (cheap, not too smelly and not too many insects)…
Kathmandu is a polluted and over crowded town, but features quite a few very nice and interesting temples and stupas, and the food is great. Most people stop there after a long trek so it’s quite lively in the evenings but unfortunately also very westernised. Getting the bus is fun as there are no official buses. The game consists in spotting one of the over crowded 10 seat vans, waving it down and making sure it is running in the desired direction. There are no bus stops, so the only thing to do is ask the locals which street to wait on. It can take time and obviously, you can get ripped off on your first attempt, or even worse, be dropped off the other side of town because you pronounced mu instead of mou… but it’s always an entertaining ride!

After two weeks in Nepal, it’s time to head back to India before hitting South East Asia and the good old Pad Thais. But first, we must make the long trip to Pondicherry consisting in a ten horrific hours night bus ride from Kathmandu to the border, another three hours to reach Gorhakphur and the train station (never ever sleep in the hotels opposite the station). Then it’s fourteen more hours to reach New Delhi. A two hour flight to Madras, and finally a little four hour bus ride to reach Pondicherry. Time to relax!!

Too many long walks, too many steps… but the amazing views help you to forget the pain! We now clearly know that Trekking is not our favourite hobby (didn’t we know it before going?), and although quite rewarding at times, the only thing there is to do is walk all day. Actually no, you can also play cards and backgammon in the evening.

Our guide Tilak had 6 years experience as a guide and prior to that he was a porter (they carry up to 30-35 kg of luggage in the mountains for up to three weeks). He knew his stuff, like the time he turned around and told us he could smell a Leopard. We both thought it was tourist entertainment to keep us going until we came across a fresh leopard foot print a few minutes later !!

After five days it was time for a well deserved night in a proper bed and have a proper meal so we headed back to Pokhara before our final trip to Kathmandu.
Great experience, probably the best sceneries we will ever see and a nice change from speedy Indian cities. Now time for rafting!

To start our visit to Pokhara we decided to go to the World Peace Pagoda on the top of the forest where you can have good view on the city and surroundings. We read in Lonely Planet that you have two options to get there: 1 - take the boat across the lake and then you have twenty minutes of steps to go to the pagoda . 2 - “the long way” , through the forest, which goes up for an hour and a half with brief indications on how to get there. We decided to go for the walk.

After half an hour walk we asked some children we met earlier, the way for the pagoda. They nicely told us we could follow them as they were going there to. We started following them through the forest without really noticing which turns we were taking. After a forty five minutes walk, we finally arrived to the pagoda with some unwelcome guests on our feet: the leaches. Unsurprisingly, before saying goodbye the children asked for a little cash. We swiftly visited the pagoda, had a drink and decided to go back as the rain seemed to arrive...

Next thing we know, this gigantic monsoon storm starts, and the rain is just poring down, quickly making the paths inundated with running water streams. Now the tricky choices start… do we go left or right? Initial strategy was to take the roads going down, but after getting blocked in pretty inconvenient places, we adopted the “take the largest path” route.

Now the cloudy sky is really making things difficult as the light is starting to fade.

We’ve been walking for two hours and don’t have a clue where we are! Sonia’s on her third slip, my bag with all private and important belongings is soaked, and even worse, the camera bag has also been hit pretty badly…The leaches are now hurting and we must pause to have a leach cleaning sessions. Our feet over a mix of mud and blood, and the rain just never stops. Not very pleasant… but we must move on! The night will be there in just over an hour and we don’t even have a light! No way we’re sleeping in this forest, apparently leopards live here… and monkeys definitely do as we met a couple on our way.

We don’t have a clue which direction to take, and the rain is now making “fake” paths where you end up discovering you’ve just followed a stream of water that eventually drops from a thirty meter cliff.

After three hours and a half, we eventually managed to make our way towards our initial point of entrance in the forest, and felt relieved to see some locals still around as it was now night. To make things worse, we took the wrong street getting back in Pokhara, giving us an extra forty minutes walk, in the rain.

Nice day out. We soaked our passports, most of the money, driving licenses, just purchased guidebook, and more worryingly, the new camera. The camera took a few days to recover and is now taking pictures fine. As long as the sun is not too much around to blind the weaker than ever LCD screen!

This time we managed to get our train… unfortunately it arrived at 2:30 am, two hours late, not much fun when you‘ve been waiting since eleven.

(not just the signs that remind you of the London underground...)

Six hours later we wake up just in time to get out of the train in Gorahkpur. It’s eight in the morning and it is already too hot!

(especially when you are carrying 2 rucksacks). Once the local bus to Sunauli (the border) located, we just have to sit for two and a half hours in what feels like a too warm sauna.

Once in Sunauli we just had to walk through the border (quite strange), absolutely no one to stop you and you could easily not notice the border point where you get your visa and passport stamped… and end up in big trouble when trying to leave the country.

As we were already tired and all sweaty (black and dusty sweat), we decided to stay a night near the border and continue our trip the next day. Not a great decision as the city next to the border

Nepal

6:30 am the next day, and we are ready for our seven hour bus trip... Quickly we noticed that the bus stopped really frequently (every ten minutes) and each time we waited for what seemed like too much time as the bus touts were trying to find more customers. The little circus doesn‘t stop until you are packed in the bus (“Quizz time“ style). Obviously the odd passenger at the back (or on the roof) wants to get off every now and then, so the touts go back to work…

The view on the way was really nice even if sometimes it was a bit scary especially when the bus driver decides to overtake a tractor in a bend with no idea of what is coming the other way.

Good job Sonia found a distraction (unsuccessfully) trying to kidnap a little baby…

In case you wonder, the seat on which the real mother is sitting was given up by myself (I know I shouldn’t assist Sonia in her sick plans).

After more than TEN hours in the bus (yep, those seven hours were a lie), we were more than happy to arrive and walk a bit in Pokhara to stretch our legs… and Nick was even happier to find out that we had a football channel in our room… and just in time for the Manchester Derby!

And that was a happy ending!!   :-D

How many pupils in the rickshaw?

End of our Rajasthan trip, and it’s now of on our own… the real adventure can start !!

Arum (our ex driver) kindly drops us of at the station five hours before our train, so he doesn’t have to drive back to delhi in the evening…

Now being experienced travellers, five hours waiting is a super opportunity to regroup and get prepared for a train we surely cannot miss… or so we believe. Yep, we managed the impossible. Wait five hours on a platform and still miss the train.

In our defence, there are no signs showing which train is arriving, and we were mislead.

After a couple hours eating, reading and crowd gathering (after twenty minutes you can easily attract a crowd of over fifty men & rats just starring at you), the local birds (again!) were back home, or the roof of the train station as we call it. The noise level just gets crazy, and the platform bombarded with their droppings.

We then met this group of londoners, that we’d already seen in the morning at the Taj. One of the girls had reached “breacking point“,after being succesfuly targeted TWICE by the birds… I felt for her.

Anyway, these guys were also going to Varanasi bythe night train, and even better, had a local guy acting as group leader !! Nice…. or so we thought.

When the time for our train finally came, we gathered our bags, with one of our new friends going to ask the group leader if this was the right one. He came back smiling, saying that it wasn’t this one, and that indian trains are always late… (not untrue).

A couple minutes later, another train came along, this time the leader indicating it was the good one. Great, just need to go and ask him were we sit, I thought. Next thing I know is him telling me this isn’t my train, my train has already passed. I notice a smile on his face, and think he’s got a good sense of humour, but no time for a joke, I need to know where is my carriage. The guy we’d been talking to the most at that point tells me that the guide is a joker and it’s all a piss-take… or so we think for a couple of minutes until we realise he is serious!

That means we have to buy new tickets on the train, pay a penalty fare and our previous tickets aren’t refundable. Lesson learnt. Time to sleep before we get to Varanasi train station, described as a potentially dangerous place in Lonely Planet…

Varanasi is a major city for hindus (80% of indians) as it is on the banks of the holy Ganges.  Bodies come from all over the country to get cremated following a strict religious code and the ashes are then scattered in the river. As a proper caste society, there are different levels at which corps are burnt (highest point for the higher casts), but also different types and qualities of wood used for cremating. A special (low) cast deals with all the proceedings, and are able to get just enough wood to burn the body with no waste. One source of incoming for these people is searching the river where ashes have been scattered hoping to find any left over jewellery !

A big part of the city is made of very narrow streets, where little shops, children, beggars and the holy cows fight to get your attention. Unfortunately, the cows seem to win as you can’t really get rid of the permanent smell of cow dung in the streets (and it’s not just humans that get delhi belly).

Despite the unattractive description I might have made, we found Varanasi very relaxing and spent a nice few days there. The ongoing religious carnivals and the pleasant watching the Ganga Aarsi ceremonies that are made by local priests every sunrise and sunset make great entertainment.

It’s now time to plan the trip to Nepal (and making sure we don’t miss the train this time!).

Wanna fight?