“Maha Shivaratri is a Hindu festival of Nepal and India celebrated annually in reverence of the God Shiva” (wikipedia). The guys at the house had gotten pretty excited about it, as it’s the one day were one can smoke excessive amounts of weed in the streets without being considered a lowlife. Yesterday it was that […]
Taking the Red Pill
In the movie Matrix, the protagonist is offered a choice of two pills. Blue will make him forget all he uncovered, while red will show him the world as it really is. That analogy was given by the hostel owner when I told him how my pre-defined image of Palestine was shaken up by reality. […]
Bunga Dyah Jatra
Bhaktapur has a Jatra and it has a chariot. Both are huge. But Bhaktapur is not the only city in the valley that sports these kind of things. I had heard marvellous stories about the Bunga Dyah Jatra in Lalitput, supposedly featuring a 20 metres high chariot. I couldn’t believe that and put it off […]
Wreck Diving
Another first! This time it was wreck diving, something I had had on my list for quite a while. As already mentioned, Coron is a great place for this as the surrounding waters feature more than a dozen wrecks, most of them 100+ meter long ships in good condition. Today it took us more than […]
Valdanos Adventure
5km north of Ulcinj a bay called Valdanos lures with a nice beach and 17,000 olive trees. Following its call, some of us took a taxi for the short ride out and had a look around. The beach is nice but “sadly”, after many months in Australia and Asia, it’s hard to impress me on […]
Road to Hsipaw
Aaaaaaai really don’t like bus rides. Especially not the painfully slow ones. After leaving Mandalay yesterday afternoon around 2pm, the (reasonably decent) bus crouched up the narrow and winding road towards the Shan Hills. Traffic is heavy and many times the bus has to stop to let another heavy vehicle pass a narrow turn. Two […]