It's not as if it were a life long dream. I only heard about this trek less than 2 months ago. But since I did I wanted to do it. Tour du Mont Blanc. A 180 km circuit around the highest mountain in Europe. It must be beautiful and it's definitely challenging. I just had to go. My friends Dana and Ron decided to join me, and so on a nice Saturday morning we met in the airport and flew to Chamonix. Sunday was a warm up day, with a nice short hike to Lac Blanc. We debated whether to take [View Full Entry]

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Well I was at home for too long. My fingers started to feel itchy… had to travel a bit. I booked a ticket to Paris. And since this blog of mine tells my travel tales, I’ve got to tell this one too (even if a bit late). I’ve been in Paris before. I’ve been there many times and I didn’t expect to see new places. I wanted to see my family there, and to see whether my passion for France will come back, after Australia took my heart big-time. First miracle this weekend: I did see new places. Someone told me [View Full Entry]

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Hi there... I haven't been here since long time. Well unfortunately my long travel has ended and I'm back home, so I don't have new additions to travelblog. (BTW a visit to Ireland is planned so don't worry, there will be new posts...) However, I do visit my statistics page every now and then, amazed to see each time that even when I'm home my blog is alive and kicking, with new readers all the time. The statistics page only tells me how many hits I got for every post, this month, last month and total. I know nothing about who [View Full Entry]

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That's it. It's been great. It's been amazing. It's been 39 weeks of traveling: Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, India and Nepal. And it's all here in my blog. I have no idea how many hours I spent on this blog - a hundred, maybe 200? I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Writing, selecting the pictures - I felt really creative. So now I am back home, this time not just to visit. I move to my new apartment tomorrow, I'll start working soon. So it's time for farewell… I'll be back when [View Full Entry]

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Nepal... I left home 9 months ago, not knowing where I was going to travel (beyond New Zealand). Nepal was one of the countries on my list, but the list was long. Going to Australia against all my plans voided the list anyway. But when I had the chance to extend my travel I decided to go to Nepal, see the Himalayas, trek a bit. I didn't know I would fall in love. I read again now my "end of New Zealand" summary post. I wrote a lot about nature. Needless to say, Nepal has extraordinarily strikingly beautiful nature, but in [View Full Entry]

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One of the symptoms of traveling for a long time is that I am no longer hungry to explore, as you've probably noticed. I spent a week in Kathmandu since I came back from Pokhara (broken in the middle by my Langtang trek), and that's after spending 5 days here a month ago. It's almost as much as I've spent in Sydney, does it make sense? In the beginning I almost didn't leave the 2 streets that form the center of the tourists' ghetto, Thamel. Why would I? There are excellent bakeries, great restaurants, cafes, bars, music, and there are some [View Full Entry]

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The last day of the trek was mostly uneventful - that's the problem of going back the same way after reaching the highlights. At least it was mostly walking downhill so I walked listening to my music, enjoying the colors and freshness of the forest around me. When we got back to Syabrubensi there was one important mission: arrange a jeep back to Kathmandu. I was willing to pay a lot for that, but unfortunately it wasn't a question of money. Simply, there was no jeep. And that's how, early this morning, the spoiled princess found herself in a local bus [View Full Entry]

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(Written in a place called "Lama hotel", although it's not one hotel, and I in fact stayed in Tibet hotel!) In the 3rd day of walking we reached Kyanjin Gompa, the last village in the valley. We are totally surrounded by mountains (except where we came from). By now I've been walking with Peter and Rajku all the time, they were waiting for me whenever I fell behind, walking slowly up and up. Well, this was so far an easy day, we only climbed about 400m to Kyanjin Gompa. We settled in a guest house there and Rajku pointed to a [View Full Entry]

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(Written at Langtang village) Going trekking on my own is one of the most different things I have done in this 9-months-long vacation. But well, I am not exactly on my own, I have a shadow. He is always a step behind me. When I stop to catch my breath, to tie my shoe laces or whatever, he stops too. He never speaks because his English is poor, I have to guess when he wants a cigarette break. Yes, my shadow smokes, he also carries my bag and his name is Ram. He's my porter. I feel strange about it, but [View Full Entry]

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I came back from the trek on Friday night and only wanted to get some good rest. I didn't think it would become such a long rest, but well, sometimes it happens. On Sunday we were very energetic and walked up to the "World peace stupa" on a hill above Pokhara. We walked through the forest and got lost a few times, luckily the forest was full of children (on holiday) and they rescued us a few times... The views of the Annapurna region were fantastic, and we took the short and steep way down, taking a boat to cross the [View Full Entry]

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