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Drinkthewater - Daniel Gerber

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Having always dreamed about travel, but so far mainly done it as three-week or four-week sorties I'm now taking 13 months off from work, Feb 2009 - March 2010, to backpack around Asia.

My plan is to see as much of Asia as I can without flying - taking local transport. To see all of Asia, I would have to travel quite quickly, so I may well decide to restrict myself to SE Asia and India.

I begin by taking the Ghan up to Darwin, and flying to East Timor (it seems impossible to get a ride on a boat in February). Hopefully that will be the only flight of my trip, other than perhaps return flights out to an island, or suchlike.

At 36 I'm a fair bit older than your average backpacker, but it has to be done at some stage. So far, I've been to every continent except Antarctica (although I haven't seen much of the Americas). My favourite trip so far was to East Africa.

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Joined on: January 9th 2009
Last Login: November 21st 2009

Blog Entries: 38
Photos: 1426

TB Code: [blogger=105986]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by Drinkthewater, order by Date newest first.

By Drinkthewater
November 17th 2009

Something skewiff about skew. (Return to Ladakh, part 2) Asia » India » Jammu & Kashmir » Leh

This blog covers the period Nov 8-14,2009. I’m getting to know a few of the students’ names now. Six (four girls and two boys) out of the 38 are called “Stanzin” which should help but doesn’t. Their photos are also all hung up in the kitchen but I only discovered this fact this week, and some aren’t easily recognisable from their photos. There’s a few other first names shared by two or three kids, and two girls have exactly the same name (first name and surname). I guess Ladakhi just doesn’t have enough names to go round. I still don&rs [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
November 14th 2009

A school and a festival (return to Ladakh, part 1) Asia » India » Jammu & Kashmir » Leh

SECMOL from afar
the campus is half hidden behind a hill. This is on our walk to the main road

I’d been wanting to do some volunteer work for a while, but it’s hard to find places that aren’t dodgy or don’t expect you to pay them a fortune for the privilege of working for them. I’d heard about an NGO/school called SECMOL near Leh, and emailed them before I went to Leh last time (the blogs two and three blogs ago). Their webpage said that they sometimes take a week or two to reply. Just as I was leaving Leh last time, I emailed them again, as by then it was nearly two weeks. They replied that they’d got me [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
November 8th 2009

Hazy recollections of Delhi Asia » India » National Capital Territory » Delhi

Gandhi Smriti
a photo from inside a kalaidescope

To explain the rather contrived title I’ll skip to the end. This morning (1/11/09 - which will be discussed in the next blog) when I arrived into Leh the first thing i noticed was that the sky was blue. Also, the sun was bright. Why would this surprise me, I hear you ask? Well, good question. The answer is that it’s because I’d spent the previous ten days or so in Delhi. Unless there was some weird seasonal effect going on, I can confidently report that Delhi doesn’t have much in the way of sky or sun, as they’re hiding behind [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
November 8th 2009

The Ancient Kingdom of Ladakh Asia » India » Jammu & Kashmir » Leh

Khardung La - me
at the top

Probably because I’d come from Manali which is about 2000 metres above sea level, and come over the higher passes, the altitude in Leh didn’t affect me too much. Leh is at 3500 metres. I still found that I’d get a bit out of breath, and times when I’d suddenly feel a bit like I hadn’t been breathing enough. Other people also reported weird dreams, which I also had to some degree. It was also very cold. I bought another jumper and a thick woollen jacket, which of course became a massive burden to carry around after I left Leh. I [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
October 27th 2009

The Far North, part 1 Asia » India » Himachal Pradesh » Manali

Manali

As well as, obviously, the time to write this blog and prune out the photos, I just spent about two-and-a-half hours trying to upload the photos and save the text, but every time Travelblog ate half of the comments and put the photos out of order. Then it ate my whole blog. So the photos are all out of order, you can probably work out where they should go, it should be Delhi -> Road to Manali -> Manali (and Vashist) -> Manali-Leh "Highway" -> Leh. About 1/3 of the photos are missing too. I can't spend any mroe time on [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
October 24th 2009

God and country - the deep south, part 3 Asia » India » Tamil Nadu

Chennai - museum - dance of Shiva
"Nataraja and Natesa" - amandastandava, the dancing form of Shiva popular in South India, representing Shiva's cosmological dance bringing the universe into being and maintaining it. Modern artwork\[... [more]

This blog is late because I had a problem with my camera and couldn’t get the photos off it until now. There should be another one or two soon. It relates to the days 29/09/2009 - 4/10/2009. As you might notice, most of it was written about three weeks ago. As well as all the jungles and temples, waterfalls and mountains, beaches and rivers, elephants, lions and tigers, that you see on the tourist brochures, the typical image of India should be men peeing against walls. This probably explains why the cities smell like the area in a 20 metre radius [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
October 7th 2009

God and country - the deep south, part 2 Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Madurai

Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary (Kerala)

So we arrived at Maduraim, a city of about 1.2 million people, with much more of a “big city” feel than Trichy, and more popular on the tourist trail (inasmuch as anything in Tamil Nadu is on the tourist trail). This city is famous for its massive temple, the Sri Meenakshi temple. By now you might have guessed that Tamil Nadu is famous for its impressive stone temples, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, with distinctive architecture and lively, intricate, artwork. While you don’t see that many “holy men” which you see in the photos advertising Northern India [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
October 4th 2009

God and country - the deep south, part 1 Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Tiruchirappalli

Trichy - Rock Fort Temple

This blog covers the time approximately Sep 11 - 15. So in the last blog I left off in the train from Mumbai to Chennai. I think I mentioned most of it already, but one thing I forgot to mention is some of the beggars. I don’t know if it was because I travelled sleeper class - the cheapest class where you still get somewhere to lie down - because on the other train rides later I never saw this. Anyway, at every stop there’d be lots of beggars coming through. There was the normal sort you’d expect - old people, [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
September 11th 2009

SCUBA diving Africa » Egypt » Sinai » Dahab

P1300728

The ferry from Aqaba to Nuweiba (in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula) is supposed to take an hour. On top of this you need to allow considerable time to work out where to actually go. You have to get a taxi out to the ferry terminal, then go into a run-down building that from the outside looks pretty deserted to buy your ticket, then go downstairs, to a room that’s again from the outside looks completely deserted, to pay your departure tax, then go upstairs again with that receipt to get your passport stamped, in the counter just next to the one where [View Full Entry]

By Drinkthewater
September 11th 2009

India - first impressions Asia » India » Maharashtra » Mumbai

Mumbai
I can't remember why I took this photo, but after my camera died it's the only sort of general shot I have of Mumbai

I’ve decided to give up on the missing weeks in my blog. I might write up about them later, but without the Guidebooks any more, or Internet access, it’s even hard for me to remember exactly where I went in an orderly way. Anyway, rather than constantly trying to catch up, I’ve decided to post this current one, and maybe later go back over the four weeks that are missing. I arrived in Mumbai airport around midnight Tuesday morning. By the time I got through customs and baggage collection and all it was about 01:00. I hadn’t read up about where [View Full Entry]

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