Easy does it

These were now my last days in Ecuador! I spent a week on the coast in a small fisherman´s town called Puerto Lopez. Now is the season for whale watching, so of course I did it! Whales are now in the bay to get their cubs and to eat enough to get the warming fat they need for their long and tiring journey to the cold cold north. The first day I arrived in Puerto Lopez I went on a boat and we saw a whole group of whales. I had a few glimpse of their enormous humps and I saw a tail. But unfortunately they were now too heavy to attempt any jumps from all the food they had eaten! The rest of the day I spent on la Isla de la Plata (island of ... read more

In Quito I spent most of my time as I was going to school there every day to learn Spanish. I really enjoyed my lessons. Every 2 weeks I changed teachers, so that I learned more and more about life and people in Quito. Coming from a first world country it is sometimes difficult to digest from what circumstances some people can come from. But my teachers being employed in a language school meant that they have made it. I am very grateful for having been taught by some of the toughest and yet most jolly teachers I had in my life. On weekends I did plenty of trips around Quito. Otavalo for example is a community of which I bet everyone of you have seen already. Usually they are panpipe players that you can see ... read more

Now I have been two weeks in Ecuador and it is time for me to update my travel blog... I must say, that I can much more adapt to South American culture than to Indian culture, for it being similar to the European culture. I just need to get used to people not being punctual and not keeping word, but as I am never punctual myself, I can cheerfully deal with that. For one week I aclimatized, as Quito lies at about 2,800 meters above sea level, which means dizziness and head aches for the first couple of days. When it got better we started doing some of the tourist attractions. We've been to the Equator at point 0-0-0 (sorry dad I didn't really check which way the water flushes...but in any case scientist found out ... read more

Varanasi was my last entry. After that I've been to Agra and then went to Rajasthan where I went to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, Bundi and Pushkar. I will soon be on my way to Jaipur from whence I will take the train to Mumbai! I do not really know how to start my resume as my head has gone blank for several days now. I just gave up making plans or thinking about things, I just live through the days. I guess I've adapted quite well to the Indian life style :) In Agra I saw the Taj Mahal. It is one of the wonders of the world and it is said to be one of the most beautiful monuments ever built. I just had too many expectations towards that. I was very disappointed. I had ... read more

I am taking advantage of the fact that India is playing Criket against Sri Lanka in the finals of the world cup, as the government will surely not allow power cuts to occur now, or masses will riot!!! I will try to summarize a little what happened after Bangalore, my impressions and the ups and downs of my moods. Knowing that I have very critical readers, I will try not to generalize too much. Indians have given me constructive criticism. Feel free to correct me if I got it wrong, but keep in mind that these are merely my personal impressions and I may be carried away by my emotions. But I intend to be honest and to show the good sides as well as the bad ones. These were my stops in short so far: ... read more

You know, it is strange, but traveling on your own takes it out of you. And there comes a time you fed up of seeing dirt and garbage in the streets or seeing people just throwing it out of the train into nature, or having beggars following you all the time and Rickshaw drivers asking for three times the amount a journey would normally cost. If you face a troubled stomach on top of that, the culture shock is at its worst and you start hating everything around you. Especially getting into contact with people is so difficult as you never know what their intentions may be. In the end you get suspicious of everyone. BUT! I turned the corner now! I am so happy. Words cannot express how I feel right now. Because I have ... read more

phheeewww, I finally got over health problems. You know, even if you just have stomach problems, it should not be too difficult. But if you have them in India, with hot and sticky weather it is just awful!!! We were staying in Mysore in this very nice hostel. After seeing the Maharadsha Palace, we had been to the temple on the top of the mountain the following day and we went to the Brindavan Gardens the next day. The usually film Bollywood movies there. Then we went to a restaurant and had dinner and did something we should not have done. We ordered fruits with ice cream. The ice cream was fine, but you should never order cut up fruit, not even in restaurants! And that was a mistake. All was still fine when we came ... read more

Kochin was really nice to start from. Good weather, good food, really nice people. We made friends with the keepers of our home stay: the good karma inn. The showed us places we wouldnt have found otherwise. I will try to upload the pictures of the past few days: the backwater trip, the elefant wash, temples and palaces... On sunday we travelled to Ooty. We had to set off at 10:30 p.m. to arrive somewhere by 4 a.m. to go further with a Rikshaw to take another bus at 5 a.m. to be able to take the "blue mountain train" which goes 5 hours to Ooty (and just 2 hours by road...). The train is antique, I think my dad would have been thrilled to go with it. The scenery was amazing! But after 10 km ... read more

...if you want to participate in indian traffic you need to learn a few rules. First off: forget about anything you may have learned in the western world. Rule no. 1: act as chaotic as you can to outsmart other traffic members and to get as much fun out of it as possible!!! The rulebook: no 1: the bigger your vehicle, the more say you get on the road (cyclists are really to be pittied!) no 2: the road may be partet into 2 lanes for each direction, but as you go along you will find that there is an invisible 3rd lane in the middle for any type of very risky overtaking manouvers. The middle lane will be used by both sides, there is no fun otherwise. If you dare to play the game - ... read more