http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/His-Dudeness/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from His Dudeness en-us Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:48:46 +0000 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:48:46 +0000 T'is said that the road to Samarkand is paved in gold but that is not so at least my road wasn't. My road consisted of dilapitated train tracks and mud caked highways. But there was gold along the way only not on the road. The gold was stacked in rows upon rows within the mouths of the people of this region. Perhaps a road could be paved with all this gold certainly the combined amount of gol http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Uzbekistan/Samarkand/blog-460541.html The last few weeks I have been doing the raw work in travelling. Unlike what most people picture travelling to be like it is not all laying on a beach under a swaying palm tree sipping fancy cocktails. Mostly it is arranging cheap accommodation finding an inexpensive place to eat finding out how the public transport works backpackers can not afford taxis trying to figure out train and bus http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Kazakhstan/Western-Kazakhstan/Atyrau/blog-458817.html Most people who think of Kazakhstan think of Borat. Most people who have been to Kazakhstan might think of Almaty its former capital and then there are some who decide to discover what the rest of the country might be like. I decided to go up north and to keep me company along the way I went with an English man who went by the name of Tim whom I had met in a rather decrepit dormitory in Almaty http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Kazakhstan/East-Kazakhstan/Semey/blog-454360.html To tell you the truth I am in actual fact not writing this blog in Urumqi. This would be impossible for me to do since the Chinese government has cut all internet connections to the outside world all international phone calls and any other means of communicating beyond the province of Xinjiang. Why Well Xinjiang like Tibet is rather sensitive and like Tibet it has a rather restive native popula http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Xinjiang/Urumqi/blog-451875.html As my flight coasted into Kathmandu I could see the great Himalayan range looming visibly up in the distance. The fact that I could see them this time round was in stark contrast to five month ago. When I last left the place and visibility was near to zero. At that time it was impossible even to see the hills surrounding the capital as they were clouded in a combination of dust and pollution. Apa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Tibet/Lhasa/blog-445747.html Five month ago I came home in high spirits seeking as always to find a trial fast to top up my bank account. But things never turn out the way you have planned it and though I found a trial quickly it got cancelled almost as speedily. And than Nothing That was it for a long time. At first I thought I would find something else but as May turned to June my hopes of a quick buck faded since the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/Gelderland/Gaanderen/blog-436395.html Not far from Dubai lies Oman and in Dubai lives my sister with her family and for this reason I find myself writing about a little camping trip that she took me on. Six Arabian nights we spend under the moon of Oman and in doing so I discovered what beauty is hidden away in the folds of the Hajar Mountains of this country. Now camping with a family is of course different than camping with friend http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Oman/Dakhliya/Nizwa/blog-389312.html It's a question I have been asking myself the last few days and it isn't the first time. And it always arises when I am tired of the travelling weary of the constant moving and drained by the constant stream of new impressions. The only difference is that normally I am able to travel for much longer before getting this feeling. I have only been away for three month and I am ready to go back to Eu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Bhaktapur/blog-385741.html There is a song that twirls through my head every time I see the sun setting in the hazy skies that dominate Nepal at the moment. It's one of Jimi Hendrix songs called Purple Haze and that is just what the sky looks like every evening. As I left Pokhara I was hoping the weather would improve but it was not to be. At first things did look up on my second day in Bandipur I managed to get a glimpse http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-382136.html As told in my last blog I have left India for the last time. But so as not to give my system too much of a shock I ventured to Nepal which is a nice transition country. Here Hinduism meets Buddhism lowland meets highland and Hindi meets Nepali. The first thing I noticed as I crossed the western border at Mahendranagar was how relaxed and peaceful Nepal is compared to India. The change as you c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Pokhara/blog-379580.html As I was looking down upon the rooftops of Bundi I realised that India is a voyeurs wetdream. In India life takes place outside simply because many people can't afford the luxury of privacy. They bathe at the ghats rivers or at a waterpump they do their laundry outside they cook outside they relieve themselves behind a small wall or a bush or just in a gutter and some even sleep outside. A http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Uttarakhand/Rishikesh/blog-376641.html One of my fondest memories of Sri Lanka is having breakfast on the veranda of an old tea planterrsquos bungalow with the immaculately kept garden in front of us and the tea plantations starting at the end of the lawn. I remember the dew on the grass in the morning the warm pancake bread because that is what I used to call it in those days the butter melting on it the smells. When I grew old http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Western-Province/Negombo/blog-372544.html I'm lazy and not in a very creative mood so much so that I couldn't even come up with a fitting title to this blog but I shall endeavor to write a worthwhile entry for those of you who bother to read my stories. Going down the east coast was like going through one big army base. Every 5 miles or so there was another road block and in between the road blocks at intervals of about 500 meters there http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Central-Province/Kandy/blog-369847.html Once a long time ago I was a little boy only three in fact and I found myself in this lovely country called Sri Lanka. My memories of the time have faded and those I have I am not certain of. Are they my own memories or are they memories formed by stories told by my parents or photo's seen in old albumsMy first memory is in fact of a crab in the swimming pool of Galle Face Hotel in Colombo. Th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Eastern-Province/Batticaloa/blog-366840.html No this isn't about some new sort of rain it is about that little Gulf state just off the coast of Saudi Arabia. And for that matter this will be a short blog meant as a teaser for things to come... Of course this could backfire horribly should this turn out to be a terrible short blogSo what do you do when you have got twelve hours to waste don't want to spend a penny and are stuck in Bah http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Bahrain/Manama/blog-362296.html So this blog shouldn't be as depressing as the last one I wrote but happy it won't be No just kidding... I would first of all like to thank yet again all those nice reactions I got on my last blog and the sympathy from everybodyAs always it is good to start from the beginning... The first two weeks was spent on the road in Europe You would think coming home would mean relaxing and doing no http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/Gelderland/Gaanderen/blog-319648.html This is going to be a much more personal blog than I mostly publish even though I have seen and done a bunch of things again they failed to catch my excitement due to something of personal nature which overshadowed everything else... Instead I am going to write about the downside of the wandering lifestyle that I have chosen and especially one part of that downside. When I tell people about my l http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Karnataka/Gokarna/blog-298716.html First of all I would like to thank everybody for their positive reactions on my last blog Of course this puts the pressure on me to produce something similar... Luckily I have never been ambitious so letrsquos just say that for now the last blog was the pinnacle of my blogging career... It will be back to story telling again... Anyway a poem every blog will become boring too So here it com http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/Kochi-/blog-297301.html I'm walking a land named Tamil Naduwith lots of things to see and do.Where people are friendly and people are nicethe farmers till paddy's the merchants sell spiceAs days go by I sigh and I cryit's time for a tale let's give it a tryA tale about mountains and city's and beachesand legends of Kings as history teaches.W'thout further a do I give you this talethis tale that is true 'bout http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/Trivandrum-/blog-293061.html Tamil Nadu what a relaxed state it is I had already heard that down south the people were more easy going then up north but to experience it is something else... Why is it that wherever you are in whichever country it is a golden rule that the further south you travel the more chilled out the people are Must be some natural law or something...So I began my journey in this wonderful state in http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/Thanjavur/blog-289545.html