'Grand Finale' Thailand Thailand, the last destination in our long journey, has finally arrived. We knew the whole time that this will be the place to rest before coming back home and so it was. We started in busy Bangkok which was quite a cultural shock after 'shanty' India but from there it only got better. We started with Railay Beach, a beautiful sand strip near the town of Krabi about which we heard many good things. It is a place loaded with rock climbers occuping its many limestone rock and some scenic sunsets can be seen there. The water were [View Full Entry]

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Little Town of Luang Prabang Luang Prabang, another town with a funny name, lies on the banks of the Mekong river, in the northern part of Laos. We arrived there after a "short" bus ride from Vang Vieng which took 6 hours. It might sound a bit weird to call it short, a time in which one can easily make the Metula-Eilat way, but that's another interesting thing about backpacking - time loses its conventional meaning and becomes "fluid". 4 hours are considered really short, 10 hours are nothing to worry about and even 15 hours night rides are not that [View Full Entry]

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Water Activities in Vang Vieng Vang Vieng, a quite little town in north Laos, was the right place at the right time. It was a return to the tranquile countryside after busy Bangkok and that was exactly what we needed. We found there a Laos that is rapidly growing to be the next north Thailand, but still hasn't reached the same level of tourist masses that have destroyed the latter. Still, we expected to find more authentic place than we did, which Laos is already not. It's still much poorer than its neighbour, Thailand, but the facilities in the main touristic [View Full Entry]

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Back To The Future In Urban Bangkok Landing in a huge modern metropolitan such as Bangkok after spending more than eight months in "real" third world countries was a confusing experience for us. On one hand, it was so much fun entering a brand new supermarket with everything from fruits to microwave ovens and see Lily, with shining eyes and dazed smile, running enthusiastically between its raws. On the other hand, it was a bit shocking return to a hectic city with everyone around running from one side to god knows where. It left us a bit dizzy, literally. Now, those [View Full Entry]

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A Vacation from the Vacation On A Goan Beach Goa is a place of pure fun. Frankly, we didn't plan getting there due to its bad image but as often occurs in such trips, plans quickly change. We soon found ourselves in the Israeli colony of Aramabol, a small village in the north part of the state of Goa. It is Arambol where you find the Rasta-Jaras-Enfield type of Israeli guys. We're talking about 22 year old dudes, fresh out of their military service, who care nothing else aside growing their curly hair, smoke hash from dusk till dawn and ride [View Full Entry]

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Hampi is one of these places you know you'll get to, when you still plan your journey. It came to my attention due to somewhat tragic circumstances - an Israeli traveller drowned in its lake about a year ago. I remeber myself sitting to lunch with Shahar B. Inbar and Tali, my ex-colleagues, as I read about it in the newspaper. I later asked other people about it and was told Hampi is "a quite place with huge stones, cool lake and beautiful sunsets". Enough for me to include it in our plan. So we took the night bus from Goa [View Full Entry]

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Backwaters of Kerala When few months ago Lily's dad told us he's about to arrive Bombay for a convention on November, it seemed as a faraway dream that we would travel together, but it all came true when Lily's mom decided to join the celebration as well. We met them in Bombay and took a flight together to Kerala, a southern state in the Indian Peninsula (Ha'Shpitz Shel Hodu) and home of the famous Backwaters, a tropical heaven. We first headed Munar, a pleasant hill station built by the poor white Brits burning in the heat of the planes. At 1500m [View Full Entry]

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Everest Base Camp Trek After coming back from the tedious Around Annapurna trek, we had serious doubts whether another long trek as the Everest Base Camp would fit in. It took us some time to decide, back in Kathmandu, time we spent eating like hogs, filling our empty stomaches. Lily, having read many crazy books about mountain climbers and their fatalities on the Everest, was keen to go, but we both wondered wouldn't it be better to just relax on a sunny beach instead. Goa and Andaman Islands both sounded like tempting options... Eventually, we decided not to give up to [View Full Entry]

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Around Annapurna Trek We began this 14-day trek in Pokhara, a small town residing Lake Fewa. After spending several days resting and enjoying the amazing chicken liver at Lima's (she really managed to target the Israeli taste) and hiring a nice porter-guide, we took the early morning bus to Besisahar, the starting point. It took us 6 days to reach Manang at 3500m, long days of 4 to 8 hours walks. The trail starts at a relatively low altitude so the first days were quite easy, but as we approached Manang things became more difficult and views became more Alpine-like. Rivers [View Full Entry]

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In-Between Treks in Kathmandu & Pokhara cut the bulshit, ktm is nothing about siteseeing. it's all about food, fun and atmosphere.. ye ye u can go see the stone bird cos of galit atari and even the temple of monkeys, which we did and almost got bitten by them but... The Title is taken from Cat Stevens song "Kathmandu", a sentimental song we hummed every time we returned to the capital. In the 70's Stevens, then a Christian, was a member of the Hippi movement which settled in Kathmandu, mainly in the legendary 'Freak Street' zone. They later moved on to [View Full Entry]

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