I hadn't organized anything for my stay in Mongolia (as usual...) but ended up in a great 16-day trip accross the country which we organized through the hostel. The diversity of scenery in Mongolia is stunning, one can drive through an endless steppe, walk on Sahara-style sand dunes, slide through an ice covered valley, fish in a river and climb rocks that look like the Grand Canyon...all of it within less than two days! Absolutely crazy! I had wished that Mongolian cuisine could be as diverse but it was (chewy) mutton for lunch and dinner for 16 days - maybe the [View Full Entry]

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After almost two months in the Middle East and Uzbekistan where I had the opportunity to visit numerous mosques and medressas, I arrived in Russia, the first non-muslim destination of my trip, where I stayed approximately 3 weeks, visiting St Petersburg, Moscow and then, after 77 hours in the train crossing most of Siberia and several bottles of vodka later, Irkutsk and Lake Baikal. St Petersburg St Petersburg's long sunny days (I was very lucky with its 20 degrees during my whole stay!), architecture, museums and one of the highest concentration of absolutely stunning women walking down Nevsky Prospekt (mostly also [View Full Entry]

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I am now in Tashkent, Uzbekistan waiting for my flight to St Petersburg and have some “free” time (I know this could sound horrible to some) and finally found, after a long while, a viable internet connection. Oman Having traveled for a month in the Middle East, I arrived in Oman and was immediately struck by two things: (i) Oman is very clean (the country has won the prize of “Cleanest Country in the Middle East” ever since such a competition was first organized a couple of years ago) and (ii) there is almost no hassling/bargaining which was a (very) welcomed [View Full Entry]

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I knew that Uzbekistan would be quite a different experience when I saw that the ticket office of Uzbekistan Airways in Dubai was closed three times a week for “Flight Duty” and at the check-in counter where I had to battle with people transporting huge home cinema sets and half a dozen truck tires… I spent a total of 10 days in Uzbekistan, most of it visiting cultural sites along the Silk Road in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Uzbekistan used to be an important commercial platform between the East and the West and also Central Asia’s most important philosophical and religious [View Full Entry]

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I am currently in transit at the airport in Amman on my way to Muscat, Oman. I ended my last note commenting about the kindness of people in Jordan… this has been topped by the people in Syria when measured in terms of liters of tea offered and rapidity of people offering any kind of help (it has to be noted that I exclude all taxi drivers in Syria for the sake of this little exercise!) Arrival in Syria I took a three hour taxi ride from Amman to Damascus after an almost longer price negotiation and managed to awake a [View Full Entry]

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Dear Friends, My stay in Jordan was only a couple of days long but it was interesting and great fun! I visited Petra at length, went to Jesus' baptism site, had a quick "swim" in the Dead Sea and will be heading to Damascus tomorrow morning. The border crossing To travel from Egypt to Jordan there are two main options - either a short trip through Israel or by boat from Nuweiba in Egypt to Jordan's only port, Aqaba. Because I want to travel to other countries in the Middle East, especially Syria, the Israeli stamp on my passport could cause [View Full Entry]

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Dear Friends, it is now two weeks that I have left London and here is my first little report with some pictures of my travels across Egypt...I just finished my PADI diving license in Dahab (next to the Red Sea) and will leave for Jordan tomorrow morning... The departure After some last minute packing (18kg backpack) and cleaning up the mess in my apartment from a little party, I left in a hurry to catch my flight from Heathrow to Cairo...the plane was delayed by three hours. Arriving at 2.30am in an unknown city without any accommodation is not optimal but [View Full Entry]

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Preparations for my world trip are going smoothly. Departure date is fixed for 3 March. First destination will be Egypt. Ludwig [View Full Entry]

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