http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/MatevzH/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from MatevzH en-us Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:41:38 BST Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:41:38 BST It was an early morning... 330am and waking up with strong tea ...and time for... one of the most exciting roads in the world...The LehManali Highway is a highway in India connecting Leh and Manali. It crosses some of the highest mountain passes in the world including and Tanglang La 5325 m Lachulung La 5059 m actually this is a double pass a few km down road you have to go over a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Himachal-Pradesh/Manali/blog-194848.html Finally... its finished... 11 days in a tent 11 days of walking around 100 kilometers on foot the highest point of the trek Gongmaru La 5250m temperature changes from 30C during the sunny days and 3C during the night lots of sun some rain and a few storms... thats a short resume of a trek... Trekking is finished. It was more difficult that i expected. Basically that was because as I wasn't http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Jammu-and-Kashmir/blog-194558.html So the day has come. A day to start trekking. But hey we won't start walking right away. First we have to visit a few monasteries... cool Basically we are now going up river on the road towards Manali. Well... then the driver says we have to go off road... reason he hasn't got an offical tourist licence as a taxi driver so he has to hide. There is actually a control just a few kilometres http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Jammu-and-Kashmir/blog-192115.html On my itinerary today was a short excursion towards the west on the road towards Srinagar along the Indus up to Alchi monastery ...The village of Alchi in lower Ladakh is to be considered one of the most important cultural sites throughout the Himalayas. Consisting of four separate hamlets the village contains numerous historic monuments of different ages and in various states of repair the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Jammu-and-Kashmir/Leh/blog-192092.html What can I say... new morning brilliant sun in Leh...Better mood already and some facts about Ladakh and Leh... Ladakh is a highaltitude plateau north of the Himalaya situated geographically in Tibet. It's a miniature version of Tibet the people are Tibetan in their culture and religion and there are many Tibetan refugees. The Ladakh and Zanskar regions of India although not politically part http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Jammu-and-Kashmir/Leh/blog-190372.html Another morning of early rising... damn... i will slowly get used to it... at 245am My lowcost airline Air Deccan time of departure from Leh was at 520 so... before I get from Karol Bagh to the domestic airport checkin... well it is time consuming... Anyway as international terminal looks like a proper airport this domestic terminal looks like a bus station no offence to readers http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Jammu-and-Kashmir/Leh/blog-190366.html ... to continue where i stopped the last time... I slept just a bit 23 hours and it was time to wake up. Ride to the airport was uneventful though not so short actually airport is some 350km away of course our national airport is only 50km away but hey would be more expensive. What was probably the most exciting thing was choosing my literature for the forthcoming trekking yep thats http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/National-Capital-Territory/New-Delhi/blog-187612.html This time I'm going to Ladakh India... trekking trip for almost two weeks total on trip just a bit more than 3 weeks... Probably this will be my last holliday before summer 2008 so it better be good... and this time next year i will hopefully start on a prolonged trip RTW...So... in a few hours I have to wake up Packing too much longer than expected...2 hours ago i still had a huge mess on http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovenia/blog-187250.html When you land in Havana or anywhere in Cuba expecially if you go there during the summer the humid air strikes you in the face and oppresive heat even in the evening. It takes you a few days to get accostumed and then you are fine. Already at the airport you can see that this is a different country. Cars are older there are plenty old US cars parked and a few Lada taxis. We got a ride wi http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Cuba/Oeste/blog-177072.html So one month has passed. And a maiden trip overseas in almost over. Bought many souvernirs. I bought a wooden elephant Adi bought a huge lion. Last evening we tried lobster in our familiar openmarket restaurant.Coming back to Dar was a bit of shock... after peace of Zanzibar we came to hustle and bustle of Dar. Our bargaing tactics improved and were excellent and soon we got a taxi to airport. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-148722.html In the last Stonetown entry I almost didn't mention anything about the town itself. Stone town is regarded as Zanzibar's capital. The town was named after the coral stone buildings largely built during the 19th century. The town is known for it's narrow alleyways large carved wooden doors and covered balconies. The doors are part of the Swahili culture and were largely influenced by Arab and e http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/Zanzibar-City/blog-148720.html After a few days of doing nothing every paradise gets boring... so we decided to head for a few days to a east cost beaches... but there was one problem... at that time it was impossible to do that trip in one day... so we had to stay another night in Stonetown... again... We hit the market... again i already bought extremly useful sandals there. We wanted some fruit and bananas were the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/Zanzibar-City/blog-148719.html Its time to hit some beaches... The fishing village of Nungwi straddles the Northern tip of Zanzibar and its shade is a welcome relief after the barren stretch of road that leads there. There are a number of local guest houses in the village and on the West side of the cape there is a number of guesthouses and a couple of loud bars. There are fine sandy beaches around the cape and excellent diving http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/Nungwi/blog-148718.html So our third preplanned trip was to see some dolphins. Dolphin tours run from Kizimkazi in the south of the island. We passed Jozani forest but we decided not to stop to see the Columbus monkeys as we saw them near Arusha though those monkeys on Zanzibar are very rare red Columbus monkeys oh well next time.After a long and dusty drive we finally arrived to Kizimkazi. The village seemed http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-148717.html Over the centuries Zanzibarrsquos cloves nutmeg cinnamon pepper and many other spices brought the sultans of Oman across the Indian Ocean by dhow on the seasonal trade winds.For 15 US dollars a fullday Spice Tour was available. It was said that will introduce us to most of Zanzibar's spices and fruits and not only that we'll see a few historical sites old slave market and cave ruined http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/blog-148714.html Prison Island Changuu is the most popular island to visit from Stone Town as it is only a short boat ride about 10 minutes away from town. Actually everybody seems to visit this island... The island was in the 19th century owned by an Arab who used it as the sign says for housing recalcitrant slaves. Basically unruly slaves were to the island for discipline. Later it was owned by a Briti http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/Zanzibar-City/blog-148711.html Let's go to Zanzibar... All I ever knew before is that is an island faaaaar away with sexy name... Oh and beside that Freddie Mercury Queen was born there...So the our boat was already waiting for us... At first I was thinking to go with a dhow but as this is supposedly illegal and as it takes too long just a few weeks before i saw Michael Palin travelling from Dubai to Mumbai on a dhow http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/Zanzibar/Zanzibar-City/blog-147135.html Last night it was raining so Arusha transformed into Finland a land of thousand lakes well all the potholes were full of water. It was an early start as this time we decided not to make again a mistake of starting late so departure was around 630 This time we got an extra baggage... a guy presumably one of the owners of the safari agency that we went with is also going with us to Za http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-146167.html Ngorongoro crater NPFinally we came to Simba Camp on the crater rim. Ngorongoro is a huge crater 20km in diameter... From rim you have great views on the crater and mountains beyond. We were quite high as I believe altitude was around 2700m above sea level. Besides we had the best hotel a thousand stars one... 61514 I thought on the rim will be quieter than in Serengeti... how I was wrong.. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/North/Tarangire-National-Park/blog-145422.html Lets go to safari. The car came for us in time. Driver was only like 10 minutes late and that was excellent in african time... Jeep was quite big made for 4 tourists including the driver cook and a guide... Well... there were 6 of us so we had to squeeze a bit. Other 4 tourists consisted a couple from UK he did some voluntary work for a few months in a village near Moshi and two girls from http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/North/Serengeti-National-Park/blog-145334.html