Mel I arrived in India, and was only delayed a couple of minutes by the masked and white coated doctorlike people at Abu Dhabi and Mumbai airports. They put on a big show of preventing swine flu entering their countries, but if there were any cases of it, I think they would have easly got in. One masked guy in Abu Dhabi gave me a form to fill about swine flu. Even though I told him I am not staying in Abu Dhabi he said I have to fill it in anyway. I proceeded on my way to find a leaning [View Full Entry]

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1. It is not a place for foreigners.2. The inhabitants are not nice.3. The inhabitants are stupid. This is what is wrong with Kurukshetra according to every Indian we mentioned it to, since Ralf recommended it as an off the beaten but not too off the beaten track destination. I trust the advice of His well travelled Dudeness, so two days after Christmas we left the backpacker hovel Hotel Navrang in the backpackers ghetto of Paharganj, Delhi. I held tightly onto my little girl as my boyfriend tried to clear a path for us thro [View Full Entry]

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Mel The queues at the airport in Moscow were incredible. First a half hour in the passport queue even though I wasnt leaving the airport. Then I joined the 100M queue to get to the gates. It did not take so long to get to the top of it because some men decided that the ladies are to be first and cleared a path for me and a girl with long blonde hair. Then a bunch of guys came alone and tried to go through the gates before the ladies. The men in the queues asked them why they are not [View Full Entry]

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India Christmas 2008 [View Full Entry]

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Emails exchanged between Mel and Dirk Jan in June 2007 Mel We got a lovely hut in the middle of the jungle for just 150 bahts per night. The huts are only 3 months old and we are the only customers. I did not need to bring the blanket because they gave me and lyds a towel and blanket each. Everytime we order some food in the cafe, the guy there phones one of the family members, who goes to the market to buy it and then comes to the cafe, and cooks it. There are a couple of tropical pools [View Full Entry]

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Sunday morning 13 October 2007 RE: The Hamburg Ballroom Hello Dirk Jan There were lots of druids at the heavy metal club last night who handed in the blankets and pieces of animal fur to the cloakroom and asked the bartender to refil their drink horns (which looked suspiciously shiny enough to be made from plastic). I think my photo is going to be on the internet again. Thankfully there is no stripper in it this time, just a guy who wanted to know if we can have fun tonight because you are not there and his girlfriend is out of [View Full Entry]

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Emailing between Estonia and Germany. April 2007. Mel: I am in the Old Town inside the town walls. It is georgous. Lots of shops and bars but you have to look carefully for them because the signs are subtle and don't ruin the scenery at all. I did not have to carry my own bag into the city because the airline lost it. There were stacks of bags around the baggage collection area which they lost yesterday and the staff were walking around with yellow slips the owners filled in with descriptions of the bags. They did not look like they [View Full Entry]

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15th September 2000 Hello Günther, You asked in your last letter what the area I live in is like. Along the river at night both sides are safe(as long as you stay AT the river and don't wander down any side steets you don't know are safe), between Ushers Quay and certainly as far as the end of Georges Quay. I have never been beyond Georges Quay at night so I am not sure. Past Ushers Quay at night is where many truckers park so there are sometimes prostitutes and others who make the area a little rough. I would feel [View Full Entry]

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18th November 07 Dear Mom and Dad I decided to go see someplace which is not one of the main tourist stops. Piazza del Campidoglio. It was designed by Michael Angelo in 1550 for the pope of the time. I was at a loss about how to get there with all the Windy streets, so I went to the Colosseum, where I was pursued by a Roman guard wearing a helmet and dress trying to sell me a plastic sword. Are the football riots so dangerous that I need a sword(there are football riots in Rome at the moment)? Anyway, I [View Full Entry]

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21st October 2007 Well here I am in the Axis of Evil. Arriving here did not even feel half as scary as when I arrive in most third world countries. Probably because people are so laid back. Around a third of the staff at the airport were asleep at their desks. Even the Internet lady at this place was asleep when I got here. And also there was not a single tout or anybody else to bother me when I arrived and people were welcoming me to Iran before I even left Istanbul. I was pleased when I arrived to see [View Full Entry]

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