kikkoman
Sidhanth Kamath Joined: July 31st 2007
Logged in: April 26th 2010
Logged in: April 26th 2010
At the time of leaving, I am exactly 6-foot tall, weigh 75kgs (11.8 stone), am clean shaven and have short hair. Hopefully when I reach Bangalore at least the first one will remain the same!
I also found two websites which will hopefully help along the way:
http://www.sleepinginairports.net/
http://www.couchsurfing.com/
Obviously I'm relying on computer access to keep this blog updated, but I've decided to keep an ancient, medieval hand-written diary as well, so that I can update the blog when needed. I'm also taking my Canon Digital SLR, so expect some good pictures...atleast till it gets stolen!
Travel Blog Posts
Doesnt this look like a duck?
After a 21 hour 2-night flight, going across half the world I have finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It's a cool place, but not so impressed with my hostel. Booked it on hostelworld but turns out they have rooms to rent for the hour, as well as for a night. Ive taken one for the night of course, but not impressed with this by the hour business. Also the flight was a bit strange. Leaving Buenos Aires, there was some sort of power failure in the plane, and this creepy voice came on saying "This is an emergency, please place the emergency mask over your head." I was thinking alright, except that 1) the masks didnt pop out and 2) we were still on the ground, so I figured I could breath alright anyway. Then ... read more
Ha I was determined to set foot in Africa, and my flight from Buenos Aires to Kuala Lumpur kindly obliged, allowing me to visit the transit areas of not only Cape Town airport, but Johannesburg airport as well! Sorry this is a pointless entry. ... read more
Yep.That close he was.
We spent three days in Puerto Madryn, a seaside town near Peninsula Valdes, Argentina's best marine wildlife viewing area. And we had an absolute blast! We stayed at a little homestay kind of place, with a little old lady running it who was absolutely lovely. It was great until the second day when Hazel broke a lamp in our room, and we spent the next 36 hours chewing our nails and wondering how to explain it to the lady. In the end she was quite a darling about it, and we got away paying for it and not having to sell all our jewellery to meet the payment. We spent a couple of days doing dive courses and open water dives and it was great. One of our dives we had a very friendly and inquisitive ... read more
Gorgeous views while driving at dusk
The bus journey from Mendoza to San Carlos de Bariloche or Bariloche as it is more commonly called was a bit of a nightmare after our bus broke down. So a 16 hour bus ride turned into a 24 hour one, with the bus stopped in the SAME BORING PLACE IN THE ABSOLUTE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE FOR 8 HOURS. It drove us nuts. The steward on the bus was trying desperately to cheer everyone up by playing more bingo (yes bingo is very popular on buses in SA), but the idiot had only brought one dvd with him so we couldnt watch any more movies. Anyway we finally checked into our hostel (Tango Inn) at 10pm instead of 2pm where the receptionist was quite drunk, but a very nice guy. We realised a couple of days ... read more
Wine barrels
I think big cities are really getting to me. And driving me to the drink. :-) So we left Buenos Aires yesterday for the wine growing region of Mendoza. After a 14 hour bus (piss easy for me now, but a bit new for Haze) we reached a cute little town. The first day was spent "wine tasting" which basically meant drinking lots of wine. Lunch was at the main square, and since the first glass of house wine we had was so extremely delicious (and cheap!), we decided to have some more. The waiter by this time had fallen in love with us, so he brought out two massive glasses (not wine glasses) topped up completely for his "amigos". Which was nice and all, but led to a slight staggering effect once we walked out ... read more
One of those stand still like a statue dudes
I arrived in Buenos Aires a few days ago, and its a pretty nice place. Getting out from the airport into the the lovely warm sun, driving on a motorway with greeeeeen on the sides was heavenly after months in the bare Andes, seeing desert and rock everywhere. Its a proper massive city this place with 20 lane roads (widest in the world I think) and sex shops. The spanish they speak here is a bit weird though, different from the parts of South America Ive been in the last few months, so understanding is a bit hard. I havent seen loads of the city yet, primarily because Ive been sleeping most of the time, not sure why. Ive got this theory that my body is now recovering from the excesses of Loki Hostel Lima, so ... read more
The bar
Well Im at the airport now in Lima en route to Buenos Aires and after bitching about Lima for weeks Im now very sad since Ive grown to love it. I was supposed to fly yesterday but my flight was overbooked, so I got to go back to Loki Hostel for the Halloween party (and a few more games of pool) which was brilliant. And Ive got a free return ticket Lima-Buenos Aires, though god knows when Im going to use it......But yeah the overbooking thing was cool, especially since I arrived at the airport pretty drunk after several goodbye shots sloshing around my insides. Today Im sober. Twas a big night last night :-) But yeah otherwise learning Spanish for a few weeks, playing pool, blackjack, watching movies, eating, drinking etc has basically been my ... read more
So. Im in Lima sitting in an internet place with private cabins. Which means they lock you up in a little box with a computer, and a webcam. I hate to think of what people do in here. Anyway Im about to begin my big update of whats been going on, and put up all the pics Ive taken. Im in Lima till the end of October now, learning Spanish for 4 weeks. Im also bartending in evenings, since Im broke and the nice people at Loki Hostel are letting me stay for free if I bartend at their bar. Which is a pretty good deal since I get free dinners, and 40 percent off on alcohol. Also since Im saving money on stay, I get to spend it on alcohol. So you see, it all ... read more
Baywatch shot
Once I got to Guayaquil on the 25th we saw Molly off on her flight back to the UK and then Liam and me spent the night in Guayaquil before heading down the next day to Peru. We decided to go down to a little beach town called Mancora, right near the Ecuadorian border across which we had an eventful but not problematic crossing. There were two irritating immigration checks, then a traffic jam consisting of loads of trucks carrying animal skins and finally two customs/random checks. Apparently you are NOT ALLOWED to carry potatoes or citrus fruits from Ecuador into Peru. Luckily for us Liam and I hid all our ´tatoes in "special places", and fooled the customs guards. Liam also told them he was Italian just to throw them off our scent. The next ... read more
Sunset on the sea...
...is what the Footprint Guidebook to South America says about the Galapagos Islands, and I have to admit it was prettttteee sweet. At certain times the islands didnt meet our lofty expectations. For instance I didnt see 3 hammerhead sharks 5 metres away, while a sealion chewed on my flippers. But maybe I´m being a tad too fussy. I really cant think of any other place on the planet, where I would be happy to live out the rest of my life. With maybe an unlimited supply of beer, cable tv for football and good food. Anyway will add more to this very soon, keep you all in suspense... ... read more
