old swat

October 20, 2010 Montevideo If you see a car parked with a bottle on top, it means the car is for sale. Not only in Montevideo, but throughout South America. Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay, a country of green, lush meadows seemingly stretching to the end of the world, now and again alternating with gently rolling hills where hundreds of animals, with a surprising number of horses, graze peacefully. Montevideo itself is a sprawling city of only about one-and-a-half million people. For a while we’ve been “holed up” in a curious hostel, “art hostel” is the name with only a ground floor and 1st floor, each 1,5 times the height in more conventional buildings. A beautiful wooden, winding staircase gets you to the first floor with 4 or 5 rooms, some double rooms, some ... read more

Arrival in Rio On the 5th of August we arrived in Rio de Janeiro. It was dark, it was raining and we could not find a place to stay. Eventually we pitched our tent in absolutely the most awful campsite I have EVER been in, and the most expensive: about R 270,-- for one night in a place where there was no WiFi, cold showers only and no campers we could see. The place was littered with large structures (tents?) covered with large blue pieces of plastic sheet, giving the place the appearance of a refugee camp. Going all the way back to San Salvador in Bolivia, where we finally got our fridge back (unrepaired), we moved for a couple of weeks from campsite to hostel to camping somewhere in the bush, with few real ... read more

First delivery of what hopefully become a vast part of my blog Buenos Aires, Monday March 1st, 2010 Arrival in BA after a flight that lasted 10 hours and which gave us the wrong local time, landed on a busy airfield with slow but efficient control. Taxi to hotel over wide and not overly busy highway to inner town, almost European like with music and coffee/sandwich bars everywhere. Hotel somewhat different than expected, almost Spartan rooms but good beds, ample ablution facilities, fairly quiet at night. First impressions of the town are very positive, helped by a lovely breakfast after 9AM in café at the corner with friendly, helpful service. At night music and lively patronage until well after 12. Next day sight-seeing on topless bus, metro train-ride (fast and cheap), window shopping etc. Friday ... read more

About Tibet, Buddhism and kind people Arrived in Chengdu on 10th of June. The next couple of days I spent finding my feet in town, walking long distances to the Carre-four shopping centre and looking at all the nice things in bakeries etc. I then booked a tour to the biggest Buddha in the world, which I visited with an American couple. A lot of climbing because a path leads up to the top, and apart from that, the statue or shrine is part of a much larger park where other interesting things are to be seen. But at first you get at the head of the Buddha. Generally, the enormous piece of rock is not much more than that, more rock than finesse and artistic detail, in other words. Also, the statue stands close to ... read more

If you see a purple taxi, you must be in Bangkok. No-where in the world have I seen a variety of colorful taxis like in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. Mostly Toyota’s Corolla, the color varies from bright orange to red, dark pink and dusty pink, dark blue or light blue, green-and-yellow or any combination thereof. There must be thousands of them, like in most big cities we visited, but in Bangkok they color the town in bright, gay colors. And Bangkok is big. Seemingly bigger than Cairo for instance where supposedly 18 to 20 million people live. The traffic is hectic, even if many overhead highways link the various parts of the town directly. We arrived at the outskirts via the highway from the south coast and immediately found it impossible to find a ... read more