fritzi

A short trip north, staying at Claudine’s flat 🙂

In Amman it was cold at night – and in the morning – so I got in the car with tshirt, pullover and jacket. Down at the Dead Sea, though, it was really warm enough for swimming!

It’s possible to go to a big resort to get access to the Dead Sea. But it is also possible to just go wherever on the coast by yourself. So that is what we did. In one place, there are hot springs making it possible to wash the salty stuff off after swimming. People say you need shoes to go into the sea as the salt crystals hurt and will cut your skin. So on the way we bought the cheapest flip flops available. Not the fancy swimming shoes ones that just stay on your foot with no effort 😉 That may have been a mistake. Getting into the water, walking slowly, looking at steps in the salt, balancing out the little waves, trying to keep the flip flop sole right under the foot was.. rather hard 😉

We covered ourselves in mud, of course, and the hot spring was actually there, too! And there were not even any local people who could have protested about my not-very-covering clothes while there 🙂 Perfect!

From Amman there’s a public bus that arrives at Petra around noon. So I went in the first day till evening..

I wrote with a CS guy who was that day giving a tour there, and I joined him and his people. I was only told not to mention how I ended up with them 🙂
Later, I had tea with another couchsurfer, and then an early dinner in one of the typical tourist restaurants.

I got up before sunrise the next morning, trying to be there when the site opens and to have a bit less people around. It worked. The hike up the hill to the monastery was quite lonely and up there it was empty too.

Later, the cruise ships arrived and the main way in/out got a little crowded 🙂

Online, I had booked a ‘family room consisting of TWO rooms’ and this was confirmed 😉 Unfortunately this kind of room didnt exist in the hotel, or in the other building across the road, or in the other hotel belonging to it. And the rooms that did exist were also not too nice. So we moved.

I booked a bed in a hostel just next to the Sultanahmet tram station. It was rather hard to find (the entry is next to a sweets shop without any sign), reception was on the 5th floor, up a steep staircase without elevator, they didn’t speak much english, but I got a bed 😉 Breakfast is included and can be eaten on the roof top terrace. Perfect!

We finally managed to do a day trip to the Princes’ Islands, walked around a bit, then the others wanted to go back to the city for more shopping, while I stayed a bit longer.

The reason for the whole trip was Asli’s wedding 🙂
On the main night, we had to get to near her place. My hostel had no water at the time, so I went to my friends’ hotel room to get ready 🙂 We then took the tram out of the city, and then had to change and take the bus. Unfortunately that was still during rush hour, so we had to wait and let a few full buses pass.
I had the name of the place where the event was meant to happen and google showed me a location. But it was wrong. We asked people for it. And there seemed to be two places with almost the same name on opposite sides of the big street haha. Eventually we found it. We were not even an hour late – so perfect timing as the party also hadn’t started yet 🙂

Crema di Caffe in Milan, Pizza in Rome, Fish and Onions in Catania and Chilis in Palermo. A big picknick on the train, and falling ladders, missed trains replaced by minibuses, hours of delays.

In Dubai I went to the same supermarket parking as last time to meet Deeqa and we then went for Lebanese dinner and Shisha. This time with Yahya, his Cousin from the US and Deeqa’s sister.

Back in Mumbai, I took a tuktuk to Chirag’s and Namrata’s place. I got breakfast, then he went to work and I went to the market with her. For dinner, friends came and we had snacks, beer and butter chicken 🙂

The next morning I had to get up at around 5, dress in sporty-looking clothes and we went for an early morning walk in the national park. We made it to the entrance of the caves, but obviously the ticket office was closed (it opens at 9) and Chirag didn’t want to be caught smuggling me inside 🙂 Another Indian guy just walked in….

For my last few minutes of India, I decided to take a tuktuk to the airport and not a boring car 🙂

The Emirates check-in woman thought she needed to make a problem out of my 10 kg handluggage as only 7 were allowed. Though my check-in bag was about 12 – and not 30 as allowed. So I told her, the bottle may not count as it would be empty.. still not enough, so I started removing stuff that I could put on 🙂 
She wasn’t happy with me carrying it over my arm, so I actually started to dress. I was sure enough I would win that game.. but then some colleague of hers told her to just let me go 😀

The tuktuk driver who took me to Gokarna Road train station asked me something about phone.. I told him no.. Then if we could take a selfie.. I told him no.. When we arrived, he asked me for my phone number.. and I told him no..

Then I sat down on a bench and an old man with a nice colourful bag sat down next to me. He offered me banana chips and started talking about chakras and that he has so many reviews by people and now he wants to select the best two german ones for his brochure. He had a pass to use any class on the train for free, and so decided to sit just across from me on the train. Luckily there were also some Indian people whom he told all about his work. They seemed about as interested as I..
When they started eating they offered him – and me! – some food too! Yea! That’s what I expected from Indian trains haha

In Goa I ended up in my own apartment about 30 minutes walking both from Colva and Sernabatim beach. So I went to each for a day. In the evening I did some very touristy shopping, and we went for food and drinks to some restaurants along the beach. It seems that everyone there, except me, was Russian 🙂

The last day, I had to get to the bus station and was told to just take a tuktuk from the crossing. But there were no tuktuks.. So I started walking and kept looking. Until a white car stopped. It had a second row of seats in the back. And there were 4 guys in there. The driver asked me where I need to go and then made the guy who sat in the front go in the back. He suggested the price is 100… I told him 50.. and he said nothing against it 🙂

I bought Fenni and then found the right bus. It’s really nice, the sleeper thing is cool! Only problem are the bumpy roads and the crazy driving and honking all the time, so I didn’t really sleep much..

The night on the state bus was better than expected. I had been told to book one of the 5 sideways-facing seats and that’s what I did. However, those 5 seats were the second bus driver’s bed and thus I got one in the first row.
Getting on the bus was quite funny as people were fighting to get in first and doing their standard reservation technique of throwing a tiny little towel inside on any seat to reserve it 😀

 I let them all in – and when it was my turn, I showed my online reservation on the phone and was lead to the front of the bus 😉

 I think that made someone lose their place. Well, bad luck for them. I unpacked my sleeping bag, earphones and sleeping mask, and was ready to sleep!
In the beginning the bus was full, but it got empty quite fast, probably within 2 hours or so I had two seats to myself.

Gokarna was beautiful! It was easy enough to find the hostel, and then I spent the day – and evening down at Kudle beach.

Om beach, at least on January 1st, was extremely “indian”. And those cows were rather scary 😉

I ended up on the other side of the river at a camping site with lots of food and drinks 🙂

 It was a bit of a walk to the little boat working as ferry, but the place was very relaxing. Only the sea was missing!

I saw quite a lot of older and newer temples and ruins.. interestingly all without paying, as the ticket counter was closed. Of course, there were some selfies, too, but in general it didn’t feel too crowded. Different from the caves in Badami, there were always some peaceful corners to just sit down all alone and have a break.

And I heard renting a motorbike is THE thing to do north of the river. For only one day, I paid an unbelievable 4 EUR, much too much, though I was told that’s already the cheaper price because it’s a bike with gears 🙂

 Everyone I saw in the street seemed to know it has gears, and they were all very impressed. Obviously, it came without helmet. Nobody wears a helmet.. And nobody wanted to see any driving license or credit card. I gave them the money, I got the motorbike and that was it.
Considering it was India, and quite in the countryside, the streets were quite empty and nobody cared about traffic rules. So even driving on the left was easy enough. And if I ever forgot and drove on the right, it also wouldn’t be a problem. The speed bumps were more annoying 🙂

My train arrived about 30 minutes late only. I guess that’s good.
And then I realized that tuktuks in Badami are different from those in Mumbai, they have no counter. So I don’t even know how badly the guy cheated me, taking me to the hotel. He insisted to stay there and wait while I checked in, and wrote down his number should I want someone to drive me around the different temple sites. I nicely saved his number to make him leave…

Reception had a book with a few bus times to Aihole. Obviously nobody cared about or knew return times.

I originally wanted to see Aihole and Pattadakal today but was told it’s too late. So I saw Badami the first day and took the 7:15 am bus to Aihole the next day.

I ate my sandwiches, made by Aditya’s mum 🙂

 and then walked first towards the museum and climbed up there. It was very quiet but I already heard the kids screaming from the caves on the other side. Oh well.. 😉

On the way to the caves, I ended up with a cow herd in front of me. In that little alley. I tried to just walk past them but obviously they didn’t like that and tried to attack 😛

 Trying to overtake them by taking another way also didn’t work, either the way was too long or I was too slow. So I had to very slowly walk behind them. Far enough away not to annoy them.

At the caves, it was selfie-time again. One group of kids, surrounding me, mentioned Bijapur. Obviously they had seen me there the day before. And this morning they had already been to Aihole and Pattadakal and would, this evening, continue to Hampi. I guess I could just have gone with them.

Taking the bus was easy enough.. and some girls told me the right stop to get off 🙂

 For the first 15 minutes I was alone there, then the first school class arrived..

of course they wanted to take photos.. so we did.. I asked where they’ll go next: Pattadakal! And because I didn’t know when the next public bus would go, I asked them if I could go with them 🙂

 They laughed and said bye.. The teacher did the funny head shake, telling me I could go with them.. so I did 🙂

It was a very loud 10 km bus ride.. I think I prefer to take a slower, but quiet, public bus to Hampi.

After all the temples, I asked at what time the next bus to badami would stop here and was told 12:30. So I nicely waited from about 12:20 on.. for the bus that only came at 1:00 – according to plan. At least I didn’t miss it.
One woman sold me chapati while I was waiting.. and another one buttermilk.
All those reports on the internet saying there’s no food available at Aihole/Pattadakal are definitely wrong!

In my train compartment, there were only 2 instead of 4 berths: the other side was a wall. And the guy who had booked the upper one was visibly disappointed by that, so I suggested we could switch, making both him and me happy 😉

When I arrived, Aditya picked me up with his scooter, we left my luggage at home and then went to have breakfast – my first Dosa!

Then I was busy sightseeing and especially taking lots of selfies with, and of, random people.

I spent too much time in this one spot so with time everybody there wanted a photo with me. They were all standing there, around me, staring, so I asked to also take a photo of them 😉

After chicken for dinner at some truckers’ restaurant, the next morning I took the train to Badami. When we got there, the earlier train was still standing there. It should have left about an hour ago and would now let my train overtake as it’s a faster, and more expensive one. It was maybe 60 cent for about 2h 30.

And of course there were working power outlets 🙂

After a night in Milano with unexpectedly thick but surprisingly good pizza, check-in at the airport (it’s only possible to select normal ‘free’ seats up to 24h before departure), and a 1h late departure, I still arrived in Mumbai at about 3am and decided to stay there and try to sleep for another 2 hours.

Then I went to Chirag’s and Namrata’s place, we had breakfast with their Ukrainian Couchsurfers and later went to the Global Vipassana Pagoda and then to Manori beach. We insisted on swimming even though it was low tide, and we were the only people in the water. Though that might not have been different at high tide 😉

On the way back home we passed through a little food market and tried lots of different fruit.

The next day, instead of going to the touristy part of Mumbai, I found someone who was up to walk around Dharavi with me. I survived the Samosa there, saw Shahrukh Khans house and then got to see a not-so-typical Bollywood movie.

The last day in Mumbai was more touristy..

And then I took my first Indian night train towards Bijapur.

Flights were cheap, I still had some days left, so I booked my ticket to New York.
The about 5 people I asked if I could stay on their couch were traveling themselves, had no time or wanted me to work for them.. But then Raksha offered me to stay with her.
Home ended up being quite central, so I walked to Times Square the first day.

I wanted to try to get to the lighting of the christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, but all the roads were closed (yes, for pedestrians) so even though I would only have had to turn right, it seemed unreachable and I then had to go back home for Raclette!

After some more walking around Manhattan, shopping, seeing the Highline park and Chelsea Market, I moved to Staten Island on Friday after american chinese lunch. We went to see the big NYC Winter Latern Festival and then back to the house of some friends, for some beer and later Mexican food. Frankie’s brother then took us home.

And Saturday was the highlight of the trip: THE big Christmas Pub Crawl 🙂

 It started at 12 with brunch in Brooklyn, where I also got a fancy christmas light necklace and a santa claus hat. There was a list of 12 bars and 30 minutes time at each to get and finish a drink. In addition to that, each bar had a special rule like only using one’s left hand to drink, no talking at all, taking a selfie with a stranger or only singing instead of talking.