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.

Riga!

Moor mit Dmitry

There’s a (new?) flixbus line going from Luzern to Florence and Rome. And even though it was a public holiday, ticket prices were really good. The occasion to see a different part of Italy.

I had talked to an Indian guy on couchsurfing who wanted to rent a scooter together and drive around Toscana. When we met, though, he was into a much longer tour – something like 6 hours driving time – and so I ended up going alone: to San Gimignano for icecream with some viewpoint stops on the way.

Florence was crazy full of people. We had homemade pasta for lunch, walked around the city and then bought a bottle of wine and went up to the Michelangelo viewpoint. With some couchsurfers, we had aperitivo and a few beers near the hostel. And we managed to get Bistecca alla Fiorentina just before going back home 🙂

Hiking in Switzerland @ Harder Kulm.

On the way back I flew from Monastir to Lyon, walked around there a bit, found a farmers market and then took the bus to Geneva and from there the train back home.

The actual desination, games in Monastir and tea in Tbolba 😉

Flights via Istanbul were cheap, so I made a stop there and had a beer with Asli

We ( 😀 ) were a bit late with buying bus tickets to go to the coast so all the VIP seats were sold out already, so we booked normal ones. And then VIP ones for the way back, on the most expensive bus, as it was the only one still available.

The bus looked better than expected, but it had neither a toilet nor AC, and definitely not enough legroom. Also, it seems everybody except me found it cold, so I wasn’t allowed to open the window much. The road got worse and worse and it was a really bumpy ride. During this night, I saw 3 trucks that had fallen over and were now lying somewhere on or next to the road! Checking google maps in the morning, we found out that we’d pass by near Watamu, so we asked to get off there already.
Later that day, we learnt that there had been a bus accident somewhere else in Kenya, with more than 30 people dead, and now night travel was banned all over the country. Luckily we had a few days for them to organize everything before we tried to get back 😉

We spent the next days mostly at the beach, day and night, and went to Gede one day, to see the ruins there. On the way, our Tuktuk driver said we should buy bananas to feed the monkeys there! So we did. And we managed to find a monkey that would actually jump on one’s shoulder and stay there while eating its banana 🙂

For the way back, the bus did not depart in the evening of the 3rd, but in the morning of the 4th. And not even on time, but more than an hour late. Great. The VIP seats were much nicer, the bus had working AC (now the only question is, if that’s connected to the price of the ticket, or if it’s just luck if it works or not), and the front of the bus was really much less bumpy, and this time I saw only one accident.

There were lots of warning signs everywhere that it may be dangerous to camp under a tree as branches might fall down. We had still put our tent under a tree for some shade.. and we survived 😉

Then we rented mountain bikes from the camp (seems the last two, as we were told a group of people had just left, half an hour ago) and went to look for a place to have breakfast. We found one, and had tea, chapati and eggs.

Arriving at the Hell’s Gate Entrance by bike, we just skipped the whole line of cars and went to the front. It was possible to pay using Mpesa, after asking we even got a map of the park, and then we were inside. It was a nice even way and we saw zebras and buffaloes on the way to the gorge.

There, we hadn’t wanted to take a guide, but the one guy told us he’s cheaper than anyone else and there is so much we would miss without him.. well… And he was probably really worth his money as I wouldn’t have believed the normal way to include so much climbing around over totally unmarked rocks.

After the hike through the gorge, we sat down for a while and watched the monkeys.

The last part of our bike tour ended up being much harder – going uphill for quite a while. Again and again. Back in town, we bought water, then some cold beer at our camp, and went to the neighbour camp to the swimming pool! It was great and refreshing but it got quite cold really soon and we left for a hot shower and then dinner.

The camp is right at the lake, during the day it’s possible to walk to the water, but at night there’s an electric fence to keep hippos and humans apart. It was fascinating to see them walk around there as soon as it was dark!

On our last morning, we packed our tent and went to the same cafe for breakfast. And just before us, some white woman walked in.. She offered us to share a table, right under the TV, then first turned the TV’s sound off as it annoyed her, and told us how she had been coming there for 6 weeks and the owners still didn’t understand how she wanted her breakfast 🙂

After a short stop in Nairobi, we started our camping trip to Maasai Mara.
Trying to find out how to do a Safari the cheap way had been surprisingly hard to find out, as almost all information is about those standard safari tours which include transport from Nairobi, staying at one of their camps and also the transport back in the end.
The first discovery was, that it’s possible to sleep in an actual tent (a tiny one like you would use to go camping.. without actual beds, chairs, bathroom inside) and at least the cheaper camps let you either pitch your own tent (starting around 7 USD / person / night) or rent out tents and camping equipment (again starting around 7 USD / night).

We ended up in Talek Bush Camp because Mostafa was on Couchsurfing, and because it was one of the cheapest options.
First the plan was for only the two of us, but we managed to find 3 more CS people who wanted to join and so we were 5 people. We met at 6 am in Nairobi where the Matatus to Narok leave from, to make sure we would be in Narok on time to catch the car to Talek.

Getting to Talek by public transport was easy enough – first a Matatu from Nairobi to Narok, and then another one from Narok to Talek along a very bumpy and dusty dirt road. For that second part of the trip, we somehow ended up on a private transport (thus quite expensive!) instead of the official Matatu mentioned in different online posts. The official one seems to depart at/around/a bit after noon and I have no idea how uncomfortable it may be 😉

 Another interesting discovery: prices seem to change depending on demand and as we went at Christmas, it was a lot more expensive than I had read online!

Our camp was just next to Talek “city” and the Talek Gate of Maasai Mara. We spent the first afternoon walking around the city and having beer at a bar. The next day was an all-day game drive in the park! We saw everything I wanted to see and even managed to see the sunset with giraffe silhouettes in the foreground.

For the way back to Narok, the camp organised us a private car (which ended up being cheaper than the shared one we came with), only that guy was late, had no idea of the way, and the car seemed to have no shock absorbers at all, so he drove unbelievably slowly and the way took us an eternity.
There is also a public option, which leaves at 4 or 5 am, but the others didn’t like that ;(

From Narok, we just took the next Matatu to Naivasha where we’re going to spend the next 2 nights. We arrived at Fisherman’s camp when it was already dark, but it was easy enough to mount the tent. And we skipped the tent pegs – we realised that we didn’t have any! I guess the backpacks are heavy enough to keep the tent from flying away.