a few more pics

since i now have flos as well

on my way

in the morning

direction kyajin gumpa

fog, later rain

the road to gatlang

you have to pass these 3 fighters if you wanna go to gatlang!

unfortunately it was sometimes cloudy

our guesthouse in tatopani

morning view from tatopani

II.

inside our guesthouse in tatopani

on the way to thuman

funny child

stupas on our way

by the way a thing i forgot yesterday: sometimes its so cheap here, yesterday we bought 2 english newspapers, and it was 8 rupees, which is 8 euro cents. unbelivible, and you can eat great food from up to one euro...

in die berg bin i gern...

...jo do gfreit si mei gmiat!

yesterday we came back to kathmandu after 10 days in the mountains and it was amazing!!

the first thing to do on this trip was to get a bus to siabru besi, the start of our tour. since a big festival just started when we wanted to leave (and everybody goes home for this festival) the buses were crowded and we could not get a ticket for that bus. so we went to trishuli, which is half way, and hoped to be able to catch the other bus there!
the first part to trishuli we sat on the roof of the bus. thats a bit scary, and you have to watch out for branches of the trees! but in  case something happens you can jump off the bus!!

on top of the bus

after some time i was looking around too long and a branch hit me in the face... then i looked more like the nepalis, since many of them have also one of these dots in red on their forehead!

 with my dot!

in trishuli we were able to get into the other bus, the roof was full so we went inside. it was so full, unbelivible. we did of course not have a seat and so we stood there for hours,and you really could not move, like really NOT! and the bus always stopped and more people got on the bus, and luggage, and chicken, and goats...! we counted 28 seats, but there were about 40 people inside and another 30 on the roof (guessing of a local, on the in his words "very dangerous road"). the road got worse and worse and it became the worst road i saw in my life! in very steep mountains it was not a good feeling to be in this old bus, and with such a bad road... sometimes the road was very fresh because landslide took away the old one...and always rocks and deep holes (schlagloecher, unglaublich tief!) on the road.

thats a bus in the middle...but thats not the road

we safely arrived in siabru besi after about 12 hours on and in the bus...and we made 117 kilometers!! but we were constantly driving - the road was really bad!

next day we went into langtang valley, and we slept the first night in rimche. its very beautiful, you can look up the valley as well as down.

 down the valley...mountains look exactly like we learned to draw them in school!!

...the shower...

 like the day before we went up another 1.000 m. and stayed the 2nd night just before langtang. we preferred to stay not at the places that are recommended in lonely planet and so on but rather at less touristic places - and that to recommend! where we stayed the 2nd night there were no guests for days because everybody goes to langtang because of lonely planet or because they have guides and they get a commission from the hotels when they bring tourists. the place was nice, but very easy going. no electricity in the room, a hot bowl with water as shower...but great food and nice people.

our second guesthouse "ever view point"

two of their children

a few impressions on the way to kyajin gumpa

in langtang

transportation in the mountains

nepal vs. germany in: "around the waterfall"

tea break

snow on the horizon, not clouds...!

cows and yaks live there. and the cow reminded me on a cow we saw 4 nights before...

...in kathmandu. remember: cows are holy here...holy sh...

down there is kyanjin gumpa (3.870 m.)

 its a difference of about 2.400 meters to siabru besi, where we started 3 days before. we both had a little bit of headdache, but it was ok. some people could not stay up there and had to go down immediately.

on the 2nd day we planned to walk up tserko ri, 4.984 meters high. the last 3 numbers are great (a good year ends with these numbers!!), but its a pity its not 5.000. some nepalis actually said its higher than 5.000, and  the maps here are not really good...but i will not do it like an other austrian earlier this year and pretend to have done something "amazing" (was it K2?) on the mountains, so i will not say i was up at 5.000 - even if i did my best!

as close to 5.000 as possible!!

looking direction tibet

quite cold up there...and the air is thin, its true!! the last few hundred meters were more and more exhausting.

 its was great up there, fortunately the clouds disappeared a bit and the view was amazing. its just one  of these things which can on a picture never look only a little bit close to reality.
we stayed one more night in kyajin gumpa in our guesthouse (on the one sid "evening iew", on the other side "evining viwe", both written with big letters on the wall of the house!), and then went down  to do another trek, the "tamang heritage trek", just on the other side of siabru besi and with hardly any tourists!!

on this trek we were really an attraction, and it seems that children know better what to do. the grown ups often just looked at us (but ALL are very friendly) ahile the children greeted us mostely with "hello chocolate" in the hope of something sweet. we bought many candies and gave them "as chocolate"...which will not make them speak better english if they now think THIS is chocolate! here it was difficult to speak to the people, they hardly know english. once we ordered "veg. fried rice", it took ages and then we got it. but we only got vegetables, they forgot the rice!! but on the bill it was again!!! mostely we have to rite the bill ourselves, write down what we had and then calculate and pay. another time we wanted to order some food, but the lady told us the cook is in kathmandu and she has no idea what food this should be. in our last guesthouse flo gave like an english lesson to the owner who really can not speak english. e.g. flo asked if he can buy chocolate, it was not possible, but then he gave chocolate to us as a present for english lesson. from his shop... it was nice, he was so happy to learn a bit and wanted to give back something!
it was all great, see a few pictures...

a funny menu

 

view back to gatlang

somewhere on the way

"old man of village" and me - gegenseitig fasziniert!!

child in the first restaurant without toilet "...into the fields"

view from thuman

left valley is langtang, our first trekking area. second was just behind the mountain on the right side

we went back with the bus yesterday, the road was really scary again, it took again almost 12 hours for 117 km! once we had to change the tire, and see our reserve tire...

the reserve tire!

inside our bus yesterday back to kathmandu

 and our roof looked like this - also when we sat up there

so thats it for now, we go to have lunch now...finally different food to the good, but always same food in the mountains!

it was really great, but thats a thing you have to experience...neither words nor pictures can really describe it!!

so visit nepal!!

off to the mounatins...

...were now in an internetcafe, it closes in 20 minutes. we had today a shopping day like i hate it, but it was a successfull day: we bought all things we need (sleepingbags, shoes for flo, ponchos, TIMS (a registration foreigners have to make before leaving to mountains)), now everything is ready and we leave tomorrow morning - if we finde place in the bus!! theres  a festival now in nepal, everybody goes to visit their family, so its gonna be busy!

we will go north of kathmandu, to langtang, then back, maybe into the villages around and then a seven day trak back to kathmandu. we dont know how long its gonna take, but dont worry if you dont hear for a long time... we heared its so beatiful up there...so maybe we gonna stay longer!

in our route is no 5000 mountain, the passes are just below. the closest one woule be ganja la, but we were said not to go there because people dies there before...and thats definately not what were gonna do!!

so, looking forward so much to that... bis in einigen tagen

namaste nepal!!

view from the plain...its mountains on the horizon, not clouds!!

 

 

 

i left istanbul, and in the plain met ben from beligum who has been in nepal a few times before!  in shariJAH, next to dubai we spent the night at the airport, flo came there as well (he was in dubai for 2 days). when we startet to play backgammon suddenly many nepalese people came, set next to us, wanted to learn the game or just watch us play! it was for us a funny experience, because people back at home would not do that - maybe too shy! and this situation, so many people so close, so interested, mad me shy!!
in the plain i set next to ben, and he said that we will fly in the same hight as the mountains in nepal and we will see them - if there are no clouds. i woke up from the sound  "fasten your seatbelt" because we would start to go down. as i looked out of the window i was disappointed because all i could see were a few clouds - untill ben told me its the snow covered mountains on the horizon...it was really incredible!!!
when we arrived we had to apply for the visa. flo and i chose the 90 day visa - just in case! the other one would have been only 30 days! we had to pay 100 dollars, on the bill it was written 100 US dollar and then in words "one hundred us dollar only". quite sweet that "100 dollar" written means "100 dollar only"...!
when we arrived we wanted to get our bags, but mine as well as bens didnt arrive. we went to the place to tell them our bags didnt arrive. all people who came from istanbul with the plane to sharijah and then kathmandu were there as well plus at least 25 nepalis!! unbelivible, so many didnt get their luggage! but today we got it, so its fine! also funny how easy we could enter the airport...and we left it without our bags were checked. it was the same in sharijah, all nepalis and other nations had to cue (kein plan ob man das so schreibt, anstellen!) for ages, but we and a hand full of "westeners" could enter through the staff controll... so we got special treatment, also a bit strange!

dal bath, typical dish with rice and vedgetables and our first nepalese food

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

street in kathmandu

kathmandu is full of small cars, motorbikes, rikshas, bikes and people. its verry noisy since they use the horn all the time to warn the person in front. but we are already more ore less used to that. the streets are sometimes good, sometimes in quite a bad state, so we decidet even for walking its better with shoes than flip flops because some dangerous wholes are everywhere. and its really dusty, but monsun season will finish only in 1 week...i really wander how it is when its not raining for months...
by the way a typical conversation on a market in these days is like " where are you from?" "Austria" "ah...austlalia, melbourne?" "yes" (so many people dont know our country and i forgot to buy the "no cangeroos in austria" t-shirt at home!, so sometimes im australian now if they dont understand)... "you want to buy this" "no thank you" "but its beautiful, its cheap" " thanks, i dont need" "but i make a good price my friend" "but i dont need it" "but its really cheap, good quality..."

wholly man baba

today we did some sightseeing, durbar square and so on. its many temples and shrines, buddhistic and hinduistic ones. its really beautiful. many people, especially women, are dressed very colourfull in the city, and at durbar square we also saw some sadhu monks like our friend on the picture, the wholly man baba. we started to talk, interesting things like "where are you from" and so on, then he asked if we wanted to take a picture. we asked how much it would be (already knowing you have to pay because they dont own anything but still need to eat, even though wholly!). he said we can give as much as we want (true, he didnt say as little...!). so we gave him 100 rupees each (100 rupees = 1 euro) but he said he wanted more. we told him that he said "as we like" and were not willing to pay more...we could not really understand what he said afterwards, hope you guys are all fine at home?! nobody verflucht?? funny detail: i was wearing a cap, for this picture i took it off and laid it behind me... when we went away it had some things on it - so i just thought "wholly shit...!!"

güle güle (to my voice)

güle güle is the way to say good bye in turkish... it is what the person who stays ın the place has to say. and since i stay but my voice left me it is correct...at least i hope!! today my throat is bad and the voice gone. but maybe thats better because then i cant talk to so many people and explain them why i dont need to weight myself on the street, why i dont want to eat at their place or why i dont need their parfume, spices, clothes or whatever. feel a bit sorry for the people who try to sell things on the street to me because they dont know that i would not even take them if they were for free... the less i have the less i have to carry! and i realızed i packed quıte good since i had to go to a laundry shop after 4 days already to wash my clothes...!

the fenabahce match was good, but for me it was a bit scary... you know how footballfans can be. they were 'singing' and everybody had to join. they stood there and really forced you to do what they do... and i as a blonde person felt a bit lost! but it was good! beer is vorbidden in the stadium, but you get döner, ayran (a joghurt drink) and sunflower seeds! it took flo and me one halftime to finish a pack of these seeds wıth 40 gramm! man nimmt sie mıt der schale in den mund beisst sie auf und spuck dann im idealfalll nur die schale wieder aus und hat den kern im mund... i guess you get better over the time with more practice!

some things are funny like that people sit on the street with a weighing machine (soll waage bedeuten!) and you can see wheater you should eat another dürüm or better not. (thats my ınterpretation, but ıts really for people to see how much they weıght...dont know about you, but i never before had the feeling that when i walk on the street i need to know my exact weıght) other people sell tissues...actually everybody is selling something...its quite a busy city! and its good to leave it again tomorrow! flo is already in dubai, i arrive there tomorrow night at 9 and on wednesday we leave at 7 in the morning to kathmandu!!! hope i wıll be fit again cause thats gonna be more cold!

here in this internetcafe i cant upload pictures, im sorry... because i know thats probably the most interresting!

i will no go for a dürüm and one ayran for together 1 euro... and will write from nepal again... where the journey REALLY starts!!

by the way, döner and dürüm taste different then at home...but i guess its more like it sould taste what you get here! and: i met 2 turkish gırls here who are from salzburg, from lehen!!

so its time to say hoşçacal (good bye whe you leave!!) to istanbul soon

fenabahce...auf gehts

jetzt klappts doch mit den fotos!!

typischer ausblick in istanbul

flo und ich vor der blauen moschee

spice market



kurz einem türken das auto hochgehalten!

 es ist leider etwas kälter als gedacht, und ich bin ein bischen krank... wie befürchtet nach den stressigen letzten wochen. aber es is ned so tragisch!! weil ich halsweh habe hab ich mir heute einen schal gekauft, in schwarz gelb, passend zu den vereinsfarben von fenabahce istanbul! heute gehn wir dort ins stadion,  ein ligaspiel. da werden wohl lauter leute mit schwarzen haaren sein, und ich sicher ned auffallen!! aber das ist alles nur training für die nächsten stationen, wo wir (vor allem aber ich) noch mehr exoten sein werden. aber auch hier werden wir teils relativ komisch angeschaut...naja, what ever

teils ist istanbul so wie erwartet, an jeder ecke ein döner / dürüm stand...teils aber auch ganz anders, z.b. sind nur ganz wenige frauen verschleiert...zumindest in den touristischen gegenden! wenn man aber ein bischen davon weggeht ist das auch anders!

die blogeinträge werden sicher mit der zeit viel weniger werden, aber jetzt is es nochc so einfach mit internet im hostel...and i will switch to english because of the peolle i meet...fourtunately they dont speak german, but are interested in the blog as well!! but on the other side it would be good german course for them! and i hope that my family and friends back at home all understand english!!
sorry already for the grammer and spelling mistakes, hopefully my english is gonna be better the longer im travelling!

yesterday i had a good experience, i was asking a guy who works in our hostel where i can get a "rain cap" for my big backpack (to keep monsum out of my clothes!) and i asked him if he understands what im looking for...his response was "i am also a backpacker" - and i realized again that this is what i am now... not a student, but a backpacker...sounds great!!

ok, we gotta go, have to eat, cross the bosporus to get to the asian side of istanbul because thats where fenabahce is lokated...and the game starts in 5 hours!! im exited to see how thats going to be...