One flew over Pokhara

This is a good point to reflect on what kind of people I have been hanging around with for the last couple of weeks..

Let's start with the person who introduced me to most of the other people mentioned in this blog entry, Brianna. This small (dare I say petite) aussygirl has traveled SE-Asia with extremely tight budget. Apparently the shortcomings in money give you such privileges as steeling toilet paper and candles from unsuspecting restaurants. She also has a tendency to tell people how unhealthy their food is once its in front of them. Moving on to the Montana hippie Benja. No, It's not short for Benjamin. It's really just Benja! Living out of Jesusland for the last couple of years, the guy has managed to film a non-profit documentary about the suffering of some SE-Asia tribes, gotten some tattoos in the middle of the jungles of Laos and worked previously in the eastern part of Europe in rural areas doing farm work. Even though he is full of great stories, he has (accordingly to his home country) a hard time listening to what other people say. On a side note I might add that he has studied physics, worked as musician in a circus and lived for one year in Varanasi.



Then we have the Irish Nile who has spend the last 6-7 winters in Nepal mostly para gliding. Even though with his photography and drawing skills, the guy seems to be "out there" somewhere. Maybe his mind is stuck in the clouds because he keeps writing "no grinding" on the fireplace with coals. At the moment the guys para glider is stuck in Kathmandu with customs because of a mailing error and he's trying to befriend himself with a member of the customs so that they could smuggle the glider out without paying for the extra customs. Lorenzo is a Sicilian born Brit who has stuck to my mind because of his cruel humor and perverse thoughts. He foul mouths to every local person with bad English and makes sexual suggestions to every girl starting from 16 years and up. And that doesn't even include the marriage proposals. On the second week I managed to meet (and avoid after that) a skinnier, whiter and taller Billy. The boy from kangarooland had to be one of his countries top ten sightseeing attractions if nothing else than his exploded orange hair. Meeting him for the first time in the Shivas restaurant had to be one of the anticlimax points of my trip so far. The master of thrash talking and fly-talking vanished to thin air after terrorizing the city for three days... some say deported.



Then theres Owen. The other bartender/owner of the bar Titicaca hails from Ireland also. And has a even more morbid sense of humor than I do. And which often goes to the point of not being humorous but down right cold. He has a certain confidence that reminds me of Finnish people. The French girl Alice is the newest add on to the people who hang around the bar Titicaca. The viola playing girl has a Swedish boyfriend who's name is also Timo! A name (by the boyfriends terms) that isn't used anywhere in the nordic countries! What a load of crap. Travis has arrived to Pokhara from the city of Philadelphia and is a real down to earth motorman. Having earned his living as a tattoo artist, the man has had lunch with the vice president of Hell's Angels, seen some closeup knife fights and attended a Japanese tattoo conference. Let's not forget that the other owner/bartender of Titicaca starts every conversation with the phrase "Dude".



Beside these charming personalities we also have a 50 year old French male bale dancer, a lunatic Italian and a hyperactive polish guy. And you would love all of them. The only downside to the people is the ability understand my humor while their under the influence of hash/ganga. Which is to say, constant. In a way it feels like my very own "One flew over the cuckoos nest". Everybody assumes that I'm as crazy as they are and yet I'm a like a fly on the wall with the secret eyes. It's off to the mountains for now so I will see you in two weeks or so!

More pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/timo.laaksonen/

Up up, down down

After gaining enough strength to do some trekking, I found myself climbing two different hills around Pokhara's dominant landscape. First one up was the World Peace Pagoda on the south side of town. The trail starts of vaguely behind a small temple on a road leading to a separate village. I say vague because thats what it is. There really doesn't seem to be a road that leads to a certain direction but a collaboration of roads leading everywhere! After a 5 minute scouting mission I found the right track that led in to the quite woods. Stroll up the hill was supposed to take a couple of hours but right before the top I managed to take a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a over grown dirt road surrounded by buffaloes. Fortunately I could make out the Pagoda top from the skyline so I just made my way through the jungle like Rambo. The Stupa (as the locals call the monument) wasn't all that spectacular or otherworldly as you would think but the overview of Pokhara and the Annapurna range on the background really made the trip worth wild.



Next day it was time to turn the attention to the north face of Pokhara which is host to the 1 500 meter peak of Sarangkot. Accent was going to be 600 meters in a period of roughly two hours and it really took my breath away. The neverending steps up the scenic route were definitely a test of endurance but I got there in the end (after 3 hours). I dare anybody climb up those steps and not get a feeling of remorse for eating a full blown American breakfast with bacon, eggs and that lovely greasy stuff. Luckily I didn't have that problem and brown rolls with hot chocolate stayed in without a fuss. At the finish line is the jawdropping sight of the total range which was also possible to see from Pagoda sight. Here everything looks better and you can almost touch the mountains if you imagine hard enough. Nice place to have lunch with the Nepali army watching carefully what you eat. Sarangkot is also host to a army lookout post so barbwire and sandbags for everyone!



On a side note, finished the Stephen Hawkins book with a bare grasp of the total universe. Seriously, I maybe understood one seventh of the book so it was a good point to switch back to something fictional. The three way shootout you might know from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was between George Orwell's 1984, James Clavell's Shogun and Joseph Heller's Catch 22. Since I didn't want to drop anything too confronting or heavy on the nightstand, I waited for the smoke from the guns to fade and saw that Heller's book was still standing. Picked it up and off to read! I Will give you a analysis of it when the last page has turned.

More pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/timo.laaksonen/

About nothing

It's been the fun week here in Pokhara! When you have a fever and diarrhea, not much goes on except for bowel movements. Now that I've been out of the toilet limbo for a couple days, I have some time to write as well.

The fever came on the second day after dining on a shady chicken burger at a fairly reasonable looking place in the center of the city. Actually it was more the the salad dressing than the actual burger but who really knows. All I can say really is that I've had enough of being sick. Next time I get ill, it better be six months from now or later. First couple of days were just basic hiding from the world under the blankets and running to the separated toilet every 5 minutes with the mandatory locking of the door every time. After that things started to get better, but I made the grave mistake of lusting after something greasy and salty and so went to have breakfast. Turns out that when your just coming out of diarrhea, last thing you should eat is bacon and hash brown potatoes. Well actually this wasn't all that new information for me but I just couldn't help myself. And so I banished myself to few more days of bed rest after which things have started to get better.



When your in the recovery process you have lots of time to read which is fast becoming one of my favorite hobbies (Thanks Sas!). After reading the Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything, I kinda got stuck on the science thing and so the next couple of books have been also about the subject. Last one finished was one by David Bodanis entitled E=mc2 - a biography of the equation and it was written so that it's very readable and contains funny facts the same way the Bryson book does. Will not go too much into detail here but just want to let you know that energy and mass actually are the same thing in different forms! Read the book and learn more. After that I took a big leap of fate and decided to tackle Stephen Hawkins and his book A Brief History of Time. They guy wouldn't be that much of a challenge but the book... Even though its been written for the general audience, it is definitely more harder to follow than the previous reads. It's clearly not meant to be as funny but still is very informative and interesting (If you can understand it that is...)

Thats all for now. No real adds in the photo section at this point hopefully lot more to come soon!

More pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/timo.laaksonen/

Top of the worldish?

Ah yes Nepal. Home to most of the worlds highest peaks and some delicious sideorders. A week into it. I have to say that I already am enjoying myself here much more than I ever did in India. The people are more nice, the food is better and the scenery is just... Pictures dont really tell the whole story. You just have to come here to see it for yourself.



Everything is also more cheaper here than in India. And thats cheap! Counting my budget backwards, I discovered that I had used around 10-15 euros a day in India which is definately too much. Dont even know what I used it on. Maybe it was those damn plane tickets or that silly camera. Anyway the objective here is to keep things under control and below 5 euroes a day so that I can gain some leverage back from the money lost in India. And thats not even hard in these circumstances. Currently I'm paying for a double bed room without a toilet around 0,50 euroes so shouldnt really be a stretch.



After arriving in Nepal, my first destination was Tansen. A small hill station between the border town Sunauli and the major chill out capital Pokhara. Few days went fast when you occupy yourself to some trekking! Finally got my feet wet with that stuff and the first trek lasted for 8 hours, which might have been just a little too much for my feet. The loop took me and one australian girl through fantastic scenary to see Ranighat, the "Nepal's Taj Mahal", which really was prolly the least attractive thing during the whole run. With the Himalayan Annapurna range at a viewable distance and long green valeys streaching as far as the eye can see, you really tend to get into a good mood. The Ranighat was actually situated next to a partially dried up river where the water was clear and torquise. I really couldn't refuse a little dip into it. The way back was all up hill. Some of it steep which made the last hour a real agony. With a little help from my Nepali choclate bar we got through it and the evening was finished with a nice juicy chicken burger at a local restaurant.



More pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/timo.laaksonen/

From barber to border

It's been now what? Two months? Time really isn't in your vocabulary when your traveling and from "time to time" you tend to forget it. Yes finally I decided to write a blog so you (friends, travelers and a certain pink haired girl named Sarah) can keep up to date on the happenings as I search for the Big Dipper in the southern hemisphere.



As I write this down I count the seconds when I'm about to leave this land they call the biggest democracy in the world. 2 months in the making, India really starts to get under your skin. Can't say I like it that much that I would want to stay for two more. I've been haggled, harassed, tired, sick and so on. Yet, I love this country. It is a place hard to describe in one sitting and as one 40 year old traveler from Belgium put it:


"Visit India for one week and you can write and article about it. Visit it for one month and you can write a better article. Live in it for one year and you can't write one sentence"

Well put old chum. well put.

Not to totally let everybody down who expected this launch to be a one hour long read, I shall do a little recap of events of the two months. Start of from New Delhi where I arrived 3 hours late of schedule. Middle of the night in a new country full set of new rules to learn. Fortunately I had a place to stay ready and jumped on a prepaid taxi to go. Next few days went on with getting to know the accustoms and then it was time to hit Rajastan where I visited Jaipur which is a mini version of Delhi and couple of smaller towns called Pushkar and Udaipur. Anybody who goes to Udaipur will find out that a JAMES BOND MOVIE has been shot there because every local person wants you to know it. It might be even more important than the fact that it is home to lots of fine jewel craft and is often quoted to be the Venice of the East.



Fast forward to Goa where I stayed for a ridiculous three weeks just getting stomach bacteria, destroying my digital camera and soaking up the sun with a beautiful English girl who stole my heart in the final week and flew to London with it. Now she's keeping it arrested until she joins my travels in the near future.



From Goa my travels continued down south to the coasts of Kerala. To be more specific, Varkala. A semi touristic beach town with cliff views to the Arabian Ocean. A very good place to chill out and to have some great red snapper. Kerala is also home to the Indian backwaters but do to budget cuts, Timo didn't attend. So time to check out a hill station in Tamil Nadu. Ooty is a small place in the middle of... well not near anything you would know so let's leave it at that shall we. Anyway the surrounding area is full of fine foliage, tea plantations and lovely people. Spend the Christmas there and joining in the Indian dances made me a big hit. Maybe I was a Indian in the previous life because these people are some marvelous dancers.



From Ooty the journey took a turn to travel mode as I covered around 3 000 + km in 4 days and ended up in Varanasi. Now I've been here for almost a week due to a visit from the stomach bacteria that first emerged back in Goa. Now out of the hospital and ready for new adventures, I'm of to the barber to get a haircut because the border patrol might have a saying in my appearance. Next time I write it's in Nepali time.



More pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/timo.laaksonen/