I did not know much about Malaysia. I only added it to my trip because it’s in between India and Indonesia! And what a wonderful surprise! Of all the countries I have visited so far, it might be the one I want to come back to the sooner. Kuala Lumpur is a clean and fun…
Ah Indian food… Pretty much what kept me going when everything else was driving me away from India! First, being a vegetarian in India is super easy. Every place is either “pure vege” either has an extensive list of vegetarian items. It seems the South is almost entirely vegetarian and every state has its…
At this point I didn’t even want to talk to people anymore. Everything South East Asia did to me, India took it away. I realized lately that I no longer give my trust to strangers, have the same thirst to discover new cultures, and automatically set myself on survival mode when too many people talk to…
We were very excited to be in India for the Holi, we even planed part of the trip around that special occasion. We chose Vrindavan as it is a smallish town and the said birth place of Krishna. We had some trouble locating our hotel. No one seemed to know where it was. Used to very…
Varanasi is one of the most sacred places on earth. Hindus who die here believe they are freed from the cycle of rebirth. On the ghat, every night is held the Ganga ceremony, where people gather around to prey and watch priest playing with fire and flowers on live percussion music. At two specific locations…
Because it was on our way, and because I really wanted to see the palace of winds, we had a very quick (one night and 2 hours) tour of the pink city. After a messed up hotel booking, we were “upgraded” to a completely different part of town, much much fancier! It looked like any…
We found in Bundi the first place in India where we didn’t feel harassed, for real. Kids saying hello in the street, not even asking for money and pens (or not so much), adults talking to us and not trying to sell anything, wow, it’s been a while since we haven’t been in such an…
Before heading to Pushkar, we read that the town was entirely vegetarian. Not that being one is difficult in India, quite the opposite really, it’s never been that easy, but a vegetarian town? For real? I had to see it. It happens to be true. It is forbidden to eat flesh in Pushkar, they even…
Udaipur is known as the most romantic place of India. Well I’m not romantic so that kind of things does not make any difference to me, but it does have some great food! And food, I like. We found a nice and healthy vegetarian restaurant, an actual cosy place where we went many times. It…
After the golden city, we arrived in the blue city: Jodhpur. We were lucky enough to stay in a heritage haveli with the most beautiful rooftop view on the fort and the whole city. Jodhpur is like the other big Rajasthani cities: overwhelming, but still nice and pretty. We didn’t visit the fort as it…
After the struggle of Delhi and Bikaner, we found our first actual nice spot in Jaisalmer, close to the Pakistani border. The old town is built in a fort, and we were lucky enough to sleep there (for the equivalent of $2.30). We arrived very early in the morning with the overnight train (around 5am)…
So they say you either love India or hate it. Can it be both? My first impression when going out of the airport in Delhi was: “wow it’s hot, it’s crawling with people and damn, so much noise!” You’re not even outside the airport yet that tons of people are already harassing you to make you…
The last town we stopped at before Christchurch was the wonderfully weird Hokitika. Restaurants had very specific menus, shops were selling steam punk jewelry, witch stuff and other weird things. On the beach was held an art contest: create a sculpture with whatever you find on the beach (mainly flooded wood). It made for great…
We simply worked our way up to go back to Christchurch by driving A LOT. And since we were a little tired by all that tramping, it was ok to just go out of the car to buy fresh fruits, eat at some pretty spot, camp at another stunning one… We stopped along the way…
At this point, we were already very impressed with New Zealand landscapes! But the main reason we came so far was to do some hiking, or as they say over there, “tramping”. Not only is the country so beautiful it’s awe inspiring, but there’s a whole business around hiking. They even marketed some of the…
Sarananas 