Eventually back home

Now I am back home in the cold Tyrolean alps. Our flight to Innsbruck was delayed due to the fog in Frankfurt and we arrived at 9.53 instead of 9.25. But we didn't really care. We are just happy to be back safely and healthy and that we didn't have any problems with the traveling.


This week I won't have too much time to relax and sleep because on Friday, the first Austrian YEP Meeting is coming up and I want to help with the final organization. If you are interested in what we are planning to do, check this out:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=254817094540964
http://www.mikehorn.com/en/yep/pangaea-projects-news/yep-meeting-in-innsbruck/

 
Everyone is welcome to join, just let me know you're coming! :)

Frankfurt again

For us it is 11:40am right now. We had a nice flight, the airplane had screens on every seat and I watched two and a half films during the eight hour journey. In between I slept about three hours. We had a three-o’-clock-snack and breakfast on board.

When we came down to Frankfurt, we first passed the cloud level and then saw that the city was covered in fog. I couldn’t even see the wing anymore shortly before we landed! Then we left the plane, got into a bus and walked to gate C1. We hurried because we didn’t have too much time but we were the first to arrive at the gate. So we decided to drink some Apfelschorle and have a look at the shops before passing the security checks and waiting for the boarding.

rising sun

Hearing so many people speak German is strange, as well as the small numbers on the price tags. And the higher prices too. I must not convert them into rupees because then I would buy nothing here – way too expensive! ;)

Spending the last rupees

Shortly before nine, the taxi driver arrived at the hotel. I used the waiting time to listen to Delhi’s radio stations and to watch the people in the lounge.

It took us more than half an hour to get to the airport which is quite fast. When the driver told us that we had to pay 512 rupees, we were happy to have accepted Raghav’s offer to order a taxi. The hotel would have called one for 1500 rupees!

After a last breath of hot, humid Delhi-air, we entered the departure hall. We had “dinner” in a coffee shop. A croissant, a blueberry muffin, a coffee and one hot chocolate... Then we could get rid of our big luggage and check in. Passport control, security check. In the duty free area we had a look at the rupees we had left: some more than 2000. We decided to buy a shawl for me and instantly found one for 1800 rupees. Then we had enough money left to buy some water and two CDs. Eventually, we had 40 rupees left which I just spent for sweets. So now no more money left!

Mercedes is everywhere!

We are waiting for the boarding. It is half past twelve right now and we are leaving Delhi at 2:25 am. This is going to be a tough night...

Finally Taj Mahal!!! ...and Fatehpur Sikri and back to Delhi

The program was really tight and exhausting today. We woke up at five to leave the hotel at 5.30. It was not too difficult to get up, I am kind of used to that by now. And it was definitely worth it! Our bus brought us close to the Taj Mahal, there we changed into a zero-emission bus because there is a protection zone around the monument where you must not drive with normal cars. Then we got our tickets and separated into a “ladies” and “gents” group. The ladies queue was much longer than the other because all bags were exactly examined. You must not bring any weapons, matches, lighter, books, lamps, helmets, pens, flags, food, drinks,... Only water was allowed. When the examiner found a WeltWeitWandern kerchief, she was quite confused and didn’t know what it was. Luckily she didn’t think it was a flag and let it through.

We were in the courtyard from where you can see the Taj already. Our guide explained to us the fine architecture. Every detail is perfect. The building and its surroundings are bi-symmetrical and only the emporer’s tomb doesn’t fit to this. There are several points with special views on the building. One where you only see the big gate, one where you see the main building but not the towers, one where you see everything. As you come closer, you slowly realize how huge the Taj is.

Yesterday was Friday and on this day they close the Taj for renovation and cleaning. That’s why today there was no water in the basins. It would have been even more beautiful with that. Never mind.

Everyone took loads of pictures and was busy with being amazed. At one point our guide proposed to explain everything now and then let us go into the Taj Mahal alone and to give us some free time. We agreed and I really liked going there individually. To be allowed in, you have to either take off your shoes (what most Indian tourists did) or put on plastic socks over your shoes to keep the marble clean. Standing right in front of the main gate (the gate facing the garden; all of the four gates are the same) I felt really small but totally happy too. I reached the point where I wanted to be for such a long time. Inside I saw the beautiful inlay flowers which I knew from pictures and videos. What I didn’t know was that if you lighten the stones with a small torch, they shine as if they had a glowworm in them. This fascinated me a lot.

The sun had risen already and it was hot and had a high humidity. I already sweated and wondered what it would be like on midday.

We left the maybe most famous monument on earth and went back to the hotel to have breakfast. I ate a lot because we didn’t know where we would have lunch and I already feared that it would be either very expensive or spicy.

Then we checked out and drove to Fatehpur Sikri. This is another highlight close to Agra. The city was built by the same emperor as the Taj and once was home for a whole harem. The reason for building it was that in Sikri a man foretold that the mogul, whose three wives didn’t give him any sons, would have three sons. And after the birth of the second son, the thankful man started constructing the perfect city. But soon after its finishing, the emperor moved somewhere else and everybody left with him. Thanks to the climate there, we can still see all buildings today nearly as they were back in the end of the 16^th century. The red buildings all have special features and I would never end if I told you even some of them.

Now it was time for the long journey back. We said goodbye to our guide and then sat in the bus for three hours when we had lunch break. It was not the same restaurant as the one we were in yesterday, but one of the same kind. Tomato soup? 135 rupees plus tax. No thanks. Nobody ordered anything. We ate cookies, cracker and drank water. Luckily everyone had had a huge breakfast.

At half past six, we reached Delhi and the hotel where the six group members who leave tomorrow morning can have a shower before the flight. There we had a big farewell, it is nice to see that in that short time we kinda grew together as a group and everyone is sad to separate. Annetraud and I were then driven to our hotel in the center of Delhi, Connaught Place. Then we left the driver and his assistant as well and were alone for the first time. When checking in, the man at the reception immediately was nicer to us when we told him that we were in Agra. He made some jokes and then gave us a really cool room: 2011. Nice number, don’t you think? And do you understand what that means? 20^th floor!

The room is neat and clean and we have a great view over Delhi. Just some minutes after we had entered the room, the phone rang. I was a bit confused but when I answered and heard my friend’s voice, I felt happy instead. We talked a bit, confirmed the meeting tomorrow and now I’m really excited about meeting him again after more than one year.

Later, the phone rang again. (I’m practicing my phone-English a lot recently) It was a guy from Gesar Travel who wanted to know whether we arrived safely and whether we had everything organized to get back home. This was really nice because we are here on our own and they don’t have to care about us at all. But they do. Thank you, Gesar Travel!

We didn’t want to go out for dinner, so we decided to eat in the hotel’s restaurant. It was strange sitting at a noble table with cloth tissue and a mass of waiters that is concerned that you might have any open wishes. I actually don’t like that too much. All those men asking whether I like the food, like some other drink, like a desert etc. slowly get on my nerves. If I want another drink I will order one, wouldn’t I? Anyways, the food was good (not spicy, ha!) and expensive.

Now we will upload the blogs and pictures, watch TV a bit and then sleep high above New Delhi. Looking forward to tomorrow! :)

Leh - Delhi - Agra and Agra Fort

This morning, we got up even earlier than yesterday. My mobile phone woke us at 4am... We had a light breakfast half an hour later and the hotel staff got some Austrian sweets from me. Poor them had to be awake this early as well. We then gave our drivers their tips and sweets and a postcard. They were really thankful and happy although they didn’t even open the envelopes. Our guide was nearly moved to tears when he got his yesterday. It is really sad to say goodbye to the three of them, we all like them very much!

So off we went at 5am. One last time driving through Leh. At the airport parking lot we had the very final farewell. Then the checks started. We had to show our passports and tickets to even enter the airport! Then our luggage was x-ray examined, we were checked through too. Then we met our guide’s sister who had been in Nubra when we visited his family. She helped us through the check-in and the rest of the security stuff. Then she even organized some tea for us when we waited for the boarding. Unfortunately, we then didn’t see her again and couldn’t really say goodbye.

At twenty past six, we could start the boarding and at seven we left the Ladakhi ground. There was not much to see during the flight because the weather was all cloudy and you couldn’t see a single snow-capped mountain.

In Delhi, it was cloudy too and had “just” 27°C, which was quite a shock for us after the 18°C that we had in Leh this morning. We met the guide that had welcomed us in Delhi on our first arrival and he led us to our bus. It is a tourist bus which has eleven seats, nine for us and two for the driver and his assistant. We haven’t found out what the assistant is there for yet...

We left the airport at nine. It soon started to rain and we drove through streets that were rather lakes or rivers. I felt very sorry for those bicycle drivers who got all wet and muddy. I was very busy watching the people passing by while we slowly rolled through Delhi. This city is not only the capital of India but also one of the biggest cities in the world. More than twice the population of Austria lives here!

Motor rickshas, buses, trucks, bikes, motorcycles, pedestrians, cows, dogs,... I watched everything I could see from my window. I took some pictures too. Although I had expected this to be completely different to Ladakh, I was astonished by what I saw. For example, the cows were much taller than the ones I was used to by now. And they had humps on their backs!

I noticed that in Delhi there were lots of plants, trees and bushes. 20% of the city are green and it is planned to raise this number to 30%! What I didn’t like was all the trash that was lying around. It was really much more than in Leh.

I saw women in beautiful saris and orange vests cleaning the streets. For the first time in more than two weeks I saw traffic lights. There were children in neat school uniforms and kids that wore torn shirts. Motor rickshas with at least fifteen people in them, some standing, some kids sitting on the lap of their parents. Motorcycle drivers sometimes wore helmets but the women in saris that sat behind the driver (except for one always a man) never had one. Sometimes they had kids inbetween them.

It were too many impressions at a time, I can’t even remember half of the things I saw...

It took us two hours to get out of Delhi. At 2pm we finally stopped to had lunch. I expected it to be some tourist-restaurant. But I didn’t expect it to be some tables in between souvenir shops and with a menu that only had prices written in it that were up to four times higher than in the expensive restaurants in Leh. And tax was not included. Most of us had a tomato soup. I didn’t finish mine because it was too spicy. Like I said, I can’t eat that spicy stuff, I wonder why.

Seven hours after we left the Indira Ghandi airport, we arrived at our hotel in Agra. It is a beautiful building inside and the rooms are very clean. But they charge for everything. In our room there are two bottles of mineral water. If we take it, we have to pay 300 rupees per liter. Plus tax. Guess what a liter of water costs in Ladakh. 20 rupees, tax included...

We immediately met again to see the Agra Fort. Our new guide is not from WeltWeitWandern but from the ministry of tourism and culture. He is nice too but to me it seems that he kind of tells us his text by heart with all numbers and facts that we will never remember.

The Fort was more impressive than we expected it to be. It is the former residence of the Mogul kings. We saw all the defense gadgets that were similar to those you can find with European castles. Then we went further in and had a look at all the rooms that were made with stone inlay, gold and precious stones. It is a pity that most of it was destroyed. Our guide told us that it were the British but our guide book says that most of the stones, gold and silver was robbed by invadors. One could feel that our guide wasn’t best friends with the British. He always stressed that it was the British’ fault that he couldn’t show us how beautiful the Frot once was and we had to imagine the shining gold and stones.

From some points we also had a great view on the Taj Mahal. It is strange to be so close to my original destination. Tomorrow morning I’m gonna be there! We had bad luck because the sky was still all cloudy and we couldn’t see the Taj in the evening sun. But we were rewarded for that when we saw two rainbows before we left.

To get from the bus to the Fort and back, we had to pass through a real mass of street merchants. Our guide gave us a good advice before we left the bus: don’t hear, don’t see, don’t speak. Just ignore those guys. As soon as you say “no”, you are already responding to them and they will run after you. If you completely ignore them, they’ll most likely let you be. And this really worked so far!

Back at the hotel, we had a shower and then six of us met again to go out for dinner. Eating at the hotel would have been even more expensive than in the restaurant we were driven to. It was simple and looked sterile. I ordered some “very mild please” vegetable plate. Guess what. It was hot after all. Not too hot but it tasted a bit strange too. Annetraud and I changed plates and I had some of her fruit rice but I didn’t like that too much either. I’m looking forward to some really mild pasta or any dish in Austria! But here at least the bread was good.

Khardung-La again and back to Leh

I slept really good tonight and felt much better in the morning. Voices woke me up and soon we saw that farmers had started to harvest the field behind our tents. I found it really nice that they sang while working.

I had a normal breakfast but without any egg omelet and with tea instead of milk and Ovomaltine. Then I packed and we were ready to go back to Leh.

We left Tirith at 9am. Luckily, there was not a lot of traffic and we only had to stop once because of street works. Three hours later, we again stood at the Khardung-La. It was rather cold and some snow flakes came down from the sky. Most of us went into the “highest cafeteria in the world” to have some Maggi 2 minutes instant noodle soup. It was a bit spicy but very tasty too. And the military guy behind the counter was nice and funny. He moved as if he was dancing to the music that was playing from the radio.

Can you make out what that is? Right. Lots of Maggi!

The drive down was without any problems and we reached Leh already at 2pm. We had lunch at our old hotel and now we are free for the rest of the day. Annetraud and I are going to do some more shopping. But before that we’ll have to get some more rupees... :)

Finally in Leh

Finally, our flight was called out and we were led into the airplane. I expected it to be very small but it was actually bigger than the one we had from Innsbruck to Frankfurt. The travel agency had booked seats on the left side only to guarantee us a great view. The sun started to rise at 5.30 am and when we took off, I could see Delhi from above.

We had breakfast on board which was good but included a lemon juice that was just awful. I can’t imagine that anybody could ever drink it!

I nearly fell asleep because I was really tired but the Himalayas woke me up again. At first there were just single mountain tops that rose out of the cloud ocean like small islands. Then the islands got bigger and we were right above the highest mountain rage on earth. Most summits were covered with snow and there were many glaciers. But in contrast to the alps, the lower altitudes were just brown or gray and there was no green at all. The rising sun painted long shadows between the mountains and many valleys looked as if they were huge lakes. But in reality it is all very dry and no sign of human influence could be seen until we reached the Indus valley where Leh is also located. Suddenly, green fields appeared in between the dusty mountain rages and the river Indus formed an oasis in the middle of a desert that is located on top of the world.

The landing was quite spectacular: the pilot made two turns before he came down to the airport. In the small welcome hall, we got our luggage back, filled out another sheet for foreigners and got a program for the Ladakh Festival that started today.

Two guides picked us up and drove us to our hotel. I sat in front – on the left side. It is really strange to drive through an unknown country with lots of new impressions and all of that on the wrong side of the street! To my surprise, there were really cows on the streets. I didn’t expect that because I thought that it was a stereotype that in India there are cows everywhere. I also noticed many stray dogs and lots of garbage at the sides of the street.

We arrived at the hotel, got a short briefing about the trip and had another breakfast. It was about 8am ladakhi time and I noticed that I was very tired. I had been awake for almost 24 hours! When we got our rooms, I didn’t care much about anything but the bed. Although I must have had a higher pulse and although I heard that you usually sleep bad in high altitude, I slept well until we had a very good lunch at 1 o’clock. After that we had free time and Annetraud and I decided to have a walk in town. It was hot and we did notice the 3,500 meters after all. We went slowly and finally had a mango juice in a small Café. As soon as we were back, I took another nap. I’m very lucky to be able to sleep without problems.

me at a prayer mill near our hotel

At 6pm, five of the seven group members left to have dinner. Before that we took another stroll to Leh and this time I found it easier to walk. We saw loads of open shops, restaurants and Internet Cafés, most of them had already put on their diesel generator. The official power system doesn’t seem to work very well. The Tibetan restaurant we had dinner at also had a generator which broke down several times. But nobody minds, that’s Leh.

Before going back, I went into a Internet Café to give a short update on my blog. I want everyone to know that we arrived savely. I payed 10 rupees for about 10 minutes which is close to nothing.

On the way back, I was happy that we had one headlamp – none of the streetlamps was working...

2. September 2011

The Journey continues to Delhi

2:37

We finally arrived in Delhi. Our plane was much bigger than the first one. The seats we had were separated but the person who would have sat between us didn’t come and finally we had three seats for the two of us. We left with a 40 minute delay of which we could only make up 30 minutes until we arrived in India. We had two meals on board, dinner was something Indian which tasted quite good (except for some strange mango thing which neither of us finished) and around 11pm we got another snack that was something like dürüm. I slept a bit and listened to the radio. They showed Pirates of The Caribbean On Stranger Tides on the screen but I gave up concentrating on Johnny Depp’s voice and had another nap. Later on I watched an Indian film which was supposed to be funny but actually wasn’t (according to me). It had subtitles and the main character spoke a mix of Hindi and English. I sometimes couldn’t tell which language she was talking in at the moment.

When we landed in Delhi, we had just come out of a thunderstorm we were told that it was 32°C outside which sounded quite ridiculous because in the airplane it was really cold. Luckily we were directly led into the airport and didn’t taste any Indian air at first.

We were standing in the queue for the passport checks when an Indian asked me for my pen. He asked in German, which surprised me and when we came to talk a bit, we found out that he studies German and just came back from a trip to Germany.
It took ages until we had our luggage back and it took even longer to change money because we had to count it again and again. Which was a good thing because they would have given us 500 rupees less. After another two checkpoints we reached the exit and were welcomed by a WeltWeitWandern sign. The rest of the group was already there, except for one woman who had gone to the doctor because of her eyes. Hopefully she’ll be able to follow us tomorrow.

Our guide showed us the way to the national flight hall, gave us our tickets and a tent and left us. We’ll meet him again when we come back to Delhi. We shortly went outside the hall and were overwhelmed by 32°C and a very high humidity. Everyone was happy to get back to the cold airport hall.

we didn't check whether the walking time was right

Now we’re resting in the hall and waiting for our flights to Leh (there are two flights at the same time and we were separated because this way everyone can have a window seat on the left hand side). We will be leaving at 5:45 am lots of time until then!

4:45 am

The airport WiFi doesn’t work what is kind of annoying. It should send a text message with a user name and password to your mobile phone but I don’t get that text... At least there is a charging station here next to the gate.

It is really strange to go to a duty free shop in Delhi and find products as Toblerone, Rittersport and Swarovski. I expected McDonalds but not Toblerone! Hopefully we won’t meet so many European brands in Ladakh. If I am in Asia, I don’t want to buy German chocolate!

Travel to Frankfurt

Today is the big day. I woke up at quarter to six in the morning, some minutes before my alarm clock rang. I used the time I had until the flight to book my university courses and to update them into my calendar.

For breakfast, my dad went to the bakery to get fresh bread and it tasted wonderful, maybe because I know that I won’t eat exactly that bread for three weeks...

I didn’t feel nervous but I guess that I was. I weighed my luggage several times and was quite satisfied that it was not too heavy but had 16 kilos of 20 allowed. My hand luggage was 7 kilos and also rather light. At the airport we waited for Annetraud and it was a strange feeling to be still there but to have already started the trip. When Annetraud arrived, we checked in and had a big farewell before we went through the security checks. Unfortunately I had forgotten to take the sunscreen out of my backpack and I had to give it to my family who had luckily waited until we passed the security check. Then we were in.

The plane was the smallest I ever flew with, just four seats in a row. The flight was definitely not overbooked – there were lots of free seats and about 25 guests in total. It was amazing to fly over the mountains and we left Tyrol behind. After one hour we had a nice landing in Frankfurt. There we did a small hike to the right gate and now we are having lunch in a small Asian restaurant.

Can you find our flight? ;)