Royal Bhutan; in the footsteps of Prince Willem Alexander and Maxima

Bhutan;land of thethunder dragon(27 Julyuntil3 August)

It all started with our Business Class flight from Kathmandu (Nepal) to Paro (Bhutan), Jordi sitting beside the former Indian minister of foreign affairs. We only found out when we arrived in Paro and we saw an official welcoming committee waiting at the end of the stairs and we were kindly asked to wait until this highly honoured guest and his wife had left the plane. Of course a little dissapointed this committee didn't camefor us we still left the plane with a smile embracing the fresh air and green colors of Bhutan after spending quite some time in Nepal.

You might wonder why we would have had these high expectations in the first place, well it probably has something to do with the price of the trip. Just for being in Bhutan you have to pay $225 per day per person; not strange not to be surprised by a special reception at the airport right? For once we are benefitting from the fact that we are travelling off season at most of our destinations (read; wrong wet rainy period AKA Monsoon) which lowered the price to the little amount of $185 per person per day although we found plenty of travel agencies in Kathmandu we were still happy to charge is $225 but that is a story of it's own.

Enough about the financial details because we can highly recommend to start re-allocate budgets or buying a lotery ticket and visit Bhutan before it's to late.....the goverment is regulation the tourism and hopefully they will succeed to safe their culture, treisures and nature so that is not what you have to worry about. It's the inspiration you get from the attitude of the people and the way they live their life,it'shighly influenced by their Budhist relegion but it's so more natural and genuine than what we have seen and experienced so far during our trip. It's a pitty to wait until you are retired,like most tourist who visit Bhutan,when you can take this inspiration now andbring it along with you for therest of your live!

Bhutan is surrounded by India and China on the Northern side, this partly explains the special relationship between India and Bhutan it's always nice to have a little neighbour in between....
It has the size of Switerserland and people are fond of comparing to Switserland, ok here we go;
Yes it has mountains, roads with steep kliffs that will make the Furka or Grimsel pass fade away when it comes to numbers of hairpins curves, they have cheese in some parts of the countrywhich they also use in theirnotorious chilli dishes, in Bumthang valley you can get Weissbeer and Swiss cheese...all produced by a Swiss guy who is living there for about threedecenia and is one of thevery few foreigners who got hold permenant residence in Bhutan.
I have to say that thisis about it when it comes to the comparison with Switzerland this little kingdom has so much more to offer it's cultural heritage is just infinite and also when it comes to nature it is way morediverse.
Yaks, bears, cows, dogs but we've also got the pleasure to stand face to face with the very poiseness Viper snake, observe a three with over fifty white Mongul Monkeys and see the biggest variety of butterflies i've ever seen in my life. Not to mention the very specialBlack Neck Crane birdwho unfortunately were on summer leavein Tibet when we visited the Phobjikia valley.

Where to start with our dive into this little kingdom, which we love so much?
Our own royalcommittee at the aiport excisted of two people; our guide Tshering and our driver Bibi with their big Toyota Landcruiser. Just to see all the man wearing their Gho and ladies wearing their Kiramadeus realize straigth away that we arrived in a veryspecial country.The pictures will explain probably more than we can express in words. Tshering and Bibi really made us feel like a Royal couplethey had at least a dozen permits on A4which would give us allowance to different regions, Dzongs, museums, roadsand forest areasand it seems that our trip was directed minute by minute and everybody new we were coming (like they have to with all foreigners.....).

We will just try to take you into the Bhutan culture by the pictures although we have to leave the rituals and decorations that can be seen inside the Bhudist monestriesand Dzongs to your imangination since it's strictly prohibited to take pictures inside. You just have to believe us that this is absolutely THE Mekka for Bhudist and anybody else who would like to see and learn more about this interestingreligion or better said attitude towards life. We canreconfirm by this timesince we've visited in the meantime (Dharamsala (Tibetan government in exile, Ladakh; Tibetan enclave inIndia, Bodnath;Tibetan enclave in Nepal). Attending the Puja (morning prayers) in the Bhutan monastries and Dzongsare still the most special andintense thing we'veexperienced so far during our trip, the sound, smell of incense and old timber theatmosphere and concentration of the monksarejust not translatable intowords.

Before you think we might have turned intoBuddhists, that's notthe case we are just impressed by what we've experienced. Please see the pictures although we also have to withold you from thepictures of Jorditrying the famous Bhutan Chilli'sas well as thepics of our visits to Bhutan styleKaraoke bars with Druk (Dragon) 11.000 8% beer served in a 600ml bottle.

We have learnt so many mythsabout the Divine Madman and many other gods we would like to share with you when we come home....we are sure some of the pictures willmake you interested in the background story!

Everest, Sagarmatha or Chomolungma

The 3th of July wefinally arrivedin the middle of the Himalayas, one of our favourite and long awaited destinations!

But first we have to cope with Kathmandu, the busy, dusty and a (bit) dirty capital of Nepal! The narrow streets of Kathmandu are full of small Suzuki taxis with at least 6 or 7 persons in it, holy cows, rikshas, street dogs, tuktuks, garbageand people.We settled in a decent hotel just outside the busy tourist area Thamel, a neighbourhood full of cheap hostels and restaurants, trekking agencies, trekking gear shops (with the real original copies ofthe big outdoor brands), handicraft shops and the usual aggressive street touts.

Here we had to arrange our trek into the mountains through a local travel agency. After careful consideration, we chose an agency and allthough it is monsoon (the rainy season) and therefore not the best time to do a trekking, we decided to go for a 17 day journey in the Everest region.Now we know that it sometimes pays off to book these things in your home country!It took us 3 days to settle everything with these slick bastards that never kept their promises......In the meantime we visited the Buddhist Monkey Temple (I forgot the Nepali name, but there were plenty of these curious animals).

Nevertheless... 3 days later we are very excited and ready to fly to Lukla, the start of our trek! Unfortunately the weather in Lukla is not good and after waiting for 7 hours and having actually been in the aircraft ready to depart, the pilot decides to cancel the flight and slightly dissapointed we are forced to go back to the hotel. Yet the next day we are lucky and we head of to see Everest in small 12-seater propellor plane. When approachingour destinationwe understand why it was cancelled the prior day: we see a 250m runway on the edge of a cliff! Luckily we have an experienced Nepali pilot that brings us safely to Lukla (at an altitude of 2840m), a small village high up in the mountains and the start of our trek!

But first a good breakfast! I decide to order the 'light' breakfast from the menu of Sunny Garden Restaurant, not knowing that in the next 24 hours I will actually loose a lot of weight due to food poisoning(: I should have known betterwhen on the menu are things like Kaiserschmarrn (an Austrian delicacy). So after a bad start I recovered the next day with the help of Immodium, biscuits, some tea and the moral support from Sharda! After a long day (at least for me) we arrive in Namche Bazar (3440m), as all mountaineers know, 'the gateway to the Kumbhu and Everest'. Namche is a small but bustling town on a ridge surrounded by beautiful and impressive mountains. As there are only some 200 tourists in the total Everest region in this month (compared to some 9500!! in October during the peak climbing season), local people, the Sherpas, are working hard on constructing new teahouses for the tourists and you can hear the sound of hammers hitting stones from dusk till dawn. These big and very heavy stones are carried by very strong porters (starting from the age of 13....) and are handmade into nicely shaped bricks!

On the way we (Sharda, Jordi, guide Deep and porter Jaya)only meet some locals, carrying unbelievable loads (e.g. 3 doors, 10 wooden planks of 5kg each at least, 3 20L jerrycans with gasoline) and one lonely and crazy Korean. As weare on a17 day trip we first go into the Gokyo valley, a beautiful valley full of emarald lakes, meadows with yak and an enormous glacier going all the way up to Cho Oyu one of thefourteen 8000m+ mountains in the world! We have a steady pattern these days: every day we get up around 6, ascent some 300m to our next teahouse in 3 or 4 hours, have lunch and drink a big pot of tea of 2L and costingaround 8 euro compared to 2 euro for a bed!!!), do our afternoon acclimatisation hike of some 2 hours and return to the teahouse, have dinner and go tobed at around 8pm. After some 5 days we ascent our first 5000m+ peak: Gokyo Ri (5360m). Unfortunately the promised Everest view is not meant to be for us as clouds are abundantly present that day!

After a bit more than a week we are getting a bit annoyed by our guide who is constantly and irritatingly on our side! We could however not have imagined that he was a very inexperienced mountaineer, as we unfortunately had to find out when crossing a dangerous glacier and glacier lake at the Chola Pass (5350m), which we only should have crossed with crampons and ropes, which our guide said we did not need. It felt a bit like the last passage climbing Grossglockner with my friend Stijn, but then with a 'guide' without experience who sends his porter (an 18 year old boy) carrying a heavy loadin front to find the way through the crevasses! Luckily we survived and after a 11 hour day we arrived in our teahouse, tired and very angry!

The next morning, feeling still a bit shaky and tired from the prior day we headed to Gorak Shep at 5147m (our highest teahouse). Just before arriving there I had my moment......... I saw a glimpse of the summit of Mount Everest (8850m). The three names in the title of this story are the English, Nepali and Tibetan name for the highestmountain on this planet which wasconquered firstby Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953. I must say I felt a bit emotional as I had been dreaming of this mountain sinceI was a little boy, that together with his friend Stijnstudied all the 8000m+ mountain names and altitudes from his fathers book ''Welt der berge' if I remember correctly.

In the afternoon we tried to go for Everest Base Camp (EBC at 5400m).Half way we had to turn around as I felt a bit shaky, suffered from stomach painsand probably had some mild symptoms of high altitude sickness. Luckily people that went there said we did not miss anything as due to the absence of climbers in this season there was nothing to see except for even more rubish as we've already seen along the way.

That night our alarmclock went off at 3.45am TRIIIING: SUMMIT DAY! We were ready for our ascent of Kala Pattar (5560m). The prior week had learnt us that in order to acclimatise best and to avoid altitude sickness you better ascent very slowly and just before sunrise in our our so-called 'turtle walk' we reached the summit. Jordi setting the pace and Sharda following orderlypreventing herself from going to fast.From here wehad the most stunning views of Everest, Khumbu icefall, Everest southcol, Lhotse (4th highest mountain in the world) and other beautiful and wellknown peaks such as Nuptse, Pumori and Ama Dablam. We stayed on the summit for 2 hours and just enjoyed the fabulous scenery!

We were happy to have done it slowly as we saw some other trekkers that did not have or did not take the time to acclimatise, that had to go back down in the middle of the night or that walked like drunks after a good night in the pub whilefacing severeheadaches.

During our trek we also made new friends: Yasar, a friendly Turk from Antalya,with whom we spent some more time in Kathmandu and Pokhara later on and Sharda fell in love with Sheppy, a lovely black dog that followed us for a day on the way down. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) he broke her hart when leaving her the next day for Luis, a Spanish guy!

I totally forgot to tell you about the food and lodging during our trek: as we were the only visitors during our first week in the Gokyo Valley the abundant menu full of Western delicacies like pizza, lasagna, spaghetti, apple crumbleand (yak) steak were not available and we had to eat theNepali treat, Dal Bhat (rice with lentils and vegetables)instead!The secondweek was a bit better with an occasional pizza and spaghettiand not to forget Kailash's (porter of Yasar and chef of Namche Bazar guest house) unforgettable and tasty cheese, veggie and meat momo's (fried or steamed)! I cannot say the trek was very romantic either as except for 1 night we slept in seperate beds covered in smelly quilts on very hard mattresses, allthough that maybe was the best thing for the both of us as we did only take 2 'showers' during those 17 days!!!!

On the way back we had the same problem as at the start, a flight cancellation, and we spent our day playing cards with some other trekkers! The next day the clouds had dissapeared and we could return to Kathmandu, where we enjoyed an honest Italian diner with a well deserved bottle of wine!

Stay tuned for our next adventure in..................... Bhutan, the land of the Thunder Dragon!

Beijing or Peking?

It has been a while, but we would like to tell you a bit more about or time in Beijing last month.

After finishing the final part of the Trans Mongolian railway we finally arrived in a very hot (39C)and smoggy Beijing.Luckily for us Rosalie, a friend of Sharda that lives in Shanghai together with her boyfriend Michiel, was awaiting us at the trainstation. On a recommendation of Rosalie and Michiel we had booked our fantastic hotel already in advance througha chinese website, which saved us almost half the price we had otherwise paid through a western website. Good to have friends with in-depth knowledge of a country!
After a good Korean! lunch we waited until Michiel, Daan & Clarisse (friends of Rosalie and Michiel andliving in Shanghai as well) and Daniel (another friend from our great capitalvisiting Michiel and Rosalie) arrived from Shanghai. During our one week stay Michiel turned out to bethe best tourguide we could have had. As a journalist he spends quite some timein Beijing and he was able to show us many fine hotspots that we could not have discovered without him, as we found out on our last day when we had picked a restaurant ourselves with a dissapointing result something to do with dog.... and resulting in a painful stomach afterwards.

As good Dutch citizens the seven of us went off on a bike on our second day to cycle through the nicelyrenovated hutongs (kind of alleys) and lakesidesof China's capital. Furthermore we visited the CNTV tower, designed by our well-known architect Rem Koolhaas. Unfortunately the accompanying hotel also designed byhim was burnt down recently as a result of some extra strong Chinese firecrackers during Chinese New Year which the Chinese don't realy regret since they have mixed feelings about the National TV. After some drinks in a bar called 'the steamboat', we went off on our bikes to the other side of town to crash aninternational architectsbirthdayparty / barbeque.As we were with 7 instead of the expected 2, we bought a couple of beer bottles and somelovely chicken wings and lambchops on the way. We had a great evening with a lot of live music, especially liked by Daniel, who immediately joined the melting pot of different musicians.Our after party was held in an uglyhutong near our hotel, where we finsihed some morebottles of Tsingtao beer and ordered some extra portions of food together withsome bare bellied spitting locals, as we were still hungry.

The food, it must be said is really lovely in Beijing, at least as long as you know what to order (the food pictures help, but are not always a guarantee for success as I told you before)! As we were with a group every dinner we ordered 10-15 meals and shared that among us: chicken, pork, beef, vegetables, frogs, snails, some stillunidentified snacksand all very delicious. We left the dogs, snakesandother exotic delicaciesfor some other visitors at least thats what we believe!

Eating has been a mainpart of our daily activities and gaveus plenty of time to share our thoughts about the name of the city; is it Beijing or Peking?We haven't come toa final conclusion yet.....apparently it also depend on how long you arein China for as a foreigner which really differs within our group.

Other sites really well worth visiting are the art district '798', where we enjoyed some nice exhibitions of Chinese modern art, the Bird's Nest (Olympic Stadium of Beijing 2008)and Watercube (where Pieter van den Hoogenband unfortunately just missed the podium).

After having visited the mausoleum of Lenin in Moscow, we did notwant to miss the opportunity to see that other 'great' communist leader upclose and personal.First we had to turnin all our cameras and bags. After queuing with a couple of thousand Chinese admirers/tourists, that have the nasty habit of boldly jumping the queue with their tiny bodies and that without any remorse, we were allowed to pass by the balmsed corpse of Mao, 'De Grote Roerganger'.

Off course we also visited the Forbidden City on the other side of the Tiananmen square, although we were a bit dissapointed as the ambiance as seen in the film 'The Last Emperor' is slightly different when passing by the beautiful buildings and palaces together with dozens of tourgroups of loud Chinese scholars and a couple of 1000 other (mainly Chinese) tourists.To escape from this madness we decided to have a delicious lunch at a nice restaurant on one of the city's beautiful lakes and later Sharda and Daniel took a boattrip on the lake (see attached pictures) while I enjoyed a couple of icecold Tsingtaos. For dinner we all went to a nearby Peking Duck restaurant. Needless to say that we ordered the city's most famous meal, while being showed performances involving dancing, sining and acrobatics. The main event was the 'changing faces' act: a man wearing a mask, which he could swap for another one in the blink of an eye, without we, the public having noticed this. We were told only 200 people worldwide (all of them Chinese) are able to do this and that a famous (but up totoday unknown by us) magician paid a huge sum for this amazing trick.

The next day we said goodbye to Michiel and Daan as they left for one of China's many expanding large cities to do research for the book they are planning to write on architecture, urban development and people in China's new and fast growing cities. Good luck with your project guys!!! Then next morning Rosalie and Clarisse also had to leave for Shanghai and we headed for the Great Wall driven by our private taxi driver, the kind Mr Wang Ping! To escape the crowds we decided to go from Jinshangling to Simatai,a less popular section. Allthough we did not come across many tourists on this particular section of the Wall, we did have to pass some 30 old watchtowers, most of them fully armed with an eager and persistant vendor, trying to sell us water, coke or whatever he or she had to sell. But as wewere well prepared wehad to dissapoint these poor guys and they had to try to sellwater, which were obviously refilled mineral water bottles, toanother toerist that might have followed that day.Furthermore we discovered that not the entire Wall is as old as they try to make us believe. We encountered a lot of workers that were busy not only restoring but even rebuilding parts of the Wall. The Chinese definitely like new things indeed:)

Our last day in the pleasant city we (Sharda, Jordi and Daniel) mainly spent in 'the Bookworm', a cosy and peaceful place where you can buy, trade and read books (in English). Or as we did enjoy a great European style lunch including several bottles of a charming Chardonnay from New Zealand (not bad at all having to go there as well:)). We were told later that day a book presentation was to be helt here, so we stayed a bit longer, drank a bit more and read a bit. It was about the new book 'Ich bin ein Beijinger' (sounds somewhat familar...) by the inBeijing expat land wellknown Chinese-American columnist Kaiser Kuo (maybe his parents were fans of the film The Usual Suspects with the mysterious Kaiser Sosei?).It was quite funny but also a bit pathetic to see this so-called 'socialist expat elite' asking serious questions on human rights in China, which were not answered by 'the Kaiser', probably out of fear of loosing his job when being too critical...? Instead he replied by telling easy and corny jokes on marihuana (always good for a laugh with most Americans) and the audience loved it and laughed a bit too loud.

Unfortunately all good things come to an end and we had to leave this pleasant city again, as a new adventure in the Himalayas is awaiting us (to be posted shortly so keep checking your emails)!

Bye!

Jordi and Sharda

Elk nadeel heb zo zijn voordeel…....every downside.....

You might be surprised that suddenly pictures do appear on your website although I wrote they won't be online any time soon. Well we got up at four this morning to go to the airport and catch our flight to Lukla from where the Mount Everest Base Camp trekking will start. Yes we will be cheating the first 2700 meters, but it only makes it harder to acclimatize for us, it's just that the way to Lukla is not accessible by car.

Seven ours later we are back in the hotel, our flight got canceled due to bad weather at our destination. We knew that there is a big change of cancellation during monsoon. The roads that were flooded when we drove to the airport due to heavy rain was a little sign we were trying to ignore. But we thought we were fine when we were finally sitting in the little plane after waiting for a couple of hours, fastening our seatbelts....but after another call from the pilot to Lukla he decided it was too dangerous to take off and he promised to try again later.....

This afternoon we went to the monkey temple to do our prayers and we will try again in the morning with all our positive spirit, please keep your fingers crossed!

Train adventure continues.......

Dear all,

Finally a new update about our trip. Since the posts are drying up we really feel the urge to write again, it really makes us happy to read your messages! All the credits for the last story are for Jordi, i feel the pressure now to keep this level up, well let's give it a go.

From Irkutsk we took the night train to Ulan Ude, another train experience with the locals and finally Jordi got an introduction tot the vodka downing; 'only' one tea cup of vodka at the time he was offered by an older Buryat manwhom wewere sharing the cabin with. His wife and I were only spectatorssince this is a real man thing, which i was totaly happy with.

The next morning wearrived in Ulan Ude, the capital of Buryatia, a region the size of Germany with its one culture, language and habits within Russia. We were honoured to stay with a lady called Rada and her mother. They started a home stay to fill up the social gap her father left after he died, as the minister of Culture and a very respected poet in Buryat he always had guests over for dinners and drinks. We could still feel the hospitality and the warmth of this family and could learn so much about the Buryat people and culture in the short time we stayed in Ulan Ude.

The monastry outside of the city; Ivolgisnk Datsan was very impressive, our first buddhist monastry on this trip which hada slightly Russian touch. The sun was burning and we we're trying to find places in the shadow to watch the monks moving around between the different buildings.....we could never imagine thatwe could see snowon the roof the next morning.This definitely is our introduction to the land climate, incredible how a sunny clear day can change overnight in a cloudy, cold and snowy morning.

Well i have to say it were the perfect conditions to finalise our Siberian part of the traintrip, leaving Ulan Ude early in the morning for Ulan Bataar, the capital of Mongolia. Stark winds, snow, rain, never ending grey skies just the whole package to understand why Siberia is fairly deserted. I realy hope that we will be able to post some pictures later onbecause that realy will help your imagination setting the picture of this almost mid summer day in winter circumstances.

Since the theme of our website is crossing borders this will be the first alinea totally dedicated to this theme and here to speak about the practical boarder crossing between Russia and Mongolia. Of course we were well informed that it would take a long time to cross the boarder by train because off all the checks especially the traders wo would like to import goods to Mongolia are supposed to keep customs busy. We stayed for almost 5 hours on exactly the same spot at the Russian border, when we finally could leave the train for a little strol we realized it was just our carriage standing there. Nothing left of the ten other carriages, no locomotive, nothing to move us any further. Only about 20 tourist atmost who wanted to cross the border were waiting patiently in the train. After the carriage had moved atmost 200 meters we had the honour of waiting for another 4 hours before we were attached to a Mongolian train. I'm wondering if we will be able to beat this record anytime at our trip. If so, please can we have a better view than that ugly concrete Russian custom office blocking our window?!

Mongolia is such a nice and friendly country......which country isn't compared to Russia? The first Mongolians smiling at us made us realy feel warm inside, yes that is what we missed in very fascinating large spread country Russia; a smile on the people their face or just even a little glimps! Other than that the English signs besides the Cyrillic signs around Ulan Bataar also helped since in Russia everything is written only in Cyrillic.

We spend a day in Ulan Bataar getting an impression about the importance of Ghengis Khan, the great leader who once conquered China, after his 'visit' the Chinese decided to build a wall to protect them from any moreunwanted visits.They are so proud ofGhengis Khaneven in 2009 which will be the same as us Dutch people stillhonoring Willem van Oranje everyday.

We tookour time for mental and fysicalpreparation (read; eating croissants and wafels in a french cafe) for our trip to Terelj National park, 70km north of Ulan Bataar. We booked another 'home stay' with a Mongolian family in a Ger but we found out that wewere picked upthe next morning by a Dutch guy who lives in a Ger in Mongolia. According to the Lonely Planet (in the train our great travel mates from Down Under pointed this paragragh to us) he makes very good Dutch cheese.....we didn't travel 7000km by train to stay with a Dutch guy and eat Edam did we?!

Bert de Groot already build up a reputation among Mongolians and foreigners in the last eleven years, picks us up in the morning. First we go to the food market to buy the essentials for the coming days. He warned us it was going to be a local market, a kind of 'whole saler' '. We weren't allowed to take pictures. I can only say the meat goes here by animal instead of half an ounce, and it aren't restaurant owners buying their meat here but ordinary people. Goats, sheep, horses, cows everyting with four legs has been sold here. Dead, a live or deep frozen from last season; all differs in price. Bert is doing the negotiations and shaking hands with all the people who know him, interesting to hear him speak Mongolian with an Amsterdam accent.

After we visited several food markets to collect all the provesion we left for Terelj, this two hour ride finally took us most of the day. Since we didn't have any transportation to cross the several small rivers to get to the Ger. Finally the local butcher offeredus a ride with his pick up truck (when we were loading the groceries i was facing the head of a just slaughtered cow) but it got stuck in the third river wehad to cross.One of the big Toyota landcruisers from a city boy tried tohelp us but unfortunately there weren't any properropes avalaible. Workers from the Ger came by food with arope and we got out of the mud and could continue our trip. In case we don't have any plans after this trip i'll sign up for Camel Trophy, what a thrill you get out of it when you're able to continue with the car after a real mud adventure!

I can write another ten pages about our three day stay at the Ger but instead of that i'll drop some bullits and hopefully the pictures will complete any time soon;
Bert and his Ger hold;
* about 9 Dogs (Obama, Mccain, Mankepoot, Simba and many others with Mongolian names);
* about 12 pigs (minus one that was slaugthered just before we left and by now has been grilled);
* about 30 cows (for the cheese, cottage cheese and yogurt production);
* about 10 horses;
* no chickens because the dogs catch them;
* a 6 week old baby girl laying quitly in the Ger with two olders brothers;
* his Mongolian wife, her sister, her father and other relatives helping out Bert run the Ger
* we sleep in a fenced area, the cattle just walk around freely and return to the Ger for water and tp feed their new borns, it realy feels like the world up side down but in a good way!;
* no streaming water, toilet, shower or Jacuzzi (only the river, which is a ten minute walk from the Ger and has a temprature of maximum 5 degrees)
* the galloping sound of horses day and night; people use their horses as transportation vehicle, we even saw streetboys aka'hang-jongeren' sitting on their horses instead of Vespa's;
* the most beautifull (sky)views, stars and sunsets you can imagine;
* We walked in the mountains, hills are great for skiing! but no lifts available. We discovered one of the vallys by motor bike, Jordi could show his real driving skills, crossing small water streams, avoiding sheep and goats and bringing me home safely again!

Mongolia; we will return some day!!

After this amazing trip we already had to start packing again for our last part of the Transmongolian express towards Bejing straight through the Gobi desert. More about this in two and a half weeks when we return from our hiking trip to Mount Everest basecamp. We will leave at 5 in the morning for this great adventure. In the coming 18 days in the mountains we will have enough time to think of a good summary of our great time in Bejing; thank you so much Rosalie, Michiel, Daniel, Clarisseand Daan!

Love from Kathmandu and sorry for keep you waiting for the pictures,

Jordi and Sharda

From Russia with Love

Dear familiy and friends,

After having spent some time in this enormous country called Russia, we are now sure we do not understand the Russians:) There are always surprises, some appreciated, others not.

It started in Moscow, when we arrived at the Sheremetyevo airport. Customs were surprisingly relaxed andin no time we stood in the arrivals hall looking for an ATM to buy some real russian roubles. This turned out to be harder than expected, after trying several times unsuccesfully to use the ATM, a cab driver was so helpful to show the exchange agency. However, we could not find anyone behind the counter. We found out being polite does not help and the cab driver started to shout and bang on the counter until finally someone arrived, but you shoud have seen her face.........!!*&&$#@.... After having travelledsome 10 days in Russia, nowwe know a grumpy face is the natural look of the majority of the russians!

After having seen the Kremlin, with its fabulous treasures of the Tsar dynastyin the Armouryand the Red Square with the so familiar colourful towers of St. Basils cathedral, my mind went to the modern history of the Soviet era and with a little imaginationI couldstill see the military parade passing by the Communist Party hotshots and the German guy (Matthias Rust...or...something?) that landed on the Red Square in his small airplanesomewhere in the eighties.

However, things are changing quickly in Moscow and it has becomea gigantic modern city where you see more (blinded) Hummers, Range Rovers, Rolls Royces, Prada, Gucci, D&G shopsthan in places like Marbella or Saint Tropez. And not to forget ...dozens of beautiful women, all wearing high heels till almost up to my knee! I almost convinced Sharda to buy a pair herself, but she bravely resisted and we are still walking on our hiking boots! We spent our last hours in Moscowon the 33th floor of the sky bar of the Swissotel where we enjoyed a miraculoussunset overthe city with in our hand symbolically a Trans-Siberian cocktail.

A bit nerveous we arrived at the Kazanskaya Vokzal (=trainstation), a bit more than 3 hours before the train would leave. The last time I took a 25 hour train trip (our first etappe)was when I was 17, from Amsterdam to Romeon aschool trip. But our worries were not correct. Checking inwent smoothly and the provotnika (our railway attendent) showed us our shared cabin. When we entered the cabin we were a bit surprised findinga 60 year old couple making up their beds already (it was around 5pm) in their as we say in Dutch so-calledcamping smoking. Although they did not speak English at all and we only 5 words Russian, this people turned to be very nice and after a 3 hour discussion using both hand and feet we finally found out that the man was an engineer and we had explained we were on a trip around the world!

As we soon discovered eating is an important topic in the train. Every Russian has at least several bags of cold and warm food with him and makes a ritual of every meal as the meals in the restaurant of the train are for an average russian too expensive and not the best ever, as people told us beforehand (we cannot confirm this as we only ate our own and our fellow cabin passengers food). The trains we travelled inwere pretty modern and with reasonably clean bathroom facilities (2 per wagon) and a large water cooker to make yourself some tea or coffeeand for us Dutchies a Cup a Soup at 4 pm.

One other peculiar thing is that in all trainstations, on the tickets and in the trainthe clockis set on Moscow time, while for instance Irkutsk, where we are now, is 5 hours ahead of Moscow time. Luckily Sharda has a nice diving watch which can show two times at once...another 'problem' solved.

After 25 hours we arrived in Ekaterinburg (aka Sverdlovsk), the place where the Romanov Tsar family was killed in the early 20th century and where good old Boris Yeltsin was born! We had decided to stay in a homestay, something like a B and B, but then different we immediately discovered. At the Sverdlovsk station we were picked up by a driver with a nice sign showing 'Mr Johannisse & Co' so we followed him and he took us in his car to the outskirts of this Ural city, where we were brought to a 70s looking soviet communist flat, where we were welcomed by a 45 year old lady named Olga anddressed up in miniskirt and accompanying top (showingher belly!!) together with her mother. Later Olga told us that the flat was only some 15 years old! Furthermore apparently these two lovely ladies (have to say they were really nice) did not like cleaning (as many do) as could be seen from all the dirt in the kitchen and living room. Luckily our room was the only one that was relatively clean, although we had to sleep on 2 not so comfy sofa beds, which were as hardas Stalin and short as Putin. After the first night I was already longing for the trainsleeper!

In Ekatarinburg we discovered something else while walking thorugh the local Kalverstreet. We all know that Russians drink al lot, especially vodka, but this drink has recently been changed for beer and it is very common for a men, when walking and shoppingwith his wife or girlfriend, to have at least a 0.6 liter bottle in the other hand. Why don't we dop this in Holland I thought immediately. The woman can shop and is happyher man is with her and the man can enjoy an honest beer while looking at the high heels:)

Day 2 we did a tour following the history of the Romanovs and visited the 2! places of memorialwere they were killed and later made Holy. Our guide explained that the orthodox church has a different view on their history than some other people, but what the heck, we visited them both.

Part two of our Transsib journey was a 50! hour trip to Irkutsk. Again only 4 or 5 other foreign tourists on the train and we were placed in cabin with 2 russian boys of around 20. Again, no english was spoken by these lads that had visited family in the west of Russia and now were returning to their girlfriend and wife in thefar east near Vladyvostok, the end of the regular Trans Siberian train. For them a 7 day journey which made us a bit humble as we only had to travel 2 days in a row. We had prepared ourselves even better now and had enough food for the whole trip. Although this not stopped me buying a delicious pancake from one of the women selling food (dried fish, bread, drinks) at one of the many stations were the train stops for 5-20 minutes. Finally we arrived in Irkustsk at 6am in the morning (3 days after we had departed!) where we were had arranged a transfer to Lake Baikal, the biggest sweet water lake in the world (20% of all melted sweet water in the world is in this lake), which is some 600 km long and approx. 60km wide and more than 1.5km deep!

The lake and surroundings are beautiful and you feel like you are in the Swiss alps, as on the other side of the lake high mountains with eternal snow are still visible. We stayed here in a nice wooden chalet with finally a propper bed! Unfortunately the weather was not that good, but after the 'lazy' traintrip our feet needed to train a bit for the Himalayas and we did a 2 hour walk up to a viewpoint. Afterwards wewalked in toour Swiss girlfriend from Ekaterinburg and also our 2 Swedish guys which we had met on the train showed up and we decided to have some drinks and to try the famous Omul fish from the lake, which was I must say delicious, both cooked and raw sushi style! During the dinner 2 English guys lads joined and we enjoyedsome moreBaltika beers. Suddenly the ladies of the restaurant thought it was enough, but luckilywe found another place to drink at a small dancing along the boulevard. To our surprise there were some russians partying on a Monday night and we joined them happily. Next day we took it easy and enjoyed the sun and views on the lake.

Now back in Irkutsk we are preparing for our last stop in Russia, the town of Ulan Ude, a real mix of Russian andmore Eastern Asian culturesandthe gateway to Mongolia!

And now it is time for dinner!

To be continued!

Jordi & Sharda

BTW: pictures will be added later

Goodbye Holland

Op een grauwe regenachtige koude dag, waarop de PVV als dégrote winnaar uit de bus komt van de Europese verkiezingen en het advies wordt gegeven om met een extra700 miljoen euro boven reeds overschreden budget in nóg 9 jaar de Noord-Zuid lijn toch maar af te gaanmaken verlaten wij Nederland.

Was ik overigens nog maar een eigenwijze tiener die zichzelf echt te cool vind om afscheid te nemen van papa en mama, moet toegeven dat dat met de jaren toch vanzelf weer lastiger wordt en je afscheid van ze neemt alsof er op Schiphol niemand aanwezig is.......

Nu in Finland, een krappe 9 graden en heerlijke zalm en koud bier. Zo duiken we in de sauna , helaas worden de foto's nu al geplaatst, bij onze Finse vrienden om morgen ochtend te vertrekken naar Moskou.

Just a short note from Helsinki Finland where we are spending some time with friends. It's about 9 degrees so we will check out the Sauna and warm up a bit and make ourselves ready for thetrip ahead to Russia tomorrow morning.

For navigation please usethe bright blue words at the top of the page,'verhalen'= stories'foto's'=pictures 'kaart' = map of our route and'profiel' = our profile. You only need to sign up once for the mailing list.

To be continued......

Love

Jordi en Sharda

Welcome dear family and friends!

Crossing borders......

The coming seven months we would like to take you along (partly inDutch and for our international friends in English) with us crossing borders, exploring new cultures and mostlikely plenty of experiences where we will have to cross our own borders.

Welkom op ons reis journaal, we nemen jullie de komende zeven maanden graag mee op onze reis waarin we verschillende grenzen zullen overgaan, veel nieuwe culturen zullen leren kennen en onze eigen fysieke en mentale grenzen zeker ook zullen gaan verleggen.

Geniet met ons mee!

Jordi en Sharda

PS We willen iedereen heel hartelijk danken voor de donaties voor het school project van Kady baby in Mali; we kunnen maar liefst € 500 overmaken. Dit betekent dat er maar liefst 20 kinderen weer een jaar naar school kunnen gaan; onderwijs is het beste wapen tegen armoede. Bedankt allemaal!

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