Sea, sand dunes and a mountain
This is a bonus post about my travelings on the coast of Vietnam. In the mean time the blog posts of Magy and Tim are for Micronesia and their life with sharks there.
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Sumatra – first days in Indonesia and living at the magical lake Toba on an island inside an island
Indonesia
Capital: Jakarta
Population: 258 million, the forth most populous country in the world following China, India and USA
Official religion: Islam
State system: Presidential republic
Monetary unit: Indonesian rupiah
Indonesia is an island country. We arrive on a big one on the west, one of the 17 thousand islands of the country. If we decide to visit every single island of Indonesia we will not be able to do it in a whole lifetime. We have just three weeks for Sumatra, which is very little time for seeing all on the sixth biggest island on earth with a territory as big as Sweden.
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Sabah – pirates and unprecedented good deeds in a distant part of Borneo
07.05.
We are back at our favorite Malaysian State Sarawak, but this time for a short period. We stop to eat at the last town of the state – Lawas. The atmosphere is more Muslim than the other towns we passed through. The people from the off-road team treat us to lunch at a very nice restaurant in otherwise not so interesting small town Lawas.
The Malaysian part of Borneo consists of two states – the huge Sarawak and the so called North Borneo, Sabah State.
How we got mistaken for terrorists… twice, Manipur – rebels, clans and stags, Myanmar – here we come!
Ima Market (Mothers’ Market), Imphal
16.11
In the morning we have the chance to meet our benefactor and his whole family. It turns out he is the uncle of the men whose door we knocked on yesterday. The surrounding other 3-4 houses, with the belonging land which is quite vast, also belong to their family – they are in fact rich Brahmans. Our guy is the eldest of all and this is the reason why they take us to him so he can decide how to proceed. He looks young and has lived 20 years in Canada where his wife and sons still are. Continue reading
The long truck ride in the mountains of Kashmir, the good nun and the transition from Tibetan Buddhism to Islam
01.08
It is really hard for us, but we manage to walk for three whole hours and reach the Phugtal monastery. In total we have walked for 12 hours, but it is totally worth it. Right before the monastery there are wine red cliffs and the region is very beautiful. The monastery itself is built in the cliffs and the temple complex is in a giant cave. It belongs to the “Yellow hats” sect – Gelugpa and is really impressive. Dates back to 14-th century. Continue reading
The crazy, surreal wedding celebration that we witnessed, the old man who told us how people lived in this harsh places in the winter: Om mani padme hum
Phugtal Monastery
27.07
Today we can barely walk, but we cook all the food food we had left and we head to Karsha Village. Two hours and a half later we reach it. There is only one shop in it and it is open which makes us really happy. We buy some lentils and pasta and find a place with no people where we can cook. The old man from the shop hasn’t obviously seen this kind of travelers ever and is quite shocked that we go behind the shop to cook. Continue reading
Traveling in the heat with the wild balochi people and the evangelist and arriving at Multan – the city of Sufi, mango and falcons
Somewhere in Pakistan
19.04
This is our second day living at the police station. We made a lair out of chairs and two plastic mat we bought to cover our sleeping mats. We have the feeling that we are here for weeks now. The day begins with drinking tea and chatting with our friends – the policemen. The boss who is short and lean but wiry, has his pants girded up to his belly button and looks like some general from the past, invites us at his cabinet to chat and watch TV. In a while a policeman shows up and gives us his laptop so we can use the Internet. Like this the day passes quickly. We can’t wait for tomorrow to come – there are so many things we want to see.
Magic Kervan 