Tag:Travel Stories
With every step I take I can feel the air gradually getting thinner. I do walk slowly but I’m breathing as if I am running up that steep snaky slope in front of me. The lack of oxygen is really becoming an issue above 3000 meters. Approximately 14 days takes the shortest route to Mt. Everest Base Camp from the airport at Lukla at 2800 meters. A rescue helicopter needs about 30 minutes for the same distance if weather permits. […]
The last weekend I had been invited to assist a typical Hindu wedding. Those weddings last for three days and are really fun. At least this is true for the guest as the couple to be married has to assist al kind of ritual ceremonies throughout the day. All this while the men are dancing to the music of a wedding band, guests eating in the for the occasion erected tent and chatting to the other members of the family. […]
An arranged wedding of a Christian couple. Well the bride was Hindu but her parents agreed to change their religion so her daughter could marry this almost 20 years older man she did not know at all. He made a nice impression on me, I hope he will be a good husband to her. In the Lonely Planet Guide book they advise you not to take the local buses to cover long distances when traveling in Nepal. But what you […]
Just a short post on some nice news I got as I came back from my weekend trip in rural Nepal. The Kathmandu Post, Nepal’s biggest newspaper, has published on of my photos in it’s sunday edition on page two. A few days ago I read in the newspaper about a photo competition. It was titled “Find the photo journalist in you” and the theme was “Load Shedds”. (If you are a regular reader of my blog or follow my […]
In between funerals and power cuts – Every day life in Kathmandu
A bit more than a week I am now in Nepal. While I informed myself well about the situation of orphanages here in Nepal before I came here, the truth is that nothing ever written could prepare me for the real life happening here. I have been thinking a while on what to write in my first post from here as there is so many things I could talk about. I have decided to share with you a email I […]
Blue, everything is blue. Light blue where the sun beams penetrate the surface a few meters above me to dark, almost black blue when I look down. Out of sight but down there, at about 1000 meters, is the sea floor. The next coast 12 nautical miles away. Here I am, in the middle of a giant ocean, breathing a bit nervous through my regulator which makes me sound like Darth Vader. The air I’m exhaling ascends forming […]
There’s a fantastic ambient in the road. People on the sidewalk, on the terraces of their houses and some have even climbed on top of the roofs. Small stalls are selling beer and tapas, young men with a basket in each hand walking the street up and down offering with loud voices the sweets they are carrying. The windows and balconies are decorated with colourful carpets. Some houses have barricaded their entrances and fences with thick wooden boards and […]
The border of the road we are driving uphill is skirted by giant bushes of hortensias and beautiful trees. Every time the dense vegetation permits our gaze wanders over gently curved hills, covered by green fields and the blue sea in the background. After a little while we arrive at a viewpoint overlooking a paradise on its own. We are looking at what thousands of years ago was a huge fire spiting crater of a volcano, but today is […]
We are anchoring in a nice little bay with withe sand enclosed by hills with green bushes and trees which are standing so close together and whose branches are so fine and crocked that from a distance they seem like a giant broccoli. Our plan for this morning is to take the dinghy in order to get some bread and vegetables in the nearby village of Bahia de Praia. Even it is Sunday today we hope to find a […]
