Namaste all,
How is everyone doing?
As im sure you know we have already returned home, a week ago actually.
and with all the hectics of returning to work and university i have finally found a few moments to update the blog. Especially with the main attraction - pics.
We finished our trip in Delhi - with some shopping... nothing interesting really... (if you don't count the rings ;)
We spent a wonderful time in the state of Sikkim. Before that we did a 8 day trek on the Singlila ridge near Darjeeling. Against our hopes the cloud god was not on our side... Though we did get some nice views on the morning of the second day of the walk, most of the other days were sunny but with only views of large clouds clustered around and over Mt. K.
On several days it started raining by noon and a large Ozzy group booked the whole accommodations ahead of us so we were forced to stay 2 nights at Sandakphu - which has a lovely guest house and lots of clouds... but on the next few days we had great weather and even on the morning from Phalut (the highest point in the trek) we were awarded at the sunrise by an amazing view of Mt. K. and the whole "5 Sisters" (i think they are all above 8000m) all the way and including Mt. Everest which was a lovely treat :)
The first days were mostly climbing up to above 3000m... then the rest were a more gradual climb at the crest of the ridge up to phalut (3700m). The surrounding silver fir, pine and rhododendron forests were moist and green. The trek follows the Indian-Nepal border so were constantly criss-crossing in and out of India. The facilities are a bit more simple then the ones catering trekkers in Nepal but still sufficient and we always had a place to sleep (not always a shower...) and the food was... well... its Dal Bat so... nothing you would go crazy over... Its Rice... with Dal (aka lentils) well... more like some colored water with some lentils at the bottom... and Subji... which is generally vegetables.. we got potatoes (if I was lucky) with cabbage... yummmmm...but the mornings were warmed up with oatmeal porridge and tea...
To sum it up it was a wonderful trek :) recommended to all especially in spring when all the forests will be flowering.
After returning from the trek we drove into Sikkim and spent the time in 2 lovely places: Yuksom and Pelling. We had a nice place to stay in Pelling with a lovely view of Mt. Kanchenjunga and they have very good masala chai :). We spent 2 nights in Yuksom which was a smaller town but set in a lovely countryside. Everything there is lovely... green and flowering... (and lots of types of Orchids). The time was passed just looking at the mountains drinking tea... walking to see a waterfall here and there... and well.. nothing else really... :)
So thats it.. out trip came to an end... We really enjoyed it and it felt like an extension to our previous trip in Asia. The year in Israel was like a vacation from traveling. We probably wont be returning to this area of the globe soon... but well... you never know ;)
Another note - we had a great time meeting Yogev, after not seeing for such a long time it was great to meet up. He is in Thailand now and from what i understand should be back in israel preatty soon - which is way cool since we miss him so much.
OK, so that sums up our trip and now for those of you who have not seen them yet, you can see a selection of our photos at the following link:
Pics from India
Hila & Mr. Morphhh Sleazy.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Darjeeling - Tea Anyone?
Namaste all,
I hope you are all enjoying the holidays, though im not sure i remember which one it is now (Sukot perhaps?). We are currently in Darjeeling - land of Tea Plantations and tea stalls selling local tea everywhere. It's mostly an Indian tourist spot but they have started to catch on to the foreign tourist trade as well. We are staying in a lovely family run guest house that has an amaizing view to the valley below. There is only one problem though. Cant see much of the view. Why you ask ??? well... damn clouds everywhere... but still the countryside is green with tea plantations and lush wet greener than green jungle like forest. On the day we arrived in the early morning we managed to catch a short glance at the Kunchengunga mountain (above 8km) which is the 2nd or 3rd highest mountain and the highest in India. But since then we didnt get any chance of seeing any snow capped mountains.
Tomorow we are heading out for a 8-9 day trek which if the local cloud god is on our side should allow us good views of the Kunchengunga peaks. The trek is actually only 7 days long but we will spend perhaps a few more nights on the trail to relax and enjoy (if we get any) views and of course aclimitize to the alltitude. Darjeeling is around 2300m and the trek will bring us to just under 3700m. But it should be an easy one. After the trek we will be heading towards Sikkim (probably the day after our return to Darjeeling) for the remainder of our short time in India :(
Now you must have noticed i did not complain about the ride here from Khajuraho... well i cant really help it (Yoav/Nira) and ill just give out some details. We left our guest house in Khajuraho on the morning of the 3/10. We arrived in Darjeeling at 8am on the 5/10. Thats 2 days. and about 85% of it was actually on the road. But im not complaining :) the train rides were more than good and we even managed to take a shower at Mughal Serai train station (yes we only now found out that they have retiring halls with common showers) So all went well and rather smoothly.
So firstly dont expect to hear from us till the 18th. So no complaining about me not writing and being lazy etc. etc. ;)
Second we are very happy to see you all (well some) participating in the commenting on the blog - please write more and of course questions are welcome. At least i wont need to devise any stupid animal naming contests to keep you all interested (I'm sure you were all glued to your seats the last time). Though we did catch a few photos of a lovely large black himalayan bear in the local zoo which im sure will be needing a name (suggestions anyone??? ;). We are still in negoteations with the zoo regarding aquiering the furry animal, and thats after understanding that the siberean tiger is out of the questions (something to do with its sensitive wiskers).
That brings me to the last topic - Pics. Connection here is slower than slow so i wont be uploading any pics this time (try not to throw any bad tomatos at the screen please) but once we find faster one we will upload more pics. I wish i could have uploaded more pics the last time and I will try to squeeze in more the next time.
So that wraps it up for this post - I hope you all are having a lovely holiday which ever one it is :)
We are having a great time here and hope to have even more fun :)))))
Namaste all,
Hila & Mr. Morphhh Sleazy.
p.s. i know - i didnt spell check.
I hope you are all enjoying the holidays, though im not sure i remember which one it is now (Sukot perhaps?). We are currently in Darjeeling - land of Tea Plantations and tea stalls selling local tea everywhere. It's mostly an Indian tourist spot but they have started to catch on to the foreign tourist trade as well. We are staying in a lovely family run guest house that has an amaizing view to the valley below. There is only one problem though. Cant see much of the view. Why you ask ??? well... damn clouds everywhere... but still the countryside is green with tea plantations and lush wet greener than green jungle like forest. On the day we arrived in the early morning we managed to catch a short glance at the Kunchengunga mountain (above 8km) which is the 2nd or 3rd highest mountain and the highest in India. But since then we didnt get any chance of seeing any snow capped mountains.
Tomorow we are heading out for a 8-9 day trek which if the local cloud god is on our side should allow us good views of the Kunchengunga peaks. The trek is actually only 7 days long but we will spend perhaps a few more nights on the trail to relax and enjoy (if we get any) views and of course aclimitize to the alltitude. Darjeeling is around 2300m and the trek will bring us to just under 3700m. But it should be an easy one. After the trek we will be heading towards Sikkim (probably the day after our return to Darjeeling) for the remainder of our short time in India :(
Now you must have noticed i did not complain about the ride here from Khajuraho... well i cant really help it (Yoav/Nira) and ill just give out some details. We left our guest house in Khajuraho on the morning of the 3/10. We arrived in Darjeeling at 8am on the 5/10. Thats 2 days. and about 85% of it was actually on the road. But im not complaining :) the train rides were more than good and we even managed to take a shower at Mughal Serai train station (yes we only now found out that they have retiring halls with common showers) So all went well and rather smoothly.
So firstly dont expect to hear from us till the 18th. So no complaining about me not writing and being lazy etc. etc. ;)
Second we are very happy to see you all (well some) participating in the commenting on the blog - please write more and of course questions are welcome. At least i wont need to devise any stupid animal naming contests to keep you all interested (I'm sure you were all glued to your seats the last time). Though we did catch a few photos of a lovely large black himalayan bear in the local zoo which im sure will be needing a name (suggestions anyone??? ;). We are still in negoteations with the zoo regarding aquiering the furry animal, and thats after understanding that the siberean tiger is out of the questions (something to do with its sensitive wiskers).
That brings me to the last topic - Pics. Connection here is slower than slow so i wont be uploading any pics this time (try not to throw any bad tomatos at the screen please) but once we find faster one we will upload more pics. I wish i could have uploaded more pics the last time and I will try to squeeze in more the next time.
So that wraps it up for this post - I hope you all are having a lovely holiday which ever one it is :)
We are having a great time here and hope to have even more fun :)))))
Namaste all,
Hila & Mr. Morphhh Sleazy.
p.s. i know - i didnt spell check.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
India 2.0
Well... If you read our posts from the last time we were in India you would never think we would want to come back... Well.. Guess what... (well ya you already know but...) We are back in India ;)
NAMASTE everyone!!!
we are currently in Khajurahu (the place with all the kama sutra temples) and its great. Very impressive and hot as an Indian babu's armpit in hell (you can imagine the smells yourself).
so... What have we been doing in the past few days?... Well.. It all started with our flight over here....
we arrived at ben gurion at 2:30 am... With the help of our good friend Roy and is car.. And as we were going to check in we were told that the flight has been delayed from 6am to 10 am... We were extremely concerned about the fact that we might miss our connection flight from Kiev but we had nobody to talk to about it since all the offices were closed... So we spent the whole night looking at closed shops in the airport... Finally when we did check in we were told that it would be no problem since we have an hour for the connection... Ok... What could we do... Well after a horrible but short flight we arrived in Kiev .. Only to find out that our flight was again delayed by another 5 hours... And to our delight we found that the very small airport in Kiev was swarming (I'm deliberately using that verb) with braslevs who just came back from umman.. Lots and lots and lots of them... The local Ukrainians seemed a bit scared by the Yiddish shouting invasion but we managed to waste our time drinking beers at the Irish pub in the airport. So instead of landing at 23:00 on the 25th we landed at 5am on the 26th at Delhi... Good thing we arranged a pick up from the airport and a room in Delhi... So our time in Delhi was spent mostly for sleeping and buying our train tickets all the way to darjeeling.
From Delhi we took a nice Shatadbi train (short ride with AC) to Jhansi where we met Yogev and headed for Orchha... Orchha is a small local town that sits between a huge palace and a few large temples.. All from around the 15-16th cent. Very impressive. pics below:
NAMASTE everyone!!!
we are currently in Khajurahu (the place with all the kama sutra temples) and its great. Very impressive and hot as an Indian babu's armpit in hell (you can imagine the smells yourself).
so... What have we been doing in the past few days?... Well.. It all started with our flight over here....
we arrived at ben gurion at 2:30 am... With the help of our good friend Roy and is car.. And as we were going to check in we were told that the flight has been delayed from 6am to 10 am... We were extremely concerned about the fact that we might miss our connection flight from Kiev but we had nobody to talk to about it since all the offices were closed... So we spent the whole night looking at closed shops in the airport... Finally when we did check in we were told that it would be no problem since we have an hour for the connection... Ok... What could we do... Well after a horrible but short flight we arrived in Kiev .. Only to find out that our flight was again delayed by another 5 hours... And to our delight we found that the very small airport in Kiev was swarming (I'm deliberately using that verb) with braslevs who just came back from umman.. Lots and lots and lots of them... The local Ukrainians seemed a bit scared by the Yiddish shouting invasion but we managed to waste our time drinking beers at the Irish pub in the airport. So instead of landing at 23:00 on the 25th we landed at 5am on the 26th at Delhi... Good thing we arranged a pick up from the airport and a room in Delhi... So our time in Delhi was spent mostly for sleeping and buying our train tickets all the way to darjeeling.
From Delhi we took a nice Shatadbi train (short ride with AC) to Jhansi where we met Yogev and headed for Orchha... Orchha is a small local town that sits between a huge palace and a few large temples.. All from around the 15-16th cent. Very impressive. pics below:
The town itself is a bit uninviting as in shabby... But we spent two nice day there and then took a wonderfully over crowded hot humid dusty smelly local bus ride to Khajurahu.
Since we got here we spent most of the first day recuperating from the ride and relaxing... We saw some of the minor temples yesterday and today toured the main complex here... I must say it was very beautiful, both the temples and the sculptures that surround them...
looks like huge breasted females doing crazy yoga postures while having sex with over equipped agile guys... pics below:
So that's about it for now - we are heading for the night lights and sound show at the temples... Hope everyone had a happy new year and a easy yom kipur tsom...
will post more soon,
see ya,
Hila & Mr. Morphhh Sleazy.
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