It’s been so long since I last wrote an email too all of you guys, that I really don’t know where to start. But even if I knew, it would be an email of epic proportions, which I’d rather leave to Spyro. So how about a quick rundown instead?

• Nepal: after India, Spyro and I went to Nepal where we stayed for 3 month from early July on. It’s a cool place with really nice people and due to rather recent political developments it was quite an interesting time to be there. But the most important thing is that I fell in love there. Although technically I probably fell in love in Turkey already. But then love followed me to Nepal and fell on me. “Love” also has a name, which is Paola. She’s Italian, I live in Italy now. There might be a connection. Oh yeah, I also went up to Everest Base Camp (around 17,000 ft) with Spyro and a group of 5 Indians, which was quite nice. It also taught me a very important lesson about myself: I’m a city person and mountains annoy me after a while, even if they are the highest and most beautiful in the world.

• Bangladesh: the biggest surprise of this trip for me, Bangladesh turned out be a wonderful place, full of surprises and lovely randomness. If you are up for a travel destination that’s not overrun by tourists, you should definitely consider this an option. Spy will probably be there longer, so go bother… I mean go and keep him company! Anyway, since it’s hard to describe Bangladesh in only a few lines – and I really don’t feel like writing many right now – you should go find out yourself. While you are at it, make sure to ride the Volcano in Wonderland (an amusement park) in Dhaka, it’s quite a life changing experience. One more thing: our stay in Dhaka would never have been the same without Shipu – the CS host we stayed with – and his wonderful friends who are mostly artists from the Dhaka Fine Arts Academy. Thanks for introducing us to all this wonderful people, taking us to Hindu festivals, arranging to us for be in a movie and so much more. You ARE the jungle king, Shipu!

• Italy: since October 30th I’m now in Italy, more specifically Milano. I live here, which I can prove by owing a public transport pass. I’m also looking for a job right now, keep your fingers crossed this coming Friday! Isn’t it ironic to have a job interview on the 1 year anniversary of my unemployment? Besides that Paola and I are currently looking for a flat and once we got one exclusive invitations for visiting us will be sent out to a select few (read: if you wanna come and crash on the couch, sending an email doesn’t hurt, we may be able to put you up).

• Spain: Before I forget it, I finally made it to Barcelona: Paola and I went there for 9 days end of November/beginning of December. Apparently there’s only two groups of people, the ones who love the city and the ones who hate it. If i have to choose between those 2 extremes, I definitely fall more in the first category, we really did enjoy our time there!

That’s it for today kids, some of you I’m supposed to see rather soon anyway. All the others probably are aware of the fact that I miss them, even though I can be horrible at staying in touch, answering mails etc. But that’s part of why you love me, right?

Hugs and kisses,
M

…it’s more where you’re going […]. At least according to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who are usually right. Unfortunately Indians don’t seem to agree on this, so Spyro and me have to go through quite a few iterations of “Mister, which country?” every day. Funnily enough nobody seems to really care about the answers, unless they provide a chance to mistake “Austria” for “Australia”. Seriously, any more of this and I’m the first to scream “Oi! Oi! Oi!” at the next “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” chant. Other popular questions include “What’s your good name” (I didn’t know I have a bad name too, I was told it’s called a “reputation”) and “What’s your profession?” (neither “nothing” nor “bum” seem to be acceptable answers by the way). So after two and a half month of this we became very good at nodding and smiling, ignoring people’s requests or outright lying to their questions. In short it’s like a boot camp for becoming a politician.

After this small rant – and I’m sparing you the ones on environmental awareness (“everything is bio-degradable if you give it a couple million years”) and the ancient Indian martial art commonly known in the West as “traffic” – I want to give you some information about our last destinations: after good old Varkala we made our way to Allepey to do a houseboat tour of the amazing Kerala backwaters, where we were amazed to hear that this place in India is one of the world’s least polluted areas. Unfortunately people seem to be aware of this irony and are working hard on remedying this confusing state, so make sure to go there soon. Next stop was the Bamboostix Island Resort, which is a beautiful and relaxing place. Alas nobody else seems to be aware of this, so we were the only guests at that time which made our stay a bit less interesting than originally hoped for. At least there was a carrom board and we could see the start of the monsoon in Kerala at night… Other highlights of our trip were the beautiful tea plantations around Munnar, Gokarna (hint: climbing/walking around the cliffs during the monsoon is not a smart idea) and all the beautiful climbing/bouldering spots around Hampi. Oh yeah, I kinda forgot to mention Cochin where we had a small but nice CouchSurfing meeting and Calicut, where absolutely nothing remarkable happened (the Bratislava of India so to say :p). The 10 days in Bombay where mostly spent hanging out with old and new friends (Paul, Jo, Blake and Mike), but we also got around to do an absolutely amazing tour of Asia’s biggest slum, Dharavi, which I heartily recommend to any Bombay visitor! I also managed to lose some weight there, mainly in the form of my wallet which spontaneously decided to get itself a new owner on a suburban train during the rush-hour (although civil war might be a better description). I only lost 150 rupees and my debit card (which thanks to Kerstin and other nice AUA employees got “delivered” to me in Delhi for free – thanks again!), a fair price for my first pick-pocket victim experience. Right now we are hanging out at Avi’s house in Delhi, and despite all the bad things we’ve heard about the city beforehand, it’s surprisingly cool so far. Granted that may have to do with the fact that “pizza man” Mike, Toni “Don’t freak, I’m a Sikh” Walia and a couple other cool cats decided to hit the city at the same time, but it’s a pleasant surprise nonetheless. Tomorrow noon we (viz. Spy, Claudio from Brazil, Samantha from the States and yours truly) are heading off to Kathmandu, one of my dream destinations ever since I saw “The Golden Child” with Eddie Murphy. I better see some snake charmers there, otherwise I’ll be a very very sad camper…

I can’t believe my first 2,5 month in India are almost over now, it’s definitely been a remarkable trip with a lot of unique memories (animals, strikes, riots, crowds, stares, weird people, weirder people, incredibly nice and hospitable people, you name it). “Incredible India”? Definitely!

Love,
M

P.S. Go watch Charlie Bartlett, it’s a great movie. And brush your teeth at least twice a day!

Time for some random musings on India…

Austr(i|ali)a: Let’s face it, nobody knows Austria. It usually goes like this: “Where are you from?” – (Oh no, not again…) Austria." – “Ah, Australia. Good country! Cricket!” – “Uhm, yes. Australia’s a good country, but I’m from Austria.” – “Yes, Australia. Good!” – But then, only a few days ago, it seems as if the word “Austria” suddenly registers with my conversation partner, he concentrates deeply for a moment, smiles and then asks: “Arnold country?” – There is no god.

Buckets: Indian hotels led to my newfound admiration for buckets, the most useful tool mankind ever invented! Why? Because they are incredibly versatile. You can wash your clothes in them, use them as showers, puke into them, sweep floors with the water inside them, turn them around and use them as chairs or to catch cockroaches, the possibilities are almost endless. In bucket we trust!

Cricket: India is cricket country, full stop. The sport is everywhere, and although I fully agree that aliens must have brought it to our planet (who am I to argue with Douglas Adams?), I lately feel a strange attraction to it, watching quite a bit of the new Indian Twenty20 league together with good old Spyro. In our defense, it is a lot more interesting to watch than test cricket, and – as an Australian guy explained to us yesterday – it’s as close to backyard cricket as you can get. Wait, backyard cricket? We’re in! Because playing cricket is even more fun than watching it. Especially when you play barefoot with a bunch of Indians on dirty streets, where you are out after one bounce and a boundary doesn’t get you 4 or 6 points, but evil looks from everybody around ’cause you just lost the ball…

Transport: Auto-rickshaw – done. Bicycle-rickshaw – done. Non-AC bus for 15+ hours on horrible roads – done. Sitting on the floor in an overcrowded train next to an open door – done. Riding on top of a truck to the amusement of the Indians around us – done.

Movies: Indians are crazy about their cinema. And Indian cinema is crazy. In fact, it’s crazy enough to let bums like Spyro and me play business men in a Tamil movie. Yes, business men! We got casted (“You guys wanna be in a movie tomorrow?” – “Hm, why not…” – “Can you maybe shave?” – “No!” – “Ok”) in our lovely Mahabalipuram and went to the movie shot in Chennai the next day (and yes, they paid our ride there, which was quite handy since we needed to catch a bus from there anyway), arrived at the set around 9:30, got great food and then…sat around for a while. After a couple of hours we got more great food and were told “Relax over there in the shade”. Relax? Sure, we are good at that. Anyway, eventually they made us wear suits (it’s good that there are no pics, Spy looked like a 16 year old forced to wear a suit for some relative’s wedding or something), and gave us our great lines. Originally I was supposed to be Man#1, who had an impressive 15 words of text (“Okay, Mr. Krishna. We have decided to start three new companies in association with you.”), but after we told the producers that we couldn’t make it back to Chennai ten days later, the stuttering African guy got promoted and I was relegated to become Man#2 (“You have to make them the best companies!”). Spyro starred as Man#3 (“Not only the best, but also number one!”), but later managed to sneak another sentence in. Overall a very cool experience, the male lead and the other guys were all really nice and funny, we got delicious food and 500 rupees. The movie will start in South Indian cinemas around August 2008, but if things keep going at the current rate, we’ll be living in Hollywood by then. I wonder if the food is as good there…

Travels: After the last big update (sent from Bangalore) we went on to Pondicherry (nice, but a bit boring) including a day-trip to Auroville (according to Wikipedia it’s an “experimental township”, according to us it’s…weird), Mahabalipuram (a relaxed backpacker town), Chennai (from here to fame) and Rameswaram (impressing temple, great food and close to an eerie post-Tsunami ghost-town). Last stop in Tamil Nadu was Kanyakumari, where the Arabian Sea meets the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, and where the food is terrible. Right now we are in Kerala, a state ruled by the first democratically elected communist government in the world. We spent a couple of hours in the state capital Trivandrum, before coming to Varkala (another very backpackery town) where we are currently hanging around like a bad smell (literally). Our future plans are – as always – tentative at best, so if you have any suggestions or want to meet up somewhere, shoot me a message!

Lots of love and licks to body parts of your choice,
M

After leaving my beloved Istanbul I’m now in India since last Tuesday. The flight with Air Arabia only cost 160 Euro from Istanbul to Bangalore, but I had to endure a 15 hour stopover in the United Arab Emirates. Since hanging out at the airport for that long isn’t really an option, I decided to go see some of Sharjah, but immigration took a bit longer than expected:

me (walking up to the counter): Good morning!
Immigration officer #1: Hello!

(She checks my passport for a while)

Immigration officer #1: Where are you from?
Me: Austria.
She: Australia?
Me: No.

(She consults with another immigration officer. We establish that I’m not from Australia one more time. We consult a third officer. No, not Australia. They send me to another counter.)

Immigration officer #2: Hello. Where are you from?
Me (hopeful): Austria.
Immigration officer #2: Australia?
Me: Austria! Autriche. Oesterreich? Avusturia… In Europe. EU. Mozart.

(He calls for another guy, rinse and repeat the Austria-Australia confusion. He takes my passport, says he’s gonna check something and disappears. I can see him through a window, he takes a big book and apparently tries to figure out where I’m from. About 15 minutes later he reappears, smiling.)

Immigration officer #3: I found your country, in Arabic we call it… (sorry, I forgot). And we also know why we didn’t recognize your passport (proud smile): you’re a diplomat!
Me: (scruffy, wearing dirty baggy jeans, mildly surprised and really amused): No, I’m not. It’s a standard EU passport, they changed them 1 or 2 years ago and look a bit different now… Anyway, thanks for your help!

(Immigration officer #2 still doesn’t exactly understand what’s going on, starts flipping through my passport, sees the page with my Hong Kong visa on arrival, smiles and decides to also give me one. Of course he doesn’t use a new page, but squeezes it in next to the HK one. He’s right though, the Arabic script indeed looks kinda neat next to the Chinese characters.)

Finally out of the airport I see two guys who where on the same flight as yours truly. We decide to go to the city center together and while chatting on the bus I discover that they are from Hungary. Which by the way also seems to be totally unknown in the UAE. Apparently nobody gave a shit about the Austro-Hungarian empire in the Middle East. But then, why should they? Anyway, we get to Sharjah, stroll around for a bit and then they tell me that they’ll rent a car and go to Dubai and that I can tag along if I want to. Sure do, let’s go! Once we reach the car rental an elaborate sales pitch follows. Long story short, the two of them rent a car including a driver, who’ll show them Dubai and its sights. And I can come along, for free. Sweet! So basically I ended up seeing a lot of Dubai and Sharjah in my quite limited time there. And honestly that was quite enough. It just seems too much like a fake place with no soul and unless you are really into skyscrapers and big malls it’s not all that interesting. It did have it’s funny moments though, especially in the tucked away Somali restaurant where it seemed like we were the first white people to ever eat there and especially when 3 random guys walked up to us on the street, only to say “Hello, Michael Jackson!” and disappear again immediately.

Hm, getting lazy now, so cutting the story short: made it to India, met Spy at the airport (for those of you who don’t know him, Spyro and me traveling together is probably not good for world peace), crashed at his hotel room. Since Wednesday we’re supposed to stay with Dilip, but somehow always end up crashing at Murali’s nice penthouse apartment (I wonder why).

Random India info: food is good, although a bit repetitive. People find us very exciting. Even more so than in China. In fact a lot more, cause in China nobody ever walked up to me, shook my hand, kissed it, stroked my beard and then left without saying a word. Within the course of 10 seconds, while negotiating with an autorickshaw driver. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. So far we saw cows, buffaloes, monkeys and a lot of other small animals roam the street, but Spy already saw an elephant on his bus trip, which makes me insanely jealous.

What we do: Yesterday we went on a road trip to a place I can’t pronounce, where we did a boat trip next to some waterfalls with beautiful scenery around. We also played some hurling on the beach and
had dinner at a little village on the way back home, where the locals seemed very excited by our mere existence. Today or tomorrow we’ll most likely do another road trip before heading to Tamil Nadu and then further down south (although that’s only a tentative plan, since we really suck at making real ones). Yes, at the hottest time of the year. No, we never said we are smart.

That’s it for today, better stuff to do than hanging out in front of a
computer.

Love you all,
M

Since I get the same questions over and over again, I decided to do this update in the form of a little Q&A session:

Q: How long will you be traveling for?
A: Don’t know. Until I’m done I guess. I don’t really want to go back to Austria before summer 2009 though…

Q: So you got stuck in Istanbul. What’s her name?
A: No girl involved, honestly. For once I’m doing something stupid out of my own free will. ;)

Q: Do you speak any Turkish yet?
A: Well, I picked up some random words and phrases in the last month, but since I want to learn quicker I’m now taking a course (12 lessons a week).

Q: Is Istanbul safe?
A: Yup, definitely, at least if you have some form of common sense (e.g. showing huge amounts of foreign currency in dark side streets at 2am is probably not a smart move and the random guy who starts a nice conversation in Sultanahmet will at one point try to sell you a carpet). People here seem to be really afraid of terrorism though, so you see loads of armed cops and have to pass metal detectors every time you want to go on a subway or in a mall (or other public building/sight). And since they don’t have trash cans in the city center because somebody could hide a bomb in them, I came to detest all kinds of wrappings.

Q: How’s public transport?
A: Okayish. There’s busses, ferries, trams, dolmus (minibus taxis) and subways. Of course the subway lines don’t meet, so changing between them is not an easy feat. The busses however go all over the city (if they manage to go at all because of the insane traffic), but whoever designed the bus stops here must be a strong believer in Darwinism and the survival of the fittest. Why? Because it can be damn hard to find out which busses leave at any given stop and where they are headed. Schedules are unheard of (well, they can be looked up online, but that’s almost like believing in the tooth fairy) and intermediate stops don’t get announced on the busses. So once you figure out how to go to a place, you make that knowledge your best kept family secret, because at one point it may turn out to be a competitive advantage (‘My kids know how to get to the university!’). Ok, it’s not always that bad and people are actually very helpful, but on several occasions walking was way faster and less annoying than being stuck in a traffic jam on an overcrowded bus.

Q: How are the people in Istanbul?
A: Awesome! Their hospitality puts us all to shame and the young people are well educated and very interested in topics like world politics, religion etc. Of course my perspective probably is a little skewed because I mostly hang out with students, but I firmly believe that if everybody in Austria would be so welcoming and helpful to foreigners as people are here, that country of ours would be a much nicer place.

There’s some more questions, but I can’t really be bothered answering them right now, so I’ll save them for a future update.

Here we go for part two of my “amazing” adventures. And despite Istanbul being only the second stop on my trip, it seems like I’ll already throw my plans overboard here. In theory I will board a plane on Monday morning and go to Muscat (Oman), from where I’d head to Mumbai on the 29th. My friend Josiah already expects me there and we have a road trip to Goa and Bangalore planned.

The only problem is, I don’t see myself leaving Istanbul right now, and I don’t even really know why. Sure, there are some pretty amazing sights, but that’s definitely not what fascinates me. Plus I’ve already been to a lot of them (Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi palace, Galata Tower, the Basilica Cistern and so on). It’s more about the whole Asia meets Europe and tradition meets modernity thing I guess. And the fact that I never before stayed in a city which seems to exactly have my pace.

So? Honestly, I don’t know. The current idea is to find a cheap room in a shared flat and stay there till end of April/end of May and learn as much Turkish as possible in that time. In all likelihood India will still be there in a couple of month and my visa is valid till mid-July, so this part of my travels can easily be postponed.

Hope all of you are doing fine, keep me updated on what you are up to!

After quitting my job and my apartment I finally left Austria last Friday. Since I found a really cheap flight with Sky Europe (22 Euro), I made Athens my first destination. For the first 4 nights I stayed at Kostas’ place in Kipseli and we had loads of fun! Among the highlights were eating in tradtional taverns, going out in Psiiri (pretty cool drum’n’bass party on the first night), drinking my first Rakomelo at the CouchSurfing meeting before watching anarchists attacking police with molotows in Exarcheia, going to a party till 7.15am the next morning (and going back home in a way too crowded car), playing Go at cafes and other places, having Suvlaki on the roof of a house on the way up to Acropolis overlooking the city and smoking shisha and drinking Raki in a small Turkish bar.

On Tuesday I moved to Natalia’s and Dinos’ place, where we had a really fun game evening accompanied by quite some Rakomelo (I love this drink by the way, Christmas markets in Austria better sell this once I get back!). Yesterday I finally did some touristy stuff and went to the Acropolis. To be honest the 12 Euro admission fee seems a bit much, but the stunning views over the city make up for it. After that I bumped into an Italian guy who seems to be a pretty well known scammer in the area. He is trying to lure tourists into a somewhat dodgy place called “Love Pub”. Although my ingenious plan to use his own weapons against him so he would pay for my drink didn’t work out, a good Ouzo and his disappointed face when I left without buying any drinks for him and the prosti…girls we “met” at this bar were definitely worth the 45 minutes I invested. There’s another CS meeting tomorrow and I guess it will become a late night out again. I’m glad my flight to Istanbul isn’t before 7pm on Saturday!

Anyway, Athens is a kickass place, with good nightlife, awesome food (go eat the Tandoori chicken wraps with freshly baked bread the Indian guy in Exarcheia sells!) and attractive people in every possible demographic group you might be interested in! I’ve only been here for a week, but I already know that I’m going to miss this place…

Had my last day of work on Monday, 44 more days till I leave Austria for a good long time. Not too many real plans yet, just a bunch of random ideas. All I know right know is that I will start in Athens from where I’ll fly to the United Arab Emirates before heading to Oman by bus. Woohoo!

Setting Orange, Bureaucracy 66, 3173 YOLD

A friend and I decided that we don’t want to spend New Year’s Eve in Vienna, so we’ve been discussing various options since last Friday. Since I couldn’t convince him to celebrate in Tirana, we finally settled on Rome. So today we start hunting for tickets, find some semi-decent ones with Austrian, but somehow don’t book them right away. A couple hours pass and when we finally get our lazy butts to the online booking site, we discover that the return flight for January 2nd is gone. Anyway, a couple of mishaps and coordination problems later, I finally have tickets for December 28 and January 1st. However, when my friend tried to book the same itinerary, it turns out that the flights already became more expensive, so he didn’t book them. This is kinda awkward, since he was the one who originally wanted to go to Rome, whereas I would have been open for a lot of other options too. We’re currently discussing splitting the additional costs for his tickets, so I really hope that they will still be available at the time he tries to book them…

And in case you wonder: Yes, it’s the friend who was also involved in the Romania incident.

Pungenday, The Aftermath 11, 3173 YOLD

Today I found a neat userstyle for GMail called GMail.app which gives the site a Mac-like appearance. It can be used with Stylish or Greasemonkey and I like the style quite a lot.

P.S. The new IMAP Access for GMail is much appreciated too.

Prickle-Prickle, The Aftermath 7, 3173 YOLD