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Hong Kong

23/3/2015

I arrived in Hong Kong with some fresh excitement for Asia, I had never been to east Asia and had all these ideas of Ninjas, weird and wonderful foods and a mass sea of bodies to swim through. It delivered more than I could have hoped for.
I was staying in Mongkok which is on the western part of Kowloon peninsular, it has been described as the busiest district in the WORLD by the Guinness world records!
So heres a list of my few favourite things...

Big Buddha
The first day we went to go and check out Tian Tan Buddha, also know as the big buddha. We got the cable car ride over the city with incredible views and just as we peaked the top the big buddha reared its head! WOW!! The buddha is 112 feet tall and sitting on top of hill, you have to climb 268 steps to reach it, this also give you some pretty breath taking panoramic views of Hong Kong.

Goldfish Market
Next on my must do list is the gold fish market also know as pet street. Bag after bag of vibrant colourful fish hung from the walls, terrapins wiggled around in empty ice cream tubs and cute scrunched faced kitties held out their paws for you (this was probably to be rescued as it didn't look like the most humane ways to be keeping cats and dogs, which made me a little sad) but I highly recommend heading down to see all these beautiful fish tanks at night time.

Shopping!!
Every shopping need is catered for, from luxury Malls for the super rich, gadget bazars, street markets and hole in the wall boutiques it would be hard to not find something to please your inner shopaholic.
I spent a good 4 hours winding up and down the lengthy escalators at the Langham Place mall. It had an impressive 8 floors, each one with a different theme and bosting an array of splendid trinkets, gadgets, clothing and novelty gift shops.
Next it was onto Ladies market to haggle for a bargain, from socks to electronics it didn't disappoint, and I loved that fact that every tender was female (hence ladies market) I found a pair of black leather zip up sandals that I just HAD to have, the price was too high though so I moped away, 2 mins later she came running after me shouting "I do you good deal!" and the shoes were mine :)

Busy Shopping district Mongkok

Eating
Honk Kong has the best cuisine selection in Asia, whatever your dining desires, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Vietnamese, Japanese or European you will struggle to not be pleased.
This is where I discovered my love for Ramen and dumplings, and huge dislike for stinky tofu (if you can get past the smell and actually put this in your mouth I bow down to you)
Also you cannot miss out on desserts, elaborate, intricate, colourful and divine. Cakes, macaroons, Japanese mochi and self serve frozen yoghurt shops. Just the display cabinets are out of this world!
Hong Kong is open to eating 24 hours a day and most of the sky bars offer free snacks with your cocktails...any excuse!

My new fave dish, Pork ramen

The Light Show
A Symphony of lights is the daily light and sound show and is the worlds largest. Apart from the huge waste of electricity this is simply stunning to watch! We got a boat over from the other side of the Island and took our places. I stood there in awe of all the rainbows lights and twinkles covering the normally grey and boring sky scrapers, this is something you cannot miss!

Transport
The Honk Kong MTR is probably the cleanest (check out the fines below for eating) and most efficient underground train service I have ever used! Every 3 minutes a train will come, and to the second, never early, never late. During rush hour they have men standing over the door ways with stop signs as for some reason people like to be squeezed in like tinned sardines, this I couldn't understand as the trains arrived every few minutes. On top of this you get free wifi, which every single person takes advantage of, not one person was talking or looking around, just glued to the their screens, its quite fascinating to watch.

I absolutely fell in love with Hong Kong, the busy streets, lights, tastes, culture and giggly girls chucking peace signs for their 100th selfie of the day. Its top of my "return to" list.

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That time a monkey slapped me...

12/3/2015

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Kathmandu was a whole new world compared to the calm serenity of Pokhara. It was a sensory overload with all the sights, sounds and smells.
I was in the backpacking district Thamel, it was unlike any city I have ever been before, electric street art, tiny back alleys overflowing with golden flowers, drying chillies pilled high, teeny tiny workshops and table after table of buddha trinkets, samurai swords and jewellery.
Every corner we turned another trekking tout or stall salesman shouted after us, kids high on glue ran riot in-between the traffic jammed rickshaws and shisha smoke wafted thick through the air.

After an exciting day and night in the bustling centre shopping and gorging on momos we took a bus down to the Boudhanath Stupa.
What a spectacular sight, the stupa's massive mandala makes it one of the largest spherical stupas in the world, its almost as if you can feel those gigantic eyes watching you as you move around it. Rainbow flags fly from every corner, monks slowly walk around it clockwise and every side of the courtyard is filled with little shops. We found a great roof top cafe to cool off in the breeze and have a fresh lime sodas whilst watching the commotion below.

Now what I was most looking forward to...Monkey Temple. And it didn't disappoint! After a fairly small climb up the steps to the temple I couldn't believe just how many monkeys! some just chilled out on the pagodas picking through each others fur and taking regular dips in the pools, whilst other dashed around trying to grab cameras and food.
It was a fascinating experience just watching them up that close.
After a few hours my confidence grew and I decided to approach a mother and baby monkey and share my peanut cookies with them, all was well and I was giggling like a school girl, at this point I decided to get my camera out and get a close up picture with them eating my cookies, next thing I know mother monkey swipes for me and gets a good clean slap across my left cheek, leaving a tiny dirty monkey handprint on my face. Of course everyone finds this hilarious and mother monkey just stares me in eyes with a 'I told you so' look on her face. Believe it or not that wasn't the first time a monkey slapped me and I'm pretty sure it won't be the last!

moments before the slapping incident munching on my cookie

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Discovering Nepal, Pokhara

8/3/2015

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I had just spent 6 weeks in India and although I look back on that time now with only fond memories, at the time I couldn't wait to get out, away from those staring beady eyes, the morning scent of fresh rubbish and human excrement wafting in the air, the daily battle with humidity/ hair (the struggle is real) and to finally eat some meat that I could trust had not been laying in the blaring sun and feasted on by flies all day.

Getting there was a near death experience! It was 12 hours in a non air conditioned car along questionable roads from Delhi to the Indian/Nepalese boarder. I didn't mind this so much as I got to see parts of India that not many people fall upon and got to taste some exquisite fruits and raw cane juice from the villages along the way.
We walked across the border and settled down on our backpacks under a tree for our six hour wait before our over night bus to Pokhara.

The bus pulled up, we boarded and sat on the front row, there was space for say 20 people on this bus, I remember turning around and counting 56 people, 7 chickens and 13 bags of rice. How!? I still don't know how!
The bus stopped every 10 minutes so the locals could hop on or off and barter over rice and fruit.
It stared to get dark and we started to climb the mountains, finally I thought it was time to get some shut eye, think again lady!
The Bollywood music came blaring out, my glass window shook with rattling force next to my ear and every 30 mins we were pulled over by the Nepalese army who would barge on and shine torches in our faces and demand passports, if thats not terrifying enough, we were flying around the mountain tops at full speed in the torrential rain with little to no light, passing over turned and crashed lorries, I thought...'this is it, were going to die, I'm really sad I never got to have my own pet cat'

18 hours after boarding the death trap and much to my amazement the sun started to rise and we were still alive, hooray! This is when I got my first glimpse of Nepal. The spectacular backdrop of snowy peaks, serene lakes and an abundance of green, I felt an incredible sense of serenity come over me. We hopped off the bus into the crisp, refreshing mountain air and made our way to the lodge.
Now this was heaven! after India I feel like anywhere would be heaven, we had a kingsize bed with clean sheets, not a questionable stain in sight, cockroach and rat free floors, the lights worked and to top it all off we had a bath, a bloody bath, in my delirious state I think I might have cried when I saw that!

Fewa Lake, Pokhara. This is just round the corner from our lodge.

Our first port of call was to take the worlds most extreme zipline. Flying through the Himalayas was something I just couldn't miss out on. The zip line has a vertical drop of 2,000 feet and a distance of 1.8 Kilometres, that makes it the tallest and steepest zip line in the world, and when you have the wind on your side you can reach speeds of 140km/h (87mph) The closer to the top I got the more I started shitting myself. It was an experience I will never forget.

The next day we started our 5 day trek into the Annapurna Range. We took a 2 hour bus deep into the jungle and that where we started, sweat pouring off of us as we climbed close to 3,000 stairs on that first leg of the trip. It was 6 hours walking to get to our first overnight stop, a small village Ulleri. We met lots of other tired and dirty trekkers here, ready for some good food and a long awaited lye down.

Day two and three were spent carving our way through the green valleys and climbing, climbing more climbing, it was getting colder and the mighty mountains were coming into view. We spent the night in the village of Ghorepani. It amazed me to see these little old ladies hoping up and down the mountain side with no effort at all.
This was my favourite place in Nepal, this tiny village was so peaceful and beautiful, surrounded by the range and splashes of bright prayer flags, flowers and chickens. Its also where I discovered smoking Nepalese hash at such altitude was a bad idea, unless you want to fall asleep at a table.

The next morning we were up at 3am to start walking so we could catch sunrise at Poon Hill. Now this was a 'moment' in my life, sounds super cliche I know!
As I got up there the blood red sun light poured its way through the black, the magic started to happen, every mountain began to glisten in untouched monstrous glory, fresh snowy powder sparkled and danced on the horizon, my breath was taken away and I felt like a tiny small insignificant being next to these natural giants.

We got back to Pokhara, tired and hungry (and in my case unable to walk like a normal person from muscle ache) but we couldn't stop smiling. It called for celebration! We headed into town and picked one of the many river side bars and restaurants. I decided to order buffalo steak and chips as a reward for all the walking. A few (7 or 8) beers later I fell into bed, feeling a great sense of achievement and thinking somewhere flat like Holland would be a nice place to visit.

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Northern Naughtiness

2/3/2015

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After a few relaxing weeks roaming around Goa and southern India it was time to head North.
From Delhi to Jaipur to the night markets of Jodphur, all of the whirring, yelling, bright lights and chaotic streets made for quite the bustling adventure. Especially arriving to Delhi on independence day, I felt like a sardine, but a happy sardine none the less, how lucky to experience that, I even got invited onto a float and travelled down the street handing out little parcels of rice and waving to the locals, I felt like Kate Middleton!

Delhi, Indepence Day street parades.

The thing that struck me most about Northern India was the intricate architectural wonders that lay before me. The Taj Mahal being the most famous but there is an abundance of forts, mosques, palaces and havelis lining every hill top and valley. And the sheer mass of buildings piled onto and next to each other with no floor to be seen from above. Its quite spectacular

Udaipur, the blue city.

Next up was something that intrigued me as much as it disgusted me, a rat temple....yes that right RATS!
Legend has it that Laxman, Karni Mata's stepson (or the son of one of her storytellers), drowned in a pond in Kapil Sarovar in Kolayat Tehsil while he was attempting to drink from it. Karni Mata implored Yama, the god of death, to revive him. First refusing, Yama eventually relented, permitting Laxman and all of Karni mata's male children to be reincarnated as rats.
If being surrounded by rats wasn't bad enough you had to do it bare foot, but the most disturbing thing of all was a big bowl full of milk and water that everyone was sharing with the rats, an upmost privilege, regardless of the luck they said it would bring me I couldn't be tempted to take a sip...(vom)

Of all the fascinating and extraordinary places in Northern India, Varanasi had to be the most spiritual and awakening corner of the country, it sits on the banks of the Ganges and is considered the holiest of the seven sacred cities.
Pilgrims come to the ghats to wash away a lifetime of sins in the sacred waters or to cremate their loved ones (I found this out earlier in day after tripping over a dead body that was wrapped in colourful cloth, much to my horror they were lined up along the street ready to be dipped into the river and cremated)

Morning time at the Ghats.

Varanasi Holy Man

Sneaky snap of this guy getting ready for his morning ritual on the roof.

Lastly we come to Jaisalmer, the golden city, placed around the breathtaking fort. I came here for the exotic camels and desert mystery.
This is where I got told by every traveller to try the infamous Bhang lassie, Bhang has been used in India since Vedic times, and is an integral part of North Indian culture. Sadhus and Sufis use bhang to boost meditation and to achieve transcendental states. Bhang or cannabis is also used amongst Sufis as an aid to spiritual ecstasy.
I opted for a banana bhang, within 15 minutes I was appropriately nonchalant, but the next hour was something of a lucid whirlwind, I remember laughing a hell of a lot and finding the bright lights, sounds and animals fascinating, this went on for about 12 hours. I awoke the next day pondering over the possible outcomes of how we made it back home and just how long had we been in this room!? Turns out you must be very carful where you get your bhang lassies from as a percentage of them will also include LSD extract, so there we have it, mystery solved.