The World I've travelled
Lentamente muore chi non viaggia, chi non legge, chi non ascolta musica, chi non trova grazia in se stesso.
Michele Montonati
resta li,in equilibrio su di un filo,ad odiare e amare la sua natura
ambiziosamente irrequieta
The End .. ?
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This is the end. Domani prenderò gli ultimi due voli coprendo i rimanenti 7.000 Km che mi separano da casa e fisseranno il totale dei chilometri percorsi a 65.000 Km, concludendo così la mia avventura intorno al mondo. La domanda che spesso mi sono sentito porre riguarda cosa mi abbia spinto a fare tutto questo. Ci ho pensato (tanto) anche io e la risposta che più mi piace è che se mai avrò la fortuna di avere dei nipoti, adorerò raccontare loro di quando il nonno si è messo una zaino in spalla, dimenticandosi di se stesso, dimenticando la sua razza, età, religione, estrazione sociale, educazione, cultura, casa, senso di sicurezza e si è mischiato per quasi tre mesi con il mondo, viaggiando da solo, |
| venendo a contatto con centinaia di persone di qualsiasi età, sesso, razza e religione, macinando chilometri camminando sulle strade di mezzo mondo, mangiando qualsiasi tipo di cibo in posti che fino a poco tempo prima avrebbe assolutamente schifato o considerato a rischio morte sicura, dormendo in qualsiasi stamberga e con gente sconosciuta che stava vivendo esperienze similari, spostandosi con qualsiasi mezzo a disposizione e godendo un mondo (e qui ci casca a pennello) di tutto questo. Di quando ha scoperto che cosa volesse dire essere un backpacker, di viaggiare senza un programma preciso ma facendosi trapsortare dalla vita, dagli incontri, dall’instinto. Di come ha avuto paura in certe situazioni e poi si è reso conto di avere forse meno da perdere rispetto alle persone dalle quali si sentiva minacciato. Si alza la testa e la paura passa. Di quando si è sentito a casa anche così distante da casa e di come si è sentito in compagnia pur essendo con sconosciuti. Di come è gratificante spogliarsi di tutto, vivere con 10 $ al giorno e non curarsi di null’altro se non inseguire la propria curiosità. Di come ci si può sentire veramente fieri di se stessi per un piccolo gesto che può essere un raro momento di gioia per un’altra persona. Di quando ha realizzato che al mondo non ci sono cristiani, musulmani, buddisti, ebrei, bianchi, neri, gialli, fascisti, repubblicani, democtratici o comunisti ma inzanzitutto persone. Di quando si è convinto in via definitiva che certe persone dovrebbero uscire di casa, aprire gli occhi e vivere un pò prima di (stra)parlare perchè avrebbero solo da imparare anche dall’individuo più sventurato che abita questo mondo. Di quanto sia diverso il valore della stessa cosa, vita compresa, dipendentemente dal posto in cui ci si trova. Di come sia più gratificante mettersi in discussione e guidicarsi piuttosto che giudicare. Di come sia indescrivibilmente bello atterrare in una città di un Paese sconosciuto ed essere totalmente liberi di viaggiarlo come si preferisce. Di quanto ci si stupisca quando si realizza di sentirsi più a propio agio e più vicino alla persona che si vorrebbe essere in contesti ‘difficili’ piuttosto che entro realtà ben conosciute. Tutto questo e altre centinaia di racconti ed episodi e lezioni che questo tempo mi ha dato vorrei raccontare. Forse anche per ricordarmi di quando ero io il nipote e mio nonno mi raccontava di quando ha combattuto la seconda guerra mondiale e anche se certi episodi ed aneddoti li sapevo a memoria, non aspettavo l’ora di risentirli un’altra volta. Il mio unico timore è di perdere tutto quello che questo tempo così denso mi ha insegnato e tornare a quella ‘normalita’ che a volte non sembra quasi di viverla la vita, inghiottiti da falsi problemi che ci si crea per rendere il tutto un pò meno noioso… |
My Round The World Adventure – Watch the clip
Michele Montonati
si da per disperso, prende un bus da NY diretto a sud e ricomincia dal Sud America ….
Michele Montonati
moved from 80 Clinton St. in Lower East Side (thanks Bibbz) to 444 W 54th St. in Hell’s Kitchen (thanks Fraparacca!)
60 Days!!
… e sono 60!!! Manca purtoppo pochissimo al mio rientro….
A quick update:
57.757 km circa di cui:
90 in Bici
388 in Barca (vela e motore)
4407 in Bus
650 in Moto
540 in Macchina
47111 in Aereo
4057 in Treno
250 Camminando
4 facendo Skydiving 
300 in Jeep
Scattate 4689 Foto:
380 in HKG
656 in India
614 in Giappone
817 in Malesia
762 in Vietnam
1460 in Australia
Visitate 38 città in 7 Paesi (India, Malesia, Vietnam, Cina, Giappone, Australia, USA) :
Jaipur
Agra
Varanasi
Delhi
Kuala Lumpur
Tana Ratah (Cameron Higlands)
Perhentian Islands (little island)
Kota Bahru
Singapore
Saigon
Nha Trang
Lak Lake
Da Lat
Da Nang
Hoi An
Hong Kong
Macao
Tokyo
Nagoya
Takayama
Kyoto
Nara
Osaka
Nikkò
Shanghai (airport)
Melbourne
Torquais
Great Ocean Road
Sydney
Byron Bay
Hervey Bay
Fraser Island
Airlie Beach
Whitsunday Islands
Townsville (airport)
San Francisco
Redwood Shores
Oakland
… e ora New York City!!!!
A presto!!!
Michele Montonati
packed up his backpacks in the dark of the nite, as usual, (thankfully) forgot his stinky shoes in locker and now is leavin’ for NY
Pakistan thoughts
Me and Riazullah
Un paio di settimane fa stavo chattando su GTalk con Riazullah Baig, per gli amici ‘Riaz’, la ‘guida’ per la mia avventura pakistana, da Islamabad fino a Karimabad. La conversazione prende da subito toni seri. ‘Hunza (dove lui , 36 anni, vive con la famiglia – moglie e due figlie) is not safe anymore’. Mi spiega un pò la situazione e mi dice che a breve (fine Maggio) deve andare per un mese con la famiglia alle Hawaii per un corso di management del turismo, sponsorizzato dal governo degli Stati Uniti d’America. ‘Non male’ ribatto e lo prendo bonariamente in giro sulla serietà del corso per alleggerire la discussione che si esaurisce in qualche minuto quando devo scappare a imbarcarmi per Sydney.
Oggi leggendo il San Francisco Chronicle apprendo che la situazione è veramente seria, che i talebani stanno prendendo il controllo della Swat Valley (altra splendida vallata a sud-ovest di Hunza), che l’esercito pakistano sta tentando di respingerli con lanci di missili e la popolazione civile è in fuga dalla proprie abitazioni e dalla propria terra.
- Riazullah and daughter
Penso e mi ricordo di alcune discussioni fatte in tempi non sospetti (Giugno 2008) con Riaz. Ho da subito tenuto con lui un comportamento piuttosto provocatorio (arrivando quasi a dargli del fiancheggiatore di Al Qaeda, che non è proprio un complimento per un pakistano…) e ottenendo risposte piuttosto dirette e schiette. Suona come una funesta premonizione la convinzione di Riaz, che va allo stesso passo di ‘si stava meglio quando si stava peggio’, che con i Talebani al potere in Afghanistan nella zona c’era un certo equilibrio, anche se pagato a caro prezzo (si parla sempre e comunque di una dittatura). Con l’inizio della campagna anti Bin Laden, la caduta dei Talebani e i bombardamenti in Afghanistan, molti terrosirsti talebani (questo è quello che sono) fanno fronte comune e si trasferiscono nell’area nord-occidentale del Pakistan, ad ovest del fiume Indus. Alle mie domande insistenti su armi e droga che si associano facilmente al nome del Paese, Riaz ammette che il territorio al confine con l’Afghanistan è praticamente in mano ai talebani, simpaticamente chiamati ‘Lords of the War’ che fanno della costruzione e commercio di armi e della coltivazione e spaccio di oppio la loro principale attività (questo un ‘bel’ video a riguardo)
- Pakistan
La situazione oggi, 6 Maggio 2009 è che tali talebani sono a 100 Km dalla capitale del Pakistan, Islamabad e presumibilmente non hanno intenzione di fare un pic-nic in quell’area, ma di prendere il controllo di un Paese che è in possesso di armi nucleari. Ora: non c’era altro modo per reagire all’attacco terroristico dell’11 settembre (non mi si parli di cospirazioni o di complotti!) che tentare di radicare una ‘democrazia’ di stampo occidentale in un Paese mille miglia distante per cultura, storia e religione dalla cultura occidentale bombardando il Paese (per poi ricostruirlo)? Sinceramente vedo solo le conseguenze negative e conosco la storia di una persona che è costretta a scappare dalla sua nazione per un ‘corso di management del turismo’ pagato dalle stesse persone che lo hanno costretto a scappare dalla propria casa. E Riaz è uno dei fortunati, perchè è laureato e parla inglese e giapponese, e non penso tutti in pakistan abbiano la sua stessa fortuna. Ma se metti in dubbio tutto questo o ti dimostri scettico sulle mosse statunitensi e dei suoi presidenti diventi anti americano, filo terrorista e comunista. E non voglio tirare in ballo Micahel Moore (cospiratore, anti americano, stravolgitore dei fatti o solo provocatore/pensante, con tutti i limiti di una persona??) perchè merita una capitolo a parte. Io personalmente mi ritengo prima di tutto una persona e secondariamente capace di pensiero proprio, tutto qui. Concludendo e citando i Public Enemy: Don’t believe the hype! (da qualsiasi parte arrivi)
RTW.Day.55.Australia.Sydney to San Francisco – Travelling into time
Sydney to San Francisco – Travelling into time
Departed 6 May 2 PM from Sydney, arrived 11 AM of the same day in San Francisco after 14 hrs flight
Michele Montonati
ha viaggiato nel tempo. Partito da Sydney alle 14 di mercoledi, arrivato a San Francisco alle 11 di mercoledi dopo 14 ore di volo…
RTW.Day.54.Australia.Airlie Beach – Townsville – Sydney – Bondi Beach nite out…. (maybe)
Bad news from USA: Dando’s wife is coming back just tomorrow and leave in 5 days, so we cannot meet. My American project has gone to hell, I need a backup program but I don’t want to think about it right now…
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Disimbarco dall’Avatar II, uno splendido trimarano martedi 5 alle 4 dopo tre splendidi giorni di sole-snorkelling-diving-pioggia-albe-e-tramonti-incredibili-amici-risate-relax e torno verso Arlie Beach. Recupero lo zaino grosso da un locker room e mi dirigo verso il mio ostello, dove però non ho una camera, dato che il bus per Townsville è alle 2 del mattino. La camera ce l’ha un mio ex room mate, per cui ne approfitto per una doccia con acqua dolce dopo 72 ore di solo sale e per riposare un paio di ore prima di prendere il bus e dopo l’ultima serata con gli altri 15 naviganti e altre conoscenze da Fraser e Byron Bay. 2.15 AM spunta puntuale il rosso Greyhound. Mezzo vuoto. Bene, più spazio per tentare di dormire. Mi sveglio a Townsville, sono le 6.30, nel parlare prima di prendere sonno mi sono organizzato un taxi condiviso con una ragazza tedesca. Si scende e subito verso l’areoporto, anche se il volo è alle 10.30. Nell’attesa approfitto di una wi-fi free e mi gusto Top Gear speciale Vietnam su Youtube (spettacolare, guardatelo!!). Imbarco. Sbarco. Sydney. 2 del pomeriggio e un aereo per San Francisco alle 14 del giorno seguente, il che significa meno di 22 ore da spendere in città, ma sono piuttosto stanco e l’ipotesi di spendere questo tempo tranquillo in aeroporto in realtà mi aggrada.
MA… il mio zainone cinese finto Samsonite da 5 dolla ha fatto il suo tempo. Si è rotta una cinghia, sostituita da una corda che mi sta spaccando una spalla. Urge sostituzione. Mi giro un pò di drum e mi prendo 5 minuti per fumare e pensare. Vada per Sydney, vada per Bondi Beach, dove non sono ancora stato. Treno verso il centro. Stop.
Giro in cerca di un negozio di zaini. Lo trovo e rottamo il vecchio. Si riparte per Bondi. Arrivo che è già quasi buio (sono le 5 passate) ma non ho proprio intenzione di prendere un ostello. L’idea invece è di passare la notte in giro o dormire da qualche parte, magari in spiaggia, anche se il clima non è così favorevole. Il mio stomaco mi ricorda che l’ultimo pasto risale a 24 ore prima. Trovo un locale in centro, molto carino. E’ il posto per la mia ultima cena australiana, un bar fighetto più che ristorante ma con cucina e piacevole clientela. Per 45 AUD (24 €) mi vizio con un 250 gr Scottish filet, garlic bread e fries, il tutto innaffiato da un rosso australiano. Gloriosa sigaretta a fine pasto fuori dal locale, dove un paio di persone simil-italiane stanno parlando animatamente una lingua che inizialmente mi sfugge. Mi avvicino e tendo l’orecchio. Napoletano strettissimo, mi suona più difficile dello scozzese… li interrompo, ci si presenta, due chiacchiere, il gruppo si allarga numericamente e geograficamente (bergamo, trieste, roma, tutti chef/cuochi/impiegati fissi in Australia). Tiro le 11 poi mi commiato e vado verso la spiaggia. Due mosse e il sacco a pelo è già li bello e disteso che mi aspetta. Mi infilo. Prendo sonno abbastanza facilmente col rumore fragoroso delle onde, complice il vinello australiano…
risveglio brusco sotto una pioggia piuttosto incazzata. Rifaccio su di fretta le mie cose e mi muovo sotto una tettoia a 10 metri dalla spiaggia. Sigaretta nell’attesa che il sacco a pelo si asciughi appeso a una trave e di nuovo a dormire. Sveglia alle 6 con il sole che sale da dietro le nuvole e surfisti e corridori già a calcare la spiaggia e il lungomare. Un paio di ore ad ammirare tutto questo poi verso Sydney Central. Giretto, colazione da Starbucks (che sucks, mille volte meglio la colazione noodles sorpesa – pesce, pollo, piccione, cane? – vietnamita, ma ho 5 AUD di credito su una wi-fi che hanno li, quindi ne approfitto) e tra 4 ore si parte per San Francisco. C ya Australia!
Michele Montonati
‘s schedule: Arlie Beach (Tue 5, 2AM)- Townsville (7AM). Townsville (11AM) – Sydney(1PM). Sydney (Wed 6, 2.40PM)- San Francisco (Wed 6,10.56AM). San Francisco (1PM)- L.A. (2PM). 15.000 Km, 1 bus and 3 planes in 36 hrs (God bless International date line)
RTW.Day.51-52-53.Australia.Whitsunday Islands – Call me James Bond
3 awesome days cruising on a trimaran with 14 other persons (all english but 1, german, but very good English speaking). Once again I’m thinking to take my English speaking more seriously and enroll an advanced course;
I can have a quiet good conversation easily, even if sometimes I’m missing some words, but sometimes it’s very hard to understand native speaker (expecially londoneers or Irish…).Anyway, I earn the nickname of James Bond after a quiet hard swim from the shore to our boat in supposed-to-be sharks crowded waters of Whitsunday. In addition to this, all my electronic gadgets (my solar backpack in primis) helps me with this new identity… boat is very nice, there’s a lot of space, furthermore considering it’s built for 24 persons and we are ‘just’ 18. Crew (skipper, Betty – the chef – and Tom, the sailor) is great, food is a lot and very good, all the other passengers are very funny, even if there are some couples but I actually have a lot of fun with them as well, we never went to bed before midnight and considering after 6 PM it’s dark, 6 hours of talking, joking and just chillin with people you just know since a few hours is not that bad.
The only bad point was weather. Some showers crossed our route, but in the end it was fine. Last day was fantastic! Very sunny, very windy, a fantastic snorkelling in a bay very crowded with beautiful fishes, last sail… AWESOME!
Came back to Airlie at 5 PM, met some other friends from other boats, met my room mate as well and he ‘saved’ my nite. I didn’t want to pay for a room in the hostel, since my bus for Townsville is at 2 AM, but I really needed a shower and some rest. So I asked him the favour to let me in his shared room just for a shower and a lil rest. He easily agreed and I had what I needed. Nite is very quiet, meet the other guys from my boat, have some drinks together then go sleep for a couple of hourse before packing up and leaving in the dark as usual….
Michele Montonati
è tornato dalle Whitsunday e oggi è stato abbandonato dal suo fido zaino dopo 53 giorni di onorato servizio e una riparazione in corsa a Hong Kong. R.I.P. 5 bucks fake samsonite chinese backpack…
Michele Montonati
lives in flip flops, has tanned feet, wears almost the same clothes, has fun and just don’t give a hack… leaving for Whitsunday Islands, he won’t be reachable ’til Monday… c ya!
RTW.Day.50.Australia.Partying in Arlie Beach
Met Gaia, Sabrina and spent some time with them at Arlie’s Lagoon. They are supposed to leave in early afternoon for their Whitsunday cruise, so leave them at 1 PM and meet other girls from Fraser Island connections. Spend afternoon and nite with them and a dozen of other people (inclued my dutch room mate). Hard nite. Phoenix, Mama’s Africa, someone’s birthday. Nice re meetings (the final is I went back to my room at 4 AM and wake up is scheduled for 8 AM…)
RTW.Day.49.Australia.From Hervey Bay to Airlie Beach
From Hervey Bay to Airlie Beach
Another bus, other hundreds of Kms on desert roads….
RTW.Day.46-47-48.Australia.It’s Fraser Island, Baby!! (watch out the dingos..)
I’m once again on the road, on a bus headed to Airley Beach, where hopefully I’ll take a boat and move for a three day adventure around Whitsunady Islands. I spent three beautiful days camping on Fraser Island with 8 other beautiful persons, everything was perfect!! It all begun in the hostel, where I booked a three days adventure self driving on the biggest sand island in the world. On Day.45 we had 1 hr briefing on how dangerous can be driving not safely on the sand, with hostel staff showing us quiet shocking pics of flipped over jeeps and serious crashes. They tell us just last week two guys lost their life and other 4 were seriously injured and still in hospital because they didn’t drive safely… anyway.. we are a total of 27 persons and we get divideed i3n three groups of nine with a jeep for each group. I’m with 7 English guys (3 guys and 4 girls actually) and 1 French guy speaking a damn good Englsh (he lived for 18 months in London).
Departure is scheduled for days after at 7 AM. Meeting, short briefing on how to use jeep and here we go! But not after an hilarious moment when a guy from an other group arrives in meeting place coming out from fire alarm door (with a so big sign a blind person can see) letting the fire alarm sound… he’s already my idol after this… anyway .. I’d like to drive but I’m not so confident with left hand drive (never done that before) and I do not have driving license.. so when one of the girl propones herself for driving just in town till going up to the boat I give her keys and driver’s seat. First stop is a convenience store where we buy food and drink for the next three days, stove it in the jeep, really full, and go forward to boat. Driver shift and I begin driving, just reversing van on the boat, not so easy but everything went fine. Going there take 45 minutes or so and we’re ready to insert 4 wheels drive, lock the differencial and start driving on the sand!! I take confidence with left hand drive shortly and even more shortly with all the team. Drivng on sand is not that easy, you have to be always very concentrated because car behaviour is pretty unpredictable but I have a lot of fun doing it!
We just have a map of the island, an itinerary to follow and 3 days ahead of us.
Brilliant! I have to say I enjoyed those days a lot, I’m a little bit sad everything ended and the rest of the group (called after few hours Team Awesome) as well. Days are fantastic, we spend time driving from one place to another (with me, Ethienne and Kelly driving – me for the 70% of the time), swimming in beautiful clear lake waters (you absolutely cannot dive into the ocean, it can ba deadly because of sharks, cube jellyfishes and so on…), chilling on amazing beaches and nites (which come very early, after 6 PM it’s already dark) talking and doing games and drinking games (they know a lot of funny ones) and mixing with the other 2 groups. The first nite I had some argues with a guy from another group (the heavy drinkers group, the one my idol is in) who broke a tent of ours falling down on it. I repaired it with some tape and a pal so nite was fine but I almost fighted with that asshole… anyway .. camping like this was definetly amazing, during the nites everyhing happend and when you just give a look at your watch anc you realize that at 8 PM everyone is so messed up it’s so weird..
On the sevond nite I even had a very close meeting with a dingo, which are kind of dogs/wolves very aggressive with children and when there’s food around but this is a quiet personal story… I can just tell dingos don’t go near people when they are standing, so you have to watch out when you are sitting, or in pooing position or laying down on the beach…
Thee second nite I was the chef and cooked a kind of bolognese pasta (quiet good actually, considering the ingredients and the cooking stuff I had) which Team Awesone liked a lot. Team liked me and I really liked them as well, I learnt a lot of things (some serious, some less..) and think was very lucky to be with all of them, other groups were not so united. I did my part providing music, cooking once, drivng a lot and having fun together and I found very nice people, we never had one discussion or so on, and on Fraser Island external conditions (few hours sleeping in a tent on the sand, sand everywhere, no showers, tiring days, sharing everything with unknown persons) can play an important part on getting people a little nervous but we didn’t and everything was soo good. So … I really had very good moments there, and those 8 friends more on Facebook are not just numbers…
Michele Montonati
is back from a f£$%in beautiful 3 days camping and offroading in Fraiser Island sand and leaving for Airley Beach…. c ya!
Michele Montonati
Jeep. Check! Tents. Check! Food. Check! Maps. Check! Beers. Check! Fraser Island we’re coming!!!
RTW.Day.44.Australia.From Byron to Hervey Bay
Ok, in the end last nite was not so quiet … back to Arts Factory I was really excited about skydive and showed dive clip to almost 20 persons who got excited as well. Met Elena (the girl I met in Sydney) again, spent some time with her, ate together and with other Italians I met at hostel bar (one became easily my myth telling about his long long jurney around the world. He’s from Pisa and been travelling since 8 months, without a specific plan. He just grabs occasions found around, like a bot from Darwin to Kuala Lumpur for free in change of some tasks to do… amazing!!). After dinner + some talking I was on my way home when met another group of friends (Getti+2 holland girls from our dorm) who asked me to join. I didn’t want to be unkind so went out, just for a drink, which lasted til 2 AM. Slept a couple of hours, packed up my bags in complete dark (it’s amazing how I can pack up my stuff even without seeing! I know the actual position of everything by hearth right now) and went to bus stop. There I meet a drunk Aussie who entertains me with funny talkings til my bus arrive to bring me away from Byron (soo sad for that!). It takes 9 hrs to arrive in Hervey Bay but I make some very interesting new meeting. First a Scottish girl with big smart eyes full of life who’s travelling sine 8 months and has 1 month ahead for Africa, South America, Australia, Laos, Cambodia, India and Malaysia. DAMN! I think I hate her… I would have liked to go to South America (and Africa as well, and I think those two will be my next trips). Then two italian girls travelling and working just in Australia. Scottish girl stops in Noosa while italians come to Hervey, but in another hostel, so exchange my phone number with them and meet them after dinner (in my hostel it’s all-you-can-eat mex food nite, so I just kill my self with tacos, guacamole and stuff like that, for ‘just’ 9 AUD)
RTW.Day.43.Australia.It’s SKYDIVE day!!! (in Byron Bay)
Yesterday I just arrived at 7 AM, left my bag at the hostel, check in time was at 2 PM, I was quiet rested because I managed to sleep a little on the nite bus so started walking for almost 8 Kms til tht lighthouse and back to hostel at 2.30 PM. In the afternoon I took time to wash my clothes (they really needed it!!) and went out in the evening (here’s dark at 6 PM). Met my mate Getti, a loud guy from Oregon, shared a bottle of wine with him back in hostel while eating some rice, chicken and curry and went out again. It was a quiet hard nite, met lot of people and almost forgot day after had to jump from a plane… so wake up was really hard but I managed to be picked up at 10 AM by the bus headed to skydive field. Waited there after filling up some papers for almost 2 hrs
then a shirt briefing and finally put my ass on this little plane which reached 14.000 ft quota in 15 minutes. Skydiving was sooooooooo good, never tryed feelings like that before. You fly for more than 60 seconds and I was just yelling all time!! Then parachute is opened and you just feel like stopping in the middle of the sky and slow descent begins. That’s the most impressing part of all bacause you are just suspended in the nothing, it’s something unbelievable. Unfortunately they didn’t allow to bring my (not actually mine but Tommi’s) videocamera with me and I had to pay to have a recorded memory but it was worth. Went back to Arts Factory still flying, met the girl I knew in Sydney and some other people. Booked a coach to Hervey Bay for tomorrow at 6 AM, so think this nite will be veery quiet for me. I’m not here for partying or so on, but here’s too easy to be caught in those kind of stuff and it’s funny as hell as well and you know lot of people, but result is you spend quiet a lot of money and waste time for day after activities, so think I’ll go out til late just when I really feel I need it.
RTW.Day.42.Australia.Byron Bay
In Arts Factory, the hostel where I am supposed to spend two nights, you can breathe a very relaxed atmosphere.
Seems to be in a kind of hippy village where everyone is very kind and quiet, you can hear dijiredu playing in background and animals like turkeys are free around. There’s a little lake with some amacas just on his side and by the other side some tents and people playing guitar and congas. It’s a place where you can spend a lot of time, just chilling out, going to the beach possibly surfing and have fun in the night but my time here is just two days and I think it’s quiet enough. Here you can see lot of people just taking their time, travelling around and working when they run out of money to earn some and start travelling or having fun again. You can even get stuck in this all and honestly a lot of people really seem in this condition. Trip becomes life and life becomes travelling. Money are not so important as long as you got them, when they end you work for a little and start again…
RTW.Day.41.Australia.Manly+nite bus to Byron Bay
Today (it’s 6.30 PM and I’m writing from a Greyhound bus headed to Byron Bay) was quiet full of surprises, good and bad ones. As first, I was supposed to meet with the guy of car sharing in the morning, so I check out from hostel at 9 AM, leave my ‘main’ backpack in hostel lockers (8 AUD for 24 hrs, damn!) and start walking with the other one (the one with just the necessay stuff: water, sweatshirt, shoes, 3 backup cameras, 1 videocamera, 1 backup iPod – 1 left in Vietnam, rest in peace -, 2 phones (1 with Aussie SIM from yesterday), the irreplaceable Lonely Planet and of course the main feature of my backpack which attracts lots of people to me like a magnet: the built-in solar panels to keep all my electronic stuff always on… in Kings Cross direction. I’m there around 10 AM, 30 minutes before the planned meeting time (this journey is really changing me ) so I take my time to drink a coffee, roll and smoke some drum (yep, I’m back to Drum smoking since 3 days, when I realized 13 AUD for a box of Marlboro was too much…). Wait til 10.30 AM planning the rest of the day then called the late comer… he’s still in his city, there it’s raining so he thinks to come to Sydney in the afternoon…if I knew before I wouldn’t have gone to Kings Cross… anyway… I agree with him we’ll catch as he comes to city or taking the coach to Byron Bay. I hang with him and phone rings. She’s Elena, another girl for car/travel sharing. She’s in centre to book a seat on a coach for Byron Bay as well, but for the day after. We plan to meet in a hour, just to take a cooffee, make some talks and hopefully share a trip plan and so it is. We spend a couple of hours together then she takes her way home and I take my way to Manly, taking advantage of some her advices. I arrive in Manly after 30 minutes of ferry and I find a very nice part of Sydney, full of beaches (beautiful and crowded enough even if weather is not that good) and nice landscapes. Temptation is too strong so I dive in the not-so-warm water just when I see the Ocean, then rest there for half a hour before walking around on Manly scenic walkside and go back to Sydney at 4.30 PM, just in time to grab my other bag from hostel locker room, eat something and go to the bus station to leave for Byron Bay…
RTW.Day.40.Australia.Melbourne to Sydney
Arrived in Sydney in early afternoon, went to Wake Up! hostel, spending just to go there and eat something like the all-day-budget-beers-included of Malaysya… fuck, this is driving me crazy, I’m back to a certain level of civilization and I’m not liking it (and not only for the prices). Anyway, hostel is very nice and near the centre of the city, so I choose to take the afternoon to go to Sydney’s symbols: Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Takes 40 minutes to go there (by flip flops walking) and it’s definetely worth. During the day I take contacts with the guy who wants to share a car and supposed to go to Byron Bay the day after as well. We planned to meet the day after becuase he’s out of Sydney and there it’s raining (weather is not so good in city as well). Went back to hostel at 8 after taking some rain (actually a lot of) walking back there. Just in the basement of the hostel building there’s a kind of pub/club. I just go there ot eat/drink something and make some connections but nothing more than this. Here’s too much easy to go out ‘just for a beer’ and go back home hopefully at 4 AM… and this is absolutely not my plan… so went sleeping at 11 PM resting for day after.
Michele Montonati
0420244032 (new Aussie number). Un bilgietto aereo per Sydney, un Greyhound pass Sydney-Cairns in mano e qualche contatto per sharare una macchina…. si ricomincia!
RTW.Day.38.Australia.Melbourne
Trip is almost ok. Rebooked flight to Sydney (was sooo hard), bought Greyhound Mini Pass from Sydney to Cairns, planned the route. Booked a Great Ocean Road tour too (for tomorrow)
Walked to Fitzroy, Carlton, CBD and back home. Ended in a lesbian bar to have a beer…
RTW.Day.37.Australia.Melbourne
Start planning trip. Took some contacts. Hard nite out (hostel+revolver club) with Irish, Scottish and English. Back home at 5AM
RTW.Day.36.Australia.Melbourne
Walked to Melbourne centre. Eureka Tower. Quiet nite (malaria pill was crashing my stomach)
Michele Montonati
Internet connections in Australia are very rare and damn slow; connecting with people is a definitely much easier thing.
RTW.Day.35.Australia.Melbourne
Melbourne.First day (nite).Totally wasted!! Hostel – Free drink sunglasses nite
Mark Ronson, live music
RTW.Day.34.Japan. ‘Put me on a fuckin’seat of that fuckin’ plane!’
(Tokyo – Shanghai – Melbourne (hopefully)
(writing from Tokyo airport) Woke up at 9. Called Swiss Airlines to confirm my rebooking without any chance. I’m in waiting list. Lugagge is hopefully back to hostel at 10 AM, something’s going the right way… reached airport without issues, crossed my fingers and went to check in desk (jumpin the queue I went to business class desk). After something like 20 minutes waiting hopefully reservation was confirmed without any additional charge! I celebrate this good news spending the last damn Yen (370, 2.3 euros for a lil sandwich and a coke). I’m finally on the way to Australia, with a possible chinese issue: I have the connection to Melbourne in Shanghai airport and since I rebooked my flight from 9 AM to 2.30 PM, I have not so much time to move from Hongquiao to grab my luggage at the baggage claim and move to Pudong airport. Furthermore shuttle connecting the two airport is not free and I of course do not have chinese money with me… we’ll see ….
[...] Tokyo – Shanghai flight was on time, I landed at 4.15 PM, ran to the passport control and baggage claim. By the way, during the flight I took some informations on bus to Pudong airport and managed to end discussion with 35 RMB in my pocket, borrowed by a man interested in my pathetic story.. .great! Backpack was loaded as in business class and arrived first. Took it and went to the exit to ask infos on buses. A girl at the info desk tells me I have not enough time to take the flight because the bus takes almost 2 hours to go there (not in my advice) and she offers me a taxi … ok … I just cheer her with not so kind words and get to the bus stop. Bus takes 40 minutes to go there, so I still have 1 hr to flight and 30 minutes for check in. Perfect! But … here drama begins. My booking was void for unknown reasons. Chinese girl at the check in does her worst to complicate situation and get me really very angry. From this moment on (it took almost 1 hour to rebook and check in) I’m a beast, yelling at them and so on. For the first time I took a flight as the last passenger, called by the speaker… but this was not my fault Thought I could not take the flight at a certain point but my continuos ‘put me in a fuckin’seat of that fuckin’ plane! Upgrade me for free to a fucking business seat if economy is fully booked’ hopefully worked…to be honest I had fun in insulting chinese people, considering I managed to take the flight, otherwise I wouldn’t have been so amused…
Watch Day.34 Clips Clicking on images below or go to Japan Videos
 
 Arguing at Shanghai airport checkin |
Arguing at Shanghai airport checkin.2 |
RTW.Day.33.Japan.The Lil’ Easter Marathon with a French surprise.. (Tokyo-Nikkò-Tokyo)
Tutto ha inizio ieri sera (Day.32, 13 Apr)
Il programma era di andare a Roppongi (quartiere di Tokyo famoso per la nite life degli stranieri), spendere la serata li, tirar tardi fino al momento del mercato del sushi (5 AM, da raggiungere a piedi, dal momento che la metro apre più tardi – e sono 6 Km circa..), far sushi colazione li poi muovere verso Nikkò dove spendere tutta la giornata per tornare a Tokyo alla sera pronti per il volo verso l’Australia (il giorno seguente); ma … è lunedì e Roppongi è piuttosto spenta, la giro un pò fino alle 10 poi muovo in metro verso Shibuya (altro quartiere che si è fatto apprezzare un paio di giorni fa). Fortunatamente tengo l’all day pass per la metro (dato che sono stato in giro tutto il giorno per Tokyo con gruppone misto Japan.Italia.UK e Israel) e giro da un quartire all’altro senza dover sborsare Yen ogni volta (nda – è da 2 giorni che tento di prelevare all’ATM senza successo e sto velocemente andando out of money…).Giretto sempre piacevole a Shibuya nella fauna locale (certo, più vivace nel week end, ma sempre meritevole) e un dubbio atroce mi assale. Sono ormai le 11.
L’ultima metro è alle 11.30. Da qui al mercato del sushi sono almeno 7 Km a piedi, poi dovrei tornare indietro e andare alla stazione di Tokyo per prendere il treno per Nikkò … ma chi me lo fa fare? La serata non è così ecclatente e io non sono nel mood quindi stranamente la saggezza la spunta e torno all’ostello dove, pur non avendo una camera, penso di passare 2/3 ore in caffetteria prima di muovere verso la baia di tokyo (e questa volta in metro, essendo aperta alle 5). Suona bene. Arrivo all’ostello verso le 12 e sto morendo di fame, dato che da programma avrei dovuto mangiare a Roppongi ma così non accadde; unico problema: no money, o almeno, soldi contatisssssimi per il giorno seguente, più 200$ e una Visa in tasca, utili quanto una cartina in giapponese … (cazzo! Nessuno accetta nè tantomeno cambia dollari). Trovo dopo un’ora di girovagare piuttosto nervoso e affamato l’unico posto che acceta Visa, un ristorante italiano molto carino. Tutto benissimo, mi sazio con tagliatelle al ragù di agnello (ordinate sulla fiducia, dato che il menù eè solo in Japanese e NESSUNO ovviamente parla inglese, ma lo chef abbozza qualche parola in italiano, tipo aghello paghei..
al quale segue un mio OK!), mi vizio con un pò di montepulciano, mi stupisco del conto piuttosto basso (per il posto) e torno verso l’una e mezza in ostello, o almeno, nella caffetteria. Due chiacchiere coi presenti e si fan presto le 2.30, ora giusta per riposare giusto quelle due ore per non morire… ore 4.35 suona la sveglia per il fish market. Mi toglo le due ore di sonno di dosso e rapido verso la metro. Jimbocho – linea Mita direzione Meguro. Fermata Otamachi. Cambio linea, Tozai line direzione Nishi-funabashi fino a Kayabacho. Nuovo cambio.Line Hibiya direzione Naka-meguro per due fermate fino a Tsukiji. Tutto si incastra alla perfezione e arrivo al fish market alle 5.30. L’asta per l’acquisto dei tonni va dalle 5 alle 6, vago per il mercato in cerca di informazioni sul posto dell’asta, vengo solo sviato da inglese più che zoppo.. ci arrivo ma troppo tardi, l’asta è già finita e rimangono solo gli invenduti; poca cosa, il mercato è qualcosa di eccezionale.
E’ un brulicare di mini-trattorini che caricano e scaricano pesce (e anche me, che salgo al volo su uno per farmi portare un pò in giro…), i tonni sono già stati acquistati e ora viene il momento del taglio, mediante sciaboloni o seghe a nastro. Mi avvicino a un banchetto dove c’è un tonno enorme, supposto essere il più grande della giornata (si parla di 260 Kg). In pochi istanti il banchetto è circondato da una curiosa e fotografante folla. Mi si avvicina per primo un americano, di Sadiego, callafonia (a parte l’accento lo si vede da distanza da dove arriva..). E’ in Giappone per lavoro, a Tokyo per 3 giorni. Se non bastasse l’accento e l’aspetto non fa presto a mostrare ai presenti la sua americanità. Compra un piatto del miglior sushi che hanno (o almeno così chiede) volendolo offrire a tutti. Lo convinco che bastiamo in due per mangiarlo e approfitto a piene mani. Mangiamo una decina di pezzi a testa colloquiando allegramente tra un boccone e l’altro e ne avanzano ancora 5 o 6. Passa una spagnola e senza proferir palabra tira su un pezzo, se lo caccia in bocca e prosegue il suo cammino, pensando o fingendo che sia un assaggio gratuito… vabbeh .. mi lascio col mio benefattore (il piattino veniva 1000 yen e io ho in tasca solo 3000 e una giornata davanti). Approfitto per concludere la colazione a uno dei tanti banchetti giusto fuori dal mercato, con sushi, riso e tempura (altri 700 yen e sono a 2300). E’ tempo di muovere verso Nikkò.
Metro (160 yen e sono a 2140) fino a Tokyo station e shinkasen (treno veloce) per … Coincidenza poi per Nikkò con localone. Fortunatamente il Japan Railways pass copre tutto il tragitto. Arrivo a Nikkò alle 10, compro il pass per il city bus tour (500 yen, e fanno 1640) e comincio il mio giro, non prima di aver dato qualche indicazione a una coppia di torinesi che mi faccio amici e ‘uso’ come gentilissime guide, dato lo stato semi comatoso in cui sono. Per di più parlano un pochinino di giapponese e questo aiuta molto. Li seguo, la giornata scorre liscissima tra templi (1000 yen per il total pass, e sono a 640) fino a quando comincia a piovigginare. Sono già le 4 e decidiamo di spostarci verso le cascate … , altra attrazione di Nikkò. Si risale sul bs, mostro il pass e tutto ok, fino al momento di scendere (e pagare) 20 minuti più tardi quando l’autista mi dice che dove sono è fuori dal mio pass e DEVO pagare 900 yen, che non ho. Tutti scendono dal bus e rimango l’unico. L’autista chiude le porte incazzato e riparte non so dove. Si ferma 200 metri più avanti. Gli spiego la sitazione, che ho 200$ e la Visa, che se quindi mi dice dov’è un cambio o un ATM posso pagare, altrimenti non se ne fa nulla. Niente. Siamo a un empasse. Terribile. Parlo e non mi capiscono. Mi parlano e non capisco. 5 minuti così e vengo salvato dall’intervento providenziale dei miei ‘soci’ torinesi. Loro vanno alle cascate, io verso un ATM. Non va. Tutto da capo. Devo prendere il bus e non ho soldi. C’è un cambio in centro, così ritrovo la coppia
che mi sponsorizzano la corsa ma arriviamo tardi in centro e il cambio è chiuso..
per tornare a Tokyo non ho problemi, ho il pass, ma ho ancora la notte e il trasferimento all’aeroporto il giorno seguente. A Tokyo saluto i miei salvatori, che non vogliono indietro i soldi (2.000 yen, 13 euro) e vado alla ricerca di un ATM/cambio. Giro almeno altri 15 ATM. O non sono circuito internazionale o la mia Visa non va. Resta solo l’opzione cambio dollari. Vado a un gabbiotto di polizia ormai alla disperazione. Ci mettono mezz’ora per non capire una favazza. Giro a vuoto poi dalla disperazione l’idea. Entro in una specie di supermercato. Spiego a gesti alla cassiera la situazione disperata in cui verso e che voglio pagare io con la carta (che funziona) il prossimo cliente riscuotendo cash. Metà parte è fatta, ora non resta che convincere una sciuretta giapponese del tutto. Non ci vuole poi tanto. La tirchia fa però solo 1200 yen di spesa (8 euro) che mi devono bastare fino al giorno dopo. Provo a ripetere la cosa col cliente successivo ma non va. Vabbeh, a ‘casa’ almeno torno. La mia soddisfazione è massima. I miei dubbi sul Giappone raggiungono l’apice. Ad ogni modo. Arrivo in ostello che ormai sono le 8. Check in, deposito bagagli per recuperare i miei zaini e dato che la giornata stava prendendo una piega troppo benevola nei miei confronti, il sorpresone finale: lo zainone con vestiti, soldi etc etc non c’etc …. attimo di silenzio.
Panico. Torno al front desk. Un secondo tranquillo poi sbraito. Fortunatamente tutto lo staff parla inglese decente e ci si capisce (bestemmie incluse). Chiedo dalle 100 alle 120 volte dov’è il mio bagaglio. I giappi si muovono un pò confusi. Fino alle 9 c’era, poi ho cambiato turno, chiamo l’altro ragazzo, no, c’era la ragazza. Io assisto impietrito. Esco sulla veranda a fumare una sigaretta in un unico tiro, raccontare la cosa a un paio di amici tedeschi per condividere la situazione di merda e rientro. I pensieri si accavallano veloci. Non posso pensare sia stato rubato. Qui (e in tutto il Giappone) anche i diamanti vengono lasciati incustoditi, il furto non esiste. Fatto sta che lo zaino non c’è. Vedo il lato positivo che documenti e biglietti e le cose più di valore sono nell’altro zaino ma medito l’abbandono e il rientro in Italia per un attimo. La cosa mi passa quando riflettendo ipotizzo uno scambio per madornale errore. Condivido la cosa con lo staff e gli faccio tirar fuori tutti i nomi di chi ha fatto il check out dopo le 9 di mattina, con OBBLIGO di chiamare ciascuno e trovare il mio zaino, intanto vado in camerata a sdraiarmi per riprendermi un attimo dalla cosa. Passa una mezz’ora e ricevo chiamata sull’interno. Non rispondo nemmeno e mi fiondo al front desk. Le espressioni da lutto nazionale sono quasi del tutto svanite (al mio ‘You’re responsible for this and I have to be refunded if my bag doesn’t come out’ qualcuno già ipotizzava il suicidio stile ronin…) laciando spazio a un minimo di aria rasserenata. Your bag is in not here but we found it… esulto! but the problem is it is not in Tokyo but another district… la prendono alla lunga ma per me il peggio è passato. Ok, dimmi dove cazz è senza tante storie. Kyoto, un ragazzo francese l’ha presa by mistake.
Odio pieno, ma il peggio è passato e si riesce a scherzarci su, giusto il tempo del sopraggiungere di un altro problema: il mio volo è alle 9 e il bagaglio non riesce a essere a Tokyo (preso a mano da uno di loro e riportato qui dove avrei dovuto trovarlo senza che io debba pagare mezzo Yen – che peraltro non ho – e/o muovere un dito) prima delle 10. Comincia la carambola di chiamate. Un’ora e riesco a posticipare il volo nel pomeriggio (14.30), ma rimangono ancora due problemi: 1. il booking non è confermato ma sono in waiting list; 2. dovrei atterrare alle 16.30 a Shanghai Hongquiao e il Shanghai – Melbourne parte da Pudong alle 19.15. Ho quindi ad andar bene 2.45 ore per: recuperare il bagaglio, cambiare dei dollari per pagare in RMB il bus per Pudong, trovare e prendere il bus, arrivare a Pudong e fare il check in…. continues on Day.34
Watch Day.33 Clips Clicking on images below or go to Japan Videos
Riding on a little truck in Tokyo fish market |
A big tuna being cutted in Tokyo fish market |
Michele Montonati
pensa che non avere uno Yen in tasca a Tokyo ma ‘solo’ 200$ e una Visa is a real pain in the ass.. arrivato a un passo dalla prostituzione per tornare a ‘casa’. Pensa anche che arrivare in ostello e scoprire che il proprio bagaglio è stato preso by mistake da un francese è the cherry on the pie…
RTW.Day.32.Japan.Tokyo
Around Tokyo with mixed group. Roponogi, Shibuja in the nite. Nite at cafeteria. (see Day.33)
Lost in translation. Confused about my feelings on Tokyo. Kinda chrisis. Feeling lonely even if in a group. Need to write about it as soon as I have some time.. (think I’ll write in my weekly digest)
Watch Day.32 Clips Clicking on images below or go to Japan Videos
A porn shop in Tokyo |
RTW.Day.31.Japan.Back to Tokyo (aka Japanese hangover)
Arrived at 6 PM, went to hostel, then nite tour (Tokyo monument building to see city from the top – for free -, Shibuja crossing) then back to hostel (last metro run is 11.30 OM)
Watch Day.31 Clips Clicking on images below or go to Japan Videos
Tokyo.Shybuya Crossing |
Around Tokyo 1 |
Around Tokyo.2 |
Around Tokyo.3 |
Hey, if I were currently immersed in writing a book explaining set theory, it would from sounded like that to ...
You grasp, I didn’t impassive imagine Casper’s note when I made mine (how could I mistake pass up that?). Wretched ...
RTW.Day.30.Japan.Easter in Japan aka ‘The Japanese Marathon’ – Kyoto-Nara-Osaka-Tokyo
Japanese Marathon (Kyoto,Nara,clubbing in Osaka in 24 hrs)
Ok, the last 24 hours have been totally out of control… I’m writing from a train leaving Osaka and headed to Tokyo and let’s say I had better days talking about my physical condition… Yesterday morning I left Kyoto to visit Nara, a beautiful little city with a big park full of deers and temples all around.Stunning. Anyway schedule was moving from Kyoto
to Nara early in te morning, spend day there, move again to Osaka and spend the nite there (Osaka is famous for nite life and I really needed it. To be honest Japan is a beautiful country, maybe a little bit too beautiful.. I mean: everything is is almost perfect and from a certain point of view, boring. I have lot of fun crossing or pretending to cross the road with red light. Policemen go crazy for that… anyway.. I was surprised by the fact just a few Japanese can speak English, really a few. Hopefully they are very kind and try to help you, but een basic conversation sometimes is almost impossible. In addition to this, I think japanese are quiet shy or very less social, they just stay on their own and coming from India, Malaysia, Vietnam I’m not used to this, in those places it was just the opposite, sometimes you had to push people away because they were bothering you. So, here I tryed my best to mix with locals without good results. This was quiet frustrating to me, for the first time during last month around I was feeling alone, aven if I knew a lot of other tourists actually, but I didn’t mix with locals).I lost the point… anyway… I really wanted to enjoy and Osaka seemed to be the place to do that.
Plan was spending nite there, the day after too and taking a nite train to Tokyo, but this changed due to my bad conditions and this is the story: arrived in Osaka at 5 PM, walked to a hostel I booked previously from the train. Lonely planet crappy maps did not behave well this time. Distance from station to hostel was uspposed to be something like 2 Km, 2 Km and a half, so I went walking. I arrived there at 6.3 PM totally exhausted.Bags were quiet heavy furthermore I spent all day in Nara walking with my little backpack and I walked a lot, all the city round and upon a beautiful hill and so on…bu the worst part still had to come. Check in at hostel, people are very kind and English speaking, hostel is very big, clean, a modern structure, very nice but here I learnt an English word I didn’t know: CURFEW. This means I cannot go back to hostel after 11 PM. DAMN! I’m here to spend nite out, it’s almost 7 PM, I still have to taje a shower and I’m supposed to go back to hostel at 11 PM … ? Sounded really bad. But… chck in time is at 6 AM in the morning, so the only option was to spend the whole nite out, go back to hostel, sleep from 6 to 10 AM (chack out time), rest a little bit in the common area, spend dat at a spa centre and take nite train to Tokyo.
But … nite was too fun and quiet expensive so I decided to move to Tokyo in the afternoon and try to sleep there in a capsule hotel. Nite was reeeally hard ! I went out ready for the war… xeroxed maps with the pubs/clubs to go, camera in a pocket, some money (7.000 Yen, 50€) in the other and spare money for any kind of emergency (read: going back home with taxi) in my shoes: right one 100$, left one 10.000 Yen. Osaka nite started at 10 PM in a kind of English pub in the crowded area of Osaka famous for pubs and clubs and ended at 7 AM when I finally arrived walking and died in my bed (until 10.30 AM when maid pushed me out of bed…). In those 8 hours there’s everything I was missing here in Japan. People, laughs, fun, drinks, offered stuff (cigarettes, some beers, a daughter…), funny drunk people crashing with the bike on the sidewalk, a funky club (SoulFuckTry) where people have dance fights like in music videos, noodles early in the morning instead of kebab and so on… I had to celebrate the first month around and party was great!!! Now (Day.31 – Japanese hang over) I’d better sleep a little bit on the train, I’m really wasted but very satisfied of my Japanese marathon …
Watch Day.30 Clips Clicking on images below or go to Japan Videos
Temples and deers in Nara |
Clubbing in Osaka 1 |
Clubbing in Osaka 2 |
Clubbing in Osaka 3 |
Clubbing in Osaka 4 |
Clubbing in Osaka 5 |
30 Days!!
Oggi compio 30 giorni di viaggio e siccome mi piacciono i numeri ho tirato le somme (parziali, non sono neanche a metà…) fino ad ora…
Ho percorso 23.097 km circa di cui:
40 in Bici
208 in Barca
980 in Bus
495 in Macchina
650 in Moto
17566 in Aereo
1008 in Treno
150 Camminando
Ho scattato 3229 Foto:
380 in HKG
656 in India
614 in Giappone
817 in Malesia
762 in Vietnam
Visitato 23 città in 5 Paesi:
Jaipur
Agra
Varanasi
Delhi
Kuala Lumpur
Pata Ratah (Cameron Higlands)
Perhentian Islands (little island)
Kota Bahru
Singapore
Saigon
Nha Trang
Lak Lake
Da Lat
Da Nang
Hoi An
Hong Kong
Macao
Tokyo
Nagoya
Takayama
Kyoto
Nara
Osaka
dormendo in altrettanti posti.
Oggi mi sono spostato da Kyoto a Nara la mattina presto, ho visitato la città e a breve prendo un treno per Osaka (già preso, sono ad Osaka ora), dove sto fino a domani sera, ripartendo con un treno notturno diretto a Tokyo; un altro paio di giorni li, archivio il Giappone e apro il capitolo Australia…
A presto!!
RTW.Day.29.Japan.Kyoto
Kyoto
Visited city by bike
Watch Day.29 Clips Clicking on images below or go to Japan Videos
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Japanese Soulja Boy |
A very drunk man collapsed just behind me |
Around Kyoto by bike |
Ninja dog parade |
‘Extreme’ biking Pt. I |
‘Extreme’ biking Pt. II |
‘Extreme’ biking Pt. III |
RTW.Day.28.Japan.Kyoto
Takayama-Nagoya-Kyoto
Woke up early to go and see Takayama markets. Hostel (the temple) was freezing during the nite, hopefully bed was provided with an electric warming sheet that worked almost all nite long… Takayama in the morning was freezing as well, I went around dressed like a homeless to fight the dry face breaker air of the morning. After my walk around, went back to hostel, took my backpacks and arrived at the train station. Train arrived in Kyoto at 12. There I took another hostel, then spent some time around city, went to centre, ate with a couple of Italians I knew there.
Watch Day.28 Clips Clicking on images below or go to Japan Videos
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Shinkansen passing in Nagoya station |
A Japanese toilet… |
Kyoto |
RTW.Day.27.Japan.Takayama
Tokyo-Nagoya-Takayama
Takayama è una cittadina incantevole. Me ne accorgo ancora prima di arrivare, sul confortevole treno Nagoya – Takayama chiamato Hida 9 (wide windows train) che dai suoi ampi finestrini offre un panorama meraviglioso. L’arrivo non fa altro che confermare le mie impressioni: vengo accolto (finalmente di persona dopo un fitto scambio di mail) in un tempio adibito ad ostello dal gioviale proprietario Tommy (giapponese) che mi invita a posare i bagagli e tornare quando ho voglia, dopo il giro della città. La cittò è un museo a cielo aperto di architettura minimale giapponese e si fa presto a perdersi seguendo un sentiero, forse anche perchè per tutte le vie una soffice musica chill out giapponese fa da sottofondo in filodiffusione… e dove la musica non arriva, si viene letteralmente rapiti dai rumori che provengono da giardini, cascate e sculture in bambù. Così mi succede che seguendo il percorso di un giardino mi fermo per prendere qualche foto e non mi accorgo della proprietaria di casa intenta a fare i vetri, e lei di contro non si accorge di me, almeno per qualche minuto, fino a quando non caccia un urlo che mi fa perdere 10 anni di vita e per poco cadere nel laghetto artificiale… la sera mi ritrovo a mangiare ottima tempura in una stamberga, la classica cucina-bancone-tavolino, del tipo di ‘Kiss me Licia’. Abbattendo qualsiasi barriera (io le ho abbattute 24 ore dopo l’arrivo in India..) ci si trova a passare un’ottima serata facendosi offrire del sakè bollente e cercando di parlare con gli avventori esclusivamente giapponesi del locale…
Watch Day.27 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to Japan Videos
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How to queue in Japan |
A Shinkansen, the ultra fast train at Tokyo station |
Lucky cats .. love ‘em |
A peaceful garden with lake in Takayama |
Michele Montonati
is: fiiiiga se è freddo il tempio… fortunatamente oltre al tatami c’è una bella termoelettrica.. se non ricevete più mie notizie sapete la causa….
RTW.Day.26.Japan.Konnichiwa Tokyo!
Check in 3 PM, check in 3 PM, check in 3 PM
Arrived in Tokyo Haneda airport at 5.30 AM, very tired because plane was too hot to sleep, so plan was to go as quick as possible in a capsule hotel to sleep. This means calling a taxi (which I know quiet expensive, but tireness is too much) and book a bed at the ‘hotel’, in order not to have surprises. So I did. 6 AM I’m at the reception, ask for my booking and answer is check in is after 3 PM. Ok, but I have to sleep right now, I called to book a bed just to avoid this all. No way. Check in after 3 PM. Try to convince the man but there’s no chance, he keep on repeating check in is at 3 PM, starting to annoy me. Take time to check lonely planet proposals, but he keeps on bothering me with that fuckin check in time. Got angry, start answering him in Italian, yelling at him.
This last less than two minutes, then I’m (pushed) out of the hotel, without a place to sleep and surrounded by just damn japanese signs. No recognizable hotel signs around. No worry. Start to walk around and in a huor finally find a room, check in (the fucking time I want) and die in my bed. Wake up is in early afternoon, plan for the day is change the Japan Railways Pass prebooking with actual pass. This is possible in any JR Station. The problem is in Tokyo there are a lot of different railways, road signs are mostly japanese, and my lonely planet maps have almost no names… great! Hopefully japanese people (apart the asshole capsule hotel man) are very kind, even if they cannot speak a very good English. Furthermore Japan is not India neither Vietnam, there are no smoking signs on the sidewalks and people cross the roads just on crossing areas and merely with green light. I’m not used to this anymore, and I cannot stair in front of a traffic light when light is red and you cannot see any car in kilometers, so I cross the road wherever and whenever I want;
this caused me some warnings from police men, but whatever…. I get to Ueno station in a reasonable time, get my JRP and happily move around Tokyo. Trees are blooming and lot of people take pictures and make portraits of the reborning city landscape. I take advantage of my new camera I bought yesterday in Hong Kong airport, a last minute compulsive buy, but it was really smiling at me, with that ‘Carl Zeiss’ lens just pointing to my eyes.. I know, it’s a damn Sony, which means you cannot use standard SD Memory card but damn Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo (working only on Sony devices) but this model comes with built in 4Gb internal memory and this is not that bad (think the external slot will be left empty….). Anyway, I was expecting a very noisy and caotic city but Tokyo, at least for the part of Tokyo I’ve seen, just Asakusa (Taito City), Kanda and the area around Imperial Palace so far it’s very quiet and clean and well managed. Went back to hotel at 8 o’clock after taking some tubes (there are 17 lines in city) and walked for almost 8 Kms. Next step is train to Takayama tomorrow.
By the way, in Ueno station I reserved a seat on Tokyo – Nagoya and on Nagoya – Takayama even if this is not mandatory, with JRP you can go on a train (all except Nosomi, the very fast one) without any reservation and sit down in a smoking car and writing with your laptop on a confortable seat (guess what.. that’s what I’m doing right now…)
Il benvenuto di Tokyo è piuttosto duro. Arrivo in città alle 6 di mattina dopo notte insonne causa caldo torrido in aereo con l’intenzione di dormire un paio di ore in un capsule hotel contattato dall’aeroporto. Entro. Check in after 3 PM. Ok. Check in after 3 PM. Ok. Check in after 3 PM. Ok, capito, ma ho chiamato apposta e non mi ha detto niente di tutto ciò. Check in after 3 PM. Ok, coglione, fammi solo trovare un altro albergo sulla lonely planet che ho un ca¬£¬£o di bisogno di dormire. Check in after 3 PM, alzando la voce. Ok, dillo un altra volta e ti corco. Check in after 3 PM, sbattendo i pugni sul bancone con l’indicazione dell’orario di check in/out. Alzo la voce. Fine. Vengo ‘buttato’ fuori… sono veramente stanchissimo e vago alla ricerca di un’insegna hotel tra le tante insegne solo giapponesi.. non è semplice ma dopo un’oretta ne vengo a capo. Check in, quando cazzzzz voglio io e branda in direttissima. Il buon pomeriggio camminando riposato in giro per Tokyo suona molto divarsamente. Mi muovo moolto a tentoni per la città in cerca di un posto per cambiare il mio Japan Railways Pass order con il pass effettivo: il 95% delle vie riporta solo il nome in giapponese che non è così immediato da capire… in tempi non record, ma riesco nell’intento e approfitto per prenotare (fatto non obbligatorio) un posto per l’indomani sul treno Tokyo – Nagoya – Takayama, a Tokyo ho deciso che tornerò tra 6 giorni. Prendo info anche su come raggiungere la stazione centrale, facendomi tradurre le fermate della metro dalla cartina in giapponese poi mi tuffo in una Tokyo molto più accogliente, tranquilla e rasserenata dai ciliegi in fiore. Approfitto per prendere un pò di confidenza anche con la metro (che fa qualcosa come 17 linee) e giro la città piuttosto agevolmente fino al rientro in albergo alle 8 di sera. Riposo, piani, foto (si nota che ho cambiato ottica? Abbandonato la Casio per una Sony, acquisto compulsivo di ieri sera all’aeroporto di Hong Kong. Sony sinceramente mi sta sulle balle perchè devi usare le loro caxxo di memory card e non le standard SD, ma questa ha il vantaggio di avere 4Gb embedded oltre allo slot – che rimane vuoto.. ! – e una scritta ‘Carl Zeiss’ sul fronte che ieri mi ha strizzato l’occhio troppo insistentemente…) e domani si riparte…
Michele Montonati
gironzola per Tokyo in cerca di una stazione per ottenere il suo Japan Railways Pass,ostacolato da vie con nomi solo in giapponese..
Michele Montonati
pensa che se è lecito che un cinese ti rutti in faccia mentre ti sta parlando, la prossima volta che andrà in un ristorante cinese emetterà continue, fragorose e pestilenziali flatulenze. Bbbestie!
Michele Montonati
lascia Hong Kong,un amico,una casa e riparte ałl’avventura.next stop:japan! ah si,dimenticavo,anche Ilvia!!ahah..tientelo stretto che han buttato via gli stampi dopo il 7 agosto fortunatamente..ciao e grazie x l’encomiabile accoglienza!!p.s. check ur bag
Michele Montonati
i is relaxing in Hong Kong with Valentinos amazing hospitality in welcoming a tired, messed up and a lil’ stinky friend while planning next stops: Japan and Australia…
RTW.Day.21 to 25.Hong Kong
Arrivo a Hong Kong con 21 giorni alle e sulle spalle, 21 notti spese in 18 posti diversi e qualche riparazione da fare alla mia attrezzatura ma soprattutto a me stesso e qui trovo tutto ciò di cui ho bisogno e anche qualcosa in più. Trovo una Casa, un posto fisso dove sostare per più di una notte e via. Trovo un Amico col quale mi accorgo di aver condiviso molto più di quanto non sapessi già. Si, è un amico un pò ‘limitato’ (il tono è assolutamente bonario, e non potrebbe essere altrimenti con Thomas, che associa Okinawa a Karate Kid, un grande!!) ma con una innata capacità di intrattenere, certo a modo suo, e farti sentire a tuo agio in più con una grande passione per quello che fa, insomma, il solito cazzaro, perchè così è nato e questo non se lo scrollerà mai di dosso, ma un cazzaro al quale sono orgoglioso di essere Amico. Trovo
riposo e mi lascio abbindolare dal canto delle sirene della scintillante Macao e dai suoi vizi. Trovo un posto dove finalmente aprire il mio zaino e fare un pò di pulizia (grazie Silvia per l’aiuto!!) delle cose un pò troppo vissute e di quelle di troppo da rispedire a casa, in primis un chiletto abbondante di Lonely Planet dei posti già visti (India, Malesia e Vietnam). Ritrovo finalmente conversazioni in italiano che cominciava a mancarmi (di italiani in giro ne incontro veramente pochissimi, non eravamo il Paese di Santi Poeti e naviganti? Marco Polo si rivolta nella tomba…). Trovo il calcetto la domenica mattina, un toccasana dopo la movimentata serata precedente. Trovo una città moderna, grande ma non soffocante, frenetica ma vivibile e accogliente, nonostante i cinesi non siano le persone più educate e pulite del mondo… 5 giorni volano, ma ho il tempo (cosa rara) di prepararmi alla prossima fermata e acquistare un accessorio fondamentale per girare il Giappone: il Japan Railways Pass che consente di viaggiare su tutti i treni per un tempo limitato (1/2 settimane o 1 mese) a prezzo prestabilito.
Alla prossima!
Michele Montonati
trova più affidabili indiani, malesi e vietnamiti che i coniugi Valentino e trova odioso avere solo una banconota in mano avendo prelevato 50$ all’ATM, era abituato ad almeno 100 pezzi per la stessa cifra…. in HKG anyway
Michele Montonati
is Nha Trang-Da Nang-Hoi An-Saigon-Hong Kong in 24 hrs,maybe I need a little rest…
RTW.Day.20.Vietnam.Da Nang,Hoi An and back to Saigon
You know, it’s a nonsense to be a boss if a guy can kill you like this, there are no more values…
Arrived in Da Nang station at 4.30 AM, nite was quiet good, shared a taxi with the two English girls and go to Hoi An, leave my backpacks in their hotel and start my tour around the city (I just have to go back to Da Nang at 3 PM to fly to Saigon). Ha Noi is quiet little, in something like 3 hrs I take a walk and see the main interest spots plus I have the usual noodle breakfast (here with fish instead of chicken, Hoi An is on the sea and fish is quiet good); so at 8 and something I’m back to the hotel quiet tired and still have 7 hrs to wait… I think to take a room, but only if they leave it for half price, just to take a shower and some rest. No way, full price.They can keep it, don’t want to pay full price for just 6 hrs… so I just sit down there, get my netbook, organize my pics, read some lonely guide… until 10.30, when an Italian man enters to have breakfast and cannot order even an orange juice… he tells me he’s around Vietnam from 10 days, he’s been to Thailand too and he’ll stay in Hoi An to relax for a couple of weeks.
Then start talking about his cocaine addiction, he’s been a cocaine addicted for 20 years but now he’s here in Vietnam to stay away from it and so on… he’s quiet kind and funny, he cannot speak a word of English but he speaks German because he’s been working there, emigrating from south Italy. He offers me a couple of beers and invite me to have lunch with him, but at first I deny, replying I have the plane then he convince me and we go. Two other beers there, spaghetti, very good meat, salad and last but not least a good espresso. Great! He offers me everything, even a glass of whisky in a friend of his bar. Maybe the beer or maybe the good food but I had fun, he’s quiet a character, he’s kind into mafia (at least he tells me that) in his town and so on, talks about honor and how it’s not so good to be a boss nowaday… so 3 PM comes very quicly, say goodbye to him and take a taxi to airport. Da Nang – Saigon (where I am right now waiting for connection to Hong Kong, in 9 hrs….)
Watch Day.20 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to Vietnam Videos
Fish Market in Hoi An
RTW.Day.19.Vietnam.Back to Nha Trang
Riders in the storm…
Wake up, breakfast with fried eggs and fruit, packed up and on the road again. On the horizon some very grey clouds, no good news on the way … in fact in less than a hour it starts raining, I keep on riding in the cold worryng more about bike than me. Bike is not so stable on dry concrete, in those conditions can become a real disaster but I go very slowly and everything goes fine until it stops…. 15 minutes stuck under a hard rain, then it comes back to life and I ride again. Road conditions are quiet good, apart the wet, I mean: no big holes, no animals around no mud but a worse thing is on the way.
We just climb upon the hills, reach almost 2.400 mt and there starts the fog. Visibility is awful, on some parts you can only see 15 meters… I go in 2nd gear just following the white side line and I almost stop when it’s interrupted… this last something like a very long hour but I’m quiet ok and drive carefully without big worries. When fog goes away the landscape is amazing: very deep hills and jungle around! Keep riding on big curves going downhill, motorbike stops two times more but restarts without big problems. We just stop for 15 minutes when rain is too hard to keep on, then we continue riding til Nha Trang, where we stop at a snake restaurant… my meal is: snake soup (not so bad, apart the snake organs inside), snake grilled meat (good) and snake blood to drink (quiet strong, took some time to me to drink just a drop…). Back to hotel, some talking til the time to move to train station and Da Nang. Nite train is quiet good, far away much better than nite bus or indian trains!!! Knew two English girls and talked with them for a couple of hours, then went to my bed and slept some hours til Da Nang.
See Day.19 Pics
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Michele Montonati
after 5 hrs riding in rain fog and wind took a snake based lunch:snake soup,snake grilled meat and last but not least snake blood chupito.. leaving for Da Nang..
Michele Montonati
just arrived in Da Lat after 6 hrs riding his beautiful crappy motorbike on dusty muddy bumpy Vietnamese roads…
RTW.Day.18.Vietnam.Da Lat
On the road again!
Drove all day long form Lak Lake to Da Lat
Elephant waterfalls
Silk factory
Dep 9.00 AM arr 4.00 PM in Da Lat, rested, fixed my shorts, took a tour of the city, ate something (I was starving) and went to bed, to be rested for last day riding
See Day.18 Pics
Watch Day.18 Clips Scrolling down the sidebar below the video or go to Vietnam Videos
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Michele Montonati
is sveglia caffe’ (brodazza) paglia e di nuovo in sella, oggi 200 Km da Lak Lake a Da Lat
Michele Montonati
ha guidato un potente scassone di 100cc per le stupende (solo paesiggisticamente) strade del Vietnam centrale, da Nha Trang a Lak Lake (250Km). Che spettacolo!
RTW.Day.17.Vietnam.Lake Lak
Easy riding in Vietnam !
Amazing riding from Nha Trang to Lake Lak! Took 7 hrs – 250 Km – (departed at 9 AM, arrived at 4 PM) stops included. I rided for 2 hrs or more this kinda 100cc motorbike. Roads are very bad, you have to be always very careful where you put your wheels, to other bikers, small trucks (who actually are predictable) and animals (who are totally unpredictable, cows first of all!)
My shorts left me after 17 days of honorable service in the worst way possible: just going up on the motorbike… they just opened in two parts on the back, they left me with my ass out… my left shoe is in bad conditions too and my big backpack need some fixings…
hopefully I’ll be in HKG in a few days, so I can recover myself and my stuff for a few days before moving to Japan. My guide speaks few English words and in a vietnamese way (yettedday, papot (passport), loli (slowly) and so on…); talking to him is almost impossible, we don’t have these conversations but we can understand each other when enjoying riding the motorbike and the landscape.
Watch Day.17 Clips Scrolling down the sidebar below the video or go to Vietnam Videos
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Michele Montonati
oggi ha preso un moped per due dolla e una patente per moped per mezzo dolla e si e’ mosso da Nha Trang verso nord. Domani parte per Da Lat, mezzo di trasporto a sorpresa ….
RTW.Day.16.Vietnam.Nha Trang
DAMN! My iPod was stolen on nite bus!!!
Arrived in Nha Trang early in the morning, my iPod was lost in the bus (some bad moments but angry goes away…) and I’m really tired. Go quicly to my hostel, a nice one actually, take two hrs sleeping until 9.30, some breakfast and got ready to plan next days. Some options need to be chosen and this is not so easy. After almost one hour and a half reflecting and considering, the final chioce is: going to Da Lat by motorbike (3 days), go back to Nha Trang+nite train to Da Nang. Rent a moped there and spend the full day in Hoi An, until 4 PM when I have the flight back to Saigon and then Hong Kong. Quiet a hard schedule, but it can be managed (think the most important part of my Vientam journey will be the 3 days motorcycling the rest is a very good companion..). This is it! Plan approved and let’s get it started! First of all, change my booking to Saigon (was supposed to be early in the morning) to late afternoon.
With all these details ok (it’s 1.30 PM) I’m very more quiet and choose to rent a moped and take a trip to Nha Trang + around. The around becomes more around, I run almost 1.30 hrs northside and reach a nice fishermen village. Stop there and eat/drink/take some fun with some women.
Meet Daniele and Tanja and eat with them
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Michele Montonati
is safe in Nha Trang. Durante la notte charlie approfitta di un attimo di distrazione e l’iPod touch cade prigioniero… ma le det ti! Il nite bus e’ stata un’esperienza a dir poco claustrofobica…. 10 ore sdraiato col soffitto a 60 cm….
RTW.Day.15.Vietnam.Saigon
Breakfast with noodles in Saigon
I just woke up early as usual (6.30 AM), uploaded some pics on FB, took a long shower (cold of course) and ready for the day!
Just two tasks: find a transportation to Nha Trang, where I would have liked to be the day after and visit the city.
Taking advantage of free wi-fi I try to find some infos on trains, buses but I find just a few… so, guided by lonely planet as usual, go to the office for train booking, just 5 min walking from hostel. Bad news on the way: nite train is fully booked and next one is in three days … holy shit! Ok, so let’s find another way.. ask for some infos and get adviced to try with a nite bus, so I move to another place just near by where I find a fantastic sleeping bus departing from Saigon at 8.30 PM and arriving in Nha Trang at 6.00 AM. Brilliant, perfect! Of course asked to see some pics of the bus and seems quiet confortable. Ok, I got my way to get to Nha Trang for just 195.000 d (11$) optimizing my time (travel+sleep is perfect when you do not have that much time). Ok, the day could not begin in a better way. It’s 9.30 and one of the two tasks was solved!
So, let’s go and see Saigon, guided once again by Lonely planet. But first of all: breakfast (city tour is estimated to take at least 5 hrs walking). We just enter the first nice place we find on our way and order two noodles with chicken + 1 pineapple juice me and a coffee for Michael (the swedish guy). Soup is soo big, it takes almost half a hour to end our breafast very satisfied with it… sharing the room reveals early to be a very good choice: that guy is so practical with maps and direction (I cannot tell the same for me…) so I just discuss with him where to go and he takes the bad part of the thing, while I spend time taking pics…
City tour was so amazing! We just went back to hostel at 6 PM after a very long (and hot) day. War Museum is very shocking, even if it’s clearly a propaganda against USA more than against war atrocities (pictures are really touching, even if you saw them in a lot of documentaries and movies, seen here in Saigon have a totally different effect on you)
Vietnamese people are very kind, sometime a little bit annoying trying to sell you a motorbike or riscio ride, but far away from Indian levels…
Crossing the road is quiet an exeprience: in Saigon you can count more motorbikes and mopeds than every other thing, they’re everywhere!!! So to cross the road, since traffic lights are rare like a tall vietnamese, you just have to walk kinda slowly but without changing your way in the middle of the road. Mopeds and cars run slowly, so they have all the time to avoid you.. at the first times it’s something like a jump in the dark, then you get confident and it gets so funny to zig zag among all the traffic.
Is this rat cage the supposed to be bed?
Back to my room ,took a long shower (I sweated like a pig) and got ready to take my sleeping bus. Sharing the room was so good because Mike stays two more days in Saigon, so I can leave my bags in the room and taking showers and rest a lil bit without paying one dong more (I was supposed to check out at 12 otherwise or pay another full day just for the afternoon)
RTW.Day.14.Malaysia.KL Airport
Sorry but for some unknown reason your booking was cancelled …
This was my welcome to KL airport: really very tired, full throttle hangover, loaded with all my baggages (hope to arrive asap in HKG to leave something there to Thomas) and hot, I go to check-in to realize my flight booking was for some unknown reason cancelled…. this bloody damn moment just lasted something like 15 minutes, everything was solved hopefully. So, left KL for Singapore and Singapore for Saigon (I’m writing from the plane, it’s 6.10 PM and I should land in a hour)
Took some time waiting for Saigon connection to send mail with Malaysia recap, uploading some pics to FB and so on… by the way.. after two weeks eating mostly chicken and rice, I lunched with a good Sushi+Ashai beer!! (fish and rice…); I even took advantage of Singapore low prices for tech stuff to buy an external 500 Gb hard drive to backup all my medias (I’m frightened by the idea of losing even one single picture).
.. so arrived in Saigon, took a cab til Pham Ngu Lao, the area supposed to be a packpackers zone and looked for hostel, followed by a bitch who wants to come to my room .. first hostel is fully booked, no problem, I have another place near there to go and furthermore there I met a swedish guy who joined me in this research. We find a nice hostel, owners (two young vietnamese guys) speak very little and very bad English, but we achieve to book and share a room for 175.000 d per nite (9$). At the airport of course I got some local money, dong (actually 240.000 d, worth 100 EUR), so to save something with inflated exchange rates… room is soo good (for the standard I’m getting used to): toilet (not shared washroom), towels, flip flops, TV, AC+Fan. In addition I can get a free wi-fi just from my bed… fantastic!!! I just take a long shower and get ready for a first nite walk around Saigon. Swedish guy is very smart and kind, he’s been to Malaysia as well before moving to Vietnam, but he was in the insular part, in Borneo forrest. We just walk a few minutes and find two Norvegian girls who join us for a couple of drinks. We just share a lot of travel advices, feelings and impressions; they’ve been to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos before arriving to Vietnam… time flies and at 1.00 we go back to hostel, after buying a vietnamese SIM card since my mobile cannot connect to any carrier.
Michele Montonati
leavin Perhentian islands for Kota Bharu then last day in KL. Charlie is waiting for him in the jungle, -1 to Ho Chi Minh City.
RTW.Day.13.Malaysia.Back to KL
Boat to mainland and plane to KL. Met Ed (the guy I shared room with in Perhentian Islands) in Oasis hostel, shared room with him (55RM per nite) then meeting with Andrea and some friends of his. Some drinks, some more others, moved to antoher place in the centre, farewell party of another friend of his, another drink and the nite goes by itself…. had lot of fun, went back to hostel (after walking 1 hr under the rain) at 2.30am, wake up is waiting for me at 8.00 (plane for Singapore is at 12.00)
Michele Montonati
si rilassa con birretta ghiacciata dopo aver giocato con centinaia di Nemo sui fondali del mare malese. Diving day today!
Michele Montonati
si rilassa con birretta ghiacciata dopo aver giocato con centinaia di Nemo sui fondali del mare malese. Diving day today!
RTW.Day.12.Malaysia Diving Day!
2 Dives (1 early in the morning, 1 at 1 o’clock). Quiet nice, very funny but not so impressive actually (I dove in the best places of the world and this is just another good and fun dive). Strong current during the 2nd dive was very funny, I did not have to use fins and that’s fantastic, current just drifts you..
Michele Montonati
in riva al mare,lonely planet alla mano a pianificare il VIetnam.Nha Trang o Quy Nhon?mmmh..
RTW.Day.11.Malaysia.Perhentian Islands
Beautiful sunrise, turtle beach, ‘tour’ walking for the island til its top, Vietnam planning, chillin out on the beach
RTW.Day.10.Malaysia.Bus to Perenthian Islands
Woke up early, as ususal, wanted to take some shoots at the sunrise but position was not so good, so took time to pack up my stuff, doing some order in my pictures and trying to upload something to FB. In the meanwhile of this all, planning the best way to spend these 5 days in Malaysia after the beautiful experinece in Cameron Highlands. My plan is to take a bus til Perenthian Islands, and this is quiet straight forward, I booked my tiicket yesterday, bus is at 10.15, so I have just a few time, spend there two full days diving and whatever else+1 afternoon and leave on 25 to KL to greet Andrea, take some talks with him, spend the last nite and leave for Vietnam. Problem is if I leave on 25 by bus, this takes almost 10hrs, so I just waste too much time and risk not to see Andrea, the idea then is to move to Kota Bhora and take a plane to KL from there. Look for some flights on Air Asia, found a Koa Bhora – KL @ 90RM, brilliant!Takes just 55 minutes, perfect! Lets’ book it! Ok, ok, ok, card rejected! DAMN! No way, payment cannot be issued. Try to book calling the booking centre, same story, card rejected ! DAMN DAMN DAMN!! No way, just leave it in stand by and inform Andrea of this all. Replies telling me he books for me. Great! Send him all details by email and that’s it.
Watch Day.10 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to Malaysia Videos
Malaysia.Day.10.On a boat to Perhentian Islands
RTW.Day.9.Malaysia.Cameron Highlands
Take a walk.ride on the wild side: offroad + trekking in the forrest
See Day.9 Pics
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Michele Montonati
took a ride+walk on the wild side,Offroad+trekking in the forrest e domani mouve verso est direzione isole Perenthian (grazie Andre) x un po d diving hopefully.
Michele Montonati
is sleepless in north-east Malaysia e ascolta il bellissimo suono dell’acquazzone di portata bibblica che imperversa da stasera
RTW.Day.8.Malaysia
That yellow light…
Woke up late (10.30), took a long cold shower (hot water is not supplied), got infos on buses to Cameron Highlands then took the first bus to go there and went. Journey took something like 4hrs, bus was very confortable, even if not so ‘modern’. On the way there it started raining quiet hard and rain stopped around 8 pm, when I was in the guest house just talikn’ and chillin’ with other guests and a very strong yellow light suddently appeared. Went out and the whole sky around was completely yellow, a spectacular view and an awesome welcome to Cameron Highlands!!!
Michele Montonati
Continua a piovere a Cameron Highlands.. la guest house è uno spettacolo, sembra di essere a Caprera.. più birrette a 6RM … cheers!
Michele Montonati
woke up,took a long cold shower (hot water is not supplied),paid the hostel bill (32RM,6.8$) and now is on a bus to Cameron Highlands..
Michele Montonati
é in maglietta bermuda infra e sudore a Kuala Lumpur..passata l’India qui é Disneyland..
RTW.Day.7.Malaysia.Delhi to Kuala Lumpur via Bangkok
After India, everything’s easier now…
Flights from Delhi to Bangkok and Bangkok to KL were soo good! Thai airlines economy class is like any other company business class: just two seats for row (for three rows), 1 meter for your legs, arm separè between the seats, electronic control of hundreds positions for your seat… amazing! I slept like a child for most of the time (just after laptop battery went down).
So everything was soo easy: got my budgeted money (500RM, 100$) for the week at ATM machine in the airport, then arriving where I wanted to go (a lil’ hostel in Chinatown) was soo easy! Just a train from airport to central station (35RM) and bus til chinatown (2RM). The hostel was just near the bus stop.
2 pm in hostel, ‘nice’ little room, shared but almost clean bathroom, something like 25 beds divided in double rooms and group room, for 35RM (7$) you are suplied with single room for one nite, towel, soap, air conditioned.. there’s everything I need! (Internet is available for 3RM per hour..).
Just took a shower (was supposed to be long but bathroom was not so confortable…) and made some plans for the week, then walked around the city, supposed to be from 4.30 to 6.30/7. but actually I went back to hostel at 9.30, I walked around something like 4 hrs with flip flops, my feet are a huge blister… but KL is really beautiful! You can walk around very easily (expecially if you are coming from India..), streets are quiet big and you can have your reference points just basing on buildings. So went to KL Tower and took the whole package (!!), including sliding on a rope (very funny), view from the top and so on..
Then, taking advantage of the view of the city I had from the top so to know the direction, moved to Petronas Towers; during the day they’re nice, but it’s when the lights go down and they shine that they are magnificient! They seem more like a Hindu temple than a skyscraper, there’s a equilibrium, which is present in all KL actually between the hugeness of the building and its humanity, its tradition, its symbolism. I really like it and all that was far away enough for my first day…
Watch Day.7 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to Malaysia Videos
Day.7.Sliding on a rope from KL Tower
Michele Montonati
ha regalato qualche sorriso a un bambino morto che camminava, prima che fosse portato via dai suoi aguzzini, indispettiti dall’accaduto…
RTW.Day.6.India.Train to Delhi+Delhi
In the end train from Varanasi to Delhi departed at 11 pm, instead of 2.15 pm and arrived in Delhi at 2 pm. This means it took 23 hrs total to run 772 Kms, a nice average… but spending all that time waiting for the train at the station was such an experience. Back to Delhi I was quiet a little bit tired and didn’t see the city that much, but I learnt how to drink/eat for ‘free’ taking agreements with a taxi driver and this was my achievement of the day….
Then airport at 7 pm, met father with daughter coming from California, father talked something like 1 hr with me telling about how India was beautiful and so on … then I showed him my pictures. We saw two different Indias….
Watch Day.6 Clips clicking images below or go to India Videos
VIDEO – L’arrivo alla stazione di Delhi, dopo 15 ore di treno e 8 ore di attesa
Michele Montonati
is almost in Delhi after 14 hrs train from Varanasi,supposed to depart 8 hrs before its actual departing time,just a little delay..
RTW.Day.5.India.Varanasi+Train to Delhi
Today I gifted of a smile a dead child…
(Writing from ‘Executive Waiting room’ of Varanasi railway station, 7.20 PM, listening to True Way Love by Kings of Leon repeating since 6 o’clock, waiting for train to Delhi, since 2 o’clock…)
Woke up early (5 o’clock) to go and see the ghat of Ganga from the boat. Sunrise is reported to be the best moment to see people diving, washing and praying in the River. The River landscape is stunning, everything’s very quiet (even the terrible traffic did not wake up yet..) and people go down the big stairs to purify their souls into the holy water. We see in the two crematoria the ashes of bodies buried the evening before. Boat ride takes almost 2 hrs, then went back to the old city to take a walk, met the driver and back to hotel to have breakfast. Going back to hotel I try to plan the rest of the day (I’m supposed to leave at 15.45 by train to Delhi) with driver, which tells me at 10 o’clock his duty with me is terminated… mmmhh… that’s not what I agreed with his boss, so I push him to bring me to his boss to discuss this (usual Indian fuckin’ way to fool you, but not me!). So, went to office, argued with driver’s boss, insulted him, got a refund and finally planned what I paid for (1000 rps – 20$ – actually, for the city tour+private driver+evenng and morning boat; refund was 300 rps, 6$, for the waste of time, but I’m proud and happy I received it, ‘they’ always try to fool you, it’s unbelievable!) – DAMN! Just received news train is once again delayed: supposed new departure is now 9.45 PM (initial was 3.45 PM, it makes 6 hrs delay and almost 8 hrs at the station..). Going back to today… took te city tour (1.5 hr at least spent sweating on car’s seat in city center traffic…), saw some temples and so on, then driver dropped me to Varanasi station, a place where is not so a pleasure spending 6 hrs waiting… but as usual something good always happens. Just in and at my platform saw a child, actually a dead child walking: he was something like 9 years old and weighted not more than 12 Kilos of bones. The only thing came into my mind was giving him some money and so I did, but stupid me! He wouldn’t have spent those money to eat something (I gave him 10 rps, you can easily buy a pair of snacks and some fruits) and so he did. Put into a little pocket and went around til he met a few moments later (while I still was stuck watching with kinda stupid expression on my face I guess) a lady who bought him some food that he ate with not so much joy and hiding himslef.. the picture was now clear: someone around was forcing him to be that terribly thin to make some dollars so being caught eating could be a problem for him. My expression gets at first still dumber if possible, then the only thing I could do for him came into my mind. I was sitting down laying against my backpack near a wall and I called him to me just moving hands,being the most discrete possible. So he came, sat down near to me, gave him my bottle of water (he drank just a few) and started thinking something funny to show him, beginning from taking him some pics and showing him them. I swear I’ve never been so happy to have gifted a smile to any person, it’s been such a good moment! Then I started scratching some papers from my notebook to make some paper planes and also this worked, he was soo happy and I think even people around us noticed the scene and were smiling tenderness at us two, until I was surrounde by something like twelwe to fifteen pesrons and cathced the attention of unwanted ones too. Two almost well dressed guys just stand on the child side without telling a word and child smile went away just as he did. My face passed from initial dumb expression to a childish happiness to a deep sadness mixed to rassegnation in just this intense 20 minutes. But that’s it, I’m happy I gave him even just one smile, maybe the only one in his life (which won’t last long (un)fortunately for him).
See Day.5 Pics
Watch Day.5 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to India Videos
In Varanasi station,where I spent 8+ hrs waiting for a train |
Monkey on rails in Varanasi station.I love monkeys!! |
Posing for a group shoot of unknown people….. |
Varanasi streets |
Varanasi streets 2 |
On the train |
On a train to Delhi |
Arrival in Delhi |
RTW.Day.4.India.Varanasi
Like you because you are like an Indian person
Nite on train was not that bad, even if trip was soo long (it took 15 hrs to arrive to Varanasi), train was 2 hrs late, I was frightened by the idea of having missed my station and no one spoke English… but those are just details.. another detail is smoking is forbidden until you offer a cigarette to ticket inspector.. doors open (litirally) and you can you can have your ‘holy’ five minutes. So, I moved to the area where the door (and a little ‘bed’) was and train door standed open from now (9 o’clock) on. Great! Arrived at 3.00pm, got the driver (not so easily actually) and went to hotel. Dropped down my bags, took a shower, rested a lil bit and met the driver again at 5 o’clock. Destination: Ganga river. Traffic in the center of the city is totally a mess: people, bikes, motorbikes, riscios, cows everywhere, far away more than every other Indian city I’ve seen. Anyway, we accomplished to arrive at a kind of parking where I meet another guy who walks me to the River. Fisrt impression he’s quiet a bad person, very less talkative, on his own … mmmh… I’m quiet used to this, so this is not such a bad news to me.. We arrive at the Ganga river after walking into a human hell. Crowded like no other place on earth, stinky (not a news) and bloody polluted, my eyes almost cries for the smog, then IT. The river. In all this scenario, even the Ganga seems a clean, fresh water river (despite what is reported about it – which is totally true by the way..). Went down a big stair (ghat) which is the access to the river (there are 84 ghat in Varanasi) and terribly reminds me of Apocalypse Now. People don’t talk, light meanwhile went down and a hindu music on the background hypnotize you. Took a woodden boat with a driver and slowly slipped on the water until we reached the crematorium where dead bodies are burnt and thrown into the River (after a long cerimony to get them ready). Cannot find any word, neither Italian, neither English to describe all this. It’s soo turistic (even if I noticed them after long time) but there’s a tremendous holiness which covers every dirty stinky bad thing of the whole surrounding. Stood there something like 10 minutes then back to the ghat (it’s quiet near actually) where a holy cerimony with dances and music begins. After my gift of a couple of cigarettes, the guy with me is veery nicer and we begin’talking (tobacco power). Went back to the ground and eating something on a roof top restaurant (mutton+rice, eaten with hands even if fork and knife were supplied this time, thing which I did totally naturally impressing guide a lot). This plus lot of talikng (plus 3/4 cigarettes more and one beer offered form me – and maybe this is the real reason) made me and expecially him very happy, happiness which came out with an Indian-English-Interrupted-by-burfs sentence which sounded someting like ‘Lik..burf..e you Mike cause burf you are like and Indian person. Burf!’. I take the good part of what it this sentece has with me and go proud of it..
See Day.4 Pics
Watch Day.4 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to India Videos
Train from Agra to Varanasi |
On a train to Varanasi.Open Doors |
Arrivo alla stazione di Varanasi |
Varanasi streets |
Varanasi traffic |
A market in Varanasi |
On Varanasi ghat |
Burning bodies in Varanasi |
On Ganga river |
Varanasi Streets 2 |
RTW.Day.3.India.Agra+Train to Varanasi
How long have you been here? Two weeks? No, just arrived yesterday…
(Writing from a train to Varanasi). Train is not that bad. There are supposed clean blankets, pillow and AC (even too much).
Just left Agra at 23.30 after 2 hrs waiting at the station, quiet tiring…
Anyway, back to my day: woke up veery early (5 o’clock) to go and see Taj Mahal (actually it opens at 6.30 but my guide did not know this of course, so I just waited in line – just me – for a hour and so…). Taj is impressive, its simmetry hits you, you cannot forget about it. Unfortunately if you don’t go just as it opens, in a few it gets crowded of lot of people and taking a single pic without someone in it is totally impossible, so went back to the hotel at 8.30, rested there for a hour then visit to Agra Fort. Guide of course did not guide anything but just told me I had 1.30 hrs to visit it and he would have picked me up outside the fort. 1 hour and a half was so spent: 5 min – visit to the fort, 10 min – trying to enter where doors/gates were closed to reach the highest point of the fort, 15 min watching and taking pics to an area of fort full of monkeys (love them, I’m really fascinated..) last hour sleeping like a child on a bench at the sun. BEAUTIFUL!! Then back to hotel again (after tea shopping), finally left the guide and go by myself to Taj Ganj area, where I had ‘dinner’ yesterday. I just got lost in a few minutes (and I knew that) in the labirintic little dirty stinky streets, but no pain, I just walk with the confidence of an Agra person through the streets. I reach the end of my walking around (think I walked something like 2 hrs) just as I see the name of a familiar (saw it on Lonely Planet) place, Stuff Maker. Went there, ate something, met some english guys, had a pair of beers with them then took back my way, the way to the hotel again to wait for the time to go to train (it was 6 o’clock). On my way a russian guys stops me asking for a place to drink something. Too easy: just show him 3 or 4 places talkin’ like I’ve always been livin in Agra, and just realize it when he ask me if I were there since two weeks or more… that is the moment when I began almost an institution in Agra So bring him to a friend’s bar, take a beer with him, did some talking and that’s it. Just to close this great day, I met some Indian children, joked with them and took some pics together. Then finally back to the hotel for the last time (it’s 7.30) with me driving the tuc tuc (drivers was quiet easy to be convinced: just 20rps were enough – neither 1/2 Dollar) and wait ’til 9 for another tuc tuc to go the station.
See Day.3 Pics
Watch Day.3 Clips CLICKING on images below the or go to India Videos
Monkeys scratching.I love monkeys! |
Agra.Me pretending to steal a tuc tuc |
Agra.Me driving a tuc tuc |
Agra Station |
Agra Station 2 |
RTW.Day.2.India.Jaipur+Agra
I’m a backpacker (almost) now!
Woke up at 6′o clock and went out for a walk to see Jaipur palace on the water at sunrise. (wrote a little intro to this in italian, I’ll translate asap – maybe..). Anyway, Jaipur (and India as well) today just impressed me: Jaipur is stinky, dirty, ugly, but you get fascinated by it. It’s some kind of watching a car crash: you know it’s a very bad thing but you cannot take your eyes off of it, furthermore if you know, and this is not the car crash case, there’s some kind of beauty beyond all that dirty and stinky stuff. And in India, believe it or not, when you see a little piece of beauty it appears to you like the most beautiful thing in the world and I’m not talikng about architectural stuff or whatever, but about people.
Anyway, after this illuminating moment, went back to hotel, posted some pics on Facebook (love to share those moments, even if everything is ‘compressed’, just another pic I’ve uploaded..), took a shower and got ready for Jaipur sightseeing. Went to city palace, pink city and other places but nothing more than for just saying: ‘I’ve been there!’. The gap between what I’d like to see and experience and what the guide shows is getting bigger after this morning walk alone (yep, I forgot to admit this probably was my mistake: to ‘buy’ the whole packet for North India travelling at tourist office; everything’s fine and safe and you don’t have any kind of surprise – mostly – but with this comes together absolutely no thrill…), but in the end I’m quiet satisfied about how things are going. So went to visit a huge fort just outside Jaipur and took the road to Agra (very long Indian – you know what I mean – road). Takes 6 hrs to arrive in Agra. During the trip we stop to take a elephant ride… interesting, funny but ridicolous enough. This is that too much.
On the road to Agra giude insists he can buy me some chicken and a beer to eat at the hotel, because Agra is expensive (??) and so on … my disappointment reaches the highest level and I convince him (that’s crazy) that I’ll visit the city by myself by feet and eat a quick snack. ‘Only’ 5 times were enough to convince him (he’s losing some money this way). And this is when my trip began. Arrived to the hotel at 6 o’clock, left backpacks in my room and went out for a walk, headed to Taj Ganji area (a very economic area where to eat/drink something just behind the Taj Mahal, as reported on my lonely planet guide). Walking to go there is not so easy. It’s not that far (4 to 5 Kms) but you have to walk through a very poor and populated area, where streets literally have no name, you are the only person with more than 2 bucks in your pockets and you cannot trust almost anyone to aks for informations (every person wants to bring you to a different / better place where you can see/BUY beautiful things or eat very well and so on…). So .. scary becomes instinct and instinct becomes confidence: I just ask the proper persons the way to Taj Ganji and in something like half an hour I’m there; during my walk an army of people following me, asking some money and offering deals is always present.. but this is now ok for me, it’s not the best thing but I just don’t care! Some hellos, where are you from?, give me some monay, with a unique answer: ‘Hello, Mike.and.you?, from Italy. Sorry, no money’.
Once there I decide to go to a bar/restaurant of those I pointed out on a little piece of paper (never show yourself with maps/giudes or tourist stuff in India, it’s like being the only woman in a Turkish masculine prison – never tried but I can only imagine. The place is quiet litlle but nice, begin’ talking to some backpakers in it (a couple from Poland, a guy and girl – very nice actually – from Argentina + her Portouguese girlfriend, a group of English girls and some Japanese guys) and the ‘chef’ brings me a little dirty book, with a lot of reports about his bar written by other tourists, backpackers mainly. It’s a very little silly thing but it fascinates me, that’s really aawesome. Nite and talks go on, move to another place, beer, people, talkin’ then took a tuc-tuc to go back to my hotel. This humble backpacker experience has been so good to me! I promise myself to try it full throttle when I’ll be in Vietnam, no out of the box ready travel package, no giudes, no bookings! That’s it!
L’aria di Jaipur la mattina è putrida. Per quanto ti sforzi non riesci a trattenerla e a non sputare, ti viene naturale cercare di buttar fuori l’odore di marcio, di carogna, di merda misto a quello degli incensi che la mattina bruciano un pò ovunque. Ringrazi quando una leggera folata di vento riesce a farti respirare per un attimo. Quello che colpisce è che, nonostante ciò, il tutto non dà fastidio, ma ti prende, ti affascina.
See Day.2 Pics
Watch Day.2 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to India Videos
Monkeys in Jaipur Market |
A man cleaning elephant shit |
On a tuc tuc in Agra |
On a nite tuc tuc in Agra |
Arriving in Agra |
Michele Montonati
woke up early in the morning,left that crappy ‘hotel’ and left Delhi headed to Jaipur..
RTW.Day.1.India.New Delhi.Planning surprises
Planning surprises
Woke up early (7 o’clock), checked out from the crappy hotel and went out to find my new accomodation (based on what suggested by lonely planet guide). In a few seconds I realize I’m just bucks with legs: everyone is soo kind and wants to offer me a real deal..try to skip most of them, but not last one: a guy I asked for infos about new hostel address forwards me to tourists office.
Went there just to ask some infos on the hotel at 9.30; left that office one hour later with a contract for seven days trip around India in my hand and some (more than expected actually) dollars less in my pockets.
Fear of spending money for nothing or loosing time looking for the places to see convinced me this was a good solution, travelling alone to India is not so easy…
So, at 11o’clock got on car driven by a kind Indian guy heaeded to Jaipur, not before a quick ride on a tipical tuc-tuc little ape car and a visit to a traditional carpet shop (just not to forget I’m just walikng dollars…).
Road to Jaipur is quiet long, it takes almost 5 hrs to arrive there and a huge dose of ‘I don’t care the way he drives, he’ll know how to do that..’ (Indian drivers are not that good, at least, they are if you consider on Indian ‘highways’ you can find bikes, motorbikes, cows, people crossing the street, u turning cars … and you are lucky if they go in your same direction…). Arrived in the city (5 o’clock) we just proceed for sightseeing/forced shopping tour; it’s quiet interesting but Indians press you kindly in a way it’s difficult (but not impossible) to say no.
The secret is: entering the shop, asking for something to be offered to you (a tea is the minimum price for your attention), pretending to be interested in the most expensive stuff they show you, in worst cases take a little tour of the place where they make carpets/jewelery/stones.., asking if they can deliver goods from India and if they have a website/catalog online, finish the tea, taking business card and kindly get off the shop without spending one dollar. If any of those steps is not repsected, be ready to go out of the shop with some dollars less!
After this forced tour, went to the hotel (this time I can actually call it hotel, even if it’s quiet modest), took a shower, rested a lil bit and got ready for the dinner (some chicken, chapati bread and a couple of beers eaten without forks/knives and napkins in the house of carpet seller.. ok, ok.. I bought a very little carpet and two pashminas to be honest and I wrote the rules after this experience…). For day 1 that’s all.
See Day.1 Pics
Watch Day.1 Clips CLICKING on images below or go to India Videos
Jaipur.How to make a carpet (slow) |
Jaipur.How to make a carpet (normal speed) |
India.Day.1.Around New Dehli with tuc tuc |
Around New Dehli with car |
Indian ‘highway’ connecting New Delhi to Jaipur |
Near Jaipur |
Around Jaipur by bike |
RTW.Day.0.India.Arrival in Delhi
I’m just walking dollars
2AM Local Time.Just arrived in the ‘hotel’ in the center on New Delhi; it’s almost clean (but maybe my tireness plays an important role in my opinion) but crappy. Plan for tomorrow morning is to find a better accomodation, always here in Connaught Place. Just had some troubles with non official taxi drivers at the airport but everything went fine in the end and a regular taxi drove me safe to the hotel (for 300rps, 6$ for the official change, 10$ for the unofficial one… maybe tomorrow I get some rupees at ATM)
See Day.0 Pics
Michele Montonati
just got his passport with last three visas and is almost (?) ready to leave.. -2.
Pakistan.Day.11
Back to Islamabad. Visited a mosque dressed like a Pakistan (the only long pants I could wear are the ones on Pakistan dress I bought in Giglit for my bro..), went to a local armor shop (where you can buy a AK47 Kalasnikov replica made in Pakistan (.45 caliber) for $300 (did not contract price…).
See Day.11 Pics
Watch Clips CLICKING on images below
Day.11.Open space travelling |
Day.11.This is where trucks are customized |
Day.11.Pakistani Pimp My Ride!! |
Day.11.Me in Islamabad |
Day.11.Tow away… |
Day.11.A market in Islamabad |
Day.11.At the armor shop |
At the armor shop Pt.II |
Pakistan.Day.10
On the road to Islamabad we stop at Besham and spend the night in a motel (far away different from the Gilgit Five stars hotel…)
See Day.10 Pics
Pakistan.Day.09
We are on the road back to Islamabad. Stop in Gilgit for the night, very beautiful 5 stars hotel. Took a very long shower, a good one with warm and clean water after almost 10 days..
See Day.09 Pics
Watch Clips CLICKING on images below
Day.9.Rocks falling on the road |
Day.9.On KKH headed to Islamabad |
Day.9.A pakistani restroom |
Stuck between trucks |
Day.9.A typical pakistani truck on KKH |
Pakistan.Day.08
Jeep to Karimabad,arrival@11. All day in Karimabad, visiting Baltit Fort, Riaz house, internet point.
See Day.08 Pics
Watch Clips CLICKING on images below
Day.8.Around Karimabad by bike
Pakistan.Day.07
Wake up late, lunch at shepard village with boiled sheep leg. Rain starts@14. 14.30 we leave the village with destination Hoper. All my cameras batteries are gone, so last pics are taken with cell phone camera.. Night in Hoper in a motel. Amin offers us a chicken for his promise to offer it if he could survive to this all (he was not used trekking like this..)
See Day.07 Pics
Watch Clips CLICKING on images below
Day.7.Last day on mountains |
Day.7.Cooking lunch |
Day.7.Trekking recap |
Day.7.Eating lunch |
Day.7.Eating lunch 2 |
Day.7.Last meters |
Pakistan.Day.06
Wake up@6.30 , breakfast and leave@7.30. Crossed 2 glaciers and arrive at a beautiful shepard village.. we spend there a lot of time just chillin’ and talking. Arrival at camp@13. Tanning on the rocks til my skin became red hot, took a shower with torrent water from the glacier (I think it’s 3-4 degrees up the zero, soo refreshing!!). Majeed explains me tere’s a tradition if the trekking goes well and client in satisfied, he offers a goat to eat, so I Bought a goat from nearby shepards village (2.500 Rp, $50), killed (not me, the porters) it and eaten it (me just some meat, the others eat all of the goat, included lungs, liver, stomach, and so on, apart the hearth).
See Day.06 Pics
Watch Clips CLICKING on images below
Day.6.Crossing the glacier Pt.I |
Day.6.Crossing the glacier Pt.II |
Day.6.Crossing the glacier Pt.III |
Day.6.Walking on the edge |
Day.6.In a shepard shelter, talkin hurdu |
Day.6.My hotel |
Day.6.Tanning … |
Day.6.Taking a Shower under freezing torrent |
Day.6.Coke on ice… |
Day.6.Sheeps |
Day.6.Choosing the meal |
Day.6.Choosing the meal Pt.II |
Day.6.Dinner preparation Pt.I |
Day.6.Dinner preparation Pt.II |
Day.6.Preparing my dinner Pt.III |
Day.6.Preparing my dinner Pt.IV |
Day.6.Dinner |
Day.6.Eating at shepard house |
Day.6.Eating Dinner |
Pakistan.Day.05
Smashed.arrived at base camp@16.30 , but a step backward.. Cows trouble didn’t let me sleep so well..my scare became worry, just when I realized 3 or 4 cows where at a few centimeters out of my tent, so near I could hear them breathing.. furthermore night was soo cold, think it was a few degrees up zero.. anyway.. wake up@8,breakfast and leave camp at 8.30, headed Rush Lake, 4.900mt. Less than 2hrs and we are there. During trek we meet Mathias, who slept outside, woke up at 5 and was just coming back from there.. little pause@lake then leave bags there and 3 go to Rush Peak(5.500mt). Just a few steps to there we meet a group of yaks! 1hr and a half we reach it, the highest point of all the trek, beautiful. Then we go back to camp@lake, eat something(it’s 13) and see our yaks going to the water. As they come out they begin to fight..after all this, we begin our downhill(we go from 5.500mt of Rush Peak to 3.500mt of new base camp). Trek last almost 3hrs, veery hard. In the last half hour I did not have control on my legs.. arrive@ camp@16.30 and collapse in my tent, til diner time(8.30).after dinner, tea time talking with Majeed of the Shaman (during downhill he picked up some junipers and told me they were for the Shaman of Karimbad)..not even the time to finish it and I receive an urgent shit call, run to tent, take toilet paper and lamp and go to a near good shitting place. Did my things.. just as I light on the lamp to see where toilet paper has ended, I flash the usual little green eyes, this time on a smaller animal. Scare takes me, run back with pants half down and call for help.. Majeed explain me they are only little oxen (damn them), they already saw them near camp a few hrs before. So I go back to my wc, end what I did not end and go back to talk around the fire till 23, then tent calls me.
See Day.05 Pics
Watch Clips CLICKING on images below
Day.5.On top (5.560 mt) |
Day.5.Yaks fighting near Rush Lake |
Day.5.Downhill |
Day.5.From top (5.560 mt) to base camp @ 3.500 mt |
Pakistan.Day.04
Wake up @6, breakfast@6.30 , burnt trash, made up tents and left@7.30. Start the climb of a very steep mountain. Hard. Oxygen lack knocks at my door and kicks me in the ass. Legs are getting as heavy as the rocks I walk. Sun becomes hotter at every step and I undress every 45min. Finally reach the top@11. Amazing landscape. Took confidence with porters. Long break til 12, then start walking again, on a less steep hill. Arrive at the base camp@13. Met another expedition (pakistan guide and german guy, who is travelling for all Asia since oktober 07 til september). Sun is too hot. Just by the camp there’s a little structure made of rocks, went there to make bread and cook. German guy is totally crazy. He’s aroud with a few things and w/o tent. Tonight he’ll sleep just in his sleeping bag, outside, and tonite it will be very cold.. Eat@8,changed some words with Majeed and Mathias, went to the toilet then back to my tent, rounded by cows(I’m so scared..). I had my front lamp, flashed them and saw tens of little green eyes in the dark..
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Day.4.On the glacier |
Day.4.Almost on the top…. hard…. |
Day.4.Majeed sings |
Pakistan.Day.03
Woke up@5.30. Breakfast@6 and leave in a jeep to trekkig starting point (Hoper Village – 1hr, altitude 3.000mt) A few kms and we have to change a tire, my damn good luck with cars has arrived even here. 8.30 trekking start,after recruiting two porters (Gulam Murtaza and Ramazan Ali) in local village. Lost a porter just after half an hour, but found a new useful friend(little donkey). Arrival @13 at destination,3.600 mt. Just put down the camp and began raining and very cold. Released the donkey. Group is now so composed: Me, Majeed(the guide), Mr. Amin Khan (cook), Gulam (porter), Ramazan(porter), Intikhab (assistant). 14.30 rain stopped, only very windy now. By the time we cook and eat something, sun comes out again. Little siesta after meal broken by goats eating our food (some mangos and all the bread actually). We choose to go to a nearby shepard shelter. Shepard offers us goat milk and let us free to use his shelter, so porters prepare bread in traditional pakistan style. Stay there for at least 2 hours, then go back to camp.19 dinner(me and Majeed, porters and cook always eat separately). Amin tryes to talk to me in a strange paki-english I am not so good understanding, I cannot do other than providing big smiles and yes as answers.. Majeed speaks a very good English, I have good conversations with him. Porters are totally pakistan.the only english sentences they say me are :’Thank you, Sir, hello Sir, here you are Sir’. This puts me a little bit of suggestion.. h21.30 in bed,wake up is scheduled for 6o’clock tomorrow.
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Day.2.On a jeep to the mountainside |
Day.2.Let’s begin the trekking! |
Day.2.A donkey kicking in the face another donkey |
Day.2.Using a donkey to bring backpacks |
Day.2.Trekking |
Day.2.In the tent, rain outside |
Day.2.Tea break at shepard’s house |
Pakistan.Day.02
Wake up at 5.30. Leave for Hunza valley at 6.30. Saw Nanga Parbat,Gilgit river,Hunza river. Arrival in Karimabad@18 Tanning in hotel balcony for a hour, then gone trying the new trekking shoes for 1hr in village. Saw guys playing cricket. Dinner with Riazh and local alpine guide (Majeed)
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Day.1.On KKH |
Day.1.Helping crossing a river |
Day.1.The room in Karimabad |
Pakistan.Day.01 – From Islamabad to Besham
Flight from Milan to Islamabad via London
Arrival in Islamabad 21 June@9.30 Local Time
Met Riazullah, the guy who will bring me from Islamabad to Hunza Valley, where my trekking will begin
Drove from Islamabad to Besham (270 Km – 8 Hrs) on Karakoram Highway (KKH, the highest paved international road in the world
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Day.0.Outside Islamabad Airport |
Day.0.Islamabad Streets |
Day.0.Passing through Batha Gram |
Day.0.Truck full of ppl on KKH |