Namaste All, Like an infection, I seemed to pick up some bad karma in India. In Agra, while walking around the Taj Mahal in the 43°C heat, I caught bronchitis. The following morning I woke early and took a cycle rickshaw to the station in time to catch my 1st Class air-conditioned – with free [...]
Arrived here on Tuesday evening after a stunning 6hr bus ride up from the Punjab. Perched at the foothills of the Himalayas this “Little Lhasa” is only 1000m higher than Amritsar, but the difference could not be more blatant. McLeod is surrounded by hills awash with conifers and other evergreens. These hills and the valley [...]
Locals here joke that the good thing about Islamabad is that it is only 15km from Pakistan. It isn’t hard to see why. With it’s tree lined streets and painted parking spaces, it’s invisible sewage systems and air-conditioned shopping malls it resembles nothing so much as a little piece of suburban South Africa, planted on [...]
Salam all! Phew! After passing through the literal, internet and alcohol deserts of Iran and Baluchistan, have finally arrived here, in Quetta, South Western Pakistan (map). Ruins of Darius’ PalacePersepolis, Southern Iran The bus trip from Taftan, at the Irani border, to here is worthy of a page on its own. Suffice to say that [...]
Here a cafe, there a cafe, everywhere an internet cafe! Seems I am not going to have too much trouble keeping contact if I stick to the well-trodden back-packer routes. This one comes gratis with the accommodation. Got to Istanbul on Monday only to discover that the Trabzon ferry was not running. My quick change [...]
