Getting to Kathmandu 1. class.. -ish

Soo.. From Gangtok to Nepal which was our next stop is basicly a jeep to the border (3 hours) and then an overnight-bus to Kathmandu. The problem was though, that since the tailor who made our some suites we ordered wasn't that good at  keeping a time schedule, so instead of cathing a jeep in the morning and go the direct way to the border we ended up doing a detour through Siliguri and from there catch a bus to the border. The trip was only suppose to take an extra hour or 2 so we shouldn't get any problems on cathing the overnight bus to Kathmandu.

BUT.. Since the weather God in Sikkim really likes Danes he made a smaller thunderstorm (ie. ripping up treas, making mudslides, and making more or less impossible for us to reach Siliguri within the planned 4 hours) just to keep us longer in Sikkim. This was rather insane. Everyone stopped driving due to the madness of the weather conditions, except of course, our jeep. Beacuse the driver wanted to get back to Gangtok where he lived, he drove like crazy and even though he barely could see the road and the trees on it due to the rain he just drove on like Michael Shumacher..  But even though our lives had been in danger a couple of dossens of times we reached Siliguri after 6 hours, 2 hours behind schedule. To catch up we hired a private car to get us to the boarder faster and by this we caught up with 1 hour. This and the fact that the rain more or less had stopped we still hoped to make it. The only problem was though that the driver was one big f**kin C*nt and drove us all the way to the boarder instead of stopping at the Indian side to make it possible for us to get stamps out of India, and trough that make it possible to get into Nepal (there is about 1,5km on a bridge between the 2 posts). And of course the rain had started again as soon as we got to Nepal. It costed us almost an hour to find a car to get us back to the Indian side (wierd enough the same car, but another driver.. Oh yeah.. And Karma works... The car got a flat tyre while driving us so he got his punishment for cheating us), get the stamps and hire 2 local guys to let us sit on the back of their bicycles back to Nepal. So there you have it. We sat on the back of a bike from India to Nepal.

When we finally came, drenched, into Nepal and looked for the bus to Kathmandu we realised we were to late. We got a hotel rather easy though, but because of their lack of Western toilets and my lack of squating skills I managed at 2 am to knock of a water tap and basicly waking up Mathias while a vertical water fountain turned our bathroom in to a place where whales would go on vacation. It took an hour to find a guy and get the water shut down... And get the last jelly fish through the drain..

The following morning we got feed up by traveling by roads and got (through coverage of beeing Danish fashion Designers in Nepal to visit a Nepaleese Fashion Magasine runned by the hotel manager at the place we slept at) a plane and, only 4 hours delayed we got to Kathmandu..Sweet, tourist-friendly, good-food, nice-people Kathmandu.. Mhh..

Arrived.. And drunk..

(a blog before this is right now missing, but I can't simply recall what happended so right now you have to whait for Mathias to right it.. )

After our small day of in Darjeeling we first went downhill to get visas done. We came to the conclusion that rickshaws are not ment for downhill driving either, which is why their brakes gets hot after 5 minutes and from there you got youself a nice and scary 1 hour drive downhill without..

After we got the visas we once again started climbing and just as the day before a lot of pushing were nescesary to get to the finish line. But around 1300 Mathias took the last stint and Rebekka crossed the finish line hand in hand with Shercarn (the english guys' rickshaw)

At the hotel we got ALOT of beers and heard some of the stories from some of the other teams and it sounded like we got through without that much struggle. Some of the more exciting stories are told by Sikkim the Head and Moby Rick.

The next couple of days got used on getting some more beers and talking to some of the other teams. One Sunday we had the ":Congratulations.. You made it" Dinner and after that one crazy party.. Half way through we got called to the stage to recieve the reward for the best Pimped Rickshaw.. Ohh Yeeahhh! This just meant people started buying us beer, and we got... Well.. Just for once... Incredible drunk! I got no clue at all how I managed to get myself the 10km from the party back to the hotel, and Mathias woke up the entire hotel when he got back to get them to make him breakfast.. Which he then got... Lovely and nice staff:p

Monday: Hangovers and loads of sleep

Tuesday: The zoo.. Quite awesome.. Lots of read pandas and some cool animals whe never had seen before.. For some reason the zoo claimed they got a Musk Deer which I got quite excited to see (seriously google that animal.. Ot looks SO cool!), but at the end of the zoo no Deers where to be spotted.. We got into to a bit of a bad mood so we descided to get back up by getting some Tibetan food and a beer.. Due to lots of rain and a powercut we descided to stay at the bar a bit longer.. And POP.. We got drunk again..

After this we got Matt drunk (the guy who runs the Rickshaw Run). He then gave us the score board from the Run which we gladly took, packed our stuff and went towards Nepal the following day.

On the road in India!

 Rickshaw run has begun! We are now driving like mad to get to Sikkim, and to stay alive on the roads in India!

Alright, I know there is a gap in our blog, we haven't done anything on the blog since we left Mumbai! I don't think we are going to write anything about what we have done in the time between Rickshaw run and Mumbai. Not because we didn't do anything, or it isn't worth mentioning. Simply because I am too tired!

We set of the first day from Cochin around 11:30 after all the speaches and the other formal stuff that had to be done. We were to go with three British guys, who were heading same way as we were planing on, but got lost imediatly. We found a few other teams that was heading east aswell and we stuck together out of Ernakulam, and haeded for Munnar. We thought we would go longer, just to get some miles behind us, but as it turns out. The Rickshaws aren't really that fast, and not at all build for driving in mountains! We ended up only doing around 120km the first day, and got to Munnar around 5:30. The mountains was really hard for the 'shaw, we had to take a break almost as soon as we got into the mountains. Luckily the British guys came just when we were ready to go again, and we team up once again! Wuhu! But not for long, 1 hour later they got problems with their Rickshaw, and we left them. 

Next morning we were supposed to find them and team up again, but we couldn't find their hotel, and the phone reception was down to below zero! (James got my text 2 days later) We decided not to waste any more time looking for them and headed out on our own to conquer India! We got lost halfway through the mountains and had to go back a bit, and there we found our lost friends again! Now we teamed up for good, and have been driving together all the time so far.

On day 2 we got to Tricy, the city also has a "Indian" name, which is horribly long, and I do not at all remember it, or know how to spell it! It was a shit hole, pretty much like the rest of India. But as we were just staying for one night, it didnt really matter to us. Next morning we went to the Rock Fort to be a bit touristy. We got on the road around 9, which was way too late, but we really wanted to see the Rock Fort. From Tricy we wnet to Thanjuvar to see a big temple, which was amazing! Really worth the extra km we did to see it. From there we went on to Pondicherry, just an other 6 hours on the road in our small little beauty of a rickshaw!

Good night! This have been one really long day! And we have to get up tomorrow at 5:30 to get som miles done, we to do atleast 350km tomorrow.

Madness in Mumbai

At midnight we landed in Mumbai airport, the both of us quite smashed so we were quite pleased that some one came and arranged a taxi for adn to the mighty fine price of the double of what it actually would cost. Since we though are a bit against paying 1000Rb (ca 110kr) for the 30km ride we decided to go for one of the more licensed taxies and ended up paying 400Rb.

All and all we found ourselves outside the Red Salvation Army at 4am where we had booked a room in advance.. But for some reason that room wasnt avaiable so we had to walk around the neighborhood trying to locate a place to stay.. This was quite wierd.. People, and not just one but like hundreds, were sleeping in the streets, dogs were roaming aroudn in small packs searching for food, and every person awake tried to sell us everything from cabs and drugs to drugs and a room. We decided though to go for a place in our little friend The Lonely Planet but after the same guy had been following us through the neighborhood for half an hour insisting that we would buy drugs (or ride his cab) we eventually went back to Salvation Army and picked a fancy looking hotel just across the street. We payed 3000Rb for one night (at Salvation we payed 255 a person in a dorm). So much for reservations.

The following day we got to a dorm at Salvation Army and meet a lot of nice people. The beds were okay, especially with our own brought-from-home-madrasses on top, and as soon Mathias had remvoed the worst of the ceiling falling down into his bed each day we were able to get quite decent sleep here.

The first day we were able to see almost all the things worth seeing in Mumbai so at night we went to get drunk with some of the people from the dorm which easily was handled through 0,75L scotch for 280Rb (ca 30kr). On our way from a kebab place and down to the sea to sit, for some reason this dad driving around in his car with his family got extremely pissed at one of the other guys, got out his car and almost started a fight with him. We got away though before anything happended (except getting called Motharf*ckers! 700 times), but the following days 3 or 4 indians (around 50 people stopped in the street to watch) came to us and said next time perhaps we should not drink that much :D

March 17 was Jans birthday but we didnt really celebrate because we had to catch a flight to Kochi the following day and since we already celebrated it twice in DanaWorld we just went for a couple of beers.

At 10 am march 18 we flew to Koch and for the first time since we left Denmark we didnt get food on board :'(

DanaWorld / Quangzhou

After the horrible bus ride we got picked up by Rachel and got back to her place, a 4 roomed flat in the OG area of the city.. Just across the street from the place she worked.

The first days we went out eating together with Dana and the other foreigners (in the city there were not more than 20 foreigners so every one was looking when we walked around in our small group heading for food). We saw some of the sigthseeing in the area which really wasnt that amazing, but we enjoyed ourselves and the other foreigners were increbible kind!

On Friday Dana threw a smaller party for us and the people she knew around.. We got rather drunk at her place (beijo You Devil!) and then headed out for Dana's second home: a bar called 1801. Here we were treaded as rockstars! Since they really wasnt that use to foreigners everyone was drinking with us and as soon we emptyed our glass of whiskey and green tea (which happended everytime they cheered. Not because we wanted to but to be polite.. Okay a bit maybe because we wanted to) they'd pour us a new. All in all we were 6 people sharing one bottle of whiskey and all of us got way hammered! Maybe it helped a bit that we started celebrating my birthday a bit early or that the locals ment Mathias look like Wolverine ("Oh.. You so Handsome, you so handsome!), but drunk we got. On the way home it started to rain BIG TIME and for some reason we got the idea of walking home would be smartest.. We were completely soaked when we got back and our shoes didnt dry before we wore them 4 days later..

The next day we had some quite bad hangovers and we decided to go for Burger King. The only problem: The nearest Burger King was 30 minutes in bus in another city. Together with some of the people from the night before (Ryan, Eugene, Melisa and of course Dana) we got on the bus and got to Burger King. On the way we learned the mighty fine game called "Penis" where you have to say penis as loud as you can in a puplic place. Nice and easy and incredible funny (The winner of the game: The one who made it slip in the best or the one saying it the loudest.. The champion: Ryan.. He could attempt the national team.. Man, was he good!). In the same city we went to the movies and ate at a Toilet Restaurant.. This was maybe a bit wierd but the chocolate ice (eaten from a toilet shaped plate) was actually quite good. At the night we got drunk again and back at 1801 it suddenly were both me and Mathias' birthday.. A marvellous evening once again..

Sunday: Hangovers

Monday: Flight to Hong Kong and from there to Mumbai India.Woo Wooooooo!

Bye HK, welcome back China

As we had promised each other, we went for a little run every second morning in HK, we found a really nice park, more like a Zoo actually, but free! Where we ran around sweating due to the high humidity and the warm weather. We kinda wished for colder weather, and bam! What did we get? Rain and 10 degrees for the next few days. Be careful what you whish for!

We went for some more sightseeing in HK, and was prommised that there would be a statue of Jackie Chan, at the "avenue of stars", it's like in hollywood, where all the famous stars names are written in the street, with a hand in concrete. We did find Jackie Chan, and one more actor we know. But no statue.. Instead we got a Statue of Bruce Lee, which kinda made up for it. Eventually we did find a statue of Jackie Chan!! At the Madam Tussaud!

Even tho the weather wasnt that good, we went for the peak, where we have a great view of the skyline, but again the clouds were hanging too low.. This is the great view we got!

I was just foggy and cloudy all over, we couldnt even see 10meters ahead of us. We were a bit dissapointed when we got up there. But luckily Rachel had told us about a hicking trail down from the Peak. It took a little while to find it, but when we did, we got some amazing photos, and the trail was worth it! The longer we got down, the better it was, some really beautiful places, and no people at all! It was a really good trip down the mountain, and of course we got lost several times along the way, but it just made it a whole lot better. The first few kilometers of the trail, it was still really cloudy and foggy, and it made the nature really beautiful. Instead of and incredible skyline, we got increadible nature. The further we got down, the fog cleared up, and we were able to get a good view of Hong Kong and Aberdeen, which is where we ended up, and the wrong side of the mountain!

Later on we went for beers at a bar, but it was way too expensive for us, so we just had a couple and got home again. The next day Rachel had invited some friends over and we had a great little party, and went for the bars again, this time somewaht cheaper, and we had a great time! Meeting new people is the best thing about traveling. We ended up with quite a hangover from the partying, and spend a whole day doing absolutely nothing! Well, we did watch a stand-up comedy, some canadian guy called Russel Peters, which was really funny, i might go for more of his shows sometime. And it suited our trip really well, because his show was about different races, espcially Chinese and Indians, and guess what, thats where we are going!

It took a week for the Chinese to make us a new Visa, so when we got that, we headed back for China, we got a sleeper bus from Shenzhen to Xiamen, we were going to visit Dana, who lives just an hour from Xiamen. We did argue abit about wheter to go for sleeper bus or train, and we ended up with the bus, because the train ride was a few hours longer, and we had to change train in between. But, and there is always a but, we should have taken the train! The beds in the bus were too short for us, and it was really smelly. The bus ride was supposed to take 11hours and we would be in Xiamen by 6:45 and could catch andother bus the Quangzhou, where Dana lives, an hour later. But there is something about chinese efficiency! We arrived in Xiamen just before 5am, and what to do in new city where you have no clue about where to go... In the middle of the night? We ended up just walking around looking for a place to get some breakfast, but no luck. A few hours later we were able to get moving agin, and came to Danaworld! As it is, i dont really think we reagret it, it was nice to try. But just once, we dont have to do it again.