Welcome to uncle Joni's travel stories
Sometimes things happen faster than you expect them to. I'm happy that I took the time to write the Nepal trip report right away because I still remember most of the things. Go and read it and please let me know if and probably when you find spelling errors and other mistakes. Also leave any other comments you feel like!
Let me also know what you think about the photos. I think I managed to catch a couple of nice shots there and I'm happy with the Nepal photos in general, which is rare for me.
What a month and a half it's been! Nepal, Dubai, Bucegi mountains, Bucharest, Danube Delta, mud volcanoes, Constanţa, Dobrogea Gorges, and Transalpina road are some of the places we've visited since the end of May.
I haven't really had much time to write anything here about the trips but I just finished writing a short trip report about Danube Delta and the other places we visited during that weekend. Go and check it out!. I've also already sorted pictures for the Nepal trip report but I haven't started writing it yet. Soon, I hope!
A pier and a fishing boat in Sfântu Gheorghe
What a holiday it was! Of course by default visiting the second poorest country in Asia (second to only Afghanistan) is going to be special but Nepal really exceeded many of my expectations. Very few places I've visited before have felt as original as Nepal has.
On the way back we had half a day to spend in Dubai. For the second year in a row I end up in some of the hottest places on Earth during summer, and this time we weren't even allowed to drink or eat during the day because of Ramadan! I really have to start timing these trips better.
I'll save the details for later (there will be a trip report :) but I'll at least share some photos here.
P.S. I had intentions to write some updates on the road but my server doesn't have static IP address here in Romania and the connection had failed while we were in Nepal, preventing me (or anyone else) from accessing the page at all. In addition the router we have here is very unreliable and its port forwarding works whenever it feels like. Sorry about those!
Annapurna south basking in the last rays of sun
In less than two days we'll head to the Otopeni airport once again and early in the morning the next day we should arrive in Kathmandu. We have plans to hike somewhere in the mountains for at least a week and hopefully get to see and experience a lot of new things on the way. In total we have two weeks in Nepal so we'll have some time for other things besides hiking as well.
On the way back we will spend one night in Dubai. It's not much but at least we'll get a glimpse of what money can buy. They say it's not everything, but Dubai tells it's a lot at least!
We made a quick visit to one of the biggest cities in Europe. Flights from Bucharest are so cheap and we live so close to the airport that it feels like we could go abroad almost every weekend. Unfortunately flying isn't very friendly towards the Earth.
Two days wasn't quite enough to see and experience everything in Berlin but it at least gave us a chance to see what all the fuss is about. There's a lot of history in the city and it certainly has a special vibe as well. It was great to see such a huge variety of different people, especially after living here in Eastern Europe for a while now.
Berlin seemed to be quite tolerant towards minorities.
Inna talked me into going to this free concert that the city of Bucharest arranged to celebrate the Europe Day. The artists weren't perhaps my absolute favorites but gave a good show nevertheless :).
The artists / bands that performed there and we saw were Morandi, Antonia, Carla's Dreams, Dan Bălan, O-Zone, Inna and Fly Project. We probably missed one artist before we arrived and one after we left. Those two would have been Akcent and Alexandra Stan. Carla's Dreams seemed to be a huge favorite among the teenage girls in the crowd and O-Zone wasn't far behind I think. On the other hand Inna (the artist :) was a huge disappointment both with her song picks and the unexciting show. I had never heard of Fly Project before the concert and I still can't remember any of their songs, but the dancers were good!
Morandi
I just wanted to share this picture about cycling in Bucharest. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.
Update: Added another picture as well.
Heads up!
Yet another weekend trip for this spring. This time we flew to Brussels to meet our friend Iljas who lives there. Iljas was a great host and hauled our asses around Belgium and even over the border to the Netherlands.
The very center of Brussels is really magnificent at night and the small medieval towns all around Belgium feel cosy, but the highlight of this trip for me was the funny Belgian village in the Netherlands. No, you didn't miss-read it, there's a Belgian village in the Netherlands. And it gets even better: There are parts within the Belgian village in the Netherlands that belong to the Netherlands. Go and check Baarle-Nassau / Baarle-Hertog in your favorite online map to see the ridiculous borders within the village :).
Parking in two municipalities (in two different countries) at the same time!
I just finished writing a trip report about our Easter adventures in Transylvania here in Romania. It was a good trip!
Money saving and a car mentioned in the same sentence? That's crazy talk one might think, and in a way it is. Let's be honest: in most cases owning a car is NOT going to cheaper than not owning one. If you already happen to have one though, you might want to consider saving some of the money you still have left after covering the upkeep of the car :).
Having a hotel that moves can give you many kinds of benefits.
Comments
Let's hope the possibility for editing comments will make people comment more as they don't have to be afraid of mistakes anymore :).
Edited by Milton - 11.06.2011 12:25
Edited by Milton - 10.01.2013 21:49