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Peru part four - Lake Titicaca to La Paz

2010-07-13T16:46:00.000+02:00

After a well-deserved party in Cuzco we left for Puno and Lake Titicaca which was our last stop before the trip ended in La Paz. Puno was a boring city. It wasn't very pretty either, as they have a stupid rule here saying if you don't finish building your house (i.e paint it) you don't have to pay tax for it. So you can imagine how pretty all the houses looked...
We spent the afternoon shopping for our hostfamily, having dinner and watching Germany kick some English ass in the world championships.

The next morning we boarded our boat and set sail for Taquile, the first island we were to visit. Lake Titicaca is really beautiful, it's the largest lake in South America and one of the highest navigable ones in the world, sitting at 3800 meters above sealevel. The trip to Taquile took about three hours. We walked across the island and looked around the main square before we had lunch. I'm glad I had my big lense, as I got to take some sneaky pictures of the locals ;)

After lunch we carried on towards Iquitos, where we were spending the night at a local family's house. We were met by the families when we arrived, and they played music for us while we walked up to the school. We were assigned to our host-mum or -dad, before we played some football. Great fun, but very tiring running around as we were so high up! After that we walked up to our house, I was sharing a room with Maxa and Cyndi. We dumped our stuff and went to the kitchen/living room which was actually a house by itself. Unfortunately none of us speak very much spanish, so we tried to communicate by gesticulating and pointing. I managed to say I was from Norway and was 25 years old and that was about it. But our family was really nice so there was a lot of laughter in spite of not managing to communicate properly. We helped prepare dinner by peeling and cutting potatoes. Then the youngest girl came home, and showed us her drawingbook, where we drew our self-portraits among other things. Dinner was delicious, and we all rolled out afterwards.

Then it was time to get dressed up and go dancing! Our mum and the three daughters came to our room with clothes, and we were dressed up in the local costume. It consisted of four skirts layered on top of each other, a shirt/jacket, wide belt, cloth draped over our shoulder and on top a bowler hat. We all looked beautiful! Then we were guided down to the school in the dark where we met everyone else. All the girls had the same costumes, and the boys had pink ponchos, a cocaleaf bag and broadbrimmed hat.

First the locals performed a dance for us, and then we had to dance like them. It wasn't that difficult, and it was great fun! We were at the school for about two hours dancing and watching the locals dance. We even tried to teach the young girls how to dance to Saturday Night! A lot of fun :)

The next morning it was time to say goodbye to our family and head back towards Puno. On the way we stopped at Uros, the floating islands. Very interresting, everything is made of a type of straw, even the houses and the boats! It was strange walking on the island, the straw sank down as you walked, and it was actually quite hard work! They had a pool on the island with an island on it where they kept the guinea pigs :)

Back in Puno we were even more bored than before, because it was a bank holiday and most of the shops were closed. Maxa, Alex, Dani and I found an open restaurant where we had chocolate cake and lemonade before we went to get a manicure and pedicure. It was the worst one I've ever had... The woman doing my pedicure didn't know what she was doing and was constantly asking the other woman what to do next. To top it off poor Alex and Dani got a fake 20-note as change!

The next day we took a bus to La Paz which took almost all day. In La Paz we went out for a last dinner at a very nice restaurant, and out for a drink afterwards where we also met up with Hugh, one of the guys from our Lares trek. I think I picked up something in Puno cause I was quite ill that night and the next day, so spent all morning in bed. At 2 o'clock I managed to have a shower and go sightseeing for a couple of hours. Then Maxa, Hugh and I went for dinner before we said goodbye to Maxa and met up with the others who had done the Death Road that day. Went out for one last drink with them before I went to bed and left for Trondheim the next morning.

A great trip with great people! Hope to see you all again someday :)

Peru part three - Lares trek and Machu Picchu.

2010-07-01T01:00:00.000+02:00

So it was time for the big challenge! The one we all were looking forward to, and wondering the most how would go. The Lares Trek. I was originally going to do the Inka Trail, but because my original trip got cancelled I didn´t get the permit for the Inka trail cause we got there on a different day. It didn´t really matter too much though. We started off from just outside Lares town, with our daypacks, walking sticks (oh yes the proper ski-pole-like ones) and Coca-leaves.
The first part wasn´t very difficult, we walked through really nice landscape, lush and green. Had a couple of hours hike before lunch. The food on the trek was amazing, we had our own cooks who made three-course meals for both lunch and dinner.
We started off at about 3400 meters above sealevel, and our camp for the first night was at about 4200 meters. Which meant we had some climbing to do, which we discovered not long after lunch. We had just walked through a little village when we came to a steep hillside. I thought "no way we´re going up there??" But oh yes we were! It was almost vertical and we were all out of breath before we´d walked 20 meters... But we all made it in the end, I´m very glad I had my walking sticks and my mantra: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!"
We started hiking at about 11 am and reached camp at about 5 pm, and went to bed at about 8 pm... I didn´t sleep very well, it was really cold, even though I had thermals and a woolly jacket. There was frost on the inside of the outer tent and the water in the bowls outside were bottomfrozen the next morning. Nice! It warmed up quite a lot when the sun came though.
Before we started hiking we got invited to visit a local house next to where we had camped. It was very simple, no electricity or water, and just one room. One part was the kitchen and the other the bedroom. In the bedroom there were loads of guinea pigs running around. And no, they were not pets...
The first part of the second day hike was quite hard as we had to go over a pass which was 4500 meters, and again we had barely started when we came to an even steeper hillside than yesterday. Yup, we were going up! Coca-leaves and walking sticks are priceless...
It was worth it though, the view from the top of the pass was amazing... Untouched mountains as far as you could see, a lake at one side and Llamas and Alpaccas grazing all around. The whole of the trek was pretty amazing actually, we only saw 4 other tourists, and only for about 5 minutes, and then nobody else apart from locals and animals.
After the pass it got easier as we were going down again. By 4 pm we reached our second camp which was also the end of the trek. It was really good to get there, everybody had sore feet and knees, so the rest was very welcome. We celebrated with a couple of drinks and cardgames.

The next day we went to Aguas Calientes, which is the town of Machu Picchu, where a couple of the girls and I went to relax in the hot springs for an hour. Mmm... Got up at 4 am the next morning to get an early bus to Machu Picchu. We got there in time for sunrise, and man, it´s amazing! It´s such a big area and all the ruins are intact, it´s really impressive. And it wasn´t as touristy as I thought it would be (at least not that early), it was actually quite peaceful sitting there watching the sun come up over the mountains. Then we had a guided tour of the ruins before we hiked up Wayna Picchu, the mountain next to Machu Picchu. Only 400 people are allowed to do the hike every day, so we were lucky! But it was HARD! It´s a really steep mountain, and the path consists of steps winding themselves all the way up to the top. It took me about 45 minutes to get to the top, but it was worth it! You get such a great view over Machu Picchu, and all the surrounding mountains. Back at the bottom I wandered around by myself for a bit exploring before we set off back to Cuzco. Went out for dinner and drinks and had a wonderful night to celebrate that we all made it! Definately one of the most beautiful things I´ve ever done.

Peru part two - Arequipa to Cuzco

2010-06-27T01:41:00.001+02:00

After Nazca we went to Arequipa, a really beautiful old town, with lots of old white houses. We spent a couple of days there, visiting churches and museums and eating good food. I tried Guinea Pig! It does actually taste a bit like chicken, I quite liked it.

Then we went to the Colca Canyon, which is the deepest canyon in the world. We stayed in a little village near Colca town, a really nice countryside place next to some tall mountains. We did a hike on the first day to acclimatize our bodies as we were at about 3800 meters. It was quite exhausting, but I just told myself "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" and it helped :)
The next day we went to the actual canyon which was really stunning, it´s so deep, and the walls are so steep! We saw about 10-15 Condors which were really cool, they are huge birds, about 3 meters wingspan. One of them came really close, and passed just a few meters above us. Cool!
In the evening we went to some hotsprings and had dinner at a restaurant where they played traditional Peruvian music and performed dances for us.

Spent a day in Arequipa before getting a nightbus to Cuzco. I really like Cuzco, even though it´s quite touristy. There was a festival going on so lots of people in the streets, prosessions and dances and fun. Spent the day wondering around markets, and visiting a convent with some old Inka-ruins in it. In the evening there was a concert and dances in the main square, and some great fireworks at the end!
The next day I went on a guided tour of the Sacred Valley, where we visited two different Inka ruin sites. They were both quite impressive. The last stop was an old church with beautiful paintings in the roof and on the walls, and lots of gold. A bit weird to find such a decorated church in a little town in the middle of nowhere! Came back to Cuzco and went to dinner at an English pub, before we had to pack for the Lares trek.

Peru part one - Lima to Nazca

2010-06-18T23:42:00.000+02:00

I´m travelling again! This time doing a trip from Lima down to La Paz. I started off in Lima with a daytour of the city and the Pachacamac (?) ruins. Lima is an okey city, not as bad as I thought it would be. I stayed in a hotel in Barranco, about 20 mins from downtown. On the citytour we visited Barranco, Miraflores and the downtown area, saw a few parks, lots of beautiful colonial style houses in lots of different colours, and the San Fransisco church with the catacombs underneath.
I met up with the group later that evening, they all seem very nice. Mostly English people, a couple of Germans, a couple of Canadians, a Kiwi and an Aussie. I´m sharing a room with Maxa, one of the Canadian girls.

The next day we headed down to Pisco where we spent the night, and the next morning we went on a speedboat trip to the Ballestas Islands. They were quite amazing, thousands of birds (mostly Cormorants and Peruvian Boobies, and some pelikans), sealions and penguins. After that we visited a Pisco factory, where we were shown how they make Pisco, which is the Peruvian spirit. We also got to taste quite a few different varieties...
In the afternoon we headed down to Ica where we had lunch, I tried a classic Peruvian dish, Ceviche. Ceviche is basically raw fish marinated in lime and onions, served with sweet potato, normal potato and corn. Quite good actually! Then it was time for sandboarding! You wouldn´t believe it, but Peru has some of the biggest sanddunes in the world! We drove around them in a buggy which was so much fun! It was like being on a rollercoaster :) And the sandboarding was great also, we slid down huge dunes on a board that looked like a snowboard, face first on our stomach. Great fun!

Next stop was Nazca, where we went up in tiny 6-seater Cessna planes, to get a good wiew of the Nazca-lines. Nobody knows who made the lines, what they mean or why they are there, and they depict a lot of figures only visible from the air. Fascinating! We all felt a bit sick after the flight, so it was nice to just chill by the pool the rest of the afternoon. In the evening we went to a traditional Pachamanca seremony where we got served amazing food cooked underground.

More to come!

Roadtrippin

2010-04-28T16:19:00.000+02:00

It was very sad leaving Sydney and WakeUp, a few tears were shed as I said goodbye to all the lovely people there. But my three months were up, so it was time to go! I had a weeks holiday before it was time to return to real life in Norway, so my friend Jack and I flew over to Perth where we were to start our roadtrip.

I met Jack on my Kathmandu to Beijing trip with Dragoman last year, and he'd been staying with me in Sydney for about a month. In Perth we met up with John from the Drago trip aswell, and it was great to have a little reunion! We had the weekend in Perth before picking up the van on Monday, so we spent the days watching the RedBull Airrace which was great fun, and doing some sightseeing. How those pilots can fly! Wow.

On Monday we picket up our HiTop camper and set off, destination Exmouth! Western Australia is really beautiful, although some parts can get a bit boring with all the long streches of straight road. But there are some nice beaches, and we stopped several times for an afternoon swim. The first night we camped by a beach which was really nice, and got a good nights sleep after some spaghetti bolognaise and wine. The next day was our major driving day, we did about 800 km! It was a long day, but our cruise speed was about 120 km/h so it wasn't too many hours. Not far from Exmouth we stopped at Coral Bay, which is one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen! We went for a swim in the crystal clear warm water before driving the last bit up to Exmouth. About 110 km away I realized we didn't have a lot of petrol left and there were no petrolstations before Exmouth. 50 km away the lamp came on... It was pretty nervewrecking! So for the last 50 km I was gassing, cluthcing and rolling, gassing... We rolled into the petrolstation in Exmouth and filled 60,2 liters on the 60 litre tank... Phew!!!

The next morning I was picked up early as I was going out snorkelling with whalesharks!! First we snorkelled at a good reefsite at the Ningaloo reef before we went looking for the sharks. After about 15 minutes we found one! But he wasn't very social, so not long after we got into the water he dived. Luckily we found 4 others who were a bit more friendly! It was amazing swimming with them, the largest one was about 6 meters long! They are the biggest fish in the sea, so they won't move for anything, something I kinda realized when I went in the water to swim with one and didn't see it at first, turned around and it was right in front of me coming straight towards me! Help?
We spent about 5 hours cruising around and swimming with the different sharks before heading home, finishing off with a glass of champagne. A wonderful experience I would recommend to everyone!

We started our drive back to Perth in the afternoon. On the way back down the coast we almost killed a kangaroo (or it almost committed suicide by jumping out into the road in front of our van), saw a stingray and what we think were dugongs from a lookout, went to Monkey Mia but didn't see any dolphins, went to Shell Beach which is as you guessed a beach made of shells instead of sand, saw some amazing sunsets and visited the pinnacles which is a strange desert area with pinnacle rocks sticking out of the ground.

3160 km later we arrived back in Perth on Saturday, dropped off the van, spent the rest of the afternoon in Freemantle before Jack and John dropped me off at the airport. 30 hours later I was back in Norway! It's good to be home, but I miss the warmth...

Sydney update # 2

2010-03-26T05:15:00.001+01:00

I've meant to update so many times, but I never seem to have the time!!! Only a week left in Sydney now, then a week in Perth and then home to Trondheim. I don't want to go home, but I don't want to stay here either if that makes sense... I am looking forward to getting home to family, friends and my own flat though.

I'll start from where I last left off and try to recap from there. Mardi Gras was great fun! About 3 hours of loads of gay and lesbians parading the streets, in everything from lifesaver speedos to full on Thai "ladyboys" in flamboyant dresses, "Dykes on bikes", singing, dancing, people in leather thongs whipping each other and more "normally" dressed people just having a good time. It's one of the biggest events in Sydney so a LOT of people in the streets!

In conjunction with the Mardi Gras Spencer Tunick came and did an installation in front of the Opera House. Guess who was there? Yep! Together with 5200 other people at 4 am a cold Monday morning. A bit of waiting around before we stripped off just after 6 am when the sun came up. It was a weird experience being naked with so many other people, but at the same time very liberating and fun! Everyone was in a good mood, cheering and waving to the ferries going past. There were people of all shapes and sizes, even one man with his whole body covered in tattoos, and I mean ALL of it (apart from his head), and he even had piercings in his you know what!! Weird... After the outside session we filled up one of the concert halls and had a photo shoot inside. Kinda strange having naked people sitting on each and every seat in the hall and lying on the stage. And don't worry, we got plastic bags to sit on...

I went on a daytrip down to Jervis Bay, a beautiful place a couple of hours drive from Sydney, where we visited a beatiful beach, went on a dolphinwatching cruise (saw 3 dolphins and a couple of sealions), and stopped by a huge waterfall in Kangaroo Valley on the way home.

The weekend after I went on a surfcamp! Mojosurf took me up to Cresent Head, a really nice place about 6 hours north of Sydney, with a beautiful deserted looong beach and lush forests. The camp was 5 mins walk from the beach, and it was really nice. There were a lot of very loud obnoxious Americans on the trip which wasn't that nice... But I made friends with the other 10 "non-Americans" so we stuck together and had a good time. And the surprising bit is: I stood up on a surfboard! On my first try!!! I was so surprised I fell off... Last time I went surfing I just gave up, I couldn't do it at all. I thought I would go up and check out the camp and just relax on the beach for the weekend, but I had to have one lesson as I promised Ronnie (Mojoguy), but I actually ended up having all three of them. So now I'm a pro! haha...

I've also been out a few times with the crew here, one restaurant we went to was a Brazilian barbeque one where you could eat as much as you wanted, and we eat! The food was delicious, and everyone rolled out afterwards...

A couple of weeks ago I went horseriding with Louise in a place called Glenworth Valley, about an hour from Sydney. We had booked to go out for 6 hours, but we gave up after about 4 as our legs, thighs and bums were so sore we could hardly walk... But it was a really nice day, we rode through lovely lush rainforest, the horses were great and the sun was shining.

My Dad, stepmum and brother has been visiting for the past 10 days, so been doing lots of touristy stuff around Sydney with them. Visiting The Rocks, been to see La Traviata in the Opera house, dinner with more family living here, climbing the Harbour Bridge pylon, Taronga Zoo, Darling Harbour and so on. We also hired a car and drove up to Port Stephens for a couple of days, a beautiful place a couple of hours north. If you ever come to Australia, go there! We stayed at Melaleuca backpackers, they have dorms, cabins and tents set in a campground/forest 5 minutes walk from the beach, with their own pet kangaroo named Josie jumping around. One of the mornings there was even a wild koala climbing up the tree right next to our balcony! Of course I was in the shower so I didn't see it... We spent the days hanging out at the beaches, going for walks and eating good food. On the way back to Sydney we drove through Hunter Valley which is a famous wine district, and we stopped at Mt.Pleasent, Lindemans and Rosemount vinyards.

Sorry for the way to long entry, I'm impressed if you've made it this far without falling asleep...

Sydney update

2010-02-22T06:42:00.004+01:00

Ok, so time for an update! I know I haven't been very good at updating, it's just that time flies so fast and it kinda feels like there hasn't been that much going on since last time I wrote.

It's about 37 degrees today so melting away, but it's better than the rain! This weekend I went to the beach for the first time since I got here! It's been raining every weekend and I work every day during the week so no chance to go before. On Saturday I went over to Manly to meet up with Henriette, my friend Solveigs sister who lives here. It was really nice to meet her, and we had a delicious lunch before she had to go to work and I went to Shelley beach for a couple of hours. Then on Sunday I went to Bronte which is about a 20 minutes walk from my apartment. So lovely to just soak up some sun!

Last week I went over to my Grandpas cousin for dinner, it was great seeing them again as Nora and I stayed with them when we were here six years ago!

Other than that I've been to the cinema to see Valentines Day, been to a couple of work functions meeting other people from the business around Sydney, and of course working. Tomorrow I'm off to see Avatar on the Imax with some colleagues, I'm really looking forward to it as I still haven't seen it and it's the biggest Imax-screen in the world! And this weekend is Mardi Gras, so that should be fun!

Australia!

2010-02-02T04:26:00.002+01:00

So I made it to Sydney! I've been here a couple of weeks now and I love it :) All the flights went well, no delays, appart from my luggage which didn't arrive until 3 days later...

The first 5 days I stayed at WakeUp, which is the hostel where I work. I actually wasn't very jetlagged so that was good. I arrived on Sunday and started work on Monday. The first days weren't very hard, I went on a City Walk and a Beach Walk which they do for free here at the hostel a couple of times a week. Met a lot of nice people on the walks, but they've all left now... The first week went past very quickly, getting to know the people who work here, going out for a couple of drinks and learning all the new stuff at the travel desk.

I moved into the apartment the Kilroy-people stay in on the Friday. It's in Bondi Junction, so about 50 minutes walk from WakeUp, or 12 mins on the train. The apartment is okay, I've had some cockroaches so that sucks, but I've set of a "control bomb" and I've bought bait and vacuumed all the cracks and under the sofa so hopefully they'll disappear soon.

On the Saturday I went to The Big Day Out with one of the guys I met on the beach walk, and it was brilliant! We saw Lilly Allen, Groove Armada, Jet, Muse, Kasabian and some more I hadn't heard about. All in all, good weather and great music!

Last Tuesday was Australia day, so kinda like 17.mai at home. It was nice, really good weather (my nose got sunburned) and lots of people! First I headed down to Circular Quay to watch the ferrython, basically it's just all the ferries racing against each other and they're all decorated and full of people. Then I met up with some girls from WakeUp and we had a beer and some food and just peoplewatched.
In the evening there was a show on in Darling Harbour with speaches and performances and a boat parade, and it all ended in some spectacular fireworks! It was great :)

On Saturday I went surfing. I'm not made for surfing. I've got a big burnmark on my knee and my body is aching all over. I managed to stand up maybe three times for 2 seconds. So yeah...

On Sunday I went to the Botanical Gardens to see Where The Wild Things Are at the outdoors cinema. It was really nice, sitting there with Sydney skyline, the Opera house and the Harbour bridge in the background while watching the film.

So it's been a pretty good first couple of weeks here Down Under! The weather hasn't been great all the time but oh well who cares. At least it's still warm ;)

Tokyo

2010-01-07T12:16:00.003+01:00

Finally we set off for our last stop, which was Tokyo! We got there around 10am and found our really nice posh hotel. We weren't able to check in that early so we left our luggage and took our money and camera and set off to explore. First stop was Shibuya, where the worlds biggest and most busy pederstrian crossing is. I must say I thought it was going to be a bit bigger... But it was better when we came back in the afternoon!

We had lunch at Starbucks overlooking the crossing, and then we took the underground to Shinjuku where we went looking for "alternative" people, you know the ones with lots of make-up, red hair and lolita clothes. But we didn't find any :( Our guide said they were probably taking the day off because there was a big sports arrangement or something nearby. We did find a couple of really cute little girls in kimomos!

Then it was shopping time! First destination was Akihabara, or Electric Town as it's also known. It was crazy! Huge shops everywhere with everything you could imagine of iPods, cameras, telephones etc. I was looking for a new lens for my camera and I found a really good and cheap one. Then Astrid and I went back to Shibuya where we shopped till we dropped (we did actually drop onto our beds first thing when we got back to the hotel!). I ended up with a lens, two everyday dresses (from H&M actually...), Adidas shoes, two pairs of earrings, a very cute white fluffy hat, and lots of other stuff.

Then we all dressed up and went out for a last sushi-meal, karaoke and party! Great night! Not so great flight the next day.

Mt.Fuji

2009-12-19T12:31:00.003+01:00

So, it's probably time to tell you about our last couple of days in Japan. After Kyoto we set off for Hakone, a nice little town in a hilly area, where we were to stay in an Onsen, a traditional Japanese spa. Before we got to test the spa we set off to find some lunch and then to see if we could catch a glimpse of Mt.Fuji. Our guide wasn't so sure we'd be able to see it because of the weather.

So after lunch and some souvernir-shopping we took a train up the mountainside, it was quite steep and my ears kept popping. Then a funicular railway and at last a gondola. The gondola went quietly up the hillside, and then suddenly we reached the hilltop and everyone gasped as we went over and suddenly we were hanging 130 meters or so over a valley with smoke coming up from the ground and yellow patches of earth and a perfect view of Mt.Fuji in the distance! Seiko even said it was the best view she'd had of the mountain!

So we got off and took pictures and admired the view of the volcano with snow on top before we got on the gondola and ended up by a lake which we took a pirate-ship (!) across, and then a bus back to Hakone. It was dark by the time we came back and we were quite tired, but we didn't have much time before dinner. And dinner was quite and experience! We got a whole mackerell (or how you spell it), sashimi style, so the sides were cut off into little pieces but the rest of the fish was lying there looking at you. It tasted excellent though, with a touch of lemon! We also got miso soup with eel, hotpot with tiny mushrooms and sardineballs, tofupudding, pickled veggies, some small appetizers, fried fish, a very strange sticky rice thing in a cold jellylike soup, and for dessert almondpudding. It was a big meal... And they just kept things coming! We almost rolled out afterwards, and figured it was time for a bath in the spa.

In Japanese onsens you have to be naked when you're in the pool, but (luckily?) they have separate pools for women and men. It was really nice to lie there and let my body be soaked up in the water full of natural minerals. We decided to sit in the outside pool, so all the girl had a nice talk while relaxing under the stars.

The next day we set of for Kawaguchico, a town much closer to Mt.Fuji. After 6 different trains we finally arrived. We checked in and decided to go for a walk, so we headed towards the lake, as there was supposed to be great views from the other side of it. And there were! We took loads of pictures, some with our Kilroy t-shirts, and then we looked at a markedplace while waiting for sunset. It was worth the wait, because it was really beautiful! So after more pictures and more posing we went back to town to get some dinner.

After dinner we went looking for a place to have a drink but the town seemed rather deserted so we bought a couple of beers and went back to the hotel. I don't know if you know but Japan has very fancy toilets! I mean the actual toilet, not the room. All of them have buttons to wash your bottom and some of them even have buttons to make noises like a waterfall so other people can't listen in on your business... Malin and I decided it was time to try the washing-part, so three-two-one and we hit the button! We screamed and started laughing as the waterspray hit with quite some force right in the private part. It was really funny and tears were running down my face from all the laughing. And it never stopped! At last I hit the stop-button, and I thought it was going to dry me off aswell but it didn't. So what's the point of washing your bottom when you have to use paper to dry off anyway?

Kyoto

2009-11-14T13:52:00.004+01:00

Kyoto was a lovely city, I really enjoyed it! We arrived in the early afternoon after travelling from Koya-san back to Osaka and then by the Shinkansen bullettrain from Osaka. The trainride took only 12 minutes, and we travelled almost 50 km! First stop was the Fushimi Inari shrine, which was a big area with different shrines spread out and sort of tunnels running inbetween them in the forest. The tunnels were made of wooden pillars painted a bright orange with inscriptions on one side.

After wandering around here for a while we took the train and underground to our hostel near Gion and the city centre. We checked in and freshened up a bit before going out for a walk to Gion, the geisha-area in Kyoto. There were lots of nice old houses and quiet streets, and it wasn't hard to imagine how it was in the old times, as this is the setting from the book Memoirs of a Geisha. We were lucky to see a couple of geishas aswell!

In the evening we went out for dinner at a very small local restaurant where I shared some traditional barbeque food with the Finnish guys. After dinner it was time for a little surprise, we were to learn how to perform a traditional tea ceremony! We were seated around a big table with our own teapot, cup, teapowder, wisk and napkin. After the Japanese woman and man at the end had demonstrated we had a go. It was very difficult, as there were so many rules about holding the cup, what hand you had to use, where to put the wisk after it was used in a very specific way etc. But it was fun! The green tea didn't taste too good though...

The next day was our big sightseeing-day. We started off with Nijo castle, home of the Tokugawa Shoguns. It had very nice traditional sliding doors, but the floor was really cold! The gardens were beautiful and we had a lovely walk through them. Then we carried on to the Kinkakuji shrine, a huge shrine set by a little lake and it was layered with gold all over. And I mean all over! Quite impressive. And quite an impressive amount of tourists there aswell. Last but not least of our attractions of the day was the Imperial Palace. We were very lucky to be able to se it, as it's only open to the public 10 days a year. We weren't able to go inside any parts of it, but the style of the buildings allowed for viewing inside through big open doors.

Then we had some free time which was spent shopping and curling up under our duvet with a movie and a bottle of wine (at least for Astrid and me), before heading out for dinner. And what a dinner! We went to an awesome sushi-restaurant which had the sushi coming past on an assembly line! Then you just pick the plates you want as they go past. You could also order pieces from a screen by the table, and then they arrived on a miniature Shinkansen-train which stopped right in front of your table. Very fun! Our table ate the most, with 34 plates. We were four people on our table and the plates had 2 pieces of sushi each, some of them 4, so that would be an average of about 20 pieces each. No need to say we were stuffed afterwards!
Then a couple of drinks and off to bed. A very nice end to a very nice stay in Kyoto.

Osaka and the mountains

2009-11-03T07:18:00.003+01:00

We made it to Japan! But it was only just, because there was so much fog at the airport in Trondheim that the plane we were taking tried to land three times before it finally managed. So we were almost two hours late, and the flight to Amsterdam was supposed to take 2,5 hours and the onwards flight to Osaka was leaving at 17.25, so we were a bit stressed when we finally took off at ten to three. Luckily the winds were in our favour so the flight was only 1 hour and 50 minutes, but we still had to run like hell as we landed on the furthest runway and it took 10-15 minutes before we we out of the plane. Amsterdam is quite a big airport, and we landed at one end and were leaving from the other, so we were all nice and sweaty by the time we met the others.

So, landed in Osaka, and Astrid and I obviously looked very suspicious because we were taken in for an inspection in another room where they went through all our luggage. So once again, we held up the group. Fun! We finally made it to Osaka city where we checked in at a really nice hotel. Went out exploring the city after a nice shower, and had some sushi before we hit a bar for a drink.

The next day was our secret day, and we were surprised when we heard we were going up in the mountains and living in a monastery! We took a train up to the mountains, the scenery was really nice, lush and green. The last bit we took a cablecar straight up the mountainside, then a bus to our monastery. We stayed in nice rooms with tatami-mats that we slept on. It was really cold up in the mountains so we were glad we brought some warm clothes! We went for a walk in a cemetery which was really nice, and looked at a couple of temples. In the evening we had a traditional meal served by the monks, all vegetarian, with deep fried vegetables, tofu, pickled something, and of course rice. I slept quite well, even though the bed was a bit hard, as it was basically a thin mat on the floor.

Then off to Kyoto! More about that later.

Japan

2009-10-30T18:46:00.003+01:00

Tomorrow I'm off to Japan on my studytrip! It's going to be so good to get away from the cold weather here, it's currently 22 degrees in Osaka :) And I'm looking forward to eating proper sushi! Yummy!

So the itinerary is as follows:

Oct 31st: Fly Trondheim - Amsterdam - Osaka

Nov 1st: Osaka

Nov 2nd: Secret day

Nov 3rd-4th: Train to Kyoto

Nov 5th: Bus to Hakone

Nov 6th: Train to Kawaguchiko

Nov 7th: Tokyo

Nov 8th: Tokyo and home

We're visiting hot onsens (a kind of local spa), Mt. Fuji (not actually climbing it though), temples, travelling by bullet-trains and hopefully spot some Geishas, eat some good sushi and do some shopping!

Finally

2009-10-02T21:14:00.003+02:00

Almost 6 years after it was bought, it's up on the wall! I love it.

Rain rain rain...

2009-09-23T18:04:00.002+02:00

Is it never going to stop? I must admit I am getting a bit tired of it...

Looking forward to warmer weather in Sydney in January! Just hope there won't be any more sandstorms.

What a great week!!!

2009-09-11T17:47:00.002+02:00

Guess what? I'm going to Sydney!!! :D :D :D Wohooooo!!! I was so dissapointed that I didn't get the job the last round that I haven't dared to think about it this time. And then today I recieved the news that I got it! Wow. I'm still shaking. So from the end of January untill the end of April if you want to see me you'll have to come Down Under!

Oh, and I'm off to Japan the first week in November on a studytrip! Landing in Osaka, then on to Kyoto, Mt.Fuji and a couple of other places before we fly home from Tokyo. Really looking forward to that aswell!

Aaahhhhh, life is good!

Swineflu?

2009-08-28T13:50:00.003+02:00

I'm ill. It's boring. I've been lying on the sofa since Tuesday afternoon and still no progress. It started off with a sore throat, fever and aching joints, and it has evolved into not so much fever, itchy throat, coughing and aching body. I suspect the swineflu, but my doctor doesn't want me to come into her office so I guess I'll never know.

Luckily I've earlier borrowed all the seasons of Gilmore Girls from a friend, and I've made good progress. Am now in the middle of season 6, so only one to go. I hope I'm well again by the time I finish season 7!

Sydney, birthday and festival

2009-08-19T22:28:00.004+02:00

So, long time since I've updated anything here! Sorry about that. Not that anything much has happend anyway. Something exciting might happen though: I've applied for a job in Sydney! It's only for three months, so don't worry, I won't be gone long. Kilroy (the travelagent I work for now) has an "office" at a hostel there where a staffmember from Kilroy works on a three-month basis. I originally applied for the period from late October till late January, but I didn't get it. They are however deciding the next round, late January till late April, pretty soon, so my application still stands. *Fingers crossed*

I went over to England this weekend to attend my Grandpas 80th birthday. Very nice to see the family again, but unfortunately my Grandpa had been ill all week so he missed the lunch. I think that's the first birthday-celebration I've been to where the guest of honour actually wasn't present. Luckily everyone came back to the house afterwards so we continued the party there. Lots of good cake ;)

This weekend my friend Solveig is coming to visit wich will be nice, I haven't seen her for quite a while. And there's a festival, Pstereo, going on Friday and Saturday which we are going to. We went to Hove together, another festival, just over a year ago and had a blast, so hopefully this one will be a success aswell! The weatherforcast isn't too good though, so think I have to dig out my poncho.

Bits and pieces

2009-07-24T12:07:00.005+02:00

So, not much interesting happening at the moment! I'm all alone at work untill Wednesday because people are away on holiday, and there aren't a lot of my friends left in the city in the summer either. I had quite a productive day yesterday though, first at work, then going to the hairdressers and then cleaning my whole apartment afterwards! (Not that cleaning takes that long, but still...) It was nice getting a haircut cause I haven't had one since last August! So now I look like this: The weather hasn't been too good lately so that kinda sucks. But I've borrowed all the seasons of Gilmore Girls from a friend of mine, so I'm not bored! :)

It's three weeks since I came home, and I'm amazed how fast time flies! And thinking about it, it's three years since I went off to live in New Zealand! Still miss you guys and hope to see you in the not too far future.

And last but not least: I want to go off travelling again...

Quarterlifecrisis?

2009-07-15T14:58:00.003+02:00

I reached the milestone of being halfway to 50 yesterday! Doesn't really feel any different than two days ago I must say. But according to my lifeplan of 5 years ago I was to have a stable relationship and kids when I was 25! And well, I'm as single and childless as one can be.

So new plan is: No plan!

It was a nice day though, I made the most amazing trufflecake, it was divine... With raspberries dipped in melted chocolate on top. Mmmmm! My Mum, stepdad, Grandparents, cousin and uncle came over and helped me eat it. And I managed to convince my brother to get on a plane and come up aswell!

As for everyone else, don't worry, I'll make a new cake for the official party which I'll throw a bit later when more people are back from their holidays.

Home sweet home?

2009-07-11T11:19:00.002+02:00

Well, I've been home for a week now, and I'll tell you one thing: it's not as fun as travelling!! I arrived back in Trondheim late last Friday after about an 18 hour journey. Didn't sleep much on the flights despite having stayed up singing karaoke untill 4 in the morning, so I was quite tired when I got home.

At least the weather was good the first days after I got home, so on Saturday I bought strawberries and shrimps and went up to my Grandma and sat on the veranda basking in the sun. I had to show her my tattoo, and luckily she didn't freak out as bad as I thought she would. She actually admitted it was pretty even though she really really doesn't like tattoos! When I told my mum on the other hand she screamed... And said "and you did this even though you knew I'd react like this!!" "Yup..." I sent her a picture on the phone and she texted me back saying "uuuæææææ" and then about ten crying smilyfaces, hehe.

Going back to work on Monday was quite a shocker to the system! I had "only" 220 e-mails to deal with so that took most of the first day, but after that it's been a bit quiet. I guess people are on holiday... It was nice meeting my colleagues again though.

I have aquired a bit of an eating problem by being in a country with so much good food for the last 7 weeks... My body is now used to eating a LOT of food, and preferably warm lunches and meat twice a day. So now that I'm back on my "normal" diet, I'm constantly hungry and craving snax... Not good! I have to start running again soon to get back into shape...

It's been raining for the last couple of days, which means I have to wear shoes instead of flip-flops. I MISS TRAVELLING!!!

Beijing

2009-07-04T12:38:00.002+02:00

The last three days I spent in Beijing, and I was actually quite positively surprised by the city! My mum had warned me that it was very polluted and dirty, but it actually wasn't at all! I think they've cleaned it up quite a bit in relations with the Olympics, because it wasn't hazy at all, blue skies all along and you could actually se stars at night!

The first day we went to the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City. I liked the Summer Palace a lot, so many beautiful buildings set in lush forest and with a huge lake as part of it. Wondered around for a few hours before we headed to the Forbidden City. It was getting quite warm by that point and there were so many tourists there! So I got a bit cranky in the end (sorry Rachel and Mike...). But it was nice, it's quite amazing how it's built, with walls inside walls inside walls and lots of little courtyards and temples, and some huge courtyards with huge temples. We'd had enough by 4.30, so took a taxi back to the hotel where I had a liedown and a nice long shower which washed away all my crankyness.

In the evening we went to see acrobats, and man, the Beijing acrobats are amazing! It was a show that lasted about 1,5 hour, and we saw people bending their bodies in nonhuman ways, balancing umbrellas and spinning plates, jumping between poles, balancing on chairs, juggling, playing with the diabolo. And guess how many girls you can get on one bike? About 15. All in all, an amazing show. After we went for a Korean barbeque, which of course was great. Then we went out for drinks as it was the last official day of the trip.

The second day I did something completly different, (my dear parents and grandparents, please sit down if you're not already) I got a tattoo! It's the Tibetan eyes on my lower back, and it looks amazing! The Tibetan eyes are the eyes you find on stupas around Nepal and Tibet, they're basically eyes with eyebrows, a bindi and a kinda whirly thing for a nose. I fell in love with them the first time I saw them. I have been concidering getting a tattoo for quite a while, and suddenly it just dawned on me that this was the one! The tattoo-artist was really great, he uploaded my photo of the eyes on his computer and drew freehand right onto my back. When he first started it didn't really hurt, and I was like "jeez, what's all the fuss about" but then he started filling it in and then I almost fainted, haha. It took about 1,5 hours, and I survived just about... Four of the other guys got tattoos aswell, so I basically spent the day in the tattoo-studio. In the evening we went out for drinks with Leon and Nat from the last group who happend to be in Beijing. Great seeing them again!

The last day I went shopping at the Silk Market, which is a huge shoppingcentre with stalls that have everything! All fake of course, and you have to bargain like hell. I came home with a few tops, a dress, shoes, a handbag, a jumper and lots of pearls and jewelery. And nice feet after getting a footmassage and a pedicure. Went out for drinks and a last dinner with Rachel, Mike, Leon, Nat, Olivia, John, Ray and Liz. Very nice, but sad aswell. Was planning on going off to bed after, but then I found Ant, Adam, Stormy and our chinese guide and they were going to sing karaoke, so I joined them and it turned into a late night.

Slightly hungover and very tired on my way home, and after 18 hours travellingtime I'm now back in Trondheim. It's a bit sad being home, it's gone so quickly but yet again I've experienced so much! It's been a fantastic trip, and I miss all of my travelsmates already! Hope to see you again someday!

Chengde and The Great Wall

2009-06-29T15:31:00.002+02:00

We had three days in Chengde, with no planned itinerary which was quite good as it gave us plenty of time to relax and just do our own thing. The first day I slept in and then went off to The Summer Palace, which was where the emperorfamily used to reside during summer. It was nice, old buildings with pinetrees in the courtyards, and a huge park around it. All the interesting rooms were locked up though, so you could only peer in through the windows, and the rooms which were open mainly had exhibitions of vases and paintings. Spent a couple of hours wandering around the park which was really nice, it had a big lake in the middle and lots of tame deers! It was a bit hot though, getting well into the 30ies by now.

In the evening we all went out for a hotpot, which was of course great (as all the food is), had beef and prawns and sausage and a really good peanutsauce to go with it. And they served silkworms as snax!! Of course I had to try! They were not very tasty, just crunchy and not very pleasant... Went to a KTV-place after, which is karaoke for those of you who haven't been to China, but it wasn't very good as there were very few English songs.

The next day I went off to a temple with Mike, Rachel and John, which was nice (although getting slightly templed-out by now...). But the special thing about this one was that it had the biggest Buddha in the world of its kind. It was 22 meters high, made of 5 different kinds of wood and stood inside a temple. It was massive!!! And it had 40 arms, each holding an item like a flower or prayerbeeds etc. I managed to loose the others and I thought they had gone out so I went out but they weren't there so I just waited for them and it turned out they had gone behind the temple and discovered an area with loads of padlocks all over the place. Quite bummed I missed that.

After Chengde it was time for some excercise! Which was good, as I've eaten far too much on this trip... So we went to hike the Great Wall. We started off in Jingchanglian (or something like that...) and hiked 10 kilometers to Simtai. It was a great walk, although quite tireing as it was well over 30 degrees and lots of steep steps both up and down. Seemed a bit meaningless that once we had climbed all the steps up to a tower we had to go all the way back down!! Made it to the other end in about 4 hours, so it wasn't too bad. Did another part of it the next day which was a bit more touristy and a bit more tireing actually, because it had soooo many steps going up to the actual wall! We walked about an hour, did my "Kilroy was here"-photos as I remembered to wear my t-shirt, and a few with Ant wearing his Dragoman t-shirt aswell, and then tobogganed down (typ aking i bane) which was quite fun.

Arrived in Beijing today, and tomorrow we're off to the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City. It's much less polluted than I thought it would be! Can't believe I'm going home on Friday though. Don't want to leave!!!

New start

2009-06-23T16:32:00.002+02:00

Leaving Xian was a tearful event, as it meant splitting up with the original group. We're only 6 from the original group now; me, Mike, Rachel, John, Ray and Liz. I really miss the others!!! We've got a new truck, Gertie, and a new guide, Ant, and a new driver, Adam. There are also 4 new people, so 10 altogether, which is an okay number.

Anyways, left Xian and headed for Mt. Kongtong which is the most sacred mountain in Taoism. There are lots of small temples on the top of lots of steep steps which were quite exhausting to climb up. Luckily I got some rest on the way as I had to pose for pictures with a few chinese people... The top provided some great views over green hills and vast countryside. Had a bushcamp at the lake at the bottom of the mountain where our new crew demonstrated their great cookingskills.

Can't really remember the right order of everything we've done in between then and now, but one day we went to a chinese disneyland kinda thingy where I went camelriding and took a zipline across a river which was great fun. We've also camped in traditional yerts (not quite sure about the spelling, you know the big round tents from Mongolia), in Inner Mongolia which was fun. We hired some horses and went for a ride which was nice, only the horses weren't exactly racehorses and our guide didn't seem like he was keen on going any faster than walkingpace. Anyways, it was nice to get out into the countryside. My bum was sore for a couple of days though as the saddles here are a tad harder than the ones I'm used to...

One night we went out for a hot-pot, which is a big pot cut in half where one half has a very hot soup in it and the other a mild soup and you have a heater in the middle of the table and heat up the soup and then you order different things which you cook yourself. We had meatballs, beef, bamboo and two types of mushroom and it was delicious! I must say, the food here in China is AMAZING!!! I'm stuffing myself at every meal and I would become seriously fat if I was to live here! They seem to have so many great sauces and marinades it makes everything taste delicious. I'm going to miss it when I get home!!

Right now we're in a city called Datong, which they seem to be rebuilding, all at once. Because of this there's a powecut across half the city which resulted in us staying in a hotel last night with no power and no water. And of course our room was on the 6th floor with no elevator. I'm glad we're not at altitude any more. And that we decided to change hotels tonight. Today we went to some caves which were really old with Buddhafigures carved out inside. Some were quite impressive! There was also a huge Buddha, about 20 meters tall which was impressive. Afterwards we went to a hanging monastery, which is a monastery which is built on a cliffwall in about 490 a.d. It has been rebuilt later though because it was destroyed at one point, but it was still very old and pretty. And a bit scary as it seemed to hang in thin air.

Driving further tomorrow towards Chengde, and then next Monday we'll be in Beijing!! Hope you're all having a great midsummernight. Hugs from China!

Lhasa to Xian

2009-06-16T06:55:00.002+02:00

We left Lhasa early in the morning and drove to Namtso Lake, which is the highest saltlake in the world. It was amazing! Huge lake with snowcapped mountains surrounding it. We bushcamped not far from it, and woke up early next morning to a beautiful sunrise. Didn't get going quite as early as we'd hoped because we had a flat tire... After that was fixed we set off. We were supposed to drive all the way to Golmud, 1000 km, in just two days. You might think that it doesn't sound all that much, but in a truck that only does 60 km/h at the most and with bumpy roads and loads of roadworks and delays it took a loooong time.

The first night we ended up driving all night because we got held up by roadblocks for a few hours and when it was bedtime we were at the top of a mountainpass with snow all around us and it was freezing cold, so we decided to just keep going. Went for a walk up a hill at one of the roadblocks and the view was fantastic! Huge flat plains surrounded by beautiful green hills. The next day we got held up by roadworks again for about 7 hours, and after that there were loads of diversions and bumpy roads so we almost had an all-nighter again. There had been a flood on one of the diversions aswell so we had to zigzag our way through the water and hope we didn't get bogged like about 20 other trucks had been. We finally arrived in Golmud at about 5 in the morning and went straight to bed.

Only had a few hours in Goldmud before we drove off to the next campsite which was only a couple of hours drive. It was a great spot, on a flat desert. Got bogged on the way so all the guys got out and pushed, I wish I hadn't left my camera on the truck! Got to the camp pretty early so we all had a beer while the cookgroup started preparing dinner. Had a great night around the bonfire, grilling marshmellows and telling stories.

The next day we drove to another saltlake where we set up camp. Another great spot with good stories around the fire. I was in the cookgroup and we managed to find stuffed meatballs so we cooked them in a mushroom sauce with veggies and nudles. mmmm...

The next day it was time to drive to Quinghai Lake which is Chinas biggest lake. On the way there we stopped in a village which was really special, all the people were wearing beautiful dresses and costumes and the womens hair was plaited in tiny braids and fixed at the bottom to a kind of belt with lots of decorations.

At the lake there was a birdsanctuary we visited. There were loads of geese at one point which we watched throug windows in a sort of house. At another spot there were loads of big black birds (can't remember their name...) on a rock in the water. The lake was amazing, it is so big! It looked like the ocean, I couldn't get my head around that it was actually a lake. And the surrounding hills reminded me so much of the English countryside, it was really strange.

The day after we drove on towards Tongrin. Stopped for lunch in a restaurant where noone spoke English and they didn't have an English menu so we just pointed at a couple of bowls with food at the neighbouring tables which looked good. It turned out that one of them was a mutton-soup (we were very unsure of what kind of meat it was at first...) and the other was bits of fish and liver in a spicy sauce.

In Tongrin we visited a temple, or rather lots of small temples spread out over a big area. I got a bit lost and ended up being invited to drink tea and eat breadsticks with a couple of monks. They were very nice, but they didn't understand a word of English, so we ended up looking at my pictures and drinking buttertea.

Next stop was Liujiaxia. I thought it was going to be a small town but when we got there it was huge with really tacky neonlights everywhere!! Got there late at night and found a great nightmarket with loads of nice food before we went to bed. The next day we went on a boatcruise on the Gyantse River the whole day. It was very nice, we drove out to the Bingling Si grottoes where there are really old Buddhafigures cut out directly in the stone wall, and a huge Buddha aswell. It was about 30 meters high or something, quite impressive!

Langzou was our next stop, got there quite late aswell, and found a nightmarket again. Renate decided to be a bit experimental so she bought chickens feet, pigs toungue and pigs ears. I had to try when the opportunity was there! The feet were just really spicy, the toungue was alright, a bit more meaty at least, and the ears were just really chewy and not all that good. Went out for a few beers and ended up in a caraoke-bar all by ourselves. It was quite fun, and the most hardcore didn't get to bed untill 8 in the morning!

Had a couple of nice bushcamps, one on the top of a hill with great views of the terraced hills and one overlooking a reservoir where we enjoyed our last bushcamp before Xian. Here we've seen the terracotta warriors which were impressive.

Xian is the final city for this leg of the trip, and is where the group splits up. I go on to Beijing with 7 people from the original group and the rest go on to Hong Kong or go off on their own. I'm a bit sad that we're all splitting up cause it's been a great group and we've had such a good time. So tomorrow I set off with a new guide, new driver and new truck towards Beijing!

City Life

2009-06-02T09:15:00.002+02:00

After being in the countryside for quite some time it was time to explore the citys. The first stop was Shigatse where we stayed for 2 nights. We got there in the late afternoon, so we didn't do all that much. Had dinner at a nice restaurant where I tasted Renates yaksteak! It was really good!

The next day we went to see the Tashlumpo-monastery, which is the biggest one in Tibet. I hadn't really given any thought to where we were going, so I'd put on a pair of trousers which reached to just over my knees... And of course that wasn't allowed so I had to borrow this really lovely bright orange sarong to put over.
The monastery was really nice, lots of different rooms with Buddha figures and gold. We also walked through a big room full of chanting monks which was quite special. Afterwards we walked around the whole monastery, which took about an hour. It was worth it though, cause we had some great views of the city.

After lunch a couple of us headed off to the local market. It wasn't that exciting, but we did see a scorpion!!! It was about 5 cm, just crawling around on the ground. I almost stepped on it, and the locals laughed when I jumped as I saw it.

The next day we drove to Gyantse, which was once an important city for trading. We started off at the monastery which was nice, the monks were making there really gorgeous mandalas out of coloured sand. Basically they are round figures made on the floor, about 2 meters in diameter and really really detailed.
Next to the monastery was a stupa which was 7 floors tall and with 77 rooms, and we climbed all the way to the top. Looked in some of the rooms, but they all contained buddhafigures in some way or another so we got bored after the first ten...
Had a great lunch with caramelized apples for desert, mmmm. After that we climbed to the top of the fort which used to protect the town in the old days. It was quite hard, as we were still at a high altitude. At the top they had a sort of museum, but it was just lots of large mannequin-dolls who looked really scary and with no explanation what they were doing. Went down a different way and ended up in the old part of town, where it seemed everybody owned a cow which they just tied up outside their door. So the whole street was full of cows!

The day after we set off to Lhasa, which is the biggest city in Tibet, and where the Dalai Lama used to live. The drive was about 240 km, and on the way we drove over some high passes, saw a glacier and had lunch by a beautiful lake. It's one of the most scenic drives we've had until now.

The second day in Lhasa we went to the Potala palace which is the palace buildt for the Dalai Lamas. We were only allowed to stay for an hour, so unfortunately we only got to see 20-something of the 1000 rooms. It was very nice, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside. After lunch we went to see another monastery in town. Getting a bit tired of monasterys I must say...

In the evening it was party-time! Our tourleader Tamara and our driver Ian had been given a huge suite, so we all went there. Some of they guys had bought lots of beer, and some horrible Chinese white wine which was about 50% alcohol, so it turned out to be a good night!

Had yakburger for breakfast the next day before we went to see the last monastery for a while. It wasn't all that different, but they demonstrated how they printed their prayerbooks and we got to see a lot of monks debating in a big courtyard. They sat in groups, and one of them stood in the middle asking questions and clapping. Pretty special!

Today Maeve and I have just wandered around looking at shops and souvernires. Tomorrow we're heading north towards Golmud, back to camplife!

Mt. Everest

2009-05-28T10:52:00.002+02:00

After a night at Old Tingri it was time to set off to Mt. Everest! For my part, this was one of the highlights of the journey. At least it was supposed to be.

We set off early in the morning, well prepared for the 160 km up to Base Camp. The road was steep and windy as we had to drive over another high-pass which was about 5200 meters above sealevel. Of course we broke down a couple of times on the way. We had lunch in a local village along the way, and at about 4 pm we reached the Rongbuk Monastery, which is the highest one in the world, located just 8 km from Base Camp. By that time it had started snowing, so I almost felt at home! We took a tour around the monastery before we set off to the final destination, the foot of Mount Everest.

There are two basecamps, one at 5200 meters and one at 5300. The one at 5300 is the one the climbers use, while the one at 5200 is the one the tourists use. It was so cloudy we couldn't even see Everest... And as it turned out, it didn't clear, so we never actually got to see it. Bummer! I'm really sad about that. And when there was a chance we could se it in the distance when we were driving somewhere it was always covered in clouds.

Anyways, the camp was nice, we stayed in "hotels" which were big canvas-tents with an oven in the middle and 5 beds around the side of the room. They functioned as sofas aswell, so when we arrived we were sat down and given tea. I shared a tent with Renate, the other Norwegian, Maeve, Matt and Jack. We just sat around and played cards until it was bedtime. The lady running the hotel was very nice, although she hardly spoke any English, and she even tucked us in when we were all snuggled up!

I didn't sleep very well, the altitude really kicks in when you're so high up, so it felt like I slept for an hour and was awake for an hour and I woke up in the morning with a massive headache. It got better after some food and water though. We had a tiny hope that the weather had cleared but it had snowed about 5 cm during the night and it was still snowing. So we gave up hope of seeing Everest, and we didn't even get to go to the other basecamp, because of the weather. There was a chance that we had to stay longer if it didn't stop snowing, but luckily a jeep managed to get over the high-pass, so we set off at about 1 pm. We broke down about 3 times along the way, but made it at last. One time it looked really bad, and we were afraid we might have to camp on the cold mountainside. But once over the high-pass it cleared up and we made it to Baipa where we spent the night, and next day we drove to Shigatze where we are at the moment.

Dragomans motto is "Not your everyday journey" and I can certainly say I agree so far! I'm really sad that we didn't get to see Everest, but I guess that's one of the things you can't do anything about. Better luck next time!!

By the way, I can't access the blog here in China so I'm updating it via my e-mail. Sorry to say I can't post any photos untill I get home, or read any comments, but don't let that stop you!

Happy camper!

2009-05-28T10:16:00.002+02:00

After leaving Zhangmu we headed for more remote parts of China. We left in the evening because as I described in the last entry (I think), they do roadworks during the day and only open the roads at night. We spent a night in a simple and cold hotel in the middle of nowhere. I was sharing a room with Maeve, and just as we had snuggled up in bed our tourleader Tamara came and knocked on the door telling us we had to move because the hotel was fully booked. So there was nothing else to do than to get some clothes on, pack all our stuff and move up to Matt, Jack and Johns room. Didn't sleep all that well, as I was woken up in the middle of the night by someone throwing up outside our room, and later early in the morning by Indians singing...

After that we drove to a small village where we were to camp for a couple of nights. It was in the middle of a valley, and the wind was constantly blowing. Time to unpack thermals and down-jackets! We felt the altitude quite well, I was alright, but a couple of the others had massive headaches. We also felt it when we were doing stuff, just putting up the tent left me completly out of breath! We went for a walk through the village, and got to visit a local family to see how they lived. Very basic housing, but one room was turned into a combined bedroom/shrine, and the kitchen had a TV! We were also supposed to go see some caves and a monastery but they were both closed.

To get us acclimatized we had to go up to the highest altitude we were going to and then come back down, so at about 10.30 pm we set off to the first high-pass. It was about 2,5 hours drive, so we didn't se much when we got there. It was strange being at 5050 meters! The body doesn't really know what you're up to. I felt quite light-headed and one of the others actually threw up a couple of times. We stayed there for an hour before we turned back. The next day we had a long sleep-in and just sat around in the truck playing cards. Our truck is called Daphne, and she has a bad habit of breaking down quite often! Our driver, Ian, and Tamara did some work on her during the day and we took her for a test-drive afterwards, and of course she broke down. It turned out that the whole gearbox needed replacement, so Ian took her off to the nearest town in hope of finding a mechanic at 7.30 pm on a Saturday night... So, new plan! The other truck (there are two groups of us driving paralell for a few weeks) drove off to the next place after dinner, and was going to try to make it back before 6 am so we could make the roadwork-block which shut at 7. If not, we were going to get some local transport. So we all went to bed with our alarms set at 04.45 so we had time to pack up the tents and stuff. Just as we had gotten dressed and packed up our sleepingbag Tamara came along and said Daphne was almost fixed, but wouldn't make it in time for 7 am, and the other truck didn't stand a chance to come back in time, so we were to leave that night instead. Right. Pee-stop and stargazing before we unpacked our sleepingbag and got our pyjamas back on. Just as we were about to snuggle up Tamara came back and said Daphne was fixed and on the way! So quickly quickly, packed up and had dry cornflakes for breakfast before we finally set off.

It was a long day of driving! But the views were so amazing! We went back over the 5050 meter pass, the Lablungla. The nearby mountains were brown, and the Himalayas were streched out in the background with snowy caps. At the very top of the pass there were loads of prayer-flags, and the sky was so blue it looked unreal.

After a couple of break-downs and a nice lunch-stop we finally reached the town of Old Tingri at about 8 pm. The hotel was the nicest one we'd had so far, they even had sit-down toilets and hot showers! A nice change from not having looked in a mirror or had a wash for the last few days.

The Last Resort

2009-05-21T09:08:00.002+02:00

So, after a couple of days in Kathmandu we set off to The Last Resort, which is a resort in the border-region towards China. It was so nice! Huge tents with beds and hot showers and a lovely garden where we relaxed. The first night we just chilled out and ate nice food and played Trivial Pursuit.

The next day however was a bit more exciting! We started off after breakfast, John and David from my group and a guy from the other group and me. We were going canyoning! The Last Resort was set in the mountainside, about 160 meters from the bottom of a beautiful gorge, with steep mountains on either side. We walked along untill we got to a waterfall where our first rapelling was. We started out with an easy one of 8 meters, and worked our way down the mountainside, absailing and sliding. The last waterfall was 45 meters! It was great fun. Walking back up the steep hillside wasn't that fun...

But then it was time for the highlight of the day, BUNGY!!! I wasn't going to do it when I first heard we had the option, because I thought it would probably be shorter than the one I did in New Zealand, but then we got there and it turned out to be 160 meters! So I just had to do it. It was great fun, I wasn't nervous untill I actually stepped out onto the platform, and then I thought "Heeelp, what the ***** am I doing???" But I didn't really have any choice, so the guy said "Ready? Three two one, bungy!" and I let myself fall... You know the rest! Adrenaline flows like mad and it's such a good feeling :)

So after walking back up from the bottom a second time I was nackered, and spent the rest of the day lying around reading my book and having a dip in the plunge pool.

The next morning we set off to cross the border into China. That was basically just a whole day of waiting... We waited for about 3 hours before we had a health-check, and then another hour before our bags were sprayed and then we went through customs and then a few more hours wait for the truck to pass. And we used about 40 minutes to get through and the truck used 2 minutes, so can't really say we were extremly happy about it all. But we got through and are currently in a town called Zhangmu. Last night we had cake because it was Jacks birthday. Today we're just hanging around. We were supposed to leave early but they are doing roadworks on the road we're going on, so they close the road during the day and it's open during the night... So hopefully at 9 pm we'll be off to the mountains... What a country!

Kathmandu

2009-05-17T14:07:00.002+02:00

So, I made it to Kathmandu! The flight(s) went well, and it didn't take as long as I feared, even with the 6 hour stopover in Dehli. On the flight from Frankfurt I got the whole seatrow to myself, so that was great, I even got some decent sleep. In Dehli I met a couple of nice girls who were on the same flight as me to Kathmandu, so we hung out together while waiting.

Kathmandu is a bustling city, lots of people and lots of noise. It's got its beauty though, yesterday I was just walking around exploring by myself and thought "hmm, should I go any further down this street?" and then decided to go to the next junction before turning around. So I started walking and glanced down a sidestreet and there was this beautiful stupa (temple-thingy)! It was gorgeous, with lots and lots of prayerflags hanging off it. I found another one today, on top of a hill (sooo many steps going up!! But totally worth it.) and that to had loads of prayerflags all over the place. I love them, they are so pretty.

This morning I met the rest of the group, and they seem nice. We're 17 people plus a couple of crew. One other Norwegian girl, Irish, Americans, English and a girl from South Africa. I haven't gotten to talk to all of them yet, but we're going out for dinner tonight so hopefully we'll all get to know each other a little better then.

It's strange being here today as it's the 17th of May which is Norways national day, so Gratulerer med dagen all of you! :)

Leaving Kathmandu tomorrow and heading north. Don't quite know when I'll be able to update next or upload photos but we'll see. Bye for now!

Departure!

2009-05-14T23:19:00.003+02:00

So, it's the evening before I'm off. Finally! I've been waiting for this for seven months! I can't believe how fast the last weeks have passed.

My backpack is all stuffed with everything from a down-jacket and wooly underwear to flip-flops and sunglasses. I think I've remembered all the vital stuff anyways!

The whole trip almost went down the drain, because the Indian embassy used such a long time to make my transit-visa, and Dragoman who I'm travelling with needed a copy of my passport to make the Chinese visa, and of course I didn't get my passport back until the very last day it was possible to fix the Chinese visa. But luckily it arrived and I e-mailed it off 30 mins before it was too late! I was quite stressed out so to say. So now I hope all my bad luck has been used up for the rest of the trip!

Well, time for bed. I have to get up at 5.15 tomorrow... Good night!

Welcome!

2009-05-06T21:20:00.001+02:00

Welcome to my blog!!

I've decided to write it in English, because all the Norwegians I know speak English but none of my foreign friends speak Norwegian...

This blog will probably be filled with bits and pieces about everything and anything, but in the next couple of months it will be a travelblog. Simply because next Friday, May 15th, I'm setting off on a 7 weeks adventure! It's a grouptrip organised by a company called Dragoman called The Pilgrims Trail. Basically it starts in Kathmandu, Nepal, and ends up in Beijing, China. In the mean time we're heading to Mt. Everest base camp, Tibet, Golmud, Xi'an, Mt. Kongtong, Yinchuan and Chengde. Amongst others.

I'm quite excited about Mt. Everst base camp, it's at 5150 meters so I hope I'll be okey with the altitude. 5 years ago when my best friend Nora and I went backpacking we climbed Mt. Kinabalu which was 4100 meters and I was fine then so I hope I will be now aswell. I've got a sleepingbag that you can use in temperatures down to -30*C so at least I won't be cold!

I haven't started packing yet, but I've written a list! I've probably forgotten a lot, so let me know if you think there's something obvious I need to bring!

Well, that's all for now. I can't promise I'll be very good at keeping the blog updated given the nature of my trip, but I'll try my best! :)