Germany

Berlin was once of the cities I had been looking forward to visiting. When I arrived at the hostel I was starving, so I went in search of the nearest fast food place. I found a place that sold hot dogs and miscellaneous other unhealthy but delicious food items. Little did I know, this was just the first of many visits to the hot dog man.

The hostel I was staying at was pretty boring. Everyday I went to the bar for a beer, and everyday the same German guy was sitting on a bar stool, as if waiting for my arrival. He kept me entertained with his stories for a little while, but one night I decided to do a pub crawl. We went to all sorts of different ‘alternative’ bars. Berlin has so many alternative people, that really the alternative people are the people who aren't alternative. Ponder that for a minute. At the end of the pub crawl, I miraculously found my way back to the hostel on foot.  But it was not the hostel I was looking for. I was in search of the hot dog man. And, even in the early hours of the morning, he was waiting, ready to produce another delicious hotdog.

One day I decided to do a bicycle tour of Berlin. Berlin is bicycle friendly and has some nice areas to ride around. We rode between various war related tourist attracts. Probably the most well known is the Berlin wall, which used to separate East and West Germany:

.. and checkpoint Charlie, which at one point was the only way of getting between East and West Germany. 

Also, there's the Brandenburg gate. Google it if you care. 

There is a lot of interesting history in Berlin. They've also build a Jewish memorial, to commemorate the Jews killed in WWII. It’s another one of these abstract designs that according to the designer ‘means whatever you want it to mean’. Designing these things must be the easiest job in the world.

After a couple more visits to the hot dog man, I was off to Hamburg, home of the Hamburger. It’s occurred to me that Germans name all their food and beverages based on the city they were invented in, with ‘er’ appended to the name. The beer made in Berlin is called ‘Berliner’. And there’s Frankfurter. And that’s all the examples I have.

Hamburg is also famous for its red light district, the Reeperbahn. But don’t be alarmed, there’s nothing suss going on here. Oh wait:

The Beatles apparently liked it here as well, so they made a statue of them:

Summary

Awesome:

Interesting history, good nightlife, cool red-light district, nice cities.

Craptacular:

I don't think I would be respected in Berlin with my mainstream attitudes, decent clothing, no tattoos, no piercings and positive outlook on life.

What's Next

The Netherlands. Known for drugs and prostitutes... and windmills.

Poland

Krakow was another city I drastically underestimated. The city centre (old town) is small enough to walk everywhere and, like many European cities, is quite picturesque. The main square in particularly is always lively, and there’s always entertainment of some sort there.

Add to this, a variety of good restaurants and bars and you’ve got the makings of a good city. What makes Krakow a great city, is that everything is ridiculously cheap (at least for an Australian).

The first thing I had to do was choose a hostel. The two best hostels were ‘Greg and Tom’s Hostel’ and ‘Greg and Tom’s Party Hostel’. I stayed in the normal hostel for a couple of nights to chill out. It was great. Free breakfast and dinner was included and both were excellent. They were giving out free wine and vodka to anyone that wanted it as well.

Soon I was ready to upgrade to the party hostel. The first night there they had a ‘vodka tasting’ night, which is a euphemistic term for what really is everyone drinking a ton of vodka shots, none of which taste good. After we had tasted enough vodkas we headed out to a few bars in the city. I met Polish Paulina at one of those bars/clubs and we agreed to reconvene tomorrow for some sightseeing. And by sightseeing, I meant that she could show me the cheapest/best places to eat/drink. I also got to come out and see the area where she lived, in the ‘burbs. She even taught me some Polish and in return I taught her nothing. As the bible says, it’s better to receive than to give (or something). Anyway, my time in Krakow would not have been the same without Paulina. 

On my last day in Krakow, I decided I should visit Auschwitz, which is of course is where the biggest concentrations camps in World War 2 were located. There were a bunch of old people and couples on the tour, the two kinds of people I generally avoid, but thankfully, there was a couple of Belgian girls (Josephine and Lise) on the tour for me to talk to on the bus ride there and back.

Some of the concentration camp was original, a fair bit was rebuild after the war (as close as possible to how it was) and some of the camp was non-existent (because it was set on fire by the Nazis). It was a good enough setup to give you a feel of what went on there. In summary, nothing good.

On the bus back, the Belgian girls kept talking about this Italian restaurant they had been to a few times, like it was the best thing since sliced bread, so I decided I would try it out. It was indeed much better than sliced bread (although sliced bread isn’t hard to beat). Actually, I’m going to make an outrageous claim and say it is the best Italian restaurant in the world! After dinner, we had a few drinks and then I went home, because I had an early train to catch the next day.

Really didn't want to leave Krakow. It's definitely one of the best cities I've ever been too.

Summary

Awesome:

Cheap, nice people, great nightlife, great food, lively city

Craptacular:

Nothing

What's Next

Germany. More war stuff.

Hungary

I flew into the airport in Budapest, Hungary not really knowing what to expect from this city. I was blown away by how much I liked Budapest. What struck me the most was the general atmosphere of this place. There was good street music, friendly people and many good places to have a drink. They have these things called bridges here:

And also this:

I started out in a relatively tame hostel, Carpe Noctem, where I met American Dan, and the first night out wasn’t anything too crazy. The next night, there was a boat cruise party, and I mean that’s something I’m not going to turn down. We all pre-drank, and then turned up to the boat. They gave us all a bottle of champagne, with only one rule – don’t spill champagne on the carpet. Who carpets a party boat? Not surprisingly, almost everyone spilled champagne on the carpet when they attempted to open their bottle. 

Even without drinking, the cruise would have been definitely worthwhile. I didn’t take my camera, but should have, as Budapest is nicely lit up at night. After the boat, we went to what was voted (in Lonely Planet) the best bar in the world in 2012. It’s called A38 and it’s a pub on an old boat.  It wasn't really anything that special really, and I no longer trust the opinion of Lonely Planet, or anyone that reads Lonely Planet.

Next, I moved to a different hostel – Retox. Words can’t describe this hostel. I have never in all my travels seen people as intent on drinking and partying as I did here. I was out of my league. To make it even worse, the room was unbelievably hot, so sleeping in was virtually impossible. I hung out mostly with Dan, and his friend Liz here, who were thankfully a bit more ‘normal’ than everyone else. One of the highlights was when we went to a bathhouse party, which is a cool concept in my opinion. Like a pool party, but the water is really warm.

As usual, I’ve left out of lot of details, mostly due to laziness, but suffice to say, I woke up one day and decided I had partied too much here, and should leave ASAP, so I booked a train to Poland for later that day. Given it was my last day, I finally got around to doing some proper sightseeing with Liz. Here’s a photo as some sort of proof that I was in this city:

Summary

Awesome:

Great nightlife, good vibes, picturesque

Craptacular:

Trying to keep up with alcoholics

What's Next

Poland. Where bad stuff happened in WWII

Greece

Well this is going to be a short blog, because frankly I did nothing productive in Greece. I arrived first in Athens and saw the Parthenon that night. Although the only reason I saw it was because the hostel’s rooftop bar had a good view of it.

Next I was headed to Ios, the biggest party island of Greece.

People party here every night and very late. I wasn't really in good condition to be here, given I was still suffering from stomach cramps from the food poisoning I got in India nearly 2 weeks before. I still managed a couple of big nights here. One bar I went to, when you order a shot, they give you a helmet, you drink the shot and then they hit you on the head with something. Completely ridiculous, but unique I guess.

Certainly the highlight was the Swedish Midsummer party though. I don’t know why it’s celebrated in Greece, but who cares. We arrived at something like 11am, which seemed reasonably early, but most people were already completely drunk by then.

The party started at a single bar, which was ridiculously overcrowded, but then moved to the Far Out Beach Club, which conveniently had a pool for lots of drunk people to swim in. It was a long, but fun day. I heard all sorts of crazy stories about what happened that day/night. I wasn’t involved Mum. Here’s a pic at the start of the day (courtesy of Victor!)

After that party, I was worn out, and in some ways happy to return back to the mainland. I had a day to kill in Athens before my flight to Budapest, so I went to the Parthenon museum and looked around for a bit. It was hot and I was too lazy and cheap to go see the  Parthenon first hand, so I took this really crappy picture from a long way away:

Summary

Awesome:

Partying

Craptacular:

Realising I'm too old to party this hard

What's Next

Budapest. Even heavier partying.

Israel (via Jordan)

I decided for no particular reason I would go to Israel next. For some reason though, the flights to Israel were quite expensive. So I did what any cheap backpacker would do. I flew to Amman in Jordan, with the intention of getting a bus over the border to Jerusalem. It was about $200 cheaper to do this, and it meant I got to briefly see another country.

Jordan is a uber-Muslim country and so five times a day there is a ‘call to prayer’. What this means is five times a day, some guy goes to the top of the highest mosque, sings the most annoying prayer song, through a concert-grade amplifier. Oh and the first call to prayer is around 5am, and lasts about half an hour.

Amman’s not really a great tourist place, but I walked around and took a few photos. Here’s Amman’s biggest tourist attraction, a crappy Roman Amphitheater. 

Actually, I didn't even both to stop walking to take this picture. 

Here’s what the town looks like:

Nice and boring looking.

The next day, I was off to Jerusalem, Israel. Technically it’s only 2 hours by road, but Israel is notorious for their border security, so I knew it would take some time at the border. The drive to the border was quite scenic:

After getting to the Jordan side of the border, I went through Jordan’s brief exit procedure, was forced to give them my passport and was given no advice on what to do next. Then I saw a bus outside that touristy looking people were getting in to, so I followed. This bus takes you like 100m over a bridge, but you can only cross the bridge by bus, otherwise someone will probably start shooting at you. We waited maybe an hour for the bus to fill up, then finally someone showed up with our passports. Then we drove 20 metres or so and waited for another hour for god knows what. Other buses were passing us all the time. I think you could pay extra for VIP priveleges, so we had to wait for a hundred buses to unload, before us Very Unimportant People were allowed to proceed. All this waiting gave us plenty of time to make friends, so a group of us decided we would share a taxi to Jerusalem once we crossed the border.

The four of us went through the first stage of security. A security guard took our bags (with no means of identifying whose bags were whose).  We were all handed a card. Three of us got an X in one section, but the Chilean guy got an X in a different section. We didn’t know what this meant until we went through the X-ray machine. After this, the Chilean guy was taken somewhere else, and the rest of us got to continue on to customs.

Israeli customs is pretty intense. They questioned me about a lot of things, usually very directly - ‘Have you come here to commit a terrorist act? Do you know how to make a bomb?’ There were many more of these questions, and I continued to answer ‘no’ to everything. Luckily he didn’t try to trick me with a double negative. Me and the other guys were let through and collected our bags, which were just dumped in a big pile.

We waited awile for the Chilean guy to appear, but he didn’t, so we went to get a taxi. However, the taxi driver decided he was only willing to take one of us – we couldn’t share. I have no idea why. I can only imagine he was trying to help out his taxi comrades. The taxi was way too expensive for one person though, so we got a ticket in the shared van instead. Only problem is the shared van doesn’t leave until it’s full, and for some reason, no-one seemed to be going to Jerusalem. We waited for about an hour, at which point there was only one seat left to be filled. We agreed between the three of us that we would just buy that seat, so we could finally leave. Just as we went to do this, the Chilean guy appeared. He told us he had been heavily interrogated because his surname is of Arabic origins. He bought the last ticket and we were on our way.

Jerusalem is now essentially two places. There’s the new Jerusalem, which is not all that dissimilar to a  European city:

..and the old city, which is a gated district that is a fairly well preserved version of the old Jerusalem that Christians, Jews and Muslims identify with. Given this is an important city to three major religions, I guess it’s no surprise that everyone’s always fighting over it. Actually no-one seems to even know who Jerusalem belongs to anymore. I think Israel and Palestine both lay some sort of claim to the city. And because of this, no-one really agrees on whether Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv is the capital of Israel.

The first night there I didn’t do all that much, although there was a fire near our hostel, which we went and watched for a little while. The next day I was off to the old city. I walked down the hill toward the old city:

I could have caught that train, but I'm a road warrior. I walked through Damascus Gate:

.. into a flurry of markets lining the quite narrow streets:

Even if you’re not religious, you get an eerie sense of the significance of this place. I was half expecting Jesus to walk around the corner. There are actually separate districts for Christians, Muslims and Jews. I had a look at all of them.  Probably the most spectacular place was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the place Christians believe Jesus was buried. 

And for me to say a church is spectacular is really something, considering I’ve seen a million of them, and am generally not easily impressed by churches anymore.

Also, here is what the old city looks like from above:

That gold roof building is the Dome of the Rock. It marks the spot where Muslims believe Muhammed ascended to heaven. I think it was only recently that the King of Jordan gave them all this gold for the roof, so it would look cooler than the previously bronze roof. 

That night was my first experience of Jewish culture. It was a Friday night, which is the start of the Sabbath. The Sabbath runs from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. It is a truly unique experience walking the streets during the Sabbath in Jerusalem. On a night which would otherwise be bustling with people, there is nothing open and no-one to be seen. It’s a ghost town. The only people you see around are the tourists, all heading to the one or two places in the city centre where you can still buy food. A group of us went to the very busy burger place that was open, stuffed our faces and went back to the hostel.

The next morning (Saturday) I wanted to go to Tel-Aviv. Because it was still the Sabbath, most of the transport options weren’t available. Thankfully, there are some pagan taxi drivers that will drive you there in a share-cab with other people.  Tel-Aviv is only 45 minutes away from Jerusalem, but the two cities are very different. Tel-Aviv is where the pagans go to live it seems. There’s not a lot to see there, but there’s a nice beach and pretty good nightlife. Still, I took it pretty easy for the two days I was there.

Next, I was off to Greece. I headed to the airport well before my flight, which was lucky, because as hard as it is to enter Israel, it’s even harder to exit. They had a lot of questions that they wanted to ask me. In fact, the guy literally wanted to know about my entire holiday. I named every country I’d been to previously and how long I’d been there. After maybe half an hour, he sent me to another area to get my bags searched. 

Firstly, they asked me to pull all electronic items out of my bag. I pulled a few things out. Then she asked if that was all. I said yes. She searched my bag and found a few other electronic things I forgot I had. Oops. She enquired as to why I had lied. I told her ‘take a chill pill sweetheart, I just forgot a few things’. Actually, I think I just said the end of that, or I would probably still be detained in Israel right now.  She then pulled everything out of my bag and tested it all for explosives and what not. Luckily, I had hidden the explosives well, and she didn’t find them, so she let me on my way.

Summary

Awesome:

The old city. So much religious history here.

Craptacular:

Call to prayer in Jordan. You pray. Let David sleep. 

The Sabbath. I know religions aren't known for being fun.. but really.. you can't close everything on Friday night!

What's Next

Enough holiness. Time for Greek Island partying!

UAE: Dubai

As soon as I got the taxi from Dubai airport to my hotel, I had a good feeling about Dubai. After being in India, it was so nice to see a modern, functional city.

I met up with Marvin here for the third time. Previously we had met up in Thailand and India. It’s truly remarkable how small a world it is sometime. First, we decided to check out Dubai Mall (the largest mall in the world) and Burj Khalifa (the tallest skyscraper in the world). The are actually both in the same area. Obviously for two men, a giant shopping mall is not particularly thrilling, so we had a quick walk around, got a coffee and left to see the Burj Khalifa. On the way I took this awesome picture that sums up Dubai nicely, with Arabs in the foreground, and the cityscape in the background:

Anyway, back to the tower. This tower is just over 800m tall, and I’m a bit of a skyscraper fan, so I was quite excited to see it. Two years ago, I was at the second biggest skyscraper in the world, the CN Tower in Toronto, but the CN Tower is nearly 300m shorter than the Burj Khalifa. This should give you some idea how enormous this building is. You can go up the tower, but the observation deck is only 400 odd metres high, which is pretty disappointing, so I didn’t do it. The building itself looks pretty ugly in my opinion, and strangely, it barely lights up at all at night.

The next day we went on a desert safari. This was yet another uber-touristic experience. I swear it’s the same everywhere in the world. It was just over an hour drive to the ‘desert’. But of course, we had to stop for a half an hour break. Anyone that’s ever travelled anywhere knows that breaks are only taken so that people can sell you stuff. After this, we got to the desert and were driven over some sand dunes in our 4WD. This is kinda fun for 5 minutes, but then I wanted it to end, because it was giving me motion sickness. Later, we got a buffer dinner in the middle of the desert, which was quite nice. Overall, not really worth the money, but this was my first time in the desert, so I can check that off my list of things to see.

That night was Marvin’s last night before he was to fly back to Germany. We knew there was a bar in one of the floors of the hotel, so we went there. You couldn’t see what was going on in the bar from the outside, but a concierge greeted us and took us in and got our drinks order. The bar was empty, except for two seedy looking Indian men. Oh and there were 10 girls dancing on a stage. They were fully clothed, so this wasn’t a strip club, but they were certainly giving us the eye. Give me a P. Give me an R. Give me an OSTITUTES. What does it spell? PROSTITUTES. I’ve got to say, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so awkward. It would have been OK if there were lots of people, but with only 4 people in the bar, there was nowhere to hide. Ten girls looking and winking at you the whole time is just annoying. Plus they were crap dancers. We quickly got out of there and went back to our room.

The next day Marvin was off home and I was on my own again. Firstly, I went and bought a cheap netbook, to replace my laptop that got burnt in India. Next I went to the Dubai office of my old company, Arup, to visit Joseph, who I used to work with in Brisbane, before he transferred to Dubai. We had a coffee and talked some nerd stuff and then I was headed to the airport. I left it a bit late to go the airport, which shouldn’t have been a problem, except that it was peak hour, and traffic was at a standstill. I almost got to the point of getting out of the taxi and walking that last kilometre or so, but the taxi driver ensured me I’d make it. I made it (just) and checked in, but then I realised my phone had disappeared.  I don’t know exactly where I had lost it, but it would never be seen again L

Summary

Awesome:

Burj Khalifa and other monumental buildings in Dubai

Craptacular:

Prostitutes when you just want a normal bar

What's Next

The holy land. Israel. If I can get in that is.

India: Udaipur, Jaipur, Agra, Delhi

After the craziness of the bus fire, I took it easy in my first day in Udaipur. Firstly, I found myself a place for lunch. The owners were quite friendly and asked me if I knew anything about computers, because they had just bought one. These guys had never used a computer, so I had to start with the bare basics. A couple hours later, I had set them up with a Gmail account, and explained how to do such things as copy and paste, which was just fascinating to them. Because I had helped them, they offered to teach me how to make some Indian dishes, which sounded interesting to me, so I returned the next morning ready to cook. Whatever I cooked was going to be my lunch, so I had ample motivation not to screw up. I cooked some chipati bread:

and also a couple curries, including my favourite – chicken tikka masala:

It was delicious!

Next, I was off to do some sightseeing. Udaipur is quite a nice city, owing to the fact that for a period, the Kings here went nuts building themselves awesome palaces.  I went and visited a few palaces, like the Monsoon Palace.

There’s also some really nice Lake Palaces here:

The city palace is also quite impressive. You had to pay for the privilege to take photos here, but being the bad boy that I am, I didn’t pay and still took this picture, among others:

I took a walk around that night as well, and everytime I walked past someone’s house, the children would run out and try and convince me to come into their house. Of course I didn’t do this, as they were clearly going to try and rob me.

That night I got the bus to Jaipur, which is a bigger city, also renowed for it’s palaces. The next day I got up and went to find food, and also went to the train station to check if it would be possible to get a ticket to Agra in the upcoming days. By the time I had done these two things, I had decided that I immediately wanted to leave this city. There was so much traffic around, everyone was hassling me, no-one was even midly helpful, people kept pushing in front of me at the train station. Everyone just generally walked so freaking slow. Rah!!!! So I got on the first bus the next day to Agra.

I think it’s fair to say Agra would have zero tourists if it weren’t for a building called the Taj Mahal. But I actually didn’t mind the city at all. The people were friendlier here and it wasn’t ridiculously busy. But still, naturally, I went straight to the Taj Mahal:

I was supposed to go to Varanasi next, but after finding out it would take two buses, I decided I wasn’t going to bother. By this stage I was power travelling, doing nearly a city a day, because really, I wanted to get out of this country quickly. I instead decided I would spend one night in Delhi, and then fly to Dubai.

In order to get one more authentic Indian experience (dumb idea), I decided to get the local bus from Agra to Delhi. It was ridiculously cheap, but not surprisingly incredibly uncomfortable. Pretty sure I was only minutes away from getting Deep Vein Thrombosis. Also, it was more the 40 degrees, and of course there was no AC. However, this was an interesting experience. At two points in the trip, a guy jumped on the bus and tried to sell some product. The first guy was selling some ‘miracle pills’. I’m not sure what he was saying about them, because he was speaking Hindi (well not English anyway), but a few people bought them. Next, a guy jumped on the bus trying to sell this device that helps you squeeze the juice out of a lemon (or other fruit). This thing was frikin awesome! I was so impressed that I wanted to buy one, until I remembered that I probably don’t juice lemons all that often.

Anyway, I got to Delhi late afternoon for my last night in India. I found what appeared to be a good restaurant, and got one final curry. It was delicious. A couple hours later though, I started feeling really sick and I realised that I had food poisioning. This was particularly annoying because I had gotten though nearly 4 weeks in India, without once getting sick, and it was my last meal that got me. Also, this was probably the most expensive and fancy restaurant I had been to in India, so I really didn’t suspect their food would be suspect.

Anyway, suffice to say I pretty much didn’t sleep that night. The next day at 12pm it was time to check out. My flight wasn’t until that night though, and I could barely even move, so I lugged myself downstairs and asked if I could stay in my room for another 5 hours. He said I could if I paid for another night. I began my sob story about how incredibly ill I was, and he got sick of listening to me, so he offered the room to me for half the normal price. At this point, since I was on my legs, I decided I should maybe try and eat something. I purchased exactly three bananas, which would be my breakfast, lunch and dinner that day.

I started thinking about cancelling my flight, as I was shaking so much that I was struggling to hold on to the banana I was eating. But like any cheap backpacker, I was never going to throw away a $250 flight ticket, so like Noah in the bible, I took two of every drug in existence and went to the airport (well that would be the modern equivalent of Noah’s Ark). I was pretty week and spaced out when I got to the airport, so it took me an eternity to check-in and walk to the customs area. I was hoping the customs line would be short, because I was about due for a vomit, and it was, but they were taking their sweet time. I finally got to the front of the line and thought there was hope I would make it to a bathroom to vomit, but the guy took so long and I had to vomit immediately. I had a paper bag, but it leaked all over the floor. I apologised, took my passport and continued on. After this I felt OK for the first part of the fight, but then suddenly I needed to vomit again. The food carts were out, and there wasn’t much time, so I navigated the obstacle course and made it to the bathroom just in time. At this point, I asked the hostess if I could get prime seating next to the bathroom, and she obliged. The Indian guy I was now sitting next to said he was a doctor, and told me that the best thing I could do would be to drink beer. I was somewhat sceptical about his credentials, as he was talking about financial investments a lot. Eventually he handed me his business card, and it proved he was a doctor.. a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D). Not quite the same as an MD.

After the flight landed, even the pilot came to check on me. I think the staff were just relieved I didn’t die on them, because it probably looked like I was going to. It was possibly the greatest moment of my life when I finally checked in to my hotel in Dubai.

So I’m now finished with India, both literally and figuratively. Of the 20 odd countries I’ve been to, this is the only country that I don't really want to go back to. Most of the people I met that have been to India loved it, and it has become clear to me that I went to the wrong places, but still, India is not really my sort of place. There is very little I like about Indian culture to be totally honest. Having said that, I absolutely don’t for a second regret going there, as it is the only country I’ve been to where I felt like I was truly travelling. All the other countries I have been to cater to tourists, but not India. I experienced more in India, then in the entire rest of my trip. I guess the problem is, most of those experiences were not fun experiences, albeit eye-opening. Anyway, a few people have since asked me if they should travel to India, and I’ve always said that if you’re doing a long trip, you should go for the experience. If you’re doing a short trip, close your eyes, point at a random country on a map, and go there. It will probably be more fun than India. Unless you’re pointing at India, in which case you should have another go. 

Summary

Awesome:

Palaces and people in Udaipur, and of course the Taj Mahal

Craptacular:

Indian local buses, and of course the kind of violent food poisoning you could only get in India.

What's Next

Back to some semblance of civilisation. Where everything is the best in the world... Dubai!