All posts by Aleksei

The city of 30 million gods

Nepal

Kathmandu is a magical place. A teeming mass of people, events and strange coincidences, it occupies an elliptical valley, sprawling in every direction like in a giant cauldron.

On this photo we look West from the Basantapur tower in Hanuman Dhoka palace. We can see how the waves of the Kathmandu ocean rush to the surrounding mountains, submerging in the process the hill to the right. On this hill stands the temple of Swayambhu, the main temple of the Nepali buddhism, its name meaning “the Self-Arisen one”. Legend tells us that in the times immemorial the valley of Kathmandu had been a lake (this is confirmed by geology) and a lotus grew in the lake. Boddhisattva Majushri saw it in a dream, found it and went on to drain the lake and to turn the lotus into a hill, on top of which Swayambhu was built.

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Philippine food

Food, Philippines

The Philippines is another country with a crazy kitchen. For quite a long time I’ve been curiously observing Philippine restaurants in various corners of the world with their menus,full of incomprehensibly exotic names. Finally I had a chance to explore them at the source.

This report follows a series of food reports that also includes Peruvian, Japanese, Chilean, Indonesian and even Hawaiian cuisines.

My stay in Manila was only 5 days long. This is entirely insufficient in order to try out all the wonders of Philippine cuisine. Even if you check out several new articles per day as I did. Whole series of enticing names remained undiscovered, such as crispy pata, grilled isaw, sinigang, kesong puto etc etc etc.

Let’s start from bibingka – a rice cake covered with cheese. The Filipinos eat constantly, 5-6 times a day, and in between they must take some snacks. Bibingka is exactly a kind of a light snack that allows them to bridge the interminable gap between for example fourth and fifth food intake of the day. I ordered bibingka as a starter. It has a rather subdued, nuanced taste, clearly exhibiting coconut milk and cheese.

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Manila

Philippines

I had some reservations about visiting Manila, as I had heard a few rather unfavourable accounts about stays there. A friend for example shared a story about how the police arrested him just for standing in a dark alley and accused of buying drugs in order to extort a bribe. And yet contrary to Jakarta, Manila did not appear all that frightening, quite the opposite, I felt really comfortable there. The five days I’d spent there even seemed too little to fully appreciate the capital and for sure the Philippines overall. To be sure, you do get shocked by the poverty and the squalid conditions, and especially by the contrast between luxurious supermarkets and filthy streets where children sleep right on the ground. I started my tour of Manila from Intramuros, which is the old city ringed by the city walls built by the Spanish in the old colonial times.

The Southern gate of Intramuros. The walls are obviously quite impressive, practically stone-covered mountains.

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Paradoxical Brunei

Brunei

The country of Brunei is a very strange place indeed. A spot on the island of Borneo surrounded from all sides by Malaysia and the sea, it was meant to become a part of Malaysian Federation back when the Brits were imagining their escape routes from here. At the eleventh hour the Sultan of Brunei pulled out of the Federation, appalled by the idea of lowering himself to be on the same level as the rest of the local Sultans – many of them coming from the younger branches of the same Brunei dynasty. This turned out a stroke of genius, when they found oil in Brunei – a lot of oil – a humongous quantity of oil. There was so much of it that in the eighties the Brunei Sultan became the richest man in the world. In the history of the world there probably isn’t a person who would have spent as much money personally as himself – billions of dollars for cars, women, parties and palaces. I was intrigued by this little speck lost in the vastness of Asia and so I decided to spend a couple of days there, especially as it was easy to include it in the itinerary that took me from Bangkok to the Philippines.

At first sight Brunei is the most Muslim of countries. In the plane heading there a strict voice declares that taking drugs to Brunei is punishable by death. The airport greets you with muezzin’s voice retranslated loud and proud. Forget alcohol in a restaurant. The centre of Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB) – the capital, which the British called simply Brunei City – is dominated by the huge Omar Ali Saifuddin mosque.

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Back to Thailand: Floating Market, Bridge over River Kwai and Tiger Temple

Thailand

Right now I am in Kathmandu. I have been here in Nepal for several weeks already. The previous post on this blog deals with adventures in Vanuatu. In between Vanuatu and Nepal I crossed a few other countries. It sounds like a lot, but in truth the delay of my blog compared to my real time physical movements is not that large nowadays. The only large chapter that I had to skip for now is the one that deals with Australia. In fact I went there twice on my trip: first time for about a month after Indonesia and before New Zealand; and second time now after Vanuatu I stayed in Brisbane for about a week. I guess I will come back to Austalia at some later point in this blog when I have a little more time, but for now I will press on with the trip as it developed after Vanuatu.

From Port Vila I flew to Brisbane and from there on, changing in Singapore, I arrived back to my beloved Bangkok. I stayed there for about a week, did a lot of stuff there, reading books, planning my trip from there on, exploring the various hidden parts of the city – but it is difficult to report on this in a photo blog. One day I decided to play tourist and went for a day long tour of three famous tourist attractions situated to the West of BKK. This post is about that visit.

Attraction nr 1: the famous Floating Market
Strange as it may seem, in my many visits to Bangkok I’d never mastered the time to get acquainted with this quintessential Thai institution. There are several floating markets around Bangkok, this one being the most popular and the most touristic one. Frankly all of the stalls facing the waterfront are meant for tourists. And yet it is by all means a picturesque and involving spectacle.

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Vanuatu: a tour around Efate

Vanuatu

You can circle the island of Efate in only several hours. A number of companies organise day tours that do just that. I departed with the one that promised the most stops and I wasn’t disappointed, as also the guide turned to be about the friendliest person I’ve ever met.

The first stop was in the Blue Lagoon – yes, Vanuatu has one of its own! Magical fresh water, into which you can jump using the long rope strategically placed for that purpose. Young and old (that’s us!) used the opportunity!

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Vanuatu: Port-Vila, Mele Cascades and parasailing

Vanuatu

Right now I am in Kathmandu. Still I will continue publishing the stories about my trip in the order that they happened, even though I am now about a month late. Today I will write about the visit to the island state of Vanuatu.

Quite frankly when I bought a ticket to Vanuatu my knowledge about this country was rather limited. This was one reason I decided to visit it: in addition to Fiji, I wanted to check out some lesser known and perhaps more exotic corner of Melanesia. Logistically too Vanuatu lies conveniently between Fiji and Australia and is connected by frequent flights to either side. Actually as I was buying the ticket I was hatching some other even more crazy plans – Vanuatu is also connected for example to Solomon Islands and New Caledonia. But the nasty Fijian border guards destroyed these plans as they forced me to buy my connection to Australia right in the airport.

Like Fiji, Vanuatu is an archipelago that consists of hundreds of islands hundreds of kilometres in every direction. Contrary to Fiji, Vanuatu does not have one central dominant island. In fact several islands of approximately the same size are surrounded by many smaller ones. When Vanuatu gained independence, several islands even tried to declare their own independence – but the uprising from central authority was finally put down. The capital Port-Vila is on the island of Efate, more or less in the middle of the archipelago. Any touristic infrastructure is concentrated on Efate, the other islands have no hotels to speak of and are difficult to reach – in practice you have to fly as the distances are significant. My visit was therefore limited to Efate.

I arrived in Port-Vila late Saturday night and quickly realised that on Sunday most places in this very religious place would be closed. Therefore the next day I took a quick stroll around the capital and followed the advice of the owner of my hotel to visit the Mele Cascades, perhaps the number one attraction on Efate.

On the road leading out of the city I caught the first empty minibus – they are all ready to take a passenger – and bargained the price of 300 vatu (3 dollars) to take me to Mele. The minibus then picked up one more passenger, a Singaporean named Li, who was heading in the same direction. Li was stranded in Vanuatu because there was a hurricane in his main destination – Solomon Islands – and the flights were cancelled. He turned out to be a crazy traveller like myself and so we visited the Mele Cascades together.

A long walk leads to the Cascades from the Mele village. The path weaves along a mountain stream that forms small cascades all the time:

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Christchurch

New Zealand

This is my last post about New Zealand. It is an amazingly beautiful country which exceeds all expectations. The last point on my trip there was the city of Christchurch. I came there from Queenstown, spent two days and departed changing planes in Auckland for the exotic Fiji. Christchurch is the second largest city in New Zealand and the largest on the South Island. It is tragically known for the fact that in 2010 and 2011 it has suffered several earthquakes in a row. The quakes destroyed the whole centre of the city and killed 170 people. This was one of the biggest shocks in the history of New Zealand. Walking around the city you do feel like it is still in the state of shock.

Nevertheless it is very interesting to explore it. Already the innovative ways to revive the urban space are worth the attention. In a way Christchurch has become an experimental space for contemporary art where unexpected and original temporary sculptures can be erected. Here is one of them – green armchairs turning the street into something between a guest room and a green lawn:

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Milford Sound

New Zealand

This is penultimate post about my trip through New Zealand. After climbing the Franz Josef glacier in a helicopter I headed further South, to Tanaka and then to Queenstown. The adrenalin capital of New Zealand, Queenstown allowed me to experience one of the world’s highest bungy jumps – see I jumped the Nevis. It is also possible to visit Milford Sound on a one day trip from Queenstown.

Milford Sound is a legendary, fairytale place. Rudhyard Kipling called it the eighth wonder of the world, and it is New Zealand’s top tourist attraction. The most famous of New Zealand’s Great Tracks, Milford track, finds its crescendo right here. It is actually quite some way from Queenstown – several hundred kilometres. Thus to get here in a day you’ve got to spend about 13 hours. The road winds through the New Zealand’s Alps. The views are to die for:

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