Tag Archives: india

How it all began!

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Published on: Dec 24, 2015

For the first time for 8 years I will not be abroad during New Year (dont worry I am about to leave soon) so I thought about a Christmas special this year. I started this blog in 2011 when I drove to India but how did I get there?

Actually it all started when I was a child. Two different channels to choose from on the TV and all I was interested in were documentaries about wild animals at faraway places. Not much time in front of the screen and a lot out in the nature… Later in school I was bored very easy – I just couldn’t manage to stay in a room all day and listen to stupid stuff when outside the sun was shining. I am glad not to be too stupid so I somehow managed my way through most of the time. Soon my best friend below the desk became my Atlas. I figured out how to read it soon and on rainy days I visited places at the maps in my mind. English I spent in the colonies and while math I calculated how long it would take me to walk there. While everybody else in class was learning biology I was dreaming about rowing down Ghambia river watching hippos and bee eaters. Needless to say I loved geography! (Biology either but I had usually read the book for the year before Christmas and was bored then…)

Needless to say I dropped out of school at the age of fifteen. I tried other schools and different apprenticeships but nothing really attracted me. (Tough I learned a shitload of really important things). At this time I met a guy living in a farm in Carinthia with his family who had travelled india. I was very impressed – mostly by his clear eyes. At this time it was not so much of a problem to make some money and I was still living at home! That has been my first decision to travel to india.

Even though it was not so much of a problem to make money then it took time so my first journey was to become a short one. I just wanted two weeks of and grabbed a last minute ticket which had been pretty cheap then. Teneriffa it said and La Gomera I decided. And what a perfect first trip it was! I had a room for the first three days and then slept on the beach feeding a dog who would warn me when police was looking for people who sleep on the beach each evening. Later I moved to a little bay a stonecast away from valley Gran Rey but only to be reached when the tide was low. There were caves and a crazy old guy – I loved it!

When I came back I soon met Dagmar – my first girlfriend. I really love her but unfortunately she is not into travelling at all. She broke up with me 10 years later, I really needed some time off again, and I remembered about India. Fortunately I had finished university by that time and time was rather an issue than money. It must have been November 2007, when I met another girl who asked me if I want to come to India with her in two weeks. Why not, I replied and two weeks later we met at the check in counter at Vienna airport. Vienna to Mumbai via London is quite a detour but the flight from London to Mumbai was overbooked anyway – at least the economy section of it! We traveled first class!

So I was in India for the first time of my life, well Goa actually – but a nice arrival zone to India at least. By that time in my life I had given up hope for humanity. I had accepted that we are are all cursed to run after a carrot we would never get and most important to always feel unhappy! In Austria, where I come from I see too many people obviously having all you can get (for money) still being totally unhappy AND still continuing what they are doing!

In India I suddenly met a billion of people who have nothing but…. nothing but a smile in their face! I immediately fell in love with this country! Having five weeks only I wanted to leave Goa and explore the country, see it in all its beauty and stunningness (word correct doesn’t know India obviously)!
Within 5 weeks and by public transport I went the route: Anjuna – Hampi – Hyderabad- Vijayawada – Puri – Bandhavgarh – Agra – Pushkar – Rishikesh – Delhi (!!) (to see it on a map click here)

More than 4500km by train and some of them by bus. Given the average speed of an indian train at 30km/h at that time (not joking) I spent one of the five weeks on trains!

Of course I had not seen enough, I had made amazing experiences and for the first time in my life it felt real. I was depending on myself responsible for myself – nobody to blame for nothing! (The girl I had come with stood in Goa most of the time)

At my second visit to India one year later I met Lina from Sweden. I was in love like never before, and she too. We spent an incredible year together and I still have feelings for her like for the first flower I see in spring.

Our relationship ended one year later in India again. I extended my stay and went straight away to a yoga ashram in Pushkar where I stood the months to come. I bought “Om Tat Sat”, my third love – a 1982 model 350cc Royal Enfield Bullet! Soon it was redesigned and on the road and it was to become and amazing trip – my first overland trip on my own wheels by the way. I simply loved it. You will find it documented on my youtube channel looking up the videos titled “Gods own country on gods own bike”. The map of this trip you can find here and here (not possible to put too many places in one routing)

When I flew home after that extended stay the sky was clear, I had a window seat and I am pretty sure there is still a cast of my face on that window. I wanted to see all of this close up – on the road! One of the last times I talked with Lina I told her about the idea going to India by car. “Impossible” she said to me – the Capricorn.

This Blog I started for my mother to let her know I am fine. Let’s all send her best wishes, she is at the hospital at the moment recovering from a knee surgery.

I know there are loads of mistakes in the blog, sometimes even sentences without an end. Please be aware that I am writing this while travelling, mostly in the evening after a wonderful exhausting day. Sometimes I fall asleep while writing but, and I am sorry for this, I never read it a second time. Simply because there are better things to do at that moment. I know its shit and I am sometimes ashamed of myself when I read what I wrote years after. So please keep this in mind and show mercy.

By now travelling has given me a seemingly infinite lot of joy, amazing friends and stunning experiences, beautiful relations, incredible Visions – moments of pure happiness and bliss…
Now go and get a ticket! (I got mine and I’d love to meet you on the road!)

Home – Home

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In Pushkar time flies. I love this place and I love the people I meet here.

Way back to Delhi is not so nice because I suffer from the side effects of antibiotics I have to take because of a bad burn wound on my leg. (2 days after governmental hospital it looked a little like rotting off but my well known private doctor in Pushkar fixed it.)

Parvati whom I wanted to meet in Delhi unfortunately doesnt make it in time from Nepal. First 36 hours in Delhi I stay in bed to recover from the bus ride so I couldnt have done much anyway. Second day in Delhi I met my old friend Karan whom I met at Wagah border when my car was being seized – Karan is the KTM rider! We both where surprised about the other being in Delhi! Sometimes facebook is not that bad! We had a real nice time together even though i still was a little sick and way too soon I had to leave to the airport. Flight to Austria was ok and fortunately they even took my new guitar – for free in the hand luggage! I love Austrian Airlines!

Pushkar

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March 5. – march 10.

Pushkar has changed a lot in the last 2 years – though I am happy some things here did not and will not change so quickly. Enigma Café has become a supermarket! After only a few days I have a pretty fixed daily routine which starts with chai at honey dew at around 8.30, getting fresh rose buds next to share them in the market with people who are about to open there shops or just passing by. Its an incredible pleasure just to see so many people smiling every morning. When most of the roses are given away (I always save some for my room) I would have another chai and a little breakfast a ghopals chaishop at the mainsquare before eventually going to Sonu fruit shop to get one of those amazing mueslis.

By then its lunch time most of the days because I spend a lot of time meeting beautiful people. Pushkar seems to be full of brothers, sisters and twins in mind. I become furniture at honey dew from afternoon until late evening, watching the people on the street and having wonderful times with fellow travelers. For sunset I am mostly at Chandra ghat which is the more peaceful alternative to sunset ghat.

Doing meditation and making some music in the sunset at Pushkar lake feels so familiar like I have never done something else at sunset time in my life. I meet unique and very color- and powerful people in every age and from around the world every day making me feel a lot of love and sharing their smiles and their happiness. I fall in love all the time over and over again with nearly every person I see. I don’t know why and how, if it’s the place, the beautiful smiles or just me… I am in love! Pushkar sunset, surrounded by colors and feeling the gentle warmth of the sun on my skin – Nagara drums and Brahmin chanting mantras, incense smell and a well known and beloved place.

Going home

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March 3. & 4.

Bus is leaving early evening so I go to Rishikesh during the day making a little walk and doing a little shopping. After having just being arrived to India Rishikesh is a little too much of holy tourists for me but still I enjoy a lot. The landscape looks amazing with all the huge lakes on the street being left from the rain. After a beautiful day I take a Rickshaw back to Haridwar just to be in time to catch the bus home. And, comparing it to the sleeper bus I had from Laos to Vietnam I feel like in heaven with my very own and private double compartment under the roof of the bus. I have internet, an ashtray, food, water… all I need for a very long journey. I am busy eating, drinking and surfing until Delhi and then fall asleep.

When I wake up the next morning we have already passed Kishangarh and are of the highway. Short stop for toilet and breakfast and a little later we approach an amazing little town in Rajasthan in the desert. It is two days before the color play of the Holi Festival – most busy time around the year. Being a little worried about finding a place to sleep the second friend I stop at to say hello offers me one of the staff rooms in his hotel. Well not in his hotel – Doctor alone has move to a much bigger place at Jyoti Basti so I get a room at his old hotel where some of his long time customers stay. I know most of them for years and am very happy to get this room. I spend the day drinking chai with old friends who are very happy to see me again after two years.

I am at home again – my living room being the honey dew restaurant. 3 tables at 5 square meters, 2 ashtrays and no wifi but up to 20 people sharing the space and enjoying Nizams amazing food and hospitality. I enjoy the sunset at the lake and meeting so many people I haven’t seen for such a long time. Probably the best decision was to come here after the south east asia experience. Cant stop smiling here….

Rain

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March 1. & 2.

Again waking up is unpleasant – not because I am so done but because of the rain I hear on the roof. Today I wanted to go inside the park with my guide only who had promised to show me a bee eater colony (!) and a rock python. But in the heavy rain without a raincoat…. What to do. I inform the guide about my decision, turn around and keep sleeping until late morning. Tomorrow my visa is finished so that was not only the last chance but I have to get out of the country. I say good bye to everybody a little after lunchtime before a jeep takes me to the highway. Being a real local bus people are very kind and offer me a seat with a good view… of the rain.

Even though the border is just 140km away it takes more than 5 hours to get there and it is already dark when I arrive at the Nepalese border town. I take a room there, eat a lot and get information about the bus I have to take in india. There seem to be several buses leaving to Haridwar between 6.30am and 9am. Border procedure is supposed to take about an hour. I decide to try to be there as early as possible, get up at 5 and take a shared rickshaw to the Nepalese immigration checkpoint. The immigration officer obviously just woke up at the office and is very kind. I ask him about what happens if the visa is overstayed because I thought about staying a few more days in Bardiya. 30US$ plus 3$ per day… damn I should have done that!

The next shared rickshaw takes me to the Indian immigration passing a customs checkpoint where a drug (?) dog is standing on the road side in between millions of marijuana plants that grow there naturally. Unfortunately I don’t have the camera handy. Indian immigration officers are already drinking chai and reading newspaper when I arrive there. Stamp is done in between to sips of chai and then the call a cycle rickshaw for me to bring me to the bus stand. After all the hazzles and bribe extortions at south east asian borders I am really surprised.

20 minutes later I sit at a chai shop in india waiting for the bus. I am ripped of by the only money changer near or far and change just as much as I need. The bus comes very soon and the driver is very kind offering me the place right next to him with amazing view of the rain, enough space for my stuff and way more privacy than you could expect at an Indian local bus. 300km to Haridwar take us 9 hours.

When we arrive a little before sunset I take a room in a hotel I believe I have slept years ago already. Within half an hour I got money changed, a sim card for my phone and a bus ticket for the next evening. India really feels like home at the moment. I know exactly what to do to get what I need. I have amazing food one or two great chai at the road side and hear the sound of the trains horns at night. Tomorrow I will visit Rishikesh to buy one or two things and enjoy the amazing Ganges view there – for the evening I bought two bus tickets: upper floor sleeper bus which means a double bed for me with window on one and curtain on the other side. Full privacy and view AND I can smoke out of the window during the 15 hour journey.