by Ebru | Jul 10, 2015 | SeedsonWheels |
After 100 meters of walking through the gate, a couple of kilometers away from Aranyaprathet –a border town of Thailand-, we enter Cambodia. In several minutes, we get our visa for 30 days after paying 30$ and start waiting for the bus to go to Siem Reap. Currency of Cambodia is US Dollars ($). Riel is also in use, but especially in big settlements and touristic areas, prices are in $. While paying, dollars and riels are used together and make us calculate regularly as 4000 Riels = 1 $. We take a minibus to Siem Reap for 9 $ per person. Siem Reap is the tourism capital of Cambodia, because there areTemples of Angkor. We find a double room for 7 $, a bit out of the center. Cambodia is not as cheap as we expected from the articles we read before. Or our expectation is too low due to our low budget after one year on the road. You can rent a bicycle, motorcycle or a tuk tuk to go to Angkor from Siem Reap. A good stamina and a couple of days are needed to visit the place by bicycle both because of the distance and the heat. We visit Angkor by renting a tuk tuk for 10 $ for a day. Also 20 $/per person is paid as an entrance fee for one day. Angkor is a temple complex in a large area surrounded by a forest. Angkor Wat, Angor Thom and Ta Phrom are some of the most important temples. You can find information about Angkor everywhere; if you hear about it for the...
by Sezgin | Jun 6, 2015 | SeedsonWheels |
We leave Nepal, where we came on foot, by walking again; in the beginning of May. There are two days for our India visa to expire and we take the train from Raxaul to Kolkata to catch our flight to Bangkok. We spent only one day in Kolkata in full thanks to Pankaj who hosted us via Couchsurfing. We meet Ganga River here again, after Varanasi, before she is washed to the sea. This city, the capital of West Bengal, is the cleanest and the most modern city in India we have ever seen. The city, where the British took their first step in India, is full of English architecture. One day is clearly not enough to explore. We land to Bangkok on 5th of May. Now we are in a totally different culture, in Southeast Asia. The officer in the airport checks our passports, stamps and gives them back. That’s all. We step into Thailand for 30 days without visa, for free. We watch outside through the window while going to the center by subway. Very tidy, very clean, exceedingly modern. Thai people are also very good looking. Beggars’ clothes are cleaner than ours. Everybody looks like they are living in prosperity. People are smiling, transportation is easy… It is also easy to hitch-hike on interprovincial roads. Most of the vehicles in traffic are pick-ups that make it great to travel with the wing in hot weather. Drivers are respectful for bikers, and in Bangkok, there are even bicycle roads. We go to Banglamphu first, the touristic center of Bangkok, to find a place to stay. After finding...
by Sezgin | May 1, 2015 | SeedsonWheels |
We enter Nepal from Kakarbhitta border by walking, after passing the bridge between India and Nepal. We wouldn’t even go through passport check if he hadn’t enter the single-store building after seeing the small old signboard on it. We get our visa in a couple of minutes after paying 40$ as enrty fee and the one page form to smiling policemen. There are 450 kilometers to reach Kathmandu. Our journey starts after buying a bus ticket from the bus station just next to the border for 1000 Rs. (15 $) with one of the “non-AC” buses. We travel for 17 hours waggling with never ending music. There is no other way of getting used to long and shaking trips, even if you are travelling with the most comfortable bus. We arrive to Kathmandu early in the morning and settle in a hotel, named Blue Diamond, in the touristic center, Thamel. 800 Rs. (10 $) for a room per day is cheap for this location, but it is possible to stay in Basanthapur, the old city center close to Thamel, for a cheaper price. Thamel’s streets, full of souvenir shops selling colorful Nepalese cloths and trekking equipment, usually end in a small square full of temples. We also shop for trekking while exploring Kathmandu. There are both cheap local restaurants and luxurious restaurants serving world cuisine in Thamel. After India, it is also easy in Nepal to find vegetarian food. “Dhal Bhat”, consisted of rice, a dish like lentil soup and another food mostly including potato, is the main dish in Nepal. Most of the Nepalese eat this two times...
by Sezgin | Apr 21, 2015 | SeedsonWheels |
Next to slowly flowing river Ganges, inhabited for over 3000 years; the holy city Varanasi. The city of Shiva, god of destruction, those who died here and ashes of the bodies of whom mix with the river is believed to be freed from the circle of life, whose souls are liberated. The city, bringing Hindus from all around India, coming here for pilgrimage or to join the cremation ceremony of their relatives, and travellers from all around the world together; is a labyrinth consisted of narrow streets in which it is hardly possible for a cow and a human to walk side by side. Hundreds of temples in this labyrinth; some of them are magnificent structures; some of them are just a small hole on a wall near the road. Abundance of temples makes praying daily life itself. Hundreds of old people settle here and wait for the death, as it is believed if someone’s cremation takes place in this city he/she is freed from the circle of life with total absolution. People make long queues in the streets to take vow in temples. Manikarnika Ghat, one of the tens of “ghats” next to the river, is used only for cremation, while people are gathering in Dashashwamedh Ghat ever night at 7 for “Puja” ceremony. In some of the ghats there is music in the evening; it is possible to run into a great Indian Classical Music concert if you are lucky. We feel something different in Varanasi since the first day we arrived. We breathe the ashes flitting around while watching the cremation. There is not a smile...
by Sezgin | Mar 27, 2015 | SeedsonWheels |
We leave Hampi and reach Mumbai in morning hours after 18 hours of journey. We didn’t plan to go to Mumbai as we wanted to keep away from the chaos of big cities, but we had to transfer there on the way to Rajasthan. We had the chance to wander in Mumbai for 14 hours, waiting for the next train. After leaving our backpacks to the train station and just seeing the mighty buildings from the times of British colonization era and visiting the city center where “Gateway of India” stands, we went back to the train station for our 16 hours trip to Jodhpur. Now, we are in the northeast India, in Rajasthan state. Rajasthan means “The Land of Great Kingdoms”. When we go up to the terrace of the guesthouse we found after searching in narrow streets of Jodhpur, we face with Mehrangarh Fort, which looks more magnificent than in the movie, The Fall. While walking among multilayered buildings and seeing just a small part of the sky, we are trying to run away from motorcycles, make way for cows and avoid stepping into the shit. We can’t take our eyes from the surrounding world in streets that can get too narrow sometimes and turning into stairs. Sardar Market, at the touristic center of Jodhpur, captures us with peddlers around the clock tower, shops that can you can find almost everything available and its always open market. Its atmosphere is very friendly and even “familiar”. We climb up to the castle by walking. It’s for free to enter the fort; it is paid just for the museum....
by Sezgin | Feb 27, 2015 | SeedsonWheels |
In our long trip from the south of India to the north, we left Karnataka at the end of February, where we came at the end of January. Gokarna, where we arrived after 16 hours of train journey starting from Mysore, is a settlement in Karnataka State of India, south of Goa. It is a place we just stopped by on the advices of travellers we met on the road. Keeping its small town view, Gokarna is a coastal settlement, in which, density of population is mostly consisted of tourists. We stay for 12 days in Kudle Beach unexpectedly, where you can reach by renting a tuk-tuk for 100 Rs (1,5 $) just from the bus stop or for free by walking for 20 minutes. We walk down the hill, after getting off from the tuk-tuk that left us on a steep and arid hill. The road leads to the beach passing over the stair shaped rocks. The hot beach lies before us, on which to walk at noon, one should be either as fast as Roadrunner or as patient as a Buddhist monk. It is 29th of January and we are looking for a shadow where there is no danger of falling coconuts. Along the coast, there are guesthouses after the long beach. Except several expensive places, most of the rooms are huts, walls of which are built by using coconut leafs with sand floor. But anyway, it is not easy to find a room in high season. We start looking for a place to camp, rather than paying 350-400 Rupees (7-10 $) for a room that doesn’t...
