Autor: Carsten Nolte

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Christmas Greetings from Pakistan

Hello all!

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas, …and a happy new year 2025! Let’s hope that the mood in Europe will become better again, same for the political imbalances (that we see too often now). Hopefully this will change for the better soon!

Merry Christmas!

from Heike & Carsten

For us a very turbulent year ends: Iran, Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Thailand were the countries that we could visit, and Germany of course too (even if the cause for that was not a nice one).

Right now we are in Islamabad where we will be celebrating Christmas (as good as it is possible in a Muslim environment 😉). We found a hotel that offers a Christmas brunch, so we hope to get some Christmas spirit over there 😊

Have a great time and wonderful Christmas, all of you!
Best wishes from
Heike & Carsten

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India, how was that? …for us as overlander (November 2024)

Hello!

after almost half a year of overlanding in India and shortly before we cross the border back to Pakistan it is a good moment to reflect and ask: How was that!? How was India, for us as overlander!?

Maybe the best is to start and say „It was a very good decision to visit India for such a long time!“ But how can one evaluate a country, especially such a big one like India? India is built of 28 states,  more than 50 cities with + 1 million inhabitants, all together it is more than 1,4 billion residents in whole India, speaking hundreds of languages. You will find all major religions, mostly Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, but also Christianity and Judaism and much more. The country is so divers that you cannot honestly say „one country“. This would be like saying „Europe is one country“. So that means there was very much to see and experience in India. That is the main reason that it was absolutely worth it to come here and investigate by ourselves. But – to be honest – to be able to get a real impression it would take years to really experience the country completely.

Greetings from
Heike and Carsten

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But there is much more to say about our trip in India!

Obviously positive is the rich culture that India has in all its states. This mostly becomes obvious wherever the spirituality of Hinduism, Islam etc. becomes visible. It often is the religious monuments and habits that showed us the culture: temples, statues, clothes, rituals and behaviours were just impressive. India is a different world! That not always was fun for us since differences are differences (to the western lifestyle). Indians e.g. do have a different way to get around with each other: they (physically) reach out much closer to other human beings what sometimes makes you (as a Westener) feel uncomfortable. Indians often (without knowing that it is not usual for us Westeners) sneak into your comfort zone. In the western world people are much more distant. And Indians are very much (!) willing to get in contact with foreigners, they are (positively) curious. So wherever we arrived with Wischnewski it took not more than 5 minutes that the first Indian shows up asking where we are coming from etc. We met very many very friendly people wherever we touched down. And they all (I mean it!) want to make a selfie with us. Especially the men are highly motivated to take a picture with us, especially with Heike (sometimes coming a step to close for my taste). A „white woman“ with blond hair is a big curiosity here. But positive was that it was very easy to get in contact with locals, so we met a lot of wonderful people and families. A bit irritating was that you see plenty of little groups of (young) men rushing around. Maybe the women have to stay at home busy with the household and the kids… The disparity of men and women that we saw not always gave us a comfortable feeling. For Westeners it feels strange if women are not always part of all that social interactions (they sometimes are, but it is clearly despair). Of course we were very happy to meet people but it sometimes was just too much, they are everywhere. And if Indians (sometimes up to 20 standing around our truck) do not talk to you because of language barriers, they are able just to stand there and watch (stare), …they are able to do this for hours. When Wischnewski arrives, it always was topic number one for that village (so everybody came looking). So it was difficult to find a place to relax in all India and that became a bit of stressful for us at the end.

What really was difficult to stand was the traffic in Indias cities (incredible, really!). A pure chaos that can make you mad: trucks, cars, rickshas, motorcycles, bikes, pedestrians and even bicycles driving around like crazy, ignoring all rules, driving maximal risky. And in between there is always a bunch of cows strolling over the streets or just laying there relaxing. All (!!) vehicles in the traffic are honking the horn all (!) the time (like crazy) even if there is nothing to horn at (that really made us mad!). It is almost impossible to drive on Indian roads without having (little) accidents (we so far had 3 little ones, all provoked through ridiculous Indian drivers). Using the highways is another annoying thing: it is almost impossible to get a „Fastag“ (the toll token for Indian toll routs). You have to trick the whole time to get around, so every 25 km you can expect to get discussions concerning the toll you have to pay. After a day of driving on Indian roads you really feel leached (and need at least one snaps, maybe more). The traffic is the reason why we would definitely not come again to India by vehicle. The good thing is that there almost is no police visible, and if there is one you don’t have to take it too serious. Best to do is greeting them with an honest „Namaste!“ and go on driving. We never had a problem with that approach…

At the end, India was too loud, too busy and to hectic for us (when you are travelling in your own vehicle). When you are not able to find a moment of rest during months you are getting stressed. Depending on where you are there still is a lot of garbage on the streets (but this is the same to a lot of other countries where we travelled so far). Remarkable is the hygienic situation that we often faced, e.g. when you go to a restaurant or whatever other place. The hygienic standard in India is much lower than in Europe what is not great when you want to reach out to have some tasty puri or some nice chapati (the Indian breads). We often had that unpleasant feeling that „uuuh, hopefully we do not find ourselves on the toilet in some hours“. The best thing to do is not to have a look at the restaurant kitchen and not to use their toilette . Also there is a lot of spitting (from betel chewing), that also we could no enjoy… And it does not make it better that the Indian men have no problem with urinating wherever they go. We saw so many men peeing somewhere on the streets with no feeling of shame. Also too many very smelly, highly polluted rivers. Really irritating it is when you walk along a beautiful beach early in the morning wondering where all the shit piles come from that you have to circle around. Some (old school) fishermen still follow the morning ritual laying a relaxing ‚egg‘ early in the morning at the beach, into the waves, while having a relaxing smoke. they just honker down and blob-blob, done! The waves do the rest… I was shocked when I saw this the first time ‚happening‘. Another thing that is especially visible in the bigger cities is the poverty. Begging peoples sometimes really come very close to you asking for money, sometimes even touching us. That is not great if you are looking for a nice time. Compared to our first visit in India the situation of poverty and garbage has significantly improved, but still not close to European standard. Especially in the north of India, in winter the smog makes you ask yourself „Where is a relaxed place for us to go!?“ Maybe we just were not able to find the right places, but for us it was almost impossible to find the expected spiritual places that we were hoping to find in India. Yes of course, there are temples and ceremonies everywhere, but in the middle of garbage, begging people and all that noise and chaos it was impossible (for us) to find spirituality and peace. The high temperatures and high humidity in many parts of India did not make that better.

Sightseeing is a good thing to do in India: The well-known Taj Mahal, Delhi, Varanasi, Jaipur, Udaipur, Pushkar etc. are great places to visit, there is a lot to see. With a little luck you can also see tigers and other beautiful wildlife in the multiple national forests.

 

It is a bid sad that the multiple positive things that India has to offer too often are overlapped by the negative aspects. But things are progressing, but that needs more time. The cultural differences are sometimes too big to be ignored, so that the pleasure cannot break through.

One big hope for us was „the Indian food“. Honestly speaking that was one of the big arguments why we decided to drive all the way to India. For me, Carsten, that experience was okay since I have a very good stomach so that I can eat everything and in almost every kind of restaurant. For Heike it was more difficult since her stomach was not completely ready for that Indian hygienic situation. So we were limited to experience the local food. And the variety of food we could get was not so big as expected. It often got back to „a gravy kind of curry dish“ accompanied by one of the (wonderful) breads: puri, nan, chapati & co. This is all good but after 5 month you like to have different stuff. Since shopping (oft western products) was very difficult, we really sometimes run out of food: no cheese, no sliced sausages, no pork, no beef, …India became a diet for us at the end. We lost 5-10 kg each.

So finally we can recommend to go to India for other overlander, but don’t expect to have a honeymoon trip. We are very thankful that we have been there, really, but – with a vehicle – we will not come again. It is the first of the 19 countries that we visited, where we came to that conclusion.

Best wishes from

Heike & Carsten

 

…and hereby some more pictures for you 🙂

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India – our trip continues after a long break (Oktober 2024)

Re-united with Wischnewski (monsoon damages to be fixed)

Hello all!
Our travel break is over, Yippee! After waiting 2 months in Jakarta (Indonesia) and Chiang Mai (Thailand) for the Indian monsoon to finish, we returned to Kochi (South India) in September. Unfortunately, the monsoon caused several damages at our cabin: since the roof hatch and some windows were not perfectly dense, we got water into the cabin. And where you have water and high temperatures mold is quickly there, in the cushions, the mattress, the seats, the curtains etc. We had through away almost everything made of textile because it mostly was not possible to clean. The good thing was that already before that little catastrophe we had plans to buy new mattresses and new seats. So that way we finally did it, we could purchase all materials in Kochi. Of course, there also was a big cleaning session necessary inside the cabin. That took some days (no big fun since it still was very warm and humid in India). Too bad that in between our cleaning session Carsten slipped from a letter and hit his head. But that one was relatively hard, 8 stiches later all was fixed again… that way we could experience how an Indian hospital works (hectic like on the streets), but they did a good job at the end.
It was really good to finally continue our road trip! Due to the sickness and death of Heikes father, it was a break of 7 months for Heike, for Carsten it was still 5 months before we could start our trip again. Now we are very happy to be able to investigate the South of India. It is not always easy to get around in India in piece and with relaxation since there are Indians everywhere and they all want to talk to us about our trip and they all want to take a selfie with us. Usually, it takes less than 5 minutes when we arrive somewhere until a bunch of Indians come for selfies and just to watch what we do. But we got used to it… Even TV Channels, newspapers and plenty of YouTubers got interest in us and our trip. At least in South India we became a bit celebrities (for that, check our new media page).
Not the greatest fun in India is the street traffic in Indian cities (a complete nightmare, you would not image). But a lot of friendly people, where-ever we go. One thing that we had to learn is that cows (they are holy in India) are also part of the traffic: they walk, run, stand and lay everywhere, on pavements, village roads even on highways, everywhere :-0 In the first weeks we spent a lot of time at the south-western beaches of India in the state ‚Kerala‘ before we crossed the country north-east towards the holy city of Varanasi at the holy river ‚Ganga‘ (please see next blog post for that).
Have fun with some pictures from the south of India 🙂
Greetings from
Heike and Carsten
… yes-yes, also greetings from Wischnewski 😉

Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten

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Here you find some pictures from India (South)

To see full-size pictures and comments please
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on the thumbnails!

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Monsoon-waiting part 2: Chiang Mai (September 2024)

Good morning! 

As already mentioned in our last post, we also chose to go to Chiang Mai/ Thailand to wait that Indian monsoon finishes, …so that we could return to Wischnewski who still was waiting for us in Kochi/South India. Chiang Mai is something like our second home city. We visited Chiang Mai for the 5th time now. And – again – we loved it! Great food and great friendly people. Since we already know all touristic things in Chiang Mai, we could take it easy and concentrate on Thai food. Yummy!
But at the end we were looking very much forward to reunite with brave Wischnewski who was already waiting for 4 months for continuing our journey through India. How the reunification with Wischnewski worked, will be the topic of our next blogpost (trouble was waiting!).
In the meanwhile, please enjoy some pictures from Chiang Mai (mostly food :-))
Bye-Bye from
Heike and Carsten

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Enjoy some pictures from Chiang Mai!

To see full-size pictures and comments please
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on the thumbnails!

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In Jakarta/ Indonesia, …without Wischnewski (August 2024)

Hello everybody! 
After our stop in Germany (because of the funeral of Heikes father) we decided not to return directly to Wischnewski, who was bravely waiting for us in Kochi/South India. It was not only the monsoon that was going on in South India what made us wait. The last (emotional challenging) months needed us to make a break to regain strength and confidence to restart our trip in our expedition truck. But beside that, monsoon time (in South India) means that it is not a great time to travel in a caravan. Just too wet and too hot. So Wischnewski had to wait a little longer for our return, because we choose to wait a while in Jakarta/ Indonesia for the Indian monsoon to end. In Jakarta (south of the equator, mostly Muslim and a bit rustical) it was dry season, the right thing for us.
It was a good choice to go to Indonesia! Jakarta maybe is not the greatest city to visit as a sightseer (very big, masses of people, heavy traffic and not many sightseeing things to do). But no problem: we usually prefer just to stay and live in a suburb experiencing the country and the people. And that was the great point in Jakarta: the people! We surely met so many friendly nations/people already during our trip, but the Jakartanians surprised us with their extra-honest and pleasant friendliness. It was easy to realize that tourism did not poison the spirit yet, that was great. And we could enjoy a lot of unknown food. We felt very welcome in Jakarta and had nice 4 weeks there, … before we went on to Chiang Mai/ Thailand to spend another 4 monsoon-waiting-weeks (see next blog post).
But now please checkup some pictures from Jakarta!

Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten

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Have fun with the pictures from Jakarta!

To see full-size pictures and comments please
KLICK!
on the thumbnails!