Join us as we descend into our RTW trip!
So this is our last blog for this WorldTour! The trip was awesome fun and hard work. We would do it again in a heartbeat! It was great getting all your help, feedback and comments along the way! We hope to see you all soon.
We'd love to know if you've been reading these blog entries - please leave us a note by going to the "Post a Comment" section at the bottom of this blog or clicking on "Comments" below.
Cheers and Happy Travels!
- Smruti & Dev
Here's a quick way to click through to our blogs on different countries - 180 days around the world (much much slower than Phileas Fogg). This has links to all our blogs from August 2004 to March 2005!
:: Luggage - Looking at my backpack
:: Moscow - One step back, two steps forward
:: Prague - Prague's Disco Cows
:: Barcelona & Madrid - Darling, how Gaudi!
:: Cairo & Giza - Tut and Touts
:: Mt. Kilimanjaro - Polay, Polay
:: Mabula - Malaria-free Reserve 2004
:: Gujarat - Veerayatan
:: Rotorua & Auckland - HHHaaaaaa!!!
:: Rio de Janeiro - Heeo dge JhaneihoWe now have panoramic photos from our trip! The panoramics give a completely different feel for the place being photographed - much more space and light and perspective. (Our camera had a panoramic photo feature which allowed us to take some great shots.. we could only assemble/stitch them together into composite photos once we got to California though. So here they are. Note that you should click on the image to see a bigger & better image. You will see some weird effects in some of the photos - the stitching software had some problems.)
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RUSSIA - THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG
The Hermitage is quite a huge palace, rivaling the Louvre in size and also in quantity and quality of art. The photo here shows the front of the palace. It was somewhat of any overcast day. Note the little statues on the top of the building.
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RUSSIA - THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG
This is a view of the building opposite from the Hermitage. The archway in the middle goes on to an interesting part of St. Petersburg - lots of cafes, shops, canals and more!
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EGYPT - RAMSES TEMPLE, ABU SIMBEL
The massive status of Ramses II stand right in front of the temple. In addition to being gigantic and very nicely carved, the whole temple, including the statues, have been moved uphill block by block to avoid being drowned under the waters of the Aswan lake. There are absolutely no clouds in the sky and it is very hot - upwards of 40 degrees Celsius or 100 Fahrenheit! And we've been awake since 3am to get here in time! Note the tourist on the right-hand side who's leg was cut off by the photo stitching software!
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EGYPT - ABU SIMBEL
This photo shows both the Temple of Ramses and the Temple of Hathor. You can see the hills above the two temple - both sets of hills were moved in their entirety to avoid the waters of the Aswan lake which you can see on the right hand side.
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EGYPT - ASWAN LAKE
Right next to the Temple of Ramses at Abu Simbel is the Aswan Lake, formed by the Aswan Dam. The other side is Sudan!
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EGYPT - LUXOR
This is one of the walls at the Temple of Hatshepshut at Luxor. In 1997, 50 Greek tourists were gunned down over here. The hieroglyphics on the wall are fantastic. For some reason, our guide kept talking about some James Bond movie being shot here.
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EGYPT - GIZA PYRAMIDS
One of the pyramids at Giza, near Cairo. Again, it was a hot hot day.
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EGYPT - GIZE PYRAMIDS
All three pyramids at Giza. You can see the entrance that goes into the right-hand side pyramid.
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EGYPT - GIZA PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX
You can see all three pyramids here, in addition the Sphinx. There're a couple of nice lunch places right next to the Pyramids - somewhat a tourist trap but completely worth it after nearly getting sun-stroke walking around the Pyramids.
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EGYPT - ELEPHANTINE ISLAND
Nubian ruins on Elephantine Island near Aswan (inhabited from 5500-3100 BC). The people who still live here speak Nubian and Arabic.
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EGYPT - ABU SIMBEL
Wall carvings from the interior of the Temple of Ramses at Abu Simbel. Low ceilings and dim lighting made it hard to see much.
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EGYPT - MT. SINAI
The completely barren landscape near Mt. Sinai. You can see the St. Katherine monastory to the right hand side. The path to the top of Mt. Sinai continue behind the photographer.
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EGYPT - MT. SINAI
Sunset, as seen from the side of Mt. Sinai. The path continues on the right hand side.
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EGYPT - MT. SINAI
Chapel on top of Mt. Sinai. Some campers brought their tents and pitched them here. Apparently, the sunrise is quite spectacular.
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JORDAN - PETRA
Near the Treasury at Petra. In the distance, around the corner, is the rest of Petra, including the amphitheatre.
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JORDAN - PETRA
Another fantastic view of Petra. You can see steps on the left-hand side that have been worn away over the centuries by wind and water.
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JORDAN - PETRA
The walkway toward Petra. The walkway leads to the Siq which is a gorge that runs for over a kilometer through solid rock, leading to the Treasury at the entrance to Petra. Horses and their riders thunder up and down this pathway, trying to lure tourists. On the right-hand side, you can see the Djinn rocks - huge boulders that look very strange and sometimes have tombs carved out inside them.
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JORDAN - PETRA
On the left-hand side is a small hill full of little tombs. Some are fully carved out, some are half-carved for some reason. The tombs themselves are not very high - one has to crawl or stoop to move around inside them.
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JORDAN - PETRA
The monastory at Petra. It took us a good 1 hour to climb up to this monastory. In the distant hills behind the monastory, one can see Aaron's tomb.
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JORDAN - PETRA
The view from the monastory at Petra. Completely moon-like barren landscape.
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JORDAN - NEAR PETRA
On the road from Petra to Wadi Rum. Apparently, somewhere in the distance, one can see Aaron's tomb.
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JORDAN - WADI RUM
This was apparently a house where Lawrence of Arabia lived.
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JORDAN - WADI RUM
Huge mountains rise up vertically from the sand. The mountain sides have been carved away over the millenia by water and wind. Also, several millions of years ago, this area was apparently under water.
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JORDAN - WADI RUM
View from our camp. The rock in the middle somewhat resembled a tiger's head.
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TANZANIA - NGORONGORO PLAIN
You can see zebra and wildebeeste grazing here as well as some gazelles resting on the right hand side.
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TANZANIA - NGORONGORO CRATER
This is the view from the road leading to the Ngorongoro Lodge overlooking the crater. It's quite an awe-inspiring moment to see the clouds drifting across the plain and also shadows moving across the plain which turn out to be huge bunches of animals.
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TANZANIA - NGORONGORO CRATER
This was the view from our room at the Ngorongoro Lodge. The most spectacular view I have ever seen from a hotel room!
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TANZANIA - MT. KILIMANJARO
The view from the top of Mt. Kili, near Gilman's Point. You can see the Kili glacier on one side.
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TANZANIA - MT. KILIMANJARO
Half-way up Kili, we rested for a day to acclimatize. That day we walked up to Zebra Rock (so named because of the distinctive striped running down the side, as you can see in this photo) and then back down to the camp.
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KENYA - KAREN BLIXEN'S HOUSE, NAIROBI
This is where part of the movie "Out of Africa" was filmed with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Karen Blixen herself lived here and this house was gifted to her by the Danish Consul General.
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SOUTH AFRICA - TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN
The view from table mountain is fantastic. One feels like one is at the edge of the earth.
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SOUTH AFRICA - TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN
You can see the cable car cables on the left-hand side. People come climbing up the rock also!
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SOUTH AFRICA - JOHANNESBURG
Football game between Nigeria and South Africa. Emotions were running high!
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SOUTH AFRICA - SAFARI PARK
Safari park belong to Vijay Mallya, an Indian businessman. You can the rhino eating peacefully on the right hand side.
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INDIA - NEW DELHI
This is a view of the maidan near India Gate in New Delhi. Lots of people playing cricket!
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INDIA - GUJARAT
This is the Sun temple in Modhera, near Ahmedabad. The geometric patterns of this place were quite amazing. Apparently, this temple was built 200 years before the Sun Temple at Konarak and the Konarak temple took much inspiration from this place. In the center, you can see a green area which is the bottom of the tank. Rainwater would fill up the tank and people would use the steps to go down to the water level.
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INDIA - RANTHAMBORE TIGER RESERVE, RAJASTHAN
A rest-stop inside the tiger reserve. Near the stream are a few crocodiles, basking in the sun.
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INDIA - RANTHAMBORE TIGER RESERVE, RAJASTHAN
Area near the lake at the tiger reserve. You can see peacocks in this photo.
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INDIA - RANTHAMORE TIGER RESERVE, RAJASTHAN
Central lake at the tiger reserve. Towards the left-hand side, you can see a sambar (type of deer) that has waded into the water to drink. Apparently, the tigers have adapted to this by plunging into the water in pursuit of the sambar.
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INDIA - WHITEWATER RAFTING CAMP, GANGA RIVER
All along the Ganga, above Rishikesh, there are a number of camps situated on clean white sand. In this photo, you can see the lunch tent in the center as well as the tents we stayed in on the right hand side.
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INDIA - WHITEWATER RAFTING CAMP, RIVER GANGA
The white sand gave way to rocks on one side of the camp. On the right hand side, you can see one of the rafts, ready to be placed in the water.
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INDIA - TSUNAMI-HIT COASTAL AREA, VEDARANYAM
The coastal area had been completely swept clean. There were patches of quicksand everywhere as well.
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NEW ZEALAND - KAIKOURA, SOUTH ISLAND
We went on a cliff walk on Kaikoura. This is the view looking away from the cliff toward to mountains in the background. The photographer casts a shadow on the right-hand side.
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NEW ZEALAND - ROAD BETWEEN QUEENSTOWN AND CHRISTCHURCH
Along the way, we stopped to admire some Lord of the Rings scenery.
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NEW ZEALAND - ROTORUA, NORTH ISLAND
The hot springs near Rotorua were quite colorful. In the center, you can see an upwelling of rose/red/orange-colored water. In the background, you can see a little footbridge that has been put in place to let people walk close to the hotsprings.
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
The photos below are all taken in Rio de Janeiro. Beautiful views from the top of Sugar Loaf!
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
Sunset, as seen from Sugar Loaf Mountain. You can just about see Copacabana beach on the left-hand side.
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
The cable car is reaching the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain. More of the sunset.
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BRAZIL - RIO DE JANEIRO
Little secluded beach about an hour north of Ipanema.
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PERU - CUMBAYO, NEAR CAJAMARCA
This was taken on the road on the way up to Cumbayo.
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PERU - CAJAMARCA
An aerial view of Cajamraca city.
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PERU - CUMBEMAYO
The strange formation on the right hand side is volcanic. We walked down to it and then through it!
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PERU - CUSCO
Cusco, city of the Incas. The church in the middle was situated right in front of a beautiful ground.
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PERU - MACCHU PICHU
Beautiful setting of Machu Pichu. It was the rainy season, so clouds kept drifting in and out. We took this photo sitting near the caretaker's hut overlooking the main residential area of Machu Pichu.
Hope you enjoyed the photos as much as we did!
Cheers,
Dev & Smruti
It is difficult to answer the question "What was your favorite place?" It depends on so many things! - from the natural surroundings to man-made artifacts such as buildings and temples to experiences with tours to meeting with friends to entertainment shows and more.
As you know from reading the blog, we have missed out huge chunks of the world. These include Italy, Greece, Turkey, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia, Great Britain, Central Asia, Scandinavia, Western Africa, North America, Central America and much much more. Sounds like the whole world, right? In addition, we didn't even do justice to the countries we did manage to visit on this trip.
As we were told before we set off on our trip, there are many themes we could choose to focus on during our trip... we could have taken any one of these themes and made that our central focus for the trip - but we did not. If you are planning on a trip, perhaps you might like to pick one such theme to focus on. These themes could be wildlife, culture, writing, history, partying, religion, adventure sports, colonialism, mysticism, among many others. As an example, it's amazing for us to think that our tour of the world could be depicted as a religious tour of the world (this was not our intention) - after all, we visited religious establishments (as historical places) all over the world and much of what we saw was built or destroyed because of religion.
Notwithstanding all this, we have put together a list of our favorites - yes, some of these lists are quite long, just about sufficient to put you to sleep quite quickly :-) they're more to help us remember as we lose our brain cells inexorably over the next few decades. :-) None of these lists are sorted in any way.
FAVOURITE NATURAL WONDERS & LANDSCAPES
Wow! The world has an amazing amount of beautiful places! From scorching deserts to snow-capped mountains to beautiful beaches to green meadows, here're the countries we thought had outstanding natural beauty:
FAVORITE MAN-MADE WONDERS
Humans have done amazing things with all sorts of natural resources - carved cities out of mountains, extracted metal from the earth and built it into huge towers, created islands out of plants and mud, and created & collected huge amounts of works of art in fantastic settings. We would nominate some of these places for the the top man-made wonders of the world!
FAVORITE EXPERIENCES
These experiences were unforgettable. Something that we would go do again if we could! More than anything else, these experiences have whetted our appetite to do more of the same! We've got to go do more diving, more whitewater rafting, more flying in helicopters, more mountain climbing, more safaris and much much more...
Unforgettable
Very memorable
WORST EXPERIENCES
We had our share of bad experiences as well - mostly very frustrating times such as getting visas, getting lost and getting sick!
FAVORITE SHOWS/ ENTERTAINMENT / SPORTS
We saw a bunch of different shows around the world from tribal dances to flamenco dances to players dancing on the soccer pitch to samba dancing. Live shows were the best. We did see a bunch of movies but did not think it made sense to mention movies here.
FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
The quality of food was very variable in all the different places we were in. Chinese food seemed to be the most high quality and standardized everywhere we went!
COUNTRIES WITH THE BEST NIGHTLIFE
The partying went on late into the night all around the world. One thing is for sure - people everywhere are intent on having fun. I must say though that the Latin world (Spain, Brazil etc.) are on quite another level when it comes to partying! We also had a wonderful time meeting friends for dinner and drinks!
COUNTRIES WITH THE CRAZIEST TAXI DRIVERS
We had taxi drivers who would scream at us, shout at us, change the price half-way through the drive and, worst of all, tell us they knew where they were going when they had no idea where to go!
- Dev & Smruti
If you are planning a trip to several countries, you may be interested in what we learnt from our trip. The bottomline is that you don't need as much as you think you need. You can get a lot of what you need along the way. Also, don't forget the option of shipping stuff back home.
We went through various climates along the way, including winter-like cold in Russia, Peru and Mt Kilimanjaro, hot summer in Brazil, Africa and India and temperate weather in New Zealand and France. So we had to pack for all these types of weather. We had to plan for the following things:
Luggage - Our backpacks (bought from REI) each weighed in at about 20 kgs (about 44 pounds) when packed. Very heavy! This isn't counting the weight of our daypacks which we used for carry-on luggage on planes and also to carry water/food/tickets/passports etc. We also made sure that our bags, money, passports & tickets were secure at all times. We carried number locks plus money belts. We also bought two "stuff" bags each - these can be used to separate out things that would otherwise get completely lost or messed up (such as socks or electronics.
Clothing (Smruti)
Clothing (Dev)
Footwear - We took along several pairs of footwear given that we were going to be trekking, shlepping around tourist sites, running and going out at night! Apart from books, this took up the largest volume of space in our backpacks. We had trekking boots (Hi-Tec is a good brand), we had day-wear sandals (with ankle straps to offer the best support), sneakers, we had running shoes and we had going-out shoes. We thought we had overdone it but it turns out that we used most of these pretty frequently! The only one that we did not end up using too often were our running shoes (unfortunately).
Finances - It was surprisingly easy to get access to funds and keep track of bills etc. ATMs are available in every single country in the world - you have to manage how many times you go there since there is a hefty transaction fee for international ATM withdrawals. Best thing to do is to use the credit card (rather than cash) so that you get the best exchange rates and also don't have to go to the ATM that often. Also, we had already set-up online bill payment (best thing since sliced bread!) so that all our bills were being electronically sent to us and paid electronically. We also kept track of our expenses on paper (I tried to do this on my PDA but it was too time-consuming!). We had also taken along traveller's checks - I had originally thought that we would never need this but we found that there are several places in the world where ATMs are not available.
Medicine - For medicine, we picked up a first-aid kit at Walgreens. They come with bandaids, antiseptic liquid & cream, needle & thread, small pair of scissors etc. We also took along our prescription Malaria pills which we had to take once a week. We added some aspirin, cottonwool and some Immodium (anti-diarrheal). This served our purposes for the whole six months. The one thing that we did require along the way was some Diamoxx (anti altitude sickness) when climbing Mt. Kili - we got that there.
Toiletries & washing - Along the way, we got mostly all the toiletries we need (soap, shampoo, etc.) plus washing detergent. The most important items were sunblock and chapstick with a good SPF. The sun tanned us something fierce! We did take along with us insta-dry handwash gel - this is invaluable whenever sitting down for meals without access to a clean bathroom and was difficult to find anywhere in Africa. We did take along a universal sink plug with us to enable us to do laundry wherever we were staying.
Entertainment - We had our MP3 player along with a pack of cards. We did pick up a travelpak of Scrabble & Chess which was great for long train or plane journeys.
Books - 
Books were essential, although we've heard from some other people that they never even once opened up the books they took with them. Most of the places we went had book exchanges so we were able to exchange anything we bought along the way for things we hadn´t read yet!
Miscellaneous - Our swiss knives were very useful - good for cutting up fruit, annoying plastic luggage tags, has a nail file, etc. Also useful were tweezers. It was very useful to bring along a diary/journal and pen for things like addresses, travel info, numbers, recipes and more!
Communications - keeping in touch with friends and family through the phone, email etc. Covered in a separate blog.
Electronics - taking along all gadgets that we deemed necessary to take photos, hear music, make phone calls etc.! Covered in a separate blog.
RTW tickets & visas - covered in a separate blog on ticketing, guides, visas and health insurance.
What we did not use - we ended up getting several things that we did not use, including:
Hair dryer- seriously got to be a pain to have to plug in the transformer and hold it in manually when it didn´t fit the weird sized plugs in Egypt, Morocco, etc.
What we should have taken along -
- Dev & Smruti
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