Asia

  • Asia,  Stories

    The baby giant

    Life on the fields Once upon a time, in a remote village of ancient Vietnam, there was a couple who spent their youth traveling and sharing their adventures on their favorite social media, but when the 50th year of age kicked in, they found themselves desperately wanting a child, while not being able to bear one. But then one day, something very special happened. One morning, the woman reached her rice field for her morning 12 hours shift, and she noticed something looking like a giant footprint on the soil. Taken by curiosity, she did what any woman would do under the same circumstances: she stripped naked and measured the…

  • Asia,  Stories

    Geishas and maikos

    The world pandemic made us stay in Japan, thus maybe it is also just a perfect time to learn a bit more of the Japanese culture. In the first weeks we are staying around the Kansai region. We arrived here a week earlier than the cherry blossom, so got plenty of time to find the cheapest food options and the nicest cherry trees. The strolls on the empty streets took us to old Kyoto where we noticed a sign in a street – no pictures? The Japanese girls whom we asked about this later didn’t know which street we are talking about, but a European guy who lives in Kyoto…

  • Asia,  Stories

    The Cinema

    It still bamboozles me that many, many people see traveling to India as something cool, glamorous, even chic. Every now and then, on the tv or social medias, you can see the figure of a hippie, a rasta raggamuffin or a 20-something-years-old girl singing praise about some ecstatic state of enlightenment reached by travelling through India, “the best country in the world, so full of riches and tradition and foodie, namaste” and similar. With the only exception of heavy drug users (not quite uncommon among those who travel to India), which are able to reach such an elevated, although temporary spiritual condition anywhere in the world anyway, only someone with…

  • Asia,  Stories

    The castle

    Being in paradise is a state of mind, different for everyone. While the most common choice to reach Nirvana is through hordes of attractive, available sexual partners and/or rivers of energy drinks & videogames, many also agree that going to some tropical beach, sipping cocktails and observing the panorama, which often includes Instagram models posing in absolutely not erotical ways, is quite the standard definition of having a good time, in a good place. And yet, there is still that irreducible part of people that would have something to say about such an idyllic scenario, commenting that is all wrong, that is actually not as good as in the pictures,…

  • Asia,  Stories

    The rainforests of the Malaysian peninsula

    In the first 1,5 years of the world trip, we are spending around 6 months in tropical, lush countries, and since we prefer nature to the concrete jungles, it is obvious that we planned to go to rainforests. Our first try was in India, where it is safer to get a guide. In Kerala we were suggested by several people to go to Munnar, one of the most famous tea plantation in the country, surrounded by spice plantations, this is how we ended up there after a day-long, crazy bus ride. Even if there was a tea plantation where you can go without the guide (however 15 km by tuk-tuk…

  • Asia,  Practical information

    Transsiberian after: the big Mongolian getaway

    Important information on how to organise “the Transsib after: the big Mongolian trip” based on the trip made in August 2016 How did we start the preparation We were taking a more than 2-week-long trip from Saint Petersburg to Baikal lake, finishing it by coming back to Irkutsk after around 4 days next to Baikal lake. We knew that it is not going to be easy to get to know more about Mongolia without a little help, thus I contacted a hostel in Ulanbataar about whom I got the information that they organise different kind of trips all around the country for travellers. It was around 30 of us arriving…