Through the Caucasian mountains to Yerevan

After having a great time in Tbilisi we decided to take a mini bus to Yerevan. The drive did lead through the beautiful mountain area. Unfortunately the driver was driving like crazy, as being in a race driving as fast as possible, passing everywhere and it not all the holes in the street. Bernd was scared to death and several times was about to though up. Up until the mountains we did have a great view, especially due to the sun.

At the end we both survived and arrived after several hours of driving.
We were lucky quickly finding a good place to stay at so we did not have to waste much time searching for a room and begin making plans for the next days.
The first thing we decided to do is visiting the blue mosque. We both still remembered the blue mosque from Istanbul we visited years ago. This here is much smaller and not as much decorated but still very nice.

As you can see the weather was not as nice as the last days anymore. We had a mix of rain, snow and in the afternoon sun. Bad weather did not stop us from exploring and Bernd did make sure that he won't get wet, he always hid below the umbrella and let me stay in the rain/snow.
Our feet did take us through the rain to the opera where we started thinking of maybe going to an event inside.

From the opera we headed to the cascade complex climbing up millions of stairs. Which remind me on of my best friends birthday we celebrated in Kitzbühel. We did climb up the Hahnenkamm. Before we could get up there I needed to talk the girls into doing it, at the end they agreed but threatened me that I would need get along with their complaints, there were non at all.
And with Bernd ... well ... it was sort of surprising that my ears did not start bleeding. So different.

In our way back down we arrived at Matenadaran, a museum close by. We also went in and did take a look at many old books there. One of the most interesting parts were the languages in there, for example books from Italy printed in Armenian and also other combinations. And there have been a lot of books.

All this walking did make us hungry so we went to an Armenian restaurant to get some local disses and have a short break. The food was great and gave us back some energy. From the restaurant we headed to the place of the republic. Which we already saw at night when we arrived in Yerevan.

Despite of getting much energy back from our lunch Bernd started complaining and wanted to go back to our hostel, I could at least get him to visit Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral. He did not regret going there, especially since the weather was much nicer and he could by some ice cream.

The next day we decided to go together with some other travellers to Etschmiadsin a town close by to Yerevan. We did build an international group making the conversations much more interesting. Japanese, Russian, Indonesian and us German guys.
During the night it got colder and it was snowing the howl day.

We did first take a look at some churches at the center of the town. What was new for us to see an open air church (you want to know more ?).

Bernd did hear some rumors about a treasure being around there so we started searching for it. We did not need that much time to find the treasure but some other people did get there before us and put it into a museum.

Since we did walk around in the cold weather we did decide to take a break at a restaurant or coffee, to not walk too far we just picked the one inside the church area and were positively surprised about the appearance. A nice medieval looking restaurant with much space in the basement.

Later that day we did get back to Yerevan and headed to the opera to join an event there. We both have never been there before so it was a new experience for us.

And this is how the story begins / continues

After telling you that we go again together on a longer journey we did still take some time to decide where to go first. The decision was not easy and we discussed for hours, finally we found or first destination the capital of Georgia (not this Georgia). The Georgia in Caucasus we picked, which we both think is much nicer. No offense please, its just our opinion.

To get from the airport into town we took a brand new awesome car and Bernd did insist to drive it, what at the end turned out not to be such a good idea. At first everything went we'll but then ... you know pictures say more than thousand words.

Of course the way to our guest house was still long, do we just left the car behind and did trap our stuff and started our long long walk. Bernd got really mad and grumbled all the time and was willing to beat something. And as usually he found something, it was very close but I could convince him to not destroy the bridge. So reason that it would be a big detour for is did make the point.

To get a break from all this walking and relax our feet we decided to take the cable car up the mountain and visit an old strange looking building.

Up there we met with the mother of Georgia and did have a very good conversation with the old lady. We wanted to take some pictures together with her for the blog but all the time something did prevent us from taking a good picture e.g. light, angle or blinking. If you want to know how she looks like click here or not.

Hours later we did take a zip line to quickly get down again, it was a short but amazing ride. I never heard Bernd screaming so loud before. Unfortunately again no pictures or even videos. Bernd did drop his phone in the ride so all got lost. But I still had my phone so a short while later we went to a water fall and enjoyed the scenery. It helped Bernd to calm down a little bit.

I know the waterfall is not as amazing as the ones we saw in Iceland, but it is still a waterfall. And we both love waterfalls.
Back in the center we also mad e a break in a small park where we found a strange looking statue. Bernd was joking around and came up with the strange joke of people getting hung with a bell so also the audience staying far away can realize by sound that the person is finally dead. The real story is a bit different, want to know more ?

Close to the point from where we went up we found a weird looking building. Looking like a big tube or even a cannon build out of glass. Later we got to know that it is a concept hall.

Since our car got broken we did have to walk a lot. We first did have the idea to take the metro but then we would not see what is between the stops and the bus routes seem not so easy to be understood. We did find another option, the biggest bicycle we have ever seen. Great to get quickly to the next interesting place.

Our plan with the bicycle did fail since we would try to get it going into different directions and we did not want to fight who's going to lead.

Later on we managed to find the underground. Not like the underground in London or the criminals. Just an interesting ancient bazaar located below the streets with a lot of interesting things.

Episode VI - The return of the travel buddies

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away  ... ok ok it is not so far away, more like the same planet. At least far away in meters and kilometers.
There have been two travel buddies who have been travelling around together for months, years ...

For a long time we did not travel together, what does not mean that we did have a fight or so, we only did go on our own ways. Bernd did take care of his TV career and I did go back to "normal" life.
So we both spent almost to much time working.
And trying not to be too busy.

To not bore you to much with telling every little detail about the last five years (feels like a different life already) we will provide a short overview and only make some small remarks about the things we were doing.
Bernd did meet in Prague with one of his not so famous friends.

Also he made some new extremely cool friends with whom he only spent together a few days.
So some stuff happening in Bernds life without his travel buddy.

For sure now you wonder what I did do in all this years. The answer is simple nothing at all.
Ok I did not only work I was also able to go on some good journeys with friends and also getting new friends.
I did visit some places in Germany like a small famous castle in the south of Bavaria.

Spent X-Mas in the Caribbean and having the best time of my life (and I'm a person barely using statements like this) with awesome people, good weather and much fun.
We did have our own special X-Mas tree there.

Also I did try to be at least a little bit creative and created my own travel map, which is not up to date anymore, at least the picture is already missing some markings for places I did visit.
The map is having a size of about two by one and a half meters and is a wooden board.

This is it. And now it is time for us to again travel together, see new places, make new experiences, end up at places we may never thougth of visiting.
Go and see the world is our current mission

Cambodian temple raiders - the lost story

Sorry for not posting earlier, but somehow this story got lost. Also the pictures with Bernd on it. He was really upset about it, but all restoring of lost files did not help.

After X-mas we left Thailand and got on a bus to Cambodia (yes we still did not tell about our adventures there). The bus only got us to the border of Thailand and getting across reminded us to our journey to Myanmar. Also that we had to cross the street because the traffic is going on the right side in Cambodia.

We decided to stay at a very special guest house in Siem Reap, Bernd and I got a hint for this special guest house at the border to CambodiaThe Mad Monkey, a guest house for young people offering a pool and a bar at the roof top, sounds good and when we got to see the place it was as great and interesting as described.

In Siem Reap we had the big plan to go to Angkor Wat, the big temple complex. For sure walking won't be a good choice, you can walk around there for hours and still not reach all the temples.
Before starting our tour we found a used but still valid ticket from another traveler at the guest house. There was a picture of the guy on it, but we hoped that for the Asians we Europeans would look like each other. Like it is said from our side about the Asians and the opposite.
And it worked. We got in there without needing to pay.
First we got early in the morning to the Angkor Wat temple, the biggest of the temples. It was told to be very beautiful during the sunrise, unfortunately the sky was cloudy so no special sunrise this time.

After the sunrise we did take a look around in the big complex, must have been amazing being here in the past.

Again we some stone piles, sometimes we were curious if they used some kind of glue to get them this high. Bernd was close to smash one of these piles down but I managed to stop him, telling him that he for sure will get caught and be punished for doing that.

Also nice at this temples were the long empty halls, surprisingly not so many people around, during we were waiting for the sunrise it felt so crowded, that we thought we could not make a single step running into someone or having to wait in a long line of people.

From Angkor Wat we got to Angkor Thom, for us it felt more like the monkey temple from the Jungle Book, not only the first impression of the building at all, there were also monkeys around.

Before we entered the ruins Bernd had the bad idea to buy some pineapple and the next bad idea was to hand them over to me when we entered the temple. Only a few steps inside and one of the monkeys got to me and was not like a dog begging for the pineapple, he was almost assaulting me.

I let the monkey jump for a while before I let him get what he desired. Was not willing to fight for hours because of some left parts of the pineapple.
Especially we wanted to take a look around and not only stay at the "entrance" to the temple. At least this fighting with the monkey more made us think about the Jungle Book and start singing King Louies song "oh shubidu i wanna be like you.. ".

At the next temple we did much enjoy climbing around. Not like in Europe you are allowed to leave the path and find your own way. And it got more crowded around here, so it was easier to climb up at the temple walls instead of taking the stairs also we got a great view from the top of the temple.

The next amazing place was Ta Prohm, a temple ruin in the jungle. In the past they were taking some scenes for one of the Tomb Raider movies, not sure which one. For sure it was a good choice to take the scenes at this wonderful place. We both liked this temple most here.

  

At some parts Bernd got scared and did not want to go any further, so we had to go away from the specific place and find another way trhough the ruins, but it did not realy look that dangerous.

The temple was not just breaking down from the time also the nature was going to get back what was taken away in the past.  Making the temple look even more amazing.

We spent so many time walking around in all the temples that it became already evening and we hoped to at least see a nice sunset. Hoping that it won't happen like in the morning. At least the day was not all the time cloudy like the morning. And at Prae Roup Temple we got a very good view for the sunset. Interesting was here that all the other people were waiting at the edge for the sunset, it was more interesting to see some parts of the temple during the sunset.

When we came back to Siem Reap we were not as tired as expected and went into town to have a good night with live music and other travelers we met.

Diving and jungle fun

We left the north and got more to the southeast of Thailand to spent some time at the beach and I wanted to go diving.
For doing that we got to Koh Chang, not too far away from the Cambodian border.
The weather was already great when we got closer and on the ferry to the island we already enjoyed a sunbath.

At the island we took one of those group taxis looking like a pickup to get to the lonely beach, which was not really lonely. Surprisingly we found a few metres away from the spot we got off the taxi we a great place to stray at, the staff was very nice and the rooms very cheap. Well nit everything was perfect, it was not that silent around there, because the guesthouse was in the centre of the walking street, but we did not get here to sleep all the time. More to do some activities, diving and to enjoy some good music. What made that place even more attractive, every evening they have live music and not only this annoying house music you hear at beach parties.

First thing we were this time doing was not going to the beach, because I wanted to get a good company offering dives around the island. After that we went to the beach, jumping into the water and seeing a nice sunset.

We were having a good time and as a joke I told Bernd that I could catch the sun, he did not belief me so I proofed it to him.

The next day I went for diving, again with some teaching, the first diving spot was at a ship wreck and with the current certificate I was not allowed to go that deep, so the idea of only making fun dives changed to make also an adventure dive and getting another certificate.

Later again I met Bernd at the beach, where he found a new friend. His friend was looking like a snow man but actuality it was a sandman.

The evening we spent at our guesthouse and when the live gig was over we checked out the beach bars, as expected we only got to hear house music, what did not satisfy us. So we did not stay too long there.
At the next day we wanted to go into the jungle, not tracking this time. On the way we stopped at a nice beach, with some trees growing and staying in the sea. It did not look like they have been on the ground

Around in this area we found a sign scaring Bernd to death. He has for sure seen to many of those apocalypse movies with monkeys spreading a poison or virus.

It took me a while to calm him down and another time when saw some monkeys jumping around in the trees.
Luckily there were no monkeys around the treetop climbing park we were heading to. And he needed all his concentration for the climbing so he won't see the monkeys around us.

At the end of our trip to Koh Chang we saw a very great bar looking like a tree house, not on top of the tree but still very nice.