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Wunderwutzis
  • Pascal Mcgechan
  • Celine Stettler
  • Pascal Mcgechan
  • Celine Stettler

Wunderwutzis

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  • Wunderwutzis

    Kayseri

    October 7, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    We took a dodgy smokey 🚬 blah blah car to Kayseri to meet Sibels fiance and his family.
    We were welcomed warmly and cooked a late night dinner and slept in the lounge.

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    Cappadocia

    October 8, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    The next morning after a family breakfast we left for Cappadocia. We spent the day exploring the Stone formations and ancient temples and homes carved into the rock.
    We also visited Mustafas (fiance) village where we were gifted fruit and shown the art of making traditional turkish bread 🍞.Read more

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    Halfeti

    October 14, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Ayse Nur had decided that she would like to join us on some adventures. The first of these was a visit to Halfeti and a boat ride up the Euphrates with kliffs, castle 🏰 ruins and a sunken city (due the birecik dam 2000).
    After seeing this as well as a black rose garden. We hitchhiked home... back to Ayse Nurs place.    Read more

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    Helping on the farm

    October 15, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    We visited Ayse Nurs enormous family in a village not far from the city. Here we cooked on the fire 🔥 ate food cooked by 3 generations... saw our first ever pistachios growing on a tree, collected mint and picked our own pomegranates.Read more

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    Adıyaman Mehmet Ayse Nurs uncle

    October 15, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ 🌧 19 °C

    It was time to leave gaziantep behind us for good now... Ayse Nur had gotten to like roaming around with us and wanted to escape having to go to her religious cousins engagement 💍 party (or not so party), for some wierd reason her military father seemed to trust us and so we set of to Adiyaman.Read more

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    Nimrud Dag

    October 17, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Bought provisions at the local bazar ate far to many mandarins, Hitchhiked to nemrut and arrived at the run down information center 2 hours before sunset, just as clouds turned into rain 🌧.... we decided to go up anyway but we're reconsidering our A plan to camp and it felt like rain was about to turn to ❄️.
    And as we came down from the mountain it was so windy we decided to look for some other form of shelter...
    Which is how we ended up staying the night in the museum right next to the exhibits and that's just what we felt like early morning (4.15) when the first tour busses arrived sending gabbering flocks of tourist flooding into the museum and of course all around us...
    Well awake for the sunrise 😀    Read more

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    Wild dog 🐕 camp

    October 19, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Since we couldn't camp on nemrut we decided to try again. This time in the shores of the ataturk dam. 40 minutes outside of Adiyaman.

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    a kurdish arabic night out

    October 21, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    we arrived in a rougher city called Urfa, with incredible angry car drivers. in this city there is a story about Abraham and a fish pond and something with fire. the fishes are still there and nobody eats them because they’re holy.

    It’s a religious city with lot of different ethnicities. for the first time we felt not so welcomed - until our badass host Aisha drove by with her old car blasting rap songs from the 00es. she hardly stopped and yelled: Yallah get in honey. We loved her from the very first moment.

    She took us to dinner and she even managed to make all the very angry men smile. Somehow she was a main character in an old sex and the city soap opera just replace sex and way more patriarchy.

    We stayed in her apartment for two nights with two cats. It was refreshing to meet a young woman living her life within the cruel judgment of society.

    She took us dancing and made us really drunk!    Read more

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    Mardin

    October 23, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    with heavy hearts we said goodbye to Aysenur. she traveled with us for the past two weeks and we really do miss her. (come back please we need you as our hitchhiking pro and translator!)

    now we’re in Mardin. for couple of days we rented this cute Airbnb to process all the stuff we experienced the last few days.

    Luckily in Mardin there is wine. old traditional assyrian wine. oh and did I mention the Arabic influenced kitchen? we‘re 20 km away from the Syria border. nomnom.    Read more

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    Batman Petrol City

    October 26, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    After hitchhiking through Midyat, we met with Dara in batman we were told to wait under the bridge for him. He toke us for coffee and then to his family in the countryside where we ate and slept 😴.
    The next morning he rather unexpectedly asked where we were staying this evening although we had planned to stay for 3 days we re planed and went to Diyarbakır a few days earlier.    Read more

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    Diyarbakir

    November 3, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Diyarbakir was our last stop in Turkey. And we really loved it. We met incredible kind kurdish people. There are a lot of beautiful small restaurants with live music in the evening. We met so many great musicians and artists. Sadly life for them isn’t easy. It’s not allowed to play kurdish music or to paint non-nationalistic art…

    After 2.5 months Turkey we where so glad to find a vegetarian and vegan restaurant! (way tooo many Kebabs) Oh and a coffee place which actually sells coffee! (Chai is fine but we really missed coffee)

    So after all we stayed for more than one week to prepare ourselves for the next adventure - since we didn’t get our Iran visa….    Read more

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    major update

    November 5, 2022 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    It’s not exactly easy traveling by land this days. We have to admit that the Russian - Ukraine war has a lot of impact on various countries. Gas as well as food is getting more expensive especially for people outside of Europe. The sanctions don’t stop at Russia … all the Russian dependent countries like Kasachstan or Kyrgyzstan are affected as well. Many trading routes are closed.

    Freighter are not traveling the regular routes plus the Iranian Revolution makes this part of the world impossible to cross. We talked with travelers who recently left Iran because they didn’t want to put host families at risk. The government is using every excuse to put people in jail or let them disappear. Especially those who were "influenced by western culture".

    Other travelers like us are trying to get on an a boat to Egypt and then cross the Suez Canal waiting in Jeddah for a boat to India. The chances are small. Others applied for permanent residency in Turkey and try to work there until Iran is open again.

    We decided not to take the route through Russia. (Georgia, Abkhazia, then Russia, Kazakhstan amd then somehow down). Because of several reasons but a good one is: winter with -30 degrees - is not particularly fun to hitchhike through those huge dimensions.

    So… long story short. We decided to take a plane to India! Yes, we do feel like we failed. Yes it wasn’t our plan to fly. Yes maybe we are too impatient to wait until the revolution is over. Yes this is clearly a privileged problem.

    Especially in Kurdistan we learned that it’s important to stay flexible and not creating problems when there are none.    Read more

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    Namaste, Bitches

    November 6, 2022 in India ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    after an intense 24 hours journey we made it to Kochi, India. That’s all for now - Thank you for reading my Tedtalk.

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    Udhagamandalam Railway Station

    November 9, 2022 in India ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    After 3 hours impatiently waiting we managed to get a ticket for an old train (from Switzerland höhö) to Ooty. A place high up in the mountains with lots of tea plants. The ride was scenic with fierce 10km per hour. 18 Samosas and 7 hours later we arrived in Ooty.Read more

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    Ooty

    November 10, 2022 in India ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    we enjoyed some days in Ooty at a great guesthouse. we hiked to a hill called "tiger hill."
    on the way a farmer stopped us and warned us to be back at 6pm - because of the cheetahs and wild bisons. After this tip the forest turned a bit darker. Luckily in India you’re never alone.. after a 10 minutes hike we literally crashed a film set.
    there the locals told us to return before 6 the animals are already hungry during daytime. Btw. the mister bison we met personally.. only Heidi was brave enough to take a picture of him!    Read more

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    Dort wo der Pfeffer wächst!

    November 12, 2022 in India ⋅ 🌧 20 °C

    Since Ooty was a bit cold we decided to take a bus through the jungle down to Gudalur. Our home: an organic farm (coffee / pepper) run by two doctors who won humanitarian awards. our days where filled with walks in the rain, discussions about reincarnation and delicious food.Read more

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    Way to Mysuru

    November 14, 2022 in India ⋅ 🌧 26 °C

    After some quiet days in lush greenery we decided to head north. We agreed on skipping the tiger safari and took a local bus instead who crosses two tiger reserves. The road was bumpy and lots of locals hopped on through the space where once was a door. We saw heaps of white spotted bambis all over the place and then suddenly we jumped out of our seats: AN ELEPHANT. A wild one. No one else on the bus was impressed but we felt very grateful for this short moment.

    After that we arrived in Mysuru. We got ourselves an auto rickshaw to head to our Airbnb. The areas got rougher and rougher and at the roughest point the rickshaw stopped. Slightly surprised the driver stopped and while unloading our backpacks he teaches us "go away" in hindi. He was mentioning that we could call him if we need any help. Seconds later our mysterious host shows up and opens some rusty gates - welcoming us to our new home. All three of us shared some suspicious looks. We just wanted to ask for the wifi password but the host disappeared magically. Sitting there we made the fastest decision in our trip: let’s get the hell out of here.

    Minutes later we sat in the very same rickshaw and the nodding driver mumbling: bad area for tourists.    Read more

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    Mysuru

    November 17, 2022 in India ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Mysore is the the city of yoga someone told us but we didn’t exactly find any proof of that. For us it’s the first "bigger" Indian city so we’re a bit lost. By the way the second Airbnb was a hidden gem. The host family was incredibly cute and compared to the let’s call it a man cave we now have a cute little apartment with terrace.

    Compared to the state Kerala, Karnataka seemed a bit less smily and a bit more starry. We decided to do some sightseeing what could possibly go wrong, right?

    The Mysore palace seemed the palace to be. We sneaked our way in with shoes in our hands and got caught. So we turned around walked all the way back to the shoe stationery. Given the chaos there we decided to sneak in again this time with the shoes hidden in our bags.

    Inside we watched thousand hours of work. Gold, silver, and ivory work. While we where paying attention to architecture and paintings it seemed that all the other visitors where paying attention to us. In other words: children got basically thrown at us and forced to take pictures with complete strangers. Just as we wanted to make an excuse after the 172895 selfie a new line was all formed up - patiently waiting to take a photo with us. It’s a thing. Even an old really old granddad timidly stood next to Pascal while the grandmother was explaining that he is to shy to stand next to a woman. I waved him over.. what are you gonna do?

    We finished our day in a European trash place with extra woke European yogis drinking real European coffee.    Read more

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    Salem

    November 20, 2022 in India ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Taking trains in India is one thing - booking them is the real shit show. We tried everything. Literally everything. The good old analog way: walking causally into a train station ticket office, speaking with real employees. And the inhuman fast digital way: book online. Here is a description of both of the scenarios - to get a slight impression. What matters for both is: India has an scary obsession with formulas.

    Céline: #teamdigital
    Why interact with humans when there is the possibility of sweet digitalization? Here the guide: Check online for an application to book trains. First problem - there are many apps. So you choose one, fill out all the information, register just to figure out that it’s the wrong one. You slightly get nervous but auto-fill function on iPhone knows all about you anyway - so just download the next app.

    New app, new problem, you can’t book the train because your a tourist. So you go to the next page to fill out the tourist form. It’s annoying but hey, it’s the last time you had to fill out your father father’s name and you move on to the; payment method. The international Visa card is ready so are you. Just as you press that "buy now button" the erroro404 appears to tell you that you can only pay with an Indian bank card…as a tourist. You start all over again, there is still another app. You again type in all the fathers fathers names only to have the app telling you: that the seats are already taken however you can book the waitlisted seats…yey.

    Pascal: "let’s just go to the office."
    So we’re at the train station. It’s a fresh morning and it’s 10 o’clock. There is a counter called tickets and another one named reservation. We stand patently in the line to wait our turn.
    Once we’re there the limited reply is:
    "no trains available".
    We tried to convince the guy that there are trains to our destinations and that we just need to book the train at 12.05.
    "There is no train".
    People behind us start to yell past us to get the tickets guys attention.
    After pointing out to the ticket guy that there most definitely is a train to our destination he nods.
    "Go to the other counter."

    So we arrive at the other counter. The woman removes the closed sign and looks at us. Immediately there is people behind us. Our time is limited. We explain our situation again. She wants the passports and some extra forms. We feel the impatient crowd behind us. She confirms and we’re ready to flash our credit cards… instead she wants cash. Of course.. But listen folks, we came prepared because we already know the fucking issues.

    There we stand at platform 6 at 11 o’ clock, just to notify that we only booked half of the trains for today.

    We decided to separate. One is looking after the luggage and the others go back to book the tickets. We’re confident now we know the process so we start with the no-train-guy.
    "There is no train.."
    "Yes yes we know which counter?"
    "Go out, to the left, to the left again and enter ticket office."

    We arrive to a new counter yet not a new scenario. After convincing the new guy that there are trains blabla.. we hear a new excuse. Apparently we can only book online. Deep breath here. We explain ourselves and after 5 minutes arguing - he might book a ticket for us - therefore he needs our passports. FUCK they are at platform 6. Celine is running, Pascal is fighting our turn. It’s 11.45 and tick fucking tock our train is leaving at 12.05.

    Exactly at 12.04 we’re sitting in the train drained in sweat with not enough snacks for the next 7 hours ride…    Read more

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    Puducherry

    November 21, 2022 in India ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    We arrived in Pondicherry. Ex french colony where we enjoyed some french pastry and the coast vibe for couple of days. À tout.

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    Auroville

    November 25, 2022 in India ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    After saying goodbye to Heidi we decided to stay in Auroville for some time. A very special place where people with 124 nationalities started a new society. Back in the 68es they started to replant 10 millions trees. They believe in human unity and try to live without hierarchies and money. During this 4 days we read a lot and proceeded the last weeks.Read more

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