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Kaya Rijkeboer

Joined November 2019 Message
  • India
    Day58

    Night in the dessert raaaahhhh

     January 9, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    This was the coolest thing evaaa

    With a lovely group of 5 including ourselves We took a jeep to an oasis first, then an abandoned village and then we got on some camels and rode into the dessert!

    Had traditional Indian snacks and some games of cards; some beers while watching sunset ; and a lovely thali for dinner around the fire. Had some cheeky rum and more games around the fire and then bed time. We slept outside on the floor, under a beautiful sky of stars and woke up to see sunrise with a cup of chai! Then a ride back to the jeep on the camels and then out for some lunch with our comrades. Nice bunch and really beautiful experience!    Read more

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  • India
    Day57

    Exhausted enjoyment

     January 8, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Our lack of rest is catching up to us, feeling a bit under the weather. So just resting for now. Beautiful desert town, with lunch within the Fort walls with amazing city view. Dinner also within the Fort in a tiny bookstore with a cafe in the back. Lucky we're at the end of our trip cause we couldn't resist buying a few books!Read more

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  • India
    Day55

    Back to normal

     January 6, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Ahmedabad was a far enough journey back up but we're so much happier here again! Small town, lots of chaos, cheap markets and friendly people. We are mainly really tired at this point from constant travel but still making the most of it. Went on a fantastic tour through the city.

    Learnt about secret passage ways designed as houses with even fake balconies made as a facade. And the squares having chalk boards to relay messages to the community. The architecture also ranged from Hindu, Muslim to Dutch, German and British. Not because of the rule but because the people of Ahmedabad traveled a lot and then brought a piece of that countries culture and architecture back. Super cool and all around 600 years old.

    Next stop is a dessert town more North and more cold so we bought some warm sweaters here too. Finally getting a bit better at haggling    Read more

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  • India
    Day51

    The best route planners

     January 2, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    So.. Mumbai we didn't like so much.
    Too big
    Too overpriced
    Too polluted
    Too much contrast between extreme poverty and extreme richness
    Too little culture
    Too overpriced

    So we went down here thinking it would be fun for NYE, plus we were cold up north, plus we made a friend in Agra that lived there.

    The cheapest "nice" hotel we booked turned out not even to be in Mumbai but in New Mumbai which was 2 hours away from anything in Mumbai and with nye traffic would have taken about 4 hours with a very expensive uber ride. So we just had a nice night in for nye. Then we stayed in actual Mumbai to give it a proper chance but everything was still super far away! And everything was so expensive and not worth your money. So we quickly left that part of India. We will return to the south some day but probably skip GOA too as it will be the same story only more white people.

    Oh yea we did one activity which was supposed to be really good but with all the time and money spent on getting there it was again disappointing and we payed 600 rupees while Indians payed only 40 which is really the worst price difference we've encountered up till now. Nice cave, not worth the trip.    Read more

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  • India
    Day46

    Lake city

     December 28, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Definitely our favourite place!

    We had such a good time here, its such a beautiful place with really nice people. We made friends with the local cafe owner, Viki and went there at least once a day for some amazing chai or pineaple coffee (this last concept is hard to believe but it is literally the best thing ever). There were some British people that came there everyday too, Micheal and Lucy, we got super friendly with them too. They were in Udaipur for 3 months and a good laugh. Going there really felt like a club house or something familiar. There was also a huge art scene (not to be compared with any art scene at home) in Udaipur so we were constantly wandering into art shops and galleries. By the end of our trip when we'd be walking down the main street we were waving left and right because we actually started to get to know the people. Such nice vibes.

    We also followed an art class which was super good and Udaipur has amazing food too! Really cool to see a traditional Rajasthan dance performance too with beautiful ladies and one who balanced like 20 pots on her head. Such a cool place!!    Read more

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  • India
    Day45

    Udaipur tour

     December 27, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    So we really like Udaipur and wanted to do a tour. We walked all around the old part of town and learnt all about the different neighbourhoods. So "back in the day" but also to this day you used to have all the different proffesions in one neighbourhood. So proffesions were passed on through the generations and you would have all the basket weavers in one area, the potters in another, shoe makers, fruit retailers, they all had their own part. Now it's not super strict but you will still predominantly find the same shops in the same areas of the old town.

    We also learnt about local temples and got some more information about Hindu temples. The best part was trying all the local sweet delicacies, jallebis, yum!    Read more

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  • India
    Day43

    Helping at an animal shelter

     December 25, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Christmas and boxing day could not have been better spent than this.
    While there was no real sign of the Christmas spirit Kaya and I spent a day here at the animal shelter in Udaipur. Much more rewarding than the forts..

    So there are many many street animals in India but not many shelters. While Kaya and I both believe the human needs crisis needs to be solved more urgently it doesn't take away from the great initiative. They take wounded street animals in and cure them, then they release them back into the wild. In some cases (blindness or loss of backlegs) they do adopt them and keep them there as they wouldn't survive back in the wild.

    They also adopt donkeys that have been used cruelly for labour, so we saw many ghastly sights of twisted legs and horrible wounds which is really sad. Donkeys are used here to carry big bags of rocks, way heavier than they are able of coping with and they will tie their front leg to their back leg to decrease speed, with grim results. Luckily they got to stay in this nice enclosure with the cows.

    The cows usually come from the milk industry as when they no longer can produce milk the industry tosses them onto the street, the cows are often too weak to survive on their own after this. The shelter also has many male baby cows that either get killed or tossed for the reason that they can't produce milk. Again, quite sad and this is one we can't even deny happens in the west! Also their are a lot of "wild" cows in India that live on the street. With all the pollution and littering here the poor things end up consuming so much plastic and as a result of this their stomach fills with it, creating a barrier that won't let any actual food and nutrients pass through. They got weirdly bloated and will die soon if nothing is done, again the shelter will try to perform a surgery but to be fair they will just go back on the street again and the same will happen.

    All in all another eye opening experience that was very rewarding. We spent two days there helping out and gave some donations.    Read more

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  • India
    Day39

    The final palace

     December 21, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    OK so now we are actually done with the forts and palaces hahaha. We by chance strolled into this one and thought why not. But we are not as excited any more about these buildings. They are magnificent but we have become desensitised to the true beauty! So we will choose more nature orientated trips and hang outs from now.

    We have made friends with a local cafe owner who made us extremely spicy, but according to him not at all spicy chow mein noodles. Had a good laugh with him. The guest house we are at is very nice, we are exhausted from traveling so taking it easy and decided to spend Christmas here and stay longer until getting a super long train journey back.    Read more

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  • India
    Day37

    Another Fort

     December 19, 2019 in India ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Sooo despite it being "yet another Fort" it was still very nice. Highlights were the views and the fact that every window was an uniquely carved out sandstone piece. Not one window was the same.

    Oh yea and there were birds nests everywhere, the Fort was also named the bird Fort. Also it was inhabited to 1940 which was weird to think about.Read more

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  • India
    Day36

    Blue city

     December 18, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    While Jaipur wasn't actually pink, Jodhpur didn't dissapoint.

    We made a little group of friends in the hostel which was nice, hung out around the fire in the evening and playing games and doing the waking tour together. Having some jokes and then moving on again. Nice stuff.

    Seeing yet another Fort was cool but we have kind of seen them now hahah. The highlight was probably our afternoon hiking through the "rock garden" which was actually a huge national park with beautiful features. For one it was calm (first quite we've had in a month) and the craziest part :no trash. Now that was refreshing. Had a lovely walk around for a few hours.

    Next to that the walking tour we did was really nice learning about the history of Jodhpur as well as some Indian history. Also the views of the blue city were pretty darn spectacular. We liked Jodhpur quite a lot. Good food, nice vibes. When we walked through the city the first day everyone was waving, smiling and greeting us. Very wholesome.    Read more

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