From the Land of Holy Cows to the Land of Smiles

“Sawatdee Krab” my friends!

Yes, I agree, it has been too long since you’ve heard from me, time to make that right :-) Last time, and that seems like ages ago, I wrote to you from the beach in Shreewardan when me and my Bajaj were on our way to the Southermost point of India. Let’s just continue where we left…

Although the scooter proved pretty reliable and was so far doing quite alright, especially considering its age, on the way to Goa, it broke down several times. Fortunately, no matter where we stranded, there would always be an Indian ‘mechanic’ nearby, so within no-time I would be on the road again… However, just before reaching the famed beaches of Goa, due to overheating, the piston exploded which cost me a full afternoon of reparations and a lot of money. So when I met a Swiss guy, who offered me to buy the scooter for a reasonable price, it didn’t take me too long (but with pain in my heart, of course) to decide to sell it and to continue traveling by public transport again.

Goa itself, the former Portugese settlement which is famous for its beautiful beaches and its ‘Hippy Days’ in the 60s and 70s, frankly didn’t appeal to me that much, since it was over-crowded mostly with drinking and dealing Russians who have seemed to take over the whole place. Time to move on… well, let’s be honest and admit that I did spend a few days chilling on the beach first :-) After a pleasant train journey through a tropical landscape, I arrived in Fort Kochin: a historical (the Dutch East Indian Company settled there) and laidback place in the North of Kerala, the state which is called: ‘God’s own Country’… Besides the fact that Kerala is probably as beautiful as Goa, but without the (Russian) tourists, it’s best known for its ‘backwaters’: a wonderful network of lagoons and lakes lying parallel to the Arabian Sea coast. Enough for the tarmac roads! I first explored the backwaters on a day-trip and then took a boat South, across some broader canals to the beach-town of Varkala where I spent a few days relaxing (again…) with a few people which I met on the boat. One of them, Felicity, who appeared to be a ‘freshly-graduate’ from Law School, just like me, was also heading for ‘Land’s End’: Kanyakumari and we decided to travel there together. We weren’t the only ones… Kanyakumari, or Cape Comorin, is where three oceans meet (Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Sea of Arabia) and it has become a major destination for Hindu-pilgrims, which arrive there everyday in bus-loads to visit one of the most surreal temples I’ve ever seen. Yes, it was definitely a special place and I was happy to have made the trip this far!

Haha, getting there ‘slowly slowly’ was one thing, but somehow I decided to take the train back… back, all the way to New Delhi: 3096km northwards… :-S However, this 55-hour train ride (which cost me not even 10euros!) went very smoothly and before I knew it, I got off in the middle of a cold night (in the meanwhile it had become winter in the North of India) at the New Delhi train station still in my beach-outfit and rushed off to my hotel. The next week, I would spend in the nation’s capital sorting a few things out (making plans, booking a flight to South East Asia), visiting the last cricket match in the ‘ODI-series’ between India and Sri Lanka and just to spend a while at one place…

All set, I started heading for my last destination in this fascinating country, which had been my home for over three months. Being amazed by the beautiful Himalayas before, feeling the cold of India’s winter and having heard of a well-hidden ski paradise in the North, I would finish this part of my trip with some off-piste snowboarding in the forgotten state of Kashmir!! Although most people would immediately think of Kashmir as a dangerous conflict-zone where you’d rather stay away from, the Indians which I met during my travels were all very enthusiastic about it and praised its beauty. As some of you might know, Kashmir is not only well-known for its beautiful landscapes, it is also were the original ‘Pashmina-shawls’ (you know, those shawls/scarves which you’re being offered wherever your travels might take you: “Hello sir, beautiful scarf for girlfriend?? No, Mother?? No?? 100% Pashmina!?”) and arguably the world’s best saffron come from. After doing some research on the area, I concluded that the conflict between Pakistan and India, which is still the major source of the bad relationship between these countries, merely takes place at its disputed ‘line of control’. Since that would surely not a place where I would hang out, I decided to go. From New Delhi, I could only take the train as far as the city of Jammu, where I changed onto a shared jeep, which took me all the way through the snowy and grey Kashmir Valley to Srinagar, the state capital. Once, this city saw herds of tourists, coming from all over the world to stay on a house boat on its beautiful Dal Lake. Nowadays, the tourists are gone (except for some brave Indians), the more than 2.000 house boats are still there… I met up with Sures, a Malaysian friend of mine who I got to know earlier in the desert of Jaisalmer, we spent a few days exploring the mysterious city and its lakes (there are theories that Jesus Christ spent ‘the forgotten years’ of his life here…), celebrated new year’s with the hilarious house-boat owner (Shaffi ‘the King’) and his family, and then moved on to Gulmarg, the centre of the skiing action in Kashmir!

We arrived rather early in the season and the snow conditions were not yet super, but hey, since I’m only a beginner, I settled in the cheapest hostel in town (7euro/night including breakfast and dinner!), sorted out my snowboarding equipment (3euro/night) and was very excited when I finally got on the highest skiing Gondola in the world, taking me to an altitude of more than 4.000m… that’s the real work!! What followed were two weeks of non-stop snowboarding action, grrreat views over the Himalayan range of Pakistan and India, meeting loads of nice people from all over the place, getting almost completely lost during some off-piste snowboarding, eating some great Kashmiri food while wearing a traditional ‘Feren’ (huge sort of jacket which is necessary to keep you warm) and falling loads of times, fortunately without hurting myself too much. Even though I was prepared to see some military throughout the region, the amount of soldiers on each corner of the street (I’ve heard there are supposed to be more than a million of them in the region) did come as a little surprise to me. However, while skiing down the guarded slopes and walking down the roads in town, the soldiers presence proved not to be intimidating at all and often the only reason we got stopped was because they would love to have a picture with us on their mobile phone…, after all, it’s not that different from the rest of India ;-)

While I’m already leaving out a lot, I do realize that I should try to finish this story soon before it becomes too long… Alright, after leaving the snow behind, I took a train to Kolkata in the North East of the country to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur, which would be the start for the second part of my trip: South East Asia! (Air Asia, which is really comparable to Ryanair in Europe, had a great offer and my flight cost me altogether not even 40euros!) Not thinking about it too much and being quite accustomed to the way of living in India, Kuala Lumpur: the hyper-modern capital of the well-developed Malaysia came as a shock to me… Where did all the beggars go?? Where is the chaos on the streets with all sorts of vehicles making loads of noise?? Where is all the pollution and why is my hostel super-clean?? Indeed, Malaysia (and probably this part of Asia in general) is just a lot more developed than the Indian sub-continent and after a few days of walking around, observing life around me, taking the mono-rail around the city (!!) and doing some shopping in one of the huge electronica-malls, I slowly adapted to the more Western standards of life. On my way to Cambodia, I decided to make a little stop-over on the island of Ko Phi Phi in Thailand, which became famous for the movie ‘the Beach’ with Leonardo di Caprio and there I met up with a good friend of mine (Britta) which I got to know during my exchange semester in Montreal two years ago.

Wait, Cambodia?!? Let me explain: being five and a half months on the road now, I feel it’s time to make myself useful again. Five and a half months of enjoying only the good things in life, traveling around while exploring beautiful places and meeting loads of nice and interesting people were just great! However, in the end, one of my main goals for this trip is also to find out whether I could do something with my Law degree which would combine my interest for traveling and exploring new places and cultures with working (to make a living) and my interest in ‘transitional justice’. For this reason, I’m focusing on Cambodia right now, since this is a country with many human rights issues and, even more interesting from my point of view, since the UN and the Cambodian Government have set up the so-called ‘Khmer Rouge Tribunal’ in order to prosecute five main suspects of the atrocities which took place during the 70s. Therefore, I’m right now in Thailand’s capital: Bangkok to spend a week reading into the history of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge-era, to try and make some contacts and to see if I could make myself useful in any way over there…

And here I am now, in the middle of Bangkok’s Chinatown, writing to you from a surprisingly pleasant hostel, not knowing where I’ll be in a few weeks time… Ideally, I would be in Pnom Penh (capital of Cambodia), working with the Tribunal or with any activity surrounding it for the next 2 or 3 months. However, if that would turn out to be impossible, I’ll be looking to do something else, just to get a feeling of what it is to work in the field of human rights… I can’t wait and I will definitely keep you up-to-date! I hope in the meanwhile everyone’s doing fine and I really appreciate keeping in touch with most of you. Let’s just keep it that way :-)

All the best and “La Koon”, Marijn