Somewhere in ... the Black Forest

It has been a long while since we updated this blog and what best excuse than our first wedding anniversary? Yes, it has been one year since that amazing night in the beautiful castle of Palmela. We found ourselves celebrating it in yet another beautiful old historical building, a charming hotel called Parkhotel Adler which has been in the same family since the 15th century, and lies in the south of the famous Black Forest in Germany, in the resort town of Hinterzarten.

Godzilla by the hotel

Hinterzarten is an old skiing resort, a little town with quite a few alpine-looking chalets combined with old germanic architecture - the pinnacle of which was the old church by our hotel whose bells certainly made themselves heard, tolling their song each morning and evening - unfortunately we were to hear it only one morning and one evening, although as soon as we saw the hotel and its surroundings, we wished we could stay here for a much, much longer time!

The weather gods smiled at us - the usually wrong weather forecast had warned of rain, and on the way to the Black Forest we had seen some scary looking clouds, but as soon as we got there, the sun beamed at us and we knew it was time for a hike.

Walking in the Black Forest with Lenka is like going through a (very) interactive biology class - the fauna there is not too unlike that of the Czech Republic, which means I learned the czech names for each flower, fruit, tree and mushroom that came our way - learned which ones were either poisonous, full of blood-sucking monsters, or those which could be used as nose accessories.

These pretty flowers can possibly kill you

The trek took us from Hinterzarten to a very pretty lake called the Titisee lake, where people can eat german cakes in busy restaurants, rent a boat to go around the lake, buy al lsorts of souvenirs or hold "waldfests" (forest parties) with lots of food and beer. Unfortunately people were doing all of this. Many, many people. So after a short rest we decided to go back to the quiet of the Black Forest and hike back to the peace, relaxed atmosphere of Hinterzarten. All in all, we did nearly 10kms of hiking, and it was absolutely stunning. To finish off the evening we rewarded ourselves with a lovely dinner in our hotel's very old, charming restaurant, and toasted to our first wedding anniversary. So far so good.

Somewhere in Siam Reap

Yesterday we have arrived to Siam Reap, located in Cambodja. Yes, it is a very different country to Thailand, in many respects. Visibly much poorer and disorganised (begging and children working on the streets, non-existent in Thailand, is overwhelming in Cambodja). We are also as tourists strongly recommended to use the american dollar which can make day-to-day expenses significantly more expensive than what we were used to with the Thai baht.

The drive from Bangkok to Siam Reap (Angkor's nearest city) was in itself the most adventurous, and simultaneously the worst travel, we have ever been in (brought back memories of that back-slapping adventure and a nasty doctor 28 years ago!). We had to change buses at the border, for a number of reasons: opportunity to sell more things like food and drinks, etc., but mainly because the road from the Thai border to Siam Reap is absolutely non-existent, a rollercoaster ride which I will certainly recommend to implement to the Disneyland Resort manager once we are in Orlando. And I can assure you, this would be the scariest ride you have ever been in, 3 hours of back-breaking, suspension-cracking, dust-infected, 20-years old taxi ride - and this was the best option - we met up with some Fins with whom we organised the above mentioned taxi, otherwise the rest of the bunch from Thailand was stuck 21 people in a normal-sized pickup truck on a 6 hours journey which changed the colour of their skin, hair, backpags and probably even the typically white cells in their blood a disgusting hue of orange.

And why did we go through all this hell? Simply for this:

Angkor is truly the eight wonder in the world, and although it is hard to convey just how beautiful it is we hope that the photos we will at some stage upload will do justice to the magic of the ancient place, with its enigmatic faces looking out of imposing temples, amazing real-estate I tell you!

Plans have yet changed again incidentally. Bureaucratic reasons forced us to do a "small" detour to Phnon Penh, the capital of Cambodja. This should allows us for a 6-hour bus across this enigmatic country of Cambodja, and from then we catch the local RyanAir (called Air Asia) flight back to Bangkok, from where we move on straight away to the north of Thailand, more precisely Ayutthaya and Chiang Mai.

Until then, we have two more days of temple hopping in Angkor, with our private tuk-tuk driver named Boner (no joke!)

Somewhere near the New Year

We're nearly there - I can already smell the Thai food!





Precisely in preparation for that, it is time to brush up on my Thai.





And here's a very simple lesson





Here's a Thai joke....

For more yummy-looking dishes, and how to pronounce them, check this great link

Somewhere inn kickstarts

This is the future location of the Somewhere In ... series following the intrepid travels round the world of two adventurers, unselfishly shared with all of you !

Since some forward-thinking individual has already grasped the somewherein link I have gone ahead and taken the Somewhere Inn instead, which I hope once a chain of motel inns of the same name becomes very successful and attempts to create a blog, the revenues from the sale of the domain will in some way compensate for the above mentioned travel.

In any case Somewhere Inn will be whatever inn, hotel, hostel, motel, tentsite, or the most basic under-the-stars mattress we happen to be staying at the time, from where we can jot down some notes to share with you all, from wherever we are, somewhere in the world.

You may expect tales of adventure, photos of exotic locations, a myriad of irrational of experiences which I may be sharing here- if not, I certainly expect to be living them!

Watch this space...

Yours sincerely

P&L