The largest country of Central Asia is Kazakhstan. Being more than 60 times as large as the Netherlands, it’s the 9th country of the world in terms of size. However, due to the fact that the vast majority of the country is empty, there is not that much to see and or do. With two potentially interesting cities and a nice train ride, I visited a country that somehow captures the imagination even though it felt more as a transit than a proper visit…
Somewhere in Asia is a region I wanted to visit for several years now. It is historically defined by its nomadic people, a region with an extreme continental climate and where few cities have been developed. It’s also a region which has acted as a crossroad for the movement of people, goods, and ideas between Europe and Asia. In my perception it had not yet been discovered by mass tourism and in addition, some very interesting culture, architecture and scenery would tickle my senses. I’m referring here to Central Asia, or “the Stans”. Of course, I couldn’t wait any longer to go explore…
For the last decade I have been skiing all over the globe and the objectives and goals within the sport of skiing are getting more and more specific. In the end, steep and remote skiing is what it all comes down to for me. Only few places offer this combination and Alaska is definitely one of them. The Chugach mountain range is known for having great and stable snow conditions on a huge variety of slopes. Valdez is supposed to be one of the best places to experience the Chugach to the max. This spring I simply had to check it out!
When it comes to skiing in a different culture not too far away from home, the Balkan region offers plenty of opportunities. A wealth of culture and history can be found in the many countries that form the region, making a trip to this part of the world very interesting. However, snow coverage, the weather, finding reliable ski partners, language barriers and tough logistics can make a ski mountaineering trip difficult. So, while facing many challenges, was I able to make something happen?
One of the up-and-coming ski destinations is definitely Georgia and especially a region called Svaneti. Clearly I’m not talking about one of the states in the USA but about an exotic country located in the Caucasus. People are supposedly very friendly and welcoming and some remote skiing is on offer in several parts of the country. In February 2017 I boarded a plane to check it out!
Being a huge fan of travelling the subcontinent of India, Sri Lanka was an obvious destination for my next trip. Expectations were quite high with the prospects of beautiful scenery, great beaches, interesting people, wildlife, nice train rides and some delicious spicy curries, but could these expectations be met?
New Year’s Day is one of those typical days of the year. A bit groggy from the night before, you slowly wake up. At some point you visit the neighbors and they visit you in order to exchange the formalities. To be honest, those are not the most exciting times. One thing that comes back every year, and strangely became part of Dutch tradition, is watching the ski jumping competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on television. You can guess it by now, I had to change this tradition and watch it live!
September is usually a perfect time for some spring skiing in the Southern Hemisphere. Since I visited the Andes last year (you can read about that trip here) and my last trips had been ski trips anyway, I figured it was time for a change. After all…variety is the spice of life, so I planned a nice summer holiday. I waited for the high season to finish, so temperatures would drop a little bit to a more convenient 25 degrees Celcius and the huge crowds would hopefully be back home. Dubrovnik was a city high on my list of places to visit, so I planned a trip around it and visited Croatia. I started in its capital Zagreb and slowly made my way South through the Plitvice lakes, Split and the islands of Hvar and Korčula and finished in Dubrovnik.
In 2016 I travelled in Croatia for nearly two weeks. At first I was mainly looking for Asian food which I like so much with a salad every now and then to mix things up. After about a week I realized I simply couldn’t leave the country without trying a local specialty. When I was in the beautiful little town of Hvar a highly praised restaurant begged to be visited…
For several years now, I am a huge fan of Asian food, Indian and Indonesian in particular. It’s got a lot of flavour and is not too heavy, you can eat without building up any guilt, if you know what I mean. Many countries nowadays offer a wide variety of food because of the many immigrants from all over the world. In Croatia however, there are not so many immigrants from other continents who fill up the streets, which makes the number of Asian restaurants limited. Luckily, Zagreb has a great one: Curry Bowl.
