Fact of the day: Even though Bollywood does not exist in a physical place. The name itself suggests that it’s based in Mumbai (formerly called Bombay) which is the first city were Indian cinema was introduced in. Bollywood is twice as big (in number of movie made per year) than Hollywood! We arranged to meet the…
Category: Asia
The Blue City
We started our second day in Jodphur by visiting Jaswant Thada, this cenotaph was built by Maharaja Sardar Singh of Jodhpur State in 1899 in memory of his father, Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, and serves as the burial ground for the rulers of Marwar. This one is called the Taj Mahal of the Marwar, but I disagree…
I Think We Need To Buy More Water
Editors note: My laptop broke about a week ago (it was actually nice to be disconnected for a few days), that is why we haven’t been posting anything, but after adventuring into the deep world of Mumbai’s electronic district I was able to find the necessary parts to fix it! So we are back to…
Life In The Desert
Today we had a relaxing morning. Our hotel let us use the room until 3:00 pm when we had to go to the Safari (the perks of traveling in low season). We met up our fellow safari travelers at an office outside the fort with just a daypack with the camera gear, a flashlight and…
The Golden City
Jaisalmer, a beautiful town that stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone, crowned by a fort, which contains the palace and several ornate Jain temples. It lies in the heart of the Thar Desert (the Great Indian Desert) and its hot as hell. This morning we hit snooze several times. Being a smaller city with less to do…
900 Year Old Room
Today we decided life is too hard and we needed some traditional Ayurveda Indian massages (Ayurveda is a system of medicine with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent). We found the best rated one which included a driver picking us up at our hotel and taking us to the spa. These massages are all about the…
Gateway To Rajasthan
Rajasthan is a northern Indian state bordering Pakistan. Its palaces and forts are reminders of the many kingdoms that historically fought for the region. The first fort we visited was the Amber fort, this is the most important in the region and the most beautiful so far. Amer, originally, was the capital of the state before…
Beyond The White Wonder
Most tourists come to Agra for the Taj Mahal, they stay 1 night or some come in the morning and leave in the afternoon. We stayed 2 nights not listening to everybody’s advice, and now we laugh at those people, the sights besides the Taj Mahal that Agra has to offer are absolutely amazing and…
The Pink City
We left for the train station a little early and waited for our train that will take us to Jaipur, the Pink City, as it is called because of the color of most of its buildings there. The train was only 3 hours late so waiting in the station was a nightmare. There were several…
Let’s Take A Train!
Editors note: We are trying to give the blog more exposure. If you have been reading and enjoying reading it please take a minute to like our Facebook page. You will get notified every time something is posted. Thank you! Where is Noodle Facebook Page Varanasi has been a really interesting experience, from experiencing first…
I Sneeze Dead People
We started our morning with the market tour, we visited 4 different markets around the old city of Varanasi. The first one was the Paan leaf market, remember on the last post that weird dessert made of multiple herbal ingredients that you need to put in your mouth all at once? Well, here they buy…
Varanasi – The City Of Light
Varanasi is the oldest functioning city in the world. Next to the sacred Ganges river, the city was made by the god of destruction Shiva, so most temples are dedicated to this god. We woke up for a sunrise boat tour at the Ganges river, our guide Babu appeared to be stoned out of his…
Just Another Transit day
Disclaimer: This day was a transit day, so not many pictures were taken but some stories can be told. We luckily survived Delhi and are on to Varanasi. We hired a taxi from the hotel to take us the airport and we got to the airport in ample time in case we had any challenging…
That’s Sikh!
Delhi day #3: We are still alive; this is our last day sightseeing hell. It’s funny because everybody that we have been talking to tell you that they hate this city (locals and tourists alike). Most travelers even skip it; most locals get scammed as well. We have found the touristy sites here impressive, so…
Tombs and Bombs
Second day in Delhi and still alive! that is good news. We are getting a little more confident here but still decided to get another driver for the day. Our first stop was Akshardham Complex, a Hindu mandir (temple), and a spiritual-cultural campus in Delhi. Surrounding the temple they built some theme park looking attractions…
No Problem!
First some geography class for those who didn’t pay attention in school: Do you know the difference between Delhi and New Delhi? Delhi is a Union Territory which has 11 districts, of which New Delhi is one. New Delhi is the capital of Delhi, as well as India. New Delhi is the area of Delhi…
Istuti Sri Lanka
Istuti means thank you in Singhalese, on of the 2 main languages in Sri Lanka, the other one is Tamil. Thank you, thank you, thank you Sri Lanka for being amazing, your people, your nature, your food, your relaxed atmosphere. Our expectations were blown away (we just didn’t like the tourist attraction crazy prices). We…
Sri Lankan Safari
This morning we woke up early to climb Little Adams Peak, its an easy 2 hour roundtrip hike that takes you to the top of one of the multiple peaks around the area. The view of Ella rock is nice. After finally some normal American breakfast, we headed to Tissa (short for Tissamaharama and I’m not…
Getting Scammed in Delhi
This post is jumping the queue, but I think its important to share what happened. We will still post our last days in amazing Sri Lanka after this one. Enjoy! When people talk about they travels in India they say it is not a vacation, it is a challenge. It took us 3 hours in…
Found By Mistake
Today we had the challenge of finding a normal breakfast to eat. Our hotel didn’t include breakfast so we decided to find a place in town to eat. We were recommended to go to the place we had dinner and when they showed us what they served for breakfast it looked identical to our dinner…
Ceylon Tea
First, a little bit of history: Between 1948 and 1972, Ceylon was an independent country in the Commonwealth of Nations that shared a monarch with the United Kingdom. In 1948, the British Colony of Ceylon was granted independence as Ceylon. In 1972, the country became a republic within the Commonwealth, and its name was changed to Sri Lanka….
Koh Tao – The Eitan Way
Koh Tao is known to be the Scuba diving mecca of Thailand, that’s why I decided I was going to continue my PADI education there. I chose Ban’s Diving as it was a 5 star PADi school and owned by a Thai family; it is actually the biggest scuba school in the world. The Advanced…
The Climb To Sigiriya
We had some traditional homemade breakfast before heading out. I cant remember the name but it was basically some black grains compressed into a tube with coconut milk on top. it was really tasty and apparently super difficult to make, so we are lucky Lanka (Guesthouse host) offered to make it for us. Manoj (our…
Destination: Sri Lanka
We had a transit day in Bangkok… Sarah got a pedicure to help recover her feet from all the bare feet temple walking (it was a noticeably good pedicure!), Eitan used the day to book some hostels for later in the trip, we went shopping for some clothes and we ate our last delicious Thai…
Cezu Tinbadeh Myanmar
Disclaimer: No idea how, but all this happened in a single day. Enjoy! We learned how to say thank you in Burmese really fast, “Cezu Tinbadeh”, when the locals said it to us it really sounded like “Cheese and Tamales”, so that is what we said every time we wanted to thank a local person….
No More Buddhas Please!!!
Today we were woken up by loud music. This town starts the party around 6am…luckily we had to wake up early otherwise it would have been really annoying. We took the bumpiest bus ride ever back to Mandalay, it was about a 4 hour ride but it felt like 22 hours long. We had a bathroom…
1001 Temples
Today we opted to sleep in a bit longer and missed the sunrise but were still up by 6am to go see temples before it got too hot. We rode our e-bike again and Eitan was wearing his Longyi that he bought in Mandalay. We decided to use Thanaka instead of sunscreen to feel more…
Cruising To Bagan
We woke up early to take a boat that will take us to Bagan, the city of temples. The hotel staff had our breakfast to go (we were to early for the breakfast time) and a taxi ready to take us to the pier. We boarded the “luxury”cruise that will take us down the Ayeyarwady…
Mandalay Colors
In order to get to our Myanmar flight we needed to leave Bangkok during rush hour, the taxis would have been very expensive so the only budget option was to take the sky train to a station close to the airport and then a taxi from there. But once we were about to leave, we…
Kob Khun Ka Thailand
Today we saw a different side of Bangkok that was amazing. We took a Thai food cooking class which is a must if ever in Thailand. It began at 9am where our fabulous tour guide/chef Nancy took us to a local market and showed us what to buy for what we will be cooking. We…
Once Upon A Thai
If there is something I universally hate, that would be the taxi drivers; the Bangkok taxis take my hate to a whole different level. Here it’s pretty much impossible for a tourist to get a taxi driver to activate the meter and get a fair price. They just won’t do it, they just give you…
Islands To The Mainland
Our last day in Samui was pretty relaxing. We just spend a couple hours in Chewang Beach and then we got an amazing traditional Thai massage. I (Eitan) classify massages in 2 categories: 1) Gentle rubbing that helps you reach nirvana in around 1 hr. 2) Rubbing that could be used as a torture method…
The Last Of The Kohs – Koh Samui
We took a ferry to Koh Samui, we messed up and booked it to the wrong pier and ended up on the other side of the island, not a big deal as it takes only 30 minutes to travel to the other side. Samui is the third and largest island of our Thai island tour….
The Backpacker’s Rite Of Passage
The next day we got a Thai with coconut oil massage to remove the stress of life. Big mistake, after we were covered in coconut oil, we immediately became Thailand’s whole mosquito population free buffet. Our massage consisted in rubs, stretches and probably around 459 slaps to kill a mosquitos, the bad experience didn’t end…
Koh This, Koh That, Koh Phangan
We took the ferry to Koh Phangan, home of the famous Full Moon Party. It takes about 1.5 hours to get there plus another hour in a truck to get to our hostel Shiralea. Sarah sat next to this nice guy from Texas, Mark, on the ferry and learned about his travel adventures and his…
Koh Tao – The Sarah Way
Today was our first day not with each other in a month because Eitan did a 2 day Advanced Diving course here, so Sarah got to explore Koh Tao on her own. This is Sarah’s 2 day on her own: I shopped and bought some more hippy pants and a head band. You can’t seem to…
Are We There Yet?
Today the journey to Koh Tao began! We left our hostel at 9am, 5 hours before our flight to Bangkok because we didn’t want to risk it with Jakarta’s apocalyptic traffic and we were hoping to take advantage of our access to lounges and have a good meal (and wine) there. We arrived at the…
Terima kasih Indonesia!!
We arrived at Jakarta at night and it took us around 2 hours to get to our hostel (traffic is apocalyptic and we were driving during rush hour!). Six Degrees hostel has won 3 consecutive years “best hostel in Indonesia”, its pretty awesome with a pool table, a roof garden/bar and 2000 movies to choose…
Borobudur And The Strawberry Spider Sandwich
We woke up at 3:00 am (again) to go to the amazing Borobudur temple to see the sunrise. Our friends Lauren and Heather were at the same tour as well. In order to see the sunrise you have to pay another rip-off ticket of around $35 that includes breakfast (coffee and a miniature fried bread…
WHERE IS NOODLE 