5 sexy do's for Bhutan

1. First you need to learn about Drukpa Kuenlay, also known as the Divine Madman, Bhutan's favorite Lama. Drukpa Kuenlay came to Bhutan from Tibet in the 15th century armed with a bow and arrow, which he magically used to find suitable virgins to have sex with. Whomever the arrow pointed at, Drukpa Kuenlay would hump.

2.Upon visiting the temple of Drukpa Kuenlay in Punakha get a blessing from the temple's Lama, who is considered to be a re-incarnation of the Divine Madman. The Lama will give you some holy water to sip and rub into your eyes and hair. Then he will tap you head with Divine Madman's origininal bow and two wooden dildos! I promise that it will be a deeply spiritual experience.

3. If you ever wanted children then this is the best place in the world to pray for having one, so pray! The Bhutanese believe that spending a night in the temple will guarantee a child, and they'll be more than happy to tell you how many Western women have found help in this temple after having gone through fruitless fertility treatments for years. If you don't have the time to mull around the temple for long, just get the blessing from the Lama. Even that will help.

4. Should you want to know that your prayers have been answered you need to ask the Lama to let you play dice. Roll the three in pursuit of the sum total of nine, the most auspicious number in the temple. You may guess which number I got...

5. After visiting the temple join the Bhutanese in their belief that painting a huge phallos symbol next to the entrance to your house is not only funny but the best way to keep your home a happy place. How indeed could you be miserable if everytime you went home you were greated by an ejaculating phallos which looks like it's grinning? Screw Feng Shui - phallos points the way to perfect decoration.

Arriving in Bhutan: 8 do's

1. When flying to Paro in Bhutan, try to get a seat on the left side of the plane. That way you will have the chance to see Mount Everest and some other highest mountains in the world from the plane. It helps if you have a clear mental image of Everest - otherwise it can be hard to discern and plane flies past it really quick!

2. Upon landing you will arrive at a very quiet airport. Paro, the only airport in the kingdom of Bhutan receives 2-3 flight a day, all operated by Druk Air, which has a neetly sized fleet of two

plains, flight attendants recruited from the new and popular Miss Bhutan competition and six pilots.

3. Try how it feels like to be Japanese and take lots of photos at the airport. If you had a good seat on the plane, those photos taken from the window should be followed by appropriate shots of the airport. Of course!

4. Be greeted by your personal driver and guide after proceeding through painfully slow passport control and meticulous customs. Congrats! You've reached the ultimate in travel - being escorted around from castles to buffet dinners like grandma on a package tour, only that the others are missing and the guide will respond to any of your whims with a "yes of course we can do it" -smile.

5. If you feel a little stupid about being so pampered, keep in mind, that 60 percent of the 200 dollars you are paying per day to be here goes to the wellbeing of the Bhutanse. Thanks to the tourists who cough up the money to come here, the government can fund free education and health care for its people, which I think, is quite nice.

6. After checking into a very plush hotel in backpacker standards (Telly! Clean white sheets! Towels! Dressing table! Soft mattress! Heaven!) stroll around Thimpu before buffet dinner in the hotel.

7. Now, wouldn't it be nice to see some nightlife in the capital city? Head out to one of the dance clubs where women dance in thick silk jackets and skirts which could stand if they had feet. The dancing does not involve much more then moving weight from one leg to another but it's entertaining enough for a while. And the beer is really cheap, like 80 Indian rupees a bottle, which is less than half what you'd pay in any bar in India.

8. Shun the dance club to go play some Carme with monks in one of the many small bar joints in Thimpu. I can assure you that there is very little Zen in the way these monks whack their Carme board ! They will kick your ass and laugh!

7 do's for the Kathmandu night

1. Get acquinted with people who can take you to drink tongba. Razu at the Mount View guesthouse might prove to be your new best friend if he takes you to Dorje restaurant. If you can't find Razu, you can try locating Dorje yourself. Facing south, take a left turn from Jyatha road just past the Danish bookstore. Walk 20 meters. Dorje will be on your right in the tiny little alley. Say hi to Ases, Udey and Provin for me, okay?

2. Drink tongpa - probably the most ingenious alcoholic beverage in the world.

3. Here's how: Pour hot water over fermented millet seeds in a wooden bucket. Then suck the water out with a straw. Do it again. One tongpa is good for 3-5 rounds.

4. Order more tongpa.

5. When you've had enough tongpa, you've got three options. If you can avoid the obvious one, which is a) collapse you can either b)go see one of the Thamel cover bands play or c) go to a dance club.

6. In case you opt for b) both Namaste Cafe and TNT are nice. The bands all play the same stuff ranging from Arctic Monkeys to Jimi Hendrix but not all of them are good. (In fact, most of them are not.)

So before ordering an expensive beer (usually around 300 rupees) sit around for a while to see if the band is decent. If it isn't move to the next bar.

7. In case you opt for c), be prepared to see a grotesque striptease show in which the dancers don't strip. They just mull around the stage and sometimes take a shower. If you happen to run a fashion agency and have experience in training models to walk in high heels, then I think the girls in these bars could use your help. Oh, and bring lots of cash. You'll have to cough up at least 400 rupees for a beer here.

Bathing with elephants? No thanks

It's cruel. It's abuse. It's wrong. Elephant bathing is one of those things which in a guide book seem like the funniest thing you could ever do, but the reality of it is quite different.

I watched a few tourists "help an elephant bathe" in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal.

The procedure is simple. The dumbo driver tells the elephant to lie down in the shallow river. The tourists climb on and the driver tells the elephant to get up.

Then the biggest mammal in the world gushes water from his trunk to the tourist's face. Ha-ha.

Elelphant is told to go down again and splash, into the river the tourist dives.

Which would be very nice and funny if the elephant wasn't whacked and kicked to perform this tourist ritual.

"Helping an elephant bathe" a term used in the LP was one of the things I really wanted to do in Nepal. I get all silly around these massive animals. Their presence is so commanding, yet they seem so emphatetic as if their yielding to man's wishes was only because they wanted to help out. Elephants are my favourite animals.

A visit to the Elephant Breeding Center will clear one's head of such childish thougts. The croggy little informantion centers goes into surprising detail explaining how elephants are trained for taking tourists to tour the national park.

They start training the elephants when they are 2-4 years old. The young elephant is separated from his mother, and given very little food a water to make it weak. They chain its legs and then drag it around, using a particular little axe to force it forward. Worst of all they treat the elephant's sensitive skin (yes, the elephant's sensitive skin) with fire so that it gets hardened enough for a saddle. After a month's torture the massive animal has succumbed.

Not fun at all.

I've heard that there have been initiatives to find softer ways to train elephants. I really hope that they succeed.

PS.

The info center also tells the tale of wild male elephants who go to nearby villages in search of home brewed alcohol and get drunk. That part of the center I really liked. And the amazingly cute baby elephants who thump around freely in the center. If only watching them did not make one feel so guilty.

Want to see rhinos in Chitwan? Go find a waiter called Santos

If it wasn't for Santos I don't think I would have seen any rhinos in Chitwan National Park.

These days spotting one is a matter of luck - due to lack of surveillance, poachers have been enjoying a field day in Chitwan.

I booked two trips to the national park, both on the same early November day as that way I could escape paying the park fee of 500 rupees twice.

At 6.30 I embarked on a canoe which took me to the park. The 50 minute ride was nice. I saw a silly looking small gharial crocodiles and some XL-sized birds I don't know the name of.

We got dropped off at a sandy beach. Then it was only me and my guide, a plomp little fellow, whom you wouldn't think would survive in the jungle a minute. He was the man I actually booked the jungle safari with the previous night. I thought he was just running the travel aganecy - he certainly had all the characteristics of a travel agent. The fellow was jokey and a tinsy bit slimy, the type you wouldn't want to trust your life with in the jungle but almost decent for a travel agent. Seeing him in his greens, ready to accompany me to the jungle was quite shock.

In to the jungle we went.

"Sometimes rhinos come here to graze", he told me when we were walking through some grass that towered high above our heads, his in particular.

"But not today", I filled in.

"Not today."

We kept repeating this conversation a numerous time during out jungle walk.

There were a few monkies and a lonely looking dear but other than that, no animals were to be seen in Chitwan, Nepal's prime natural park.

I came back from the jungle walk utterly dissappointed, which was stupid as I did know that sightings can be rare in Chitwan. But one always hopes, that this walk, the walk I'm doing, is a successful one. Hope. The wrong attitude for any safari activity.

Irritated, I went to look for lunch. I ended up in Tiffins by the river, a good way from the crowds. Tiffins was empty this time of the day - I was later to learn that Tiffins is always empty, which is a shame, cause the family who runs the place is too nice for the over-touristy Sauraha which is where you live when you are visiting Chitwan.

I told Santos, the family's eldest son, and a handsome at that as well, about my unlucky safari.

He's response blew me by surpise. He was so sincerely sorry for me, the fat white tourist I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

This young man, who's family had moved to Sauraha from their native Gorkha in pursuit of a better life, but who were barely making it there, looked at me which such a sorrow in his eyes that he would have made pre-divorce pricess Diana look like Tinkerbell on amphetamine.

When I left to hop on an elephant safari, he said:

"I really wish you'll see a rhino", like seeing a rhino really that important.

I probably should mention that I've seen quite a few rhinos in South Africa's famed Kruger park. The greedy tourist in me just wanted to see a rhino again. I had paid for it, hadn't I?

So off I went to get on an elephant. I got a nasty back seat on the dumbo and bickered about that too, of course.

Then five minutes in to the jungle we spotted two rhinos. There they were, right at the entrance grazing away like rhinos do, unbothered about what's going on around them. The beasts can't really see much, but they are big enough not to have any natural enemies so they don't give a rats ass about honky tourists zooming their cameras at them.

After the 1,5 hour long safari I went running to Tiffin.

" I saw a rhino! I saw two! And it's all because of you hoped for me to see one."

Santos smiled.

I ordered a Gorkha beer and their Kaju set, which is Nepalese flattened rice, dal, fried potatoes, garlicky buffalo and pickle and watched the sun set over the jungle.

Tansen - a Nepali town without the tourists

Tansen is the type of city that forces a smile on your face even if your guest house faces the noisy bus station and suffers from seriously bad plumbing.

The bad news first. Accomodation in the lovely mediaval city of Tansen does not quite measure the charm of its location. I searched and searched and what I found was bug infested, dirty rooms. I walked out of the Lonely Planet recommended "cheerful cheapie" hotel Bajra in a minute and I'm glad that I did - a couple I met who stayed there were madly itchy from bug bites. The other guest houses mentioned in the book were full, I guess with local tourists as Wessies

are an endeeringly rare site in Tansen.

I ended up in hotel Simrik in a room that smelled like shit but at least it didn't smell as bad as the toilet on the other side of the corridor. The odours of all the piss corners of all the Indian bus stations combined together are Chanel 5 compared to that toilet. Now, did I make myself clear?

On to the good news.

1.Tansen sits on a beautiful hill, topped by a little pine forest and a small Buddha statue.

2. Tansen's center cannot be entered by motorized vehicles as the roads are too steep for them. You'll get to wander around town unbothered by honking horns.

3. And there's so much wandering around to do! The little alleys are filled with vegetable and tailor's shops, chow mein restaurants and tea houses that sell delicious fresh Nepali bread, which actually isn't like bread at all but more like a first cousin of doughnut.

4. No kid will ask you for sweets or money. Most often they won't even hello you. They say "namaste" which is what they should say as you are in Nepal after all.

5. This is the kind of old fashioned place you normally only get to see in the black and white American movies before rock'n'roll came to town. The scenic spots harbour not tourists but shy young couples trying hard not to be seen. The guys will readily volunteer you information on where to go next as they are most eager to get rid of intruders to their romantic moment. How sweet they are!

6. The Nanglo West restaurant, the only upscale one in town, serves amazing Nepali food sets for a fraction of the price you would pay in Pokhara or Kathmandu in a similar place. Beware the garlic!

7. This, I believe, is Nepal.

10 cheapskate tips for the Poon Hill trek in Nepal

The Poon Hill trek is one of the easiest and most famous shorter treks you can do in Nepal. It takes a minimum of four days but can be easily extended to six. The views to the Annapurnas will melt your heart at least if you are new to the Nepali Himalayas.

If you are trying to travel cheap bare in mind that the mountains add an extra charge to everything. Budget 10 euros a day and you'll be quite comfy.

1. You really don't need a guide. The trails are marked well enough and like it or, there's always someone you can ask for directions. The last thing you want to spend your precious pennies on is a cheap guide (500 rs, 5 euros a day), who doesn't speak English that well. There are guides, who are amazingly fluent even in Japanese, should you feel like practicing konnichiwa-ing, but they come with a dear price tag (at least 18 euros a day).

2. You really don't need a porter for the Poon Hill trek (approximately 8 euros a day). Just pack light. I did my layndry every night and only carried a t-shirt, pair of socks and underwear, a light jacket and light pants. In addition I brought along a travel towel, a camera, a torch, necessary medication and four musli bars and a bag of peanuts for emergencies. I was fine although a book would have been nice.

3. You don't even need to invest in a proper map (300 rs). For the Poon Hill trek the kiddy map you get with your hiking permit (2000 rupees) is enough. I'm actually quite thankful I didn't have a map which would have warned me that it's 3820 wide steps up from Tikhedunga to Ulleri. With that knowledge I probably would have collapsed half way through.

4. One thing you must take along are water purification tablets or drops. The price of bottled water in the hills is obscene (250 rupees a litre) which is fair enough as empty water bottles are a serious menace to the environment. You should be made to pay if you are going to pollute!

5. Here's how the accomodation system works: You pay a hundred rupees per person for a bed, irrespective of whether you are one person staying in a double room or three persons staying in a triple. But to get the cheap price you must commit yourself to eating both dinner and breakfast at your guesthouse. If you'd rather eat someplace else the price of a double can go up to 500 rupees...

6. ...Which means that it really isn't worth while trying to cook for yourself. In addition to having to pay loads more for the room, the guesthouses charge 400 rupees for the use of their kitchen facilities.

7. The cheapskates are better of contenting themselves to a diet of noodle soup and momos for the duration of the trek. They are the cheapest items on the menus all of which have the same items on them. A veg noodle soup costs a hundred rupees and plate of momos about 160 rupees depending on the filling. A pizza goes for 300 rs.

8. Get your online stuff sorted before you get moving. You can get on the internet in Ghorepani, but it costs 300 rupees per hour which I do think is a fairer price than the 100 rs you have to pay in Pokhara. You are in the mountains after all. (In comparison, in the non-touristy towns of Mahendranagr and Tansen the price of an online hour is 30-40 rupees.)

9. If you really must have a cinnamon roll (100 rs) or any other "German bakery" item, buy it in early the morning when you can bargain the price down because the roll was baked yesterday. It's still pretty good.

10. Here's the oddest thing: it's usually cheaper to buy separate cups of tea then share a small or a big pot of tea. A small pot goes for 120 rupees whereas a cup costs 35. The small pot barely has three cups in it. It makes absolutely no sense but that's how it is.

Most importantly: every time you feel like bickering about the price remember that in most cases it has been carried up to the village so that you could have a comfortable stay.