12 additional symptoms that tell it is time to leave India

31. You always refer to Indian cities by their new, post-colonial names. Yes, even Thiruvananthapuram.

32. You spend an evening watching the sun set over Manali with Russian-Free-Jazz-pioneer-turned-full-time-hippie Viktor Lukin who's trying to tell you your future using numerology. Strangely enough, he keeps getting all numbers mixed up or forgetting them completely. Must be something in the water.

33. Of the three main mango juices you only drink Frooti, because Maaza and Slice are owned by evil multinational corporations (Coca-Cola and Pepsi, respectively) that are raping the earth of it’s love and resources. You also think that Limca > Sprite and Thumbs Up > Coke, regardless of the fact they're essentially identical products manufactured by the same company.

34. You consider Ravi Shankar a sell-out.

35. Octopussy has your become favourite Bond-movie, but you never miss an opportunity to nitpick about it's errors (like the fact that Bond flies to Delhi, yet we see the plane landing over the Taj Mahal, Agra, and when he arrives in India he's suddenly in Udaipur, not Delhi. WTF?).

36. You can quite accurately determine the quality of a chillum just by looking through it. This endowment usually goes hand in hand with the ability to comprehend the meaning behind the lyrics of Jefferson Airplane's "Hey Frederick".

37. Continuously using the phrase “Real India” when conversing with other travellers (especially if they‘re less experienced than you), and it's always some place they haven't been to and never mentioned in the guidebooks. Also take pride in the fact that you never disinfect your hands, have stopped using malaria medicine, wash your clothes in a bathroom sink, walk around barefoot and complain constantly about how India has changed for the worse (implying that it's economic boom, increase in living standards and influx of foreign tourism has diminished it's "realness").

38. You’ve adopted the following local traits: You never pay any attention to the traffic when crossing a street; wobble your head when talking to locals; understand and follow cricket; are able to recognise “India-virgins” from a mile away (“look at that insecure walk, you can tell he has just arrived“); pronounce “bus stop” as “bus-is-stop" and never buy a full pack of cigarettes, only a few separate ones (either beedies or Gold Flake).

39. Having reached astronomical heights of pretentiousness, you rename yourself after a Hindu God. This has actually happened! I was sitting by a tea stall in Delhi when a dreadlocked backpacker and his hippie girlfried, who hadn't shaved her armpits in years, sat opposite to me. When I asked the guy for his name this happened:

"My name is Ganesh."

"Your name's Ganesh?" "Yeah."

"Is that the name on your passport?"

"No, Ganesh is my real name."

What an asshole. This is why we can't have nice things!

40. When a two eager young Indian guys in Pahar Ganj, Delhi, constantly keep asking you what sex with a blonde girl is like, you amuse yourself by finally answering: "Let me put it this way, you guys wouldn't last twenty seconds", and watch their jaws drop in disbelief.

41. The police catch you drunk driving a rickshaw, yet you manage to talk your way out of it without paying any baksheesh.

42. India aside, the only country that you have visited in the last 4 years is Nepal where you go every six months to renew your visa with a week long side trip to Pokhara.

Entry contributed by Toxic Waste Man, a.k.a Aleksi.

I've never had sex with a blonde girl.

You can read the 20 original symptoms here

and the 10 additional symptoms here.

5 bars where to get wasted this Saturday

1. Rock Bar Mother, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan

A tiny bar with larger than life character. The bar functions on two principles: darkness and songs on demand. Here's how it works: Every time you order a drink, you get to order two songs from the eclectic and oh so amusing music catalog. As the bar is kept pitch black, it is impossible to read the song lists, so to get your order you have to use a light pointer pen to browse through the catalog. The cheepest way to get drunk is to drink white house wine but if you are not a big fan of vinegar, you might like to stick to Asahi.

Extra bonus: Hanoi Rocks posters in the tiny bathroom.

2. Schwarzes Cafe, Berlin

This bar's claim to fame are its opening hours: it's open 24 hours a day. After once researching the bar's extensive drinks menu for 14 hours, I can say without any hesitation that Warsteiner definitely is a decent beer.

3. Malay Tubay, El Nido, Palawan, Philippines

My favourite bar in the whole world. Cover bands that don't make you itch and Red Horse beer that never runs out, served in a homey environment. I'm sure that not everyone gets the greatness of this bar but I simply love it. Perfect after a day of snorkelling and island hopping. Second street from the beach, Western end, off the main drag. Praised earlier here.

4. Loekie's, Arambol, Goa, India

The good old Loekie's! After going there for both breakfast and lunch you might as well get hammered at dinner - where else would you really want to go in stuffy Arambol? After the first day's initiation routine is performed, beers will appear magically on your favorite table as soon as you enter the bar again. Upon leaving Arambol the friendly Loekie's guys might be wiling to give you a free lift to the bus stop on the main road.

5. Kallion Kulma, Exodus and Kallion hovi, Helsinki, Finland

If you've always wanted to know how drunk is it humanly possible to get and still get served alcohol then Kallio, the nowadays trendy neighborhood of Helsinki, is the right address. These days Kallio hosts a range of loungy fish bowl bars but fortunately they have not put the cheapies out of business. All the above mentioned bars sell pints for 3 euros or under and there are many more, regocnizable by people passed out or throwing up near the entrance. Here's what happened last night:

A) In Kallion Kulma a plumpy mother of four asked me for directions to Exodus, a reggae bar on the other side of the street, best known for the coppers raiding it monthly for drugs. Fortunately she was in no hurry to get there so I had the pleasure of being let in on her son's collar bone injury, which put an end to his glorious future as an Olympic gold medalist in javelin.

B) I found some rare raw talent in a guy who sneezed so heavily that the table in front of him got wet. And he repeated it ten times! Thunder!

C) A dude so drunk he was falling all over the place attacked a contributing author to this blog for absolutely no reason. Of course the drunk got smashed.

D) A toughened ex-convict, also extremely drunk, gave me a lesson on how hard it must be for a young woman to be considered male.

E) A drunk woman sitting at Kallion Kulma's terrace offered entertainment money can't buy by first puking, then dropping her pack of cigs to the fresh pool and then finally picking up the vomit dripping cigs as nothing had happened.

F) Getting to experience all this only cost me about 18 euros. What a bargain!

Sex, drugs and no reggae - 5 reasons why I hate Jamaica

Usain Bolt might be the world's favorite athlete at the moment but that does not stop me from hating Jamaica. Out of the 55 countries I've been to, Jamaica is the only one where I would not go back unless I got payed to go. (Folks, if you think I'm bragging, I would like to point out that this whole blog is about me trying to travel to a hundred countries. Now that's pretentious.) These are the five reasons to why I hate Jamaica.

1. It started the minute I arrived to my hotel in the God forsaken tourist trap of Montego Bay.

"You smoke?" The receptionist of the three star hotel asked me.

"Yeah, I smoke", I replied puffing a Canadian duMaurier and thinking that my life would be a hell of a lot easier if my mother was as dumb as this guy.

"We give you good price", the receptionist ventured.

"Uhm", I said, startled, grabbed the key and walked into the above-my-standard room.

The phone rang.

"We give you good price. Buy now", said the receptionist.

"Uhm, no thanks."

I admit, I was the dumb one. I was in Jamaica after all. I should have guessed what the receptionist meant with "you smoke?".

From then on the drug dealing began every time I walked in or out of my room. The receptionist kept calling in the mornings and in the evenings. "Good price, good price." After a few days, in order to stop the dude calling my room constantly, I told him that I had bought my shit from the street ("good price, good price") and did not need his services. After that, there was very little service to be had from this three star hotel.

2. About an hour after leaving my hotel for the first time, I got assaulted. The incident has been described earlier here.

3. Walking back to the hotel from downtown a few hours after the assault a group of men sitting idle started oohing and aahing at me. I tried to pass by as quickly as possible but that was to no avail. Two of them approached.

"You look very beautiful. Come and sit with us."

"Uhm, no thanks. I need to get back to my hotel. And my boyfriend wouldn't like it."

"You are a racist."

I thought I'd do better if I just walked away, so I kept moving.

"Racist! You fucking racist! You white slut." the wonder boys of logics yelled, making sure that everyone else on the street knew what they thought of me.

4. Going out for an exorbitantly priced beer in one the beach side bars later on I was relieved that finally I was left alone. In fact young men stralling around the bar took no notice of me, the poor student, whatsoever - they seemed to be into much older women. That's when I realized how many couples, middle-aged Western women and young Jamaican men, there were around me. It dawned on me that I had landed in one of the premier spots for women's sex tourism and to be frank, the sight was so ugly that I decided to buy myself a gigantic dildo for my 40th birthday.

5. After my first day I was too freaked out to talk to anyone. It seemed that they either wanted to sell me drugs or sex and as I was not interested in purchasing any of the two, it was better to keep all communication to minimum. For the rest of the time I felt like a zombie.

To be fair, it was not all bad. I liked Kingston, where there were no tourists and thus no people trying to sell me the aforementioned goods. There was not much to see there either - where the hell are all the cool record shops selling reggae vinyls? - but the city itself was alright. The Jamaican beaches are of course superb, if only you didn't have to pay a hefty entrance fee to some 5* hotel who owns the strip. And I liked the beef patties.

What to do in Kyoto? 5+5 do's

Kyoto is visited by a staggering 50 million Japanese tourists a year. If you manage to fit in, here's what I'd do if I had a week in Kyoto.

1. Get your hands on a rather modest looking copied brochure which has maps for walking tours of Kyoto. I just can't recommend this enough. I spent three days exploring Kyoto's temples by foot and guided by this little brochure, found my way through little paths, bamboo forests and pretty little back lanes, all of which led to another temple or shrine (pic on the left). I picked the brochure up from a fellow traveler who got it from TIC (Japan National Tourist Organization).

2. Saturday is a great day for visiting temples even if they can be jam packed with Japanese tourists. The reason is that the local students give free guided tours in some of the temple grounds. They get to practice English and you might get to know a little more about the temple and well, at least practice understanding Japanese accent. I was guided by a a friendly glam rocker dude in Kinkaku-ji, the golden Zen pavillion (pic left).

3. Try sampling a dinner in one of the red-windowed, modestly priced yakitori restaurants located along the smaller streets few blocks North from the main train station. They serve meat skewers of all kinds, though usually chicken, grilled to perfection over hot charcoals. I particularly liked the liver skewers - bone marrow was a little too chewy for my taste. I had a different type of skewer with every order of beer which ended up being quite a few - and then some more the next day.

A yakitori place usually has small red lanterns hanging out front. If they are not enough of a cue then try following the smell of smoke.

4. Even if you feel templed out after a few days in Kyoto, a side trip to Nara is a nice way to spend one day. I would not go there for the Todaiji temple, even though it is one the most famous temples in the country, the home of Japan's largest statue of Buddha, and, Yippii, the largest wooden building in the world. After Kyoto, Todajii is just okay. What I liked in Nara were the deer! Visitors to Nara hand feed these little animals oozing Japanese cuteness with specific deer crackers. It's simply adorable.

5. If you have the Japan Rail Pass then this crazy seeming day trip idea is indeed doable: Take an early morning bullet train and speed it to Himeiji. Visit the samurai castle, which you might have already seen in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice or in the gloomy Tom Cruise movie Last Samurai. After a visit to the white castle head back to the train station and take the next bullet train South. Descend in Hiroshima and spend hours in the mind-boggling A-bomb museum and memorial. Head back to Kyoto and you'll get there just in time for dinner. The trip involves 600 kilometers of travel in a day but with the speedy trains it's not a problem. You'll get two very different perspectives on Japanese history in one single day.

Further recommendations:

6. Best temples: Ginkaku-ji (the silver pavillion), Kinkaku-ji (the golden pavillion and Kiyomizu-dera (for great views, the amount of Japanese tourists can be slightly overwhelming, pic left). Worst dissappoinment: The famous zen rock garden in Ryoan-ji just wasn't worth the rather expensive entry ticket.

7. Gion in dusk. This is were one goes to spot a maiko, a geisha apprentice.

8. The awesome Sanjusangen-do, home to 1001 Kannon statues. (Kannon is the Buddhist goddess of mercy.) The prohibition of photography is extremely annoying though - you are in Japan after all.

9. Read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Cheesy and lacking in depth as the story line is, the novel still manages to offer an interesting insight into 30's and 40's Kyoto.

10. Bathe! There seems to be a sento in every other street corner. Blissful way to relax after a day of templing. Extra bonus: Beer never tastes better than after two hours of pool swapping from hot to cold. Ask your guesthouse directions to the nearest one.

What to do in Seoul? 5+5 fun do's

There's nothing truly spectacular in Seoul. It's no Tokyo in terms of things modern and no Beijing in terms of things ancient. Yet I think the city borders on sheer awesomeness. Here's what I'd do if I had five days in Seoul.

1. Walk around Insadong-gil (gil is the word for street). Now you might say what kind of a tip is this as Insadong is the prime tourist area of Seoul. The thing is, the city isn't touristy at all, so the few Westerners hanging out there don't make you feel like you've walked into a another tourist trap. Instead I was caught up in a street theater performance in which I assume, I was made fun of to the point, that five hours later, when I passed the place again walking back to my guesthouse, there were people there pointing at me and laughing. It was brilliant. I also spend some time watching a tae-kwon-do performance and a bad Korean band. And it's all free, folks.

2. Seoul's palaces are hardly a match for their Japanese counterparts (Japanese raids have made sure of that) but I really liked Changdeokgung. Even though in order to see it you have to join a tour, which is both rushed and poorly guided, it's a nice place to visit. Biwon, the secret garden, is rather pretty.

3. Take a hike! Seoul is probably the only big city in the world which boasts hiking trails within the city's central area. The Inwangsan peak offers a nice walk up along trails which feature some pretty random shamanistic points of worship (they looked like big rocks to me).

Not only is there hiking within central Seoul, the Bukhansan national park can be reached in about 30 minutes by subway.

Both get really busy on the weekends. I didn't mind the crowds as I thought it was quite funny to pose for the Korean hikers to whom I seemed to be a bigger attraction than the sweeping views I failed to photograph.

4. Party hard! Seoul has a two very different centers for nightlife. My favorite is the area around Hongik university, where the cool kids congragate. Beats me what I was doing there. It has a bit of an indie music scene and some bigger clubbing venues. (Subway: Hongik uni).

A truely surreal party scene can be found in Itaewon, the expat part of the city. Friday and Saturday nights are at their bizarrest at 1.45AM as the curfew for the good old boys from the nearby US military base is at 2AM. So till 1.45 you can just gape at the sheer madness of their partying and then within 15 minutes they are all gone. The military police patrols Itaewon on weekends just to make sure that the boys, many of whom have been stationed in Afganistan and Iraq before, make it to bed in time. I had a mad fun night in Itaewon, the highlight of which was shaking hands with a member of the US olympic basketball team in a bar on a strip aptly called Hooker Hill. Beats me what I was doing there. (Subway: Itaewon)

5. Take both of the two USO tours to the de-militarized zone on the border of South and North Korea. Gape at the North Korean soldier looking at you through binoculars (not the one in the pic on the left), visit the little blue house were they hold peace talks and slouch in the North Korean infiltration tunnel. Take the tour in the beginning of your trip as it gives you a quite an intriguing perspective to the country.

Further recommendations:

6. Namsam hill and tower for views and lovers locks. (in the pic on the left)

7. Han river for people spotting.

8. Dongdaemum market for night time shopping.

9. Dongbang Sauna for bathing (Subway: Hongik Uni)

10. Seodaemum prison for some fake blood and torture exhibits.

What to do in Mumbai? 10 cool do's

Mumbai is often seen as a place to be deserted as soon as possible, but that's not entirely fair. Here's what I would do if I had four days on my hands in Mumbai.

1. Do the few points of interest: Gateway of India (a must, even if it is just another disappointing colonial monument) and Chor Bazaar (pic on the right), the thieves market. I hear that the Prince of Wales museum in Colaba is actually pretty decent. Instead of displays on Charles and Camilla it boasts a wide collection of ancient vedic sculptures and at least used to offer free audio guides. And don't forget the Oval Maiden (pic on the left), where people play cricket in a wicked colonial surrounding.

2. Did you always dream of becoming an actor one day? This is the site of Bollywood and this is your chance! In case the Bollywood recruiters fail to find you in Colaba, ask around and you'll find one. They hire extras for commercials and even movies.
You can count on being payed about a thousand rs (14 euros) for a long day, which involves a lot of waiting around, doing nothing. But in the end of the day, you've been to a Bollywood film. That is still cool. They'll fetch you from your guesthouse and give you a ride back.


3. Eat lunch every day at Cafe de Paris. Despite its name, this is a bare bones all you can eat thali joint with possibly the best price-quality ratio in Mumbai, which at least on Indian standards tends to be expensive. Incredibly popular with the locals, it serves fantastic thalis for the whopping price of 40 rupees (that's 60 cents, folks) and can not be found in the Lonely Planet. It's located on the Southern end of the Colaba Causeway, past the main hubbub.


4. You've seen the Slum Dog Millionaire and now want to see the real deal? One such place is the ominous red lights district, left out from the LP but featured with ample warnings in the Footprints guide. Some girls wear saris, some Western gear, some are kept behind bars. A stroll around the area is not as shocking as it could be but it's definitely not another Reperbahn.
It's a rather straight forward but longish walk from the Central Train Station to Falkland Road and the way is badly signposted. But if you don't mind asking for directions to prostitutes, then it's not too hard to find. I succeeded with my second attempt.



5. Elephanta Island. A welcome retreat from the polluted city, Elephanta Island is a 40 minute boat ride away. It has pretty decent sculptures in caves (pic above) and a big monkey population. I liked it.


6. As you probably have never seen a man powered Ferris wheel, Chowpatty beach is the place to spend an evening. These crazy dudes climb up the wheel and then grab a down-going gondola and hang from it until it reaches the ground in order to give it extra weight and thus an extra pull down. You should see it yourself. It's mind-boggling. The beach is particularly popular with locals at evenings. They just come there to hang out.


7. Go clubbing! As Mumbai is the home of India's elite, it has quite a few crazy ass clubs where the bold and the beautiful hang out drinking champagne. But don't bother trying to get in wearing the baggy pants brigade armour and flip flops. Dress to impress.


8. Okay, this is a lousy suggestions as you'll probably end up inCafe Leopold's anyway, but I happen to really like this restaurant/bar even if it is overpriced. And if you decide to steer clear from the Taj hotel, then this is your place should you want to do some terrorist tourism as Leopold's was one of the sites of Mumbai terror attacks in November 08.


9. If you do decide to check out the Taj then there is a new option for the Lonely Planet recommended drinks or tea at Taj's top floor. There's a new restaurant there serving nouveau Indian cuisine, meaning that the food is prepared without ghee and is thus not fatty. It requires a splash, but the food is amazing,


10. If you have read Shantaram, a novel I recommended in my list of books to read in India, then you might want to walk the route he walks every night through Bombay's alleys. The walk gives you a cool perspective although I'd do it in the daytime.

10 additional symptoms that tell it is time to leave India

21. You know how to fix the “broken” rickshaw meters. However, at this point you insist on using public transport because, y’know, only greenhorns use rickshaws.

22. Upon seeing your regular chai-wallah getting the water from the Ganges you just shrug.

23. When you see a noob paying 1000 rupees for a tola of charas in Pahar Ganj you smile arrogantly and let out a cocky “HAH!”. (Being a self-important dick is tremendous fun. )

24. When sitting in a fly infested bar with three Indian drunks while trying to withstand the revolting stench coming out of the overflowing toilet, you realise that you are more than a traveller: You are one. J'aime l'Inde. Mais je la deteste.

25. You refuse to pay 100rs (1,5 euros) for rickshaw ride of 10km and opt for local busses instead. After a 1,5 hour detour spend the 80rs (1,1 euros) you just saved on a single bottle of beer. Swish!

26. After settling in an otherwise fine guesthouse you’re disappointed to find out that they have western toilets.

27. You boast about great places you’ve been to that nobody else knows about an

d refuse to reveal their locations. Any self-respecting traveller keeps the best places to himself.

28. Go against your own principles and recite the story of when you lived with a hemp farmer in the outskirts of a small town in the Himalayas to rookie traveller who is enthusiastically listening to every word you say. Be overcome with a feeling of superiority and say: “Well, I suppose I could tell you where it is…” Watch him look up to you in awe. You are a god!

29. You spend a night “analyzing" India with some stoned hippies in a clichéd and pathetic manner that would make the dumbest cross-country skier facepalm. “I don’t regard India as one country, it’s a realm of it’s own.” India in one word: India. Jesus H. Christ.

30. You are proud of being guilty of any of the points mentioned.

Entries submitted originally as comments by Toxic Waste Man, a.k.a Aleksi. I liked them so much I thought they deserved their own post.

You can read the original 20 symptoms here.