Mutprobe the soup pot.

Iguana soup on Curaçao was once an Everyman court. Today try especially courageous Caribbean tourists to the leathery reptile. For example, in the restaurant Playa Forti - there are the stories of the cheerful cook an experience.

 

That is a nice greeting: A cannon is waiting next to the entrance of the restaurant. The estuary is aimed directly at the occurrence. Links of the rusted pipe grow tropical plants, right shimmering turquoise sea. From the nearby beach bathers Gejohle penetrates the children over. With both hands, Maria Luisa holds a cast iron cannonball seelenerwärmend and smiles. "The I have a few years ago found in the garden," she says, "when Umkrautjäten."

Holy Kanonenrohr such heavy guns in the Caribbean paradise? The answer to the riddle: The Restaurant Playa Forti by Maria Luisa was built on the ruins of an old weir built at the beginning of the 19th Century by British occupiers erected. In the island language Papiamentu Forti is an old word for fort.

Papiamentu is the residents still speak. After the official language, Dutch is the second official idiom, a creole mishmash of elements from Spanish, Portuguese, English and Dutch. 1816 conquered the island of the Netherlands and expelled the British. "That would not happen to them if they had eaten iguana soup," claims Maria Luisa, "because the force does."

Since then, the old cannon that is on the rocky outcrop in the far west of the island, where there are first-class diving spots. "Man has often tried to steal it," says Maria Luisa, "but for the thin Muchachos from the village, it is too difficult." The barges had Halbstarker with a water pipe. Over night, it was Maria Luisa Restaurant off. Therefore, the water for a few days off.

Fresh ketchup Leguan in bucket

With two white buckets, according to the label once ketchup contained drags the 62-year-old has the whole day out of water, which they can tap when neighbors. With the last moment she wants cargo iguana soup to prepare. Den takes a bucket to wash skinned iguanas. The other for the broth.

Your restaurant Playa Forti is on the inside like an oversized letter. Krimskrams crowded with all kinds and a plethora of articles reminder of bygone days. The Christmas decorations will not only decreased.

One or twice a week comes the typical Maria Luisa Island court. In the fifties, came after the Colombian native Curacao. "People were quite pointed wildly," she says, "for the locals, it was like a ritual, iguana soup to eat." At that time they've cooked the court every day.

But the modern eating habits make the traditional cuisine at the Curaçao gradually Garaus. In the roads after Willemstad, the capital, is part an international fast food outlet at the other. No wonder, because the young islanders develop while craving for burgers and fries, but not cooked lizards.

Nature conservation is another reason why the soup kitchen at Maria Luisa nowadays often remains cold. Because the population of animals on Curacao varies, sometimes as iguanas are protected, then not. To be on the safe side, it applies to the animals from a farm. But the lizards have cultivated their price, so the iguana soup little profit. "I cook is really only for foreigners," says Maria Luisa, otherwise on Creole stews and fish dishes is.

Tough exterior and interior very delicate

Thus, it is mainly tourists who are lizards the meat taste like. Most guests come from Venezuela - Curacao is just 60 kilometers off the coast of Venezuela - and the Netherlands. The Netherlands Antilles, which includes Curacao, a country of the Dutch Kingdom. In the coming months will be on Curaçao, however, a referendum on the nature of future political affiliation to the Netherlands to take place.

Many of their guests would Leguan spoons of soup as a Mutprobe consider reports Maria Luisa. Almost as bite-Urlaubsexotik. Somehow, because in the live condition arouses in reptile's pampered eaters from the North Atlantic food hemisphere rather than Ekelgefühle culinary associations.

"Tastes a little like chicken, right?" Asks Maria Luisa. In fact. While the eye only to the unusual sight of skinned, kitchen finished iguanas have become accustomed, it has been easier for the tongue. In the cooked state of the meat recalls in a well durchgekochtes Suppenhuhn. Light and delicate fibrous. The iguanas in the Caribbean are therefore also "green chicken" mentioned.

These are not all green iguanas. There are also brown and gray items. Of the non-toxic green leaves Maria Luisa fingers. The more intense the green, the more likely it is that the animal is not fit. Iguanas live in trees with fondness. Some in the branches of a native, inedible for humans apple variety. If an iguana with these manzanillas the belly has vollgeschlagen, his skin is greener than green - and the bad people.

"The lads are pretty harsh"

The comparison with the chicken makes it not just to taste. Heard it in Europe to the old home recipes, sick and weakened people of chicken soup to administer, have been on Curaçao with the iguana soup once the suffering aufgepäppelt. The iguana is seen as extremely tough and strong resistance. "For some beating heart even if it has already started, the animal is excluded," says Maria Luisa. "The boys are pretty tough."

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To creep and to come crawling temperature, iguanas need plenty of heat. In the cool dawn, they however complacent and abgeschlafft. "When we used to have even hunted, we needed only in the morning to go the park and the iguanas aufzuklauben," says Maria Luisa.

It says the Christoffel National Park. Featured in Nature with its multitude of flowers and birds as well as cave paintings, Native American Indian is only a stone's throw away from Playa Forti. In addition to paradisiacal beaches is the now-protected area to the main attractions Curaçao.

Maria Luisa is no longer even on the stalk. But now and again they demonstrated their guests a fun fishing method, with which she began earlier Iguanas: On a broomstick attached to a plastic cord. With two or three simple knot makes it into a noose. A plastic lizard, which they are concerned for this purpose is used as guinea pigs. Snap! - Depends on the toys already in the lasso loop. "A pretty creature," laughs Maria Luisa, "but I think too tough!"

Because in the German market halls Leguan no meat to buy, and Maria Luisa iguana soup recipe works well with chicken, is Here is a recipe for traditional Leguan-or chicken soup.

Sweet and sour pork instead of duck.

There are white, or Haxen currywurst - Canton-diet, however, is frowned upon: A Badischer toy dealer brings the Chinese since 1984, German cuisine close. Now he tries to Hong Kong, the world economic crisis auszusitzen.

 

Maybe very well that he now runs two parallel, thinks Peter Seeger. What crazy times. What particularly insecure times! Particularly, he opened the newspaper and that he has actually already spoiled the day. Slump in exports by 21.8 percent compared to last year, reports the Wall Street Journal "- the worst figure since 1958:" It is believed that Hong Kong's economy, which already is in recession, in 2009 a further three percentage is shrinking. " Long the global crisis has reached Asia.

Toy dealer Peter Seeger takes a sip from his powerful Schneider Weissbier. Crisis makes thirsty. Next door sits a Bayer before his second Hellen, and back in the corner to beat a couple of Chinese pork belly with Knuckles, with pork, full. Fortunately Peter Seeger heard the pub. Business with Barbie, Godzilla and Tamagotchi will not run particularly well at present. In the port of Hong Kong, the stacked containers, and all projections suggest that as soon nothing will change.

In September 1984 he was the second leg the "Biergarten" (8 Hanoi Road, Kowloon) opened at the mouth of the Perlflusses established. Hong Kong, he obviously knew a long time, since the early seventies. Finally, it was here all the toys produced by the children in the affluent West the time expelled - "Made in Hong Kong" was the hallmark of excellence for the global Plastikkram, Seeger and deserved not bad on the boom.

A place for German Gemütlichkeit

In this glittering metropolis to live in that entrepreneurs from the province of Baden sometime well imagine, and because he was not alone. With the growing Far East business came more and more German entrepreneurs to Hong Kong - "6000 will become holders of a Hong Kong ID card," says Seeger. Daytime scheffelten she had money and made important statements, and after service they are closing longed after Eisbein and Haxe, Weissbier, dumplings and sauerkraut and wanted not only Chinese Tsingtao beer drinking and eating sweet and sour duck.

LAST EXIT ...

In the South Seas, the Caribbean or the Pacific? Reaching the Cape of Good Hope or to Koh Lanta? In the Moloch of Bangkok or Beijing? German emigrants make their dream of a new life true.

What drives them? What do they want in the distance? Issues facing Asia-blogs correspondent Thilo Thielke in his column "Last Exit ..." after it.

"A place for German comfort in this frantic, vibrant city to create - a look that would be an idea", thought Seeger, and made the "Biergarten - German Pub and Restaurant" on. "Home far away from home" should be his slogan. The business would grumble.

By the act of entrepreneurs with more toys, finally Seeger was not in the main professional restaurateur. But times changed, and changed with Hong Kong. Gradually, more and more factories have relocated their headquarters to China, the Hong Kong 1997, to be returned. So Hong Kong lost its role as a bridgehead of the United Kingdom and its significance as a low-cost producer. Instead, the city developed the first commercial, later became a banking center. And Seeger was now no more than asking buyers of toys, but as an intermediary between the big chains like Toys' R 'Us and the Chinese toy manufacturers.

Of the Hong Kong Chinese, he can learn a lot, Seeger says: "As the industry in the late eighties in Hong Kong collapsed, all had expected that it is a blow to millions of unemployed people would give - but what happened? The people saddled by - to waiters or taxi drivers - the shift went smoothly. The huge factory buildings were converted into warehouses. " For career success was compounded when Seeger's personal happiness. He married a Taiwan and was once again father.

"Chinese are world champions in learning"

But how will the future look like? Currently, all the characters to a storm. And Hong Kong, it seems, is a bottleneck between China and the United States with most of the global economic crisis. "The main buyers were the Chinese but so far the Americans," says Seeger and admits: "It looks bad out, 2009 can already write off." And clearly, the impact on the restaurant said: "Less business means less business means less customers."

Seeger remains an optimist. "Asia is the crisis more effectively than the rest of the world," he believes "the people here react faster, the best production facilities are here, people work harder, and Chinese are the world champions in learning."

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In the past 20 years, hardly even a worker can turn out one days. Quite the contrary: "They are all glad and happy when they work longer, and the shop is going well - then they can also earn more." Even when he moved to the economic conditions in Hong Kong thinks he go into raptures: "Maximum tax rate 15 percent, and import duties on beer and wine were abolished completely."

Only the high office rents are a problem. Nowhere in the world, they are higher than in the seven-million-inhabitant metropolis. More than 145 euros per square meter should be hinblättern, in Tokyo, it is only slightly more than 132 euros, and the London West End is in comparison to Hong Kong after just cheap: Because we will pay "only" 116 euros. Of course, the impact on prices. For the pork with sauerkraut and mashed potato takes Seeger 145 Hong Kong dollars (the currency is the U.S. dollar) - which makes up nearly 15 euros. And half a liter of beer (Bitburger) costs outside of happy hour about seven euros.

"Our currywurst is the best in town"

No wonder that in the neighborhood Italian restaurants, such as mushroom. Hardly any food is cheaper than the Italian - "clear that a pizzeria a higher profit margin than a German, or rather, a French restaurant." Of this, that the guests continue to come in his beer garden, is still convinced Seeger: "The German cuisine is better than its reputation, and our currywurst is the best in the city."

Will he eventually come back to Germany? Seeger, it can not be ruled out. Even now he is five or six times a year in the vicinity of Karlsruhe. His two daughters from first marriage are now themselves become parents. Seeger is grandfather. His wife also wants some of the world. "You should never say never," says Seeger. Maybe one day he makes a China restaurant in southern Germany on.

Fairy Tale Land of the Incas.

A rainbow of colors in the mountains: When camping holidays in the north of Argentina, the Andes show a particularly spectacular side. Wilde Lamaherden, white salt lakes, and colorful mountains enchant the visitors - and a train ride takes you directly into the clouds.

 

Purmamarca - Star Clear and cold is the night in 2200 meters altitude. In the moonlight, the silhouettes of the giant cactuses on the nearby ridge to see. Between the village church and cemetery there is the small campground of Purmamarca, a 2000-souls-village in the Quebrada de Humahuaca. The 150 kilometers long, low vegetation ravine in the province of Jujuy in northwest Argentina, since 2003 belongs to the Unesco World Heritage Site. "Very bizarre, in such an area to sleep and wake up," says Susanne Schulze from Erfurt, the backpackers here than is on their impressions.

Cerro de los Siete Colores - to German: mountain of the seven colors - namely the thousands of visitors annually scanned mountain village. Who the intensity of various minerals formed landscape in full color photograph wants to be up early.

The ascent is not permitted, but a path all around, the brick on the erosion of brittle rock as the dominating root, makes a rapid believe in a fairy-tale landscape to be: "A mountain like a rainbow, it completely out of the sand. Forms, sometimes as Klecker castles look like a giant child in a giant beach could have built, "says the 26-year-old Susanne.

Purmamarca is located on a section through the Andes, the Incas used to have in order to have the regions of their empire to connect. The indigenous character of this part of northern Argentina in the Andean village yet to be felt, not least as to the facial features of the inhabitants are not difficult to ascertain. Even today burials found on the mountain out to the cemetery oriented according to traditional rites.

From Purmamarca are from the north only about three hours to Bolivia. The path through the sometimes moon-like landscapes Puna Plateau worth: The Maps and Iruya Tilcara and Humahuaca regional capital inviting.

About the passport in the desert

Power one of Purmamarca to Lamaherden past, while to the west, so charmed, not least the white of the salt lakes before the Jama Pass at 4200 meters above sea level in the Atacama Desert in Chile hineinführt, one of the driest areas of the earth applies.

A good place for adventure travelers, the tent aufzuschlagen, is San Pedro de Atacama, although there the temperature differences between day and night are greater than those between summer and winter. From there, it is then not far to Antofagasta on the Pacific. In order to acclimatize to the thin air of the Puna Plateau help, as some locals assure the chewing of coca leaf, from Bolivia, and vegetable markets to be sold legally. In most other provinces of Argentina, they are prohibited.

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A visit to the neighboring province of Salta almost inevitable that the means from the language of the Quechua Indians came Salta name yet so much as "the Beautiful". A good starting point is the eponymous capital, with its 500,000 inhabitants. Worth seeing is the old town with its churches and monasteries. From the mountain of San Bernardo, over 1070 levels with a little stamina, and easily accessible by foot or by cable car can be climbed, it is the view of the city and the adjacent subtropical woods.

Also culinarily Salta has much to offer, but the city said that nowhere else in the Argentina Empanadas stuffed dumplings called taste as good as here. Salta has a beautiful campground with private swimming lake. The fee for the camp is like everywhere else in the region economically, it is for a tent and a person per night around 1.50 euros.

Journey into the clouds

Tourist Saltas flagship is the "Tren a las Nubes," the "train in the clouds." He squirms out from the capital to pass through cactus canyons landscapes, at the edges of the glacier giants like Nevado de Acay (5716 meters) and the Nevado de Chani (5896 meters) enthrone. The goal of the 217 kilometers long journey is the viaduct La Polvorilla to 4220 meters above sea level.

On the way the train passed, the problems due to the concession from 2005 to 2008 could not proceed, 29 bridges, 21 tunnels and Behelfskonstruktionen like "zig-zag course", without some of the body would not cope. Very cheap is not fun: Depending on the season, from 120 to 140 U.S. dollars (95 to 110 euros) for the approximately 16-hour tour to berappen. Camping facilities are available in the landscape is not, and "wild camping" is strongly discouraged.

190 kilometers south of Salta is located as another destination for the famous white-Torrontés town Cafayate, home to two campsites overnight opportunities. From here it's only about 40 kilometers to the famous, already in the province of Tucuman situated ruins of the fortifications of the Quilmes Indians.

New shine for Thailand's dirty child.

So far, Pattaya, especially for the large number of famous and infamous sex tourists. But now investors want to transform the Thai city: From the Red Light Paradise is a premium destination will be.

 

The Fish Martini is blue Curaçao. The Knabberfischlis to taste the sea. The Cocktails of the "Baraquda Bar" of the ultra-modern "dusitD2 'maritime bear names, like the whole design of the newest hotels in Pattaya thematically oriented on the sea. The white bar on the terrace of the third floor like a spaceship hovers high above the dense traffic on the main artery Pattaya Second Road.

The Baraquda is empty. Perhaps because the bar is still too new, too unknown. Perhaps also because the whole of the urban designer hotels Schick simply not to shabby suits Pattaya. The bars compared with red light as the only design feature stands out, however, are well attended. With kess stacked beaten legs sit hostesses as prostitutes elegantly described in mini-skirts on wobbly bar stools. "Hello, come in", they call vorbeischlendernden passers, both men and women, and lard. The main thing is that the true beer sales.

By the end of December, the D2 opened elegant Dusit group, the young, urban clientele gutverdienende from Bangkok in just two hours drive away Pattaya lure. The time is ripe, is General Manager Dusit Randon Paolo: "We talk to those people who have not Pattaya visitors were. Rotlichtviertel are everywhere in Pattaya, perhaps more than elsewhere. But we must not go."

At the beginning there are two letters

Pattaya has no red light district. Pattaya is a red light district. "Sex is always the selling point will remain," says Sunan, who for many years in this city of sin as a real estate manager lives. At the start of Pattaya Sextouristendestination stood as two letters: R & R, Rest & Recreation, such as "Relaxation & Recreation". In the fishing village on the Gulf of Siam sent the U.S. during the Vietnam war, GIs on the front to leave the R & R. For Sex, beer and rock'n roll soldiers were able to break loose, war and death for a few days, forget it.

After the end of the Vietnam war in 1975 Thailand had learned his lesson: Western men with Asian beauties. Instead of the B 52 of the American Air Force began to have sex-bombers from Europe to land, full of mostly older, lascivious men from Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia. Eventually the Thai Pattaya was so embarrassing, but that it modestly the mantle of the PR-silence on the beach covered with Megapuff. Pattaya still remained popular and a major foreign exchange bearer.

But now begins in Thailand, his dirty attraction, the long a vibrant city with more than 100,000 people and reported six million visitors each year has become, and rediscover aufzumöbeln. Randon says: "Pattaya is changing more and more a place for family and a resort for couples." So much so that the bars in Walking Street, the mother of all Pattaya's red light district, now with large signs "Couples Welcome" to recruit clients. Mature couples from Germany spectacular semi-Go-Go Girls. Young (heterosexual) Asian couples from Singapore or Seoul pulls it into the gay bars with live sex shows. Russian tour groups are from a flag officer with Sodom and Gomorrah Show.

Cocktails instead of beer bottles

The Thai city of Pattaya's Tourist Office and fathers put on the new clientele. If only people rich enough to attract the cocktails instead of beer bottles slurp, Prada instead of cheap T-shirts bear the French Edelrestaurant place on the noodle stand on the street dine, then change the image automatically, so the optimistic calculations.

So were built luxury hostels, golf courses created, trendy restaurants opened, while the other is still no decent sewerage system, as the bad odor in some places of the Beach Road clearly shows. In doing the sidewalks are huge, dangerous holes on the taxi drivers are crooks; on minimalist narrow beach next to the dense traffic on Beach Road Wabern the sun-starved tourists noise and exhaust fumes to the nose and ears.

Divers drawn to Pattaya because of the great diving spots out there in the depths of the Gulf of Siam; golfers putt on one of the 20 golf courses, who come for the island, may of Pattaya from day trips to beaches of Koh Larne, Koh Samet and Koh Chang enterprise ; visitors from the Middle East as a medical tourist, which is in international Pattaya hospitals at bargain prices verarzten leave.

It opened in January Mega Central Festival department store, according to self-promotion of Asia's first and only shopping mall right on the beach, including an (unfinished) Hilton Hotel with 300 rooms underlines the claim Pattaya, its raunchy image to Wellness, Lifestyle and Urbanity supplement. Khun Kobchai Chirathivat, president and CEO of the operator group CPN Pattaya sees the future with confidence: "The city has the potential of Thailand's premium tourist spot to be."

A paradise for the Elderly

One of his dream home just in from Pattaya and rebuilds the Osnabrücker Wolfgang Jung. Under the stage name Steve Young is one of the 62-year-old with his band for nearly 30 years, the primary rocks of the entertainment on the island. But for the rest wants to be Young in Pattaya, not to "Malle".

Young stands on the balcony of his inside and out all in white held villa looks over the pool up to that of a golden Buddha statue crowned hills, the sister of Pattaya City Jomtien separates, and says: "This is paradise for me. We live very nice quiet. But I need me just to set up a scooter and I'm five minutes from the city or on the beach. " Paradise is still cheap. "My house would have me here in Mallorca cost ten times as much, at least," says Young and Pattaya cheerfully called "a retirement home", the one in Germany could not afford.

To have thousands of Europeans in the eternal summer Pattaya established, wealthy entrepreneurs as well as retired people with small money compared to Europe in Pattaya are wealthy. Like Young, who is in his white house along with his Austrian partner makes at home, many, including his wife relocated to Pattaya. Others live with their Thai partners and make the experience that they are also responsible for the welfare of the extensive, low-relatedness of exotic wife have to pay financially.

Then there are those huge army of single seniors from Gerolstein and Gothenburg, Birmingham and Berlin, Salzburg and St. Gallen, in Pattaya to enjoy their retirement-supplied with Viagra, for the many pharmacies in Pattaya with meter-high neon advertising signs advertise . Also, almost 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War based Pattaya attraction still on two points: R & R.

As Vladimir 59 ° North, 35 ° East by storm.

Adventure Sport absurd: whether desert, snow, hell or high mountains - Travel Crazy expire on a scavenger hunt kind of bizarre to all intersections of longitude and latitude visit. blogs ONLINE settled in Russia from satellites show the way.

 

There are a few sounds, a cross-country skiing certainly do not want to hear if he was still 15 kilometers through a snowy Russian wilderness before him. When the next village called Bortnikovo inhabitants and its 17 miles away.

These noises heard the roar, for example, a brown bear - still have hunters in the fall not far from here two of the animals killed - or a wolf hissing.

But in wild animals is Vladimir Chernorutsky prepared. He has a small guns, multiple rocket fireworks marks the "Sailing Wind" and "lucky star" and a dozen "Black Death" China-Kracher in the pocket. Thus, he wants in an emergency the beasts chase.

The most unpleasant noise to which Vladimir is not prepared, it sounds like a bursting Ast. To hear it is at the point 59 ° 01'01 .8 "North - 35 ° 03'57 .9" East on a cloudy Saturday morning. It is a rotten crack skis, in the middle just behind the heel breaks.

"Dmitry brings to you", is the first thing on the Malheur Wladimir has to say. Dmitry is the owner of the small white wooden skis and was so nice to them for two days to lend. But a mordlüsterner Moscow is not the problem, because Moscow is about 500 kilometers away. The immediate problem is a huge swamp, which is only passable in winter, when frozen and he is covered by snow.

A coordinate as the target

Beyond this, about four miles away, lies the objective of this tour. There is no peak or vantage point, but a Coordinate: 59 degrees north, 35 degrees east. Vladimir wants to be the first man, this intersection of a geographical longitude and latitude reached.

Google Earth, blogs ONLINE
Miles through the snow: After the village Bortnikovo the route to Point 59 North - 35 East only through pristine wilderness

"Confluence hunting" ( "confluence" means something like "Along the River") is called the adventure, with the GPS device loszuziehen to those coordinates to find items. The idea came from the American Alex Jarrett. With car and GPS device, he traveled in February 1996 by the United States, made a few photos of fractional coordinates and intersections
published on an Internet site. Gradually followed by other technology-loving travelers his example. Thus the network an "organized sampling of the World", as Jarrett's global collection of photos and reports of geography nerds hobby and once called the Amundsen.

"It's about a country not a guide to know, but by the change of the landscape at regular intervals - from intersection to intersection," says Vladimir. The 48-year-old mathematician is a financial consultant for several Internet companies and worked alongside for
confluence.org as coordinator for Russia. So far, he has 80 Confluence points (CPs) attended. At 48 of them was the father of two children, first. "Previously I was on vacation along and made me otherwise viewed the sights. But now, the CPs are often the reason for the trip."

Whether it is on target to see something interesting, is not so important when satellitengeleiteten intersection scavenger hunt. In a world in which there are fewer and fewer places unbesuchte unexplored and there are those GPS expeditions a possibility, even the discoverers to be. Long were people on the moon, the Everest and the North Pole, but there are still around the 10,000 unexplored Confluence points on the mainland. Points on the water are only in the immediate coastal area.

"On the evidence photo must always be a landmark visible on land," says Vladimir the rules. It decides on all Russian attempts as to whether they evaluated and will be released.
All 48 points in Germany have long been visited in Europe are only a few initial visits to the coast near the water possible, for example in Portugal and Norway.

Eight hours, nine hours Skitour

Suddenly Vladimir holds and makes a picture of the dense spruce and pine are the surroundings. As a motive it is not particularly suitable, but it's not about a pretty landscape: That was exactly half of the 8.65 kilometers from the car to the finish, he says.

Somehow it goes with the broken ski. At almost every step the left foot sinks into the snow, sometimes almost to the hip. But surrender is not in question - after all even took the car in a blue Ford wagon Wladmirs from Moscow to the northwest good eight hours. After a night in a hotel "coziness" in the 10,000-souls-town Ustyuzhna, the hot water in an area already for the "luxury room" qualified, was still before dawn at the start point of the tour in the Vologda region.

RUSSIA-QUIZ

AP

Hemingway, hippies and the nobility.

In Lamu, the dreamy archipelago, Kenya's coast, the clocks tick a touch slower. Arab sailors and British colonialists have on the African islands left their mark. A mixture, which fascinated many prominent visitors.

 

"Lamu" wrote Ernest Hemingway, "must not be wasted. To do the island with calm and patience to." The American writer was not the first to the Lamu enchanted. The archipelago, located north of Kenya can merge worlds - Africa and Arabia to India - and a trip easily leads to recurrence. First came probably already in the 9th Century Arab navigators on the islands, their descendants, the Swahili, Lamu with their languages and art. Later followed by Portuguese, Turks, Oman and the British.

According to Hemingway, the hippies in Lamu town and the nearby fishing village of Shela, with its turquoise ocean and miles of untouched sandy beach did wonderfully live. The mangoes grow even today in the mouth, the lobster will be with your hand and catch a full moon on the beach barbecue. The restless Princess Soraya was born in the seventies as one of the first passengers of the nobility, many others followed her advice and the Hemingways since the early nineties.

Already at the arrival on the island of Manda is a what the locals' Küstitis "include: leisure, vulgo also called laziness. Pole pole, only the peace, these words already learned at the airport, only three of the corrugated iron huts there. With dust-covered suitcase are Eselkarren a Dhau loaded. Even Vasco da Gama was looking at this type of boat off the coast of Kenya for a sea route to India.

"A man without a donkey is an ass"

Mohammed, the master, is on course Lamu town, the capital of the archipelago, which the Unesco's World has been collected. Between palms and mangrove stand on flat roofs. The Mole is busy: The men stroll in Khanzu, the Arab gown, or shirt and Kikoi, the Kenyan cloth around the hips is slung. Women move into their Buibuis the meantime, the long, black robes, and keep the youngest and most beautiful among them always in their midst.

Find cars with a few exceptions in the narrow medieval streets of the city space, and so true Swahili is an old wisdom: "A man without a donkey is an ass." The animals are everywhere: 3000 donkey to their hard work on the island work, as they can find happiness with her grace in a bread-ass sanatorium at the Corniche, the coastal road. Until then, however, cats chasing them from the walls of coral stone high jump over the open sewers and break through door of a Swahili house, where they met with Hello and food waste will be welcomed.

Rich ornamental carvings on the high doors are the only reference to the wealth of the owners of the houses. And ancient carvings are also the pride of the museum at the pier, whose magnificent collection of the times Lamus remembers, ivory and slave trade made the city rich. Even Germany had in the 19th Century outpost on Lamu. Europe's appetite for luxury with leopard skins, tortoise shell, ostrich feathers, honey, beeswax, rhinoceros horns and ebony-fed. The Imperial German Postal Agency at the Kenyatta Road, near the abandoned fort, is now a museum.

"Peaceful and safe is it here"

On the Corniche honks then one of the few cars Lamus: Iko WAPI Love, where is the love that is written on the tricycle. In Kenya, each minibus a name. Only last year Barack Obama has the rank of Princess Diana as the most popular Godfather expired. The car belongs to the King Fahd Hospital, the Saudi Arabian vain equip.

Lamu is Muslim: "I must be the opposite side concede - peacefully and safely, it is here," says a missionary, on the islands of the holiday. He works in Eldoret, which has only one year, a center of violence in northern Kenya was. "How could all this happen," says Mohammed just before the Dhau course on the village of Shela holds. "If the tourists do not come, to whom shall we sell our fish?"

Shela Previously lived only by the fishing and the sale of coconut, ginger, chilli, lime and coriander on the market in the capital - just to what the delicious Swahili cuisine mind. Pole Pole, however. On Lamu is only available to order before. Between ordering and eating flies slightly more than an hour. "Where is the crab in Ingwersoße?" "I'm working on it, madam."

But the traveler will continue on the time-forgotten island: Like Caroline and Ernst August of Hanover, which the Swahili "Beach House" on the beach at Shela rent. Ernst August, nine years ago Lamu in the headlines: The "whipping Prince," wrote the German newspaper, was again added.

The "Prince" but acted entirely Lamu from the soul: A German hotelier beschallte Shela from his disco from only 800 meters away from Manda Island. Sun missed the Prince of Hanover, the man at least two slaps in the face - the procedures are up to today. "Hopefully he comes back soon, the 'Prince,'" laughs the Beach Boys of Shela. "Because if we ourselves up, we go to jail."

The German followed by English princes William and Harry, the model Jerry Hall, the French couturier Emanuel Ungaro and Italian author Kuki Gallmann. Sometimes the travelers to stay for ever, attracted by the wonderful climate, the friendliness of the people and the Swahili-white houses, with their airy galleries and quaint courtyards. As these previously looked displays the Swahili House Museum in Lamu town, with a room for the birth and death. In a so-called echo-room were hidden behind high walls, open-seated Swahili women with unseen visitors entertained.

No fish? Hakuna Matata

"We were poor, so poor. You would not believe it," says Mr. Adil, whose business in the new residents of Shela buy everything. Only alcohol is hardly available to be on Lamu. This is disturbing but not Sofia Coppola nor the writer Jeffrey Eugenides. They go to the bar of the hotel Peponi ".

They also feel British private school, such as the legendary big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, and her friends are in clear räkeln Sarongs. You drink the Kenyan Tusk beer or the "Ol 'Pal' cocktail of the house of Bourbon, vermouth and Campari. The sun bathes everything in a golden bath, and the "Küstitis" has another day to pass, just like that. Tomorrow has to be. Morning.

"Do we want to fish in the lagoon?" Suggests Mohammed before. The Dhau on the waves of the reef to sail requires skill and experience. The lines will be ejected. Mohammed begins as a fish only. Hakuna Matata. Do not worry. From the shadow of the bank, he pulls a bowl full of fish on the market until anden. His wife has baked chapatis and fresh chopped vegetables. "Lunch in an hour, ok?" It blows the coals in his Chico, the little coal on board the Dhau, just beginning. Pole pole.

The tide can be made from the finest sand islands appear. The sea is turquoise with puddles. The morning is almost gone. The soul is the devil on Lamu not fall prey. Because only the haste comes from him, but the rest comes from Allah. This too is a Swahili-wisdom.

Journey with breakfast.

As in "1001 nights": nights in the Indian Heritage Hotels can be fabulous. Palaces, country estates, but also new houses have the owners converted to tourist accommodation - this is the character of the major hotels as luxurious comfort.

 

Delhi - The coach has the winding descent from the Himalayas done. Links are still snow-capped mountains to see it go right down into the swing plane. And here in the green hills somewhere it should be the next "Heritage Hotel". So hot in India, the castles and country houses where tourists can stay. Whether in cities or villages, noble residences or farms - the idea of the cultural heritage as a hotel use is booming.

The British tourists are curious about where they spend the next night will be. "Every house, every room is different, you learn a very different India know," says Sue Chandler from London. Pointed arches and pillars, fountains in courtyards, murals, and shaded porches - "Heritage hotels" offer a journey back in time with breakfast. "Too bad, in order to arrive late in the evening and morning again travel further," says Chandler.

This is Pragpur in the state of Himachal Pradesh on the program. The bus travels through the narrow streets of the village, and passengers ask where they are probably here to stay. It is almost always on the last mile to a "Heritage Hotel" - to be a liberated "Aahhh" through the bus goes. This time it will be the "Judge's Court" is triggered, a red house with white pillars corner towers and corridors, in the colonial times to the judge lived.

Double room in brick house

His descendant Vijay Lal decided in 1997, the estate into a hotel to turn. "At the beginning it felt a bit odd to strangers at the tables to see where my ancestors had sat. But I was more of a pleasure to have guests here," says Lal. The feeling is obviously very well sit on the balcony and read, come to dinner at the festively decorated table in the garden and can be the story of Lal tell his family.

"We are eleven generations in this village," he says, "and to me it was important that we not isolate the hotel." Therefore, he went one for "Heritage Hotels" extraordinary way. He not only rents rooms in the main house, but also directed his family homes in the middle of her village, an old brick house with two floors than doubles, for example, a few minutes walk from Market Square and with normal left and right neighbors.

"The income from tourism should benefit the village in which the Heritage Hotel is," says Lal. "We get our driver and guide from the environment, we buy the vegetables in the market here, we send our guests to the souvenir shops on the ground." But "Heritage hotels" are not charity events, but first and foremost a business, the heirs of rich patrician houses to enable the family to keep possession.

"The house was much too big for me, and it had to be renovated," says RD Singh, of Jaipur in the "Nana ki Haveli 'operates. "For us Rajput hospitality has always been very important - because my wife had the idea of an occupation to make it."

Designation "Heritage Hotels" is not protected

Similarly, the Devendra Singh. He ventured with "Roop Niwas" Shekhawati in Rajasthan in the north east in 1992 to jump from the farm as a tourist hotel. He and his neighbors offer guests something special: Safari tab on the Marwari horses with ears sharp sickle. "When we started, it was very special, but today the streets are from Delhi and Jaipur as well that Shekhawati on the tourist world has arrived," says Singh.

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Tourists, who today, after Delhi and Jaipur, the Taj Mahal and the shores of the Ganges to travel, have a choice: you can in a standard hotel stay in India look like everywhere else in the world. Or they opt for "Heritage Hotels". However, this name is not protected and does not say anything about prices and convenience. Architectural gems with plenty of charm and tradition for 50 euros per night as well as to new buildings in the old style palaces, or expensive, but also houses, just old.

India-tourists, with the "Heritage hopping" flirt, do it so well, is precisely to find out where they spend the nights. Many rely on reports from friends and acquaintances, trust in Heritage established chains like the Neemrana hotels or to book packages.

But even then they should know exactly what to expect, says Michaela Studiosus of Ted's travels: "It is in these houses live history, even closer contact with the culture of the country get. But we also prepare our guests to suggest that such Hotels are not 'square, practical, well' are. "

Rather than authentic luxury

Not every room is the same, there are narrow staircases, balcony railings have some in the German building no chance. The bathrooms with shower and western toilet are perfectly clean, but from another time. It was not just a question as to luxurious accommodation, but authentic, says Ted. This also agrees with the Indian travel agent Anita Gurnani, which is always on the lookout for new "Heritage Hotels" is: "You have to be unique, not uniform, character is more important than comfort."

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Neemrana Hotels, India

Judges Court Hotel, India

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Just then also looked Giri Singh - until they are between Jaipur and Agra was found. She bought the 'Chandra Mahal Haveli, a large landowner in the house Mughal style, which stood empty and dilapidated, and was directed to her. Now include not only India-tourists to their guests: "We have air conditioning and heating in the rooms built, now also in summer and winter people from Delhi who just want to get out of town."