day two: anton and i at the arlberg pass (1800 m)

going down on the other side of the mountain, we reached 60 km/h.
totally worth the way up!

i’ll be posting photos of our bike trip on a rough one-per-day basis (if time allows).

first up: teams A and B set off for spain on their bikes on july 12th.

teams A (mom&dad) and B (anton&markus) all packed up and ready to start

we shared exactly 69 meters of the route, and then turned in opposite directions at the next intersection.
mom and dad (team A) made for the brenner pass, which would lead them into italy, while anton and i went east, heading for the arlberg pass and switzerland.
great things were afoot. :)

when we got back from our quick tour through austria, a special event was already coming up: “almkirchtag” in the museum of tyrolean farms.
almkirchtag is a tyrolean (austrian?) traditional festivity which takes place once a year in an “alm” (which, in this case, means an alpine restaurant rather than a mountain pasture).
in the museum, however, it’s the time when the old buildings are filled with life, and real tyrolean traditions are revived and displayed in this setting: tyrolean music and song, tyrolean delicacies and specialties, handiwork etc.

[view photos: museum of tyrolean farms, austria]

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the next stop on our route was hallstatt [G], a town that sits in the 40 meters between a lakeshore and a rock face that goes up 300 meters.
up to the end of the 19th century, hallstatt was only reachable by boat or narrow paths. i think the only reason that the village was established there in the first place, lies in the rich deposits of salt, which have been mined since approx. 5.000 b.c.
parts of that history can be seen in the salzwelten (salt worlds), a mining museum which offers guided tours into the mines.

internationally, hallstatt is probably best known for the beinhaus: since there’s hardly any space at all available in hallstatt, the dead remained buried for about 10 years, after which time the bones were be removed from the cemetary. they were then painted and decorated elaborately, and placed in the beinhaus (ossuary).

last time we were in the region, we only had a few hours in hallstatt, which is why we stayed overnight this time. bräu-gasthof lobisser is located in the narrow part of hallstatt with views of the lake, and has comfortable rooms with typical austrian furniture.
(i recommend to reconfirm your reservation before you arrive in hallstatt.)

[view photos: hallstatt, austria]

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when we had seen a little more than a glimpse of vienna, we drove west through a region called wachau (one of austria’s wine regions), and on to its landmark: stift melk, or melk abbey [G].
it was there, that my enthusiasm for creating panorama-images sort-of reached a highlight – which is why you’ll find lots of architectural panoramas in this album.

after the tour through the abbey, i introduced larry to fleischkas¹ (cindy staid at a safe distance ;) ), and we headed on to linz, before driving to our accommodation for the night, at fuschl am see [G].

[view photos: wachau and melk abbey]

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as mentioned before, cindy and larry byers visited austria in late september.

we met at a hotel just outside of vienna, austria.
cindy’s gps navigation device turned out not to work in austria (contrary to what customer support had told her), and due to the combination of inner city traffic, roadsigns in a foreign language etc. they got lost. i’m pretty sure i would instantly get lost in that city without gps.
i ended up guiding them to our meeting point using my laptop, a wireless internet card and google maps.
what did people do before there was the internet, or google?

update: larry reminded me to mention the final instruction i gave them before they arrived at the hotel: still on the phone, i went out on the street, and just before they came around the corner, i mentioned “…and look out for that crazy person that’s standing in the middle of the street”. they drove very carefully. ;-)

here’s part 1 of the more detailled photographic documentation, covering bits of the sightseeing in vienna.

[view photos: vienna, austria]

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classic sightseeing, annoying tuk-tuk drivers, impressive temples, crowds, sushi, and more – here’s the final part of my thailand trip report.

when we arrived at the hotel (one of two that we had booked ahead from austria), stefan and lisa had already checked in. as mentioned before, we couldn’t get more overlap-time for our “thailand trip of 5″, so we decided to meet up in bangkok for a few days.

for the typical sightseeing part, we decided to experience what the travel guides warn of: just around the corner of the entrance to wat phra kaew (the biggest and most popular complex of buddhist temples in thailand), there was an unusually friendly man who told us that the temple was closed for another two hours (which was of course just a big lie).
he was also “friendly” enough to mark four or five popular sights on our city map AND get two tuk-tuk drivers to drive us there for nothing (i’m talking a few cents).
we had read about this, and decided to “try for ourselves”.
the strategy behind this is that between the sights, the drivers ask you to go into an affiliate shop (tailor, jeweler, …) and look at the things they have to offer. you don’t need to buy anything, but the fact that they supply the shops with lots of potential customers earns them gas coupons.
if you’re already expecting this, there are no other surprises – except that they might leave you at the last but one sight, and go search for new victims instead.

wat phra khaew, by the way, is the most impressive complex i’ve seen. the entrance fee is so high that no thai would likely be able to pay for it (locals enjoy free entrance), but it’s no doubt worth it.
another sightseeing highlight was wat saket, the “golden mount” (free entrance).

there were also lots of malls, which from the inside you can’t really tell apart at all. except one mall which had only two elevators – one going to levels 1 and even numbers, and the other one going to levels with uneven numbers.

as usual, the few obligatory postcards that i absolutely had to send (to family) were dropped off at the airport, right before boarding the plane.
 

[view photos: bangkok (thailand pt. 6)]