Tag: city

Living in a skyscraper, sightseeing and more in Kuala Lumpur (November 2025)

Racki’s brother came from Germany and joined us for two and a half weeks 🥳
Together we moved into a very nice apartment on the 18th floor of one of the many high buildings in Kuala Lumpur 🌆
Because of the off-season it was only 15€ a night for two bedrooms, a kitchen, and we had free access to a pool and the rooftop which had an awesome view 🥳
The skyscrapers, and of course especially the Petronas Towers and the Maybank Tower, were beautiful in the night as well. And sometimes the reflections looked astonishing 🪞
We were mostly taking the buses and trains and mostly they were not overcrowded. Only once we had to wait in a queue. And that queue was pretty British: perfect line, no pushing 😀
Even though it was the rainy season, we had not too much rain. But sometimes the clouds were swallowing the towers 🌫️
We did a lot of sight seeing and showed Tom (Racki’s brother) the biggest mall we have ever seen: the Pavillon. This thing was crazy! The shops had house numbers. There was an app just to find your way and they had the craziest Christmas decorations 🤶🏼
Instead of the typical German Kaufmannsladen, there were miniature versions of street shops and …
… street kitchens 😁
And interesting services like this ear cleaning service. They had a couple of treatment chairs and above every chair there was a monitor showing live what got removed from the ear of the patient 👂🏼
I liked the graffiti street a lot. Two or three streets with big paintings in the walls and …
… the streets 🎊
There we went to one of my favorite restaurants and paid only 3,5€ for two dishes and a coke which was very cheap, even for Kuala Lumpur prices 🏷️
The contrast between the old and mouldy buildings and the new shiny one was very interesting.
One of the locals (a taxi driver) told us, he paid about 40.000€ for an apartment in one of the older two story houses and was paying it off for 30 years 💵
There were the restaurant streets all over the place 🥣
And markets for everything 🌺
And Little India looked very colorful. Especially at night 🏮
And the towers were the most illuminated 🌆
One day, we went to the Batu Caves 🏯
And met a lot of monkeys hanging around, stealing food 😄
The temples were beautiful and colorful 🎊
Some 372 steps up to the main cave 🚀
We got some blessings …
… and walked through …
… this magnificent cave 😍
The other day we went to another colorful temple 🎊
This one had the most lanterns 🏮
And …
… crazy figures, …
… mosaics, …
… dragons, …
… and some love ♥️
Of course we went to a bar as well and had a great night with a funny local band 🎸

One day in crazy Delhi, India (March 2025)

In March 2025, the travel route we had in mind was: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal. And after that destination unknown.
We organized everything. The Carnet de Passage (special customs document for our car which is necessary to enter certain countries with an own car) and the visa.
We tried to get a visa for India in Kyrgyzstan, but it was not possible. The only options left were: going to Germany and applying there in an Indian embassy or applying for an evisa online and flying to India to get the visa stamped in our passports.
Because getting the evisa stamped in our passports was not possible on the land borders and Rosinante was not used to flying, we decided to take the cheapest flight to Delhi and back to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Our ecological hearts were bleeding but we did not see another option.
Later we found out , that it’s most likely possible to get an Indian visa in Tajikistan…
No matter what, we made the best out of it and took a flight in the morning/ night of my birthday from Almaty to Delhi. We were tired and so we took a taxi to a park that looked nice on Google Maps.
The rollercoaster/ taxi ride was a good introduction to the traffic in Delhi. WTF. We had a lot of experience with traffic in a lot of different countries and I’d say we are pretty fast and active drivers who make use of mostly everything that’s allowed or tolerated in the traffic. But this was different, special, fast and tight. Often only a few centimeters were left between the cars, trucks, busses, tuktuks, people, cows, walls etc.
The park was a good place to ease our tired minds.
There, a lot of people did yoga, meditated and practiced breathing techniques. To me it felt nice that these practices were so much a part of the daily life of the Indians.
After breakfast, we did some sight seeing and I absolutely liked the style of the historical buildings.
The next method of transportation, we tried, was a tuk tuk. We got an electric one and had the most relaxed driver. After the taxi ride, that experience was very different. Less pushing. But of course vehicles, animals and humans were everywhere.
We got pretty tired and took a nap on a meadow near one of the historical buildings.
Everybody was super friendly and lovely. Several Indian groups wanted to take a selfie with us which we always find funny.
A nice home for one of the stray dogs.
One of the many tourist bazaars.
An ordinary shopping area in the old town.
Infinite small shops.
We liked the monkeys and the cows a lot.
Packed, tight corridors.
And sideways.
We decided to take a rigsha. Before we started, we showed the driver where we wanted to go because we were wondering if it wouldn’t be too far. About seven kilometers. He was fine with that.
In the car free area of old town, he pushed our rigsha through the tiniest free spots.
After some kilometers he got exhausted and driving on the bigger streets of Delhi, with big trucks and busses, felt more and more adventurous. Sometimes he spoke to other locals, told them where he was going and they showed him pretty much respect for his mission.
We asked if we should switch to a taxi, but he wanted to get going.
In the end, we made it, our driver was happy and I felt that he was kind of proud.
In a small Buddhist temple, I did a meditation and Racki relaxed a bit. After that we had dinner and took the metro to the airport.
Goodbye Delhi after 15 hours to get our visa stamped in our passports. It was a crazy short visit, but an interesting one as well.
Back in the airport of Almaty, Racki got a super discount on Baileys (her favorite drink). A successful end of our trip.

Racki’s birthday, Christmas market and preparing for the snow in Tbilisi (December 2023)

After the battery installation in Turkey, we went back to Hof Marani and continued to Tbilisi to celebrate Racki’s birthday!

It was super cool and nice to go to a real Christmas market. With live music, food and of course glint wine.

We had a great time and prepared ourselves and cars to stay in Gudauri (the biggest ski resort in Georgia) for the whole winter season.