Australia: Whitsundays

Views over the Airlie Bay, not the same day as I arrived

So I take the night bus from Noosa to Airlie Beach, leaving Noosa at 6 pm and arriving at Airlie at 10 am the next day, so quite a long ride…
And just to make things better, as I arrive at Airlie it starts raining, and raining hard. So by the time I get to the hostel I’m completely soaked, and I can’t check in until 1 pm, which just tops it.

To kill some time I head to the agency that organizes the sailing trip that I have planned for the next 2 days, to check in and ask about what I need to bring and where I need to be.

Before heading back to the hostel I decide to spend some time in a café, indoors, with a hot coffee (and because I still can't check in). When the rain seems to diminish I head back to the hostel to check in and take a hot shower. I make some lunch and start preparing my luggage for the trip.

I spend the rest of the afternoon reading in the common area of the hostel, hiding from the rain.

S.V Whitehaven

The next morning I get all my stuff, drop my backpack off at a storage and head towards the sailing boat: The SV Whitehaven, the weather doesn't seem to be great this morning either, but you have to keep a positive mind set. At the meeting point we get introduced to one of the crew members as well as the rest of the group and head towards the boat.

The boat is an old boat, from 1982, completely made out of steel, with a weight of 34 tons and a max speed of 15 knots. We have 3 crew members, and 24 guests. The boat looks big enough to easily hold that amount of people, and as we get shown where we are sleeping I see that I wasn't too far off, I had a decent sized bed, if you keep in mind that it’s a sailing boat.

Once back upstairs we get a quick safety briefing, and they explain what itinerary we are going to follow: The first day will be all about water activities, kayaking, snorkelling and more snorkelling. So for these we are heading to the northern part of the islands.

First snorkelling spot

When we arrive at the first snorkelling and kayaking spot we have a nice lunch and then get in the water. I decide to go kayaking first, to get that over with, and then snorkel for the rest of the available time. When I get in the water to snorkel it starts raining again. Not that I'm complaining about it, the fish seemed way more active because of the rain, but it did take away some visibility, which was a bit of a shame. 

As more and more boats arrive at our snorkelling spot the captain decides to head to a different spot. A bit more south, thus, a bit closer to the place where we will be anchoring for the night. The bad hing about this is that the rain had only increased on our way, so the new spot had a whole layer of dirty rain water that came down from the nearby island, and this didn't help the visibility.

After the last snorkel we get some pastries to recover some energy and we head down to Hook bay, a quiet bay between Hook island and Whitsunday island  where we will be anchoring for the night. As the crew starts to prepare dinner, everyone left upstairs just starts talking and getting to know each other.

Early morning and the jumping ship

For dinner we get green curry, allegedly the best green curry served on all the ships, because it seems to be tradition to serve green curry on all the sailing trips of the Whitsundays. After dinner the mood falls quickly, the weather is at it's worst and no one seems to be in the mood to do to much, so we just head to bed and get ready for the next day, which will be an early one!



So the next morning I get woken by the sound of the engine and by the enormous waves hitting the boat at about, at one point so high that I was just bumping around in my bed.It's about 6:30 am and I decide to head to the desk, there I notice that I was the last one to wake up. But look around, not everyone seems to feel to good with these big waves.

Whitsunday Island

After a sightly rough trip we arrive at a little bay, Chance bay, which is the gate away to the Whitehaven beach. We have a nice breakfast and then make our way over the island to one of the worlds most beautiful beaches.
On our way there and from the viewing points we don't really have the best weather. But once we make our way down, the sun starts shining and makes for a wonderful beach day.
We were supposed to have about 3 hours at the beach, but after about an hour and a half, the crew member that had joined us at the beach calls us all together and tells us that we have to get back to the ship: There have been some issues back on the ship, so we need to start making our way back.

Back on the ship the captain tells us about what happend: The hydraulic steering had a little hole in the pump, so there was no way to steer from up the main desk, the only way was to have a man down there manually moving the rudder. This ment that we were going back by motor, as sailing could have to much of an impact on the course.
Everything goes smooth anyway, but it takes us about 6 hours to get back, instead of the planned 3.

Back at the port, on my way to my luggage storage, I see a few girls of the Norwegian group of Fraser Island, so I decide to join them later for a couple of drinks, before getting the bus to Cairns. 

Australia: Fraser Island

Fraser island: The biggest sand island in the world, the place where I will be spending my next 3 days.
It's an early morning and as I get to the reception, where we are getting picked up, I see plenty of tired faces. No one seems to enjoy the early hours of the trip too much.
The bus drive from Noosa to Rainbow Beach goes smooth and without too many issues, except maybe the heavy rain that started to fall as soon as we got to our break.
In Rainbow beach we get introduced to our tour guide: Kevin, and go trough the basic safety briefing and such.

Dingo!!

We have 4 jeeps available, 2 manual ones and 2 automatic ones. and we are a group of about 30 people, everyone gets sorted and we all have an assigned car. I'm in the car with Kevin, an Irish girl, and a whole big group of Norwegian girls.
It takes us about an hour to get to the ferry towards the Island, including the stop at a bottle shop and a super market before leaving Rainbow Beach. And another 30 minutes from the ferry drop off to the first stop: Lunch at the resort where we will be staying the next 2 nights.

On the way to the resort, we get surprised by the beautiful long beach and the amazing scenery, and to make it even better we get to see a dingo, sitting all by itself not to far away from our resort's entry. As we drive into the resort I notice that we drive over the same security that I saw in South Africa to keep the animals outside of the area, some sort of rails over which animals aren't supposed to be able to walk on.

After lunch we have a few minutes to refill our water bottles and get something from the local store before continuing to Lake McKenzie.

To get there we go though an amazing bush drive for about 10 km, or 30 minutes more or less.
The island already felt overwhelming, with the sandy coast and the massive jungle just a few metres away from the coast. And now with the lake it just feels like the cherry on top of the cake.
The sand is incredible white, and very good for your hair, skin and to whiten your teeth, or so they say. And the water is incredibly clear.
There is barely any form of life in the lake which is one of the reasons behind the crystal clear water.

Lake McKenzie

As the sun starts falling we make our way back to the resort, where everyone seems to be too tired to do anything so it looks like almost everyone goed a quick nap before dinner.
For dinner we get steak with veggies and potatoes, and after finishing we head towards one of the rooms that got upgraded (so we had a tiny fridge there) to play some drinking games and get to know each other a bit.
We end up going to the resort's bar later on and even jumping in the pool to end the night.


Day nº 2 starts with an early wake up call followed by what was left of breakfast (the other group seemed to know how things worked here and got up earlier to get the best of breakfast)
After breakfast we leave towards the northern part of the island. We drive for about an hour, over the incredibly long beach before we get to our first stop: The Champagne pools. The weather wasn't the best when we got to there, but that didn't stop us from jumping in and heading to the furthest part, where you get all the "bubbles".

View from the Indian head

After the pools we head towards the Indian Head, the most easterly point of the island, and even with a cloudy day like the one we had, you have some amazing views over the island.

The remainings of SS Maheno 

After the Indian head we go for lunch at a nearby picnic area before continuing towards the SS Maheno wreck that you can find on the island. Kevin tells us how after all the years of great labour, the ship had been sold to a Japanese company that bought it hoping to use all the metal of the ship, but on the way to Japan (the ship was being towed, as it had nothing left but the metal and the steering wheel inside)a storm raised and  broke the wire that connected both ships. The crew, without any way to navigate the ship, decided to strand it on the beach hoping that the Japanese would come and pick it up once the storm was over, but by the time they found it, the was had pushed the ship so deep in the sand that it wasn't rentable to get it out, so the legally abandoned it. 

Eli creek

The last spot of the day was Eli Creek, a massive source of fresh water with a flow of 80 million litres of fresh water a day, supposedly enough to sustain Brisbane without any issues. We spend a few hours here, going down the cold river down to the beach, and going up again just to repeat.

And to end the day we get pasta with meatballs and garlic bread, and then we head to the garden out at the rooms to try and play some drinking games with the whole group. But we get interrupted by heavy rain first, and then we even get a visit from a snake.

The last day of the trip starts with another early morning, but this time we only have one stop ahead, before going back to the mainland.

The view from and to lake Wabby

We are visiting lake Wabby, the deepest lake on the island, as deep as 12 metres, as well as the lake with most sea life.

To get there we need to walk about 2.5 km, through a little forest and then a massive sand batch that looks like a small desert.
Once there we swim from one of the edges to the other one, and once back just relax a bit, some of us stay in the water, with the Dr. Fish (those that nibble all your dead flesh away) while others just spend the last hours on the beach next to the lake.

Once we finished there we had a little drive before having lunch, and then we head back towards Noosa.

The best thing about being back in Noosa is that almost everyone from the Fraser trip was staying there as well, so we decide to party all together. All in all, I had an amazing experience on Fraser Island, and I think that I was really lucky with the amazing group that I had.

The amazing group!

Australia: Brisbane & Noosa

The busy city shopping street - Brisbane

I head towards Brisbane with what you could say are the lowest expectations up to now, the reason behind this is how other backpackers described Brisbane to me: A boring city, nothing to do, a smaller and worse Sydney…

But when I got there my opinion started changing with every step that I took. Every single thing I got told seemed made up.

It is a big city, and there is no real beach, that was true, but that didn't mean that it was boring. All the streets where filled with people: youth going home from their school day, people on their lunch breaks, locals wandering around in their city, tourists enjoying street artists, families gathering on the grass or the “Brisbane Beach” for a picnic or just a little break.

Brisbane

I probably spent something like 5-6 hours just wandering the streets, hoping to get some highlights, and enjoying the city's atmosphere.
The Brisbane river flows through the city, separating it into various areas, and at the Brisbane botanical gardens you can see how the river allows for an amazing mangrove to grow.

The night life in Brisbane is something that I can’t tell you about, as I was exhausted and not in the mood for more party, so I decided to hang out at the hostel for the evening and just relax.

Noosa River's end 

My next stop is Noosa, and after checking my booking I notice that it’s going to be the first time in a while that I spend more than just 1 night in a place.
I have 3 nights in Noosa before going to Fraser Island, and another night when I get back. So I take my first day with a way more laid back mind-set, but as I walk to the main strip of Noosa I notice that you don't really need to much time. There are just 2 or 3 roads with things to do. Other than that you have the beach (which had veeery big waves the day that I arrive) and the river that gives a few nice hidden beaches.
In just a few hours I walk around all the highlights in Noosa heads, and even walk around Kayser Island, an Island surrounded by the river and located between Noosa Heads and Noosaville.

Luckily enough I have a kayaking trip planed on the Noosa Everglades the next day.

The river and it's lily pads

So the day starts nice and early, with a quick breakfast, a bus drive and a little introduction with information about the Everglades and the way that we should kayak to get into the river and back without wasting to much time.

The first part is the hardest, as we have the wind against us. We kayak over the massive Lake Cootharaba, which even has shark in it (if we have to believe the tour company that is).

After an initial hour of kayaking over the lake we get into the Noosa River, which has massive lily pad "fields".

On our way back, before heading back into the lake we have a little lunch break and enjoy the amazing view that the surroundings offer.

The next day would be a day to relax before heading to Fraser, but while making breakfast I bump into this girl that I barely remembered, but that I briefly met back at surfers paradise, so she invites me to join her and a few friends later on the day.
I head to the grocery store first and then spend the rest of the morning at the pool before joining them. We decide to make burgers for dinner and then continue towards the beach to have some drinks and play some games.

Australia: Byron Bay & Surfers Paradise

The night bus drops me off at Byron Bay at about 8 in the morning, I find the hostel to drop off my luggage and walk back to town to get some breakfast and coffee, especially coffee, because I figure that I’ll need it if I want to be able to kayak in the sea without falling asleep.

Byron beach and the cape

Byron is the most eastern part of the whole country, and it feels completely different to Sydney.
It’s a small town with a few bars and a couple of restaurants, but nothing too special (especially if you compare it to Sydney).
The atmosphere in town feels very relaxed

and the beach line is amazing. It’s one long beach that ends with a small cape into the sea, and the day that I arrive there are some amazing waves (that promises nothing good for the kayaking that I got planned ahead)

Just as I get back to the hostel the pick up for the kayaking arrives, and as we leave towards the beach the beach the driver tells us about how they saw a bunch of dolphins in the morning tour, but that we'll have to get through a bunch of waves to see them.

And while dragging the kayaks to the beach we discover that the latest wasn't a lie.
On the first try we catch a massive waves breaking onto us which makes us flip over and lose my sunglasses. But eventually after 3 or 4 tries we get into the deep sea (over the breaking waves). Once we got over the waves we had to wait for the rest of the group to get over them as well, and whilst waiting a group of turtles decides to come and greet us, swimming around us, under us and even sticking their heads out in a way of saying hi! While all these turtles are swimming around one of the guides tells us how they are the same kind of turtle as the ones in “Finding Nemo”.

When everyone arrives we continue the tour upwards, following the cape almost all the way up to the end, so literally kayaking further than the Australian land reaches. And while kayaking over there we manage to see a group of dolphins a bit further playing and jumping in the waves.

As the tour progresses the waves seem to get bigger so when we got to the end of the cape we decided to turn back around.

When we get back to the hostel I decide that I want to walk up that same cape where we just kayak around. The walk takes a bit longer than I expected, but then again, I found spots that where much prettier than I expected. At one point I even passes a few areas with public barbecues and locals grouping around them with drinks and great smelling meat.

To end the day I head toward one of the bars known for it's prize games.I meet a couple of Dutch guys playing pool and join them. Later on the bar decides to hold a pool competition while we are waiting for the beer pong on. And against all the odds I end up winning this one which got me a 50$ bar tab for the night. One of the Dutch guys decides to go home so being two we sign up for the beer pong tournament, with a main price of 150$ bar tab and a skydive. Sadly enough we don’t get past the second round in this one.

Next morning is the  day that I’m heading towards Surfers Paradise. It’s a city in the middle of the gold coast, and as far as I heard, it’s a little bit like Byron Bay, but bigger and busier.
And that exactly the same feeling I got when I arrived. It feels like a big city, with enormous skyscrapers and big shopping centres, but without the stress and rush that comes with a big city, you could even find businessmen just sitting on the beach boulevard enjoying their little break.

I had no activity planned here, so I grabbed my camera and left the hostel to see the city centre and of course, the majestic beach.

The centre was nice, and so was the beach, but there was no surfing going on, I asked around and it seemed that the sea was very dangerous at the moment, the storms on Fiji had ceased, but the sea was still shaken because of it you could even appreciate the storm leftovers here at the gold coast. The government even cancelled a surfers competition that was going to be held this week because of the dangerous currents and waves.

Surfer's Paradise by night 

I take note of this and decide not to go for a swim, but rather just spend a few hours relaxing at the beach, which has a few nice shadow spots (because of the skyscrapers)

As the sun starts going down I head back to the hostel, the plan for the night is all you can eat hot dogs followed by various drinking games, but not with beer like we are used to, every glass is filled with this cheap wine that comes in boxes of 5 Litres and they call "Goon".

After the games we head to one of the clubs in the center and spend the rest of the night around there. 

Australia: Sydney

My flight lands in Sydney at 6 in the morning, and by the time I get though customs and everything it's 7. Quite early, and it feels like the city is still waking up, I get the train to the city center and drop everything off at the hostel.

Santa maria Cathedral and Hyde's park

My first plan is to walk around the city, so I leave the hostel and start walking towards the big buildings. On my path I find a tourist map and see that I'm not far off the harbour zone, which is where all the well known building are.

The city is amazing, the combination of old buildings and new buildings, the busy streets and the big parks, the city has such a nice feeling to it. It all seems to be in harmony.

On my way to the harbour I walk by Hyde park and the Santa Maria Cathedral, and just after these I find the harbour. Everything keeps amazing me, and I just walk around taking pictures of the opera house, the bridge, the harbour... everything. The weather isn't the best, as it is a bit cloudy, but maybe it's for the best, because it doesn't feel to hot, but it's not cold either. 

Around the afternoon I decide to get my planning ready, and head towards a few travel agencies to see what the best way to travel around Australia's east coast is. And I end up booking an incredible trip, with scuba diving, kayaking and sky diving. We plan everything carefully in order to match the time that I'm here.

World's most famous Opera House 

The next day was Sunday, a quite quiet day in Sydney, as a lot of little cafés close, the big companies are closed as well, and there just seems to be much less people walking though the city. I was planning on taking the city sightseeing bus, but due to it's cost (and the fact that the biggest part of the tour is around the same area) I decide just to walk around all the spots that the bus does except Bondi Beach.

I visit the botanical garden, the opera house and walk over the bridge. Continue all the way up to the rocks, and at this point it tarts raining, so I look for somewhere to get cover.
By the afternoon I head towards the cinema, because Deadpool is just out. I get a ticket and get in the cinema, which I later found out is the world's biggest Imax screen!

For the last full day I have a tour to the Hunter's Valley planned, Hunter's Valley is the wine area of Sydney (of New South Wales actually) . Even thought that most Australian wines are made at the west coast or at the southern states, where the weather is a bit better for the grapes, they still have a lot of wine estates in Hunter's Valley as well, about 240 estates, they also specialize in making port.

So it's an early morning, waking up at 6 and being at the bus station at 7:30. By the time we get to the Hunter's Valley it's about 10 a.m.

A view of a tiny part of the Hope vineyards 

We do 2 wine tasting at different wine estates, the first one being a family run estate for over 6 generations, where we got a lot of interesting information , and the second one being a big estate called Hope estate, it's better known and feels more like a business. We have our lunch at this estate and continue towards our last wine tasting, at a little estate which was specialized sparkling wines. The trip ends with a visit to the Hunter's Valley gardens, which is a park known for being the biggest display garden in Australia.

Back in Sydney I get invited to a party organized by the travel agency, with free beer and free pizza.
After a long day I eventually make it back to the hostel to spend my last night in Sydney, the following day I will be taking the night bus towards Byron Bay.

Indonesia: Bali

Seminyak & Kuta

On my way from Kuta to Seminyak we get stuck in traffic, and as it keeps on getting worse, I decide to walk the last bit instead of staying in the car, and on my walk I discover the reason behind the traffic jam: A local ceremony is going on, right there, in the middle of the street.
Just another example that shows just how religious the Balinese people are.

The way to the hostel was longer than I expected but eventually I make my way there. The hostel is cool and there is a lot of social activity, but it's in the middle of nowhere. Which is a bit disappointing, as it means that I have to walk for over half an hour to find a place to get dinner.

I start the next day searching for the Seminyak beach, which ends up being another big disappointment, to start with, it was super hard to find, as a lot of the roads leading there where cut of by hotels, making them private roads, and once there, it was nothing special, a long beach just like Kuta beach, but with more trash spread all over the sand. After all these let downs I make the decision to leave Seminyak, I wasn't going to enjoy it here so I head back to Kuta, which has a better location to get around and is a bit cheaper.

Once I'm back in Kuta I decide to head towards the beach, and if the waves are nice maybe even rent a surfboard. And so I did, I spent the afternoon at the beach surfing and eating watermelon, and I have to say, it was awesome.

The day was quite relaxing, and to round it up I decide to go in search for the local food market (of which I had read about in the lonely planet). It is supposed to have plenty of local food at low prices. But what I found was not quite what I imagined. I arrived at a little square, yes, it had a few places with a variety of local food. But it was nothing like a market, it felt more like a little square with a bunch of tiny local restaurants ran by local families. Nothing big but they had good food.

The next morning was an early one. I had a lot planned for the day, so after a good breakfast I take a taxi and head towards Uluwatu, the most southern part of Bali. The drive takes about an hour and a half. And the first thing on my list is visiting the temple.
As I pay the entry fee and move to head towards the temple area I get called back, I need a scarf over my legs...Even though that I am wearing a sleeveless that barely covers my chest, I just need to wear a scarf over my legs...

The temple is at the most extreme part of the cliff

Anyway, with my new purple skirt I walk towards the temple's domain. The domain is massive, and has lots, lots of monkeys (I would even say to much). The temple is built at the edge of a big cliff, it offers some amazing views, buuut, you can't acces the temple, the closest that you can get is to a patio, which has another patio before the temple.
And back on the monkeys subject, not only here are to much of them, but they are also very aggressive: As I was walking around I got to see how a monkey stole the glasses of a Chinese tourist, and after stealing them he started twisting them with what seemed like the sole purpose of breaking them, the Chinese, hooping to get his glasses back, gives the monkey a bottle of water, his one reaches out for it, without dropping the glasses, and open the bottle of water to drink out of it.

View from the bar

After my visit to the temple I decide to head towards the beach, it's supposed to be an incredible surfing beach, if you can call it beach (it barely has sand, but has some amazing waves breaking on the reefs). But I find no taxis near the temple, so decide to walk for a bit. After the 30 minute walk I arrive at the beach, there are a bunch of restaurants build all the way upwards on the cliffs next to the beach. And every single one of them has an incredible view over the surfers and the reef.
I head for the highest bar, guessing it will have the best views, and I wasn't wrong. From up there I had some awesome views over the reef.

For dinner I decided to head to a well known restaurant in town with a few friends from the hostel. The sky garden is a all you can eat all you can drink for about 7€ (and full of backpackers in a party mood). And I made the huge mistake of easting too much and too fast, and give up after about an hour (and you had 4 hours).
So after a way to heavy meal I end up going to sleep as soon as I get back at the hostel.

What a way to end the last night, but it's probably for the best, as I have a plane to catch the next day, towards Australia.

Indonesia: Bali

Kuta & Ubud 

I arrive at the Ngurah Rai International Airport, in Bali, Kuta. It starts raining as soon as the plane lands, and to make things worse, the rain just intensifies as time goes by.
At the exit to the hall I get overwhelmed by the amount taxi drivers approaching me, they do seem kinder than the people in Thailand, but they feel way to persistent.

I eventually get to the hostel for what I think is a fair price, and guess what, the rain got worse. Because of the storm that is going on my only option is to wait in the hostel until everything clears out.
Around the afternoon the rain finally ceases and I have the chance to go and explore the little city.As I walk towards the beach I notice how not even the locals were prepared for such a heavy storm: the streets where flooded, the side-walks where slippery and the beach looked like a mess.
Because of the gray looking sky I decide to keep the walk short and look for a place to eat while I walk. I was expecting lots of street food or restaurants with local food, but to my disappointment that's not the case, the only local dish that I seem to find is Nasi Goren, which is just fried rice with crackers and a satay.

A local offering

My last objective before heading back to the hostel is finding a way to get to Ubud, and I booking a little shuttle which leaves around 11 a.m directly to Ubud: my first real destination.

As I walk towards the bus stop I notice something that I hadn't noticed yesterday: Even in a busy city, people make time for offerings and religious related things.

The bus leaves the station and I get a seat next to the window, I am well decided to keep an eye out, expecting to see some extensive rice fields, forests or fast paced rivers somewhere in the 2 hours drive between the two towns. But to my surprise, nothing changed, we followed the main road (which isn't even a highway, just a big road) and next to it, you can see stores, houses, big office buildings, everything but the open spaces that I was expecting. It all feels like one big city with a busy road between the two centres.

One of the Monkey forest's Temples

Anyway, I arrive at Ubud and drop my things off at the hostel. Ubud feels a lot more relaxed than Kuta, less busy and prettier, I have lunch and continue towards the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, which is a little forest full of various species of monkeys just at the edge of the Ubud main road.
It is considered sacred place for the townspeople and inside the forest you can find a couple of temples which are still in use.

In my search for dinner today I encounter a few groups of local kids all dressed up, making loud percussion noises, dancing and cheering. They go around places asking for donations while they show of their dragon costumes and try to give a nice little show. I am guessing that this is because of Chinese New year that was just a few days ago, but I am not absolutely sure.

The next day I am planning to visit the famous Balinese rice fields. They are in a little village called Tegalalang, about 10 km up north from Ubud, and of course, seeing the short distance I decide to rent a bicycle to go to the fields.
The journey is harder than I expected, because it is uphill all the way, and obviously I take a few roads that lead towards nowhere, making the trip even longer. On top of that, the sun just keeps on getting harsher.

On my way I do find lots of small, local rice fields which looked amazing, but are nothing compared to the impressive fields of Tegalalang.

The way back to Ubud is a lot easier, as it is downhill all the way. And once I'm  back in Ubud I start my search to find the famous Kopi Luwak coffee, and I have to say, I don't think it's all that special. Maybe it was just the place where I had it, or my taste buds not being developed enough, but it just tasted like a flat americano.

Before the sun starts setting I visit the Ubud palace.And as the sun sets locals start to sell tickets to the "exclusive" traditional dance show of which you have more than 4 in one single night. I don't think they understand the meaning of exclusive over here.

Forwards to dinner, because I still have trouble finding local dishes or restaurants that serve anything other than Nasi Goren.
I decide to just look for an appealing place instead of a local place, and end up having dinner in a Spanish tapas bar, the owner was from Barcelona and it felt really good having the option to get all the traditional Spanish dishes here in South East Asia. I had a bit of "ensaladilla rusa" and some "patatas bravas" It was glorious to get some real Spanish food after such a long time.

The next day is my last morning in Ubud, I visit the little market that's right next to the hostel, have something for breakfast and then just continue to the shuttle back to Kuta, from where I would go to Seminyak, a beach north of Kuta of which I heard lots of good things.

Cambodia: Kampot & Phnom Penh

The river and it's curious decorations

Krong Kampot is a little town at the south western part of the country, it doesn't really offer that much to see other than a few viewing points and the Praek Tuek Chhu river, but it often serves as a base city to explore the vast surroundings.

But the reason of my visit is a different one. Due to the lack of time that I have left in Cambodia (2 days) I can’t really visit one of the islands or even Sihanoukville for that matter. On the other hand, I do know that Paul is in Kampot and that he is heading towards the capital the next day. Something that fits perfectly into my plans. So I decided to meet Paul in Kampot, explore the little town and proceed to Phnom Penh on the next morning.

As I arrive I end up in a little café that works with deaf people, this made me think about the concept and how the fact the there's more places like this in Cambodia than in Spain.

The Durian Roundabout

I meet Paul and we go for a little walk around the town. The viewing points are just a few, one of those being a roundabout with a massive Durian fruit in the middle. 

We also find the remaining of an old cinema theatre, which is quite famous in the area. But the front place of the cinema seems to be ideal for parking, because every single time that we walked by it we found a bunch of cars parked in front. Not really great for pictures.

It's also remarkable that all the building in this area look like they have a southern European style, and as I read into some  information about the town I see that it's because of the Portuguese and French influence from back in the days. Does this French influence mean that I'm finally getting some decent bread in South East Asia!? 

We decided to go for a few drinks, and the prices are so low that you can't really drink water here. So we snack a bit and have a few drinks, preparing ourselves for the exhausting sunset and firefly cruise that we booked for this afternoon. 

The cruise would have been enjoyable, I'm sure about that, if it wasn't for the people that joined us. A group of old Australians, and not that I have anything against elders or Australians, no, the problem was their mentality. One of them hated everyone that wasn't Australian, but then again his girlfriend was a 20 year younger Cambodian woman. And even worse, this woman's kid was a little spoiled brat and made the trip worse by telling the captain "I'm bored, can we please turn back" and ruining our chances to see the fireflies. 

Anyway, in search of a place for dinner we find a locally famous pizza place, run by an an Italian who got tired of Europe and decided that he wanted a relaxing South East Asian life, he runs the place with his Mom and a very limited amount of stock, no pressure, no haste, just his passion for his food and good company. We had to wait for quite a long while before getting our order, but it was soo worth it (by the time we got the order he had sold out all his stock) We had excellent Italian food for a very decent price. 

The next morning we have a bus awaiting us at 7 a.m. with our final Cambodian destination: Phnom Penh. The capital of the country. 

A Stupa in honor of the victims

As we arrive we drop everything off, and on my way to the bank I find a Tuk tuk driver that is willing to do the tour of the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields for 15$ (I had red that the average price is around 20$ or more) great! This means that we have the whole day to visit the two must see places of the city.

The killing fields are truly as impressive as they say. Especially with the audio tour, you get an image of how terrible the events where during the Kampuchea Communism era. The guide explains what used to be done and even shows a few places that are very capable of shocking you so much that you drop a tear.

I would love to say that the next stop was less impacting but I’m afraid that it's not the case. The S-21 Prison is just as shocking as the fields, and maybe even more, because everything is still standing just as it was the day that they found it. Here you hear about how the rest of the world lived without even knowing what was going on in Cambodia. How even after the fall of his communistic regime, Poll Pot (the dictator) still got a place at the UN world conference, instead of the actual regime.

Lots of shocking things and unbelievable information, but I don’t want to expand to much on what happend in the country during these dark communistic years, as you have plenty of tools to find information about it yourself if you really want to know more about it.

After few minutes of silence on the way back to the hostel we start planning the night. The Russian market seems to be a great thing to visit if you are in town. It's a 40 minutes walk away from the hostel, but being young and fit we decide to walk there. It wasn't that bad and we got there fairly quick. But the market closes at around 6-7. And by the time we get there (something like half past 7) everything is closed. Yay…

Luckily for us, there is a little night market in the same area, nothing that you can compare to the Thai night markets, but with enough food stands to chose from. 

Which was actually, all what we were looking for.

Back in the hostel we notice how the staff is in a party mood as they are is getting everyone shots and drinks on the house, Paul and I join in for a short while before eventually saying good bye to each other.

It was a pleasure travelling with you Paul and I hope that you enjoy Nepal and the tiny mountain it has.

Cambodia: Siem Reap

After the eventually 30 hours of travel I arrive at Siem Reap in Cambodia, it's around 6 in the afternoon and because of the long trip I decide that I will make it an early night.
But of course, not too early.
So after checking in and dropping off the bags I head into town with Bob, a Dutch guy I met at the Cambodian border that's on a very nice trip passing through a lot of countries.

We take a few nice pictures of the pub street and the little pop up bars together and have dinner in a local place before heading back to the hostel.

The following morning while having breakfast I meet this girl called Alva, who is looking for someone to go with to visit the temples, and while my original plan was to go and visit them by bike, Alva got a tuk tuk that did the tour for just 10$ instead of the regular 18, so I join her for the tuk tuk around the temples. The original plan was to visit Ankor Wat, Ankor Thom (specifically Bayon) and Tha Prom, which is the Tomb Raider temple. Then finish the journey with a sunset at one of the temples.

Ankor Wat 

The temples offer an incredible visit, and even though there are loads of tourists, there are still some great spots where you can take pictures without any tourists running in front of your camera.

In my opinion the nicest temples are the least famous ones though, Ankor wat was impressive but I liked Bayon more, and Tha Prom was amazing to see with all the trees

After the three big temples we head back to the hostel before sunset (The day had been long and after hearing many disappointing stories about the sunset we tought that we could just skip this part)  Where I meet Christopher, another room mate which seemed very nice, we all went for dinner and afterwards to the pub street, which was awesome! There are a few very cool bars and soo many people that end up dancing in the street. I even saw a girl that I had met in Bangkok on my second night of the trip!! (as they say: It is a small world)

The next day I don't have any plans so I get to sleep out. Once up I have a look in the little part of the towns centre. And remarkably enough as you walk through the tiny streets, more or less 7 out of 10 food place serve "Happy Pizza's" at first I didn't think about it too much, but after seeing the signs again and again I stared wondering what made those pizzas "happy pizzas" so I asked someone what it ment, Apparently the pizzas are made "happy" with a little bit of weed or sometimes even mushrooms.
Honestly, how do people come up with these things ??

By night time we are struggling to think about where to go for dinner. Scarlett, a 19 year old girl that has done a trip that seriously made me jealous, and made me applaud her, is joining us this time. Christopher has a look on TripAdvisor and finds a very famous burger place nearby, but on the way there we find a place called the "Bug Cafe" where they serve dishes combined with bugs, curiosity struck us and we went in to try a little dish before continuing.
We order "Mediterranean Feuilletés with ants", but after half an hour of waiting they tell us that they had run out of their stock. So completely disappointed we continue to the burger place, I know, it's not the most local thing, but it was soo worth it. By the time we got there we where all starving, and the burgers tasted sooo good, everyone went quiet for a little while.

We head to play a few games of pool and continue to the pub street, where yet again there is a great atmosphere. We spend the rest of the night at one of the roof bars in the centre of the pub street. The cool thing about the roof top is that the chairs are colourful puffs and they all surround a little table.

The last day we spend together we spent it sharing pictures that we had and just chatting a bit. I'm taking the night bus at around 6 towards Kampot so before leaving we head for dinner a last time. The place where we head towards has lots of local dishes, but they also serve, Belgian beers! Even in Cambodia you can find a good old Duvel :D

I honestly say that I like Siem Reap a lot, one of the nicest cities that I've been up to now, may be it because of the people or because of how the city is. But it was nice, I hope to see you guys again somewhere!

Thailand: Koh Samui

Little island in front of the Chaweng beach 

I arrive at Koh Samui after a long train ride and a boat trip which together sum up to 14h of travelling. My first impression of the island where quite mixed, the water around the dock seemed quite dirty and the little town at the dock side looked way to crowded. luckily, the dock town wasn't my final destination on the island. So I get in the cab and head towards the other side of the island: Chaweng, it's said to be one of the nicest beaches of the island, with coral reefs at the northern and the southern sides of the beach, and 6km of beautifully white sand in between.

So obviously the first thing that I do when I arrive at Chaweng is have a look at the beach. And I got hit by a slight feeling of disappointment, the beach was amazingly long and looked beautiful, but it wasn't kept clean. As I walked along direction north I encountered so many rash in the sand, from old flip flops with plants growing on it up to empty oil cans.

I continue my walk up north, and at one point you have these lovely islands in front of the beach in search of the coral that I heard of I walked for about an hour and decided to get something to eat before continuing.
Sadly enough, even after walking all the way up to the northern part of the beach and even higher, I found no coral reefs to snorkel around. I did find out that there are plenty of trips going to the national park for a day, but there was no possibility of snorkelling around the area.

Grandad's rock

This changed up my plans a little bit and the next morning instead of going on a snorkelling adventure I decided to rent a scooter together with a guy I met at the hostel to explore the island. I knew that going around the island would take a maximum of 45 minutes by car. So I decided to have a look at the two waterfalls at the southern part, and on my way there pay a little visit to the well known Grandparent rocks.
The Grandparent rocks are not more than a bunch of rocks, under which you can find two special ones: Granddad rock and Grandmother, and they have this name due to their shape, which, as you can imagine, look like their respective sexual organ.

Waterfall nr1 

The waterfalls where very nice to see, unlike those of Pai, they where full of water and and had quite powerful currents. The first one we visited was the waterfall 2, which required a little 15 minute walk to reach. But the walk was kind of the nicest part of the waterfall, which, at the bottom had a little natural pool where you could jump in (It was very crowded up there though). While the second one was very easy to acces, the waterfall itself was bigger and there was another natural pool here which was three times the size of the first one.

After the waterfalls we decided to have a look at the Big Buddha, at the northern side of the island, but before heading there I had to get some passport pictures for my Cambodia visum, so we decided to meet back at the hostel once I had everything. I went to get the pictures, and on my way back, Google maps decided to tell me that there was a short-cut from where I was to the hostel, of course, without thinking twice I take this short-cut and here is where the fun begins. The road i got on was a dirt road, and with recent rains it had transformed in a mud road at some parts, of course, I was already half way there so I wasn't going to turn back around. I gather all my courage and accelerate through the mud... Aaand I got stuck, I had to push the bike out and of course I made sure that everything around me was now covered in mud. On my way back I passed by a local house and asked if I could clean my feet a bit, the Thai laughed and the helped me with cleaning the bike. Of course, these things only happen when you are alone.

After the short mud adventure we head towards the Big Buddha in the north, and we notice that we will probably make it just in time to get tome nice pictures of the sunset. The Buddha was not really all that special but the sunset pictures I got over the sea where amazing.

For dinner we had a look at the night market, which in this place was more of a food market than a night market, you had one or two stands where you could buy souvenirs and similarities while all the rest of the stands where just food stands. Not that I'm complaining though, I loved the massive amount of options that I had for my dinner.

And I had to get a good dinner, because the following day would be a loong looong travel day. Leaving from Koh Samui at 12 in the morning and arriving at Bangkok at 6 in the morning the following day, just to get a bus there towards Siem Reap.
Lots of hours of sitting await me.

Thailand: Ayutthaya & Hua Hai

We get dropped of the bus at 5 a.m. on the main road. A hour away from the Ayutthaya centre. As soon as we get off the obvious tuk tuk driver approaches us and tells us that he will take us to the centre for just as little as: the same price that the bus to get from Chian Mai to Ayutthaya costs us. We decide to pass on the amazing offer and wait for a more local and cheaper way  to get into town.

The local bus driver drops us off at a seemingly cheap BnB, so we sit around the lobby for an hour until it opens and proceed to drop of the bags.

Ayutthaya used to be the countries capital in the XIV century until it got destroyed by the Burmese army in the XVIII century. And in 1991 it was declared part of the UNESCO world heritage.
We got lucky and reached the old ruins on time to catch a little glimpse of the sunrise.
But the ruins where still closed, so we had to sneak in through the back to be able to make pictures of the morning with the ruins, the old ruins make for an incredible view and some amazing pictures.

Buddhas lined up at Wat Yai Chaimongkhon

We finished visiting the central old city relatively quickly so we took advantage of the spare time to take a little power nap. After which we rented a bike to head over to the outer part of the city. We visited the floating market, but sadly enough it was just closing it's doors and afterwards we headed towards Wat Yai Chaimongkhon which is an impressive old temple that still stands and is still in use up to this day.

The next day would be our last day of travelling together, we took the train towards Bangkok just to separate once we where there I booked a train towards Hua Hai whilst he was staying one night in Bangkok in order to leave to Cambodia the following day

Hua Hai's little train station 

I arrived with an hour delay in Hua Hai, but still on time to go and explore the city, I knew that I couldn't make it to the beach any more but I walked through the city and paid a visit at the night market of the town. I especially noticed how touristy the town was, I thought maybe it was because of the Hilton and the Marriot hotels, but apparently it's such a popular holiday destination (even for Thai's, that regularly spend the weekends here) because of how safe the area is, it's a town that has ben favoured by the king throughout various generations as a place to spend the holidays, so there is constant surveillance in the town and there are big army ships patrolling the coast.

The next morning I didn't really do much other than go for a walk on the beach, something that I hadn't done in a long time, I met a few kite boarders but the wind was a bit low today so it wasn't the best day to head in the waves, they day went by without to much activity and I started planning my next stop, I had decided to visit Koh Samui, but when Paul told me a few great things about Cambodia I started thinking about heading there myself as well, so I would go to Koh Samui for a couple of days and from there on head to Cambodia.
So now I am here, in the train, I just got to see the nice Hua Hai station which is still conserved since it was built, and it gives a nice antique touch to the otherwise booming city.
And on my way to Surath Thani! where I will get on a bus towards the port and eventually head to the islands.

Thailand: Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai

After Pai we plan out our next destination: Chiang Rai, and after reading a few guides and blogs we feel prepared and decide to spend no more than 1 night in Chiang Rai, because lots of places state that there isn't that much to do besides the White temple and the black house.

But before heading to Chiang Rai we have a one night stop at Chiang Mai, otherwise we would arrive way to late in Chiang Rai to see anything. On top of that, it's Sunday! and in Chiang Mai there seems to be a very nice Sunday night market, so we plan towards that.

But just a few hours before reaching Chiang Mai it starts to rain slightly, we don't give it to much attention and check in in our hostel. We drop of the bags and want to head out to have a little drink but then we notice. The rain that we didn't pay attention to before had escalated into a greater storm and made it close to impossible to head out. To kill some time we decide to play a few games of pool and wait for the storm to blow over. Eventually the rain stops and we manage to catch a glimpse of the amazing Sunday night market.



The next morning catch the Green bus to Chiang Rai. It's cold so we are really dressed appropriately, I even had to get my wollen pull over. Once in Chiang Rai we check in in our hostels and don't really do to much more because of the bad weather. We end up hanging around a bit in my hostel meeting some more people and playing a bit of pool.
The sun sets and we head towards the Chiang Rai night market, a big disappointed if you compare it to the one on Sunday in Chiang Mai, but the cold might have added to this experience.

As soon as we woke up the next morning we had a look at the local transport to head to the White temple. The weather had become worse over the days and it was very, very cold today. With 2 pullovers we get on the bus and we still manage to feel cold. I have to say that the white temple is amazing though, and if the weather is nice it is probably something very impressive to see. But with the cold we didn't really appreciate to much of it, we rushed the visit a bit, and the main thing that we wanted to do: Entering the white temple, was something that we couldn't do, the inside of the temple was closed for an unknown reason. A big shame, because it seems that the inside of the temple is decorated with various western movie/comic characters.

The black house is something we ended up not visiting, because it was the other part of town, which ment more than an hour drive from where we were, and we really found it too cold. But it seems to be a museum of a local (rich) artist, that decided to expose his work in his own gallery due to the vandalisation of his pieces in public galleries. This is said to occur because of the style that the artist has, he seems to make art that is very death related, and it seems that the Buddhism community doesn't appreciate this to much.

On our way back to Chiang Mai we decided what our next destination would be: Ayutthaya.