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.