K.L. - Sumatra: Monsoon, bugs and other inconveniences

During the past couple of weeks kind of everything that makes traveling unpleasant happened, so I hope I have everything covered for the rest of the trip now:
Bedbugs in Kuala Lumpur - a sleepless night and 5 days of crazy itching, getting sick with a bad cold and cough, torrential rains for 2 days almost nonstop at Lake Toba, a most complicated roadtrip from Lake Toba to Medan: only minutes before we passed the road got completely blocked by a "tree-slide" resulting in a lengthy detour on a mountainous dirt road, a real offroad experience...

...followed by the longest and craziest traffic jam I've ever been in - we covered 120 km in 13 hours (!). On the next day encounter with stupid local motorbike-taxi guy who wanted to molest me and steal my phone and money (screamed at him and ran away), then, just after New Years food poisoning in Banda Aceh and 4 days later again in Pulau Weh, and all that was rounded off with painful bladder infection - yay!

Luckily I still was able to do a few nice things, for example celebrate Christmas with a new-found friend in K.L. (who incidentally lived in a building with an amazing pool in the 34th floor next to the Petrona towers), climb Mount Sibayak in Berastagi - the volcano next to the one that erupted only a few days later (!). Visit traditional Batak villages on Samosir island at lake Toba in the company of a really nice Italian family who let me join them for a few days, celebrate New Year's eve on a lonely beach with a group of surfers in north Sumatra, visit Tsunami sites and the Tsunami museum in Banda Aceh, snorkel around the island of Pulau Weh, and drink cat-pooh coffee with a lovely girl from Upper-Austria, who I met on the ferry back to Banda Aceh.

Now I had a few days to recover in Bali and so far I have only met great people, so I am really looking forward to my time here. Tomorrow I set off for a trip around the island on my motorbike with only a small back-bag, so no computer and no internet for the next few days.

**K.L. and Sumatra Pics**

Amazing Angkor Wat, lake people, Cambodian history and finally, beaches!

I tackled Angkor Wat in a day on the bike, even though it meant cycling out to the temple site at 4:30 in the morning through the jungle in complete darkness. By 4 pm I had seen everything I wanted to see and I wasn't even going in a rush. I had "prepared" by watching Tomb Raider the day before and this temple overgrown by massive trees was my absolute highlight!

I was equally impressed by the floating villages on Tonlé Sap lake. I booked the ferry down to Battambang and was not at all expecting such an interesting trip (the main attraction of the boat ride is supposedly bird watching - I found the people watching much more engaging, they happily let you look into their living rooms from the passing boat!)

Whole towns are floating on this massive lake which is changing its level by 12 m during the year. Since fishing season was on we could see them moving massive bamboo constructions with fisher nets up and down, it was truly fascinating.

Battambang itself is not really touristy, it certainly felt more "real" than Siem Reap. I spent an afternoon with 2 street kids, which was quite an experience. For 1 day I hired a motorbike guide, Tha, (he can be found at the Chaya hotel), who showed me around the area. He was a really nice guy and very knowledgeable. His family had suffered tragic losses through the Khmer regime in the 70ies and he could still remember being in a refugee camp at the Thai border when he was little. We visited the Killing Caves, where thousands of people, including children and babies, were killed by being thrown down into the caves. The atmosphere felt oppressive down there, they still have not even recovered all the bones.

We closed the day with the spectacle of the bat cave - a cave, where every evening for about 1 hour, you can witness a stream of bats exiting the cave. Locals say there are millions of bats.

With some extra days to spend before flying down to Kuala Lumpur I decided to visit the island of Koh Chang again. I'd been there 10 years ago and would not have recognized the place anymore. Lonely Beach is far from being lonely - the village transforms into a wild party zone by night. Their full moon party was not too bad at all. After 2 nights I had enough and went to Long Beach by motorbike, which might some day become the next Lonely Beach, once they build a road there. At the moment you need to be fearless and/or very skillful on the motorbike (I was neither but miraculously I survived).

Christmas in Kuala Lumpur, except they don't really celebrate Christmas here, but with the hot and humid temperatures I won't really get into Christmas mood anyway!

CAMBODIA - KOH CHANG PHOTOALBUM

Laos II

Within the last 2 weeks I had the 2 worst bus journeys ever, the first one was 4 hours of agony on a bumpy road, trapped on the back bench of a beaten up minivan from Oudomxay to Nong Khiaw (with the mandatory several puking-out-of-the-window Laotians you'll have on every bustrip).

It wasn't the luckiest part of the trip: boat traffic to Luang Prabang was suspended - so no chance to see this famous stretch of the Nam Khan river from the boat. The only boat trip I did in the end was to Muang Gnoi, 1 hour upriver from Nong Khiaw. Nevertheless, it was very picturesque, Nong Khiaw is a nice chilled-out village (no cars), but unfortunately it started to rain and got really chilly at night. Next morning I heard all trekking tours to the surrounding limestone mountains were cancelled because of dangerously slippery paths and leeches. I was not tempted to venture out by myself.

So the only thing to do was to take a bus to Luang Prabang, the lovely French-colonial capital of the province. And there were lots of treats to have in this town: Lao massages, food in all variations (even though I saw some pretty gross things at the local market - check out the pics), and my favorite: the fish spa! Also plenty of Wats (temples) and the traditional ceremony of the alms-giving to the monks at 6 a.m.

Next stop: party town Vang Vieng. Was fun, met nice people, saw caves, swam in lagoon, went on tube & kayak and had more Lao and LaoLao than was good for me. So next leg: down south to tranquil 4000 islands for some recovery.

Spent the next couple of days exploring the island of Don Det and Don Khon and another day of rather demanding but fun kayaking, saw an excessive amount of waterfalls (impressively big ones, though) and even some of the very rare Irrawaddy dolphins.

Next was traumatic bus journey number 2: to Cambodia, more precisely to Siem Reap (the town of the famous Angkor Wat temples). Excessively bumpy roads, overbooked bus, 20 hours instead of 15, only 1 short break for food, deep-freezing air-condition, plus I got rather ill, so no fun at all. So now, after 2 days of recovery and changing all my travel plans I will finally undertake the big temple project tomorrow, until I'm "templed-out", as they say.

***NEW PHOTO ALBUM ***

From Bangkok into Laos

The 7-hour stopover in Amman was nevertheless enjoyable because I had my very personal tourist guide from the Royal Jordanian airline to take me out for a delicious dinner and a night-cruise through the city (don't ask how that came about :)

Bangkok - boiling hot, permanent traffic jam, only 1 out of 15 taxi drivers we stopped agreed to turn on the meter... But nice guest house directly at the river, only to be reached by wooden walking bridges.

My destination was Laos, however, so after a night on a luxurious VIP bus, with every possible comfort except for the non-stop snoring Thai in the row in front of me, I arrived at the Mekong river and crossed the border by boat.

I managed to secure a space in the amazing Gibbon Experience, the most exhilarating zip-lining I've ever done. Cables between 400 and 600 m, you're 60 m above the jungle, flying in a speed that makes your ears tingle! What was almost more amazing: the oldest of our group was an 83-year-old Swedish gentleman.

Next stop: Muang Sing near the Chinese border. Visit of Akha villages, the hill tribes of the region. Hardly any tourists there, some villages get foreign visitors about once a month. People did not really seem to be interested in us, or maybe they were shy. Lots of poverty in a picturesque setting, kind of like India. Certainly interesting was the visit in the Whiskey village, where they produce the national drink: rice whiskey or "Lao-Lao". It actually tastes like hazelnut schnapps and is now my next favorite drink after Beerlao (amazingly good beer!).

Stopover today in Oudomxay, another unpronouncable town, to continue to Nong Khiaw tomorrow - a picturesque village in the limestone mountains.

Click here for more Pictures...

 

Tel Aviv in June

Avoiding climate zones with temperatures below 30°C I traveled from Barcelona over Athens to Tel Aviv to visit my friend Karin. The two things that impressed me most: amazing city beaches and the best food ever! I have a new mission in life now: learning to make humus, that is, the real stuff, not the garlic-infested slobber we get here. 

Surprisingly I was allowed to take all important ingredient out of the country - local Tahini - maybe the customs officers overlooked it while they were busy breaking the seals of all my new Ahava cosmetics just in case I was hiding a weapon in my dead sea body lotion.

Anyhow, this will be my bible: The Humus Blog. And this was the reason for a life changing taste experience: http://youtu.be/ZXPJUyFGMgE

Apart from eating and shopping I also traveled around the country conveniently in a rental car. Karin gave me a quick tour of Jerusalem, where we managed to break the Shabbat rules by writing our notes for the Wailing Wall. An upset guard tried to stop us - writing is work and very unholy on Shabbat. I did not dare to ask how her work as a guard conforms with the Shabbat rules...

More of a highlight than strange religious practices and bazaars full of Jesus souvenirs (thorn-crown, anyone?) was our afternoon at the Dead Sea. Amazing, amazing, amazing, just don’t ever get that stuff into your eyes!

Rejuvenated and energized by Dead Sea mud I spend a long day taking a drive around the Northeast of the country, visiting more Jesus-related sites (well, you cannot drive for more than half an hour without running into one anyway). Sea of Galilee near Golan Heights, where Jesus preached from a mountain (which incidentally was closed when I passed by). Lovely landscape though, the lake would be a nice summer holiday destination if they would not have all these great beaches anyhow. And in front of their doorsteps in every coastal town!

Akko was thoroughly charming, even though – surprisingly – I ate the worst humus of my trip there. I cannot confirm the rumor that Akko has the best humus of the country. Haifa was worth a stop for its great location but apart from the Baha’i gardens, which were already closed when I arrived, there are no other great tourist attractions I would have noticed. Apparently they have a vibrant night-life and better bars than in Tel Aviv but I did not get a chance to verify this.

Anyhow, I have to say Israel people are great fun and open and friendly and straightforward and sometimes a little weird (who would not be after spending years in the army or even in combat). I will definitely be back some day!

Israel - June 2012

Tenerife in May

After a high altitude winter straight down to sea level in Tenerife! Although I ventured up to 2300 m again on the volcano Teide - did not make the top of 3700 m, a bit too lazy for walking, but we explored a great part of the island by car. And spent a day in neighbouring La Gomera. And still found time for 3 surf sessions at Playa de Socorro! All in all - seen loads, done loads, ate loads!

Teneriffa - Spanien

Honduras - Guatemala - Mexico - NY

I did a long leg from Granada (south of Nicaragua) to Tehucigalpa (the unpronounceable capital of Honduras), the bus arrived late and a preoccupied fellow passenger did not want me to go around town at nighttime, so she invited me to stay in her house with her family. What a nice welcome to a new country!

The next day I went up to La Ceiba at the Carribean coast of Honduras. I spent the night as the only guest at the spectacularly situated Jungle River Lodge and also was the only participant in the canopying tour. Definitely low-season, but very relaxing after all the surfing action in Nicaragua.

Next I crossed over to Utila, the smallest island of the three Bay Islands and allegedly the cheapest place in the world for diving certifications. Stepping off the boat you get thronged by dive school representatives offering their deals, it is hard to find accommodation as a non-diver - the island seems to be owned by diving schools. Utila itself does not have any beaches worth mentioning but I was lucky to find a dive school (Captain Morgan's) who had a little hotel on one of the small islands off Utila's shore and actually let me stay there even though I was not taking part in a course.



This place was like paradise - it was the only tourist accommodation on this tiny fishing island (2 islands in fact, connected by a bridge: Jewel and Pigeon Cay), great snorkelling right off the hotel pier, private rooms with seaview. The island's population is only 500 people and you can walk across the whole place in 10 mins, it looks and feels like a toy town.

Residents on all the Bay islands are a weird mix of indigenous people, British settlers, and Afro-Caribs imported after some slave riots way back, so you meet people of all colours and looks (and for the first time you won't get recognized as a tourist straight away). Moreover, they speak a nearly unintelligible version of Jamaican English and/or Spanish - this was certainly one of the strangest places I've been to on my whole trip, I loved it!

I stayed on the Cays for a few days, going out with the diving boat every day to snorkel at different reefs around the islands (being too lazy to do a refresher of my diving cert). Snorkelling alone was amazing enough, the reef around the islands is the second biggest in the world and there was tons of stuff to see.

Then I had to say good-bye to the sea (it's always so sad, I think I should live by the sea, I never get fed up with it) and move on north. I crossed the border to Guatemala to visit Livingston, a Garifuna town (meaning inhabited by Black Caribes) that can only be reached by boat.



The further north I traveled the better the food became - finally! Garifuna food is especially delicious, and Tortillas arrived on the menu as a variation to rice-beans-chicken dishes (therefore more food pics in this album - for Annette, who requested a food documentary :).

From Livingston I took a boat through the Rio Dulce Canyon up and continued by bus to Flores, the jumping-off point for visits to the Tikal ruins. Tikal is the main attraction of Guatemala, it's one the largest Mayan sites and is situated right in the middle of the jungle. It's so huge, it would take weeks to see it all. Besides, many of the temples have not yet been excavated (and probably never will be). It was impressive but also very touristy and expensive, but still worth visiting.



After Tikal I had only a few days left to make it to Mexico City. I did a stopover in Palenque (Chiapas) and spent a beautiful day at Agua Azul (a river with almost artificially blue water because of its high lime content) and the Misol-Ha waterfall. In Mexico City I visited friends, went shopping and stayed indoors as much as possible because it was very cold. Same goes for New York - lunches in Chinatown and at the Google office and I spent the remains of my budget in the Burton store, so now I am fully equipped for the winter season to come!

Honduras - Guatemala - Mexico - NY

Panama - Costa Rica - Nicaragua

I finally seem to have escaped the rainy season, apparently the weather just had to get really bad before the sun returned for good. So Panama City was still quite rainy but I managed to see a few rays of sun at my visit of the Panama Canal and of the Casco Viejo - the old part of town which consists of (what a surprise) colonial buildings. The Casco Viejo is being renovated, so some houses are really nice while others are still in a process of total decay, a very strange contrast but certainly appealing.

I did not spend too much time in the city, because I could not wait to hit the beaches of Costa Rica. First I went to a really remote place on the pensinula of Nicoya, the Playa Pelada near Nosara, where friends of a friend of mine from Berlin run the hostel "Almost Paradise". The place has a great location and is really peaceful. It was so quiet that even the main surf beach was almost empty most of the time, plus it rained heavily during the few days I was there. I decided I needed more surfing company and headed to the most touristy place I could find nearby - Tamarindo, a few hours north.

Tamarindo, also called "Tamagringo", has certainly been sold out to the Americans. High-ride condos around the beaches, astronomic real estate prices and all the facilities you want. It is full of foreigners but there are not too many backpackers around (I had my dorm room to myself for 5 days). It's seems to be a favorite retirement place for aged surfers, which made the line-up quite an interesting place. But the main attraction that kept me there for longer than I had stayed anywhere else on my trip were the waves! They were so much fun, gentle and the perfect size for me, I could not get enough of them. Also I found some local friends to party with, and there were plenty of parties, great fun (apart from being too hungover to surf in the mornings...).

My next destination was the exact opposite: Isla de Ometepe in the lake Nicaragua. I arrived with some Argentinian girls and their friend from Belgium in the village of Merida and since we were almost the only guests there we went on our excursions together. There was the idea of climbing one of the volcanoes but after an extremely exhausting hike to the waterfall of San Ramon, not even half-way up the mountain, we decided to skip that - it would have been pure torture, the heat was just insupportable. On my second day I visited the Ojo de Agua, a natural pool with supposedly healing water from the volcano. It was such a chilled-out place and I finally managed to do all the reading to plan the rest of my trip.

The 2 days of pure nature and dirt roads were enough, I needed to get back to the beaches and traveled over to San Juan del Sur. It has the reputation of being the Tamarindo on the Nicaraguan side but it is much less developed and therefore also much more authentic. Anyway, it is THE place where all surfers meet, and of course a great party place. There are several beaches nearby, but unlike Tamarindo San Juan does not have its own surf beach, the village beach is rather ugly. So every morning all the surfers piled onto a truck that took us to the surf beaches. It felt quite like a school trip, great fun! The hostal, Casa de Oro, was the center of activities and would be recommendable except for a very ugly trait: bed-bugs. I was nearly eaten alive at my first night there and had to wash and desinfect all my belongings. Not fun at all, and I was not the only one.

Apart from surfing I went on a really memorable excursion: the arrival of the turtles at the nature reserve La Flor. Only every few months there is a big arrival at night for a week or two and we were lucky to have one happening just at full moon. It was a such a sight: thousands of turtles on the beach and coming out of the water. According to the guards around 16.000 turtles arrive every night to lay their eggs. They were huge, longer than 1 m, and so many of them, you had to be careful not to step on them (luckily they moved extremely slowly). Visitors cannot use white lights, because it would stress out the turtles, and we were given weak red lamps whose light cannot be seen by the turtles, so the pictures did not turn out great. But it was definitely a sight I will never forget!

Today I arrived in Granada, a nice enough colonial town, unfortunately the weather was not that nice. Tomorrow I'll head on to Honduras to spend a few last days at the sea, at the Bay Islands. No more surfing though, but I had an epic last day in San Juan, first catching the biggest and then the longest wave I´ve ever had in my very last session!

Panama - Costa Rica - Nicaragua

Colombia marinera

Yes, finally I've arrived in the hot climate zones! I just forgot to take into account that it is the rainy season as well. Full of enthusiasm and ignoring the rain showers I headed from Santa Marta into Parque Tayrona, a nature reserve at the Colombian Caribbean sea. Since there are no roads to the beaches and the walkways consisted mainly of knee-deep mud, I decided to take a horse. After 1 1/2 hrs ride I looked just as if I had bathed in mud (my horse certainly had), but at least I had arrived at the famous beach Cabo San Juan de la Guia, where you can sleep in hammocks overlooking the sea on the top of a little island.

It would have been very nice except for all the garbage that was swept on the beaches after the rain and the thunderstorms at night, which kept me freezing in my luxurious hammock (after all, this hammock on top of the island was more expensive than any hotel room I had before on this trip), so after only 2 days I fled the site and took the fast boat to Taganga, a supposedly picturesque fishing village near Santa Marta. Only this time it looked as if it had been hit by a reverse Tsunami - the streets and the beach had been literally washed away by the heavy rains and all that was left was rubble and garbage.

Not impressed I moved on the Cartagena - first I was told that the road was closed because of floods and there was no way to get there, but then after changing buses in Shakira's home town (very ugly Barranquilla) I miraculously arrived in Cartagena.

The historic center is what Cartagena is all about and it is pretty wherever you turn. I also started looking for a boat to cross over to Panama and found a captain from Barcelona whose boat was up next for departure. Since the sea was very rough after the thunderstorms we had to wait for a few days so I killed time by visiting the nearby volcano El Totumo, whose main attraction is not its height (which is only 29 m above sea level) but the fact that you can throw yourself into the (supposedly healthy) mud it still spits out and experience zero gravity. Great fun!

Spending the weekend in town called for party and I found an able guide in Angelo, who brought me to an Austrian-owned bar (highly recommendable: Harry's Tropical Cafe in Getsemani) and to other hotspots of Cartagena nightlife. With a slight hangover I boarded the boat Lyka the next day and we waved good-bye to Colombia. Thanks to anti-seasickness pills I had a rather relaxed night (as opposed to other passengers including our cook, whose been on boats for 10 years!)

After 2 days of a bumpy ride we arrived at the Archipelago of San Blas - what a magnificent reward, the most beautiful, picture-postcard like islands I've ever seen! We stayed around for 3 days, counting starfish, buying lobsters and crabs from the local Kuna people for almost nothing and roasting them on the BBQ, getting coconuts from palm-trees, snorkelling around corals and a sunken boat and rowing our little dinghy to the tiny paradisiacal islands.

I don't think I will see anything alike again on this trip. Now I am in Panama City not sure how to divide the rest of my time, I think next I will hit some decent surf beaches in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and finally get to practice!

Colombia - Panama

Colombia terrestre

It´s only 10 days since I arrived in Colombia and it seems ages ago - loads of interesting places in such a short time! So before I head off to remote Carribean beaches and islands in Tayrona (and will certainly be offline!) here´s all about my visit to mainland Colombia.

I arrived in the city of Cali after a very long trip from Baños, Ecuador, and was welcomed by my friend Isa's parents, who invited me to stay in their amazing home. I also got to spend a day with Isa's lovely friends Cata, Paulo and Gabi at a very rustic finca in the mountains.

After a few days I continued to Salento in the coffee region where I got the real stuff from Don Elias at his coffee plantation (coffee in Ecuador usually had a suspicious taste of washing-up water). The main activity in Saltento, however, is a hike up the beautiful, though somewhat misty, Valle de Cocora, where wax palm trees with a height of up to 70 m grow on surreal green hills.

At my 1-day stop in Bogotá I was hosted by Ana, Isa's sister (since she had promised me I would be passed around her whole family in Colombia :) She took me to the amazing event steak-house Andrés Carne de Res, the best food I've had so far on this trip!

People in Colombia are exceptionally nice, they sincerely try to help if you are lost or have any questions, I have hardly noticed any of the usual tourist rip-offs, kids don't beg (yet) even in the most touristy places, and you can walk around without being hassled (what a relief after my last trip to India!)

So the next stop was Villa de Leyva, a picture-book colonial town, great to visit for a day, then San Gil, the outdoor adventure sports capital of Colombia. My programm on the first day was kind of conservative though - a trip to the 180 m high waterfall Juan Curi and an afternoon in Barichara, a colonial town so perfectly preserved it has become a popular film set for Columbian telenovelas.

My second day in San Gil was more exciting - I signed up for a paragliding tandem-flight! San Gil and its surroundings are a paragliding mekka, it's possible to fly on almost all days of the year. Just on the day I went it looked as if we would not have enough wind - our only pilot accidentally crashed way down the mountain with the third person he carried, and it looked as if there would be no more flying for the rest of us. But then 3 more pilots arrived, the wind picked up and all of us went home with big grins on our faces!

Colombia

(I wanted to add a picture of my flight yesterday but just found that a vicious virus has attacked my camera card, will add it later once I restored the data - thanks, Macondo Hostel computer!)

Up and down Ecuador

It was cold. And cloudy. But beautiful! Still, I can't wait to reach the sun, the beach, the heat, so my trip through Ecuador was short and sweet.
Started out with a couple of days in Quito - the second highest capital in the world (2850 m) and apparently the most dangerous of all cities I am visiting on this trip (with the exception of Mexico City, maybe).

I survived without damage (except for a cold) and went on a 3-day-tour to the volcanoes of the Central Highlands - not before visiting the touristic equator of Ecuador.

First challenge was to climb up to the glacier of the Cotopaxi, Ecuador's second highest peak, in a hail storm. The glacier lies at 5100 m, so one could say, I climbed the Kilimanjaro (hehe).
A day of horse-riding and a visit to the stunning volcano crater lake Quilotoa completed the tour.

I thought I might improve my poor surfing skills in the surfer´s mekka Montañita, but somehow I hardly saw the daylight (and this was not only due to constant dark clouds).

To cure my resaca I went to the spa town of Baños, where I first cycled along the route of the waterfalls and afterwards fried my sore muscles in boiling hot thermal pools.

From now on my direction will be exclusively North - Columbia it is for the next few weeks!

Ecuador

New York in 4 days

It´s been 11 years since I´ve lived in NY and have never been back since, wow! It was great to revisit places, eat loads of pizza slices and the occasional fish gut (accidentally ordered at a posh japanese sake restaurant), and of course to meet old friends again - especially my roommate who I had completely lost touch with, I literally ran into him on the street in front of our old apartment, what a surprise!

Apart from that my old friend Micky happened to be in town, who I have not seen in years, and I went to see their show on Monday night - they were amazing as always (now I can´t get the Molotov songs out of my head!), and on Tuesday night I met Fitz, who I have not seen in ages either (apart from about 30 seconds at the Berlin festival 2 weeks ago), and he invited me to the completely sold out Tune Yards show!

In the short phases when I wasn´t recovering from jetlag/lack of sleep/hangovers I went into a shopping craze and am now equipped with a great new Canon camera and high-quality outdoor gear for my trip to South America (putting it all to the test tomorrow, when ascending up to 5000 m on the Cotopaxi volcano).

All in all, a very diverse week, ending with a night at the Nordic cine festival in Mexico city (my only night there, since I was only in transit to Ecuador), where I even got to meet the embassador!

New York