Bali/Singapore

July 7, 2009

Hey..

Few days on Bali again.. Meet my friends in Kuta and Jodi in Sanur.. Nice time, I like this Island and the Hindus.. Putu, stuff in Puri Agung invite me to a Hindu wedding in the north of Bali near Singaraja.. We took the motor bike and drove three hours up.. Wonderful ceremony and I feel like a Balinese in my special close (picture) for few minutes.. Thank you Putu and your family..

The last country in east Asia, was Singapore.. Two weeks ago, i spend two days in Singapore, bought a small Netbook and meet some Philippinos in “City Backpacker”.. They emigrate to find a Job and collect some money for a better life.. This time I had three more days, so Twinx and her friends showed me the nice and important places in Singapore.. A clean and very developed City with many beautiful Spots.. Thanks Twinx and good luck.. But I am sure you will find a job.. ;-)

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Jakarta/Bali/Berestagi/Banda Aceh/Pulau Weh, Indonesia

June 25, 2009

Hello guys..Now I’ve been travailing tree and half months.. Enjoy every day and feel happy.. But sometimes I miss you all and remember nice moments.. I’ll back soon..
What about Indonesia and me..Flew from Manila, Philippines to Jakarta, Indonesia..Never was there before, but decided to stay one night. Not really a nice place to spend more time..Busy, dirty and unpleasant. I would have liked to meet Maureen again in Manado but the flight from Jakarta to Manado was too expensive, I decided go to Bali first..Bali is a beautiful Island for surfing, partying and relaxing.. There’s a lot of different fantastic arts..Wow..:)
I stayed in Puri Agung Home Stay, where I met Agathe, Ana, Indah and Putu.. I tried to surf on Kuta beach and rented a motorbike to visit nice places like Ubud, Denpasar, Uluwatu and Tanah Lot.. (Look at the picture) Spend a few days with crazy but nice Agathe from Cologne and also born in Poland on Gilli Air a small Island close to Bali, without motorized traffic..Good times, we’ll catch up in Cologne.. I liked Bali food “Nasi Goeng”, “Chinese omelet” and the “Rum an Coke evenings” at Puri Agung..(NOT WARM COKE!).. After two weeks in Bali met up with (sometimes not so) nice Maureen in Jakarta airport and we flew ti Medan together.. Climbed in Berastagi ,Mount Sinabung 2284m, (half again) ;) and Sibayak 2094m (complete)..Relaxed after in a hot spring (very nice!), took a night bus to Banda Aceh (no sleep) and a ferry to Pulau Weh.. Nice quiet Island for diving.. Thanks Maureen for the next English lessons (bitch) and the sweet goodbye present..
Before I leave Asia for Australia, I will spend one week more on Bali to visit my friends there, see Jodi and try to surf again..Yeah!

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Manila/El Nido, Philippines

May 22, 2009

Hello,
When I arrived in Manila, I stayed for two day in a nice place, Friendly’s Guesthouse and met Benji (a filipino guy, but with western attitude) and Ben there. Ben first thanks so much for sending the Package. Ben would like to visit a cigar factory the next, so Benji and I join. After we did that, we visited old Malate in Manila; it is a busy place with two different cultures.
One and half Months before friendly’s and manila, I met Andres from Colombia and he told me, when you would like to go to Philippines you should spend some time in El Nido. So after manila, I took a flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa and a Minibus to El Nido, which took eight hours because there aren’t any paved roads. (just look at the Picture if you don’t believe me),
El Nido is a small town in Palawan, Philippines, an island off the coast of Luzon, to the north of Malaysian Borneo. There is no ATM there and they only have 12 hours power per day (2pm-2am).
At the beginning I calculated that I would stay five days and than visit some more of the 7700 Islands in the Philippines.
But like other things in life, sometimes your plans change. “The Alternative” can also change your plans.
I asked a English guy who took same bus to El Nido where I should stay (I wanted a nice hostel but for a good backpacker price). He runs a dive shop near the alternative and suggested I go there.
First days in the Alternative I stayed like a normal Backpacker. Did some Island hopping and enjoyed the sun on the beach. El Nido is a quiet town with few tourists, because it is difficult to get there.
I never been in a beautiful place like El Nido before. For me it is one of the best places in the world to relax. A couple days later I come to know better the Family who is running the Alternative and meet also a nice, tough girl Jodi from Canada who came back to El Nido to stay two more months and help the a little bit on the reception (after staying as a tourist herself a month before). Becky, head of the family and manager of the alternative, wanted to change the menu design and create a small homepage. So she ask me to design it in PowerPoint, because the web designer create one before and not really good. Of course my English is not good enough to write and so even Jodi wrote all texts for both. I’ve never met somebody who can describe so fast and exactly something. Thank you for your help. When she finished, I took her texts and designed the menu and website. Good team!
For helping I got a special discount to stay there. But I didn’t work all day. I spent a lot of time on the alternative’s banca boat, Island hoping and fishing. The best trips with the best famous food, hands down. We had some funny evenings with the Family (Becky, Israel, Daday, Virgil, Jodi, the rest of the staff and my love, the 4-year old Alexa) that i will never forget. Hanging around and drinking some local rum coke when Israel starts to play guitar – it was really nice.
Thank you all so much for the beautiful and funny times, especially to Becky and Israel.
And remember: “Do you leave tomorrow?” ;-)

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Kota Kinabalu, Borneo/Malaysia

May 3, 2009

Hi guys,
First I would like to say I learned some more sentences in English to say “we met us” without “us”. Also “people”, not “the people”. I met at the second day a nice Dutch girl, Maureen, and she was my English teacher for the next three days. It was very funny, we went to do the climbing Mount Kinabalu tour.
Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain on Borneo. The summit is at 4095 meter. You can climb it in two days but we tried to do it in one day. Mission failed. We started ascending at 1800 meters. Distance to summit is a mere 8.5 km and we decided to give up and return at 6.3 km at an altitude of 3300 meter where the air is low on oxygen. In my life I never climbed a mountain before. After two months without soccer practice or any other sports it was quite hard. But it’s not going to be my last mountain to climb on this journey. Next stop: El Nido, The Philipines. Thank you, Maureen for beautiful days and helping me to write.

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Brunei Darussalam, Brunei

April 28, 2009

Next destination: Brunei Darussalam.
When I arrived friday at 9 pm at Brunei airport, I would like to take a bus to the city but there was none. So I took a costly taxi to the international youth hostel of Brunei City. There I met Mr Abdul. Nice but crazy guy. He offered me to go on a city tour the following day to visit the biggest palace in the world, the biggest water village in the world, the second biggest mosque in the world. I almost forgot the huge 6 star (******) hotel. So I took the city tour and after that I can say I “did” Brunei. Thank you Abdul for the nice day.

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

April 26, 2009

Hello again!
First sorry that I, that I don’t have enough time to write the blog everyday. After one month travelling in Thailand, the next destination for 4 days was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. There isn’t so much to do or see there but walking around the city for two or three days is nice. It was impressive to see and stand below the (huge) Petronas Twin Towers. Check the pictures, I took me an hour to get the angle right.
Also to eat the different food from around Asia was a treat. So that’s all about Kuala Lumpur. But there are more interesting places to check in peninsular Malaysia, but I didn’t.

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Thailand

April 22, 2009

Hi..
I’m still feeling good. Around travelling is very fullfilling. Although Bangkok is a crazy and busy city, it is nice to see what’s going on. Like other backpackers, I arrived at the famous Khao San Road and stayed there for two nights. It is interesting to see what happends there. But two days was enough.
Everyday they ask: “tuktuk?” “taxiboat?” “taxi?”, “motorbike?” “nice suit?” or “pingpong show???” No thanks.
Khao San Road is a small street in the middle of Bangkok and you can buy from t-shirts, dvd’s to fake drivers license, to diploma’s all kind of things. The things I really like is the good and cheap thai food and the lovely people. Yeah.
A couple of days later I left for Phuket town and enjoyed the beautiful weather at different beaches like Kata, Karon and Patong. Patong is the best beach for sex tourists like me :) . Or when you you want to see a real Thai ping pong show!
I made my way down to Krabi, Ao Nang, Raily and Phi Phi Island. Next I headed for Koh Samui, Koh Pha-Ngan and Koh Tao. On Koh Samui I met a couple from Manchester (City, not United), Stacey and Michael. I have a fond memory of spending the night at the food market.
Ko Pha-Ngan is famous for the biggest full moon parties on the beach (Hat Rin), so I couldn’t miss out on it. It was a really strange party, but I met three nice girls from England. Sorry, forgot their names…
Two days later I took the ferry to the island of Koh Tao. In the morning I ran into this Dutch guy who runs a diving school. He found me a place to stay and invited me to do first dive.
I enjoyed my first dive with dive master Tommy so I decided to do the open water diving course followed by the advanced open water diving course. Yeah.
The atmosphere at Golden Divers dive school was very relaxed and to stay on Koh Tao was no punishment. Thank you Tommy, Gerd, Shirley, Rob and Ferry for the nice time, coffee and dinners.

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South Korea / Japan

March 23, 2009

Hello together. First I want tell you the I`am feel good.
After two week I have established, that’s my English is very bad. So I decided, to learn it better write the article at my blog in English.
You know that my first stop is South Korea. When I arrived in South Korea I spend the night in blue backpacker in Busan. Next morning my friend Hamid, who work’s here two years for the Hyundai Heavy Industries collect me with the taxi (he always take a taxi) and so I stay the first week in Ulsan. It is 70km away from Busan. Busan is the 2nd biggest city after Seoul in South Korea. Busan and Ulsan together, they have the biggest dockyard all over the world. It is really big.
During the day I spend most oft the time in Busan, look around and tested the Korean food. One of the problems here is that most of the people could not understand one word in English. So I could only communicate with my hands and feet.
In the evening when Hamid leave of work we cocked something or he bid me in special Korean restaurants who you can grilled the meat direct on the table.
One day before I leave by the ferry from Busan to Osaka, Japan it was Saturday, Hamid bid me for one Night in the Sea Cloud Hotel. The Sea Cloud Hotel is on the Haeundae Beach in Busan. The Beach there is one of the best Beaches in South Korea.
We have an apartment in the 22nd floor with “ocean view”. I never heard the word before ;-) . It was until now the best hotel with the best view where I stay. Thank you my friend for the experience. I never forget this.
Next day, midday I started my trip to Japan. I drive 18 hours by the ferry to Osaka. Than I spend one day in Osaka and take the midnight Bus to Tokyo.
Tokyo is the biggest and expensive city where I’ve been before. It is a typical Metropolis, densely built and a lot of shops. Every woman would be happy.
I travel around the city, look few famous sights and bought T-shirts…To be continued…

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