Last Asian post

Today I fly off to Australia. After 9 and a half months in Asia I have gotten a new insight of the countries I have travelled to. Thinking back on my travels I can say I have really enjoyed myself!
When people say the word Asia, everyone will associate it differently. Here are a few things that I associate with Asia.

To me Asia means getting used to squatty toilets. Having roosters wake you up at 4am. Hearing a mosque calling out to prayer at various times of the day. Buddha statues decorating temples. Seeing Spirit temples at every house or establishment. Going on a 10 hour bus journey thinking I'm going to die round every curve. Spending a whole day in a hammock reading. Swimming with turtles. Seeing how animals are not considered pets and are merely kept to fulfil a purpose. Having strangers smile and say hello when passing. Bargaining for the best prices. Diversity in nature. Being scared of snakes. Sharing my bedroom with cockroaches. Making new friends. Visiting old friends. Having conversations with locals and getting to know how they live. Being eaten alive by Mosquitos. Discovering new foods, eating old favourites. Having fresh fruit all day long. Rafting through rivers. Seeing dolphins from kayaks. Trekking under a monkey highway. Spending one hour walking in the sun and getting a t-shirt and shorts tan. Dancing on a beach under the stars. Seeing 5 different New Years celebrations from different cultures. Following the Mekong river through 4 countries. Training Muay Thai in Thailand. Drinking rice wine, coconut wine and rice whiskey ( all obviously home made). Loving the rain which falls for 30 minutes and then let's the sun shine again. The heat. The sun. Sometimes staying in filthy places and sometimes finding a lovely bungalow. Watching life go by. Not getting shocked by weird and random things. Having a conversation where neither can speak a word of the others language. Learning how to dive. Biking around an island. Driving scooters for 3 days to complete a loup. Hearing gangem style in every bar and club. Spending the day on the beach. Relaxing at a reggae bar. After parties at the bowling alley. Taking a scooter ferry across a river. Turning a plant into a Christmas tree. Playing cards all day long. Seeing amazing sunsets. Eating spicy food. Getting massages all the time. Buying a hand made sarong from the woman who made it. Seeing a whole village decorated with defused bombs. Being happy.

..... Simply having the greatest time of my life.


If you associate Asia with something special and want to share, I would love to know it :)

Scuba diving

I know I know, I should have tried out scuba diving in the beginning of my trip and not the end. However I have finally decided to take my open water scuba diving certification. Today was my first day. It was so much fun! At first I got a watch a video and do some quizzes. Then finally I got to go in the water. It was in the pool. There I got to learn the basics. By then the whole morning had gone by really quickly and it was time for lunch. After lunch we got a briefing got our gear onto a boat and set off. We went past a few of the islands and then we stopped. We all got our gear on and got into the sea. Descending 12 meters down to the bottom of the sea is an amazing experience! Spending 49 minutes down there is so awesome! I didn't want the dive to end! The fishes, eels, corals and weird looking shrimp are so beautiful, I could just stay in one spot and watch the aquatic life go by.

Tomorrow I am going to go for my second dive which I absolutely can't wait for! I just regret not having one this earlier. But hey, that's the way it goes. Now at least I will have a chance to explore the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, since I'm going to spending some time there.

9 month travel anniversary

Today marks my 9th month of travelling. I have enjoyed almost every second of it. Occasionally when I am on a 8 hour bus ride I might come to doubt the reason for why I am doing this again, but every destination makes the horrendous bus journey worth it.

I have spent the past few days at Gili Trawagan. It's a tiny island of the coast of Lombok, which is an island east of Bali. Gili T is so small that it only takes 1 hour and 30 mins to walk around it. Even though its so small, it is very diverse. There is the main village where most guesthouses, restaurants and bars are and as soon as you walk for about 10-15 mins you get out of the masses of people and find a few establishments scattered around. The beach has white sand and crystal clear water. There is a place called turtle point where if you are snorkelling there is a 99% chance of seeing at least one turtle swimming about peacefully going about its own business. Today we saw 3 turtles in one go! It's just amazing being able to be sitting under a beach tree in the shade enjoying a book or a conversation with the local people working there and then in the next minute walk out into the sea with rented snorkelling gear and see the fishes and turtles.
Another lovely aspect to this island is that there are no motorised vehicles. The only mode of transportation is either by bicycle or by horse and carriage. There is a nightly food market which has loads of fresh seafood which has been caught by local fishermen.
These are a few reasons to why I consider this island the best island that I have ever been too. For me this place is close to paradise!

Situbundo and Bali

After having spent 3 days in Situbundo we thought it was time to move on to Bali. Our actual purpose for going to Situbundo was not just to have an adventure. In its actually so that Britts grandmother is half Indonesian and lived in Situbundo during the Dutch colonisation of Indonesia. Britt wanted to take the opportunity to go and find the house her grandmother lived in back then as we were so close by.

With just the names and occupations of the family and no addresses or any other helpful information we set out to find this house. How big can this small town really be we thought. It turned out to be a large town, not a single foreign person and we also realised how the tourist places have really adapted to the westerners. The hotel we stayed at was local standards,which we actually didn't mind. The room was like any other room we have had before, just half the price. What we found to be great fun, was the shower. It wasn't a shower per se, more of a large bucket under a tap and a smaller bucket with a handle. We have seen these bucket showers before, but have never used them as most places usually have a shower head to. However it was great fun being able to take showers local style! Every touristy place you go to in Asia you will find wifi in all restaurants and guesthouses. In Situbundo this would never work. There was one Internet cafe in town and the local square had free wifi. We ventured down there one afternoon and saw several young people sitting in the square with laptops and phones. It's actually a very nice idea to be able to help out the local people who can't afford Internet.

As mentioned before, Situbundo is a town with no tourists at all. We didn't expect anyone to speak a word of English. We were pleasantly surprised. In the hotel we befriended a 50 year old geography teacher from the town and he decided to dedicate his 2 days off so help us out a d show us around the area. He acted as our translator when needed and gave us ideas on where to go to search for the house we were looking for. We went to various police stations to find old records, to the Lura, which basically means the village chief and he is supposed to know a lot about the history of the area. Then we went to some other places just asking around. It was a great experience as the people in Situbundo are very curious people. If we stopped to ask someone a questions, after 5 minutes there would be a crowd of about 10 people trying to help out and come with different suggestions. Our first day we came back with no results, it was then decided we would go to a neighbouring town where it was possible that britts grandmother could have lived, the next day.

That next day after driving to the smaller town, we ended up at a police station again. The police stations here are awesome. They look like what I guess the police stations looked like in Europe In the 50's or 60's. Old wooded desks and chairs, wooded benches outside of the different rooms which are marked with old weathered wooden signs. As smoking is Indonesia's national sport, it's not uncommon to see all of the police officers from the station sitting together chatting away and chain smoking. As soon as we made it to the station, about 5 officers dropped whatever they were doing and dedicated the next hour or 2 to help us out with our cause. They showed us around and after they just decided to sit down and have a little chat with us, of course ending our visit there with taking pictures with all of them.

Unfortunately there were no more old records which stated to address of britts family, so we needed up never finding the house. We still do value our experience and have had a great time in Situbundo, it did feel like it was time to move on, with Bali as our next stop we couldn't wait to get to the sea and beaches again! Now we are in Bali and are already leavening to go to Gili Trawagan tomorrow. There we are planning on doing a lot of snorkelling, perhaps some diving ( well I will need to learn how to dive) and some beach lounging.

Yogyakarta round two

After Jakarta Britt and I moved on to Yogyakarta.
It's now my second visit to Yogyakarta and its so much fun! Indonesia is a very likeable country. Pleasant weather, good food and friendly people. These are a few of the reasons to why I am going back to places I have already been to.

Initially we had nice weather in Yogyakarta, but then today, our last day in town, it was pouring rain all day! It's not to bad though, as we have already done all the sightseeing and could just take it easy and relax all day.

Yesterday the both of us got tattoos done. Britt found a design she liked and decided to get it done and I have been thinking of getting one for a very long time, so when we found this great tattoo guy we thought lets do it. I can say getting a tattoo hurts like hell! It was more painful than I had expected.

Tomorrow we are off to a smallish town called Situbundo. There isn't much there that we know off, but we thought why not just go there and see what there is. It will be an adventure.

Back to the beginning

Having made it back to Indonesia where I first started my Asia tour feels like a good way to also end my trip. Indonesia is going to be my last stop before I move on to Australia. I have acquired the visa and have already booked my tickets there. Feels like it's going to be a completely new adventure.

I meet up with my friend Britt in Kuala Lumpur and we flew from there to Jakarta. Last time I was in Indonesia other travellers told me not to go to Jakarta as there is nothing to do there and it's just dirty, noisy and full of people.

However I have to say I have had a great time here so far! The people are extremely friendly and they love to take pictures of the two of us! Yesterday we asked some police officers for directions, before even attempting to explain they had their mobiles out and wanted to pose for pictures. This happened to us a few times yesterday and we found it rather cute. Today we went to a massive theme park, with different areas, such as ocean adventure, sea world, fantasy land etc. these are all different theme parks all within the same area. Before even getting into the first park we were jumped by a whole family of about 10 people who wanted pictures, after that we felt like we were the main attraction. Let me also first tell you that we were the only western people in the entire area, so having people staring at us was normal. Walking from one attraction to another we would have school classes, families and groups of friends stop us and ask to get a picture taken with us. We went to a dolphin show where before and after the show we were holding photo sessions, where it was one after the other that kept on coming up to us wanting more pictures with us. At the end of the day our cheeks were hurting from all that smiling. I think we must have had around 100 photos taken of us today!

It has been a truly enjoyable experience and I can't wait for what tomorrow is going to bring us.

Chinese New Years celebration in Chinatown

Staying in Chinatown during the New Years celebrations can be a great experience. However when hungover it's not! Britt and I got woken up by the sound of explosions. We thought that world war three had started. We later realised its the firecrackers that are being let off. Whilst walking down the street to get breakfast we see that there several dragon dances going on on Jalan Petaling ( the Chinatown market street). We thought it was only going to be one show. We were wrong. The drumming and dancing as been going on all day since 9am and it's now 4pm with no signs of the noise stopping. Every now and again a shop or restaurant will light the Chinese fire crackers which explode with noise for minutes and then the drumming continues yet again.

If you want to see a small sample of the noise, check my facebook for the videos I have posted there :)

The Hong Kong life

My visit in Hong Kong has been amazing. I have had the chance to meet old friends and new friends. Been sightseeing and done things tourists wouldn't normally know about. There are so many fun places to go to that are not in any guides and can only be found by living here. Which is also the reason I love travelling to places where I already know people. You get more of the local experience.

Hong Kong is a fun and quirky place. It's modern and yet still has some old traditions. One thing I can not always quite get my head around is the food, such as gecko on a stick. That is one thing I don't think I would like try.

I only have a few more days left here and am going to make the most out of it! Anyone have any advice on things that I absolutely should do while I'm here?