Make these moments count.

What happened to Instagram and all those jaw-dropping blog-posts about the ever travelling “so-called influencers” these last months? Due do the pandemic explosion of the covid-19 virus, which drastically changed our daily routines within a couple of days. Flight companies stopped their activites 3 months ago, bloggers aren’t posting anymore, and travel-photographers lay down their cameras.

It seemed like the whole world stood still after the forced restrictions that we had to sustain. Will we ever be able to travel again, like we used to?

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The first month actually didn’t feel that bad, staying at home, and having endless free time for your hobbies and the people who lived under the same roof. Running and cycling had become a daily habit. We started to spend less money, and we started to enjoy our own neighbourhoods.

However I have to admit after my 4th week in a kind of “lock-down” situation I missed spending the time abroad, hearing the sounds of a foreign language, eating a different cuisine, enjoying drinks at sunset with sand between my toes. The time off, gave me many occasions to reflect on what I went through these last years.

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I clearly remember my very first “solo” trip to Norway in 2013, to visit my couchsurfer friend Martin, who back then, was living in Oslo. It was the first time when I decided to leave the country all by myself, to recover from a severe breakup. This trip actually was the spark that ignited to the fuel for solo-traveling. I discovered how fun it was to discover a city by yourself and get in touch with way more people than traveling as a group of friends.

Since then I’ve made it to my own bucket-list destinations, sometimes even multiple times: Japan, Cuba, Israel, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, India, Vietnam…

Initially when I started this blog, I praised the way of “solo-traveling”, as it allowed me to get to know myself better, and it made me the person that I am today. There were moments of pride, joy, laughters and tears, however nothing will make those memories fade away.

Things have changed since 2013. For the last 2 years, I discovered beautiful places with my girlfriend by my side. Was it a big change? Actually no. I guess because, she and I, we were surfing the same wave, while we were traveling. Sharing a hostel, getting drunk on cheap booze, socialising with locals, walking around like college students on a budget trip… all this, wasn’t a big deal, and we barely had to set compromises. Now that I’m turning 38 this year, I’m slowly turning my back to those wild binge drinking nights, and looking for a more quiet and cozy bar that play smooth soul and jazz tunes to drift away into the night.

I can definitely agree, that both ways of traveling are totally fine, as long as the attitude stays authentic. I’m also pretty sure that this kind of traveling won’t change, as soon as kids starts seeing the light of our world. Parents shouldn’t blame their kids for their boredom in life. Stay curious, and keep that hunger for discovery alive.

These last days I really thought alot about my most memorable trips. Surprisingly the drunken nights weren’t those special moments. This comes from a person who loves to drink!

For me, it was rather the words that were spoken while sitting in a bar, or while sharing a cup of coffee. The last handshake or hug before saying goodbye. Or those seconds that froze time for the lenght of an eye-blink, like in Varanasi at sunrise. Those special moments, made me go back multiple times to the same place, as I was craving for repeating pleasant moments. Japan took over my heart within a heartbeat. I really wish that I could make it back to Japan this year. It would be my 6th trip to “Nihon”, every consecutive year.

Making new friends in Japan. Meeting the locals in Havana in a worn down bar. Getting smashed with buckets of water in Myanmar for the Sonkran Festival. Celebrating an indian wedding without alcohol. Feeling lost among the “ultra orthodox” in Jerusalem, but still being blown away by the cultural differences, those things in life, that money can’t buy.

I got a new laptop, my first one within 15 years. It kicked in with a tiny motivational swing to create a new video with passed experiences. Once you go through older videos or photos, by chance you can find an old gem of a scene or shot, that slipped through your catches while traveling. I edited a bunch of never used footage, that didn’t make it to the final cut back then. Shots of people we met on the road, however which didn’t really fit in the video back then. I’m glad to tag “Ishan”, “Shyam”, and “Ekko” to the video above.

We can’t wait to strap the old backpack around our shoulders and step back on the path that we were following for many years. I miss the sound of the sea, the stars in the asian skies, the tuk-tuk engine noises, the dirty flip-flop feets, and the street-food you can buy for a buck.





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Laos: Luang Prabang & Vang Vieng.

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It was about time to close “the golden triangle”, after numerous travels in Asia. The Golden Triangle is the area where the borders of the three countries Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. We didn’t manage to get to the pre-mentioned area, however after this trip, I could cross the three countries from my traveling list. Laos was still missing.

What to expect in Laos? Last year we visited Thailand several times, and went on a Mynamar journey for almost 2 weeks, and added Cambodia as a two-day pit-stop as well. Would Laos be much different than those countries? Would we notice a difference?

As we weren’t keen on visiting another major city, like Laos’ capital Vientiane, because the bigger cities usually look pretty much alike, we opted for two more laid back destinations in Laos: Luang Prabang & Vang Vieng.

We definitely didn’t regret our decisions on visiting both cities without our one-week-holidays.

Lao’s culture & vibes.

The major difference of Laos, compared to Cambodia and Thailand, is the quietness within the cities. We were told that random honking isn’t allowed in Laos. The traffic is visibly less dense as in Thailand or Vietnam. There are way less cars and motorbikes in the streets, and you definitely can hear it. Driving around is easy, you don’t have to pay that much attention while driving, and can enjoy the surroundings and sights along the streets.

During our seven days in Laos, we didn’t see any beggars, nobody ever asked for money. Except for a few tuk-tuk drivers who were asking for a ride, after leaving the market areas, not one single person ever bothered us.

Bargaining was useless, at least for myself, as food, drinks and local crafts were so cheap, that I would have felt ashamed to ask for a lower price. The food dishes were mostly 20.000 kip (which would be 2$ for a meal), drinks were less than a 1$. During happy-hours we ordered two cocktails for 2.8 $. How can you bargain for a better price, considering that the locals and merchants won’t get rich with those prices. Because of the kindness of the Lao people, and the fair prices they offered, I mostly felt like tipping with every money I spent.

The main local crafts were things made out of bamboo, handbags, tshirts, totem bags, bamboo straws, coffee and spices. The prices ranged from 10000 kip to 60000 kip (1-6$). Everything seemed super cheap in Laos.

You definitely need to rent a scooter/motorbike if you wanna move easily around the cities. The city centers of Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang were rather small, however if you wanna visit the touristic sights it will easily take 45 minutes by scooter.

“Sabaidee” is how they welcome & greet you. The temperatures were quite mild, chill at night and the early morning, which means you don’t need a fan or A.C. while sleeping. During the day the temperatures reached the 28-30 C°, however they fell less warmer than in neighboring countries.

Foodwise, expect the same like in Thailand, lots of stir-frieds dishes, with any kind of noodles and rice, delicious fresh spring rolls like in Vietnam, and they tend to serve sticky-rice more often than in Thailand. We spent most of our evening strolling around the night markets in Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, as we always managed to find stuff to spend money on. The food at the night market was also pretty cheap, and always deliciousl.

Luang Prabang.

We flew in to Luang Prabang from Bangkok. At the tiny airport, we got our visa on arrival. We didn’t had to pay any tax, nor did they use our photos, as they took our portraits with their webcams. There was a sign, that people from Luxembourg, had to pay a fee of 35$ upon arrival, but they let us through without any hassle.

At the aiport I paid 7$ for a 7-day data-sim-card. Transportation to the hotel was 50.000 kip (around 6 us$ / 5 euro). No hasseling either… we paid for the van-ticket inside the airport, and headed towards the closest driver outside the building.

We stayed for 3 nights at the "Villa Chitchareune 2" guesthouse, where we were welcomed by the whole family. The hosts were super welcoming, and they proudly showed us their newly built guesthouse, which was sold-out on daily basis, during the time we were visiting. The guesthouse rented scooters/motorbikes for 11$ a day. They also offered transportation to various touristic attractions. We managed to book our bus ticket to Vang Vieng for 11$ per person. You could catch a bus to Vang Vieng or Vientiane 3 times a day.

Luang Prabang doesn’t have that much to offer, as compared to other popular asian cities, but it’s more the peaceful vibes and streets that I really in enjoyed in both cities. You will always a side alley to check out, or a restaurant to have dinner at. The times we were visiting there were more restaurants and bars in the city that tourists. Laos tries its best to attract and satisfy the tourists, but there’s just too many options left, and sadly too many places remain emty. You will find a street with at least 20 bars and restaurants next to each other, and only one or two of them are really busy, and the few left are trying to attract the customers.

We went for the Kuang Si Waterfalls which were worth the visit. Driving across several villages til you reach the entrance of the park makes the journey even more interesting. Before reaching the 4 different waterfalls, you will walk through a bear care center, a rescue shelter for brown bears.

The Tat Sae waterfalls were dried out during the high season. The route through the country side was less charming than the one for the Kuang Si falls. Tat Sae is only reacheable by boat from the mainland. After the boatride, just seconds before paying for the entrance fee, a croation tourist advised us not to pay the entrance toll as there wasn’t one drop of water in the pond. Nevertheless we enjoyed the boatride, and managed to meet a lovely french family on the mainland.

Another amusing fact of Laos was, that we always bumped into the same people; people that you would recognize from the airport, or people that you noticed at the different tourist spots. The french couple that we met in Luang Prabang, wet met them again at the airport. We also met two german girls once in Vang Vieng and later on in Luang Prabang.

In the early morning around 05:30 many tourists were rushing towards the Sakkaline Road, to witness the morning alms of the monks. Hundreds of monks were leaving their monastries to collect food on the streets. The locals, but also many tourists, would hand them bowls of rice, as the monks aren’t allowed to make money. Therefor they’re heading out to collect food on daily basis. We were told that the monk would also share their food with poor kids, who are welcome to step into their temples and ask for support.

The sad part about the morning alms, which actually has been part of the monks’ daily lives for ages, have become a major tourist attraction in Luang Prabang. As it happens before 6:00 am, it’s really not easy to get a descent photo of the monk parade. Too many people are using camera flashes, and it just doesn’t look authentic anymore.

After the alms most of the visitors will visit the small local market, where mainly food is being sold, or small locals crafts. I almost fainted while we were passing the food lane, where almost any kind of food was being sold. My girlfriend just told me “don’t look down”, so I guessed that it could either be a horrible looking insect or a spider, and I kept on moving forward without looking around. A couple of meters she told me, that she recognoized the hairy legs of a tarantula moving underneath a wooden cage. Thanks for telling me!

The top of Mounth Phu Si, which is located right in the hear of Luang Prabang, gives you an amazing view all over the city. We were told that you need to climb up 300 steps to reach the top. Considering the height of the hill, you easily reach the top withint 10 minutes. At the entrance, we bought a tiny wooden cage with two living birds inside. We felt bad about the the captivated birds, so we bought one and released the animals on top of Mount Phu Si. The locals told us that it was just another “good luck charm”. Handing over money to local merchants they would also hit the floor three times with the money bills, as a ritual, to attract good luck.

A less entertaining spot to visit would be the “Old French Bridge” nearby the city center, which only allows motorbikes to cross it. You have to follow a small wooden lane on each side, which isn’t that easy if you’re not used to it, as hundreds of bikes cross the bridge in the same line within a minute. The architecture of the “old bridge” reminded me of the ones in Hanoi (Vietnam).

A must-visit bar would be the bar/restaurant “Utopia” which gives you the balinese feel of a hipster hotspot. The backyard offers you a beautiful view over the river, surrounded by palmtrees and a couple of bridges (Old bridge and the famous bamboo bridge). The bar is pretty laid back during the day. You can’t go wrong with their food and cocktails. It’s a little bit pricier than the usual local bar, but the view in the backyard is worth it. The “Utopia” bar offers morning yoga classes, starting at 07:30 am. I guess you won’t get a better view for saluting the sun.

Vang Vieng.

Vang Vieng was supposed to be Lao’s backpacker town. We expected heaps of wild backpackers keeping the village alive at night. But this wasn’t the case. Maybe due to the corona virus, the season was less busier, than it’s supposed to be.

Vang Vieng was a less attractive city than Luang Prabang. The city center wasn’t that pretty, however the countryside outside of the city was quite impressive, and made it all good again. Vang Vieng had even less to offer then LB. The main attractions were it’s 5 “blue lagoons”, two high view points, and a cave. That’s it.

The city center hosted a night market on daily basis, however nothing comparable to the one in Luang Prabang. During our stay, the busiests bars was the “Sakura” club with loud electronic music, and a nearby irish pub. Once again, in Vang Vieng, way to many options for food and drinks, but hardly enough people to fill them up, except the usual two to four popular places.

Getting to Vang Vieng from Luang Prabang takes between 4 and a half to 6 hours. We took both options, the local bus and a private van. The van is faster, but you get less leg room, as they carried all the luggage inside the van. Both cars also do half an hour break, as the drivers get free food at the stations where they do the halt.

On our first day we visited “Blue Lagoon N° 2”, and I was disappointed that it was just an amusement park for western tourists. We left the park immediately. The road to the lagoons are a real pain in the ass, as you have to drive your scooter on very rocky roads, filled with holes and sandy paths. In some areas you can’t drive faster than 15-20 km/h.The second day we drove all the way to the lagoon N° 5, as we were told that it was the most natural one, that didn’t look like a theme park. It was all worth it. The ride was very bumpy, but we enjoyed spending an hour at the lagoon, sunbathing and playing with the landlord’s puppies.

My highlights of Vang Vieng was definitely the view point on top of Nam Xay. Climbing up big rocks, wooden ladders, and slippery sandy paths, wasn’t easy. And I gotta admit that, even for a 37 year old fit guy, it was kinda risky, walking the hill back down again. Everybody was very exhausted after climbing up the mountain for about 20-30 minutes. Walking down-hill was less exausting, but you had to be more careful. On top of Nam Xay there’s a a vintage motorbike, on which one you can take a photo with a breathtaking background.

Another hidden gem would be the private backyard of the hotel & restaurant “Vieng Terra Villa”. It’s supposed to be only accessible for their customers. However as we walked inside the lobby, there was nobody available to ask, if we could take some photos. So we walked our way to the backyard, which offered a magnificient view over the rice fields. After having shared the spot with a couple of spanish tourists, to take our photos and videos, I went to the waiter at their restaurant and gave him a tip, for letting us do our thing. Just be respectful and don’t bother the people who have rented the beautiful bungalows next to the rice fields.

We were glad that we visited Vang Vieng, to make up our own opinion about it. However in the end we’d frankly recommend Luang Prabang over Vang Vieng.

Useful informations.

  • The maximum amount of cash that you can withdraw at the local ATMs is 2.000.000 kip (which are 200 $ / 200€). In Luang Prabang we noticed that 4 out of 5 ATMs wouldn’t work with our Credit Card (VISA) from Luxembourg. So get some cash in advance, in case you’re traveling around for a few days.

  • It was one of the few countries, where nobody ever bothered us for using my drone. Some of the people that watched us flying up the drone, approached us to have a look at my phone (liveview of the drone). Just be gentle and show some respect towards the local people. I mostly filmed at the countryside, where I wouldn’t bother any tourists, nor locals. In the center of Luang Prabang you won’t be able to use it, as the city is located too close to their local airport.

  • Everything closes around 23:30. Most of the restaurants already close around 22:00 (10pm). The hippest and loudest bars in Vang Vieng would close at midnight. There’s definitely no nightlife in Laos. If you wanna get a few drinks and enjoy your evening, start earlier. The night markets close early between 21:30 an 22:00. Just before hitting midnight, the whole city is litterally dead.

  • While moving around from city to city, get a Mini-Van as you can save some time compared to the slower bus rides. Our bus-trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng took 6 hours, the mini-van to get back just took 4 and a half hours.

  • If you rent a motorbike for a day or two, the rental-company will ask you for your passport. Our first guesthous actually did the same, they held back my passport, unil we would check-out or not use their motorbike anymore. I know, it’s not fun, to not be in possession of your passport in a country like Laos, however it’s the only way how to rent a motorbike.

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New Year's Eve in Nepal: Kathmandu & Pokhara

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Vanessa and I, we spent 1st of december in India at a wonderful wedding. Not even a month later we headed back to another country, where hinduism was a big part of the country’s culture. It was about time to visit a new country, this time it was Nepal.

 

We were hopelessly looking for fair flight deals during the winter holidays, as every single destination was super expensive, the prices bursted up to 1500 - 2000 euro a ticket. There weren’t many destinations available, that we really wanted to visit, for a price we would/could afford. Nepal and Egypt popped up, and Nepal was a clear winner. After having become a fan of India over the last two years, the landscapes, the buddhist and hindu culture, the food, … it had to be Nepal.


New Year’s Eve in Nepal.

Nepal was one of the few countries, where we got our visa here in Luxmbourg. We got the travel-visa of 15 days at a lawyer’s office in our capital, and paid around 20 euro for it. It took about 10 minutes to get the stamp in our passports.

To be honest, I didn’t know much about Kathmandu, nor Pokhara. Being a regular customer at our local nepalese restaurants, I didn’t see a big difference between India and Nepal. Now after having turned back, I would understand, why nepalese people would feel offended if they are getting compared or equalized with their neighbouring country.

After 3 flights we landed in the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu. The arrival was quite an experience as it almost took an hour til we could reclaim our luggage. While waiting for our backpacks, hundreds of cardboard-boxes popped out of the baggage carousel. Many of them were lcd-tvs. Huge screens landed on the distribution belts, however no luggage. We had to be pretty patient until we noticed our bags after almost an hour later following our arrival.


Kathmandu.

“Same same but different” the classic quote among asian people. We headed towards the exit, where we were asked for a taxi. The ride to the center of the capital was 700 nepalese rupees (around 5 Euros, 6 us$). We approved, however without a dime, a clerk brought us to the nearest ATM, where we already got introduced to a tourorganizer, the same guy who would be the translator during our taxi ride… the same trick that happens in every asian country. Everybody wants the white folks’ money.

25 minutes later we arrived at our wonderful hotel “Kantipur Temple House” located in Thamel, the busiest and lively neighbourhood in Kathmandu (touristwise). I usually don’t like spending much money on accomodation. However after having compared the Temple House with other bargain hotels, this one just looked like a whole different league. It had the feel of an old castle / temple, with free early morning yoga classes. The look of the whole building was magnificent, and because of that, I went for the 200$ for 3 nights. The only thing I didn’t know was, that they didn’t have any heaters in the rooms, as they considered themselves as an ecological hotel.

Later we figured out that barely no one owns a heater a Nepal, except the richer community. And it really gets pretty cold at night during the winter months. As our room didn’t get heat up, after winter season kicked in, it was obvious that the space between the concrete walls of the room remained pretty cold all day. They offered us a mobile electric-heater which we could stand right next to the bed. It helped keeping us warm at night. What an experience.

We strawled through the streets on our first day, and really liked the worn down looks of the alleys that formed the maze of the city center. We already got lost after an hour as all the alleys looked alike, and there were just too many in the Thamel neighbour hood.

Many temples, grey buildings, thousands of wires that formed the powerlines, millions of scooters and many free-running dogs, made the vibe of Kathmandu. It kinda felt like India, but much colder.

Right away, the first minutes, locals approached us, to start the usual smalltalk, and they introduced themselves as art-students, that they were being thaught how to draw mandalas, and if we were interested in visiting their academy. The academy was actually just a little art-shop, that was selling Thangka paintings (traditional nepalese paintings). The people who would bring us to the shop would get a commission if we were willing to buy something. Suddenly everybody was an art-student in Kathmandu, the ages ranged from 16 to 45. And it got pretty annoying all over our Nepal trip. This mainly happened in Kathmandu though.

The nicest stupa in Thamel was “Kaathe Swyambhu Shree Gha Chaitya”. It’s charming side were the hundrest of pigeons flying up as soon as you approached the golden stupa. Besides the the holy golden monument and Kathmandu’s Durban square, there wasn’t that much to do. As the little temples (type of chappels) all looked the same. We enjoyed the locals shops, and vendors on the streets selling all kind of local products. However we decided to book a sunrise tour for the next morning and get out of the city to visit Nagarkot and Bhaktapur. Two totally different cities.

Nagarkot & Bhaktapur.

We paid around 70us$ for the whole daytrip (35$ per person). They picked us up at 5:30 at our hotel to drive up to Nagarkot which would take a little bit more than an hour, to witness the sunrise over the himalayan mountains. As for myself I think it was worth the drive, even though we didn’t know that we would have to get on a balcony on the backside of a hotel, to witness the sunrise.

After being outside without movement, we were happy to heat ourselves up during breakfast, as the hotel offered a pretty inviting buffet in the early morning. Nagarkot’s sunrise was ok. But I wouldn’t consider it as an absolute must-see while being in Kathmandu.

We drove down the serpentines from the top of the hill to the city of Bhaktapur. While approaching Bhaktapur in the morning, with freezing temperatures outside, it felt like being in Mongolia. The suburbs looked very poor, many buildings were left without windows, the foundations of the houses left barely untouched. I enjoyed the views of the deserted cold streets of Bhaktapur. I asked our taxi driver if he could stop for 20 minutes, so that we could walk back to a group of three women, who were sitting on the frozen ground and channting mantras at 07:30 am. Fascinating.

Weirdly I would have loved to spend more time in those alleys and watching how people would live in those neighbourhoods, instead of visiting wooden temples. Below you can witness a couple of shots from those streets.

The city center of Bhaktapur looked like the durban square of Kathmandu. It seemed bigger, but kind of the same. We strawled along the alleys, checked out some shots, took some photos and went to our first Thangka Art shop, where I fell in love with the beauty of those tradtional paintings. They carry an endless amount of details, painted in all shapes and forms. We bought two painting at the shop, while being educated about the pantings by the charming shop owner.

Spending the day outside of Kathmandu, was worth spending the 75$, just to witness something slightly different.

 

Temple Tour.

As we pretty much enjoyed our driver. We decided to book him again for another day, which would only cost 35$ for a whole day, as we didn’t book him through an agency.

We visited 4 different spots surrounding Kathmandu: the monkey temple, the crematorium, the city center of Patan and the fabulous Boudhanath stupa. Considering it was just a temple hopping tour, it was quite diverse as the several locations didn’t look alike.

My favorite part, was the cremation temple Pashupatinath, as it reminded me of the burning ghat in Varanasi (India).

The main golden stupa in Boudhanath looked pretty impressive as well, as it was the biggest stupa we witnessed on our Nepal holidays. And their shops also offered the best prices for singing/healing bowls. The prices went down from 25.000 to 8000 rupees for a big-size bowl.

 
 


Pokhara.

After having spent 3 nights in Kathmandu, it was about time to head over to Pokhara. The travel agent in Kathmandu told us, that mostly all the planes from KTM to PKH would usually be late, and that people who booked through a nepalese agency would get a certain priority. This actually wasn’t true. Online we found that, that the delays are mostly due to weather conditions, as fog in the mountain areas or landing sites could become pretty much dangerous for the flights. We booked through “swoodoo” (online website) and book a one way flight from KTM to Pokhara. It was about 80$ a person. The flight only took 25 minutes, however it was delayed by two hours, as almost every airplane at the domestic airport was delayed. We arrived around 12:00 at the airport, and landed in Pokhara around 15:30. Still we were lucky, that it didn’t take longer.

(Days later, to get back to Kathmandu, we decided to book a taxi, which took a little bit more than 6 hours. It was only 110$ for 2 people. The cons are that it takes longer (6hours vs 3 hours), but you can enjoy the landscape sceneries from the taxi, and you can ask the taxi driver to stop to get some photoshots. As our morning of depature was crazily foggy, we were glad that we opted for the taxi, as the planes weren’t able to fly, because of the unlucky weather conditions. We left at 07:00h and arrived at KTM after 13:00h.)

After our arrival in Pokhara, it only took us 15 minutes to get to our accomodation, nearby Phewa Lake. Instantly we noticed a big difference in traffic. There way less cars in Pokhara than in the capital. The citiy seemed much more peaceful and less polluted. It was like comparing Bangkok to Chiang Mai.

On our first day, we explored the neighbourhood of our hotel: Lake Phewa, the shopping street nearby the lake. As we landed on the 30th of december, there was a big celebration on lakeside. The party went on for 3-4 days. In the evening after sunset (around 17:45), the streets got pretty packed with locals and tourists. There were stages with folk dancers, people were chatting and selling endless street food. It looked quite festive for a new year’s eve, which actually isn’t the nepalese new year, which is being celebrate in april. Never the less, everybody enjoyed the party.

There wasn’t that much left to do in Pokhara, except for hikes, paragliding and even more hiking. The more ineresting hikes would last severaldays, a minimum of 3-4 days, to witness the beautiful lakes in the mountains. The Anapurna hikes would last more than a week. We were on a tight schedule as we only stayed for 4 nights, and were planning to celebrate NYE in the city center.

We went for 2 smaller hikes. A 2 and a half hour hike up to the World Peace Paghoda, and another 2 hours to get back in town. And a total hike of 6 hours to get to Saranghot for the sunrise and get back. As we felt sick during our days in Pokhara, we took a taxi on top to Saranghot and decided to walk back down. The took the wrong path and it took 4 hours to get back to the lake side.

Walking up-hill for the sunrise isn’t actually that interesting as you’re walking through the dark, and the only thing that you will see further from a distance, would be the city lights.

Downtown you could go a for a boatride on the lake. You can take the paddles yourself (550 rupees / 1 hour) or get a boatmen (750 rupees an hour).

We visited the “Old Bazaar” as we were expecting a colorful market. The only things that remained of the “old” market, are wore down houses and tiny shops, that sell tobacco, chips and drinks.

Along the lake there numerous bars and restaurants, which look pretty charming in the evening.

But I guess if you’re not a fullblood hiker, it’s hard to kill the time in Pokhara. We were glad that we visited PKH as it was the complete opposite of Kathmandu, and the locals definitely were nicer as well. There were zero beggars in the center of Pokhara.

Obviously for the new year’s eve festivities the whole city was on fire. It seemed like the streets were more packed than in our country Luxembourg, where we come from. Forget fancy! We grabbed some cheap street food, bought a bottle of wine, emptied the wine from the bottle, followed the crowds and watched a live band, who was later announcing the classic 30 seconds countdown for the new decade. Following that, we went to the bar “Busy Bee”, where we stayed the rest of the night. The evening started with a live band playing loud Metallica & Nirvana songs. After the gig they played some dance tunes. We met some folks at the bar, and got to know our new friend Ishan from Kathmandu, who was just visiting Pokhara with two of his european guests. His first night drunk as a hindu. The night ended with grilled chicken skewers, the part that I couldn’t remember the next morning.

Last night in Kathmandu.

We had to spend one more night in Kathmandu, to get back home through their international airport. It was a last busy day, as we still had a few things on our list that we wanted to bring to Luxembourg. And we really wanted to buy a handmade healing bowl, as we were introduced to its healing power, and meditating sounds

In the last early morning, we went out to do some filming in the streets of Kathmandu, when the locals started to spread out their boxes and getting ready for the street markets. While we were passing by a group of colorful women, all dressed up in traditional clothes, we noticed a slimmed down buffalo that was attached to a lamp-post. We remembered the cow later, as I was about to film the animal, but then I thought we should move on to more interesting spots in the city.

Approximately one hour later, as we were looking for an ATM in the alleys of the “maze”, we passed by the same spot, and witnessed how the local had already put down the buffalo on the asphalt, and started to bind all legs together with a rope. The locals were building up a human shield around the grounded animal to avoid tourists filming the scene. It was obvious that they were about to slaughter the animal, as the whole scene took place in front of a tiny temple. Seconds later, the first blood drops were staining the pavement. Moment later they decapitated the animal and put its head inside the temple.

Because of my job I already had witnessed a couple of human corpses and too many dead animals. I wasn’t shocked. Even as a kid I could watch my uncles slaughtering rabbits and chicken in the backyard of my grand-father’s house.

Later on, while thinking about what just happened, I concluded that it actually was more impressive and shocking, because of the way they were dealing with the animal. As soon as they got the cow on the ground, a choir of older men, started chanting mantras, and playing musical instruments. Kids, teenagers, adults were watching the scene. Some were holding the rope to avoid the animal to get up on its feet. And it wasn’t just slitting up the throat, to kill it. The animal got decapitated in the most cruel way, while making a celebration out of it. Just for making an offering to their god, and hoping for a better next-life. This became one of those travel memories that we won’t forget.



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An indian wedding in Kerala

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This is going to be a kind of different, but special post, as we flew back to Kerala for an indian wedding. Who would have thought, that I’d turn back to India for a 3rd time, after my less amusing first trip to Dehli and Agra 3 years ago. And guess what? I’d love to get back to Kerala a 4th time.

Last year, 2018, we did a trip across Kerala, and spent new year’s eve in Kovalam. I could cleary notice a huge difference in mentality and kindness in southern India, compared to its northern part. Everybody was so kind, and we were threated like kings & queens.

This time we landed in Calicut airport, to start our journey towards Kanjirapuzha, a little town next to Mannarkkad, which was located 4 hours driving away from the popular city Kochi.

We landed around 04:00 am, passed the immigration as quick as we could, and expected to get out of the aiport, to meet our driver. Around 04:40 there was no sign of a driver, nor a working ATM, nor a SIM-card selling point. Where could we go without driver, without any money, and not being able to contact someone through whatsapp or phonecall.

In the end we managed to call our good friend Vinoy (in exchange for exegaretaed roaming costs), who arranged everything, and just moments later, we were on the road east-bound.

I felt great being back in Kerala, the sunny state with millions of palmtrees and millions of smiles in the streets. It took us a little more than two hours to reach Mannarkkad. We were lucky to check-in at a small hotel, to borrow Vinoy’s hotel room for a couple of hours to get some sleep, before he would pick us up, with the other folks from Luxembourg, who were coming for Vinoy’s wedding.

We went out to get some cold drinks as we were melting in the hotel room. Vanessa entered a jewelry shop, as she wanted to get fancy for the wedding. People started entering the mentioned shop, to introduce themselves, shake hands and ask our names. It seemed like they’ve never met any caucasians before. As soon as we left the shop, the same show went on on the sidewalk. So many people gave us a big smile and tried to interract with us, eventhough some barely spoke any english.

The “selfie” is a huge thing in India. “Selfie please!?” we heard it a million times. The funny part, was that they’d rather go for a selfie, than getting a proper group-photo with us. They all went for the selfie, straight arms out and pressing against us with a big smile, to get the typical selfie iphone shot.

In the afternoon, we met up with Vinoy, Kamilla, Joana and Nicolas. We were also introduced to Vinoy’s friends and cousins. After a couple of photos we headed to our resort “Diga Resort” in Palakkad. We had the whole resort for ourselves, as it mainly consisted of three huts. The location was pretty scenic, as we got a view on the nearby water-dam. Everybody was exausted from the traveling journey to India. We had a little nap and socialised in the early evening, played some drinking games and ended up drunk by the end of the night. As we initially had planned to go out for dinner, which didn’t turn out to happen, the host of the resort, brought us some free delicious grilled fish and chicken. They were happy to have some foreign tourists at their resort.

 

The house party.

The next morning we all woke up with a hangover, and went for a quick indian breakfast at the resort, in the owner’s kitchen. It felt like having lunch at grandma’s place, but we loved it.

Our friend Sham picked us up, and the long day was about to begin. We went back to Mannarkkad to get dressed up for the wedding. Vinoy’s family made us a present and offered us dothis and saris. We entered a pretty fancy shop for indian standards, and all eyes went on us. Again lots of smiles, handshakes and selfies. After a while the manager showed up as for a photo with all of us… after that, there was no more turning back. We acutally took over 30 photos following the first one.

The ladies were all happy about their clothes and jewelries, they definitely felt like princesses out of an indian fairytale.

After spending almost 2 hours at the shop, we headed towards Silent Valley, driving uphill the serpentines towards the mountains. We were told that we couldn’t get inside the national park, as there were issues with a group of Maoists (a form of communism which has been banned in India for security reasons). We had a stop, where I could fly up my drone and take some beautiful landscape photos. Straight after that we went for a lunch-curry.

We headed back to Mannarkkad to meet up with Vinoy and his family, who showed up all the way from his hometown Trivandrum.

After getting ready back at the resort, and already being late, we made it to the house party around 7:30 pm (instead of 5:00). The pre-wedding party took place at Vinoy’s wife house. They hosted around 200 guests. The whole evening was mostly about dancing, singing and eating. Once again, we felt like VIPs among the indian, as we were offered the front seat of the show. The younger guests invited the white folks on stage for dancing, and thought us their indian dancing moves. Everybody was so kind and felt super happy just for being part of it.

Our first wedding party without alcohol.

The big-day ceremony

The celebration was split up on two different days. The previous night happened to be the celebration party, and the ceremony the following early morning was the official part of the wedding. The ceremony took place in a nearby convention center, where approximately 700 people were invited.

Traditional indian music, lots of colorful saris, the beautiful bride, it all felt like being in the middle of a movie.

The ceremony was mainly split up in the three main parts: the official wedding, the delicious post-wedding lunch, and the indian selfie experience. It happened again. Almost every single relative of the couple’s family wanted to take photos with us. Children, older people, the husbands, the wives… they all wanted a photo with caucasians in it. We felt once again super popular.

After mid-day most people left the place, and we had to as well. We had booked a taxi Kochi for all of us, because that’s where we split up, some moved on to Goa, Nicolas flew to Sri Lank the next day. And Vanessa and I, we headed back home to following day.

 

Kochi.

After having spent 2 and a half days in the Mannarkkad area. We checked out Kochi on our last day of this very short trip. After having spent over 4 hours in a taxi, to get to Kochi with our friends from Luxembourg, we decided to book one night at a nearby airport hotel, this time it was a fancy one. However we didn’t know that we were 1 hour away from the more popular sights of Kochi.

Right outside our hotel we managed to get a tuk-tuk which would bring us to Fort Kochi for 1000 ruppees. We didn’t know that it would take that long, and that we had to get on a short boatride to get on the “island”. On our way we witnessed the beauty of the backwaters, and the chinese fishernets along the palmtree-shores. It reminded us of Allappey’s Backwaters. I was pissed, that i didn’t pack my drone for the last day, as the scenery was rather beautiful, and I would have loved to take some photos from up there.

Our tuk-tuk driver Martin, was a very gentle man. Eventough communication was a mess, as he barely spoke any english, he still tried so hard to exchange some informations about our lives. We felt happy to show us his city.

Fort Kochi had the feel of a hippi island, everything seemed more laid back. Lots of trees, fishermen, graffitis, streetart, a small street market alley along the waters. It had a vibe of its own. I definitely would have loved to spend the whole day at Fort Kochi, however we had to pay attention to our schedule as the flight was leaving at 7pm.

While passing by the only 9 remaining chinese fishernet installations, we were approached by a handful of fishermen, who explained us, that they would bring up the nets from the water, between 150 an 200 times a day. A group of slender men would be pulling ropes with their bodyforce to get the nets high and check for fishes catches. We were allowed to try it ourselves. They also told us, that the tsuanami from 2004 caused a lot of dammage. The wooden installation were destroyed, and the waves brought too much sand to the shores. Due to that, the fishermen catch a lot less fishes than they used to.

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On our way back to the hotel, Martin asked me if I wanted to drive his tuk-tuk. I gladly accepted his offer, and sat behind the steering handle. Driving a tuk-tuk in India, priceless.

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Thailand for a week: Bangkok, Krabi, Phi Phi Islands

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My 3rd time in Bangkok within 18 months was still as exciting as my first trip to the capital of Thailand in may 2018. We only had 1 week off to choose a travel destination for the All-Saints holidays in november. We were craving for sunshine, as autumn had already kicked in at home.

As I’ve never been to a thai island, we went for Krabi and Phi Phi as it was supposed to have reached the end of the raining season. The high season of the lower south-west coast of Thailand shoud start beginning of November.


 

Bangkok. (part I)

We landed on an early sunday morning around 05:00am in Bangkok. Passing the customs & immigration was flawless. There was barely no traffic around that time, and a cheap taxi-ride took us straight to our first accomodation “Vivit Hostel”, which was located within walking distance from Kao San road.

We already booked a night at the hostel for Saturday, so that we could check-in around 06:30 in the morning. After a one-hour nap we headed towards our first floating market “Taling Chan”. It took us less than 15 minutes to reach the market by cab. Using the mobile-app “GRAB” makes life cheaper and easier in Thailand, and many other asian countries.

“Taling Chan” is the only floating market that is located in the heart of Bangkok. I guess it’s not the most beautiful market, but it’s the less touristic one. We really felt among the locals, as we were the only white folks around. They merchants were mostly selling food (thai dishes) on their boats, and handing it over to the customers on the floating wooden platforms.

You could find the usual souvenirs, jewelries, spices, and clothes that you would find on any market. However the local scenery and the lovely women on the boats made it a different experience. “Taling Chan” was definitely worth checking out.

After the floating market, we headed towards our favorite market “Chatuchak” followed by the Ratchada Train Market (night market). On our second visit of the train nightmarket, we finally figured out, that you could get the famous instagram shot of the scenic market from the 4th floor of the nearby shopping mall. Pass through the entrance of the mall, take the escalator to the 4th floor and step inside the parking lot. On the edges of the parking you will notice other visitors taking a photo of the colorful market stands.

To end our first night in Bangkok we visited the quieter parallel road to Kao San called “Rambutrri Alley” (Soi Ram Butri) and enjoyed a few cocktails at the ending part of the alley.


Bangkok. (part II)

After visiting Krabi and Ko Phi Phi during the week, we headed back to Bangkok for one last night on our Thailand trip. We decided to book a night at the charming hostel “Time Sabai 134”. After having spent a bunch of nights in 4 different hotels/hostels in Bangkok, Time Sabai 134, made it on top of my list. If I get back to Bangkok I will definitely book a private room with them, as the hostel is located only 5 minutes away from the lively area of Kao San Road, which gives you many options to opt for, for example Rambutrri or Phra Athit Road which offers a few music bars.

On our last day we headed back to Chatuchak weekend-market, which surprisingly was a lot busier on friday night, then on the usual sundays when we visited the market. After the shopping tour we headed to a hip bakery shop called “A pink rabbit & bob” where we enjoyed a carrote cake and a well prepared americano. After the piece of cake we moved towards the rooftop bar of the hotel “Sala Rattanakosin”. It was my second visit at the rooftop bar, as it’s one of the few places where you get a beautiful view on Wat Arun Temple at night. They turn on the lights of the temple at 18:30 (6.30 pm). Enjoy the drinks and the views!


Krabi (Ao Nang).

Krabi was supposed the become my first thai-island-feel holidays, even though it’s still attached to the mainland. The main shore along the beach of Ao Nang definitely looked like the scenery I knew from travelblogs & tv, except for the weather, as rain season hadn’t come to an end yet.

On daily basis the rain kicked in around 4pm in the afternoon, for one or two hours. In the morning we had summerish weather.

We decided to chose our accomodation in Ao Nang as it was supposed to be more lively than Railay Beach. In my opinion Ao Nang wasn’t that lively by the end of october. There was one tiney alley that had the feel of Bangkok’s “Kao San” or rather “Soy Cowboy” as the road was packed with escort girls. The bars right across Ao Nang’s beach, looked like american sports bars filled with pool tables and loud music. None of the places were really packed the nights we passed by, and they didn’t look very inviting.

We spent most of nights at a local food court, and one tiny open-air bar just next to it. The bar was run by a couple of outgoing and funny thai women. The cocktails were only 150 bath which was about 4 euro, and they played traditional molam music all night long. As soon as we took place at the few stools on the bar, they asked us to play our music on their wifi speakers. I love interracting with local people over a drink or two, as you get to know funny facts of their culture and daily life.

As for the rest Ao Nang didn’t seem to be that interesting.

We booked an island hopping tour, which turned out as a disappointment, as far as the snorkeling goes. They advertise the tour as a boat tour, followed by snorkerling. The water was so cloudy that you barely couldn’t see anything in front of you. There was almost no aquatic life at the spots where they let the tour-members out of the boat. One of the island had a tiny beach, that was just big enough to carry all the tourists on one spot for an hour, where lunch got served around midday. The food was okay, but far from delicious. We made the best out of it, and took a sunbath on Hong Island, which looked pretty at first sight. However there was a big construction ship parked between the main rocks of the lagoon, that totally ruined any photo you’d take of the surroundings.

If we would have known better, we wouldn’t have signed up for the tour.

The same day we participated at another thai-cooking class. Vanessa and I already did the class in Chiangmai. We almost cooked the same dishes as the ones we did on the previous class. At the end, I was glad, as we were thought a slightly different way how to prepare the curry pastes and coconut-soup. The cooking class was 1300 bath per person (around 35 euro). The transfer from and to the hotel was included in the price. At the end of the class, each one got a book with all the recipes. Check out “Siam Cuisine Thai Cookery School” for further informations.

We were so busy during our one week in Thailand, that we didn’t manage to book a scooter to discover the area on our own. Because of that, I can’t really tell if Ao Nang is worth visiting or not. For the few days, that we spent on the shore, it didn’t seem that appealing to visit it a second time.

The transfer from the Airport to the hotel was around 150 by van (per person), or 700 for a private taxi.

Ko Phi Phi.

To reach Ko Phi Phi from Ao Nang, we had to book a ferry, which was 350 baht per person. The boatride took about 2 hours to reach the docking-pier of Phi Phi Island. At first sight we were amazed by the beauty of the island: blue clear waters, palmtrees in front of the resorts, a walking path on which many people were walking barefoot, lots of wooden huts… all these details that gave you the feel of an island.

Tourist wise, it wasn’t too packed. During the day, the main streets were much busier, than in the evening. After 6pm, you did notice that many people had left the island, as we were told that the last fairey to Krabi would leave at 15:30 (3.30pm). Was it still low-season during our stay? We couldn’t tell, as November was supposed to attract many visitors. At night the streets were rather empty. A handful of bars were filled with younger crowds. The beautiful restaurants were left almost unattended. We didn’t care too much.

On our first day, we visited the two View-Points, which was a pretty though exercice, climbing hundreds of stairs with 34°c degree. The hill was quite steep, but the effort was all worth it. On top of the hill you get an scenic view all over the island. After all my travels, this view definitely made it to my top 5 most scenic spots.

As the streets seemed deserted at night, we headed towards the venue “Reggae Bar”, a crazy dive bar, where you see live muay thai fights, and the visitors can earn a free bucket (filled with booze) for 3 rounds of sparring with another spectator. Even though the “amateur fights” with helmets and shin-protectors, were less impressive than the thai fights, they still were entertaining enough to make us watch almost 7 fights.

Snorkeling was definitely on our checklist for Phi Phi. We booked a longtail-boat for 3 hours. The booking was only 1500 bath for the two of us. The boatman confirmed that we could do the trip from 07:00 til 10:00. You get the benefit of chosing your starting time if you book a privat boat. I really don’t see the point of booking a tour with a speedboat, if you have 8 other people on it. We got the chance to leave the bay at 07:00 and reach Maya Bay, famous spot from the movie “The Beach”, only 20 minutes later. We had Maya Bay all for ourselves for over half an hour, til the first tourists reached the spot as well. It was a pleasure snorkeling on that famous spot, with lots of yellowish fishes among us. The beach of Maya bay was still not accessible, as the government decided to ban human traffic on the beach for about 2 years, to let the reef and aquatic life recover from mass tourism.

It was my first snorkeling experience with aquatic life below my feet. The boatman took us to 4 different spots. It was mostly us with two or three other tourists enjoying life underwater.

Our accomodation “Mama Beach Residence” had the perfect location for being on the lower west side of the small island. It was 10 minutes walking away from the main pier, where all the cruisers docked in. Surprisingly the sea was still crystal clear in front of our hotel, despite the numerous boats floating by. We had a wonderful frontyard patio with a wonderful ocean view from our room. For 80 euro a night, with sea-view, we couldn’t complain, and were totally happy. The breakfast, which we usually miss around 90% of the time, was quite delicious. Lots of homemade pies and cakes, fresh juices, .. all you can ask for.

After our “snorkly” morning we headed back to Ao Nang on with the last cruiser-boat at 15:30 (3.30 pm), where our trip came to an end. We packed our stuff, and took the flight to Bangkok next morning, where we just spent another night.


Thailand never disappoints. This was my 3rd trip to Thailand within 18 months. The kindness of the thai people, the best asian food (nex to japan), and the cheap prices makes me always coming back. Maybe on our next trip we will take classes for a Tok-Sen training, or I’ll get my back covered with traditional bamboo sak yant tattoos. Godspeed! Til’ next time.



This photo was taken at the ZEUS CUSTOM BIKE SHOP in Bangkok. If you fancy hip clothes, coffee and motorbike culture, this place is for you. Definitely a hotspot for all “Deus Ex” fans.

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California Roadtrip

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After traveling to a bunch of asian countries these past years, it was about time to head back to the “big” country.

Being a passionate fan of the USA while growing up, I rapidly started discovering several states after my second trip to California in 2006. I visited California 7 times, almost once every year, and did most of the popular states like Washington, Oregon, Florida, Louisiana, New York, Illinois, … .

So far I’ve visited 12 states, and drove through a handful more.

After my first steps in Asia in 2013, my travel interests changed, and I noticed that my wallet definitely felt more confortable with asian countries. I could do way more trips within a year while wandering across Asia. Culturewise I was more keen towards eastern countries, than America.

Nevertheless, since my last holidays in the US, San Francisco again in 2016, I was looking forward to head over to my favorite state and discover some new spots.

 




Las Vegas, Nevada.

“What happens in Vegas, stays in a Vegas”, such a popular and often-repeated quote, that will make you think that Vegas is all about its second name “Sincity”. This should be my 6th time in Vegas. When I was younger I enjoyed the binge drinking nights and the dull nights at the clubs. However after been through that, I do really love Vegas for its hot climate, the luxurious hotels, the lovely outdoor pools and its casino madness.

We decided to stay at the Mirage Casino, as we got a pretty fair deal on our room. Mirage’s location is actually a bonus, as you’re only steps away from the beautiful Bellagio fountain show, and a big fashion Mall is just next door.

You don’t go to Las Vegas to get culturally educated. However there’s nothing wrong with enjoying some Mojitos at the beautiful pool, have fun at gambling throughout the night, and enjoy some of the pretty restaurants across the different casinos. It’s a fancy world which can be enjoyable for a couple of days.

I noticed throughout the years that Vegas had become a lot more expensive than it was 10 years ago. The parking lot that used to be free at several Casinos, switched from free to 25$ a day. A (small-size) Mojito at the pool was 15$ without tax nor tip. The usual dish at an average restaurant was between 22 and 29$.

Life’s fun in Vegas but it ain’t cheap.

Vanessa discovered a pretty hip spot, right on the city’s edge. It was the art installation “Seven Magic Mountains”. A bunch of colorful rocks stacked on each other. Plenties of rocks, plenties of colors! In my opinion it’s a must-see if you get bored of the glamour in Vegas. There’s a free parking, no entrance fee (which has become pretty rare nowadays), and you get the arty desert feel. It was also one of the few places where I felt at ease to fly up my drone.

 

Grand Canyon, Arizona.

Despite numerous trips to Vegas I’d never made it to the Grand-Canyon. My girlfriend and I, we decided to make it a one-day trip towards Arizona.

First of all I didn’t know that the Grand Canyon was located in Arizona. We had to cross the borders of Nevada, to Utah and back south to Arizona to reach the worldfamous landmark. As we left in the early morning before 8 am to headed east to the Antelope Canyon. The lower Antelope Canyon got more an more popular because of its beautiful shots on social media. As for myself I was really excited to take a couple of amazing photos with the light-beam shining through the different layers of the Antelope.

After we arrived in the smoking hot desert, we got disappointed that the only way to make it to the Antelope Canoyn was with a guided tour. On the side of the road we discovered 3 different companies that would offer a tour to the country. The cheapest was about 60-80$ per person. We were told that the Canyon belonged to the Navajo population and therefor it wasn’t possible to make it to the bottom of the Canyon without a tour. Bummer!

Two companies were completely sold out. One offered us a tour around 3:30pm. If we would have waited 2 more hours in the sun, we wouldn’t have made it in time to the Grand-Canyon. So basically we were driving almost 4:30 hours to the Antelope, for being told that we couldn’t get in.

I’d recommend to the readers of this post, inform yourself prior your departure of your trip and try to book a tour in advance. It’s sad that actually every cool spot in the US turns into a tourist attraction, where visitors have to pay for a guided tour.

Close to the Antelope, 20 minutes driving, there’s another cool spot called “the Horseshoe Bend”. Again we had to pay a 10$ entrance fee for our car. We parked on the big public parking and walked for about 20 minutes to a vista point where we could take some shots of the impressive scenery that forms the horseshoe river.

While asking for informations about the Grand Canyon we were told that there would be two main points that we could approach by car. The southern part of the Canyon or the North Rim. As we had to make it back to Vegas in the evening we opted for the North Rim which was about 2 hours driving away from the Antelope.

As the Grand-Canyon belongs to the National Park you had to pay a 35$ entrance fee to access it by car. We spent about 3 hours in the park and followed a route that lead us to different view points. They were all worth it.

Getting back to Vegas was a 5-hour-driving-adventure as there are no lights on the road at night, and you gotta drive carefully because of the wildlife in the surrounding woods and mountains.

In total we spent more than 13 hours on the road which got pretty unpleasant at the end of the journey. I’d recommend to stay at least a night in the national park or at least closer to the popular landmarks. It will make your trip and life more enjoyable.




Palms Springs.

The words “Palm Springs” always come up when people talk about southern california. The famous music festival Coachella, takes place every year just right next to Palm Springs. However if people would have asked me, what to do in the city, I wouldn’t have known an answer to their question.

Even now after having spent a night in Palm Springs, I can’t tell you what I would recommend doing while visiting. We had booked a night at the wonderful “Infusion Beach Club” Motel. Hands down it’s the coolest motel I ever stayed at. The view from the 2nd floor, over the pool towards the mountains was wonderful. The pool area, was surrounded by a bar that offered enjoyable cocktails, pool-beds, hip string lights and wooden bag toss games. The accomodation offered free bike-rentals to make it easier to the city-center. In the lobby you could use the photomat-booth and send them for free to your e-mail. They also servered free coffee and tea all day.

Obviously free parking right in the front of your room was a plus on a roadtrip, that’s why we opted for motel nights, as it made the trip cheaper and easier.

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On our only single night in Palm Springs on a saturday evening, we went downtown through the main road. It was pretty calm. Actually it was hard to find a bar packed with people. We were happy that we still managed to find a mexican restaurant after 10pm and went to a open-air bar, where we were served hot red wine, that we emptied in a flower-pot and went back home.

The morning was definitely more pleasant as you could enjoy the beautiful surrounding mountains. We rented a vintage-bike from the hotel, and went downtown for breakfast. Following that, we crossed a couple of neighbourdhoods, where we glanced at the impressive architecture. Actually there wasn’t much lef to do in Palm Springs, but we enjoyed the laid back vibe of the city. We wouldn’t have minded to spend a second night at the “Infusion Beach Club”. Definitely a motel I would recommend!






Salvation Mountain

After having checked-out at the hip motel, we headed towards “Salvation Mountain”. It took us a little bit more than an hour to reach the spot that intrigued me the most on this trip. Having been a fan for ages of the movie “Into the wild”, directed by Sean Penn, I always wanted to visit this special place, where a scene from the movie took place.

It’s just a bunch of colorful hills, decorated with letters, hearts and crosses, on which the actor Emile Hirsch has a very deep conversation with the artist Leonard Knight, who created those “mountains”. Leonard Knight plays himself in the movie.

Traveling the world together with Vanessa, for over a year now, I was happy that we both made it as a couple to Salvation Mountain. For me it was a very special place, that was on my bucket list ever since I’ve watched “Into the wild” for the first time. A specaial place with my special person.

Just as a reminder, it doesn’t look like a mountain at all. We expected to drive uphill towards a forest, the woods or a higher altitude. It’s located right on the desert low-lands. It definitely had a different feel while seeing it in the movie. Depsite that, it still remained a magical place.




San Diego

Almost 9 years ago I visited San Diego for a day, but it hardly ever felt like having visited the city. I couldn’t give any recommendations back then, and now after haveing spent 2 nights in San Diego, it still feels like I haven’t disocvered the real face of San Diego yet.

We booked a hotel room very nearby the italian neighbourhood, which pretty much was a good choice, as the blocks get very lively just before dinner. Catering wise I prefered San Diego’s italian neighbourhoood over NY’s “little italy”. The building and surroundings seem more authentic in NY, however the food looks definitely better in San Diego. We spent our first night at an italien restaurant where started the night with a few Apperol Spritz cocktails, and a pretty fair pasta dish. We enjoyed the italo-american accents all over the place.

Sadly the hood got quiter aroudn midnight. Two blocks down was a bar called “Waterfront” on both nights we spent in San Diego the place got pretty packed.

Obviously we spent some time around the San Diego bay walk, visited plenties of shops, moved east towards the Gaslamp District, where there was a market on a sunday. Walking around took too much time, so we ended up visiting the mexican neighbourhood downtown called “Barrio Logan” on our last morning just before heading up north towards Los Angeles.

For us the interesting part was the park under a bridge, where every single wall was painted with mexican propaganda graffitis, murals and texts. Not too far away, we also had a stop at the more touristic mexican block “Old San Diego”. Despite its very touristic flair, we still managed to enjoy the spanish vibes that took over the place. We almost felt like visiting Mexico.

Having spent 2 days in San Diego, I still can’t tell you what’s gotta be a must-see in the city.
Not the coolest city in California, but we enjoyed SD.




Los Angeles.


Los Angeles, the city of angels, you either love it or hate it. I’m one of those who never gets bored in LA. This must have been my 6th or 7th stay. And guess what? You’ll always find an indiscovered spot in LA.

The only thing that bothered me the most, must have been the everlasting traffic jams. Where ever you’re planning to go, it’s always gonna last about an hour, or slightly less.

Our inital plan was to find a cheap accomodation close to a beach, as we would have loved to ride a couple of waves, or at least trying to. We opted for Manhattan Beach, as the local motels were the only ones, that were available for a reasonable price. However it turned out that Manhattan Beach wasn’t the best location for surfing.

We visited the Venice area on our first two days. The legendary Venice Beach, that got even creepier over the years. I can’t tell you what about Venice Beach seems so appealing that people keep visiting the sketchy beach walk. The boardwalk is mixture of loud phsycadellic music, walking crack addicts, street artists, tourists, skaters & surfers, mixed up with the scent of marihuana.

The sweetest discovery around Venice was the handmade Icecream-Bar “Salt & Straw” which all over the bigger cities in the US. We had our first taste in Venice, and it unusual flavors with its smooth textures just blew our minds and tongues. Initially we noticed the shop in San Diego, where people were standing in a huge waiting line to get the cup of ice-cream. Watching the whole act, we weren’t intrigued to follow the line. At the end of our trip we were sad that we couldn’t visit another “Salt & Straw” and try the olive or goat-cheese icecream.

“Salt & Straw” was located in a pretty hip neighbourhood on Abbot Kinney Blvd. The place is packed with fashion stores, gift stores (like Urban Outfitters), many veggie- & vegan restaurants.

While being in LA, we discovered two instagramable attractions. The swing-over-the-city in Elysian Park and the Urban-Lights installation in front of the “Los Angeles County Museum of Art”.

On our last night in LA we went to a concert of an icelandic artist Junius Meyvant. While my girlfriend was visiting Iceland in November 2018, she wanted to surprise me with a vinyl record of Meyvant, being convinced it would be a cool present as it seemed to be a fantastic album that nobody ever heard of. It turned out, that I already owned the record, as I heard about Meyvant while visiting Iceland Airwaves in 2016. Watching a show of an icelandic arist in sunny California had become a must. After the show, we went for dinner, and landed in front the actor Danny Trejo’s mexican restaurant “Trejo’s Cantina”. The food was OK. Later on IG we found that that Trejo is visting his own restaurant weekly, as many people were posting photos with him on the social platform.






Santa Barbara & Carmel by the Sea.

On this wonderful roadtrip across California, we stopped by in two smaller cosier cities: Santa Barbara & Carmel by the Sea. There’s really not much to write about those cities, especially if you’re only planning to stay for a night.

The only thing we did, was having lunch/dinner and enjoying the sandy beaches with its sunset.

Both cities were the ideal spot to spend a couple of stressfree days with your family. Enjoy the sunny weather, a glass of wine, walk along the beach, go for a run in the early morning. And just enjoy the rest of the day with shopping or relaxing.

Santa Barbara is all about the several avenue filled with palmtrees, Carmel by the sea is about the charming beach.





Sequoia National Park & Yosemite National Park

While being in Santa Barbara we started thinking about changing our plan of visiting the National Park. Initally we decided to spend 3 nights in the several national parks, and then drive up to San Francisco within a morning.

On the other hand we enjoyed the quietness in Santa Barbara. Should we extend our stay for one more night in SB, or not?

In the end we decided to leave SB on the next morning, drive towards both national parks Sequoia & Yosemite, and stay one last night in Santa Cruz, before we started heading to our last destination San Francisco.

It took us about 4 hours to reach Sequoia. We were surprised how big it was, as there were many places that we could have visited, however they all were widely spread appart. It took us almost an hour to reach the famous fallen sequoia tree, where all the visitors stopped by and had a snapshot with their car, driving under the tree-tunnel. Sequoia wasn’t as packed with tourists as Yosemite, however the whole national park felt like a massive natural theme park. Indian families taking photos with every single family member getting up on the fallen tree, cars passing by every 20 seconds. It was almost impossible to take any descent photos, we had to wait half an hour to get a people-free photo.

All the lodged were sold out inside the park. We had to drive out towards Fresno to find a cheap motel to spend the night. “Cheap” was around 100$ a night.

The next day we headed back north-east towards legendary Yosemite, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. After having passed the entrance-booth, where we payed 35$ for our car-fee, we drove towards the Glacier point. After reaching the glacier, we were told by a ranger, that we would have to get in line with our car, and wait for about an hour, as the whole parking lot was full. We decided to move on and drive towards the Yosemite valley, to visit El Capitan & Mirror Lake.

Because of a massive traffic jam, it took us 90 minutes to reach the main parking area in the center of Yosemite National Park. 90 minutes stop&go. Only one lane could be used by cars, as the second lane was reserved for the bus-shuttle. Finding a free parking spot was a huge pain as well.

Getting out of the car, we walked towards a waterfall, which didn’t seem that impressive. We didn’t know that we had to rely on the free shuttle to get around, and we didn’t know where to jump on the shuttle.

Long story cut short, we took the shuttle, went to the wonderful piece of rock called “El Capitan”. We took a bunch of pictures, shot some video clips, enjoyed the views. While walking around, we spotted two wild deers just passing by. As soon as we decided to jump back on the bus, to get to the next point, we sadly found out, that the shuttle was only driving on the “purple route” til 5:30 pm. We had to walk back by foot to the main parking where our left our car behind. It took us almost 30-40 minutes.

We decided to use our car, to reach Mirror Lake, as the sun was already slowly setting down. The traffic didn’t seem too busy at first sight. We jumped behind the wheel, started the engine, and headed up north, after taking the first left, we just bumped into a huge traffic jam again. 40 more minutes to make it to the next parking lot. Bummer!

The time, til we made it to the parking, it had already started to get darker. We just made it in time, to get some underexposed photos of the lake, which didn’t seem that impressive at all. Maybe because of the high temperatures, the sea was partially dried out.

As for myself I was very annoyed, that Yosemite Park has ended up as major tourist attraction. The very first time I visited Yosemite 13 years ago in September, there weren’t any traffic jams. It was a real pleasure, driving around and witnessing the beautiful nature sceneries of the national park.

Thirteen years later it was just a big pain in the ass, fighting against the never ending traffic jam.

It took us another 30 minutes to make it out of Yosemite. We stopped at a lodge to get dinner around 9pm. We ordered the worst pizza we could get, and had to wait another 30 minutes. It was the longest day or our california trip.



San Francisco.


Hey folks Frank’s back home! My 7th time in San Francisco, and still enjoying it, more or less. We had 3 nights left to discover this gem of a city. We were exhausted for being on the road for more than 2 weeks, tired of driving endless hours, and tired due to the lack of sleep.

On our first day, the weather wasn’t on our side. It took me many years to find out, that the daily massive fog over SF, has a name. The name is Karl. Karl showed up on our first day, and prevented us to witness the beauty of the red lady (Golden Gate Bridge). The Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill was also less appealing due to the cloudy & foggy weather.

We showed up at the Madrone Art Bar at night, as we read about “Motown Monday”. The bar was pretty busy for a beginning into a new week. Plenties of soul and 70s songs got played, the crowds were dancing, and we had a pretty fun night in SF!

On our last night, we closed the chapter of our journey, as we met up with my friend Nicole, that I got to know 4 years ago in the city. We visited her art & fashion shop “Fleet Wood” located on 839 Larkin St. She took us out to a nearby Tiki-Bar called “ The Zombie Village”. Eventhough it sounds more like an episode of the walking dead, the bar fulfilled our expectations: the cocktails were delicious and made tipsy pretty fast. Despite rushing to frisco, and not being able to see the whole beauty of the golden gate bridge, we had a good time in SF. And as usual… this wasn’t my last stay in the foggy city!






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Italian Roadtrip : Cinque Terre, Toscana, le Marche

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Looking back on my past 6 years of traveling, most of my destinations were pretty exotic spots, where there was much to discover, to dive into and soak up endless experiences. My first summer trip of 2019 turned out to be Italy, the country where I spent all my childhood summer holidays from back then when I was 5 til I turned 18. The last time I saw my relatives in Italy was in 2007, exactly twelve years ago.

My first thoughts about an italian roadtrip was like “oh yeah, it’s just Italy”. Don’t get me wrong Italy has a lot to offer for all the art & history aficionados. Obviously their culinary “chef-d’ouevres” or just the simpler variation of nonna’s kitchen, belongs to the best and favorites cuisines in the whole world.

However for my own personal interests and photowise I’m tending more on the american or asian continent.

Surprisingly we had a super lovely holiday as you can witness on my travel video about Italy. I discovered the “aperitivos” with endless free food, I had the chance to discover some beautiful spots in Tuscany, enjoyed endless amounts of delicious dishes and loved spending quality time with my girlfriend and our families.

Cinque Terre (Liguria).

We started our roadtrip around 04:00 in the morning, as we were late again, as usual. But it turned out to be a good time to leave the contry on a monday morning, as we barely didn’t had any heavy traffic on the road.

It took us 11 hours to reach our first destination “Riomaggiore” which is one of the first “terra” of the Cinque Terre (trans. Five Lands). We had booked an appartement very close to the sea, so we could enjoy the cliffs and sound of the waves in the morning. There are five main spots which form Cinque Terre: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, Monterosso.

It’s hard to choose one of the “terre” as your hotel spot, if you haven’t been there before. I tried to get an idea online, but it left me clueless. We opted for Riomaggiore, as we loved the sight of the rising houses from the shore towards the mountain hills.

Actually it only takes 2 minutes by train to get from Riomaggiore to Manarola. The train leaves the station, passes a tunnel which connects both lands, and two minutes later you’re in Manarola. The longest distance between two “terre” would be around 8 minutes.

This means that it’s actually not that important where you sleep, as you can easily travel around and the trains move around til midnight.

Even though the connecting train rides don’t last long, it’s still pretty exausting to do all the cinque terre in one day. Definitely it’s easily doable, but there a lot of steps to climb and many steep hills to walk.

As we only spent 2 nights in Cinque Terre, we decided to have a relaxed arrival after almost 12 hours of driving, and do the other 4 terres left for the second day. There are two trails that will lead you to the different spots. Sadly because of construction works, the trails were closed for us. On the first day, the ferry terminals were closed as well due to the harsh waves. So we had to rely on the local train line.

Let me sumarize my favorite spots at the terre:

  • Riomaggiore was definitely pretty because of the rising colorful houses from the shore towards the upper hills, where you enter “Cinque Terre”. However the bars & restaurants were pretty boring.

  • Manarola was slightly different, but also pretty similiar to Riomaggiore. In Manarola it was easier to get into the water, or watch the locals diving from the cliffs. The best spot in our opinion was the resto-bar “Nessun Dorma” on top of the cliff. It offered wonderful sunset views and you could enjoy an Aperol-Spritz for 9 Euro followed by a free “plancha” with bread, olives, salame and prosciuto. They call it “Aperitivo” where you get free finger food between 6 and 8 pm while ordering a cocktail or a glass of wine.

  • Vernazza had the coolest bars close to the ocean. The several bakeries nearby offered great & cheap food as well. From the main alley you can slip through a rock-hole, walk through a cave that leads you to the sea.

  • Corniglia was the steepest terra and definitely made me sweat walking from the trainstation up to the top. It seemed less lively than the other 4 spots.

  • Monterosso was the beachy area of the 5 terre, also called Monterosso al Mare. That’s where you’d find those colorful ombrelones that protects you from the sun at the beach. There was a different vibe and it looked more lively as people were jumping into the water, went swimming and kids were laughing out loud while the waves crashed into their faces.

The food and drinks can be pretty affordable if you take the time to find cheaper bars. Hotel or hostel wise Cinque Terre can get quite costly.


Toscana: Siena & San Gimignano.

After our stay at the terre, we moved on to Tuscany. We drove almost three hours until we reached Siena, where we booked a hotel for 2 nights as well. We stayed at the “HOTEL SANTA CATERINA” which was the most charming accomodation I would have ever expected. It was also pretty affordable considering the location and its wonderful backyard that offered a view of the Tuscany countryside.

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I loved the beauty of the hills and greens in Tuscany. Personaly Siena didn’t seem that much of an attractive city to me, as I’ve already been to a lot of medieval italian cities, and they kinda all look alike. At night most of the tourists had dinner at the Piazza del Campo. The whole piazza was packed up with foreigners. The bars in the little side alleys stayed empty. It definitely seemed very touristic. Even on a weekend night there wasn’t much going on. Most of the restaurants shut their doors at 23:00 (11pm), where on the other hand cities in Portugal or Spain stay up til very late during the main summer season. I missed the music coming out of the bars, people dancing in the streets, or just random people running by.

The road from Siena to its neighbour city San Gimignano was very scenic and it offered a couple of nice vista points. Even in town, especially on the village edges you could enjoy lunch with a splendid view towards the greenish hills of Tuscany. San Gimignano however was a tourist magnet. You wouldn’t spot a local among the crowds that were walking through the main alleys. The local shopkeepers were very welcoming and rather nice compared to the business people in Liguria. Watching these crowds of german, dutch and british tourists walking by just wouldn’t put me at ease in San Gimignano.



 

Le marche.

From Tuscany we moved on towards the Marche reggion. We spent a couple of days at the family’s house in Poggetto which was located in the countryside, a tiny village with less than a hundred citizen. There wasn’t even a shop in the village, nor a bar.

However everything was very genuine, as we were the only foreigner in Poggetto I guess. My girlfriend’s grandma spoiled us with her breakfast and cooking. Getting to a supermarket we had to drive to the next village. The gelaterias were also located and spread throughout the different villages. It didn’t bother me, as I was glad that all this was pretty authentic.

During our stay we went to the beaches in Ricchione and Senigallia, visited a shopping mall in Rimini and had a wonderful dinner with ocean view at “Ristorantino Prima Secca” in Fano.

The Marche region in my opinion is very underrated, as it looks very similiar to Tuscany. Travelers however tend to visit the tuscan area of Italy, which is more expensive. Marche offers you hills, nature and mountains. The beach cities like Rimini, Pesaro, Riccione are only 30-60 minutes away.

Flying a drone at Cinque Terre was prohibited (psht! don’t tell anyone). At the marche countryside it didn’t bother anyone that I sent up my drone to take some impressive footage.

I loved the village fests, that were theme-based for example: the tagliatelle fest “Sagra delle tagliatelle”. The following week they hosted a truffle fest or a meat-based fest. Lovely backyard parties in a public place where people would enjoy traditional music with local food and wine all night. Endless amounts of italian specialties are without a doubt a big part of an italian vaccation. We just couldn’t stop eating!

If I had to pick my favorite spot of the three mentioned above, it would be Poggetto, with its laid-back village vibe.

We spent ten days in Italy, and I’m glad that I gained back my interests for the italian culture. I’d still visit Portugal in a heartbeat over Italy, however I can’t argue that Italy has a lot to offer as well.





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10 days in Myanmar {Yangon, Bagan, Inle Lake, Mandalay}

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If you went through a couple of my blog-posts you might have noticed my passion & love for creating videos while traveling. This means, that I also enjoy watching travel videos of any places in the world. I just love the aestethic visuals mixed up with music and sound effects that can recreate a visual portrait of a city or a country.

I really was amazed by this particual video about Myanmar on Vimeo. {click on the link to watch it}.

After having watched it a couple of times in a row, and after having fowarded the link to numerous friends and started feeling the urge to absolutely visit Myanmar as soon as possible. It quickly made it onto my bucket list. Obviously I had to create my own travel video of beautiful Myanmar on this 10 day journey. You can watch it below.

 

We only had 14 days left for our whole trip. As we were landing in Bangkok, and wanted to pass through Cambodia, before landing in Myanmar, 10 nights was all we had left to spend in Myanmar (also known as Burma).

Ten nights isn’t too long if you’re planning to visit the most popular cities: Yangon, Bagan, Inle Lake and Mandalay. We also had Ngapali Beach in mind, but considering our tight time-schedule we just couldn’t manage to visit their beautiful beaches.

Yangon.

Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon) is a popular travel destination because of its truely beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda. The gigantic golden pagoda was the only reason why we spent one night in Yangon. The taxi-ride from the airport to our hostel was around 13.000 kyat (which would be 9 us$), and the ride took almost 40 minutes due to heavy traffic.

You’re absolutely right if you’re going to tell me that you can’t discover the beauty of a city within a day. We booked a night at the Bodhi Nava Hostel. We checked in around 8pm, and went straight towards the golden pagoda in the city center. The neighbourhood was pretty rhough. I didn’t expected it to be that bad. It definitely reminded me of worn down areas in India. After walking 15 minutes uphill and leaving hundreds of steps behind us, we made it to the holy temple.

Already from afar, through a dark narrow street, you just had to follow the golden glow in the sky. You just couldn’t miss it!

The sadest part of our Yangon experience was the fact, the Shwedagon Pagoda was under construction. At first sight you wouldn’t notice the scaffold along the tip of the golden monument. I was kinda disappointed, as the temple was the main reason why we made it to Yangon. We managed to get a lovely photo of it, however it just wouldn’t be as beautiful as without the scaffold.

On the following early morning we manged to visit a second temple called Sule Pagoda, which was located downtown in a busier neighbourdhood. It was less impressive than Shewdagon. Not too far away, we visited Bogyoke Aung San Market. As we expected a busy market with local crafts and foods, they mainly sold clothes and jewelry.

The surrounding streets were actually nicer to walk through. The colorful colonial housefronts reminded me of Cuba.

The first temples you witness in a particular country are always pretty enjoyable. However you rarely experience memorable moments inside a temple. That’s why I’d rather stroll across unknown streets and hoping to find a local gem, that you wouldn’t find in travel-guide.

So after spending less than 24 hours in Yangon, we were looking forward to our trip to Bagan, the city of the thousand pagodas.

Bagan.

After a 2 hour flight we made it Bagan. Right at the airport we had to pay a tax for visiting the archaeological sites. Every visitor has to pay the tax of 25.000 kyats. (15$)

A cool thing about Bagan is that most hotels aren’t far away from the airport. Your taxi will easily reach it within 15 minutes. Expect to pay 8000 kyats (5us$).

In Bagan you'll find the largest and densest concentration of Buddhist temples, pagodas, stupas and ruins in the world, many dating from the 11th and 12th centuries. The main bigger pagodas look absolutely magical at any part of the day. We were passing by the first ones on our way to the hotel at night. It was mesmerizing to witness those rocky temples rising up on both sides of our car as we got closer to our destination.

We just couldn’t wait to explore Bagan by ourselves. Some hotels will offer e-bikes or bicycles to explore the thousands of temples in and around Bagan. I’d highly recommend an e-bike as temperatures get very high during daytime.

Where to start? To be honest I have no idea. There are so many pagodas spread over a large area, that it’s really hard to tell which one are the nicest. The more impressive ones are close to the main road that connects Old Bagan with Nyaung-U.

You can get decent views from the smaller ones at sunrise or sunset. Most of them are closed with fences and it’s illegal to climb on the rooftop or the tip of the pagodas. However for a small tip locals will bring you to pagodas where a guard will open the gates for half an hour an allow you to climb up the pagoda to witness the beautiful sunset over the holy land.

While riding around on our e-bike a Bagan local asked us if we would like to buy one of his paintings. If we would do so, he would lead us to one of the pagodas that we could climb up. Obviously they all get a part of that money, even the corrupt guard, who shouldn’t let people get onto those holy monuments. On the mobile app “Maps.Me” you will find some informations if you hover over the single pagodas, and users will keep the status updated, if the rooftop access is still available or not. While we were in Bagan most spots on the mobile map were highlighted as “closed”.

There isn’t much else to do in Bagan except visiting Pagodas, relaxing at the amazing pool at your hotel, and enjoying a little bit of luxury for a bargain. I’m not even sure if you’d find a hostel in Bagan, as most hotels look pretty fancy.

Talking about nightlife, there’s none. Surely there are always people on the streets, some restaurants are more packed than others, however there’s barely any nightlife with bars, clubs or any other busy places. We spent 3 nights in Bagan, after spending an hour at a local restaurant, we mostly headed back to the hotel, as we couldn’t find any interestings bars along the road.

I wouldn’t recommend more than 3 nights in Bagan. As it can get pretty boring after a couple of days. Besides the endless pagodas, you can visit the charming Minnanthu village, where you’ll get a 30 minute tour through the village, and get introduced to the daily life of the villagers and how they create things (pottery, scarves, food). It’s touristic, but it’s worth stopping by while you’re in Bagan.

In Bagan there’s a Viewing Tower right in the middle of the deserted dry lands. The spectacular hight of the tower offers you a 360° view angle in any direction. The entrance ticket allows you to visit the tower twice a day. Sadly we didn’t get back for the sunset. The downside of the tower is, that most pagodas are pretty far away from the tower. Therefor the photographs from the top of the tower look less spectacular than the ones taken from the top of a temple.

As we were spending our days in Bagan during the waterfestival “Thingyan”, the streets were always busy with younger folks trying to smash a bucket of water into your face. Most of them respected your backpack, and just pured the water of your clothes. I would recommend you to buy a small waterproof bag that would carry your wallet, mobile phone and money, as there won’t be any dry spot on your body after you drive passed three Thingyan-stands.

We had enough of Bagan after 3 full days. I enjoyed every minute in that beautiful area. The locals were once again very welcoming, everything looked quite authentic, except for the luxurious hotels.

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Bagan is one of the two places in Myanmar where you can buy a hotballon-ride at sunrise. Sadly the hot-ballon business stopped around the 10th of April, because of safety issues. I guess they stop in april, as temperatures were just too high (everyday they were over 40°C). Even though we were pretty sad, that we couldn’t do the ballon-ride, we managed to save the insane amount of 300$ a person. As a couple we would have easily spent 600US$ for enjoying the flight over the pagodas.



Inle Lake.

After Bagan we flew straight to Inle Lake. It took us less than an hour. We didn’t know what to expect in Inle Lake, as the lake itself is quite big. We checked the location of our hotel on google maps, and distances seemed pretty far to reach the different attractions that Inle was well known for.

After landing at the tiny airport, we found out, that only taxis could bring us to our hotel. There weren’t any buses or trains. As the taxi-rides in Yangon and Bagan were pretty cheap, we were shocked how much we had to pay in Inle: 50.000 kyat (~ 30 Euro / 35 US$). I know! We wouldn’t complain about those taxi rates in our country, however paying 5 times the price we paid in Yangon, wasn’t really putting a grin on our faces.

The ride from the airport to our hotel took about 80 minutes. Obviously a bus would have taken ages to reach it. We spent 3 nights at a Novotel-Hotel, as we were exausted of our first week of traveling. To that point we already had taken 7 flights, and we decided to move on a little slower during our last days on holidays, and opted for a fancier resort.

It turned out that there wasn’t any public transportation in Inle Lake except for the cabs & the boats. The hotel would offer boat-rides for tripple the price that a local boatman would charge you for. So we decided to walk to a boat-station that was located 20 minutes away by foot.

The hotel handed out complimentary bikes which would make the trip the wooden bridge easier. On our first day, walking to the bridge, we randomly met a young local guy, whose name was Ekko. As we seamed lost, while we were looking for a crossing, that would lead us to that bridge, he introduced himself as a boatman, an offered us a convincing cheap ride, that we gladly accepted. The young man, always with a big smile on his face, brought us to a monastry where buddhist monks were supposed to live. Dens groups of people were noticeable from further distance, but there weren’t hardly any monks around the crowds. I turned out to be another tourist attraction.

The single boat rides from point A to point B can easily last more than an hour. Even though it’s just a lake, it felt more like the sea! As there wasn’t absolutely nothing else left to do around our hotel area, we met up with Ekko on daily basis and asked him to show us the different spots surrounding the lake: long-neck tribes, cotton & silk fabric, pottery factory, pagodas, monastries, floating villages, floating gardens… and so on.

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Actually Ekko introduced us to all the sights & things we knew from several travel videos. I guess we’ve seen it all at Inle Lake, even though it was,’t actually how we had pictured it in our heads. It all seemed like a “watch and buy”market. Without any doubt, some parts were quite interesting, as Vanessa was able to play around with the clay and try to make her own ashtray at the pottery factory. Well the factory was just a tent, with a chair, where a 15-year-old girl showed us how to make cups, plates and ashtrays. But in the end we didn’t regret it. They will give you a free introduction to their crafts & makings, but they’re making a living out of their creations. So expect to spend a couple of bucks while visiting those places. It will make them happy!

Another charming lady, showed us how to make a sewing cord with the stem of a lotus flower.

The cherry on top, was the afternoon where Ekko, our boatman took us to his lake-house and invited us for a cup of tea. It was a 2 storey wooden house, where he lived with 8 relatives. And we got to know that Ekko won a price in a hospitality apprenticeship endowed by a partnership with Luxembourg. What a funny coincidence. Who would have guessed that we would bump into the luxembourgish flag in a Village where almost nobody would ever have heard about our tiny country.

 

Mandalay.

Mandalay was the last city we were visiting on your 10 days in Myanmar. We didn’t really know what to expect. As we visited a couple of wonderful places, Mandalay just couldn’t beat the land of the 10.000 pagodas (Bagan) or the refreshing boat rides at Inle.

Mandalay was already pretty tough with its temperatures that were reaching 43 °C during the day, and the nights just wouldn’t get cooler. After checkin-in at the hostel (Ostello Bell) we were told that most of the shops would be closed because of the buddhist new-year, and that chances would be very low that rental-companies would offer us a scooter for our last 3 days in Myanmar.

It was about time to install the mobile app “Grab”, which is very popular in Asia. It’s the asian “UBER” which works pretty well in Mandalay. The hostel gave us a discount-code for “Grab” which would offer us two cheaper rides a day. On “Grab” you can either choose to get picked up by a scooter, a tuk-tuk or by a car. Scooters & tuk-tuks are obviously cheaper than the 3rd option.

It was pretty hard to find jaw-dropping places in Mandalay. Of course there were a couple of Pagodas and temples left to visit, however we had seen too many them.

The popular daily “Zay Cho” market where they sell locals crafts, clothes and food was closed on those 3 days we spent in Mandalay. The jade market, where they evidently sell all kinds of jade-stone gifts and jewelry was closed as well. Luckily there was one of those train-markets, where a train would just cross go straight through the market, there’s one nearby Bangkok, and another one in Vietnam as far, as I can remember. This was our first time at of those train-markets.

We headed to the top of Mandalay Hill, on which one another temple was located. The ride to the top was fun, as we were sharing the back of a van with 16 other people. Prior jumping on the van, we thought that 8 adults would be the max that would fit onto the small platform of the van. I was wrong, 8 more people would fit! Most of those locals were smiling at us, as if they never shared a van with white people.

Mandalay Hill wasn’t that spectacular, however we enjoyed walking down the path to the bottom, and witnessing how some citizen were living on the street with a fridge, a stove and a tv-set. The whole scenario reminded me of a studio or living room set up on the sidewalk.

We visited a shopping-mall, as we were desperately looking for places to discover and kill our time. The Diamond Plaza mall could have been a shopping place in North Korea. The ground floor was packed with fancy stores that we knew from Europe. However not one single customer was at that shopping mall, except both of us and another caucasian family.

My own highlight of Mandalay was the U Bein Bridge, which is supposed to be the longest and oldest teakwood bridge in the world. We enjoyed spending an hour on the bridge and its nearby market. Actually the coolest part, was the charming village, at the other side of U Bein Bridge. The little village, was actually the perfect image of what I expected Myanmar to be: welcoming & smiling locals spending their free time outside of their homes in the streets, monks, kid-monks, worn down schools, … the authentic street life, without tourists. I could have spent a whole day in that tiny village, enjoying the views, walking around and taking photos. We bumped into a stray dog on the wooden bridge, that kept following us all across the village, got into a brawl with other streets dogs, and followed us til we left the village.

We spent our last night at the restaurant “Mingalabar" where we got introduced to the typical myanmar traditional dishes (btw. Mingalabar means hello in burmese). The whole menu seemed very authentic, however my sense of taste wasn’t ready for some of its flavours. I had a hard time swallowing down some of the dishes. It was funny to see, that most restaurants were packed with caucasion people, obvisouly tourists, except for “Mingalabar”. Nightlife…there was none, and I’m pretty sure we didn’t miss it, or went to the wrong places. Most hotel bars were empty, even the roof-top bar of our hostel wasn’t very lively at night.

We skipped the boat ride to Mingun, as it would have all been for another pagoda… a white one. Definitely a nice pagoda, but just another pagoda.


I pretty much enjoyed every single city we visited on our Myanmar trip. Maybe my expectations were too high, for a country that opened its doors for tourism approximately 20 years ago. The locals, the hotels, the restaurants are doing their very best for making you feel at ease. Everything is relatively cheap for westerners. Don’t compare it with Thailand or Vietnam, as those two are easily travelable. Myanmar people are the nicest ones I’ve met of all my asian destinations i’ve been to these last 5 years. I’m pretty sure in 10 years, everything will have changed so rapidly in Myanmar. Visit the beautiful country, before it becomes another “asian hot spot”.



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Bangkok, Cambodia & Myanmar

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During the easter 2-week-schoolholidays in april we decided to visit Myanmar. As the flights were much cheaper for Bangkok, we decided to have two pit-stops in the thai-capital. As we were coureagous and eager enough to visit a 3rd country, we opted for Siem Reap in Cambodia, mainly because of its Angkor Wat temple.

We flew from Luxembourg, to Bangkok, followed by a flight to Cambodia, where we stayed for 3 nights, and last but not least Myanmar. As we had planned to visit the 4 most popular cities of Burma, we opted for inland flights as well. The bus-route from Yangon to Mandalay, would last 12 hours. The bus fare was about 20$, the flight would be as cheap as 50$. Instead of losing too much time on a train or bus, we decided that we would move around by airplaine, obviously with low-cost-airlines.

In total we were sitting on 12 different aircrafts on our two weeks adventure ! Considering that the temperatures were reaching the 42°C degrees, it was a pretty exhausting trip.

Obviously I will write a seperate blog-post about Myanmar. In this one I will summarize our adventure in 3 different countries within lees than two weeks.

 

Bangkok.

Exactly one year later, I made it back to Bangkok. I was so convinced that I would return to Thailand much earlier, however things or plans don’t always turn out as we expect them to. After my first trip to Thailand in 2018, I fell in love with the laid back, but respectful, attitude of the country. I was looking forward to get back.

In the beginning of the trip, we only spent one night in Thailand before moving on to Siem Reap. We landed pretty late, and the weather was rainy, so it didn’t turn out to be an joyful night. We passed by the busy khaosan road and fled towards a much quiter street for a delicious pad-thai.

On our way back home we spent two more nights in Bangkok, enough to get to know new areas of the capital city. My girlfriend was curious about its markets, so I took her to the Chatuchak (or “Jatujak") Market, which only takes place on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. It’s a huge market with all kinds of things: food, fashion, books, kitchen tools. We spent 3 hours at the market, and there were still so many market-shops left to discover. Just next to Chatuchak, we spent another hour at “Camps - the Vintage market”, which is a pretty hip spot ! It was my second visit, and I enjoyed as much as my first time. You will totally enjoy “Camps” if you’re into cheap but trendy clothes, cafe-racer bikes, foodtrucks, ramen!, and craft-beers. It had a more laid-back vibe than the busy Chatuchak.

After two markets, we didn’t had enough of our shopping spree! We jumped on a cab, which took us to the Night Train Market. Again.. a huge market.. with all kinds of things to spend money on. There were a couple of bars nearby the market, that hosted live-music. The sweetest part was, that all the customers of the bars were thai. It was a much enjoyable and more classy area than the mentioned khao-san road. No douchebags, no loud thai teenage-girls.

On our last day, we were trying to get to see a Muay Thai fight in Bangkok. We found a couple of useful informations online. Every sunday the local tv-channel “Channel 7” hosts free muay-thai fights. If you make it to the Channel 7 building before 13:00h (1pm) you will high probably get a free seat for the show. As we totally forgot the change the time, as we came from Myanmar towards Thailand (which is 30 minutes late), we made it to the fight-arena around 13:40. We had to pay 200 bat (5$) per person for a ring-side seat. A pretty cheap deal compared to the usual 50$ you have to pay for a muay-thai fight. We watched 4 fights, until we decided to get back home, and head to the airport. It was a pleasant experience! Even my girlfriend who isn’t into brutal fight-sports, enjoyed the show. The fights are broadcoasted live on tv! Expect around 500 people in the arena.

 

Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Obviously we made it to Siem Reap for the famous Angkor Wat temple. For a long time I thought there would only be one big main temple in Siem Reap, until prior our departure I learned that there are many more temples located around the main Angkor Wat. It actually takes a couple of hours to quickly visit the hot spots of the archeological & historical sites. Some people would easily spend two to three days to get a more profound tour of the temples.

We’ve spent 2 nights in Siem Reap, which was enough to get a first taste of Cambodia and its number-one travel destination. It took about 15 minutes by scooter to reach the temple area. We rented a motorbike for about 15$ a day. After signing the rental-deal we were told which bridges in the city center we should avoid, as it would be illegal for foreigners to ride a scooter in Siem Reap. I’m not sure if it was just an over-cautious tip to avoid trouble, or if it was actually prohibited to ride the bike. We passed a couple of cop cars, and uniformed officers, at some points even without a helmet, and nobody ever stopped us.

You can either buy an entrance ticket for Angkor Wat for 1 day or a 3-day-pass. The 3-day-pass was pretty expensive, around 60 us$ !! per person. In Cambodia all the prices are listed in US$, and you actually pay with US$ bills. The prices in the menus at the restaurants are all listed in US$. Dollars everywhere.

At the airport the tuk-tuk drivers told us that foreigner aren’t allowed to ride a scooter around the temples. That wasn’t true! We visited all the temples on our own, and didn’t get in trouble for a second.

I’d definitely recommend visiting Angkor Wat for sunrise or sunset, as it will offer a nice photoshot opportunity with the reflecting sun in the pond just in front of the temple. The hundreds of tourists however will ruin the vibe. Even at 05:40 in the morning the place was packed with a huge crowd waiting for the sun to rise up behind the holy building.

Is there anything else to do in Siem Reap? Not that much! There are a couple of floating villages which are supposed to be pretty interesting to visit. However during our stay in Cambodia, the temperatures easily reached 42°C. Due to the higher temperatures the riverbeds around the floating houses dried out, and it all looked more like a dusty village. The ride from our hotel to the floating village was packed with lovely landscapes, however the village itself wasn’t worth the 1-hour-drive, as there wasn’t much left to see.

Siem Reap could be quite lively at night. There’s the “PubStreet” right in the heart of the city-center, packed with too many bars, but not enough tourists or locals. Every bar has its music-box turned up to the max, which can be rather annoying if you hear 10 differents songs playing at the same time. Pubstreet was loud and flashy, but among all the noise, we managed to find a laidback bar, where we could enjoy a couple of drinks. The center offers all kind of restaurants, local food, italian, indian, you have a hard time to satisfy your cravings. On our second night we went for street-food, where we paid 2$ for a noodles or rice dish.

As almost every asian city Siem Reap has a night market. If you’ve visited 3 night-markets in your life, you might have seen’em all. This one wasn’t much different.

In Japan a friend told me, that she had a bad experience with too many unfriendly locals in Siem Reap. We couldn’t share the same oppinion. The only unfriendly person we met was our tuk-tuk driver at the aiport, as he wasn’t amused that we refused his offer for a private-tour to the temples.

 

Myanmar.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, definitely was on my bucket list for the last couple of years. After having watched many travel videos of Burma on vimeo, I was blown away by the lanscapes, the pagodas and the special vibe videographers captured on their trip to Myanmar.

However the higher your expectations are, the higher are the chances that you could be disappointed. This actually gets worse when you have a specific idea what your travel videos or photos should look like when you get back home. My expectations were very high! I carried all my photo equipment, which consisted of 4 lenses, my fuji xt2 camera, a go-pro, and a gimbal, to our trip across the country.

As our trip was limited to a maximum of 14 days, we only got to spend 10 days in Myanmar, and we planned to see as much as possible of the country, so we chose to make it to the more popular cities like Yangon, Bagan, Inle Lake, Mandalay.

It takes between 6-12 hours by bus to move from one city to the next one. As we were limited in time, we opted to travel by airplane. The lowest faires were as cheap as 40$ for a 1 hour flight. Myanmar makes it easy for travelers to move around, you’ll easily get a cheap taxi, the airports aren’t too far away from the city centers. The mobile app “GRAB” is a must if you wanna get around Mandalay. It works the same as “UBER”, but you can choose between 3 different transportation options: car (taxi), tuk-tuk or scooter. As we were traveling as a couple we mostly grab’ed a tuk-tuk.

We visited 3 different countries on this trip, Thailand, Cambodia and Burma. We often asked ourselves what would be tippicaly “cambodian” or what would make “Myanmar” easily recognizable among the neighbouring asian countries. We couldn’t really tell! As for myselef I refered to Cambodia as a mix of Bali-Vietnam-India.

However Myanmar’s landscapes were easily recognizable by the endless amount of golden pagodas that were spread all over the cities. I can’t remember having witnessed this kind of shaped pagodas all covered in gold (some were white) in another asian country. You could spot them from afar in the mountains, on a hill, next to the river.. pagodas everywhere!

The traditional skirts men were wearing was definitely typically “burmese”. I first noticed them in Bali where they were called “Sarong”, then in India where they’re called “dothi”. In Myanmar it was the “longyis” that were worn by all the men. Even nowadays 85% of the men are wearing the longyis.

Number 3 would be the thanaka face painting, that women (also men) are using as esthetic cosmetics and as sunscreen to avoid sunburn. Thanaka is a white/yellowish paste made out of tanaka wood (the wood is rubbed on a wet grindstone or glasspaper. The mixture of water and the wood-dust makes it a paste. Women are wearing the thanaka as stripes, leaf shapes, or just plain circles on their cheeks and forhead.

As my expectations were very high, concerning this Myanmar trip, I have to honestly admit that I wasn’t blown away by the country. After having visited numerous asian countries, naturewise or citywise, Myanmar wasn’t that much different. For my personal taste, I missed the lively vibes you get to see in Bali or Thailand. After sunset, the streets got quiet, the locals were having food on a streetfood corner, and then slowely faded back into their homes. Obviously as myanmar people have low wages, they can’t afford to spend a night in a bar or restaurant. There wasn’t any kind of entertainment for tourists at night. We were lucky to discover the water festival that took place across the whole country 3 days before the buddhist new year. The locals, especially the children and teenagers were throwing water at us. The waterfestival is supposed to “clean up” the people with water just before sliding into the new year.

In Mandalay there wasn’t really much to do. We felt bored after 2 days. We definitely spend our 3 nights at the best hostel in town called “Hostello Bello”. Despite the welcoming staff and their fancy happy-hour, the nights remained quiet! Many restaurants were almost empty, bars weren’t available, coffee shops were closed in the late evening.

In Yangon, the night started around 11pm (23:00h), the point where are the restaurants and bars shut down. The same counts for Bagan and Inle Lake. Inle Lake was even worse, as most of the hotels were isolated on the outskirt of the lake. There weren’t any bars or restaurants where you could mix up with the locals. And we really missed that!

Myanmar was definitely a beautiful country, and we got to discover a lot of new things! Especially the locals were super welcoming. After all my traveling these last 5 years, Myanmar has definitely the nicest and moste welcoming population of all asia. Many adults were waving at us, as were driving by on a tuk-tuk. Children would touch our arms as they don’t get to see caucasians that often. Everytime when we handed over a tip, they stared back with a surprised look, as if they wouldn’t understand why somebody would leave them a dollar or two. They showed so much grattitude for every coin you would give them as a tip. I really fell in love with the kindness of the myanmar people !

Everything that impressed me in Myanmar travel videos, turned out to be a touristic attraction. Around Inle lake you’ll find the women of the long-neck tribes. As we were expecting a whole village, it turned out to be a ware-house where we were shown how the long-neck women were creating the handmade scarfs. The two long-neck women were very kind but it definitely didn’t feel authentic. The same counts for the traditonal fisher-men on Inle Lake. The real fishermen were casually dressed up in sportswear. The ones that were wearing tradional clothes was a made up show for tourists.

In Bagan we visited the Minnanthu village, where you were introduced to the daily life of a villager. Without a doubt, Minnanthu was worth the visit, however the tour felt once again like a tourist attraction. The women in the village started working as soon, as we approached their cabin or their tiny farm. It all looked like a made-up show.

I will write a separate post about our experience in Myanmar. I’m happy that we made it to Myanmar, and don’t regret it all. However it didn’t feel as authentic as Japan or Bangkok. It’s understandable that Myanmar is trying to attract tourists, as the country opened its borders for tourism only 20 years ago. They’re far behind Thailand or Vietnam, but they’re catching up!

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Norway : Lofoten Islands & the arctic circle

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The year 2019 started with an unusual trip. My girlfriend and I decided to visit the northern part of Norway, the Lofoten islands and the nordic city Tromso. I’d consider it an unusual destination as I don’t like spending my precious holidays in winter-cold countries or cities.

As we already went through the winter curse in our country, which consisted of freezing nights and rainy days, we headed north-bound towards the arctic circle. I expected to take the best out of my recently bought Mavic Air drone and was looking forward to pet some reindeers. This all sounded too fancy, if it wouldn’t have been for the rain.

 

We flew out from Brussels and had a 2-night stop in Bergen, the main city in the south-west of Norway. All I knew about Bergen, were the beautiful colored houses which I knew from google and the mountains surrounding the city center. It all seemed very “nordic” to me, because of the maritime vibe with all the ships, anchors and fishermen, therefor I was looking forward to finally discover Bergen. It turned out that city center wasn’t that attractive at all, and it ended up as a big disappointment. On tripadvisor we tried to find several tourist spots, which would allow us to kill the time. Sadly we couldn’t find any online.

All you can do is get some fishy-food at the local fish market, grab a coffee or two, get on top of the mount “Fløyen” with its fancy funicalar. All this can be done in 4 hours. Besides that I really can’t give you any further tips. Bergen didn’t turn out as I expected it to be. At night, we didn’t find any awesome bars which would allow us to get to know some local folks, it all seemed very dead. I guess paying 10 euros/dollar for one beer or a shot of rum doesn’t sound very inviting. Sadly that’s the average price you gotta pay for booze in Norway.

We were happy to move on towards the Lofoten in the early morning of our 3rd day in Norway.
You can easily reach the city center of Begen from the airport by the local lightrail (one-way ticket costs about 3,5 euro/dollar, or the express busline “flybussen”, which takes about 25 min(the one-way ticket is about 10 euro/us$).

 

Lofoten Islands: Reine, Sakrisoy, Henningsvær.

We landed in Leknes, where one of the 3 airports of the Lofoten is located. It was the smallest airport that I’ve ever landed at. After jumping out of the airplane, we walked through a door, and immediately reached the luggage claim belt within a couple of meters. Right next to the luggage claim where two single booths of the rental car companies. After spending exactly 4 minutes at the desk, we got a descent upgrade for our car: a hybrid VW Golf, with automatic transmission, and spiked wheels.

Prior our trip we booked a lovely wooden cabin in Sakrisøy, also known as “Rorbu” houses. Rorbuer are traditional fisher houses made out of wood and usually painted in red or yellow. It was one of the cheapest “chalets” we could find on booking.com, but it turned out to be exactly what were looking for. The check-in was flawless. The main entrance of the cabin was facing a big snow-covered mountain, right next to the water. A very basic kitchen station allowed us to prepare our dinners and breakfasts. Nearby the Sakrisoy houses was a “Coop” supermarket, and with 50 euro/us$, we could prepare our food for the upcoming 3 days. Expect to pay at least 60 euro/us$ while having dinner at a restaurant. Norway ain’t cheap!

It was the first time I ever stayed in a wooden cabin. I loved brewing my fresh coffee every morning with my portable “Kalita Filter”. The living area and the wooden beds on the upper level of the house were very cosy. The wooden cabin was definitely an important part of our Lofoten experience, as we weren’t spoiled with the best weater. We spent 5 days / 4 nights on the Island. During our stay we only had two days of sunshine. The weather was changing constantly, it was mostly snowstorms, rain and fog. As it was my first trip where I would use my DJI MAVIC AIR drone, the weather didn’t allow us to fly it up, as the winds were way too strong.

It’s really hard to kill the time on the Lofoten during bad weather, as there’s isn’t much to do. Because of the icy roads it takes quite a while to visit other cities. Driving from Reine to Svolvaer would easily take 3 hours. The center of Leknes hasn’t much too offer, except for a couple of coffee houses and an unattractive shopping mall.

There’s one main road that leads across the Island, the E10. There aren’t barely any shortcuts, you won’t get lost on the Lofoten without a GPS, but you will use the same road over and over again to drive around.

During our 4 days, we visited Reine, Leknes, Henningvaer and Svolvaer and we made it to the Unstad arctic surf beach. There are plenty of tiny villages that you will pass by within a couple of minutes. Different fishermen restaurants are spread out all over the Island. Besides having cake & coffee, taking lots and lots and lots of photographs, there’s not much to do in the Lofoten.

The views are breathtaking! The landscape and mountains scenery is very unique, and you won’t be disappointed. Sadly we got also unlucky with the northern lights. We were using the iphone apps “Aurora Alerts” and “Aurora” to get informed about the optimal conditions of the northern lights. Every night around 22:00h (10pm) the green lights were right above our roof. Unluckily because of the clouded sky, we weren’t able to see them. One night we took our car and started driving around for an hour or two. No luck! Even later in Tromso, one of the best locations in Norway to witness the northern beauties in the sky, we were unlucky again.

 

TROMSO.

Tromso was the last destination on our norway trip. Initially we had planned to make it the most popular city in northern norway to visit e reindeer farm. You can several tours or reindeer sleeding, husky sledding, feeding the reindeers followed by a traditional sami dinner. All of that could have been, if it wasn’t for the rain & fog.

After we landed in the late evening, the first glimpse at the city center was quite suprising. It looked like the center of fairy tale village, lots of inviting shops, packed restaurants and a handful of bars. On the next day we woke up with frustrations, the sky was gray, it was raining, and you could hear the wind through the room-window. We decided to walk across the main Tromso bridge and make it to the “Arctic Cathedral”. The beautiful A-shaped Cathedral was built in 1965, and to me it looked more like an Art-Center or Museum than a church. The shape of the building is actually very unusual for a religious building and it definitely looks like a recent construction. Never thought that the cathedral was over 50 years old.

Obviously with all the bad luck on our side, the church was closed. There were way too many people outside to get a descent photograph. The winds were too strong to fly up the drone. The fog was so dense that we could barely see the other side of the bridge. Bummer!

There wasn’t much to do in Tromso as well. We jumped from shop to the other, and tried too many coffees and cakes in the surrounding coffee-bars. Across our hotel was a lovely vinyl shop called “Backbeat Kaffe og Vinyl”. As the name of shop already reveals… you’ll find an interesting collection of vinyl (rock, indie, metal, soul, local bands) and can buy a fine cup of coffee, while browsing for new music. While in Norway, I had to buy the last album of “Kvelertak”, a gem of nordic rock music!

Click on the button below, to see the whole gallery of my Lofoten shots. Thanks for looking.




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Kerala: Kovalam, Alleppey, Munnar

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As we planned on staying in Kerala for 8 nights, time realy wasn’t on our side. Distances in Kerala are quite significant, which we didn’t expect at all, considering Google-Maps showing us 120-150 km routes. Because of the traffic and the narrow roads, 120 km could easily take up to 5 hours of your prescious time.

We landed in Trivandrum, as we were planning on spending New Years Eve on the beach, and we opted for Kovalam, because the surroundings and its red-white striped light house looked very charming.

Kovalam.

Kovalam’s beach was nice, nothing more nothing less. The restaurants at the beach front were quite alright for indian circumstances. However when you moved further away from the back alleys of the shore, the surroundings got pretty odd. There wasn’t an ATM nearby. You’d find plenty of roadstalls selling the usual stuff, chewing pan, sodas and biscuits. On New Years Eve, we were part of the few younger folks walking through the sand of the beach. Bars and restaurants were busy with older people, mostly europeans.

There was nothing going on late at night. Selling alcoholic beverages was prohibited if the bar wouldn’t pay a pretty expensive authorization. Some bars would sell the booze under table and serve the wine, beer or spirits in coffee mugs. For half a bottle of red wine we paid 10 euros / dollars on NYE, which is insanely expensive for indian people. Of course we had to hide the bottle under the table, in case the cops would show up.

Kovalam had its charming side, because only after one day, the locals would start recognizing you, and you’d get in lovely conversations with them. Of course always having in mind to win you as a customer in their shop or restaurant. The weather was flawless, even at night we had t-shirt temperatures. The water of the sea was pretty warm and the palmtrees bordering the shore made Kovalam a pretty place.

One day we drove up to Varkara with a rental scooter, it took us 5 hours in total to do the roadtrip. Varkara looked different than Kovalam, less buildings, more greens. In the end I can’t tell you which beach I actually prefered. We enjoyed the scenery along the road while heading up north. But I guess the 5 hours driving weren’t worth it, to spend some hours on a beach.

Initially we planned on staying 2 nights in Kovalam, but we extended our stay for one more night, as we didn’t want to rush with the usual check-out and packing our backpacks after the night of NYE. Honestly 3 nights in Kovalam is too long, as there isn’t much to do in the area. You can do daytrips to Varkara, the center of Trivandrum which gives you the feel of a city-vibe, or driving down south to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial (which we didn’t do, as it would take another 5 hours of driving in total). The scooter rental rate was a bargain, as we only paid 300 rupees per day (4 euros/dollars).




Alleppey and its backwaters.

After driving up north to Varkala, we figured out that Alleppey would be quite a ride. The distance between both cities is around 160 km which takes up to 5 hours driving.

A local told us that you can reach Varkala by train, however the train only leaves in the early morning and only once a day. So we opted for a taxi, which would cost us only 40-50 euro/usd, hassslefree, with an A/C, and you can sleep in the back of the car. Easy!

Alleppey is well known for its charming canals and its bigger lake on the northern side. That’s what we saw and what we got. In Alleppey we visited the city center, however the town looked like any other indian city. Our pleasant part of Alleppey was definitely our stay the “Bamboo Lagoon Resort”. The Bamboo Lagoon had the feel of a guesthouse, as there weren’t more than 10 to 12 rooms for rental. We had the chance to get one of the 3 rooms of a cottage that were very close to the river’s edge, facing the backwaters. Opening the doors in the morning was very beautiful as you could witness the beauty of the house boats passing by, watching the local fishermen in their canoos, or just observing the neighbours taking “a shower” in the river. It definitely felt more like India, than Kovalam’s beaches.

There wasn’t much to do on the “island”, as you had to a 1 minute canoo-trip to reach mainland. For one day only it was very pleasant to saviour the quietness of the resort, spending an hour in a hammock and watching the boats passing by. You could book a boat from the hotel and do a canal trip through the back waters. The boat cost around 500 rupee an hour (5 euro/uds). It would lead you through different canals and offer you a scenic view of the neighbourhood.

Unluckily on our first day we were told that on the following day, violent riots could take place in the city as there was an issue with a nearby temple, where women were granted access to use the temple for the first time ever. The radical religious fanatics obviously didn’t like that, and the use of violence was expected. So the only way to get to Munnar was to leave in the early morning at 01:00 or 02:00 am, or we would have to stay a second night, and spend all day at the resort, as driving with a taxi or buses was prohibited for security reasons. We decided to leave at night.

However we were already pretty sure that we would stay one more night at the bamboo lagoon on our way back home to the airport.

Munnar.

Munnar was a contrasty destination in comparison to the backwaters and the beaches of Kerala’s coastal region. Munnar is a located in the mountainous area of Kerala. It looks very green and hilly and the temperatures tend to be much lower at night.

Our roadtrip to Munnar was quite an experience. In the end we can have a good laugh about it, however the behaviour of our driver was rather dangerous than hilarious. The taxi driver picked us up at 01:30 in front of the bamboo lagoon resort. We put our stuff in the trunk and our journey began. After a couple of minutes the cab was stopped by the local police. They asked where we were heading, as it wasn’t allowed to drive out because of the riots that would high-probably happen that day. We were allowed to move on.

On the road I noticed how the driving behaviour of our driver changed: accelerating, breaking, accelerating, breaking.. and it went on like this. I instantly knew he was too tired to hold the road. After having hit the sidewalk numerous times, the driver decided to have a break and sleep for 30 minutes. Later on he told us, that he hadn’t slept for almost 24 hours.

We arrived in Munnar just before 07:00am. We stayed at the “Kaivalyam Wellness Retreat” for one night only. Before checking in we didn’t know that the resort had a fully-packed schedule with activities for their guests: free yoga classes, free tea tasting, early morning visits of the tea plantations, and many many more. They even gave free cooking classes 3 times a week. Obviously the cooking classes didn’t take place when we were visiting… as for myself, I’m always missing the best parts while traveling. Bummer!

The Kaivalyam Retreat was most definitely a beautiful place. Surrounded by endless trees, different kind of plantations (black tea, cardomon), it felt so refreshing breathing in the mountain air with all those scents outside of your room.

After having checked in, being led to our room, taking a shower… we notice the beautiful tree houses outside of our window. The lovely owner of the hotel, was so kind to give us a kind of upgrade, and let us move into one of the few tree houses that were available. Spending the night in a tree house was already worth the 5 hours we drove in a taxi to reach Munnar.

We were looking forward to discover the mighty green hills that we found on Google. Sadly during our visit, most of the tuk-tuk drivers were off work, because of the on-going strike all across Kerala. So it wasn’t possible to get to those greeny landscapes, as they were located 15 kilometers away from our resort.

Nevertheless, we were enjoying our 30 hours in Munnar. The 07:00 am yoga class was fun. It was interesting to witness the indian point of view about yoga, its flow, and how they practice it. We were executing all the asanas on traditional matt, rather a rug, and it kinda felt like I was doing yoga for the first time.

This was pretty much our Kerala trip.

So during a whole week, 7 days, we managed to visit 4 different cities: Kovalam, Varkara, Alleppey and Munnar (and we made it back to Alleppey and Kovalam on our last 2 days). Obviously we couldn’t experience all the parts of that beautiful state. But we experienced enough, to agree that it’s worth doing the drip. The whole trip changed my view of India, as it wasn’t actually that fun the first time I visited the country.

If you’re a fan of Bali or Srilanka, you will love Kerala.

Namaste to all the lovely people that crossed our path on this trip, … we met too many lovely ones!

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Back to India: Kerala & Varanasi

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Most of my friends and relatives wouldn’t believe me, if I was telling them that I’d travel back to India.

In 2017 I visited a couple of cities in the northern part of the country: Delhi, Agrar, Varanasi, Vrindavan. Back then, I wouldn’t hold myself back shouting out loud my disappointment about India on social-media, as I remembered the wise words of a friend “you either love or hate India, there’s nothing in between”.

Follwing my India trip in 2017 I stood rather on the “hating” side, than among the appreciating crowds. However I had never argued about the fact that India’s culture had so much to offer: the mesmerizing colors, the scents of spices and flowers, the fascinating beliefs and rituals of the Hindu religion, the mouthwatering indian dishes… India has a lot to give, even though sometimes it can hit your nerves in the roughest way.

Reaching the last days of the year on December 2018, I headed back to India. How did this happen?

  1. After my exhausting trip in 2017, I told myself, I would never again travel through India by myself.

  2. And the second condition would be the southern part of the country. I would give India a second chance, while visiting the south, famous for its beaches, palm trees, and yoga retreats.

A quick stop in Delhi at the Humayun Tomb

A quick stop in Delhi at the Humayun Tomb

We decided to visit the state of Kerala on new years eve.

The fact that my girlfriend is a total Sri Lanka aficionada, I felt like adding Varanasi to our India trip. Kerala doesn’t look that much different than Sri Lanka. Adding some contrast to our trip would make our journey across India more interesting and versatile.


Varanasi.

Writing a second blog-post about Varanasi would be pointless, as I mostly visited the same spots and areas as I did in 2017. We booked our 2 nights at the lovely Ganpati Guesthouse, the same guesthouse that I stayed at on my first trip. The room was flawless (for Indian standards)!

On the first day we checked out the surrounding area of the guest house. The "burning ghat” was located very nearby. As the darkness kicked in, the scenes of the flames dancing over the dead bodies covered with piles of wood, was rather surreal. I knew that we weren’t allowed to take any photographs during the cremation of the deceased.

Sometimes you gotta act very naive or stupid, to get lucky with photographs.

As we were standing long enough at the bottom of the stairs, observing how the flames were decomposing the body, a family started asking where we were from. Obviously, like many indians do, one of them asked for a photograph with us. We agreed, and as a returning favor, I asked if I could take a couple of photos of the cremation. I respected the ritual in the deepest way, took out my camera and shot a couple of photos. I was kinda happy that I managed to get some descent snap of that holy place.

The next early morning we headed to “assi ghat” around 05:45 am, to watch the sun rise, surrounded by chantings, pranayama sessions (breathing yoga) and watching the locals go wild during their morning rituals.

2017 I was blown away by the beauty of the sunrise and the diversity of the morning sounds that came with it (chantings, loud breaths during pranayamas, the fire ceremony, Bon Iver playing on my Ipod). All of this together made it to an unforgettable experience, as it felt like being ejected backwards in time.

2018 things had changed. “Assi ghat” looked less crowded. A peer down the river had been installed. The thing that blew me away this time, was the delicious masala chai that was served close to the main square. It was the best chai I’d ever had. Still being very cautious about what I eat and drink while traveling across India, I couldn’t hold myself back and bought 3 chais that day. The lovely gentleman explained us how to do the “best chai” in his own proper way. Just because of Varanasi I finally know how to brew the “best” masala tea.

I also learned, that if you travel with the least expectations, you will enjoy your trip a lot more. I expected to be really annoyed by boats-men and local salesmen. They were less hard on tourist than my previous year. Eventhough Varanasi blew my mind the first time, I even enjoyed it more on my second visit.

We passed by the “Vishnu’s Tea Emporium” as I read on trip-advisor it would offer a unique tea experience. I had the typical tea-shop image on my mind, the tidy western shops, with all kind of teas and smells. As we walked by the “Emporium” we missed it twice as it just looked like a small, dirty and untidy living room. It didn’t look like a tea shop at all. Following the recommendation of a friend, we stepped into the shop, and a couple minutes later Vishnu welcomed us. We got our second introduction how to make proper Masala tea, starting with a plain tea sample and adding each ingredient (ginger, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon..) step-by-step. After our initial shock of the tidiness of the room, we appreciated how much love Vishnu put into his tea ceremony. We bought two tea bags and a masala-spice-mix to thank him for his time and service.

Varanasi is very picturesque old city that comes with “that special vibe”. You can feel the holy spirits within the city. You will see hundreds of very poor people, you will see too many smiles, you will hand out unlimited change and tips, some people will annoy you, others will make you happy with their grattitude, but in the end Varanasi will leave a unique memory within your heart.

During a tea-break we had a short conversation with an older british lady, she told us that she’d stay in Varanasi for 2 weeks. I asked her if she could recommend us some hidden gems of the city, however all we got was the answer I had expected. She told us, that she would spend most of the day along the ghats next to the Ganges River. It was my second time in the city, and all we did, was spending time on the river-walk. That must be the magic of Varanasi, being happy with almost nothing, just enjoying the views and having a masala chai.

While traveling as a couple, you will get used more easily to the poverty, the dirty streets, the endless honk sounds, after one day you will go with the flow, and witness the uniqueness of the probably oldest city on earth.



Kerala.

If you start talking about the south of india, about their beaches and yoga-beach-bums, Goa normally would pop up in most people’s heads. Kerala is just the state below Goa.

The main reasons we were visiting South-India, were the summer-ish weather, the local cuisine, and the glimpse at the indian culture. It could have either been Goa or Kerala. We opted for Kerala as it seemed less touristic than Goa. And we could get a change of scenery within hours.

Kovalam and Varkara are beach destinations, 150km further north you can explore the back-waters of Alleppey, from Alleppey heading north-east you’ll reach the greenish hills and mountains of Munnar. All this sounded very convenient for a 10-day trip through India.

I decided to write a seperate blog-post about the single stops on our journey through Kerala. Writing down our experiences in Varanasi took more lines that I expected.

Briefly I can summarize Kerala as a wonderful experience, as my expectations of India were very low. After bumping into too many rude and unwelcoming indian people in the north, I witnessed how lovely the indian people can be in the south of India. During our 10 days we didn’t experience one single unpleasant moment while interacting with numerous locals.

The local people we bumped into, were very friendly, welcoming, generous and helpful. Especially taxi-drivers were super friendly. Their job wasn’t the easiest, as traffic in india can be a severe pain in the ass. Some of the drivers had to drive 5 hours straight to drop us at our next destination. The drives were chaotic, the cab-driver had to stay attentive during those 5 hours. And the maximum we paid for 4 to 5 hours rides was 4500 indian rupees {50 euros/dollars}. We decided the use taxis to move inside the state of Kerala. Besides doing shorter trips with a rental scooter, taxis would be the quickest way of transportation and we wouldn’t lose much time during our 8 days in the south.

Obviously bus and train rides would have been cheaper and would have offered much more of a backpacker-feel, however some trains only leave once a day (early in the morning) and the rides would take up to 9 hours. As we wanted to visit 4-5 different areas within 8 days, taxis with a driver, was the optimal choice.

Prior our departure, I was convinced that we’d rent a car and do a roadtrip on our own across Kerala. I knew that traffic could be very harsh in Delhi and Mumbai. I didn’t expect this to be the case in Kerala. The main roads weren’t as congested as in the north, however the streets in Kerala were at some points very narrow. While driving around on our rental-scooter, we had to swerve buses driving on our lane towards the oppostive driving direction. Animals and peoples were sharing the road with us. Long story cut short, driving in india is very adventerous and be quite dangerous sometimes.

As we reached the middle of our trip, we were involved in an accident. That moment I thought that we would get in serious trouble, because it actually was our fault, that someone got injured. Surprisingly the police officers that showed up didn’t even ask for our passports. The locals surrounding the spot of the accident almost ignored us. Without any hesitation we paid cash for the damage we caused, and the taxi driver moved on and dropped us in Alleppey.

In Trivandrum we met up my friend Vinoy’s family. They picked us up and dropped us at the airport, they invited us to their house were we got cooked a delicious indian dinner. The whole family was very welcoming. We even got presents after leaving their house.

During our whole stay in Kerala we felt like - King & Queen. The hospitality of the locals was out of this world.











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From Taipei to Keelung

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Taiwan isn’t the usual destination that you’d go for while planning to visit Asia. Most people would choose Thailand, Japan or Vietnam over Taiwan in a heartbeat. However choosing the perfect summer holidays during the months of July & August isn’t the easiest part, because most asian countries are hit by the summer monsoons.

Thailand and Bali are well known for their rain-season during the european summer months.

While circling around the asian continent on a world-map with my finger, the tip of my index, landed on Taiwan. Two of my friends used to live in Taiwan, that’s why I only heard good things about the country. But I aslo gotta admit that I barely didn’t know anything about Taiwan, except for the city-name of Taipei and its skyscraper the “Taipei 101” building.

After finding out that there are several national parks spread all over the country and that there’s a pretty coast called Kenting which is also know for its surfing spots, Taiwan sounded very inviting.

And chances of getting wet was less probably compared to other popular asian countries.


Taipei.

When I heard Taipei, I thought Hong-Kong. From several photos and videos that I’ve seen form the capital of Taiwan, it pretty much reminded me of the fascinating city of Hong-Kong. Hell, I was wrong.

In my opinion both cities are totally different.

Hong-Kong is such a photogenic city, that you will get endless opportunities to take beautiful shots with your camera or phone. You can hop from cabs to subways and land on a boat and just cross the river within a couple of minutes. Hong-Kong has a bustling nightlife. Get on a funicular and make it to Lantau Island. Temples, skyscrapers… HK got it all.

After my first two days in Taipei I still couldn’t feel the vibe of the capital. There were a couple of dull temples spread all over the different areas of the city. Blocks that were packed with shopping malls, the 101-Skyscraper that you could stare at from further distances. The shopping streets were very busy from the early after-noon until the late evening. Streetfood-markets are very popular, you’ll find quite a few and get all kind of dishes that costs about a dollar or a euro.

At the food markets we only bumped into locals. The pannels were written in chinese and it was pretty hard to figure out what we were eating, as many of the taiwanese people don’t speak a word of english.

Even though the streetfood wasn’t the best one, the foodstalls weren’t the cleanest, I still enjoyed watching people strolling over the market and observing the “chefs” preparing their food.

To be honest, there wasn’t one single tourist attractioni in the city that I really enjoyed. Good nightlife spots were very hard to find, as the popular bars are spread widely appart. So you always gotta use a taxi or public transportation to make it to a busy bar or club. We spent two nights at the gay-district as it was easy to spot and you could buy an “all-you-can-drink” ticket for 15 bucks.

While staying in Taipei we drove to several parcs and suburbs with a rental-scooter. The rides were fun, but the trips weren’t really worth it. Especially after having visited amazing cities likes Osaka, Tokyo, Hanoi, HK, Bangkok…

We were often asked by taiwanese people “why are you vistigin our country?”. I seemed like the locals weren’t used to see a lot of tourists in their city. On our last day in Taipei we crossed a very laid back, but huge american guy, he stared at us, raised his hand, put a smile on his face and yelled at us “hello white people!”. That was pretty funny, because we realized that he was actually right. During our 10 days in Taiwan we met less than a handful caucasians.

Keelung.

Keelung is a city closer to the northern coast of Taiwan. It took us a little more than an hour to reach Keelung by train from Taipei Mainstation. After getting off at the final stop, Keelung instantly felt different than the capital. There weren’t any skyscrapers, no fancing shopping malls, it all looked more laid back.

Obviously the city center looked more “taiwanese” than the capital. Right in the heart of Keelung, there was a harbor, a canal with many bridges and the famous Keelung street market. At first sight I was more attracted and impressed by Keelung than Taipei.

As we planned to spend 5-6 nights in Keelung, quickly it turned out as a bad idea. There was even less going on at night than in Taipei. Keelung definitely beats Taipei with its beautiful coast, and its scenic road that surrounds the northern tip of the island.

You easily could do a couple of daytrips from Keelung. We rented an electric scooter and visited Shifen and Jiufen.

Shifen is a tiny village, located south-east of Keelung. It takes about 40 minutes to reach it by scooter. The special spot that makes Shifen pretty popular among tourists is its “Shifen Old Street”. A tiny alley, reserved for pedestrians, on which a railway-road passes straight through it. As soon as the train passes, tourists jump on the rails, trying to release their sky lantern.

Visitors can buy a blank lantern for 5-10 euro/usd. They will write or paint their wish onto the 4 blank sides of the lantern. The vendor will put a gasoline-soaked cloth on the inside of the lantern, lit it on, and with a light handpush, the landern will fly towards the sky. It actually was a lovely place watching all the lantern flying high.

You could see it as a cheap way to make good money. However, as for myself, it was the first time that I had the opportunity to release a lantern. Not far away from “Old Street” there was a hanging-bridge and cute little train-station.

While being in Shifen, get back on the scooter and visit the Shifen waterfalls. Nothing impressive, however as there’s not that much to do in the area, it’s worth the trip.

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Jiufen is another village, located in the mountains, not too far away from Keelung. You might have seen beautiful nightshots on Instagram with uncountable red lanterns, that photo was high-probably taken in Jiufen. Depending on the weather you can get a jaw-dropping scenic view of the northern coast from the outskirt of the village. We visited Juifen twice, once at night, and once during the rain. It was hard to get descent photos of the views that the vista-point had to offer.

The most famous part of Jiufen definitely is the covered streetmarket, seperated on different levels. Upstairs, downstairs, all the alleys lead to food, drinks, tea- & souvenirshops. The place is crammed with visitors. Hard to guess if it’s a tourist-trap or an authentic market, as we were the only white folks among the crowds.

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Considering the food, both of us got tired of the street food. After a couple of days we got bored and slightly disgusted by the smell of greasy food, seeing living frogs in a glass-jar waiting to get thrown onto the grill, the scents of stinky tofu. It was fun on the first day, after having bought some fresh fruits, followed by local fruit-juices and a big bowl of fatty noodle soup. You will find a couple of indoor food-courts that will serve all kind of asian foods, from thai to japanese dishes, and that was where we mostly had lunch. Foodwise, in my opinion, it was the least pleaseant food I had in all Asia, even though I can’t argue that we had good foos as well, like an amazing shrimp ramen at night, or my favorite nut-pastry in the morning.

Another cool thing that we discovered in Taiwai, was the electric rental-scooter from the company “Gogo Ro”. In Keelung barely nobody would offer the usual scooters for rental. The easiest way to move around the Island, was the Gogoro electro-scooter. The bike was packed with 2 removable batteries, that lasted around 60-80 km. As soon as you reached 40% of battery-power, it was about time to open google-maps and look for the closes battery-charging-station. Some of the gas-stations were equipped with those power-stations, where you’d stop by, remove both batteries from the scooter, and put them into a big white wall. The station would “spit out” two batteries that were fully loaded. The good thing about that, you wouldn’t have to pay for gas, as the batterie-exchange came without further costs. The electro-bike was way faster than a gasoline scooter. However the unpleasant part was, that you could drive up to 90minutes - 100 minutes, and then you’d have to ride your bike towards the closest gas station.



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Marrakech

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These last years we all got bombed with the most beautiful snapshots from all over the world thanks to Instagram. As a vivid IG follower I was blown away by the colors and the antique architectural beauties of Marrakech.

As I was hoplessly browsing for cheap holidays I opted for Marrakech. I was highly influenced by those beautiful photos I knew from social media and I was really intrigued by the arabic cuisine, as I love cooking with their traditional spices at home.

My girlfriend was traveling across Iceland that time, so I thought spending a couple of days in Morocco and planning on visiting the sahara desert would be a beautiful experience.

To cut a long story short, this trip to Morocco hadn’t nearly fulfilled my expectations.

The flight-ticket was a bargain, as I flew from Frankfurt-Hahn to Marrakech for less than 130 Euros (a two-way-ticket). My beautiful riad “Rodamon Riad Marrakech”cost around 100 Euro for 6 nights. Sounds like cheap but great holidays.

As soon as I landed in Morocco the frustrations began at the immigration desk. It took more than an hour to get my passport stamped. Due to school holidays all over Europe, the queue lasted forever. And I guess I wasn’t the only one with a grumpy face in line.

Same case with the queue at the ATM. After two everlasting hours I made it out of the airport, where the first struggles came into play. The cabs.

The bandit taxi-drivers of Marrakech

Just nearby the taxi area was a sign with the different taxi-rates priced in dirham (moroccan currency). The ride to the city was listed as 110 dirham which would be around 10 euro / 12 us$.
I asked the first taxi driver how much it would cost to take me to the city-center “Oh you don’t know the rates? Well it costs 200 dirham (20 euro) taxes all included".

Obviously I didn’t agree with the price as the big sign mentioned the 110 dirham. I asked a second driver “ohh that will be 200 dirham because of the taxes”. I went passed to a third driver. Same story…. 200 dirham.

As it was my first time in Morocco I agreed to pay 200 dirham, and of course I added another 20 dirham as a tip at the final destination, just for being the gentle travel who I am.

On my last day I took a taxi to make it back to the airport, asked the same question and all I got as a satisfying answer “ohhh my brother, of course same price as always, city center to the airport will be 100 dirham”.

So be cautious about the cab-drivers. The lovely gentleman who drove me back explained that it would be better walking 5-10 minutes to the closest parking lot next to the departure hall, because that’s the spot where the locals hop on a cab for a much lower price.

As my riad (traditional moroccan hotel) was located inside Medina, the old-town of the city, the driver dropped me at one of the closest gates nearby the riad. From that point on you gotta walk through the cute small alleys to your hotel.

At first sight I loved the tiny streets that reminded me of a medieval arabic maze. I passed the security guard of my riad and went for the check-in. Actually my riad was a hostel, and I had to share the dorm-room with 5 other guests. The facilities easily looked like the one of 4 star hotel.

I couldn’t wait to start discovering the neighbourhood.


Either the “grande place” or the “tanneries”.

After walking away from the hotel, during the first 5 minutes, the city-hawks made their “first attack”. I was asked by a local if I needed directions to the “Jemaa el-Fnaa” square. I denied the question as I wanted to stroll randomly through the streets and shoot a couple of photos. Just because the local dude seemed to be pretty nice I asked for the “tanneries”, the place where moroccans color the leathers in a traditional and natural way.

Obviously one of his friends was walking towards the “tanneries” and asked me to follow him. I instantly informed him that I wasn’t looking for a guide and that I wouldn’t pay a dime for his help. "No no… free.. no money”.

As soon as we made it the gate of the tanneries another local jumped in and introduced himself as the security guard who would show me around. Of course it wasn’t a security guard, just another local who was looking to make some pocket-money.

The whole tour with a minimum of explainations lasted about 5 minutes. Everywhere was a sign with “no photo” on it. At the end of the mini-tour the so-called guard brought me to a leather shop very nearby and I gently refused his offer, telling him I wouldn’t be interested in buying leather products.

That was the point where I got served my bill on a plate. I didn’t want to be rude and offered him 50 dirham (5 euro) . He asked for 100 dirham, so I insisted in a gentle way “50 d or nothing”. He grabbed the 50 dirham note and left. At that point the first guy jumped in, the one who walked me to the gate…and asked money as well. He wanted 100 dirham as well.

Suddenly I was surrounded by 3 moroccans, all of them asking for money. I started giving them bad names and pulled out a 50 dirham bill to avoid any trouble. They weren’t happy at all, as it was far less than they demanded.

I read about the same story just before leaving my riad on google reviews. And guess what, it all happened to me exact the same way.

So expect to be asked every half an hour “are you looking for the grande-place or the tanneries” ?




Sightseeing in Marrakech.

Well on my first day I was strolling through the old town trying to get some good snaps of the locals or the buildings. After a couple of hours I noticed that there aren’t any impressive buildings in the city center. There are a handful of beautiful mosques in and around the city, however as a non-muslim visitor access will be denied. Outside of the buildings you will see signs with “non-muslims not allowed”. Bummer!

The “Jemaa el-Fnaa” square looks really dull during day-time. It’s far less crowded, and packed with beggars, snake charmers, cripples who are begging for money, a bunch of syrian families sitting on the pavement with their kids and asking for money as well… The restaurants around the main square aren’t that great. I had lunch and dinner at two different restaurants and was kinda disappointed by their dishes.

As I was trying to get some descente photographs of moroccan people, the locals started screaming “no photos, no photos!” and trying to hide their faces with one of their hands. It seemed to be super impolite taking photos of people. And it wasn’t about taking portraits photos, just randomly shooting.

Marrakech is packed with “souks”, traditional arabic markets, which can be compared with streetmarkets in asia. The souks are packed with stalls that sell all kind of ceramics, spices, clothes and local products. The souks open early in the morning and close late at night. You can spend hours at the “souks” digging for antique collector pieces or buying “tajines” for your friends and family.

On my second day I went to visit the popular “Majorelle Gardens” designed by Yves Saint Laurent. You had to pay 7 or 8 euro for the entrance to the garden. The garden was beautiful of course, however it was pretty small and paaaaaaacked with too many french people. The park was filled up with palm trees and all kinds of cacti (cactuses). There was one eye-catching blue building in the center of the park, where all the visitor were fighting each other to take a photo next to a blue wall covered with a shiny yellow window frame. After having seen too many beautiful public parks in Delhi (India) I wasn’t impressed by the “Majorelle Gardens”. It was just a tourist attraction as no local would spend time in a tiny park overcrowded with tourists. No peaceful location.

Within 24 hours I discovered the souks, two different tanneries, the big main square, the Majorelle gardens, passed by the Koutoubia mosque and the beautiful Ben Youssef mosque (as non-muslims aren’t allowed inside the building… you just admire them from the outside), spent sometime near the pool of my beautiful riad. I spent money on ceramics and spices and bought myself a second-hand tajine.

That’s mostly all you can do in the city center of Marrakech, the old-town of Medina. Eat, sleep, spend money, drink tea, spend money, and got to bed.

Photos aren’t appreciated. Too many locals will begg for money or ripp you off when handing you back the change. I really don’t see how visitor could love this place.


From 6 nights to 1 night.

During my 2 days I spent in Marrakech I was so annoyed by all the local moroccans who were trying to steal my money at every occasion.

As I was using my iphone (with a moroccan sim-card) with google-maps to find my way hrough the maze of Medina, I got asked too many times “hey can I help you? are you going to the grande place?”. I gently declined and told them that I was following my GPS. A common thing was that the guy was trying to keep the conversation going on with random small-talk. “Oh it’s this way”… I gently refused his help and replied that I got my gps and wouldn’t need any further assistance. However he still felt the urge to follow me.

Approximately after a 100 meters, they asked for a tip “I showed you the directions you were asking for…be a gentleman..and show me some gratitude”. Of course I wouldn’t give them a cent.

This happened to me at least 5 times within 24 hours. And obviously the conversation always ended with harsh arabic words I wouldn’t understand, high probably funny insults.

At night, at the crazy busy “Jemaa el-Fnaa” square, where you would find endless amounts of locals dishes, the food vendors would grab you by your jacket and pull you into their restaurant. If you pushed them back, they follow you and kept asking you for your favorite food.

As I was soooooo annoyed and felt more than a victim than a visitor I decided to book a flight home on my second day. I was really looking forward to discover the sand-dunes of the sahara desert, a very popular tour which was organised by my hostel. However I could imagine that these kinds of hassles would go on these upcoming days, as the desert-tour would stop at major touristic spots, so I decided to fly back home.

I’ve been to many places all over the world. India and Morocco were definitely the worst destinations where locals would do anything to make it to your wallet. At least in Delhi, there so much to discover, huge amounts of temples, hundreds of parks, statues, markets, fountains and lakes. Things I really missed in Marrakech.

Maybe I was just unlucky and had the worst experience someone could have in Marrakech.

All I can tell, I would never ever turn back to Marrakech.

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Bali ~ Ubud, Uluwatu, Canggu

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So after having spent 10 fabulous nights in Thailand, I had to choose my next destination for my pre-summer trip in june. I was pretty sure that it had to be Asia, as I just came back from a very satisfying visit in Bangkok & Chiangmai.

It was about time to break my solo-traveling routine, because a good friend was about to join me. So after a few seconds of brain-storming we came up with Japan, Bali or Thailand.

Since my plan was learning how to surf in 2018, we shared the same thought that taking a first surfing class as a 35 and a 39 year old young man, would be a pretty cool experience. Surfboards, cafe racers, beaches and jungles... we opted for Bali. And besides all that I would celebrate my 36th birthday on the island. It all sounded like a lot of fun.

Sadly two weeks prior my departure my good friend had a motorbike accident and got badly injured with a broken foot. This meant that I had to travel on my own. Back then I couldn't tell why, but I really wasn't in the mood for visiting Bali all by myself. Maybe because we know Bali from dreamy photos on Instagram, where you get to see endless photos of couples, engagements, weddings, ... It all sounded like "noooooope. this is a lovers' destination".

Ubud.

I started my trip in Ubud. I was told that Ubud would be super touristic and packed with Yoga people. Actually I do love yoga, but I can imagine, being surrounded by gurus and spiritual nerds, that this could become pretty annoying. I booked a bed at the "Pillow Hostel", because their rooms looked pretty descent, and they offered free yoga classes in the early morning. Sounded pretty ok! However because of the daily rain showers the yoga classes didn't take place on the open-air rooftop.

I knew about the rain-season before traveling to Bali. So I wasn't disappointed about the rainfall, mostly during the night, and couple of hours during daytime. Luckily there were some days without rain as well.

What to do in Ubud? Well I won't list any super fancy touristic spots, that I would highly recommend, or any must-try restaurants. All I can tell, go rent a scooter! You will definitely not enjoy Ubud without a scooter, if you're not doing any yoga-esque activities. There's a daily market in the very center of Ubud. The streets are packed with shops, the restaurants are filled with tourists. You hardly won't meet any local people on a night out.

I really wasn't keen about renting a scooter, in a country, where people drive on the left side of the road. I haven't been riding a motorbike for too many years. Then came the slippery roads because of the rain... So many reasons why I wouldn't rent a scooter. I overcame my doubts and went for it... I rented a scooter for a day. From that point I knew I would rent a scooter any time again.

I discovered so many cool spots around Ubud and I met local people. Locals let me join a very religious ceremony in a hindu temple. They first denied when I asked if they would let me in. As I told them that would carry a long-sleeve shirt and a sarong (a traditional skirt for men) in my bag. They were so surprised about that, that they let me check out the temple.

I met several groups of kids, who were trying to bring up their giant homemade-kite in the sky. They told me that this would be a balinese tradition, and later on my trip I noticed several spots where the sky was packed with colorful gigantic kites. Beautiful!

I visited the holy bathing temple called "Tirta Empul". Everybody knows the temple from the photos. Before going to Bali, I knew that I would find this bathing temple on the island. However I didn't know that all the people I had seen on the photos, taking a shower under the several fountains, were tourists. If Balinese people jump into the bathing pool to get under the fountain, they do it in the early morning around 5 am (05:00). So expect to bump into a lot of tourists while visiting the temple.

The "Pelingghi Meru", a pagoda-like structured temple, is another eye-catcher you will find on many photos. It took me almost 2 hours to reach the temple by scooter from Ubud. But I really wanted to visit that place. As I arrived in front of the pagoda I was surprised how small it was. It looked very tiny. And again packed with too many tourists.

I always enjoyed the scooter-rides through the suburbs of Ubud. Lots of nature: rice-fields, palmtrees, lakes, beautiful sunsets. So many spots to take a lot of beautiful photos.

Have a couple of stops at the coffee-shops on the side of the road and you will be surprised how many lovely conversations you will get with balinese locals.

The "Tegallalang Rice Terrace" is definitely a must-see. You can easily spend 1-2 hours on the rice fields, take many beautiful photos, enjoy a coffee, and get an instragram-cliche-shot one of the many giant-swings located around the ricefields.

Even though I didn't like the center of Ubud, because of the tourists, I gotta admit that Ubud was my favorite city among Uluwatu and Canggu.

With a scooter you can visit endless waterfalls which are located pretty close around Ubud. There's so much to do, even though you won't get that impression of Ubud at first sight.

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Uluwatu.

Well I decided to have a stop at Uluwatu for 2 nights because it's supposed to have the cleanest surf beaches of Bali. Uluwatu is well known for its huge waves on the shores, which brings fabulous surf spots with it. All this sounded like a cool place to hang out. Every monday night there's a huge party at "Single Fin's". It's pretty packed and a great time is almost guaranteed.

However no one tells you, that Single Fin is located on a private ground, where you gotta pay a fee to drive in with a car or on a scooter. Expect, once again, only tourists among the crowd, as balinese people can hardly afford a beer in that kind of restaurant/bar.

I wasn't in a party mood on that monday night, so I didn't make it to the party. I visited the restaurant on the following day, and all I found out, was that I didn't like the place. The cheapeast gin&tonic was actually pretty expensive for a longdrink in Bali. However you can enjoy a pretty descent view towards the sea and watch people surfing. If this is what's you looking for, nice view, fast food and watery drinks, go for it!

I stayed in the very center of Uluwatu where there was barely nothing that would a attract a 36 year old guy on a scooter. Laid back restaurants, street food stalls, hundreds of supermarkets and clothing stores, and some surfboard-rentals.

To get to the closest beach it took me about 10-15 minutes on a scooter. It was called "DREAMBEACH", and it was actually a pretty nice beach compared to the rest of the beaches that I had explored in Bali. However you had to pass two security check-points, and at the end of the ride, you had to pay parking fee to park your scooter.

Uluwatu was the first place, where I booked my first surfing classes ever. In my opinion the waves seemed to be huge, and as a newbie, they seemed very scary. I only surfed for about 90 minutes instead of two hours, because my arms couldn't manage the paddling anymore against those monster waves. And I wasn't too keen about the surf trainer either. But I was glad that I took the classes, as it took some courage from my side, to get into the water for the first time with a board.

In Uluwato you get the chance the visit the "Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park". It's actually very touristic but I had the possibility to witness one of the biggest statues I'd ever seen. Would I call it a must-see, definitely not, however if you gotta kill some time in Uluwato, the park is definitely worth it to spend an hour or two at.

Before I forget about it... there's a popular Hindu Temple in Uluwato, everybody knows about it, everybody wants to visit it. Go for it!

Canggu.

Canggu is supposed to be the hipster hang-out spot of the whole Island, and it definitely was the case. "Pretty Poison" offers you crowded nights on tuesdays and thursdays, big crowds hanging around the skate-bowl and cheering up the skaters. Their menu offer 4 different descent cocktails and a couple of beer brands. Hip people, trashy rock music, skaters everywhere, pretty girls... you get the vibe, it feels like Venice Beach! The first night I went to Pretty Poison, there was a concert inside the venue. Actually it was a very sweet rock band, which I'd rather watch play, than watching topless skater dudes in the bowl.

I loved the quote above the bar "Someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair".

Cafe-Racer fans definitely know the brand "DEUS EX". It's a pretty chill hang-out spot (bar & restaurant) where you can witness the coolest bikes and the coolest custom-made surf boards on the island. They have a "DeusEx" shop where you can spend some money on clothes and other stuff. I went there on daily basis to have lunch. The food was flawless, for a reasonable price. I loved their polenta fries and falafel salad. The music at the restaurant and the indoor design was a plus!

I took another 2 surf classes in Canggu, and I had the pleasure to meet a much nicer surf trainer. The beach wasn't as nice in Canggu, as it was in Uluwatu, however I enjoy the surfing sessions a lot more, because the waves weren't as huge as in the south.

Besides the hip rock bars and hip surf shops, there were so many things that bothered me in canggu. The main reason was the huge amount of tourists, australian tourists. Every bar, restaurant, club, beach spot was packed with tourists. There wasn't a place where I would bump into local people in the center of Canggu. The only locals that I met was at the local tattoo shop "Bold & Bright Tattoo", where I got tattooed. I loved the tattoo artists, they were very welcoming. And I turned back home, truely satisfied about my traditional old-school dagger tattoo. The price was totally a bargain compared to the money you gotta in Europe or the USA for a descent tattoo.

To be honest, I didn't like Canggu at all ! On Instagram everything looks so hip, fancy, and photogenic, but it real life it definitely wasn't. And all those thousands of tourists killed the vibe of the city. I was actually happy to get back home, after my iphone got stole a scooter drive-by while I was walking back home on my birthday night. Happy Birthday Frank!

 

If I ever should get back to Bali, I'd definitely spend more time in the north of the island, where you won't bump into as many tourists as in Kuta, Seminyak and Canggu.

Be cautious about your belongings at night. The guys from my hostels told me that I was the 3rd victim within a month, who got robbed by dimwits on a scooter.

Bold & Bright Tattoo.

As I just mentioned, my iphone got stole on my birthday night, as I was walking home in a very lonsome way... drunk & texting through a shortcut that all the scooters use to get quicker around the city center. While I was busy texting with my friend, as there was no one to celebrate with, a scooter approached me and grabbed my phone out of my hand. The driver just blasted away at full speed, impossible to run after him.

I felt devastated... aallll my photos from Bali were gone, my videos, my contacts, my text messages. And of course I had to spend a shitload of money to buy a new phone. Besides the stole phone, I had planned to get two tattoos at "Bold & Bright". Their prices were pretty much affordable compared to european or US tattoo rates. However knowing that I had to spend the money on a new phone once I'd be back home, I decided to cancel my appointments. 

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Ocen, the tattoo artist, was the nicest person I crossed path with in Canggu. There was no problem with canceling the appointment, even though he told me he could lower the price if I still wanted to get tattooed. 

The next day after waking up I decided to call Ocen, and get one tattoo done. Despite low expectation, or maybe high expectation in some points, Bali had a kind of "wow-effect". It was the first time I ever felt the island vibe on a trip, because I was used to experience the big city life while traveling. It was the first time as well, where I jumped on a surf board, and for a long time I knew somebody would be waiting for me when I get back home. So I decided to bring a lasting souvenir back to Luxembourg. Ocen was very welcoming on the day I had my appointment. He showed a lot a patience and he asked funny questions when I told him he should add a special letter to the tattoo. We talked about tattooing & music (his favorite band was Alkaline Trio), while Matt Skiba's solo record was playing in the background. 

I turned back home totally satisfied with my fresh tattoo, that cost me around 200$. 

I loved their wifi-code "bolderthanyours". 

 

 

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4 Nights in Bangkok.

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It took me too many years to visit beautiful Thailand. Years ago Thailand used to be one of the most popular tourist destinations. This kept me from visiting Thailand. Nowadays it's gotta be Bali... everybody wants to visit Bali. So I thought: this gotta be it! Now is the right time to give that asian country a try. All I can tell after these few lines, Thailand hit me unlike any other travel-destination. I'm already planning to get back this year, for a second time.

Way too many people told me to skip or avoid the capital Bangkok. After all the photos i've checked out on google, the reviews and stories I read about Bangkok, I was so convinced that I would enjoy the busiest city of Thailand. 

One of the main reasons why my few days in Bangkok were worthwhile, had probably to do with the lovely human encounters I experienced. It all started with a simple thank you at the airport. This might sound pretty goofy, but I think the way thai-people are thanking you, with folding both hands together and rising them upfront to the face, is just the most sincere way for showing your gratitude.  After visiting quite a few asian countries, this was the first thing that I noticed at the airport: "Khob Khun Krup" (thank you for men). My first thought "ok, cool, that's a thai-thing".

Of course the taxi ride, struck my mind as well. It took me almost an hour to get to my hostel, because traffic is usually very busy in Bangkok. With a pretty good tip, the cab-ride cost me less than 10$/€. 

After checking in at the hostel, I noticed that all the guests had to take off their shoes, before entering the main areas of the hostels (bathroom, kitchen, garden, dorms...). It definitely felt like far away from home. 

I stayed 4 nights in Bangkok, and all I've seen was the main area, the pretty much touristic center surrounded by temples. Of course you do have many small alleys, where all the local people live or hang out. However I didn't manage to make it to the skyscraper area on the east side, or to the north the more rural area. 

Temples, temples ... and even more temples. It was obvious, like in Korea, Japan, Hong-Kong... I would do many temples, and after a while I would be bored by temples. The high & colorful "prangs" which are the most eye-catching parts of the temple, were pretty much fascinating. "WAT ARUN" and "WAT PHO" were the ones I enjoyed the most. While riding a tuc-tuc across the city, you will notice those diverse temples along the road. There are just too many temples in the city. 

Just a quick reminder! Taxis are way cheaper than tuc-tucs, because they're using the taxi meter. I wouldn't bargain or set a fix price, because the cabs in Bangkok are dirty cheap! Tuc-tuc driver don't even bother for the low-price rides, they'll just send you to the next driver.

The Grand Palace was definitely a very beautiful tourist attraction! The colors, the architecture, too much gold glitter, walls filled with precious stones, ... it's worth the visit! However the place was so crowded that I just left my camera in my bag, you couldn't get a descent shot of the place. And it was the only temple/building where I wouldn't get in with shorts. They're renting pants or you just can a buy cute elephant pants as a souvenir.

The "Golden Mountain" temple is worth checking out as well ! As you will have to climb up too many stairs, however at the end you will be rewarded with a beautiful view all over Bangkok.

Is there anything to do besides temple-hopping?

I was really looking forward for the floating market. The old ladies on their boats, the scents, the colors, the water... all that would have made a lovely photo shooting. However I was told that the floating market take place on weekends. The best ones would be outside of the city, approximately one hour driving. 

Chatuchak is the biggest weekend market in the city. I was visiting Chatuchak in the very early evening on a sunday, when some of the stalls were already closing. It's mostly about food & fashion. Sounds boring huh? Trust me it's very hip! I bought around 7 shirts & t-shirts. Most of them were around 2-7$ a piece. I really loved the design, you could sell them easily in Europe for triple the price. They had all kind of street food you could expect. I spent an hour at the market, and I enjoyed it a lot. I'd definitely go back on my next trip to Bangkok.

Very nearby was the "Camp - Vintage Market". That one was the cherry on top! Such a cool and hip place right in the center of Bangkok. I'd never expected to discover London's "Camden Town" in Thailand. Old trailers as coffee-bars, vintage cars with surfboards on it, cafe-racer shops, super trendy clothing stores. There was a live band playing soul-music. It was very beautiful place, less crowded and definitely more classy then London's twin-market.

Khao San Road.

Hate it or love... ? Ok, nope, you won't love the place, but you will definitely enjoy the place. "Khao San Road", also know as the "backpacker street", is the main party road in Bangkok. Why "backpacker street"? Well I have no clue, but I guess, because all the people look like surfers or backpackers. No fancy clothes... flip-flops, shorts, tanktops, that's all you see on Khao-San. 

I visited Khao San Road on my first night. And I did expected the worst! While walking through the party-mile totally sober, my first thought was to leave that place.  I reached the end of the road and fled towards the "Soi Ram Buttri", which is located only a couple of footsteps away. "Soi Ram Buttri" is the total opposite of Khao-San. It still feels backpacker-like, but it's a very quite street. The same alley will lead you to the main-road where you will find quite a few music bars. I went to "JAZZ HAPPENS". It was tiny charming jazz bar. The perfect spot to start the evening. I was the only caucasian at the bar, and I found it very welcoming that the band was switching from thai to english just because of me. Gotta love thai-people!

 After some greasy finger-food, and a couple of gin&tonics, I felt ready to get back to Khao-San road. I stepped inside a bar that had a japanese name. And that was the place where the madness instantly kicked in. The topless male bartender greeted me, asked my name, and gave me a free shot. The thai people next to me at the bar, didn't take long to start a conversation with me. I paid a shot, they paid a shot, the bartender gave another shot for free... After way too many drinks, I left the bar with a thai dude, and we headed to the nearest streetfood-grill. That's where I made new friends again... short after that I woke up in my hostel bed the day after. I had a hard time remembering how I got home.

The next evening I walked back to Khao San Road, because it was the closest place to my hostel, where life was happening at full speed. I passed by a group of thais who started smiling at me, a couple of girls and one guy. As I felt kind of not-ready, no drinks yet, I smiled back and moved on towards the end of the street. One of the girls started running after me, and said "Hey Frank!". I  asked her how she would know my name, and then she started laughing "You don't remember us ???". I gently replied with a "nooooope". I joined the group of people and got to know my thai friends for the second time within 24 hours. 

So if I gotta summarize my last paragraphs, give Khao San a chance. Even though you might bump into tons of rubbish people, i'm pretty sure everybody can have a blast, or at least a fun  night, in that street.

3 guys & 2 girls.

3 guys & 2 girls.

Canal Boat Ride.

If you wanna get away from the bustling city center, you can jump on a boat and get ride through the canals and along the river. It's not gonna be a beautiful boattrip! The water is pretty dirty, you will see a lot of wooden cabins, worn down houses of the locals, too many tourist boats crossing yours, and of course the floating market rip-off. One single person on a boat, approaching you to buy a souvenir or a beer for the boat-driver, is considered a "floating market". 

It's definitely not a must-do attraction. However I was glad I bought a ticket for the boat tour. I had a whole boat for myself. I managed to get a couple of descent shots on my camera, and you discover Bangkok from a different angle. After all, that wasn't how I expected Bangkok. Never thought I would ride a boat through several canals for almost an hour.

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Obviously I was checking out Bangkok at a slower pace this time. There's still so much left to discover. All I can tell, I wasn't disappointed at all !

I got to know quite a few lovely people in Bangkok. They told me that Thai people don't eat with chopstick except for the pad-thai dish, they introduced me to sticky-rice and to laughing gas.. so many unimportant things, that I still found it very interesting. And the thai people just loved my most stupid questions about Thailand, which seemed so obvious to them.

I will write a seperate post about the second city I visited in Thailand, Chiangmai! 

Chiangmai, was different, maybe better, but Bangkok was afterall a joy-ride.

 

 

 

Shalom Tel Aviv.

In the daily news you hear a lot about Israel, mostly about the not-so-enjoyable things that happen in their country or on the borderline with their neighbor territories. However despite the headline-stories about war scenes, rocket alerts from Gaza or the recent knife attacks from Jerusalem, I was always intrigued by Israel, even though I absolutely didn't know anything about the country. 

An israeli friend from Germany told me about the "Purim" holiday that takes place between the months of February and March every year. You can compare it to the carnival from Germany, where people get dressed up in costumes and go out partying in the streets. Even the religious citizen are allowed to get totally drunk during Purim. It's supposed to be the most funny and exciting holiday of the year. 

To me, this sounded like the perfect time to visit Israel. I do love the nightlife when traveling, and I love meeting new people who can update my knowledge about their country's culture. 

Just for your information, most European citizen don't need to apply for a visa. And you don't get to fill out any papers on board. Just pass the passport-control, where you will be asked a couple of questions and that's it "Welcome to Israel". 

I remember that the people inside the airport and at the train-station were very very welcoming, and helpful to get me on the right train. When I was about to get out at the  "HaHagana" train station. I noticed the luggage scanner &metal detector at the entrance of pretty small train-station. Outside one single person was guarding the entrance, while holding an automatic rifle. I figured out that the Israelis take their daily safety-precautions seriously.

Tel Aviv.

Prior my trip to Israel, I decided to book 5 nights in Tel Aviv, and then moving on to Jerusalem for 2 more nights. Knowing that "Purim" was taking place, having been informed about "Shabbat" (the 7th holy day, where public transportation isn't available), I decided not to rush. However in my upcoming post about Jerusalem I will tell you, why it was a rather bad decision to spend more time in Tel Aviv than any other israeli cities. 

Tel Aviv is supposed to be very famous for its liberal vibe, fantastic nightlife and apparently it has a worldwide positive reputation in the gay-scene. 

I don't want to consider Tel Aviv straight up as an unattractive city. However in my own personal oppinion, there's not much to do in the city. As a travel-photographer I do love to take photos that shows the very unique culture of a country. I wanna take portaits of local people, of food, of  eye-opening architecture. So that I can bring up the special vibe & flair of the place i'm visiting. The vibe of Tel Aviv was definitely not easy to capture on photos or videos. 

The shore of the city was definitely one of the attractive spots of Tel Aviv. Just along the beach-walk you would bump into all kind of people: tourists, sporty locals, fishermen, surfers & the older generation chit-chatting on a bench. Walking the beach-walk up north will lead you to a boring lighthouse. Walking south-wards will lead you to Jaffa, the muslim Oldtown of Tel Aviv. 

I really liked spending time in Jaffa, it's a rather small neighborhood. The Old Town definitely differs from the rest of Tel Aviv's architecture. You can notice its muslim influence. Walking away from the coast will bring you the flea-market. It's rather a mix of flea-shops and flea-stalls. 

Vegetarian foodporn in Israel.

Just next to it, you will have an endless selection of restaurants and bars. Both really look very inviting with lots of colors. However during "Purim" only a very few ones were very busy in the evening. I can't complain about the food, every single food I had in Israel was super delicious. By the way, just in case you wouldn't know (I didn't): Israel is supposed to be the "mecca of veganism". Israel's people (the jews & muslims) do cook a lot of vegan dishes.

SAROMA MARKET was one of the few fancy places I discovered in the city. The indoor-foodcourt offered every kind of food, from morrocan pitas, to sushi, to italian pasta. I loved the colors and the touch of industrial-vintage-modern design of the market. Right outside of the foodcourt is an outdoor shopping area, it's a mix of parks, playground and fashion shops. SAROMA was a pretty area compared to the worn down houses of the Florentin neighborhood that I passed through every day. 

 

BEST RAMEN OUTSIDE OF JAPAN. I love ramen, I tried so many ramen soups, when traveling I love discovering new ramen places, it's all about ramen. All I can tell is that I had a WONDERFUL ramen at the ramen-shop right next to my hotel "Hiro Ramen Bar by Aharoni". Yisrael Aharoni is an israeli celebrity chef. There are two of Aharoni's ramen restaurants in Tel Aviv. Don't miss the opportunity to get some mouth-watering japanese dishes. I tried'em all, from salads, to gyozas, to japanese-oriented cocktails. I spent 5 nights in Tel-Aviv, which means I had 5 ramen in total at Aharoni's place! 

Nightlife.

What really surprised me, was the fact that everything is pretty expensive in Israel. Restaurants aren't cheap, booze ain't cheap at all, which means the israeli nightlife experience can have a heavy  toll on your wallet. I spent my holidays in the well-known hostel "Abraham Hostel" in Tel Aviv. Even at the hostel's bar you would easily pay 7-8 €/$ for a glass of wine, Gin&Tonic were about 10 €/$ for the cheap-brand-cocktail. 

Despite the expensive little-pleasures-of-life the city offers a great nightlife all over the week. I can't tell if it might have been because of Purim, but any day of the week, most of the bars we visited were totally packed. I will list you a few to check-out, some that are pretty popular in Tel Aviv:

  • KULI ALMA.

Kuli alma is a very arty cafe/club, colorful walls, stickers and posters all over the place. The crowd is pretty hip, and they still offer fair prices on drinks. The music varies from electronic to hiphop. Definitely a place to stop by for a drink while doing a pub crawl with friends across the city.

 

  • BUXA.

Buxa a small bar/club in a  basement, which got a special vibe. We had a hell of a night during Purim. The tiny size of the club makes it pretty easy to bump into people and start a chit-chat. It's right on Rothschild avenue.

 

  • RADIO EPGB

Radio is another basement bar. We were there for a hiphop night, great music & lovely outgoing people. I really loved the place. The dimmed lights in the club and people dancing all over the bar gave this place a really welcoming vibe. Loved it! 

 

  • JIMMY WHO

Many israelis told me that JIMMY WHO wouldn't be a cool place at all. I was visiting JIMMY WHO on a wednesday, it was my last night in Israel. I LOVED it. Around 22:00 (10pm) they had a funky live band playing pop & soul music. After the show the DJ played some dance music... the whole bar packed with people and too many pretty women. I was doing a pub crawl with the hostel, and was disappointed that we left too early for the next bar. The only negative part were the prices, we paid almost 20$/€ for 2 shots of Vodka. Definitely not the place where you wanna get wasted.

 

Summertime in Winter.

Even though I didn't enjoy the city that much. I would give it another try though and turn back during the winter season. The weather was lovely every single day, t-shirt weather in the afternoon, sweater temperatures in the evening. 

The food discoveries were definitely my highlight in Tel Aviv. Go for Falafels, Tahini, Shakshuka, ... you will never get tired of the mediterranean/arabic food culture. I loved "SABICH" pitas, it's a grilled pita bread filled with eggplant, tahini, hummus, 2 hardboiled eggs and a diversity of prickles. Yum! Their pastries, a fest! 

I stayed at the Abraham Hostel in Tel Aviv, and the one located in Jerusalem. Abraham-hostel offers their own tour-service called "Abraham Tours", where you can book pretty interesting and affordable day trips or city-activities. One of the cool features, was the shuttle from Tel Aviv's hostel to the Jerusalem hostel. No need to get your luggage to the next bus-stop or train station. 

I will post a more in-depth review about the hostel and my booked Abraham-tour in a couple of days.

Jerusalem was definitely on the winning side of my trip. Keep your eyes open for my next post about the capital of Israel. 

 

8 days in Havana.

As I finally decided to get my shit together and finalize the booking of my Cuba trip I decided to spend a whole week only in the capital Havana. A day-trip to Vinales would have nicely fit into my schedule. However doing 3 cities within a week sounded too stressful. I haven't had a "relaxed" holiday for quite a while, so I decided to take it slowly on this trip.

Too many people advised me to spend only 3 days in Havana, and then I should move on to Trinidad. Everybody was bragging about that little gem of a town. I didn't give it too much attention and stuck to my plan. 

Now that I got back from Havana, I'd totally advise people to stay at least 5 days in Havana. You can easily do daytrips to the beach "Playa del Este" or like previously mentioned the beautiful city of Vinales. 

I can't imagine that you will feel the vibe of the city within only 3 days, it takes more than that.

 

What to do in Havana?

Obviously as soon as the name Havana pops up, people do think about the colorful streets of Old-Havana. "Habana-Vieja" definitely is the prettiest neighborhood in Havana. It's clean, it's lively and easy to get around. The only thing I didn't like about Old-Havana, it didn't look authentic. "Obispo" street is the main shopping lane leading through the city-center. It's packed with shops, in which ones you won't meet a local cuban, it's just too expensive. The shops are pretty much boring, except for a couple of old bookstores selling books & collector-items of Fidel & Che Guevara. 

As I was spending my holidays during the cuban winter season, too many places like bars & restaurants looked deserted. It didn't feel like the partying Havana-City that we all know from the movies, it was just the total opposite. I liked walking through "calle Obispo" just for the fact, that it was packed with people. I love having a cup of coffee and watching people passing by.

Vedado.

I won't start listing all the places you should visit, that you might find in a tourist-guide. I really didn't focus on any of the very touristic places. I really wanted to discover it on my own. 

I will tell you a little more about the main neighbourhoods "Habana Vieja" and "Vedado".

After the end of my trip I noticed that I couldn't have had a better experience in Cuba than this first 8 days in Havana. Too many of my friends, who returned from Cuba, agreed that it was a lovely island, however none of them wanted to get back. I gotta admit that I became quite a fan of Cuba. 

I'd definitely recommend to stay in a "Casa Particular". First of all it's cheap! The average rate for a room is between 20-35 € or US$ a night. So you'd only pay around 180€ a week, which would not even be enough to spend 2 nights in a hotel. 

Don't hesitate spending a couple of bucks on cuban people in the street. I admit that it can be very annoying being asked 20 times a day, if you want to buy cigars, or if they can show you around, bring you to a bar... it's just annoying. BUT... if you agree on spending one drink (1-3$), the cubans might bring you to a bar you'd have never discovered on your own. 

In bars, you will meet cuban locals, telling you about the country's history. They will introduce you to other drinks than Mojito & Cuba Libre. They will teach you some salsa dancing or tell you about the most iconic salsa-musicians of Cuba. One random cubano, who asked me for a Mojito, took me to the most simple cuban bar, where Che Guevara was hiding for 3 weeks on the rooftop of the building. Inside the bar, there was a big bell, which they used to wake up "the Che", or let him know when enemies were approaching. 

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Places to hang-out.

  • Old Havana is definitely the nicest spots to wander around the colorful alleys, have a peek inside the livings rooms of the different houses (cuban people always leave their front-door open). Visit different art galleries, have a drink or a coffee, enjoy the different music spots throughout the city, talk to people... It just never gets boring. 

 

  • THE MALECON was another highlight of the city. Everybody knows the street from the photos... fishermen sitting on the edgy walls of the Malecon waiting to catch a fish, american cars driving by, waves hitting the walls and wetting the pedestrians walking along the sidewalk. The Malecon is fascinating at any time of the day. In the early hours go for a morning run, in the afternoon go have a delicious seafood meal at the "La Abadia" restaurant, in the evening walk along the walls like the locals. "La Abadia" was my favorite restaurant in the center of the city. The prices were very descent and you had a view straight onto the ocean. I mostly paid around 10-12 CUC (8-10 €/$) for a seafood-salad, a grilled seafood skewer, and a cocktail or a softdrink. 
     
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  • VEDADO was a more authentic neighborhood of Havana, not as a fancy as Old Havana, but you will have a fun time in that area.  LA RAMPA, as they call Avenue 23 (Avenida 23) is the hotspot for nightlife. "La Zorra y el Cuervo" is a pretty nice Jazz-Club, you pay 10 CUC for the entrance and get 2 free-cocktails. The night I visited the bar, there was a local jazz band playing, that didn't blow me away. But there were a couple of special guests who made it a very pleasant show. It was funny to see that the jazzclub was packed with japanese tourists, the japanese LOVE jazz music! Just right next to the club, you will find a couple of salsa&rumba clubs. Even the gay-area is right next to the Rampa. I always started my night at the dive-bar "San Juan", where I would meet the craziest cubans on my trip. One night I met a german tourist and all he could say was "man I love this bar!". Almost every night I had dinner at the restaurant "Locos por Cuba". It was just right next to my casa. The service was flawless, the food was delicious, and again crazy cheap (and they had the prettiest waitresses in Havana!). In Vedado you're only steps away from the famous "HOTEL NACIONAL DE CUBA". Also check out the most famous ice-cream spot in Havana called "COPPELIA". Expect a waiting line of 20 minutes to get your scoop of ice-cream.
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  • CALLEJON DE HAMEL is also located in the VEDADO neighborhood. It's a block of colorful & arty murals. The Hamel street was built up by the local community to raise money for disabled children. It's a very charming place which is definitely worth a stop. They also have a signature-cocktail called "BILONGO", apparently it's the only place where you can get it. 

 

My favorite Bars in Old Havana.

 

  • BAR YUMURI 

The bar looks like the real local thing. There's live music everyday, from midday til the early evening. The bar is located just next to the "La Rosalía De Castro" Culture Center. Almost every afternoon I had a Mojito at their place. They didn't serve the best drinks, but I did like the vibe of the bar. That's also the place where I met two of the most memorable cubanos of my trip, Mario & his son Froylan! Their "signature cocktail" (don't expect too much) is the "Compay Segundo". Try it!
Location: (#3 Calle Monte between Maximo Gomes (Monte) St. & Dragone St.)

  • LA BODEGUITA DEL MEDIO 

La Bodeguita del Medio might be the most popular bar in Old-Havana. It's really PACKED with tourists, but the good thing about it, is its live salsa band. Many people are dancing inside the bar. Their Mojito is pretty alright, even though it's very overrated! On a wall you see a writing of the author Ernest Hemingway "My Mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita". Outside of the bar, the walls are filled with tags, names, signatures of people who visited the place. Just hop in grab a Mojito, enjoy the music til your glass is empty, and leave...

  • MONSERRATE BAR

Monserrate is one of the popular bars as well, which is also a recommendation of the "Havana Club Rum Museum". But it was one of the bars, which had the best live music in the evening in Old-Havana. The customers were mostly tourists but it was a calm place, and it still felt like a cuban bar and not a tourist attraction. The cocktails were 4 CUC, however almost double the size than the regular highball glasses.

  • Creperie Oasis Nelva

The name of the bar might sound odd, but they do have the BEST cocktails in Old Havana. The bar doesn't even look like a creperie (a place where they make french pancakes). I had my first Pineapple-Mojito at Oasis Nelva and it was just marvelous. The interior-design looks fancy, most of the furniture is selfmade. The cocktails are pretty cheap compared to other places in and around Habana-Vieja. The also serve a big variety of organic dishes. Try their "Cuban Lemonade"!

 

NIGHTLIFE.

I would totally stay away from Old-Havana, if you're looking for the clubbing kind of nightlife. I was pretty disappointed about the fact that Old-Havana was asleep in the evening hours of a weekend. You definitely need to jump on a cab and drive to VEDADO. Check out "PALACIO DE LA RUMBA DE LA HABANA". The palacio was the first club I discovered on my holidays. Again I invited a cubano for a drink, and after the first bar shut its door, he took me to the palacio. The club opens around midnight and is pretty dead til 01:00 am. On the first night we went around 03:00 in the morning and it was super busy. Obviously they play "rumba" music. I never heard about "rumba" til I set foot into the club.  I had a lot of fun in that club and all the cubans were very welcoming. 

CASA DE LA MUSICA DE MIRAMAR was the second club (or rather a music venue) that I visited. Casa de la musica was more about salsa music... they host very popular bands. LOTS of dancing people, fair prices on the drinks as well. The neighborhood of Mirama is a 15-minute taxi-ride away from the center. The crowd was a little bit older, than at the palacio. Definitely something you wouldn't witness in Old Havana. 

 

ENJOY HAVANA.

Well Havana isn't just about drinking and eating! Obviously Salsa is a very big thing in Cuba. Why not take salsa classes??? I took 4 hours of cuban salsa classes at the "CASA DEL SON" which is located very nearby the Parque Centrale. 2 hours of dancing classes cost 30 CUC. Most of the teacher do speak very well english. The dancing school looks very nice on the inside, and they do have a bar as well, if you need to loosen up, before the classes or during the break. My teacher Eniley showed pretty much patience for someone with 2 left feet learning how to dance.

I'm not a big fan of museums, but I decided to check out the "HAVANA CLUB" museum on my last day, because after all the Mojitos I had drunk, I needed to get more informed about where it comes from and how the rum gets into the bottle. 

If you're a beach bum you should take a ride to the "Playa del Este". I was told by the cubans that it is a lovely beach. Sadly because of the rainy days on the last part of my trip, I decided to leave the sun-tanning aside. You should combine the beach-trip with a convertible taxi ride. I guess the convertible taxi ride inside an american old-timer is a must-do as well, while in Cuba. Sadly I skipped that part as well, because I was traveling alone and my main credit-card wasn't working in Cuba. So I tried to spend less money to avoid any bad surprises. 

I did visit a cigar factory though. Was it worth it ? I really can't tell. First of all, you need to get the entrance ticket in advance! I read about it, didn't believe it... and I was wrong. When I went into the lobby of the factory, the security agent told me, that I wouldn't get inside the factory without the ticket from a hotel. Because I was staying in a "casa particular" I had no clue where I should get that ticket from. A taxi-driver outside the factory told me he could take me to a tourist office, where I could buy a ticket. The ticket was 10 CUC for the guided tour through the factory. SADLY... you're not allowed to take any photographs. The different facilities of the factory look very old, traditional and photogenic. I would have loved to take some photos of the factory employees. It's interesting to see where the world-famous COHIBA cigars come from, but in my opinion the guide rushed through the factory. You can't touch anything, you observe the workers from a certain distance. But... while in Cuba... you should at least visit one factory. You won't have the chance to visit a factory in every country.

There's absolutely so much to do in Havana... music is big, art is big, rum is big... You hardly ever get bored if the weather is on your side. 

Prior my next trip to Cuba, I really want to inform myself a lot more about the revolution, Fidel, and Che Guevara. I starting reading a book about Che on the airplaine back to Europe and I would love to visit the precise places where the revolution and its take-overs happened.

 

 

First steps in Havana... scams & police.

Cuba always used to be one of the destinations, that was on top of my travel-bucket-list, however it took me ages to make the trip.

Usually when I'm visiting a unique country or city,  and just right after I fastened my seat-belt on the airplane I tell myself silently "In 10 hours you will be standing in.... (the name of the city)". If it is a long-awaited destination, I really have a hard time believing that it's finally happening. 

With Havana it was just the same kind of "ritual" again. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to finally set foot in Cuba and again, I couldn't really believe it, that I was sitting on the airplane.

After all these joyful thoughts during the flight, I gotta admit, that my face certainly didn't look that happy, when I stepped outside of the airplane. Havana definitely has the shabbiest airport I've ever walked through. Even the ones in India looked fancier. Well it was just an airport!

The customs officers were sitting behind desks that looked like zoo-type-cages all painted in red. I stepped forward and softly said "Hola!" (knowing no spanish at all)... the usual procedures with fingerprints & mugshot followed, and I got a gently "Welcome!" from the officer. 

The baggage-claim was crowded with too many visitors. All the travelers were waiting along one single carousel. It didn't feel like you were waiting at the international airport of the capital. 

At the main-hall, when leaving the airport, there are a couple of ATMs where you can withdraw money. I didn't wait too long (5-10 minutes), because I landed late in the evening around 22:00h (10pm).  At the same ATM you could exchange money, but the machine asked for your passport if you were exchanging cash.

The governmental taxis ask a fixed price of 30 CUC (24 € / 30 us$) to bring you to the city. The ride took 20-25 minutes to reach the "parque central" where the most popular hotels are located. I took a hotel for the first 2 nights, because I didn't feel adventurous after 10 hours of flying. After the 2 nights at the hotel, I switched to two different "casas particular" (homestay with a cuban family). More to that later. 

I stayed at the "HOTEL PLAZA". The lobby looked very descent, old fashioned, but just as you expected a hotel to look like in Havana. I paid 100$ a night! Which was way too much. The room was OK, but I had better hostels for 20$ a night. I wouldn't complain about the hotel if I had paid 20-40$ a night. Just as a quick reminder, I paid 35$ a night at the "casa particular", which looked nicer, smelt better, felt better and of course with a light-breakfast included. 

 

VERY IMPORTANT!! BRING CASH!!

I had carried two VISA-Credit Cards to Cuba. Two different banks, same country (no U.S. bank of course). My credit-card from the international bank "ING" worked without any issues. The one from my local bank "POST" did NOT work. I contacted all the different services and always was told "your card has not been blocked, and should work just fine. We couldn't notice any denied transactions". The several phone calls cost me about 100€ (115$), and I absolutely got no further help, neither from my bank, nor from the VISA service. Always the same robotic answer. The VISA customer service told me that still some VISA cards wouldn't work in Cuba. But it didn't make sense, why the credit-card from a bank of Luxembourg, wouldn't work at all. You will feel pretty lost in Cuba, if your main-payment-source is being denied on the very first day of the trip. 

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Scams & police intervention on the first two nights.

As soon as I stepped out of the hotel on my first evening around 23:00h (11 pm) a cuban girl approached me and asked where I was from, my reason for visiting Cuba, etc.

She told me that I was lucky, because on that particular weekend, there would be a "Cigar Festival" and cuban people would sell them at the local low-budget store called "cooperativa". The point of the "cooperativa" was, that only the local people would get the money of the cigars, and not the government. (of course there wasn't a national cigar festival!)

I could sense the act of being tricked. However I'm always too naive and I wanted to see what the "cooperativa" looked like. I followed her through the streets of "habana nueva", while talking about Cuba & Havana. The whole neighborhood, which was badly lit at night, looked very degenerated. When we arrived at the shop, they sold me 2 cigars for 10 CUC, which was way overpriced. And of course I'm a non-smoker. 

After that the girl asked me, if she could show me a local bar. I accepted the invitation, because I was really looking forward for my first Mojito in the city. As soon as we walked inside the first bar, I told her that I would like to move on alone and that I wouldn't like to enter a bar with no customers inside. I told her that I noticed the scam with the cigar, and that I wouldn't bother, but I'd rather leave her alone.

She denied the scam and asked for a last favor. She wanted some spare change for buying powder-milk for her little girl. I refused to give her money and walked away. 

On my way back to the hotel, I passed by a bar that looked pretty crowded, a cubano was waiting outside and asked me if he could show me the bar. I approved and we went inside. The chico asked me to invite him for a Mojito as well. As I was traveling alone, and all the streets looked deserted, I agreed to spend a drink for a little conversation with a local. The 2 cocktails were 16 CUC (13 € / 16 us$) in total. WAY TOO MUCH for Cuba! After we took a seat at the bar, I noticed all the women inside the bar who were approaching us like vultures. Prostitutes of course... many prostitutes! I clearly told them, that I wasn't interested, and they moved back without any discussion. After the drink I decided to get out of the bar, again I didn't like the vibe. 

Almost having reached the hotel, I bumped into another habanero, who started a conversation. I told him, that I was tired of bumping into people, who just wanted my money and that I don't feel like spending another 8 CUC on a cocktail. The cubano started laughing and said that I got tricked. "If you want, I take you to a place where we get a Mojito for 3 CUC if you invite me."

Of course I wanted another Mojito and decided to follow the cuban guy and his girl. We went to the same place where the first lady wanted to get me in for a drink, and of course she was still sitting there. As soon as she noticed me coming in with the cuban guy, hid name was Alexis, she left the bar. But hey, the drinks were 3 CUC at this bar.

Alexis was fluent in italian, which was very impressive, because he had never left Cuba in his life. He told me that he learned italian because of an italian ex-girlfriend who was living a couple of months in Havana. 

Alexis seemed honest in what he was talking about. He also told me about the tricks with the "powder-milk" and the "expensive-cocktails". As soon as local cubans bring tourists to a bar, the prices of the drinks go up. So for exampled they charge you 2-4 CUC more, and when the tourist leaves the place, the bartender and the "inviting friend" split the over-charged-money.

It works the same with the powder-milk. Powder-milk for babies is hard to get in Cuba, and of course for locals it's very expensive. They usually ask 10-13 CUC for the milk. Tourists with a big heart, follow the women to the shop, where they buy them one or two packs of milk. As soon as the tourists move on, the "scam-artist" brings back the milk to the shop, gets back the money, and they split it with the shop-woman behind the counter.

My advise:

  • never pay more than 4 CUC for a cocktail, a glass of rum is about 1 CUC, a decent meal should never be more than 12 CUC (fist plate, main dish, 1 beverage).  

The 3 of us, got pretty tipsy/drunk that evening. For a first night in Cuba I couldn't complain. As I could communicate fluently with Alexis, and he never asked for money on my first night, I agreed to meet-up again on the second night. 

On the second night he brought me to 3 bars. As we left the 2nd bar, 4-6 undercover agents, moved towards us from all directions, some were walking, and some were on a motorbike. Even though they weren't wearing uniforms, I could tell straight away that it was the cops. And they weren't happy to see Alexis with a tourist. Even though I don't speak spanish, I could vaguely figure out what they were talking about (because of the similarity with the italian language). They were pointing towards the directions/spots where I was walking around with Alexis. They knew that I was staying in a hotel near the "parque centrale". Outside of the bar they were taking mug-shots with a mobile phone of Alexi's face. And they told him in spanish "if something happens with the tourist, you will go back to jail.". I didn't want to cause Alexis any trouble, so I told them in italian/english, that I was alright, and that he was only showing me around. Stupidly I proved them that I was a police-officer as well, and they all started laughing, showing me their hidden guns, shaking hands, and telling me to be cautious, pointing at Alexis and saying "bandito viejo" (old bandit/criminal). 

Before the cops showed up, Alexis already told me that he spent 2 years in prison, because he was refusing to work for a monthly salary of 40 CUC. That would be a reason enough to go to jail in Cuba. However I can't tell if that's true or not. 

It was a fun night though. It was a weekend, and Old-Havana, the most touristic spot in Havana was dead on a saturday night. Most of the bars/restaurants were closed after midnight. So I felt alright, having spent a night-out with a "bandito" who showed me around, than spending a  lonesome night somewhere else in bar. 

However because I spent about 100 CUC that night on drinks, I decided to check out Havana the next day on my own. And it was time to check-out of the hotel and move on into a "casa particular". 

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Safety in Havana.

After the police-control Alexis told me that two officers already asked him outside of my hotel, why he was following me. That was during the first 24 hours. 

It's crazy to witness, how the Cuban government wants the tourists to be & feel safe. Besides Japan, I've never visited a country where I felt that safe as in Havana. At night I often walked by myself through the darkest and dirtiest alleys. There wasn't one single incident where I felt unsafe. 

Many Cubans told me that the population of Havana would be around 3 millions, and that there were 1 million police officers working in the streets of "La Habana". I can't tell if it's true. All I could notice, is that the cubanos don't like the police that much, but they show a lot of respect towards the officers as soon as they show up. 

Especially Old Havana and Malecon is packed with officers and patrol-cars. 

Even the Cubans are convinced "Cuba is the safest country in the world." 

Summer-vacay in Portugal

After my mind-blowing trip to Lisbon in 2016 I decided to get back to Portugal for this year's summer holidays. I had no clue about the southern part of Portugal called "Algarve" therefor I randomly picked the two cities "Faro" and "Albufeira". Faro because of its international airport and Albufeira for its "busy nightlife" (forget about that part!).

As closer as I got to the my departure date, I felt like canceling my whole trip. A lack of energy for traveling solo and maybe the fact that I was visiting beach-cities all by myself, were the main reasons why I thought about canceling. One week prior my departure my friend Cristine decided she would join me to Portugal. I also had mixed feelings about that, because I was used to travel alone for the last couple of years... would we get along? At least I couldn't cancel the trip anymore.

FARO.

My first destination was FARO. Upon my arrival I still didn't know if Faro was a busy city, and what it had to offer. Summer temperatures outside of the airport, the scent of summer in the air, that's all I needed for a peaceful welcome. I took an "UBER" at the airport to get to the hostel, which only cost me about 6-7 Euros (9 US$).  

The hostel "HOSTEL 1878" is located in an old traditional building with a very unique touch, lots of charming details and a welcoming staff. After my check-in, the guy at the lobby informed me about a folk concert on the rooftop. It just seemed like the perfect first night. About 25 people were watching the concert. The bar on the rooftop, offered red wine for 1.50 Euro a glass, or 3 Euro a Gin&Tonic. The neighborhood looked very traditional and I definitely felt like being on the best spot for my summer holidays.

Sadly Faro didn't have much to offer. I checked out the city center considered as the "Old Town", which was packed with tourists, lots of shops, restaurants, and only a few bars. On the first night I discovered the little gem called "BISTRO 31". A local restaurant with very limited tables. Fabio the owner of the place, his girlfriend and his lovely daughter were the soul of the small business! Every dish I tried at their place was a unique experience for my palate! That's why I decided to get back to "BISTRO 31" every night during my stay in Faro. My lovely friend Cristine, who joined me in Faro on my 3rd day, joined me on our last night in Faro for an amazing dinner. I'm glad she liked the dinner as much as I did. 

On my second day in Faro I walked through the city center, the harbor area, and went to the fanciest shopping mall in the city. There's really nothing to do in Faro except having great food, and getting drunk on delicious cocktails, wines, or port wines.

It's a quiet city, even at night, the busiest bars didn't feel like a club or a dancing place. This doesn't mean that I didn't appreciate Faro. I'd recommend it to families who don't have any bigger expectations about their summer holidays. 

Faro definitely is more lively at night. During my short 3-day-stay a couple of events took place: as the "seafood festival", an electronic festival called "Etcetera" or the "Baixa Street Fest" in the old town. 

For the hostel part, most guests only stayed for 1 night. People checked-in and left the place the following day, so it wasn't really easy to socialize with the travelers and make new friends. 

Another bar I'd recommend was the cocktail-bar "COLUMBUS", their staff puts a lot of effort to make great-looking cocktails. 

 

ALBUFEIRA.

Cristine and I left on a sunday morning towards Albufeira by train. The train-ride took about 1 hour and the single-fare cost around 2-3 Euro. A bargain!

The train-station of Albufeira is located a little bit further outside of the center, so we had to take another UBER ride. After a 12 minute ride we made it to our "Topazio Hotel". The whole neighborhood just looked like any other beach town. I can't say that I enjoyed Albufeira at first sight, but at least it seemed a little busier than Faro. 

We left the hotel as soon as possible and walked towards the rocky beaches of the Algarve. I can't pretend that I'm a beach-bum and I've hardly ever been to an astonishing beach. So all I can tell is, that Albufeira is probably the prettiest sandy-beach-area that I ever visited in Europe. The shores weren't too busy for the high-summer-season, the water looked very blue-ish, and the beach restaurants offered satisfying seafood dishes (and delicious sangrias!). 

However as I mentioned in the introduction of this blog-post, the nightlife, that everybody was bragging about, was definitely the worst I've experienced in a long time. There are just too many bars in the city center. Too many empty bars, lots of 80s music, lots of families, lots of bored people spreading their boredom all over the place. 

The cocktails are watered-down, the bars & restaurant's indoor designs looked pretty odd and all alike, just too many Brits in a portuguese city. I was glad that we discovered two good restaurants during our nights. I can't complain about the food; we had some great cataplanas at the "O-manjar" restaurant in Albufeira, some delicious tapas at a shisha-restaurant outside of the city center. (I can't stand shishas, but the food was alright, and so were the cocktails).

We decided to move on towards Lisbon instead of extending our stay in Albufeira for one more night. 

My highlights of Albufeira were the organized tours. We took part on a boat-trip to witness dolphins in the sea, and to get to the Benagil Cave. The Benagil Cave is only reachable through the water, by boat or by swimming. It was a very eye-opening place, however the cave was packed with too many visitors upon our arrival. Sadly the tour-organizer didn't let us leave the boat, so we only had the chance to get some shots on board.

The next day we decided to do a kayaking tour alongs the rocky edges of the shore. Kayaking along the cliffs, through the caves, in the blue water, was pretty enjoyable. The fun tour lasted about 2 hours. This was definitely my highlight of the Algarve. 

Each tour was about 30-35 Euro a person. I'm not a huge fan about organized activities, however I have to agree that the organizer did a flawless job.

 

LISBON.

I would be lying if i'd tell you that Lisbon had the same wow-effect as it did last year. All the neighborhoods looked pretty much familiar to me. I remembered some restaurants that left some culinary marks in my stomach and in my heart from past year. I jumped into a couple of shops which I promised myself I'd turn back next time in Lisbon.

Last year I got my phone stolen, because of that I wasn't able to write a review about the "YES HOSTEL"in the capital of Portugal. It was pretty obvious that I would stay at any costs at "YES HOSTEL" again. 

Because we didn't plan to extend one more night in Albufeira I had to make 2 different bookings. One booking for 1 night, and the second booking which I did at home prior our departure for 4 nights. While we were checking in I noticed that I only booked one bed. Sadly "YES HOSTEL" was fully booked on the very first day and we had to change plans. We stayed one night at the "Cheese & Wine Apartments" close to Alfama. Instead of paying 50 euro a night, we had to pay 200 euro a night. But! Considering that the apartment had space for 6 people (3 beds) I can't imagine about a better apartment for a group of people, and spending only about 30 euro a person. Upon our arrival at the apartment we were offered a complimentary bottle of red wine, and portuguese cheese. 

The next day we checked-in at the hostel. From the outside I noticed Fabio behind the check-in desk. Fabio and I pretty much became friends during my first stay in the city. I was curious if he would still recognize me 12 months later. While he was busy doing the check-ins, we walked in and waited for our turn. Just seconds later Fabio noticed me and Cristine in the corner and we got the warmest welcome ! Fabio started talking about my recent trip to India, about another luxembourgish customer... while the other guests were impatiently waiting with open-eyes at the counter.

There were two things that made my stay in Lisbon unforgettable. As you can expect, the first one was meeting Fabio for the second time, and the 2nd one was the Cabo da Roca, which is the very western point of Europe. I will come back to the Cabo da Roca later. Well I gotta admit, it was lovely to travel with a girl after all those years of solo-traveling as well. 

If you're a vivid Instagram-User as I am, you will find endless spots to visit in Lisbon. There are so many great looking bars and coffee-bars, but I only had to chance to visit one or two. Beside my Instagram-Check-Out list, I still needed to get to the creative-hub "LX Factory" which is located just below the big red bridge. Lx Factory is packed with lovely souvenir stores, a diversity of restaurants, designer shops, and a great shop for "cafe-racer" fans. 

The "Time Out Market" was on our check-list as well, however visiting it right after having had breakfast, wasn't the smartest move. The food at the different shops looked very mouth-watering. However I didn't feel like waiting another hour, that's why we went on to Alfama.

On our last day we opted for Cascais and Cabo da Roca. Fabio told me that ages ago "Cabo da Roca" was supposed to be the "end" of the world. It was the spot where the earth would end, and the ocean would begin. Once we made it to the edgy cliffs of "Cabo da Roca" I totally got the vibe my friend was telling me about. I've never been to Scotland or Ireland, so I can't tell about their nature spectacles. This was my first time, where I could witness this natural beauty. 

““Aqui ...
onde a terra se acaba
e o mar comeca”
”

We took a couple of photos on the edges of the cliffs. Sitting down for a couple of minutes, you could only hear the ocean breath, the waves hitting the rocks, and the neverending gaze in front of you. I would love to get back to that place on my next trip, but in the very early morning, or very late at night. 

There's definitely so much left to discover inside and outside of Lisbon. A short train-ride (2.5 Euro) will bring you to the nearest cities within a heartbeat. If the train-ride's too slow, grab an UBER. The cities of Cascais and Belem are definitely worth a visit. Belem is known for its delicious pasteries "Pastel de Belem" and its Belem-Tower. Cascais is the "Cote d'Azur" of Lisbon, everything just looks fancier over there (but doesn't have to better). 

On our way back home from the Cabo da Roca, my friend Daniel showed as another great beach spot that looked totally fabulous. It was just mind-blowing driving by the beach of "Praia do Guincho" which was crammed with kite-surfers. Next time it's gonna be on my list!