Sabaidee, Luang Prabang!
The street that connects Vang Vieng with Luang Prabang is about 150 kilometers, contains countless curves and holes and leads through a mountain area to 1’700 meters above sea level. What started as a nice little road trip with only the two of us in a Minivan ended up as a 6 hour torture: more and more locals got on the bus, filled barf bag after barf bag and threw them out of the open window. The scenery, though, was beautiful. Luang Prabang is a city located on a peninsula between two rivers, one of them being the famous Mekong. The...
read moreHello Laos. Hello tourists.
Laos – a country few people seem to know a lot about, and that’s somehow portrayed as a backpackers dream. Seemed enough reason for us to visit it. For lack of better planning, we decided to fly into Viantiane, the capital of Laos. It was the smallest plane we’d used to far, and we had a stopover in Pakse, a small town in the South of Laos. Even though we were just changing planes, we were told that we needed to get our visa and pass immigration here. Seemed straight forward – except for the fact that they don’t accept their local...
read moreAngkor Wat
Since every traveler we met who had visited Cambodia was enthusiastic about Angkor Wat, we planned a stopover in Siem Reap to explore the area. We were welcomed once more by our two friends heat and humidity at the airport: They almost killed us when we stepped off the plane. The short ride to our guesthouse in downtown took us past an endless seeming strip of hotels and resorts, which, given the fact that Siem Reap is Cambodia’s tourism capital, did not surprise us. Most of them didn’t seem very busy, though, as the low season...
read moreTwo towers and two thousand malls
Kuala Lumpur seemed to be just another big asian city at first sight. We arrived early in the morning with the overnight train from Singapore. It took us about 7 hours to arrive at KL Sentral station which is located in the middle of town. The metro system in KL is not as advanced as in Singapore, but it worked fine and brought us quick to our Airbnb. We were about to celebrate our six month on the road and therefore booked an Airbnb with infinity pool on the roof. We thought that would be appropriate for we love celebrating life. The view...
read moreNumber one so far
We loved Singpore. There, I said it. But then again, everybody says that. Hence, here a few reasons why we do. It’s big – but not humongeous. It’s by no means a small city, counting over 5 million heads, but somehow it does not seem as ridiculously big as other megacities. Maybe because the city centre is actually crossable (does that word even exist?) by foot. Spend 2 hours walking and you’ll see most of downtown and Marina Bay area. It’s a perfect mix. Situated (not to say locked in) between Indonesia and...
read moreRehoboth
Rehoboth – God has made a place for us… Genesis 26,22 A place full of laughter and joy: Rehoboth is a children’s home, early learning center, soon-to-be medical clinic and a lot more. It is a non-denominational ministry with a clear mission statement: “Transforming families and providing alternative futures for children in crisis based on God’s model of love and care through child and family oriented programs, projects and services.” More than 30 children from age 0 to 14 live there at the moment and...
read moreLa Isla Bonita
Around 2000 people and (judging by the sound) at least as many roosters – that’s the inhabitants of Pamilacan Island. Oh, and the obligatory amount of piggies, goats and cows. The island is about a kilometre in diameter, but still seems mostly empty. The scarcely shattered huts blend in nicely, and the fact that the goats provide a golfcourse-like grass helps the image, too. There’s no power (except a generator a few hours in the evening) and no running water. But that makes the place only so much more enjoyable. It’s...
read moreAsian chocolate
Since Manila was a bit too much of everything we were not interested in for us, we were happy to catch a flight down south after 2 nights. Literally everybody had recommended the island Palawan and especially El Nido to us – which made us not go there. Still a bit shocked from the ridiculously over-touristy southern Thailand (another place everybody said we had to go to), we decided to take our chances on missing out on this in all likeliness very beautiful spot in favour of seeing less people like us. Tourists, that is. Through an...
read moreHappy Australia Day!
Our last stop in Australia was Sydney. It is the biggest city of this continent (I actually call it planet, because of its enormous size and the throughout relaxed and laid back mentality of the inhabitants… not that I would call them aliens, in the contrary: I think that humanity in general would do good to adapt a bit more of the Aussie chill mood). One thing we have come to appreciate a lot on our trip is the great hospitality we experience: People who open their homes and hearts and let us be part of their lives for a few days without...
read moreA good place to die
Not that we feel even remotely close to the end of our lives, but that’s apparently what the Sunshine Coast actually is: “That’s where old people come to die”, so we were told. Well – a pretty smart choice, there’s no denying that. We took a train from Cabarita Beach to Brisbane, where we were picked up by whom we officially nominate the coolest great-grandmother ever. Or as our host put it: “Before she was grand, now she’s great”. We were given a nice little tour of Brisbane, mostly...
read more
Recent Comments