i am just back from kuching where christiane, hakim and i went to visit the rainforest world music festival last weekend. christiane and i had meant to visit that festival for years, but for some reasons we always missed it. it wasn't so bad as long as we had WOMAD in singapore, but for some reason this stopped last year, despite its increasing popularity. with the best music event missing in our own yard we made a huge effort to go this year, and remembered to book plane tickets early, which was easy since airasia is flying directly to kuching from singapore.

kuching was great, as always, and the setting for the RWMF in the cultural village about an hours drive from town, at the edge of the jungle is fantastic, but the choice of bands was lacking well behind the one we are used to from WOMAD. the bands were great, and most of them were really traditional, which i love, but the set up made it very difficult to enjoy the performances. there were two stages right next to each other on which the artists played alternately throughout the night. this left the audience in a limbo, because on the bigger stage large, often very energetic bands played, but as soon as the 45min performance was over the next act was due on the small stage. yet these bands were of the very traditional small and low key type, meaning that as soon as the audience was in the mood to party they were supposed to sit down and chill, which in turns was impossible to do, as the area in front of the stage was a mud field after the previous night's rain.

so we were all on a mood yoyo run, leaving us rather disappointed about the entire affair. to me the most memorable act was a workshop aka jamming session called from the north to the south of africa, in which a band from morocco and one from tanzania performed together. the energy that the dancers from both bands had was mesmerising and contagious, and nothing that we saw at night during the concerts was at a par with that.

the set up was doubly flabbergasting as the cultural village is huge, and there would have been ample opportunities to set up the two stages apart from each other, leaving one for big energetic shows and one for the people who prefer to chill. if they had set up the smaller stage at the lawn by the lake where people can listen, eat, drink and relax it would have been perfect, but sadly enough the organisers missed that point BIG TIME.

anyway, it was still a great trip and i am glad we went, as it meant we could go for all the yummy food in kuching... fern fern fern and more... jungle food gallore :P

macau started with a game, but not a game in the casino, which you might expect if you are not familiar with my totally gamble free disposition. yet the game that hakim and i had to play to enter macau was the good old “good cop – bad cop” and we had to pay it in all earnest to win hakim's entry into the country.

as hakim holds a bangladeshi passport he needs a visa for pretty much any country he wants to travel to. macau seemed an easy option with both the immigration webpage and the chinese embassy in singapore assuring us that he can get a visa on arrival. yet on approaching the visa booth at the immigration checkpoint we found a young cantonese woman who looked as if she had gone through hard core communist training camp in a far corner of the mother country china. she refused to say any unnecessary word, especially not anything that could be classified as a polite greeting or a simple please or thanks, and she was certainly not going to be fooled into smiling at anybody, especially not a person that her culture would condemn as a black devil and whom she treated accordingly. hakim was, as usual, all politeness and handed over every document after it was demanded for in a sharp bark until she asked for cash money. we both asked in bewilderment what money she was referring to and she barked 5000 mop, an equivalent of 1000 sgd to which i naturally replied that this is the 21st century and that we are naturally travelling with a lovely little plastic card known by the name of master. the lady simply barked no good. i asked her why we need to show 5000 mop cash and her reply was “the rules” while handing hakim the document that indicated visa refused.

at this point i turned into bad cop and hissed at her that she can forget us signing this document and that she ought to show me the rule that she so happily quotes in writing, as it is neither on their official webpage nor was it mentioned by the chinese embassy. her english seemed inefficient to cope with such an array of vocabulary so i simply said i wanted to see her boss. her call to someone in which she yabbered on in cantonese about kuay po to someone produced two young officers who were certainly not the boss. they equally did not seem to deem it necessary to address the black devil and kuay po in any form and listened instead to the insistent yabbering of the hard core communist training camp girl blatantly ignoring my repetitive suggestions that if they want to go back to medieval ages i would be quite happy to produce the cash required as soon as they point me into the direction of any atm machine. instead the officers said that my money is irrelevant as hakim needs the money, i pointed out to them that we happened to be married and that my money therefore is everything to hakim. when they still referred to their unwritten rule i demanded in furious terms to see their real boss, nothing else would do.

finally the gate opened and we were asked to follow the two male officers - not that the used any words to communicate that information, they simply opened the gate, grunted and pointed along the corridor. when we finally reached the immigration office at the other end of the terminal the boss came out of the office to tell us that according to their rules hakim needs to show 5000 mop in cash and as he does not have them he is refused entry. his exact words were the money that your friend has does not count. then pointing at me he said “you can stay” and pointing at hakim he said “you go back to singpore”. at this moment i exploded, and had the so called officer in charge understood more english i am sure i would have been arrested for calling him a frontal lobotomised racist, but he did not, so i told him in no uncertain terms that i will not go anywhere without hakim who happens to be my husband, and that therefore my money is his money, and that unless he can show me a written copy of his so called rules that are neither stated on their very own immigration webpage, nor specified by the chinese embassy in singapore he can quite frankly stick them where the sun does not shine, as rules that are not put on paper do not exist. after this outburst the officer appeared a little less cocky saying that nobody had told him that we were married to which i replied that this is because he is too racist to listen to what people have to say, as we had highlighted the fact to every single officer, including himself, a million times. hakim, in his good cop role walked up to the officer in charge and asked him quietly “sir, just tell me how i can get the visa” to which he replied “there is one way, but please ask your wife to stop shouting at me”. hakim explained to the officer that i was very angry because i had gone through great length to get all the information on the visa requirements only to encounter trouble when arriving and that i would never enter macau without him, but that i could go to an atm to draw the missing money as i had offered to do a million times before. this time the officer in charge seemed a little more inclined to listen and eventually told hakim that he ought to hold on to my passport while i should follow his officer to the atm in the arrival hall. now can anybody explain to me why this ha not possible when i first suggested it half an hour earlier? so off we went, i drew the money from the atm, returned, showed it to the officer, the hardcore communist training girl got a bit of a talking to, hakim got his 10 day visa, and we all moved to to small talk pretending to be the best of friends while the minions stamped our passports. so much stress, just because some people cannot see beyond someone's skin colour and refuse to engage their brain. anyway at least, based on our characters, hakim and i fall naturally into our respective good cop bad cop roles, which helped to jostle the far to rigid immigration brains. maybe someone might even bother to including the so called important rules online after this.

as the airport bus only takes exact change we opted for a taxi who took us into town, but did not know the san va hotel that we had booked. he dropped us inn the correct road and after much walking around we found the place only to be totally disappointed; when the hotel webpage said historic building do not compare they meant more like run down but do not judge. the run down aspect of the place was bearable, the fact that the historic substance of the hotel meant that the rooms were only separated from each other by a 2.5m high wooden partition, which grated zero privacy was bad, and the numerous bedbug bites i sported the next morning were unsupportable. hence our first act was to search for a new abode, which proved harder than expected; macau thrives largely on weekend tourists from hong kong and mainland china, thus lots of the hotels where still occupied when we visited them on sunday morning. the other problem was that the places were often either far too expensive for our liking or far too shabby. after checking virtually any pensoa, vila, and hotel in the area we finally settled for the vila universal in the same road. the place tastelessly decorated in glitzy china kitsch tiles, plastic ceiling boards and deco, but they gave us a fantastic deal by offering us a double room for less than the price of the single because we were staying for more than a week. in the end we agreed on a room rate of 200 mop for the week and 250 for the weekend, which was much more than we had intended to pay, but which gave us a big room with two windows and en suit bathroom. compared to the shared facility singe bedbug infested bed in san va for 120 this was heaven. sadly enough we had missed our check out time and thus had to spend a second night in bedbug hell which left me with 25 bedbug bites in total before we shifted first thing on monday morning!

the best thing about the extensive hotel hunt was our discovery of the lok kuan cafe in rua de ponte e horta, at the place with the same name, right next to the london hotel. this friendly little corner cafe that serves coffee, breads, cakes, and noodle soup till noon became our daily breakfast haunt. and for most of our stay we set off after breakfast to explore the numerous historic sites of macau. starting with the nearest we visited the ones immediately south of the rua da felicidade first; st joseph church, st augustine's square and my name sake st lourenco church. the next day saw us crossing the main road to explore the northern half of the centre around sendado square, cathedral place, st paul's ruins, mount fortress and na tcha temple where we witnessed the na tcha festival.

in the following days we ventured further afield to guia fort, the protestant cemetery, kun iam temple, lou lim ieoc garden, and mong ha fortress in the north and the moorish barracks, a-ma temple, and barra hill in the south. despite the frequent rain we had seen pretty much all of macau's historic sites and parks by the following friday as the island is small enough for per pedes exploration. my favourites were quite probably the a-ma temple for its setting and atmosphere, the mount fortress and guia fort for their views and lou lim ieoc gardens for its serenity. yet what really makes macau special is its european flair coupled with the many little alleys, the chance old building and fabulous mosaic paving, not to forget the nicest and cleanest free public toilets i have ever come across- for humans and for dogs (who happen to have to only dry water closets, aka wc, in the world).

with the majority of macau island visited and the sun showing itself at her best we ventured to new grounds on saturday and decided to explore the other half of macau, aka its little sister islands taipa and coloane. passing taipa on the bus to hac sa bay in the south-east of coloane we decided that the former is hardy worth a visit, as it is nothing more than an extension to macau's modern residential areas. the beach at hac sa is nicely situated, but the dirty waters failed to entice us to venture for a swim. but the 1.2km long coastal walk from hac sa to cheoc van beach is fantastic; an easy path that meanders through the rocks and boulders that form the coastline. from cheoc van we walked along the coastal road to coloane village which proved to be a further pleasant walk. the village itself is quaint, there is simply no better word for it, and it sports a lovely nata (portugese egg tart) bakery which offered a most welcome snack after our coastal walk.

the last day we spent more or less in kee whee's company. our flight was not until late at night and we had to check out at 12. from there we brought our belongings to his apartment, looked at macau from the 17th floor and finally walked through a yet unexplored part of the town via a fantastic dessert stall to the fortress where kee whee wanted to play with his new toy, which proved to be less sturdy than claimed on the packaging, resulting in the quality toy made in china to break seconds after its first take off.

and that was pretty much macau, a little spot of europe with a cantonese heart in which finding food - other than breakfast - presented us with a fair bit of a challenge,not because there was non to be had, but because most of it is full of meat and my cantonese is non existent. macau being a tourist centric country i expected a decent level of english spoken by its inhabitants, but little did i know that most only spoke cantonese, and to complicate things many coffeeshops do not have an english menu, or if they do have are unable to modify a dish by leaving the meat out when cooking vegetables. the bakeries with their mix of portugese and chinese fair are fantastic, the desert places – especially the ones offering warm ginger milk pudding are phenomenal, but when it comes to real cooked food it is best to come prepared with a decent vocabulary of cantonese, at least if you are vegetarian. the easiest option was hanging out with kee whee, who now living here, can at least speak some cantonese, or failing this can communicate in chinese if the other half is indeed able to understand this or if both fall through he is at least able to read a chinese menu. but looking for food also made us venture into many parts of the town that we might have otherwise have missed, finding architectural treasures, hidden temples, and nameless shrines. so much good came from that part. and of course the beer is so cheap here that a long evening traipsing around the area in the search of meatless food can always be concluded by sipping a bottle of tsing tao or san miguel while sitting on the stone benches of senado square watching the world go by.

my true love: HAKIM. have you seen the film 'the princess bride'? then you know exactly what true love is all about :P if not... go and get the film and watch it... now!

yet to explain why hakim is to explain my understanding of the world. hakim just simply is perfect for me. on first meeting him everybody, including myself, perceived him as shy, but if you have had the chance to get to know hakim better you know that he also has a wicked sense of humour and that he loves to laugh, to joke and to play. yet most importantly underneath his outward shyness lies a solid strength and a will that defies norms and conventions and enables him to follow his own mind and feelings. and it is this inner strength that made it possible for me to deeply fall in love with hakim, and even to marry him. the easiest thing to explain our feelings for each other is to post the speech that i wrote for our wedding solemnisation that took place on 21st march 2009 at terrace garden in telok blangah hill park, singapore. i feel that it captures the essence of our believes, so here it comes:
"we are here to celebrate love. by all outer appearances, hakim and patricia, are as dissimilar as yin and yang or the sun and the moon, yet love has brought them together. and when we think about the universe and observe day and night, we understand that the sun and the moon are part of the same cosmos, and that one needs the other, and that only together they create an entity.
what kind of love brings people together and makes them want to walk the path of life together? the classical greeks believed in the ancient oneness of the souls. to them our eternal quest for true love originated in the mythical history of mankind. in the beginning humans where hermaphrodites; being both man and woman united in one body gave humans extreme powers. observing this, the gods felt jealous. they understood that the strength of these humans lay in their togetherness and to weaken them they decided to split them into half, leaving men and women to wander through eternity in the search for the other half of their soul. it is the recognition of the soul’s other half that unites people in true love.
this mythical account of jealous gods and amalgamated humans is one explanation for love crossing time, borders, and conventions. today we have come together to witness two people who were born at different times, and in distant parts of the world, and yet they are here today to publicly declare their love."

well this is about it. i simply know that it feels right to be with hakim that is it. i knew that since the moment we kind of split up because our age and cultural differences made the relationship hard and then got back together because we simply missed each other far too much. this was about three months we had met and since then i know that hakim is the man i want to be with. so after this everything simply fell into place and the marriage was not only a natural progression from there, or as hakim put it "we married because we love each other so much". on a practical note the marriage was a necessity to give us the chance to finally live together. this might sound daft, but as long as hakim is on workpermit he has no freedom, including the freedom to live with me.

in case you are not familiar with this, but workpermit is basically a singaporean term for modern slavery. it is a visa that allows you to work, while taking away pretty much all your freedom. workpermit holders are exploited to the extreme, ill treated, and get virtually no respect from local people in return. the companies house them in appalling conditions and even confiscate their workers passports illegally. the list is endless, and as i said, it is a modern form of slavery, sanctioned by the state.

us marrying will not only make our love official, but also allow hakim to break out of this vicious circle of exploitation and give him the two things he desires most, his freedom and to live his life with me. so we are now both waiting for his dependant pass, which has been approved but not sent out to us yet, but as soon as he has this pass we can finally move in together rather than having a weekend-marriage. i miss hakim so very much. the loveliest moments for me are waking up next to him and to fall asleep in his arms and i really miss this... big big time ***

and before i forget it; as you can see from the few pictures that i posted here we celebrated in bollywood style and and that not only could we celebrate with our close friends, the entire universe celebrated with us; while is was raining cats and dogs virtually all over singapore, the universe send us the most beautiful sunset, casting the firmament in a golden glow and ornamenting it with two rainbows. as if the location itself was not beautiful enough, this simply made it perfect. and if this sounds enticing and wants you see more pictures then you can go to my picture blog or maybe you prefer to watch any of the videos that were taken on the day in which case you can go to my youtube site and check them out. have fun!

... it turned out that the MOM did approve the pass within 3 days but we did not get the notice until 3 weeks and 4 telephone calls later, as they managed to send it to a totally unrelated address twice! once we got it hakim told his employer about it and guess what happened? they freaked out! and guess why? because their 'slave' dared to break the cycle of dependency and exploitation, which they considered unbearable. so first they doubted that hakim could have gotten the pass, presuming he was lying, then they tried to say that it was illegal for him to change his pass which lead them to call the MOM to complain about it, only to be informed that hakim was in his rights and that they should simply cancel his workpermit online. all this resulted in a major showdown in the office of his employer right constructions when the boss refused to hand hakim his passport which they keep against international law under the pretext of safety. the entire confrontation was so bizarre that it bordered on the comical if it were not for the fact that the right construction people where driven by their utter disrespect for foreign workers in general and hakim in particular. anyway, hakim did get his pass, and the company was so offended by his strive for freedom that they refuse to employ him any longer. the only good thing that came from it was the benefits that all the other supervisors received in form of a pay-rise. so that left hakim the hero of his ex colleagues and free to find a decent job elsewhere.

sarawak; often planned, never visited, but after years in asia i finally travelled to there. the reason being that airasia started a new flight from singapore to kuching at exactly the same time that christiane and i were looking for a suitable holiday destination. consequently we booked a flight on the first possible day and set off to spend the holiday period in and around kuching. kuching is the capital of sarawak, and tuned out to be a sleepy little town a bit like a small, laid back penang. like its bigger west malaysian brother kuching has a nice little chinatown, but what it is lacking is the bustle of little india and with it the indian restaurants which makes the town a challenge for vegetarians. it seems that virtually all vegetarian restaurants that existed in the town had disappeared before i ever came here, which rendered kuching into a paradise for meet eaters and lovers of kolo mee, but leaves vegetarians to wander the streets in the search for local food options.

other than that the town is filled with guest houses and small hotel, which made it easy for us to find a room on arriving late at night. as the cheapest option, the anglican rest house was full, we ended up choosing a cheep guest house from the leaflets available at the airport which was centrally located but not necessarily a good choice in terms of rooms and facilities. yet it was ok for the first two night that we were to stay in kuching before visiting bako national park.

bako national park is the oldest national park in sarawak. its proximity to kuching make it an ideal place to visit, and bako is worth far more time than the couple of days that most people spend here. the park is full of natural beauty, with beautiful sandstone formations and a large biodiversity based on the varied habitat ranging from coastal mangroves, via tropical forest to arid sandstone uplands, and the best is that on a single walk through the park one can easily pass through all of these.

this being the rainy season christiane and i spent the first day lazying in our hammocks on the veranda of our bungalow. the second day was exceptionally dry and sunny for this season, so we went on a long walk to tajor waterfall and on to teluk tajor. the excessive rain meant that the tracks were muddy and often flooded, the conditions in which feed get wet and stay wet, which made our waterproof walking sandals the most suitable footwear imaginable. the walk was beautiful with an ever changing landscape, a large variety of pitcher pants and beautiful rainforest creeks along the way. a couple of times we saw the proboscis monkeys, the bizarre looking monkeys who are the basis for much of bako's fame. another striking inhabitant of the park are the green vipers, who are very stationary vipers, in looks and habits virtually identical to the eyelash viper of costa rica. these snakes sit motionless, often for weeks on the same spot waiting for pray. though being rather poisonous, due to their placid nature, they are of little danger to humans unless one insists on touching them, or carelessly stepping on them.

the following day saw us moving from the lodge type accommodation to the hostel style, meaning we now had to share the shower and toilet, which would not really have constituted a problem, had the entire place not been so run down, poorly maintained and covered in mould. the state of the accommodation on park reflects the inability of higher ranking park management to allocated funds appropriately and to build housing suitable to the climate and the environment. nevertheless bako is a jewel which the housing can hardly diminish.

the third day demonstrated the current daily weather pattern; after a night of heavy rain that continued into well into the morning the sky cleared up around 10 am bringing a partly cloudy and sunny day. for us this was perfect, leaving us time to wake up in the morning, going for breakfast and the leaving for a walk. the third day walk brought us to teluk pandan kecil and teluk pandan besar. on leaving the ranger station we stumbled across a group of grey legurs, some sweet agile local monkey, in size similar to the notorious macaques, but of totally different character; while the latter are invasive and dangerously aggressive, the grey legurs are the gentile little creatures. the proboscis monkeys were daily sightings on starting out on our walks, and so were the huge native bearded pigs that roam the ranger station. a steep descent brought us to telok pandan kecil, a small beach that is now covered in litter and organic debris washed ashore by the strong monsoon winds. the second beach is much larger, but it can only be seen from a viewpoint on top of the cliffs, but it is a most beautiful sight, with sandstone cliffs framing a large sandy beach and estuary. a steep descent brought us to telok pandan kecil, a small beach that is now covered in litter and organic debris washed ashore by the strong monsoon winds. the second beach is much larger, but it can only be seen from a viewpoint on top of the cliffs, but it is a most beautiful sight, with sandstone cliffs framing a large sandy beach and estuary.

christmas eve meant moving room again, but even though the room was as smelly, the shared facilities were nicer, which brightened christiane's mood greatly. after changing room again we decided to go for a real short walk and chose the pretty little path to the nearest beach, teluk paku. the path, so short is a real beauty, and we spend ages taking photos of our surroundings. had the accommodation been a bit more pleasant, or had we had the chance to stay in the semi-detached chalet we would have surely stayed another couple of days, but with the christmas holidays came more tourists, so we decided to return to kuching, which we did together with one of the chief rangers, a young malay, who was very knowledgeable and with whom i exchanged may a thought on the park. back at the pier in the village he showed me a large female python that the locals had caught. the poor animal was terrified in its net, and after sitting quietly next to it her eyes were pleading me to help. i begged the ranger that he should arrange her release in bako, as she was a most beautiful creature and of very good health. i am sure he will set her free.

back in kuching we discovered an interesting area to the east of the centre, along jalan padungan, full of wonderful coffeeshops and small shops and shophouses. the taiwanese porridge shop at number 91 turned out to be a heaven for vegetarians around lunchtime, and a couple of other coffeeshops fried up some meat-free fair for us at night. and with staying in the very nice john's place we decided that kuching is getting better by the minute. our rather long walk to the weekend or sunday market on saturday afternoon turned out to be rather entertaining, with buying lots of titbits and tasting a range of snacks as we walked through the maze of stalls, buying little but food and a wooden chopping board ;)

as much as we love kuching we wanted to explore a few other places and not being a fan of organised longhouse tours, which turn local dayak and iban pretty much into performing zoo animals we decided to venture to sri aman, to figur out an option to go on one of the many rivers of the batang ai region unguided. taking a bus to sri aman was easy enough, and on arrival we found a decent room in the tiara inn, took a stroll to the picturesque river front, and went for dinner in a local coffeeshop. yet it turned out that the local bus to lubok antu had halted its operations, which let us to nearly give up on our idea to go to the village in search for a boat, when a hotel employee told us that he had found a friend who would give us a lift to the place the next morning. so off we went to lubok antu, only to find the village as void of rentable boats as sri aman itself. the reason for this phenomenon lies in the active discouragement of any traveller to venture on the rivers without a guided and pre-booked tour. thus virtually all individual travellers bypass the area these days, which leads to the lack of available public transport. sadly enough do the local minibus drivers not understand that ripping off the odd traveller instead of charging a fair price is killing any budding or remaining form of unguided tourism, as nothing but negative reports will follow, rather than praise of the area and the cooperation of the locals.

as the young guy who took us to lubok antu fell into that category we decided to decline his offer to take us back for another 40rm, to let him return with an empty car, to stay in the village despite the lack of possible boating excursions in sight, and to take the bus back to kuching the following day. on asking around in the kedai kopi coffeeshop in lubok antu we learned that even here it is difficult to organise a long boat or even a decently priced mode of transport to the boat landing at the batang ai reservoir.

thus we decided to stay one single night in the rather spartan inn and on the following day to return by bus to kuching. the owner of the coffeeshop was a very helpful man, offering us to stay in his local church and to drive us to the dam after closing his shop in the later parts of the afternoon. strangely enough we were of the opinion that we had accepted the kind offer, while he seemed convinced that we had declined it and thus dropped us off at the hotel after our tour de dam. a classic example of misunderstanding, like the batang ai dam project is a classic example of foolish mega projects. the dam build in the early 80's forcefully dislocated the inhabitants of at least 30 longhouses by simply flooding the entire area. furthermore as the dammed water flooded the entire valley, including forest, houses and cemeteries, the water is still unsuitable for consumption. yet despite such problems showing up in all damming projects throughout the world governments still decide to build them, disregarding the social and environmental implications. one ought to think that human beings are capable of learning from their mistakes, but it seems that people are more inclined to repeat their previous mistakes on a larger scale, just like the malaysian government does by constructing a further dam, about 10 times the sice of batang ai, in sarawak's heartland.

the trip back in the morning went smoothly even though there is no direct bus to kuching. we simply took the 9am bus to sibu to the junction at the main road, and there flagged down a bus to kuching, where we transferred to the damai shuttle bus and arrived at the nanga damai at santubong before sundown. the place labelled luxory homestay is a wonderful place, located at the edge of the rainforest, comprising an old wooden cottage, a modern building with a huge veranda, and a small pool. christiane and i had booked ourselves into a room in the traditional wallace cottage where we could see the coastal sunset through the large bathroom windows overlook the coastal sunset before being lulled to sleep by the gurgling of the mountain stream running right beside the cottage.

considering that the next two days were dry and sunny they were spent more or less lounging on the deck chairs next to the nanga damai pool. it was wonderful to do nothing and to simply enjoy the quiet atmosphere of the nature around us. thus new year's eve passed in such a peaceful way, by going with karen, the only other guest in the homestay to a local seafood restaurant nearby before sitting and musing over a few beers on the terrace. the three nights stay was well worth its money, even though we neither climbed the santubong mountain, nor did we do any other walk in the area.

returning to kuching we had only one day left on which we intended to visit the boarder market in serikin, where indonesians come to sell their fair. the way to serikin was easy enough; we took the bus #2 the terminal in bau. bau is a little town mainy known for the nearby wind cave and fairy cave, which we did not visit. instead we took the next bus to serikin. the serikin market turned out to be rather repetitive in terms of goods offered, yet i really enjoyed its atmosphere. the market is really just a long road on both sides of which are stalls that sell traditional and modern clothe, spices, fruit, dried food, coffee, wicker furniture and produce, sleeping mats, beadwork, and all at lower prices than in kuching. without buying an awful lot the market it still made for a great day trip.

and that was pretty much it, the next day it was time to say good bye to kuching... for now at least.

costa rica was unexpected. a tiny country being sandwiched between two of the most notorious nations, panama and nicaragua, the country surprised with its peacefulness and feeling of gender equality. in short, there was none of the macho behaviour one would expect to be subjected to in a central or latin americas. now this might sound prejudiced or blue eyed, and maybe it is, as my observation is purely based on a small section of the country along the caribbean coast, but still, at least for this part of the country it is true. and as if this alone was not enough on the unexpected scale then the fact that this tiny nation at the skinny bit of the americas does not have an army would certainly add value. no army and no soldier in sight, now how cool is this? costa rica is simply a peace maker, a relaxed little eco friendly country, that realised that there is more money and more quality of life in conservation, eco tourism, and national parks than there is in drug trafficking :d wonderful.

so you can imagine that i was most thrilled that renate had chosen this country to go to holiday together, and not just to costa rica, but to the selva bananito lodge as well. selva bananito is a wonderful eco lodge located in the foothills of the caribbean coast, just an hour inland from cahuita. if you like nature pure go bananita :d beautiful bungalows, lots of bird life, no power, peace and serenity, that is what you get, and i loved every second of it. and the wildlife was amazing! i had never been to the americas and so everything was new, the poison arrow frogs, the tucans, the sloth, and the capuchin monkeys that i only knew from my childhood heroin pippi longstocking films :p

renate and i flew into the capital san jose were we had a transfer waiting to bring us to selva bananito lodge. the trip brought us through the volcanic mountains and the cloud forest to the western coast. the lodge itself is only accessible by 4-wheel drive.

selva bananito comprises a large area of pristine rainforest, and a small farm area which’s open farmland provided the most wonderful opportunity for bird watching. the entire lodge has no electricity; instead one gets little petroleum lamps in the bungalow and the restaurant area. the effect is one of utter oneness with the surrounding nature, a real pleasure to leave the hustle and bustle, noise and glare of modern life behind and to emerge oneself into ones natural environment, yet without having to forgo the comfort we are all used to. the bungalows are simply delightful, large wooden structures, with full length windows that open to a balcony and let one awake to the rising sun and the song of the birds.

while at selva bananito i went on several walks, some short ones around the lodge and a long one to the waterfalls upstream, where we abseiled through the gushing waters to descent the steep slopes. every walk brought eyelash vipers, poison arrow frogs, and talamanca and red-eyed tree frog, while the early morning bird watching walks enabled us to see a huge variety of local birds, including trogons, oropendolas, humming birds, and emeralds as well as chestnut-mandibled toucans.

the remaining of the time i spend on various horse riding excursions and a day trip with renate and our guide jose to the cahuita coastal national park. the walk along the coast of the park was amazing and gave us ample opportunity to observe the someone different wildlife. we saw a lot, white throated capuchin monkeys, mantled howler monkeys, three and two toed sloths, introduced north american racoons, green iguana, a vine snake, large golden eyelash vipers, and my favourite the basilisk.

in short the trip was amazing, and i loved every minute of it. leaving selva bananito was heartbreaking, but it was wonderful that jose offered to drive us to san jose, as talking to him on the trip gave me the feeling that our stay there was someone extended. i am still dreaming of lying in the hammock on my balcony watching the birds across the meadows of selva bananito, and i would gladly return to the place any time, it is a place where nature is still given the respect it is due, and where people live with nature, and that is as rare as it is amazing. a place to love.

LAOS again and again and again... why you might ask, but only if you are not yet one of the hard core lao lovers. people keep on asking me, why laos, what can you do there? and the answer is more or less – nothing! and that is the beauty of it, there is nothing really to do, at least not in the places i like, but this is why i like them. they are simply laos, not more and not less. there are no things for tourists, and that makes it even better. in short one goes to laos to see asia, and to sit at whatever river and watch the sun go down, and to walk across markets, and trough villages, and to watch local life takes its daily routine, and one spends an incredible amount of time on some form of public transport, be it boat, or bus, or pick-up, or songtheaw.

my main motive for going to laos again was that i wanted to do the south western part, the area to the west of vientiane and then from there up north before they finish building a road there, because once that happens rivertravel become more or less impossible. as it turned out one can only travel by boat till paklai anyway, and after that it is good old road again, or better to say, bad new road!

but first come first, christiane and i met at the airport in bangkok, flew to udon thani, took the minibus to the friendshipbridge and ended up in vientiane at about 9pm. at 10 we had finally found a vacant room in a decent yet affordable guesthouse right around the corner of that dam. so far so good, and the beer and somtam to follow was even better. the next two days saw us trapsing the roads of vientiane, visiting wat sisaket and the market, catching up with othkham for a meal and a beer lao at the mekong, eating the best baguette in laos, and finally making our way early on the third day to the tha souan pier from where we took the slow boat to paklai. now this was the first time when we encountered the new phenomenon of the tourist prices, which did not exist in laos before, and which i frankly find disgusting :(

the boat trip to paklai takes all day, and is absolutely serene, with a soft mellow landscape and slow flowing mekong water, which is all quite different from what you get further north. i enjoyed it greatly, but enjoyed the first beer lao in paklai even more. paklai turned out to be a pretty little town, with a few guest houses and some nice food stalls for the daily foe (noodle soup) and a good restaurant by the river. so we stayed a day longer than we thought and then moved on to xayabouli, which only took a few hours in the songtheaw... easy trip to a very strange town.

xayabouli is the provincial capital and somehow someone had strange ideas about the size of roads and the scale of planning. the result is a town that looks as if it has to grow into its road system, or a village that has a street network of a town. but this aside the place has a fantastic new guest house and some decent food, so what do we complain about... nothing :D

moving on to hong sa proved to be a different kind of story, the road is new, and it is 100% sand, which means a 5 hours journey on the back of a pick up along a steep and windy road consisting of loose sand surface next to 100m drops… nothing for the faint hearted i have to say. the result was two very dusty germans with equally dusty backpacks in hong sa. another wonderful lao town, small, tranquil, with a fantastic guest house, and yummy food.

here we stayed a couple of days walked to the nearby wat si mouang khoun, and the surrounding areas in search of working elephants only to have them walk past us while waiting for a songtheaw one morning. the best and yet silliest excursion was the 2 hour long songtheaw trip to mouang ngoen near the thai border where we came to see wat don sai, a temple of the tai leu style, and i have to say that it was more than worth the 4 hour return trip!

but as time moves on so did we and so we took the pick-up to tha suan at the mekong from where we dared to join three local girls on their 30 min speedboat journey to pak beng. christiane and i had sworn we would never travel in speed boats as they are far to dangerous, but faced with the option of having to wait for 5 hours for the slow boat, or take the speed boat we decided to take the risk. in doing so we discovered that speedboats are much louder from the outside than inside, and that the danger lies in the captain, good captain = safe ride!

pak beng is still pretty much the same as 3 years ago - i even slept in the same guesthouse and even the same room as in 2005 - yet our next stop houay xai i found totally changed, and not for the better. houay xai used to be a tiny little village with dirt roads, but it is now a huge tourist hub full of rip-off people in a style to date unknown to me in laos :(

yet the journey to houay xai proved to be rather entertaining, entertaining in a strange sort of a way. let me explain; even though the section of the mekong is hard core tourist affair, there are still quite a number of locals travelling on this route, which meant of course, and to my pleasure that there was a considerable number of laotians on board. you might wonder why i prefer to travel with laotians, and my answer would be that, on asking you prove that you do not know me very well, and also that it would appear to be the most natural sentiment, for if i wanted to travel with caucatians i would surely visit europe or the new world, but as i find myself in asia, laos to be precise, i am naturaly interested in local people, their language, habits, culture, food and eveything else that makes a local local!

so anyway, back to the story, the boat trip to houay xai. on the boat was a young laotian mother with her little daughter. the baby cried a lot and after a while i gathered from their conversations that the baby had a bad headache. well i say baby, she was maybe 2 years old. the strange thing was that the mother thought that slightly punching the head in rhythmical moves would help, but if you ever had a headache you know that this would be simply hell. eventually i could not watch them anymore, i mean we are talking of hours of torture for the child. so i did something drastic by medical terms and broke a tiny flake of an aspirin, the only choice as i did not carry any paracetamol which is usually better for children, and gave i to the child. five minute later she was asleep and a couple of hours later she woke up and told her mum that the pain was gone. the funny thing was that they were all in awe and wanted to know what i had given the child and even though i told them that it was the same as paracetamol which you can buy anywhere in laos they insisted on copying down the name of my tablets, which might, like christiane and i jokingly remarked on, lead to a total influx in the aspirin sales in laos... hahahahaha this is the materials myths are made of ;)

in houay xai we were looking for a slow boat up north to xiang kok, but were told that there are no more passenger boats to the north, but that there are freight boats that we can get a ride on leaving from a town called ban mom. so of course we decided to take a songtheaw to ban mom and to ask for a boat there. yet on arriving at the totally over dimensional harbour building we were told by a local woman at a stall that there was no boat today and that we should come back at 7am the next morning. on asking about guest houses she was sweet enough to call a girl who brought us to the only guest house in town. by then we had worked out that ban mom might be rich, as a lot of the huge houses demonstrated, yet that is was the most dead and unhappening place on the earth. put it like this, even in the tiniest villages in the poorest areas there is usually some kind of food place and a happening market. ban mom on the other hand had no place to sit down and eat any cooked food, only a shop in which we could buy beer and snacks, and three miserable tables that passed for a morning market. in short the pit of bordom...

early next morning we bought what we could at the so called market and made our way to the boat landing, which was really a tank ship at which the boats fuelled up on their way south or north. the only problem was that no boat came, and when a boat came and i dared in cold sweat to cross the tiny wobbly plank that lead from the shore to the tank boat, and i asked the boat captain in my sparse lao, he told me that he was not going to xiang kok but only to a village half way to there. bummer, what now? that was it, a couple of hours we still had no boat and we still were stuck in ban mom.

we needed to get out of here, so we decided to take one of the slow boats back to houay xai and from there take to much more boring land route to xiang kok, which would have meant not doing a loop and coming back the same way that would take there. no good but no option! when we were comfortably settled on our freight boat awaiting for the huge tanks to fill with diesel a speedboat docked, on asking the captain said he would go back to xiang kok, great, but speedboats cost a forturne, not great. but i realised that the captain was going back empty, and that he obviously lived up there, so i haggled with him for ages and he finally agreed on a very good price, 250000kip for the two of us, hurray. our long wait finally had paid out and we would go, if in a scary speedboat, to the north through some of the allegedly most beautiful stretched of the mekong.

and it was true, the trip was phenomenal, most of the way we had the lush subtropical forests of the bokeo region on our right and the horrible result of deforestation at our left, the burman shore of the river, where nothing but bamboo monoculture void of life and beauty. but the shore line, changing from soft sandy beaches to towering black rocks through which the mekong rushed in dangerous rapids was amazing. often we had to stop and wait for some huge chinese ship to move on, because these boats are not designed for the mekong and they make it impossible for local boats to pass or overtake in safety. to be honest i have no idea why the laotian government lets them cross their boarders in the first place, they totally hinder the local river traffic and take work away from local captains and crews!

in xiang kok we got a room in a lovely long house on stilts next to a little restaurant where we whiled the afternoon away overlooking the mekong, observing local hmong, akka, spiders and cats at work before having our sunset beer and dinner in a local restaurant that turned out to double as a brothel - so much for having a lot of chinese fishermen enter the region :S i have to say that xiang kok is one of my favourite places in laos, for its quiet serenity and its geographical location above the shores of the mekong surrounded by mountains.

the next afternoon we waited for a songtheaw to muang long, further inland. the wait was ended when the driver had found enough passengers which in this case were three fishermen who had just caught and smoked about 200kg of mekong fish. this would be of no concern had our mode of transportation been a real songtheaw, but instead it turned out to be a minibus doing the trip, now try fitting 2 farangs with their huge backpacks, and 3 fishermen with there tools and a humongous basket of freshly smoked fish into a minibus. it is a challange, but laos makes it possible, with the result that christiane and i bought 1 kg, aka 3 large smoked fish because the smell was so wonderful and when we tasted them at night with our pack som, som tam and sticky rice their taste lived up to their smell - simply wonderful.

in muang long we stayed in a wonderful new that sany guesthouse for one night before moving on to muang sing, which turned out to be our dustiest trip ever leaving us coated with a thick layer of dusty grime and a good excuse to cleanse our throats with an early afternoon beer lao. still muang sing had a great guest house with bungalows in a large garden to offer, which we got super cheap because it was virtually empty. and so we had our laundry done and went for walks into the surrounding area and were waylayed by numerous akka women who try to sell everybody their hand made jewellery. the entire area in the north west is akka country, and it was great to see so many people at least partially still dressed in traditional clothing.

our next intended stop was luang namtha, but because the town looked not very great when we arrived at 10 in the morning after a 2 hour bus trip and it was still covered in the customary lao winter early morning fog we decided to move straight on to oudomxai instead. said and done we were squeezed with altogether 16 adults and 4 children into a minibus, that was designed for 12, but we survived the trip and arrived slightly squashed but functioning in oudomxai.

and i have to say that i like the town, even though i do not really know why. walking down the main street we had a look at a couple of guest houses, before deciding to check out the dokboudeng guesthouse that i stayed in before, as i praised it for its quiet location. yet when we turned off the main road into the usual quiet lane we were blasted by lao songs in incredible volume and it turned out that the tent of people and the mountain of speakers where not only placed directly infront of my chosen guesthouse, it was also them celebrating the birth of a child. bingo, jackpot, but the slightly drunken girls were so eager to show us a new room and christiane reckoned that now, at 2pm the guest were so utterly drunk that no doubt they would not last till night, that we took the room but tried to flee the sheebang which was only successful after we both had drunken some beer and christiane had danced with the grandmother of the new born child. yet finally we where, with beer on our breath on the way to the traditional lao sauna, one of the best things about oudomxai.

returing to the guesthouse we found a huge hand sized huntsman on the wall right between our two beds, and despite the fact that i know they are harmless i am unable to sleep a single minute in a room with one of them fast eight legged runners. so while i watched the beast christiane called the girls for help, and they laughed in total amusement when they saw us squealing in panic as they tied to catch it. the result was a dead huntsman, which was not what i had intended, but it could not be helped and at least we dared to sleep. the next day saw us checking out, finding a fully booked minibus to nong khiew, and us returning 30 min later to the same room to the astonishment of the girls. the rest of the day was spend in shopping, walking around town and having more delicious dinner in kanya restaurant.

and the next morning we finally went to nong khiew, which turned out to be a disappointment. of course the village is still superbly situated at the two shores of the nam ou and amidst some beautiful mountains, but the atmosphere and the people have changed. the only good aspect about the total increase in tourism is the fact that the boats along the nam ou to luang prabang run now virtually daily again. so off we went on the wonderfully tranquil nam ou, even though i had seen it in 2005 and preferred it then, it is still a great trip today.

luang prabang on the other hand is even more unpleasantly changed as nong kiew. the guest houses are extortionate and most of the restaurants are unfriendly. even the monk procession has dwindled to a bare minimum due to the constant disrespectful behaviour of so many tourists. everywhere they start with this nonsense of tourist prices, and we had to debate for ages before the ferryman gave us a fair rate when we went with birgit and woody, whom we met on the last boat trip, across the mekong to ban xiang mon where we visited the village wat.

whilst in luang prabang the rain started; rain in the dry season, all day long, welcome to global warming :( when we arrived in phonsavan after a day long bus ride through some of the most spectacular lao mountains it was to learn that there had been hail and rain all day long. the temperature in the plateau of phonsavanne was rock bottom, and i wore every conceivable layer of clothing i could put on my body, but that did not sort out the rain, so i had to buy a plastic rain coat in the market to stay half way dry.

now despite the freezing cold weather the good thing about phonsavanne was that othkham was there, and that he and his friend drove with us to the jar site 1 once the rain subsided a bit. i had seen the jar sites and could have done without them, but christiane had not and our sole purpose of coming here was for her to see them. so dressed in ridiculous layers, sitting on the back of the bikes we managed to go to at least site 1 before the rain started again. the bad thing, apart from the weather was that the owner of the kong koo guest house had shed all decency and had turned into a moneygrabbing alcoholic who rudely accused his guests and, after a 50% price increase from last year, sold the tours now at the top price.

the other downer was our supposedly saving trip to the hot springs in muang kham which turned out to be nothing but rooms with a bathtub full of luke warm water, and all this after a 2h freezing cold journey on the songtheaw and an hour walk to the village. the final blow was that the back road we wanted to take south had been subjected to major landslides due to the rain and that we therefore had to go back most of the way we came in order to move on the vientiane. so another 10h bus trip awaited us, but we were awarded with the warm weather in vientiane. arriving here christiane extended her visa for two days and we went on a shopping spree in all markets of the town, while cherishing our last beer lao and super baguettes before leaving the country.

the rest of the trip was our journey all through the isaan and down to trat and from there to ko chang where we met up with birgit and woody again, and spend a warm few days on the beach before returning to trat. and as trat is still a heaven for excellent food, cheap shopping and the maybe the best massage in thailand, we indulged as much as we could in food, drink, facial, massage, and what not before returning via a bizzare one-night stop in pattaya and a few very late nights with ingo in bkk to our respective homes.

december in the philippines will brighten your life with the most ugly-creative christmas trees and multi lingual carol-medleys. both form a stark contrast to the serenity and beauty of philippines' underwater world. once again i was absolutely amazed by what i saw, but before we dive into the sea lets just start in the air. mario and i flew with cebu pacific from singapore to cebu, jumped into a taxi to the bus station and took the first bus to moalboal before the sun was up, which meant that we arrived at the other end of the island around 9am, then checked out every single resort before settling for a beautiful bungalow in the first place we had seen ;) well you never know what might be at the other end of town...

actually moalboal is not much of a town, it used to be a fishing village and is now jam packed with resorts and dive schools. there is no beach in town, but people come here to dive at the house reef and pescara island offshore, and to be honest one can easily spend a week here and not miss the beach for one second, because between the amazing dive sites, and the nice little local restaurants with the obligatory sunset san miguel there is enough to keep the heart content. and after i had brought enough coffee bags to see me through the trip the instant coffee did not bother me at all, on accounts of it NOT landing in my stomach :D

yet one week in moalboal seemed enough, and so mario and i decided to swap location and because the philippines has rather a lot of islands to offer, 7107 to be precise, we decided to island hop as well and went from cebu to negros, to damaguete or dauin to be more precise. here we came, saw, and were shocked, as the prices were nearing twice what we had paid in moalboal. that was no good, but with a bit of compromise in quality of accommodation, a trip to the local market to buy food, and free access to the resort kitchen meant that we ended up sleeping expensive, but cooking our own food and thus made up for it. when it comes to the diving things were different, they were the for me rather typical veni vidi vici material, i came to see mimic octopus and saw the even rarer, but similar looking wonder octopus on my first dive in the black sands of the dauin shores, while a daytrip to the nearby apo island was colourful-fish-gallore ;)

in short travelling in the philippines is wonderful because every single of the islands is so distinctively different from the next, and this goes for landscape as well as people. and while the food is not as great as in thailand or laos, the spirited personality of the filipinos makes up for the lack in culinary diversity, and even for the ever present instant coffee. and bundle that with the most beautiful underwater world and seeing large whitetip reefsharks, seasnakes, wonder octopus, razorfish, flounders, leaf scorpionfish, green turtles, hawkbill turtles, ... but what am i jabbering on here, just go and see the video that says more than a million words ;)

china was rather different from what i expected. actually in the first few days it was more or less the extreme opposite of everything i expected. for a start nobody tried to rip me of, and everybody was smiling and helpful. and going from pudong to song jian i expected congested streets, jam packed with 1.3 billion people, yet there was less traffic on the nightly motorways that in singapore, and the next morning, walking along the streets of song jiang i saw 2 bicycles, 3 electro-motorbikes and 1 pedestrian on my 20 min walk to one of the 5 song jian universities. hmmm i wonder what happened there? my question was an obvious one, where did all the students go? i saw nothing but empty streets and monumental architecture of the dull communistic style. and all this one week before golden week, strange indeed.

coming to china i was on a mission, the mission to visit as many friends as possible, and furthermore to spend golden week with christiane. thus i visited her first in song jiang, did a day trip to shanghai to catch up with tandy, who evolved into a real streetwise shanghainese kid, despite the fact that she is a singapore educated indonesian chinese ;)

the following day then saw me turn my back on ever so thriving and heaving – not – song jiang when i decided that it is time to exchange student emptiness for holiday tranquillity in hangzhou, where i was to visit my good friend jian ping. and this is where i found them, all the 1.3 billion chinese, they were all there with me in the one train from song jiang to hangzhou, or at least so it seemed considering my temporary experience as a sardine in a industrial sized tin :|

well once unsquashed in hangzhou i was super happy to see jian ping, who in terns took me to the other end of town, past the west lake and into the quiet area where he and his friends live. the best thing about all this was that i was able to stay with one of his artist friends, xiao ling, who rents a huge house and who let me, and a couple of days later also christiane stay in one of his guest rooms. so the first two days, the days before the official begin of the golden week, when all of china goes on holiday, jian ping and i wandered along the banks of the idyllic west lake, explored the temples in its urban hills, visited museums, chilled in tea houses, and ate smelly tofu.

and then christiane arrived, and with her all the 1.3 billion chinese, or so it seemed. all of a sudden the walkways on west lake looked like ant streets, and gone was the tranquillity, or so one would think, but strangely enough it did not. hangzhou was obviously not for nothing voted the happiest city in china, it is simply charming, and that with 4 million residents, and maybe just as many tourists. there are only some who do not find it tranquil, and that are the ducks, they do not find hangzhou at all, on accounts of being dead, because the chinese ate all the ducks. believe it or not, there is a huge lake, with lotus, willows, marshland, and all, and not one single duck! they ate them, honestly, they went and ate them, i am telling you! ;)

but despite the utter lack of ducks hangzhou was great, so great that christiane and i decided not to leave it at all, apart for our rather eventful daytrip to the ancient canal town wu zhen. wu zhen is tiny, picturesque, and was jam packed with chinese tourists. basically all the buses stopped there and spilled their load into the little chinese venice. the situation spurred christiane and i into a competition, of who would be able to take photos of wu zhen without a single tourist on it… i won, thus you get the impression of a rather sleepy village versus a tourist haven ;)

another day we ventured to the lingyin temple, a complex comprising the temple itself as well as the hundreds of buddha carvings in the grottos and rock outcrops of the peak flying-from-afar – interesting name i found. the grottos’ human density index was roughly as high as the one in the train, and yet it was an amazing experience, one of the sights of hangzhou that come highly recommended. another place that enticed me was the local antiquity market. this is a weekly affair, and on going their twice with jiang ping and xiao ling i managed to get a small bronze statue of manchusri and a 200 year old qing dynasty silver hair pin.







the other excursion we did took place on foot with the entire band of artists that form jian ping’s friends in the western hills of hangzhou. there we walked a large loop that brought us along the ridge through forest and tea plantations, along pagodas and temples to the southern end of the lake. it was wonderful, we had so much fun with the guys, who provided as usual copious amounts of food, as well as plenty of laughter and entertainment. actually, i felt a bit like home up there in the hills, because if you were to subtsitute the tea plantations with vineyards you would get pretty close to area i come from, well visually at least, if you can successfully substitute in your mind the sino language for the ‘palatinian dialect’ and the fried tofu skin for ‘handkaes mit musik’, a doddle for the creatively inclined :D

well all in all we simply spend more than one week in hangzhou, eating far too much yummy vegetarian chinese food of the local variety, drinking copious amounts of local light beer, going for nightly gatherings to the pagoda on the lake, and in general having a fantastic time in the company of the artists and friends of the art club.

4000km on the road in WA

travelling along the western
australian coast from broom to perth has been a dream for many a year, and yet it never happened till now, well actually june this year, when my friend jim and i decided to go on the journey in a rented campervan. so we planned to fly into perth, meet there and then fly to broom, pick up the van and then over the course of two weeks drive down to perth. and, when faced with the fact that both our flights arrived in the late evening while our flight to broom was not till early next morning, we both decided that silly is good, thus opting for staying up all night to experience the famous perth nightlife. this decision we started to regret when the first thing we saw after stepping out of our taxi in nothbridge at 23:04 was two guys hitting a third one, shortly followed by a bloke who stripped naked and run down the main road in the buff. from there the scenes did not get better so i have to say, perth did not leave the best of all impressions and i was rather happy to return to the airport and sleep all through my flight to broom where we landed on a sunny sunday morning that saw us taking a taxi to the car rental company, checking out the campervan, going shopping in the local supermarket and grog shop to stock up on essentials for the coming two weeks and having a rather huge breakfast at a local café. having survived all this we spend the night in one of the campsites next to cable beach, where we sat at beer o’clock to see the sun go down into the indian ocean for the first, but certainly not the last time during this trip. yet as soon as the sun went down i remembered why it is not such a wonderful idea to go during the dry season to wa, because it gets real cold at night :|


the next morning saw us buying a 4 week national park pass at the CALM office before hitting the road south, and while contemplating why australians build inexplicable bends into roads that go from A to B in a seemingly straight line we decided that we ought to break the do-not-take-your-rented-2WD-onto-a-dirt-road-rule on the second day and turned off the bitumen to take the 10km, as it turned out freshly grated, dirt road to the 80 mile beach caravan park, which turned out to be a smashing idea. the caravan park is nice, and the beach is, well 80 miles long, and full of sand, and sand dunes which are lovely to sit on with a bottle of beer watching the sun going down. at this point i am sure that you as the educated reader that you are, can spot the patter in the plot; yes correct, beer o’clock with australia’s finest - coopers real ale. between two of the countless sunset shots we took we decided that the coast is rather good but that one should not ignore the wild beauty of the pilbera, thus making way next morning, back across the red dirt onto the bitumen that took us into the red centre. our aim was the highly recommended karijini national park, and we drove most of the day from the coast inland only to arrive at the np visitor centre 5 min after it closed. so off we went to the dales recreation area where we got a space for our campervan.

after having moved the van to another lot the following morning we went on a wonderful walk along the dales gorge, one of the many gorges that karijini is famous for. honestly it is great, and it reminded me lots of watarrka, and made me a tad homesick, but nevertheless, or maybe especially because of that i fell in love with the place. in the afternoon we went to the visitor centre, this time before it shut and ask one of the aboriginal stuff which other gorge in the park she would recommend, and without hesitation she nominated hamersley gorge, which meant breaking the above named do-not-take-your-rented-2WD-onto-a-dirt-road-rule once more and this time properly, because the next morning saw us going 62km on the dirt to get to hamersley. but it was absolutely worth the risk, because once again the road had been freshly grated, which is one of the advantages about travelling early in the dry and of having lots of mines around who, for totally selfish reasons, do a good job on the dirt roads ;)

and trust me when i tell you that the trip was totally worth is, the gorge was super, and we used the combination of absence of shower, remoteness and warm afternoon as an excuse to go for a rather quick skinny dip in the river getting back into our clothe only a minute before other visitors came. that night we spend on one of the overnight car parks one finds around the australian outback, and we managed to keep the pilbera cold of with a blazing fire, it was simply wonderful, at least for an hour before the flames went down and we crept into our sleeping bags at the usual time of 8 o’clock ;)

i kid you not the trip was marked by very early nights, because it being june and we are moving south it got colder and colder with every day, so we woke and slept with the sun which gave us lots of rest and still lots of daylight driving time. next morning we went back on the dirt till we hit the bitumen again at tom price and then headed back towards the coast, where we had a bit of a low petrol fright when going on super reserve to the next petrol station on highway 1, but we made it and got our daily iced coffee treat – an addiction that i carefully instilled in jim over the course of the trip :D








our next stop was exmouth, or the caravan park at the northern most tip of cape range national part at ningaloo reef, where we had showers for the first time since 80 mile beach again, hurray. next morning we drove on down the coast to one of the yardie creek campsite in the south of cape range national park, which was full of euros and even fuller or flies, a fact that made us spend even more time on the beach with a beer in order to enjoy the fly-free breeze. i have never seen so many flies in my life and their presence gave birth to two things the following morning; a rather lush breakfast in the most wonderful organic café in exmouth and the term deflying; the act of accelerating the van rapidly while opening the windows to drive all the flies out. this joined the rather important term bottleometer previously created on the dirt, which is the box of empty beer bottles in the back of the camper van which started rattling whenever we drove too fast on the dirt, hence setting of the bottleometer alarm, a very important indicator when breaking the do-not-take-your-rented-2WD-onto-a-dirt-road-rule.

after our rather wonderful sunday breakfast in civilisation which was also our mid-holiday marker we drove on south, surprise, surprise, towards carnarvon and took the turn off to the point quobba blowholes, that were after we found them absolutely spectacular, because we had the good fortune to arrive there at low tide. the night we spend at a tiny campsite just south of the blowholes before driving on to shark bay the next morning where jim said his personal thanks to the still living stromatolites for being the first life forms creating oxygen, thus bringing us all into existence – hail to the stromatolites!

but the days final destination was some higher life, to be precise, the dolphins at monkey mia. so we drove to the other end of shark bay where we got up real early next morning to witness the dolphins coming close to shore to get their daily feed. and man was i happy when i was chosen to be one of the feeding people, so happy that i ignored the freezing cold water that interrupted the blood circulation in my feet, only to realise that jim had not taken one photo of the memorable event, so here you go, only dolphins and pelicans for you...

and as the francois peron national park is for hard core 4WD only we moved on at 80km per hour towards kalbarri national park, when i spotted in mid drive an echidna in the shrub beside the road, hit the breaks, did a u-turn and jumped out of the car to take a picture before jim even knew what had hit him. don’t ask how i managed to see that at high speed, the only explanation i can say that kalbarri np features a lot of shrub, so much so that it seems there is nothing but shrub, thus anything other than shrub catches the eye ;)

but beyond the shrub the park has lots to offer; inland there is hawks gorge with a rock that does not look like a hawk at all, and at the coast red bluff, which is a spot one should put on every wa itinerary. here the red cliffs meet the blue see and white waves beat the rugged coast; simply awesome!

after this going south seemed like a burden and entering the weatbelt was a horror we would have gladly forgone, so we decided to go on a 500km run inland to mount magnet and back towards the south-west to avoid the horrid winds blowing over the raped soil and to sleep one more night in the wild, lighting a fire and watching the stars. and while mount magnet is vile, the detour was great, yet returning to the weatbelt was bad and was only made better by the sight of the pinnacles under the gloomy rain-clouded sky, standing there as memorandums of geological history in their little desert. that night we warmed ourselves with some pints in the pub, and a maga portion of chips from the take away; not healthy but we circumstantially goooood :D

and there we were, on our last day, stopping off at yanchep national park for a spot of lunch and koala spotting before driving back into perth, where i first dropped jim at the airport and then the campervan at the rental place before getting myself in a taxi to the airport and my later flight myself. all in all, it was the most wonderful trip in the company of one of my most wonderful friends…

ko mak dreaming
after 4 years 11 month and 19 days i was ready to return to ko mak, the tiny thai island on which i spend one season working in ko mak resort. yet while i was alone when first coming to the island i decided to do this return trip with my tattoo artist friend yeow chong, who is equally brilliant at his art as he is a conversation partner. and to make the entire revisiting of ko mak complete i decided not only to spend at least one night in trat in my favourite trat guesthouse, but i also managed to hook up with ingo, who worked on ko mak at the very same time as i, who now lives in bangkok where he has just opened a brilliant outdoor roof-terrace restaurant called island, and who was super kind enough to offer us vip limousine and accommodation in ingo lodge :)

so off we went, flying with airasia to bkk, spending the night eating, and talking in the capital, before taking off to by bus to trat, a small town in eastern thailand, next stop cambodia. the place, as unexciting as it might look at first glance, has not only the friendliest guesthouse to offer, but also the best night market in thailand, at least in terms of food. and if that is not reason to go there, then certainly the cheap shopping in the market should do it, or its fantastic massage, or… well go and find out for yourself ;)

and after far too much food and shopping we took the songtheaw to the pier at leum ngop, where we took the boat to ko mak. a three hour ride along ko chang’s coast, between small islands, and into the setting sun beyond ko mak. thus i arrived, as so many times before, in the dusk on the now rebuild pier, and on our ride on the back of the pick-up across the island to ko mak resort at the northern beach i realised how much had changed in the last few years. but the biggest surprise was ko mak resort itself, i hardly recognised the place, which had changed so much, yet my previous employers, jakrapad and his wife bau were still the same, only the restaurant appeared now super efficiently run, with large outdoor sitting area and a beach front bar. only the coconut trees and the yellow sand seemed to be unchanged.

here we spend two nights and days lying in hammocks and deck chairs, floating in the shallow waters of the gulf of thailand, taking photos of wildlife and sunsets, watching 'geckos over the moon', talking excessively, eating far too much food and drinking even more, before we left the island with the new speedboat that took us back to leum ngop in only 45min, which meant we could spend another culinary highlight night in trat before flying from the world cutest airport to bkk and from their with jetstarasia back to singapore. all in all i had a fantastic time and the long weekend was just what i needed before the start of a new term. . .

LAO LAO this year, for the first time in many i totally missed chinese new year, and substituted lion dance in the lion city for the peace and quiet of laos. having spend a lot of time in the south on my last laos trip, i decided to explore the north east this time round. and with tigerairways flights to udon thani getting to vientiane is easy, fast and cheap. so on chinese new year eve i left singapore early in the morning for udon thani, grabbed a mini bus to the border and found myself in vientiane by 10am. so i decided to make use of the day and hopped on a bus to vang viang where i was to spend my first night in laos. coming from the city vang viang is quite nice an scenic, yet looking at the place after a few weeks in the real laos the town appears to be a circus. here, tourists ignore all social rules of the country and walk around town clad in bikini tops and mini skirts, while munching on burgers and happy pizza. but still, renting a motorbike and driving around the surrounding area is absolutely rewarding, and the sunset across the river and the karst mountains is hard to beat.

but two days was more than enough, so off i went to phonsavan, to see the famous plain of jars, a must for any archaeologist! after a heavy night with two venezuelans i needed a bit of a rest in phonsavan, but the next day i took a tour of the ancient capital xiang khouang and the plain of jars sites 2 and 3. our guide, a local hmong was totally lovely and invited us to his village and mother’s house on the way. it was real special to see the village and house, and to meet his mother and siblings in that personal way, but the impressive jar sites are even more memorable. here, overlooking the plain, we can feel the presence of long lost warriors or nobles, buried beneath a man sized stone jar holding the food and drink that was to nourish them in the otherworld. the sites speak of thousands of years of riches and culture, and stand in stark contrast with the entirely destroyed xiang khouang nearby. the old capital had been built right here in the land of ancient history, and grew to unspeakable beauty, featuring 62 golden stupas and numerable temples and palaces. the neighbouring thais and chinese loved xiang kouang riches and looted them repetitively, while the french loved its climate and added many colonial villas to its splendour. but it was the americans that wiped out the place, razed it, and bombed it into non-existence. with it they destroyed the local temple building tradition, and left only a single buddha image standing in the ruins of the one temple that has nothing but its foundations standing.

despite the fact laos was protected by the geneva conventions as a neutral country the american’s used the war in vietnam as an excuse to bomb laos "back into the neolithic" as they likes to call it. from 1964 till 1973 drop more bombs laos from 1964 till 1973 flew 580,944 sorties, an equivalent of 177 per day, dropping 2,093,100 tonnes of bombs, an equivalent of one plane load of bombs every 8 minutes around the clock for 9 years running on laos. tightly controlling the press america kept their illegal war in laos secret, while dropping more bombs on the country than on japan and germany during WWII. with the americans using huge amount of anti-personal bombs, or bombies, large areas of laos are still cluttered with millions of hockey ball sized bombies ready to explode under a farmers plough or in children’s hands, which they do on a daily basis. and with the americans happily dropping the bombs, but unwilling to pay for their clearance MAG is fighting a sisyphus battle against the more than 2 million tonnes of explosive steel dropped 40 years ago.

keeping this in mind it is hard to believe that the laotians are such warm and friendly people, the kindest people one can find anywhere in the world. and it is for that reason that i love the country so very much. and of course there is more than the people, there is the wonderfully diverse landscape, and the slowness of the place. being in laos, and specially being alone in laos means to slow down, internally and externally. and travelling in laos is a slow affair, where 200km can mean 12 hours on a bus, or a mere 16 hours for the 180km distance from phonsavan to xamnua. the reason for the latter was a minor accident on route, which left the bus driver who was going a mere 20km/h at the time arguing with the driver of the van who came shooting around a blind corner on a mountain road, hitting our bus, but blaming our driver for it. hmmmm well it seems to happen anywhere. so anyway, the accident happened at noon, at 4pm we were still sitting on top of the mountain surrounded by hmong kids waiting for the police to come from a town 60km/3 hours drive away. at 5pm i got a lift with 3 laotians down to the next village so we could get some food and wait for the bus in more comfort. at 9:30pm the bus came and at 10pm we set out to xam nua, where we arrived in the middle of the night. there othkham managed to wake the owners of the guesthouse in the bus station and got a wonderful room to finally rest for the reminder of the night. the next day i moved on to viang xai, a village 26km down the road that features the most wonderful karst mountains in a much more tranquil setting than vang viang, mainly because there are virtually no tourist there, and secondly because the inhabitants of viang xai are even more friendly than the already super friendly average laotian. i have never ever felt as welcome in a place as i have while wandering around the streets and lakes of viang xai.

back in xam nua i used to opportunity to buy one of the locally made sarongs for a very very good price in the local market and to eat home made noodles before going on another 13 hour bus ride along the highway #1, travelling on the roof of laos back to the west to nong khiaw. now last time that i was there i nearly froze to death, or at least if felt like it, yet this time the weather was much warmer, but still nong khiaw greeted us with a huge downpour when our bus pulled into the village at 9 o'clock at night. but the rain was fine as the temperatures were ok, and the following day brought a mixture of early morning mists, dazzling sunshine and heavy afternoon showers which helped to raise the water level in the nam ou. this then meant that the boat trip upriver to muang ngoi on the following day was not interlaced with little walks when the boat had to be pulled through some mega low waters. instead we cleared the rapids with gleeful smiles and gasps and arrived at the most peaceful muang ngoi an hour later. muang ngoi, depite its ever increasing stream of tourists, is still tranquil, as it has no road access and is therefore limited in access and traffic free. as such it is a perfect place to chill out and watch the sun set behind the spectacular mountains while one drinks a most delicious beer lao and munches on some salad lao or foe.

two days later i was ever so lucky to find a boat that was going back to muang khoua, another 5 hours further upstream on the nam ou. with more and more roads being built in laos these days this is luck indeed, and so i found myself feeling like a little princess sitting as the only passenger on the wooden boat when leaving the sandy shores in the morning. an hours later we picked up the first group of locals, 3 akkas who had about 5 teeth between them, and who were ever so happy to see me on board. the entire trip saw various groups of locals getting on and off the boat, fish being bought and collected from the river, kids catching little freshwater prawns, makeshift mini-generators – a laotian speciality – woman doing their laundry, and buffalo going for an afternoon swim. the landscape around the nam ou is as varied as its people and its waters, changing from calm mirror surfaces to foaming rapids within minutes, but the alert boatman got us all to muang khoua by the afternoon, leaving me enough time to go for a wonder around town in the afternoon before watching the sun go down from the terrace of the sabay sabay restaurant.

fastest bus journey, has to be the title of the following day, when the trip from muang khoua to oudomxai took a mere one and a half hours, which is virtually unheard of in laos. i could not believe it myself, but it was indeed true, so by 11am i was comfortably settled in my guesthouse when i bumped into noreen and shortly after ofer. we met, talked arranged to meet for dinner and then we followed our own pursuits, which for me meant going for my first lao sauna aka herbal steambath on this trip. and it was wonderful; i shedded about 1kg of dead skin and felt like a new born baby after it, ready to do new harm to my cleansed body in the form of the ever so delicious beer lao and an exquisitely yummy lab tofu. and as my trip was already two thirds over noreen and i were heading south to luang prabang the next day, where i was for the first time in two weeks hit by the arrogant and unconsidered behaviour of a certain type of tourist again. it was shocking to see how people mock local ritual, by shuffing cameras in monks faces during the morning alms giving, how they excessively use flashlights when posters all over the town ask them not to, and go even as far as to obstruct the path of the monks with a tripod so that they can zoom into the monks faces even closer – disgusting. such behaviour always makes feel guilty and ashamed, and in these moments i wish i was not one of them other farangs.

despite this luang prabang is still nice, the sheer number of temples in the town is overwhelming, and to thing that xiang khouang used to be just as culturally rich before the americans decided it might be a good idea to bomb every square centimetre in laos makes one feel the loss even more keenly. and the sauna in luang prabang is still one of the best, especially in its newly renovated form. all in all i enjoyed my 3 days there with noreen and was sorry to leave for vientiane, especially as this was to be my last bus journey in laos, marking the end of my stay. yet on the journey south i overlooked the baguette stalls girl's affinity for mayonnaise, and no amount of chilli sauce added managed to kill of the bacteria breeding in the stupid sauce, which meant that as soon as i checked into my room in vientiane i was violently sick. consequently i also had to spend the next day in bed, and it was only in the late afternoon that i ventured out to go for a quick ride to the golden symbol of vientiane, the that luang before returning to my bed. and the next morning, which saw me leaving the country, but not before i went to the temple for my blessings and my totally unexpectedly bumping into marie and pascual, whom i had not seen for nearly a year, and who i did not know to be in laos at all. it was the most wonderful coincidence, and a great farewell to laos, even though it would have been nice to spend more time with them. so on my direct aircon bus i went back across the same old friendship bridge border i had crossed 20 days previously and into udon thani where i found 2 of the three budget hotels had closed down, leaving me only the queen hotel as a most horrific option, but believe me when that huge cockroach looked me deep into the eye from the edge of my pillow at 2am i regretted not having whipped out my credit card to pay for the upmarket option in town. but we live to learn, so next time i know no mercy, as the queen hotel is surely one of the most dirtiest and run down places i have ever stayed in! yet the room in the hotel stood in stark contrast to the friendliness of the udon thani locals, who seemed ever so surprised to see a caucasian, and most overjoyed whenever i spoke a smithereen of thai to them. all in all, i had the most wonderful time, and i wowed to be back in laos next year.

venezia
italy - the country of the best wine, the only pizza, passionate temperament, captivating architecture, and creative people. one could say that i like it, and indeed i do. so it was in nervous anticipation that i was going to venice to engulf myself in delaying splendour in the week before christmas, and despite the cold this proved to be a perfect time to go, as it equalled to a sparse number of tourists. renate’s invitation and company, who booked a lovely hotel for us right behind piazza san marco, made this trip even more special... man what a present... one that lasts for 4 days, that is 96 hours, or 5760 seconds, and i loved every single one of them.

our arrival on monday afternoon was greeted with rain, which scared us greatly, yet the promises of the hotel staff that the next day would be sunny became a true prophecy and so i found myself at sunrise on piazza san marco taking pictures of sleepy pigeons and not tourist obscured buildings. the next days passed like in a dream. renate and i walked through nearly every street of the old quarters, from san marco to san polo, santa croce, and cannaregio, taking in as many piazzas as cappuccini – after all it was cold, real cold, and one has to rest the cobble treading feet and warm the filled core in regular intervals, doesn’t one? and then there was the shopping, the stylish leather bags in black/red which of course i could not resist, the black/golden mask, the clothe and of course the woolly hats that i purchased in seemingly regular intervals in order to keep my ears from falling off. the latter proved to be a marvellous idea when i decided to take a boat to s. giorgio and take the lift up the campanile di s. giorgio maggiore. now in case you have no idea what i am talking about i give you a hint, despite a crystal clear sky the temperatures where rather low, especially for someone who just popped over from the tropics, and the on top of the campanile was proportionate to the height of the tower. but it was worth it, because who would want to miss the view?

in short it was brilliant, i loved every canal, every house, every gondola, every meal, every, well everything. but if i had to list the absolute highlights i would have to say the top favourite would be the osteria “sora al ponte” right behind the fish market, which had not only the friendliest staff but also the most amazing food at even more amazingly low prices. another memorable moment would be the first sight of the ponto di rialto at night and the late evening baroque concert in a converted church building which are in a head to head race with the taxi boat rides along the canale grande in dazzling sunshine.

i think these were my absolute highlights, but of course i cannot speak for you, so there is only one thing for you to do right now, go and see for yourself, before the lagoon swallows the entire town.

Hanoi Hanoi
as part of their septemberal visit to asia, katja, tarik of the wondrous age of 20 months, and i ventured on a 10 day trip to vietnam. a choice that seemed appropriate thanks to super-cheap tigerairways rates, and the millions of tours on offer in the country. both adults of the team usually prefer individual exploration over organised tours, but with tarik around tours became a rather enticing option. so of we went to the northern capital of the indochina country; drawn by the renowned beauties of ha long bay and the prospect of shopping, and shopping, and some more shopping, and... well... more.
the hotel we booked online turned out to be not only nice, helpful, and friendly, but also super conveniently located around the corner from a wonderfully cosy local caffee, and next to a local beer hoi place. these places sell locally brewed beer at rock bottom prices, provide you with a free flow of peanuts in shells, and offer local food, in our case fantastically yummy local food - trying that tofu in tomato sauce means remembering it forever.

the fist two days we spend wandering around the thousand little streets of hanoi's old quarters, looking at a million shops, with xillion things to offer, hoping that the typhoon that blew in from the east would not hit us, but stay instead in the central parts of the country. but with ha long bay as the main drawing factor we decided to check bbc weather hourly and to book the tour anyway. and it was worse taking the risk! the typhoon stayed in central vietnam, bringing chaos and distraction, but we only got a bit of rain. in a way it made me feel awkward; here am i on a great holiday while only a few 100km south people are loosing their lives and homes to a typhoon – it made me feel very privileged and gave even more meaning to finally seeing one of the most spectacular world heritage sites. and man, if ever there were ever places of stunning natural beauty ha long bay is for sure one of them! we spend 3 days on a boat going around the million little islands, rocks, and outcrops, and every minute was as spectacular as the next.
but let me tell you our passport story:

in vietnam one has to surrender ones passport on check-in into the hotel. we left it at that and considered the passport more safe in the hotel then in our bags while cruising through tourist country, but when we came cat ba island - the major island in ha long bay where we spend the first night of our trip in a hotel - they told us that we needed our passport to get permission to sleep on the boat the following night. now, nobody mentioned this to us before, and, with the boat being a local vietnamese junk and it sailing vietnamese waters one would not exactly expect a passport control, would one? well i asked the guide for help and he did a phone call, on my expense of course, to the hotel, shouted a bit, and then gave firm directions: bring the passports to the agency, they will put it on the next morning’s mini-bus to ha long bay, the guide will give it to our boat’s captain, and we will get it on boarding the vessel! i thanked him, and was happy, while all the other tourists considered me mad. the emotional difference was initiated by the fact that our fellow travellers had great doubt in the organisational skills and trustworthiness of the locals, while i knew from experience that such seemingly crazy schemes work like clockwork, because nobody who is a link in the organisational chain will want to loose face by being responsible for the loss of the passport and therefore make 1000% sure that it reaches the next link. and, voila, on stepping onto the boat the next day we were unceremonially presented with our passports - problem solved :)

after a spectacular sunset in ha long bay and a night on the boat we returned to hanoi, and rested a day before planning further excursions into the nearby tam coc and perfumed pagoda. both daytrips included a boat ride along the river, but while tam coc is sporting high cliffs and caves, the river journey to the perfume pagoda is set in a far more gentle landscape. tam coc has been made famous in the ever so boring film indochine, but unlike the film the landscape is truly breathtaking, with the river flowing in between rugged cliffs, before going underground, only to appear again at the other end. the second boat ride brought us to the hill that hold the perfume pagoda, which is a cave-pagoda, and a place of true spiritual energy. to be honest it is hard to say which of the trips was best, i would not want to miss a single one of them ...

back in hanoi we used the last two days to eat as much of the yummy food as we could, including mooncake in our personal celebration of the mid-autumn festival, wash it down with huge amounts of vietnamese coffee and beer hoi, visit the mid-autumn festival market, and to shop until we dropped, or better to say, until tarik got too bored to bare :) but because we are also culturally interested people we visited a fair few temples and concluded our trip with the matinee show of the otherwise totally booked out water-puppet show, and what a finale to a truly spectacular trip.
The summary:
- tarik does not like to be rained on
- a plastic bags on your head is as good as a raincoat
- the southern Vietnamese are warmer than the northern ones
- the north has the most spectacular landscape
- Hanoi offers the world-best shopping
- beer hoi is great
- my advise, go and see for yourself...

Summer in Europe

now - that the european winter is trying to push open the gateways, a bit late, or so i am told, but still pushing, trying to cool down the entire country until it is dazzling in snowy white - i am finally adding my european summer story to this trip.

august 2006 saw the wedding of my younger sister, kind of funny to think about her, my little sister to get married, and in some way it is still a strange thought to me. i still see her as the little girl that she once was, at a time when i was also a little girl, maybe a bit bigger, but still small, and now, wham bang shebang, she is married... ups, where did this come from... well presumably from meeting the right guy at the right time... and he certainly is the right guy, or so i think. so here they are the newly weds, or by now not- quite- so- newly- weds- anymore, my granny dancing her pants off, renate, girls-disco-gallore, 99 luftballons, the bride maid and best man, and... well just go and have a look :)








but, now to something totally different: abruzzo
making most of my trip to europe i decided to go to italy with uli, and with moltepulciano d'abruzzio being my favourite wine and ryanair going to pescara i decided that this might just be the place to go. and as the region is one big wild places with wolves and bears and the lot the decision was an easy one to make.... so there we went on a 5 day abruzzo galore.
now here the abruzzo story in short:

uli and i flew to pescara, landed 30min after a major hailstorm that left all the rental car at the airport dented, persuaded a rather cute italian to rent one of them to us anyway, got a blue turbo diesel fiat panda - my dream car - and off we went riding into the sunset in hot pursuit of a room, which we eventually found long after nightfall, asking in many dubious places and by following a pick up truck to a lone guesthouse in some remote village somewhere in the mountains. at this time location mattered little, neither did price, all we needed was a bed, and we got it, together with a good meal and a bottle of the above mentioned vine.

the next day saw us driving across la maiella region in hot pursuit of the, for me, long awaited parco nationale d'abruzzo, where we had another afternoon fun trying to find a room. somehow we forgot that the very week in august was the busiest in the italian travel calendar, with a public holiday and school holidays all in one, resulting in a rather competitive room search situation, featuring two germans versus the entire population of rome and a third of italy. but, because we were persistent, positive and shrewd we managed to get a fantastic room in a fantastic village in a fantastic location, right smack bang in the middle of the national park, away from the huge tourist hype, for a decent price and with a village that held the cheapest and best pizzeria, offering the local wine (see above) at ridiculously cheep prices, of which we made ample use, of course :)
making most not only of the wine and pizza, we went on a superb walk into the mountains - the information officers in the park told us that bears are not to be seen in august, because they are too scared of all the tourists, so we opted for scenery and horses as the decorative big mammals which turned out to be a superbly beautiful choice. then, after another night of wine and pizza, off we went to the northern mountains of the grand sasso and santo stefano, a beautiful medici stronghold on top of the mountains, full of low archways, round towers, little nukes and corners, and of course a brilliant restaurant for us to indulge in… ah what culinary pleasures! pleasures that furbished us with enough strength to take on the gigantic landscape of the campo imperatore the next day, which we traversed before slowly returning to pescara via the medieval town of penne. now as me if abruzzo is worth a visit and i will ask you what are you waisting your time with? go! go! go! go! go!

SOME THINGS SIMPLY HAVE NO PRICE TAG...


birthday browny with icecream on the house: S$0







dinner and drinks with friends at dempsey hut: S$xxx







a super (sex) talkative evening with a rather drunk but extremely happy birthdaychild: priceless ! ! !




thank you guys for celebrating with me and for making this a wonderful, happy, and truely memorable night :) xxx

S A B A H 2 in 1


before the actual beginning; my personal basic introduction into to the region for the non-south-east-asian-experts: geographically sabah is the north-eastern part of the malaysian part of borneo, a rather large island to the east of singapore which is split into four parts: sabah and sarawak as parts of east malaysia, brunei, and kalimantan, which is the indonesian part of the island. ethnically and sociologically the people in sabah could not be more different from the west malaysian malays if they tried to win a competition for extremes. while in most parts of west malaysia a guest in a resort or hotel is mostly seen as a notorious nuisance disturbing the staffs otherwise blissful paid day of couch-potatoing behind a counter or on any suitable object resembling a seat, the locals in sabah outdo most of the asians famed for their smiles and friendliness, and this without even trying. they simply are really really nice people, eager to help and very rarely, if ever, trying to rip you off. sabah resort my faith in malayasia as a travel country, if only the western part so far ;)

now to stage one - the descent into the mighty ocean: flying to layang layang, a tongue twisting man made island somewhere in the vast stretch of sea between borneo and the philippines. actually island is nearly a lie, strictly speaking layang layang is an atoll, with a man-made island in one part of it, created to lay claim to this stretch of the ocean and all its possible oil and gas resources. luckily enough someone had the smart idea that the island is big enough not only to host the navy but also a few divers. hence we all ought to thank them for building a dive resort there, as the atoll is surrounded by a immediate 600m drop off, followed by another 1500m drop shortly after, which as all divers know means a lot of big fish ;) :) and for the big fish i came, the hammerhead shark to be specific, and as fate had it, i saw one, a solitary greater hammerhead shark in 26m during my very last dive, and that right after i came up close and personal with a grey reef shark at 40m... can you believe that??? two rare sharks in one dive... wow!!! the most amazing thing about this was that actually only my buddy and i saw the hammerhead and i was the only one taking photos, and to make it even more bizarre; we were the only ones in a group of 12 who were on our last dive, hihihihihi.
yet, to give that dive an even more incredible closure we were escorted by an entire pod of dolphins on the way back to the resort, six or seven of which swimming right in front of the boat; sitting on the prow with my feet dangling just centimetres above the water the dolphins with their movements synchronised to the level of coordinated breathing while staying glued to the boat at whatever speed seemed like un-harnessed horses pulling the boat in ever changing fluid formations... a truly memorable spectacle...

but before that, the days i spend diving at layang layang where marked by many beautiful and amazing encounters. there where the many black and white-tip reef sharks sleeping on the sandy ledges, the hawkbill and green turtles that crossed our way so often, the beautiful underwater landscape as a backdrop for thousands of colourful fish. but there were many other large fish around, we spotted three mobula sailing past in the distance, had schools of barracuda swim right past us, found a huge potato grouper in a cave, and then my favourite, his cousin, the yet unidentified large black and white grouper - it would be great if anybody can tell me what the real name of this one is, otherwise i shall call it the white breasted grouper and be done with it ;) hihihi - and then there were the small wonders at various depths, the many pairs of red and … yes yes yes purple firegobies in the dusky depths of 43m, the crevice filled with ornamental crayfish, the reef octopus, ornate ghostpipe fish, scorpion fish, longnose hawkfish and pygmy seahorse trying very hard, and each in their own way not to be seen... and all that amongst the most pristine coral i have seen so far, it was a wonderful trip indeed.


















and finally to stage two – the ascent to the highest peak in south east asia: you might have heard it said that the very mount kinabalu is boring and overrated, but it is still the highest peak in south east asia. and after my wallet emptied itself rather quickly with the purchase of two return tickets to germany, necessary to witness two major family events this year, namely the wedding of my sister and the 90th birthday of my granny, i decided that it might be wise to abandon my previous exorbitant idea of trekking through png, and replace it with an similarly thrilling yet less impoverishing idea. this alternative became even more attractive when my friend uli decided to fly over from germany to join me. in short, we met in kota kinabalu, book our accommodation for the base, mountain, and poring hot spring resort after and jumped on the bus to the kinabalu national park. starting the trek from the mersilau resort rather than the national park office proved to be a fantastic idea. even though the ascent from here is 2km longer than the main path, is hundred times less crowded, and a million times more beautiful; actually it is the nicest bit of rainforest i walked through ever, going past enchanted cliffs with gushing waterfalls, giant pitcher plants, down wet narrow valleys, across a cloud enshrouded pass, till it finally meets up with the rather overcrowded main "path" in parts resembling orchard road in terms of business ;)

starting from 2000m we first climbed up a fair bit, only do then go it all back down and then climb it up all over again, and more, and more and more till after 8km of walking i arrived at laban rata, the accommodation at 3300m at 4:45. uli came in a bit later, could not sleep a minute in out dorm which we shared with ignorant malay prison wardens-only we can have so much luck-and hence decided that 2am is not a good time to get up to climb another 800m altitude to the peak in the dark and freezing cold. i have to asdmit there were a few times during my 2 1/2h climb to the top in which i thought him a very wise man, but when, at pretty much exactly 5am, under a star filled sky i scambled as the second person this moring on top of low's peak, with its 4095m the highest of the many peaks of kinabalu, i was awfully happy - and i have to say that seeing the sun rise up there was, despite what anybody might say, truly very special, especially when you know how rarely that actually happens, as a 4000m mountain creates a lot of weather, bad weather of course - i was so happy that i even endured the hour long wait for the sunrise in the freezing cold and wind, with my fingers stuck in soaking wet gloves, before i descended the 800m altitude i had climbed in the dark. now i walked under a slowly rising sun past the phallic west peak, the pointy south peak, and many other enticing cliffs and points towards my well earned breakfast, or so i thought, which constituted nevertheless only a brief interception before the gruelling descent for another 1500m altitude to the park head quarters at 1800m. if you have done your math you realise that i walked more than 3000m altitude this day, and anybody who has ever climbed any mountains knows what this means. uli did a great job on the mountain, unlike our group member from singapore who turned up the first day with light shoes and office pants, a plastic bag in one hand and a video camera in the other... needless to say how well he did...

hihihi well anyway, the reward was a long hot bath in the sulphurous hotsprings at poring, before we dragged our rather painful muscles back to kk the next day...

hail to the golden lion galore

yes! yes! yes! i have done it! well we have done it really. ah yin and i as one of the golden lions. but then we were just one of 4 golden lions. and then there was all the wu shu performers, and the tai chi groups and even the chinese dancers. and the people from other countries... all in all a huge affair... the singapore chin woo 85th anniversary celebrations. the event, as casual as it might sound, was actually a huge affair. for 6 months we have been practicing and rehearsing. i learned to dance the arse end of the golden lion, and practiced two wu shu forms, that none but my mother and norbert ever got to see, as they were finally taken off the itinerary... a logical decision if you ask me, as i am by no means good or consistent as a wu shu performer, i only wished they had told me earlier, not 3 weeks before the event, which had me 5 months worrying about making a fool of myself in front of everybody ;) ah well, but the lion went well, really well, and the entire show was quite stunning, with performers from hong kong, malaysia, china, the usa and switzerland. we had various tai chi and wu shu performances, single, in pairs, and groups, and with and without weapons. we had chinese drummers in cool costumes, flagdance, southern lion and northern lion performance - actually, see that cute little girly looking golden (nothern) lion with the pale green robbons in the hair? well i am its arse end ;) - and even the final battle of darth vader and luke skywalker alla chin woo... now what more could you ask for? well frankly only one thing, a good feed, and that we did. on the following day we held a feast, and as if this wasn't good enough we got awarded, well i did - for doing the 85th anniversary t-shirt design - which was awfully nice of them. i am chuffed... truly...

lies lies lies ... what is is about people that they think it is worth telling lies all the time? why is backstabbing dishonesty so popular? why is it so common to say one thing and mean another. a person tells me they do not like someone, and the next minute they are all over them ... ups, where did this come from? maybe their best friend changed his or her opinion of the previous-object-of-disgust-and-now-object-of-lust? or does it go deeper than that?

at work, people might sit down with lunch with you pretending to like your company, which indeed they do as it is the means on finding out about your thoughts and opinions who might be useful when badmouthing you to the next best colleague on the next best occasion. and after work someone might just call you and ask you out for dinner because they just remembered a handy little fact about you and decided that they might need a favour from you, but no they will never say this, they just call and say how long it has been and how great it would be to catch up again, etc pp. total rubbish, utter nonsense... when will it ever end?

is it so hard to be honest and kind and open minded about the people who breath the same air as you, who walk the same street as you and work on the same floor as you? is it? too hard? i wish i could say with a smile on my face no - no, no, no, but sadly enough, the world around me seems to whisper yes :(

WEAN YOURSELF
Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what i have to say.

From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.

Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.
You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate.
There are wheatfields and mountains passes,
and orchards in bloom.

At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."

You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.

Listen to the answer.

There is no "other world".
I only know what I've experienced.
You must be hallucinating.

- Rumi -

AN INSTANT COFFEE COUNTRY, the philippines are indeed, but what is missing in terms of a local coffee culture the islands make up in the underwaterworld. while the land is a colourful mix of asian and american, maybe in nothing more visible than the famous jeepneys - american military jeeps, modified and beautified in true asian style - there are superferries, american style mega-shopping malls and inumerous fast food chains - actually everything comes in chains in the philippines, coffee, italian food, burgers, cakes, doughnuts, the lot -

and then not far down the road you find povertystricken slums, outrigger boats, and child prostitute, many of which one incidentially finds travelling with western tourists...

after 5 years in south-east asia the philippines resemble many other countries in the region, but, they are more christian, and speek more english, have more volcanoes per landmass than indonesia, and even more instant coffee than thailand, and the traffic in manila is crazier than in bkk, breed more fighting cocks than anywhere else in the world, but otherwise things are recognisably similar to the ones in the know ;)


but going back to the underwaterworld, as i experienced it in only two places, once diving in malapascua and then snorkeling in donsol - not that i am a fan of snorkelling in general, but when we are talking whaleshark then hey, bring it on :D - in short, malapascua was phenomenal!!! not only did i see the elusive thresher shark - the shark i thought i would never ever see in my entire life, the very shy, rare, longtailed one -

but also thanks to our fantastic local dive guide vic i saw mandarin fish - single and shagging (filmed in mid action, fishpornography so to speak) - giant frogfish, more seahorses than you could run in a race, pipefish, a seasnake, cuttlefish and, now get this, a 0.5cm round bottom sqid, or baby sepia :D


... not to mention the countless nudibranches, flatworms, whitetip reefsharks and of course the surprise butanding, the out of the blue totally unexpected whaleshark; a surprise that nearly got me to jump into the water with weightbelt yet without bcd, a small, yet usually fatal bounce into the unknown!!!!

and then, as if one was not amazing enough i went to donsol to see another 19 of the gentle giants.... which explains, even to the not-underwater-freak
why i make an exception when it comes to snorkelling at donsol :P hihihihi
but apart from the amazing encounters in the sea, i have also met the most amazing people, locals and tourists alike... in short, the trip was amazing, but like all good things in life, ended but too soon...

D I V I N G
the sea, the deep blue, the deeper you go the bluer it gets. slowly you can feel the pressure increasing your breathing gets harder, the lights dims, the colour fades, there in the dim light you can find the shraks sleeping. here everything becomes simple and pure... i love it. the few minutes of my life spend between 35-40m below sealevel were some of the most beautiful moments i can remember. if you are scarred of the sea you should not go diving! the sea is always a potential killer, nature is a potential killer, but they kill us if we fight them, yet they are our friends if we embrace them. but then, maybe you are a fan of shallow dives, full of sunrays flimmering through the waters, countless coloured fish cruising between muli-shaped corals, here light floods everything, sparkling in the current... this is stunningly beautiful, but i still prefer the mystery of the depth, quiet, scarry and intriguing...
and in 3 weeks time i will be there again, will submerge myself again into the blue, become weightless and free, embraced by the moist arms of mother nature...the life sublime...

the 15 days of chinese new year were busy with liondance - as usual - featuring the southern lion, the bringer of good luck and prosperity. most of the time during chinese new year we, that is chin woo, perform with the southern lion, the whitish short haired one, which is really, on grounds of its behaviour rather than size, a little pussy cat - curious, playing with its food, jumpy, and observant. but there are two types of lions, one is the just mentioned southern lion and one is the far less common northern lion.




the orange northen lion on the other hand is not used for the chinese new year blessings in shops, offices and private hourses, but rather for stage performances.
also its character is quite differenly, rather like a dog. it plays with the other lion, plays with a ball and chases it, and so on. now on sunday we will have a performance of the norther lion, so pictures will come, but for now.. the souther lion and the drum....

GONG XI FA CAI the chinese new year has come and with it the liondancing season ... but back to the beginning; two weeks before chinese new year new bridge road gets illuminted with colourful pieces of art and chinatown fills up with stalls and tents, selling anything one could need to welcome the new year in style: sweets, sugared fruit, spiralled bamboo, cherry tree branches in bloom, new clothe, handbags, shoes, chinese new year decoration in all forms, sizes and shapes, but of course only in two colours -red and gold- scrols and chinese art, oranges, pomelo, funny shaped pumpkins, nuts, seeds, pinapple tarts, and, and, and, the list is endless, but all the bits and pieces are equally important, as one has to welcome guests to the house, hence the food, decorate the house for luck, present guests and hosts alike with mandarins to bring money, wear new clothe on the first day of chinese new year at least, and preferably red or related colour ones. all in all we are talking a real colourful affair here, and i love it to bits... not the least because this is also the season for liondance... hmm and here we are, back to the beginning! well people engage liondancers to come to there shop or house in order to bring good luck. for this we use the southern lion, which first plays with and then eats the presented mandarins and lettuce, while returning some of them to the host, basically just like a domesticated cat does with mice, fist play, then eat or bring dead animals to the owner... same concept, so you know where i am coming from here hihihihihi the lion is seen as a bringer of luck and has to be treated with repect and undergo ceremonies to get awoken etc. consequently a mandarin (or in one of the cases even a huge life fish!) handed by the lion to the shopowner is a far more laughterinducing affair than the above mentioned pet owner finding the recently deceased mouse or co on the doormat in the early morning just before breakfast.... yummy... the other difference is that the lion is accompanied by the liondrum (which i do play but not good enough to be able to follow the lions every step) and the cymbals, which is all very loud and good for luck. in short we bring the lion, trolley in the drum, dance the dance, bring luck and get the necesary small cash in return ;) we in this case is chin woo, or jin woo, my martial arts association. which brings me to something totally different: fearless!

now you simply have to go and see this film if you can: www.fearlessthemovie.com . the reasons for this are as simple as important:
1. fearless is the story of huo yuan jia, the founder of chin woo
2. the film is beautifully filmed
3. jet li is playing huo yuan jia, and this is his last film
4. jet li is simply the best martial artist, he does my style and does it the way it ought to be done.
5. there is hardly any digital animation in the film, apart from a couple of seconds all the fighting is real! so go and see it, and in the meantime some pictures of the first liondancing, yesterday, the 2nd day of chinese new year!!! gong xi fa cai... happy new year :)

F R I E N D S - imagine life without people that are close to you, people that are special to you, you care for, feel for, live with and live for. without friends life would be like an empty canvas. my friends are to me what is colour to a painting, they shape my live, ...more..., they are part of me, part of my soul. without friends i don't really exist, just like colours that, according to kevin, only exist in relation to each other, with little effect if standing alone. my friends are the colours of the spectrum and i shimmer in a colour matching, or complimenting, maybe even aggrivating, and ideally intensifying there's... there are so many, all around the world, and there are only a few that i have on picture ...

saigon saigon... a crazy city, much larger than i had anticipated, and much more .... words fail me... i suppose it ought to be busy, but then saigon redefines the word busy. busy is bangkok, busy is a orchard road in singapore, busy is frankfurt airport, but saigon is moto-busy, a term that simply has to be created to desribe this place, and maybe all towns in vietnam. virtually no public transport coupled with high prices for cars and low wages make the motorbike the favourite mode of transport. so popular in fact that the streets are an endless stream of bikes busily snaking along several lanes crossing, overtaking, slowing down, speeding up, turning, going against the traffic... everything goes, only pedestians not! having walked the length and bredth of saigon city in a single day, doing a 400000 steps that add up to 20km and crossing more streets than i could count brought me to the end of my nervs, made me yield, give in, surrender, and finally at 5 o'clock i could not face another junction, not even a lane, i stopped and called a taxi back to my favourite courner cafe to reward myself with a beer saigon... a reward well earned. and yet, despite it all i love saigon, i have the fondest memories of the town and the people, who made me laugh, especially the girls; paying me compliments in the street, joking in in the market, dancing together in the disco... wonderful memories float back and make me smile as i write these very lines....

laos... i have been to so many places, and yet it does not seem enough... far from enough! starting in houay xai in the north, were i cross the mekong for the very first time, small and dusty, like nearly every town in laos, a fact that i am soon to learn, but do not know at this time; the dust is a nice change from unhealthy air filled with exhaust fumes or being over airconditioned. here i can breath air filled with natural dirt, even in vientiane, the capital, i breath more dust than fumes, a magic relief from over-civilisation, or so called civilisation - a word mostly used as an excuse to destroy nature; a carte blance for destruction, disrespect and unresonable development in the name of progress, for the good of mankind, a good that leaves no future, a good that blindly destroys the world we live in, all to gain a few dollars, for the profit of a few; a high price to pay for the ultimate death of mother nature and all her infants! luk as they call them in thai, noi in laotian - two languages i love, two countries i adore, especially laos, with its air full of dust and its flair of simplicity.

walking through houay xai i absorb the first bit of laos: the first baguette, the first caffee lao, changing money, waiting for the boat that is going to carry us down the mekong, to the ancient capital of louang phabang. here in the north the mighty mekong is less wide, as if caged between the mountains. the wooden boat is fine, one of the largest i have seen on the mekong; long, slender, low, with two rows of short wooden benches designed to hold 48 people, now holding so many more that there names fail to fit on the passenger registration list, never mind, or so it seems, their bodies on the limited space of the boat. miracelously we manage to fit everybody including all there luggage on bord, squeezing on benches, chairs, platforms, in storage, on steps, and engine room... all on board we left on our first leg of the journey bringing us to the once sleepy mountain village of pakbeng, which now serves as the stopover point for the journey south, which lead to the contraction of a long row of guest houses and restaurants servicing the endless stream of backpackers on their one-night-stay.

the next morning was even colder. the morning mist, and draft on the boat make the journey chilly, and i am freezing by the time i arrive in luang phabang, the ancient capital of laos, the town of history and wats. the list is endless:

the oldest - wat xieng thong
the place of books and learning - wat pak khane
the only one of its kind - wat khilli
the famous windows - wat that
the sacret hill - wat phou si
the thai style buddha - wat mai

louang phabang is alive with history, and living people alike. the heart of laos, the land of morning mists and screaming pigs, pigs that come down the river by boat and know that there life is going to change, and that change means death. today, just it was pushed screaming onto the back of a truck with his fellows on deathrow, a pop bellied pig stood by the ballustrade overlooking the mekong, looking long and quiet at the mighty river and the far bank, as if to say is farewell to her home and place it grew up in, or as if to wish to be far from here, at the other side of the river, away from the town that turns her into people's dinner. there is something very deep about animals that know that are about to die, they radiate some sort of ultimate understanding, some deep truth and wisdom. but laos is also the country of warm people, the land of calm and quiet, and - surprisingly enough for a country that has experienced so much of destruction, violence and death brought by american bombs in recent times - also a land of peace. an inner peace radiated by the people and their ways, by the monks forever walking the streets, even the mist shrouded sun in the morning and the spectacular sunsets at night. i know i will come back here, i even think i would like to live here, absorbing the calm that is so different from the rush of the metropole i reside in, singapore, the city of safety, rules and reliability, but also of stiffness, coldness and narrow mindedness. a coldness of people that is a stark contrast to the coldness of the chilly monring mists that engulf laos' mountains at this time of year. it is rather a coldness of the heart that chills me to the bone.

two weeks later, breakfast in pakse, in the south. the same noodle soup stall, one of a million in laos, and me loving noodle soup and not finding a single one without meat or meat stock in the entire country... the journey here brought me through the quiet capital vientiane, down south always along the mekong to thakek and savannaket and via the remote highland towns of xekong and attapu to pakse, our place of focus in the south. from here we expored the ancient khmer ruins of wat phou, a day trip that made us use every single form of public transport available in laos; tuk tuk, songtaeow - 40 people, 20 sacks of rice, 13 bags of fruit and veg, 3 live piglets, 9 boxes of electical appliences, and 4 backpacks in one! - ferry, motorbike - 3 on 1 - hired songtaeow - 2 in 1 - hitching a lift on a charcoal lorry, and motorbike sidecar taxi, an eventful day... pakse was also our place of departure, the place from which we crossed the border to thailand, but only after we had been down south, the very south, to don khon, one of the thousand islands in the fanning out mekong, where it creates quiet islands full of wonderfully simple people and many water buffalos and where it shoots over cliffs and rocks as a dramatic border to cambodia.