Leni's Travel Blog

Family, friends – may I introduce: Egay.

Egay is a typhoon and my buddy since he hangs around the Philippines at the moment. Not fun. Especially not if you’re stupid enough to go on a 6h sailing trip around the island. With a cold. How do you know that this is a bad idea? First, you’re wet. All the time. And when I say wet, I mean soaking wet. Second, you jump into the sea to warm up instead of to cool down.
My cold might turn into a pneumonia, which doesn’t matter honestly, because with Egay there isn’t much to do anyway. Seriously, I’ve never seen this much rain in my entire life. I thought I’ve seen fair thunderstorms in Austria during summer. But for me, Egay takes the definition of “storm” to another level. And it’s by far not the worst storm the Philippines have ever seen.

The good news is, is that I postponed my today’s flight to Manila before I knew that a storm was coming. And the center of the typhoon is – what a surprise – southeast of Manila.

Welcome to the Philippines!!!

This country is truly amazing: here you experience the Asian hospitality to it’s fullest. Why? Because people understand what you need. Filipinos speak better English than most Europeans, they are Christians and grew up with a strong influence of American culture.
Whereas hospitality in other southeast Asian countries is expressed in smiling and bowing, Filipinos help you with whatever you need and want. Just say it.
I had quite a list of errands to run in Cebu, the second biggest city after Manila: from arranging ferry tickets to buying sunglasses to finding the right prepaid call & text & data package as a micro-SIM. I bumped into two girls in an electronic store and they were curious what I need so I explained. As a result they wouldn’t leave my side for three hours and 10 stores until I had everything I needed. Just like that.
I invited them for drinks in the evening, they brought more friends and we had a fun time together. They still call and text me today to see how I am. THIS is hospitality, wow!!

And there is more. Somehow, the sky looks different here and makes me wonder how blue blue can get.

The only downside of the country is, that they don’t provide much useful help, if you get lost.

Yesterday I did a trip to the Chocolate Hills. This unusual geological formation is worldwide unique and can only be found here on Bohol, in the Philippines’ Central Visayas.

They are made of limestone and nobody really understands why they happen to have this special shape. Maybe it was aliens. This would explain another phenomenon of this island I will show you later. As you can see on the picture below, they rise out of plains… really interesting.
During dry season, when the grass turns brown, they appear like hundreds and thousands of little brown chocolate drops, this how they got their name, Chocolate Hills.

I personally like the alien theory. But when they were here in Bohol, they must have forgotten this little fella:

The Tarsier is one of the smallest monkeys on this planet. It is something between a chick and a squirrel, only as big as a hand and can turn it’s head 180 degrees. Anyone remembers the movie Trainspotting…?
Creepy little creatures. Creepy enough that Steven Spielberg used them as his model for E.T. – no kidding.

I apologize for not writing much last month. My broken toe didn’t let me conquer the world as I wished and when Eva visited me in Bali I was not in the …ahm… mental state … to do anything which required more than 100 neurons of my prefrontal cortex.

I’m back!

other than the obvious physical differences and that I am actually a real person… The correct answer is at the end of my story. Let’s start at the beginning.

Ever since I saw Andreas Bitesnich’s travel photography of Angkor, I dreamt of going there myself. And now I did!!
Angkor is stunning, marvelous, magical…

Most temples were build from the 9^th to 12^th century. Since then, nature gorgeously takes back it’s territory.

Although Cambodia is a Buddhist country today, the temples of Angkor were built Hindu. You find hundreds of meters of reliefs explaining the creation of earth, the legends of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and many more.

I took 300 pictures and erased 70% of them again. You (or at least I) can not capture the natural beauty of this place. You truly want to experience it.

Alright, back to the initial question: what do I not share with Lara Croft?

– The balance.

Tomb Raider, which was shot at Angkor, ends with Angeline Jolie doing advanced acrobatics, fighting and defeating the enemy… something like this, right?

Well, the only person I defeated today, was myself. My adventure ends in hospital with a broken toe.

I can’t walk properly, no water contact and I have to wear a compression bandage for three weeks, Yippee-ki-yay!!

Welcome to Koh Rong. An island 30km away from the main land, with sand white as snow and so happy that it squeaks when you walk on it.

“Hi Leni, nice to meet you.” was the first thing Mr. Jones, the guy who runs Broken Heart Guesthouse, said. “We have snakes” was the second.
- ”Aha, interesting… ahhm … nice to meet you too.”

This is as lonely as it gets: no roads, no electricity, no people and a 5km stunning beach.

That’s the view from my bungalow.

“I don’t want many people here” says Mr. Jones “more people means less animals”.
He is right. We live next to the jungle and we are the guests. This place belongs to birds, monkeys, frogs and geckos. You swim in between swarms of flying fish and play with crabs on the beach.

But it also belongs to spiders, flying termites, mosquitos, sandflies and snakes. Six kinds of snakes to be precisely and two of them don’t behave nicely: the pit-viper and the coral snake. The are not aggressive, but neither they’d give you way when you come closer. So better watch your step.

FB doesn’t display the video. Click here to see the video.

(This is Marc, my Swedish fellow traveller since a couple of days. Not only is he very easy going and relaxed, he also saved me from dying of thirst when I thought I could walk 8km at the beach (plus another 8km to get back) without needing any water.)

This beach is by far the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. Nothing but white sand and turquoise water. And just when you think you are alone, a water buffalo walks out of the jungle to take a bath.

But beware of the creepy nights: king-sized spiders populate your walls and ceilings before they get eaten by 10-inch/25cm geckos. Bats fly into your bungalow and hang out.
This place gets pitch black during night. There is no electricity whatsoever and when the moon changes it’s rotation, not even moonlight provides the smallest bit of lighting. And with all the noise it can get really spooky. Especially when you are alone. I usually sleep like a baby. Not here, I wake up 10-15 times at night. Last night I woke up and heard something moving in my backpack… creeping, rustling. Damn.. what do you do? Getting up and Blair-Witch-Project-like inspect your backpack for snakes? My choice was a categorical “Kshht, silence!!” accompanied by some big arm-movements from my side of the bed, hoping that – whatever it is – can see in the dark and is more scared than I am.
Here the traces of destruction I found the next morning:

The following night it tore apart an air-sealed bag of instant cappuccino and ate my favorite bracelet.

This place is not for comfort-lovers. Wooden bungalows, very simple but with an awesome view. No shower but a barrel and a ladle to rinse off. No electricity, but candle light. No safe locks at your door, but mutual trust amongst the people who stay here. No music, but a concert of animal voices from the jungle. You come here, if you want to enjoy nature, peace and loneliness.
Call Mr. Jones +855 977 649 424  //  www.bhgh.info

After five days of gorgeous days and creepy nights it’s time to move on. Why it’s called “Broken Heart”? Mr. Jones didn’t tell me. Maybe he’ll tell you.

Bye Bye Broken Heart!

The average capital city in the SEA region is big, busy, polluted, loud and crowded.
In Phnom Penh however, the capital of Cambodia, you are pretty much alone at the moment.

The reason for that, is Khmer New Year. Most people have left the city to celebrate with their families on the countryside. That makes Phnom Penh a wonderfully relaxed place…

I started to couch surf.

Couchsurfing is a community of travellers. People offer their sofas to other travellers who happen to be in their city. The “couch surfers” may stay for a couple of days and get the best and tips from their local host how to experience his city authentically. Yes, it’s also about saving costs, but mainly it’s about giving, getting and being sincere about it. As a host, you want to give your guest a good start and you get a fresh breeze into your everyday life. As a surfer you are interested in your host’s life, in his city and culture. As you are grateful for your host’s hospitality thus you behave nicely and help filling the fridge, keeping the house clean and such.

I’m staying at Ramon’s place, close to the Russian market. It’s my first time couchsurfing and this is probably as good as it gets. A three-storey building, 4 bedrooms with private bathrooms, a big kitchen and a shower on the roof top terrace. (link to the video, FB doesn’t get it)

Furthermore my host just bought a local cinema: The Flicks, in 95^th street
If you are in Phnom Penh, you have to check this out – very comfortable sofas and pillows on the floor and a cool movie program.

distance travelled: 21.565km
# of days: 95
# of countries: 6
# of places: 27

It’s been more than 3 months on the road now. Sometimes I ask myself: why is it that I travel?

Travelling alone is challenging. It’s rollercoaster between feeling like failure and living the life of a rockstar. You eat alone at a restaurant … alone … that’s pretty weird. And while the group next to you is having a great time you sit alone at the bar and drink your cheap virgin banana milk shake. No matter how self-assured you are – this affects you! But then, you strike up a conversation with the fun group next to you, and you end up in a night club, having proper drinks and the time of your life. You stagger home at 5am and wonder how the hell all of this happened.
Sure, I want to see places, get to know people, experience cultures, live adventures. But in the end it’s a journey through yourself, because – believe me – you have never spent so much time with yourself alone.

What’s your life at home?
You drive a nice car? You have good and deep conversations with friends that have known you forever? Drop too many vodka red bulls at your favorite night club? You go to the movies? In 3D? You work out in a fancy fitness club or spend a weekend at a luxurious spa? – Yeah, that’s what life looks like at home. It’s maintaining a steady level of comfort. And if it all doesn’t help – you can still call the number of your favorite sushi delivery and hide at home with some good movies on your comfy sofa and your preferred chocolate cookies.
But when you are a long-term traveller, you don’t have these comfort creators. In fact, you have very little. Instead of your fancy city-apartment you sleep in shitholes, you chose between the same 3 shirts every day, wounds constantly get infected. The people you make friends with today are gone tomorrow, and instead of nice restaurants with red wine & candle light you dine on the street sitting on plastic chairs, eating with dirty spoons from even dirtier plates. Your comfort tool box is very limited when you travel like this. The few tools you have had better be sharp.
What I’m saying is that you need to know exactly how to keep yourself satisfied. And that’s the challenge. Seldom in life do you have to make it with so little help. You gotta find out what keeps you happy. No one else will do it for you.

This is what I mean, when I say (long term) travelling alone is a journey through yourself. Hopefully this knowledge remains with you forever.

I watched a movie today “A Map For Saturday”. It’s about long term travellers: how they feel when they leave home, after a day, week, month, year and how they feel when they come back. The first tear rolled down my cheek after three minutes. I can highly recommend it.

Surprisingly the travellers answer the question “Would you do it again?” not with an instant “YES”.

“Why?” you might ask. Isn’t travelling the coolest, most fun thing you can do in your life? Isn’t travelling something like an extended spring break party?
Well, the honeymoon ends after a while, the sensations flatten out. You see just another sunset, just another temple, just another waterfall, just another cave. Elephants on the street become something normal. Having a glass of wine turns into the highlight.

I miss my family and my friends. I miss having a job. When I travelled with a return ticket in my pocket, I never spent a single second thinking of home. This time around, I indulge in lovely memories of home: the loving people, the good times I spent, the level of comfort I enjoyed and the peaceful routine.
Have I thought about finishing up travelling and going back? – You bet!! At the same time I feel it’s too early to do that. There is more to come.

If you come to Bali, make sure you spend some days in Ubud. I’ve stayed for more than one week now, and I could easily stay another two. Life is easy and colorful. Good taste and ambience seems to be common sense here. The surrounding area is full of interesting sights and rice paddies which can easily compete with Northen Vietnam.
Worth mentioning is also the infrastructure. If you are travelling longterm, you value big supermarkets and fitness clubs which accept daily & weekly memberships. Here are my Top 5 for Ubud

1. Yoga
   Not hard to find, but hard to chose. If you are a beginner and you want to do Yoga just because you want to able to say “I did yoga where they shot Eat Pray Love”, any class at any Guest House or Homestay will do the job. Expect to pay 50.000-100.000 Rp (4-8€) per class.
   If you are more advanced however, or seriously interested to learn, sweat and improve, then I can highly recommend taking private lessons. In only three sessions I went from being a greenhorn to  touching my toes with my hands.
   
   Warta, my Baninese Yoga instructor, has 15 years experience in teaching Ashtanga and Hatha Yoga to students of all levels. He teaches at bigger hotels and will soon open his own studio on Jl. Pratama Nusa Dua.

   His contact details:
   Warta
   tel. +62 (0361) 948 045
   mobile. +62 (081) 338 51 56 56

   Price is around 200.000-250.000 Rp (16-20€) per private class. Believe me, he is worth every cent!

2. Massage
   Deep tissue massage guys!! That is applying pressure till it hurts. Gentile Thai hands are sweet, but traditional Balinese massage really work your body from head to toe. I can recommend:

   Milano Salon
   (ask for: Mrs Nur, Mrs Mut or Anika)
   take a right from Monkey Forest Road immediately before the football field.

   They have a pamper room for couples with shower & jacuzzi. Nice.
   1 hour Balinese Massage 80.000 Rp (6,50€)

3. Ubud Fitness Center
   Convenient, friendly, never too full.
   
   day: 50.000 Rp (4€)
   week: 160.000 Rp (13€)

   Opening Hours: 7am-8pm
   Jl. Jero Gading
   Tel. +62 (0361) 974804

4. Argasoka Bungalows
   
   Ubud is not cheap. You hardly find anything nice under 200.000 Rp. This place has sweet bungalows with patios facing the garden, located on Monkey Forest Road in the center, with breakfast included. (Prices start at 150.000 Rp, ask for discounts of you stay more than a day) And most important, the two women who run it, Yuni and Sri, are the sweetest ladies you can imagine. They will always welcome you with a smile and help you with everything they need.
5. My Top 3 Sights
   you can easily visit these places on one day if you rent a moto or get yourself a driver.

   1. Rice Terrace
   

   2. Gunung Kawi
   

   3. Volcano
   (bring a pullover)
   

It’s time to get my roots done… urgently.

This time I’m in Bali. I did some research online, but not very successful. The only place which caught my eye, is Mai Mai Salon in Canggu. It looks very modern, they speak English and use Schwarzkopf products. So I made an appointment.

It turned out that the guy who does my color is a trainee and does highlights for the very first time. OMG, while this could be flattering in other areas, you don’t want to be “the first” at the hairdresser!!
The angel on my right says “C’mon, he has to start with somebody. And it’s the one in a million opportunity for him to learn how to deal with caucasian hair.” Whereas the devil on my left says “I pay enough money for this, I don’t want my hair to be fucked up – go find a different guinea pig!”

Sigh… my altruistic me wins the battle.

I explain him three times how I want my hightlingts to be done. His hands shiver as he grabs my hair. I feel his nervousness.
OMG… please let this have a happy end!!

But praying doesn’t help. This guy needs assistance! So I end up teaching him how to do highlights on the go. From seperating the strands up to applying color and wrapping the whole thing in foil.
After 25 minutes I have a tidy sum of three foils on my head. (just as a reference: to get the whole head done, it takes 20-30 foils easily) I quickly do the maths: thats 3,5 hours just for the color?!? No Way!!!

I call the owner and politely ask her, if someone could help him, please. So they start to work in a team of five.

I expected the worst —- as always.
But look at the result:

Not bad, huh?

I’m super satisfied with the color. The cut however… okay, let’s put it like this: Asia hasn’t gone through a traumatic mullet (dt. VoKuHiLa) phase in the 80s, they catch up now. And this is the haircut I got. Fortunately, mullets (dt. VoKuHiLas) work better with Asian hair, because it’s straight.
Which brings me to my concern with my new haircut: my hair is not straight. Especially not with this high humidity in Indonesia.
On the photo the cut looks great (after blow drying and straightening out). One hour later however, the curls came out and sabotaged my look.

Well, what can I say… I deal with it by wearing my hair in a pony tail most of the time.

After all, I recommend this place and I would definitely go there again. It’s modern, clean and they use high quality products. Prices are reasonable too. For washing, cutting, highlights (2 colors), treatment and finish I paid around EUR 45,-

Mai Mai Salon & Spa
Jln. Raya Aseman Canggu (there is no number)
Kuta – Bali
Tel. +62 (0361) 844 59 42, +62 (0361) 744 51 35
mobile +62 (081) 338 993 308

The address is misleading, if you ask me… Mai Mai is on Raya Canggu, in the yellow area on the map. (If you know Canggu: if you drive from the Dia market to Kuta/Denpasar, it’s after the right-left-turn of the street on your left hand side. if you see a big red-ish gas station on your right, you’ve gone too far)

I—–L-O-V-E——B-A-L-I

This was shortly before the macaque decided to bite my nipple… outch!!

Let’s rather play with one of my kind…

What do people NOT want to deal with, when they are travelling?
Correct: seeing a dentist.

Here we go, I need to see a dentist. I’m on Bali and have had toothache for several weeks now. I heard that Australians come to Bali to have their teeth done because it’s much cheaper here. Just like Austrians travel to Hungary to fix their teeth. Reportedly dentists in Bali take a trip to the US for a training once a year. Sounds promising – now or never!

Dr Haris Wibowo was recommended to me by a friend. I called and got an appointment the very next day.

The entrance door looked not so sterile, honestly speaking. I expected the worst and was ready to back down and accepting the pain for the (very long) rest of my trip.

Dr Wibowo quickly relieved me of any concerns. (It also helped that his instruments said “SIEMENS”. German quality I trust.) He explained me why I have this pain that it’s easy to fix. Okay – let’s go.

Oh wow – this was one of the best dentist appointments I ever had. Dr Wibowo was laughing, humming music, his assistant giggled most of the time while I was staring at the soft toys dangling over my head… life is easy.
Seriously, Dr Wibowo was very gentle. So gentle that, although he treated my most sensitive tooth, I didn’t need any anesthesia. He even used a white filling, that’s standard in Bali, he said.

Pricepoint: 400.000 Rp, that’s less than 40 EUR (!!!) for consultancy, the filling, a ready to send bill for my insurance and 30 minutes of his valuable time.

Wow. I’m impressed. And happy.

I also asked for teeth whitening: 500,- USD when he does it in his practice (2 hours) and 160,- USD for the “do it yourself” version. Used products: BriteSmile, an American brand.

If you are in Bali and have problems with your teeth, I can totally recommend this dentist.
Again, his contact details:

Haris Wibowo, DDS
(Dokter Gigi)
Jalan Diponegoro 150 / A-32
Kompleks Ruko IDT (Genteng Biru)
Denpasar – Bali – Indonesia
Tel. +62 361 222541
email: harissynergy@yahoo.co.id

It’s a little bit tricky to find. Best is to come from the junction Jl. Teku Umar and Jl Pulau Seram. Very soon you take a left. His practice is one of the first in this intersecting street. The photo above shows the main entrance.