Thursday, October 2nd

I have a whole bunch of photos laying around from the SEA trip I recently returned from. To keep my mind busy, to save them somewhere, I've decided to pick up on blogging. I doubt I'll ever not not blog, in some way or another. I realised today, as I wrote long, long texts on my week at Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai - I've missed blogging. The photo above is from August 2013 and that's where the latest addition of posts will begin. Hope you'll enjoy! x

THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD.

Leaving Melbourne and being dramatically thrown straight into an RV with yer folks that you haven't seen in months. Afterwards like this, I'm happy to announce that Yes - we survived our 8 day road trip through Victoria and SA. Despite how it was, indeed, a great road, 8 days was far too much. Especially seeing how this RV we rented was designed for two adults and... One child. 

Two adults and one child. What that means is basically that I, the child, had to spend the days squeezed in between the two of them (the adults) in the front seat. Now we shall not forget how a certain person, to my right, was in the midst of severe nicotine (in terms of snus) withdrawal mood swings and the person to my left wasn't coping too well, mentally, with the fact that traffic suddenly had swaped sides. At my position in the middle of the car I had two very important tasks that I took on with fullest responsibility: a) being the manual GPS and b) being the announcer of The Magic Words. ("OK, snack break!").

       Yet, the days were nothing compared to the nights. The nights that I, as the beloved and privileged child that I am, had to spend on the marvelous LOFT*.

Now the *Loft offers you a very generous 1,5 metre to stretch out on with a claustropobic height of, say, 25 centimetres. To top things off all I got in terms of a duvet the first night was a towel, as the car rental people only brought us one blanket to share between 3 people. How exactly this blanket was supposed to cover first two people on the bottom levell which, mind you, it barely did - then stetch all the way up to the marvelous loft? Well, to this day, it beats me...

The beautiful scenery made it all worth while though. Driving through South Coast Australia was like travelling through a range of all other countries I've visited. You just don't know what sort of vegetation the next corner (and there's quite a few of them) will bring.

MELBOURNE (or 'Stockholm, Bristol and NYC has a love child')

It is mid January and Melbourne is in the beginning of a plus-40-degress-four-days-in-a-row period, and these are of course coinciding with my first days in the city. When I arrive at Tullamarine airport just after midnight local time it's well above thirty celsius. As I can't check in at the hostel until 10am the following morning, I spend my first night sleeping on a pile of laundry bags in the corridor.

City glitter. One of many evenings at the Spencer's balcony, watching that darn ferris wheel.

Despite how it literally hurts to breathe in the heat, I am very excited to explore the city. Here's like a mixture of Bristol, Stockholm and perhaps New York City. (Perhaps, as I've never been to the big apple). Colonial buildings crosses skyscrapers and street art. Some days I feel, because of the time difference, like I live in a universe parallell to where my loved ones are. While they're doing their morning chores and head off to work/university in Europe, I'm in the future wandering these streets and if I were to get run over by a tram, this town's full of them, no one would know who I even was.

Can't write about Melbourne without featuring Ganesha. 

Being alone and nearly broke in a new city is definately a challenge. But it is an important lesson that everything works out, eventually. I find a job cleaning at different festivals (festival season, yay!), do work for accommondation at the hostel (where I'll end up staying for the next 4 months) and meet some really good people to spend time with in the Melbourne summer. Suddenly the sun is shining again.

2013 TURNS 2014 IN PAI.

Christmas is over and after spending some days apart I meet up with Heidi in Pai in time to celebrate the new year. 

We rent a bungalow and have our own house cat (!!!) Free of charge - kaching 

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Found this flyer laying around. "No hippy bongo playing dreadlocked freaks please", mate - you've come to the wrong town then. 

Taking a shower looked like this - pretty pretty 

At Chang-o-clock we meet up with our new found Aussie friend Steve to spend the last afternoon of 2013 together. My instagram caption to this photo goes something like "Life of Pai", it's a hard knock one indeed. 

 As evening approaches we head out to the Trance Spirit Festival, stuffed on the back of a pick-up driving through the dark of northern Thailand. There we randomly bump into Mariana, a woman we met months earlier whilst exploring Luang Prabang. Such a funny coincidence, to meet her at the tiny Trance Spirit Festival of all places. 

After some time we head back to Pai in time for the fire works, which turn out to be complete madness. They go left and right (and at some points along the ground so we have to run away from them) as they fill up the dark night. 

To wrap the evening up we perform a (once and for all) quality check between Chang-Leo-Singha and have another round of peanut butter-banana-roti's before we finally head to sleep, wrapped in all of our garments to protect from the cold. Farewell then 2013! You've been a good year. 

TOUR de BALI (or 'Ubud-Lovina-Kuta')

To me, Indonesia only seems to get better the further out east we get. Coming from Java, Bali feels like a gasp of fresh air. Our first stop on this island (apart from a night spent in the capital Denpasar) is beautiful Ubud.

Temple door of Ubud. 

Ubud is, apart from where Julia Roberts snogs Javier Bardem in Eat Pray Love, full of galleries of local art, hosts some magnificent food (like the Tempeh Satay at Mama's Warung!) and is, unfortunately, also home of the so-called Monkey Forest. Remembering my last encounter with a schimpanzee, I wouldn't say I was too keen to enter this place. But as the entry fee was about 10 kronor I figured why wouldn't I come along if the other girls were doing it. And for a moment or so, I was almost enjoying myself. I was just about to feel relaxed when a monkey suddenly jumps Elme. He sits on top her head for a while and Heidi laughingly tries to take a photo, when the monkey decides to jump her instead. Yeah, it's all fun and games until you've got a monkey on your head, as the Romans used to say...  

Two young boys playing at the Lovina shores. 

After a few days in Ubud, we took a long taxi ride to the north and Lovina Beach. After promises from Resha and Shariff that there'd be epic dolphin watching to be done. Now who does not wish to be in a boat surrounded by jumping dolhpins? That's right, that's probably how half the tourist population of Bali was to be seen entering one spider-shaped boat after another.

      Of course the dolphins were scared senseless, and time and time again, the drivers tried to chase them to force them out of the water so the paying audince could go "oooh" and point their cameras in that direction. After a while, I honestly just wished it would be over so the animals could be left in peace. Furthermore, I was relieved that neither of my companions fell overboard as their heavy hungover heads (after spending the previous night drinking and open-micing with some of the locals) seemed to force them into micronaps. Dolphin watchin gets 0 out of 5 toasters. It felt kind of like at our snorkeling trip at the Perhentians when Asian tourists who couldnt swim kept stepping on the coral reefs (!!!!!) and a man forced a giant turtle up to the surface so that we could take photos. No thanks, I'll swim the other direction, thank you. 

There aren't many photos from Kuta. So this is of me and H, stolen from Elme's instagram feed. 

Finally we ended up at Kuta Beach. Where Heidi lost her phone at SkyGarden and we all lost each other after too many energy drinks at Alleycats. Trying to find my way home through the many poppies lane (had a photo of our hostel sign saved in my phone - "hey, have you seen this place?") as the sun was rising at 7am, I stumbled upon a bunch of strangers sat outside 7-eleven. They invited me to have a seat as I explained that I was lost and then this Irish fellow created a chunky kitkat for me after I complained they only sold the "regular one". (How to create a chunky kitkat: break the regular one in half and place them atop eachother, work wonders. Or maybe that's the arak speaking.) 

      This is also where I had my first trip to the moon and the sky turned batique and I held Heidis hand as we walked home through the sparkling neonlights. 

MT BROMO PHOTO DIARY.

 Heading out just before the sunset to catch the active volcano of Mount Bromo. 

 Pastel sky. 

The mixes of ashes and sand was just flying around our feet as we walked through the valley leading up to the volcano. 

Misty mountains. 

And here it is - my first ever volcano. Wasn't really what I had expected. Just a lot of fog rising. 

 In the midst of the valley was a temple. Beautifully set, among all the mountain tops. 

 A group of locals hanging about in the village. 

Moments before the sun made her first appearance. Such a peaceful moment; sitting there with steam rising from our cuppa noodles, before the chinese tourists arrive in hoards and block the view whilst taking photos (using flash, rookie mistake!!) 

 And there she finally was. Beautiful as ever. 

 Elme was attempting a sunrise-stop motion, meanwhile the volcano is spitting out some clouds in the background. 

Our newfound friends documented whilst documenting. 

From the bus ride on our way back "to solid earth". Me and Heidi were squeezed in the front seat. Worried sick as we rolled down those thin, undulating roads without any seat belts and a driver who obviously was not familiar with the term speed limits. 

MOUNT BROMO (or "All pastel")

We are on our way from Yogja to Surabaya when the bus breaks down. There is a loud bang and before we know it, we are standing still at the side of the road. The tyre has exploded and we are positively in the Middle of Nowhere, Rural Java. As our fellow passangers one after another steps outside in the sizzling afternoon sun, we begin to realize we are probably stranded here for a while.

      In a situation as such it is indeed immensely difficult to make much sense of what happends next (will there be a new bus, are we waiting here to repair this one, are we stuck here forever?) considering no one speaks the same language. After two long hours, just as E and H has disappeared around the corner to get us some food, the tyre is suddenly fixed and rapidly everyone starts entering the bus again. Oh shoot, will they leave without us? They are probably tired of waiting. So I start running back and forth, getting our backpacks back on the bus, calling on my friends to hurry up and making some sort of charades for the passangers to assure they will be here in less than a minute. I'm not sure my performance is very clear, but at least I get them to laugh and I reckon that is a beautiful thing after this long afternoon. As the bus starts rolling and we sit there laughing with these strangers I realize how it is all about the mindset. 

This day could've been absolutely horrible but it is about how you choose to look at things. As they say, it's not the destination, but the journey. 

Our petit crew watching the sun make her appearance.

So we reach the NP of Mount Bromo on Friday morning. At one of the two food stalls we meet the Singaporeans Shariff and Resha. You know how in the Sims 2 they get this like little rush for a few hours after making a new friend? That's how we all felt after this meeting, a wee friend crush. We spent the evening wrapped up like penguins in our hostel blankets, passing ciggarettes and a bottle of gin and watching stars fall across the pitch black sky. 

After only a few hours of sleep we rise again at 3:30am to begin hiking up to the look out point to enjoy the sunrise. We get surpassed by tonnes of big jeeps driving hoards of tourists up the top. A bit stressed we try to walk faster, we don't want to miss the sun. Yet we seem to be amongst the first ones to reach the top of the look out point. Possibly because the last 25% of the hike is far too steep for any jeeps to travel, so at the end we are the ones surpassing everyone. At the top we purchase cuppa noodles to keep warm and sit there watching the sun slowly push the night away.