Bolivia (Uyuni, La Paz, Death Road, Copacabana)

Finishing our second part of the Chile trip, we took a three day tour from San Pedro de Atacama through the area around the Salar de Uyuni to Uyuni. The trip (with Cortillera´s safe, Michael Schumacher-like  and very funny driver Javier) was a combination of some very unique wonders of nature. Within a very short time we got to see green, red and white lakes, saw Flamingos, drove by unique rock formations and took pictures of hundreds of picunas, lamas and the like. During all this we could always enjoy the panorama of sometimes multi-colored, somtimes snowy mountain-tops and volcanos. The “Salar de Uyuni” tour was already a highlight before we even reached the highlight of the tour itself: the Uyuni salt flat. This former lake is now a desert-like area of nearly 12´500 km2 completely covered with plain white salt (and at least one very small island somewhere in the middle of nowhere). You can barely see some of the mountain tops at the horizon as you drive through this area – it is again something that cannot be described with words. It´s wonder of nature that has to be experienced (and is very, very cold in South American Winter!!!).

The town of Uyuni didn´t have anything special except for the spooky train cemetery to offer. So we wanted to move on quickly to Potosi, which the mine workers didn´t want us to do and decided to strike for better working conditions. Finally we had to go straight to La Paz where we spend a calm day in the internet and watched some Eurocup. The Highlight of our stay in La Paz was a mountain bike trip (64km in total) on the “Death Road”, which got its name from the fact that 200-300 people used to die on these mighty 34km every year and many still die. Apparently an unnamed American insurance company assessed this road as the “the most dangerous road of the world”.

The first 30km could be speeded down until the beginning of the real 34km “Death Road” (our agency was Downhill Madness and I can highly recommend them because of their attitude to safety, their excellent bikes and their well-trained guides). From there the street gets narrower, collections of crosses indicate that many people died along the way and the guides keep telling stories about the most recent deathly accidents along the way. From time to time one can see rusty left-overs from cars that fell over the corner of the road. It´s fast, it´s fun and it´s safe as long as you  do exactly what the guides tell you to do and as long as you keep 99.9% control of your bike. One guy from another group lost control of his bike and fell off the road near the “Israelian Corner” just as we were passing the place. Being very, very, very, very, very lucky this guy could hold on to some bushes and managed to climb back to the road without any serious injuries. Generally speaking, this trip was another good and very fun adventure.

After another calm day in the town of La Paz we moved to Copacabana at lake Titicaca where Adrian had to recover from his sickness and Flo and me could enjoy our hostel´s hammocks, a walk around the calm and very little town centre, as well as a trip to Isla del Sol. Lake Titicaca doesn´t look like a lake at all. It rather looks like an ocean (8´500 km2) on 4000m above sea level :-). The next step was to move to Peru (Puno) to see Germany lose the Eurocup final.

Argentina (Buenos Aires, Iguazu, Salta)

Our stay in Argentina started with a big “FEAST week” in Buenos Aires (BsAs). Flo´s relatives took extra care of us and made sure that in no second of the day would fit anything (no matter how liquid or small) into our stomachs. We met some friends, went out and generally really, really, really seriously enjoyed the world-famous fantastic Argentinian meat. Furthermore we went to an “estancia” where we got to taste some touristy wrap up of  Argentinian Gaucho culture as well as selections of music and dances from all over the country.

Our next stop was Iguazu, a spot that cannot be described in words. One has to experience this wonder of nature. Even pictures (yet to be uploaded to facebook) can only transmit some small parts of the impression this landscape makes on its visitors.

We crossed the “big Argentinian nothing”, had a stop-over in Posadas (nothing special to tell about this place) and finally reached Salta from where we did a daytrip to San Antonio de los Cobres. On this day we got to see multi-colored rocks, experienced THE altitude (4700m) for the very first time and finally got stuck in Salta because of snow in the mountains before we could eventually move on to San Pedro de Atacama (Chile). On our way back from the daytrip (at a gas station to be precise) somebody crashed into our rental and – as we expected from the very beginning – we have to pay for the fixing even though we were clearly not responsible for this day-dreamer hitting our stopped car from the back.

In summary, I love Argentina for its unparalleled Asados and steaks. Furthermore I think their bus system must be among the very best in the world and the country offers many more landscapes that make it worth another visit. Argentina – I will come back for sure!

Chile (Santiago, Valparaiso, San Pedro de Atacama)

Our trip to Chile was divided into two parts. First, coming from Sydney, we visited the area around Santiago and secondly, after having visited Argentina, we came back to travel around the highlands around San Pedro de Atacama.

The south was very much a visit to some parts of Flo´s extended family who took very good care of us. After a warm welcome they would always make sure that we were stuffed to the limit and enjoy the best food n´drinks the country has to offer. Thus in terms of nutrition the first part was GREAT SUCCESS. Santiago itself doesn´t seem to have so many things to offer as compared to other cities and the smog there was worse than at any other place I had seen before. The whole city was wrapped into a black cloud and you could literally feel the pollution with every breath. Valparaiso is different. Being the weekend hangout for a large part of Santiago´s population, it features some scenic restaurants and bars as well as a unique scenerey (the elevators, colourful buildings, beautiful coast strips and a nice ocean view). All in all I´d love to come back to Chile in order to explore the famous vineyards and landscapes of the south but I probably wouldn´t go back to Santiago for any other reason than having to use the airport. Generally speaking our visit was a very interesting, spoiled and eye-opening time.

The northern part of Chile can be described in one word: altitude. Everything from travel hints to menus in restaurants and chats with fellow travellers has something to do with the altitude of the landscapes around San Pedro de Atacama. We almost managed to crack the 6000 (due to bad weather turning up we had to give up at 5900), survived many nights in very cold hostels (below zero INSIDE the room) and most importantly enjoyed some of the most beautiful landscapes I have come to see in my life. It feels strange to know that you spend the whole time at around the altitude that could be called the roof top of Europe and you´re by far not yet on the roof top of Chile / the Andes. In summary, our stay in northern Chile was about getting to know beautiful, wide landscapes, experiencing some of the most serious headaches in our lifes and seriously missing what is so natural to us: simple isolation and heating.

Singapore and Sydney (City, Darling Harbour, Manly, Bondi Beach)

Our stay in Singapore was once again influenced by locals guiding us around. Furthermore we met a friend from Switzerland who is currently doing an internship at Swissnex. We arrived in Singapore on friday night and we were a bit exhausted from our extensive partying in Manila. Therefore we settled down and went to the city to meet our Swiss friend. We decided to take it slow and went to a winbar (Cornerstone) to have – exactly – some beer . We got home around 1am. The next day consisted, like the day after, of a lazy morning with breakfast, Wii-Gaming, chatting and wasting time on the internet / reading up news. Furthermore they consisted of some sightseeing in the afternoon and meeting friends at night. We did the usual stuff: the Esplanade, the Merlion, some shopping on Orchard Road, Little India, dinner in Arab Street, etc. The usual touristy stuff  The most special experience for me was the ride on Singapore flyer which turned out to offer an unexpectedly good view over Singapore and the surrounding sea. I also enjoyed our short stay at Cafe del Mar on Sentosa island on sunday as well as to hit some golf balls again after a way to long time without any practice at all. Thanks go out to our friend for his patience when waiting for us, our hosts for kindly offering their premises AGAIN! and for our local friend to play the tourguide AGAIN!. As always, it’s the people who make a stay in a city special and we both really liked it – so you guys must have done a good job. So again, thank you guys! (some photos are accessible on facebook)

After only a few days in Singapore we moved on to Sydney. We moved to a city that was completely unknown to both of us. A city that turned out to be a great place. A city that I would call the first serious competition to Zurich when it comes to atmosphere in daily life (although it’s too far away from other interesting places to become my overall number one, of course . If we have read about cities to be the centerpoint of “fusion between tradition and latest fashion/design” a few times on our travel, Sydney is what I’d really call the perfect combination of the best from old as well as new times. They have the shiny good looking skyscrapers, a good public transport system, good food from all corners of the world, really fast internet and nice people who don’t generally try to trick you while people here seem to be well aware of their past and they seem to know how to conserve the charm of old buildings within a fast paced city environment. They renovate old harbour-side warehouses, old hotels and bank houses but they keep the facades. Furthermore the city features beautiful beaches that are reachable by ferry / train in 15-30 minutes. Generally, Sydney just features the right mix of nearly everything (except for mountains and snow) to offer a really high quality of living and to spend a few very exciting days discovering the city as a tourist. Some pictures are available on facebook.

Sydney was a milestone on our travel because it marks the end of our SEA + A part. We are moving to South America tomorrow and we are therefore starting a new chapter of cultural discoveries. It was a great time and I hope I’m able to continue reporting in such an enthusiastic way about the destinations to come.

Philippines (Manila, Tagaytay Highlands)

Just one week to see such a huge country is not enough. And if you’re with locals, you probably tend to live their life instead of travel around and do the touristy stuff. So what we did during the last week is living a one week excerpt of amazing Philippino (mostly Manila) life. We arrived on friday and could stay at a friends’ friend place. We went out had a great time meeting amazing people and didn’t do much during the day. We went out to Embassy at night, met even more great people and went straight to Tagaytay Highlands in the morning (around 6am). The facilities of Tagaytay offered us the possibility to seriously relax for two days, talk a lot about the future, some small scale business plans and simply enjoy life to the max.

We were planning to move to Boracay for some world-famous beach partying (again). But because of the bad weather and – even more important – because of some technical as well as personal issues we decided to move back to Manila (Makati, to be precise) for some days. Again, we basically went out every night meeting good looking people with (as far as one can judge after only a few days of friendship) great personalities behind. Our unexpected hosts in Manila shall not be left unmentioned at this place: Thank you very much for offering us “the Crib” for three days!

So, in summary, Manila was basically about partying, getting to know the local restaurant/shopping areas and making some new friends which make you want to come back. Generally, after my bad experience in Manila last year, this stay completely changed my opinion about the city and it undermined my addiction to the very convenient Asian big city life. I heart big city life

Cambodia (Sihanoukville, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Angkor Wat)

… so I was about to describe the most adventurous part of the travel, right? Here we go:

We left the bus that had taken us from Rach Gia to Ha Tien and got informed that there was no bus crossing the border in direction Sihanoukville or anything near. So we had to hire two motorbike drivers (who were incredible overchargers, of course – the power of monopoly) who took our backpacks to the front (in-between their feet) and us on the back. The ride was a little bumpy on a dusty road and we overpaid our visa by 5 dollars. Since we had heard stories from people who paid up to 50 dollars for “insurance” we must have arrived at a time that the border guards had earned their money from other tourists or in other words we were lucky. Since we had already used our luck for the day, something had to go wrong.

Ok so we hired these motorbike drivers who brought us to the right town (Kampot) but unfortunately didn’t arrange any meeting point before. Their mobiles were not working because they had Vietnamese simcards. On top of that none of the drivers did understand any word of English except for “dollar”. We ended up driving around town, talking to just about anyone who looked like they could possibly understand SOME English or French. Finally I found a guy who was fluent in French and who I could “employ” as my translator. After two hours of waiting, sending a taxi driver around to look for Flo and Flo driving almost all the way back to Vietnam in order to look for me, we met again and we took a taxi to Sihanoukville.

We enjoyed our days there at beautiful beaches playing volleyball, rented a motorbike to drive around and got to try some Cambodia style BBQ on the beaches at night time. Generally, we had some really laid-back time again. The next station of our trip was Phnom Penh a city that is not interesting itself but has the S-21 (Genocide Museum) on its ground. The S-21 shows in frightening closeness to reality some facts of the Khmer Rouge Regime and their activities. It used to be a school before the Khmer Rouge took over and was turned into a prison where prisoners were held like animals (or even worse) and from where they were – if not tortured to death before – deported to the killing fields and executed. Besides the fact that the prison still looks like it looked during the war, the visit was frightening because most of the tour guides are direct close relatives of former prisoners and therefore have personal stories about the prison to tell.

After Phnom Penh, we took a bus again (on which Flo got his camera including most of the pics from Vietnam stolen) and went to Siem Reap. From there we visited THE Cambodian must see spot: the temples of Angkor. Some of the temples are well preserved others have suffered under the aggressive attempts to wipe out religion of the Khmer rouge or you can simply see that they have been mostly untouched by humans and have been left to the forces of nature for some 600 years. The temples of Angkor cannot otherwise not be described in words, one has to see them to get a feeling of it. They are just impressive.

We could finally backup some pictures to picasa. So if anyone is interested in seeing them, please drop me an e-mail so that I can give you the link.

Vietnam (Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sa Pa, Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon, Cu Chi, Phu Quoc, Rach Gia, Ha Tien)

Looking back, our journey to Vietnam was really great (especially foodwise) with only very few annoyances along the way. Even though I should start with the good sides, I’ll quickly go ahead and summarize the bad sides first: horns, horns, horns and traffic, traffic, traffic. That’s about it, besides some very few annoying street vendors of course .

We arrived in Hanoi by airplane from Vientiane and took a humid walk looking for a hostel. The one we found (one from the LP list) featured really friendly service and good, dirt cheap breakfast. Furthermore it was located in a quiet back alley in the middle of the otherwise noisy old quarter where horns from motorcycles, cars and even bicycles replaced the singing birds we got used to in Laos. Since I still had to fix some parts of my BA thesis I couldn’t do that much sightseeing and therefore I didn’t get to see the grave of Mr. Vietnam aka Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. I saw the old quarter with its lake in the middle (some part of it is probably shown on every postcard you will ever receive from Hanoi) and I’d really like it if only they would remove this annoying street circling the lake.

Back to summary: We arranged a trip to Halong Bay which was amazing (just google if you want to find out more). After we returned from our two day one night trip to Halong, we took a shower and went straight into the night train bound for Sa Pa (with some little one hour bus ride at the end). I’m glad we booked a four bed soft sleeper and we were on a touristy train because we could sleep well. We were a little concerned about the train ride because we had heard stories about horrible train rides in Vietnam (especially along the east cost). So after a Vietnamese birthday party at our hotel in Sa Pa, a unique and amazing trek through the mountains (covered with rice fields) and a general good time with two English and two Danish, we returned to Hanoi at 5am in order to move to the airport and fly straight to Saigon. So we didn’t do the usual tourist track along the east coast via Hue, etc. because we couldn’t get any train tickets. This was due to the Vietnamese national day (public holiday). Actually it was the third public holiday that caused overbookings in literally all available means of public transport and therefore made us change our plans! It’s time for backpacker rule #3: Before you leave home, make sure you possess an overview of all public holidays at your destination and the people’s habits connected to these holidays.

So, again, we arrived in Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City by airplane. I generally liked the “capital of the south” better than I liked Ha Noi because the city just felt more laid-back while there was still something going on in every corner at every time of the day/night. In other words HCMC made the impression of a vibrant yet laid-back place on me where people strive for success in business (not for “lelax” as they do in Laos). Since we had the opportunity to meet Mathias (a fellow golfer and HSG buddy) we got to taste some of the best food of the trip (except for the soup that ruined my new white polo shirt) and again, generally just had a good time. In and around HCMC we went to see the really impressive war remnants museum (where the public can access pictures of American soldiers lifting up parts of the bodies of Viet Congs that had been hit by bombs, agent orange victims, napalm victims, hostages in “tiger cages” etc.) as well as the Cu Chi Tunnels (the famous, incredibly narrow tunnels where Cu Chi soldiers hid during the Vietnam war). Generally speaking, HCMC was very interesting and very good governmental propaganda for uninformed visitors.

We then moved on to Phu Quoc, a relatively undeveloped yet beautiful island in the south of Vietnam. We relaxed, enjoyed the beach (where we had lunch aka “chocolate pancakes and banana shakes” as well as dinner) and I could finally finish my BA thesis Yippie! The only downside was the fact that I turned myself into a Lobster by walking along the beach for a few hours – what a tragedy! After two days of relaxation we took a ferry to Rach Gia from where we took a bus to Ha Tien in order to start the most adventurous part of our trip so far…

Laos (Houai Sai, Pakbeng, Luang Prabang and Vientiane)

After we came back from our trip to the hill tribe village we spent some more time chilling in Chiang Mai (Bow Chiang Mai Guesthouse) before another van came to pick us up and take us in direction Chiang Khong (or so) where we would stay over night in order to cross the border in the morning. Since we were the last passengers to enter the van, I got a crappy seat in the back. Actually I got half a seat because the other half was used by the luggage of some girls who had taken huge suitcases instead of backpacks on their backpacking trip – I still keep their faces in “good” memory.

Arriving at the hostel we could prove what we had called the “backpacker rule of thumb for trips” before. The rule says that as a typical backpacker you want to tell people stories about you being ripped off, going through serious sh*#! and still pretend to be enjoying your time. What you have to do is to bargain on the cheapest trip you could find, so as to pay half the price of what normal tourists pay and you’ll get a real backpacker bullshit trip for sure – for only half the price of real comfort (Half the price in Thailand usually means that you save about 2-3 USD per day, which according to our experience the typical backpacker spends on beer. So in fact if you do shitty trips or you travel in comfort is not a matter of money it is rather a matter of your valuation of beer). So after this crappy bus ride we arrived in a even worse hostel at the thai border were we were served crappy food. We decided that we’d make this trip our first and very last “real backpacker” experience. For our gusto we had gone through enough trouble by that time and we prefer telling stories about the policemen at the customs offering you marijuana – which actually happens quiet often in Laos – to stories about the crap we “survived”.

After a good sleep in a dirty as hell hostel we crossed the border to Houai Sai, where we got offered marijuana for the first time by our Lao tour guide. Then we got our visa and guess what … they offered us marijuana again. Do we really look like drug addicts? I didn’t think so until this point of time. We moved about 150 m in direction of the place where we were supposed to take a boat bound for Pakbeng (half way to Luang Prabang) and we got offered marijuana again. This time a shop owner wanted to sell us something “to smoke”. There must be something about us making us look like we actually wanted to smoke one of the economically most important agricultural products of Laos. Entering the boat, the ticket officer also had some special green substance to offer and when we reached the guest house in the evening someone entered to offer us .. exactly “a smoke”. Ok, let’s face it. Rule #2: As a backpacker you have to deal with drug dealers because typical backpackers seem to smoke weed.

- STOP -

Have I mentioned that the wooden seats on the boat with about 30cms space for the legs and a 100% vertical backrest didn’t really add to my positive mood and neither did the fact that electricity in Pakbeng was turned off at 10.30pm so that we had no more fan? Pakbeng itself is a cosy village that only exists to host tourists on their way to Luang Prabang. I liked it but I didn’t like the food we were served by a “real” Indian (my bet goes for Malaysia; just to make sure I don’t forget: the waiter at this restaurant was trying to sell us ”something to smoke” too). We had been warned by our loyal travel guide LP that Lao usually don’t consume their food as it’s still hot. I prefer re-heated food to be hot rather than cold when I eat it.

Surprisingly we had a nice group of people around us and could catch a nice place on the floor in the front of the boat for the second day of our trip (9 hours boat ride). In fact the second day was ok and the incredibly nice riverside guesthouse in Luang Prabang (we paid comparably expensive 13 dollars for the room) finally turned my mood back to holiday mode.  We met up with the fairly international crew (Chile, Argentina, Spain, Ireland, England, Germany, Switzerland) that we had spent the day with, went to a restaurant had a few drinks and talked a lot (aka had fun). The next days were similar: some sighseeing, “international dinners” at nighttime and then some local market / club experience (Lao fake western music rocks!). One of the highlights was the nearby waterfall which featured crystal clear turquoise water – a dream came true as I stood in front of the “natural swimming pool”. In general Luang Prabang felt like real holiday again and I really loved the place for it’s combination of nature, markets, well preserved french colonial style buildings and laid-back people. (Although the many marijuana dealers aka waiters, tuk tuk drivers and tour guides got a little annoying after a while.)

We took a bus to Vientiane on which we got to know a German girl who had spent an internship there two years ago. She knew the place quiet well and again (like in Beijing and Hong Kong) we didn’t need a map to get around town and to discover the best restaurants/bars around. Vientiane is not a special place in any way but I still liked it. In summary, I absolutely loved Laos but I wouldn’t recommend anyone taking the boat trip we took. I’d rather recommend to fly straight to Luang Prabang and take a one day boat trip from there to the north.

Again, I have to postpone my picture uploads due to extremely slow internet connection.

Thailand (Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai)

“Dear passendschas, we will shohtly be arriving in Bangkok International Airport, please put your seats …”, said the Captain. These were the words which made me feel like our holidays had finally started. Even though Beijing was new to me, I was used to Chinese culture and Chinese cities before. I knew basically what to eat how pronounce the English words for people to understand them and therefore didn’t feel entirely foreign there. I felt at home in Hong Kong and was looking forward to feeling foreign to Thailand. I was looking forward to experiencing something completely new.

So here we were, at the centerpoint of old-new fusion, where daily relaxation was supposed to meet strong business ambitions. We tried to get an impression of every side of Bangkok. We stayed close to the business disctrict (if there is such thing as ONE business district in Bangkok), tried out the fairly new sky train, took a boat tour on the river (the canals: no snake farm, no orchid farm) went to the Grand Palace, saw the Reclining Buddha (read: Recycling Buddha) and tried good Thai curries, spicy soups, etc. (of course Flo had to eat with chop sticks as well). All in all Bangkok was an interesting place that I would not want to live in (not even for a few months) in the years to come. Therefore it was probably the last (very interesting) time that I spent some part of my holidays in Bangkok in this decade.

After we had some trouble to move further north from Bangkok (due to the public holiday during the Songkran festival), we booked a flight to Chiang Mai and arrived there at the zenith of the Songkran (aka Water Festival). We had to make our way through the water spitting masses. Literally the whole city was on their feet spitting water at each other exactly on this one street that we had to pass to reach our hostel. People were respectful and left our backpacks as dry as possible while they made sure every single spot of our bodies/clothes was entirely wet. The other days in Chiang Mai were extremely relaxed because the 300 temples are all located around the centre and you’d never walk more than one km from one to the other. We decided to take a trip to some hill tribe village and stay there over night. The trip was exhausting, especially because of the incredible heat. But the guitar music at the fire (played by some seriously drunk inhabitants of the village) on top of mountains, where we could finally breath fresh air again, could more than compensate for that. In Summary, our stay in and around Chiang Mai was a good holiday with some interesting insights into Thai culture.

Again, pictures for this post will follow as the opportunity arises.

Hong Kong, Cheung Chau and Macau

Coming back to see so many people was a great experience. The arrival felt a little bit like coming home to me. Getting back to Wan Chai, passing all the familiar spaces in central and finally shaking hands with some of the guys who added a lot of shared memories to my exchange was just great. Although I had been there before, I used the opportunity to introduce Florian to the calm side of Hong Kong a.k.a. Cheung Chau Island where we took a walk around the island and generally just enjoyed a laid-back day with nice weather. We spent a day at university and went for lunch with the Swedish (plus Lady Holly). Another day we did a bus tour around Hong Kong Island with stops in Pokfulam, Aberdeen, Stanley, Shek O and Central. We went to Oysters and Volar (obviously with a large part of THE team) and continued the next day with a trip to the Bid Buddha as well as a “hang-over” brunch at Brunch Club. We concluded our stay with a very international barbecue at Shek O beach (thank you very much for making this happen, Julian!) as well as another night with dinner with the Koreans (Holly, Ashley and Bobby).

On monday we left our beloved couch at Gabin’s and Vincent’s to see a friend’s dad in Macau. Since I had visited him before I knew he was a perfect host and I expected that he was going to make us feel at home. He offered his world-reknown hospitality again and we therefore both enjoyed to chat about the recent past as well the happenings in Macau in a 100% relaxed atmosphere with excellent food and comfortable accomodation. We got to see the Lisboa, the Grand Lisboa, the Venetian, the Sands, etc. and we even got to understand some basic rules of professional gambling.

In summary, our stay in Hong Kong was a good experience for Flo. He really liked the place. For me it was more about seeing the people which I really liked as well. Macau was great too and we were therefore keen to make some more valuable experiences on our route in South-East Asia.

(Pictures will be published as the opportunity arises. Some are already accessible through Facebook.)