Vagabonding in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, without plan or destination.
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Thailand
Change of scenery… I am following the sun and went to Ko Lanta. That’s an island south of the tourist epicenter of Phuket and Ko Phi Phi, and far quieter than these. The beach resorts are widely spaced along its west coast, and it’s all sand and not paved. To get there I had to pass a night in Phuket Town, and it was actually much more pleasant than I remember from earlier trips. The Thai cuisine might have something to do with that. So what to do on Ko Lanta? Diving of course. Saw a shark and several turtles. Followed one with a bright read shield for several minutes, so close that I could have touched it. Amazing how these creatures are so slow and awkward on land, and so quick and elegant under water! … Read the rest
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Quiet Bali
It happened that the hall of the my chosen villa was full of French and Quebecois people, including a couple who live nearby. They know all the best restaurants so we got on a flock of motorbikes and had an excellent lunch. Much of the afternoon we stayed at their place, a big house filled with Balinese art, and a pool in a tropical garden. The town of Ubud uses to be a sleepy artist colony, but now it’s strangled by thunderous traffic. A disappointment. … Read the rest
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Back to Bali
I seem to be having a lot of connectivity issues… Catching up. Diving on Gili Air, and enjoying the mellow atmosphere of the island that is so sadly missing on Gili T. Then on to a couple more days on Bali – but not in those frenetic southern towns, but in a villa out in the fields. I don’t expect to be doing much at all, other than some fine Thai dining. … Read the rest
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Gili Air
The idea was to head east, but since the weather is turning rainy (and tropical rain means serious business) and the forecast east is just awful, I am turning west. When my connections didn’t work out and I got stuck in Lombok for many hours, my moto driver turned out to be a professional guide and too care of me. Saw many interesting places, including an ancient cross-faith palace templp. In the end I even met his family and a happy crowd of local children. If I hadn’t insisted, he wouldn’t even take a fee. So if you ever find yourself east of Bali, give Rahmat a call: +62(0)81917946551 (also WhatsApp), or rahmatragel75@gmail.com. A good friendly guide can make all the difference if you want to see more than just tourist photo opportunities. Anyway, Gili Air is like Gili Trawangan was ten years ago: just the right mix of barefoot Beach promenade, pretty restaurants, and pretty little resorts (mine is the Orong Village). Had a red snapper for dinner, grilled with lots of garlic by the fisherman who had caught it hours earlier. … Read the rest
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Sumbawa
It takes time to reach Sumbawa – a boat from the Gilis to Lombok, the crossing Lombok to a harbor on the other side, then a ferry to Sumbawa. I arrived at the Yoyo’s Resort at 2 o’clock at night, after many hours in a very crowded minivan. A guy with a flashlight was waiting for me. Yoyo’s is very unlike Gili. It has most of a large bay to itself. Lots of green space ringed by steep forested hills. There’s almost no people in these parts. It’s a place to sit on a bean bag, read books, and hope for Wifi. The weather appears to get worse the farther I go east though, didn’t see much sun today. … Read the rest
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Rebuilding an island
The Gilis are three small islands off the coast of Lombok,a few hours east of Bali. All three were badly hit by a magnitude-7.2 earthquake seven months ago. All cement structures collapsed, no building on the beach survived, and all three islands had to be completely evacuated. But now you can barely tell. There are still a few collapsed buildings, and not all the rubble has been removed, but the Gilis are definitely back in business. There’s still no motor traffic, but the largest of the three – Gili Trawangan, also known as the party island Gili Tralala or simply Gili T – has not improved. The beach promenade is now paved, and packed with shops back to back. The old mellow vibe is completely gone, although you’ll still find rasta guys offering ‘shrooms and marijuana. But a bit back from the beach the hustle is gone, and small guesthouses with a few traditional huts around a pool and bar dominate. The downside is poor connectivity and no hot showers… … Read the rest
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Unspoiled
Nusa Penida is another island near Bali, easily reachable from Lembongan. But the infrastructure is virtually nonexistent. A few villages, a few deeply rutted roads running up and down steep hills, and almost no people. Motorcycles are the best way to get around. The views down from the limestone cliffs and and a deep lake connected to the sea under a huge stone bridge are absolutely spectacular – or as my moto driver said, pure Instagram. Well, fortunately Nusa Penida doesn’t seem to have been discovered by the Instagram crowd much, it’s just too hard to move around here, and there’s no Internet to blast boring selfies into the net. Maybe I’ll be back here in ten years and then I’ll tell everyone how unspoiled and beautiful it was before the developers moved in and built resorts everywhere and escalators down the cliffs. You read it here first. … Read the rest
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Mantas
Plenty of dive centers on Lembongan. The highlight is Manta Point, a place some 15 meters under water where mantas come for cleaning. It’s essentially a big manta car wash where mantas wait in line, slowly circling, for their turn to be cleaned by several types of small fish. So you hove there and watch these huge mantas gliding through the water, slowly waving their long wings, and fanning water into their big gaping mouths to extract krill. Impressive! … Read the rest
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Not Bali
Off the south-eastern coast of Bali are three small islands, Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan, and Nusa Penida, that are said to be like Bali was 20 years ago / will be the next Bali. Quiet villages, white beaches, people who have time, no traffic, and no concrete resorts anywhere. From Bali’s Sanur harbor, Lembongan is only 30 minutes by speedboat. This is what Indonesian boat travel is supposed to be like: the boat runs up to the beach, you wade through the water onto the beach, and pick a place to stay. I followed the advice of some surfer dudes and got myself a bungalow up on the hill with a fantastic view over the beach and village, with Bali’s Agung volcano at a distance. I’ll stay here for a while. … Read the rest
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Bali
The trouble with revisiting places, years later, is that they invariably have “improved” – more traffic, more noise, more concrete resorts at the beach, and more plastic garbage in the sand and the water. Some hotels have sewer pipes that color the water greenish brown. But people are still as friendly as always, and away from the town centers with their shops and bars and American fast food chains there’s still village life to be found. Bali is also quite large, and only the southern tip is seriously developed. In any case, Bali has a major international airport, making it a good starting point for traveling. Finally, back in a tropical climate, let’s go island hopping! Unfortunately it’s apparently no longer possible to post pictures, Google thought it would be a good idea to change the API. … Read the rest
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Bangkok
There is the tourist Chinatown in Bangkok, and the Chinatown where people actually live and work. Machine parts seem to be an especially big thing, making parts of the place look like a huge junkyard. But there are 200-year old mansions too. Downtown, the Saffron Sky Garden bar, built into a big cutout of the Tai Wah skyscraper is a nice place to conclude the day, and this trip. Bangkok is a curious mixture of ultra-modern and deeply traditional.… Read the rest
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Capsule Thailand
Muang born is a large park on the Gulf of Thailand, two hours south of Bangkok. The Park is shaped like Thailand, and it contains some 120 temples and monuments brought here, or rebuilt here, from all over Thailand, all in a beautiful park with lots of waterways. They even have a proper floating village with boats. If you don’t have time to explore Thailand, here is the primer. It’s really well done. And the best is, they have a complete reproduction of Preah Vihar, the temple I missed in the Khao Phra Wihan park near Ubon, although at a reduced size. That temple is huge, far bigger than the few roofs and gates visible in Khao Phra Wihan!… Read the rest
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More Ubon
Khao Phra Wihan is not all Ubon has to offer. There is a large number of temples in or near the city, and since it’s so remote, I was the only visitor in those I went to. Temples that serve as monasteries are always a collection of shining golden shrines and utilitarian buildings where the monks live, learn, and do their laundry. At Wat Tung Si they have an 250-year old wooden pagoda that served as a library for scriptures, and was therefore set on stilts in an artificial pond. A monk opened some shrines for me. (They always see me coming because I am so much taller than everyone else.) Saw a few monk spray painting a statue. 10km from Ubon is a bend in the river Mun that forms a long beach. There are two dozen restaurants side by side, each with a long pier out over the river, with floating thatched huts on both sides. A little like on the Mekong rapids, except no hammocks. No English spoken, for lunch we agreed on “fye lye” (fried rice). A tasty fish sauce and a bucket of ice came with the meal.… Read the rest
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Border temple
Khao Phra Wihan is a national park two hours south of Ubon Ratchathani. It sits on a 500m cliff, nearly vertical, with stunning views of Thailand and nearby Cambodia. But they made a mistake when documenting the border between Thailand and Cambodia, so the park is on the Thai side but the important Preah Vihar temple in it ended up in Cambodia. The two countries actually went to war over that a while ago. It’s peaceful now but access to the temple is forbidden. That part of the park is filled with soldiers, sandbagged guard posts, and endless spools of razor wire. But even without access to Preah Vihar it’s a beautiful park.… Read the rest
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Ubon
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More Mekong
Having an excellent time here on the islands so I decided to stay longer. Only the village on the northern end of Don Det I don’t like – no longer the backpacker haven I knew, and slowly on its way to tourist overload like Vang Vieng in the north. Who travels to a remote place in a remote country like Laos, and then eats burgers or happy pizza?… Read the rest
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Mekong islands
Well, things change. The small group of simple huts on Don Det has been replaced with a dense cluster of hostels, hotels, and restaurants, some with pools, all with electricity and hot showers. I had a pineapple shake in the exact spot where my old hut once stood. Now it’s a bar and they are adding another row of bungalows next to it. The shoreline is completely packed. But I am staying on Don Khon, the next island to the south. It’s exactly as quiet as Don Det was in 2009, except considerably more upmarket. Don Khon is also where all the sights of the island are, especially the Mekong Falls. Enormous amounts of water rushes down in numerous cascades on both sides of the island. The bigger one of the two is the one on the west. The old trails are gone, and they have built observation platforms – and are charging admission! Well, the thatched huts further down with pads and hammocks are worth the price, a nice place to relax and watch the foaming water.… Read the rest
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Laos
Following the Mekong upstream first passes Stung Treng, a small town on the Cambodian side, with the usual covered and open market. Last chance to spend Cambodian riel on fresh mangoes. From there it’s not far to the Laotian border, and the 4000 Islands, my destination. Way down this blog you’ll find my report on Don Det, one of the larger of the supposedly 4000 islands in the middle of the Mekong river. Don Det had a small backpacker village, without an electricity grid but a great mellow Lao vibe. This time I wanted to visit Don Khon, the next island to the south of Don Det. Regrettably the incredibly crowded bus was late and there were no more boats to Don Khon; I barely managed to catch the last one to Don Det. So there I was, after dark, on the wrong island, as always without a reservation. But over the years I have come to appreciate that any problem can be solved easily by throwing money at it. So I found someone with a motorcycle who took me to the old French bridge between the two islands that I remembered, and got myself a kind of stationary houseboat on the river.… Read the rest
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Kratie
Kratie isn’t far from Kampong Cham but traveling there is slow because of road construction. Lost two hours because one truck died and another slid into a ditch right next to each other. This being southeast Asia, everyone patiently waited with a smile. Kratie is on the Mekong, near some rapids. They turned them into a fun park, with many extremely long platforms built over the river, each with hundreds of hammocks and a few mobile kitchens. You lie in a hammock and watch the river rush past you. It’s also one of the best places to see Irrawaddy freshwater dolphins, which are critically endangered. It’s been estimated that there are only 75 left in northern Cambodia. I was lucky to see a group of four, although they didn’t jump out of the water the way they do on the travel ads.… Read the rest
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Kampong Cham
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Inland
Time to find my flip flops and leave the beaches. Feels odd having to wear shoes again. I am heading north now, to rejoin the Mekong river. First to Phnom Penh, the capital, then to Kampot Chan, which offers temples and a quiet countryside. Phnom Penh is anything but quiet, many more cars on the streets since I was here last time. Not sure about Internet from now on. In fact once I reach the Mekong islands in Laos I am not sure about electricity!… Read the rest
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Life on the beach
Diving on Koh Rong Samloem is better than in Phu Quoc – much better visibility, more colorful corals, and a lot more and bigger fish. Went swimming in the bay late at night. They have a kind of plankton here that fluoresces when stirred. The night was completely dark, there is no light pollution here and no moon in the sky, so every swimming stroke creates a bright trail of glowing bubbles. Very cool. I suppose the plankton thinks it’s cool too or they wouldn’t do it; the light attracts squid that feed on plankton.… Read the rest
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Koh Rong Samloem
Cambodia’s beach capital is Sihanoukville, a thoroughly boring city with a filthy beach. I could probably have found a place without garbage floating on the water further south but decided to leave asap to the islands. There are two of those clise to Sihanoukville: Koh Rong, the party island, and Koh Rong Samloem, the peaceful one. Got myself a beach hut on the latter, and continued to do not very much at all. Good to be in bathing trunks and barefoot all day.… Read the rest
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Cambodia
Phu Quoc is actually off the Cambodian coast but the ferry only takes the long way to Ha Tien in Vietnam. The Cambodian border is a short minivan ride from there. I stopped for the day in Kampot, a pleasant little town with slightly crumbling but very charming French colonial architecture. I chose the upscale Rikitikitavi hotel, named after a mythical animal, and enjoyed the professional staff, hot shower, and an absolutely delicious Khmer Saraman curry.… Read the rest
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Diving
As a diver I know the two most common methods to get off the boat into the water: the Big Step Forward, and the James Bond Roll. Learned a new one: the Dead Mexican, falling backwards, stiff as a board. It takes a 90-minute boat ride out to a small island. The corals are shallow, less than 10 meters, and are healthy but not very colorful. Also, the waters are rather overfished. Dinner is barbecued fish right on the beach.… Read the rest
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Phu Quoc Island
I don’t know who chose the name Superdong for a fleet of fast ferries that go from the Mekong Delta to Phu Quoc, but it doesn’t look like they’ll reconsider. Anyway, Phu Quoc is a mostly forested Vietnamese island off the coast of Cambodia. They have a small town, Duong Dong, remarkable only for being about 50% night market. From there Long Beach runs down the western coast. The beach itself is a little narrow, and almost completely covered with resort, restaurants, and bars from end to end. Like on Thai islands, the only way to reach a public beach is through a bar. It’s all quite low-key and pleasant, but the first concrete hotel towers are springing up at the edges. Usually, in southeast Asia this is a sign that runaway development is about to start and the only guests likely to put up with that are the Russians. But now I hear French more than any other language here. The fresh jumbo shrimps in lemongrass garlic sauce are truly delicious!… Read the rest
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Duck Duck Go
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Deep delta
Venturing deeper into the delta. Villages are small and dedicated to a business. One buys coconut bark and spins it into ropes, another buys rice and boils it to make rice paper. Often these are very narrow niches that are intricately linked by fleets of scooters and fragile-looking boats. Today some guys set a folding table on the roadside, put a dead pig on it, cut it into pieces and sold them. There is no doubt in my mind that the face was sold too. Roads are often no wider than a meter, and waterways are everywhere. Coconuts are a big trade here and no part of them is wasted. I am told these people do quite well, and always have big smiles and friendly words, but of course there is no safety net in this country at all. I am feeling alien.… Read the rest
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Rat jerky
There is a guy here by the roadside with a huge mesh cage with giant rats that he caught in the rice fields. You can buy them live, or sliced open and dried. Rat jerky. I am hoping for barbecued rat because rat jerky is essentially roadkill, except that the moment of truth for the rat comes on the edge of a table, not on the road. I am also not certain how familiar a guy who catches rats in the field is with meat inspections. Looks no worse than beef jerky though.… Read the rest
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Mekong Delta
The Mekong is the world’s 12th largest River. Its source is in Tibet; it flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia just before spreading into a huge delta south of Saigon. That’s where I am headed. The delta is extremely fertile, and everybody here is always busy working in intricate chains growing, transporting, processing and selling rice, fruit, and vegetables. Taking time off from work is an idea for us Western wimps that has the locals completely puzzled. If your job is splitting coconuts, that’s what you’ll do for every single day for the next 30 years. This being a delta, travel involves lots of bridges and ferries. There are villages and markets everywhere, and cottage industries that process fruit. They are all connected by ridiculously overloaded scooters zooming between them. There is no reason why a scooter can’t be wider than a road lane, and sometimes it’s hard to identify the driver in the middle of all that cargo.… Read the rest