A couple days prior to leaving Brunei, I had a look through the helpexchange website (helpx.net) and came across an offer of a hostel owner on Pulau Labuan, a small malaysian duty-free island in front of Brunei, who was asking for help in painting his hostel and offered free accomodation, food and scooter in exchange. But all that Alex and me found was an old chinese guy (don’t get me wrong, he’s cool, but he’s so clearly chinese in what he does and how he manages business), who was chilling out in bed all day watching movies, while he had an english couple managing the hostel for free, a very young boy (~11?) who gets 100 USD a month for cleaning up and scrubbing the toilets, and an automated scooter rental.

He outtasked everything, and was even sleeping in the same dormroom as his customers, just to save money. It’s clearly chinese, because (and this is what I could observe on my travels so far) he tries to make the most money with the least effort. We came to the conclusion though, that he’s abusing the system, that’s why my fascination for this project vanished in favour of absolut laziness.

Nevertheless we had a good time on Labuan, rented some scooters for exploring the island, which had not too much to offer anyways, enjoyed the very cheap dutyfree beer and observed the strangeness of this place. Labuan is known to host a huge crowd of oil platform workers, workers on ships, etc. and you can not avoid the fact that all infrastructure is built for their excitement, which usually means a vast population of immigrated workers in the sex industry – with other words: you can not go in any karaoke bar or club without noticing an enormous mass of hookers around. Cheap drinks, cheap sex and then back to the ship/platform to follow the unexciting life in an isolated environment.
Still a nice place to hang around for some days, Labuan offers nothing fancy and isn’t of any necessity to visit actually, unless you’re looking for some moto-fun, cheap booze and party. Of course it also has some nice beaches, but in comparison with all the other places in SEA, these are not really worth mentioning since you can’t really step into the water. But still nice to look at and stroll around…

Absolutely addicted for a while we became by an indian dish, which is served in all those little indian eateries around, “Roti Canay” – basically some sweet bread in different variations. Favourite was filled with chicken and topped with a somwhat curry sauce.

As next stop we took the ferry to KK – Kota Kinabalu, which works as main tourist hub for the northern part of Borneo, having an international airport, some nice islands around and the Mount Kinabalu, which with his 4000m apparently is the highest mountain in the whole region. We thought about the option of climbing it, but the money you’d have to spend is just way too much and destroys every feeling of joy for the view that is meant to be incredible from the top. We decided against this, but therefor booked a tour to the Kinabatangan River, on which you stay in a jungle camp for 3 days.

Included are boatrides through the delta, with a lot of animal sightings, jungle treks and nightwalks again. This tour was recommended to us from all sides and so we took the early bus for a promised 5 hours ride, which turned out to be 9 hours instead. Why? Cause the night before a land sliding forced a huge hole in the only highway that is connecting east- and west- Sabah directly.

So without telling us the bus took the northern route all along the coastline, through a massive amount of palmoil platations, which let us miss our connection and therefor one half day of our booked trip. Seeing those palmoil plantations is quite sad, when you arrive on Borneo and have the expectation to see unspoilt jungle, but wherever you look the jungle is sold, burned and replaced by palms wherever you look. It takes away the animal’s natural habitat and gives profit to foreign companies, most of them chinese. Malaysia and Indonesia by now are the biggest suppliers for palmoil in the world, and it’s mostly used for cosmetic, food (most of it sweets like chocolate) and the big evil bio-diesel. So, the bio-diesel industry is not only responsible for the sorrow of not having enough to eat for millions of people, as the prices for staple food is increasing and exceeding their income, but also for cutting down huge parts of rainforrest.

It was the time of the year that the pygmi elephants were around the camp, which was lucky and unlucky the same time. It’s rare to see them, but when they’re around security standards rise. And so it came that we were told, that the promised and payed for nightwalks and jungle treks could not take place, as it was too dangerous. Apparently last year a young australian girl was killed by one of those elephants while taking pictures with a flashlight, which scares off the elephants as they think it’s thunder. She was stabbed by the tusks and bleeded to death. With respect to that, we agreed on cancelling the treks, and instead went out by canoe to explore the very small sidearms of the river.

And hell yeah, THIS was borneo as we imagined. Macaques, probuscious monkeys, elephants, crocodiles… everything was around and we could come so near to them within their natural space. And with every new boatride there was something new to discover. It was amazing.

What more Sabah had to offer I was not interested in – diving, turtle island, another orang-utan rehab… I didn’t care. On the one hand it was all just too expensive (minimum of 100 eur a day for diving), but on the other hand I more and more came to miss Yola, and I tried to figure out a plan on how to go back to see her, although it was against my rules of not falling in love while travelling. And so I ended up with days on which I was only checking on flight schedules, prices and options. I got negative and lazy for a few days and instead of experiencing new stuff, I was going back to KK to somehow waste the time to go on to Thailand.
But however that is with the “flow” sometimes, things happen unexpectedly. And so it happened that while walking along KK’s streets, I got asked by a french guy and his girlfriend on where the next money changer could be and where to get weed. I exchanged contacts with him and we hung around for a bit, until it became clear that they’re some of the best friends of Mars, the freestyle beat producer who I met on the philippines. He was actually living at their house in Melbourne and they just saved enough money to travel on their own now for the upcoming 2 years.

We spent some relaxed days together, snorkelling around the islands, and checking out one of the best skateparks I’ve ever seen. We went clubbing, and for some good food, promised to see each other again in Bangkok for Songkran, and eventually I had to leave with a short stop-over in KL to Phuket, Thailand.

Nevertheless, i had some great last days in KK, and on Borneo itself. But from a cultural point of view this could never become a favourite of mine.

On the way back we stopped at a local house, which at the same time operated as a little eatery, and got some very delicious food for exactly ONE brunei dollar, which is about 60 eurocents.

We immediately figured that this would be the perfect place to start a homestay- or hostel-business, as there’s only 2 hostels in town – one where you don’t even get access to as a foreigner cause they wanna protect the local environment and keep it for schoolclasses and students, the other one’s very shabby and, for that value, kinda expensive.Opening a hostel here, with the atmosphere of the surroundings, an own hostel express watertaxi, a BYOB (bring your own booze) call, and maybe some good live music every now and then, would explode and take Brunei on the map for many travellers then staying more than the usual “one or two days”.

On our way back from this awesome experience, we were passing by the floatin mosque again and met some locals. We asked them how they cope with the strict muslim policies, and if they’re satisfied with the way the Sultan handles things, but they seemed to be quite happy about everything. They said the Sultan’s fair, and even gives money if you can give good arguments for your request. The strict laws do exist, yeah, but they’re worked around (or ignored) in many cases. So it happens that chinese taxidrivers sell you beer in their taxis (selling alcohol is not allowed in general), take you to “underground” brothels (prostitution is highly illegal in brunei) and I even heard from a guy at the hostel that he got offered methamphetamine by some local.
Just chatting to those guys – they were by the way illegally fishing in the Sultan’s mosques’s fishpond at nighttime, always ready to pack up their stuff as soon as they see a copcar – we saw some shadows rushing by behind the fence – it turned out to be 3 local youths with fishing nets and torch.

Alex fortunately caught them on tape (which is one of the funniest shots yet, as they’re all smiling and posing for the camera for a very short moment before hiding in the shadows again):

Some facts about the sultan:
- The Sultan’s palace has more than 1700 rooms and 250 bathrooms and is bigger than the whole chinese forbidden city.
- He owns a car collection of over 2000 cars.
- He’s the brother of his brother … and who wants to know what that means should click the following link:

–> http://www.businessinsider.com/prince-jefri-brunei-spending-habits-2011-6?op=1

Just on our way to bed, we met some other brunei citizens in front of the hostel’s door (the place where the ladyboys use to hang out at night). After a short conversation we were invited to have a midnight cruise around the city with them, they would show us some of the palaces, have something to eat and some pool.

Alright we said, and so we found ourselves drunk in the back of a car with two guys who apparently knew parts of the royal family. Their grandparents have been working for the Sultan for a long time, and so it happened that they were introduced to parts of the family. This picture is showing him with one of the Sultan’s sons.

There were palaces for seriously everyone in the royal family, even for everyone in the Sultan’s wives’ families, … even for the Sultan’s wife’s brother’s halfsister (just kidding, but really: for everyone!), and they were ridiculously expensive. In front of the Sultan’s palace itself, there are guards patroling and standing still, exchanged twice or three times a day.

After this excitement we just went out for a game of pool, had something to eat, gave away our email adresses and returned home. Next day a massive hangover and somehow figuring out how to go to Pulau Labuan, the duty free island which was about to lead us to the northern part of malaysian Borneo – Sabah.
A very considerable and memorable 24 hours trip to Brunei.

… oh, did I mention that the litre of benzin only costs like ~20 euro-cents here? Sounds good, eh?

The FLICKR gallery is –> HERE!

You could choose a human if you preferred, but it was a novelty for many of the men to have sex with an orangutan.

When we arrived at the rehab center, we got already warned about the ongoing fruit season, and that chances aare more or less null to see some of the animals. Our disappointment was wiped away though as soon as we entered the feeding station. A large number of apes came to find some bananas and mixed veggies.

One of them: Ritchie, the boss, a 200kg primate who apparently is the king of the jungle here. One of the rangers said that he was in a bad mood, not having shown up for nearly a month now, because of fights with challanging males, and he could become slightly agressive as having not enough sex. And then, as soon as some guys took pictures of him using the flashlight, he came up on a tree very close to us, and suddenly crashed down with loud noise when the tree couldn’t hold his weight anymore. People flee screaming, rangers were alerted and shouting “get away from him, nobody of us has him under control!”… but in the end nothing happened, and it was a very impressive presentation of his power, as injuries are not uncommon:

For the Bako Park i planned two days, which was seriously enough.

They say it’s one of the smallest national parks on borneo, but having trails that lead you through the jungle for more than 12 hours, you have to be a freaking jungle maniac to go for it. What i did was a 5 hours roundtrip jungle trail the first day, a nightwalk in the late evening hours, and a short trip to a beach and a viewpoint the day after. You can see nearly all vegetation which you can find on borneo, concentrated in this one park. And there are lots of opportunities to witness the wildlife – proboscis monkeys, some naughty (they even stole the food from our plates!) macaques, wild pigs and a lot of birds during daytime / tarantulas, scorpions, poisonous frogs and snakes during nighttime.

When you arrive, you’re already warned of the crocs in the river, but i didn’t see any.

On not really easy to hike trails, which leave you sweating your ass off cause basically the humidity kills you, you can go explore the jungle for hours and hours, come up to awesome viewpoints:

and stunning beaches with one-eyed monkeys:


After this 2 day hike i was glad to be back to civilization, and the rest of the days we just chilled at our hostel or somewhere in town, had some cheap beer and “traveller’s talk”. On one of the days i met Alex, a canadian packer, with whom i went travelling the next weeks, until the very other side of malaysian borneo.

On one of the waterfront nightmarkets we saw someting that we’ve never seen before, so i have to show you guys. The people were playing a game, which is basically like roulette, only that it’s not about money but about beverage cans. They would bet an amount of cans, which you can buy before, on a certain colour while a bunch of tiny balls, which are released to a needle parcour, are nominating the winners. There was one guy, having so much luck, that he went home with whole pallets of cans. Amazing. Some of us tried their chances, but fun ended after losing 8 cans.

On saturday, 11th of february, Alex and me said goodbye to the Tracks Hostel, with our (extraordinary) gay host, who was always losing his mind on singing Mariah Carey while cleaning up, and took an overnight bus through whole of sarawak to Miri, where we wanted to take an excursion to the nearby Niah caves.

Actually we were planning to see some traditional longhouses, on a jungle river trip, but we figured out that this whole stuff is very much commercialized for tourist’s desires already. Borneo is something that massively lives off its past. Nobody is dressed in traditional clothes anymore unless they “go to work” to show dancing shows for tourists. Longhouses are already having TV and internet, and instead of singing and dancing in the evenings the longhouse owners are watching TV and drinking beer. So, a really traditional experience was not to be expected, only a big show for foreigners, and we decided to leave by bus in favour of going up north a whole bit quickly.

There are 2 Flickr Galleries this time.

For Kuching –> HERE!
… and for Bako –> HERE!

As it was still ongoing CNY, we catched a ride the next day to see some cultural program at one of the biggest buddhist temples in town, and had one more look at one of those lion dance shows. It was cute to see the children lift their hands to the lion’s mouths to give donations, while they traditionally received back an orange.


Leaving the temple we took some streetfood, and while the others went on to see the birdpark, i followed my way to the only graffiti supply shop in KL (as it seems) – the “district”. Bone – a writer who scored first place at the following kulsign festival – gave me a warm welcome and some contact numbers of artists on borneo, my next destination. Unfortunately they wouldn’t help me too much in the end, but now i know the guys and the infrastructure already, and i have to say that KL is probably one of the most creative scenes in whole SOA. I’ll be back soon to leave my mark as well, that’s for sure.

While i was in singapore i could already witness the madness when it comes to shopping malls. Most of them were built leading deep below the earth’s surface. But here in KL i was surprised once more – they had a shopping mall with around 15 levels, including a themepark INSIDE the mall, which also featured a fully sized rollercoaster and a freefall tower.

Here it was where i challanged Teemu into our very own finland VS germany triathlon – consisting of archery, bowling and billards. It took a while, and lots of nerves, and in the end … germany lost.


The archery wasn’t much of a problem to win, but concentration went low when bowling, and the billards part i screwed up, cause we wanted to “increase the skill level” by drinking as much whiskey as we could before. Bad idea.


Right next to the twin towers there was the international world press photography exhibition happening, which is right now touring all over asia. It featured some of the most amazing shots i’ve ever seen, including a description about the circumstances it was taken at and a short information about which award it was winning – shots of the erruption of mount bromo and merapi, the volcanos that i just visited a few weeks ago, were shown just like ones of the riots in thailand a year ago. One photo even featured the topic “couchsurfing”, showing some CSers in a flat in NYC.

All in all, KL was a very surprisingy fun stopover destination. I said goodbye to Teemu, who was about to spend the next couple weeks skiing in austria, had a very short sleep and a massive hangover and took a 45 minutes taxi ride to the airport to catch my plane to Borneo, of which i wanted to discover the malaysian part for the next 4 weeks.

For those interested, see the FLICKR gallery –> HERE!

Being a duty free island (cheap booze AND cheap cigarettes!!) on the eastcoast of Peninsula Malaysia, Tioman island just offered itself as a leisure stopover on my way to Kuala Lumpur, so i took the advantage, went to Mersing and took a ferry to Tekkek, which is on the island’s westcoast. Although Vinca left Tioman just some days ago, she was kind of excited to come back, as she saw her chance to get away from everything through living, working and studying on the tranquility of eastcoast’s Juara. So, I waited for her for one night in Tekkek, had a crash in a simple wooden hut and had some chats with the boy who’s maintaining those huts over monsoon season – he was kind of surprised to actually have a guest. Next morning Vinca and me rented a 4×4 pickup to bring us over to Juara. After all the development that has been done to the island (they built a road, electricity and there’s even internet), it’s still kind of remote which means only reachable through a 45 minutes jungle ride over steep hills. Alternatively you can hike it over several hours, but that’s not so clever during rainy season apparently.

Juara has a long stretch of lovely, and lonely, beach. Only a few beach chalets are facing the ocean, some restaurants are serving local cuisine … and finally our layback-surfer-beachshack-hostel, in which some crazy monkeys are held on chains at the outside, and where drunk backpackers (sometimes) have sex on the balcony.


It’s quiet and relaxed, and you can sit for hours in a chair, watch the ocean, read a book, play games, go for a surf or just walk along the shoreline talking about life. And that’s pretty much everything we did for a couple of days, with some swedish guys, some germans and the australian surferdude in his 40s, who established the “Beach-Shack” some years ago.
Apart from that, we only went to see the turtle conservation project some meters down the beach. This US-guy leading the project was kind of confused and creepy though. He seemed like he wanna be left alone somehow, but anyways showed us around a little and explained us about the massive blind turtle which is held in a waterbassin at the beach. We figured that it’s only to attract the “oooooh”s and “aaaaah”s of the visitors, and probably to get some attention by the people to justify the project after all. It was out of season anyways, so there were no people, no eggs, no mini turtles and basically no volunteers staying at all…

–> Tioman Turtle Conservation Project

Juara is covered in jungle in which you can hike to some waterfalls, and roaming along the beachroads you can every now and then witness a bunch of dragons hunting their food. They’re interesting to watch, even though they’re not nearly as impressive as their big brothers from Komodo – but fortunately also not even as deadly dangerous. Sometimes you see a snake, but they’re shy and vanish very quickly.


Mentality of people on Tioman is mixed, the locals are usually very easy and friendly, even though they always keep an eye on their business. The expats though all seem to be(come) a little odd over the time. Surfer-Tim could not follow a simple conversation sometimes and held his monkeys on very short and tight chains, the turtle guy seemed to have been in prison before, at least judging by his tattoos. On the west coast we met some guy with a long beard and dreadlocks, who introduced himself as Captain Jack Sparrow, telling tales from his boat delivery trips to australia and the philippines. It seems 3 or 4 contracts a year are enough for him to get around living the simple life. And the youths on Tioman are mainly busy with surfing in the afternoon and be cool in the evening.

After some relaxed days, which were necessary after the struggle in Singapore, I left Tioman with the swedish guys, and Teemu, a guy from Finland who was to become my travel buddy for Kuala Lumpur afterwards. While we were sitting at the terminal, waiting for the ferry to the mainland, we had some time left offering the opportunity to see some local fisherboat anchoring and selling the fresh catch to the restaurant owners.

Tioman Island surely has its charme, and the dutyfree booze can probably make you so foggy-brained that this “under the 10 most beautiful islands in the world” thing would make you agree on it. But in my opinion that’s only a marketing factor, distributed by the locals and the malaysian tourism initiative, in order to attract more people. I must admit though, i haven’t hiked through the jungle or gone underwater, so i do not have the complete picture. Statements are only based on my impressions…

See the FLICKR gallery –> HERE!

Eating with Vinca at one of the hawker centers, drinking fresh sugarcane juice:

We were so fortunate to be staying in Singapore over CNY (Chinese New Year), the most important festivity for the chinese community. So chinatown was one big streetmarket, with stages at some places showing traditional chinese dances, etc. And as it is now the year of the waterdragon, there was a giant waterdragon sculpture being stretched out across the main street at the metro station, welcoming all visitors to the festivities.


Apart, there was some stuff going on at the waterfront, where you find the impressive skyline, the casino and some of the hippest clubs in asia.

Too much to see than I could write about – it would surely make this post the longest one since ever and keeping me occupied for hours. However they started some fireworks, which left me quite disappointed. Fireworks in general are a big factor for the chinese when it comes to CNY, but in Singapore they’re banned. So even the “big” public fireworks were not lasting for more than 5 minutes. The final one at 22.1. was assumed to be a fantastic countdown, but waiting for it, it slowly began raining. And when it was finally about time, the rain was coming down so hard that people ran to the insides to find some shelter, just 2 minutes before the fireworks started, and then again ran out to see it, even though they were getting wet until the underpants… It surely WAS the beginning of the year of the WATERdragon! What a sign…

Apart from chinese buddhism, Singapore is a real melting pot when it comes to different cultures and religions. Second largest group are hindus, and so you can find some fine temples in the city centre, in which they celebrate their cultural get togethers.

Rest of my days in Singapore I spent exploring the different districts, went down to Sentosa – the artificial island in the south, which holds the Universal Studios, some attractions, aquariums and some beaches where you can “enjoy” the view on the ship colonies anchoring around the harbour area which made Singapore as rich as it is now.

The national museum at one of those days, gave me a very interesting insight of the history of Singapore from the early settlements, over the colonialization period to war and after. It was especially interesting to see the history of street vendors, so called “hawkers”, over the 19th/20th century, and how the government slowly forced them to organize out of the streets to still established hawker-centers. They are till today the places in Singapore where you can find the most authentic food, for relatively small money.
Yes, it is true… Singapore is one of the most expensive places all over asia. But if you know how to get around, where to eat, how to organize yourself in 12 bed dorm rooms, …

… and consequently avoid beer and cigarettes (which I didn’t), it’s just as expensive as everywhere else. If you’re looking for party, alcohol and women, going to the Universal Studios, the Zoo, etc. then your budget gets crashed pretty easy. That’s for sure. Some stories I heard were about having a car in Singapore (and you see plenty of them), the taxes are so high that it sounds just absolutely ridiculous to us. Just only the allowance to drive a car there can cost you as much as 90.000 SGD a year (~50.000eur). Going to a decent restaurant you spent some 50eur per person minimum. Most workers, even though having a very good salary, live in appartment blocks outside the center, one by the other, and they swarm into and out of it, day by day, just like little worker bees. Here it is where the money is in south east asia, and so I looked around for a while, trying to find some job opportunity for Yola. If she was working here, saving up money for a while, she could easily go back to Jogja, buy a house for her daughter, start a business and become happy ever after. I’m sure there are options, but working visas for indonesians are hard to get, and eventually you have to have a stable financial situation even before you can apply for it. So those days she decided to leave beautiful Jogja in order to work and live on awful Bali, becoming one of the bargirls at a pool billiard place in Ubud and save up as much money as she can to be ready to go to Singapore in some time, sending money home to her sister who takes care of her daughter. A very unsatisfying situation considering the average salary of ~80 eur a month, and accommodation in a very small and shitty room.

There’s a lot of excitement for creativity and design in Singapore, so one day I went to see the design museum. Nothing much to tell about, just some good design award winning things. Strangely, it seemed to host some idea giving magazines, exhibition articles and books from germany.

Being a customer they give you a map with some design route you can walk through the nearby neighborhood afterwards, but unfortunately most of it was closed due to CNY. Nice idea though. And so I found my way to one of the artist’s places in downtown Chinatown, the “pigeon hole”, a café for alternative gigs, music, literature and culture.

In a rush Vinca left with Curly, another longtime traveler from russia, and a random group of americans and locals, to Pulau Tioman. By minibus, in the middle of the night. It was her personal flow she was following, so the next days I was pretty much alone. But that’s okay… I’m always only alone when I chose to be alone, and at that time I was definitely looking for it, as I was missing some things, some places, and most of all some persons a lot, and I wasn’t able to forget and just go for the next meet-ups. Fortunately though, Moe was coming to town, and so I had at least one of my philippines “true manila” companions chilling out with me in the same hostel and going for some beers at the harbour front at night.

After some days I had the feeling of having seen enough of this city. It’s a rich beauty, but she’s too soft for me, not rough enough. There’s a lot of order, and while for a while that can be nice to feel after all the chaos in the rest of asia, in the end it’s just too artificial. The rules that are meant to apply for Singapore are hard, but not strict. There are enormous fines on littering, smoking in certain areas, chewing gum, etc. Therefore I was surprised to find garbage on the streets, people snipping their cigarette butts on the streets when the cops were not around, and I even saw a guy taking a leak on a wall just in the middle of a street.

As I had to make my way overland to Kuala Lumpur, the island Vinca went to sounded fantastic, nonetheless because I figured that it was voted by the Time magazine under the 10 most beautiful islands in the entire world (even if this was back in the 1970s). Having said that, and being just around the corner, there was no way in not going there. So I decided on taking the bus from central Singapore to Mersing in Malaysia, bringing me over the border and almost in front of the ferry terminal to Pulau Tioman.

On one of our nights out in Singapore, by the way, we found this amazing energizer. I’m not sure about the rest of the ingredients, but with horny goat weed you just cannot go wrong

… Oh, yeah, the FLICKR gallery is –> HERE!

Well yeah, welcome back to indonesian reality.

We found a very cool spot to live for some days. It was just about to be renovated, so we got it for a good price, even with TV and everything. The next days was only surfing, going around by scooter, lying in the hammok, etc.

Lombok apparently has one of the nicest volcanoes in the area, but 1. Expensive and 2. Rain season is not a good season to be climbing up a steep volcano. But instead, you can go into the mountanious area a bit south the coastline and get a good view over the surroundings, or you can go a bit inland and visit some of the temples.

And hell, it was raining a lot those days, but unimpressed by those showers we went to go for some culture and saw some of them and also the “famous” Lombok waterpalace, which in the end was even more unimpressive.

A funny thing to observe was that, when it’s raining, the locals only seem to protect their heads. Sometimes even only with a sheet of paper. We were explained that raindrops on the head make you suffer from headache, so that’s what they try to avoid.

And in the end, I was introduced to one of my favourite fruits here yet – Manggis (or “manggo stin fruit”). It’s deliciously sweet and easy to crack. Together with Rambutan these are clearly my favourites, and you can buy them from one of the countless street vendors everywhere.

As my flight to Singapore was going from Jogja, and I only had few days left until my visa expired, we had to head back to there asap, so we left for a short visit to Padang Bai on Bali before we started a 24 hours bus-ferry-bus-bus-bus-taxi journey to Jogjakarta some days later. Padang Bai is a shitty ferry town just at the eastcoast of Bali, and not really worth the stay, but as it was raining the whole days and nights we somehow got stuck for a day, which was shit, but gave us enough time to sort out some things.

This is how a traveller looks like who wants to sleep on a 5 hours ferry:

And this is how rain looks like outside the buswindow:

… Oh! And not to forget the new style of begging for money in indonesia:

Those 2, 3 guys were sitting on the ferry, when one of them asked us to please throw a coin overboard. Confused by the idea to throw my money away, Yola just threw it, and the guys jumped from the ferry deep into the water and began diving for that coin. Other people joined to see what is going on and threw more and more coins. Crazy indonesian people – it looked funny, but actually it’s not. It’s sad that people in one of the uprising number one tigerstates have to beg for money in this ridiculous way of entertainment.

Unfortunately the original plan didn’t work out, so there was no way in going to Flores, Sulawesi and up the Kalimantan coast to malaysian Borneo. Instead I had to backtrack, but that was okay. Just following my flow I had a very good time and was so lucky to get a deep insight into indonesian living, cultural and economical issues, saw a lot of the country without being in a constant rush and could finally return to my favourite city in Indonesia – Jogjakarta – with my favourite girl in Indonesia – Yola. Thanks for the amazing time!!!

Find the FLICKR gallery –> HERE!

Here at the beaches you can still go fish hunting on your own. All you need is a little harpune, which you can rent for a couple of rupiah from the locals. Having restricted time, it was only worth the picture posing – we didn’t go fishing ourselves.

There’s a little village on Meno, which also contains a (sadly overpriced) birdpark, a backpackers, a big new mosque, kampungs and homestays. Children are running around in their school uniforms.

You can buy postcards from a project which gives a part of the money back to their schools (it must be very few money though, with this small amount of tourists). The inland mainly consists of coconut palms and some people guiding their cattle.

Nothing fancy, no party and no touts – and this is exactly the reason why you have to love it.
On the boat back I met Tim, which was a total surprise. He was like the unknown stranger from Yogyakarta, which I had seen a couple of times at random places. We used to greet each other, never spoke a word, but the last time we met we were like “ah, you again. Ok, next time we meet we’ll drink a beer.”. That was 4 weeks ago, and then this time we met randomly on a small fisherboat on the Gili islands. Sweet! That’s backpacking at it’s finest…

Leaving the Gili’s the next day was a tough call, but time was pressuring, so we had to move on. The morning ferry was already gone, and so we had to wait for the next one. Ferries usually leave as soon as there are enough people, and so we had to wait for almoust 5 hours at the peer for some more people to join. But okay, nice and easy… enough time to have a last glimpse on the people and the scenery, say goodbye and have a chat with the other waiting passengers. It was almoust like Gili Ayer doesn’t wanna let us go. 

Find the FLICKR gallery –> HERE!

As mentioned before, the Gili’s are like a relief. An escape from the hassling outside world of Bali and Lombok. Here nobody tries to openly rip you off. People are friendly, basic and protected. They have everything they need and they don’t seem to become greedy over it yet. A lot is still family business, with only some foreigners buying their way in through a business partnership. There are diveschools, a backpackers, only one lonely resort hotel, but the rest is homestays, bungalows and excellent seafood restaurants at the beach, where you can for example have a pizza with fresh thuna and some salad.

Gili Ayer was all I was asking for, ever. For me this was definitely the highlight of my whole indonesia trip. The most chilled out place, no hassle, prices are fair, people are beautiful – I would always wanna stay there. And I hope that this place will still be the same in a few years. I unfortunately doubt it, since the masses of Bali tourists are now being brought to the island by fastboats, and Trawangan has already lost its charme to too much hotels and party.

We introduced Jack to the others on his very last evening. He seemed to be tired and exhausted already, jumped on us to find someone to be close with, but closed his eyes occasionally. We found him the next morning dead, so we buried him in his box, carved a sign. His grave is now facing the ocean and the sunset, at one of our favourite spots on the island, where we used to hang out to chill and play guitar.

I guess we never really had a chance to save a lonely, injured little bird from his sad destiny. But at least we tried – and we brought him to paradise just as promised. Only unlucky that he passed away right on new years eve, we would have loved to have him around a little more.

Find the FLICKR gallery –> HERE!

Ubud –> Kuta –> Denpasar –> Padang Bai –> taking the overnight ferry to Lombok –> Bangsal –> touch down on Gili Air!

As we had to take care of Jack, we made him a little box where he could have a nice and cozy sleep while we hit the road.

The travel then turned out to be disappointing and probing our nerves. First there was this restaurant where i ordered some chickentofu with rice, and got like 5 little pieces of tofu, but had to pay the rice extra. The argument that there was rice on the picture on the menu card wasn’t convincing the waitress at all, as she said the pictures on the card are usually not matching the actual dish. Me complaining then quite hard convinced her in the end, and i could get my money back. Arriving in Kuta, we had to give the scooter back, and some guys told us they would bring us to Seminyak for free afterwards, but as soon as we were there the guy stretched his arm out. The taxi driver on our way to the Denpasar bus station afterwards seemed to take a complete different route then some days before – otherwise i can not think of any explanation why it was double the price of the taxi we took 2 weeks ago. As it was already “late”, there was no big bus going anymore, but some minibus.

The driver assured us that he’s going to Padang Bai, and on the bus we asked some locals what the average price was – they said 7 rupiah. When we were like half the way, the driver stopped and asked us to leave. He wanted to be home before dark and questioned if there would be any people going back to Denpasar from Padang Bai, so he just wouldn’t go there. Of course, he could bring us there for another 150 rupiah, apart from the 35 he wanted from us for the ride. We discussed with him, i got quite angry and in the end we left the minibus under protest and gave him 25 for his “service”. Sooooo lucky that Nils was already in Padang Bai, had a scooter and could fetch us up, although it was half an hour away and we were 3 people with a lot of big bags on a little scooter.

The point is, those stories still make me angry. It’s not that those guys are really struggling for survival. It’s that they’re greedy assholes. And apart from that it’s pure racism to judge someone by his skin color and ask him to pay 10 times the usual price, respectively ask for money when you promised it to be for free. For them it’s like fishing – they probably won’t see you ever again, so they have nothing to be afraid of. Image? Who cares?! There will always be enough tourists and a never ending (white) money stream. In the end i cannot even blame them, cause if I had to cope with those cocky, stupid australian tourists they have on Bali every day, I too would get mad at white people. But it’s just the forwardness they’re going with – it’s like wherever you see a white face, try to suck him/her out… It’s hard to find a person you can trust over there. Values like indonesian hospitality (which i could truely experience on my trip until here) get lost in an environment that is driven insane by tourism politics which this small island just cannot cope with.

I would have expected to be a little safe at least as of travelling with an indonesian girl, who can speak their language and talk to them on an equal level. I was wrong in the end. Indonesians seem to mistrust each other, depending on the region you’re coming from. And the eastern regions, i got told, were evil and selfish.

These two little fellas we met while waiting for Nils. They were just amazed that i carry my skateboard with me, … and i was amazed that they were amazed.

Anyways, even though we had a strenuous way there, we eventually arrived safe in Padang Bai – thanks to our german friend -, had some beer, calmed down and got on the night ferry to Lombok (takes ~5 hours). I passed out right next to a group of locals who wanted to watch yala yala TV … at full volume of course. But yeah, earplugs and a sleeping pill made my day (/night).

We got warned before that there is a bus mafia on the ferry port on Lombok. They wouldn’t let local transport buses near the ferries and offer overpriced private transport to the north of the island. But we didn’t care. Yola could go with Nils on the scooter, so i was the only one paying those guys. And after almoust 20 hours we arrived in Bangsal, welcomed again by a huge group of touts who would try to sell us whatever else we wouldn’t need at all.

Jack was with us all the time. We wouldn’t forget the promise we made – bringing this little guy to paradise. We fed him every once in a while, and he climbed out his house, jumped on us, made fun, tickled us. We were excited that he made it alive to this point at least, and that we could soon introduce him to the others, who were already waiting for us on the island.

So, we waited a while for the local ferry, basically a very small fisherboat, and took off. Gili Air. What a relief…