Happy end, not happy ending. Those of you who were expecting a story about a naughty massage experience, I have to utterly disappoint. This post (which is probably the penultimate of this blog) ‘merely’ is about the last week of my trip. After having rushed a bit through Vietnam and Cambodia, I wanted to take the last couple of days slow and easy – and decided to spend them at the beach in Thailand. I found an extremely nice guesthouse ­­in Kata on Phuket which I made my home for the last few days.  Having been hooked on diving again in Indonesia, I spent three great days diving around Phuket and Koh Phi Phi, did a daytrip to Koh Phi Phi’s famous beaches, and just bummed around for the rest of the time. Yesterday then, I flew back to Bangkok to reunite with Martin who had spent his last weeks in New Zealand. After having travelled together for more than 3 months, it’s been great to meet him again, and to ‘properly’ end this trip together!

Some people have already asked me how I feel about coming back. I have to say I have mixed feelings: On the one hand, I am a little bit sad because I could easily continue travelling. There is still so much to see and experience…and I just love the backpacker life! On the other hand, I am happy to come back home (and this feeling is dominating at the moment). I am looking forward most to see family and friends again…and – some might say it’s weird but – I am even looking forward to come back to work. Above all, I am grateful.  Grateful to have had these four fantastic months which totally lived up to my expectations and motivations, grateful for the support and encouragement I got from work side as well as from family and friends to realize it, grateful for people making an effort to stay in touch over the past months. It’s been an amazing experience that I will not forget for the rest of my life. Though it’s probably not the last time I did something like this…

After Vietnam I continued my way into Cambodia, visiting first the capital Phnom Penh, then Siem Reap and world famous Angkor Wat. I wish I could have visited other places too but with my decision to spend the last days of my trip on the beach in Thailand, I just had a few days to experience the country. Thereby, I really wanted to see both the beautiful side of Cambodia, but also learn more about the dark chapter in Cambodia’s history with the rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 70s.

Phnom Penh offered a bit of both: it’s a charming city with its nice promenade alongside the Tonlé Sap River, many good restaurants and bakeries, and home to many nice sights such as the Royal Palace. But it also is the place in Cambodia where you can learn most about the deeds of the Khmer Rouge regime. I visited the Choeung Ek Memorial, which is the best-known of the sites known as The Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge executed several thousand people in the second half of the 1970s (I can highly recommend the audio tour there). Back in Phnom Penh, I then went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Together, these two sites provide a good yet depressing overview of what had happened back then.

My absolute highlight of Cambodia though is (surprise surprise) Angkor Wat.  In my hotel in Siem Reap, I hired a driver and spent one long day exploring the stunning temple complex of Angkor. Yes, it is extremely touristic and busy, but it is still impressive and lived up to my expectations. My personal favorites among the many temples thereby are Ta Prohm, which has been left in much the same condition in which it was found so that you have beautiful temple ruins entwined with or overgrown by trees, and Bayon with its massive stunning stone face.

Alone in Vietnam is actually a bit misleading, no need to pity me. I was only alone in the sense of Vietnam being the first country that I travelled without Martin (one key impact being that accommodation costs skyrocketed to a ‘whopping’ 15USD average per night). But as it happens when backpacking, you meet other people on the road: In Hanoi, I ran into some folks we had already met in Luang Prabang, my visit to Halong Bay was a group tour anyway with some fun Australians and Spanish, and in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now officially called) I met another nice German guy to spend a day (and drink some beer) with.

So how was Vietnam? I really enjoyed it, though I’ve seen less of it than I would have liked, with the end of my trip coming closer and remaining days being limited. First, I visited Hanoi, and loved it! It’s as buzzing as a city can be, has an enticing old town, a beautiful central lake, and some good sights. Also, I had the best hotel of the trip so far (if you ever intend to visit Hanoi (and don’t need 5 stars on your hotel), go nowhere else but to the Hanoi Holiday Diamond). From there, I did a fabulous side trip to Halong Bay which – despite being very touristic – is extremely beautiful (following a friend’s advice I did bit better (aka as higher priced) tour with sea kayaking etc., definitely worth it – thanks Lynn). Then my trip led me south to Hoi An, a little colonial town with lots of charm. This was also the first time I got to see anything of the flooding in South East Asia that apparently is all over the media back at home. My last stop then was Saigon, which to me appeared more modern as Hanoi, yet I also found it very interesting. It’s also where you can learn more about the Vietnam War – which I consider essential when visiting the country. I’d definitely recommend (‘liked’ would be the wrong word here) the war museum with its photo exhibitions (warning: they are quite consternating). I also did a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels where part of the Vietcong was hiding and operating from – again an interesting experience. I did not see Sapa, any of the beach places like Nha Thrang or Mui Ne, nor much of the Mekong delta. I guess that means I have to come back, no!?

With the end of the trip coming closer and closer, my blog is running more and more behind. With the last post, I left you off in Thailand. Between then and now, Martin and I spent a great week in Laos before parting ways. From Chiang Mai, or last stop in Thailand, we went via night bus to Vang Vieng in central Laos. While Vang Vieng is surrounded by beautiful nature, it is mostly known and on the backpacker track for one reason: tubing! According to Wikipedia, tubing “is a recreational activity where an individual rides on top of an inner tube, either on water, snow, or through the air”. While this definition is not incorrect it doesn’t cover what tubing is in Vang Vieng: yes, you’re floating on a tube but it is merely the means of transport from one riverfront bar to the next; each more wicked than the one before. We were lucky to have met some great people there and had great fun, playing beer ball, mud volleyball, dancing away and floating happily drunk on the river (see the photos). The next day then was a hangover day for all of us, relaxing in Vang Vieng’s bars and watching one Friends episode after the other (I forgot how much I loved Friends).

After some happy days in Vang Vieng, we continued on to Luang Prabang, Laos’ old capital. What a difference! It’s a nice little town, much more ‘sophisticated’ (for lack of better words), full of monasteries and monks, with lovely restaurants and a nice night market. Definitely a nice place to spend a few relaxing days, especially when heading into the chaos of Hanoi after!

P.S. Sara, Melodi – if you should read this, I stole a few photos from you for this post…but at least no camera ;-)

We’ve not spent a great deal of time in Thailand but so far merely used Bangkok as our hub to travel around Southeast Asia. Yet, we had a couple of days in and out of the city and we’ve seen some of its sights. Conveniently staying in the backpacker ‘ghetto’ of Khao San Road with its very young crowd (I could spend an entire post on destinations and what type of travelers they attract by now), we ventured out to see the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (very impressive) and the Grand Palace. One night we went to the Ratchadamnoen Boxing Stadium to see a fight night of traditional Thai boxing (Muay Thai). Despite the fights being a little bit ‘slow’, I really enjoyed it for the atmosphere with locals betting on the fights, having a beer by the ring etc.

On our way to Laos, where I am writing this post from, we also made a stop in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand which I found to be a very relaxing and ‘feel good’ place – with the one exception that you see a lot of old men with young Thai women there. We spent two days in Chiang Mai: the first we just strolled around the city and its very nice Sunday night market with a great variety of handicraft and local food to sample (we clearly focused on the 2^nd aspect), the next day we booked a day trip full of action with a combination of white water rafting, zip-lining in the jungle and elephant riding. Big fun! Now, Martin and I are a week in Laos before going separate ways, with Martin flying out to New Zealand while I finish my South East Asia tour with Vietnam and Cambodia.

A good week ago we landed in the most famous of Indonesia’s more than 13,000 islands – Bali. Initially not in our itinerary at all, we decided to spend two and a half weeks in the Indonesian archipelago, using Bali as our base. We didn’t stay long on Bali though in our first week. After a fun-tastic night out in Kuta, and a hung-over next day spent snorkeling around the island’s east coast, we flew to Labuanbajo, Flores – gateway to the Komodo National Park.

Way less touristic than Bali, and frequented only by nature lovers and divers, this was just my kind of thing. We obviously came here to see the famous Komodo dragons, the largest species of lizards on earth, growing to a maximum of 3 meters length. So, together with a nice German couple from Munich, we chartered a boat for a great 2 day trip into the Komodo National Park. We went for short hikes on Rinca and Komodo and there saw the dragons! Really impressive in their size, they were a bit lazy though when we saw them, having just devoured a deer the day before.

What we didn’t know before of Komodo is that it is also one of the world’s best areas for diving. During our boat tour, we started with some snorkeling and were already wowed by the variety of fish – and that was even before we saw the Manta rays (largest species of rays with up to 7m in wing-span!). So, the next day we immediately booked our diving, and went for 6 incredible dives at sites with alluring names such as Castle Rock, Golden Passage or Batu Bolong. On all sites, the volume and variety of fish was stunning, and we could always also see some larger pelagics, for example giant trevallys and white and black tip reef sharks – and mantas again (they came as close as 1m to us when we were diving, quite an incredible feeling - have also a look at Martin's video in facebook). I am definitely hooked on diving again, and will do some more of it in my remaining time here!

A little less nice chapter of our visit to Flores was that we almost got robbed. It was the night of my birthday when I woke around 4am and heard someone rummaging around in our room. First, I thought it would be Martin coming back from the toilet but when I opened my eyes, there was a guy with a motorcycle helmet going through our stuff – just in between our beds! I jumped off my bed and seized the guy (who fortunately was unarmed, smaller than me and a bit drunk too). I woke up Martin who was still deep asleep, and then we had him empty his pockets. When we wanted to wake the hotel staff and bring him there, the little fucker got very scared and somehow managed to break free from us. He vanished in the night as quickly as a cat. In the end we were lucky that nothing got stolen from us, and we will be more alert going forward… 

It’s been a long time since the last post, and we’ve come a long way – from Northern Pakistan to the beautiful island of Flores, Indonesia where I am writing this blog entry from. From Northern Pakistan, our way led us via a 25h bus ride to Islamabad (a surprisingly green, clean and western-oriented city yet with few sights), then via plane (and an unneeded detour to Abu Dhabi) to Kathmandu which we knew from our trip 2 years ago. We spent a couple of days relaxing and shopping there, sadly let go of our original plan to visit Tibet due to a too lengthy permit process and instead headed to Bangkok which served and will serve us as a hub to travel through the rest of Southeast Asia. The first trip we did from there – and the focus of this post – was Myanmar.

Little did I know of Myanmar. Just that it is ruled by a strict military regime which suppresses its people. It wasn’t even in our original trip schedule. But we’ve heard time and again from other travelers how stunning it should be. So we went and I am glad we did! We spent two days visiting Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon before the regime decided to change its name, only one many odd things that happened here in the past), its pagodas and even checked out its nightlife (a rather strange combination of men drinking and women doing little fashion shows), and then headed to Bagan. Though I consider myself well-travelled, I had never even heard of Bagan  before. But it’s absolutely amazing, probably the single most impressive man-made site I have seen on all my trips until now. Lonely Planet writes: “Gather all of Europe’s medieval cathedrals onto Manhattan island and throw in a whole lot more for good measure, and you’ll start to get a sense of the ambition of the temple filled plains of Bagan.” Have a look at the pics and judge for yourself!

P.S. I promise that the next blog entry will follow soon, covering Bali (some of it) and our adventures here on Flores and the Komodo National Park.

It’s just 1am as Musa, our guide, knocks on our tent to wake us. We were already awake though; it’s not too easy to sleep in an altitude of 5000m, especially when you know you have the second highlight and the hardest stage of your trek ahead of you. Tired, we stumble out of our tent into the cold night. “Why again am I doing this?” flashes my mind but the thought disappears when our cook calls us for tea and cookies. Just after this short breakfast, our crew of guide and porters pitch a prayer for a safe crossing of the Gondogoro pass, our objective of the night. While I am not religious, I take all support we can get. Inshallah!

Now we’re ready to march into the darkness, head torches leading us the way. About half hour in the trek, I do a quick ‘self check’: Breathing? Ok. Legs? Fit. Headache? No. Stomach? No abnormal signs. In short, I feel good. Not necessarily self-evident at this altitude. We continue marching in the darkness, crossing the Vigne glacier to come to the foot of the pass. The walking in the dark is somewhat monotonous. My mind starts wandering. Family, friends…and towards the trip so far. I think of two days earlier when we had the first absolute highlight of the trip: Concordia, the confluence of the Baltoro and Goodwin-Austen glaciers and spectacular viewpoint to the 8000+m giants K2 and Broad Peak and numerous 7000s peaks. Not by chance, Concordia has been named the “throne room of the mountain gods”.  We were so lucky, had fantastic weather with sunshine and blue sky there. All of a sudden, my mind wandering comes to an end, the path gets significantly steeper.

We’re coming closer to the foot of the pass. Against the moonlight, you can guess how steep it is (only after the trip we read it’s about a 50 degree snow slope that might require class 4 climbing). I start feeling a bit queasy. “What was I thinking?”. Yet, Musa keeps his pace and Martin and I follow. It gets steeper and steeper. My breathing is already accelerated when we come to fixed ropes. And now the difficult part only starts. We abstain from crampons and pull us up on the fixed ropes. It’s hard work, and probably the most extreme thing I’ve done so far. Anywhere in Europe, you would have had a proper safeguard. We didn't. I try not to think of what would be happening if I trip or couldn’t hold myself anymore. Could the guy behind hold me? Probably not, I think I’d rather take him down with me. Yet, after about cruel 90min we reach the top. I am exhausted but also feel a big sense of achievement. I am a superhero! This ‘superhero’ feeling disappears quickly though when the first porters arrive at the top. Those guys look like the average Joe (or whatever the Pakistani equivalent is) but walk that very same pass up with cheap sport shoes and 30kg on their back!

In any case, we are all happy to have reached the top (at about 5650m), shoot a few obligatory photos and then head down on the other side of the pass which is not less steep than the way up but at least snow-free. We climb down, again on fix ropes, then the trek smoothes into a nice path which leads us into our camp. We arrive around 7am, happy but totally knackered. It’s been an intense 6 hours that I will not forget. The same is true for the overall two week trek which was an incredible experience. As good as it was, we are happy now that it is over: we can shower again, can sleep in a warm bed instead of a thin mattress in a cold tent, and rest for some days before heading to Kathmandu via Islamabad.  

 

I have to admit we came with mixed feelings into Pakistan. Yes, we heard and read that the area we wanted to go to is safe but we also had in mind what you could see in the news over the past months (suicide attacks, tourists kidnapped etc.). In the end we went…and I am so happy we did!

So far, we feel completely safe and we experience Pakistan and its people as most welcoming and kind.  Just to give two examples: we asked where the bus station is – and were lead to it across the town by the person we asked. We needed to take a jeep to pass a particular bad road – and a family invited us to join them in theirs.  In fact, the people here feel sad (and the tourist industry is desperate) that the problems in certain areas of Pakistan, especially the Pashtun tribal areas, affect their country’s image (and their business) in such a negative way. It almost feels they want to make up for it with their kindness.

So what did we do in our first week here? We travelled down the Karakoram Highway (the word highway is utterly misleading; the road is in such a terrible state that you can go at best 30km per hour). An adventurous part thereby was the crossing of Attabad lake, formed just 2 years ago by a major flooding. It does look beautiful but it is a catastrophe for the people who live in the area. Our first destination was a town called Gilgit, which we used as a base for an excursion to famous and impressive Nanga Parbat, aka the Killer Mountain or German Mountain, the 9^th highest in the world. We had two beautiful days up there (well, not up up) before returning to Gilgit and then travelling on to Skardu which is our base for our upcoming two week glacier trek to K2 base camp.

 

Random side notes:

-          They have Mountain Dew in Pakistan. And I loooove Mountain Dew.

-          Today at the hairdresser (got a cut for about 1.50 EUR), Martin and I were asked whether we are father and son!! Even considering that they get kids quite young in Pakistan, this is absolutely outrageous!

We just got into Pakistan, time to write about our past week in Western China! Having come from Kyrgyzstan, you could immediately sense the difference when crossing the border to China. Better roads, more modern cars, military checkpoints all over the place – just to name a few. Some hours’ drive from the border lies Kashgar, our home base for this past week. One of the first things we learned when getting there was that we should be careful moving around, especially at night, as in the days before there were some serious incidents between the Uygur population and the Han Chinese minority. You could clearly see that something had happened as the city was blossoming with military presence. We nevertheless explored the city with its interesting mix of old Silk Road ‘flavor’ and modern Chinese city – and felt completely safe doing so.  We visited Kashgar’s famous markets and bazaars (especially the animal market was quite an experience – see the pictures), and dined in local Uygur restaurants (yummy kebabs!) and Chinese restaurants alike.  Another big difference to Kyrgyzstan is that there were many more travelers. So the evenings were spent chatting away over a beer (or two) with these folks in the local tourist hangout “John’s Café”.  John himself, a Han Chinese who moved to Western China some 20 years ago, is quite an original. He basically established himself as the monopolist for tourism in the region, and was a big help for us.

For three days we went on a beautiful short trip to Lake Kalakuli and the Muztagh Ata, mighty 7500m mountain south of Kashgar by the Karakorum highway. Together we three nice Frenchies, we camped by the mountain and hiked up to the base camp on 4300m where we had the opportunity to talk with some people who were attempting to summit or just summitted (you could tell the difference between them immediately by the smile on the successful climbers’ faces).  This excursion also gave us a preview of what awaits us in the next couple of days and weeks.

Two days ago, we headed south again on the Karakorum highway, this time Pakistan bound.  As many of you have expressed their concerns with this destination, let me reassure you that we’ll stay in the very Northern trekking area, an area we read and repeatedly heard is safe for travel. That said, I still highly welcome any emails asking about our well-being :-)