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SE Asia

Flowing water, live fire and the sound of waves (plus the 6th video of Bali)

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People have always been drawn to these. They (and some other similar things) give you a sense of relaxation, a change to be alone with yourself. This has also been the case with me as long as I can remember. For hours I could just stare at a fireplace or listen to the calming sounds of sea waves or flowing water. In here I have had a chance to do a lot of listening and I really couldn’t imagine my life without it. In the future, where ever I will settle down, it must by near the sea plus a small creek or river nearby. I’ve always been wandering why me and a lot of other people enjoy it so much. I know that it has to do with special wavelength sounds an so on but it still fascinates me. We haven’t yet had a change to sit by a fire during our journey but we will definitely fix that in our 3 weeks that’s left in Bali.

We plan to end our stay in this accommodation a bit earlier and go for a small trip to the further parts of the island. Along with that we’d like to stay in a very simple seaside bungalow type places for the night and shut ourselves off the grid so to say (except for google maps, so we wouldn’t get lost 🙂 ). It’s also easier from traveling perspective since Bali is just too big to make longer journeys for several days in a row, at least on a scooter.

I know this post started quite philosophically but that’s just human nature 🙂 Meanwhile I’ve finished the 6th video of Bali from where you can also see how an aftermath of a tropical storm looks like 🙂

All the best :)!

Lauri

SE Asia

First surfing experience, eating a durian and the 5th video of Bali

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Yesterday I had my first surfing experience while visiting a friend at Balian beach. As I’ve written before surfing here is really popular and board rentals and coaches are to be found everywhere. After a small consideration we decided to just rent a board for the first time, to get at least some sort of feeling with it. First and foremost I can say that it’s really exhausting and a very good all-body exercise! We rented 1 board and shared it but already with 1 hour we were both quite worn out. Although from a professional surfer’s viewpoint the waves were next to nothing for us they were huge and quite a significant amount of energy was needed to battle them. In some way it reminded my sledding – you have fun for a small amount of time when you’re on the board/sledge and the rest 90% you’re climbing the mountain or fighting with the waves 🙂 At least it’s like that for a beginner. Either way after some time it kinda grows on you and we found ourselves moving towards the waves again and again. A lot of times we fell of the board, got carried away with the board, got hit by the board or scratched ourselves with the sand in the lower water but I’m pretty sure soon we will try it again :). Standing up on the board is still miles away but it would be great to achieve it someday 🙂

Secondly we finally ate durian – the famous fruit that is really popular in SE Asia and what has a special distinctive smell. You really have to smell it yourself since it’s difficult to describe it but it can definitely be said that it’s not good. The texture is also pretty weird, it looks like something that has gone bad a few days ago and the taste itself is.. well it’s not as bad as the smell but it’s not good either. But still a lot of locals are huge fans of this fruit and eat it often. I guess it’s just the similar case as we have blood sausages or sauerkraut back home – something going deep into traditions. We managed to ate only a small amount of the whole thing, the rest was taken care of by a massive army of ants. At least they seemed to be happy 🙂durian-3-55c69c84707a617610e1b46a

You can have a closer look to both of these things and more from the 5th video we’ve made in Bali. Enjoy :)!

SE Asia

4th video from Bali

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Time flies really fast and we’ve been in Bali already for 2,5 weeks. There’s so many things we’ve already done and so many things yet to do :). We’ve tried to capture most of our adventures here in Bali with a camera and there will definitely be several videos coming after this one. I have some interesting longer posts coming in the next few days so I’m keeping this one short. Here’s our 4th video from Bali 🙂

 

SE Asia

Our life in Bali + the first video

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By now we have settled in Bali quite nicely. Found some great places to eat, to get a cup of coffee, to go for a swim and so on :). What’s especially good is that we also found an awesome place about a 10 minute drive from our hostel where to go to gym. So now every evening we’re there like clockwork :). And from my point of view what’s the best yet about this place is that right outside of the gym there’s a basketball court where most of the times someone is playing. So for the past 4 days I’ve been also hanging around there quite much. God, how I missed basketball :)! Cost for all of this is only 50€ per couple so really inexpensive. There are also a lot of different dance-,yoga-,muay thai- etc. classes and a swimming pool. Definitely go and check out this place while in Bali (Klub Jimbaran)

In the first half or 2/3 of the day we have usually been driving around Bali and discovering it’s many beaches, temples and everything this beautiful island has to offer. Most of the beaches at least in southern part of the island are located between cliffs so that only a narrow road or a staircase leads down from the heights of the cliffs. Which also means that if there are some cafes or hostels down at the beach everything has to be carried by hand. So quite often you see people carrying all sorts of different stuff from suitcases to beer drums down and up the stairs. I imagine how hard it could have been constructing all these buildings there… And all the beaches are very different with low tide/high tide. When during a low tide there are hundreds of meters of beautiful sands, uncovered caves and calm waters then with high tide come huge waves and the beaches shrank to maybe only 1/10 of their former size. Either way it’s very picturesque, just be prepared to a lot of stairs-climbing :)!

Renting a scooter in Bali is definitely a must-do if you want to discover more of the island. We have already driven over 350km in 6 days and we have only explored about 1/20 of the whole place.

Sun in here is quite harsh. We’ve seen so many tourists who look like cooked lobsters and if you don’t cover yourself during midday or don’t use sunscreen that’s exactly the result you’ll get. And we are here during the rainy season, can’t image how it looks like in the middle of the dry season…

Either way here’s the first video of Bali + a few pictures I’ve taken during our trips. Enjoy and share :)!

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SE Asia

Videos of Jakarta

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This time my video editing software was not a friend of mine. For reasons still unknown (most likely some of the clips were damaged for some reason) it kept crashing and crashing no matter what I did. After several attempts I finally managed to put together 2 clips of our adventures here in Jakarta (although it was meant as 1 video in the beginning). There are still some wierd glitches here and there but since I couldn’t find the issue I still decided to publish them. Go and have a look for yourself 🙂

All the best!

Lauri

SE Asia

Singapore video and Singapore airport

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First of all I have to apologize about the shaky quality of Singapore video. It turns out that for some reason Image Stabilization feature on my GoPro was switched off at some point and I discovered it only when editing the video. Nevertheless hopefully you can still get a glimpse of this magnificent city from this small clip. But to truly enjoy Singapore it’s highly recommended to go and see for yourself!

In addition I just wanted to write a few words also about Singapore airport. In several videos found in Youtube the airport was mentioned as a separate place of interest. I didn’t understand it in the beginning but while leaving Singapore we took some time to look around in the airport and as it turns out the beautiful theme of the city also continues there. There are several art installations, real trees growing through the floor, a little piece of colonial dutch architecture, a lot of greenery and even an opportunity to play video games for free. And we visited only 1 terminal of the four. So when most of the times it’s really a big nuisance waiting for your flight in the airport in Singapore it’s actually not that bad 🙂

SE Asia

Probably the most beautiful park I’ve ever been to + the first video of KL

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Today we went to a little 5 hour walk to the beautiful KL Botanical gardens and orchid farm. These both are part of a vast park located near downtown KL which also contains Butterfly park, Bird park, Hibiscus park, planetarium and lots of different museums and greenery. Although during this time we managed to cover only a certain part of this huge place it was extremely beautiful. Everything is clean, there are plenty of pathways, lakes, ponds, fountains and it’s all combined in such a way that it seems to you that you’re in some sort of wonderland. In addition there are squirrels running around everywhere, different lizards trying to find their food underneath the trees and colorful fish swimming around in ponds. We will definitely go back there during our stay in KL to visit the bird park which we skipped today since we had already been walking for quite some time and also to discover the rest of this magnificent place. In the next videos I’ll also try to give you a small glance of it since it’s quite difficult to do with pictures from a cell-phone.

Our original plan was to go there with a bike since a bike sharing service called oBike is quite popular here. But actually this city is not very good for biking since sidewalks are quite narrow and already occupied with people while there are thousands of cars roaming the streets. In addition for some reason many of the bikes we tried to unlock were broken (as the app promptly told us) and it turns out with one user you can only unlock one bike at a time so we quickly buried this idea. Although for riding around in the park itself they are really good and most likely we will use that option next time.

Meanwhile I also put together the first video of KL so you could get a first overview of what this city is all about 🙂

SE Asia

Langkawi budget and the second video

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Compared to other places we’ve been Langkawi is most likely the least expensive. Especially if you consider very cheap alcohol and gas prices. Nevertheless here are the results of our 17 day stay as usual averaged out per day for 2 people

  • Groceries (different food items and all other similar things) – 25,8 ringgit
  • Transport (in case of Langkawi  it also contains only of scooter rental, gas and Uber to/from airport. We used scooter for most of the time during our stay) – 16,7 ringgit
  • Eating out (also includes breakfast) – 28,8 ringgit. In Langkawi we quite often cooked our own meal at the hostel so if you plan to eat 3 times a day out the cost will definitely be higher
  • Entrance fees (Langkawi Cable Car, cinema and the watch tower at Gunung Raya) – 8,7 baht. Different island hopping tours were available from as low as 35 ringgit per person but this time, after already doing that in Phuket, we skipped it
  • Shopping (different souvenirs) – 2,8 ringgit
  • Other (mobile internet, cash withdrawal fees, washing clothes, and other similar) – 7,9 ringgit

As said before the accommodation in Langkawi was not the cheapest one + since from last year there is also a nationwide tourist tax for everyone 10 ringgit per room per night. Our hostel cost us 1687 ringgit. So in total we spent during 17 days roughly 1632+1687=3319 ringgit (about 682€). The ratio between accommodation and all other expenses was about 50:50 which also reflects not so cheap accommodation costs related to other living expenses.

I hope that you find some value in this and to finish off our adventures on Langkawi here’s the second video of this beautiful island

SE Asia

9th video from Thailand

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It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in Thailand for already more than 1,5 months and that soon we have to leave. Time really flies fast! By now we have really gotten used to all the people, traditions, sa-wa-de-krap’s (which means hello/goodbye when you’re a man) and khop-kun-krap’s (which is thank you if you’re man). But we’re thankful for each day we can spend here and as said in the previous posts we will definitely come back some day!

But once again, I will make a very brief post. I just wanted to share our latest video of our adventures. Click and see for yourself :)!

BR,

Lauri