Captain Yeller's Treasure Book.

The twenty second episode: Hue.

captainyeller — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 15:32:00 GMT

The bus I booked arrived around noon to pick me up to my next destination, Hue. This became my first experience with a sleeper bus even when this was during daytime. I must say this wasnt the best experience. Its a bus with beds instead of seats and they are build for the Asian size of people. Since Im quite tall its not easy to fit in those beds. The ride was only 4 hours and this bus stopped 100 meters from my hostel. Lucky again I guess. I decided to rest, eat and make plans the rest of the day. This hostel was owned by a cute Vietnamese couple with e cute small kids. I wanted to see things pretty far away from Hue city center. The hostel sold tours and I decided to book a tour for the next day. I relax for the rest of the day and in the evening an Asian girl walked into the dorm. She went out again quite fast to return a few hours later. Since we shared the room we started talking and she turned out to be from South Korea. She was super nice and even when her english wasnt that good we had super interesting talks for hours. She did an amazing sunset cruise in the hours she was gone. Shame I didnt went with her! We decided to keep in contact and Im looking forward to visiting her in South Korea or Europe. Late in the evening we went to sleep.

I had to wake up early for the tour I booked but I wished I booked the tour for the next day and spend the day with her. Anyway a motorbile picked me up and we drove to a dragon boat and started cruising. The first stop of the cruise was called the Princess Garden House. To be honest not very impressive for me. A nice little old wooden house surrounded by a garden. I must say the garden was full of interesting plants/fruits who were new to me. We started cruising again after half an hour to a Pagoda. This was a wonderful ancient tower next to the river with an old temple. I really loved the view of the tower. I sat down to enjoy the view and suddenly an Asian girl stands next to me hold me and her friends take a picture, another girl, a friend of her decided to do the same. Quite funny but strange since they never asked a thing. I walked back to the dragon boat and wait for the others. This boat is called dragon boat because it has the shape of a dragon, pretty nice! The next stop was an ancient temple but I decided not to visit that, it didnt seem to be worth the money. We had a big local meal on the the boat and cruised towards the other side of the river where a bus was waiting for us. We changed to the bus and started driving to the things I really wanted to see. The ancient royal tombs. I only knew about one but this tour was going to visit three! The first one was Minh Mang Tomb. This was a really Vietnamese style tomb. Before the buildings are stone statues of guards or solders combined with a horse and an elephant, on both sides of the square. We got some information about the past empires from Vietnam and I started walking thru some beautiful ancient Vietnamese buildings. The views were stunning from gate to gate and at the end was the entrance to the tomb. Sadly enough the tomb was closed and sealed off. I could thru some holes in the gate and saw an overgrown little hill. Still an amazing experience! I walked back to the entrance and sat down to have a drink with local people. We got back on the bus and drove to the next tomb, Khai Dinh Tomb. This was another magical place, a mixture from Vietnamese and French cultures. It looks like a palace in Europe but in a very special was. Stairs to a few platforms and every platform was decorated very beautiful. Once again with a stone army of guards at one of the platforms. This could be a palace in Paris. When I walked all the way up I entered the palace or tomb to stumble onto magical decorated halls. This whole place is a masterpiece of art. Its hard to explain this in words. The views looking down from the palace are stunning. I never expected or planned to visit these two tombs so its a big bonus that I got to see them.

Our next stop was a village where they make the Vietnamese hats. This was interesting to see for 5 minutes but felt more like a sales stop. The bis took us to Tu Duc Tomb. This was the one I planned to visit and I must say the least special one. It does have a big beautiful garden and the whole area and tombs are more spread out which makes it nice but less beautiful then the two other tombs. We only had 40 minutes to spend I did visit quite a lot of buildings but it wasnt enough time to do the whole thing. I would advise to focus on the other two tombs. There was an option to drop me off at the Citadel of Hue but then I had nothing left to do tomorrow so i decided to get back to my hostel. My South Korean friend had already left but there was a new girl from Finland. We started a long conversation and went out for diner together in some local restaurant to end the day and go to bed afterwards.

When I woke up I felt extreme lazy in the morning. Didnt want to do anything and really had to push myself to go out. I went down and booked my bustrip for the following day and new destination. I forced myself to get out and decided to walk to the Citadel like my original plan was. This walk took about 20 minutes and it really was a very hot day. The walk was quite nice crossing a large bridge with great river views. When I entered the Citadel a man working there noticed I wasnt wearing a hat. I lost the one I brought in Angkor Wat in Cambodia. I said I would be fine, Im here already for a long time! He replied with "This is Vietnam.". I should have listened but youll hear about it later on. The Citadel of Hue is very large. I think it was a big palace. Its full of wonderful looking houses and gates who remind me of China, not sure if thats an insult! I wandered around here for 4 hours, getting a bit lost in the process and it was really beautiful. In many places I was completly alone which I enjoyed a lot. Since the heat was almost too hot to handle and I had seen everything I walked back to the hostel, along the way I stumbled onto an open air musem full of old American war machines, quite nice to see. In my room which was now only for me I noticed the sun got to me. Headache and hurting eyes. I did some notebook work the rest of the day and went for an early sleep.

To be continued..!

The twenty first episode: Hoi An.

captainyeller — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 01:49:00 GMT

The plan to continue the trip was ment to be by train from Ho Chi Minh to Da Nang and further to Hoi An. Since my stomach felt really bad and I had to run to the toilet quite a lot of times I changed plans and booked a flight from Saigon Airport to Da Nang airport. Traveling when sick is not a nice experience.. I booked a taxi from the hostel in the morning and had to spend around 3 hours in the airport. Time goes slow when feeling bad and it was kind of hard to stay motivated. When I boarded the plane I was seated between two Vietnamese men, it seemed to be their first flight and they didn't speak english at all. None of them knew how to put their seatbelts on so I helped them. Flying with a Vietnamese plane is quite interesting, people are very different then on European flights which made it much more interesting, sadly enough the seats are also for Asian standards I guess. When my back was completly to the end of the seat, my knees were still stuck against the seat in front of me. The airco on the planes in Asia is also interesting, you can really see clouds of cold getting out of the airco. The flight took about an hour and the Vietnamese men tried to have conversations with me without english, a nice experience. Quite funny to see the being on their first flight and their emotions about it. Arrived in Da Nang I had to take a taxi to Hoi An. I had the luck of sharing a ride with an Asian tourist who seemed to be a "massage tourist", they dropped him off at 2 massve massage hotels. He paid for that part of the ride, so my ride became less expensive. I do believe this taxi driver ripped me off with taking a slow road but the sights were great so I didn't really care that much. He dropped me off right in front of my hostel and I was happy to see my room and bed.

The hostel in Hoi An must have been the most social one I have been to, I meet 2 guys from Germany and a guy from Argentina who shared my room, the Germans decided to sleep in a tent tonight because it was cheaper then the hostel. We went for food together across the street and joined a Australian couple, had some very lovely and interesting talks. After the diner the guys went to the Reggea bar but because I felt sick I decided to go to bed early. I felt a little better the next morning but it became a very hot day, even the locals preferred to stay inside. Some of the friends I have talked about Tinder that they used for fun on their travels. Since it was too hot to be outside I decided to instal it and give it a try. It didn't take long until a woman from Hoi An connected and offered to see me. Since I'm new to Tinder I wasn't really sure of it an had doubt, we talked about an hour or two and I decided to give it a try. I only took a little bit of cash money and my phone, you never know what could happen. I walked around 20 minutes to her place and we went for a drink. We talked a bit about life and she offered me to go to her place. She owned a spa just 2 houses further. We had some more conversation there and she offered me a massage, I never had an Asian massage and was a little bit worried about being broken in many pieces. It took a little to convince me about it. I accepted the offer and she gave me a soft Vietnamese massage and I must say I am impressed with the skills of her magical hands. I really felt a lot better after this massage. It was not a happy end kind of thing but it made me feel reborn after all those travels and being sick. Since she was kind enough to introduce me to her culture I offered to take her our in the evening. She accepted the offer and wanted me to show around the city after eating together. I walked back to the hostel to relax a little bit and enjoy the airco.

A few hours later I walked back to her place and waited until she closed her spa. She took me on her motorbike and drove me to a local chicken restaurant, we had a nice meal there and walked into the city afterwards. Hoi An is the most beautiful city I have seen in Asia, without a doubt. Its the city of lanterns and full of houses in wood and stone. This beautiful city would fit in a movie without any change. We walked in the evening darkness thru wonderful streets, full of beautiful lanterns. Along the river full of boats, I was offered a boatride but I didn't end up doing it. The local people selling small lanterns to put on the river and see the flame floating along with the water. We walked across a beautiful brigde full of lights, into a market street with more lanterns then I have ever seen in my life, such a magical view. I really wanted to buy one and bring it home with me but since I'm traveling with only one backpack as hand luggage its pratically impossible, such a shame! We walked back to the bridge to see the magical view of the Japanese covered bridge lighted up by night, I did see it during daytime and it didn't look that special but by night it becomes a whole different story. Local people were singing songs with children, there was a theater play on a square as well. After all this beauty we walked back thru those magical streets and said goodbye. This is a very romantic city and without a doubt the most beautiful one I have seen in Asia. I'm not sure I would like to bring my girlfriend here since its full of shops, a girls dream but a boyfriends nightmare I guess. Who am I kidding, I would love to have a romantic experience there with a girlfriend.

Since its the EuroCup and Belgium was playing I decided to go with the guys to the Reggea bar, the game started at 2 at night and I was quite tired, we teamed up with a half french/half belgian girl. We had some beers, played a lot of bargames and killed the hours before Belgium started playing. There was a massive big screen inside, just me and the local bar staff were actually watching, funny to see they knew Lukaku and shout his name every time he had the ball. Sadly enough we lost the game against Italy with 2-0 and I was the last costumer at 4 in the morning. A bit annoyed with the game I walked back to the hostel and had a long, long sleep, the next day i felt so tired that I only went for food with the guys a few times and spend the rest of the day in the airco dorm room. I also booked my bus the nex day to my new destination.

As I said a few times, without a doubt the most beautiful city in Asia until now, a girls dream destination and I did a lot less then expected but had a very nice first Tinder experience. I'm not sure if I will continue to use it in the future but time will tell. Thats the end of this chapter!

The twentieth episode: Ho Chi Minh / Saigon.

captainyeller — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 09:49:00 GMT

Around 7 in the morning a minivan picked me up at the hostel and drove me to the bus station. They forgot to add my seatnumber to my ticket so I had to get in the office and get that sorted, it took about 5 minutes. I once again traveled with GiantIbis, without a doubt the best hbus company in Cambodia. When I took my seat a few minutes later a french guy older guy took his seat next to me. Sadly enough he was the typical perfect sex tourist.. On the bus they collected all out passport to see if we had a valid visa for Vietnam. This bus offers free wifi, free water, free snack and has powerplugs at every seat, this wifi works in both countries, Cambodia and Vietnam. It didn't take long until mr. sextourist started a conversation. He was from France and I was stupid enough to tell him I spoke a little french, from that on he only started talking in french and I didn't want to do the effort of understanding. He started a videocall with a Cambodian girl, seems he paid her 200 dollars for a night and when she asked him when he returned he said with a big proud smile, maybe in three years. I felt bad for the woman she really sounded nice. As soon as he disconnected with her he started a new videocall with his next girl in Vietnam, telling her what time he arrives in his hotel and if she would come over at that time. He looked fat, half bald, grey hair, the glasses.. Really the typical guy, nice company for 8 hours!

We reached the Cambodia border and they returned our passports, we get off the bus, get a stamp, walk a little bit futher and get back in the bus where they collected our passports again and dropped us at tax free shops and restaurants. We spend half an hour there before they picked us back up and drove us to the Vietnamese border. There they walked with us to the passport control, returned our passports to us and we could walk straight thru, they arrenged our stamps already for us. Just a little scan of the bags and, Welcome to Vietnam. The checked the bus and we could get back on it on a straight drive to Ho Chi Minh. Lucky as I am the bus stop was 100 meters from my hostel. They warned me about the traffic in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh but it wasn't that bad to me, a million motorcycles and ok.. you just have to be confident and keep walking on the same tempo. They will all avoid you. I checked in the hostel and decided to rest for the rest of the day, those long bus rides are energy killers. The hostel offered free beers every day between 7 and 8pm. I stayed three nights and didn't drink any, how much have I changed. They had a rooftop terrace which gave wonderful views over the skyline in the evening. Ho Chi Minh has a beautiful skyscraper light show, I loved it. I also booked my 2 tours for the next 2 days.

The first tour was the Mekong Delta Cruise, only a full day. I was really looking forward to this one, the pictures looked amazing. They picked me up and went to the bus station bus the bus had already left! They called the driver and he returned to pick me up. I took the last available seat next to a girl and she turned out to be from the Netherlands. Quite nice and weird to speak dutch again. We had some nice conversations and she was there for the 3 day cruise. We stopped some shop/harbour and she ships were ready, we boarded some small boat and cruised around the Mekong. Nice to know that I have seen the Mekong in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam now. The cruise went along some islands before we stopped at the main reasn why I booked this tour, the tiny little canal surrounded by bananatrees and on bamboo rafts. Its a really wonderful experience but sadly enough it also feels like a mass tourism highway for bamboo rafts. I still loved every second of it! At the end our boat was waiting and took us to the next destination, a bee farm on an island. These bees dont seem to sting and I could taste the honey with my finger surrounded by 100s of bees, a nice experience. Then they offered some honey tea with some other bee products, tasted quite lovely, we walked a little further to local village to have a fruit tasting experience with the locals singing songs for us before we went back to the boat for the next stop, another island where we would change boats to smaller ones to cruise again in a slightly bigger canal. Another lovely boat ride. We stopped at a place where we could see how they cooked coconuts in an oven and made some sort of chewing gum from it, very sticky. We cruised back along the lovely canal to the big boat before they took us to a local restaurant on another island. Some very lovely local food their and we got to see local people fishing in a 'traditional' way, they pump the pond empty and try to catch the fish with some sort of basket, in the mean time playing some house music to entertain the tourists. This was the last stop and we cruised back to the harbour where the group got splitted between the one day visitors and the multiple day visitors. I said goodbye to the Dutch girl and we drove back to my hostel.

During the night I woke up with stomach problems, my stomach really hurted and I had to run to the toilet quite a lot of times, yup, I became sick from eating wrong food. Not the thing you want if you have planned a trip in the next morning. I really was in doubt of making it to that trip. I took some pill to stop my toilet breaks for a while. They picked me up again and walked me to the bus station and guess what, the bus was actually still there this time but once again I was the last person! A big bus this time with many people, not really what I was hoping for.. We drove off to the Cu Chi Tunnels. If you don't know them, its the tunnels from the Vietcong used during the Vietnam war. Little did I know that there was also a second, smaller bus,half empty driving there. They also joined our group, I started to have doubts about the being lovely part. We got off the bus and the guide arrenged our entrance, the first stop was at a rolling trap hidden in the ground. From here on I knew I had to choose between listening to the guide and stay close to him or have nice pictures and missing the information. We moved from place of interest to place of interest but the guide didn't wait until everyone was there to start talking about the information.. I missed quite a lot of information but decided to enjoy the sights. It felt amazing, walking in the jungle, between the hidden traps, hidden entrances to the tunnel system. All the time I could hear gun shooting in the distance as well.

There is actually a lot to see but I would NOT recommend a tour, go by yourself and take your time, you miss most information anyway.. We explored quite a lof of interesting bunkers, tanks, fake termite mountains, see the way they hide the smoke from cooking in the kitchen,.. After a big hour we arrived at a shop, there was also a gun shooting range. I never expected to do this or hadn't any plans for it but since I'm here.. I bought myself some bullets and went to the shooting range to shoot some guns for the first time in my life. Another experience added. Most people wanna show how great they were, I simply don't know if I even hit anything but it was nice to do it. When the few people who decided to shoot some guns were done we continued the tour. The Cu Chu Tunnels visit. I really wanted to do this, I waited until everyone was in and I was the last person to enter the tunnels, I gave the people before me a lot of space so I didn't see them most of the time. If you are claustrofobic, don't even try this. Its a wonderful experience crawling thru those very small, narrow tunnels. I've seen it in the Vietnam war movies but doing it in real is something else. Its extremly hot in there and the tunnels go deeper and deeper and become smaller and smaller but this made my day! I can't imagine how it must be to live in there during a war buts its incredible they made a system like this, 25km if I'm not mistaken. We got to see a small movie after this and returned back to the bus. I still don't believe I made it with my stomach issue. They dropped me off at the hostel and I don't remember being this happy about seeing a toilet again.

Thats the end of my Ho Chi Minh or Saigon part, a lovely living city, about the tours I must say, I have seen what I wanted to see but the first one I would have been happy to pay the same money for just the Delta Mekong canal cruise, the rest of the tour seemed to be a "trying to sell you stuff tour". The Cu Chi Tunnels tour was nice and loved the experience but the guide information is worthless with such a big group, if you go there, go by yourself. So I finally wrote a blog story about Vietnam which I will be leaving in less then a week, lets see if I have the time soon for the next chapter, until then!

The nineteenth episode: The Killing Fields and S21 Prison, Phnom Penh.

captainyeller — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 09:12:00 GMT

The Siem Reap and Angkor Wat experience was much better then I expected. My next stop would be Phnom Penh, the notorious capital of Cambodia. If you read about this city online, it seems like the worst city in South East Asia. I didn't really look forward going to such a place but I had my reasons. I booked a bus with Giant Ibis, this is without a doubt the best bus company in Cambodia. Clean, modern busses, enough legspace, professional luggage storage, airco, free water and snack and fre wifi with a power socket at each seat. They picked me up at the hostel and another long busride started. I think the busride was about 6 or 7 hours with some toilet breaks and a stop at a restaurant. When we arrived in Phnom Penh I was cautious because I read about the stories, motorbike taxi's who drive you to remote areas to rob you, or demand more money, bags getting snatched and taken while you're driving in a tuktuk,.. basicly following to internet a lot of street crime. I got into a tuktuk and secured my backpack with keeping it on my back for the ride, we drove straight to the hostel and except from trying to convince me to use him the next days the ride was smooth. Tuktuks here are also decorated with fences to protect the tourists from street criminals. While checking in in the hostel I read the warnings again for street criminals and how to 'avoid' them.

When I got to my room, a little later an Irish couple walked in, we started talking and decided to get out for food and hang out together the next day. Phnom Penh is not really a beautiful city, the people are poor, the looks of the city are a bit special and I can imagine not everyone feels safe there. We walked to a local restaurant where we got some local food, quite funny to see my new Irish friend ordering chicken and get chicken feet. They looked horrible and I didn't try them but he was brave and ate them. After that we went back to the hostel and had an early bed. Just when he was saying, happy to have a room with airco, we got na powercut for half an hour or more, funny.

Early morning again, breakfast together and ready to start the day. One of the main reasons I came to Phnom Penh was the cheap and fast Vietnam visa handling. They also needed a visa so we went together. I knew this place that was trustworthy and has great reviews online. You don't want to give your passport to some travel agency without knowing if they are trustworthy. The place Cina Travel is what I recommend. We paid 50 dollars and gave a passport picture, we could pick our passports up in the evening. Easiest, fastest and cheapest way I know. After this we wanted to visit the Killing Fields and S21 Prison but we didn't want to negotiate with a Tuktuk driver on the street so I decided to walk to the bus station and see whats there. When we got there, there was a local travel agency with own Tuktuk drivers and they were trustworthy as well. They are located almost next to the Giant Ibis office. We paid 30 dollars for a full day and the driver waiting for us, 10 dollars a person seems like a good deal. The ride to the Killing Fields was pretty interesting amongst local traffic, life and city views. He dropped us off right in front of the entrance and waited till we got back.

The Killing Fields.. This is not qualified as a nice experience. We got an audio guide and the sadness of this place is hard. They created a very interesting visit with a lot of information, combined with stories from people who survived this horror. For the people who don't know what happened here, the Red Khmer killed almost 25% of the Cambodian population, this was done by Cambodians under the rule of a dictator. The Killing Fields are basicly mass graves and places where people got killed in very large numbers. Even today bones, skulls, pieces of cloathing still come out of the earth after raining days. I can't say I enjoyed this visit but I am 'happy' that I did it. This makes you understand what happened in Cambodia and what people can become. There is a lot to see there and its all very sad, at the end there is a massive monument with skulls from the ground level all the way to the roof in a glass building. This is a very impressive but sad experience. This makes you silent and think. When we left we were all a bit silent and emotional in some way.

Our next stop was the S21 Prison, this is also another part of this dark Cambodian history. The building used to be a school but it became a secret prison where they tortured and executed people, they also offer an audioguide which is a must. We walked in and it started to rain, which made the experience of being there even more impressive since the doors were opened and closed by the wind with a bang. The classrooms seemed to be the torture rooms for some or interrogation rooms. The horrible beds are still there combined with pictures of how they found the people there. One classroom is still used today twice a week for local people to talk about what happened there and it got supported by the Belgian government. Its good to know they do something right with my tax money. Since heavy rain was falling we spend about an hour there in the first building but it gave us time to listen to the stories from the people who were there and I must say every single story is really, really sad. The story about one girl in particular made me feel so sorry and sad for the short and horrible life she had. It stopped raining and we moved on to the next building, this one was full of pictures from people who have been staying there, most of them did not survive. Pictures of men, women, children,.. It didn't really matter to them they killed everyone. Also 2 western men who made their interrogation quite funny, they saw them as spies and demanded to give CIA information, he gave all funny telephone numbers and funny names, one of the numbers he gave was from the owner of KFC restaurants but both of them got executed as well within 2 weeks. The next building were prison cells, very small, interesting to see but not a nice experience. The tour continues to another building, this one was full of pictures, the "nice" thing about listening to the stories of people on the audioguide is that later in your visit you get to see the picture of the person, which makes it even more sad then it already was. Its very emotional looking at the picture and knowing the story about the sad life they had. Also knowing that this are just a few stories, there were millions of people killed,.. The next room is full of torture instruments and human bones, skulls,.. When we walked towards the exit there is a stand with a survivor sitting. I can't imagine how he can be there, every single day sitting in the place with all those horrible memories. It really makes you silent.

We got back on our Tuktuk and went straight to the hostel to recover a bit, we went to get our passports back, they were waiting when we arrived, very professional service, everything perfectly handled. I also booked my bustrip to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam with them for the next morning. I can't recommend this place enough, Cina Travel ! On the way back to the hostel we stopped for food, had some conversations about the day and then went back to the hostel and prepare for tomorrow with an early sleep.

I had a very interesting time in Phnom Penh, it was great to spend the day with the Irish couple. I also want to say, give Phnom Penh a chance, it is not a beautiful city, its a bit dirty, it is poor but we didn't have the smallest problem there, if you use your mind the chances of getting robbed or getting in problems with street criminals are small, those things can happen to you anywhere. Like I said we didn't have the smallest problem at all. Do use your common sense but don't judge a city already before you've been there. I wouldn't stay there for more then 2 days because there are nicer places but I don't think its the hellhole internet reviews make it look like.

Until the next adventure!

The eightteenth episode: Angkor Wat & Jungle Temples, Siem Reap.

captainyeller — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 15:32:00 GMT

Lets start this day with waking up early, have a shower and breakfast and wait for my next booked trip. While waiting I had time to say goodbye to the people from yesterdays tour and the hostel I stayed. After they left, the tour company picked me up. We drove to their office, only to find out I was the only costumer that day. Private tour and guide for me it is then! While we drove towards Angkor Wat we talked a bit and I got some more insights about politics, past and culture from Cambodia. Our first stop was at East Baray. This was quite a big temple. I love the doorframes. They look like the stone version of the frames you would put paintings in. There were two small buildings inside at each side. They used them from cremation of their dead people. In the middle was a small square with a high steep stair to the square on top of the temple. I dont have to tell you how stunnings the views are from this heights. The top platform is decorated with beautiful towers. This visit took about half an hour and we drove off to the next stop, Eastern Mebon. Compared to the other temples this one isnt high. The greatest part of this temple for me is the 8 stone elephant statues that are placed in each corner on two levels. Very nicely decorated. Apart from that this temple hadnt much to offer, so we only spend about 20 minutes. During our drive to the next temple I asked the guide about Koh Ker. This was something I wanted to visit in Cambodia but.. the cheapest I could find online was 100 dollar. Which seems a lot in this poor country. He asked me if I wanted to go there and called his agency for a cheap price, since I was alone with him. They agreed on 50 dollar, 15 dollar entrance included.

But first we had to continue the normal tour. We drove towards the next temple, Preah Khan. This one was another beauty in the way I like them. A massive temple hidden in the jungle, this used to be for the samurai and had samurai swords inside, well.. a long time ago that was. I loved exploring this temple with all its dark hallways, its ruined state while being overgrown by the jungle trees. In the middle there was a stone statue and if you look from the right direction the sunlight makes it look like a torch! I spend around an hour here and could spend easily all day. Reality is that we had to see a lot more so on the way to the next stop, the temple of women, Bantaey Srei. This one was build for and by women. I must say this is a masterpiece left in a perfect state, the decorations in here is from another level. The whole temple complex is in a dark red color. Honestly it looks almost to good to be real, like a postcard but sadly enough full of tourists. This was a wonderful ending from the normal tour I booked!

Now its time for the extra part. This is a 100km ride away from Angkor Wat and Siem Reap. We drove thru the countyside which was a wonderful experience. All those people living in their bamboo huts, the beautiful green nature, farmer life,.. I dont mind driving 100km at all with these views. Halfway we stopped at the ticketoffice where I bought the tickets. Its quite strange, they dont sell tickets at the temple entrances. The ticket office looks like a gasstation shop next to the highway but only sell tickets. Just behind it we stopped at a local restaurant to grab some local food. Half an hour later we continued. Since we were only half way I had a lots of beautiful sights to enjoy along the way. The road changed in a sandroad and I knew we were getting close to Koh Ker. I really wanted to see this place but gave up hope with those internet prices and never expected to see it but here I was! At the Koh Ker entrance. The first impression was pretty ruined. Wooden pathways because the king visited last week. All pictured of statues but all of them long gone but still a mysterious way to the main thing and there it was, the first glimps between the trees on the thing I loved to see. Koh Ker aka Thom Temple. This is a temple looking like a step pyramid in the middle of the jungle of Cambodia.

The great thing about this pyramid is that there are no tourists at all. My guide asked if I wanted to climb the pyramid, ofcourse! He wasn't up for the climb and told me I could go by myself. I walked towards this lovely structure and pass 3 Cambodian people, the girl asks if she can have a picture with me. She took about 10 pictures with me and thanked me for it. Funny because it was as fun for me as it was for her. I walked to the back of the pyramid and climbed the wooden stairs all the way to the top. I understand why the guide didn't feel like it, this was an effort in this heat. The original stairs were in the front but the tourism of climbing them completly destroyed them so they made this wooden structure. The view at the top is unreal, such beauty, everywhere I can see as far as I can see, just trees and jungle. Loved this view. There were also two Cambodian men at the top, they asked where I was from and welcomed me in Cambodia. Super friendly people. I climb my way back down and walk to the guide, its there that I noticed this place is full of malaria mosquitos. Since I'm saving my malaria pills for later, I didn't feel very safe with them around me. We walked back thru the ruins to the car, took a short toilet stop. I meet the same girl from the pictures there and we had a small talk until my guide was back.

We started driving and a little further we go offroad and end up at another magical place, Pram Temple. This is a small temple, basicly 5 towers but in a very mysterious condition. We were the only people here, surrounded by jungle and those 5 towers are completly overgrown by trees and jungle. There is not much to see but what there is to see is just magical. The stuff for video games, adventure movies,.. I keep stumbling on very unique and special places. I climbed a bit of the trees growing on the buildings, had a look inside and got a free photoshoot from the guide. I only spend 20 minutes here but its been worth every second. Since its also full of the malaria monsters we went back to the car.

We drove halfway back to Siem Reap to stop at our last destination, Prasat Beng Mealea. I'm sure this name doesn't ring a bell for any of you but most of you have seen him. This is the Temple of Doom from the Indiana Jones movie. I didn't know I was going to see this temple and thats how I meet 2 Indiana Jones movie temples on my travel. This is a big temple hidden in/under the trees. He used to be in the same state as Angkor Wat 15 years ago but he now he collapesed for a big part and has been ruined covered with trees. Its sad for the building but it made it more mysterious for me. We climbed a bit of the entrance, walked around to walk inside a small door opening into a dark hallway, just wonderful! After that we end up in the square in the middle, I needed to stay on a wooden walking path because of the bad state but even then its full of wonderful ruined views. I'm not sure but a part of this temple was also used in Tomb Raider, they released 2 tigers in this temple for a movie. Don't know if it was Indiana Jones of Tomb Raider. I will have to watch both movies when I get back home. Anyway visiting this magical temple took more then an hour and was a perfect ending of my exploring day. We decided to drive back to Siem Reap after this because darkness was slowly falling and so as my energy level. We had some interesting talks about Cambodia until he dropped me off at my hostel, time to close my eyes and wake up tomorrow to a new destination.

I am running behind with my blog stories and I'm already more then 1000km away from Siem Reap but life has been busy and I hope I can keep up with this stories.
This was my experience, until the next one folks! :D

The seventeenth episode: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap.

captainyeller — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 11:38:00 GMT

The last night I spend in Thailand was my worst until now, I don't really know why but when I went to bed I woke up an hour later, my pillow completly under sweat but seems only my head and neck hd been sweating. The rest of my body did not. My body really felt bad and when I checked my fever it was only 34,6°. The rest of the night I hardly catched any sleep and if I did manage to close an eye I had the most freaky dreams. I started to wonder if it was a good idea to travel to Cambodia the next morning. It became another early morning feeling bad and like a zombie but I had to leave Thailand because of my expering visa. I packed my bag and walked to the streets to catch myself a taxi to the airport. I arrived a few hours early because of the smooth ride to the airport. Good time to get some breakfast, juice and water hoping to feel better soon. In the airport some western tourist was just sleeping in the middle of the hallway with all his belongings around him, locals looked pretty weird towards that.

The flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap was quite bumpy but we arrived about an hour later. The Siem Reap airport is quite small but looked very modern and with my e-visa I passed border control very fast. The original plan was to go from Bangkok to Siem Reap by land and do the border crossing by land, since I felt sick I was pretty happy that I booked a flight a few days ago. I had no idea I would end up feeling sick but I became kind of tired of this endless road travels. At Siem Reap airports a lot of taxis are waiting and transportation to the city goes very easy. There are 3 options, taxi 7 dollar, tuktuk 5 I think and motorbike which I used only 2 dollars. The ride was quite interesting and new. Cambodia is a lot different then any other country I visited before. My hostel was very good, with a shop inside and a very nice rooftop bar. The next door ATM is also very handy. The Luxury Concept hostel. The first hours I decided to rest, catch some sleep and hope I would wake up feeling better, I'm happy to say after this few hours of sleep I felt reborn. This hostel also offers a tour / bus agency and I decided to book some tours for the next 2 days and a bus to my next destination. The 2 full day tours I booked costed 13 and 15 dollars, cheap!

When I sorted out all the bookings I went out to find some food and just across the street there was french bakery. While ordering food I started a conversation with someone sitting there. A guy from the Netherlands who lives in Cambodia now. This became a very interesting conversation about Cambodia, its history and some words in its language, the people,.. Some other foreinge locals joined in from time to time and it was nice to notice how close this community is and how they help each other out. He also gave me some local tips like after 6pm, everything was half price in this place. Since the guy was poor as well I gave him one dollar for his nextt day. Everytime I got things half price in the evening at that place I also gave the other half as tips to the locals working there. Cambodian people don't make much money and even half a dollar makes them feel very happy. This was a great way to close my first day in Cambodia and I went for an early bed to be fresh for the trips the following days.

Rise and shine early in the morning, back to my french bakery for breakfast and waiting for the minivan to pick me and two others up. The Angkor Wat tour was planned today. Since I felt sick the last night and day I didn't want to take any risks with mosquitos and the next 2 days I'm wearing long pants and a sweater, which made a lot of people look strange and make locals laugh. Better sweaty then sick I believe. We drove to the ticket office where, there are a few options I only remember 2, a one day ticket is 20 dollar, a 3 days ticket was 40 dollar. Since I planned 2 days I went for the 3 day ticket. After we got our pass we continued to the entrance of Angkor Wat. This massive temple looked interesting from the outside, even at the birdge towards it, it still looks far away. I didn't enter thru the maingate but to the right side to see an original statue. This temple doesnt only look awesome its also based on astrology. 9 towers for the 9 planets in our solar system (Pluto was still a planet back then), the middle of the temple is the middle of the universe, the whole temple is in very good shape and you can climb the main tower, which was only possible for kings back in those days. The wall are completly decorated, made me think back at the temples in Egypt, both super experiences. When we exit the temple at the back I can see monkeys running on the roof and the trees around us are also full of monkeys, who steal drinks and stuff from tourists. We drove straight to lunch after this first temple visit.

My favourite temple in Angkor Wat was without a doubt the Ta Phrom, this is a ruined temple thats been used in the Tomb Raider movie. The whole place feels mysterious and is super nice to explore. Them trees growing over the ruins, entering the dark openings in the temple, looking at the Buddha face overgrown by trees. Its like playing Tomb Raider in real life but a little less climbing. Every corner I take is just another magical view, this really looks like Uncharted, Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones in reality. I could spend a full day in this temple without getting bored. This defo is another one of those unique places to visit in your lifetime. I wish I had more time to visit this temple but there were more to come.. Really looking forward when I'm back home to look all the movies that were shot on the locations I visited! Our next stop was in Angkor Thom, we only checked out one temple there named: Prasat Bayon. This is another massive old temple but full of towers with smiling Buddha faces, 4 on each tower. Very nice views and an amazing temple, we climb to the top, we descent inside to wander around in those small hallways, another magical experience with great views. I guess we spend about an hour here as well then it was time to end the day at our final destination.

We drove out of Angkor Thom to Phnom Bakheng, a temple on the top of a mountain between Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. We went there to experience a magical sunset over Angkor Wat from the top of the mountain. They offered us some umbrellas because the thunder started to sound. We walked up quite a long way, not because of the height of the mountain but because it circles around to the top. At the top was the temple, only 300 people are allowed there at the same time but no que for us. This temple was a bit less compared to what we visited before and was in restauration. They told us we could see Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom but the view was blocked with trees. It also became very cloudy and there wasn't a chance of seeing a beautiful sunset from there, so me and girls made our way down to be followed by the rest of the group quite soon. We decided to quit the day but made a final stop at Ankor Wat to spot a rainbow in the sky over Ankor Wat. I felt a lot more lucky with this image then the possibility of that sunset.

I realise this is quite a short review but i can't find the time and motivation right now and there are a lot of new stories waiting. I hope I can keep up with writing stories and find more inspiration because Ankor Wat is a very wonderful place. Theres more to come from Siem Reap and Cambodia!

Until then!

The sixteenth episode: Krabi.

captainyeller — Fri, 3 Jun 2016 14:50:00 GMT

A smooth flight took me from Bangkok to Krabi, a very small airport but with good public service. I bought myself a ticket and 30 minutes later the airport shuttle bus drove me to Krabi. I stayed in this super nice hostel called "Hogwarts". A Harry Potter hotel with a beautiful wooden design and every evening another Harry Potter movie. I never watched any of the Harry Potter movies but I plan to do so when I get back home. In the beginning Krabi and the south of Thailand weren't in my plan because of the mass tourism and everyone went there but my friends convinced me to do it anyway so I planned 3 full days in Krabi. Something I would not regret. Sadly it rained when I arrived, rain season started since 2 weeks. On the bright side, many things half price and a lot less tourists! I decided to grab some information flyers about tours and start to plan the next 3 days, a little bit later I booked my first tour for tomorrow, half price because of low season, lucky me!

Early wake up, a good breakfast and there was the minibus to pick me up. While we were driving to the other hotels to pick up more people, it started raining and pretty heavy. We stopped at the first hotel and on the way to the next one a fallen tree was blocking the road. I started to wonder what my day would look like. We picked up some more people and stopped at 7/11 to buy mosquito repellant since the driver told us there would be a lot of mosquitos. We drove about an hour until we reached our destination, a beautiful wooden structure on the water with a restaurant. We got some instructions, waterproof bags and a lifevest. Since it would be a rainy day I booked a kayak tour, since you'll get wet anyway. The guy explained some safety instructions and we jumped in the kayaks. Surrounded by the beautiful views of mangroves. This started to feel like Expedition Robinson, great! Slowly passing those beautiful views, we took a sideway and ended up at a cave opening. This looked really amazing, we continued by going thru the cave to arrive inside a small pool surrounded by massive rocks. On the way to their I noticed some sort of creatures who jump out the water and seem to run a little but on it. Inside the little pool I had my first good look on them, its a fish who can live outside the water and jumps, pretty cool animal! We spend about 15 minutes observing this wonderful hidden place to continue our way. The feeling of being in a kayak in such a wonderful place, slowly peddling forwards thru the mangrove is exciting. The little rain that fell out of the sky was very refreshing as well.

Our next stop was another cave beautiful cave entrance but we didn't enter this one, we had a little stop and returned all the way to where we started. We followed the river past our start to end up at Tham Lod Cave, I visited one in Sopping and my Thai friend told me it means cave where water is flowing thru. This one was way bigger then the first one, I said it before but this is like National Geographic in reality. I can't explain how it feels to experience peddling thru a mangrove, get thru small and big caves, those caves look a whole lot different then the ones from Europe, sharp edges hanging on the roof, looking like if they fell down they would split you apart. A little stop on a small 'beach' next to cave entrance showed us those jumping fishes again in the mud but also beautiful colored krabs, bright blue and yellow colors. The guide told us they can't eat them because they are venomous. All those little wonderful creatures made me smile, we continued our trip past wooden, bamboo houses drifting on the water to end up at another cave, this time not to kayak under. We needed to leave the kayaks for this one.

Just when it started to rain harder we could get out of those kayaks and enter a cave on foot, a little climb was necessary. The guide started explaining about the history of the cave and suddenly he used his flashlight to shine right above us. A beautiful prehistorical cave painting, I knew this figure from somewhere and then I reminded, this figure is all over Krabi, they use it as some sort of mascot. He moved his flashlight to the next prehistorical painting, 2 arm and hands, all of those painting were on the ceiling pretty high, I don't know how they did this 2-3000 years go. This cave is famous because they found a LOT of those paintings, he showed us a lot more, almost a complete wall full of them in another wonderfully looking room in this cave with a viewpoint over the mangroves. We spend about an hour there and then it was time to leave, back in the kayaks. Suddenly it started to rain a lot harder but I kind of enjoyed it. When we arrived back at the pier, just as we left the kayaks the rain started became very heavy, great to see and lucky as I am just after I finished my kayak tour. They prepared us a very tasty local meal and drove us to our next stop. I had until we arrived no idea what that was going to be. We stopped at a resort with a beautiful place to swim in a river, something fairytale looking. We had the choice of swimming there for and pick us back up after an hour but nobody of the group wanted to and since it was raining heavily I didn't want to leave my bag with wallet and passport in the rain, so we cancelled the swimming part. I was really tired anyway, he dropped everyone off and stopped halfway to Krabi to make me change cars. A local girl drove me to my hostel, I went out to have a meal and then it was shower and bed time but not before I booked the tour for tomorrow.

Around 9 hours after I arrived back to the hostel my alarm went off, ready for the next adventure! I shower, go out for a nice breakfast and wait in the hostel for the minibus to pick me up. Sadly enough it didn't show up.. I asked the hostel staff, they called and the tour was cancelled, DAMN!! The original plan was to visit the Hong Islands, which I really wanted to see. I talked with the staff and selected a plan B. They would pick me up a within a few hours and the Hong Islands tour was moved to the next day. I rested a bit and this minibus did show up. WhoopWhoop adventure time! They didn't pick up any other tourists and dropped me off in front of some pier with a local restaurant. I filled in some forms and waited, and waited,... and waited. It took 2 hours before I could enter the longtailboat. I must admit this was kind of frustrating and I had moments that I did not enjoy at all. Anyway this longtailboat picked us up and stopped at a bigger boat. Once this boat started to move all frustrations were forgotten. We passed Railey beach, some beautiful sights before we cruised futher on the sea. The first stop was a massive rock rising out of the sea. This was a swimming stop but they gave us some snorkling gear so we could snorkel. I never snorkled in my life, a first time experience and wauw, I loved this. We stopped above a coral reef and a lot of beautiful colored fishes were all around me. This felt like swimming in someones tropical aquarium. I spend half an hour in above this wonderful coral reef following beautiful fishes. I made up my mind, I will take diving lessons in the future. I really want to see more of this whole new underwater world.

A longtalboat showed up and cruised us to a tropical beach on Poda Island. This Island wasn't very special apart from the beautiful white sand beach and palmtrees and a big mountain, the views were nice but there wasn't anything to do except swimming. On the bright side the views from the island into the sea were like postcards. The longtailboats and the massive rocks all grown over by trees and other green plants. Never seen anything like it and I loved it. I also found a fossil there which I decided to keep as a souvenir. I could enjoy this views forever but it was time to move on. The longtailboat took us to Tup Island. This are two tropical mini islands and on low tides connected with a sanddune bridge. We should have spend half an hour there but it started raining heavily and everyone started running back to the boat, I was one of the last ones and no more space in the boat. The good thing was I got more time to spend on the Islands and since they were empty they made beautiful pictures! This is also a place that looks like you would imagine when you think of tropical islands or of someone that is relaxing on his private island. Just a wonderful sight and experience. The boat returned and picked me and the leftovers up to cruise to the next stop. Another island with a big rocky wall but with a small mangrove beach in front of it. Guess what! It was time to snorkel again! I love this waterworld so much, I could spend days watching this different world under the water. I stalked those beautiful fishes for half an hour and then we needed to return to the boat to continue the tour. We cruised along Chicken Island, its called Chicken Island because a massive rock tower that sticks out the island looks like a chicken head and to make it completle a bump behind it looks like its body.

We cruised along other beautiful small islands and rocks and we could see the sunset starting slowly. Since its rainy season there are a lot of clouds and the combination of sea, clouds and sunset create wonderful colors for sights and pictures. I must have taken a few 100 pictures on this tour but every single one of them is a wonderful memory. Watching the sun slowly falling into the sea, we made our way back to Railey beach, where we stopped and went for a meal while darkness was falling. We finished the meal and were guided towards a few guys who provided us with a fire show. These guys were good. I was already quite tired by then and it was already dark. We walked 20 minutes thru the darkness back to the boat to make one last stop. We cruised a bit further and it was time for some night sea swimming. When jumping and swimming in the water there was one other nice surprise. Since it was completly dark, the plankton glows at night under your movement. So while I was swimming every move I made lighted up by fast moving blue lights in the water. This is another wonderful experience that I will never forget. Sadly enough,no pictures of that because if there is light from a flash the plankton stops glowing. Anyway maybe no pictures but at least I experienced it and will never forget it. I can only imagine and wonder how night diving amongst them would be. We returned to the pier after this and I got a private drive back to the hostel. Same ritual, food, showed and bed and hoping that my Hong Islands tour would leave tomorrow!

Rise and Shine! Shower, breakfast and ready for Hong Islands! Yeah right.. Guess what, cancelled again. Okay.. On the bright side time for a little more rest and to look for another plan B and a lot of food this day to recover my energy. I rest a few hours and get out for some food. Also bought some postcards since the ones I did send in Egypt didn't arrive after 4 weeks in Europe. I wonder if they will ever arrive.. Anyway as soon as I got back to the hostel it started raining, and raining, and raining. My plan B was visit the Tiger Cave Temple but in this weather I didn't believe I would make it there. Around 2 hours later it only rained a little bit and decided to take the gamble. Jumped on some jeep/taxi and he drove me to the Tiger Cave Temple. I had no idea what it looked like but when he dropped me off I ended up at a square full of temples in front of a mountain. The idea is to climb this mountain its a little above 1300 stairs, nothing I couldn't handle. I started to climb them and saw the sign "Do not feed the monkeys", "Beware of your belongings". Right I forgot the horror stories about these monkeys. They steal from people, they bite people if they defend them,.. Lets see what that was all about, I climbed the stairs and didn't see any monkeys until I looked back. Some sweet looking monkeys were sitting cute in the tree doing nothing. Maybe because of the rain but they were not active at all. It was quite cool since its the first time in my life I get to see wild monkeys. I enjoyed the view and started climbing futher, and futher, and...futher. These stairs are more like ladders and 1300 is a bit higher then I expected. Hello sweat shower. A local girl noticed me sweating I guess and asked if I was alright and offered me her water. I already felt like the most sweating person in the world but now I am convinced. I friendly thanked her for the offer but didn't accept and continued. The higher I climb the more amazing the views become. I don't know how long I climbed and I did need 2 short stops along the way but trust me, the climb is worth the effort. The views from up there are out of this world. A massive golden Buddha statue and a big golden Stupa standing there, local people praying, mountains in the clouds under you,.. Really refreshing as well! Also they offer free wifi in this temple all the way on top of the hill, the Golden Mount in Bangkok also offered free wifi, quite nice but a little weird. I spend about an hour there I guess and decided to go back before it became too late. On the way down I meet all those body building types looking like they were about to die. I don't work out at all and did a lot better then them.. On the way down I noticed the monkeys were much more active since they stole someones raincoat. No idea what they intend to do with that but quite funny to experence, they left me alone and I could take some pictures of them.

At the bottom of the mountain I visited some great looking temple with green dragons next to the entrance, really lovely before I went back to the "bus stop". As soon as I arrive I see a girl standing there and a police officer from the police station there shouting to me, "TAXI? 400 baht". The girl told me she was waiting for half an hour there and no bus showed up, the police officer told us there are no busses today, but we both took a bus here and different ones but same route. The police officer kept asking us to take a taxi together and split the price. The girl told me a guy on a taxi motorbike told her 40 baht and when she agreed he drove off without her. I started to wonder what was happening here and told her we would wait and worst case scenario we split a taxi price. Around 10 minutes later the guy on his motorbike showed up and came to me. "You, taxi! Krabi town!" I told him that I would not leave before the girl since she was waiting here half an hour longer them me, he kept looking at me and asking to drive me, I kept saying no, not before her. The girl told me I could go but I did not. In the end he took her and I stayed behind and waited, and waited,.. No bus showed up, until one came driving from the parking area, opens his window, I could see it was not an official one, I asked Krabi town and he said yes but didnt stop, while looking at the police officer. 15 meters futher he stops and shouts to me, Krabi Town, come on, time to go, now! I jump in the back and he drives me.. to the end of the street and stops. Still 10km away from Krabi Town. I got kind of annoyed but he told me to cross the big street. I couldn't believe this.. I crossed the street and about 5 minutes later the official minibus/jeep passed and takes me to Krabi town. I don't want to comment on what happened here and how helpful people were but I expect different things from official people next to holy temples.

I went for an early sleep because the next morning I had to fly back to Bangkok. The guy working on the passport controle in Krabi Airport is the same as what you would expect in Belgium, unbelievable rude and completly not helpful. My boardingpass said terminal 1, I go past security, they check my boarding pass twice, then mr nice guy checks my passport and I needed to fill my leaving document and sends me away. I filled it in but I couldn't fill in my leaving flight number since thats in my email and no wifi. I go back in the que and mr nice guy looks at my passport and leaving document then asks my boarding pass only to tell me after 15 minutes of wasting time I had to be in Terminal 2. In a very unfriendly way. I think its time for new horizons.. I'm writing this from a hostel in Bangkok. I need to leave Thailand tomorrow because my visa runs out so all I did today was bank things, paperwork, and preparing for the next country. After these 3 busy days a day of doing nothing energetic is welcome and I'm completly up to date with my blog story before my new country visit starts.

Up to the next adventures!

Oh and for the interested people, I created a google maps with everything added I visited, stayed, airports and bus stops:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JRGmTY038PGaonTcmbGUg2MdJrQ&usp=sharing

The fifteenth episode: Return to Bangkok.

captainyeller — Thu, 2 Jun 2016 16:27:00 GMT

Early in the morning out of bed, get a free ride to the bus station and after a little wait I leave this wonderful place that Sukhothai is behind. 6 hours to Bangkok with a free meal included. I wasn't sure if I would write this Bangkok episode but doing it anyway. I'm not the biggest fan of Bangok since my last visit and arrival in Thailand but everyone told me, give it another chance, so here I am, my return to Bangkok. The bus stops at a bus station a few km's outside Bangkok city center but there are a lot of taxi's waiting. They serve locals first, not a problem to me. After 5 minutes it was my turn ofcourse this taxi driver did not know where my hostel was, the Golden Mountain Hostel, next to the Golden Mount.. After showing this guy directions with google maps on my phone, we finally made it. I checked in and found myself in a beautiful shared dorm. Tired from all those endless bustrips I wanted to get out for some food, to my surprise everything in the area was closed before 6pm. Good thing I had some powerbars packed. While I was eating one of those to have at least something like a meal before going to bed I looked down from the terrace in the canal and spotted big animals playing in the canals. Monitor Lizards. I didn't even knew they lived in Bangkok or Thailand at all. A great discovery! They were almost 1.5 meters long. Impressive. I shoot some pictures and go to bed.

After a very long sleep I decided to get my laundry done today and mission food. Since the laundry place I used last time did a wonderful job I decided to walk there. I walked around 40 minutes via Khao San Road to find out the place was closed, lucky as I am the one next door was open. Could come pick it up the next day at 12. I had a wonderful breakfast nearby, also one I used last time. Last time tourists forgot their bag and they tried to run after them when they noticed to return it. Since they didn't find them they waited for them with the bag and never opened it. People like that I love to support. On the way back I visited the temple near Khao San Road but after all the magical temples I have seen I wasn't very impressed.. A long walk back to the hostel in this heat and my energy was gone. I took a rest for a few hours and went wanted a Mc Donalds. If there is one place you dont want to end up when school in Bangkok finishes its a Mc Donalds, its completly filled with students for the free wifi I guess. Not a single seat left. I changed plans and went somewhere else for food. To end the day I enjoyed watching those Monitor Lizards leaving mud trails behind in the water.

Since I do know this all sounds quite boring and not very positive, the following day had something wonderful to offer. First I needed to pick up my laundry, went to the same place for breakfast again. Oh, I forgot to tell you yesterday I walked to the Giant Swing, only to notice that there is just the base left and no swing at all. Anyway, positive things. When I got back I took my daily rest routine and time for some tourist stuff.

The Golden Mount. This is a temple on top of a man made mountain with a big golden stupa on it. The entrance price is 20 baht, about 50 eurocents. Its a long way of stairs going up but its magical. Full of decorations, plants and bells. Bells that Buddhists seem to ring all one by one. Such a lovely religion this is. The whole way to the top you get to see beautiful sights on the city and skylines. When you finally reach the top there is a recorded voice going thru the speakers, "Please, keep your shoes on.". Quite unusual for Buddhist temples. The temple inside is not very special but if you see the passion people pray for the Buddha statues it always makes it special. There are small stairs to get to the roof, the funny part is, they have a sign with "Watch your head.", the face on the sign wears sunglasses. The most magical is part of this temple is definatly the roof. There is a massive golden stupa on it. Surrounded by bells and gongs. I really love all those bells in heartshapes making sounds by the wind blowing, the cute passionate people praying there. That in combination with a 360 view on the Bangkok skylines is just a wonderful experience. I stayed there until sunset and a super lovely ending of the day.

Since I was staying in dorms for a long time I planned a good night in a hotel with a room for myself, also in Bangkok. I arrived there and went for a drink in front of the hotel and a girl comes sit next to me and starts to talk about sports. We talked about 10 minutes and suddenly she asked me I wanted to come to her room. Since I don't trust any girl in Bangkok for a million reasons I kindly told her I already have my own room. There goes my once in a lifetime chance to get drugged, robbed and maybe raped in the same time. I went back to my room to watch some television and relax and do the paperwork for my coming flights, bankstuff etc. I got hungry and went out to look for some food, not even walking for 5 minutes and 2 police officers on a motorbike stopped next to me. They asked me to empty all my pockets, check my passport and check my wallet. I must say I was quite suspicous about them being real cops or not. The search took about 10-15 minutes and I was allowed to go. Since this happened in most of the countries I visited I didn't really make most of it, except being worried about them and my passport. Anyway nothing happened and I went to sleep. I also wanted to visit one attraction but since it was sunday there was a massive que and I cancelled that plan.

Well I don't know if this part was worth mentioning apart from the Golden Mount and the part to get to the airport was interesting as well. I read there was an airport bus from Victory Monument, I took the skytrain to Victory monument, little did I know this big round point has a million busses stopping there. The information desk? Back in 20 minutes. It took me 40 minutes before I found my bus, good thing I left early. Anyway a small adventure to close another Bangkok chapter down. The next chapter will be more interesting! Until then.

The fourteenth episode: Sukhothai.

captainyeller — Mon, 30 May 2016 16:21:00 GMT

Before I start this story, after some talks with a german guy he introduced me to the GRAB app. This is some sort of Asian app like uber for taxis, cars and bikes. I did not used it yet but checked it out and it seems a very handy app. In case you travel to Asia in the near future this might be usefull.

Like usual I woke up early, checked out and noticed I had only 35 minutes left before my bus to Sukhothai left. I quickly stopped a red jeep/minivan, these are cheap taxis who drive all over Chiang Mai, and he got me to the bus station in about 20 minutes. You have terminal 1 and terminal 2, ofcourse I had to run in the wrong one. Crossed the street and ended up in the right one, just in time to buy my ticket and jump on the bus. 5 minutes before she left, good or lucky timing! I had no idea how long this busride would be. I picked a seat and just started daydreaming about my past experiences with a smile. Halfway I noticed my seat was loose and just put on a wooden plate which moved all the time. I really start to dislike long bus travels, it didn't take long until my ass started to hurt and this bus didn't seem to take a break. It took 6 hours to arrive to Sukhothai but what an entrance, driving along some of the things I wanted to visit, back to happy modus!

I jumped off the bus at the old city busstop and checked my google maps, a few 100 meters walking to my resort. This was another wonderful place, beautifully decorated, a beautiful pool, great restaurant and only one other guest. I booked a bed in a room for 2 people but I got lucky and got the room to myself. I decided to relax, take a swim and chill out the rest of the day since those long distance bustrips are killing me. Also have a skype moment with the home front. I had a tv and wanted to watch a movie but they only had news channels and I really don't wanna follow the news at all. A great meal in the restaurant and bedtime!

I decided to wake up early, get a great nice shower and breakfast, the resort offered bikes to rent but I decided that walking would be, its only a few kilometers big so should be fine. I walked to the entrance of the Sukhothai Historical Site and paid 100 baht, if you want to get in with a bike you pay 10 baht extra. I visited a small temple with columns, nothing that special but still cute. A little further I noticed another temple (yes this place is full of ruined temples) This one had a big ancient Pagoda, this one was already a bit more impressive but anyway I like all old ruins. I noticed a really big monument for the king but since it was kind of new I decided not to walk there and take the other side.

Its there that I walked towards the most beautiful and my favourite temple until now! This massive old ruined temple had so many different things to offer and was full of ancient Buddha statues and Pagodas. I walked thru the gate and wauw..! This is again one of the very happy moments, what a view! I spend more then an hour in this temple since I really loved every little thing about him, he seemed to offer everything. Its name is "Wat Mahathat" just google image for yourself and you'll get an idea. Just make sure you'll add Sukhothai to the name so you see the right one. Its better then writing down every detail. After enjoying all the beauty this one had to offer I walked out and on around 5 minutes walking I arrived at 3 big white towers, not sure if they are Pagodas, sadly enough they were surrounded by walls and I did not get close to them. I enjoyed the view and walked on, thru the trees to some sort of lake with again a small temple with columns and a Buddha, I walked around the whole park, visited many of temples in about 4 hours.

It was quite a hot day and I decided to take a break and walk back to the resort. Just after leaving the park I looked at the map and noticed a gigantic Buddha figure on a wall without a head, I changed my mind and ask directions, only a few km's of walking but outside the park. I walk thru half the park, cross the city walls and all I had to do was follow one long road for around 2km. It didn't take long until my friends the asian dogs showed up, come running to me and try to scare me away. I just walked on the same as my former confrontations with them and it worked, for now.. 5 minutes later I have another meeting with my local friendly dogs who decided to surround me with 4, show their teeth and their hair straight up on their backs, slowly getting closer. I can't tell you how much I love those moments.. A local noticed what was happening and came to the resque but I decided that was enough dogs for today and gave up on that temple, call it a day. I walked back to the park and when I was crossing the city walls I bumped in my first wild scorpion, around 10cm big and black. This creature seemed to be more scared then me and run away, not even 10 meters further I bumped in to my first meeting with a snake, around 80cm I guess and dark grey or silver looking, she also decided to make way for me. I never expected to feel more relaxed around scorpions and snakes then around local dogs! Anyway that was the last confrontation with animals until my resort.

I went back to my room to relax a but in the airco, had a little swim and then looked at the map again and put some of the interesting spots on google and I noticed another wonderful temple. I had it with all the dog experiences and this one was also a few km's out of town but I decided to go for it anyway, I'm here now so I should enjoy it. I walked back to the park entrance and talked to a Tuktuk driver, he asked me 200 baht for visiting 2 temples and a drive back to my resort. No chance I'm paying that so I walked on and saw a bike rental shop just over the entrance. I decided to rent a bike. Haha, what a great choice! Cycling around Sukhothai, loving this! A lot more temples popped up and I had that happy wonderful feeling again, I also noticed that dogs don't seem to care about people on bikes, they only annoy walking strangers. Another important Thai lesson learned. Since I did a lot of stops it took me about 20 minutes to arrive at my temple, I had to pay again since you seem to need to pay for the central park, the right side and the left side seperate, another 100 baht but anyway I was in front of a magical temple.

What made this temple so special is that its a small building with inside a massive Buddha statue, the building had a big upside down V entrance where you can catch a glimps of the Buddha state inside but only a small glimps, like hes hiding and watching you. The top of his head also peaks outside a gap in the roof. I paid my entrance walked towards it and wauw, another magical wonder to observe. I spend around 15 minutes there, taking pictures, enjoying the view until a local girl comes inside, the started to do some praying rituals, very passionate. When she was done I asked her if I should take some pictures for her, since she was alone and it seemed very special for her. She was very happy and I tried to give her some great pictures. She thanked me with a Buddhist ritual, something with the gold of the hands of the Buddha, touching her forehead first and then put some of those golden things on my forehead. I didn't expect this to happen at all but it felt very special. We said goodbye and both took our own paths.

My bike was waiting and it became late so I slowly drove back to the bike shop but along a different way and I bumped into another big temple, I never made it to the big Buddha image temple at the other side but lucky as I am this temple had the same thing. I parked my bike and I was completly alone here, I walk in the temple to enjoy that big Buddha image and I notice my bike was missing. How could that be, I was completly alone here, not looking forward to walk back! I walk back toward the entrance only to notice I was looking at the wrong bike parking, dumbass! So back to visiting some more of this temple and see some sort of a sunset, drive back to the bike shop, return the bike. On the way back to the resort I stopped at the bus station and bought myself a ticket to Bangkok for the next morning. I end this day with another great meal and enjoy my private room.

I will end this story here and wonder if I'll write the Bangkok part or not since I didn't really enjoy it that much. I might just put the highlights in the extra story combined with the new destination as that one seems to be much more interesting and promising, we shall see. Until then!

The thirteenth episode: Soppong.

captainyeller — Thu, 26 May 2016 15:26:00 GMT

Far far away from mass tourism in the north of Thailand you have a little village called Soppong. I stayed here for 3 nights and have only seen 10 other tourists and my home for a few days was called Little Eden Guesthouse. Well it didn't steal its name. Its a beautiful place with huts, more modern rooms and a nice looking swimmingpool with sauna. I wanted to experience local life so I picked a hut. When I arrived they showed me my hut and a little later I noticed big ants all over the floor, which I could live with but then I noticed them on the bed and pillow. I couldn't see myself sleeping like that so I talked with the staff and they solved the problem within minutes. Just before my hut I meet the biggest spider I have ever seen eating an even bigger insect and a little later a girl who worked there and was cutting flowers started screaming. She just found a snake before her feet and called another girl who catched snakes and cooks them. This snake seemed to have escaped before I could even watch it. Well I wanted to experience local life, I'm getting it. Life in nature. Don't be mistaken, this place is very professional, clean and beautiful.

I decided just to stay there for the rest of the day and relax, do my paperwork and search how I will do the things I wanted to do and fill myself with food, european food for a change, since Thai food is great but after a few weeks something else is welcome. I went to bed early and enjoyed the sounds of nature. I woke up with 2 small lizards in my hut, those lizards are everywhere I stayed but I really love them, watching them, listening to their sounds and they eat insects, a big bonus! I guess local people don't think they are that special. After a good sleep I woke up early and went for a great breakfast.

My first mission was the Coffin Cave. This was around 3km walking and since my last meeting with local agressive dogs I'm a bit more careful with walking around. I just needed to follow one street so this was kind of easy. Local children shouted something Thai to me so I replied with waving, they smiled and waved back. The smallest ones keep staring at me, I must be weird for them and I guess I know how other races must feel in our country. After a 20 minute walk I arrive at the entrance of the Coffin Cave. To my surprise this looked like it was left behind for years. The path overgrown, the windows broken, the doors broken open,.. trashed in other words. I could read 20 baht entrance fee, well this one was a free one I guess. I followed a slippery path up until I reached some stairs and I saw a lot of strange red insects with little ones. After the stairs came more stairs and more and more stones became missing. The last steps were no stones left but I got my first glimps on the caves and they looked impressive, high above the road and away from everything. It was the first time I started thinking, if something happens to me here, I would be in trouble, nobody would come looking for me here!

These Coffin Caves are used by a 2-3000 year old civilization to bury their dead people. they burried them in wooden coffins and lifted them with wooden stakes, pretty interesting. On the right side I could climb little bamboo stairs and have my first look on a coffin, one "hanging" supported by sticks and one just leaning against the rock. A very nice sight, got me excited! I returned and had a look at a cave who looked like a house, a door and on every side a window, looked cute. I had to enter the cave thru a small opening and climb some other small bamboo stairs and follow an amazing way thru the cave into a very small passage. I arrived in an open space with a small Buddha statue and an amazing sight in nature. Unbelievable to be here. On the left side was a very doubtful bamboo bridge which I wasn't sure I wanted to cross this but I could go right first so went there first. I had to go thru another beautiful cave entrance to a big cave to observe some other coffins. Its only when I turned around that I noticed how wonderful this cave was, its hard to put in words but its stunning. I worked my way back and decided to cross that little unstable bamboo bridge. It didn't feel good at all but I made it over, under it was quite a deep fall but sometimes you have to take a risk to make way to something wonderful. Again climbing some bamboo stairs to end up in another cave. This was another beauty with narrow high paths and some rocky climbing parts as well, also the holes in the cave looked like "the scream". Such a special burial place! I ended up at a part that looked like to be the exit a long time ago but now it seems like the rocks from above fell down and there was a hole I could crawl thru but I didn't feel like it. I decided to have a look above it and noticed I would have ended up at the first coffins I saw. I'm still not sure of this really was the exit or some rocks came down and made it look blocked. Anyway decided to make my way back the same as I came there. I enjoyed every second there even if it felt a bit unsafe and weird at some points but it was worth it. When walking down I couldn't help turning around a few times to enjoy the beautiful view.

After a 20 minutes walk back I noticed the whole adventure took about 3 hours and I had enough adventure for today. I spend the rest of the day in the bar with my notebook, writing a blog, updating my Instragram account which is by the way Captainyeller and shows the pictures of my travels, not always up to date. I tried to upload pictures on my Worldnomads album but the size is too big? If anyone knows how to solve this problem (I don't have the time to find out) I would add pictures to this blog and its album. When I was doing my paperwork I had a small conversation with a local girl who works there, the one who found the snake. Time flies when you're concentrated and before I knew it it was time to get some food and get ready to go to bed.

I had another perfect sleep surrouned by natures sounds and my little lizard friends. The following morning I went for breakfast and a german couple who arrived there at the same day as me was having breakfast as well, they had the same plan as me to visit the Tham Lod cave. They were friendly enough to ask to go together so we could cut the price in three. At first I was in doubt because by sunset 1000s of birds fly into the cave and 1000 of bats leave the cave. I would have loved to experience that but since its raining season here the owner of the place told me its maybe not worth it since the 'show' wouldn't be that impressive and since she's a local jungletrek guide I trust her judgement and I ended up going together with the german couple.

I had to find a motorbike taxi in front of the 7/11 , the other had hired one already and were touring around. When I found a ride we drove around 10km to the Tham Lod cave. My driver decided to wait there for me until I came back, which is unsual said the guesthouse owner. We paid 450 baht entrance, for the guide, the petrolium lamp and a bamboo raft, one way. We followed around guide and after a bit walking we had the first glimps on this cave entrance. Its like a big opening with a river flowing into it, a lot of bamboo rafts laying down as well. Since rainy season started in the north and the cave is full of bats and birds who accidently drop something from time to time, so we wered dressed in cheap plastic raincoates. The guide took us into the first room of the cave and showed us beautiful stalagtites and stalagmites and the fact that this cave has no electricity at all there is no light except the petrolium lamp makes it much more special, just for pictures its a but less but the experience is more important then the pictures. After seeing some beautiful things in the first room she walked us towards some wooden stairs and we had to climb high into the next room. This was a super experience as well and it was here that I saw a caveman's drawing fo the first time in my life. Sadly enough people touching it made most of it disappear but I could see it and it looked even better on pictures, I do believe they should have protected it better against people/tourists. She also showed us a lot of rocks who had animal forms, someo them pretty perfect images. After a wonderful tour we walked back down and there a bamboo raft was waiting for us. We stepped on the bamboo raft and the guide and the "driver" float us thru the cave in almost complete darkness but showing bats, big fishes and other beautiful sights with a flashlight. This is just another wonderful experience and then I didn't mention yet where we arrived. When the first light was visable we could see 1000s of birds flying around the massive cave opening. Its something you would normally only see on National Geographic, this is why I love traveling! This gigantic cave mouth opening had a beautiful sight on the green nature behind it , with the river flowing further. This is where we got off the bamboo raft, we climbed some other wooden stairs to see the sight from a different perspective. You're mouth just falls open from seeing unreal sights like this. Above the stairs we walked into some other coffin caves to see some more coffins but not as beautiful as the ones I visited the day before.

We only paid for a one way bamboo raft ride but since it was raining she offered us a free ride back, normally we would have walked out the cave and around it thru nature back to the entrance. Such friendly people and another wunderful cruise back thru the cave. When we get out it was only raining a little bit and we decided to get some food, at that point it started raining quite hard. My taxi driver was still waiting there for me, must have been 2 hours by now. I decided to walk towards him and offer him to join us and pay his meal. Since there was a language barrier, we walked to the entrance to find a translator but they didn't understand me either, so we continued towards the restaurant but even there it wasn't possible to explain. Sadly enough it didn't work out, he greeted me and waited for me while we were eating and waited for the rain to pass. We drove back to th guesthouse after nice 10km ride. It was time to say goodbye to the german couple since they were going to continue their tour, we exchanged contacts and we might meet again the future in Brugge.

I went to the bus station to buy my ticket for tomorrow. Some simple things as finding a bus station are sometimes harder then you would imagine. After asking 2 times I found it and went back to the guesthouse. I decided to relax for the rest of the day. I wrote a blog, updated Instagram a bit more and had another little conversation with Ning, the girl working there. I had another wonderful evening meal and had a conversation with the german husband from the owner. He explained me about the politics in Thailand and also about Buddhism. I never knew Buddha was a person who has actually lived. This Buddhism seems like such a wonderful, spiritual thing and I would like to understand more from it. We talked for about an hour and it was time to go to bed. I put on the light outside since at Elephantsworld they told me if you put the light outside on the mosquitos will stay there. I was the only guest left in the guesthouse. While I was doing some planning I noticed an insect who looked like a bee, but black. I felt safe under my mosquito net but after a little while around 40 were inside my hut! I freaked out and ran outside, only to notice that there were many, many more on my door and hut. I noticed they were attracked to light. I ran back inside, switch off all the lights and hide under my mosquito net, The problem is, they aren't mosquitos! They crawl over the mosquito net and can find their way inside. I spend around 3 hours in fear, putting the light of my callphone on every half hour, opening my anti mosquito citronella thing but they didn't seem to leave. After 3 hours only 10 were left and I am sorry to say I decided to start killing the ones who were left. This makes you wonder who is the dangerous, horrible creature there. Because of my stupidity ten of them got killing and I didn't get a single sting. One good thing about this horror night is I learned another valuable lesson and discovered the existance of night bees.

I don't need to explain to you that I didn't have the best sleep and this was my first horror night experience. I still don't know if they were dangerous. The next morning I went for breakfast and had some time left before I had to jump on my busride. Me and Ning had another oonversation, it was the first time I meet such an interesting person in Thailand. She's a very cute girl, I enjoyed watching her picking flowers, serve the food in her humble cute way, the way her curiousity was. In most occasions I think by myself that moments like that should be captured, remembered, enjoyed and let go but this last conversation was nice and interesting and we decided to keep contact. In two and a half weeks I made my first Thai friend. After saying goodbye I walked towards my bus and I even when I had the worst night until now I left Soppong with a smile and lovely memories. I got rewarded with wonderful 5 hour busride thru the mountians. If you like roadtrips this should be done in your lifetime.

I arrived back in Chiang Mai, where I booked a room for one night, had some food, lovely conversations with some german people and closed this chapter down..!

The twelfth episode: Pai.

captainyeller — Sat, 21 May 2016 13:39:00 GMT

I noticed I forgot to tell you how I got to the Golden Triangle tour. I left Elephantsworld and went back to my hostel in Kanchanaburi, I spend the night there nd woke up early to walk to the bus station. I took the bus to Chiang Mai. There are 2 options, one in the morning during the day or one at the evening during the night, a sleeper bus. The travel should take 11,5 hours. Because I'm traveling I decided to go during the day. In this way I wouldn't miss the parts of Thailand I did not visit. The first hours went fast and smooth until until my ass started to hurt from sitting. The bus took a stop after 5 hours and got a meal included in the ticket. Everyone went sitting and eating, its a mystery to me how people can sit after 5 hours of sitting. I decided to eat while walking around, stretching my legs. A little later we started driving again, 6,5 hours to go! This bus had some thai movies on all the way, sadly enough I dont understand a word of thai and to make one thing clear, you don't get to see much at all on that bus during daytime! Ofcourse this bus had to be running late as well, it took me 12 hours to arrive just nex to a Mc Donalds.Easy choice if you're too tired. A little later I got ripped off by a taxi driver bus I was too tired to have the discussion so I just let him rip me off, that one euro wouldn't make the difference. I went to bed as soon as I arrived in my hostel. The next day I was worthless and I walked around for a few hours but mainly to get some decent food and apart from that I spend my time in the hostel, doing paperwork and writing a blogstory. Then the Golden Triangle story follows. After the Golden Traingle I was ment to book another tour but all this being active, traveling around got me tired, so I took another food & resting day off. Now you're up to date with the missing part of the story.

I woke up early and waited for the minibus to pick me up and drive me to Pai, my next destination. I read about a lot of horror stories about crazy minibus drivers on this dangerous mountain road, which made some people understand why they believe in reïncarnation. It wasn't a minibus that picked me up, it was a pickup truck. I was placed in front, lucky me I thought, all other in the back of the truck. Another surprise was that this wasn't my ride at all, he drove to some bus station and the minibus I was supposed to take was full, so I had to wait on the next one which was going to be there in half an hour... This half an hour became an hour and when they told me the next minibus was there and I needed to go outside, they already filled that one with other people. They said the next one would be there in 5 minutes. This is where I lost my temper for the first time. I had plans and things to do you know. It took 10 minutes for the next minibus to arrive and I was placed as the first one on it. The road to Pai, my next destination is all thru the mountians, the most beautiful road in Thailand I hear. When we were driving there I started to think how nice this would be to do with a group of friends. Pai isn't that far but because high speed is almost impossible on this road (lucky as I am I had a very patient driver). It curves all along the mountains and shows beautiful views all way long. We stopped after 2 hours for a drink and toilet break. My place was not in the city center of Pai but about 10km outside and the street was almost on the way to Pai, so I asked the driver if he could put me off at the street crossing. He wanted to bring me for 60 baht to the place, ofcourse another rip off but little did he know I had to pay the other driver who would pick me 200 baht, this became a win/win situation for both of us.

He dropped me off right in front of my sleeping place: Pai Bamboo hut. A wonderful place in a valley in the mountains with around 10 bamboo huts in the middle of nature. Looks like a garden of Eden and next door is an elephant camp, not the one I support but anyway I had elephants nearby. Since it was already becoming late afternoon/evening I arrenged the paperwork and the owner wrote me a map to my planned destination here. He told me about a shortcut over the river with a bamboo bridge and draws me a map. I started walking, passed a few elephant camps, always great to see elephants even if they are in poor conditions for them and I feel sorry. The map was not very accurate and I came to the Treehouse resort, I walked in all the way to the river and saw a couple on an elephant in the river but no bridge! I tried to ask about the bridge but they didn't speak english. I walked back out and a bit further following my google maps and saw another way to the river. When walking that way I noticed I walked in some farmers fields and it was a dead end. On the way back I crossed an angry farmer who spoke some in my understanding not so friendly words but anyway I got some good views. I decided to walk back and ask in the Treehouse resorts bar. The woman there had no idea about a bridge. I noticed another path next to the resort and tried that one, and guess what! There was a bamboo bridge but it was broken and positioned next to the river. I gave up and walked back to my hut and didn't believe I was going to make it today. Back there I talked with the owner and his friend who spoke english and he remembers, the bridge was broken 2 days ago because of heavy rainfall. Friendly as they were they offered me a ride and I could walk back when finished, it was only 3km.

Finally on my way! He dropped me off and here I was, Pai Canyon! I was really looking forward to this one! I followed some stairs up hill and there it was! Pai Canyon is as the name says a canyon. What makes this special is that you walk on top of very narrow rocks, its a walking path around 70cm wide, next to both sides it goes down a long way and surrounded by treetops. I started hiking with a smile, such wonderful views and experience again! Its not just a walking path and some points you need to climb or make your way down, at your own risk as usual. I walked there for a few hours, waiting for the sunset, since I read that the sunsets there are magical. Just before sunset a bunch of clouds arrived and there was no chance of seeing a sunset at all. I decided to leave since I had to walk 3km back and with most roads without street lights I would like to be back before darkness falls. I started walking and along the way I meet Memorial Bridge. A big World War II bridge where locals pose for pictures in japanese army outfits and old motorbikes, ofcourse for a tip. I just walked over the wooden walking path and enjoyed the views. Just behind it google maps showed me a shortcut, my driver took a different way. I ended up in a local living area, all over Thailand are dogs walking around free and I never had the slightest problem.., until now. In the middle of the shortcut 2 angry dogs started following me in a very agressive way, I decided to ignore them and just keep walking. They kept being agressive and followed me all the way to the end of the street, at some points very close to my legs. Its the first time I started to wonder about when I will be bitten by a dog for the first time. I arrived just before the night fell and had some local meal before I went to my hut.

This bamboo hut in the nature is a very cool thing. The only thing is, I am not used to sleep in nature. My bed was on the floor, was very comfortable and had a musquito net. I get into my bed and was surrounded by a million sounds. Some of them pretty loud and mysterious. I enjoyed this a lot and after a little while it started to rain. Just me, myself in a bamboo hut in the wild. I had a perfect sleep and was woken up by elephant sounds in the morning. Another magical experience added to the list. Since I had no idea about the bus times to my next destination which is pretty remote and not touristic I asked the day before to get me to Pai center at 8:00. They would bring me there for 100 baht but when I was eating my breakfast the friend of the owner came talk with me, he needed to go to my net destinaton as well and was willing to give me a lift at 8:30. How friendly of them and easy for me. The guy is a guide in the jungle for tourists normally, he showed me a lot of cool trees and gave a lot of information while we were driving, he also included a stop at a viewpoint for me.

I would advise anyone who goes to Thailand to do a stop over in Pai Bamboo Hut, the owners are super friendly, you are near the Pai Canyon and 500 meters from the location are hot springs, I didn't visit them because of my minibus delays. The nights in the hut there are just awesome. And this is how we end this blog story..!

The eleventh episode: The Golden Triangle.

captainyeller — Fri, 20 May 2016 11:55:00 GMT

This day started early as usual and I booked another tour. They picked me up with some other people as well. The tourguides name Gong but we could call her Gongster and the driver, her brother was Jack and we could call him Jack Sparrow. We drove about an hour to our first stop, the hot springs. I would have expected hot springs to swim in but nope! These were geysers. I have seen some before on the Azores islands but these ones were different, these were the exploding ones! Some weren't that high and locals used them to cook eggs in it. Quite interesting to see, on Azores they filled cups to make tea with the hot water. One of these was very big and exploded all the time. I always wanted to see this so this was a nice surprise! We spend about 20 minutes here and we continued.

We drove about an hour again to stop at a location I saw on internet a long time ago and was on my to do list for a long time. The White Temple in Chiang Rai. This temple is a masterpiece. Not an old ruined one as I like but a complete new one, all in white just as the name. Apart from being a stunning view with a big pond around and dragon heads who spray water, if you want to enter the temple you need to pass hell. This is a small walking path surrounded by hands who seem like they want to grab you. Such a cool view. The idea behind it is, you have to pass hell to enter heaven. The other part from the path is also decorated with beautiful, sometimes angry looking statues until you reach the entrance. The inside of the temple was less special for me but for local people probably very special. I heard the colors of the temple have meanings as well, white is for the king, yellow or gold is for the religion. Its keeps being special to visit places I dreamed of for a long time. To see them in real is awesome! I think we spend around an hour here before we left again. Since a massive bus of korean people was right behind us we chose to go for food first. We drove again for around an hour to arrive at a massive local restaurant. Here I got my first experience with Myanmar food. This was yellow rice and spicey chicken and weird vegetables. I'm not a fan of spicey food but this tasted good, combined with a lot of water.

This restaurant was on a special place, the infamous Golden Triangle. This used to be a notorious drug dealing gangster place 40 years ago. The borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are meeting here, divided by the Mekong river and in the middle an island thats noman's land. The Thai side of the border is decorated with beautiful buddhist statues. Big angry looking elephants, a massive golden statue of Buddha standing on a building that looks like a boat. This is a very beautiful place. This is also the place where the Mekong river and some other river connect. I forgot the name of the second river. The cool part is that the water from the Mekong is blue and the other river is brown/red and the water meets but doesn't mix, which gives a beautiful combination and view. I saw this on tv before but never expected to see one in real life, another bonus added to the list! We turned in out passports and went on a Mekong cruise, not as spectacular as it sounds, on a big, but small tourist boat. It showed some nice views and gave information. The Laos and Myanmar sides host some large casinos. In Thailand, budhism forbids gambling so they are decorated with budhist things. The chinese also "rented" an island there for 90 years and put a massive casino on it, on the Laos side that is. Its unbelievable to see the poor wooden fishermen houses on one side and the big luxerous casinos on the other side. How nice for them to see that difference every day. Anyway we stopped at the Laos side, which means another country visit to my list. We were only temponary allowed and all I got to see was a cheap market. For some reason they allowed people there without visa for 30 baht. The most special thing they sell there is whiskey with animals added in the bottles, like scorpions, snakes, lizards and a tiger penis. I could get a free taste but I gently passed. I didn't buy a single thing in there since I travel with one backpack and anyway most looked like crap.

So we cruised back to the Thailand side and continued our trip. Our last stop was the Karen Long Neck tribe, which we should have visited earlier but since that korean bus we changed plan. The first views of this place were very interesting. Wooden, bamboo huts, it really looked like visiting tribes. They live there with 4 tribes but I only noticed 4. My interest went out to the Karen Long Neck tribe since they have the special tradition to put rings around the womens necks to enlarge them. The older the woman gets the more rings she got and the larger the neck becomes. If they remove the rings they will die of a broken neck. The first girl I meet there was very cute. I got a picture with her. Sadly enough they have their own language and I couldn't speak with them, only the little kids speak english and they try to sell you things. Even the thai people cant talk to them. This was the first tribe I visited in my life and even if they are adjusted to modern life and most of this seems like a tourist show, the necks are real. One girl dropped something when I was near and helped her by picking this up and return it to her since it looked like a hard mission to her. She thanked me without words and thats the closest to real contact I got to them. What I didn't know when I visited them is that those tribes are refugees from Myanmar, the army banned them from the country and Thailand accepted them. You have ton pay 300 baht to visit them but I do hear stories that that money does not go to them and they are very badly treated, which seems sad in my eyes. Since Myanmar has a new female president now, she wants to allow them back in her country and they might move soon out of Thailand. I do hope this brings them a better future then what they have now. Apart from the sad background about them I was happy I got to meet a special tribe in real.

This was our last stop and we drove back to Chiang Mai where I decided to get out to get a Mc Donalds. Thai food is great but after 2 weeks some different kind of meal tastes like heaven. The next day I was ment to book some other tour or do things but being this active all the time was getting to me I guess and I decided to take a day off to sleep, eat and do some paperwork.

Up to the next episode of my 15 weeks of freedom!

The tenth episode: Elephantsworld.

captainyeller — Wed, 18 May 2016 11:31:00 GMT

What you need to know in front is that when I planned my world trip I really wanted to get close to an elephant. My dream was to ride on one thru the jungle. Little did I know that this is very bad for the elephants. I'm not going into full detail, you have google for that. Since I believe I love animals I did not want to be part of any animal abuse. I did not tide donkeys, camels or horses in Jordan. I refused to ride a camel or horse in Egypt. I did take ride on a horsecart in Egypt since that was the only way to reach a temple. So I refuse to ride on an elephants back as well. I searched for a place where my money did actually some good to the elephants. There are not many places where this is happening. This place Elephantsworld is a sanctuary. They take care of abused, old, retired,.. elephants who worked most of their life in poor conditions. Currently there are 27 elephants in the sanctuary. The logo is: Elephantsworld: Where we work for the elephants! If you like elephants, please think of this in the future.

As usual an early morning but this day was going to be great. I got picked up, we picked up other people along the way and guess what, the people from yesterday (grandmother, mother and daughter) were amonst them. The ride took a bit less then an hour and when we got close to the entrance I saw them standing there.. THE ELEPHANTS! Right in front of the gate. I think we might be the only species that get happy from seeing another animal then we. We had to check in at the reception and pay but my visacard did not work there. I started to wonder if it got blocked again, they told me to try in the shop later on because this system wasnt connecting with my card. We drove a bit futher to arrive at a big wooden complex, very nicely made, 3 long walking ways on wooden sticks with a typical hut roof, open sides and at the end a shop with restaurant and toilets. They greeted us and made us sign a document that this was at our own risk since the elephants are still animals and unpredictable sometimes. We were with 8 people but got divided in two groups, I ended up with the three ladies from yesterday.

First needed to wash our hands to insure the elephants wouldn't get toxic near them. There were some sort of buckets waiting to get picked up, I got one and was walked to my elephant. Feeding time! Just imagine feeding a massive elephant, giving the food to its trunk, we call it "Slurf" in dutch which is way nicer so I'll be using that word and some of you might learn something from reading my blog. The feeding and touching of an elephant even behind the wooden bars but his slurf constantly grabbing you for food is just so amazing! Such cute wonderful animals. Just after this sort introduction and feeding we went to sit near the river to see those elephants enjoy playing in the river. Super cute, then it was time to actually work for them. We got to a different hut next to the river Kwai where we prepared sticky rice balls. Basicly while cooking rice, cutting vegetables into tiny pieces with a big knife until the rice cooks and add them to the big rice bowl on a stone oven. Then just moving the wooden sticks around so the rice wouldn't cook against the cooking pot.This took a while and when it was ready we put it in different pots to let it cool down. All the time 2 massive elephants were closeby watching us. Then it was time for us to feed ourselfs. A big typical thai meal was prepared. I catched myself in eating fast to go sit close to the elephants nearby.

The elephants take their mud bath just after we ate. This is their playtime, the elephants are free all day but have mahouts (elephant caretakers) who watch them and take care of them. This is the time they are alone, they play, they are social, they fight sometimes. The 2 youngest elephants were playing in the big mud bath others just came to spray mud on us. Thats what happens when you get close to animals. This takes about an hour and I enjoyed every single second of it. Time to get back to the hut where we prepared the sticky rice balls. We still needed to roll them into balls and in some powder. We really made a lot of them and then it was time to start feeding them to two elephants. The three ladies got one and I got one old bull. So close to this giant, I had to put the sticky rice balls in his mouth. This is one of those things I will never forgot in my life! I don't know who was the happiest the elephant with his candy or me feeding it to him! A little later it was time to get them their bath, we went to the river which was full of elephants, got a brush and bowl to splash and wash the elephant in the middle of the river, just behind him the two youngest were playing in the water. The elephants splash themselfs with their slurf. Unbelievable to be this close in a river next to this wonder of nature.

Bading time was over and we went back to the main complex get information about the elephants and their food, and how this sanctuary works, I will keep that info for last to give you a better idea. A very interesting lesson, we watched a movie about elephants right behind it and then needed to work again by washing the elephants food and make their next meal which is selective and different, every elephant has its own diet. We could feed them once more and then a little later it was time for the people who stayed only one day to leave. I end the elephant day by walking them to the forest where they sleep all night. I stayed a while to see them enjoy in the wild, its also funny they dont move all night.

Lucky or smart as I am I booked 2 days and I was the only one who did so! This means I got a big hut with 4 beds next to the river all for myself. I was free for the rest of the evening. I went for a little walk around the domain to see the elephants standing there, eating, getting sleepy. When I went for the last meal of the day I was invited to sit at the table with people who work there and have a lot of history there. Two other belgians were there, one girl was a veterinary in the beglian zoo's (The Zoo & Plankendael) for the elephants there, she started a project here about the feet of the elephants. Very interesting talks with her and learned a lot about elephants. The other belgian girl was a volunteer there for one month. There were also 2 dutch ladies, they are really making a difference overthere, they didn't start this project but pretty close to it, its like a second home to them where the return all the time. She told me how much she could see me enjoying being with the elephants. We talked for hours and hours and you know.. I really fell in love with this place, its like a place you see in movies, people who take such good care with their heart for elephants. We sit there almost till midnight and it was one of the best conversations in the last years for me. Listening to the history of this place, the future plans, the fights they had to keep this up, to get improvements. For me this place is a little heaven on earth and I had no idea that I would ever end up or be a (little) part of such a wonderful place. Time to go to bed! In the darkness, with the sounds of the wild, under a mosquito net. Everything here is just back to nature and I love it!

The next morning I could walk back to the elephants to get them from the forest but I chose to take my breakfast and eat it just next to the elephants who were back already. Such an amazing view, I could never get bored of this! About an hour later I was asked to go feed them, different this time. We picked up their food and just walked to a field mongst them where they were all around me. In seconds I was surrounded by three massive elephants who wanted food. This moment I can not explain in words. Standing in the middle of them, feed them, pet them,.. Just WAUW!! This took about half an hour and I had some time left, I chose to sit close to them and move my pictures from my phone to my notebook since my memory was full, what a stupid timing! Estimated time left: 1 hour. I cancelled half way to walk this 80 year old massive beauty to another place in the river where I was alone with 3 elephants, I feed two of them, I don't think this magical feeling will ever change. My elephant was very picky so I needed to unpeal her food or she wouldn't eat it. Shows how good they have it there! When they were full it was time for me to be alone with this elephant in the river. Just me and the elephant and splashing her, if I stopped she took her slurf to splash herself to show me I shouldn't stop. I played with her for an hour then we both needed to leave but she didn't want to. Can you imagine how special that must have been? Slowly she got escorted out by her mahout but you could see she didn't really want to, step by step very very slow.. So cute! She followed me back to the 'village' where I could pet her some more. Aww I love her!

Another meal for us then since half of the day was gone already. Finished my food fast as usual, I went to sit with the two little elephants, he tried to get on the wooden structure, blows his slurf towards me, so much fun with the little one. Just before they got their daily mud bath time again. After the mud bath I selected something different, they drove me away and gave me a lifevest to put around my legs, I would float down the river Kwai for about an hour, back to Elephantsworld. This was another wonderful experience, just floating down the river, surrounded by nature and sometimes local houses and after about an hour I see elephants standing next to the river. How beautiful life can be! Where I needed to get out the other daily tourists were giving a bath to the elephants, I came along swimming amongst them, super nice! I had one hour left before I needed to leave and there was time to bath and feed them but I simply stayed, shopped and observed them a bit. This was without a doubt the most magical experience in my life and I have had some eperiences by now! I will never ever forget these 2 days in this little heaven on earth.

ELEPHANTS WORLD INFORMATION:
Elephants world is a sanctuary for abused and retired elephants. This is one of the few places where you actually support a good cause with your money there. There are also cheap volunteering options or mahout programs. If you decide to go there, stay at least for an overnight, its your best decision ever. There is room for 30 elephants, when I'm writing this there are 27 elephants there. They are raising money to buy the nearby fields to be able to host even more elephants in the future. I observed this place for 2 days, the people working there are little heroes in my eyes. The elephants are always free, they are never locked up inside. Some are in poor conditions, some are kept apart because they are dangerous, since they are new they dont know how to behave yet. Not every elephant is happy, it is not the perfect place for them, they belong in the wild but this place tries to make it as good as possible for them, like a retirement home. I'm thinking when I get back home to start a fund raising in some way for this place. I'm also 100% sure I will come back here in the future. If your dream is being close to an elephant, dont go on an elephant ride, come to Elephantsworld and you will get so much more, yes its a bit more expensive but you're supporting your dream to be happy.

Any more information http://www.elephantsworld.org . Support this!

The nineth episode: Kanchanaburi.

captainyeller — Mon, 16 May 2016 16:27:00 GMT

Waking up early as usual for another special day. I booked a tour who picked me up at my hostel in the morning. Little later a local guide joined me and we drove off to other hostels to pick up people. An older couple who I shared the minibus from Ayutthaya to Kanchanaburi. Very interesting people, they used to live in Switzerland and got retired, sold everything they had and are starting a new life in South East Asia, they don't know where yet so they wander around. Very romantic isn't it. I hope I end up like that when I'm old. The other people are grandmother, mother and daughter, the daughter was living for 10 months in South East Asia and teaching english at a school. Also a nice bunch of people.

Our first stop are the Erawan waterfalls. 7 waterfalls above each other with natural swimming pools under most of them. If you want to visit them you have to show how many bottles you bring and pay 20 baht per bottle until you come back and show them you didn't throw them away. Great system! The first waterfall was already something from out of the movies, very beautiful, a girl posing under the water for a picture. I decided not the swim here since it was the busiest place, for the other ones some natural steps needed to be taken. I walked along to pass 2 other beautiful waterfalls to stop at the next where the pool was empty. Perfect place for me to take a swim. I changed into swimming gear and dived in! Within seconds all fished were on my feet and legs, such a funny feeling! Normally you have to pay for a fish massage, these natural ones are for free, lucky me! The views are stunning and it looks and feels like I'm in paradise. Some big lizard is crawling next to the waterfall. Life can be so wonderful! After an hour of relaxing there I decided to climb to the other 3 waterfalls and reach the top. This was no more following steps its more like climbing in the jungle. The waterfall at the top looked like a fairytail. All small asian girls posing and enjoying. I just enjoyed the show and natures beauty. Since its dry season the water was much less then usual and the waterfalls were pretty small but everywhere I could see the potential and on the bright side, not a single mosquito! Even with less water this place was magical anyway. There were signs for fines if you feed the monkeys but I didn't see a single monkey, I heard some sounds but probably more imagination and hope then reality. I decided to walk my way down and notice the spirit trees where budhists hang gifts for luck. I don't know much about this religion but it looks beautiful. A little futher two little local girls ask me to take their picture and they thanked me in a typical thai way with their hands together and a bow. Super cute! On the way down I see them play and slip and fall in the water, after I pass them they follow me all the way down. Before we leave, at the entrance my guide and the others were waiting for a meal in a local restaurant, very tasty!

The next stop is Hellfire pass. This is a historical world war 2 site where prisoners of war were send to cut out a train railway from Thailand to Myanmar by the Japanese. Many of them were western prisoners and asian workers and 10.000s of them died there. They needed to cut a pass out of massive rocks by hand with hardly any food (no meat at all), a terrible heat. The images almost looked like concentration camps people. First we walked thru the cut out pass, its unbelievable they did this by hand, you can still see the carvings, metal that got stuck and a lot of messages and roses placed by people to remember them. Its a beautiful view with a very sad background. We walked to the end and stayed there a while to observe and think about it. There was a picture from a boy who died there when he was young in 1943 combined with a picture from his sister who died when she was old in 2006 with the message, "brother and sister together again". The piture was from both of them when they were young. Like I said, beautiful but sad.. The museum just after it was also very interesting and sad as well, I could read letters from people there to wives from men who died there. Just imagine getting that in your mail.. This was a very interesting place to visit since it brings WWII information about Asia that I never knew.

Death railway was where we went next. This was also build by prisoners of war, a trainline that hangs on the rocks with only a river under it, while we were waiting on the train there was a cave close to it. We had to walk over the rails to get in, the cave is a temple with a golden Buddha inside and a way deeper in it. Impressive, I don't know the history about this but you could see signs that it was old and probably related to the war. A little bit further under the bridge used to be a prison camp, today its a resort. How times change things! The views of the bridge, the river, the floating houses,.. wonderful! We waited a bit more in the trainstation which I think is only there for tourism, full of shops and bars but nothing else near. The train came in and we all jumped on, tourists on the right side, locals on the left side. Once again I felt like a little kid, hanging out the window, enjoying the wonderful view, look down from the train who seems to be flying above a river. This is a very short trainride but it joins my top 5 of most beautiful and impressive trainrides I experienced. At the end the minibus was waiting to drive to our next destination.

Bridge on the river Kwai. A famous movie with a sad story. To be honest I never saw the movie but I guess its related to all above here, except waterfalls. The bridge looked like a bridge, full of tourists and you can cross it by foot but if the train comes its at your own risk. For me this was nothing special, just a bridge with bombs in front of it but it attrackts mass tourism, probably because of the movie. Shops everywhere and a bit futher a museum with world war stuff, I only looked at the entrance where a massive locomotive was standing with an old mercedes car on it and the message, Japanese used this train to transport bombs.

That was the end of the tour and the end of an interesting wonderful day. I went to bed with a great feeling, put my alarm for the next adventure, EXCITED!

The eighth episode: Ayutthaya.

captainyeller — Wed, 11 May 2016 16:23:00 GMT

Since I ended at the trainstation in Bangkok, lets continue there, wikitravel said around 250 baht for a second class ticket from Bangkok to Ayutthaya, a 3th class would be even cheaper but hard to get since they only wanna sell those to locals. I experienced something different, they offered me directly a ticket for 15 baht in 3th class, which means no air conditioning. I decided to go for second class, one hour long waiting and only 65 baht. Wikitravel was wrong. I sit down in the trainstation and observed the local life and other travelers. The time flies by and I walked towards my train which could be entered half an hour in front. This 2nd class had better seats then Belgian first class trains but no real airco, some turning fans, looked quite nice. People walk all trainride up and down to sell anything but I prepared myself with enough water. I noticed some people use cooler buckets with drinks, never seen that before, looked great! I decided to go for the train instead of minibus or bus even if the cost was bigger, Wikitravel said you get better views on the train, I have to disagree with them again on that but the train inside was much nicer then a bus anyway. They spray the complete train twice with some anti mosquito spray, that felt great, haha. The ride should have been 2 hours but with a lot of stops without trainstations it arrived with one hour delay. As soon as I left the train the local Tuktuk guys tried to get me in to their Tuktuks but I decided to take the ferry for one baht and walk 2km. The ferry crossed a very small river but gave a nice view on wooden houses along the river. Then I walked towards my hostel and already bumped into 2 small temples which I would otherwise never have visited. Thats why I prefer walking. The hostel looked wonderful, a very big wooden house, next to the river in nice colors, nice rooms, a great garden with a boat there and a relaxing couch. After not enjoyng Bangkok that much I really loved every second from the first step on the train. For me this felt like my first real Thailand experience and I loved it. I decided to get some foot there and relax for the rest of the day, the hostel also gave me a book of information, best views and a map from the city, this place used to be the old capital of Thailand and you can clearly see it. I went to eat something in front of a temple when night fell, I couldn't wait for tomorrow!

Waking up early, getting some breakfast and start the day! They rent bikes and Tuktuks would take you everywhere but I wanted to walk like usual. The first stop was an ancient temple who looks like the one from adventure movies or games. Such a beautiful buildings, much different then my Roman, Greek and Egyptian views before. I stayed there for about an hour and enjoy every single view. The next temple had one of those trees that grows over a Buddha face statue, first time I get to see that and its a magical view, everything else in that massive temple felt wonderful as well, I got the feeling that some of my pictures could be postcards. I decided to work my way up to another temple and needed to cross a park for that full of small lakes, bridges, fishes, cool looking & sounding birds and other temples. This feeling of joy inside is hard to discribe, all alone, far away fro everything and everyone and just slowly walking, being happy, not a single care in the world. I love this trip. While smiling all the way around the park I ended up at a third temple, this was another masterpiece, most parts are ruined but they look absolutly stunning, and completly different then the others. I could spend hours enjoying the sight of these but I had to move on. Before I could continue my way some local university people stopped me for an enquete about Thailand and my experience, I spend 15 minutes with them, had some nice talks and got a small golden elephant gift. Super lovely people! They call this place the Venice of the east, quite funny if you come from the Venice of the north.. As soon as there are canals and bridges its called Venice from anywhere.. My last stop of the day was a massive Buddha statue that is sleeping, I was pretty excited for this one since its the background that was used in the Street Fighter game from Sagat his stage. I was a Street Fighter addict when I was young. To see this in real life is another wonderful experience and it looked better then I expected. I was already walking for 4,5 hours in the coldest day until now, only 34° but not less sweaty at all so deciced to go back to my hostel for a break. This city has around 80 or 90 things to offer but what I have seen was wonderful for now. A long walk to the hostel with some great views were a perfect end for now.

Back at the hostel I talked with people who stayed long then me in Thailand about my mosquito fear and since its dry season there seem to be not too much of them. I didn't use any protection for now, except that only night out in Bangkok with citronella, which I still have with me. I have only seen 2 mosquitos until now, my paranoia is under control, for now.. After some relaxing I booked an evening tour with a boat around the island thru the hotel where the boat would pick us up. Only people from this hostel were on this small local boat. The views on the local houses next to the river are so beautiful, I do know I say this a lot but I can't help everything looks magical. We stopped at the first temple where we got out and inside this temple I bumped into the biggest ancient Buddha statue they have and big it was. I could see people stand on it, they were about to start the praying, another magical experience that I don't understand. They roll down some of his cloathing and people at the bottom of the statue put if over their heads. How lucky am I to whitness this all. Around 20 minutes later we continued the cruise to the next temple, this one didnt look very impressive until I started walking in their backgarden to find another big Buddha sleeping. I love these places and statues! We cruised further around the island to stop at one other big temple who looked like the ones I visited but much darker and we enjoyed the perfect sunset there. How nice did this day turn out. You can plan everything before and create a masterplan on paper but to actually experience it is another level.

We cruised back to the hostel and I went for food in the same place with a view on the temple. The time before I enjoyed food here I enjoyed watching the girls working there, they are small and very cute in their beheviour, followed me out and kept waving, very humble and cute. The same girls were working there tonight and were as cute as before but when I arrived no music was playing and 5 minutes later the most romantic english songs started to play. I start to believe they try to play with my mind. The food there was great, oh that reminds me! A few hours earlier I tried chicken noodles for the first time with sticks. Great, how would I handle those! I felt like a little kid trying to catch ducks at a fair but this price was my food. I did manage to work it out eventually but I had to work for my food. Anyway I walked home with nice songs in my head and decided to go to bed.

When I woke up the 2 other people I shared the room with asked me if I heard these noizes tonight. I didn't hear a thing, both of them were freaked out since they heard knocking on our door and something falling on the ground but no footsteps, talking about how old this house must be, quite funny since I had the perfect sleep. I walked down for information for a bus to my net destination and guess what, the minibus would leave right now to hostel and it was the only one of the day. they called, I grabbed my bag and left. It keeps amaze me how lucky I am the whole time. This minibus drove around 2,5 hours to my next destination and dropped me off in front of my hostel. Talking about service..! I decided to use this day to eat, do my laundry, do my planning, relax,.. I really enjoy this place, less luxerous then the last hostel but super friendly hosts. I stayed all day and finish the day writing this blog. The next 3 days will be full of adventure, don't know if I will find time or wifi to give updates but great new adventures on the way!

Until the next episode!

The seventh episode: Bangkok.

captainyeller — Tue, 10 May 2016 17:05:00 GMT

Leaving Egypt behind with a smile, it was time for my next destination. Wake up early again, got picked up by my driver to the airport of Aswan. Everything went smooth and about one hour later I arrived in Cairo. I had to change Terminals, as soon as I walked out 20 taxi drivers stalked me but I knew there was a free way, just not where. Finally I found my way thru another empty Terminals, they seem to rebuild that one, whch was quite interesting to walk thru. Then a steward helped me to a skytrain, very, looked like a pretty new train with nice views. From there the real adventure started. Everyone had to go thru one door , metal detector, body search and bags scanned. After that checked in and needed to go thru boarder control which was once again chaos. That took me 2 hours but the good thing was I only had to wait one hour to my next flight but before I could enter that one, again bags scanned, metal detector and body search. Yet people complain in Belgium. Time for my first Qatar Airways flight. This plane was without a doubt the best plane I have ever been on till then. Big comfy seats, great service and new movies! I put on The Revenant and watched it until the end, just minutes later I arrived in Doha, Qatar. What a beauty of an airport, a few hours waiting here with unlimited free wifi aint too bad! My next airplane with Qatar Airways was even better, double deck, better seats and more movies + free wifi (ok, only 15 minutes without paying). I expected to sleep on this flight but no chance of that. So I watched The Martian and Creed and got annoyed from not sleeping. 24 hours before I arrived in Bangkok... Arriving there I found a direct train to the city. The way people wait properly, between lines on the floor, nobody enters the train before everyone left it. Such a dicipline. Ofcourse I stood on the wrong spot on the ground and the guard put me in the right direction. First Thailand lesson learned.

It was cooler then in Egypt and naive as I was I walked with long pants and a sweater and my 7,5 kilo backpack. I guessed it was a good idea to walk from the trainstation towards my hotel with google maps, only 5km. I started walking and I noticed the place became more dirty until I end up at a lot of trash and a railroad. I crossed the railroad and unaware as I was I walked into a very poor suburb. I didn't know Bangkok so I guessed this was normal, I had seen poor markets next to railroads. After 5 minutes walking in this suburb a woman came to me shouting "NO! NO!!" and escorted me out of there as soon as possible. I still don't know if that was dangerous or not but I walked back and took a taxi. Another Thailand lesson learned I guess. I knew I always had to ask the taxi to put his meter on. I never found one who didn't do it, compared to Jordan a luxery! I arrived too early at the hostel and I felt like I had a shower for 5 hours, sweat dripping everywhere. Lucky as I am my room was cleaned and I could check in immidiatly. 26 hours after leaving Aswan. I couldn't sleep so decided to walk around a bit to find some food, which went pretty easy but every step felt like a shower. I went for a sleep pretty quick after that not to wake up until the next morning.

The next morning pretty early I started walking towards the things I wanted to see, after looking at a small temple I ended up in Khao San road (the backpackers street).Nothing special to see except people trying to sell me things and tuktuk who desperatly wanted my attention. I decided to walk. A few hours later I arrived at the palace and I wasn't allowed to enter, only Thai people for some reason, so I walked towards the temple next to it. I would search for the name but I'm too lazy. The entrance was 100 baht and I only had 1000 baht, the guy behind the desk was very annoyed and not friendly at all. Thailand the land of smiles? Not at a temple entrance I guess. This temple was wonderful! Very beautiful and I went to see the big laying down Buddha. I needed to put my shoes off and I noticed my bag on my pants was open, the place where I put my wallet.. This could not be possible, would I already have been robbed in a temple on my first decent day in Thailand? I walked back in panic t notice my wallet was just in another pocket but lesson learned. From now on I put everything with value in different spaces so if I do lose one thing I still have backups. This Buddha inside was a masterpiece, such a massive golden statue. Very wonderful to see local people praying to some religion I know nothing about. Interesting. After a good hour inside that temple I decided to walk back since I lost enough sweat to fill a bath with I guess. When I arrived back at the hostel I walked for 6 hours, I was full of doubt, which I have every time I enter a new country or culture. Will I be able to survive here? I miss European weather.. Can I actually follow my masterplan? I can always buy a flight back home and travel thru Europe.. I always give myself 2 days to adjust and tell myself, its only in my head, stay positive! I saw a flyer in the hostel with a Khao San pubcrawl in the evening. I decided to join that one and do my washing until then to escape the heat. I didn't tell you but I was horrified from the mosquito stories in Thailand, especially Dengue Fever. I read so many horror stories about it and plagues in 2016 that my mind was even more troubled. Before I went to that pub crawl I put on long pants, a sweater and my head covered in citronella. This should protect me for now I hope. I googled to find out if DEET could be used on a bald head, try to find any info about that online, since its toxic it should not get in to your eyes, how will I be able to protect my head if I keep sweating all the time and it would get in my eyes if I put it on my head.. Worries for later. The smell of citronella could probably be noticed meters away from me.

Before the pub crawl I went for dinner and found the pub. I noticed everyone was wearing tanktops, small shorts,..nobody seemed to care about mosquitos, are they naive or am I paranoid? I meet some friendly people who joined the same event, the cost was 300 baht, I got a free tanktop and they directly offered me a wodka bucket. When I started drinking that I noticed I forgot my keys from the hostel and I was not supposed to get there before 2AM. I didn't want to be locked out so I walked back to the hostel and changed cloathing as well, I also had to enter 3 times again to check for my locker keys and stuff, I don't know if its the jetlag or the heat that plays mindgames but I intend to be confused a lot. When I got back to the bar there were a lot of people and we started playing beer games. I had some lovely talks and 2 hours later we went to the next bar. We got a large meter high beer thing for free that filled us all a bit more, then they offered markers and pens to write stuff on people back, which we had no idea what they wrote. After a few more drinks everyone started dancing on the streets, a nice experience to whitness but this commercial hiphop styled music isn't my thing. All those girls shaked their asses off and enjoyed themselfs a lot. I choose a hardcore night over any of this. The guy next to me told me this place is full of ladyboys, except our host who looked like the asian female version of Jack Black I never noticed one. From that point on I was curious and started to take attention. I only managed to soot 3 in about 3 hours (except our host). This means, not getting close to Thai girls for me. Too risky business! A little later I watched my first Thai street fight which seemed like every local was a Thai boxer and a drunk tourist didn't stand a chance. Good to know it happened right in front of a police car with flashing lights on and no reaction at all. I had some nice company but about one hour later I became too bored with that commercial music and since everyone went to a club I deciced to go to bed. I had to travel tommorow and I didn't want a hangover in this weather! A good thing to know I didn't meet a single mosquito until I found one outside the hostel.

When I returned to my hostel and while taking a shower I noticed a girl I spend time with wrote "Belgium guys are sexy" on my tanktop, a nice memory of my first night out in Bangkok. I went to bed to be woken up by the snoring of a man sharing my room. I put in earplugs but even then only managed to sleep a few hours. The next morning I stayed in bed until it was time to check out, went for breakfast to the trainstation and the story and Bangkok ends there for now, more stories will follow soon!

The sixth episode: The Nilecruise: Luxor, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswan & Abu Simbel.

captainyeller — Sat, 7 May 2016 20:30:00 GMT

Arrived in Luxor, probably the biggest open air museum in the world. Here was also a driver waiting for me. I arrived quite late in a beautiful hotel with a pool looking over the Nile, sadly enough I did not hve the time to enjoy that pool. I went down for a meal at 8pm and was there all by myself. A bit of a shame, tourism is really low in Egypt right now and its up to you to change that. I forgot the exact time I had to wake up the next morning but I know it was early so I went direct to sleep after eating.

Pretty tired I was sitting in the hotel lobby where I meet two dutch people who also booked with Kingfisher Tours. We jumped into a minibus where they drove us to the Nile, still in darkness we were put on a boat with other tourists and offered tea and a short briefing on what was about to happen. After crossing the Nile we were put into other mini busses and I got a glimps on massive Egyptian statues. Excitement! A short drive later I saw the hot air balloons being lighted up by the fires, such a spectacular view in the dark and the best had yet to come. You read it, I was going to get my first hot air balloon flight. Jumped in the balloon and off we go. Such a wonderful view and feeling lifting up over the other balloons and see the fire shows from above. Perfect timing since the morning light i coming thru and I get a spectacular view over the valley of the kings, many tempels and statues, a great view over Luxor and the green zone the Nile creates in a desert. A little later the sunrise started which made the experience even more magical. I think we were in the sky for about an hour and the getting down part was an experience on itself. All young guys running thru the fields to catch our balloon and create a soft, perfect landing. Not a bad way to start your morning!

Breakfast was arrenged by the hotel and brought to a local bar next to the Colossos of Memnon which is not a bad view for breakfast. Sadly enough all other parts except a few other statues (one recently discovered) from the deathtemple of Amenhotep III were destroyed by an earthquake. My private guide and driver were waiting and give me a short explanation of the history, which the private guides do everywhere but I wont mention all the time. Next stop: Valley of the Kings. There are three tombs free of choice included in your ticket, only for a few and if you want to visit extra tombs you need to buy more tickets. I first walked into the tomb of Ramses II. What I experienced there was out of this world. I can't explain in words how it looks or feels. I'm not the biggest art or museum fan but this is without a doubt the most beautiful, biggest artform I have ever seen. Its like walking into another dimension, the colors, the details, the beauty,.. You'll have to go see this with your own eyes. I visited the tombs of Merneptah and Ramesses IV which were both from the same level. Its forbidden to take pictures or even bring a camera on the site, thats about the only downpart I can tell about this place. It might be possible to pay the guards but out of respect for the colors and the place I didn't even try. I also bought a ticket to the Tutankhamun tomb, the guide told me its not worth it but it was up to me. I couldn't have left without it. Its much less impressive as the other tombs but when I walked in I got to meet his mummy, which was amazing, knowing that the other tombs didn't have mummies.

Time to leave to the temple of Hatshepsut but not before a quick stop at a local craftsmans shop. The story goes that these people used to live on top of the tombs of their forefathers and they didn't want to move for excavations. After years of trying they finally got moved if they got build a new village nearby with the exact same neighboors etc, and the promise that they could use the real stones like their forefathers did. They should be the only ones allowed to use them. To be honest, the introdution to the shop and how they made it looked so unrealistic that it became funny. Don't get me wrong, the shop is full of beautiful statues in every shape and special stones and made by hand but definiatly not by the guys sitting at the entrance. I did buy something small because I felt stupid I didn't bring a colored stone from Petra. Now on to the temple of Hatshepsut part, this is a massive temple who used to be even bigger. Its renovated but looks very impressive and they say its the hottest place in Egypt. I walked towards it and was once again stunned by the beauty of the colors, the beauty and size of the statues. Its like I said before, walking back in time, just another wonderful experience added to the list. I feel a bit ashamed now but I also visited another beautiful temple but I can't remember the name or the place from it but know this, there are a lot and I mean a lot of other temples and things to see in this area. You probably wont have enough with a week.

Hard to believe but only half a day has passed and I need to get my bag from the hotel and check in into my cruiseship. Its luxerious like the Titanic. I get a beautiful room, time to eat something and relax a bit before I meet Miriam, the woman form Kingfisher Tour who came to meet me and talk for about an hour. Interesting to meet the person who created this perfect Egypt experience with me. She drove me to her husband who was waiting next to the Nile for my private Felucca tour on the Nile, a free offer from Kingfisher Tours. Wonderful experience again, floating over the Nile, seeing how much life and boats there are. Floating around the fiels, looking at children playing and swimming along the coast. A perfect end of the day relaxing, chilling on the Nile after a long, hot day of exploring. They dropped me off at the cruiseship where I went for a swim in the pool on the roof and close the day with a nice meal.

The cruise would start around 1pm the following day so I used the morning to visit Karnak temple which is a very special place, only a small part of it is open but to give you an idea, they have been building for more then 1000 years on this temple. The size of the hall with columns there makes you feel small, the atmosphere hanging there makes it mysterious and then I didn't even talk about the obelisks and statues and the stories over there. I wont go into detail on those because I could write a book about it but it was as everything, impressive. Since I had some time left I grabbed the chance of visiting Luxor temple along the road. This is another beauty of a temple with amazing statues and decoration but what makes this one interesting is that inside there is also a mosque (still being used), the leftover from a church and how the romans put catholic decoration over the egyptian ones but the most fascinating part of me was the chapel build inside by Alexander the Great who put himself in the same egyptian style of the pharaos in front of the ancient gods.

A good way to leave Luxor behind and start the cruise. Sailing along the Nile is en experience on itself, the beauty of this river and the life it creates in this desert is incredible. Kids swimming in the water, people washing their animals and even cars in it, the fields and farmers who look the same like in ancient times. Along the way there are also the local salesmen, who are an attraction on themselfs. They bind their small boats on the cruiseship like pirates and try to sell things while hanging on the ship, throwing their goods on the roof deck and they stay for hours. Never have I seen anything like this in my life. Too funny for words. Everywhere they see their chance they'll try to sell things. I also got a great view on partyboats decorated with neons by night, cool sight! We sail towards Esna and are already asleep when the ship arrives.

Rise and Shine the next day to visit Edfu temple, for this part I tagged up with an argentinian couple for a kal�che (horse cart) ride to the temple. Its the first time I use animal transport and I feel a bit worried about the condition of the horse but it was a 20 minute ride and had no other options, it was an experience driving thru a quit dirty area on a kal�che towards the temple. This temple was not that special compared to the other I have seen before but had as alsways beautiful decorations. One hour later I was back on the way to the cruiseship for breakfast. We sailed until the afternoon towards Kom Ombo temple. This temple is right next to the Nile which gives a great view when arriving there and easy to access if you pass the local market between the temple and the ship. Its probably the first time I saw a cobra snake in my life, a local guy was playing with one near the entrance. This wasn't a very big temple but after a short visit I entered the crocodile museum! This full place is an honour to the crocodiles, entering that place I looked upon mummified crocodiles. This made my day, super cool! We left when the evening fell and would sail all night while sleeping.

I'm going to be honest with you, I loved this Nilecruise experience but it was also the first time I got to feel lonely. This is a wonderful eperience but made for couples, almost everyone a board was a couple and having a candle light dinner by yourself isn't the best experience. I spend my time relaxing, chilling and enjoying the views but I want to thank my friend Sahar for her support and pushing me in the right direction. My personal advise, don't do this by yourself, go as a couple, you'll have the perfect romantic experience.

The next morning arrived at Aswan, waking up at 3am, getting picked up at 4am for a ride to Abu Simpbel. You can only visit this temple by plane or in convoi by busses or private transport like mine. The way to it is an endless way thru the desert with nothing to see but sand and sometimes a police checkpoint or a factory. The reason for this convoi is not for safity issues but if a car breaks down they aren't stranded by themselfs in the middle of nowhere. After 3-4 long hours (mostly sleeping) I arrived first at the Abu Simbel. Don't as my why but I'm very lucky with everything I do, first at Petra at night, visit Cairo on the first of may which is a holiday and creates less traffic and more easy to move around, the first at the hot air balloons, local people celebrating on the Nile when on my private felucca tour and now my driver arrived first at Abu Simbel. I couldn't see anything since you arrive at the back of the mountain, when walking around it I get a glimpse on both temples and they beat any other temple I visited before, an absolute masterpiece! Its a little bit like Petra but yet completly different. The size of the statues..! chose to visit the temple for Ramesses II his wife first since it would be empty. The beauty inside this one is mysterious and incredible, a temple build for his favourite wife,.. how beautiful! Once again, pictures forbidden in both temples and guards checking mobiles or cameras by any doubt. Time for the big temple. This might look like a masterpiece from ouside but the inside is even more incredible. The hall full of massive statues are the entrance towards a room with 4 statues where only 3 of them light up twice a year by sunlight but the fourth (god who loves darkness) never gets sunlight, imagine.. This was the perfect end for my Egyptian experience and we had a long drive back to Aswan. We did stop at the Unifinshed Obelisk which is a massive obelisk who broke before finishing but I didnt enter the site since I didn't want to pay for a walk on an obelisk. The rest of the day I was extreme tired and slept 13 hours because I knew the next morning I would have to travel for 26 hours to my next destination.

Up to the next adventure!

Before I forget. Egypt needs tourism. Its safe everywhere I went. If youre still unsure, travel with Kingfisher Tours. I would recommend them to everyone! Visit Egypt! ;)

The fifth episode: The Pyramids of Cairo.

captainyeller — Tue, 3 May 2016 18:27:00 GMT

When I arrived in Cairo someone was waiting for me at the airport to arrenge my visa and drive me to my hotel. For traveling in Egypt I work with Kingfisher Tours. This is a local agency owned by Miriam, a woman from The Netherlands, living in Egypt for 16 years. Together we created the perfect travel plan in Egypt. I would advise anyone who wants to travel to Egypt to work with them. The hotel was perfect, completly decorated in Egyptian style. Since I was tired from Jordan and arrived in the afternoon and I had a bath I choose to do some washing, shaving and take a nice long bath to end the day with some food in the restaurant.

The next morning at 8:00 my private guide and driver were waiting in the lobby. I had some breakfast and we started the day. We started driving and talking and suddely, there they appear, the Pyramids of Giza! After buying the tickets and getting thru the security my guide told me all about the history. The site was almost empty, as most of the places in Egypt and Jordan now. Very good for pictures and personal experience but also very bad for the local economy. After enjoying the view and looking at the wonderful sights I climbed a little bit on the middle Pyramid and had a good look at the entrance without going in. Then we went to the other pyramids and have some good views and looks on the other Pyramids. We all know the Pyramids but to have a look at them with your own eyes is just an experience everyone should have. I took my time to enjoy the view before we worked our way down to the Sphinx. To be honest he was a bit smaller then I expected but knowing that they made that wonder 1000s of years ago is unbelievable. The details on that statue. Its a sight to never forget and a perfect picture place. I don't know if its because I went early but I did not encounter very annoying, agressive hard selling people. A few tried to sell things but not in the way internet was warning me for. We went the papyrus museum after this. That wasn't very impressive in my opinion, more like a quick view on how its made and a personal stalker to get something sold. I did buy one of the cheapest ok looking papyrus drawing. Look for what you want and say its this or nothing, it worked for me.

What maybe not everyone knows is that there are 2 other places with Pyramids in Cairo, Sakkara and Dashur. Those places are much more interesting since Giza is only good for pictures. Sakkara is quite remote and you can see Pyramids all around it in the distance. First need to pass the usual security check to get in. If you every wanted to be inside a Pyramid, pick Sakkara and Dashur sites, the climb inside is included in your ticket, not like Giza where you have to pay extra. I climbed upon the Pyramid to get to the entrance. The entrance looks great, the way down side is 1m², since i'm quite tall its not very comfortable but we didnt come for the comfort, we came for the adventure. Climbing down inside the Pyramid is an experience I will never forget, the feeling inside, I feel like a little kid and it feels good! At the end of the tunnel I enter the first room, its incredible how detailed the stepformed roof is. Its also quite hot inside and there's a terrible smell but again, part of the experience. The second chamber is right next to the first one, with a little door to it. To enter the tomb I need to climb big wooden stairs which echo thru the chambers. At the end of the stairs I walk into the tomb, its special to be in a place that was made for a pharao 1000s of years ago. I'm also lucky that I'm the only visitor, I'm all alone inside which makes the experience even better. The whole Pyramid is empty so after enjoying the view and experience I walk and climb back out to meet one other tourist on the way out. Its forbidden to take pictures in any grave in Egypt in theory but all 'guards' can be sold for 10 egyptian pounds, which is about 1 euro. I got back out and stared at the Pyramids closeby and in the far distance, such a wonderful view..

A little later it was time to drive to the last stop, Dashur and its Pyramids. This is where the steps Pyramid is and its surrounding temple. This is probably one of the oldest stone build building in the world. You can't enter this one but its impressive and at the other side is a pit that goes as down as the tomb in the Pyramid is. I think its around 28 meters deep. You can't see the bottom. Around it are all small temples, beautiful decorated as well. Just around the corner is another Pyramid, this one looks like a sand mountain but you can enter it to the tomb and in this tomb the sarcofage is still there. Its massive, also this tomb is decorated and beautiful, same rules reply, wanna take pitures? You need to bribe the guard. This was my last stop and I got a dinner in a local restaurant next to the site where they cook outside. Its in tents as well. A nice way to close this chapter down. I drive back to the airport and wait 2 hours where I lay back with a big smile on my face. Another wonderful day to never forget. Up to the next chapter, stay tuned!

The fourth episode: The roman city of Jerash.

captainyeller — Sun, 1 May 2016 06:21:00 GMT

Another early morning, good breakfast and ready for an awesome day, visiting the reason why I picked Jordan as a location: Jerash. A big ruined roman city in a very good state. I needed to get to Tarambour, the north bus station. In Jordan you have all different kind of ways to get around, taxis, minibusses, normal busses, local car drivers & cheap taxi's called Servii, they drive to one location but you can hop off along the way but they only leave if the car is full. Since the were very cheap I went for this option. I walk to a Servii station, guess what.. nobody speaks a word of english I try to speak the arabian name for the bus station which I repeated 500 times in my head during the walk over there but ofcourse I pronounced it all wrong. I hop in a car full of Jordanian local people who dont speak a word of english drive for a while and get to some local market where the guy points his finger toward a location. Not really understanding what just happened I walk along a street market. After a few minutes I see another Servii station. This guy smoke english and asked me 3 Dinar. I knew that was way too much so said no and he offered 1 Dinar. Still being ripped off I agreed and suddenly the guy calls 3 other people to drive along. Guess who paid their ride with that 1 Dinar. Arrived at the bus station, how will I ever find the right minibus here. Those minibusses don't have a sign, and they don't have signed stops, only locals know where they stop between start and finish. I asked a bit around but no bus to find and suddenly I notice 3 tourists and some taxi driver talking to them. They had to be on the way to Jerash. Yup! Lucky as I am they were on the way to Jerash and we shared a ride to Jerash and teamed up for the rest of the day.

After a drive that was not as long as I expected I catched the first glimp of Jerash, a beautiful roman gate! This was what I dreamed of! Arrived there we first had to cross a market with lots of different shops to end up at the ticket office. There is was, the entrance to Jerash! If everything behind it looked as good as the start it would be a very promising day. Just behind it lies a roman circus, also in a pretty decent state. We just missed the horse show but to be honest I doubt it would have been that impressive. Strange was that the real entrance to the site had yet to come. Just before we walked thru the second gate the ticket control started, behind that gate lies an unbelievable square of columns that instantly made me think at the vatican, only this looked better to me. Before we crossed it we visited a great looking amphitheater where people were playing music and all the locals clapping their hands and dancing. Everyone seems to know that song, except we ofcourse and a big temple which gave a great view on the square with the columns. Time to make our way down to enjoy the square. Once again some local kids came to say hello and wanted to be on pictures. The square is connected to a wonderful long road of columns, it really takes you back in time walking around there. I could continue and name every single thing thats there to see but it wouldn't be that interesting to read, watch the pictures instead. On the way back some older man with a family stopped us, he asked of his young daughter could talk to us. She and her brothers and sisters were so excited and shy to talk to us, very cute! Such friendly people, I can't say it enough!

Time to make our way down, while walking along the streets to find a place to eat locals started shouting to us, they offered a very cheap drive back to Amman in a local car, ofcourse when we got in they tried as usual to make more money. Driving like a maniac we made it to Amman and I had one last local dinner and coffee (tea for me) with my new Italian friends, Beppe, Carlo and Lia who I hope to show Brugge in the future. What none of you know is that I tried a full week to meet with a local girl to have a conversation because its very hard to get in touch with them. I really wanted to get to know the person behind the mysterious way of living. Sadly enough it never came to that point. I do hope to met a local Jordanian girl at another time in my life to have a deep conversation. After another wonderful day I decided to have an early sleep, tomorrow would be another travel day.

Rise and shine, time to get my paperwork done for my travel in the coming hours, I open my email and 4 flight times have been changed in one morning. Good thing my hotmail account was working again! I wasnt able to do an online check in for egypt air but there was an egypt air office next door, running down there only to notice that they couldnt have me with the ticktet error either. Ah well, we'll see at the airport. I decided to do one last decent visit to the roman amhpitheater, what I didn't tell you before is that the city of Amman used to be Philadelphia in the ancient times. I didn't have much time left so climbed the amhpitheater and yet again local boys come ask for a selfie with me. I don't know on how many selfies with local people I am by now but its quite funny.

Time to get to the airport, find another taxi with a super friendly driver who I wanted to give a tip but he gave me a discount even with his meter on. The airport bus stops at the North bus station as well and takes about an hour to the airport. What I noticed is that its a lot easier as a (european?) tourist to travel in Jordan. Local (arab?) people get controlled everywhere, passports, bags,.. while I seem to pass everything with a smile, even at the egypt air check in, I went to the business class desk and got helped there while the economy class (what my ticket actually was) had a massive line. I was done in about 3 minutes. Sitting in the airport I found a mc donalds and they tasted differently then ours. Yes, one a weak fast food is allowed in my scedule. I can notice the rolling eyes on your face. Just before I enter the flight to Cairo, everyone gets checked once more, except me, the tourist.

Before I close the Jordan chapter, I want you to know that my experience with this country was amazing. My view on the country: its super safe, the people are super friendly, the touristi sites are wonderful, the weather is perfect and its a cheap country (except Petra). I do hope that I inspire some people with my travels to actually visit this wonderful country. Since most people have the wrong idea about it, its pretty empty for tourists, they need tourism so come visit Jordan.

Next update will be all about Egypt, stay tuned!

The third episode: Kerak Castle & Amman.

captainyeller — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 14:37:00 GMT

After a wonderful time in Petra which was much nicer then I could even expect its time to leave Wadi Musa. My original plan was to go directly to Amman and have a chill out day, food and relax but in the hotel I noticed a way to take a bus to Kerak Castle and another bus from there to Amman. So why dont make the long drive interesting. After checking out and having breakfast I have to wait one hour for the arrenged mini bus who will pick me up at the hotel. Some old special looking minibus stops and I'm the first one on the bus. Its stange that for the next 3 hours to Kerak I'm the only foreinge guy on the bus. I would expect more tourists to take a bus between tourist attractions but no. When I got on the bus I went to sit in the front because I have a better view there. Good choice to it seems. Men sit in front, women sit in the back, thats an important lesson if you visit here, remember that. Nobody seemed to speak a word of english on that bus and no social contact was made but I got the desert views. 3 hours later and some pain in the lowerback and ass I noticed the massive castle on a mountain. Once again very impressive. I paid 5 Dinar for a 3 hours trip, yet a minibus to drive me up the castle costs me 3 Dinar but for some reason the entrance to the castle was free, that should have costed me 2 Dinar. Kerak Castle is a crusader castle, they used it in the movie Kingdom of Heaven, not the main castle but the castle that took all the villagers in. Like anywhere in Jordan sites, you are allowed to walk anywhere and take pictures from anything, which makes exploring ruins so much nicer. Much of this castle is destroyed but you can still walk inside in large parts of it. I feel great when I walk into those hallways, tunnels and big rooms. The views from the castle all over the region are also spectacular. I hope I don't get used to such wonderful sights. After spending two hours there I wanted to search my way to the bus station to sort a bus out to Amman. Yet again taxi drivers ask 3 Dinar, which is about 3,60 euro, no chance I'm paying this so I'm working my own way down. Ofcourse I need to select the wrong way, the great thing about taking the wrong way is you discover things. I was lucky enough to stumble on a medieval graveyard made next to the castle on the hillsides. There local kids came running from everywhere, asking to take pictures from them, get selfies with them. I didn't tell but the same happened quite a lot at Petra. I got the usual pictures with them and tried to escape as they kept calling more children and I wanted to find the way to my bus as fast as possible. At the bus station my bus was waiting, those mini busses are very cheap. 2 Dinar for a ride to Amman from 2 hours! Basicly I paid 5 Dinar for 5 hours of driving busses. These busses dont have a scedule, the driver leaves when the bus is full of there are enough people that make it worthwhile for him to depart. Once again I was the only tourist on the bus. This time some local guy who was born in the United States sit next to me. We had some interesting talks and he teached me some beheviour lessons.

Arrived at Amman 2 hours later. The guy showed me the way to the taxi's which became a mission, I was very tired and taxi's here need to use their meter. The first 3 taxi's didn't want to use their meter so I just got out of the car again. The problem is they can't read our alphabet so it takes a while to explain where you want to go sine I don't know their alphabet. The 4th taxi driver wanted to use his meter but couldn't understand where my hotel was so I just asked him to drop me off at the Roman Amphitheater. Its by far the most annoying part of my trip, the negotiating with taxi drivers when you are tired. Yet I try to keep a positive mind and think about the wonderful places I have been. The most important part of traveling is to stay positive, I'm on the best experience travel of my life, I should be happy all the time and nothing will change that! All the way from the Amphitheater to my hotel I didn't see any foreinge people either. I start to wonder, am I really the only tourist here? I'm not alone, at the hotel I found a few other tourists. I share the room with 2 other guys, one from Israël who left to Petra the next day after talking to me and one german guy who lived for 6 years in South East Asia. Really tired I put my backpack in the room, have a small talk and get out for some local food, after that immidiatly bed time!

The next morning I decided the only plan was to relax, get some decent food and have a recovering day. I slept long and had a wonderful breakfast, so cheap and fresh! While talking with the german guy who recommended me the breakfast, we decided to go together to the Citadel of Amman and the Roman Amhpitheater. Once again instead of the easy way to the entrance, we managed to take the wrong long way around the Citadel. It gave us some nice views that we would have missed otherwise. I din't know what to expect from the Citadel but it was large, a lot larger then expected. The Citadel is build on a hill, like an acropolis. So not only the temples and ruins are impressive but also the view over the skyline. After checking the Temple of Hercules and some other ruins it was time for the reason I came up about this timing. The mosques were about to start singing. You are surrounded by mosques everywhere, they all start to sing at the same time and you're on top of a hill, this creates a spectacular accoustic experience. I just sit on a bench and enjoy the show. We explored some more ruins and found a perfect ruin to sit on and have some talks about South East Asia how an hour or more, while sitting there I'm really enjoying the view and think that I really wanted all my friends to see this view I have now, such a peaceful place in the middle of the Middle East. People here use massive dragon flyers who are like art decoration in the city skies. I forgot to notice that I am not used to the sun yet and got a very nice red tan, the first time I got burned this travel but certainly not the last one. While sitting there many people who just passed us by greet us, "Welcome to Jordan". They ask nothing more, its pure friendly gesture. Also kids with families scream "Hello, how are you, where are you from!!" all the time. When we decided to work our way down to the Roman Amphitheater, local kids directed us in the right way down if they noticed we walked the wrong way. Cars who passed by just say "Hello" to us, out of nowhere. Honestly you feel guilty for feeing suspicious in the beginning. It makes you think. We in Belgium can learn a lot from the kindness of these people. Its so much more easy to judge someone instead of understanding them but understanding them is so much more rewarding. Open your mind people!

The last stop of the day was the Roman Amphitheater. Once again a very impressive building in a perfect shape. I decided not to pay to visit it but enjoy the view, work my way down to the hotel, get some food and call it a day. This day had everything I wanted and turned out to be even better. Now a decent sleep and batteries charged to make way for a trip to another dream destination of me. More updates coming soon!