Faces in Places

Heading off to Salone

daan — Sun, 3 Jan 2010 08:01:00 GMT

Hi y'all!

First of all; a happy new year! Tomorrow I'm heading off to Sierra Leone again for a four weer working trip. Up here I'll keep you updated!

Check out my photo's and blog entry from my Salone trip in 2009:

Blog / Photos

- Daan

Gallery: Laos - June and July 2009

daan — Wed, 5 Aug 2009 01:16:00 GMT

Pictures from my returning trip to Laos

Gallery: Cambodia & Laos (april 2009)

daan — Fri, 1 May 2009 14:28:00 GMT

Southern Laos and Northern Cambodia

Hammocks and Motorbikes

daan — Fri, 1 May 2009 14:20:00 GMT

Hello everybody! Two days ago I arrived back at Phare Ponleu Selpak in Battambang, Cambodia. Up here I will continue working on the DVD for Tini Tinou Festival 2009. This is also a perfect moment to reflect on the past two weeks of either motorbike or hammock action.

A couple of days after the festival I left Battambang together with Jill and Rachal and headed for Siem Riep. The girls had never been here before and wanted to spend a day in Angkor, while I treated myself with a hotel that included a swimming pool. To see things from a different height I went visiting ‘miniature Angkor’, which is a project from a local who rebuild several Angkorian Temples in miniature. During my search through town for his place I had an opportunity to look at how things had changed during the last two years when I was last here (a lot).

In the evening we teamed up to go see a Tini Tinou roaming performance at an expat restaurant in town. The Romanian and Laos artists stayed a couple of days longer to do several performances around the country to generate funding for the organization. Jill also decided to join in with some fire action. All very great to see the performers again and throughout the evening we spent a lot of time hugging. :)

Next day Rachal and I said goodbye to Jill and boarded a flight to Pakse in Southern Laos. Since the border crossing into Laos doesn’t supply visa on arrival and we didn’t want to waste time and travel to Phnom Penh for one, we decided to get to Laos the posh way and fly in. Great anyway to see the area from birds view!

In Laos not so much had changed and we decided to do a motorbike ride around the Bolaven Plateau, just like we had done in 2007.

Wowowiwa! I never could have imaged that Laos was even better than I remembered! Beautiful! And although we were here for the second time, the experience was a whole different one. To spice things up even more, we travelled during Pi Mai Lao (Laos New Year), which -just like in Thailand and Cambodia- means that for one week everybody is allowed to have one massive water fight! Children, but also adults, all run around on the streets throwing water bags at each other or just emptying their buckets onto the passing traffic. Accompanied with the water fighting is -of course- a lot of Lao Lao (sticky rice whisky) drinking. Rachal and I needed to defend ourselves and thus we tuned our moto with some water cannons to do drive by’s.

From Pakse we then drove to Tad Lo, spend two nights in this wonderful picturesque village next to a waterfall and drove further in the direction of Sekong and Attapue, finding another great place to spend the night on the way. When we arrived at this tranquil place located besides yet another perfect waterfall, there was no staff to be found since they were all partying. Within half an hour after arrival I was drunk, wet and white from the chalk powder that people frantically throw on each other. To illustrate the madness; This party was inside and although the place was filled with electronic devices like the huge karaoke set, it didn’t stop people to bring in the water hose and spray around happily. Oh Lao people and their innocence, I love them!

Next day we drove further over a beautiful dirt road through jungle filled hills and were surprised to find the waterfall where we hiked to with a bunch of locals two years ago. This time we had the opportunity to view it from above.

>> Same waterfall two years prior.

Fresh air, people with smiles and dirt roads on a motorbike; definitely a cocktail that makes me happy instantly!

We drove back though Paksong to Pakse and stayed here overnight. Next day we took the bus to Si Pan Don (the 4000 Islands) to return to Vixay and his lovely family with whom we’d celebrated Christmas in 2007 (Blog entry in Dutch). When we arrived, the man just returned from fishing and after he docked his little dugout canoe he came up to us smiling like always. He immediately remembered us and a lot of hugging and laughter later we settled ourselves for yet another perfect Don Det sunset.

Five days later nothing had changed really, except that I had new friends and was pretty much as easy as one can get. Next day Rachal left to head back to Bangkok in tranfer for Australia. I was too relaxed to move and stayed behind. But since most others had left too and I found myself left over sitting with two 24/7 stoned Swedes who came straight out of Wayne’s World, I decided to leave the next day.

When I dud I crossed the border back into Cambodia and boarded a bus to Ratanakiri province in the far North East of the country. From many people I’d heard good stories about this region and since it’s basically inaccessible during rainy season I felt like it was now or neve.. well, not now. The stories were right and even the capital town of Ban Lung felt really laid back. Close to town is a huge 80m deep crater lake surrounded by lush green jungle, which was the perfect spot to hang out chatting and reading or cleaning myself and my cloths from the red dusty roads after a day of moto driving. I got to know R.J. from the US but living and working in Japan and Korea for the last 9 years and we teamed up for a couple of days around the province on motorbikes. Again, we visited many beautiful waterfalls which were perfect for swimming, showering and launching local kids into the air so they could do their monkey-like jumps. Cheeky little ones they are and in general I found the locals in this area really friendly ("come, come, drink with us!" or "here, have some barbecued chicken head!" erh..).

Sadly, much jungle in Ratanakiri is being cleared for plantations (mainly rubber and cashew nut). But from a positive perspective it provides produce AND a great ride! :P One day, after riding for ages onto a random path that brought us from one plantation into small towns and back into more plantations, we found ourselves driving on the airstrip from the abandoned Ratanakiri Airport; nice!

After four days I took a bus back to Phnom Penh to do shopping at the main markets. Although this drive would normally already take about 12 hours, it ended up being more then 17 since the roads where like a mud fight arena after last night’s heavy downpour.

With numb limbs I arrived at the Lake Side in Phnom Penh. Here I found out that the rumors are true and the entire lake is indeed being reclaimed to have a Korean company build its casino’s and golf courses. Oh Cambodia, continue like this and down you will go…

After two nights of big city and scarf-shopping I returned to small city Battambang and went straight to PPS. Here I arrived just in time for the long awaited evaluation meeting about Tini Tinou. After this, they had organized a party for people who were leaving back to Phnom Penh. When the sun was about to rise I crawled into bed to wake up a couple of hours later by the happy “pling plong” from the Music School... Oh, it’s good to be back!

I hope you Dutchies had a great Queensday, although somebody almost killed the celebrated one?! My home country is getting worse by the year, isn’t it? Anyway, can’t wait to see you my friends. This will probably be somewhere in July. The rainy season is definitely coming closer now and massive thunder storms and rains have become a daily event.

Love and peace, Daan

Working at Tini Tinou 2009 !

daan — Wed, 8 Apr 2009 20:49:00 GMT

Salut y’all! Finally, last Sunday the Tini Tinou International Circus Festival in Battambang, Cambodia ended, which gives me time to rest and reflect on this beautiful experience. I entered Cambodia in the second week of March together with Rachal from Australia to work together on the festival. We made our way straight to Battambang, which is –for Cambodian standards- a rather big city located in the South West of Cambodia. For the 6^th time the Tini Tinou festival would be held here at Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS), which is an organization that started out as an orphanage which gave children the opportunity to learn skills in circus and theater. Throughout the years PPS grew out to a big compound with regular schools an orphanage and several art schools, including a Music School, Animation Studio, Visual Arts School, Drama School and Circus School. The aim of the festival is to get international artists to Cambodia to share their experience and to create a stage for the Khmer performers.

After an introduction to the staff members of PPS, which consist of a mixture of foreigners (mainly French) and local Khmer, the international artists started arriving one by one. This year there were performers from Australia, Romania, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, Canada, Germany, Belgium, France, England and of course Cambodia. The first few weeks were filled with workshops and opportunities to learn from each other. As a photographer I had a great time moving around the site sneaking a peak at all the different artists and taking beautiful pictures of concentrated and smiling faces. Although I got here originally to film the event, I also ended up taking over 2500 pictures, since there was time enough to do so. At PPS there is also a restaurant where we all got a free communal breakfast, lunch and dinner and with such a great and intense, creative atmosphere we grew more and more like a family each day. It actually reminded me a bit of working on a fun movie set…

In the evenings people were all pretty tired and since the days started early not much happened during these hours. Most times I spend the nights with Rachal and Anna as we smoked a small happy cigarette and fell asleep with Animal Planet as comfortable background noise.

After the two weeks of workshops, the staff members started getting a bit more anxious if everything would work out alright. Many changes needed to be made at the last moment and everybody tried to coop with the problems that organizing a festival of this size in a developing country bring along. Since the festival would kick off a couple of hundred kilometers away in Phnom Penh, around 150 people from over 12 different countries needed to be transported and accommodated, which was quite a task.

In Phnom Penh the first show would be given at the CCF, a French Cultural Center. Next day the whole setup needed to move to downtown for a free show near a temple. This whole happening was basically an organizational nightmare and meant a lot of hard work for the technical team.

In between of these two shows, some artists went to a school in the morning and on the second day we held a parade through town. Everybody worked really hard to decorate the float, which eventually looked awesome and included mobile music performances, a bamboo tight wire, visual artists drawing live paintings, acrobats, clowns, confetti launchers, mobile theater stages and much more.

After Phnom Penh we all slept our way back to Battambang and back in ‘da Bang’ we had a couple of days of workshops left before the festival would continue at PPS. Again lots needed to be changed and everybody, including the performers, started to get a bit exhausted. No wonder after two weeks of performing in 30+ degrees Celsius! Nevertheless, the great vibe kept everybody going and during the opening night the PPS compound was transformed into a true festival terrain! To help out the management a bit I contributed in setting up a cinema and made flyers, schedules and maps. On the opening night we had around 1200 visitors, which was incredible since last year was only half the amount and this year was the first time that the festival wasn’t free (because of a lack of funding).

Just a few days before I had found out that my friends Sanne and Rogier from the Netherland were close by in Siem Riep and they came over for the festival. When they arrived on Friday we were all shocked by the unrealness of seeing each other during this rare occasion in this random town. Great fun to catch up and to share a bit of the bubble that I have had been into the last couple of weeks with friends from back home!

On the closing night last Sunday all artists contributed in a grand finale where everybody got on stage to perform together. This was amazing and so much fun. The crowd loved it! And when they left, we all kept on partying on the main stage while a truck full of free beer lifted our spirits to a higher level. J It’s freaking great to party with circus artists as everybody started free styling and break dancing, which was pretty awesome to see! When the sun had long risen we went to bed tired but satisfied.

At the moment I’m still in Battambang writing some reports and organizing my pictures and footage. I’ve decided to work on the DVD for Tini Tinou here at PPS, but will have to get a new Cambodian visa first. Therefore I will travel to Laos this weekend and spend some days there and will come back here in Battambang at the end of the month to work for a couple of weeks… In the meanwhile I might catch up with Sanne and Rogier again and spend some time on some island orso.. ;)

Hope life’s good back home. Much love, Daan

Gallery: Cambodia (Tini Tinou 2009)

daan — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:34:00 GMT

Pictures of the Tini Tinou International Circus Festival 2009 in Battambang, Cambodia

Check out any time you like, but never leave.

daan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:40:00 GMT

Y'ello!

It's been about a month since I left the Netherlands on another trip to South East Asia. During this trip I'm planning not to travel around a lot, but mainly stay put in places that I liked last year when I was here. I'm also planning to do camera work at a Circus Festival in Cambodia, get some writing and proposals done for my arts back home and in general just live an easy, healthy and inspiring life among great people from around the globe.

I arrived in Bangkok and found my way quickly to the place I'd stayed before. I'd entered the country on a single way ticket and therefor I had also reserved a ticket to Laos, just in case the border officials wouldn't allow me to enter without a ticket leaving Thailand. The flight to Laos would be 12 days after my arrival in Bangkok and after a couple of days in the city I wondered why for christ sake I'd planned it like this. Seriously, Bangkok is not too bad, but it's still very much a city! And so I studied the map for a not-to-far getaway and found myself the next day on a bus to the island of Koh Chang, close to the Cambodian border.

Koh Chang is a rather big island with several beautiful beaches. And although resort-tourism, like everywhere in Thailand, is massive here, there were still some really nice and chilled out backpackers places to be found. On Lonely beach I discovered it is hard to ever get lonely. From the very beginning of my arrival on Koh Chang, the experience has all been about the great people I kept on meeting and with whom I spend my days and nights. After 5 days I knew I had to leave Koh Chang and travel back to Bangkok in order to catch my flight to Laos, but I honestly couldn't leave... and so I didn't.

Every day the group of people with who I'd hang around grew bigger and bigger. Sometimes people would manage to leave, but a core of our family would always remain and would quickly attract new inspiring free souls.

Most of our days started at Lord's place, a Thai guy with the best, most beautiful little coffee house / art gallery. His place is a bit off the main road and is mainly only visited by people who know it from word of mouth. This is perfect, since the place is all about intimacy. Being there felt a lot like hanging around and chatting in the kitchen of a good friends home.

His food and drinks are always extremely fresh and the love that goes into preparing them can definitely be tasted. In my last week, we got blessed with Lord's cat 'Cat' giving birth to four beautiful little kittens, which boosted the homey feeling even more.

After a couple of hours at Lord's place we would basically then move ourselves to the beach for a daily doses of swimming, frisbee-action, reading and sunbathing. This session would then seamlessly flow into a sunset jam-session at the beach. With a bongo kit, one or more guitars, shaker-egg and kazoo we would play international songs or make up something on the spot. We found it very fitting to change the lyrics of Hotel California into Island Koh Chang, since everybody could check out any time they liked, but in reality no one could ever really leave.

After dinner at one of many lovely restaurants, the night would always behold some party.. somewhere. Every day of the week was attached to a place when it came down to the nightly hours. Especially Friday night at the Siam Hut was a fine party, with fire shows and DJ's rocking tunes at the beach. After a while we all learned to choose our nights to get bucket-faced or to take it easy and sleep early. :)

Anyway, this time not so much blog talk about culture and traveling, but I'm just letting ya'll know that life is freakin` great and staying longer at places with the right vibe is well worth a second trip!

A couple of days ago I got back into Bangkok and met up with Rachal from Melbourne, who I'd met last year in Laos. Together we will proceed to Cambodia tomorrow to work at an international circus festival in Battambang. After that I will move my way up into Laos and settle down to write...

Hasta la vista!

Peace and love.

Daan

Gallery: Thailand 2009

daan — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:29:00 GMT

Thailand 2009

Gallery: Sierra Leone

daan — Tue, 6 Jan 2009 23:07:00 GMT

Salone visit 2008/2009

Yesterday is sooo 2008!

daan — Thu, 1 Jan 2009 22:57:00 GMT

Hi all,

From beautiful and tropical Sierra Leone I send you all the best wishes for a lovely and happy new year! At the moment I’m recovering from a blast of a night out in Freetown during New Years eve, but let me try to capture my trip from the start.

Last week I began for the 3^rd time the long and tiring journey to the West-African country of Sierra Leone, together with my mom, dad and my friends Huub and Philip. For those who don’t know; since I first came here in 2006 I’ve started supporting a local initiative to improve education in a small beach village called Lakka. Together with my mom, we do fund raising in Holland and use that money to initiate projects like building a new school and supporting another. This year the Nursery School is almost finished and after Christmas Holiday on the 5^th, we will officially present to school to the village and the kids.

To get to Lakka from Holland is quite a trip and our transport of choice consisted this year of a taxi to the train station in our home town, followed by a couple of trains to Brussels Airport, then a flight to Dakar in Senegal, flight to Lungi in Sierra Leone, car to ferry, ferry to Freetown, car to Lakka, all in all taking about 20 hours. Especially the ride from Lungi to Lakka is always pretty interesting and is a plunge into

Africa. Next morning in Lakka we woke up to the sound of the birds and the waves crashing on the golden beach.

In Lakka we stay at the guesthouse of an NGO (Environmental Foundation for Africa), of which I’ve been working in the past and this place is a true oasis. It is a great place to leave the intense daily African life behind and talk, discuss and reflect. On the compound we’ve got some Range Rovers to use, a meditation room, a kitchen, a guitar, 24hrs solar energy and whenever it’s operational we can use the GPRS internet of a Canadian guy who works here...

It’s absolutely fantastic to see all my friends again and it has been 21 months ago since I last was here. Every once in a while a kid comes running at me, yelling “Dan, Dan!” and doesn’t let go of my legs, others need some time before they recognize me. My first impression of Lakka and Freetown after this time is that it definitely has made some progress, although small small and slow slow. Freetown for example has way more street lights and less garbage piles burning aside the street. Also they finally started working on the roads in and around town and Lakka even has a solar powered street light... Most local fishermen, who started a small restaurant along the beach, now have a little concrete building instead of a rusty metal roof on sticks and some of them even offer accommodation. I’m really happy to see that, although life remains to be tough up here.

On our first day, when Philip, Huub and I were in town for groceries and to meet up with friends, my mom and dad went to the beach to relax. After a couple of hours their tranquility got brutally interrupted when a young boy snatched their bag and disappeared into the forest. In the moment, my father started running after him but fell down in the sand. And talking about Bad Luck, he hurt his leg that he had broken just 8 months before on a beach in New Zealand.

In all the years that I’ve been here nothing has ever happened and theft is a huge crime up here. For that matter, the Lakka community responded very well and captured the thief soon after. We were of course especially in shock about what happened to my dad’s leg and realized this could ruin our entire holiday.

Next day I went with a couple of people and my dad to the emergency hospital to make x-rays. We arrived at 8 in the morning and spend the entire day waiting. This was a pretty intense experience with crying woman over their dead children and people coming in with mayor bleeding head wounds of which one died just half an hour after arrival. In the meantime I went to the police station to make a statement about the theft and to bribe back the bag that had been stolen. At 4 in the afternoon we left the hospital knowing that my dad had fractured his bone. Luckily the metal pins in his upper leg from his accident in New Zealand were not damaged at all, but he is not allowed to stand on it for about a month. On potholed roads this means it’s pretty much impossible to go anywhere and so since then he is doomed to stay inside of the compound in Lakka. Merry Christmas! :(

So, instead of spending our Christmas eve -diner on the beach we were forced to cook ourselves an improvised but lovely meal of pasta and canned tuna at the compound. We burned candles, sang tunes and were together, which was all that mattered.

During Christmas the beach here in Lakka was packed with locals from Freetown and the atmosphere was great; people dancing to reaggeton, playing soccer and swimming in the warm West African waters. I’ve never seen the beach this crowded and filled with so much joy, which was an awesome sight. We mingled nicely with the crowds and swam, drank and swam and drank some more.

The project that we’re doing is progressing fantastically! The school is nearly finished and last days the roofing has been completed. It looks really beautiful and everybody in the village is really proud on what our guys, Samuel, Abdul and Ibrahim, are accomplishing. Most of the labor was done by the villagers themselves and the teachers can’t wait to start working in their new environment. I’m really glad that the people in whom we’ve invested have proven themselves to be real honest and serious people, since so many other initiatives here in Africa fail of whatever reason constantly.

The days in between of Christmas and New Year consisted mostly of meetings with our project managers and a swim in the sea at the once more deserted beaches of Lakka. Philip and I are having a good time with Wing from the UK and April from the US who are here on holiday from their bush research centers upcountry. With cheap rum and fruit juices we make hell of a mixes and play drinking games ‘till early morning.

Yesterday during the 2008 – 2009 transition Philip, Wing and I went to Paddy’s in Aberdeen. Unfortunately April had to stay home, since she got malaria just the other day. Paddy’s is the kind of place where white’s, Chinese, Lebanese and locals mix nicely together into a sweating crowd dancing to groovy tunes. We basically met heaps of nice people, danced a lot and lit sparkles we brought from home at 0:00.

Now I’m pretty hangover and in the back I can hear that the party on the beach has started once more. Yes, today is gonna be a hammock day.

Again, all the best wishes and lots of love.

Daan

Touching Base

daan — Thu, 2 Oct 2008 23:13:00 GMT

Hi'all,

Just remembered that my current trip was still set on Oceania, which is not true at all, since I've been back home in the Netherlands for the last 3 months.

At the end of this year I will start exploring again. I'll first head to Sierra Leone around Christmas for a month, fly back to the Netherlands and a few weeks later I'll finaly return to that part of the world that stole my heart; SE Asia.

To be continued..

Life's a rollercoaster!

daan — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:29:00 GMT

Hi! Glad you’ve found your way to what presumably will be my last blog entry on and about this current trip. I’m coming home, babies!! :)

My last weeks in Australia have been superb!

Packed with crates of food and drinks, two big containers filled with water, a car-repair kit and a roadmap, we took of from Melbourne in Rachal’s old minivan, nicked Millie. Our first destination would be the well-travelled Great Ocean Road in the SW of Victoria. This beautiful road takes you along spectacular ocean scenery, where some of the cliffs got eaten up by the ocean, leaving small islands scattered along the coastline.

The car couldn’t drive too fast, which fitted perfectly with the way we travelled. “Darn hippies”, will probably be a phrase on peoples mind occasionally when they encountered us on the road.. :) Thus, when evening was about to fall (around 5pm), we took a random dirt track of the Great Ocean Road, which brought us in no time into typical Australian forest full of gum trees. After some first interesting and slightly sweaty-hand-palm-experiences with Millie on the dirt tracks, we eventually found a nice open spot to camp. Unfortunately our camping qualities got tested immediately, since it started to rain. Soon though, after giving some things in our fully packed van a new and more organic place, our food was cooking on the fire and we sat down under a tarp with a cold beer, listening to the absolute silence that the Australian bush produces…

Next day, after pancake brekkie and some Frisbee exercise, we drove further towards the Otways NP at the end of the Ocean Road. Johnno, one of our roomies from Melbourne, who had been a tour guide, had drawn us some maps of exciting places to stay. His first destination brought us camping onto an awesome cliff overlooking both ocean and forest and surrounded by Koala’s. Since it was only a short drive from our previous spot, we could spend the rest of the day hiking.

Although this camp spot could have easily entertained us for some days more, we decided to move on and explore some more ground. Via another beautiful hike to a waterfall in the centre of Otways’ rainforest, covered with huge ferns, we drove up north towards the Grampians. This is a completely different landscape; dry, red soil and steep, rocky cliffs. After again some challenging dirt roads we ended up staying at another secret bush spot from Johnno’s improvised map. A truly amazing place, and eventually we stayed in the Grampians for four nights.

The weather by the way, was incredible for the time of year. Some days we just played guitar on a rock overlooking the valley’s, others we spend hiking and climbing up into the mountains, Pjew, great bouldering! When we left the Grampians some days later, it was already late afternoon and we ended up in the middle of farm lands. When the sun had set, we spoiled ourselves with a shower and some fresh laundry at a motor park.

Next day we started driving early, since we wanted to travel all the way to the East of Victoria. Typical road-trip day; sing-along’s, coffee at random villages and being remembered by the Eagles not to let the sound of our own wheels drive us crazy.

When the sun was setting we were close to Mt. Buffalo NP and found a camp spot near the little town of Nug Nug. Although the forest had Blair Witch written all over it, which freaked my out slightly, it ended up being a lovely spot to camp among high trees covered in coloured autumn leaves and along a little creek, of which the sound made me sleep like a baby.

In the morning we realized that our next destination in the Alps of Victoria (+/- 2000km altitude) was about to get really cold. Brr. That day we drove via endless winding roads to the Alpine Ski-resort towns. Unfortunately not to snowboard, since the season would start only two weeks later, but to grasp at the incredible views from the mountains peaks.

Unable to find a space to bush camp around here, we ended up in another payed park in the little town of Omeo. Their great fireplace and huge amount of firewood inspired us to make a bon out of the fire and in the morning we could bake eggs on their barbie.

From up here we left for the Snowy River NP, where we ended up staying several nights, all on different exciting spots in the middle of Australia’s forest. The National Parks are unbelievable and it is not hard to image how this country must have looked like before the colonization; Far stretched of forest, rivers meandering trough valleys and again, so much silence.

On some days, when the sun was out, we could take a bath in the river.. The remoteness of the places we went to, got us in some trouble one time though. After a night of too much spacing out on hours and hours of Pink Floyd and creating our own myths from the burning fire, we discovered next morning that our battery had run flat. We also ran out of water and since the car was slightly coming down from a hill and there was not enough space around us to kick-start the car, we were forced to find help. No, not by telephone, I wish haha,…walking. A couple of hours later and after climbing two mountains, we luckily ran into a group of schoolkids camping in the park. One of their guides was so kind to gives us a lift back and helped to start our car. Pjew! :)

From the Snowy River we went back to the coast on the SE. After a night camping on a beach parking spot in Suburbia near Lake Tyres, we went to the town of Lakes Entrance. This beautiful region has many lakes, that are separated by sand dunes from the Ocean.

After some walks we decided to spoil ourselves with the conveniences of civilisation, which mend; pizza and Indiana Jones at the local cinema… annex squash-hall. :) After Lakes Entrance we felt like spending one more night in the bush of Mitchell River NP, before returning to Melbourne, to be just in time for a live gig by one of Rachal’s musician friends…

Back in Melbourne it was good ol’ fun, hanging around the Temple with the lovely people that live there! Spending a lazy Saturday making bubbles, cook great food all day long and visit theatre, circus and music gigs.

After a week I felt I needed to move on and because my time is running out here in Australia, I decided to fly to Brisbane to get a different taste of this diverse country. In Brisbane I checked into a friendly hostel in the cosmopolitan suburb of West End and walked around the city exploring the relaxed lifestyle of this city where the sun shines 300 days a year. Although it is Australia’s winter, up here it is still 25 degrees! Love it! :)

When I checked my facebook page last Friday I found out that Paula, another great traveller who I’d met in Asia, was currently living in Brisbane. After calling and catching up, I was invited to join her for a weekend at her friend’s catamaran in the Gold Coast and seeing her friends play an acoustic set at the Sharks rugby stadium. Again, so many lovely and friendly people and we ended up spending the whole weekend on the boat drinking wine, eating great food and jamming with her musician friends.

When I got back, next day I met up with travellers who I’d met in Sydney and together we went to Dream World yesterday. Getting our blood mixed with adrenaline during one of many crazy rides, we got back tired into Brisbane, but just in time for a cup of fresh chai at a weekly reggae gig held in West End. And that is exactly what these lasts weeks have been; a rollercoaster! Looking so much forward to go back home, but no time to think about it… there are a couple of loopings that I’ve yet to take. Cya soon and namaste.

Love, Daan

Start of the return journey.

daan — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:54:00 GMT

Hi everybody and sorry for the long period of communiction silence...

About a week ago I sat down in an internet cafe in Sydney and wrote down my entire Samoa experience, but as soon as I pressed "save", the page wanted me to log in again and I lost my two hours of effort. :( Since then I didn't find the motivation to retype it all, until now...

It is the perfect day for it anyway here in Melbourne; rainy and cold (7 degrees) outside, but dry and warm inside at a friends place in a beautiful suburb, with heaps of coffee, food and good company!

Let me try to recapture Samoa, which by the way, seems like ages ago..

Somewhere in the first week of my stay on this beautiful bunch of islands I stationed myself in Lalomanu, south east of Upolu Island. The place where I stayed had a great family atmosphere and was the perfect place for good food and meeting other people, besides the fact that it is situated right on one of Samoa's best beaches. With a German tour guide who had been living in Samoa for the last 15 years, I spend the evenings jamming on our guitars, while during the day I would hang around playing frisbee, snorkelling and writing. A pretty attractive lifestyle I might say, although after a week I felt I needed to go out and see more of Samoa. I decided to visit tiny Manono Island for a couple of days and then would head towards the other big island of Savaii.

On Manono I stayed overnight with a local family. The average Samoan family has about five children. The average village has about three churches. And the average Samoan is huge.. as are their bottles of coke.

In the evening I ran into Peter and Franzisca from Germany who I'd met in Lalomanu and who were, just as I was, slightly shocked by the insane amount of cockroaches in the toilets. Seriously I'm fine with a couple, but the entire walls, the roof and the floor looked like they were running away.. yuk!

Next day I walked around the beautiful island, that absolutely looks like one big botanical garden. Samoan people put a lot of effort in their property and the whole country is an interesting combination between raw wild jungle and civilized landscape architecture. After I got back 'home' from my walk, I was just in time for cold canned spaghetti in tomato sauce. I left the island after lunch to continue my journey to Savaii Island.

The ferry boat took me in 1,5 hour to the second largest island, called Savaii. Arriving in the late afternoon I was lucky to board a bus immediately, which took me to the township of Manese, northern Savaii. Following advice from other travellers I ended up in another great family runned guesthouse with traditional fale housing on the beach. I arrived just in time to join the big community dinner at 6.30pm. Here I met heaps of people I had seen a couple of days ago, which made it easy to slide back into the laidback lifestyle I was living in Lalomanu. I did though, invest a day in hiking to the volcano crater that last erupted 100 years ago, creating awesome lava fields that spread out into the sea, creating even more awesome blowholes where waves are pressed under the lava until they find their way out.

Some other day I rented a car with my German friends and made a road trip around the island. Especially bouncing through thick potholed jungle roads, moving our heads up and down on the beats of Die Fantastischen Vier was pretty funny. :) We stopped that day for a swim in a fresh water pool, a splash at the blowholes and a great view at some neat lookouts. When the sun was going down, we made our way to the most western part of the island. From here, as the last persons on earth, we watched the sun set the 19th of April 2008, since that specific place is the closest to the International Date-Line.

After five days on Savaii I travelled back to the capital of Apai on Upolu Island. Here I wanted to get some souvenirs, check my email and buy creams for my infected feet that had been bothering me the last two weeks. I stayed overnight in Apia and then decided to spend my last days back in Lalomanu, which felt like my Samoan home. When I arrived here late afternoon I got warmly welcomed by the family, who were surprised to see me again so soon. Again I indulged myself in their great food and hospitality and met heaps of nice people to hang out with.

From a hill where I climbed onto some morning, I could see where I had been living most of my time in Samoa. Lalomanu is absolutely stunning.
On the day I had to catch my flight at night, I stayed until after dinner, played our favourite songs together with Aliki, the German guy and then got into a car to the airport. Next morning really early I arrived back in New Zealand...

When I arrived in New Zealand I first went to a hospital for a check up on my foot, because it was starting to transform into a blood infection. My whole leg and all my joints hurt badly and the wound itself wasn't looking very pretty. Here I got antibiotics straight away and this eventually cleared it up..

Besides that it was freaking c c cold in New Zealand, which was the first time since eight months that I experience weather like that. It didn't bother me that much though and it was actually fun coming back to Christchurch, since I knew the place pretty well after spending three weeks there while my dad was in the hospital. I had only one day to spend though and so I did all my favourite things; eating sushi, drinking smoothies, walking through the botanical garden and wondering around one of many bookshops. Next day I flew to Sydney, Australia.

In Sydney it took me again a while to get used to the different mentality of the travellers, however I got convinced to go to some fun places like a Dutch student party (with kroketten! :D) and a psy-trance party on a prime location in Darling Harbour. Most of my days in Sydney though, I spend reading and playing frisbee in the parks, next to some Art Museum visits, including one of my favourite yearly exhibitions, the World Press Photo Exhibition. Good jamming with Wallace from Gibraltar on our hostel rooftop and fun chatting with lots of other nice people that I've met there.

Last Sunday I took the night bus to Melbourne, where I arrived early morning. Here I would meet up with my friend Rachal, with whom I'd travelled in Laos last December and January. At the moment I'm staying at her friend's place in a pretty suburb. There are four people living here, who are all artists and living here reminds me a bit of my home in Rotterdam, that I shared with my good friends Sanne and Rogier. As they will understand, this means good times. :)

Anyway, we're planning to make a road trip around the state of Victoria next week. So we're now busy arranging all that is needed to hit the uninhabited outback in an old minivan. Will be great, although I hope the weather will get a bit better..

For all the people in Holland, I hope you're enjoying the nice weather up there! Please save some for me when I get back on the 3rd of July! :) Looking forward to see ya'll. Time flies!

Namaste.

Gallery: Samoa

daan — Thu, 1 May 2008 11:41:00 GMT

Pictures from beautiful Samoa

Return to Paradise

daan — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:51:00 GMT

Hi Peeps! A short post, because here in Samoa life's simply too easy to spend time behind a screen. And internet is by the way too expensive to write a proper one... It is a remarkable bunch of islands with a strong community / family tradition. As an outsider you are welcomed into this warm atmosphere pretty fast and I will never have to worry to have no roof above my head or have an empty stomach. Yes, eating is one of the favorite activities of the Samoan people and their size makes me feel small every once in a while.. :) In other words; life is good here!

I spend my days sipping from a coconut with flowers around my neck and dipping myself in the warm Pacific to swim with the many many fish, sharks not excluded. The nature on the islands is as green as it can get and there are huge lava flows that spread out in the water, creating cool blow holes, caves and lagoons. The island feels like one big garden, since all the Samoans take great care for their properties, with colorful flowers, fruits and nicely cuttes grass lanes.

In my first days I rented a car with two German peeps and we drove around the main island and visited some of the beautiful waterfalls. Since then I have been 'stuck' on Lalomanu beach, where every day is a good one and every traveler comes by. Heaps of fun people to hang out with and every night we're having jam sessions.. In a couple of days I will try to move my ass to the other island Savaii to do a round trip there aswell, hopefully by bike if possible.

Anyway, like I said; internet is slow and expensive, so photo's will arrive as soon as I am in Oz, beginning of May. Hope you're all in good health and love y'all.

Daan

Have fun, break a leg!

daan — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:33:00 GMT

Hiya! Wfej, time flies. I have been stationed in Christchurch, New Zealand for the last 3 weeks since Niek (my dad) broke his leg on the West Coast. Honestly, traveling around this country seems ages ago, but let me try to recapture it all and tell you all about how Niek rescued a kid from falling into a glacier, but broke his leg in the process.. (or maybe the real version of what happened :))

…

From Taupo on the Northern Island we moved to the East Coast town of Napier. This small town is somewhat of interest, because it is completely build in Art Deco style and nicely located at the ocean. Most of the New Zealand towns and cities we found pretty depressing so far, but Napier managed to entertain us for a couple of days. The weather was good and we basically spend our time just strolling down the boulevard and up into town. After those days we decided to drive down to Wellington to catch the ferry over to the Southern Island. In Wellington, which in my opinion is the nicest city of NZ, we were lucky to be in time for the International Arts Festival, which brought some more liveliness to the city and we visited several street performances. Next day we drove our van on the ferry and had an awesome journey across the ocean to the other island. The sky was perfectly clear and from a distance you could see the southern mountains arising from the horizon.

When we arrived on the Southern Island, we headed for Kaikoura on the East Coast. This place is known for its whale watching, since the coast inhabits several sperm whales all year round. The road up to this town was nicely along the shore and with the wind heavily blowing against our campervan it was an exciting ride. In Kaikoura we went the next day on a tour to spot whales. This tour turned out to be very well organized by some big company, which made it look like boarding a flight on an airport. The reason they could manage this was because of the frequency of the whales around, let alone the thousands of dolphins and rare birds in the area, making every trip worthwhile. So obviously we were able to spot a couple of sperm whales and later on a group of hundreds of dolphins, who swam along the boat. The sight was amazing and definitely worth the trip down there!

From here we wanted to go to the other coast and so we crossed the country within a days ride. During this trip along a well paved national road we decided to go to some random old gold mining village about 40k’s inland. After a couple of kilometers it became a really interesting gravel road, swirling up the steep mountain, which eventually brought us to the very, very quite and remote ruins of an old gold rush town. Really nice to walk around this place and to image how people had settled down and lived their lives here just a hundred years ago. On the way back downhill, I was pushing the limits of our top-heavy campervan a bit too much, which became a freaky near-death experience (sorry mom and dad). The van slighted into a ditch and made it slam into a dirt wall beside us. As a reaction I turned the wheel to get us out, but once we got out of the ditch we speeded towards the other side of the road, heading for a cliff drop down, that, being in a high vehicle without an engine in front of us, was looking us straight into the eyes. Luckily I could control the van in time to get it back on the road, but I had nightmares the days after from the horrible scream that my mom heartily put out. :)

Anyway, after mentally recovering from this side-trip we headed for Greymouth, which again was not a really interesting town. It was our base though to the Pancake Rocks up north and later that day down south to Hokitika, where we got our car fixed and made a long beach walk. Next day we headed for the glaciers in the Alps of New Zealand. These glaciers are pretty awesome, since the ice is coming down really low and they are surrounded by rain forest, which of course is a weird combo. We were blessed with beautiful weather, which gave us clear views upon the mountains from our campsite in St. Joseph. The following day was another beautiful one and we decided to do some hiking around St. Joseph glacier and later that day at Fox glacier. It was pretty cool because we could walk all the way up to the wall of ice, the end of the glacier. This wasn’t enough for us though and so we went on a heli-hike tour the next day. A helicopter flew us over the St. Joseph glacier and then landed on the ice about 3 kilometers up from were we stood the day before. Here we put on our crampons and walked for some hours along the magical blue glacier walls, where water disappeared in underground holes and cool shapes were created from the slowly moving ice (still about 3 to 5 meters a day!).

This was not the moment that Niek broke his leg though, although it would have made more sense then what really happened the day after. From the town of Fox we drove down to Haast Beach, which is a town of nothing, but with really nice and quite beaches and I also needed to pick up a book that I had ordered online and that would be delivered to the local gas station, which was also the local supermarket, post office, car repair and pharmacy.. :) We found a quite campsite near the beach and after we parked the van, we got out to enjoy the beautiful day at the beach. A half hour walk through fields and dunes brought us to a lovely spot and just when I sat down to play the guitar, while Isolde was reading her book we heard Niek yelling for help. Somehow he fell down at the shore when a big wave came close to him, where he wanted to run away from. And somehow this fall had made his thighbone crack!

Immediately, I went out for help, while Isolde stayed with Niek. A big tattoo guy from the campsite reacted fast by contacting all the needed people by walky-talky (no mobile signal up there) and we drove down to the beach in his 4wd. After only 10 minutes a ambulance arrived and another 10 minutes later a doctor. We were really surprised by the expertise of the local people when it comes down to a situation like this.., well done! Two hours later a rescue helicopter landed at the courtyard of the primary school to bring Niek and Isolde to Greymouth hospital, which was the nearest hospital with x-ray equipment. I stayed behind with the campervan and all our stuff and drove until the evening fell, back to Fox. Next day Niek and Isolde had to fly to Christchurch hospital and so I followed them by car. A long but awesome ride though the Arthur’s Pass, another road that crosses the country from coast to coast, brought me to Christchurch were I settled down in a hostel with my mom, while Niek was waiting for an operation.. And waiting.., and waiting. After four (!) days of loads of arguing, there was finally a doctor available to help him..

Anyways, this thing obviously mixed up our plans to go further down south and it is now two weeks later then my mom and dad where originally planning to fly back home. We’re all still in Christchurch, but luckily Niek is recovering fast at the moment. He has to, because for a 24 hour flight back home he needs to be in an ‘alright’ condition. Besides visiting my dad I spend my days hanging in town or in one of many parks, writing songs, reading and playing frisbee. I met some nice local and international peeps to hang out with and it slightly does feel like living here. I also met up again with my friends from Holland, Bram and Gieselinde, who are now traveling up further north. I kind of have seen enough of New Zealand though. It surely is a beautiful country, but in our opinion the beauty is easily comparable with that of Europe, as is the diversity. Moreover we really missed the presence of an older culture.

However it was so cool to travel around with my folks and we had a great time. They heard today that they will be able to fly back home next Wednesday. Me on my turn am missing the sunshine, cheap food, non-western culture and fruit shakes; I’m flying to Samoa tomorrow! :)

Samoa I got recommended from some people I’ve met in the Philippines. It is a small tropical island north-west of Fiji (I think part of the Cook Islands). Basically it is in the middle of freaking nowhere and as far away from home as I could possibly get. Hell, I though, now I’m here, let’s take the opportunity to check this place out…

So, to be continued...

Love, Daan

Gallery: New Zealand

daan — Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:15:00 GMT

Pics from New Zealand

Gallery: Australie

daan — Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:10:00 GMT

Pictas of Oz

On the move...

daan — Wed, 5 Mar 2008 18:28:00 GMT

Hola! Since my last blog entry I've been on the move quite a bit. After spending some excellent days in the Philippines, Thailand and Australia, I'm now in New Zealand. In Auckland I reunited with my parents who are on the road as well and as of today we're cruising through New Zealand in a van together. Awesome! But as usual, first I'll go back in time..

On the 16th of February I left on a boat expedition from El Nido, Palawan Island to Coron, Busuanga Island in the Philippines. Together with a local crew, a map of the region showing every tiny island, two adorable pups and a friendly group of seven, we boarded the expedition boat designed and managed by two guys in their 20s from the UK; Jack and Eddie. They finished their boat early 2007 and started doing these kind of trips just a couple of months before, making their (and my) dream come true. The regular ferry boat normally takes about 8 hours to get to Coron and doesn't stop. Our boat on the other hand, spend 3 days and stopped everywhere we felt like stopping; untouched coral reefs, perfect deserted beaches and rural island communities.

On our first evening we stopped at a small village to ask if we could spend the night in one of their houses in trade for some rice and sugar. After we got granted to stay, we made a fire on the beach and ate a simple meal.. accompanied by hypes of beer of course. ;) I really enjoyed the company of the international group of people who joined the trip, talking our way into the night.. Early morning, Gabi, the two months old pup from Jack, woke me up by biting in my fingers and feet through my mosquito net and eventually I decided to get up and play with him on the beach while the sun rose out of the turquoise Chinese sea. Ah!

Next day I was obviously a bit tired and slept some more on the boat before we found another island to hang out for a while. This one had some dodgy people on them though, who are also referred to as pirates and without hesitation our crew quickly turned around and got lost between nearby islands. An hour or so later we found a kind of secluded spot on some other island, which sheltered us from the wind and the eye-patched men. Here we set our base for the second night, this time in tents on the beach. One of the crew members was an excellent masseuse and she gave me a lovely massage before I fell asleep, having wicked dreams, but not as wicked as my freaking great day had been! :)

Third day the weather had changed and thus we had to cross a tricky bit of sea ASAP. The waves were not too bad though, and early in the day we already came near to Busuanga Island. Here we anchored in front of a wall of lime stone and after snorkelling to it, we climbed over it to find a beautiful lake. Snorkelling in here was amazing, since the water was crystal clear and the underwater rock formations pretty mysterious. After spending some hours in the water we got back to the boat, ate a fish and set sail for hot springs close by, which were also accessible from the sea. Up here we drank some cold beers while dipping our bodies in 40C water and chatted away, as we were in a pub. Later that afternoon we arrived in Coron and I checked into a hotel to stay for a couple of days more.

Together with Matt, Valarie, Azina and the two dogs I hiked the next day to a river dam an hour walk outside of town. In the evening we had a nice dinner with most of the people from the El Nido – Coron trip. At first I thought of leaving Coron earlier to go to Cebu in the East of the Philippines and spend my last days there. This would however cost me a lot of money and time and thus I decided to stay in Coron and made myself a deal I would have to come back to the Philippines one day. :)

And so I rented a motorbike the day after with Azina, Matt and Valarie to make a two day trip to an island on the West coast of Basuanga. Marcos, the formal dictator of the Philippines, had created a hunting ground on this island for his son and he had brought African animals to the Philippines in the 70s. Nowadays it is a national reserve where biologist from all over come to study animal behaviour in this context. The 1000+ Palawan deer’s, 20+ giraffes, 50+ zebras, crocodiles, monkeys and cobras were all born on the island and it was absolutely amazing to see that their presence had transformed the landscape into savannah. The motorbike ride to the island was pretty tough, since the roads were in a really bad shape and so we arrived in the evening, not seeing where the road and small family boat had taken us. As the only visitors on the island we were warmly welcomed by the manager and his wife, both living in a simple house on the island. She cooked the food we brought and he offered us rum and karaoke, a killer combination! Next morning we woke up in freaking Kenia and had breakfast while herds of zebras ran from hill to hill and giraffes tried to reach for branches from a nearby tree. We spent our morning walking around the park and then headed back to our bike. On the way back we stopped for a swim at a long stretch of empty beach...

The day after I flew early morning from Coron back to Manila and had to wait 12 hours on the small airport before I could board my next flight from Manila to Bangkok. Since I didn’t sleep the night before I found an uncomfortable position on the impossible metal seats on the Manila airport and fell asleep.. But only until I could check in and I could spent my last peso’s on airport lodge access where I would eat, drink and relax as much as I wanted. In Bangkok I arrived in the middle of the night, but finding cheap accommodation here is never difficult and so I was able to crash soon. After sleeping late I went to the park to play guitar. Only ten minutes later, Eddie, the young filmmaker and fellow guitar player from Malaysia who I met weeks before, came up to me. We exchanged stories of our past weeks and went back to town for food. Here I met Paul from England and Nella from Finland and after we picked up Eddies guitar we got down to Kosan Road to busk, like Eddie had been doing every single night. Every now and then new groups of people would hang around for a while, enjoying the music and sharing their beers. Good fun!

Next day pretty much same same thing, except for an interesting talk with an older Canadian painter who showed me his favourite bar in Bangkok (which truly was a really nice place!) and a group of Japanese youngsters that, after playing some tunes for them, wanted me to join them to a karaoke bar and for which we drove in a taxi for ages around Bangkok to find one that had both English and Japanese songs.. I was laughing all the time though, because I think Japanese are funny. After I woke up next day way to late because of busking again all night, I had breakfast with Eddie and Paul. Also I did some last minute shopping, since this would be my last stop in cheap good-price-for-me-good-price-for-you-Asia.

Then, again back to the Thai airport. This time I had a 9 hour flight to Sydney, Oz awaiting me… Just a day before I had found out that a Dutch friend of mine was also travelling and would be with his gf in Sydney around the same time. And so, after finding myself a cheap as possible hostel (which by the way is not cheap at all. Come on! – sorry, having a hard time to adapt again to Western prices. I just don’t see the need to, for example, pay f#@*in` 3,5 dollar for a small bottle of water! Jesus.).. Anyway, after finding myself a place to stay I met up with my friend Bram and his girl. We walk around the parks and took a boat to Manly Beach while we talked and talked about our travels. In Manly we walked to Shell Beach and had dinner at a Thai restaurant with great food.., I think I am addicted to that stuff.

Next day my friends would drive to Melbourne and I stayed in Sydney. It rained the entire day and sticking to the hostel to watch movies was tempting, but I felt I had to go out and see some more. Also I really needed to buy stuff, because, in the Philippines, a small boat I was in had turned over and my bag and guitar got completely soaked, killing my mp3-player, torch and rusted my guitar strings and such. So after buying everything I needed, I shared some beers with a couple of guys on the hostel roof and ended up watching movies anyway..

A flight to Auckland, New Zealand was the upcoming event of the day that followed. It was only a three hour flight, but with two hours time difference it seemed to consume my whole day. In Auckland I got picked up from the airport by my lovely family, who had been in Auckland for a couple of days already. They booked me a place to stay and we sat down on their balcony, overlooking the centre of Auckland, while we all shared our stories.

When I started to write this blog entry we had just picked up a campervan to move ourselves around New Zealand within the next three weeks. Just now, when I pick up my story to finish it, time passed and we’re three days later.. First day we drove from Auckland to Rotorua; the asshole of the earth. Not because it is a very remote place or anything, but just because it smells a bit.. ehm.. interesting up there. :) Of course this is just the sulphite leaving the earth everywhere in this very active volcanic region. Actually, this is the place to observe awesome geysers, with some of them spraying water in the air for meters and meter. So we did that day, hiking around parks with boiling water and mud pools everywhere. Also since we all just had arrived in New Zealand we did some museum visits to gather some more information about the Maori culture and their background. We visited a village from the Et Awaka tribe, where they performed traditional dances for us.. I guess ‘impressive’ is the right word to describe it.

Next day we drove further down to Taupo and stopped at a really pretty waterfall. We’ve decided to stay a couple of days in Taupo, since my dad injured his back and needs some days to recover. This is a great place for him to soak in warm mineral baths while I can explore the surrounding mountains on a bicycle.. Stay tuned.

With love, Daan

Island hopping kicks bottom!

daan — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:19:00 GMT

Hi friends! From one of the three places in the world (next to Antarctica and some place in the Amazon) where worldwide servicing FedEx and UPS do not deliver, I'm writing you this blog entry. Yes, El Nido is a pretty remote place, although still quite some people find their way to it, since the land- and seascapes up here are best described in one word, being; in-cre-di-ble! Seriously I think the most beautiful place I have ever been. Let me first go a bit back in time though, to pick up from where I left you with my previous blog entry; Bangkok.

Eventually I managed to make my Bangkok experience a lot more pleasant as it had been the days before. I ran into Bryn from the UK, who I had met during the float in Vietnam and who I had seen since in Cambodia and in Laos (completely random :)). He turned out to travel together with Paula from Tasmania, who I also had met in Laos some weeks earlier. Being around with some familiar faces made my stay a lot more fun. Some evening I also met Eddie, a guy from Malaysia who was playing guitar on the street. We had some awesome jamming sessions in the park, while playing frisbee and drinking shakes; perfect urban days. On my last day we did some sightseeing on the river with a group of girls from Norway before I would take a flight to Manila, the Philippines, that night.

After a three hour flight I landed in the crazy city of Manila. No sleep and a lot of new impulses made my arrival a bit surreal. Together with Sharhi, a young Iranian/German dentist, who I met in the terminal just before, we found a place to crash for the night.

Strangely, Manila reminded me of Central America; with colorful buses, called Jeepnies, a lot of Coca Cola and Christianity and the language being an interesting mixture between Spanish, English and local dialects. The atmosphere here is definitely very different then other Asian countries I have been. For example signs at banks stating 'please leave your firearms before entering' are unthinkable in for example Laos. Actually the amount of guns visually on the streets made me a bit anxious and leaving Manila the next day felt like a good decision.

Next day Sharhi and I took a flight to Puerto Princesa on Palawan Island. This small city is the only hub between the whole island and the rest of the world. So after getting enough money out of the ATM for the next weeks, we took a bus to Sabang. Close to this place is an underground river of more then 7 k's long and with a boat it is possible to explore the first 1 to 2 kilometers. We went here the next day, hiking ten kilometers thru beautiful jungle with very, very much bio-diversity, seeing rare birds, insects, plants and monkey's on the way.

After two days Sharhi and I traveled further to Port Barton. The roads here are sometimes quite an experience and making a little cross every once in a while is not a bad idea. :) In Port Barton we spend some days snorkeling and yes, we found Nemo as well as many other weird and colorful fish. The amount of fish up here is amazing! Sometimes it is really like swimming in a big aquarium, completely surrounded by groups of all kinds of fish and crazy coral scapes. Me like!

Then we moved on to El Nido, all the way up north in Palawan. This 4 hour bus ride was the best I have ever had! Imagine a comfortable bamboo bench on the roof of a bus, situated just above the driver, and sitting on that while you drive trough some of the most beautiful landscapes ever seen! Aarg! Wow! Of course this bench was just somebodies cargo. Dogging the electricity cables and trees was sometimes kind of tricky, though. And yes, it truly became a crazy wild ride of life and death after the bus driver hit a dog in full speed.. poor thing. :S

El Nido is situated in a bay close to some hundreds of islands so perfect, that it looks like they are straight from the movies, like seen in Lost, the Beach or Cast Away. In daily boat tours I have been hopping from the one to the other, only stopping for snorkeling, a grilled fish, sunbathing and swimming. Especially the lagoons, only accessible by a small opening in the rocks, under or above the water, are un-be-freaking-leavable. I couldn't take pictures here, since I don't have an underwater camera. But even on pictures the beauty and surrealness of this place cannot be expressed.. so I guess if you want to know, you know where to go. :)

Ohyeah, yesterday we have been shipwrecked on one of the island, after our boat crashed onto a rock. Luckily nobody was hurt, since we just got of the boat to make lunch on a beach. It took us the whole day though, to get the boat out of the water and we had to wait until the weather became better so we could get a telephone signal to call for help. .. Just another day, haha :)

I have been waiting a couple of days here in El Nido to join a boat expedition to Coron on Butuanga island. If the wind will be stable tonight, just like today, we will leave tomorrow. It will be a 3 to 4 day trip along some of the 500+ islands in this region that are rarely visited by tourists. We will sleep in local villages, in a tent on the beach or on the boat and we'll basically just see where the wind takes us. An adventure I envisioned the Philippines to be!

Lots of love, Daan