Guateeeeeee

Guatemala had always a special meaning for me because of my two friends Guido and Jorge :) Unfortunately I broke one of the biggest travelers' rule; never read the safety advice of the Foreign Affairs Department as it is similar to the side effect brochure of a strong medicine: quite bit of exaggeration. So scared of Guatemala's safety situation I was not really sure if we should go and I drove poor Adam mad about it. In the end, we went and it was one of the best things we could have done during our travels..besides of the endless hours in these minibuses ((although the distances are tiny you spend hours and hours for transport))....we absolutely loved Guatemala.....
Our first stop was the beautiful colonial town La Antigua. Antigua is a place where you could spend months without getting bored. The tiny streets and the many colonial buildings, churches and monasteries are abs. beautiful and if that was not enough you can expect various food "orgasms" in several places in town...talking about food we have to mention here Latin-america's best beer: La Cerveza Gallo. Thanks to this magic beverage we had some lovely and happy hours with our Chapin friends!!!! PROST
From Antigua we got a private shuttle (organised by Escalante Tours) to Guatemala's Capital: Guatemala City. After seeing the Palace and the City Center, where we also met Guatamala City.s Mayor, we were quite impressed by two huge shopping centers which were more modern and more comfortable than any other shopping center we had seen on our travels so far.... We also enjoyed there nice food, of course some nice Gallo beer and great company....
Antigua's famous volcano Pacaya was next on our programm. Although we didnt see the promised lava rivers, it was still very nice on top of one of the 36!!!! volcanoes in Guatemala, we even got surprised by some Marshmallows up there.
Later on we continued our travels heading to the east side of the country. We got to a small town named Coban. We liked it much less than Antigua but we didnt have another choice than to stay there in order to get to the magical place Semuc Champey. What sounds like champagne is in real life a natural wonder consisting of many small ponds and pools. The colour of these pools is between blue, turquoise and green, that means it is awesome to look at them and even better to swim in them. We had some kind of crazy guide (he said he was 18, but looked like 9) who jumped, climbed, slided and walked us from one pool to the other....believe me we had a great day there....
We saved the best till last in Guate...Tikal. Not only is it an ancient wonder of the world but it is also a tropical jungle teaming with life surrounding it.
We found howler monkeys, spider monkeys, crocodiles, foxes and even tarantulas as we passed from one ancient ruin to the other. It was amazing considering that jungle was completely cleared during the Mayan reign, but now the jungle has reclaimed the land within a relatively short time span. This means that only a very small minority of the 5000 buildings in the Tikal complex have been cleared and restored. There is still a lot to discover and a lot of money to spend,,,,,
Summing up: Guatemala is def. a place to visit !!!

Mexico

The first thing in our minds OR better said our- "bellies" is certainly the extraordinary good food...... hmmmmm and the simplest things were best: nice guacamole with cilantro, cheesy quesadillas (only with Oaxaca cheese please ) , cerviche and of course icecold Corona with a piece of lime. Heaven couldnt taste better. ....
Apart from the delicious food we enjoyed the fantastic beaches around Tulum, the very nice scuba diving in Cozumel and the impressive ruins in Chichen Itza. However, the very biggest thing was certainly the whale sharks in Holbox Island (please see the video below) No mum, they were not dangerous at all :) :) Of course we had to get some more diving in too.
We did our first cavern dive in a Cenote (sinkhole) which was surreal experience sometimes. It felt we were floating in space with complete darkness and amazing visibility in the fresh water. On a historical note cenotes were the single biggest reason of the success of the Mayan empire in the Yucatan Peninsula, as they were the primary source of fresh water!
All in all Mexico is a very easy to travel country, at least in the south. Also thanks to ADO bus services. One of our favourite places was surely San Cristobal de las Casas en Chiapas. This small colonial town in the middle of an array of mountains doesnt lack of authenticity. Little streets full of nice bars and restaurants, very friendly people and this all for a very good price,,, makes it to a traveller's favourite. In the surroundings we could also enjoy the amazing Sumerido Canyon. A daytrip brought us to this nice piece of nature, the high walls of the Canyon were quite impressive. The only bad side was that the river was full of waste and old plastic bottles, which even reminded me of the Ganges in India :O)

USA - California

the UNITED STATES left a deep impression. the first one we got though was not the best: three hours at immigrations. Apparantly, there was an error in the system ?! But later on we found out that it always takes soooo long to "immigrate". However, once we got our asses out of that huge horrible queue we jumped on our little beautiful escape camper van. Millions of people admired our vehicle, asked us if they could take pictures etc. and Adam always assured them that he did
the graffiti arts himself :)Our baby drove us around for 2300 miles, a proud number in only 13 days. The first few days we were on the BIG SUR, popular for surfers and nature fans. So we saw these really cute and huge elephant seals, getting their names of their funny noses. The landscape was really nice, reminding us a bit of good old Ireland...In these first days we also tried for the first and the last time wildcamping. We spent a night at a Walmart parking lot, together with 5 other campers. We found it a bit scary though and for this reason we only did it once...
Next stop was the biiig huge Redwood forest park. It was just incredible to see these huuge big trees, comparedto our car which looked super tiny. We did some nice nature walks, but once we had enough from the big fellows we went to foggy San Francisco where we met our friends Birgit and Tobi. Of course we wanted to celebrate our meeting with a nice cold beer. Adam picked for this special ocasion a nice Irish bar. But although our faces are full of wrinkles, our hair and beards are grey and getting white, the guys didnt believe that we are older than 21 and without a "plastic" ID NO drinks (not even alcohol free beer). I never saw Adam that disappointed in our
trip. At least in China town we could enjoy a beer together in a fancy cHinese restaurant.
After two days in San Francisco we had to find out that it can get bloody cold even in summer and that sunny california should get rather the name: foggy california - at least on the coast.
At least in the interior it got a bit warmer, when we went to the Yosemite National Park, our really favourite place in California. It was so beautiful that we thought we must be in a Walt Diseny park for nature. Unfortunately, we are not the only people who think that and for this reason the park was endlessly crowded. We even got once stucked in a Traffic jam for one hour ??!!! Uuuups....We would have rather expected that in busy Las Vegas, which was our next stop....Post continued by Adam

Las vegas believe everything you have heard...New York, Venice, the Eifletower everything can be found in this exciting oasis.For me it was even more exciting, what better place than vegas to catch up with my brother, his girlfriend and of course Adrian. This meant sunning by the pool and drinking beer all day long (it was 45 degrees). It was some craic and yes it was pretty easy to spot the paddies. You lose track of time when you are inside one the mega hotel casinos.. especially when you have consumed a gallon of beer.

Alas we only really had one evening with the guys its was far too short but cest la vie and it was back to LA at 4am to drop off the rainbow coloured campervan. We spent a couple of nights in Downtown LA - yeah you were all right guys, it was a bit rough but not quiet as bad as we expected.There seems to take place a renewal of some kind some hip coffee bars have just opened also some decent bars and are a hostel was
quirky which is always cool. Our final destination was Venice beach, yep it really does have your above average amount of freaks they even have a walk in freak show (i kid you not!) some other fine examples of daily life was a guy advertisng- with a ripped piece of cardboard "kick me in ass for $5" the next day he had progressed to " kick me in the nuts for $10 " yeh you get the idea but it had an endearing quality the place.Next Destination is central America...cant wait

Mexico Holbox- Whale Shark

Its not quite "the blue planet" production quality but you get the idea. Our budget for the underwater camera was 50 euro hehe! this gut was relatively small only 8 meters.. Wow.

Indonesia Part II

We still dont know HOW, but in the end we managed to leave the Gili's We heard about travellers who were stuck on the Gilis for even 6 months!!!! Anyhow, we were still "thirsty" and we wanted to see more of Indonesia.

So we decided to get a bit more adventurous and we went to the less touristy island Flores. It was a bit exhausting to get there though: a 27 hours bus ride and two ferries. Our "chicken bus" was not only loaded with chickens, but also with construction material and on top: a MOTOR BIKE, that means inside the bus, directly next to Adams head. At this moment we were not

sure if we make it alive to Flores....But the tough journey was worth it. Flores is vey wild and rich in the variety of animals.

So we visited for example the Komodo National Park in order to see the world famous Komodo Dragons. The worlds biggest lizard. Jesus, we felt like in Jurassic Park. These

creatures get to a length of 3 meters and very important they are NO vegetarians. On our Komodo Dragon walking tour we heard about six victims eaten by dragons (also one Swiss tourist) in the last few years. Of course we got a bit nervous when one of them was following us. Please watch the video...Our second experience with the wildlife were the Manta Rays. We met them on a diving/snorkling tour and for sure it was one of our most exciting moments.... Having a group of seven giant manta rays about four meters wide swimming around you was pretty cool! They glided in formation one after the other spiralling tumbling and twirling all in sync like they were showing off! They did a little dance formation for us.

Our next stop was back in civilisation in Ubud, Bali. We spoilt ourselves with several Starbucks Coffees, nice massages and really good "western food". these were our last days in beloved Indonesia until we got to California, but this a another chapter....

Indonesia

30 days ..thats all they give to visit Indonesia and me for one intially didnt grasp its vast size. That was until undertaking a 33 hour nerve wrecking bus jouorney in Java, just to get to Bali I started to understand "hey this is a bloody big country!"You may ask why we put
ourselves through that sort punishemnt,(yeh i know we wont get much sympathy!)well quite simply its the unglamrous side backpacking and making sure you stay on budget and as other hardened travels would say "how much can you see from an aeroplane".

But of course the epic bus journey was all worth it, although our first stop- Kuta is a bit of shit hole. Yeh its fine if your going on the piss for a week thats true. So we got the hell out of there after just one night and started an other not so quite epic journey to the gili islands. The Gili islands can be best described as a place where you just cant escape once you get there -its meant as compliment :). But we did manage to to actually get off the Island
and be a little more adventurous -we climbed Mount Rinjani. It consisted of 3 day and 2 night
trek and was pretty damn cool. I doubt there are many places in the world were you can see a
Volcano island within giant Volcano Rim!

The Gilis really were the closet thing to paradise we have come across on our travels nice beaches, great accomdation, good value, great food, nice snorkeling/scuba diving and most important thorougly great people.

Vietnam Part II

After some days in lovely Hoi An we spoilt ourselves with a jetstar flight to Hanoi.

On our arrival at the airport we were very cautious and we booked a pick up from the airport in

advance. Yeeessss, this was the best way to avoid the so called Airport Taxi Mafia in Hanoi...

Hanoi was a positive surprise for us. Apart from the big amount of motor bikes we found it quite more charming than Saigon, even with a little lake in the Old City Quarter.

Hanoi is the perfect base to plan the two obligated tours to Sapa and Halong Bay. Both

destinations are beautiful. Sapa is a little village in the mountains in the Northern Part of Vietnam and a 12 hours train ride away from Hanoi. It is a perfect place for some nice and easy trekking.The landscape is stunning, it is surrounded by thousands of lush green rice fields

and little villages with different tribes.Every tribe has its special tradition clothes which makes the scenery even more colorful and vivid.Of course we booked a three days trekking tour in this beautiful, peaceful place of Vietnam. And our sweat was compensated with nice views and unforgettable moments looking at the playing children or watching the every day life of the villages. Our accomodation were home stays in the villages, which was nice and exciting, because in the middle of the night we were woken up by a nice little rat trying to get through our mosquito net.

So the next tour was of course -Halong Bay was very relaxing. Our sailing boat was one of the posh ones.I insisted to book a expensive and safe one after the horrible accident in February in

Halong Bay where several tourists had to die because of the lack of safety minimum standards. But it was the money worth. We got plenty of really nice food and our cabin had even a shower with freshwater :), one of the activities that was part of the trip was the "amazing cave" we thought it might be just another tourist trap but it was breathtaking it can only described by the pictures we took. Coming to the end of our trip in Vietnam we both struck by raw beauty of the country, however a word of warning we felt that it was also the most difficult country to travel in south east Asia.

Vietnam Part I

After the serenity of Siem Reap it was time to 'up sticks' and head east to Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).First impressions after 10 mins in HCMC where "jesus we need to be on our guard here". It was a record for been scammed in a new country- we got hit with a crazy taxi meter immediatly when we got off the bus from Cambodia. With oppresive heat, humidity, noise, pollution and I mean millons.. MILLIONS of motorbikes, I can honestly say I was not designed for
these sort of conditions so its better I dont give my opinon on this city as it wouldnt be very objective!. However their certainly is marked tendancey for locals to really screw tourists more than any other country we have visited to this point or perhaps its like that with everyone..who knows??. The sooner you except this, the sooner you will start too enjoy Vietnam for its been hyped for.
After the Madness of HCMC. it was nice to stumble upon Mui Ni almost sleepy beach resort or maybe it was just not peak season. Their was a lot more to this region once we sratched the surface(we even had a mini revolution of sorts unfold before our eyes..its
a story best told over a pint of temple Brau).
But as all good things must come to an end we traveled north to Hoi An. We had the usaual pattern of hassle and scams you come to expect i.e fighting with the bus company for forcing me
to sleep on the floor of the bus for 14 hours and then threating to throw me off the bus in the middle of the night for not complying to their wishes. Anyways back to Hoi An - an interseting place we were also here for the full moon so their was some nice festivals! It also wins the awards for the quirkiest hotel was have stayed in so far.