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.

Siem Reap - Cambodia

We spent a week in Siem Reap to check out the famous temples of Angkor Wat. The first step was crossing the Thai - Cambodia border which in itself was an adventure The BBC reports it more eloquently than I ever could. This all makes for interesting land border crossing!. Anyway once safely across into Siem Reap Cambodia we were both left in awe of one of the ancient wonders of the world -Angkor Wat and the various other ruined temples from the Khmer Civilisation dating as early as the 10th century. Finally how could I forget we did a cooking course giving us the opportunity to cook and sample some of Cambodian cuisine ...Yummy(and yes that's why I was wearing the ridiculous chefs outfit it wasn't just for fun).

HONG KONG

Hong Kong - colourful, clean, crowded, tidy and a bit expensive. We had a really nice time here even with the smallest hotel room ever with toilet not much bigger than you would find in an aircraft (which is actually quiet appropriate as space is at a premium here). Food was amazing, Adam loved the delicious dumplings and both of us enjoyed some nice cocktails in the night life area SOHO...

The Philippines

The Philippines were our first stop in South East Asia, a good spot for a warming up....as here most of the really nice Filipinos have good English and it is nearly scamfree :) we only paid twice too much taxi fees and that was it. Apart from the really easy to travel features we loved the Philippines above and under the sea. The snorkling and scuba diving were superb, so many different corals and fish, turtles, scorpion fish, manta rays...amazing for us. Hopefully fishermen stop the so called dynamite fishing, as a lot of this fascinating under water world is already destroyed....Our highlights were Pandan Island and Apo Island. Although running water and electricity was - in parts - missing and we had some sleepless nights the overwhelming beauty of these two little gems was more than a compensation.