http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/DifferentWorld/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from DifferentWorld en-us Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:03:12 +0000 Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:03:12 +0000 3 nights in Rome the eternal city. Enough to have sore leg muscles It was very nice ... the Colloseum the Forum Romanum all the piazzas squares Vatican ..... all the pizzas lasagne capuccino tiramisu that tastes so differently in Italy Every huge crowds of people .. Probably never seen so many tourist in one place.In Vatican museum I met an Italian girl I remember from PayPal whe http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-392181.html I'm back in Singapore and tomorrow I fly home.I was in Ubud in Bali where I spent 2 days. Ubud is a nice town centre of art etc. I bought loads of souvenirs. Visited Kechak dance performance. Those of you who saw movie Baraka will know what it is.I visited also Monkey forest. Later I should add some pics of how a monkey grabbed my Tshirt I await photos from my new Taiwanese friends whom I met http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/blog-336892.html I had some hard time to recover pictures from my memory card that's why this post comes with a delay.My card got infected with some virus in some crappy dodgy net cafe. And after that it was showing different kinds of errors etc. even after removing the virus. I think it damaged that part of the card that remembers how and where the files are stored. But luckily I could do a backup using the s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/blog-334669.html I'm in Padangbai now which is a port to Lombok island. I would like to go to Gili Islands which are right next to Lombok. It is renowned over here very popular among the backpackers all the people talk also about the magic mushrooms that you can get there. There is no police on those island it seems that the government turns blind eye over it. But I go there for snorkelling of course I did s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Padangbai/blog-333576.html I took a 3 days trip to Bromo volcano. There are also some other ones still active. Check the pictures.From there the next day we went to Ijen region through coffee plantations we visited a coffee factory. Ijen volcano in its crater the workers dig sulphur then they carry it up the crater and down to the valley. One load is around 75kg They do this twice a day so around 150 kg.And they http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Bromo-Tengger-Semeru/blog-332445.html Today I strolled in the streets of Yogyakarta city. The rickshaws are everywhere asking as they see meTransport . One approached me in different way. He said he will show me the city one hour for 5000 rupiahs 0.30 Euro. I knew it must be some sort of a con as for that price they do not take tourists.Very soon I realized that we are not going to check the city sights but he will take me a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Yogyakarta/blog-331127.html I'm in city of Yogyakarta. Tourism is flourishing here because of the buddhist temple Borobodur and hinduist temple Prambanan in their vicinity. Both as Unesco heritage.I made both of them today with a tour. Beautiful places just bit overcrowded. Thousands of tourists and Indonesians mainly. Therefore for may of the visitors I was a bigger attraction than the temples themselves.Countless of p http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Borobudur/blog-330715.html Today in the morning I went to Harbour Centre in Singapore took the boat 45 mins to Pulau Batam which si Indonesia already got the visa on arrival. The whole process took about 3 mins no questions asked no docs needed just the valid passport. Slovakia is luckily since 2007 on a list of countries that can get visa on arrival in Indonesia. I just had to pay 25 USD for 30 days visaTh http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Jakarta/blog-330059.html This time it is my solo trip. Zuzana did not want to go she says enough of travelling My main destination will be Indonesia but there was a special offer for the flight tickets to Singapore. And there is a nice variety of low cost airlines in this region tomorrow I'm heading to Pulam Batam island by boat should be 45 mins which is already Indonesia and I'm flying to Jakarta from there.Si http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/blog-329753.html 3 days trip in London. I'm not going to post the standard london pictures here. Like Windsor the Tower Greenwich Buckingham palace Big Ben blah blah blah. Very beautiful charming and magnificent places everybody knows where they got the money from ... Our friends we visited they live and work here. Beer whisky slivovica. And back to Picadilly Circus. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/Kilburn/blog-324669.html Some pics that I could not upload before.almost all of them with comments.at the Ukrainian Slovak border I got fined 1000 Slovak crowns which is about 33 euro on Slovak side.I had 2 cartons of Marlboro cigarettes and allowed is to have just 1. Bastards I did not expect they will check my backpack that thoroughly.Bastards So I bought the cigs really cheap. 1 carton for the price of 2 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/blog-317303.html Our train to Uzgorod from there 4 km to the Slovak border is going in 1 and half hours. We are at the train station there are pc's and internet round the clock so no problem I even played counterstrike with the ukrainian teenagers In general ukrainian train stations and their facilities are on far higher level than those in Slovakia. There are also several big LCD screens so people ca http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ukraine/Lviv/blog-316226.html We did not have a chance to go to some internet cafe in the last couple of days. And this one has obviously USB ports disabled. So no pics And blog without pics is rather boring ....Ok at least few words.We went to Volgograd it was unbelievable hot Especially in a train car without airconditioning. I popped out my head from the window hot air. In Volgograd it was around 40 degrees celciu http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ukraine/Dnepropetrovsk/blog-315707.html We are back to Europe after 3 days in the train. There were almost no tourists only one Canadian guy that we met also in hostel in Irkutsk. So there was not much fun only in the evenings when we were drinking vodka together. There was no one to join us. And I finished reading Dr. Zhivago Zuzana The picture of Dorian Gray.This city is nice its Kremlin is Unesco heritage. There is also a mo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Volga/Kazan/blog-313391.html Today we visited Ivolgin Datsan a budhist monastery some 30 km from Ulan Ude. There are few temples and budhist monks. Yes budhist. It is some community of indigenous buryats who are leaving in this region basically the mongol people. It was nice. First time we saw something like that.We met also 3 people from Czech rep. . 2 ladies 1 man. All of them about 70 years old and also travelling by http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Ulan-Ude/blog-311659.html we are just sitting in a very modern internet kafe 21 inches LCD monitors fast connection card readers super headsets ... and 1 min is 1 RUB and it was told to us even in english Ulan Ude is in general much more civilized than Irkutsk. Although it is smaller than Irkutsk this is the 4th internet kafe we have seen while in Irkutsk there was just one and perfectly hidden.And also http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Ulan-Ude/blog-311143.html From Olchon island we came back to Irkutsk got tickets to Ulan Ude. Traveling all night. We found a hotel. The old socialist style. It was cheap. Now we know why. You have to pay even for the shower something extra 40 RUB.Therefore I would not call it a hotel but well .... http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Ulan-Ude/blog-311098.html We spent few days on Olchon island. We took a bus there. It was raining all the time that day and unfortunately in the bus too There one lady had an umbrella one other was sitting in the raincoat ....First night we spent in one shelter with other 3 Slovak guys we met. They are travelling from Kyrgyzstan through Kazachstan and they plan to go to Kamchatka.The island is very beautiful I mea http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Lake-Baikal/blog-311095.html We still can not get used to the time difference it is 8 hours GMT.This is really weird city strange looks of the people at us. In the shops etc. some people are nice trying to help some not making us feel that they do not want foreigners here.The main streets here are Karl Marx str Lenin street. There on the Marx street girls dancing on the balcony of some club in lingerie. Probably try http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Irkutsk/blog-308928.html some pictures from Moscow and Irkutsk we will upload asap we forgot to bring the card reader today So we made it to Irkutsk early this morning. The journey was nice Better than we expected. We were in one kupe with nice older russian couple who were on their way to visit family living at lake Baikal. The journey had started with shots of vodka and eating cooked chicken with them. Very n http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Irkutsk/blog-308562.html