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Johan en Ilse
Hello,Mitrompeta
photo's can be viewed at ilseandjohanzijngaaf.photoshop.com
Travel Blog Posts
December 9th 2009
As we arrived in Kathmandu from Bangkok after a 3 hours flight, the first thing we noticed was that things looked quite similar to India. The airport, which looked a bit like an old school building, was alright. But as soon as we stepped in the open air, the sound of cars and people, the horrid smell of open sewers freely mixing with that of spice and thee shops left little illusion. Yet, although Nepal boasts many similarities it is also very different from India. One major difference for example is the amount of women in public life. Nearly none in India, Nepalese women actually seem to take part in society. Also, Nepali touts aren’t near as sophisticated as Indian as we even managed to turn the tables on one and got a cheap taxi ride ... read more
October 12th 2009
The journey to Vang Vieng proved to be quite an ordeal, especially for Ilse. Normally I'm the one who has trouble with travel sickness, but this time it was Ilse's turn. In the end the trip can be summarized as 8 hours of more twist and turns than one can count and the driver running out of plastic bags. Sadly this made her largely oblivious to the beautiful countryside we were passing. Finally after 8 hard hours we arrived at Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is quite a small town and mostly overrun by tourists. This is because Vang Vieng is famous for 2 things: tubing and rock climbing. It is the first activity that attracts most visitors. Tubing basically means letting yourself float down a river on an inner tractor tube. This sound pretty relax and ... read more
October 10th 2009
After getting stuck for one day in Udomxay, which wasn't half that bad as the lonely planet makes it out to be, we continued to Nong Khiaw. We were originally planning to stay here for a couple of days but on the advise of 2 Laotians we jumped on the boat to Muang Ngoi Neua which is located 1 hour upriver from Nong Khiaw. This one hour trip is about as scenic and beautiful as it gets. Still somewhat dazed by the magnificent surroundings we arrived at our destination and checked in at our guest house. The rest of our day was spend suspend in a hammock taking in the surroundings. Next day we embarked on possibly our last jungle trek of our journey. Although not as spectacular and hard as the one we did in ... read more
September 28th 2009
I can put it quite simple: Hop on the first plane to Bangkok, jump on a bus towards Vientianne and get here asap. Because if there is any country capable of inspiring men and cause tears of joy to well up in even the stoutest of hearts, it is Laos. Why this is so, is difficult to explain. it is like explaining the chaos of Mumbai streets to someone who hasn't been to India yet. Or trying to capture the magnificence of Angkor Wat on camera. Or showing the same person a video on life under water at the pheurentians. It is simply impossible as word, picture or video is a mere shadow of the true experience. Add to that the great multitude of truly unique things you can do here and you'll be hard pressed ... read more
Tuk Tuk?: The road to Laos
Published: September 21st 2009Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Chiang Mai
September 21st 2009
This perhaps a bit short and unimaginative update might feel a little less than the usual. Still it is required to keep the story going and there is much more to come as I begin writing on Laos. After our expedition to Angkor Wat we stayed for 2 more days in Bangkok. These days were quite fun as we find Bangkok a truly enjoyable city. This short respite also gave us the time to arrange onward transportation. Hence at 9 Sep we boarded the night train heading for Chang Mai. Chang Mai is somewhat the cultural capital of Thailand and our transport hub for northern Laos. Although we heard a lot of good things about Chang Mai, were much more interested in Laos and thus it functions as a quick stopover on our way north. We ... read more
September 11th 2009
We arrived in Bangkok late in the evening and decided to overnight at the airport. Next days we explored the town a bit and arranged our next trip. This took some time as our next destination is Angkor Wat in Cambodia. But before going into that I’d like to say one thing on Bangkok. Having spent 3-4 days in this city I can’t help but feel that It can compete with any of the worlds oldest jungles when it comes to bio-diversity. There are so many different kinds of humans walking around here that it could be an attraction in itself! This makes walking around in the city very interesting, even more if you add the many cultural possibilities such as Bangkok’s many Wats. It is a city of angels for sure. Albeit populated with angels ... read more
September 7th 2009
After our longhouse adventure and good previous experience we rented the motorcycles for 3 more days. The first day we visited the wind and fairy cave. The wind cave was totally dark, moist and had lots of bats. This made it somewhat scary but and lots of fun. The fairy cave was simply amazing. So amazing that Ilse went for a panorama shot. The only other place she ever did this was high in Truind in the Indian Himalayas. So it was pretty damn amazing! Sadly, somewhere halfway through the shot the battery went dead. This frustrated Ilse so much that we decided to come back the next day. This is just what we did and we finally completed the shot. To give a small description of the pace: It’s like walking on the set of ... read more
September 5th 2009
Or as one of our Portuguese friends remarked: Head-ache hunters. Referring to the amounts of alcohol consumed. But this rather amusing yet slightly negative remark does no good to the greatness of these people, something I will write about later. First we arrived in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, the western Malaysian province in Borneo. Kuching is definitely a nice city and for the last couple of days we’ve really enjoyed ourselves exploring this great capital and its surroundings. What makes Kuching especially great is that it is a city of half a million. Yet many area’s still maintain the feel of a small village. Also the people have been treating us exceptionally well, which made us feel right at home. The highlight of our stay in Kuching so far has probably been exploring the countryside ... read more
August 29th 2009
By overnight train we arrived from Kota Baru in Singapore. Here we met our German friend Julia again. We've been running into Julia everywhere since we met her first in Tama Negara. At this time Julia was traveling with a father and son from Switzerland annd son from Switzerland annd son from Switzerland and we decided to join for a bit. During our Journey to Singapore it was Ilse who attended us to the fact that it was Singapore's 44th birthday on our date of arrival. After the train, we said goodbye to the Swiss and Julia joined us to our hostel. After check-in, we had a look around and ended in Little India. Although not really my coup of tea, as you know, i was interesting to see how the Indian lived in Sindapore. First ... read more
August 18th 2009
Obviously before you lose paradise you'll have to find it. We found it somewhere in the South Chinese sea, at least for a couple of days. Jet our arrival at paradise wasn't that great. It was in the middle of a tropic storm to be precise. We tried to outrun the storm by quickly jumping on a speedboat. But it caught us mid sea anyway and had us soaked in mere seconds. Its a great experience though, jumping from the bus into a speedboat, racing on waves that get bigger and bigger. catapulting our boat right into the next one. All the while looking then back, then forward noticing the storm closing in on us while our island destination grows larger at a terrible slow rate. In the end it loomed over us spelling ill fortune ... read more
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