After a relatively easy 10 hour bus ride from Bali I arrived to my first destination in Java. I started in Malang because my Australian friends that I met in Flores (Kat and Rachael) are studying Indonesian and teaching English there. The first day in Malang I just rested and looked around the city. It had a good feel to it. Most people when making eye contact with me smiled and if they knew any English would say hello. Rachael and Kat showed up the next day to take me around. There are not any sites in Malang. It is [View Full Entry]

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Bali. It’s a place unlike the rest of Indonesia. I would consider it a different country if it didn't use Indonesian Rupiah as its currency. When first arriving, you can see a huge difference. The people look different. The buildings are different. The biggest change is the large percentage of Hindu and Buddhist followers. Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country in the world. In Bali, they are a minority. In Bali the daily calling over mosque megaphones for prayer isn't heard. Instead the smell on burning incenses and sound of chants fills the streets. The other major diffe [View Full Entry]

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So Andy, Jur and myself awoke too early from our beds in Bajawa to wait for our bus to Moni. When the bus pulled up in front of our hotel we saw something that we didn't expect. What could it be? Pigs? Chickens? No, saw that before on the bus. Nope it was two white girls. They looked just as shocked to see us boarding the bus. We soon talked to each other. It turns out that they (Kat and Rachael) were from Australia and were studying Indonesian in Malang, Java. They were on a short vacation. We decided to team [View Full Entry]

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With my new founds partners in crime (Jur and Andy) we continued east through Flores. The roads in Flores are something else. They are not too bumpy, but they are very, very, curvy. It's not a drive you can sleep on. We were told one statistic that for a 400km distance that the road is over 700km long. That's a lot of winds and bends. Luckily for our Ruteng to Bajawa route we were able to charter a driver. He was heading that way anyway with an empty SUV, so we were able to talk him into letting us tag along [View Full Entry]

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After a grueling 28 hour bus and ferry combo from Mataram, Lombok I arrived to Labuhanbajo, Flores. The city (or better called town) is the main port on the western end of Flores. It is not much to speak of because is mainly just a road with some hotels, little local restaurants, and several diving/tour guide offices. It does serve as an excellent port to explore the komodo islands national park just west of the town. That's what made me stay. After checking out the dive companies there, I chose to go with reef seekers. In my opinion they are the [View Full Entry]

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After a 17 hour ferry from Zamboanga, I made it to Malaysia. The first city I arrived in was Sandakan. It is a normal, grid style city. Not too big, not too small. It served as a good port to get acclimated to the differences of Malaysia. One immediate thing I noticed was that it is much more conservative than the Philippines. The people were friendly, but less likely to come up to you and just start talking. The food is good. It’s a blend of Malay, Indian, and Chinese. Lots of curries, flatbreads and soups. There’s a good amount [View Full Entry]

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One of the unfortunate costs of taking a year long trip is the chance that on an important holiday or occasion, that I would most likely be by myself. Luckily, for Christmas this year, that was not the case. My good friend, Farrah, which I met in manila, was heading home for the holidays and it was near where I was and she was nice enough to invite me to spend Christmas time with her friends and family. It was one of the best gifts that I could have received. So Christmas this year was spent in Zamboanga. It is on [View Full Entry]

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The next leg of my journey led me to the island of Bohol. The ferry from Cebu took me to Tagbilaron. Just a normal port city with nothing extremely unique, good enough to catch up on some emails and movies. After there I went to the town of Loboc. It is about an hour jeepney ride away and was such an unexpected surprise. It sits at the base of the Loboc River and is a quiet and serene place. The hotel I stayed at was called "Nuts Huts". It is a Belgian run resort. I wasn't expecting too much from there, [View Full Entry]

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from negros i decided to head to cebu island. here there is some famed diving spots and cebu city (the second largest city in the philippines). my first stop was to the town of moalboal. there is not really any notable beaches there, expect for white beach in the north, but the diving was the reason to go. they have several marine sanctuaries there, one even named saavedra reef. saavedra is my surname, so that was reason enough for me to go. the marine life there was great. i was able to see turtles, sea snakes, even some small sharks at [View Full Entry]

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after leaving the romblon islands i decided to check out some towns on the island of negros. i went to bacolod and dumaguete. bacolod was a smaller city (about 450,000). it was a very friendly city. it was kind of warm the few days i spent there, so i mainly stayed indoors during the day, either in internet cafes or at the movies. can't beat it, here the movies cost $1-2. at night bacolod was a different town. it is the official fried and roasted chicken capital of the philippines. on any block there could be 4-5 chicken stands. was so [View Full Entry]

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