(Day 572 on the road)I am in Australia, and I keep having to pinch myself to believe just how different this place is compared to Southeast Asia. A mere two hour flight southeast of Bali, it feels like a different world altogether. After travelling across Asia for the last year and a half, some things that I once considered normal and a part of everyday life in Europe suddenly seem odd and new, yet strangely familiar. Some of the things I noticed on my first few days in Darwin and which caught my attention: Pedestrian crossings where cars actually stop for people. Laws that prohibited smoking in public places. Kindergartens and day care centres. A well-stocked library. Fixed prices for everybody without any discrimination. People using rubbish bins and not just dropping their litter everywhere. A ... read more

(Day 562 on the road)I have done my fair share of diving all over Southeast Asia in the last year or so, but nothing comes even close to how amazing the underwater life is here in the Gili Islands off Lombok's north coast. Apparently, the fishermen are paid by the local dive operators NOT to fish, and it more than shows in the marine life to be found just a few metres from the beach. Visibility is amazing with 20 to 30 metres, and thousands of tropical fish (many in big swarms) and some turtles are all over the place. Arriving back in Indonesia through Bali's airport was a fairly straight-forward process - at least by Indonesian standards. It took me only one hour to get to the front of the queue at the four manned ... read more

(Day 553 on the road)How to write a blog entry about a place that has such an awful reputation as Angeles City in the Philippines? The place is possibly the sex capital of the world, with between 10.000 and 20.000 prostitutes selling their bodies every night. During the time of the U.S. airbase here, as many as 100.000 working girls were offering their services. I had a morning flight the next day from Clark airport just outside of Angeles, and decided to spend the night here instead of crazy Manila and see this place for myself. I soon realised that accommodation in Angeles is definitely not geared towards backpackers, and after walking around for an hour in the afternoon heat with my backpack looking for an affordable place to crash I finally had to admit defeat. ... read more

(Day 549 on the road)Leaving El Nido was a lot more difficult than anticipated. Ongoing typhoon warnings caused all ferries and flights from El Nido to be cancelled for days on end. I had already booked a flight from the island of Coron, about eight hours north by boat, for the day after tomorrow, and when I found out that the overnight ferry I had been hoping to take was cancelled I was starting to get a bit nervous. Forced to spend another night in El Nido, I was up at seven o'clock the next morning, exploring all the possible options. But, as always really, things worked out just fine. My saviour came in the form of a local boatman who couldn't care less about any coast guard clearance to leave the harbour, and he was ... read more

(Day 538 on the road)The guidebook had called Manila airport dirty, chaotic and dark. I was expecting the worst, but instead after arriving here from Taipei I found it super-clean, well sign-posted and modern. Maybe they have recently upgraded it or I arrived at a different terminal? Leaving the airport I braced myself for the usual army of taxi drivers and other hawkers but I found - nothing. Not a single person approached me, and I had time to get my bearings. How nice! Shunning the expensive coupon taxis I took a shuttle bus that took me to a broad avenue and then a jeepney (in essence a jeep converted into a van) to where I wanted to spend the night. A word of warning at this point: I stayed at the Townhouse Manila - don't ... read more