I had heard about this place; a place you can see rhinos and tigers and ride elephants. Why not? Chitwan is located almost equidistant from Kathmandu and Pokhara, to the south. The National Park borders with northern India. After spending a few days recovering in Pokhara, right after having done the Annapurna Circuit, this seemed like a good place to go to on my way to Kathmandu. I didn't know much about the place and didn't really bother looking at the cheap options. I decided to buy a 3 day package tour with everything included. Went for the easy option. If I had known better, I would've probably just bought a bus ticket to Chitwan (specifically a village called Sauraha), gone to the village, looked for a place to stay (there are innumerable options) and booked ... read more

Day 10 I set off to Tilicho Lake. I walked the 2 hours from Manang to Khangsar and I thought I would be staying there, but when I got to the place, I didn't like it at all. I had seen in a rough map outside the village that there were other places to stay in, past the village, so I decided to keep on going. I was feeling very tired that day and did not feel like walking at all. The next place I got to was Siri Kharka. I was dead tired after the walk uphill and had something to eat and took a 2 hour rest there. I seriously considered staying there, but then resolved to keep going until I reached the Tilicho Base Camp (TBC). From Siri Kharka to the TBC, it's ... read more

From Manila I had a flight to Singapore. I arrived there at around midnight and had to wait until about 7am to get my next flight to Kuala Lumpur. In the meantime I had a healthy meal at Burger King and read a book about snipers. I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at around 9am, only to find out that my backpack was missing. Apparently they hadn't put it on the plane (Tiger Airways). I had to fill out a report and hope for the best. My next flight was at 11am to Kathmandu, so I flew with out my backpack hoping to retrieve it in Kathmandu in the next few days. Fortunately during that day, they at least confirmed that they had it. Apparently they had sent it to Kuala Lumpur later that day and when ... read more

From Malapascua I decided to head down to Bohol Island, just east of Cebu Island. In the place I was staying at (Purple Snapper), I had met a French woman, Stephanie, also a dive instructor and she was also going to Bohol, so we decided to go together to share costs. She was good company, had a lot of stories, plus she was an excellent dive buddy to be traveling with. We woke up really early in the morning and went to the beach to get a boat that would take us to Maya (town at the very north of Cebu Island). While we waited in the beach, we were constantly harrased by a pack of stray dogs, which was really annoying. The boat ride takes about 30 minutes and from Maya we had to take ... read more

I arrived in Makassar at about 8pm without knowing where I was going to spend the night that day, but I had the name of a street in which I knew there should be a couple of backpacker places (Jampean St). When I left the airport I was harassed by at least 10 taxi drivers. Most of them were charging 100.000 IDR. I got one that charged me 87.500 IDR. Makassar is a big city with about 1.6 million people. The airport surprised; pretty modern and well maintained, not like the one in Denpasar, Bali. The city also has a big port and a lively night life with lots of karaoke places and clubs. The driver didn’t speak any English. I told him to take me to Jampean Street. When I got to the street, I ... read more