Schleni on Tour

A 133-day adventure by Lene & Moritz Read more

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Schleni on Tour
Yogyakarta - cultural center of java
October 21, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 25 °C
After the almost ten hour bus drive to Yogyakarta I arrived at Laura’s Backpackers hostel. Went to see the Malioboro Street in the evening (of course it was raining) - so many people in the street were trying to convince me to come to „an extraordinary exhibition“ or an „awesome art gallery“. Luckily I was told that this was going to happen, unfortunately it is very common in Yogya that people are trying to scam you. It is the cultural art center of java, the place where Batik art has its origin and some people take advantage of it. They bring tourists to questionable places where they talk them into buying batik art (or even force them to).

At the free dinner in my hostel I got to know Denise from Austria, we started talking and she asked me whether I want to join her to visit Borobudur Candi (temple) next day. In the end one of the Indonesian tour guides „Wanwan“ asked us whether we want to book a tour with him to see some more things than only the Borobudur temple on the next day. We convinced also Zoé and Jonas to join us and so we got up at 3:45 am next day to start our tour and to see the sunrise at a view point where you are supposed to see two vulcanos. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see any of the sunrise 😃 but at least we saw the vulcanos after a while. Went to see the ancient buddhist temple Borobudur, which was build in the 9th century. The temple is designed in a way that you can only go up the temple but not inside and at the moment it is unfortunately not even allowed to go on top of the temple. But still I found it very impressing to see how they built the temple (especially the background information a local tour guide gave us about the diffrent floors of the temple).

Our next stop was Chicken Church - a building (in a shape of a 🐔) which was originally built for people with diffrent religions to pray together, but it is unfortunately not used for praying and now more of a tourist attraction than a religious building. But we had a nice view (out of the beak of the chicken haha).

One hour later we arrived at the waterfall we wanted to visit. We were so happy that Wanwan drove us with the car because it was raining sooo much all the way and also when we arrived there. Because of flooding we couldn‘t walk to the waterfall and could only see it from a viewpoint (where you are also supposed to see a vulcano in the background, but it was too cloudy 😞).

Very hungry, even a little bit cold and to be honest also frustrated we went to a nice restaurant, which had so many variations of mushrooms instead of meat (reminded me of the amazing food at the teacher Training in Thailand 😍). Best thing for me was to try the mushroom Sate with peanut sauce - which is originally from indonesia, but naturally made out of chicken.Read more
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Schleni on Tour
Yogyakarta Prambanan
October 22, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 28 °C
Next day we were visiting the Prambanan temple - a hindu temple which was also built around the 9th century - so about the same time like Borobudur. There were also smaller Buddhist and Hindu temples around the area, which I found to be even nicer in the end.
Also we had the worst Nasi Goreng so far - actually it was only rice, a very small portion but so much more expensive than normally 😄Read more
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Schleni on Tour
last day in yogya
October 23, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
On the third day in Yogya I finally saw something of the city itself 😄
Denise and me went to see the sultan‘s palace together with Elise from France. We saw a traditional dance and music performance (Ramayana), which was quite interesting to watch (but also very long and we got veeeery hungry) . On our way out we ran into a military parade and also into an Indonesian woman who randomly invited us to her house for a drink. At first we weren‘t sure whether it was a good idea to go with her, but in the end we followed her into her house. She offered us a drink and some of her self made pastry. We had a nice chat with her, she told us about her life in indonesia. Being a Christian she seemed to be so much diffrent from all the Muslim Indonesian women.
After we left her house we had a nice last day in Yogyakarta, just walked through the small streets without a specific aim.

At 11 pm Denise, Jonas, Zoé and me took a night Bus to Jepara, to then take the ferry to the Karimunjawa Islands - we had enough of the City and wanted some relaxing time on an island (and also hoped for better weather) 😅Read more
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Karimunjawa Islands
October 24, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C
We arrived at the harbour in Karimunjawa at 5 am in the morning and tried to sleep a little bit more in one of the Warungs (restaurants) at the harbour (more or less successful, at least Zoé can sleep everywhere😅). Then we could go onto the slowboat ferry at 7 am and it took the ferry about 6 hours to go to Karimunjawa. We tried to sleep on board (again more or less successful 😅) and finaaaally we arrived at the Harbour in karimunjawa. Went to check in our hostel „The Bodhi Tree“ (so „herzig“ there like the Swiss couple would probably say 😊).
Then we rented scooters and drove to the Sunset Beach. Even if the roads were not always good on the island, the landscape was so amazing. Arriving at the beach we noticed we were almost the only tourists there and it looked like paradise to me 😍 we stayed until sunset and then went back for dinner at the (to be honest very unhygienic) fish night market. Was quite happy to be a vegetarian at that moment haha (even if Zoé and Jonas said the fish was very delicious in the end) 🙂Read more
Traveler Das sieht doch mal relaxed aus!
11/7/22Reply
TravelerOhja :) die Insel war bezaubernd!
11/7/22Reply
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In love with the island life
October 25, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
Next day we just enjoyed the island, the good food (fresh passion fruits🫠), empty beaches, driving with the scooters, and an awesome sunset swim😍
In the evening Luppa, the owner of the hostel, prepared traditional Indonesian food for us - fresh fish, Tempe and rice 🙂 😍as it is common in indonesia we also ate only with our hands🤷🏼‍♀️😄

Later some tour guides from karimunjawa who also chilled at the hostel in the evenings were singing together, showing us their own „karimunjawa song“ 😃Read more
Traveler landestypischer Reggae 😎
10/30/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
Snorkel trip 🐠 on Karimunjava
October 27, 2022, Java Sea ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
We went on a snorkel trip, where our guide Pedro showed us two other small islands and two spots for snorkeling. The corals there are so beautiful. We saw many fishes, three water turtles and sea urchins (Seeigel). One of the other girls told us she was swimming with a small shark - but nobody else saw it 😳 but all the others (except me) saw a shark from the boat.

On one small island Pedro and our boat driver were preparing lunch for us and even grilled fresh fish. We were the only people on the island and had a lot time to relax. It was such a nice day - thinking of maybe doing a diver certification at some point - there is so much to see under water 😍
At the end we drove into the sunset with our boat and headed back to the Harbour.
🐠🐡🐢🐡🐠
Because Pedro told us there would be a bonfire at the beach we drove there after dinner - unfortunately no one was there 😃 still it was a very funny evening - DJ bonfire was killing it😂🔥Read more
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Schleni on Tour
Bonfire on Karimunjawa
October 28, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
On our last day on Karimunjawa I went jogging in the morning - even if I went at 8:15 am it had already 28 degrees 🥵 after one last smoothie bowl we drove to the ‚Sunset Beach’ and chilled there for the whole day 😍 had the (so far) best Nasi Goreng and Denise and me went to The View Point Bukit Love for the sunset where we had a nice view on the coast of the island. In the evening we had a nice snack (called Martabak- a guilty pleasure but I will try to find it again somewhere because it was so good haha)

After that we went out to have dinner with our guides from the other day (nice Gado-Gado!) and they even made a bonfire at the beach for us for our last evening together. Zoé, Jonas and me went swimming in the night to see the plankton glowing in the water which was so magical ✨Read more
Travelermeeresleuchten🤯😍
11/10/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
Stopover in Semarang
October 29, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C
From Karimunjawa Zoé, Jonas, Denise and me took a speed boat to Jepara (back to Java). I was kind of sad to leave the island after we had such a nice time there🥹 From Jepara we took the bus to Semarang. Since we planned to hike two vulcanos (which were far away) in the next few days, we chose to make a stopover in Semarang.
When we arrived there, we visited the old town (Kota Lama) in the city, where we could see the influence of the dutch colonialism in the buildings. It looked very cozy in the streets of the old town in the evening (as Denise would say „des hod ma daugt“😅).
We had nice Indonesian food (this time in a proper restaurant instead of a Warung (which is a typical place where you can eat or buy something in indonesia). Finally some vegetables!

Our hostel in Semarang was awful 😩😅 it smelled like chicken, the people were smoking in the reception hall, there were no sinks (which seems to be a common lack on java 😃), no toilet paper, and at 11.30 pm they started construction Work in the hostel 😒 luckily Denise could convince them to end it („Are you serious?“😂)
We booked the hostel for the next day and went to sleep early as we had to catch a train the next day in the morning to start our journey to Mount Bromo. 🌋Read more
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Mount Bromo 🌋
October 31, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C
It was a loooong, adventurous and exhausting travel to Mount Bromo - but in the end totally worth it!
In total it took us about 10 hours to get to Cemorolawang from Semarang.

From Semarang to Surabaya by train 🚊:
Actually the train to Surabaya was totally fine and only about 4 hours.

From Surabaya to Probolinggo by bus 🚌:
When we got to the bus station in Surabaya it started to become weird. So many people were trying to convince us to take their bus to Probolinggo, they were very intrusive and the whole thing was very unpleasant. Luckily we had read in a blog which bus company should be a serious one (or at least one of the more serious ones…) and so we were looking out for that one. We felt like we still paid much more than the locals for the ticket.

From Probolinggo to Cemorolawang by mini bus 🚎:
After about 2 hours we arrived in Probolinggo but unfortunately there was an even worse situation. The mini busses to Cemorolawang are only driving when all seats are paid for but there were no tourists anymore. Again many people were intrusive, trying to convince us to take their bus and pay more money than usual for it. At that point we were already so frustrated and exhausted. Tried to organize a Grab taxi but he told us he couldn‘t pick us up in that „bison area“. Back then we didn’t understand yet what he meant. So we walked to another pick up point, happy to get away from the weird people at the bus station. Unfortunately the people followed us and threatened another mini bus driver who wanted to take us to Cemorolawang for a normal price, so that man drove away. We were kind of scared, since it slowly got dark and we didn’t have an idea what to do. The weird men followed us still and in the end we accepted their offer even if we were scared. But we had no alternative and went into their minivan (prepared a knife and pepper spray inside of it because we didn’t feel safe😳) …after 2 hours of a bumpy road we finally arrived in Cemorolawang - so relieved 😮‍💨 but also sooo exhausted. Jonas had googled the weird situation that we got into and told us that it is widely known that a mafia is controlling the area around Mount Bromo. Our hostel owner confirmed it.

Finally!!! Hike to the view point and Mount Bromo 🌋
We started the hike with our headlamps at 3:00 am in the morning. The four of us and Jules, a french guy that we met wore thick clothes because it was so much colder in that area (and especially in the middle of the night) than in indonesia in general. We were already freezing during the night when we slept. In the end I wore way to many clothes because the uphill hike warmed us up. I had to stop to get rid of clothes 4 times 😃 first we walked on a main road, later on a small rocky path to get up to the viewpoint where we arrived 2 hours later. A beautiful sunrise and a Noodle soup (at 6 am😅) were awaiting us. The view on Mount Bromo was incredible.😍 Even if it was still morning it started to get very warm when we went downhill again, starting our way to the Mount Bromo crater, which took us again almost two hours I think.
When we arrived on the edge of the crater me and Denise were pretty exhausted. But it was nice to see the crater and the offerings on top of it. In the tradition of Indonesian people mountains and especially vulcanos are said to be in favor of the people when they offer something up to them.
After we came back to the hostel we started our way back to Probolinggo (to the mafia nest 😅) which was again a very unpleasant stopover. We took a bus which should take us in the direction of Banyuwangi - the starting point for the next vulcano hike. The bus drive was awful. It was said to be a 6 hour drive, but in the end it took us almost 9 hours with the bus - without AC, but with guitar playing locals in the bus who were asking for money and smoking people. 😩When we finally arrived in Banyuwangi it was already dark and unfortunately the bus brought us to a station which was on the outside of the city center where no grab or taxi was coming to. We had to wait and organize for one hour or so until our hostel sent us a shuttle to pick us up.

maybe we should have booked a tour including guides and transport for the Bromo trip which would have been a lot less complicated, but we wanted to do the whole thing on our own and so it ended up to be a veeeery long day 😮‍💨😅Read more
Traveler krass schön
11/5/22Reply
TravelerJa oder 😍😍 die Wanderung und der Ausblick hätte dir auch sehr gefallen Papa!
11/5/22Reply
Traveler Das Schild haben die von Bolivien 😀
11/5/22Reply
Traveler🤣🤣
11/5/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
Ijen vulcano complex 🌋
November 1, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C
After that loooong trip to Mount Bromo we were looking forward to arrive at our hostel at Banyuwangi because we were so exhausted. We finally wanted to have a good sleep and thought we had booked a nice hostel for relaxing one night and one day before starting our next hike to the Ijen vulcano complex.

Unfortunately it was not as relaxing and uncomplicated as we thought when we arrived. Our room in the hostel was kind of open so we had many mosquitoes inside. So Denise and me wanted to hang our mosquito net… whereby Denise got stung by a hornet 😳😳 We asked Amira, the manager of the hostel to help us to get rid of the hornet, which was the point where it started to become funny 😅Amira came with a badminton racket and tried to kill the hornet whereas Denise and me kind of cheered from the outside of the room 😃 she seemed to have some experience because she killed the hornet in the end (and also a cockroach which we then saw in the room)… both with the racket 😅 we were so tired after everything that had happened on that day…
We had some sleep (but the muezzin already called his prayer at 4 am in the morning 😣). Next day we only relaxed and went to bed very early because our Tour to the Ijen vulcano complex was about to start at half past midnight 😳

We had a tour booked and our driver brought us to the starting point of the hike where we arrived at 1:30 am. The others ate a Nasi Goreng before we started the hike to the Ijen crater with our headlamps (it’s always Nasi time). It began to rain during the uphill hike but our guide „Sule“ gave us some rain ponchos. The hike was less exhausting than we thought even if we hiked uphill all the time. After about one hour our group of about 12 people and our guide arrived at the edge of the crater. We saw a lot of other tourists on the hike and also a lot of locals who offered to carry us on wagons to earn money (must be sooo much effort for them 😳😞).
It was still dark when we started to hike down into the crater, which was kind of hard to do and felt sometimes more like climbing. We could already see the sulfur smoke coming out of the crater but we didn’t have to put on the masks yet, which were provided from the tour we booked to protect the lungs of the sulfur. It was also the first time that I saw sulfur in solid form, when I saw the mine workers carrying the sulfur up the crater. For me it felt very bad to see the minors doing their work, carrying the sulfur up the crater, whereas us tourists were climbing down into the crater. Sule told us that he has been a minor before he could start his guide job. The workers there are carrying between 70 to 100 kilograms each time they climb up the crater!! But they only earn about 2 to 3 euros for those 70 kilos… and it takes them so long to climb up and down again (and it is obviously Incredibly exhausting!!) so they can only do about two loads each day.. they often don’t have the money to afford good masks to protect themselves (or any mask at all!😳) and they wear bad rubber shoes for the climb… it was very sad to see. :( and us tourists are climbing down and up and make their work probably even more difficult which made me feel very very bad. ☹️ On the other hand tourism allows some of them (like Sule) to work as a tour guide which seemed to be at least a better job. Since Sule told us that he is still doing that dangerous work in the months in which no tourists are coming we gave him some money in the end, to support him (maybe to at least be able to buy a proper mask for the job). Sule is still such a warm hearted guy who wears a smile all the time.

Down in the crater it was still dark and there was a lot of sulfur smoke. We had to wear the protecting masks. We could see a little bit of that blue fire which is created by the burning of the sulfur when it starts to have contact with the air (I didn’t understand the cause of the reaction completely 😅).

When we climbed up again it began to get brighter and we could see the crater lake which is colored in an amazing blue.

Arriving on top of the crater the sun had begun to rise behind a mountain which allowed us to see the whole crater in day light - what an incredible beautiful view!

Also the landscape on our hike back to the parking spot was amazing!

We drove back to the hostel, where Amira prepared Mie Goreng (fried noodles) as breakfast for us. It was 9 am but felt like afternoon for me. We went to sleep afterwards until a shuttle arrived at lunch time to pick us up to drive us to our next stop: Red Island - relaxing, surfing and sunbathing sounded perfect for us after these adventurous days.Read more
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Red Island - dragon fruits & surfing
November 3, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
The region around Red Island Beach (Pulau Merah) was almost exactly like i imagined it to be. Because it is off season we seemed to be almost the only tourists around here (only on the weekends Indonesian tourists are visiting red island).
We finally came to a rest - had a nice accommodation with small bungalows which are built around a small garden in the middle of it. What a nice view when you come out of your bungalow in the morning and first thing you see is a lemon tree 😍🍋
Red Island Beach is called like that, because you can see a big hill/ island right in front of you in the ocean when you sit at the beach. In some months the sun sets directly behind that island and the sky is turning red.
The beach is also known for its good waves and so we rented some boards and tried to surf. Due to the strong current and sometimes way to big waves for me, it was most of the time practicing in the white water or being in a washing machine for me 😅 but being on a board again (at least the majority of the time haha) and seeing that jungle island right next to you makes it still totally worth it! Also just watching the excellent local surfers here was also so much fun! They are also so friendly („This wave for you miss!!“)!
The warungs here in the village didn’t have many options, actually the first days we were eating either Nasi or Mie Goreng all the time 😅 but to be fair, one of the Mie Gorengs was the best one I ever had (for 1 €😂).
Beside the friendly people another highlight at Red Island Beach was the variety of delicious and fresh fruits you can buy. Especially dragon fruits were so gooood here. Each time we bought some, the friendly Rosmiata gave us way more of the dragon fruits to try than we paid for.Read more
Traveler Traumfoto! 😍
11/6/22Reply
Traveler🙂
11/6/22Reply
Traveler 😂 super easy
12/2/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
Secret Beach 🌴
November 4, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
Some people told us about a „secret beach“ that should be close to Red Island. Denise and me decided to spend one day at the secret beach since it should be one of the most beautiful beaches of the region. Even if there were different descriptions of the path we should take and of the duration it would take us to get there, we just took off with a rented scooter and followed the description of the woman who borrowed us her own scooter for a few hours (obviously there is no official renting station in the Red Island village😅).

We parked the scooter, went past a fish market and a lot of cute kids who wanted to talk to us in english. We arrived at a small Harbour and asked the fishermen for the path to the secret beach. They couldn’t speak English but pointed to a hill next to the Harbour and demonstrated hiking movements. We wanted to take the path they showed us, but there seemed to be a river between us and the path on the hill - the fishermen demonstrated that we would have to cross it first. We shrugged our shoulders and went through it 🤷🏼‍♀️😄 before we left the men seemed to try to communicate to us that from 4 pm on the water of the river would be as high as our chest - so probably it would be better to be back before that time 😅 our sliders were so muddy when we came out of the river, but luckily our clothes didn’t get wet.

On the other side of the river two locals showed us the beginning of the „path“ on the hill. It was very muddy and overgrown with plants. We had no idea how long it would take us to go to the beach but we did understand that it should be one or two kilometers to hike across the hill. We actually immediately lost the path but luckily the two locals somehow came with us (even if we didn’t ask them to and even if they couldn’t communicate with us at all😁 but somehow they must have understood (before us) that we could never find the way on our own)… the uphill hike was all the time muddy, slippery and full of undergrowth. There were many times where we almost fell. We had to start to go barefoot at some point… I was switching between swearing the whole time (we just wanted a relaxing day at the beach and didn’t expect this muddy hike at all) and laughing very hard about myself 😅

The nature was amazing (we saw coffee plants ☕️😊) and after about one hour of muddy hiking (😮‍💨😂) we finally reached the secret beach which we then learned was called Wedi Ireng 😊 but since we knew that the river would start to rise we didn’t have much time left, so we went swimming and had to start our hike back (still together with the two friendly locals who were kind of guiding us 😅).

On our way back ( I would have never found the path on my own 😅) we suddenly heard a voice coming from one of the coconut trees. We looked up into the tree and saw a man right on top of the palm tree 🥥🌴 he could speak English and said that he wanted to invite us to his house for a coconut. He was climbing down (so quickly!) and showed us a small hut in the middle of the palm trees, where his wife sat and prepared what we learned would be palm sugar in the end. They were so friendly and gave us two fresh coconuts (the coconut water was so good! Maybe especially because of our exhausting hike in the mud 😅).

It was not a big surprise for me that the water of the river had already been risen until chest height when Denise and me arrived at the river. I already prepared for getting changed into my swimsuit, but one of the fishermen saw us and picked us up with his boat to drive us to the other side of the small river 🙏🏼

Back home in the village we heard that walking to the secret beach is just not really recommended during rainy season😄 to conclude, it was a very muddy discovery tour and we expected the day to be totally diffrent but in the end we met many super friendly locals and also learned some things about the nature and people in Java 🤷🏼‍♀️😅Read more
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Red Island - Barbecue at the beach
November 5, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
Our last days in Red Island Beach were very chilled. We continued to go surfing - I didn’t give up even if I catched only one or two waves each session 😅 in the mornings I also had time for doing some yoga 🧘🏼‍♀️one of my highlights was a barbecue at the beach during sunset which we organized. Zoé and Jonas bought themselves a fish at the market and two surfer locals also joined in with their fishes. Denise and me hitchhiked to a vegetable stand and bought a lot of veggies (three people on a scooter is not as uncomfortable as I thought😂).
It was so delicious to finally eat a lot of veggies again! Indonesian people don’t eat a lot of them - the locals were so surprised when we offered them something of the salad that we had prepared - Ade, one of the locals, laughed and told me that they never eat salad 😅
Even if the communication with our hostel host and the owner was most of the time very complicated (and funny 😅) because they couldn’t speak English, our host was so friendly - on our last evening they gave us some Martabak as a present - salty and sweet traditional pancake/egg sandwich which we already tried on Karimunjawa and were hoping to find somewhere again 😍Read more
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Balinese Birthday 🎂
November 9, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 29 °C
From Red Island on Java Zoé, Jonas, Denise and me went by shuttle, ferry and another shuttle to Canggu on Bali. The ferry from Java to Bali took us only about one hour but the whole journey to Canggu was again about 9 hours… It was kind of sad to leave Java after about 5 weeks (which was longer than I planned to stay 😅) but I was also looking forward to a new culture 😊

Canggu in Bali welcomed us with one million western tourists, hipster Cafés, restaurants, clubs and many digital nomads. Denise and me stayed in a party hostel and had a cultural shock when we saw all the tourists in only swimsuits in the streets after Java and its moslem culture where most of the times only Indonesian tourists could be seen. But sometimes (between all the tourists, restaurants and clubs) we could already see some of the Hindu Balinese temples and traditional offerings they put everywhere.

Even if I would say that Canggu was just not my favorite place and way to touristy for me, I would say Denise and me enjoyed the shopping and the western food (after plenty of days with only Nasi or Mie Goreng before that😃) - finally Smoothie Bowls and Cakes again! 😍🍰
Also I thought it could be cool to celebrate my birthday in Canggu, as it is such a party place. But unfortunately exactly on my birthday I wasn’t feeling completely well. It was not too bad but I must have eaten something wrong (ironically when I had local food all the time before I have never been sick from the food- maybe I am already not used to western food anymore haha🤣).

Sooo at first I couldn‘t celebrate my 28th birthday as enthusiastic as I wanted. But I was so happy to still be traveling with Denise, she was such a great birthday date! 🧡 in the morning we went to a fancy brunch place, Denise even organized a birthday candle I could blow out, which led to a happy birthday song in the middle of the café 😅 I got a birthday present from Denise (so sweet of her!) and Carola organized a voucher for a spa in Canggu that I could use for a relaxing Balinese birthday massage 😍💆‍♀️ in the evening Denise and me went to an Italian restaurant (😅) which was sooo good!
After that I felt good enough for a little bit of partying - so we went to the Old man‘s bar and the Sand Bar - a Club directly at the beach. 🥳we stayed until 4 am and had a really nice last evening together. Next day Denise and me had to say goodbye after about three weeks of traveling together - so sad since we had such a good time together! 🥹🧡 I made my way to a workaway nearby Ubud and was already excited to see a less touristy village on Bali. 😊Read more
Traveler Beauty 😍
11/17/22Reply
Traveler😊🧡😘
11/19/22Reply
Traveler ❤️❤️❤️
12/2/22Reply
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Workaway in Demulih 🪷
November 11, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 26 °C
When I began my journey on Java I did some research about workaway opportunities in Indonesia. A girl recommend workaways to me because often you stay at a family and get the chance to experience the culture and traditions of the locals in another way. I contacted Kadek, who offered volunteers to stay at his home or in his guest house in exchange for some work in his yoga Shala and guest house in his village in Demulih on Bali. We planned my stay for 5 days, and Kadek asked whether I could help him with gardening and also with his yoga classes that he offers for the people in his village.

His yoga shala and guest house is in the same village where his family lives and because he already had two volunteers who stayed at this familiy house, he asked me whether I could stay in his guest house. It is surrounded by a beautiful garden divided in four levels. On the highest level the beautiful yoga shala is located with a wonderful view on the garden. After touristy Canggu I immediately loved the place which is in the middle of nature. In the village life seemed to be still very traditional, almost every family has their own family temple. The other volunteers and me were probably the only tourists in the village.

Luckily I could switch the room because at first Kadek offered me a room with a lot of hornet nests and hornets flying around. After that (the memory of Denise being stung by a hornet on Java was still very lively😅) I happily welcomed the two frogs and geckos in my new room as my new room mates 😅 Even if the accommodation was very very simple (the mattress was so hard! 😃 and the bathroom was on the other side of the garden - without sink and couldn’t be closed 😃) it was magical to sleep in the guest house surrounded by the sounds of the nature. 😍Read more
Traveler Na, das ist ja exakt wie im Dschungel Boliviens :)
11/18/22Reply
Traveler Ja! 😃 nur dass die Frösche bei uns im Zimmer in den Pampas deutlich kleiner waren 😃
11/18/22Reply
TravelerStimmt, der sieht echt groß aus
11/19/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
Balinese traditions in Demulih I 🕉
November 12, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 26 °C
Kadek taught the other volunteers and me so much about the traditions, food, culture and Hinduism on Bali.
We made mushroom sate 🍢, the traditional Balinese medicine drink „Jamu“ (made from fresh ginger, turmeric, palm sugar and coconut milk - sooo delicious and healthy!) and had a lot of fresh Indonesian food.

We hiked on the highest hill of the village (which was not very high 😅) and had a nice view on Demulih, where we also saw glowworms 😍 But we stopped halfway and Kadek explained to us, that we can’t go to the top of the hill because the people of the village of Demulih are still mourning. When somebody of the village dies, all the other people of the village are at least for the next 12 days not allowed to go up the hill, where the highest temple of the village is located.

We also went to Kadek’s father in law, who is a spiritual master and already 91 years old. He explained a little bit about the beliefs of the Balinese Hinduism to us. Unfortunately I can’t remember most of it, but it was so interesting! I remember that he told us all of the nine main gods that Balinese people believe in - but I can only remember Brahma (creates everything), Vishnu (takes care of everything) and Shiva (destroys everything)… what a great experience 😊✨Read more
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Schleni on Tour
Balinese traditions in Demulih II 🕉
November 13, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 25 °C
During the workaway the other two volunteers and me could participate in a purification ceremony, which was an impressing experience.
In the morning we went to the market to buy offerings for the ceremony. Kadek organized traditional Balinese clothing for us, because otherwise you can’t enter the purification temple. The whole ceremony took quite a long time because a Hindu monk was guiding us through Bangli’s holy river where we put the offerings on different mini altars which stood for different gods. He showed us how to pray for each of the gods the way that the Balinese people are doing it. We passed 5 mini temples in the river, climed through a small cave and ended at a waterfall. In the end we were completely wet😅

Also we went again to Kadek’s father in law, who gave us a Balinese astrology reading. He told us not only about our personalities but also about the specific Hindu god that takes care about each of us.

Next to the traditions that we got to know during the the time at Kadek’s place, it was also very exciting for me to teach my first yoga classes. Kadek told his students (people from the village) that I would teach two of his classes and I was happy to see that many of them showed up. With Kadek and his translations it worked out that we had a good time doing yoga together.

Very Special memories for me that I will keep in mind and heart for sure for a long time😊Read more
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Schleni on Tour
rainy Ubud ☔️
November 15, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 25 °C
Ubud is said to be the center of Balinese spirituality and starting point for day trips to beautiful rice terraces and waterfalls - but above all we found that Ubud was rainy. 😅☔️ in all the weeks that I traveled during rainy season I had never seen a rain like in Ubud - which wasn’t too bad most of the time because finally after three month of not seeing each other Mo flew to Bali and finaaaally we met again in Ubud 😍 so when another apocalyptic rain fall was starting we could also enjoy our time together in cozy Cafés and restaurants just talking to each other and catching up. 🧡
Still the rain caught us most of the days during our trips in and around the city, because we didn’t want to wake up early and at first we didn’t get that the best time for starting activities in Ubud is always between 6 and 10 am. 😅🫣 If you leave your hostel after that time, there was a high chance of getting soaked😃

So it was a good chance to test the resistance of our rain capes and practice our motor bike driving skills (hello aqua planing) 😅🫣 At the beginning of my trip I would have never guessed that I would dare to ride a scooter in such a busy and flooded city like Ubud 😄 seems like you can get used to almost everything 😅

The first day we went out of the city to visit a coffee farm (free coffee, cacao and tea tasting of self-made products!😍) which was very interesting and nice. They showed us how they grow and produce their coffee and we could try coffee types like avocado and coconut coffee.
Afterwards we drove to the Tegenungan Waterfall, which was actually very impressing but unfortunately looked very brown (due to the rain) and was also very touristy. A big Resort was built right next to the waterfall and played club music all the time 😃 even if we discovered another hidden (and very beautiful) waterfall right next to the Tegenungan we weren’t completely happy with our first waterfall experience on Bali and so we went to see the Uma Anyar waterfall afterwards. This one was located in a small village nearby and wasn‘t touristy at all - so beautiful 😊
Before we headed back to the city center Mo tried his first Nasi Goreng.
Even if I found Ubud still quite touristy I liked it so much more than Canggu because for me the vibe felt so much more relaxing. In the evening we went out to have pizza (because the Italian restaurant was highly recommended) and called with Fynn, Mo‘s best friend who would join us in a few days, to make some plans for our travels together. 🍕Read more
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Schleni on Tour
Tegallalang Rice Terraces 🌱
November 16, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 23 °C
On the third day in Ubud we finally were motivated enough to get up before 7 am in the morning - which was totally worth it. We could enjoy the sun in the morning in our nice accommodation during a short yoga session. After breakfast we drove to the famous rice terraces Tegallalang. They were touristy and impressing at the same time. So many people tried to sell us something 🫣 but we had a nice hike there and treated ourselves with a cold drink in a restaurant above the rice terraces afterwards -nice view! and they even had a pool to use 😍 we stayed for about two hours because of the heavy rain that started after we finished our swim there 😅
The rest of the day we just enjoyed good food and relaxed. My highlight was a local restaurant which a local recommended to me: Warung Biah Biah. We went there for dinner and tried different balinese spaecialties 😍Read more
TravelerHerrlich
11/22/22Reply
Travelerso wunderschön 😍 und endlich mal etwas Sonne oder?
11/24/22Reply
TravelerJaaa!!! 😄😊☀️
11/24/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
last day in Ubud ☀️
November 17, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
On our last day in Ubud Mo and me visited some small walks around Ubud like the Campuhan Ridge Walk and the Kajeng Rice Fields Walk.

Because we managed to get up early again we were rewarded with a sunny morning without many tourists😊☀️also we have been visiting the Saraswati-Temple in Ubud - a Hindu temple with a Lotus pond around it. The huge pink lotus flowers were very impressing and the temple, which is dedicated to the goddess of learning, literature and art, looked also beautiful.

Even if we saw a lot of nice things in the last hours in Ubud we were quite happy to leave touristy and crowded Ubud for our next destination: Amed, a fisherman’s village in the northern part of Bali which was said to be less touristy.Read more
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Schleni on Tour
Discovering the northern coast of Bali
November 18, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
At first mo and me were a little bit disappointed when we arrived on the northern coast of Bali. Haven’t they told us it would be a sleepy fisherman’s village which should be so much less touristic? There were still so many homestays, hotels and resorts next to each other and nearly everyone on the road tried to convince us to buy or book something from him - bracelets, snorkeling tour, hotel room, and so on.
- even some of the Balinese kids had already their own selling strategy (“how are you? Where are you from? What’s your name? Do you want a bracelet?”), which was so sad to see.

But after we got used to the touristy part of Amed we also started to enjoy the restaurants directly at the beach and had a nice evening in Warung Bobo. Mo ate some fresh Barracuda fish and the Warung had even some live music :)

We stayed in Sama Sama Amed, such a nice place! Our beautiful room had a nice terrace with a garden view, where we could do some yoga asana in the morning. On our first day in Amed we rented a scooter to discover the surroundings and the smaller villages around the area. The road was right next to the coast and everything looked so beautiful. The smaller villages nearby which also belong to the region of Amed were less touristic and we found a small romantic Warung directly next to the sea where the prices were about the same as on Java. I tried the typical Balinese liquor Arak and the taste reminded me of the partying times during uni🤭😅Read more
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Desperately searching for viewpoints 😅
November 19, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
To combine Mo’s necessary drive to a SIM card store with a tour to see the surroundings of Amed, we rented two scooters and visited a few sightseeing points around the area. After a nice start into the day at our breakfast café we visited Tirta Gangga. The Hindu water temple was quite beautiful and - without having arranged an appointment - we coincidentally ran into Fynn. Actually we wanted to meet him in the evening in Amed where he wanted to join us so it was a nice surprise to run into each other already earlier that day. 😊 the roads that we drove were beautiful and directly next to rice fields 😍 we relaxed at the virgin beach for a while and visited a cacao tasting (where the people were unfriendly 😅).

On our way back we wanted to stop at two viewpoints from which one should have a nice view on Mount Batur and the coast, but unfortunately we couldn’t even find one of them. 😅The roads were very steep, already high in the clouds and sometimes also muddy - even if the small adventure was fun we decided to turn back home when the daylight began to fade and we still didn’t find the viewpoints.
In the evening we met up with Fynn in one of the Warungs in Amed and had a nice first dinner together - and toasted with Arak 🙂Read more
Traveler 😍
12/2/22Reply
Traveler Wow 🥹🥹🥹
12/2/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
Snorkeling the japanese ship wreck 🤿
November 20, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
On our last day in Amed we went to a rocky beach where we could go snorkeling. We saw the sunken Japanese ship wreck, which was quite cool! Even if it is not proven that the ship wreck is from Japan, it was quite exciting to snorkel around a ship wreck, which is already full of corals and fishes, that is supposed to be used in the Second World War.
After snorkeling we went to a Warung nearby, where I had a very good Gado-Gado, and waited until the rain would stop…🥜🥦🍆

Because somebody told me that there should be a good place for taking a yoga class near Amed we stopped at the Blue Earth Village, which turned out to be a very fancy place/hotel with a lot of activities offered: diving lessons, yoga classes, gym and a very nice swimming pool (which is probably mostly used for learning how to dive). I decided to take a Slow flow class in the evening and enjoyed Mertha‘s class a lot! Also the yoga shala itself was worth a visit, during yoga we had an amazing view on the coast and also you could see a vulcano in between the clouds directly in front of you. 😍
Mo and Fynn came to the blue earth village after my class and we had a very nice last dinner in Amed together - such a nice vegan Nasi Campur (mixed rice)!! 🫠Read more
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Schleni on Tour
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No waterfalls for us in Lovina :(
November 22, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 28 °C
On our last morning in Amed Mo woke up with a sore throat. I had a headache already since a few days so I thought it would be the AIr Conditioning which maybe had been too cold during the night. But after a breakfast (with a view!) at the blue earth village restaurant, Mo still didn’t feel good and did a covid test just to be sure. Sadly the test result was directly positive. Our symptoms got worse and when Mo and me took a shuttle to our next destination (Lovina) Mo had already flu symptoms. We contacted Fynn, who was on a diving tour that day and would ride to Lovina after the trip with the scooter that he rented. My symptoms weren’t as bad as Mo‘s but I also felt very weak and had pain in my joints.

We (somehow) managed to hang our mosquito net in our new accommodation in Lovina and went straight to bed again. Luckily Fynn didn‘t have any symptoms and brought us a lot of fruits 😊 actually we wanted to visit many stunning waterfalls in the area around Lovina but due to our symptoms we only saw the street and the beach directly next to our accommodation. 😃We always bought meals from the Warung nearby for take away - Putu Warung - where the food and the juices where so good and at the same time so cheap! Putu was such a lovely host and seemed like such a wise man aswell. He told us about his family, his Hindu traditions and his cooking philosophy 😄

Fynn didn’t feel sick and had a great time exploring (almost all 😃) the waterfalls nearby on the next day. In the evening we sat together on the terrace (with a lot of distance) and he told us about his adventurous day 😊 one other highlight was discovering a Martabak stand nearby - which I already had on Karimunjawa with Denise, Zoé and Jonas - Mo and Fynn also liked the pancake-like desert a lot 😍😃Read more
Traveler 😍😍 hab ich nicht mehr gesehen seit wir es zusammen gegessen haben..
12/1/22Reply
Traveler 🙁
12/2/22Reply
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Schleni on Tour
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taking a rest in Medewi
November 24, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 27 °C
While traveling on Java, many surfers told me that the line ups in Bali are so much more crowded than the ones on Java. But there was supposed to be at least one village that should be still less touristy, where the line ups are still not as crowded as they are in Canggu or Kuta. They recommended me to got to Medewi - a surfer‘s village which is more to the west side of Bali and still has a lot of Moslem influence 😊 so that was the reason why we planned to go to Medewi from the beginning on…We were so excited to surf in Medewi together that the expectations were already pretty high when we got there. We had booked 5 nights and were looking forward to surf and relax a lot. 🏄🏼‍♀️🏄🏼‍♂️🏄🏼‍♂️ buuuuuut unfortunately Mo and me still had symptoms of covid so we couldn’t go surfing and still had to isolate ourselves a lot. So the first days in Medewi Mo and me took a rest, and when the symptoms got better and Mo tested himself negative again (after 6 days in total, which I found quite fast) we just went to a coffeeshop most of the time, looked at the waves and watched other surfers. We were pretty disappointed in the beginning because we had been so excited for surfing ourselves (so our mood was not always the best😟), but I was also happy for Fynn who had two great days of surfing in Medewi. 😍

Things got better for us when the symptoms got better and we also had the negative test. We went out for dinner with Fynn to a quite fancy restaurant where generous Fynn invited us on nice meals and cocktails/mocktails 😊😊 The Puri Dajuma Restaurant had such a nice view and the food there was so good! Fynn ordered Satay with peanut sauce which was quite impressing as it came on a small barbecue 😄 we also got to know Luisa, a girl from Hamburg who stayed in the resort and invited her for a round of Uno Flip to our table (so German haha) - it was such a nice evening! 😊Read more
Traveler Schön 😍
12/2/22Reply
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