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Alilles on Tour
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Alilles on Tour

A 273-day adventure by Alilles Read more
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    11

    Tat Kuan Si (Luang Prabang)

    May 12, 2023 in Laos ⋅ 🌧 27 °C

    The famous Kuan Si Waterfall in Luang Prabang needs a separate post because it really is beautiful, even if it’s very touristy. Extra points for the possibility to swim and to take a short hike at the top of the waterfall to explore a nicely untouched cave! Enjoy 💕Read more

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    12

    Vang Vieng

    May 15, 2023 in Laos ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    Vang Vieng is another one of Laos‘ backpacker hotspots and touristy throughout. I remembered it as the tubing place where you sit in a tube, float down the Nam Song river and get off at the various riverside tubing bars for drinks and food (well, mainly drinks). Within the past ten years I last visited, this main tourist attraction was cut short (even forbidden completely for some time) by the local government because quite a number of deaths occurred due to alcohol and drug abuse during tubing. Tubing is allowed again but apparently, many of the riverside bars have been shut down and we did not see a lot of tubers - we also decided not to do it.
    Anyways, the landscape surrounding Vang Vieng has enough to discover that you will not get bored! Similar to Ninh Binh (Tam Coc) in northern Vietnam, the landscape is dominated by rough carst mountains, many caves and some possibilities to swim. So instead of tubing we opted for hiking a few of the viewpoints and visiting some caves, including my very favorite cave Phu Kham ❤️ an overall beautiful experience and a great way to get some physical activity back into our itinerary ;) Gilles was a bit unlucky to catch a bad cold the day before our journey to Vang Vieng but tough as he is he still climbed all the viewpoints 💪🏼 we never saw him (or someone else, to be honest) sweat so much in our lifes though 🙈 detox at its finest! All in all, we very much liked Vang Vieng and highly recommend it!    Read more

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    Pakse, Tad Lo and a hospital

    May 19, 2023 in Laos ⋅ 🌩️ 28 °C

    After a medium-comfortable 10 hour bus ride to Pakse (poor Gilles is just too big for Asia) we were pretty disappointed by Pakse itself. It is neither pretty nor is there anything to do at all - may be because many tourist-oriented locals had shut down during the Covid-years. The locals also did bot seem to be too fond of tourists. As we were mainly in Pakse to visit Vat Phou and the Bolaven Plateau, we still had things to do around.
    Vat Phou was part of the Khmer empire in the early 10th century and is one of the oldest places of Khmer Hindu worship in South East Asia - even older than Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It is not as impressive as Angkor Wat as it is way smaller, nevertheless it is beautifully situated on a hill with gorgeous ancient (and very steep) stairways flanked by big trees. Very scenic!
    After Vat Phou we decided to do a three day tour to and through the Bolaven plateau, which is famous for its many waterfalls en route and for Laos coffee. For the first night in Tad Lo, we got an accomodation recommended by a french guy in Luang Prabang which turned out to be exactly to our liking: a small bungalow on a small island fitting only a bed and with a balcony overlooking a small lake. The highlight of our stay in Tad Lo, however, was that we were swimming near one of the waterfalls (well, actually we were sliding it) with a local guy called Pistol and his family which were so kind and cute - we got a beer from them, just because, and the little girls showed us how to slide down the waterfall rocks 🥰 afterwards we got adopted by two dogs on our way to the bungalow and one of them (we named him Hector) stayed with us the whole evening, waiting outside the toilet and shower for us to come out and kept us company during dinner. He broke our heart by just leaving us at one point, but that was probably for the better for us ;)
    As we were on route to our second destination for the night, and just when the plateau became really beautiful, Alina crashed her bike on a gravel road 🙄, hitting her knee on a stone just right to end uf with a hole and needing stiches. After being taken to the intended second destination by a laotian family, the helpful owner organised a truck to ship Alina and one of the bikes back to Pakse to the hospital while Gilles took the second bike (thankfully both bikes were still intact) to Pakse on its own. All went well, Alina got cleaned, stiched up and vaccinated against Tetanus, Gilles arrived at Pakse savely, and Alinas recovery began… Definitely an experience! 😉    Read more

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    Don Det

    May 23, 2023 in Laos ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    Don Det is a small hippy-touristy island in the 4000 islands region of Laos. With a length of approx. 3.5 km and only three roads to follow, it was the perfect place for Alina‘s recovery! Limited in mobility, we spent most of our time barhopping, reading, planning, eating, sleeping and watching incoming storms and sunsets on our bungalow balcony - very much the island lifestyle ;) Especially interesting was the night a thunderstorm trapped us in one of the happy bars and causing a power outtage on Don Det and all surrounding islands :) Luckily they still cook with gas!
    Even though we both missed some activity in our daily life and that Alina had to miss out on swimming entirely, we were both very happy to have been there (and Don Det - pun intended). Great closure for Laos and before moving on to country no. 4.    Read more

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    Siem Reap, Cambodia

    May 28, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ 🌧 28 °C

    Country number 4! Low season was especially noticeable on our 6.5 hour trip from Don Det in Laos to Siem Reap in Cambodia: Not only was it just the two of us in the minivans, but we also only saw two more tourists at the Cambodian border and therefore got through the visa process super quick. And this at the said-to-be most corrupt and annoying border crossing in SEA? Almost too good to be true, but we take it!
    Siem Reap is the place to be for visiting Angkor Wat, which of course we did (separate post for that because we took way too many pictures). Being so close to a main tourist attraction of course also brings wealth - let me tell you we were shocked at the prices in Siem Reap after Vietnam and Laos (no more cheap beer 🥲)… You can also tell from the cleanliness of the city itself and the looks of the restaurants and shops that there is quite some money involved now - nothing to complain about for sure, as it was an interesting change to the usual dirtyness of SEA cities. And boy, literally EVERYONE spoke very good english, from market stall holder to tuktuk-driver! What a surprise but also very comfortable for us (it was especially nice for Alina getting her stiches removed by a doctor which actually explained what he‘s doing and how the wound should be cared for 🙃 ).
    All in all, a pretty shiny touristy and expensive town but definitely worth a visit - just skip the pub street 😉.    Read more

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    1

    Angkor

    May 30, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    The ancient temples of Angkor are simply astonishing - also when visited for the second time! Because of Alinas knee (but also a little bit because of the massive heat) we got a tuktuk driver for the day and went to explore the three main temples: Angkor Wat, the Bayon temple in Angkor Thom and of course the infamous Tomb Raider temple Ta Prohm.
    The richness of details in the mostly well-preserved stone carvings is something that made us spend hours at each temple and shooting hundreds of pictures, but the real feel of the ancient temples and the beauty of the frescoes cannot be captured in photographs (well, at least not with iPhones 😉). We tried nevertheless, so please enjoy the best of frescoes from Angkor!    Read more

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    311

    Phnom Penh

    May 31, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, was an interesting place for sure, not only because Alina made a very interesting choice for the hotel area (we accidentally landed in the red light district full of hostess bars and creepy old guys - oopsie). The hotel was nice though! Very close to the river which provided a very pretty view in the night - only the huge Carlsberg-sign was a bit weird🙃
    The city itself is dirty and smelly but as always, we managed to find some pretty spots and shops with good and cheap food and even got some free fried marinated crickets to pair with our beer. As in Siem Reap, the Cambodian people were beyond lovely and we both agree that from all 4 countries in SEA, they are absolutely our favorites!
    And for the old times‘ sake, we went back to the Platoon club where Alina lost her wallet 10 years ago to drink a white russian (which was the reason Alina lost her wallet) - bad sound, bad drinks, expensive beer but fun nevertheless 🤷🏻‍♀️
    Also on the itinerary were the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, followed by a visit of the infamous killing fields near Phnom Penh. For those who don‘t know: The Khmer Rouge, a communist party which ruled in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, murdered hundreds of thousands of their political opponents, and their racist emphasis on national purity resulted in the genocide of Cambodian minorities. Ultimately, the genocite lead to the death of approximately 25% of the Cambodian population at this time - a number we still struggle to comprehend. The Tuol Sleng Genocide museum is a former school which was restructured to a prison where ‚political opponents‘ were ‚interrogated‘ (meaning tortured) before being transported to the Killing Fields for their execution. To this day, new bone fragments and pieces of clothes of the executed still appear on the surface of the Killing Fields after heavy rain, even though most of its mass graves have already been emptied. It is a hard piece of Cambodian history to swallow, however, we highly recommend to make yourself familiar with the topic. Out of respect, no photos were taken at neither of the two museums.    Read more

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    111

    Koh Rong Sanloem

    June 3, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Koh Rong Sanloem - a story of nature‘s beauty and human destruction. The smaller and less inhabited island of Cambodia is said to be one of the most beautiful places in SEA, and we bet it was - sadly, the emphasis is on the past tense. In recent years, the government has started to sell land on the island to apparently unknown big companies (chinese by rumours), not really caring whether the land is already ‚rented‘ and/or occupied by a business such as guesthouses. The result is an island currently under con(and de-)struction, dominated by remains of demolished hotels, bars and restaurants and swaths of treeless mud-roads carving through the former djungle.
    Still, you definitely see the remains of its former beauty if you choose your place wisely. Even on the main beach where everyone gets dropped off to get to their party hostels, the sand is white and the water a beautiful turquoise blue (mostly 😉). Not being the party animals we chose to stay at the sunset beach, which is only accessible by a 35-minutes trek through the djungle - an adventure for sure, definitely making you think twice about going to other places on the island 😂 We chose the Robinson Bungalows, a beautiful, very natural and cozy set of bamboo bungalows and a main area as restaurant. If you ever find yourself in Koh Rong Sanloem, go to this place!! It is beautiful, the Swiss owner and his staff are all super nice and interesting to talk to, and the food was really really good!! However, try to avoid the rainy season as the bungalows are not fully concipated for rainy weather and being adjacent to the djungle gives you one thing especially: a shit ton of mosquitos. After our initial trek to the bungalows in the rain (as I said, an adventure for sure), we both agreed that we have never seen so many mosquitos in our lifes 😂 And, while Gilles tends to be the mosquito target in Switzerland, it is the other way in Asia and Alina is quite literally being eaten alive - never mind the super strong insect repellent applied. Fun times (for Alina).
    So, due to most of the days being rainy, the coastline being wild in response, and literally having no wifi whatsoever at our beach, we resorted to reading, sleeping, eating, some swimming if possible and just hanging out in our damp bungalow - sounds a lot worse than it was 😉    Read more

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    Koh Rong and a last night in Phnom Penh

    June 8, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ 🌧 29 °C

    After the rainy and lazy few days in Koh Rong Sanloem, we decided to switch to its big brother Koh Rong, primarily because we desperately needed internet access to plan (and book) our next destinations. Koh Rong is better known and therefore holds a better infrastructure, such as actual paved streets, multiple guesthouses and restaurants as well as shops, and we were hoping to be able to explore the island a bit.
    Well, again due to the bad weather we were mostly stuck with the one beach we were on :) and on the one excursion we did along the coastline we had to take shelter in one of the ruins along the street not to get completely soaked and possibly even hit by lightning… storms are exciting and everything, but on the islands there are definitely more cons than pros (such as having damp clothes and bags all the time due to humidity - stinky stink!).
    We also have to admit that the food on Koh Rong was disappointing, except at this one place where we came back regularly and gained a new friend (Hu, thank you for your hospitality!). We even tried to go to the one party that took place on saturday, but discovered that we might simply be getting to old for that 🤷🏻‍♀️.
    All in all, and despite the islands being goodlooking with their white beaches, turquoise waters and lush palm trees and very much enjoyable in the sunshine, we were quite happy to leave Koh Rong for a last night in Phnom Penh - crossing fingers that all our monsoon-damp clothes and bags will dry before our flight to country no. 5 🤞🏼
    And for Phnom Penh we chose to stay in a very different neighbourhood this time and were very surprised by the cleanliness of it (except for the one one disposal site at the side of the neighbourhood). Our host was brilliant and so friendly, providing us with so many free snacks! Also, his home made rice wine was SO good (but not for sale unfortunately 🥲). It was the perfect closure for Cambodia!    Read more

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    Colombo, Sri Lanka

    June 14, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    After 6 hours on two planes and 3.5 hours at Kuala Lumpur airport we landed safely in the capital of country number 5: Colombo.
    We only stayed one full day at Colombo, as there is not a lot to see in the capital, and left the city with mixed feelings. On one hand, the difference to to SEA was very refreshing, some parts of the city (and population) burst with colours and the Sri Lankan people are super sweet and friendly, but on the other hand the city practically consists of half rich, half poor areas and, as said, really lacks of things to do in the center… As the most interesting areas were the very local areas and presumably quite poor, we did not want to explore them - we noticed early on in our travels that it does not feel right to us to walk around in poor areas as tourists.
    Another thing that shocked us dearly and that we were not prepared for (unsurprisingly - we really should up our preparation game 🙃) were the prices - the said-to-be very cheap country turns out to be the most expensive we‘ve been so far. This is due to the economic crisis which is owed mainly to financial mismanagement by the former political powers and left the country with heavy depts and a resulting inflation. Many locals told us that the prices for many foods have risen by 300 (!!) percent in the last years, bringing many of the locals on the edge of existence. Currently, a meal at a restaurant is between 5 to 8 $, a beer (if you find any! Most restaurants do not sell alcohol because they cannot afford the license) is 3 $ - we as tourists can afford it, but as a Sri Lankan with an average monthly income of 250 $ (excluding taxes) it is hardly manageable.
    So, currently we are consoling ourselves by knowing we can at least help some of the people out by paying tourist fees (such as tuktuk drivers). And, to come back to Colombo with a positive thing: the beach is very pretty, very scenic and has lots of beach huts and restaurants (with BYOB (bring your own beer) policy because of the license)! We loved it 🥰    Read more

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    1

    Kandy

    June 16, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Kandy is a very famous city in Sri Lanka, both among locals and tourists. For locals it is the temple of tooth which holds a tooth from Buddha itself (as they say) that attracts them, for tourists it is mainly that the very famous train ride through Sri Lanka as well as many excursions to the Sigiriya start there.
    The train ride was awesome and the railtracks go through deep jungle, pine forests, tea crops and on mountain ridges offering a beautiful view on Sri Lankas nature - we could take these train rides all day 🥰. Our only mistake was to book first class, which comes with a (way too potent) aircondition and therefore you cannot open the windows… but now we know 😉
    Kandy itself is located in the hills and is scenic, but also very busy and noisy (we have never seen so many crows at one place). Next to a big lake it also sports a quite big and very beautiful royal forest park called Udawaththakele, which we were happy to explore to give our senses some rest from the city.
    We were a bit surprised that also in Kandy, where tourist restaurants are more frequent
    (but western tourists were kind of not), it was hard to find a restaurant that sells beer. The prices were very high overall for both food and beer (when found) and we came to accept that Sri Lanka is hella expensive throughout 💸. Still, we had very tasty Sri Lankan food such as chicken chukka, our first kottu rotti, roasted paan and, of course, a lot of curry - Sri Lanka definitely is heaven for carb-lovers and hell for anyone on a low-carb diet 😂.
    We used Kandy as a base for two trips to see some of Sri Lankas tourist spots, but as Sri Lanka is in general so freaking beautiful we need separate footprints for this 🙃.
    So, lots has been learned, experienced and eaten in Kandy, and even though it still feels very much out of our comfort zone when compared to SEA, we do enjoy the thrill of it and look forward to explore more places in beautiful Sri Lanka! 🇱🇰    Read more

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    121

    Sigiriya, Ambuluwawa tower & co.

    June 18, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    Starting from Kandy, we also splurged a bit on a day tour with multiple temple stops and the main stop at the famous Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress listed as World Heritage Side by UNESCO. What a place! Ruins of an ancient fortress on top of a massive granit rock of approx. 180m hight and with lots of awesome ancient wall paintings (including the nicest tits I‘ve ever seen)? Yes please!! Almost justifies the entry fee of 25 $ per person 😉.
    Further included in the trip (next to the temples mentioned) was a stop at a spice garden which is basically a living outdoor museum of plants that are frequently used for cooking and/or healing in Sri Lanka (sidenote: aryuvedic medicine is big here). It is free, comes with a guide (ours even spoke german!) and it was indeed interesting - who knows that vanilla and pepper are liana plants?! (You‘re welcome for that free random party fact btw.) Also, did you know that curry is a plant but has neither the colour(s) nor the taste we are used to at home? Well, we did not!

    What also had to be visited when being in Kandy is the infamous and super scary Ambuluwawa temple tower which stands ‚only‘ 48 meters tall but 1) on top of a mountain and b) has a winding staircase barely fitting Alina and therefore not really fitting Gilles. Therefore, Alina had her adrenaline rush on top of the tower all by herself 🤷🏻‍♀️ Sidenote: one picture was taken from google so you see the full crazyness of the tower and the reason why Alinas face looks a little uncomfortable in the picture on the tower 🙃.

    So, even though very expensive, we loved both of the trips very much! ❤️    Read more

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    Nuwara Eliya

    June 20, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Nuwara Eliya is high up in the Sri Lankan mountains and was the coldest place we‘ve been to so far during our travels - even Gilles had to put on his sweatshirt for the very first time! (Mind you, it was like 10 degrees celsius, but after months in an average temperature of 27 degrees it felt like Swiss winter). Apart from that, it is not more than a little city with a big horse race patch (yes you read correctly), sporting a small and half-empty lake, and being surrounded by endless fields of tea plantages. All in all, it very much reminded us of Dalat in Vietnam, which had a similar altitude and topology, similar temperatures and was also mainly visited by local tourists looking for relieve of the otherwise high temperatures of the country. Another common thing is that both villages have been built by the colonial forces (hence the horse race patch in the middle of Nuwara Eliya), and the remaining and/or newly built colonial-style buildings add a lot to the charme! As you may have guessed from the horse race patch, it was the British for Nuwara Eliya 😉 and it is still called ‚little England‘ these days.
    While the colonial-style buildings are very pretty, the contrast to the Sri Lankan lifestyle and -architecture is somewhat weird to see. Further, because it is so famous among the locals (more than among the western tourists), a lot of the infrastructure is solely built for getting money from tourists - jetskies and boatrides on the half empty lake, a ‘park’ full of Disney statues, many ‘guides’ trying to convince you to do horse-riding around the lake and big, highly expensive (but indeed very pretty) resorts. As you may have guessed for now, we did not like it one bit. So we stayed one night at a very cute homestay with awesome view across the lake, had dinner at a super-western-tourist restaurant for way too much money (but they played very nice techno music, so somewhat excused) and got a massive and supertasty Sri Lankan breakfast the next morning. In hindsight, the stop was not really worth the money, but id you never try you never know 🤷🏻‍♀️ now we’re facing another one of the most awesome trainrides we’ve ever experienced, on to Ohiya, where the Horton National Park awaits us ✨    Read more

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    Ohiya

    June 21, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    After another beautiful train ride from Nuwara Eliya to Ohiya, we arrived in the middle of nowhere. Ohiya can be used as a base to go to the Horton Planes National Park and to do some pretty lovely hikes - of course we did both, and we will have to create separate posts for both due to the mass of photos we took of the incredible Sri Lankan landscape ❤️
    As mentioned, Ohiya has a train station but you could hardly call it a village - we would guess max. 20 houses in total? (And all of them double-functioning as homes and guesthouses). Our guesthouse was of the same like, so we were living together with an older couple, their son and his pregnant wife for our stay. Electricity was not always available, neither was hot water (a pity, because it was almost as cold as in Nuwara Eliya), and our host mom cooked exclusively over fire. Let us tell you that every rice & curry variation our host mom and her daughter-in-law cooked were fantastic!! And beyond plenty, but by now we are almost used to being served twice as much as we are physically able to eat and still being asked if it’s really enough 😉
    With nothing else to do nearby, and with our excursions being finished earlier in the day than planned, we spent plenty of time in the beautiful garden of our guesthouse, drinking homemade black tea and reading books. Not a bad life indeed 🤷🏻‍♀️    Read more

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    Horton Plains (Ohiya)

    June 22, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Horton plains is a national park at an altitude of 2100 to 2300 meters above sealevel and home to a variet of animals. We got up early to see the sun rise while being driven from Ohiya up to the park entry and because the early morning is the best time to see the wildlife - we were not disappointed and already spotted some beautiful deer on the way to the park office :) After getting searched by the park office members which make sure you don’t bring any PE plastic into the park, we took off for the short trek through Horton Plains. The trek is very simple, well-maintained and easily manageable (my trekking shoes were not really necessary) but still very beautiful as it allows you to see all the different vegetation zones of the park. The highlights on the 3 hour round trek are the mini worlds end and the worlds end, which are view points overlooking steep cliffs and giving you a divine view, and a waterfall of which we forgot the name (too many waterfalls around asia 🤷🏻‍♀️). A very relaxing but still very rewarding trek, not really justifying the 25$ entry fee (yes, per person) but nevertheless an experience we would not want to have missed! Furthermore, we were actually more glad than sad not to encounter one of the leopards living within the park and very content with sighting its dead pray next to the road on our way out 🙃 but we did see a giant squirrel, which is - very true to its name - a squirrel the size of a big cat!
    So, if you have some spare dollars while in Sri Lanka, go to Horton Plains for an easy but rewarding walk! Oh, and if you do, bring some warm clothes - the morning was even coulder than in Nuwara Eliya 🧤🧣    Read more

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    Devils staircase (Ohiya to Kalupahana)

    June 23, 2023 in Sri Lanka

    Because the last trekk has been a while ago, and because Horton Plains was not exactly what we call a trekk, we really felt the need to look for a proper hike in Ohiya. What we found was a route called the ‚Devil‘s Staircase‘, a 17 km route with breathtaking views and not to be taken by the faint heartet - according to all the blogs and google reviews, at least. There are two ways the hike can be done: uphill or downhill. As the uphill point is Ohiya (where we were staying) but also because we were (are 😬) really out of exercise and scared from the reviews we decided to take it simple and try half of the downhill route and then go back to our stay in Ohiya. Well, we did take it simple but in the end still walked the whole route down to Kalupahana. Honestly, the blogs and google reviews were mercilessly exaggerated regarding its dangerousness (saying things like ‚the most dangerous Devils Staircase in the world‘ etc.), but luckily all the comments about the views were true: we loved every minute of the walk ❤️ it took us not only through tea crops in the mountains with fabulous wide views on the lower lands below (half of the route escorted by the loveliest dog couple we’ve ever met) but also near and through some tiny villages mostly untouched in infrastructure by tourist influences - a thing hard to come by when travelling by public transport and not by bike, as we came to notice after Vietnam. After a good talk with a random local, a delicious Sri Lankan rice & curry lunch and our very first local bus ride at the end of our track we arrived in Haputale just in time to miss our train back to Ohiya 🙃 but Haputale was the perfect spot for us to get stranded for a good hour, being located on top of a mountain ridge with great views on both sides and many many restaurants (with beer) featuring terraces with a view 🥹 it was definitely worth missing the last train and paying for a taxi/tuktuk back to Ohiya! And even though the hike was not nearly as hard as we expected it to be, it was the most rewarding and satisfying day we‘ve had for a long time ❤️ enjoy the view!Read more

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    Ella

    June 24, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    After the quietness of Ohiya, arriving in Ella was kind of a cultural shock - techno music, english speaking Sri Lankans and a ton of tourists greeted us as soon as we left the train. Ella itself is quite small and consists mainly of bars, restaurants and souvenir/clothing stores. We booked a wonderful guesthouse with a lovely room and a big shared balcony which we excessively used for reading and escaping the bustle of the streets below. Apart from eating and drinking (and reading in our case), there are some waterfalls, an arched train bridge and some caves nearby - lazy us did none of it 😂 (as said in a previous post: way too many waterfalls in asia!). What we did, however, was a short excursion to the little Adams peak which can be reached by foot from Ella. Even though the path is well maintained (mostly), the view was superb!! So even though we did not really participate in the nightlife of Ella, and were initially shocked by the ‚westerness‘ of the place, we found that we did like to have the western infrastructure again and overall, it was a good place to have some days of doing nothing. Watch the last video to see one of the many crazy dogs which are apparently very very angry at all motorised vehicles 🤷🏻‍♀️Read more

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    Tissamaharama

    June 27, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ 🌬 34 °C

    Tissamaharama was our gateway to the Yala national park for a safari (see next post). We were a bit naive to think that due to its proximity to the national park and its many guesthouses and hotels, it is somewhat of a lively and touristy city - well, we could not have been more wrong 😂 not sure if it even counts as a city, Tissamaharama was sleepy, with only a few restaurants and even finding a tuktuk was somewhat a challenge. However, our ‚room‘ was rather relaxing with its open balcony overlooking a small river, and the food that was prepared for us at the guesthouse was delicious, too! It was certainly a good place to be surrounded by nature and watch monkeys, many birds, wild peacocks and even a baby crocodile (see the first video). And a lesson has been learned (again): always google a city and do not derive any assumptions based on the information found on google maps 😉Read more

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    Yala National Park - Safari

    June 28, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    We were very excited for our first ever Safari at the Yala National Park! From what we‘ve heard, the population of Leopards in the Yala Bational Park seems to be big enough that the chances to see one are quite high, so of course we hoped to see one as well! 🤞🏼
    We only booked half a day, starting at 04:30 and ending at 13:00, as we thought half a day in a Jeep will be sufficient for us, and boy we were right about that: Our other 4 Safari-companions, which booked a full-day tour, all gave us jealous looks when we were taken to the park exit at 12:30 😅. It probably did not help that we‘ve seen most of the top attractions at lunchtime already, including a small herd of elephants (including a very wobbly 2 month old 🥹), wild boars, deer and mungos. And yey, best news last, we did see a leopard - or rather, we saw a leopards ass on the tree, but to us that still counts 🤷🏻‍♀️ if you find the picture showing a tree with a red arrow, that‘s our only photo of the Leopard 😂 So, our mission was accomplished, the Leopard sighted and our first ever Safari completed - we think we deserve some relaxing beach time now ✌🏼(yes, again, travelling is exhausting you know)    Read more

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    Tangalle, Silent Beach

    June 29, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ 🌬 30 °C

    The first beach destination we visited after Tissamaharama was Tangalle. As in Cambodia, the weather gods were not too fond of us and sent us some rain after lunch time. It was not really a problem as we could not really swim because of the big waves and as the beach at our little guesthouse was really empty - partly due to low season and partly due to a big hotel complex which bought all the land and forces the cute little beach bars to close down. The two beach bar owners we met even told us that the police came and tore everything down 😒 (sounds familiar? Same sh*t happening in Koh Rong Sanloem, Cambodia). Anyways, the beach name (Silent Beach) was true to its meaning 🤷🏻‍♀️
    The highlights of our stay at Tangalle were therefore the bus ride to the town and the food we got for dinner, cooked by our lovely guesthouse host - delicious!! But we noticed quite upon arrival at Tangalle that this will not be our beach place to relax, so our next stop Mirissa will hopefully do it! 🤞🏼🌴    Read more

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    Mirissa

    June 30, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    While Tangalle was a flop, Mirissa was exactly what we needed: Sun (mostly), a beach with passable waves allowing a swim (sometimes) and tons of beach bars/restaurants. Therefore we did what has to be done at such a place: To relax 🥰
    The only sad thing in Mirissa was that we almost (‘almost’ being the sad part) adopted the cutest little dog after she followed us around one whole day AND stayed in front of our guesthouse for two nights, waiting for us (and constantly fighting all the other stray dogs in the area so she can stay)!! 🥺 What a heartbreak to leave her 💔 but now we really understand why so many people suddenly own a dog after travelling! Our princess really added some extra positivity points to our stay in Mirissa ❤️    Read more

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    Galle

    July 3, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ 🌧 26 °C

    Galle is known for Galle Fort, a fortified old city founded by Portuguese colonists in the 16th century, and which attracts many tourists (foreign and national alike). The fort is small, full of cute cobble-stone streets and some very well, some very poorly maintained buildings which reflect the Portuguese, Dutch and British rule in their architecture. On the seaside, the fort walls are mainly intact and can be visited, which we of course did. We also made sure to stay in the middle of Galle Fort to get the full enjoyment of all the tourist infrastructures such a place has to offer 😉 (and we were glad we did, as the city of Galle itself has not much to offer apart from the nearby fort). We were also lucky to arrive on the Poson Poya day, which is a buddhist holiday being celebrated by the locals by flying big and small kites - what a beautiful view it was! 🥰 It was a fabulous second-last destination in Sri Lanka for sure and we highly recommend a visit!
    Ps: We have never seen a raven with blue eyes, have you?? Check out the sixth photo if you haven’t! 🤯    Read more

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    Negombo - last stop in Sri Lanka!

    July 6, 2023 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    After Galle, we had one single night in Colombo to pick up a parcel from Switzerland, containing all our cold-weather clothes necessary for our next destinatio (merci mamman ❤️). We spent approx. 1.5 hours at the post station in Colombia until we successfully retrieved our parcel - what a relieve 😅
    After that one night we decided to spend our last few days in Sri Lanka in Negombo, which is a) closer to the airport than Colombo and b) at the beach 😉. It was a good decision! Even though the beach was not really for swimming, our hotel (again) featured a balcony and a very big room, the owner was really cute, we were (again) the only guests and we found our super cozy and delicious go-to lunch place at the very first day. So it was again a lot of reading, eating, chilling and planning our next destination: South America. It was good to get some rest before our 37 hours journey to the (quite literally) other side of the world ✨
    Sri Lanka, you’ve been beautiful and very much an experience!    Read more

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    Bogotá, Colombia

    July 12, 2023 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    From Colombo in Sri Lanka to Bogotá in Colombia - we literally flew to the other side of the world! And it only took us around 37 hours on three different planes and 2 hours at the Bogota Airport Immigration until we finally arrived ar our hostel. 🤷🏻‍♀️
    Bogotá is the capital of Colombia, lies at an altitude of 2300 m and has a temperature of 10 to 20 degrees, much to Alinas discomfort (altitude sickness and coldness ahoi). We only visited the touristic areas of Bogotá, which are la Candelaria with its famous colourful buildings and cobblestone streets (yes, we have a thing for cobblestones) and Chapinero, the hip and more modern area with its characteristic brick buildings, imitating typical english architecture. We even joined a guided Walking Tours (Gilles’ first guided tour, yey!) through la Candelaria, which was a really interesting and fun way to explore the area and get some historic infos along the way! We stayed in Chapinero (because we heard that’s the safest part of Bogotá 😇), but la Candelaria, being the older part of the city, felt more Colombian to us and will definitely be our base when we come back to Bogotá. Still, both areas had their charm, a lot of tourist infrastructure and lovely places to eat and drink. We made sure to try the local alcoholic beverage called “chicha”, which is a very sour (and rather strong) drink made of fermented corn, the infamous coca leaf tea (supposed to be good for altitude sickness) and a typical Bandeja Paisa (farmers plate), which is basically an assortment of fried colombian main ingredients: different pieces of meat, chorizo, blood sausage, potatoes, bananas and french fries - it is 🤤🤤🤤!! And boy, the whole city bursts with colours, graffittis, murals etc 😍 a dream for every photographer and a nightmare for creating a footprint with a limit of 20 pictures 😂
    Overall, we’re glad to say that we never really felt unsafe in Bogotá, which made it a really good start to our trip in South America! The language was and is still a challenge of course (most of the Colombians really and stubbornly refuse to speak english 😂), but talking with hands and feet and un poco de espanol brought us a long way 😄
    Now out of the cold and into the heat of our very first desert! 😍    Read more

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    Tatacoa desert

    July 14, 2023 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    We headed to Neiva for a guided daytrip to the Tatacoa desert - our very first desert experience. The desert has a grey and a red zone, both very beautiful but the red desert was beauty on another level ❤️ what an experience!! We loved every second of the trip which we shared with a lovely group of other backpackers.
    Neiva, the small city we stayed in, on the other hand was not our favorite city at all: a tad dodgy and our neighbourhood was without any reasonable restaurant choices, so really bad pizza it was 🤷🏻‍♀️ Luckily we left early the next morning for Salento for our first full-day bus trip in Colombia 🚌💨    Read more

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