Asia 2023

My second long-term solo-trip through Asia.🤩 Meer informatie

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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Batu Karas - improving surf skills
22–24 okt. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
Loved this place! Beautiful beaches, only few western tourists, just surfers, very natural and rural area and friendly, relaxed people everywhere. 😎
Unfortunately the waves were gone, after two days, and waiting for the next swell would have felt like wasting time, so I only stayed for 3 nights.
Was nice to meet Raffa from Bandung, again, had some fun in the water, and I finally switched from the softboard (great for learning how to stand-up) to a proper longboard. Still fighting with my timing and my paddling skills, but feel as if I still improve, slowly but steadily. 😅Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Central Java - going to Yogja 🛵💨
24–25 okt. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
Heading on from Batu Karas to Yogjakarta in a two-days-trip.
Not too much to say, the ride was amazing, again, most streets are in a quite good condition. As I had chosen the 30mins longer route (so 5hrs total, instead of 4,5😅) through the mountains, instead the coastal highway , I was able to enjoy great bike roads and amazing views, again.
As a local told me about some leftovers of the old railway track, I was successfully looking out for them. Taking a small detour on steep dirt roads was worth the effort, seeing some surreal scenery. An old railway bridge, partly deconstructed by steel thieves after the Dutch left Indonesia, in the middle of the jungle, a small village nearby. The railway tunnel is still in use, as a road, now - I have not seen any tunnels in Indonesia, outside of big cities, for now.
Finally had a nice night in a hotel in Purwokerto, a small city not many travellers are passing by, according to people's reaction to my presence, anywhere I was going. 😅 Several selfies, pictures were taken, as usual, locals are so curious, friendly and eager to help on any problems, it's so awesome. 🥰
In the mountains between Purwokerto and Yogja (as locals call Yogjakarta) I've had my first rain on Java 🌦️ Some heavy rainfalls forced me to take breaks under some rooftops of shops at the streets, but luckily rain stopped after about 10-15mins, or at least went down to drizzling rain. Streets were drying within a very short time, so driving still was nice and safe.
Being able to stop by at any monument, scenery or interesting place, is such an amazing part of going on my own bike, I'm sooo happy to travel like this, now! 🥰Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Yogyakarta city impressions
26 oktober 2023, Indonesië
So much to see and to explore in Yogja, so starting with a first photo dump of randomly taken pictures around the city.
And as I've explored some nightlife with other travelers, which I've not done since Jakarta, some vids of that, too. 😅
More about some sightseeing and exploring coming soon. 😬Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Sightseeing and traditional dancing
28 oktober 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C
Started sightseeing together with Oliver, a great guy from Switzerland I've met at Laura's backpacker's hostel (btw. a nice place to stay 😉).
Already had a beer at the bar street together and decided to go to the water palace together. Very nice old palace or area, which was a huge bath in earlier times, too.
Exiting the palace at a random place, strolling around and seeking some food, we ran into a nice guy, working at the palace's music corps, who was showing us around at a hidden gem, the Sultan's princess' house.
Amazing to see the amazing artwork and unbelievable massive handcrafted wooden carvings. Sometimes having golden backgrounds made them like shining from itself.
A huge main room and a smaller, but even more impressive, meditation room was to see there, another great experience we accidentally walked into and enjoyed so much!
After that, it occurred that there was a nice tiny coffee house, serving the famous Luwak coffee, so we decided to try it. This special coffee is known worldwide, as it's made out of beans from the poo of the Luwak cat. This cat eats the beans with it's green hull, in its stomach beans are kind of fermented, after collecting and roasting it gives some decent coffee. 😅 To be honest, I didn't taste anything special, was a good one, but I'm not a coffee gourmet, so please try by yourself. 😅😉
While drinking that coffee, we've met Robin, another nice guy from Germany, after chitchatting until coffee house was closing, we altogether grabbed some food.
There we decided to go to a traditional dancing show at the museum, in the evening, which was amazing. It was kind of a dancing theater with some dialogs in between, performed in traditional costumes and wearing traditional masks.
There were way more locals than foreigners visiting it (locals had even more fun, as they understood the spoken words 😅), and the multi-language leaflets gave even us an idea, about the story and the backgrounds.
Again the unexpected made this day a packed day full of impressions and new views onto amazing Indonesian culture and history. 🥰Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Yogja street art 🤩
29 oktober 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
Yogyakarta is a students city, as it is THE place to go for studying. Many Indonesians go to another island, for university, and Java is the richest, best developed island of Indonesia (except for touristy Bali) and as Jakarta is already too big, Yogja is the perfect place for artists, musicians and students.
So you can feel it is a "young city" a lot, and as I love beautiful street art, I was happy every time, when I was stumbling upon amazing artworks.
So many I forgot to take a photo, but this small collection should give you a picture and remind myself of this amazing part of Yogjakarta! 🥰Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Yogja's surroundings & a chicken church
31 oktober 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
So many things to tell about Yogja, so many places I've been, I could make several more postings about that great city... 🙈
So two more to come, this one packed with all the most impressive sightseeing I've done with other travelers.
As I've changed the hostel to an awesome place in old town (The Patio, tiny, cozy, family like 🥰) and met Dan, a guy from Northern Ireland, there, he joined my planned trip to a more unknown, less touristy, waterfall north of Yogja.
Very much liked it, hiking down was nice, and to get close to it we had to cross the river two times.
No swimming (which I generally don't like too much, I prefer saltwater 😅), unfortunately no showering (which I love 🙈) 'cause stream to strong, but refreshing spume and amazing nature.
Another day Daniel joined the trip to Borobudur temple, I had already planned with Robin. We got up very early with a lot of plans for a great day, everybody on its scooter, we started to the biggest one-structure Buddhist temple in the world. It's even 400 years older than Angkor Wat, but for many reasons had a lot of similarities with some of the temples there, it was really huge, very well kept and restored and a guide was included. Sun was burning, as most UNESCO world heritage sites, tourism was very well organized and many people visited. But due to limited entrance tickets it wasn't too packed, but sun was burning 🥵.
Amazing tour, after grabbing a nice dinner at a warung, we went on to the chicken church.
One the one hand a very crazy place, I really love the Indonesian "craziness", they sometimes put into very serious things, as they've done here. It's shape is funny, but it was built in 1989 as a connecting place for all religions, as they call it a church for all nations. Providing several praying rooms for Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hinduists and even Taoists, and even having some neutral praying rooms for any other religions, they are very eager to spread the idea of religion as a connecting, not a dividing part of society. Haven't seen that too often, for now.
Due to our early start, we decided it's still enough time left to go on to "Nepal of Java", a tiny village in the mountains, built on a Nepalese style. So colorful, built into the steep mountains, lot of stairs, narrow steep alleys and artworks on the walls and streets everywhere.
But the last 15 kilometers were on quite bad roads, you wouldn't want to ride in the dark, so we had to leave quite soon. Exploring some new, tiny streets, down the hills, having amazing views, under the clouds or when clouds opened, for a few moments, amazing moods.
And, finally, on our way back, we stumbled upon an impressive Chinese temple, had to visit that, too, and immediately were guided by temple's staff, showing us around and explaining all the statues and shrines. What a great, unexpected, end of our tour, going to a traditional restaurant in Yogja for a extremely tasty dinner brought that day to a perfect end. 🥰Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Merapi 🌋- hunting Lava streams 😅
2 november 2023, Indonesië
Visiting an active volcano in the ocean still wasn't enough for me 🙈 Part of that childhood dream always was, seeing the floating lava in streams, cooling down to stone.
Only few locations on earth, where this can be done safely and planned, but at that time, Merapi volcano, located only few kilometers north of Yogjakarta, is active enough to at least see lava streams from a distance.
Even if eruptions, small pyroclastic shockwaves and lava streams are more or less regularly and bounded onto it's west/southwest side, since several months, the whole area is closed for safety reasons. Nevertheless, if you're smart and explore the area, you can find areas, quite close to the eruptions, which are legal to go but only few kilometers from the active zone.
And due to lack of waves at the south coast, I had some time to explore these spots in Yogja 😬
As here lava streams only appear as smoking, damping lines/areas, running down the slope, during daytime, you can really see them at night only.
Unfortunately the weather (not too much luck about weather at this trip 😅😉) made it difficult, to spot them out, every evening clouds were rising up at Merapi's top. After three attempts, always trying new, better view points, and always ending up with only seeing clouds, but no volcano, I was already a little bit frustrated.
No worries, exploring the area, finding hidden pathes, secret spots, like a graveyard on the top of a hill, or some beautiful valleys with amazing landscapes, was even worth all the efforts.
But on my last night at Yogja, before going to a visa-run by plane, I've made a last attempt.
Again watching the Merapi live streams on YouTube, seeing clouds are opening up around midnight, I decided at 1:30am to go again.
It was already clear, that going to a nice spot, close to some sand mines and quarries, would be the right choice and it's quite likely that I could go from there even closer to the crater, too.
Short story: went on some crazy roads, sometimes surrounded by huge sand- and stone trucks, crossed some small and one quite big stream, with my scooter. Completely covered with dirt, from head to feet, I finally reached a very hidden spot with an awesome view on Mt. Merapi.
Standing alone in the darkness, surrounded by the jungle, hearing heavy trucks and machines at the quarries around, I finally saw some small eruptions. Seeing the volcano spitting out "lava-bombs", ending up in red-yellow streams down the hill was unbelievable. Not too big, and as they appeared only time by time, hard to catch with my cam, but an impressive experience.
Felt very lucky, as activity was clearly getting less, but still saw several streams and eruptions before sun started to rise.
A beautiful morning with a clear sky and a great view on the volcano. One of the best sunrise experiences in my life. 🤩
Literally getting no sleep, needing a long shower and after spending around 4hrs on my scooter, mostly on "off-road-tracks", I felt really worn out - but happy. 🙂Meer informatie
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..gefährliche Fahrt , du traust dich was 😯! Aber tolle Bilder, ich bin total neidisch. Bin gespannt, ob das mit Christa noch klappt, dich zu besuchen!? Im Januar??? [Ilse]
21-11-2023ReagerenVertalen
ReizigerHab inzwischen schon Übung, mit solchen Straßen 😅 Und, ja, gibt traumhaft schöne fleckchen, hier 🥰 Bin Januar/Februar wsl auf den Philippinen, muss mir aber nochmal anschauen wann da wo wie schlimm Regenzeit ist. Aber in den nördlichen Philippinen müsst es eigentlich klappen, sich zu treffen 🙂😎
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Short trip to KL 🇲🇾
2–4 nov. 2023, Maleisië ⋅ 🌧 27 °C
For thousands of kilometers travelling, I was able to avoid any flights, but as my Visa had expired, no more options to extend, I had to fly out.
So I got an affordable flight to Kuala Lumpur, the city where I've spent new years eve in 2016, so great memories about KL in my mind.😎
There I wanted to see Batu Caves, which I skipped last time, not much more planned.
My fascination for skyscrapers hit me again, as I saw that Merdeka 118, world's 2nd highest skyscraper, just was completed one week ago, but unfortunately only the building. Finishing insides and the opening still will take more than a year, but seeing KL's skyline from above, with that crazy new tower, was more or less mandatory for me. 😅 So I made it onto KL tower, too. 😎
Had a nice evening with other travelers and came even back to a hostel I already had stayed in 2016, still found time to stroll around a little and discovered the setting up of a teacher's music festival, unfortunately it had not started yet.😅
Liked KL again, even if it's so different from Bangkok 😉Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Karimunjawa 🏝️
6–8 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
This little island was recommended to me so often and all the pics I've seen were so beautiful, I had to go there!
Also it's my first boat trip with my scooter, I already found out a disadvantage about going with my own vehicle: You have to be at the ferry port very early. 😅😂
As soon as people realize, I'm going with my own bike, they assume I'm living in Jakarta, due to my license plate, which leads to funny conversations, too. 😅
Very relaxed boat trip for around 5hrs, Karimunjawa is already quite touristy, but as there is off-season, now, it's very quiet. 😎
Having some very relaxing days, doing not much, except for some exploring the island. A beautiful place, even if the very low tide during the day hides many beaches (there are so many of them... 😅), nature is amazing and the shoreline is so nice. 🤩
After one and a half day of exploring, it's time for some snorkeling, there should be amazing reefs at the tiny surrounding islands, looking forward to that! 😍Meer informatie
🤩 [Ilse]
21-11-2023Reageren
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Snorkeling paradise 🪸🏝️🐠
8–11 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
Not much more to add 😅
Amazing corals, I've rarely seen reefs like this, anywhere else. Snorkeling was really outstanding, had a nice small group and great guides, an awesome lunch at a tiny island, surrounded by huge beaches and turquoise blue water. 🤩
Variety of fishes in the water was amazing, too, but you could clearly see, that there's a lot of fishing done, here, as there where unusually less fishes and mostly small ones, according to the size and shape and variety of the corals. 🤔
Nevertheless I had one of my most impressive snorkeling trips in my life and l would love to come back to Karimunjawa again, one day, to see even more of the uncountable amazing snorkeling spots around this awesome island! 🥰Meer informatie
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ReizigerAnton ist begeistert von dem Tauch-Videos!!! 😎😊 Er will aber wissen, ob Du auch einen Seestern gesehen hast…? ☝️
13-11-2023ReagerenVertalen
Reiziger🥰 Eine sternförmige Koralle hab ich gesehen, und haufenweise zT riesige Seeigel, leider keinen Seestern 😅 Aber dafür Delfine 😍 (im neuesten Footprint Video 😉)
13-11-2023ReagerenVertalen
Fantastische Bilder, tolles Video! Super 👍🏻 [Ilse]
21-11-2023ReagerenVertalen
Reiziger😊
22-11-2023Reageren
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
One week island's life 🏝️🥰
10–14 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C
Stayed way longer here, as planned, but it's such a beautiful place... 🥰
Met great people, had some good times and would love to come back to Karimunjawa, one day!
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Kudus - city of Kretek 🚬
14–15 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 34 °C
On my way further to the east I wanted to visit Kudus, where the special Indonesian tobacco called Kretek (with clove inside) was invented. Around 1880 there was an Indonesian guy who thought, as oil of cloves is helping against cough, smoking them must be even better 😬 So he invented the clove-cigaretts, putting some oils and aromas ("sauce"), for a better taste. Seeing the Kretek museum was nice, they've so many beautiful dioramas in there, showing all the processes of production in earlier times and today. Unfortunately they do not tell, how this work (mostly done by women) pushed female emancipation in Indonesia, in the 19th/20th century. 🤷
But a great experience (had to take some pics with locals, again, not many foreigners come here 😅), they recommended a tobacco shop to me, so I finally can roll my own Indonesian Kretek-cigarettes 😎.
From Kudus I went on to Purwodadi, for my next adventure, which is a nice small city in Central Java. Once more I've spent some time strolling around and exploring Indonesian daily life. 😍Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
A train ride with(out) my scooter 🚂🛤️
15–16 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 35 °C
Love going around with my scooter, but still missing some train rides in indonesia. Close to everything is possible, here, so why not get my bike on a train?😎
As this is very likely my first and last train ride in Indonesia, this deserves it's own posting - only railway stuff here 😬
It's not like our car-trains in Austria, where you can drive directly on a car-waggon, even with your bike. Here you have to give your bike to the train company's cargo shipment. 🚂📦
After doing some research, I decided to give my scooter to the cargo office of the governmental railway company, instead of any private one. This is KAI, or "Kereta Api Indonesia", this company's name's meaning is "Railway Indonesia", but the word-by-word translation of "Kereta Api" means "fire wagon". 😅🥰
At the office, the young lady was a little bit overstrained by a crazy foreigner who wanted to ship his bike, so she called her colleague who arrived 10mins later, clearly not in charge at this time. His English was still only rudimentary, but with the help of the translation app and a lot of talking with "hands and feet", we managed to do all the paperwork. Leaving my scooter, my only key and the official registration to the cargo office felt strange, but the two cargo officers were so nice, friendly and helpful (and a little bit proud, I think 😅), that I've never lost any trust.
Before I jumped on the train, the next day, I passed by the cargo office and met the officers again (now both in charge), my scooter was already perfectly packed and ready for shipment. 😎
So I had a great relaxing train ride and enjoyed some nice views from the train window. My first travel time not riding by myself for more than a month was very nice, even if I've missed my scooter 😅😉But, to be honest, this area of Java is an agricultural area, so most of the time I was watching on rice fields and other agricultural landscapes. Nevertheless, fascinating and once again I felt happy and grateful for being able to travel through this amazing country, passing by several villages, cities and a few industrial areas.
Have seen some oil facilities on my way, too - I've already learned on Sumatra that Indonesia is an oil exporting country, producing way more oil as it needs for itself.
At Surabaya I had to wait for one night for my scooter to arrive, as I brought him too late for a same-day-shipment, which was nice to explore this city a little bit, too.
As they didn't accept my WhatsApp number (only local numbers allowed), I didn't get any notification about the scooter-pick-up (I'm sure they would've called, sooner or probably later... 🙈), so I decided to just go to the cargo terminal. "Going there and asking directly" is in general the best you can do in Indonesia, for most of the services needed. 😅
Getting a lot of attention from the cargo-staff, as soon as I showed my shipping receipt, 3 or 4 guys started immediately to unpack my scooter. 😅 Mirrors, phone-holder and license plates were remounted so fast, my helmet appeared out of nowhere and quickly the scooter was lifted down the ramp by 5 guys. 😲
Everything went so fast, it was just impressive to see! 😎
And now it felt great to be on the road again, looking forward to all the things upcoming! 🤩Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Surabaya
15–16 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C
This is Java's 2nd biggest city and 2nd biggest metropolitan area in all of Indonesia.
Would have liked to dive in more, but even on a long-term trip, you can't see everything 😅. So one night, waiting for my scooter, had to be enough.
Didn't arrive at the central station but at Pasar Turi Station, which seemed to me more focused on cargo. Strolling around the station's area was nice, a lot of furniture is sold here, but even if I was there during early afternoon (many shops closed at that time, like the Indo version of "Siesta"), I found some fascinating stores here.
Tugu Pahlawan, the monument of the heros, was around the corner. Unfortunately there was built up an event according to FIFA's U17 Worldcup, actually taking place in Indonesia, so no entering was possible. 😐
Met a dog, taking out it's master for a walk (yes, it was that way 😅), on the streets who supposed to be a police K-9 dog and was looking like the father of my mom's dog. A very young and so friendly policeman and dog trainer, Indonesians are all so welcoming, friendly and curious, it's just amazing.
Nice little alleys, again, a beautiful river promenade, full of artworks and decorations, which seems to be full of life during the evenings.
All in all a short, but very nice, stopover in another Indonesian metropol.Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Mount Bromo ⛰️🌋🌄🏞️🛵💨
16–18 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C
As Bromo is the most active volcano within the Tengger mountains, a huge national park with a volcanic mountain massif, it is famous for an amazing scenery and landscapes.
I put myself a little bit into trouble, as I've decided to take the longer, nicer bike route through the mountains, again. Getting catched by some heavy rain, my ride took way longer as expected. So I rode through tough mountain roads, steep, curvy and a lot of potholes, in the dark, being stopped by locals, telling my national park is closed and road is not rideable. Took me some more time, to assure that I can ride through the sand desert at night, some more time, to explain to park guard, that I'm only going to my hostel and getting entrance ticket tomorrow. 😅 Finally I found myself at the darkest hour in an endless sand desert, navigating through it mostly with the help of GPS, as there was only sand everywhere. 🙈 But morning view onto the caldere, from my room's window, was a decent payoff.
Bromo's crater is looking quite small and unimpressive, on the first glimpse, if you can't see the smoke. That's why the inactive volcano Mount Batok, directly aside, is often mistaken as Bromo 😅
If you look closer, you see clearly that Bromo is active, his last (small) eruption was in 2019. The crater looks like extraterrestrial land, especially if you're walking it up. Both volcanoes are inside a wide caldera, this looks like a huge crater around them, with a reasonable sand desert inside (so called "Sea of Sands") and fascinating coloured, overgrown steep walls.
Looking at that Tengger mountains from the north/east top of Bromo's caldera, where the tourist village Cemorolawang and some view points are located, you can usually see the Semeru volcano in the background, another active volcano, which regularly spits out small ash clouds, all these fascinating landscapes together are creating a unique, awesome scenery.
Going around here and exploring these mountains and hills, mostly on my scooter, and on my second day with Siggi, a crazy Belgium guy, was amazing and felt like exploring another world.
Decided to go for the sunrise on my own, another night-ride through the Sea of Sands, but this time I had some jeeps from sunrise tours, to follow 😅
One of the most impressive sunrise sceneries I've ever seen, even if all the viewpoints were crowded as hell. The ride back, during early morning, gave me some more awesome views and the well earned breakfast, with a great view on Bromo, made a perfect morning.
Rode further on to the south, (Sea of Sands again 🥰) on these amazing tiny mountain roads again, this time during daylight 🤩
Bromo is a place, I'll go and see again, if life takes me back around there, again, one day!Meer informatie
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Tumpak Sewu & Goa Tetes 🏞️
18 november 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
There are thousands of waterfalls in Indonesia, you probably can see some, anywhere you are, so choosing which to see, sometimes is hard. 😅
Tunpak Sewu definitely is one, you have to see, if you're around Mt. Bromo, it's in the south and around 1h drive from Malang or 2h from Bromo. It was quite a detour, for my way to the east, but in the end, the path is the goal, especially in these amazing landscapes, and seeing this waterfall was awesome.
Pictures can only give an idea of it, as usual, but another very special thing, here, was, that climbing down and up takes you to two different waterfalls, Tumpak Sewu on the way down, Goa Tetes on the way up. Furthermore some parts of the path/"stairs" are going literally through the waterfalls. There's just a handrail or a rope to hold on and you have to climb on slippery stones through the permanently floating water. 😅 Sometimes quite tricky, as I did it with sandals, but very refreshing and an amazing experience.
Took me all in all around 3 hours (went slowly and carefully 😅) and the way up was really exhausting, in the warm and extremely humid air, but heading on to the east on my bike cooled me down properly. 😎
One of the most impressive waterfalls I've ever seen, it feels as if water is going down the steep walls everywhere, and climbing through waterfalls was a unique, amazing experience. 😍Meer informatie
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
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Blue fire at Mt. Ijen 🌋🔥⛰️🧗
19–21 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ 🌙 14 °C
Ijen volcano is definitely another must-see, if you're around East-Java. It not only offers awesome views on volcanic landscapes, again, but its unique blue fires are a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Doing the hike/climb on my own, was a great decision, as being within the first dozen people at the blue flames, paid off in a not too crowded sight and being able to get very close to the flames.
Due to a noisy hostel, I wasn't able to catch any sleep, before I started my ride to the entrance point at midnight. Getting the entrance ticket took some time, too, so finally my hike started at 2:20. Hiking up the mountain for around 4.5km in the dark on a dirt path was challenging for me, but luckily my trip for now made me regain some strength, after 2 very lazy years. After freezing a bit on my scooter ride there, hiking made me heat up again, luckily I found a quite fast pace soon. Being a little bit proud of myself, as I've started my hike with around 30-40 (mostly younger) people in front of me, but ending up within the first group of around 10 people at the edge of the crater at around 3:40.
Putting on the gas mask, sulphur smoke was already hanging in the air, for a while, but became quite intense, here. Climbing down took another half hour, on a quite steep path (no railings) on sometimes slippery dirt or loose rocks was ok for me, but some people really struggled.
Finally seeing the blue flames made me forget how exhausted I felt, fascinating, mysterious and beautiful.
Sometimes (luckily not too often) the wind turned and the whole site was covered by thick smoke of sulphur gases, bringing up literally zero visibility and unfortunately some gas masks (not only mine 😅) were not fully airtight, this smoke really burned hard in the lungs. 🙈 Had to run around the corner, out of the smoke, a few times. 😅
No more proper words available, for that experience.
As more and more people arrived, and dawn already started, I climbed up out of the crater quickly. (Again a little bit proud for being literally the first tourist coming out of the crater. 😎😅)
Another 1.5km to the sunrise point, but luckily not too steep, as my feet already were lacking strength and knees started to hurt. But the sunrise view was amazing and I decided to rest and enjoy the rising sun changing it's light and transforming the landscapes from dark reddish to yellow and finally bright and colorful. Met some other solo-travelers from China, Thailand and Switzerland, had some nice chitchatting, while resting and gaining energy for the 6km hike down.
This hike was REALLY tough, as my whole body was tired, lack of sleep didn't help, and finally, after around 4.5 km I had to accept, that I won't make it down without help, without another 2hrs rest. So I was brought down the last 1.5km by one of the sulphur carriers, who are offering rides up- and downwards in their handcarts, advertising these as "Lamborghini-taxi". Btw: Indonesian sense of humor is another awesome thing about this amazing country.

That day I challenged myself a lot, I realized again, that you have to push yourself sometimes hard, to cross your boundaries, but that I'm way stronger than I sometimes think. Not only the unbelievable and unique experience of seeing the blue fires, made that day special, but exploring how far I can push myself -and where I have to stop, before harming myself- was a great experience, too.Meer informatie
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Krass, dieses blaue Feuer 🔥! I’ve never seen before! [Ilse]
26-11-2023ReagerenVertalen
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Asia 2023 Reiziger
Goodbye Java, hello Bali!
21–23 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
While spending around 7 weeks on Java, I met some great people, saw some awesome places, celebrated my birthday, got my scooter, made >3.000km on it, climbed mountains, improved my surfing, visited 5 volcanoes, had amazing snorkeling experiences and even made some friends.
Java was so different from Sumatra, but still Indonesia, now I'm curious, what I'll experience in the most touristy areas of this country.
Went directly from the ferry to Canggu, in Bali's south, probably the most touristy area here. Very busy, very crowded, lots of tourists and travellers, a lot of partying, I fully understand, why it's called "Bali's Ballermann" 🤷
Exploring some beaches and the shoreline was nice, there are several beautiful beaches and cliffs, beautiful landscapes and Balinese food is great, too!
Skipped my plans to practice some surfing, here, as all the beach breaks were crowded as hell. Lombok should offer some nice surfspots, too.
South Balinese landscapes and big city Denpasar were interesting to see, I took the opportunity to bring my scooter to the official Yamaha garage for a service, oil change and checkup (and a working rear light 😅). Everything was done quickly and cheap (€10 in total 😬) and riding feels bit better and more safe, now.
After getting that done, I decided to leave this busy, touristy area quickly and head on to the north of Bali! 😅😎Meer informatie
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Pura Ulun Danu Bratan 🛕🪷
23 november 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C
On my way to north Bali there's a big temple, definitely worth seeing it. It's based in central Bali and placed beside Lake Beratan, taking a huge area with beautiful gardens and packed with amazing artworks, not only the well known typical hinduist art. It's quite touristy but not too busy and at least I've met mostly local tourists and it was a pleasure to explore the area.
As you can see very often, here, they added some entertainment facilities, like a small lake with funny water cars and fountains and a lot of photo frames for "the perfect picture" 😅 I really appreciate the huge playgrounds for kids, you can find often at places like these, too.
Had a great time there and another amazing bike ride down the mountains to north Bali and finally arrived just in time for a nice sunset at Lovina, Bali's "city of the dolphins". 🙂Meer informatie
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North of Bali - Lovina 🤿🐬🌊🏖️
24–27 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
Lovina is a nice little village next to Singaraja (which was Bali's capital before it became a tourist hotspot), located on a small but very long black sand beach.
As it's off-season, it's quiet, now, not many travellers and mostly couples or family tourists around here, lots of local tourists during the weekend.
Dolphin tours are THE THING, here, I was literally jumping off my scooter as the first guys were approaching my, offering dolphin tours.
I've already heard mostly not so good stories about the dolphin watching here, finally I was booking a tour from a guy who was recommended for doing it animal friendly and going to a different time, than most other tours are going.
I ended up with very mixed feelings about the tour: There still were loads of boats going around, searching for dolphins and approaching them, as soon as they were spotted out. But except of a few very aggressive boatmen, everybody was going around slowly and carefully, when the dolphins were close by, not trying to chase them, but just following them.
No clue, how bad it really is for the dolphins, for me they seemed not scared and even some were jumping and seeming like playing/racing with the boat, sometimes. It even looked as if they could have gone away from the boats easily, but in fact I really don't know. Due to the huge number of boats, which I really didn't expect that massively, it felt not really right and I wouldn't recommend doing a tour like this, there, if you have any other options to see them in a better setting.
But I can understand why so many people (mostly local tourists were on the boats) want to see the lumba-lumba, as Indonesians are calling dolphins, they are amazing animals. 🥰
On the other hand, snorkeling here was awesome, it widely reminded me of Karimunjawa, beautiful reefs and loads of fishes - never can get enough of the amazing beauty of a nice reef. 😍
Had a great time here, thanks to Tea, my travel mate here, again, for a few days, I've found a beautiful homestay. For some days I was the only one staying there, I had a nice karaoke evening with the host, his family and a friend of them (and a lot of rice wine and palm wine😅), Sedap Malam homestay is the place to be in Lovina! 🥰Meer informatie
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Reiziger Splendit!
07-12-2023ReagerenVertalen
Reiziger🤗
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Bali waterfalls
27–29 nov. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ 🌩️ 28 °C
If you don't like waterfalls, skip this posting 😉😅
Indonesia offers tons of waterfalls, as written before, you literally anywhere can visit some.
Due to the extreme tourism in the south of Bali, I've finally decided to totally skip that part of Bali and go instead to the north - and to the mountains.
Together with Téa, a traveller from Canada I've met in Karimunjawa before, I went around to explore the mountainous areas of central Bali and visit some nice places -mostly viewpoints and waterfalls- there.
Not much more to tell, it's just impossible to describe the beauty of nature and the outstanding experience any waterfall gives to me is amazing, again and again.
Had some great days going around with Téa on my scooter and enjoying awesome landscapes!
Furthermore we got in touch with the local "waterfall mafia", groups of people who obviously bribe the official staff at the entrance gates, so if you don't insist on getting an entry ticket only, without a guide, they will not offer it and even try to stop you from entering the site without paying huge amounts for hiring a guide. 😔 If they wouldn't act so greedy and impolite, but offer some reasonable priced value service, they wouldn't put a bad picture on Bali's tourism industry, but unfortunately you can see things like that a lot at Bali, even if that one here was kind of extreme. 😥 I assume it comes along with a weak government and a highly capitalist focused way of organizing tourism without too many regulations. 🤷
All in all I had several experiences at Bali, which didn't fit into the picture from Indonesia, for now, according to people here often looking at you like at a "walking wallet" and giving you wrong information on purpose of making you spend more money (for often no or bad services). It's a pity, but I have to blame arrogant and unconscious and often even ignorant tourists for supporting that behavior, too.😥
Still Bali is an amazing place to visit, but here you really cannot be as trustful, as you usually can in Java and Sumatra, here you have to question and double-triple-check any pricing, any information, given by locals, if you don't want to get ripped off, unfortunately.
Luckily I still was able to meet some amazing people in Bali's mountainous, rural areas, experienced some amazing hospitality and enjoyed exploring central Bali a lot - and had a lot of fun, going around with other travelers, looking for similar experiences.😎Meer informatie
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Mt. Batur and Amed
29 nov.–2 dec. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C
Heading on to the east I decided to go to Amed, a small town known for snorkeling and diving, at Bali's north east.
Taking a detour through the mountains, to see Mount Batur and some beautiful mountain roads and scenery was mandatory. 😅
Took me a while to find the right paths, as I avoided the big roads, paid off with some amazing views and real nice rides through the unknown parts of Bali.
I've been extremely lucky according to weather conditions, except of a few raindrops I didn't get wet and even had an awesome view on Mount Batur, as clods were opening up as soon as I reached it's caldera. 😍
It's an amazing scenery, looking from the top of the caldera down into it onto Lake Batur and the impressive volcano itself.
Took a tiny and very steep and curvy road out of the area, which gave me some more great views onto Bali's north coast from high up.
My beloved scooter, which takes me wherever I wanna go and brings me up the steepest roads, climbed a lot of dirt roads or damaged roads, you wouldn't call "roads" anymore, finally got a name 😅: I've named him "Cepi", which is created from the Indonesian word cepat. 😬😎😉
We've already spent close to 4.000 km together, that deserves a respectable name! (Furthermore it feels as if he already has developed some personality... 🤔😅😂)

Amed is a small and quite touristy town, but still very relaxed and quiet, had a great time there. Interestingly my hostel was packed with other Germans, 10 out of 12 guests were German, so I ended up with a full German crew, there, for a few days. 😅🙈
Exploring it's beaches and snorkeling at an very old japanese shipwreck were real highlights and being able to swim with a turtle was awesome. 🥰
Furthermore the view on Bali's highest Mountain, Mt. Agung, is awesome!
Could have stayed there for a longer time, but as my Visa limits my time and there are only <30 days left to reach Timor for leaving the country to East Timor, I had to go on.Meer informatie
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Heavy rain and flooded roads @north Bali
1 december 2023, Indonesië ⋅ 🌧 29 °C
That day Niclas, a German guy I already met at Canggu, and I wanted to visit a village in the mountains, known for burying their dead above the ground inside of bamboo constructions. We didn't make it there 😅🙈.
Due to the rainy season has definitely arrived at Bali, we gave up going there, after getting stuck in the rain three times, while clouds around the mountains were looking dark and endless.
Back down on the coastal road, soaked wet from the rain, we were stopped by a massively flooded part of the road. Traffic quickly piled up and after a while some trucks started to go through it, making it visible how deep the floods are. 😅
Trying to find an alternative route wasn't successful as there had been only two other options (without going back up into the mountains), which were both flooded, too.
When we came back to the main road, just some cars tried to go through and, surprisingly made it 😅. But after a van got stuck in the middle of the floods, the road was blocked, but as already hundreds of scooters had piled up, it was a question of time, till anybody would try it. Finally a guy with a food stall on his scooter started a successful try, which obviously made others try it, too. So soon a lot of scooters piled up for going through, so I decided: If locals can do it, I could at least try it, too, what should go wrong? 😅🙈
As usual, following a local is the way to do it.
What a crazy ride! My whole feet, up to the knees, in the muddy floods, frightening that Cepi's engine could get flooded, trying not to stop or get stuck, we quickly and safely made it! 😎
My dear Cepi was exactly looking like after a mud bath, which he literally had. 😅😂Meer informatie
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ReizigerWow! Seems like the rain saison really kicked off! Take care ☔️🌂
12-12-2023ReagerenVertalen
ReizigerThanks! But I still feel lucky, as I didn't have to ride during heavy rain too much, for now. 😅
13-12-2023ReagerenVertalen
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Leaving Bali - to Nusa Penida
2–3 dec. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ 🌧 21 °C
Close to Mt. Agung's summit is the Pura Pasar Agung Sebudi temple, known as Bali's highest tempel. On my way to Padangbai, where all the ferries to the east are departing, I decided the weather looks nice enough to make another try to get up into the mountains. Mt. Aung, Bali's highest mountain, was looking so stunning from Amed, that I wanted to go up as far as I can go by scooter. Hiking wasn't an option, as the hike is rough and very likely rainy, my Ijen-experience showed clearly that I've to be careful about hard hikes. 🙈
So Bali's highest temple was a nice destination to have a nice view from the mountain and to see an impressive temple. At least the second part worked out well. 😅
The ride upon Mt. Agung was really nice, steep and curvy roads with some nice views, here and there, but at a certain point, there were no proper roads to go. 🙈 As no GPS shows you road quality, it's always a guess, this time I ended up on a real destroyed dirt road for around 4 kilometers. 😯 Nevertheless, Cepi, my scooter, and me, did it, slowly but steadily, last kilometers to the temple were nice again, but bad weather came up. So the temple was completely in the clouds, when I arrived, some light rain started. Nevertheless the misty weather put a nice and interesting atmosphere onto the whole sight, visited it with Mike, a guy from the US, going around by bike, too, I'd just met at the parking area.
On my way down heavy rain started, too suddenly to find a roof, so went on fully soaked. 🙈
Luckily down at the coast the weather was nice, again, so when I arrived at Padangbai my clothes were dry again and I had a nice evening at Padangbai and at a hostel Téa had recommended, a very nice place. Ferry to Nusa Penida was relaxed, as usual, a short but nice ride to that beautiful tiny little island. 😍Meer informatie
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Nusa Penida - Bali's beautiful neighbor
3–6 dec. 2023, Indonesië ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
Nusa Penida for me offered everything Bali is famous for - except for surfing, mass tourism and nightlife. 😉
Bali's tiny neighbor island is only a 1h ferry ride away and is a beautiful gem. Still some tourists from Bali are going here for a few days, but due to off-season it nearly never felt crowded (except of sunset at Kelingking 🙈😅).
Its shoreline is steep, lots of cliffs, giving amazing views, and in between several small beaches. A few bigger and easy-to-go beaches are quite touristy, but as soon as I checked out places I had to climb for, or which are just a little bit out of the harbor area, I've found myself more or less alone. 😎
I explored the island a lot, loved the uncountable beautiful sceneries I've seen, and accidentally stumbled upon a nice temple on the top of a hill where a monk showed me around.
Awesome sunsets, nice snorkeling, had great days, here! 🤩🥰Meer informatie
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