Bali

Bali: arrived in the night and luckily found some other travelers to share a cap and a room - went to Ubud the other day and had a lovely day with nice places, monkeys (had some sitting on my head. Some big ones.) and lovely company - decided to have dinner at the beach - didn't find the beach - got almost killed twice (taxi driver and fuuuuuuuuucking aggressive dog and yes, this dog really tried to kill us) - got crazy about the locals and their way of explaining the way ("just left" apparently doesn't mean just left but something like "left, than the second street right, then left again, follow the road for 5 minutes and then one more time left", "right next to the traffic light" means "somewhere around the traffic light, could be 5 m before or 10km behind the damn traffic light" and "where" or "when" (like "when do I have to turn 

right?") seems to be something like "yes, you definitely understood me right" as they say it with a big nod as an answer 

to your question: "where exactly do I have to turn?" - "yeaaaah, where!") - gave up finding the beach and had a great pizza with Justus, the best scooter-getting-lost-the-whole-day-company one could ever had - was told the beach is 2 min away from the Pizza place - finally found the beach and was a little 

disappointed - made fun with Justus how long it would take to find our Hostel on the way back - didn't find those jokes funny anymore, when we got lost again - ran out of petrol - got totally lost for 6 hours 

- stopped in dark streets with weird people looking at us - did I mentioned that I had the very best company ever? Thanks Justus, for keeping me alive btw! - considered to sleep on the street - didn't 

sleep on the street because some rats and dogs came - finally found our Hostel at 3 in the morning 

(we'd been around that place tree times and just didn't look further.........) and was so damn happy. - had a nice talking-walking-drinking-time with Heidi, watching surfer boys - learned that "i'm angry and smash the doors" 

(ich bin wütend und knalle mit den Türen") in German sounds like the danish sentence "i'm gay and fuck the cow" (found this hilarious and thought the world needs to know...) - had nice midnight dinner and a even nicer boat trip to Gili.

Scooter Accident

Because I was asked over and over again here it is the whole story:

Kuta in Lombok. Lovely place but you just need a scooter to go around. So did we. The first day was absolutely fine, actually I loved it to ride the scooter. And I was super lucky that the crash didn't happen on that first day. Without helmet and somewhere on the road up and down the hills. By night. 

Second day started with a small crash. As soon as I left the Hostel, the scooter just felt to the right side. I thought it was a stone in the wheel. And I was not hurt, so I got on it again. 10 Minutes later I recognized while driving that the Scooter had a drift to the left side. I couldn't really turn right and actually it was super stupid to not stop it immediately. It got that worse that I had the feeling the scooter would directly drift away from the street and I couldn't go against it.

But since it never happened and we only had a short way to ride I still didn't stop but just went slower (which was easy cause I couldn't really give gas as the day before, as I found out later). Then there was this tiny hole in the street and I just wanted to get around, turned a little to the right and the frontwheel just blocked completely. Scooterchen and me both smashed on the street, fortunately he smashed left and I smashed right (don't wanna know what would have happened if he would have landed on me...). All in one I was super lucky. Helmet and nothing landing on me, of course several abraisions but nothing serious - I thought. We called the Hostel to pick us up and they came - on scooters....

I told them what have happened but they would just laughing at me, thinking I just couldn't ride. When one of the guys got on the scooter to ride it home, I tried one more time to warn him but he was just greening, showing me how well it works. On the way back he even got ahed of us to show (off....) how good the scooter was, how well it would ride and how stupid I was. 2 minutes later he had a hole in his knee. Same thing happened and he felt directly with his knee on a stone, which went in 3-5 cm. the other guy brought me to the hospital (much friendlier after that second accident) and I sat in that Hospital the next two hours, cleaning, screaming and calling the assurance. Luckily there were some other Germans. Medicin students, which was great since I couldn't really decide what medicin I would need and what not at that point. Fot the moment I just was in pain and when the nurse took all the sand and small stones out of my skin I almost destroyed the pillow biting it. The two med students came over to hold my hand when they saw me and I was so happy to have them around,helping me out with all this pills and creme offers from the nurse (they just wanted to give me a whole pharmacy and I wa so tired at that point that I couldn't help myself) after one more call to the assurance a nurse drove me to the hostel.... (of course on a scooter....) to get my papers and back to the hospital (that was maybe the worst, i just needed some rest but we had to fix all this paperstuff first. So I had to sit on the scooter all day long). When finally everything was done, i just got back to the hostel and watched a movie. It still hurt but not as bad and I wasn't on pills so far. In the evening it get worse so I took some painkillers and later some drinks (no need to say anything but I really needed something to forget the day). The beachparty wasn't the best idea for sure but at that point I had everything covered and I wasn't in pain so I went.

My celebrating mood was over when a guy came to me to say sorry. It turned out that he was the mechanic who was supposed to fix the scooter and he told me he had talked to the owner 3 days ago that the frontbreak is broken and it would cost 150.000 Rupiah to fix it (almost 10€) the owner took the scooter back without fixing it and told the mechanic he would just rent it to the next tourist and when it would break down he could ask the tourist to pay for it. The mechanic told me he asked the owner not to because he knew there will be an accident in the next two days and so it happend. But the owner didn't care and rent the scooter to me.

The next day the knee was swollen and the pain was so much worse. I was Leonie-flipping-out-angry and "spoke" to the owner (who of course knew nothing.) he even told me the other guy had no accident (I mean, i was 2 m behind him when it happend and I saw it and he can not walk....). All I wanted at that point was leaving this place but I couldn't even put pants on without screaming so no way of packing and carring a backpack. Back to the hospital (fortunately I found Clemens, the involuntery nurse, who had a friend laying in hospital with dengue so he gave me a ride and bought me cookies and cigarettes while the doctor was cleaning and fixing my knee (again I bite the pillow even more than the day before) I tried to explain, that the skin is not the problem but the knee which was swollen and very painful but they just kept on cleaning the wounds until I draw them a picture of muscels and ligaments. Finally they understood and while they made some tests and spoke to my assurance I could lay down with my new nurse friend and his dengue friend and watch TV. Actually beeing in the hospital in Lombok can be great fun. after 3 days we all knew each other quite well and there was a nice loyality between all of us. Someone is travelling alone? Someone else will come over to hold hands or just to get something from the supermarket. Someone cannot explain the doctor a problem? Someone else will jump in to help. Even my two medicin students came back to look after us but in the end there was pain and still no clue what was wrong with my knee. Since the hospital had no mrt we just could wait. Either it was an infection which went to the inside or it was something with the muscles and ligaments. The doctor finally gave me all of this pills I first didn't want to take in the first plaace (i really didn't care longer, I just wanted that pain to go away) and I sleept for the next 12 hours. The next day was nothing but sitting around, watching movies on my ipad, cleaning the wounds and sleeping and one day later it got a little better. For now I just wait to get away from this place and for the wounds to close (because it's really annoying.... Cant do anything on the beach or whereever and there are flies everywhere which is quite disgusting.) I also miss my shoes since they were in the scooter which is missed too and I dont see the point of paying anything for new shoes just because the people here are shitty assholes. Anyway. I'll leave as soon as possible (for the moment it looks like it's getting better) and until this day I have a really nice company. She has a big cut on her leg too and we are cleaning our wounds together. But her wounds actually look better than mine so I'm thinking of doing it her way: just licking it.  Did I mentioned that she is a dog? ;)

Neighbourdog and me lickingour wounds together...

                                               
EDIT: this post was made one week before. Finally I didn't had to pay the scooter, got back my shoes and could finally leave Lombok. Knee is much better (even after I ripped it again at the rice fields...) and I'm back enjoying this trip :)

Gili Air - Lombok

Gili Air: was quite lazy and ate a lot. Actually there's not really much else to say :D but what a beautiful place! (Well, they definitely need to work on their salty water showers.....!

Lombok: 

loved this beautiful place so hard! - hated it too, later. Found a hostel with smiling, open minded people everywhere

 :) - went to one of those postcard-way-to-beautful-to-be-true-beaches - finally had my own scooter and loved to ride it - went up the hill

to see the sunset and found two girls next two the road who just been almost robed (luckily me and a friend came in time but one of the girls had a cut on her leg from the knife one of the thieves used to cut her bag and was truly shocked (who wouldn't be?)) - drove back with 10 other tourists in a row and felt like a motorgang-member (was so lucky that all these guys showed up and that we all could drive back together) - went to the Pink beach the other day and had two accidents, a small and a bad one (there will be a own text for the accident and all relating to it) - still had a great beachparty that night and regret it now that I went out with that leg. It really got worse the next day and now I can do nothing but waiting and hoping it will get better soon. My whole body feels like one big blue spot and I'm bored but besides the leg and some 

muscle pain I'm okay, fortunately I had a helmet. Let's see if I can move the next days otherwise my trip has to end here (what I neither think or hope). As beautiful this place might be, it seems as if it was accursed: in this 3 days I'm here, we had 3 people with Dengue fever, one with a broke nose from a surf accident, me with the bike accident, 2 girls got robed on the street, 3 are missing some money from the room, one with fever, 2 with a cold, two with blood infection... To be continued... I need to get out of here.

Taman Negara National Parc - Kuala Lumpur

Taman negara national parc and jungle: found this lovely place - stayed way longer than planed - had very inspiring and wonderful conversations with Valentina - helped out in a tourist information - made lots of Makramé bracelets - painted - realized that it was stupid to send back my shoes and went to the jungle barefoot 

(wasn't that "junglish"...) - went to the 

waterfalls and saw lot of beautiful nature - went to the canopy walk (a hanging bridge on top of the trees, highly recoment to do this when you're in malaysia!!) - met more inspiring and beautiful people - had a great time with loads of ice coffee, jamming, painting, bracelet-making, talking, eating and more - became friends with a pregnant cat - babysitted the kitten while mummy slept on my lap and was totally in love - couldn't see any more rice or noodles - got my bikini stolen from the veranda and was told that the my girl neighbours are missing some bras and panties too (wtf....?)

 

no Germany..???

Maaaaakraaaamé and Ice Coffee <3

hello beauty <3

 

Kuala Lumpur: bus had a break down on the way (this had to happen at least once...) - arrived and loved KL unexpected - got totally lost in KL on purpose and walked almost the whole city (china town, little india and city centre) in one day - got insane trying to find a bikini in a muslim country - found nice bras 

instead and frustshopped way too much - had fastfood twice a day after all this rice/noodles.

Terrenganu - Cherating - Jerantut

Terrenganu: broke my thumb capsule on the way (whats wrong with this trip? Did you ever try to put a backpack on without moving your thumb...?) - arrived in Terrenganu - forgot it was friday (praying day) - found everything closed - had to pay a room for more than 10€ once - left.

Cherating: loved it - waited for waves - found out that the waves in Malaysia are way stron

ger than in Morocco - played cards a full day instead - met lovely people including the loveliest italian girl from the whole world - had more awful dates with cockroaches - had the most romantic boat tour ever with lots of fireflies (too bad that I had no handsome guy with me that trip but a group of Chinese tourists...) - hitchhiked with italian Valentina to the jungle - found out that it was not possible to hitchhike the whole way and took the bus instead

Jerantut: found this lovely 2 Ringit Shop (around 50 Cents) - found out that my credit card doesn't work everywhere - left

Backpackers and other Touris

  

When I hear "backpacker" I always think of a cheap and real way of travelling. Like hitchhiking, having the cheapest (but awesome!) food at markets and sleep in tiny dirty rooms. I mean -  you just sleep there and do awesome things over the day so why paying a big room..?

I guess I was wrong. Backpackers in Thailand and Asia just mean people with a backpack. They come here to explore the Asian culture and eat Pizza every day. Don't get me wrong: I love Pizza and it's really nice to have a Pizza or a Burger once in a while. But this isn't really the Asian culture and I'm aware of it, when I have it once a week, because I feel like having one. It's also really great to have wifire and spend some time on facebook. But not the whole day... I met a lot of people, who just came here and drink the whole day (and night). The two questions I heard the most here are: "can I have the wifi password?" And "i think, I need a beer now". Yeah. That's the Asian experience.

There is another thing about Youngsters and travel groups, I don't understand. They all seem to be very lonely (even in a group of 10 peops..). Imagine you almost have the whole beach for yourself. Palmtrees, white sand, great waves and a lot of both, sunny and shadow places. Of course I would sit down right in front of the only two other persons, laying on the beach. No! I would NOT! Well a lot of those "backpackers" would. 100m of beach. At least 7 palm-shade-places but they (always) choose the spot 1,5m next to me. And this happend not only once here. Another one: I'm sitting in a restaurant with nice view of the beach and sunset. 15 of 20 tables are free. A group of fancy youngsters arrives and guess, which table they choose... YES. Of course the one right next to me. But still not enough. One of them wants to have a better view so what they do is pulling their table directly in front of mine. And a second one. Because they all want to face the sunset. My sunset here was a row of fancy youngsters backs. Never had a lovely view like this one. When they saw my face, they started to whisper: "oh, die guckt aber böse" - "ach, die soll sich nicht so haben, wir sind immerhin in Malaysia!" Yeah. We're in Malaysia. Too bad that I speak German too. Guess I'm getting too old for this.

Malaysia - Kota Bharu and Perhantian Kecil

First border crossing: this is worth it’s own story. Wait for it.

Kota Bharu: was lucky enough to tell the driver to keep on driving, when he showed me “the backpacker street” (he just couldn’t believe that I was not up for expensive hostels and burger king/McD around – well I have to admit, I ate there one day later but let’s skip that part, it’s coming in the next post ;)) – tried to explain the driver I REALLY want to stay in this lonely unspectacular nature area – gave up to explain and found a wonderful place with a wonderful family – stayed with them for a couple of days – met some older Germans who were as annoyed from “backpacker”-tourists as I was – had awesome blue rice, chicken and other really nice stuff for less than a Euro at the night market – felt in love with Malaysia not only because of the food – went crazy because of this f***ing flight company which wouldn’t cancel my damn flight (cross finger’s please…) and because of this other f***ing flight comp

any who wouldn’t accept my credit card (seems like I’m kinda stuck here, cause Malaysia is on the “black list”…. bus again, I guess… Heeeeeeey…. -.-) – played with the kids of the family and got a lot (!!!) of love and thankfulness from the stressed out mom – bought new pens for my diary and realized after playing and painting with the kids, I need new ones and a new diary as well ;) – was watched by a huge frog while sitting on the toilet (for real…. Creepy!) again almost cried to say goodbye to this lovely family

Perhantian Kecil: was so scared with all my money at the harbor (cause EVERYONE knows, touris must have a lot of cash, when they head up to an Island without a ATM) – apparently survived with all my stuff – had the fun of my life in the speed boat (you know, if I usually hear speed boat, I think of a fast one, this was speedy Gonzales! We were jumping around and some bags almost escaped ;) yiha!!) – felt in love at first sight with this beautyyyful Island! – found new travelmates and got a nice Bungalow next to the beach – discovered the Island – burned in the sun (sleeping without sun lotion is still not a good idea if it’s cloudy, cause the sun can suddenly appear without noticing.. You know… Yes, Mami, I do know… Not that bad, no worries, it’s more Indianer brown than red ;)) – was haunted by a creepy but beautiful sea-alien-fish-whatever it was – got more tanned than my spanish friends and finally the skin got darker than my hair - snorkeled with some sharks and turtles - got (very) annoyed of all this Youngster’s and wannabe backpackers (see next post) – finally found some time to write the first post – fought with the internet connections and lost – so this post will come together with the second one as soon as I have Internet which is working (well, I don’t complain, an Island right after the Monsoon cannot have the best Wifi…. ;))

Thailand - Bangkok, Krabi, Kho Kho Khao

SO FAR

2,5 weeks already – sorry for not blogging but there’s just too much to do here! Would take too long to write about everything but here’s a small summary:

Flight: ok – they forgot the ladder (running through the whole damn airport to catch the flight) – upgrade to business class by accident – awful dishes(!!) – safely arrived – luggage still in Moscow – meeting Caro (greatest thing, loveliest travelbuddy! :))

THAILAND

Bangkok: hot. Very hot. And very loud (staying directly in the Khao San Road is not the best idea…) - Shopping (cause clothes were in Moscow, you know… We HAD TO….) – ate a scorpion (kind of nice and crispy but legs are creepy) – slept while getting a massage for 2€ - ran into Jost by accident (world’s just so small!) – found the greatest street bar and danced on the street till the very end. – grabbed into the fan, almost lost my thumb and felt really stupid - got more tanned than Caro.

Krabi: not as hot as hot as BKK (yeah!) – “holiday-flowers” everywhere (:)) – had the best burger with the best menu card in my life (better than scorpions!) – had the best razzberry-mojito (well, some of them) and danced with the barmaids and Caro the whole night to 90s – found a even nicer reggae bar with Thai live music – asked for dreads with pearls in it and found my “thai family” through this – went to a small island, called Koh Kho (or kho koh?) Khao with Caro, the Thai family and 2 lovely Canadian girls (where the hell are all these Canadians in Thailand come from???)

Koh Kho Khao: slept on the beach, next to a luxury resort and had the best fresh fish and Thai food ever (you know, if you ask in a restaurant if it’s spicy and the say “a little” it’s mostly a little or a little more, if you ask in Thailand and they say “a little” you will not breathe normally for the next hour. At least. “you’ll get used to it” they said....) – painted at the beach bar – finally won one (of 30) games against the bartender (4 gewinnt) – saw a fire show – had a lovely valentine’s day at the beach and got some flowers from the best fisherman – saw some valentine’s day lampingions in the sky – hated my thumb for not getting better – hated the mosquitos and the sandflies (even more!!) for eating me.

 

Krabi again: decided to stay longer – stayed with our fisherman in a house without running water and permanent electricity – had wonderful singing, dancing, drinking evenings in the world’s best place (the joy bar, doesn’t that says it all…?) – felt in love with the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen (kinda (way) too old for me but you know, just happy to see this face :D) – discovered all too crowed beaches around – found a new species: the fluffy alien (for real, I swear this animal was never seen before!!) – stood at the end of a local bus for an hour and loved/hated it – climbed the tiger temple and it’s 1237 stairs (ouch!) – felt way too good after – didn’t feel any good two days after (double ouch, stairs down were only possible backwards …) – met Jost and his friends again and finally showed him the best place in Krabi ;) – got more tanned than Jost - found some huuuuge cockroaches in our room and screamed like a real girl (I can handle it all but cockroaches... Never) - almost cried by saying goodbye to Krabi and it’s lovely people. Kinda family in this very short time!