Trip to southeast Asia

My summer vacation this year was a three-week trip to South-East Asia, going on a trip spanning Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand. This was my first trip to Asia, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I had been busy most of July traveling for work, so I hadn't had as much time as I would have liked to read guidebooks and prepare, but at least I had managed to book hotels and flights in advance.

I flew out of Amsterdam in the evening of Sat Aug 1st, and surprisingly, I managed to sleep on the plane, so I was actually rested when I arrived at Singapore airport. This was a pretty efficient airport, so it didn't take very long to get to my hotel. I had a fairly nice hotel next to the river, close to the main nightlife areas of Clarke Quay and Boat Quay. This was convenient in the evening for restaurants, but it was some distance away from the metro, so I had to walk a lot. Singapore was more attractive by night, with lots of colored lights everywhere, and a good selection of restaurants. Too bad it was so expensive...the prices for food and drink were very high - close to Norwegian standards! I usually paid 8-10 euro for a beer.



It was pretty easy to get around Singapore on the metro (they called it the "MRT"), but I felt there wasn't all that much to see there. I walked around in Chinatown, visited Little India and the Asian Civilizations museum. This museum was supposed to be one of the best attractions in Singapore, but I was rather unimpressed. They were trying to handle a big, exciting subject with rather poor exhibits, and tried to cover it up by putting computerized talking heads everywhere. It didn't work for me...

You very quickly get used to signs stating various things that are illegal in Singapore. One of the funnier ones was that it was illegal to carry durian on the MRT. Durian, called "The king of fruits" for some reason, is a South-East Asian specialty. It is a big, spiky fruit about the size of a coconut that has a very peculiar smell, and a strange taste. Guidebooks describe it as "eating garlic ice-cream next to an open sewer", and I agree on the sewer part. At first I thought there was an open sewer next to the stand where they were selling it. I figured this was my chance to try this wonder-fruit. The taste was very "different", and I ran around for fifteen minutes trying to find a shop to buy something to rinse out my mouth afterwards. Definitely not something I would try again, but at least I would not wonder about how it would taste. It was quite funny that after tasting it, I would recognize the smell in seconds afterwards, kind of like how one recognizes the smell of marijuana only after tasting it. Several times during my trip I would suddenly think "durian", look around and see a durian stand some distance away. It is probably an acquired taste...



After a couple of days in Singapore I caught a Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur. Entering Malaysia was slightly different. In addition to filling out the arrival card and the customs form (with "DEATH TO DRUG SMUGGLERS" in big red letters on the front...), I had to fill out a H1N1-form stating my current health, and which countries I had visited in the past 7 days. Upon arriving at the airport I had to wait in a big line to hand in this form to nurses in full protective gear, while they used thermal scanners to check my body temperature. Good thing I didn't have a fever at that time, because they had quarantine-areas at the airport for placing foreigners under arrest if they failed the medical screening...

Upon arriving at the airport, I noticed the large number of women in ninja-outfits walking around. Apparently there was some sort of holiday-season in the middle east, so that's why there were women in niqab everywhere. I giggled a bit upon seeing these women shopping for Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik shoes at the KLCC shopping center...

I had a strange taxi-ride to my hotel in Kuala Lumpur. The city was very smelly and damp, the road layout was very messy, and we seemed to be driving in some very bad areas. Suddenly we were stuck in traffic in a really shady neighborhood. I gripped my laptop-bag tightly, fearing someone would rip open the car door and grab it. After a couple of minutes of inching our way through this neighborhood, the guy stopped and declared that this was my hotel. Turns out I had made a mistake with my hotel-booking, so I had managed to get a pretty shitty old hotel in a dubious location for my first night in KL. Good thing it was only for a single night. The room was pretty run down, and the non-adjustable airco seemed to be set for 15 degrees, so it was freezing cold inside. Every time I walked outside the hotel, guys would approach me in the street and offer me prostitutes. The worst part was that the hotel was next to a busy street and a public car park, so I lay awake several hours of the night listening to car alarms. It was a good reminder to spend more time researching before booking hotels online.

Kuala Lumpur seemed to have almost exclusively crooked taxi drivers. It was even worse than The Hague. They would without exception refuse to turn on their meter, and try to charge you a really high fixed price wherever you wanted to go.

In many ways Kuala Lumpur reminded me of Guatemala City. Proper slums, with a number of really up-market shopping malls. Less people with guns around, though...

Wednesday morning it was raining like crazy in Kuala Lumpur when I left for the airport to catch my super-cheap flight to the east coast (40 euro round-trip all-in was pretty good). Having a beach vacation in rainy weather isn't optimal, so I worried about how things would look on the other side. When I got to Kota Baharu however, it was bright and sunny, so there was a big difference between the east coast and the west coast. I was picked up by my driver at the airport, and driven to the boat jetty at Kuala Besut. The resort I was staying at had a private speedboat, so that was my ride to the Perhentian Islands.



I started off with a snorkeling trip right off the pier, on the reef of the main island. I had never gone snorkeling before. This was a very pleasant new experience for me. The water was very warm, crystal clear and there were schools of multi-colored fish everywhere. The reef also had some live coral, and I was amazed at the bright colors of some of the coral species. The "guide" had brought some bait for the fish, and this sent them into a feeding frenzy. I was bitten by some of the smaller fish (nothing serious, but I could feel the teeth), so I felt a bit apprehensive when some of the schools of fish were swarming around me. I never got bitten after the first day, though.

I quickly found out that everything on this island ran on island time, so every activity was at least half an hour late. Some of the activities were very crummy as well. On the first day I was supposed to do "Jungle trekking". Turns out, that was just walking a path to the top of the island and back.

On the second day, I went for a big snorkeling trip. The trip lasted almost four hours, going to four different locations, letting us snorkle with fish, sharks and turtles. I was lucky and spotted two big round-nosed sharks. Lots of people in the boat didn't see any. The giant turtle dive location had lots of stinging jellyfish, so lots of the tourists on the boat didn't go in. I and two other guys got within two meters of some giant turtles, and it was a pretty neat experience. I had to swim really fast to keep up with the turtles.



On the third day I found out that this was a pretty disorganized resort. It was a big surprise to the staff that I was supposed to go snorkeling on that day also (according to the package I paid for), so they sent me to a different dive operator. Turns out their tours started an hour later, so I sat around in the sun waiting for them to fill their boat. This day I went to the shark point again, but the guide this day was more eager, so he pointed out where to go for the sharks. I saw one big pointy-nosed one (probably like a meter and a half long) and one baby shark. Next we went giant turtle snorkeling. I only saw two giant turtles, but I wasn't stung as much by jellyfish this time. In the afternoon, I spent about an hour snorkeling off the house reef just outside the hotel, spotting a squid, some new big fishes, and admiring the colorful live coral.

I was impressed that they had Paulaner on the island, but it was fairly expensive (6 euro). A waitress told me they are not really allowed to serve alcohol, so they have to pay off the police to stop them from raiding the place. I wonder what else they pay them to have a blind eye to. (like the open sewage, burning garbage in the backyard etc). Some of the eastern provinces are very Muslim, with Sharia-law in effect, and I remember being surprised by the number of cars having "DEATH TO AMERICA" and "BOYCOTT USA PRODUCTS"-stickers...

I had bought an all-inclusive package for my stay on this island, since the all-inclusive package was only 10EUR more per day than booking without food. This turned out to be a mistake. They served very basic food, mostly just rice and rendang, and the food was not refilled, so you had to come early, otherwise the food would run out.

After three and a half day of snorkeling and relaxing on the beach, I returned to Kota Baharu. This was a disorganized, and very small airport. My plane was delayed for over an hour, so I had a long wait at the airport. A friend once explained to me the concept of "hot country time", and it looked like it was seriously in effect here, everything seemed to start half an hour to an hour after the stated time.

For my two day city-exploring stay in Kuala Lumpur, I stayed at Le Meridien, a 4 1/2 star hotel next to KL Central Station. Normally I try not to stay close to railway stations, as the surrounding areas tend to be shady. Not so this time, I think this is one of the better hotels I have ever stayed in. Big, comfy bed with euro-style sheets (cheap-ass places tend to have US-style), big room and a great view. The only snag was a very crappy internet connection. Staying so close to the main station made it really easy to explore Kuala Lumpur. Also, the hotel was only 10EUR more per night than the shitty hotel I stayed in for my first night in KL.



I got up really early the next morning to try to get hold of tickets to go to the skybridge of the Petronas towers. I was at the ticket counter an hour before they opened, but the tickets were already out. I guess I should have been there two hours before, but I really wasn't too keen to standing in line for several hours just to go halfway up the tower. I walked over to the KL tower instead, and watched the city from the observation deck.

I spent several hours walking around the city. It is probably one of the more exotic places I have been, right up there with Istanbul. There's a mix of Chinese and Malay culture, some places are really run down, and others are full of glitzy shopping malls. I was surprised there were so few mosques, considering that this is a very muslim country. Walking around, I explored the central part of Kuala Lumpur, and also some areas off the beaten track, after making the normal preparations (visit in daytime, no watch, no camera, carrying only a minimum of cash). Funny how different the articles for sale at the local markets are from the super-touristy markets at Petaling street.

You need to be quick on your feet to walk in KL, since there seems to be very few rules of the road, and traffic lights are mere decorations. Crossing the road means sprinting, and hoping for the best, or trying to make sure there's some car blocking others from driving into you. Sidewalks can also be quite dangerous, as the moped drivers will drive on them if the road is clogged.



Kuala Lumpur does not have much in the way of tourist attractions, so I went to see the national mosque and visited the Islamic Arts museum. They didn't have too many exhibits, but I found the showcasing of different architectural styles in various big mosques and the differences in calligraphy in various versions of the Koran to be interesting. Also, it was nice to be inside an air-conditioned building for a while. I am not used to 32 degrees and high humidity.

My next destination was Cameron Highlands. Cameron Highlands is an area in central Malaysia high up in the mountains (1500m-2000m) where the English set up farms for growing strawberries and tea. They also built hill station resorts where people could go to get out of the punishing heat of Kuala Lumpur (Cameron Highlands is usually never hotter than 22 degrees year-round).

To go there, I had to go by bus from the main bus station in Kuala Lumpur. I had purchased my ticket the day before, but when I showed up at the platform to catch my "Super-VIP bus" (whatever that meant...), my bus was nowhere to be found. There were a bunch of walkie-talkie wielding, chain-smoking bus handlers running around, but they just made motions for me to wait. I figured this was probably hot-country time at work again. After some time, a crowd of frustrated Middle-Eastern tourists also going to Cameron Highlands started shouting at the handlers. Finally, 45 minutes after the bus was supposed to leave, a handler shouted "Kam-run, Kam-run, Kam-run" and pointed down the terminal at a different aisle. Sure enough, there was my bus, crisis averted. Five hours later, I was at my hotel in Cameron Highlands.



I figured I needed a rest day, so I only went for a half-day "Nature Discovery" tour. This was a crowded mini-bus tour driving us to the highest peak in the area, before stopping to let us walk in the mossy cloud-forest. Development have scared away most of the big wildlife, and thieves have stolen the wild orchids, so there wasn't that much to see up there. Just walking through a forest, really. Most people on the trip were happy there were no more tigers up there, but it's sad to see how much of this country has been turned into plantations. One difference from forests back home was that they had lots of bamboo, and I got to see a couple of carnivorous pitcher plants, so it wasn't a total loss. Next we visited a tea plantation, to look at tea fields, and to see a tea factory. Finally we visited a shantytown for the Orang Asli, the local bushmen.
The hotel I stayed in also had amazingly cheap laundry (1/10th of what I would pay in Kuala Lumpur) so I exploited the opportunity to wash clothes for the rest of the trip.



After a five-hour bus-trip, I was back in Kuala Lumpur, and checked into the fancy five-star Crowne Plaza hotel I had booked to recover. This was a proper five-star, with a fantastic bathroom, at the price of a three-star in Europe. The weather was very rainy, and there wasn't all that much left to see in KL, so I enjoyed the king-size bathtub that came with the hotel room. By consulting my guidebooks, I found a hidden street full of upscale restaurants, so I ended my stay in Kuala Lumpur with a great meal.



The next morning I flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Siem Reap is the tourist hub of Cambodia, being the site of the Angkor Wat temple complex. I had been slightly anxious about going to Cambodia, as I didn't have a visa. My foreign department web pages told me I needed one, but it was very hard to find any information on how to get one. Fortunately, it was really easy. I just had to bring a passport photo and pay $25, and everything was OK. I rented a taxi for the day, and visited the main temples of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm on the first day.



The temples were pretty interesting, some of them very nicely restored, but it was a real pain with the street sellers around the temples. Before the taxi had even stopped, there would be a couple banging on the windows shouting "MIS-TAH! MIS-TAH! guide-book? ONE DOLLAH! look, nice has colors and pictures and everything! ONE DOLLAH!". It's cute the first time, but after about 240 such approaches in just a couple of hours, it gets old. It was also really annoying how some of them would follow me around after I told them no.

It was extremely hot in Cambodia, and there was also a lot of moisture in the air, so I felt like I was being steamed alive. According to my guide/taxi driver this was the cold period, so I imagine the hot season must be unbearable.



On my second day in Cambodia I went to a more remote temple, Bantay Srei (the pink temple). This was much smaller than the other temples I had visited, and completely overrun by tour groups. The carvings were much more ornate, and better restored than the temples I had seen the previous day, so it was still interesting. On the way back, I stopped at the Land Mine Museum, a small museum showcasing various types of land mines removed by mine clearers. They also had some educational videos, and all the profits went to support children injured by land mines.



My taxi drove me around the countryside, allowing me to see rice fields, wooden shacks and water buffalos before going to see some smaller temples that were less popular with tourists. I especially liked Preah Khan, as it was fairly large and overgrown with jungle, like Ta Prohm, but there were almost no tourists.

At this point I was pretty fed up with temples, so I went for a boat trip on the Mekong river and the Ton Le Sap lake to look at floating villages. The floating villages are sort of a tourist trap, with the guides taking you to buy overpriced school supplies before you go to visit a local school. Still, it was a different experience, and my guide on the boat got really friendly after a couple of beers, telling me about his dream to become a language teacher...I spent the afternoon recovering from the hot and humid day by relaxing at the excellent pool at my hotel.

After two days in Cambodia, I left for Thailand, flying to Koh Samui. Samui had a really fancy, small airport. I remember being impressed with the huge fish-tank in the men's room. I took a ridiculously expensive taxi from the airport to the beach resort I was staying at. Turns out, calling it a beach resort was stretching the term a bit, since it only had beach access at low tide. Walking to the main street and to the main beach took me 25 minutes, so not a very good location. The main reason I booked this was that everything else was full, this being the high season for Samui. I was staying at the main beach in Samui, Chaweng, and this was seriously overdeveloped. There was not an inch of beach that was not connected to some hotel resort or restaurant. The "main street" was really nasty and crowded, full of touts selling counterfeit goods and massage girls. There was also a lot of traffic, mostly empty taxis, songchaews, motorcycle-taxis and advertisement-vans.
I gave up on exploring the island, and spent a few days relaxing by the pool. On my final day it was raining heavily, so I went to the airport and managed to charm the girl at the Bangkok Airways ticket counter into letting me switch to an earlier flight to Bangkok.



Wednesday morning I started out fairly early, spending some time figuring out the monorail/metro system. There were lots of transportation issues in Bangkok. Overall I seemed to spend a lot of time getting around. Traffic was more or less permanently gridlocked because of poor urban planning, so taxis were no option. Tuk-tuk's were cheaper, but they seemed to be stuck in traffic just as often as the taxis. Also, you're more exposed to traffic and exhaust fumes, and the tuk-tuk drivers seemed more sleazy. I only used the tuk-tuk twice, and both times, after they start driving, they went "You like dirty massage? You like fuck?" and started showing pictures of hookers. This is a problem with traveling alone as a guy. It's harder to shake the pimps when you're not bringing a woman. I'm getting quite good at getting rid of them now, having developed some technique from having stayed for three weeks in Turkey and also from traveling in general. They're also quite easy to spot, long before they open their mouth, because of body language combined with appearance. Instantly when I spot them, I know that whatever this guy is selling, I don't want it. I think the key is never engaging and just keeping pace and dismissing them. The moment you show interest, you are screwed; I remember one guy following me for five blocks trying to sell me pottery in Istanbul after I made the mistake of responding to him. I had heard stories about how persistent they are at pushing prostitutes in Thailand, but I didn't find it that bad, usually they back off straight away. The trinket and guidebook sellers around the temples in Angkor on the other hand...REALLY annoying.

There was also motorcycle taxis available, but I heard enough stories not to get on one, and I could also see how the guys were driving, running red lights, driving on sidewalks and against the flow of traffic.

Metro and Skytrain(Monorail) were not very useful for tourists, as the main tourist attractions are in the old town, and the metro/skytrain doesn't run there. The easiest way to get to the main attractions was to take the ferry upriver and walk. Unfortunately, the ferries stop running fairly early, so I found myself walking quite a lot. Still, it was faster than using taxis. Bangkok is not the easiest city to navigate on foot, as only main streets seem to be signposted intermittently with western-script names. I remember walking for almost half an hour without seeing a single sign in western alphabet

There's not a whole lot of things to see in Bangkok, so the main sites are pretty overrun with tourists. On my first day in Bangkok, I visited Wat Phra Kaeo (The shrine of the emerald buddha) and the Grand Palace complex. I must say I only found the shrine interesting. It is also rather crowded. Next I went to see the reclining buddha at Wat Pho, also not very interesting.



I went to see the Khao Sanh Road - the western ghetto of Bangkok. I found this enjoyable, a whole street living off the backpacker tradition, selling T-shirts, tattoos and backpacking equipment. It was also fun to see all the 19-year old backpackers fresh off the plane, searching for hostels and such.



Since there was not all that much to see in Bangkok, I went on a day trip to Ayutthaya, taking an early morning train to go up there. Ayutthaya is the old capital of Thailand (Siam at the time), and contains a number of older temples, some of which were razed by the Burmese when they invaded. I expected a lot of hassle with taking local trains to go up there, but the train conductors spoke basic English, and were very friendly, telling me when I needed to get off, and showing me which train to get on. This was very helpful in Ayuthaya, since they did not have a board showing which track the train would come in on. I rented a Tuk-Tuk for three hours to go from site to site, costing me a reasonable 12 Euro. Some of the sites were nice, but the temples felt somewhat repetitive. I went for a super-touristy elephant ride around a couple of the temples. It was intensely uncomfortable. I was alone on the elephant, and I found the saddle moving around quite a lot, so it didn't feel very safe at first. The saddle rocks back and forth quite a lot and this is very tiring. I see that in India they tend to put people sideways on the elephants. Maybe it gets easier with practice...regardless I'm not entirely convinced at how useful elephants are for transportation.




For my final days in Bangkok, I visited the Snake Farm, Wat Arun and Jim Thompson's house. The snake farm is a snake museum displaying live specimens of venomous and non-venomous snakes. This museum is connected to one of the main hospitals in Bangkok, and the purpose of he farm is to milk snakes for venom in order to produce serum for treating snake bites. They also do a very touristy show where the handler show off venomous snakes and then piss them off as much as possible.



"Jim Thompson's house" was a preserved traditional Thai teak mansion, not terribly interesting. Wat Arun ("temple of dawn") is a landmark temple along the Chao Phraya river, lavishly decorated with shards of broken Chinese pottery.

Overall I felt there wasn't that much to see and do in Bangkok, so spending four days there was too much. At least I had a nice hotel with free internet and a proper pool.

My favorite parts of the trip were snorkeling in Malaysia and exploring temples in Cambodia. Both Malaysia and Cambodia felt pretty exotic, while Thailand felt pretty touristy. Thai people were not so good at speaking English. Malay people were way better, but then again, they have the colonial heritage. One funny thing with the Malay was that they would understand UK English words only, so I had to ask for "the bill" rather than "the check" at restaurants.

It amazed me how cheap the local flights were in Malaysia. The flights I took in Thailand were more or less the same price as you would pay in Europe

I had a good three-week vacation, taking my mind off things back home and giving me a nice introduction to Asia. I will definitely go back to Asia, and now I know more what to expect.

Pictures:

Singapore

Malaysia

Cambodia

Thailand

Road trip to the Alps

I started out pretty early on Friday June 12th, to try to avoid the traffic in Holland. It is 7.5 hours of driving time to Munich, I think I spent 9.5 hours, because I took a lot of breaks (driving alone can be tiring). I managed to avoid queues so I had a fairly OK drive down there.

I also found it enjoyable to watch the exotic cars speed by when I got close to Munich. I see a lot of exotic cars in The Hague, but they're usually parked or stuck in traffic like the rest of us. Warms your heart a little to see them zipping around at high speeds on the freie fahrt-zone on the Autobahn.

My hotel in Munich was pretty easy to find, it was just off the Frankfurter Ring. The only complex thing about it was that they had one of those parking garages with car elevators, so I found it slightly tricky to park. You had to build up speed to get climb onto the ledge of the elevator and then slam on the brakes before you hit the wall. I managed to do it without incident, but I had to go back and forth a few times before I hit the spot. With the car safely stowed, I went for a brief sightseeing in the center before going to a haxenhaus to get my dinner. Munich has a lot of tourists, and the haxenhause was a predictably industrial and expensive tourist machine. They had good food and beer, though, so I was happy.



Saturday morning I drove towards Hohenschwangau, through lots of small towns, and in the end I drove on the last part of the Romantischer Straße, which had very good views. I arrived around 10.30 in Hohenschwangau and had no problems getting a parking spot. I bought tickets for the guided tours of the castles, and walked around for a bit while waiting for my first tour to begin. The royals building these castles had a thing for swans, so there were swan-paintings, swan-statues and swan-fountains everywhere. The Hohenschwangau castle had a huge swan on top of it which made the castle look funny to me, like it was the lair of a super-villain or something...



Both the castles had pretty good English-speaking tour guides, although it wasn't always that easy to hear what they said, because some of the tourists brought along screaming kids. Neuschwanstein is the impressive one, the one that inspired the castle in Disneyland and apparently it was so expensive it almost bankrupted the Bavarian state. The mad prince building all of these castles had an unfortunate drowning accident in very shallow water, so the castle was never finished. What they did finish there is still pretty impressive (Though not on the same scale as, say Versailles or Dolmabahce Sarayi)

The scenery is pretty nice around the castles with pointy mountains, valleys, lakes and streams. It was a very sunny day, so I took a detour down to my car from Neuschwanstein, escaping the crowds of tourists by walking down some unmarked trails. I had a nice 45 minutes walk down through the forest before getting into the steaming hot car I had left at the parking lot. Airco at full blast and driving with open windows for a while mostly took care of that, but it was still not very comfortable driving in the heat. I also got very drowsy, and almost fell asleep at the wheel. I freaked when that happened, pulled the car over to the side in a small village and slept in the back of the car for 15 minutes. That helped a lot, and I was able to do the rest of the four hour drive to Austria without being too tired.

Having a navigation device in the car is pretty handy, but sometimes it takes you for a ride to places you would rather not be. This day, it took me on a scenic detour through the Bavarian countryside, sometimes on single-lane farm roads. As a result I got in pretty late to Hallstatt, my destination in Austria, supposedly the prettiest one of the lakeside villages in the Salzkammergut region (Here's the video, Lukasz :-).



Driving was more entertaining in Austria, with very active driving on the last part past Gosau. The roads are very windy, and from the road you can see the Gosaukamm, which is just gorgeous. There's no cars in Hallstatt, so you have to park your car in the parking lots outside the village, but I got lucky and found a spot on the closest one. I had some trouble finding the gasthof I was staying in (only had the printed address, and no directions to get there), but after calling the owner I managed to find it, just off the main square. I spent the evening relaxing with a weissbier on my balcony while sorting my pictures of the day on my laptop.

Sunday morning I drove to the other side of the lake, to get to the gondola taking me up to Krippenstein. From there I walked the touristy path to the "five fingers" viewing platform overlooking Hallstatt. After doing the touristy thing, I did a small hike (four hours or so) around Heilbronner Kreuz down to the bottom lift. It was still early in the season, and there was lots of snow, so I spent a lot of time walking in snow. It was nice to walk around and look at the Dachstein-mountains, but large parts of the path were really skiing areas. I enjoy more hiking in unspoiled nature. I forgot to bring sunscreen up there, so I got horribly sunburnt. In general, there was not a whole lot to do in the evenings in Hallstatt other than drink beer on the balcony and admire the great view.

Monday June 15th, I got up early, paid my bill and took off towards the Grossglockner Hochstraße, one of the most scenic roads in Austria. The weather was very gray and it was not a very good day for crossing the pass. The road itself is pretty windy and steep, so I had to switch to manual gearbox to get up at a decent speed. The road had lots of nice stopoff points, so it would have been a really nice drive if the weather had been better. I didn't bother to take the side trips to the major viewpoints, since the weather was so bad I couldn't see the view anyway. I saw a bunch of marmots on and next to the road, and that was probably the most interesting part of the drive.

Going down to Heiligenblut was very nice. There were very steep valleys filled with postcard-perfect features like snow-covered mountains, flowery meadows and lots and lots of cows. I did the touristy thing and stopped to take THE picture in Heiligenblut - the church in the middle of the valley, unfortunately not with the classic snow-covered mountain backdrop (because of the fog).



I kept on driving through Lienz, going past some really impressive mountains into the Hochpustertal, crossing into Italy. I found my hotel in Dobbiaco pretty quickly, but had some problems checking in at first, because the clerk did not speak English or German. As luck would have it, I had printed the confirmation from the hotel before leaving from The Hague, so everything was resolved when I pulled out the piece of paper. The weather was still pretty shitty, so I spent the afternoon shopping for pasta, Limoncello and maps. This was pretty much off-season, and I had a hard time finding a place to have lunch. I ended up buying some stuff at a supermarket, and imbibing it and a Paulaner in my room. Luckily I had booked a hotel with food, so dinner was taken care of. They had decent food at the place, and I got a three-course dinner every evening. The waitresses mostly spoke Italian, but I know enough of the touristy basics to get served, so it worked out. Overall, the hotel was amazingly cheap. I paid 53 EUR a night for a decent room with breakfast and a proper dinner included.

Tuesday was the day I had planned to go see the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. I had been wanting to see this since I was in the Western Dolomites two years ago, and just like thoughts of a woman you could never get, my thoughts of this mountain had grown to an obsession. I was really in despair the evening before when all I could see were clouds. I was a lot more positive in the morning, when I could see some blue between the clouds. This could work out! I drove over to Lago di Misurina and started driving the incredibly steep toll road leading up to Rifugio Aurunzo, at the foot of the Tre Cime. The road was so steep I had to drive most of the way in first gear. At first it looked like the clouds were lifting. When I got up to the parking lot at the top, though, the fog was enveloping everything. You couldn't even see the base of the mountains. I was in a bad mood starting the walk around the peaks, but I figured I'd make the best of it. At least I would be getting some hiking in. I walked around, exploring some WW1 Italian trenches on the way. This was the front line in WW1 between Austria-Hungary and Italy, so there's trenches and bunkers criss-crossing these mountains. One of the trenches was also the entry-point to a via ferrata. I didn't have climbing gear and besides, I'm really not fond of heights, so I chickened out. I saw lots of other people walking it, though veery slowly.



When I arrived at Rifugio Locatelli, the wind suddenly picked up, and the clouds around the Tre Cime cleared up. I was able to see all of them from the perfect viewing position. I was ecstatic, snapping photos like crazy and taking in this amazing view. Half an hour further down the trail, the heavens opened, and I was hiking in the rain. I didn't mind too much, I had brought gore-tex clothing, and I had seen what I came for - the Tre Cime. The thunderclouds made them seem even more dramatic, so I had a very nice hike around them, going back to the car. In total, the hike was about four and a half hours. It was still only 2 o'clock, so I figured I could go sightseeing and have lunch in Cortina D'Ampezzo. Before departing from the Hague I had briefly considered staying there, but Dobbiaco was cheaper, and closer to the trails, so I ended up there. I'm glad I did, because Cortina was a real ghost town out of season. Everywhere I went they claimed they were "chiuso per mangiare", so I couldn't have lunch anywhere. I ended up driving back to Dobbiaco. There were some really nice mountains around Cortina, but I'd rather go there in winter, in season.



I had no internet access, no weather forecasts, and the weather looked really gloomy, so I decided to leave for Switzerland the next day.

The next day, the weather was perfect, and it would have been a nice day for hiking. Instead I wasted it driving for six hours to Interlaken...hmpf! The scenery is pretty nice in the northernmost part of Italy, with lots of really picturesque villages. This changed when I went through the Brenner Pass, going into Austria. Italy looks better, for sure. On the other hand I was, for a moment, very impressed with Austria when I discovered that in places they served Schweinhaxe and beer at the gas stations. If only I had been driving with someone...

I drove through Arlberg and then through Liechtenstein, before going across Switzerland to get to Interlaken. I spent a lot of time paying road tolls, stopping four times for toll booths and one time to get the sticker for the Swiss road-tax. Also, I had to look out for speed cameras in Switzerland, since my navigation device does not do cameras for Switzerland (it is illegal...)

I had no hotel room booked for Interlaken, but I was hoping for the best. I was visiting slightly off-season and there's a large number of hotels there. Turns out, there was no problem getting a decent hotel with parking and wi-fi. This being Switzerland, it was almost twice the price I paid in Austria and Italy.
Interlaken is the hiking capital of Switzerland, and the tourist machine is well oiled with lots of restaurants, hotels and easy access to the hiking paths through trains to the starting points of the lifts. For me, having a car, it was even easier with large, cheap parking lots right at the bottom of the lifts.

Having internet in my room, I had finally been able to check the weather forecast and it was not good. It looked halfway okay for Thursday and really bad for Friday, so I decided to go to the top of the Jungfrau on Thursday. It would have been bad to go up there and not have a view.



At first I balked at the price for the tickets to go up to the Jungfraujoch - 110 euros just to take the train from the valley floor to the top of the mountain. (Incidentally, that is more or less the price of a return ticket to Paris from The Hague...)
The trains are very crowded, and people come from all over the world to see this. Every year 500.000 tourists go up to the Jungfraujoch in these trains, so it's pretty much one of the most popular tourist attractions in Europe. It's pretty crowded at the top, but the view from the sphinx observatory was pretty good. From the observatory you can also access the Aletch glacier. I walked for about one hour to get to the Mönch-hütte, below the summit of the Mönch. It wasn't a very inspiring walk, but it was nice to "hike" at 3600m, and I was pretty eager to do something after having been cooped up for an hour with hundreds of Indians on the train.
The train ride down was very long and boring. It took about an hour and a half to get back down to Grindelwald. I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for hiking gear in the excellent shops in Interlaken, and had a couple of beers on the hotel roof watching the sunset over the Jungfrau.



The next morning it was raining and there was fog covering all the mountains around Interlaken. I figured it could be different once I got 1000m further up, so I drove to Grindelwald and took the gondola up to First. Up there, I was just above the clouds, and I started walking towards Faulhorn, a popular hike around Grindelwald. Unfortunately, the weather changed quite rapidly, so soon I was hiking in wind and rain, and by the time I got to the top of Faulhorn I was walking in thick fog, rain and heavy side-wind. So much for seeing the fabulous view from Faulhorn. The benefit of bad weather, of course, was that there were no other tourists out, so I walked pretty close to several grouses on my way up to the summit. The hike only lasted about four hours or so, and it was only 600 meters or so of elevation, but it felt more strenuous, because of the bad weather. I drove back to Interlaken and spent a fair amount of time heating up in the shower. I decided then and there that there was no point in moving on to Chamonix, since the weather forecast for the next couple of days looked pretty bad. Luckily, I hadn't booked any hotels, so I could just drive home whenever I felt like it.



I tried to send my mother a text message but couldn't get through. I was pretty upset over this. In the period when I was traveling, my mother was hospitalized, so I had been sending her text messages every day (since I could not call her, see earlier blog post about Dutch phone service...), but for some reason inside Switzerland I could not send messages, with any carrier. I wrote a complaint to T-mobile customer service, but they just replied that for certain countries they had no reciprocal agreement for text messages, and they couldn't list which countries these were. I'm really starting to regret switching cell phone carrier now.

I spent the evening having dinner at a really excellent Italian restaurant close to "Interlaken west". They had really good food and it was also fairly cheap.

Saturday I got up at 8 and started driving back to Holland. People were driving really slowly in Switzerland, but the pace picked up when I crossed the border into Germany. I drove past Schwarzwald before my navigation unit routed me through France, Luxembourg and Belgium. I was back home around 19.00.

Overall: I did 3000 km driving in 9 days - way too much for driving alone. I managed too see most of the stuff I wanted to see, like the castles in Bavaria, the Tre Cime, and the view from to the top of Jungfraujoch. I did manage to go hiking in the Salzkammergut, but it wasn't as good as I expected. Will definitely try Carinthia instead the next time I go hiking in Austria. The Dolomites is my favorite region for hiking, but the weather was bad the days I was there. Better luck next time, hopefully. The Jungfrau-region was pretty crowded, and "industrial", so not my favorite kind of hiking. Also, the weather was really bad the one day I hiked there, so overall I didn't get to do as much hiking as I wanted to. I guess I was just trying to fit too many destinations into my trip. It would probably have been better to just pick two destinations and have one fallback destination if the weather had turned bad.

Unfortunately I did not make it to Chamonix either, so I will have to save that for some time when the weather is nicer...

Here are my pictures from Bavaria, Austria, Tre Cime and the Jungfrau area.

Krakow

I went to Krakow for a long weekend trip with Lukasz between 4 June and 8 June. We went there to go to the Selector music festival and to visit Paulina, Kuba and Dominika. Unfortunately, there were no longer direct flights from AMS to Krakow, so we had to fly via Warzawa. After five hours of traveling, Paulina picked us up at the airport.

At 20 past eight in the evening, there was a celebratory drink to celebrate 20 years since the fall of communism in Poland. We did our part, and had a couple of celebratory shots, while a slideshow of "Solidarnosc"-pictures was playing on a big screen TV in the bar. I missed some singing of the national anthem or something like that. Or...maybe they did. Maybe "Na zdrovje" IS the national anthem of Poland... Later on we had a nice dinner at a traditional Polish restaurant at the main square, where we also linked up with Dominika. We spent the evening boozing it up in some cellar clubs in the center.

Lukasz and I spent most of Friday hanging out with Dominika, drinking wine and vodka at various downtown cafes. We met up with Dominika's friend Ula, and together with Paulina and Kuba, we made our way down to the festival area - Krakowskie Blonie. Kuba had this idea that we should stay away from the watered down beer at the festival, so he bought some bottles of wine, so we could get properly drunk before entering the festival area.



It was a nice festival area, with almost no queues. The only exception was the beer area, which quickly became very crowded. There were lots and lots of Norwegians there, and I found it very strange to hear so many people speak Norwegian at a random festival in Poland. They were probably there for the Røyksopp-concert. We first saw Fisherspooner - a very artsy electronic act with lots of interpretative dance and strange video stuff. Next up was Franz Ferdinand, who played a very good concert. Their set was also very long, more than one hour and 30 minutes. I was mostly waiting for the Røyksopp concert, but I was pretty disappointed when they finally started playing. Their presentation was pretty messy, they seemed unprofessional, and for the singing parts they brought Anneli Drecker. She couldn't really pull off some of the songs, and she missed a lot of notes, so it sucked pretty bad. We left early, went back to the apartment and sampled some other Norwegian culture instead - Norwegian Viking Fjord Blåbær (blueberry) vodka.

Saturday we spent the morning hanging out at various bars in Kazimierz, having dinner at an Italian place. Kuba was making fun of me, as I was not entirely present. I had come more or less straight off an exercise to this trip, so I was pretty tired and backed up on sleep. Somehow after a few good chugs of wine on the way over to the festival area, I started waking up, and suddenly I was teaching various people how to shout "Visa pattarna!!" at concerts (I told them it meant "good concert, play more!" >;-)

The first band we watched was a Brazilian band called CSS. Next we rocked out to a DJ set by a German duo named "Digitalism" - it was pretty good! We tried to go to the chillout lounge, but it was overcrowded, so we tried the next tent where some crappy DJ was playing (I forgot the name). We didn't want to hang around for the last band, so we went back to the apartment for some more blueberry vodka. After a couple of shots, things got weird. Details shall remain classified, but they include the ritual spilling of coke zero, Schnappi - das kleine Krokodil, exotic underwear, large quantities of vodka, listening to Max Raabe and Franek Kimono.



Sunday morning Kuba got up at 10am to go to a wine tasting. We thought he was just kidding the evening before when he mentioned this. Where do you get the stamina to go to a wine tasting at 10am after drinking until 4am the night before? Respect!

The rest of us were in no shape to follow him, so we didn't get to the wine tasting until 12 or so. Nothing like being slightly hung over and put in a room with lots of upper class people doing a very formal tasting of Hungarian wines. Also, the wines were pretty bad, but I'm picky about wine. Also, I think drinking large quantities of vodka the night before did not do wonders for my palate. After the wine tasting Paulina & Kuba went off to vote in the european elections. The rest of us were rebels and chose to drink instead (not to mention that I am not eligible to vote).



Apparently this was a Hungarian day in Krakow. We were tasting Hungarian wine in the morning, there were various stands at a square letting you taste Hungarian wine from various producers, and they also had a stage with various performers playing Hungarian music while some dancers were doing some traditional Hungarian folk dances. To top it off, we had dinner at a Hungarian restaurant.
In the evening we went to see Terminator- Ocalenie (Terminator Salvation, thankfully they didn't dub the movie in Polish, they only had subtitles. It still sucked, though) .

Monday Lukasz and I spent the day being touristy in the center before flying back to Holland.

Pictures are here.

Cell phone issues

I'm getting pretty used to living in Holland by now, but every so often, something reminds me that I am, indeed, in Holland. One thing I am never getting used to is regular, "respectable" companies trying to screw you over whenever you sign a contract. Contracts here are often complex, and you may need a lawyer to read through before you sign, especially if you're buying something big. I'm not used to this from Norway. In Norway, a contract may be declared illegal if the company tries to violate basic consumer rights, or tries to get you to sign away rights you are afforded by law. Companies trying to do these things in Norway would be considered crooks. In Holland this kind of behavior is considered normal.

When I first moved down here, I tried to get by with a "pay as you go"-phone. That didn't work out very well, since KPN charged me about 1 Euro per minute whenever I tried to call the service hotlines of my cable company, IKEA et al. (0900-numbers). Also, I managed to run out of cash after waiting for half an hour in line at the Casema help line. I figured, the way to end this was to get a subscription.

This turned out to be easier said than done. At the Mediamarkt, the girl at the cell phone section refused to accept my "not so filthy foreigner"-card (happens a lot, Dutch people don't like foreigners, and my id card has a different color than the regular "filthy foreigner card"), so I had to go back and get my passport in order get a subscription. A couple of weeks later, I received a friendly letter from KPN stating that they could see I was a foreigner (since I had to identify myself with a passport, probably), so they refused to give me a cell phone subscription. This, however could be rectified, if I would kindly pay my subscription in advance for the next THREE YEARS!

Naturally, I didn't go for that, so I walked down the street to the Vodaphone store, which was very happy to give me a subscription right away. One thing I didn't notice until after I got the subscription was that Vodaphone was very expensive. Cell phone subscriptions in Holland work differently from a lot of other places in that you have a relatively high monthly fee, but you can potentially get some of that back in the form of a pool of cash that you can use for calling. This pool of cash is called the "bundel", and there's usually a lot of rules for when and how you can use this. Typically it can only be used for calls within the Netherlands, sometimes only in evenings and weekends, sometimes some types text messages are not included, and there are lots of other rules that may apply. In the case of my Vodaphone subscription, I had a high monthly fee, but the "bundel" went away automatically after two months. Also, the bundle was almost useless to me, as it could not be used for foreign traffic (calling abroad, being called while abroad) and data traffic. This is about 99% of my phone bill in general, so it was pretty significant. I ran up some pretty big phone bills. In Europe there are laws regulating how much the cell companies can gouge customers on international calls. This applies, of course, only within the EU, so after I came back from a trip to the US, I had a phone bill that was three times the normal amount. I decided to do something about it and ditch my provider.

First I had to wait until my contract period with Vodaphone expired. Next I went to a T-mobile shop, and they told me I could get this subscription which lets you do absolutely everything from the "bundel", which meant I would cut my monthly phone bill by about 75%. Naturally, I signed up, but getting rid of my Vodaphone subscription would take THREE MONTHS. I've never experienced it taking so long to port a simple phone number!

My number was ported, my sim card was working, everything seemed pretty good, until I went for a weekend trip to Krakow, and discovered, I could not call my sister in Norway. On every network I tried, I got a voice in Polish telling me that my phone was blocked from calling this number.

When I got back to Holland, I called the T-mobile help desk to figure out why my phone was blocked. They told me that since I was a foreigner I could not be trusted, so they had blocked my phone from making international calls for the first two months. I told them that this was the first time I had heard such a thing, and they replied: "It's in the voorwarden.". Essentially they had sold me a cell phone subscription that was useless outside of Holland, without telling me so.

But, being very helpful, they could turn off the block if I paid my subscription in advance FOR THE NEXT YEAR!!

With your sim card you get a small booklet with terms and conditions, I read through this, and found no mention of the two month blocking period she had mentioned. I did, however, find a mention of a 15 euro fee per incident if you complain too much about your phone bill.

In Holland, there is always another clause...

Madrid & Andalucia

I went to Spain from Wed 29 April to Tue 05 May, flying into Madrid and using trains for ground transportation.

My hotel in Madrid was far to the North of the city center, about half an hour by metro. I only had three trips to the city center throughout my stay, so I felt it was worth it, considering it was half the price of the more central hotels. Thursday morning I took the metro downtown, walking around the historic center of Madrid. I didn't bother to wait in line at the royal palace, but I visited the Cathedral. I was very impressed by the ceiling. This cathedral has white walls and a multicolored ceiling with really bright colors.

Next I visited the bullfighting arena at Ventas. This is a very nice building with Moorish-style arches and a bullfighting museum. I figured there's not that many bullfighting museums around, so I checked it out. It had a range of exhibits featuring famous bullfighters' suits, stuffed heads of particularly brave bulls and bullfighting equipment. It was pretty small, and the museum smelled funky from being located above the stables of the bullring, but it was different, and free.




There's a couple of must-sees in Madrid, and those are the Reina Sofia museum and the Prado museum. The Reina Sofia has contemporary art, while the Prado has classical art.

The Reina Sofia museum wasn't that interesting to me. It had a messy presentation, lots of sections were closed off, so the posted museum maps were incorrect. Some of the sections I wanted to visit were closed off. Also, there were long lines to see the famous "Guernica"-painting by Picasso. I guess most people were there just to see that one.

The first thing that struck me about the Prado, was the disorganized entry hall. You had to go one place outside for tickets, then to the coat-check, then line up for security, but there was not all that much in the way of signs, so there were plenty of confused tourists around. There were lots and lots of tourists, the whole place felt crowded. Not as crowded as the Louvre, though. I spent my time there looking at the Goya paintings and the ones by the Dutch painters.


Next I walked around the park and stopped to look at the Satan-statue. The statue of the "Angel Caido" is supposedly the only public statue of Satan in Europe. The statue could have been cooler, though. He looked just like a regular angel, with some snakes added to make him look bad.

In the evening, I had my dinner at an "American Restaurant" downtown (Yes I know, tourist trap, but sometimes it's nice if the waiters speak English). Interesting to have coleslaw served with your steak, but in general the food sucked. I had a really horrible piece of meat that was supposed to be sirloin. Guess I should have gone outside the touristy districts for my dinner.

Friday morning I took the train to Granada. First time I had to go through security lines to use the train. Then again, after the terrorist train bombings of 2004, I can see why they're being careful. There was limited public transport in Granada, so there were huge lines for the taxis. Also, there were no taxi attendants, and people cut in line like crazy. I notice cutting in line seems to be a very Spanish thing, almost everywhere where there's a line I see people trying to cheat. I almost got in a fight with one guy that stole my taxi. I found this puzzling, the guy was willing to fight to spend about one minute less waiting for a taxi. Sober and in broad daylight...

I finally got to my hotel and walked up to the ticket office at Alhambra to pick up my ticket for the next day. I spent the afternoon walking around the old Arab neighborhood of Albayzin. There were lots of tourists walking around, but then again, Granada is one of the top tourist destinations in Spain, and this was a public holiday. I noticed most of the tourists were Spanish.




Saturday I got up really early and made my way up to Alhambra. Alhambra (from Al-Ambra, "The red one", or "The red fortress") was the final outpost of the Moors in Europe, and it is one of the main tourist attractions of Spain. It's a fortress containing the palaces of the Nasrid rulers and a huge garden (Generalife).

I got up there around 8 and I was almost alone in the fortress. It was pretty neat walking around the area with almost no other tourists around. For entry to the palaces they have time-stamped tickets, because they only let in 300 at the time. This is a good thing, because they estimate 8000 tourists visit the site every day, and throughout the year they have over 2 million visitors. Even with the restrictions, it was pretty cramped inside the palaces. The inscriptions on the walls and arches were very interesting, and so different from decorations in other palaces I've been to. I must say the experience was not that great because the place was so crowded. You have a very good view from the towers of the fortress. On one side you can see Granada below and the picturesque Albayzin-district, and on the other you see across the gardens towards the snow-covered Sierra Nevadas. I just had to snap a photo of having both palm trees and snow-covered mountains in the same view. Not too many places in the world you can do that... The Generalife gardens were pretty boring, just a bunch of trees and some rose gardens. I suppose I was there at the wrong time of year, maybe it's better later in the summer.

I spent the afternoon walking around the Albayzin, and had a crappy dinner at an outdoor restaurant. I don't know how I keep picking bad restaurants. I spend a lot of time doing it too, so it's usually easier if I travel with someone and just let them pick. Also, eating alone at restaurants sucks, so I try not to do it too much.

Sunday I got up really early and got on the train to Sevilla. I had a very good view of the Andalucian landscape from the train. At first you see very red soil and cacti along the side of the train track. The whole area reminded me of Sedona, and I can see why they chose this area to make western movies. Further to the east of Granada is the desert where they made the classic spaghetti-westerns like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "For a fistful of dollars". As you get closer to Cordoba, you see endless rows of olive trees, filling the rolling hills as far as the eye can see. Also, dotted around the landscape are small villages of white houses, sometimes with a fortress on a small hill nearby. Getting closer to Sevilla, you start seeing palm trees and flocks of bulls grazing. This is where they breed the fighting bulls for the corrida.

My hotel was in the city center of Sevilla, so it was pretty convenient for walking around downtown. I visited the Real Alcazar, the royal fortress, which had a lot of the same types of decorations as they had in the palaces of the Alhambra. I liked the Alhambra more. There's some fairly big royal gardens outside. Looks like Sevilla gets a lot more international tourists , you hear people speaking English or French around you everywhere you go. It was a lot hotter in Sevilla than in Granada, afternoon temperatures were around 32-34 degrees celsius.




In the afternoon I went to see a bullfight at the famous Maestranza bullring. It was a lot more entertaining than I had expected, mostly because of the audience, with lots of back-seat toreadors shouting comments. This was the last bullfight of the spring festival (Feria de Abril), and it looked like they had some big-name matadors on the bill, so it was a full house, with TV cameras and press photographers. The star matador opened the show with an apparently stellar performance, and he received standing ovations from the crowd after the fight. In total there were three matadors fighting two bulls each, so six fights in total.

Each fight starts with fanfares as they let in an angry, confused bull. Then a bunch of guys with big pink capes run around and try to piss off the bull as much as possible. Next, there's more fanfares and they bring in a guy on horseback with a pike (a picador). They provoke the bull into charging the guy on the horse, and the picador rams his pike multiple times into the shoulder muscles of the bull. Now the bull is angry and wounded, and some guys run in with small colored spears (banderillos) , which they ram into the shoulders of the bull, usually with some flamboyant gestures and shouting as they stretch their arms into the air after stabbing the bull.



Then the matador emerges with the red cape. He provokes the bull by shouts and shaking the cape to make the bull charge the cape. He then swings the cape away just as the bull charges, or pulls it forwards and upwards, following the movements of the horns. Making the cape follow the horns up looks like the difficult part, as only the star matador was able to do it consistently, and the crowds were shouting "Olé!" every time he did it. This goes on for a while, and then the matador walks to the ringside to get his killing sword. He then makes the bull do a few more passes before he tries to stab the sword between the shoulder blades of the bull, trying to puncture the bull's heart. In some of the fights this was done, and the bull ran around for a while, before collapsing to the ground. Then one of the assistants would run up and kill the bull with a quick dagger thrust to the back of the head. The star matador did things differently. After ramming the sword between the shoulder blades of the bull, he picked up a different sword, used the cape to make the bull lower its horns and then made a quick thrust to the head with the sword, killing the bull instantly. The bull was then dragged out of the ring by four horses, while the orchestra played music.

In one of the fights, the matador had a good performance, so the crowd was waving white handkerchiefs and pieces of clothing at him, and he got the ear of the bull as a trophy. He then paraded the ring while people threw trophies at him. Someone threw a live rooster into the ring, to roars of laughter from the crowd. It took the groundskeepers a while to chase down the rooster to get it out of the ring. Also, in one of the fights, a spectator charged into the ring with a red cape, wanting to take on the bull himself. He managed a few passes before he was escorted off the field. They then switched bulls, tricking the other one into leaving by bringing a herd of bulls into the ring.

This was the first time I had ever been to a bullfight, and it was certainly an experience. It's obviously very important to the Andalucian culture. It's also the first time I go to a blood-sport event, where one of the participants doesn't leave alive. I accidentally stumbled onto watching the dead bulls from the previous performance being loaded on a truck by a forklift. It was a bit grisly to watch.

I can't help but feel sorry for the poor horses they use for the picadors. They have their vocal cords cut, to stop them from whinnying in fear when the bulls gore them, and they are blindfolded, to stop them from seeing when the bull charges. They have some sort of body armor to stop them from being seriously injured by the bull, but I can imagine it is no fun being gored by an angry bull.



This day was the end of the Feria de Abril (the spring festival), so around midnight I made my way down to the river bank. There I witnessed the most spectacular fireworks display I have ever seen. It was a huge, professional setup, and it went on for 15 minutes or so. I was only pissed off that I forgot to bring my gorilla-pod, so all my photos had to be hand-held. There was a big crowd of mostly young people watching, mostly local students, cheering and clapping. I had a good time.

Monday was a bit of an anticlimax after the eventful day I had the day before. I walked around the narrow streets of the touristy Santa Cruz district, before getting in line to get into the cathedral. The cathedral wasn't worth the wait, and certainly not the 8 euros they charged for entry. You get to go up to the top of the Giralda bell-tower, but Sevilla isn't that much to look at from above. I spent the rest of the day shopping, walking along the river bank and looking at the Torre del Oro (Moorish tower that defended the city) and Plaza de Espana. In the evening I had dinner at a nice restaurant close to the cathedral, finally having found a good one.

Tuesday I traveled back to Holland, taking the train from Sevilla and flying out of Madrid.

Madrid didn't have all that many attractions, and I was struggling to fill even a single day. Granada was OK, but crowded, and except for the Alhambra and the Albayzin, it doesn't have all that many attractions. Sevilla had a lot of attractions, lots of good restaurants, good shopping and lots of things to do. Also, the climate was more pleasant in Sevilla, than Madrid. I like warm places, so this was a nice change from rainy Holland. Being Norwegian, I have spent too much time in cold places. In general I liked Sevilla the most.

Pictures from Madrid

Pictures from Granada & Sevilla

Guatemala

I joined Diana & John on a trip to Guatemala from Mar 6th to Mar 15th.

Friday the 6th I flew in through Panama, which is the KLM hub for Central and South America. I had noticed my connecting flight from Panama to Guatemala would take very long. Turns out, it didn't just go to Guatemala, it was supposed to first go to Nicaragua and then to Guatemala. Problem was, once we arrived in Nicaragua, the plane developed a technical problem, so it couldn't take off again. They said something in Spanish over the speakers, and everyone got out of their seats and left. I'm sure I was the only person on the plane not speaking Spanish. When we got out of the plane, some guy collected our passports and ran off. Next we were herded into the terminal building, and we sat around for an hour. No one explained what was going on. I figured they were probably putting us on a different plane, and that they needed the passports in order to update the passenger lists. Turns out I was right, but it would have been nice if someone had explained as much. Finally, after 22 hours of travel, I arrived in Guatemala.

Saturday I spent the day walking around in Zone 10 in Guatemala City. This is the rich part of the city and also considered to be the safest part. I visited the Museo Popol Vuh, a small museum dedicated to Maya ceramics and a copy of the original manuscript for the so-called Maya bible, the Popol Vuh. It was strange to see guys with shotguns everywhere. Even the people guarding regular car parks had shotguns. People pass you in the street on motorcycles wearing bulletproof vests and carrying shotguns. Also, I was struck by the amount of razor-wire on the buildings. I also visited some shopping malls trying to get hold of a pay-as-you-go sim-card for my cellphone. It was not that easy since I didn't speak Spanish. My friend Diana arrived late, around 11.

John showed up at the hotel room the morning after. He had had a long flight and United had lost his baggage. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant(a nice one, they had an indoor waterfall...) and got in a taxi to Antigua, after having managed to haggle our way down to 35$ for the hour of driving to Antigua. We walked around Antigua for a couple of hours before getting on a shuttle to go hike up the active volcano Pacaya. We got put in an overcrowded minibus. There were really crappy cobbled streets in Antigua, and the minibus had bad shock-absorbers, so we had a bone-jarring ride through the town picking up tourists from other hostels.



One thing about Guatemala, they seem to really like their processions. I think I saw four processions during the week I was there, and on the way out of Antigua we hit one. We were stuck in a very hot minibus for probably half an hour waiting for what was apparently the regular Sunday procession to finish. Ten minutes after finally getting out of town, the minibus overheated and broke down. The guy had forgotten to put fluid on his cooling tank. We were stuck on the side of the road for an hour and a half before another minibus came to pick us up. This minibus was, if possible, in worse condition than the previous one. Among other things, the seats in the back were not properly bolted to the floor, so every time the driver braked hard or went over a speed bump, we would tilt back, although we didn't go that far back, because the minibus was so crowded we didn't have space to fall over. It was such a relief when we finally got to the base of the volcano and were able to escape the minibus. At the start of the hiking trails there were a lot of kids selling walking sticks for 5 quetzales each (around 50 eurocents). The trick was to buy one right away, otherwise these kids would run after you and hassle you for the first kilometer. The hiking path was not very exciting, very dusty and it doubled up as a mule/cow path, so you needed to watch where you were going to avoid stepping in dung. After about an hour we got out of the forest and got our first glimpse of lava in the distance. Because of all the delays, we were there quite late, so the sun was setting when we walked the last bit up to the lava (or the "hot liquid MAG-MA" as John would say in his Dr. Evil-voice...). We were walking on volcanic rocks the last couple hundred of meters, and it was pretty difficult. The footing was treacherous, and the rocks were sharp, so we got small scrapes on hands and legs from the last bit of walking. The lava radiated a fantastic amount of heat, so it was intensely uncomfortable to be anywhere close to the stream. I had brought some cans of beer, so John and I drank beer by the lava stream and watched the sunset while Diana barbecued marshmallows over the lava. We walked down again in the dark. John and I had brought headlamps, so finding our way down was not a problem.



During the night we had a minor earthquake. I didn't realize at first, since I had never experienced one. Fun, as long as the building you're in is still standing...

Being tired from the volcano-trip the day before, we decided to sleep in Monday morning. We walked around downtown Antigua, and found a friendly travel agent that booked shuttles for us for the next days. He also booked a hotel for us in Coban and booked a minibus to take us to lake Atitlan. This minibus was in much better condition than the ones we used the night before, and the driver seemed more experienced. It was also a big difference to have a private shuttle just for the tree of us. It was a two-hour drive to go from Antigua to Panajachel, and the road over there was very interesting. Lots of twists and turns and the road ran right along the edges of cliffs with no guard rails in between.



Panajachel was dusty, pretty ugly and touristy. We had lunch before going on a overpriced boat ride to see the lake. We haggled for a while, but in the end we realized we needed to get on a boat in order to see something other than Panajachel before we had to return. We went to a small village called Santiago Atitlan, which is supposedly the most typical Maya village around the lake. It also looks like they have a lot of tourists go through there. There were shops selling Maya stuff everywhere. There was a kid at the docks who offered to take us to see the local deity Maximon. I talked Diana and John into going, because I find the legend of Maximon interesting. Maximon is a local deity worshiped around lake Atitlan. The story goes: He was some sort of holy man, the male villagers went off to fight a war. Maximon was supposed to take care of the women while the men were away, so he "took care of" the women, which enraged the men when they returned from battle. Furiously, they cut off his arms and legs, and somehow he was turned into a deity. In some stories, his hands were only tied up, to prevent him from grabbing women. The villagers worship a wooden effigy of Maximon in private houses, lighting candles and burning incense. Maximon likes to drink and smoke, and he also likes money, so villagers bring him gifts, hoping he will grant their wishes for fortune, favor with women or death to their enemies. This was a lot more interesting than regular catholic saints. I found the whole spectacle fascinating, and a nice tourist trap.




After leaving Santiago Atitlan, we bumped around in the boat for another hour or so, before going back to Panajachel where our driver was waiting for us.

Tuesday morning we got up really early to catch the minibus shuttle to Coban in the east. Luckily this shuttle was better than the ones we used the first day, but it was still very uncomfortable during the five and a half hours we spent getting to Coban. It was funny to see the difference in scenery between the western part and the eastern. At first it was very dusty and you could see cacti along the sides of the road, and condors flying overhead. After four hours the terrain turned into a very hilly, green jungle. We finally arrived in Coban, and I think every single passenger was in pain from the uncomfortable ride. We walked around for a bit and booked our shuttles for the next days. Coban looked very different from Antigua. We were definitely off the main tourist trail, very few people spoke any English, and we were struggling just to find basic tourist information.



The next day we got up early and got on the shuttle to Semuc Champey. Semuc Champey is a natural limestone bridge on a river in the jungle which has pools of very clear green water where you can swim. On the way, we stopped at the natural caves at Lanquin to look at stalactites and cave formations. It wasn't that interesting, as we didn't go that far into the cave. I must say I enjoyed the Skocjan caves in Slovenia more, not to mention the silver mines in Kongsberg. The last patch of road to Semuc Champey was very steep, so I was happy we were not driving on our own. It was funny to see how they had cultivated the land there, growing corn in very steep hills. Very different from the flat cornfields you see in the US. Also, it was fun to see cacao- and banana-trees in the wild. Our guide walked us down to the pools at Semuc Champey, and we jumped in for some jungle swimming. The water was very green and clear, but it was not cold. We swam around for a while before our guide took us over to a ledge were we were supposed to climb down using a rope ladder. I'm not too good with heights, so I decided to run back and get my camera instead to get some swimming-pictures. Diana and John climbed down and I think they both scraped their knuckles on the way up or down the rope ladder. On my way back, I fell and bashed my hand hard into some rocks. My hand was bleeding so I washed it with bottled water and rinsed it with alcohol, since I wasn't too keen on getting an infection from the stagnant water in the pools. Afterwards we hiked up to the viewpoint above the pools for a proper look at the entire natural bridge. It was very warm, and the path was quite steep, so we were very sweaty when we came down again. This of course was the perfect excuse to jump back into the water. Overall, I think this was perhaps the best day of our vacation. I had a suntanning accident at Semuc Champey, and managed to burn my shoulders pretty bad. This became a problem for the rest of the trip, since I was traveling with a backpack. Wearing my backpack after this hurt like hell. At least I'll remember to apply proper sunblock the next time.




Thursday was another travel day. We took a shuttle up north to the jungle province of Peten. Again the landscape changed a lot, turning into flat jungle and cleared farmland. We saw lots of palm trees and small farming villages, and also areas were they were cutting down and burning the rain forest. Interesting parts of the journey included crossing a river on a barge and being pulled over at a checkpoint by soldiers with automatic weapons, searching our backpacks for contraband fruit. We reached Flores around 14:00, went swimming in Lake Peten Itza and enjoyed the hot weather and the beautiful sunset from the terrace of our hotel.

We got up at 3 am Friday morning to catch a "sunrise tour" to Tikal - one of the more famous Maya pyramid sites in Guatemala. The shuttle was about half an hour late in coming to our hotel, so we felt we had been cheated out of half an hour of shut-eye, not to mention the sunrise at the park. We also had a pretty scary ride over there, as there were so many animals along the side of the road. We had three almost-roadkills on the way, almost hitting a dog, a pig and a cow on the way. The cow would have been bad because we were riding in a small minibus, and almost no-one had seat belts. The park wasn't open yet when we arrived, so we had to wait for 15 minutes or so at the gate. There was morning fog in the air, so it was quite moody driving inside the park. Lots of animals out as well. We went on an organized tour with an English-speaking guide inside the park. He walked us in a big loop around the compound, showing us plants and wildlife along the way. The first stop was the Templo IV where we had the famous view used for the rebel base in Star Wars episode IV. We then went on to walk up almost every other pyramid on the site, except for the two that were closed for safety reasons. I didn't find it that interesting, but the view from the pyramids was good.




Saturday morning Diana and I got up at 06.00 to go to the eco-tourism park Ixpanpajul outside of Flores, just to do something other than just travel on our last day. We had breakfast in the park, and went on to the skywalk, to walk in the jungle canopy. We were the only tourists in the park at that hour, so we had the trail to ourselves (except for a guy walking behind us sweeping leaves). The walk itself was just boring. We didn't see any animals at all, and the closest thing to wildlife we noticed were some howler monkeys shouting in the distance. Essentially it was just an overpriced hiking path. It wasn't very interesting, but at least we did something on our final day, rather than just sleeping in. We met up with John back at the hotel, and flew down to Guatemala City, where we had a nice meal at an Argentinian restaurant to celebrate the end of a nice vacation.



Sunday we flew back home, me to Panama then Amsterdam, and Diana & John back to the US.

I was having some difficulty sleeping properly on this trip, like I had in my trip last year to Utah. I'm not sure if it's jet lag or what it is, but I averaged maybe four hours of sleep in the nights I was there. Luckily I can function quite OK without sleep or food for extended periods, but my cognitive abilities and language skills suffer. I always find I have great trouble expressing myself properly after extended periods of sleep deprivation. Also, not speaking my native language at all over extended periods in combination with sleep loss seems to do something to me. Sometimes, at the end of extended exercises, I find it hard to find the words for a day or two when I speak to my Norwegian friends. I probably get crossed wires or something, and it usually goes away after a weekend of rest, but it's still strange to me...Luckily my colleagues and friends realize I get this way by now, so they tell me when I'm not making any sense.

This was my first trip to a third-world country. I didn't think about it until Diana made me aware of this. It was strange and kind of sad to see people living in really shitty tin-roofed huts and people bumping around in truck beds because they can't afford to go by bus.

We found very few people that spoke English in Guatemala, especially in the more remote areas. I think we would have been struggling a lot to get accommodation and to get around if we hadn't had Diana speaking Spanish for us. She called around and inquired about hotel rooms for us using my cell phone with the Guatemalan sim card. Guide books with hostel phone numbers were very useful.

In general, Guatemala was a really cheap country. Except for the flight ticket, this was one of my cheaper vacations.

My pictures

Diana's pictures

Crans Montana

I went skiing in Crans Montana from Jan 24th to Jan 31st

Initially, the plan had been to drive down there and visit Champagne on the way back, but we wanted to get back in time for the Dinner-Dance party at work, so we flew back early on Sat 31st.

I was sharing a chalet with Peter & Amy Lenk, Joe, Natasha & Tommy and Theo. There were also other friends in Montana: Karola, Koen & Ann, Peter van der Pouw & Jeanette, Roger & Pinar w/kids and Roger's parents.

Saturday we got up early to fly down to Geneva to go to Crans Montana. The flight took a lot longer than we expected, since they closed down the airport at Geneva due to "Weather". We flew to Zurich instead, waited for an hour on the tarmac, re-fueled the plane and flew to Geneva. Upon getting there, I noticed they had about 3 cm of snow on the ground there. Obviously they had no snow-clearing equipment or something. I found the whole closing-business ridiculous. Already late in getting to Crans, we took the train to Sierre, managed to get off at the wrong station, had to wait for the next train, and then, upon getting to Sierre, the funicular up the mountain was broken, so we had to do the long bus-trip around.



Sunday morning we went to the ground station at Grand Signal to buy tickets and rent skis. There were long lines and poor service, and in the end I got crappier equipment than I had last year at Laax. There had been several days of snow leading up to our arrival, so there was plenty of snow in the slopes, although there were also lots of moguls on the first day. Freakin' snowboarders!

Monday was the only day without brilliant sunshine, so we had really good weather for five out of six days. In the evening we had a wine tasting at a local winemaker, in their basement. We tasted lots of different types of wine, and by the end of the evening, we had tasted almost 2 bottles each, according to the guy hosting the event. Unfortunately, by the time we finished, there were no taxis to take us back to our chalet. Luckily, the guy hosting offered to take us home in his pick-up. Peter Lenk opted to sit on the truck bed to make sure nothing happened to the boxes of wine we had back there. Naturally, the next morning we had a very late start in getting up to the pistes.




We had most of our lunches at the restaurant at Bella Lui. We had split up into several groups, so we usually had a plan to meet up there at a set time. Unfortunately, some people had time management problems, and others wanted to do other pistes, so more often than not it took a lot of time to meet up with other people. Also, due to planning problems and people changing their minds, we spent lots of time waiting, so we did less skiing than the previous years.

Peter Lenk, Joe and Peter van der Pouw were really into off-piste, so they spent a lot of time off the sides of the main piste. For the most part, I didn't join them, since I'm not a very good skier, and I feel I need to build up more technique before going into all that loose snow. There were lots of snow, though, so conditions were good for playing around on the edges.

Resort-wise, I thought Crans Montana had pretty old infrastructure compared to other sites I have been to. We also spent a lot of time in gondolas, so it took quite some time to get up to the really good parts. Also, some chairlifts had design problems. dripping melted snow on the head and neck of the people on the outermost seats when it was sunny.

The ski food wasn't all that great, and they seemed to have very few self-service cafes. That meant lunches took longer, and I must say I enjoyed the food in Laax last year more. Laax was also cheaper. On the plus side, they had lots of places to get Vin Chaude on the piste.



Evenings were spent having dinner and reading for the most part. Not really a lot of after-ski in this resort. We did manage to have a pasta night with the traditional champagne tasting at the chalet. Peter made really good home-made pasta, and Theo cooked up a huge pot of his special pasta-sauce.

Friday evening we celebrated the end of the ski trip at a fairly good Italian restaurant downtown. We didn't stay too long, though, as we needed to get up really early to make our flights back. The trip back was uneventful, except for an unpleasant taxi ride from Schiphol (guy refused to drop us off where we needed to go - that's Dutch service for you...), so we made it back to the Dinner-Dance.

Pictures are here