home again

My trip home was.. let´s say... one big desaster!
My flight with Mahan airlines should originally leave at 6.30 am. So I decided to save some money, take the last bus to the airport at 11 pm and just hang out there until I could check in. After a few boring hours at the airport I went to the check in point at 4 am. A man came up to me and asked me if I wanna go to Düsseldorf. As it turned out, Mahan Airline isn´t allowed to fly to Germany any more... So my flight was changed to an LTU flight at 11.35 am. Great...
On the one hand I was glad to fly home with LTU (better service, better food, better secrurity), on the other hand that meant 12 hours at the airport...
In the end.... after a 12 hours trip to the Tiger Temple, 12 hours at the airport, 12 hours in the plane and another 5 hours in the train, I finally arrived in Pforzheim...
Did I mention that I had to carry 30 kilos?!?! :)
But now I´m home again...

one night in Bangkok

After the trekking trip I spent two exhausting days in busses to get back to Bangkok. Back in Thailand I went shopping for one day and made a trip to the floating markets, the River Kwai (I haven´t even seen the movie by now... shame on me) and to the Tiger Temples. But have a look yourself...

Trekking Trip Ban Lung

Once upon a time 2 Germans (Martina and me), 1 Austrian guy (Gex), 1 Tirolean (that looks so funny... - Berti) and a Dutch couple (Oli and Marte) decided to play Tarzan and Jane and have a real adventure for 3 days in the jungle. Our guide was a Khmer guy from the guesthouse and we also had a ranger who showed us the way.

Day 1

The first day we walked for about 5 hours and made breaks at 2 small rivers. Duriung the day we've seen some wild growing cucumbers... but that's been it with "wild animals". At the end of the day we arrived in our "camp" where we put up our hammocks, went for a swim, cocked rice with vegetables and drunk tiger wine.

We also put up a fishing net in order to have something for breakfast the next morning :)
During the night I really froze my ass off! I never ever expected it to get that cold in the dschungel! Unfortunatly I got a cold and I probably gonna take it home with me...

Day 2

After a restless night we got up the next morning and we actually caught a snake and some fish in our net! So we had bread with omlette, rice, fish and snake for breakfast! *yam*

Later on we walked to a Minority Village - our second over night stopp - where we've seen some really poor people. It was interesting to see how they life without electricity and what they do the whole day.













As soon as we arrived the whole village was around us. In SVAY life around 30 families. Each family has around 6 to 8 children... But actually, what else do you wanna do without television :)

In the evening we could chose our dinner. Pig or chicken. First we wanted to get a pig, but unfortunatly the owner was to drunk to sell the pig (another thing you do the whole day in a village... drink ricewine). So we got a chicken. And than we had to kill it in order to eat it... I didn't do it. I couldn't even look. But Oli was brave enough to cut the chicken's troat. They didn' just cut it off in one, the did it slowly because they wanted to get the blood.

So while the chicken got broiled over the fireplace we had a soup with the giblets and the blood. I just tried blood, a piece of the neck and lever.











Day 3

The last day - after 5 hours of walking - we arrived happy in our guesthouse and took a hot shower.

Northeastern Cambodia - Kratie and Ban Lung

On the road

After my bar work in Sihanoukville I decided to join Berti and Gex (Gerhard) to the northeastern part of Cambodia to go trekking for 3 days. Unfortunatly Simon and Flo could't join us because they got sick...

Our trip to Kratie took first about 6 hours to Phnom Penh by bus and than another 5 hours by taxi. The traffic in Cambodia is really crazy. I've seen some driving schools but I really don't have a clue what they need it for...

We bargained for the taxi and the driver told us that it is 30 dollars for the car, it doesn't matter how many people are sitting inside. So we put our backpacks in the boot and looked forward to a nice trip in the cab but out of the blue there sat 4 people on the front seat... We wondered if we just take them to the next street corner but no... we've been driving like this for 5 hours. 4 people in the front, 3 people and 1 backpack in the back. How comfortable can it be....

The next day we just took a bus to Banlung where we wanted to go trekking. The bus there was quite crowded... means: Gex and Berti had seats in the alley. So there've been five to seven (!) people sitting in one row (because sometimes parents had their children on their laps).

And did I mention that it is normal in Cambodia that at least one person pukes during the journey? Never mind...

Ban Lung "city"

I have never ever seen such a dusty "city" before... But there are also real great things in Ban Lung. For example the Great Lake (an old vulcano crater which is completely round and has clear water), some nice waterfalls and that you can trust absolutely nobody...

But thats a seperate story:
It was the beginning of a beautiful day and our trekking group just met for breakfast in the restaurant of our guesthouse. I left my valueables in the room (yes, you already know where this is going to...) and actually I carried a lot of money with me because there is no chance to get any money in Banlung (and that is a provincal capital!!!). So I just had 40 1.000 riel notes with me (about 100 dollar).

Anyway, during breakfast we had to order our coffee three times because they always "forgot" about it. As we ent upstairs finally, our door wasn't looked any more. I don't know why... but my first thought wasn't that we got robbed. I thought we didn's close the door properly. A few hours later I just counted my money and how could it be - there've been 20 notes missing... Gex had a look at his stuff and realized his mobile was gone.
They really do know how to do it... They don't take everything - because my camera and my mobile have still been there, they just take a bit and hope that you don't realize.

Yeah... now I'm 40 Euros poorer but hopefully wiser as well...

Hey guys,
I just have a minute... I'm on my way back to Bangkok. Today I drove 13 hours from Banglung to Phnom Penh and tomorrow it's gonna be 13 to 16 hours back to Bangkok... then another 2 days in Bangkok and my flight back home is on the 21st of September, 6 o'clock in the morning...
If I have time in Bangkok (-> if it's raining), I gonna write some more about the last week, otherwise it takes a little bit longer.
Anyways, I'm fine and I gonna see ya soon!

Newsupdate

Hey there, I have holidays again :) Work is officially over and I have to say, it was the right thing to do. It was a lot of fun and I got barwork experience. Also I saved a lot of money during these few days... really, really good!!!

Now I changed my plans again. I'm not gonna go to North Thailand, I gonna go to North-eastern Cambodia. Until now I've just been to the tourist spots and now I try to see a bit of the real Cambodia. So we gonna go to a national park at the boarder to Laos and do a hiking tour over there. I gonna go there with Bert, a guy I met first in Ko Tao. Maybe 3 Austrian guys are join us, but one of them got sick yesterday. So we'll see how he feels until tomorrow.

Probably I wont have a chance to use the internet in this part of Cambodia. But I let you know as soon as possible how I'm doing up there.

Take care!

Berti

Flo, Gerhard, Simon

Work :)

Hey guys...
I'm officially a bartender now! :) I got a job at the frog sheck for the next few days. Actually I can stay here as long as I want to, but Sihanoukville is not that exciting. So I just save some money during the next days and then I'm off again.
I have to work from 4 pm to midnight, witch isn't to bad. I get free food and drinks all day long and free accomodation (even though I'm probably not moving there because there are really, really poor sanitary arrangements!!!).
The free drinks probably break my neck during the next few days but at least I save a little bit of money for my last two weeks! :)
So probably there's not a lot going on the next days. I gonna leave on sunday early in the morning to get to Bangkok (13 hours) and than maybe take the nighttrain straight away to Chain Mai (another 13 hours). What a tripp...
I'll let you know how it all worked out and if my lever is still alive next week!

Sunset

The Frog Sheck

Staff

Boss No. 1: Day

Boss No. 2: Ash

Andi and me. I'm working from 4 to 9 pm with him...

Cambodia - Sihanoukville - beach life

On the 31th of August Daan and i took the bus from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville in the southern part of Cambodia. The first night we decided to stay at Weather Station hill because our travel guide told us, that its a backpacker spot... as we found out during the evening... it isn't at all. All we've seen have been old white fat guys and young and willing asian girls... I don't have to say more, do I? Ok, i will: it was pure sex-tourism...

The second day we decided to change locations because both of us didn't feel very comfortable there. Now we're at the busiest beach in Sihanoukville. But it's low season, so it's not that much going on. But we already found a nice bar and today I helped them to promote a party tonight - that means free drinks the whole evening...

So this is gonna be a kind of "party-a-lot-during-night-relax-at-the-beach-during-day"-thing...

Even though the beaches are not that beautiful as they are in Thailand, I think I gonna stay here for a few days...