Tag Archives: coffee

Day 8 – Giant’s Causeway, the obligatory stop

It rained a lot in the morning. In fact, it rained pretty much ever since last night, with differing intensity. It made breakfast a cold affaire. At this point, I was quite tired and on the lookout for a place to stay an extra night. This was not it. Too few people to keep the kids entertained, a tiny playground and Flo had itchy feet. After the “catered” experience at Carrick-a-rede, Flo really wanted to do the longer hike towards the Giant’s Causeway.

Instead of paying the fee for parking and the visitors’ centre, we decided to walk from the town of Bushmills. The Lonely Planet advises that you can walk along the heritage railway line for 2 miles and thus see the Causeway for free. In total, one way would be 3 miles as it is another mile from the visitors’ centre to the actual Causeway.

With the kids, it felt like a bit of a mission. We broke down our camp in the rain, drove the 20 minutes to Bushmills and assembled our kits: From sunshine to storm, you must cover all your bases. Starting the hike, Number 3 was delighted to follow the tracks, or rather walk in between the tracks. The railway only operates on weekends and as it was Friday, we were confident that no train would use the tracks. We were wrong though. Luckily, the train was moving only very slowly and no one could have missed it coming down the tracks but it spoilt Number 3’s fun of walking on the tracks for the rest of the day.

The train tracks wound their way through a golf course and along a beach to an intersection: Go left and along the cliffside or straight along the tracks right to the Visitors’ centre. Since it was a return hike, we opted for the cliffside walk now and the straight track on the way back. The kids were already hungry, and the Agent looked quite sleepy in the baby carrier.

souch a pretty walk, and mostly to ourselves

We turned onto the cliffside path. It started with a small crossing over a stream, continued with a narrow path through brambles and gorse and led to the stunningly beautiful cliffside. It was well worth it to take this hike. Number 3 also enjoyed it as well, but by now, he’d slowed down a bit. Flo kept us informed how long we still had to go until we reached the picnic tables and thus our lunch break.

The Agent made it to our lunch spot but didn’t eat a lot as she was so tired. Everybody else was cheered up and refreshed by the food and break and we continued to the Visitors’ centre, right around the corner as it turned out. The picnic area is already a part of the complex. A fact which Flo hadn’t pointed out on the way here. Right after our lovely little lunch break, we walked headfirst into busloads of people, and overflow carpark and queues at the toilets. It was a bit of a shock to the system, I have to admit.

lavaflow, cracked when cooling down, filled in and then eroded …

From here, it was another easy mile down a bus operated road to the Causeway. As we had seen from a distance, it was crawling with people. Well, with as many people as were allowed in today as the National Trust also sells tickets for this attraction and not too many people did the hike.

Taking our time, sitting down, letting the kids roam, we got to take the sight in. The Causeway’s hexagonal stones are quite amazing. Number 3 climbed all over the place and even the Agent demanded some leeway for climbing and walking through puddles. Flo and Number 3 moved towards one of the edges, talked to one of the wardens there and then explored a big puddle where some sea-life could be observed.

At some point, I had to face the fact that we had to hike back. Number 3 was starting to get tired after roaming around and climbing all sorts of stones. In the end, I convinced Flo to take the bus up the one-mile-long road to the Visitors’ Centre. It gave Number 3 an unexpected bus ride, saved us a mile of walking and it was just so damn convenient for a pound a person.

This time, we walked along the railroad tracks all the time. It dragged. Number 3 was still walking but slowly now. Distracted by a conversation about his next birthday party, we finally made it back to the car. Yippie! No rain showers, mostly sunshine, a couple of clouds and a great day at the Causeway was over. I was ready to head to the campground and call it for today.

she was so proud to be in the driver seat

Flo and I had a brief exchange about having coffee somewhere as a reward for the kids and I managed to put “Koko” in Portrush into our Sat nav. Great coffee and maybe a slice of cake sounded lovely just about right now. Driving into Portrush, we were taken by surprise by two things: The coffee place was about to close and only offered take away – which were still top notch. Number 2 there was a big fair at the waterfront with a building full of rides right next to it. Both kids were determined to go have a look even after we told them that we’d spent our last coin on the bus ride.

Since they were so good during the hike and the café had closed, they got two rides worth of tokens each and we headed inside. They rode carrousel horses and a fun bus before we left. Number 3 got a special bumper car ride all by himself as an extra as the Agent did not meet the height requirement. She and I waited outside so that it wouldn’t be too hard on her.

Now we were more than ready to go. Just…one more thing. A stop at a grocery store to pick up supplies for breakfast.

Our pre-arranged campground turned out to be lovely. We got a grassy pitch, electricity, a playground, and LOTS of kids to play with. In fact, it was so lovely that we asked to extend our stay for another night and I finally get my rest day tomorrow.

this came in seconds, Nina and the Agent got caught out at the loo

Day 27 – Lisboa encore

You’d think that with not much packing required (staying put and not even chairs to be used) we’d be quick as to get going. Well, no is the answer. Maybe it is the missing drive of a travel day. We did a bunch of things in the morning, though. Breakfast no.1, some more blogging preparation and the attempt of a shower. I say attempt, since the solar heated water reservoir had been thoroughly emptied by party goers last night.

That was not the only thing going a bit off script. We had a late start to begin with, since Number 3 had another bad night – at least he extended official rest time till 8 am to compensate. Long story short, it was maybe 11 am by the time we hit the bus. Good thing we were not going as far today.

We arrived at Belém only 20 minutes later. The main draw here is a 15^th century monastery, build on the riches of Portugal’s Indian trade routes. It was actually officially commissioned in honour of Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a route to said India. Interesting parallels to our last trip come to mind, where we saw multiple times the other end of that golden age in Timor Leste and Oman.

Before we would do any of that, though, a spirit boost was in order. The lines in front of the monastery made us anxious. We wandered a brief while considering our options and decided on 2^nd breakfast and a later lunch in town. There was another line in Belém full of tourists – the one in front of the famous pastry shop that claims to have invented the Pastel de Nata, here called Pastel de Belém. But we skipped the line for the much better option of sitting down inside the labyrinthine place and getting served our pastel and coffee like proper people. They were good – but a place that churns out maybe 10,000 of them in a day can only do so much. It was worth it for the crazy atmosphere.

With enough sugar and caffeine in our bellies, we were ready for the lines – and they were gone. Somehow we managed to slip into the adjourning church as the very last two people before it was closed to the public for a wedding. We saw Vasco da Gama’s grave while the choir already warmed up.

Out again, we bit our pride and got in line for tickets for the monastery proper. It was rather late, but we managed to push lunch out. As we stood in line we got tapped by two ladies telling us that people with little kids can skip the line and go to the special service counter. We could not yet quite believe it when the security guy saw us and pulled us out. It was true! In our cheerful mood, we even thought of looking out for another set of parents in the now much longer line and made one couple out in the bright noon sun very happy indeed.

The monastery was impressive, but most is probably told in the pictures. Once we felt we had taken in the place, it was time for lunch. Something that could best be come by back in central Lisbon. There would be time on the tram to figure out the details. After a bit of deliberation, and ruling out a bunch of places too far out of where we wanted to go, we decided on Indian food. Hey! First of all, big cities are food free for all, and secondly Portugal has a colonial history in India. I even ended up going for the Goan speciality (lamb in tamarind sauce) – it was great!

After that, we had only one more item on our list: Ginjinha shots! I had seen it yesterday but felt like this might be not the best idea before gaming, so today it was on. The drink, apparently first served in the joint we picked (A Ginjinha) is a super sweet cherry liqueur served with or without a soaked cherry. For some reason, I managed to talk Nina into a round of 3 pm shots in 28° C heat. It was decided afterwards that the best next step would be coffee and another bite to eat. We managed to get offered weed three separate times on the same square in the space of a minute. Do we look that much in need of a fix?

Coffee was excellent, but it was time to head home. Days with the little one in the carrier are tough. Plus, the bus ride is still almost an hour and we had some blogging to catch up on. All of it worked out surprisingly well.

Belém has retained a very small town feel
Guard in front of the presidential palace
Yeah, nah …
… much better
Authentic twist is cinnamon on top – not a fan
Some real money went into this …
super detailed stonework
much better preserved than most we have seen
obligatory church shot
little one impressively quiet
Grave of the great navigator … for a european 😉
Portuguese coat of arms
Number one and three on the loose
They had their meals here …
… under the watchful eyes of Hieronimus
inward perfection, hm?
two stories
this wing houses a museum, nowadays
they can do pompous in 17th century style as well
Asleep just before lunch … hmmm …
The elevator had a line like the cable car during cruise ship visits … all it does is skipping the hill
SHOTS!
COOOFFEEEE!!!
they managed a solid flat white!
I had no appetite left, but apparently Number 3’s was fine …

Day 288 – Being a hipster in Tehran

A young Polish couple was traveling with this one.

After all the quiet times in the mountains, Tehran came as a bit of a shock. It’s a big city with lots of option of how to spend your time. Do you go shopping in the bazaar? Do you look at the Royal Palace? Do you visit the Museum of Iran to see more of the ancient artefacts that have been dug out throughout the country? To be honest, we were out of energy. Instead of trying to cramp in as much as we could, we decided to try and see contemporary Iran and experience city life in the capital.

Nina with nice organic tea

So we took it slow this morning, sleeping in, have a longer breakfast and using the internet after two days of abstinence. At about 11.30 we went out with the plan of having lunch in a tea house. The Lonely Planet recommends going to one of the parks to watch people which sounded like a good idea. Park-e Shahr is the one closest to our hotel so we could walk there. Right before we go to the entrance, we stumbled into a tiny market full of stalls. One stall sold freshly baked pastries, most of them vegetarian, another stall sold sweets. Two buy options and we were set for lunch on a park bench in Park-e Shahr. 🙂 A lady at the stall next door offered us to test the tea they are selling. They are the first company that has gained the organic label in Iran. She had a little cheat sheet which she used to read the information to us in English.

bird watching, Tehran style

The park was quite big and to our surprise, it had bird cages in it as well. Once we had eaten and wandered around for a bit, we were ready for more exploration. Flo wanted to see the old embassy of the United States now named US Den of Espionage which was too far to walk there. Thus, we took the metro for a couple of stations to get there. Always a bit of an adventure to figure out how public transport works in other cities. The train was crowded but a lovely lady got me a seat before telling me about her three years in Vienna 30 years ago.

True face?

The US Den of Espionage is closed to the public most of the times but you can walk around it and look at the murals on the wall around the area. Such a weird experience. We continued from here to the Park-e Honar Mandan for some more people watching. The park sports a trim-dich-pfad as well as some sculptures. More strolling around before settling down for a café for some lovely tea, coffee and chocolate cake. Mmmmh, chocolate cake. 🙂

Others were more into it

The café we chose was in the Iranian Artists’ forum building. We had snobbed the forum yesterday … but not today. The exhibition is for free and as a way of experiencing contemporary Iran, it was perfect. Taking our time, we made our way through three level of art. It was great. We especially liked the room dedicated to the caricaturist Hadi. The artist was actually present to take some pictures in the exhibition room so Flo and I ended up on a couple of “look here is the public looking at the works” shots, we think.

Public display of logo design suggestions for an event. Pretty cool.

One room was lined with the entries to a design competition. Flo particularly enjoyed this as you could make out differences in the quality already. Another room showed photos of theatre plays which were incredibly interesting but we are lacking any knowledge of the plays which is a shame really.

Going back home we passed the market stalls again. Not wanting to have another round of kebab for dinner, we bought more vegetarian pastries as well as olives in a spicy paste that go very well with bread and cheese. Dinner was had in the hotel room before we met up with Joris and Noor who stayed next door. Going for some tea, it was lovely to talk to fellow travellers; we spent two hours just doing that and then made to ride with Joris tomorrow. Noor took a flight back to the Netherlands this night as her holiday of visiting was over.

: A young Polish couple was traveling with this one.

: Four stories of auto parts, one building after the other. Madness …

: Nina with nice organic tea

: The caramel blocks were divine

: At Shahr’s park

: This park also had a couple of birds on display

: Never seen one of those. The signs were in Persian, unfortunately

: bird watching, Tehran style

: Not many pictures from our ride, we got told off pretty soon

: famous mural on the US Den of Espionage

: Recent symbols of nationalism

: True face?

: We have yet to see a single Irani use these public health facilities 😉

: Well, I had to try, hadn’t I?

: One of the artworks in the artists’ park

: Some respite from the hot day

: Tea and chocolate cake and we were good to go again

: We did like the abstract paintings

: Ha, I have used that color palette before. It is also Nina and I hugging …

: We were less intrigued by the creepy bone phase of his oeuvre

: Others were more into it

: We liked the execution on this one a lot

: Public display of logo design suggestions for an event. Pretty cool.

: Cool caricatures; we immediately had to think of the Caricatura in Frankfurt

: Just epic … 😀

: detail in the park

: interesting mix of style and message

: The former Embassy pretty-fied.

: On point, but a slight weakness on the grammar

: It is hard to capture the insanity on the road, since most of it is about movement

Day 272 – City of poets and gardens

The pavilion over the grave

A whole day to explore Shiraz lay in front of us, with local tour guides. Punctually at 9.30 am, Ali and Tannaz, Hamid’s nephew and niece, picked us up from the hotel. Since we didn’t have any plans, the tomb of Hafez, a famous poet, was our first stop.

We all hopped into their car and while we were still on the way, we were invited for lunch by Ali’s and Tannaz’ mother Mozhgan via phone call. Such a lovely invitation! Trying to avoid awkward situations later, I immediately asked if it’s something I can eat as a vegetarian. The promised Shirazi food would be rice with vegetables and an optional addition of meatballs which sounded perfect and delicious. 🙂

The tomb of Hafez is an alabaster tomb stone inscribed with one of his poems in a pagoda set in a beautiful garden. Since it is spring, every flower was in bloom which gave the whole thing a colourful touch. Everyone learned something about weird flower names: Snapdragon is called the Farsi equivalent of “monkey”, while in German it is “baby lion’s mouth”. Continue reading →

Day 259 – Hospitality

Slowly, the valley and plains appear out of the darkness

We got up really early today – 5.40 am – to see the sun rise over Wadi Ghul. It was uncomfortably cold outside, but the colours playing across the vast sky made up for it. At least for a while. Once the mornings glow had played out and the sun was up, it would take another 45 minutes for it to reach “our horizon”, the steep mountain across the valley. We decided that the time would be much better spend warming up and catching up on sleep hiding in the tent.

Ready to leave our little spot in the sky now

Once the sun was fully up and the tent warmed by the morning rays, we were ready to get out and start our day. We knew it would be the last packing up for a couple of days, so we took our time. Even so, the bike was packed and the road beneath us at about 9 am.

There was plenty of time in the day and our goal was only 300 km away in Sohar with no point being there before 5 pm. Based on that and the great condition of the gravel roads up here, I was able to convince Nina to explore a bit further. The highest point of Jebel Shams is another 1000m up. An Air Force radar station was build on top, so the map showed a road going all the way up. Naturally, I wanted to see how far we can go. I think the highest we had taken Rocinante so far was around 2400m.

Had to capture the epic-ness one more time

It turned out that this would have to stand for a while longer since there was a gate and guard house with a sign telling us that entry is prohibited. As we were about to turn around, an Air Force guard came out and after a moment invited us over. I am always up for coffee and we had nothing to do, so we accepted. Nasser and his aid Adi were amazing hosts. We got Omani dates and coffee until we thought we could take no more. Then they brought out the chai tea. We spent an hour with them, talking about out trip, their families and the world in general. What an amazingly warm experience.

When we were too full to eat any more dates or have any more tea, we received a “small” bag of dates for the road, about the size of a head. Glowing, we got ready and back onto the bike to leave Jebel Shams. Thank you Nasser and thank you Adi for such an amazing experience.

The beehive tombs are up on a ridge next to a dry wadi

There was one more box to tick before it was all about getting “home” again to Lina. Oman is famous for its many archaeological sites – the last one on our list was one of the groups of beehive tombs on the way. These towers were build more than 3000 years ago as burial mounds, but not much else is known about them. When we reached the site some time after lunch, we were surprised on how low key this was compared to so many other destinations in Oman. No big sign or infrastructure around. Just this amazing site at the other side of a wadi. Luckily, we had a point of interest in the GPS.

Wadi, gardens, a mosque and the mountain range give great context to the beehives

To get to the tombs, we had to cross a horticulture and gardens and then the dried up riverbed of the wadi itself on foot. It was actually pretty cool to get a good close up view of such an integral part of everyday Omani life. There were about a dozen towers in varying states of conservation, but for the most part it was pretty clear how this must have looked like. We wandered around a bit, took a heap more photos and walked back to the bike. There, we got talking to a farmer on his way back from his field. He told us that he emigrated 20 years ago from Islamabad and invited us for tea. With a heavy heart (we had 200 km to go) we declined as politely as we could and got back on the road. What a welcoming country!

The road between Ibri and Sohar leads through the mountains once more

The ride back was beautiful once more – even though we almost got lost at a road closure on the way. Oman is the country where our GPS data is probably most outdated – mainly because of the incredible speed with which new roads are being build or expanded. This road from Ibri to Sohar will soon be dualised and in prime condition. For now, it was still a beautiful highway through the mountains and then down a wadi towards the northern coastal plain.

The day ended in a little surprise. Last week, we checked with our friends whether they would be around during the weekend, to hang out one more time before we had to move on. We knew that we would arrive earlier in the week, though, and had sent texts to confirm today’s arrival. As it turned out, our texts got lost in limbo and Lina and Michael were quite surprised to have us right at their doorstep tonight. Soon the surprise had worn off, though. We got a nice dinner and the room prepared for us. It is so nice to be welcomed, even if one shows up “unannounced”.

: The sky has leopard spots…

: Slowly, the valley and plains appear out of the darkness

: So bloody cold for a sleepy Nina. Had to wrap myself into the sleeping bag

: It’s a brand new day and the sun is high…

: Ready to leave our little spot in the sky now

: Which is still looking impressive

: Had to capture the epic-ness one more time

: It’s an adventure!

: After our “how much coffee and dates can you take?” invitation we went into Wadi Ghul for a bit…riding on pebbles is quite hard work

: …and since we were late by now, we called it after a while

: These shaggy goats have been shaved

: The beehive tombs are up on a ridge next to a dry wadi

: Only access is on foot

: Nicely silhouetted by the blue sky

: They still stand quite tall

: Looking along the row of them

: There’s a tiny entrance but we didn’t dare trying it for real. So all you get is a fake shot

: Wadi, gardens, a mosque and the mountain range give great context to the beehives

: Looking into the other direction

: A whole plastic bag full of dates courtesy of Omani hospitality

: So yummy as a roadside snack

: The road between Idri and Sohar leads through the mountains once more

: And as always, it is pretty!

: And the road is still perfect, too.

Day 242 – Ancient lands

The Easter holidays of Lina and Michael’s international school were coming to an end. Today was the last day for any shenanigans as they needed the last day to prepare. Yes, school starts on Sunday. Which makes Friday and Saturday the weekend days. Now that I know, it seems very logical but really, I haven’t thought about it so it took me by surprise.

The road to the grave site ended quite abruptly

Another lovely long breakfast was had and then we decided to have a pot luck of sight-seeing. School colleagues had given Lina and Michael their GPS with many, many points of interest in the area on it. Not knowing what a lot of them were, we decided to check them out anyway.

The first one led us to old graves which lay very close to the road. A sign gave us at least the information of “old graves” and the information that violators will be persecuted. Apart from that, we were left to make sense of the scene ourselves. Slightly unsure, we looked out for stone heaps which we thought might mark the graves and pottery shards. Michael had been at an archaeological site with his class. Once you know what to look for, he said, you’ll find shards everywhere. So we kept an eye out for them, looked at them and then carefully placed them back. We pretty much did the same with interesting rocks we found.

Two very different qualities apparently from very different time periods.

From here, we went off road as the next point of interest was only 8km away. Maybe these tracks would lead there? Also Michael was keen to drive more off roads tracks. The scenery, again, was beautiful. When the tracks turned into a washed out riverbed, we stopped and hiked up to the ridge of the hill to have better views. Up there, many ruins of walls and houses could be seen. Also, the whole area was littered with pottery shards so we were especially careful. Here, we saw shards with patterns and even some with glaze or colour. I’m not an archaeologist by trade so my knowledge is not better than anyone else’s but as an art historian, this was amazing. Even just to look at without knowing much about it. Once back at home, Michael compared our photos with an archaeological guide book and the ones we saw were about 2000 years old.

The wadi has no flowing water, but the green shows where the water is hiding

Oman seems to be full of ancient relics. So many in fact, that some just won’t be worked on for decades to come. Not, if there isn’t an amazing new fund that sparks more interest in that particular site. However, the government is interested in preserving the past so that archaeologists check the areas that have been green-lit for building.

After this hike, we tried another point but couldn’t really find the off road tracks that would lead there. The one after that turned out to be an industrial mine (at least we think that’s what it meant as we ended up in one) so we stopped for the day. Instead, we had a lovely evening coffee at the mall.

Dinner was a homey affair. Lina and Michael shared their tradition of comfy burgers with us. To accommodate Nina, a vegetarian burger patty recipe was tried out. It was delicious and just the right finisher for an all around great day out.

: The road to the grave site ended quite abruptly

: We expect this was one of the graves

: The first pieces we found.

: These deep red stones were strews very sporadically around the area

: It is always a bit surprising to find something alive around here

: These are really shaggy goats …

: Our on-board biology teacher informed us that this is an example for biological weathering

: the rocks around are fascinating as well

: Sneaky lizzard

: The wadi has no flowing water, but the green shows where the water is hiding

: Dugout and wall

: Glazed piece pf pottery

: Two very different qualities apparently from very different time periods.

: Very fine linework in this shard

: We even found a couple glazed ones

: Everyone is hunting for treasure

: They were all just lying there on the ground like this

: We don’t know for sure what these ruins were for …

: … but there were a lot of them around.

Day 202 – Coffee encounters

Were on the road real early today

Sekong had seemed incredibly sleepy last night…it didn’t get any better in the morning. Despite the fact that Lao people seem to get up at 6am to go about their day during daylight hours, the town looked positively abandoned. Also, there was no breakfast to be had here, at least not of the baguette and jam kind. To increase our chance of yet another French inspired start into the day, we packed everything on Rocinante and left the town at 7am.

Up on the plateau, it was chilly this early in the morning; for the first time in a while, I wished for something to stop the wind from getting through. We had a look for breakfast places along the road but didn’t see anything except for rice porridge. Thus, we needed to drive 80km to Paksong, the next town on the loop. The route was pretty, though. Full of views over small valleys and the opportunity to see waterfalls. So early in the day, we also had the road almost to ourselves. Continue reading →

Day 201 – Southern swing

The light is starting to file through

We paid for a room with sunrise view, so we should better gotten out of bed to see the sunrise – right? Well, we did, actually. Getting out of bed, that is. Concerning the sunrise though, we were mildly out of luck. The cloud cover made it only nice instead of spectacular, but on the other hand we got to observe the Lao people go about their insistently early morning routines.

The fishermen, almost ghost-like and silent on the calm Mekong. The towns people getting up and preparing the little shrines. The monks doing their rounds and collecting alms, giving a blessing in return. The culturally insensitive tourists following the monks way too closely with cameras shoved in their faces … a normal calm morning in this sleepy tourist town.

Laos differs greatly from Cambodia: Much greener, many more rivers and most importantly, mountains

A side benefit of getting up so early was that we also got on the road nice and early, while it was still relatively cool. The plan was to do the Southern Swing loop, a motorcycle tour through the Bolaven plateau recommended by the Lonely Planet. Since we found both a SIM card and new shampoo along the way, we skipped going to the regional capital of Pakse and turned off straight for the mountains.

We wavered only briefly whether to follow the advised loop back to Pakse or try to modify the route to come along a different way north. In the end we decided to stick to the suggestion. There will be plenty of opportunity to go off the beaten track further north.

A place to chill and sip organic coffee

Not willing to fork over yet another $5 for a waterfall, we skipped the first stop to go and pay Mr. Vieng’s Coffee and Homestay a visit. It was lunch time now and we had the small hope that we might find lunch there as well. Our hope for food was disappointed, but for once we were still quite happy with that. Mr. Vieng’s place was amazing – hitting that super narrow space of feeling authentic while still being spic-and-span in our spoiled western eyes. It was all wood and dirt floor, very calm and super cozy. The coffee was great, only topped by the complimentary home roasted peanuts. We even considered calling it a day right there and stay in the homestay, but food called.

Rocinante gets to see the waterfall as well from this wooden bridge

The next stop was the natural stopping point for the day, and there were some lovely guesthouses to look out for, according to the Lonely Planet. Unfortunately, all the nice ones already had the signs out telling us that there were no rooms available. The cute restaurants were closed as well. Slightly defeated, we took a meal at the touristy place with a view of the Tat Hang waterfall to consider what to do next. The waterfall was nice, but nothing special. Although it was late for lunch, it was actually still relatively early in the day.

Lunch took forever to arrive – not for the first time in Cambodia and Laos, which gave us ample of time to come up with a plan. We decided to go on for a bit more and go to Sekong, the next town on the southern swing, where very reasonably priced guesthouses were available via Agoda.

Rocinante parked at our guest house where we stayed despite the Agoda scam

Just an hour later, we were in for our final surprise for the day. The guest house we booked was nowhere to be found at the given coordinates. Some probing led us about 2km further, where the guest house from the photos could be found. There, they denied any association with Agoda and asked to be payed in cash. The place was nice enough, so we did it and started to sort out a refund for the weird scam from Agoda. The room was massive and the night was calm – everything else could be sorted out … tomorrow.

: A bit too cloudy for an amazing sunrise, unfortunately

: The fishing boats were out again at dawn

: The light is starting to file through

: And then, the sun appeared behind the clouds. Still very pretty

: He’s got annoyed with me taking a picture every two seconds

: Great view at breakfast

: Our lovely guest house. The upstairs room on the left, with the curtains drawn, is ours

: The first village on the “southern swing”; everyone was selling baskets

: Laos differs greatly from Cambodia: Much greener, many more rivers and most importantly, mountains

: A place to chill and sip organic coffee

: Also selling Katu textiles

: Basic but homely. Very tempted to stay for a night

: Home-made sign 🙂

: Waterfall at lunch time

: Many tourists climbed around in the waterfalls; we weren’t tempted

: Rocinante gets to see the waterfall as well from this wooden bridge

: Riding on wood is slightly weird

: Great roads and mountains

: Overtaking a pick-up transporting cupboards…the local way

: Rocinante parked at our guest house where we stayed despite the Agoda scam

Day 71 – First world problems and an enchanting city

Flo woke me up at 7am after a good night’s sleep. I had been very tired the evening before as the 3.30am start into the day did not go down well with me.

Herman was already up and back from his morning run (shame on me) so we had breakfast together before he headed off for work. Breakfast was delicious but I started to feel really unwell. Most of the morning saw me in bed with stomach pains. I am unsure if it was a reaction to the malaria prophylaxis in the morning, the local food yesterday or the crushed ice (aka tap water) in my juice last dinner. Whatever it was, it was most definitely a reaction of my body to something new.

Pretty and convincing for fake flowers.

So Flo had to go out without me to procure lunch which he did while I took a nap. He made it to a Vietnamese bakery close by where he bought some kind of sweet treat for me. When the lady at the counter asked for $1, he was sure that he was being ripped off because he’s malae but then he came home with a whole plastic bag full of the treats! More than enough for both of us for lunch. It turned out to be several quartered bananas wrapped in dough and then deep fried in oil. There was probably some honey put on it as well. Sweet, fatty and quite delicious.

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Chaos roaming the world

random pieces of life of Nina and Florian