Tag Archives: waterfall

Day 6 – Recuperating

After yesterday’s long drive to get to Italy, it was officially our rest day today. Unfortunately, the kids don’t understand the concept of “sleeping in” and thus, we were awake way too early again.

It was a bit chilly when we got up but breakfast is a good way to cheer everybody up. Afterwards we just went to explore our immediate surroundings: The waterfall of Acquafraggia first of all. It is a five minute walk from our campground and we can see it from here through the trees. On the way there, we found a cool place with access to the river where Number 3 put his feet in already. He was generally amazed by the rapid flowing water.

The waterfall itself was loud and there was a lot of spray so Number 3 stayed back a little, while both Flo and I got ourselves a little refreshment when we got close. 🙂 The Agent of Entropy had no choice but to go with Flo but since she didn’t complain it couldn’t have been too bad.

With our spirits high and the temperature rising to a lovely 21 degrees, we started to walk to the next village over to see if we could find a little restaurant for lunch and a shop to buy some groceries. Though the walk was basically along the main road but on a pedestrian footpath, we saw lots of animals. The lizards especially fascinated Number 3. There was also a little chicken hut where we spent about 15 minutes trying to convince Number 3 to keep on moving.

The village of Prosto di Piuro is rather small. We still found the artisan bakery/cookie shop for me to buy some fruit bread, cookies, jam and a bottle of red wine in.

To be honest, Flo and I didn’t know how travelling would be during the pandemic and if we’d feel unsafe. We are really impressed with Italy at the moment as everybody seems to be “no nonsense” about the rules. EVERYBODY wears a mask. And correctly, too! Not just covering mouths or such silly business as I often see in Frankfurt. Everybody keeps their distance if possible and they just get on with it!

Shopping was a pleasure even if I had to stretch my almost non-existing Italian. We didn’t find a restaurant in our price range that was open but we found the little supermarket to buy some groceries.

We hurried a little on the way back as it was time for lunch and everybody was hungry. That turned out to be a bit of a drag for Number 3. Even so, he refused to have a midday nap after lunch. Chilling on the campground in the afternoon was an exercise for our patience. Only when Number 3 observed the guy on the lawnmower and started role playing it did things improve again.

By dinner time the Agent of Entropy was causing havoc while Number 3 redeemed himself by being a superb sous-chef.

  • Two hobbits, very hungry
  • Finally breakfast
  • Our camp at Acquafraggia
  • Exploring
  • The waterfall of Acquafraggia
  • Hobbit for scale on a beautiful day
  • Access to the river
  • is perfect for waterplay!
  • Approaching the waterfall
  • braving the spray
  • All four and the waterfall
  • flying spray
  • tired Agent
  • sunbathing lizard
  • It let them get so close!
  • water stop for Number 3
  • Chickens on the roadside
  • Prosto di Piuro
  • Artisanal bakery
  • Almost like a grown-up XD
  • The lawnmower making an impression
  • reading time while camping
  • roleplaying lawnmowing
  • silly bunny
  • Number 3 as sous-chef
  • Up to no good
  • A pinch of salt…
  • …goes a long way
  • Almost done now 🙂

Day 201 – Southern swing

The light is starting to file through

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

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

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

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

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.

 

 

 

 

Day 148 – Falling, water

We will be so lost in any without translation from the Thai script

We will be so lost in any without translation from the Thai script

Right – today was day trip time. There has been talk of waterfalls for a while and we felt like some light hiking. The hubies (New phrase we invented for my dad and his partner Silvia) promised that we would get that at the Khao Phanombencha National Park.

Getting there got much easier once we took over navigation entirely – but we shall not talk about these things. The park entrance is about 40 km away from our hotel. It took us less than an hour on the scooters to get there. There were some complaints about my Indonesia inspired driving afterwards …

Did not look too bad in the beginning

Did not look too bad in the beginning

At the park we got on a path to a set of 7 cascading watefalls. About 500m in we came upon a turn of to what was labeled “Back to the nature trail”. It looked so harmless, and was supposed to be only 1700m long, so we got going. The first half was true to the expectations: A narrow path through the flat jungle. But then the track started to climb. A pretty hefty climb, actually. Last time Nina and I did a track like this was on Rarotonga, but this time we had my dad and his partner with us. Let’s say we operate on slightly different fitness levels 😉 – and so it took us two hours to ascend the remaining 800m. To be fair, we also went up almost 500m in the process.

the 2nd and 3rd level waterfalls

the 2nd and 3rd level waterfalls

We reaped the reward after another climb, this time down another 200m to the top one of the 7 waterfalls. We cooled down in the pool before making our descent back to the normal path.

Completely knackered we arrived back at the car around 3 pm. We were starving, too, so we dropped down at the first place in sight. Surprisingly, the food was neither bad nor expensive.

After getting home, the rest of the day was set aside for laying low and recovering (for the most of us). Nina and I tackled another movie. Good times.

 

Day 105 – From rain forest back into savannah

Nice view for breakfast

Nice view for breakfast

Tete batu was even cool in the morning. But we decided to just see one waterfall before heading off to Kuta. Maybe we could have a beach day after all.

Driving up the rather washed-out road, we stopped at the house of a local with whom we had spoken yesterday. He pointed us in the right direction for the Air Terjun and we walked the last 200m there by ourselves. The place was way smaller than the waterfalls we had seen so far but it was still a lovely little place. One of the small falls produced a rainbow where the water hit the rocks and the locals had made a dam by the two biggest falls to retain the water. The thus created pool was deep enough to wash in.

All handcrafted organic rice here ...

All handcrafted organic rice here …

Coming back up we asked for a short guided tour and were taken through the village and along the rice fields for a good while. The sun was burning down again…I was really wishing for a pocket waterfall by this time so I could refresh myself whenever I wanted…

The tour ended with a walk through the aptly-named “monkey forest” where we saw many black and grey monkeys, some of them even carrying babies. Pictures are not nearly as impressive as we still don’t own a tele.

After this, we just packed the bike with the luggage we had left at our guest house (and realizing it was on the “monkey forest street”) and left the lovely town of Tete batu, full of nice people and great roadside “nanas” (pineapple).

As soon as we came further south, the landscape returned to the very dry savannah we have seen for so long now. I simply found it too hot to ride which made me grumpy which lead to a misunderstanding with Flo. We discussed things over food which helped and continued to Kuta, one of the beach towns in south Lombok. Unfortunately, neither Flo nor I took a particular liking to the town so instead of relaxing, I got properly homesick. I haven’t been homesick in a while and I guess exhaustion also played its part.

To compensate, we (against better judgement) tried pizza again for dinner and were only mildly disappointed with the average one we got.