Tag Archives: street food

Day 19 – Drifting around

The Forest Park was a nice spot and both kids were keen to go back to the playbus. So we took our time this morning to blog a little, let the kids play and go on a walk through the forest. The small loop track that Flo had picked didn’t lead through the forest unfortunately but meandered through the Arboretum of a now-abandoned manor house. Not quite what we had in mind for this morning.

Both kids absolutely loved the short walk through the forest. Number 3 made up fairy stories about their houses and furniture

From here, we went back to the coastal route. It was nearly lunch time already. After stocking up on groceries in a tiny supermarket (and gummybears. Always gummybears. Grandma had given a tiny bucket full of them to the kids before we left and it needs to be refilled regularly), Flo followed a roadside viewpoint sign to Carrigafoyle Castle. Another lovely picnic spot for us plus a “castle” for Number 3 to explore. It was actually quite cool to see how much of the ruin you could still explore.

Further down the coast we went, now in the county of Kerry. Kerry is full of things to do and see…just not right here. So we continued until we hit Tralee. The Lonely Planet recommended the Tralee Bay Wetlands Centre as an activity plus a location for coffee. We got to the parking lot, plugged in the charger and nearly collapsed. With the sleeping kids in the back, we seriously considered just taking a nap. Instead, Flo and I planned the next campground. The response we got was encouraging, basically saying “no need to book there will be spaces on the day”. This is our preferred way of travelling so I’m quite happy we can just see how far we get and then check for campsites there.

the one lauched maybe 4m from us

Finally, we went in. It was actually quite lovely to just walk around in the wetland. We saw a heron and a moorhen with chicks and lots of things that are common in Ireland. Number 3 had a sheet with all the flora you could see and the Agent had a sheet with all the birds you could spot…both of them took their jobs seriously.

Getting coffee was a harder task. The cafe in the Wetlands Centre was closed, the first recommended cafe in Tralee as well. In the end, we wandered around and had coffee in one of the many coffee places the pedestrian zone had to offer.

Our next scheduled campground was at Inch Beach at the start of the Dingle Peninsular loop. It had been a weird day without any real highlight but a lot of things to see anyway, so I was happy to just hit the campground a little earlier than we usually do.

bit heavy-handed on the god ray shader

It is right opposite the beach. The weather was still fine and I opted that we’re going to see the beach in sunshine. Flo protested meekly because going to the beach now meant we couldn’t cook dinner and had to improvise. However, the kids ran around ecstatically so this time, Flo also put his feet in the ocean.

On the way back, we chose convenient dinner from a fish & chips food truck at our campground. Expecting the usual grub, this one pleasantly surprised us with its quality. They only need to work on their trucks presentation a bit …

Most of the trees along the fairy trail were enchanted in some way
The Agent of Entropy on her second run through. The first time, she was a little scared, the second time she knocked on every door: “They don’t come out!”
Both kids absolutely loved the short walk through the forest. Number 3 made up fairy stories about their houses and furniture
The highlight of the playground: A real play bus
“All passengers need to board now”
The pompous white landowner part of the park
We were only looking for a lunch spot …
… and got a cool bonus castle
fourth floor masters-chamber-turned-balcony
neat and safe restoration of parts of the ruin to make it accessible
in case you are wondering, castle fell to bombardment, everyone mudered.
finding plants and birds from our sheets
the wetlands with the observation tower in the back
the one lauched maybe 4m from us
not sure she is looking in the right places for birds …
back right through the heart of the wetlands
loads of different inscects about as well
coolest find, a moorhen with three chicks
Ducks being Ducks
we were encouraged to pick a few herbs, which no3 took seriously
drive in beach again
Obligatory stickiefying of the feet -.-
It has not gotten old for her yet
bit heavy-handed on the god ray shader
This time with Flo
Solid craft beer and great dinner
neat view, on a bit of a terrace

Day 238 – Sleepless in Dubai

The night on the plane was long. Not uncomfortable but long. I mean, the flight time between Bangkok and Muscat where we had to switch planes was just 5 1/2 hours. Given that we both watched a movie, were fed snacks, our real vegetarian dinner, water and coffee, it did not make for a lot of uninterrupted sleep. At all.

Muscat was just more waiting at the gate for us. Transfer passengers don’t even get to see much of the airport itself. So we waited, hoped on the next plane and I fell asleep immediately. The woman sitting behind us woke us up when she asked Flo if we know why we are delayed. Until then, blissfully asleep, we hadn’t realized that we were off to a late start. The pilot explained at some point that we were still waiting on some passengers (probably a connecting flight) but I couldn’t care less as I got to sleep in a comfy airplane.

The flight from Muscat to Dubai is incredibly short with a flight time of 37 minutes. During that time, we received water and snacks. A lot of snacks. So many in fact that we saved the sandwiches for lunch time because we had already feasted on bread sticks and hummus, a chocolate brownie and chocolate chip cookies.

Arriving at Dubai at the local time of 3am, we stood in line for “foreign passports” for a bit before a staff person got us out and told us to stand a much shorter line. Germans get 30 days visa exempt so we got stamped in and that was that. Picking up our one checked in luggage bag and we arrived in the UAE.

Cute car, was even reasonably affordable for us

Cute car, was even reasonably affordable for us

It was still 4.30am though. And I was really really tired. There was nowhere we had to be yet so we slept for another hour or so in the arrival hall at the airport. At 6am, we decided to have breakfast in an airport cafe. My inner clock told me that it is time for breakfast as in Bangkok it would have been 9am. Checking with the help desk, we found out that the general consulate of Iran opens at 8am and thus, we had more time to spend. At 7.30am Flo rented a car so that we could get around in the city (mathematically that will be cheaper than taxis) and off we went.

Snood as an improvised headscarf to get into the embassy.

Snood as an improvised headscarf to get into the embassy.

The consulate of Iran was straight forward with the process of obtaining a visa. Since we already had a confirmation code, we just had to fill out the visa forms, leave passport pictures with the forms, pay and leave our fingerprints. Everyone was nice and seemed generally excited that we would visit Iran for the first time. I only had a tiny problem…I haven’t bought a headscarf yet so we had to improvise one. In the end, I used Flo’s black cotton motorbike snood as a make-shift hijab which worked surprisingly well but was way too hot.

Everything is ... big.

Everything is … big.

Once we had the application out of the way, we went to Dubai Mall at the foot of Burj Dubai. It’s a mall. Gigantic. Full of things and people and…we didn’t have the money for any of it. Taking pictures was still fun and we saw a lot but mall fatigue set in rather quickly. After three hours, ready for another nap, we left. This time towards our hotel, we hoped to be able to check in around lunch time. Our hotel was on the cheap side (for Dubai) and turned out to be in a quarter where many of the migrant workers live.

I had to take a nap first, then we explored the surroundings. So many flavours of the world. Tiny stalls selling flat breads which just came out of the oven. Falafel and hummus for dinner. So yummy!

Surprised by the fact that the ratio of men to women that we saw walking on the streets changed so drastically, I’d guess that the crowds we saw consisted of 80% men and only 20% women.

Day 235 – Get a move on

Such a lovely, cozy room

Such a lovely, cozy room

It is just too hot to do anything. Yesterday, before going out for dinner, we had a look at a guesthouse we saw on Agoda for the remaining two nights. Our current hotel was still overpriced and underwhelming and not even the WiFi was that good. The place we looked at was lovely – it had shared bathrooms, but those were spotless and just around the corner. The room itself was perfect for us. Cute, with AC and a flat screen TV, and most of all a very comfy bed. So we booked in till Sunday.

The most touristy street we found

The most touristy street we found

Which leads us to today, the move day. We stuck out in the old room until it was check out time, shouldered our few bags and walked the 15 minutes to the new guesthouse. That was pretty much our day, really. After the slightly stressful time with dropping off the bike and the sightseeing yesterday; today, we just chilled. After Nina took a nap, we put the flat screen to good use with season 4 of the Great British Bake Off (no judging!).

Food wise, we were quite conservative. For lunch, we walked a bit further out to avoid westernised stuff and found a cool little stall at a street corner selling food kind of Padang style with mix and match rice and ready-made dishes. Dinner was even more conservative, with another trip to last night’s Israeli place.

Day 127 – Raindrops on my helmet

Leaving Cilacap was not hard though the breakfast was surprisingly good. Also, we didn’t get onto the road as early as I wanted to but then, my mood seems a bit erratic because of Christmas. I’m much more prone to homesickness and missing friends terribly.

We managed to get a chunk of our task done which was get to Bandung today. Bandung is about 270km from Cilacap; not a challenge with good roads but a stretch in Indonesia. At 11am, it started raining. Getting soaked on the way into Malang wasn’t fun so we stopped for an early lunch and waited till the rain stopped. It didn’t rain much.

So we were back on the road. Thirty minutes later, it started raining for real. A bit fed up with stopping again, we instead pulled on our rain gear, tapped the panniers (heavy rain has a way of pushing in through the gap between lid and pannier) and kept going. It rained quite hard. And long. We did not get nearly as soaked as before with all our gear but it still was not the best riding experience.

Basically, we ducked down our heads and endured the rain until we were in Bandung. The thing with the rain this time was that if we had tried to avoid it, we wouldn’t have gotten very far at all.

In Bandung, we found a tiny place for the night…so tiny, that we had trouble getting all our gear in. It was cheap though. But my mood was not the best and I was quite exhausted from a hard day’s ride. Going out for food seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to sleep.

The only picture of the day, thanks to the rain

The only picture of the day, thanks to the rain

Flo convinced me that I needed food though so we stepped outside. Right next door was a design place that also made decals for motorcycles. Having failed so far, we asked about a sticker with the Indonesian flag. They didn’t have one but were more than happy to customize it for us. Flo went back to the hotel to grab the pannier that it was supposed to go on and we had it attached in no time. The word “Indonesia” is even made up of individual letters all sticking to the pannier. And the best thing: The owner gave it to us for free after seeing our pannier with the world map on it. Thanks so much, mangele.com!

From there, we turned one corner to get to the main street were we found a whole alley with food stalls in the more hipster street food style. It was delicious. Also I managed to get a dessert which was fried dough filled with chocolate. Cities are just the best. Not for traffic but everything else. Then I fell into bed and slept from 7pm onwards. 🙂