After some back-and-forth I’ve altered the travel route a little and am intending to travel down the coast instead of going back inland. Getting to Skopje from Podgorica would have required to cross back over the Dinaric Alps and would have meant either a gruelling 12h bus ride or a 300 Euro flight. Neither was overly appealing.

Instead I followed a recommendation from a fellow traveller at the hostel in Podgorica and took the bus down to Ulcinj, a Montenegrin town just north of the Albanian border.

The centre of town is extremely touristy and a 15 minute walk through there last night was more exhausting than a 2h mountain hike. The good thing is that the season is winding down and the local “beach bar”, a tucked away place with amazing views, had all but three patrons.

The hostel is situated

“It’s incredible”, “I’m lost for words”, that’s the kind of descriptions other travellers gave of Kotor, a small town at the Adriatic coast. It does have a touristy reputation as well though. Cruise liners drop off their cargo for the day, flooding the old town with holidayers on a spending frenzy.

Regardless of that, I wanted to have a look and took the bus over there on Tuesday. It’s a 2.5 hour drive and most of it leads through mountainous terrain. Once the coast was reached, I got an idea of what people were talking about.

The town itself, specifically the old town, has a nice flair to it. Most of the buildings are kept in good shape, the area is clean and the towering mountains

There is something pacifying about horses. They spend 15-20 hours a day just eating. The rest of the time they are standing around or have a short nap.

Having had the recent nice experience in Serbia, I organised a continuation not much later. Searching the internet for horseback riding in Montenegro brought up a good result, and a few emails later I had booked a few hours of riding for this Sunday afternoon.

This time I didn’t just want to ride around but also learn a bit about how best to “behave” on horseback. How to sit, how to move, that kind of stuff.

The “ranch” is a little outside of Podgorica and it took about 20-25 minutes by taxi to get there (8 Euro, cheap country this Montenegro). Soon after the city limits the landscape opened up to a breathtaking

Biggest lake in the Balkans, half an hour from Podgorica and apparently a must-see. How does one get there? “Take the train!” said the hostel staff. I enquired about buses but was told that they’re more expensive and less reliable. Oh well… train it is.

And what a train it was! Clean, modern, could have cruised the rails of Germany. My opinion on train travel in the Balkans got a bit better.

At the lake it was a 10-15 minute walk from the station to the village centre (across the train tracks, through the shrubs and there you are).

The recommendation I got for experiencing the lake was to go kayaking. It’s reasonably cheap with just 3 Euros per hour and I was in need for some exercise.

Twenty minutes of paddling later and I’m still in some form of canal, on my way to the actual lake. It did look beautiful.

Once I had reached the open lake, it was a fair bit to the next landing point. Almost an hour into the journey

As in almost every city on earth, the area near the train station in Belgrade is not the nicest. When I arrived yesterday, short on sleep and covered in stale sweat, I thought I had arrived in some super-dodgy third world country.

That changed though with every meter walked and by the time I was at my hostel (10-12 minutes), I had already come past some nice buildings and people in the street looked normal (i.e. not homeless).

The government buildings are made to show off and are kept in good shape.

At least most of them. Some still show the signs of 1999, when

Vaguely I remember Deutsche Bahn’s advertisement for overnight trains: “Arrive refreshed at your holiday location”, “Save one day of travelling”, etc.

Those reasons and a good experience on a trip to Denmark years ago probably made me decide on the overnight train option.

The journey started well. Turns out when you pay a little extra (and book early enough), you can make the trip from Balaton to Budapest in an airconditioned, reasonably new car. It’s only one car in the whole train but yes, that’s how I like my 21st century!

In Budapest I had about four hours of stopover and with the temperatures once again pushing 40°, I spent quite a bit of it in a mall not far away from the station. Needed to buy a towel anyway.

Fifteen minutes before the scheduled 22:25 departure, the waiting crowd was let onto the platform. Lots of backpackers, some older folks with small luggage. The seater cars we walked by where all in good shape but once we arrived at the 30-40 years old “couchette”, I started to have doubts

That’s hopefully something I’ll be hearing early in the morning tomorrow. The plan is to leave Révfülöp in the afternoon, arrive in Budapest without too much of a delay and then catch the overnight train to Belgrade at 22:30. Should be interesting one way or another.

Balaton has been relaxing and I got a lot of work and travel planning done. When I arrived I thought about leaving the next day but once I had found a few quiet corners, I stuck around for a bit longer.

Not sure about how representative for the whole of Balaton this village is, but if the rest is anything like it, then most of Lake Balaton’s shores are fenced off and only available to paying customers. The fees are low enough (€1.50 a day) but the whole setting is something that would make me not come back any time soon.

Again, that shouldn’t sound too negative. The Lake is really nice and the “hinterland” is pretty much devoid of tourists.

Ok, couldn’t fit more B-words into the title. Left Dunakeszi this morning by train and changed onto another train to Balaton in Budapest. Changing trains isn’t always easy there, as different parts of the country are served by different stations.

[caption id=“attachment_3213” align=“aligncenter” width=“450”] Dunakeszi Station[/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_3214” align=“aligncenter” width=“450”] “Manual Ticket Machine”[/caption]

In my case “changing trains” meant: Arrive in Nyugati, take a tram, take the Metro and arrive at Déli where

Saturday was a lazy day with a few hours of work in the morning and a nice trip to the area north of Budapest in the afternoon. View from the restaurant was pretty amazing.

Today I saw a little more of Budapest itself. With temperatures around 35° it was a wee bit warm for a city trip but it was never too difficult to find a shadowy area.

My walk led me along Andrássy út and its countless old and beautiful buildings, towards

This city has some seriously good looking buildings. Seeing the parliament for the first time is a true “Neat!” moment.

It should be mentioned though that not every building looks like it’s straight out of a fairy tale. The subway that took me into the city (M3) had a distinct Soviet flair.

Of course no visit to Budapest would be complete without

The description of Ben Gurion airport in this post is based largely on online research as well as information from other travellers and Palestinians. I have only taken into account information that came from multiple sources.

Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion is said to be one of the safest airports in the world. All checked luggage is x-rayed, put into pressure chambers and often searched by hand as well. Travellers and their carry-on luggage are x-rayed and in many cases swiped for explosives’ residue.

In addition to these mechanical measures, travellers are screened with several rounds of questions based on their background. Background meaning travel experience, race and religion (sic!).

Unfortunately, the aims go way past air travel security. Officials are looking for suspicious individuals who have connections to Muslim countries or might otherwise be considered “unfriendly towards the state of Israel”.

Those who are considered worthy of a closer look are invited into separate interrogation rooms for a chat with officials. These chats can last anywhere from an hour to a whole day (temporary imprisonment optional). A friend of mine was detained for eight hours when trying to enter the country. During the interrogation, the suspect is examined via means of google, facebook, twitter and their phones and emails.

Demanding access to a person’s phone or email accounts is a horrible breach of privacy. Hence such behaviour is unthinkable at European airports. The US got a lot of criticism when they started demanding access to electronic devices. However in Israel everything is justified with “300 million Arabs want to wipe us off the earth”. Who needs international law or human rights anyway.

One could argue that access to phones and online accounts wouldn’t have to be revealed. Unfortunately

The Bahai gardens in Haifa are considered the must-see in the city. Off-limits to the general public, except on guided tours, one has only one opportunity per day to get in and see them up close. The English language tour starts at noon and I had a lazy morning with coffee, breakfast and a little more coffee. 12 Shekels! 12! I paid 2 in Ramallah!

The gardens certainly are nice, although I wouldn’t travel all the way to Haifa just to see them. They are only gardens, albeit nice ones. After the tour I got on the local bus, following information from the tourist centre, and travelled up north to Akko. It is an old Arabic port town and is said to have a beautiful old city.

While the old city isn’t too bad, it certainly suffers from tourism. That’s a personal objection of mine though, just can’t stand places where all the infrastructure is aimed at tourists (and thus overpriced and mediocre). In addition,

Tuesday was supposed to be my lazy day. I had extended my 3-night stay in Ramallah to a 5-day one and wanted to spend my last day with doing nothing besides some writing and drinking coffee.

Fellow traveller Nigel got in the way though. He’s working as a journalist and mentioned that he’d join an anthropology student to interview a farmer who’s land is about to be taken away.

His initial invitation I tiredly refused. However came mid-day, my curiosity got the better of me and I told him I’d join him for the trip. Plus Bethlehem is less than an hour away.

Our local contact ran late and so we went on the tourist trail instead. First stop: church of nativity. It’s built on the site were baby Jesus was born. It’s a tourist drag but the locals don’t get much from it as most tours are organised by companies in Jerusalem.

[caption id=“attachment_3089” align=“aligncenter” width=“450”] Stable yesterday, Church today[/caption]

Not having had a religious upbringing, the whole of Bethlehem didn’t have any spiritual appeal for me. It was more of a “let’s have a look around”.

One thing to have a look at in Bethlehem

Time for a delayed trip report! On Monday I followed Hiba’s invitation for a tour around Nablus. The town is about an hour from Ramallah on the shared taxi. I managed to arrive half an hour late by first forgetting my passport (had to return to get it) and then taking the one taxi that got rear-ended on the way.

Hiba showed understanding though and we jumped right into the tour with a visit to an old soap factory right next to the bus station. In Palestine, fresh olive oil is used for food and the old (after a year) left-overs are turned into soap. It’s a handicraft.

We continued with a visit of the old city, which is much bigger and charming than that of Ramallah. It has a lot of

I felt a little sad about having to leave Palestine. In a very short time I had met a lot of amazing people. It wasn’t just the incredibly friendly and hospitable locals but also the travellers who had made their way into the West Bank.

After a last Arabic coffee (cardamom flavoured), I got onto the local bus to Jerusalem. It is always a somewhat cramped experience, especially with a full size backpack between my legs.

Fellow travellers had told me that security checks at Qalandia are arbitrary and can take from five minutes to an hour (more if you’re Palestinian). At the checkpoint military police boarded the bus and checked IDs.

The woman examining my passport told me “you are too young, you can’t stay on the bus”. Well thank you for the compliment, but…???

When I was younger, I never had much interest in watching any kind of road-racing. WRC was ok for me but Formula 1 was incredibly boring and Nascar even worse. Things changed when I started to develop an interest in motorcycles. Suddenly there was the world of MotoGP, where riders were fighting fierce battles, sometimes overtaking each other several times a round.

Since the 1950s, my hometown hosts an annual motorcycle road-racing event. For that, part of the local harbour is closed down and turned into a racetrack. Admission is cheap and the whole atmosphere relaxed.

So far I haven’t been in town when the race took place but this year I was. Not only was I interested in watching the event, it also promised to be a great photo opportunity.

Angkor Wat, described as the mother of all temples and probably the largest religious building in the world. I saved it for the last day of my temple tour and was excited to get there. After splurging with tuk-tuk rides the last two days it was time to be a backpacker again and get onto a bicycle.

Visiting the temples by bicycle has the added benefit of seeing more along the way and being able to stop everywhere. I made a first stop at the moat that surrounds Angkor Wat. It’s a massive 190m wide, that should beat every European castle easily.

Next to where I was standing a Cambodian woman in modest clothes was fiddling around with her mobile. When I was about to leave she asked if I could spare a minute and help her with her phone. I expected something like ‘how do I change this setting’ but instead she told me she just uploaded some photos of Angkor to flickr and couldn’t edit the description. I did not expect that.

Not ten minutes later I got in touch with even more people (apart from the ever-present dealers). I was watching the entrance of Angkor Wat when an old guy started to talk to me in French. I didn’t have a clue of what he wanted but my ‘pardon, je ne comprend pas’ earned me a friendly laugh and a ‘merci beaucoup’. He continued to smoke cigarettes with a monk as old as him.

Walking over the causeway towards the entrance gives you a good idea of how large that 190m wide moat is. Inside the temple area I almost stumbled over a wild monkey

At Mochit bus station I get a ticket for a bus leaving at 9:00 am to Aranyaprathet, the border town on the Thai side. It is a first class bus but the main difference between first and second class is usually the travel time. Both feature air-con and uncomfy seats.

I’m interested in a quick arrival as I have a contact expecting me at the border between 12 and 2pm. Sounds a bit like taken from a movie but it’s just the arrangement I have with a Siem Reap guest house. They offer this service free of charge and it’s a good way to clear the biggest trouble spot on the journey, the Cambodian site of the border.

The bus leaves with a slight delay and that the driver is stopping at a servo to fill up is not really helping with getting to the border quickly. I have a look at the map, estimate the travel time and see that I’ll be at the border close to 2pm.

Just minutes before that time we reach the bus station in Aranyaprathet. From there to the border it’s another 5km and my sources recommend taking a tuk-tuk. To my surprise all the Thais stay on the bus and I find out that the bus is going to Rongklua market which is directly at the border.

Now the bus company doesn’t want to take all the income from the tuk-tuk drivers so

The day before my departure was an uneventful one. I did some final travel planing and tidied up my stuff, getting rid of gear I never used in hopes to make my backpack a bit smaller and lighter. It’s the third time I did that in Thailand but every time I end up with a heavy and bursting backpack not much later. No idea how that’s physically possible, must be some special backpacker law of physics.

Koh Tao accompanied my evening beer with a nice sunset. After all that time on the Aussie east coast I saw the sun rising over the ocean countless times but never did I see it set there.

In the morning I have to leave my room at 10:00 which is quite early for Thai standards. I asked them if a later checkout would be possible and was told I’d have to pay 100B per hour. Considering that the bungalow cost me 500B for the whole day that’s a blatant rip-off.

They do offer to store my backpack though and as I trust them I gladly accept. Carrying 20kg of luggage on a 35°C day is something

This weekend Hiro’s visa was about to expire and we went to get an extension at the border to Burma/Myanmar. Extending a visa is rather easy (if you’re a citizen of the right group of countries), leave the country, come back half an hour later and get another 15 days (or 30 if you enter the country by plane).

The border crossing that is the easiest to reach is at Mae Sai about five hours north of Chiang Mai. We couldn’t get a bus ticket directly to Mae Sai so we went to Chiang Rai instead to catch a bus to the border from there.

From Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai it’s about 3-4 hours and once again I was amazed by the Thai bus drivers. So far I’m unable to tell on which side of the thin line that divides genius and insanity they are to be positioned.

They might be masters on four wheels, using every inch of the road (including the oncoming lane of course) and getting the last bit of power out of their aged vehicles. They might as well be plain mad, unaware of what happens when two heavy loads of steel collide at high speed. Frankly the fact that I haven’t seen a single accident yet let’s me think of them as masters of their craft. That thought is also more comforting when you’re at their mercy.

The reincarnation-express delivered us safely in Chiang Rai and we had a look around for the bus to Mae Sai. Now while the long distance coaches are somewhat close to what you’re used to from western countries the local buses are a bit different.

Ever wondered where the old buses go that no-one wants to have on Europe’s roads any more? I know that now. Have a look at the top notch air-con.

There was up to thirty people in that bus and I was the only one with blond hair. Gives you quite a feeling.

The ride to Mae Sai takes roughly an hour and a half and as the roads are close to the border there is frequent police checkpoints. The police is - as far as I know - mainly looking for illegal immigrants from Burma so when they board the bus to check IDs

Thursday, November 25th. Usually I’m not a big fan of zoos but today we went to visit the Koala sanctuary nearby Brisbane. It is more than 120 years old and currently home for 130 koalas. Besides the koalas they show other animals, most of them Australian.

We started with the lorikeets. They are not held captive in the zoo but live in the trees throughout the area and twice a day it’s feeding time for them. The keepers hand out trays with food and visitors can hold them up and be eye to eye with the birds.

Even on my head they were sitting. There was about 40-50 of them and every time a kid was running towards the group they escaped at once just to return to the food a minute later.

After the lorikeet feeding we went to the kangaroo area. The area is

Friday Nov 12th, Day 5 of the road trip. We leave Townsville in heavy rain and hope to leave the bad weather behind. We are near Ayr, almost 100km south of Townsville when the rain stops for the first time. It doesn’t stay dry for long though and when we reach Airlie Beach it’s raining cats and dogs again.

Airlie Beach is the main starting point for tours to the famous Whitsunday Islands. That group of islands has beaches that are said to be among the most beautiful worldwide. I was eager to go there but the weather kind of killed the mood.

With the weather being totally unsuitable for camping we decided to check into a hostel for a couple of nights. Two guys from the share house in Cairns, Pete and Meri, work in a hostel near town and organised some beds in a dorm for us.

The weather remained unstable and we spent our time with cleaning and drying the gear or going fishing at the nearby marina.

The forecast promised better conditions for Sunday and thus we booked a Whitsunday tour for that day. While still in Germany I planned to do a sailing trip around the islands but those trips are unfortunately not compatible with my current budget.

Instead we went for an ocean rafting day trip. The company running these trips bought a couple of rescue vessels and

It wasn’t easy but today I finally got the roadworthy certificate (RWC) for my car. A RWC is necessary to register a car and can be issued by certified mechanics. Unlike the German TÜV there are no specialised inspection stations. The Italian couple that sold me the car had it checked by a mechanic in the city and because it failed in some points didn’t get the RWC.

In such cases the car has to be repaired and presented again to the mechanic that did the initial roadworthy check. He’ll check it again free of charge and either issue a RWC if everything has been fixed or point out the damages that are still in need of repair.

This is the story of my cars RWC:

Thursday 21st: I bought the car knowing that the RWC will cost me around $600. After buying the car I talked to Fred from the car rental to get a recommendation for a mechanic that works for cash. He named the one that also services their cars. In the afternoon I went to see him, showed him the paper that lists the necessary repairs for the RWC  and he quoted me $500 to $550 for the repairs. “How much if I pay cash?” I asked. “$450” he answered. I agreed and he told me to bring the car around on Monday.

Monday 25th: In the morning I drop of the car at the mechanic and in the afternoon I pick it up and drive straight to the mechanic that did the roadworthy check. He was too busy that day and asked me to bring the car around the next day.

Tuesday 26th: I drop the car of in the morning and come back in the afternoon to pick it up. “We have a bit of a problem here.” I was told. “Your mechanic repaired the wrong part of the car.”. “WTF” I think and say. Apparently the radius arms on the front wheels were repaired but those on the rear wheels needed to be repaired.

It was about time to pay the Great Barrier Reef another visit. My friend is a certified open water diver as well and we booked a three dives trip with Tusa. They’re a little more expensive than Divers Den where I did my course but they provide better equipment as well. Especially wet suits are a critical point for me as it’s hard to find one that fits me.

We left Cairns aboard Tusa 5 on Saturday last week at 8am sharp. After the usual introduction by the crew we had a bumpy ride to the reef. The wind was blowing at almost 30 knots and the crew was handing out sick bags to the needing.

After about 90 minutes we arrived at Saxon reef. Not 15 minutes later we were in our gear and in the water. Like the last time it was absolutely stunning. This time we brought a camera and got some really nice pictures.

The dive site was called “Magic Wall”, probably because of the coral structure that formed a wall easily 10m high. It looked like

One big point on my list of things to do while I’m in Cairns was diving at the Great Barrier Reef, said to be one of the best diving sites in the world. As I never had dived before the obvious solution was to do a so called intro dive. That’s a day trip to the reef with snorkeling and one scuba dive. Those trips cost (on a decently fast boat) about $180 to $230 for the day.

When I mentioned my plans to Andy he pointed out that due to the weak season (hello economy crisis) several companies cut the prices for their dive courses and there was some nice discounts out there. That way I’d get a four day dive course with two days in the pool and two days (five dives) at the reef for twice the price of a day trip. Plus I’d be a certified diver afterwards and could basically go diving on my own everywhere in the world.

Took me a couple of days before I made the decision to do the course. Unless I’d totally dislike diving it was too good a deal to pass on.

Day 1, Sunday Trying to get into a course with as few students as possible I booked one that starts on Sunday. Worked well, besides me there were just two other guys in the classroom. The morning of this first day was filled with theory and getting a medical examination by a doctor. The doc certified me fit for diving and we went to the swimming pool after lunch to have some practical education.

We started with collecting the gear and for scuba diving that’s a lot you have to collect. Tank, BCD, regulator, weights, fins, mask and wetsuit to be precise. For the next two hours we practised basic skills and got ourselves used to handling the gear.

[caption id=“attachment_269” align=“aligncenter” width=“380” caption=“Dive Equipment on the Boat”][/caption]

Day 2, Monday Today we went straight to the pool and started with swimming. Yes, swimming, everybody who wants to be a diver has to be able to swim 200m and stay on the surface for 10 minutes after that. Not too hard so everybody managed to do it and

There is a beautiful piece of earth called Atherton Tablelands just half a hour south of Cairns. I planned on going there for some time and for Sunday I got a couple of mates together and rented a car. Renting the car was quite cheap, my old boss gave me a discount and thus it was just $30 for the car instead of $55.

We planned on starting at 7:30 but changed our plans on short notice. Warm temperatures, stuffy bedrooms and partying neighbours don’t contribute to a good nights sleep.

We, that is Hiroko from Tokyo, my housemate Chris and Nico from the hostel. Both of them from France.

When we left Cairns at 8:30 the sun was already shining bright and it promised to become a warm day. We made our first stop on the road to Yungaburra and got a first impression of what the tablelands look like.

On our way farther into the tablelands we came across the Cathedral Fig Tree. That thing is about 500 years old and

Thursday, May 20th 15:30 CEST: Leaving home by car. We decided to start early as we expected to hit the rush hour in Bremen.

Thursday, May 20th 16:30 CEST: Check-in at Bremen airport. I was hoping my luggage wouldn’t exceed the weight limit as the scales at home showed almost 23 kg (the max weight for the Qantas flight) for the bag and the backpack combined. Fortunately with 22kg it was within the limits. Lufthansa didn’t even charge me for the 2kg I was exceeding their weight limit. My father and me passed the waiting time at the airport bar and on the visitors terrace. About an hour later it was time to say goodbye for a year and board the plane.

Thursday, May 20th 18:10 CEST: Timely take-off to the short 45min flight to Frankfurt.

Thursday, May 20th 20:00 CEST: Check-in with Qantas in Frankfurt. Lufthansa forwarded my luggage directly to Qantas so I just needed to get my boarding passes. For the flight to Singapore I had already reserved an exit row seat. When I asked for such a seat on the flight to Adelaide I was told that since recently Qantas always charges an additional fee for these seats. Well, for a mere 6.5 hours a regular aisle seat will do.

[caption id=“attachment_30” align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Qantas 747-400 at the Frankfurt airport”][/caption]

Friday, May 21st 00:10 CEST: With a slight delay of 15 minutes I’m leaving Germany. My examination of the onboard entertainment system