Chiang Mai

Our initial plan was to begin our stay in Thailand with a visit to Bangkok. Due to the current flooding we changed our plans. After landing in Bangkok we took the first available flight going to the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is the largest city in northern Thailand. It was the capital of the kingdom of Lanna (1296 - 1768) as well as the kingdom of Chiang Mai (1774 - 1939).

On the first day in Chiang Mai we set out to explore the city on foot. There was so much to see and do that we found ourselves still walking the streets 16 hours later. We enjoyed two fantastic meals of Thai food, had an amazing Thai massage and visited a few temples where we spoke with local monks. We finished the day off with the night market including a visit to a fish spa.

40 days on the road

It is now 40 days since we left Zurich and we felt it was time for some reflections.

When we arrived in Japan we still felt like we were on a regular holiday. Now 40 days later we have a comfortable routine that has started to develop. Even though we know very well that travelling the world is not a "normal everyday life" it is starting to now feel like it is.

On a normal (short) holiday it is a nuisance if it rains, if things take longer than necessary and if a hotel room is not up to standard. This feeling has now disappeared and these things are just part of our new "everyday life" on the road.

We really thought that we would be missing some comforts from our "old" life by now; our own bed, the space in our apartment, having access to a car, having more than three t-shirts per person. Surprisingly we don't miss any of this (yet). Living in hostel dorm rooms and tiny hotel rooms without windows is working very well and we are still not tired of the wearing the same clothes.

It was definitely great to start the trip in a very organized country like Japan. This gave us the chance to set our minds on travelling mode in a place where everything worked. Having started in a more chaotic place like the Philippines would have been harder. Thanks to the "soft" start we were already in the right mindset when landing in Philippines and all prepared to battle any taxi driver trying to rip us off.

We are currently feeling like it will take more effort to get accustomed to the normal life again once our trip is over. I guess we will not have much of a choice once our money has runs out.

We are however already tired of all the people trying to sell us things every second meter along the street. This is however not a good thing because we have another six weeks in south east Asia and it is very unlikely to stop before we get to New Zealand in January.

Fees

We have discovered that some countries love to add little fees on everything you do (at least on everything tourists do).

The fee amount always contains the word "only" and always comes as a surprise once you are basically past the point of no return.

So far we have paid the following official fees:

Arrival fee
Departure fee
Terminal fee
Green fee
Eco fee
Island fee
Snorkeling fee (enforced by an official in a canoe)
Registration fee

The terminal fee in Manila was actual consisting of four different fees; security development charge, passenger service charge, government share and anti hijacking fee. What is an anti hijacking fee and why is there an official fee called government share?

On a positive note at least all these fees provide lots of work opportunities...

An island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island

With another day in Manila but with no desire to spend another day in the city we decided to take a day trip to the Taal volcano.

Taal is located about two hours south of Manila and is the second most active volcano in the Philippines. What makes the Taal volcano so special is that it is a volcano island located in the crater lake of another very old volcano. The Taal volcano also has a crater lake with a little island inside it.

So what you end up with is the worlds only island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island (in the pacific ocean).

After a short boat ride across the first crater lake you have two options on how to get to the top of the volcano. You can either hike for about 40 minutes or you can pay a few pesetas to ride on a poor old, dehydrated under fed horse.  We decided to take the more active approach and hike to the top:)

From the top there was a magnificent view of the surrounding country side. If anyone has a day in Manila without any plans, a trip to Taal is a very good option.

Escaping the city

So, after having escaped from Manila we found ourselves on the little island of Boracay. The island is famous for its long white sand beach and its turquoise water.

Even though parts of the island are very exploited, especially along the white sand beach it is still a paradise island. One reason for the many tourists here is of course that it is so easy accessible from Manila with just an hour flight followed by a very short transfer by boat.

As with many of the islands in the Philippines, Boracay offers good diving. Even though the island is small it has 36 dive centers. We settled for "Free Willies Diving" which we can happily recommend this dive center as well as our guide Ray to anyone going to Boracay.

Thanks to the long beautiful beach here in Boracay  we managed to get back into running again. Every morning has started with a beach  run before breakfast.

 

Transportation

The traffic situation in Manila is more than a little chaotic. Our guide referred to driving in the Philippines as "fill in the blanks" which we found a very good description. What is amazing though is that you don't see any dents on the cars.

If we were a bit negative in our first post about Manila we must admit that one positive thing are the so called "Jeepneys". These extended old jeeps painted in various graffiti  like color schemes make up part of the city's public transport system. Each of the 6'000 jeepneys in Manila is independently run but is registered and drives along a set route. You flag it down just like a taxi and then jump in through the door-less entrance at the back. You then try to find a place on one of the benches and hold on tight to the metal rod in the ceiling before the driver quickly starts filling in the blanks.

It is only of 20 cents per three kilometers so these jeepneys really provide an excellent way to explore Manila.

Another great way to get around Manila is to catch a ride in a "pedicar". These man powered tricycles can only be used for shorter distances but are convenient because you can get around faster than on foot.

Tripadvisor

Sometimes it might be good to check a second opinion and not just tripadvisor. That is definitely what we should have done about our hotel in Manila anyway.

The comments we read about it was centrally location, simple but still very clean. The location might have been central but it was certainly not great from a tourist perspective and it was definitely not clean.

Telling people at the airport the location of the hotel produced some very surprised comments and neither them nor our taxi driver had ever heard about the hotel.

From our time in Asia we have learned that people here love wrapping everything in layer after layer of plastic. We still found it quite odd that both the mattress and the remote control for the TV were wrapped in plastic. We had no choice but to wonder what the average guest at the hotel used these rooms for....??? :)

Manila

Arriving in Manila after 10 days in an island paradise is almost a bit of a shock. The fact that the last major city that we visited before Manila was Tokyo made the shock even bigger.

Tokyo and Manila are both huge metropolitan areas in over populated island nations in the pacific ocean. But that is where the similarities stop. Where Tokyo is clean, organized and safe, Manila is dirty, chaotic, polluted and leaves a constant feeling of insecurity. The fact that we had managed to book a hotel in the "wrong" part of town did not make us feel anymore secure.

Stepping out of the taxi at 1 am,  we managed to wake up the cockroaches sleeping on the sidewalk as well the hotel security guard who was sound asleep.

We were meant to have a three day stop over in Manila. Before going here everyone asked us why on earth we were going to stay in Manila for three days. We were told it was unpleasant and nothing to do. After a few hours in Manila we started to understand what they meant...

Having had enough of the pollution we found a flight to the Philippine island of Boracay. After a day trip to the volcanic island of Taal we left Manila a day earlier than planned.

New pictures

Today we finally had the chance to add photos to the old posts from Yakushima, Tokyo and Palau.We also added a few new posts with photos.

Tonight we are off to the Philippines for a three day stopover before we continue to Thailand. Due to the bad flooding we will not be staying in Bangkok to begin with as planned. Instead we will try to head straight for the beach.

Jellyfish lake

One thing that any visitor has to experience is Jellyfish lake. The name says it all, it is a lake full of jellyfish. As there are hardly any other species that can live in this lake the jellyfish does not have any enemies and therefore they thrive. There are two different species of jellyfish in the lake and as none of them sting it is not a problem for humans to swim there.

To protect the jellyfish it is not possible to scuba dive in the lake but you are allowed to go snorkeling. At first it feels a bit spooky with all of the jellyfish and you really try to avoid touching them. After a while you realize that there are just too many not to touch them.

For more information about this lake please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish_Lake.

Kayaking

While Erika spent time in the classroom for her scuba diving course, Pär took two days to explore the rock islands with the help of a kayak. It was a great experience to paddle around these beautiful islands.

The shape of the islands also comes in handy when kayaking in Palau. Almost everyday there is a bit of rainfall here. When it rains you just paddle in under the edge of an island and sit there until the rain passes.

Open Water

After a day of snorkeling and some hesitation Erika decided to sign up for the open water scuba diving course. Having to stay at the surface when everyone else got to dive down among the coral and colorful fish was enough to make Erika want to join in on the excitement.

There were still some doubts after the first dive, but after the second dive those doubts were soon gone.

After four days the course was completed and we were able to dive together. The second dive on this day was at a dive site Ulong channel, which is know as a shark hangout. This time was no exception, for the first 20 minutes of the dive we sat on the sandy bottom and watched 20 or so sharks swim around us.

Our diving in Palau has now come to an end but we hope that there will be more diving trips along the way.

Tourist information

The official tourist information center in Palau is open Monday to Friday between 8 am and 5 pm. Why be open on the weekends, probably not when most tourists come anyway......:)

Conversation in the tourist information center:

Pär: "Are there any companies that provide helicopter tours over the rock islands?"
TIC: "Yes, there is one. But they are having some technical problems with the helicopters so they are currently not operating."
Pär: "Oh, for how long have they not been operating?"
TIC: "About one year." (!!)
Pär: "That is strange. I have a friend who was here about 6 months ago and took a helicopter tour."
TIC: "Oh, but then he must have gone with the other company. The one that is currently not operating is the one that we have decided to promote."

It then turned out that the other helicopter operator company had left Palau, you wonder why... Time for a privately run tourist information center in Palau?

Next conversation:
Pär: "Are there any hiking trails in Palau that you could recommend?"
TIC: "You know, hiking has not really taken off yet in Palau."

Electricity in Palau

In the evenings we sit here with candle light. Not because it is romantic but because there are constant power outages. Four days ago there was a fire in a power plant in Palau so now they randomly switch off the power.

Therefore our first well invested purchase in Palau was a flash light. Walking through town in the pitch black could otherwise be dangerous due to the darkness and the numerous potholes.

Internet in Palau

As the signs at the internet cafes in Koror say, "Internet in Palau is not as fast as in other countries". Rumor has it though that they will get a proper cable here in 2020 (not a joke).

We therefore don't know if we will be able to upload any pictures while we are here. We might have to wait with that until we reach our next destination.

Palau

After we left Japan we headed to the Republic of Palau. We have now been here for three days and it is time for some reflections.

To be quite honest, there is not that much to do in Palau. That is, if you don't like being in, on or under water. There is little to do above the water but a whole world to explore under the water.

Palau is a small island nation in the pacific ocean. It is located in the western part of Micronesia, 800 km east of the Philippines. It has a total population of just over 20'000 people.

On our first day we walked around the center of Koror (Palau's largest city, sorry largest town, no sorry largest village). It honestly took us about 15 minutes to walk the main street, including the inside of the grocery stores and gift shops. The tourist information center was closed as it was Sunday.

On our second day in Palau things got more interesting We boarded a dive boat early in the morning for some scuba diving and snorkeling. After seeing lots of sharks at the first dive site, we enjoyed lunch at a picture perfect white sand beach. The TV show survivor was on this same island in 2005:)

Today, the third day, Erika started her scuba diving course and spent the day in the class room.  Pär rented a kayak and set out to explore the rock islands.

Tokyo

Our last stop in Japan was not just any stop, it was Tokyo, the largest metropolitan area in the world.

The expectations were of course set very high and we did not get disappointed. The neon lights, the people, the weird clothing, the food, the cars, karaoke all night, the electronics, the tempo, everything put together cannot be described, it must be lived!

As we had five days in Tokyo, we had to have a break from the madness in the middle. We therefore spent a day in Nikko, yet another world heritage area with temples and even more temples. Everything surrounded by the leaves changing colors and beautiful mountains.

Today we leave for Palau. Bye, bye Japan, we hope to see you again.

Tokyo!

Down town market

Karaoke

Okonomiyaki

Nikko