So, after wrapping up the Asian leg of my big adventure, I couldn’t wait to come back to Asia to check out Sri Lanka in mid-August. I mean, the place has always fascinated me, not just because of the delicious food and stunning scenery but mainly because of the wildlife. I was especially excited about the chance to spot leopards in their natural habitat.
After a whirlwind world tour, the daily grind called reminding me that apparently, money doesn’t grow on palm trees. So, I opted for a “relaxing” week in Mallorca, fondly dubbed Germany’s 17th state. And boy, did it live up to its name – Aldi, German radio, schnitzel galore… If you squint, you might mistake it for Bavaria.
It is almost four weeks since I landed back in Frankfurt, sucked into real life again. And it was weird! I started working back in my old job immediately the day after arriving; I stood up as always around 6 am, made a coffee, and at the latest at 7 am, I was sitting at my desk working on the mails I got… It felt like I was never away…
My last stop before flying finally home was Singapur. And if you come to Singapur, everything is different. It’s expensive, but also very advanced… For example, some shops or restaurants do not even accept cash anymore. And the city is immaculate; spitting out chewing gum will lead to a 500-dollar fine… but on the other hand, the city feels like a bike amusement park. Everything has a fee; I didn’t see anything authentic that was “real Singaporean.”
If you plan to see the famous Komodo dragon, you have to be prepared for it to take a while to get there. First, you have to fly to Labuan Bajo, which is only possible from some airports in Indonesia. It’s a relatively small airport in the middle of nowhere. Labuan Bajo is a fishing town located at the western end of the large island of Flores, which is the entrance point to the Komodo National Park
After attending fitness retreats at the Wanderlust Fitness Village in Bali and the Tiger Muay Thai camp in Phuket, I am ready to compare these two very sporty activities.
For my weeks in Bali, I decided to focus on “doing nothing”, just working out once a day and eating, drinking, sleeping, and relaxing before I repeated the same the next day. But being in Bali, I had to visit at least the most iconic spots. Therefore, here are my achievements 🙂
A week in Laos Being in Vietnam, I saw the chance to at least “scratch” Laos. As I only had eight days, I planned to fly to Luang Prabang and take the train to Vientiane to fly further on my trip. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen that only a few significant airports are directly connected to Laos (i.e., Bangkok, Hanoi, and Singapur). So, flying in and out was always via a connection flight. I don’t particularly appreciate connecting flights, but the trip to Luang Prabang made everything worthwhile.
If you stay in Da Nang, you should focus on the beachfront of Da Nang. The beaches are pretty beautiful, better than Hue. The hotels are more expansive than Hue, but life at the beachfront also has an ocean-drive vibe with many restaurants and bars for day and night drinking.
Even though there are many flights and I love being in the air, it seemed wrong to fly the approx. 100km from Hue to Da Nang. I found a better way: using the private taxi (Live Long the King 🙂 ), and used that as a chance to see some significant essential stops on the way to Da Nang.
And damn, that was a good idea 🙂
Two spots I decided to see: The Hai Van Pass and Ba Na Hills.