On the road again

After 6 weeks here I left Düsseldorf in heavy rain, took three pictures within 5 minutes while flying over Biaritz, South of France, Atlantic coast:


Pyrenees:


Spanish side of the coast:


After arriving and settling, a view in front of me:


And behind:



Where am I?

Germany, Neuss

Neuss is not a bad place. River Rhine is between Neuss and Düsseldorf:

Park in the center of the city:

Occasional celebrations:

People take care of health and pleasures of their pets:

They have even foreign tourists here. This one comes from Belgium, probably:

Singapore

Wow! I am impressed. It is better than I expected. European standards or higher. Unlike the rest of SE Asia - tap water is safe, clean streets, efficiency... It is almost as expensive as in Europe. No homeless people - every Singaporean has, if needs to be, subsidised flat. And a free wi-fi with 100% coverage (foreigners have to pay though). All in all - the beauty of a small state, which does not have to run big projects like bombing other states (aka - peace keeping :) or sending a man to the Mars.

United we are big and strong! Divided we are small and happy!


You do not see trains coming and going (too dangerous, you might fall :) Instead, you wait in front of a glassed wall, and when a train is there - doors in a wall and of a train open simultaneously.


Panorama view of a bay area:


Flight to Bangkok, then to Düsseldorf. Back to my village - something is strange here: it is 8pm on Saturday - and not a person in sight! Very un-Asian like...

Kuta

It is raining here, surfers don't mind it, 30°C:


Same spot several hours later:


I was quicker with my camera than this rat:


Notice overcrowded bemo (minibus) and hight-tech horse:

Rubbish

I was happily sitting on a beach watching an old woman and a boy dragging a huge sack, thinking, "What a good boy helping his grandma" when she suddenly emptied it right in front of me, it was household rubbish. Although by now I hardly notice this kind of things in Asia, I was caught unaware and felt offended, took a picture of them and walked away.


On the same topic: I saw a dried out river several km away full (20-30 tons) of rubbish, to my question who is going to deal with it, reply came: waiting for a big rain.

Leaving Lombok

James from Bristol, finished school, secured his place in university (soon to be a star architect!) and went travelling (already 8 months on the road), mainly in India and China. Respect.


We've got guns, and they - horses:


Tsunami!

Tomorrow am heading to the south of Bali, Kuta, to spend last three days of Indonesia's visa. Expecting loads of tourists, great night time - in short: not my thing :)

Lombok 1

This is a huge wedding procession with musicians and dancers. The bride is under the first umbrella, the groom is somewhere under the second one:


A local village in a picturesque settings, zoom in into lower part and you see a common Asian problem, and I am not talking about that boy there :)


An eccentric (as Lonely Planet calls him) New Zealander, Husin Abdullah (in previous life: Gavin Birch) has been living here for the last 25 years and fighting for the environment ever since. Losing battle, if you ask me...


And around tourists a sort of mafia style infrastructure has emerged. In other parts of Asia you have to fight for a fair price if you want to go from A to B, but if they realise that you know the price - they will give it to you. Not so in Lombok - either you pay what they demand or you are not going to get to B.

My neighbours, a Spanish couple, had this experience: on a ferry here they got to know a local man who offered to take them to Singigi (50km) for free. As they were navigating out of parking lot they were surrounded by a group of angry men demanding Spanish out of the car and making threats to the driver. In this particular case they managed to drive away safely. I paid.

If you want to clime the highest mountain here, Rinjani (3726m), regulations are (or so they claim) - you have to have a local guide. Who only available to you if you pay $100 per head, and there are usually four of us in a group. (Remember Hita from Lake Toba, her husband, a fisherman, is earning $50 per month). If you talk privately to a guide (who is getting a small fraction of this bonanza) he would have loved to do it for us and charge us much less, but it is not possible. Is it against regulation? - No. Why don't we just do it then? - Not possible. Indeed, nobody wants to upset that big fat guy...

Unrelated story: a Swiss guy buys two hotels, hires two managers and goes back to Europe. A year later when profits stopped showing up he comes to investigate and finds that he does not have any hotels. His ownership has been transferred to other people. He is still around, fighting his case in courts, good luck to him...

But all that is under the bonnet. The façade, and you have to agree with me, is beautiful :)