Posts in Category: Travels
Australia Zoo
During my time in Brisbane I visited the Australia Zoo which is still run by Steve Irwin’s family (may he rest I peace). Our busdriver told us a lot about the history of the zoo and the attached Wildlife hospital. Afterwards we watched a movie about Steve Irwin and his efforts to preserve wildlife and create awareness about it’s beauty. The zoo itself features many animals including tiger-cubs and the crocodile-show was quite impressing, especially taking into account that everyone deemed it impossible to get the crocs inside and out of the arena reliable and in short time.
Bula, Eh! Fiji-Time!
Said flight landed in the early morning around 6:20 in Nadi. After luggage retrieval and immigartion, I managed to cath the transfer bus (by only 2 minutes) to go to Denarau Marina where my ‘Lazy Threesome’/’Island time’ package would start. Originally I would’ve stayed at a local hostel but the sheraton in exchange was a pretty good deal. It turned out better than planned – thank you, Fijiair!.
At Denarau, I checked in with awesomefiji and boarded the Yasawa-flyer, a yellow catamaran-ferry bound to the yasawa and nacula islands west of Fiji (see picture). I spent the next 5 nights on 3 different islands in family run dorm-accomodations eating fresh fruits and coconuts, snorkeling, learning to cook Kokoda (‘Coconda’), snorkling with manta rays and even 2 dives (where I saw my first blacktip =) ). I met funny and amazing people to spend the time with and enjoyed every second of it. On my last day at Southsea-Island I saw my second blacktip reefshark a few meters off the shore swimming by grace and peacefully. Later I boarded the 1927 built Seasprey for a daytrip sailing adventure along the Mamanuca islands (which wasn’t entirely windpowered). The Glasgow-built vessel took us for snorkeling to the island where Castaway was filmed (The coconuts I found there weren’t good yet 🙁 ) and provided us with fruits, BBQ and all you can drink. After stopping at a fijian village for the cava ceremony and returning to one of the mamanuca islands, I took the opportunity to enjoy a brief jetski ride. The calm water allowed for an amazing speed of 92km/h reminding me of Kiruna, where the air was 60°C colder and the water at least 35°C, turned to snow.
I spent my last 2 fijian nights on the mainland discovering the town and enjoying the beach with new friends I found on the islands. Enjoy the pictures. BUULLAAA from Fiji!
Brisbane – first landing
Originally, my stopover in Brisbane was meant to be spent at the airport. Due to the difficulty of storing luggage for a week, I decided to book a hostel for the time between 02:00 and 09:00. After leaving my luggage in the morning, I drank my first ‘Flat white’ (which is basically a cappucino with minimally aerated milk) and – a little sad, having to wait to discover what this sunbathed city with would have to offer – took the airtrain to BNE-International to head for Fiji. On arrival I was told that my flight would be delayed by almost 13 hours until 00:50 the next day. [The flight the day before was cancelled due to malfunctioning altimeters.] Fijiair kindly set us up in the 4-point sheraton hotel right in the heart of Brisbane and provided us with vouchers to what turned out as amazing lunch and dinner. After a start in the rooftop gym with an amazing view on the story bridge and parts of the town, I spent the day discovering Brisbane, it’s history and the botanic gardens. While the locals were covered in winter jackets and restaurants provided heaters outside, I enjoyed the beautiful 23°C sunlit day in a t-shirt and shorts. What a lovely “Australian winter” :D. At 9pm Fijiair took us back to the airport and we had a few hours left to wait for our flight which lifted off almost on time. (Fijii-time!)
Diving east Malaysia
My last weekend trip during my internship took me to Kota Kinabalu in east Malaysia. Compared to Indonesia, Thailand and even west Malaysia, I was impressed how different the country was. Roads with markings (and they actually respected them instead of honking all the time) and mainly 2/3 story stone houses that would perfectly fit European suburban areas instead of 20+ story living complexes combined with wood/corrugated iron cabins. Additionally, the people were really nice without the “annoying salesman”-mentality “mister, come here! original, I give you good price”.
After arriving and discovering the city at night, I did 3 dives around Gaya Island in the “Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park” and rented a camera. The water was slightly blurry so I couldn’t capture the turtle that swam by around 15m from us. The colors, especially of the delicate feathery plants and the nudibranchs were amazing and even crisper than in the pictures.
Later I met some people in the hostel and (after a heavy 3h rain) we had dinner at the night market and tried all kinds of new fruits like Jackfruits (they look like giant durians but taste way better! (they’re orange inside)), Rambutans (fluffy red balls), Mangosteens or Snakeskin fruits. On sunday, I visited the Orang Utan sanctuary at Shangri-La where they rehabilitate abandoned young Orang Utans. Since the Tour was kind of boring, I’m lucky the money at least serves a good purpose to preserve our gentle, hairy relatives.
Kuala Lumpur
Despite the vicinity of malaysia’s capital, I haven’t been there until now. Partly due to a lack of cheap and convenient flights, partly because It was deemed unworthy of a weekend trip by many expats who’d been there. Since some friends of mine wanted to go there anyway, we went along. After a very comfortable 6 hour bus ride (3 seats per row, massage-function, legspace…) including the annoying procedure at the borders (we europeans should be soo glad we have ‘Schengen’) we arrived in the middle of the night. The next day we visited the Batu caves which turned out to be a lot less spectacular as described – mainly due to a lack of a proper temple for which it was used in the past. The dark cave on the other hand was filled with life (mainly bats and snails). After seeing the Petronas towers and a few shopping malls, we were confident that 36h was actually enough to get a good impression since the city is pretty similar to parts of singapore. We might’ve been more impressed if KL was our first big city after backpacking though more rural areas.
Singapore – once more
While showing singapore to my visitors, I could snap another few pictures from the best sights.
Kho Phi Phi
I used my last two days of leave to spend a weekend on the paradise island of Kho Phi Phi, Thailand, with my friends from Aachen. After a shaky ferry-ride we found an accomodation far from the town in a forest by the beach. Despite the numberous mosquitos, the bamboo huts were an amazing accomodation and we used our days to enjoy diving, thai food and discovering the island.
The beauty of the North
It’s been almost half a year since I left the northern European paradise shown in these pictures. Goeteborg, Malmoe, Stockholm, Riga, Kiruna, Chalmers university, kyrkan, viktor-rydberg’s kök icehockey, canoeing on delsjoen, köttbullar, dogsledging, suovas kebab, snowmobiles, the northern lights and the hottest sauna sweden has ever witnessed, fika, afterwork, waffles^^, parties and afterparties (STEIL!), even the lectures – but most of all the people I met during my exchange semester make me want to develop a time-machine just to go back and relive these months. Thanks again to all who made this time so awesome &
Jag älskar sverige!