Gili Meno

Gili Meno is a paradise island with a quite authentic vibe to it (although the vibe has probably been stronger a few years ago as new hotels keep popping up). There's no cars on the island, just horse carts turquoise water, white beaches and small sandy paths crisscrossing between the shores. You can walk around the entire island in just a little more than an hour.

On the western side of the island there's a salt water lake that you can cross if you're brave enough like us.

The people where very friendly though the atmosphere was very calm and laid back. We visited during the Ramadan season, which turned out to be quite an experience. Not only does it mean that the people dial down a notch during day time, but it also means sleeping next to the island mosque can be a bit challenging. The first prayer started 3.30 in the morning and the last ended at around 10 in the evening. Although many of the singers had a very nice voice, it was still impossible to sleep due to the loudness.

The best part of the island was the underwater world. It didn't matter where we started snorkelling, we always saw something interesting. During our five days we snorkelled at least once every day and saw two beautiful sea turtles (one that was at least 1 m long), a lot of interesting fish and heaps of amazing, colourful corals. Since we don't have an underwater camera, you just have to trust us or come and see for yourself. But here's at least a picture of a rescued baby sea turtle.

And also, what could be better than having drinks and dinner sitting on the beach watching the sunset while dolphins and turtles are swimming in the turquoise waters in front of you?

Bali

And then it was time for our last month of travelling. Next on our list was Indonesia and we decided to start on Bali. We hadn't had time to do research about Indonesia so we chose beach town Sanur as our first stop to get into Indonesia. The beach itself wasn't ideal for swimming or snorkelling since there was too much sea grass but if you enjoy sunbathing, it will do the trick.

Bali has a very distinctive cultural heritage with a lot of interesting buildings, temples and statues all over town. We also witnessed a ceremony where the people made offerings to the sea.

One day we were getting lost in the inner part of Sanur when a local guy invited us to see their family Hindu temple. The temple was used by fifty families on big occasions but they also had a smaller temple for their own family's daily praying.

After chilling on Sanur for a few days we moved inland to the town of Ubud. This town had a lot to offer: nice walking streets, lots of restaurants and shops, loads of art, crafts and culture and beautiful surroundings with rice fields and hills.

We also visited the Monkey Forest Sanctuary and got very well acquainted with the inhabitants.

Northern Vietnam

The last of our Southeast Asian travels (for now) consisted of northern Vietnam. Or more precisely Tam Coc (near Ninh Binh), the Cat Ba Island with Lan Ha Bay and Halong Bay and lastly Hanoi - the capital of Vietnam.

Tam Coc is often referred to as "Halong Bay on land", and that actually describes it pretty well. There's a beautiful lanscape of lush, green ricefields and huge limestone cliffs that just seem to rise randomly up from the earth.

After seeing the cliffs on land, we moved on to see them in the sea. From Cat Ba island we took a boat tour and went cruising on beautiful Lan Ha Bay. While the cliffs had been beautiful on land, they were even more majestic in the sea.

Included in our boat tour was a kayaking trip through some caves and lagoons on Halong Bay. Both Halong and Lan ha bay are practically the same, but since they belong to two different vietnamese provinces they have two different names.

Hey Moomin!

Before catchig a flight out of Vietnam, we still had one day to explore Hanoi (we would have had more days if we hadn't been sick). Here's some of our highlights:

The old quarters with a lot of nice shops and restaurants:

Coffee with whipped eggwhite on top (tasted like italian marengue, really yummy!):

Worlds cheapest beer: Bia Hoi - daily brewed fresh draft beer. we payed only 2500 dong per glass, which means 0,10 €.

That's it! Now we say goodbye to Southeast Asia for a while! Maybe we'll see you again in a few months!

Koh Rong

As it had already been more than a week since we left our riverside holiday in Si Pha Don, we decided it was time for another vacation. So from Phnom Penh we headed straight to Sihanoukville and from there to the beautiful island of Koh Rong. We settled in on Coconut beach for four nights and were very excited to find it was more or less like a small paradise on earth. Stunning turquoise waters, beach with sand as white as snow on a beautiful, green island. Imagine seawater more than 30 degrees warm! And it was just so nice to see the sea again.

Here we didn't do much else than swim, snorkel, read in a hammock and swim and snorkel some more. We also enjoyed watching these peculiar small, flying lizards we had only seen on TV before. Even though they were only some 15 cm long, they could glide at least 5-10 m in the air from tree to tree!

We slept in a tent right next to the sea, so we could here the waves all through the night. But the best part was the view from our tent:

Since the beach was looking east, we could also see some nice sunrises from there.

Twice we had a campfire on the beach in the evening.

And during our last evening we walked into the sea to see glowing plankton that looked like underwater stars. We also got the chance to send up some traditional paper lanterns into the sky. That was really nice!

Si Phan Don

After our motorbike adventure we needed a vacation. Si Phan Don (Meaning 4000 Islands) was the perfect place for that. It's located in the southernmost part of Laos, next to the Cambodian border, where the Mekong river is 4 km wide. The river is dotted with thousands of smaller and bigger islands. We chose Don Khon and Don Det, two bigger islands in the south, connected with a bridge.

First we spent four nights on Don Khon, mostly chilling at our guesthouse while gazing over the Mekong and occasionally going for a swim to cool down from the heat.

Sunset over Mekong, the mountains in the horizon are in Cambodia 

Cows gone amok in a garden near our guesthouse

The biggest sight on Don Khon was the Tad Somphamit Falls.

Here we also got really close to some water buffalos. They didn't mind us at all.

We also took a boat trip with a local to go see the biggest waterfall in Southeast Asia: Khone Phapheng Falls. It's not very high but the water volume coming through here is gigantic: 9 500 000 litres per second (double that of Niagara Falls). The best part of this trip was that our local guide took us to a small island right next to the waterfalls. There was no one else here, but we could see all the other tourists standing on the other side of the river.

(Picture by Vanja)

We also had some delicious grilled Mekong fish

From Don Khon we moved to the other side of the bridge to the southern tip of Don Det for four more nights. Here we had a bungalow next to the river from where we could watch the sunrise from our balcony.

Here we also enjoyed our last cup of Lao coffee so far. Lao coffee is very strong an thick, and served with sweet condensed milk.

Every once in a while we went cycling around the islands

On our last day in Si Phan Don we went to the southern tip of Don Khon where you can also see Cambodia in the horizon.

Our main reason for coming here, though, was the possibility to see the very rare and nearly extinct Irrawaddy Dolphins. In Si Phan Don there's only a couple of them left. We took a boat early in the morning and since we were the first ones here the dolphins were actually quite active. We didn't get a good photo of them but if you look closely you can see the fin and back of a dolphin in the picture. Sometimes they came quite close to the boat but mostly they kept their distance.