sign of life

indonesia is awesome. right now i'm in bukittinggi and so far my trip has been nothing but fun. i'm not posting all my stories yet, since i obviously need to post pictures also and this computer doesn't really look that capable of doing that fast and i don't want to be stuck here for hours...i've been hanging out mostly around bukittinggi the past week after my three days in padang. it's a little bit colder here than what i'm used to so i've got a little bit of a cold going on and i've also spent seven days at siberut island, hanging out with the (not that) primitive mentawai tribe. it was raining almost everyday and i didn't have any dry clothes left after a couple of days, and also walking around in the mud, freshening up in the sandy river and sleeping on the floor doesn't do much good for your health, but i'm starting to feel better. i took a trip on bike to lake maninjou with a guide i met here named Lala, looks like an eighties rock star and is also a painter. we stayed at Lili's home stay right next to the lake and it was just the best place in the world. i slept in the tree house with a view of the lake and there's just something about that place which makes creativity flow and a lot of musicians, writers and other artistic people are somehow always drawn to Lili's place. she's also a writer/musician artistic person and it was really nice to hang out with her. but i'll tell you more about that later.
i came back from the lake this morning and tomorrow i'll be heading to harau valley with another guide i met here called Eric. really nice guy and he speaks a little bit of dutch also. he knows a lot of stuff and likes to talk about his culture and he's always very happy and enthusiastic. then thursday i'm taking a bus to lake toba up north with a girl i met at my hotel here who didn't have any plans yet and thought it would be cool to also go up there. so that will be nice, since it's a 17 hour bus drive and that can get quite boring if you have no one to talk to...
i also booked a flight back to singapore, so i need to get to medan on september 13th. i still haven't figured out how yet, but once i get to lake toba i'll check it out.
time goes way to fast here. i kinda feel like i've been here for months already, maybe it's all the moving around every couple of days, but probably also just feeling completely at home. people have been so incredibly nice and i feel really safe and just uhm, really calm i guess. peaceful. when i first got to padang and settled down in the home stay i felt a little bit lost, thinking what the hell am i doing here. but after that first day i got used a little bit more and found my way of doing things. then bukittinggi was just a wave of laidbackness. this place is really chill, lots of skate shops, young people, backpackers, awesome tours you can do, cool restaurants with an alternative feel and also places to escape from everything and get overwhelmed by the gorgeous mountains, rice fields, jungles, rivers, clouds, trees...

it sucks so much that i've missed lowlands, i hope it was incredibly bad and boring hahaha. (but i know that it really wasn't)
so how's everything back home? my cousin had a baby girl btw, woohoo!!! i still need to get pictures though (hint hint).

ok, it's time to go find some fried noodles somewhere :)

puerto princesa part three

check out this crazy palm tree! (the middle one on left picture) our driver pointed it out on the way back to puerto the next morning. i really don't understand why it would grow like this...
below some on-the-road shots:








i went to the crocodile farm, located near puerto. it was really cool, even though most of the crocodiles were sleeping...but there was also a nature park next to it with animals (most only found on palawan) and of course much mosquitoes... the park looked a little bit neglected which sucked, because it has much potential and i hope they treat the animals better than the park. and the guide didn't really seem enthusiastic at all, so that was a little bit disappointing, but he was only there in the beginning. here you see some baby crocodiles, some bigger crocodiles and an ostrich. is it me or do ostriches always look so stupid, maybe it's the way they're build or something dunno, but they always make me laugh (even though they could kick the sh*t out of me and when they look at me they probably think i look stupid...)

the rest of the animals:

talking mynahs (they actually said hello), seloputo owl, blue-naped parrot (who didn't say anything)


long-tailed macaque mom with her baby, palawan bearded pig and palawan binturong who lives in trees, using his tail as an extra hand while climbing and hanging in branches


palawan hornbill which can be identified by its casque on top of his head, said to be used as a vibrating chamber to make its voice louder, middle one is a palawan porcupine and on the right a common palm civet, known for their poo! the kopi luwak, one of the most expensive coffees is made from coffee beans that have past the digestive tract of this animal. they love to eat coffee cherries and the outer pulp of the fruit is digested while intact coffee beans pass through their poo. these coffee beans are then collected (sounds like a nice job...) and processed into kopi lowak or civet coffee. so if you ever find yourself in front of a cup of this coffee then i hope you will remember this story and think twice about taking a sip...or if you want to try it after this story well then, uhm...cheers...?

we stayed at a new hotel further away from the center of puerto with a swimming pool and pool table, niiiice! you could clearly see it was new, everything looked so intact (which is a big contrast from the rest of puerto) but the shower tap shot out of the wall and the bathroom flooded...
that night we had dinner at the most beautiful restaurant i've ever been to and unfortunately i didn't bring my camera with me. it's called kalui and the guy who owns it is an artist and has decorated everything so incredibly nice, it's really just breathtaking. first of all you have to take of your shoes when you come in, which i already find awesome, everybody sitting there without shoes...and the whole building is made from different styles of wood. the interior is just drenched with creativity and i could go on and on about it, but you just need to see it for yourself...if you ever go to puerto...oh the food was good also. that day was my birthday btw (thanks everyone who remembered, all five of you...) and back at the hotel i got a cake and everyone starting singing!! i know this sounds very normal, but my last couple of birthdays were pretty much cake&singing-less. and apparently arranging a (very delicious mango) cake there is very hard and they ordered it like a week in advance haha. (and below the candles it said 'we love you' :D ) after that i got my present: a massage by a pro massaging lady. that was my first massage ever and i felt so chill afterwords, it was awesome! but dude it really sucks to be 24 already, i mean, 24 you know. that's almost 25 and that's almost 30. jesus, 30! pff, i should like i dunno, do something adult. invest in stocks. or uhm, drink coffee. or read the newspaper and bitch about politics and about how the youth will turn this world into shit with their drugs, loud music, partying all the time and skipping school. or maybe finally get a degree in something :S

so anyway...

the last two days while wandering around:



i found myself at the old market again as you can see, just a nice atmosphere over there...there was a girl working at the seaweed counter (last picture) and she was telling her friend to get her picture taken but she was to shy and she ran to the other side haha, so the girl who was working told me it was actually her friends birthday, so of course i starting singing happy birthday enthusiastically with the girl working and when we were done everyone around us clapped and laughed haha, you probably just should've been there...


guys playing pool, a rather big house and construction workers, no helmets or working shoes, i actually saw a guy drilling in concrete with one of those giant drills you hold with two hands, wearing flip flops...


not working street lights, tricycles and a tricycle that transports stuff instead of people


a recycling place (the cardboard signs say what to put where) a very common street store (where you can buy cigarettes per piece, for people who don't have enough for a whole pack (which is 50 eurocent)) and a guy who sells food

the final day was travel day, we flew from puerto to manila and then from manila to singapore, all in one day.

so here ends my first visit to the philippines. i must say that i already can't wait to go back! everyone keeps saying that el nido is the most beautiful place in the philippines so i'd really like to go there the next time. it's located at the top of palawan. but i think it's the rain season now, so i'm gonna wait a while. first sumatra, before the rain season starts over there...

narra and the tree farms part two

the second day we walked even more and checked out some gardens we hadn't seen the first day. dad and jade talked to every caretaker to see how everything was going and to discuss what still had to be done. since they only talk filipino jade did most of the talking and translated everything for my dad, but i usually just spaced out and enjoyed the view :)

above the road leading up to the farms, if you click on it, you'll see two brownish spots, that's the highest point, the picture in the middle shows it more up close (the cottage on the left is where the house will be) and the right one is me with my dad chilling in a resting cottage thingy

below a couple of nice views:

the creek, it's water from the mountains so it's drinkable and very very nice, on the right a couple of guys cleaning the newest garden

the picture on the left is a nursery in narra. the seeds are planted here and when the seedlings are ready, they're transported to the tree farm, but they can't just be put into the ground immediately. the seedlings need to rest first in order to get used to the climate and just feel at home i guess. if you just stick them in the ground there's a good chance they won't grow. so the caretakers have to build a resting place (picture left) where the seedlings can adjust and chill out, until they are ready to go to the gardens.

we also went into town to get some stuff:

old skool coke bottles, a street, the market

inside a store, two filipino style jeeps

the money, which is very gross, since palawan is an island and there's almost never any new money coming in, a police car (you see that a lot, words spelled out exactly how they're pronounced)

people who wanted their picture taken

that evening i walked on the beach and found this:

beach stuff

if you look closely, you'll see a man with a beard and a hat in this tree trunk, palm trees

bangka and a very creative anchor (yes it is a rock)

this is me in a bangka, not knowing i would be almost facing my death that day...dum dum dummmmm. destination: isla arena. this is on the backside of the resort btw, it was next to the beach. so we left early in the morning the next day and the weather was a little shitty as you can see. i was amazed that this tiny little pile of bamboo held together with rusty nails, rope and a few tie-wraps was able to bring the six of us to an island 20 minutes further ahead. i was sitting in front trying to take some pics, but the waves kept hitting the front, so i put my camera away after a while...

that tiny thingy in the middle is the island, the right one is from the front of the bangka

it was so awesome despite of the weather. the island was really tiny, you can walk around it in like ten minutes. and there was just us and a couple of people who are staying there i think, building a resort or something. so all you do all day is chill out, hang out on the beach, swim, lay in a hammock and hold tortoises!

a big one, a tiny one and lots of tiny ones, cute!

the guy who owns the island wants to preserve tortoises so he has a nursery. when they are big enough to take care of themselves he lets them go. this picture shows the nursery from the tree house.

after that we had lunch, chicken adobo. it's a filipino dish and if you ever have the opportunity to go to the philippines, you must absolutely try it. chicken adobo with garlic rice mmmm. and fresh mango juice mmmm. or fresh coconut juice mmmm. and a plate of veggies. or noodles mmmm. anyway, the rest of the island looked a little like this:

waves, waves, my footsteps in the sand


root of a tree, palm tree and two little friends


the incredibly awesome treehouse where i chilled out when it started to rain, the other two are the stormy views from the treehouse

when the sky cleared i went snorkeling and found myself surrounded by a billion small fish i didn't even notice at first (they have this sandlike colour). they were seriously swimming around me in a circle, it was so cool and i wasn't even that far from the beach. i just sat down and looked around and thought about patrick watson's 'man under the sea' (album: close to paradise, 2006) and how it totally felt like that.
we left pretty early in the afternoon, because the guy who was bringing us back told us we had to leave, due to the weather. we got on the bangka and it was very windy. luckily it wasn't raining the way back, but i was still soaking wet because the waves were hitting the bangka really hard. in the beginning i was like woohoo, waves!! but when we almost tipped over the first time i got terrified! the wind started blowing even more, the waves got bigger and i was hanging on tight to the side (there isn't much else to hang on to). the sail broke halfway which scared me even more and we almost tipped over another couple of times. i was already thinking about where to swim to and who to help get there and which island was closer and realizing that there really wasn't any island closeby and thinking ow shit, are there any sharks here, damnit my camera is going to die, is my camera memory card waterproof, quite amazing how this tiny little pile of bamboo held together with rusty nails, rope and a few tie-wraps is surviving all this (ok, except for the sail), why aren't there any other boats around, they probably don't have lifeguards here, i hope it's not gonna rain, don't make any sudden movements just keep sitting still, i'm so calling my mom when we make it home...
...and we did make it home after an hour or so. during dinner we laughed about it, while enjoying the best bbq'd chicken i've ever had in my life (and i've had plenty, trust me). the guy who owns the resort makes it, we ate it almost every night we were there! picture left is the cottage i stayed at, nice huh! there was a mosque nearby, so every morning around six some chanting guys and the muslim dog who howled with them, woke me up...

we still managed to go to the treefarm before dinner, to meet up with some engineers who will make the road leading up to the treefarm. the road now isn't good enough (it's the one the van got stuck in) and it goes trough other properties (even though it's just jungle). i don't really know tho whole story precise, but a couple of years ago a lot of land got divided into different properties, marked with rocks stuck in the ground. so in order to build the road, these rocks need to be found so it won't go trough any properties and there will be no hassle afterwords. if you ask me the government should actually build this road, but since that will never happen and it has to be placed there in order to transport stuff, my dad has to arrange it. so first it's finding these markers (in the jungle) and then you can see where the road actually is supossed to come, hire engineers to set up everything and then build the road. so it was just business talk and i was bored and took some pics:

in search of markers, the road now and the main entrance


son of one of the caretakers and a sweet puppy

then we went up to guillermo's place where everyone was chilling and to talk over the last things. it's so cool that they always walk with us to the van when we leave to say goodbye :)

this ends the narra story...it was relly amazing and i can't wait to go back again. my dad will be retiring next year and they'll move there. one of the caretakers is building a house (like the ones on the farm) where they'll stay untill the house is finished. so when i'm done in new zealand i'll visit them to see how everything turned out and maybe help out with some stuff, don't know yet...