Desert Point

Because we had gone north to Senggigi instead of south, which I had suggested, I feared that I would have to miss out on going to Desert Point. Desert Point is on the tip of the south-western peninsular of Lombok and considered one of the best waves on the planet so I really wanted to see it.
I had some problems hiding my disappointment about our change of plans because I hadn't so far seen any waves on our trip which originally was planned as a semi surf trip and really had been looking forward to this particular wave. To lighten up my mood Bekki came up with the brilliant idea to rent a motorbike for three days and head down there and after one day of rest we packed one backpack with stuff for three days, rented a bike (bike sounds so cool but it actually was a full automatic moped) and hit the road. It turned out to be a great way to travel. I drove and had the backpack between my legs on the footrest and Becks sat behind me with our day pack. I really want to go back there, fly into Bali or Lombok, and rent a bike for a few weeks (it only costs between 2,5€ and  5€ per day) and explore the south coast of the islands east of Lombok. My bag between my legs, a tent on the back and a surfboard at my side, exploring the lonely but nearly perfect waves of Nusa Tengara. The perfect surf trip!
We thought we would need two days to get there but Lombok is a very small island and we made it in 4 hours. On the way we met a German couple who we had met before in Senggigi and who followed us to the break. It turned out that it definitely had been the easier option to go to Senggigi first because there where only very few hostels which where all quite expensive and the trip down there was beautiful. That stretch of land is not very touristy but it has heavenly white beaches and crystal clear turquoise water and the islands off the coast could easily be wallpaper models. There are beautiful diving sites, quiet but wonderful beach resorts and it is the place where the Lombok-Pearl is grown.
The last 3km to the wave where hell for our motorbikes. The, to that point surprisingly good, road turned into a dirt track that could easily compete with Sumatra's worst roads for the title of being the worst road in the world. It was very rocky and the holes looked more like craters, some of them filled with loose sand which made it hard to control the bike. Definitely a dessert point. But the bad road conditions which make the access to the spot very difficult do some good too. They help keeping the crowds away and I was really pleased to see that there weren't as many people there as I'd thought and it always seemed to hold the balance between locals and the foreigners unlike most of the world class waves where the wave is always packed with people.
When we arrived I didn't believe my eyes at first. The wave was perfect. Slow but big and powerful waves breaking at the outside corner, rolling towards the beach, speeding up a little to almost double up again and end in a huge slab on the reef to the right. And barreling at all times. The lip was peeling the tubes out of the shoulder of the wave, forming a perfectly shaped oval, the eye of god... It is really hard to describe the wave because there is so much about it that I cant put into words  but I can say this: Only seeing that wave, a wave of such pure perfection overwhelmed me and made me feel very happy. It was definitely one of the most beautiful and fulfilling moments of that trip.
Over time the locals and surfers had built some bamboo huts, tables to eat and benches facing the wave which made it even better. It was as if I was dreaming. We sat there for a long time, had something to eat and watched the wave and the surfers. It was about 6ft, outside maybe 8ft in sets and consistently dropping. A local told me that we had missed the big day of 12ft but it was still impressive. It was hard to get my eyes off it but what am I telling you here... you get it that it was cool and impressive and I'm starting to get on your nerves jabbering on about it. Just come and see it yourselves... it is an unforgettable sight.

We had a swim away from the wave, where we collected shells and relaxed a bit after the trip and Bekki and I headed back to see the sun going down over the wave. It was magical. I tried to get some pics but I tried to get the sun and the wave into the picture and used the digital zoom for that which wasn't particularly easy.
We had dinner with our friends on the benches facing the water and sat there for a long time, only listening to the ocean and enjoying to be in such a wonderful place.

I chose this one as well because you can see Bali's highest volcano, which is unique to Lombok's sunsets

I woke very early the next day and went straight down to the beach. Not many people were awake, only a few early birds caught some steadily dropping waves, so I went for a walk along the beach. I don't do that very often and I mainly enjoy it on occasions like this. I love the morning. In my opinion it is the most beautiful time of the day, when everything seems to be fresh and new. The waves were small now and by the time I got back it was so small, that it wasn't worth going out, which was a shame because I really wanted to but probably also a bit lucky because in every guide desert point is described as a wave for "the most experienced surfers only" which definitely doesn't means me.
We stayed a bit, had breakfast and enjoyed the sun and the great atmosphere til midday. Then we left, the swell wasn't showing any sign of picking up again over the next days, towards Kuta, where we hoped to find some more waves.

Believe me, it's me!

I like this pic. It wasn't intended to be blurry but I think it's cool...

We can see light at the end of the tunnel

The next day didn't start off much better than the last had ended but we were optimistic since there was only improvement possible. We got on to a bemo (the same thing as a becak) to Materam, the capitol of Lombok, from where we made our way to Senggigi.
The original idea was to go to the south-western peninsular and the legendary Desert Point, from where we would head north and end up on the Gili islands. That way I thought I could get some surf and we would escape the tourist mainstream but Bekki made up her mind, literally in the last minute, so we went to Sengigi.The trip there was as always. Short and over crowded bus rides from and to the different bemo terminals, wild and frustrating bargaining battles with helplessly overcharging bus drivers, (pseudo) friendly strangers on the bus who tell you where you should stay ( and try to drag yuo there) and complete exhaustion after arriving and fighting off all those people who offer you "cheap" rooms. If it sounds bad to you imagine it ten times worse experiencing it. And it's the same every trip. By the time we arrive we always feel completely exhausted and as if we have been traveling all day and night. Lombok was the worst but Sumatra and Bali follow very close and we decided (after the long trip to Sengigi) to, from now on, consider the expensive shuttle option at all times.
After arriving in Sengigi it took us another hour to find accommodation that suited our budget but we failed and ended up paying 125.000Rp per night. At least it included breakfast and had "clean" rooms. We didn't feel like doing anything else that day than go down to the beach and sleep until sunset.
The sunset is one of the major attractions Sengigi offers so we looked for a good spot close to the water and enjoyed the sight of the sinking sun next to Bali's highest volcano, the Gurung Agung. We started to relax after the hassles of the past days and were really looking forward to some quiet days on the beach. The day ended with a nice dinner at an European restaurant (a funny thing was that the menu was also labeled in German which we didn't notice at first, we just read it, and we were very surprised to see it was) and a peaceful stroll through Sengigi with greatly lifted spirits, looking forward to ten harmonic days on Lombok.

How do I look after 35 hours of sleep...?

Our short Bali visit

We touched down in Bali at 11pm after two 2 hour flights in the Promo class, the class below economy, in which I couldn't sit without pressing my knees into the seat in front of me. I really hate these domestic flights! They are always late, their seats are uncomfortable and too small and you have to pay for snacks and drinks. It was however necessary and still a better way to get there than buses and ferries. We had agreed that we wouldn't book into  a hostel that night  and would take the first bus the next day to get  to the port from where the ferries leave to Lombok but it turned out that it wasn't that easy.
First of all the airport wasn't in Denpasar which we had assumed but south of Kuta which made the trip to the harbor much longer and it was still very early for Bali standards. We walked the way to the beach (a thing no one understands in Indonesia: Why would a tourist walk at all?), which was really creepy with all the Indonesian men still hanging around, not looking very trustworthy and and hid behind one of the fisher boats trying to sleep a bit. After a while we where chased away by the local dogs who gathered around us kept approaching slowly, howling. We didn't find a boat where we could lie in so we kept walking towards the town center and the big holiday resorts. We found a place in front of an old Hotel where we put our stuff and while Bekki dozed off I decided to take the first watch. It was hard to stay awake but after a while some of the dogs turned up and so I saw a good reason to stay awake. It was a strange feeling to lie there at Kuta beach and to think about the stories I had picked up about that place, the corrupt police and the rising criminality. After a few hours I Bekki woke up and I could close my eyes for a while and sleep a bit. At 4am we started walking towards the only thing that seemed familiar at that time and granted us something to eat and chairs to sit in: The huge McDonalds M, high above everything else. We were like the three holy kings following the star, looking up into the sky to find the sign that led our way.
We used the free internet to distract us from our tiredness and they even had a TV showing some football game. We stayed there for three hours before we had a look around to find the bus terminal. As it turned out it was harder than we thoght to get to the harbor but a few hours and a extremely expensive coffee later we where on the bus to Denpasar. We were glad to be out of Kuta already, maybe because of all the stress we had there but it also didn't seem very nice. Denpasar is the capitol of Bali and just as all major Indonesian cities a place where you don't want to be for long. We would have had to take three different buses to get through it (we walked a bit) and finally got on to the bus to Padangbai, from where the ferries leave. We had to walk 2km to get to the harbor and arrived just in time for the 1 o'clock ferry. We could have taken a shuttle bus to save us all the trouble bargaining about prices and squeezing in the bus with all the locals but that always costs at least twice as much. After this day however we decided to consider that option the next time we go somewhere.
The ferry was big and slow and it was very windy which made it also very cold but it gave us some time to relax and close our eyes for a moment. The day had been very exhausting with our bags on our backs and so much to organize that we just felt like a nice "Selamat Datang" and a comfortable bed. But it would become even worse. As we arrived in Lembar, the main ferry port on Lombok, we where soon surrounded by very unfriendly and rough taxi drivers who wanted to bring us to our destination and wouldn't accept a no. Not even if you jelled it at them. We had had a lot of that stuff on Sumatra and we thought we were used to it and it wouldn't become worse but that was nothing compared to those people in Lembar. It was quite late already, too late for the public buses so we saw our only chance escaping this aggressive mob in booking a room in Lembar. We had an early dinner that day and went to bed straight afterwards, very tired and pissed of about our trip because we felt that everything was turning against us. But maybe it was just because we were so tired and needed a quiet place to rest for a few days.

The dark side of Sumatra

Following the advice of an Indonesian guy who pretended he wanted to help us we left the idyllic lake Toba on the 13/08 at 7:30 o'clock. He told us that he had arranged some transfer for us so that we didn't have to look for a connecting bus ourselves. We paid a lot of money because we thought it would be a faster and more convenient option than the slow and overcrowded public buses. How wrong could we be...
Our first bus driver, who said he would bring us to Sidikalang, stopped for a lunch-break in Pangururan where he wanted to wait for over four hours. Only after threatening him we would get another bus he left earlier. The promised air-conditioning was as much a lie as the personal space of our seats which was literally non existent. It took us another two hours to get to Sidikalang where the driver called one of his mates who took us from there. The start wasn't too bad. We tried to communicate, he didn't speak a single English word, which was fun and the views form the road where panoramic. We drove through the Karo-Highlands and every now and then we got a glimpse into the very futile valleys filled with fruit and veggie fields. After two hours we stopped in a little village where we had to wait a bit and found out that we had another four hours ahead of us. We had been driving one and a half hours into the completely wrong direction. We tried to complain and claim some of our money back but it was like talking to a wall. We also thought that he was making fun of us and everyone in the bus seemed to be laughing at us. It was a nerve braking trip and Bekki was very close to loosing her temper. By the time we arrived in Berastagi the cheap hostel we were planning on staying in was already full but we found another one which was OK. That trip was a really bad experience and probably the worst on our travels so far. We loved Sumatra, even with all the rip-offs and the "expensive" tourist prices but that was a bit heavy and we lost some of our sympathy for the people there, especially for the bus drivers.
The bad trip made us almost oversee the nice things of the day. The windy roads up towards the crater of the volcano in which lake Toba lies, offer a magnificent view over the lake and the surrounding mountains. It was a cloudy morning and it was impossible to make out the whole lake but the morning light breaking through the clouds onto the water was purely beautiful. After we had left the lake behind there was not much to see, apart from the valleys I mentioned before, for a long time so we could concentrate on being mad at the drivers but as we reached the area of Berastagi a new spectacular view opened up for us. Berastagi itself is a rather boring place to visit as a traveler but not far from the town are two majestic volcanos that are quite easy to climb and still active. Driving onto the plateau on which Berastagi is located the first thing that catches your eye is the higher volcano, the Gurung Sinabung (2450m), which last erupted in 2006. As we drove towards it we could see a big smoke cloud coming out of the crater. The smaller volcano, the Gurung Sibayak (2094m), is less active but there is still plenty of smoke and gasses around the top. Because of the accessibility of the latter (the Sinabung is two hours away) we decided to climb it the next day.
The next day however was cloudy and cold but our only day in Berastagi because we were flying out of Sumatra on the 15th and so we decided to climb the volcano anyway. We could have taken a beckak, the public bus, but the driver charged us 50 times the usual price so we walked the  4km to the base of the mountain. Our spirits lightened as we reached the base and the sky had cleared a bit but after 1/2 hour we found ourselves in a cloud that wouldn't move til the end of our trip. It wasn't really raining but the air was moist enough to soak our clothes but we didn't give up. The path we took was quite broad and easy to walk and even the steps that followed where no challenge but by the time we reached the top it had started to rain and we heard some thunder not very far away. The wind had also picked up and it was really cold. We didn't go all the way up, we thought that wouldn't be very smart during a thunderstorm but we got close enough to the crater to hear the volcano and we could definitely smell it. The only thing we couldn't was see it. The cloud around us was so thick that we could only see for about 20 meters. It was definitely not the sight we had hoped for climbing on to a volcano but we couldn't change it so we tried to make the best out of it. And it was fun, apart from the disappointing sight. We were really cold though and almost jogged the way back down. The bus driver who took us down into town was nicer than the others and we paid the regular price and got safely to our hostel where we wrung out our stuff, jumped into bed and stayed there, watching movies, until it was time for dinner.

In the beginning the weather was OK...

...until the cloud came...

and made everything wet.

This is the view we had on top of the mountain.

...everything. But it was fun!

It was a shame that everything seemed to be working against us in those days but we decided never to go back there and to not recommend it to anyone. I think that was a little bit fast to judge the place like that but it definitely was the least nice place where we went. Still I think it can be a nice place if you are in Sumatra and want to get away from all the tourist hot-spots.
The next day we headed to the airport in Medan to catch our flight to Bali and we were early... as always. We had planned some extra time suspicious about our driver but he brought us there in time and again the plane was late so we had to wait for a few hours which gave me some time to write more for my blog. At 5pm our plane took of and we had to say goodbye to Sumatra, at that time almost happy about it but all in all a bit too soon. 

Danau Toba

We left Bukit Lawang on the 10th. Because we were on a tight schedule we decided to take the tourist bus to Parapat, the small town on the shore of  Lake Toba from where the ferry goes to Samosir island. It was still a long trip because we had to go via Medan and as I already mentioned the roads and the traffic there are BAD. We met a Dutch couple who generously shared their snacks with us and we arrived at the lake at about 3.30pm. The view onto the lake is amazing when you drive down to Parapat. Lake Toba is the biggest volcanic lake in Asia and by far too big to imagine that being a volcano-crater. Samosir, which is an island in the lake has the size of Singapore and when you drive towards it it is hard to think of the lake going around it. On one side of Samosir is a small peninsular called Tuk Tuk. It is the central tourist spot at lake Toba and it is packed with hotels, hostels, losmen, guesthouses and home-stays, that it seems very hard to decide to which one you should go. But if you go there, then go to Liberta Homestay, a very cheap but lovely place run by Mr.Moon, one of the nicest people in Sumatra. The whole place has a great atmosphere, some good advice and good and cheap food.
It seemed to be full of German travelers and we met a couple from Munich who were on their stopover to New Zealand and had been at Liberta for almost a week because they loved the place and especially the avocado-salad. It was great to have a conversation in German after all the English and we spent a lot of time together. On our first day we rented a motorbike with Luci&Lorenz and cruised north on the island.It was great fun. We stopped at a little local market to buy a pineapple and some fruits we didn't know for lunch. It turned out that we didn't have a knife to cut the pineapple so we had the other fruits which were delicious. It was hot and the sun was burning down from a clear sky but the water of the lake had the perfect temperature to refresh ourselves and cool us down a bit. We continued our trip until some clouds came up and we decided to get more to eat. After a portion of mie goreng and a beautiful sight of the sun shining through a very low cloud on to the lake we headed back because it got dark and it usually rains here in the afternoon. And it did. About 5km from Liberta we got drenched with rain. It started of with a light shower, stopped and came back as very strong rain. Luckily it didn't take very long to get home so that the bags didn't get too wet.
The next day we wanted to hike to a waterfall not far from Tuk Tuk for a shower. It was really warm and the path (we were not sure it was the right one) led us through a jungle-like terrain. Again we shared the friendly company of Luci&Lorenz and followed the directions we got towards the cliff. Our way turned out to be a dead end, at least we could see the waterfall from there, but we decided to return to Tuk Tuk and go for a swim at Carolinas, the hotel with the best swimming area on the island. Even without the waterfall we had another great day and started to think about staying there for longer. It really is such a beautiful place with scenic views, cheap accommodation and nice people.

Anyhow we decided to follow our plans and leave for Berastagi the next day. If we had known about what happened there we would never have left.

The first days in Indonesia

We touched down in Medan at 2:40 pm after a long day of bus rides and waiting, only to have not the slightest idea of what we should do to get to Bukit Lawang. Left with only a few Malaysian Ringgit, after paying for our visa, we set off through the crowds of taxi-drivers and money changers to look for an ATM and a plan. A rather old man, who said he was the Tourist Information, told us where we could get money and offered us a ride to the bus station 11km away and we went with him , well knowing that we were probably being ripped off. He was very nice though and gave us some good advice where to go and which bus we should take. Our ride to Bukit Lawang was a mini-bus that was supposed to be a few hours faster than the ig public bus. We again paid more than the trip costs and knew it but this is what happens to everyone new to this and we just wanted to get out of the big city.
Medan is the 4th biggest city of a country which has a  population more than 240 million people and it was a mess.
I told you about the traffic in KL and how hectic it was . Medan is much worse. It is a very good example of Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fittest" . The bigger your vehicle is the more power you have to force the others to get out of your way and you better get out of their way. The horn is the most important instrument on your truck/car/bike and it is used to let the others know you are there, to greet, to complain, to annoy and for everything else as well. Our driver was particularly fond of his honking device and made no secret of it. When you read about the bus transport in Sumatra you hear a lot of bad things that can happen to you. They're all true! The trip from Medan to Bukit Lawang (about 90 km) took us three hours in a smelly, hot and by times overcrowded bus over roads that sometimes looked like the surface of the moon. It was very bad but everyone says that the big buses are even worse. We met a young guy who turned out to be a jungle guide ( what a funny incidence...) and we agreed to follow him to a cheap hostel run by his friends. He signed us up for a tracking tour starting the next day and promised to find us some shoes and sleeping bags.

We left at 9am with another guide ( the first guides cousin) called Aldi and his student Baik.Two Aussies had booked the tour as well and so our little group set off into the jungle. It was a beautiful day, maybe a bit sunny for a tracking tour, and we had a great start to our trip. Our fellow trackers were really nice, a young couple from Melbourne who were on a trip through Sumatra before they leave to teach in the middle-east. We saw a lot of monkeys and of course Orang-Utans. It was great to see those lovely animals so very close and another plus was that this time of the year all the mothers had babies and it was so much fun watching them play around and tees their mums. One little monkey kept us watching him for 30 minutes swinging around, taking rocks high up into the trees and throwing them back down again. The track was fun too. It was a great thing to hike through the jungle through huge ferns, lianes and around some of the highest trees I've ever seen. It wasn't quite this "the jungle and I" experience which I had expected because every time we saw a monkey we saw groups of tourists and I didn't loose the feeling of walking in loops. Nevertheless the tour was great and we had a really good time. In the afternoon some clouds formed and we could hear a distant thunder. Our guides started chasing us up and down the mountains because they didn't want to get wet but we didn't make it. We were only 15 minutes from our camp when the skies opened up and covered us with raindrops the size of watermelons. That is probably a slight exaggeration but I was drenched to the bones in seconds. The path down the hill to the camp was very steep and got really slippery with the rain. We all made it though and went for a swim in the warm river. The evening was fun, we had good food and played games and exchanged stories. Aldi had a lot to tell us about his time with the "Banda Acheh Freedom Association", to my knowledge a terrorist group. The guides had forgotten to bring our sleeping bags so we slept on a very thin mattress and without a cover. It was cold and hard and we didn't sleep well but the morning came with beautiful sunshine and made us forget about the night. We had a quiet day at the river, showered under a waterfall and swum in the rapids of the river. In the afternoon  we packed our stuff together and rafted down the river towards Bukit Lawang. It wasn't a hardcore rafting trip but we lost one of our "steering sticks", broke the other one, popped one of our rafts and lost one guide. It was a great end to a great trip!

The apes. Let me introduce: Till,

Jonas and Jette. MMMUUHAHAHAHAHAHA

The feared Mrs.Mina. She looks nice to me...

Dinner with Aldi and Yussuf

We're the kings of jungle, baby

Our trekking team Beck, Becks, Louies and Me

A beautiful jungle morning

The next days we just relaxed in Bukit Lawang. Our hostel, the "Rainforest Inn" was a nice little guesthouse at the river amongst other guesthouses. The part of Bukit Lawang that is down at the river is a pure tourist area. Little shops(all selling the same things), restaurants and guesthouses on both sides of the walkway offer far to much "things" for the small number of tourists and it looks far better than the actual village.
We walked to a cave 5km away which was a big flop. An entrance fee and guide costs for a dark, smelly, boring cave...
Bukit Lawang was a great experience though with its "semi"-wild jungle, great music culture, the river and its people and a delicious fresh pressed fruit juice. It's a place I would like to come back to, to do a track over a couple of days, maybe a week, to get deeper into the jungle to see other wild animals like Rhinos, Tigers and Elephants.

KL

We arrived at the airport 5hours early. That is one of the things I'll probably never learn. I don't want anything to go wrong and plan a lot of time for errors and then it all works. The only times things don't work out is when I'm running late. However we had a lot of time at the airport to relax, spend our last dollars on ice-cream and hot chocolate and look around the duty free shops.
The flight was OK. 8 hours in the middle row but with a spare seat next to us so that Bekki could lie down. We were already lightly dressed because of the tropical temperatures awaiting us  and hadn't thought of the air-conditioning... It was freezing.
We touched down at about 4.30am, had to get into KL which is 75km from the airport and check in at our hostel at 1pm. The train from the airport only took surprising 39 minutes which meant that we only had a "few" more hours (7) to wait before we could sink into our bed. The city was still sleeping when we reached the central station so we tried to sleep on the benches to kill time. A little later wandered around to find the right train and finally got to the hostel at 10 o'clock where we could leave our bags and had a cup of tea.
We went for another walk exploring the main shopping street before we could occupy our room. The main road was packed with cheap convenient stores, restaurants, massage rooms and plazas (huge indoor areas with hundreds of stands selling anything you (don't) need) and turned, further down the street, into a quite modern shopping area. Because I'd forgotten all of my T-shirts I bought 3 new shirts for only 15 Ringgit each (about 5 AUD). We had Chinese food for lunch which wasn't the best we've ever had and returned to our hostel to finally check in.
We didn't do much in the afternoon due to our lack of sleep and the warm temperatures. I sweated from only sitting around and it didn't get better over the next days.There is no escaping the heat when you're outside and I've never been so thankful for having a fan in my room.
We spent the next days strolling around the city, exploring the main tourist attractions. We went to the "Batu caves" a little bit out of the city. They are huge caves in which the Hindu had built their temples. The size of the main cave is breathtaking. A stairway out of at least  1000 steps... led up to it and we weren't able to capture the whole size of it with our camera. There is also a massive golden statue in front of the steps, the biggest statue in Malaysia. On the way up you can see monkeys raiding the bins and trying to eat everything on the ground.

On our way back we we walked through China-Town. You really need to like it to go there again. The streets are packed with people, food carts, stands selling cheap stuff they bought for even cheaper prices in Thailand and waste. It is loud, warm and it smells horrible. It was worth experiencing something like that but I couldn't stand it.
We found this really nice Indian place right around the corner of our hostel that served its rice on a banana leaf. They put the leaf on the table in front of you and served 4 different curries, rice with a sauce and rice chips for under 1.5 AUD. And they make a wonderful mango juice! We went there twice because we loved it.

The next day we went to the lake garden which seemed to be the only really green place in the city.They have the worlds largest birdhouse, a huge free-fly area with lots of birds and a too expensive entrance fee. Instead we visited the butterfly park which turned out to be a nice and quiet but not very spectacular place. On our way back we had a look at the central market, jet another of those markets, only a bit more expensive and with some stands with beautiful woodwork, colorful materials and accessories.
Ahhh yeah... ahm, Bekki cut my hair again. I wanted to try something different than the usual long and messy so we trimmed it a bit; and now it's shorter and messy. It's not too short though and it doesn't show any system, longer here, short there, but I recon it looks OK. It also has more of a useful, than a stylish reason because it was sooooooo hot under it.

All in all KL isn't the most exciting city in the world and certainly not a nice place to live in. The traffic is mental. Everyone seems to do whatever he wants, it's loud and it stinks but somehow it works.The air is full of a smog mixed together out of traffic exhaust and waste which is omnipresent. But still, even the big mess it appears to be on the first sight, KL has it's charm.
You hear that most South-East-Asian cities are quite similar and KL is one of the calmer places (and we thought it was rough) but it's definitely worth experiencing it once in a lifetime.
Our hostel was a pretty run down house near all the central places and had a really nice flair. The staff was super friendly, always with a word of advice and we met a lot of different people there. Mainly travelers, everyone with their own interesting story, but also people from there who lived in that place or just hung out there in the evenings. It's a place I can definitely recommend to you when you plan on going to KL.
At this moment (I was writing this, not uploading it) I'm on KL's smaller airport waiting for our plane, which is an hour late, to Medan, Indonesia. We have great plans for our stay there but I'll tell you about them after they've become even better because we've realized them.

What a beautiful day

I asked Bekki if she would like to write an entry about our last Byron day. She agreed, promised me to do it soon and forgot about it. It was such a great day and I really wanted to share the pictures and stories with you so I asked her again and again until she did it. And it turned out that she is a talented writer, don't you think.If she gets better with the timing I'll soon consider her as a permanent guest writer.

Wed. 20/07/2011
For our last day in Byron we planned to go up to the lighthouse to see the sun rise.
Tim always wanted to go because he had missed the chance when he was in Byron 4 years ago and the lighthouse is an absolute must do thing when you're there.
We got up really early, at 5am, to be sure we won't miss anything. It was dark and cold and not too easy to get out of bed but we hurried and drove up to Watego's beach car park from where we walked up the path to the lighthouse. It is a beautiful walk when it's light. There are many lookout places and incredible views over the ocean. We had to take out torch and didn't see much of the views but it was a clear night and we heard some big animals in the bushes next to us.
It's always this mysterious feeling you get when the sunrise is close and the night turns into day. It was quite cold and a fresh breeze blew up at the lighthouse.  We were good in time and sat close to the tower to get some wind shelter.
We weren't the only ones so early, there were around 7 more people with the same idea. It is an incredible and wide view you have from up there. That place is the most easterly point in Australia so it feels like you could see the ocean from a wider angle than 180°.
The sunrise was amazing but I won't write anything about it. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

After we watched the sun rise the day started for us with a great surprise as we walked down the path. We stopped at one of the lookouts and were lucky to see some whales on their way from the south traveling up the coast. Tim got some good shots when two of them jumped out of the water. They where pretty far away but that makes them even more mysterious.I think in a long time I hadn't had such a good start into the day.

We also went to Broken Head and walked the track to Kings beach, which I hadn't seen before. It's one of the most beautiful beaches in Australia and we had it all for ourselves. It felt as if we've just explored a new place.
After a great week in Byron we had to say goodbye and I wonder when I'll see this place again, hopefully sooner than later.
We drove to Lennox for a very disappointing surf check and went for coffee, as always. On our way back to the farm we stopped at the place Tanja directed us to and Tim thought it could be the house he was living in but he wasn't sure; there had been some changes.
Later we stopped at Jule's place for tea and to say hello to his 2 months old daughter Harper. She is adorable. After this great day nothing could take our good mood away, not even the long drive up to cold Guyra.

Sorry about the pics... I'll update them when I have a faster internet! Sorry