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Hey friends, hope this is a mean to show what's uppening on the other side of the world, at least from our point of view...

Wednesday 26 May 2010

Road trip BALI -part 1- (17-28/05/2010)

Early morning on the 17th we got our rented car: Suzuki Jimmy pretty "pimped". We hit the road after a long day in Kuta buying some stuff..




The first stop was BALIAN beach, on the west coast of Bali. All hotels were quite fancy so we had to go with the flow and stay in some very nice bungalows with swimming pool.
The beach wasn't that spectacular (compared to others we saw so far..), black volcanic sand and big waves, but actually a paradise for surfers.
We stayed a couple of days before we continued our way to MEDEWI beach, another surfers' spot.






My internet time is running out, so I'll continue another time, hopefully soon.

Getting together (13-16/05/2010)

After Martin's adventures in Mentawais and my relaxing days in Bali we finally got together in Balangan beach, also with Lucas & Sol (with whom we'll be traveling for some time) and the australians for a couple of days.

After some days the australians left to go back home and Martin, Lucas, Sol and myself continued traveling around Bali...




Friday 21 May 2010

MENTAWAI Adventure (03-12/05/2010)

Hey people! It's time for me to do some update to Lore's initiative. It's pretty hard to use the computer in this islands, the mood is far from technology and internet.
THE MENTAWAI ADVENTURE
The meeting point was Padang, in Sumatra island. This village is the place that nobody will choose as destination but to pass by to go to Mentawai. People, horns, dirt and ugly coast is not what someone expects from Indo.
The main attractions are the ruins of buildings hit by an earthquake some months ago and local transport system...
Our objective of this stop was putting things together to take off to a tinny island, Niang Niang (Massekut), where electricity, communication, doctors, food and water are missing but some of the best surf spots can be found. Forget about mobile phones and internet!
2 days of organization, good local contacts were the key. Dee Dee, the cooker and Wee-man, a local surfer, helped us gather provisions, find a boat and accommodation in the island.
7 hours trip on a "speed boat", loaded with 14 surfboards, 250 lts of water, 30 lts of milk, 15 kg of rice, 5 kg of noodles, oil, some chickens, fish, pasta, cookies, fruits, cereals, heaps of spices, some candies (Beng Beng!)... hopefully enough for ten days isolation.
The island is amazing. Some guest cottages spread in the coast, 6 max., one small resort and two or tree locals aldeas is all the infrastructure you get. Around 250 people all inclusive.
Local communities work on cloves drying and coconut smoking. The rest is given by the island. Friendly, helpful and smily would be the terms to describe our hosts.
Benny, aussie, was the one who motivated the trip and put the group together: Always ready Brogan and Jason, "the dealer", aussies; Myke, story teller, dutch; Tobias, in music, Denish; worldwide Lucas and me, the Argentineans.
Everything went smooth and easy. Of course the highlight were the surfing sessions were I was getting back in touch with the ocean, more fighting the waves than surfing them...
Nipussy point, big and quick right, 40 min walk trough the jungle from our cottage. Lucas was the one who put Argentineans in a good position the first day in some nice 7 foot waves.
Bang Bang, 20 min away. Long left, it gets shallow at the end were the reef threats. Ben was victim of a huge set and got a nice memory on his back but he didn't miss any wave.
Pit Stops, friendly right where Myke enjoyed some good sessions.
E-Bay, huge and quick right. Not for everybody, it gets too shallow, you have to be fast! We enjoyed it from the coast, big barrels and pro rides.
Renting a boat for some days is a recommendable option. Lots of islands with different breaks and good snorkeling surrounds Niang-Niang. John Kennedy, were Brogan showed his relax style and Tobi enjoyed good waves. Burger World, some nice rides of Jason, and other breaks of playground. On top, you can always catch up a fishing boat and buy some good fish for the barbecue!
Card games at night were good fun. Poker for shells always present but argentinean TRUCO was happy times!
Breakfast, lunch and dinner always ready and tasty, having a cooker, an other recommendable! Don't forget to take some extra rupias to buy chickens from locals, be ready to catch it, kill it and clean it!
Food was enough, no mayor injuries or diseases, cool, friendly and relax atmosphere.
Have NO fear!


































Sunday 9 May 2010

Singapore & First days in Indonesia

We started the trip with an amazing flight on the new A380 Qantas, a cool experience.

Singapore welcome us with 35 degrees and a city full of shopping malls. We had a list of things to
buy so our day was basically from mall to mall.

The city is very modern, an expats paradise, with lots of things to buy and very cheap electronics. Martin bought me a fish eye for my camera, so you'll see some experiments with the camera.

After 1 day in Singapore, we experienced the Indonesian low cost airline LIONAIR, which I heard is on the black list, good we already flew and we won't try it again !
First stop was Jakarta, a real mess, and then we finally reached Padang where we met Lucas and the Australian friends.

From there Martin left to the Mentawai islands, a paradise for surfers, on a 10 days trip "guys only", just for surfing. Hope he'll come back in 1 piece !

And I made my way to Bali, to wait for the guys in a more pleasant place, full of tourists and very nice locals, quite relaxed.
I'm staying in a little paradise called BALANGAN BEACH, where my room faces the sea (have a look at the pics). My days are very relaxing, trying to forget about Toyota (mmm... maybe I did already!), on the beach, swimming, reading and meeting lots of interesting people from all over the world, mainly french because apparently the Guide Routard recommends the place :-D

This is all for today, on Thursday Martin will join me here and we'll post something about his surfing trip in Mentawais.

Chau chau !

Welcome to our blog, hope you enjoy it !!!

I'll write in English to make sure everybody can understand and follow...

After more than 2 years enjoying Brussels, we finally decided to start our "long way back home". And to make it more complicated we chose to go a around the world before we arrive in Argentina in November.

Our time in Brussels has been great, it can be summarized in a few words: many new friends, lots of Belgian beer (with some limitations for me...), french fries (the best in the world!), gossips about Toyota, trips around Europe, friends and family visiting...
We closed our stay with some very nice dinners and party with friends.

Now it's time to go back home, but before we'll have a look around Asia and New Zealand for the next 6 months.

I'll try to keep you updated as much as possible on how the trip goes, hope you enjoy the read and the pics !