I can get a lot of fun out of Extrema. Even when most others have long since found it unfunny. Today was enough. To make progress, we take the bangka from Coron to El Nido. A completely overloaded five-metre GRP dinghy takes 15 people out to the big bangka. The angle of inclination when boarding is up to 30°. The engine cuts out after 30 seconds.
Once at the bangka, it finally dies. The dinghy is towed back. We set off an hour late. The weather forecast is good, only ten knots of wind. We have eight hours of sailing ahead of us through dangerous waters and 160 kilometres of open sea from Coron to El Nido. (more…)
Coron Island Tour
We tour Coron Island with the Bangka. Coron is just a huge rock from the outside, but there are hidden entrances to places that are fighting hard to be the understudy for “The Beach”. The first stop is a lake that can be reached via a short climb between the rocks. Asians splash around with life jackets. Visibility in the Mondsee is easily 20 metres.
Uli joins us from her last dive. Lunch on a small beach directly under the rock face. Snorkelling at Twin Peaks Reef, thousands of fish in good visibility in the midday sun. Twin Lagoon, a hidden entrance from the sea, then dive through a tunnel into the second lagoon. Layers of water shimmer on top of each other, the rock faces rise 300 metres vertically. (more…)
A kiteboard Wants The Sea
Dear Kiteboard, I know that times are tough. I’m dragging you to the end of the world. A nice end, but one where you have less to do than anywhere else. Even at Lake Garda, the topography makes kiting less stupid than here. I really didn’t know about the only 4% over 4 Beaufort wind statistics. But I’ll do everything I can to look after you.
I actually wanted to relax. Uli wanted to study for his diving licence. But you whinge in the room like an infant with thin poo. So I rented another bike, a little scooter today. Despite the miserable wind forecast, we rode 70 kilometres on the worst tracks through the jungle to make you laugh. (more…)
Wreck Diving West Of Coron
The Coron archipelago is perfect for playing hide and seek. Especially for ships. The Americans and Japanese already realised this during the Second World War. Nowhere else in the world are there so many shipwrecks in so little space. Even if the Americans today can only be accused of associative behaviour towards the outside and inside: here they gave billions of fish massive asylum.
We head west for 1.5 hours with Coral Bay Divers. In a narrow passage between two islands lies the first Japanese gunboat. At a depth of 12 metres, the ship emerges from the deep blue. A short lap around the outside, then it’s time to go in. You actually need an Advanced Open Water Diver for this. But as nobody asks for my PADI licence anyway, it doesn’t matter. (more…)
Island Hopping South Of Coron
The day starts far too early again. Montezuma’s fist is playing pinochle with my intestines. Today we are going on a tour to the islands of Malcapuya, Banana Island and Bolog Island, 25 kilometres south of Coron. The ten-metre bangka takes 1.5 hours to get there. Only one young Phlippine couple is travelling with us.
The remnants of the night wind now give us a metre swell. Enough to throw the spray in fountains over the entire deck. Everything gets wet. We are travelling in the relative protection of the islands of the archipelago. Perhaps it’s just as well that we don’t get a bangka 160 kilometres to El Nido after all. The internet is full of horror stories about two-and-a-half metre waves, lost luggage, 30-hour trips and accidents. (more…)
Busuanga Buffalo Biking
Uli is doing her diving course. Meanwhile, I get myself a nice Yamaha DT for little money – and 100% insurance-free. The deposit is my driving licence. There are no police checks. The bike consists of handlebars, motor and two tyres. No lights, no fuel gauge, no speedometer, few brakes, no kick starter. Starting is only possible by pushing. Let’s have some fun!
The tarmac ends just ten kilometres after Coron City. What remains is a dirt track. Perfect for this bike. The difference between light and shade on the road is extreme due to the high sun. I miss a few deep potholes. Bridges are usually just a few wooden planks, if there are any. At one point I cross a small river. (more…)
Arrival On Coron
At last! That’s how it should be! The sun rises just before we enter the harbour in Coron. “The rainy season lasted much longer this year,” says a local resident. Until a few days ago, it rained non-stop for weeks. The result: murderous humidity at 30 degrees at seven in the morning. We almost fall over before we take a trike to the coconut resort.
The Kokonuss Resort is fine: small nipa huts in a tropical garden. Indian statues and fountains, flowers, palm trees, Nepalese flags. Wonderful. The bamboo hut is simple and cheap, but a bit mouldy. You get wet in the water. Banana pancake, shower and finally spread out our clothes. We stay here for a few days. I’m looking forward to the peace and quiet. (more…)
Of Crusaders And Permanent Campers
I find two types of “travellers” extremely distasteful. One is the cruise traveller, the other is the long-term camper. Both take the meaning and purpose of travelling ad absurdum. The cruisers think that just because their bums are moving, they are travelling. A conspicuous number suffer a heart attack when they actually follow a short procession to some completely overcrowded tourist attraction.
The others are the permanent campers. What is the point of a home that was built for travelling but is only ever in one place? Travellers are free at heart, permanent campers only have free choice in prejudice. Why do permanent campers like lace curtains and garden gnomes behind hunter’s fences, but not hollow bricks? (more…)
Defiance Blog
Today is a defiance blog day. Departure at seven o’clock in Banaue. 350 kilometres through the rain down the mountains to Manila. After a while, the road even has a central reservation again. We make the journey in eight hours. Another 1.5 hours through Manila at rush hour. Roundabout in five “lanes”. The right-hand lane continues to circle, while the left-hand lane shoots outwards.
I miss a junction, we end up on the Skyway and are 10 kilometres away from the rental car station in no time at all. Open up, off to the hostel. In, spread out my water gear, out. There’s a small shopping centre around the corner. Small, that is, just under 500 shops. It goes by the name of Robinsons Plaza. Fitting. Search for the exit for half an hour. (more…)
Ifugao-Slacklining In Banaue
Before breakfast, we take a short hike to the hanging coffins of Sagada. The Ifugao bury their people hanging in rock faces or in one of the many caves. At breakfast we meet two nice backpackers from Holland and Italy. They had already admired my park skills yesterday. So now they think I’m a safe driver. We give them a lift to Banaue.
It continues to rain cats and dogs. The road leads over a rough dirt track 500 metres down into the valley. The axle seems to survive. It clears up briefly and the first rice terraces appear between clouds of mist. Then the road is completely closed due to a landslide. An excavator shovels a few tonnes onto a truck, then we carry on. (more…)
Cloud Rally To Sagada
Today’s route does not require a sat nav. Creep 20 kilometres out of Baguio in a traffic jam. Follow the serpentines for 100 kilometres straight on to Sagada. In fact, there is not a single tarmac descent or straight road on the entire route. The “highway” leads up into the clouds to over 2200 metres. The temperature drops to 12 degrees.
It’s pouring with rain. In the clouds, visibility is sometimes only 50 metres. In combination with the sudden appearance of a few hundred metres lowered road halves due to landslides, it is quite entertaining. The excitement is great when the road has completely slipped away and the diversion 50 metres higher up is an unsurfaced gravel track with a clear view down the steep face. (more…)
100 Islands National Park & Baguio
Funnily enough, everything that Lonely Planet recommends is completely overcrowded and twice as expensive. The 100 Islands National Park tops that. The cabins on the outermost island now cost four times as much as they did two years ago. So bye-bye Robinson, hello day trip. At 17 euros for a few hours on a private boat trip to some of the more than one hundred islands, it’s okay.
The islands are coral reefs raised from the seabed, completely overgrown with greenery and gnawed away by the sea at all edges. Some look like turtles, but most look like fossilised hippie mushrooms. I take my kite gear with me on the little bangka. Unfortunately, there’s no wind. But the trip is still great. (more…)
Chicken Or Fucking?
We set off at six in the morning. By then I’ve already spent three hours trying in vain to use my mobile phone as a laptop modem. Globe blocks the mobile phone as soon as it is connected to the laptop. Nothing frustrates web designers more than not having a connection. The omen of a daily motto knocks at the door.
We drive to the Marcos’ old summer house nearby. It’s still closed – and really completely covered in clouds. We roll back down into the volcanic crater of Lake Taal. No road in the whole of Talisay leads to the shore for a nice breakfast. We eat in the car. Stop at a shopping centre. Half an hour later it opens and two nice employees waste an hour and a half in vain trying to connect my mobile phone with a new Smart Simcard to the internet. (more…)
11 Million Reasons
There are 11 million reasons to hate Manila right off the bat. Manila is big, humid, loud, dirty and worse than the fuckers in Pattaya. We arrive at the hostel in the middle of the night. The quality of the karaoke show next door is almost semi-professional, the volume much louder. Four hours of sleep later, I’m flowing through the morning streets, discreetly jetlagged.
After three minutes, the first whore wants a cigarette. Then a massage. I’m not in the mood for a massage today. And her offer is too low. I decline and leave her looking a bit stupid. I want a SIM card and to get out of Manila. Quick breakfast at the hostel, out again and pick up the hire car. The taxi driver needs 15 minutes for the 5 kilometres as the crow flies, I need more than 1.5 hours back. (more…)
Fear Of Dragons
Some things just don’t go together. Or do you know a junkie with a phobia of syringes? Not me. I’m a kiter. As of today, I’m afraid of kites. Stupid thing. My first contact with China. I’m very intimidated.
The check-in at China Air in Frankfurt takes less than five minutes. A 30kg kite bag actually comes free of charge. At Condor, 1kg more costs 40 euros. The seat on the plane is gigantic. At over 1.93 metres, I don’t bump into the backrest of the person in front of me. On German airlines, if the person in front of me moves backwards, the only thing that usually helps is yodelling. Tai Chi exercises for dinner. (more…)
The farang is the shit
Have you heard the standing term “Bumsbomber to Bangkok”? On the return flight, the thing is called “Stupidly fucked to Berlin” and mainly takes place in the queue in front of the LTU check-in at Bangkok airport. I stand in the middle and listen. The protagonists: two ugly Germans well past their prime. To avoid the danger of self-identification, let’s simply call them “One” and “Two”.
One: “As a farang, you can’t buy property in Thailand. You can set up a company, but only with tricks, and then you don’t own it.”
Two: “Hm.” (more…)
Stoppage time
No, the game is not over yet. There’s injury time. I’m going to the airport. Work offline for a few more hours. Go to check-in 2.5 hours before departure. I’m pleased to see the same woman at the counter who said earlier: “Kiteboard? No problem!”. Then I look for my passport. Search. Search. And search.
In the middle of the airport, I dismantle all my luggage. Unroll every T-shirt, open every bag. A 10 metre long carpet spreads out on the white marble floor. I check every corner of my rucksacks three times. Call the Lub*D again. Nothing. The last time I had my passport was the day before yesterday morning when I was packing. I haven’t taken it out since then. It must have been stolen. (more…)
The end of a long journey
Today is the last day of my long journey. Everything comes to a remarkably quiet end. The sights of Bangkok remain unvisited, I’ve seen enough. Working, chatting, emailing. Going through old stories on the blog. I’m neither sad that my trip is over, nor am I particularly looking forward to going home. I’m somewhere in an empty and quiet centre.
The big realisations have failed to materialise. Friends say I can only recognise them when I get home. The same goes for change. I have become stronger. My bones ache in some places and I’m still chronically tired. But it was all worth it. There are 100,000 beautiful images and moments inside me. (more…)
Bangkok for the last time
My last place, my last days. Bangkok. I have a lot to do. Work, write invoices. Picking up a new pair of glasses that I ordered a month ago. Have a wooden spoon carved, revalidate my London-Munich flight ticket, get my camera repaired again. Most of my last two days are spent shopping. Everything is going well. I have exactly 120 euros left. Done :-)
At home I’ll be playing Christmas in the summer. Father Christmas is red with envy, he’s seen my rucksack. I carry my shopping through hot and humid Bangkok back to the lub*d and make a nice pile of presents. (more…)
The Vuckings Of Pattaya
The Vuckings are a barbaric raiding tribe from the far north. Their skin is white, their beards long, their bellies fat. They are all so ugly that you almost feel sorry for them. They take what they want, questions are superfluous. Fickinger drink and bawl, especially after supposed victories. Everything you’ve ever heard about the Fickingers is true. Except for one thing: they don’t have axes. They have hammers. Very, very small ones.
All joking aside. That was serious. The world is so complicated. Nothing is as it seems. No prejudice can be permanently defended. Pattaya is different. You don’t have to defend anything here. Just open your eyes and write down half-truths. Every illusion becomes the sad truth at the next corner. (more…)
Angkor Wat
We get up before five o’clock. We spend a whole day being chauffeured from temple to temple in Ankor Wat by tuk-tuk. The ticket office is the first attraction. 5.30am, crowds of people. for Cambodian standards, an entrance fee of $20 is outright madness. Of this, 10% goes to monument conservation, the rest goes to a petro-giant and the Ministry of Finance. At least $200,000 a day is apparently not enough. Restorations are paid for by Japan and France.
Ankor Wat, World Heritage Site. You have to go. I’m there now. The sunrise is beautiful. And the rest is just as I imagined it would be. Nothing new, nothing to discover. Even though Tomb Raider was filmed here. After 12 temples, we drive home again. Our brains are muddy, our feet flat. (more…)
Simply tired
I ride my motorbike for another day. During the colonial era, the French created a summer resort in the coastal mountains nearby, similar to Bach Ma in Vietnam. The off-road track into the mountains to Bokor is said to be one of the most beautiful roads in Cambodia. I drive over 100 kilometres to get there. There is a sign next to the barrier: road closed to motorbikes. Not for cars. The guards are incorruptible.
On the way back, I get caught in a tropical downpour. No jacket can keep it out. I take another look at the weird nightlife and how all humanity dissolves inconspicuously. One guy gives his friend money so that his “hooker” doesn’t steal it after giving him a blow job. I go to bed and politely fend off the knocker shortly afterwards. (more…)
All quite normal, somewhere in the middle of nowhere
I take the bus for a few hours to the coast. A small town called Nowhere. By motorbike to empty sandy beaches in the off-season. The first signs of Kamibiza appear in the form of large concrete castles. Old majestic wrought-iron fences from the colonial era are everywhere. They surround empty fields. Other walls stand in the air on 2 metre high stilts. Escher would certainly have liked that.
Posters against child prostitution hang everywhere. There are some helpers on the bus wearing T-shirts from a home for street children in Nowhere. I am worried. It is reassuring that child prostitution is being publicised. What is worrying is that it seems to be necessary. (more…)
Living and dying in Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is a city in black and white. Some shades of grey seem like colours at first. In the evening, however, I am sure that there aren’t even any shades of grey. Why? I have seen poverty. It’s worse here. Slums are guarded by rubbish belts. The millionaires’ mansions a block away are guarded by barbed wire and CTV. I’ve seen despair. Here it has only one eye. I’ve heard of genocide. Here the murderers ended up killing each other. I have heard of forgiveness. Here there is only forgetting.
Phnom Penh is black and white. Old Khmer Rouge sit in parliament. The elite help themselves to everything the people lack. The people lack everything and they shout at me all day long: give me your money! (more…)
Web design in the Mekong Delta
Get up at six, leave at seven. Three hours by bus to the Mekong. Walking, boating, walking, eating, walking, boating, walking, bus, walking, ferry, walking, three hours by bus. I fall asleep again and again. The hours pass me by like a zombie on tranquillisers. The sun is shining and water lilies float in the brown waters of the Mekong.
The tour group is quite nice, a colourful mix, young and old and from all over. Not terror tourists, but people with interesting stories and questions. But I’m too tired. Switch on the MP3 player and go back to sleep. Some work in the evening, but I can’t concentrate. More than 6 hours’ sleep for the first time in three days. (more…)
The Author
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.