Sydney Lights

Hi people!

Only a few days after I had arrived back in Germany I spent 6 days on a vacation with my mum and my brother. We went to our neighbor czech republic, respectively the little town Ceski Krumlov. It's a beautiful site with a medieval centre and lots of water. The river Vlatlava (Moldau) flows through it and meanders its way through it.
Czeski Krumlov is a relatively unknown (because of its size: 20000 people only) but increasinly popular place among czech and international tourists. Even the big Lonely Planet recommends it for backpackers. And indeed the town is full of young internationals that stay in the town's various hostels. You won't believe it but you can meet not only german, french italian and english people there but also people from the other side of the world. For example I had 4 Australians from Melbourne on my room and 2 japanese girls.
So what makes this town so attractive for foreigners? Well, it's something you only realize after you have already spent at least 2 days there. It's the town's river that brings a certain kind of relaxed and laid back mood into the town. It is present almost everywhere and there is plenty of gastronomy on the riverbanks and a couple of historic bridges.
So you can always enjoy a cappuccino or a chilled beer there and just watch the river flow gently through past the town. On the river, and that is one of the regions most popular attractions there are many people moving down the stream with little canoes or rafts. It's nice just to watch them going down the river. On one of the towns watergates (Schleuse) there are always many people just watching those ones with the canoes overturn since its a hard exercise balancing down the turbulent water there.
Anyway the atmosphere in the town was just amazing, the people very friendly and helpful although not all czech people spoke english. But the czech women are of a very natural beauty indeed. My brother always said the town had a good Chill Factor. He is definitely right.
So on the first day we hired some bikes and explored the region a little bit. We came past towns where there was a lot of gypsy population which were often living in shabby old communism houses. But the landscape we passed was very beautiful and showed lots of green. The same like in the german summer. But just something I hadn't seen in for while in down under. On the second day we rented out a raft and did like all the others and rode down the river for 40 km until short before the Czech town of Budweis, where the famous beer comes from. This was one of the best things we could do there. Just being on the river got us in a chilled relaxed mood with no hurry because the river was flowing quite fast and made it not too necessary to row the boat quickly. The third day we hiked on the "Klet", a mountain in the area from where we enjoyed a fantastic and far 260 degrees view. One the fourth day we went to Budweis and explored the town. It has the biggest central marketplace in the whole czech republic with 130m side length and a square shape. You can calculate how many square metres that is.
Before I finish there is one thing I still wanna mention: It's a good idea to begin your evening in Ceski Krumlov with a restaurant visit. The food there is affordable (A big portion of excellent food hardly costs 10 Euros) and the quality was outstanding without exception. We were very surprised because normally in a little czech town like that you can't expect such good value for your money.
So alltogether it was a very relaxing, interesting and culinaric holiday without being pricey and I am pretty sure I will come back one day.

Enjoy the photos in album No. 12

 Cheers!

hi fellows.

very brief update.

my new zealand pictures are now online! Check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sydneylights/sets/72157594169169424/ 

marvellous landscapes and incredible colours!

 I am now off to a one week vacation with my family to czeck republic.

C ya back again in one week

Marius 

Hi fellaws!

Now its over. My 3 days in Singapore, this steaming, vibrant and multicultural melting pot have been sweaty, full of impressions and of course very interesting. I now know for sure that I want to return one day to explore south east asia and Wei, yes, of course China as well. :-)

The last two days I went out to explore the city centre and get a real impression of what Singapore is, because the day before I had seen only Chinatown and unfortunately it wasn't busy on Sunday. So Monday morning I went into the city centre with the MRT (mass rapid transport), a modern subway system where you can buy a travelcard that you can charge with money and just have to hold in front of the gates to enter the subway. I strolled a little bit around and visited St. Andrews cathedral of the anglican church, all "dressed in white". Then I passed the supreme court, a huge building (you would guess it has to be big in Singapore :-) ) and went to a very modern, shell shaped building that houses opera and state theatre and then went to a big sculpture of a creature, half lion, half dragon, where hundreds of tourists were posing for a shot of themselves with the creature pouring water out of its mouth and the skyline in the back. Being amused of so much openly shown tourism I went on a very touristic river cruise that was supposed to reveal some interesting facts about the city for you, but in fact all that I was hearing was the noise of the engine, that made the speakers voice unhearable.

A bit annoyed I went further and had a very good chinese lunch in a totaly uncommercial food court, where the guy at the counter didn't even speak english. But the meal was only 2,50$ (1,25EUR) anyway. Yeah the prices are incredibly low in Singapore, if you go to the right places. On the major touristic trails of course its much more expensive. With a good foundation in my stomach I went for a stroll through chaotic "Little India", a neighborhood with a large majority of indian people and lots of indian food, culture and way of life. I had a Nasi Goreng and a very refreshing drink. It was actually a young coconut that was still in its green shell and had been cutted a hole on top so I could drink the fruit juice with a straw. I first thought it would taste like a usual coconut, but it tasted totally different. It was very fresh, not too sweet and had an interesting fruity aroma, plus it was only 2$. That was something I would like to have in Germany as well! After that I visited an indian muslim mosque (Moschee), where I had to take my shoes off and wash my feet before being allowed to enter the mosque, but not the central prayer area. So I watched the muslims at their prayer and read some information about the mosque. Then I headed off and walked throuh another neighborhood which was very arabic indeed. In a street called Arab St the majority of shops were selling persian carpets. After that I visited the Bugis markets, a very crowded place that attracts locals and tourists and there's nothing that's not sold there. You can get all sorts of fashion, big international brands as well as smaller local ones, all sorts of food and beverages (I tried a pancake made of corn and a sugar cane juice, which was good but the coconut juice remains my favourite) and the usual sortiment like cellphones, CD's (looked like originals of western mainstream pop music, only around 7$, but with japanese letters on it - but indeed still a very good value) and lots of accessories. I really liked the place and the asian people as well that seem to act so controlled all day. I haven't experienced a single asian that had shouted something across the street whereas in Australia it was very common, thanks to the anglosaxon culture. With the head full of impressions I went home through the slowly growing dusk and enjoyed the rest of the evening in the hostel with a couple of beers and the friendly company of the other hostelstayers.

Today I went to Sentosa Island which is one of the most touristic attraction Singapore has to offer, I can tell now. It had been an island with armed fortresses on it to defend the Singapore harbour during WWI and WWII. But now it had been turned into a huge leisure paradise that offers a couple of dozens of attractions. I went to the only remaining fortress of the ancient days to learn something about Singapores past. In fact Singapore had been conquered by the japanese army during WWII but was handed back to the brittish empire after Japan had been defeated at the end of the war.
I also went to the skytower, which is the highest lookout point in Singapore with 134m above sea level and in fact revealed a marvellous 360 degrees view across singapore and the sea, you could even see the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia in the distance. During my stay in the tower a tropic rainstorm discharged over the island and I saw lots of people in the gondola down there getting terribly wet without being able to help themselves, and felt a little bit of "Schadenfreude", well knowing that I was safe in the dry. :-)
Then I left Sentosa Island and went back through the town to my hostel and from there to the airport where I am standing now finishing this text.

I am very sad to have to leave Singapore now already and like I said I would love to travel through the whole region now. I would probably head to Thailand via Malaysia, where the prices are supposed to be even 2 times lower than in Singapore, I was told. Just crazy but ideal for travelling where the money is your fuel and the more you can spent the more impressions you can collect.

So finally I take a bow in front of Singapore and south east asia and say goodbye to a phenomenal region with very friendly and natural people (and beautiful exotic women of course :-) ).
May you fare well Singapore (at least it looks good, this morning I read in the newspaper that Singapore had a 9% economy growth in the first quarter of the year - impressive hey?)

Ok this is the end of my travel, tomorrow I will wake up in Frankfurt am Main, the banking capital of Germany and head home to my hometown Kassel to catch up with my parents and some friends finally.
I am really looking forward to see you all again!!

I thank all the readers for the patience to read my long articles. I hope you enjoyed to share my travel experiences and liked the photos as well.
I am pretty sure to maintain this blog in the future as well since it would be too bad to shut it down and also I found that its great fun publishing your own experiences and thoughts.
So stay tuned for some updates from the hot and green german terra.

I wish you all the best!

Marius

hi people!

greetings from singapore. i arrived there yesterday late at night. being used to winter temperatures in new zealand I was like punched in the face when i stepped out of the air conditioned airport terminal and found myself in an environment with 29 degrees celsius and over 80% humidity. thats hard to bear for a german like me and feels like in a turkish steam bath. I am staying in the 'betelbox', a laid back and charming hostel in the east of singapore. The atmosphere here is much different to australia or new zealand in wintertime. the people here really seem to come from all over the world, I met europeans as well as asians, a few guys from afrika and aussies as well. Everybody seems pretty relaxed and friendly and helpful.  getting to know people here is absolutely no problem. yesterday I had the first dish of real asian cuisine. it was a sting ray served with onions and a spicy sauce, noodles as accompanying dish. it tasted really good but very hot so after a time i needed to clean my nose and had to purchase paper tissues for 30 cents, since paper napkins were not available. Strange enough, but seems to be a usual proceeding here. singapore is a very clean city (and state) since littering will cost you a lot of money. The government here has made very strict laws, especially with regard to drugs. if you try to smuggle for example 500g mariuhana, 28g morphium or 15g heroin you will probably face death punishment (source wikipedia). a very interesting fact is the composition of the population. around  77% percent are chinese, 14% malaysian and a few indian and eurasian people make the rest. so the first thing i and to other guys from the hostel did today was chinatown, a big and traditional style complex with heaps of food stands and shops that sell little things and second hand watches and mobiles. we had a good tasting "Lakhsa", a local singapore soup that contained fish and is made on the base of coconut milk and chili. the rest of the time we strolled around chinatown while it was raining  and the sky was covered by heavy clouds. the temperatures here do not differ a lot during the year since singapore is close to the ecuator and only has a wet and a dry season. a good thing is that they have counters hanging besides some of the traffic lights that count down the time thats still remaining until the pedestrian light changes from green to red. 

tonight we participated in the 'night safari', one of the most popular attractions among tourists. we sat down in a tram and drove through the jungle while we passed by lots of different 'wild animals' that were only a few metres away. The most spectecular sight was a fully grown rhinozeros that was supposed to be a 2 1/2 tonner. It really was impressive with its skin shining lightly under dimmy lights.

This part of asia is definitely very charming and a bit chaotic, although no comparison to countries like china or thailand so that i really want to return one day to be able to have a look at the neighboring countries. Malaysia with kuala lumpur, thailand of course and indonesia in the nearer surroundings are also supposed to be incredibly cheap. even here goods produces in Singapore usually are very cheap. Alcohol is very expensive though due to higher taxation i reckon.

ok thats it for the moment, football is on in a couple of minutes. lets hope that france will win the worldcup again  since italia is to blame for our removal from the cup. :-)

cheers fellows, see ya later