Bali 2008

Review & Preview

2008-12-10T23:47:00.007+08:00

Check out http://leo-around-the-world.blogspot.com/ for new stories and pictures of my trip in 2009!

Being back in Germany for several months, I have to admit that I miss Bali, the people and the whole life on this beautiful Island a lot. It was a great opportunity for surfing and a pure life experience. I met wonderful people and had the fun of my life.

The next trip is already planned:

Outward journey (July 2009)
Frankfurt - Hong Kong - Bali - Melbourne - Tasmania - Perth - Brisbane

--> (4 months) Studying abroad at Bond University, Gold Coast <--
Return journey (January 2010)
Brisbane - Sydney - Fiji Islands - Hawaii - L.A - San Diego - New York - Dublin - Frankfurt

I might also decide for a Kreuzfahrt, but I'm not sure yet!

Stay tuned for updates ;-)

Best wishes

Leo

My last days in Bali....

2008-09-07T20:53:00.002+08:00

...were quite nice and relaxed. After having some good waves in Uluwatu I just relaxed the last days, got a lot of massages, partied in Kuta and had some last Indonesian food.

While writing this text I'm sitting in Taipei International Airport, where I just landed after my flight from Denpasar.

I came a little too late at the Airport in Denpasar, because I wanted to have a talk to the Check-in-staff. Everybody was already checked in so I had the staff for my own to explain why my bag’s weight isn’t 20kg as it is allowed. My bag was about 25 kg but with a smile and some friendly words I got it trough the check-in without paying any overweight-fees. After that I asked for a seat at the exit or a business class seat because of my injured knee (which isn’t really injured to be true) – luckily the got me in the business class for the “Denpasar – Taipei”-flight.

2008-09-03T23:55:00.000+08:00

This week is my last week in Bali. Dominik is leaving at Friday, Carlos on Saturday and I check out on Sunday around 12 o’ clock.
We were busy these days with shooting a lot of pictures, surfing the best spots on a solid swell and climbing the biggest mountain in Bali – Mt. Agung!
Just enjoy the pictures, I’ll write a text as soon as I have time for it.

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We’ve been to Nusa Lembongan during the week and surfed shipwrecks every single day. It is a great spot, but we weren’t really lucky with the swell. All the other spots weren’t working at that time, so we had to fight with a big crowd. (sometimes up to 50 surfers on ONE point) During the day we rented a motorbike (1 for 3 people =)) and drove over the whole island.
The day before we left to Nusa Lembongan, we met Manuel, another German who is travelling with us from now on. He just arrived and will stay until the 25th of September!
He is from Munich and surfs the Eisbach-wave every day.
After staying there for 2 days we came back to Bali to get out at Middles again. The wave was pumping on low tide, which means that there wasn’t really any water left when we got out. I catched some of the big waves and smiled the whole day =D. Dominik is doing well, too. For a beginner with only a few weeks experience he learned a lot in this short time.
We are going to hire a boat for some hours to make a photoshoot in the beginning of next week in Airports or Middles! I hope to get some better pictures of me surfing some of the outer reef spots.
Beeing back on the main-island totally knocked us out in some way. All of us don’t really feel well, that’s why we spend much of the time at home at the moment. We planned to go to Canggu, but we lost the plan when all of us felt in some how sick. I don’t know why but I think that we just got too much sun during the last days and I feel sick because of too much antibiotics which I had to take because of my earpain.
Dominik is leaving next week on Friday which means we have to organize a lot. We have to buy suits, shirts, shorts, a boardbag and some other stuff. On Monday we’ll leave to Mt. Agung and be back around Tuesday noon. After that we’ll go directly to Balangan to enjoy our last days in Bali.

So far so good, I’ll write again in a couple of days. Enjoy the pictures of Balangan and Nusa Lembongan!

Days passin' by

2008-08-25T23:16:00.001+08:00

I’m really sorry for not writing that long, but I wasn’t really motivated to go in the internet-café every single day. Since Dominik arrived a lot changed. We’ve been surfing to many new places (Balangan, Uluwatu, Airports…) and stopped the partying a little bit. After getting the ear-infection in the left ear I had to stay out of the water for the last two days. Tonight and tomorrow we’ll go out with the two Santis (Tonight to Ocean Beach and tomorrow to Kuta Reef). The two Santis are our new neighbours, they are from Argentina and stay in Bali for the next week. So who else is new in the game =)? The two guys from downstairs, the indo-girls from mbargo, Anne and Putu and the English girls who left today, the Brazilian guy who lives two doors away and is coming home with lots of girls every night….Just recognized there are too many people to write about all of them. Bali is full of interesting people and gives us the opportunity to get to know each of them.

During the week we’ve been to Ubud to have a look at the famous monkey-forest and watch the traditional dancing-show. Beside that we went nearly everyday for a massage (so good ;-)) and will try out a “hot stone massage” next time.

What are the plans for the next week? We’ll go to Nusa Lembongan, surf Ulu and Balangan again and be back at the weekend for partying!

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2008-08-20T20:28:00.003+08:00

„I’m back“ – that was the feeling of the thought I had today when I went back into the water again after a lot of days without surfing. Equipped with earplugs and my 5’6 fish I went with Dominik down to Padma to surf some small beachbreak-waves.
Tomorrow we’ll drive down to Uluwatu together with Mikey (the Pipeline-Pro) and Roberto (the Italian, who is flying home on Tuesday) to get the first good waves after fullmoon.
Here are some crazy pictures from the last days.

Greetings go out to all the guys who went back home (Germany, Australia, UK, Denmark, Italy, Japan……) the last weeks. Miss you and hope to see you soon!

Uluwatu, Surfer's Ear and Dominik's arrival

2008-08-14T20:27:00.002+08:00

The last days I was still sick. Then it got better and THEN, I got a Surfer's ear again (Ear-infection). So I went to the docotor to get some Antibiotics and all that stuff. 3 more days without surfing. The day before I got the Surfer's Ear I went to Uluwatu and surfed some headhigh waves - I love the spot =)

I'll write more when there is some time left ;-), stay tuned!

Weekend

2008-08-10T16:02:00.002+08:00

On Saturday I took the scooter, drove down to Seminyak and chilled at the beach, after checking the different surfspots I decided to drive down to Legian and Kuta again to watch the Sunset (Enjoy the pictures ;-)).
Soon I got a call from Desiree, with who I went for dinner later on and Safar, who came back from Java and invited me to have some drinks with him and his friends.
So we bought some Bintang, some Arak and some fruits from the nightmarket, went to Safar’s place and had an evening full of interesting conversations underlined by Safar playing guitar and his nephew playing the drums.
I got back home at around 1.30 am, so the party-scene was on its peak at this moment, the traffic was going crazy and I was wondering if it would be a good idea to go out again. I decided to stay at home to get totally healthy again.

Sunday was my first day back in the water. I went out at Halfway, used the fish and had a relatively good time. The waves were about head-high and it was crowded like everyday.
So it is 2.00 pm now, I’ll see what the rest of the day has to offer.

Tropical Punch

2008-08-10T15:28:00.004+08:00

I’m sorry but I can’t write anything new about the swell, the surf, a new spot or anything else which is related to surfing. Being sick for the last 2 days kept me most of the time in the hotel or in the area of it.
Phil left 3 days ago to Java, Lucas 2 days ago to Australia and Martin yesterday to Thailand. There are still some friends left and Patrick (Desi’s brother) will eventually extend his visa for one or two weeks. My friend Dominik is arriving in Kuta at Tuesday and another girl from Germany is coming over at Monday. There is a steady coming and going, the only one who stays seems to be me.
The plans for the next weeks are: Another trip to Nusa Lembongan, Ubud, Mt. Agung, Lovina and some other places inside the island. We’ll stay for some days in Medewi and after that going over to surf Dreamland, Uluwatu, Bingin and the other (South-)West-side-spots.
I’ll try to show Dominik (and the other people who are joining us) the best places on the island. After staying most of the past 3 weeks in Kuta, I’m getting a little sick about the traffic-jam, the party-scene and the missing quietness. Suka Beach Inn is a really good place to stay but if you want to have quietness it is definitely the wrong place! (To be true I love the trouble which is going on here the whole night, but after some time you need to rest)
I’m still thinking about going to Lombok to surf Desert Point and all the other famous spots, but I’m not sure about that yet, because of the malaria-risk and the long time we need for the trip.

Some days ago we had been to Ocean Beach Club, where Freddy Malone presented his new surf-movie “Second to none”. In my eyes it wasn’t anything special, but it was interesting to see all the pros from Hawaii, Australia and so on. The water and the clubs are full of them, which isn’t really helpful for the development of my surfing skills =). I met Bruce and Kelly in MBarGo, some B-Pros in Ocean Beach & in the waves of Legian.

Yesterday we went to dinner in Max’ Warung, where I got to know Mikey Bruneau, who is a Pipeline-Pro from the Northshore Hawaii. He told me that there isn’t any real swell coming in for the next 8 days, so I’m more or less a lucky guy to be sick now and not later on.
I’ll stay out of the water one more day. Tomorrow I’ll jump in somewhere around Legian or Seminyak for a short round of surfing. On Monday and Tuesday I’ve to pick up the Germans and plan our trips.

So here are some new pictures of Ocean Beach Club and the surfboard I bought for Dominik. (7’0 “Shortboard” with the measures of a Minimalibu, shaped by Paul Callahan - I bought it for 1.500.000 RP, which is equal to 110 Euros)

2008-08-06T16:21:00.002+08:00

We went out to Bounty yesterday to play some rounds of pool. The other guys wanted to go out again, so I went out with them for another hour, but got back to the hotel around 02.00 am. Today I stood up early, had breakfast and drove down to Halfway. Halfway was crowded and small, so I decided to drive down to Legian again. Legian looked kinda good, so I jumped in. The waves were about 2 meters high and crumbly. The high tide was coming in and the conditions were getting better every minute. With generating a little speed after the take-off it was possible to have really long rides until the beach. I practiced some moves and went out after 2 ½ hours, because the crowd recognized that the waves were much better than in Kuta.

Today we went to “Serangan”. After an early breakfast we tried to find the right way to Sanur, recognized that there were no waves and went over to Serangan. I’ve been to this place 5 years ago, so it was really nice to be there again. It is a little bit far to drive by scooter because the road is really bad, but it is in some way like a little adventure. Phil and I jumped in the water, despite there wasn’t really any surfable wave. So we just had a paddle-training, mixed up with some climbing around the rocks. Baliwaves.com wrote that there isn’t any wave running today, so we’ll have to wait until Thursday, when a new swell is coming in!!
The rest of the day we just chilled, read and watched the sunset. Tonight is Bintang-Time :-)

Middles, Legian.....

2008-08-04T13:48:00.001+08:00

While the Pros at “Rip Curl – The Search” rip waves in Padang and Uluwatu we went to the outer Reef. We decided to chose “Middles” again. The swell wasn’t really big so we thought it would be a little bit smaller and easier than last time. When we jumped at 8.30 am out of the boat the waves seemed to be relatively normal sized. After some minutes the situation changed again and middles was spitting 3.0 to 3.5 meter waves over the kuta reef.
People with helmets and big boards were sitting deep inside and were waiting for waves. After some minutes of checking the situation I went into my first waves. We stayed out there for around 3 hours and had a really good time. Like nearly everytime our boat was too late, so we took another one to get back to the beach.

The other days we surfed some more or less good Halfway-waves, which were most of the time braking in the morning. Yesterday Halfway got too small, so I decided to take the scooter and drive down to Legian. There was nobody in the water when I arrived, but I wanted to wait and see what Legian has to offer. After some minutes, some big sets rolled in which generated powerful left- and righthander tubes with massive lips, braking directly over the sand. (05.00 pm – low tide!!) I took on the leash and jumped in the water. The current in Legian is much stronger than in Kuta and the waves are massive, if it is running…
There was only one more surfer outside when I got in. We had a hard time to get out, but after recognizing that the wave was creating a small channel in the middle of the break, we got out of the danger-zone.
The other guy took the first wave – late takeoff, deep bottom-turn and the attempt to get into the head-high barrel took him directly under the massive lip of the wave. He wiped out and got smashed to the ground. Some local guys recognized that the wave was running and came inside to join our little private session. To be honest, they were the only ones who got out of the barrel sometimes, we (the white guys =) ) were heavily wiped out in nearly every attempt to get enough speed to surf this wave. Despite of that we had a good time and went out of the water when it got dark.

We went out to Bounty yesterday to play some rounds of pool. The other guys wanted to go out again, so I went out with them for another hour, but got back to the hotel around 02.00 am. Today I stood up early, had breakfast and drove down to Halfway. Halfway was crowded and small, so I decided to drive down to Legian again. Legian looked kinda good, so I jumped in. The waves were about 2 meters high and crumbly. The high tide was coming in and the conditions were getting better every minute. With generating a little speed after the take-off it was possible to have really long rides until the beach. I practiced some moves and went out after 2 ½ hours, because the crowd recognized that the waves were much better than in Kuta.

Ah by the way: The contest is finished, check the results on the ripcurl page!

2008-07-30T19:46:00.003+08:00

just some random pics...

Halfway, Airport, Padang Padang

2008-07-30T19:27:00.002+08:00

The last days were full of surfing. We went to halfway like everyday and had some fun in shoulder-high waves. The day after that we went to Airport-Left with a boat. The boat costs about 40.000 RP and takes you directly to the spot. The wave is fun, but I prefer the AP-Right, because I’m regular footed. Surfing outside at the reef is really good, because this spot isn’t crowded like Halfway, Legian or Kuta. On Sunday we’ve been to Hard Rock Hotel, where Tom Curren played some music. It was also the first public viewing of “Walking on water”, which is a really good movie, but a little bit too much of religious stuff in it. The evenings were like the evenings before, but a little more chilled.

Today, Wednesday the 30th, the Rip Curl Pro contest in Padang Padang started. We went there by car with Massimo and Berto (two Italians) and watched Joel Parkinson, Mick Fanning, Kelly Slater and all the other wellknown Pro-Surfers ripping some waves. Padang seems to be a really fast and powerfull wave, which is braking over a shallow reef. The contest continues this week, so we’ll be there again. (Maybe to the finals…)

Phil wanted to leave on Monday, but he decided to stay for another 10 days. Desireé’s brother arrived yesterday - haven’t met him yesterday, because I felt really sick. We had been to a Indonesian restaurant and I ordered Nasi Goreng with some Tempeh. After getting home I felt really sick and ended up in puking up for the next hours. Sounds bad, maybe it was, but today I feel really good and already forgot about the last night ;-).

Here are some new pictures from the past days. I’ll go to the beach now to surf some halfway-waves.

Stay tuned….

Nusa Lembongan

2008-07-27T12:54:00.003+08:00

At Friday morning we woke up at 6.45 to have breakfast and get a transport to sanur, where the public boat to Nusa Lembongan leaves. Like most of the times we were a little late and missed the public boat, so we had to wait for the next one which was leaving around 10.30. After trying to find some other guys for taking a speedboat (which would be the same price like the 10.30-ship (80.000 RP) I got in some way verbally attacked by some of the fishermen in Sanur. They blamed me for “destroying” their business, because I asked some guys to share a boat for getting a better price….To stay out of trouble we just took the 10.30 boat and arrived at Nusa Lembongan around 12.00. The trip was still fun, but we were really tired, because we hadn’t so much sleep the night before. After having some food at the beach, we decided to take a small nap. The small nap ended up in big 3 ½ hours nap, so we missed the surf and everything else for this day. We were a little fucked up, so we just had a short walk on the beach, got some food and had a “read a book & chill” – session. We went to bed early to get up before the sun rises in the morning.

The dawn patrol on the next day was really fun. We woke up around 5.30, took on our booties, mounted the fins and walked around 2 kilometres to the next beach, from where you need another 5 minutes of paddling to get to a famous spot called “Playgrounds”. You could also paddle from the “main”-beach, which would take you about 20 minutes.
Playgrounds is a really fast wave so you should take off early, get some speed and then try to make your moves on the wave. You can surf Playgrounds on nearly every tide, but when the tide goes down the reef is getting really shallow. (Between your board and the reef there is maybe only 0,8 meters left – try to get out of the wave without a wipeout and don’t try to duckdive too deep)
First we tried to surf the wave as a righthander, but we noticed that the right hand was closing out to fast this morning, we paddled in some lefthanders which where really fun. It wasn’t really crowded and most of the people were friendly.
When the lowtide came in I got 3 more waves and on one of them I wiped out because somebody was dropping in my wave. Just got some small reefcuts on the right hand and my board got some scratches from the corals.

After this morning-session we went back to the hotel, took a shower and rented 3 push-bikes to see some other parts of the island. After 2 kilometers my tires went flat, so I had to push it back to the store again to get a new one. After changing the inner-tube we went on the road again, cycled over to some other beaches (Coconut & Dream Beach), which were quite nice.

In the evening we decided to get out to Playgrounds again. The tide was higher, the wave was bigger and the right was better than the left. We had fun, but it was a little too crowded. After getting hit by one of the others surfer’s surfboard, we paddled over to a man-made-island, from where you could watch the surfing on the other spot – called “lacerations”. Lacerations is a freaking fast wave, but it creates tubes really often. Next time I’ll try this spot too, this time I was just too exhausted from the cycling and paddling stuff. When the sun was nearly gone we paddled back to the beach and spend the rest of the night in a restaurant and our room. (There is nearly nothing you could do on this island =))

The special thing about Nusa Lembongan is that it is really quiet and I can imagine it is now, like bali was 20 years ago. No “real” hard tourism, no thousands of cars and motorbikes and all that stuff, bali is full of. I like the island and I’ll be back for a surftrip in a few weeks.

The next morning we took the boat back to Sanur and took a transport back home to our hotel. There is nothing really planned for today, instead of seeing and listening to Tom Curran, which performs in Bali’s Hard Rock Café tonight.

Tanah Lot

2008-07-23T12:50:00.000+08:00

Today we made a trip to “Tanah Lot” (a temple which is build up next to the sea). It was a quite nice trip, because we went there by motorbike, so we saw a lot of the countryside. We had food at a local shop, had a walk trough the rice-fields and went back home. Enjoy the pictures!

Meeting old friends

2008-07-22T12:48:00.000+08:00

While sitting at the beach and having a talk to Lucas (the Australian, who lives in Perth and is working somewhere in Indonesia) and the other guys I was surprised to see my old friend Safar again. He was looking for me and found me finally at Kuta Beach. We lost contact since 2 years, because he lost his phone.
Times changed – Last time we met, he was working at the beach and had a hard time earning money for food and the rent for his room. Now he has his own business, lives in a much bigger room, has a son and a wife. He is a good guy and deserves it!
The next day we went to a bar together and had a talk about past times. He’ll be in Australia for 3 months in September, so I’m here since the time he’s leaving. I’m sure we’ll have some evenings together.

Magic Bali

2008-07-20T21:08:00.004+08:00

...Hadn't really time to write much, because of all that party- and surfingstuff...okay more party than surfing =)

Last days we went out everynight, went from OB, to Sky-Garden, to Embargo and ended up on the street around 05.00 am. It is really fun, but I think I have to change my priorities to go out surfing more often. Coming home that late isn't really perfect for an eary session.

Two days ago I met a guy from the UK and one from Denmark, which are both here for a while and staying in the same Hotel - Suka Beach Inn.
We went out together since we met, they are really nice guys, so it is like I expeceted...not really hard to get people to know. There are also some italian guys I'm with every evening, so it is a quite good mix of international young people, rocking asia =)

This day we got our scooters, so we are more flexible now! I only pay nearly 1.5 $ for a scooter a day - should be a good investment. For the gas you only have to pay around 7.000 Rupiah, which is round about 0,5 €. On our first tour to Nusa Dua we got stopped by the police twice. The guys had to pay 75.000 each for not having an international driving license (or better said just for beeing at the wrong place, at the wrong time - that's how you could describe corruption =) ), I had to pay nothing, but I think I'll have to pay during my stay...don't know for what, but they will find a reason!

Yesterday I surfed the spot "Middles" at Kuta Reef. I think this was the most extreme wave I ever surfed. We ( Masimo, Phil and me ) went out with a local fisher-boat, dropped out in the middle of the ocean and paddled a few metres to this massive wave. It was about 3.5 meters high, sets were coming in every 4 minutes and it was more or less crowded. Had a good time, but after a wipeout I got drawn out to the ocean. The current was to strong to paddle against it, so I had to paddle around the whole spot and duckdive for too many times. It took about 20 minutes and I ended up at another spot which is between "Middles" and the classical "Kuta Reef". After some hours the fisherboat took us to the beach again. Really cool experience, I'll do this again these days.

The first week is over and it is time for the first resume: It's nearly perfect - it's Bali! I'll go out surfing more often next week and turn down a little bit this partystuff, because it is taking me to bed to late. 6 Weeks left ;-)...What else? Met interessting people everyday and had good experiences...

Kuta's Nightlife

2008-07-20T21:01:00.000+08:00

Wow…Oceans Beach and the other clubs (skygarden and M-Bar-Go) were really fun. Met a lot of nice people, danced a lot and had a great time.
Chantal brought her friends Desirée, Laura and Nicky. They are all very cool persons, so we had a really nice time together.
I went home around 4 o’ clock am, the girls where still rocking some more. I was too afraid of getting completely jetlagged after this hard and long time without sleep. On the way home I realized that I’m in Bali. After being asked about 10 times if I need a transport and 9 times if I want a “Special Massage”, I was a little stressed ;-).

Today I woke up at 10.00 am, but I decided to sleep some more, to be totally fit. …Slept till 02.00 pm and finally went out to surf some kuta-waves around 04.00 pm. (The time in between I used to wax the board and bring some system in my “surfbag, clothes, camera and all the other stuff”-chaos)
The waves were pretty small at “Half-way”, because it was low tide. When the tide came in around 5.30 the waves where a little better, so I had some good ones with my 5’6 fish. Tomorrow morning I will wake up early to surf during the high tide with the new 6’2 rusty rounded pintail. Havn’t found a surfshop yet that is selling the FCS M5 Fins, so I’ll try the board with the normal G5 Fins first.

First stop for tonight is “Warung 96”, let’s see what this place has to offer.

Haven’t shot any pictures till now, but there’s enough time left, so just stay tuned for the next posts.

..still partying

2008-07-19T21:04:00.000+08:00

So here are the first pictures of the kuta-nights and my sweet home.

Yesterday we’ve been first to Warung 96, where I enjoyed the tasty Indonesian food. After that we went in “Joey’s Place”, which is a small live-music-bar in a sidestreet of Poppies II. It’s small but the people are cool and the music is really good (Coversongs from Jack Johnson, RHCP, Stained and some other classic stuff)
Our next stop was the “Apache”, which is a Reggae-club in Legian Street. It’s bigger than Joey’s, but it plays in the same league. I like both places. At around 01.00 pm we went into the “Bounty Club”, which is a club that is build up like an old ship. They play everything from house to black music. I think it is the typical Aussie-Party-Area (together with “Paddyss”). IT wasn’t really my kind of club, because I wasn’t in party mood. Later on I decided to go home to have power in the morning for the most important thing – surfing!

I woke up at 06.00 am, waxed the board, mounted the fins and walked to the beach (still haven’t rent a motorbike yet). The waves in Halfway were around ankle-high. I jumped in and surfed some small waves, but it wasn’t really good. I decided to walk down to Legian, which is about 1,5 kilometers away. The long walk was a good idea, because in Legian waves where up to headhigh and much more powerful. The surf was okay, so I stayed till 10.30 and got some fast ones.

After surfing I organized a new M5-Fin-Set, bought some small things for living and went to the hotel again. There I took my breakfast and met some guys from the UK. They just arrived yesterday and didn’t know anything about bargaining and the prices in Bali. I told them the basics and hope that they don’t pay to much at all here in Bali. They seem to be cool, so maybe they’ll be down for some surfing- and travelling-trips.

Later on I went with Desirée and Chantal to the beach, where we just chilled for some hours. The heat is making me so lazy ;-)…Back home I went to bed for some hours.

I don’t know if I’m down for something tonight, but we think about going to Nusa Lembongan for 2-3 days on the weekend – sounds like some more chillout-time.

“Just relax – It’s BALI!”

Touch down in Denpasar

2008-07-15T21:42:00.002+08:00

Just landed in Bali, organized some stuff, went for food in "Max's Warung" with Desiree, Chantal and Laura. Now we'll enter the "Ocean's Beach Club", sounds like fun =)
My boards seem to be fine and I hope that I'll find a shop with M5 Fins tomorrow, so I can test my new rusty-board!

I hope that I won't have a Jetlag tomorrow, but we'll see....
I'll keep you updated the next days, when I got my own notebook connected.

stay tuned

Shades of Bali

2008-07-08T05:59:00.000+08:00

...and the next journey begins. After surfing waves in California in early springtime my next stop is the "island of gods" - Bali (Indonesia)!

I've been there some years ago and it is the most beautiful place on earth I know (till now!?). Beeing on Bali again means to me: surfing the best waves the world has to offer, meeting the nicest people ever and having lots of fun with people from many different nations.

Some Facts (sorry for beeing that short, but at the moment I'm still stressed because of exam-period) of this trip:

- Arrival: 14/07/2008 11.20 am - Frankfurt Main International Airport with China Airlines, stopover in Taipei - landing around 02.00 pm at Denpasar (Ngurah Rai)

- Departure: 07/09/2008 - Leaving Bali on the same route!

- Equipment: 6'2 Rusty Pin Tail, 5'6 Powerpoint Fish, EOS400D with several lenses, my notebook and the usual stuff you have to take with you...

- Route: There is no fixed plan, but I'll try to see as much as I can, so I'll be definitely down for a trip to Nusa Lembongan, the Gilis or Lombok. Beside surfing I want to scale one of Balis mountains, see different temples and the rest of the countryside.

I'm traveling alone for the first 3 weeks, after that my friend Dominik will follow me to this beautiful place. Teaching him how to surf and showing him the nicest places on this island will be a pleasure for me. I'm sure that I won't stay alone for a long time, because in Bali everything is "easy" - according to that, meeting nice people to hang out won't be a big problem.

This trip will be full of SURFING, PARTYING, RELAXING and CULTURE.
Beeing here for 55 days, gives me the opportunity to calm down from all the stress of study and work in Germany.

In this sense: I hope you enjoy reading my blog and beeing a part of my journey.

Thanks go out to my mum & dad, grandma and all the friends who are supporting me ;-)

Bali 2008!