Searching for The Beach

The Chinese really do know what they are talking about: time does fry when you are having fun. We have been on the road for a month and a half and have already breezed through both Tanzania and Thailand. After our relaxing weeks in Tanzania where we rested comfortably on the hills of Lengijave most days, we entered into backpacker mode once in Thailand. Before saying goodbye to Elliot and Jana, I did have the questionable pleasure of tasting a few Tanzanian delicacies. Together with Elliot I walked over to Lice´s house (Lice works for Elliot and Jana) nextdoors to thank him for the help the last couple of weeks and pay a modest tip. His thanks in return was to invite me over to his family´s house for some goat meat. They were preparing for a wedding ceremony and barbequing the goat as a gift to the parents of the bride. Didn’t sound too bad in my mind. We´d barebequed goat around the campfire a few nights before and it was delicious. Well, it turns out they were saving all the good parts for the dowry so really what I was invited over for was the leftovers, which started with the tongue and went downhill from there. It all ended with a massive bowl of goat intestines, smelling just the way you´d expect goat intestines smell. With the basic mental strength I have in my possession I managed not to throw it up. I kept telling myself this was my Bourdain moment and failure was not an option.

Our 12 hour Nairobi layover turned into an 8 hour Kilimanjaro delay. Turned out they had a superb lounge so no problem. The 8 hours disappeared in a haze of whiskey/coke, beef samosas and the Australian Open final. I also managed to take a fantastic 1 hour nap in a massage chair, while Olof attended to Oskar Fulvio, who was busy abusing the pool table. In Bangkok we met up with Donald and Kateryna (Donald is a dear (ex)colleague and (non-ex)friend and Kateryna is his wife; they are on a 6 month honeymoon trip, also courtesy of Delta Skymiles). After 48 hours we moved on to Khao Sok, an awesome national park with a man-made lake best described with pictures. Post Khao Sok, our journey turned into a joint struggle to find The Beach. Not talking about Leo´s beach but our own, perfect beach. This proved to be a bigger struggle than we first thought. We all wanted to check out Phi Phi Islands just beacause that is the actual setting of The Beach and just so we could check it off our list. It turned out Phi Phi Islands were more like Poo Poo Islands and one night proved one too many. We did not even bother to do the day trip to “The Beach.” We set off to Koh Lanta, a place loved by Swedes for some reason. A subjectively estimated 25% of the island´s tourists are Swedish, and that might even be conservative. We ended up renting a bungalow at the same beach and hostel that my brother had inhabitated together with his family on their journey a few years ago. At this point I was happy to just relax for a few days. Turns out the beach did not meet the standards of the other three adults in our party. I found this mind boggling, and somewhat dramatically started raising the issue that if we are just going to travel around finding the ultimate beach and never relaxing we will ruin our whole travel experience. The way the others described this place you´d have thought we were looking at an Estonian sewage pool. At this point, perhaps it is time to reflect on what constitutes a perfect beach. The Beach needs to have 1) Fine white sand 2) Turqoise water 3) Awesome snorkelling 4) Excellent scenery 5) Mindblowing sunsets 6) Absence of other people 7) Access to good food 8) Access to good beach bar. Some of these attributes become more or less contradictory, so no single beach can fulfill all of these (for example: if you want awesome snorkelling, you need corals, which in turn means the beach will not purely consist of fine white sand; if you don’t want people around, odds are there is no good beach bar and no good restaurants in sight). It is also interesting to reflect on the amount of research you do before your travels. Olof tends to make fun of me for over-thinking our travels, but that was before we joined up with Donald and Kateryna. Their process goes something like this: Read Lonely Planet or similar for rough inspiration, start googling more information, check out some images online, re-visit Lonely Planet for more details….ok, so far we are more or less the same. The next step though sets us apart: Google Maps Satellite View. They would seriously look at satellite images of beaches and assess the color of the sand and the turqoiseness of the water before making a decision. I admit I never thought of this, and find it quite brilliant. I was happy to settle at Koh Lanta, but with the extensive research by the two-man research army and a desire to find something better, we decided to move on. Next destination: Koh Kradan, one of the Trang Islands located south of Koh Lanta. The eastern beach had most the resorts on the island but at the southeast point we found what we believed to be the ultimate spot. White sand: somewhat; Turqoise water: Indeed; Snorkelling: Definitely; Scenery: Some; Sunsets Nope; Absence of other people: Yup; Food: Lackluster; Bar: Non-existent. We ended up staying there for five awesome nights. During the days we would either snorkel or go on a daytrip to a nearby island. We were having a great time with Donald and Kateryna but unfortunately they had to continue their journey with a Philippine flight ticket calling on them to head north. During one of our joint day trips from Kradan, we had visited an island called Lao Liang, which (of course) Donald and Kateryna discovered and originally wanted to head to instead of Kradan. We decided to join forces with the parents of Zeno, an Italian-Austrian kid who Oskar Fulvio befriended at Kradan, and head to Lao Liang. And once again, we found the ultimate spot. White sand: somewhat; Turqoise water: Indeed; Snorkelling: Yup; Scenery: Amazing; Sunsets: Nope; Absence of other people: Yup; Food: Surprisingly decent; Bar: Contradicting the paradox (ie. really good). This place was just flat out awesome. One single beach on the whole island, surrounded by crazy cliffs and beautiful reefs. The only way to stay at the island is in tents, which are actually quite comfortable and much preferred over a shitty beach bungalow. The place is also a Mecca for rock climbers and the “resort” was founded by rock climbing backpackers around 10 years ago. Initially we had planned on staying for two nights, which quickly turned into five. We would basically just lie on the beach and if we felt energized we would go watch some of the rock climbers. I actually tried some climbing myself, which went surprisngly well although it got increasingly uncomfortable and embarrassing as my fear of height set in towards the end, ultimately leading to unsuccessful mounting of the end goal. Another activity was trying to guess who on the island was a climber and who wasn´t. Fit 25 year olds: Definitely; Backpacking 45 year old Swede misfits: Definitely not; Spanish middle-aged nudists: Fuck if I know. The only thing we regret about our stay was that we couldn’t experience it together with Donald and Kateryna. After all, it was thanks to them that we ended up there in the first place. We really wished they would have had the opportunity to stay there longer as they definitely would have loved it. Unfortunately, our time was up and we had to move on. Life could be worse though as our next stop was Railei Beach, the heaven where we spent 10 days during our last trip in 2010 together with a bunch of friends. Our good friend Jesse and his family had generously made their amazing house available to us for our stay, but of course this time our good friends weren´t there to enjoy the place with us. Railei is a far more popular and touristy place than Kradan and Lao Liang, but it remains awesome, even though the number of people at the beach had easily tenfolded since our last stay here (combination of 5 years passed and proximity to high season). White sand: kind off; Turqoise water: Yup; Snorkelling: Not really; Scenery: Amazing; Sunsets: BEST IN THE WORLD, REALLY; Absence of other people: Nope; Food: Fantastic; Bar: Not needed, we had a fridge. So, in conclusion, our search for The Beach ended up with three. We were of course sad to leave Thailand, but incredibly happy to get to our new destination Cambodia, starting with Siem Reap and the amazing temples of Angkor. We have only been here for 24 hours but already love the place, famous for the most amazing temples in this world, but also includes a nice modern touristy city. Being able to redeem some starpoints for a few nights at a nice hotel also helps. My only beef with the place is that one´s ability to barter with a local becomes significantly more difficult when the counterpart is missing limbs. At lunch today we were approached by a man who handed us a note describing how he lost his both arms from a landmine, yet still had to provide for his family, 35 years later. He was selling books and of course Olof jumped on it. So now we had to buy a book we didn’t want. I mean what kind of person negotiates with a land mine victim? (He wanted 10 USD, I offered 5, we settled on 7.) Alright, pretty sure this blog was longer than my senior capstone paper in college (no exaggeration). If anyone is still reading: cheers.

Tanzania Closing

Time is making like Tom and Cruising by. Tomorrow we depart Tanzania and head further east to land of the Thais. Like one of those 14 year old Romanian gymnasts, heading to Ngorongoro and Serengeti on day 2 of our 200 day journey may prove to be a case of peaking too early. Still lots of highs to come though. After our initial safari adventure we have spent around two weeks at Elliot and Jana´s stunning house at Lengijave, just outside Arusha. Life has been extremely relaxing with time spent reading, occasional hiking, cooking, eating and card games. And of course chasing Oskar Fulvio. When he isn´t busy terrorizing the poor cat or barking at the German Shepherd, he is typically up by the chicken cage feeding/yelling at the poor flightless birds and messing up their egg cycle. His face is constatnly covered in dirt no matter how often we try to clean him. The local Maasai boys and girls roaming the hills herding their cattle are somehow never as dirty as him. He has also started climbing trees which means we constantly have to be on watch.

As a way too brief interlude to our time at Lengijave, we spent three or four days at Pangani last weekend on the Tanzanian coast. Elliot and Jana had rented a beautiful house on the beach and we tagged along for the 10 hour car ride, which felt much shorter thanks to intense listening of the Serial podcast. We can strongly recommend Pangani for those who intend to make a trip to Tanzania in the future. Definitely off the beaten path, around a 1.5 hour boat ride from Zanzibar. Gordeous, rugged beaches lined with palm trees. Perhaps a bit too much seaweed to be called pristine but we loved it. In a way it also served as a trial ahead of our time in Southeast Asia where 90% of our time will be spent on the beach. We now know that Oskar Fulvio loves to go in the ocean, and surprisngly he was not foolish enough to jump in without his swim vest thingy.

Other highlights in Tanzania have included barbequing goat legs around the camp fire, sipping on 1 to a few delicious beers per day, eating excellent Indian and Ethiopian food, seeing an octopus while snorkeling, Olof taking pictures and fatifying the little Maasai kids on the hill, and borrowing Elliot´s Pajero and driving on shaky roads around the fields and traffic of Arush while in solitude sing-screaming The Proclaimers (“I would walk 500 miles”). Lowlights would include pulling my hamstring 5 minutes into a game of touch Rugby, trying to sprint for the first time in over 5 years. Also wouldn’t recommend making Somalian jokes in front of people you are meeting for the first time, especially when you´re in Africa (caution: may lead to mixed responses). So thanks to Elliot and Jana for letting us enjoy your company and hospitality for the last few weeks. It is time to move on and we are flying from Kilimanjaro through Nairobi (12 hour layover, yeehah!) and onwards to the Bangkok. Until next time! PS. Sorry for messed up formatting

The safari

Bags packed. Child fed and ready for takeoff. Our first flight from Stockholm to Amsterdam made it on time and we found our next gate quite easily. First malaria pill for the little one was due so while waiting for the next plane we made a few attempts to find out the best way to trick a very picky eater. After screams, frustration and looks from fellow travellers we figured that hiding it in chocolate milk was the best way. Now there was nothing stopping us, Tanzania here we come! The flight which lasted 8 and 1/2 hours went well, apart from some tantrums from Óskar/Magnus every now and then. Armed with iPads, iPhones and tv screens we all made it eventually and were greeted with familiar faces at Kilimanjaro airport, Elliot, Jamal and Jamie who are our friends from Macalester College. We headed straight home to Elliot's house where we rested for our big safari trip the following day. We wake up to an amazing view of the house (there is something about arriving in the dark and seeing what everything looks like in the morning) and start loading up the safari truck. No one was more excited than the little man who had never seen such a cool car!

A few hours later we are off to Ngorogoro and Serengeti. After a whole day of driving we spent the night at a motel before getting up early in the morning and drive into Ngorogoro. There are no words to describe such an amazing place and for someone like me who has never been to Africa nor on a proper safari it was simply unreal. First we saw some wildebeests, then some water buffalos, zebras, hyenas, hippos, elephants and a lot more -but my favourite was a hyena feasting on a dead hippo a few meters from us.

After a great safari day we reach our campsite by Serengeti. These were not your regular tents -they had built in showers (with hot water!) and a my-kind-of-sitting toilets. We were greeted by a warm and welcoming staff who cooked us food and poured us drinks. As the sun was setting we sat by the fire and drank the local Kilimanjaro beer with big fat smile on our faces. Óskar was running around like a cow in the spring and also loving life. As an Icelander I did not worry about him running around because he was in sight. Then the nice staff member tapped our shoulders and told us to please keep him close because of lions and cheetahs in the area and as the sun was setting they could be out hunting. Magnus hurried to get the poor child and to make a long story short we kept him close the entire time, always on the lookout. After a great meal we all headed to bed before another early safari wake up call. In the night you could hear the wildebeests running from their enemies and at dawn the lions took over all sound. Waking up to lion-chat is again unreal and I certainly did not manage to fall back asleep. We took our breakfast to go and went lion-searching. Our very own safari-guide Elliot found them just by a road close by and we saw the sun come up as the lions graced us with their presence.

Another great safari day and we headed back to camp where we were served our last meal. Again Óskar was on a close leash and we enjoyed the sunset over fire, drinks and good friends. Right after dinner we hear a lion call uncomfortably close to the tents. Then we hear the staff call to each other "simba" which means lion in Swahili and the chef had just seen a lion outside the kitchen. Yes, there were lions right by our campsite. The staff turned the safari trucks with the big lights on to try and chase them a little further away. We got escorted to our tents and stayed there until the morning. By far the most surreal experience of my life, but man the rush you got when you made it from the dining tent into your tent without being eaten by a lion!

I don't know the appropriate adjectives to describe this beauty so I will just leave it to your imagination and hope that someday you can experience it as well. Jamie and Jamal have now left us and they are surely missed! Thanks for a great time guys!

It will be hard to top this experience -but we have a couple of more weeks here in Tanzania before heading to Thailand. Óskar is doing great and loves to feed the chickens at the house and bully the poor cat. Everyone is healthy and happy -and our hosts Jana and Elliot are incredible and very patient with us. We cannot thank you enough! Our plan is to stay here in this dream house until Thursday -then we are driving to the beach. Hope this finds you well and remember wherever you go, there you are! Until next time, mama Goose.

In preparation

4 days until takeoff. Shots are almost all done. Travel insurance is on the list for tomorrow. Packing has not begun but we all know that last minute packing is the most efficient way to do it. How we will manage to pack 8 months worth of stuff into 2 backpacks is beyond me, oh and yes Óskar is still wearing diapers. We tried to potty train him but he refused. So be it. I also tried to get into bikini shape but like Óskar, I refused. We are armed with cartoons and stickers for long travel days. So all in all, we are pretty much ready for the big voyage. The first stop is Tanzania where we will visit a friend of ours from college. It is amazing how many friends from all over the world we made at Macalester. I hear safari is on the list (oh yes as you will find out I am not a big planner, I like being "planned for" or just see where the day takes me), and perhaps some beach time. I am very excited for Tanzania since I have never been to Africa. From there we will head to Southeast Asia and spend 2 1/2 months between Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines. Next stop is Australia where we will spend about 3 weeks before returning to the US. We will be doing national parks on the west coast for another 3 weeks before finishing the trip in Ecuador and Galapagos for a month and a half. I hope you had a wonderful holiday and wish you all a happy 2015! Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.