Category Archives: Traveling

Travels to foreign countries or cities

First week in Bali

Last week my brother Sven and I started our long awaited adventure to Bali Indonesia. Sven will be  working remotely from Bali for one month and I’ll be staying for two months. On Saturday morning we departed from Amsterdam Schiphol airport. We had an overlay in Jakarta, so after 13 hours and 45 minutes, we set our first foot on Indonesian soil. Two and a half hours later our next fight departed to the end destination Bali. After another two hour flight we touched ground in Bali (around 12:35 in the afternoon). At this time the outside temperature was at least 32C and the sun was giving us a warm blazing hot welcome.

Getting to the hotel

In advance of our trip we were warned about the taxi drivers on the airport being pretty pushy and trying to overcharge arriving tourists. So we decided to attempt using Grab instead (which is basically an Indonesian Uber). Grab drivers are not regular taxi drivers but private drivers verified by Grab. A big advantage of Grab is that you see the price of the taxi trip in advance, so no discussion about the price whatsoever and the driver receives the exact location of our hotel on his phone. A perfect example of how technology can make things a lot easier. But in our case, it turned out as a small disaster..
Before our trip I got a heads up that using Grab in Bali is not appreciated by regular taxi drivers. That’s actually an understatement, as I found out later that Grab drivers even got beaten up by taxi drivers before..  Anyway, we followed the advice to use Grab and tried to find the departures hall (away from the regular taxi drivers) to meet a Grab driver over there.
We dragged our luggage along in search for the departures area, in the burning sun, passing all of the regular taxi drivers asking us “taxi? taxi?”.. And most of them were not giving up after a gentle “no thanks, we already have a driver”.
After 5 minutes of walking, we ended up at the international arrivals and departures hall. Which was also packed with regular taxi drivers. Anyhow we decided to book a Grab there, and within a couple of seconds we had a driver sending us instructions where to meet him. The instructions were pretty complicated.. We had to go a garage, get into an elevator, get to the 5th floor and meet him in parking spot E54 or something. Obviously this was quite a puzzle not knowing anything about the airport. Besides that, he explicitly stated not to have anyone follow us. Which in and on itself didn’t sound very comforting to me.. We started our search for the elevator and failed miserably. We couldn’t find any elevator. Meanwhile a regular taxi probably picked up that we were searching for a Grab and decided to follow us and kept telling us that we didn’t know how things work. We tried to get rid of him by thanking him friendly, but he was persistent to follow us. The longer we tried to ignore him, the more annoying he got. After another 5 minutes of searching for the elevator and still getting followed by the same guy, Sven and I got pretty stressed out and overheat so we decided to abort the search and asked the guy following us to bring us to our hotel. Of course he charged more than the normal price, 150.000RP (10 euro) for a short trip to Kuta (and of course the 10 euro isn’t the problem, but being overcharged just doesn’t feel good). The taxi driver also didn’t feel the need to be very friendly anymore and kept on babbling about how bad Grab is and how happy he was to have taken the drive from this guy. So our first introduction to Bali was not what we had hoped for, but I think for the larger part our own fault.

Our second acquaintance with Bali was at our hotel Bali Bustle, where we got a very warm welcome. We could directly access our room even though we arrived before check-in time, which was very nice as we where both broken up by the long trip. It took us 24,5 hours to get from our hometown The Hague to the hotel room in Kuta Bali. Time for some sleep in a nice bed!

First evening diner in Kuta

First days of working

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and on Monday we both had our first remote working day. Even though we both had a jetlag, working went very well. Large determining factor was the great accommodation that Bali Bustle offers. Good working desks, fast internet, good airconditioning and a very calm, clean and open working space. The first days all went very smooth and Sven and I both enjoyed working remotely a lot.
Our days mostly started between 11.00AM and 12.30AM (4.00AM-5.30AM Dutch time), then around 4:00PM we would have a quick break to have a late lunch, then continue working until 8.00PM and then go out for diner in one of the nearby restaurants and afterwards get back to make our last hours of the day. It has worked pretty well for us like this and as far as I heard for my colleagues as well, so that’s great!

Co-working @ Bali Bustle

Staying in district of Kuta, moving to Canggu

Kuta is the area we’ve been staying our fist week. It is well known as the most touristic area of Bali and in advance I’ve mostly been discouraged to stay there, as there are a lot better places in Bali. Despite the advices, we decided to book our first week at Bali Bustle in Kuta as it looked very nice in the pictures, was close to the airport and very affordable. And yes Bali Bustle was a very good choice. But Kuta… hmm, not so much. The part of Kuta where we stayed was not even that touristic. It was just very crowded and on nearly every street corner there would be locals yelling “taxi?” “massage?” while we passed by. You could call it courtesy to help out, but after  having it happening 10 times on our way to a restaurant it gets somewhat annoying.

After a couple of days we rented a scooter, so we were able to get out of Kuta and discover more of Bali. On our first day off, we visited Canggu (a district known as a surfer district, just above Kuta). This was a completely different experience. Way more relaxed opposed to the busy streets of Kuta. We were both very eager to move to Canggu, so luckily we only booked a single week in Kuta.
We’ve been in Canggu for two days now, and yes.. this is where we found the Bali feeling we were searching for. Chill, laidback, no pushy shop owners, nice small restaurants all around, great beaches. Basically all we could’ve wished for. The streets in Canggu are pretty busy though, but whereas Kuta felt like overcrowded, Canggu is better described as lively. All in all we really look forward to stay at least a week in Canggu.

Tanah Lot – temple in the sea

 

Weather

Regarding the weather, it’s quite unstable. Sometimes the sun is shining for a whole day (we enjoyed a full day at the beach last Sunday), but for instance yesterday it has been raining (very hard) for 10 hours straight. Nevertheless the temperature stays between 27-32C all day. Hearing about the freezing temperatures in the Netherlands makes us extra thankful to be here.

Chilling at the beach in our spare time

We now booked for one week in Canggu and I can imagine we will stay for another week in this area if we keep liking it like we do now. We’ll see how it goes!
This is it for now. Warm greetings from Bali and see you all soon!

Remote work Austria part 2 and preparing for Indonesia (Bali)

Part 2 of remote work in Zell am Ziller

The weekend before my third (and last week) of remote work, two of my friends joined me in Zell. They landed on Saturday morning at Innsbruck airport, which is just an hour drive away from Zell am Ziller. After picking them up, we directly hit the slopes. As it was still early in the wintersport season (15th of December), we enjoyed a full weekend of nearly private skiing on the slopes of Zell.

After the weekend I started my working days around 7AM, as my two friends would go out for skiing around 9AM. In that way my working day ended around the same time they would come back from skiing and we could have a drink, dinner together and play some games in the evenings.
During this week, we stayed in Gielerhof in Zell am Ziller, on an approximately 15 minutes walk from the slope lifts. But theres also a free shuttle bus to the slope lifts that stopped almost next to our apartment. The Gielerhof farmhouse houses several apartments. It was very clean and furnished with everything we needed. It was also a very good location for me to do my remote work. The only negative thing I experienced, was on one day where video calls I made for my work where a bit unstable. This was because the speed of WiFi (and even the internet connection on my mobile phone) where insufficient to support this properly. But beside that single day, I was able to do my work without any problems.

After this week with my two friends, I joined my girlfriend with her family for holiday in Hochkrimml (which is in the same area, Zillertal Arena, as Zell am Ziller). We spent the Christmas holidays in Austria and drove back to the Netherlands the day before New Year’s eve.

Preparations for remote work in Indonesia Bali

After a month in Austria, the next adventure is following up very fast: 2 months of remote work from the Indonesian island Bali. My brother Sven is joining me for the first month. We’ll both be working 4 days a week for our employers in the Netherlands. The second month I’m in Bali, Fleur (my girlfriend) will also come over for 2 weeks. I took some days off to have time to travel around Bali with her.

I have been to Asia before (Vietnam), but not as a remote worker and Bali might have some completely different rules. So I took some time for a good preparation. I collected information from the internet (which is full of good tips and advices) and spoke to some people that did something similar to my plans. With all that information, Sven and I decided to only book an accommodation for the first week (Bali Bustle in Kuta). Arranging things on location is a lot cheaper and very accustomed. Some of the other important tips we got was to rent a scooter for 2 months and get a local SIMcard to have mobile internet and be able to do phonecalls cheaper. I also arranged a 60 days visa for Indonesia beforehand in the Netherlands (at the Indonesian ambassade), this is a lot easier and doesn’t require me to go to the ambassade in Indonesia. If you stay 30 days or less, you can just get a visa on arrival in Bali.

Another thing I had to arrange was a proper insurance. I’ll be taking some costly computer equipment from my employer. To have this properly insured I had to take a temporary valuables insurance next to my regular travel insurance.
Time difference between the Netherlands and Bali was also a point of attention. It’s 7 hours earlier in Bali opposed to the Netherlands. As I work in a team, it’s good to have aligned working hours. I agreed with my employer to work from 11.00 in the morning when I’m in Bali, at this time it’s 4.00 in the morning in the Netherlands. Which means theres at least half of a day overlap to work together with my colleagues. We’ll see how this works out, I can imagine that (if necessary) starting later won’t be such of a big problem for me.

In our spare time Sven and I are planning to do some trips around the island and for sure do some surfing. Bali is a perfect location for surfing, so that’s certainly something I want to get better at there.
Once we’ve arrived and settled I’ll certainly share an update from Bali!

Remote work Austria (Zell am Ziller) part 1

The journey to Zell am Ziller

From my home in The Hague to my destination in Austria (Zell am Ziller) it’s approximately a 1000km drive. I didn’t rush it and took an in between stop in Oberhaching (just below München) at around 869km. Everything went pretty smooth and I would arrive on Sunday at around 12:00AM.
It was perfectly in sync with the estimation I had emailed to my contactperson two days earlier. He had instructed me to call him on his phone when I would arrive. So I could be shown  around the accommodation.

I arrived at the accommodation only fifteen minutes earlier than the time I had sent before. No sign of life around the house. So I called my contactperson expecting him to come outside and welcome me. But no one answered the phone.. So I tried another 1, 2, 3 times. Hmmmm, still no one answering..
I had also gotten an exact address, so I decided to ring the bell of the house. Also no one opened up the door.. I attempted it another couple of times and tried to call the phonenumber another 4 or 5 times. Still without success. I wasn’t really freaking out, but I was actually standing there in Austria with nothing more than a phonenumber and address which both didn’t help me out. So I was running out of ideas about what to do..
Then suddenly I saw movement in the house. So I ringed the bell once more. A surprised looking woman opened up the door. In poor German I asked if my contactperson was there. But she couldn’t understand me and told me she was not speaking German herself. She asked me to wait. Some seconds later, she came back supporting an elderly lady walking slowly to the door. The lady told me that my contactperson was in Switzerland for the whole day. After some discussion they went back inside to call someone. When they came back the lady told me that the sister of my contactperson was coming over to help me out. I would only have to wait for an hour for her to arrive. I thanked the ladies and got back to my car.
It might sound like it all went pretty smooth from the moment the door was opened, but with my very limited German it was kind of a struggle. I was actually a sort of proud it worked out well in the end!
Anyway, I got back to my car and fortunately my home towns football club ADO Den Haag was playing a match at that moment. So I set the driver’s seat back and watched the game on my phone. After an hour the sister arrived, it turned out that my contactperson had forgotten about my arrival. She quickly showed me my room and wished me a pleasant stay.
Yes! I finally really arrived in Zell!

View from my room window

First week of remote work

I arrived on Sunday, and on Monday I would have my first remote working day. So Sunday  evening I started arranging my working desk. Which in hindsight I was pretty well prepared for. I had packed an HMDI cable with which I could connect my laptop to the television in the room  (having two screens is very useful for my work). Other things that also turned to be very helpful where my laptop stand, wireless keyboard and mouse AND (not directly related to work, but still very nice to have!) a Chromecast. Being able to cast Dutch television, Netflix etc to the television was really nice.

Fully set and prepared I fulfilled my first remote working days from Austria. Actually I liked the first week of working like this even more than I expected. It’s easier to focus, I like the fact that I don’t have to drive to the office every morning and downsides like not being able to talk face-to-face with colleagues is actually not much of a problem for me. The largest part of my team is Polish and is stationed in Poland, they’re working remotely almost whole year. So everything is discussed through chat or video calls anyway. Until now everything went pretty good and I think that the fact that most of my team is remote, was an important factor for that. If everyone or at least a large part of the team is working remotely, this automatically makes the chat room or video chatroom the central point of communication. Whereas when only a single team member is remote, it’s easier to miss out on discussions in the office where the rest of the team is together. So opposed to what I feared a little, in this first week I didn’t feel less connected or less part of the team working remote.

Spare time on location

Outside of working hours, I planned to do lot of snowboarding. And hopefully get to know some ski instructors on location to hang out with. Unfortunately the first week there was no snow at all. So the Zell am Zillers ski area was (unexpectedly) closed for the whole first week. So that meant no snowboarding in Zell and also no instructors to hang out with. Bummer!
I could have seen that one coming though, as it’s just the start of the wintersport season and theres always the risk of ‘no snow’.
During my first week it was very quiet in the village of Zell, because theres not much else to do besides skiing. Nearly all restaurants and bars were closed. It really felt a bit like a ghost village the first days I was here.
Fortunately there where some near higher up ski areas that were open. So I could go there for some snowboarding fun. In retrospective, I think it would’ve been better to arrive at least one week later (or even two weeks, because still the wintersport season still hasn’t kicked off yet).
On the other hand, the chill and peaceful environment also had a positive side. I could fully focus on my work and on some of my personal side projects I like to work on.

Hintertuxer Gletscher – one of the ski areas nearby

In summary: my first week of being remote was a nice experience, though next time I would prepare my options for some social contact a bit better OR go together with someone that also works remotely.
Anyway, this weekend two of my friends will join me here in Zell so that promises to be a lot fun. Looking forward to it!
Tschüs!

fresh fallen snow (shot from my room window)

Vietnam Blog 4 – Time to say goodbye

I’m writing this blog during my flight back home. Which takes a bit longer than expected as I missed my transfer flight in Abu Dhabi due to delay of my first flight. So I had to stay overnight in a hotel near the airport of Abu Dhabi (altogether +/- 7 hours of delay). Anyway, the last weeks of my trip where at least as amazing as the ones before. Packed with good experiences, but unfortunately also some less pleasant ones.

Floating market festival
20160709_064552To start off with a good one.. Phuong, our mentor, took Laura and me to the floating market festival. The people of Can Tho celebrated the long history of the floating market with a fruit carving exposition and a boat race. The fruit carving exposition took place in a large hall where they had setup cubicles, a bit like the fairs we know in the Netherlands. Beside the fruit carving cubicles, there where also some stands with original floating market foods and drinks and there where some music and dance performances. Unfortunately the start of the boatrace was delayed so much, that we weren’t able to attend it.
I think that, during the festival, we where asked for at least five times to pose for a picture. Just random Vietnamese people came up to us and asked to get a picture with us or sometimes just took a picture in a sneaky though obvious way. We apparently where very special for the people at the festival. I even was interviewed by young guy and his mother. The interview would appear, with picture, in one of the local newspapers. Too bad we didn’t manage to find the article.

Chau Doc (weekendtrip)
20160710_145026In the weekend after the festival we went on a trip to Chau Doc with the group of volunteers. Chau Doc is a region near the Cambodian border. It houses some great highlights like Sams Mountain, a mountain that lies just on the border of Cambodia and Vietnam. On and around Sams mountain there are a lot of nice pagodes. One pagode even had parts of it built inside the mountain (called a cave pagode). The serenity and peace around these mountain pagodes was impressive to experience.
The next day we went to Tra Su Forest. An almost untouched forest with canals passing through it. In a small boat we fared accross the canals. Silence, serenity and untouched nature prevailed. 20160711_083648Unfortunately my own experience in this part of the trip was getting worse and worse, as I was struck by food poisoning. I assume it was the egg at breakfast that caused it, as I was the only one that had an egg and was experiencing illnes. I was feeling really bad (throwing up and a hurting stomache) but we had to get back to Can Tho in the afternoon. So after a horrendous bustrip of more than 3 hours we arrived back in the volunteer house and I finally was able to get to bed.

Charity Class 2
Luckily I only needed one full day to recover and was able to attend the projects pretty quickly again. I only missed one project, so that was okay. For the coming week I had a new project on my schedule, Charity Class 2. In this project we teach English to a class of eight nuns. Some of them are pretty good at English. This makes the project a bit more challenging in terms of level of English. The nuns where very friendly and had a good dose of humor, which made the lesson a lot of fun. Too bad I only had to do this project once.

Floating market tour
20160718_071919On my last day in Can Tho we planned to visit the Cai Rang floating market by boat. We had to get up early in the morning. We left the house at 4:30AM to head to the dock and get on a boat to the floating market. While the sun was setting we fared across the Mekong river. When we arrived at the market our ‘tour guide’ tried to explain us (with a lot of hand gestures and Vietnamese words) that you could see what each boat was selling by what kind of ware they had hanging on their flagpole. After crossing through the market, we stopped at the boat of my dreams… A boat packed with pineapple!
After that we got off the Mekong river and found our way through the canals of Can Tho. Where we stopped at a noodle factory and got the chance to see the whole process of making rice noodles.

Ho Chi Minh City
IMG-20160718-WA0005After the trip to floating market, it was time for me to pack my bags and get going to Ho Chi Minh city. While I was waiting for the shuttle bus to pick me up, the other volunteers surprised my with a goodbye cake. So sweet of them!
At about 4:00PM I arrived at my hotel in Ho Chi Minh, so I took a warm shower (finally again!) and rested for the rest of the day. The next day I got up early and visited the War Remnants Museum. This museum exposes pictures and stories about the Vietnam war and also the horrors that took place. Especially the part of the museum where the effects of Agent Orange (the chemical bombs the US used) where exposed was hard to watch..
20160718_183537After visiting the museum I went over to Ben Thanh Market. This is a covered market where they sell a lot of different stuff: food, clothes, all sorts of souvenirs. I had read on the internet that the people in the market where pretty aggressive sellers and would try to charge tourists extremely high prices. Well nothing was lied about that! But I was able to score some good bargains after all (sometimes 1/3 or even 1/4 of the starting price).

My trip is coming to an end, it has been a wonderful time in Vietnam. I’m determined to come back to visit the North of Vietnam some day. What a great country with great people!

Vietnam Blog 3 – Big dinner!

Homestay Vinh Long (weekendtrip)

It’s been more than a week since my last blogpost and a lot has happened since. In my first
weekend we went to Vinh Long to stay in a homestay. In a homestay you stay at a home of a local family. When we arrived in Vinh Long we where welcomed by a very kind Vietnamese man. He took us down a narrow path to his home in a nice wooded area. It was a real quiet and soothing place, ideal to get some welcomed rest.
The home had a ditch with a lot of fish in it, so the owner of the house handed us some 20160626_125747rods to go fishing. We joked a bit about catching our own dinner and the owner agreed that he would prepare the fish, if we would catch one. After 30 minutes of fishing Britt (one of the other volunteers) suddenly started screaming. She caught a fish! The owner of the house came running towards us with a big smile, yelling: “Big dinner! Big dinner!”.

After chilling and relaxing in the hammocks, we went for a short bike ride and discovered a bit of the area. When we came back, we where invited to cook dinner with the family. We made our own springrolls and baked Banh Xeo (looks like a pancake with vegetables). When we where done cooking, the family served us with a table full of delicious food. And… also our own catched fish! Although we didn’t eat much of it, as it tasted like sand and river.

The next day we went on a boat trip with the owners brother in law. We sailed across the 20160627_131234Mekong river to a factory where they make coconut candy, popcorn and rice wine. They showed us the factory processes and we tasted some things. I also tasted a rice wine that was bottled with a snake in it. The venom of the snake apparently has a special effect on the wine. They told us that men would get arroused by drinking a lot of it. I luckily didn’t experience that, but it did have a… let’s say.. very special taste.

Volunteering projects

When we arrived back home, we got our schedules for the week ahead. I got Charity Class added to my schedule. In Charity Class we teach English to about 10 children of which the parents can’t afford normal school classes. The kids are eager to learn, this makes the lessons very enjoyable and rewarding. In this  class there are two students that are a bit ahead of the rest. So two other volunteers teach the class and I have to teach English to these two students (Linh en Lan). After class we went for a drink across the street together with the kids. Sin Tho’s (fruit smoothies) are very nice here!

The rest of my weekschedule stayed the same as last week. Last week the lessons at Thien An where a bit hard for me because the children are pretty restless and easily distracted. This week it went a lot better. I think it’s partly because I have a better understanding how to keep their attention, but also a large part is due to a woman from Thien An. She kept an eye on the class and sometimes showed a threatening pose with a stick in her hand. It seems that hitting children during class is a conventional thing. Even I was a bit on my toes as I didn’t want to have one of these kids being hit on my account. Luckily it didn’t come that far and the lesson was pretty successful.

Watching TV after class with the kids from Thien An

In one of the next lessons at Thien An, we tried to use my laptop to show a YouTube video with English words. This worked pretty nicely. For as long as we did the video part, we had the kids full attention and participation!

The City Orphanage really is one of my favourite projects. At the kids section we started learning English to some of the kids by playing memory and asking to say the English words for each memory pair they collect. They start to get the hang on things like ‘fish’, ‘boat’ and ‘flower’. It’s really nice to see!20160625_152524
At the men section there are some men that really enjoy taking pictures. So I took some selfies with them and used the Snapchat filters, which was a lot of fun.

Phu Quoc Island (weekendtrip)

Last weekend I went to Phu Quoc island together with one of the other volunteers, Daphne. Phu Quoc is an island near the west coast of Vietnam. Nature on the island is still very intact, as tourism on this island is in it’s beginning phase. There are a lot of resorts being built at the moment, so in a couple of years Phu Quoc will probably be a well known tourist paradise.

To get to Phu Quoc Daphne and I took the bus at 3:30 in the night from Can Tho to Rach Gia. From Rach Gia we took the Superdong boat to Phu Quoc, so on Saturday at about 13:00 we arrived in our hostel. When we arrived we directly headed over to the scooter rental. On our scooter we went off to visit some of the sweet spots on Phu Quoc. 20160702_164754We visited a waterfall, two nice beaches (the beaches where the ones with the white sand and blue water which everyone knows of) and Coconut Prison. Coconut Prison was a prison used during the Vietnam war. In this prison people where tortured in horrible and inhumane ways. They had reconstructed scenes of the torturing, it gave us chills.. It was a really impressive place to visit.

For Sunday we booked a boattrip with snorkling. Phu Quoc has some nice coral reefs and underwater life. We where lucky with a perfect sunny day and I loved the warm temperature of the water (28 degrees!).20160703_113023

At Monday we would leave the island with the boat at 13:00. So we booked a taxi to pick us up at 12:00. We still had the scooter in the morning, so we stood up early and decided to explore the island a bit more. Without any specific destination we drove towards the North of the island.
After a 45 minutes drive across wonderful roads, we decided to look at Google maps where we ended up. Apparently we had gone all the way to the top of Phu Quoc. From there we only had two roads to choose to get back to our hostel. The way we came or another long road down the coastline. On the way down the coastline there was a crocodile farm. So we decided to go for adventure and take the unknown road.
We visited the crocodile farm, which was nice but not really special. After that, we continued our trip down the coastline. After 10 minutes of uncomfortable driving on an unpaved road with holes and hills, we came to the realization that the road ahead wouldn’t get better for a long time. Which gave us a bit of time stress as we had only 1,5 hour left to get to the hostel. We didn’t have any choice but going on down the road, as the way back would take too long. So we drove on..
Then things became even a bit worse, we landed on a piece of road that was transformed in IMG-20160704-WA0003one big mudpool. While trying to get through, we slipped and almost fell. The scooter and our feet soiled with mud.. Now stress was really beginng to get to us. So while hoping for the best for the road to come, we continued driving. Daphne had to hop off and on another 3 times to get through muddy parts, but eventually after another 45 minutes of unpaved road, we managed to get back on a paved road again. Just having enough time to clean the scooter and ourselves and get to the hostel at 11:45. So.. that was a little bit pressing, but we made it.

Upcoming..

This week I got the same projects as last week. What did change was that three volunteers left the house, two new volunteers joined and also three new volunteers will join today. Next weekend we will probably go to Chau Doc (near the border with Cambodja). It seems that they a beautiful cave pagode there. I can’t wait!

Thanks for all the supportive and nice messages and see you all soon!