Our trip to South East Asia 2013

I take a train from Saarbrücken, a small town in the suburbs of Paris, to the city center.

This is our plane, an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner. One difference between the A380 and a car...

... is that it takes 11 hours to change a weel.

Finally we take off. Here a picture taken with my iPhone from the stern of the plane.

Thanks, we have had enough buggy services for today. We arrived late in Kuala Lumpur/Malaysia and missed our flight to Bali/Indonesia.

Air Malaysia pays us a 4-star hotel, and will also hear from us again.

The next day we arrive in Ubud, a town in the middle of Bali. It is the time of the Galungan festival.

It marks the victory of the good force (dharma) over the bad force (adharma). On this occasion, shrines have been set up.

Kids dress up as animals.

The gods have also dressed up on the occasion.

These gifts are spread everywhere on the ground and shall bring benediction.

We visit the Monkey Forest,...

...a place with a noteworthy flora...

...fauna,...

...spirits,...

...plus a Hindu temple in the jungle.

We also have something to celebrate.

After a breakfast at 7:00 am (i.e., in the morning!)...

...we're on the road to see the surroundings of Ubud.

We visit villages...

...valleys,...

... and rice fields.

People are very nice and friendly, and smile without expecting anything in return.

We rent a driver and take a tour. If it seems that every second house is a temple,...

...then that is because every second house *is* a temple.

Every household (right) has its own private family temple next to it (left). It serves around 20 people of the extended family.

We also visit a public temple...

...in the jungle.

A sign tells us “Do not drink the holy water”. I wonder what happens if we do...

We continue to the sacred spring temple.

Balinese Hinduism worships gods, demigods,...

...ancestor spirits, a supreme being (to conform to Indonesia's constitution),...

...Buddhist heroes, agricultural deities, and sacred places. So there is a lot to pray.

The water is clear, but the spring at its ground makes little clouds of black sand.

No wonder everybody wants to bath in it.

Local tourists, foreign tourists, and the temple all find each other interesting.

We continue to a coffee plantage.

These things are used in Bali to make life spicier or sweeter (foreground of the picture).

And this is the cartesian product of spices and coffees.

Our tour end with a view on the rice fields. The photogenic guy at the bottom right is a natural ingredient of the local scenery.

We go to Denpasar, the capital of Bali.

The beach is utterly boring...

... so that we stay at our hotel.

We arrive in Yogyakarta and take a bus. The wind shield doubles as safety belt.

We reach Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world.

The temple tells the story of Buddha.

It also contains an introduction “Buddhism for Beginners”. In short: If you are nice to your fellow humans as in this picture...

...then you will have a happy family life as in this picture.

If you are not nice, you end up fat like these people. Just to make it clear to those who wonder, the inscription at the top says that this is “bad”.

The temple offers spectacular views. It is the single most visited tourist attraction of Indonesia, with millions of tourists each year.

This has brought wealth to the village, and has led to the development of charming facilities around the temple.

The atmosphere is complemented by a sense of hospitality and friendliness of the locals that matches the beauty of the surroundings.

We have a stopover in Singapore. It is probably the only country for which the Wikitravel page warns 9 times more of committing a crime than of falling victim to one.

In return, everything is excruciatingly clean and safe. We have 6 hours and visit the botanic garden.

In tune with its climate, the garden does not have a hothouse, but a coolhouse - to simulate colder climate conditions.

They breed different novel types of orchids and name them after famous people. This particularly beautiful result is for Margret Thatcher.

Visitors to Thailand are requested to fill an immigration form (which contains what your passport contains), bring a picture (in addition to the one they take with the Web cam), ...

...hand in an application form (which contains again what your passport contains), and pay 1000 Baht (payable only in cash in Thai Baht, ATM is after immigration).

There are no buses to the city center (who would want to go there?). We team up with other tourists and take a taxi.

The taxi driver has outsourced his brain to the taxi central. He has to ask them where he shall bring us. We learn that we will need two drivers, because we go to two destinations.

Meanwhile, a lady tries to sell us a tour package. We tell her that we already booked one trip with them and did not yet get what we booked. Suddenly, we only need one driver and can go.

The lady wore a veil. I doubt that their god really rewards wearing a veil more than being honest to tourists. But I am not an insider.

Unsurprisingly, the taxi driver still has no brain and still doesn't know where we want to go. He asks locals. These are more helpful and tell him.

We take a tour to Ko Phi Phi island. The “ph” is pronounced “p”, which is bad for Ko Phi Phi, but good for Phukit.

The landscape and sea are beautiful. We go snorkeling.

Ko Phi Phi is touristic, but people are nice and leave us in peace.

The city center of Phuket town itself is cute and clean.

We have 2 days in Singapore. The airport shows us that, contrary to the common experience, modern art does not have to be ugly.

“Singapore provides a welcome refuge from the crime, dirt, and chaos of the surrounding countries” [Wikitravel]

We are lucky to have our friend Hady, who shows us around...

... and introduces us to the local cuisine. We learn that Singaporeans are not fat. In school, fat pupils are made to run around the block until no longer fat.

We visit the Garden by the Bay, which is a garden in Singaporean style: a giant plant house.

We learn that one key to Singapore's success is the combination of a benevolent autocratic government and a confucian meritocratic society.

The country welcomes two types of immigrants: Low skilled workers, on a strictly temporary work visa limited to 5 years,...

...and high skilled workers, with incentives to become citizens. The harbor produces money, and Singapore has no debts, but extra income from interest from surplus.

Land can never be owned, but only be leased from the government. Imagine what that would mean for European wealth dynasties.

Welcome to Cairns /ke:ns/, Australia. We take a shuttle bus from the airport to the city center (Thailand take note).

I find it impressive how, in a place that has more rain than Saarbrücken,...

and amidst a flora that is more toxic than Mensa,...

the Australians have built up one of the highest life standards on Earth.

We take the Skyrail gondola across the jungle.

It offers spectacular views across...

...and into the rain forest.

With this tour, a jungle that is otherwise hostile...

...becomes a Disney Land for Eco-tourists.

The tour ends in an authentic aboriginal village.

We admire the flora (here: a giant lollo rosso salad leaf)...

...and fauna...

...before taking a scenic railway back to the city.

We take a boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

We go snorkeling in cristal clear water (note the shadow of the boat)...

...and visit a bird sanctuary. The tour is three times as expensive as the snorkeling tour in Thailand...

...but extremely well organized, with a clean ship, life guards in duty, and personally accompanied snorkeling excursions for non-swimmers.

We attend the ICDE conference in Brisbane. Nicoleta presents our paper.

The conference comes with a nice dinner evening, ...

...and delicious food. But everything has a price. We listen to a didgeridoo performance.

We discover that if something is ancient, indigenous, or difficult to do, that does not automatically make it nice to listen to.

Music is melodic, varied, and rhythmic. The didgeridoo is none of these. Who wants to listen to a 20 minute oral fart?

Brisbane is a lively combination of different building styles.

People are kind, and proactively helpful without being intrusive. Overall, Brisbane seems a very nice place to live in.

All staff (bus drivers, taxi drivers, cleaning staff) are polite, relaxed, and very friendly.

The debate of Leitkultur vs. Leidkultur vs. Lightkultur is solved as follows: We learn that “becoming an Australian citizen means committing to the Australian way of life”.

We visit the Lone Pine, the only Koala Sanctuary in the world that is in Brisbane (they seem to love superlatives here).

The park allows for interesting encounters with local animals.

We see birds of prey...

...emus...

...sheep being shorn...

...and kangoroos (left)...

...in different forms.

Air Malaysia is notable for the complete absence of Singapore on its maps. Malaysia kicked out Singapore from the Malay-Singapore federation in 1965, making it the first country to become independent against its will.

A video spot in the plane tells us how beautiful Malaysia is.

In reality, this beauty is a bit more veiled. We arrive in the morning in Kuala Lumpur, and have 18 hours in the city.

The subway system is token-based, clean and very efficient. The train to the city center runs 100 km/h driver-less and has Wifi.

The Petronas Towers were the highest building in 2001.

We see them from the TV tower. The observation desk has no fence, but a sign tells us that jumping over the edge is for authorized personnel only.

The old city can easily be distinguished from the financial center. Most likely, a law prohibits heritage buildings from being modified (or maintained).

This is the palace from which Malaysian independence was declared in 1957.

200m away, the city shows us how old and new architecture can blend seamlessly.

China Town is marked on the map as a great shopping area. Indeed, we see Louis Vuitton bags for very good prices. China Town is also recommended for its food.