And so it’s already 2 and a half months in Asia… Wow.

We’ve taken 10 flights and a large number of buses, trams, trains, taxis, boats and ferries, subways,  bicycles, motorbikes, private cars… You name it.

And that was just a small portion of Asia!

Here are some of the questions we were asking ourselves before leaving, and which finally got an answer:

• Will we get tired? Not nearly! We wished we had more time for this amazing part of the world – but possibly during dry season 🙂
  And we wished we had more time in total… I mean, come on, just one year, that’s nothing 😉
• Was the planning right? Maybe we just wanted to see a bit too much, but so far it has worked out pretty well.
• How much sports will we do? None ? Apart from the following:
  • High Jumping: When a 5-10 cm cockroach flew into Melina’s hair at about midnight – Jumping AND screaming, ok, screaming is not a sport 😉
  • Sprinting: 4x100m to and from the toilet after suffering from “Bali Belly” 🙂
  • Weight lifting: Our backpacks are quite heavy, and taxis are scaring in some parts of the world 😀

Well we walked a lot, that’s ok for now 🙂

Best of (funny) pictures:

Asian parking Ticket v.1:

The variant for smaller vehicles (Motorbikes) is a small half spring which is pushed one or more times into the unwelcome tyre(s)… the above picture shows the car of our hosts in Bangkok, and the “spring thing” happened to our rental motorbike in Bali when we just didn’t see the guy which was supposed to collect parking fees…. No excuses!

After all rules are rules….
 
It doesn’t seem to help though to have road signals or rules (which rules?).

Where would we end, if everyone did as he liked? In Vietnam, for instance…

Another theory suggests it may just be a better way to cope with enormous amounts of traffic. Imagine all of these vehicles in one of our cities (chose one, it doesn’t matter), and imagine everyone stops at the red lights, lets the vehicle pass which comes from the right hand side, stops at pedestrian crossings etc. etc…..

… here everyone has a motorbike… or at least every family:

You cannot drive a car in that traffic anyways… and if you do, it better be the most stylish car in the world…

 or  or
our favourite – easy, small but highly effective:
 everyone should have this on its rear window 🙂

As a tourist, there are not a lot of reasons for driving in such conditions, and in addition to that, public transport is incredibly cheap, and in some cases includes also your meals!

Having something to eat during a long trip is vital, unless you have already had one of the many local specialties (here are our suggestions):

 Ouch! No one knows what happens to you if you eat them. Don’t know if anyone ever ordered them.
<- “BREAD FAST” … We find this one quite funny – too much imagination 🙂

You can eat pretty much everything in Asia:
a mix of cultures

with the “aid” of modern technology – or – how to confuse someone:

Now that we are talking about technology – is there a plumber reading this blog??? If there is, can someone please please explain us why these do not exist in Europe?

And there are many aspects to it: The water sprinkler which helps washing, or the toilet seat heating are not the key points here (It is still very nice to have and you get used to having it by the first week in Japan). Now look at the tap on top of the toilet. The simplest thing in the world: as soon as you finish using the toilet, the water tank of the toilet needs to be filled up again, right? Why not using this same water (before it fills the tank) to wash your hands since this is what anyone should do “after” anyways? In Japan, after you flush the toilet, water runs through the tap into the tank to fill it up for the next usage. While it does, you can use the same water to wash your hands.  If it is possible in Japan, why not in our countries??? Are we the only people who think this should be in every water toilet in the world? (In particular where water is scarce)

If anyone has an idea why we don’t have it please write a comment to this post…

Let’s change topic.

Asian fashion:
 or how tourist try to comply with local customs.

And how they should not be doing it: (see the background – the facial expression says it all)

Flora and Fauna:

Prices are set at random:

If you know durian you know this sign, otherwise – durian is a fruit, and it is prohibited in some public transportation because of… bad smell … no joke:

Construction – strictly with bamboo    

To see one of our posts across south east asia you can browse the little map below: