Category Archives: travelogue

Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta is a huge improvement over Jakarta, but not of that much interest on its own. The landscape of the city is dominated by Mount Merapi, an active volcano that tends to erupt now and then (no such luck this time). The volcano is climbable both independently and as a part of a tour, but due to periodic rains we gave it a miss. What makes Yogyakarta worth a visit are nearby temples of Borobudur and Parabanam. Both are lovely, but Borobudur is truly majestic (as featured in the movie Baraka). Otherwise, the city is full of dubious sights, tourist shops, restaurants and travel agencies. It feels right for a little while, but gets tiring very soon. Two full days there and we were so ready to continue the journey.

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Horse-cart is one of the modes of transportation in Yogyakarta. Bumpy, expensive and slow. Hardly recommended.

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Each bus-stop has dedicated staff selling tickets, guiding passengers and just hanging out. This is what you get when you have vast human resources.

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Eating Street food on Jalan Malioboro.

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A bicycle lady selling mysterious drinks.

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A cute caged owl in the bird market of Yogyakarta

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And some geckos too

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Asia weirdness: color dyed chicks. I have no idea why.

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Borobudur temple in all its glory.

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Stupas on top of Borobudur

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Each stupa contains a statue of Buddha

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Headless buddhas. There are a lot of them.

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Locals chilling (sleeping) in the temple.

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Rainy Parabanam temple

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We made it to Parabanam just before the closing and it was heavily raining too, but on a positive side there were few tourists. I shudder to think what it's like on a good day.

Jakarta – the start of the journey

Having heard so many negative things about Jakarta, my expectations were pretty low. However upon arriving Jakarta did not seem all that bad. The first impression was that it was another Bangkok – oversized, noisy, polluted and with way too many cars on its roads. Which is not such a bad thing, at least in the context of Bangkok. On a closer look, the biggest problem of Jakarta turned out to be a lack of anything remotely interesting to see or to do. Kota Tua, the old town, lacks any charm and is just plain dull. Same goes for the national monument. In fact all the empty space around it is way more interesting given it is such a rare thing in the otherwise crowded Jakarta. Architecture wise the only notable thing about Jakarta is anonymous statues scattered around the city and Istiqlal Mosque. The latter is the biggest mosque in South East Asia, big enough for 100000 people. With its brutalist architecture it is a curious sight, but I guess it would be more entertaining to visit it when it is full.
Getting train tickets to Yogyakarta was a highlight of the short stay in Jakarta. Two days and it was more than enough of spending time in traffic, constant noise and filthy infrastructure. In this respect Jakarta reminded of Ulan Bator, but fortunately unlike in Ulan Bator getting out of the city was dead simple. The clerks in the train station ticket office even spoke English and a debit card was one of the payment options. Such a rarity in South-East Asia.
Later in the travels we met a Dutch couple, who skipped Jakarta altogether and proceeded from Jakarta airport to Bogor, a neighbour town. Apparently it is nothing special, but is a huge improvement over Jakarta. Or even better fly straight to Bali leaving Java behind.

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Traffic on a typical day in Jakarta.

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An example of one of many statues in Jakarta.

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Brutalist architecture of Istiqlal Mosque

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This is how people chill in the mosque.

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Jakarta is a city of cats. Some of them are rather naughty.

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Cats everywhere

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Kota Tua, the old town of Jakarta

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Kota Tua, the old town of Jakarta

I <3 BRLN

I am in Berlin, bitch!One word to describe Berlin is MASSIVE. Everything about Berlin has this massive quality about it. How about Tempelhof, a huge open space in the heart of the city? It used to be an airport providing supplies for West Berlin but now is just a gigantic mostly empty park that has landing lanes instead of trees. Absolutely marvellous. Or Teufelsberg, an abandoned American military radar again in western parts of the city? Massive naturally. If you make it all the way to the top, you will find yourself in a spherical echo chamber with amazing acoustics. If Hamburg is full or rivers and canals, Berlin has railway tracks everywhere. Indeed, S/U-bahn tracks are akin to rivers – wide, massive and require proper bridges to cross.

Map of Berlin can be treacherous, as short distances on the map turn out to be long rides. You feel like making a lot of progress, but the map says otherwise. Nonetheless I was happy to have my bicycle with me, as the city is best to be explored this way. Another pitfall of the Berlin geography is identically named streets in different parts of the city. I found out this fact the hard way. A short 30km ride from Potsdam took almost five hours. It rained like there was no tomorrow for hours with proper floods on the streets. Confusing geography did not help my cause either. After an exhausting wet ride I made it to Siegfriedstrasse in Liechtenberg, only to find that I was after Siegfriedstrasse in Neuköln. The rest of the stay was much more pleasant though. The city was explored, Friends were met for the bi-annual symposium of discohippies in Berlin. Parties were attended. And delicious food was had. Fun times without a doubt. The highlight of this visit to Berlin was Peristal Signum, a bizarre labyrinth like installation in an equally bizarre club Salon: Zur Wilden Renate. It is strange, it is fascinating, it is mind-blowing, it is popular. It took us more than two hours of waiting to experience it against the promised half an hour (never trust a hippy!), but the result was well worth the wait. A little bit of Alice in Wonderland like world in the real life that makes you totally believe your experience and totally forget about the outside world for a moment. Just like virtual reality, minus the virtual part. Borrowing the language of Apple, it is magical. Enough spoilers though, it is best to be experienced without any prior ideas.

Berlin is an alpha city in its truest sense. The city that has got everything. The only problem is how to find it. A week is not enough to experience Berlin, nor a month, nor a year I presume. I spent six days in Berlin (more than in Denmark!) and was tempted to stay in Berlin longer. Accommodation was sorted for the next week and Air Berlin had a regular sale. I felt I would lose either way. Lose by abandoning the journey and lose by missing out all the great things Berlin had to offer. The law of dukkha in action. After a lot of hesitation I continued with pedaling only to be treated with rains for the rest of the journey. Oh well…

Berlin is still there though and one day I would love to make it my home. I love Berlin, but then again who doesn’t?

Bum life

Zero-star hotelOn my way to Hamburg after it had started raining, I sat under a tree on the side of the road, had a yoghurt and watched passing by cars. Slowly getting wet and feeling more or less miserable, I had a realization that for the time being I was essentially living a life of a bum. Drifting around, spending most of my time outside, being on the mercy of weather and having no place I would call home or even a base camp. Having no base camp was one of the biggest mindfucks of my journey. At times I felt like Cartman from South Park: “Screw you guys, I am going home”. Except I did not have one. Unlike a tent my hammock was merely a temporarily shelter intended for sleeping, it had no camp qualities. Moreover I avoided temporary homes in the form of hotels and hostels for the entire journey. Drifting life has its charm, but homelessness is not a nice feeling by any means. I would not want to experience anything like this out of necessity. Of course in my case this all was by choice, plus it had a high-tech slightly posh flavour. I had my bicycle, expensive technological clothes and gadgets. I ate well and once in a while went to a semi-fancy restaraunt. Once I went to a boutique cafe to have a 6€ chai-latte (Hello Denmark!) and used their toilet for a morning wash-up. Contrasts at their best.

This homeless life would not be possible without pit-stops. Camping in the nature and going without a shower is fine for several days, but it is not sustainable over a longer period of time. Everything has an expiration date. I was lucky to have friends and acquantances along the way, which were kind enough to host me. My gratitude goes to Dhamma Sobhana in Ödeshög; Helena and her family in Skredsvik; Deepak in Copenhagen; Helge and Ina in Hamburg; Christian, Karine and Juri in Magdeburg; Juha and Maija in Berlin; Kristo in Berlin; Marcin and his family in Chocewil; Leonid and his family in Riga; Marko and Ivo in Tallinn. Without you, this trip would not be possible. Thank you guys.

Rain, rain go away, come back another day…

20120724-142006.jpgIt started raining more or less regularly in Hamburg. All the big cities save Magdeburg and Riga greeted me with a heavy rain: Hamburg, Berlin, Szczecin, Gdansk, Kaliningrad and Tallinn. It became a tradition in a way, entering a city soaking wet and muddy. At first I did not mind it. I managed to cycle between storms and find a roof of some sort to have a lunch or chill out. After spending most of my time outside, I learnt to appreciate such a simple invention as a roof. Trees are good, but a man-made roof is way better. Oh, those small perks of technological progress and civilisation. Riding in a light to moderate rain is not that bad provided adequate rain gear and frequent chain greasing. My rain gear could be better, but at least it dries quickly. “Rain” pants are particularly bad – crap at breathing and crap at stopping water (for the curious the pants in question are Montane Featherlight). After Berlin rains became more intense and more frequent. In Szczecin I first began toying with the idea of taking a ferry to somewhere. There were no ferries and it stopped raining soon enough, so I continued my journey on bicycle. Rains kept on on a regular basis though.

In the vipassana LINK retreat I experienced periods of intense sudden fear, where I pictured situations of riding in prolonged rains. As it turned out, this exact thing happened to me and the reality was not that bad at all. At least it was not cold and I managed more or less to keep my stuff dry. I had enough of this on my arrival to Lithuania from Russia via Curonian Spit. That day it rained almost non-stop all day long. I was tired, hungry and pissed off too. On top of that, the forecast for the next few days showed only rain, rain, rain. So upon my arrival to Klaipeda I had two things in mind: a hostel and a bus to Riga. The hostel did not become a reality, but the next day I took a bus to Riga breaking my streak of travelling by bicycle only. In Riga it continued raining, violent thunderstorms this time, so the choice was right indeed. On the day if departure it was sunny and hot weather for a change, but alas the momentum was gone. So I took another shortcut, a train to Valga, the Latvian-Estonian border. In Valga I almost jumped on a train to Tallinn, but since the weather was still sunny I figured out one more day of riding would do no harm. The next day I arrived to Tartu and soon enough the rain resumed and continued all the way to Tallinn.

So there you go, one month of raining and three shortcuts. In the beginning I did not set any goals to do all the distance by bicycle, but nonetheless I had mixed feelings about the whole matter. Of course it would have been nice to do the entire route on bicycle, but I had enough of the rain after a month of wet riding and at that point I wanted to go home as soon as possible. Taking shortcuts is a good reason to visit Baltic states on bike again. Especially as it turned out there are things to see here, such as abandoned Soviet military objects.