My Favourite Travel Photos! Not Today Blog 16

18 travel photos that mean the world to me.

Moments

I recently came across a blog post on World Nomads where Ellen Hall shares amazing photos taken by incredible bloggers.

Travel has not really been a thing over the past six months. My last trip to Hanoi, Vietnam was in late February. I have been lucky enough to see countless amazing places in the last five years. Some of these moments I have captured on camera.

Travelling helped me stop running on autopilot for a while. That is when my brain started to memorise details to a great extent. I can remember individual days from five years ago as if they had happened five weeks ago.

Here are some of my favourite travel photos. All shot on a Samsung S4, Samsung S5 and Samsung S8 – no edit.

My friend Nick took this photo of me when in Luang Prabang, Laos. It was 2 pm and I was smashed as a puppet. Haha! We wanted to climb Phousi Hill for a view over the city, but that day entrances were closed from 11am to 1pm. We sat down at this restaurant for Wifi. One Beerlao turned into one too many until we looked like a dropped meat pie. A day to remember. A travel photo to remember.

Indonesia

When visiting Yogyakarta people usually go see Prambanan, the second largest Hindu temple in South East Asia, and Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world. They tend to miss out on the largest (and probably the only) church in the shape of a chicken in our galaxy. Gareja Ayam (also known as “Chicken Church”) was erected by Daniel Alamsjah inspired by a dream about God in the 1990s and can be found in the middle of the jungle. The construction stopped in 2000 due to financial difficulties. Over many years the building has been forgotten.

I shot this photo of my friends when hiking Ijen Volcano in Indonesia. We all met in a little homestay in Pangandaran. None of us knew each other but bonded soon. For the next one and a half weeks we travelled together to Yogyakarta, climbed Mt. Merapi und ended on Ijen where we had our last beer together. Behind this cliff, there is a crater lake, where you can also spot blue flames and local heroes carrying heavy buckets of sulphur down to the village.

Philippines

Camiguin is a small island in the Philippines not many tourists go to. My friend Seb got it recommended by his dive instructor in Thailand. We made it our top priority. As you can see, we were not disappointed. We had the best surface interval you could wish for on White Island, a stripe of sand surrounded by crystal clear water.

The legend says that a giant named Arogo fell in love with Aloya. Aloya died. In his sorrow, Arogo could not stop crying. When his tears dried, the Chocolate Hills were formed.

New Years Eve 2015 on Boracay. I don’t think it will get any better than this. And I don’t want it to. My best friends and I drank Red Horses at the beach waiting for the pub crawl to start.

Vietnam

There were two days on my travels that made me feel terrible. Still, I wouldn’t want to miss them for the world. One was when I visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia. The other one was when we went to War Remnants Museum in Vietnam. The amount of suffering I saw on each of these days was overwhelming. I started flipping through the guest book in the hallway of War Remnants Museum.

I don’t want to question the skills of this man. Surely, this is a cheap and decent barber. The only problem I would have with it is the 8°C it had that day. Do people sit outside in the freezing cold to get a haircut?

Australia

This was my wallpaper for many years. I took this photo when I was about to start a 12-hour shift on an Almond Farm in Western Australia. As boring as sitting in a tractor was: Driving to work at sunrise while trying to dodge kangaroos that are jumping in front of your car for no reason, is magical.

My travel buddies and I bought this car from an old man when we just arrived in Australia. His wife had given him a new Mercedes. He did not want to let go of this car but has found in us, honourable subsequent owners. Three flat tires, a broken radiator and two ripped alternator belts later we said goodbye to our little friend. Three Frenchmen with whom we had some crazy nights in Fremantle took over the car to start working at a chicken farm.

When I first walked down these wooden stairs to the beach, I knew that this was a place where I could grow old. There is something about waking up in a quiet village on top of a hill, where every house has a sea view. Where there is a little bakery that sells heavenly vegetable pies.

Myanmar

Yeah, I almost got a tattoo when in Yangon. I googled for the best tattooer in town and met him on the same day. We had just decided on font and placement when he told me that he was fully booked for the next three weeks. No tattoo for me. “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Something I live by.

Haha. Mt Popa is the worst. My friends and I had seen all the temples of Bagan, and one more day before leaving to Kalaw. We got up at four in the morning ready to get our minds blown. What you see on the photo is as good as it gets. We hiked up the mountain to find a messy temple with a lot of monkey droppings. We made it a running joke to tell people that this was a must-see when in Bagan. (Sorry)

Indonesia Part 2

People on Flores are incredible. The night before we hiked Kelimutu for its tri-coloured crater lakes, we stayed at a bamboo cottage run by a lovely family. They showed us their local home-brewed rice liquor (it tasted terrible and was served in a 0.5-litre pet bottle), cooked us delicious meals and uploaded a bunch of local reggae music to my phone. A few days later we met a group of friends in Maumere that all finished work early two days in a row to show us around the area.

I was at Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport to fly to Pangandaran for my first skydive. My skydive got cancelled just when I sat down at the gate. Instead of boarding my flight anyways to explore Pangandaran I asked for my luggage back and jumped in the first taxi to Tulamben. I spent the next two days wreck diving and watching the sunrise from the shore. Good choice.

Singapore, China

Obtaining a visa in Indonesia can be challenging. For the first year, Singapore was my destination for visa runs. I was sitting in a café overlooking the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, having just had a pint, when my father sent me the booking confirmation for a night in that very hotel. I was freaking out. That infinity pool is something else. A successful surprise. (The gin and tonics at the nightclub on the rooftop is 35 SGD, in case you wondered. Haha mental)

The first thing I noticed when I arrived in Shanghai was that the traffic was dead silent. The streets were packed. But I didn’t hear the same ear-splitting noise that I was used to from living one year in Jakarta. I remember I ordered a DiDi Car (China’s version of Uber or Grab) and was confused that instead of a gear lever there was a rotary knob. The car accelerated ultra-fast and made no noise. I realised that Shanghai was full of electric cars, also every scooter was electric. I loved Shanghai from the first hour.

Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson.

Alan Cohen

Why Not Today

Only yesterday my friend’s phone broke down. All her photos from her trips to Bali and India at the end of last year – gone.

I know global travel is on hold. Why not take this chance to go through old travel photos and get them framed. Or make a photo book. I got my sister an instant camera a few weeks ago. There is something special about a printed photo. Its physical existence makes it become part of your daily life.

Send this friend, with whom you have not spoken for too long, a travel photo of the two of you together. Why not rekindle old friendships over shared memories.

And make a backup.

D

There was a time before corona. A time where thousands of people gathered for Sunday morning runs right through the heart of Jakarta.