Back in KL

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Finally landed yesterday (Saturday) night at 21:15 local time in KLIA with no delay at all. Although it started quite annoying on Friday night in HAM with a 1.5h delay for my flight plus a really nasty additional baggage fee of 450 EUR for 9Kg additional baggage allowance *grmpf*, waiting time in HAM turned out really nice. I do think HAM is a well organized Airport anyhow but being there on Friday evening was almost relaxing: Shops closed, Security checks took like 5min and last flights already came in, basically empty halls :). And then had nice chats with interesting people in smoker's lounge, one being on way back to her home in Australia and the other one being on her way to vacation in Sri Lanka. Long story short: Relaxing evening and I finally managed to leave Europe around 22:00.

Formerly I used to fly KLM because of its good and fast direct flights from AMS but this time company booked Emirates via Dubai so I was kind of resistant to this connection. In the end it turned out to be a good connection. First flight was planned for roughly 6.5h but only took 5.5h. That was a quick one, catching up on latest news, getting diner, watching a movie and falling asleep - then we landed. Fortunately my connecting flight was leaving only 4h later meaning grabbing some coffee at Starbucks, doing some window shopping and boarding again. Second flight was even more relaxing since I fall asleep right after dinner again and did not wake up until we were approaching KL airport.

Good thing about being back in KLIA: This time I knew when I should bypass all others in order to get fast out of there ;). So, I headed immediately to the train connecting both Terminals and was almost first at immigration with only few people in the lane. Then grabbed by luggage, got my taxi voucher, picked up a coffee and went outside to have a smoke. All in all only took 45 minutes and finally - I started relaxing and enjoying this feeling of somehow something new started right now!

Things to not miss

Since Kerrin got me the latest "Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei", I indeed started reading a little - thanks to current holiday season - and turned from one to the other. Hmm, obvisouly I am in Malaysia for work *hehe* but still...some things I should not miss. This was initially based on Rough Guide's "Things to not miss" but somehow evolved to not forget: 

  • Langkawi
  • Georgetown resp. Penang
  • Mt Kinabalu
  • Taman Negara National Park
  • Loagan Bunut National Park
  • Perhentian Islands
  • Gunung Mulu
  • Melakka
  • Cameron Highlands
  • Sungai Kinabatangan
  • Sarawak
  • Pulau Sipadan
  • Little India in Singapore
  • Miniloc Island, El Nido, Philippines

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Crete

Still sorting and uploading pics... Kamares is a Venetian house dependency restored with natural materials situated in the heart of the preservable village of Maheri, in an area of a rare natural beauty, scattered with historical and prehistorical monuments. It combines traditional architecture with modern facilities.

The complex is located among organic hanging gardens. It is composed of five stone apartments, a villa and a large swimming pool, with a total capacity of 20 beds. It is situated at a distance of 30 km airport of Chania, at 23 km from the city of Chania, at 6 km from the ancient city of Aptera and at 5 km from the coast of Kalyves.

Kiel's East Coast *hehe*

Now that I learned that I do have a bicycle, Kerrin enforced its usage. It was quite surprising to realize how many tourists are flying around in this area in the end of August. The beaches were really crowded this weekend and it was kind of annoying – at least looking at the main beaches known to everybody. Nonetheless, beautiful day with beautiful weather with a perfect ice cream on our way back :-) 

But what is a cycling tour without gadgets? Yeah, needed to test some GPS trackers for iPhone and in the end used MotionX-GPS to record our route. Despite the irritating voice coming out of my backpack (because I did not find the option to turn off voice in beginning ;-)), this little app precisely recorded our route and was even polite enough to not suck out my iPhone’s battery.


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Oooh, I do have a bicycle

…and I was always wondering why this white thingie with two wheels was standing in the entrance to my flat. Always thought this must be kind of fancy accessoire. Ha, but yesterday I found out I can actually use this thingie called bicycle ;-) [map style="width: 600px; height:300px; margin:10px 10px 10px 10px; border: 1px solid #ccc;" maptype="ROADMAP" gpx="http://www.ohlmeyer.de/wp-content/uploads/20120812.gpx"]

Ill in Debrecen

Another week of travelling in HU: On Monday morning I left cloudy rainy Kiel at 15C, jumped onto my plane and met Katja in Budapest (Side remark: Sunny 28C :-)). This looked like a promising week…until few hours later. The air conditioning in the office seem to have killed me. Since then I am struggling with a bad cold and fever. Nonetheless we had some good meetings in Budapest and moved onwards to Debrecen to have another series of meetings. I have to admit, by now, I really like the “big village” of Debrecen. They have beautiful restaurants, an interesting mix between hungarian provence and international students being around. 

And I finally found a nice small and familiar place to stay in: Centrum Panzio! Compared to 5* Hotel Divinus which I used to stay in, this one gives much more value for much better price. It’s of course not some fancy, modern-lounge-style hotel like the Divinus but feels more like living in Debrecen. You have your own garden, a small apartment with its own veranda plus all that is needed to survive a few days (minibar, kitchenette, microwave, hotspot, etc). Really like it and will make it my preferred place to stay when back in Debrecen!