Monkey, Author at

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26 Mar 2016

My life as a Fiancé, blogger, bartender, actor and a daytrader in Auckland.

Been settled in Auckland for about 3 weeks now, and it has been quite the adventure!
For a bit over a year I’ve been studying trading, technical analysis and money management.
Forex, stocks, indices, gold and oil is what I trade on a daily basis.
Not a very social job, but it gives me the freedom to travel and try new things.

For many years I’ve been diving into new construction jobs in Sweden, Norway or even Australia.
Do what I consider myself to be best at, sheet metal roofing.
Always felt like this is what I have to aim for, work myself up the “ladder” in the company, making myself worth a lot to make more money and be irreplaceable.

There are jobs all over the world within construction business, and if you can master one trade with in the business you can make great money and get more freedom, but of course you might have to move your ass.

I came to that point where I believed that it was impossible to make more money as a “normal” sheet metal roofer.
I could not in any way make more money or get more freedom where I were.
But there I realized that this was the end, I would have to open up a company and work my ass off for years to be able to
become more successful and make more money in this business.

That’s when I felt I wanted to get out of this kind of work and throw myself into something completely new!

Now when looking for work in Auckland, I have decided to never ever be someone I’m not, in my resume, over the phone or in real life.
That means I got nothing false to prove, if they hire me, they hire me because they like me, they like my words, spoken or written and they like the presence of me.
I don’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not to be able to get work or to get closer to my success.

Time to try to get work in just being myself, of course I am not selling myself short.
The skills I have that I wrote in my resume etc
– I am happy
– Problem solver
– Leadership
– MMA
– Surfing
– Yoga
– DJ

My mission is to get more people skills in local experience and professionalism.
Too have a job where I meet new people every day, learn how to sell, practice my English and practice my social skills.
Completely turn the page and throw myself into the zone of being uncomfortable.

All my travelings have taught me how to handle some uncomfortable situation in every day life, which
is my most valued lesson I feel life have given me.
Now I want to learn more of it, but in a professional manner.

I got my IRD (Taxnumber) and I opened a bank account with ANZ.
My idea was to start working in a bar or restaurant, or something in sales.
The first job I applied to was one of these recruitment companies with in hospitality and tourism business.
This company offered a day course in how to serve food and drinks in a restaurant, how to carry 3 plates and a bit about how to talk to customers.
What a great opportunity!
If I got a job with this company and gained some experience so I could later on apply at a bar or restaurant I actually like, and feeling comfortable about it.

Got a few jobs with this company, still do.
My first two assignments were working as a bartender at Ellerslie race course for BMW and Auckland cup.
They throw you behind the bar knowing that you have no experience at all, I at least have some from working in a few bars in south east Asia.
You are taking care of making drinks, serving beers, washing, making sure everything is prepared to be able to make whatever drink request the customers may ask for, and of course you have to learn how to work the cash till and how to set up tabs.
When it’s very busy you got to be able to keep calm and solve the problem or be confident enough to get help to solve it.

This company sends me text messages about work, and I just need to apply YES or NO.
What the work will be I will know when I get there.

Last week I got send to North shore, the only thing I knew was the address, time and that it was some kind of catering.
Got there and the “boss” was there unloading the food, drinks and cutlery in this big 3 floor mansion!
She told me that one more will come to help me, there are notes in the boxes, set up the glasses and good luck.
I assumed that the person that would come would be some kind of supervisor, showing me how everything works and what this party was all about.

5 different platters of snacks, 2 hot meals and then many different drinks.
Making sure people had drinks and that the was getting served food all the time.
They were a very wealthy couple and expected great work to be done here.

The customers assumed I had tons of experience and been working for the catering company for a long time….

The girl that arrived to help out to make this cocktail party a great one, had zero experience.
So I ended up to take charge and make everything happened, based on the small amount of bartender experience I have, then I just had to improvise and be confident enough to put on a great show.

We had great fun doing this, and it is so good for one and other to get thrown in to these situations and handle it!

I also applied to a Talent and model agency, which finds me work within modeling, movies or commercials.

I just showed up with my happy spirit , proper dressed and well shaved.
That was enough to get me on board and I got my first assignment 4 days after!
I was going to be an extra at a movie shoot of the movie getting released next year “Jean”.
They also gave me an address and told me to be there at a certain time!

I went there and got welcomed by the crew with buffé breakfast.
I didn’t received any information at all from my bosses there, so I chatted away with the other people working there, and they could share some great stuff to me to feel more comfortable over the situation.
I have only done this once, and that was in India for a Bollywood movie 2009, I was as confused at that time I remember, but extremely excited!

After a few hours they send me to the makeup room, gave me a haircut and told me I was going to be an Australian airways man, a pilot.
After that they sent me to get dressed up with the pilot outfit!
It was such an incredible experience, to be so lost, so excited and realizing that you are going to be in a big movie.

After 5 hours they send me up on “stage”, briefly told me and this other guy what was going to happen.

But when the camera rolls it’s all about improvise and try to live the feelings they told us that scene was all about.

All so new, all so awesome.

So much fun working with this, meeting a lot of people and learn new things all day long!

Now gaining some skills and experience within this I felt like I wanted to get a bartender job at a busy bar, where I love the music and the vibe.
I googled “Best house and techno club in Auckland”, and after some research I found Ink bar, a busy place at the busy K road!
I emailed the owner of the place, the email with the title “Tech The House”.

http://inkbar.co.nz/

A few days later the owner got back to me and wondered when I could start working!

Got super stoked to give this a try!
I popped up at 9pm at the bar.
A pretty small place, but with two different dance floors and a “outdoor” patio.
Told the owner that I’ve just worked in a few bars pouring beers, but show me how it’s done and I’ll figure it out!

The music there gets delivered by maybe New Zealands top house/techno DJ’s.
Great progressive stuff and a great vibe in this place, feels like the most of the people here knows each other.

Crack open beers, mixing spirits and pouring shoots might not be a difficult thing to do, but when you add drinks you never heard about before, pumping music, stress and New Zealand accent it makes everything way harder!
But if you can just keep your calm and laugh and be confident about your mistakes you’ll be alright!

I managed to get the most of everything right in all of this, so when the night was over I felt pretty proud over myself to be able to just jump in as I did, without any real professional experience behind a busy bar in a new country without any local knowledge of drinks or people.
But I did good!

The day after went even better!
To learn something new every day is what I live for!
I’m hooked on learning stuff! Love it.

One point why I also choose this kind of bar with this kind of music is also because after working there for a while, I might be able to throw in some beats as a DJ myself!

Having a job where I interact with people the whole time is for sure my thing right now!
Love it.

When both me and Erin have our days off we go for a day trip to one of the beaches close by Auckland.
For the surf of course!
Pretty awesome to have like 40 minutes to really nice beaches and very good surf, PIHA is one of them!
Tomorrow we are off to Bethells beach!

Auckland is great!
Feels great

13 Mar 2016

A perfect spot to pop the question, she said Yes at Cathedral cove Coramandel.

When we first arrived in New Zealand about 6 weeks we ago traveled most of Northland and some of the south north island.
We went down to Mt Manganui which is south of Coramandel but we skipped to go up the peninsula , we figured that we would do a little weekend surf trip once we had settled for work in Auckland later.

Last weekend it was about time to journey to what many people agree on, is the most beautiful place on north island when it comes to cliffs and rock formation by the ocean and the beaches and the waves.

It’s about a 2 hour car ride from Auckland, and the roads are great , almost all the way to Coramandel it’s a highway/freeway.
Once on the Coramandel peninsula it’s starting to get winding roads.

As always in New Zealand everywhere you go even though it’s just a few hours, it’s all so different, I just can’t stop repeating this enough. It’s extraordinary!

We first went up to Thames, but that place had nothing special for what we were seeking.
It once was the second largest town in New Zealand, when the time of gold was in.
The town was initially built during a gold rush with the first major discovery of gold being made on 10 August 1867.

Now it seems to be nothing more than a town, we just went right through it, didn’t feel the vibe so we left. Maybe there are some cool places to visit there?

From there it’s about a 30 minute drive to Whangmata and Hot water beach.
We first went down to Whangamata to check out that area, and of course the famous long lefthander break, Wanga-Bar.

We loved being back in the car, back to camping again!
Sleeping “outside”, cooking food from the little kitchen in the back of the car and meeting other campers.
Such a fun experience!

The weather was great, hot and sunny days and slightly cooler nights.
Sleeping like a baby!

When we arrived there we headed straight for the beach, situated as always here in New Zealand, in a gorgeous bay.
Cliffs on each sides and big rock formations standing tall just outside the beach.

I ran super excited into the water with my surf board.
Paddling through the 3 foot waves with a big smile on my face.
The swell was not big but it was enough for me to get a thrill.
It was high tide so it seemed to be that the actually Wanga-bar did not work, so we surfed the beach break instead.

Later on we checked in at Whangamata Motor camp, 18 NZD/night per person.
A great clean place with great size camping area, not to big.
Close to both the beach and the small town where you can find a few surf shops and some nice cafés and restaurants.

Beautiful place!
We fell a sleep under the cloud free star glimmering sky!

Woke up for an early morning surf session!
Made coffee and porridge and then we set off for the beach.
Way better swell that day and the ocean was way calmer.
A great way to spend a few hours in the water.

Later on we head up to Hot water beach, a 20 minute drive from Whangamata!
Beautiful scenery along the way.

At Hot water beach there is an area with geothermal activity below the sand.
People come here at low tide to dig themselves a pool and let the hot water fill the up from down under.
We did that Rotorua and it’s pretty sweet.
Great for your body to, the water contains a lot of minerals!

But at Hot water beach it was packed with people, I wouldn’t even consider to be a part of that mess!

If you drive towards the end of the beach you find a Top 10 Holiday Park, a parking spot by the beach and a restaurant.

This is where you want to park to be a bit closer to everything.

The surf here looked amazing when we arrived, it was solid 3-4 foot waves.
Super smooth peeling ones that makes you giggle.
The swell first hits the rocks and sandbars on the right side of the beach, where also a little peninsula goes out.

From the far out right you can catch the wave when the conditions are right and then ride it almost all the way to the area where they dig the holes, that’s a long wave!
Remember to ask around before you jump in about the rip!
It can be very dangerous for a beginner.

You don’t have to surf that break you can just stick it to the beach break away from the rocks.

Out there at the break you have to triangle position yourself, and keep track of it.
Keep an eye out what the locals are up to and follow what they do.

I was a beautiful day of surf we had so much fun!
It was awesome to be back in the water after almost a 2 week break.

That night we checked in at the Top 10 Holiday Park, just a few minutes away from the beach.
This might have been the nicest camping grounds I’ve stayed it, not the most beautiful one but definitely the more social once!
20 NZD/night per person, big camping spot, fish and chips restaurant, big new kitchen, computer and tv room and a big out door BBQ patio!
All this with a super location.

Next day we woke up early to head to Cathedral cove.
You have to do this early morning to be able to find yourself a parking spot, it gets packed here at lunch time.

Park your car and then start the 30 minute hike to the cove.
You start up on the cliff and from here you have great views over the ocean and thus islands, incredible views!

It’s an easy hike down there and it’s worth all the energy spent.
When you first get down there and you get to see this hidden gem you get amazed!
It’s a small bay surrounded by massive limestone cliffs and lush forest.
The ocean have the same green as a shiny jade stone and the sand is so smooth and amazingly white.
It is The beach!

A few rock formations in the water that makes it even more hidden, it is truly the most amazing cove I have visited!

In one of the cliff sides coming out there is a massive opening in the cliff!
That’s the Cathedral!
It goes straight through it all the way to another hidden white sand beach.
Both me and Erin was in the WOW moment the whole time being down there.

If you are going to New Zealand this is a must see!

Wandering around in this beautiful moment enjoying every single part of life I had prepared a big event for us in that Cathedral cove.

We put out our big blanket on the beach.
If you go here early is not as many people so it feels more like that actually hidden deserted gem.

Then I told Erin that we should go for a dip in this beautiful water in this beautiful place.
She went in first, I stopped just in front of the water.
Told her to get back up to give me hug, she then told me to get in the water.
I continue asking her to get up, and finally she came but thought it was weird that I didn’t get in.
Once up I hugged her and told her how much she ment for me, how much I love her, how much we support each other and everything we have been through and everything we are planning for, it all make sense I said.
So I went down on one knee and ask her to become my fiancé!

It was a truly incredible moment at this perfect epic place at a perfect moment in our lives!

She said yes!

A memory of a lifetime , a memory that will always be remembered and a memory I always will keep on talking about!

After that we went back to Hot water beach to have a celebration surf!

Now the swell was even bigger and it was barreling, a 4-6 footer with around 6 seconds in between.
My favorite day for sure, 100%!
It was pumping and you could feel the excitement from everyone.
We had everything in our lives to be excited about!

Truly greatful to create these moments with the people that matters most in my life!

Love you future Miss Erin Lill Henriksen or in whatever order she may want it!

/Monkey

27 Feb 2016

The rip tide almost pulled my pants off, surfing Raglan in New Zealand.

We rolled in to Raglan like there was no tomorrow ,with our beautiful camper van Gunther .
Deeper tech house were pumping from the inside, life’s a bliss.

You feel the vibe right away when you enter this little town, the surf hippie vibe.
It’s like you feel at home right away, welcomed.

A surf hippie vibe is for me a feeling that everyone are connected through some kind of deeper passion.
A vibe of feeling great by being healthy in a way of happiness, being in the moment and being aware.
A feeling of everyone one of each other are giving something to support everyone’s wellness.
Being a part of the stokeness of life.

Burger shacks, bars and cafés all over the center.
Rip curl of course have a store here.
It’s here you got the “worlds” longest consistent left hander wave at Manu bay!

You have a bunch of surf shops in town, almost all of them sell and rent boards.
The best one we found was Surf Emporium (Click to get there).
It back in an alley on Volcom lane, you find the entrance to the alley next to Rip curl or the other entrance is just next to the surf shop Raglan Surf co, which also have a pretty good selection of boards and clothing.

You can rent a board for 3 days at Emporium for 100 NZD.
If you like the Torq’s and maybe decide to buy one at the end of those 3 days, then they can take those 100 NZD of the price and give you a great package deal!
Great boards!

We first checked in at Karioi Lodge (Click to get there), which is basically part of Raglan surf school.
This place was cheap 15 NZD per person a night but they only have 6 spots for camper vans.
These spots are placed pretty weird, up the hill, in the jungle, but just right next to the road.
Some of the camping spots are better than others, whatever you do avoid number 2 because that one is basically on the road!
It’s about a 15 minute drive out of town, close to the famous breaks Whale bay and Indicator.

This place is packed with “youngsters” all the time, it’s kind of a party place.
All the Stray buses comes up to the lodge to drop off and pick up people.

The best thing we found with this place was the Yoga!
A super nice chick that used to work in the reception decided to do here yoga teacher training a few years back and are now running a yoga class almost every day of the week.
5 NZD for an hour of Vinyasa flow yoga at one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever done yoga at!
The inspiration point, overlooking Whale bay and the gracious landscape surrounding the bay.

After a few days there we tried a new place, a way better. Solscape (Click to get there)

The camping ground here is way better and more flat, still very beautiful with the lush green forest all over.
The lodges you can stay in have the shape of train, almost look like one big one that got made into smaller pieces and then made into a little hut!
Looks really cool!

This place have a super nice restaurant with a big outdoor patio and a big lush lawn in front of it.
The view here is almost like the inspiration point at the other lodge, but here you can sit in the restaurant our outside and enjoy the spectacular view of Manu bay, some of the Ngarunui beach and parts of the main land!
Absolutely amazing sunsets!

This place is an Eco friendly retreat.
They grow all the vegetables and herbs themselves and all the products they use are organic.
Enjoy their foods!
If you want to save up the money and live on your own cooked food, then at least try their Raw Snickers chocolate cake, it is fantastic! Yummy!

Many of the workers here are “Wwoofers”, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. (Click to get there)
Such an awesome thing!
I have really never known what it’s all about until now, when we got to hang out with these cool people that did it.

You basically work a few hours a day with whatever is needed to be done in exchange for food and stay.
You can travel the world and live for free!?!? Incredible.
Now there are now excuses for people that want to go backpacking/traveling but say it cost too much money.
There you go!

Go in on the site and read about it!
You work a few hours a day in exchange for food and stay, and at the same time you can learn something new and meet a lot of awesome people!
You can even Wwoof at a surf camp to learn surfing, or on a sail boat to learn sailing!

The first days we surfed at the main beach Ngarunui.
On the left side of the beach it if you are looking out on the ocean, you have a really good wave.
It can produce really nice 3-5 foot ones.
All over the beach it breaks pretty nice, and it’s a very big beach!

Even though it’s very crowded some days on the beach and in the water, it is usually beginners from the surf schools and they keep themselves to the white water close to the beach which leave you more space where the good breaks are.
Always works best on hide tide.

Beautiful big beach with cliffs around it!
You see Manu bay and Whale bay from here.

Manu bay and Whale bay is the most popular places for more advance surfing.
At low tide it’s a hustle to get out in the water because of all the rocks you need to climb over, some are dangerously slippery!
Watch the strong riptide at low.

Way safer to go for high tide when it’s not so shallow, low tides at both Whale and Manu bay are for more advanced surfers!
When the waves are good here it is pumping, perfect peeling waves with around good 8 seconds in between and it’s barreling!
Some of these rip tides can pull you pants off.

It’s awesome to go down to Whale bay and sit on the grass with a n ice cold beer watching the surfers ripping waves at sunset!

Love both of these breaks!

We checked out the infamous or famous beach Ruapuke.
When Manu and Whale bay are flat, and you are an advance surfer, this is the place you want to hit!
You can see some hardcore wipeouts at this place.
10 foot swell at a beach break and the sets are always full on.
Getting out there is always the craziness at beach breaks , here you got to paddle fast trough an area of about 10 meters and it’s a struggle.
If you don’t make it say Hello to that fat lip of the wave punishing for not making it!

Fun place to check out the great guys surf, but a bit to hardcore for me.
Super nice beach, even bigger and longer then Ngarunui.

There’s tons of great surf around Raglan and the vibe there is absolutely awesome!
You will meet some great people for sure.

Check out the Yot club on their Sunday sessions, great fun!

One food place that’s a must try is Raglan Fish at the wharf, as far out you can go!
The seafood there is soooo good!

We had the Fish and chips, 2 red snappers, potato wedges and tartar, massive portion!
A Soy ginger tuna burger which was the best tuna burger I’ve ever eaten!
Such an incredible place with fair prices.
Go there!

I’m going back to Raglan for sure!

17 Feb 2016

Climbing waterfalls deep in Waitomo Caves NZ

Rotorua is one awesome place.

This place is filled with natural hot springs and mud pools, you’ll find all sorts of geothermal activity around this area.

Doesn’t matter of you are driving in the woods or in the town itself, you will see steam clouds all over.
Bubbling up from holes in the middle of nowhere or in some ones backyard!

We stayed at this super cool place, Cozy cottage thermal holiday park.
Which were just 5 minutes outside the city center and right by the big lake.
This place was right on the beach, but this beach was a bit special!
You bring a shovel to it and start digging a hole, after a meter or so you’ll see hot water filling up the hole!
So you can create your own mineral hot spring chill out!
Watch out because the water gets a bit too hot sometimes, boiling so mix it with some of the cold water from the lake.

One of the days we went for downhill mountain biking in the Redwood forest.
For 35NZD you get a proper bike and helmet for 2 hours.
There’s tracks for everyone from beginner to extreme!
Many professional downhill mountain bikers consider this to be one of the best rides in the world!

It was the first time doing this for both of me and Erin , we loved it and for sure we are doing it again.
Erin did one proper crash and left with bruises and pride of that’s how you do it for the first time!
I was really close to!
It’s a dangerous sport, so people that dare to try this out, respect!

After spending two days there we decided to book an extreme caving adventure down at Waitomo caves, about 1.5 hours west of Rotorua.

We found out about this from a couple of brochures we found at the tourist information I-Site in town.
From there we did our own research and found this company The Blackwater Rafting co, which had some really intense awesome packages.

We booked the Into Abyss one, which was a 5 hour adventure through the caves, starting out with a 35 meter abseiling down into the abyss through a “hourglass” hole!

First we got an introduction course in how to work the abseiling equipment.
Wet suit, boots, helmet and a harness.

Such an epic experience!
So stoked to do all of that!

We were about 8 people in the group together with two really funny and professional instructors.
35 meters down we all turned on the light and continued down into this massive 5km cave system.
Up in the ceiling it looks like blueish LED lights all over, glow worms!

From here it was no technical skills needed.
First stop was at the zip lining and Erin was the first one to go!
It was all dark and you couldn’t see at all where you were going.

She disappeared into the dark and after a while a big BOOM went off!!
What the hell happened!?

The instructor shouting that she hit her head.
You could hear Erin saying, – Nooo I did not!?

It was pretty confusing for all of us still up a level in the cave.

We connected me to the zip line and then it was my turn to go down.
While flying in the air for a few seconds another BOOM went off!

One of the instructors was blowing off firecrackers to fuck around with us! Hah!
It made the whole experience scarier, thrilling!

About 50 meters down sat down next to a underground river and turned of our lights.
This place was filled with these glow worms, the more they glow the hungrier they are!
Google them!

Then we got one tube each, time to explore this cave floating in a tube!
We floated on our backs for a pretty long time.
From big halls to narrow tunnels.
All so awesome!
These glow worms make it look like you are in a dream, so unreal.

65 meters below surface was our deepest point, but from here we had to go up!
The only way up was to climb waterfalls!

Such a sick experience doing all this, and you feel safe while doing it!
I recommend everyone that travel to New Zealand, do this!
It’s worth the 235NZD, 100%.

We are doing more downhill mountain biking and climbing for sure!

11 Feb 2016

Camper van your way through northern New Zealand

Gunther our camper van locked and loaded, a new adventure began!

Driving on the left side is a bit mind twisting in the beginning, I’m glad Gunther is an automatic one so need to think about the gears, I think most of these camper vans are automatics.
All the time I have to remind myself that it’s left side driving here, also driving on the wrong side in the car can be a bit confusing in the beginning.
After a day or two you’ll get the hand of it.

Buy a van, put a bed in it ,decorate it with some hippieish vibe, put some cool paint on it and go camping where ever you want, that’s what we thought it would be like.
But from 2011 New Zealand came up with this stupid law about freedom camping, saying that to be able to camp anywhere you like, your vehicle have to be self contained, meaning a lot of stuff, for instance it have to have a toilet in it.
There’s a whole list to it.

If you would camp anywhere, then the police can knock on your window and fine you 200 NZD if your vehicle is not self contained.

All this because a bunch of selfish travelers have not cleaned up there mess, if they have the mess then got thrown in a bag into the woods or along the road.
Idiot travelers.

But all over New Zealand you have Holiday parks, DOC campsites and regional campsites, and a few freedom campsites with toilets.
The price are from 6 NZD up to 25 NZD per person.
Holiday parks seems to be the pricey ones, but they all have kitchens, showers and laundry options, many of them also provide WIFI for a price.
At the reception they always have a little shop for you to buy some groceries, snacks, ice and almost always some fishing equipment.

The locations of the “pricey” holiday parks (18-24NZD/person) usually are just right at the beach or at the main tourist attraction, top spots!

Sometimes local people even put up signs at their home or farm saying ‘Freedom camping’ for 10 NZD and you park at their backyard!

For the most of our camping so far we have averaged around 15 NZD a night/person.

New Zealand is absolutely beautiful to drive in.
Up on the north island it sometimes reminds me a bit from back home in Sweden.
Green as far your eyes can reach!
Cows and sheep all over, but here they are climbing up and down massive round hills that you see everywhere!
Probably that’s why the best meat comes from here!
The cattle have to go up and down these hills to find themselves the best grass on their land, they are strong.
It seems like they live a very good life here.

I remember I wrote in one post about Sri Lanka how diverse the nature was over there.
I can tell you something, there is nothing that beats the diversity in nature here!
On one side of the road you can see pine trees cover the hills while on the other side there’s a savannah with weird bonsai looking trees.
Then from nowhere the pine tree branches starting to defy gravity by instead of hanging down kind of growing, they are all growing bending upwards and now they have a different growing pattern in all the small branches, it’s weird but so cool!

Then baaam!
Suddenly there’s a jungle, palm trees mixed with pine trees and weird looking massive bonsai trees!
It’s crazy.

We decided to drive along the coast so combine all that with incredible hidden bays with massive cliffs all around you, it’s an incredible sight!

The roads are extremely windy at some places, so to go 100km can take some time.

Up on the north island there’s a lot of great surf.
We thought it would be easy to find a surf shop and rent a board, where ever we found great surf.
But that’s not the way.
We didn’t find a single place to rent decent boards up on the north of North island.
There are only a few surf schools, but they only offer the big foamy boards.

We stopped at Pakiri beach, Wangarei heads and Waipu cove, incredible surf!
They waves were about 3-5 feet and peeling!

From beach to beach and the surf was just perfect, but no surf board for rent to be seen.

Up at Waipu cove we had enough of all the beautiful bays with all the super surf, we had to go back to Wangarei which is a bigger town, and there try to find a boards to buy.

With all these windy roads it took time to drive even though it was just about 70km.

We almost ran out of fuel because of bad planning.
Have in mind that there can be a long way in between gas stations and there’s many hills to drive up so sometimes expect to see 2L/10km.

In Wangarei I found myself a surfboard for 325 NZD, a green pointy 7’’ Kim Purrington design with absolutely no volume, but an incredible smooth cut through the waves.
I fell on love with it from the first time I set my eyes on it.
With practice comes skill!
I bought it from a couple that had sailed all the way from Germany!
They had been on that boat for about 2 years, that’s passion.

We stayed one night at Uretiti campsite which is a great place, it’s totally worth 10NZD/person a night.
It’s a few steps away from the beach.

After buying the surfboard we headed back up along the coastline.
We first looked up Sandy bay where we heard was supposed to be a good surf break.
Too bad the whole that this time going up there was absolutely no swell, at all.
This time we were prepared with a surfboard and full of excitement, but no waves.

The actually hunting, looking or waiting for waves/swell can be frustrating, but it’s for sure a part of the game.
There are so many factors that play a big role in surfing, you can’t change the way of how nature works.

There are for sure a big excitement in the hunt, and when you find anything surfable you go for it!
When you find the perfect ones you explode in ecstasy.

Traveling in New Zealand is incredible, amazing scenery all the time.
By doing it in a camper van, even though it will cost to camp somewhere, you will save a lot of money in the long run!
Being able to go where ever you want and when you want is less stressful , you get to see way more and the whole camping lifestyle brings you together with some great dudes and dudettes.

Download CamperMate and you are set!
This app gives you a proper map, GPS and it points out anything you want.
In some of the points you are looking for you can click and and read about it, in some of these people have made comments and you can do it to.
It’s a great one!

Fishing is all over, both in lakes and of course in the ocean.
You can go out on a fishing trip with a tour company, but that will cost you a bunch of NZD’s!
The people from here are though very generous, kind and helpful so if you are lucky you might hook up with one of the locals and he or she will take you out with them.
Blue Marlins is what the north is famous for!
I’m not a big fisherman so I stick to the snappers, would be awesome to catch a massive blue marlin though, but for a price 500 – 1000 NZD I will stick to my snappers instead.

New Zealand can be the toughest country to travel in, massive amounts of FOMO, ‘Fear Of Missing Out’.
There are stuff to see and to be done everywhere!
You name it and it is in a few hours reach!

We traveled along the east coast all the way up to Cape Reinga which is the furthest northern point of New Zealand you can get!

On the way there you go a long the huge 90 Mile beach, we don’t have 4X4 drive so we choose the normal road inland, but if you got one of those all wheel drives then you can drive almost all the way up on the beach!
But watch out for the tide!!
There are warning signs everywhere, warning that you can lose your car in the tide, if you would get stuck and don’t have the time to get out of there, the tide will then get in and grab your vehicle and drag it and pull it back out into the ocean.

The Maori culture here seems to be awesome, what a history!
We haven’t really got deeper into it yet, which I will do.
Need to learn more about this crazy amazing culture and thus history.

When getting to Cape Reinga you park your car at the big lot, and from there you do a small hike out to it furthest point, to a lighthouse.
Along the way you can stop and read about the Maori culture and some of their beliefs, it’s fascinating.

The views from here is absolutely breathtaking!
Massive cliffs stretching into the sky and beneath them there are white sanded beaches that makes a perfect transition with the incredible turquoise waters.
If you stand at the light house and look out in the ocean, that’s where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean!
You can also see massive stretches of massive sand dunes!
Does that mean that you can do Sand dunes surfing!? Ohh yeah!

After a day up here we went back down to 90 Mile beach to hopefully catch some waves!
We checked in at Ahipara holiday park, 20NZD/person a night.
This place might have been one of the best places we have stayed so far.
A great camping ground, clean kitchen, hot showers as long as you want, ping pong table, BBQ’s for you to use and all free WIFI, they give you 500Mb first but if you are nice and ask they will give you more.

A 5 minute walk will take you to the 90 Mile beach, this beach is massive.
Even though it’s high tide the beach width is like a length of a football field!
Super cool!
The surfing was not the best at this time, we missed the swell again.
But there were a few waves to be caught and it was fun!
We enjoyed doing a few yoga session here every day.

Before heading to the south of North island we went down to Waipoua forest to see the massive Kauri trees, the spirits of the forest!
Now I know where The fellowship of the Ring got the idea of the Ents, the massive tree gigants!
The first tree we visited was about 51 meter high and had a girth for 13.8 meters, say WHAT!?
Yeah it was enormous!

I felt tiny standing a few meters away from it.
This amazed me even more how nature works and what it can create!

The second tree was just a short drive from the first one.
2 NZD parking fee.
Then you do a 15 minutes easy hike into this even fatter Kauri tree.
This mega tree have a girth for 16.5 meters!
I did not even think trees got get that big!
I’ve always thought that the Redwood trees in USA were the biggest, but they got nothing against these ones!
An amazing experience, a further look into the Maori culture.
These trees of course play a big role in their history!

The weather have been great so far, a few days of rain but nothing major.

Now were are down in Rotorua, enjoying downhill mountain biking, mud baths, hot springs and Geysars!

Tomorrow we are going in for a 5 hours caving adventure, abseiling down 30 meters into a black abyss, climbing up three underground waterfalls and black water tubing to mention a few of these amazing experiences!
Super duper excited!

This country doesn’t stop to amaze me!

Wild horses! Woah!

Gunther, Me and Erin are living the dream.

3 Feb 2016

Wellington New Zealand 23rd of January.

I slept the most of the flight from Den pasar Bali to Wellington, with a quick transit in Brisbane.
Virgin airline is for sure cheap but as almost always you get what you pay for.
Leg space great, pretty comfortable seats and decent food, the one thing that was horrible was the blasting aircondition.
People were coughing and snoring and I was hugging myself trying to use all my body heat to warm me up.

No TV’s in the airplane, which makes no sense to me.
Some people struggle through a plane ride, trying to give them the best of comfort for a cheaper price would just be fair.
One little TV screen in each seat or at least a few big ones in the aisle would cost nothing for the airlines, but would higher their ratings for sure!

When traveling remember to bring a sweater and maybe a sarong or something like it to stay warm in an ice cold plane or bus, in a hot country!
It’s something that not many think about, but keep this in mind.

In Wellington Erin just fly by with her Canadian passport.
Didn’t even had to go through normal customs, she just passed everyone and went straight for the “digitial” customs.
A few machines were you just go and scan your passport, and you are set to go, welcome.
It’s called E-pass.

For me it was more of a struggle.
At the first desk at the customs a chief of foreign something stopped me and asked questions about my travels, previous ones and upcoming.
I also had to show him proof of credit, which I did through my internet bank.
Totally forgot to print this in beforehand and didn’t even think about showing him my internet bank, smart!
Save the nature, use less paper!

Second customs desk sent me back to their operation area.

Proof of credit again, what’s my profession, previous travels and upcoming, how to finance my trip and how to get income.
Do I do drugs?, party a lot, brought any fruit, any medicines and so on.

Went through my bag and did some swab tests for drugs.
Had to declare some medicines, but didn’t even had to show them.

Everything went smooth but it took time to do all this.
I thought with a Swedish passport you just fly by!

Canadians can do this working holiday visa before 35 years old.
Swedish people are only allowed until 30.

At Wellingtons airport they have a massive sign were it says – Welcome to middle earth.
Pretty cool.
*We are taking the hobbits to Isengard* Check out the 10 hour remix on youtube.

From the airport we took the public bus 97 into Courtney place which is basically in CBD, city center.
9 NZD for a 20 minutes bus ride.
There we checked in at YHA Hostel which we already booked in advance, a double room 100NZD/night.
This is a big chain with hostels all around the world, decent but expensive.
A great way to start your trip, they always have a lot of brochures and information about things to do, how to get there and help you book it.
They usually have a bulletin board were people put up ads, things they want to sell or maybe they want to share a ride to somewhere to save some money, you will find anything on these boards!

We spent two days in Wellington before we headed up to Auckland.
It’s for sure a beautiful city that we will explore more of when we get back to it.

What we tried was the yoga at Wellington hot yoga.
A 1.5 hour session of hot yoga, kind of like Bikram yoga if that tells you anything.
They crank they heat so it’s almost like a sauna, not quite but almost there.
Just by warming up you sweat.

When you are about 30 minutes in the session you are dripping, it is hard!
After an hour the yoga mat are covered in sweat, unfortunately we forgot to bring towels.
At this point I was sliding everywhere, trying to do warrior one, two and three.
It’s hard to breath and you start thinking about giving up, this can’t be good for you.
All these excuses are sneaking up on you.

1.5 hours later it was done, once we got out from the room and drank some ice cold water we felt re generated, yoga are truly an amazing practice that energize you , gives you focus and it gives you top exercise !
For a drop in class it cost 20 NZD, but if you are staying in Wellington for a while they have way better deals for you.
They also have other kinds of classes.

Bring a towel!

7:30pm we took the Intercity bus from lane 9 at the main train station, the last lane is a bus stop.
It took about 11 hours up to Auckland.
A nice double decker bus, “first” class downstairs and general ticket upstairs.
We paid 40 NZD.
Comfortable seats that you could reclain a lot!
The only problem we had again was the aircon.
It was freezing for the most of the trip.
I had a sweater on and Erin had her sarong, but at this time not even that helped.
Should have had pants, gloves and a beanie!

After about 5 hours of driving the driver finally put on the heater, and we could finally get fall a sleep.
Fantastic!
But only for about an hour or so , then he cranked the aircon again…

We arrived safe and sound in Auckland though! Weeoow.

We checked in at Nomads backpackers on Fort street, walking distance from the bus station.
For 70 NZD/night you get yourself a private room, with a bunk bed though!
This place is huge, 7 floors + a basement where they operate a travel agency from, Mad Travel.

On the second floor you got a lounge area, beanbags and couches together with a big TV and a dvd collection.
If you exit this floor using a door next to the elevator, you enter the bar and restaurant.
They offer great food and a big variety of beers and drinks.

On the rooftop, floor 7 you have your kitchen and nice seatings on an outdoor patio overlooking the harbor and the city, it’s a great place to enjoy your morning coffee.
You also have a jacuzzi for you to use at any time, until 10pm.

This big hostel chain is definitely one of the best ones there is.

When applying for bank account and tax number you can use their address if you stay there more than 2 days.
It’s all free and they give you an signed address confirmation for you to hand etc the bank.

On the website Backpackerboard.co.nz they offer an mailing service which I fell for, I bought their package for 29.99 pounds and that would cover a whole year.
They would forward all mail to me where ever I were.

Before knowing it was already free from Nomads backpackers I signed up for that.
When asking Nomads Auckland hostel about this they didn’t even acknowledge Silverfox LTD or backpackerboard, they said it is all a scam.

You sign up, they send you name and info to the Nomads backpacker hostel and then they charge you 30 pounds for it, no more then that, even though it’s all free from Nomads.

Been trying to get a refund and they have said they would, all this the same day as I signed up for it.
But I haven’t seen any money back yet.

To open a bank account you might have to book an appointment, the banks are very busy.
If you take a train or bus to outside of Auckland you might be able to just drop in and open one right away.
I chose ANZ because they are one of the biggest banks, you see the ATM’s all over, no need put in any money to open the account and it doesn’t cost anything to have it.
While other banks might charge you and have a deposit fee.

Auckland.
A beautiful city, way bigger then Wellington.
For me it kind of have a bit of the same feeling as Vancouver Canada or Melbourne Australia, smaller though.

Restaurants, bars and cafés all over, many different options.
My favorite restaurant in Auckland was for sure Sushi Train down by the docks, around where you take the ferries out to the islands.

Wide selections of restaurants, bars and cafés!
Chinese , Sushi and burgers seams to be the thing here.

Shopping malls everywhere, if you are looking for a bit cheaper but still great food, try the food courts in one of these malls.
About 10 NZD will give you a proper of whatever you want.

We had two days in Auckland and our main mission was to find a camper van as soon as possible.
They say that the best thing to do is to buy in Auckland and sell in Christchurch.
So we were pretty busy trying to find one.
We sent a lot of emails and did a few phone calls, we also checked the bill boards that these hostels have.
Nomads backpackers have their own folder with just camper vans and cars that you can take a look at.

We actually found our car by going to one of the “Backpacker Car lots”, mainly there to sell camper vans to backpackers!

We tried one just 15 minutes outside the city, which was great one.
A very helpful guy came up right away and gave us some advices depending on the information we gave him, basically how long our trip were and what we wanted.

We found a Toyota Estima which seemed to be the best car for our trip around New Zealand.
A 8 seater van that you convert into a camper van, take out all the seat or maybe even leave the ones behind the front seats.
Then you build a bed and a tiny kitchen area in the back.
You can even make them to build a table and bench that you can fold into a bed, it’s all depending on your budget.

We took this car in mind but continued to search.

You want to feel comfortable about the car and the price.
Make sure they have done some kind of service test on it before you even consider to buy it.
WOF is there way of safety check there car via licensed mechanics.
But don’t think if the car have WOF then everything is good to go.
WOF is there absolute minimum standard safety check you have to have on your car to be able to drive, this check up doesn’t contain other important factors you have to have looked up before buying the car.

We found this other Backpacker car lot 40 minutes outside the city.

Pars Auto LTD (Backpacker)
0274726055
www.pars-auto.co.nz
Ahmed who was running the place had a lot of ads up on Trademe.co.nz which seems to be one of the best sites to look online.

He was selling a Toyota Estima 1999 with both WOF and it was registered and it only had 226000km on it!
To convert it to the simplest package, give us all basic camping equipment and change oil, filter and a tire he gave us a very good price, what we could understanding by doing all the research online.
This silver metallic Toyota Estima 1999 with a new WOF and all ready to go, 4000 NZD!
We named this car Gunther!
A turbo disco van pumping bass beats adventuring around New Zealand!
Ahmed is a great guy that will advice you the very best and he will also give you a 2 weeks engine/gearbox guaranty , so if anything goes wrong he will fix it.
I actually looked into the seller and buyer law in NZ, it seems like that is already implemented, as well as the hole car.
If someone sell you something very shitty and you are unknown or it’s something that is very unexpected on the info the seller gave you, then you have the law on your side for within 2 weeks.

If you want to pimp it up and buy some more camping gear I recommend you to go to Warehouse, a great store with a lot of weird stuff for a decent price!

That same second day in Auckland we left the big city for a new adventure to the east coast!

We have now been out for about a week traveling in this beautiful and amazing way.
This is the way to see a country!
Every day is a bliss, this might be the most beautiful country I’ve been to!
The diversity of nature and the cows and sheep that covers the hills, the fantastic bay’s that all of them have their own amazing white sand beach.

It is truly that country where you get all four seasons in one day!
We have encountered a few problems, one of which we had to change name of our camper van, to Dirty Gunther.
But now our little disco boy is fixed again, it’s was a minor problem but he is running like ever before!

The internet connection here can be a bit out of reach, so it’s really hard to blog here.
At the same time my mind is running on full speed to analyze all the beautiful information I get every day from this country, so some days it feels like I am super busy enjoying so no time for blogging.
But I will do my best, because I really enjoy telling my stories, write, helping people with their adventure and at the same time I’m writing my own diary!

One thing!
Buy your surfboard before you hit the road.
We though renting would be available all over, but it’s not!
So make sure you do this before you start the adventure, if it’s your thing of course!

Need a phone number and some internet on you smartphone?
I found Vodaphone to be best, or at least to have the best deal for travelers that need internet data.
49NZD for 3Gb and it lasts 2 months.

I’ll hit you up with some more dope information about traveling!

26 Jan 2016

The meaning of life is to give life a meaning.
Pretty much spot on what we were doing in Indonesia.
The last week we decided to leave the peaceful environment of Ubud which we went back to after spending 2 days on Gili Trawangan, right after the Komodo island boat trip!

Gili Trawangan is truly an amazing island, what a paradise!
The first time I was there was 7 years ago, and at that point they just had a few dive shops and restaurants spread out over the island, mostly at the main side where the boats will drop you off!

Second time was 5 years ago.
It was still this tiny little “hidden” gem in Indonesia, sure a big part of the backpackers that visit Indonesia visit this island, but still every time I went there it had this “hidden gem” feeling.
There are no vehicles on it, only horse and carriage! So awesome.

This time though Gili Trawangan had changed into this, the number two tourist spot to visit in Indonesia, and maybe now number one place to party at!
Restaurants all over, side by side along the whole strip, the whole side of the island is one big party.
It is still very beautiful for sure, but what a change in a few years!

They even have a Billabong store on the island which is a big sign of tourism boom!

The famous bar, Rudy’s Bar, where people from all over the world come to try his small,medium or strong magic mushroom shakes that would give you a – one way ticket to the moon.
Signs outside the bar saying – Bloody fucking fresh magic mushrooms that will take you to the moon.
This place had like 4 huts on the beach and they were playing some chill reggae and ambient music, such a cool place!

Now this place has turned into a massive party place, a 2 floor rock bar with a massive dance floor on the other side of the road.
The vibe is all gone, now it’s called New Rudy’s, and it’s all about getting people wasted and fucked up on booze instead.
The new manager still sells those Happy shakes though!

There are a few cool places on the island for sure, if you like to party hard and don’t mind the tourist crowd then make sure you visit this place!

There’s a few spot for some average scuba diving around the island!

I think Gili Air is the island where you will find that same old vibe that Gili Trawangan once had!

The Boat trip from Ubud to Gili Trawangan will cost you about 500.000rps/person (If you are 2 people), the shuttle to Padang bai and from there a small ferry to Gillis.
Make sure you take a seat on the sundeck, the guys will serve you beer and play music!

On the 14^th we met up with a bunch of super rad friends in Ubud, stayed there until the 16^th and then took the same ferry but this time all the way to Sengiggi on Lombok. This time we were 6 so we only paid 350.000rps/person!
It takes about 1.5 hours to get to Lombok.
For most of this boat trip we had incredible weather!
An elite super group of amazing people rocking the boat with pumping music and a bunch of cold Bintangs, doesn’t get better than that, life is beautiful!
The results of life become a bliss when you put together love of friends, weirdness, laughs and Bintangs on a journey in a foreign country!

Even though the last 20 minutes of the boat ride was pouring rain, the sky was fully open and it was almost a bit painful to stick your head up in the open to meet the super fast rain drops with your face.
Nothing could stop that awesomeness!

From Sengiggi to Kuta Lombok where we were going it takes about 1.5 hours, a taxi will cost you about 450.000 rupees.
You can probably get it way cheaper, but we were in need and they saw that.
All of us were coming in hot, dripping wet and eager to get to Kuta.
If you can’t keep your poker face you pay the price, but hey didn’t matter we paid about 10 USD per person so no worries.

We got to Kuta Lombok and checked in at Surfers Inn, we grabbed their simple fan room for 190.000 rupees which included a breakfast of choice, the normal choices here are pancakes or toast and omelet with tea or coffee, perfect!
The special thing with this place is the pool and the location, it’s right on the beach, well you have to cross a road first but hey close enough.

We totally forgot where we stayed 5 years ago, but realized pretty fast that this was the one!

Kuta is all about the surf and that’s why we went back there!
You got many different locations in this area, so best way to get around is to rent a scooter with a surfboard rack so you can go from one place to another.

Desert point is the most famous one, indeed one of the longest makeable left hand barrels on the planet with over 20 seconds of tube time possible on one wave! Insane!

In Gerupuk bay you will find 3 different breaks, inside and outside Gerupuk, and the furthest inside the bay is Don Don.
All of them awesome breaks, but very dependent on swell and tide.
You take a boat out to these places and the boat captain will stay there with you for about 2 hours, that price will land about 50 000 rupees per person, would say about 150 000 if you are by yourself.

This time down here we didn’t manage to catch a single wave, we totally missed the swell!
A few days before we came there had been amazing surf.

We went out and had a look at Gerupuk, but it showed no sign of anything surfable.
Maui is another surf place which is a few bays away from Kuta.
It about a 30 minute drive with a motorbike.
It’s a great way to see a small part of Lombok, rice paddies and the mountains that cover this part of the island.
Not even Maui gave us any surf, too bad, but that’s how nature works.
But just standing on that beach in that beautiful bay looking out over the ocean I could imagine how good the waves could be.
It’s an incredible experience to just drive around with a bunch of mates, looking for a surfable wave.
Fun times.

We found a few great party’s in Kuta, that kept you going until early morning!
The coolest place was for sure Surfers Bar, not sure if that’s the name, but follow that sign and you will at least get to that area, you will not miss it!
A massive vessel that seemed to not have seen shore, and just smashed right up the beach!
Next to it you have a tiny little bar ran by a bunch of cool Indonesian people all with an Australian accent.
Sweet ambience with chill dim colorful lightings set up all around the “dance floor”
The beach is your dance floor!

We went a bit crazy there one of the days and jumped up on that big boat and made a party up there!
To get up to the boat you got to jump up and grab the side of the boat and drag yourself up, it was about 4 meters up!
The vessel has like 3 floors!

Our friend that is a professional Hula hooper brought her laser LED super Hula hoop that you can program into many different color patterns!
Actually two of our friends are professional dancers, so they pimped up the boat with their magical dancing skills and spraying colors and patterns all over the beach, it looked amazing! Unreal!

Even though there was no surf we still had a great time in Kuta. Cruising around on your motorbike and experiencing the scenery and the beaches is top notch, just the hope of finding a wave to surf is exhilarating and the night time partying is a lot of fun!

Remember to always take pictures of the bikes you are renting, some of these bike dealers live on scamming you, so just to be sure of what was there and what was not.
This saved us even this time!

After that we went back up to Sengiggi, we were about to celebrate a birthday!
The princess herself had found us an amazing mansion up in the mountains, with an infinity pool overlooking the bay and Gili islands.

A 2 floor house with everything you want in it, we had two guys making breakfast for us and made sure we had a great time and we even had our own driver!
Our bed room had a super awesome view, overlooking the pool and the whole gorgeous Sengiggi bay!
Pretty much all of the rooms had this view, so we were all living like kings and queens.

The celebration was awesome and the princess was satisfied!
We all had such an amazing time enjoying that view and all those sunsets that were going on forever!
Birthday cake and tequila, made us go loco!
The girls got pink flowers in their hair, it was like a dream!

This is the way of doing life, the meaning of life is to give life a meaning.
I’m so grateful to have such amazing and beautiful people in my life, to take action and be a part of it is up to each one of us.
To find the raddest you got to let loose, be yourself, be weird and spread love.
It’s all about connection.
Rad = Rad.

Thank you Indonesia for an incredible experience!

We arrived in New Zealand on the 22^nd January and now we have reached Auckland.
I just bought my first car ever, and this beauty is going to take us on an epic journey through the land of the Hobbits.
This camper van is under construction now, we are pimpin’ it up!
Lounge, double bed, small kitchen and an outdoor rave area.

We will hit the roads tomorrow! Super stoked!

14 Jan 2016

After an amazing 4 days boat trip we arrived at Labuan Bajo in Flores.
We started on Gili Trawangan, where we found a travel agency that promoted trips for a company named Wanua Adventures.

Erin had done some research on them in beforehand and they had decent reviews.
They are not great in promoting these trips, they all show the same bad pictures and say the same things, if you ask about weather conditions they all say the same, – yeah yeah I think it will be good, but we can never promise.

I did this trip 7 years ago, and it was one of the best trips in my life.
The boat I went with back then looked similar as the ones Wanua Adventures have, it might be the same!

Many people are complaining over weather conditions during these trips, I don’t know if they are very sensitive and scared for open sea and some “bigger” waves, or if their weather conditions were actually really bad.
I’ve heard a few ones have had shitty trips because of the weather, were they have to dock to shore and just wait it out, some of them have not even been able to go for the snorkeling.

But I think that if you avoid the rain season, and try to overlook the weather situations earlier and the forecasts around the time you will be going, you’ll be fine.
You will experience the rough seas at night, but hopefully nothing major.
The wind will pick up during night time and the boat will be rocking.

For me this is just a great thing, I sleep like a baby!
When you wake up , just before sunrise, the weather will be extraordinary with clear blue skies and the sun will fill it with its beautiful different colored rays!

The first night we had a few hours of rough sea and some rain, so people were a bit scared.
I woke up when the crew closed all the windows, and I woke up again when Erin was scared that the water was coming in where we were sleeping so she had a super bright flash light pointed on the floor and in my face.

We all survived, I woke up super energized with one of the best sleeps ever.
Just got a bit annoyed when I realized that the storm had taken my 100 dollars surf shorts I bought in Portugal last year!
But I didn’t let that ruin my day.

The first day we just stopped at a place outside Lombok were we could swim and enjoy some sun.
Perfect weather, around 35C .
The water here is bright green, and it’s very clear, around 20 meters of visibility!

Remember to bring a rash guard to protect your body against all jellyfish.
You also need it for all the stinging micro aquatic life like plankton, you will enjoy both swimming and snorkeling way more if you have this!

We were very lucky with this trip, because we were only around 20 people on board including the crew!
Sometimes there can be up to 40, I would not enjoy that at all!
The crew was a fun group of guys, all of them joking around making the trip more fun for everyone.

The food on board was awesome, the most of the trip it very tasty vegetarian food.
Sauteed water spinach, mixed vegetables noodles , nasi goreng and many other vegetables fried or boiled in different flavorful sauces.
The last day they bought fresh calamari from some fishermen we meet at a beach we stopped at for snorkeling.
They made a very good dish from that!

Coffee and tea are available at all times!

When just sitting on the boat looking out on the ocean, you see a lot of wildlife.
Dolphins and mantas breaching the surface and we even got to see a massive whale coming up a bit away from the boat, it had the same size as the blue whales in Sri Lanka, but no one could confirm what it was.
It is truly an amazing experience to just sit on a slow boat and watch the nature do its thing, you feel so at peace and align with everything.
One big Marlin was curious and came up next to the boat! So cool.

The landscape around here is incredible.
You got the volcano islands, all inactive since way back.
They are all covered in green vegetation, you got the jungle below the peaks, but also on the actual volcanoes you got a few trees growing randomly, it is beautiful!

Around the big islands etc Sumbawa and Banta, there are many small islands.
Small paradise islands which have its own beautiful beach, and of course they all got its own little peak, it looks like the islands have their own volcanoes.
It is amazing to see the result of natures creation!

We stopped at Gili Laba to hike to the peak there , an amazing 360 degree view point overlooking the whole islands and many distant beautiful volcano islands!
It takes about 20 minutes to hike up there, but it’s worth it.
You do it early morning so if you are fast enough you can catch the sunrise!
Overlooking the bay on Gili Laba is also a very beautiful sight.

The snorkeling here is amazing, a bit further out away from the beach the condition of the reef is super.
It’s like being in a massive aquarium with the most colorful fish you can think of, all of the colors!
I saw one turtles which I tried to get closer to.
So I dove down to about 5 meters where the turtle were hanging out and had my GoPro ready to roll.

They are one of my favorite animals to be around, I was just a meter above it, floating there and the turtle didn’t seem to bother.
It’s always an incredible experience.
After a half a minute I went up to the surface to grasp some air.
Looked down fast to keep track of it, but then instead of one turtle I started to see more turtles, there was 4 of them swimming around, it was a turtle playground!
So awesome!
Snorkeling around there I also got to see two really big Cuttle fish showing off, changing colors and patterns to camouflage themselves.
So cool!

We made about 6 stops on the way to Komodo island, all of them were really great spots for snorkeling and just hanging out on the beautiful beaches.

We visited a waterfall on Sumbawa, which was really nice to jump in, so fresh!
Snorkeling and hiking on Gili Laba and Santonda island, where you can also visit the salt water lake.
We hiked up to a view point so we could see this lake from above, stunning view!
One cool spot we got to was Pink beach, a beautiful beach protected from all the massive currents.
You can see red/pink fragments in the ripples on the bottom if you look beneath the surface.
A very beautiful place!

Every day was a great day with many amazing adventures on the menu.

This ocean is really amazing.
You have pretty much the strongest ocean currents in the world here, and you can see that on the surface.
There are twirls everywhere you look.
The tide is so strong so you can see that the north surface is higher then the south, depending on tide.
Super cool, a bit scary at the same time!

These trips seems to be safe going on, the crew don’t push the boat too much and they know when the waves or currents are to strong and the weather is too bad to continue.
You got life jackets and rafts on the boat.

Finally at Komodo islands and Rinca!
You do around an hour of hiking on each island.

It’s always scary to not know what can lurk in the bushes , these komodos are massive, around 3 meters and 100kilos!
They can also run up to 17km/h which is pretty damn fast!

When you see them, you realize that dragons once existed.

On Komodo island it’s more commercialized , the komodos you get to see are basically feed to be able for the tourists to see.
They are still very dangerous though!
Their saliva contains about 6 million bacteria, so if you get bitten you will not be far away from death if you don’t get the “cure” fast enough.

The only thing the rangers can protect you with as a long stick that they can try to push in the neck of the 100 kg komodo and hope that it will give you enough time to run away.
Komodo island is a very big island so that’s way they have feed some of the komodos and placed certain water holes for them to go to so all tourists can see them.

On Rinca it feels way more authentic, here you do a way nicer hike.
This island is way smaller so you get to see more of them, not as big though, but still big enough for you to get scared!
It’s an amazing experience to get face to face with these vicious animals, this is the only place on earth you can see them in the wild.

Around 4pm on the last day you will arrive at Labuan Bajo in Flores, the end destination for the boat trip.

Everyone are satisfied with everything.
The whole experience have been a bliss, this was my second time doing this one but 7 years later and it is still and amazing experience.

Everything in this trip are included, 3 meals a day, unlimited with tea and coffee, snorkeling equipment, beds , pillows and blankets and all the park fees are in the price!
We paid 1.500.000 IDR which is about 110 USD for an incredible 4 day experience!

In Labuan Bajo we stayed two nights, while you are here and you are into scuba diving you have do it!
You need a bit more experience to do these dives, the currents are very strong!

The marine life here are extraordinary, amazing reefs of both soft and hard corals.
At manta point we got surrounded by 15 mantas! Wowzer.
Turtles, sharks, mantas, frogfish, sweet lips and what not.
We spent 3 hours under the surface, 3 different dive sites.
I was not even tired after that.

So excited over the whole experience!

This day trip with 3 dives + great quality equipment, food, water and coffee included for a price at 1.200.000 IDR, 90 USD.

I have said it before and I will say it again, I love Indonesia!

From Labuan Bajo we took a flight this morning , 900 000 IDR with Wings airline to Den pasar Bali.
You are only allowed to have 10 kg as checked in luggage so be prepared to pay extra, but only 1 USD per kilo.

Now in Ubud for two nights before heading to Lombok for the surf!

Life is great.

8 Jan 2016

When we took off from Colombo Sri Lanka, we got reminded why this flight was so cheap.
Flying with Air Asia, is not the best experience but it’s for sure a cheap one.
The flight to Den Pasar in Bali was just a 3 hours one, so with no leg space, no TV screen and no free food or drinks, then it works.
We slept the most of the time so thank my ability to sleep anytime anywhere if I want, great job Monkey.

Landed at the airport in Bali, Indonesia and everything went smooth.
Having a Swedish and Canadian passport is great, no need to pay for the visa, it’s powerful papers right there!

Instead of staying in the horrible Kuta area, which is the most common thing to do for first timers, we took a taxi to Ubud.
Both of us have been here a few times before so we know how it works and where to go, even do a lot of things have changed since last time!
For 300 000 rupees you get all the way to Ubud, it’s about 1.5 hours.

We found this place on Hanoman street, one of the main ones that runs through Ubud, a place named Dewa Bungalows.
We felt we wanted a pool because this place is inland so in this heat and for some more relaxation that was a priority.
350 000 rupees a night, for a great room with 3 beds, one double and one single, Aircon and a big balcony overlooking the really nice pool!

All these places in Ubud are amazing with the special Balinese Architecture.
Hindu statues all over, narrow paths that reach the rooms, restaurant and the pool.
The roofs are all tiles , steep and rounded up to end at a pointy peak.

Walls around the bungalows and pools are all made of stones and tiles, looks amazing!

At night time they were playing these Balinese instruments, some kind of drums that makes a very soothing sound and the melodies they play are different, very relaxing.

Ubud offers a lot of the Balinese culture, it’s such a peaceful place, probably the best place to be healthy and relax at.

With all its amazing vegan and vegetarian restaurants, you can get healthy and very tasty food, an average of 3 USD per meal per person.
We tried one called Veggie Table which is a super nice little restaurant along Hanoman street.
Seems to be quite popular, an that’s not a surprise.

Their coconut tofu curry have a really intense flavor, it’s a bit different from the thai.
In this one they fresh up the curry with some lemon grass!
I ordered some extra spicy chili one the side to spice it up.
An amazing dish!
The service here are also very good, the girls that work there are happy to serve you and make sure your experience there is top notch.

I’ve been in Ubud before, about 5 years ago, and everything was so different.
It’s growing and getting way more tourism .
But if you stay on the bit of the “outskirt” of the city center you will get to experience more of the authentic Balinese culture! It’s amazing.

The best experience I’ve had was this time, we found out about this place Yoga Barn.
It’s a big Yoga, meditation, be healthy and live healthy retreat on an absolute remarkable land!
How they set up the place with its restaurant, yoga studios, juice bar and various of platforms for different purposes are incredible.

It’s all situated on different spots scattered all over the area in this “jungle”, wisely chosen to fit the best purpose.
All on different levels, low and high.
Wooden platforms on the ground and built up platforms in the sky.
Stairs from the restaurant lead you down to the yoga area.

Above the platform on the ground you have triangle shaped nets hanging from palm tree to palm tree to block the strongest rays from the sun, looks very cool!

Here you can stay and live on the grounds doing courses in many different kind of yoga, mediation and a big variety of alternative therapies.

The first time we tried a 1.5 hours of Vinyasa Yoga which movement is synchronized to the breath, is a term that covers a broad range of yoga classes. This style is sometimes also called flow yoga, because of the smooth way that the poses run together and become like a dance. The breath acts as an anchor to the movement as you to flow from one pose to the next in time with an inhale or an exhale.
Which was a bit harder because of the more advance poses, like headstands.
Felt great after the session and the next day my shoulders was sore, great work out!

In the restaurant they also sell tasty treats, Raw treats! So when we were done we tried the carrot cake and one chocolate bar that looks like a Nanaimo bar, but the first layer was some kind of mint and then a thick layer of raw dark chocolate , delicious!

The day after we did a morning session, a wake up yoga that makes your body energized.
Also movement is synchronized to the breath, but way more simple stretching and here you get more of a static workout, sweat way more!
You also got more meditation practice in this one.
Hatha Yoga.

Felt very awesome after that!

My absolute favorite massage is the Balinese massage!
Its a mixture of Thai, with some of the dry pressure massage and minor bending, but this one have way more of the oil relaxing massage! Its fantastic!
3 Point is the name of the place, healing spa & beauty salon.
The ambience there is perfect ! Great comfortable beds, with nice dim lighting and very nice soothing music.
Your comfort and enjoyment seems to be their priority.

We packed up and left Ubud around 11:30am, on our way to Gili Trawangan!

Love Ubud!

It takes about 1.5 hours to get down to Padang bai, the pier.
There we had to wait almost two hours before getting on board.
A small fastboat with around 60 people.
We sat on deck, where one of the guys that works on the boat had set up his own sound system, and sold Bintang!
So the one hour boat ride to Gili Trawangan was awesome.

Arrived yesterday to this gorgeous paradise island, enjoying life!

6 Jan 2016

Sri Lankas main tourist destination Hikkaduwa

On the 27th December we checked in at Sweden Inn Guesthouse.
I had nothing to do with this booking, Erin made all the research and just found this one to have great reviews and it was close to the main beach “Long beach”.
Because new years was coming up we felt like we could pay some extra, celebration time!
For this room on the top floor with a balcony, comfortable double bed , hot water and air condition we paid 40 USD a night.
(The fan room 30USD)

The lady that runs the place is such a happy soul, you just can’t stop smiling when you see her.
She will make sure you will have a great stay!

Ask her about breakfast, and she might wake up earlier to make it for you.
She made us a Sri Lankan one with string hoppers, coconut sambal, fried eggs and a curry for us one morning, free of charge!
A very nice place and the family that owns the place are awesome.

Narigama beach is a long beautiful white sand beach, and Sweden Inn Guesthouse not even 100 meters away, you just have to cross the main road that goes through Hikkaduwa
Watch out for those buses , there’s no other country that I’ve been to where the bus drivers are such maniacs.
They are nuts!

Along the whole beach you got restaurants, bars and surf shops.
A few of them serve great food, don’t believe in the pictures.
They serve all kinds of food, international and Sri Lankan.

The food we liked down at the beach was the curries , seafood and we found one place where they had really good pizza, got surprised over the thin crust and well spiced!

It’s awesome to sit down at the beach and enjoy a great dinner and watch the beautiful sunset, Funky De Bar might be the best place to do this!
Which is just inside the “Main Reef”, the most famous surf spot on the beach!
This is the place that many people come to enjoy the sunset, but later on it’s also the main hub for partying
On Thursday they throw their main parties!
They also serve the best Sri Lankan curry on the beach! Delicious.

Another place we liked to hang out at was “Top Secret”.
Situated on the beach, but one big area was filled in colorful cushions and pillows for you to crash in, and maybe enjoy an ice cold Lion beer.
Each table had its own little chill area.
You are lucky if you find a super cold beer on this beach!
This place seemed to have good food, we just tried the Avocado salad which was great.

The prices on the beach is about the same for all restaurants, 400 for a vegetable rice/noodles, 500 for a salad, 800 for the curry, 1200 rupees for a pizza and then the seafood goes up from there, A lobster meal for around 2500 rupees (17USD)
Around 350 rupees for a large Lion.

The better food seems to be up at the main street, and it’s cheaper.
Try the smaller food shacks, there you get the best value for the money, and it feels more authentic, home cooked.
The curries you can get for around 400 rupees (2.5USD), contains 3-4 different curries and rice, sometimes they give you papadum to it.
It’s great!

When it comes to surfing there’s many different surf shops, they offer lessons and board rentals.
Some of them offer very shitty surfboards, poorly repaired and not taken care of.
Take a look at a few shops and see what they have to offer, make sure the fins on the boards are tight, if you lose one you might have to end up paying 1500 rupees.

We rented from the Why Not bars surf shop the whole time, 800 rupees a day.
These guys were really nice and they took care of their boards and customers!
You could come in and change board anytime during the day!

When we first arrived the waves were pretty big, way over head!
We started out at the “Middle Reef” which is a bit to the left of Main.
All these places are pretty shallow, so remember to protect you head.
If you do not get up fast and there’s a big wave it will swallow you, spit you out and make you eat sand.

The main reef is way more consistent, but its way shallower.
But that wave is really nice, a long one!
It breaks in the middle, it doesn’t matter of you are right or left, you still get to ride a great crumbling wave!

We really enjoyed the first days of surfing, when the swell was big!
Every morning and afternoon!
Hikkaduwa offers great surfing, for both intermediate and beginners, but the only bad thing about this surf here, is how crowded it is.
It’s people everywhere!

Early morning and late afternoon seemed to be best, but sometimes even in the middle of the day, when people don’t want to be out in the scorching sun!

I had my first real yoga experience in Hikkaduwa!
There’s this elder British man that offers old school yoga on a rooftop (with a roof) twice a day!

I thought the yoga session would be a nice relaxing, a bit of bending and get the pulse up a bit!

This dude had spent 35 years in an ashram in India, learning everything about the old school yoga, basically what yoga was before it got commercialized.
Double, triple spine twisting turbo leg above your head while lifting the other leg or something.
It was hard!
Even people that were experienced in yoga were sweating balls, and most of us were just shaking our heads to all the amazing things he managed to do with his body.
This guy was breathing yoga and the way he talked was hypnotizing, incredible.

On our second session after new years, he told us that his new years resolution was to practice yoga every day this year, last year he missed 4 days, because two of the days he was traveling by air, and the others he was to lazy, – the pillow won that fight those days, he said.

This yoga was even that hard so one of the students passed out while doing one of these super hard poses, she hit her head on the concrete floor and was unconscious for a while.
When waking up she didn’t remember what happened.
I was running around on the street trying to get in hold of a hospital to send an ambulance, but in some weird fcked up way it seemed like no one knew where to call.
After a while she seemed to clear up and seemed to be fine.
The yoga teacher made sure she was fine.

That was the second crazy thing that happened for us in the beginning of this new year 2016!

Earlier that day we went scuba diving with Poseidon Divers.
Welcomed by a bunch of super happy guys working there.
We choose our gear and got ready for the briefing.
We were going to dive The Conch, a big wreck that lays at around 20 meters.
Everything seemed pretty professional , and the equipment had great standards!

In the boat we were around 20 people, a pretty small boat.
Two long tail boats built into a wider catamaran, a construction that looks great , but how the dynamic works actually makes no sense.
This boat funnels in water and throw it out in the back!

Everyone was in the boat, still just on the shore.
Smaller waves were coming in, and you usually wait for the set of waves to be over and then you trying to go threw everything before a new set comes in.
But these guys didn’t have time to wait so they tried to pin right through all the waves which ended with a boat taking in water!

The boat just funneled in all the waters from the wave and the boat dug deeper down below the surface.
The captain didn’t stop there, he just continued and hoped for the best.
All the water that came in and swept away some of our equipment, water bottles and other stuff!
One guys camera went with the water.
4 guys in the front panicked and jumped of the boat, it looked like one of the guys went under the boat!
I was just thinking that I didn’t want to see what was about to happen here!
The propeller could have sliced him up.
Fortunately he didn’t go all the way under!

Finally we stopped and everyone got in the back of the boat, and the boats front came up above surface.

Another boat came for the other guys in the water, picked them up and gave us the equipment they could find in the water and they gave us new stuff whatever was needed.
What a gong show!

Everyone was fine, a bit shocked over the accident and no one really understood how bad it could have gone.

We continued out to the dive site and did the wreck dive, nothing special but it was nice to be down below surface again!
What a trip!
A weird way to start 2016!

New years eve was fun but mellow, we celebrated it at Funky de bar but went to bed pretty early.
The party scene and the music is not my kind of vibe.
It’s a great place to meet people and go rowdy at.

I prefer more “underground” party’s , which is a bit hidden from the normal tourist crowd and they play more progressive deep tech house with some wicked jungle rhythm unique for the place!
A place where it feels like you got to know almost everyone from the first minute you got there, like it was a “music tribe” welcoming you to the party.

I prefer the partying in Merissa!

This is more like one of those parties you get really wasted at, meet other super drunk people and have fucked up conversations with and don’t remember anything from it.
No one is interested in the music, it’s just all about bringing the bass and a hard trance melody and people go nuts to whatever comes out from the speakers!

It is for sure a great time if you are a bit younger and single.
The music is progressive so once you get drunk you get into it!
Headbang, splash your sweat and go rowdy!

Maybe if you are a European that goes to Ayia Napa or Malaga, or an American that goes to Spring break, then this party scene might be something for you.
It’s a commercial music scene.

Hikkaduwa is a great tourist place where you will find nice restaurants, many different cool bars, it’s a beautiful beach, the surf is great but can be crowded and you got some average scuba diving around!

If you want to go for excursions there are many places to go to around that is close by, just rent a motorbike for the day, 1200 rupees.

(Aloe vera field)

I really love Sri Lanka!
It’s a beautiful country with an amazing culture.
The people here are what amaze me the most, they are so friendly and helpful.
Where ever you go you will get help and you will feel very welcome!
You got the nature and hiking, wild life and safari, scuba diving, surfing, extraordinary beaches and the food here is awesome!
I spent about 1300 USD in 3 weeks here, which makes this country one of the cheapest countries I’ve been traveling in.

We will definitely be back!