NO for Bali beaches, YES for balinese villages!

This was my second time in Bali and I only made sure that Ubud it is ! Bali for me it is not about the beach, water and sand at all ! The colour of the water is nothing special, sand even in the sun looks very grey and the overall view reminds me of many other beaches I have already seen.

Bali has something very special though, that makes me dream of going back there… What makes it special is the central part of Bali- Ubud and resorts deep in among villages! What I love in this place is the magical, artistic and real village feeling. I can enjoy night life in Seminyak, going to Potato Head for drinks and to restaurants like Merah Putih for dinner maximum 2 days, but to really feel the Indonesian vibes and exotic atmosphere I need to stay in Ubud.

What I really love about Ubud is the rice fields around, clean villages, people walking in traditional clothes, small shops with local stuff, a lot of palm trees, saturated colours and a lot of spirituality ! This is what you can’t really find in Kuta, Seminyak or other parts of Bali I have been to. Ubud is full of yoga places, small restaurants with rice field views, people drawing and painting all days on the street (selling their art for small money), many temples, offerings on the streets, real houses and delicious food !

It’s the first time since a long while when I really wish to settle in one of those two places I stayed for the last few days. I have real motivation now to work hard on my startup to move myself to one of those villas with a private pool in the jungle and find real happiness there. Maybe the ghost of Bali, that makes you always return there, exists for real… ?

                comfy travelling

                              Merah Putih

          balinese massage it is !

                   Uma by Como

                           Uma by Como

                            Uma by Como

                       rice field

                  social smoker

                     breakfast !

                            Uma by Como

 

 

   

                        tea time! 

  

                   local house, real village

  

                           Indonesian taste

                      Kecak Fire & Trance

                      Kecak Fire & Trance

          The Lokha Ubud Resort

         morning view from private pool villa

                   The Lokha Ubud Resort

          Uma by Como- outdoor bathroom

  

8 Things I Will Remember About Vietnam

I just spent 2 days in Saigon with a friend of mine and I have mixed feelings about this city and culture. This was definitely something cool, not beautiful though. I spent a day in the city- Ho Chi Minh (old school name – Saigon), sightseeing, eating, and taking pics. Since the city isn’t full of attractions and places to see, for the next day we decided to buy one day trip on the Mekong river cruise. The prices of the same trip were different in every travel agency so we spent one evening to check them out and make a wise decision. We discovered that the only difference between them is the size and choice of lunch. The trip is definitely a must do in Vietnam. Although everything is very touristy and not well organised it is a very convenient way see the Mekong river and imagine their daily life.

 

  

After this trip – 1 day in the city and one day on this river trip I will share below 8 things that from now are very characteristic for me about Vietnam.

1. Motorbikes and… beeeeep!

Motorbikes are everywhere and they take half of the roads (not the small part of it as everywhere), they drive on the sidewalk, streets, against the stream and make “beep” every single second ! Basically it’s a very characteristic sound of the city and you can hear it even during the night. It comes from motorbikes, cars, buses and everything that goes on the streets. Easy to get used to though.

2. Robbery

Fortunately I haven’t been robbed in Vietnam, nor my friend, but we have got warned plenty of times that we need to be careful with our phones, bags and wallets! We met some people that experienced those incidents on their own and even local people were asking us to hide our phones and be extra careful while taking pics, because motorbikes tend to snatch the phones from tourists’ hands! While taking pics I was holding my phone with two hands and kept my bag very close to my body.

3. Small chairs

This was a very funny part that we could see in every restaurant, bar, pub and just on the streets! Plastic chairs are mini size and look like furnitures for children! People sit on them taking rest on the street, but they put them also to the restos so you can experience this “luxury”.

4. Cheap alcohol!

That’s my favourite thing about Vietnam especially after Malaysia, beer in bar for less than 1 $ make an amazing impression! Drinks are more expensive than beer, very light and usually full of ants ! That’s why after our discovery we sticked to clean, fresh opened beers in cans or bottles. You can have local red or green “Saigon” beer or “Tiger” at the same price. I am not a whizz at beers, so for me both were ok and quenches thirst perfectly. Bars are usually very local (hard to find fancy places in Saigon) and most of them are located in Backpackers Street.

5. Mess and lovely chaos

This city is really, really dirty. Drones are full of rubbish, the backpackers street is very chaotic and litter lies everywhere. But it has kind of atmosphere that makes this city wild and real.

6. So touristy

This part was very surprising for me! I thought Vietnam is still fresh and tourist- resistant, but a lot of places show you the prices in dollars (they have their own currency – Vietnamese Dong), they grab your hands to convince you to come to their bar, they speak ok english and try to sell you everything (from tissues, to lotus seeds, very cheap cigarettes to… marihuana!). They seem to be annoyed by tourists, but don’t try to trick you, although they ask for tips for everything.

    

 

7. Cheap manicure

You can find manicure, pedicure from 2 dollars ! They make it everywhere, in small art galleries or just the beauty salon. I can’t say the quality is very high but for this price is definitely worth to try! I paid for mani and pedi with OPI products 7 dollars and for foot massage 4 dollars.

8. Amazing food

I can say that I love Vietnamese food ! I haven’t tried much, because I spent only 48 hours there but spring rolls, fish and baguettes (thanks to the French!) are amazing ! So light, fresh and yummy ! Food isn’t spicy, which is quite surprising in Asia and it’s very cheap ! There are lots of veggies, tofu but also many meat dishes like turtles and crocodile. I tried the last one and it tastes like chewy chicken. I also love fruits and fruit shakes there. They are very juicy, sweet and natural, because they don’t add sugar for everything unlike Thailand. If I could stay there few days more, I would definitely devote this time for eating!

I am glad I used one of my last free weekends ( before launching my billion dollar application :D) to go to Vietnam! It is definitely worth to go there and experience it on my own but I am not sure about going back there. If I will, I will discover Hanoi next time!

My first photo shoot – “Fever Pitch “

I just had the pleasure to be a “model” for HappyFingers in KL. It was worth to wake up at 6am on Saturday to experience so much fun for the whole morning. I even skipped a party the night before to avoid the Zombie look and that was probably a very good idea, because what I discovered after all, was that the photographer doesn’t edit pictures much (unlike Instagrammers). The atmosphere during the “Fever Pitch” session was so natural and comfy that I would probably choose it as my favourite one. In the next posts I will publish “Coffee in the City” and “Street Forward” photo shoots.

Sushi, hot yoga and Easter dinner

I just experienced my first Easter in Malaysia in very non-traditional way. Usually I kinda fast on Saturday eating mostly bread and dairy products, paint eggs on Saturday before noon, bring an Easter basket to Church to bless it and finally have the main celebration on Sunday morning over Easter breakfast. The atmosphere is magical, it is usually early spring with chilly weather, all shops are closed and I spend all day at home, appreciating quality time with my family.

Malaysia as a muslim country doesn’t celebrate Easter, although in some european shops you can find chocolate bunnies, filled eggs and some decorations (mostly for commercial reasons) but I haven’t found special paints to colour the eggs and some ingredients to prepare traditional food.

I wanted to implement a few traditions into my asian life but I have to admit that I kinda failed. I cooked eggs but made them with soy sauce and wasabi, I painted them but on Saturday night with oil paints, I had few almost- Easter dishes but celebrated and ate them on Sunday night… I was fasting avoiding meat, but instead of bread I have eaten sushi and when normally I spend time in the kitchen I was stretching myself on hot yoga. Sunday afternoon I spent shopping ( enjoying mid season sales) and working. And instead of trying to catch first rays of the spring sun, I was hiding myself in AC to rest from the heat and sun.

Can’t say that I felt the magical atmosphere of Easter but for sure I have checked a few traditional rituals and have learned an important lesson to organize myself better for next year… Or just fly to Poland, visit my family and experience the real magic again.

 

 

 

  

Blind for one hour !

Have you ever imagined how it is to be blind and not be able to see anything? Sounds a bit scary and I was always a bit afraid of thinking about those kind of things, but a long time ago I heard about the restaurant with no lights served by blind people and I was curious to try. This experience is so different that its not easy to describe.

The restaurant “Dinner in the Dark” in KL is very spatial and with a modern, industrial design. When you arrive they explain to you the rules which are basically : full surprise with the menu, you follow all your senses except sight, no light and no cameras inside. At the beginning they prepare you for the main attraction with a little game. First you receive a complimentary drink and your task is to guess the ingredients, then you put the blindfold on and try to find pin clips in the bowl with rice inside. This is to practice manual activities before you won’t see anything. After passing the “test”, the blind waiter picks you up and leads you downstairs to the restaurant.

The first moment of entering the darkness is very uncomfortable and even following a person who knows the place I was scared of walking. You can see literally nothing. The waiter indicates the place to sit holding your hand and after that you need to trust only your intuition and the rest of senses. Every time the waiter comes to serve a dish he is giving the detailed description of the dish’s location and which dish you should start eating first.

The whole dinner contains a few small appetisers, a main course and few small deserts plus drinks. Each dish has a unique, intensive taste and I wonder if this intensity is caused by stronger taste sense (because of lack of sight) or they are just meant to be “sharp”. I was trying to guess the ingredients and imagine how the dishes look like. I am happy that nobody could see anything because my eating style probably looked very primitive (to make sure I didn’t miss any part of the dish or to put the stuff into my mouth many times I needed support of my fingers and… both hands). I am also sure I looked very clumsy and helpless…

The service was very professional, natural and I truly admire their skills and intuition. Their easiness in everything they do makes me feel touched and impressed. Although you can’t see anything and you worry about spilling wine and making your clothes dirty, the experience is amazing and thought – provoking.

The biggest surprise though, comes when you leave the dining part (with the help of the waiter of course) and outside (already with light) they give you the list of the dishes you have just eaten. I won’t let the menu out, so I keep the dishes for myself, but this is definitely the funniest part of the experience. I knew I can be wrong with ingredients, but with the texture ?!

For all people that love new experiences and are empathic I recommend the dinner in the dark to open the mind and appreciate all senses that make life easy, beautiful and colourful.

 

Happy Holi !

On Saturday, the Indian religious festival of ‘Holi’ was celebrated in Kuala Lumpur. The original ancient name is “Holika” but nowadays it can be called the spring or color festival and it is celebrated on the day of the full moon in Phalgun Purnim, which is usually late February or early March. The original and right date in 2015 was 06.03 but many south asian countries celebrate it too choosing different dates. Funny things is that this year KL celebrated the spring festival exactly on the first day of spring in Poland, so I couldn’t miss it!

There is a lot of stories and legends about Holi depending on the region and beliefs. I like especially one about Krishna and his beloved Radha.

Krishna was known as a rebellious and playful young child, having very dark skin and was jealous of the fair complexion of Radha. He found it very unfair and couldn’t understand the reason of difference between the skin colour of Radha and his dark complexion. Trying to solve his problem he complained to his mum Yashoda and she gave him advice to colour the face of Radha using whichever colour he liked. The idea probably wasn’t serious but since Krishna was famous for his naughty nature he applied the colours on Radha to make her similar to himself. I heard there are numerous paintings showing the scene of Krishna painting Radha’s face, but unfortunately I have not seen any yet.

The festival takes place in a Hindu temple where all participants spray colors on each other, splash water, dance, eat and have lots of fun! At the entrance you buy a few dry colour powders that you later use to chase and color other people wishing them ‘happy holi’. The outdoor area of the temple was very crowded, full of different nationalities dancing to commercial and local music. The hot and sunny day made this celebration even more colorful and even lots of powder in my eyes didnt make the event less enjoyable. The enthusiasm dropped a bit after taking shower and realizing that my skin, clothes and hair love the colorful powder so much that don’t want it to go away so the rest of the weekend I spent with pink-yellow-green and purple hair, pink face and rainbow on my belly. Anyway I count holi as a one of the coolest events I have participated in and worth to repeat in one year, but maybe with bandana on my head and low quality clothes 😉

 

10 things that I love and miss about Bangkok- 4# making friends every day!

​My mum always says that you can be in the middle of nowehere and still have an amazing time if you are there with wonderful people. So it is not the place, but people that make your experience memorable. I agree, but I have to admit I was lucky to have both: a fun place and cool people.I appreciate every single person I met here and I have strong emotions thinking of all the moments we have shared. When you have so many things in common, you are all far from home, you have similar goals and ways of spending spare time, the personality is set aside. You make friends with people that you wouldn’t appreciate in your own country. You have a big choice though, because Bangkok has a huge expat community and with a lot of them you have some friends in common or you already met somewhere (most likely on soi 11 ). You can’t get too close with them, otherwise you are going to suffer when they leave. And they will, sooner that you think. Time is flying so quickly in this crazy city that you won’t realize that is a time to say goodbye. You always promise you are going to visit each other and make reunions, then, usually you don’t. This is one of my first times when I believe, that with some of them I really will. If somehow you didn’t meet your mate in Bangkok yet, there are three sure places to make friends, full of backpackers and cool, open-minded people. If you’re looking for company, stay in Kao San Road, the area that never sleeps. An interesting fact about this part of the city is that it’s very hard to find local Thai people. This area is really dominated by tourists and expats, mostly because of the location (it’s quite far and not well connected to the rest of the city). The most central location, but still full of young people is Thonglo or Ekkamai. Here definitely you can meet Thai hipsters but also many expats living in Bangkok. Quite a lot of the more sophisticated places to go out and clubs to discover nightlife are in this area. The third spot to meet people is soi 11. Easy to get to and easy to go crazy, the most famous bar is Cheap Charlie’s with, as indicated by its name, cheap alcohol and a very casual atmosphere. Definitely no awkwardness to talk to strangers there! Besides those places, you have a lot of events, meetup groups, so its actually quite hard to feel lonely in this city 🙂

Kao San Road

The Music Run event

     

 

cheap charlie’s

  

Artsy Penang

After 5 days of cleaning, making lists of things that are missing in the apartment, shopping and unpacking I needed a break and a chance to get familiar with the country that I decided to live in. Last Saturday I decided to go to George Town, Penang, which is famous for food, street art and a magical atmosphere. It is about 4 hours from KL by car and it’s a perfect idea for a weekend getaway. The hotel I stayed was located close to the main attractions and in the UNESCO World Heritage area so it was easy to reach all the pieces of art like street paintings, museums and buildings that you must see in Penang.

Although it was a weekend, the city was quite empty, so I didn’t face any problem with traffic, free tables and waiting in the queues. Maybe this is why also this city seems to be very magical. I was very impressed by the “3D” paintings on the walls, Chinese architecture, colourful temples and little India where I got my Mehndi. I couldn’t stop looking at the Indian lady’s precision and confidence while making a very detailed henna tattoo on my hand. It took her around 30 minutes to make it on one hand and it was supposed to last around 1 week (but after 4 days it stopped looking impressive ).

During my first evening I enjoyed the small night market in Armenian Street, where I fell in love with hand made bracelets, that you could buy for 2,5 euro and add some elements on your own. They say that Penang is a capital city of food in Malaysia. Maybe I am not an expert, but most of those dishes didn’t surprise me and I didn’t taste anything that was absolutely new for me. There was only one thing I was truly amazed by. This dish called laksa and it’s just a fish noodle soup which you can buy everywhere for less than 1 euro. But the sour and spicy taste (less intensive than tom yum though) made me fall in love with this soup and I hope I can find this dish near my home in KL.

On Sunday morning I rented a bicycle to continue sightseeing, observing local life, tasting coffee and trying to stop time. The sunny weather was just perfect for cycling and cumulating energy for the new week and new project. I visited one of the must see places in George Town, which is a large chinese clanhouse Khoo Kongsi, that has been built around 650 years ago. It belongs to the Chinese family that came to Malaysia from South China and nowadays the place is a major tourist attraction and continues to play a supportive role for clan members (education, settling disputes etc). The highly ornamented architecture made a good impression, but the story of smart family members, their activities and achievements impressed me much more.

I have a feeling though, that those 2 days weren’t enough to discover this city well and to find an inspiration, so if I only find another free weekend, I will be definitely back to Penang.

                         Mehndi

            handmade bracelet for 2,5 Euro

               malay wedding

Good morning Malaysia

Finally moved, finally unpacked and finally with Internet! It took me one week to settle here and finally feel I am actually ready for this new adventure. Still can’t get used to freelance working and having time for morning coffee at home, but I suppose this is a part I am going to love the most. As usual, my first week here was all about buying stuff I need for daily life, finding the closest shops and cafes, discovering which elevator to use and on which floor I can find the swimming pool and gym. As you can see I still need to improve my life conditions, but coffee from the floor gives basically the same energy and happiness, so no need to complain.

If you ask me about my first impression about Malaysia I would say it is “something” between Bangkok and Singapore. The streets are clean, but comparing to Bangkok quite empty and without overwhelming amount of street food. People can speak English and seem to be kind and patient. Taxi drivers always turn the taxi meter on! So far I wasn’t even cheated! Food… mm, this is still a thing that Thailand beats all the competitors, but as a fan of all kinds of food I am not going to starve here. I didn’t go out much the past week so I don’t know about the nightlife yet, but KL seems to be more calm and a business oriented city. Which is a very good thing, after one year of craziness in Bangkok! Prices (especially of alcohol) are higher so I am getting back to my European lifestyle… no more coffee for 50 cents, glass of wine for 2,5 euro and manicure for 3 euro. I need to get to know KL better so I will wait with more comparisons till I feel like I am at home, because this city definitely looks like a potential place to live and settle in!

Ps. I will continue my list of things I love about Bangkok soon. Just wanted to report I am finally in KL, all happy and excited.

Thanks to the suggestions of some of my friends, I have changed the platform and the address of my blog. Hope it’s now easier to read and look for information.

Morning coffee and infused water with cinnamon and honey

            coffee preparation

                     breakfast- matcha cake

        burning off matcha cake

                                  relax time

               where I spend my mornings

The Beginning

I heard that a blog is a perfect place to make your memories stay forever. Since my life is full of moments I don’t want to ever forget about, I think it is time to take care of them.

This is a critical moment in my life and year of changes. I will be happy to share it looking for support and motivation.

After one year in Bangkok it is time for the next adventure. In March I am moving to Malaysia to create something big and I am really excited about everything that is new…people, moments and my new favorite places.

I am going to live to the fullest in Bangkok for those last 2 weeks here, so it’s time to flood my new blog!