Erwin and Dorits' Endless Summer

The last 10 days on Hawaii –after Torben left- we stayed in a hotel in Waikiki and finally got our boards out of the bag. The surf wasn’t so good, but after all we had some fun sessions. Two days we hired longboards to do some funky crosstepping and noseriding.

From O’ahu we flew to Los Angeles. We stayed at a cheap hotel in downtown for 5 nights. The city center is full of banks and offices.

The first thing we went to see is a famous stretch of coastline: Venice Beach. In Venice Beach everything happens on the promenade alongside the beach. Artist in a big variaty are proforming ther acts, people move on rollerblades, bikes, skateboards. Most impressing were the rollerblade dancing and high level pool skating.

An other day we went to Santa Monica. Also a famous beachside suburb of L.A. We loved walking through a full and cosy promanade and end up at the famous SantaMonica Pear.

On our last day we checked out Hollywood and Beverly Hills. The clouds were moving in and we just caught a last glimps of the big Hollywood sign higher up in the mountains befor the “curten” closed. The rest of Hollywood isn’t as stylish and neat as it apaers on TV. So we walked a lap over the star covered pavement and took the bus to Beverly Hills. In Beverly Hills we took a strol on Redeo Dive. The street with fashion boutiques way to expansive for our standards, so we enjoyed the sun and a cup of coffee befor we took the bus back to downtown.

Our next flight to Panama was supposed to leave today very early in the morning. At the check in things were going slow and we already heard rumours around us about a cancelled flight. When writing this blog we are still in L.A. and we’ve been taken to a hotel near the airport. So we will fly tonight at 2 am to arrive in Panama tomorrow morning, where we will spend 1 week in Venao before we move to our last destination on this 10 month trip: Santa Catalina. Here we booked a house for 1 month and Philip, Jörn and Eva will join us soon.

While we enjoyed the company of Chris, Tanja, Jaime and Martha during our last month on Bali, after 3 month we were ready for a change. On the 4th of june we flew to Honolulu, Island of Oahu, Hawaii. Our flight took 30 hours including 2 stop overs in Melbourne and Sydney.

The first days we stayed in a hostel in the capital city Honolulu. The first days of our stay we had to get used to the prices, fast food chains on every corner, big cars and everything else America has to offer. One day trip to Waikiki revealed that Hawaii is the most popluar tourist destination for Japanese as there are more Japanese peolpe than anyone else on the street of Waikiki which is very touristy.

We decided that this is nothing for us and went to a surfer hostel on the “North Shore” , famous for its monsterous waves in winter time. In winters it gets very crowded on this prestine stretch of coast line because ‚”Banzai Pipeline”, Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay can produce waves over 20 meters high. Today, in summer though, the wild ocean transforms into a peacefull flat lake. Which is terrific for snorkeling, but not for surfing.

It was a really nice suprice to us that Torben (Dorit’s brother) made a quick decision to come over for a 2 week holiday. We already saw some bits of Oahu so we decided to hop on a plane to an other island after Torbens first 2 days in Waikiki. To our disappointment, there are no ferrys between the Islands, so you have to fly, and there is a no terrific public transport on the Islands itself to travel. So we ended up renting cars.

The 3 of us flew to Hawai’i The Big Island. The biggest one and the most eastern island. It is the newest and the vulcan is still active. It is still erupting and sometimes lava is to be seen. Most of the island is covert with lava rock, which results in a lot of black sand beaches. After a while the ground covers itself with plants and trees again but a big area is still new lava rock. At some places there is even steam coming out of the ground and after sunset you can see a red glow over a big crater. On “The Big Island” is the highest vulcano of the world with over 4000 meters. We violated our car rental contract and reached the summit over a steep dirt road where 4 wheel drive was requierd ;o)

After spending a week in Singapore we came back to Bali. Just a couple of days 3 of our german friends visited us in Kuta. We went surfing in the mornings and sight seeing in the afternoons. Again we visited Tanah Lot Temple with it 5 meter python; went to Ubud; drove past burning pigs which were being prepared for a ceremonial fest and went to the beautiful beach of  Balangan…. of course everywhere on the motorbike.

Erwin..                                            and                          Dorit, enjoying local food.

40 kg… you have to carry with 2 people or you use it as a pillow;…;o)               “Tanah Lot”

In Australia we met Rüdiger in Burleigh and just a couple of weeks ago we saw him again in Kuta. He also had visitors arriving from Germany and it turned out that we all were on same “golflengte/Wellenlänge”….;o) In the water and on land: Tanja, Carina, Erwin, Chris (Aachen), März, Stefan, Rudi (Frankfurt-Darmstadt) and Dorit!

Chris cruising along Jalan Canggu after a morning surf session; Monkey family ; Indonesian kids preforming a traditional dance…

Chris and Erwin at Canggu beach..

Erwin having fun at the “Old Man” in Canggu..

Dorit speeds it up to catch the next section at the “Old Man”.

The shoemaker in Ubud comes to you; 3 Buddah’s in the forest; Indo-kids happy and easy satisfied.

The catch of the day!

Bali wonders of nature: flowers, bananas, cactus and palmtrees

After 58 days in Indonesia we wanted to extend our visa. By going out of Indonesia and coming back later, we could get a new 30 day visa on arrivel. First we wanted to go to Bangkok but when the riots started we decided to go to Singapore instead.

Our cosy hostel were we stayed in Singapore located in the relaxed ‘Arab Quarter’ with very nice staff.

The first day we met Tina, Dorit’s friend from Germany who spend her holiday in Singapore. She showed us around and took us to many nice places like the Swissotel, Holland village and Santosa.

The view of Singapore by night from the ‘Swiss Hotel’. The highest building in town with over 70 floors. The photo was made from the heli platform were we went to a party.

Besides the good foot in our own ‘Arab Quarter’ we went to a part of the city called ‘Little India’ because we were allowed to eat with our hands there 😉 Spicy chicken masala. And in one of the 160 malls in Singapore(!!!) with even more ‘foot courts’ we couldn’t resist a good Japanese Sushi adventure- the Sushi train.

“Batman-Tower”                                             Shopping mall Nr.111;o)

Clic on Reef Tattoo

or

Clic on this Reef Tattoo

After 6 weeks we are pretty used to the laidback life here on Bali. Regarding the high temperatures it is a must to slow down. But it’s not that we are not doing anything. Every day we drive on the motorbike,  with 2 surfboards on the side searching for the best waves on Bali.

After two weeks Sanne (Dorits’ study partner from Maastricht) and Michiel arrived in Kuta and joined us in our hotel. They enjoyed the luxury here after adventures travels throuhg Indonesia. We went to our favorite restaurants that we had discoverd and we took them surfing at Kuta Beach and Balangan. It was nice to have people around from back home and we had a great time together (and lots of Magnums) untill they eventually took of to Nepal a couple of days ago.

About 10 days after Sanne and Michiel arrived here, Lotte (Dorit’s Mama) and Wilfried visited us for 2 weeks. With the 6 of us, we traveled around Bali.

First of all we visited some temples like, Uluwatu and Tanah Lot (were we were part of the indonesian tourist attraction).

Then we went to Ubud the cultural centre of Bali with its beautiful rice fields. We watched a Kecak dance and attended a Balinese Cooking Course (with loads of garlic).

Back in Kuta we went for a day trip north of Kuta through the rice fields and to a monkey forrest.

Today our visitors are gone and we are “alone” again. We hang out with Jaime, a spanish guy we met in Australia and how lives on Bai sinds last year. He took us to beautiful places to surf, eat, chill or shop and his girlfriend Martha took nice surf pictures of us.

Yesterday we booked our ticket to Singapore, because our Indonesion visa expires at the end of this month. And as  the visa extension here cost only a little less than flying out of the country we thought we go on holiday for a week….;o)

Dorit @ Uluwatu.

Dorit puts her fears by side and rips over head Uluwatu! Yeah!

Jaime @ Uluwatu

Jaime (say Geime) is our spanish friend who lives in Bali and who we met at the Goldcoast in Australia a few weeks ago. It is with his camera that Erwin shot the pictures. He had to stay dry because of a infected wound on his foot. A few days later Erwin ripped is shorts apart on the reef: no serious infury though..

After 2 weeks in Bali we feel quite settled and think we could stay here for the next three months without getting bored. Erwin has adjusted to the traffic and somtimes drives even worse than the Balinese.

Every morning we have been to one of the surfspots around Kuta. The last few days we had to stop or take a detour when going to the beach, because the Hindu’s first had a celebration and pilgered to the beach.

It was quite impressive to see so many people so we went for a stroll along the beach and enjoyed some local food.

@ Bigi&Chris: no, of course it was not Sponge Bob’s birthday party….;o)

We had to stay in our hotel a couple of nights longer, because on the 16th the Hindu’s celebrate Nyepi. It celebrates the end of the old year and the start of the new year based on the lunar cycle. The day before locals offer gifts of food and flowers to the ogho-ogho, a huge monster doll. The day of Neypi is one of complete inactivity, so that when the evil spirits do descend, they decide that Bali is uninhabited and therefor leave the island alone for another year.

Everything on Bali was closed and we were not allowed to leave our hotel for 24 hours. They closed everything, even windows from the outside and officially you were not even allowed to turn on your light.

The last days in Oz without the van was pretty AWESOME! We sold the van and rented a „bomb“. An old light blue Toyota Camry with purple seatcovers….:o)

quiksilver pro

The little stretch of coast line called the „Goldcoast“ -especialy Coolangatta- with its worldclass pointbreak surfspots turned in to a circus when the first day of WCT at Snapper Rocks took off and the second day being canceled due to a tsunami warning.

Erwin at Snapper.

We did early morning surfsessions with the best pro’s around and later watched the heats of the first round on the beach. Amazing!

dorit @ the natural arc

Withoud a van we had to find other sleeping places. This turned out to be no problem with the friends Dorit already had made 4 years ago. THANX AGAIN big time, Carly&Mark, Betty&Steven, San&Xicu!

The last days were pretty rainy, which made it maybe a little bit easier for us to laeve this cool surfy place.

Indo from the plane

After the 5 hour flight from Brisbane we put foot on earth in Indonesia, Bali. Especialy Erwin fell backwards because of the culture shock. It is after all a third world country. And this was his first visit. We had to bargain for our taxi drive from the airport to Kuta and again for the hotel room.

bintang lady

Erwin "Rossi" Biermann

Some pro’s freesurfing Snapper just a day before the WCT in Coolongatta starts:

Kelly Slater powersnap

Joel "Parko" Parkinson

Mick Fanning @ homebreak Snapper

Burleigh Pro, 4*WQS event, the first one of the season just one week before the WCT at Snapper:

Taj Burrow in the semi final; he would win the final aswell.

And the spectators worked hard aswell as you see.. it was so hot!!

Big crowds in Burleigh on the first event