fritzi

My bus arrived earlier than it should.. I didn’t want to walk with my big backpack, so I went by tuktuk. And then I sat in front of the hostel door – it’s closed overnight. Eventually, some people leaving let me in, and I waited next to the pool for reception to open. Just down the road, I found the muslim quarter! And then went for noodle soup.

The hostel has a blackboard where people can enter what tour they want to take, and others can join to make it cheaper. A Pauline wanted a Angkor Wat tour for the next day, great! I was told she insisted on it being french,.. oh well.. I guess french it is, then. The next morning, 2 more people had signed up for the tour. The tuktuk arrived on time – at 4:30 or so, but the guide was nowhere to be seen. He had to be called by the tuktuk driver,.. Then we went to pick up Pauline who stayed somewhere else. But the guide didn’t know where. It took two tries, but then we found her. When we arrived at the ticket counter, we were late, and the guide wasn’t able to answer – or even understand – any questions about tickets/the tour. Until the end of ‘last year’ the site had an offer that whoever bought a one-day-ticket got access for two days. Internet still said that, however it was not the case anymore. A guy had tried and didn’t get in the second day. Damn. I should have come here first, and gone to Koh Rong Sanloem afterwards! 😉

We still made it for sunrise, and then got to visit all the planned temples and maybe even one more. But our guide was really hard to understand – even the french people said they really had to pay attention! And he didn’t understand me either 🙂 The others wanted to stop for some breakfast/lunch, and we went to one of the tourist restaurants just next to the temples. There was one restaurant next to the other, all looking exactly the same. Prices reflected the location. I didn’t eat – I had been to the bakery the day before and had brought some food 😉

Our tour ended in the afternoon, and around 5pm, I met Pauline again, to go back to Angkor Wat for those sunset photos (better light!) from the spot we found in the morning. Getting a tuktuk to go there via passapp was as easy as always. I guess we could have done the whole tour that way!

The next day we did a Floating Village Tour, however booked from the Onederz hostel and not ours – it was quite a bit cheaper and exactly the same thing 🙂 The tour was.. very relaxed – just sitting in different places all the time.. and also extremely touristy. Another girl in the group did the little 15-minute canoe tour through the mangrove forest with a local lady.. and later confirmed that they indeed stopped somewhere and she was told to buy drinks/snacks for the lady for extreme prices 😀 She didn’t even try to refuse. But I guess Internet was right about it being a scam.

I had dinner with Pauline at a tiny Indian restaurant, and at Tevy’s place, and managed to get a nice photo of myself eating a cricket – or whatever it was. Then there was a lot more iced coffee, noodles – both in soup and fried, and fruit shakes. And a few temples, to do something and not just hang out next to the pool.

To go back to Phnom Penh, I booked a ticket on a big bus to have my legroom 😉 The bus company had some bad reviews for stopping at a shitty restaurant in nowhere, forcing people to eat there. So I went to the little Indian restaurant and asked them what I could keep till the next day without a fridge. I ended up with some garlic naan and spent the lunch break on the stairs in front of the restaurant!

Between the ferry from Koh Rong Sanloem and the night bus to Siem Reap, I had a few hours in Sihanoukville.

I took a tuktuk from the port to the city. There were quite a few waiting there, asking me if I want to go somewhere, however for the tourist price 🙂 Showing them the passapp price and destination on the map lead to them discussing where that location might be, but they didn’t seem to understand it. And then they’d just repeat their price 🙂 So I stopped a few metres from them, and pressed the ‘book’ button on my app to magically have a tuktuk appear and take me for much cheaper.

Internet said it was possible to leave one’s luggage at the Onederz hostel there, for the day, and that actually worked. I could even have jumped in the pool! 🙂

The beach was much nicer than I had expected!

And much of the city (center) just consisted of wide streets and more or less finished (chinese) high-rise buildings.

I spent my few days on the island mostly doing nothing, just lying at the beach, with a mango milk shake from the stall next to the hostel, reading and swimming.

And there was a beach party for New Year’s!

Hong Kong still has rather strict Covid rules, so I spent my 12 hours there walking around the – very empty – airport and then sleeping. With air mattress and sleeping bag, that was quite comfortable.

Phnom Penh airport is tiny and much of it is outdoors. First, I bought a simcard and then looked for the bus station in front of the airport. There seems to be no timetable when a bus should stop there, but the app shows the live location of buses all over the city, so it’s possible to estimate how long it might take until one shows up. All the TukTuk drivers around me obviously didn’t understand why I was standing next to that rectangle drawn on the street with ‘bus stop’ written in it 🙂 After maybe half an hour, a bus did show up, it was almost empty, had AC, and followed the route it was meant to take. Easy!

My hostel is next to Wat Phnom Daun Penh – and around there are benches in the shade. I entered the whole site from the back, therefore not passing by the ticket office until I was leaving.. ups 😉

I went to the central market, to the food stalls around the russian market, managed to buy the ‘Golden Voice’ graphic novel, visited Tuol Sleng museum, found the insect lady, had some (almost) free beers at/near riverside.

Then I took the train towards Sihanoukville. In the beginning there were mostly tourists – later that changed a bit. I ended up talking to the Cambodian girl sitting next to me, and now have a new facebook friend 😉

The train arrived in Sihanoukville 15 minutes early, so I had over 2 hours time to walk the maybe 2km to the ferry.

We made it to Oran against all odds – and breaking cars. On the second try, by train. The train was about 75 minutes late, both ways!

And the city wasn’t quite as open-minded as everyone had said 😉 But the second morning, we got our breakfast on one tray! 😀

We went to the market to buy dates, tried to buy wool (all the shops sell turkish plastic, nobody expects that people could want anything else..), had Lablebi in my room, I was asked if I am really going to meet and trust a total stranger in Algiers,.. and then we went to find a taxi… There, the discussion started: my bag is big.. could it go on top of the car? But it will rain, it might not be waterproof! (I do hope it is! I would be quite disappointed with Freitag, otherwise!) And I’d have to pay for it. It could take it’s own seat, then I’d have to pay for the seat. In the end, it was put in the trunk for no additional fee, and other peoples’ stuff could go on the roof. I chose my seat – the single passenger seat in the front – and all was good 😉 I was told the trip would cost 900.
Then a woman came, the driver put her in the second row in the middle and I was told I must sit next to her! It’s not like she’s touching any less men anyways,.. well… I put in my earphones and didn’t speak a word with anyone 😛
On the way, it started raining, the driver was happily typing on his phone, we saw some accidents, it rained more.. and then, just in time to get off, the rain stopped.
Getting off the taxi, I was welcomed by around 5 men trying to get me to take their taxi to continue,.. A ‘little’ price discussion followed and then I was free. Islem found me – yes, it was me 😉 – and we went to the church, to see Algiers from above, and then for a drink and an interesting conversation! (Let’s just think of this, now…). Afterwards I got to see 3 more – quite different – bars, and then we went home.

The next day, I discovered that my room has seaview..

then we went to the great royal mausoleum of Mauretania and to the roman ruins of Tipasa. After a photostop up on the hill, looking down on the coast, we were on the way to eat something.. There was loud music! We followed it, and through a back door next to the restaurants bathroom, we ended up in the bar. Unfortunately we didn’t stay long – Islem wanted to leave after just a beer as he felt that everyone was staring at us 😀 Welcome to *my* Algeria 🙂 We had dinner, and when we left, the guy at the next table proudly wished us a nice evening in English.

Back in Setif, I asked Ahmed (the friend of Taha) if he’d want to meet up for shisha and tea. We first went to the famous lakes in Setif (I guess they could be nice if there was less trash.. ), then we found a restaurant to have Zviti and a Shisha place with people. And even women 😉 And it was neither in a hotel nor in the mall! Some guys were having a birthday party there, and we got some cake, too! No. No other people, only us!

The next morning we met again, to go to Bejaia for 2 days. We had breakfast on the way, then stopped at the waterfall on the way, and arrived in Bejaia around noon. The plan was to stay in the flat of a friend in some kind of holiday resort. The guy responsible for renting her place (and others) out to people stayed at her flat and she wanted to get rid of him 🙂 Didn’t work. He offered us a ‘beautiful villa’ instead, for the same price, next to the sea and with 3 bedrooms. The original plan was to get it for a ‘symbolic price’ but the friend warned us that the villa might turn out more expensive. We ended up getting it for as cheap as the 1-star hotel on booking com an hour away 😉 But it was a mess and had definitely not been cleaned in a long time. We even had a dirty plate and some empty plastic bottles in the sink 😉 Whatever, it’s ok for a night.

And this was my chance to finally go swimming! Weather was great, 20 degrees or so, the beach was right there, and it was almost empty – so about nobody who could mind me and my underwear 😉 The water was quite cold.. but it was nice and warm back out in the sun. And I finally did it! 😀

We had fish in a restaurant next to the sea, then went up to the hills for the first viewpoint just before it got dark.

The next day we went to another viewpoint, a bit higher, stopping at the (surprisingly modern) museum where we were (not so surprisingly) the only visitors and got a personal tourguide.

Back down in the city, we walked around, had tea, walked through the market, and weren’t allowed to see the theater from inside (they’re building stuff and even being a foreigner didn’t allow me in), but we met a man in there who told us about his hitchhiking journey in europe, in the 80ies (?). If only we were still there for a few days, we could make a plan for a barbecue in the forest,.. Well, next time 😉 He usually works up in the mountain so I can definitely find him again 😉 Also he recommended us to try the chickpea sandwich from the icecream shop – that’s what the sign said, at least.

Annaba was much colder than Constantine. And cloudy. No way to consider swimming 🙂

But I had interesting conversations with Amel about what the number of stars of a hotel means and implies.. the best temperature for swimming, traveling in a van.. and I didn’t even feel stared at – in one street at least!

And we ate Mloukhia! I learnt it’s traditionally cooked and eaten on January 1st and that’s what we did 🙂

I wrote Ramy, asking if he could host me. He answered that he isn’t in Constantine but Taha, a friend of his, could host me. And that he also has a friend in Annaba who could host me. I wrote Taha, we had a short phone call and the next day I took the bus to meet him. He did actually show up, and I learnt that he’s not on couchsurfing, but he likes to meet and host people. The restaurant we wanted to go to was full, so it was Shawarma behind the train station :)) and then we spent the afternoon walkin around the city, looking at shops, bridges, the palace, and more bridges 🙂

In the evening we picked up his friend and went to the mosque together – I got a scarf as a present, from his mum, to make sure I’ll get in. The friend asked the man at the gate if it’s ok for me to go in, and I got the official ok not only to enter but also to take photos 😉 Fun fact: I had to take off my socks. And the floor was heated 🙂

At home, I met the mum and sister. She joined me in my – her – room, and we talked about her handicrafts, traveling and shopping (there IS fripe in Algeria, but less than before Covid, and some places are closed now). We had dinner, listened to some music and went to sleep.

The next day, Joubir joined us for breakfast, we went to visit Tiddis, then had some traditional food, saw the cities bridges from the bottom of the valley, and even managed to buy the jacket I wanted 🙂

A friend had said it might be hard to find a bus after 5. Ahmed said after 4:30. I was there around 4:15, bought a ticket to Setif at the counter, only to be told by the bus driver that he won’t go all the way to Setif, but stop in El Eulma. Sooo… Ahmed had to come there to pick me up. He brought the whole family and then urgently had to go to work. We were parked in front of the building. The boss was there, too, and when leaving, stopped at our car to say hello.

Then it was time for Shisha 😉

And then we went back to Constantine to celebrate Marwa’s birthday and the New Year.

Buying a bikini turned out impossible. Decathlon has a men’s swimwear section but none for women. Well, underwear works just as well, so we went to the next shop to buy that 😀

The indoor pool at our hotel was part of the spa area and had to be paid seperately. Unfortunately, the responsible lady wasn’t able to tell me that in any language except Arabic and there was nobody else who could translate 😉 Also, the pool is for women only in the morning, and the one man in there was kicked out when she saw him 😉 Weather was amazing! I was outside in the sun wearing a Tshirt! And that’s when I decided that I definitely want to swim in the sea. In underwear 😀

The easiest and closest trip from Sétif seemed to be Djemila. So that was the plan!

There were reports on the Internet saying to just take a bus to El Eulma, and then take another bus to Djemila. All worked great. I managed to buy a ticket and get in (that part was not quite so easy) and then walked around the site on my own. There were not many people, but still too many for totally empty photos 🙂 The site felt very secure.. I felt secure.. and the rocks were secure from me, too. I didn’t take or break anything 😀

I made my first Algerian facebook friend and after visiting the ruins, we went to drink tea at the Tunisian’s place just outside the site – because he had no business cards, I got a paper with his phone number, should I ever need a room in Djemila. Then I insisted I really need to go and my new friend put me on the bus, and we said bye. A few minutes later he came back. And told the driver he needs to show me the bus to Sétif when once we arrive in El Eulma (no, that’s not necessary, I did the same way in the morning. I know already..). Everyone was looking. And the driver obviously found it necessary to ask me if I’d like to sit in the front of the bus for a better view. I really managed to find the bus on my own 😀

And I realized that my SIMcard is dead. I have no more Internet, cannot make calls or send SMS. Oh well.. Ahmed had to go to the shop with me in the evening, to find out what is wrong. From the little shop selling everything, we were sent to the mall, to an official Jezzy shop. There, my passport details were entered once more (or probably for the first time) and then the SIMcard worked perfectly for the rest of the time!

The one thing to see in Sétif seems to be Ain El Fouara Fountain, so that’s where we went.

Then we went to the Zoo – I was told it’s easy to see it in just 15 minutes. Which was true.

Getting the visa was easy enough once I had my invitation. I sent my passport to Geneva by post, it should have taken 2 weeks, but I got a post notification after 1 week already that a letter for me is about to arrive.

The Flixbus actually showed up, Italy didn’t want to see my negative covid test or passenger locator form, the Linate Covid test facility did exist and the online appointment wasn’t accepted – as they had told me on the phone. Queueing took less than an hour and I paid for a result within 12 hours. The check-in counter didn’t yet want my bag, it was too early, and I brought it to the left luggage storage. Which is only open until 6pm. haha.Then I went to the city, had pizza, walked around the christmas market, and waited for the evening.

At check-in, finally, I was told I need a Covid test (yes, I’ll have it tomorrow morning!) and an Algerian health form (I never heard of that, where can I get it?). But for the flight to Rome, all was fine. Upon arrival in Rome, my test result had arrived – it’s negative! At the hostel I printed both files and then went to the Spanish steps to meet Coral Sun.

In the morning I was ready with all documents. Waiting for boarding, I watched people go to the counter one by one and come back with a form – that health form. I already had mine filled out. And nobody asked me for anything! Not that form, not the PCR test, and they didn’t even want to see my visa when boarding!

In Algiers, nobody was running, getting off the plane 😉 I managed to overtake a few people and didn’t have to wait for the antigene test. At immigration, I was told I need to fill in a little paper and was then, again, asked for all details I had just written down. And for the phone number of the person who invited me. Ups! They got – and actually wrote down! – Ahmed’s number instead 😉 And then I was in Algeria!

The whole family came to pick me up at the airport, we went to eat, saw the big mosque from the highway, stopped at the Martyrs’ memorial, and even went to the museum underneath. And I had my first Algerian tea with peanuts.

In the evening, we went out for Pizza in Setif. The restaurant has two parts with seperate entrance doors.
The right side looks normal but there are only men.
The left side is for families and women. We went in. Most tables are surrounded by curtains. There is a small waiting area with benches.. We stayed there. Ahmed wasn’t allowed to wait with us. While we waited he had to enter the other side to place our order. We got a table with curtains,.. He picked up the order.. and we ate..
A very promising beginning to 2 weeks Algeria 😀

My flight arrived around noon, so I decided to have lunch in Bergamo and then see a bit of the city for the first time!

It was beautiful, sunny, and I got a bracelet as a present 🙂

Flights from Bergamo to Morocco were around 10 EUR.. And times for Tangier were best.

With the public holiday on November 1st, I had 3 days. Perfect!

There’s a public bus from near the airport to the city center.. the hostel is right there, in the Medina with a rooftop terrasse, breakfast, and some fun other guests to hangout with.

I managed to get some sightseeing, shopping (Joutya), traditional food, music and beers into my 3 days.

The bus driver was still the same, Sol was still playing music in the street, and Mario and Florin were there too 🙂 And Chief was back, too, after being away for a while!

On the first day, our neighbour in the green tent joined us for lunch, asking for just a piece of cheese, then he’d leave us alone,…

The place we put the tents was near the turn, rather far away from all the people. Unfortunately, in the next days, the water came out further and further, and eventually reached the tents. I didn’t want to get carried away while sleeping, so we looked for a new spot, without rocks, not next to the inofficial ‘toilet’, far from the water,.. and I ended up next to Sol. And we ended up cooking and eating together.

I spent quite some time sitting in the street, got a glow-in-the-dark ring and bracelet from Carmen and a Henna tattoo from Mario 😉

An American guy showed up on the beach, we had tea, he borrowed me a blanket and saved me from freezing at night 😀

A Moroccan family in a van stopped by up on the hill.

The Romanian neighbour offered his air mattress in exchange for my solar panel 😉

From the tent on the other side, a phone was stolen and police showed up..

And in the end even the lady from the restaurant, always checking that everyone pays for the toilet, offered us free soup 🙂

One guy fell in love with a Romanian boy and started to plan moving to his city ..

The other’s girlfriend was pissed that I offered him cookies 😀

And then the neighbour’s green tent lay burnt on the beach, he was gone.

Getting on the minibus in Mangalia, there was a guy in blue shorts and dreadlocks. That seemed to be the one to Vama Veche 🙂 When I got off, that guy caught up with me and told me he wrote me on Couchsurfing 🙂 I found the hostel – only one other bed is occupied – and went to the beach.

I had dinner, had a beer with Sol, and then Mario said he would be willing to try to fix my hair 🙂 The next day I spent sitting in the main street, with Mario, Silvia and Alexandra, trying to hide from the sun, watching people, and having a few breaks for food and drinks.

Then followed a day of beach, coffee, swings, and cider in mainstreet 🙂

And then Irina showed up, we painted on paper, she painted on me, and my tshirt. We went up the hill and put rings and necklaces into little plastic bags, and later made a fire, had marshmallows and some drinks up there.

The absolute highlight: Ayran in mainstreet. It was a ‘present’ 😉 or so 😉

Sunrise on my last day:

Neither Italy nor Romania wanted to see any Covid certificates 😉

I took the bus from the airport to the city center.. and suddenly there was a big bang. The bus drove a bit slower but then continued.. and there still was a strange sound. Until another passenger shouted at him and he finally stopped: we had a flat tire 😀 So I walked the rest of the way, about 30 minutes. It’s hot here!

The old town is full of restaurants, bars and clubs, and a few churches. And it’s absolutely dead around noon, but gets crowded at night.

The train I wanted to take seems to be fully booked. And there are not many – I don’t want to leave too early, or arrive too late. So I’ll take the bus! Even the one that has not only absolutely terrible reviews 🙂

My bus to Verona should leave some time in the middle of the night, but didnt show up.

The German service number only said to call during working hours. The English one actually led to a human being! New plan: go by train the next day.

At the train station I first found out that I cannot buy international tickets at a ticket machine. Upstairs I was told the train I wanted is already fully booked. And they were not able to just book the whole ticket in one, then paper was empty and I was sent to the next person. Who had to start from scratch again. So I booked my ticket myself. Also in two parts, but electronically. Getting on the train in Milan, I realized I had ended up in some kind of business class: they handed out coffee and snacks 🙂

As long as it’s sunny, it’s hot. Warm enough for icecream and swimming pool! But then it gets cold very fast.

I juust managed to get from the airport to the trainstation to catch the last bus of the day to the sea!