Anyways, when we got to the spot where we would swap our jeep for a camel each, we were all looking forward to it. At first, our guides didn’t want us to ride by ourselves and walked us towards the sand dunes, which was exciting for maybe five minutes, but then that wore off and it was merely uncomfortable. In the end we wore them down, though and we prepared for an epic camel race, only that the camels couldn’t really be bothered. I kept swearing at my camel and kicked it in its flanks to make it go a bit faster, but their heart just wasn’t in it that day. My camel was called Johnny Walker and the way it kept swaying from side to side it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had that name for a reason.

By the time we arrived in the desert (well, a small strip of desert, just a few sand dunes really), the sun was setting and we left our guides to set up camp while we sat on top of the highest dune we could find and opened a couple small bottles of rum. We were joined by a stray dog, we quickly adopted and then ran up sand dunes and jumped down. After a quick meal we rolled out some blankets and fell asleep on top of a dune.

The next morning, we finally got our camel race, well, kind of. I guess the camels were still a bit sleepy. Or maybe they are just lazy laid back animals. Again I was yelling and cursing at Johnny and he did go faster, even though it was only cause the other two camels were speeding up. We made it back to the pickup point within an hour. I was the only one, who didn’t have a guide on the back and I only fell down once. My saddle strap had come undone and I was falling down in slow motion. I’m pretty sure Johnny had something to do with that. He was that kind of camel.

All in all the desert part of our little trip was awesome. Needless to say, we never did see the guy selling us the tour again to talk to him about the stuff that never materialized (temples and traditional villages). We had gotten our revenge already, though. The night before the trip we sat up on the roof top together with the tout who sold us the tour, nursing a beer and Martin brought out some homemade liquor from his father. Really good stuff, so we made the tout drink some. Three seconds after that he ran into the kitchen to throw up his dinner. At the time we all felt bad about it, but I guess a good deed never goes unpunished, right?

At the beginning there will be no money in it for authors, but there will be a donation button on every post linking directly to the paypal account of the author, if she or he has one, so maybe there will be a little bit of compensation. In the future, I hope to be able to give something back for all the articles.

Travel-Junkie and myself (being chronically short of cash myself) are all about budget, off the beaten track travel, so I’m looking for articles that reflect this. The occasional ‘10 ways to…’ article is fine, but mainly I’d like to see stories with a personal touch, stuff that happened to yourself. The world of travelling is usually full of funny quirky incidents and far away exotic places that hardly anybody has heard of, so if you think you fit the bill, then I’d like to hear from you.

There will be a weekly travelblog mashup, that will feature the best links (according to the gospel of yours truly) the web has to offer or I happened to stumble upon or have been submitted by a reader.

I hope to also extend the Capture The Moment category with at least a couple posts a week and I guess I can manage a proper article every couple weeks myself (fingers crossed).

As for the new theme, I will be going back to a more classic blog style, with articles listed in chronological order. I have attached a little screenshot of what it looks like at the moment. Small things might still change, but overall that will be the new look. One feature I am particular excited about (I’m such a nerd, I know, you don’t need to tell me…) is that next to each article you can see automagically the name of the country the article is about. Google Maps are now much more integrated into the site and there will also be a proper video gallery.

The whole theme/framework is best suited for multi author blogs, including separate about pages for authors. Multi author features can be switched off, though, so it can be used both ways. After the release of the new Travel-Junkie I will work on it a bit more and then release it into the WordPress community with all the features but minus the Travel-Junkie look. The design can be adjusted quite easily using child themes.

After being cooped up for far too long with far too many party nights in this little place called Queenstown I am finally off again in one week to my favourite country of all time, Indonesia. The Dutch, the English and the Portuguese once fought over it a few hundred years ago. But while they were unsuccessful in the long run, the Australians are doing a much better job right now, slowly and sneakily taking over Bali and beyond.

I’m in a bit of a predicament right now. According to Wikipedia there are 17.508 islands. Some time ago an earthquake created 6 more somewhere off Sumatra, so I’m a little undecided right now on where to go. I don’t want to stay too long on Bali. This has hardly nothing to do with the loud Australians, who I’m quite fond of, and more to do with the overall touristic busyness of the place. So my first option would be to head over to Java, check out Borobudur and some national parks and then slowly make my way along Sumatra all the way to Pulau Weh. I have a plane ticket from Medan to KL at some point, so that route would make a lot of sense.

But then, I never actually planned on using that ticket. One rule for getting an Indonesian visa is that you have to produce an onward ticket. Only when you arrive by plane, though, so there you go. My second option would be to catch a Pelni or cheap flight to Makassar on Sulawesi, do some diving, see if some people are getting buried in Tana Toraja and then head over to Kalimantan, which I have to admit I know not much about. Yet. Maybe somehow do a little quick visa run across to Sarawak and spend another 2 months in the Indonesian part of Borneo.

What would you do if you were in my pants?

“You are on such an awesome adventure. I plan on living vicariously through you!”

This comment tells me that LLs reader would like to travel as well, but hadn’t quite realized that herself yet. That comment was made end of 2006, so maybe she’s bumming around on a beach as I write this. I’d like to think so. You should never live vicariously through someone else. You’d miss too much of your own life. You should just live.

What do you think?

It’s time to leave the safety of your feed reader behind and come have a look at the new Travel-Junkie.com. I vaguely remember saying it’ll be a month before I get it ready, but I just couldn’t help it. Have a look around! It’s been tested in the latest stable releases of IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Saying that there are probably still a few quirks around. If you find one then drop me a note.

The picture above was taken on a quick unplanned trip to Wanaka, about an hours drive north of Queenstown. Gorgeous little place with lots of little bars…

In other news… It seems that time is running out for me in New Zealand. It has started snowing occasionally, which I find quite depressing at times, so I’m thinking of packing my stuff to head for warmer climates, beaches and palm trees. If I do, then I will definitely be back next summer to do some travelling instead of just working. What do you think?

All of us went back to my guest house, where the owner of my bike tried to sort out the whole mess. He thought the damage to his bike will cost about 350.000 Rp (about 30 EUR or 35 USD) to repair. There was another foreigner present, who suggested that I pay for the damage, since I can afford it, whereas the parents of the kid will most likely have a hard time coming up with that kind of cash, it being almost a month’s salary. Now, I know that’s a lot of money for an indonesian family, but I think if I would have paid it would give everybody a totally wrong picture. He’s a tourist with lot’s of money, so never mind my own responsibility.

I didn’t like the way this guy was talking to me and personally, I think he’s a wanker, to put it bluntly. He got me thinking though, and I was wondering what other travelers out there think. Is it alright as a traveler to pay for damage you did not cause, but were involved in, so that a local family in a third world country does not have an additional burden on their wallet?

NOTE: Most nationalities can obtain a visa on arrival in Indonesia for a stay of up to one month!!