Poverty (and happiness?) in the villages of Lombok

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We hired a driver to country life in Lombok. Actually, I thought it will be a walking tour in rice fields, but it ended up with a lot of thoughts about poverty, happiness and empathy. We went to village called Telebatu – it’s a small village in the middle of Lombok which was made to be a calm spot for tourists. Actually, tourists do not come here often so villagers have to live their daily life in rice and spices fields. Local villager was our “guide”. It was quite funny, he took us to his garden and fields and showed us everything: “this is pepper, this is lemongrass, this is tomato, this is clove, this is clover, this is rice, this is coffee, this is lemon…”, “Stop here and I’ll take a picture of you; now stop here and take a picture; take a picture here…”, “This is my 4 month old son, do you want to keep him in your arms? No? Take him.” And I find myself holding his son:)) So our tour guide was really simple guy who knows English words of everything you can find in his garden:) Actually, the tour was nice and we were Read More …

I will never find a peace in travelling

HardFreedomLeave a commentAbout me, Freedom, Travels

Today I am in Ubud – capital of culture in Bali. Or maybe it’s not capital of culture, maybe locals started to call it like this after movie “Eat, pray, love” where Julia Roberts came to Bali to find some healer. I’ve heard, that lot of local people became ‘healers’ after this movie, just pay for it. I have been in many countries and I have never had a feeling of freedom, harmony and “normal human being”. Only because I’m foreigner I become a tourist with a big wallet. Do I have to wear a T-shirt “I’m not wallet, I’m global citizen like you are”? Locals, please leave me alone and let me enjoy a vibe of your country. I now understand my Love who “doesn’t like to travel”, he likes to live in foreign countries. Another story is locals who sell you “exotic in local people”. Today we spent a day with Bali guide who was happy for us because we had chosen to live with locals instead of hotel. He told us that we can see how local people spend their day and my first thought was “are you some human zoo, so we can see how you Read More …

Daily Work – Different cultures in my pocket

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I have worked with English, Americans, Germans, Indians, Swedes, Danes, Lithuanians, etc., and I’ll tell you – I’m tired! Not sure if I’m tired, because I’m tired, or I’m tired, because of daily cultural differences. But why I am even writing that I’m tired?? I’ll be fine, I’m going to Indonesia for vacation soon! Today I wanted to share with you my experience about working with different people from all around the world. Some of them have been my colleagues for several years in a row. And here is what I noticed about them. I hope, this post will be interesting for you, or maybe you had different experience – please share it! Americans scare me! (I mean those from USA). They are so individualists and competitive, so into “You have to listen to me, I know what is right!”. Yeah, I know that too, ok?! We all have our understanding what’s right and we don’t have to listen to you! Americans work really hard and a lot of hours! Guys, do you really like working so much? I think you need to relax! I am usually impressed with the work Americans do, they are really good most of the Read More …

Chaos in the Airport

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Most of the flights are delayed, the rest of the flights are canceled – this is something that no traveler wants to experience, but we weren’t lucky enough to avoid this situation. And why? I have no clue, but I want to tell this story for you and for the future myself. And yes, it was in Turkey again (a week ago I wrote about their taxi scammers). Don’t get me wrong – I liked Turkey A LOT, especially their wonderful capital Istanbul, but they really have problems with their transport! Let’s start with the beginning – after spending a couple of days in Istanbul we had to continue our trip to Bodrum. That morning was very nice, warm and calm. This time I was undoubtedly sure that we will avoid taxi, so we had to spend a couple or three hours on the way to the airport: we went on foot, then metro, then funicular, then on foot again and here we go – a bus going to the airport. Perfect organization! 🙂 In the airport, life wasn’t so perfect. Electricity disappeared 3 times. ALL the flights delayed or were canceled. After check-in, on boarding papers we saw 40 Read More …

Theresa May and her big brother

HardFreedomLeave a commentAbout me, Fears, Freedom

 It breaks my heart to see what this lady Theresa May is going to do. By the way – did she create the Internet??? If not then please do not shout about the restrictions you are going to create!!! So, this lovely lady is brave enough to announce such statements as “Some people say that it is not for a government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet. We disagree.” I guess Mr. Orwell is crying together with me. It looks like “kings” of UK (why do they always forget that they are here to serve to their people?) decided to collect the browsing records of everyone in the country and have them read by authorities (what kind of word is “authorities”?). Goodbye “WhatsApp”. And the explanation of this is “to protect us from terrorists”, hahaha. The same explanation for every new restriction. It’s like a USA’s war “for democracy” in every oil country. So, UK government will be able to place restrictions on seeing adult content. It might stop search engines from directing people to pornographic websites. It can force IT companies to delete anything that a person posted when they were under 18. It looks like Read More …

Istanbul And Its Shameful Taxis

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Hey, all! Some time ago I and MyOtherMe went to Istanbul for a vacation. I wanted to share my story of scammers of Istanbul with you. It is called the taxi. Let’s start from the beginning. Our time in the airport wasn’t calm and easy because I’m not a fan of flying. I was watching people in the airport, buying unnecessary stuff, standing in the long lines (they probably think that they’ll be late to the airplane). I was quite nervous not only because of fear of flying but also because of the long day in the airport which takes your day away… Anyway, I was happy enough to understand that in a few hours I will be in another part of Europe. Our airplane did not land on time and we came to Istanbul late in the evening, so it was dark already. I already knew that tourists should avoid taxis because most of them are scammers. Therefore before this trip, I tried to book hotels near metro stations. Unfortunately, a few days before our vacation hotels declined our bookings. Some of them even wrote that they could welcome us only if we pay more than it was agreed before. Read More …