island life. a tough one.

i'm lying in my hotel bed, curtains closed, aircon at full blast. i feel like a lady with a migrane, you now that kind of woman who would put her hand on her forehead and theatrically sigh and say 'darling, i need to lie down, i have the most terrible headache' with a british accent. that's me today minus the headache and the british accent. welcome to phuket!

phuket has gotten to me. as soon as i set foot on the island yesterday i don't like it. that impression gets stronger when we arrive at the gibbon rehabilitation centre and learn all about the gibbon poachers who steal the babies from their mothers just to have stupid, horrible tourists take pictures with them for money. to be fair that doesn't only happen in phuket, but it is the first time i hear about it, so phuket gets to take the blame.

my friend says that phuket is for russians what mallorca is for the germans. that is true and not a compliment to either. it is loud and there is so much traffic while it lacks the charming big city chaos of bangkok. riding in a songtaew, fun till now, is horrid in the fumes. i can see i'm not the only one in my group that feels this way, we all wish to be back at deserted, quiet koh yao noi, the perfect island if there ever was one.

then i feel properly sick and can't bear the thought of fried anything or curry. for lunch i order a club sandwich. it arrives an hour after everybody else's meals and the bread isn't toasted. who doesn't toast toast?! i wish i would have gotten a toastie from 7 eleven instead.

in the afternoon i take a nap i cannot wake up from. my body feels like lead and i barely make it to dinner. before dinner we visit the local night market: t-shirts, soaps, fake handbags. once you have seen a stall, you have seen at all. the air is sticky and i miss the festive atmosphere, the laughter from the market in chiang mai.

today i try to find a breakfast spot and i have very few requirements: pancakes, some sort of a view, cozy so i can work from there. i walk towards the beach front and find nothing, everything is either closed or unappealing. meanwhile the weather is the most humid i have had. proper bikram temperatures, my face is dripping and my thighs stick together with each step, a vidid reminder of each pad thai and ever beer i had on this trip.

when i get to the ocean i am disappointed, but not surprised: even the beach here is ugly. who wants rows and rows of sunloungers anyway? the clouds aren't helping, the ocean looked grey instead of blue. that's not phuket's fault, but still i need someone/something to blame.

i walk back to my hotel and find the elephant cafe right next door. while it doesn't have a view it has awesome pineapple pancakes and thai ice tea, the waiter is friendly and the wifi is speedy. i am slightly mollified till my stomach is acting up again, i can't fault the pancakes so once again i just blame phuket; it gets on my nerves and has now affected my so far very happy tummy.

so here i am, the lady in her dark, cool hotel room. waiting till i can go to the next island, one that will be worth my time and worthy of my thighs sticking together.

(and just in case you will call be spoilt and ungrateful i will give you exhibit a) phuket beach and exhibit b) all other beaches i have been to and you can decide on your own.)

20 random things i recently learned about me and cambodia.

people travel for two reasons: to learn about the world and to learn about themselves. usually they end up getting a combination of both. i'm on a bus to ho chi minh, leaving beautiful cambodia. being stuck on a bus with chinese music playing for 7 hours gives you plenty of time for reflection. here is what i have learned about the world and myself in the past weeks:

1. pringles are a completely acceptable breakfast choice.

2. i'm more easy going than i thought i was. i know when to take my time out, but usually and when not hungry i'm quite happy to go with the flow. i have met some real princesses on this trip and i wasn't one of them *pads own shoulder*.

3. the content of my backpack seems to be growing though i haven't bought anything. i am wondering if there is a traveller's secret to this that i don't know about?

(the above was a lie. i have bought three kromas for myself and one silkscarf in pink for my mother and a whole bag of spices that i have no idea if i'm allowed to import them.)

4. monks go commando i was told my multiple sources. not sure why i needed to know that, but our tour guides apparently deemed it important so i'm passing on the wisdom to you.

5. the one luxury i don't want to live without is face spritz. i lost my rosewater in bangkok and have been unhappy ever since about it. yesterday i shrieked in delight when i found evian spray at a pharmacy and promptly spent a little fortune on it to make it mine.

6. things don't make people happy. doing things that you love makes people happy. smiling makes people happy. i was told planting rice with your family during the rainy season makes people happy.

7. if you have ever spend a night in the cambodian countryside you will learn that crickets can be bloody loud and not very romantic and you will not go out and buy yourself a sound machine with jungle noises because you miss that sound so much. at least i won't.

8. sometimes doing really touristy things can be loads of fun. like doing a group cyclo race in really hectic traffic. especially when the locals around you don't mind.

9. traffic in cambodia is manic. i didn't see a single accident and still don't know how that is even possible. it seems to be an intricate system of organized chaos an outsider cannot understand.

10. i can live without wine. well, spider wine doesn't count and there is always beer, but still...who would have guessed?

11. i'm completely mesmerized by rice paddies and the harvesting of them.

12. kids are kids anywhere in the world: some are cheeky, some are shy, there is always a leader, one with pigtails, a big sister bossing a little brother. i like that certain dynamics are the same wherever you go. same goes for men and watching sports.

13. i need to spend more time by the beach. i become a different person when there is sun and salt on my skin (and yes, minus the sunburn obviously!).

14. i still need to find the balance between when to take pictures and when to put my camera down and just absorb. i think i miss out experiencing when i see through a lens too much.

15. i'm a hair tier upper. always. sorry. even with my new short hair the tropical whether just calls for it.

16. i am really really afraid of snakes. i won't eat one (and mind you i have eaten a spider leg) and when we were on the tonle sap lake and a boy in a small boat with a snake around his neck came close to ours i almost jumped into the water.

17. travelling puts me in a bubble. while that can be a great thing of living in the moment at times, i also need this trip to spend some time thinking about where i'm going and what i want out of my life. i haven't done that at all. then again, i tend to overthink everything so maybe it's a good thing to just be for a bit.

18. food! i get ridiculously excited by the local menus. i usually want to order everything. the best part about any town for me are the food markets and thai basil is the bestest of all herbs. 

19. i love lotus flowers. i almost bought some to put in my hotel room, but then sanity prevailed. lotus flowers don't like 7 hour bus rides very much.

20. i do like going away and coming home equally.  

stuff i like in cambodia.

today was my last day in cambodia. tomorrow i will be on a 7 hour bus ride *grrrr* to vietnam. so i thought i should do a little recap of my favorite things here in accordance with my stuff i like series (yes, i know two posts don't make a series, but i'm working on it!). so here is my favorite stuff that i liked in cambodia:

beach day.
spending a day on bamboo island reminded me that i am a total beach baby, but also that i still have light, sensitive german skin. you would assume after 6 years in south africa i know how to put on sunscreen, but my back and the top of my feet tell a different story. but still i loved it, being on the sand and in the water is my best and i must make an effort to do more beach days when i get back home.

however boat rides are a whole other story. due to it being rainy season we had such a bumpy ride that a few people get sick and all of us where scared for our lives. well, i was mainly scared for my camera. apparently you are a bad traveller if you haven't gotten a dry bag. we also learned not to drink beer in a pool till late the night before a boat ride.

fresh coconut juice.

i have written extensively about my love for coconut water or juice as they call it here. however in cambodia they serve it straight up in a coconut, even in fancy restaurants.

sticky rice.

take a mini banana, plaster it with sticky rice, sprinkle with coconut, wrap in a banana leaf, and grill on an open fire. unwrap and eat it straight out of the leaf. best roadside breakfast ever!

*sorry, no picture because that thing was gone in under a minute.*

the smell of jasmine.
in massage oil, incense, and in fresh garlands for decorations or as an offering at the home shrines - i want my entire home to smell like jasmine from now on and can you imagine how excited i was to find out that my face balm is fragranced with it?!

trees taking over.

i have seen lots of nurseries all over cambodia and apparently there are quite a few reforestation programmes in place. i like this a lot. and then of course there are the trees at ta prohm, better known as the tomb raider temple these days, who have taken reign over the stones. it reminded me of the power of nature.

and though this is obviously not stuff, but what i enjoyed most about cambodia are its people. despite a recent gruelling history are they incredibly friendly and optimistic, very hardworking and hospitable and they don't seem to dislike tourists yet. i have never seen a nation of so many smiles. that made me happy and i think i smiled quite a lot here too. no more annoyka in cambodia, no more worries about wrinkly eyes!

the random story of how micky ate dicky.

yesterday was horrible. i don’t even know why but everything brought tears to my eyes and in the end i just ended properly crying for no good reason. i decided that i shouldn’t be amongst people so in the question of wine or yoga, wine with pasta and dvds won. though it may not have been the healthiest choice, it seemed to be what i needed as today i woke up with lots of energy and the drive to get things done.

after editing some stories for a travel blog that i would love to contribute for, i went through my pictures to select some to go with the stories. i stumbled upon some old ones that i haven’t shared here, so i thought i’d make a little picture post.

i give you random pictures that have nothing in common but make me happy:

 my wonderful friend marie and i at noordhoek beach. that’s what happens when the photographer tells you to make a scary face and jump. marie just had the most beautiful baby girl and named her anni, which of course i am totally claiming credit for. i cannot wait to meet her.

i was a hipster taking shoe pictures long before instagram. i may start a series. i have another one where my shoe is dangling over a volcano.

this was taken on my first real solo trip to the seychelles. since i like travelling on my own i have the unfortunate tendencies to take selfies, also pre iphone and screen turning options. here i luckily opted to ask someone. i have since realized it is actually nice to have a decent picture of myself in a place that i liked, touristy or not. have i mentioned i used to have baby turtles? micky and dicky were they names and within a week of getting them i already regretted it and wasn’t sad when micky eventually ate dicky and we returned him/her to the pet store (we returned micky only as they didn’t want to take half eaten turtle remains). the only surprise was that micky ate dicky as he/she was half the size of dicky (dick = fat in german). however the little one in the picture i liked lots.

my dad and i on christmas two years ago. we are both total suckers for christmas as you can see. and though he is not getting any younger - his words not mine - he has just booked a flight to come down again. i am beyond excited for family christmas and a trip to zanzibar with him!

drop your hip, annika! but besides this technicality i love this picture. yoga in the desert, pucci scarf in the hair, prada on the nose.

there is a guy who has a picture taken of him doing a split jump in front of famous buildings and sites all over the world. i think i want to do that too from now on, only with standing bow pose as i am much more a standing bow poser than a split jumper in general. first up is the reclining buddha and then angkor wat . till then find me at the yoga studio where i practise dropping my hip…

No sex on the beach.

So this day has been the culmination of a crappy week and so bad that I thought my anxiety was back. I managed to keep it together for my co-worker because just like any man he gets scared by crying women. I thought the day was a goner for sure and only insane amounts of wine and some happy pills could make it remotely better, but luckily I was wrong. I think it was a mix of lots of Earl Grey with loads of sugar and some entertaining anecdotes from my Jo’burg pen pal. Probably the notion of hotel room sex, which he brought up in one of his emails also helped. No indecent proposals here, but just the mention of hotel room sex in general, which it seems we are both fans of. Who isn’t?

It started when I was a slave i.e. fashion assistant. One of the perks was that I got to travel travel cool places and usually stay in 5 star hotels with my boss. The boss would eventually complain about the 5-star hotel and ask me to request from the producer to be moved to another 5-star hotel. I had to hide my embarrassment when the producer asked me whether I was happy or would also like to move. Happy? I was still getting over the fact that they had Hermes bath products!  So I thankfully declined, the current 5-star hotel would suit me just fine.

This could now become a whole different story. A hotel story. I may write it one day. This one is about the not having hotel room sex.

The truth is that I have never had a crush on a male model before. Ever. I’ve seen them all, clothed, naked and everything in between and would usually help them getting from one state to the other. All part of the job description. Stereotype or not though, a lot of them are not very smart and either look too beefy or like 12 year old boys. Therefore usually no flirting, no crushes, definitely no hotel room sex for me on the job.

One exception was Oreol, the model for a fragrance campaign we shot in Ibiza. The day I had was quite stressful:

09h00 – 18h00: Lounge at the pool of the photographers’ villa all day while the private chef is making gourmet snacks.

18h00 – 18h05: At sunset give model a pair of black swim trunks.

18h05 – 19h00: Watch how they take portrait shot of him.

19h00 – 19h30: Go down to the beach with crew and take a swim.

19h00 – late: Have dinner on the beach.

No kidding – I got paid for this.

Oreol and I ended up having the loveliest conversation over dinner. A guy to my liking: from Barcelona, well travelled, studied, smart, funny and yes, he looked like a Roman god. At some point with the help of wine, sunset, beach some mild flirting entered the conversation. We ended up realizing that though we both travel lots we never pack toothpaste and end up paying exorbitant hotel prices. I had already done that in our Ibiza hotel and he hadn’t, so I thought it was only polite to offer him some of mine. I honestly didn’t even think it would go any further – what else would this god want in my room but toothpaste? Apparently other people, namely my boss George did. Travelling up the elevator together after returning from the beach, we got out, politely said good night and moved along the corridor to my room. George must have thought it a real possibility and gotten jealous because next thing I heard was him yelling: “Oreol, don’t you dare sleep with my assistant”. Thank you, George.

Needless to say that Oreol did not sleep with the assistant. Ever since I have stuck to the regular guys for hotel room sex and made sure George had something to complain and moved to another hotel before.