BERLIN
Good evening! I’m always amazed at how much time seems to fly between blog posts – I‘ve managed to go since August without writing anything which is dreadful but in my defence, I have spent most of this university calendar year with my nose in one book or another, and finding time for extracurricular writing is a challenge, alongside 3+ novels per week for a single module.
Weekend getaways are however seemingly not a challenge, as I spent the last few days in Berlin thanks to post new-year spontaneity and the delights of Ryanair last minute flights. I'm going to warn you now that the 6am Sunday flight back was a big mistake, particularly as Berlin Schoenfeld is severely lacking in adequate 4am drunk snacks and places to sleep.
brandenburg gate
I try to remember to snap pictures of restaurants, landmarks or (much to the displeasure of anyone who accompanies me to dinner) food, to get back into the swing of reviews. Unfortunately, I didn’t do quite so well on taking pictures of landmarks, mainly thanks to the sub-zero weather conditions and numb fingers.
checkpoint Charlie, with 'checkpoint curry' avaiable at the nearest takeout
With flights at £50 return, only a few weeks in advance, and an Airbnb around £50 a night for a decent apartment, or slightly more upmarket flatshare, Berlin is certainly one of the more affordable European destinations. Whether it’ll be accessible or not in the future is debatable – the first question I was faced with by any and every German was my thoughts on Brexit (pitifully little, I’m not the one to be asked when it comes to politics). We crammed a lot into 2 days, whereas 3 would probably be a better choice to experience more of what the city has to offer.
Tourist attractions such as the Brandenburg gate, Berlin Victory Column, Reichstag Parliamentary Building, Checkpoint Charlie and the Holocaust Memorial architecture are all within walking distance – albeit more 30 mins. The latter is certainly impassive and eerie, interpretations widely debated but generally suggesting the grey, sobering abstract cubes to suggest the unease of a mass graveyard, and a sense of entrapment.
holocaust memorial
Food wise, the aptly named A Never Ending Love Story offered a basic but appetising brunch of pancakes and avocado toast, boasting neon lights and bubble-gum coloured walls as expected to draw in brunching millennials. Food is overwhelmingly cheaper than in London (surprise surprise), and dinner at Saigon Green boasted cheaper meals and a more vegetarian friendly menu than I found in Vietnam itself. Berlin is increasingly heralded as the most vegan-friendly city in Europe, so meat free options can be found on every corner. Even the infamous post night-out doner kebab shop offers numerous vegan options. On the topic of nightlife – I have absolutely no idea where we ended up out, but it was duly underground somewhere, in some abandoned warehouse building. Entering the elusive Berghain was not attempted on this occasion.
avocado toast, but abroad
After spending a continuous year living out of my backpack and traipsing between hostel dorms, I still haven’t returned to the joys of sharing a room with 40 strangers, so have been using more of Airbnb as of late. We stayed in Humboldthain – a little north of the direct centre. Public transport makes all of the suburbs very accessible, and is easily navigated, although unfortunately not contactless.
My German is a little rusty round the edges at the moment. I can still understand everything, but sometimes I’ll go to speak and it feels as though someone has packed my mouth full of cotton wool, or my voice being 5 seconds behind my brain. Luckily, the German education system means that students excel at foreign languages, and pretty much everyone can speak English better than our basic equivalent of GCSE French or Spanish. So you can bring your pocket guide and put your best Guten Tag and danke and zwanzig Euro on show, but you’ll often find yourself met with a slightly amused English reply.
Gili Islands (Bali)
The Gili Islands sit on the coast of Lombok, an island in Indonesia – favourably close to Bali and a hotspot destination for holidaymakers and backpackers alike. Each of the three little islands has its own, individual reputation. Gili Trawangan (Gili T) is the most known and visited. The party island. Cue the devilish grins of backpackers at the fond memories of shroom-shakes and wild nights, starting out at in the club and usually ending up face down in the sand somewhere in the early hours. Gili Air is known for being slightly quieter (my island of choice), with less of a party scene and more lazy days spent sipping cocktails on the waterfront. Gili Meno, the smallest of the three, is the lesser developed, more for family holidays and quiet escapes.
The islands are easily reached from Bali. Some tourists decide to visit all three, and perhaps even Lombok. Some set their eyes on one island and make their way over. The journey is accessible and fairly cheap. All hostels offer some form of inclusive transport, usually the cheapest model, at around 500,000 rupiah, or £30 with a return. The Tripadvisor reviews for the cheapest boat transfers are a little disheartening. Lost luggage, immense sea sickness and broken boats – but I discovered none of these. I ended up booking my transfers online, booking the more expensive Blue Water ride over, and for the journey back not booking at all but rather wandering down to the port mid morning and haggling for a cheap ride back to Seminyak. I would recommend pre booking your ferry to the Gili Islands as both ports are a fair distance from Kuta/Seminyak, but wholly recommend trying to get a good deal and leaving your options open for the journey back; there were plenty of people offering me cheaper deals including hotel transfer on the islands.
No cars are allowed on the island. Or maybe no cars fit (it took me less than two hours to walk all the way around Gili Air). I’m not sure. Either way, the islands are a whole breadth away from the hustle and fumes on Bali’s central roads. Instead, you can rent yourself a little feisty pony and trap to get you and your luggage to your hotel (or, in my case and that of all penny saving backpackers, lug all 20kg through the blistering heat whilst admiring the ponies). I stayed at Bedagang Backpackers, and came upon probably my biggest mistake in booking hostels. Having specified for air con in hostelworld.com upon booking, I was a little confused when shown my mattress on the floor of an open hut, with a little mosquito net to keep the pests at bay. Not quite wanting to embrace the outdoor nightlife, I discovered that they have dorms with actual beds and aircon, or the cheaper mattress option. I spent one very interesting night with some stray cats trying to clamber through my mosquito net and am quite proud of myself for surviving even in the humid heat, before a space in the dorms became available.
Daytime activities include snorkelling, scuba diving, the short walk around the whole of the island, and tasty cafes. Captain Coconuts serves divine health and vegan food; the stuffed tofu was to die for. The Gili Islands are also an area very unlike Bali itself, where you can order a cheap soft drink and be granted access to lounge chairs free of charge, unlike the haggling over commercial sunloungers on the mainland. From your little sun lounging nest, you can watch the sunset on tranquil waters, or access the infamous Bali swings. The waters nearest to the island are incredibly shallow – think knee deep – so paddling is a must.
Whilst I only visited Gili Air, I would wholly recommend several days, if not a week to visit all three of the islands. They capture the picturesque landscape many holidaymakers come to Bali in search of, yet may not find on the mainland. Hidden away from cars and with notably fewer tourists, they offer a serene break from the outside world, with all the bounty of cheap cocktails and flipflop trees.
Beautiful Brisbane
Beyond the hustle and bustle of Sydney (although diminutive in comparison to the constant rampage of Oxford Circus, and other central London strongholds), lies Brisbane, a little north of Sydney on the Eastern Coast of Australia. The third largest city, below Melbourne, Brisbane hosts a population of 2.35million - although you would hardly know it. I arrived on Easter Friday, to be greeted by eerily quiet streets. Travelling to the Greyhound bus transit area, memories of Twenty-eight Days Later flashed through my head, so quiet were the urban streets of Brisbane. That of course was partially due to the bank holiday, but even so, venturing out further over my five day stay in the city, I was often astonished at how calm and empty the streets were.
Catmosphere Cat Cafe, Chiang Mai
As previously mentioned, I was hit by a rather hard bout of jet lag whilst in Chiang Mai. My one true mistake was conceding to early afternoon sleepiness and curling up for a little cat nap. Feeling refreshed four hours later and ready to tackle dinner, I was in fairly high spirits, unbeknown to the sleeplessness that was to follow. After spending the entire night tossing and turning, my friend instructed me quite pointedly that I simply couldn’t come elephant trekking without a night of restful sleep, which was probably for the best considering I felt (and looked) rather fried, with a slight twitch to my left eye. I dragged myself off to the hospital and found some sleeping pills to knock me out in future, returned to the hostel and caught a coupe hours of blissful sleep in midday privacy, and woke up a little lonely and also ravenous. After relocating one of the vegan retreats we had visited previously, I decided to take myself off on a solo mission to find my biggest comfort; cats.
Catmosphere is located a little way out of the centre of Chiang Mai, an easy taxi ride or a thirty or forty minute walk in my case – practical tanning. Plenty of hipster clubs and cafes can also be found in this area so it’s worth the trip.
You have to wait at the door to be allowed in, having previously washed and sanitised your hands and stripped your shoes for a comfortable pair of spa slippers to be allowed into the magical cattery kingdom. Catmosphere houses about 20 or 30 felines from various backgrounds, purchase or rescue. The menu provides quaint illustrations of the inhabitants with matching names. The cat café runs a space theme, with CATstronauts galore.
The café is free to enter if you purchase a drink or sweet baked snack, with teas and iced coffee available, or 100 baht if you’re there for the felines and not the refreshments. You can sit and play with the cats to your heart’s content, some of whom scrabble about chasing feathers or leaping in boxes. Others provide a more relaxing companionship and will simply curl up in your lap and purr. The free water on offer was snapped up by one of the kittens before I could reach it.
T shirts were also available, so of course I had to snag my own. The cat café also runs a cinema club, where you can share some popcorn with some pussycats over classic films.
open 10am – 8pm
Huaykaew Rd
Amphoe Mueang
Chang Wat
Chiang Mai 50300
Thailand
Karma Kafe, Ko Phangan
I’m still dubious about how one pronounces Ko Phangan and have been laughed at upon every attempt. Nonetheless the island is serene, the least touristy of Koh Tao, Ko Samui and itself. We stayed at a resort where I had insisted that a fan room as opposed to air conditioning was worth the drop in price. We did as a result spend the night sweating profusely, trying to convince ourselves that the breeze from the fan, blowing stray hairs over to the left, then back to the right sides of our faces was just like the soothing wind of nature (which it very much was not).
Ko Phangan boasts a huge number of vegan restaurants in Srithanu, which turned out to be a thirty or so minute drive from the port, Thong Sala, and where we were staying. Taxis on Ko Phangan were less abundant than in other areas, with most people turning to scooters as an easy way of access around the island. I didn’t venture out in hiring a scooter myself, but I don’t think a license or experience is required to do so, with scooters on offer for miniscule amounts of money, two or three pounds per day from our hotel.
We decided not to risk a scooter journey but instead hitched a communal taxi to Srithanu, and explored several quaint jewellery stores as well as picking up some well needed after sun in the local pharmacy. We ended this little exploration in the Karma Kafe, with stylish décor and dark wood. The sign in the toilet was hugely amusing, something along the lines of ‘don’t flush toilet paper / sanitary products / kittens and puppies / your ex’s belongings’.
The food here was also one of my favourites amongst our travels. Hungry, as usual, I ordered two mains. The first was a rice bowl with the most deliciously spiced pumpkin, the second a burrito with beans and the same tasty pumpkin and squash puree. My friend ordered raw tacos, slightly let down upon discovering that the tacos were in fact not the crispy carb shells back home but cabbage bowls, but still insisted the dish to be worth the initial disappointment.
If out and exploring Ko Phangan and brave enough to hitch a scooter trip, Karma Kafe is well worth the trip!
20/18 moo 8, Koh Pha Ngan, Surat Thani 84280, Thailand
open 12-10pm
Atsumi Raw Cafe, Phuket
We landed in Phuket town centre to find it a little disappointing, hardly blue seas and white beaches but rather a busy and jostling city with little in the way of vegetarian foods on offer. A good distance from the beach which was more of a port than somewhere where we could expose our pasty British skin, the only vegan café I could find was a fair drive down to the South of the island of Phuket, near Rawai.
We originally had planned to alter our hostel accommodation and move from Phuket town centre to the more tranquil beaches tripadvisor promised us of Rawai – this was later altered again to the fantastical nightlife and equal beach opportunities offered by Patong, on the West. It was rather dark and dreary on arrival, with my friend imbued with a desperate cold, both of us hungry and damp. We set out on a fairly expensive taxi ride to Atsumi raw café, planning to also check out Rawai and assess if a hostel swap was worth the cost.
The café is situated on the side of a main road so easy to locate. It is linked with the Atsumi Wellness Centre, where yoga, detox and even fasting plans are on offer (fortunately we came for the food, not the fasting). A café is situated to the front of the restaurant, with the dining behind. The food here was absolutely superb, perhaps the best raw options available. I chose a vegetable burrito in a corn tortilla, with an array of sauces. After travelling for the day I was decidedly hungry and do have to admit that vegan food is not the most filling – so I moved on to a raw Caesar salad, with cashew cheese to follow. My stomach still growling, I ended the meal with a raw vegan brownie. I’m not a huge fan of raw desserts and would rather eat an actual brownie over mashed dates, but it did certainly taste like the picture of health, filled with cacao, banana and almonds.
The food here towards the higher range of all places we visited, but the service was swift and wifi even faster, so if in Phuket, Atsumi is definitely worth the trip, perhaps tied with a yoga session to really hammer down on the health.
99/1 Moo 7, Wiset Road Rawai district, Phuket, Thailand
atsumirawcafe@hotmail.co.th
Tel: +6676289224
open 9am - 8pm
God's Own Junkyard
Ever fancied seeing your name in shining lights, Hollywood style? I’m sure you had that little niggling dream in younger days. Swaggering down Broadway, the leading lady in an array of West End musicals. You might also have come to the bitter realisation that this would progress no further than a far off dream after year seven drama lessons, whereby your teacher might have eyed you up with a furrowed brow and expression of mild pity as you desperately tried to bring Oliver to life for the school's seasonal production. Never mind that, you surely did your best to bring a wholly convincing re-enactment of a goldfish to the table instead, ferreted away to one of the smaller parts with a reassuring smile.
Well, acting talents aside (I bet you’ve also been the weakest link to any Christmas table charades game too), having your name in shining lights is certainly possible in one area of London.
God’s Own Junkyard is a gallery for the bright and dazzling neon art, the likes of which can be rented out to feature in films, such as Tomb Raider 2 and Tomorrow Never Dies. Situated a little out of the middle of London, the gallery can be found a short walk from Walthamstow Central tube station (although google maps turned this into a scenic half hour expedition through suburban London).
The inside of the industrial space is truly bedazzling. Neon pieces cover the walls, ceilings, and lie dotted around the floor-space for an overwhelming burst of colour and light. The gallery features numerous huge and awe-striking pieces with quirky phrases such as ‘Sail Away with Me’ and ‘Are you getting enough?’ The art seems to find a sweet balance between gaudy provocation of the many erotic shops in which the pieces were once found, alongside the bright eyed amazement of any child taken to his first carnival, where many of the other, more innocent signs also stem.
Alongside these huge constellations are smaller and sweeter designs, simple love hearts and crowns, small enough to stand on a nightstand.Many of the pieces have been created by Christopher Bracey, a British neon artist who sadly passed away two years ago. He allegedly stated that most of his early commissioned work for instigated by the rising sex industry, benefited by the allure of his luscious and alluring signs. His death was voiced through Twitter with the touching and poignant message, "Just wanna let you know I am actually in Gods Own Junk Yard”, fitting to his life works, and the gallery continues to be run by relatives.
If out and about in London, I would highly suggest a trip down to Gods Own Junkyard to visit the neon delights. It is however only open on weekends, but the included café, the ‘Rolling Scones’ makes it well worth the excursion for the ability to sit down to a cheery slice of cake and take in the glittering lights.
Of course, you can also rake out a small fortune to purchase one of the delectable installations, although the prices don’t come cheap, one of the more known pieces, ‘Don’t Worry’ sold for £40,000 back in 2014. Many of the pieces are however up for hire, if you do fancy your name in shining lights, perhaps for your 21st if not a star studded career.
Gods Own Junkyard
Unit 12 Ravenswood Industrial Estate
Shernhall Street
London
E17 9HQ