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Fiji was the THIRD COUNTRY on our almost 2 months long trip around SOUTH PACIFIC. One mom and one 6 year old. After visiting friends and family in SINGAPORE and RAROTONGA, Cook islands, we were truly on our own in Fiji. After a couple of days in busy NADI, we sailed over to the YASAWA ISLANDS and chose DRAWAQA island as our first stop. The big YASAWA FLYER boat brought us to MATACAWALEVU afterwards.
Fiji was the THIRD COUNTRY on our almost 2 months long trip around SOUTH PACIFIC. One mom and one 6 year old. After visiting friends and family in SINGAPORE and RAROTONGA, Cook islands, we were truly on our own in Fiji. After a couple of days in busy NADI, we sailed over to the YASAWA ISLANDS and chose DRAWAQA island as our first stop. We had about 2 WEEKS to explore and we decided to visit 3 ISLANDS before it was time to move on to VANUATU.
After my 4th visit to Singapore last year I think I can say I do know the city a little bit. Despite having a reputation of being ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES in the world there are still lots of things to do and places to visit if you are traveling LOW BUDGET. For me, it is a great city worth visiting even if you are not up to spending a fortune. In this post I put together a list of activities, attractions and places in the city that are ABSOLUTELY FREE.
As much as I love going away with Lu, sometimes it just feels good to go somewhere by myself. Okay okay I didn´t go all by myself. I went with the other most important male in my life right now. So Lu stayed at school and I burned all my remaining holiday days from 2018. Yup, there is always a first and so I had quite a couple of those days left. Why Malta? It is south enough to be much warmer than Germany and it seemed like a unique place due to its cultural mix & Arabic influence. And also, because I was never there before. It is always more exciting to go somewhere we´ve never been to before, don´t you think?
During our recent stay in MALTA, we decided to spend one day visiting the tiny COMINO ISLAND, named after the CUMIN SEED that once flourished here. Situated BETWEEN MALTA AND GOZO, the island has only 3 PERMANENT RESIDENTS, so you can imagine how peaceful it is. Well, at It is also a nature reserve with ideal EASY HIKING TRAILS that take you all around the island.
It has been almost a year since LU AND ME flew off to our LONGER SOUTH PACIFIC TRIP, but we can still feel the powerful sun, smell the salty sea, taste the sweet coconuts and hear the waves if we close our eyes. Taking UNPAID LEAVE at my work for 3 months turned out to be a great idea. After almost a month visiting family and friends, skiing and celebrating birthdays back home in SLOVENIA we were more than ready for some fun in the sun, with 14 FLIGHTS and almost 2 MONTHS time. We decided to spend our yet another MOM & SON ADVENTURE between Singapore, Auckland, Cook islands, Fiji and Vanuatu. Here is our travel story.
The title basically says it all, but let me explain. There have been quite a few “new starts” this past year and luckily I can today say with a smile on my face that despite some difficult moments and sleepless nights, those “new starts” definitely paid off. Anyhow, those were far more of a personal nature than I´m willing to share here so let´s just leave it at that.
As for this blog, I somehow felt I should do the same. You know, start over. Time passed by so quick and while being busy with those “new starts” I mentioned above, I realized I have not written anything in about 10 months. It just wasn´t a priority anymore, in fact it was not even remotely close to that.
I guess I needed a break from it. Which is fine – after all, writing a blog should be a fun thing to do and not an obligation of some sort. At least that is how I always looked at it.
I think the break is over now. With all the changes made I´m ready to get back to it. In the past weeks I´ve moved the blog to a new address and gave it a new name, have been updating older posts, adding and deleting photos, changing designs, upgrading plugins, and so on. Those of you who have done the same must know it is not a quick job and I´m still not quite finished yet, but I´m getting there. If you don´t know, the old blog was called “finding Malokoko”. That one is still active until the end of February but I will be deleting the content already before.
Can´t really complain about that. So, here we go, ready for a fresh start, ready to fill you up on our 2018 experiences with new posts, pictures and stories. I will be happy if you stay with us and keep reading : ).
Main train station in Frankfurt. Cold. Grey. Foggy. On the train back home, we are already missing the moist tropical air and all the smells. It feels strange to hear German all around us, so I kind of pretend to be a tourist for just a while longer and continue to speak English.
Behind us there are weeks full of adventures and when I look back now I hardly believe we actually really did all those things! All alone! One mom, one son, 24 flights, 5 countries, sleeping at forgotten villages in the middle of nowhere, starring at exploding hot lava, swimming with sharks, treks in the jungle, showering in waterfalls, visiting friends on Rarotonga & family in Singapore and an unexpected visit of Auckland in the end. A couple of very dodgy rooms and a couple of very fancy ones. Days when we only ate noodle soup out of a little bag and days when we feasted on the best fish and crabs. Days without internet. Days when our feet were really dirty and smelly. Evenings without electricity. Salty messy hair. Watching the sun rise from our tent on the beach. So many new friends. And not to forget – one book read! Yeah, finally that is also possible while travelling with Lu :).
But well, not every day was without trouble, but that´s just a part of travel. Rocking boat rides, a close hello with a very destructive cyclone that almost changed our plans, cancelled flights, missed flights, extra costs and a few days of light fever – yes, travelling can be exhausting sometimes. And expensive. But in the end, it´s all worth those 5 minutes of frustration when something doesn´t go as planned.
Luckily, we are home without having lost documents or anything else important, nobody really got sick, our backpack didn´t get lost. Lu didn´t get lost :). We didn´t even get a sunburn. We can really say we had absolutely no problems travelling just the two of us. Honestly. Everyone took extra care of us and the locals thought it´s incredible how we do this all by our selves, you know, without a man to take care of us haha. So we have gotten a free banana here and there. And a coconut. And a discount in a taxi. And lots of attention from local kids. Not even once did we feel unsafe or threatened by anyone, as a mom I felt completely comfortable going around on our own.
Have to go to work in about an hour. I hope the car will start. It´s been standing in the cold for quite a while now. You won´t believe it but I´m flying again on Friday. This time without Lu :). And when we get over jet lag and sort out the photos I´ll surely write more about all the places we went to.
When we were sitting on the plane from Rarotonga to Auckland last year at this time around, i said to myself – we´ll definitely come again. I was really sure of that but never could i imagine it will happen already this year. And not in the usual setup, because this year it´s just Lu & me. To be honest, it´s been quite alright like it is. After a couple of days in Singapore where we visited relatives, we flew to Auckland (btw Singapore airlines beats Air New Zealand this time), spent a night at the airport and flew to Rarotonga the next morning. 10 whole days at friends on the biggest one of the Cook islands, what a luxury 🙂
Singapore was great. As usual. It was my 4th time, 3rd for Lu. That´s why we didn´t do any touristy things. Evening lights are still fascinating, there are rules to obey, everything is clean, hot, humid and fairly expensive. Everytime I come here I promise myself I will sleep in the Marina Bay Sands hotel the next time I come, but that never happens. Just check out their amazing pool and you´ll understand why. But the 3€ curry or a spicy masala dosa at the food court next door is a must. This time we also had a special extra swimming pool to overcome the heat in the middle of the day and a yummy Taiwanese feast the last evening – we might come next year again 🙂
Short but sweet, it was time to move. We´re on Rarotonga. Just a little paradise in the middle of the Pacific. Cook islands. You might have heard of it, but you probably can´t put them on the map in a second. The circle road around the island takes only one hour drive with a car. On the way, you can eat a fresh coconut, bite in a raw tuna, jump into the warm sea, say “kia orana” about a 100 times, buy a colourful pareo and send your grandma the most beautiful postcard there is. In our case, you also get to know where they have the coldest beer, the best coffee, the most amazing view and the most tasty passion fruit ice cream. Not to mention the hidden beaches. You buy the veggies at the market, wear flowers in your hair, drive on the left and meet loads of nice new friends over a BBQ at the back garden. We´re not alone here at all. Surrounded by friends. Old and new. Big and small. One last day today, before we move on again. We´ll miss everyone here. But we´ll see them soon again. It´s Fiji for us for the next 2 weeks or so!
What will we do and where will we go there? No clue. We don´t have anything booked and just a very rough plan of which places we want to see so we´ll just go with the wind. Feels so good to have this kind of freedom 🙂
Almost one month in Slovenia went by too fast. To be honest, there was really not much time for boredom. I think we did quite a good job at fitting the whole winter into one month – went up the snowy mountains as much as we could & visited almost all of the people we wanted to see again. Luckily we have also successfully avoided the nasty flu which has been going around quite a lot right now. It´s been at least 6 years since I´ve been home for such a long time and even if that meant we cut off a week or two from our upcoming trip, we don´t regret it at all. We still have muuuuch time left before we go back to our German home.
And now? Packing & saying goodbyes today, driving to Munich tomorrow and flying to Singapore on Sunday. As it is the rainy season in the Pacific right now, we just have a rough plan where exactly we are going, we´ll just see what the weather says and follow the sun. We do have the plane tickets for the flights between the islands as they were much cheaper to buy a little bit in advance. If there is internet and we feel like it, we might write something here and there, until then, adios :).
