Maldives

Digital Nomad Stop #13 – Fuvahmulah, Maldives

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After our India adventures, it felt just a little too early to return to (cold, grey) Austria and as I was already in Asia, I decided to do a little stop on the way home. As I hadn’t been scuba diving for a few years, the Maldives sounded very appealing. I had done a liveaboard here in 2018, but this time I knew I had to work and therefore needed to stay on an island rather than on a boat where WiFi is not that reliable. A quick research got me set on the Southern island of Fuvahmulah, promising 100% guarantee on diving with tiger sharks. Tiger sharks, one of the main species of shark that was still missing in my ‚collection‘! So I booked myself a diving and accommodation package for a week’s stay, diving in the mornings and working in the afternoons and evenings. And of course, exploring some of the quite little island in between!

I was lucky to meet some really nice buddies to dive with and to explore the island with. Together, we did 6 tiger shark dives and 8 other dives along the reef. During the other dives, we were not as lucky and only faintly saw a thresher shark at one point. However, there were plenty of reef sharks, moray eels, turtles and just overall lots of beautiful schools of fish and healthy looking reefs!

The shark dives were the highlight of course. There is a feeding station where dive masters hide tuna heads underneath some rocks which the sharks will then smell and start circling around and search for them. Sometimes, they were then really digging into the rocks, picking them up and even accidentally swallowing some (and spitting them out again). In the end, they always found the tuna of course! Really cool to watch and we were able to get real close. My favourite dive was one of the shark dives where we followed the reef a bit afterwards and I went really deep with my buddy. Down there, we saw the sharks coming up from the bottom and at one point some were circling around us. Super cool!

Overall it was a great week and my dive/work schedule worked out pretty well. It’s definitely something I can imagine doing more often – although unfortunately all my bucket list diving destinations are liveaboard-based now. Guess I gotta wait for better WiFi on the boats! For now, here are some more photos.

India

Even nomads need a holiday: 2 weeks in India

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Since I’ve become a digital nomad, I have lived in lots of beautiful places and I have been able to appreciate life in a completely different way. Sometimes though, it can feel like living two lives at the same time – being available for my clients and delivering on my projects, and hanging out with mostly tourists engaging in typical tourist activities. This sometimes makes me feel as if I’m rushing from the one to the other and can get a bit exhausting at times. So it is nice to actually take time off work sometimes!

When I planned my 2 weeks in India, I knew this was going to be one of these holiday periods. The plan was to finally meet up with Kesh again and to also spend some time with his family at a wedding. So I wanted to make sure to have enough time to enjoy and not having to keep work tasks in my head. So, India. First stop: Delhi. I had been here about five years ago and ticked off all the main tourist sights of the city. So this time, we took it slow and just walked around Chandni Chowk and Old Delhi a lot, soaking up the chaos around us taking in the full sensory overload that India provides you with. It was so much fun to get lost in the chaos of the little streets with anything and everything imaginable (and unimaginable) happening around you. Loved Delhi first time around, and still do!

From Delhi, we hopped onto a flight to Varanasi, where the wedding took place. It was interesting to participate in all the different elements and ceremonies of the wedding and I wore a saree for the first time! My favourite outfit was the lengha though, that I bought in Delhi. Everything is so beautifully colourful at Indian weddings, I love it!

Next to the wedding, we actually had lots of free time to explore Varanasi, which for us meant mainly walking along the ghats and taking in the special atmosphere along the river Ganges. I had wanted to visit Varanasi for such a long time, so it was incredible to finally be walking long the river and to witness all sorts of different ceremonies and the cremation of dead bodies (I will forever be haunted by that image of feet sticking out of a fire…) – an equally fascinating, shocking and kind of repulsive thing to observe. One of those moments that I will forever remember.

For the rest, our days were filled with me trying to practice Hindi with random chai vendors, drinking lots of chai and eating lots of delicious food. Varanasi was much more relaxed and cleaner than I had expected – I really liked the city!

After Varanasi, our next stop was Mumbai. As we both felt a bit sick though, we didn’t end up seeing a lot which was fine by me as again I had been to Mumbai before and seen all the main attractions. So after some more family time, we hopped onto another flight – destination: Amritsar. Amritsar… the city of the Sikh, located in the Northwest of India, close to the boarder of Pakistan. Another one that had been on my „India bucket list“ for a while, and so it had been on Kesh’s. Originally, we had planned to travel to a climbing place for a bit, however, trains were fully booked. The decision for an alternative stop was easy though and we did not regret it!

*The* main attraction of Amritsar is the Golden Temple, which we visited on multiple occasions and at different times of the day so that we got to see the temple at night in all its shiny golden glory, but also in the morning and day time hours. We also went for a free meal in the temple (the „langar“) twice, which was really nice food. It is crazy that it is provided every day for so many people. I’d love to get insight into the planning and logistics behind that!

The other thing to do when in Amritsar, is to visit the Wagah border between India and Pakistan where every afternoon a border ceremony takes place. I didn’t read up a lot on it beforehand, so didn’t exactly know what to expect. It ended up being one big party with the guys from the military acting as MCs, getting the crowd fired up and a little marching up and down of the military. The best part of the whole ceremony was when all women were invited to get into the „arena“. I didn’t really know why and what was going to happen next, but decided to join nonetheless. I was the only tourist and what happened next was dancing! Basically just randomly partying with all the Indian women around me. No clue why this was part of the border ceremony, but it was so much fun! So…who cares.

And that was it! We returned to Delhi for one last night before parting ways again. My next stop: Fuvahmulah, Maldives. But before that, here are some more photos of our time in India.

Turkey

Digital Nomad Stop #12 – Turkey

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The next stop on my nomad journey was one that had been on my bucket list for a while: Turkey. Before settling in the little climbing village Geyikbayiri, I was going to tick off a couple of must sees that I had been wanting to visit for a very, very long time.

My first stop was Cappadocia. I arrived here late at night and didn’t get a whole lot of sleep before my alarm went off. It was time to get picked up for my hot air balloon flight! These flights take off just before sunrise so that you can experience the sunrise and morning light from the air. I had pretty high expectations as this is obviously a very well-known activity and I had seen many photos of it. However, the actual experience was even better. It was just such an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime thing to do! We arrived at the launch site in the dark and were able to watch the balloons getting filled with hot air. Once our balloon was full enough, we were asked to climb into the basket and received a short welcome and briefing.

Then, we were off, floating slowly into the cool morning air… Around us hundreds of other balloons. A magical feeling. The flight lasted 1.5h and at times we went really close to the ground and in between the fairy chimneys, at other times we were high up in the air, having a stunning view of the landscape.

When the sun came up more and more, we had to land and there was a little celebration ceremony with champagne and certificates. Overall, a highly recommended activity and one that I will certainly remember forever!

The rest of my time in Cappadocia was spent exploring the region as much as possible next to my work. I was glad to have almost 5 days in Cappadocia, as it allowed me to see everything that I had wanted to see. I went on many different hikes, exploring places like the Love Valley, the Pigeon Valley and many more.

I also visited Göreme Open Air Museum, Cavusin, Zelve Open Air Museum and Uchisar Castle of which I enjoyed Zelve and Cavusin the most and both actually positively surprised me as the other places are more commonly visited. The nice thing about having a bit more time in a place is that you don’t just get to tick off the recommended highlights, but that you also get to see other places – which might actually end up being more stunning. I also went on a sunset horse riding tour which was so, so beautiful! I always like horse riding and especially when it is in beautiful nature like Cappadocia.

In the mornings, I made sure not to miss any sunrise – now watching the balloons from the ground; either from the roof terrace of my hotel or from one of the balloon viewpoints around Göreme. Even with lots of people around, it was just so beautiful and magical every single time!

My next stop on my Turkey itinerary was Ephesus or rather the town of Selcuk, which lays close to the Roman ruins of Ephesus. I spent only 2 nights here but really enjoyed my time. The ruins were nice to see, but nothing spectacular and too overrun by tourists for what they were. Selcuk itself was a nice little town though and I enjoyed walking around there.

From Selcuk, I took a train to Denizli and a quick minibus to Pamukkale. Pamukkale is famous for its travertines – little terrace pools – and translates into „cotton castle“ which I find a very fitting name. The snow-white pools – some filled with water, some empty – look surreal in the landscape. What made it even more spectacular were the dark clouds hanging in the sky on the day when I visited Pamukkale. A photographer’s paradise!

With the same ticket, you also get to visit the ruins of Hierapolis which were really nice, but a bit spread out. I hadn’t expected to be doing quite as much walking as I ended up doing that day – distances were large. Had I known about these ruins in advance, I probably would have skipped Ephesus as Hierapolis was just as cool, with Pamukkale a couple of meters away. In any case, a very, very worthwhile stop on any Turkey itinerary!

From Pamukkale, I went back to Denizli from where I took a bus to Antalya, the biggest city close to the climbing village Geyikbayiri, and a taxi from here to the campground Josito. I had finally arrived at my home for the next 5 weeks and was finally at a place again where I would stay, work remotely and climb as much as possible in my free time! And what an awesome place it was. I had my own little hut and there was a spacious common area, kitchen and co-working space. I was lucky to meet some really amazing people and climbing partners that I had a lot of fun with in those 5 weeks.

The climbing was great and for the first time, I found myself a proper 7a(+) project (Euro 7). I worked on it for about a week, but unfortunately had to leave without sending it. However, I learned so much in the process of projecting this hard route and I got super strong! So overall only positive take-aways. I also tried some other hard routes with my hardest send being Rüzgarli Bahce 6c+, a pumpy route with good rests that is only my 2nd ever 6c+ send! Overall, I gained a lot more confidence, got (a little?) over my fear of falling, got really into climbing shape again and thoroughly enjoyed my time in Geyik.

Here you can find some more photos of my time in Turkey.