Travel Post: Omis, Croatia

Omis is a little colorful town in Croatia surrounded by mountains. Not as well-known compared to Dubrovnik or Split but a little hidden gem of its own.

Our original plan was to drive from Korenica to Mt Biokovo, before continuing on to Split where we would stay for the night. We started the day early, waking up at 6am to start the 5- hour drive from Korenica to Mt Biokovo. Throughout the drive it rained intermittently, but we both held out some hope that the rain would stop by the time we got to Mt Biokovo.

Driving from Korenica to Mt Biokovo

Halfway up Mt Biokovo, the weather suddenly changed very drastically and dramatically. One minute the skies were relatively bright and the road ahead was visible, and the next minute, there were deafening thunderstorms and heavy rain.

I have to say, that was the scariest drive I’ve ever been on. We were driving halfway up a very bendy cliff totally blind. It was a two-way road – but the road was VERY narrow, there was a sharp bend every 100 metres or so, there were totally no safety railings by the side of the cliff whatsoever, and with the heavy rain we literally couldn’t see anything before us.

N was beeping her horn each time she was about to round the corner, just in case there was another driver coming down on the other side of the road. Not that it would be much use – we could barely hear anything over the heavy rain and storms.

Finally at one bend, N managed to do a 10-point turn. Not that I don’t trust N’s driving skills, but the space was so tight and we were so blind that I worried she would reverse us off the cliff LOL. As we crawled down the mountain, it started to hail heavily as well.

Unfortunately we didn’t take any photos for memory’s sake – N was too busy driving, and I was too busy being worried for our lives.

Once we were down Mt Biokovo, the skies cleared and the rain stopped drastically!

When we were finally down the mountain and back on normal, level roads – the sky cleared, and the rain and hail stopped almost instantaneously, but behind us we could still see black skies over the mountain.

Short random photostop along the way to Omis

We stopped by the side of the road for a little while as N needed a break from driving. Took some photos of the surroundings and chilled for a while, but it started to drizzle again so we hopped back into the car and continued on our way to Split.

Driving to Split!

Midway through, we passed by a little small town – Omis – and we thought it looked pretty interesting, so we decided to stop there for a little while to grab lunch and explore.

Driving into Omis

We stopped by Babilo Restaurant for a quick lunch and shared a pizza.

Our lunch (:

From there, we walked along the coast to head to the centre of Omis to explore. It was a short ten-minute walk, but we took way longer as we had to stop multiple times for photos along the way.

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Then we wandered the crowded streets of Omis. Normally I’m not a fan of crowds, but even with the crowds we still enjoyed our time in Omis.

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Wandering the streets of Omis

We also headed up the Mirabella Fortress for the surrounding views. We stopped midway and didn’t go all the way up since there is a small entrance fee, but the views were still amazing all the same.

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Views from Mirabella Fortress

We would have spent a little longer in Omis to chill, but had to leave by 3pm unfortunately as we were supposed to return our rented car in Split by 6.30pm. So onwards we continued to Split, but that’s a post for another day.

Travel Post: Korenica, Croatia

Korenica is a quiet little town in Croatia. I’m terrible with words so I’m not sure how to describe it, but it felt very authentic and pure, and untouched by tourism. A little gem in Croatia, for sure.

We spent only half a day in Korenica – as a rest stop between the drive from Plitvice Lakes National Park to Split – but it has definitely found a special place in my heart. It started to rain very heavily as we were leaving Plitvice, but despite the dark and gloomy skies it was still a rather scenic drive to Korenica.

Driving from Plitvice Lakes National Park to Korenica

We arrived in Korenica in mid-afternoon and checked into our hostel, Guesthouse Ruza. It was pretty hard to spot and we drove into the driveway to park the car without being certain that we were in the right place, but fortunately we were.

Our Guesthouse in Korenica, and the trusty car that stayed with us throughout our roadtrip in Croatia (:

We both didn’t have high expectations of the guesthouse, but were pleasantly surprised by how cozy and nice the place was. By far one of the best accommodation we stayed in during our 2.5 weeks in Europe.

Narrow but homely corridor, and a cozy room with our own private bathroom

As we were shifting our belongings from the car to our room, I noticed something blue peeking out from under the passenger seat. HALLELUJAH – IT WAS MY PHONE, WHICH I MISTAKENLY THOUGHT HAD BEEN LOST YESTERDAY NIGHT. After 24 hours without my phone, and being unable to text friends back home or take any pictures, I was reunited with it (:

Our hostess was a very sweet and nice lady – there was a bit of a language barrier between us, but with the help of sign language and guessing. she taught us how to operate the washing machine and allowed us to use the washing machine.

View from our room’s window

After dumping our clothes in the washer, we headed out to explore the little quaint town of Korenica. My shoes were soaked from the rain, so I headed out in my slippers, carrying an umbrella and a little pouch containing just my phone, wallet and water bottle (very ahjumma-like hahaha, but who cares).

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Exploring Korenica

We stopped by someone’s backyard just to take a quick picture because the view was so good. Walked around some before we headed to Macola Restaurant for dinner. While walking in, N nearly got hit by a car that turned in way too fast.

And once we were inside the restaurant, we had a really difficult time figuring out how to order our food. The menu was understandably not in English, and the lady behind the counter was in a foul mood and not interested to help us figure out what was on the menu. We were also receiving A LOT of openly curious stares from the other locals in the restaurant which made me feel even more self-conscious than usual – maybe the fact that we were the only two Asians there and very openly sticking out like sore thumbs had something to do with it lol.

We randomly ordered something from the menu which turned out to be goulash, so that was our dinner for the day. Luckily, we both received our food without being killed by the counter lady LOL.

Dinner at Macola Restaurant

After dinner, we continued exploring Korenica for a little bit, stopping by a convenience store before heading back to our hostel to hang-dry our laundry. Come night time, our clothes were still very very wet and we both were not comfortable leaving it outdoors overnight since it might rain in the middle of the night – so we brought everything into our bedroom and hung them up everywhere (on the bathroom knob, closet knob, anywhere we could) to dry.

And the next morning, we checked out of the guesthouse and continued our drive onwards to Mt Biovoko and Omis (:

Travel Post: Theth, Albania

Theth is a remote little alpine village situated in the Albanian Alps, and definitely one of the most enchanting and unforgettable places I’ve been.

Our guesthouse in Shkoder helped us to arrange a shuttle bus service to Theth for a small fee. We departed Shkoder early in the morning and it was a bumpy but scenic drive through the mountains.

Along the way, we had a quick 15 minute pit stop at a little cafe halfway up the mountains. There, we wandered around enjoying the surrounding views of the mountains and befriended two girls from Holland.

Then it was time to hop back on the van to continue the drive towards Theth. The van dropped us off right at the doorstep of our guesthouse in Theth, where we were greeted by our guesthouse hostess.

Guesthosue Pashko – Our guesthouse for the night!

After checking in and dropping our bags off in the room, we couldn’t wait to head out to explore. The entire area and the views were incredible – It was like stepping into another world, one so vastly different from where I come from and other places I’d visited. There weren’t any “proper” roads, only dirt roads with lots of manure, gorgeous views of the mountains, and just a very peaceful and remote little hideaway.

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Beautiful views surrounding our guesthouse (:

Our hostess recommended for us to check out the Blue Eye and the nearby waterfall. Since we intended to spend a relaxed day in Theth before hiking to Valbona the next morning, we decided to skip hiking to the Blue Eye and headed out to visit the waterfall instead.

We walked in the direction she pointed us in, taking in the views along the way. Midway through our walk, we encountered a stream and being two typical Asians, we spent a few minutes trying to figure out a way to cross the stream without getting our feet wet. It was an unavoidable task so we finally just took off our shoes and crossed the stream barefoot.

Random shots along the way

We continued on our way and passed a little rickety red bridge that had seen better days. On the other side of the bridge, we had to clamber down some very slippery rocks in order to continue on the trail. I ventured out first and ungracefully slipped on a rock, a slightly scary moment since it would have been quite a fall from a height. A nice man who had already descended past the slippery rocks saw N and I struggling to make it across safely and he backtracked just to help us cross 🙂 It was so sweet and nice of him.

Little red bridge

After walking on the trail for a while, we still hadn’t seen or heard any sign of a waterfall. We ended up meeting a couple along the way who told us that we had overshot the waterfall and pointed out the way to us. So we backtracked, and eventually managed to catch a glimpse of the waterfall from a short distance away.

Random shots taken along the trail

Later on, as we were heading back to our guesthouse for a late lunch, we bumped into the same couple who were chilling at the red bridge taking photos and they helped us to cross the slippery rocks, lol.

Since there were not many eating options available nearby, we had made an arrangement with our hostess who prepared a homemade meal for us for a fee of 7 euros per person. By the time we got back, lunch was ready and waiting for us.

Lunch!

Towards the end of our meal, N suddenly noticed that there were tiny little worms crawling on the remaining sausages. There I was happily drinking the last of the soup in my bowl, and suddenly I heard her exclaiming “WTF!” lol.

By then, we had both already eaten two sausages each. We both rushed to the bathroom (fortunately both toilets were unoccupied, so we  locked ourselves in one bathroom each) and tried forcing ourselves to puke. I stuck my fingers down my throat until my eyes were red and I was tearing, but didn’t manage to puke much out. N was luckier and told me she managed to puke everything back out.

We told our hostess about the worms, and she explained that the sausages had been taken from a freezer and it was impossible for worms to have survived in there and they may have fallen from a tree and onto the plate instead. Regardless, we were both a little queasy after that so we decided to venture out for dinner later instead.

Our hostess shared that there was a supermarket and church about a 30 minute walk down the road, so after lunch we headed out to explore again.

Exploring Theth!

We finally arrived at a small restaurant (the only one we stumbled upon while in Theth) and had our dinner. There, we also met the same couple who we had bumped into at the red bridge and had a nice conversation with them. We found out that their plans for the next two days were similar to ours – they would hike to Valbona the next morning before returning to Shkoder and heading to Tirana by bus. By chance, we actually ended up bumping into them multiple times throughout the next day during the hike and trip to Tirana.

Our dinner in Theth – tastes better than it looks!

After chilling at the restaurant for quite a while, we made our way back to our guesthouse to rest early for the night. Passed by the church on our way back.

In the middle of the night, there was quite a bad thunderstorm and a total blackout. N woke me up as she had to go to the bathroom, but it was totally black and she couldn’t see a thing (nor could I). Her phone wasn’t by her bedside, but mine was, so I felt around in the dark until I reached it to turn on the flashlight.

Using my phone’s flashlight, she stumbled around our room like a blind bat looking for her torchlight which she then used to make her way to the bathroom.

The next morning,  we woke up early to start the hike to Valbona where we both nearly died, but that’s a post for another day.

 

day trip to Johor Bahru

It’s been, what, 10 years since I last went to Malaysia? Which is a really long time, seeing as how JB is only 2 hours away.

Everything in Malaysia is a little cheaper. Or a lot, depending. We tried the Yam Blog (I don’t know why they call it “blog”, like Yam Blog instead of Yam Milk Tea or something) which was actually pretty good, shopped around some and then had our lunch at Sushi King where we stuffed our faces.

And we got tricked into buying crepes from a stall… it looked so good on the menu but turned out to be pretty crap. Shopped around more and then had dessert at Seasons, and shopped around more before finally going home.

Nothing too exciting but it was nice to spend some family time out (: