Category Archives: Travel

Vancouver & Victoria

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December 23rd

After all the busy-ness of Whistler I spent the day taking it fairly slow. I caught up on my washing, I went to a cafe with WiFi and caught up on my blog whilst enjoying a tasty cinnamon scroll and a cup of coffee.

I headed into town and wandered around downtown and gastown. There were so many great sales on…but with limited bag space and weight allowances, I managed to restrain myself.

imageI also went back to Coal Harbour, because I remembered that the Lonely planet indicated that the Olympic Cauldron was there and I could not remember seeing it. When I got there and realized that it was the crazy tripod sculpture I had walked past a bunch of times, I felt kind of silly for not having realized what it was earlier!

After a day of wandering the streets of downtown Vancouver I headed home fairly early and enjoyed some quiet time.

imageDecember 24th

Christmas Eve, or for people back home Christmas Day. I had another fairly chilled day. I started off with a trip to the University if British Columbia to visit the Museum of Anthropology. Firstly I have to say that UBC is ENORMOUS! It’s like an entire suburb, it has it’s own streets, malls and I think, if I interpreted it correctly, it’s own bus system. I wandered about 2km to get to the museum. It’s a fabulously designed building that reflects the building designs of the First Nations people. It houses many interesting and intricately carved wooden house posts, totem poles, memorial posts, kayaks and so on, as well as a variety of other interesting artifacts. I mostly found the carved items interesting, things like the ceramics collection didn’t really grab my attention. I can’t really describe the things I saw, but there were many interesting things to see and learn about. While it’s not new information I do think that westerners back in the day were total ignorant assholes lacking in tolerance. Westerners forced native people (in every country they took over) to forget their heritage and adopt western ways. It makes me sad to think how much tradition and rich culture has been lost over the centuries, but I am appreciative that people these days are more culturally aware.

imageAfter my trip to UBC I headed downtown, grabbed a coffee at a funky cafe in Gastown called Revolver! as grabbed a late lunch at The Hastings Warehouse…good pub food for $5! In fact the beer I had with my lunch was more expensive than my food, how crazy is that?! The warehouse also had free wifi which allowed me to skype call my family for a quick “Merry Christmas” chat! So even though it was quite a brief chat, it was nice to speak to them.

After that I wandered around the city a little longer, but all the shops were closing early… It took me a moment to remember it was Christmas Eve. So I headed back to Levi’s to pack up my gear.

Gerrit collected me late in the evening to visit some cousins for drinks and nibbles which was really lovely. We chatted and enjoyed good company until around 11pm.

December 25th

Christmas Day! I started the day with a long lazy lie-in. Once I was up and about Gerrit made us a super tasty waffle and blueberry breakfast and good coffee. Then we exchanged some gifts before enjoying a stroll around the area. It was so lovely to look in one direction and see the glassy surface of the river and in the other direction snow capped mountains. While it was not a white Christmas, it was a beautiful calm, crisp and clear day.

Around lunchtime the family started to turn up (this is my sister-in-law’s family, if I haven’t already made that clear), we sat down to enjoy some nibbles and wine while the turkey legs were roasting in the oven. We enjoyed some great conversation and shared travel stories, most of the family has been struck with the travel bug!

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A group of nine of us sat down to enjoy a turkey and vegetable Christmas lunch/dinner which was fantastic. We shared tacky Christmas jokes and cooking secrets (Ryan did a great job with the turkey, Gerrit’s cauliflower was a bit hit and Alison’s salad was also pretty awesome). With bellies full we enjoyed a stroll by the river and watched the sun set.

imageWe finished off our fabulous Christmas with Gerrit’s Creme Brûlée (which was amazing!!) and a secret Santa gift exchange. As people dwindled, I played a few games of pool with Ryan and Sally, shared more travel stories and ate lots of sweet treats. It was a super fun day!

December 26th

I had another little sleep in, before packing up a small bag to take to Vancouver Island. Tina and Jim picked me up around 11am and we headed to Tsawassen to catch the ferry. Leaving Tsawassen the water through the Georgia Strait was flat, which made for a smooth crossing. The sky was reasonably clear which allowed a good view down the coast; we even had a good view of snow covered Mt Baker over the border in the US!. We passed between lots of small islands which were all super cute and after drinking some coffee and playing a few rounds of a card game, we arrived at Swartz Bay to enjoy a sunny afternoon drive down to Saanich.

We spent a short while relaxing and unwinding after the busy-ness of Christmas before heading to Felicity and Marc’s place for Boxing Day dinner (Felicity is another cousin). Joining us were cousin Levi and a couple of Felicity and Marc’s friends. They made an amazing meal and we all enjoyed great conversation. It was a fabulous evening!

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December 27th

Jim made a fabulous breakfast for us all to start the day (conveniently for him, Levi stopped by to collect some stuff, so he also got to appreciate the tasty breakfast). After breakfast Jim gave me a driven tour of Victoria explaining some of the history and pointing out things of interest, before dropping me off downtown to explore.

imageI wandered around along the harbour, I checked out Bastion Square and Chinatown, the festival of trees at the Empress Hotel, the Parliament building and also the Royal BC Museum. The museum had an exhibition of the worlds best wildlife photography and it was just amazing!! So many phenomenal photographs.

Victoria is actually quite a small place, so while it is totally adorable and pretty, there isn’t heaps to see and do in the winter time. Jim and Tina picked me up in the late afternoon, and we had an easy dinner and spent the evening watching a movie on TV. It was so nice to relax on the couch after all the busy-ness of Christmas.

December 28th

imageI headed to the harbour to get all kitted up in my super gung-ho flotation suit for some whale watching. There are a few pods of resident Orcas around Victoria, as well as transient Orcas that pass by. I was really hopeful that we would get the chance to see some of these beautiful creatures. The day was perfect for whale spotting, no wind, the water was glassy and flat, but unfortunately travelling up and down the coast, even going almost as far as Seattle in the U.S, was no help to us. We saw some Seals and some Bald Eagles, but not a single whale. So we basically enjoyed a nice half day on the water (well freezing cold, but otherwise pleasant)

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On return to land, Tina, Jim and I went for a walk around the bay, stopping for a late lunch at a cute little seafood shack. The walk was great to get my frozen body functioning again! It also gave us a gorgeous sunset over the city.

imageOnce it got dark Tina and I headed out to the Butchart Gardens to see an amazing light display depicting the Twelve days of Christmas. It was brilliantly done, and walking through the gardens amongst the twinkly lights was just such a magical way to spend the evening! At the end of the loop around the gardens we popped into the cafe to have a Coffee with baileys, a hot drink to wrap our hands around and warm up our fingers, as well as to drink and warm up our insides. Yum!

December 29th

After a quick brekky, Jim and Tina dropped me off at the ferry to head back across to Vancouver, where Gerrit collected me from the ferry terminal. He and I headed downtown to sort out some final bits and pieces with my new ski boots. We had a quick bite to eat out at Granville Island Market and by the time we were done, it was early evening and I needed to figure out how to get all my stuff into my suitcase ready for my morning flight to Montreal.

My time in Vancouver and Victoria has been fabulous. All the extended family has been so friendly and helpful, it has been great to get to know them and I appreciate all the hospitality I have been shown over the last few weeks. It’s a little sad to leave them behind and move on to the next destination, but it is also exciting to go see something new with an old friend.

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Whistler

imageDecember 17th

Determined to hit the slopes as soon as the lifts opened, I was up before dawn. I went straight down to the hostel reception to get my lift ticket issue resolved, which took longer than it needed to and resulted in me being told to collect the ticket at the Whistler Blackcomb ticket office. I whizzed up to the kitchen to scoff some brekky, by this stage I well and truly missed the first bus. Then I zipped up to my room, grabbed my stuff, raced downstairs and was about to make a mad dash for the second bus when I realised I forgot my gloves. Doh! So then as I headed back to get my gloves I mentioned what happened to a lady in the hostel, and she kindly offered me a lift.

imageSo I got into Whistler, collected my ski gear from the rental location (I had sorted out the gear the day before and just had to collect it), I hiked all the way across whistler village with all my gear, grabbed my lift pass and jumped on the first available gondola up to Whistler…by which time I was knackered! (I think I walked a kilometre or more, in brand new ski boots – and if you have ever walked in ski boots you will have a bit of an idea how that felt)

Visibility on the mountain was fairly low, and the snow cover and quality was not amazing, especially for Whistler, but I still had a blast. I tried out several different runs, covering a variety some green and blue runs (easy and intermediate) and even an accidental black run, which resulted in a head plant into the snow. My poor little legs struggled hard with the muscle burn of such long runs and my feet were struggling to adjust to the new boots and foreign rental skis, so by 2pm I was completely exhausted and made my way back down the mountain.

It was a very tiring but good day on the snow!

December 18th

imageAfter having had a great deal of trouble sleeping since arriving in Canada, I had a fairly solid nights sleep – it was amazing! But of course, to make the most of the snow I was up at crazy o’clock again (before the sun came up…though that’s not hard, I think the sun doesn’t come up till around 9am and it sets a bit before 4), I had my brekky, grabbed my gear and jumped on the bus into town. I decided that I had had some problems with the skis of the previous day, so when I went to collect my skis I asked to switch for a different pair..unfortunately this wasted a good half an hour or more of my morning!

Soon enough I was riding up the gondola to Blackcomb. Blackcomb and Whistler are two neighbouring mountains separated by a valley – there is a peak to peak gondola to allow people to move from mountain to mountain, but with the low visibility, I had not yet done this.

Up Blackcomb I tightened my boots and took off down the mountain, the skis were performing much better than the previous day and I had fresh legs, so I was carving up the slopes! I’m not sure if it was the weather, the amount of sleep I had had, the skis, or genuinely the mountain itself, but I had loads more on Blackcomb than on Whistler. I was really tearing up the mountain and having a blast! At one point, as I was riding a chairlift up the mountain, I saw a squirrel quickly check for ‘traffic’ before making a mad dash across the slope, it was pretty funny to see.

When I stopped for morning tea, it started snowing, big fluffy white flakes, which was just gorgeous! A short while later the sun peeks out from behind the cloud, and some blue sky was visible, then while I had my lunch I was able to see across the valley to Whistler, I could see Whistler village and other neighbouring snow capped peaks. It was an amazing view!

Soon enough though, I began to ski quite sloppy and this was the big indicator at it was time to stop for the day, so I headed down the mountain. I skied all the way down, including skiing over a bridge that went over the highway (I found this most amusing!). Enjoying the run down the mountain I mistakenly took a wrong turn and went to Blackcomb village instead of Whistler village. The strange thing with the two mountains is that their main access lifts go from the same spot in Whistler village, so I had assumed, going down the mountain that it didn’t matter if I followed the route to Whistler or to Blackcomb, because they were basically the same thing. As it turns out, it’s not. So then I had to ride a lift part way back up the mountain and ski down again..oops!

imageFinally down the mountain, I returned my skis for the night then stopped for a bite to eat. I ordered a beavertail and oh my was it TASTY! Please don’t be horrified, a beavertail is actually not a part of a beaver. It’s a deep fried pastry in the shape (and possibly the size) of a beaver tail and the topping is a healthy dose of cinnamon and sugar. Yummo!

I spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening chatting to some people in the hostel…guess what nationality they were??? You guessed it, Aussies! At this point I genuinely do believe there are more Aussies than Canadians here!

December 19th

I took the day off to give my legs a breaks, and see some other things that Whistler has to offer. I started off with a lazy coffee, before catching the bus into the village for my Zipline tour. We had a group of about 7 people, plus two lovely guides, Nick and Rob. We started by catching the gondola up Whistler, then we strapped on our snowshoes to hike into the valley between Whistler and Blackcomb. We then let ourselves get hooked into zip lines that allowed us to whizz back and forth between the two mountains. Some of the zip lines were really long, others really fast, and some perfect for behaving like a looney, dangling upside down while whizzing through the trees at up to 80km/h (unfortunately I don’t weight enough to get such high speeds). It was an absolute blast!

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On the tour I met a nice couple, and the three of us capped off the tour by heading out to a Mexican restaurant for lunch which was lovely. After lunch I caught up with a girl, Ellysha, from the hostel and we headed to the Scandinavian Spa to bliss out for a couple of hours. The spa is set back in the forest on the mountainside. It has several tiers of outdoor hot pools, outdoor cold pools, solariums, saunas, steam rooms and an outdoor fireplace. The idea is to spend 20 minutes roasting in one of the hot things (the eucalyptus steam room was my favourite), then take a 10 second plunge in a cold thing, before ‘relaxing’ and bringing the body back to normal temperature, this is where you would doze in the solarium. By this time the sun had set, so the paths between each of the elements of the space were lit up with fairly lights and the pools glowed blue. It was absolutely amazing! What made it even more magical, was to sit in the 40 degree hot pool outside and watch the snow flakes fall around you.

imageEventually we left the spa, in a very chilled out mood, and headed into the village to catch up with another girl from the hostel, Ayesha. The three of us went to Fat Tony’s for pizza (I suggested we grab two large pizzas to share, until if saw the size if a large…16inches of pizza! Crazy! So we shared one large and couldn’t finish it between the three of us!) and beer before going ice skating. With the snow falling all evening, the village was covered in a fine layer of white fluff and it was just such a fantastic atmosphere. Everyone is in a great mood when snow is falling. We had so much fun skating around in the snow and prancing around like snow fairies. It was a fabulous evening of frivolity!

December 20th

imageBy the morning there was 8cm of fresh powder on the mountain and it was still snowing! As you can imagine, the early buses were packed as everyone wanted to make first tracks down the mountain. I wasn’t quite early enough for first tracks, but I was on the mountain pretty early. I headed to Whistler for the day. The snow was still falling and visibility was pretty low, but the snow was all soft and fluffy, it just meant working a bit harder on technique rather than just barreling down the mountain.

With all the snow and lower temperatures it wasn’t long before my fingers, toes and nose were numb to the point of pain. So I headed indoors for a hot chocolate and a snack. Once I had defrosted, I caught up with a guy from the hostel, Michael, and we skied a few runs together. At my request he took me down some harder runs (black diamond runs), we hit up the Whistler Bowl, Doom and Gloom and the Glacier Bowl. We even went off piste, we tackled some pretty challenging slopes, it certainly pushed a bit beyond my skill level and I was ell out of my comfort zone for some of it, but it was a great challenge and I had a blast. By going a bit further out I was even able to ski some fresh tracks in the powder!

After two hours of solid, super gung-ho hardcore skiing, I did a couple of easy runs and called it a day.

December 21st

I hit the slopes of Blackcomb for yet another fabulous snow day. The lower runs were in the cloud cover, but the higher runs were above the clouds, with clear skies and the most stunning views! I spent most of my day enjoying some runs on the side of Blackcomb glacier, my favourite run was Glacier Drive through to Blue Line. It was nice and steep but without too many bumps, the snow was quite soft and you had a great view the whole way down. The only problem was that I had to remember to pay attention to the slope and not the view or I could have accidentally skied off a cliff!!

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Around 1pm I was getting pretty sore, so I took the opportunity to have a short break and catch the peak to peak gondola across from the top of Blackcomb to the top of Whistler. There were about 15 people in the gondola, so I didn’t get as good a view out the window as I would have liked, but what I could see was just amazing! On such a clear day the views are just stunning. While I may not have been able to see down to the village, looking down on a cloud bank and seeing snow capped peaks twinkling in the sunlight on the other side of the valley is pretty spectacular!

imageBy 2:30 I was struggling to stand up, since I worked my legs so hard on so many ripper ski runs, so I did a run all the way down the mountain, did a teeny bit of shopping then headed back to the hostel to pack up all my gear ready to check out in the morning and relax a little before having an early night.

December 22nd

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My last day at Whistler I decided to ski Blackcomb mountain again. I was on the slopes within 10 minutes of the tows opening. I started off taking it pretty easy, before hitting it a bit harder. But as always, by 11am I was numb to the point of pain in my fingers and toes, so I spent an hour defrosting in one of the cafe’s while enjoying Belgian waffles and hot chocolate.

With the residual muscle exhaustion and general tiredness of so many days if skiing, I didn’t ski super hard, but I enjoyed myself immensely. Before I knew it though, it was time to pack up and head back to Vancouver. So with a quick late lunch I headed back to the hostel to pack my bags and was ready for my evening ‘Snowbus’ ride back to the big smoke.

Whistler was loads of fun, and I made a few friends along the way. I’m going to miss hanging out with Adele, Ellysha and Ayesha, but hopefully our paths will cross again in future travels.

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Canada

Canada has kind of always been on my “To Visit” list, but wasn’t really a super high priority. But then a few things kind of pushed it up the priority list: my sister-in-law’s cousin Levi visited from Vancouver and he was loads of fun to hang out with (however brief my meeting him was) and said I was welcome to come and crash at his place; my friend Liv has been living on Montreal for almost two years now and is preparing to move back home; and a fantastic family friend in Toronto, Nanette, who has always had an open invitation for me to come visit.
So with a few emails tee-ing up accommodation and peoples availability, a trip to the travel agent and a trip to the bookstore to grab myself the latest “Discover Canada” Lonely Planet – I decided to head off to Canada for 4.5 weeks of fun!

The last few weeks at work were frantic, trying to get myself organised and planned for the next teaching year, as well as preparing and packing for a big holiday (since I ALWAYS go to tropical destinations I found it incredibly difficult to pack for a cold destination – my well rehearsed packing style did not apply!), securing a house-sitter and making sure I spent lots of time with my puppy dog before leaving her behind. Soon enough though I was packed and the alarm was buzzing me awake at some stupid hour of the day.

December 11th

After a flight delay, I finally arrived in Shanghai where I was met by a girl holding a sign with my name on it. She delivered me to my airport hotel shuttle bus. In the blink of an eye we took off, swerving across all lanes, tearing along the streets at close to double the speed limit, whizzing through red lights before coming to a rapid stop at my ‘airport hotel’. Shanghai airport is enormous, and it was crazy to think that even after tearing through the streets for 20 minutes we were still in the airport precinct!

Coming back to Shanghai has reminded me of just how polluted China is, but also just how little English people speak. Even the staff at the international airport hotel struggled to answer basic questions!

My original plan had been to get to the hotel, ditch my bags and whizz into the city to look at the pretty lights. After all the delays, the lack of English and learning that it was an hour travel into the city, I decided this was a bit too challenging and that bed was a much better option.

After a sleep in, then more delays with the airport shuttle and checking in, I opted to spend my half day in Shanghai napping on a sunny bench at the airport waiting for my flight, instead of attempting to get Into the city (also I guess I chickened out a bit and just put it into the ‘too hard’ basket)

20131217-191925.jpgDecember 12th

I slept most of the flight to Vancouver and after “twenty questions” from the immigration official I was allowed into the country. Levi was waiting for me with a smile. I climbed into his truck and we zipped over to uncle Gerrit’s place to start the day with coffee, before running a few errands. I got myself sorted with a Canadian SIM card, some new ski boots and did a few other bits and pieces. I was quite dopey from the flight, so we certainly didn’t launch head first into sightseeing, but Levi and I wandered the Kitsilano area and spent some time chatting.

December 13th

20131217-191959.jpgMy second day in Vancouver involved a hunt for an Edmonton Oilers t-shirt to wear to the evenings hockey game. It took a while but we were successful. We also made a trip into downtown, to Canada Place where some Christmas festivities were on…we took a mini train ride around fake snow and Christmas trees and ice skated on some artificial ice. It was LOADS of fun!!! (Artificial ice feels nothing like skating one real ice and was it was rather challenging to stay upright). Before game time we quickly checked out the giant Lego whale sculpture at coal harbour. It was so cool!

Game time! Vancouver Canucks vs. Edmonton Oilers (my sister-in-law’s family, obviously including Levi, are all from Edmonton…which is why we support the oilers). Unfortunately we lost 3-0 and there were no fights, but it was loads of fun. It’s such a crazy fast sport!

20131217-192016.jpgDecember 14th

I slept in by mistake, and started off the day by getting the final tweaks to my custom fit ski boots done. Happy with my new boots, I headed into city.

I started off by heading up the Vancouver Lookout (a skinny building with an big round observation deck at the top) to get a birds eye view of the sprawling city. After a lap of the observation deck I descended to the street of gastown for a bit of a look. I checked out the steam powered clock and the ‘Gassy Jack’ statue, had a quite bite to eat and then headed back to Canada Place to coach the free shuttle bus out to Capilano Canyon.

20131217-192049.jpgCapilano Canyon has the worlds highest (70m) and longest (140m) suspension bridge, which was swaying a great deal with the huge number of people walking across it. I loved it! On one side of the canyon was also a cool cliff walk, with the boardwalk suspended from the side of the cliff with steel cables. On the opposite side of the canyon were some short walks in and around the trees and ponds. One of the highlights was a treetop walk, with short suspension bridges hanging between trees with small platforms. As daylight faded, the twinkle lights were turned on. I got myself a cup of hot cocoa from the cabin in the woods, wrapped my cold hands around the hot mug and sat down to absorb the magical forest of twinkle-lights. The twinkle-light forest was also home to worlds tallest Christmas tree! It was just gorgeous!

After my magical evening, I headed back into the city, where I once again went to the observation deck of the Vancouver tower to see the city at night, which was really pretty. I took myself out to dinner in gastown, to the Steamhouse Brewery, where I enjoyed a super tasty pizza and a glass of the local brew.

I finished up my busy day with “Fly over Canada” an attraction that has you sitting in chairs kind of like a roller coaster, and the chairs move around a little as though you are in a helicopter or something flying over Canada. Lots of stunning scenery!, it was pretty fun! (Very hard to explain what it actually was though)

20131217-192139.jpgDecember 15th

Slept in again (totally not adjusted to Vancouver time) and headed to Granville Island market to have a look around and have some breakfast, before heading downtown to go for a wander and check out the Christmas market. It was an attempt to replicate a German Christmas market…very cute, very festive, I had some gluhwein and kettle corn.

20131217-192155.jpgAfter the Christmas festivities I took a bus out to Stanley park where I enjoyed a walk in the sun (the sun came out for the first time..it was AMAZING!) and a visit to the aquarium – the jellyfish tanks were really cool. It was also pretty cool to see a pair of beluga whales but it was actually quite sad, the tank was much too small for them and they were just swimming the exact same loop over and over and over.

I finished off another awesome day in the city, where I met Levi and a friend of his, Julia, to go ice skating (on actual ice this time) – we skated circles for a couple of hours which was really fun!

December 16th

I spent the morning getting myself organised for my Whistler trip. After lunch I enjoyed a very scenic bus trip along the sea to sky highway, before arriving in Whistler just after sunset. I checked in, then caught the bus to Whistler Village to run a few errands which would enable me to hit the slopes first thing in the morning. I’m looking forward to my week of snowy fun!!

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Fiji Fizzer

With the winter getting colder and the days getting darker, once school holidays came around Mum and I decided we needed a warm weather holiday, so we packed our bags and headed to Fiji for 5 nights.

July 12th

We left home at 0430 in the pitch dark, freezing cold. We flew to Melbourne, then headed through to the international Departure Lounge to fly over to Nadi, Fiji. We arrived in good time, found our driver and headed towards our resort at the Coral Coast.

The 2.5 hour drive was quite nice, lots of houses, schools, farmland and coastline to be seen. It was surprising how slow the speed limits are, how many potholes there were and how people just wander down the streets – sometimes down the middle of the main ‘highway’. It was dark, windy and cold by the time we arrived at our resort, Crusoe’s Retreat, and unfortunately for us, they had miscalculated our arrival date and were fully booked out! To compensate for their mistake they gave us some credit towards our account, and took us to a neighbouring resort, The Wellesley, for the night. So after dinner at Crusoe’s we headed over to The Wellesley for some much needed sleep after such a long day.

July 13th

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We woke up, showered and packed up again ready to move across to our own resort. We put on our shorts, tank tops and flips flops and pulled open the curtains ready for that Fiji sunshine, we were disappointed to be greeted with clouds, rain and more wind.

Once at Crusoe’s we had a tasty breakfast before heading to our Seaside Bure. A little hut close to the beach, it had a little patio, a comfy lounge and two big queen size beds with beautiful mosquito net curtains. Nice and cosy, the only thing missing was a heater!

Determined to make the most of the holiday anyway, once the rain was only a light drizzle we wandered long the beach to look at the pretty shells and check out the neighbouring village. We felt a bit rude walking into their village so we really only poked our heads in before continuing our beach walk. We saw lots of pretty shells, hermit crabs, some lovely palm trees and a few other trees which we didn’t recognise.

Once we got back to Crusoe’s I realised that if I wanted to snorkel, I would have to be quick about it, to fit in with the tides. So I quickly put on my polka dot bikini, grabbed a mask, snorkel and fins and jumped right in! The water was pretty warm. The first stretch I didn’t see many fish, and growing in the sand was mostly weed. As I got further out the weed cleared up and there was more sand and more coral. The coral wasn’t very colourful, but the fish swimming in and around it were. I saw some gorgeous yellows, blues, oranges and a lot of silver. I’d love to name some of the fish I saw, but unfortunately, I am not very good with fish names. Since it was only a quick snorkel I hadn’t brought my underwater camera in, but I planned to take it in next time.

Fiji_002By the time I got out and showered, it was lunchtime, so we headed to the main building of the resort and sat down to some tasty lunch.

After lunch we read a few travel brochures and started to figure out how we would spend our remaining days, since sunshine was not looking like visiting. So we booked in a trip or two, before heading back to our Bure for some reading and napping. The rest of the day went quite quickly, and before we knew it the sun was going down.

I took the opportunity to take some sunset photos with my good camera, while it was dry. While it wasn’t an amazing sunset because of all the clouds, there certainly were some gorgeous colours to be seen, colours that we reflected on the light waves of the sea. Very pretty!

Once the colours turned to darkness we had some dinner. As it is a small resort they are very welcoming and personable, at dinner time they welcome all the new visitors by name and where they come from as well as farewell all the visitors who will be leaving the following day. After the welcomes and farewells they run through the schedule for the next day. Obviously all the activities are optional, but it’s nice that they tell you what will be on and at what time.

The evening activity for the night was a “Surprice, Surprice, Surprice!” So we were quite curious as to what this would be. We enjoyed a three course dinner (the courses are fairly small) and then from our table we could see the “Surprice” which was a game of indoor bowls. A large group of people joined in and pretty soon the laughter could be heard all over the resort. Mum and I decided not to join in and it wasn’t long before we were each snuggled into bed with a good book.

July 14th

After a bit of a sleep in, mum pulled back the curtains to inspect the day. We were hoping for sunshine but unfortunately it was still overcast, though thankfully dry and not as windy. We had a quick brekkie before heading off to different activities. Mum went to check out a church service at the local village, while I went on a boat ride through the mangroves.

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The mangrove boat trip was really pleasant. We had a Fijian ‘captain’ and three passengers, a couple from New Zealand and myself. We travelled down the coast, into a bay and then down a river through the mangroves. Mangroves are quite weird and wonderful trees. Their roots seem to shoot out from any part of the tree and drop into the mud below. On the river it was so still and quiet. When the engine was off we could just hear the birds and the trees and the whine of insects.

Once our boat got back to the resort, I had planned to switch boats and go on the glass bottom boat to check out all the beautiful fish on the reef…unfortunately a number of other people were also keen to go on the boat and some people had to opt to go on another day. Since a large number of the people were due to leave the resort that day, I figured I would give up my spot so they didn’t miss out altogether. Besides, by going on another day, it meant that mum could go too, since she hadn’t yet returned from the church service.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABack on dry land, I headed back to the Bure, dragged a comfy chair onto the patio and settled in with my book. The timing was actually pretty good, as soon after it started to rain again, actually more a heavy drizzle, either way it was wet.

After that, the afternoon was a bit of a blur, we had some lunch, checked our emails and read some more. At afternoon tea we caught up with two couples from New Zealand and had a good chatterbox. Once happy hour started Mum and I decided we’d leave the Kiwis for a bit, so we spent a bit more time in our Bure, reading.

Before we knew it, they were beating the drums to let us know it was dinner time. We grabbed a table together with the two kiwi couples before having our Mongolian stir-fry dinner. This was where you got a plate and piled it up with raw veggies and meats, put some sauce on top and then gave it to the chef to stir fry for you. It was TASTY!!

After the yummy dinner we grabbed some dessert, then suddenly the lights went out and the staff came out to our table singing, with a little birthday cake that had a candle on top and was decorated with cornflakes. It was the birthday of one of the kiwi guys, so we all sang Happy Birthday, before sharing in his hot pink cake. An hour or two later mum and I cruised back to the Bure for some sleep.

July 15th

For the first time in Fiji, we had set an alarm..we were up and ready to go on our tour at 9am. Our bus drove us an hour down the coast, where we hopped in a long boat to be taken upriver to the Namuamua village.

Fiji_004The boat ride was beautiful, the river had lush greenery on both sides, some places had cows wandering around and other places were like dense rainforest. There were various waterfalls along the way, one of which we stopped at, got out and some people went for an icy cold dip!

Fiji_006Further upriver we finally got to the village, where we were greeted by a whole host of villagers waving and calling “Bula”. We were invited into the main hut of the village where they welcomed us with a traditional kava ceremony, some singing and some dancing. Interestingly, the men had to sit at the front of the group cross legged, while the women had to sit behind the men, with their legs to the side. When offered the kava you had to clap once, say “Bula” and drink the whole cup in one go, then clap your hands three times (I asked later why the clapping was necessary and learned that it was about respect). The dancing was not just for show, it required our involvement, so we had to get up and “shake it” with the villagers – very entertaining!

After our elaborate welcome, we got a short tour through the village, and were invited to check out the school. The kids were all pretty excited to see us and stuck their arms out of the classroom windows for high-fives. In the classrooms we got to see what some of the kids were studying too, and they were all more than happy to pose for photos!Fiji_005

After our tour we had a traditional lunch, including taro root, taro leaf, chicken and some tropical fruits. Not the most amazing lunchI have eaten, but it was lovely that they welcomed us to share with them. After lunch the villagers set up mats with all their handicrafts for us to look at. I bought a turtle made of riverstone and a funky bracelet. (I don’t believe the villagers actually made the items, and I am sure they were overpriced, but at least the money goes towards sustaining the whole village, so it was worth it).

By then it was time to head back. So we jumped back in our long boats and headed back down the river, our driver took every opportunity to drive crazy close the trees and rocks to scare us and get us splashed with water. About halfway back, we stopped and jumped onto bamboo rafts, locally named “HMS No Come Back”, to experience the more traditional style of travel (they overloaded the rafts a bit, and we were mere centimetres above the water!).

The last leg was done back in the long boats. Cruising down the river, tired and not really paying attention when suddenly boats approached, heading up the river, and we heard yelling: “Hey Mrs Stam!!!” Some students and teachers from the school where my mother works were headed up to the Namuamua Village to do some volunteer work. It was a rather unexpected and very quick passing, with hellos yelled between the boats.

When we got back to the original drop off point, we all had wet bottoms and had to put towels under our bums in the minivan! Once we were finally Back at Crusoe’s we had a cuppa and a hot shower to warm up. Then it was time to sit and chill for a bit before dinner.

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July 16th

Fiji_008Our last full day in Fiji had two main activities planned: a trip to Suva and attending a fundraiser dinner in the local village.

At 9am the minivan turned up to take Mum and I and the two kiwi couples to Fiji’s capital city, Suva. As is the case with travelling anywhere in Fiji, the drive took ages and was VERY bumpy! But after 1.5 hours we made a stop at the Pure Fiji factory to buy some yummy smelling soaps and shampoos (My brother and his wife got some Pure Fiji products on their honeymoon, and as it would be their wedding anniversary the following day we thought we’d go get them some more products). Stupidly the Pure Fiji website indicated that they had a factory outlet but it didn’t indicate their opening hours, so when we turned up, they were closed. The lady felt so bad (and was probably dead keen to make some money), that she opened up the showroom and allowed us to sniff, test and make selections, which she then ran back and forth to the factory floor to grab for us. So it was a successful start to the day! Also I warn you all, I’m going to be smelling fruity for the rest of the year!!!

Fiji_009Next stop was Central Suva. Central Suva is quite small and we had explored the majority of it within two hours. We started by grabbing some lunch at a food court, then wandering through some of the shops before heading to the local food markets where we saw so many tasty looking fruits and vegetables. Some of the guys took a break from their hard work by sitting in wheelbarrows smoking and chatting…it was a pretty funny sight!

We then meandered across to the handicrafts market which was quite nice, but every stall literally had the exact same stuff as the last stall – and the majority of the products were timber, which of course you can’t bring in to Australia. So we smiled and greeted the sellers with “Bula!”, but didn’t do any buying. A few people tried to scam us and a few people asked us for money, but overall we weren’t hassled by the locals (another couple from the resort had been to Suva the day before and been tricked into spending hundreds of dollars on fake items!!)

Once we had checked out the shops and markets we all boarded the ‘bus’ and headed back to Crusoe’s. We arrived back just in time for afternoon tea!

Fiji_010At 7pm sharp Jim from the neighbouring village collected a small group of people to head to the village for a fundraiser dinner supporting the village’s rugby and netall teams. At the village hall we all sat on the floor and participated in a traditional kava ceremony (ugggg I had to drink kava AGAIN! it’s horrible stuff), the villagers there also sang us some songs of welcome before allowing us to help ourselves to a buffet style meal of all the local/traditional foods. It was beautifully presented and well organised. Some of the food was quite tasty, but honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of most of it and I have to say I’m sick of eating Taro root and Coconut – but I really appreciated their sharing of food and culture with us. Dessert was cooked plantain (in the banana family are three types of banana: lady finger, normal banana and plantain. Plantain is the biggest and has the least flavour). The dessert was quite tasty. We had a bit of a chatter to some of the locals and enjoyed their songs, but soon enough it was time to head back to the resort for the evening activity: Trivia Night!!!

Mum and I teamed up with 3 kiwis and were known as “The A Team” we answered 20 questions to the best of our ability. An interesting fact for you…mosquitos have teeth! When it came to the results tally we did pretty well and scored 8.5/20, which was second place. We were beaten by “The Globetrotters” who scored 10.5 (the rest of the kiwi’s and a couple from Adelaide). It was a great laugh!!!!

July 17th

Fiji_012Wouldn’t you know our luck, the day we leave was the day the sun finally decided to shine. I had a quick brekky before getting the bikini out for some snorkelling. The sun was out but unfortunately the wind hadn’t died down at all, so it was pretty crazy in the water, a strong current and lots of little waves. Every time I tried to stand up to empty my mask I would fall over, when I tried to float for a moment to get a picture of some fish I’d be pushed well away from the fish before I had even grabbed the camera! So I battled the water for about 25 minutes before giving up.

I managed to cram in about 30 minutes of sunbaking before it was time for a quick shower and then we had to go as our transport was due to arrive.

After that things were pretty uneventful. It was a 2.5 hour drive back to Nadi followed by a 5 hour flight to Melbourne. When we arrived in Melbourne it was too late for a flight back to Hobart, so we spent the night at an airport hotel before flying the last leg the following morning.

All in all our Fiji trip had several disappointments, namely the weather, but we still managed to make the most of it and came home feeling like we had had a holiday.

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Some words of advice for anyone thinking of going to Fiji:

  • Stay at a bigger resort if you want to have lots of choice for things to do. Our small resort meant that there was not much to do, and since the weather was so bad, this was a bit of a concern (bigger resorts also have more than one restaurant – we had the same restaurant every night with only every 4 choices on the menu)
  • Resorts in Fiji are in the middle of nowhere, this isn’t necessarily a problem, just something you should know. We found it a bit frustrating that it was a minimum of a 30 minute drive costing $160fiji to go anywhere
  • Tours cost a BOMB!!!!! So if you have a resort that offers lots of activities, you probably don’t have to worry about tour options. The tours we enquired about were all between $200 and $300fiji per person.
  • Fiji people seem to operate on “Fiji Time” this means that often things happen later or take ages, this is not necessarily a bad thing, however sometimes they are a bit silly about it.
    Eg. the water sports Bure was supposed to open at 10am, but at 9:45 the doors were open and the guy was sitting around waiting. However when I asked to borrow some flippers I was told to wait until 10am (the guy was literally sitting there twiddling his thumbs, so I can’t understand why he couldn’t give me any flippers)

Check out all my pics on Flickr

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Seminyak….last stop before heading home

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Day 10
After the crazy late night Yvonne and I both woke up still exhausted. Our driver collected us at 10am and we dozed the whole 3hour drive to Seminyak (well, apart from the time spent clutching our stomachs, well Yvonne was clutching her stomach and I was sound asleep, because of the windy bumpy road through the mountains. If you didn’t already know, Bali roads suck!)

Once we got to Seminyak we checked into our fancy schmancy hotel and crawled straight back into bed, where we both stayed for most of the day.

Day 11
We spent the first half of the day wandering around Seminyak, did a bit of shopping and had lunch by the beach. As it was a very hot day, we spent the afternoon cooling down by the pool.

In the evening we headed down to the Legian/Kuta region for some cheap shopping. We also went and got our nails done and finished off the evening with a tasty dinner.

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Day 12
Our last day in Bali. We packed up our bags, had brekky, checked out and put our luggage into storage for the day. A driver collected us at 9:30am to take us to Pura Besakih, Bali’s most important temple. It is a complex made up of 22 temples and is situated on the slopes of Mt Agung (Bali’s principal volcano). The temple itself is quite beautiful and it’s tiered design into the mountain slope is really interesting. Unfortunately though, the whole experience was pretty crap. Being Bali’s most important temple also makes it the ideal place to target and try to scam tourists. Firstly there is no entrance fee, but we were made to pay for tickets and for our driver to park (every other driver we have had paid their own parking fees out of their wage), then we had to go to ‘Tourist Information’ where Yvonne had to rent a sarong (at a ridiculous price – also most temples, will loan you a sarong for free, as wearing the sarong is a sign of respect, and should not be done out of duty) then they claimed we needed to sign the register book and pay some money, people had signed off amounts like $50US which is RIDICULOUS, but eventually out of what the guy was saying we found out it was for donations though he said we HAD to pay. So we paid a small amount each. Walking towards the temple we were harassed by children and adults trying to sell their wares, drinks, food, postcards etc. the kids would get so close to you they were almost getting into your bag.

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Then walking to the temple we were followed by a local guide saying there was a ceremony on and we would not be able to enter without a local guide (the guidebook I had read, told me this would be the case and that a guide was not actually necessary). We turned away three local guides before getting to the entrance to the main temple of the complex, and here our entry was blocked by four local guides saying we could not go in. I walked past them and they man-handled me out. So we spat the dummy and walked around the complex checking out the other temples within the complex. On the way back through the complex, it was interesting to see that all the gates to the main temple were open and there we no longer local guides clustered harassing tourists, so we wandered right in!
So while the temple complex was beautiful, it was such a horrible experience!

By the time we got back to Seminyak we were starving! So we found a place to have some lunch. After lunch we chilled out for a bit (I actually spent most of it napping on a lounge chair by the hotel pool), did a bit more shopping and got massages before heading out to the airport for the flight home.

Reflecting on the last few days, I am pretty sure my drink got spiked on the last night in Lovina, because I spent the remaining days struggling to be awake for more than an hour or two at a time, and spent the first few days back home still recovering. So be warned, even if you make friends in Bali, don’t trust them!

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Lovina

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Day 7
Our 9am pickup arrived and we headed further into the hills on our way to the beachside area called Lovina. Climbing into the mountains provided many beautiful views! Our first stop along the way was at Lake Bratan. Almost at the top of the mountain was a big plateau, with a huge lake of glistening blue water. At the edge of the lake was a temple complex with beautiful gardens and lots of brightly coloured flowers. The main temple was not actually within the complex, but a small island roughly 20 metres from the edge of the lake. The temple had a tiered roof – the number of tiers represents what the temple is for. For example, two tiers is for the sky and Mother Earth. There are temples with 2, 3, 7 and 9 tiers. The tiers in between earth and sky are for things like the different gods, such as the Hindu’s version of the holy trinity, they have Vishnu, Shiva and Dewa (I’m pretty sure that’s the three, and I am not convinced I have spelled them correctly). The Bratan temple in the lake was beautiful to look at and on such a clear day, was colour rich.

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As our drive continued we drove over the peaks of the highest mountains, alongside the road monkeys sat and watched traffic, or tried to scam some food from the road workers. Descending the mountain on the other side we stopped at Git Git waterfall. On such a clear, sunny day, it was rather a hot hike into the jungle (even if it was only a few hundred metres)…the waterfall was really pretty. There are two tiers, but we only went to the lower one, as we didn’t want a 2hour jungle hike. The lower tier was a waterfall of 40+ metres, crashing into a small rock pool below. The water was crystal clear, bubbling down the stream, and when we dipped our toes in, we’re pleasantly surprised that the water was not so cold (waterfalls back home always have super chilled water!)

In the early afternoon we arrived in Lovina, we checked into our hotel, and then wandered down to the beach to check out the local scene. Lovina is a much quieter town than Legian and Ubud. You still get hassled by hawkers, but they seem to be less insistent here. We checked out a few stalls and had a look at the beach which has black sand. Because there are a number if volcanoes in Bali, numerous beaches have black sand, I think that perhaps it is volcanic ash or dust. Yvonne found out that the sand, particularly when wet, is not as dense as the sand beach home, and walking in the water, she was quickly sucked into the sand up to her knees…and lost her flip flops in the muddy suction. After collecting some more shoes from the hotel we sat down at one of the beachside cafe’s for a late lunch and a beer. While sitting there we chatted to one of the locals, who we then hired for the following day.

After lunch we figured that in being at are relaxed beach location, we should indulge in some relaxation, so we went to one of the massage parlours near our hotel, where we both had an hour traditional Balinese. At $8 each, perhaps I should do this every day?!?

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We spent our evening at a local restaurant by the beach, the Bali Bintang, where we got chatting to one of the staff, Budi. Budi said that there was a big volleyball match on, the semi-final and Lovina was playing a team from somewhere near Denpasar (I didn’t recognise the name of the village, so promptly forgot what I was told). So when Budi knocked off work, his friend Gede (pronounced G’Day and I am assuming it’s not spelled that way) collected us from our hotel on their motorbikes and drove us to the next village to join in the fun.

There was a big crowd and everyone was excited! The game started and both teams were scoring, but soon the other team started to have a clear lead. After about 30mins we realised our team didn’t have a chance so we got out of there and headed to the pub (Budi had bet quite a bit of money, so we think he may have been trying to drown his sorrows).

We spent the few hours of the night enjoying live music and bintang beer at Poco’s. Though the music was quite tragic and mostly reggae, we got up and boogied the night away, crashing back at the hotel after midnight (with such a late night, I’m surprised I didn’t turn into a pumpkin!)

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Day 8
With not much sleep but no hangover (bintang is definitely not what you would choose to drink if you were aiming to get drunk. I don’t like getting drunk, so my previous evenings drink of choice was a good one), we got up in time to be collected by our driver for the day (well first half of the day as we planned a relaxed afternoon).

We drove out to a neighbouring village to visit an Buddhist monastery, Brahma Vihara Arama. It was nice to see a different style of temple, and this one was built into the hill and had several different levels. Near the top was a beautiful meditation garden with a large shrine to Buddha, the shrine had a small moat filled with white and purple water lilies as well a some pink lotus flowers. I found the design to have better flow and more of a calming effect than the Hindu temples we had seen.

Our second stop was Air Panas Banjar, natural hot springs in the jungle. There were three pools, a long narrow one at the top that cascaded into a larger one below. These both had a row of sculptures (not quite gargoyles, but that style) which served as water spouts into the pools. Under these water spouts was the place to be, with the warm water massaging your neck and back. It was so relaxing! The third pool was set to the side of the other two and had three spouts set much higher up, the pounding massage you got from standing under these was intense, but very welcome!!

While it was really pleasant to enjoy a natural warm water massage the volume of people on the murky, smelly water meant that we didn’t stay in for very long. So after our natural water massages we headed back to the hotel for a good scrub in the shower!

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Since we were both quite tired we spent the remainder of the day doing our own thing. To start with I attempted to walk to Anturan. The area called Lovina is actually comprised of two villages: Kalibukbuk and Anturan. They are 5km apart and Kalibukbuk is the busier of the two and consider to be the centre of Lovina, this is where we are staying. So anyway, I thought I would attempt to walk along the coast to Anturan. The only problem with this idea, aside from the distance, is that there is no path. So I walked along the beach for a stretch, the walked alongside some rice paddies, bush bashed a little and wandered through local villages.in one of the villages a small boy came running out to say hello to me, then he held out his hand to me asking for money, I didn’t give him any yet he continued to follow me, once he caught up to me he actually tried to open my handbags grab some money for himself. A firm “No!” and a stern look made him turn away, cheeky little bugger!!

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After wandering in the heat for sometime, I eventually reached a dead end where it was either walk through a rice paddie or swim and I gave up, I asked a local villager to give me a lift on his motorbike, back to town, where I promptly found a cafe with wifi to sit down and have a drink and catch up on email.

Having recovered from my failed explorations and with a tummy full of satay and vanilla milkshake, I headed back to the hotel, making a minor detour to a massage parlour along the way. An hour long foot massage (again for just $8) was absolute bliss!! I’m pretty sure I actually twitched myself awake a few times during the massage. Once it was over I dawdled across the street to the hotel (I literally mean dawdled because I was so blissed out it was amazing I could stay upright!!) and zonked out on the bed for a solid hour!

After I caught up on some much needed ZZZ’s I spent some time blogging and reading my book before Yvonne and I headed out for some dinner.

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Day 9
At 9am we wandered down to the beach where a guy called Ketut took us out to a local reef in his boat for some snorkelling. The coral wasn’t very brightly coloured, but the reef was still teeming with fish. I found Nemo as well as quite a few others. There were many beautiful colours, yellows, blue’s, purples, oranges and many different variations and patterns. The water was lovely and warm, we spent an hour or two bobbing around in the water. It was a very chilled out start to the day!

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We spent the next few hours chilling out, reading, emailing, eating etc, at 3pm our friends Budi & Gede collected us and drove us into the hills on their motorbikes to check out the Aling-Aling Waterfall. Yvonne and I both thought it was nicer than Git-Git! It had quite a lot of water-flow and the water was falling from quite a height. The noise was thunderous and even from 50metres away we were getting soaked by the spray.

After the waterfall visit the guys had to get to work, so Yvonne and I enjoyed a wander along the beach chatting to locals and taking in a beautiful sunset. I found it particularly nice to watch the local kids silhouetted against the sunset, hanging out on the jetty and jumping into the water.

What was supposed to be a quiet evening watching live music at the bar, didn’t turn out to be so quiet. We had a few drinks, requested a few songs and soon enough they were closing the bar. So the staff and a dutch girl that we met, joined us at our table for some drinks. Then a guy called Bing decided we needed tequila shots, but the bar we were at had no tequila, so we all loaded into his car and headed to another bar. There we had tequila shots, made some new friends and danced the night away (well the dancing part was mostly just me). I think I crashed out in bed around 3am.
Although I didn’t plan a big night, it was a fitting way to end our stay in Lovina and to get a chance to party with our new friends.

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Ubud

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Day 4
We checked out of our hotel at 9:30am, much to the disappointment of the lovely hotel staff. Our driver for the day (I didn’t actually catch his name) took us down to the Bukit Peninsula where we started off by exploring Ulu Watu temple. Ulu Watu is at the top of a 75metre cliff and was yet another stunning example of Balinese temple architecture. At the bottom of the cliffs was beautiful blue water with waves rolling in, crashing against the cliff walls.

From Ulu Watu we headed into Jimabaran to have a look at some traditional markets, but unfortunately by the time we got there, they were finished for the day.

We continued on our merry little way. Following the coastline in a north east direction, up to Semarapura to check out the remnants of the Royal Palace, Taman Kertha Gosa. Semarapura used to be the capital of Bali, which is why the royal palace was built there, but most of the palace was destroyed by the Dutch in 1908, I assume this was when they were trying to colonise Indonesia. The palace still had some parts remaining, the high court which was a small, elevated room in a corner of the compound and a temple type place in the centre of the from of the compound. The temple type place was also elevated, and in addition it was surrounded by a moat full of water lillies and fish – so pretty!

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Back in the car we headed towards the mountains, stopping briefly for some lunch from a street stall, photo opportunities of gorgeous rice terraces and also to pick up tomatoes. At one stage we driving along a very narrow back road, and nearing a corner our driver tooted the horn to warn oncoming traffic that we were there. A truck loaded up with fruit and veggies promptly flew around the corner and swerved to avoid us, which made them lose a large basket full of tomatoes all over the road. So we helped them pick them up off the road.

Our last stop on the way to Ubud was at a coffee plantation (similar to the one I went to on the day of the bike ride), we tried some tasty coffee’s, as well as the famous Kopi Luwak! The view from the coffee plantation was looking across a valley to one of the prettiest rice terraces I have seen (unfortunately it was quite glary, so the photos won’t do it justice).

After a day of sightseeing and full of coffee, we got to our destination of the day, Ubud, by late afternoon where we checked into a fabulous hotel in the rainforest! We enjoyed the last part of the day with a swim in the pool and some down time on the deck of our villa. So relaxing!

Day 5
The morning started with a trip into town where I checked out Ubud Palace, quite small but very pretty, had a look at Ubud Market, wandered down Monkey Forest Road and checked out the shops, and made our way down to Monkey Forest Sanctuary.

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Monkey Forest Sanctuary was teeming with macaques, as expected. The little, and big, guys were awfully keen to nab food from anyone who had some, sometimes climbing onto people’s shoulders to get at it! I wasn’t keen for the feral monkey experience, so didn’t bring in any fruit. The temples within the Monkey Forest Sanctuary were also quite pretty and gave us another opportunity to appreciate traditional Balinese architecture, it was also nice to see the monkeys make it their home. They would sit on statues grooming each other, lay on tables getting their bellies scratched by their mates. In the centre point of the sanctuary was a fountain and the monkeys had a fabulous time diving off the statues into the pool of water and swimming around. It was very entertaining to see the monkeys at play, often launching themselves off a statue to dive bomb on top of another monkey swimming around!!

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After our monkey visit, we spent some more time exploring the streets of Ubud, before heading back to the hotel for a quick dip in the pool. After a short break, we headed back into town to grab some dinner before heading to a traditional dance performance: Fire Kecak and Trance.

The performance started with men sitting in concentric circles around a big candelabra, chanting, singing and swaying. The men continued to chant as some elaborately dressed ladies came into the centre of the circle and danced – they had ornate gold headdresses, and wore brightly coloured silk sarongs, with gold embellishments. They danced very deliberate moves, with their fingers and toes curled upwards, and their head jolting from side to side, eyes wide looking left and right. Balinese dance uses every part of the body to convey the story, and it was really interesting to watch. The last scene of the day involved a large pile of coconut shells being lit on fire in the middle of the hall, a man on a ‘horse’ danced around it before kicking the pile of burning shells to scatter them all over the floor (I was worried that it would hit me!). While it is quite hard to describe the dance, it was a very interesting experience.

Day 6
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The alarm was set for early morning – we headed off to the fresh produce market in the heart of Ubud, here we saw beautiful colours and many interesting foods: snake beans, chillies, vanilla beans, dragon fruit, fresh fish and shrimp, pig trotters, freshly plucked chickens, live chickens and much more. This market expedition was in preparation for our cooking class, so that we. Could see where all the fresh produce was sourced.

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After our market excursion, we had some time to spend before the cooking class. So we headed out to Goa Gajah – Elephant Cave. It was built in the 9th century to serve as a sanctuary. The Elephant Cave itself is part of a large-ish complex that borders on the jungle. The facade of the cave is carved to show menacing creatures and demons. The main figure was once thought to be an elephant, hence the nickname Elephant Cave. Around the rest of the complex is a bathing area, some other temples and further into the jungle, the is a bridge across the river, passing by a waterfall, and a track that goes out to a jungle temple. It was quite a beautiful site, and with all the tracks heading off into the jungle, I’m sure one could spend hours exploring!

On the way back to the hotel we made a brief stop at Barc. Which is a volunteer organisation involved in the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of Bali dogs. The Balinese don’t seem to care a great deal about their pets, and there are many stray dogs, dogs being beaten, dogs getting run over and left to die. So while we didn’t do a great deal to help out, we did make a donation and learn a bit about what the organisation does and how they work. It’s very sad to see so many dogs that have been treated so poorly. Hopefully the people’s view of pets will change, and until it does Barc will be helping out all the poor puppies and kitties.

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At midday we headed down to the hotel restaurant where we learned to cook an appetiser, Rujak Segar (fresh fruit salad with a sour/chilli sauce); a main meal comprising of Satay Lilit Ayam (chicken mince, coconut and curry satay sticks) and Lawar Bali (curry vegetable, chicken and coconut); and a dessert Kolak Pisang (poached banana pieces in a palm sugar syrup). It was all delicious!!! It wasn’t a very hands on cooking class, the only things we did were chop veggies and put meat on skewers, but it was still very interesting. At the end of the lesson we sat down with a beer and got to eat what we made – then we waddled around for the next few hours!!!

Having had a busy morning, we spent the afternoon exploring Ubud a bit more. I went out to the Royal Botanical Gardens, which turned out to be a stupid idea…they are the worst botanical gardens I have ever seen! Poorly tended, over grown paths, paths that are VERY slippery..I landed hard on my bottom once, and barely managed to stay upright multiple other times!
After the gardens I did some window shopping before stopping for a fresh juice and to write some postcards. I didn’t get very far with my postcard writing as some drunk ladies at the next table asked me to join them. They were pretty entertaining, but at the same time offensive in that way bogan drunks can be. So after joining them for a cocktail, I politely excused myself.

Yvonne and I found a great little ‘warung’ (food stall) to have some tasty dinner, before having a drink or two at the pub.

Ubud has been a success, time to explore further north!!!

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Bali Belly???

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With the new four term school year in Tassie, term one break is already upon us. What better way to relax than head overseas?

My friend Yvonne who has never been out of Australia was keen to join me on this short adventure, so we booked some tickets and headed to Bali for roughly two weeks.

The flight over was pretty uninteresting but we arrived safely in Denpasar at 11pm local time and were collected by our driver Sabdah, who took us to our hotel in Legian. After a whole day in transit, we checked in, politely drank our welcome drink (it was a clear drink but has a strong flavour of cinnamon…weird!), and soon after crashed for the night.

Day 1:
We woke up groggy and tired, but unable to continue sleeping, so we dragged our sleepy selves out of bed, had some breakfast and hit the streets for some exploring. We wandered down the main strip of Legian and then continued through to Kuta Beach. We did some haggling for bintang tank tops (they make great gifts for people at home!) stopped for some chilled mocktails, checked out a few shops and then booked an afternoon tour.

Our tour driver collected us from the hotel at 2:30 and we headed out to The Royal Temple of Mengwi. Its Balinese name Pura Taman Ayun means ‘Garden Temple in the Water’. It is one of the most important temples in Bali. Built in 1634 by a King of the Mengwi dynasty, the complex is on an island in a river and its inner temple is surrounded by a moat. While it wasn’t as big as I expected (based on pictures I had seen) it was really quite beautiful. The only thing that was a little disturbing were the chickens in tiny cages in the first courtyard of the complex. The Balinese have always enjoyed cockfights, and they still continue to be popular, we were worried that the chooks we saw had a predetermined future, which was a little sad to see.

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Our next stop was Alas Kedaton, often referred to as Monkey Forest. There is a temple, Alas Kedaton Temple, which borders on a 12,000 hectare forest, where monkeys and bats live. Here you are able to wander around with a guide who explains how the monkeys live freely and choose to visit (clearly they are being fed, or they wouldn’t choose to visit). She also explained that the monkeys were macaque’s and the male have sex up to 10 times a day…that’s why we could see so many adorable babies. Some as young as a few days old….soooooooo cute!!! The monkeys weren’t anywhere near as aggressive and grabby as the ones we came across in Malaysia, here I even got to hold the hand of a little guy!! Such soft hands. It was beautiful to see all the monkeys…and not fear for my life!

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The last stop of the tour was sunset at Tanah Lot and it’s neighbour Pura Batu Balong. Tanah Lot is a small island with a temple on top. Pura Batu Balong is two small bays further along the coastline and is a small temple perched on a cliff top, which is accessed via a natural bridge. The two temples were beautiful, and the coastline was stunning, lush green gardens on the cliffs above black sandy beaches – a perfect location for a sunset! Unfortunately for us, the sky wasn’t participating with the romantic notion of a cliff top temple silhouetted against a striking sunset, because it was cloudy and the sunset wasn’t colourful. I was a little disappointed with the lack of sunset, but as I said, the location itself was pretty impressive and it was a really pleasant end to the day.

Day 2
After an early night, solid sleep and a tiny sleep in, we were feeling much more ready to take on the world. After some brekky we hit the streets once more. We headed in the direction of Seminyak, we checked out a few markets and wandered last the beach before catching a taxi to Seminyak, where we checked out Pura Petitinget temple. To make ourselves respectful of the Hindu faith we hired sarongs before wandering into the temple. The temple was quite pretty and it was good to wander around by ourselves – we were the only people there – but on the whole it wasn’t amazing to look at. Possibly not worth the effort of getting there.
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After looking at the temple we headed back towards more central Seminyak, where we found a great cafe to stop for a coffee and a small bite to eat. We also took the time to check out a few markets stalls, jewellery and clothes mostly, and clearly designed for a more upmarket target audience than what we had experienced in the Legian/Kuta region – it was a nice change.

After some more wandering we decided it was time for a break, so we caught a taxi back to the hotel where we had a dip in the pool and spent some time lounging around the pool. The late afternoon was spent wandering some previously unexplored streets. I found some cute items for a certain cute niece of mine. I also found an interesting assortment of fresh fruit, so it was experimentation time! I got some Rambutan…a favourite of mine, some other small fruits that I think were called Longon and some freaky looking fruit called Salak. The Salak was brown and was scaly like a snake, only they were hard scales. The fruit itself had an ok flavour, but the texture was a bit bizarre and made your mouth feel like it was being dried out, in contrast the Longon are juicy and sweet…yum!!

Day 3:
I was collected from the hotel at 7:30am along with a family from Perth and a couple from Perth, we all headed to the hills. Along the way we stopped at a coffee roastery where we got to try 8 different coffees and teas, and for those willing to pay extra, Kopi Luwak. Kopi Luwak is said to be the worlds most expensive coffee, the coffee beans are eaten by the civet cat. Once the cat poops the beans back out, the beans are cleaned up and ground into coffee. Surprisingly it was actually quite nice coffee, even if the idea is pretty gross!

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After our coffee break we continued on up into the mountains, up to Kintamani, where we stopped for breakfast. The view while we ate was stunning! A view of Mount Batur (an active volcano…no eruptions while we were there though) and the beautiful blue Lake Batur.

As we were finally at the top of the mountains, it was time to head back down…on mountain bikes!
We rode through villages, past rice terraces, through farmlands…it was all stunning! The local children loved it, and when they saw us coming they would run to the road and smile and wave, calling out “Hello”.

Along the way we made a few stops. the first one was at a village temple, there were people everywhere. Cockfighting is a big part of Balinese culture and they all love to gamble on these fights, so we stopped to watch. It starts with all the people determining which roosters will fight. Then each of the roosters has a razor sharp blade strapped to one of their legs, the blade is probably about two inches long. Then the first round starts, the two owners squat in the middle of e ring, plucking the roosters feathers, poking the beak at the other rooster, getting them all fired up. The crowd stands and calls out words, also trying to aggravate the birds. Then the two owners step back and throw the roosters into the ring, where there is a great deal of flapping, some blood and very quickly it is all over. If the losing bird is weak but not close to death, the two birds are put in a small cage together until there is a death. Of the three rounds we saw, the worst one was when the roosters was pure white, it just highlighted, literally, the brutality of the sport. I was pretty glad when the group decided to continue riding!

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Our next two stops were both about rice. The first was when we saw rice being harvested, they were using a harvesting machine. I think the people were cutting the stalks and feeding it into the machine, then machine then stripped the leafy stuff away from the rice, so they could collect the rice. The second stop was the same thing, rice harvesting, but using the traditional method. People would cut small bunches of stalks, then walk over to a big bin type thing which had an angled wooden board in it, there you would bash the stalks against the wood, to make the rice fall off the stalks. Then you would pass the bundle of stalks to a lady who would strip the last bits from the stalk and throw out the rest. A few of us had a go at bashing the stalks…it was kind of fun, but we got covered in leafy and dusty stuff, and I don’t think any of us were that successful at stripping the stalks of rice.

The remainder of the ride was very pleasant, we had a few drops of rain, but thankfully the sky didn’t really open up. The ride ended in a quiet little village, where we were invited into someone’s home to enjoy a traditional Balinese buffet lunch. It was oh so tasty!!!!!
Then it was time for us to pile back into our minivan and drive back to town.

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We spent the evening enjoying some fantastic food, cheap drinks and live music. A great way to spend our last evening in Legian.

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Last stop: Kuala Lumpur

Day 21 – Kuala Lumpur
Albino Burmese Python
Albino Burmese Python

We were picked up from our hostel at 9am to do the Jumbo tour (jumbo in this case refers to elephants). As the tour was running ahead of schedule, the driver chucked in a visit to the Batu Caves as we left the city. Most of Kuala Lumpur is quite flat, and then occasionally you get a random mountain with sheer sides sticking out of the ground. The Batu Caves are in one of these mountains, you climb 272 steps to get into the cave, which houses a Hindu temple, as well as some pigeons and monkeys. There was some big Hindu festival on, so there were heaps of people dressed in yellow carrying offerings up the steps; some people climbed the stairs on their knees as a penance.

We then began our tour and headed off to a park somewhere to see a waterfall. We wandered up and down the riverside looking for the waterfall until we came to the conclusion that the bumpy water we could see, was the waterfall. It had massive falls of about 20-30cm!! The locals seemed to love it though and were all swimming, BBQing and camping in the area. We were supposed to spend an hour at the waterfall, but after 20 minutes we’d seen it, so the guide took us to the next stop: Deerland.
Deerland was essentially a mini zoo. The main focus was a paddock full of deer and we got to feed them. As you followed the path, there were a number of small cages containing various different types of birds, there were some enclosures with hamsters and guinea-pigs, there was even one enclosure with what looked like a domestic cat (it was actually a Bengal Cat which is a wild, aggressive breed of cat). We also saw two snakes, we got a chance to hold the albino Burmese python, which was quite cool.
After Deerland we went to a roadside ‘cafe’ for some lunch, before the main attraction: Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary.

Elephants like bananas
Elephants like bananas
Mark and I were both a little nervous about whether we would be seeing happy or sad elephants. The Deerland deer were sad because they had small enclosures and didn’t appear to be well looked after; the OrangUtan in Sepilok were happy because they were really well treated and weren’t in any way confined. It turned out that the elephants were sad, mostly. When we got there the elephants were on concrete enclosures, some of them were rocking from side to side like crazy people. We fed them some bananas to try to cheer them up. After a little while there was an elephant show…this was actually quite good and the elephants seemed a bit happier. The staff rode the elephants into the river where they got a bath. Each elephant rolled over lazily in the water while their trainer gave them a good scrub…they really seemed to enjoy it. After bath time, they did wander up onto a podium where we were told a bit about each of them, and were then given the opportunity to feed them some papaya, they really enjoyed that! So while they seemed to be physically treated ok, I do wonder how they are treated in general, and of they are allowed to wander free anywhere. I hope so, because elephants are so lovely!
That concluded our tour and we were driven back to KL, where we wandered around Central Market for a bit, Mark got a Dr. Fish foot massage and I bought some presents for myself.
In the evening Mark headed out to catch up with his friend Sherman, while I continued to browse central market an Chinatown market, as well as stuffing my face full of yummy food, and watching a street performance of Malaysian dancing.
Posing with the Malaysian dancers
Posing with the Malaysian dancers
Day 22 – Kuala Lumpur
On the observation desk of Petronas Tower no.2
On the observation desk of Petronas Tower no.2

We had another early start, to get tickets for the Petronas Towers we needed to be at the ticket office around 8:30am. Tours up the towers leave about every 15 minutes, starting at 9am. By the time we got our tickets the next available tour was at 12:15!! So we bought our tickets before exploring the mall and aquarium.

The aquarium was reasonably small, but nonetheless cool. The underwater tunnel was great, I always love watching fishes and turtles swim!!
The mall was pretty amazing. Absolutely enormous and there were six floors. Each floor had 4 wings. Among the fancy stores were Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Chanel etc. The stores which caught my attention were places like Zara and Mango – and of course I took the chance to shop it up!!
At 12 we headed to the towers were the elevator zipped us up to the 41st floor to have a look at the SkyBridge. The SkyBridge is about halfway up the towers and connects the two. The interesting aspect was that it is suspended between the two buildings, but is not actually fixed, allowing it to sway in very high winds without causing any damage. You can actually feel outside air flowing in at the joins!
Soon enough it was time to continue upwards to the 86th floor… 370 metres above ground level (the towers themselves are 452.9metres high). The view was pretty good!! It was pretty interesting to see the overview of KL, residential areas were all very ‘flat’, small buildings, where the non-residential areas were full of huge tall buildings!
After our tower visit, we returned to the mall for lunch in one of the food courts, and more shopping. Before we knew it, it was 5pm!! A little tired and carrying a stack of bags, we headed back to the hostel with the plan of following the lonely planet suggested walking tour of Chinatown. As we got off the monorail, we decided just to chill at the hostel for a bit as it was bucketing with rain!
So after some emails and Facebook,  when the sky had stopped leaking we popped out for a bit. We had dinner, enjoyed some foot massages and watched a martial arts demonstration (it was kids from a local school, but was still quite fun to watch)
Day 23: Kuala Lumpur
Jimmy Choo!!!
Jimmy Choo!!!

While we intended to have a bit of a sleep in on our last day, we both woke up around 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so we got up, had some brekky, packed our bags, then stored them in the luggage room for the day before heading out for some more sightseeing.

We started off by following the lonely planets suggested walking tour of Chinatown, it was a bit challenging when half the streets don’t have street signs, but either way we had a nice wander.
With the day really starting to heat up, we jumped on a monorail and headed in the direction of the current ‘trendy’mall: Pavilion. We checked out some of my favourites: H&M, Zara, Mango, Guess, Pull & Bear as well as a few other stores…including Jimmy Choo!!! I’m pretty sure I couldn’t even come close to affording those shoes, even when they were 50% off!!
The malls here really are phenomenal, and I’m glad that there are maps available, because you really do need them!!
We found a food hall to eat some yummy noodles and satays as all this shopping makes you hungry.
We checked out another neighbouring mall, as well as a purely IT mall. I was a bit disappointed as I couldn’t find any random gadgets. Had I wanted a mobile phone, tablet or laptop though, I would have been in heaven! 6 floors to choose from!!
Year of the Dog
Year of the Dog

Another thing worth commenting on, is that since it is so close to Chinese New Year, all the streets as well as shops and restaurants are decorated with flowers and lanterns and everything Chinese  it’s quite cool, but perhaps a little full on. The entrance to Pavilion Mall was no exception and the entrance was lined with the animals from the Chinese years. As far as I understand, I am year of the dog.

Late afternoon we were both pretty knackered, so we headed to the hostel to spend the last few hours before our flight home, catching up on emails and facebook. We have an overnight flight and will be back home on Tuesday afternoon.
It’s been a fantastic holiday, we have seen and done so much, and even crammed in some girly shopping. As fun as it’s been, I am looking forward to heading home and catching up with my family and my puppy dog. I am also looking forward to breathing smog free air!!
I hope you’ve enjoyed sharing in my travels!
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Kuching

The Great Cat Statue
The Great Cat Statue

Day 19 – Kuching

After a bit of a sleep in, we wandered into the city to follow the walking tour suggested in the Lonely Planet. Mostly it was just to wander through all the main streets of the city, some of the sights mentioned in the book no longer existed and other were interesting to see. Kuching means ‘Cat’ in Malay, so part of our morning entertainment was taking photos of all the random cat statues around the city.
Kuching is a fairly small city, and while it was nice to wander, there isn’t a great deal to see. We did make a few food stops on our wanderings, we enjoyed some pork buns, roti canai, mangosteen, and some random fruit juice.
At 4pm we were collected from our hostel for a wildlife cruise down the Santubong River. We were hoping to see Irrawaddy Dolphins, Crocodiles, Proboscis Monkeys and Fireflies. I wasn’t too fussed that we didn’t see any crocodiles, but was a bit disappointed that we didn’t spot any Irrawaddy Dolphins.
On a more positive note we did see some wild proboscis monkeys swinging through the trees. Also because of the lack of wildlife the tour people took us to a water village (stilt houses) to look around and meet the people. They were all such lovely, welcoming people and the kids were just adorable, following us through the village. I find it quite surprising to see the conditions in which some people still live. This village’s only fresh water is what they collect from the rain into their tanks and they wash themselves outdoors with little buckets of water; their power is from local generators; yet they have WiFi. It is good to see some aspects of their traditional lifestyle maintained, but disappointing how many aspects have been changed by western society. I did appreciate being allowed into their village and as I mentioned the people were all so welcoming.
Excited children in the water village
Excited children in the water village

By the time we had wandered from one end of the village to the other, it was time to hop back on the boat. As we headed back we looked for Crocodiles, but saw none. The tour ended with us seeing lots of fireflies in the mangroves, flicking their lights on and off. Fireflies are cool!!

When we got back to Kuching we headed out for a late dinner, all day I had tried unsuccessfully to find a place to cook me up some Wan Tan Mee (it’s a noodle dish with dumplings and fried pork – super tasty), we headed to the food stall across the street and asked the lady of she made Wan Tan Mee…when she said “Yes” I whooped with joy! And she laughed! Even though we didn’t see dolphins, the wildlife cruise was lovely, and my day ended perfectly with a big bowl of Wan Tan Mee….happy Duckie!
More random info: I mentioned last time that Malaysia is broken up into states. Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo. I learned today that Peninsular Malaysia is not one chunk, but 11 states. I know nothing about these states though.

Day 20 – Kuching

Kuching River as the sun sets
Kuching River as the sun sets
We had hoped to participate in a cooking class, but we could only find two classes. One was not running because the entire company was going to Thailand for a holiday; the other needed a minimum of 4 people in order to run a class. So rather than learning to cook Malaysia food, we slept in.
Just after showering and getting ready to start the day, the rain started. I don’t just mean a bit of rain, I mean the kind of rain that floods the streets in minutes and it so heavy and loud that you struggle to have a conversation. So we spent the time sitting around the hostel reading our books and checking our emails.
Around midday the rain eased off and we ventured out for a brief wander to get some coffee, buy some bits and bobs and have lunch before walking very quickly through the drizzle back to the hostel to catch our taxi to the airport.
Due to roadworks, traffic was ridiculously slow and we started to wonder if we would make it on time…a 30min trip tool over an hour! Thankfully we arrived with time to spare, that calmed my nerves a little.
The flight was pretty standard, we arrived in Kuala Lumpur and were in the city in no time.
Our evening was pretty simple, check in, go get dinner and wander the markets of Chinatown checking out all the Prada handbags and Rolex watches!

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