January 29 Madurai, India

UPDATE
Travelling in India the past week Internet has been sparse. There are lots of great stories to post prior to today. Meanwhile this is what we have been up to.
January 3-January 19 BORNEO
January 19-23 KUALA LUMPUR
January 23-29 INDIA (Chennai, Malalapurum, Pondecherry, Trichy and now Maduria.

Keep posted to hear about our adventures this past January.
Lianna

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Jan.1-3)

Kuala Lumpur (KL)

We stayed 2 nights in KL. We arrived in the late afternoon and asked the cabbie to take us to our landing hotel. It was right in the middle of Chinatown which we were looking forward to as Chinese food was something we were all craving. “The Swiss Inn” presented us with a small 10x10 room with 2 bunk beds and a small washroom. A big let down from “The Swastika” but a good time to get into a new frame of travel mind.
China Town

Being back in a city was a bit of a shock at first. People and traffic and noise almost seemed overwhelming. Having the incredible selection of food was more than welcoming. Chinese the first night, Indian the next day, more Chinese food and more Indian food were more than delicious.

We were sent on a run around to find the Indian Consulate. After a taxi ride around the city we finally arrived at the Visa office not far from our hotel. We found out that we had to fill out the forms, leave them for 5 working days, return once they were processed, hand over our passports for 24 hours and then return to collect the passports stamped with an Indian visa. So while the process was underway, we booked our flights out the next morning to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo (which is part of Malaysia), paired down our bags from 4 to 2 (left 2 bags at the hotel) and went out for Tandoori Chicken.



Pairing down the bags was a big awakening. It seems that everyone, especially me, has a lot, of unnecessary things and an overabundance of clothes in their bags. We are going to have to do a mailing or dumping of clothes when we return to KL.

The other big event in KL was my (Lianna’s) purchase of a new digital video camera. I had been using a digital camera with required tapes. First of all I was finding the camera to be cumbersome and secondly I ran out of tapes and had no idea where I was going to get more. Caleb had been trying to convince me for months to get a smaller digital camera so I decided that in KL I was going to do it. So the last afternoon we headed to the shopping area, a recommendation from the tourist centre, and went in search of a camera.

To tell you the truth, the supermall of electronics just terrified me when I saw it so I went into the first digital camera shop, and after a short time of Caleb and Mark asking all the questions, I said OK lets get this one. Mark pulled out his wad of cash and started counting. He handed the money to the sales girl who then proceeded to count it but when she came upon one bill that had a small tear in it, she stopped and said she could not take it. (This bill was for 100 ringgit, approx. $36 CDN). Mark was not happy by this, he was actually trying to get rid of it as it had been refused at another place already. He spoke to the manager, but no go. The sales clerk finally told him that she would go with him to the bank down the road and if the bank machines took it, then ok. He disappears while I was setting up my supposed new camera with another sales clerk.

They were gone for what seemed like half an hour. At this point I was not sure where he had gone. Caleb said he was going from store to store trying to get rid of the bill. Artemis had no idea where he was. The sales clerk put my camera in a bag and we waited. Finally he returned with the store clerk. The bank machine would not take the bill but she had bought him a coke and he had taken out more money.

I had my camera but we still had that damn bill. Artemis was dying for an ice coffee at that point so we said if she could get Starbucks to take the BILL, then she could get a coffee. Starbucks refused the bill.

Mark was fuming about this bill by now. We headed to another mall where we thought we would see a movie. We arrived there to find that nothing was playing but there was a big bookstore nearby. Artemis had another chance to get something she wanted, if the bill was taken. She went to the cash with her book, as we all waited patiently outside the store. We put the image of her getting the book and walking out of the store into our minds. We waited. After a number of minutes she came strolling out with a huge smile on her face. She had done it! We ran out of the mall and jumped into a cab happy to have gotten rid of the ripped bill.

Off to Borneo…
Lianna

Bali for New Years (Dec.30-Jan 1)

Our New Year's was unexpectedly spent in Sanur, Bali. We arrived at the port in the pouring rain, were shuffled into a tiny van full of wet people and bags and off we went. There was us going to Sanur and another group heading for Ubud. Sanur was the first stop and not yet having a hotel we had did not have any particular place in mind. The driver decided to just stop in the middle of nowhere in Sanur in the pouring rain an ask us to hop out. We insisted on a café at least so he found a spot, we jumped out, ran into the café and ordered coffees and hot chocolates. He just happened to drop us at a fabulous café, expensive, but just what we were looking for after the rocky boat ride, heavy rain, no plans and not having eaten for 8 hours.

Once the rain had died down a bit, we hopped into a cab to look for a hotel - not easy two nights before New Year's with no reservations. After a number of tries at hotels that were full we found 2 rooms for the one night only, so we decided to deal with a room for New Year's Eve next day, along with flight plans to somewhere out of Indonesia.

The next day Mark and I walked over to the nearest travel agent and proceeded to search out any possible flight route for that day or the next. We wanted to get to Flores. Flights were booked for at least the next 5 days. We tried other routes, too crazy. Next choice was Borneo. We found a flight to Kuala Lumpur the next day. KL is was not our preferred location but we had to start the process for our Indian Visas which would take over a week to process so we would fly to Borneo or somewhere when that was taking place. This meant one more night in Sanur. So we hopped into another taxi to search for our New Years Eve hotel.

We checked a few places, full. The Hyatt (a massive structure on the water), full. Mark then remembered a hotel we saw the day before called “The Swastika”. It stuck in our heads because of the name. We told the cabbie to go there and we would check. Lo and behold, a cancellation of two rooms!

“The Swastika” to this day has been my favourite hotel of our trip. Set in a lush garden of flowers and plants, with the aroma of Frangipani floating in the air, the hotel was paradise. Our room was set overlooking the garden, with a lovely private terrace where we all enjoyed the sunset and then the final minutes of 2008. It was fabulous.







During the day we walked on the beach, had a great street lunch of Nasi Champur – rice and a scoop of 3 or 4 other vegetarian or meat dishes. We swam in the Swastika pool and then got ready for the evening.

Sanur was in full festive mode. All the locals and tourists were out along the beachfront, sitting down for buffet dinners or festive cultural evenings. After searching and deliberating for hours, many places were booked, but we found a table near the water and had an ok meal. Later was walked along the beach and then joined in some dancing.

On the festive streets





We arrived back at the hotel where we made our first Podcast of the year, blew our New Year's horns and welcomed 2009.

Lianna

Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Indonesia (Dec.23-30)

Gili Trawanagan, Bali, Indonesia
Written by Caleb

We quickly finish up the delicious banana pancake and cancel the café latte. Me and Mark run down to the boat to check in. I wait for mom outside while Artemis and Mark go onto the boat. When me and mom get inside, there is only one seat left so she takes it and I sit on the stairs next to the wide open door. The boat ride started out great. Just as we're leaving the harbour, we see some flying fish. And when I say flying I mean flying. Like they flap their wings and stay up for at least 15 seconds. They are so cool. The rest of the ride is a series of hitting my head on the roof and totally being rocked back and forth. It was crazy bumpy and pretty darn scary. Lucky none of us got seasick.

Arriving on Trawangan Mark gets a horse carriage. On Trawangan there are no taxis or cars or mopeds or motorized vehicles of any kind - only horse drawn carriages. It’s pretty fun, but pretty tough to fit all of us plus our four huge bags plus the driver and to top that off the driver’s 4 year old son decided to come along for the ride too.




We look at basically every hotel/villa/bungalow on the whole island. Finally after 5 hours of looking we decide to stay at our friends place, Big Bubble. We met the owner, Lyndsay, on Bunaken, diving. And he was the one that convinced us to come to Gili Trawangan. So we're going to dive and stay at his place. The problem is we can only stay there for three nights. We decided we’ll just figure that out later.

Mom doing Yoga at Big Bubble
Big Bubble accommodation

Mom and dad's room is really nice because they have the deluxe. Unfortunately we just have the standard. The standard has a fan but it doesn’t do anything and the toilet doesn’t flush and the beds are scratchy and small. But we manage.

Sunset on Tarwanagan

That day we head out for a dive. Memorable because underwater I started getting really bad stomach cramps and then I shit my pants. I DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE! When you're 20m underwater and a 30 minute boat ride back to the nearest washroom then you gotta do what you gotta do. Other then that it was a nice dive.


On the Diving Boat with Doug

The next day was December 24 and we moved into the deluxe rooms which where WAY nicer. The bathroom was really nice and there was hot water. There was one huge bed and they had to put in a mattress but me and Artemis just switched off.


Xmas Dinner

We woke up on Christmas day at about 8:30 and did nothing. For presents I got a pair of pants and a t-shirt… AND A BLOODY TRIP AROUND THE WORLD! But other than that Christmas was just another normal day in the life of the traveller. The rest of the week went by pretty quick.

Caleb trying on new shorts

Mark on the beach

We moved into a new place because they kicked us out at Big Bubble. We moved into a really nice house with two floors and air conditioning and a TV and DVD player (yay!). It was probably the only place on the whole island with vacancy.

Artemis at the new place, sorry no pictures but there were lots of cats there which she loved

We went on a couple more dives and saw some sharks some huge turtles some cuttlefish (really cool) some huge angel fish, banner fish, morray eels with a head as big as yours, nudibranches (really, really cool. They're about 2 cm long and they have the most vibrant colors I've ever seen. They're really amazing). Oh we saw 2 octopus which where uber cool and a whole bunch of other stuff.

The food in Trawangen wasn’t amazing, just pretty good. There isn’t much variety in Indonesian foods. You have mei goreng (fried noodles), nasi goreng (fried rice) and nasi champour which is rice with a bunch of veggies and chicken. The first night there were not many people on the island and the restaurants were all deserted. We go to some villa for supper. You pay 60,000 rupea (6 dollars) and get a whole grilled fish with an all you can eat salad bar with ROLLS!! We haven’t had bread in like a month. Each of us probably has 8 rolls and that’s before the fish comes. The fish was good and so was the salad. We basically had the whole place to ourselves. We had some more good food and great diving.


Waiting for the boat to leave the island

The day we left we were all tired and it was a nice day. The boat we were getting on to had five 200 horsepower engines. FIVE. When we got on there was a lot of room and then this huge group came. There was still a lot of room. So we are going fast and then it starts to rain. Hard. And it rained during the whole ride back. Fortunately I fell asleep but I didn’t miss the huge waves, god those where treacherous.

But we lived and on we went to Sanur Beach where it continued to pour.
Caleb

Bali (Dec 14-23)

Mark speaks about Bali

We were all looking forward to Bali.
So much so that while making our way south from Pau Bunaken, the diving island north of Sulawasi, we decided not to explore the island of Sulawasi itself, other than our brief stay in Manado, as we were all excited about Bali. Manado was a great experience, as we were the only white people in town. We walked around at dinner time, stopping in at a local satay stand, and then went to the shopping area, which was very crowded and busy. Sulawasi is a mix of Christian and Muslim people, with some women having their heads covered, and others not. It was strange to see "Merry Christmas" signs and banners all over town. We have seen these signs and greetings everywhere, including Malaysia and even here on Borneo.

Manado from the air

Sulawasi is a weirdly-shaped island: it has four narrow arms spreading out in different directions, which makes travel very tough. Boat rides are long, and there are no formal ferries or ferry routes, and the roads are bad, as these arms are quite mountainous as well as narrow. We did want to visit some of the interesting villages with unusual traditions, like huge funerals where they slaughter as many buffalo as they can get money for, including borrowing huge sums of money, as the more buffalo slaughtered, the better off the dead are. But the call of "Bali Ha'i" overcame us, and we flew right from Manado to Denpassar, Bali.

Lianna and I had been there before and loved it. What we didn`t realize was that I hadn`t been there for nearly a quarter of a century, and Lianna had been away 18 years.
Unbelievably, Bali had changed.

Getting out of the airport to our cab we were greeted by a large Starbucks. These sightings are usually met with mixed emotions: "Shit, there`s a Starbucks here", therefore it is not exotic and other-worldly, or "Yes! There`s a Starbucks here, we`ll be able to get anything we want, including great coffee!" (Not necessarily from Starbucks, as the presence of Starbucks usually signals coffee in general, except perhaps in Beijing, where Starbucks was the only coffee shop, except for a Blenz, which was not that great. The weird thing with these places in foreign countries is that they do not have the usual sweets to accompany the coffee, so you only have part of the equation. The pastry display usually has some weird stuff, or not much of anything, or a single piece of cake, which is suspect to say the least.)

We headed to Kuta beach, where Lianna had booked a landing hotel. A landing hotel for us is a place we can go to straight away and stay the first night until we find a better place, unless we are lucky enough to have our landing hotel be a great hotel, which is rare (it did happen in Beijing, and we stayed 10 days). As we drove to the hotel we were all surprised by Kuta - for Lianna and I by the explosive growth; for the kids, by the presence of Dolce and Gabanna, Versace, Billabong and other large brand-name stores. Again, these were met with mixed emotions: "Yes, we are back in civilization", and "Shit, we are back in civilization".

Our fist day at Kuta was fun. We went right for the beach, as it was HOT. The surf was good, and we body-surfed for a few hours. The next day was quite strange however, as went to the beach with the intention of Caleb taking a surfing lesson, but when we got there, the beach was now absolutely filthy!!! It was completely covered in debris of all kinds, including coconuts, palm leaves, pieces of wood, and lots of garbage. Everything from plastic bags and water bottles to sunscreen containers, juice boxes, dead fish (two puffers and and exhuasted small turtle, which was still alive), paper and plastic wrappers of every description. Caleb and I ventured in anyhow (the girls had gone bathing suit shopping), but were quickly repelled by the floating debris in the water, which made even wading knee-deep disgusting. We walked down the beach to see if there were any clear spots, which there were, on the beach, but the water was still filled with floating detritus, and eventually we had to get out.


We had arranged for a surfing teacher to meet us at 2 p.m. The guy who rented us the beach chairs said we should have gone with him, as he would only have charged us 15, instead of 20. By 2:45 Caleb's teacher had not shown, so he went with the chair rental guy, which ended up to be great despite the garbage. Caleb got up a few times, and had a good few hours of surf time. I, on the other hand, got a sun burn despite swimming and walking around with a T-shirt and lying under an umbrella, ella, ella, hey hey (sorry about that - copywrite Rianna, all rights reserved).

We found another hotel after our landing hotel, which was fantastic, with a great pool and WiFi which worked.

Lusa Hotel in Kuta

Walking around Kuta was strange however, as we were nearly the only people in town, despite it being a week before Xmas!! We would go to restaurants, shops, bars and be the only people there. Shop owners were literally begging us to buy stuff from them, as they had not sold a thing in days.

Empty road in Kuta area

It was a bit disconcerting, like shooting fish in a barrel. For the first time since September, the effects of the financial crisis seemed to be showing itself. That, and the execution of the Bali bombers, and the Australian govt's constant warnings about the dangers of travel in Bali, meant a 50% reduction in tourist traffic.
Sunset at Kuta beach. best part

Kuta's unbridled growth and the filth of its beaches got to us after a few days, and we decided to leave for Ubud - the artistic centre of Bali. Lianna and I had fond memories of Ubud and it's gorgeous guest houses and picturesque rice fields. Well guess what: it had changed.
Rice fields had been replaced with hotels; dirt roads had been paved; squatter toilets replaced with Western-style sitters and mandies with showers; informal restaurants now had white table clothes and Western-oriented over-priced menus; small stalls and stands were now very fancy air-conditioned boutiques, with ornate displays and price tags to match. It was still beautiful, with beautifully carved fountains and statues adorning every shop and street corner, but Ubud had definitely gone high-end.



We found a quaint little guest house right in the centre of town. And again, walking the streets of Ubud, we were nearly alone.

Balcony of Guest House - Sari Nari

Stores all had "Sale" signs in the windows (when I was there last they did not have windows, let alone sales!), and every price quoted in a shop was followed by: "But that is negotiable". We had dinner at a beautiful restaurant one evening. It was overlooking one of the few remaining rice fields near town, and we were alone, except for one Canadian guy in the corner. Shop owners were ready to deal big-time, which worked in our favour, as we were able to bargain down prices from 2.5 million IR to 1 million, on more than one occassion!
Sculptures everywhere in Ubud

Art everywhere in Ubud

While in Ubud we went to see the famed Kecak dance, where a chorus of dancers chant "chack chack chack chack, chackalack-chack" continuously, as well as Legong and Barong dances, all of which were fun and interesting, and had NOT changed, thankfully. There was the Monkey Temple forest as well, with the Monkey Temple still there, and still beautiful and lush and enchanting, with monkeys roaming freely and playing and preening each other all day.

Posing at the Monkey Temple




We also caught a Hindu festival, where woman walked, or were driven on motor bikes, with large offerings on their heads. That is something that had not changed in Bali: Balinese Hinduism, and the beauty of it.



Bali's vibe is largely derived from Balinese Hinduism, which is interpreted with daily - hourly! - offerings on the streets, statues with incense burning on them, beautiful temples, gates and house temples, all with lush greenery, mossy statues and an ethereal feel. The Balinese are mellow and serene, and it is - I believe - largely because of their religion, and their constant connection with the divine.

There is a very palpable difference between Bali and islands with either Christian or Muslim dominated religions (I realized this after returning from Gili Trawangan - a very chill island, but mainly Muslim, and definitely missing the Bali vibe). The Balinese are generally happy people. There are depictions in classical Balinese art of a simple island paradise, with bare-breasted women walking with loads on their heads (OK, this is appealing to me in general), men working the beautiful terraced rice fields, and children playing, and even today, you can still get this feeling on the island, and it is different from any other island.

Continuing on our travels, we rented a car (9 dollars a day!!) and drove around the east coast of the island. Before heading to Tulamban - our final destination, famed for its wreck dive of the USAT Liberty, which is a mere 25 metres off shore and begins at 5 metres below the surface, going down some 30 metres - we did a day trip around Ubud, going to the elephant cave temple, which dates from the 11th Century. The cave was dug into the mountainside, with little alcoves in the walls for meditating.



It had been forgotten for centuries, until two Dutch archeaologists found it in the early 1900s. We were met with a guide there, who explained the temple to us, and then took us through the forest and rice fields to see another ancient temple in a nearby town. On the way we passed Mr. Buddha, a wood carver with a small snack stand in the middle of the rice fields. We stopped for some black rice pudding (a Balinese specialty) and fresh orange juice - both excellent, and made magical by the surrounding rice fields.

Rice Fields near Mr.Buddhas place

From here we went on to Tampakshiring, a gorgeous temple also set into the hillside, with waterfalls and springs pouring out of it. The temple is surrounded by more terraced rice fields and running water. When we were there it was drizzling a bit, but quite warm still. We went swimming in the water, along with some local boys who stripped down and jumped in up river. On the way back we were caught in a downpour, and stopped in an artist's stand for shelter. He was quite a talented modern artist, and we ended up buying 2 paintings from him, and two carvings from a wood carver with exceptional skill, who had carved Sita in deep, rich ebony to which I could not say no.

On the way to Tulamban we passed through a village which had satay stalls all along the main street. We stopped, and it turned out to be some kind of local fish satay which was amazing. Even the kids loved it. A big lunch there cost us around 2 dollars. Tulamban, which is Balis most famous and busiest dive sites, was empty. We were nearly alone at the dive resort we stayed in, and it was THE dive resort, as it was right across from the Liberty! At the resort we met a single Jewish guy from Montreal travelling on his own (hi Ben! Thanks for reminding us it was Channukah!), and a couple from Korea. So we got a great deal on the diving and accommodation, and had two fantastic shore dives. Diving Tulamban was amazing (please see our underwater videos, taken by our dive-master/photographer). Our first dive was at 6:15 a.m. We met up with a school of giant bump-head parrot fish (see vidoe!), as well as a barracuda, and a giant school of big-eyed Trevally. Our second dive we finally made it to the wreck, which was really fun. We swam through it and around it, taking pictures (see flickr) of us holding a steering wheel, or something that looked like one. Caleb and I got bitten by a clown fish! Clowns gone bad. Barracuda, no problem; little clown fish - beware!



Shots of Mark, Caleb and Artemis diving the Wreck

The drive home was a mixture of getting lost, fighting about which way to go, and visiting Beseki, Bali's mother temple, in the pouring rain.

Returning to Ubud was like coming home. The next day Lianna I ran around Ubud doing our last minute shopping. We had already bought lots of things, and left a large box at the postal service while we were away. We filled the box - overfilled it actually, and had it shipped off on a slow boat home. The next day we left for Gili Trawangen, a tiny island off of Lombok. Trawangen has no motorized vehicles at all, with horse carts being the main mode of transport, as well as bicycle. On Bunaken we met a group of British people. Lyndsay is the owner of a dive shop on Trawangen, which is why we went there.

It was co-creation at its best: we saw pictures of the place on Bunaken, and a few weeks later, there we were, at Big Bubble on Gili Trawangen, in the pool with Lyndsay Doug and Julie! Johnny and Elfie had headed off to dive spots around the world on their honeymoon.

It was sunset on Trawangen, and I was walking along the beach in my sarong. I was serene, beautiful, and island paradise. I thought, "I could choose to be anywhere I wanted at this moment, and I have chosen here, and I am really happy I did."
Mark

Happy New Year! - first PODCAST

It is 2009! and we continue to travel the world. The postings are behind a few weeks but will be caught up soon. Meanwhile here is our first PODCAST to open the New Year. Check it out on our FLICKR account at:

Watch our New Year's Podcast!


Love Mark, Lianna, Caleb and Artemis