Bangkok

I arrived in Bangkok and headed to the famous Kao Shan Road where backpackers gather, sleep, drink and shop. I arrived at 10 p.m. at night when the road was blocked off from traffic (as it is every night) because people gather in the streets to browse street vendors shops, drink alcohol from buckets, transform their image by getting fake dreadlocks applied to their heads or henna tattoos, and test their taste buds on street Pad Thai and Banana Pancakes for $20 Baht (a little less than $1 US). The next morning I hired a tuk tuk, a small three wheeled motorcycle reminiscent of the cheap Pulmonias in Mazatlan, as cheap transportation to take me around town.


I visited several Buddha statues including the standing Buddha. I have learned that the position the Buddha statue is in, i.e. standing, sitting, lying down, each has a different meaning, as well as the position his hands are placed in. I believe this particular statue is believed to bring luck and blessings when you pray in front of it.



I also hired a taxi to visit the famous ancient city of Ayutthaya. This city is the ancient capital of Thailand from 1350 until 1767 when the city was destroyed by Burmese invaders.



Near by I was able to visit elephants that offer tourists an opportunity for a quick ride or photo op. I choose the photo op : )

From Bangkok I headed south to Krabi and Railay Beach to do some rock climbing and spend yet more time on the beach. The waters of near by Pranang Beach are so beatiful, they could seduce you into drowning. See pictures next post : )

Lombok

I quickly agreed with all of my friends who have been to Bali before me that it is overcrowded, overpriced, over commercialized, and I was over it. Three days into Indonesia and I jumped on the four hour ferry from bali and headed east to the island of Lombok.



In Lombok I traveled to the northeastern tip of the island where three smaller islands called the Gilis (islands in Bahasa Indonesian) sit. I went to the largest and furthest one out, Gili Trawangan.


This is my kinda paradise. Beautiful turquoise waters with reefs great for scuba diving, small restaurants and bars and a decent amount of nightlife.

The only transportation on the island is bicycle (which I rented one day and rode around the island) or horse drawn carriages.


There are even individual movie booths right on the beach. Pick a movie, relax on some beanbags in the privacy of your own booth...and the cost is only ordering something to drink or eat (in my case a $2 beer). The movies are pirated so you can see the most current hits!

I stayed on the island for four days, diving every day and enjoying the vibe of the island and it's people.


Then I headed back to Lombok to see the island from a different perspective. I decided to take on Mount Rinjani. Mount Rinjani or Gunung Rinjani is an active volcano and rises to 3,726 m (12,224 ft), making it the second highest volcano in Indonesia. I met two friends from Canada while on Gili Trawangan and we hired a guide to take us up the hill, along with two porters who, THANK GOD, carried our food, tent, and sleeping gear. The trip was extremely challenging, as I haven't exactly been working out much on my trip, nor have I been above sea level in over two months so my lungs got quite the shock.

View of the Mountain from the car

Still smiling after reaching 2,400 meters

Our fabulous porters who did the heavy lifting (in flipflops the whole way!)

Christine and Reneau (from Canada) supervising dinner preparations

Our view right before sunset on night two

After waking up at 2;30 a.m. and hiking for 3 1/2 hours, the view made it all worth it in the end.



Now I just need a few days for my legs to recover. I'm off to Thailand next...see you there

Bali - My Pics

My camera is back up and running...here's some of my pics of Bali...

Flowers outside of my hotel room

Kuta Beach

Trying to get over my monkeyphobia

Tanah Lot


Being Blessed

Bali

Unfortunately none of the following photos are my own. My camera battery has died and I misplaced my electrical outlet converter. Hopefully this will be remedied ASAP. I do have very similar (some better) photos that I can show you when I get home : )




My two weeks in Indonesia have gone by much too quickly. There is so much to see and do here (as I am realizing seems to be the case everywhere I go) and things here are so cheap, I could travel here forever. Unfortunately I only planned two weeks here, so I crammed in as much as I could, and left plenty to do when I come back.

I started my trip in Bali. An island with gorgeous beaches, beautiful Hindu temples, a fascinating culture, and BIG CROWDS of tourists! I spent three days on Bali before moving onto the island just east called Lombok, and three days was more than enough.

I stayed in the town of Kuta, on the southern part of the island. Kuta is a mass of tourists, tourist shops selling phony name brand merchandise from Arnette Sunglasses for $3 to Billabong swimwear for $5, massage parlors, over a million scooters and motorcycles, and narrow streets that wind around for miles.

There is a gorgeous beach as well, and the vendors know the tourists will be there trying to escape the shops, so they bring the shops to you. You can even get a massage right where you are on the beach. It probably won't be the best massage ever, but it'll only cost you $5 if you bargain well.


I spent one day on Bali taking a tour around the island. Some friends I met in Darwin , Austalia were also in Bali and we hired a car to drive us around for the day. We went north to the town of Ubud and visited the sacred monkey forset. The monkeys are wild and EVERYWHERE! Some are tame enough that if you sit down with a banana in your hand they will climb on your shoulder or back and take the banana from you. It was really a beautiful spot to vist, even if the monkeys do freak you out a little bit.




From the monkey village we traveled further north to a town called Bedugul up in the mountains near Lake Bratan, home of the famous temple Ulun Danu.

Here I also tried my first bite of real Indonesian Food, Nasi Goreng. This is a dish of fried rice and a few vegies like carrots, chilis and water cress, topped with a fried egg and on the side a couple slices of cucmber, maybe a tomato, and a crispy shrimp cracker.I really liked it!
From here we traveled back south to the most photographed temple in all of Bali, Tanah Lot, which sits on a large island just off the beach. At this temple you can actually pay a donation and be blessed at the temple.

This is a quick recap of three short days. I hope to soon have my battery chanrged so I can post the Lombok portion of my trip with photos of me in these amazing places.

Big Fish Tails

Diving the Great Barrier Reef is the most specatcular thing I've done since I have been in Australia. I went with TAKA DIVING and had the diving experience of my life. The trip was a 4 day/3 night trip up to the northern tip of the reef. I decided to sign up for an advanced certification course which would allow me to dive at night, deep dive (100 feet) and learn to navigate under water and perfect my bouyancy. Ten dives in three days with lots of studying in between, but I was up for the challenge! (Besides, I needed to cut back on my alcohol consumption a bit and having to get up early to dive in the morning is the best incentive I could come up with!) : ) I have tons of pics to show everyone when I get home, plus a DVD staring yours truly, but for now...here are a few pics of my own, a couple I stole from the TAKA website, and many taken by friends I met on the boat with professional underwater cameras.



The first day 32 passengers and 10 crew set out on the 100 foot dive boat from Cairns, heading north as the sun was setting over the giant land mass of Australia to our west. Sunsets are strange here to me because I am so familiar with sunsets over the ocean dropping into the sea, now I see the sun rise to the east coming up from the depths of the black ocean. Being on the opposite coast line of the sun setting is all new to this girl.


We set up our gear and settled into our floating home.


Sunrise on day two of our trip.


Day two we woke up bright and early to get ready to dive the famous Cod Hole and watch a feeding. The cod were waiting for us as we made our descent and sat in a circle on the ocean floor. Andy, our tour guide, swam down with a large container of cut up fish bits and was almost accosted as the giant fish nuzzled at him for food. The fish were HUGE and came within inches of us, close enough to reach out and pet as they swam by...we just had to be cautious they didn't mistake our fingers for food.
Diving at the Cod Hole






My first night dive.


Dive partner Liz from England


Advanced Course Dive Partner Angelique from Holland


After lunch the captain of the boat heard from another dive company that Minke Whales were near by at a famous dive spot called Lighthouse Bommie.

The Dwarf Minke Whale is the smallest of the baleen whales growing up to 7 metres in length and weighing up to 10 tonnes. Although they are termed "ship seeker" or in other words very friendly and not afraid of human contact, they choose to travel solitary or in pairs/small groups. They feed on krill in the sub-Antarctic waters between the months of December and March of each year. They spend a lot of time passing through the Great Barrier Reef during the months of June, July & August but have never been recorded feeding in the area.

The Dwarf Minke is the only species of whale at present, with which humans are allowed purposeful in the water interaction. You are likely to see these whales approach the vessel and interact with guests on board by jumping, breaching, spy hopping (poking one eye out of the water to look at you) or presenting their belly. These friendly mammals will play and interact with snorkellers for up to 3 hours at a time.

Lucky for all of us, as soon as we had gotten out of the water after our dive, someone spotted the whales. We all suited up and with just our snorkles and fins, dove in the water. We were instructed to hold on to a long rope that was attached to the back of the boat. As we help on the the rope and floated as still as we could, the family of three Minke Whales swam around us for over an hour. They playfully breached in and out of the water around us, and often came within less than five feet of the snorklers, checking us out. At one point, one of the whales was swimming directly at me and I was really concerned for a split second that he was going to ram me. He swam within just a few feet and then dove deep below me, leaving me absolutly stunned.




Day three was another great day of diving. The visibility was some of the best I've ever dove. We hit spots called Steve's Bommie, Temple of Doom and the Beer Garden where we did a night dive with sharks and turtles. On our way to the last dive of the day our boat captain did it again and spotted Humback Whales this time. We didn't have time to swim with them but had an amazing show watching them breach as we all looked like paparazzi on the top of the dive boat. I didn't have my camera and was too busy enjoying the whales to go down under the boat to get it...so these are some pics taken by others on the boat...



I passed my advanced certification course. More importantly on this trip, I did have the time of my life.