In-cog-nesia

View from Gili Island. Sunset over Bali's volcano. Mount Agung.

Well, four weeks in Indonesia and you think we should have lots to tell. Unfortunately, we have really only explored beaches, snorkeled coral reefs, biked 27km downhill through Bali, been invited to a Hindu temple to watch a 200 year old annual dance, seen deadly dragons. You know, nothing out of the ordinary.

Bali, Indonesia

It was nice to be in Bali, especially to start in Kuta. It is definitely a tourist destination. We found ourselves gorging on food we hadn't seen in a while. Hot Dogs, Chilli Cheese Fries, Cheetohs. It was good, really good. Perhaps too good cause our money was vanishing before our eyes. We knew we had to get outta dodge and quick. We did however manage to make it to the beautiful Kuta Beach 6 nights in a row to watch natures own art exhibit. It really is one of the most relaxing things one can do, plop down on a beach and watch the sunset. The nice thing in Kuta is that it seems everyone has this in mind. The beach fills up before the sun starts to set and everyone just relaxes, plays in the waves or drinks beer. We loved watching locals, they would walk right in to the water wearing their jeans and t-shirts, they didn't care. Or they would just sit where the waves crash and get covered in sand. We really didn't do much while in Kuta, one night though we bought a bottle of red wine for the sunset. Truth be told, we spent a couple days longer in Kuta then we normally would because we were waiting for a friend (Lovely Laura,who we met in Malaysia) to fly in. Our good old chap from Britain, or is it the UK? Can we just say England?

 

The next day we were off to Ubud. The girls to get their Julia Roberts on (Eat, Pray, Love) and me to experience the art and cultural center of Bali. Little did we know upon arrival that Ubud is large and filled with tourists. We lucked out and found a beautiful room. Set back from the main road, this garden villa was stunning. It was a treat to wake up there and a treat at night to relax while polishing off another box of wine, (while Kelly practiced her Zumba.) Through recommendation of a hotel employee we got talked into a bike ride/ Bali tour. The pamphlet sounded good and even listed Tom from Brisbane Australia saying it was "the best tour he had ever been on in the world" Well Tom, it lived up to your quote. It was lots of fun. I don't think the smiles left our faces. It started with an early morning pick up. And when I say early morning, I mean early, 8 o'clock. We had to set an alarm!! The tour started with a great breakfast overlooking a Volcano. You know, no big deal,  only a volcano Kelly and  I  climbed four years ago with flashlights! From there we went to a spice and coffee farm. We tried Good Shit Coffee. Mmmm, Luwak feces. Cleaned, roasted, ground and brewed, the best way to achieve a cup of coffee. (The movie the Bucket List.. coffee beans eaten and pooped out by the Luwak cat) We left the spice garden and that's where the real fun began. We each hopped on a mountain bike and began pedaling! For roughly 27km we road downhill through rice fields, passed schools and villages with screaming kids running up giving us a hello and high five. It was filled with moments that lightened our hearts and lifted our spirits. Of course riding downhill is tough work so we were really hungry. Luckily, the last part of "the best tour in the world" finished at another restaurant with a fabulous all you can eat Indonesian buffet. After three plates each we were back in the van and heading to Monkey Forest. Kelly and Laura were hesitant to go in. Lots of stories of monkeys biting people or stealing their possessions. I convinced them that if we stick together, we would be left alone. After only 5 minutes of walking, we watched a monkey leap onto a mans back and start grabbing at his backpack. Kelly and Laura turned faster then a cheap politician and almost ran out the entire way.

Mount Batur. Volcano in Bali.

Bali Rice Fields.

Large Banyan Tree.

Lombok and the Gili Islands, Indonesia

We enjoyed Bali but it was time to leave the hoards of tourist and head to Lombok (the neighboring island, some say it's the Bali of old)  We were fortunate enough to find a great homestay with fabulous owners just outside the town of Sengiggi. We organized a day scooter trip with one of their employees to show us around. Normally, guests would drive scooters and explore themselves, but Laura didn't feel comfortable driving a scooter by herself. (We all know Kelly can't!!) She did however, have no problem sharing the seat with Wayan. We did some great coastal driving and checked out a waterfall. In the afternoon we went to multiple temples. One of the temples, Wayan explained, is the only temple in the Indonesia where Muslims and Hindus pray together. It was a long day, but definitely full of many great moments. The next day we left our homestay and were on our way to town, when we wandered into a nearby Hindu temple. When we got inside, we were greeted by some people who invited us to come back at night. They told us it was their annual ceremony of music and dance, one that has been going on there once a year for over 200 years. Our homestay lent us the appropriate attire to attend the event and we returned that night. We sat with many locals watching the kids and adults perform significant dances that have immense religious meaning, while sweet sounding music was played on drums and cymbals. We were treated very well and some asked us if we would come back next year.

 

 

This little guy stole our water bottle off the scooter, unscrewed the lid and took a drink.

  

 

Local Fisherman.

We left Lombok after only a couple days and made our way to the Gili Islands. Funny side note- Gili is Indonesian for Island, so technically I just called them Island Islands. An areal view shows them as three small circles in a row, just off the NW coast of Lombok. The three Gili's which are popular amongst travelers and vacationers from Europe are Gili Trawangan, Gili Air and Gili Meno. Gili Trawangan, being the most popular due to its large resorts, plethora of restaurants and budget lodging. There are no cars or scooters on any of the islands. The only way to get around is to walk, rent a bicycle, or hire a horse and carriage. It was kinda neat, but you did feel sorry for the horses to be working in such intense heat. Unfortunately, our first night there Kelly started to feel nauseous. For the next four days she was unable to do much of anything. She had no appetite and the couple things she forced down came right back up. We took her to a doctor and he figured she had caught a bug somewhere. So our time on the Gilis was spent with Laura and myself wandering around, laying on the beach and drinking beer. Kelly spent her time laying in the room, watching some downloaded television shows. Luckily, Kelly started to get better quickly with the antibiotics in her system and she was able to come on a snorkeling trip.  On our second to last day we booked a trip to see the other two islands and have lunch on Gili Meno. The snorkeling was pretty good, but in some areas it was filled with hundreds of tiny, stinging jelly fish. The current around the three islands made swimming very difficult and only twenty feet off most beaches was an incredible drop off into the depths of the ocean.  The islands were pretty and unique, but as far as an island paradise, we have seen better. We said goodbye to Laura after 5 days on Gili Trawangan. She was heading back to Bali and Kelly and I back to Lombok.

Look into the distance and you will see the 3 Gili Islands.

Gili Island Transport.

Gili Buddies.

 

 Kelly and I hired a car to drive us to the south end of Lombok, to the surfers town of Kuta. The town itself is quite small and most of the stores and restaurants were made out of bamboo. It was a unique little town nestled in a desert type landscape. The main beach in Kuta had the most bizarre sand. The sand was tiny multicolored balls. It looked like lawn fertilizer.  It made walking on the beach very difficult.  We stayed in Kuta for a couple days. One day we rented a scooter and drove around to see some neighboring beaches. They were a unspoiled splendor. I'm sure you can get an idea from the photos, but photos never do anything justice. We had lots of fun playing in the waves and exploring the unique country side on the scooter. We were fortunate enough to get a brand new scooter, so we knew nothing would go wrong with it. Near the end of the day, the wind blew my hat off and over a bridge. I quickly parked the scooter and ran to retrieve it. Kelly thought it would be fun to turn the scooter around and drive it back to me. I heard her calling my name when I was under the bridge, but I was unable to see her. When I got back up she was struggling to stand the bike back up. A couple locals had pulled over and were helping. Somehow, Kelly was walking the bike to turn it around when she lost control under its weight and it ended up falling on top of her. She managed to avoid hurting herself, but she did scratch up the brand new scooter (which the rental guy repeatedly asked me several times to go easy with and not damage.) When the owner came back to collect his bike that night, we ended up arguing for half an hour. He was wanting money to replace every piece damaged. (side mirror, side panel, brake handle and a running plate.) I called him on the b.s, that he wasn't going to replace anything. In fact, I told him that I wanted the damaged pieces if he was actually going to put the money towards it. All the while, Kelly was up in the room feeling incredibly sick to her stomach with nerves. In the end, we settled on $50 dollars for the damage. We felt really bad for the small amount of damage we did do, but please, its a rental! We left Lombok after a couple of days and flew to Labuan Bajo.

Labuan Bajo, Indonesia

Our options to reach L.B were a bus, a 4 day, 4 night sail or fly. We really considered the sailing option, but had read many terrible reviews on it. In the end, we decied to fly as it was slightly cheaper then the sail. Plus, we both didn't like the idea of four days on a small sail boat with over 40 people or a 30 hour bus ride.  Located on the island of Flores, Labuan Bajo is a tiny little town set in some stunning scenery. While there isn't much to do in the town, it is the jumping off point to reach Rinca and Komodo Island. Tourists flock here every year to camera hunt the Komodo Dragons. We found a company selling a 2 day, 1 night boat trip to Rinca and Komodo Island. The trip included meals and lots of snorkeling opportunities. With only 8 people plus crew, we had a fantastic time. The people we traveled with were incredibly friendly and our crew was happy and energetic. (The captain with his young son and two of his sons friends.) On Rinca we took a two hour hike in search of some dragons. On the walk we found a large male under a tree and later found a 4 month old dragon crawling up a tree. (As soon as Komodos hatch, the hatchlings must find a tree to climb in order to escape imminent death. Komodos will eat their own young, which is ironic because a mother fiercely guards its nest) A Komodos bite contains more then sixty deadly bacteria that if not immediately treated will kill anything. After Rinca we went snorkeling just off of a pink sand beach. We saw many different species of fish and coral. A couple of us spotted and swam with a turtle. The turtle came so close to me, I could've reached out and touched its shell. We all boarded back on the boat and headed towards a bay where we anchored the boat to stay for the night. Along the way we saw a pod of dolphins playing in the waters ahead. Luckily, our boat was heading right for them and in no time the dolphins were swimming off the bow of the boat and jumping right in front of us. Our Captain was hooting and hollering, he was so excited!! This lead us to believe this doesn't happen very often. It lasted for a very long couple minutes. We all felt so lucky and there was a euphoric feeling among us for the rest of the night. We had some dinner then relaxed on top of the boat staring at the stars. In the morning we headed to Komodo Island. We again opted for the longest hike for the best chance of seeing some dragons. We were lucky and found a large male waiting at a watering hole. It was a little never racking being so close to something that wants to eat you. What made us more uneasy was the fact that our only protection was two young guides holding sticks. We found one more on the walk but it was a young female and she quickly ran away. Fortunately for most visitors, the dragons love the smell of food and some can always be found near the islands cafeteria. There we found two hanging around and on Rinca we found five! We took some great photos and enjoyed watching them as they watched us. Our guide noticed one had an 'x' painted on its tail, turns out this was the one who bit a guide only a few months prior. We had our fill and it was time to get back to the boat. On the way back to Labuan Bajo we stopped at two different spots for snorkeling. It was great to jump off the boat into the crystal blue water. One spot however was not near an island, but rather out at sea. We were told to ride the current and the boat would follow. We were all hoping to see some Manta Rays. (But it was the wrong season) The other snorkeling location was just off a tiny island. Nobody was to eager to get back in, except myself and one other person. We both jumped in and swam to the reef. I was cruising around checking everything out when I noticed a three foot reef shark checking me out. The other guy who jumped just after me, went a different way and saw a large barracuda. When the women finally decided to get in, we all swam together. We missed nothing and let everyone know when one of us found something. It was a blast. We found a Scorpion Fish, Cuddle Fish (which we pissed off and watched it change colors many times) Sting Ray and then everyone but me saw a Turtle. Kelly was so excited, it was her first turtle! We returned to town and headed straight for our rooms to shower, we were covered in so much salt!! We met up with everyone again for dinner and then said our goodbyes (everyone was on a different path.)

 

 

 

Komodo Dragon Dinner....Water Buffalo.

Currently we are back in Bali working on our visa extensions. We are finding Indonesia to be beautiful, each island is so different. We are spending more money here then we would like to be, but sometimes that's just how it goes. From here we plan to head to the island of Java to see and hike up some volcanoes. We will make our way up to the city of Jakarta and fly from there on Sept 30. There we will work on getting our visas for Vietnam.

Selamat Tinggal Malaysia

One of the most common questions backpackers ask each other is "what day is it?"  To which, the normal response is, "um, hmm....Friday...I think?" With the next motion being everyone pulling out there cell phones to see if in fact, that was the correct answer.  It was this very question that made us realize that our time in Malaysia has nearly come to an end.  A lot has happened since our last post and it may take too long to write in depth about each thing that we have seen and done. So, we decided that a quick brief about each place visited with more pictures than usual would suffice :)

We left Miri by boarding a flight bound for Mulu National Park. Mulu can only be accessed by plane. It was very beautiful and extremely hot. We visited 6 amazing caves. One of which previously held the record for the largest cave in the world. It is a strange feeling to be in the darkest of dark with bats flying around your head and only the light of your flashlight to guide you on your way. Here we river boated along the beautiful river and even took a few swims to escape the heat of the day. We watched over 3 million bats follow their daily routine, of spiraling out of their sleepy slumber to hunt at sunset. They spiral to try and fool the Bat Hawks, which swoop in for the easy meal. These bats are the smallest in the world.

The bats coming out of the cave to feed.

Heading inside Deer Cave, the largest in the world.

One of the many bats.

Stick Bug.

Inside Wind Cave.

Looking out of Lang Cave. One of the prettiest.

Sunset at Mulu.

Our homestay in Mulu. This place had 25 beds inside. We met some great people here.

Heading down into Fast Lane Cave.

Baby sparrows that live inside the caves.

 Early morning canopy walk at Mulu.

We were going to take a photo of this cool insect. Cat decided to eat it first.

 From Mulu we headed to Kota Kinabalu where the weather prevailed and left us with a lot of rain. We were unable to do any snorkeling but were able to visit a few night markets and a coffee shop or two.

Large lobster at the seafood market.

Fish market...which part of the tuna would you like? mmm tuna!

Sunset at the pier in Kota Kinabalu.

Asian mini buses are not made to fit a man Dean's size. So it was a good thing that our ride from Kota Kinabalu to Mount Kinabalu was only 2 hours. We splurged on a room with an amazing view of the mountains and drank coffee on the deck while bundled up in our sweaters. We shared the deck with our neighbor who was a Malaysian, he said we could just call him "Black". He was 52 and boasted about being the lead singer of a band at night and financial planner by day. We spent one afternoon with him strumming on his guitar singing to classic 70's rock music.  Due to Kelly's low level of fitness and our combined laziness, we decided not to climb Mount Kinabalu but instead enjoyed the view from below. Over 40 000 people come from all around the world to climb it. We did however hike a few of the trails that snaked along the bottom of the mountain.  We heard from others that the hike to the top wasn't that easy, so we felt better about our decision to enjoy the views from the bottom.

Dean preparing our instant 3 in 1 coffee in the morning. Actually tastes pretty good.

View from our balcony.

Mount Kinabalu from the bottom.

After a 6 hour bus ride from Mount Kinabalu we arrived in Sandakan. We spent an afternoon at Sepilok Rehabilitation Center. This is a world renowned center established to rehabilitate captured Orangutan orphans and introduce them back into the wild. Similar to the one we visited in Kuching. We had a great afternoon there as we got to see 5 Orangutans. 1 of them was a female with a small baby. It was a delight to watch her with her baby. How she held the little one. To the way she protected it from the view of humans and the other curious Orangutans. It looked so similar to how we would handle our own. Our time to watch was limited to just over an hour and how quickly that hour goes. It was easy to see why Orangutan translates to 'Man of the forest'.

Biggest canopy walk we have been on. Just outside Sepilok.

One thing that Borneo has proven to us time and time again, is that most things require a package or tour. This has proven to be a bit frustrating at times. After a lot of research we realized that the easiest and probably most cost effective way to tour the Kinabatangan River, 2 hours south of Sandakan, would be through a tour package. Our main reason for wanting to do the river cruise was to spot the Pygmy Elephants. We even arranged for a private boat ride further up the river in hopes to see them. But we had no luck. They were nowhere to be seen. It was disappointing but we made the most of it and in the end were happy with what we did see. Many different types of monkeys, 1 Orangutan, a dead crocodile and many, many beautiful birds. Some of the birds we saw were on our night cruise in the pitch black. How the guides spotted them with a small flashlight is beyond us.

Pig Tailed Macaque. You can probably guess what his facial expression is saying!

Only Crocodile we saw was dead. Unfortunately got trapped in a fishing net.

Buffy Fish Owl on the night cruise.

Stork-billed Kingfisher. Night Cruise.

Blue Eared Kingfisher. Night Trek.

Baby Long Tailed Macaque.

Male Proboscis Monkey.

Our next stop was Semporna. We had purchased tickets in Sandakan for the bus to pick us up along its route. We were dropped off on the highway at 9am in hopes to catch the 9:30 bus. At 2pm after our first bus didn't show and many other buses passing us by, a local man arranged a space on a already crowded van to take us to the next city, Lahud Datu. From there we made it just in time to catch another crowded van to Semporna. What was suppose to be a 4 hour, air conditioned, easy journey ended up becoming a very long and hot 10 hour day. 5 hours waiting in the scorching sun and 5 hours on the smallest, most packed mini buses around. It was tiring and a good reminder that sometimes the best of plans can go astray. No point in getting frustrated (although we did) instead just go with the flow and enjoy the journey. Semporna itself has nothing much to offer except a whole lot of garbage.  It's the islands nearby that most people go to visit, using Semporna as a jump off point. The most famous island being Sipidan, which is well known as one of the best diving spots in the world. Unfortunately, you have to be certified and book possibly a months in advance. We did on the other hand, after 20 or so emails and one park permit, arrange to visit Bohey Dulang. Which is an ancient volcano remnant. We had to hire our own expensive boat to get there. Then jungle trek up a very steep hill to see the view. But it was SOOO worth it. The blue-green mesmerizing beauty of the water was one that we had never seen before and probably won't again for a while. We were in Samporna during the last days of Ramadan. Which is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and a time of fasting for the Islamic people. The last day celebration could, in a sense, be compared to Christmas for us. A day for the people to celebrate with their family and friends. Nearly everything closed that day, which made it difficult to find food. The people dressed in their finest clothes, creating a collage of vibrant colors through the streets. It was a day of celebration and everyone was so happy. We haven't seen that many smiles in a long time and it was a unique experience to be part of.

Happy to have made it to the top.

Nearly an 11 hour bus ride brought us back to Kota Kinabalu where we have a flight booked heading for Bali, Indonesia on Tuesday. Neither of us imagined that we would have spent 2 1/2 months in Malaysia. The country is multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and extremly beautiful. It has 13 states and 3 federal territories. We have probably only scratched the surface of what Malaysia has to offer. The people are genuinely nice and we felt welcomed everywhere we visited. We got to experience and learn a lot about Islam. We got off the beaten path a few times. We saw animals in the wild that we could only hope to see.  At times we had comforts of home and at other moments we felt that we couldn't be further away. The food was delicious and any weight we lost in Thailand, we put back on. We're ready to leave Malaysia and are very excited to start exploring our next country, Indonesia. Looking forward to experiencing Balinese lifestyle and seeing many different landscapes in this volcanic dominant region.