Dear New Zealand,
If you could stop raining, that'd be really great.
Kthanxbye!
Love, Krista
No but really, I must say it's as beautiful as everyone said it would be... but only about 10 percent of the time. I guess that's what we get for coming in the cheap shoulder season. Jared and I are just about finished with the South Island, moving on to the north in a couple of days. Our trusty campervan has kept us warm(ish) and dry. It's a converted van with a bed, sink, and small kitchen. It even has a microwave! (We only get to use that when we're spoiling ourselves and pull into a powered site) The distances are pretty small compared to other places (I'm lookin at you, Australia and America!) so the days driving is normally only an hour or two, usually filled with "woooow!" if the clouds have parted. Jared has invented several different wow noises so that he can say them in succession, delivering the correct amount of awe per vista. The only problem with being a small island nation tucked way out in the Pacific is that gas is a luxury item, coming in at almost $9 a gallon! ouch, they didn't advertise this bit! Also, our house on wheels is about as far from a hybrid as you can get, so on each short trip you can practically see the dollars flying out of your tailpipe. It makes for a symphony of wow's and soft sobbing as you drive through the countryside.
During our first couple days, we blindly drove around a bit before I convinced Jared to let me buy the holy grail of travel guides, The Lonely Planet New Zealand. (Nothing stokes the sense of adventure like turn by turn instructions for your entire trip! - Jared) As you can see, this is a source of disagreement, but Lonely Planet has been there for us when cellphone reception has not! (which is frequently)
I want to show you everything beautiful we've seen, but the only thing New Zealand doesn't have in abundance is internet access. But you really don't need it with a landscape like this! Do a quick google image search of New Zealand and you'll see a ridiculous amount of natural beauty and every landscape you can imagine crammed into a very small country.
Some of the highlights have definitely been the wildlife, some of it not so wild. The main crop here is sheep, and don't think we've gone a single day without seeing hundreds of them! Since it is spring, they all have little lambs, and I have seriously NEVER seen anything so freakin CUTE in my life! It's now my mission to shear a sheep while I'm here, and bottle feed a lamb. Then sneak it past customs back home if possible. We also did a penguin tour, where we were able to see yellow eyed penguins in a wild sanctuary. Apparently they are the rarest and most endangered penguins on the planet, which of course was reflected in the price of the tour. We got really lucky a couple of days after this and actually saw one in the wild, at which point Jared suggested that we throw some money at it with which to line it's nest. The next day we camped at a remote Department of Conservation site right on the beach, and woke up to sea lions lolling on the sand like a cat in a sun spot. The only sound disrupting this peaceful morning, and the other campers dutifully videoing from afar, was our van escaping our muddy campsite at the upper end of second gear...woops! Our next wildlife encounter came in the small town of Kaikoura, which has a faithful colony of seals that bask on it's rocks. While they look (and smell) dead, they are actually very much alive, as evidenced by a great video Jared shot. An Australian tourist edged closer and closer to one very large seal that had decided to camp out on the boardwalk, looking pretty sleepy and uninterested...not so! When he got too close, the seal leaped onto his front flippers and lunged, which made for some great tourist watching, as you don't normally see people move that fast! Video available upon request!
Soon thereafter it was time to have a shower and class ourselves up a bit for the Marlborough wine region... the best Sauvignon Blanc in the world! I was really looking forward to this, and it didn't disappoint! We got someone to drive us around as we drank from 10 in the morning, "tasting" and using words like "quite!" "oaky" and "hints of" this or that. It was a great break from our backwoods camping and the stinky camper. Obviously, we're experts now and will be happy to go on and on about this when we get home, no prompting needed!
At this point, it had started to rain, and hasn't let up since. We tried to escape to the west coast, but it found us there too. We did get about 5 minutes of sun at one of the glaciers, but since then have been lost in a grey and dreary haze. Today we are camped out at the thermal springs town of Hanmer Springs, where we spent the afternoon consoling ourselves in the hot sulfur springs. You can imagine what the camper smells like now...eggs anyone? Last night the rain decided to go and change itself to hurricane force winds, so we are kind of stuck here. We're waiting for the rest of the day for downed trees to be cleared and power to come back on, and then we're off to the North Island, where hopefully the weather will be better.
With all that said, I'd like to take this time to mention that we will be back in the job market soon! If you know anyone who's looking, our skills include having lots of great stories, and no practical experience. Don't miss out on this great opportunity, supplies limited, call now!
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Continental Shift
We have very gladly made it to New Zealand, finally! This country couldn't have come sooner, it's what we both have been looking forward to the entire time. So with that said, lets quickly sum up SE Asia with 10 do's and don'ts! What fun!
DO:
1. Take a train! They're cheap, efficient, and make you feel like you're really a part of it instead of 38,000 feet above it.
2. Eat local! It's yummy and cheap, and whatever western meal you just ordered will be 3 times the price and taste like crap.
3. Buy a ridiculous knock off of something. It's the cheapest place in the world you'll ever buy a Rolex! ;)
4. Take a class or do an organized activity. It lets you interact with the locals and see things a different way, and you may meet some great people to hang out with in the rest of your time there!
5. Rent a motorbike! They're everywhere, and are by far the easiest way to get anywhere, but do be careful, as there are basically no road rules and accidents happen all the time.
6. Eat at McDonald's! I know, seems like the absolute wrong thing to do, right? But actually, McDonald's in other countries serves some weird stuff...chilli sauce instead of ketchup, chicken rice porridge for breakfast!
7. When your server asks you if you want it spicy, say yes, then watch them laugh at you when you attempt to drown yourself in water to try and cool your poor mouth down.
8. Learn to say no! To begging kids, scam artists, and that mom that just asked you to buy her starving kid milk at the shop. She's got a deal going with the shop owner, and sells it back to him for half the price.
9. Support a worthwhile cause. Even though you're normally looking for the absolute best deal, sometimes it's good to pay more when you know what it's supporting. Education, jobs, animal rights, find an excursion that can help the people doing good to stay in business.
10. Do stop, look around, and take a second to appreciate all those pesky rules / laws from back home...zoning, building permits, easements...ooooh, that's why they have those!
DON'T:
1. Don't pay full price for anything! If you get them down to 3/4 of the price, well, you're new at this aren't you? 1/2 price? Yeah, that's probably fair. 1/4 of the price? Wait, you think you're gonna pay local prices? Haha!
2. Don't drink the tap water! Or brush your teeth with it in some places... Bali Belly, Montezuma's revenge, whatever you want to call it, it really ruins your day :(
3. Don't be polite- you'll never
a) get a meal
b) cross the street (this one is tricky, as you don't want to die, but do want to stop standing on that street corner)
c) be able to let go of that door you're holding open
4. Don't do your border crossings over land at notoriously awful crossings... we could have flown from Bangkok to Siem Reap about 20 times by the time it took us to navigate all those scams!
5. Don't ride an elephant. Or play with tigers. Yeah, it looks fun and cute, but there is a horrible history of abuse, mistreatment, and drugging with most of those animals. (wash them instead)
6. Don't give your passport to anyone! You'll spend 40 hours and $400 going back to get it.
7. Don't step in the puddles....just don't.
8. Don't forget to smile! It's the local currency... it will lower prices and smooth over most misunderstandings!
9. Don't forget to take off your shoes! In temples, shops, houses, it's very disrespectful not to. Also your shoes have puddle on them. Ew.
10. Don't forget to go with the flow. If you expect things to happen on time, get what you really ordered, or cost what you were quoted, go somewhere else, cause that ain't here. It will, however, be full of gorgeous landscapes, friendly people, and great food!
All in all, it's hard to sum up, everyone should see it, it's a great place to visit...
We spent a few days in Melbourne, which was a strange transition...going from hot sticky tropical chaos to cool sophisticated Melbourne was a shock, mentally as well as physically as we are both now in the middle of a really nasty cold. Melbourne is one of the first places abroad where I would really want to live. It has some of the best coffee in the world, a great public transportation system, vineyards to the north, and world class coastline with penguins in the south! What more could you want! No worries though, Jared and I are both really looking forward to coming home, and can't wait to see everyone. We picked up our campervan rental a few days ago in Christchurch, New Zealand, and are on our 3rd day touring around the south island. We have lots of photos but won't be uploading until we get our hands on some free internet...New Zealand is pretty stingy with this. So far the country is really beautiful, Jared has already seen a glacier (and almost gotten lost in the wilderness) and everything is looking very Lord of the Rings-y. Next stop, Mordor! Just kidding, it's Dunedin. Talk to you soon!
DO:
1. Take a train! They're cheap, efficient, and make you feel like you're really a part of it instead of 38,000 feet above it.
2. Eat local! It's yummy and cheap, and whatever western meal you just ordered will be 3 times the price and taste like crap.
3. Buy a ridiculous knock off of something. It's the cheapest place in the world you'll ever buy a Rolex! ;)
4. Take a class or do an organized activity. It lets you interact with the locals and see things a different way, and you may meet some great people to hang out with in the rest of your time there!
5. Rent a motorbike! They're everywhere, and are by far the easiest way to get anywhere, but do be careful, as there are basically no road rules and accidents happen all the time.6. Eat at McDonald's! I know, seems like the absolute wrong thing to do, right? But actually, McDonald's in other countries serves some weird stuff...chilli sauce instead of ketchup, chicken rice porridge for breakfast!
7. When your server asks you if you want it spicy, say yes, then watch them laugh at you when you attempt to drown yourself in water to try and cool your poor mouth down.
8. Learn to say no! To begging kids, scam artists, and that mom that just asked you to buy her starving kid milk at the shop. She's got a deal going with the shop owner, and sells it back to him for half the price.9. Support a worthwhile cause. Even though you're normally looking for the absolute best deal, sometimes it's good to pay more when you know what it's supporting. Education, jobs, animal rights, find an excursion that can help the people doing good to stay in business.
10. Do stop, look around, and take a second to appreciate all those pesky rules / laws from back home...zoning, building permits, easements...ooooh, that's why they have those!
DON'T:
1. Don't pay full price for anything! If you get them down to 3/4 of the price, well, you're new at this aren't you? 1/2 price? Yeah, that's probably fair. 1/4 of the price? Wait, you think you're gonna pay local prices? Haha!
2. Don't drink the tap water! Or brush your teeth with it in some places... Bali Belly, Montezuma's revenge, whatever you want to call it, it really ruins your day :(
3. Don't be polite- you'll never
a) get a meal
b) cross the street (this one is tricky, as you don't want to die, but do want to stop standing on that street corner)
c) be able to let go of that door you're holding open
4. Don't do your border crossings over land at notoriously awful crossings... we could have flown from Bangkok to Siem Reap about 20 times by the time it took us to navigate all those scams!
 |
| Elephant Rescue Park |
6. Don't give your passport to anyone! You'll spend 40 hours and $400 going back to get it.
7. Don't step in the puddles....just don't.
8. Don't forget to smile! It's the local currency... it will lower prices and smooth over most misunderstandings!
9. Don't forget to take off your shoes! In temples, shops, houses, it's very disrespectful not to. Also your shoes have puddle on them. Ew.
10. Don't forget to go with the flow. If you expect things to happen on time, get what you really ordered, or cost what you were quoted, go somewhere else, cause that ain't here. It will, however, be full of gorgeous landscapes, friendly people, and great food!
All in all, it's hard to sum up, everyone should see it, it's a great place to visit...
We spent a few days in Melbourne, which was a strange transition...going from hot sticky tropical chaos to cool sophisticated Melbourne was a shock, mentally as well as physically as we are both now in the middle of a really nasty cold. Melbourne is one of the first places abroad where I would really want to live. It has some of the best coffee in the world, a great public transportation system, vineyards to the north, and world class coastline with penguins in the south! What more could you want! No worries though, Jared and I are both really looking forward to coming home, and can't wait to see everyone. We picked up our campervan rental a few days ago in Christchurch, New Zealand, and are on our 3rd day touring around the south island. We have lots of photos but won't be uploading until we get our hands on some free internet...New Zealand is pretty stingy with this. So far the country is really beautiful, Jared has already seen a glacier (and almost gotten lost in the wilderness) and everything is looking very Lord of the Rings-y. Next stop, Mordor! Just kidding, it's Dunedin. Talk to you soon!
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Thailand, we meet again!
In yet another installment of "planes, trains, and automobiles" we made the 36 hour journey from Singapore to Koh Samui Island in Thailand. Almost every part of the transport somehow caused us to miss the next leg. This turned all of our 1 hour layovers into 7 hour layovers...but hey, it's all about the journey not just the destination, right? Unfortunately, the western monsoon at this time of year shuts down diving in the Andaman sea, which is one of the top diving destinations in the world. So, running from the bad weather, our first stop was an island in the Gulf of Thailand off the eastern coast, also know for it's beautiful water while being a bit more crowded than the other side. We found Koh Samui (the largest in this island group in the gulf) to be a pretty standard touristy destination with busy streets, and bar lined beaches. Krista came down with a cold almost immediately, and the internet in our bungalow was surprisingly good which caused us to take an unexpected break from jam packed itinerary mind set to just lay around and plan the rest of our way home. As i have been to Thailand before, all this down time and unlimited internet combined to create some wild ideas for alterations to the travel plan. The growing realization that we're not likely to be in this part of the world again helped me to create some pretty amazing alternative plans, each more wild and unrealistic than the last. Krist's response to most of these was: "What? Really? uuuggghhhh..." In the end, we decided to move from Samui to a nearby island popular for diving to help these crazy ideas to pass...
And that's what we're up to now...parked on Koh Tao at a very nice dive shop with rooms. We did a few dives yesterday and being one of the most economical places in the world to dive, Krista had decided this morning to do her advanced open water certification here. That will include a deep dive, a night dive, and three elected dives. There's no good internet...so no uploading photos, but we hope to have plenty when we leave...This place has a really great feel to it compared to Samui and we think we'll hang here a while a see what happens!
And that's what we're up to now...parked on Koh Tao at a very nice dive shop with rooms. We did a few dives yesterday and being one of the most economical places in the world to dive, Krista had decided this morning to do her advanced open water certification here. That will include a deep dive, a night dive, and three elected dives. There's no good internet...so no uploading photos, but we hope to have plenty when we leave...This place has a really great feel to it compared to Samui and we think we'll hang here a while a see what happens!
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Singapaw
Disclaimer: This post is going to be super long, since there is just so much to see in Singapore. Abort now if you haven't had your coffee yet!
Singapore is an interesting place in that it used to be a dangerous place full of pirates, thieves, and prostitutes. Today, it is one of the cleanest, most modern cities in the world, where up until a few years ago, it was illegal to chew gum. Talk about a 180!
Walking through the airport was our first clue that Singapore was going to be nothing like Indonesia. Can you drink the water? Yep! Are there signs EVERYWHERE telling you where to go, in English? Yep! Does it smell like sewage? Nope! Are there taxi drivers yelling at me? Nope, AND there's a metro! A metro that stopped basically at the door of our hotel! Yeah, that's right, we got a hotel... we've decided to splurge a bit since this is our only sophisticated big city experience for a while.
I'm convinced that nobody in Singapore even needs to own a kitchen... every corner has a hundred hawker stalls, selling any kind of asian food you could want, each meal for about $3. They've also got pretty good coffee, or kopi, made with condensed milk. On our first day, we wasted half the morning attempting to do our laundry. In Bali, it was a couple bucks for 3 Kilos of laundry, and they fold it and package it up all nicely for you. Why we didn't take advantage of this, I have no idea. We thought it would be easy to find a place in Singapore, but it was now about 15 bucks for the same amount of washing, and nearly impossible to find anywhere to do it! I don't know what Singapore does with all their tire changers, laundry services, and general non flashy stores, but they hide them well. We finally found a place on the edge of Chinatown, and discovered that today was the start of the Hungry Ghost Festival, where ghosts of their ancestors come back to visit for a whole month. They light candles for specific people, and offer huge feasts for the ghosts so that they don't take out any ill will on the people. They don't recommend swimming (in case a ghost drowns you), going out after dark (in case a ghost latches onto you), or walking alone (in case a ghost befriends you). I think we did all those things. Whoops.
Laundry taken care of, we decided to take an informative river boat tour. I'm all about the tours, while Jared prefers to do it all himself. I love reading all the signs, and then he asks me to give him the "condensed, interesting version". So, I've just decided to drag him along on all the tours with me. A super cheerful recorded woman gave us the history of the river and it's settlement by the Chinese, the Malaysians, and the British. Good background stuff for the whole visit.
Next, it's off to the Botanical Garden. I wasn't too excited about this one, seeing as plants don't really do much, they just sit there and...plant. Can't be all that interesting. But, it was supposed to be amazing, so gotta do it! It was so worth it. They've got medicinal herb walks, jungle walks, river walks, palm walks, etc. etc.! However, the National Orchid Gardens were by far the most impressive. They even had a cool greenhouse mimicking a mountain forest with waterfalls and everything. (And pitcher plants!)
The zoo was scheduled for the next day, and I was super excited about this. Singapore's zoo was supposed to be one of the best in the world...for people and the animals. However, after standing in line for approximately 798 years, I just couldn't get that excited anymore. It was nice, but I think I'd rather watch David Attenborough on the Discovery Channel. The one highlight...Jared got to profess his love to a plastic human sized Mangosteen, his absolute favorite fruit ever that he endlessly searches for at markets and buys as much as our backpack will hold. Tragically, he'll have to part with his true love once we're back in the states.
That night, it was off to downtown to do some sophisticated stuff...Gardens by the Bay light show, then maybe go to the Marina Sands, Singapore's crazy ship in the middle of the air.
The Gardens By the Bay is this amazing light show that is set from these metallic tree like sculptures with live plants all along the trunk. It's set to music, and frankly it's one of the coolest, most beautiful light shows I've ever seen. Unfortunately we forgot to take our camera that night, so this picture isn't ours, but it's better than I could have done anyways.
So it turns out that backpackers aren't good enough for the Ku De Ta restaurant on the flying ship... we didn't have the right shoes. Considering we probably would have blown about $50 on one round of drinks, I suppose it's for the best. While exploring, however, we discovered that it's ground floor is made up of a casino, and the nicest mall I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, it's an indoor Venice. With an ICE SKATING rink! What! Jared quickly steered me out before I could set foot in any of the stores.
The next day just so happens to be Singapore National Day...like their July 4th. It turns out you need tickets to go to the parade/ceremony, however, so we spent the day like most good Singaporeans do...shopping and drinking! First up, Chinatown! Tiny markets crammed everywhere, smells they definitely don't allow in downtown Singapore...still no Tire shops though! We wandered through the fresh produce/meat market, and definitely didn't gain an appetite...there were buckets of slimy wriggling things, fish blood all over the floor, and cages of huge frogs. A Chinese woman grabbed one of the frogs and started beating it over the head with a hammer while she chatted away to her customer. Gross. We escaped into a giant temple across the street. There were no frogs, however, there was the tooth of Buddha! Someone had apparently stolen it off his funeral pyre in India before they burned him thousands of years ago, and it was encased in a total gold little house with the floor of the room paved in gold tiles. In the temple itself, we got to hear monks chanting and read a bit about Buddhism. Overall, Chinatown was a very cool sub culture (some would say the dominant culture) of Singapore.
Next stop, Little India.
We got out and walked around for maybe 15 minutes before we got back on the metro. Creepy stares, the smelliest of smells, and more creepy stares were our souvenirs from this part of town. What the heck, Little India?
Finally, time for a cocktail in the fancy pants part of town again, then back to our hotel to watch the parade and fireworks.
The National Day Ceremony was...there really isn't another word for it...hilarious. It was just so...cheesy! Example: they kept panning to the old president and current president, and if they were doing something noble, like waving their Singapore flag, the camera would stay on them forever. But sometimes, the poor old guys got a bit bored, and were reading the back of their peanut bags. The camera panned away real quick! There were also a bunch of cheesy skits, a CGI Merlion swam over and sang a song with a bunch of kids, and the government said how much everybody loves each other no matter what race, and how we all come together to create a "better Singapore!" Oh yeah, and they say it Singapaw, which Jared and I found quite funny and we will now say it no other way. Still, they sure do know how to do fireworks. We really loved Singapaw, but just cannot afford to stay here any longer. We're off to Thailand, a budget friendlier place!
Singapore is an interesting place in that it used to be a dangerous place full of pirates, thieves, and prostitutes. Today, it is one of the cleanest, most modern cities in the world, where up until a few years ago, it was illegal to chew gum. Talk about a 180!
Walking through the airport was our first clue that Singapore was going to be nothing like Indonesia. Can you drink the water? Yep! Are there signs EVERYWHERE telling you where to go, in English? Yep! Does it smell like sewage? Nope! Are there taxi drivers yelling at me? Nope, AND there's a metro! A metro that stopped basically at the door of our hotel! Yeah, that's right, we got a hotel... we've decided to splurge a bit since this is our only sophisticated big city experience for a while.
I'm convinced that nobody in Singapore even needs to own a kitchen... every corner has a hundred hawker stalls, selling any kind of asian food you could want, each meal for about $3. They've also got pretty good coffee, or kopi, made with condensed milk. On our first day, we wasted half the morning attempting to do our laundry. In Bali, it was a couple bucks for 3 Kilos of laundry, and they fold it and package it up all nicely for you. Why we didn't take advantage of this, I have no idea. We thought it would be easy to find a place in Singapore, but it was now about 15 bucks for the same amount of washing, and nearly impossible to find anywhere to do it! I don't know what Singapore does with all their tire changers, laundry services, and general non flashy stores, but they hide them well. We finally found a place on the edge of Chinatown, and discovered that today was the start of the Hungry Ghost Festival, where ghosts of their ancestors come back to visit for a whole month. They light candles for specific people, and offer huge feasts for the ghosts so that they don't take out any ill will on the people. They don't recommend swimming (in case a ghost drowns you), going out after dark (in case a ghost latches onto you), or walking alone (in case a ghost befriends you). I think we did all those things. Whoops.
 |
| Jared in front of a Hungry Ghost Mobile |
Laundry taken care of, we decided to take an informative river boat tour. I'm all about the tours, while Jared prefers to do it all himself. I love reading all the signs, and then he asks me to give him the "condensed, interesting version". So, I've just decided to drag him along on all the tours with me. A super cheerful recorded woman gave us the history of the river and it's settlement by the Chinese, the Malaysians, and the British. Good background stuff for the whole visit.
 |
| Jared viewing Singapore's famous "merlion", half fish representing Singapore's original Malaysian fishing village roots, and half lion, for the Lion a prince reportedly saw on it's coast before turning it into a huge port. |
Next, it's off to the Botanical Garden. I wasn't too excited about this one, seeing as plants don't really do much, they just sit there and...plant. Can't be all that interesting. But, it was supposed to be amazing, so gotta do it! It was so worth it. They've got medicinal herb walks, jungle walks, river walks, palm walks, etc. etc.! However, the National Orchid Gardens were by far the most impressive. They even had a cool greenhouse mimicking a mountain forest with waterfalls and everything. (And pitcher plants!) 
 |
| When he finds them it's kind of like watching Gollum find the one ring to rule them all.... |
 |
| Marina Sands |
The Gardens By the Bay is this amazing light show that is set from these metallic tree like sculptures with live plants all along the trunk. It's set to music, and frankly it's one of the coolest, most beautiful light shows I've ever seen. Unfortunately we forgot to take our camera that night, so this picture isn't ours, but it's better than I could have done anyways.
So it turns out that backpackers aren't good enough for the Ku De Ta restaurant on the flying ship... we didn't have the right shoes. Considering we probably would have blown about $50 on one round of drinks, I suppose it's for the best. While exploring, however, we discovered that it's ground floor is made up of a casino, and the nicest mall I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, it's an indoor Venice. With an ICE SKATING rink! What! Jared quickly steered me out before I could set foot in any of the stores.
 |
| Giant whirlpool (named the " Rain Occulace" or something like that) in the ceiling that released a torrent of water into the pool below a couple of times a day...exciting? Yes! Unnecessary? Yes! |
The next day just so happens to be Singapore National Day...like their July 4th. It turns out you need tickets to go to the parade/ceremony, however, so we spent the day like most good Singaporeans do...shopping and drinking! First up, Chinatown! Tiny markets crammed everywhere, smells they definitely don't allow in downtown Singapore...still no Tire shops though! We wandered through the fresh produce/meat market, and definitely didn't gain an appetite...there were buckets of slimy wriggling things, fish blood all over the floor, and cages of huge frogs. A Chinese woman grabbed one of the frogs and started beating it over the head with a hammer while she chatted away to her customer. Gross. We escaped into a giant temple across the street. There were no frogs, however, there was the tooth of Buddha! Someone had apparently stolen it off his funeral pyre in India before they burned him thousands of years ago, and it was encased in a total gold little house with the floor of the room paved in gold tiles. In the temple itself, we got to hear monks chanting and read a bit about Buddhism. Overall, Chinatown was a very cool sub culture (some would say the dominant culture) of Singapore.
 |
| Monks chanting in Buddhist temple |
Next stop, Little India.
We got out and walked around for maybe 15 minutes before we got back on the metro. Creepy stares, the smelliest of smells, and more creepy stares were our souvenirs from this part of town. What the heck, Little India?
Finally, time for a cocktail in the fancy pants part of town again, then back to our hotel to watch the parade and fireworks.
 | |
| Krista drinking a Singapore Sling |
Ubud, Bali
One short boat trip and looong taxi drive later (road rules don't really exist in Indonesia, and each trip makes you wonder if you really wouldn't just like to walk the 35 miles you need to go), we arrived in Ubud. Ubud is a mountain town in Bali that became super popular after the book and movie "Eat Pray Love". Every shop and tour operator promises the Julia Roberts finding yourself experience, and there are plenty of middle aged and lesbian women running around in yoga pants.
We stayed in a couple of cute little guest houses, which are really more like family compounds with extra rooms.
They are all right on the main street, which itself is noisy, dirty, and busy, but once you step just inside the gate, its like a peaceful family farm, with chickens and cats running around, and the family temple in the center kept spotless with flower offerings every morning and afternoon.
Unfortunately, neither Jared or I were feeling 100 percent after the motorbike accident, so while we had planned some very ambitious hikes around the rice paddies, we actually stuck mostly to the city, where a cheap warong (restaurant) and beer were never far away. We did manage to make it to the Monkey Forest, a national park filled with temples that a greedy little band of Macaque monkeys has taken over. While the temples were certainly beautiful,
the monkeys stole the show. A woman sat outside the park selling bananas (even though the sign right next to her said it was illegal to feed the monkeys), and the smart monkeys would hang out just beyond the entrance and rob all the tourists of their bananas. Glad we had decided to forego the bananas, we watched a french woman hold her last banana high above her head and yell "Not yet! Not yet!" as a monkey scaled her head and grabbed the banana. Yep, definitely right now. Even being bananaless, I still got climbed. I think they thought the yellow straps might have been banana flavored, but when they found out they weren't they tried to unzip everything to see if we were withholding anything. They're cute, but you definitely don't want to get bitten (rabies is pretty prevelent in Indonesia, and we hadn't got shots), so I shook them off as they started fighting over me.
Back on the streets, we learned to hone our haggling skills after we both got scammed out of about 15 bucks each (me for a sarong, Jared for chocolate!) You'd think we'd be better at this by now (after we got scammed in Perth, anything expensive we would parrot "SCAM!!" back and forth to each other), but it really takes a while to get back into it and realize you're not being rude when you offer them back less than half of what they just quoted you. The first sale of the day is considered lucky, so you're more likely to get a good deal then. Jared walked away with a $4 pair of "raybans" that are falling apart about now.
On our last morning, we took a silver class together. You can buy some really cheap silver in this part of Bali, so it's a popular thing to do. I learned a lot, mostly that I should never be a jewelry maker, but we walked out with some souvenirs and a cool experience. I made a necklace that kind of looks like a 5 year old made it, and Jared, being the perfectionist that he is, made me a beautiful ring I've been wearing ever since.
If we would have had more time, or had been feeling less injured, I would have loved to have stayed in an Ashram (temple like accommodation) and done yoga all day, toured the rice paddies, and tried some civet cat coffee at one of the plantations, but we just weren't feeling up to it. It was nearing the end of Ramadan and the city was PACKED with Muslims coming over from Java for their holidays, so not a bad time to be moving on. Thanks for a good time, Bali. Terima kasih! (Thank you sounds like "Tear out my car seats" if you say it fast, haha) Next stop, Singapore!
We stayed in a couple of cute little guest houses, which are really more like family compounds with extra rooms.
Unfortunately, neither Jared or I were feeling 100 percent after the motorbike accident, so while we had planned some very ambitious hikes around the rice paddies, we actually stuck mostly to the city, where a cheap warong (restaurant) and beer were never far away. We did manage to make it to the Monkey Forest, a national park filled with temples that a greedy little band of Macaque monkeys has taken over. While the temples were certainly beautiful,
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| Monkey attack |
Back on the streets, we learned to hone our haggling skills after we both got scammed out of about 15 bucks each (me for a sarong, Jared for chocolate!) You'd think we'd be better at this by now (after we got scammed in Perth, anything expensive we would parrot "SCAM!!" back and forth to each other), but it really takes a while to get back into it and realize you're not being rude when you offer them back less than half of what they just quoted you. The first sale of the day is considered lucky, so you're more likely to get a good deal then. Jared walked away with a $4 pair of "raybans" that are falling apart about now.On our last morning, we took a silver class together. You can buy some really cheap silver in this part of Bali, so it's a popular thing to do. I learned a lot, mostly that I should never be a jewelry maker, but we walked out with some souvenirs and a cool experience. I made a necklace that kind of looks like a 5 year old made it, and Jared, being the perfectionist that he is, made me a beautiful ring I've been wearing ever since.
If we would have had more time, or had been feeling less injured, I would have loved to have stayed in an Ashram (temple like accommodation) and done yoga all day, toured the rice paddies, and tried some civet cat coffee at one of the plantations, but we just weren't feeling up to it. It was nearing the end of Ramadan and the city was PACKED with Muslims coming over from Java for their holidays, so not a bad time to be moving on. Thanks for a good time, Bali. Terima kasih! (Thank you sounds like "Tear out my car seats" if you say it fast, haha) Next stop, Singapore!
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