Ending our Trip in Chang Mai

Thailand was the last stop on our adventure to S.E. Asia this time around.
We had originally planned to spend some time in Laos, but with malaria a
threat, and Kristen in a "delicate condition" we decided to save Luang
Prabang for another time.

Instead we headed to the north of Thailand to visit Chiang Mai. It turned
out to be a great choice, as Chiang Mai was one of our favourite cities in
South East Asia. From the moment we arrived we were stoked to see hawkers
and street vemdors, the lilypad filled moat and crumbling brick of the
city walls surrounding the old city, the slightly rotten sweetness of the
tropics filling the air, the dusty heat blurring the distant hills and the
tuktuk drivers calling for customers.

Chiang Mai is stuffed with culture for such a big, modernizing city. One
of Thailands largest cities, the old part of town has temples on every
block. Huge golden stupas, gleaming nagas (serpent figures) guarding the
carved doors of massive prayer halls, oranged robed monks sweeping the
grounds and tourists, old ladies and other locals all praying, gawking and
sitting in the shady grounds. We had a blast one day just walking around
to a number of the biggest and most famous temples. At one point Paul
ordered some "street tea" from a vendor in the courtyard of one large
temple. A combination of teas was put into a wire mesh bag, and hot water
was dumped in. Condensed milk, sugar and a variety of other flavour
enhancers were added and the result was a bright orange drink unlike
anything we have ever tasted (very good though!).

The markets were great, and we waltzed through the crowded streets of some
of the biggest night markets we have ever been too. Everything was on
sale, and although the goods were mostly touristy t-shirts and tacky
knick-knacks, there were also a bunch of really awesome handicrafts and
textiles made locally. The food at the markets was outstanding, and we
gorged ourselves on the ubiquitous noodles, curries and roti canai
(literally "fried bread" in Bahasa Malaysia... its a tasty fried pancake
that has made its way to every corner of South East Asia that tourists
frequent).

Oh the food! Even though our hearts are Canadian, it is pretty clear our
stomachs are Thai. Thick noodles, thin, spicy, sour, sweet, salty.
Everything about Thai food makes our mouths water. So to that end, we
signed up for an all day cooking course. First we visited a food market
outside of town (fruit, veggies, eels, frogs, baby birds and entrails as
far as the eye could see), then went to an organic farm where we picked
veggies and herbs. The course took place on the organic farm's property,
and we had a blast pounding spices into curry paste, stir-frying and
eating all day. The dishes were mostly pretty simple, but the process was
fun and the end results were tasty! We were lucky enough to have a pretty
good group of Brits, Irish and Germans with us and we spent most of the
day laughing (when we weren't eating).

We also got to check a life goal off of our list while in Chiang Mai.
Despite Kristen being a wee bit preggers, we decided to try our hand at
being mahouts. We signed up for an all day class and learned how to mount,
steer and otherwise control elephants! Kristen was a natural and bossed
her elephant around like it was no big deal. Paul took a little longer to
get it down pat, but was definitely accomplished after a few minutes. He
even got the elephant to lift him onto its back using his trunk (which is
awesome and pretty freaking thrilling!).

The guides were concerned about Kristen's "condition" (well they
definitely did not want her falling off) so she got to ride in a chair
strapped to the elephant while Paul served as her personal mahout in the
afternoon. They mounted up an elephant who was a little ornery (we are
pretty sure she had a prolapsed uterus- look it up!) and took off for an
adventure. Going up and down hills while perched precariously on the back
of a less than thrilled elephant is a wild ride. The elephants actually
climbed up some incredibly steep slopes and there were times when Paul had
to be as concerned about hanging on as he was about keeping the elephant
moving. Eventually we got to a river where we bathed and scrubbed our
elephants- keeping them (and ourselves) cool and getting them clean before
heading back to camp. All in all it was an incredible experience, and
something we will never forget.

We also got to the Chiang Mai Night Safari zoo where Kristen got licked by
a giraffe and we watched cross dressing lady boys do the lamest dance
performance we have ever seen. It was a cool idea for a zoo, but the lazer
show, the fireworks and the lady boys definitely dampened our enthusiasm.
I mean if you are going to have transexual dancers, at least find some
good transexual dancers! Seriously!

After Chiang Mai we headed to Bangkok. This time we stayed in the Siam sq
area rather than the Koh San road tourist ghetto. Siam sq is in the heart
of modern Bangkok and everywhere around were affluent young Thais and
foreigners, beautifully dressed in the latest fashions. The malls were
huge and gleaming and we felt both out of place and happy to see a
different side of Thailand.

We were in Bangkok for a spot of medical tourism. Bumrunungrad Hospital is
one of the worlds highest rated "tourist hospitals" and is covered by our
MSH plan! Usually we try to avoid Bum-runs, but this one turned out to be
awesome. Modern, clean, and with fluent English staff everywhere we were
well treated. Kristen had an ultrasound (baby was doing great and is
apparently a wonderful traveller even in utero... can't wait to take him
on another trip!) Paul got a mysterious skin infection looked after, and
we both had our teeth cleaned. Thank you health plan!
We visited a few local sights including the house of a former silk
merchant who had collected a wonderful array of Thai historical artifacts
and artwork before mysteriously disapearing while on vacation. After a few
days though, we had to head back to China to start working again. All in
all, it was an absolutely amazing trip and one that we will not forget
anytime soon!

Lazy Days in Lovina

We did absoutly NOTHING in Lovina, except eat, read and swim in the pool. So here are some of the random photos from that week~!

These kids were hiding from the pouring rain that had flooded their streets.

These beautiful flower arrangements where all over our hotel.

Riding public transit in a 3rd world country = awesome

Evil dolphin statue, the pride of lovina

Best veggie resturant of all time

Sunset over Java

The tide she's...OUT!

A local guy had caught this geko and was terrifying children with it!

A sweet door for Cathrine!

Please dont make me go back to china!

The Gilis, aka Paradise

We travelled from Ubud down to the West Coast of Bali to spend a night at Padang Bai before heading over to Lombok and the Gili Islands. We had a wonderful driver who acted like a tourguide/historian for us the whole trip. Cruising on tiny streets packed with scooters, trucks and men herding ducks, we weaved our way down from central Bali to the coast.

Herding Ducks, easier than hearding cats?

Padang Bai is a small resort town that gets its revenue from tourists heading to Lombok and the Gilis. The touts were aggressive when we pulled into town, and we were approached repeatedly by people who all wanted to sell us tickets on the fastest boat to the Gilis. Of course they all had tickets for different boats across to the Gilis and there was a lack of agreement as to which boat actually was the fastest!

Yet another of Dale's animal friends

Gili T is definately NOT a one horse town

We found a hotel for the night, and booked a ride on one of the many “fastest” boats over to Gili Trawangan for the next morning. Then we walked over to a little cove off the main beach and laid down in some white sand. Unfortunately there were more touts and ladies selling bracelets and massages there, so it wasn’t exactly peaceful, but the water was nice and the sand white. Paul went for a snorkel and got his toenail bit off by a trigger fish, but because it wasn’t bleeding he decided to stay in the water. Several minutes later a swarm of cone jellies drifted in and started stinging him in the most unpleasant ways. Taking this as a sign he retreated to the beach and spent some time reading and playing Frisbee with Kristen and the Rieus.

Sweet outrigger boats

 The evening was really calm in Padang Bai. It was the off season, and the village had an empty feeling. We played crib in the evening after eating a lazy dinner. Upon waking the next morning however, we couldn’t help but give out a sigh.


Australians. Europeans. Tanned, blonde, buxom wave chasers. Boozed up rugby fans wearing flower necklaces and drinking beers at 9:30 in the morning. Older jetsetters. A few families. Even though we had tried to avoid them previously, we were now moving into the main stream of tourists.
The ride over was great. Kristen managed the crossing without any complaints, and Paul held onto his gorge with the help of an anti-nauseant. Volcanoes towered above us as our speedboat followed the Southern coast for several hours. Eventually we turned out to see and left the lateen rigged fishermen’s vessels behind us. The water whipped up into some fierce waves as we made our way out into the Strait of Lombok. Those who had gone to sit up on the roof on the crossing began screaming, first with laughter and then with despair as waves splashed up and over the vessel. This being Indonesia, the crew took a long time before making a move to bring them down, but luckily everybody managed to hold on! The worst part of it for most unfortunates who were sitting up top was the cost of their water logged cellphones, Ipods, books, magazines, and of course their $1000 cameras.

Can I stay for dinner? Can I stay forever?

Awesome beaches

There was a turtle hachery! They were so CUTE!

The guys at our hotel made Kristen a cake and sang her Happy Birthday, they were awesome!

P90X Corona Ad

Amazing storm on a tropical island

 There are three Gili Islands. The islands extend in a string off the North coast of Lombok and are the most visited and most lucrative of the resorts in Lombok. Gili Air is the closest to shore, while Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan are a little further out into the strait. The word Gili just means “little island” in the local dialect, so “the gilli islands” actually means “the little island islands”.

We stayed on Gili T’ the largest of the three islands with the most accommodation choice. Even though it is low season, a fair number of tourists congregate in the “central” village, so we hired a little oxcart to take us and our bags a few kilometres up to the north coast. The north was secluded and calm, and it was exactly the right place to sit with a book and your toes in some white sand.
The weather was bad offshore, and our tour company decided that 4metre high waves in the strait was a little unsafe, and they cancelled our sailing tour to Komodo. Actually for a few days, all boat traffic in the area stopped and we (along with countless others) were “trapped” on the Gili Islands with no way back to Bali and only a few boats racing back and forth with Lombok.


 If you have to be trapped somewhere, I can recommend the Gili’s. Not the nicest beaches I have ever seen, but they are white, sandy and at times blissfully uncrowded. We walked around the island, ate at fabulous restaurants and little shacks, played cards, read books, suntanned and generally lazed about. We also took a snorkel tour and saw turtles (Kristen’s favourites) beautiful coral and a wrecked ship/boat. Dale, Tracey and Paul also got up early to go fishing and brought home a big barracuda that Dale reeled in. Who knew barracuda was so tasty?

Tracy's audition for TSN Wide World of Fish

OOOoooooo Barracuda

Its like as big as your leg!

Not U-Bud, Ubud!

Ubud. What to say? The city has two personalities. On the one hand, it is a charming village surrounded by rice fields, family compounds and the occasional temples. On the other, Ubud is a tourist money machine, churning out dollars based on its position as the “cultural center” and yoga mecca of Bali.

Dale pondering his choice of backpack vs head basket

Barong Masks, just a little scary

No Kristen did not solo to india, this is downtown Ubud

We spent a few days in Ubud at a nicer hotel down a side street. We did all the things that Ubud is most famous for: toured the market looking at the t-shirts, sunglasses and handicrafts; we went to the monkey forest to see the illtempered and kleptomanic long tailed macaques; ate our faces off at some really great asian fusion restaurants; watched some cultural performances of very weird Balinese dances; and sent Dale and Tracy off to
do a yoga class while we lounged by the pool.

These are women, not that you would know from the costumes

Kristen kept waiting for this giant dog-beast to bite it's own butt

The highlight of Ubud was a day long bicycle tour. We started by being driven up into the mountains to the “Volcano View restaurant” for breakfast. Unfortunately there wasn’t much of a view as the morning mist shrouded any glimpse of the mountain. Next we visited an organic farm (set up for tourists, but great none the less) where we looked at all the different types of fruits and vegetables that typically make it on to a Balinese plate, drank coffee and visited with the local civet cats (see our previous post for more info on civets).

Rice Terraces

"No Tracy, I want that one"

A good selection

The Rieu's are ready to roll!

Another of the millions of temples on Bali

Looking for snakes in the rice field

These kids were pulling the kittens off the mother until they cried and then putting them back, Dale was supervising.

Traditional Balinese wood carving

The next few hours were spent riding bikes (almost entirely downhill)  as we weaved along country roads. We stopped to poke our heads into a family compound, to chase frogs and eels around a rice paddy, to gaze up at a colossal banyan tree and to visit some local woodcarvers. At the end of our ride, there was an option to ride uphill for a few km’s. We all decided to go for it (along with an older Dutch fellow) and Dale immediately began to push our guide to the edge of his fitness limit. Paul did his best to hang in with the leaders, but was grateful whenever the guide called for a halt (ostensibly to see how far behind us the others
were, but in reality to rest after Dale had pushed hard through another set of hills). It was a blast, and waiting for us at the end was a traditional Balinese feast with smoked duck, spicy vegetable salads and other delicious treats. A perfect way to end the day.

Huge Bayan Tree

 

Bali… beautiful Bali.

Paul arrived earliest of all the travellers. He hiked his way past the touts trying to get him into their cars and cabs and flagged down a taxi just outside the airport gates. Eventually they made their way through the crazy traffic to Legian, one of the three towns in the Kuta/Legian/Seminyak tourist trap triumvirate. He got the keys to the rooms that they would be staying at their first night and then headed back out to the airport to pick up the stragglers. Unfortunately, Paul waited alone, as Kristen’s flight was delayed until just before the 2:30 am arrival of Tracey and Dale.

After some hugs, kisses and stunned conversation Paul led Kristen and the travel drunk Dale and Tracey to the hotel. Then, without giving them time to get their heads on straight, Paul and Kristen promptly hit D/T with the news that we were pregnant! Talk about timing! It was pretty awesome to see their faces as they took in the news, and wonderful that they were still excited and able to celebrate even after almost 24 hours without sleep.

One of the Billion Temples in Bali

Champion Parents, running on no sleep!

The next day we tooled around the beach in Kuta, wandered around the tourist shops and booked a tour to Komodo by boat. The day was spent acclimatizing to the heat, the food, the time difference and the feeling of being somewhere new. It was great for us to witness how exciting everything is for the first time traveller. I am pretty sure at one point Tracey even said “wow, look! A bridge.”

We travelled the next day up to Pemuteran on the North coast of Bali. To get there we crossed over the central ridge, and stopped at a coffee farm. It was super low pressure (which was great) and they let us try the coffee, tea, hot chocolate and other goodies that they produced at the farm. We got to see the famous Luwak (civet cat… actually a type of weasel and a close relative of the mongoose) that eats the ripe coffee berries and digests the bean, leaving behind the world’s most expensive coffee. If you are into the kind of thing.

Pemuteran was relaxed. So few tourists were there that we were practically the only people in our hotel for the first couple of nights. We had great service at a pretty snazzy price for a decent clean bungalow and access to a pool and internet but we did have to  put up with crowing roosters every morning which was a problem that followed us around for the next few weeks.

First Snorkel outting and Loving it!

This is Kristen`s Happy Snorkel Face

Paul`s art shot!

Pemuteran’s beach was just so so and the water was a little garbage-full. However the life underwater was spectacular. We took Dale and Tracey on their first snorkelling adventure to Palau Menjangan (one of the premier diving sites in Bali).  We got to see Lionfish, trevally, cowfish, aggressive triggerfish and an incredible variety of corals and brightly coloured reef fish. They were blown away by the colour and diversity, and we were pretty proud of their pluckiness. It’s not often someone gets into the water for only the first or second time and is so unperturbed by a steep drop off and the immensity of the dark ocean. They did great and we came away with huge smiles. And sunburns. Dale especially learned not to underestimate the power of the equatorial sun and was quick to slap on sunscreen after broiling the back of his legs.

Not our boat, but truthfully you wouldnt be able to say for sure it wasnt!

Civet Cat, looking shifty

Lake Toba

Lake Toba. Paul didn’t know much about it, but he had an extra day in Northern Sumatra and thought: “Hey it sounds cool… Danua Toba. Cool climate. Volcanic Caldera. Agricultural heartland of Northern Sumatra. Home of the Christian/Animist Batak people…. Let’s check it out.”

Infrastructure in Northern Sumatra being what you might expect, the highways are all one lane roads, potholed, twisty, dusty and packed with honking motorcycles, scooters, bikes, trucks, vans and buses. The buses and vans were all decorated which was pretty awesome. These old beat up Mitsubishis would have a full underkit, spoilers, and chrome rims. They were covered in neon orange paint, or decals of Mickey Mouse, giant-incredibly muscled bulls and Charelton Heston from the Ten Commandments. They were often packed to the roof with passengers. Literally. People would sit on the roof of a van ripping down a tiny road at 100 plus kms an hour. With their kids. And a picnic lunch. Crazy.

We (Paul chartered a mini van with two Danes) took the back road to Lake Toba because our driver had never been that way and wanted to take a picture at the border between North Sumatra Province and Lake Toba Province. It turned out to be a great idea, as it didn’t take much longer (what’s another hour on a 7 hour ride) and we passed through farmland and tiny villages. Betel nut chewing old women, and men on donkeys turned to wave and smile at us as we bounced our way through their hamlets.

Eventually we made it to Lake Toba and took a boat from the harbour to TukTuk a peninsula on an island in the middle of South East Asia’s biggest lake. Paul met a Russian fellow who had been on the trek into the jungle with him, and they ended up sharing a room at a resort on the peninsula that night. Cost us each $3 and there was air conditioning. J

The next day Paul had until 1:30pm to poke around the traditional villages and go for a swim in the refreshing waters. Then it was back on the boat and into a mini-van that would take him back to Medan.

This time the ride back was excruciating. The van was filled with locals, and Paul had to share a bench seat with two of the largest Indonesian men he had ever seen. Stocky, overweight and broad shouldered, they made for singularly poor traveling companions! They did help Paul identify some edible food at the bus station we stopped at for dinner so it wasn’t all bad.

We arrived late into Medan, and Paul found himself a nice squalid box of a hotel room to crash in before boarding his morning flight back to KL and on to Bali to meet up with his wife and the Rieus.

The Great Escape: Jan/Feb 2012

So, we are back in China after more than a month of gallivanting around South East Asia. And it’s about time we updated the blog.
We have a tonne of stories and pictures to share, so we will divide it up over several blog posts and string them out over the next week or so. Keep checking back for more updates!

Part One: Paul’s Primal Primate Encounter.

Because Paul’s school is so very different from the high school, they finished a full week earlier than the rest of the students. This meant Paul found himself with a week of vacation time without Kristen. Knowing that she –brave and adventurous as she is- would likely never wish to visit the Sumatran jungle with him, he decided that this was a good time to check that particular destination off his list.

Paul spent a full 24 hours travelling from Dalian to Sumatra. First a short puddle hop from Dalian to Tianjin, then a flight from Tianjin to Kuala Lumpur, a night spent trying to sleep on the hard, brightly lit budget carrier’s airport in KL and a final flight to Medan in Indonesia.

Medan is a bit of a cesspool. It sprawls, low and dirty, for many tens of kilometres. It’s hot and humid and the traffic is worse than anywhere else we have travelled so far. Other than that it is a delightful city. Paul found an old man who spoke a little English and who offered to take him to the bus station for a price significantly lower then what the taxis wanted to charge. They weaved their way through slums and shops, dodging brightly painted vans stuffed with people and crazy Grandmas on scooters to get to the staging point for all the local buses.

The best part of Medan were these sweet flower billboards advertising everything from engagemens to markets to Coca-cola. Awesome.

The bus took some six hours to get from Medan to Bukit Lawang. It probably should have been four, but the driver stopped often to have a drink and a chat with a friend, or cruise slowly down a street while trying to drum up some more customers. The ride was hot and bouncy, and the bus cruised through some beautiful and some very depressing scenery.

Most of Northern Sumatra used to be covered in some of the worlds thickest, most impenetrable rainforest. Only recently has that begun to change, but the rapid pace of the change is staggering. We drove through mile after mile of recently burned forest. Acres and acres of land cut, burned and replanted with oil palm. Thousands of acres. Oil palm is a monoculture that brings in a lot of money for communities that hover on and around the brink of poverty. It is one of the few crops that can grow in the depleted soil left when you cut down a rainforest and it provides a chance for communities to develop an economy based on something other than subsistence farming. However, the destruction of the biodiverse rainforests and the speed at which they are disappearing was really hard to look at.

After several hours of travelling through oil palm plantations, pockets of rainforest began to appear on the hilltops. Soon the entire road was being encroached upon by the massive hardwoods with their entourage of vines and ferns. Paul disembarked at Bukit Lawang station (basically the side of the road in the middle of a farmer’s field). He then followed a little local boy up a side track (rather then pay the tuk tuk drivers to take him into “town” along the road). After a few minutes of walking along, munching amiably on rose apples and “water fruit” with the local boy, Paul found himself crossing the river on a rather crude and derelict suspension bridge. He haggled with an inn owner on the far side, and because it was the low season, he managed to negotiate a clean (though bare and basic) room for just under 5 dollars. With breakfast included.

Bukit Lawang- a friendly place.

Bukit Lawang is an interesting place. It relies almost entirely on tourist dollars from people who come to see the apes. It was almost destroyed in 2003 by a flash flood that tore down the river and took a fair number of homes and people with it. Hot, dusty, rainy, the little town spreads up and down the banks of the river for about three kilometres before petering out into the jungle.

Paul booked himself onto a two day trek almost immediately after arriving. There were other tourists along for the trek, most of whom were not nearly as prepared to hike in the Sumatran jungle. Paul showed up in hiking boots with his belongings nicely sealed in waterproof stuff sacks and extra pairs of socks, a t-shirt and three litres of water ready for his arrival at camp. Two of the other trekkers were wearing cotton loafers. One girl didn’t have anything with her but the clothes on her back.

The guides were great. Tiny (less than five feet), surefooted local men who were licensed by the village coop to take people like my companions into the jungle and make sure they came out smiling and safe, these men were extremely competent. They would disappear for a few minutes into the bush beside a trail, then reappear 100 meters down the path silently. Almost always they would lead us to a perfect spot to see this Thomas Leaf Monkey, or that White Handed Gibbon, or a particularly loud Hornbill.

Rocking the leaf hat during a rainstorm... so 2011.

We saw our first orang-utan four hours into the trek. Three apes- mom and two daughters- were slowly meandering their way through the upper canopy. The mom and baby stayed there, but the older daughter was curious and made her way down the vines and trunks of trees to see what these hairless apes staring up at her were all about. It was a pretty magical experience to have her so close, and so interested in us. She bounced around in the trees right above us for almost fifteen minutes before returning to her mom.

This is about the moment Paul started hyperventilating with excitement.

Surreal? Yes.

We saw several other orang-utan, all female, in the next few hours. We also got to see long tailed macaques, Thomas leaf monkeys, white handed Gibbon (another ape species), monitor lizards, and a variety of other extremely cool flora and fauna.

That punky monkey is a Thomas Leaf monkey. He is rocking an elegant hair style and a long (but not prehensile) tail.

About an hour after lunch the rain started to come down hard. It was impossible to stay dry, and pretty soon we were soaked through to the skin. We waded through muddy paths, over streams and up and down hills until we made it down into a little valley. There across the river was the camp. We loaded ourselves into inner tubes and the guides pushed us across the rather swollen river. We stripped down to our skivvies and washed the mud sweat and leeches (yes leeches) off of ourselves by the side of the river.

Camp was an open bivouac. Poles had been pounded into the ground, and a tarps carefully fastened over top. It was dry under the tarp, but one side of the tent was completely open to the jungle and provided no shelter from mosquitoes, leeches or monitor lizards. In the middle of the night this fact was driven home by the fact that Paul woke up with something warm burrowing into his armpit. He freaked out a bit when it suddenly jumped onto his face and then scampered off because of his thrashing and screaming. Naturally this woke the rest of the trekkers, who, not knowing what was going on, also freaked out. The bush rat/monkey/monster bumped into several other people on its way out, which amplified their screaming and made Paul feel a little better. He had one small scratch down his cheek which he washed and covered in antibiotic cream, but other than that escaped pretty much unscathed! However he didn’t get a lot more sleep after that.

The "tent" where we spent the night. Notice the lack of a final side.

The next day the trekkers hung around the camp area, hiking to a nearby waterfall, before we rafted our way down the swollen river and back to Bukit Lawang. The experience was pretty special, and left Paul wishing he had more time and money to spend towards a longer Sumatran jungle excursion. Definitely something to save his pennies for!

Rafts made of inner tubes lashed together with twine. Scary but effective.