Thursday October 31

Ferry crossing

                                                      

 I had partaken of happy hour on a rooftop bar and ate a meal too hot for me to handle, so it was with trepidation I boarded a 3-hour ferry ride to Langkawi Island in Malaysia.  However the seas were calm and I didn’t turn green.  We arrived in Langkawi and when Joan saw a Starbucks coffee shop, there was no holding Joan and Barb back.  They both have a serious caffeine problem.  After their fix, we headed to our hotel – The tropical Resort.  It is a nice hotel, situated 100m from the beach and we walk through the woods to get there.   It is clean, has hot water and a very nice staff.  I quite like this place.  We walked through the town and we have several nice restaurants to choose from.  The beach is clean, with a bathtub hot ocean.  Joan is turning into a water baby.  She spends more time in the water than any of us.  Another thing we like about Langkawi is – laundry costs $1.50 per kilo.  We are superclean now.                                                                           

Ferry at Dock

Wednesday October 30

Fishing Boat deck

Fish Delivery

 We had a great day today. We wanted to tour the island of Penang and so we hired a taxi with driver and set off. Our first stop was at a fishing village right next to the entrance to Penang National Park. We watched some catches being unloaded and transported into town on motorcycle delivery vehicles. We clung to the pier posts when the motorcycles came by to avoid any incident. The pier was colourful and interesting.

We went next into the national park and hiked about 1 ½ kms into the jungle to reach a canopy walk. The walk was definitely the highlight of the day. It was a rope and wire construction, 250 meters long in 5 stages from tree to tree and it swung 15 meters high over the jungle. It was just plain fun to be up there!                                                

After we returned to our driver, we asked him to take us to two other fishing villages which were over the mountain and down on the coast. Trouble is, they were not on the coast nor were they fishing villages. This was one of the very few times that our Lonely Planet guidebook has been wrong.

Joan and Barb on Canopy Walk

  We then went to the Botanical Gardens. The highlight here was not the flowers but the many monkeys roaming the grounds. They are always fun to watch.

We finished our day with a drink on a rooftop bar overlooking Georgetown

Tuesday October 29

We did a walking tour of Georgetown today. Georgetown is one of the 3 straits trading cities set up by Great Britain during the 18^th century.  It has a long British history and is now one of the top tourist cities in Malaysia       

State Mosque

Temple Roof

Clan Jetty

We started at our hotel and took in the old colonial buildings first and then after our café latte we went into Little India.  This has to be as close to India as it gets without actually being in India. Gold, jewellery, and clothes are all in the Indian fashion and the food is all Indian as well.  We all decided we like Indian food.   We visited the clan jetties where the Chinese clans own the jetty and there are hundreds of homes and businesses clustered on 1 jetty.  The newer additions have stilts made of concrete filled plastic pails.  It really is a city within a city.                                                                             

   Just before sunset we took a funicular up to the top of Penang hill.  The funicular goes up 800 meters in one shot and takes about 15 minutes.  It was built 100 years ago, but it has new cars and it runs very smoothly.  The sun set and the city lit up and I got my pictures of Georgetown and the Neon lit temple at the top of the hill.      

Georgetown at night

                 

Monday October 28

             

Malaka - Sultans Palace

Joan in Trishaw

             
We took the train to Georgetown today.  Travelling by train or bus in Malaysia is not that interesting.  Lots of Palm Trees and not much else.  We ate bananas and cookies for 8 hours on the train and arrived in the dark at Georgetown.  Georgetown is alive and happy at night and we had tea and beer at midnight, right on the street by our hotel.

Sunday October 27

Malaka has spent money cleaning up the riverfront the runs through the town centre.  We took a riverboat ride yesterday, and today we walked along the river.  There is a 10 km walk that leads past house and shops, most of which have murals on the front and sides.  The murals seem to depict a lot of history. 

      One of the hotels in Malaka offers a high tea.  We decided to try it out. We sat on the riverfront and watched the thunder and lightening and rain for 2 hours while we ate everything but cucumber sandwiches.  Alistair and Caroline  then departed for Singapore. 

      Because of the rain I went back to the hotel, but Barb and Joan went shopping.  While walking by the shops a man told them to look down.  They were beside a 6 foot Montor Lizard.  They might have panicked, but they got some pictures first.       

5 foot lizard in ditch

Saturday October 26

                                     

Doors to a Chinese Temple

Caroline and Ali had joined us late last night, so we all toured the European area of town.  The down-town core has the official buildings and old Dutch architecture.  We went to only 1 museum but that was enough to give us nightmares.  The museum of beauty chronicles the brutality heaped on mostly women to make them more desirable.  From lip disc’s, nose plugs, ear stretching to tattoos and scarification – it all looks painful.

      On a brighter note Malaka has trishaws.  Old bikes with a side-car for 2 and the most colourful setups.  Most also have a sound system that specializes in loud music.  After lunch we took a trishaw back to the hotel.  Because of her dress colour Caroline got the pink trishaw and I had to take the yellow flowered special.  It clashed horribly with my red backpack.                                        

Caroline and Ali in the Pink Trishaw

                            
     At night tracked down the number one restaurant in Malaka.  The Pac Putra is rated the best on Trip Advisor and in the lonely planet.  It is a Pakistani/Indian special.  The 5 of us ordered 10 meat or veggie dishes a lot of Nan bread and drinks called Mango Lassies.  We ate in the parking lot along with a hundred other patrons.  Some of the food was cooked on the sidewalk, some inside the restaurant.  It was

Trishaw at night

great food.  All at less than $8 per person. 

Friday October 25

Kampung Kling Mosque

We boarded the bus to Malacca this morning and arrived in Malacca at 1 pm.  We crossed onto Malaysia after 1 hour and the roads in Malaysia are good.  Malacca is a UNESCO recognised village that has been a major seaport and trading town since 1400.  It has been owned, at various times, by the Sumatrans, Portuguese, Dutch, English and now Malaysia.   It is a popular destination for tourists and is famous for it’s mixture of cultures and fabulous food.   Our hotel is in Chinatown and this is the happening part of the city.  Shopping is good, but at night the street is blocked to cars and 1000’s of vendors put up stalls or have their carts on the main road.  After dark we wandered down main street and marvelled at the pure junk and gaudy beads that tourists will buy.  There is lots of food on the street as well.  Home-made potato chips, tarts and pastries, small squid skewers,  quail eggs and much more.  Even if I wasn’t hungry Joan made me eat the squid and the quail eggs.  Then she tried the potato chip, which we both liked.  The potato chip was made from one whole potato that was skewered first, sliced partially through on a lathe and stretched out on the skewer, and then deep fried.   All of the hot food is cooked right on the street in various ovens and fryers.  This makes our barbecues look sad.       
                                                                 

Quail eggs

Potato Spreader

                                                                                                

     

Potato Slicer

Thursday October 24

Back Alley Barber

The Prayer Room

The Great Mosque of Singapore

The girls went shopping and I went to the barber.  I found one in a back alley near China town and for the first time I had my haircut outside.   He was good and cheap - $6 for a cut and trim.  Afterwards I toured the Arab district in Singapore.  I was able to visit to Sultan Mosque.  The Mosque is impressive from the outside, but very plain inside.  I had to wear a gown, because I had shorts on, but it was provided free.  The massive prayer hall was almost empty and I took pictures through the door, but I was not allowed to enter.  I must have looked confused or religious because one of the monitors asked me if I was all right.  When I assured her I was just a tourist she gave me a 10 min intro to Islam.  I did not get around to asking about the place of women in the Mosque.

   That evening we went to Raffles Hotel and we all had a Singapore Sling at the Long Bar.  This is where the Singapore Sling was invented.                             

Caroline and Alister with Singapore Slings

Wednesday October 23

                                                 

Tai Chi in the Park

I was up early in the morning to reach the Botanical Gardens by 6:30.  The Gardens open at 5:00 and I wanted to take pictures in the early morning light.  I thought I would be the only person around at that time.  I was met by hundreds of walkers and runners, hundreds of Tai Chi followers and hundreds of garden staff, hard at work.  The park is obviously the in-place for the early morning crowd.  Later Barb, Joan and I met and toured the Orchid Gardens together. 

    That night I had a special treat.  Caroline took me to a Yoga class at her regular place.  We did Ying Yoga, which is a slow Yoga where the positions are held for 5 min each.  The room was hot and crowded:  35°C, 25 girls and me.  The instructor seemed a bit worried when I told her I had bionic hips and when she realized how inflexible I was I got the special remedial exercise program.   However the Yoga felt good and I feel better.         

Crane Fountian

       

Tuesday October 22

      

Flower Greenhouse

Arial Walk in Cloud Forest Greenhouse

We visited the park near Caroline’s place today.  It was built in the 2000’s on reclaimed land.  The park has 2 enormous conservatories; 1 for plants (all sorts) and one for the Cloud Forest.  The entry into the Cloud Forest “Greenhouse” is most impressive as you come face to face with a 50 M waterfall. The waterfall plus the misting guns make for a damp eerie environment. 

Cloud Forest Waterfall

Monday October 21

Merpati DH-6 (Made in Canada)

                                                               

Today we returned to Singapore to stay with Caroline and Ali once again.   Our first flight was from the island of Flores to Bali.  We boarded on time and sat on the plane for 30 minutes.  Then we got off again and sat in the terminal for 20 min.  Then we boarded again and took off promptly.  There appear to have been some controlled burning going on too close to the runway and during our time in the terminal they doused some of the fires and cleared the crews and equipment from the runway.            We did have 4 hours to wait in Bali so no major problem.  The flight from Bali took off on time and we had daylight for 20 minutes, but we did not fly over any volcanoes. 

Sunday October 20

A very leisurely day by the pool side.                             
              

Joan and Barb in Infinity Pool

Saturday, October 19th

We were all anxious to leave and go back to Labuan Bajo to a nice hotel and better restaurants. Tim booked a car and driver to take us back. The driver spoke no English but understood ‘stop’, a word we used a lot as we wanted to take pictures along the way.  We appreciated that he went slowly and confidently around the same up/downhill hairpin turns.                                           

Drying and winnowing rice by the roadside

 We were delighted to be dropped off at ‘LaPrima’, a beachside hotel with a pool, and a spectacular view from our 6^th floor room.  Yahoo! A shower in hot water, pool warm as a bathtub, air conditioning, and linens on comfortable beds:  one extreme to the other!

Friday October 18

Boys at the Market

Tobacco vendor at Market

            We left at 8:30 AM to take a public 12 seat minibus to Ruteng, a small town described as charmless in the Lonely Planet guidebook but also as being set in lovely surroundings. The trip was 3 ½ hours long over several mountain  passes with many hairpin turns. The scenery was amazing but, of course, we could not stop for pictures. We had not been able to reach any hotels by phone to prebook but the bus company said no problem, the driver will bring us to hotels until we found a room. The bus stopped first at a hotel for us and we took a room as we did not want to make the other 9 passengers drive all over while we selected a hotel. BIG MISTAKE! The rooms were cheap but awful – no shower, no hot water, mouldy walls, no toilet paper. An old red blanket took the place of a top sheet.  We were dismayed by our choice of room but also by the lack of places to visit. We did take a motorcycle ride to a village that had a few traditional thatched houses. Barb really enjoyed being on a bike, as did Tim of course, but I was less enthused.

Joan with children

                                                                                                                     

 We decided that the next day, we would return to Labuan Bajo. Even though we were not happy with being in Ruteng, the people were as friendly as ever-so many hellos and smiles.  It warmed our teacher’s hearts that a few of them really wanted to try to converse

in English.

Thursday October 17

Komodo Dragon

            Our trip to Rinca hit a snag right at the start.  We were loaded into the boat and pushed off from shore only to find we could not lift the anchor.  The first mate jumped into the water and followed the line, upon which we were snagged, back to a boat still tied to the dock.  That boat backed up until we could untangle the anchor, and then off we went.  The trip to Rinca Island took two hours on very calm seas.  The boat travelled through several islands – large and small, but all very dry looking.  When we arrived at Komodo National Park, we were reminded of the guide book’s description -  furnace hot.   We were met at the dock by our guide and given the dire warnings about wandering off the path and staying together with our guide.  At one point we stopped so he could point out the 39 graves of the tourists who didn’t heed the warnings.

            There are about 2,400 Komodo Dragons on Rinca.  There were at least 10 hanging about the office area.  We were allowed to get as close as 5 metres with the ranger and his forked stick at the ready.  Without the ranger we would never have seen most of the dragons.  They lie perfectly still disguised as a log.  When he pointed out a baby up a tree, I couldn’t see it even when I was looking at it.  Until it moved it was perfectly camouflaged.  We went on a 4 km hike through the forest and fields.  Several times I thought our guide was pulling my leg when he pointed at dragons.  However, every time he was right. 

            We spent 3 hours on the island before our ranger escorted us back to the dock and off we went to Angel Island for snorkelling.  We docked at a beach in the middle of a deserted island and off I went through another amazing underwater garden.  Several times when I started back to the boat I was waylaid by another fantastic sight.  I was in the water for 1 ½ hours and my underwater camera was still working.

            At night, after a terrific sunset, I downloaded my photos to my computer.  313 photos in 1 day!                                       

                           

Tuesday October 15

            We had an abbreviated tour today as Caroline and Ali left for home in the afternoon.  We went to the mother temple – the most important temple in Bali. Like 90% of the population in Bali the temple is Hindu.  It sits on the side of the largest volcano in Bali – Gunung Agung.  The temple is a large compound of buildings with Pagoda roofs everywhere.  It contains several smaller temples.  The temples are laid out on several levels.  There is a caste system in Bali: the farmers, the merchants, the warriors, and the Priests.   The lower temples for the farmer caste and the upper temple for the priests caste Today there were several ceremonies going on in the temple.  The biggest one seemed to be the cremation ceremonies.  The temple was crowded with Hindis and I was pleased to see they were harangued as much by the hawkers as we were.  I  also loved seeing so many Balinese dressed in their finery.                  

Balinese Celebrants

On the way to a cremation ceremony

                                                         

                                                
                                                                                                                  
                                                                                              

Monday October 14

                      

      

Joan and friend

At Rest

Glass Shop

       Our hotel is close to the Monkey Forest so after breakfast we walked to the forest and joined the crowds.  The forest is a sacred forest and the terrain and the monkeys are protected.  The monkeys roam free and the humans feed them so the monkeys are very comfortable around humans.  We were warned to remove all jewellery and hats lest the monkey grab them.  Joan had a plastic bottle of water in her purse and a monkey climbed up her leg and stole it.  While she was laughing another monkey climbed over her shoulders and perched on her arm.  She looked like an animal trainer. 
            In the afternoon Joan and I went art shopping for a painting from Bali.  I have learned that negotiating is necessary but even I can’t get a $4,000 painting for a hundred dollars.  We left the first place and went to the second dealer.  We ended up with 2 paintings.  I paid $20 for my picture of Buddha and Joan paid $100 for her picture of rice fields. 

Temple detail

Sunday October 13

Ali in Dive Mode

            We changed towns today and drove to the cultural centre of Bali.  Along the way we stop off at a harbour for lunch and a swim.  Ali, Caroline and I went on a snorkelling tour.  I had my underwater camera and we spent hours snorkelling at 2 different dive sites along the coast.  The water was clear and warm and the coral reef was quite shallow.  The variety of fish was impressive.  There was one fat ugly 2-foot fish that moved very slowly and seemed to eat coral.   He would swim into the coral headfirst and then back up and do it again.  He often swam sideways.  He looked very, very drunk.

Drunken Coral Fish

                                                                                                                                                                

            On the way back to Ubud we stopped at a waterfall. I was walking across the rocks to the gras only to discover the grass was really a swamp.  Both feet up to the ankles covered in green slime.  So after taking my pictures I stepped into a nearby bath pool, sandals and all.  The kids thought I was funny.       

Bali Waterfalls