Oh Mylanta! I'm In Ko Lanta!

So with our new course charted out, Janelle, Roy, and I rode the ferry from over-priced, over-crowded Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta. Ko Lanta is only an hour and a half or so by boat, and is quickly becoming one of the more popular islands in the region. It was a bright, sunny day, and I took the opportunity to do a bit of sunning on the deck of the ferry on the way to Lanta.

Because of the tout we met on Phi Phi, we already had a hotel and a ride waiting for us, so it was nice not having to deal with the chaos of arriving in a new place without a place to stay. As a backpacker, whenever you arrive at a new city/island/country, you're always swarmed immediately upon arrival with touts asking you if you have a place to stay, if you need a ride, if you want to stay at their place, etc. This may sound helpful, but when it's dozens - or more - of touts just screaming over each other, thrusting flyers in your face, and literally pulling you to come with them, the whole charade is more than a little overwhelming.

And Ko Lanta wasn't any different. There was a literal gauntlet that you had to walk through right as soon as you got off the ferry. A long line of touts - probably at least 30 or 40 I'd say - screaming and jumping and dancing and throwing shit at you just to get your attention so you'll go with them. Thankfully we could just ignore it all and follow our own tout to our ride.

Our ride turned out to be a big pick-up truck, and so Janelle and Roy and an English couple rode inside the cab with the driver (how they all fit is beyond me, but Asians are good at defying the laws of physics and packing people into ever-smaller spaces) and I jumped into the back of the truck, along with five young Israeli teenagers and a 63-year old American male. A second later we were all racing down the road through Lanta, wind in our hair, clutching desperately onto the mountain of backpacks so as not to get flung out the back, on the way to our hotel. Good times!

We stayed at the Lanta Pavillion Resort and it was quite a nice place. Janelle and I managed to bargain down the price of our room as were said we'd stay for a whole week, and so by paying up front you can get major discounts. Our room was quite nice, with having our own bed each, aircon, and even a hot water shower. We were all set for a week of fun in the sun here in Ko Lanta, but unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans...

It rained almost every single day of our week-long stay on Ko Lanta, and here we were thinking that we could escape from the rain by switching coasts. Oh, you silly tourists! It rains everywhere, all the time in Thailand! Technically it's the end of the rainy season and beginning of the dry season, but according to the locals this year is much wetter than normal. It kinda sucks getting so much of the wet stuff here towards the end of our holiday, but Janelle and I still managed to have a good time on Ko Lanta.

We got a bit of beach time in, between rainy periods, but to be honest the beach wasn't all that spectacular. The sand was a bit coarse, there was a lot of broken coral bits mixed in with it, and a lot of rocks and coral in the too-shallow water which made swimming a bit challenging. When you're on the Southeast Asia Circuit, and you see a lot of beaches, you get to be a bit picky. I'm sure anyone at home would give their left nut/titty to spend a day at this beach, but it's hard when you've 'been around the island block' like I have (and oh baby yeah I've been around that block!) and not to compare it with others.

Fortunately we met some great people to during our stay on Lanta which helped to liven things up. On our first night we met two brothers named Dave and Anthony from England, and they were a blast and a half to hang out with. On our first night on the island they took us out to one of the bars, Opium, and we had a fantastic night drinking beer, playing pool, and chatting it up. It turned out to be quite a late night, with quite a few drinks, and one that involved more transport in the back of a pickup to and from the bar. When we got back to our resort we went up the beach to another bar, and I think by the time Janelle and I went to bed it was around 4am. Good times!

Dave and Anthony left a day or two later, and it was disappointing to see those two very fun lads go, but luckily new friends came along to keep Nellie, Roy, and I entertained. A very lively couple - again from England - strolled into town and we became fast friends with Baz and Lucie. One of the nights in town we all went back to Opium again, and had another round(s) of drinks late into the night. Lucie and Janelle did some dancing while us boys 'shot the shit' and enjoyed the warm evening. And of course we took - again - silly drunken photos in the back of the truck on the way home again. Too fun!

After a few days of the rain and gloom, Janelle and I were getting a bit of cabin fever. We wanted to be out and about doing things on the island, but all the activities are outdoors and therefore weather-dependent. Finally one night we had some clear skies and so Janelle and I decided to book a boat trip for the next day and hoped for good weather.

And on this day, Mother Nature smiled down on us and offered us a truly beautiful day. Oh, she can be so kind sometimes! It was a clear sunny day and the two of us boarded a big boat with a bunch of other tourists (Roy had already left the island at this point.) It was a day full of snorkelling and other water adventures, and was action-packed all day. We went to four islands altogether, and the first two were for snorkelling. And what amazing snorkelling it was! We were down in Ko Lanta National Marine Park which is full of all these tiny islands that rise up steeply out of the Andaman Sea's emerald green waters like limestone sugar lumps, and surrounding them is tons and tons of coral. And of course, where there's coral, there's tropical fish. On both islands there were so many fish of so many shapes and colours it was hard to believe they were real. And they weren't afraid of us at all! At times I was actually swimming through entire schools of tropical fish - like there were inches from my face/hands - and it was so magical! Even the technicolour coral reefs were pretty spectacular. Wow!

We had lunch on the boat after the second island, and then it was on to Island #3. This island's draw is the fact that it has a secret sea cave. Okay it's not secret anymore, but it used to be. This island's cliffs are again sheer and plunge right into the sea, but there's this cave that has an entrance right at sea level that you can swim into. We all swam into the cave as a group, and led by our guide, we swam deeper and deeper into the cave. Now as you know I'm a bit claustophobic and don't like caves all that much, but luckily for me this one was pretty wide and the ceilings were quite high above the water's surface the whole way through. Well we got about half-way through the cave, around a bend, and it was pitch black inside. Seriously, you couldn't see a damn thing at all. The guide had brought a flashlight to help us find the way, but it was so small it barely lit anything up at all. At this point I started to get really nervous, but then right at that moment we turned another corner and saw light at the end of the tunnel.

And what an amazing surprise awaited us there...

At the end of the cave, you come out, and you're on a beach! A secret beach! It's a beach that's surrounded completely by rock walls that rise several hundred feet 360 degrees around this beach. The only way to get to this beach is through that cave! It's like it's in a hole or something in the middle of the island. It was unbelievable! It looked like something that would be built for a Hollywood set, like you would never imagine it possible to occur naturally on its own. Apparently, back in the day, pirates used to store treasure here cause no one knew about it's whereabouts, and in recent years locals come to the beach to catch birds that live in nests in the surrounding cliffs. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life! We spent a few minutes wandering around the small beach, and gazing up at the narrow rock enclosure all around us. Wow!

After swimming back out of the cave, we switched to a speed boat which took us to our fourth and final island. This place - god knows where we were in the park at this point - was a small island with the nicest beach ever. A place for us to swim and relax and just take in the scenery. It was truly a freaking gorgeous beach. Soft white sand, clear waters that were the temperature of a bathtub, numerous islands off in the distance, and a big blue sky with puffy white-cotton clouds. It was seriously right out of a postcard! It's hard to believe that these places are actually real, even when you're standing right in the middle of this heaven on earth. Janelle and I did not want to leave, and did some swimming and sunning before it was time to go.

We took the speed boat back to the harbour, only this time went around the back side of the island through all these cool mangrove swamps. We got back around 4pm and were so excited from our truly fantastic day. This one perfect day more than made up all those days of rain and cloud, and we felt that our diversion to Lanta was now validated!

You'd think that would be the end of our great day, but things were just getting going. That night our resort was hosting a big party to celebrate the grand opening of it's beachside bar, and of course we had to partake in those festivities! Everyone who was anyone was at this party, and it was such a blast. Baz and Lucie were there of course, as well as lots of other guests from all over - the chatty girls from Ireland, smiley Johnny from Finland, and the group of six Swedes who are so fucking gorgeous it hurts to look at them cause god they all belong on the cover of a magazine. Later on we made friends with Ian from England and Anthony from France, and everyone was mingling together.

Several pina coladas later, the party started to get a little more crazy. Our table was the wild one at the party, and we were the first to begin dancing. And then things really got going. Janelle ripped open Lucie's blouse, exposing her granny bra and ample bosom, much to Lucie's shock/glee. Baz and Lucie rocked out to air guitar with a broomstick, and then later with an actual guitar. Limbo got started up, and the Swedes were all gifted in that department. Shots were a-flowing. 1000 crazy photos were taken. Everyone was laughing. It was one of the craziest, funnest nights of my trip yet. It was all a wondrous blur of one crazy moment after another and was truly a great party. I passed out sometime around 2:30am, I think, and Janelle hit the hay sometime after that.

Baz and Lucie left the next morning, and luckily Nellie and I had a day to relax (and recover) on the island. It was another gray day, so we were sure glad that we had caught the nice weather the day before. The next day Janelle and I packed up all our stuff, said goodbye to Ko Lanta, and boarded a ferry for our next - and final destination of the trip - Railay Beach on Krabi. I'm sad that Project Wanderlust is almost over - can you belive how fast five months has gone by? - but I'm really excited about this place. Krabi is world-famous for its incredible scenery, and I think it's going to make a great ending to a really, really awesome trip!

The Rebirth Of An Island

So....our last big journey....today's trip should be our last 'major' day of travelling on the trip, but who's to say really. The Travel Gods like to throw curveballs at you once in a while, so you never can really be all that sure of anything while on the move.

Our destination today was Ko Phi Phi, located on Thailand's west coast, and since we were leaving Ko Samui, on the east coast, that involved a combination of ferries and buses again. Luckily, it was smooth sailing all the way. An hour and a half ferry ride, than an hour bus ride, than a two bus ride on another bus, and then another ferry, this time for just over two hours. We sailed into Phi Phi's harbour in the late afternoon and immediately we were left awe-struck by its beauty.

However, it's not just the island's striking scenery that makes this island so very famous here in Thailand. Only 11 months ago Ko Phi Phi was one of the islands that was absolutely devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami. To understand how bad it was, you have to know a bit about Phi Phi's geography. Ko Phi Phi is a dumbell-shaped island, and it's the narrow isthmus connecting the two highlands where all the hotel, shops, and restaurants are. Or, should I say, were. When the wave rolled into the shallow harbour, tourists were caught completely off-guard by the quickly-appraoching crest that was nearly 3 metres high. Running the few hundred metres or so to the other side of the isthmus, panicked tourists looked up in horror to see a second wave - this one nearly 6 metres high - crashing in on them from the other side. They hardly stood a chance. The island was literally swept clean, and hundreds, if not thousands, lost their lives. Those that happened to be on higher ground at the time, or on the upper floors of hotels, were lucky enough to have made it, and today their living nightmare tales, retold in poster boards around the island, remind us of the disaster that struck not so long ago.

Ko Phi Phi was one of the prime jewels in Thailand's crown of island paradises, and so the government, along with the generous help of volunteers from around the world, have worked quickly to restore the island to its former beauty. The white beaches have been swept clean, and trees re-planted, but the middle isthmus still remains as a barren wasteland, strewn with a mix of piles of rubble and construction equipment busy rebuilding the hotels. It's such a morbidly fascinating juxtaposition. Look one way and you see a perfect beach surrounded by soaring lush green limestone cliffs and a turquoise sea. Turn 180 degrees and you see the shattered remains of what was once a crowded and busy piece of land, now empty except for the ghosts which must wander through unseen. It's chilling.

Phi Phi registered a 90% drop in tourism during the few six months after the tsunami, but the tourists have since come back. And oh my, have they ever returned in a big way. Prior to the tsunami, Phi Phi had 1500 hotel rooms. 1000 were swept away leaving only 500, most of which sat empty for months on end. Now if you revisit Phi Phi's harbour, you're greeted with boat after boat after boat packed full of tourists pouring in from nearby Phuket and Krabi. The island has been flooded again - with tourists curious to see the scenery and how the island has recovered - and Phi Phi simply can't cope with this second wave.

It's high season now, and with the onslaught of tourists, hotel prices have shot straight up into the stratosphere. A 400 baht a night bungalow can now fetch 1200 and above, and people are so eager they'll take just about anything. The arrival of our massive ferry spawned a fury of overwhelmed touts wheelin' and deelin' out overpriced rooms to the desperate tourists willing to take any room, just to get a room. In a mere 10 minutes pretty much all the remaining rooms on the island were snatched up. And being one of the last passengers off the ferry, Janelle and I were left with little choice but to take what was available. The cheapest we could get was 1000 baht a night for a resort - way on the other side of the island that's accessible only by boat. Way out of our price range, and not exactly what we had in mind, but I guess we'll take what we can get.

A Dutch guy named Roy ended up being ferried along with us, and we took the choppy boat ride over to our resort. We arrived at Relax Resort just as the sun was disappearing behind the island's hills, and had to jump out into the waves to get to the hotel. The resort itself was rather....basic.....and very isolated....but quite charming indeed. A string of wood and bamboo bungalows along a small beach with a small restaurant and bar. Nice, but far from town and all the action, and we were left completely dependent on the owners to transport us via their long boat to get us anywhere. But it'll do for a night, and once we settled in we quite liked the place. It was a cool and windy evening, and we spent the night in the restaurant and on the beach chatting with new friends and chasing the giant sand crabs.

Our plan was to stay the night, and then in the morning head back to the village to try and find something else. Preferrably something cheaper than this hotel (which we really can't afford,) and something not so isolated a-la Robinson Crusoe! Six of us from the hotel took the morning boat back to Phi Phi's village, only to arrive at the same time as another one of those massive tourist-filled ferries. We were all a bit panicked, as other guests had told us about their own difficulties trying to find an affordable - or an available - room on the island. Apparently things were so busy that people were actually having to sleep on the beach at night cause there was 'no room at the inn.' Holy cow! Things are crazy here!

Running back to the info centre, and actually beating the boat's passengers, we were shocked again to hear from the touts that all the 'cheap' rooms had already been snatched up that day. The only places left were uber-expensive ones, or those in isolated corners of the island. Hmmm...what to do?

It was at this point that a different tout - from another island - approached us with some brochures for resorts over there. Ko Lanta is just over an hour away by boat, and also has beautiful beaches, but you can find a nice bungalow for about 400 baht! This sounds like a much better deal!

And so, Janelle and I - once again - abandoned an island early and changed our plans. Roy decided to come along to Ko Lanta as well, as well as quite a few hundred other tourists left feeling stranded - or just plain poor - by Phi Phi's current strains. It was sad to say goodbye so early to such a strikingly gorgeous place (voted the third most beautiful island in the world, and also where they filmed the movie 'The Beach'), but I promised myself I'd visit again one day - during the low season!

Off to Ko Lanta we sailed, always in search of that perfect island paradise and that perfect beach. My eternal quest. Tune in later to see how Ko Lanta measures up with it's nearby more-famous cousins. :-)

The Amazing Race

Leaving Singapore, and unaware of it at the time, Janelle and I were about to begin on our longest journey yet. We were attempting to make it from Singapore to Ko Samui in Thailand in less than 48 hours. Leaving Spore at 1pm, would we be able to make it to that beautiful Thai island by the following night? Let's see what happens... The Amazing Race has begun!

We boarded our train and arrived back in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia just over seven hours later. Our train was late, and this left us with a very narrow time window to be able to being the second leg of the trip. Upon arriving at the station we had less than an hour to disembark from the first train, run up and buy tickets for the next one, eat dinner, change money over, and then get on the new train. With some mad running we managed to complete all of those tasks, and make it onto the second train leaving KL! Check Point #! We're still in the race!

This train was a sleeper train, and so Janelle and I settled in for our long ride into Thailand. Scheduled to be a 15-hour train ride, I wanted to try and sleep as much of it away as I could. I passed out in my bed and woke up the next morning just before immigration. We had to get off the train, go through Malaysian and Thai immigration, and then get back on the train again. Normally this is all a fairly quick procedure, but no one there seemed to have their shit together, and we all spent a lot of time just waiting on the train platform. Finally we had all been processed, and were back on the rails again, now in Thailand. Check Point #2!

We rolled into Hat Yai in southern Thailand about two hours late. It was now almost noon and the last ferry to Ko Samui left the coast - about 200 hundred kilometers to the north of where we were - at 6pm. Would we be able to make it? Here in Hat Yai we had our biggest roadblock to date - a nasty Thai lady at a shady travel agency. The Julie Cooper of Hat Yai, she was shrewd and greedy and when she looked at the two us with all our backpacks and desperate faces, all she saw were dollar signs to be made! She tried to sell us two bus tickets up to the ferry place for a 'special price' of 4000 baht! That's like a hundred bucks US!!! FUCK THAT, LADY! Hell, I could buy my own island in Thailand for that amount of money! When a 15 hour train ride costs less than twenty bucks, you can imagine the shock when you're offered a mere four-hour bus ride and short ferry hop for such a high price.

She tried to bargain us into buying those tickets, and was speaking a million miles a minute and kept trying to get us all worried that we'd miss the boat and that we had to 'leave right now!', but we weren't buying into her charade. No way we're gonna fork out that amount of cash! I'd rather lose our little race than give that greedy wench ten times the amount of money for what's fair! Sorry biatch, my sis and I have been around the Backpacker's Block more than a few times and we know what you're up to.

We ended up getting just basic bus transport to Surat Thani (ferry town) from her for 400 baht. Essentially the same journey, only minus the ferry ticket, for a tenth of the price. By the time the bus came by to pick us up it was 12:30pm. The clock was ticking. We just passed our first roadblock, but what would the delay cost us?

And of course our little minibus had to drive through every single street of Hat Yai to fill up the van before leaving. We cruised up and down through the city until all 11 seats were full, and then finally we were on the highway heading north. Less than four hours now. Tick tock tick tock tick tock...

A gas station stop later, plus a food/bathroom break, and then dropping every single passenger in the bus off before us, our bus driver arrived at the ferry pier....forty minutes after the last ferry had already left. NO!!!!! WE LOST THE RACE!!!! :-(

We were bummed to have missed the boat and to be stuck in Surat Thani overnight, but ahhhh well....can't say we didn't try. We bought our morning ferry ticket, checked into a hotel, and had some dinner. The next morning we caught the ferry and two and a half hours later arrived in Ko Samui. It was around 11am now, meaning that we've essentially been travelling for the last 46 hours. But hey, Ko Samui was bright and hot and gorgeous, and we had a white beach waiting for us.

We found a nice place to stay on the island, right in the main traveller's beach area, Chaweng, and made a b-line for the beach. Ko Samui is quite a large island, and it even has its own airport. This has made the island quite developed, and it was quite different from what I was expecting. The island resembled Bali a lot, with all of its stores and restaurants and bars, and all the Western chains, but it was not without its charm. The beach is long, and filled with the softest, whitest sand I've seen yet on this trip. It was like walking on silky powder. God, it was gorgeous! And with gentle breezes blowing in from off the Gulf of Thailand, it was so so comfortable there.

And then the weather changed.

After two days of beautiful sun, a mini-hurricane descended upon us and everything changed. It began to rain, no, POUR, the winds howled, and the surf rose and rose and rose. Soon enough that gorgeous beach was completely submerged under the pounding waves, which now reached all the way up to the edge of our bungalow's restaurant. So much for working on our tans!

Janelle and I weathered the storm as best we could, but after two days of cabin fever, and with our next destination supposed to be nearby Ko Tao, we decided to change plans. Knowing that if this weather kept up, we wouldn't be able to dive on world-renowned diving paradise Ko Tao anyway, so may as well skip across to the other coast. Hopefully we can find some sun there!

I was a bit disappointed to leave Ko Samui so soon, or rather with half our time being in the torrential rains, but hey you can't control the weather. At least we ate really well on Ko Samui. The island's got a lot of great restaurants, and it had actually stopped raining our last night in town so we went out for a special dinner. We went to a restaurant right next to the beach and had truly delicious seafood dinners. I had shark steak with a lemongrass cream sauce and it was so freaking yummy!!! A good way to end our stay on Samui. We'll head to Ko Phi Phi next, and hope that things are brighter over there.

Big Brother Loves Santa

The trip down to Singapore was a breeze. Our train left KL at just after 8:30 in the morning and about seven hours later we rolled into Singapore. The train was fast and comfortable, and Immigration at the border between the two didn't take all that long. Apparently there was a big scary man with a big scary gun standing next to the queues for Immigration on the Singapore side but only my sister saw that. Sends out quite the strong message - "Don't fuck with Singapore!" Luckily my sister and I have full intentions of behaving ourselves while on this tiny island nation, and we passed into the country without any sticky situations with customs like we experienced when we left Indonesia.

At the train station we (of course) found some locals hawking brochures for their hostels, so we picked one and went along for the ride to go and check it out. Turned out to be an alright place in a good central location. Driving through the streets of Singapore was a bit odd. It felt as if we could've been driving through somewhere back home, like Toronto or Denver or something Western like that. Wide streets with proper lanes (and drivers actually behaving themselves instead of zigzagging through oncoming traffic which is the norm in the rest of Asia), huge square skyscrapers soaring up above our heads, lots and lots of greenery and parks, and streets so clean you could practically eat off of them. Singapore is actually known as the Cleanest City In Asia, and I fully believe it. With very stiff fines for littering, spitting, or even smoking in public, it's no wonder that the streets are completely free of any garbage. Hell, Singapore is a Western city that Western cities back home aspire to be.

Singapore is known globally as 'The Nanny State' because of it's stiff control over immigration, public behavior, social organization, traffic and housing, laws, and well, just about everything, really. Besides the laws over littering/spitting/etc., Singapore has a wide range of laws varying from extremely strict drug penalties (death) to limiting the amount of car ownership in the country, to the maximum height of buildings allowed, to the number of people living within x-amount of square metres before constructing a subway station to... Well it all feels like one giant social experiment, to be honest. Almost a little 'Big Brotherish' actually, you can see the government's gentle guiding hand just about everywhere. However, it seems to be working out pretty well for the locals. Everyone speaks perfect English, people actually wait at traffic lights before crossing, home ownership is the highest in the world, people are respectable and well-behaved, the city's layout and transit networks are organized and efficient to a near degree of OCD, ... It's a really cool place, but it sorta feels like a combination of Stepford and SimCity, in an Asian context.

Regardless, it's a very easy place to be a tourist. Almost too easy one could say. Janelle and I would be walking down the street, shopping bags in hand from Converse and TopShop, having just left HMV, on our way to a Starbucks, discussing whether we want pizza or sushi for dinner, listening to the nearest TATU single being blasted out from a giant TV billboard, and surrounded by a billion and one Christmas decorations hanging from the palm trees. Cool, but surreal at the same time. You almost feel like you're cheating, like you've left BackpackerWorld behind temporarily, and you actually forget that you're really, really far from home. If it wasn't for the constant tropical heat and humidity (Singapore is only 1 degree above the equator and is therefore hot and sweaty year round) you'd swear you were in Vancouver or Los Angeles or something.

And about Christmas... I haven't thought too much about the upcoming holidays while on this trip, until here. Not that I'm not excited to be going home for the holidays (I'm thrilled) but I've tried to keep my headspace over here so I can really enjoy the moment and maximize my fun here in Asia, but it's impossible to ignore Christmas while in Singapore. Orchard Road (the main shopping street of Singapore) is decked out full-out hard-core for Christmas. Giant electric stockings and candycanes and evergreen trees hang above the streets, red ribbon and coloured lights are covering every available surface, and they're actually playing Christmas carols in the streets.

The weirdest part was that because it's so warm it really feels like it's all fake, like a Hollywood set, like they're trying so hard to push in this Western holiday that feels nothing like the familiar Christmas I've grown up with. To me, it's not Christmas unless there's snow on the ground, there's a -30 degree windchill outside, there's a decorated tree in my house, and I'm having to run like a mother banshee to get from the house to the car so I can finish my last-minute shopping at the local mall.

Here, you'd be in a nice air-conditioned bookstore (like the massive Borders), and you'd step outside into the streets, only to be hit like a tsunami by the humidity, and then the next instant look around to see all the holly and reindeers and hear "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" while you sweat like a pig in your shorts and sandals. Something doesn't seem to add up in this picture! I'm in Make-BelieveLand! Haha! I've had two non-cold Christmases in my life (one in California, and then last year's in the Philippines) and they've both felt rather odd and foreign to me. Now I'm here in Singapore, it's mid-November, and Singapore has holiday spirit coming out of it's ying-yang. It's like they're overdosing on The Christmas Drug and keep going back for thirds. The city's high on candy canes and mistletoe and everyone's running around with sugarplums dancing in their heads. I feel like this place could be The North Pole, only all the elves are Asian, instead of snow there's palm trees and tropical ferns, and all the toys come from Esprit, Levi's, or Armani. Bizarre!

We really did have a lot of fun here though. I did a bit more shopping (but that's the last of it, I promise!), checked out the cool Urban Planning Museum one afternoon, and on another afternoon we had a fun-filled day at the Singapore Zoological Gardens and the next-door Night Safari. Night Safari is like a second zoo, only it's full of only nocturnal animals so you visit it at night and either ride through on a tram in the dark, or scurry along all the trails in the jungle woods looking for bats, tigers, hyenas, and flying squirrels (some safely behind fences and moats, and others in cages that you can walk through.) It's probably the coolest zoo in the world and being there totally makes you feel like a kid again.

For being such a big, bright, and modern city, our guesthouse was not what you'd expect to find. Accommodation is rather expensive here (actually bloody everything is expensive in Singapore!) and so our room was a fairly basic guesthouse. We had aircon which was nice, but our toilet didn't really flush, which of course I didn't find out until I took a shit and then spent two and a half days and 37 flushes trying to get it to go down the bowl, our shower drain backed up with shampoo foam, and we found a cockroach scurrying out from under the bed that was so big it actually had a train of dust bunnies stuck to it that it was parading around the room. Oh, the fun! :-)

All in all, I actually had a really good time in Singapore, even if it was really expensive. It was nice to get a taste of 'normal' Western life again, I actually went out on the town on my own one night and for once didn't look like a grubby backpacker (thanks the new clothes I had just bought), and the variety of restaurants and shops left us swimming in choices. And despite my teasing, I must confess that I kinda did like all the Christmas get-up, and actually did feel myself slipping into Holiday Mode a bit and looking forward to celebrating it for real, with my family and the cold and snowy evergreens back in Canada in a few weeks.

Well we've had our fun in the big Westernized cities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, now it's time to get back to Southeast Asia's biggest draw - The Beaches! Thailand, with your glorious sun, island jewels, and aquamarine waters, here we come! :-)

Ka-Ching!

It was so sad to leave Bali. What a beautiful island, what fantastic memories of that place. We really didn't want to leave, but, as Scot said, "It's good to miss a place when you leave it. Otherwise if you don't, you know you stayed too long." Good words, my man! True dat!

We were scheduled to catch an early afternoon flight, but ran into some problems with...the authorities...before getting on the plane. We were going through immigration when suddenly the Immigration Dude looked at me with those cold dead-fish oh-so serious eyes, and informed me that I had overstayed my visa in Indonesia by one day too long. Uh-oh. You may not think that one day would be a big deal, but when it comes to the law, everything in Indonesia is a big deal. Janelle and I had screwed up in our calculations for when we had to leave the country (it's unclear on the visa) and now we were both being escorted into 'that special room' behind those 'big doors' you see at customs where you just know that evil things are happening behind them. Indonesia's a nation where even suspected drug trafficers are given the death penalty, and where overstaying your visa can be warrant enough to be thrown in jail. A million panicky thoughts were flooding through our heads as we were ushered into that room where tourists never come out of.

Fortunately, everything worked out. The Immigration Dude in the room was actually quite friendly, and we explained our situation and apologized profusely. Instead of being thrown in jail, we were simply fined $20 each. Phew! "Yes, yes! That'll be fine, sir! Thank you, sir! We're sorry, sir!" And a few minutes later we were back in the land of the living and boarding the plane. Two hours and forty minutes later we landed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, safe and sound.

And what a change in scene it was! Indonesia is a remarkably beautiful country, but it's definitely a developing nation. After a month in the Third World, Kuala Lumpur (KL) seemed like jumping into the future, as if we had somehow magically arrived in the year 2030 or something. The airport was brand new and gorgeous, and we boarded a high-speed train that whisked us into the city centre in only 28 minutes. Upon arrival in the city we couldn't get over all the big modern skyscrapers surrounding us, and the many LRT lines with little trains zipping all over the place. Way cool! We checked into our hostel, had some dinner, and then made a b-line for The attraction of all attractions in KL - the world-famous Petronas Towers.

Out of the LRT station we found ourselves inside the mother of all shopping malls, and we meandered outside to find the towers...right on top of us. We stepped out those big glass mall doors, turned around, and looked up. Way up. Like W-A-Y UP!!! And there they were. Lit up like two twin megalithic candles, the Petronas Towers soared above us straight up the heavens. They were completely and utterly magnificent. You see those towers in pictures, or on TV (ever seen the movie 'Entrapment'?) but you have no idea how huge they are until you're right at their toes. They're really, really, fucking tall!!

Although they've been trumped in the last year by Taiwan's Taipei 101 Tower, and therefore now only rank as the second tallest skyscrapers in the world, lemme tell ya that being #2 ain't bad at all. The shape of the towers alone is so unique, with the alternating combo of circular and triangular protusions, and the towers' billion and one lights that shine out Malaysia's confidence to the world are pretty amazing too, but it's that SkyBridge that really makes the buildings truly incredible. Joining the two twin towers at Level 41 and 42, is the double-decker SkyBridge that practically seems to hover in that fragile space between the two ginormous needles. You really just can't take your eyes off those Petronas Towers once you've looked at them. They're as awe-inspiring as any building ever could be.

Janelle and I took some time to soak in all the towers' gloriousness. We laid out in the park across the street from them and just stared up at them and chatted for like two hours or something. Naturally, given that they're twin towers, the conversation couldn't help but eventually turn to what used to be the world's most famous twin towers - the WTC in New York. Staring up at buildings this big, you can only begin to imagine how shocking it must have been to watch those New York towers collapse completely. To see those images on TV were one thing...but to witness that with your own eyes....wow...

We also talked about how we felt bad that neither of us had ever been to New York to see them before they were gone, and that now we never will. And then I felt bad for thinking that, when really I should be thinking about how tragic it is how all those people lost their lives in that disaster. Towers on this scale, like the Petronas in KL, act as such a landmark, a centre of gravity, a constant focus for people to live there. What must New York be like now for New Yorkers now that the WTC is gone? Has the Empire State Building or Chrysler Building reclaimed that role, as something that you use as a beacon for direction, or just to gaze at when your mind wanders? It's got me curious, anyway.

Our next day was a very consumerist-crazed day. Our shopping day. Hell, it was The Mother of all shopping days. It started off with us wandering through the Penaling Market in Chinatown, and then realizing that we really were sick of markets. Yeah you can find some real bargains in them, but the constant harrasing by the vendors just gets under your skin sometimes. You feel such pressure, so tense when you're shopping there, that you wonder in the end if it was worth getting that deal. Sure you can save a lot of money shopping in the Asian markets, but you don't really have a relaxing time while at it.

Instead, we went back to that mall at the bottom of the Petronas Towers. And oh baby, did we ever DO that mall that day. We stripped that mall down, scoured it from top to bottom, used and abused it, and sucked it dry for all that it was worth. That mall was nothing but a naked, quivering, pile of frightened jelly in the corner by the time my sister and I were through with it. Blame it on my absence from good shopping access for over a year and a half, but I went wild in that mall. I spent a small fortune on clothes, and bought sooooo many goodies. I now have tons of new winter clothes to look forward to wearing upon my return to the Arctic this December. I probably spent more than I should have, but I don't feel guilty at all. In Korea I could never go shopping, cause either the clothes there didn't fit me, or were just too fucking ugly that I'd never buy them. This mall, however, was overflowing with cool stores, including a bunch of European chains that we don't have back in Canada. It was Ka-Ching Ka-Ching Ka-Ching all day long, and it made me feel damn good. Like eating an entire jar's worth of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting, you have that slightly-guilty but sinfully-delicious feeling of fullness when you're done. It was awesome.

And, the whole time we got to shop in peace! No harrassing, no being yelled at by vendors, no having to bargain or wonder if you're being ripped off. Just good ol' fashioned Western-style shopping, where you're blinded by all the lights, ignored by the sales staff, and in the end still wish that your outfit looked as good on you as it did on the mannequin. Good times! Besides the shopping, Janelle and I also had a big dinner there at Chi-chi's (delicious!) and spent a lot of time browsing through the Lonely Planets in a giant bookstore. And I even bought two magazines for myself! (GQ and Details.) Woohoo! This day is just full of treats!

We were much better-behaved the next day. We had a wonderful buffet lunch at the top of the Menara Kuala Lumpur (the world's fourth tallest tower), enjoying the splendid view of the city below from the rotating restaurant. And then browsed through some more.... Okay okay, yes, we went back to the mall. But it wasn't the same one! It was a different one, I swear! Actually we went to four malls that day, but they were all small, and I only bought one shirt. And another belt. So really, I was quite a good boy after all, right? Later that night we went and saw 'The Legend of Zorro' (an okay movie) and then on to bed.

On our last full day in KL we returned to the Petronas Towers, but this time we actually went up them. There's 88 floors in the building, but the only public access is up to - and across - the SkyBridge. It's free to visit them, but they're pretty strict about it. They only give out 800 tickets a day, and you're given a specific time slot as to when you can come. And then you're only allowed 10 minutes up there. We madly took a bunch of photos, and enjoyed the dizzying sensations of vertigo that came from staring down at the city. It was a pretty cool visit, and an experience that's definitely a must for all visitors to KL.

Later that we went back to the train station to buy our tickets for the next day, and then back to the hostel. Janelle wasn't feeling too hungry that night so I ventured out for dinner on my own. I ended up at this restaurant chain called 'Kenny Rogers Roasters.' The name made me chuckle, as I thought of the famous country singer of the same name, and was amused by the coincidence. However, when I sat down and looked at the menu, I saw....a picture of Kenny Rogers - THE Kenny Rogers! - on the logo! And then I looked at the wall, and there, sure enough, was an actual photo of the country crooner. Wow! I had no idea that Kenny had ventured off into food projects as well. My chicken turned out to be, in all honesty, really freaking delicious! DAMN, Kenny! Who knew that not only can you sing a sweet tune at the Grand Ol' Opry, but you can whip up a mean batch of roasted chicken back in that kitchen? Sweetness!

So we had to leave the next morning bright and early, and that's probably a good thing. We've bought so much here in KL that we actually had to buy a duffle bag to help us carry it home. Another day or two here and who knows what further damage we could do to our wallets? (Un)fortunately, our next destination also hails itself as a shopping mecca - Singapore. Uh-oh...do I spy with my shopaholic eye some more shopping adventures on the horizon? ;-)

Get Into The Groove

Today was another one of those long, long travel days. Indonesia seems to be full of those. An incredibly beautiful country, but DAMN it's frickin' big! And what's with all these islands all over the place that take forever to cross and involve ferries and shit. It's called "Hello! Just build some bridges and giant super-fast freeways to connect it all! It's like so totally easy!" (Kidding, of course!) The best things in life take more than a little effort to get, and Indonesia definitely fits that rule all the way.

Janelle and I left Bali bright and early and took a two-hour bus ride up the coast to the port town of Padangbai. We had breakfast there and then got onto a big massive, dirty ferry to take us from Bali across the straits to Lombok. The trip took about four and a half hours and was actually quite scenic. We sat up on the roof-top 'patio' area where all the other foreigners seemed to congregate (god we're all sheep) and there we all baked in the sun all afternoon. All the locals smartly hid in the shade and stared at us in curious perplexment, wondering, I'm sure, as to why the hell we're so dumb as to just sit and sweat it out like pigs in the sun all afternoon. Oh, you silly foreigners, you!

From Lambar in Lombok we caught a bus to take us another two hours or so up Lombok's coast to the tiny 'town' of Bangsal. And once again we got on to another boat to take us the final leg of our journey. This time it was no giant-ass ferry, but long skinny motor boats filled entirely with tired, hungry, cranky, sun-burned foreigners all headed for the same place - the Gilis - and all ready and waiting for all that island bliss that was promised to us in those glossy travel brochures and ever-so-vivid descriptions in The Book. It was around 5 or 6pm, I believe, when our boat crashed onto the shores of Gili Trawangan and we all jumped out into the surf - our first introduction to those islands a wet and salty one. Just the way that one should arrive in tropical paradise, I think.

The Gilis are famous in the Backpackers' Circuit, but for all those of you who are Domestic Civilians back home, you may not be familiar with them. The Gilis are three tiny, perfect islands off the northwest coast of Lombok. They're really nothing but pure white sand barely sticking out of the sea, surrounded by the clearest waters that you could possibly fathom and fringed with some fish-filled coral reefs. Gili Trawangan is the largest of the three (Gili Meno and Gili Air are the other two) but even then it's only 2 km wide and 3 km long.

And oh what heavenly places they are. So quiet, so relaxed, and so very, very beautiful. They're the kind of islands that you wish you would get shipwrecked on. The weather is gorgeous, the sand clean and soft, the water so clear it's best described as 'transparent turquoise', and the magnificent mountains of Lombok loom menancingly in the distance. People come here for the excellent snorkelling and scuba diving, and the chance just to sit on a beach all day and listen to the island breezes.

It only takes about a day to get into The Island Groove, and Janelle and I soon succumbed to the island's sweet blissful seduction. Scot and Sarah had arrived there the day before us so the four of us met up and spent three perfect days just lazing it away. All three days consisted of a fairly familiar routine that consisted of breakfast, followed by a swim in the sea and some quality time with our beach towels. At some point we'd get hungry again, so then we'd go for a long, slow lunch, and then of course partake in some more beach time, perhaps interrupted by some snorkelling over the reef. And then when all of that became just too much tropical goodness to take in any longer, we'd go for a late afternoon coffee where we'd chat and just be radiating all the heat that we soaked up that day, and then back to our bungalows to shower up for the night. Then the Big Decision of where to eat dinner would have to be taken care of (Oh! The difficult choices one has to make!), followed by a long, slow dinner at one of the island's many beach-side restaurants where you just sit on a pile of massive cushions and listen to the waves lap and feel the soft winds blow through your hair. And then after the meal (often fresh seafood caught that day) we'd move on to either a movie at one of the many mini cinemas, or out for a drink somewhere. And then when we got all tuckered out we'd head home for bed, only to wake up the next day and do it all over again. Oh, the suffering of this life that we had to live. It was truly painful, but hey someone's gotta do it I guess, so it may as well be me. Don't worry guys, I'll take one for the team and volunteer to get stuck on this miserable island. It's all good! Heh heh! ;-)

Seriously though, it was sheer, glorious paradise through and through. I asked Scot one of those days, when we had just finished another gorgeous day at that gorgeous beach in those gorgeous waters, "Do you ever feel that your life is so amazing that it's like you don't even deserve it?" I mean this in all sincerity. It's days like these, in such spectacular locations like this, where I often wonder what I did that was so good to deserve all of this. I must have been a very, very good boy in a past life or something to be able to enjoy all these beautiful experiences being handed to me on a silver platter day after day. I'm a very, very lucky boy. And I want the universe to know how thankful I am for all of it, and that I don't ever take a second of it for granted.

When you've gotten yourself into The Groove for more than a few days, you start to slip into this mindspace where you can see yourself staying there for like three more months, and not really getting bored of that routine. At least not me. I've discovered a lot of things about myself on this trip, but one creature feature about yours truly that I've had reconfirmed a hundred times is that at heart I'm a child of the sea. I truly am a beach boy. No, I'm not about to break into 'Kokomo'... What I mean is that I feel like the ocean is such an important part of my being that I can't ever imagine living somewhere (long term) that wasn't right next to it. There's just something about the beach and the sea that I feel I need to be connected to all the time. I don't know if it's the sound of the crashing surf, the smell of the seasalt in the air, the touch of the soft sand or breezes blowing in off the waters, or just the sight of the sheer immensity and power of the ocean that feeds my soul and gives me such comfort and peace.

I grew up on Lake Superior which is pretty much a freshwater ocean, and although I never actually spent a lot of time on those waters, having that constant presence of all that H20 really does help shape who a person becomes. And then, of course, living in Vancouver, the sea was a part of my daily life. Besides being a beautiful backdrop for my day-to-day goings, the beach was where I went to have fun with friends, to relax in the sun, to be alone when I was sad, to gather thoughts, to write in my journal, to stare out at and just imagine...all kinds of things. I have so many memories connected to living next to that great Pacific Ocean. And then when I moved to Seoul, Korea I felt so detached, so...sadly separated...like I had lost a part of me.

And now, after all these adventures here on this great islands, I know how much being next to an ocean means to me. Besides being a source of endless recreational opportunities, the sea is my connection to the rest of the planet (just think of all the great cities and countries that those waters touch,) and to the rest of the planet. Mother Gaia. The giver of life, the energy that binds us all.

Okay now I'm getting all new-agey and eco-spiritual and shit so I better stop there. But I really did have a blast in the Gilis. I got to see a lot of beautiful fish swimming in those underwater reef cities, spent a lot of time just soaking up the rays and feeling that lovely lethargy that comes from spending too much time in the hot sun, and had some great nights out with my sister and Scot and Sarah. We even had a rip-roarin' night out at the Irish Pub in town one night, where we had plenty of drinks and laughter all together, along with some new friends that we met on the island - Diana from Ireland, Hagen from Germany, Jenny from Jakarta... Great memories.

On our fourth and sadly final day we had to do the whole big journey again in reverse to get back to Bali. It was another long day, but it didn't seem to take as long, and having good company helps to pass the hours, for sure. Janelle and I checked back into that same fab hotel again where Laura & Wiebrand were waiting for us, and the six of us checked back into our Bali Island Groove for a couple days again.

The next day we had another long day at Kuta Beach, and for our last night all together went out and had a really awesome, crazy night out on the town. We started off at this huge, cavernous club that filled up later, and after a wholatta beer (well, Tom Collins for me, actually) we all got brave enough to hit the dance floor and shake our booties. Scot & Sarah had to get up early the next morning for their flight to Singapore so they ducked out sometime after midnight. The party didn't stop there, though. We moved locations to the club next door, which btw is housed inside a GIANT pirate ship, where more drinks and dancing ensued. Janelle and Laura went all 'Girls Gone Wild' and danced up a storm all naughtily in the cages attracting a literal line-up of guys waiting to dance with them inside the cage, or as one guy did, climb all up and over the cage like a monkey gone mad. Oh, what crazy times!!! It was a total blast, and sometime after 3am we were too tired to drink or dance anymore so we went back to the hotel and hit the hay.

On our last day in Bali the four of us attempted - but failed - to go banana-boating in boring, senior-citizen-riddled Senur Beach, but made up for that loss by driving out to the Tanah Lot sea temple to watch the sunset. Truly beautiful. We had one last dinner together and it really was sad to say goodbye to them the next morning. Janelle and I have had such fun with them and are really going to miss those guys. So strange to think that last night all six of us were together drinking it up in a nightclub in Bali, and in a week's time we'll all be in different corners of the globe. Scot & Sarah will be in Sydney, Laura & Wiebrand in Cape Town, and Janelle & I in Kuala Lumpur. That's so weird. Just goes to show how ridiculously easy it is to travel vast distances in such a short amount of time nowadays. And how important it is to enjoy The Now, The Moment, cause blink and in a second it'll have disappeared and life has moved on to something new just like that. Hmm.

So now I say goodbye to Bali. And thank you as well. Thank you for your beautiful scenery (beach-wise and eye-candy-wise,) the wonderful people you've introduced me to, and for making me feel rather reflective and philisophical these days. You've certainly cast your spell on this Canadian boy. :-)

Sun, Sand, & Surf

Ahhhh yes...the three 'S's that a true backpacker really just can't live without. Well, at least not when this backpacker's name is Scottie Too Hottie! Hot as I am on my own (although not hot enough for Angelina Jolie it seems, as determined by her still-burning snub back in Cambodia,) a boy needs a little extra help from Mr. Golden Sun to really, truly fulfill that title. And god bless Bali for supplying all three of those glorious 'S's in pure and ready abundance.

Mmmm....pure and ready abundance....of anything....mmmm....

Alrighty then. Our long bus-ferry-bus odyssey from Bromo to Bali (B2B! The title of my next studio album, maybe?) was so damn worth it thanks to Bali. Bali is pure fucking heaven. There's a reason why it's pretty much the number one beach resort in the world. It's got everything baby, and lemme tell ya that S2H likes to have it all. I'm not the kind of guy that likes to share (unless it's a bucket of chocolate pudding, or an impromptu spanking, or both together), but luckily for the other tourists Bali has plenty of goodies to go around.

We stayed in the heart of it all Kuta, and were only minutes from the beach. And oh what a beach it was! Kuta Beach isn't all white sandy and calm turquoisey waters like Boracay, and it's not all quiet and chill like Mui Ne, and it's certainly not all family-friendly like, say, St. Petersburg, Florida. Kuta Beach is like the Bad Boy of the world's beaches. It's big, it's rough and tough, it's got virtual 24-hour mega surf, and all the eye candy that a voyeuristic hedonist you could ever hope for. Huge crashing waves cascading over golden bronzed Aussie surfer boys. Gentle breezes blowing ever-so gently over the ample bosoms of mahogany-haired Italian supermodels. The hot-as-hell sun rays causing beads of sweat to drip down the perfectly sculpted chest and six-pack of blond blue-eyed Swedish hunks. Bubbly surf wrapping like a liquid blanket around the toned creamy skin of the running, bouncing, frolicking English girls. Seriously, what more could you possibly ask for?

Kuta, admittedly, is rather commercial and hyper-Western, and therefore it's very trendy for backpackers to diss Kuta and pretend they're too cool for it. Those that do are the same snobby lame-asses who think they're soooo above Bangkok's Khoa San Road, or turn their nose up at Lonely Planet guide books (but then a minute later you catch them sneaking a glance at yours.) I hate those kind of backpackers. Well, I don't actually hate them, per se, but they do really annoy me. I've always believed in experiencing everything that a country has to offer, and honestly think that every place has something good to offer a traveller, so why limit yourself? I'm the kind of guy that loves getting off the main roads and disappearing off the map into a jungle or volcanic crater, but I'm also the same guy who loves to party it up with a dozen different drunk nationalities at some bar in Bangkok or Bali. And I'm not the least bit embarrassed about that. And so, I proclaim to the world, that I love Bali, and I love Kuta!

Janelle and I made fast friends with our four bus buddies, and the six of us became near inseparable during our stay in the island paradise. Laura, Wiebrand, Scot, and Sarah became really great friends, and the six of us had a blast every single day. We ate pretty much all of our meals together, and hung out all day long. We soaked up the rays together on the beach, learned how to boogie-board in the massive mini-tsunamis rolling in every ninety seconds, shopped-til-we-dropped up and down the Poppies lanes, sampled all kinds of delicious foods (both local and foreign) at a hundred and one different restaurants, and pretty much were having a laugh the entire time.

This is the other half of travelling. Seeing the sites and doing the activities is only 50% of the joy of backpacking. The other half is meeting all these wonderful people from different corners of the globe and becoming the best of friends for your short stay together. I love it. It is this experience of very fast, very intense bonding with other travellers that I will miss the most when I go back home.

Besides our new buddies, immaculate tans growing more golden by the second, and abundance of salt in our hair courtesy of the Indian Ocean, Janelle and I were blessed with finding a really awesome, kick-ass hotel. Laura, Wiebrand, Janelle, and I found this incredible steal of a deal in Kuta that was only a few minutes from the beach (Scot & Sarah stayed at a cheaper place around the corner.) Listen to all that this place had to offer. You're gonna be so excited and suspended in such disbelief that you really will pee your pants:

It was a brand new hotel, (only a year and a half old,) had huge rooms with big comfy beds, clean sheets, and thick blankets, luscious aircon, TV, balconies, giant bathrooms with bath and shower (separate from the rest of the bathroom by an honest-to-goodness shower curtain,) hot water and water pressure that could kill a pony, and the nicest swimming pool that I've ever laid eyes upon, complete with a swim-up bar!!! All of this for only 110,000 rupiahs a night! (that's about $11 US!) CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!?? I stayed there and I still can't. It was the nicest hotel that I've ever stayed in in my life. Really.

We spent three nights there and I really wanted to just move in and live there. I had the best sleeps ever in that bed, actually felt thoroughly clean to the core (except in thought, of course), and had a good healthy sample of cocktails while swimming in that pool at night with my sister and friends. (Hooray for pina coladas!) Life really doesn't get any better than this.

Bali is like therapy for the soul, and after a few days there I really felt so warm and so good. Having a tan to die for is nice as it is, but being able to suntan/boogieboard/shop/eat/drink with four really cool people in such a beautiful place makes you feel even better. Everybody in the world needs to holiday in Bali at least once in their lives, but I estimate that around eight or nine visits would be a better minimum. We'll definitely be back again, and this I know for a fact as we have to return after our next destination - the Gilis.

Off we go...

Volcanic Dreamlands

For the first time in quite a while I woke up today feeling pretty darn good. Not achey. Not queasy. Not all dead-weighty. Hooray for good health! I guess I was a bit off with my malaria/dengue fever/cholera diagnosis, eh? Good thing I'm an English teacher and not a doctor! haha...

Anyway, today was a bit of an 'Amazing Race' day. A day where we had a final destination in mind, but knew that it would take a lot of various forms of transport to get there, and we seriously didn't think it would be possible to make it all the way in one day. We were trying to get to Mt. Bromo, and luckily for us the Travel Gods were smiling down on us today. After our six-hour train ride from Jogja to Surabaya, we were accosted by a man on the station platform who took us to an agent that could get us on a mini-bus ASAP. The bus took us to Probolinggo, and from there we transferred to a public bus heading up the mountain. All the pieces seemed to be falling into place at the right time, and we were both quite pleased considering that we had only estimated that we'd make it as far as Surabaya that day!

It was dark by the time we got there, and it had taken a lot more rupiahs than we had anticipated, but we finally arrived on the top of Mt. Bromo by the end of the day. Woohoo! Expecting to jump out of our bus and onto a little platform to find 'Amazing Race' host Phil waiting for us, with a local in full costume to welcome us to Mt. Bromo, and then hearing "Congratulations! You're the first team to arrive," we were a little disappointed to see no one there waiting for us, no TV cameras, no prize to be won... But hey we're on Bromo! That's prize enough! We were shocked to realize, however, how damn cold it was on top. But, considering that we're 2700 metres above sea level, I guess that's to be expected. We donned our woolies, checked into our room, and after dinner went straight to bed.

After a good sleep-in and a long breakfast, Janelle and I took a stroll through the little town so that we could get our bearings. And oh wow, what bearings they were! The town, Cemoro Lawang, is precariously balanced on the edge of a massive volcanic crater. And inside this gigantic crater (we're talking several kilometres in diameter here!) are three volcanic cones, one of which is steaming, and surrounding the big crater are other volcanic peaks. And far in the distance looms Mt. Semeru - the biggest, baddest volcano in all of Indonesia. The crater floor (known as The Sand Sea) is nearly completely devoid of any vegetation, and with the lava mountains steaming all around, the place looks more like the surface of an alien planet than somewhere here on Earth. It's definitely the most other-worldly vista that I've ever laid eyes upon!

Mt. Bromo is the name of the steaming volcano in the middle of the crater, and it's here that the tourists flock from around the world to scale up its side and then gaze down into its steaming mouth. We decided to rent horses and travel to Bromo this way instead of walking. It ended up being a total blast, even though I've only ever been on a horse once in my life and so was feeling a little unsure what to do. The horse was also much too small for me as well (he looked more like a big pony) and I felt kinda bad making him drag my fat ass up and down that crater rim as he was making kinda funny noises on the uphill portions. Poor guy!

The views as we crossed the Sand Sea were unbelievable. It was windy and dusty, and the whole place had a sorta 'Wild West' feel to it. Like Janelle and I were desperados on the run, hiding out in this stark, empty landscape. Way cool. We got to the bottom of Bromo and had to climb up the staircase to the top. Being so high in elevation we were completely out of breath, and had to stop for rests several times. The view from the top though was completely and utterly breathtaking! Bromo's open jaw gaped up at us and emitted a foul, sulphuric vent of steam. The cool wind whipped our hair around and threatened to push us off the top. And all around us was the wide open expanse of the Sand Sea below us. AMAZING!

We took a little hike around a quarter of the rim's edge and it was quite perilous in places. One wrong step and you'd either be rolling down into the Sand Sea, or even worse, into Bromo's angry steamy mouth! But, again, with views like that you just can't say no. You could travel every corner of the globe and never see a sight like this. It's volcanoes up and close like you've never imagined, high atop the world in the upper atmosphere, with 360 degrees of peaks, cones, craters, and hardened lava. Wow wow wow. This is a geographer's dream come true. I've always been fascinated with volcanoes for as long as I can remember, and now here I was standing on top of one. Surrounded by a half-dozen other even bigger ones. I just wanted to soak in as much of the moment as I could.

We took the horses back into town and had a relaxing afternoon reading and eating. The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn. No, let me rephrase that. We woke up several hours before the crack of dawn actually. 3:30am to be precise. Now normally I'd be unable to provide a valid reason for voluntarily waking up at such an ungodly hour, but we had good reasons today. We were going to be driven up one of the local volcanoes to watch the sun rise. We were shuffled into a jeep with some other keen travellers, and we took off back into the crater. And we weren't the only ones either. Behind and ahead of us, a virtual stream of jeep lights proceeded across the crater, caravan-style, all for the same destination. The top of Mt. Penanjakan borders the crater to the north, and it's from its lofty peak that all the postcard photos are taken.

The road was long, steep, and very windy as we climbed up the mountain, and when we got to the top we had just a short hike to our viewpoint. There we huddled in the freezing cold of the early morning (temperatures must've been barely above zero, I kid you not) and watched the sun slowly creep above the horizon. The display put forth by Mother Nature was well worth freezing my balls off at the top of that mountain. Beginning as only a faint orange flow behind distance peaks, the sky slowly brightened until the sun's firey orb rose up above the rocks. We all watched in sheer awe as the colours in the Sand Sea and on the volcanoes changed from black to grey to purpley-pink to brown. All the while lil' Bromo eagerly steamed away, and Semuru in the distance belched out fresh puffs of toxic volcanic ash into the crystal clear sky. Truly, truly magnificent.

After the sun was up everybody was driven back down to the base of Bromo, and once again we got to climb up the side. After enjoying the views for a second time we headed back to our hotel for breakfast, and then it was time to leave. We had tickets booked to take us to Bali, and it would turn out to be another very, very long day of travelling. After being dropped off at an oven-hot bus station for three hours, we caught an excrutiatingly long bus ride to the edge of Java. We were all bored to tears and eager to get to beachy Bali, but luckily Janelle and I had some good company to keep us entertained. We met Laura and Wibrand from Holland, and brother-sister duo Scott and Sarah from England, and the six of us passed the hours away by playing The Name Game.

Much, much later, after a ferry ride to Bali, and then another long bus ride along the edge of Bali, we finally arrived in Denpasar - the island's capital. Feeling exhasuted but knowing that we were almost at the end, the six of us pushed ourselves on to Kuta - the beach resort of all beach resorts in Asia. From Bromo to Kuta it took fifteen hours, two giant-ass islands, one ferry ride, and 1001 celebrity names to take us all the way there. Running completely on empty we browsed through a few hotels in a daze before finally just picking one and crashing to bed. God that was a long journey. Bali better be damn worth all that! ;-)

Mega Monuments Mixing With Morals

I was still feeling rather like crap when I woke up today but hopefully I'll be feeling better soon. My symptoms keep changing so it's been hard for me to figure out what's wrong. Still, confusion and ambiguity doesn't stop me from doing a little self-diagnosis, and so at the mo' I'm pretty sure I have malaria, dengue fever, *and* perhaps a little cholera. Either that, or I've got a cold. (the lines are blurred...so hard to tell...you know how it is.) I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings in the Health Department, eh?

After breakfast we made a b-line to the train station and were soon on our way to our next city - Yogyakarta. I'm actually a little disappointed that I didn't had a chance to explore Jakarta at all. I had heard so many awful things about Jakarta that I decided not to factor in any time at all to sightsee in the capital. From both other tourists and Indonesians I was told over and over again to "get in and then get the hell out" of Jakarta, so naturally I had imagined the worse.

Picturing something like Medan, but times ten and with even more pollution and urban grime, I was surprised to find Jakarta to be rather...green, clean, and so-not mean. Most of the major streets were large tree-lined boulevards flanked by lots of modern glass buildings, and there were tons of flowers and fountains all over the place. Granted all that we travelled was the airport-train station-backpacker's ghetto route, but still...it doesn't seem so evil like everyone said it would be. I fully expected to see car jackings, gun fights, and casual rapings on every street corner, but yet the capital simply seems to be a lively and well-kept place. Hmmm...next time around I'll have to give the city a proper chance.

Our first class train ride was quiet and uneventful, and we pulled into Yogyakarta in the early evening. The city's name is pronounced "Jogjakarta", which yes indeed does sound an awful lot like "Jakarta." Not sure the reasoning behind the similarity/unoriginality there. Jogja is Indonesian's self-professed 'culture capital' and we found it to be a lovely place with lots of quiet alleys and lanes to be explored. We only spent two nights here, and most of our time was actually spent checking out sights outside of the city. Again, I'll have to leave more time for Jogja next time I roll through Indonesia, as it seems to be a pretty cool place.

Our raison d'etre for stopping here was to go and see the world-famous Borobudur, a ginormous Buddhist monument that is Indonesia's single biggest attraction outside of Bali. We took a day tour that started with Borobudur and finished up with Prambanan - a massive complex of Hindu temples.

Borobudur, next to Cambodia's Angkor and Myannmar's Bagan, is Asia's biggest temple/monument for the ancient gods. And, like so many other major attractions, has had quite a history of its own. Built to mirror the universe and a tribute to Buddha, Borobudur was shortly abandoned after completion in the 8th Century. The powers that be in Java at the time were in the middle of switching over from Buddhism to Hinduism and so Borobudur was rather "so yesterday" by the time the massive structure was completed. Less than a century after this, the nearby massive Mt. Merapi blew it's top and the volcano buried the monument under a thick layer of ash. There it lay untouched for several centuries until it was rediscovered by a farmer digging on a hill ("Hmmm...that's not a rock under my shovel...Oh My Allah!...I just found the world's largest Buddhist monument! Crikey!")

Dug up and cleaned off by a team of very-excited archaeologists, Borobudur soon became a pilgrimage site and Numero Uno Tourist Attraction in Java. However, Borobudur's troubles were not over yet. In 1985 a Java-based group of terrorists (angry with the national government) planted a series of bombs which exploded atop the monument and caused a great deal of damage. The damaged chedis atop Borobudur were later repaired, and in recent years engineers have fixed the slumping foundation which had been threatening a complete collapse of the structure, so now once again Borobudur has been returned to its full glory. Yah!

Borobudur looks sorta like a giant black pyramid with giant upside-down bells on top (they're called 'chedis') and with it being situated atop a hill it has a very commanding presence over the local countryside. It was a bloody hot day when Janelle and I explored the monument with a guide, but certainly a beautiful one, and the monument's grandeur did not disappoint. We took the chance later to touch the 'Lucky Buddha' inside one of the chedis (girls are supposed to touch his ankle, and boys his ring finger) and walked around the highest level clockwise three times for good luck. We left Borobudur just as it was getting rather crowded with other tourists.

We continued next on to Prambanan, and although it's not quite as awe-inspiring as Borobudur, it too has its own fascinating history. Local legend says that a man fell in love with a beautiful princess (or some local hottie who had it goin' on apparently) but unfortunately she didn't feel the same way about him. Not wanting to turn down his offers of love directly (she had no balls), she told him that she would marry him if he was able to build a thousand temples for her in a single night (Hello, can we say 'High Maintenance?') The man had special powers (cause didn't like everybody have magic powers back in the day? Sigh, why couldn't I have lived back then...) he ran around super fast building all these beautiful temples of every shape and size to prove his love. Seeing that he was almost finished and not wanting to marry him, the chick made the sun rise earlier that day, or she made the local volcano explode and turn the sky red making the man think that it was morning already, or she did something sneaky and bitchy anyways to get out of her promise. Because of her actions, the love-sick man had only finished building 999 temples, and so she was able to escape her offer. However, knowing that she had cheated, the guy was more than a little pissed off with her (Hell, I'd be too! God why do some chicks keep on insisting on always frontin' on men?) so he turned her into a statue, and her petrified stone body became the final, one thousandth temple. (Haha! Take *that*, biatch!) Just goes to show you that you shouldn't break your promises, cheat when you know you're about to lose, or piss people off that can turn you into a statue! Yes indeedy, Prambanan is a lesson for us all! ;-)

The rains were starting to come by this point but Janelle and I did manage to see a few of the larger temples in the 80-hectare complex. (And there's actually only 243 temples, not 1000!) The temples were very beautiful with their ornate carvings, and each of them were devoted to various Hindu gods, like Shiva, Vishnu, and oh...I forget the name of the other one who's one of The Big Three. (Hey, a guy can't be expected to remember *everything!*)

After returning to Jogja we did a litte shopping, had some dinner, and then checked in early for the night. We've a loooooong travel day ahead of us tomorrow, but if we can make it all the way to the end, we'll be rewarded with one of Indonesia's most spectacular natural landscapes...

Stay tuned for more tales from Project Wanderlust, a subsidiary of The S2H World Tour! :-)