What do clouds taste like? Maybe you have never wondered, maybe you never thought you would get close enough to find out, maybe you think it’s a preposterous question. Whatever you think about the question, I now know the answer. How did I find out? It was not an easy journey but it was one I’ll never forget.
I believe that you can’t say that you have lived until you have done something really difficult. Something that you never thought you could do; and because of that you ended up seeing something so breath-taking that you can’t believe you have been so lucky. A trek to the top of Gungung Rinjani on the island of Lombok in Indonesia did both of these things and opened my eyes to what life has to offer, the smell of clarity and the taste of clouds.
After travelling in Asia for nearly 4 months, and for a not-so-fit and not-so-outdoorsy kind of girl, I had done a lot of trekking and hiking and outdoorsy kind of things, but none of them compared to what lay in store when I decided to climb Mount Rinjani on the island of Lombok. Truth be told I never wanted to go in the first place, it sounded like a hike for very experienced and very fit people and I am neither one of those, but sometimes fate and persuasive friends bring you spectacular things you never wished for, but are blessed to have experienced.
We set off on a three day trek up to the top of the famous Gunung Rinjani (Rinjani mountain) with its peak at 3726 meters to see the Gunung Baru volcano surrounded by the beautiful blue volcanic lake Danau Segara Anak. Standing at the bottom you feel like Mount Rinjani rises out of the heart of Lombok, where it covers the central part of the island with its impressive peaks. It is not an easy hike but once you have clambered through dense forest and across grassy savannah you come to the crater rim, 2642 meters above sea level, from where you look down on the most spectacular of views. On the hike up, after you have come out of the forest and across the hot savannah area you suddenly climb so high that you are literally inside the clouds. You can no longer see the path behind you as you are engulfed by soft white fog. You feel the condensation on your face, the strong freshness of the air in your lungs and if you open your mouth you can literally taste the clouds.
Even with all the positives this is not a hike for the faint hearted or unfit, and although I am not faint of heart I could definitely be fitter. After 8 hours of walking straight up my legs felt like they were about to cave in, and it was only day one. After a hot and gruelling day, the view from the top somehow made us all forget how tired we were because it truly was a heart stopping view. From the crater rim you look down on the milky turquoise lake below, with Gunung Baru volcano in the middle, with an ominous spiral of smoke coming out of the top, reminding you that it is alive and well. On day two we hiked down to the lake and got to wallow in the healing waters of the natural hot springs and then it was another three hours up to the other side of the crater rim for once again spectacular views.
Day three would prove to be the toughest as we were going to battle the summit. We had to be up at 3am to start the treacherous trek up the summit. Equipped with only a head torch, warm clothes and sheer determination, we began the upward climb. The wind was bitterly cold and ripped through your clothes and the terrain was the toughest we had yet encountered. You are hiking up volcanic rock which is like very very light gravel and so as you climb two steps up, you slide three steps back again, in the pitch dark. There were times I wanted to quit but I knew I would never forgive myself if I did so as the sun finally rose I made it to the top to view the new morning. With a 360 degree view you could see the entire island of Lombok, and as it was clear I could see Bali and the Gili Islands to the west and all the way to Komodo Island in the east. Priceless. Unfortunately this magnificent view was not the end, we now had to go down on shaky legs, back to camp and then down to the bottom of the mountain. A total of 10 hours of walking the last day, my knees were shaking so much by the time we got to the bottom I could hardly stand straight, but the experience was one I would never forget.
After climbing Mount Rinjani I suddenly understand that some of the hardest things in life are the most worth doing, and the sweat and pain makes the view even better. We spent the next two days in the picturesque little town of Kuta, Lombok, where we rested our aching bodies and I reminisced about the beauty we had seen, and the memory of what clouds really taste like.
Rinjani, Lombok, Indonesia
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
When it Rains it Pours, and Sometimes it Floods
– The Good the Bad and the Wet in Tempestuous Thailand (April 2011).
A cold bucket of water to the face. That is how the day begun. And from there it only got wetter. That is the kind of day I was having, my clothes were dripping, my hair sticking to my face and as I turned to escape the onslaught of water I was hit from behind by another even bigger bucket and I lost my balance nearly falling into the canal below me. But I was laughing, not crying, not angry, but laughing – because this was the famous Thai festival of Songkran and I had signed up for this madness like the thousands of other drenched people around me in the famous city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. But wait I am getting ahead of myself, let’s start at the beginning, the wet wet beginning.
It had been raining for days, not the soft drizzle of London that slowly chips away at your soul like Chinese water torture, no not that kind of rain– this was real pouring rain and it was not letting up. But we were determined to not let it beat us so we headed off to the Khao Sok National Park in central Thailand to try make the best of the rain and see some beautiful scenery. But after a few days of hiking in the rain, being sucked dry by leeches, bitten by a dog and having my face scratched by ‘jungle spikies’ (thorn bushes) while tubing down a river, in the rain of course, I had had about enough of this rain.
We hopped a bus to the nearest town to try escape to somewhere dryer but we did not realise that the flooding in Thailand was only beginning. We managed to get a bus out of Surat Thani, which was showing the damages of the flood already, we were calf deep in water getting into the bus and very grateful to even be able to escape at all. As we drove north we could see rivers overflowing, houses completely under water and trees with a few branches only just sticking out of the flowing brown water.
Eight long hours later we were in Bangkok with not a drop of rain in sight. Halleluiah, we were dry and had escaped the worst of it, but we were lucky not everyone could escape like us and local people were killed in mudslides in Krabi or drowned in flooded areas across central and southern Thailand. And this would not be the only flood of the year, it would all begin again in November when Bangkok was under meters of water and the airport was being sandbagged to try stop the flooding, but that only came later and at the time we were just grateful to be out of the rain.
We then had nearly a week without rain, bliss. By then we had seen the sights of Bangkok and had moved on to historic and beautiful Chiang Mai in northern Thailand and we were getting ready to get wet again, not from thunder showers but from the famous 3 day festival of Songkran that was about to start in a few days time.
We were experiencing all that Chiang Mai has to offer, trekking in the jungle, visiting hill tribe villages and learning to cook delicious Thai food. We still had a few days before the festival began and were heading to a nearby Monastery to learn the art of Vipassana meditation for a few days and as we drove out of Chiang Mai the local children were starting the festival a few days early. As we left town I was hit in the back of the head by water flying through the open window behind me. I turned to see squealing, delighted children throwing buckets of water at passing cars, just a little hint of what was to come.
After a few days of meditation we headed back into Chiang Mai and arriving back on the first day of the festival was not the smartest idea we had ever had. Our tuk tuk was attacked as we drove along the streets to our hotel and by the time we got there our bags were as soaked as we were; it seemed that everyone was fair game during Songkran, whether you had all of your worldly possessions on your back or not. So, not wanting to be spoil sports we extracted our electronics, set them out in the room to dry and hit the streets to join in the fun. Within minutes of walking out of the hotel door we were dripping wet and laughing. And that’s how we stayed for the next 3 days. We bought ourselves some buckets and headed down to the canal to join in the fun.
Songkran is the festival to celebrate Thai New Year and is associated with the Buddhist faith where Images of Buddha in homes and temples are ‘bathed’ in water mixed with Thai spices and monks and elders have their hands sprinkled with water by younger Thai people as a sign of respect. The cleansing of Buddha is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. This is the origin of the festival, but it has also now evolved into a full out water fight, which gives Thai people a chance to release frustrations and to cool off in the middle of the sweltering summer. It is celebrated every year from April 13th to 15th, in most places in Thailand the festival is celebrated just on the first or last day but if you are looking for full-out water warfare you should make sure you are in Chiang Mai where the full three days are all wet days.
Songkran is one of the craziest festivals I’ve ever experienced but it is also a display of community like I’ve never seen before. Everyone joins in from toddlers tipping buckets of water onto your feet to grandmothers sprinkling tiny droplets over your head in jest. Everyone has a bucket in hand that has a long string attached to the handle so you can dip it into the canal and then empty it onto an unlucky passer-by, or alternatively you could buy yourself a water pistol or drive around throwing buckets of icy water from moving vehicles. Teenagers take things to a new level attacking everyone without exception and ice-sellers make a fortune selling huge blocks of ice for people to use to fight icy-cold warfare. People on motorbikes are the most fun moving target and you don’t want to be caught out of ammunition or you will find yourself incredibly wet. Restaurants embrace the wet by allowing dripping people in to eat and even providing buckets of water outside so you can refill your water-pistol or bucket on your way out back into the fight. Work stops and it is impossible to enter or leave Chiang Mai until it’s over, and why would you want to leave anyway? In a country used to monsoons and prone to yearly flooding, people view wetness with complacency and have ceaseless fun with their favourite festival of water. After it was all over we left Thailand after consuming more canal water then is probably sanitary, with bags of damp clothing and a lifetime of fond memories.
A cold bucket of water to the face. That is how the day begun. And from there it only got wetter. That is the kind of day I was having, my clothes were dripping, my hair sticking to my face and as I turned to escape the onslaught of water I was hit from behind by another even bigger bucket and I lost my balance nearly falling into the canal below me. But I was laughing, not crying, not angry, but laughing – because this was the famous Thai festival of Songkran and I had signed up for this madness like the thousands of other drenched people around me in the famous city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. But wait I am getting ahead of myself, let’s start at the beginning, the wet wet beginning.
It had been raining for days, not the soft drizzle of London that slowly chips away at your soul like Chinese water torture, no not that kind of rain– this was real pouring rain and it was not letting up. But we were determined to not let it beat us so we headed off to the Khao Sok National Park in central Thailand to try make the best of the rain and see some beautiful scenery. But after a few days of hiking in the rain, being sucked dry by leeches, bitten by a dog and having my face scratched by ‘jungle spikies’ (thorn bushes) while tubing down a river, in the rain of course, I had had about enough of this rain.
We hopped a bus to the nearest town to try escape to somewhere dryer but we did not realise that the flooding in Thailand was only beginning. We managed to get a bus out of Surat Thani, which was showing the damages of the flood already, we were calf deep in water getting into the bus and very grateful to even be able to escape at all. As we drove north we could see rivers overflowing, houses completely under water and trees with a few branches only just sticking out of the flowing brown water.
Eight long hours later we were in Bangkok with not a drop of rain in sight. Halleluiah, we were dry and had escaped the worst of it, but we were lucky not everyone could escape like us and local people were killed in mudslides in Krabi or drowned in flooded areas across central and southern Thailand. And this would not be the only flood of the year, it would all begin again in November when Bangkok was under meters of water and the airport was being sandbagged to try stop the flooding, but that only came later and at the time we were just grateful to be out of the rain.
We then had nearly a week without rain, bliss. By then we had seen the sights of Bangkok and had moved on to historic and beautiful Chiang Mai in northern Thailand and we were getting ready to get wet again, not from thunder showers but from the famous 3 day festival of Songkran that was about to start in a few days time.
We were experiencing all that Chiang Mai has to offer, trekking in the jungle, visiting hill tribe villages and learning to cook delicious Thai food. We still had a few days before the festival began and were heading to a nearby Monastery to learn the art of Vipassana meditation for a few days and as we drove out of Chiang Mai the local children were starting the festival a few days early. As we left town I was hit in the back of the head by water flying through the open window behind me. I turned to see squealing, delighted children throwing buckets of water at passing cars, just a little hint of what was to come.
After a few days of meditation we headed back into Chiang Mai and arriving back on the first day of the festival was not the smartest idea we had ever had. Our tuk tuk was attacked as we drove along the streets to our hotel and by the time we got there our bags were as soaked as we were; it seemed that everyone was fair game during Songkran, whether you had all of your worldly possessions on your back or not. So, not wanting to be spoil sports we extracted our electronics, set them out in the room to dry and hit the streets to join in the fun. Within minutes of walking out of the hotel door we were dripping wet and laughing. And that’s how we stayed for the next 3 days. We bought ourselves some buckets and headed down to the canal to join in the fun.
Songkran is the festival to celebrate Thai New Year and is associated with the Buddhist faith where Images of Buddha in homes and temples are ‘bathed’ in water mixed with Thai spices and monks and elders have their hands sprinkled with water by younger Thai people as a sign of respect. The cleansing of Buddha is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. This is the origin of the festival, but it has also now evolved into a full out water fight, which gives Thai people a chance to release frustrations and to cool off in the middle of the sweltering summer. It is celebrated every year from April 13th to 15th, in most places in Thailand the festival is celebrated just on the first or last day but if you are looking for full-out water warfare you should make sure you are in Chiang Mai where the full three days are all wet days.
Songkran is one of the craziest festivals I’ve ever experienced but it is also a display of community like I’ve never seen before. Everyone joins in from toddlers tipping buckets of water onto your feet to grandmothers sprinkling tiny droplets over your head in jest. Everyone has a bucket in hand that has a long string attached to the handle so you can dip it into the canal and then empty it onto an unlucky passer-by, or alternatively you could buy yourself a water pistol or drive around throwing buckets of icy water from moving vehicles. Teenagers take things to a new level attacking everyone without exception and ice-sellers make a fortune selling huge blocks of ice for people to use to fight icy-cold warfare. People on motorbikes are the most fun moving target and you don’t want to be caught out of ammunition or you will find yourself incredibly wet. Restaurants embrace the wet by allowing dripping people in to eat and even providing buckets of water outside so you can refill your water-pistol or bucket on your way out back into the fight. Work stops and it is impossible to enter or leave Chiang Mai until it’s over, and why would you want to leave anyway? In a country used to monsoons and prone to yearly flooding, people view wetness with complacency and have ceaseless fun with their favourite festival of water. After it was all over we left Thailand after consuming more canal water then is probably sanitary, with bags of damp clothing and a lifetime of fond memories.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
A Sliver of Life
Watching the world through a bus window. I feel as if this is how I’m travelling the world these days, city to city on more busses, boats and trains then I can count and yet on each one I gain another insight into the lives of the people around me. You can see a lot of life through the window of a bus; sure there is beautiful scenery to be seen, forests of palm trees, sandy white beaches and big parks. There is always activity – if its busy streets with bicycles and horse carts backed up in front of luxury cars trying to avoid hundreds of motorbikes zooming past carrying whole families, young lovers, old men or just people on their way to work. Each journey brings new pieces of a the big puzzle of life because in that one instant that you pass by someone you see a sliver of their life, vulnerable for the world to see – an old man selling fruits out of his portable cart, a woman comforting a crying baby, a door opens and you see a Muslim woman laying out a mat to pray or a family gathered around for their evening meal - each doorway is a slice of life. Most people don’t stop to see the beauty in the small things, maybe it’s intrusive of me, but when I pass by I like to imagine the person’s story, I only get one glimpse into their big, complicated lives but that glimpse is a part of their story and in my head I make up the rest. If you take the time to look you might never want to look away, but as the bus keeps moving you cannot linger too long. Life is fleeting, everyone says that, but if you don’t take the time to see life, you might miss what was there, because as the bus roles on, all you take with you is the memory of one glimpse and the story that could be.
Blogging Again
So much has happened in the past few months and I have struggled to put it all into words. I have neglected my blog because the words have never seemed quite right, the descriptions not quite bright enough and the feeling described not quite as strong as the real emotions felt. I have been lazy and afraid to feel vulnerable and expose my inner feelings. But it’s time to be brave - so the next few blog entries are long overdue, written about events that happened anywhere from a few days to a few months ago but although the chronology may be mixed up and some of the stories out of date - the experiences and feeling are mine, and although they are not perfect, they are the best and worst of me and I hope you enjoy them.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Indonesian Adventures – expect the unexpected
Beautiful beaches, turquoise ocean, nightlife, cheap shopping and pure relaxation. 10 days in Indonesia with some of my best friends from university sounded like the perfect way to spend my summer holiday, and it was
It only took one night sleeping on the floor of the Incheon airport and one night in Kuala Lumpur and we were finally in paradise, or in Bali at least. After a long semester teaching English in South Korea myself and three friends were more than excited to head off on an island holiday and meet up with three university friends who are living in Hong Kong - and Indonesia did not disappoint. Indonesia is a really interesting, beautiful and exotic country, the archipelago is made up of 17,508 islands and we only managed to see three of them but the beauty that we saw definitely left me wanting to see more.
Bali is probably one of the most touristy islands in Indonesia because it has established itself as a cheap holiday destination for Australasian and Asian travelers. We definitely had an enjoyable time there as did many of the other travelers we encountered but it sure is a busy place with thousands of scooters zooting through the narrow one-way streets and stalls selling anything and everything packed along every street.
You usually will fly into the Airport at Denpasar and head off to some other part of the island from there. The cheapest place to stay is in the Kuta area which is definitely the most bustling section of Bali. You can stay right on the famous Poppies Lane (although there is a Poppies Lane 1 and Poppies Lane 2 so don’t get confused when trying to find your way back to your hotel) or in one of the small allies off the sides of Poppies for remarkably cheap. We were lucky enough to find a cheap hotel online that was a little ways away from the hustle and bustle of Poppies lane but still a close walk into the excitement and if you are travelling to Bali I would certainly recommend the Bakung Sari Hotel in Kuta as a great budget place to stay for travelers looking to save some money, they have a pool and they throw in breakfast which includes strong Balinese coffee which is a great bonus.
There are many great things about Bali. The shopping is ridiculously cheap, but you need to be able to barter well and not give in to the temptation to feel sorry for the shop owners and just pay them the exorbitant amounts they request. The best thing to do is to start really low, to counter the ridiculous price they offer you at first, and then when you have decided your ‘best price’ walk away from the stall and 9 times out of 10 the owner will give in and give you the price you want to stop you from leaving. Shopping is great for a while and you can buy really cheap clothes and trinkets as well as A LOT of knock-off stuff but after a while you realize every stall is the same and sells the same stuff so shopping can become rather tiresome. The Balinese people are really friendly and kind, although the men can border on creepy especially if you are travelling in a group of 6 blonde girls. The beaches are beautiful, the food is great and at almost every street café you can get a fruit juice of real fruit blended up for somewhere between R5 and R10 which was amazing coming from Korea where fruit is very expensive. If you want to eat cheaply you are better to eat at roadside stalls or get street food because the nicer restaurants up their prices a lot for foreigners so you need to be careful of that and if you want to travel cheaply a daily intake of fried rice or fried noodles covered in the delicious sweet soy sauce, Kekap manis, will keep you full and within you budget.
We knew we didn’t want to stay in the Kuta area the whole time in Bali and so everyday we would find a taxi driver we could barter with to take us to one of the beautiful beaches or head off for a bit of adventure. Dreamland Beach was really lovely although swimming was treacherous in the rather rough sea the day we were there. We loved the tiny beach at Padang Padang, where a surf competition was supposedly going on but we never saw any surfable waves to be honest, but the tiny bay-like beach was a lovely relaxing place to suntan and wallow in the calm water. Ulewatu is not a swimming beach but a great surfing beach and the view at sunset was spectacular.
It definitely was a holiday full of fun and the four of us teaching in Korea had not seen the three Hong Kong girls in about 8 months so the 7 of us all back together was bound to be a fun and crazy holiday. There is a lot of nightlife in Kuta and it is definitely the party section of Bali. There were bars offering free drinks or great drink specials all over the place and as long as you were prepared to party with some unsavory characters (there are many) it was a fun night out. Bintang Beer which is the local Balinese beer is really good and can be bought everywhere for varying prices and you can buy all sorts of Bintang memorabilia to remember your holiday by, but remember if you buy a Bintang wifebeater (vest) and wear it your first night out you will be wearing the same outfit as about 500 other people so if you want to stay original, steer clear.
At the hotel we got talking to a friendly Australian couple who had been to Bali many times and they got us in contact with a tour guide called Grumpy who could hook us up with great group deals for our time in Bali. 7 of us fit perfectly into one of the combi taxi's which saved us money and we got hold of the Grumpy fellow and he organised two day trips for us.
The one day Grumpy’s driver took us inland, first to a beautiful Hindu Temple, their temples are all outdoor temples which was really interesting and their elaborate statues and Balinese stone architecture on the temples and buildings in general is really beautiful and was one of my favourite parts of Indonesia. We then headed to the little inland town of Ubud to the monkey forest which was great and there was a temple in the middle where they were having a special ceremony and they had this big precession where they were carrying all these live animals for sacrifice, like ducks and chickens and a live pig and even a turtle, it was bizarre!! In retrospect we wish we had stayed a night in Ubud because it was a really great little town but we were really enjoying our hotel in Kuta so just did a day trip instead. Then we headed off to see a volcano, Mt Batur, luckily it’s dormant so we didn’t have to run from fiery lava but it was so beautiful and we had lunch at a restaurant with a great view, we also saw amazing views of rice paddies on these steep steep hills with palm trees all around. Inland Bali is very picturesque and well worth getting out of Kuta to see. Lastly we went to the Elephant Cave or "Goa Gajah" which had a beautiful garden all around it and was really stunning and interesting.
We had one day that was just packed with adventure. We started off snorkeling and then took a boat to turtle island which is a kind of turtle sanctuary, that part of the day wasn’t exactly what we had seen advertised but we just accepted it as part of the motto we had developed for Indonesia: “expect the unexpected”. The best part of the day was definitely parasailing which I have always wanted to do and which was amazing, very dreamlike floating up in the air. We also did this water sport called ‘the flying fish’, which is a big blow-up contraption that gets dragged behind a boat. Two people go at a time and you lie down on your back and hold on, first you are dragged behind a boat on the water and then the ‘flying fish’ lifts into the air, it was a lot of fun. The instructor even let me stand up the wrong way around which is a bit scarier and he called me: ‘crazy girl’ afterwards which I take as a complement. We finished off the day of adventure with a dinner at the famous Jimbaran bay where you sit at a restaurant right on the sand and watch the sun go down as you enjoy their amazing seafood. Grumpy took us himself to this spot and on the drive home shared some of his wisdom with us. He told us about the Balinese war and how he lost many family members in the bloodshed, his story was heartbreaking and beautiful but what struck me the most was the amazing way he explained Balinese outlook on life and how they manage to live such a relaxed happy life. He spoke of their belief in Karma and that “without bad and pain there is no good or joy”, he really touched me with the way he has been through so much and can still look at the world as a beautiful and spiritual place, it was humbling.
We spent a great few days in Bali, shopping, beaching, eating and drinking and enjoying the sunshine with our friends but we were then ready to head off somewhere a bit quieter for our last few days. The plan was to head to The Gili Islands for three days, by this stage we were more then ready to get out of the hustle and bustle of Kuta. Unfortunately we had been slack about booking our boat across and couldn’t get a fast boat in time so ended up having to take a slow boat to get there, but you know what they say about travel being the journey not the destination so it worked out in the end.
The Gili Islands are three little islands just off the coast of Lombok (the island right next to Bali), the biggest island is Gili Trawangan (where we were heading), and then Gili Meno and Gili Air is the smallest. We left Kuta at 10 am and had a two and a half hour ride in a bus to Padangbai on the east coast of Bali, the drive was very pretty through nice rural countryside on rather potholed roads. From there we would catch our boat across to the island, it was supposed to take about 4 hours but took more like 6 and combined with time spent waiting at the port before boarding it ended up being a whole day travel expedition. The time on the boat was actually really pleasant and I didn’t mind the extra two hours. I just sat on the deck under shade and read my book with a nice sea breeze on me. As sun set my friends and I sat on the bow of the boat, in the breeze and watched a spectacular sunset. We arrived at Gili Trawangan in the dark and then had to find our hotel. The island has only dirt roads and the only transport they have are horses or bicycles which were a nice change from the crazy streets of Bali. So we hailed a horse and cart and were off to our hotel.
Gili Trawangan is really one of the most spectacular places I have ever been, with white sand, turquoise clear water and a relaxed feel in the air it was the perfect place for our last few precious days of holiday. Our hotel was a bit away from the main town centre which was really nice and who doesn’t want a place where there is a big pirate ship right in the middle of the swimming pool? You could snorkel right off the beach in front of the hotel and see turtles and tons of beautiful fish and coral. We watched the sun set right from our own private beach and could eat dinner right on the beach and then listen while the hotel staff played the guitar and sang round a camp fire. Although we had no hot water we had fresh water to shower in rather then salt water which the majority of hotels have.
The Island was just what we needed, and we spent the next few days exploring on bicycles or on foot, swimming and snorkeling, eating at the various restaurants in town and relaxing with our books and a drink in hand. It was paradise. Unfortunately you cant live in paradise forever and we decided a whole day on a boat was not the way to get back to mainland Bali and so the owner of the hotel organised for us to fly back to Bali for less then what a fast boat would cost, plus we could leave the island a bit later on our last day and would get straight back to Kuta. We had to fly out of Mainland Lombok so we took a boat across, past Gili Meno and Gili Air which was beautiful, and then had a magnificent drive through the forests of Lombok to the Airport.
We flew on some tiny Indonesian airline and they honestly had the worst security I have ever seen. The tickets had been booked through the hotel under random names with no surnames and they didn’t ask for ID or anything, my ticket literally just said 'Anna' (not my name if you hadn’t noticed) and they let me on the plane, it was hilarious and a little scary. It was really great to see a little bit of Lombok though and Lombok is really mountainous and was very beautiful and we were a little sad we didn’t spend any real time there but unfortunately our holiday was coming to an end. We had one last night in Kuta, did some shopping for last minute presents and then flew out of Bali back via Malaysia, with only a 7 hour layover this time, to Korea the following day.
All I know is that Indonesia is a fascinating, beautiful, mysterious place that I didn’t even see 1% of and I am definitely hoping to go back one day and see more of what this beautiful archipelago has to offer.
Back in Typhooning Korea
Until next time 또 만나요 (tto mannayo: see you again)
It only took one night sleeping on the floor of the Incheon airport and one night in Kuala Lumpur and we were finally in paradise, or in Bali at least. After a long semester teaching English in South Korea myself and three friends were more than excited to head off on an island holiday and meet up with three university friends who are living in Hong Kong - and Indonesia did not disappoint. Indonesia is a really interesting, beautiful and exotic country, the archipelago is made up of 17,508 islands and we only managed to see three of them but the beauty that we saw definitely left me wanting to see more.
Bali is probably one of the most touristy islands in Indonesia because it has established itself as a cheap holiday destination for Australasian and Asian travelers. We definitely had an enjoyable time there as did many of the other travelers we encountered but it sure is a busy place with thousands of scooters zooting through the narrow one-way streets and stalls selling anything and everything packed along every street.
You usually will fly into the Airport at Denpasar and head off to some other part of the island from there. The cheapest place to stay is in the Kuta area which is definitely the most bustling section of Bali. You can stay right on the famous Poppies Lane (although there is a Poppies Lane 1 and Poppies Lane 2 so don’t get confused when trying to find your way back to your hotel) or in one of the small allies off the sides of Poppies for remarkably cheap. We were lucky enough to find a cheap hotel online that was a little ways away from the hustle and bustle of Poppies lane but still a close walk into the excitement and if you are travelling to Bali I would certainly recommend the Bakung Sari Hotel in Kuta as a great budget place to stay for travelers looking to save some money, they have a pool and they throw in breakfast which includes strong Balinese coffee which is a great bonus.
There are many great things about Bali. The shopping is ridiculously cheap, but you need to be able to barter well and not give in to the temptation to feel sorry for the shop owners and just pay them the exorbitant amounts they request. The best thing to do is to start really low, to counter the ridiculous price they offer you at first, and then when you have decided your ‘best price’ walk away from the stall and 9 times out of 10 the owner will give in and give you the price you want to stop you from leaving. Shopping is great for a while and you can buy really cheap clothes and trinkets as well as A LOT of knock-off stuff but after a while you realize every stall is the same and sells the same stuff so shopping can become rather tiresome. The Balinese people are really friendly and kind, although the men can border on creepy especially if you are travelling in a group of 6 blonde girls. The beaches are beautiful, the food is great and at almost every street café you can get a fruit juice of real fruit blended up for somewhere between R5 and R10 which was amazing coming from Korea where fruit is very expensive. If you want to eat cheaply you are better to eat at roadside stalls or get street food because the nicer restaurants up their prices a lot for foreigners so you need to be careful of that and if you want to travel cheaply a daily intake of fried rice or fried noodles covered in the delicious sweet soy sauce, Kekap manis, will keep you full and within you budget.
We knew we didn’t want to stay in the Kuta area the whole time in Bali and so everyday we would find a taxi driver we could barter with to take us to one of the beautiful beaches or head off for a bit of adventure. Dreamland Beach was really lovely although swimming was treacherous in the rather rough sea the day we were there. We loved the tiny beach at Padang Padang, where a surf competition was supposedly going on but we never saw any surfable waves to be honest, but the tiny bay-like beach was a lovely relaxing place to suntan and wallow in the calm water. Ulewatu is not a swimming beach but a great surfing beach and the view at sunset was spectacular.
It definitely was a holiday full of fun and the four of us teaching in Korea had not seen the three Hong Kong girls in about 8 months so the 7 of us all back together was bound to be a fun and crazy holiday. There is a lot of nightlife in Kuta and it is definitely the party section of Bali. There were bars offering free drinks or great drink specials all over the place and as long as you were prepared to party with some unsavory characters (there are many) it was a fun night out. Bintang Beer which is the local Balinese beer is really good and can be bought everywhere for varying prices and you can buy all sorts of Bintang memorabilia to remember your holiday by, but remember if you buy a Bintang wifebeater (vest) and wear it your first night out you will be wearing the same outfit as about 500 other people so if you want to stay original, steer clear.
At the hotel we got talking to a friendly Australian couple who had been to Bali many times and they got us in contact with a tour guide called Grumpy who could hook us up with great group deals for our time in Bali. 7 of us fit perfectly into one of the combi taxi's which saved us money and we got hold of the Grumpy fellow and he organised two day trips for us.
The one day Grumpy’s driver took us inland, first to a beautiful Hindu Temple, their temples are all outdoor temples which was really interesting and their elaborate statues and Balinese stone architecture on the temples and buildings in general is really beautiful and was one of my favourite parts of Indonesia. We then headed to the little inland town of Ubud to the monkey forest which was great and there was a temple in the middle where they were having a special ceremony and they had this big precession where they were carrying all these live animals for sacrifice, like ducks and chickens and a live pig and even a turtle, it was bizarre!! In retrospect we wish we had stayed a night in Ubud because it was a really great little town but we were really enjoying our hotel in Kuta so just did a day trip instead. Then we headed off to see a volcano, Mt Batur, luckily it’s dormant so we didn’t have to run from fiery lava but it was so beautiful and we had lunch at a restaurant with a great view, we also saw amazing views of rice paddies on these steep steep hills with palm trees all around. Inland Bali is very picturesque and well worth getting out of Kuta to see. Lastly we went to the Elephant Cave or "Goa Gajah" which had a beautiful garden all around it and was really stunning and interesting.
We had one day that was just packed with adventure. We started off snorkeling and then took a boat to turtle island which is a kind of turtle sanctuary, that part of the day wasn’t exactly what we had seen advertised but we just accepted it as part of the motto we had developed for Indonesia: “expect the unexpected”. The best part of the day was definitely parasailing which I have always wanted to do and which was amazing, very dreamlike floating up in the air. We also did this water sport called ‘the flying fish’, which is a big blow-up contraption that gets dragged behind a boat. Two people go at a time and you lie down on your back and hold on, first you are dragged behind a boat on the water and then the ‘flying fish’ lifts into the air, it was a lot of fun. The instructor even let me stand up the wrong way around which is a bit scarier and he called me: ‘crazy girl’ afterwards which I take as a complement. We finished off the day of adventure with a dinner at the famous Jimbaran bay where you sit at a restaurant right on the sand and watch the sun go down as you enjoy their amazing seafood. Grumpy took us himself to this spot and on the drive home shared some of his wisdom with us. He told us about the Balinese war and how he lost many family members in the bloodshed, his story was heartbreaking and beautiful but what struck me the most was the amazing way he explained Balinese outlook on life and how they manage to live such a relaxed happy life. He spoke of their belief in Karma and that “without bad and pain there is no good or joy”, he really touched me with the way he has been through so much and can still look at the world as a beautiful and spiritual place, it was humbling.
We spent a great few days in Bali, shopping, beaching, eating and drinking and enjoying the sunshine with our friends but we were then ready to head off somewhere a bit quieter for our last few days. The plan was to head to The Gili Islands for three days, by this stage we were more then ready to get out of the hustle and bustle of Kuta. Unfortunately we had been slack about booking our boat across and couldn’t get a fast boat in time so ended up having to take a slow boat to get there, but you know what they say about travel being the journey not the destination so it worked out in the end.
The Gili Islands are three little islands just off the coast of Lombok (the island right next to Bali), the biggest island is Gili Trawangan (where we were heading), and then Gili Meno and Gili Air is the smallest. We left Kuta at 10 am and had a two and a half hour ride in a bus to Padangbai on the east coast of Bali, the drive was very pretty through nice rural countryside on rather potholed roads. From there we would catch our boat across to the island, it was supposed to take about 4 hours but took more like 6 and combined with time spent waiting at the port before boarding it ended up being a whole day travel expedition. The time on the boat was actually really pleasant and I didn’t mind the extra two hours. I just sat on the deck under shade and read my book with a nice sea breeze on me. As sun set my friends and I sat on the bow of the boat, in the breeze and watched a spectacular sunset. We arrived at Gili Trawangan in the dark and then had to find our hotel. The island has only dirt roads and the only transport they have are horses or bicycles which were a nice change from the crazy streets of Bali. So we hailed a horse and cart and were off to our hotel.
Gili Trawangan is really one of the most spectacular places I have ever been, with white sand, turquoise clear water and a relaxed feel in the air it was the perfect place for our last few precious days of holiday. Our hotel was a bit away from the main town centre which was really nice and who doesn’t want a place where there is a big pirate ship right in the middle of the swimming pool? You could snorkel right off the beach in front of the hotel and see turtles and tons of beautiful fish and coral. We watched the sun set right from our own private beach and could eat dinner right on the beach and then listen while the hotel staff played the guitar and sang round a camp fire. Although we had no hot water we had fresh water to shower in rather then salt water which the majority of hotels have.
The Island was just what we needed, and we spent the next few days exploring on bicycles or on foot, swimming and snorkeling, eating at the various restaurants in town and relaxing with our books and a drink in hand. It was paradise. Unfortunately you cant live in paradise forever and we decided a whole day on a boat was not the way to get back to mainland Bali and so the owner of the hotel organised for us to fly back to Bali for less then what a fast boat would cost, plus we could leave the island a bit later on our last day and would get straight back to Kuta. We had to fly out of Mainland Lombok so we took a boat across, past Gili Meno and Gili Air which was beautiful, and then had a magnificent drive through the forests of Lombok to the Airport.
We flew on some tiny Indonesian airline and they honestly had the worst security I have ever seen. The tickets had been booked through the hotel under random names with no surnames and they didn’t ask for ID or anything, my ticket literally just said 'Anna' (not my name if you hadn’t noticed) and they let me on the plane, it was hilarious and a little scary. It was really great to see a little bit of Lombok though and Lombok is really mountainous and was very beautiful and we were a little sad we didn’t spend any real time there but unfortunately our holiday was coming to an end. We had one last night in Kuta, did some shopping for last minute presents and then flew out of Bali back via Malaysia, with only a 7 hour layover this time, to Korea the following day.
All I know is that Indonesia is a fascinating, beautiful, mysterious place that I didn’t even see 1% of and I am definitely hoping to go back one day and see more of what this beautiful archipelago has to offer.
Back in Typhooning Korea
Until next time 또 만나요 (tto mannayo: see you again)
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
I think you are semi-Korean
A while back I sat next to the vice principle at lunch and when he saw I was enjoying the spicy food he said to me: "I think you are semi-Korean!" Yesssa! Ten points to me. In the moment I suddenly felt like I was being accepted at school and into Korean society and then in the very next breath he said: "I think you need a Korean boyfriend!" Hmm, didn’t see that one coming. Just another day in Dynamic Korea, with that comes the interesting and contrasting experiences of living and integrating into Korean society. It is an interesting contradiction at times. Sometimes I walk down the street and feel like I might be growing a second head because of the way that people stare, like I’m not even the same species as them and then I am frequently asked if I have found a “handsome Korean boy” yet or why I don’t have a Korean boyfriend. So at once I am treated as so foreign and unique and at the same time there is a need for me to mould into this society, learn their language and become more like them even if I do look considerably different to them.
After living in Korea for four months I have made a number of observations about Korean people and their customs. Something that is really important to Koreans seems to be sharing in their traditional food and drink. Korea really has some amazing food, it is very foreign and different to what I am used to in South Africa and I wont pretend to love everything (I mean why would a person ever want to eat dried squid?) but I really do enjoy their food and I think that sharing traditional food with people of any culture in the world is definitely a way into their hearts.
Maybe the sudden praise of my eating habits and the desire for me to have a Korean boyfriend is because at a teachers' dinner I few weeks ago I had two shots of Soju with the vice principal (accepting alcohol when offered is considered very polite behaviour) and when he saw I drank and could take a shot without falling over he said "Ah Paula I like you! Have another one" and so began the spiral of craziness of an evening out with the teachers. Something every teacher in Korea knows about it the notion of “school teachers’ dinners,” these happen sporadically during the calendar year and usually spring up with very little notice. There is always a teachers’ dinner or lunch on the first day of school and then you also have them when there has been a demonstration class at the school or often during the students’ exam time. Now I managed to escape that particular teachers’ dinner without throwing my name too far but the knowledge that I drank alcohol would prove dangerous in the future. You see the vice-principal informed me that social drinking is 'part of their culture'. Now that does not mean that all Korean’s drink, there are many Christians who do not, the principal at my school is like this but he does not mind the other teachers drinking. Now this social drinking is a very strange concept to me because back home I would try to avoid instances where I might get drunk and make a fool of myself in front of my coworkers. However in Korea it seems that it is ok to go out and get plastered with the other teachers because drinking together shows a camaraderie and mutual respect for one another (and how drunk you were the night before is never mentioned the next day). Now I don’t really understand the respect part when a teacher needs to be pretty much carried out of the restaurant after dinner but some parts of it do make sense to me. It is good for the teachers to have time to be together in a social setting drinking and eating and not worrying about kids and grades and classes. They are always cracking jokes, although I don’t get them, and laughing a lot as they share food. Koreans’ also have a very distinct way to offer drinks to one another in this kind of setting. Now it is not really about the drinking, the alcohol is just a vessel, but it is more about the act of being offered a drink and then offering in return that plays into all of the ideas of hierarchy, respect and Confucianism in general. If you don’t want to drink alcohol you can just get them to give you a shot of ‘cider’, which is sprite, instead because it is the act of offering a drink that is important. That said it is sometimes impossible to avoid the shot of soju that somehow makes it into your hand without you even realizing or your bowl of makoli (rice wine) that keeps being refilled when it looks vaguely empty. However if you do drink that is seen as a very good thing to many teachers, especially the male teachers and it seems in particular to my vice-principal.
School dinners can get out of hand but the kinship you feel with your fellow teachers and the kindness they show when sharing their precious traditional food, drink, and customs with you is the real reason why I travel the world; to get a glimpse into the lives of others, to learn how they live and to live beside them and share in the tiny things that make their country great.
So I offer you a figurative shot of soju and say Gambae (Cheers).
Until next time 또 만나요 (tto mannayo: see you again)
After living in Korea for four months I have made a number of observations about Korean people and their customs. Something that is really important to Koreans seems to be sharing in their traditional food and drink. Korea really has some amazing food, it is very foreign and different to what I am used to in South Africa and I wont pretend to love everything (I mean why would a person ever want to eat dried squid?) but I really do enjoy their food and I think that sharing traditional food with people of any culture in the world is definitely a way into their hearts.
Maybe the sudden praise of my eating habits and the desire for me to have a Korean boyfriend is because at a teachers' dinner I few weeks ago I had two shots of Soju with the vice principal (accepting alcohol when offered is considered very polite behaviour) and when he saw I drank and could take a shot without falling over he said "Ah Paula I like you! Have another one" and so began the spiral of craziness of an evening out with the teachers. Something every teacher in Korea knows about it the notion of “school teachers’ dinners,” these happen sporadically during the calendar year and usually spring up with very little notice. There is always a teachers’ dinner or lunch on the first day of school and then you also have them when there has been a demonstration class at the school or often during the students’ exam time. Now I managed to escape that particular teachers’ dinner without throwing my name too far but the knowledge that I drank alcohol would prove dangerous in the future. You see the vice-principal informed me that social drinking is 'part of their culture'. Now that does not mean that all Korean’s drink, there are many Christians who do not, the principal at my school is like this but he does not mind the other teachers drinking. Now this social drinking is a very strange concept to me because back home I would try to avoid instances where I might get drunk and make a fool of myself in front of my coworkers. However in Korea it seems that it is ok to go out and get plastered with the other teachers because drinking together shows a camaraderie and mutual respect for one another (and how drunk you were the night before is never mentioned the next day). Now I don’t really understand the respect part when a teacher needs to be pretty much carried out of the restaurant after dinner but some parts of it do make sense to me. It is good for the teachers to have time to be together in a social setting drinking and eating and not worrying about kids and grades and classes. They are always cracking jokes, although I don’t get them, and laughing a lot as they share food. Koreans’ also have a very distinct way to offer drinks to one another in this kind of setting. Now it is not really about the drinking, the alcohol is just a vessel, but it is more about the act of being offered a drink and then offering in return that plays into all of the ideas of hierarchy, respect and Confucianism in general. If you don’t want to drink alcohol you can just get them to give you a shot of ‘cider’, which is sprite, instead because it is the act of offering a drink that is important. That said it is sometimes impossible to avoid the shot of soju that somehow makes it into your hand without you even realizing or your bowl of makoli (rice wine) that keeps being refilled when it looks vaguely empty. However if you do drink that is seen as a very good thing to many teachers, especially the male teachers and it seems in particular to my vice-principal.
School dinners can get out of hand but the kinship you feel with your fellow teachers and the kindness they show when sharing their precious traditional food, drink, and customs with you is the real reason why I travel the world; to get a glimpse into the lives of others, to learn how they live and to live beside them and share in the tiny things that make their country great.
So I offer you a figurative shot of soju and say Gambae (Cheers).
Until next time 또 만나요 (tto mannayo: see you again)
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