We don't even know where to begin. Sorry we have not written. There is a lack of internet cafes, internet speed, and time. So here is a quick update of what we have been exploring.
Kuta, Indonesia
Beaches, pearls, and snorkeling...finally. It was very relaxing. We also had a chance to hit up the town clubs.
So as for the snorkeling part, yes... we finally went. We saw a TON of beautiful marine life, although we were stung every 5 seconds by... "sea lice?" They felt like little jelly-fish pokes on every single part of our body. Christie was able to go "diving" using one of the dive master's emergency air supply... but "shhhhh, our secret." Then on the way back, she jumped off the boat and broke her only pair of sandals in the ocean. Talented, we know. So, we had to pay the cab driver to stop at a local surf shop so she could buy a new pair.
Jakarta, Indonesia -- Manila, Philippines
Let's just say that.... Asia has an INSANE number of malls! And we're not just talking about down-the-street-Meridian-Mall, we're talking about every single designer from every single continent!
These were two cities that we had anywhere from 5-8 hour layovers, so we explored each one as much as we could. In Jakarta, we were about an hour away from the city center when we arrived at the airport... so our options were either: 1. Hang out at the Airport McDonald's (which was SUPER tempting), or 2. Take an expensive cab into town for just a few hours and see what we could find. So, not wanting to disappoint our American crowd, we decided to take a cab to the nearest "plaza", which they told us was a mall. Instead, we end up at the upscale Crown Plaza Hotel, which we were searched thoroughly in the cab and eyed suspiciously based on our awful traveller's dress, and approached by the local bellhop who basically asked us if we were lost. Luckily, there was a mall next door that we walked to and wasted our time there until our flight.
Then... there was Manila. Let's just say that both of us have never been so unbelievably astonished. This city was not even close to what we expected... the poverty was nothing like we had seen before. The people were beyond kind to us, yet everywhere you looked was a tragic story. On every street corner were families sleeping on a single piece of cardboard on the side of the street... bathing in buckets of water, and many children were without clothes. Many children also ran up to us begging for money, which was incredibly hard to turn down... however, we knew it wasn't a constructive way to help them. Instead, we would save leftovers from our meals and give them to the children. Two little girls that we gave food to were extremely appreciative, yelling thank you continuously as we walked away!
We also rode a Jeepney around town for well over an hour... we weren't sure what to expect, as the tour books said: "oh, the routes are clearly written on the sides of the Jeepneys!" Yeah, not so much. Jeepneys are old war jeeps with extended cabs, with bench seating inside the cabs. So, we got inside a random one -- mind you, there aren't "bus stops"... er, Jeepney-stops -- so you just flag one down and hop on! After about an hour or so of picking up randoms at random places, not sure where we are, not sure if we even have enough money to pay, do you even pay?, what is going on... we got to the end of the line and the driver turns around and smiles at us. Evidently, it was the end of the line and we had no idea where we were. So we try and pay him, but SOMEHOW he knew we were tourists and wouldn't accept our money. Who would've thought? We left him a nice tip, and tried to find the nearest cab back to our hostel.
Cebu, Philippines
WE MISS YOU GUYS!!! Wooooweee where do we even begin?! We begin with a big 8x10 full-size color picture of us, being flashed around at the airport! We are met by Aunt Gina and Micah, bearing beautiful necklaces just for us! So let us preface how we even ended up here...
Back in good ole' East Lansing, we were shopping for shoes for the trip and we go to the wonderful shoe store called Footgear on Division Street. The owners were also avid travelers, who took interest in our trip. Enter Stage Left, Dolores and Richard. Dolores is originally from Cebu, and still had many family members there. She offered us the opportunity to stay with her family, and we decided to take her up on the offer a few weeks later!
So here we are, meeting Aunt Gina at the airport! Aunt Gina is Dolores' aunt (sorry, it's about to get insanely complicated in a few seconds so we'll try to make it as easy as possible). With Aunt Gina are Dodong (Dolores' cousin) and Micah (Dodong's daughter). They drive us to their beautiful home in Cebu City, where we meet the rest of the "family!" Now here is where it gets tricky:
THE AUNTS = Aunt Leny (the Matriarch of the family, Dolores' oldest aunt), Aunt Benyan (second eldest), and Aunt Gina.
THE CRUZ FAMILY = Dodong (Dolores' cousin as we previously explained), his wife Lilit, son Justin (shyest boy ever, but we finally got him to warm up to us hehe), and Micah.
THE "BOHOL" FAMILY = Ms. Bohol (she took very good care of us, along with her family), her husband Julian, and daughters: Faye, Jenny, and Marjorie. Hehe, we call them the "Bohol Family" because the mother was in the Bohol (a neighboring island) beauty pageant -- along with the rest of the family! Beautiful family =)
NORMA, FAYE, & SHEENA = Norma and Faye are sisters who Dodong's family took in, and Sheena also lives with the family although her parents still live in Cebu City.
So overall, we spent the most time with "the girls" (all 9 of us) and Justin, basically the only boy! So the first day, we spent THREE hours singing karaoke with everyone. Haha yes, we know what you're all thinking... WE (Crystal and Christie), SANG KARAOKE. Before you plug your own ears, just know that for the duration of the trip, we were THE ONLY one to receive a 100% score on one of our songs (thank you Bryan McKnight, "Back at One"). Other than the fact that the scoring machine was clearly not accurate, we butchered "Yeah"and "Hey Ya"(note to self for the future -- those are NOT good karaoke songs). We also proceeded to sing songs that were beyond our voice ranges. Also not a good idea. But the family was so welcoming, and cheered us on! Wow, do we have higher self-esteem than ever!
Other than the shopping, late-night-talks, movies, and ENDLESS karaoke... we ATE. And ate. And ate. And ... ate. We gained the Cebu 30... and please don't think we're exaggerating. Before this trip, we were so excited to go on the "Asia Diet" but evidently now we have to go on the "America Diet" because all we've done this trip is eat (it's sad when you go through your memory card and all your pictures are of food). The family was unbelievable to us... we would honestly eat 4 large meals a day, with snacks in between. As the time progressed, we strategically got up later each day so we could push breakfast off (yes, it's true -- please don't be mad Cebu family =) ). The food was delicious though, and Faye was the best cook! A quick rundown: our first full day there, we ate breakfast at noon, lunch at 2pm, a snack at 5, dinner at 6:30, and then had Jollibee (their version of McDonald's) at like 9. Yep.
But above all, it was a very rewarding experience. The family took us in as their own, treated us with immense love and respect, and each of them touched our hearts in ways that cannot be explained. We couldn't even begin to thank them, but we had the opportunity to treat 15 people to the beach one day! With Aunt Gina's help, we were able to take care of transportation, food, entry-fees, and rent a "hut" for the day -- all for around $200 USD! It was so much fun enjoying the sun with everyone, something they only get to experience a few days of the year.
It was so eye-opening to see them go to sleep with us every single night around midnight or after, then be up and doing their daily responsibilities at 6am or even earlier! We weren't too sure since we were still sleeping!
All in all, we can't begin to thank them enough for their hospitality, and we miss them tons!
***************
That's it for now! More to come on Malaysia, Thailand, and our current country -- Cambodia! Hope you're all doing well, and make sure to e-mail us -- we want to hear how you're all doing!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Remainder of Singapore/Pedangbai, Bali
Remainder of Singapore.
Since we haven't written in a while (there isn't exactly internet access on the island of Bali), we'll just summarize the rest of our time in Singapore! It's hard for us to remember exactly what we did on a day-by-day basis, but below are just some highlights or fun stories in no particular order (we're sure you're sighing with relief)...
**We woke up one morning in what seemed to be a sauna. We had gone to bed with the air conditioning blasting, which was well-needed in the humid air in Singapore... but somehow in the middle of the night, it was "magically" turned off. Hehe alright, let us start from the beginning. When Christie's "big brother" moved us to a larger room, we had a new roommate from Japan. She was very nice, and even went shopping and had lunch with us one day! She was so sweet and didn't speak too much English, and we invited her along whenever we left the hostel. After she started venturing out on her own, we would come back at different times in the night. Basically, a game evolved... "whoever got home first set the air conditioning to her liking, and whoever came home last changed it." Now let us also preface this story: she slept on the bottom bunk furthest from the air conditioning unit, with a towel hanging as a curtain over her bunk, and she wore pants to bed while snuggling in a sleeping bag! We certainly weren't trying to make it uncomfortable in the room for anyone, but SOME air conditioning is better than none?! Oh well, that's life living in a hostel! Travelers from all parts of the world with different backgrounds just trying to get along! It's just funny that it turned into such a game!
**Other than exploring (and of course, eating in) the different regions of Singapore (Chinatown, Little India, Orchard Street, etc.), we went to Sentosa for a day. Sentosa is a "resort" that has several large hotels, a golf course, attractions (segway rides, a rotating "looking tower", cable cars, and luges -- don't worry, not as cool as it sounds... everything was very much scaled down and overpriced), and a few beaches -- including the southern most point of continental-Asia. They were also in the process of expanding the area with a project called "Resort Land", which is to include a Universal Studios, a casino, and many other attractions. The project is supposed to be completed in the next year, and at one point we counted 70+ cranes in the construction zone!!
**On our last night, we found a nice bar called Caesar's. It was a great site for people-watching, and the dynamics of the place was also interesting. Similar to the previous bar, Beaver's, the staff were all young women. We couldn't really tell who was working and who wasn't, because we would have many different servers yet some of them would be drinking as well with the "guests" (assuming they're friends). After we left Caesar's around 2 or 3am, we went back to the hostel only to find our friends outside! Well to make a long story (somewhat) short, Crystal was trying to practice her Chinese (HA), we danced to Indian music (we bought a CD in Little India) for hours in the street, and sang awful old American karaoke songs until 4:30 am! Our favorite worker had one of those tiny portable DVD players, and brought his "favorite CD" out. We sang (rather loudly) renditions of "Stand By Me" and "Without You" (by Mariah Carey)... yep. We didn't have as many friends the next morning, although a guy from Turkey came out to join us (he just sat and laughed a lot.. mostly at us).
**Before we left Singapore, our goal was to get a massage. After looking at several spas, we found one that looked nice and for a good deal too! On our last day, right before leaving for the airport, we went in and booked an hour-and-half session each. This was supposed to include a Scalp Massage, Body Massage, and one "add-on" of our choice. Crystal decided to get a Facial Treatment, and Christie decided to try the Ear Candling (interesting...). So 1.5 hours go by, we're finished and sitting on the couches in the lobby watching some of the workers eat while others are drilling Christie with questions about her background, why she's so dark, why she's so tall, etc. -- you know, the normal questions. After about 20 minutes of chatting, we are finally able to ask for our bill -- in Singapore, you will never get your bill unless you ask for it!! After leaving, Crystal talks about how her Facial was 45 minutes, and her Body Massage was only 10 minutes, and they didn't even use oil! As Christie's hearing this, she just can't help but laugh because her Body Massage was almost an hour, the masseuse DID use oil, and it was actually very good! The Ear Candling also worked wonders too! So it's interesting to see the different "types of treatment" travelers get whether they are perceived as an "outsider" or "insider" of the culture.
Pedangbai, Bali.
Day 8. (trying to stay consistent with the last posting... obviously that hasn't worked too well so far)
We arrived in Bali at night, and had previously made arrangements with our hostel for a private shuttle. Good thing we did, because we weren't positive of the hostel name or where it was (hey, internet wasn't working!) -- all we knew was that it was a 1.5-hour drive from the airport! After grabbing our even-heavier-than-before-and-we-don't-know-how packs, we headed outside only to find a MOB (and we mean red-carpet, celebrity-like) of people holding various signs with passenger names. Luckily, one of the tallest men there is holding our sign and Christie walks up to him. He's looking past her, so she begins waving in his face with a huge smile and says "HI!! That's us!!!" You knew he was thinking, "first time in Bali?" Haha. During the 1.5-hour drive, we find out that we're headed to Pedangbai, which is on the East coast of Bali and home to a rather large port. Once we arrive, we find a very small and dark town. We were both a little unsure of the area when we arrived, just because it was so hard to tell what everything was other than one single street of vendors...
Day 9.
We set our alarms to get up around 9am, and of course, roll out of the hotel around 12:30 pm. That has seemed to be a recurring theme in our trip! We begin to explore the area, and it's just absolutely breathtaking! We're less than a minute walk to the beaches, and there's tons of seaside restaurants serving fresh seafood, all sorts of curries, pasta from around the world, basically anything!
After having a delicious late lunch at one of the seafood restaurants (including mahi-mahi and "rendang", a spicy Indonesian dish), we head to the Blue Lagoon beach to lay out in the sun! Here, we find many beachcombers trying to sell sarongs, necklaces, sunglasses, you name it... and we also meet a local guy whose family owns the restaurant on that beach. He's extremely nice and we chat for hours! He wasn't afraid of sharing his thoughts with us, which was funny yet interesting at times. At the end of the day, he proposed to Crystal (several times!), and told Christie that she was "TOO pretty" and would essentially not get married if she lived on this island. Hmmmmmm.
Yet we decide to meet up for drinks later that night. He brought us to a place called "Zen Inn" which is owned by a guy from Germany and another from the UK. It's much more of an upscale place for the area, and we're basically the only customers (we realized it was much more of a tourist location as opposed to locals). We try "arak" that night, which is Bali's equivalent of "moonshine." With a little honey and lemon, it's quite tasty!
Day 10.
We set our alarm once again for 9am, and that comes and goes. All we're trying to do at this point is to beat our previous day's time! Around 11:30 am, we go to the Topi Inn down the street, and FALL IN LOVE. The food is beyond phenomenal, with tastes you would never think to combine (try pasta with feta cheese, spinach, and PUMPKIN... divine). We spend a good 3 hours here, wining, dining, and using their internet (it's the only place in this town where you can find it, at a rate of $0.03/min USD). We book our next 3 flights (Jakarta, Cebu, Kuala Lumpur), and printed out the necessary documents (we were told we could be detained if we didn't have the proper documents showing our exiting of the country... eek!).
We then try out a different beach, where we get $3 (USD) massages from Dorene (what a sweetheart)! Everything on the island is extremely inexpensive according to US standards, and we're just enthralled by it! Just a side note though, after talking to so many locals in the area it's just so interesting to hear their perspective. They don't think they live in a unique area at all, and will just tell us how lucky we are to have seen the US, and to be able to travel (which we are), but in return we assure them that they're the lucky ones! They live in this amazing Utopia, and it's exactly where WE would love to be!!
That night, another local decides to take us out (we're the talk of the town! Well... mind you the town is <300 people). We go to a place called Kinky Reggae Bar (hehe)... and boy, do we have stories for you. Another time though. Then we go to Babylon Bar, which has live music! There were five Balinese guys playing the drums, a tamborine, and two guitars. They mostly played American music, and had the widest music selection!! They sounded amazing, and it was unreal the amount of American music they knew! We were more than impressed! We danced and danced, and they would say thanks to us for dancing (awww) and call us their cheerleaders! It was so much fun that we lost track of time and before we knew it... it was 12:00 am and we were supposed to leave at 2:00 am to hike a volcano...
Day 11.
Less than two hours later... the alarm goes off and a cranky Crystal and Christie roll out of bed. They hadn't been up before 11am in who knows how long and now they're getting up at 1:30 am after no sleep?! They went to college, right?
To say the least, it was a rough day. The drive to Mt. Batur was an hour-and-half of ENDLESS, WINDY roads going up, and down, up, and down... the two sick girls arrived at the bottom of Mt. Batur around 3:30 am not-so-ready to go. Before we knew it, we were making the 1.5-hour trek up the STEEP, rocky mountain in pitch darkness. There were only two flashlights available between the two of us, the guide, and the drink seller (yeah, we found that out halfway when he tried to sell us a drink and then proceeded to ask us to buy him one...). So the guide went first, Christie went second, and then third... well third was a tie. Oh yes, the half-Ironman participant Crystal here, was basically dragged up the island by the less-than-100-pound, 5-foot drink seller. Oh, and she had a flashlight. Meanwhile, Christie doesn't have a flashlight, and is memorizing each step the guide is taking in front of her while he's basically running up the mountain. The drink seller kept telling Crystal to shine the flashlight in front so Christie could somewhat see, but no dice. It was quite the adventure, and we were still the first ones up the mountain!! Crystal professed her love to Christie and said Christie was her hero for not only doing that without a flashlight in the pitch dark, but also without a tiny man pulling her all the way up! So we finally get to the top (again, first woohoo!), and it's FRIGID (well, 60 degrees... but hey we're used to 95 degrees and were only wearing t-shirts and shorts)!! We should have known better... but we didn't exactly have the time to prepare after Babylon Bar (nor were we thinking), so instead we cuddled at the top of the mountain in a tiny sarong that Christie happened to bring. One-by-one, new travelers made it up the volcano... and one-by-one, they left. We watched the most beautiful sunrise you could imagine... every orange, red, and yellow color you could imagine between beautiful mountainous peaks in the distance with misty clouds below us!! Our travel director had arranged breakfast for us, yet we just could not eat! So as everyone else ate, took pictures, and left, we basically cuddled, shivvered and eventually drank hot tea!! Finally, we hiked a bit higher to see the volcano (which is the most active volcano in Indonesia) and the view from there was breathtaking. The journey down was much quicker, and this time around Crystal was on her own as her handy-dandy drink seller was busy selling drinks at the top (haha). After getting back to Padangbai around 10am this morning, we went STRAIGHT to bed! We spent the remainder of the day taking care of some business, eating, and laying out on the beach.
**********
We've basically decided to skip Jakarta (other than a one-day layover), and instead, we're heading to Kuta tomorrow morning -- which is supposed to be a fun, upbeat tourist location. After that, we're heading to Cebu in the Philippines on May 28th and will hopefully write more there!! Hope you're all doing well -- we miss you all!! =)
Since we haven't written in a while (there isn't exactly internet access on the island of Bali), we'll just summarize the rest of our time in Singapore! It's hard for us to remember exactly what we did on a day-by-day basis, but below are just some highlights or fun stories in no particular order (we're sure you're sighing with relief)...
**We woke up one morning in what seemed to be a sauna. We had gone to bed with the air conditioning blasting, which was well-needed in the humid air in Singapore... but somehow in the middle of the night, it was "magically" turned off. Hehe alright, let us start from the beginning. When Christie's "big brother" moved us to a larger room, we had a new roommate from Japan. She was very nice, and even went shopping and had lunch with us one day! She was so sweet and didn't speak too much English, and we invited her along whenever we left the hostel. After she started venturing out on her own, we would come back at different times in the night. Basically, a game evolved... "whoever got home first set the air conditioning to her liking, and whoever came home last changed it." Now let us also preface this story: she slept on the bottom bunk furthest from the air conditioning unit, with a towel hanging as a curtain over her bunk, and she wore pants to bed while snuggling in a sleeping bag! We certainly weren't trying to make it uncomfortable in the room for anyone, but SOME air conditioning is better than none?! Oh well, that's life living in a hostel! Travelers from all parts of the world with different backgrounds just trying to get along! It's just funny that it turned into such a game!
**Other than exploring (and of course, eating in) the different regions of Singapore (Chinatown, Little India, Orchard Street, etc.), we went to Sentosa for a day. Sentosa is a "resort" that has several large hotels, a golf course, attractions (segway rides, a rotating "looking tower", cable cars, and luges -- don't worry, not as cool as it sounds... everything was very much scaled down and overpriced), and a few beaches -- including the southern most point of continental-Asia. They were also in the process of expanding the area with a project called "Resort Land", which is to include a Universal Studios, a casino, and many other attractions. The project is supposed to be completed in the next year, and at one point we counted 70+ cranes in the construction zone!!
**On our last night, we found a nice bar called Caesar's. It was a great site for people-watching, and the dynamics of the place was also interesting. Similar to the previous bar, Beaver's, the staff were all young women. We couldn't really tell who was working and who wasn't, because we would have many different servers yet some of them would be drinking as well with the "guests" (assuming they're friends). After we left Caesar's around 2 or 3am, we went back to the hostel only to find our friends outside! Well to make a long story (somewhat) short, Crystal was trying to practice her Chinese (HA), we danced to Indian music (we bought a CD in Little India) for hours in the street, and sang awful old American karaoke songs until 4:30 am! Our favorite worker had one of those tiny portable DVD players, and brought his "favorite CD" out. We sang (rather loudly) renditions of "Stand By Me" and "Without You" (by Mariah Carey)... yep. We didn't have as many friends the next morning, although a guy from Turkey came out to join us (he just sat and laughed a lot.. mostly at us).
**Before we left Singapore, our goal was to get a massage. After looking at several spas, we found one that looked nice and for a good deal too! On our last day, right before leaving for the airport, we went in and booked an hour-and-half session each. This was supposed to include a Scalp Massage, Body Massage, and one "add-on" of our choice. Crystal decided to get a Facial Treatment, and Christie decided to try the Ear Candling (interesting...). So 1.5 hours go by, we're finished and sitting on the couches in the lobby watching some of the workers eat while others are drilling Christie with questions about her background, why she's so dark, why she's so tall, etc. -- you know, the normal questions. After about 20 minutes of chatting, we are finally able to ask for our bill -- in Singapore, you will never get your bill unless you ask for it!! After leaving, Crystal talks about how her Facial was 45 minutes, and her Body Massage was only 10 minutes, and they didn't even use oil! As Christie's hearing this, she just can't help but laugh because her Body Massage was almost an hour, the masseuse DID use oil, and it was actually very good! The Ear Candling also worked wonders too! So it's interesting to see the different "types of treatment" travelers get whether they are perceived as an "outsider" or "insider" of the culture.
Pedangbai, Bali.
Day 8. (trying to stay consistent with the last posting... obviously that hasn't worked too well so far)
We arrived in Bali at night, and had previously made arrangements with our hostel for a private shuttle. Good thing we did, because we weren't positive of the hostel name or where it was (hey, internet wasn't working!) -- all we knew was that it was a 1.5-hour drive from the airport! After grabbing our even-heavier-than-before-and-we-don't-know-how packs, we headed outside only to find a MOB (and we mean red-carpet, celebrity-like) of people holding various signs with passenger names. Luckily, one of the tallest men there is holding our sign and Christie walks up to him. He's looking past her, so she begins waving in his face with a huge smile and says "HI!! That's us!!!" You knew he was thinking, "first time in Bali?" Haha. During the 1.5-hour drive, we find out that we're headed to Pedangbai, which is on the East coast of Bali and home to a rather large port. Once we arrive, we find a very small and dark town. We were both a little unsure of the area when we arrived, just because it was so hard to tell what everything was other than one single street of vendors...
Day 9.
We set our alarms to get up around 9am, and of course, roll out of the hotel around 12:30 pm. That has seemed to be a recurring theme in our trip! We begin to explore the area, and it's just absolutely breathtaking! We're less than a minute walk to the beaches, and there's tons of seaside restaurants serving fresh seafood, all sorts of curries, pasta from around the world, basically anything!
After having a delicious late lunch at one of the seafood restaurants (including mahi-mahi and "rendang", a spicy Indonesian dish), we head to the Blue Lagoon beach to lay out in the sun! Here, we find many beachcombers trying to sell sarongs, necklaces, sunglasses, you name it... and we also meet a local guy whose family owns the restaurant on that beach. He's extremely nice and we chat for hours! He wasn't afraid of sharing his thoughts with us, which was funny yet interesting at times. At the end of the day, he proposed to Crystal (several times!), and told Christie that she was "TOO pretty" and would essentially not get married if she lived on this island. Hmmmmmm.
Yet we decide to meet up for drinks later that night. He brought us to a place called "Zen Inn" which is owned by a guy from Germany and another from the UK. It's much more of an upscale place for the area, and we're basically the only customers (we realized it was much more of a tourist location as opposed to locals). We try "arak" that night, which is Bali's equivalent of "moonshine." With a little honey and lemon, it's quite tasty!
Day 10.
We set our alarm once again for 9am, and that comes and goes. All we're trying to do at this point is to beat our previous day's time! Around 11:30 am, we go to the Topi Inn down the street, and FALL IN LOVE. The food is beyond phenomenal, with tastes you would never think to combine (try pasta with feta cheese, spinach, and PUMPKIN... divine). We spend a good 3 hours here, wining, dining, and using their internet (it's the only place in this town where you can find it, at a rate of $0.03/min USD). We book our next 3 flights (Jakarta, Cebu, Kuala Lumpur), and printed out the necessary documents (we were told we could be detained if we didn't have the proper documents showing our exiting of the country... eek!).
We then try out a different beach, where we get $3 (USD) massages from Dorene (what a sweetheart)! Everything on the island is extremely inexpensive according to US standards, and we're just enthralled by it! Just a side note though, after talking to so many locals in the area it's just so interesting to hear their perspective. They don't think they live in a unique area at all, and will just tell us how lucky we are to have seen the US, and to be able to travel (which we are), but in return we assure them that they're the lucky ones! They live in this amazing Utopia, and it's exactly where WE would love to be!!
That night, another local decides to take us out (we're the talk of the town! Well... mind you the town is <300 people). We go to a place called Kinky Reggae Bar (hehe)... and boy, do we have stories for you. Another time though. Then we go to Babylon Bar, which has live music! There were five Balinese guys playing the drums, a tamborine, and two guitars. They mostly played American music, and had the widest music selection!! They sounded amazing, and it was unreal the amount of American music they knew! We were more than impressed! We danced and danced, and they would say thanks to us for dancing (awww) and call us their cheerleaders! It was so much fun that we lost track of time and before we knew it... it was 12:00 am and we were supposed to leave at 2:00 am to hike a volcano...
Day 11.
Less than two hours later... the alarm goes off and a cranky Crystal and Christie roll out of bed. They hadn't been up before 11am in who knows how long and now they're getting up at 1:30 am after no sleep?! They went to college, right?
To say the least, it was a rough day. The drive to Mt. Batur was an hour-and-half of ENDLESS, WINDY roads going up, and down, up, and down... the two sick girls arrived at the bottom of Mt. Batur around 3:30 am not-so-ready to go. Before we knew it, we were making the 1.5-hour trek up the STEEP, rocky mountain in pitch darkness. There were only two flashlights available between the two of us, the guide, and the drink seller (yeah, we found that out halfway when he tried to sell us a drink and then proceeded to ask us to buy him one...). So the guide went first, Christie went second, and then third... well third was a tie. Oh yes, the half-Ironman participant Crystal here, was basically dragged up the island by the less-than-100-pound, 5-foot drink seller. Oh, and she had a flashlight. Meanwhile, Christie doesn't have a flashlight, and is memorizing each step the guide is taking in front of her while he's basically running up the mountain. The drink seller kept telling Crystal to shine the flashlight in front so Christie could somewhat see, but no dice. It was quite the adventure, and we were still the first ones up the mountain!! Crystal professed her love to Christie and said Christie was her hero for not only doing that without a flashlight in the pitch dark, but also without a tiny man pulling her all the way up! So we finally get to the top (again, first woohoo!), and it's FRIGID (well, 60 degrees... but hey we're used to 95 degrees and were only wearing t-shirts and shorts)!! We should have known better... but we didn't exactly have the time to prepare after Babylon Bar (nor were we thinking), so instead we cuddled at the top of the mountain in a tiny sarong that Christie happened to bring. One-by-one, new travelers made it up the volcano... and one-by-one, they left. We watched the most beautiful sunrise you could imagine... every orange, red, and yellow color you could imagine between beautiful mountainous peaks in the distance with misty clouds below us!! Our travel director had arranged breakfast for us, yet we just could not eat! So as everyone else ate, took pictures, and left, we basically cuddled, shivvered and eventually drank hot tea!! Finally, we hiked a bit higher to see the volcano (which is the most active volcano in Indonesia) and the view from there was breathtaking. The journey down was much quicker, and this time around Crystal was on her own as her handy-dandy drink seller was busy selling drinks at the top (haha). After getting back to Padangbai around 10am this morning, we went STRAIGHT to bed! We spent the remainder of the day taking care of some business, eating, and laying out on the beach.
**********
We've basically decided to skip Jakarta (other than a one-day layover), and instead, we're heading to Kuta tomorrow morning -- which is supposed to be a fun, upbeat tourist location. After that, we're heading to Cebu in the Philippines on May 28th and will hopefully write more there!! Hope you're all doing well -- we miss you all!! =)
Monday, May 18, 2009
DUBAI/SINGAPORE
Day 1.
Our flight on Air Emirates made the 13 hours go by so quickly! We had plenty of movies, tv, games, music, and oh so much food to keep us occupied. There was practically one flight attendant per 10 seats or so! The flight also wasn't completely full, so we were able to have our own row which was amazingly nice.
We spent the majority of the flight watching movies, and yes -- we would tell each other exactly when to press play so we could laugh (and cry) together! Although Crystal brought 25 magazines to read... don't you worry, of course she didn't read a single one! Nonetheless, it did not feel like 13 hours and we actually wanted to stay longer because of all the great amenities!
We arrived in Dubai the morning of Thursday, May 14th. The airport was beyond immaculate... indoor full waterfalls, such open space, high ceilings, and overall it really looked beyond this century. We didn't have any trouble getting through customs -- rather, we just walked through a door? -- found the first taxi, and were on our way to the Ramee Hotel and Apartments!
Although we arrived much earlier than the check-in time, they had our room available and we were able to rest up a bit before heading out for the day. Our air-conditioned room was spacious, complete with its own kitchen (which obviously we didn't use), waching machine/dryer (which was broken), a nice balcony (which we never opened because it was 40 degrees outside -- hehe, Celsius), and a big screen TV (complete with DVD player but who brings those on trips?)!
So the rest of the day, we bought tickets to the Big Bus which is similar to the big red double-deckers that you'll see in London. We literally looped around the city about 2-3 times between the two separate routes the bus had. We saw the seven-star hotel, the Palm, 1000000 malls, the beautiful beaches, and all sorts of "souks", or markets. As explained to us, it really was like "Vegas on steroids" minus the alcohol. The majority of north side of Dubai was based around tourism and very "high-end", while we stayed in the older, more residential area.
That night, we found our way through the residential streets of Dubai and stopped at a random Arabian restaurant to eat. Although we didn't know what half of the items on the menu were, the waiter was nice enough to help us out and we had a delicious meal of assorted meats and rice.
Day 2.
10:00 pm the night before: Christie can't sleep, because all she can hear is Crystal's snoring and someone singing loudly down the hall of our hostel.
4:00 am: Crystal is awoken by extremely loud singing over the city intercom outside our window.
6:00 am: Crystal is still up. See above.
7:30 am: Christie wakes up, and is beyond confused because the loud singing has now moved on to preaching over the city intercom.
9:00 am: Christie presses snooze.
10:30 am: Crystal wakes up to screaming at this point.
12:30 pm: Both Christie and Crystal jolt awake in bed to a combination of screaming and singing outside their window. Welp, time to get up. It dawns on them that yes, Friday is their holy day!
So after a slow start of a morning, we headed to the beach! We went to the Jumierah Public Beach and were glad that we waited because the sun wasn't as strong at this point. Since Friday is their Holy Day, the beach was PACKED! Families, and everyone young and old were there playing in the water and burying each other in sand (yep, that seemed like the thing to do there). There was a rule that you couldn't take pictures at the beach, so we were a little nervous to... until we looked over and a woman was sneaking pictures of us?! I guess our swimsuits didn't really fit in... although there were plenty of other tourists in the area wearing the exact same thing!
Some older men from Iran came over and made friends with us! We were offered hot tea (on a 100 degree day...), oranges, water, peanuts, and yes... even a tennis ball to play with in the water! One of the men was there to sell his timeshare on the Palm and villa... we asked how much it was and he said $3,000 USD and we were ready to jump on that deal... until his "interpreter" (or good friend who happens to teach English in Iran) stepped in and said it was $30,000. Oh, that changes it a little. Overall, they were excited to get to know us and were overall very curious. They had so many questions about these two Americans who were traveling Asia for 10 weeks. Then it was interesting to hear their questions about the US Economy, because you really do wonder what the rest of the world hears about us. They asked about why our economy was doing so poorly, and about the swine flu outbreak. When we asked them what their perceptions were, they said basically all that gets broadcasted around the rest of the world was "it's all America's fault." Hmmmm.
Then we decided to watch the sunset! There wasn't one. We were ready and walked out to the end of the pier and everything! It basically just dropped into the haze and that was it. Instant night at 7pm.
After taking a cab home to wash up, we headed back out to Jumierah Matida and ate at an AMAZING Morrocan restaurant. After dodging these two young boys that wanted to take us to the Disco (haha), we went out into the courtyard and smoked shisha to relax! Shisha = hookah =)
Day 3.
4:00 am: See the first few posts of Day 2.
This day we decided to do some shopping, so we went to the Gold Souk, Vegetable, Meat, and Fish Souk. However, that's not really what we had in mind. What we were really searching for was a cute little Hubbly Bubbly. Google it. So we found a store where they sold all sorts of Hubbly Bubblies as well as other nice souveniers. After about an hour or so of haggling, we started at $800 (AED), ended at $500 minus a few items, then they threw the items back in there when we were walking out the door for an extra $100. Christie wanted it for $90, but the salesman gave her a deathstare and already said she was already too good of a haggler. So she said OK, and we went on our merry way only to realize that the new total was $600... now we know to avoid that last tactic.
After rushing back with our new toys and cleaning up, we ate at a Lebanese restaurant next door to our hostel with the BEST hummus ever!! At this point, we had so many different taxi drivers, waiters, hosts, etc. and each of them were so individually poised, well-mannered, and just so humble! They were so gracious and precious, we just wanted to stay forever! It was also at this point, that we realized they don't use knives. Perhaps it was when Christie was flinging chicken all over her plate and the waiter walked over with two knives without saying a word. Thank you, kind sir!
Then, we went on a desert safari for the evening! Where do we start!! Other than these are our new dream jobs! From the awkward land cruise driver -- who to this moment we still don't know his name -- to driving wrecklessly through endless sand dunes, to watching one of the land cruisers get stuck on a sand dune and have to get towed out by another, to camel rides, and to the bellydancer/shisha/buffet/bar and tiki hut at the end of the night... it was a riot of a time! Although we never did get to the buffet or see the bellydancers because spent most of the evening in the shisha hut... and were befriended by an entire futbol team from England. Between their accents, jokes, and stories, we were entertained for quite some time until our 'unknown' land cruise driver came and found us at the end of the night! At least he found us, because we really were worried (not really) that we would just have to live there forever! So back our dream jobs... Crystal is now the ridiculous crazy land cruiser driver, and Christie is the General Manager of the bellydancer/shisha/buffet/bar and tiki huts (all her favorite things)!
Day 4.
Are you still reading? If so, give yourself a gold star.
This day was basically a travel day. The flight to Singapore was 8 hours long, and of course -- we were well-entertained again this time around (we won't bore you anymore with the details). Once we arrived in Singapore, we actually had to go through a human temperature scanning machine. They had 4-5 airport employees with masks on who were ready to pull anyone aside who was over the specified temperature limit. We weren't sure what the temperature was, but we were also wondering what would happen if you were above it. Would a huge alarm go off with a giant arrow pointing at you? Would there be a loud booming voice saying "possible swine flu victim?"
Anyways, after easily passing through customs yet again, we took a taxi to ABC Hostel -- our home for the next few days. The management staff is amazingly nice, and immediately flocked to Christie when they found out she spoke Mandarin. They took us out to lunch, they're giving us free drinks, and moving us to nicer and larger rooms all for free! Now they're asking Christie to call them "big brother" which is a symbol of friendship. Awww.
That night, we found a hole in the wall bar called Beavers and had some nice big beers with "drink companions" or rather like us Americans call it, bar food. We also booked our next flights to Bali, Jakarta, and Cebu that night for a total of $350! Not bad!!
Day 5.
After getting to bed around 4:30 am, going through some jetlag, and sleeping in arctic temperatures in our small hostel room, we awoke this morning around 1:30 pm to our new friends/"big brothers" wanting to take us out to lunch! So we geared up, moved to a new room, and went down to Chinatown where we basically toured a very large Chinese food court and could select whatever we wanted. We chose a combination of BBQ Duck, Wonton Soup, Rice, and some vegetables. Delicious, and so nice of them! They told us that next time they came to the States, we could instead treat them to a meal... and the way we could find them is that they would post themselves on huge billboards reading "find me!" -- hey, their words not ours.
We then spent the rest of the day doing a little TOO much shopping! But don't worry Moms and Dads -- all for a very reasonable price =) There are fantastic shops and markets here, and Christie continued to practice her haggling skills! We bought some new clothing that are much different than what we see in the States, and a new luggage piece because we had nowhere to fit the clothing (haha). No really, we need to get our packs down to 15 kg (from around 20 kg) for our next few flights so they don't charge us basically double the cost of the flight!! So we'll be shipping some things back home very soon!
After an adventure at the subway station and getting back to our hostel, we went out to a restaurant named Brewerks -- supposed to be a nice brewery in town with good food until we got there and noticed almost every single table there was made up of tourists.... I guess that's what you get when everyone reads Frommer's. Sadly enough (but almost expected), that was our least favorite meal yet. So afterwards, we grabbed some wine and headed back to the hostel so we could finally update all of you!
We hope you've enjoyed reading about our first few days of our trip! We'll try and update soon!
Our flight on Air Emirates made the 13 hours go by so quickly! We had plenty of movies, tv, games, music, and oh so much food to keep us occupied. There was practically one flight attendant per 10 seats or so! The flight also wasn't completely full, so we were able to have our own row which was amazingly nice.
We spent the majority of the flight watching movies, and yes -- we would tell each other exactly when to press play so we could laugh (and cry) together! Although Crystal brought 25 magazines to read... don't you worry, of course she didn't read a single one! Nonetheless, it did not feel like 13 hours and we actually wanted to stay longer because of all the great amenities!
We arrived in Dubai the morning of Thursday, May 14th. The airport was beyond immaculate... indoor full waterfalls, such open space, high ceilings, and overall it really looked beyond this century. We didn't have any trouble getting through customs -- rather, we just walked through a door? -- found the first taxi, and were on our way to the Ramee Hotel and Apartments!
Although we arrived much earlier than the check-in time, they had our room available and we were able to rest up a bit before heading out for the day. Our air-conditioned room was spacious, complete with its own kitchen (which obviously we didn't use), waching machine/dryer (which was broken), a nice balcony (which we never opened because it was 40 degrees outside -- hehe, Celsius), and a big screen TV (complete with DVD player but who brings those on trips?)!
So the rest of the day, we bought tickets to the Big Bus which is similar to the big red double-deckers that you'll see in London. We literally looped around the city about 2-3 times between the two separate routes the bus had. We saw the seven-star hotel, the Palm, 1000000 malls, the beautiful beaches, and all sorts of "souks", or markets. As explained to us, it really was like "Vegas on steroids" minus the alcohol. The majority of north side of Dubai was based around tourism and very "high-end", while we stayed in the older, more residential area.
That night, we found our way through the residential streets of Dubai and stopped at a random Arabian restaurant to eat. Although we didn't know what half of the items on the menu were, the waiter was nice enough to help us out and we had a delicious meal of assorted meats and rice.
Day 2.
10:00 pm the night before: Christie can't sleep, because all she can hear is Crystal's snoring and someone singing loudly down the hall of our hostel.
4:00 am: Crystal is awoken by extremely loud singing over the city intercom outside our window.
6:00 am: Crystal is still up. See above.
7:30 am: Christie wakes up, and is beyond confused because the loud singing has now moved on to preaching over the city intercom.
9:00 am: Christie presses snooze.
10:30 am: Crystal wakes up to screaming at this point.
12:30 pm: Both Christie and Crystal jolt awake in bed to a combination of screaming and singing outside their window. Welp, time to get up. It dawns on them that yes, Friday is their holy day!
So after a slow start of a morning, we headed to the beach! We went to the Jumierah Public Beach and were glad that we waited because the sun wasn't as strong at this point. Since Friday is their Holy Day, the beach was PACKED! Families, and everyone young and old were there playing in the water and burying each other in sand (yep, that seemed like the thing to do there). There was a rule that you couldn't take pictures at the beach, so we were a little nervous to... until we looked over and a woman was sneaking pictures of us?! I guess our swimsuits didn't really fit in... although there were plenty of other tourists in the area wearing the exact same thing!
Some older men from Iran came over and made friends with us! We were offered hot tea (on a 100 degree day...), oranges, water, peanuts, and yes... even a tennis ball to play with in the water! One of the men was there to sell his timeshare on the Palm and villa... we asked how much it was and he said $3,000 USD and we were ready to jump on that deal... until his "interpreter" (or good friend who happens to teach English in Iran) stepped in and said it was $30,000. Oh, that changes it a little. Overall, they were excited to get to know us and were overall very curious. They had so many questions about these two Americans who were traveling Asia for 10 weeks. Then it was interesting to hear their questions about the US Economy, because you really do wonder what the rest of the world hears about us. They asked about why our economy was doing so poorly, and about the swine flu outbreak. When we asked them what their perceptions were, they said basically all that gets broadcasted around the rest of the world was "it's all America's fault." Hmmmm.
Then we decided to watch the sunset! There wasn't one. We were ready and walked out to the end of the pier and everything! It basically just dropped into the haze and that was it. Instant night at 7pm.
After taking a cab home to wash up, we headed back out to Jumierah Matida and ate at an AMAZING Morrocan restaurant. After dodging these two young boys that wanted to take us to the Disco (haha), we went out into the courtyard and smoked shisha to relax! Shisha = hookah =)
Day 3.
4:00 am: See the first few posts of Day 2.
This day we decided to do some shopping, so we went to the Gold Souk, Vegetable, Meat, and Fish Souk. However, that's not really what we had in mind. What we were really searching for was a cute little Hubbly Bubbly. Google it. So we found a store where they sold all sorts of Hubbly Bubblies as well as other nice souveniers. After about an hour or so of haggling, we started at $800 (AED), ended at $500 minus a few items, then they threw the items back in there when we were walking out the door for an extra $100. Christie wanted it for $90, but the salesman gave her a deathstare and already said she was already too good of a haggler. So she said OK, and we went on our merry way only to realize that the new total was $600... now we know to avoid that last tactic.
After rushing back with our new toys and cleaning up, we ate at a Lebanese restaurant next door to our hostel with the BEST hummus ever!! At this point, we had so many different taxi drivers, waiters, hosts, etc. and each of them were so individually poised, well-mannered, and just so humble! They were so gracious and precious, we just wanted to stay forever! It was also at this point, that we realized they don't use knives. Perhaps it was when Christie was flinging chicken all over her plate and the waiter walked over with two knives without saying a word. Thank you, kind sir!
Then, we went on a desert safari for the evening! Where do we start!! Other than these are our new dream jobs! From the awkward land cruise driver -- who to this moment we still don't know his name -- to driving wrecklessly through endless sand dunes, to watching one of the land cruisers get stuck on a sand dune and have to get towed out by another, to camel rides, and to the bellydancer/shisha/buffet/bar and tiki hut at the end of the night... it was a riot of a time! Although we never did get to the buffet or see the bellydancers because spent most of the evening in the shisha hut... and were befriended by an entire futbol team from England. Between their accents, jokes, and stories, we were entertained for quite some time until our 'unknown' land cruise driver came and found us at the end of the night! At least he found us, because we really were worried (not really) that we would just have to live there forever! So back our dream jobs... Crystal is now the ridiculous crazy land cruiser driver, and Christie is the General Manager of the bellydancer/shisha/buffet/bar and tiki huts (all her favorite things)!
Day 4.
Are you still reading? If so, give yourself a gold star.
This day was basically a travel day. The flight to Singapore was 8 hours long, and of course -- we were well-entertained again this time around (we won't bore you anymore with the details). Once we arrived in Singapore, we actually had to go through a human temperature scanning machine. They had 4-5 airport employees with masks on who were ready to pull anyone aside who was over the specified temperature limit. We weren't sure what the temperature was, but we were also wondering what would happen if you were above it. Would a huge alarm go off with a giant arrow pointing at you? Would there be a loud booming voice saying "possible swine flu victim?"
Anyways, after easily passing through customs yet again, we took a taxi to ABC Hostel -- our home for the next few days. The management staff is amazingly nice, and immediately flocked to Christie when they found out she spoke Mandarin. They took us out to lunch, they're giving us free drinks, and moving us to nicer and larger rooms all for free! Now they're asking Christie to call them "big brother" which is a symbol of friendship. Awww.
That night, we found a hole in the wall bar called Beavers and had some nice big beers with "drink companions" or rather like us Americans call it, bar food. We also booked our next flights to Bali, Jakarta, and Cebu that night for a total of $350! Not bad!!
Day 5.
After getting to bed around 4:30 am, going through some jetlag, and sleeping in arctic temperatures in our small hostel room, we awoke this morning around 1:30 pm to our new friends/"big brothers" wanting to take us out to lunch! So we geared up, moved to a new room, and went down to Chinatown where we basically toured a very large Chinese food court and could select whatever we wanted. We chose a combination of BBQ Duck, Wonton Soup, Rice, and some vegetables. Delicious, and so nice of them! They told us that next time they came to the States, we could instead treat them to a meal... and the way we could find them is that they would post themselves on huge billboards reading "find me!" -- hey, their words not ours.
We then spent the rest of the day doing a little TOO much shopping! But don't worry Moms and Dads -- all for a very reasonable price =) There are fantastic shops and markets here, and Christie continued to practice her haggling skills! We bought some new clothing that are much different than what we see in the States, and a new luggage piece because we had nowhere to fit the clothing (haha). No really, we need to get our packs down to 15 kg (from around 20 kg) for our next few flights so they don't charge us basically double the cost of the flight!! So we'll be shipping some things back home very soon!
After an adventure at the subway station and getting back to our hostel, we went out to a restaurant named Brewerks -- supposed to be a nice brewery in town with good food until we got there and noticed almost every single table there was made up of tourists.... I guess that's what you get when everyone reads Frommer's. Sadly enough (but almost expected), that was our least favorite meal yet. So afterwards, we grabbed some wine and headed back to the hostel so we could finally update all of you!
We hope you've enjoyed reading about our first few days of our trip! We'll try and update soon!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
We made it to Singapore
We arrived in Singapore this evening and have been booking our flights for the next two countries. We wanted to say Hi and let everyone know we arrived safely. We have been up for almost 20 hours so we need to get some sleep. We will update soon.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Welcome to Our Blog!
As many of you already know, we're planning a 10-week backpacking trip through Dubai and Southeast Asia! This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we hope you will follow our blog along the way!
Check back for updates after May 13th!! Also -- feel free to e-mail us at asia09CMCH@gmail.com.
WOOHOO!!
Check back for updates after May 13th!! Also -- feel free to e-mail us at asia09CMCH@gmail.com.
WOOHOO!!
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