A Long Hard Slog

The lovely facilities in Denpasar.
After getting stuck in Kumai, Kalimantan for three days longer than expected, we finally left via ferry to Surabaya on Java. The ferry was supposed to leave at 8:00pm, but for some reason it was delayed about three hours. So more than 28 long hours later, we arrived at the port in Surabaya tired, cranky, and more than a little worse for wear. Being so late/early also meant that not only did we have few transportation options to get us to the city centre, it also meant that we were in a very poor position to bargain for a reasonable price.

Side note #1: In general, backpacking is a lot of fun. It can be challenging at times, but, overall, the challenge is what makes it so interesting. EXCEPT when you arrive into a city late at night (pretty much any time after dark). Then backpacking is not so fun. The bus depot/train station/ferry port is generally several kilometres out of town, and arriving after dark means that you're much less likely (with good reason) to want to walk around. There are usually only a few taxi drivers around, and those that are waiting with the welcome mat out, know only too well that you're pretty much stuck and price gouge the hell out of you. (Not that I'm bitter or anything!) Thus far, the only times I have been angry and annoyed with travelling in Indonesia, and Indonesians in general, have been during these times.

Unfortunately, we had to deal with this several days in a row as we were travelling hard and furious to get to a small island north of Lombok (just east of the infamous Bali). We decided to bypass Bali altogether (too many people said we "just had to go" ... I guess we like too much being different). Because we got into Surabaya so late, we decided there was no point in trying to find a room, and instead decided to just head directly for the bus station to catch a bus for Denpasar, Bali's biggest city. From there, we planned to catch a short bus ride to the ferry, and then the ferry to Gili Air, one of three small islands just north of Lombok. We'd heard that it was a pretty chilled out place that had some pretty good diving.

Our overpriced taxi got us to the bus station at about 5:00am, where we're told that a bus is just about to leave for Denpasar. "Great!", we thought, "What luck!" "Hurry!", they say and gesture urgently to the bus that we would be travelling on. After a quick discussion between the two of us, we decide that it does indeed look like this "luxury" bus (AC, TV, reclining seats, and a bathroom on board -- sounds much better than the reality!) is the only bus heading to Denpasar. We buy our tickets and make our way to the bus. Where we wait. And wait. And wait some more. We arrived at about 5:00am and didn't pull out until 11:30am.

Side note #2: Travelling in Indonesia is an exercise in patience and futility. Patience for surviving the long delays, and futility in trying to understand the reasons why you haven't left yet. Sometimes, the reason for waiting is simply that they are waiting for enough people to come along to fill up the bus. This was why we had such a long wait for the bus to depart for Denpasar. They apparently needed 20 paying passengers to leave. (Unfortunately, I think we were passengers five and six.) But even when we seemed to have twenty passengers waiting on board, we were kept waiting for at least another hour. Hence, the futility of asking, "Why aren't we leaving?" (which I must have asked Ulrik at least a million times). But there is also the patience required for surviving the incredibly long travel times in Indonesia. Before we arrived, we had little concept of how spread out the country is. Now, a veteran of two 24+ hour ferry rides, two 12+ hour bus rides, and a 12+ hour combined ferry/bus ride (and these were in the space of two weeks!), we know first hand how much time it takes to get from place to place.

Twelve hours later, we arrived in Denpaser. The bus ride was long, but actually not too bad. The countryside was beautiful! So much so, that it somehow made the time pass by quickly. But arriving so late (almost midnight), we knew we were going to have a hard time of it getting out of the bus station and finding our hotel. And, sure enough, we did. Our taxi overcharged us and didn't even bring us to our hotel. So we schlepped around with our rucksacks for about half-an-hour. We finally managed to find our hotel, only to find that it wasn't a hotel any more!! We ended up going to another hotel that we had passed along the way. It was all boarded up, but there was a guy sitting out front who tried to help us out. He got someone, who seemed to be like the manager, who initially didn't want to help us. (By this time it was close to 12:30am.) He kept saying that they were closed for the night and gestured down the street as if to say, "Try someplace down there." I was having none of it. I put my most pathetic face on and explained as nicely as I could that we'd been travelling for more than two days straight, and could he please just let us stay there? (If I had seem the rooms in advance, I probably would have cut our losses when we had the chance!) He finally relented and showed us the worst room we have seen in, I am pretty sure, all of our travels (including India!). It was such a dive. I didn't even want to walk on the floor without shoes. It was just that gross. And it was one of the more expensive places we've stayed at too. But, by that point I was beyond caring. We managed to get a shower (only because, as we'd been travelling for more than 48 hours we really needed one) laid out the sleeping bags (for the protection from their manky beds), and went to sleep.

The next morning, we got up early to look into a bus to get us to the ferry. We probably walked for about an hour looking for either an internet place or a wartel (a place to make phone calls). We finally found a wartel open and, after calling a travel agent, found out that they had a bus/ferry combo ticket from Denpasar to Gili Air. BUT the bus was scheduled to leave in less than half-an-hour from a place that we had no idea where it was. We raced back to the room to pick up our bags, which we'd fortunately had the forethought to pack before we left, hailed a bemo (a minibus that functions like a public bus), and managed to get to the rendezvous point with about two minutes to spare. Now, with our history of Indonesian transportation to date, we really didn't think they would either be there, or depart, on time, but we didn't want to risk it. And sure enough, when we got out of the taxi, a "helpful" man told us the bus had just left.

Us: "The Perama bus?"
Him: "Yes. Perama."
Us: "It left?"
Him: "Yes. Perama. Just left."
Us: "But it said it would wait." (I have no idea why we gave this guy any credibility."
Him: "You take my bus ... it's just over there."

Ahhh. Of course, he has a bus "just over there". Forget this. I saw a wartel across the street, ran over, called the company, and they said the bus HADN'T EVEN ARRIVED YET!! Why do people need to lie? I can (sort of) understand the overcharging, the taking the long way, the request to "just look" at their room/store/restaurant. But the lying makes me so mad!! This wasn't the first guy to blatantly lie to us; he wasn't the last, and, I am sure, we will meet many more in the year to come. But I also know that for every liar we meet, we meet so many more people who are helpful and friendly. I just have to keep reminding myself of that ...

After getting more directions from the lady on the phone, and from the helpful ladies at the wartel (see? friendly people everywhere), we easily found our bus. And finally found ourselves amongst OTHER "WHITIES" (our name for foreigners).

Side note #3: Until this point, we had seen very few foreigners in Indonesia. Even in the "tourist" areas that we'd passed through. In fact, we didn't speak with another backpacker until we'd been travelling for almost two weeks. And that's not due to our being overly anti-social (although I know we can be). There just weren't any whities to talk to. Funnily enough, the first whities we talked to were also from Canada, also from Toronto, and also on a one-year trip around the world (they were in month four). Ulrik and I felt like we had run into our future selves, there were so many parallels! And they also referred to backpackers as whities!

So there we were, amongst a whole pack of whities. And after being on the bus with them for a while, we realized why we generally try to avoid being around too many of them! But, fortunately, most of them ended up on Gili Trawangan (aka the "party" island). Ulrik and I went to Gili Air, the smallest island, and that is where we have languished for the past six days.

Three full days of travel -- we left Kumai on the night of 21 Jan, and arrived on Gili Air the evening of 24 Jan -- to get some beach time. It was well worth it.

For more photos, see our Indonesia photo album.

Macaques, Gibbons, and Orangutans – Oh my!

Our home for three days ... it was so cosy!
Here's a long overdue update from Indonesia.

Ulrik and I are sitting at an email place in Kalimantan (that's Borneo for the geographically-challenged). Doing email in Borneo! That's enough to do my head in.

Yesterday we finished a three day klotok (boat) tour of Tanjung Puting National Park, where several orangutan rehabilitation camps are located. The primary camp is Camp Leaky, which was established in 1971 by a Canadian woman (Dr. Biruté Galdiki). The purpose of the camps is to rehabilitate wild-born orangutans that were stolen for sale in the illegal pet trade. Our three day tour was fantastic! We lived on the boat, which was very cosy, put-puting along on the river ... it was all very relaxed and quiet. The tour included three meals a day, and boy did they feed us well! When we got our first meal (lunch on day one), there was more food than we had eaten in the previous three days! (Mind you, we have been living rather cheaply and, because of the heat, have had minimal appetite, but still ....) So needless to say, we ate very well on the boat. We also got to see tonnes of monkeys playing in the trees along the riverbanks. It got to be so much, that after a while they became almost commonplace -- "What? There are monkeys in the trees? Oh that's nice." -- when at the beginning it was, "Monkeys? Where? Cool!!"

But the main attraction was the orangutans. We got to see so many!! At one of the first camps, we saw a momma orangutan break into the feeding hut. She initially left with a few fistfuls of bananas. But when most of her bananas were stolen by one of the juvenile males, she broke in again, plopped herself amidst the bananas, and proceeded to stuff herself and her baby. The ranger tried to move her out, first by calling and then by prodding, but she was not going anywhere!

Getting friendly with the locals.
Although we were amazed by what we saw at the first camp, and by being in such close proximity to the orangutans (Ulrik actually handed bananas to one), Camp Leaky blew our minds. We saw nine orangutans, which included three mommas and their babies, during the feeding. When the feeding was finished, one juvenile male walked with us most of the way out of the jungle. Back in the camp, we saw another four mommas and their babies (one baby was just a few months old). The experience was incredible. We'll never be able to go to a zoo again. Although some might question what these camps are doing, our feeling, based on reading about the background and the purpose of the camps, is that they are doing their best to restore these animals to a wild, or semi-wild, existence. A baby orangutan lives with his/her mother for about seven years during which s/he learns everything s/he needs to survive. If that baby is snatched from its mother at a very young age, how challenging must it be to try and teach it all that it needs to know to survive in the wild?

Other than Kalimantan and our klotok tour, we've mostly been spending our time in Indo traveling from place to place. Indo is so spread out! We were able to do a short trek to see an active volcano (Mt. Merapi). That was pretty cool. (Although waking up at 2:00am to see the sun rise over the mountain was not so cool.) We also got to see Borobudur, which is this huge Buddhist stupa. Great views from the top.

A beautiful sunset as seen from our klotok (boat).
Next up, we're heading back to Java (Surabaya to be exact). We're actually stuck here in Kumai (a one-horse town if there ever was one!) waiting for the next ferry, which doesn't leave until 21 Jan. Then we'll head through Bali to the Gilis (this is a group of small islands north of Lombok), then through Sumbawa to Komodo (where the dragons are) and Flores.

For more photos, see our Indonesia photo album.

Are we there yet?

What 36 hours in transit looks like.
After a rather quiet Christmas, Lee and I went to Vancouver Island for some R&R (like we needed it...). We arrived well past one in morning at the Tofino Botanical Gardens & Clayoquot Field Station, and actually woke up a lady who was in the room we were supposed to be in! Ooops! So we quickly left that room and found ourselves another room, this time empty, and settled in for the night. The next morning, we were blessed with sunshine and calm weather, which is unusual for the season, so we wasted no time in checking out the small town of Tofino. This was followed with a long walk on Long Beach (aptly named), where we were lucky enough to get a good look at a Bald Eagle. We had a late lunch (salami sandwiches in the parking lot behind the car), before heading to Ucluelet, south of Tofino, where we did a little more hiking and enjoyed a very windy sunset. After all that walking, we had worked up quite an appetite, and made reservations in what is likely one of the finest restaurants on the island, The Pointe Restaurant. Although it was a bit pricey, the food (the duck breast was to die for) and the service were outstanding. They also had a full panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, but we'll have to save that for next time as we were there after dark. The next morning we got up early so we could do a few short walks before leaving for the ferry, but, alas, the weather gods had turned against us and it was pouring rain. We did manage to do a short walk in an area where the topsoil had prevented the trees from growing properly. The trees looked a bit like wild bonsais, which was very cool. The walk was supposed to take about 30mins, but because of the bad weather we did it in less than 15! After our very thorough soaking, we decided to leave the other walks for a return trip and decided to head for the ferry. Unfortunately, the rain turned into a very bad snowstorm, which delayed us so much that we missed our ferry and had to race to catch another. Fortunately, and due primarily to Lee urging me to drive like a maniac (don't worry, there wasn't any snow in Nanaimo), we were able to catch another ferry, which got us to the mainland in time to return our car rental.

Long beach in Tofino (that small figure in the centre is Ulrik).
Back in Vancouver we celebrated New Year's with Karen and Scott, and Julie (Karen's sister) and Colin, which started out with a very nice dinner and degraded into some pretty serious drinking (damn those drinking games). It was a pretty great evening all around. The next couple of days were mainly spent recovering, getting the last few items for our trip, and taking a few walks around the city. We even went five-pin bowling (we had tried to go skiing/snowshoeing, but the weather turned against us), and Scott kicked our collective butts. In good spirits (but with our bowling egos seriously bruised) we said good bye to Vancouver, and jumped on a grueling flight (we were in transit for more than 36 hours!) to Jakarta, Indonesia via Seoul, Korea and Singapore.

New adventures aplenty await us in the Southern Hemisphere. (By the way, we tried to check the rotation of the toilet flush, but the only flush toilet we've come across just wooshes down and doesn't swirl ... how disappointing!)

For more photos, see our Tofino & Ucluelet photo album, and/or our New Year's Eve photo album.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

A slightly belated MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Visiting Santa at the Bright Nights in Stanley Park on 22 Dec.

Christmas Day

Enjoying the view, and a breather, at the Buntzen Lake Reservoir.
As you can imagine, we spent Christmas a little differently than we have in the past.

Karen and Scott left on 22 Dec and 24 Dec, respectively, for Toronto, where they were spending Christmas with Karen's family. Christmas Eve was quiet. We got up fairly early in the morning to drive Scott to the airport. And we had to recover from practically non-stop dominoes playing since we arrived. So we enjoyed a bit of down time. On Christmas Day we got up at a decent time (about 8:45am), to drive to the Buntzen Lake Reservoir, where we did an 8K hike in about three hours. We were fortunate and got pretty good weather. It was periodically drizzly throughout the day, but no hard-core rain. We got home about mid-afternoon and, although we had planned to fullfill my lifelong dream of going to a Chinese restaurant for dinner a la the final scene from the movie, A Christmas Story, we were too relaxed to go anywhere, and ended up eating leftover spaghetti. Overall, it was a great alternative to stuffing our faces and falling asleep on the couch!

For more photos, see our Buntzen Lake photo album.

Deep Powder

Well, time for another update. We've left our friends Jen and Marc in cold Calgary, and have travelled to rainy Vancouver to visit Karen and Scott for a few weeks.

Searching for the Danadians.
Although we had initially planned to travel by car from Calgary to Vancouver to see the Rocky Mountains, after looking at the weather (and our budget), we thought it would be better to just Westjet it.

Even though the weather has been on and off (typical Vancouver weather; a combination of drizzling and pouring), we've had a great time so far. One of our first stops was Whistler Mountain for some alpine sports. The weather was uncharacteristically gorgeous with lots of sunshine; there was also plenty of that beautiful white powder (not the illegal kind). All in all, perfect conditions in one of the top skiing locations in the world. Lee settled for some serious downhill skiing with Karen and Scott, Karen's sister, Julie, and Julie's boyfriend, Colin (who was kind enough to drive us there), while I (foolishly) opted for a lesson in snowboarding, reasoning that since I've never done alpine, I might as well pick whatever looks coolest.

That Ulrik; he's so hot right now.
Despite taking a number of tumbles, I persevered and had a great time. I will certainly do that again.

We've also had a chance to check out some of Vancouver's other sites. While much of Stanley Park has been shut down -- there was a crazy wind storm the night we arrived that felled numerous trees and even trapped a man for five days! -- we did go to the Vancouver Aquarium, which was a lot of fun. We saw the dolphin show, the otter feeding, and the beluga whale training. Definitely a great place to spend a rainy day.

A jellyfish at the Vancouver Aquarium.
For more photos, see our Vancouver photo album, our Whistler photo album, and/or our Vancouver Aquarium photo album.

Go Flames Go!

One of the highlights of our trip to Calgary was attending a Flames game (on 12 Dec). Yep, that's right ... an actual hockey game. Now, at risk of losing my Canadian citizenship, I must admit that I have never been much of a hockey fan. But, when the offer came (Marc's friend Cairns got free tickets from his work), I knew we had to go. I have always felt guilty for not giving Ulrik this quintessential Canadian experience. (Ulrik is not much of a sports person, either.) Although at the beginning we went more for the experience than anything else (sorry guys!), in the end we were so glad we went. The game ROCKED!! The Flames kicked the Minnesota Wild's ass; it was actually a bit embarrassing to watch. Not to say that the Wilds didn't hold their own. They had about the same number of shots on goal as the Flames, the Flames just had the advantage ... in the name of Kiprusoff, their goalie. This guy is AMAZING! I don't even know hockey, and even I can appreciate how good this guy is, that's how amazing he is!

All we're missing is a big foam finger.
So we ended our time in Calgary on a very high note. But it wasn't the only high note. Ulrik and I had a great time in Calgary (see more of our Calgary photos here). We met a lot of really great people (Jen and Marc have some fantastic friends). But we especially enjoyed catching up with Jen and Marc, who we haven't seen for some time (since they up and moved out here from Ontario -- jerks!). They have a very cosy and welcoming home, and they were wonderful hosts. Thanks guys!

For more photos, see our Calgary photo album.

Update

As you've probably noticed (for those of you who check in regularly, at least), we've been pretty bad about keeping the blog up-to-date thus far.

Over the next few days, we hope to remedy that ... so keep checking back!

And you may not have noticed, but we added more detail into the post about our itinerary.

The Big Plan

Someone has suggested that perhaps a bit more detail is in order, so here goes:

Our tentative itinerary is ...

1. 01 to 14 Dec 2006 - Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2. 14 Dec 2006 to 04 Jan 2007 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
3. Jan 2007 (at least a month) - Jakarta, Indonesia
4. Feb 2007 (at least three weeks) - New Zealand
5. Mar 2007 (two to three weeks) - Australia
6. Mar 2007 (just a few days) - Singapore
7. Apr to Jul 2007 - Southeast Asia (including Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Bhutan)
8. Aug 2007 - Tibet/Nepal
9. Sep 2007 - Mumbai, India
10. Oct to Nov 2007 - Southern and Eastern Africa (including South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania)
11. Dec 2007 - Northern Europe (including Switzerland, Northern Italy, and Denmark for Christmas and New Year's)
12. 04 Jan 2008 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada

We should point out that our around-the-world ticket does not include Australia/New Zealand, and it does not connect us from Singapore to Mumbai, India (meaning we get off the plane in Singapore, and don't get back on a plane until Mumbai). Thus, we've set two major travel challenges for ourselves. One is to try to get to Australia/New Zealand from Indonesia without getting on a plane. The other is to do essentially the same thing from Singapore to Mumbai; instead of flying, we're going to try to travel overland through Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Lao, Myanmar, Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, and into northern India. The Myanmar/Bhutan and the Bhutan/Tibet legs should be challenging!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree ...

Today we went out into the woods to hunt down that the most elusive of Christmas prizes ... the perfect Christmas tree. Marc's friend Jeff (the one in the middle wearing the white bath robe ... see explanation below) organizes an annual Christmas Tree hunt, and we got to tag along.

So off to the woods we went, armed with nothing but a camera to document the fun. Those who were hoping to take home a tree were armed with saws; one guy even brought a small axe! The rules were simple: no trees taller than 2.5 metres, and no topping allowed (that means cutting the top off a big tree). The weather was a practically balmy 0C, and the sky was clear. A perfect day for the hunt. We probably ended up tramping around in the woods for two to three hours, and I think everyone was happy with the tree they bagged ... er ... sawed down. Here is the smiling happy bunch of us!

Back row, left to right: Michelle, Colleen, Lance, Jeff, Jen, Ulrik.
Front row, left to right: Lee, Cairns, Hyun-hee, Ted.
Oh yeah ... the reason for the bath robe? This year's theme was National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Jeff dressed as Cousin "The shitter was full" Eddie. And tonight, Jen and Marc are hosting a party where everyone has to dress as a character from the movie. Should be lots of fun!

For more photos, see our Christmas Tree Day photo album.

Brrr ...

At the Banff Springs Hotel.
We're now in Calgary. We weren't sure if we were going to make it as scheduled, because Ottawa (the city we were flying from) was hit with ice rain. But Ottawa is used to terrible winter weather and we got out no problem. We were picked up at the Calgary aiport by our friends, Jenny and Marc, and we will be staying at their house for the duration of our stay in Calgary. What great friends!

On the Saturday after we arrived (02 Dec), they took us out and showed us the city. And the next day (Sunday 03 Dec) they took us to Banff (that's us at the Banff Springs Hotel in the pic above) and Canmore.

We got to see the mountains, and we took a soak in the Banff Hot Springs!

Jen, Marc, and Ulrik enjoying a soak in the Hot Springs.
After our relaxing soak, we played a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit: Battle of the Sexes! But it ended up being a draw ... the boys won the first round, but the girls rallied and kicked the boys' butts in the second round.

For more photos, see our Calgary photo album.

Just because he's so darn cute!

North Gower

The start of our big trip was delayed by a full five days ... a long story that doesn't need to be included here. The downside was that we lost five days of hanging with my sister and her little guy, William Christopher (see pic below). But the upside was that I got an extra three days' pay to pad our travel fund. Overall, it ended up working out well as we weren't entirely prepared to leave Toronto on 17 Nov (per the original plan) anyway.

The girls at work gave me a wonderful multi-staged send-off, although I think with all the delays they were finally ready to see the back of me!

So my last day (Wednesday 22 Nov) finally arrived. It started out well. I thought I was pacing myself to finish at a decent time. But I started to realize by about early afternoon that I still had a lot of stuff to finish up. By late afternoon, I knew I was going to be staying late. I had a small (big) panic attack around 8:00pm, thinking about all the stuff that still needed to get done. And I finally left the office at 10:45pm when the lights went out. I still don't entirely know what happened.

The next day, aka the first day of my unemployment (Ulrik had finished as planned on Friday 17 Nov), my boss' husband very nicely gave us a lift to the train station. We were on our way!!! The big trip was finally here! We were headed to ... North Gower?! Yep, the first stop in our meander around the world was a visit with my sister and her family. Here she is with her son, William Christopher (six months):


It was really nice getting to spend some time with my family. We even celebrated Christmas early with a full Christmas dinner on Sat 25 Nov that included my dad, aunt, and uncle. And it was especially nice to spend some extended time with William (and my sister and her husband, of course!), since were weren't going to see him again until 2008(!), a fact that didn't really hit me until our last day. He's six months now, and we're not going to see him until he's almost two years old! It almost made me want to change our plans ... almost ...