catch up saga #1

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Hello!

I do apologize for my severe lack of entries. I know my brief update here will not be able to include everything but hopefully enough for now.

I will henceforth write more frequently than I have in the past month but the hope of putting of photos is a bit lost ... I know words are not as interesting as photos, at least my words, maybe so if they're Rolf Potts, but for the moment I hope my simple stories will suffice.

I am in exotic Bali, a little island next to Java, the world's densest island (and I thought it was Britain for so many years...), in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago.

A quick run-down of the last couple months highlights:

Immediately after Fraser Island we bus-ed it up to Cairns where I checked off a bullet on my list of 100 things to do in life: scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef. I didn't go deeper than 8.8 meters but let me tell you, that was more than deep enough. The coral glittered in the sun (when it was there which was actually really cool to see how the fish and coral colors varied depending on the degree of sunlight), the fish sparkled ... we saw giant clams, clown fish, large chunks of electric blue coral, rainbow fish, sea cucumbers (I touched it! funny texture, it almost made me giggle but then I was quickly reminded I it's quite difficult to giggle when you're biting an air-piece) ... the entire experience was surreal.

And thankfully, I probably had the sweetest dive-master one could have. Surprised at my own nervousness and at times, near panic-state, she held my hand for a good 7-8 minutes during my first dive, just in case. 😊 You can't imagine my pride when we surfaced .... i LOVED diving!

Shaun and I met up with 2 sweet Canadians in Cairns and relocated a van to Darwin - a good 3-4 days drive across the Outback. And I have to say, next to the Great Barrier Reef, it was the coolest thing we did in Australia .... if not the coolest and most incredible.

I had never seen such land, or if I have I don't remember it. It was like you were in the center of the earth, with it's flat redness reaching out until the earth began to curve and you couldn't see anymore simply because the earth starting dropping off, and not because there were buildings or trees to block your view. In fact, you could count on two hands anything blocking your 360 view of the horizon, all of which were usually trees and simply little, spindly black outlines under the intense sun literally beating down on you.

Along the coast, it was lush with trees, ferns, almost temperate jungle-esque ... but a few hours inland the trees began to become sparse and the dirt darkened, slowly. The greens paled and the leaves thinned. Soon bushes began to disappear entirely, the trees shrank, and the ground was the color of car from the 1980's left out in the rain for far too long. Eventually, the bushes and trees disappeared altogether and what was left were anthills the size of you and me and little, sharp brush that poked you through your flip-flops as you ran away from the car, looking futilely for a dip in the earth to provide some seclusion as you made restroom stops because there were no trees to hide behind and the next town (and toilet) wasn't for 60+ kilometers.

I'm not kidding about the anthills. They ranged from 6 inches - 6+ feet. Oddly enough, we never saw any ants. Not even when Shaun accidentally decapitated one (he claimed he wanted to see the inside...).

The days were long and I was thankful we the camper van was long enough so that 2 of us at any one time could be lying out in the back - reading, sleeping, watching the most vast stretch of land I have ever seen pass by in one endless stream of consciousness.

I liked counting the number times the road curved in a day, or how many times it rose and fell in little mini-hills (and when farther than a couple hours from the coast, that number was less than 10, combining both curves and hills)

Anyhow, it was trip that I felt was far too short and one which I would do again in a heartbeat.

On to Darwin ... Australia's Northern Territory capitol city - a city which is hot and has far too few hostels such that they can raise the price of a dorm room to such prices I was all too ready to leave by the time Shaun and i booked our flight to Singapore (to depart the next day .... it was very exciting to book a flight to a foreign country for the next day!)

We had hung around in Darwin for a few days, trying to get a lift as crew up to Indonesia with no luck considering a massive Indonesia rally was leaving Darwin in mid-July.

So Shaun and I had had enough, despite the luxurious hostel (as most were in Darwin) with a pool and sundeck and awesome views of the construction of a crocodile center right in Darwin .... sedated crocodiles lying on planks 6 stories up, being lifted up by forklifts is pretty awesome I must admit.

Singapore!

Ah, I LOVED Singapore! Clean, cosmopolitan but still definitely Asian, and incredibly easy to get about. I loved taking off my shoes when entering a hostels, the funky, creative clothes just about every person wore (local or not, I couldn't tell because 99% of them were some type of Asian), signs in 4 languages, lack of garbage, friendliness of everyone, incredible customer service, cheap cheap cheap eats .... I just absolutely love it. It was an easy and amicable place to be. 😊

Shaun and I were fortunate to meet up with JerMaine, Katy Fiedler's friend and fellow counselor from camp a couple years back. She's from Singapore and generously offered us a seat on a tour bus she organized for work. She packages itineraries for school groups visiting Singapore. I learned so much about Singapore, it's history, and in particular it's planning (I was so excited to hear about the planning and design I felt like a major nerd but surprisingly many of the Hong Kong technical school students (for whom the tour was planned) also at least feigned interest so I didn't stick out like a sore thumb when I stared intensely at city models and devoured the tour guide's explanation for future plans. JerMaine was incredibly sweet and it was an honor to meet her. 😊

Shaun and I also lucked out and finally got a chance to sail! Shaun, along with a gregarious Danish girl, Cecile, saw a post in the hostel by a skipper looking for crew to sail from Singapore to Kuching in Malaysian Borneo for the annual Rainforest World Music Festival!!

And before we knew it, we met jolly captain Jack and were on a ferry across the strait to Malaysia to enjoy our 24 hours of luxury at the 5-star hotel where Jack was moored. 😊

We set sail/motor the next morning and immediately jumped into our biggest challenge, crossing the shipping lanes where unfathomedly large freighters carrying what seemed like a hundred of cargo boxes (you know, the cargo box that is on a 16-wheeler truck) and fishing boats. Shaun inadvertently ensured our little 37 - foot sailboat would ALWAYS have someone watching the waves (I no longer took the term "on watch" lightly) when he revealed sometimes a cargo box can fall off the ship and float along the surface, riding the 2-3 meter waves and strike a boat unexpectedly, quickly sinking it.

We crossed strait, and hundreds of ships waiting to enter the Singapore harbor (sometimes tehy wait as long as a month to enter the harbor!), and were on our merry way. 😊 Unfortunately, Cecile, who had never been on a sailboat, discovered she gets sea-sick. She was a true champ though and dutifully fulfilled all her watches and continued to keep us laughing with her good spirits.

It was very different sailing with such large swells and for such long-distances; I was thankful for the experience I had had on Lake Superior, but was still fascinated with setting sails and leaving them for hours, if not days.

We took a day to explore a little, uninhabited island with white sand beaches. We discovered the beach was a breeding/laying eggs area for turtles and I marveled at the turtle tracks in the sand (trying in vain to capture them in photographs). The rangers there dig up the eggs and rebury them inside a gated area so that they're safe from predators. 😊

And approximately 4.5 days after leaving the Singapore straits we sailed into the mouth of a river downstream from Kuching.

Kuching, the city of cats, was a walkable city and a fine introduction in Malaysia. I liked the dragonboat-esque racing in the river, the tampungs (little motorboat ferries lasting all of 45 seconds to cart people back and forth across the river for 0.30 cents because there isn't a bridge despite the cities fairly even division by the river), fried ice cream (a first and oh so hopefully not the last) ... all highlighted by the Rainforest World Music Festival.

The festival was an entertaining but slightly perplexing event ... bands from all around the world, each including at least one respective native instrument, playing every time of music you can imagine, which was cool, but there was no order to it all and you never knew what to expect next. lol.

The afternoon sessions were the best, quick demonstrations by instruments grouped into similar categories: gong drums, string instruments, miscellaneous etc. They essentially just jammed with one another - sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't work (::cough:: gong drums ::cough). lol.

The festival was set at a heritage park with recreations of local indigenous longhouses which was amazing to explore between sessions. Each tribe has their own architectural style although all have a fairly similar set-up: a large wooden complex built on tall stilts. A serious of doors leading from the veranda back into private rooms signify the number of families live in the longhouse: each family has 1 door to their house. There is one communal room which houses sacred monuments of their tribes and if in older times, heads of enemies that have been murdered in battle. The ladders though are my favorite (weird I know but you'd see why) because they're just a log with notches hacked into it. They required concentration and a minimal level of agility but it made a menial undertaking interesting and mildly challenging.

At night, the real concert began, just as it began to downpour. We sought refuge in one of the nearby open buildings but slowly people began trickling back into the rain and the now soggy and muddy field facing the stages. THe music was interesting and entertaining but everyone milling about, meeting and greeting one another, laughing over the unfortunate circumstances was the best part. Ultimately I tip-toed out into the fields for the last few songs, which was plenty of time for me. 😊 At last but certainly far from least, we saw the Prime Minister of Malaysia! It turns out a decade of successful Rainforest World Music Festivals had convinced the PM he should attend himself! He was a surprisingly gentle and sincere man - he quietly meandered around, smiling and taking in the sights, just as much as the next person. He waved at little babies and kids and shook the hand of everyone and anyone who approached him, even a shirtless Shaun! It was all very exciting. 😊

Whew, ok, am going to leave it at here and not tire you with an even longer post than it already is. I will continue with another post, covering the rest of Sarawak to where I am now, Bali. 😊

I hope you have a wonderful day and enjoy the hot summer sun!

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Comments

[Deb Bartels]

I am enjoying your blog, Katelin. I wish I were with you although I know traveling for a long period is exhausting, especially on a shoestring. If you get a chance, read the chapter about Australia in Jared Diamond's book "Collapse!" Did I also already suggest Bill Bryson's book "In a Sunburnt Country"