/ All Good Things Come in Threes /

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It was set to be many different things before settling on the “let’s discover Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia” holiday tag. First I spoke of a photography course, and then there was a tour of Borneo to see the infamous pygmy elephants. But, finally I settled on a two week vacation with two fabulous friends to three equally fabulous places. The result did not disappoint.



First stop Malaysia. After touching down we swiftly jumped on a bus heading towards the renowned Chinatown district. Surveying the area it was grimy and dirty, yet buzzing with people. The Chinatown markets, just one minute from our guest house, stocked an impressive array of products from food, clothes, jewellery and god knows what else. Fruit stands stood a plenty - selling luscious sweet mangos and lychees, grapes and apples for a few dollars a kilo. These stands also offered to slice, dice and blend your fruit selection into a juice or smoothie in record time. There was meat of all descriptions sitting in glass cabinets red and crispy, and chestnuts with their sweet aroma bellowing from copper barrels. As we shopped, we saw Calvin Klein underwear, sunglasses, T-shirts, perfumes, earrings, nose rings and leather bags. That first night my friends and I dined at a cheerful little restaurant along the main strip of Chinatown. We indulged in the famed Malaysian dish Kung Pao chicken and drank the local brew as we spent the night ‘people-watching’. There was such an array of characters in Kuala Lumpur. Special mention must be given to one of the tallest men we have ever seen (and quite possibly the tallest in the world!). We saw this gigantic man on our second night. And I had to be convinced he was not wearing stilts.



Next stop Malacca. Conquered by the Portuguese in 1511, Malacca has retained its traditional classic beauty as the years have ridden on. Despite being just an hour and a half away from Kuala Lumpur, Malacca runs on a different time zone. In Malacca the lunches are still long and the beer is still cold. There are beautiful canals reminiscent of Amsterdam. We spent an afternoon drinking beer with old and new friends in this incredible place. A big thing that struck me about Malacca was the antique stores. Antique stores are nothing new in the great country of New Zealand. But they were certainly unexpected on these cobblestoned streets. Stepping inside one of the many historic stores, I was confronted by a bronzed statue of Mao, an old record player, scrolls, chandeliers, and a telephone from the 1920s!
A time warp had just occurred in Malacca.

Joining the ranks of Kuala Lumpur – our Malacca trip was a fast one. It felt like as soon as we finished our most fabulous meal of noodles with fresh lime and spring rolls we were off on the next leg of our journey – a 5 hour bus ride to Singapore. It was time to escape olden day Europe for the shores of modern day Southeast Asia. Singapore is the quintessential modern Asian city, boosting a population of people fluent in English, and an impressive city structure that includes the Gardens by the Bay aka makeshift towers built to look like trees with greenery sprouting out of each of them. Impressive!



In Singapore we got to experience an array of cultures in just a day and a half. Our first night we were after ONE thing only: Dumplings. Not just any dumplings though – the kind you smother in garlic and chilli sauce and then burst open with your chopsticks to allow the salty, spicy meat broth to spill out, leaving you with no choice but to shove the dumpling into your mouth ASAP. Jager Bombs were on the menu post dinner, but at a price tag worse than Auckland City’s most expensive bar it was a case of rationing them out. That next day it was time to explore, and try our next culturally diverse food. Enter Singaporean breakfast. Imagine white bread smothered with jam and a big dollop of butter. A bowl of semi cooked egg is given alongside the bread. You then in one swift motion dip the buttery, gooey bread into the egg – let it soak up the juices and eat. Strange but satisfying, it was served alongside wickedly strong black Singaporean coffee. That afternoon it was Little India and an adventure to the Indian side of town. This included grocers, ripped off DVDs shops and Indian restaurants galore. The walk out of Little India provided us with much entertainment as a detour got us lost…until we stumbled upon an old Armenian church.



Our last night called for a trip to Arab Street. The street, true to its name, is close to the Sultan Mosque and houses an array of sheesha smoking rooms. Extravagant carpets are laid out in the streets for people to sit, and Arab men and Singaporeans and ex-pats sit and smoke hookah from long pipes day and night. We found ourselves at a Middle Eastern Restaurant where hungry ex-pats living in Korea (can you blame us?) gorged themselves on pita bread smothered in hummus and black olives. It had been far too long since we had tried such exotic flavours. Post dinner, sheesha was enjoyed on a large colourful carpet mat outside as hilarious stories were exchanged, and a long pipe spewing out apple flavoured smoke was passed around.



At 5am the next morning we were rudely awakened by my alarm clock…and a sense of excitement as the time had come to head to the airport for the next leg of our adventure. To a little place we like to fondly refer to as our ‘mini spiritual awakening’ or more commonly as Bali! Bali! Bali!



Now touching down in Bali is no small feat. Rather, it’s a bustling, melodramatic ‘bordering on the ridiculous’ experience that involves far too many tourists packed into a tiny airport trying to grab luggage, tour brochures, duty free in the hopes of getting through immigration and bagging checks. It’s chaos. And ironically actually does the opposite to setting the tone for Bali.



We learnt quickly that much like everywhere else this is a holiday destination in Asia you’re going to get ripped off. So stay sharp! After much jumbling around and discussing we settled on an airport owned and operated tour service that claimed they could take us to our hotel room for a little over $10NZ. We accepted.



Fast forward a couple of hours and we had touched down at lovely little abode just out of Bali’s main strip in an area called Kuta. Our accommodation was three or four floors high and included a balcony that you could look out to all the other mini houses. A prime position for the sunset, at 6pm every night, and 6am every morning the beautiful Balinese bells would chime and a prayer followed by music would be broadcast. We were lucky enough to catch this every morning and night by throwing our doors open and taking it all in.



Now Bali is renowned for tours, and we selected three quite fantastic ones. Let’s begin with the first one which was a delightful trip to a place affectionately called ‘Turtle Island’. Now, it’s hard for one not to be sceptical about what exactly ‘Turtle Island’ is…especially as the economic downturn in recent years has meant lots of construction in Indonesia has ground to a halt – Turtle Island I discovered was another one of these places that was half completed. Alas, we came, we snorkelled and we held the turtles! There were green ones, and albino ones, and tiny babies and gigantic older turtles (and Yes. I wanted to scream at the silly people actually attempting to PICK UP the poor old, giant animals). I’ve always been obsessed with turtles … in large part because most people think turtles are really strong with their shells and all, but in reality even if you bump the shell you really hurt the animal, and can kill it. They are sensitive you know! Our first day was lovingly interrupted by a Seafood Lunch all to ourselves on the beach. A whole snapper cut down the middle was barbecued with some shrimp and calamari and served with delectable chilli sauce, garlic sauce, and sautéed garlic and ginger greens.



The next tour held the same excitement, starting off with a rather small breakfast overlooking a still active volcano. It was time to go off the beaten track and indulge in some bike riding around the Balinese Countryside. Now, I’ve never really indulged in bike riding before but felt like it was one of those things I should start doing, and far superior to seeing the sights from the comfort of a tour van. And it was. We had a young Balinese man as our guide, and so at 9am on a Monday morning three pretty young girls took off one behind the other to explore the countryside. We were ‘high fiving’ little Balinese children as we rode through the countryside. We saw temples and traditional Balinese houses. We saw tiny puppies and kittens and chickens. We saw giant ‘Angkor Watt’ style temples and churches. We saw men, women and children in the rice fields, and on the road, and in beaten down cars and motorcycles. Some old Balinese women must have been at least 100-years-old! Our ride concluded with a lunch smack bang in the middle of a rice paddy field with swaying reeds that took the look of long outstretched arms trying to reach something high up on a shelf.



“Oh that area looks mysterious…let’s check it out” this is the rather telling last thing I said before my camera bag got attacked by a rather aggressive monkey.

This dramatic scene unfolded at one of my favourite places in Bali – Ubud Monkey Forest. We should have known things were going to get crazy after a monkey jumped on my shoulders, then my friend’s shoulders, and then finally onto the ground. There were monkeys everywhere…jumping on people’s shoulders, grabbing food, stealing people’s things and we even saw one running off with someone’s lighter. There were the most adorable monkeys cuddling their young ones. I’m always taken aback by how similar animals are to humans. The way these light grey haired monkeys would wrap both arms snugly around their babies. And the little monkey babies just so lightly curled into their mothers! It was fascinating. The baby monkeys have small tufts of black hair on their heads and were often suckling from their mothers. It was quite a sight. A shout out to my humble family must be given in the form of three or four monkeys helping attempting to ‘clean’ each other. Felt very ‘McAdamesque’ indeed. And so, with one attempted camera bag robbery, and about four camera robbery attempts our day was done and an afternoon of monkeying around had been thoroughly enjoyed.



So that was The Great Vacation 2013. A wild mixture of 1^st world and 3^rd world, and everything in between. As much as I loved Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, I can’t deny that a piece of my heart will always remain in Bali! Bali! Bali! It’s a feeling comparable to the one I had in Varanasi, although that’s a whole nutha’ story. There is just something so delicate, breakable yet beautiful about people who have next to nothing but make the best of everything they have. In Bali, I felt I could have the best of everything, as the people did, and the best of it began with mornings full of chiming bells from the local temples and bucket loads of coffee.





“To travel is to live.”

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