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Published: September 9th 2007
Wow it seems like a long time since the last blog.. and weve come a long way since the last one, this mostly due to the countrys weve been in and my lazyness... well mostly the lazyness part... (sorry)
anyhow i believe the last blog left us about to head to ko tao for the second time, which we did and managed to rent ourselves a lil bungalow for three weeks up in the hills overlooking the sea.. which was nice. as was the coffee shop below us which we had breakfast in every morning = ) anyway ko tao was as we expected it to be thats to say great ! we did some more diving (no more pics im afraid) we also met up with friends we made there last time who stayed to do diving courses and are now divemasters and instructors.. so from our three week holiday to ko tao we moved our asses on down to Malaysia.. not that much to report from here as we didn't do much apart from travel on a stream of rundown busses untill we hit Kuala lumpor which was a great city but as we arrived at about two
The friendly wildlife
this guy came and sat with us for about 15 mins eatin out banannasin the mornin (due to been ripped off at the bus station) we were abit run down and could only find the lowest of the low dorm rooms. but after some searching we managed to get a slightly better twin at another place we stayed in kl for about a week and probably hit every shopping mall there half of which seemed to be Louis vuitton shops... atop of the flashiest place stands the patroness towers malaysias most famous building which you can climb.. if you can be bothered to get up at daft o-clock and stand in line for one of the two thousand tickets given out everyday.... which as you can probably guess we didnt. although we did go up the KL tower and the views were fantastic, but as eve dosnt like lifts to much she was alittle green by the time we got up there, we did one circuit and promptly came back down again = )
we didnt do much else in kl really we debated going over to borneo but in the end decided to hit indonesia instead so afew days of busses and boats later we managed to get there.. there being
0 star luxury
our bed for the night a dodgy little port with far too many shifty people hangin around the gates, and as i needed to go to the atm and back to pay for the visa it wasnt the most comftable of experiences.. i managed to get back with my 1,000,000 or so rupieh unmugged and we were introduced to the only english speaking and self proclaimed 'tour guide' by the name of samual.. who later on we would have realized ripped us off mightily. anyway we made our way in stages up through Sumatra to bukit lawang and at one point we were asked by a guy if we would like to come help out with his english class.. and as we had most of the day sitting at a bus stop in the arse end of nowhere we agreed. it actually turned out to be quite fun, the guy had turned part of his house into a single classroom and ran his lessons from there.. so we spent most of the day talkin to the kids (most of which had neater handwriting than eather of us) and alittle later on to the adult class. who were all really interested in us and really dedicated
Our guides and cooks
and cook they did, it was bloody good food to learning the language so we finished the classes and after politely, but firmly turning down the teachers offer to stay at his place for awhile and run the classes we carried on our way up the country.
the last stint of which being on the roughest bus ride of our lives, the busses and drivers in these countrys not being the safest we thought wed had the worst to offer.. we were wrong.. at one point even the locals were panicking as the bus nearly tipped over.. some of the potholes being larger than the bus, id like to explain more but it just wouldn't give the ride credit.. after a good 5 or 6 hours on the bus we arrived in bukit lawang alittle shaken and checked into a place called the Eco-lodge, which it turned out was really nice the rooms being huge the food being good and the beer reasonably cheep, with the odd exception of Guinness.. not something id expect to find up by the jungle in Indonesia.. well the reason we came all this way was to go trekking in the jungle and see some orangutans. and not having to find a guide, he
Moniter lizard
this guy was about al long as eve is tall and hung about the campsite all nite.. got on the bus at our stop having being in the city to 'go on the Internet' he was going back up to bukit lawang and oh what a coincidence hes a jungle guide and just happens to have his testimonials book on him.. would we like a look ?
He turned out to be a really nice guy, we booked on a two day one night trek and set off the day after we arrived. ten minutes up the hill behind our room and we were surrounded by small monkeys up in the trees gibbering down at us and our guides who can do some spookily good imitation calls.. so we carried on for 20 mins or so with one guide with us and another forging on ahead checking the paths and what not.. and after only about 30 mins int the trek we saw our first orangutan ! he came swinging over from a good few trees away and dropped right down next to us and took bananas right from our hands.. absolutely amazing seeing it so close.. and they have such human expressions you can tell exactly what there thinking when they look at you.. we
Jungle scenery
its not a beach but its still paradise.. also saw some random other stuff some small tree lizards, a terrapin in the stream where we stopped for lunch.. a jungle peacock, and at our camp site in time for dinner (which was some of the best food we've had in indonesia) two giant moniter lizards turned up and stuck around all nite, resulting in eve staying awake all nite watching out for em....
on the second day we opted to raft down the river on some tubes not unlike those in vang vieng although we had three lashed together with us in the middle and our guides on either end with big poles franticly pushing us away from the rocks.. and they needed to it was more like white water rafting than tubing.. no health and safety in indonesia it would seem, great fun tho..
we arrived back in our hostel and went to grab some food which never seems to be far from mind.. but that nite eve turned ill and we decided to head to the city in case we needed the hospital.. one very bumpy ride back to the city (at one point there was 17 people in our small mini bus) which was no
Huge ants
these guys where everywhere and about an inch long their not too easy to ignore mean feat..
and so began the return trip through Sumatra.. and cleverly we thought we'd catch the boat to Singapore and skip all the crappy bus trips.. and how bad can 24 hours on a boat be ? pretty bad it turns out we, in true backpacker style bought the economy tickets and so were in the bowls of the ship with the kids and cockroaches.. and not just a few of em there was an army, up the walls on the bed-pallets, everywhere.. (cockroaches not the kids) for those of you who've seen starship troopers it was just like that but on a boat.
anyhow we eventually crawled onto the lil docking island and walked into air conditioned bliss at the transfer ferry. and were whisked into Singapore with all the efficacy there known for..
and so began a week in singapore, a city that seems to be slowly been taken over by shopping centers, soon they will cover the whole city like a shiny glass crust.
The only real thing of note in Singapore apart from the shopping is the food courts, their bloody brilliant..
we didn't really do that much in Singapore apart from wallow in
And it burns burns burns
the ring of fire.. at the full moon party the western-ness of the place which was nice after Indonesia. being able to eat pasta again was great.
so due to leave Singapore we opted to sleep at the airport coffee shop to save some cash before the flight which was only 6 hours long.. lookin at the Australian coast pass below us really gives you a feel for the scale of the place and its huge !! plus theres only 6 million people in the whole of western Australia, around the same amount of people as london...
what we've seen of Perth so far is great the first thing which struck us in the clean air which was so nice after the cities of se-asia and also the size of the sky, its seems alot bigger over here somehow...
not sure of our plans from here on out apart from needing to head west we don't really know what we're doing.. but once we've done it il write some of it down on here...
bye for now.
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Sidric The Viking
non-member comment
Hi babe. You look great with your big glasses on. You really do look well and healthy. I'm so happy for you and Christopher. We pray for you all the time that God will keep you safe on all your travels. The pictures of the orangutan are amazing. What a privilege to have fed them. I laughed at Chris saying that you stayed awake all night frightened of the monitor lizard! Chris, you're a very funny writer - I liked the bit you said about getting up at daft o'clock. Take care, both of you, Dad XXXX