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Published: October 9th 2005
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Chilling in Melaka
Lisa reading on the roof top at the excellent Travellers Lodge So from Melaka we caught a local and then express bus to KL. After walking the streets with our heavy packs and trying to avoid touts we finally found the Golden Triangle. As per usual Keith left Lisa with the heavy packs and an iced Milo at a roadside eatery and went off in search of somewhere to stay, clinging onto the trust Lonely Planet. Our first choice was full so after a couple of viewings we settled into our air conditioned room at the Green Hut Guesthouse. We bumped in to Shayne and Charlie who we met in Tioman, couldn't believe it! KL was by far the most modern city we have come across in SE Asia. Like Melaka there are a lot of Chinese and Indian residents. We could not get over all the shopping malls. On the second day in the city Keith left Lisa to shop her heart out (knowing that with her Scottish roots he would be pretty safe) and caught a taxi to the Nikon service centre just outside KL to see if they could repair our water damaged camera. Well, we did not have much joy as it turns out that Nikon only offers
Eating Indian style
We had at least one meal a day at Salvan's in Melaka. a warranty in the country you purchased the camera. Seeing as Keith bought it in Japan and they estimated that the camera would take 3 weeks to fix at a whopping 100 UK pounds we decided to splash out on a new one. Other than that we enjoyed visits to the Petronas Towers (451M) and the parks. We did a little bit of shopping in the markets, but there are so many people in the city and so found these to be a bit daunting.
We have now been in Kuta in Bali for four days. We arrived from KL late on Wednesday night and had quite an adventure trying to find somewhere to stay. We got dropped off by a cab in a small, dark street and had no idea where we were. We had so many locals trying to tell us where to go, eventually we pulled out the guidebook and just pointed to one of the hotels mentioned and a local surfer drew us a map. We got there eventually and managed to bargain with the receptionist to lower the price, as it was really above our price range, but we couldn't face trying to find
anywhere else!
Anyway, the hotel is really lovely. It has a swimming pool and a lovely garden. We have a huge room and even have hot water. We walked past the site of the recent bomb and there are wreaths all laid out. It is very sad. There is also a memorial for all those who died in the 2002 bombs. Quite a lot of the locals asked us whether we had thought about cancelling our trip here. There seems to be a lot of tourists here. But the locals can be quite pushy - those who are trying to sell goods anyway. The hawkers on the beach are really insistent and so we have learnt to go to the beach in nothing but a costume and towel. Keith got ripped off on the first day when a woman started to massage his feet and half way through said she wanted 100 000 rupiah, Keith managed to get her down to 80 000, but he was gutted when later we saw that you could get a whole body massage for an hour for 50 000!!! Lesson learnt! Poor Keith was trying to be friendly and now he just says
41 floors up
Walking across Sky Bridge between Petronas Towers no thank you, several times, and we don't take any money with us. It is quite sad because you know the locals are trying to make a living but the harassment gets too much after a while.
We had our first surfing lesson this morning - 2 and a half hours. We had an instructor each which was great as it seems the other holiday makers can't get up in time for the morning session, so we had our own private lesson. It was so much fun. Both of us were standing after a couple of tries and the instructors seemed suitably impressed with our progress over the two hours. It was really tiring too, don't get me wrong. You use every muscle in your body and we know we are going to hurt tomorrow when we wake up. Now it will just be a case of hiring boards and keeping at it until we don't make any more embarrassing wipe outs. Some cool pics to follow!
Kuta itself is very built up with surf shops, restaurants and bars. The beach stretches on for ever and there are hundreds of surfers enjoying the large waves. It really reminds
Lisa enjoying having big jugs!
Next time we will have the small fruit juice! of us the beaches at home in SA. Yesterday we took a walk to Kuta Square to see the site of one the recent bombs. There is a lot of work going on to replace all the broken glass and there is a definite eery feeling to the place. The restaurant itself is a wreck and is still boarded up. Security seems to have been heightened but there are still plenty of tourists about. Tomorrow we are going to head north inland to Ubud for a couple of nights. It is apparently famed for its Balinese art and has some scenic treks through the rice paddies.
After that we have to plan how to get to the next few islands. Some of the boats only leave every 3 days or so, so we need to be careful and make sure we get back to Bali in time for our flight to Perth on 3 November.
Found some great little eating places here. The food is so cheap. Our meals come to about
40 000 rupiah, which is about 2 pounds. And that's for both of us!
We went out for a few drinks the other night in
the local bars and tried some of the local Arak - rice wine. Let's just say that we had the worst hangovers the day after! We met a team of rugby players from Sydney and Keith swapped shirts with one of the guys, so at least he has acquired a new shirt! Not sure what the guy will think when he sees the mangy surf shirt he got in return!
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Carl Johnson
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Photos
Hi Can anyone let me know if they can see the photos? Within internet explorer for me they are showing plain black with a small white box with a red x in the top left hand corner. If somebody could let me know if they can see them properly I would appreciate it (as I then know it is something to do with my settings although I can see the pictures from previous entries). Thanks Carl