Luang Prabang

Shannon is sick today having eaten something bad, possibly the tasty chicken curry at dinner.

We spent the last two days in Luang Prabang, the famous tourist destination in Laos. Even when we arrived with Kenman, it was obvious that this city was wealthier than even the capital Vientiane. From the airport we were dropped off at Sisavangvong Road and made our way down looking for a hotel. We found Lan Kham Guesthouse with a balcony view out to the Mekong River for $50 USD.

You'd think Laos would be cheap, bring the least developed country we've traveled in South East Asia, but LP definitely is not. Over the years, tourism has raised the standards of living here and turned it into a place with streets lined with guesthouses, cafes and travel agencies. It seems like one sign-maker has a monopoly and wifi is ubiquitously available as tourists are now unable to travel without constant internet. Unlike other Asian cities, LP has managed to retain its relaxed atmosphere that everyone raves about in Laos. The market merchants aren't aggressive, the traffic is minimal and the streets are quite clean. That being said, the merchants seem less inclined to haggle, tuk tuk drivers can be found too readily and excursions end up being pricer than anywhere else in the vicinity.

After dropping our bags off at the hotel and enjoying lunch by the Mekong (not as romantic as it sounds as flies swarmed as soon a the food came), we wandered on foot, once again in the heat of the midday sun. Why do we do that all the time? There were a few markets stalls out and we saw the National Museum, but it was closed being a Sunday. We had a nap back at the hotel to cool down, had dinner and checked out the seemingly endless night market.

Because of how everyone seems to love it here, it felt like we were missing something in terms of sights or things to do, but the truth is, this isn't really a big activities city. Guidebooks and travel forums don't offer much help with itineraries either.

We set out on the second day with a plan. Hiring a tuk tuk, we went first to Tad Sae falls.

Definitely more spectacular during the wet season, it was really beautiful nonetheless. We went for an elephant ride, Kenman's first, and then played around in the pools. The limestone terraces were surprisingly not slippery and you could walk around on them without getting entirely wet. We watched other tourists after us "bathe" the elephants where they would ride the elephant bareback into the pools and get soaked. One Asian girlfriend didn't like it at all, but it was halarious to watch at her expense. On the way out, we got some bananas and sugarcane and fed the animals. Shannon was like a little kid trying to peel off individual bananas from the stalk fast enough to satisfy the reaching trunks.

We made a stop at a tourist Hmong village where we caught a glimpse of rural life. A path through the village was lined with tables of souvenirs where little girls were put to work saying to us foreigners "5,000," holding up five fingers and pointing to a friendship bracelet. I think some of the villagers were really desperate for extra income asking for "500" right off the bat for the same thing.

A rather long bumpy tuk tuk ride took us to Kwang Si waterfalls. This was a beautiful falls with the area around it covered to a picnic and relaxation area. We got there later in the day and the weather had already cooled of so Shannon didn't go for a swim. The rope swing landing front of the waterfall was too awesome for me to resist, and despite the chilly waters, I jumped in a couple of times. Further up the path is the towering waterfall. Shannon thought this waterfall rated right up there with Milford Sound falls. It was delightfully beautiful, I think the tallest in the country if not the region.

On the way back to town our driver picked up his daughter from school and dropped us off right at the night market.

Shannon loves markets. Unable to help herself, she stops at nearly every stalk looking through dresses and bags. Tonight, she made a few purchases and Kenman got a couple  of gifts as well.

We had dinner at an unlikely sounding restaurant The Pizza Luang Prabang, where I had pizza and Shannon had her fateful curry. Kenman ordered two identical dishes, one was just in soup, the other dry.

We made a booking to Nong Khiaw by slow boat. We originally planned to take the two day Mekong River cruise down to Huay Xai, but our unexpectedly accentless travel agent suggested that unless we were planning on crossing the border to Thailand, that there wasn't any point. So we decided that a trip up to Nong Khiaw and then Muong Ngoi would be more interesting, and then fly out of LP to Thailand. Arrival into Thailand by air gives you a 30 day visa as opposed to 15 by land (I guess they prefer wealthy tourists who can afford to fly).

Before bed, we realized that there would be no food on the seven hour boat trip so we frantically went back to the market for some muffins and fruit, as well as an ATM stop.

That brings us to today (Jan 31) Shannon going to the unwell all night. We thought about going on the cruise, but at the last minute, asked to change our ticket to tomorrow and checked in for another night at the hotel.

Munduk and Jatiluwih

We didn't get to sleep in today as our driver was scheduled to meet us at 9am. Hurriedly, we packed, had breakfast and settled our bill.

As a souvenir of our stay here, I bought some admittedly overpriced pajamas from the hotel trying to take a piece of the Komaneka experience back with me. But hey, I haven't bought anything yet!

They presented us with another gift bag for our departure, another two scarves! I think actually they probably forgot that we already got a set.

Because the hotel was so memorable, along with the feedback survey, I left a thank you note and tip for the staff.

We set off with our driver, the first stop being Munduk for a hike.

Artha was more chatty than Darma, our driver to Tulamben. Along the way, he pointed out a bunch of things, talking about rice agriculture, his two children getting married at 17, his son marrying because he got his girlfriend pregnant, driving him crazy.

He visited Hawaii once sponsored by a friend her worked for, and although the place was nice, he liked it much more in Bali because there was more "power." Here there was a lot of spirituality and worship. They make offerings all the time and the calendar was full of ceremonies in the Hindu religion. Hawaii seemed "empty."

The landscape gradually turned mountainous as we neared Munduk. No, not Rocky Mountain mountainous, but lush green mountains, cool with a view of lakes on one side and visibility off to the northern coast on the other. We stopped at a viewpoint between lakes Tamblingan and Buyan for some photos.

The Munduk waterfall was quite easy to find, being a well beaten track now paved for accessibility. It was pretty nice and unique in that you could walk up quite close to the base of it along a shallow shore.

Instead of heading back like most tourists at this point, we went for an hour hike off to the second waterfall. To get there, you continue down the paved walk down past the sign to the coffee plantation. At a main dirt road, take a left down hill and keep going. Passing by barking dogs, villages pointed us in the right direction.

The second waterfall was really nice, more natural and bigger. We didn't follow the stairs to the end, and even then had quite the sweaty work out getting back to the car.

Munduk was nice, but not great, considering we've seen so many waterfalls already. I thought about staying a night up around the area, but for us a day trip was sufficient.

Artha suggested stopping at the Temple by the Lake. Here was a beautiful temple packed with both Indonesian visitors and Western tourists. Javanese tour buses were paying a visit with offerings to the temple and we say a couple of ceremonies performed.

The crater lake was peaceful with a pagoda built off on the water. Small boats floated lazily around.

Shannon remarked that there was so much more to Bali than just the beaches. And it's true. Our impression of Bali from back home is one of beaches, sand and warm waters. Very similar to maybe Mexico beach resorts, but just a little more exotic. But really, the beaches aren't even the main part of the island, at least not on our vacation.

We thought it was really too bad that some people missed out on all of this. Some friends of ours only made it to Kuta and Nusa Dua and didn't enjoy it much.

The landscape is so varied, it's people full of character, all sorts of foods to try and sights to see.

Artha suggested stopping to pick some strawberries. He drove us up this side road where he usually went because the prices were much better. We picked a kilo of strawberries while the farmer picked us another kilo, so we ended up with too many strawberries for $5. Artha also got a bag and told us about how he liked strawberry shakes, mixing it with milk and honey.

We went to Candikuning market. Before our car even shut off, a woman ushered us to her stall and began giving us all this fruit to try. We didn't know what half of it was, but we tried things like white mango, two types of passion fruit, snake fruit, tamerino, and this purple one that looked like a small squash.

We eventually bought some fruit. She started off the price with a crazy $20 for four purple fruits, two passion fruits, some crackers and cashews. The bargained her down to $4, but even at that, a Javanese woman who saw the spectacle whispered in Shannon's ear that she was getting ripped off. Later, Artha told us our bag of goodies looked like about $2, so that wasn't too bad and we treated the other $2 like a tasting, which was really quite good.

The market is definitely tourist geared. Reading about it, I was expecting something louder and dirtier, more local like the Klungkung market. Shannon bought a belt and a gift for Julia.

Our final stop was the big highlight of the car trip. Jatiluwih is famous for its rice fields, protected from development and I think an upcoming UNESCO heritage site. We had already seen lots of rice fields, so I wondered if it'd be any different, but this place was amazing!

We stopped for lunch looking out to the terraces. Rows upon rows of fields stretched as far as the eye could see. Flooded rice terraces with newly planted rice stalks terraformed the entire hilly landscape.

Artha was disappointed we couldn't see weren't able to see the tall rice which was planted here, as they must have harvested just a few weeks ago. Tall rice yields crop twice a year, as opposed to the newer GM short rice that's harvested thrice. He said it also tasted better and was quite a sight growing much taller.

An entrance fee of $2 along the road afforded an even more wonderful vista.

We were very lucky today with the weather. Not a drop of rain, and the fog that usually blanketed Bedegul lifted so that we had great views of the lakes and mountains.

It was 6:15pm when Artha dropped us off at our new hotel Pertiwi, just next to our old one. We paid Artha the 500,000 we negotiated and tipped another 100,000. Drivers usually quote $66, but I've been able to negotiate down to $55 easily. We've heard of one couple getting $44 (400,000), but that's really good.

Pertiwi has beautiful grounds, nice decorations and two pools where we went swimming as soon as we checked in. It's definitely no Komaneka unfortunately, now that we've been spoiled by their exemplary service.

We had a tougher time than expected booking a boat to Nusa Lembongan. Several shops along Monkey Forest do tours on the side so they aren't familiar with all the ferries. As a result, we got some sketchy quotes and details about getting to Lembongan, with one shop telling us that the boats weren't running because of rough seas.

We eventually booked the trip at one of the stores specializing only in tours and transportation, who knew what they were talking about.

The manager was pretty talkative that evening. He thought I looked just like his nephew who was a doctor in his village he told me. Now, he was working at a government hospital in Denpasar to get experience before gradually shifting over to private practice. He himself was a lawyer, but was over worked and changed careers to tourism as the pace was better.

He first started learning English in the mid 80s when two students from Vancouver stayed at his uncle's as a homestay. I can only imagine how undeveloped tourism was back then. Judy, one of the girls, was studying law at the time and now a judge in Vancouver.

We stopped off at an Internet cafe charging 10c every 5 minutes. I caught up with emails and we made a few more travel arrangements.

An older woman next to us was from Toronto and we got chatting about traveling. She was headed to NZ for two and a half months, traveling on her own and planning to work along the way.

She told us she loved Luang Prabang and ended staying there 2 out of her 3 weeks in Laos when we asked her what she thought about that area. Ben told us that that was his favorite SE Asian country, and we've heard great things from pretty much everyone about Laos that we may have to see how it goes and potential cut out Thailand altogether for another trip.

Back at Pertiwi, we ate as many strawberries as we could and went to bed, looking forward to the beaches and snorkeling of Nusa Lembongan.

Tulamben diving

We took a short break from Ubud because they were still charging "high season" prices at the hotels. We decided to head over to the east coast and stay at Tulamben for two days and then return to Ubud.

The snorkeling / diving in Tulamben is absolutely amazing. We've been to many places snorkeling and I have to say this ranks among the best. The corals were not as bright as it was overcast and thunderstormed while we were in the water, but there were a diverse variety of fish ranging from little blue fluorescent ones, to ribbon fish, a tremendous school of jackfish, tons of angels and bigger tuna like fish deeper.

We explored the two halves of the sunken USAT Liberty wreck, torpedoed by the Japanese during the war. It was shallower enough to see from the surface, but certainly much more interesting close up on a dive. The water visibility could have been better at about 15-20 meters, but a lot of the ship is no deeper than 5-10 meters making it a perfect place to try out my new freediving skills!

We took a break for lunch after Shannon's course. Later in the afternoon, we went out again for snorkeling. I did several dives swimming around the wreck, some scuba divers wondering what the heck I was doing down so deep without a tank. Shannon couldn't believe a I swam through the deck of the ship emerging on the other side and almost gashing my head on a piece of coralled metal.

Aside from the wreck, another highlight were the hundreds of jackfish swimming about creating a tornado of fish right at the surface. You could swim right into the school, the fish always just out of reach.

We didn't even leave the resort today, swimming in the pool for a little while before cleaning up. Then it was dinner at the restaurant and night time already.
 

The next morning, I was glad to wake up feeling great after freediving. Because I got sick with a horrible headache after freediving on Gili Trawangan, I wasn't sure if the water pressure, equalization, or just breathing up made me sick. But I guess it was just a bad bug, maybe even dengue as Dave might have thought.

After a fried rice nasi goreng and toast and eggs for breakfast. We slathered on sunscreen waiting for our food to digest before heading out in the waters again.

This time, I borrowed a diving belt with one weight as yesterday I was using up a lot of energy just to keep myself from surfacing. As well, we took a life jacket for the breathe ups.

The water couldn't be any nicer at about 29C. Usually snorkeling, I get cold pretty quickly, but even relaxing for free dives, this is probably the only place where water temperature didn't keep me from staying in the water.

Once again, we were swimming among schools of tropical fish, easily finding the swarming school of a thousand jackfish once again. I did several more dives in the wreck with my longest video recorded dynamic breath hold at 93 seconds. Shannon tried a couple but had a hard time sinking, the weight making a big difference.

We returned the motorbike not having used it much, got an ice cream and chips on the way back to the hotel and just lounged the rest of the day.

We made some plans for our last week in Bali (already!). Originally, we wanted to spend the last couple of days at Nusa Dua resort hopping, but figured that it wouldn't get better than this here in Tulamben, and at western prices. So we looked into spending some time at Nusa Lembongan. We also booked the Komaneka back in Ubud, now that the prices have dropped $70 from high season.

Tulamben turned out to be one of the highlights of Bali, I must say. These last two days have been amazing just relaxing at the Ocean View hotel and snorkeling. Even the intermittent rain didn't hamper our mood because we were either in the water or just relaxing on our deck.

A taste of Gili

The island life

(Dec 22, 2011)

The day after our freediving course, we checked out of Ozzy Bungalows and into Villa Almarik, the more upscale hotel that we discovered on our bike ride north of the island to Coral Ocean 2, the restaurant with delicious pizza but mangy cats wanting to steal food.

Almarik was beautiful. For double the price (apparently we negotiated a very good rate) of Ozzy, we got full housekeeping, excellent breakfast, free welcome massage, free introductory scuba dive, and a bunch of hotel amenities like DVD player, and shampoo.

It was a good thing we switched to this nice hotel too because we ended up spending a lot - and I mean a lot - of time in our room. Both of us were still feeling sick and mostly lying in bed or on the beach chairs. Too sick to even go into the water which was a shame because apparently the snorkeling here is excellent.

I suffered through a combination of drenching sweats at night, nausea that hasn't resolved over two days which is unusual for me, and lightheadedness.

Hopefully it will go away by tomorrow and we can do some snorkeling before we return to Bali.

I actually really like this island. It is similar to Caye Caulker in Belize in that motorized transportation is not allowed, so people get around on bike, horse drawn carriages or walks. It is more charming though, busier, and has real beaches.

It is a busy little place with restaurants trying to get your business each time you go by their menus. Dive shops galore line the street and accommodations of varying degrees of luxury can be found.

Although it takes a really long time for food to come out, the fresh mango juice more than makes up for the delay. Last night, Shannon and I had dinner beside the water watching a lightning storm over Lombok island.

It is dang hot here. It gets over 30C with heaps of humidity. Just laying under an umbrella reading causes me to be drenched in sweat. This would be a perfect time for a fresh fruit juice, except that the power has gone out on the island so the blenders don't work.

The power went out on me a couple nights ago when I went all the way down to the south end of the island to tell Steve we couldn't meet him for dinner. In addition to feeling sick, the chain fell off my bike, and the power went out. All of a sudden, the booming music was doused by silence, the street completely black with the stars emerging in the sky.

Sydney!

Mt. Cook

We left Queenstown and drove the 3 hours up to Mt.Cook. On the way Hannah called and we were able to have a catch up on the phone. Edward took over the driving so I could talk on the phone. Unfortunately we were cut off a few times in "low spots" so we kept having to call each other back! I will not forget when we were cut off for the second time I was waiting for us to drive over this one hill and all of a sudden there it was....A beautiful turquoise blue lake with snow covered mountains in the background! This was our first glimpse of Mt. Cook and it was breath taking. We pulled over onto the side of the road to take photo's. The water was so turquoise colored and the sky so blue and the snow covered mountains, a real picture of beauty.

The rest of the drive up to the mountain was gorgeous as we followed the lake all the way there.



When we arrived we found a place to stay at the backpackers place. A hotel room with a view of the mountains for $100 as opposed to the Lodge room for $230. These were our only options as there is nothing else there, just a Lodge with a restaurant, a pub, an activities center which consisted of a small planetarium/movie screen, and a backpackers hostel.

In the evening we watched a documentary on Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest. It was quite interesting. Later when it became dark we went on a star gazing tour. This turned out to be really good as we both learned a lot. We were able to see many stars through a telescope and also jupiter with 4 of it's moons and identify many of the constelations. The southern hemisphere can see stars that we cannot see in the northern hemisphere. Here we were able to see Betelguese (sounds like beetle juice) which is a massive sun that we aren't able to see from the north. It was really cool!

Betelguese is the low bright orange star
to the left of the mountain in the middle

The next day we went hiking (again!). Our guide from Franz Joseph Glacier recommended the Hooker Valley hike so that is what we did. It was a 3 hour hike that took us over a swing bridge which I was almost blown over due to the crazy strong winds! Along the way we followed a glacial stream all the way to the base of the Mt.Cook glacier. The water was freezing! This was a really nice hike, quite easy, but seemed to take forever and the wind was relentless! This country is extremely WINDY!! Very strong winds that almost blow you over! On the trail was a guy using crutches....not sure how he managed but he was determined.

You can see the base of the glacier covered in dirt just at the waters edge

walking back